The New Problem

Moonlight could hear voices around her, but she couldn't make out any of the voices. All she knew was that she was on something cold and she couldn't tell what it was. Suddenly, her body started to shiver on its own, she was cold and a blanket was gently thrown over her. The voices started to become clearer.

"Listen Rainbow, ah don't think Twi knows where she came from either. That portal is only supposed to go to the one place she went to!" one voice said in a thick rural accent.

"I have to say, her suit is positively ugly. She should really accessorize better," another voice said in a pouty voice.

A horn touched her and magic started to flow into her. "This should help her come to," a third voice said quietly.

The dark blue woman started to come to, the darkness gave way to light as her eyes opened. She found herself in a white marble hall. Groggy, she started to look around a little bit, unsure of what was going on. She had been chasing an aberration and then she had entered a mirror. Next thing she knew she was waking up here. She tried to stand up on her two feet, but immediately became unstable. She started flailing her arms around, but was quickly caught in a magic field.

"Hello, I'm Twilight Sparkle and these are my friends. You seem different from the other that came through the mirror. We tried to stop him, but he was able to do something to my guards and he escaped," the same voice as the third said to her, except louder.

Moonlight's eyes shot wide open as the realization of what she had to do hit her finally. She started to try to struggle against the magical field that was holding her and she instinctively started to try to make hand gestures to cast a spell. Her fingers weren't responding and it was only at that moment that she realized for the first time since she woke up, she couldn't feel her hands or fingers. She looked down at her arms to realize that not only were they forelegs and covered in a dark blue fur, they ended in hooves.

Her heart and mind both started racing. Thoughts raced through her mind at a million miles per hour. She had no idea what kind of spell had been done to her. She was placed back onto the ground on all fours and tried to bolt out of the room, only to trip over her forelegs and hit the ground on her chin. A crack echoed through the chamber as flesh and bone impacted marble and she felt pain in her lower mouth. She sat up and held onto her face to see a muzzle and she gasped. She was terrified at what was going on with her. She turned around to see that there were multicolored ponies walking towards her. One of them was far taller than the other.

"What did you do to me!?" she screamed, fear and anger overwhelming her.

The tallest one, the purple alicorn looked down at her with a gentle smile. "We didn't do anything, this is the magic of the mirror. When you enter our world, you become a pony. But when you go through it to your world, you become a human. You're safe here though, no one will hurt you," she tried to reassure the human turned pony.

Moonlight wanted nothing to do with this. She tried to charge the Princess, but was stopped not just by her inability to keep steady, but by a griffon flying in front of her. "I won't let this one slip by, Princess Twilight," the griffon said.

The Princess sighed, she was mildly upset at this. She had hoped to at least be able to talk to this one, but until the mare calmed down, there was nothing either of them could say or do. The unicorn mare tried to punch Gallus with one of her hooves, but was thrown off balance easily and was knocked onto her back. The griffon captain pinned her to the ground with ease, but Moonlight knew how to take advantage of this as her legs were free. She placed them under the griffon and kicked upwards, causing him to fly into the air. She felt triumphant, she felt confident. For the first time since she got her, she did something.

Unbeknownst to her however, the kick merely surprised the Captain of the Guard and did no damage to him. He had flown into the air to get out of her range. She tried to roll over so that she could get back up and the moment she was on her belly, the griffon landed back down on her, this time pinning her to where she couldn't fight back. "You aren't going to attack the Princess of Equestria like your friend tried to," Gallus whispered into her ear.

Moonlight tried to struggle, but it was to no avail, she wasn't able to get any footing or any grip. Her new pony body was too unfamiliar to her to be of any use. She continued to struggle, "He's going to get away! You don't know how dangerous he is!" she screamed.

A rainbow blur moved close to her and a Cyan Pegasus stood next to her in an instant. "Who is?" she asked.

"Get this oversized bird off me first," the dark blue unicorn demanded.

The rainbow maned mare didn't appreciate the demand and neither did the griffon. Unknown to all of them, the door opened up and a guard walked into the throne room to fall to the ground. "Princess... Luster Dawn is here and she's... she's..." he started.

Twilight looked panicked, "Luster is what!?" she cried out.

A voice that the dark blue mare recognized rang out. "Your student is going to be fine, she posed no resistance to me. None of you are my real target. My target is that mare that you have here," it said.

Moonlight's heart stopped for a moment, she was frozen with fear, but before any of them could act, a spell erupted from the shadows to knock the griffon off of her. A pony with a gray coat and fangs walked out slowly from the corner where he had remained hidden. His horn was still lit up and she noticed he had wings in the shape of a bat's. The faded yellow maned mare tried to stand up, but her legs just weren't working. "Him! He's the one!" she yelled, panicked.

Rainbow Dash was the first to act, she flew towards the bat pony and tried to tackle him to the ground, only for her opponent to flip around her and swiftly bite her wings and take some of her magic. "Delicious magic, do any of you five want to try?", he taunted at the rest of the Council of Friendship.

A purple dragon lunged at the bat pony in question, "Why don't you try me!", he called out.

The batpony stepped to the side and hit the dragon with his hoof, draining the dragon of some of its magic. "Oh, this is different, I wonder what kind of spell this will give me!" he yelled out.

Applejack and Rarity were the next ones to try to attack as both of them just watched as someone dear to them go down. The fashion pony tried to charge from the left and fired off a spell to attack the batpony while the farm pony charged from the right with a lasso. The batpony smiled and opened his mouth, allowing the spell to enter him and feed him further. The farm pone threw the lasso onto him and closed it tight, but his horn lit up and he used a telekinesis spell to throw it off him and to tie her up.

While tying Applejack up with her own lasso, a gemstone slammed into his face, knocking him off balance and surprising him, but not doing much else. Rarity was suddenly in his face with a brightly glowing horn, but unfortunately for the white unicorn, this opened her up to having her magic absorbed too. She hit the floor like the other two, unconscious, but unharmed.

"Now if any of you wish to get in my way, I'll deal with you as well, but all I want is that mare... right there." The batpony pointed at Moonlight with a hoof.

Fluttershy looked upset, "This is just like Tirek..." she muttered.

"You're right Fluttershy! It is just like Tirek, which means...", Twilight stated in revelation.

She teleported between her guest and the assailant who had been making a mess of things in her castle. She fired a magical blast from her horn and he tried to open his mouth to absorb it, only for it to impact him on his face and send him reeling back. "What witchery is this!" the batpone cried out, hurt and angry.

"You remind me of a villain known as Tirek. He too was able to absorb magic, but you seem only to feed on enough magic to survive rather than actively try to absorb all of the magic that you can get. When Fluttershy pointed this out to me, I realized that there was only one pony that could beat you and that pony is me. I won't let you hurt my friends anymore and I won't let you hurt my guest!" the Princess stated angrily.

The batpone charged a powerful spell and Twilight did the same. Both of their spells met in the middle, but it became immediately obvious which one of them was going to win. The former aberration turned batpone was immediately outclassed by the alicorn. His spell immediately dissipated as it was torn through by the Princess' spell and he wasted no time in making his escape, running from the guards as he did so.

Moonlight however was in awe, it took some of the most powerful of human spellcasters to defeat even an aberration of that level without light magic, yet this one pony had driven it off as if it was nothing. The alicorn cast a quick spell and her friends quickly came to. But Moonlight wasn't about to stick around. She stood up and walked out of the throne room, sneaking away from the others.

She wandered the halls of this unfamiliar castle unable to get her bearings. It was massive, bigger than any building she had ever been in. She was still very unsteady in her gait, but she was slowly getting used to it, so long as she kept her steps small and consciously thought about where she placed her hooves. As she turned a corner though, she bumped into a pink unicorn and fell on her flank. The unicorn extended a hoof to her, "Are you alright?" she asked concerned.

Moonlight looked at this unicorn, but a voice behind her scared her. "Ah, Luster. My wonderful student, I see that you found our guest. Can you do an important task for me?" Twilight asked.

"What's that, Princess?", the Unicorn replied.

"I need you to help this unicorn get adjusted in this world," she replied.

Before any of them could say anything, Moonlight stood up, "My name is Moonlight Gleam and I don't need any help. I work alone. What happened earlier was born of pragmatism, nothing more," she stated as coldly as she could as she slowly started to walk away.

"Luster?"

"Yeah?"

"I need you to teach Moonlight the magic of friendship as I had taught you. It won't be easy, but I have confidence that you will be able to do it."

"I'll try, Princess."

Twilight ruffled her student's hair with a hoof and a smile, "And I have no doubts that you will succeed, you've learned so much since you first came to me. Think of this as just a test. One that you're bound to pass," she stated.

"Thank you, Princess," Luster replied.

The two of them nodded in understanding and went their separate ways. Twilight would return to her throne to rule over Equestria and to ensure that her friends were okay. Luster Dawn on the other hand wandered off to look for the mare she had been charged by her teacher to find and teach the magic of friendship to. Something had felt off in the the dark blue mare's response to her teacher, but the pink mare couldn't put her hoof on it. Whatever it was, little did she know, it wasn't going to be easy to find out.