Anon-a-Miss.

This was a name that no one at CHS wanted to hear. It was a name that spread distrust and set an atrocious social atmosphere throughout the whole school.

One year ago, someone had created an account on a social media site called “MyStable”, which most of the students at CHS has an account for. They used this to update their status, talk to their friends, post pictures and little tidbits of their life, etcetera. But the Anon-a-Miss account was used for different purposes…

Most posts on the “Anon-a-Miss” account were embarrassing or unsavory secrets about some of the students at CHS. Nobody knew exactly who Anon-a-Miss was until the account was removed and the owners of it -- Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo -- revealed themselves. Up until that point, everyone had assumed that Anon-a-Miss was Sunset Shimmer, a former bully, who’d once had the whole student body of CHS under her total control. They’d all feared and hated her.

She spent months trying to make up for her actions. Just when she thought she’d made a good chunk of progress, helping defeat the Sirens and all, Anon-a-Miss was created. Her reputation was destroyed quicker than it had been built up. But this time, she was powerless. Almost NO ONE was on her side, not even her friends. The only person who’d believed her was Twilight Sparkle, and she was a whole dimension away. In her current world, Sunset Shimmer was alone.

She’d been able to recover her reputation almost as quickly as she’d lost it after people learned who Anon-a-Miss really was. And a year later, her reputation had only gotten better. Much better.

But right there on the glowing screen of her phone, a name she never thought she’d hear again…

With one post on the account, ten followers, and twelve likes…

The post read:

Guess who’s back? :)

Anon-A-Miss.

The sun shone down upon the Earth, positioned just right to avoid being hidden by the gray stratocumulus clouds that the periwinkle sky held. Canterlot High School’s building was layered with snow, like a cake with bright, white icing. The horse statue in front of the school was decorated with colored Christmas lights and red and white garland. Red and shiny, silver ornaments hung on the garland with no particular pattern or order, but still looked absolutely spectacular.

The inside of the school was well-lit as students walked into the school for the morning, ready to start their day. The students wore long, heavier clothing to protect themselves from the cold weather. The halls were filled with conversations about all sorts of things -- TV, school, food, and gossip.

Lots and lots of gossip.

Sunset Shimmer paced through the halls, trying to find her circle of friends to tell them about the sudden return of Anon-A-Miss. She slipped through different groups of people to get past the crowd, letting out a series of things like “excuse me” and “sorry”. Before she could get all the way through the crowd, though, she spotted Applejack shutting her locker and locking it back up.

“Applejack!” Sunset called, pulling out her phone to open the page.

“Oh, hey, Sunset!” Applejack greeted with a smile before noticing Sunset’s rather serious expression. “Everything alright, Sugarcube?”

“Not exactly, Applejack. Take a look at this,” Sunset said, handing Applejack her cell phone.

Applejack took the phone, and read the opened post aloud. “Guess who’s back…. Smiley face?”

“Look who posted it,” Sunset said.

Applejack’s eyes shifted to the top of the post, where she saw “Anon-A-Miss” in bold letters, right next to a profile picture of a green, winking, smiling face giving a ‘thumbs up’ over a blurred out background. Applejack’s jaw fell open and hung as she processed what she was seeing.

“Anon-A-Miss? As in…” Applejack trailed off.

“What other “Anon-A-Miss” is there?” Sunset asked.

Applejack stared at the post for a moment longer before handing the phone back to Sunset. “I can’t believe it! It’d better not be Apple Bloom and her friends again!” Applejack said, her voice raising slightly.

“I think they learned their lesson the first time, but it can’t hurt to make sure. But… I don’t see what their reasoning would be this time around…” Sunset said, tapping her chin in thought. “Have you seen the other girls around? We should probably let them know,” Sunset said, breaking thought.

“Actually, I haven’t. Wanna go and look for ‘em-”

The morning bell rang, sending students to their first period classes. The motion in the hallway quadrupled as students took off, either separating or walking along with their friends.

“Well…” Applejack said, smirking at the inconvenient timing. “I guess I could just text ‘em all.”

“Sure, that works, too!” Sunset responded. “Thanks!”

“No problem, Sugarcube! I’ll seeya ‘round!”

Sunset and Applejack parted ways, both of them disappearing into the stampede of students. Sunset couldn’t stop thinking about who would bring back the Anon-A-Miss account, and why they would even want to do that in the first place. Maybe they had been affected by it and they wanted to get revenge by using the name? Maybe they wanted to split some people apart for personal reasons? No matter the reasoning, though, this probably wasn’t good news for anyone at CHS.

Sunset looked at her phone, which still had the post open that she'd just shown Applejack. She tapped on Anon-A-Miss’s name and checked the follower count.

“One-hundred and fifteen?!” Sunset said to herself, nearly floored by the sudden burst in popularity. Was this really happening all over again? Just last night, the account had just ten followers!

Sunset sighed as the memories of her friends leaving her crying in the hallways of CHS flowed into her head. But a moment later, she found herself smiling, because she knew that her friends wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

Together, they’ll be able to take down the new Anon-A-Miss. Whoever decided to take up the name is going down.

“Hmm… not this one.”

Someone sat alone in a room lit by nothing but their computer screen. The only noise in the room was the scrolling wheel on the computer mouse, the low hum of the computer, and the little remarks to himself.

“Yikes… I’ll save that one…”

This person was scrolling through a bunch of blackmail material that they’d found on a flash drive. It was hidden just outside a school, with dozens of other flash drives. This specific drive seemed to be the sole survivor of the bunch, though -- the rest were crushed and battered up beyond repair. It was almost like someone was trying to destroy it.

He didn’t really care who tried to destroy it, though. The contents of the drive were everything he needed for his intentions.

“Oh, how terrible. Too terrible to use so early on, though...”

The only issue was that the drive's information is limited. Eventually, he'll run out of content to release, and that just won't do any good if his goals haven't been met by that point.

"This... should actually work. Here we go."

The mouse clicked a few times before the person using it gave it one final, stronger click.

Their phone buzzed, and lit up.

“Anon-A-Miss” just posted. Lovely~!"

Author's Notes:

EDIT 1/7/19: changed a few things at the end. Nothing's too awfully different.

So before anything else I gotta do this:

But right there on the glowing screen of her phone, a name she never thought she’d hear again…

With one post on the account, ten followers, and twelve likes…

The post read:

Guess who’s back? Back again?

Shady's back. Gotta tell a friend..

--
I don't have much to say apart from "just wrote this outta nowhere".

I guess I did keep typing Applekack instead of Applejack. Imagine if that were her name. Hah.

But that might not be considered noteworthy to a lot of people.

Oh, and it's actually very unclear to me which year in high school that the 2014 EQG comic took place in. Probably between or after Rainbow Rocks, but I don't quite know when that takes place year-wise. So if Anon-A-Miss happened in their senior year and they're still in high school the next year, then... uh...

whoops

But I'll just go along with what I've got.

Anyway, hope you like this first chapter. I'll probably continue, but I don't know when.