//------------------------------// // Prologue: Battle of the Forgotten // Story: Child Of Misery // by Nebula Star //------------------------------// Child of Misery By Nebula Star Prologue: The Battle of the Forgotten. *** 19 years before the return of Nightmare Moon: Surrounded by the fallen members of her royal guard, the Princess of the Sun watched as her foe crashed to the ground, her wing badly wounded by the princess's last spell. Gasping for breath Celestia hefted her spear, Arete, in her right hoof. She didn't dare risk levitating it; even injured her foe still had some magic of her own left and could likely rip the weapon away. Her Shield, Sorter, was attached to the rest of her heavy armor on her left shoulder. Both weapon and shield, as well as her armor, were all beaten and heavily damaged from the battle. As was Celestia herself. Limping heavily, she advanced on the downed alicorn. It was finally over. It had been like a nightmare. She still knew little about the Alicorn, except that she, along with a black dragon, had attacked Canterlot without reason, killing hundreds of innocents as well as a number of the royal guard before Celestia had managed to drive them off. Not willing to let such a pony and dragon roam freely in Equestria, Celestia had gathered nearly three hundred of the guard and pursued her here. Now nearly all of the guard she'd brought with her were dead, and she was badly wounded. But it was done; she had beaten her foe. All that remained was to finish her; she knew she couldn't risk imprisoning such a monster and she didn't have the power left to banish her. Celestia grit her teeth and continued toward the alicorn. Her name was Achlys, that was one of the few things she'd been able to find out about her. That and that she was old, far older than Celestia herself. She had lived through the purge. It was the darkest time in alicorn history, something that Celestia had worked for centuries to overcome. That she'd tried to erase from pony memory. Even when Celestia had been born, nearly two thousand years after the purge, she would have been slain at birth simply for being an alicorn. If the ponies of Equestria hadn't been so desperate for somepony powerful enough to stand up to Discord, they definitely wouldn't have let her and her sister live. Alicorns had been hated then, and for good reason. This pony was one of those reasons. The pale gray alicorn was lying on her side, gasping in pain and glaring up at the solar princess as she approached. Her ethereal mane and tail, appearing like tendrils of shadowy green smoke, looked thin, almost wispy; a sure sign of how weak and injured she was. She didn't have enough magic left to get past the protective enchantments on Celestia's armor. “Thou art a disgrace of an alicorn!” She spat angrily. “Wasting thy time protecting lesser ponies! Treating them as equals! Thou shouldst rule them with absolute power! They shouldst fear to speak thy name lest they offendest thou!” Celestia glared down at her, pausing briefly to catch her breath. Her own mane and tail weren't showing her to be in much better condition than Achlys. “I treat my little ponies with dignity and respect because I know that they are capable of great things! They may not be as powerful as alicorns; their lives may be short and often fragile, but that only makes what they are capable of all the more amazing! “I will always fight to protect them, and I would never think of myself as greater than they are. I would never be so foolish as to think that what I am alone gives me the right to rule. They made me their princess because they loved me! Nearly sixty generations have come and gone and never once has anypony in Equestria wished for me to stand down because they love me still!” She gestured to all her fallen guardponies. “These died fighting by my side because of that love! Have you ever had anypony that was willing to fight for you!? To die for you!?” She smirked. “Yes.” At that moment a magical telepathic bond reached Celestia from one of the few members of the royal guard still standing. 'Princess, we cannot hold him any longer! He...' The message cut off there but Celestia had heard enough. She had to finish it. Raising her spear she leaped toward Achlys aiming for the heart and putting her entire weight behind the thrust. She was too late. A wave of flames knocked her away, only the enchantments on her armor keeping her from being burned alive. The flames encircled Achlys, hiding her from view as Celestia landed painfully on her side several yards away. Then the wall of flames died as quickly as they'd appeared, and there, hovering over the battlefield, was the black dragon, Achlys held protectively in his fore-claws. Surrounding them was a faint shimmering of a flame born barrier; a force-field created by dragon magic. Normally Celestia could have broken through such a force-field without too much trouble, but her magic was all but gone while the dragon clearly had some power left. Celestia cursed herself for not finishing Achlys when she'd had the chance. She glared up at the dragon and the alicorn he held. “Run then coward! No matter how far you go, no matter where you hide, I will find you! And I will finish what we started here! I WILL FIND YOU!” Celestia shouted in rage and frustration. Achlys looked down at her calmly from the dragon's grasp, utterly unconcerned. “No thou will not,” she said with chilling certainty. “Search as thou might, thou shalt never find me. And when I show myself again, it shall be when I have recovered my full strength. Then it shall be I who finishes what was begun. Thy days are numbered Celestia, disgrace of the alicorn race. Soon I shall destroy all that thou dost love. And when thy heart is broken and thy soul bleeds of misery, only then shall I grant unto thee death.” Celestia glared up at her trembling with rage. “You can't escape me, Achlys! You can't hide!” Achlys just looked up at the dragon carrying her, seeming to decide that it wasn't worth responding. “Let us go, Deimos.” The next instant the dragon breathed out emerald flames that encircled them with their magic. When they cleared again, the dragon and the alicorn he had carried were gone. Celestia stood there, alone on the battlefield, surrounded by the dead. More than three hundred of her finest soldiers including more than a hundred of the best spell-casters they had, all wiped out by a single alicorn even with her fighting by their side. Even her captain, Glimmering Shield, had fallen. She had failed them, and now their murderer had escaped. Throwing back her head she screamed in rage and pain.