Chapter I: Prelude to a Nightmare

Celestia flaps her wings frantically as she flies through the dark sky, unable to draw upon the power of the sun with the moon eclipsing it. Of all the things that had to happen, why this? Why now? What’s gotten into-

A blast of dark blue energy scrapes along the back of her neck and Celestia recoils downwards in flight to avoid the hazardous magic before flaring a bright gold magical shield around herself to block the follow-up blast. Her defense holds, but it dramatically depletes a large chunk of her bodily magic stores. And without the sun she has no way to regain that magic in the midst of this fight. Her opponent, unfortunately, does not posses that disadvantage.

Celestia can’t think of that right now though. All she can do is to continue to try to evade the magic attacks while trying to reason with her-

An invisible blast of wind strikes Celestia’s wing with enough force to make her cry out in pain as she tumbles through the air downwards, her wing stunned from the impact. Celestia struggles to correct her flight to prevent a painful collision with the ground. Which she manages to do.

…until after she hits a wall… and another blast of wind slams into her barrel and punches her through said wall… THEN she hits the ground.

Celestia groans in pain from all the abuse she’s suffered within just a few seconds. It doesn’t feel like anything’s broken though. (Praise Faust for alicorn durability) She doesn’t get a chance to inspect herself further before she yelps and is forced to jerk her body out of the way from a bolt of magic from above. She scrambles to her hooves and springs away from the flurry of magical blasts that cause small explosions of dust and marble fragments on the castle floor.

“WHERE ART THOU GOING CELESTIA? SCURRYING BACK TO THY ROYAL BATHS BECAUSE YOUR PERFECT WHITE COAT GOT STAINED?” A spiteful voice taunts as Celestia gallops through an arch leading into a hallway.

Celestia flinches at the sheer level of wrath put into those words. Is there any way to stop her like this?

‘NAY! There MUST to be a way! Come on…think!’ Celestia berates herself.

A side room in the castle catches her eye and she skids to a halt on the marble floor.

‘The Reliquary? The Elements!’ Celestia bursts into a sprint at her epiphany and makes a beeline immediately towards the stone stand holding the sextet of harmonic crystals.

Before she can reach them though, she hears the telltale sound of magic being charged. Celestia throws up another shield and is slammed through another wall, landing outside this time. She regains her footing underneath her, but another magic beam is thrown at her and she’s forced to defend herself again.

And again.

And again.

And ag-

A sharp pain in her horn is the only warning she gets before the magical attack shatters her shield and impacts her side. Celestia cries out in pain from the searing mana washing over her, and is thrown bodily even farther from the castle structure, landing and rolling to just on the edge of the cliff leading down to the cave of the Tree of Harmony.

Celestia struggles to lift herself up from the ground, pain wracking her body and mind from both the magical backlash from her failed spell, as well as the damage she sustained from the magical attack piercing through her shield.

A shadow moves over her, and an armor-clad hoof places itself over her neck and shoves her back down onto the ground and holds her there. Celestia chokes from the pressure, but manages to look up at the warped face of the monster that used to be her sister, her turquois-slit eyes glaring furiously down at her with cold malice.

“And so doth end the day. Have a pleasant final rest, sister.” Nightmare Moon sneers down at her. Her dark horn glows an ever-increasingly intense blue even as her hoof grinds down harder into Celestia’s neck, robbing her of her breath.

As Celestia starts to lose consciousness, a dark shape slams into Nightmare Moon’s side and sends them careening over the side of the cliff.

“Get the Elements!” A voice calls out to her.

Celestia’s eyes fly open and she gasps for breath, having forgotten to breath due to the events in her dream. She sits up in her bed, filled with adrenaline from the memory-turned night terror.

Upon looking around her room though, her heart rate steadily declines as she reacquaints herself with her grasp on reality once again.

And upon grasping that reality, she realizes that she’s grasping something else in her magic. A sword hilt halfway pulled from out of thin air glows yellow from her magic to illuminate the darkness of her room. Celestia lets out a sigh and pushes the half-drawn weapon back into the pocket in space she uses to store it. Not even that blade will be able to fend off the dark thoughts her mind conjures up while asleep. The only one with the tools to do that is not in Equestria, and hasn’t been for over a millennium.

A fact that will, admittedly, change by the conclusion of the today.

One thousand years of observation.

One thousand years of preparation.

One thousand years of determination.

All for the events that will take place in the course of a single night.

‘A single night that could be her last...’ Celestia’s mind says to her, grim as the original versions of fairy tails told to foals at night.

But if that is the price she must pay to ensure harmony prevails, and her subjects can continue to live in peace, then she will make that sacrifice without hesitation.

Celestia will make that sacrifice… both because of the oaths she swore to the former owner of her sword, as well as out of respect for the one that gave her these thousand years to prepare.

These thousand years that he’s lost.

Celestia takes a deep, steadying breath, and then gazes forward with a steel tempered from a millennia of effort and practice.

It’s time to begin.

Author's Notes:

Well, first chapter of a new story. And my first crack at a Displaced fic. Hope you guys like it.

"HIIIIIIII!!!"

Oh jeez! Pinkie! How's it going? It's been like forever since I last talked to you or any of the others.

"Speaking of which-"

"Sup dude!"

"It's been a while. How are you?"

Hah! Wow. To those of you new to me or just haven't seen me do it, I speak to my different characters from different fics I write on this website in my little separated area I dub "Author's Space" which is just a boxed-off dimension that lets me talk to certain characters as I write them... before wiping their minds and sending them back into their story with no recollection of entering this zone. Story continuity and all that

"HOI!!!"

Hi Letum! Doing your short as hell cameo this time around?

"Yep. BYE!!!!"

*snort* Anyway, that right there in the indigo was Letum from "How Could you Do this to Me". She just pops in and out of here since her story is only one chapter in so far.

"Which is still waiting for you on Hiatus!"

I'M SORRY!!! I JUST CAN'T GET MOTIVATED ENOUGH TO TRY TO KEEP GOING ON IT YET! MAYBE LATER!!! Anyway, Pinkie Pie is the one in pink, obviously. Ictus is in green and he's from "My Little Caelan: Lume is Magic". And Aevum is in yellow and is a character from... Author's Space... because she literally doesn't appear in any of the stories except through that.

"There's a reason for that."

Are you going to tell me that reason?

"No."

Okay... anyway, yada yada yada. Please like, favorite, and/or follow me. And if you're a fellow Displaced writer, feel free to PM me a collab request if you're up for it. We'll work things out from there. See you all next chapter.

Man, I always get carried away with the AN section.

Edit (30 November, 2019): Please note that this is a rewrite of the original first chapter only. I'm not rewriting the entire story, just this opening chapter since: a) this chapter was more of a prologue anyway, meant to set the tone and, b) I always felt that the original version was really weak and rough from the start, so I felt changing it up completely would be better overall. I actually like this version a lot better.

Those of you that want to look at the crappy original, here's a link.