//------------------------------//
// Hidden Secret, Flashing Ink 
// Story: My Little Bizarre Adventure: The Midnight Riders 
// by Lemon Lime Light 
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“…and furthermore, there is no telling what kinds of damage you could have caused to innocent bystanders!” Twilight lectured on as she and Rainbow Dash walked through the Everfree forest together. Her sharp and angry words echoed from the dark and dreary atmosphere that was Everfree. 

Earlier that day, Twilight had found what she had hoped to be a breakthrough in her research on the subject of Stands. To see whether or not it really was genuine information, a trip to the Palace of the Two Sisters was required. Twilight had asked Dash to accompany her. Along the trip, the pegasus told the princess what had happened in the park with Basil Leaf.

Next thing she knew, Dash was getting a twenty-minute-long rant/lecture on why that was probably the most dangerous, irresponsible thing she could have possibly done. Needless to say, Twilight’s opinion on what had transpired vastly differed from Dash’s.

“Geeze Twilight.” Dash sighed as soon as she sensed a break in Twilight’s rant that she could interject into. “I thought you might appreciate knowing that I encountered another Stand User in town.”

“That’s not the point,” Twilight exclaimed. “You used your Stand to attack him! You hospitalized him! If you hadn’t stopped when you did, you could have killed him! Stands aren’t toys, Rainbow Dash. They’re made to defend their user. Most can and WILL kill in order to do so.”

“He deserved it!” Rainbow Dash defended herself. “I mean, seriously Twilight, if you would have had one look at him, you’d understand where I’m coming from. And he was using his Stand for worse than I did! I used mine for justice!”

“No,” Twilight sternly stated. “You stooped to his level and used your Stand to act on your impulses. His was to steal, yours was to harm him. If you do that too often, then acting on impulses with your Stand will become a habit. That leads to dangerous thinking Dash. Your Stand will allow you to get away with most of these impulses almost repercussion free. Pretty soon, you’ll start having megalomaniac delusions. That’s exactly why Basil Leaf was like that Dash: he had no self-control with his Stand.”

“You’re wrong!” Dash snapped. “I’m nothing like that jerk! I’d never be anything like him!”

“That’s probably what Basil was like at one point,” Twilight suggested, “But his Stand eventually went to his head. It’s one of the few well recorded things about Stand Users. Most, if not all of them, become egocentricc. That’s why I rarely use my Night Wish for anything. In fact, subduing you was the first time I had even manifested it in two years.”

“Two YEARS?!” Dash gasped, “How in the hay did you keep your Stand away for two years?!”

“Because I have the self-control to know it would be dangerous to use it all the time. If I were to start using Night Wish for all my problems, eventually I’d either come to rely on it too much, or I’d start looking at it like a tool I have over others. It’s why Unicorns are taught to be careful about using their magic too much: it can be used for harm just as much as it can be for good.

“Look at it this way,” Twilight went on to explain. “Do you remember that one Wonderbolt recruit you told me about last year? The one who took steroids to help him just get that extra amount he needed to pass the test? And how he ended up doing that for every training exercise he went to afterwards? Do you remember how that almost got the Wonderbolts into huge trouble? Think of using your Stand like using steroids. Unless you’re only using it when you absolutely need to, you’ll only end up causing problems for yourself and those around you.”

“Alright, alright!” Rainbow Dash admitted in defeat. “No using my Stand to punch every jerk’s teeth out, you win!” She groaned as she put her hands in her pocket, taking in the scenery of the forest around her. “By the way, why exactly are we here in the Everfree?” She hoped to change the subject. Thankfully for Dash, Twilight’s face seemed to light up slightly with that excitement she gets when she’s about to explain something.

“So,” Twilight began. “As I initially expected, finding information to research about the subject of Stands wasn’t at all an easy task, given how obscure the matter is in the first place. I was able to find some luck, thankfully, in a book relating to the history of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Of course, I already knew that they were Stand Users, so it was one of the first places I looked. In fact, Princess Celestia herself was the one who taught me about Stands and helped me harness my own Stand. I’ve written to both of them and asked for their opinion on the matter at hand. I’m still waiting for a reply.

“While not the creators of Stands, the Royal Sisters were the first two in recorded history to harness the power of the Stand. It was right around the time they battled Discord, before they discovered the Elements of Harmony. They were seeking a new form of power, something that would give them the edge over the god of chaos. Princess Celestia with her Vanilla Twilight, no relation to my name, and Princess Luna with her Dark Side of the Moon. Unfortunately, even Stands were no match for Chaos Magic.”

“Gah!” Dash groaned, rubbing her forehead with her palm. “I should have known I’d end up getting a history lesson from you.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m almost done,” She sighed, before continuing. “That much, Princess Celestia had told me already. But, I found something that she hadn’t told me about before inside one of the books I took from the Castle of the Two Sisters. Most of the pages were illegible, and in Old Ponish at that, but from what I was able to make out, it was detailing the source of the Princess’s Stands.”

“And that source…” Twilight stopped and pointed to the Castle of the Two sisters, which was now in front of them. “Is somewhere beneath this palace.”

There was a long moment of silence in which the only response from Dash was a slow blink. She looked from Twilight’s finger, to the palace, and then back to Twilight.

“Ok…” Dash said as she tilted her head. “You didn’t have to sound so dramatic about that. So, we’re just going to go inside and look for this, source?”

Twilight realized that she had gotten way too into her speech and rubbed the back of her head with a sheepish blush. “Y-yeah, essentially. It’s more than likely going to be in the basement.” She took a few steps forward before turning around and looking at Dash. “Shall we?”

The pair walked through the ruined halls of the Palace of the Two Sisters. Their footsteps echoed throughout the empty halls, casting an ever so familiar sense of eeriness that came with it. Though they had long since abandoned their fears about the place, something about this trip to it, seemed off. Something felt like, it shouldn’t be there. Something was going to turn out different. Rainbow Dash could feel it in her gut.

Their destination was the reading room where Twilight had obtained the book that sent them on this expedition in the first place. Twilight, who had brought the book with them, flipped to a marked page, read to it herself, closed it, and then took a deep breath. She crossed her forearms and held her hands to either side of her head. With her eyes closed, she focused for a second, and then suddenly opened them while lunging her hands forward. Her eyes glowed bright white, a clear sign that a Unicorn (or Alicorn) was using magic. 

Twilight’s magic focused on a particular spot on the wall. Slowly, on that spot, letters began to form. Rainbow Dash couldn’t make out what it said, because it appeared to be written in Old Ponish. One by one, the letters glowed, forming what looked like a sentence of sorts, despite her not being able to comprehend it.

Once every glowing letter had appeared on the wall, Twilight relaxed and allowed her eyes to turn back to normal. The letters ceased glowing as well, showing that they were carved into the stone wall. Rainbow Dash tilted her head while staring at them.

“Only those with the power that comes from one’s soul may enter.” Twilight read aloud, translating for Dash. “Which means, only a Stand User may see the secrets underneath. If my theory is correct, then that means all I have to do is…” Twilight trailed off as she slowly walked towards the wall.

The mage seemed to be lost in her own thought, focusing on the wall in front of her. She held her arm up in quill holding position. Night Wish’s quill, followed by the Stand itself immediately after, appeared at Twilight’s command. She kept on walking forward, even when she was mere inches from the wall. Twilight kept on walking. The second her body made contact with the wall, she wasn’t stopped. Instead, Twilight was able to just keep walking. She walked straight through the wall, which appeared to made of liquid at this point. Soon, she was completely through the wall along with her Night Wish. The rippling wall settled a second later, looking like a normal wall again.

For a moment, Rainbow Dash just stared at the wall in disbelief. But it didn’t last long though. After everything she’s seen in the past few days, there wasn’t much she wouldn’t believe at this point. Sighing, Dash summoned her 2 Minutes to Midnight and followed Twilight’s lead. All logic and common sense told her to stop right before she got to the wall. But Dash was beginning to discover that those things were probably pointless right now. Besides, she had done crazier and stupider things before.

Just as it did for Twilight, the wall did not stop Dash in the slightest. It allowed her passage. Though, Twilight had made it look a lot easier than it actually turned out to be. She had made it seem like the wall was water, easily passed through. That was not the case. It, in fact, felt like it was made of some sort of thick gel. It took Rainbow Dash effort to force herself through it. She growled and grunted as she pushed her body through, fighting for every inch into the strange barrier.

When Dash had emerged on the other side, she found herself in a narrow, dark corridor with a spiral staircase a few feet in front of her. Just around the corner of the staircase, she could see the unmistakable glow of Twilight’s magic illuminating her way. Though it was growing fainter. Along with the echoing of Twilight’s feet on the stone steps was enough to clue Dash in on the fact that she was in thought mode again, proceeding with or without Dash. Grunting, Dash started to jog down the steps after her, making sure that it would be with.

“An entire basement level,” Twilight mumbled under the magical orb of light that was following her. Her eyes were glowing white again. She seemed just aware enough of her surroundings to walk down the steps without bumping into the walls. As such, she didn’t even notice when Dash caught up and was walking right beside her. “That Celestia had never even told me about. Why? What could be hidden under here that she’d keep a secret from me. Even after she herself was the one who showed me the power of the Stand.”

“Equestria to Twilight,” Dash called out, waving her arm in front of Twilight’s face, trying to get her attention. Twilight snapped out of her trance and shook her head.

“Whatever Princess Celestia has hidden down here, it definitely has something to do with Stands.” Twilight put her fingers below her chin as she explained her thinking. “Like I said, Princess Celestia and Luna are the earliest Stand Users recorded in history. There were others before, but history has forgotten them, like much of the Pre-Discordian Era.”

“Alright, what’s the point?” Rainbow Dash asked impatiently as she looked behind her, then back to her front. These stairs seemed to go on forever. Being this far underground made any pegasus, especially Rainbow Dash, uncomfortable.

“The point is,” Twilight continued, snapping slightly to show that she was annoyed, “When the Princesses made this secret basement, it was most likely under the assumption that they were the only two Stand Users in the world. Or at least, the only two would even be able to find it. It would be one thing to just seal it behind a magical barrier. But, I felt Vanilla Twilight in that wall. Like, it was made from magic that originated from the Stand. There was also a similar, yet unfamiliar presence in the wall, which I can only guess was Dark Side of the Moon. Don’t you get it Rainbow Dash, the Princesses used their Stands in combination with their magic to make that barrier. Whatever is down here is something that they didn’t want to be found.”

Unlike her royal companion, these words did nothing to make Rainbow Dash more confident about what they were doing. “Well if that’s the case, then um, are you sure we should be finding it?”

“In truth, no,” Twilight was doing so much ensure her friend about this right now, “But, it’s likely the only way we’ll find an explanation to why you obtained a Stand so suddenly. This whole situation has been giving me a bad feeling from the start. We likely have to find it at this point.” Twilight turned to look forward again. They had finally reached the bottom of the staircase. This gave way to a hallway, at which they could see the end of. Oddly enough, there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Seeing this, Twilight doused her own orb, curiously staring at it.

“Can, magical lights stay on down here?” Rainbow Dash asked, feeling nervous by this new development. “Like, can the princesses put on permanent ones?”

“No,” Twilight gravely told her. “Illumination is magic in its purest form. The user would have to be near and constantly supplying the magic. There are no other ways of creating light magically. Given the fact that there is no possible way electricity could be down here, or a fire could be sustained for nearly a thousand years,” Twilight tightened her stance, “That means someone is either down here, or has been down here recently. I pray for the latter, but we need to stay on our guard.”

Rainbow Dash nodded in response, deciding to take point. Twilight didn’t interject, even though she felt that she should be the one to do so. She knew that this was no time to start an argument. It would risk throwing them off guard, as well as alerting anyone who happened to be inside the room to their presence. Against her better judgement, Twilight was forced to concede the lead to Dash.

As soon as they reached halfway down the hall, the light at the end was covered by something. The shape of it was juxtaposed against the light just enough so that it was impossible to make out its exact form. And since it was pretty much nothing but shadow, anything it did was impossible to see as well. So, when this shape turned out to be a Stand that was launching an attack, Rainbow Dash couldn’t tell this until she heard the unmistakable sound of rushing liquid three feet from her.

Since she was an athlete, Rainbow Dash’s reaction time did help save her. The second she did hear the sound of the liquid, she hopped on 2 Minutes to Midnight as fast as she could, grabbed hold of its handles, and had it turn one hundred eighty degrees as fast as it could, flying towards Twilight, scooping her up, and carrying her back up the stairs. Even with the Stand’s incredible Speed, it only got Dash and Twilight to higher ground mere seconds before it would have hit them. In the magically light that Twilight immediately conjured, they saw the liquid was a sickly, unnatural, green color. It sizzled as it faded from sight like a wave on the shore receding back into the ocean.

“T-Thanks,” Twilight gasped, huffing and trying to catch her breath from the shock. She was suddenly grateful that Rainbow Dash had taken the lead. “If it wasn’t for you, I would have been caught in that attack.”

“What the heck was that?” Dash exclaimed, constantly on guard and looking back down the stairs towards the hallway. “Do you think it was another Stand User?”

“It had to be,” Twilight explained. “That barrier we passed, only Stand Users can pass it. Whoever that Stand User was, they clearly do not want us to be down here. Dash, remember when I said you shouldn’t use your Stand unless it’s a time you absolutely have to? Self-defense counts as one of those times.”

“That’s all I needed to hear.” Dash affirmed, gripping 2 Minutes to Midnight tighter and psyching herself up.

“Now we don’t even know what he does,” Twilight stated. “So, it’s important that we try and work out a plan of attack so both of us get out of this safely.” Rainbow Dash had already taken off down the hall not even halfway through her sentence.

It was pitch black in the tunnel, so Dash was not able to rely on her eyes. However, 2 Minutes to Midnight gave her enhanced perception for all of her senses, including hearing. She held her eyes closed as she flew down the halls. She had learned through intensive training that when the body lost one sense, the others were heightened to compensate; that, combined with her Stand’s abilities, meant her hearing was as good as a hawk. And so, Dash listened. 

A second later, she heard the sound of the liquid again, this time from farther away than she did in the initial attack. It sounded like it was wide enough to cover the entire span of the hallway, making it impossible to dodge around. If that was the case, Dash decided she would do the exact opposite.

The pegasus willed her Stand to veer to the left as much as possible without hitting the wall. It held its arms out in front of it, and twisted its upper half like it was stretching. Suddenly, without even thinking, Dash made 2 Minutes to Midnight corkscrew in the opposite direction and upwards. As the Stand spun, the air around its body was repelled, forming a sealed vacuum around it and its User. This bubble repelled the liquid away from it, allowing 2 Minutes to Midnight to pass through the stream. When they emerged, Dash opened her eyes, and set course directly for the source.

2 Minutes to Midnight’s fist connected with the source with all the force of a bullet. It felt like Rainbow Dash had punched solid stone. As soon as she flew into the room, her eyes were flooded with the light that greatly contrasted the darkness from the hallway. She was forced to squint while her eyes naturally adjusted. Instinctively, she flew to the opposite side of the room that she had punched the source of the liquid into.

It took Dash less than a minute to adjust to the light. She was staring right at what she had punched. And what she had punched was in fact an enemy stand. It had the appearance of a large gorilla made entirely of bricks. The top of its head was shaped like the type of water fountain you’d see in the center of a park. Behind it stood the User, who didn’t look none too happy at the blow to the jaw that he had just felt. 

Wiping away blood seeping from his jaw, the figure stood framed against the multiple glowing lights in the room. The figure was a stallion, standing just a few inches taller than Dash herself. While Dash couldn't make out any fine details, she could tell his clothing was rather sparse. He wore a simple lime green tank top that was cut off to expose the midriff, the bottom seemingly burned off with acid. He wore long grey pants that were adorned with random paraphernalia. His hair was short cut and unkempt, sticking up around his head and making him look almost crazy.  

“You’ve got some Stand there, I’ll give you that,” The attacker begrudgingly complimented, “But, it’s still no match for my Fountain of Pain!”

“Just who the heck are you anyway?” Dash demanded. “And why did you just attack us out of the blue?!”

“My name is Verde Chase!” The attacker proclaimed, “And you are one young lady who is sticking her nose far up where it doesn’t belong.” Verde, as Dash now knew, stepped backwards, moving behind Fountain of Pain. 

The green liquid Dash had previously dodged started to flow from the fountain atop Fountain of Pain’s head. The frothing liquid swirled up into the basin, pooling together into a sickly and menacing puddle. The Stand put its hands to the liquid, causing it to rush out in a stream towards Dash.

“You’re going to have to try harder than that!” Dash smirked as 2 Minutes to Midnight took off, easily ducking under the stream. The Stand pulled its fist back and prepared for another hard uppercut right to Fountain of Pain’s jaw. However, Verde was grinning even harder than Dash was. Suddenly Fountain of Pain changed the angle at which its hands were splashing the liquid, causing it to spray downwards directly towards Dash.

Even with her heightened perception, Rainbow Dash had no means of escaping the splash in time. She was flying so close to the ground that her maneuvering options were severely limited. Added to the wide splash radius, Dash was not able to veer away in time. The liquid frothed onto her, sizzling as 2 Minutes to Midnight fell to the ground and disappeared. Rainbow Dash fell to the ground and was sent rolling towards the wall.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight shouted as she ran into the room. She ran towards Dash, but Verde stood between them, causing Twilight to reflexively take a defensive stance, quill at the ready.

“GAAAAHHHH!” Dash cried out in pain clutching her hands over her eyes. “My eyes! My eyes!”

Curling up on the ground, Dash clawed at her eyes. The acid hadn’t even gotten into them, and yet her face was alight with pain. Any attempt to open her eyes was met with such pain that she immediately was forced to shut them again, all while acidic tears poured down her face. 

“You’ve gotten a small taste of Fountain of Pain’s acid!” Verde explained with a grin on his face. “One touch from it is enough to make your eyes ten times more sensitive to light. Add that to my extra strength illumination orbs, and it’s like you’re staring directly into a flood lamp. If I’d hit you with more than what I did, you would probably be blind by now!”

“Why are you doing this?” Twilight demanded, pooling her ink around her to be ready for a defensive move at any time. “We meant no harm coming down here!”

“Like I told your friend here,” Verde had Fountain of Pain launch another spray of acid. “You’re being way too nosey!”

Instantly Twilight made a diagonal slash with her quill, causing Night Wish to do the same and form a solid ink wall in front of her. The acid hit the black barrier, spraying around Twilight like a rock in a stream. She looked to her side and noted the acid sizzling away on the ground. Once the torrent had concluded, Twilight liquefied the ink and put it back into the pool floating around her.

Acting under pressure was not one of Twilight’s best points. She tried to analyze the situation as best as she could. Rainbow Dash was effectively disabled at the moment. To be honest, Twilight preferred if it would stay that way, lest she risk permanent retinal damage. That means she would have to beat Verde and his Stand all on her own.

Twilight’s analytic mind kicked in as she looked around the room. The ‘room’ was a circular chamber, with a large disc in the center. The orbs floating about the space gave Twilight a good sense of the size: thirty meters in diameter, approximately twenty meters high, and that, given the direction they’d entered, they were likely in the southern quadrant. 

Twilight’s eyes widened as she saw another torrent of acid coming straight for her. Instantly she teleported into the air and started to fly in a circle around the room. Though she wasn’t nearly as skilled as Dash was, Twilight flew just fast and agilely enough to avoid getting hit by the stream before it ended. The acid fell onto the floor below, a few meters away from her fallen companion.  Realizing that Dash was still in danger, the princess called her Stand and formed a dome of ink around her as fast as she could, solidifying it as to form a shield from the acid. Any acid that would have hit Dash instead just harmlessly sizzled away on top of the solid black dome. That was one less thing that Twilight had to worry about.

In this brief calm, Twilight thought more. This acid was a problem. She theorized that if even a single drop splashed on her, she would be reduced to the same state as Dash was. And if she just stayed on the defensive like this, eventually that would happen. She needed to fight back. 

The only problem was, her Night Wish couldn’t fight in the way a Stand like Dash’s could. It relied solely on its ink to do anything. While, given the time, she could accomplish a number of feats, said time was not a luxury the princess had at the moment. Adding to that, Twilight had already divided her Stand’s capabilities by having to shield Dash.  She needed to focus her energy on dodging the torrents that were coming from Fountain of Pain.

Speaking of which, another one was coming straight for her. Twilight dove low to the floor and then dashed to the right to avoid the cascade of acid that had hit the wall and was raining on her from above. With her right hand, Twilight started to form some solid spears of ink and hurled them at Fountain of Pain. With her other, she conjured magical bolts and fired them at Verde.

Neither attack was effective. Fountain of Pain redirected its acid spray towards the spears, knocking them out of the air and causing them to ricochet off the wall. And Verde had just simply conjured a magically barrier around himself that completely blocked Twilight’s bolts.

Twilight cursed herself for never taking the time to properly learn how to cast offensive magic spells under pressure. Right now would have been the time when she would probably most need to cast them. Thankfully, her attack had succeeded in stopping this torrent of acid by forcing Fountain of Pain to use it for defensive purposes. Twilight curiously pondered the acid that had sizzled away on the floor next to her.

“Is that all you’ve got? Honestly, I expected more from a princess.” Verde was laughing like he was in control of the whole situation, but there was an undertone in his speech that made it sound like he was starting to get annoyed, “Forgive me if I sound a little disappointed. I had heard so much about the princesses’ Stands. Well, the ACTUAL princesses’ Stand that is.”

More than a few nerves were struck with Twilight when Verde said that. It was something that she had heard on more than a few occasions, that she wasn’t an actual princess since she was just turned into one. Of course, Twilight was able to deal with hollow insults when they came from people she didn’t care about. But from Verde, a Stand User, a type of person she had always considered special in her mind, it felt like it carried more weight. But even if Twilight did feel insulted, something else was weighing even more heavily on her mind. 

“Wait a minute,” Twilight inquired. “You said, you’ve heard a lot about the princesses Stands? How? True, it’s common knowledge amongst those who research Stands that they HAVE Stands, but, nowhere is it recorded what their Stands are. Princess Celestia affirmed to me that not since Starswirled the Bearded has she ever shown her Stand to anyone before she showed it to me to teach me about Stands. And not since Discord has she even USED her Stand. As for Princess Luna, not even I have seen her Stand.”

“Haven’t used it since Discord?” Verde grinned. “Is that so? Well, your princess isn’t as perfect as you think she is then. In fact, she happens to be a downright liar!” The enemy Stand User shrugged. “Maybe I’ve said too much at this point. Doesn’t matter, since you won’t be around for too much longer!”

Verde pointed forward and Fountain of Pain started to charge towards Twilight. Green acid started to flow from its head. It dipped its stone fists in the acid and launched a double punch at Twilight, flinging the volatile liquid her way. Twilight teleported to the side and made a solid black wall behind her as she ran around the perimeter of the room. The wall stopped Fountain of Pain of a second, before it jumped over the wall and launched a torrent of acid directly at her.

With a long stroke of her quill already in motion Twilight dug her heels into the ground and formed a larger wall of ink in front of her. She stuck as close as she could to that wall as the acid hit the ground and started to sizzle away. While she squished her quill frantically, Twilight reached around the wall once she could and launched a quick volley of bolts at Verde, all of which he blocked with ease.

In order to take a more active role in this fight, Twilight teleported into the air above Verde, reining magical bolts and occasionally electricity discharges (she refused to call it lightning) at him. None of them were able to pierce his barrier. With an annoyed scowl, Verde teleported next to Fountain of Pain before it launched another torrent at Twilight.

After she responded with her own teleport, Twilight put her hand to the ground while she used her other one to keep moving the tip of her quill. She pulled up as many loose bricks from the floor as she could, swirling them around in a cyclone. Randomly, she had them launch towards Verde, who either blocked them with his Stand or caught them and threw them back at her. Though, they weren’t thrown with much precision and were easy for Twilight to jump out of the way of.

There wasn’t a single chance given for Verde to retaliate. Twilight held her magic straight to her side. As if slapping the air, Twilight swiped her hand out in front of her. From the side of Verde and Fountain of Pain, a giant purple hand made of magic swatted them like her hand. Twilight made her hand into a fist and started to mash the air, causing her physique hand to do the same right to Fountain of Pain. She showed no signs of stopping, smashing like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.

“What are you even doing?” Verde growled. “I know that you know that’s not doing anything. Only a Stand can affect another Stand! If you want to try and actually hurt Fountain of Pain, you’ll need to use your own Stand! You are literally accomplishing nothing by doing this!”

“Oh but Mr. Chase,” Twilight snickered confidently. “I’m afraid you’re wrong in both of those statements. I am in fact using my Night Wish. I’ve been using it this whole time. You’ll have to forgive me, I only have a limited amount of ink to work with. Making complex forms takes some time, especially when I’m constantly having to focus on other things. And my magic is accomplishing exactly what it needs to do, distracting you!”

Verde stamped his foot and shouted Fountain of Pain’s name while pointing at Twilight. The acid roared out of its fountain. The Stand slammed its hands in the liquid and shot the hardest torrent yet at Twilight.

That was just what the princess was hoping for. She made one last motion with her quill, and suddenly a black funnel come out from behind her and stood right between Twilight and the and the acid. The entire torrent flowed into the funnel, the cone being so wide that not a single drop could escape it. The acid was directed through the funnel, down an ink pipe, to some sort of ink tank with a plunger on the back of it. When the torrent subsided, Twilight deformed the funnel and pipe, shaping them into a cone at the tip of the tank, making it look like a bug sprayer. The entire time, the tank was swishing the acid around inside of it.

“As much as it pains me to say it, your Stand is a lot similar to mine,” Twilight had the most satisfied grin on her face. “In that we both have only a limited amount of liquid to work with. How did I figure that out, you might ask? Well, your actions gave it away. I started asking myself about why you weren’t just constantly firing an endless torrent at me, trying to tire me out or force me into a corner? The answer, after you expend your acid, you have to wait for it to dissolve and return to Fountain of Pain’s body.”

“My next question was to ponder when exactly your acid dissolved. It only took some careful observations to conclude that it would only dissolve when it is no longer in motion, hence the constant motions of the tank for the moment. So, for now, I have all your acid, and as long as the tank is still tumbling, you won’t be getting back.”

“Oh, and I feel that I should tell you about another question I asked myself. Why didn’t you just flood the entire room with the stuff? Of course, that led me to my conclusion that you only had so much of it. But, it also gave me a different theory. One that I tested by attacking you directly from above. When you moved over to Fountain of Pain afterwards, it confirmed my theory. And that theory is…”

Twilight pointed directly at Verde, who was taking a step back towards the wall. He was shaking in his legs. Fountain of Pain tried to rush towards the princess, but she restrained it with ink chains. The tank of acid floated next to Twilight, pointing at Verde as well.

“YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO YOUR OWN ACID!” Twilight declared as she used her magic to push the plunger down in the tank. The acid was forced out the small opening of its nozzle at high speeds. By the time that Verde had worked up the gall to try and run, it was too late. The acid splashed him in the back, causing him to trip over his feet and fall to the ground as he started to cover his eyes.

Even as he cried out in pain, Twilight kept spraying Verde with his own acid. He gripped his face tightly as he cried out. Deep down, she knew she should feel bad about doing this, and maybe even stop. But she justified herself by reminding herself that Verde was intent on killing them and putting themselves through the same sort of pain. Eventually, Verde finally recalled Fountain of Pain, causing the acid, and its effects to subside.

Even though they were no longer super sensitive, Verde still curled on the ground, clutching his eyes in pain. Rainbow Dash, who hadn’t gotten nearly as much on acid on her, was perfectly fine now, standing over the pathetic form of Verde next to her friend.

“I know I was drilling on how to properly use your Stand earlier, Dash,” Twilight said with a glint in her eyes. “But, just this one time I’m willing to look the other way.”

“Don’t worry Twilight,” Rainbow Dash reassured as she cracked her knuckles. “I’m not going to need a Stand for this.”

Five minutes later, Verde Chase was laying on the ground with a black eye and several lumps on his head. Rainbow Dash dusted herself off.

“I’ll take him back to the castle so we can get some information out of him when he wakes up again.” Twilight told Dash. “In the meantime, we can finally see what it was he didn’t want us to see.”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash turned to the far side of the room, which housed a large, stone door. Using her magic, Twilight pried the door open. She created a ball of light, and walked into the dark room.

It was much smaller than the previous room. When the pair walked in, they could see the large form of what appeared to be a coffin. Or, a sarcophagus would be a more appropriate term, given how lavishly it was decorated. When Twilight illuminated the room some more, both her and Dash saw what was on the wall behind it. And in turn, Twilight let out a loud gasp.

The entire wall was a mural. On the left and right sides of the wall were Princesses Celestia and Luna, kneeling in defeat. To the right of Celestia was a humanoid figure with large, bristling flaming wings for arms, painted so as to obscure any other defining details. Similarly, beside Luna laid a figure made entirely of shadow with a crescent moon in its chest, and in its right hand a broken prism. In the center, looking at the both of them, was the unmistakable depiction of Discord on top of his royal throne of chaos. Behind him, eclipsing almost the entire sky, was a large, humanoid form shrouded by darkness.

Twilight took a moment to stare at the mural in confusion at the mural. The depiction was so vivid, so real that Twilight couldn't believe it. She cast her gaze across the various details, recognizing Vanilla Twilight beside Celestia, and what she could only guess to be Dark Side of The Moon beside Luna. 

“Um, Twilight?” Dash blinked, turning to face her, “What is going on in that mural?” 

“I don’t know…” Twilight stared at the depiction of her beloved princesses for a few more solid moments, “But I do know one thing: whatever is going on in that mural aside, something else is going on here...”