“...But you will never hold a candle
Against the Great and Powerful
Trixieeeeeeeeeee, Yeah!”
A few notes faded between the crystal walls of the Friendship palace. The small radio transmitted the last verses of the song, and then started with the standard jingle of Celestia’s Royal Radio Station, preparing the stage for the host voice.
“You have listened to ‘The Great and Powerful Rap of the Even More Great and Powerful Trixie!’, quite a mouthful for the title of a song, and if yours truly Tune Modulation is telling you, you gotta believe it!”
“Now it is time for our Weather Report, but remember this evening we will transmit in Equestria Premiére the new album of Airwave, by the Sparkling Harmony Records. So stay tuned here!
At Celestia’s Royal Rad— ” hiss... “Station, Where We— ” hisssss... “usic That— ” bzzzz…
At the buzzing sound, the little dragon perked up from the food he was cooking. He looked angrily at the radio, turning off the heat under the pot.
Lunch would have to wait today. Again.
“Twilight!” He bellowed towards the open door. “The radio is doing it again!”
A rumbling sound from the floor above showed that the message had been received. Spike took off the apron, folding it on the counter, and turned in time to hear the start of the new broadcast.
Bzzzz… “Hello, listeners from Canterlot and beyond. Welcome back to Free Speech, ready to deliver what you truly desire.”
The voice was undeniably the one of a mare, but it was muffled, as if the host didn’t want to be recognised. Quite the opposite of a normal radio program.
“Today, we start with a very beloved classic...”
Spike rolled his eyes. It’s been over a month and they still were on that one. Well, it was the most popular piece they had, and also it was the one that started, by mistake, this new trend. But it couldn’t be helped, it was simply too entertaining.
Twilight teleported into the kitchen, with her saddlebag ready for the mission at hoof. She hastily trotted up to the radio, she couldn’t help but listen to the start of the piece.
“Hello Equestria! This is your Princess of Friendship, Twilight Spar- no that’s not go— ”
With an angry click sound, the crystal receiver was extracted from the inside, interrupting the transmission. She shoved it inside the bags and turned to Spike.
“They are not letting go of it, eh?”
Twilight stared daggers at him and without a word she levitated him on her back, together with a map and a quill.
Spike grabbed the two objects with a sigh, and said “Are you sure this is the right thing?”
“Yes,” she replied coldly, an instant before they teleported outside, above the Castle of Friendship, and started flying in the direction of Canterlot.
“I know you’re upset about that blooper Twilight, but we have already tried many times to catch them now. Also, it is work for the police, not us.”
Twilight’s face relaxed. “I know Spike, and I am sorry.” She turned her head over to look at the dragon. “It’s just, everytime I hear that tape, I remember Princess Celestia scolding me about that, and I can’t help but feel ashamed for what I said.”
Twilight still remembered that evening. It was the first time Celestia had to scold her since she’d become an alicorn. It had been a lesson on proper etiquette and self-control, and lasted hours even with the Princess avoiding explicit comments on the contents of the recording. Still, that imperscrutabile gaze still haunted her in her nightmares.
“Well, Twilight, at least they bleeped out the swearing. I think that the rest of it was pretty funny, actually. And even the other records they had were great.”
While some of the listeners got offended by it, it was true, very true, that most of them actually enjoyed it. And that was exactly the problem.
Her ‘blooper’ had been such a success, the listeners asked for more and more mis-recordings. Celestia’s Royal Radio had tons of them really, but only a small fraction of the recipients agreed for them to become public, so that the request for more content increased dramatically.
Until they all got stolen.
“Yes Spike, I know you and most of the creatures owning a radio find them funny, but they are still illegal material that is being transmitted without consent.” Twilight switched the focus back on their destination, and before diving into an acceleration, she said “And today, we are gonna put an end to this cursed pirate station.”
Twilight and Spike used the receiver crystal to try and pinpoint the source of the signal, like they always did. It was an efficient method, but it needed at least a unicorn that could accurately read the strength of the signal from the crystal, and at the same time someone with a strategic and mathematical mind to quickly triangulate the information provided by the readings.
And Twilight was both of them.
Taking periodic reading along two linear trajectories, and intersecting the respective perpendicular lines at the point of maximum intensity, they managed to isolate in a short time an area of search of the size of a neighbourhood.
And then, that was when the trouble started.
“Oh, horseapples,” said Twilight, looking around. “We are in the nobles’ quarters.”
Spike nodded, observing couples of fancy-looking ponies who could walk in front of a Princess with a snob face, especially a ‘country’ Princess, like Twilight. “That’s right. But why is it a problem? We are already close to the source, right?”
Twilight levitated the crystal in front of Spike and said “Look closely at this.” He could see the light it emitted, a sign that it was still receiving the signal.
“Twilight, you know I cannot read it by eye, so why— ” he stopped when he noticed the light was not stable. It was wavering slightly, but if you could see such a difference with the naked eye, it meant that the real difference in readings was enormous.
“What? But… It never acted like this! Why is it doing it now?”
Twilight pointed at a point near them, saying simply “Interferences.”
Spike turned and saw a park where some foals were playing. At a closer inspection, he noticed that they were holding something in their hooves, some strange black boxes with antennas, and they were talking to them.
A pony in a jumpsuit passed in front of them, breaking Spike’s focus. But when he turned to look at the trotting stallion that had just cut his view, he spotted some strange small objects stuck into his ears, and another box strapped on its side.
“What are those? I’ve never seen them before. Are they messing with the crystal?”
“Yes, Spike, according to the Part 15 of Title 47 in the Code of Ponish Regulations, magic resonators with up to 100 feet radius effect can be possessed by anyone, and since they all operate on the same thaumaturgic frequency of the radio, they—”
“Twilight, please…”
“Oh, sorry Spike. To say it simply, those objects contain low range emitters, meaning that their signal can create an interference with the one we are looking for. And that is what’s happening right now with the crystal.”
“But, I have never seen them back in Ponyville!”
“That’s because transmitter crystals, unlike the receiver ones, are very expensive. Not everypony can afford buying one, but we are in— “
“The nobles’ quarters,” completed Spike, realizing the problem. “Oh, horseapples.”
Twilight looked around again, spotting more small transmitters, in the form of toy remote controls, door openers, and she was almost certain that most of those houses now possessed a cordless phone. The technological advance that brought the introduction of the radio was modifying the society as she knew it.
Shaking her head, she said “It will be impossible to track the signal from here. We need to go far again and get far more readings. We need at least to identify the block before coming back.”
She flew up, while Spike took again the map and the quill, opening the wings to follow her. “They got clever. This will take a lot of time… I wish I had taken lunch with me...”
“Aaaaand it is time! No interruption could hold it back.
The sensational Premiére of the star of the decade!
Ladies and Gentlecolts, here, at Celestia’s Royal Radio Station 91.3, the much-awaited new album of Aaaaaaaairwave!
Enjoy!”
The music started and the light switched in the recording room. Tune Modulation removed the headphones, savoring the long break ahead, but immediately picked up a sound of tapping on the glass. He turned to see her co-worker mouth-telling him that he had visitors.
The program was still not finished, so that would not have been typically a time for meeting other ponies, but if he had been called from his work, then it had to be somepony important.
Bobbing his cutie mark of a microphone amid waves, he walked up to his office, to find two quite rare creatures inside, a dragon and an alicorn. From the despondent look on their face, they were not here to bring good news.
“Tune. It’s great to see you,” said the alicorn, hopping down from the chair she was on.
“Twilight! It’s been a while. Also hello, Spike.”
“Hi,” said the dragon, lazily waving a hand and then letting it fall on the desk. There, Tune noticed an object that he recognized instantly. It was one of the mobile transmitters used by the pirate station.
They used to hide them in inaccessible places, connected to some recording that would start transmitting at a prefixed hour. That made it practically impossible for anyone to catch them. That, together with a crystal calibrated to transmit at a higher power than the one allowed by the law, made sure that the transmission could not be blocked for a long period of time.
“Oh, I thought you weren’t able to find it today. The program went on for its two full hours. Usually you find it after at most one hour or so.”
Twilight and Spike groaned in unison. It had been two and a half hectic hours, between false readings, maps not updated due to building abusivism, and last but not least, the stubbornness of the nobles, who wanted to see at least a royal mark before letting anyone in their house, even if it was just the garden.
Not to mention the total lack of cooperation in the investigation. Any question on ponies that could have been around their house was answered by sheer indignation for just the thought that they could have been related to pirate radio scum.
“Yeah, that is also the reason we are here. They placed it in a place full of local interference, making it practically impossible for us to locate it. They have probably caught on to how we kept finding them so quickly and took countermeasures.”
“Local interferences… You mean they placed it near a lot of micro-transmitters? But they are expensive! You can find them only in the nobles’ qua… Oh. Now I get it.”
“Yes. Tunes, you are an expert in magical wave communications. Do you think there’s a way around it?”
“Hmmm..” The stallion took his time thinking about it, while trotting up to his chair, on the other side of the desk. “I should… think about that. It is not so easy, with all the transmitters at the same frequency. It may be a lost cause.”
“Oh…” Twilight deflated considerably, her ears folded on her skull. “I… I am sorry, Tune.. If it weren’t for me, all of this wouldn’t have started. You have lost a lot of money because of the theft of those recordings, and now those blasted pirates are robbing you of more hours every day and— “
“Stop.” Tune stomped his hooves on the desk, looking at the pleading alicorn. “Twilight, it is not your fault. Do not think that even for a moment. We can manage, and won’t ever stop fighting against those criminals. Do not blame yourself.”
Twilight looked up at his friend, her spirit restored a bit. “Maybe... maybe we can try to use other frequencies. I know that we optimized the one we are using to travel the furthest possible, but that would let you transmit on a different bandwidth than the pirates and— “
A low rumble filled the air. Tune raised an eyebrow at the reddening face of her friend “...and I think you two should go eat something. I bet you haven’t had lunch, am I correct?”
Twilight nodded, still embarrassed, while Spike took the transmitter from the desk and said “You got it right. Come on, Twilight. I think a visit to Donut Joe is in order, after we’ve dropped this off at the police station.”
Tune waved them goodbye, still seated at his desk. As they left the room, a young mare came in, closing the door behind.
She waited a bit, listening to the sound of their hooves in the corridor, then squared the stallion and asked “Did they suspect something?”
Tune grinned and answered “No, and with any luck, they never will.”
“Good. It was a hard blow when they found the receiver in half an hour last time.”
Tune whistled at the memory. Twilight was becoming too efficient at her little job, so they had to come up with something.
After all, they could not let her stop the most remunerative part of the show, could they?
Yes, they had lost some money with the staged theft, but they regained much more in advertisements and sponsors, that came when they realized the sheer quantity of new listeners that were drawn by the least politically correct part of the show. It was keeping the ponies glued to the radio almost 24/7 waiting for the next one.
“Also,” continued the mare, “those transmitters are really expensive, with the additional magical tampering we need on them. Are you sure we are not actually losing money?”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Tune, getting up from the chair and opening the closet in the office. “Let’s say that we have some very important ponies among the fans of our illegal show.”
He looked down on the box full of modified crystals, closed with a sun-shaped royal seal.
Author's Note
Airwave and Sparkling Harmony Records are taken from the fanfic My Little Pony: Sparkling Harmony with permission of the author Captain_Cosmos. Go check the story!
