Academically speaking, Midnight wasn’t sure where she was. While she was definitely in the Dream Realm in a physical sense, she had clearly lost consciousness for a few seconds there as she sailed through a wall of shattering glass.
But, if she were unconscious, then wouldn’t she have appeared in her own dreams? Where was she in a spiritual sense? A psychological one?
“Hell,” she groggily answered her own question as the dream-reality swam back into something resembling focus. “I am in… hell…”
Every inch of her body felt like she’d—
Like I just went through a window, Midnight’s internal voice managed a choked laugh, even as she struggled into a sitting position. She quickly tried to assess the damage she must have suffered in the fall, but she couldn’t quite focus at first. Everything ached, sure. But the missing lens in her glasses was also a major impediment.
After a few moments though, the world came back into focus through her one remaining lens. She sat on a patch of gray, crinkly grass which surrounded the base of a large stone plinth. Said plinth was quite familiar, even in Midnight’s concussed state, as was the building she’d been launched out of.
Despite having just been in her kitchen, Midnight could see the broken second-story window on the face of Canterlot High School, from which she’d been ejected. The school looked like it had survived another one of Pinkie’s “Chem lab experiments”, and was otherwise gutted by old flames and smoke.
As was the rest of the world around Midnight. She slowly stood up, and started to see more and more of her mental landscape.
The plinth was cracked and broken, still lacking a replacement Wondercolt statue since she’d destroyed the original. The road in front of the school was blistered and split by jagged, angled fissures and black crystals growing up through the earth. Distant fires blazed, sending up towering pillars of black smoke everywhere in Canterlot City.
No, wait. Not just Canterlot, Midnight realized. The distant spire of the Crystal Palace, from Equestria, stabbed up over the horizon. Its brilliant façade was marred by smoke, and by fires that blazed within it. In fact, several of the distant buildings and skyscrapers were seemingly totally replaced by crystalline, pony constructions.
All ruined, all burning.
Even the sky, though black with smoke, appeared to be aflame, with blood red crashes of lighting spiking the air every few seconds.
“I really hate this metaphor for my mental wellbeing,” Midnight growled, as she tried to hold her broken hand beneath her armpit, the closest approximation of a splint she could manage at the moment.
Despite the obvious chaos and destruction playing out all around, the space Midnight occupied was eerily quiet, for the moment. The wind sighed softly, and only the distant rumble of thunder served to distract Midnight from her predicament.
And then, she heard the telltale sound of wind rippling across a framework of feathers. Midnight slowly turned back towards the dream-CHS, and watched the Incubus Shadow glide down to the ground nearby.
Shadow’s form had changed, slightly. As she glided down, her wings stretched out, more haggard and cruelly-shaped than they once were. More like vulture wings, in fact. The dark blue of her hair and her clothes – which were already reshaping into a more regal, black version of Twilight’s ponied-up form – was shifting to black, and her hair had started to flow upward, like the head of a terrible black torch, streaked with red.
But it was her eyes that arrested Midnight’s attention. Two blood-red dots glared down at Midnight from a scowl that could melt steel.
Shadowlight was downright demonic, in every way.
That, however, didn’t stop Midnight from voicing her displeasure.
“You know you hit like a girl, right?” Midnight snarked at the dream-demon as she landed. “Pretty sure Spike could hit harder than that, and he’s got paws…”
Shadow’s eye twitched, and her former composure began to crack. She hissed, “How are you not insane yet!? I mean, what does it take!?”
Midnight smirked, and laughed, “More than you got, Shadow.”
“And what’s with the ‘screw blood river’ thing!?” Shadow snarled, claws extending from her fingertips as she dragged her hands through her black and red-striped hair. “What does that even mean!?”
“Not my fault you don’t remember reading the classics,” Midnight snorted. “Or, wait! You’re not really me, right? You never were! You’re just a parasite, leeching off whatever memories you thought could help you destroy me and my sister! Well, that’s over now. You can’t trick me anymore!”
Shadow scoffed, and raised one eyebrow contemptuously. “So, what? You said it yourself; I leeched off of your memories. That moment back there? Where you did this to your ‘dear sister’? That’s still on you!”
Midnight clenched her fists… and immediately regretted it as another wave of pain ripped through her hand, her arm, and quickly her whole body. Still, she stood rock-still, glaring back at the demon.
“I don’t care,” she said through bared teeth. “Whatever that Midnight did or didn’t do, she isn’t me. I… I will do everything in my power to stop you.”
“You don’t have any power,” Shadow sneered. “Or have you already forgotten your geode?”
She laughed, and threw her head back. “Of course not, naturally! If there’s one thing you care about more than little Twily, it’d be that rock…”
Midnight snarled, “Just give it back already! Twilight and my brothers are about to kick in your door, and then your teeth right after, so what’s the point?”
“The point, my little meatpuppet,” Shadow said while shaking her head, “is that you actually think Twilight’s coming? When she could… oh, I don’t know… do literally anything more productive with her weekend?
“She’s already gotten rid of the real parasite in her life!” she cried, pointing at Midnight as she did so.
Midnight did not rise to the obvious bait. Instead, she stood there upon the dead grass and continued to stare down the Shadow.
Eventually, Shadow snorted again, and folded her arms before her.
“Fine,” she said with a shrug. “She probably is looking for you. She’s a sap, that way. But she’ll never find us. I’ve got you shoved so far down into your own psyche that it’ll take her months to figure it out. And by then?”
Shadow let loose a toothy grin. To Midnight’s immediate discomfort, the Incubus’ mouth distorted, allowing more than a few rows of shark-like teeth to take up residence in her otherwise human maw.
“By then,” she hissed, “I’ll be wearing the both of you, and your world will burn.”
“You’re so cliched, it actually hurts.” Midnight sniffed, and adjusted her glasses again. “I’m somewhat disappointed in my own stress-induced insanity-golem. You disappoint me.”
“And you are trying to stall for time,” Shadow accused with a wave of her claws. “All this anger, all this bile and snark! If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you…”
Her eyes, a molten iris amidst a sea of darkness, widened.
“Oh… my gosh…” she hissed in utter disbelief, eyebrows nearly hitting her hairline as they shot up her forehead. “You actually still have hope, don’t you?”
Midnight continued to match the demon’s gaze, meeting her glare for steely glare. But she did allow herself a tiny smirk, just for old time’s sake.
“You’ve lost, Shadow,” she said, drawing herself up straighter. “I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
Shadow’s lip curled at the end into a deep, ravenous snarl. Her eyes narrowed, and they began to radiate a fel light.
“Oh, but you should fear me. I don’t lose,” she whispered. “I get even…”
One of her still-clenched fists stretched out. Shadow pointed it straight at Midnight, and held it there for several long seconds.
She opened her fist, and Midnight’s heart stopped.
There, in the palm of the demon’s hand, sat an aquamarine stone, hooked to the middle of a short necklace.
“My…” Midnight’s voice cracked, panic flooding through her mind as her geode’s light flicked in Shadow’s grip. She couldn’t say it; she couldn’t even begin to put the concept into words.
It was her whole life, held hostage. Just outside of her arm’s reach.
“What…?” Midnight’s mouth was suddenly too dry to form words.
“Oh, you recognize this?” Shadow grinned, revealing a maw of sharpened fangs.
“Please…” Midnight reached out her hand. “… Please, be careful with that…”
Shadow’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“What? No witty comebacks?” she tittered as she angled the geode to better show it off to Midnight. “No snide remarks? Where’s that rage? That fire you had before?”
“Shadow, wait!” Midnight took a step forward, only to stop as Shadow pulled her hand closer to her chest. Then, licking her lips, Midnight said, slowly, “We can talk about…”
Shadow barked with laughter, and closed her fist around the stone.
“Oh? Can we!?” she cried, the corners of her mouth curling up and connecting each of her ears in an unnatural, horrifying grin.
She glanced at her hand, and Midnight’s heart dropped down into her stomach.
“I think,” Shadow said, as slow as an executioner’s rising axe, “You need to learn some manners.”
The world slowed down, just as she raised her clenched fist into the air. The burning flames froze in place. The red lightning crashes ceased, one caught in the moment of striking. A grey pallor fell over everything, including the Shadow, holding everything in place at the moment of sheer desperation.
Midnight still had time to think. A second within seconds. She needed to think. To calculate. To… to…
Calculating…
Calculating…
What can I do…?
Shadow’s head tilted up, slowly. Her eyes, full of hatred and wrath, finally shared the cruel, vindictive smile on her lips.
“Nothing.”
The geode flew from her clawed hand, straight into the ground. Midnight’s mind was still stuck, still thinking, still trying to find a solution.
It cracked off the ground like the sound of a bullwhip, and bounced.
But it did not bounce far. Not nearly far enough to escape as a black boot came thundering down atop it.
Midnight didn’t know if she screamed. There was a sudden, startling return to normalcy as her mind, from all its thoughts and calculations and hopes… shook free. The lightning continued to crash, and the flames continued to burn.
But all Midnight could do was stare.
Stare at the shattered remains of her geode, even as Shadow gave the stone another sickening twist of her boot.
“Oops!” Shadow laughed before taking a step back, to better see – and let Midnight see – what she had done. “How clumsy of me!”
It took a moment for Midnight’s heart to beat again.
No.
Another moment. Her eyes remembered to water.
No. No…
Her legs came next. It was more like her knees, however, whose buckling turned her first stumbling step into a collapsing, falling sprint.
Midnight hit the ground, and crawled the last few inches to her geode. One hand dragged limply at her side, while the other gripped the dead grass and pulled her along.
When she reached the geode, she rose up on her knees, and stared.
“No,” she whispered. “No.”
It was just a pile of shards. A half dozen or more shards of aquamarine, crushed into the barren earth. Midnight snatched up the pieces hurriedly, cupping them into her hands.
She pinched one piece, and started pressing it into another. And then another.
And then another.
She found a seam, a crack where two shards met.
Midnight pressed, and pressed, and pressed, and her tears flowed and flowed and flowed.
“Please…” she begged. “Please… be a dream…”
A shadow fell over her as the two pieces fell apart.
“It is a dream, Sweetie,” Shadow hissed. “A nightmare. But it’s real…”
Midnight felt something. A stabbing pain that started in her stomach, and began to work up into her chest. She lurched forward as it hit her throat, and forced her jaw open.
She screamed. A long, wailing cry ripped its way out of her throat and carried with it Midnight’s sorrow. As she cried, her body wracked with shuddering sobs, Midnight hardly knew what happened around her.
But the Shadow merely basked in it all.
The clouds and storm above began to thrash about more violently than before. Cracks in the Wondercolt plinth spread out, reaching into the earth around it as well as the sky. In the distance, crystal towers cracked and shattered and fell.
The world was coming apart.
“Beautiful!” Shadow said to herself as she leaned back her head, self-satisfaction oozing off of her as she smiled. “Just… perfect.”
Midnight didn’t hear her. All she could feel, or even fathom, was the gem in her hands. It felt like she held her own heart, her future. Everything she ever wanted. Everything she ever dreamed about.
It was gone.
It was all gone.
Even the light, grim and black as it was, began to fade as the oblivion of despair encroached.
Until it didn’t.
Shadow noticed it first. The heat of crimson fire fell away, replaced by a chill, a cold wind. She opened her eyes, and saw the sky.
Black. The sky was… black?
“What?” she asked herself, eyes narrowing into the black…
No. Blue. The sky was a dark, dark midnight blue.
And it was filled with stars. White, twinkling stars that danced and flowed in a cosmic river across the heavens.
“How are you doing that?”
The words barely registered for Midnight.
“Hey!”
She didn’t move.
A hand gripped her collar, and hauled Midnight up, almost to her feet. Though her eyes stared at nothing, they were met with burning orbs.
“I said, how are you doing that!?”
Midnight blinked.
“Do what?” she eventually asked, her voice monotone.
Shadow snarled, and threw her down to the ground. “The thing with the moon!”
Midnight’s hand clutched at her geode, the only effort her body took. She didn’t move to slow her fall, or to get up after.
Slowly, however, Shadow’s words found her.
She lifted her head a few inches, and stared up at the sky.
Somehow, Midnight failed to notice the moon in her dreams. Half the sky was just moon at this point, beaming its silvery light over the whole ruined landscape of Midnight’s mind.
For just a second… she felt something. It was almost nice.
“Are you still resisting!?”
A foot connected with Midnight’s stomach, and her world was pain once more. She lifted up a full couple of feet, and rolled as she hit the ground again.
Shadow advanced, blazing red flames pooling in her outstretched hands as she approached.
“I took everything from you!” she snarled. “How are you able to do anything!?”
Midnight groaned. She checked her good hand, and saw she still held the shards of her geode. If nothing else, she wasn’t letting go again.
“I’m not…” she tried to speak. The words came slowly, however.
And Shadow was faster.
The backhand caught Midnight under her jaw, and sent her sliding back into the side of the stone plinth. She hit the corner, and partly slid off to one side, her head lolling back for a moment.
Is the moon… bigger?
“You think you can win this!?” Shadow cried. “You think making the moon rise is some sort of defiance!?”
Midnight spat a bit of blood out, and tried to raise her head.
“I… didn’t…”
Shadow shrieked, and rushed forward, claws out and wings outstretched. Midnight could only weakly raise her hands up in front of her face, and even then…
Maybe it’s better this way…
The thought struck her… but it didn’t hurt. It was more like letting go, and letting the inevitable take over.
I was always a mess, she reasoned. Twilight won’t have to go through so much stress without me reminding her of all the things we did. Sunset could always ignore the wings, and just pretend they happened by magic…
If she could, perhaps she would have chuckled at that.
The rest of my friends… Twilight’s friends, anyway. They’ll get over it. Eventually. I was just a bad, bad week for them.
Maybe they would name something after her. Not that she deserved any of it. But one of Rarity’s fashion lines, or one of Pinkie’s cakes, or Fluttershy’s animals. Maybe Applejack or Rainbow Dash will remember her fondly, someday. Maybe Twilight or Sunset could say a few nice things, from time to time.
But beyond that? No one will…
Someone was missing from her list.
Someone important was missing.
Midnight’s eyes widened.
Aria!
I had…
She shook her head, almost dislodging her glasses with the effort.
Midnight gritted her teeth… and snarled.
“I have a date tomorrow…”
She pressed one elbow down, onto the stone of the plinth. Midnight leveraged herself, and tried to push her body up.
“I’m going to smooch a pretty girl…”
She wobbled atop unsteady legs, a demon bearing down on her. But, with one hand clutching at her geode, and another limp at her side, she stood.
“Whatever you’ve done, and whatever you’re going to do, I’m getting out of here.
“And then…” Midnight kept her eyes open, kept them glaring at Shadow. “… I am never thinking about you again.”
Shadow streaked forward, her form becoming a flaming comet in the silvery moonlight.
The collision would have been astounding. Astronomical.
But it did not come. The world between Shadow and Midnight exploded. It was like the largest bell in the universe rang out one epic, earth-shattering chime just as a supernova went off.
Midnight blinked, and closed her eyes against the light. It was almost overpowering. But there was something beautiful about it as well. Something mesmerizing.
She opened her eyes again.
And beheld a Goddess.
Princess Luna floated in the space before her, plainly in her ‘pony-upped’ form. A dark-skinned human of infinite beauty, with ethereal hair, wide angelic wings, and a flowing, Classical-age white dress that spoke of her power and her ancient, eternal nature.
Shadow beheld her as well. The demon drifted, awestruck, on the other side of the Princess from Midnight.
And her face was filled with terror.
“What…?” she meekly squeaked.
Luna’s eyes shone with black, blue, and silver light. And her scowl focused her wrath like a scalpel.
She held out one hand, palm facing the Shadow.
It was like watching someone get hit with an invisible bus going Mach Ten. One moment, Shadow recoiled at the sheer volume and scale of the divine command. And in the next, she flailed, and hurtled back through the air, tumbling over and over as she sailed nearly out of view.
Nearly. Very nearly. For as the demon flew, the Moon itself shifted in the sky, shrinking down… and intercepting her mid-flight.
Shadow crashed into the moon, and then the moon thundered straight down to the earth, crushing the entirety of CHS with its bulk as it collided, Shadowlight trapped beneath as it burrowed its way down at least into the sewer levels.
The rumble caused by this blow slowly faded away, leaving only a silent crater where the dream-school once stood. Just a sliver of moon peeked over the rim, marking Shadow’s resting place.
Midnight, staring into space and the sudden – extremely cathartic – carnage that had just taken place, slowly slid down to her knees, and sat heavily onto the grass. The roaring fires, the lightning… it all seemed to die away, leaving behind a crystalline Canterlot City only mildly gutted by metaphorical flames.
Luna sighed through her nose, and allowed herself to drift down to the ground as well. As she slowly turned around, the Princess cast her eyes downward.
“Midnight Sparkle…” Her voice was tense and bracing. Her brow was heavy with some intangible weight pulling down her emotional range. “I must apologize most prof—Good Heavens!”
Midnight worked her jaw for a moment, but the words she wanted just weren’t there. She could think, ‘Does it look that bad?’ or ‘What took you so long?’, but it was like there wasn’t any breath in her chest to form them.
“I… I was not aware your psycheform could take such a thrashing!” Luna gasped, and drew some of her magic to her hands. Deep blue light flowed out from her, and swam around Midnight.
She didn’t feel any different. Sure, her glasses patched up instantly, returning the world to a non-blurry sort of nightmare, but that didn’t fix any of the pain lancing throughout her entire body.
This seemed to concern Luna.
“I don’t understand,” she said while staring at her empty hands. The Princess licked her lips and shook her head, saying, “That should have restored your dream-form!”
“It’s not a dream,” Midnight sighed, the words finding breath enough to carry. “I’m not dreaming.”
Luna turned a shocked expression onto Midnight. “Now, don’t be absurd!” she admonished, “If you are in the Dream Realm, you are most certainly dreaming! My magic should have—”
“Not if I’m physically here, Moonbutt,” said Midnight, her words gaining just the slightest edge to them. “We… tried to avoid letting Shadow control us here…”
The Princess stared, for a moment. Then, her eyes widened by degrees and her pupils shrank down.
“You… but that is impossible!” she stuttered. “Nopony can enter the Dream Realm! It is a physical im… well, not quite impossible… the Tantabus…”
She stroked her chin a moment, before shaking off the thought. Quickly, she drew magic to her hands again. Luna stepped closer to Midnight, and knelt beside her. The Princess slowly reached out, and held her glowing hands over Midnight’s injuries, starting with her hand.
“I miss the days when I could take the rules of magic for granted,” she sighed. “But… new universe, I suppose.”
Midnight tried to look away as Luna worked, tried to ignore whatever she was doing. But, as the blue magic began to sink into her skin, she could feel a warm buzzing sensation sweeping through her arm. It was like one side of her body was falling asleep… except that on some level she couldn’t properly describe, Midnight could feel her bones begin to knit. Her skin pulled back together, and regrew itself.
The warming sensation tickled its way up into her neck, her face… and eventually her mind.
As the feeling rolled over her, Midnight felt her lungs draw in a deep pull of air, and release it seconds later. Somehow, it felt like she was breathing a sort of… tightness out as she did so.
“That’s not like the healing spell I know,” she commented, idly.
Luna’s face was pinched, presumably through the effort of casting the spell. But she still managed to speak, if in a strained tone. “This is a more… in-depth spell than what is usually taught by my sister. Only a few unicorns and alicorns can cast Meadowbrook’s Mending.”
“I’ll have to remember to ask Twilight about that one,” Midnight said, her jaw tingling as a forming bruise melted away. “Your Twilight, obviously…”
There was silence between them.
Then, Midnight sighed.
“You couldn’t have gotten here a few seconds earlier?”
She opened her good hand, slowly, revealing the shattered remnants of her geode.
Luna couldn’t hide her flinch. She looked at the gem like she would an open wound; with distaste. She returned to her mending, the warmth now flowing into Midnight’s side.
“You were deeply embedded in this place,” the Princess eventually said. She paused for another moment, and then added, “It took a great deal of time and magic to drill through the… the Incubus’ defenses. I cannot apologize enough for what has transpired due to my absence.”
“Heh, thanks?” Midnight sassed, though without energy. “Really helps to know you feel bad about screwing up.”
Luna closed her eyes, and slowly released her magic. As the light faded, she allowed herself a shuddering breath of her own. Then, she took Midnight’s hand, and brought them both to a standing position.
Once she was up on her feet, Midnight looked at her once-broken hand. The blood was still there, the makeshift bandages seeped in it, but she could feel it again, and not in a painful manner.
A flash of Luna’s magic removed the bandages – they still being made of dream-stuff – revealing Midnight’s whole and complete hand.
Midnight hummed, somewhat approvingly. Then, with another sigh, she looked back at the Princess.
“What now?” she asked, quietly.
Luna’s eyes did an excellent job not glancing down at Midnight’s other hand.
“When last we spoke in the Dream Realm, I told you of my fears…” Luna spoke plainly, though not without a sense of sympathy in her tone. Midnight likened it to a bedside manner. “… About how I felt I had wronged you by believing you were the Incubus I’d felt before. I brushed off the notion of an Incubus, in fact, in part because of how I now saw you.”
“Sorry you were right?” Midnight sneered, again without energy.
Luna closed her eyes.
“Yes. I seem to have made many, many mistakes in handling this situation…”
“No, really?” Midnight shook her head, a scowl forming. “You just… what? Thought you were respecting my privacy or something?”
The Princess flinched again, at Midnight’s tone, but did not move otherwise.
“I… I hoped that this was all a misunderstanding,” she said, eyes downcast again. “I hoped that you were merely dealing with the typical stress of being a teenager. I hoped that… that I could train up a Dreamwalker on this side of the Mirror to take on your concerns and your troubles.
“I hoped I had enough time to create a safeguard for your world,” she sighed. “But then I received your message.”
Luna clenched her jaw, and drew in a steady breath.
“Midnight, I am so, so sorry for my negligence…”
“Shut up,” Midnight hissed. “Just… shut up, already. You missed your chance.”
Midnight went silent again. Her eyes went back to her geode, or what was left of it. She held it up, cupped in her hands. Though the color had drained from them, they did seem to catch the moonlight well.
It was a cold comfort. All her dreams were pretty, broken glass.
“My magic is gone,” she whispered.
“No!” Luna said, her voice swelling in volume. “I will not allow you to…”
“To what!?” Midnight snarled. She gripped her geode shards tight, tightly enough to draw blood as she glared over the rim of her glasses at the shaken Princess. “What won’t you allow me to do, Princess?”
Tears pooled at the edges of her eyes, but Midnight ignored them, swiping each aside as they attempted to form.
She shouted, “All I am was in that geode! I was born from magic! And now it’s gone!!!”
Luna drew her lips into a thin line, but said nothing.
“Just once,” Midnight said, biting back a sob, “Just once... why couldn’t this have worked out for me!? Why!? I started this week screaming, and… and crying, and being…
“I can’t.” She fell into a crouch, and the tears streamed again. “I… I can’t go through this again. Not again. Please…”
“Midnight Sparkle,” Luna said, though her voice was almost a ghost. “I cannot fathom the depths of your despair right at this moment…”
Midnight said nothing, instead burying her face in her arms.
“… but the rules of magic have been changing,” Luna continued. She knelt before Midnight, and carefully wrapped her wings around the crying girl. “I cannot promise you that everything… in fact, I cannot promise you that anything will be fine. Or that it will all work out.
“But this, I can promise you… I will not abandon you again.”
Human arms touched Midnight’s back, and gently pulled on her.
There wasn’t any resistance. Midnight flew forward, arms outstretched. She fell into Luna’s arms, and accepted the hug… even as her sobs grew louder.
Luna was not finished, either. As she pressed her neck to Midnight’s, she whispered, “I have at my disposal the resources of Equestria. The Princess Twilight, her protégé Starlight Glimmer, and her beau, Sunburst, not to mention Starswirl the Bearded himself, are my friends… and yours. And with such genius, with such awesome power and knowledge at your disposal, can you really believe it is all over? That your geode cannot be mended?”
Midnight sniffed, and choked, and tried to bring her breathing back under control. But, as she let out another sob, pent up from a week of frustration, anger, nightmare, and fear, Luna held her tighter, and continued to speak.
“You may count on us,” she said. “Your friends shall not abandon you. And through our friendship… perhaps we might restore your magic to you?”
Midnight’s body shook with a sudden hiccup. Luna tensed up, and listened as the sounds coming from the girl shifted, ever so slightly. Midnight let out a few ragged gasps, a few shuddering breaths.
And then, the barest hint of a laugh.
“That’s the corniest crap I’ve ever heard,” she whispered. “And that’s coming from someone who gave those sorts of speeches, technically…”
Another deep, snotty sniff, and she started to push herself away from Luna’s embrace.
Midnight’s smile, however broken it might have been… was genuine as she looked up at the Princess’ face.
“Thanks, anyway,” she said, and wiped at her eyes. “I needed that…”
The two stood in the silence of the dream, neither speaking nor pulling away as they reached their feet again.
“So…” Midnight sighed, and glanced around at the blasted wasteland of her mind. “… what now? You wanna give me a lift out of here?”
Luna’s eyes hardened, and she shook her head slowly as the smile fell from her own lips.
“Oh, I am afraid not, Midnight Sparkle,” she said, turning back towards where the moon had landed. “We’ve yet to deal with your problem.”
Midnight raised a curious eyebrow. “Uh, you smashed her with the moon. How much more dealing can we really do with her?”
“I am afraid I could not extinguish this Incubus,” Luna said with a weary ruffle of her feathers. “I could only pin her down for a moment.”
Midnight’s eyes twitched. She swallowed, dryly…
And then screamed. “WHAT!?”
Her cry was echoed, naturally, by the moon itself as the entire buried silver structure shook from within, before a powerful blast of red hellfire tore it asunder.