Apple Bloom stormed into her bedroom with a irritable expression splattered across her face, arms crossed in front of her as she kicked the door shut behind her. Today had been less than stellar for the miniature mastermind. In the span of seven hours, her first high school master plan had fallen apart and left to be mocked on the cafeteria floor.

"Unbelievable." She muttered with a low growl in her voice, tossing her cracked phone haphazardly onto her bed before faceplanting into the pillow. It had taken seven hours, creation to exposure, for the Anon-a-Miss MyStable page to be revealed as Apple Bloom's creation. Sweetie and Scootaloo had been grouped in with her immediately. It only made sense after all. when weren't they all up trouble? Of course, it happened the only way anything embarrassing ever happened to the Crusaders. "I'mma getcha back for this, Tiara." The pink girl's voice still echoed in her mind.

'Hey, loser. You dropped your-OH MY GOD!' The exclamation had caused Apple Bloom to freeze. THe following one made her drop her lunch tray and tackle Diamond in the middle of the lunch room. "Everyone, get a look at this! The Crusaders are behind that-!"

When Diamond Tiara hit the floor, the phone went skidding away from her. The universe seemed to want to ruin the youngest Apple's day further, allowing the phone to lose momentum only when it hit the side of Applejack's foot. The elder sister glanced down at the phone, angry glare breaking from her younger sibling's terrified expression for a brief moment. 'Ah can't believe this.' Apple Bloom knew that tone. Normally it only came from-

'What in tarnation is goin' on over here!? Why did Granny Smith have to be the school's lunch lady?

Turning over in her bed, Apple Bloom glared up at the ceiling. She had been told she was lucky. Given the fact that Applejack was the only person thrown into the spotlight landed her with a short lecture from Principal Celestia, a longer one from both AJ and Granny, and a revoked phone for the next two days. As far as everyone else knew, the situation was dealt with. Apple Bloom had insisted it was just a prank on her sister, a little payback for a non-existent prank that AJ had pulled on her a while back. Getting steamed at Applejack when she pointed out it had never taken place, led to a round of yelling. In the end, AJ was the one to back down, conceding that maybe she simply forgot. Even so, that didn't give Apple Bloom the excuse to go exposing old family secrets. Apple Bloom had ignored that part. Her sister relenting only meant one thing to her. She was in the clear.

No connection to Sunset had been made. On one hand, that meant the plan was a total failure. On the other, that also meant that the true intention of the blog was still unknown. Sitting up, the yellow freshman leaned over the side of her bed and pulled out an old clunky laptop from beneath it. "Ah didn't wanna do this." She told herself, unsure if she actually meant it, "But ah gotta do what ah gotta do." Typing at the keys for a few moments, the ancient device awoke from its slumber for the first time in a few months, powering on with a triumphant blare to display a decade old operating system logo. With a symbol dance across the keys of her fingers, her password was entered and she found herself on the desktop.

It was an absolute nightmare to work with the thing, and it took Apple Bloom all of five minutes staring at her cursor stuck as a pixelated hourglass and the message of '(not responding)' on her chat program's taskbar for her to recall why it had been tossed under her bed in the first place. When it finally loaded in and gave her a list of the few people online and using the old servers, she had already gone down and come back upstairs with a pre-dinner snack.

"Finally. Ya better be online right now." She muttered to herself, scanning the short list before spotting the green checkmark of a logged in user. A click opened a chat box, allowing the other to see her typing.

'...hello?' A distorted icon appeared next to the sent message. Apple Bloom to this day couldn't figure out if that was his actual avatar or just her screen being literal garbage.

'That you, Cipher? Or is it Puzzle again?' She asked back, 'Been awhile.'

'Oi! You call a user by their current handle, no one cares about the past!' Despite the simple text, the pout was clear, '...Well well, if it isn't PoisonApple27! I don't recall picking up necromancy.'

'I know I haven't been on in a long time.' The responded with a slight frown. 'Just call me AB. Can't be bothered to wait five centuries to change the name to something less middle-schooler-ish.'

'Nice. And yeah, nearly a year now. Can only assume you finally found a reason to go back out in the sun. Hey, no hard feelings. I know how impersonal things can feel when its just words on a screen and the like. The outernet just isn't for me.'

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes, 'Nice to see your sense of humor hasn't sensed that you fail at humor.'

'Ouch. Bitey. Mad. Time to cash in that favor?'

'Darn tootin. I'm sending a video file over.' After that message has beens ent, she moved to start uploading a video from her hard drive. A low-res mp4 that had been uploaded from her phone during the last time she had used her piece of junk.

'A video? What, you hold me to this future deal and you just want me film a react video? -_-'

'What? No, shut up and lemme explain! It's slow, you know that!' She huffed. 'I'm in the process of doing it, don't be so impatient!'

'Welcome back to the internet, AB.'

'I told you to shut up. Now! Here's the deal.' She blew out a breath, as the video's upload reached the halfway point, she acknowledged the risks, the fallout that would come soon. She had time to cancel the upload and reconsider. There was still time...

It took not but ten seconds for her to finish the next paragraph. 'Something really bad happened at my school a few months back. Got on the local news, but stopped there. Even then, it was only the aftermath. A broken gas pipe and a cigarette. Left a crater and everyone moved on after.'

'Read about that...CHS? That's where you go? My condolences for the other place. Also, pipe? What? That makes no sense.' A link popped up in chat in between her replies.

'Did you look up schematics while I was explaining?'

'I find and spread information, AB. That's my thing. Now, there's no pipe under that area of the school.'

'Exactly. The truth is right here.' With a bing, the video was up, ready for her chat partner to watch for himself. Silence reigned in the chat for a few minutes, stretching on into several. All the while, Apple Bloom glared at the red figure in the thumbnail coldly. Despite the blazing inferno of hair frozen in a single moment of the video, she could still feel the heat on her skin from that night.

'What...the actual hell?'

'What, no joke about bad effects?' She raised an eyebrow in response.

'Look, your cinematography skills are kinda garbo, but its still 2013 as of this file's creation. It was filmed on a smartphone from a fairly close distance. This isn't Bigfoot footage. That, and if that's a special effect, you need to hook me up with your director friend, Cameron.'

'...I don't understand that joke.' Apple Bloom typed with a frown.

'The point is that if that's a fake, its a very good fake that would at least have people talking about it.'

Apple Bloom grinned darkly, 'Good. Her name is Sunset Shimmer, she's a senior at Canterlot High School, and she's an alien.'

'...why are you telling me this, AB?'

'Find and spread information. How many contacts do you have online?'

'More than you can count. Why?'

'I sent you the video. You said it yourself. It would have people talking about it. Even if the whole country doesn't believe its real, it would hit TV and websites all over the place. Canterlot though, that's the important place. Sunset's known here. Weird stuff is known to happen here. A few students may have told their parents here and there, but there's a mixture of reasons why nothing ever came after. Lack of evidence, trying to incriminate with 'magic' as a claim, staff interference, and a lot of outspoken students kind of being compulsive liars in the first place.' Apple Bloom started tapping her foot on the ground, adrenaline building. She wanted this over quick. In ten minutes time, she'd wash her hands of everything, truly be done with the entire situation. After that she'd probably have dinner.

'AB...that's...well I can spread the video a bit, but the legality of giving out her identity?' His next response never came as she cut him off.

'I don't care if it's illegal, just do it! That psycho tried to kill my sister and everyone else I knew! And now she's stealing her from me!' Her hands were shaking, mouth locked in a sharp frown.

'...well there's no need to shout.' The reply came after a pause, 'Okay. Fine. Only because I owe you, but after I spread these, I'm not touching this again. I don't like it.'

'Fine. Thanks. Dunno if we'll talk again soon or anything, but consider the favor repaid.'

'Best if we don't talk for awhile. Dunno what you're goin' through, AB...but I don't want any part of it. Bye.'He signed off only a few moments later.

Apple Bloom smirked as she shut the laptop, letting it power down as she slid it back under the bed, laying back against the headboard as she mused to herself quietly. A steady rhythm carried with her humming. "Ya don' know what your future holds, so hear me when ah say...Yer past will always bind you, that your past is here to stay." The setting sun cast a shadow over the young girl's face, her eyes narrowing as her frown turned upwards into a cold smirk.

So. It's 5 in the morning. I'm tired and eating pringles. Perfect formula for having a weird idea from an old picture from like two years ago that I can't find now. I'm probably not going to write this. Do I have ideas for something more complete and less rough? Absolutely. Do I have the time for it? Ehhhh...Maybe in a few months, but I really doubt I'd ever really get to it. Especially given Hell & High Water. This was an idea I had out of the blue and wanted to get down somewhere.

Also there may be spelling mistakes present. Maybe. I dunno, its 5 am and my eyes are pulsating from caffeine.

Hope you liked my late night/early morning thoughts of a more intentionally evil/maniacal/morally dark/etc Apple Bloom.

Oh, and Winter Break starts on the 24th for me, so progress on things will pick up for a bit. ^^

Love how it implies that Apple Bloom has shady internet contacts from MIDDLE SCHOOL!

I hope you make a story out of this.🤓

I would love to read more about this, looks really promising

So what is the payoff here?

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Stories have payoff. This was just an idea.

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So expose Sunset?

Well that's just downright evil.

Dude, PLEASE make this into a story! I want more!

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Well, that would have been the time when her sister and role model was all grumpy and grouchy thanks to Sunset's machinations, wasn't it?

No. Don't think so. That happened around a year before the first Equestria Girls movie, didn't it? I'm more surprised that she has one so well connected.

This was so good! I honestly forgot that this wasn't an actual story

More enthusiastic responses than I expected there to be, honestly. Might need to add this to the list to expand upon later. Could be interesting.

Someone get to work on this, this may be the next Dainn's Anon-A-Miss!

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Someone get to work on this

It's on the docket, filed under "Definite Maybe".

I like the idea of a non-comedic take on it completely backfiring on Apple Bloom in all possible ways. Sunset ends up in a way better place, Applejack ends up spending less time with her (not as punishment, just as an indirect consequence), and as the final indignity her shady internet friend flips on her and reveals both her involvement and her motive ("I don't care if it's illegal, just do it! That psycho tried to kill my sister and everyone else I knew! And now she's stealing her from me!") when a more complete picture came out.

While the set up could be for a comedic story, I'd play it completely straight. Could be a good counterpoint to the "Humans are evil" theme that tends to take root too often. Initially there's fear that she'll be taken away to be experimented on or some such, but it turns out that that doesn't happen in real life because people aren't nearly that evil and when government agents do show up they're there to help.

The thing is, I have ten fics in progress right now (only three in the MLP/EG multiverse, but if you look me up on fanfiction.net or Archive of Our Own you'll see that there are more) so I'm more focused on getting to the next chapter of [whichever] than starting anything new.

IT'S HAPPENING!!!