The silence surrounded them. It rang in their ears, in the black itself. Encompassing them, weighing them down with it's dark and loving embrace.

This was what Celaeno's crew were walking through now.

A miniature abyss, held aloft in the Great Sea of Clouds. The evidence of this was all around them, for no typical stone made up this chamber, nor this tomb. Black zircon made up the floors in brick patterns - an art and style of architecture long since lost - and the pillars were black tourmaline, each one fashioned as if from hundreds of skeletons. The glassy sheen from them in the dim lantern light only made them seem more dead. Finally, the walls, at least from what they could tell, were made of black moonstone. A rare and precious resource in Equestria, especially with the Civil War raging.

Squabble squawked when an errant rat squeaked by them and himself, nearly dropping the lantern.

"Easy there, Squabble," Celaeno said firmly, putting a talon on the wall-eyed parrot's shoulder.

Squabble simply let out a much more quiet squawk in response, seeming to curl in on himself even as they continued through the gloom.

"I don't like this, boss..." Boyle whispered to her, mechanical claw clenching and unclenching instinctively.

Celaeno said nothing as they continued on.

'Like it or not, we need the money. And the darker the ruin, the greater the treasure.' She thought to herself. Nonetheless, her eyes scanned every shadow. Naturally, there were far too many to scan at once.

"Oi, Cap, there's somethin' over there," Mullet claimed, pointing to a particularly shimmery wall.

Celaeno paused for a moment. "...Let's take a look, but don't touch anything, got it, ye dogs?"

"Aye, Cap'n," her crew replied.

And so they drew closer. When they did, they could make out a strange, yet dark mural, it's shapes and pictures glimmering and shimmering like stars in the blanket of night.

"Izzat...Black diamond?" Lix Spittle asked, eyes widening at the sight.

"Whoever built this place sure was loaded..." Celaeno agreed, nodding slowly.

Looking over the pictures, they seemed to subtly and nigh imperceptibly gleam as the pirate crew's eyes roved over them in order.

As they did, a solemn tune began to play, as if from the maws of the very skeletons around them. And yet, their eyes remained glued on the mural, as if their fear was held at bay by some morbid curiosity.

In the first portion, a strange skeleton was shown, butchering what seemed to be hordes of Goats with pillars of spikes. In the next, it was shown ripping the head off a Cyclops. In yet another it was shown fighting a massive dragon. The following portions showed the skeleton with a crown and on a massive throne, followed by said skeleton seeming to will clouds to move over a vast mountain range. This was ended by a single, shadowy goat blasting the skeleton with some strange magic.

Only after their perusal was done did they notice the music, and all of them shivered violently, looking around rapidly in clear fear.

"C-Cap, I think we should go..." Lix urged, grasping her captain's sleeve.

Celaeno shook her head. "N-No, we've had similar hunts before. W-We'll be fine, we just need to, to keep our wits about us." She barely held back the tremor in her voice and body, but it was there, as sure as the moon brings the chill of night. She raised her lantern, pointing it further down the hall, deeper into the abyss. "Come on, ye dogs."

"Cap-" Mullet started, but a harsh look from her and he stopped short, sighing deeply as he heaved his shoulders. "-Nevermind. Let's go."

With that, they ventured yet deeper, and the maw of darkness swallowed them whole. As they went further, they discovered a stairwell, loaded to the brim with blades in the walls; all in an ornately grotesque manner, and all of them beautiful beyond compare.

The blades themselves were seemingly made of platinum, but they were imbedded in the sockets, ribs, and maws of the various skulls and skeletons in the walls. Daggers, swords, greatswords, stilettos, all were present, and all beautiful and gruesome.

Naturally, the crew of pirates were elated.

"Look at this haul, boss! All of these are higher quality than anythin' we've gotten in previous ruins!" Boyle cried, pulling a shortsword from the maw of a pony skeleton. "The craftsmanship is like a dream!" He ran a claw along the edge, and yelped in pain as it cut him. "Still sharp, too! Damn!"

Celaeno grinned. "I told ye all we'd find some serious loot here. Now, git to looting!"

Naturally, the crew cheered.

Roughly five minutes later, Celaeno and her crew had more high-grade weapons than they could dream of, but, they left some room in their bags for just a bit more.

"Let's head a little deeper in, dogs. We might find something even better further in," Celaeno suggested, shouldering a greatsword she'd procured from the ribs of a minotaur skeleton.

"Aye!" her crew replied eagerly, previous fear forgotten.

After delving down the stairs, they came to a massive chamber of dark splendor. The ceiling was vaulted, with more fake skeletons seemingly grasping and reaching in their undeath towards a sarcophagus in the center of the room on a raised dais.

Intricate symbols were ringed around it, and in the midst of the sarcophagus' lid was a positively massive greatsword of glimmering gold and platinum, the hilt looking similar to a key.

"By the Gods..." Mullet breathed as he gazed around.

"It must have taken decades to find, much less shape all o' this," Lix mused, placing a talon on one of the pillars of fake skeletons.

"I'll say," Boyle agreed, nodding.

Squabble, however, was more focused on the blade in the sarcophagus, waddling over to it. All of them were too focused on the environment to stop him when he reached the dais, the symbols lighting up an unholy purple. He reached a talon out to the blade.

"Squabble, yer being awfully quie-" Celaeno looked to see the bird surrounded by the glow of the symbols, talons wrapped around the blades hilt. "-Squabble, get back from there ye fool!"

The rest of the crew rushed to stop the wall-eyed parrot, but it was too late. By the time they'd reached the ring of symbols, Squabble had pulled the blade out, and a blinding purple light filled the room and shook it's foundations, knocking all of them back.

Squabble groaned as he sat up, then looked to the blade in his talons and squawked happily...before looking up to see bright, black and purple flames rising from the sarcophagus and swiftly burning the stone lid away.

Soon enough, the lid was gone, and a form rose up from within.

It was a skeleton, not unlike a Minotaur, but with nary a horn on it's head, nor a muzzle, simply a flat face. It wore armored robes of the finest silken fabric any of them had seen, a flowing black and red with a harness of deep, black leather wrapped around it, studs on the shoulder areas and filigree of what looked to be actual platinum woven into the leather where it ran across the chest. A set of pauldrons, greaves and fingerless gauntlets made up the rest of the look, being made of a mix of silvery and blood red metals, the gauntlets bearings studs on the knuckles along with various rings of varying designs.

The pauldrons looked to be fashioned in the shape of dragon skulls, with red metal lining the edges of the sockets and towards the horns while silver metal made up the rest. The greaves were fashioned in a similar manner.

The entire skeleton was wreathed in an aura almost like obsidian, but burning with an unholy purple flame. The eye sockets burned with similar flames.

It scanned the room, seeing the parrot pirates before it. Celaeno gulped, and her crew shivered, a cold sweat coming over them all.

They could not win. They could feel it.

Then, the skeleton spoke.

"How nice of you to waken me. Perhaps," it raised a bony hand, and purple fire lit up in it's palm. "I should reward you."

Author's Note

EDIT: Fixed some errors that should have been obvious to me before, but apparently weren't. Derp.

Well, this is my first retry of a villain Displaced. Hope I got it right. Heavens know I did my best to sell him and his story, even in just this first chapter. And, hopefully, you all enjoyed it.

Let me know if you did in the comments below, I'd love to hear it all.

Thanks for reading!

-Timeless Lord Slayer