The seven friends stared at the approaching police officer for a long moment before Apple Bloom broke the silence.
“Wait a second, Applejack got pulled over?” she asked.
“And then you ditched the cops?” Scootaloo smiled widely “That’s awesome!”
“It’s so daring; so rebellious!” Sweetie agreed.
“Now girls, I’m sure that’s not what happened,” Fluttershy laid gentle hands on two of their shoulders. “I’m sure Pinkie, Applejack, and Sonata had very good and completely legitimate reasons for breaking the law.”
“Tacos!” Sonata smiled and clapped her hands.
Fluttershy blinked. “Oh, or-or not.”
“Well, it was nice knowin’ ya, Pinks,” Rainbow smirked. “See ya in ten to twenty years.”
“Um,” Pinkie’s eyes flicked back and forth, searching for an escape route. “Maybe… it isn’t him? Maybe it’s just somebody cosplaying as a cop? People cosplay as cops, right?”
“No, that’s definitely the guy whose car we hit,” Sonata confirmed. “I hope he’s not still mad about his mirror,” she added with a frown.
“W-well, uh, maybe… maybe he hasn’t spotted us yet?” Pinkie said. “Y-yeah! He could just want to get in line for tacos!”
“He’s staring right at us,” Rainbow said with a shake of her head. Pinkie gulped and panicked for a moment more before her wild gaze settled on Rainbow. She dropped to her knees, grasping the front of Dash’s shirt and staring up at the athlete with giant blue eyes that would’ve put even the cutest puppy to shame, her lower lip pushed out into a trembling pout.
“Ugh, stop that,” Rainbow groused, looking off to the side. After a moment when Pinkie still hadn’t released her shirt, she looked back and found that Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo had joined her pink friend, all staring up at her pleadingly. “Oh, c’mon! You girls too?”
Impossibly, the cuteness intensified. Eyebrow twitching, Rainbow let out a disgusted groan.
“Fine! Fine, just stop looking so pathetic!” She shook her head again. “I swear, one of these days you’re gonna give somebody diabetes with that routine.” She turned and looked in the police officer’s direction, noting that he’d almost reached them. “Ok, I’ll distract him as long as I can. Pinkie, you and Sonata run for it; he’s not after anybody else.”
“But what about the tacos?” Sonata frowned.
“We’ll just have to find some someplace else! C’mon, this way!” Pinkie said with her usual cheer as she took Sonata’s hand and started leading her away through the throng. “Thanks Dashie; you’re the best!” she shouted over her shoulder.
“Bye everyone!” Sonata likewise waved. Rainbow rolled her eyes and turned around to face her approaching foe.
“We’ll help too!” Apple Bloom said.
“Yeah! If Rainbow Dash is gonna fight the law, then so’re we!” Scootaloo declared with a determined smile.
“Does anyone else think that’s ironic since we’re dressed up as superheroes?” Sweetie Belle questioned.
“Oh, I don’t know if starting a fight is such a good idea,” Fluttershy wrung her hands together. “Maybe we should just talk to him? You never know, he might be a nice person.”
“Nobody is gonna fight anybody,” Rainbow clarified. “Just stand back. I’ll take care of this, ok?” As she turned to await the police officer’s arrival, she swallowed hard. “Somehow…”
A moment later and Shining Armor pushed through the last line of convention attendees, his eyes flashing over the crowd to try and pick out the retreating outlines of Pinkie and Sonata. He nearly walked right past Rainbow and the others without so much as a glance.
“Whoa, wait up there big guy!” Rainbow said as she stepped into his path and held both her hands up defensively.
“Excuse me miss; please step aside,” Shining Armor replied absently, his gaze still scanning over Rainbow’s head.
“What’s your hurry? Not enjoying Nerdvana?” Rainbow smirked. Shining Armor looked down at her, his face the definition of stern.
“Move aside.”
“Hehe,” she jittered, “So, uh… you ever arrest anybody?” She heard a triple-smack behind her that sounded a lot like three young girls facepalming.
“I’m thinking about it,” Shining said. “Last warning. Move aside, please.” Even as he spoke he began making his way around Rainbow, and on instinct she sidestepped to block him, her arms out as if she were guarding someone on the court, and grinned.
“If you think you can get past me that easily you-HEY!”
In the blink of an eye, Shining grabbed one of her outstretched arms, pulled, and twisted, forcing Rainbow to spin until her wrist was pressed painfully against her back. She felt a foot sweep out her own and the next thing she knew she was headed face-first for the ground.
“Oof!” she landed with a grunt that knocked the wind out of her, and a well-positioned knee on her upper back kept her face pressed to the pavement. “Lemme go!”
“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo shouted as the three Crusaders stood open-mouthed. Fluttershy clapped both hands to the sides of her face, her eyes wide.
“It’s pretty obvious you’re trying to cover for those girls, so I’ll make you a deal,” Shining said calmly from his position on Rainbow’s back. “Tell me where they’re going, and I won’t throw you in jail for obstructing an officer.”
“Ugh!” Rainbow strained to try and free herself. “Bite me!”
Shining Armor shook his head and gave a disappointed frown as he reached for the back of his belt with his free hand, pulling forth a set of handcuffs. “Have it your way.”
“We can’t let Rainbow Dash get arrested!” Scootaloo said.
“Fluttershy,” Apple Bloom pleaded, “can’t you do somethin’?”
“I-I’m not s-sure what I could-”
“Please, Fluttershy!” Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo said together. Fluttershy swallowed hard.
“Oh, a-all right, I’ll try,” Fluttershy said through chattering teeth. She took a deep breath and padded softly up next to Shining Armor, who was trying to wrench Rainbow’s flailing other arm into a position to put on the cuffs. “Um, e-excuse me…”
“Back off!” Shining Armor growled, whipping his head around to try and intimidate whoever was sneaking up on him so quietly. It worked a little too well, because Fluttershy squeaked and shrunk in on herself, tears leaping to her eyes as she cowered. He hesitated and his expression softened, not quite sure what to make of the mewling girl in front of him. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Are you all right?”
As they watched the scene unfold along with a number of con-goers who were close enough to see it all go down, the Crusaders experienced what they had come to call a ‘moment’.
Apple Bloom perked up as an idea started to form in her mind. Just as she turned to Scootaloo, the purple-haired girl’s eyes widened as she too had exactly the same thought. They nodded at each other as Sweetie Belle, sensing that something was going on, turned to them in curiosity. They smirked mischievously, but Sweetie Belle only tilted her head and frowned, leading Apple Bloom to roll her eyes and Scootaloo to cross her arms and start tapping her foot. After another few seconds, a look of realization dawned on Sweetie’s face, and she grinned from ear to ear.
With a silent, synchronized nod, the Crusaders leaped into action.
Before Shining Armor could get a real answer out of the crying Fluttershy, he felt something small and light crash roughly into his side and then flop onto the ground next to him. He looked down to find that for some reason he now had two people laying underneath him: the one with the polychromatic hair whom he remembered putting there, and… a miniature Zapp from Power Ponies?
Unlike Rainbow, ‘Zapp’ was on her back, and looked up at him with a passable imitation of disdain and discomfort.
“Help, HELP!” she shouted suddenly, “I’m being oppressed!”
Shining opened his mouth but his attention was pulled away as a tiny Mistress Marevelous collapsed on his right, between himself and Fluttershy. “Come see the violence inherent in the system!” she cried out, holding her head and contorting her body in pretend agony.
His brain reeling while trying to comprehend where these pint-sized superheroes kept coming from, he just so happened to look up in time to see a similarly small version of Radiance launch herself directly at his face. He released his hold on Rainbow, instinctively trying to stand and catch the spandex-clad girl even as she threw her arms about his neck. Unlike the other two, who had at least tried to look convincing, mini-Radiance wore a gigantic smile as she stared at him with sparkling, excited eyes. Eyes that sent a shiver down his spine and formed a ball of ice in his stomach as she reared back, taking in a tremendous breath.
“I NEED AN ADULT!!”
Her impossibly loud scream left Shining’s ears ringing while simultaneously silencing every nerd-born conversation within a fifty-foot radius. Several hundred heads turned to face the sound, most of them settling their gaze on the sight of a CPD officer with three young women writhing on the ground at his feet, a fourth on her knees with tears streaming down her face, and a fifth, clearly underaged one clutched tightly against his chest.
Shining Armor had exactly enough time to comprehend how truly screwed he was before the shouting horde descended and fully surrounded him.
“Hey! Let go of that girl!”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“How could you just attack a group of defenseless kids?!”
“Police brutality!”
“H-hey!” Shining Armor pleaded as he unsuccessfully tried to disentangle himself from Sweetie Belle. “This isn’t what it looks like! Now back off before I have to-”
“Are you threatening us while we’re just standing around?”
“Yeah! What kinda crap is that when you’re the one beating up teenage girls!”
“Wait, is he even a cop? What if he’s just cosplaying?”
“Ew, that’s even worse, he’s just a sadistic perv!”
Shining Armor finally pried Sweetie Belle off his neck and set her down, barely aware of her as she scampered away. He raised both his hands into the air, trying to address the crowd. All alone in the midst of a mob like this he didn’t dare antagonize them any further by going for his sidearm or nightstick.
“Everyone please listen to me! I am an officer of the Canterlot Police Department! I’m looking for three young girls who-”
“You think that gives you the right to just come here and harass us?”
“Get out of here, you bully!”
“Yeah, he is just a bully!”
“He probably picked on people like us in high school and thinks he can get away with it now just because he wears a badge!”
“Me?” Shining actually laughed. “You think I was a bully? I was a complete nerd in high school just like all of you!”
“Now you’re making fun of us?!”
“Just ‘cause you’re a cop doesn’t mean you can stand there throwing out insults!”
“No, that’s not what I-” Shining tried to explain.
“Screw this!” the man with the glowing laser sword said as he held the ‘weapon’ aloft. “Get him!”
“Yeah!”
“Lets find a toilet and give him a swirly; see how he likes it!”
“For Narnia!”
“Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!”
“Wait! Stop!” Shining Armor shouted as the angry swarm overtook him, pulling him beneath their endless rain of foam swords and laser-pointer phasers. “I watch Star Trot! I… I have every season of Superneightural on Blu-ray! I PLAY OUBLIETTES AND OGRES!!”
His cries faded away, lost in a sea of geekery, as the Crusaders pulled a confused but relieved Rainbow Dash and a still-tearful Fluttershy out of the edge of the crowd and bolted off into the night.