"Faster, y'all!" Apple Bloom shouted as they rounded the corner for the final stretch towards Twilight's castle. Miss Cheerilee and Nurse Redheart followed hot on their hooves. Cheerilee gasped as she galloped, fighting the stitch in her side, and Redheart swore like a crusty old sergeant.
"I hope Rumble will be okay," Scootaloo gasped. "Did you know soup could do that?"
The CMCs charged up the stairs and crashed through the door to Twilight's castle, down the hall, and around the corner toward the combined map-throne-mirror room.
"We'll go through the mirror," Sweetie Belle panted, "find our parallel sisters, and beg for asylum."
"It's called sanctuary," Apple Bloom corrected, "when you dun crimed."
They made the last turn, flanks sweaty and hooves pounding the crystal, and sprinted for the mirror.
And a second them emerged from the mirror, crashing into themselves, all six Crusaders going down in a pile of hooves, horns, wings, and curses.
Redheart and Cheerilee rounded the corner and skidded to a stop, faces magmatic.
"You three!" Redheart said, voice furious. "I just spoke to Rumble's parents and surgeon—oh. Oh my."
Scootaloo stood up, knocking two Sweetie Belles and another Scootaloo off of her. Sweetie Belle stood, looked at her hooves, and collapsed, gasping in horror.
"Oh, y'all!" Apple Bloom wailed. "We're horses! Ma and Pa ain't never gonna forgive me!"
Apple Bloom stood and stared at Apple Bloom. "You—you've got a ma and pa? And they ain't dead?"
"Well, Ma says that the way Pa drinks his liver is primed like a fifty kiloton—"
Scootaloo cantered toward Cheerilee. "Twilight said to give you this note—" Suddenly walking on three legs as she reached for her chest, Scootaloo went down face first, her tail flipping over her back and across her face.
"We're naked!" Sweetie Belle squeaked. "Get your tail back down, Scoots! And where's Twilight's note?"
Scootaloo burst into the air, flying around the throne room counter-clockwise. "We're naked? And where is the note? It was in my jacket! Where'd my jacket go? The note was in my jacket!"
"Hey!" Scootaloo shouted at Scootaloo. "You're flying!"
"And Apple Bloom has a ma and pa!" Apple Bloom bawled.
A rainbow blasted into the room from a high window and tackled Scootaloo in mid-air. Dash spun her around, holding her in her forehooves, zipping clockwise around the room. "Scoots! Scoots! You did it! You're flying! I always believed in you!"
"Ow! My neck! You hit me doing fifty miles an hour!" Scootaloo twisted her head to one side, rubbing the back of her neck.
"Down here, Rainbow Whiplash. Still can't fly."
Dash dropped Scootaloo and she smacked into the crystal floor a split second before flaring her wings. "Ow." Scootaloo patted Scootaloo’s withers.
Sweetie Belle saw the note on the floor and poked it with her hoof. "Stupid no-thumbs hooves..."
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes and levitated the paper up. "Here's the note Twilight gave us before she tossed us into the portal."
Sweetie Belle began to cry. "A mom and dad? And flying? And good magic? Who are these three?"
Sweetie Belle passed the note to Cheerilee.
"This is for Twilight," Cheerilee said, frowning at the note.
"She said to give it to the pony," Apple Bloom explained. "The pony that looks like her."
"I look like Twilight?" Cheerilee asked, annoyed.
"Who looks like me?" Twilight called, entering yet another door. "Oh. Oh goodness."
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle all said, "That's the pony that looks like Twilight."
Cheerilee passed the note to Twilight. Twilight frowned at it, smoke slowly rising from her horn.
"Okay," Twilight said after a moment, "First, what's the FBI, second, what's the Department of Homeland Security, and third, why do they want to extraordinary rendition three fillies to a black site in Uzbekistan? And what's a black site? And what's Uzbekistan?"
"It's not our fault!" Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle cried in unison.
Apple Bloom retorted, "Well, it's not entirely my fault. In fact, I'm the one with the least evidence tying her to it!"
Redheart adjusted her cap. "What happened? Talk."
Sweetie Belle shuffled her hooves and looked at the floor. "Well, I put on my new bikini and sang 'Happy Birthday, Mister President' to the video camera..."
Scootaloo continued, "And I uploaded it to my MooTube account..."
Apple Bloom looked at the ceiling, unable to meet anypony's eyes. "And I mighta sorta accidentally piggabacked a trojan worm to hijack all them computers that watched the video into my botnet—I call it 'AppleBot'—and used them to pull a DDOS attack against Air Traffic Control, the National Security Agency, and the Make-a-Wish Foundation."
"Make-a-Wish?" gasped Sweetie and Scootaloo.
"...oh, and when the FBI is done with us, Apple wants to talk to me about trademark infringement."
Scootaloo brightened. "We got five hundred million unique viewers!"
Sweetie Belle darkened. "But Mom said my bikini was too skimpy and my singing was off key.” Then she smiled broadly. “But Rarity said I looked marvelous and I should ignore Mom about the bathing suit!"
"See?" Apple Bloom said. "Sweetie's bikini, Scootaloo's MooTube account. There's no evidence I did nothin'!"
Apple Bloom picked up an iPhone from the floor. "Hey, this thing has an apple symbol on the back."
Scootaloo flew over to her. "Yeah, that's my phone. Thanks."
Apple Bloom hoofed it to her, and then Apple Bloom went pale. "Ya—ya brought yer Apple phone, Scootaloo? You know Apple's huntin' for us, too, and they're more dangerous than the FBI! The FBI only wants to interrogate us at a black site!"
"Yeah," Sweetie Belle said. "The worst the FBI will do is strap electrodes to our—"
Bon Bon stumbled through the mirror, sprawling face down and losing her sungalsses. "Ohhh, my head." She stood, woozily, and glared at the six Crusaders. "All right. You know why I'm here."
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle all took several steps backwards, tiny bodies shaking in fear. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle looked at them, then at each other, and shrugged in confusion.
Redheart moved to stand between Bon Bon and the fillies. "I don't like your attitude."
"She's the mercenary Apple dun hired to deal with my trademark infringement," Apple Bloom said.
"'Mercenary' is such an ugly word," Bon Bon said, twirling a hoof in the air. "I prefer to think of myself as a 'freelance problem eraser'."
Lyra Heartstrings galloped in through the throne room's front door. "There you are! Bon Bon, c'mon, we're late for our meeting with the wedding planner." She levitated up Bon Bon, who gasped and struggled. They disappeared out the door.
Twilight raised a hoof. "All right, this is getting ridiculous. Somepony tell me what's going on."
A dark pegasus stumbled through the mirror and went down face-first.
"Thunderlane!" Redheart shouted. "These three hospitalized your brother! They found an ancient cookbook of evil at the Castle of the Two Sisters."
"It was called the Volume of Vile Victuals," Sweetie began.
Scootaloo continued, "and Rumble asked for cookbooks for his birthday."
"We was bein' nice," Apple Bloom concluded. "He didn't get us nothin' for our birthdays."
"He exploded," Cheerilee said. "And took all my home economics supplies with him! I have to pay for those!"
Thunderlane sat on his haunches, shaking his head, wings limp. "Uh, what? Um, Special Agent Thunderlane, FBI." He looked at his right wing, spreading the feathers. "I think, I think I'm hallucinating. Did I hit my head?"
Redheart grabbed his wing in her mouth and dragged him from the Castle.
Cheerilee took a step. "All right, it looks like we've got two sets of Crusaders who are in very deep trouble. Pony Crusaders, step to this side, mirror Crusaders to that side."
The six Crusaders drew into a tighter knot, standing flank-to-flank.
"C'mon, girls," Twilight said. "It sounds like all six of you have made some bad choices."
"All I did was wear a bikini and sing!" Sweetie Belle bawled, fountains of tears streaming. Both Apple Blooms pulled umbrellas from thin air and sheltered under them.
Thunderlane ran in, crossed the throne room at a sprint, Redheart close at his hooves. "You ponies are craaaaazzzyyyy..." he shouted as he dove into the mirror. Redheart skidded to a stop, nose inches from the mirror's surface, glowered, and stomped.
From a window high above, Princess Luna glided in, her wings spread to catch the gentle updrafts, and spiraled to a landing between the six Crusaders and Redheart.
"Vice Principal Luna?" said half the crusaders, while everypony else bowed.
Luna waved a hoof. "Arise, arise, no need to bow. Nurse Redheart? I've fetched this from the ruins of my old Castle." She levitated an ancient book from a saddlebag. "'Twill contain the antidote to clear young Rumble's hives and boils."
"He doesn't have—"
"Yet," Luna declared.
Redheart balanced the tome on one hoof. "The Lexicon of Lifesaving Leechery and Bloodletting?"
Luna made a shooing gesture with her wings. "Go save a life, Nurse Redheart. Rumble needs you."
Redheart glared at the CMCs, pointed a hoof at her eyes, pointed it at them, and sprinted towards the hospital.
A tall, dark-blue pegasus stode gracefully from the mirror and looked around the library.
Luna looked at her. "Vice-Principal Luna."
She looked back at Luna. "Princess Luna."
"How's our sister?"
"Handcuffed on the floor of her office. The FBI really wished to speak to these three." She gestured a wing to the CMCs.
"Hmmm," Luna replied.
Apple Bloom looked at Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. "It... it ain't right that we're getting other people in trouble. We should go take our medicine."
"Actually," Luna replied. "I've managed to clear your names, and the FBI should be letting my sister go, shortly."
"But... but we dun did it!" Apple Bloom said.
"Well, you did," Scootaloo said. "Sweetie and I just made and posted a video."
"The internet comments liked my bikini," Sweetie said brightly, "even if Mom didn't."
"I was able to hack the server logs and backtrace the trojan worm to Microchips's home computer."
"What?" Scootaloo said. "Why Microchips?"
"First, he has previous arrests for hacking, so the FBI was unsurprised. Second, he dented my BMW when he parked in the faculty lot. Students must never park in the faculty lot.”
"How'd you learn to hack the server logs?" Apple Bloom demanded.
Luna smiled. "You don't think I afforded a BMW on my educator's salary, do you?"
Luna levitated a black fedora from her other saddlebag and placed it on Luna's head.
"Exactly," Luna said, adjusting the hat with a hoof.
Cheerilee tapped a hoof on the crystal. "All right, pony CMCs. Over here. It sounds like Princess Luna has helped Redheart sort out Rumble, but you're going to go clean up what's left of my schoolhouse."
Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom trudged over to Cheerilee, heads hung and tails limp. Cheerilee led them out of the Castle. Dash followed.
Sunset Shimmer, standing on her back hooves, strode through the mirror. "Girls? It's all sorted. Vice Principal Luna saved your bacon."
"What's bacon?" Twilight asked.
Twilight stumbled through the mirror. "You're happier not knowing," she said, and adjusted her glasses.
The Crusaders looked at each other, nodded, and slunk through the mirror. Sunset and Twilight followed them.
Twilight nodded to the Lunas and said, "I'll leave you two alone." She teleported out.
Luna looked at Luna. "Microchips?"
"It was a brand new BMW."
"It's good to see you again. My best to our sister."
"And my best to ours. Will Rumble be all right?"
"Redheart is unnaturally skilled."
"Ours, as well. She's treated more than her shares of contusions, concussions, and contraceptive failures. Roughly half of each being—"
"Rainbow Dash?" Luna guessed.
"Indeed."
The Lunas blew kisses to each other, and then one disappeared through the mirror, as the other teleported away.
Author's Note
I wasn't drinking, I swear.
