Gleaming's thoughts about the crown ran wild, but there was one thing to fall back on. "It's my duty to bring this back." She gave the gem a little tap with a finger. "I can't let it go…"

"Pfft." Rainbow Dash scoffed at Gleaming, and got a well deserved glare from each of the doppelgangers. "You already have a hat on; put the crown on and pull your hat down over it." Both Gleaming and Sergeant Shine glared at Rainbow until she was on the verge of thinking she had said something stupid, then Gleaming did just what she suggested.

"It sits a little crooked, but I think your friend is onto something." Sergeant Shine opened her door and climbed out of the cruiser. "Best twenty-four hour eatery in town… only one out this way." She stared across at Gleaming for a moment, seeing the spitting image of herself—complete with uniform.

"Hey! My door isn't opening!" Rainbow scrabbled at the handle in the back seat until the police officer (the real one) opened the door for her. "Why don't those open normally?" She jumped out energetically, and felt a small pang of loss for her wings.

"Now I know you are from a galax... uh, a place, far far away." Stepping up to the shop, the sergeant opened the door and stepped inside. She knew it was another chance for the pair to just run, and part of her hoped they would, but every time she looked in her clone's eyes she saw someone just as much a stickler for the law as she was. She walked past the counter, waving to the single waitress working the late shift. "Hiya Coco, still working here I see? Not made it to the big time with your fashion internship?"

"Ugh, don't remind me." Coco Pommel rolled her eyes. "How are you doing Gleam?" She froze a moment later as the doorbell chimed again. "W-W-What… G-G-Gleam?" She did a double take between Gleaming and Sergeant Shine. Gently, Coco set her steaming coffee pot down on the bench, closed her eyes, and started to faint.

Rainbow Dash was fast. She was faster than sound in Equestria, and even without her wings she could really move. Diving across the bench and shooting across the floor behind the long counter, she caught Coco just before the woman hit the ground. "Whoa! Hey, are you okay?"

Sergeant Shine had seen people run before—it was practically her job to chase people—but the speed that the young woman had just displayed blew her mind. She blinked at something else, something that seemed strange about her.

"Rainbow, how'd you get your…" Gleaming looked around needlessly—there was only the three of them and the waitress in the dining area—and then back to the girl, "… wings?"

"What?" Rainbow looked over her shoulder and almost dropped the unconscious Coco in the process. "Awesome! I can fly again!" She buzzed her wings, more a show than attempting to get lift. In her arms, Coco started to rouse.

Groaning a little, Coco blinked and looked up at Rainbow standing over her. Her eyes widened, and then closed again.

"Well that is new." Sergeant Shine leaned over the bar to make sure the waitress was unharmed. "The strange stuff is barely registering anymore. This is either a good thing, or really bad." She reached over and poured some of the coffee pot's contents into a big paper cup, and started adding sugar.

Coco came around again, and kept her eyes closed this time. "There is two of you, Sergeant?"

"Yes Coco, I am about to get the explanation for it too." The sergeant started pouring more coffee out, one for each of them.

"And this girl caught me before hitting the ground, she has… pony ears…" Coco's mind raced back to when she was at Canterlot High, and had her own Wondercolt ears and tail. "And wings, I can't forget the wings…"

"I hadn't actually noticed the ears myself. Are you sure they are pony ears? Look a little dog-like to me." Sergeant Gleam sipped her coffee and sighed. "Coffee is good tonight, Coco."

Coco's eyes snapped open, and she politely dismissed Rainbow Dash still holding her. "T-T-Thank you, but you can't be back here." She straightened and made a shooing gesture at the blue-skinned girl.

"Sorry about all this." Gleaming studied how her clone's hand held the cup, and mimicked her to lift her own up. "Oh this really is good stuff." She took a long sip of the scalding liquid. The coffee had the desired effect, and she knew the trick of providing food or drink to a prisoner to encourage them to talk. "First, my name is Gleaming Shine, Junior Lieutenant in the Royal Crystal Guard of the Crystal Empire."

"That's a mouthful, and sounds like it has a lot of meaning all by itself." Sergeant Shine reached to her pocket and pulled out a pad and a pencil.

Gleaming caught the inference. "Okay, starting from the end. The Crystal Empire is mostly one huge city in the north of Equestria. Prince Shining Armor and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza are the two rulers there, and have recently been working on seceding from Equestria proper. They created the Royal Crystal Guard so that the Crystal Empire would have its own military force. I was one of their first recruits."

The sergeant just folded her notebook closed and put it—and her pencil—back in her pocket. "Let's move this forward. How did you get here?"

"How: there is a mirror in our world that seems to link to the statue in front of the building you found us near." Gleaming sipped her coffee. " 'Why?' is a more obvious one. I didn't know the mirror was a portal—or it would be under guard—and while a thief was misappropriating the crown of one of Equestria's princesses, it happened to bounce through."

"And you were sent to get it back. Reasonable enough." Sipping her own coffee, Sergeant Shine almost kicked herself for even thinking that this was reasonable. "So this mirror and statue are portals between worlds?"

"Something like that. I guess there is a copy of each of us in the other's world. Strange I guess, and a little surprising." Gleaming looked at her counterpart. "This isn't a coincidence, is it?"

"Another coffee please, Coco." The sergeant pressed a twenty across the counter. "If we are just ourselves from another world, I guess it fits that you are in this Royal Crystal Guard. But there is a name I am going to say and I want you to tell me if you recognize it." She took her notepad out again and flipped it open—not to a blank page, but one that had been dog-eared as important. "Sunset Shimmer."

"Can't say it does. Do you have a description of her?" Gleaming's eyes kept drifting to a cake that was missing two slices, behind the counter. Before she could even ask, Coco glided over to the cake and cut three big pieces free.

"She is about five foot eight, amber skin, red hair with orange stripes through it..." as Sergeant Gleam read the details, her eyes flicked up to see recognition on both her guest's faces, "You do know her."

"Our thief." Gleaming was surprised when Coco set a plate with a slice of cake before her. She looked up at Coco with a questioning look.

"You looked like you could use it. I have worked here long enough to see when a police officer needs something to remind them why they do their job." Coco set another plate before the sergeant, and a last one before Rainbow Dash.

"Whoa, I'm not part of any guard or anything!" Rainbow nonetheless fumbled at the fork on the side of the plate, finding her hands to be quite useful.

"Thanks to you I am not wearing a nasty bruise." Coco smiled widely at the looks of gastronomical delight on her customers' faces.

"It would seem we both have an interest in this perp' of yours." Sergeant Shine chased a broken-off piece of cake around her plate. "She stole a young woman's identity here, and has been running up quite the debt under her name."

Gleaming groaned. "This is a problem." This had become a lovely little international… inter-dimensional… incident. "We have her in custody back in the Crystal Empire. I can only assume she was our Sunset, and not yours."

"That would seem the case, although it sounds like she did a lot worse in… the Crystal Empire?" The sergeant waited until she got a nod before continuing. "And I don't think this is something that can be passed on for an extradition." She rolled her eyes.

"How many bits was it? I can't make any promises, but I can ask my Prince and Princess to provide compensation." Gleaming didn't want to bribe her opposite, and quickly put in, "For your Sunset, of course."

"Of course. The money wasn't significant, just under five thousand dollars." Sergeant Shine assumed correctly that Gleaming was asking about restitution. She didn't need a mind-reader to interpret the blank stares from the other two.

Rainbow shrugged to Gleaming, and got a shrug back. "Ummm..." She hated the idea of asking an "egg-headed question," but figured it would be important. "... exactly how many gold bits would that be?"

Now it was time for Sergeant Shine to blanch. "I... I'll get back to you on that." She took back control of the conversation, and continued from the interruption. "There were some other things she did, going so far as to use Ms. Shimmer's name to enroll in the high school you were at. I had traced down the apartment where the perp' was staying, and found it empty."

"And you figured on checking the school." Gleaming finished her cake. "I can't promise you the restitution, but I can ask."

"You know what, I have no idea how we would even approach Ms. Shimmer about it. That is my Sunset Shimmer, not yours." Finishing her own slice of cake, Sergeant Shine stood up. "This is the most believable crazy story I have ever heard, but it is believable."

Gleaming stood up and followed the police officer outside again, with Rainbow following her. "So…?"

"I'll take you back to the school. If you go through the statue, or mirror, or whatever it is, then I guess all is well." Sergeant Shine unlocked and opened her cruiser and climbed in. A blue streak flashed past and zoomed into the dark night sky. "Hell's bells!"

Rainbow Dash was flying, and although her body was really odd for it, she didn't care. She was flying again. "Woo!" She cut a tight loop and then dove back down towards the ground. At the last second she pulled up at a sharp angle, and hit the wall she loved to break just above the buildings around the diner.

"Show off!" Gleaming was smiling from ear to ear at the sight of Rainbow Dash, legendary flier of Equestria, doing a sonic rainboom. Waves of light shimmered and spread into the sky and kept both Gleaming Shines staring upwards, neither noticing Rainbow Dash land beside the cruiser, and climb in the front.

Sergeant Shine shook her head at the display. "It's okay Gleam," she said to herself, "they aren't from around here. Their ways are…" she couldn't fight the word now, and said it, "magical." At the same time, both Gleaming and the sergeant climbed into the cruiser and took their seats.

Turning to the muttering police officer, Rainbow Dash shook her head. "No way, that was just good flying. She," she jerked her thumb to point over her shoulder, "is the magic one. Unicorn and all that."

"Unicorn?" Sergeant Shine froze, then turned to Gleaming. "Unicorn?" She pointed to Rainbow. "And she has wings and pony ears… pegasus?" Gleaming nodded to her. "Right, back to the school. No more questions I don't want answers to." She pulled on her seat belt and started the car.

"How fast can this thing go, anyway?" Rainbow Dash patted the dashboard of the cruiser. "Wanna race?" She smirked widely.

"No, I don't know how you did that thing, but I am pretty sure you were going faster than this old crate can." The sergeant got the cruiser moving dangerously close to the speed limit, and in no time pulled up at the school. "Here we are."

Gleaming waited patiently in the back until Rainbow opened the door for her. "Thanks." She climbed out of the car. "I really would like to hang around and chat more, but you have work, and I have work."

"Work that is important." Sergeant Shine argued with herself a moment, then stepped closer to Gleaming and pulled her into a tight hug. The arms of the other woman pulled around her and squeezed back, and the sergeant felt herself having to wipe away a tear. "Sorry, I just…"

"Mom and Dad not around anymore here, either?" Gleaming watched her doppelganger nod. "Maybe I could make visits here a regular thing. I think Princess Luna said thirty moons… so two and a half years?"

Sergeant Shine blinked in shock. "W-What would we talk about? What would we say?" She had been disarmed of her police-gruff, and she had no way to find it again.

"Stuff, work, life." Gleaming smiled at the human who was practically her twin. "I will be back tomorrow night with information, or something to pay for our thief's… mistakes."

"Are you coming or what?" Rainbow Dash was poking her hand in and out of the concrete base of the statue. "Wait 'till Twilight hears all about this!"

Gleaming smiled to the police officer, as the sergeant started putting her emotional armor back on. "Tomorrow night!" She walked up to the statue and followed Rainbow Dash into it.

The spiral of reality twisting their shapes spun them, and Rainbow spread her wings and tried to fly through it. Stumbling as she hit a wall, she realized she had all four legs again, and jumped into the air. "Wooo!"

Gleaming Shine blinked as she landed back in the Crystal Empire as a unicorn. "That was…" She stopped talking, and stared at four princesses and a prince staring at her. "What?"

Twilight Sparkle giggled and stepped forward. "Could I have my crown, 'Your Highness'?" She reached out a hoof to Gleaming, her eyes dancing as she looked to her crown atop the unicorn's head.

Adagio Dazzle gasped and reached her fingers up to the red gem at her throat. Staring out the window at the widening circle of rainbow spreading through the night sky, her eyes widened in shock. "Did you two feel that?"

Author's Notes:

Sergeant Gleaming Shine: "What did you do prior to work in the police force?"

The sergeant gave a gruff sigh. "It was my calling. My dad was in the Force..." She trailed off, then shook her head. "Third generation."

~~~~~+++++~~~~~

So I do this "Ask x" thing, x can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and I they will definitely hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories and of course, I they will answer the best question(s) in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer, try and keep it to one answer per post! I They will pick one question per chapter.

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