Looking out at the green chaos encompassing the town, I felt a sense of doubt beginning to fill my belly. When Mom said magic might be different, and more potent than ever, I don't think she meant quite like this. Everywhere I looked, nature magic was going off in random, unpredictable ways. Plants, vines, flowers and trees of every kind were popping up wherever the panicking earth ponies went.

In retrospect, it made sense that Hitch Trailblazer's blanket ban on the burgeoning earth pony magic would backfire this spectacularly. Even though they'd learned to live without magic—or at least noticeable magic—ponies still had magical reservoirs. Unfortunately the great span of time without magic had left them with a minute reservoir... Naturally filling and discharging at their idle levels, but never holding much. Now they were all imbued with the power to wield that magic, and with it building up inside them, like refugees overeating and overwhelming their bodies, it had nowhere to go except to spill out wildly.

Unicorns had quickly taken to using the natural telekinetic force they could channel through their horns to levitate objects, as well as creating an aura cone to produce light. It was probably inefficient as all get-out, but their limited reservoirs could probably refill as quickly as they burned through energy. Pegasi had the magic that granted them flight, which they abused with abandon, and there was still the potential towards cloud-walking and weather manipulation in time. Earth ponies, though? They didn't know how to naturally cycle it through their bodies to reinforce their muscles, so their only outlet was to pour it into the ground and give mother nature a prod.

Sure, I was safe atop the Canterlogic factory, which I'd heard was in the process of decommissioning. I was a few stories up, and aside from an overgrown glimmerberry stem, there weren't any major wild growths in the area. Still, I hoped they'd find a good outlet, and soon, or else Maretime Bay was destined to become a new Everfree Forest. Hopefully, they'd figure things out.

Taking out my phone, I had an idea. Holding it landscape, and ensuring the camera app was using the back-facing camera, I toggled the recording mode. "I hope you're all enjoying the green nightmare as much as I am, everypony," I narrated, sweeping the camera across the city to highlight all the greenery that didn't belong. "It's Anonymous Flicker here to share her two buggy bits on the latest happenings."

Switching the phone over to the selfie-cam, I gave my reflection—my beautiful changeling reflection—a smile. "Rather than answer any audience questions this time, I thought I might use today's... shenanigans as a good stepping off point to talk a bit about one of my favourite topics: magic and my cutie mark."

I encapsulated the phone in my own levitation magic—the only horn magic I ever really bothered learning to do when it grew big enough for me to use—and held it out to my side, showing off my side-profile and the iridescent green mark on my flank. "Even though I'm a changeling, a creature not typically known for it, I possess a cutie mark," I began. Slowly, I brought the camera closer to show off the mark without it going out of focus. It was a curved shape with a slash through it, positioned just above a slim six-pointed star. The way it was configured made it appear to be a question-mark that had been struck through. "It's a bit of a souvenir from when I was a pony. The symbolism might not mean much today, but the shape accompanying the star is what's called a rune, a major facet in the way spell-casting of old worked, and stars had major ties to magic in general. Thus, my talent was runic magic."

The camera came back around to float in front of me. Again, I reached out to tap the screen, switching it back to display the town. In particular focus was an earth pony foal whose hooves were causing flowers to spring up in their wake. "Back then, magic was never this potent," I explained, pointing out a large vine that had sprung up just out of frame. "Earth pony magic was more subtle, passively bolstering their strength to levels you might consider preternatural, and giving them a natural advantage where agriculture was concerned. Conversely, pegasi could walk on clouds—and I can't stress enough not to try this without somepony to catch you if it turns out you can't—and even manipulate the weather, which was wholly under pony control."

While the camera was focused on the chaos down below, I quietly forced some of the contents of my stomach up into my throat, where it mixed with a secretion from a gland only changelings possessed. Although disgusting, this was how changelings created a pretty sturdy construction material that came out all glossy and black. While the hive resin cured in my throat, I transfigured my hoof into a flat panel upon which a complex fractal pattern extruded itself. Finally, I smoothed some of the resin out onto that pattern, making sure every groove was imprinted on the waxy substance.

"That left only three things to the unicorns: light, object levitation, and unpredictable intent-based magic," I pointed out as my hoof returned to it's normal shape and I held the black puck atop my hoof. "That was where spells came in. Through careful experimentation over millennia, the runic 'language' was discovered. It was determined that when magic was shaped certain ways, it could create specific effects, and by combining the shapes, energy-efficient spells could be created with far more predictability. That said, creation of spells was typically regulated due to the sheer dangers it presented when done improperly."

Redirecting the camera, I displayed the rune-imprinted resin puck to my audience. They wouldn't see every single detail—thank God—but the blue glow cast by my horn was enough to highlight the sheer complexity of the spell. "Although spells are typically shaped internally and expressed through a unicorn's horn, it is possible for any sufficiently magical creature to utilize runes to cast a spell. There are even some that possess a spoken component."

Down below, I could see Hitch leading the other four down into the plaza below. It was hard to hear over all the screaming and panic, but it sounded like he was telling the earth ponies to go buck wild with the magic. At the same time, it seemed like Sunny had taken a lead in guiding them, so that it was with purpose. Things slowly started to calm down for a moment, and then that tiny red dude went off.

I slowly pulled the camera back with my magic, and rotated around until it was providing an over-the-shoulder view of the town. That view was quickly disrupted as an even larger glimmerberry plant—complete with a massive berry weighing it down—rose into view. I just held the hoof bearing the runic spell outward, and drove my mana out through it to fill every groove, fully intent on casting the spell. I didn't need to see the camera to know that it caught when a hoof-thick icicle shot out and embedded itself in the giant berry. Several more joined it, forming big happy face with two chevrons for eyes.

All I could do was wince when the giant berry snapped free of the stem. "This is your local ancient black-shell queen, signing off," I announced before stopping the recording. In quick succession, I slipped the phone into its case, recreated the bag-of-holding spell on my leg, and stored away the magic puck before I could lose it.

Down below, I saw the big fuck off berry smash into a hastily grown tree, splattering down-town in berry juices. I considered getting out while everyone was distracted, but it took me too long to decide. I was, after all, perfectly silhouetted on the roof, so of course someone was gonna see me. Even as I heard Zipp wondering aloud where the ice had come from, I knew what was coming next.

"Anonymous Flicker, I see you up there!" Hitch bellowed in his 'I am the law!' voice. "You get down here this instant. I need you to explain where this ice came from, because it clearly didn't come from these ponies."

Shit. Sure, it was perfectly reasonable to blame unexpected magical happenings like that on the weird magic change-bug. I get it; I'd be suspicious too. It didn't make it any less shitty that I was probably about the take the blame for that big berry dropping down and threatening to steamroll the town. Maybe I should prep the Fire Hose spell on my other foreleg now. Good old water conjuration.

~ 03 ~

"So put your hooves up high, 'cause we're feelin' alright," I sang along with the audio track playing through my headphones, though I wasn't paying enough attention to know for sure whether it was in my own voice or if I was directly mimicking the song. "Every day is awesome in the Maretime Bay!" Flying along and sweeping high-pressure water magic down the sides of the plaza buildings was boring work, but it wasn't like anyone'd said that I couldn't listen to music to keep it interesting. "So put your hooves up, put your hooves up! Everything is gonna be okay!"

Down below, there weren't many other ponies working at cleaning up. Mostly everyone else had gone to get washed up. In fact, the only helper I had was the red guy that grew the massive glimmerberry plant in the first place. Turns out the scrawny guy with the straw-coloured mane was named Sprout Cloverleaf. He was helping clean up to fill hours for his mandatory community service, but rather than using a hose, he was shovelling the pulp into a cart.

He's the one that whipped the town into a xenophobic fervour and formed that lynch mob before I awoke, my brain helpfully supplied as another of Pipp's began to play. I don't abide by racists, but given the tenuous/non-existent history between the tribes over the recent centuries, it's not like I can't understand them being irrationally afraid of one another.

Taking my hoof off the spell to give my chitin a break, I took my headphones off and draped them across my neck. "Oi, Little Red!" I called down to him. I looked around the plaza and saw that he was probably gonna be here past sundown dragging the cart around and shovelling the fruit-scraps into it. When he didn't seem to notice, I rolled my eyes. "Tin-pot Dictator, you got a moment?"

He paused his work, resting against his shovel as he stared up at me. "My name is Sprout!" he yelled back up to me. It wasn't an angry declaration, or even frustrated. It was just straight-up dejection. "That used to mean something around here."

I nodded. "Right, anyway, I'm getting ready to take off," I responded, slowly floating down out of the sky. "Want me to get all this pulp bunched up and save you some time? I'm sure you wanna go home and get cleaned up too."

He eyed me with some suspicion as he looked around. The frustration bubbling up inside him was palpable, and I half expected him to use his shovel to fling some of the mess up at me. Sprout seemed to be of a proud sort, having a bit of an ego, and to have me offering to use my freaky magic probably tweaked is little nose. After an extended silence, he hissed out a sigh. "Fine."

As soon as he threw his shovel over his withers and trotted over to a pulp free area to take a break, I threw my headphones on and built up some speed. "You gotta follow your beat, and then soon you will see, you won't have that far to go," I sang along as I used the spell imprinted on my shell to begin pushing the pulp along the ground. "Until your song starts to grow, all you need is to follow your beat."

The minutes flew by, and before too long, there was a sizeable pile of berry pulp lying in the shade of the tree that had been used to stop the berry's rampage before it could start. Even if he didn't much care for my blatant use of magic, or my flight, even he could appreciate how much easier I was making his job. Sure, it might even have diminished his punishment somewhat, but it was a warm day, and he could easily work himself into heatstroke. It just felt like the right thing to do, even if he was a bit of a pariah.

'Sometimes, we all just need to be shown a little kindness,' whispered a familiar voice in the back of my mind.

Once it was all done, I quickly waved goodbye to the stallion as I donned my second skin—which was really more of a first skin now that I thought about it. He seemed utterly bewildered that I'd actually done that for him, but as he looked at the sunny skies and then the shade in which he could now work, I could taste his gratitude in the air. Not the most filling emotion, but it's better than getting drunk off the negatives. If he called anything out, I couldn't hear him over the music.

Maybe it was just sheer coincidence, but the playlist on my phone had just transitioned to a band that Zipp had recommended—Electric Blue—there came a tap on my withers. I looked to the side and saw the familiar purple and blue primary feathers, and the blue and pink mane of Zipp. Did she just wing-tap me mid-flight? I wondered as I pulled my phone out and shut off the tunes.

"What's up, Detective Princess Zipp?" I asked, slowing to a hover while turning to face her. She seemed troubled, but I had a hard time gauging her emotions. "You guys aren't mad that I gave Sprout a helping hoof back there, are you?"

She glanced back toward the plaza, where the small red shape could be seen in the shade of the tree, slinging chunks of the overside berry into the cart. "Huh? I actually wasn't gonna say anything about that," she said, but didn't actually seem all that interested in my act of kindness. "You knew Twilight Sparkle, right?"

When I nodded my head, she went into an explanation of what had happened leading up to Hitch's epiphany in letting earth pony magic go free. A message Mom had encoded in the Unity Crystals had played in response to some weird cutie mark magic shenanigans. It warned of the increased danger posed to Equestria now that magic was back and stronger than ever, and of someone who wanted to steal it all for themselves.

"—but the spell is broken. You are exposed to the world once again. You must watch out for Op—" came a voice I never expected to hear again beyond my own imitations. Zipp had managed to record a small portion, and played it back for me, trying to see if I knew anything. It kinda rang a bell, but I'd already chosen to go into stasis before she sealed it all away.

Why did I change my mind, though? I couldn't help but wonder as I looked at the frozen recording... at the illusory Twilight. I was ready to refuse when things first started going bad. I wanted to stay and help, so why? Now that I thought about it, my memory of the last few months leading up to the big sleep was full of holes. For that matter, who was that pony we were now being warned about? Are they even still alive?

"Sorry, I wish I could tell you I knew more," I mumbled, turning away from her. "From the sound of it, the long time in stasis has left my memory of some things just as patchy as that recording she left. I—"

We both froze. A plume of smoke was rising in the outskirts of the city. In fact, looking closer, it was the exact same direction I'd been flying before I'd been interrupted. It was the Pony Delight motel... The motel was on fire, and from the way the plume of smoke grew, the flames were spreading quickly. "Oh fucking... really!?" I cried out, taking flight toward the building, leaving the stunned detective in my wake. "I know I said I needed to find a better place to stay, but this is ridiculous!"

As I came in for a landing on the roadway before the motel, my transformation gave out and I was I was glad that my bug wings didn't need a whole lot of magic to glide. Evidently, I'd used up almost all of my reserves channelling that water spell for almost two hours straight. I was still conscious, and perfectly able to stand, but I probably couldn't even manage a twinkle from my horn.

The owner of the place, an aging mare by the name Greenie May, was panicking and fussing over one of the families that was staying closer to the front office. She startled a bit when I touched down beside her, but she calmed down when she saw it was just me. Caught me in my natural form the other day when I was coming out of the shower; didn't think I was still in.

My biggest concern was the fact that the fire brigade wasn't already on the scene. "Are all the other guests out?" I asked, tucking my wings away as I unstrapped my harness and dropped my headphones. A glance back at the inferno left me feeling antsy. It was the room directly beneath my own that seemed to have most of the fire, so anything I'd left in my room was probably scrap. Luckily I didn't unpack.

"N-no," she said in a shaky voice. Slowly, she lifted her hoof and pointed directly at the burning room. "Mr. Wicker from Bridlewood is still in his room."

Shit.

The windows had not yet broken, so I moved over to take a peek inside. The interior wall that backed into the bathroom was fully engulfed, along with the counter-top. Where in my own room a microwave had been, here there was just a burning metal frame. Down on the floor was my downstairs neighbour. He's breathing, but unconscious... Where the fuck's the fire ponies?

"Sorry 'bout the door, Greenie!" I called out as I ran over. The wood was hot, and probably getting ready to catch, and I knew the knob would be way too hot to simply turn. Spinning on my hooves, I kicked out just as I had when volunteering with the apple harvest in my teens. Apple trees didn't explode into burning splinters as the impact reverberated through my hooves, though, nor did they throw a gout of flame over my head. The door did, and I momentarily dove to the ground.

Whatever damage was done to my mane and tail, I didn't care. It'll grow back... eventually. In an instant I was back on my hooves and into the burning room. The air was thick with smoke, and as I crawled across the floor to the stallion, I was surprised to see what appeared to be a microwave door peeking out from beneath the bed. Based on the gash on the old man's head, I think I know the cause of the fire.

Somewhere above me, I heard a cracking sound and decided to hurry my ass up. Now, despite changelings having some properties in common with ants, like pheromone markers, specifically-bred forms, and sometimes even compound eyes, one thing we didn't possess was the ability to lift ten times our own body weight. This meant that I wouldn't just be tossing the old fellow over my back in a firepony's carry. I was also without my magic, which left me with only one option to get him out. I tugged him upright just enough that I could get my forelegs underneath his and drag him back towards the door.

It was slow going, and I was holding my breath because I found myself just high enough in this position to have my face in the smoke. What was worse was that couldn't even keep my eyes open between the heat and the irritation of the smoke. Somehow, I don't think this is what she meant when she told me to help guide and watch over the ponies, I thought darkly as I again heard a cracking sound from above.

My back slammed into a wall, causing my heart rate to spike. I was sure that I'd had my back pointed directly at the door. Before I could question which direction I'd deviated, though, some ponies called out. "Come on, Anon! You can do it!" That voice, it was Zipp? Her voice was definitely coming from my right, so I turned and dragged the stallion in that direction.

Then, just like that, I felt several pairs of hooves grab me and pull me out of that smokey inferno and away from the building. Perfect timing for a last minute save, too, as the ceiling collapsed into the room moments later. Now the bunk-beds are on fire, my oxygen-starved brain offered, forcing a giggle out of me that sounded more like a cough. Even as someone else wrenched the stallion from my grasp, I was laid out on my back by some strong hooves.

Something was slid over my mouth, and suddenly breathing got easier. Cracking my eyes open, I found a pair of paramedic ponies huddled over me. Behind them, or rather above us, I could see Zipp fluttering, looking nervous. It looked like one of the medics was about to shine a pen-light in my eyes to test pupilary response, but I just put my hoof to the plastic mask cupped over my muzzle and sat up. "Go help the other guy," I croaked. "Go on, git!"

Although the paramedics looked like they wanted to object, a certain winged private-eye came to my rescue. "Go on, I'll keep an eye on her," she assured, landing beside me and then waving her off with a wing. Once the medics joined the ones tending to the old man, she gave me a stern look. "What were you thinking? You could've died!"

Between the flames, the fear she was radiating, the sheer absurdity of what I'd done, I felt transported back fifteen years, give or take a few millennia. In my mind's eye I was back on the caboose of a train, looking out at the flaming wreck of an airship. "Don't you ever do that again!" my adoptive big sister admonished as she hugged me, unable to work out whether she was laughing or crying. "You're not allowed to save all of our flanks and then do something stupid like dying."

I realised then that I was crying. It was strange, but even after all the growing I'd done since then, I still fell into the same stupid habits; when people were in danger, when lives were on the line, it was like my own well-being took a backseat—regardless of how much I stood to lose. Protecting others, no matter the cost to myself. Then, as paradoxical as it was, I began to laugh.

"Sorry, Mom," I whispered to myself as I flopped back down onto my back. "Looks like I didn't learn my lesson after all... but maybe... that wasn't my lesson to learn..." Zipp was looking down at me in fear, and to her, I probably looked delirious or brain-damaged. "You had the Magic of Friendship, I have the magic of runes and whatever the fuck you call this..."

~ Elsewhere, Several Hours Later ~

It was not easy being an evil alicorn of fire. It was in fact a very high-stress job, made so by the fact that Opaline lacked both her magic and any sort of competent servants. Relying entirely on Misty to be her hooves in the greater world made things all the slower. On the flip-side, it meant that Opaline had a lot of downtime.

That meant long stretches binge-watching soap-operas on HoofFlix or the news on the TV in her parlour of dark and evil relaxation. After all, only the most depraved of villains did not keep up with the latest of television dramas. No, not Opaline; she was a visionary, a mare of culture—at least what little real culture there was left now that Neighpon was but a distant memory, and Prospero had burned long ago!

Unfortunately, there was definitely not any relaxation to be had in her parlour right now. For the last half-hour, she had been re-watching the same segment of the news. At first she hadn't been paying too much attention to what Skye Silver and Dazzle Feather, the anchors for the Zephyr Heights news, were discussing, instead reading a romance novel she'd confiscated from Misty. That was until she glanced up and glimpsed the subject of their discussion.

She could scarcely believe her eyes as she looked up at the screen. Surely her eyes had been playing tricks on her. There hadn't been a single sighting or mention of such a creature, not since before Celestia and Luna retired and left control of Equestria in that detestable Twilight Sparkle's hooves. Yet this was unmistakably...

She hit the rewind button on her remote control and looped back to the beginning of the segment. "And while the topic of Maretime Bay is on our minds, let's not forget that one of the city's most unusual new residents has also caught the public eye today," said the handsome pegasus stallion, Skye Silver, as a picture appeared on screen in the corner. It was a three-quarter profile shot of a largely equine face, although between the oddly shaped horn and the spots where it looked like there were seams on her face, it was clear it was not a pony. This was most certainly a changeling, and with eyes like those... "Local shape-shifting vlogger, Anonymous Flicker, was recorded running into a burning building to save a complete stranger, even though the local fire brigade was already on their way."

Even as footage played in the background showing the bug pony's courageous—or stupid, depending on how you looked at it—rescue, including a last-minute helping hoof from paramedics, the camera cut to the other news anchor. "Despite being somewhat of an outsider in the community, she's been working hard to fit in and get to know the ponies around her," Dazzle Feather summarised. "Between this and the museum contributions, she'll become a role-model for foals everywhere in no time." Looking back to her co-host, she asked, "Was there any word as to the cause of the fire?"

Skye nodded as the camera panned out to include him as well. "Evidently, the room's occupant—an older unicorn not used to mobile phone technology—fell victim to a common, but dangerous prank played by internet trolls on the naive." The footage playing in the background cut to a pair of colts throwing a mobile phone into a microwave and then hiding behind a door wrapped in tinfoil. "What a shame—"

Jamming her hoof down on the pause button, Opaline wondered why this was the first she was hearing about any of this? Surely in all the times her stooge had been in town, she must have encountered or seen something. "Misty!" she called out, rewinding the video to the still image of the changeling. The young unicorn rushed in within moments, looking as though she'd been in a deep sleep. "Can you explain to me why this is the first I'm hearing about a changeling in Maretime Bay?"

Misty looked blearily at the still image on the television before brightening up. "Oh, Anon? I think I've seen her around once or twice," she murmured, brushing some crust from the corner of her eye with a hoof. "She even has her own video blog, but she doesn't really transform into a lot of different ponies... I did meet her that once, though. Remember when I booped your snoot? She had to be the one that booped mine!"

The alicorn's expression darkened at the reminder, but she chose not to take it out on Misty for the time being. After all, the thought that it was a changeling hadn't even crossed Opaline's mind when it was first brought up. "Tell me more about this video blog, Misty," Opaline prodded. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but as far as she knew, the changelings all died out with Queen Chrysalis. The twisted mockery the ponies had made of them had died out along with the Equestria of old. "What sort of information does this Anon share?"

It took a few moments before an answer was presented; the young mare was either gathering her thoughts or trying to wake up fully. "Well, her first video was a short introduction, saying who and what she was, and a bunch of basic stuff like how she was from the past, how she didn't always used to be a bug, and what she ate," Misty listed off. "Video two talked a bit more about changelings and transformation. The third was a short one that I didn't really get the point of, but she was doing this weird thing where she was lying on clouds like a bed!"

Finally, a look of excitement crossed her face. Before Opaline could object, Misty darted out of the room, only to return seconds later holding her phone. "Today she was even talking her cutie mark, each tribe's magic, and she even demonstrated a spell! But it wasn't with her horn! She had this sort of black thing with a lot of markings on it and she shot ice at a giant glimmerberry the earth ponies grew!"

Misty pressed the phone into Opaline's hooves, and the alicorn could only watch the over-the-shoulder video as several ice spikes shot out from in front of the changeling's hoof, painting a happy face on the large plant that had grown in while the recording had been going on. She rolled the video back just enough to see the point when Anon showed off the 'black thing' Misty had mentioned. That was unmistakably a spell written in magics so old that the dark queen barely remembered them.

Having a changeling from the past—one who shouldn't have even existed—complicated things, but it was still something they could work around. Depending on the bug's leanings, she might not even be inclined towards interfering. Unfortunately, the addition of the old, runic magic added an extra wrinkle. It was entirely possible this changeling might become a rival, or was otherwise part of Twilight Sparkle's plot—some sort of insurance plan.

Misty may have been a bit socially awkward, but even she could see that Opaline's mood was pitching south quickly. "Is this... bad for your plan to get your magic back, and get me my cutie mark?" she asked. "Oh, or can we use her magic?"

That was not something that had yet been considered. If this Anonymous wasn't directly aligned with that detestable Twilight Sparkle or those five living in that hideous lighthouse, could they perhaps barter for magical spells like the one she'd used in the video, or the ancient knowledge clearly held within her head? They currently had no means to contain her or her power if she was hostile. Worse if she was even close to being as responsible as she was knowledgeable about magic, she likely wouldn't part with the spells.

"We shall proceed with our plans, albeit cautiously," Opaline announced, passing the phone back to her assistant. "Ascertain her disposition, and then we plan around it." It was as solid a plan as any she'd laid out, but still there was a lingering doubt. Why did that name sound so familiar?

Author's Note

Between this and Diaries of the Anonymous Filly, I might have a bit of an obsession with how broken and yet structured runic magic [and the construction of spells works in general in my variant setting], so seeing Anon having to deal with 'wild magic' from earth ponies seemed like a logical step to draw out an early magic rant for viewers.

Those of you who joined us after having followed Diaries of the Anonymous Filly might also note that Flicker is referring to her adoptive parent as Mom and not just Auntie. A lot can happen in fifteen years (give or take a few millennia), and typically guardians that transition to genuine parental figures usually get called Mom/Dad sooner or later.

Also, I wasn't joking in the blog post before this launched, nor in the description. I welcome questions directed at Anon. They could be mundane things like favourite foods, or whether they have anypony they like, or why she's there or what her big 'prank' was that she's trying to redeem herself after. You never know what questions could provoke a 'video' and a relevant story to pivot off of it.