What lays behind the chaos.

Shadows of the past: Forging bonds

Everything was leading to "the fight" and our plans were going just as expected, we had managed to spread the word of the republic along Equestria without being spotted by Celestian guards, but everything was going too fast, and at that rate "the fight" would come before we expected and we wouldn't be ready for when it came, our army wasn't ready yet, and the numbers wouldn't be enough to hold the magnitude we expected for the fight. We knew we needed help, and Shade Finder suggested we could find it in the neighbor lands, it was just left to decide who would try to convince the neighbor lands to join our cause, Shuriken and Night Shade were busy organizing the army, Sciencio was busy on the new research center, Autumn was making sure we stayed unnoticed while our numbers kept growing. Since my duties at the moment weren't more than helping Autumn with this I offered myself to convince the neighbor lands after Autumn told me she could handle the work alone. At first Shade didn't seem to be happy with my self nomination since I had shown my excitement about exploring both Equestria and the neighbor lands, which was my plan after reeducation was over, and it had became impossible after I joined the council. My excitement made Shade think I wouldn't take the task seriously and she offered to accompany me to make sure I did my work instead of going on vacation. She was just making up excuses to go too since she also wanted to see Equestria, something I noticed on our train trip to the south as I saw her marveling at the sight of the Eqastrian dessert as we approached the Zebras' land.

There are four lands surrounding Equestria in all four directions, to the south is Zertic, land of the Zebras, it was a vast dessert with small zebra tribes all around it. It wasn't organized as the other lands including Equestria, there was no capital, the towns weren't as big and the population seemed to be rather nomad than actually sedentary, yet in world history we learned that it has been the land of the zebras for a long time and though it seems small and weak it's a great imposing land of magic and shouldn't be misjudged.

To the East is Gryphus, land of the griffins, almost as big as Equestria it used to hold a strong connection to the flying city of Cloudsdale, it's a big proud land of flyers known by it's great military force, definitely a great ally to have on your side. Something the princesses knew when they formed a strong connection to the land thanks to the pegasi, it eventually became really close to Equestria and it was always willing to fight by it's side if needed.

Up North, passing the crystal mountains is Minos, land of the Minotaur, a great land formed of various big cities, it's surrounded by a great wall that prevents external attacks. It has always preferred to be a neutral land and stay away from business other then theirs, it's also a pacific land and is rare for it to join in a war, the great wall of Tauros usually prevents the fighting to enter Minos and keeps it strong and away from fights.

Finally to the West is the submarine land of Aquestria, land of the sea ponies and another strong ally to Equestria, the underwater city is know for it's great marine forces, nothing trespasses to the city and it's always protected, yet migration to or from it is almost impossible as sea ponies cannot survive on land and ponies cannot stay on Aquestria for a long period of time, due to this we had to take Aquestria out of consideration, as an alliance with that land wouldn't help much on "the fight" since Aquestrians cannot fight on land, this was a shame as we didn't go to Aquestria after taking it out of the options, and it was a place I wanted to see, and I still haven't got to do it.

The other three lands were our destination, we had to go to each of them and propose an alliance between the land and our rebellion, luckily for us the third phase of the newcomer project had started. Celestia had given everyone in Equestria the chance to have a tour around the land and around the neighbor lands, it was a free service and there would be a tour guide for every site on the map, some of these guides were republicans which made it easy for us to get away from the group and talk to the leaders of the lands and propose our alliances.

When we finally reached Zertic we had crossed the vast southern dessert of Equestria and we had reached an oasis, you could still see the dessert around it but the town we had arrived to was in the middle of a green field. Palms surrounded the town while a lake was settled on the middle of it. We had arrived at the tribe of Sīmā, a small community of zebras located right on the frontier with Equestria. Land division on Zertic was different to all the other lands, it seemed to be a nomad species that traveled around the whole world, but this was just a misconception due to the small size of the towns (which were each inhabited by one specific tribe). The land had no concept of centralization whatsoever, there wasn't a town to be called capital, towns were spread all over the land leaving great spaces of uninhabited dessert between them, the tribes lived in peace with each other and the borderlands made their best to stay in peace with neighbor lands, Sīmā made the biggest effort of all these tribes, despite the fact that Zertic has other two frontiers to the west and the south, Equestria is one of the most advanced lands on the planet, and keeping peace with them was better for both lands. Fortunately Equestria shares a bit of history with Zertic that keeps them united, in the beginning Zertic was also the land of the buffalo, but the difference on the ideals of the species made the land divide, when ponies arrived at what is now Equestria they took the portion of Zertic that belonged to the buffalo and made it part of the country, eventually ponies learned how to live with the buffalo and the buffalo could find peace with the zebras, eventually leading the Equestrian government to grow close to the Zertic thanks to the buffalo interaction and mediation.

The only piece of slightly modern structures on Sīmā was the train station, other than it there were a couple huts and tents but no buildings or more complex structures could be found. The guide for this trip was Twilight Sparkle, princess Celestia's apprentice. The task was originally given to Zecora, a zebra living among ponies on the town of Ponyville, but she was resilient to accept the task for unknown reasons, Twilight being her close friend hence knowing a lot about her home land, took the job instead. Once on the town she started explaining EVERYTHING about Zertic culture, their religion, their leadership system and eventually the composition of the town itself, it was then that we learned where to locate the tribe leader and try to convince him, we knew Zertic government didn't work based on a single leader but we thought that influencing the leader of the frontier town could give us a chance to get full help from the land. I for one didn't thought Zertic help to be much useful, seeing the structure of the town and having learned that the rest of the land wasn't much different I thought Zertic couldn't help our rebellion fight Equestrian forces at all. But I was proven wrong.

Twilight became really distracted explaining everything she knew and this gave me and Shade a chance to sneak out of the group and find the tribe leader, we reached a large tent on the northwest part of the town far from the train station, as we approached it it swung open and a young female Zebra let us in telling us that we were expected, which seemed odd enough. Inside we found a fire in the middle of the tent and at the other end was an old wrinkled stallion zebra-we never learned his name- sitting peacefully drinking tea, he signaled us to take a sit on the opposing side of the fire and started talking first. He said everything we were to tell him before we could open our mouths. He explained he understood our goals, our reasons and he respected our wish to move forward with our dream, he finally expressed his own disagreement with our cause and explained the zebras wouldn't be allies to any part, neither us or the 'empire' (the word he used to describe our opposition, it was something I didn't understand at the moment). He said zebras had nothing to do with Equestrian business ans so they wouldn't take part on the upcoming war. Shade and I tried to convince him to change his mind and eventually an idea came to my mind Equestria is already so much more advanced than this land, we could take them down if they don't agree to join us, and with the weapons our engineers are developing they don't stand a chance I thought to myself, and before I could share my thoughts the prophet responded. He rose his eyebrows which made it possible for me to see his green eyes looking right at mine and he said something that brought chills down my spine and made me mark his words even to this day.

"You can always chose to attack our humble land, but we will never follow the armies of another's hand.

If you still wish to attack, you must know that my people won't hold back."

I still don't know what it was, but his words, his voice, his eyes, it all made me want to run away, it made me want to leave that land, get back to the comfort and security of Canterlot and forget we ever came to Zertic in the first place.

We all stayed mute after that and I signaled Shade to get out of the tent and get back to the train station as we might have been left behind by the others. Once at the station everypony was still there and Twilight kept explaining everything about the land, I was paralyzed by the prophet's words and Shade didn't understand what was going on in my mind, it wasn't until little bit after that Twilight gave out the explanation to my feelings. She explained that Zertic was much more than what meets the eyes, that despite seeming small and powerless it's the land where magic started and the land where it's most developed, she explained that Zertic was the land of the most powerful magic that had ever been seen by pony eyes I understood it right away, the prophet warned me about attacking Zertic as it would had destroyed all of Equestria with it's magic, and he used this very magic to make fear grow inside me and help me make the right decision. When the train finally arrived and we were able to get back to Canterlot I just wanted to run away, the farthest from Zertic that I could. During the train trip Shade made me explain her the situation and she eventually understood why Zertic wasn't an option to make an alliance.

Our next objective was Minos, the land to the north. I do know that it would have been easier to go east first and visit the lands in counterclockwise order, but even if our method was less efficient it was the best way to enjoy the sight of Equestria's beauty.

The pony who guided us through Crete, capital of Minos, was Snow Flake, he was a really enthusiastic young pegasus stallion who seemed to have a great military potential, he was also a loyal follower of the republic and of the council, we planned on making him general once our army was organized due to this reasons. I'm still unsure what made Celestia choose him as guide to the Minotaur kingdom. Though strong and loyal he also seemed a little light headed and easily carried away, he was very explosive and that reinforced our decision to make him lead a portion of the army, as for the time given we would need all the front line strength we could get if we expected to win "the fight". It seemed suspicious having such a loyal pony on our ranks that was also in good enough terms with our rival princess so she would let him be the guide to the Minotaur land. So Shuri and Autumn ran a background check on him before we arrived at Minos, to confirm he wasn't a spy. I personally didn't inquire in his relationship with the minotaurs at all and when I was told he wasn't in fact a spy I left him be. He was really educated in the matters of this land and knew almost as much as Twilight knew of Zertic, though he didn't start rambling like she did since he knew the tourists wouldn't enjoy being lectured. He made it easy for us to talk to the Minotaur king and make our absence go unnoticed.

Thus we met with King Tauros the third, direct descendant of the first Minotaur king; King Tauros the first, Builder of the great wall of Tauros. This meeting was as profitless as our encounter with the Zebras, the process was the same: we explained our position and plans to the King and again we were told off, Tauros insisted in Minos' neutrality, he told us there was no reason for the Minotaurs to mingle in Equestrian business. We explained the possible advantages of the alliance and he kept his ground firmly, I kept insisting about the alliance as I thought of Minos as a great military force and would love to have them by our side. The conversation eventually turned aggressive, and when Tauros started thinking we might decide to attack his land if he didn't cooperate he reacted calmly and prudently; he explained an attack on Minos would be much harder than any other land, the wall that surrounded the land would keep them safe from most attacks and they would then use their armies to get rid of the attackers, he convinced us that we should focus our strength on our enemies instead of them, Shade helped me calm myself (it was never my intention to declare war with the minotaurs, but I have to admit I was and still am more explosive than I realize and that I used to have a hard time keeping some things to myself, things like my tone.) we finished the reunion shaking hooves after we decided that Minos would leave Equestria alone and and Equestria would do the same which we thought was the best for both lands.

Disappointed as we were, we had to return to the train station empty hoofed once again, our options were reduced to one last chance and we had all our hopes placed on the Griffins. If we didn't get their help this search would have just been a loss of time, and we would be back were we started: alone, which we believed was an option we couldn't take if we expected to win "the fight".