The New Equestria

by CryptoBrony

Chapter 1: Introduction and the Origins

July 24, 2015
20:15
Location: Quad (Vistors' Dorms area)

"Now, if I can have you all stay in one group throughout the tour, I'll have a great surprise for you all!" Blue Leaf says, projecting his voice for everypony to hear.

"Having one of my friends almost knocked out another pony with brain damage is one surprise too much for this evening," Ivy says to Twilight and her new group of friends.

"I said I was sorry!" exclaimed Lavender!

"Ms. Lavender?" Blue Leaf called out.

"Y-yes sir?" Lavender answered with a surprised expression.

"I'm not saying you can't talking amongst your friends, but do keep it down please."

"Yes sir," Lavender grumbled. The whole group started to giggle at Lavender's direction.

"Now then, I have a surprise for you all." The whole group focused their attention to Blue Leaf. "Even though this group is small, especially for this time of day, we, the 'NightOwl' staff have something that you all will enjoy to have with you, no matter where you go in life. If you would please follow me to the gymnasium please," he said walking. The whole group went along with him.

"So," Ivy started to say to Twilight, "where are you from?"

"Me?" Twilight replied.

"Yes, the purple unicorn that I saved from dieing," he said in a jokingly matter.

"Yeah, where are you from?" Lavender added in.

"Oh, um, I come from a small village called Ponyville," Twilight answered.

"Ponyville?" Ivy questioned. "Wow, that's a long way from where we live."

"Where do you guys live at?"

"Lavender and I both live back at Manehatten."

"Really? Were you two friends for a while?"

"Um about that..." Lavender said, looking away.

"What's wrong?" Twilight asked.

"Believe it or not," Ivy continued, "all three of us became friends on our way here, in the bus ride."

"Me and Ivy here lived in different parts of Manehatten," Lavender added. "The town is so busy, nopony there has time to really make any friends. Maybe for job purposes, but not a 'get-to-know-you' friend."

"That's also where we also met Misty here."

"Where are you from Misty?" Twilight asked.

"I'm from a far-away town called Vanhoover," Misty replied.

"All three of you became friends just a few hours ago?!"

"Like I said," Ivy replied, "believe it or not."

"Wow," Twilight said under her breath.

"If you think that's crazy, just look at our group for this tour here," Ivy says waving his hoof around the area. "There are all types of intelligent creature here: there are unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies, griffons, and even zebras."

"Griffons and zebras?!"

"Yeah," Lavender cutted in, "this place has zebras and griffons living together at one place! Maybe not live in the same rooms together but in one area at least! At least it's a start!" she says with a smile.

"Where do they come from?"

"Apparently zebras and griffons have their own homelands," Ivy continued. "Sort of like us except they both have their own islands."

"Where are these homelands at?"

"Wow, you really do not know do you?"

"Well..." Twilight says looking away in embarrassment.

"Anyways," Ivy continued, "the zebra's homeland is located west of here, across some ocean, and the griffon's homeland is east of here, across some ocean as well."

"Oh," Twilight says surprised. "Wait a minute..."

One minute later...

"Is she still pondering or something?" Ivy questioned.

"I don't know, she has been like this for like a minuter or so," Misty said.

"That reminds me," Twilight finally says.

"Oh, it's about time!" Lavender exclaimed.

"Where is this school located?" Twilight asks.

"It's south of the 'Macintosh Hills' across the 'Great Inland Sea'."

"Macintosh Hills?!" Twilight shouts.

"Um, Ms. Sparkle, would you mind keeping it down?" Blue Leaf says, ahead of the group. "I can hear you from over here."

"Sorry," Twilight apologizes, not before the group starts giggling again.

"Yes, Macintosh Hills," Ivy responded.

"That's far from Ponyville, Manehatten, Vanhoover and Canterlot!"

"Yep. That about sounds right," Ivy says with a smile.

"How did ponies get to here?"

"Like I said: bus ride."

"Don't forget the boat ride too," Misty added in.

"Oh right!" Lavender came in. "Misty here got seasickness on our way over here!"

"Stop. I don't want to talk about it," Misty grumbled.

"So yeah," Ivy continued, "it was a small bus and boat ride to get over here. Air quotes on the small part."

"Okay!" Blue Leaf exclaimed to the group. "We are here! The school's central gymnasium!"

The gymnasium was huge nonetheless. None of the ponies in Twilight's group of friends noticed it as they were too busy talking to one another. The gymnasium was large. Looking to one side of the gymnasium from the front seemed as though it went on forever. It was like a huge castle, with a more modern look obviously, and had lights beaming out of it, penetrated the night sky from below. It was like a huge landmark that can be found from the night sky and hard to miss.

"Careful with the steps here!" Blue Leaf continued. "There may be a few, but you won't believe how many of our students trip each day and night! Our infirmary staff had countless incidents of broken bones, bloody noses, and muscles being sprained over this small set of stairs! Speaking of sprains,"Blue Leaf turns towards Ms Aurora at the bottom of the steps, "Ms Aurora, would you kindly guide Mr. Mystery and Ms. Rose to the ramps?"

"Yes sir!" replied Moonlight. She comes to where Ivy and Misty are at. "The ramps are down over on this side, follow me!" Without hesitation, Ivy pushed Misty's wheelchair, follow Moonlight. Twilight followed the group up the stair with Lavender at her side.

"Isn't this exciting?" Lavender said to Twilight.

"Yeah, it sure is so far," Twilight replied walking up the stairs. "This school, its... its hard to believe it exists at all!" Both Lavender and Twilight reach the top of the stairs. "I wonder what exactly this school offers?" Twilight says still at Lavender.

"Oh, this school offers way more than what meets the eye!" Blue Leaf added in to Twilight's conversation. "Just wait until you come into the gymnasium. We have a special surprise for you all!" Blue Leaf said holding the door open for the mares and Ivy, as they came up the rails in the same time. "Just you wait! Isn't that right Ms. Aurora?"

"Yes sir!" replied Moonlight.

The group then entered the gymnasium into the huge lobby area. The lobby displayed huge LCD screens on the walls above the front counter, each displaying different menu items for its respective food shops at the front counter. Not to mention the vending machines on the sides for quick service and snacks on the go. As Blue Leaf said, students are still awake at this hour. Some grabbing a bite to each before class, after class, or on their way late to class (Yikes!). Nonetheless, this gymnasium was just a small part of what this school has to offer to Twilight and the rest of the group. There was students going back and forth, through the lobby area, each with different destinations in mind. It reminds Twilight of the busyness of Ponyville that occurs just outside of her doors. Except there's food right in front of her.

"Okay students!" Blue Leaf called out. "Follow me through this hallway!" As commanded, the group of students followed Blue Leaf to their destination.

They arrived to some solid double doors which led into a basketball court. Inside waiting for them was a set of five tables near the entrance with one worker, an earth pony, a unicorn, a pegasus, a zebra, and a griffon, standing in the back of a table with a box on the floor next to them.

"Now then! In front of you is a set of five tables that have that special surprise that I was talking about earlier. Each table has an ASB member that will give out a gift to you guys. From left to right, line up if you're an earth pony, unicorn, a pegasus, a zebra, or a griffon. Give your name at the respective table and a member will mark off your name from the list and give you your gift."

After Blue Leaf finished, the group split up and went to their tables. Ivy took Misty to the earth pony table and Twilight went with Lavender to the unicorn table.

"What do you think they'll give us Twilight?" Lavender asked to Twilight.

"Huh?" Twilight replied, confused.

"I said, what do you think they'll give us?"

"I don't know..." Twilight said, looking over ahead to see the gift they all are about to receive.

"Look! One of them is opening a box!"

The table for the pegasi had their member open a box and the member pulled out a saddlebag.

"Aww," complained Lavender, "it's just a saddlebag."

Upon closer inspection, Twilight noticed the saddlebags had a hexagon shape for the buckle that closed the bag. Before she realized, she was next in line.

"Excuse me. Miss?" called out the mare unicorn at the table.

"Huh? What?" Twilight replied. "Smooth Twilight," Twilight thought to herself, "real smooth."

"May I have your name please?"

"Oh, it's Twilight Sparkle."

"Let's see... Twilight Sparkle...Twilight Sparkle... Ah! Here it is!" The mare then marked the paper in front of her. She then reached in the box and pulled out a saddlebag. "Here you go!" she said, handing it to Twilight.

"Thank you." Twilight inspected the bag as she walked to the back of the line. The saddlebag had nothing unique to it from just looking at it directly around it. When Twilight observed the buckle of the bag, she noticed it had a symbol on it. The symbol showed a horn of a unicorn, pointing to the top left side of the hexagon. The horn itself emitted an aura, surrounding as if it was levitating something. Twilight then casually puts her book into the bag; it fits perfectly.

"Ms. Sparkle?" Blue Leaf called out to Twilight that was about to run into him. "Are you okay?"

"Um, yes sir," Twilight responded. "It's just-"

"I know Ms. Sparkle. This experience may have been a little overwhelming to you this evening. I've noticed you seem to be out of it this past half hour, or you're just too much into your own thoughts to realized your surroundings," he said with a smile. Twilight blushed. "Now then, your friends are waiting for you on the first row of these set of bleachers," he said pointing to its direction.

"Thank you Mr. Leaf," Twilight said while walking toward her group of friends, who are waving at her.

"It's about time you got here!" Lavender greeted to Twilight when she arrived.

"Yeah, you were about to bump into Mr. Leaf there," Ivy added in.

"What do you think of the saddlebag Twilight?" Misty asked.

"I think it's nice of them to give them to us. It even has a symbol representing my kind..."

"I know right!" Lavender said, agreeing with Twilight. "Look at Ivy's and Misty's bag here!" She pulled Twilight to where they held out their bags. "See? They have two pony hooves standing on the ground, while we unicorns have our horns on our buckle! I take back what I said about these bags! These are just so adorable!" Lavender says hugging her saddlebag.

"I wonder what the other students have?" Twilight thinks to herself.

"Attention please!" Moonlight says, speaking into a wireless microphone. "Mr. Leaf would like to speak a few words to you." Moonlight then hand Blue Leaf the microphone.

"I see some of you like your saddlebags as depicted by this pony here," he says pointing at Lavender, still hugging her bag. "Now, thanks to our wonderful NightOwl ASB members for raising enough money to spend on these beautiful saddlebags for you to keep. Since you all are the first night tour we had, we decided to give these saddlebags out to you all as a token of appreciation for considering coming to this school. We do hope you decide to come attend this school for the bags match perfectly with our school uniforms."

"School uniforms?" Twilight thought to herself. "I haven't even noticed the students had uniforms on!"

"Now, some of you that have a keen perception, you would've noticed that both buckles of the saddlebag has a symbol in a form of a hexagon that represents your own kind, whether it be a zebra, griffon or the different ponies. Now, don't let that discriminate you from the others for it signifys something else. If you mind taking a quick look behind you, you'll see why."

Everypony, griffon, and zebra looked behind them to see a massive flag hanged on the wall. The flag had six hexagons connected together with just the top missing. The center hexagon had the insignia of the school with all of its color.

The top left connecting piece had the background of the zebra's race design of their fur. The center of its hexagon had the zebra's tail to signify one of the zebra's unique feature, coming down from the top right of its shape to the bottom left of it. The top right connecting piece had the flag symbol of the griffons from the equestria games except the lightning bolt was pointing to the bottom left of the shape and the griffon claw to the bottom right. The bottom right connecting piece had a pegasus' wing open, facing from the bottom left of its shape to the top right. The background had a sky design with a few clouds along with it. The bottom connecting piece had two hooves standing on the ground layer of the design. The background had a forest green color and the dirt was colored in brown (for obvious reasons) with some details of the dirt. The last piece, the bottom left connecting piece, was the same symbol as on Twilight's saddlebag buckle.

"Here in this school," Blue Leaf continued, "we believe that although we are different creatures on the outside, we all share at least one thing in common: We want to learn whatever our hearts desire and can be achieved here in this school, The University of Southern Equestria." The group now focused their attention back at Blue Leaf. "Here in this school, we can help encourage the movement of all different, intelligent, creatures to live and learn together as one. This school is one big stepping stone for our future generations to live in a new world, together and in harmony."

Without any order, the whole group applauded at Blue Leaf's speech.

"This is so unbelievable!" Twilight thought to herself. "Griffons, zebras and ponies living together as one? How has this school slipped under my nose?" Twilight races her hoof to ask a question.

"Yes? Ms. Sparkle?"

"I had a question. When has this school been established?"

Blue Leaf pondered for a few seconds. "Would you believe me if I told you?"

The whole group stayed silent, waiting for either Blue Leaf or Twilight to say something.

"I don't know," replied Twilight, "I would have to find out."

Blue Leaf chuckled. "I knew somepony would ask. That's why we'll have princess Celestia and Luna explain the story of this school. For the sake of time, I would like for you ponies to not to bow down to them for we are on a tight schedule and we'll be here all day. It's okay, I won't tell your parents." The whole group chuckled. "Ms. Aurora, would you mind?"

Moonlight trotted to the double doors and held it for both princesses to come in.

"This has got to be interesting," Ivy whispered to Twilight and the others.

---

"Hello there," Celestia started out. "I am here to explain how this school came to be."

"She must known you would ask," whispered Misty to Twilight.

"Back at the founding of Equestria, when the conflict of the three tribes was settled, my sister, Luna and I started planning for a way to have all three tribes educated and learn how to live with one another. Sadly, we didn't have the fiance nor labor to build such a school. We did plan however to shift the tribes to a castle south of what is now Canterlot, past the Macintosh Hills. Unfortunately, we didn't want to move our weak tribes over a long distance and not have a certain future. The castle here, was inhabited by on tribe who lived a long, long while. However, hundreds of years back, the tribe died off and the castle was kept uninhabited and kept as a landmark and a small tour magnet. After my sister came back from the moon, we started planning for a university for our subjects to learn at.

"Thanks to the civilization here on Southern Equestria, they already had two already built small universities for the zebras and the griffons. Yes, the schools had a mixture of all three species in each, but it was in a small scale. When we presented our plan to convert this castle to a huge university, the board saw nothing wrong with it. The castle was too old and was soon going to be taken down for public safety. When the school was being built, we also discovered some ancient text hidden in the castle itself. It contained diplomacys and diaries of the tribes of ponies, zebras, and griffons communicating to each other, but at different areas of the region.

"A few years later, the school opened with the original castle grounds being the huge office, board, and the president of the university working in there. Along with the huge are that covered the land with the castle, we added five sub-sections for each creature that is attending this university. As Mr. Leaf stated, it's not to discriminate each creature, but to learn each culture in a unique environment. Some of our students will feel uncomfortable with others and we can respect that. That's why we designed this school to have seperate principles and presidents for each section. The principles consist of the same creature as their type for both the day and night so our students feel more comfortable with them.

"However, in Mr. Leaf's and Ms. Aurora's case, they run the NightOwl staff for the entire school. There is also a Diurnal staff for the day time. We have separate offices for the school and each section so when it comes to making decisions, it involves both the school's and the section's side, respectively.

"This school opened about two years ago, but as a private school. We didn't want to immediately open it to the public for we wouldn't know the outcome of it. With the success of the the past few years, we now decided to open it for the public, providing countless scholarships and ways to pay for the tuition. And with the collaboration of each regions' rulers, they had their subordinates pick out a few of its region's subject that showed excellent intelligence. This group is one of those few.

"As I said, we are opening this school for the public, but you all have priority registration if you choose to attend this school. And some of you even have your whole tuition already payed for."

The room stayed silent for the information they just received.

"Any questions?"

The whole group shook their heads.

"I will now leave you with Mr. Leaf here for the rest of the evening." Celestia faces toward Blue Leaf. "Thank you so much for having us over, it has been an honor."

"No,no," replied Blue Leaf, "the honor is all mine."

Without hesitation, Celestia and Luna left the room. The room still stayed silent.

"Wow, I did not expect that," Ivy said to the group.

"That was an amazing presentation," Lavender said with tears in her eyes.

"I guess we all are special then huh?" Misty asked the group.

Twilight however was still pondering on what Celestia had just said. "Opened to the public? All three species to live in harmony? This has got to be made-up! Just what does this school really have to offer if I choose to leave my life at Ponyville?"

"Now then!" Blue Leaf called out to the group. "Let us continue with the NightOwl tour! This way!"

Just what has Twilight got in stores for her?

Author's Note:

Posted on July 26, 2015

Unbelievable! I wrote this entire chapter in less than five hours! I can't believe I managed to do that without any breaks! I honestly enjoyed writing this chapter because I had everything planned out and I just let my mind flow as I typed it out. And now, I must rest. These first three chapters I did in one sitting in a couple of hours and I enjoyed it!

Comments

[CryptoBrony]

6565534 Aww. Thanks .