Celestia awoke suddenly, completely confused. She was laying in the bottom of a deep basin made of what seemed to be smoothly polished stone. It was warm to the touch and she could feel the magic still draining away from it. The events of the past day were a blur now, but she remembered she had charged Twilight and her friends with rehabilitating Discord. The mismatched maniac had caused some trouble at first but Celestia had been confident in the abilities of her student.
While the details of the day were lost, there was one other thing she did remember. A bright, nearly blinding blue light. She felt as if she should know the significance of that, but try as she might to conjure up it's relevance, it escaped her. Shaking the thought away for now, she unsteadily got to her hooves. It was a laborious process. She felt weak for some reason. As if she had not walked or stood for quite some time. Huffing to her hooves, she took in her surroundings.
The chamber she found herself in was perfectly spherical and the stone was polished to a near mirror shine. Looking closely, she could see veins of crystal interlacing the rock. A very distinct mixture of blue, green and purple crystal. She was under Canterlot somewhere. How had she gotten there? Up the curved surface, there was a depression that looked deep enough to stand in that didn't share the polished finish of the rest of the room. Spreading her wings, Celestia gave a grunt of effort as she lifted herself into the air and flew.
Landing unsteadily, she saw that it was some sort of entry way. A nondescript stone hall led back to a large wooden door. Approaching the portal, she nudged it open, feeling a weak cloaking spell break as the door shifted. The bright light from the other side forced her to squint as she allowed her eyes to adjust. What she saw made her loose a sigh of relief. The familiar white marble walls of Canterlot Castle greeted her. She walked onto the marble floors and heard the sound of a bare hoof striking the floor. Looking down, she realized that her royal Regalia was missing.
Her brow knitted in thought. Was this one of Discord's pranks? If so, she was missing the punchline obviously. Leaving the strange room behind, she made her way into what she hoped was the castle proper. Looking for a land mark, a familiar tapestry from which to glean her location. She found none. After several long minutes of walking through unrecognized corridors, she realized that none of these halls should exist. She'd ascended several flights of stairs and she hadn't seen a single window. She must be very very deep within the mountain, but the castle didn't go that deep.
Her confusion only mounted as she spotted several copper pipes, cleverly hidden in alcoves and behind pillars. They hummed and whooshed quietly as whatever it was they contained traveled through them. They were warm, Celestia discovered when she touched one, nearly hot even. As she moved ever upwards, she heard the sounds of metal shod hooves.
"That must be the Guards," She said to herself, picking up the pace. Rounding a corner, she saw three guards moving down the hall towards her. They were Earth Thestrals from Luna's Night Guard. Their dark fur and yellow draconian eyes gave credit to this assessment. Drawing herself up into as regal a pose as she could without her Regalia, she rounded the corner and made for the guards.
Their reaction was not what she expected. The lead Thestral immediately took a defensive stance and the other two took little black tubes from their sides in their mouths and with deft swings of the head, they extended into batons.
"HALT INTRUDER!" The commander shouted, spreading his fore-hooves into a wide solid fighting stance. "THIS AREA IS RESTRICTED! IDENTIFY YOURSELF AND SUBMIT!"
Celestia took a step back, shocked by the Guard's words. Nonplussed, she spoke as requested, not sure what was happening.
"I am Princess Celestia of Equestria, as you well know! What is the meaning of this, soldier," She demanded, taking an authoritative step forward.
"Don't play with us. You will Identify yourself and submit, or we will subdue you! This is your last chance!"
Celestia was becoming irritated and decided to end this game quickly. "I am Princess Celestia! Ruler of Equestria, Steward of the Sun and Guardian of the Day! You will cease this nonsense immediately and explain to me what is going on here, or so help me, I will have you dressed down in front of every soldier in Canterlot!"
"Your words are Treason. You will submit, Now!" Celestia stood fast. "No? Very well. Firelight, Runner. Take her down!"
Celestia's resolve began to falter as the two guards bolted forward. Suddenly this wasn't just a joke. The first to reach her, swung his head and the baton clenched in his teeth struck her across the muzzle, she stumbled at the impact and the second baton hooked behind her knee and drug her to the floor. She sat there dazed as the two guards began to pull at her hooves and the third approached with shackles.
"You will be held in the dungeons until Princess Luna returns from the Maiden Voyage of the Harmony, at which point you will be tried for Trespassing, Resisting Arrest and High Treason against the Crown."
Celestia glared up at the soldier as he leaned down to secure the manacles. Quickly, she charged her horn, grabbing the manacles and securing one end to his front right hoof and the other to his back left, she then threw all three guards away with a small burst of force and spread her wings wide, standing tall. She loomed over the prone guard who glared up at her, contempt in his gaze. The other two got to their hooves and began to approach cautiously from behind. With another deft spell, she lifted the shackled pony and tossed him into his comrades. She then began galloping as fast as her weakened limbs would carry her.
Not long afterwards, Celestia could no longer hear the sounds of pursuit. She had wound her way up further into the castle. She knew she was above ground. There were windows now, and she could see the dark blue sky of early evening as she dashed past them. She ran through a side hall and found herself standing outside, in an inner courtyard that she did not recognize. She looked wildly about for anything familiar but there was nothing.
As she stood, she heard a peculiar, rapid clicking noise and then a whooshing thump. Looking up, she saw a pony sat atop a strange device, pointed directly at her and a net soaring through the air towards her. She dodged to the side and the net wrapped itself around the trunk of a tree. The same ratcheting clicks came again. She saw the pony turning a wheel that was making the device rotate. He was aiming to take another shot!
Thinking quickly, she flared her wings wide and took to the air, soaring up faster than the machine could aim. She rose above the spires of Canterlot and looked down. What she saw nearly caused her heart to stop. This was not Canterlot. Not the Canterlot she knew. Very little of this place even remotely resembled what she knew of her city. The further from the castle the more strange and different it all was. The streets were aglow with a strange bright and consistent light. It didn't flicker like gas lamps and was a clear white. On the streets, among the walking ponies were carriages that moved on their own, weaving between the pedestrians. The ponies down there were pressed together closely, each going about their own business but so close to one another that there was scarcely ever a hoof's breadth between any two of them.
It was the same wherever she looked. Where had she ended up? And why? If this was Discord's doing, then he had departed from his usual work. While it was all strange and new to Celestia, there was a definite order to things. The city, as it stretched down the mountain was separated into several terraces and on those terraces the streets uniformly divided the buildings on a grid. Looking behind her, she saw a tower jutting up past what she assumed was not her Bedchambers any longer. Around this tower nearly a dozen airships moored. All different shapes and sizes.
As far as she knew, there were only seven working airships in Equestria but there around that tower were several more, none of which she could identify. As she stared, one broke away and began to drift through the air. She watched it as it progressed across the sky until it turned towards her and began to accelerate. She saw that it bore several guards, all glaring at her. At it's helm, another of those net launching things swiveled, much faster than the one on the building down below. Before she could react, the net was upon her.
In the blink of an eye, she was ensnared in the net, her struggles only getting her more tangled. She was dangling from the prow of the airship by a rope and up above her, she could hear cheers from the guards as she was slowly drawn up. Deciding enough was enough, she focused on a spell she'd not had use of for a long long while. A burst of red light shot away from her, sundering the net and streaks of the light scored the underside of the ship. The blade spell burst outward with deadly force and her eyes widened in panic as she saw one of the blades cut a deep and long gash in the balloon.
The remains of the net fell away and she regained the air as the ship lurched and began to sink lower and lower, picking up speed as it went. If it was allowed to crash, all those guards and anypony unlucky enough to be caught underneath could die. Thinking quickly, she wrapped the thing in her magic and pulled against it's decent. She briefly noticed that her magic, which would normally be enough to toss this ship through the air like a toy was only just able to keep it airborne.
She spotted a broad, flat topped building and gently maneuvered the ship to a rest atop it. Fearing that she may have hit one of the guards with her spell, she alighted beside the ship as the guards disembarked.
"Is everypony okay? I'm very sorry about that but you left me no choice."
One of the guards approached her, looking none too pleased. "What in Luna's starry mane was that? The hay are you lady?"
"I beg your pardon?" Celstia was taken aback, yet again. Of everything she'd expected, from A fearful plea for mercy to another attack on her, she hadn't expected the guards to just yell at her.
"Whatever the hay you are, we sure as Tartarus can't stop you, so please lady. Just get out of here. You've already destroyed a multimillion bit Airship and publicly humiliated the guard, so please, what ever you are, just leave!"
Another guard spoke up just then, before Celestia could do or say anything. "But Commander! What about our orders? She was trespassing in the restricted halls!"
"Private, did you see what she did to our airship? And that was her trying to get away! Imagine if she was trying to do damage. I've no doubt in my mind that she could rip every one of us to bloody pieces with ease, but she hasn't and that's good enough for me. Besides, we have our hooves full down in the city today after that weird blue whatsit came rushin' through putting everypony into a panic.."
Celestia took a step back, Cringing at the Commander's grotesque words and unsure of the entire situation by this point. She apologized again for the ship and took to the air as quickly as she could. As the guard commander had said, she was allowed to leave the city unmolested. She flew without aim for a while, just running through her mind what had happened. It was so very confusing. Last she could recall, she was waiting for Twilight and company to set Discord to rights once again, and now she was in a Canterlot that wasn't Canterlot and possibly an Equestria that wasn't Equestria. She needed to get to the bottom of this, and she could think of only one pony to help her with that.
She banked hard and re-angled herself towards Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle would be able to assist her with this conundrum.
---
As the night wore on, Celestia finally approached Ponyville completely bone weary. The flight was foals play to her normally, but now she was nearly falling from the sky. Luckily, it was right where she remembered and from the air it looked just the same as it always had. This lent some credit to her theory that Discord was somehow behind these events and after she spoke with Twilight, she was going to have a very stern word with the Draconequus. She alighted on the balcony of golden oaks library, and with a light application of her magic, the door swung inward.
Inside, the familiar arcane books and drawings littered the shelves and desktops of the bedroom. Sighing in relief, Celestia sank to her haunches and allowed her tired body a moment's reprieve. She was somewhere familiar, somewhere she knew. She flicked a nearby lamp on and stood again. She began poking about some of the open books. Magical theory, old spell books and other things of that kind. A few of the books were on mechanical processes and metallurgy and strangest of all, ritual magic.
Pushing it from her mind for the moment, Celestia allowed the events of the night to play in her mind again. Canterlot was changed somehow. Everything about it was different. The guards didn't recognize her and the castle's layout was completely wrong. It was all she could do to keep her thoughts moving though as the tiredness was beginning to creep up on her. She fought it off for as long as she could but soon, her eyes began to droop and she began dozing in the middle of Twilight's bedroom.
Some time later, Celestia couldn't tell how long, a noise downstairs startled her awake. The Front door snapped shut with a sudden click and she jerked to her hooves. That must be Twilight. She began moving towards the main room of the Library, anticipation of Twilight's affectionate greeting swelling her heart. When she stepped into the hall, she saw Twilight headed down the other hallway. She was holding, for reasons unknown, the stylized unicorn bust that decorated the lobby.
With a smile Celestia got her attention.
"I'm sorry to disturb you at this late hour, My Faithful Student, but I'm afraid something very odd has happened."
Twilight wheeled on the spot, locked eyes with Celestia, and screamed at the top of her lungs. Before Celestia could react beyond folding her ears back and taking a step away from the panicked mare, she felt the bust slam into her face. Stumbling back, she fell to her haunches, clutched her abused snout and watched in confusion as Twilight, in a fit of athleticism not often expected of her leaped over the railing down into the lobby and then galloped at a full clip right out the front door.
---
Twilight Sparkle ran as fast as she could. Suddenly, she knew what that energy was that swept across Equestria. It was Celestia shrugging off her binds after a thousand years! She's come back to reclaim Equuis from her sister and burn all life from the face of the planet. She had to get to Luna as quickly as possible, to warn her, to help her escape while she recovered. Something! Heart pounding she glanced over her shoulder as she ran and what she saw behind her caused her heart nearly stop in fright. There was Celestia, following her, but not on hoof. No. She was held aloft on her massive white wings, soaring after Twilight, eating up the distance between them far more quickly than Twilight felt was strictly necessary.
Power born of panic pushed her faster forward, trying desperately to escape the mad goddess that stalked her, but it was no use. Before she had made it even half way to the hospital, the white alicorn was beside her, still flying and speaking to her.
"Twilight Sparkle, calm down this instant!" Celestia said, using her most authoritative voice. Much to her surprise, Twilight merely turned and ran away from her in a different direction.
Twilight ducked away from the alicorn and made for the heart of Ponyville, hoping to come across some sort of aid but before she made it far, suddenly everything stopped going by. She was still running, legs pumping in quick succession but she was going nowhere fast. She looked back and saw that a golden aura had enveloped her. Magic! Just like Luna had! She felt herself lifted up. With no recourse, no weapons and no way to defend herself, Twilight merely curled up and covered her face, hoping that her death would be quick.
"Twilight?"
She didn't answer. She barely even registered that her name had been spoken.
"Twilight," Celestia said, speaking more loudly than before.
Twilight's shivering ceased. How could this goddess know her name, bound as she was for the last thousand years deep under Canterlot Mountain. Cautiously, she glanced up at the Alicorn, a pair of rose eyes gazed back at her. Fear still coursed through her. Her heart beat a frantic rhythm against her ribs, but she found herself asking,
"H... How do you know my name?"
Celestia was saddened by the question. She had hoped that Twilight at least would remember her. She looked at Twilight for a moment longer, her eyes lingering on her forehead where there was something so conspicuously absent that Celestia was surprised that she'd not noticed.
"I don't supposed you'd believe me if I told you that I was your mentor and friend for the better part of your life?"
Twilight shook her head in stark defiance. "No, that's not possible. I'm Luna's student! I have been since she took me in when I was a filly. And besides, why would I want to be the student of a pony who wanted to burn away all life on Equuis?!"
Celestia recoiled as if struck. An anger began to build inside of her. Not at Twilight. This wasn't her fault, but at Discord. This prank of his had gone too far, to force her beloved student to believe such things about her was unforgivable, even more so than the warping of her will or the theft of her horn. This was a despicable low for the god of Chaos and she would see him pay for it. But first, she would need to undo what he had done.
First, she would break the spell on Twilight and release her mind from the lies Discord had woven. Opening her sight to take in the magical energies, she looked at Twilight and gasped. There was nothing. No magic at all. Not unicorn magic, no chaos magic just a void at her core! No... not a void, but something so near to one that it may be indistinguishable to any but the keenest observer. At Twilight's core, a little seed of magic too fresh for her to have been born with it had taken root.
Celestia briefly extended her sight and sought other ponies but every one she spotted be they off in the far distance or in a nearby building was the same. It occurred to Celestia then that maybe something more was happening here. Maybe it wasn't Discord's doing after all but something else. She couldn't say, but Twilight had confirmed that there may be one who could enlighten her.
"Twilight. I need you to take me to Princess Luna," Celestia said, setting her down on her four hooves. "I don't know exactly what's going on here, but I have a feeling she might."