The First Day
The exterior was featureless. Floating in an endless void, only the light of distant galaxies gave any indication the object was even there. The closest source of light was millions of light years away, a vaguely purple swirl among the endless black emptiness.
It was as alone as anything could possibly be in the universe.
A lone, drifting globe of metal. No sign of wear - for there were no meteorites to dent it, no cosmic dust to coat it, not even much in the way of radiation to eat away at its atomic structure.
From the outside, it gave off next to nothing nothing. No light besides what it reflected and very little heat. No radio signals and not even a ripple in the magical aether. It was a sealed world with no visible entrances or exits.
And yet, if one were to find a way inside, they would discover the interior was nothing like the cold, lonely surface. After a few miles of solid metal, passageways would begin to open up, revealing the derelict remains of the structure’s inner foundations. This would soon give way to pressurized, warm rock, embedded with pristine, glowing gems. If the hypothetical traveler could withstand the temperatures here, they would find themselves able to walk around. If they were lucky, they would find a cavern that led up, up, up - away from the heat, away from the deep gems, and away from the things that crawled in the depths.
The inner surface was mostly green, with dotted patches of brown and blue, though white was rare, especially on the side currently experiencing day. A day brought about by a small, glowing ball of fire that didn’t quite deserve to be called a star - but sure did the job of any normal planet’s sun. An umbrella-like shell of metal slowly rotated around the sun’s edge, providing the day and night cycle.
The geological shape of the interior had hardly changed at all during its eons of existence. However, that was all changed when something from outside came in.
Further outside than anyone could have ever imagined or planned for.
The roughly triangular conglomeration of rocks had appeared a few meters above the inner surface, crashing down with a shockwave large enough to be called an earthquake and felt by everything for miles around.
Earthquakes never happened here.
And yet, despite the shock of something that should not have been, the shell kept rotating around the sun as it always had, indifferent. From a glance, the interior hardly changed at all - just one speck was slightly out of place.
This was not the reaction of the creatures calling the interior home…
~~~
Twilight looked up at the sun - judging by the speed it was diminishing, she guessed there were two hours of daylight left. She knew she couldn't stand gawking at it forever.
There was work to be done.
With a sigh, she spread her wings. “Let’s see how everything looks.” She took off into the sky, Celestia and Discord following her. She took a breath to prepare herself before looking down.
All the remaining land of Equestria - no, all of Equis - was little more than a triangular sliver in her vision. At the pointed end was the Tree of Harmony’s clearing, devoid of any Tree now, only some protruding Roots that were now hers. Even up here, she could still feel them, connected to her with magic beyond her understanding.
Most of the rest of the triangle was the Everfree Forest. Nothing but a forest filled with magical creatures - many of which were monsters. She could see a hydra stomping around, screaming in rage, confused.
Why were only sapient creatures pulled into the Roots? Was there something about our magical nature that needed help crossing the dimensional divide?
As she continued studying, she saw something that made her light up. “Z-Zecora’s hut! She made it!”
Celestia smiled warmly. “Who knows what other surprise guests might be here with us?”
“Yeah… who knows…” Twilight continued her survey, finally arriving at the two structures that formed the narrow base of the triangle - the School and her Castle.
The School was in shambles - buildings had collapsed in on themselves, the fountain had fallen over, and she couldn’t even make out the dorms. But it was still identifiable. She could even see some of Fluttershy’s woodland critter helpers already starting to clean it up - although they admittedly weren't that effective.
The Castle was mostly unharmed - although the ground it was rooted in had landed awkwardly, tilting it at an ugly angle.
Discord smirked. “I’m generally not one for straightening things, but it seems as though your Castle’s position could use some correction to better suit your tastes.”
“I… I think I can do it myself,” Twilight said, just as surprised at her statement as Discord was.
“Twilight, Please, I’m the Lord of Chaos, I c-”
Twilight tapped into the magic of the Roots - and by extension the magic of the Castle. Rather than her horn lighting up, her eyes did, glowing with a white harmonious energy. A pulse of white energy shot through the entire crystalline structure of the castle, causing it to shake and, with some pushing, pull itself into an upright position.
“It’s a part of me now,” Twilight said, staring at what she’d done in disbelief. “It’s… all part of me.”
Celestia put a hoof on Twilight. “You’ve ascended further than any pony ever has, Twilight. You have been chosen to carry the remnant of Harmony.” She smiled. “I’ve never been so proud.”
Twilight didn’t have a coherent response to this. She simply nodded, gliding down to the Castle itself. The interior was a disheveled mess. Much of Sunset’s equipment was broken or shattered - and the Map itself had crumbled into a few dozen pieces.
The thrones were still there, however, the cutie marks of her and her friends as pristine as the day the chairs had been made.
She alighted on her throne, resonating with Magic as she did so. A small smile came to her face. “I can feel them. In the Roots - and in these walls.” She pressed her hooves into the rests on her throne. “I’m going to bring them back.”
Celestia nodded in her approval - holding up a hoof to keep Discord from shouting something inconsiderate.
Twilight’s eyes burst with harmonious energy once more, connecting to the Roots below. She was able to feel the essences of every pony in there - and the other races as well. She should have given them all a close look, should have appreciated every last person who made it.
But she went right for the five spirits she knew better than any others. With a heave of her body, she sent pulses of light into each of her five friends’ thrones. Slowly but surely, forms of ponies began to take shape - two earth ponies, two pegasi, and a unicorn, each in their respective throne.
Halfway through the process, Twilight let out a gasp of pain.
“Twilight!” Celestia shouted in concern.
“Probably shouldn’t interrupt her midway,” Discord mused. “That would be a particularly nasty… accident for the five of them.”
Celestia clenched her jaw - locking eyes with Twilight. “Be strong.”
Twilight only let out a pained scream as she forced the magic networks to completion, bringing five perfectly healthy ponies into the world. Applejack, Pinkie, Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Rarity all blinked rapidly, taking in the sudden feeling of having bodies again.
“G-girls!” Twilight said with a gasp. “I’m so glad to s-see y-” Her eyes rolled into the back of her skull and she passed out on the ground.
“Twilight!” Rainbow shouted, rushing to her. “Twilight, come on, get up!”
Celestia gently nudged Rainbow Dash to the side, touching Twilight with her horn. “...She is fine. She simply overexerted herself bringing you five back all at once - after righting the castle and bringing me back, no less. She… simply needs rest.”
“...But what are we going to do without her here?” Fluttershy asked - already crying.
Celestia smiled sadly. “We prepare for when she does return. The Castle is more or less in working order, but we have no other infrastructure. No food stores came with us, and we cannot rely on the resources of Ponyville. Discord, for the time being, can you create food for us - and any other people Twilight might remove from the Roots?”
Discord snapped his fingers, putting on a chef’s outfit and a twirly mustache. “But of course…” He started snapping his fingers, dropping random food items from the sky onto the plains between the Castle and the School’s wreckage.
“The rest of you should come with me,” Celestia said, spreading her wings. “That School, for better or for worse, has the resources we are going to use to build the New Equestria.”
“...Of course,” Rarity said with a bow. “The School will be remodeled so well you wouldn’t even be able to tell it had been smashed.”
Pinkie sniffed. “G-girls… don’t you think we’re going a little fast?”
“Yep,” Applejack said. “Don’t really have a choice, though. Ah don’t know nothin’ about this place, and the longer we wait to get situated, the more likely somethin’ bad’ll happen. We’ll all talk about what happened… later.”
Rainbow stamped her hoof on the ground, wiping a tear away. “R-right.”
“This is our new home,” Rarity said. “We want to make a good first impression.”
~~~
Fluttershy was overjoyed to see how many animals of hers had been in the school - and the feeling she had when she saw them starting to clean up the place without being told could not be expressed with words.
Through a flood of immense tears and laughter and half-words and hugs she reacquainted herself with all the critters. The only thing that tore her away from them was the rapidly waning crescent of the sun - they would run out of daylight soon, and she didn’t want to make Celestia create spotlights for them.
She pulled back from the animals and gulped. “Everyone, I know it’s hard, and I know we’re all hurting. But we need to get this place organized in case something happens tonight. Every pony, animal, and creature needs to be able to sleep safely in one way or another. Can you all do that?”
The animals nodded profusely, setting back to work.
Behind her, Rarity turned to Princess Celestia. “Princess, what should we start with?”
Celestia pondered this. “...To be honest, I don’t know the layout of this school that well. Perhaps it is best if you took charge of this restoration operation.”
Rarity nodded in understanding. “Applejack, try to find the dorms - if we can’t repair them, move all the sleeping implements somewhere standing. Rainbow, try to clean up the loose debris so it’s easier to walk around. Fluttershy, manage all your animals and find out how many we have to house - and do be sure to warn us if the monsters of the Everfree start acting up. Pinkie, I know you have a party cave on campus, I’m sorry but you’re going to have to loot it.”
The ponies all nodded - though Pinkie nodded with a more dejected demeanor than any of the others. Rarity checked the pink mare’s mane - finding that it was drooping, but not quite flat. She found this mildly surprising, but it also meant she didn’t have to worry about the party pony going off the deep end just yet.
“Celestia, you and I are going to check on the artifacts,” Rarity said.
Celestia nodded, walking with the unicorn to the front entrance of the School. The doors were no longer standing - one was dangling from a single busted hinge, while the other had fallen into the courtyard. The interior was barely recognizable - the ceiling was completely gone, most of the columns were rubble, and the floor was covered with broken glass and marble.
Rarity had a significantly easier time walking through the mess than Celestia did, but she slowed her pace just enough for the Princess to keep up. They made their way down the hall to the headmare’s office, which was miraculously undisturbed beyond a little shake-up. The door worked as always, sliding open in the grip of Rarity’s magic.
“...Rarity…” Celestia said, lighting her horn. “Something’s wrong…”
“What?” Rarity asked, stopping in her tracks in case there were some sort of trap.
“There is no powerful magic in here. Just the normal ambience from a room of pony construction.”
“...But that’s ridiculous,” Rarity said, furrowing her brow. “She keeps all the artifacts in her safe when they’re not being used. There’s enough in there to startle unicorns over a mile away!”
Celestia lifted the safe into the air - and broke it open easily.
Rarity blinked. “That… was a magic safe…”
“It isn’t anymore,” Celestia observed, opening the safe and dropping all the artifacts. Every last one of them were dull and lifeless, and those with magical crystals in them were now covered in shattered fragments. “All powerful magic as been destroyed…”
“My Stars…” Rarity said with a gasp.
“This is why the Tree needed us in its Roots,” Celestia realized. “Any sapient creature automatically has concentrated magic within it, on a level far beyond that of a simple animal. The transition would have been too jarring. Horns would have exploded, wings would have folded in on themselves…”
Rarity didn’t even want to think about what would have happened to an earth pony.
“Rarity, we should be immensely grateful the Tree’s own power was able to overcome this limitation.”
Their conversation didn’t get to continue, for Fluttershy flew in the open door. “R-Rarity! It just happened and I don’t know how and it-”
“Calm down, my little pony,” Celestia said with a soothing tone. “What happened?”
“I… I…” she swallowed hard. “C-chester the chipmunk brought me his wife, s-she had a broken arm and I… I…” sparkling tears fell from her eyes. “I cried and she was better! A-all better! Tears aren’t supposed to do that!”
Celestia looked at her with curiosity - and then lit her horn, performing a quick scanning spell. “...Fluttershy, it… appears as if you have become one with the Element of Kindness. You are overflowing with magic to care for others.”
“I… what?”
“You have been gifted with the power to heal,” Rarity said with a smile. “Now you can help every animal you see.”
Fluttershy paused for a moment - and then smiled softly. “...Y-yeah. This is a good thing, isn’t it? I don’t know why I was so panicked…”
“This is a strenuous time,” Celestia admitted, sighing. “The slightest shock can send us to places we never thought we would go.”
“...So am I Generosity now?” Rarity asked.
Celestia nodded. “And now that I’m looking for it, I can feel all the other Elements around us as well.” A smirk crawled up her face. “The artifacts in that safe may have been destroyed, but we have the strongest magic in the world right here with us.”
Rarity nodded, allowing herself to smile. “Yes… yes, this is good, it means we have a chance.” She straightened herself up. “Let’s go help the others, see what we can do.”
Celestia was able to teleport them out of the school now that she knew the layout.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash were sitting there, waiting with tense looks on their faces.
“Ah just lifted a boulder without breakin’ a sweat,” Applejack said.
“I. Can hear. Everything.” Rainbow Dash put her hooves on her ears. “I could hear your entire conversation like I was part of it! I knew where all of you were the entire time!”
“Oh my,” Rarity said, hoof to her mouth. “That must be disorienting…”
“You think?”
“I’m not any different!” Pinkie shouted from a distance. She followed this up by opening the door to a storage shed, prompting all of her party supplies to erupt out of it like a tidal wave. “Just normal Pinkie stuff over here!” She trotted over to Rarity. “And I got all the party stuff out.”
“Thank you, Pinkie,” Rarity said with an approving smile - not bothering to question if that level of ‘Pinkie antics’ was really normal or not. “It appears we’ve all become one with our Elements.”
“Oh.” Applejack blinked. “Makes sense. So, uh, what can Generosity do?”
Rarity looked at her hoof - not finding any power. “...I guess we’ll just have to find out at a later date. But we can use this to make this go quicker. Rainbow, you’re with me, we can help organize everything. Applejack, you’re on clearing the rubble now, it should go easily. Fluttershy, go see if you can do anything for Twilight. And Pinkie… you and Celestia can go through that party pile, figure out what we can use.”
“Got it!” Pinkie said, saluting and attempting a smile.
Rarity let out a deep breath. “Rainbow, let’s go check the storage room, see how many chemicals we have that survived the transition. You’ll let me know if anything happens.”
“...Sure. Yes.” Rainbow said, shaking her head. “Not like I can ignore it…”
~~~
Discord soon grew bored of his food-producing chore. He turned to seek out other opportunities for entertainment - not that he stopped producing the food. He simply split himself in two and allowed the ‘original’ to sit, mindlessly generating more and more products for consumption.
His other self wanted to go see Fluttershy, but she would probably chide him for dividing his attention, so that was out. He instead went to investigate the caverns beneath the land of Equestria, trailing his claws along the Roots, finding the crystal impossible to scratch.
To think, almost everyone he knew had their spirits locked away in those roots. And those who weren’t…
He purposefully didn’t think about that. Instead, he summoned a chaotic aura around his head and rammed it into the Root, creating a magical interface of sorts between him and what lay inside. There was minimal resistance at first, but he found the harmonious energy of the Roots was no longer quite as toxic to him - it still unnerved him, but it no longer burned.
Soon he was standing in an astral plane of sorts, surrounded by sparks of light and a vague blue ‘ground’.
On top of the ground were over a hundred ponies mixed with a small sampling of other races. Most of them were young, being students of the School of Friendship, but there were a few elders in the group.
What struck Discord the most about these ponies was not their ‘bodies’ - which were nothing more than mental projections that were sometimes inconsistent - but how different they were acting from the ponies he had seen in the real world. Here, everyone was either crying, consoling others, are trying not to break down. They had no work to do, nothing demanding their attention aside from each other, so the pain was coming out in droves. Massive, powerful droves.
“Discord!” Sunset shouted - galloping over to his representation. Running. Galloping. Her representation didn’t seem to have any idea if she was a unicorn or a human, shifting with every few steps. Not that she appeared to notice. “What’s going on? Where did everyone go?”
“Don’t worry, they’re all fine. They’re just cleaning things up out there, which you all clearly need. Badly.”
“But what even is out there!? We can’t see anything but this… astral plane thing!” She waved her hands. “It’s basically a dream-world in here! Nothing’s solid!”
“And you can create anything you want because it’s a dream,” Discord mused, pointing at a cloud house a pegasus student had just dreamed up.
“...This is going to be so chaotic…” Sunset said, jaw dropping. “There’ll be no organization, ponies will just dream up stuff and panic, and… and…”
“I do believe he has no qualm with that,” Zecora said, walking up. “He is well known to wear the chaotic hat.”
Discord chuckled, removing a vibrating technicolor hat that meowed. “I’m glad you noticed.”
Zecora raised an eyebrow before turning to Sunset. “Have faith in your fellow mare, they are still healing from the tear.”
Sunset nodded slowly. “We need to connect with the outside world. We need to see it.” She held out a hand/hoof and felt the magic flow around her. “Discord, if you’re here, there has to be a way to interface… So we can talk to everyone outside.” She glanced into the crowd at Marble Pie - trembling and shaking, shrinking away from anyone who tried to comfort her. “...You should just take us out.”
Discord snapped his fingers - but nothing happened. “Annoyingly, it looks like only Twilight can do that, and she strained herself a bit much taking all her friends out at once. If I’m not mistaken she’s currently passed out on a couch.”
“...You said she was fine!”
“She is. Mostly.” Discord shrugged. “You’re just going to have to live here for a while. And really, is that so bad? Endless chaos, dreams, and you don’t even have to feel pain if you don’t want!”
“The pain we have here is not that kind, I fear,” Zecora said.
“Bah, whatever, fine, Sunset, tell me how to make this interface-thing,” Discord muttered. “I’m bored anyway.”
“I’d need access to the devices I brought over from E-” She choked on the name of the other world. “E-Earth.”
“Busted. Or mostly busted.”
Sunset frowned. “...I can probably tell you how to fix them. You have the power, you just need some… guidance. That will be difficult for me to give without some kind of interface…” She groaned.
“You need the device to fulfill the price,” Zecora added.
“Yeah, sure.” Sunset furrowed her brow. “When Twilight’s feeling better, I’ll need to get out to work on that. Until then…” She turned to the crowd of ponies who were crying - or shouting. “...I’ll try to deal with them.”
“Good luck,” Discord said with a shrug.
“Don’t forget to bring us updates,” Sunset warned him. “We don’t want to be locked in here knowing nothing. It just makes the fear worse.”
“Sure. But no promises as to how often that’ll be. I’ll come when you least expect it!”
And then he pulled himself out of the Roots. He realized with annoyance that while he was in there, his other self had stopped making food.
He cursed the spotty connection before returning to the ever-growing mountain of food.
~~~
Twilight groaned as she heard voices.
“...n’t do anything for her.”
“Can’t?”
“It doesn’t seem to work when you’re not actually injured. She’s just… out of energy.”
“So I suppose we’ll just have to wait for her to wake up then?”
Twilight let out a grunt, letting them to know she was waking up. With immense effort, she dragged her eyelids open. She had been expecting a flood of light to burn her eyes, but instead she was greeted with a soft twilight glow. It was… pleasant.
Rarity and Fluttershy were in the room, standing over her with tense expressions.
“Oh, thank goodness, we were getting quite worried,” Rarity said, helping Twilight up. “You really did a number on yourself…”
“I… I guess I overexerted myself…” Twilight grunted, holding a hoof to her head.
“You’ll have to limit your use of your power,” Rarity said. “We can’t have you passing out every time like that.”
“I don’t intend to try to recreate five ponies at once anytime soon.” She let out a breath. “I… I can’t just leave them in there, though…”
“One a day, dear. One a day.”
Twilight nodded. “I suppose…” She stretched her wings - she had slept on one of them and now the entire limb stung slightly. Noting that she was in her Castle, she walked to the balcony.
It was night - but night here was nothing like night on Equestria. The sun was completely hidden by the dark shell, of course, but it was not dark. The opposite side of the world reflected a copious amount of light back at them, casting a dispersed glow much brighter than that of a full moon, giving the ‘night’ a feeling of dim, eternal twilight. The only dark object was the shell itself, a black dot against the glowing sky. It didn’t seem perfectly circular, but that was something for Twilight to examine at a later time.
Right now she could see mountains, oceans, deserts, and much more beyond that plastered on the sky.
It was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.
“...It is amazing, isn’t it?” Fluttershy asked. Twilight could see there were tears in her eyes - knowing the pegasus, she doubted her eyes had been completely dry all day. “A brand new sky…”
Twilight nodded slowly, not sure what to say to that. “...What happened while I was asleep?”
“We fixed up the School a bit,” Rarity said, pointing at the site in the distance. Artificial magic light made it easy to pick out among the dim scenery. “We now have places for everypony - when you’re ready to get them out. Discord made a mountain of food.” She clicked her tongue distastefully. “Significantly more than we could possibly need…”
“Excess is better than none at all,” Twilight said with a smile.
“We also found that we have the Elements within us,” Fluttershy said. “I can heal now.”
“That’s…” Twilight put a hoof to her chin. “...Good, I think.”
Fluttershy and Rarity nodded in agreement.
“In summary, we’re ready for tomorrow,” Rarity said, stretching her legs. “Most of the others are asleep right now - or trying to sleep. We stayed up to watch you.”
“Thank you,” Twilight said, wiping a tear from her eye. “Not just for that, but for… getting everything ready. You were the right ponies for the job.”
Fluttershy’s tears took over in the middle of her grateful response. She pulled Twilight into a hug, pouring tears down her back. Twilight hugged her close - letting only a few tears out of her own eyes.
She needed to be strong. For all the ponies - ponies like Fluttershy - who wouldn’t be able to.
She needed to turn this tragedy into a new beginning.
A New Equestria.
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And in a very different world, a Scootaloo felt a sudden pang of empathy for her favorite person without knowing why.
In any case, it should definitely be interesting to see what else comes of this in the future. Especially when the natives makes their presence known. Also, nice touch with Sunset's morphic uncertainty. It makes me wonder what shape she'll have when Twilight pulls her out of the roots.
...wait, multiple chapters? What?
Eh. More content, I guess.
Im super excited for this new adventure and where it goes
An interesting first day in this new world.
This may prove fascinating. I do so love a good nation-building story, and this reminds me quite strongly of Island in the Sea of Time.
Totally late response on my part, sorry. Nice to see this continuing. Hmm seems Fluttershy got Mage Meadow Brook's Healing, and Applejack got Strentgh from the Rockhoof. I could only assume the rest got their Pillar counterparts quirks as well. Due how closely tied they are. Epescially what with them being gone now.
Though I find Rainbow's strange. Wouldn't make more sense that Sunset would get to feel everyone's thoughts etc? I mean she literally has the power to read minds,emotions, and see into memories with the Empathy Geode/Amulet, in the EQG series since Camp Everfree. Then again this is, er WAS Equestria so not everything would línea up I guess.
Wow, they just got over the utter destruction of their world right quick, didn't they?
I'm about as coldly analytical as it gets, but even I'd need a few days to recover from Suddenly Apocalypse.