//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: The Collapse // by Lightwavers //------------------------------// Magic pulses raced throughout the old castle, each one a highly complicated bundle of detection spells placed into a golem of pure magic. Celestia huddled behind a collapsed wall. Feeling one of the pulses getting too close for comfort, she dropped her collection of stealth spells for a split second to destroy it, then managed to drop another seven in random locations throughout the castle before she had to conceal herself once more, or risk Luna sensing her directly. Now she had time to plan. Except she couldn’t think of one. Celestia almost idly lifted a chunk of rubble with magic but stopped herself before accidentally breaking her concealment, and after a moment of thought instead brought a hoof to her head and rubbed at her temple. Normally she excelled under pressure, but now she had no idea where to start. She’d been ready for Nightmare Moon’s return for centuries, had planned for every eventuality—or at least, had thought she had. Celestia had teleported to their old castle in front of the Elements of Harmony as a last resort after the backup plan, the backup to the backup plan, and the backup to that. Nightmare Moon shouldn’t have had a chance. Except that the corrupted alicorn had somehow managed to rebuild her magic patterns so efficiently that Celestia’s worldwide spell network didn’t even have the hint of a magical signature to latch on to. And then the Nightmare had casually torn the network apart. After having been active for centuries, stopping Tartarus-level threats and dispelling dark magic gathering from as far as the other side of the planet time and time again, the marvel of magical engineering had been utterly destroyed before Celestia could even get a lock on where the source of the destruction was coming from. Then her sister had teleported right in front of her. A hurried teleport later and she was here, without any idea how it had happened. How had Luna had the time to entirely remove her magical signature? She’d had to have spent centuries rebuilding the base of her magic from the ground up over and over again with no distractions, which should have been impossible seeing as how the Elements had literally sealed her inside the moon, displaying her frozen face across one side of it. Unless...unless they hadn’t. A chill swept through Celestia as she thought of what that would mean. If Luna had been stuck on the moon for a thousand years, awake the whole time, with no distractions, she could have invented almost anything. A spell to destroy the Elements was not out of the question. And if Celestia’s very last resort could be gone at any moment, she had to use it as soon as possible. She teleported back to the throne room. The Elements, sensing the rising disharmony, had risen glowing into the air. Nightmare Moon stood across from her, inspecting the Elements as if they were interesting toys and not dangerous golems, each with the powers of a million-year-old alicorn. Above, moonlight shone down on the ruined castle, having abruptly replaced the day. The unicorns would have to deal with it like they had before she’d taken over the job. Celestia ignored her sister, relying on the wards she kept active wherever she went to shield her from Luna for the few critical seconds it would take to link with the Elements, and reached out with her horn— “Sister, stop!” Celestia paused and glanced over at her sister. Still Nightmare Moon. “What is it, sister? Have you finally freed yourself from the corruption?” she said, horn hovering less than an inch from the closest Element. The Nightmare snorted. “I’m not corrupted, you fool. I was just mad, and yes, I’ll admit it: a little bit insane. But I’m cured now!” She continued quickly, seeing Celestia’s skeptical expression, “The Elements, combined with a thousand years of having nothing but my thoughts for company, eventually fixed me.” Celestia considered her sister’s words. It made sense. The Elements were constructs of Harmony, and isolation usually either caused gibbering insanity or crystal clarity. She wanted to believe her sister already cured—oh, how she wanted to. But the Elements were blunt instruments incapable of nuance or subtlety, and Luna still had the body and armor of Nightmare Moon. “I’m sorry,” Celestia began, attempting to bring her horn to the Element, but found her way forward blocked. She had less than a second to comprehend what had just happened before she found herself flung backward in a magical explosion. She groaned and pushed herself off the floor. Bones were broken, but they’d fix themselves soon enough. Or not. A quick glance and she calculated the amount of magic she’d have to spend to connect with the Elements at this distance. It was a lot. She would be reduced to a literal shadow of herself for several years, and that was on top of whatever the Elements would do to her. But she couldn’t let her sister escape, or her subject's lives would become a living nightmare. All her magic went into forcing a link between herself and the Elements. She felt their disdain for her—forcing every pony to cooperate in peace and harmony had required her to do many things she wasn’t proud of. Please, she projected at the Elements. Just one more time. The Elements went silent. It looked like she would have to fight her sister, then. The fight would likely leave the area a magically chaotic wasteland for dozens of miles around the site of the battle. She tried to teleport to a deserted island out in the ocean, hoping the Nightmare would follow her. It didn’t work. It was at that moment that Celestia realized everything was frozen. In front of her, Nightmare Moon had her fangs bared in an ugly smile, a dark bolt starting to fly from her horn. Then the Elements awoke. The world unfroze. Celestia slumped to the ground, wards and body devoid of energy, and looked at her sister. The bolt flew through the air toward her, then abruptly curved and hurled toward one of the Elements, disappearing with a fizzle. Something shifted. The world suddenly seemed incredibly wrong, somehow. Then a rip appeared in the middle of the slowly rotating circle of Elements. It wasn’t as if an invisible giant had torn a hole in space. Instead, it was as if history was being rewritten to say that the hole in reality had always been there. Then the Elements pulsed, and Celestia was dragged toward the hole. She caught Luna disappearing into it first out of the corner of her eye before she was thrust into another world. An emptier world. Space surrounded her, filled with a strange solidity that was strangely familiar. It took her a few minutes before she could place it. Is this...magic?