Night Breeze rolled out of his bed hours before he should have. Of course that was to be expected as the stallion had skipped out on guard duty last night to try and drink away the voice inside his head. The head that was now pounding harder than the ground when that dragon visits the Princesses.

“Spike's still around? Nice.”

Loosing a loud groan at the sound of the voice known as Pete Powell, Night Breeze could swear that was the noise on made when they lost their sanity. The previous night was lost in a blur of drink, and the stallion was hoping it would stay that way. Needing the after effects to dissipate quickly however, he slowly trotted to the bathroom for pills and a cold shower. Stepping out and drying off, Night Breeze looked at himself in the mirror and tried to get some information out of this voice. He was given nothing but smug silence. It felt like the first time the voice had gone quiet, and it was somehow more disturbing than any amount of speech it could use.

Giving a defeated sigh the gray pegasus retreated back to his small wooden room and laid back down. He had no choice, he would have to hide this ailment for as long as it lasted, or risk being thrown in the loony bin. It's not like anypony would believe he had the voice and memories of a secret, dead hero that everypony hated in his brain.

“You might be wrong there,” the voice spoke, a slight glaze of epiphany on its tone, “Celestia would.”

It was insane, he was insane. By the Goddesses he KNEW he was insane! Voices in your head aren't normal, well, voices that aren't yours. Yet he listened to it. Night Breeze had walked past the audience chamber and gone right for the Princess' bedroom, where he now stood outside the door. There were no guards in sight, a rather unusual thing, and he was about to tell the Princess that he had a voice inside his head. Everything told him this would go bad, ever fiber of his being, every feather on his wing. Everything but the voice.

“Just let me take the reins kid.”

What does that even mean?

“Relax, close your eyes and relax. Let control slip from you and let me do the walking and talking. From you she might not believe it, from me though? Oh, trust me.”

Once more, another bad idea from this voice, yet something told him to follow it. As he breathed slowly and deliberately there was a feeling of detachment. Not so much that he no longer had control, that it was lost entirely, but more that someone else was guiding him. The best he could do to explain it would be comparing it to possession of the ghostly kind. His eyes were opened, and his body, now in the control of 'Pete Powell,' opened the door and simply waltzed in. It scared the young stallion, not the possession, though that was creepy, but the fact that this voice had the audacity to walk into the room of the most powerful being in Equestria without so much as KNOCKING. Night Breeze silently prayed that their/his death would be painless.

“Luna?” he heard Celestia call from the other side of a door to the left.

Pete looked around. The décor was the same as ever, red and gold. For a princess with an ever flowing mane of many colors her tastes were a bit bland. The royal bed was, like in every other room in the castle, located on back wall at the center, a window to the right of it, a night stand, dressers against the right wall, a vanity mirror on the upper left, and of course the door from which Her Royal Highness' voice emerged from was at the center of the left wall. Other than that the room was decorated rather typically, nothing much stood out and one would have a hard time guessing that this was in fact the room of the most powerful alicorn in the history of the world.

“Don't you ever change anything?” Pete asked, his own will contorting Night Breeze's vocal chords into an attempted mimicry of his old voice. It didn't go well, but there was something about the tone that caught Celestia's attention. There was a flush, the sound of a faucet, and the Princess emerged from what was apparently her bathroom, as it was in most of the higher class suites, a look of shock on her face. Upon seeing the gray pegasus this shock slowly fell into confusion, then turned to abject horror as Night Breeze felt his face contort into a grin.

“Pete,” Celestia breathed.

“Who else but me manages to survive reincarnation?” The voice was once more strained as it tried to imitate his previous life's, but it was the tone that told the Princess who he was. More so was the grin. It was a smile she had seen a million times before, one that could bring her immense joy or pure terror all depending on which side she was on. Considering that she was the one that handled reincarnation of souls, this was against her. It was a smirk that proudly proclaimed the system that she had, to be easily thwarted, broken, and pointless. It arose within her many emotions, but highest among them anger and fear.

“This isn't right,” she said, trying to rein in her emotions, “Pete, how did you do this?”

“No clue,” he replied with a shrug, “I remember the gate, and waking in it. Next thing I know, I'm listening to Luna tell me stories about my life. Except I'm not me, I'm this guy. Who has been having dreams about my old life apparently.”

Celestia thought for a moment. There were a few, FEW, recorded incidents where someone remembered some of their previous life, but not to the extent of reawakening their old selves. Typically they had dreams, vivid, strange dreams that they ultimately ignored. She couldn't think of why he would be the exception. Either way, there was only one thing to do.

“Pete, I … I can't have you just running around like this,” she said, almost with regret, “I don't know what went wrong, but since it has, it could happen again and there's a high chance that you'll end up exacerbating it in others. I can not have ponies that have been dead for two thousand years suddenly coming back and forcing out their new selves.”

“Explain how this whole thing works,” he said, clinically stroking his chin with a hoof, “I mean, how is this even possible? Wouldn't my reawakening destroy the other personality? Or are there, like, multiple souls per body?”

“It's all your soul,” Celestia began, thinking the least she could do was explain, “Night Breeze is you, but a slightly different you. We are all a product of our environment, mixed with our natural selves. Night Breeze has led a different life, but is still you. That is where the division comes from, his experiences clash with yours causing the mind, and soul, to divide.”

“So does silencing me really fix anything? The division is there, we are us now, not he.”

Celestia shook her head trying to wrap her mind around that last sentence, “That's not hardly the point. Over time the separation will heal, but as long as you continue to be active it will only worsen.” The Solar Princess lowered her head as her horn began to glow, “I'm sorry, Pete.”

Fear gripped Night Breeze, not fear for Pete, but for himself. Something deep within him, something that was not Pete Powell screamed for him to run. Escape that room, that horn, as fast as possible. Something told him that spell meant death, and before anyone could react, he screamed. It was an ear shattering shriek of primal terror, and it caught Celestia off guard. Giving the pegasus ample time to take flight and flee down the hallways. His mind was off, all he could do was fly, as fast as possible. Not even the patrolling guards managed to stop him.

It wasn't until his wings basically gave out that he stopped, and even then he didn't so much as stop as slam into the ground and continue flapping his wings while moaning with fear. The locomotion didn't stop either, as soon as he got to his hooves he took off, running this time as fast as possible. When the adrenaline came down, and the fear began to subside, Night Breeze found himself in a familiar corridor. Tired now, and still functioning on instinct, he trudged to the room at the end of the hall. Princess Luna's bedroom.

Night Breeze practically bashed the door in with his shoulder (yes, horses have shoulders), his legs barely able to hold him. His noisy entrance surprising Luna, who was preparing for the coming evening, and his collapse sending her into a near panic. Closing the door and lifting Night Breeze onto the bed, the Princess of the Night attempted to coax a response from him, what she got nearly stopped her heart. A chuckle, and a grin.

“Pete,” she said, her voice almost a pitch for pitch match of her sister.

“Hey there, Luna. Been a while,” the still contorted voice said, “Sorry about the kid here, Celestia threatened to blast me to sleep and he freaked out. I think I've seen more of this castle in the last ten minutes than I did in my 200 plus years of living. He's got good speed.”

“This is what happened last night,” Luna said, “Why Night Breeze took off, he heard you.”

“Yeah, I suddenly heard you talking about me, then realized that I wasn't me any more.”

Unlike her sister Luna was feeling only one thing, elation. Pete's death had hit the Lunar Princess the hardest. She had practically cried for a week straight, and was not seen publicly for a month. Now he was back, in a way, and it filled her with joy. Then, fear. She knew that Celestia would be looking for him, if she wasn't already, and she would send him away, destroy him, something. She didn't know if she could handle his death a second time, not without direct interference this time.

“Hey,” Pete said, calling her attention back to the room, “There's something I need from you,” he said slowly, his breathing heavy from Night Breeze's flight.

“What?” Luna asked, “Anything, just name it.” It almost surprised her how easily those words came, and how sincere they were. How sincere they had always been. She had offered him immortality and essential godhood once before, she would make the same offer now if he so chose. All he needed to do was ask, it was all he had ever needed to do.

“I need a body. My own body, separate from this guy.”

“What are you going to do with it?” Not that it would matter, she would do this anyway, it was simple curiosity.

“Celestia mentioned something interesting. That I might cause others to reawaken too. If that's the case, then I can't go quietly into that night, not without trying to find her.”

“...you plan to find Rainbow Dash?”

The grin faded, replaced by a look of determination that Luna was familiar with. The grin was when he was confident, sure that he had won, even if what was happening wasn't winnable. This flat look was one of defiance, a look that dared all who saw it to trigger the grin.

“Always.”

Author's Note

Well, let's see where this goes. And yeah, Pete seems kinda like a villain now doesn't he?