//------------------------------//
// From Through the Looking Glass 
// Story: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Drink Kool-Aid 
// by MacArthurite 
//------------------------------//

The next two months were pretty uneventful. 

...

Unless you want me to spend the next hour describing all the tests I took, and all of the trouble the girls and I got up to, yes, we'll be skipping ahead. I can give you a quick summary, though.

School sucked. My grades didn't improve much, I could tell a lot of my teachers didn't like me, and pretty much every other student wanted nothing to do with me. So, not much different from my old school. The only thing that was different was the near-constant anxiety.

As you can imagine, going to a school with a bunch of pastel people (at least one of whom is an escaped denizen of Hell) did little to alleviate my stress. Combined with Pinkie's repeated attempts to track me down so we could "hang out", I'm honestly surprised that I didn't fall apart every other day. Luckily, two factors kept me from going over the edge. The first was the fact that after the third day, there was a long period of time where I didn't have any bombshells dropped on me. No new horrors or worldview-shattering revelations gave me time to process things. The second factor was that Pinkie's attention was divided between literally everyone at school. While she did find me interesting, she rarely had the time to hunt me down. If she had ever gotten the time to focus all her attention on me, I don't think I'd be sitting here today. None of that got rid of the anxiety, though.

Still, it wasn't all bad. I had Starlight and Lyra with me, and they singlehandedly made my time at Canterlot High bearable. Not only were they a blast to spend time with (if you had the patience to endure Starlight's tankie rants and Lyra's otherworldly musings), but they also actually gave a damn. Those two may be totally crazy, but they are also completely loyal to anyone who signs that cult pledge of theirs. They helped me with my homework, gave me tips on how to avoid being accosted by Trixie whenever she was in one of her moods, and even backed me up when Gilda was threatening to pound my face in after I spilled strawberry milk all over her leather jacket. Vice-Principal Luna intervened before a fight could break out, but we totally would've won.

Oh yeah. Speaking of Luna, the Principal sisters also made school more bearable for me. Luna met with me on a semi-frequent basis both in her role as guidance counselor, and as Canterlot High's senior disciplinarian. Unlike a lot of the other teachers, she looked fondly exasperated rather than annoyed during our talks. While it would be a stretch to say that she likes me, I like to think she doesn't hate me. 

As for Celestia, she only ever spoke with us a handful of times. She was constantly busy, so she only took the time to talk to us when her workload got lighter or whenever something serious went down, but she was always friendly when she did. She always had her signature motherly smile on when she saw us, and would always greet us warmly, so I think it's safe to say that she was in the same boat as her sister.

Of course, after everything that happened, they probably won't be smiling next time they see us.

Let's see, what else...? Oh! I also got a front-row seat to Flash Sentry's break-up with Sunset Shimmer. The three of us were just skipping class and minding our own business when we heard an argument coming from an empty classroom. We snuck over just in time to hear Flash tell Sunset that he was breaking up with her. I was pretty shocked since those two had been Canterlot High's power couple for longer than I'd been there. Before I could even process it, Sunset growled (audibly, like a dog) and got right up in his face. What followed was what I can only describe as a roasting of epic proportions. She destroyed him, pulverized him, absolutely dismantled him.

I don't even like Flash, but I almost cried on his behalf. It was that bad.

Both of them were silent for a moment before Sunset turned on her heels and started walking before she stopped after seeing us peeking in. Flash turned to see what had caused his ex to stop, and looked mortified when he realized his verbal execution had been overheard.

We booked it after that, no one in our group wanting to be on the receiving end of the Queen Bee's ire. Sunset shot us a dirty look the next time she saw us, but thankfully continued to leave us alone aside from the occasional unprompted harassment. Flash, on the other hand, didn't come to school for the next couple of days. When he did return, he put on a brave face, but would always flinch whenever he caught sight of us in the hallways.

In hindsight, I should've given the man a bro-hug. It might've restored some of his lost manly pride by showing that I didn't think any less of him even after overhearing his humiliation, and it might've gotten me some good will that would have come in handy later. Of course, he could've also just been freaked out that the weird ancap kid was hugging him. I guess we'll never know.

Anyway, enough summary! It's time to get on to the main event. It's time for a story about how three outcasts got sucked into a multi-dimensional conspiracy, pissed off everybody, and had a surprisingly fun time doing it.

Here's how we ruined the Fall Formal.





It all started on Halloween. When we came to school that morning, all three of us were excited for different reasons. Lyra was excited because we were all wearing costumes to school, I was excited because we'd agreed to go trick-or-treating in the evening (no, we are NOT "too old"), and Starlight was excited because she'd finally convinced us to implement an advertisement campaign for her cult. Thus, we all strode into school together as we usually did, each of us brimming with anticipation for the day ahead.

Our costumes were awesome, by the way. Starlight had opted to come as an NKVD officer, a choice that did not surprise anyone who'd talked to her for more than five minutes. My obvious distaste for her statist costume aside, it was well-made, and she clearly had fun playing the part if her giddy smile while she yelled at random students was any indication. Lyra chose to dress as Queen Victoria. Unlike Starlight, she didn't obnoxiously flaunt the authority of her fake position, but she was visibly happy with her costume. It was as if cosplaying as a royal made her feel more confident, allowing her to shrug off pointed looks and laughter with more ease than usual. Lastly, I dressed up as Patrick Bateman because I thought it'd be funny.

School proceeded as usual until the agreed upon time of 11:00, at which point we all asked to go to the bathroom and met up under the stairs to initiate our plan. 

When Starlight first proposed the idea of advertising HEH to the masses, Lyra and I were skeptical. Most people didn't want anything to do with us, so how would we get them to listen to us? After a brainstorming session, we came up with a brilliant idea that addressed both our poor reputations and the average teen's goldfish-tier attention span. After only ten minutes, we'd distributed all of our material, and slipped back into our classes with our teachers none the wiser. At lunch, a jubilant Starlight confidently predicted that new recruits would be pouring in by the end of the day.

Unfortunately, when we were called into the Vice-Principal's office during fourth period, we saw all our advertisements stacked on her desk. 





Luna held up two of our brochures.

"Could any of you three tell me what these are?"

I made a show of examining our work. The basic format of our advertisements was the same in both variants: the name of our cult at the top, a short summary of our platform and contact information on the back, and eye-popping clipart to grab the attention of the viewer. We were no professional salesmen, but I thought our work was pretty good.

"They look like tasteful brochures to me," I said honestly.

"These are borderline pornographic," she deadpanned.

She wasn't wrong; we'd plastered our brochures with risqué pictures of super models we found on Google Images. After deciding to disseminate brochures, we had to deal with the problem of getting people to actually read them. We discussed a few ideas before coming to a realization: what better way to grab the attention of horny teenagers than to target their hormones? The end result was two stacks of brochures. One for girls, which bore pictures of sweaty, muscular men; and one for boys, which contained pictures of bikini-clad bombshells. 

I shrugged, "You've gotta grab the audience's attention somehow."

Luna set the brochures down and steepled her hands.

"While I applaud your...creativity, this sort of behavior can't-"

"It wasn't us, Vice-Principal Luna."

We all turned to Starlight, who met Luna's gaze with a confident smirk.

"I beg your pardon?" Luna responded.

"It wasn't us, Vice-Principal Luna," Starlight repeated. "This is obviously a conspiracy against us!"

Luna arched an eyebrow and turned to us, "Do you two agree with this...theory of hers?"

"Yep."

"We're just patsies."

Lyra and I responded without a second of hesitation. If Starlight had decided that this was the lie she was going with, we'd roll with it. Friends don't throw friends under the bus.

Luna stared at us for a long moment, "So you're telling me that you weren't involved even though your teachers testified that you were all simultaneously out of class right before the brochures were first reported, said brochures contain your contact information, and we have security camera footage of you three putting them in all the bathrooms on the second floor? Is that right?"

The three of us shared a look, before nodding. When in doubt, double down.

"That's right."

"This conspiracy clearly goes all the way to the top. Investigate the staff!"

"What they said."

Luna closed her eyes and started rubbing her temples.

"You three have detention after school. Get out."





The three of us had a great night after doing our time. We got a bunch of free candy, nearly got in a fight with a group of parents in front of their kids, and escaped from Pinkie (who was appropriately dressed as the devil) before she could drag us to her Halloween party. Good times.

After swinging by Moonburger for midnight milkshakes and having an impromptu karaoke competition in the car, we drove to the school and hauled our candy hoards over to the front steps. 

...

Why there? Because we needed somewhere to count out how much candy we'd gotten. The car was too cramped, we'd wake everybody up if we did it at mine or Lyra's place, and Starlight refused to take us to her house. The school was just the most convenient option since it was close and we didn't think anyone would be there.

We had just finished counting our admittedly small amount of candy (a lot of houses told us to scram when they saw how old we were), stuffed it back in our pillowcases, and were just about to head out when a loud noise pierced through the silence.

*CLANG*

We jumped up, our eyes wide and scanning our surroundings. My first thought was that Gilda had tracked us down to finally seek revenge for her jacket, but I quickly realized that wasn't the case. Subtlety was not that girl's style. If it was her, she would've already announced her presence. My second thought was that it was Pinkie, but before I could begin panicking at the thought, I noticed something laying on the ground not far from us.

I hesitantly pointed to it, "Was that there before?"

Laying not far from the base of the tacky horse statue out front was a golden crown that sported a six-pointed star-shaped gem. I was almost certain it hadn't been there before, but to be fair, I'd spent the last few minutes entirely focused on wolfing down Almond Joys.

Lyra's eyes narrowed, "Isn't that the Fall Formal Crown?"

"It is," Starlight snarled. "I'd recognize that imitation of bourgeois decadence anywhere!"

I knew next to nothing about the Fall Formal since I'd spaced out every time one of the teachers harped on about it, so I just shrugged.

"What's it doing here?" I asked. "It wasn't there before, right?"

"No," Starlight answered me. "I've been keeping an eye on our surroundings this whole time, and I know it wasn't there until now."

"Then where did it come from?" 

We looked around warily. Again, we still didn't see anyone else, but that just made it feel like a trap. Starlight and I quickly circled the statue, our pillowcases held tightly and ready to be used as makeshift weapons, but we still didn't see anyone. We came back around in time to see Lyra gently nudge the crown with her foot.

"Holy crap," Lyra breathed, quickly bending down and picking it up. "I think this is real gold. Solid gold."

Eyes wide, Starlight and I rushed over and examined it more closely, our wariness forgotten. Sure enough, Lyra was right. That crown looked genuine, and for that matter, far more expensive than anything a public school budget would allow for a school dance. 

"Principal Celestia has something like this for a prom knockoff?" I asked in disbelief.

"No." I looked at Starlight, who looked just as shocked as I was. "The crown has always been made of painted steel."

I furrowed my brow; the situation was getting weirder by the second. If what Starlight said was true, then there were two possibilities. Either Principal Celestia had a temporary bout of insanity and spent a small fortune having a more expensive crown made, or someone else did. In either case, why? And how on Earth had it ended up in front of the school at midnight? 

I was puzzling over those questions when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. I spun around and glanced up to see the mirror on the base of the statue was rippling like the surface of a puddle in a rainstorm. Before I could even begin to comprehend what I was looking at, Sunset Shimmer walked out of the damn mirror.

Sunset was wearing an expression of smug self-assurance when she first emerged, but froze like a deer in the headlights when she saw us.

She stared.

I stared. 

Starlight and Lyra stared. 

None of us so much as moved for a solid minute. Sunset cracked first, her eyes darting down to the crown, then up at Lyra who was holding it. 

My eyes darted to the crown, then to Lyra, then back to Sunset.

Sunset seemed to finally regain her composure, steeling her expression and taking a step forward.

"You-"

She didn't have time to finish. Acting on pure instinct, I lunged forward and shoved her back through the mirror. I turned back to the girls, meeting their wide-eyed looks with one of my own. Another moment of silence passed before we all started sprinting towards Starlight's car. 

We were about halfway there when an enraged screech echoed from behind us.

"GET BACK HERE, YOU FREAKS!"

Instead of making the rookie mistake of looking back, we picked up the pace. We practically dove into the car, and within about four nail-biting seconds, Starlight had turned on the car, put it in drive, and ripped out of the parking lot. Once we were safe, I looked back to see Sunset waving her arms and screaming incessantly at us, her threats barely audible over the roar of the engine. Once the school was out of sight, we descended into another tense silence. 

This time, I was the first to crack.

"Did Sunset just walk through a fucking mirror?!"