The school hall was once again buzzing with activity. A day had passed since the chase of and arrest of Anon-a-Miss, and Principal Celestia had been informed of the new developments. Now, she had called another assembly in order to explain what else had happened, and as the students crowded into the hall, sitting down on the bleachers at the back next to the windows, as well as in chairs that had been set down on the floor which was usually reserved for basketball games, the Fall Formal, or impromptu music competitions caused by interdimensional invaders capable of controlling others through song, and nontheless the students were rather confused by what it could be this time.
They looked up as Celestia stepped forward, a microphone in her hands. A computer had been set up, which in turn had been linked to a projector attached to the ceiling. This currently had a blank slide showing. "Good morning students," she said, a smile on her face. "Undoubtedly you are aware of the Anon-a-Miss incident that has been sweeping the school these last few days."
"Who is it this time?" a student called out. "I swear that the identity of Anon-a-Miss seems to change every hour or so!"
"As with most things surrounding this school," Celestia answered, "there is more to this case than it seems. About a week ago, apparently incontrovertible evidence emerged to suggest that the perpetrators behind this crisis were the group colloquially referred to as the 'Crusaders'."
"Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle," said another voice. "We know. We still haven't cleaned up the mess from when they ran railroad lines through the hall and drove a narrow gauge engine around inside."
Celestia looked nonplus, but spoke again. "Yesterday, however, new evidence emerged which threw this summary into doubt. Today, I can conclusively confirm that Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle are not Anon-a-Miss. And they are here to speak to you."
Celestia stepped to one side, as the three girls stepped forward, a more confident expression on their faces than last time. "Hi y'all!" Apple Bloom greeted the packed hall. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity nodded. The rest of the student body was in for a shock.
"What are you three doing here?" another voice asked from the crowd. "Hadn't you been expelled?"
Sweetie Belle took up the microphone. "We're here to tell you we didn't do it, and that the real suspect has been caught. I believe this film footage, as well as computer logs recovered from his computer, will more than establish the truth."
She pressed a button, and suddenly a stream of code flew across the screen. Images began to appear, showing a student, whom we know is Norman Halford, hacking the phones of the Crusaders and planting false evidence. Then a line of text began to appear on the screen;
I hate Sunset Shimmer. That bitch ruined my life and terrorised the school for years! She bullied, tormented, and abused us, and all she gets is a slap on the wrist? Fucking ridiculous!
Well, this sheep isn't going to lie down with the wolf. That she-demon deserves to go down. Everybody seems to think that she's changed, but I know she hasn't! She has everybody fooled, but I know the truth! She's still the abusive monster she always was, and will one day rise again to take control!
Not on my watch. Sunset is going down, and Anon-a-Miss is more than the tool I need. The entire world shall see the truth. Sunset isn't getting away with her crimes, not on my watch. Once I am done, I shall shift the blame onto those idiot Crusaders, who do nothing but make our school a living annoyance factory!
A student spoke up. "Who's this Halford guy anyway? And how do we know that this isn't fake text and photos to throw us off the scent?"
Scootaloo spoke next. "I think this Police footage will convince you." She navigated over to a video file, and hit play.
The footage that played was from the sting operation, namely recorded on a hidden camera Scootaloo had been wearing. Halford was clearly visible.
"You know, you've got a lot of confidence meeting me out here. At least this helps me bring down Sunset, after that time she trapped me in a locker on campus."
"Yeah, seems she was a real mean bitch back then."
"And now she'll pay. Well, thanks for that, I'd best be on my way."
"And then there's this," Apple Bloom added, starting another video file. This time it was the effective confession that Halford recorded after his arrest by the police.
"First off, before they take you away Norman, I want you to answer some questions. Why did you create Anon-a-Miss?"
"When you ruled the school and made the lives of everybody hell, I was powerless to act. You held everyone in the palms of your hands, and could destroy anybody you wanted. I saw it all; I knew what you were doing. And taking that crown was the final part of your plan. I still haven't forgotten how you shut me in a locker. Did you think for a moment I could have died in there? Suffocated?"
"Interesting, but that still doesn't answer my question. "WHY. DID. YOU. DO. IT?"
"Most of the school thought you had reformed after that Twilight girl and her mates blasted you, but I knew the truth. You hadn't changed at all. The world had, and you simply needed to adapt by playing mrs nice girl for a bit. You were just waiting for the chance to strike again."
"Did my actions at the Battle of the Bands not convince you? Why, for Celestia's sake, did you not see that I had changed?"
"It was just a diversion, to throw us off the scent. You were just waiting for a chance to reassert control over us once again. Besides, what else would you do? Try to be nice? I had to reveal the evil that you truly were and remove the threat that you are before you struck again. And what better way than to imitate your old habit of secret stealing and sharing, to humiliate the entire school? It clearly worked, given how easily the entire student body fell for it."
"Look, I can understand why you'd want revenge against me. I did do a lot of bad things, I will admit, and I did hurt a lot of people. But why drag their names through the mud as well? Revenge against me is one thing, but those three were completely innocent in all this!"
"You see, those three were the bane of my life."
"What?" What did we do ta you?"
"Generally be a nuisance? Those three had been running around the campus more or less out of control for years now with their stupid 'Crusading', railroad restoring, videos about steam trains and other boring shit constantly clogging up my inbox and rendering me unable to think. Remember that time they blasted 'It's Great to be an Engine' through the library speakers non-stop that time after school?"
"In fairness, that was for a school project."
"And why did you do what you did? You chose to ruin the lives of my friends, my family and my fellow students because you don't like our taste in music?"
"But you three being such prolific bloggers made you the natural choice for spreading this sort of stuff. Think about it; with so many followers, of course they could get secrets sent in and leaked through the account!"
"But we don't have anything against Sunset!"
"Oh really? Says you lot. No thanks, we're good. No wonder everybody thinks you're inbred. But I knew that their families, and the townsfolk would come to their senses eventually and stop giving them their punishment. That's what the generator was for; it was loaded with Equestrian Magic in order to ensure the townsfolk kept fighting each other."
"Norman, in case you have forgotten, you turned the students against one another, made the entire world topsy turvy, flipped our school upside down, revealed hurtful information that will NEVER go away, and then dragged my name and the names of my friends through the mud. All for the sake of some petty revenge over things you didn't like. You DIDN'T have to follow their page, and you DIDN'T have to post all that muck online. Normally I would, but this crime is too severe. I can never forgive you. And I don't think the school body will either."
"Fine. I wouldn't want to be anyway. The entire school was brought down by just a social media account. How do you think you'll cope the next time a magical creature comes along through the portal? Can you rally support? Or will you just get turned on again?"
There were a series of gasps running through the school hall. The evidence proved it all. The Crusaders, the three girls standing before them, were innocent.
"Wait!" Trixie called. "The Great and Powerful and Dreadfully Sorry Trixie has a question to ask."
"Fire away," Sweetie Belle replied, wondering what this question could possibly be.
"If it wasn't you three, then what was that audio recording they posted all about?"
Scootaloo smiled. "Apple Bloom, if you wouldn't mind, maybe we should show the clip in its original context."
"Good idea!" Apple Bloom replied. "Ah know how dangerous stuff like that taken outta context can be now." She pressed play on another video.
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle were sat around the computer in Scootaloo’s bedroom. Scootaloo hit some buttons on the keyboard, and the locomotive on the screen rolled towards some trucks. The maneuvre was clearly meant to move five trucks into a hump siding, but for some reason the first three coupled to the engine whilst the other two rolled away down the hill with a bang, clanging into the buffers below the trucks.
“Well?” Apple Bloom asked.
“We got two of them away,” Scootaloo replied, glancing back after applying the brakes on her engine.
“That’s less than half!” Sweetie Belle answered. “I wouldn’t exactly call that a smashing success, Scootaloo!”
“OK, OK!” Scootaloo replied. “I’m working on it, OK? We need a new strategy if we’re going to get the other three!” She made some adjustments, and moved the engine backwards to an easier position, in order to pick up enough speed to hit the trucks hard.
“That’s gonna be a lot of work,” Apple Bloom answered. “Like sluggin’ up a steep hill.”
Scootaloo grinned. “This ought to do it,” she said, and reached toward her keyboard, starting to press down some keys. The engine accelerated quickly, smashing into the wagons which began rolling forward and over the hump, rumbling into the siding quickly and smoothly.
The entire student body felt very silly. It was them commenting on a scenario they were playing in Train Simulator, as a video for their YouTube channel. Celestia then took up the microphone.
"We already know the names and identities of the students who attacked the Crusaders," she said, "and safe to say they will receive detention, and suspension for the more severe cases we saw. But I think that we all owe them, and Sunset Shimmer, a very big apology." She indicated to the assembled students.
"Sorry, everyone," they said, in that manner a massed crowd does. Celestia then turned to the Crusaders.
"I apologise for not listening and punishing you unfairly," she said to them.
"Don't worry," Sweetie Belle replied. "We forgive you."
"Pa always taught me ta forgive and forget," Apple Bloom chimed in. "Ya don't do it because ya think they deserve it, ya do it ta be the bigger person."
Celestia then spoke once more. "In addition, all charged against these three girls have been lifted, their punishments have been lifted, and their academic records have been cleared of any wrongdoing."
Sunset came forward next, and took the microphone. "I know it's been a tough few weeks, and I think we all need to loosen up a bit. Who's up for a party?"
"A party?" exclaimed Pinkie Pie, popping up behind Sunset. "You planned a party and didn't tell me? CRAZY!"
It was Christmas Eve, and snow was once more falling. People were racing around, trying to complete their last bits of Christmas shopping, and the streetcars rumbled up and down, sparks flying through the air and hitting the ground, contrasting with the lights that were shining off of buildings and competing with the stars for brightness. Christmas carols echoed through the air, and the air of sadness that had hung over the town due to Anon-a-Miss had mostly faded. People had remembered that it was Christmas, and as a result the mood had improved massively.
Sunset Shimmer looked out of the window of her apartment, holding a cup of hot chocolate in her hand. This had been a rough Christmas, she had to admit, rougher than the last two she had spent here. But still, it hadn't ended in tragedy. The offender had been caught, the innocent pardoned, and this meant that Christmas could proceed as it was meant to, as the Most Wonderful Time of the YearTM, patent pending. Sunset sat down at her desk, and opened up her journal. She hadn't written much in it over the last few days, as she had simply been too busy to do anything. Still, she took a pen, and decided to keep Twilight filled in on what had happened. The nib touched the paper, and the words flowed out of the pen like water from a fountain or a burst pipe.
Dear Princess Twilight,
I know I haven't written to you in a while, as things have been pretty hectic the last few weeks or so. I think I'll tell you all that has happened since we last wrote to one another.
When I last wrote, Anon-a-Miss had only just got going, with a few personal secrets. It was only after that she really began ramping up her campaign, with personal information and hurtful posts going up by the bucketload. They then began to target me. It was hurtful, I can safely say, and what was worse was that I withdrew from my friends. No wonder Applejack and Pinkie Pie turned on me. Looking back on it, it certainly did look suspicious.
But then, we got a bombshell a few days later that made it seem like our worlds were mirroring once more. I came into school to find out that the perpetrators had been caught. And you'll never geuss who they thought it was.
The Crusaders.
That's right, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom. They had 'apparently' been caught logging into the Anon-a-Miss account, and not only that they had been caught with past secrets and ones that were yet to be posted on their phones. Safe to say, the school punished them and made them confess in front of the school to the crime, as did their families.
However, I smelled a rat. Those three are good friends of mine, so for them to suddenly try to make me look stupid and like I had gone back to my old ways would simply make no sense at all. Sadly, there was no convincing their families, except for Miss Cheerilee. I don't know what it's like back in Equestria, but here she's Scootaloo's mom. One day, we made a plan to break them out of the detentions they'd been put into, and put our computing skills to work to catch the offender behind Anon-a-Miss.
You'll never believe who it was. Remember that guy I shoved into a locker after meeting you for the first time? It was him, Norman Halford. He wanted revenge not only on me, for what I did, and although his actions were reprehensible, I can understand why he wanted revenge. What shocked me more was that he tried to pin it on the Crusaders, which came out of nowhere given they were completely innocent in all this, but apparently he had a vendetta against them too. An utterly stupid vendetta if you ask me, but it seemed he wasn't going to be convinced. At least he's behind bars now, for at least three years. Not only that, the fine his family had to pay will go to good use, helping to fund anti-cyberbullying operations.
The school officially forgave the Crusaders for accusing them of being Anon-a-Miss, as well as how they treated them afterwards, at another assembly. There was a party hosted afterwards, organised by Pinkie Pie, with one of her classically clunky titles. Not only that, there was much playing of vuvuzelas, which got extremely irritating after a while. Oh well, gotta take the good with the bad!
The families did forgive one another (eventually). Bright Mac (Apple Bloom's father) had wanted to punish Applejack for extrajudicially spanking Apple Bloom by making her do Apple Bloom's chores as well as her own, but, to her credit, Apple Bloom talked him out of it. It seems like she wants to put this whole thing behind her, and move on. However, they did compromise on Applejack being grounded for the rest of the year and having to do Big Mac's work in addition to her own, a punishment Applejack accepted and felt she deserved.
Rarity did burn all of the dresses she'd had Sweetie Belle model, as she had promised, and in addition had to act as Sweetie Belle's model. As well as this, Hondo and Cookie gave Sweetie Belle back all the things they had confiscated from her. In addition, they promised to get her whatever she wanted for Christmas (the jury's still out on that one).
Scootaloo had never really been punished, as her mother believed her from the off, so there wasn't much to change apart from repair her relationship with Rainbow Dash. Turns out those two are now closer than ever. The three of them also got discounts from Sugarcube Corner for the next few months, as a way of saying sorry.
However, just because they forgave one another does not mean the siblings trust them. Apple Bloom reportedly insists on being with two other people at all possible times to prevent a repeat of the spanking incident, and Sweetie Belle often eats on her own, simply to guarantee she can actually finish a meal.
On a more positive note, the Apple Christmas Party was an absolute blast. The food was great, but it was fantastic just to talk to everyone, all of whom wanted to know how either I or you were doing. Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and we're all coming together at the Town Hall for Christmas Lunch.
If anything else has been happening in Equestria over Hearth's Warming, I'd love to know what has been going on.
Have a happy Hearth's Warming, and send my best wishes to Sunburst.
Your student no, your friend forever,
Sunset Shimmer.
Christmas Day arrived in a quiet way. The birds were singing, the bands were playing up and down the streets, and the streetcars and trains were all in bed. Christmas Day was a statute holiday, which meant that employees had the day off. For that matter, they had most of the week off. It was eerily quiet, with the sun shining over the land, the snow settling all around, and general silence all around.
In her bed, Scootaloo stirred, and hopped out of the bed onto the floor, pulling her slippers onto her feet, before heading into the kitchen. She laughed when she got a brief view of her reflection. She looked a mess. She would definitely need to clean that up before she went out today, when suddenly she heard her mother come in through the door.
"Merry Christmas Scootaloo," Cheerilee smiled, giving her daughter a hug.
"Hey Mom," Scootaloo replied, returning the hug in kind. "It sure has been a hectic one."
"It could have been better, I will admit," Cheerilee answered.
Scootaloo laughed. "Mom, that's the understatement of the century!" After a short pause, she spoke again. "Two pieces of toast or one?"
"One for me," Cheerilee replied, with a smile. "While you put those on, there's something for you in the living room."
Scootaloo popped the pieces of toast in (one for her, one for Cheerilee, which was entirely sensible as there were only two slots for toast), and then followed her mother into the living room. The lights glowed on the tree, which was covered in tinsel and baubels, as well as boxes surrounding the bottom of the tree, alongside several boxes flanking the model railway running around the bottom of the tree. But that wasn't what Scootaloo noticed the most.
Standing before the tree was a man in his early to mid 30s, with brown hair cut in a short, military fashion. He also had blue eyes, neatly cut facial hair, and dressed in a grey shirt, blue jeans and black military boots. He had a smile on his face.
"Hi there Scoots," he said, with warmth and affection.
Scootaloo's face broke out into a grin, and she ran into his arms, hugging him tightly. "Dad!" she cried, as happy as she could ever be. "You made it in time for Christmas!"
This was William Collins, Captain in the 86th Airlift Wing and husband of Cheerilee, and by logical extension Scootaloo's father. He had been assigned to Ramstein, Germany, until recently, but he was, as of now, based out of Canterlot airbase. "I heard what had been going on in the town, and I'm sorry I wasn't here to help you through a very tough time," he said sadly.
"It's OK," Scootaloo said warmly, by this point having broken from the embrace. "At least you got to experience a German Christmas."
"That I did," Will smiled. "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas!" Cheerilee echoed. "God Bless Us!"
"God Bless us, Everyone!" Scootaloo finished. And, despite the hardship that Anon-a-Miss had brought, they agreed it was the Best Christmas Ever.