It was another day. It wasn't easy being her, but then, it had never been easy to be no one. Sitting up on her bed, Wallflower stretched and yawned. Her pajama shirt was soft and slid about on her torso as she worked the kinks of sleeping out of her head.

Turning her head, she looked at her right palm and the stone clutched in it. Her own memory fought against itself as she remembered finding the Memory Stone. It had allowed her to fulfill her greatest desire—to be able to hide.

Everything had been just fine until she'd stood outside the music room at Canterlot high school and listened to Sunset and all her friends playing their instruments. That's how the magic of the stone started to get into her.

Before then she'd been able to use the Memory Stone without any problem. She'd scrubbed and polished herself out of everyone's lives until she could just be her—but then that music and magic had infected her.

Walking out of her bedroom, she slipped into the upstairs shower and set about her morning rituals—stone still clutched in her hand. For all that using it kept changing her in little ways, she needed to keep it safe.

Washed and dry, she stepped out of the bathroom with the stone clutched to her chest—almost running into her mother. "Goodmorning." The words ran together and were so soft even Wallflower didn't hear them clearly.

"Huh? Oh. Hello dear, I didn't see you there. Are you almost ready for school?"

Wallflower hated this part just a little. Her parents remembered her, but they seemed to keep forgetting what grade she was in. That she'd graduated hadn't sunk in yet. "Yes, Mom."

"I'll make your favorite breakfast. It'll be——"

As her mother walked downstairs, Wallflower mouthed, "cinnamon toast crunch," which was the same thing her mother made for her every day. Back in her room she got dressed in her usual things—baggy pants, concealing shirt, and huge and amorphous pullover that almost completely hid her body shape.

It even hid her tail.

The last thing she grabbed before heading downstairs was her hat. It was an old beanie that matched her pullover for size and coloring. It was perfect for hiding her pony ears. She just needed to get Sunset and her friends back and she could start undoing it all.

So she ate the breakfast she'd loved all those years ago and now only barely found edible. She gulped down a glass of juice and took her lunch money from her mother and left the house—into a downpour. A quick detour back inside to get her raincoat solved that problem.

She had to get three blocks as quickly as she could without being seen, which meant her bike was going to get some workout. Her too, for that matter.

Making good time, Wallflower reached the big house just as Sunset stepped out the front door. For a split-second she thought it was her time to shine. Pressing down on the peddle to propel the bike forward, she got halfway to Sunset when she noticed the car waiting on the street. "Crap!"

Turning her head at the shout, Sunset dove and pressed herself against the side of the car as the cyclist flew past her. "Hey!"

"Get in the car before you soak all the way through." Fizzlepop was looking over her shoulder as Wallflower rode out of sight around a corner. She pulled out her notepad and was just about to write Wallflower's description in it when the whole incident completely left her mind. Looking at her notebook, she flipped it closed and slipped it back in her jacket pocket.

Climbing into the car, Sunset let out a sigh. "Thanks for offering. Pinkie started her first class an hour ago, and I didn't want to hang out on campus for an hour doing nothing."

Panting, Wallflower sat around the corner, the stone clutched in her hand and her mental focus on Sunset and Fizzlepop. It was easy to remove such a small encounter, but she had plans for a lot more than that.

"I'm doing this all wrong. I need to—I need to get all of them together." As she said it, Wallflower grinned and sat up straighter on the bike. "Of course. Why didn't I think of that earlier?" Turning her bike around, she started peddling for home again.

Limestone hated homework. Sure, she'd done it while studying weapons systems in the Army, but that was different. She had the information Sonata had put together on her tablet—it was only a few pages, but all of it was gold. She took notes as she read. There were five pages of densely-spaced writing on sirens, and a further two pages each on Adagio and Aria.

Just reading about the things they'd done made Limestone sick at times. They'd caused ruin just about wherever they'd gone over the past thousand years. Almost all the locations Sonata had written down could be cross-referenced to what had formerly been thought to either be natural disasters or cult mass suicides.

As with weapons systems—even the weapons systems that enemies of the USA might use—Limestone memorized the facts and jotted down concepts she needed more clarification on.

By the time she was done with the note-taking and information absorption, she realized it was getting late. Closing the book and her notes, Limestone took a shower and went to bed.

In her dreams, Limestone Pie ran through that day again. The conflicting effects on her mind as Adagio and Aria tried to control everyone, then the smashing of that by her sister's band. Her subconscious couldn't puzzle out the intrigues of the day, but it could and did focus on one thing—the magic had affected her, giving her pony ears, and that meant she had her own magic.

Waking up just before dawn—as was her norm—Limestone reached one of her big hands up and felt the ears on top of her head. They were sensitive, had led her far better through the one weapons training course she had access to, and they were a sign she had magic. "So what's my magic? Punching things? I hope it's punching things."

When no answer appeared out of thin air, she grunted and walked to her chest of draws. Socks, shoes, boxers, black pants, a sports bra, and a muscle shirt was all she cared about wearing. Well, and her sunglasses. Setting out for her dawn run, however, revealed the rain that had been blanketing Canterlot of several days. Ignoring the weather, as the Army had taught her to, she let the song of her muscles sooth out the worries in her head.

She got a good mile from home when she heard a voice say, "No, don't notice me."

Limestone's ears perked and she took a moment to look around—feeling for the direction her ears were pointing. The young woman had green hair and a translucent raincoat covering her and hiding her features. What surprised Limestone the most was the voice had been soft and completely unmuffled by the rain.

Disregarding them, Limestone turned a corner and was running away now when she head the girl's voice again. "Forget me." The words, like the first, were clear and proud in her ears despite the rain. Limestone put it down to just another freaky thing in Canterlot.

When she got home again, she made her way straight for the shower and tossed her wet clothes in a hamper on the way. Just a quick wash to get the sweat off and she was getting dressed for a proper day at work.

The suit she'd gotten made was light enough that she could run in it, but the jacket was heavy enough that it covered any gun she cared to holster. Grabbing her notebook, she quickly scribbled the description of the woman she'd seen on her morning run and the two phrases she'd heard, along with the time it'd happened.

Finally, she grabbed her keys and walked out into the rain and to her car. The drive to the department's offices wasn't long, but she did curse more than once at the bad weather. Guarding her notes with her jacket, she rushed from her car to the front door and tapped in her security code on the keypad, then swiped her access card.

She made her way inside—ensuring the door closed behind her—and reached General Inkwell's office. A knock on the door, followed by the general's voice welcoming her, and she opened it and stepped inside. It was hard not to salute, not to stand to stiff attention. Enough years had drilled such reactions into her that she had to fight just to say, "Hey, boss."

"You can sit down, Limestone." Raven set her eyes on the notebook Limestone had carried in. "These are your notes?" She held out a hand.

Passing the notebook over, Limestone hovered over the chair before finally surrendering and sitting down on it. She hated sitting mostly because it left her feeling too relaxed. "Mostly questions that the information raised but didn't cover. I thought I could take it to Sonata and ask her to clarify things."

"She smells like magic." Captain Penny lifted her head from her dozing position at one end of the table and looked at Limestone. "That strong, horse magic. It's more than usual."

"Huh?" Blinking, Limestone looked at the cat. "What do you mean?"

Raven watched as Penny closed her eyes and lifted her snout. Linked to her familiar, she focused on enhancing and aligning their senses. The flood of horse magic stink was strongest around Limestone's head. Squeezing her eyes closed and sneezing, she tried to shake the smell out of her nose. "Your head. There's something tried messing with your head. Who have you seen since you clocked out yesterday?"

Limestone didn't have to think far. "Only Sonata. I picked up the information from her last night—but your wards didn't go off."

"Then either we have the smartest and most canny mind-controller in the world, or it wasn't her." While she spoke, Raven looked through the several pages of Limestone's notes and then paused. "'No, don't notice me'? 'Forget me'?"

"It's not mind-control magic," Penny said. "This is mental shielding." Standing up, she stretched and arched her spine and walked over to Limestone. "Hold still."

Freezing, Limestone didn't move while Captain Penny jumped neatly to her big shoulders. She'd not grown up with pets, so she didn't know how athletic the feline could be. She knew the name was more a joke, but she couldn't help but think that the cat somehow outranked her.

"Protective magic. You've got some kind of hard shielding going on here, and it's all you." Penny rubbed a cheek against Limestone's short-cut hair and purred a little. "But these are a bit more."

When a cat paw reached up and batted at her ear, Limestone couldn't stand it anymore. "Please get off me."

"No. There's more here."

"Penny, get off her head. We've solved what was going on, but not what triggered this. I think this woman you met was using magic on you." Raven tapped her finger on the description of Wallflower Blush.

Rubbing her cheek against Limestone's neck one last time, Penny jumped back to the table and curled up. "It's easy to work out if it's just mind-control magic it blocks. You have a friendly asset who can do that—ask her to poke at your head."

"Thanks, I hate this plan." Limestone didn't even attempt to keep the annoyance out of her tone. "But that doesn't mean I won't do it."

"Don't let her order you around—" Raven rolled her eyes. "… but she's right. We have an asset, we should use it. Take the wards with you so you can verify what's happening." The moment she turned her attention to her computer, she watched as Penny walked over and lay on one of her hands. "I'll try to fight off this monster and narrow down a possible on your rogue here."

For a moment Limestone was going to ask if that was legal, but she remembered who she worked for and mentally shrugged. "Okay, I'll arrange a meeting with her. I don't know if she'll go for it."

"Try. If this is the case, I'd like to know if you can resist and detect this kind of magic." Raven nodded toward the door. "This is the part I'd normally tell you dismissed."

"Did I miss a cue? Ugh, it's the rank thing. I mean, I know you're just my boss, but every time I think of your name in my head, I pin general in front of it. Then my thinking goes back into comfortable grooves." Standing up, Limestone reached a hand out to Penny and rubbed one of her ears. "Thanks for putting up with me."

Author's Note

Captain Inkwell: As someone whose task is to monitor anything magical, don't you think it is necessary to make a contact with the magical beings on the other side of the portal?

General Inkwell raised one eyebrow, the only motion that she used to show her displeasure. "I have no jurisdiction on the other side of that portal. I have also been ordered not to destroy it—though that would be my preferred action at this juncture."

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

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