A Tale of Anon-A-Miss

by Odeinoichus

Rating: teen
Tags: Sex, Lemon Zest, Diamond Tiara, Slice of Life, Silver Spoon, Original Character, Equestria Girls
Length: 16504

Scarlet Scribe is now in charge of the Canterlot High Newspaper. He needs help dealing with Diamond Tiara, who could he possibly turn to? Together with Shady he may just find a solution.

Scarlet Scribe believed his problems would be over when Diamond Tiara's plot to destroy the NLAC ended in utter failure. He was wrong. Now, with the start of a new semester looming at CHS, he finds himself manning the helm of the school's newspaper. Having to face an entirely different set of challenges that are going to test both him and his resolve. Along the way he's going to have to rely on his friends, old and new alike, if he wants to make it through with his sanity intact.

When shadows of mistrust spread across Canterlot, Scarlet Scribe was tasked with discovering the truth behind Anon-A-Miss for Diamond Tiara. This was when he first met Shady. The two of them now reminisce about when mistrust and disharmony spread through Canterlot High, and discuss the developments now facing them within the NLAC and Canterlot High in particular.

Odeinoichus and Charlie_K present A Tale of Anon-A-Miss.

Published 2017-09-02 17:10:06 UTC
Last updated 2017-09-02 17:10:06 UTC

Before the NLAC, Scribe did WHAT

Scarlet Scribe paced back and forth as he once again examined the rules of conduct for the Canterlot High School Paper. He and Lily had been given complete control of the paper because of the NLAC incident with Diamond and now… Now he was on the verge of having a panic attack because of it!

“I never even wanted to be put in charge,” Scribe complained to himself as he dropped the folder on the desk.

The door to his room opened and a familiar peach-skinned woman walked in. Her hair cascading down over her shoulders and brushed out into a fashionable looking weave, each side was looped around and around to make thick tightly-tied braids. She folded her arms over her ample looking cleavage and shot her son a brief smile.

“Having fun?”

Scribe blanched. “Mooooom!” He turned to shoot his mother a brief glare. “I thought we agreed you’d knock before coming in here like that?”

Angel Mist laughed gaily and strode confidently across the room. Bending down she gave her son a tight hug. “My little cherry berry, I thought you liked expressing this new lifestyle choice?”

Scribe sighed and returned his mother’s embrace. “I never expected you’d start strutting around in the nude after a few months of it,” he admitted. “But that isn’t why I wanted you to knock.”

Angel Mist rolled her eyes. “You’re old enough now I don’t think we need to worry about that sort of embarrassment,” she stated in a bored tone.

Scribe shook his head. “Not that reason either!” he blurted frustratedly. “You know how I get when you come in here with your hair like that,” he reminded with a tired sigh.

Angel Mist glanced behind her at the long braids dangling on either side of her. She laughed briefly, and before Scribe could stop her both braids wrapped around him in another tight embrace.

Scribe shuddered briefly and inhaled the familiar scent with a fond smile. “I wish I wasn’t so damn obsessed with this stuff,” he lamented.

Angel Mist simply rolled her eyes. “People in Canterlot always have odd personality quirks.”

Scribe shook his head to clear it of the fond memories of the past. “Right. Was there a reason you decided to come in here?”

Angel Mist frowned briefly at being interrupted, but then smiled. “Oh yes, a young woman stopped by to see you. She’s waiting outside for your permission to come in.”

Scribe blinked. “I’m sorry, what? If it was one of the girls you’d just say so, or let them in, what’s so special about this one?”

Angel Mist rubbed her arm briefly and sighed. “Oh, well, I’m not sure I recognize her to be honest. She strikes me as being a little nervous, but is trying hard not to let onto that fact.”

Scribe was curious now. “Did you tell her about how...”

Angel Mist waved her hand at her son dismissively. “She already told me it wasn’t a problem.”

Scribe shrugged. “If she doesn’t care, sure, let her in.”

At his words, the door to his room flew open, revealing a very familiar sight standing there. “Well since you insist.”

Grinning broadly, Shady leaned to one side against the door frame, folding her arms across her chest, doing her best to convey a stare into Scribe’s room, despite that not actually being possible.

Scribe leapt to his feet in surprise. “What? But? Mom! She’s the classmate with the… I mean…”

Angel Mist sighed. “I know, she explained that it wasn’t going to be a problem.” Shrugging she glanced between her son and the young woman currently standing in the doorway.

Shady continued to smirk playfully as she entered the room proper. Although to a trained observer, it was easy to see that her smirk was wavering as she took her cane out from under her arm and used it to feel around in front of her, to make sure she didn’t bump into anything. Like the rest of them, her shoes and socks were absent, thus allowing her to better feel the vibrations in the floor from others. Although unlike the rest of them, the rest of her clothes were still present.

“I had to talk to you about some stuff on the whole school paper thing, and… well let’s face it, you’re a hard guy for me to track down when you’re not actually at school,” she noted.

Angel Mist grinned in a way that only a mother could get away with. “I’ll just leave you two to talk.” Turning she made her way out of the room.

“Nice meeting you, ma’am,” Shady said as she left the room, leaving the two of them alone.

Scribe groaned. “Shady, how did you even find out where I live?”

Shady shrugged. “Rinky Dink. Her network knows just about anything. Seriously, it’s like an information black market if you know who to ask.”

“Alright, fair enough. But why?” Scribe turned fully to face the blind girl and brought his left leg up to partially cover his lap.

“Braids, if you’re covering up, you do know I can’t see you, right?” she reminded him, his movements easily being picked up by her ears.

Scribe laughed. “I know, I just like being comfortable when I’m sitting. It wasn’t a modesty thing,” he pointed out.

“Fair enough,” Shady replied and shrugged, before letting out a sigh. “Look. I know we don’t really know each other very well. We don’t exactly have the best of histories together.”

“Biggest understatement.”

Shady just grunted quietly in response. No snark, no good-natured sass and saltiness, just a muffled grunt. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but that just didn’t feel right. “What’s wrong?”

“At this point, it’d probably be easier to explain what’s right.”

Scribe got up and pushed a few folders around on his desk. “I was beginning to think through some of my new duties, Shady… So, what did you need to talk to me about? The paper?”

“Something like that,” Shady replied. “You know I’ve never had much use for the school newspaper, or any newspaper for that matter. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on around me. Snap is still on staff. Why exactly is that? I thought you were gonna kick her to the curb after everything she’s done.”

Scribe flinched. “Vice-Principal Luna talked me out of doing that for the time being. Diamond has to do something for the time being, right now I figured leaving her the gossip column to work with would appease her a bit.”

“Big mistake thinking you can appease her. She thrives on causing problems, Braids. It’s like psychological heroin with her or something. On top of that, Snap is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t really one of them. She won’t take this lying down, and she’s probably already working on an angle to let her assume control once again when your guard is down.”

“I know Diamond a lot better than you, Shady, and Vice-Principal Luna won’t let anything slip by in the gossip column if it’s spiteful, harmful or anything like that.” Scribe slapped his bare thigh in renewed frustration. “I seriously don’t need people adding to my stress right now; being in charge of the entire paper is not what I wanted. But I have to live with it now.”

It was at this point that Shady got back to her feet, her body language growing more aggressive in the process. “I’d play a fiddle for you, but you’re not the only one who has to deal with problems here. I’ve got problems too, and I’ll guarantee you that mine are a lot worse than yours! So you’re worried about the paper and stuff, big damn deal! Last I checked you’ve got friends who can help out, and a mother that’s really supportive of you in all this. But me? I don’t have any of that going on. My parents don’t know dick about the existence of the NLAC and what it stands for, because I haven’t brought that up for discussion,” she stated. “I’m quite literally all alone here in this mess. You wanna try and top that, or is this pissing match concluded?”

Scribe frowned slightly as he studied the shorter girl standing across from him in the aftermath of her outburst. “I thought everybody at the NLAC had discussed it with their parents already?”

Shady shook her head. “My mother’s a lawyer, and a good one too. So when we were told to keep it a secret for legal reasons, you can understand why I was hesitant to suddenly explain the whole thing to her. Really, I shouldn’t even have been there to begin with, it was stupidity on my part. That’s seriously a big can of worms I don’t wanna crack open. I don’t like worms.”

Scribe nodded briefly, again out of reflex. “Ahh. Makes sense.” Slowly he turned and glanced down at the folders on his desk. Then his eyes took in the young woman standing across from him, and suddenly the wheels in his head started turning as an idea began to percolate. “Shady, do you belong to any after school clubs?”

Shady cocked her head to one side and laughed. “Nope, I’m a stray. None of them have claimed ownership of me yet, so I’m just hanging around Gumdrop and the others because they’re nice to me.”

Scribe shook his head, deciding to ignore how she was comparing herself to a mangy dog. “No. I mean, aside from the NLAC. Do you do anything for after school credit?”

“Not really much point in that. There aren’t that many good colleges in Canterlot that have the facilities for teaching blind students, so my senior year is probably going to be the extent of my education unless something happens. Why do you ask?” Shady asked, doing her best to study Scribe suspiciously.

Scribe circled his desk and picked up a few folders, looking for the school paper student list. “Silver left an opening on the paper staff, and I’ll probably need to replace Snips and Snails… They might be good at getting pictures and things, but I don’t think they’d like to work for me as opposed to Diamond Tiara. So I’m stuck with Me, Lily, Di’ and Featherweight.”

Shady frowned, the metaphorical gears in her head turning so loud it was almost audible. “Wait a minute, hold on. You want me to work on the school paper?”

“Why not?”

“Well for starters I suck at spell checking,” Shady replied.

Scribe rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to see to be a reporter,” he told her confidently, “and I’m the editor, let me worry about spelling. I ghost wrote for pretty much everyone else on the paper before, aside from Silver. Now that I’m in charge it isn’t Plagiarizing, it’s my job.” Scribe smiled broadly and shifted several more files.

“First, if you’re going to be touching my legs, I’d appreciate it if you’d ask permission beforehand. Second, if you’re gonna be pulling my leg, do you mind pulling both so they’re at least the same length? I don’t wanna be walking around in circles,” Shady stated.

Scribe dropped the folders back on his desk and rounded it again. “Shady, I’m serious here. I’m also desperate. I don’t know a lot of students at CHS, but I do know enough to know how many of them are actually interested in the school paper. It’s going to be a hard sell to get anyone interested in working with me and Lily after what Diamond did, and I’m not eager to go to the Freshmen that start this coming year. Do you seriously think I want to expose new students to Diamond’s controlling ways? To give her the chance to actually build a new network for herself?”

“Alright, alright, fair point. She doesn’t need access to anymore fresh meat. But the question remains, why me? Braids, you barely know me, and I’m not exactly eager to be in close proximity with Snap either. If you think you and I don’t get along because of how we met, she and I really don’t get along.”

Scribe smiled. “But you know how to handle yourself. I mean, you already know her personality type and it doesn’t bother you at all. You don’t take her shit, and you won’t be intimidated by her. Back when she was in charge of the paper, she wasn’t shy about letting us know how infuriating it was with how you could dismiss her so casually. I can count the number of people on one hand that have that kind of attitude, and won’t want to seek petty vengeance out on her for what she pulled on the NLAC.”

Scribe approached Shady and actually knelt down in front of her, his knees thumping against the floor in the process. “Please! I’m begging you, here; agree to join up with the school paper.”

Shady’s pink cheeks colored with embarrassment, she couldn’t see what he looked like, but she had a pretty good idea of what sort of position he was in. And she still hadn’t brought up her concerns with the whole ‘my school is actually an embassy’ thing that’d brought her here in the first place. Already she could feel her heart beating faster than normal as she fidgeted on her feet. The scent of Scribe’s room had a bit of musky masculine odor that was really strong when it came to her sense of smell, and the loud rumbling of the AC could be felt through the souls of her feet from the central heating/cooling unit in the basement.

Angel Mist was lightly humming to herself as she busied herself somewhere else in the house. She could barely hear her in this big place, but it was still present, more or less echoing through the empty halls. The whole place sounded… well, lonely to her if she wanted to put it in terms like that.

Reluctantly Shady slowly moved her head. “Ok, I’ll at least think about joining the paper. But be warned. If Snap starts up anything to cause trouble, and it comes to blows, I will beat her ass. I don’t want to go that route, but I will if I have to,” she warned. “But first, you’ve seriously gotta hear me out about this whole Embassy situation. This is some heavy, defcon 5 grade shit, and I need to talk to somebody.”

Scribe grinned and rose to his feet, almost forgetting himself and reaching out to embrace the blind girl; he caught himself at the last minute and quickly backed up. “Ok, sure! Great! So… Um, why exactly did you want to talk to me, and what exactly is troubling you about this Embassy thing?”

Shady remained silent for a while, uneasily fidgeting with the end of her cane with her free hand as she chewed on her bottom lip. It was almost painfully obvious to Scribe that she was trying to find the appropriate words for voicing her concerns. Compared to how she normally was, always confident and unshakable, it was kind of disturbing to see her as she presently was.

Finally, after an uneasy silence, she started talking. “Back during spring semester when finals were just around the corner, we were a world of physics, hard science, Newton’s laws of motion, and government was managed by elected officials, incompetent as they may be. Now suddenly we’re ruled by fucking royalty, fucking magic exists and supposedly has for centuries, the school is a fucking embassy for a parallel dimension filled with magical talking horses! This news is gonna get out eventually, my Mom’s gonna find out when it does and wanna know what’s going on, she’s gonna be asking me, I don’t have a clue what I’m gonna tell her when she does ask, I don’t wanna get disowned…”

The longer she carried on in airing her grievances and concerns, the more frantic she was sounding as she went along. Her usually calm composure was gone, and was quickly being replaced by outright panic, showing a side of her that Scribe had never seen before, and wasn’t entirely comfortable with seeing. She was so… so vulnerable! And vulnerable was a word he never associated with her.

“I… I-I can’t breathe…” she panted, holding a hand to her chest as she started breathing faster.

Scribe’s face paled - rushing to his feet he swiftly crossed the room to shut the door. After making sure that his mom couldn’t hear them; he quickly rummaged through his desk and pulled out a plain paper bag.

“You’re hyperventilating, I think. Quick! Breathe into this paper bag, it works on all the television shows,” Scribe said as he handed her the bag.

Shady said nothing as she quickly grabbed the bag and brought it to her face, dropping her cane in the process without even a second thought.

Scribe frowned as he watched Shady breathing into the paper bag. How did she know about some of that stuff? One of the others must have snitched. Mister Discord had told them in confidence about the way the world really worked, and they had all agreed to keep it a secret. Although Queen Platinum had cast some kind of spell to make everybody remember the royalty in charge thing… Perhaps the students at CHS, already being affected by Equestrian magic from previous encounters put two and two together and came up with four.

Stranger things had happened. And the student body at CHS was pretty genre savvy about magic these days. That was probably it; it was the most logical conclusion to draw. This could mean only one thing, all of the students at CHS must be aware of the ruling body in charge having access to magic because of the spell Queen Platinum cast.

“Braids, say something. I don’t like it when people are standing around and being all quiet around me, it makes me uneasy,” Shady spoke up once her breathing had slowed and she looked calmer once again.

Scribe rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, it happens when I think. Or need to process stuff. So...I take it the biggest problem you have is how your mom will react to everything because that’s what I’m getting from what you said.”

Shady nodded, opting not to say anything as she sat back down on the chair, and felt around on the ground with her foot before finding and retrieving her cane.

“My parents, but yeah, pretty much. I can handle a lot of shit that life throws at me, but not them. This is a situation I can’t snark my way out of, Braids, I don’t know how to deal with that. It’s… it’s really scary to think about. They’ve been supporting me since the beginning when they learned that I’d never be able to see. Lynch pin, anchor, corner stone, support beam, whatever you wanna call them, they’re it for me. What if... what if this manages to be the breaking point for them?”

Closing his eyes briefly Scribe helplessly shrugged. He probably should stop using body language when talking with Shady, but it was force of habit at this point. “All I’ve got to worry about is how mom would react, considering my dad was a total flake. Not sure why you came to me of all people to vent, but I guess it’s like what happened during Anon-A-Miss.” Fidgeting briefly he sighed. “Ok, so you’re totally freaking out over everything because you don’t know how they’d react… What does your dad do anyway?”

“He’s a… middle management at a corporation in the city. I don’t remember what exactly the position is called. He tried explaining it to me once so I’d know what he does, but it just went right over my head. Lots of technical details that deal with charts and graphs and flow patterns,” Shady explained, waving her hand about as she spoke.

“Has he been the uptight, ‘unreasonably demanding everything’ sort?” Scribe eyed Shady curiously.

Shady shook her head. “Never. Not at home anyway, I don’t know about at work though. He doesn’t like discussing the job when the work day is over, so I don’t bring it up.”

Scribe clapped his hands together loudly startling Shady with the sudden noise. “Sounds like they’d take it pretty fine. I mean they obviously care for you.” He felt a sudden pressure on his leg and noticed the tip of Shady’s cane poking him in an almost dangerous place. “Wasn’t what you were hoping to hear?” He laughed nervously in his confusion at the sudden tonal shift in his guest, girls tended to be difficult if you made light of their personal problems.

“Honestly? I don’t know? I mean, I know they love me; they put up with me after all. But what if… what if this is too much for them? What if this is the proverbial straw and they can’t take any more? There’s very little that I stand to actually gain out of this, and quite literally everything to lose if things should go south. That scares me more than anything else.”

Scribe resisted the urge to groan. “Why not ask that other girl you’re always hanging out with for some advice? I mean there isn’t much more I can say at this point…” Trailing off he grew thoughtful again and began to mull over the problem. Shady was pretty much an unknown to him, but she was starting to sound a little bit like some of the insecure students at Crystal Prep Sugarcoat constantly droned on about. Always wanting to please her folks, maintain some sort of reputation or good graces type of situation. Perhaps that answered his own question, he was the only student besides Twilight who had knowledge of how stressful that sort of thing could be. And it wasn’t like Shady could talk to Twilight about it, she was always with Sunset these days doing couple things, and Shady had a pretty big reason not to go to her for advice; a reason that started with a Capital M.

This was different from how he remembered Shady in the past and he suddenly had a funny thought. “How’d they react when you told them about Anon-A-Miss and the… incident?”

“I didn’t,” Shady replied and shook her head. “They didn’t need to know about what was going on. All I told Mom was that I needed my hair cut short because it was starting to attract weirdos. No offense. Yeah, she was curious about what was up, but I didn’t give her much details about what went on. I don’t look for ways to go and get people into trouble. I was more concerned about making sure Bacon was alright than anything else.”

Scribe’s face fell. “Oh. I can kind of see where explaining that some random boy came up to you and started braiding your hair would be a tough subject to breach.” Chuckling nervously he finally pushed Shady’s cane away from certain body parts. “Really glad you didn’t hit me with that restraining order, our moms would probably have gotten into a huge fight over it.” Scribe mentally cursed his obsession with hair. “She was already a little disappointed with me when I actually told her what happened.”

“Well seeing as I elbowed you in the chest, and nearly smacked you upside the head with my cane at the time, I couldn’t see the point in going that route,” Shady replied, unable to not grin at least a little. “I don’t look for ways to get people into trouble. You had enough going on, especially with working for Snap at the time.”

“You and that cane could almost be registered as lethal weapons,” Scribe joked. “And I’m beginning to feel almost like we’re running in circles with our conversation just a tad, but thank you, again.” Scribe walked over to the desk and quickly straightened it out. “So, want something to drink?”

“No thanks. Your mom was kind enough to take care of that when I got here. But I tell you what, the heat out there could be classified as a public health threat; maybe even lethal. I just about died on the way over here.”

Scribe nodded, certain she was exaggerating the last part. “I didn’t want to say it earlier, but your outfit is kind of…” he trailed off and waved his hand in a vague gesture. “If you wanted to dry it off I’ve got a robe or two somewhere here if it’d be more comfortable for you.”

Shady pursed her lips in thought and contemplated the situation. On the one hand she was in Scribe’s room, which was far and removed from the more public venue of the school where other students would be present. Not that she didn’t trust him or anything.

On the other, the heat of Canterlot had become insane, to the point that she’d been dripping with perspiration not long after she’d headed outside this morning. Which meant that the same results would probably be happening when she headed for home. But did she really want to sit in sweaty clothes for who knew how long?

Scribe opened his closet door and started flicking shirts around, the clacking sound of hangars alerting his guest as to where he was, and what he was doing. He examined the few robes he had just in case she decided she’d want to dry her outfit. Five of them were for the Shadowbolts, each one colour coordinated to match their respective skin tones and personalities, to a certain extent.

The final three robes were more generic, one of them was way too long, that one was his. The other two were perfectly suitable, nodding he plucked the darker toned one that would better match her skin tone and waited to see if she’d want it. Privately he decided he was going to have to talk to Sunny Flare again, his knowledge of fashion was beginning to get a bit dangerously unmanly after one too many lectures on the subject from her.

“Terrycloth bathrobe type of robe, or neighponese yukata type of robe?” Shady asked.

Rubbing the back of his neck nervously, Scribe flinched physically at the question. “I wouldn’t buy my friends neighponese stuff, but I am loaded… They’re s-satin and silk n-numbers,” he admitted stuttering slightly, “ordinary design, but really fancy material, you know… for health and comfort reasons.” A weak grin spread across his face after admitting that.

“Oh, so more the kimono type then? Thanks, but I think I’m good. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to stripping down or anything, I know you wouldn’t try anything. But stuff like silk and satin is just too high end for the likes of me to be sweating up,” Shady finally replied, “I’m probably just gonna sweat on the way back home anyway.”

“We’re in an air conditioned environment, but I get your point. Diamond tried to return an outfit once after wearing it to a social, she forgot to get it dry cleaned first though and the sales associate was definitely not happy with the stains.” Scribe returned the robe to the closet. “Right, so where were we?”

“Well you were somewhere over there if I remember right,” Shady replied and grinned as she gestured across from her. “We were trying to sort out the whole magical pony embassy issue before it gives me a heart attack or something else along those lines. I don’t know what to do if and when that information gets out to the public. There’s only so much ignorance that I can plead.”

Scribe crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “Who told you about all of that anyway?” Biting his bottom lip he turned away from the girl and tried to banish the suspicious thoughts suddenly attacking his mind.

“You’d be surprised at what you can find out if you just stop and listen to what’s going on,” Shady explained in a cryptic manner. “You as a group might’ve promised not to talk to anyone else about the whole embassy deal, but you still talk amongst yourselves; especially in public venues when you think nobody’s paying attention. But if you happen to be at the right place, at the right time, you can find out a lot of information when those who’re talking think no one’s paying attention to them. Especially if those who’re talking don’t know how to fully engage the “shut the fuck up” portion of their brain. If you know what I mean.”

“I’m going to just make a note to the others that we should really stop holding meetings to discuss this issue on school property, but Lily doesn’t have as many magical friends as Sunset and the girls do, so she tends to get desperate to unload after long sessions of practicing with Clover. ” Scribe took a deep breath to calm his nerves and found himself pacing back to the desk. “We’re getting sidetracked though, you came here to discuss some problems, we covered the paper, what’s the actual problem with the Embassy situation?”

“That it’s one gigantic mess of unknown. I don’t know where we’re going from here, and the Crypt-Keeper is hard to get ahold of unless he wants to be found, so I can’t exactly ask him for advice,” Shady explained. “There are very few times that I’ve ever felt as lost as I do right now, and I really hate that feeling. I’m really starting to wish my hearing wasn’t as good as it is. If I hadn’t overheard Blurr and her girlfriend talking, I probably wouldn’t know any of what’s going on, and I would’ve been happy in that ignorance.”

Scribe nodded, more out of reflex than anything. “It’s pretty heavy stuff. And I guess since I know Lily and I am in contact with Mister Discord on such a regular basis I’d be the first person you’d come to. I just don’t know exactly how I could help, unless you wanted me to try and set up a meeting with the old man himself.”

Shady slowly shook her head in response. “As much as I’d like to talk to that bag of bones directly, it’s too risky. If he knows that I know, Blurr may get in trouble through the course of inevitable discovery. And her choice in dating material notwithstanding, I still like her.”

Scribe chuckled briefly at her terms of address regarding Discord. “I never know if I should stick to calling him Mister Discord or not, but yeah, I get what you’re saying.”

“Well that’s good,” Shady replied as she leaned back in her chair. “Alright. Let’s put the embassy matter on the back burner for the moment, and focus on another matter. What do I do if the whole nudism thing comes up in discussion? I don’t know what I’m gonna tell my parents if that comes up either.”

“From my experience it’s easiest to just tell them the truth. I mean it isn’t like your mom is going to insist on having your bikini area waxed like mine did.” Scribe chuckled after admitting to that.

Shady opened her mouth to comment on what she’d just heard Scribe say, but instead closed it once again, her brow furrowed as she did.

“I think you win this round, Braids, I have no response for that one,” she finally replied, giving a shuddering wince as she did. “I don’t know how you went through with that, though. I wouldn’t ever let anyone with hot wax near me. Just the thought of that gives an uncomfortable sensation in certain areas.”

“Oh, I didn’t actually get the hot stuff. Mom told me I had to get a wax, but when I got there the stylist had to shave it…” Scribe trailed off. “Letting somebody else put a razor to my… Yeah, that was definitely on the ‘I could live without having to go through that again’ in my life list.”

“Wait, a stylist? You mean someone with one of those straight razors? Seriously? That’s… a little out of left field if you ask me. I can’t really imagine letting some stranger shave your sensitive areas, especially in that manner,” Shady commented. “That’s why I do my own myself.”

Scribe took a moment to try and process that last statement. He eyed Shady with a curious expression, he didn’t want to say anything; being friends with Lily he knew better than to comment on someone’s disability. Besides which Shady was pretty cool for someone who couldn’t see, so he was confident she had probably taken to practicing since puberty hit in order to get good at personal grooming.

That being said truth was in the eye of the beholder, and he really couldn’t remember how she looked at the party to verify her claims. More often than not he’d tried to avoid looking below the belt on any of the NLAC members, it wasn’t polite, and he had a hard enough time with all the bouncing and jiggling going on around the torso.

Finally he decided to just go with his gut. “I’ve never done it before, so yeah, but awesome that you do it yourself,” he told her feeling as though his tone of voice probably conveyed more than he’d meant to for someone of Shady’s talents.

Shady just looked at Scribe despite the gesture being useless with her, disbelief apparent on her face as she did.

“Dude, you’re no fun, you know that? I told that story to Twangy and Gears, they and their boyfriends were stunned at what they heard. You’re way too accepting at hearing a blind girl telling you that does her own landscaping,” she replied and shook her head, but couldn’t help chuckling regardless. “But enough talk about shaved crotches and individual skill, I’d like to get back to what you were saying earlier, about telling the truth regarding nudity. That’s not really as easy as it might sound. The honest truth, is that I have no clue where I stand on the whole nudity matter,” she finally stated, before moving on to elaborate.

However she didn’t move very fast. Once again she grew silent, obviously searching for the right words as she tried to say what was on her mind.

“The first party that I attended, that was just to figure out for myself what was going on. Not knowing exactly what the club was about, I’ll admit I also thought that I might wind up getting lucky; I even had a few condoms in my backpack and everything, on the off chance of one particular guy being there,” she admitted, not the least bit bashful as she spoke. “But then Miss C made it clear to everyone that there was no sex involved in these parties, so there went that. But rather than just leave, I decided to stick around and get an idea of what it was like. Turns out it was a lot of fun anyway; music, dancing, body painting, I even did some karaoke if you can believe that. I had enough fun that I went back for the next party, and it just sort of became a regular thing.”

Scribe shifted his legs again to get more comfortable, currently his leg was falling asleep and the annoying tingling sensation was partially distracting him. Eyeing Shady in surprise he tried to process what she was implying.

Smirking slightly he brought his index finger up to his mouth and tapped his lips briefly. “Interesting commentary, ironic considering I had no intention of adapting to the lifestyle itself, if you’ll recall I was sent to infiltrate on Diamond’s behalf and she threw me in the deep end with the sharks.” Shaking his head briefly he glanced down at his currently unclothed state. “Guess it both kind of stuck with us, however I have a feeling for completely different reasons, I sense a bit more to your story…” he trailed off and tried to stop his blunt ‘Sugarcoat’ personality to the forefront. It was definitely not important to tease a girl he barely knew about how easy her comment implied she was. Not really polite either.

“Yeah, I’m getting to the crux of the matter. I never actually signed up to be a member of the NLAC, I just attend the parties on Friday nights. They don’t exactly have a policy of denying entry to non-members. Most of my free time is spent at home, so the parties provide a great opportunity to spend time with my friends, and just plain have fun while doing it. But after the initial curiosity, the nudism just really isn’t a big selling point for me to be there. It’s just sort of one of those things; like how the cafeteria food is disgusting, but you still have to eat something,” Shady elaborated.

Scribe offered another curt nod he knew his guest couldn’t see; his expression shifted and he smiled. “You’re certainly different from me. I’m still not comfortable attending large gatherings, despite hanging with the girls at that nude beach earlier in the month. I haven’t been to any NLAC meetings lately because I just don’t socialize that much outside of my comfort zone. Lemon and the others have been helping me get a bit better at that, but considering how close I still am to Diamond I have this odd feeling the CMC would be a bit unnerved if I just showed up.”

Taking a moment to compose himself he glanced briefly over the folders on the desk and shook his head, trying to sell her on joining the staff again wasn’t a good idea right now. Something was niggling at the back of his mind though and he wasn’t sure what; it was the elusive ‘on the tip of your tongue’ comment that he couldn’t quite place. So he decided to just pose another question of his guest. “I guess your attitude on the matter explains why you have such a hard time bringing it up to your parents.”

“I honestly don’t know where I stand on this matter. Unlike others that’re attending, I’ve never really felt any interest in being naked around the house, at least not outside of my exercising. But at the same time going without clothes has a certain appeal that I can’t deny, because nice, fancy clothing is largely wasted on the likes of me. Since I can’t admire or appreciate anything beyond the basic comfort aspect of it. I don’t really belong to one camp or the other, and yet I’m stuck between the both of them. If it ever comes up, I don’t know what to tell Mom, because I honestly don’t know what I can tell her. And she’s not stupid, not by a long shot. She’s a lot sharper than I am, sharp as a piece of obsidian. She’ll seize on that uncertainty in a heartbeat, and when she does there’s no telling what’ll happen.”

Scribe honestly was at a loss of words for what to tell Shady. Her position was more a lack of a position than anything else, not committed to either one or the other. It was more or less easy to see why she felt alone in all of this, and why she didn’t feel she could ask any of her friends for advice. What exactly were they supposed to tell her when she was just standing on the sidelines?

Thinking on it, he wasn’t sure even Sugarcoat would have any advice that she could offer up; certainly nothing beyond telling her to simply pick a side and commit fully to it. But he knew for himself that such advice didn’t work the same for everyone, and might just make the situation worse.

Watching Shady as she learned for herself that the chair she sat on swiveled, he didn’t have a clue how to make the situation for better for her. If he knew more about her parents, maybe even met them in person, he might have some better idea of what advice he could offer.

“Huh,” Shady muttered as she quickly raised her head. “Braids, were you expecting company? There’s a fourth person in the house, and they’re making their way here.”

The door flew open suddenly after that unexpected announcement and Lemon Zest strode in with a huge grin on her face. Her headphones were the only thing she was wearing, her smile faltered slightly when she saw the unknown girl sitting in a chair, her back to the door.

“Hey, Scribey, am I interrupting something?” she demanded in a suspicious tone.

Scribe jerked suddenly to his feet. “Oh! Lemon-Drops!” he blurted in surprise.

Lemon smirked at Scribe’s use of her new pet name. “Scribey, I’m not threatened because you’re naked in your own home with some girl I’ve never met, especially when she’s still wearing her clothes.”

“I knew that.” Scribe laughed nervously.

Lemon’s brow rose slightly and her lips turned up in a teasing smile. “So, what’s going on?”

Scribe shook his head. “Actually I’m not a hundred percent sure, but at the moment I’m trying to convince Shady here to join the School Paper’s staff.”

Lemon grinned. “Ooooo, job interview. Totally sweet, I’ve always wanted to ask the hard questions, Sunny never let’s me,” she said with a pout. Before Scribe, or Shady, could dissuade Lemon; she approached Shady from behind and spun around the chair. “So, what’s your favorite... movie…” Lemon trailed off when she saw Shady for the first time up close.

Shady grinned in a way that reminded Scribe a lot of a shark that’d zeroed in on the scent of blood in the water. “Alone in the Dark,” she replied.

Lemon cringed at her faux pas. “Scribey, do I apologize here, or what?”

Scribe sighed and approached his girlfriend, draping an arm over her shoulder he squeezed it tight. “From my experiences with Shady so far, don’t, it’ll just make things worse.”

Shady responded by chuckling in a dark manner, adding credibility to Scribe’s statement.

Lemon flinched. “Sorry, not a lot of… I mean Crystal Prep…” Whimpering Lemon turned away in shame.

Scribe gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Don’t be too upset, Lemon-Drops, Shady’s used to people suffering from foot-in-mouth disease upon first meeting her. At least you didn’t fuck up as bad as I did.”

Lemon turned back to her boyfriend and grinned. “Oh that I’ve got to hear.”

Shady quickly shook her head in response. “We agreed to never discuss it with anyone else. We buried the issue, remember? Why do you wanna go and disturb the dead?”

Scribe sighed. “I think it might help with your problem if we go over it, take your mind off of everything.” Grinning he squeezed Lemon’s shoulder again and led her over to a free seat.

“We Pinkie Promised,” Shady reminded him, “do you really wanna bring that down on your head?”

Scribe sighed. “I’m sure she’ll understand in this case. I mean, I really think it’d help take your mind off the embassy thing. Also, it might build up your courage in approaching your folks about explaining everything, if we share our sides of the story from before the incident, because there’s some stuff I always wanted to say to you after the fact.”

Shady was surprised at that comment, the expression clear on her face. “What… what’re you saying, Braids?” Nervously she gripped the smooth and familiar tip of her cane.

Scribe grinned. “Well, Shady, in a way it’s thanks to you that I first began the journey towards turning on Diamond last month. You see, when the Anon-A-Miss incident first got started I was still firmly the dutiful little minion, however… well, just listen, it’ll make a load of sense once I get to the part where we first met…”

Canterlot High School looked beautiful with the fresh newly fallen snow of winter. Frost had formed on some of the windows and decorations were everywhere, in the halls, in the classrooms, it was clear that the holidays were in full force and the festive season had lifted the spirits of most students after the threat of the Battle of the Bands.

There was a problem however. A problem caused by the presence of residual magic, the Siren’s spells had been undone by the Rainbooms and everyone seemed to be back to normal. However, as the old saying goes, ‘appearances were deceptive’.

Diamond Tiara pulled open the drawer to her desk in the Canterlot School Paper offices and examined the shards of three jewels she’d recovered the evening of the Battle of the Bands. She’d been drawn to them for reasons she could barely explain, however she desperately needed to repair them. They would help in her ultimate plans for the school’s next Fall Formal, when she could compete and achieve total domination of the school as Fall Princess.

“Di!” Silver Spoon suddenly rushed into the room.

Diamond Tiara slammed the drawer closed and glanced up in shock. “What? Silver Spoon, how many times do I have to tell you, not to come barging in here?” she screeched.

Silver Spoon flinched.

Scarlet Scribe walked in behind her holding his phone, his eyes were wide in total shock and his lips were quirked up slightly in a bemused smirk.

Diamond glanced between them curiously. “What’s going on?”

“You haven’t been on MyStable this morning?” Silver said with a disbelieving tone.

“I was busy looking over the stuff for the School Paper’s next assignments.” Diamond ruffled some papers on her desk in a show of doing just that. “What’s so important about MyStable?”

Scribe silently passed Diamond his phone.

Diamond frowned briefly and checked the images that were there. As she saw what was there her eyes widened in complete shock, then they narrowed slightly with mischievousness. “Oh, this is totally juicy!”

Silver Spoon twirled her ponytail nervously. “Do you really think so?”

Diamond smirked. “We’ve got to find out who this Anon-A-Miss is!”

Scribe nodded. “Obviously someone is framing Sunset Shimmer, it’s a classic misdirection ploy.”

“How can you be sure of that?” Silver Spoon wondered curiously.

Scribe walked over to his desk and flipped a photo around to show the others. “My cousin employed a similar tactic when she wanted to undermine some students at Crystal Prep.”

Diamond rubbed her hands together in glee. “And if we can find them we can perhaps form an alliance.”

Scribe blinked, slowly shaking his head he reclaimed his phone. “I hardly think they’d be willing to work with us.”

“How do you know that?” Diamond crossed her arms over her chest frustrated. “How do we even know there’s more than one?”

Scribe sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’ve been working with Snips and Snails long enough to pick out three distinct and different syntaxes here in the messages.” He indicated the first post with a tap of one finger. “Someone is trying very hard here to avoid using obvious and big words to show off their intelligence.”

He was also fairly certain that, if they were to analyze the time stamps on some of the posts, they’d find a few that coincided with Sunset being in class. And while it was possible to get away with performing certain cell phone-related activities while in class, it was doubtful that Sunset would actually be blogging student secrets in such an area where she was surrounded by potential witnesses who had reason to be suspicious of her.

Diamond bit her bottom lip in thought. “Could you figure out who’s doing this so we could have a face-to-face discussion with them?”

Scribe shrugged. “Possibly, but I don’t see what the point is, they won’t want to team up with us or work under you.”

Diamond shook her head. “I don’t expect them to, I’m just interested in finding out how they’re getting this information, I’ve been trying to get dirt on those six forever and Snips and Snails are too chicken to do anything against their former boss.”

“Why would you want dirt on them?” Silver rejoined the conversation with a frown. “They won’t be running for Fall Formal Princess next year.”

Diamond smirked. “I want dirt on everybody. It’s important to have something on everyone before you make a power play as big as I’ve got in store for this school.”

Scribe shook his head, but chose not to comment.

Silver Spoon fiddled with her ponytail briefly and leaned closer to Diamond. “Does that include us?”

Diamond slammed the top of her desk angrily. “Sil! I’ve told you before, don’t get into my personal space!”

Silver Spoon’s cheeks flushed darkly and she backed away as though someone had whipped her across the face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

Diamond returned to her seat and leaned forward. “Besides, why would I need to keep dirt on my own friends?” She smiled brightly and returned to the paper on her desk. “Scribe, figure out who’s behind the Anon-A-Miss incident. Don’t rest until you do, I must discover their secrets to getting such juicy gossip.”

Scribe offered a quick salute. “Not a problem for someone of my intellectual capacity.”

“And stop being boastful!” Diamond snapped. “That’s Trixie’s job.”

Scribe flinched. “Sorry, got a little carried away.”

“I still-” Shady started, only to be interrupted.

“Don’t interrupt the story, it’s very rude,” Lemon hissed in response, before turning back to Scribe. “Keep going Scribey.”

Scribe frowned. “Actually I don’t have much more to say about the first few days, I kind of got holed up in Diamond’s office poring over reports and things Snips and Snails… liberated… from the files in the library computer network. Shady might know a bit more about things for those first few days, so maybe we should let her say something,” he suggested.

Lemon stared at him in surprise. “Snips and Snails managed to steal files from a computer?”

Scribe laughed. “No, Snips and Snails bribed Featherweight and Button to steal files from a computer. But they never told me exactly how or with what.” He shrugged helplessly at Lemon.

“The whole school really is a black market,” Shady mumbled at hearing that part, before offering up a shrug. “There’s not much I can really tell. While Braids was hunting down Anon-A-Miss, I was busy tending to damage control for the one who needed it the most.”

Somebody was going to get it. Somebody was going to get it! It was as simple as that.

On most days, Shady was a sociable person, easy enough to get along with -so long as one wasn’t extremely sensitive- and generally polite and pleasant. Today, however, such didn’t apply, and if one was smart, avoiding her was in their best interest.

The school had been abuzz the past few days, with the subject of that buzz being someone going by the moniker of Anon-A-Miss, and spreading vicious rumors online about the students at CHS. That in itself wasn’t the problem, as that was the case with every high school. No, what the problem was, was that for whatever reason, everyone had concluded that it was Sunset Shimmer who was behind it all! The very idea would be laughable, if it didn’t have her so angry right now that her blood was just a few degrees below boiling in her veins.

She wouldn’t deny that Sunset hadn’t been the best of people in the past, but that had all changed after the Fall Formal, with the former bacon-haired she-demon making a considerable effort at amending for her past actions.

Right now she was battling the urge to scream, and shout, and verbally assault every single student she passed, and give them a piece of her mind about just how stupid they were! But in order to do that, she first needed to verify the matter for herself. She had her own opinion, but she was going to need far more than just that.

Finding Sunset had been easy enough, all things considered. The library had been the most likely location where she’d hang out, based on what she knew of the girl. And asking a few people she more or less bumped into had provided her with the directions necessary to get there.

To a normal person, the library was dead still. But she wasn’t a normal person, and her hearing let her pick up the minute sounds around her, that indicated there was someone besides the librarian present. From there it was just a matter of following the sounds that indicated someone being present, and eventually reaching the epicenter.

“You there, Bacon?” she asked.

“I am, Shady,” Sunset replied.

Shady frowned. Sunset sounded emotionally beaten down.

“I’ve been hearing a lot of stuff around school. Stuff that I’m seriously not liking,” she elaborated. “Bacon, I’m gonna ask you one, simple question, and I want you to answer me. Now, is there any truth to what’s being said around school? Are you Anon-A-Miss?”

She heard the sound of Sunset sigh weakly, before hearing her hair rustle as she shook her head.

“It isn’t. I’m not,” she replied, the sadness and weariness painfully evident in her voice as she spoke.

“Alright then. That’s good enough for me. I believe you,” Shady replied.

Just hearing Sunset’s response to such a simple statement, indicated that she’d been taken completely by surprise. Not the least bit surprising, considering what it’d been like around the school the past few days.

“Wait, seriously? Just like that?” Sunset asked.

Shady nodded in response. “Bacon, in your time here you’ve been a lot of things, not all of them good. But even when you were doing your best to be downright cruel, the one thing you’ve always been with me, is honest. You never lied to me before, so you obviously wouldn’t be lying now. So if you say that you didn’t do it, that you’re not Anon-A-Miss, then I’m gonna believe you, no matter what anyone else says to the contrary.”

She didn’t care about what the rest of the school thought on the rest of the matter. Fuck the rest of the school! Sunset was being framed by some sadistic asshole, and if she found the guilty party, she was going to make them regret going through with such a stupid idea!

“Now then. Hug me,” she stated.

“... What?” Sunset asked, confused evident in her tone.

“I said hug me,” she repeated as she held her arms out to her sides to emphasize the point. “You’ve been going through hell, right? Don’t tell me you don’t need it.”

Her evaluation of the matter turned out to be correct. Despite the initial hesitancy, it was obvious that Sunset was in desperate need of some physical contact with now; evidenced by just how tight the hug was. It was returned much in the same fashion, as she did her best to physically remind the older girl that she wasn’t alone in all of this. She’d hold onto Sunset for as long as was needed, doing whatever she could to help her friend out.

“It’s nice to know not everybody was dumb enough to think Sunset was behind Anon-A-Miss,” Scribe observed with a friendly smile.

Lemon nodded. “The student body of CHS must be really dense if they blamed her, especially after they started dumping their secrets off on her for the sake of getting back at people.”

Scribe rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it, Crystal Prep would never have fallen for such an obvious ploy… mostly because Cinch would have castrated anybody dumb enough to even try such an asinine stunt.”

“Most girls don’t have that,” Lemon reminded with a teasing smirk.

Scribe had the decency to blush and cross his legs to avoid the accusing finger pointing in his general direction.

Shady laughed in response to this. “You know, I’ve never been one for lemonade, but you’re growing on me, Zesty.”

Lemon’s smirk turned into a full-blown smile. “Someone has to keep my boyfriend in line.”

“Is that a job offer? Do you want me to follow him around and keep tabs on him?” Shady asked, the grin never leaving her face.

Scribe groaned. “My first enemy and my girlfriend are getting along. I’m doomed.”

Lemon glanced between Shady and Scribe. “Isn’t enemy a bit of a strong word?”

Shaking his head, Scribe brought his hand up and tapped his finger against the side of his chest. “I use the term appropriately. And once you hear how I first met Shady… I mean she was going to CHS for, I believe, a year before I actually bumped into her? But she and I didn’t exactly get off on the best footing. I’ll concede that our relationship, at the moment, is more friendly rival or nemesis compared to what happened that day…”

Almost a week of fruitless searching later Scarlet Scribe began to realize that someone was making a monkey out of him. It had started out simple enough, comparing the syntax and verb usage of Anon-A-Miss he’d narrowed the list of suspects down considerably. Sunset Shimmer was most definitely not on it. Unfortunately when the rest of the school started forcing hurtful gossip onto Anon-A-Miss through e-mails and things everything began to unravel.

His carefully prepared forensics approach had stalled big time, because now the stories were being written by dozens of contributors and Anon-A-Miss had stopped caring about keeping everything neat and uniform.

Slamming his textbook onto the desk he let out a frustrated sigh and leaned back to rub at his eyes. “This school is full of vicious, insane dunces!”

Silver Spoon glanced up in curiosity from her desk. “Why do you say that?”

“Everyone is so quick to blame Sunset Shimmer, to the point of outwardly shunning her. At this point even her friends have stopped talking to her, it’s like they lost any pretext of common sense.” Scribe glanced over at Silver Spoon and offered a weak smile. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say the effects of those Sirens and their mind control spells were still lingering around.”

Silver Spoon shuddered. “I hope not. They thrived on negative energy and kept everyone at each other’s throats.”

“Yeah, and what do you think this Anon-A-Miss is doing?” Scribe indicated his phone briefly and then glanced out the window as a crowd of students rushed past looking hell bent on hurting somebody. “I wouldn’t put it past those three sirens being behind this as some kind of revenge thing against Sunset.”

Silver glanced at Scribe with a thoughtful expression on her face. “Is Lily ok?”

“What?” Scribe spun back around in surprise. “Why? Did a story about her pop up on the account?”

Silver fidgeted nervously with her ponytail and shook her head. “No, but with all this negative energy the student body has I was worried someone might have pushed her out of the way or something.”

“No. There may be a lot more crowds running around like a pack of unruly beasts, but nobody is dumb enough to push a girl in a wheelchair around just to get at Sunset, or somebody.” Scribe slumped in his seat and fiddled with the phone briefly.

Silver offered a rare smile. “I’m sure Vice-Principal Luna will figure out who owns that account soon.”

Scribe slammed his head onto his desk painfully. “Ugh!” he groaned, “I hope not, if she figures it out before I do Diamond will never trust me with anything ever again!”

“Hasn’t Snips or Snails dug anything up for you?”

Scribe chuckled briefly and indicated a stack of papers on his desk that was high enough to be dangerously close to falling over. “I’ve got writing samples from everybody in our grade, I don’t think any of the older students who were around for Bitch Queen Sunset’s reign would work so hard to destroy the magic of friendship that Twilight Sparkle brought back. But even with a week of pouring over it I still can’t find any commonalities between the samples and Anon-A-Miss’ earlies posts. They really tried to cover themselves.”

Silver Spoon shrugged. “If you say so.”

Diamond Tiara barged into the office with a glower, her gaze immediately zeroed in on Scarlet Scribe. “Names?”

“Not yet.”

Diamond let out a shriek of unbridled rage. “I need to know how they got their information before we started sending things to them. It could mean the difference of everything!”

Scribe flinched back. “I know, I know! I’m doing my best, honest!”

Diamond crossed the room approaching his desk.

Scribe’s eyes widened. “Please don’t hit me!” he pleaded, trying to shrink down to make the smallest possible target for the inevitable strike.

Diamond hopped up to sit on his desk top, she leaned in close, giving Scribe an eyeful of her cleavage in the process. “Scribey, my friend, I’m not going to hit you.” She batted her eyelashes cutely and smiled sweetly. Then she lashed out like a coiled serpent and grabbed Scribe’s shirt collar, pulling him out of his comfort zone. “Stop wasting my time! Forget this stupid pile of garbage and think outside the box! It’s what you’re good at,” Diamond swung her free arm around and knocked the pile of papers off the side of the desk.

Scribe trembled nervously and opened his mouth to say something.

Sil shot him a jealous look, she would do anything to be as close to Diamond as he was at the moment. The closest she’d gotten was earlier in the week when they’d put on that show about how she’d ‘stolen’ Diamond’s necklace. She still wasn’t sure why Diamond wanted her to pretend at being angry with her for the sake of that phony story they planted on Anon-A-Miss.

Scribe’s phone pinged.

Diamond reached down and snatched it up. “Argh!”

Scribe blinked. “Another new post from Anon-A-Miss?” He reached out for his phone and took it when Diamond slapped it into his palm.

“I should have just harassed Dinky to figure out who they are,” Diamond complained as she let go of Scribe’s shirt collar.

“They.” The wheels in his head started turning and Scarlet Scribe suddenly broke into a very wide smile. “That’s it!”

Silver Spoon frowned slightly. “What’s it?”

Diamond leaned closer eagerly. “Have you figured out who did it?”

Scribe chuckled. “It was so obvious I should have seen it sooner!”

“What do you mean?” Di stared expectantly at Scribe seeking an explanation.

Scribe ducked down and quickly began sifting through the discarded papers littering the floor. “Anon-A-Miss’ first three stories were about Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity!”

Silver shrugged. “So, how does that prove anything?”

“It proves everything! It’s the holidays, and Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash had plans to spend a lot of it with Sunset Shimmer, this was her first ever Hearth’s Warming – why do we call it that anyway? – with her friends, so they wanted to make it special. But there are three younger students who would probably be a little upset if their sisters stopped paying them any attention.”

“I thought Rainbow Dash was an only child,” Silver Spoon said with a frown.

Diamond Tiara stared thunderstruck at Scarlet Scribe. “Are you saying that those… those… Namby Pamby dim bulbs, the Career Minded Compatriots, orchestrated the perfect ploy to undermine the stability of the student body before I could?” she shrieked angrily.

Scribe swallowed his fear with a nervous gulp and offered a mute nod. “It makes perfect sense, logically, they were jealous of all the attention being lavished on Sunset, maybe some residual resentment from the Siren’s spells helped fuel them in that regard. I don’t pretend to understand all that magic stuff, but the proof is right here.” Scribe indicated the three pieces of paper he’d retrieved.

Diamond stared at it. “Book Reports?”

Scribe shook his head. “No, no! It’s in their style of writing, Sweetie Belle has to one-up the others most of the time with big words because she just loves to flaunt her vocabulary. Scootaloo has trouble recognizing proper grammar and sentence structure and Apple Bloom tends to slip in a few countryisms every now and again.”

Silver Spoon’s eyes widened as she realized what he was implying. “Oh, oh! And Anon-A-Miss’ first couple of posts were forcing themselves not to do that, like you said, right?”

Scribe grinned smugly. “Exactly!” He picked up his phone again and went back to the earliest posts. “It’s all right here, Sweetie Belle is hunting for synonyms with less syllables so she doesn’t give herself away, Scootaloo still sucks at grammar when she’s writing up Dash’s bit of gossip, and Apple Bloom almost slipped up here when she put in the beginnings of a saying from down on the farm when discussing Applejack’s issue.”

“Piggly Wiggly.” Silver snorted in amusement at the recollection.

Diamond’s face became an icy mask of pure rage and slowly she approached her desk. “Inconceivable!”

Scribe flinched at the sheer volume of Diamond’s outburst.

Diamond glared down at a picture of her mother which she kept on her desk. “To think, the CMC managed to do something better than I could! Those three, beat me to starting up a decent gossip account on MyStable! They exposed intimate family secrets just to get back at their siblings for something that makes them seem so much more petty and cruel than even I could have envisioned! I, I don’t know how to take that.”

“Not lying down!” Silver Spoon suggested vocally.

Scribe fidgeted nervously in his seat. “Um, should I tell Luna?”

Diamond turned slowly and glared at him. “What for?”

“Don’t you want to get them in trouble, like completely trashed? I mean, they’ve turned this place into a boilerplate about to explode with all the tension and negativity around here.”

“Scribey’s got a point, I mean they even got us pretty good.”

Diamond slowly shook her head. “That was to avoid Luna pointing the finger at us, those secrets I had Snips and Snails leak aren’t secrets at all.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Besides, why would I want to give them even more attention? It’s all they want out of this, it’s all they’ve ever wanted.”

“It is?” Scribe frowned in confusion.

“You just admitted that two minutes ago!” Diamond snapped. “They were jealous about the attention being paid to Sunset Shimmer, so they made up this account to get back at her. Why should I help them get the attention they wanted originally?”

Silver Spoon lowered her gaze. “Because it would get them in big trouble,” she reminded.

Scribe nodded. “That, plus, if we exposed them it would get you brownie points with the faculty.”

Diamond curled her lip and bared her teeth in disgust. “I want to rule this school someday, I’m not about to just let those three walk around like gossip queens lording it over me that they were better at the job than I ever could be!”

“I really don’t understand your logic sometimes, Di,” Scribe admitted with a shake of his head.

Diamond slowly broke into a very cunning smile, her eyes twinkled briefly and she turned to face both of them with a malicious gleam in her eye. “That’s because you never were good at spotting the bigger opportunities.”

Silver Spoon rubbed her hands together eagerly and let out a squeal of delight. “That’s your ‘I have a devious plan’ face. I love your ‘I have a devious plan’ face, I love every inch of you, Diamond Tiara!” Silver slapped her hand over her mouth with a gasp when she realized what she’d blurted.

Scribe politely chose to ignore the painfully obvious and instead focused in on Diamond Tiara. “What’s the sitch?”

“Go get Snips and Snails, I don’t like explaining myself twice, and I’ll need all of you here for this plan if it’s going to work,” Di ordered.

Scribe nodded and quickly left the room with a grin. He didn’t know what Di wanted yet, but he had a good idea it wasn’t exactly going to be all sunshine and rainbows. Ordinarily he’d be a bit leery of even getting behind such a plan, especially after the last time, but he was a bit caught up in the moment and so could be forgiven for not thinking straight.

Snips and Snails were walking to class when Scarlet Scribe suddenly popped up beside them. Snips tumbled backwards and Snails dropped his books trying to stabilize himself as he lost his balance because Snips crashed into him.

“Diamond wants you, now!” Scribe ordered.

“Who gave you permission to boss us around?” Snips demanded.

“Yeah! We’re the muscle,” Snails added.

Scribe slapped his face with his palm and ran it down in an exasperated display of frustration. “You’re the muscle, I’m the brains, brains is telling muscle to move. Understand!”

Snips and Snails saluted and dashed off without another word.

Scribe groaned. “Idiots.”

“Wasn’t that a little mean of you?” Lemon asked suddenly interrupting the story.

Scribe took a sip of lemonade, which his mom had brought up for them, and fidgeted briefly in his seat. “Sometimes my inner Sunny got the better of me, bossing them around was kind of easy to justify.”

Shady snorted at hearing this. “You’ve got an inner she-demon of your own?”

Scribe’s cheeks flushed darker. “Sunny Flare is many things, but she-demon isn’t one of them.” Coughing after elaborating, he briefly ran his hand through his hair. “Before the Friendship Games she was a lot more… controlling.”

Lemon agreed with that assessment by slapping Scribe in the shoulder and laughing. “That’s an understatement, she’s still controlling whenever she convinces you to shop for new wardrobe elements.”

“Don’t remind me!” Scribe slammed his glass down on the desk. “One of the best things about being a naturist is the fact you don’t need to buy as many new clothes as you used to because they aren’t wearing out as fast.”

“I’ve got enough clothes already. I’m seriously starting to wonder if Mom is unknowingly compensating for not having any dolls while growing up, considering how many nice clothes she buys me,” Shady stated, shaking her head at the last part of Scribe’s statement. “Huh. Maybe I could lead with that, and use it as a selling point.”

“Alright, so, after I verbally asserted my higher level in the pecking order, I got back to the office in time to hear what Diamond was planning…” Scribe trailed off briefly. “At this point I started to realize that things could turn sour pretty fast, and we’re getting pretty close to when we first bumped into one another,” he told Shady.

Diamond stood with her back to the room, her arms clasped behind her back as she examined the gloomy atmosphere of Canterlot’s school yard. Her lips were turned up in a shifty looking smile, and she felt that soon all of her desires for controlling the entire student body would reach fruition.

She could take control of the situation at Canterlot High, and prevent any more stupid magical problems from interfering with her future.

Silver was at her desk; she was looking at Diamond with adoration in her eyes.

Lily was indifferent, but definitely suspicious.

Snips and Snails had come rushing in, badly out of breath, and damp with sweat from running.

Featherweight was off taking pictures of the student body and their insane rage, so he wasn’t around.

Scribe returned and shut the door behind him. “Fetched them as ordered, Diamond.”

“Yeah, so what’s this plan for approaching the CMC?” Lily demanded in a suspicious tone.

“CMC?” Snips repeated in confusion.

“They’re Anon-A-Miss,” Silver explained with an eager-to-please expression.

Snails turned slowly to Silver his mouth open in shock. “No way!”

“Scribe proved it most convincingly!” Diamond informed sharply.

Everyone turned their attention back on her as she spun to face them; her eyes shone with evil glee and she brought her hands around to clap them together giddily.

Silver’s cheeks flushed as she watched Diamond express herself, she just looked so adorable when she was plotting. Shaking her head she tried to get rid of those thoughts.

Diamond slapped one hand onto her desk. “We are going to get the CMC to work for us!” she declared. “Anon-A-Miss will turn the entire student body against Sunset and her friends.”

“What?” Lily blurted. “They’re already doing that, and how does that help you?”

Diamond glared at Lily. “No, right now they’re pitting the entire student body against Sunset and Sunset alone. The others still have far too much controlling power and influence. Look at how Rainbow almost got an entire mob to attack Sunset for her ‘disloyal’ actions as Anon-A-Miss.”

Scribe rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, Rainbow Dash really influenced a load of students,” he noted sarcastically.

Diamond turned her ire on Scribe, her brow narrowing as she glared at her ‘ghost-writing’ minion. “Scribey, kindly keep your opinions to yourself!”

Scribe flinched. “Sorry,” he muttered lamely.

“Diamond Tiara,” Snips spoke up, “don’t we need those five to deal with magical problems?”

“MAGIC WILL NEVER BE A PROBLEM AGAIN IF THIS SCHEME WORKS!” Diamond shrieked loud enough to rattle the windows in their frames.

Snips and Snails cowered at the volume of Diamond’s retort.

Silver gushed in awe at the masterful and forceful tone her secret crush exhibited.

Lily rolled back and headed for the door, she didn’t want to listen anymore to this idiocy.

Scribe fiddled with his ear to try and get the ringing out of it. “So, uh, what precisely are we doing?”

Diamond zeroed in on Scribe, a sickly-sweet smile spreading across her lips. “We? No, no, Scribey, we are doing nothing.” Smirking she leaned over the desk - exposing her cleavage briefly - and snapped her arm forward to jab a finger in Scribe’s direction. “You are going to find one of those enterprising little cunts! And once you’ve found them, you are going to tell them in no uncertain terms that you know who they are, and if they don’t agree to a meeting with me, they will be exposed to the entire student body… Exposed and thrown under the bus, let them sweat when the mobs turn against them instead of chase Sunset through the halls,” she finished with a grand flourish and cackled at the thought of seeing her hated enemies trampled by angry and emotionally scarred victims of Anon-A-Miss.

Scribe blanched, his face turning pale and a sudden sweat broke out across his brow. “M-M-Me?” he stuttered. Nervously he tugged at the collar of his shirt. “Why me?”

Diamond’s eyes shone with malicious glee. “Because you’re the one who they’ll believe, they certainly wouldn’t expect me or Silver to solve their little secret, and I highly doubt Snips or Snails would be acceptable either.”

Scribe glanced towards Lily only to find she’d left without them noticing. Memories began to surface of a time when he’d done something for Diamond before. “I don’t know-”

“Do it!” Diamond snapped interrupting him before he could finish voicing his concern. “Or do I need to speak with mother concerning your little internship interest.?” she asked in a honeyed tone of voice.

Scribe groaned while Snips and Snails snickered at him. “Right… I-I’ll just find Sweetie Belle then.” Turning Scribe headed for the door.

Diamond was at his side in a flash surprising him; she gripped his arm tightly and glared openly into his eyes. “Be convincing, Scribey, or else!” she threatened.

Scribe nodded quickly and swallowed down the sudden lump in his throat. Reaching for the doorknob he was quick to leave.

Silver approached Diamond with a concerned expression. “Are you sure he can pull this off?”

Diamond smirked. “He doused Lily in Apple Juice, didn’t he?” Crossing her arms over her chest and thrusting her hip out to one side; visions of Sweetie forced to serve her unyielding whims filled her with glee. This would get her back for what happened all those years ago.

Shady was in the process of getting to her next class, her mind still reeling with strong feelings over what was going on with Sunset. She did not like the situation at all, and it was quickly escalating to the point where anything could happen. Her mind was so preoccupied with her thoughts and frustrations on the matter, she was barely remembering to keep track of her current position in the hallways. She knew when she got frustrated it was easy to get lost, but it was proving impossible to be calm at a time like this; after the whole angry mob thing, all of that went straight to hell.

Scribe nervously marched through the halls not really seeing where he was going. Instead his mind kept going back to the day of Lily’s accident; the feeling of horror that had overwhelmed him when he ran out to find her and apologize, only to see her hit by that car. It was a sight he didn’t want to see in his life ever again

The chances of that happening in this instance were pretty slim, considering Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo probably wouldn’t get upset enough to run blindly into oncoming traffic. However the worst case scenario kept replaying again and again in his mind. He hadn’t thought anything of what was happening at first, but blackmailing the CMC because of this Anon-A-Miss thing wasn’t exactly the best option as far as he could see.

Screeching tires, screaming voices, breaking glass, the thud of a body hitting pavement… Blood everywhere; Scribe’s face paled as his mind would not shut up. Absently his hands started moving trying to find something to get him off this train of thought. It was times like this that one of those fidget spinners would be much appreciated.

The brief tap of a something on the hard floor of the school absently drew his attention, and Scribe’s mind zeroed in on something familiar, something soothing; a long head of beautiful looking hair bobbing through the halls. Without conscious decision he hastened his pace.

Shady heard the sound of footsteps coming up behind her rapidly, and wondered who it might be. She couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t sound like any of the numerous students she’d interacted with, and mentally catalogued them by their gait or scent. While she tried to sort that detail out, tried to locate something similar to reference, she felt someone touching her head, fingers brushing through her hair uninvited. Her heart rate increased at this sudden intrusion; she wasn’t sure what exactly was happening, but she didn’t like it. Instantly her mind flashed back to what she’d been taught.

Her elbow flew backwards, slamming hard into what she could only assume was the sternum of whoever was trying to grab her. A male voice yelped in sudden pain as she took two steps ahead, before readjusting the hold on her cane, and swinging it around with her whole body in a wide sweeping arc like a sjambok, aimed at the height she’d heard the yelp come from. She failed at actually making contact with anything on the initial pass, but brought it around to bear again, aiming it directly at whoever was there in much the same manner one would make a thrust with a rapier.

“Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck are you doing!?” she demanded, speaking quickly in the process as her heart beat in much the same manner.

“Woah!” Scribe did his best to dodge the sudden assault. His mind caught up to his surroundings and he noticed he’d bumped into somebody he didn’t know. “Uncle! Uncle! I can explain!”

“Well then let’s hear it,” Shady snapped back.

Taking a deep breath, Scribe brought his arms away from the girl. “Ok, so, like I’m on the school paper-”

“The paper? So does that mean you work for Snap? Lemme guess, she sent you to deal with me because her other muscle won’t? She’s still pissed at me for saying her expensive perfume makes her smell like she works at a Prench whore house, isn’t she?”

“What? I don’t know anything about that, just let me finish!” Scribe snapped back. “I figured out who Anon-A-Miss was, and- urk!” The girl had suddenly lowered her cane and grabbed his shirt collar; a considerable skill as she couldn’t actually see where it was, and yanked him towards her.

“You know who Anon-A-Miss is!?”

“I’m never going to finish explaining if you keep violently interrupting me,” Scribe whined.

Shady let out an irritated sigh and relinquished her hold on his shirt. “Go on. You were saying?”

Sighing in relief, Scribe took a measured step back, hoping he was out of range. “Ok! Now, we never really believed it was Sunset, so she ordered me to figure out who it was, now I know… I mean it was pretty obvious once I took the time... “ pausing to cough and curb his sudden egotistical comment he cleared his throat. “Right, so now she wants me to help her blackmail them into working for her. I got nervous when I realized where helping her led me last time, something I’m really not proud of, so I got stressed and then I spotted your hair and…” he trailed off and his shoulders slumped as he let out a sigh. “I stress braid.”

“... You what?” Shady asked in response.

“When I get seriously stressed out, I tend to zero in on long hair and start braiding it,” Scribe elaborated.

Shady just shook her head in response. “Dude, you’re weird. But enough about that, you said you know who Anon-A-Miss really is. I’ll forget about this incident in exchange for their name. I wanna know who’s responsible for hurting Bacon like they did. I wanna know which asshole is going to be getting it.”

“If I tell you are you going to injure them?” Scribe slapped his hand over his mouth, he’d just admitted there was more than one of them.

“Them? You mean there’s more than one guilty party? Are we talking conspiracy level here?” Shady asked, quickly catching onto what Scribe was saying. “Who are they? Which students could possibly be so evil as to orchestrate this clusterfuck?”

Scribe shifted his weight so he could attempt to get out of range of her cane should she assault him, never kill the messenger often was ignored in his experience, but maybe that was just a Diamond Tiara thing. “The only three students who would gain from causing Sunset problems, and no I’m not talking about the Dazzlings. Apparently Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle fell prey to the green-eyed monster.” Letting out a breath he shook his head. “I guess everybody can suffer from a bit of selfishness at times when they let their emotions get the best of them.”

The look of disbelief that crossed Shady’s face at hearing this news spoke volumes.

“Twangy? Gears? Gumdrop? Those three… those three are Anon-A-Miss?” she asked, finding it hard to comprehend what he was saying. “You’re sure about this? It’s not a mistake? You’re… you’re not just telling me this, to keep me from getting to the real guilty party first?”

Taking a step forward to intimidate the blind girl in front of him with his imposing height, Scribe clenched both hands into fists. “I work for Diamond Tiara, that doesn’t mean I’d lie about this. I’d show you the proof, but my phone doesn’t have a braille function,” he mocked letting the pressure influence his attitude.

“Wow, you’re already going right for the blind jokes? You must be pissed, even Snap didn’t go that route,” Shady commented, but still smirked regardless. “So it’s those three, huh? And here I thought they were friends of mine. I guess I was wrong.”

“I’m not pissed, I’m stressed out and don’t have any hair to braid,” Scribe argued. “But… hold on, you’re friends with the CMC, and what’s with the funny names you keep calling them?” Beginning to feel like he’d lost control of the situation, Scribe also realized he and this girl - did she ever introduce herself? - were suddenly very late for class.

“Mister Scribe, Miss Rebus,” Ms. Harshwhinny rounded the corner of the hall with a sour expression on her face.

Scribe groaned under his breath. “And the other shoe dropped.”

“Do you have a hall pass?” Ms. Harshwhinny stood tapping her foot impatiently as she eyed the two students.

Scribe’s palms began to sweat. “No ma’am! Was delayed due to paper business ma’am,” he explained rapidly.

“Now don’t go and lie,” Shady stated as she took over speaking. “We haven’t really been able to get to class yet. I was just walking along and suddenly I lost my equilibrium. This guy was nice enough to stop me from falling down, and stayed with me until I got balanced again, in case I needed to go to the nurse’s office. But now I lost track of where I am, and I don’t know which direction I’m supposed to head right now.”

Ms. Harshwhinny sighed, but her frown softened a moment later at realizing the plight. “Mister Doodle’s class is to your left, dear,” she informed. Turning she shot Scribe a suspicious look. “As for you, you should be in Mister Magnet’s class!”

Scribe dumbly nodded, as he turned to rush off he paused and eyed Shady. He had a feeling that their conversation was far from over, but that was because if she got to the CMC before he did Diamond was sure to find out. “Don’t confront anyone until after school, please,” he pleaded in a soft whisper that he wagered she’d hear, but Ms. Harshwhinny would not.

“Thanks, ma’am,” Shady replied and moved to take her leave, but not before addressing Scribe in turn. “And you. Thanks for waiting for me to get my balance back. Not a lot of students would do that.”

Lemon had her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter as she glanced between the blushing Scribe and the smirking Shady.

“So you…” she tried to rein it in, but almost lost it again, “you tried to braid her hair because you were stressed out.” Lemon finally lost it bursting into bemused laughter.

Scribe sunk lower into his seat. “I told you I had a problem with long hair… I’m still upset that a few days after the incident she came to school and had it hacked all off like Noi’s. I couldn’t eat right for a week because of the guilt.”

“Awwww,” Lemon cooed. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t your fault, Scribey.”

Scribe sighed. “Whatever, but the point is I told her the truth, and she went after the CMC.”

Lemon turned to face the other girl, who was nodding at this point. “So, what did you do to them?”

“Well I’d love to tell you, but the statute of limitations hasn’t run out yet,” Shady replied. “But suffice to say, they were in a big hurry to confess after it was all said and done. Although it was still a long time before I actually forgave them.”

Scribe chuckled. Shady might be a small girl, but she was absolutely ferocious when she wanted to be. “Diamond was royally upset at that, until I confessed to not even trying to blackmail them at the big party a few weeks back she really wanted to skin you, and me for aiding and abetting the enemy.”

“Don’t exaggerate.” Lemon swatted him in the arm for his troubles.

Shaking his head Scribe adopted a serious expression. “Seriously though, Shady, considering what you did after learning the truth, I honestly don’t think you’d have much trouble explaining naturism and your decisions about it to your parents.” Grinning slightly, he spread his arms wide. “You’re a lot stronger than you think.”

“Remind me again, though, what exactly is my decision regarding that particular subject?” Shady asked. As far as she was concerned, that matter was still up in the air right now.

“That isn’t the point,” Scribe declared, “Shady, you’re tough enough to tell off Diamond Tiara, you’re loyal enough to want to stop bad things from happening when you hear about it. You stood up for Sunset while everyone else heaped accusation after accusation on her, simply because they were so full of hypocritical shit they couldn’t see the end of their noses with a fucking flashlight.” Scribe got out of his seat and began pacing. “You shouldn’t let this thing upset you to the breaking point, so we’re an embassy now, so what!”

Lemon eyed the pair of them in confusion. She kept her thoughts to herself though, she really loved seeing Scribe get passionate about something.

“That’s also why I want you on the paper, and I’m not about to take no for an answer. You’re just what Diamond needs to finally get over herself.”

Shady quirked an eyebrow at Scribe’s sudden outburst. “You do realize that I can floor you if I want to, right?” she asked him. “Why exactly do you want me on the paper anyway? Is it to keep Snap in line? Is it to annoy her with my presence? Am I supposed to provide a unique take on school life by presenting it from the perspective of a blind person? What exactly is it that makes me such a hot commodity in this matter, Braids?”

“I covered most of that earlier, Shady, but… there was one other reason I feel you’d be perfect for the paper this year,” Scribe admitted with a brief smile. Centering his thoughts so he was sure to explain it properly he subconsciously clasped his hands behind his back. “Every good reporter needs three things to make it in this business, moxie is one I know you have, a strong sense of morality… which I’m sad to say that aside from Lily and Featherweight Canterlot High has been lacking a lot of since Diamond took over.

And the most important element, respect. If I’m going to change how the rest of the student body perceives the school paper I’m going to need a lot of that, and you’ve got it in spades. I’ve done some researching on the matter, and it seems you carry a lot of respect with the student body. You don’t let being blind slow you down, you’re independent and confident, rather than acting like a victim over not getting a fair shake in life. Hell, even Diamond Tiara respects you in her own unique way.”

“Hold it. Seriously? Snap respects me? With all the crap she tries to give me?” Shady asked, trying to wrap her head around such a foreign concept.

“Do you honestly think she’d give you such hell, if you were just another pushover who could be intimidated by her hissy fits, and forgotten about like anyone else?” Scribe asked her. “Trust me, you’re respected, by her as well as a lot of other students. Maybe nowhere near the level of Princess Twilight and her little band of rainbow death ray users, but you’ve got a substantial amount of street cred. And… I’ll admit, I kinda need it right now.”

“Hmm…” Shady mumbled in thought. “So lemme see if I understand you correctly. You want to use the broken kid at school like she’s a dispensable commodity, all for the simple purpose of advancing your own goals. Am I right?” she asked.

She then threw her head back and proceeded to laugh, not even giving Scribe a chance to reply beforehand.

“It takes a big man to admit to something like that, Braids,” she said as she stood up from her seat. “Alright, I’ll see what I can do. I think we can work something out here. But first, there are three conditions that have to be met before I sign up for the paper.”

“Right.” Scribe pulled out a pad and pen to quickly jot this down. “I’m listening.”

“Alright. First, you seriously gotta help me figure out this stuff we were talking about, because I don’t know where I stand on my own. I’m going to need to consult with those that know more than I do.”

“I think that can be arranged, Indigo would be ideal to talk to due to her particular issues.” Scribe wrote a quick note in that regards.

“Second, don’t tell Snap that I’m coming aboard. Keep it a secret so that she’s surprised when I walk in and plop my butt down at a desk. I wanna be there when she finds out for herself.”

“Are you kidding?” Scribe’s lips turned up in a sinister smirk. “I was going to film it!”

Lemon slapped her boyfriend on the shoulder. “Do I have to tell Sugarcoat you’re turning into a Saturday morning cliche again?”

Scribe rubbed his shoulder. “Hey, after all the shit Diamond’s put me through I’m entitled to a little petty revenge, now hush I need to hear the third condition.”

“That you do, because this is the most important one of them all,” Shady stated, before her voice grew both firm and serious. “Whatever happens, I don’t ever want to hear you refer to me as handicapped. Or handicapable for that matter. I’m not some soft language substitute for describing a person with a defect or deviation from the standard design. What I am is broken. Understood?”

Scribe’s pen clattered onto the desk, his face scrunched up in an expression of discomfort and he shot Lemon a brief look.

Lemon waved her hand towards Shady in an encouraging gesture.

Thinking back on previous discussions he’d had with Silver and Lily concerning his feelings on the matter, Scribe mutely nodded and broke into a dejected smile. Striding up to Shady he reached out his hand. “I can all but guarantee that nobody will call you that, everyone who’s ever been friends with or worked for Diamond Tiara has become a little broken. I subjugated myself to her whims for years after I saw Lily struck down by that car out of some sick need to punish myself, even after I started to really see her for what she truly was. I, uh, can’t speak for Featherweight though, he’s a sensitive guy and might take it the wrong way, but I’ll try to get him to at least not say anything about it when you’re around.”

“Well then. It sounds like we’ve come to an understanding on the matter,” Shady replied, before passing her cane to her left hand in order to hold out her right hand.

Scribe took her hand in his and gave it a quick shake. “So… want to stick around for dinner? Mom’s making a really awesome dish, she picked it up from one of her exotic dancing friends.”

“Huh,” Shady replied, not expecting that. “I’ll have to call home and verify it first, but I think it’s doable. Just two questions though; what’s on the menu, and am I overdressed for the occasion?”

Lemon giggled. “Overdressed, I doubt it, if anything the rest of us will be underdressed.”

Scribe blushed. “Well yeah, but it isn’t like that matters because we don’t force people into naturism here, despite what Sugarcoat might believe,” he mumbled.

Lemon nodded. “Yeah, she did get a bit full of herself those last few days.”

Scribe shrugged. “Anyway, as for what’s on the menu, it’s some Haywaiian thing… Mom started setting up the backyard a few minutes ago, I think, so expect pork and lots of it, because we’re having a Luau.”

“Pork huh? I could certainly go for some ribs,” Shady replied. She certainly couldn’t see the harm in staying for dinner, so long as her parents were alright with the idea. She’d probably have to let her mom speak to Scribe’s mom, but she didn’t really think that would be a problem. “Alright, you sold me.”

Scribe clapped his hands together eagerly. “Awesome! You call the folks and see about getting permission, and I’ll… um… what was I supposed to do again?” he turned to Lemon with a smirk and a playful waggle of his eyebrows.

“Not that,” Lemon reminded. “You’ve still got paperwork,” she added, indicating the folders on his desk.

“I believe I’ll take the Pinkie Pie approach to paperwork before a party,” Scribe decided before he grabbed the folders and threw them clear across the room to land in a messy heap on the bed. “Now, since we’re eating outside come here, it’s time to apply the sunblock,” he informed with a broad smile.

Lemon shrieked and rushed out of the room in a fit of giggles.

Scribe dashed after her leaving Shady behind to find the phone on her own, or at least she would have been if Angel Mist didn’t come back just then.

Shaking her head she turned to their second guest for the evening. “Need a hand getting to the phone?”

“I’m good,” Shady replied as she fished her own phone out of her pocket. “Never go anywhere without it. Siri, call up Mom.”

This certainly wasn’t how she’d anticipated the afternoon going. What started out as tracking down Braids to ask him for advice on a difficult matter, had spiraled out of control and into a discussion about nudism, loyalties, magic, her participation in a school function beyond merely being a student, reminiscing about old times, and now an invitation to a luau dinner as well! It truly was amazing what one could find in Canterlot city!

“Hey Mom!” she greeted as soon as she heard the other end being picked up. “Yeah… Hey, Mom, listen, you gotta hear this. You are not gonna believe this one!”

Author's Note

This Prequel Tale bridges the gap between The NLAC Has to Deal with WHAT and it's future sequel which I and Charlie_K will be collaborating on. This also will mark the second tale in an alternative, expanded universe-esque tale inspired by Blake Skies and Enclaves original NLACVerse.

For those who aren't fans of magic mixed in with their naturism (or maybe naturism mixed in with their magic?) I'm going to flat out state, this alternative universe is probably not what you're looking for. For those who have no such opposition, I do hope you've enjoyed this look back into the past when Anon-A-Miss was a huge issue. I had this in the back of my mind when I first started introducing the conversation referring to it. Hope you enjoy this further look into Scribe's interaction with Shady, and the source of his unfortunate nickname.