Through a Mirror, Darkly

"And how do you propose we do that?" Fluttershy crossed her forelegs, "Don't get me wrong it's a good start, but how are we going to do it?"

Applejack looked nervous, "Well, I was hoping y'all would have some ideas..."

The abused table suddenly felt a sharp impact as Fluttershy head-butted it, "You've got to be fucking kidding me."  She looked up from the wooden surface, her gaze intense enough to make water catch fire, "Why even bring up the idea if you don't have an idea."

"I ain't an ideas pony, I'm just the best we have."

"Congratulations, you just inherited the Greenhorn title from Rarity." Fluttershy looks over at Twilight, "okay, Velvet you're clever, ideas, go."

Twilight nodded, "give me a day and I'll have some for you, I'll need an idea of the resources we have though."

Fluttershy turned to Rarity, "Rarity, you and Greenhorn" she waved a hoof at Applejack, "will find a way for me, Pinkemena and Twilight to move around Baltimare unnoticed, we need to appear local."

Rarity nodded, "I'm certain we can come up with something Fluttershy."

"Rainbow Dash, Pinkemena." Fluttershy glared at the final two, "The two of you will get me a full list of the resources we have on hand, you will deliver a copy of that list to Velvet A.S.A.P, are we all clear?" The other five nodded again, "Good, dismissed."

"Who does that pegasus think she is?" Applejack complained to Rarity as the unicorn virtually flew around her storeroom, "She just waltz's in and takes control of everypony."

Rarity passed the irate mare, carrying several long bolts of cloth in her telekinesis, "I know darling, but you have to admit she does know how to get things done, and the best ponies for the job."

"And calling me Greenhorn, what's all that in aid of?"

Rarity smiled as she focuses on lifting a set of measuring tools down, "I actually think it means she cares."

Applejack looked at her incredulously, "How'd you figure?"

"I think he only calls ponies Greenhorn when she thinks they can do better than they are currently." She checked the items wrapped in her telekinesis, "I think that's everything don't you? I'll put this upstairs then we can go get your supplies Applejack."

Applejack looked at the mountain of cloth and thread, "I dunno Rares, I don't think I see enough silk in there for her majesty."

"You called?" The voice from the doorway caused Applejack to whip around, stood leaning against the door was Fluttershy, she did not look impressed. "I don't mind chit-chat while you work, but listen closely Greenhorn," She began advancing across the room, causing Applejack to back away slowly "if you don't want the guard arresting us faster than you can say 'civil disturbance' you will keep in mind that I have a plan while you do not. Are we clear?"

"Yes Fluttershy." Applejack managed to squeak out, thoroughly intimidated by the prison-pegasus' stern gaze.

"Good." Suddenly Fluttershy was all smiles, "it's nice to see you working at the job you've been given," she looked from one to the other, smiling gently "keep up the good work, Rarity.... Greenhorn." with that she left.

Applejack looked at Rarity, "Rares, I don't get that mare at all, one minute she's like Tartarus incarnate, the next she's the friendliest mare I've ever met, just what has she been through to come out like that?"

Rarity shook her head, "From what I understand prison was rough on her, on all three of them, they certainly didn't paint me a rosy picture while I was in there." shaking her head to clear away such thoughts Rarity cantered out the door calling over her shoulder, "I'll be back in a moment darling! We can head out to the market then!"

"This, is, beautiful." Pinkie whispered as she beheld the object of her affection. Like lightning she zoomed around it observing her quarry from every angle, "200 millimetre, variable payload, push/pull fuse, auto-balancing wheel system, zero metre turning circle, kickback reduction, and a reinforced frame." She wiped a tear from her eye, "Bucking beautiful." She looked at Rainbow, "I don't care what you say this puppy is mine."

Rainbow looked nervously between Pinkie and her new love, "Uh, whatever you say Pinkie, we've never found a use for it."

Pinkie looks shocked, "Never found- NEVER FOUND A USE FOR IT?" she grabs Dash around the shoulders with one hoof, while waving in front of them with the other, "The possibilities are endless!" She pats the smooth top of the object, caressing it gently, "with this you could do almost anything," She stared at Dash intently, grabbing her shoulders with both hooves and shaking her "do you even know what this thing is exactly?"

"Uh..."

Pinkie threw Rainbow Dash away, her eyes fixated once more on her one true love, "This is a genuine, Grade A, made by Havena Blast himself, All-Purpose Cannon!" she glomped the barrel fiercely, "Only a few of these were ever made!"

Rainbow picked herself up from the now slightly ruined crates where she had landed, "So, it's valuable right?"

She's tackled off her feet by an enraged Pinkie, "You are NOT selling him!" She roared in Rainbows face, she quickly zipped back over to the cannon hugging it like a foal and whispering to it, "she didn't mean it, don't cry, Pinkie's here for you."

Rainbow picked herself up again, "Pinkie, we don't even have any ammo for it."

Pinkie looked at her for a moment before she facehooves, "you silly filly, the cannon converts anything into ammo, all you have to do is use this dial, and the enchantments do the rest, converting what you put in to what you want out."

Rainbow trotted over, looking at the indicated dial, "That dial doesn't even have anything on it."

"I know!" Shouted Pinkie joyfully.

"Isn't that, you know, bad?"

"Opposite, it means it can be anything!" Pinkie looks at the cannon, "Havena Blast's cannons are notoriously difficult to reset, finding an unused one like this, jackpot!" She instantly started stroking the cannon again, "Not that you being neglected was a good thing." she assured the mute weapon.

"Uh, right," Rainbow called as she flew away towards the rest of the unchecked inventory "well I'm going to continue with the listing, you can deal with your cannon."

A faint shout came over from where she left Pinkie "His name is Reginald!"

"Uhhh... right, Reginald." Rainbow shook her head and continued writing the list of items in storage, "Pinkie, you are so random."

Fluttershy walked into a storm of paper. More accurately she walked into a mass of paper being levitated around Twilight as she came up with ideas from a throne of cushions.

Fluttershy cleared her throat.

Twilight simply carried on scribbling whatever idea she was working on.

Fluttershy cleared her throat a little more forcefully.

Twilight paused, studying the paper in front of her before screwing it up and tossing it aside.

Fluttershy had had enough, "Velvet!" she shouted at the oblivious unicorn.

"AH!" the unicorn screamed as she flinched in surprise, breaking her concentration and causing a mass of paper to finally pay heed to gravity.

Having miraculously not suffered any paper-cuts Fluttershy excavated herself from the mountain of paper, giving Twilight a withering glare as she did so, Twilight smiled back sheepishly, trying not to laugh as Fluttershy stumbled out of the collection of papers.

Finally free of the heavy reading material Fluttershy got round to addressing Twilight, "So I take it you've had a few ideas then." she indicated the mound of paper.

Twilight nodded, "A few, though it depends on what sort of message we're going for, and how this whole thing is going to pan out." The paper separated out into two stacks with a burst of magic, Twilight indicates the left stack, slightly smaller than the other, "this is if we're being quick about the whole thing, striking before the Princesses even realise they're in danger." She looks at the right, "and those are for if we want them to sweat."

Fluttershy considers the two piles, "We'll have to have a meeting to decide this, make a few ideas for each pile and flesh them out." she looked at the twin piles of paper, "though I have to say this is more than I expected."

Twilight smiled, "I..."

"have my ways." Fluttershy finished for her, "you're going to have to let us in on these 'ways' sooner or later Velvet, or we'll stop trusting you."

Twilight scowled at being interrupted, "Any idea of the target we want to hit for our 'message'?" she asked.

Fluttershy didn't even hesitate, "Make it military, failing that sympathetic to the sisters, no civilians involved, even as collateral, we don't need them to make us seem like monsters."

"Considering that we already are," muttered Twilight as she levitated a clean sheet of paper over and began writing on it, "Right, I'll see what I can do." Sensing the conversation wouldn't yield anything else Fluttershy left the room, leaving the mare to her work.

As she closed the door she heard Twilight mumble, "Military targets, what do we know about military targets?"

"Applejack, what about this one?" Rarity held up the bottle for inspection.

Applejack gave it a glance and sighed in defeat, "Rares don't you know anything about makeup? All these brand labels are horseapples, you need ones like these." she held up a significantly plainer bottle.

Rarity looked between the two containers "But darling, that one isn't guaranteed to last a week like this one."

Applejack rolled her eyes "You believe everything you read on them bottles Rares? I would've thought you'd know that its all done on hair kept in a clean lab, makes it accurate when they say 'it lasts up to a week.' on the bottle."

"Really?" Rarity quickly placed the bottle back on the shelves, "No wonder I never seemed to get it right when I was younger."

Applejack lifted down some mane extensions regarding them briefly before throwing them into the basket on her back.

"Darling, what's the point of buying mane dye and extensions? Surely with one you don't need the other?"

Applejack hoofed some more merchandise into the basket as she answered, "Because both look horribly fake without spending a fortune, which we can't afford if we're doing this for three mares, but if you dye them I found that extensions can look as natural as hair can be." She looks over at her friend, "besides two of our guests are pretty short on manes to dye."

Rarity looked at her friend, "Okay Applejack, I'll concede that you're the expert here." She lifts down another bottle, "Ooh, it says here you'll smell as fresh as a daisy if you use this."

Applejack looked at the ceiling before dragging her hat over her eyes. This was turning out to be a long shopping trip.

"Ugh if there is one thing I truly detest about that prison you were in it's the state that you're in now." Rarity groused as she ran a comb for what must have been the millionth time through Twilight's mane attempting to get the mass of hair into some semblance of order.

"Right, and the wanton abuse of ponies, the starvation, and overall treatment wasn't a fucking issue?" Fluttershy asked from her chair in front of Applejack, glaring daggers at the white mare.

"Hold still Fluttershy, I need this all to go on right if you're going to go outside and not get caught." Applejack admonished the annoyed pegasus, dabbing at her face carefully with a woollen pad.

Rarity winced slightly, before giving the brush another careful tug, "You know what I mean darling, the treatment notwithstanding," She grimaced and as she carefully worked through another knot, "you'd think they'd at least allow you to clean yourselves properly."

"Don't worry about it Rarity, Flutterbitch is just angry she's being pampered like the bitch queen she is." Pinkie quickly ducked behind Reginald, using his solid frame as a shield in case the yellow mare should throw something heavy.

"Did ya have to bring that up here?" Applejack asked Pinkie, eyeing the cannon like it might explode, "It ain't going anywhere with out ya, nopony else even understands how it works."

"But without me he'd be lonely!" Pinkie hugged the barrel of the cannon, "and his name is Reginald!"

Twilight looked at Fluttershy, "Does she always anthropomorphise objects?"

"Only the ones she really likes." Fluttershy looked at the happy couple, Pinkie was now buffing Reginald's barrel with polish she'd produced from somewhere, "Though I've never seen her name one before. I put it down to Pinkemena being Pinkemena." Twilight gave her a look, "I gave up trying to understand."

Twilight eyed Pinkie with a look a scientist might give an extremely interesting petri dish, mild excitement, already turning ideas over in her head.

Rarity stood back and admired her work, "There finished!" she breathed ecstatically. Twilight's mane and tail now hung straight their deep purple run through with a paired strip of pink and lighter purple. "Go on, give us a twirl darling!"

Rolling her eyes Twilight focused, A flash of lavender filled the room, as it dissipated Twilight stood on her magically reinforced legs before she grimaced and did a little spin on the spot, her mane and tail flowing gracefully around her, when she finally stopped she found herself being defensively glomped by Rarity.

"Applejack, we can't cut even a single hair off of Velvet's head! I won't allow it!" The fashionista cried as she hugged the other unicorn protectively, "Did you see how gorgeous it looked? A mane like that is to die for!" she ran her hooves through Twilights mane, treating it now with almost reverential care, "The glamour! the beauty! I've always dreamed of having hair like this!"

Applejack shook her head, "fine, but we're gonna have to dye her coat a new colour, if that's okay with you Velvet."

Twilight looked at her own mane, which still had a Rarity shaped attachment, "That's fine by me, long hair has it's uses after all." She lay back on the floor before dispelling her enchantment, replacing the image of health with her usual appearance once more.

A nervous rainbow Dash stuck her head around the door, "You done being girly yet?" she asked the assembled mares, "Why'd you want me up here anyway?"

"To get an idea of how we're going to be doing this." Fluttershy answered, "I take it you want to be in on the process that lets us decide how much those tyrants suffer Dash?"

Dash looked at Fluttershy and nodded, "Though I don't see what there is to decide," she noted as she flew over to a nearby sofa, "Those two should suffer as much as possible for what they've done." she added as she took her seat.

"I for one agree darling," Rarity said as she moved to begin her treatment of Pinkie, "those brutes have earned everything we're going to throw at them, and more."

"I can't say I've been treated as rough as y'all have," Applejack commented, "but I can tell you that my family will not rest until they're put down." she stomped a hoof for emphasis before going back to adjusting the make-up on Fluttershy.

Twilight nods in approval, "I agree with you all, those monsters should pay dearly for what they've done."

Fluttershy looked at Pinkie who merely nodded, she turned her head to face the others, "So we're all in agreement then. The sisters will suffer for every pony they've ever hurt, then eventually, maybe, we'll let them finally expire." She smiled wickedly at the thought of her waiting finally yielding results, "I can't wait to get started."