That night, the Crusaders waited outside the forest, having received Rarity's text to meet them there.
"So... you told her the part how she wants us dead, right? And how we need somewhere to hide?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Well, I figured we ask her face to face!" Sweetie Belle said, smiling.
"So you forgot." Scootaloo concluded.
"Well you didn't call anyone." Sweetie Bell countered as a few familiar figures approached.
"Are you...?" Apple Bloom began.
"Shush!" Rarity stopped her, "We don't know who may be watching... let's just say we're friends."
"Friends tend not to meet one another in the middle of the night somewhere where nobody will see them." Scootaloo observed as the figures of Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow, and Flash came closer. "Wait is that-"
"What did she just tell you?" Rainbow asked, slightly annoyed. "...Yeah, it's him, but he's not... himself."
"That's n-n-not confusing at all." Flash observed sarcastically. "Rarity, you never told me you had a clone too!" The entire group shushed him.
"Girls, do you have that thing you talked about?" Scootaloo nodded and handed it to Twilight, Applejack gently pushing Flash to them.
"Wait huh?" Apple Bloom asked, trying to keep Flash from falling on top of her.
"Girls, we need you to take Flash to this address. The aliens will be looking for him, and we can't have him distracting us." Applejack explained.
"I thought you said you loved having me around, Almond Bar!" Flash said, slightly hurt. "I suppose you're just sour."
"Of course we like you Flash." Rarity said, calmly. "We just want you to go meet some new friends. Speaking of relationships, how did you girls say you got this device again?"
"Stole it." Apple Bloom confessed, the two others looking at her unhappily. "Phew, that's good to get off my chest."
"Nobody saw you, did they?" Rainbow asked.
"Well, just Inapan and Time Turner, who told the rest of the staff, then I posted a picture online that MIGHT have had one of us holding it..." Sweetie began.
The teens shook their heads, except for Flash, who seemed confused. "Why don't they just pull it off the wire?" Flash asked, the group ignoring him.
"That was not smart..." Applejack sighed.
"We didn't see it in the picture until it was already up!" Scootaloo said.
"Listen, what's done is done." Twilight said. "You girls are in deep trouble and I suggest you hide with Flash. You'll be with some old friends of mine, so the aliens won't know them. Just please, PLEASE don't do anything to give yourselves away."
"Right!" The crusaders said, Sweetie Belle grabbing Flash by the arm and dragging him away, the teens looking at the new piece of tech they'd been given.
"So, where too?" Apple Bloom asked, Sweetie Belle taking out the paper and the four reading it... well, Flash tried to at least.
"Wh-wh-what language is this?" He asked, confused.
"English, silly." Sweetie Belle said, Scootaloo leading the group.
"So I've been thinking, which is a first for me, I'll admit." Flash began. "Wh-wh-why is it that you girls are just smaller versions of those others? Like, what's the point of just having three more of already established people?" The girls looked at him, confused. "And look at those two! Th-th-they're not even the right colors as the other two!" He pointed to Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. "Re-re-really trying to hide that fact, aren't you. "Oh no, they're different people, they're different colors!" But look at you!"
"How do you know my sister again?" Apple Bloom asked.
"I know A-a-Apricot because she took me from a dark room and took me outside." He began. "But enough about me (I never thought I'd say that), tell me about you."
"Well, I'm Scootaloo, this is Apple Bloom, that's Sweetie Belle. We're the Crusaders! We wanna find out how to become big shots!"
"Somebodies!"
"Worthless!"
"I think you meant Priceless, Sweetie Belle."
"No, I'm fairly sure she's set her goal appropriately." Flash mumbled.
"...Were you always such a jerk?" Sweetie asked.
"Look!" Scootaloo pointed to a rather large, fancy-looking house. It had a large, metal fence surrounding it to keep out undesirables and an intercom out front. The house itself was an eggshell white and had four stories, with windows that were covered by curtains from the inside. "Is this the safe house?" she asked, amazed.
"This is the address." Apple Bloom said and approached the intercom. "Hello?"
"Yeah, hello, who is it?" came a tomboyish voice from the other side. "Because if it's the pizza guy again I still won't date you, man."
"No, it's Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Flash. Twilight sent us?" Scootaloo explained. "She said this would be a safe house?"
"Oh cool, excellent timing! Come in man!" The gate was buzzed open and the four approached the house, it being larger than most places they'd been.
"Wow... she must be loaded." Scootaloo mumbled.
"With what, I wonder." Flash chimed in. The girls were let in by a butler, and in the entrance hall met with The Shadowbolts, who looked unhappy.
"Right, so you brought Flash, great, now leave." Sour Sweet said, annoyed.
"Well, actually we kinda need to, um, we need a safehouse too." Sweetie explained the situation to them, the shadowbolts growing more and more unhappy as the story went on.
"Fine, whatever, stay here. This is Lemon Zest's house anyways." Indigo said, slightly annoyed.
"How come her parents named her after a flavor of s-s-soda?" Flash asked, the crusaders snickering slightly.
"Don't mind Flash." Sweetie Belle explained. "He's just been mind-wiped by the aliens."
"Oh, so he's not usually this stupid?" Sugarcoat asked.
"I wouldn't know, Twilight's his friend, we just met the guy." Apple Bloom explained
"I knew the Twilight was screwing with us, but at least he's cute." Sunny smirked, grabbing him by the hand.
"I do seem to have an appeal with sociopaths." Flash admitted. The whole while Lemon Zest continued rocking out, ignoring what was happening in front of her.
Inapan and Tested returned to the ship, both fairly bitter about what had happened, arguing as their bodies' colors had turned a blood red from anger.
"This close, sister, THIS CLOSE to capturing two of them, but you had to intervene. Your pettiness and ignorance cost us another piece of technology and our prizes!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I seem to remember YOU losing YOUR power inhibiter first. I recall you blowing your cover to do battle with Sunset Shimmer when your mission was to spy on her, I recall you forcing my hand into this aimless distraction! I am still captain, sister! I am still in charge! How is it MY FAULT you assumed the worst was happening?" The two continued bickering, things getting more and more tense until they entered the lab and saw something they never anticipated.
"The duplicator..." Tested said, stunned as she approached the smashed machine. "How did..."
"That's impossible, Grunt would be the only being who could do this sort of damage, and he's been missing for days!" Inapan said, mortified as she spotted the cloning tube containing Flash's double empty. "And you ACTUALLY gave them the clone of my husband?!"
"Relax, it was part of the plan. I'll go look at the security footage, you make sure that nothing else was ruined."
"No, sister. We know who did this." Inapan said, sternly. "We know who did this, and why they did this, and I TOLD YOU trusting that... HUMAN was a mistake!" Inapan was fairly furious. "We have done everything short of destroying them to show how deathly serious we were, sister. And they did not listen. Now they are breaking into our ship and trying to stop us directly!" She grabbed a piece of scrap metal, crushing it in her gloved hands and tossing it at the wall. "We are going out to the city and showing them just with whom they are dealing."
"You don't mean..."
"We are destroying this city, and killing ANYONE who has DARED get in our way, starting with that WORM who gave us those useless blueprints!"
Twilight worked on the device, as well as the masks, hoping to solve the problems the group had to no avail. As she dug through the tablet's contents, she found herself relieved by the fact it didn't contain anything she could identify as a tracking device. Rarity passed Twilight her dinner (a kebab), "How are you doing?"
"Well, it's slow, but considering it has an actual user interface I should be able to figure it out a lot faster than that belt. Unfortunately, I don't think the tech here matches the tech in our masks."
"So you mean the Crusaders did all that for nothing?" Applejack asked, annoyed.
"I never said that! It's an astounding item, more powerful than our phones, in a completely different era of technology. But more importantly, if I can find out the language we might find out some things about Princess we could use against her."
"Yeah, because she's sure to have written down her own weakness that's conveniently all over Earth." Sunset pointed out, realizing where this was going.
"Actually I was hoping more "fears and medical secrets." Twilight confessed, "but I suppose that would work too."
"Shouldn't we keep an eye on her though, and on the city?" Rarity asked. "Considering what we've done we've probably broken the deal she wanted."
"Technically, she said we'd only break it if we attacked her or her sister. We only broke and enter, kidnapped, vandalized, and stole from her." Pinkie pointed out. "But given everything, she's probably still gonna try to kill us."
"Whatever happened to that big guy, Applejack?" Fluttershy asked on a whim.
"He's with the fishes." The entire group gasped.
"You didn't!"
"Woah!"
"Dear Heavens!"
"What? I put him on a raft and shoved him out onto the lake." Applejack explained, eating her kabob. "What did you think I meant?"
"That you killed him?" Rainbow said, worried. "Are you telling me you've never seen a gangster film in your life. You know "sleeping with the fishes"?"
"Nah, I prefer westerns."
"I'm not sure why I'm even surprised." Rainbow confessed. "Personally, I like those Spy films. Fast fights, cool gadgets, hot people. It's a whole lot cooler than real world spying which is just "hack this" and "decifer that" and boring junk like that... no offense, Twilight."
"None taken? I used to like Science Fiction. All those strange exotic places and unusual powers, they helped me get interested in the paranormal, and well... helped me meet you guys." Twilight smiled sheepishly. "It's not quite the same to live through it, though..."
"I like documentaries." Fluttershy admitted. "They're just so calming and natural, it doesn't feel fake like everything else..."
"Oh that's fine darling, but I prefer Mysteries. Terrible crimes, intrigue, fashion, you learn so much about the world and the people in it, and anyone is a suspect." Rarity said, smiling.
"That's why I enjoy Horror movies." Sunset interjected. "I remember seeing "President's Day" with Flash and oh I loved it! My favorite part was when that couple in the car are stalked on Lover's Leap and the Killer pushes the car off the cliff!"
"I never liked Horror movies, I always liked comedies!" Pinkie smiled, her choice predictable. "Like the Brel Mooks guy's movies. Especially Young Dracula, that part where the sheriff lights his fake hand on fire was great!"
"Twilight only ever let me watch kids movies." Spike mumbled. "I dunno why, I mean, back when I was a normal dog I didn't understand any of it, but now I think my favorite was about that movie with the talking pig. Household Bound was pretty good too. But how come all dogs act like that in movies?"
"You mean like how you're acting now?" Pinkie giggled.
"You know, after all that's happened, I'm glad we can still sit around and talk like nothing's happened." Sunset smiled, laying down and staring at the stars.
"I suppose it just keeps our minds off the terrible things..." Twilight speculated.
Before the group could get a good night's rest, their phones rang and who was on the other side of the call but Inapan?
"Citizens of Earth." She began, the bitterness practically dripping from her voice. "I have bad news; you are ALL going to die. By me and my sister's hands. Before you can say anything, I suppose I should explain what caused this: Twilight Sparkle!" Inapan's voice blew out some weaker phone's speakers. "At the end of the week you will all die, starting with the woman who calls herself Principal Cinch, assuming YOU don't get to her before I do. Miss Cinch thought it was a good idea to stab you insects in the back and give me and my sister secrets about Twilight Sparkle. What she didn't tell us was that TWILIGHT SPARKLE WOULD KNOW." She took some deep breaths. "I have given you puny Earthlings too many chances, too much breathing room, and too much faith. I will give you the remaining four days to say goodbye to your loved ones and finish whatever stupid goals you had. Resistance will only be met with an army of robots. Goodbye~" She cheerily said before hanging up and turning to her sister.
"Where is Grunt?" She asked.
"I-I'm not sure, sister but-"
"FIND HIM. If this planet wants its destruction I will give it to them in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE!" She shouted at the top of her lungs.
"What about the plan, the plan to make Flash hate Sunset Shimmer? The plan to take the girls and the statue? The plan t-"
"No more plans sister! We can scrape what remains of them and the statue from the ruins. Flash will remain by my side and our father will never know what truly happened until it's far too late for him."
"Sister, you need to calm down. We could have uses for these creatures. They could be slaves, or livestalk, or-"
"THEY WILL BE DEAD." Inapan turned and punched Tested in the face, knocking her to the floor. "I am the captain, Sister! I own this ship, I run this crew, and I am the only one of us who is married! You will listen to ME!"