One Girl's Heroes

Both staff and students knew down to the exact second when the lunch bell was suppose to ring and normally there would be a mad dash to be first in line at the cafeteria, but today something caused almost everyone to pause in confusion. "SONATA!!!!!!" A female voice screaming in fury seemed to replace the usual bell.

Principle Celestia stepped into the hall to find out what was going on when Sonata ran past her with a furious Adagio in hot pursuit. Normally seeing one sibling chasing after another wouldn't even phase the veteran educator, but the fact that the entire fashion club and photography club were chasing after Adagio with all sorts of outfits, makeup, and flashing cameras made her pause. The sight of Pinkie Pie, Derpy, Vinyl Scratch, Berry Punch, and the Crusaders chasing after them with a banner that read 'Yay! Your No Longer Evil!' made her eyebrow raise. It was the laughing Aria with a smart phone being chased by a smiling Discord yelling he wanted a copy of the video and several dozen boys and girls chasing after them yelling about wanting a date with her or her sisters that made Celestia made her facepalm. She had a very strong suspicion that that would soon become her new default gesture when it came to those three.

"In a way it brings back old memories of when we use to prank each other when we weren't trying to kill each other and the ensuing chase would often involve Principle Starswirl also facepalming." Luna said with a chuckle as she walked up as the other students headed for cafeteria. "Complete with one hung over sister finally realizing what the other one did, right party princess Daybreaker? Exactly how many times did you show up at school hung over and smelling of sex and booze? 40, 50, maybe even 60 times total?"

"Oh your one to talk." Celestia said as they headed for the cafeteria. "Goth princess Knightmare Moon." Celestia shot back. "How many tattoos did mom and dad have to pay to have removed? How many detentions, suspensions, and one near expulsions did you get?

"We were both idiots back then weren't we?" Luna asked as she put her hand on the cafeteria door.

"Yeah, but Principle Starswirl never really gave up and look at us now." Celestia said as her and her sister shared a brief laugh before entering the cafeteria.

John had waited until the students had left for lunch before pulling out both of his phones. To say the phone from this world was disappointing was an understatement since his real phone made the smart phone look primitive by comparison. Then again it was very useful since it had given him the SIM and the phones OS which in turn given him a starting place for this worlds technology. He could have tossed it by now, but Jenny needed a way of contacting him after the Greys had shown up and with several upgrades it would do until they got to his home.

It only took him a few minutes to get the smart phone ready before picking up his real phone and whispering his pass phrase into it. With a click the flat black object that look like a deck of cards glowed green before split down the middle and he pulled it apart. Between the two halves was the weak force field that made up the holophones screen lit up, he pulled until the projection was the size of a TV and then let go of the two halves so they could float in the air. He couldn't help but smile at the holographic image being projected in front of him. It was him on one knee holding out a ring to Sheri Gatetree and asking her to marry him during the statue unveiling in Crystal City. Kissing his fingers before touching her image, he then began reprogramming the smart phone via Bluetooth. Ten minutes later he grabbed the two halves and was about to put them back together and shove it into his pocket, only it chirped at him as it received a very weak signal.

No, it wasn't weak, he was picking up a signal from somewhere else and directed somewhere else and had all the signatures of the portal he had been looking for. Only the it was too weak to be fully opened and too defused to get a better reading than just somewhere towards the front of the school. OK, someone is contacting someone on this side, John thought to himself, but the signal is weak and defused... Either the person receiving needs to be really close or have a dedicated system, but what. Looking over the signal it finally jumped out at him, it wasn't weak if it was on a subatomic level and he was picking up it's interactions with the portal... Quantum Entanglement, it was the only explanation he could think of that worked and who ever was talking didn't realize or care that it was causing the portal to resonate like a window vibrating because of sound... So who was receiving it? An explorer, a spy, or someone else and why were they here? Invasion, scouting out the people before first contact, or something else? Too many questions and all he had was this signal, but maybe he could get some clues from that if he... Hmm, there is some distortion and he he could only clean it up so much... What the heck is this jumbled mess and why was it so short? Thinking on it he finally realized the problem, it was text not speech and adjusted for it.

Dear S7%4@ Sh!@@3&

I just w@nt3d to wish you a Happy Hearth #@%$*!# and hoping every76$#6 was going 9K with you and ?+7 friends are doing OK.

At that point the message seem to break down for a bit before continuing.

(66^68732^654#$^*(544 estia here by grants you a full pardon and hopes you will join us for Hearth Warming Eve party here in my castle.

Your Friend
Princess Twilight Sparkle
Princess of Friendship

John looked at the screen and laughed. Whoever they were they were using advanced technology for texting their friend a holiday greeting and tell them they were no longer wanted by the authorities. It was like a bad joke, like the first sign of intelligent life aliens receive from Earth being someones shopping list. Well whoever this Princess Twilight Sparkle is she at least seems to think a Christmas Card was more important than commanding hidden spies to prepare for the invasion of another universe. With that he put his phone away and got up to go give Jenny her new phone.

"I'm just saying that the more I think about it." Applejack said to some of her friends as they sat at their usual table and ate lunch while watching the 5 way taco eating contest going on between Sonata, Pinkie, Derpy, Snowflake, and Zephyr Breeze. "The more it seems like a load of hog wash. We all remember how it was when she was in control of the school and this is nothing like that. She was all about control and used the secrets she ferreted out to blackmail, threaten, and discredit everyone she could into doing what she said or to get them out of her way, but this is just throwing mud just for the sake of throwing mud and causing trouble and then pointing to Sunset to cover their own tracks."

"Hmm... You know I can see that darling." Rarity said as she watched Derpy put down her taco and push her tray away. "There really isn't any obvious motive for this and even someone trying emulate her would have done more than change the color scheme to match Sunset. They would have matched her..." Rarity froze as something occurred to her. "What if they are emulating her, but we've been to focused on her usual tactics to think about another tactic she used?"

"Huh?" Rainbow Dash asked. "What do you mean?"

"Misdirection and distraction." Rarity said as she looked at the other two. "She also use to use secrets to misdirect and distract everyone away from what she was really doing. What if Anon-a-miss and turning the school against Sunset isn't the ends but the means and something else is the real target? They want us to focus on her and ignore something else."

"Yeah right." Rainbow Dash said with a smirk. "All of this for what? This is a high school, sure we're an awesome high school, but still a high school."

"One that has had two magical light shows in a two month period and a magical portal to another world." Applejack said as she pointed over to where Aria was recording the contest on her phone. "A portal that has been used to dump dangerous creatures into the one place they knew wouldn't have enough magic to make them truly dangerous. What's to say they only ever did it once or that something else around here didn't noticed and are now interested in this place. Heck, the only reason I don't think it's the government is because they would've just march in an take over the whole school and claim somekind of chemical spill or outbreak."

"More than likely claim one of the magical light shows was a terrorist attack and make us all disappear by saying we died of radiation poisoning, darling." Rarity said with a frown. "It's all in the details dear. Chemicals and outbreaks would lead to either family members wanting answers and to see us, but radiation would give them an excuse to make it a closed casket funeral and explain everything away as it being a test run for a much worse attack that they foiled."

"Yeah, I can see that since we here about them stopping terrorist attacks, but never hear any real details due to 'National Security'." Applejack agreed.

"So, that just means they are keeping us safe." Rainbow Dash pointed out.

"We're not saying they are not dear, but who is to say everything is exactly as they say." Rarity explained. "I don't know about you, but I would rather not become one of those tiny details lost in the paperwork because of 'National Security'."

"Of course whose to say they ain't watching us already." Applejack pointed out, not noticing Lyra and Bon Bon suddenly becoming very interested in their meals at a nearby table. "I mean, why screw up something that seems to be working and risk Twilight and the Equestrians on the other side washing their hands of us and leave us high and dry the next time something magical happens over here."

"Then there is the whole risking a war with a world that has already worked out interdimensional travel." Rarity said as they finished their lunch. "I looked up some of the things both Sunset and Twilight have mentioned and we are nowhere near what they can do. Take that story about the Mirror Pool and then imagine if they took their greatest fighter and ran him or her through it a few million times and you have an almost instant army. Then there is weather control and controlling celestial mechanics to the point that they could either fire lightning bolts through the portal to protect it or throw solar plasma through it and wipe out everything on this side. That doesn't even touch upon what we heard about their version of Discord. I highly doubt he couldn't tear the portal between our worlds wide open and do god knows what to us and we would be powerless against him if it wasn't for their version of Fluttershy."

"Hey, where is Fluttershy anyways?" Rainbow Dash asked as Pinkie Pie held Sonata's hand up and declared her the winner.

"She brought her own lunch and decided to take Sunset and Jenny their lunch so she could eat with them." Applejack pointed out.

"So you're the one who ta... mmmph!" Jenny started to say before Sunset clamped her hand over her mouth.

"Just ignore that part Fluttershy." Sunset said with a nervous laugh. "Some people thought it would be funny to tell her the wrong thing about us and our friends."

"Umm... Okay." Fluttershy said as she sat down the trays and pulled her lunch and Angel Bunny out of her backpack.