There was a beautiful, radiant burst of light as the crystal heart found its resting place under the crystal palace. Joy filled the hearts of the crystal ponies as their new ruler, Princess Mi Amaora Cadenza, stood proud among them. Her body, a soft pink with hair of a richer hue, streaks of yellow and purple, on her flank was the image of a crystal heart showing her talent for love. Many believed it to be destiny that she became the rule of the empire with a talent and mark like that.

A crowd of crystal ponies surrounded the legendary artifact, which now had a group of guards around it, as well. Each one looked battered and battle worn; even the crystal heart could not banish the fatigue that had set in.
However, right next to the crystal heart a small disturbance appeared, a black tear crackling with energy, which slowly grew into a large portal. Instinctively, many ponies looked away, avoiding looking into the bleak insanity of the desolate void. The portal continued to grow till it was large enough for even a princess to fit in. Suddenly, it spat forth a strange, robed creature. The creature dangled for a moment awkwardly, it's foot stuck on the edge of the portal.

As the portal began to close, the creature started to flail with the blood rushing to its head trying to dislodge its foot. Upon succeeding it unceremoniously fell flat on its back. Dazed and looking up the creature realized that it was surrounded by many quadruped creatures all holding spears aimed directly at it. The guards had moved to put themselves between the new royalty and the threat that appeared in the heart of their kingdom.

“Identify yourself, creature!” One of the guards yelled as he waved his spear at the creature. The guard was a lieutenant of the Crystal Guard; he had the same dark purple appearance as the majority of the guards, he was one of the lucky ones.

The silver armor he wore was engraved with a spell causing all of the regular guards to have a standard appearance. This helped ensure security and safety for members of the guard. However there were several guards, whose armor were dented and severely damaged, that were showing their natural colors. This alone was proof of how horrific the fighting over the past few days was.

As the creature rose they noticed that it was a biped, taller than any of them, with the princess -the tallest of the ponies- coming up to it's shoulders. The creature had no fur on its body; its mane was brown, like it's small eyes. The strange cloth it wore completely covered it, save its hands and head. They were obviously robes, green with many designs and decorations, including a yin yang symbol in the middle of the chest. Looking around, it blinked, obviously confused; looking at the guards, it jumped back a little only to notice there were even more guards behind it.

The bipedal creature spoke up in a strange language, its voice was low, the leader of the guards suspected the outsider of being male.

“We said, 'Identify yourself Creature!'” The lead guard exclaimed. He was a large stallion, purple body with a deeper purple mane; everything was close cropped in standard military fashion. Its armor was dented in several places and he had several cuts that had yet to heal from a battle. Being of a higher rank, his form was not changed by the armor.

The creature spoke again, its face and tone conveyed confusion and… a hint of disbelief, possibly? He tried to make himself less intimidating by taking a knee to the guards; pointing to himself he spoke slowly, one word, “Duncan”

Realization appeared on the lead guard’s face, realizing the creature was speaking a language not known to Equestria, a language known as English. He coughed a little as he recalled how it was spoken;” You speak English?”

The guard's accent was thick from lack of use. The creatures smiled with relief as it responded, "Yes, I am not of Equestria, I mean you no harm. I am simply lost, one moment I was at a convention, the next, here.”

The guard would have fainted if he were a lesser stallion. This creature was obviously a displaced, like the creature from the time of the fall of Discord, not that many ponies knew of it.

“This is a question for you, it may mean nothing, or everything, but…” The guard spoke three words more in English. The creature starred in disbelief a broad smile coming across his face, he responded in kind causing the guard to visibly relax and lower his spear.

It was about this time that the new leaders of the crystal empire decided to step forward and take over the situation. Cadence approached with a large white stallion in armor, appeared to be similar to captain armor as his form wasn’t shifted . His mane and tail were longer than most guards, and held a rich blue with light blue streaks. The leader of the Crystal guards knew him as Crown Prince Shining Armor. Shining Armor spoke first; he spoke with a strong commanding tone, "Crystal what is going on?”

“Sir, this is a creature known as a human, specifically a Displaced. They are a group that arrived in Equestria over 1,400 years ago. This one is friendly and means us no harm,” The leader of the guard, known as Crystal Wall, spoke with such absolute certainty that it shocked all of the guards. It was at this time Cadence stepped forth to question the guard.

“How do you know this language? There is nothing in the history books, and I was tutored by Princess Celestia personally,” Her wings were spread wide but slightly lowered, showing a compassionate stance, her voice conveying concern, and a hint of irritation. Seems she didn’t like not knowing things.

A purple mare followed by five others came trotting towards the group, They were still out of earshot, however Crystal recognized the leader as Twilight Sparkle, one of the mares sent to help the empire. Twilight was one of six mares from outside the empire to arrive today, reports said she and her friends had been working on restoring joy to the hearts of the Crystal Ponies. She was a rich lavender color with dark purple hair, parted by streaks of pink and blue, her tail matching. Her cutie mark was a star indicating her magic potential.

“It was something I learned many years before the fall of the empire, there aren’t any written works regarding it. Not even the Princesses of Equestria knows of the language. If you would like, I know a spell that will let him speak our language, he can then vouch for himself,” The guard spoke with a military bearing that many of the other guards envied, as most had lost the adrenaline and were now leaning on their spears for support. Cadence smiled warmly at all of the ponies, around noticing that Twilight and the rest of her friends had finally made their way back to them.

“If you are feeling up to it, please cast your spell, however you have proven that your word is more than worthy of our trust. Please everyone stand down, it seems we have a guest to care for,” She ordered the other ponies, even Shining Armor’s stern look softened. Given that Crystal Wall had been leading the counter fight in the catacombs under the Castle during Sombra’s return for the past 3 days- on day 2 he had broken away long enough to meet with Cadence and himself, to explain the situation. From the reports Shining had received, the stallion had gone from front to front fighting and turning the tides of the battles in their favor. The wounds on his body spoke volumes of his loyalty to friendship and his companions. Cadence spoke softly to the battle worn guard once more, "However, how do you known such a spell, ever sense the world spell 2,000 years ago that caused every sentient creature to speak the same language, there have been no uses for language spells?”

“I am, your majesty, and as for the spell there are a great deal many things that I researched in my youth, I have an impeccable memory so was able to learn a great deal. This spell was invented by a displaced specifically and again not even the Princesses know of it,” He spoke respectfully, turning away, he spoke to the human again. The human nodded and closed his eyes as Crystal’s horn began to glow; the blue glow also appeared around the creature’s throat and lower jaw. After a snap the glow disappeared, it was then that Twilight Sparkle teleported in to see the spell, mesmerized by its complexity and unknown intent.

“What was that spell?!” She exclaimed charging at Crystal, her eyes were wide and focused, being the element of magic, she didn’t think there should be spells that she couldn’t at least recognize parts of, if not know all out. He friends tried to reach for her but were to slow, this led to one of the other guards putting himself between Twilight and Crystal.

The guard stared at her forcefully as she shrunk down, fear filled her eyes. Crystal chuckled,” Miss Sparkle, you will find that to be a languages spell. Please stand down Defender,”

Defender Spear nodded and returned to his place in the ranks. Crystal smiled as he helped Twilight to her hooves,” I used it because we have a guest whom I’m sure you will want to meet, he comes from outside of Equestria,”

“Who?”

“See that deformed biped?” Crystal pointed to the human.

“Yes,” She shifted her eyes at the brazen use of the term, “But even Minotaur are covered by the world spell.”
“He isn’t a Minotaur, he is human, his name is Duncan, and he is not from our reality,” Crystal explained stepping back as the human Duncan, smiled and waved.

“Hello,” There was a blur as Twilight talked him, using her magic to start probing him, her obsession with knowledge getting the better of her. Crystal laughed as Shining tried to pry his sister lose from the flailing Creature, “Not funny, get it off, get it off,” Eventually Cadence took pity on Duncan and helped by using her considerable power as an alicorn to lift her sister-in-law off him.

“My Lord, My Lady, I believe it would be a good idea to move this inside as many of the ponies are growing worried, I believe having Miss Pie lead them in a party would be beneficial,” Crystal spoke again, using his magic to help right the human. The pink earth mare bounced up and down with endless enthusiasm, what little information he had indicated her job to bring joy to other ponies, her flank mark being 3 balloons, indicated her talent at bringing joy.

Everyone agreed with the idea as Pinky ran off to start an empire wide party; Cadence gave her blessing to the event promising to join her new subjects as soon as the matter of the human was taken care off.

Duncan, who had remained relatively silent during the process continued to stand there awkwardly. At Crystal’s prompt the group made their way to the interior of the castle. The guards were excused to relax and heal, several insisted on maintaining at least a skeleton crew just in case of stragglers.

A cyan Pegasus, with rainbow colored mane and tail, kept pace next to the human, floating as she went. The reports identified her as Rainbow Dash, apparently a very athletic pony who was bringing jousting back. Several of the guard would be pleased once they are healed. Rainbow’s flank mark was a storm cloud and lightning bold, likely indicating her need for speed.

Dash eyed the human,” So you’re some great hero?”

“No idea, I was just at my world with my twin brother, we were at a con. After hitting up the dealers room…” Duncan explained before being interrupted.

“What’s a con?” Rainbow asked.

“Large gatherings of fans, this one was mostly for anime, or cartoons,” He explained.

“Wow there must have been a lot of ponies, how many, dozens?” Twilight asked.

“This was a small one with hundreds; most have thousands of people,” Duncan responded smiling at the little ponies’ reaction to the numbers. Everyone had large eyes and mouths agape at the thought of so many ponies coming together over such a thing. Crystal smirked almost knowingly something that only Cadence caught, but didn’t pursue.

“Anyways, so there we were looking though the venders, shop keeps, that had their booths up. Then we come across some creepy guy who was really into his character. I turn to my brother; say ‘Dude has way too much time on his hands, look at those props- they are made of real metal.’ We walked over and found some neat stuff, but I got this sword,” he said holding up a rather impressive jian, the blade was double sided with a small cross guard. The handle was wrapped in fine fabric ending with an orb and tassel hanging off the end of the sword.

“Wow,” Rainbow eyed the blade with a great deal of respect,” What do you do with that? Fight monsters?”

She hovered by his shoulder giving him a few quick punches in the shoulder, he flinched a little bit at the power and density of the blows.

“Well that’s the thing there are no monsters in my world, at least not real ones, ours are the evil in people’s hearts. The greedy politicians, corrupted royalty, things like that,” his demeanor seemed to have dropped slightly. Speaking of a world with such greed corruption and evil always took its toll on his heart.

“That sounds dreadful, at least your people have great sense of fashion, those robes are absolutely stunning, you must let me study them, oh idea!” A white unicorn mare, her hair was styled just right, purple, matching her tail they both curled in a lovely fashion. Crystal knew this one to be Rarity, bit odd but very generous, likely her cutie mark reflected this with its 3 perfect diamonds.
“Actually, this is a costume, it’s considered weird to wear these every day, not sure why, they’re just clothes,” Duncan responded, "I am playing a character named Li Syaoran, a magician and sword fighter from an anime I use to watch,”

“Watch?” Twilight asked.

“Moving pictures in rapid progression to give the appearance of movement, similar to some illusions,” He clarified.

It was at this time they finally made their way to the center of the throne room, the ruler’s took their respective places.

“Now then I believe some proper introductions are in order. My name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, but please you may all call me Cadence,” She smiled warmly turning to Shining.

“I am Crown Prince Shining Armor, Ex Captain of Equestria’s Solar Guard,” He responded with military manners forming a salute.

“I am Twilight Sparkle, Student of Princess Celestia, and bearer of the Element of Magic,” She said proudly.

“Spike, Twilight’s No.1 Assistant, and only Dragon of Ponyville,” the dragon proclaimed proudly standing on Twilight’s back, he previously had been on Cadence’s back from when he helped recover the Crystal Heart during the battle. The dragon was clearly a young one, standing no taller than most ponies shoulder he was purple with green spikes. His lack of wings indicated he was likely a ground bound great wyrm, legendary among dragons.

“My name is Rainbow Dash, greatest flyer in Equestria, element of Loyalty,” She puffed out her chest as she hovered by her friends.

“Rarity, fashionista, dress maker, and proprietor of Carousel Boutique, element of Generosity,” Rarity flashed her eyes standing in a runway pose.

“Mah name’s Apple Jack, you can call me AJ, part of the Apple family of Sweet Apple Acres- best apples in equestria, element of Honesty. Mighty pleased to meet ‘cha Sugar Cube,” This mare was orange with blond hair, she wore a Stetson, the marks on her flank being three apples. Her accent reminded Duncan of a southern accent.

“I’m Fl-Flu-FlutterShy,” A yellow pegasus mare with pink hair whispered, reports told Crystal she had been helping Rainbow Dash, however the mare was very timed. Her cutie mark being three butterflies likely meant something to do with animals,” I’m the element of kindness,”

Her soft squeaking voice and painfully shy demeanor cause Duncan to clutch his chest in mock pain, “the cuteness, dear FlutterShy, you could be weaponized for how adorable you are,”

This of course caused her to hide behind the rest of the group more. Everypony turned to Duncan with a look of confusion. He quickly shut his mouth muttering an apology. With all eyes on him he figured it was his turn to introduce himself.

“WAIT” A high pitched voice came from nowhere, everyone looked around to identify the source.

Somehow while everyone had turned their back looking Pinkie Pie, the mare leading the festivities outside had appeared at the front of the group. She had a very serious look on her face as she eyed the human. Duncan on reflex leaned back to avoid her, he almost fell as she got closer and closer.

Then with a great breath she returned to a normal standing position with an impossibly huge smile on her face,” HI! I’m Pinkie Pie, you're new, since you're new you probably don’t have any friends so I’m going to be your friend! From now on we’re BFFs, ok I got to go talk to you later Duncan,”

Then she sped off through a side door. Everypony looked around for a moment before the 5 remaining friends brought their hooves to their face in shame, "Before you ask don’t question it, its Pinkie,”

Crystal shocked everyone doing the one thing none of them had seen him do, or any guard for that matter. He began laughing uncontrollably, literally falling to the floor laughing. After a few moments Duncan joined in, the laughter proved to be contagious as everypony else joined in to, after several moments any lingering negative feelings or stress were gone.
Crystal spoke first after regaining his footing, now smiling, “That must have been our Element of Laughter then?”

“You got it,” Rainbow Dash confirmed wiping a tear from her eye.

“Well then,” Duncan began, uncomfortably, "my name is Duncan, I guess if what our guard friend said is true, I am also a Displaced making me Li Syaoran Defender of Justice and Harmony,” he said it so matter of fact that everypony just stared at him for a few moments, largely because none of the ponies understood his reference.

Crystal decided to break the silence by coughing bringing attention to himself,” I believe it only fair that I introduce myself, not much to know. I am Crystal Wall; I got myself stuck leading everypony against Sombra and his Loyalist Guards 1000 years. Upon the return despite the Princess’s help keeping Sombra out the Loyalist kept fighting; we managed to keep them in the caverns so that no innocents were put in the line of fire. As for a little bit about me, I loved to research ancient lore, and had a great tutor when it came to the subject of the Displaced, that to answer your question Miss Sparkle is why I know so much about our friend Duncan here.”

“What are these Displaced exactly? It seems like you know a lot about them, yet none of us have ever even heard legend of them.” Cadence must love research as much as Twilight. The ruler of love even had slyly produced a quill and note pad on the armrest of the throne.

“To be honest Princess, if I may, I would only like to share the information with yourself, Shining Armor, and Duncan.” Noticing the indignant look on the five friends he quickly added, "This is nothing against any of you, if you all prove yourselves to be as honorable as you appear, I will be happy to share all of this information with you. Right now we just need to keep those in the know to an absolute minimum.”

Twilight looked dejected at this, she wasn't use to being left out of important events and the fact Spike had been the one to deliver the Crystal Heart to Cadence probably wasn't helping herself esteem. Crystal softened his demeanor, approaching Twilight, he gave her a gentle smile. Placing a hoof on her shoulder, he tried to comfort her, "I know from my reports, and your display below, that you really love knowledge. This is a great thing, and I promise that as soon as you are ready I will personally explain everything you will need to know about the Displaced. However for the moment I need you to focus on other important things.

“Outside are thousands of ponies who are still afraid. Sombra was an evil beyond compare. I had you and your friends tag along because I plan on returning with Duncan to Canterlot. If you don’t mind I would like you six to join us.”

Twilight’s eyes widened a bit at this, knowing that it would give her a chance to befriend this human. Crystal was right there were lots of scared ponies in the Crystal Empire, Pinkie would be in need of help bringing them joy again, and with new determination Twilight arose to lead her friends out the throne room. As soon as soon as the doors closed Crystal turned to Cadence and Shining, Duncan smiled knowingly throughout the display, "Ok, as rulers of the Crystal Empire I believe now is a good time to inform yourselves about the Displaced, what happened over a 1,000 years ago, and a story from Duncan’s home world called, “My Little Pony”.

The moment was lost when Duncan started laughing again.

Author's Notes:

My first fanfic on this sight. Thank you in advance for any constructive critisism. To all the displaced authors we will be happy to do cross overs although some may not be posted for a while. Thanks again.