After being released from Celestia's hug, Sunset gulped the rest of her drink in one go, and called a waiter to get another one: she wasn't looking to get wasted, but she needed all the liquid courage she could muster to not break down in that moment. A couple of moments later, the same waitress who brought them their cocktails, Codename Hebe, was back with the new drink for Sunset, who smiled as a form of thankfulness.
Right after that, the waitress took the empty glass and made her way back to the counter, as Sunset continued with her tale:
"And that was basically all. Now, as a more practical talk, I do believe that what's on the other side of the mirror isn't simply an alternate universe, but more like a clone universe, or mirror universe if you like."
Both princesses were intrigued by that explanation, and made gestures to make Sunset continue, which she did.
"It's just my opinion, since I did not find a copy of myself, and I did not find a copy of Codename Friendship, but I found human versions of her friends, as she told me about them, and of you two too. Though it seemed like your human versions never went on a separation like you two did, as far as I know, and I investigated a bit to, well, make schemes."
She paused to get a sip out of her second drink.
"Not proud of that, but a stranded girl gotta do what a stranded girl gotta do to survive, am I right? I did not sell myself though, I still did have some pride. Anyway, I'm rambling right now, let's get back to the topic. The two of you are not princesses, but a school principal and her vice-principal, so you are still in a position which holds some power. Any questions?"
The two sisters seemed to ponder for a moment and then Luna asked:
"Thou spoked of 'electricity' before, and how this thing does power the other world instead of magic. Could thou elaborate?"
"Sure! So, where in Equestria we have magic, be it a unicorn's magical power, a pegasus's flight ability or a earth pony's unnatural strength, in their world there are different things. Electricity is their source of power, and they have lots of methods of acquiring that: thermal processes, which uses hydrocarbons to produce electricity, seem the most popular, but it also is very burdensome for their environment. There are some natural sources, like the Sun, wind and water, but they're less effective as of today. Lastly, there is nuclear power, which seems by far the most powerful, but can lead to terrible disasters if handled badly. It is divided in fission and fusion, as far as I recall, but they seem able to control only fission, while they are researching on fusion, because it would be the most effective and clean method of getting electricity. But electricity isn't the only thing they got on them: take fights, they evolved from using melee and simple ranged weapons to use firepower, explosives and such, and most portable weapons don't use electricity."
Celestia seemed saddened by the last period on Sunset's explanation, and said, sadly:
"So it's not a peaceful world…"
"Well, Equestria isn't either, technically. But they had the last major conflict something like seventy or eighty years ago, only to be followed with some regional wars. But yes, their wars are possibly even much more brutal than ours. Studying their history, one could think that most of the scientific progress was inspired by war, which in turn always offered more opportunities for scientific research. Where we use magic spells, they developed some really terrifying weapons, like gases, nuclear bombs, shrapnel granades, tanks, planes, submarines and more. We have also to consider the context: a fire mage on the battlefield can unleash rivers of fire against his enemies, but it can be countered by other mages; a flamethrower in their world can't be countered and its fire can't be put out with water, since it's a chemical fire. Not only you lead people to an horrible death or to permanent scarring, but also you destroy the morale of your enemies."
Celestia and Luna listened with their eyes wide open to Sunset's speech, and Celestia remarked:
"That is awful, how could their rulers allow this?"
"Their rulers are precisely who allow this, technically. But most of those weapons are now banned in war, and they're used only when really awful people want to hit not the army or the soldiers, but the civilians, leading a terror warfare. And this is now making me start to think that if I was even more mentally unstable the first time I crossed the mirror, I could've done horrible things bringing an army of actual soldiers instead of teenagers. Damn, that would've been the lowest blow possible."
Sunset sipped again, her eyes saying to the two princesses something like 'can we please talk about something else, this is so f-ing weird to explain', and the two rulers seemed to understand. Celestia then proposed:
"We could tell you about what happened here, but… it would be better to do it in a more private place. You know, I still kept your room untouched in the Castle, hoping that you would return and forgive me for my mistakes."
Sunset froze.
"You're not the one who has to ask for forgiveness. I do, for being such an idiot. But it would be lovely to see my old room again."
Luna went to pay, as both Sunset and Celestia were getting ready to return to the castle. Having decided to walk while the two princesses kept their disguises, the three talked about small things; the castle was about half an hour of distance, so they arrived in the late afternoon. Luna excused herself, for she had to relax for a couple of hours before rising the moon, and left Celestia and Sunset alone.
"Follow me, Sunset. But I hope you remember the way inside of your old home."
Sunset nodded, and kept Celestia's pace.
***
On the human world, things were in motion. Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna started a mass investigation of every single student, starting from taking every phone to find which owner had which account in the Anon-A-Miss incident. The school was still shocked about what happened, and many fights between once friends had to be stopped.
The Rainbooms weren't taking this situation good: everyone of them distanced from the others, in a sort of voluntary reclusion, especially after Princess Twilight outburst.
The ones most distraught by the whole situation were the perpetrators themselves though, the Crusaders, who almost became subject to bullying, being saved by the school's administrators Draconian politics in dealing with this matter.
The three weren't allowed to see or communicate with each other, and they were separated in different classes. There was talk about sending all of them into three different schools, but that was deemed excessive by both families and the school's administrators, so they all came together in deciding that the girls weren't allowed near their phones or near computers, and had to follow different classes or different hours for the same class: everything else was at discretion of the families.
Apple Bloom was being punished by being grounded to home, and when she wasn't at school or doing homework, she had to work in the orchard twice as harder, since her sister was becoming a shadow of herself by her fault and couldn't work properly. Apple Bloom tried to reach out to her, but the only responses she got of Applejack were tears and vacuity: it was like her sister stopped working as a functional human being, and started doing things like a robot, without a sparkle of humanity, and she felt destroyed by that. She wanted to spend more time with her sister, yet now she was the cause of her breakdown.
Sweetie Belle wasn't doing any better. Grounded and forced to work in the house, she was forced to see the damage she had done to Rarity: if her sister was usually a flower in full bloom, her action turned Rarity into a withered and dry flower. Sweetie Belle witnessed Rarity tearing and ripping lots of dresses and accessories, closing all the colorful fabrics into the storage room and starting to wear tracksuits or occasionally shirts and pants who spaced between dark grey and light grey. The only thing Rarity said to her sister, after the whole incident, with a raspy and hurt tone, was that 'she stole all colors from her life'.
Scootaloo's case was different: her parents had to come home from overseas when they heard of what their daughter did. They were furious with her and mostly with themselves, being so immersed in work to care about what their daughter was doing. Rainbow Dash apologized to them a lot of times, but they seemed to understand that she wasn't at fault, as Scootaloo's involvement was because she idolized her almost as a sister and wanted to spend even more time with her. Snap and Mane could understand, but they grounded their daughter nonetheless.
With Princess Twilight out of the question, only one person could start making things right, and unfortunately, she was finding her 'forced vacation' in Equestria quite enjoyable...