The grass was drained of color as was the ground, sky, everything. Creatures all around were frozen in place, as if they were were just statues.

Luna's eyes glowed upon the scene, walking from within the forest she stumbled upon the scene. The pillars were in action against what her teacher called "The Pony Of Shadows".

The Pillars were frozen along with everything else, Starswirl having his mouth open, yelling something. Probably commands Luna had summarized.

The others were arranged from left to right with different ready fighting positions. Rockhoof charged toward the enemy with a shovel in his hoof whilst Magnus was doing the same with his shield and in front of the charge.

Most likely to act as protection before unsheathing a knife

Luna nodded in agreement with the strategy.

Mist mane and Somnambula were creating a source of light of some kind behind Starswirl.

What caught Luna's eye was that it was the only source of color in the frozen piece of the scene. Walking towards the light source she found that upon closer inspection it was anything but just an orb of light. The flow of magic was coming from Mistane and yet, Luna could feel it was more.

Lighting her own horn she scanned the orb, she found multiple forbidden spells entangled and wrapped around the core like a ball of yarn.

Most likely an experimental spell to drive away the dark.

Luna looked back to her mentor, frozen with an expression of fear and anger. She had not seen her teacher like this in a long time, she had finally turned to see the enemy.

It wasn't a pony nor any creature, it was like tar, and its dark substance took the form of a blob, Luna could not decipher what it was meant to be. Its mouth was open with jagged teeth of the same substance yet solidified.

Devoid of color the goo was dripping from the top of the maw, waiting to bite into two soldiers.

Taking a step back Luna could now see the whole picture; The pillars were on the defense, and Mistmane, Somnambula, and Starswirl were creating a concoction to destroy the ink-like creature. Magnus and RockHoof were, on Starswirl's instructions, taking The Pony Of Shadows head-on as a distraction to buy more time.

Luna took a few steps toward the inky monster with curiosity.

'A monster of goo...I had heard of something like this but only from elders of my time. Is it the same?'

She lit her horn once more to scan upon the monster but the moment it touched upon the mass of dark Tarr the magic fizzled.

The moment it lost its light Luna took a step back. "What?"

Luna's fur ends began to go straight, the air shifted and she felt it. She felt somepony, some creature was watching her.

"Who goes there?!"

The air grew still.

Slowly color began to bleed in, and splotches of black began to show themselves within the monster she was looking at.

Everything else was still frozen except for the Tarr.

The eyes moved to look at Luna, she took one step back before her body began to feel stiff. She tried to budge from her situation but she felt just as stuck in place as the Pillars.

She saw the mass of ink begin correct itself, taking back excess pudge and becoming slimmer, more refined.

It only took seconds before it looked less like the mass of spilled ink and more like a pegasus.

Its maw shut and as its white clear eyes laid upon the frozen princess, it smiled.

Luna shuddered.

It took a few steps forward before lowering its head with a malicious grin.

"You may have power over the realm of dreams but not power over the mind. I thought someone such as you would have considered the possibility of me being kept within the mind of the old stallion?"

It looked at Luna with pure fascination. "Or perhaps, you did think of that. That is why you are here, isn't it? To purge any trace of me within the mind?"

Luna felt her neck slowly able to move, along with her head. She looked at her body, trying to move anything lower than her neck but to no avail.

She looked back to those white orbs, she felt the eyes eagerly await her response. "I did." Her gaze hardened at it. "How do you know of my abilities? Surely I was not as famous as four centuries ago."

The monster's grin grew to reach side to side. "Oh but you were, you and your sister were everything Starswirl would talk about when he wasn't talking about magic theory." The monster leaned back and began to pace from left to right.

"His 'precious protégés'. His studies could wait if anything of the 'future rulers of Equestria were struggling with."

Luna lifted an eyebrow. "Forgive me if I hold skepticism towards that but, as I recall, my teacher was anything but overindulgence."

The inky monster laughed at that.

"Of course he wouldn't show it, being tough on his most prized individuals was his most prominent trait." The laugh quickly subsided. "But that was a different pony, a different life."

"And what would be next? You may have more control over the mind than I do. But you have no control over my teacher."

The Pony Of Shadows looked at her with hatred.

"Yes, that old fossil is still living... I plan to distract him while I find a new body. Somepony to control and use, well that was my plan."

Luna held a bit of intrigue. "Was?"

He looked at her smugly. "Yes, because I had already latched upon somepony, a real interesting one might I add. Not one I've bonded with before, even after a millennium worth of hosts I could not find any creature similar to Him.

She studied the face of The Pony Of Shadows. "And how could you inhabit a host if you're in Starswirl right now?"

"Because I'm but one bit of my true self, I felt it was a good precaution to suck the life out of your mentor whilst I have the main body corrupt another. The real question is what to do with you."

"And what would your answer be?"

"Suppose I could just kill you," He walked forward with a sadistic grin. "And set an example for what will happen."

Luna smiled at the idea.

"You wish to harm me? A shadow of history such as yourself?" Her smile turned into a grin. "That is quite humorous."

His expression became grim. "Laugh all you want but death," black tendrils sprouted from the sides of his body and slowly began to grow in length. "Is." They drew closer to her. "INEVITABLE!" He snarled and drove the extra appendages to impale her.

A moment of silence engulfed the atmosphere and a look of shock came to him.

"H-how?"

The bodily-made spears had phased right through Luna with no traces of blood or holes.

She laughed.

"HOW?! I CONTROL THE MIND! It shouldn't be possible for you to control anything!"

Luna looked at him as if he was a child that had reality crush upon him. "I may have no control over the mind, but I wasn't created nor based upon the mind now was I?" She had her sinister smile. "And you had just fallen into my trap, monologuing your plan to a cornered adversity. Really you are all the same, thinking you've won and simply spilling everything."

He roared before pulling out more spear appendages. Luna simply smiled before speaking, "You may want to point your frustration to the eroding spell behind you, although you can't do anything about it, I insist you try to counteract it. It'll give me a good measure of your strength."

The Pony Of Shadows looked behind him only to regret it. The space was being burnt in holes like a film, his anger only grew when he looked back to see the spot in which the princess was held in was now vacant.

He yelled out before spewing out more appendages to try to mend the situation.

It was fruitless.

He burned in that memory.

Author's Note

Hey! I'm here, I did a chapter. I originally wanted to publish one about Cherry and our protagonist but then I was like. "I'm feeling edgy today." So I set this up.

Hoped you liked it! I'm sorry if it's sloppy, haven't wrote in a while obviously.

And I have a patreon! as well as a Discord