This is probably a very bad idea
That the farm-pony Applejack was pregnant was significantly overshadowed by the sight of Princess Luna looking smugly at her sister, holding up one hand and cupping her still flat belly with the other.
The last two times Sunset had been too mortified to really think things through, but the longer she stared at Luna, the more the gears started to turn in her mind. Luna would have a child, something had been unthinkable for the previous thousand years, give or take.
Luna would have a child which was only possible because of the elements of harmony as part of a thousand year long plan by Celestia.
Celestia had set in motion a plan that caused six of those present to become element bearers, which indirectly caused another six to do so as well due to the nature of parallel worlds, and the target of the plan was Luna. That covered everyone who was involved except for Sunset herself, and she was Celestia's –figurative– hand picked student.
Just like that, Sunset saw the way out. She saw it as clearly as she saw how to tear apart the population of the school with flimsy lies that would never stand up to an ounce of doubt or skepticism. She just had to present the version of the the situation she wanted in such a way that other versions weren't even considered.
She slowly turned back to Principal Celestia.
“I know this seems like an irresolvable mess and I know you're probably worried that the school-board will have your head or that a certain ex-Principal from Crystal Prep will use Twilight's pregnancy as the centerpiece of her campaign to get revenge on you.
“But there's actually a very simple solution,” Sunset said –she paused long enough for that to sink in, but not long enough for anyone to to actually respond to the statement– “and I don't mean having the three natural born humans pretend they didn't get pregnant until after graduation. That might seem like a good idea at first since it's basically impossible to pin down exactly when a child is conceived using the means available in this world, but lies like never stand the test of time.
“At the very least suspicions would be raised when three students announced they were pregnant so soon after graduation, and questions would arise that everyone would have a difficult time answering.
“No, the solution here isn't lies or slight of hand, it's presenting the truth in a way that will be believed. After all, this isn't your fault; you just need to be able to convince the school-board and any other interested parties of that fact without getting into the finer points of inter-dimensional travel, magic, or otherworldly duplicates.
“All you really need to do is give them someone one else to blame and just enough truth, no more than that, to actually believe that person is to blame. Ideally this would be someone who will cross over after the incident and never be seen again, thus escaping from any unpleasant consequences of taking the blame upon themselves.”
“Are you offering yourself up as a sacrificial lamb?” Principal Celestia asked.
“That wouldn't work, as your student I'd be considered your responsibility and people would pin the blame on you all the same. Even if we were just looking for a scapegoat, with no thought as to who happened to actually be responsible, we'd need to pick someone who could have reasonably undermined your authority without making you look like a bad leader.
“As such, it can't be a student. It has to be someone from outside of the school's power structure who can reasonably be seen as leading students astray in a way that doesn't besmirch your competence as a Principal.
“Fortunately the person who bears the lion's share of the responsibility meets that description perfectly.” Sunset Shimmer held up her hands in a gesture of 'wait' and added, “I'm not saying any of the fifteen of us are blameless, mind you, it's just that not everyone is equally to blame. Some bare more responsibility than others.”
That had bought her some more time to talk, which was important because she was counting on this being a monologue. That way she could control the flow of information and the directions it led. She needed to make sure her idea got out in full before anyone had a chance to entertain alternatives.
To that end she'd be relying mostly on shock and confusion. Right now she was running with confusion. Six pony element bearers, six human ones, one Sunset Shimmer, and Princess Luna only added up to fourteen. By saying "fifteen" she wasn't just opening up the possibility of laying blame on one of the others later on, she was distracting the remaining three from offering objections by forcing them to wonder which one of them she was referring to.
Vice Principal Luna had certainly acted the part, but it was hard to come up with a scenario where she was to blame and Principal Celestia was not. Sunset had already said that the situation wasn't Principal Celestia's fault, but it was certainly possible to bear partial blame for something that wasn't ultimately one's fault. Princess Celestia was Prime Minster Sunset Shimmer's superior and the ultimate authority over Equestira, but for most in the room it would be unthinkable for Sunset to blame Celestia. Beyond the obvious, hadn't she spent the previous two incidents desperately trying to maintain Celestia's approval?
It was something to think about, and while they thought about it Sunset could go on uninterrupted.
“Now I know you would never consider placing the blame on someone who didn't actually deserve it, so I'm going to tell you details that none of us would ever disclose to authorities outside this room so that you can be completely confident that you're placing blame on the right person and do it with a clear conscience.
“Obviously what we tell to the school-board will have to be extremely edited because there's no way that telling them about a dimension full of cute magical ponies would go over well.
“Now, for the full truth that doesn't leave this room:
“This all started with a series of accidents and coincidences years ago which when combined had the effect of causing a large number of ponies, and it was only ponies at that time, to make increasingly bad decisions as their own judgment became more and more impaired. Things snowballed rather spectacularly.
“In the aftermath two key players emerged. One of them was mortified, the other embraced what happened to the point of choosing her husband and life-calling based on it.” Now the Princesses Twilight and Celestia were staring at her aghast. Good, let them be too shocked to speak. The message here was for Principal Celestia. “These two ponies represented two very different perspectives on the event and different roads forward for Equestria.
“You know half of how that turned out,” Sunset said. “I was apologetic and desperate to do something to atone for what happened, that led to me being chased from my native plane of existence and dumped in your lap in such a way that left me bitter and vengeful.
“What you don't know, because it's never really had cause to come up, is that the other player was embraced, made into a role model, and raised to the level of co-ruler of Equestria. At that point in time Princess Luna was still serving her sibling-enforced thousand year prison sentence on the moon and Princess Twilight hadn't even started on the path that would eventually lead to her position, so this pony was second only to Celestia in terms of both her power and her position as a national exemplar all Equestrians were encouraged to emulate.
“This Princess of 'Love',” Sunset's tone and her gesture of finger quotes were enough to let Principal Celestia know that Sunset considered the term to apply to something more physical and less emotional than the word implied, “spent the intervening time planning to reproduce the original event point for point by intentionally replicating every accident, every misstep, and every bad decision, and then push the reproduction far further than the original had gone. It is not an exaggeration to say that she worked to figure out any and all ways to make the participants of the second event more drunk, more high, and more horny for years.”
Now even more people were looking at Sunset in shock. Whatever, this was just the preamble.
“I remind you that this pony was chosen to be co-ruler and role-model for the entire country.
“When I learned that there was nothing I could do to stop the second event, which was much more potent, I attempted to at least make sure it broke as few laws as possible. It was in the course of this second event, personally planed and overseen by the Princess of Love, that the Drunken Sex Party was created,” by accident, but Sunset wasn't going to say that; it was better to stick to a conspiratorial tone. “And when I had fully returned to my senses the only reason I didn't disband the DSP or drop out of the race for Prime Minster was because I had been assured, by the Princess of Love, that the other candidates were bad choices who would be terrible for the country, with the only silver lining should either win being that Princess Celestia would be able to use her position as undisputed God-Ruler to limit the power of the democratically elected government.”
Principal Celestia shot a questioning look at Princess Celestia and the casual affirmation from the Princess did not seem to put the Principal at ease.
That was good. What wasn't good was that the Principal wasn't caught off guard enough for her to continue her silence.
“So you're claiming you were railroaded by this Princess of Love?” the Principal asked with all appropriate skepticism.
“While it certainly is tempting to blame this all on Cadance,” Sunset said, noting that the human versions of Celestia and Luna were both shocked enough to ensure neither would be interrupting soon, “especially given that creating inter-dimensional couplings would be the next logical step for her and that the corresponding implication of Crystal Prep would dilute the blame aimed at Canterlot, I am not blaming anything on Cadance, Princess of Love.
“I instead propose that the blame be laid at the hooves of the one who was encouraging her, enabling her, and pulling her strings the entire time,” Sunset said.
And there it was, every pony-born individual in the room was looking at her slack-jawed. Including the one she just set up for the fall.
“I know that from a human perspective it's hard to believe such manipulation can be pulled off, but I would remind you that she is a literal god who is responsible for the very existence of most of the people in this room. She set up a thousand year plan that ended with Twilight Sparkle meeting Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy in a single day –a very specific day– making friends with them all in record time, going to a specific place the following night, and magically defeating Luna in a certain way at that place. The plan went off without a hitch.
“A thousand years, that's some fifty generations,” technically fifty human generations, and the 'twenty years to a generation' standard was under a lot of well deserved fire, but why get bogged down in technicalities, “meaning the plan was put in place forty-nine generations before any of them were born, and yet, somehow, a thousand years later the exact ponies she wanted were in the exact place she wanted doing the exact thing she wanted.
“Even I was a part of this long game, a test subject to see what would –and rather notably what wouldn't– work when it came to the grooming of Twilight Sparkle. It's no accident that Twilight comes near Sunset and Sparkles tend to Shimmer. The mind boggling eugenics and indoctrination program made me as close a facsimile of the intended element bearer as possible, right down to my name.” Ok, this was probably complete bullshit. But in the end she had served as a prototype, intentional or not, for Twilight.
“The six human teenagers are no doubt a result of the parallel entanglement property of the two universes. Otherwise how could one explain them appearing here when they were only a result of her scheming there?
“Anyway, is it so hard to believe that the eugenics and manipulation continued to the fifty first generation instead of stopping at the fiftieth?”
Spouting absurd nonsense was a good way to keep everyone too off balance to respond, and it wasn't as if the nonsense served no purpose.
“She dumped me in your lap and encouraged you to keep me here even though we all know I don't belong, all the time guiding Princess Cadance through the steps that would lead to the creation of, continued existence of, and majority rule by a political party led by her hand picked student,” Sunset pointed at herself, “and whose members,” Sunset pointed to the pregnant Applejack and the presumed 'fathers' of the the human pregnancies, “would give birth to a new breed of foal and child, unlike any seen before in either universe, and finally yield an heir to the throne,” Sunset gestured to Princess Luna, “thus removing the key component of every assassination attempt or kidnapping plan aimed at her in well over a thousand years: the belief that without a clear successor Equestria would be thrown into turmoil by the removal of Princess Celestia or, when she deigned to allow her sister to share power, the removal of Princesses Celestia and Luna.
“At every key point of this entire mess, Celestia was there encouraging it to continue. From when she chose Cadance, the one Tartarus-- sorry, Hellbent on on repeating and surpassing the largest drunken stoned orgy in the history of Equestria as exemplar for all Equestrians, to when she drove me into your world, to when she basically walked Cadance through the planning and execution of the event that created the DSP, to when she encouraged you to allow me to stay here, and me to continue to come here, when it would have been far more reasonable for me to leave school here and concentrate on my job as Prime Minster in Equestria, to when she allowed six human teenagers to come join the Drunken Sex Party in Equestria.
“As Prime Minster my powers are limited. It's not like I could issue a decree that Princess Luna should let the element bearers from two universes, along with the only individual shaped by spending years in both universes, try to impregnate her.
“Only one person, pony or otherwise, outranks Princess Luna. I wasn't in charge of what happened, Luna wasn't in charge, this all happened under Princess Celestia's oversight, and the consequences –good and bad alike– are her responsibility.
“That is absu–” Princess Celestia started to say.
“Of course you can't say any of that to the school-board,” Sunset said, and took a small joy in cutting the Princess off. She had a little bit more satisfaction with the fact that Princess Celestia couldn't interrupt her again without making everything a massive waste of time by allowing the rambling speech but preventing her from reaching the actual point. “But what you can do is present them with this woman who looks just like you and tell them that the entire time your students were acting irresponsibly they were under her power she was calling herself 'Celestia'.
“It's entirely true. We were her responsibility, we were under her rule, and she certainly was calling herself 'Celestia'.
“If the school-board happens to jump to the conclusion that we were tricked into thinking she was the real Principal Celestia and taken advantage of, instead of recognizing that we were all part of one of her numerous Rube-Goldberg-like long schemes . . . well that's their problem.
“The key point is that they learn, by seeing with their own eyes, that you weren't the one being irresponsible with the students in your care. It was this other woman who was calling herself by your name. So much the better if Princess Cadance shows up and corroborates the fact.”
Cadance would be happy to help, and the key point really had nothing to do with the conspiracy theory.
It had everything to do building up the idea of Princess Celestia as an all powerful ruler, whom her subjects looked to in the way that 'everything happens for a reason' people in this world looked up to their God, thus emphasizing the power she wielded that made her ultimately responsible, while also pointing out that she wasn't above micromanaging the relationships of her subjects, thus making her lack of intervention appear as a choice rather than an oversight.
“No one can blame you for not anticipating the arrival of an irresponsible person who looks and sounds just like you, and given that she used the same name too . . . well, how could anyone see that coming?” Easily, but the answer didn't somehow invalidate rhetorical effect of asking the question.
“Are you quite finished?” Princess Celestia asked.
“Ye-- wait, no, one more thing,” Sunset said to the Princess. To the Principal she said, “When she,” Sunset pointed to Princess Celestia, “disappears off the face of the earth before anyone can try to bring her to account for what happened it'll just make her look guilty and you look innocent.
“You don't get punished for other people being irresponsible, no one gets punished at all. You keep on doing your job with your reputation untarnished and when the Twilights and I do make breakthroughs that will bring prestige and funding to the school we'll make sure it can't be tied to the mess that happened in Equestria.
“Now I'm finished.”
“It is absurd to think that I planned all of this out as part of some kind of centuries long eugenics program.”
“So you weren't planning on having the element bearers free your sister from the force that had overtaken her, clouded her judgment, and filled her with hate?” Sunset asked. “That's even colder than sentencing her to a thousand years of solitary confinement for the crime of saying that the night is pretty too.”
Celestia was probably going to kill Sunset, but she wouldn't do it right this moment, and Sunset was getting caught up in the feeling of being in complete control of a situation for the first time since she was hit by a rainbow at the Fall Formal.
“Of course I was planning–”
“A thousand year scheme that relied on getting six ponies who weren't even close to born yet–”
“That's completely misrepresenting–”
“STOP!” Principal Celestia shouted.
They did.
“As Princess you are superior to the Prime Minister, are you not?”
“That is neither here nor there,” Princess Celestia said. “The sexual antics of Equestria's Prime Minster are not my concern.”
“Even when they include your citizens bedding the entire delegation from another country?”
And Sunset had won this round. Granted it was the only round she'd ever win, granted going against the Princess like this could probably be interpreted as some form of treason or other, granted her future probably included a nice long trip to Tartarus, granted she'd just destroyed her entire life as she knew it, but just this once she'd won. She'd won because the only one who could beat Celestia was Celestia and that was where this was about to go.
The Princess seemed to be carefully considering her response. That was a mistake.
“Hell, let's not think of this in political terms,” Principal Celestia said. ”Sunset Shimmer is my student. You're undeniably the closest thing she has to a legal guardian. When were you planning on telling me that she spent her time at home drunk, stoned, and having sex with your sister?”
Principal Celestia paused long enough for the Princess to think she'd have an opportunity to speak, but not long enough for her to actually speak. Sunset loved that move.
“Don't you think that it would have been a good idea to warn me, before I authorized an extended school-sanctioned sleepover in your home, that you, your sister, and your niece had turned that home into a den of drugs, alcohol and wanton sex?
“Or would you like to go back to the political ramifications of inviting a bunch of teenage girls into your country just so that a member of your royalty, who is almost unimaginably older than all of them combined, could bed each and every one of them?
“Or perhaps some middle ground between the political and the personal? We're both leaders of our respective institutions and while Sunset Shimmer may be highly placed in both she's in charge of neither. I'm in charge of Canterlot High, you're in charge of Equestria, and when I authorized seven of my students to briefly transfer from the former to the latter as part of a good faith visitation program you took those students, some of my best, and put them in an environment where they'd get high, drunk, laid, and --in 42.8% of cases-- pregnant.”
“They made their own choices,” Princess Celstia said, her perpetual calm fraying a bit.
“They were your responsibility!” Principal Celestia fired back.
* * *
The Lunas led the others out of the room as soon as they were sure the two Celestias were too caught up to notice anything but each other.
Sunset's mood dampened when the thrill of finally winning faded and what remained was that she'd pissed of Princess Celestia again, and this time hiding in another universe might not be enough to save her.
“I'm doomed,” she mumbled.
“Perhaps,” Princess Luna said, “but bear in mind that you will have three princesses on your side.”
“I'm not convinced I am on her side,” the Equestrian Twilight said. “What possessed you to blame Princess Celestia in the first place?”
“If we want to identify one person as the most responsible she's the only logical choice, she does have a history of making extremely convoluted plans that somehow manage to work out how she intended in spite of all logic and reason stating that they shouldn't, her embrace of Cadance and rejection of me after the original –non-political– drunken sex party was pretty damning given our respective attitudes toward it and reactions to it, and by having the one to take the fall be Principal Celestia's double everything can be blamed on the double instead of the Principal because there's no way to prove that any given piece of evidence points to the Principal instead of the double,” Sunset said. “The fact that her double happens to be Princess Celestia who was sole ruler of Equestria for almost a thousand years is really a non-issue. Besides, it did happen on her watch.”
“All of this is very interesting, I'm sure,” Vice Principal Luna said, “but in the event you're not as quite as doomed as you think you are, Sunset, I was wondering if we could talk about the future.”
And Sunset was at a complete loss: “Um . . .”
“Like my sister said, one week until the end of the school year,” Luna continued. “I've been thinking about what I'll do over vacation and I was wondering, Prime Minister Sunset Shimmer, if you would allow me to visit your delightful country.”
Most of the students, and the Equestrian Twilight, shot disbelieving looks at Vice Principal Luna.
“I don't know that I'll be allowed to make those kinds of decisions going forward,” Sunset said.
“Given that in some senses she is the same as myself,” Princess Luna said, “fairness dictates that I recuse myself from such a decision. My sister and niece would be morally obliged take the same course of action, for similar reasons. It is not unreasonable to assume that the end result would be the decision being delegated to Equestria's Prime Minster.”
“If that should come to pass,” Sunset said to Vice Principal Luna, “I'd be overjoyed to welcome you to Equestria.”
Sunset glanced at the Rarities, then refocused on Vice Principal Luna and said, hopefully too quietly for the Rarities to hear, “Wait, you aren't planning on having sex with,” Sunset pointed a Princess Luna, “yourself, are you?”
“I'm sure the DSP offers many opportunities entirely unrelated to the royal family,” Vice Principal Luna said reassuringly.