Young Defenders: Universe's Greatest Kids.

"Why is it that I always get stuck into the worse of situations? Why am I in here now?

You wanna know what happened?

You wanna hear the story of how this came to pass?

Well, then better grab a seat, we're in for quite a long story, which takes place in a very distant world inhabited by the most curious creatures of all.

The world I'm talking about, is the magical land of Equestria... Well, it's not exactly a land, it's actually a planet beyond the Outer Rim, about ten parsecs away from New Namek.

This planet is inhabited mostly by ponies. Colorful and magical ponies of four races, all of them with some sort of magical tattoo on their flanks. Pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies cover around fifty percent of the total territory of Equestria, the rest is divided between other creatures, such as griffins, zebras, buffalos, yaks, cows, a strange species called 'changelings,' several other animal and plant species that also exist on Earth, creatures and plants that only exist in Equestria, and there's some sort of underworld which they call 'Tartarus,' which they use as prison for their most dangerous villains.

What's the fourth pony race that I didn't mention? Well, that's an interesting question, for the fourth race is a very peculiar combination of all the other three races. They are known as 'Alicorns.'

They are taller than average ponies, they possess wings and a horn, and each one of them is at least powerful enough to face beings like the Sorcerer Supreme himself, maybe not enough to win, but they'd surely make him break a sweat.

Long ago, there used to be hundreds of them, and since they were so powerful, the other ponies and other creatures, except for the griffins and changelings, respected them and treated them as royalty... Which they became, eventually

Under the command and protection of the alicorns, the Equestrians progressed and lived in harmony for many years.

However, if you know the only inescapable rule of nature, you'll know that everything has to end.

The end of harmony was brought by a being of uncontrolled chaos that called himself 'Discord.'

The alicorns tried to stop Discord from destroying the peace in their planet, but Discord was much more powerful than all of them. Desperation grew more and more as years went by with Discord on the loose, and the alicorns did everything in their power to stop him. But everything proved to be ineffective, and what was worse, they started to succumb in the war against the lord of chaos.

Many fell battling him, others sacrificed their lives for their subjects.

In the end, just two alicorns stood still.

Their names were Solar Blast and Star Glitter, the most powerful alicorns and the rulers of all Equestria.

The duo kept their subjects and all the other creatures as safe as they could, but even they could do so much.

Then, when they thought that there would be no hope for their world, a wise and powerful unicorn known as Starswirl, found a way to stop Discord, using the most ancient artifacts of the universe... The Infinity Stones.

And before you ask, yes, I'm speaking in plural. Sure, normally there's just one Infinity Stone per world, but given to the fact that Equestria is a peaceful planet and that the nearest civilization to them is just as peaceful and as incapable of space flights as Equestrians are, the Infinity Watch left a set of Infinity Stones in Equestria. Plus, not many know about Equestria, just the Asgardians, the Mexica gods, the Infinity Watch, the Holiday Worlds and the Namekians.

Anyway, back to the story.

Starswirl's idea was good, but there was a big flaw with that plan, Solar Blast and Star Glitter were unable to use them safely, as the raw power of the Stones was too big for them. And they knew that if they died stopping Discord, their subjects would fall someday without the protection of at least one alicorn.

The Equestrian king suggested to sacrifice himself to destroy Discord with the Stones, but Star Glitter came up with a better idea. With the help of their magic, combined with the unicorn's knowledge and own power, and being unknowingly aided by the mysterious Guardian, they managed to divide the gems into two pieces. Then Starswirl proceeded to create a special cover for the remains, a cover made of magical crystals which would encase the power of the gems and allow anyone worthy to use the new items.

The result of those actions was the creation of the Elements of Harmony and Disharmony.

Given to the fact that the Elements of Disharmony were akin to chaos, Star Glitter took the task of hiding them as safely as she could, keeping them away from Discord, while her husband used the Elements of Harmony to banish the chaotic being from Equestria.

After Discord was banished, peace returned to Equestria.

However, chaos just moved to our land.

Earth was an unknown world to Discord, but he soon felt at home as he started altering reality. Mortals didn't notice, 'cause the Holiday Worlds are apart from their world, but we suffered a lot.

My father, Kasius Skellington, the Pumpkin King, was the first to face Discord, but nothing he did could hurt the chaos lord.

Soon after, the other Holiday Leaders joined our cause to stop Discord, but like it happened in Equestria, we were no match for him.

As last resource, Sandy Claws and my father gathered the Infinity Watch and asked them to let them use their Infinity Gems to stop Discord. Reluctantly, Adam Warlock allowed it, and so, the powers of Sandy Claws' Time Gem and my father's Tesseract, were combined to return Discord to the world from whence he came.

But my father didn't stop there; he knew that there was something afoot with Discord's sudden apparition on Earth, so he seized the chance to use the Tesseract's control over space to find the homeworld of the lord of chaos, creating a passageway from it to Halloween Town, to the Hinterlands, to be specific.

Thus, the portal from Earth to Equestria was created.

My father sent some spies to find out what kind of world Discord lived into, and they found that he had been turned to stone by Solar Blast. With this information, my old man sent a messenger to seek audience with him and find out why they had sent Discord to our world. But as you can imagine, a monster-ish messenger on a world full of peace and colors wasn't welcomed with wide arms.

After not hearing notice of his messenger for a couple of weeks, my dad sent Dr. Finklestein and a search party to find out what had happened. Out of ten men, just two returned, and the old doc had been crippled by a bearded unicorn, who had been analysing the remains of the messenger.

My dad didn't took it well, he said that such actions were a declaration of war, so he ordered Dr. Finklestein to upgrade our people's weapons to match the situation, by any means he deemed necessary.

Using the residual energy that emanated from the Tesseract, Dr. Finklestein strengthened the spears, swords, shields and flails of our soldiers, as well as my father's armor and his sword.

Shortly after, the Halloween Army walked into Equestria and demanded a formal apology from King Solar Blast for killing his messenger, under the penalty of war if his demands weren't met.

Needless to say, the alicorn king didn't apologize, for he felt no reason to do so.

When the war started, both armies were crippled due to Discord, but that didn't stop both kings, as we were pretty much matched. They had pegasi, we had ghosts; they had unicorns, we had witches; they had earth ponies, we had skeletons; they had magic, we had the Tesseract's residual power.

But as the war grew, the numbers on both sides started to decrease even more. As such, new alliances were formed.

The King of the Griffins, Grober, and the Queen of the Changelings, Chisel, allied with Solar Blast, while two of the Holiday Leaders, Saint Patrick and Cupid, allied with my father.

Seven years of war passed before my mother and Queen Star convinced their kings to make a peace meeting to put an end to the war that was destroying whatever Discord hadn't.

The leaders of all six armies gathered in the neutral land of Christmas Town, where Sandy Claws and Adam Warlock stood as neutral watchers.

After a short discussion, Solar Blast apologized to my dad for sending Discord to our world and inadvertently causing destruction to it, while my dad apologized for terrorizing the Equestrians and for starting the war.

But the deal didn't include just apologizing, no. To mend the damage between our six cultures, they had to create new bonds to build up the trust on each other. So, following the rules stated by the alicorns, the first borns of both Star Blast and my father were engaged to be wedded when the time came. As such, the Princess of the Equestrians and the Pumpkin Prince got engaged even before they were born.

A couple of years after that, Star Glitter had a white alicorn with pink mane and tail, which she named Celestia.

On the other hand, my mother had a plain skeleton baby. Which you can guess was me.

Not even a week after our births, my dad and King Solar met again, this time in Equestria. But some things had changed, like the fact that the changelings demanded Solar Blast to break the deal, as they thought that a simple apology and a marriage were not gonna fix the damage to their kingdom nor was gonna revive their dead soldiers. The alicorns fruitlessly tried to calm them down, but the changelings refused to listen to them and they broke all deals and relations with the ponies.

The same could be said for Grober, Saint Patrick and Cupid, but since the Love of God was quite less headstrong than Grober, Chisel and Saint Patrick, Cupid just forgot his anger and simply stopped all communications with our city.

Aside from sharing the tense relations with their past allies among them, Solar Blast and my dad introduced me and Celestia to each other, to the other's family, and to the citizens of both civilizations.

Three years after that, my mother began taking me on sporadic visits to the capital city that King Solar had built, which they called Canterlot; to get used to be a pony and to get to know all aspects of it.

Yeah, I haven't mentioned it yet, have I? If an Earthling takes the portal to Equestria, they get transformed into a pony, and if an Equestrian takes the portal to Earth, they become either an Inhuman, a mutant, a wizard or a human, we even had a couple of Jedi once... Though we still don't know why. Luckily the effects wear off once you return to your homeworld, but you obviously have to take the portal.

During the first seven years of our lives, I spent around three and a half years being a pony, and Celestia spent nearly three and a half years as a human, switching almost every six months.

However, even if Celestia and I were engaged, I usually spent much more time playing with her little sister, a blue alicorn whose name was Luna... I usually called her 'Lulu,' which was a nickname that I invented and that she loved much more than her own name, even if Celestia says that she was the one that invented it. And speaking of nicknames, since Lulu couldn't pronounce her sister's name that well (she was two years younger than Celestia, after all) she called her sister 'Tia.'

Retaking the real point, Celestia didn't seem to mind that I spent more time with Lulu, as she joined our games whenever she wasn't watching us while she read about the history of Halloween Town and Equestria, or being trained by Starswirl the Bearded... Yeah, I got to meet him too, he was cool but very strict. And speaking of education, Luna developed quite a liking to Halloween after Tia and I mentioned it to her; and with such fascination for scary stuff, she and I made up a holiday similar to Halloween, but for Equestria. She called it 'Nightmare Night,' and after hearing that my dad could transform into a scary scarecrow, Luna made an alter ego for herself, a character that became the flag of Nightmare Night.

She named her transformation as 'Nightmare Moon.'

To say that the first Nightmare Night was a success, is an understatement. The Equestrians liked the idea of having their own horror stories, beginning with one that I invented myself. Celestia helped me spread the rumor that Nightmare Moon was an evil alicorn who devoured ponies each year on a specific night, but there were two ways to avoid it: the first was to wear a costume to not look like a pony, and the other was to go to a statue that Luna had put in the Everfree Forest and leave an offering to fill her stomach so she wouldn't want to eat ponies. At first, the Equestrians left cakes and other foods until Luna scared them posing as the statue, and demanding them to give her candies.

Seeing the ponies that had been terrified by my best friend, made Celestia and I burst out laughing while the poor creatures went to get candy for Nightmare Moon. But our laughter died soon as Tia and Lulu's dad found out about our little celebration.

He didn't like the idea of scaring innocent ponies for candy, and he tried to banish me to the moon for 'corrupting' his daughters' pure mind with my 'dark stuff.' I'm not imprisoned in the Equestrian moon right now because Lulu, Tia, their mother and my mom managed to convince Solar Blast that Nightmare Night was for everyone to enjoy, not just Luna, Celestia and me.

A year later, on the second Nightmare Night, the Equestrians were so excited about that holiday as my people was for Halloween, as they actually liked getting scared, or at least most ponies did. Tia, Lulu and I had created a holiday and it was a resounding success, despite King Solar's reluctance to let it become one. However, I never knew that would be the last time I would see my friends in a long time.

Upon hearing the success that I had when I helped Luna and Celestia to create Nightmare Night, my father decided that since my eighth birthday, I wouldn't visit Equestria until I had learned to take care of Halloween, which made my heart sink... Well, it would've done so if I had one. Anyway, I hated the idea of not seeing Luna as often as I was used to. And to say that she also hated the idea is an understatement.

My impetuous alicorn friend said so many insults such an elegant way that I understood nothing of what she said, I didn't even know they were insults until Solar Blast severely punished her... Which angered me and made me yell insults at the Equestrian king, which angered my mother and made her take my head to wash my mouth with soap... for two hours straight...

After that, my father began to teach me how to scare, but unfortunately I was a slow learner... to the point that even Sally, the sweetest creature in Halloween Town, was above me in the scare ranking...

And speaking of Sally, the young and cute ragdoll developed some sort of fascination for me, which eventually turned into friendship and later grew into a crush. Although I still don't understand why. My friends say I'm horribly ugly, my temperament is generally bad and that all I do is act idiotically without thinking on the consequences, and if I'm honest, I agree with them. I can only guess she has her reasons.

Anyway, Sally helped me through the difficult years of my training in the art of scaring, and soon became my friend, whom I loved as much as Luna. As for the Equestrian princess, I didn't stop thinking about her for four years. Every night I used to look directly at the moon and gazed at it. Of course it was not the moon that my friend raised every night and lowered every morning in Equestria, but simply looking at that sky orb was enough to make me remember her.

After some time, my nights of gazing at the moon became less frequent, but I still occasionally did that and remembered the golden moments I spent with Luna.

When I was twelve, the time when my father decided he was ready to actively participate in the Halloween Town festival, came... needless to say, it was a fiasco because of me.

It wasn't all that bad, since that night I discovered my destiny and my terrifying side. All because I met a group of children who were as weird as me. Those sixteen kids and I formed an organization that we named as the Defenders, together we've gone through a lot that at least half of the people in the galaxy would never even imagine, and the oldest of us was just fourteen when we began our adventures.

We defeated an infection, destroyed a master control, stopped a group of genocidal aliens, killed an evil alien, disbanded a gang of kidnappers, and made sure that one of the Infinity Stones didn't end in the hands of a maniac. Plus, we're trying to stop an dark lord and put an end to a reign of evil.

However, we have never had to fight in a war... well, all of us except for John, and I'm afraid we'll have to do it soon.

Why do I have such an optimistic thought? Well, for starters: I turned fifteen two weeks ago. Second: my fianceé is of marriageable age, according to the Equestrian laws. Third: a group of Equestrian Royal Guards is escorting me to Equestria. Fourth: I still don't love Celestia more than just a friend. Fifth: my friends must think that I was abducted and can't tell them that I'm ok since I kind of forgot my communicator at the headquarters. And finally... I have a girlfriend, and maybe she is a pacifist, but she can be very aggressive when she sees it necessary.

Though not everything is bad, I can't deny that I'm excited to see my first friends again after almost eight years, but all this is very troublesome... Oh, great, now I sound like one of Naruto's friends...

With some luck, I'll be able to sort things out with Celestia and prevent another war... Hopefully my usual luck won't get me into trouble..."