Moonlight Mirror

"Why did you lie to me?" Starlight still mistrusted Moonlight. And rightfully so. The last time, they talked, Moonlight had lied to her and put her in a really uncomfortable situation.

It was the afternoon of the next day and Moonlight was in Starlight's office once again. She was in the same position as a week ago, but this time,

"I didn't lie. I thought it over and decided that I shouldn't ring her. I realised that I would probably just be in some prison had Twilight not believed in me."

"Alright..." Answered Starlight, still suspicious and not really convinced, "Let's drop the subject for now. Tell me, what did you learn from all this."

"I learned that you can't be trusted. As soon as I told you a secret, you blabbed about it to Twilight."

"I had to. You were a threat to her." Starlight was getting upset.

Moonlight, clearly enjoying how she could derail the counselor so easily, kept teasing: "I wasn't a threat. I was an interesting topic for you to talk about."

"THAT'S ENOUGH!!"

"Cool down and I'll come back when you're ready to talk to me instead of yelling." Moonlight laughed and left the office. She always felt good when she could get someone upset.

Moonlight was walking down the hall, heading toward her room. She was humming to herself, when she suddenly saw something terrifying. Her door was unlocked. It was never unlocked, meaning that someone must have been in there.

She teleported herself inside to catch a possible intruder in the act. And so she did. On her bed was an aqua blue pegasus with pink hair that was quite neatly combed to the side. The filly had a bow on her tail to make it prettier. Her cutiemark was of a telescope. She didn't seem to make much of a fuss about the sudden entry of Moonlight.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Asked Moonlight, pointing her horn at the intruder.

"I'm Shiny Shrewd. How do you not know me? We are in the same class, we see eachother every day."

"And why have you broken into my room?"

"Well, I am here to offer you a deal. I want us to become friends."

"And what's in it for either of us?"

"Well, my dear Moonlight," Shiny Shrewd stood up and jumped off Moonlight's bed, "I have kept my eye on you ever since you came to this school and I really like to analyse ponies and their behavior. I want to be your friend so I could analyse you even further."

"And why would I want to be your friend?"

"Because you would gain a partner. I wouldn't tell anyone about any of the 'grand plans' that you have been working on. And I'd probably even help you with some of them."

"Okay, but how can I trust you?"

"I haven't told anyone about your schemes and you'll see that I won't. Ever. I am way too fascinated by you to rat you out."

"Fine! Then Twilight will also see that I am making progress. Progress meaning friends."

"I am glad that I could talk you into being my friend."

Moonlight opened the door and said: "Yeah, me too. Now get out!"

Shiny Shrewd stood up and said "Wow, you really don't care about anypony but yourself, do you? That is fascinating." as she walked out. Moonlight slammed the door behind her.

Shiny shrewd took out a notebook from underneath her wing and wrote down some stuff about her new friend. Then she slid the notebook back under her wing and continued with her day.

The next day was professor Applejack's honesty lesson. Moonlight walked into the classroom and took her usual place at the very back of the classroom, in the farthest possible place from the teacher.

As the lesson began, Applejack came to the back of the class and said: "Well, Moonlight, ah heard that you made a friend yesterday. Why don't ya go sit with her right now?" She pointed to Shiny Shrewd seated at the front of the class.

Moonlight growled and went to sit down at the front of the class. She then took out her notebook and started to scribble down totally unrelated stuff. Of course, she wrote it all in code so noone but her could ever understand it.

Shiny Shrewd couldn't get her eyes off Moonlight during the entire lesson. She just scribbled down everything Moonlight did and how she did it.

At one point in the lesson, everyone had to say one honest thing about somepony else. Most of the things said were honest compliments or maybe a few suggestions. When it was Shiny Shrewd's turn, she stood up and said: "Moonlight, you are a fascinating pony."

Next, Moonlight was up. She stood up and said: "Shiny Shrewd, you are creepy and weird." Then she sat down and started scribbling again.

Most of the ponies in her class didn't even mind how rude Moonlight was. They were used to it. Actually, creepy and weird was one of the nicest things Moonlight had ever said to anyone.

Applejack stepped up to Moonlight and said: "Now ah shouldn't stick mah nose in your business, but have ya ever been to Fluttershy's class?"

"I was honest, wasn't I?"

Applejack rolled her eyes and themed the lesson about how to not honestly say everything that comes to mind, referring many times to Moonlight while making examples.

After the class was over, Shiny Shrewd still followed Moonlight around. She wrote all of Moonlight's actions down into her little notebook.

Even when Moonlight went to the guidance counselor after class, she insisted that she could be allowed inside.

When neither Starlight nor Moonlight had any objections, she took a seat right next to the latter.

"So... I guess I made a friend today." said Moonlight, a bit unsure of her words.

"I can see that. How did you manage to do that?" Starlight was still pretty upset and her voice was cold and unwelcoming.

"She broke into my room and begged me to be her friend."

"What?" Starlight was very confused, "Why?"

"It turns out that I am interesting to observe."

Shiny Shrewd just kept writing down every single move that Moonlight made.

"Okay, I guess that weird ponies land weird friends... Did you find anything positive about today?"

"Yes, I actually didn't hate Applejack's class."

"Why is that?"

"I showed her how wrong honesty can be."

Starlight was losing her temper again, tolerating the sight of Moonlight less and less. "Don't get me wrong, but what is wrong with you."

Shiny Shrewd mumbled happily: "I know exactly what is wrong with her," She got a weird look from both of the other ponies. She awkwardly said: "Oops, did I just say that out loud?"

Starlight saw an opportunity and asked: "Would you like to share your knowledge?"

Shiny answered loyally: "Only if Moonlight is okay with it."

Moonlight smirked and said: "You have only watched me for one day. I don't care if you tell the headmare. Although Starlight probably will."

Starlight growled: "I wasn't going to, but since you asked for it..."

Starlight teleported herself out and back in along with Twilight.

Moonlight smirked and told her new friend: "Alright, go ahead."

"Ahem..." Shiny Shrewd got to the right page on her notebook and started talking, "The question was, what is wrong with Moonlight Mirror. From the data I've collected, she is a sociopath. She loves to manipulate others, lie to them, get others fighting, light the world up and simply watch it burn. She has no empathy and she won't care about anypony else. But as I saw today in honesty class, she loves being at the center of attention, but hates when she is mocked or spoken of with a bad word. It seems that she is actually pretty vunerable when it comes to..."

As Moonlight listened, her face got pale and her jaw dropped. At this point, she had had enough and she stated it with a loud: "ENOUGH!" She was clearly very upset and didn't want to be exposed any more.

Starlight was clearly enjoying all of this, Twilight was fascinated by all the data that was supposedly collected in one day.

Shiny Shrewd stayed quiet and Moonlight told her: "You stay away from me in the future. I knew this was a bad idea."

Moonlight teleported herself out of the office. She was upset and needed to be alone. She went to her small cabin in the Everfree forest.

She knew that she had to have her revenge on Shiny Shrewd as well. After being humiliated and exposed like that, there was no other choice than payback.

She spent the rest of the day plotting her revenge. And by nightfall, she had come up with a plan so evil that nopony else would have dared to do it to somepony, who had only been a minor inconvenience.

She searched up a couple of spells that she needed and then she teleported back to the dormitory. She teleported from room to room until she found Shiny Shrewd, sleeping in her room.

One quick spell after another and Shiny Shrewd was in the middle of the Everfree forest along with Moonlight. Before the pegasus could wake up, she was already blindfolded and tied to a tree.

Moonlight cast one last spell, rendering Shiny's wings useless and then she teleported herself out of there. She knew that even if Shrewd would be fast and get out of her ropes right away, it would take her at least a week to get home.

Moonlight settled in at her dorm room and slept peacefully, knowing that somewhere out there, was a pony fighting for her life just to get back home. All because she had messed with Moonlight Mirror.

Moonlight slept in the next day and was late for her laughter lesson. But professor Pinkie Pie didn't mind. This was the first day that she ever saw Moonlight laugh. She thought that it was because of one of her jokes, but only Moonlight knew the true reason: Shiny Shrewd.

Moonlight hadn't felt better since the time she had been at the Canterlot castle and it had seemed like everything was going her way.

After the class ended, she didn't need to go to Starlight's office. Twilight had sent her a message to meet her in the headmare's office. She knew what this was about. Shiny Shrewd had gone missing and she was probably the main suspect.

So she trotted to Twilight's office and took a seat, wiping her smile off her face before entering.

"Ah, Moonlight, I'm glad you came. Do you know why you are here?"

"Is it because Shiny Shrewd didn't come to school today and since I am the one who has a history with kidnapping ponies, you suspect that I have taken her?"

That sentence was met with a suspicious glance from Twilight. "That is oddly specific. I would have asked you if you know anything about why she is missing."

"Ohh..." Moonlight suddenly realised that she had just dug a hole for herself and fallen right into it. "Well, I don't know where she is."

Twilight picked up on the sudden realization of Moonlight and asked "Moonlight, what did you do?"

"Nothing." Moonlight answered, a bit nervously and started taking a few steps back instinctively. No good excuse came to mind, no fake backstory, nothing.

"Alright, I can't make you confess. But she can."

Fluttershy stepped into the room. She stepped in front of Moonlight and gave her
THE STARE.

Moonlight got more nervous by the second and finally snapped, yelling out loud: "All right!! She humiliated me so I took her to the Everfree forest, tied her up and left her there. Now shut your eyes!"

Twilight panicked: "You WHAT?! Can you just live ONE MOON without kidnapping somepony? Are you out of your mind?"

"B-b-but i had to-"

"Enough! Take me to her and then we'll discuss punishment"

Moonlight obediently took Twilight to the Everfree forest, where they found Shiny Shrewd, who had just managed to break her way out of her binds and was trying to fly with her useless wings.

"Shiny Shrewd! Are you okay?" Twilight ran to the missing student.

"Yeah, everything's fine. Except for my wings." Shiny Shrewd showed Twilight her weak and soft wing that was clearly unusable.

"Moonlight!" said Twilight angrily.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll fix it." Moonlight shot some magic with her horn at Shiny and fixed her wing.

"Let's go back to the school." said Twilight before teleporting all 3 of them back to her office. She quickly slid the magic absorption ring onto Moonlight and explained. "You'll wear it until we come up with a punishment."

With her head hanging low, Moonlight walked out of the office and sat down in the hallway.

She was there for an hour or so, she saw all of the mane 6 going into the office and heard them debating her actions pretty loudly.

She was invited in and she once again had to face the terrifying council who she had grown to fear.

Twilight stated: "Moonlight, now you have a choice. Your punishment is either to spend the rest of the moon in your magic absorption ring, grounded in the school or you can let Shiny Shrewd tell all of us about everything she has seen about you and what she has concluded. She won't share anything without your permission"

Moonlight had a hard dilemma. Neither option was very appealing. She hated the ring so much that she couldn't spend the rest of the moon in it. But then again, she would be much more vulnerable when all of the mane 6 knew her weaknesses, sore spots and who knows what else that crazy Shrewd had seen about her. But then again, the moon had just started. What should she do?

Everyone was waiting for her to make a decision. Applejack and Rainbow Dash couldn't get their eyes off Moonlight.

"I choose... the second option"

Applejack groaned and threw 5 bits at Rainbow Dash, which she caught mid-air.

Shiny Shrewd stepped forward and started reading from her notebook.

"I already covered that she is a sociopath, loves to manipulate others at any cost, has no empathy, loves attention, but only the good kind..." she skipped through pages of her book and finally stopped "Aha! This is where I left off."

She coughed and started to lecture everypony about her discoveries regarding Moonlight: "It seems that she is actually pretty vunerable when it comes to her own self-image. She is not easily thrown off by others, but when she is, she has a complete mental breakdown. She has come into class with cried out eyes quite many times..."

Moonlight blushed and avoided eye contact with anyone. "...Especially when her magic was taken from her. Nothing can quite throw her off like some plan not gone her way. If you watch closely, you can still see the shame in her eyes and trembling in her knees. That is because she has failed at yet another plan..."

Everyone stared at Moonlight, which made her even more uncomfortable. "...She blocks herself off from others because she is too afraid of getting hurt. I theorize that she has been thoroughly humiliated and hurt by her former friends and she now blames friendship instead of those specific ponies.
Because she has managed to block herself off, she isn't comfortable with having anyone knowing anything about her. If you look at her right now, you can see that she is extremely uncomfortable, because she cannot hide anything or block herself off from us. Her mindset is exposed and she hates the fact that we are that much closer to understanding her.
So to summarize: very self-conscious, afraid of getting hurt, loves manipulating everypony around her, probably because of some trauma she had in the past."

In the end, Twilight turned to Moonlight and asked: "Is this more or less true?"

Moonlight, whose weaknesses had just been listed out to her enemies, didn't respond directly, only ordering: "Take the ring off my horn now!"

Twilight didn't argue with her and slid the ring off. She noticed that Moonlight was about to cry so she allowed her to leave.

Moonlight stormed out of Twilight's office with the mane 6 staring at her, almost sympathetically.

"She will probably want to get revenge for this. So stay alert." said Shiny Shrewd and trotted out of the office herself.

"She is one weird pony." said Applejack.

"Which one?" Asked Rarity.

"That Shiny Shrewd. I've already gotten used to the nuisance." Answered Applejack.

"She is not a nuisance!" Exclaimed Twilight, "Just a very special pony lead to a very wrong path."

"10 bits say that Moonlight still has some old friends trapped in a cave somewhere." said Rainbow, while addressing Applejack, but noone argued with her.

"I need to help her. And with more than just keeping her in my school. I need to start tutoring her personally." Decided Twilight.

Rarity simply wished her "Good luck"

The rest of the mane 6 left, Rainbow Dash mumbling: "I bet that she'll give up on her in a moon."

Applejack mumbled back: "You're on!"

That was the last that Twilight heard before she was left in her office alone, thinking of ways to make Moonlight embrace friendship.