I suppose I should start with the beginning, shouldn't I?

Of course, you all know the general story by now.

Not the very beginning, mind you, I'm not gonna bore you to death with my life's story. Just when things got interesting, I'd say when a portal to another dimension opened would be about where things really kicked off.

Most world governments were scrambling to get information on the mysterious portal, which had somehow opened at the European Center for Nuclear research. I still remember when the first news report came in...

February 6th, 2018
Penns Creek High School Cafeteria
12:15 P.M

"Eli, Holy shit!"

I looked up from my meager meal of a sandwich and chips to find my friend Colin holding his phone up to my face. At first I thought it was another one of the half-baked memes we always laughed at.

"Hey man, can this wait?" I gave my friend a bored look as I took a bite of my sandwich. "I love a dank meme as much next guy but I'm trying to-"

"No! no! no! This is the real shit man!" Colin shook his head, his sandy blonde hair shaking around his head like a bush.

I took a closer look at his phone and noticed the CNN channel logo on the bottom left side of the screen. I sighed and took a look around me, everyone was laughing and chatting, as was the usual for a high-school cafeteria, but I also noticed more and more people looking at their phones. People slowly gathered around anyone else who had their phone and watched with rapt attention.

I raised an eyebrow and looked back at Colin's phone, which he set on the table before taking a seat next to me and playing the video. Immediately an image of a large, domed building I'd never seen before appeared on the screen, followed by the voice of a woman.

"In a startling discovery, a portal of unknown origin manifested at the European Center for Nuclear Research last night. However, any attempts to discover what may be on the other side of this portal have thus far failed due to the loss of communication between our side of this anomaly and any unmanned exploratory devices that have been sent through. All attempts to view what may lie beyond this portal have stopped and every drone sent through has been assumed to have been destroyed. "

"Whoa..." I looked at the image of the portal, studying it with wide eyes as the video played on.

The thing was massive, bordered in a sort of purple energy while showing a colorful landscape on the other side of it.

Eventually, the image switched to the image of an older man, a text box below him identifying him as Ryan Wellen, the head of the University of Cambridge's astrophysics division.

"What we need to understand here," The man began, his voice carrying a heavy English accent to it. "Is that this portal did not originate on Earth."

The Cafeteria had mostly fallen silent, almost everyone watching their phones or looking over shoulders to see someone else's. Many groups began muttering amongst themselves, not in a nervous way, but a reserved, surprised manner that came with the various cliques and social groups of a high school.

Some people brushed off the news, simply continuing and talking with their friends with more volume. I looked around us to see several other people had congregated behind us to watch the video.

"The only way a self-sustaining bridge between two could be created would be through the use of an energy source that we as a species have not yet attained."

"This is incredible." A girl behind us whispered, she pushed her way to the front of our small crowd and moved her head right next to mine. "This was what those weird energy readings were."

I looked to the girl and Identified her as Naomi, a young, bookish girl who I had always found in the library when not doing schoolwork. She was in mine and Colin's 4rth period class, so she always sat near us during lunch. I considered myself an intelligent person, but next to her I might as well have been a vegetable, hell, the whole school might as well have been.

She looked at the island the way a researcher would a new text subject, her eyes scanning the entire thing top to bottom with clinical curiosity.

"What weird energy?" I asked her.

"CERN had been investigating some sort of foreign energy signature before this happened," Naomi replied, her eyes never leaving the screen.

"How do you even know that?" Asked Colin under his breath, the question was rhetorical, but our new friend answered anyway.

"New York Times," She replied, "There was an article on it."

I vaguely remembered seeing a link to the article, I hadn't been too interested in it, I had more pressing concerns like homework or last week's test.

"Therefore," Dr. Wellen continued. "The only logical conclusion to make as to the origin of this portal is that it is alien in nature.

The cafeteria came alive with dozens of hushed conversations, lasting a few minutes before the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.

Colin and I made our way back to 4th period, throwing what remained of our food away.

"Do ya think they're telling the truth?" voiced Colin, walking ahead of me in a backward gait. "About that place coming from space."

"Maybe," I pulled up the image of the island on my own phone. "It sounds like the only logical answer."

Colin snickered. "I just hope whatever is on that island isn't into probing. I'm not into that sort of thing."

I rolled my eyes and laughed along with him. "Trust me, Colin, not even an alien would want to probe you, they would take one look at you and probably think you're some kinda genetic defect."

"Fuck you." Laughed Colin.

The two of us joked and laughed all the way back to our class. Sure, there was a massive portal that appeared out of nowhere, but what did matter? No one I knew was hurt, nothing bad was happening, so what else could I do but go on with my life?

Days later, the first contact between humanity and an alien race was made, the ruler of a race of equine-like creatures had appeared out of the portal, and almost immediately diplomatic relations had begun.

Within a week, the ruler of Equestria, Princess Celestia, was announced to be attending a U.N summit in the Swiss capital of Geneva, an event that was to be televised worldwide.

I remember seeing the summit with my own eyes, not quite sure if I could believe my eyes as Celestia first appeared on camera. She was tall, standing on four legs and well over six feet tall. She had wings and a horn, which according to Japan was because of her status as a ruler. Her coat was a pristine marble color that almost seemed to shine. Her eyes were a deep magenta, carrying no malice whatsoever. What drew my attention the most, however, happened to be her mane, which flowed with a rainbow-like nature, dancing as if some unseen wind blew through it.

It felt like the whole world sat in silence as she strode up to the podium, her hooves making an audible clopping noise as she walked, echoing through the speakers of my family's TV like a heartbeat. As she approached the small wooden podium, he eyed the microphone, looking at the object with curiosity before looking offscreen to an unseen person. Understanding dawned on her face and she got closer, clearing her throat.

"Ahem!"

My heart stopped.

"People of Earth," Celestia spoke, her voice soft and kind, she looked into the camera with a warm smile.

"We come in peace."

The entire U.N exploded into applause, and the camera cut to various locations worldwide, people cheered and danced and clapped. Humanity was no longer alone in the universe, we had made our first friend.

The meeting went by about as well as could be imagined, Celestia answering the questions of various world representatives with kind smiles and polite tones.

The first question was raised by Spain's representative.

"Why are you here?"

Celestia nodded, apparently expecting the question.

"You see," she had explained, "Our world has developed a kind of energy that has worked its way into almost all things on the planet, it is a force we know as magic. My race has developed a means to manipulate magic, burning through it as the planet endlessly generates more and more, we used this energy in a search for life outside of our own planet, our efforts were rewarded with the discovery of Earth and humanity, we created the portal in order to establish friendly relations between our two peoples. The U.N gave murmurs of approval, satisfied with the answer.

The meeting went on for what seemed like ever, people asking questions and the princess giving answers.

"Why were our drones been destroyed?"

The ruler opened her mouth for a moment, seemingly confused by the question until a man quickly stepped into the camera's view and whispered into Celestia's rule, she nodded briefly to the man before he disappeared and she turned to address the man who had asked the question.

"Magic does not respond well to substances that have not previously been exposed to it, the field that surrounded Equestria was full of so much concentrated magical energy that your machines could not handle the exposure and fell apart as a result. "

"How is your nation ruled?"

"Power is split between four monarchs, each carrying an equal amount of responsibility, however presently out of the four of us I am considered to be the leader."

"I've been told that there is more than one sentient species inhabiting your world, is this true?"

"Yes, Equss is home to a diverse group of sentient species, ranging from griffons to dragons."

Eventually, the final question was asked:

"What do you plan to do next?"

Celestia remained silent, evidently in thought.

"While I do not speak for the other nations of my world, Equestria hopes to maintain peaceful and friendly relations with humankind, my kind values friendship as one of our core values, and as such I was hoping to advocate for free travel between Earth and Equss, allowing both humans and ponies to mingle freely, so we might all one day live in harmony. To promote this, I have come to propose several projects that would be co-opted between Humanity and Equestria, all of these projects being designed to mutually benefit our peoples."

The U.N was somewhat hesitant to grant the princess' request, but eventually, a deal was negotiated.

The summit ended with Celestia walks off stage to a round of applause, a day later news reports appeared showing the princess shaking hands/hooves with various world leaders. Several projects were later undertaken, one of these rumored to be some type of medicine, biologists from all over the world were being called in to help with it.

It had appeared that everything was going to be fine, a bright new future lay ahead of us and both races were eager to take the first step.

Then, the first human attempted to cross into Equestria, a woman named Nathalie Åkerlund, she died within minutes of stepping through, her body showing all the signs of advanced radiation poisoning.

Magic was an incredibly fickle substance, and due to humanity's lack of exposure to the energy and the barrier's high concentration of it, human bodies experienced an almost immediate collapse when they passed through the barrier. Equestria had issued a formal apology and sent condolences to the woman's family soon afterward. A platform was created to act as a staging ground for the bridge between the two worlds, and almost immediately all humans were barred from attempting to cross the barrier for their own safety.

Ponies, on the other hand, experienced no problems crossing the barrier, and within weeks large numbers of Equestrians were allowed to enter the United States of America under government supervision. Among these ponies was Lyra Heartstrings, a young and extremely enthusiastic mare who intended to act as the Equestrian Ambassador to humanity.

She soon became a shining example of the friendships that could be formed between the two races, acquiring several human friends over her initial visit to the U.S and many more over the course of several visits to other nations. She was described by those who met her to be a both kind and inquisitive spirit, ever hungry for more information on humanity.

For the next few months, peaceful relations were maintained, pony culture suddenly became widely popular in mainstream media. Music, art, magic, even a few ponies themselves became pop culture idols. The "Elements of Harmony" were at the forefront of these ponies. Apparently heroes in their own world, these six individuals had become living testaments to the Friendship between man and pony, each one spreading the message of friendship across our planet in their own way.

Then, in the spring of 2018, the potion was developed.

It spread pretty fast at first, advertised as a kind of "Miracle Cure" by one of the lead scientists on the project; Dr. Jacqueline Reitman. It was capable of regrowing limbs, curing cancer, and fixing almost any kind of injury or disorder that the human body could throw at it. The only catch? It turned you into a pony.

Even then, not that many people saw that as a problem, people began taking the potion en masse, some people without any sicknesses or injuries even took it.

Things got worse from there.

Author's Note

Here is chapter 1, the story will become less spread-out in regards to narration the closer the world gets to when the cow pies hit the industrial grade fan. That being said for some reason I'm feeling this story a lot more than I did Worlds Away, so I might actually put that story on hold for a while.
HA! It's been on hold for the past three months!
Oh for Christ's sake!