What lays behind the chaos.

Shadows of the past: A new beginning Pt.1

I decided to write my memories down, face the truth of what happened, and try to explain how and why everything led to how it is today. I feel most of this might be my own fault, and if anything happens to me, I want someone to know how it all started.

I still remember the night of the eclipse like it had been yesterday, everyone else was making so much of a fuss about it. The day that was ending had developed like a normal one, I woke up in the morning, drank a cup of coffee, went out to my job, worked until the day started to die- with the necessary lunch break- saved my work, and set off for home. It was a normal, mid-week day, and there was no reason for it to be special- at least that's how I saw it, but for everyone else around me it was a magical event:

"Oh my god a lunar eclipse! Lets turn this whole shit around just for one night, and fuck up everyone's schedules!"

I had worked all day and I just wanted to go to bed and call it a night. It was mid-week, and if the event had happened on Friday or Saturday, I might have considered giving a fuck about it. I thought that if it was so special, I could find the recording the next day on the news or on the internet, and it would even come with a soundtrack.

My plans to stay at my place and sleep were ruined by my sister. Having our family's need to be united all the time(which had died on me a little after our parents passing), she invited me to a party she was hosting to see the eclipse. She insisted that I needed to go out more often, and that I needed a better social life. Knowing I didn't have a girlfriend she also insisted I might meet someone in the party. I groaned for a bit, but knowing my sister, there was nothing I could have said that could keep me from going, and to avoid her nagging any further I just accepted and told her I was on my way out.

I groaned all the way from dressing up to going out, and then walking to my sister's place, I didn't care about the eclipse at all. Don't get me wrong, but even if it was such an event as a solar and lunar eclipse at the same time that could be seen from anywhere, I was certain that a couple weeks later, astronomers would have discovered the reason for the event and would spoil it for the rest of the world taking the magic away, making it just a random event with no special meaning.

I got to my sister's place, and as soon as I got in there, there were family members and friends I had not seen in a long time, intentionally. They all surrounded me and asked how I was, as they really cared. After a few of the most frivolous questions they left me alone to my luck. There was no one new to meet, and most of the people in the party were those who I had been trying to avoid for the last part of my life. I rolled over to my sister and said a general "hello" to those around her, talked to her for a minute, thanked her for the invitation with a fake smile drawn in my face, and let her be.

The rest of the night I spent it with the only relative I could bear with. I talked to him for a while, about work and life. Neither of us cared for anything, but we thought we had to get the news on each other's life after having shared so much of our youth. I drank with him for a while and when the alcohol finally made annoyance impossible to hide, I discretely went to my sister's room and threw myself in the bed. I could hear the party sounds in the other room, and it all went silent at some point. I didn't even worry about it and it didn't last too long, for everyone in the other room started to count down from 10 as the eclipse was about to reach its final moment, and the moon would block the sun.

I remember hearing everyone scream the number 5 before I fell asleep. I woke up after that without having any kind of dream, for the sunlight woke me up- too bright to be inside either my sister's room or my own, and too bright to be anywhere in town as the buildings would normally block most of the sunlight. I didn't open my eyes and I couldn't. I tried to stand up on my legs but I fell down immediately. So I held myself up on all fours for a while. After recovering consciousness I decided it was time to open my eyes, and find out where I was.

As I opened my eyes the light struck, me forcing me to shut them back down immediately. The hangover was killing me, but I managed to get to my senses and think straight  for a second. wherever I was at, a solid, flat texture on the floor made me notice it wasn't grass. But it wasn't the feeling of a street either. I finally forced my eyes to open, knowing there was no other way. What I saw first was a white floor, which was the surface I was putting my hands on. At least what I thought were my hands. I looked down and instead of hands there were to hooves touching the ground. I tried to move one, and in fact I was controlling them. I started to recover the rest of my senses, and I could hear the birds flying around. I could smell the sweet spring breeze.

After seeing what had happened to my hands I shook my head quickly and turned to see where I was. Probably get a hold of myself, to understand what was happening. What I saw shocked me. I was  surrounded by horses. Ponies to be precise, and they, or maybe we, as I noticed I was one myself, were strangely colorful. I recognized these ponies. It wasn't natural, they looked similar to the ponies from our world but their shapes and colors weren't natural. I knew I had seen this before, and I had seen it in a TV show thousands of times before. These ponies, including myself, came from "My little pony: Friendship is magic". A show I constantly watched.

Some of the ponies were awake like me, but most were still sleeping. I turned my head to the center of where we were standing on, which seemed to be some sort of platform, standing there, exhausted were eight ponies, I recognized them immediately. The bigger ones were two Alicorns, the princesses, Celestia, and Luna. The other six were the six most famous ponies you could imagine: Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack.

I couldn't take my eyes off them for a long moment, until I noticed something in my own body that drew my attention. I noticed two extra limbs in my back, and when I looked back I noticed I had a pair of wings.

I couldn't believe any of it. The ponies, my wings, just everything seemed like a dream. I struggled around looking for a way to pinch myself and wake up, which was difficult with my new hooves. I figured the only thing I could do was bite myself. It was really painful, since my jaw had become stronger than before.

After more ponies woke up I started talking to those next to me, and noticed they were in my same situation. They couldn't believe what was happening either, for they were humans too. After most of us woke up, Celestia pulled a hoof up, and guard ponies stepped on the platform starting to inspect the ponies in the platform. I figured they were counting us, and making sure everyone would be awake. The guards did 3 inspection rounds, and finally nodded to each other then sent a signal to Celestia meaning all of us were awake. Celestia stepped forward and rose her voice:

"Welcome to Equestria!" she started, "I am princess Celestia, and along with my sister, princess Luna, we are the rulers of this land. I'm sure you all have plenty of questions, which will be answered in their due time. Right now I will have to ask you to get off the platform, to the identification center below."

She pointed out the direction we had to take, and we walked down to a large amount of registration tables- in which we were given new names(which we could either keep or choose different ones), indications to follow, and a guide to the town of Ponyville, in which our questions would be answered and new indications would be given.

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Along the way me and the other ponies that were being guided to the town were full of questions as well as a huge excitement about our current situation, we talked along the way, and noticed none of us was scared about the situation, and we were all looking forward to see where it was going.

Upon arriving to the town we were guided to an enormous building. Looking through the windows, I noticed the building was partially full of educational rooms, or rather classrooms. The other part consisted of bedrooms, so I figured it might be some kind of board school. We were guided inside, and once inside the guides called our names, then the new names we had been given before, and assigned us shared rooms (two ponies in each room), they told us to rest. After doing so, they left us to ourselves.

We were all still confused, and the promise of question answering Celestia had made wasn't fulfilled. We argued with each other, trying to complain to the guides, but eventually figured it was no use. We decided to go to our rooms, where soft beds and hot food were waiting for us, for dinner was a time in which we could meet our new room mates more closely- and my roommate and I were eager to make some new friends. His name was Michael, but the name he was given at the registration tables, right after awaking was Midnight Flare. He was a black pegasus pony, with a dark green mane and tail, and on his flank was the image of a green fireball. I introduced myself as Shadow Lightning, and we found it funny to use these new names. After dinner I noticed the bathroom inside the room and went inside, where I had the first chance to look completely at my new body. I had become a grey pegasus, with light blue hair (or mane), a dark blue stripe in my hair and a matching tail. I also noticed the image of two crossed black lightning bolts on my flank and I guessed this was my cutie mark. My eyes stayed their normal color, red. I looked at myself for a while before Midnight snapped me out in his need to use the bathroom himself, so I got out and headed to bed where I fell asleep immediately.

The next morning when we woke up, we found new plates of hot food that contained breakfast, along them was a note saying "Eat it all, and meet you in the front yard".

We ate the food, and headed outside right afterwards. Outside we found princess Celestia again, in company of many other ponies. She greeted us, and asked about our nights, then went directly to the subject of questions. We all had exactly the same questions, so the session didn't last long, and most of us didn't care for the answers. It was something of a need inside us, like an itch in the back of our heads that told us there might be something we should worry about, though this feeling was over shunned by our excitement about Equestria and the whole situation presented in front of us.

After the questions were over, Celestia continued to explain the reason of us being taken to Ponyville and the reason for the building we had all spent the night in. She explained it was a reeducation center, intended to teach us Newcomers (a word she had used to address and had formerly explained was the name Equestrians had given to humans that had arrived to Equestria) the basics of pony life and behavior, along with some of the Equestrian history. I immediately thought it was like going back to school, and I felt annoyed by the idea, though the feeling was forgotten again by my current excitement. She then explained unicorns and pegasi would go on extra education to learn how to use their powers. She then finally announced that each of us would be assigned an Equestrian companion or "chaperone" to go watch over them and check on the progress of education.

She finally stated that this would only be temporary and that soon we would be free to roam around Equestria like any other pony. Once she said this, she asked us to make a line, if we had any idea who would we want as a chaperone. I saw most of my fellow Newcomers ravage over to Celestia trying to be the firsts in line so they could choose any of the princesses, or the six legendary ponies as their chaperons. But I waited patiently for a chaperon to be announced for me, instead of going into a rampage with my peers for a chaperon I might not even get in the end. Celestia decided that as she and her sister, along with the legendary six, had so many ponies wanting them as chaperons, they would decide among the many candidates who would they take as their "protege", after eight ponies got what they wanted and the others had to leave empty hoofed and disappointed, Celestia announced everypony else a chaperon of her choice.

I was assigned to Cloud Chaser, a young bright blue pegasus with a silver mane. She was eager to receive me as a protege, and explained all the ponies in the chaperon list were volunteers for the charge. She also told me she didn't want to do this on her own, as she didn't want to spent much time apart from her sister. Then she asked me if I agreed to take on this chaperon and protege thing with her sister and protege. I didn't have a problem with it, and she seemed happy about my reaction and called out her sister. Soon, a pony that looked incredibly similar to Cloud Chaser arrived. Her twin sister, Flitter, and besides her, her new protege Galaxy Zodiac, Zod for short, a pegasus with a coat of a color that was barely blue almost reaching a grey tone, a black mane with a light blue stripe in it, and a matching tail. we had decided to get on Celestia's plans as a group, and we all agreed to it, and had to spend most of our time together. So we had to get along well enough.

Reeducation and flight school started, and I was always a little bored on the Equestrian history class, so I found the basics of pony behavior difficult, as most of us did. It was hard to learn how to use our mouths instead of hands, pegasi had their wings too so it was an advantage, and unicorns could use magic.

Also, we had to learn how to use our new hooves properly and the rest of simplest acts for a pony represented a challenge for all Newcomers. Flight school on the other hand, was incredible. From the first day I was able to quickly learn the basics, and fly like a natural. I wasn't the only one doing well, my roommate and friend Midnight, along with some other Newcomers were coming along as incredible fliers from the first day. I wasn't only gifted and quick learning. I also became fast, like lightning, and high speed flight became a pleasure and a needing, so I guessed this was the meaning of the cutie mark I had.

I would spend most of my time in flight school hanging around with Midnight, as we had an advantage and had to wait for most of our companions to get a grip in flying, so we could spend that time in our own business. The other half of my time I spent with Cloud Chaser, Flitter, and Zod who were more than just chaperons and teachers for me, for they had become my friends and some of the closest ponies to me. After a while I couldn't imagine my life without them, and wasn't intending to.

These four ponies were the closest to me, and I enjoyed our friendship. I enjoyed our new lives, and couldn't wait to be able to get out and see the rest of it. I knew Ponyville was only a face of what Equestria had to offer, and I was impatient to see it all.

It didn't last too long though, soon enough some of our Newcomer companions started preaching an idea that had disappeared from my mind since we got to Equestria. Some had been joking about it for a while, but these ponies' words were convinced and full of belief. Some ignored their words, thinking it was just a joke, but some of us knew they were serious, and knew they were right.

These ponies were preaching the ideas of a new Equestria, in which princess Luna would be in control. At first the ideas didn't go much more developed than this, and so they would be treated as jokes, and then forgotten with time. But some ponies, including myself, Midnight, and Zod, couldn't get the idea out of our heads, and eventually started meetings in the basement of the reeducation center to discuss about why we were there.

It was the Lunar Republic.

The original ideas that had brought us together disappeared quickly, and were replaced by new ones- lots of them. Within a month, dozens of ponies were preaching their own ideas, much more profound and developed than the original ideas. And the number of attendants, who gave ourselves the name of lunar republicans, was growing fast, and eventually expanded to more than just Newcomers, as some of us managed to get our chaperons to join and follow our new ideals.

Midnight himself started sharing his ideas, and ponies started paying attention to him and follow him. I followed him since I believed in his words, and I held his back as his best friend, we decided to call his group, the "Mitternacht Bataillon" (midnight battalion in German). As his followers started growing in number, Midnight became increasingly nervous, and lost his confidence to talk in public. I did what I had to do for the sake of the Mitternacht bataillon, and of Midnight's dream. When I saw that he couldn't take on the the amount of followers, I took his place as the leader of the bataillon and started preaching both Midnight's ideas and mine. I was able to keep our group strong and made it one of the bigger groups inside of the republic.

In a short time the dozens of different groups dissolved, and the followers found a new leader in the remaining groups. Eventually only six groups remained, including the Mitternacht Bataillon, and the total number of followers was so big we almost didn't fit in the reeducation center’s basement anymore.

Which was a lot of space and ponies...