Sunset, Rarity, and Vignette went out of the room and into the hallway to the Madame's room, where the Madame herself was currently at. As expected from their previous conversation, there were two large stallion guards standing in front of the Madame's door, keeping alert for any intruders or signs of trouble. Unlike a lot of the ponies she had been encountering during her time back in Equestria, these stallions were completely unrecognizable to Sunset, so she simply went on with their plan and didn't think too much of another mission to sneak past some security guards.
Although Sunset herself wasn't too afraid of them, given what she went through back at Canterlot with Max Steele, Rarity and Vignette were more nervous. After all, if Sunset were to get caught, they'd imagine the worst that would happen to her would simply be getting kicked out of the building. But if they were to end up displeasing the Madame after getting caught, they could both kiss their careers goodbye. Before Sunset came along, the situation seemed completely hopeless, with the Madame blackmailing the two to where neither of them would even dare attempt to retaliate.
Rarity and Vignette basically had a choice in either serving their greedy and pompous boss without much compensation, or simply living life with the Madame constantly badmouthing them. Neither path sounded particularly pleasing, which still ended up making them question if this payment from their jobs was truly worth it at all. However, it was Sunset's words and seemingly foolproof plan that had given them the confidence to finally stand up against their corrupt boss, just as she had previously done with Derpy. With that said and done, the three ponies ventured further on, hoping to finally expose the Madame to everypony else in the outside world of who she truly was. Of course, the first obstacle in their path was getting around the guards, before they could even reach the Madame herself. Rarity peaked around the corner to see the two stallions watching the door at the end of the hallway, not making even the slightest budge.
"Rarity." Sunset whispered. "Are you sure you can handle this, just like we planned?"
"Oh, of course, dear." Rarity whispered back. "I've even helped Fluttershy get the last batch of asparagus at the market with my skills. And even if this somehow fails, you two remember what to do, right?"
Sunset and Vignette nodded back, before Rarity calmly trotted down the hall and up to the two stallions. As Rarity wasn't actively attempting to enter the Madame's room, the guards didn't pay too much attention to her presence, until she started speaking up.
"Why hello." Rarity began in a flirty tone. "What are a couple of handsome and strong stallions like yourselves doing in this building alone?"
The stallions simply ignored this question, as it seemed inconsequential to answer her. They were being paid to watch the Madame's door and keep out any intruders, so they simply carried on, but kept their guards up if Rarity were to pull a quick one.
"I see, not very talkative, are we?" Rarity observed. "Well, I was just feeling lonely and wanted to see if either of you wanted to have a quick lunch with me? I do know a good place down the street that serves delicious hayburgers."
"Not at all." Brick House finally answered. "We get paid by the hour, and it's going to take a lot more than a mare and some food to get us to abandon our posts."
"Well, I dunno." Night Watch slowly began accepting Rarity's offer. "Bud, we've been standing here for nearly 7 hours now without a single break or opportunity to get lunch."
"That's because we're guarding the Madame's room, and she pays big amounts for us to stay here without any breaks." Brick House huffed to his partner.
Upon hearing this, Rarity thought of another way to persuade the guards to leave their post. It seemed possible that these guards could potentially be unhappy with the Madame's treatment as well.
"Is that so?" Rarity questioned. "Well, if that's the case, how's the payment she's actually given you two?"
"Me?" Night Watch began. "It's my first day on the job, and she's mentioned she doesn't pay us until the end of the week. But I'm sure it'll be worth it when she finally does pay us."
"End of the week?" Brick House asked rhetorically. "I've been working here for nearly a month now and I haven't gotten paid yet. But I trust the Madame since she mentioned there was a problem in her finance deposits. She promised she'll pay me back with interest once it's resolved."
"What!" Night Watch exclaimed. "I can't believe we're selling ourselves to do all this for her, and she can't even do something as simple as pay us on time!"
"Oh, you wouldn't believe it." Rarity said with dismay. "I actually know a good friend of mine who worked on a beautiful vest for the Madame, only for her to expect a dress and refuse to pay her. Despite the fact she never asked for an actual dress, just something nice to wear."
"Well in that case..." Night Watch had a blank expression on his face before he trotted away from his position and over to Rarity. "I'm sure she won't mind me taking a quick break if she's going to be this sticky with paying for things. I'll take your offer for lunch, ma'am!"
"Splendid, dear!" Rarity said with approval. "Come this way, we haven't a minute to lose!"
"You'll actually sacrifice your career over a little lunch?" Brick House addressed his security partner. "That's up to you then, but I ain't going anywhere unless the Madame says so."
"Suit yourself!" Rarity replied nonchalantly as she escorted the other stallion out the building.
"I wasn't quite expecting both of the guards to leave anyways." Vignette whispered under her breath.
Sunset and Vignette were hiding behind furniture to avoid drawing any suspicion of foul play, before continuing on with their plan. Since Rarity was able to successfully remove one of the guards, the task felt much easier than originally expected, as she subtly used her magic to withdraw the building's keys from Night Watch's pockets, and passed them to Sunset. Even if the remaining guard was to somehow start chasing after them, it was still two against one, and one of them had a way to easily get inside. However, they still decided it was best to not get careless, as even if they could get past this guard, there was still the matter of dealing with the Madame.
"Alright, let's hope this plan works." Sunset said to Vignette, before the fashionista casually trotted up to the guard down the hall.
"Hi there." Vignette said with a friendly tone to the stallion. "I was wondering if I could please speak with the Madame?"
"Miss Valencia." Brick addressed the fashionista. "You know for a fact that nopony is allowed to see the Madame directly before the show. If you could kindly leave and stop wasting my time, that'd be much appreciated."
"Oh, okay. I guess that's reasonable." Vignette replied. "But I guess that means neither of us will be getting a salary increase from the Madame for protecting her show. Because I just noticed there seems to be a suspicious pony in the building who's attempting to sabotage the show or steal from her."
"I'm not going to believe you for a second until I see it with my own eye-" Brick began, before he noticed a pony around the corner behind Vignette, wearing a black suit and ski mask. His initial thought was believing the pony was either a burglar or vandalist, and immediately ran right past Vignette before yelling. "Hey, I see you there! Turn yourself in now and I promise I'll go easy on you!"
Unknown to Brick, this was actually Sunset, who had taken the ski mask and suit from the dressing room earlier. Just as Sunset had anticipated, the guard ran directly toward her direction, so she immediately turned the corner and sprinted. After sprinting enough, she had stopped at an intersection leading toward another two hallways, before hiding herself in a closet, much like she did back when Max had chased her at Canterlot. The plan seemed to be going smoothly, as Sunset was now expecting the guard to run past the closet and into the hallways, hopefully buying her and Vignette some time for the next phase.
Although Vignette was behind the guard, Sunset was still expecting her to eventually catch up and find her in the closet, so that they could switch places. Vignette would wear the burglar disguise to lure any other security guards away from the Madame's room, while Sunset could go investigate. Unfortunately, the plan seemed to derail for a moment, as Brick actually had pretty wide range of hearing, being able to pick up a door being slammed, even from a fair distance away. Due to this, he was able to surmise that the burglar had hid themselves, either in a nearby room or closet. By an unexpected turn of events, Sunset was shocked when she eventually saw the pony who ended up opening the closet door wasn't Vignette, but instead, the guard.
"Thought you could get away from me, did you?" Brick asked Sunset in a hostile manner.
Sunset was initially panicking, realizing she didn't exactly prepare for the guard actually finding her in the closet. Thankfully, by some miracle, she was saved when she saw Brick had somehow been knocked out, and noticed what happened as he collapsed. It was Vignette, who had luckily been following behind as he was focused on searching for Sunset. She had snuck up to him and grabbed a nearby vase to break over his head, in case he somehow found Sunset.
"I had a feeling he might do that." Vignette said. "He's definitely the most notorious security guard in this building for taking his job way too seriously and searching anywhere for trespassers. I'm generally not a pony who likes to play rough, but it seems I had no other choice there."
"Thanks for looking out for me." Sunset replied, as she took off her disguise and handed it to Vignette, who started putting it on herself.
"Well, even though the two security guards are gone, more are definitely going to show up soon." Vignette explained before pointing her hoof at Brick. "Especially once he regains consciousness. So even though we now have more leeway to get into the Madame's room, I'm afraid you'll still have to go in by yourself, like we originally planned. It's just too risky, and you might not have enough time to get everything you need if other guards are looking for us."
"Yeah, that's probably for the best." Sunset agreed. "Thanks for taking one for the team. I'd certainly feel like being the diversion for all the security guards would be the toughest role to fulfill. But don't you or Rarity worry. Once I get enough evidence of the Madame, neither of you will have to worry about her ever again."
Vignette nodded as both she and Sunset returned back to the hallway leading to the Madame's room. With both of the security guards gone, Sunset ran down the hall while Vignette kept an eye out for any other security guards, as she would now be a bait burglar for them to chase. Sunset listened on in the room and heard snoring, which came from the Madame as she was taking a quick nap before her big show. This seemed to luckily line up perfectly with her plan, as she had intended to plant a tape recorder in the room without her noticing.
Sunset used the key Rarity had swiped earlier from the other guard, and entered the Madame's room quietly. She then placed the tape recorder under one of the cushions of a nearby couch, and pressed the record button. Then she trotted over to the entry door and taped a note onto it. The note was written by Vignette and signed by an anonymous employee, demanding a hefty salary increase, as well as a 6 month vacation, which the Madame would surely not take kindly to. As Sunset was about to leave the room, it seemed like bad timing, as she began to hear yawning in the distance, which was the Madame slowly getting up from her bed after finishing her nap.
In a panic, Sunset quickly dove behind the same couch she had placed the tape recorder onto, as she noticed the Madame's approach was imminent. On the floor, she was able to find a vague piece of gear that she recognized, despite not being too familiar with Equestria's technology. She kept it hidden in her mane as a backup, in the case the tape recorder somehow failed.
The Madame had finally gotten out of her bed from the corner of the room and slowly approached the door. From the other side of the room where Sunset was hiding, she peaked around the couch's corner to get a good look at this Madame, and she was once again able to immediately recognize who it truly was. Since she was straight up told how manipulative and arrogant this Madame was, it was no surprise to Sunset in learning that the Madame was actually the pony counterpart of the abusive former headmaster of Crystal Prep Academy, Principal Abacus Cinch.
Admittedly, this made the whole sabotage mission feel a lot more satisfying for Sunset internally. After all, she definitely always had a personal vendetta against the human Cinch for manipulating Twilight into becoming Midnight Sparkle, which almost ended up dooming both the human world and Equestria. Although she never got to actually witness Cinch catch up to her consequences after the Friendship Games, it was still satisfying to learn sometime after from the Shadowbolts that she had been fired and replaced with Dean Cadance. Regardless, this abusive treatment toward Rarity was definitely enough of a motivation for Sunset to go through with helping her friend.
As Madame Cinch took notice of the note placed upon her door, she instinctively picked it off and read it. She immediately let out a frustrated groan, along with the fact the note was signed anonymously, so she couldn't chastise whoever wrote it. She crumpled up the note using her magic and tossed it in the trash, before trotting over to the couch, where Sunset was currently hiding behind. As Cinch took a seat, she began grumbling about how she felt about her employees.
"Stupid fashionistas and security guards." Cinch said to herself. "You can't trust anypony these days. First they mess up your order and expect payment for it, and then can't even be grateful for me paying them in exposure. And then you pay cheap security guards to keep out any intruders, and I get this joker who really believes I'll give them a raise and unreasonably long vacation. These degenerates really should be more thankful for how wonderfully generous I am to them. I'm just giving them exactly what they deserve. I'll even pay them with the old dust from under my bed if I feel they did their job terribly. A beauty queen like myself deserves absolute perfection, no less! Since I have the best connections all over Equestria, I'm so glad I can use this as leverage to leech off these dumb fools for free labor."
As Sunset listened on to Cinch's rant about her employees, she was glad to hear the Madame was truly letting it all out. The recorder was picking up everything perfectly, and a good majority of her monologue was effective at showing her true colors. The plan seemed absolutely foolproof, as once Cinch left the room, it would give Sunset the perfect opportunity to grab the tape recorder and present solid evidence of the Madame being an incredibly haughty and selfish tyrant, much like the human principal version of her. However, this feeling didn't last too long, as Sunset eventually heard Cinch say something that would increase her anxiety like never before.
"Say, wait a minute." Cinch muttered with slight suspicion. "Why does my sofa feel more lumpy than usual? Miss Valencia didn't do a shabby job at fluffing my cushions, did she?"
Madame Cinch got off the couch and removed the cushion she was sitting on, revealing the tape recorder Sunset had planted there with the 'on' button down and an active red light, indicating it was currently recording. She immediately frowned upon seeing this and began figuring out what was going on. Whoever put that note on her door was attempting to make her rant on her employees and record it as evidence to expose her. After becoming more alert and aware, she then instinctively grabbed the tape recorder and searched more thoroughly around the room, before eventually finding Sunset hiding behind the couch.
"Oh, you think this is funny, do you?" Cinch snapped at Sunset before raising the tape recorder in the air and smashing it on the floor, destroying it completely. "You trying to make movies, or what!?"
"No no!" Sunset insisted. "I can explain, you see-"
"Save it!" Cinch demanded before going over to pick up a telephone. "I know exactly what's going on now. You're trying to catch me in the act and destroy my perfect reputation here in Manehattan! I'll never let that happen! I'm going to call security and have you thrown in Manehattan prison, and then I'll fire them for letting you get in here!"
Sunset knew there was no use in trying to fool the Madame at this point, but kept in mind that she needed to do anything she could to expose the Madame, even if the tape recorder was now busted. After all, Rarity and Vignette's futures were on the line, and she would feel absolutely awful for abandoning the mission now and letting her friends down. As such, Sunset decided to improvise, as this scenario felt similar to what happened with Pinkie and herself when confronting Postcrush backstage at the festival.
"All right then." Sunset began shifting to a more hostile tone. "If you want to play dirty, so will I, Miss Drama Queen!"
Sunset quickly ran up to Cinch and slapped the phone out of her hooves. Then she quickly used her magic to blast a projectile at the phone, turning it into dust. A blazing fire began to appear in Cinch's eyes, as she stomped her hoof on the floor. There was no turning back now, and this meant war.
"You have just made the last mistakes you'll ever make in your entire life!" Cinch screamed. "Do you have any idea how much that hooficure of mine costed!? And that phone you destroyed was a valuable antique!!!"
"Well it still amuses me how you seemingly have so much money, and you can't even properly pay your employees." Sunset remarked, attempting to lure Cinch into chasing her. "Perhaps you should do yourself a favor, and maybe if you weren't buying all kinds of expensive and unnecessary junk, you could buy yourself a brain instead."
"Why you...!" Cinch snapped before going into a blind rage of fury and picking up a nearby wooden chair and slamming it against the wall, now using her magic to levitate sharp wooden shards. "Let's see how you'll run your mouth once I feed you some splinters!"
Sunset realized she had to tread lightly, as she was well aware that Cinch was now ready to legitimately harm her. She already knew Cinch was a pompous and domineering Madame, but hadn't expected she would turn out to be so aggressive and violent. This definitely gave Sunset all the more reason to put an end to her game, as she couldn't imagine how much more abusive Cinch would be if she didn't decide to step in to help Rarity and Vignette. However, much like with her clash with Gilda, she decided to fight smart rather than aggressive. She used her magic to levitate a nearby expensive painting off the wall in front of her as a shield to block any of Cinch's sudden stake attacks.
"That might be a super rare and limited edition painting..." Cinch sighed with slight grief. "But if sacrificing it means getting rid of you for good, the Madame will be absolutely satisfied!"
Cinch began pelting the fragments of chair toward Sunset, who was able to deflect all the fragments at ease, until the last fragment knocked the painting out of her grip. Sunset then immediately bolted toward a recording booth next to the Madame's room, consisting of microphones, equipment, and speakers. In a panic, she started looking around the room for anything that might assist her in exposing the Madame, as she finally rushed in, cornering Sunset.
The Madame knew Sunset would utilize the recording booth's equipment in an attempt to expose her again, so she simply kept quiet and used her magic to hurl various equipment at her. Unknown to her, Sunset was already one step ahead of her, and had agile ninja-like reflexes. It wasn't as effective as her techniques in human form, but spending enough time as a unicorn back in Equestria had already helped her get used to the postures. It was just enough for Sunset to dodge all of the attacks, before she finally used an open advantage to toss a microphone up at the ceiling, hitting a chandelier. The chandelier was immediately damaged due to Sunset's strength, falling on Cinch's head, and stunning her temporarily.
Sunset saw that the chandelier didn't knock Cinch unconscious like the guard from earlier, so she knew it was time to escape. Thankfully, having the one secret gear piece with her was all she needed, as it was then mostly just a matter of getting around the Madame in the recording room. As Cinch eased her head from the pain, her intent on pulverizing Sunset grew ever so stronger, as she eventually got up and took notice of Sunset leaving the room and back into the hallway she had originally come from.
"Those stupid security guards are going to get a real treat from me once I'm finished with her!" Cinch snapped, angry at how the two guards she hired to watch her room had failed at doing their job, before going back to chasing Sunset.
As Cinch pursued the intruder down the hallways, Sunset was admittedly worried she might be cornered for good if other security guards were in the building. However, while she was in the Madame's room, Vignette was able to successfully lure the guards into another floor of the building, giving Sunset more leeway to do what she needed. Although Sunset wasn't necessarily afraid of the security guards, she was certainly more worried of Cinch hurting her really badly if she caught up to her.
One thing remained for absolute certain, she had never expected that the pony counterpart of Cinch would be an aggressive and hostile monster, similar to the human Gilda that she fought. This might've been the first case of Sunset finally meeting somepony in Equestria who was much meaner than the human version she was familiar with. Although Cinch was indeed furious after Sunset and all the other students roasted her for everything she did, that Cinch still wasn't this uncivil and unforgiving. Sunset knew that this Cinch had to be stopped at all costs, as if she would willingly hunt Sunset down like this, there was no telling the extent of what she'd do with other ponies whom unlike Sunset, would never dare have the courage for standing up to the corrupt Madame.
Sunset's anxiety began to increase exponentially, as she looked back in the hallway and saw that Cinch was catching up to her. It might not have seemed like it, but the Madame was actually quite physically imposing. She could actually run just as fast, if not even faster than Sunset, and it looked like she was going to catch up soon. Sunset was hoping there was something anywhere in the building she could use to slow her down, and her prayers were answered when she turned the corner and saw a mop with a bucket of water that a janitor must've forgotten to put away. She used her magic to quickly levitate the bucket and dumped it on the floor as she ran past, leaving a huge puddle in the middle of the hall. At this point, Sunset was certainly happy to be used to having her magic again, as this was always something she admittedly missed back in the human world.
Cinch was too fixated on going after Sunset that she failed to take notice of the floor being soaked. Her speed didn't do her any favors as the momentum finally put a stop in her tracks, making her slip and fall to the floor, cracking her glasses. Sunset noticed this as she kept a safe distance from Cinch further down the hall, before using the moment to catch her breath, as she was getting tired from the sudden sprint she just did. Sunset backed away slowly to get a head start, before eventually feeling a hoof on her back. She swiftly turned around in surprise, but it was thankfully only Vignette in her burglar disguise, and not a security guard.
"Hey, how are you holding up?" Vignette asked Sunset. "The other four security guards of the building started chasing me while you were in the Madame's room, but I managed to lose them on the third floor."
"Oh, that's good to know." Sunset expressed in temporary relief. "I'm afraid the tape recorder didn't exactly go as planned, but luckily, I have another trick up my hooves. We might need to start running away though, because the Madame caught me in her room and is now chasing me."
"Oh my." Vignette said in a worrisome manner. "We should probably split up before she-"
But before Vignette could even finish, she and Sunset turned around to see the Madame had gotten up from her fall and was back to chase the intruder. However, she stopped temporarily as she took notice of Vignette standing next to Sunset, dressed as a burglar.
"What is this, a prowler has found their way into my building too!?" Cinch gritted her teeth. "Those security guards are so going to get it once I'm through here! You want a job done, you gotta do it yourself, it seems. You two, are so going down!!!"
Sunset and Vignette looked at each other quickly and nodded, as the chase continued. They kept on running into the hallways, before eventually coming up to a three way intersection. Vignette headed left to the staircases, while Sunset ran right into a rehearsal room. Since the Madame was more focused on punishing Sunset first, she only took notice of which way Sunset went, and followed directly behind her. Vignette noticed this and saw an advantage to this, before formulating another plan that would show everypony who the Madame was on the inside. The rehearsal room was unfortunately a dead end, so Sunset had to hide somewhere and hope Cinch wouldn't end up finding her. The Madame ran straight up to the door but saw that Sunset had locked it from the other side, so she kicked it down and entered the room without any issue. Thankfully, since the room was relatively large in size, it would force Cinch to go through all the props and equipment before she could even find a small hint of Sunset's presence. Unknown to her, Sunset was actually hiding directly behind two bookshelves right next to the door that barely had enough space to hide a full adult mare behind.
Vignette knew however, that the rehearsal room was actually directly behind the auditorium stage, where many ponies were already sitting and awaiting the show, thanks to the free admission. She took a look at the clock and noticed it was now five minutes before the actual show, meaning that most of the seats were likely already filled. She also remembered that the building's construction team had notified her about a damaged wall on the far left of the rehearsal room, and that nopony in maintenance had been appointed to scheduled repairs. The wall was so fragile that anypony could very easily knock it down with little to no effort.
As Cinch was frantically searching the far right of the room, Vignette slowly peaked inside the room, before noticing Sunset behind the bookshelves, as she winked to her. Since Cinch was too focused on the other end of the room, Sunset quietly crept out from behind the bookshelves and slowly exited the room with Vignette. They slowly made their way together past another hallway before Vignette began to instruct Sunset on a plan she had just come up with.
"You know that recording booth next to the Madame's room?" Vignette whispered.
"Yeah, I was just there a bit earlier." Sunset confirmed.
"I got another idea." Vignette said, quietly. "All I need you to do is get back to that room and find the button labeled 'lights' on it, it's a big red button, so you can't miss it. All right?"
"Got it." Sunset nodded. "Let's just hope this time we can actually outsmart the Madame."
Sunset and Vignette then went their separate ways. Sunset carefully made her way back to the recording room where the Madame tried to assault her with all kinds of recording equipment. Vignette meanwhile, took off her burglar disguise and peaked around the corner to note the Madame was still searching at the far end of the room, giving her the proper advantage. She snuck into the rehearsal room and carefully placed a light unicorn mannequin right next to the area with the weakened wall. She then subtly placed a tarp over it, which would fool the Madame into believing Sunset was there, hiding underneath the tarp. Vignette then exited the room, and the Madame thankfully didn't notice anything. It seemed as if she was really adamant that Sunset would be hiding anywhere in the piles of props, rather than an obvious spot.
As Vignette was now outside the room, she picked up a random object from the room and tossed it hard at the side of the room with the mannequin, which caught the Madame's attention. As Vignette peaked around the corner and saw the Madame was now focusing on the other end, she then knew it was her cue to quickly make her way to the stage, and she thankfully knew a shortcut around the building. Madame Cinch was now alert and searching this side of the room, after hearing that strange noise that couldn't occur under normal circumstances. She then noticed the mannequin Vignette had set up, and knew she had finally found where her intruder was hiding.
She only played it casually, trying to let 'Sunset' keep her guard down, before she eventually made a full force tackle toward the mannequin, which also sent both it and her through the weakened wall and onto the stage in the auditorium. It was too dark for the Madame to notice she was now on the stage, but as she seemingly finally caught Sunset and was ready to pound her into pieces, she did so in the darkness, before Vignette finally arrived nearby and was about to pull the curtains to show everypony what the Madame was doing.
Meanwhile, Sunset was lucky enough to make it all the way back to the recording room, and noticed a camera pointing at the stage, where Vignette then pulled the curtains away. Sunset then knew this was her cue to push the lights button, and as she did, three bright spotlights shined on the Madame, showing to everypony in the audience she was absolutely decimating a lifeless mannequin. As it took a moment for Madame Cinch to finally notice she was not pulverizing Sunset, but rather, a unicorn mannequin, she then looked behind her to see a whole crowd of ponies in shock and surprise, witnessing the Madame enact such unprofessional acts of violence, let alone on an inanimate object.
"Ahem, Madame?" One of the ponies on the news team questioned from the audience. "I do believe we all deserve an answer as to why you're pounding down a mannequin? We are broadcasting this whole show live, by the way."
"Oh, umm, I was searching for a prowler in the building, and I heroically tried to stop them after seeing one in the darkness, since I wanted to give my security guards a break." Cinch fabricated. "I guess I was mistaken when I saw this wasn't an actual pony."
As the crowd of ponies in the audience murmured to one another with mixed feelings, the news reporter spoke up again.
"Even then, we don't really see this as professional behavior from a Madame of all ponies." The reporter announced. "And it doesn't seem likely for you to do this right before the show. Is there something you're not telling us, Madame?"
As Cinch was about to continue denying things, Sunset was watching this live from the recording room, and noticed there was also a speaker button, usually used by hosts who participate in providing live commentary for large events. Sunset then became crafty and finally brought the secret gear out of her mane which she grabbed earlier when hiding behind the couch. It was a small two-way radio that was used by security guards, likely left there in the Madame's room by mistake. Unknown to the Madame, even after she found the tape recorder and smashed it to pieces, Sunset was still using this radio to secretly record further audio of her, and she thankfully still had everything nasty she said saved on the device. She put her hoof on the speaker button to activate the microphone and placed the radio in front of it.
Not too long after, the stage's speakers began pumping out the audio Sunset had recorded of the Madame when she thought she was speaking to herself in private. The audience began hearing everything, including the news reporters who were broadcasting this live to everypony else in Equestria. They could very clearly hear how Cinch treated her fashionistas, the awful things she said about her security guards who were still doing their jobs, and even how she exploited ponies for labor by threatening to talk badly of them due to her good connections. Everypony in the audience gasped in absolute horror, thinking they were going to get a beauty pageant, but only ended up with seeing how ugly both the Madame was internally and even externally. Sunset then stopped the playback button on the radio before heading over to the auditorium herself.
Everypony in the audience began booing at the Madame, some threw rotten tomatoes at her face, while others began to get up from their seats and leave, not wanting to waste anymore of their time with somepony like her. The news reporter finally turned back around to the camera before giving her two cents.
"Well, that was certainly shocking, everypony." The reporter said. "I suppose that one thing's for certain, if you have connections all over Equestria, that can go either way. But it seems like the Madame of Manehattan had shown quite a bit of ugliness all over, which is quite ironic when you consider this whole event was a beauty pageant. Regardless, I think we've seen and heard everything we need to, and this will now be your decision on whether or not you want to support this Madame. As it stands though, I do believe everypony here in the audience is in agreement, that we will now leave the event before it even started. Manehattan News out!"
By this point, everypony in the auditorium were all gone, except for Madame Cinch, Vignette, and Sunset, who had now entered the room herself. Cinch wept in defeat, before eventually getting up and seeing Vignette and Sunset on the other side of the stage.
"You! YOU TWO!!!" Cinch screamed at the top of her lungs. "You may have exposed me, but I can still expose you two to a world of agony and despair!"
As Sunset and Vignette initially hugged each other for comfort before getting ready to run, they were thankfully saved rather quickly. A police mare had entered the building and restrained Cinch, along with the other former security guards who used to work for the Madame.
"Not so fast!" Copper Top announced before placing hoofcuffs on the Madame. "Madame, you are under arrest for fraud, disrespect of the local authorities, and from what we had just witnessed, attempted assault. You have the right to remain silent, and anything you do or say now can be used against you in a court of law."
"LET ME GO!!!" Cinch bellowed, as she kept struggling to escape from the police ponies and security guards. "IT'S THEM!!! THEY'RE THE BURGLARS WHO TRIED TO ROB THE POOR MADAME!!!"
The struggle was only in vain, as the many guards had eventually restrained and apprehended the Madame. They did not buy her claims in the slightest, and began to escort her out of the building. As she did, Sunset and Vignette walked up to her, now feeling assured that her restraints would keep them both out of harm's way. Sunset then saw this as a perfect opportunity to reiterate the words Twilight once told her back during the events of the Fall Formal.
"You will never rule over Manehattan, any power you've had in this town is gone. Tonight, you've shown everypony who you really are. You've shown them what is in your heart."
Unlike Sunset, who once teared up in sorrow and immediately apologized for her cruel deeds upon hearing these exact words, Cinch showed no form of remorse or regret. She instead only made a face of disgust toward Sunset, as the security guards finally escorted her out of the room, and eventually out of the building. This one gesture alone was enough to tell Sunset that she did good, and that she not only freed Rarity and Vignette from such tyranny, but anypony else who might've been stiffed hard by such a greedy Madame. Sunset and Vignette then looked to each other with proud expressions before doing a high five with their hooves, happy that they made a pretty good team together.