Prologue: Prepare For Your Marriage To Existence
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Stylish Cross Book One: The Lamentation of Salad Dressing
Prologue: Prepare For Your Marriage To Existence
"Finally...after a thousand years, I have broken free of this accursed banishment!" The entity known as Nightmare Moon roared in triumph. "Now I shalll exact my revenge on..." Her tirade was halted by an unfamiliar presence- an alarming entity she did not remember being part of her night sky.
"What is...this?" As she felt the object with her magic, she felt a sharp pain jolt through her, as well as an intensifying feeling of hate.
"Urgh...I see. The selfish ponies down there would never truly appreciate my sky either way, would they?" Nightmare Moon said to herself with a dry laugh. "In that case, I'll bid them good night." Her blackened bipedal alicorn form started to become even more twisted, her fingers turning pointed like claws, and her wings becoming sharp, like blades.
"Good night...forever!"
"...ow, ow, ow..." These were the noises uttered by a young man as he regained consciousness. He stood up slowly, still feeling rather strange. As he adjusted himself, he became aware of his surroundings- an abandoned-looking castle, the area looking incredibly dilapidated, except for one notable thing- a small green crystal shimmering on a table.
“What’s this?” He walked over to the crystal and reached out to grab it. At the exact moment his hands touched it, however...
“Yeow!” The young man yelped in pain as the crystal emitted a small bolt of energy. “What the sauce was THAT?!” He cried out, still reeling a bit from the sudden pain.
“INCOMPLETE DATA.” A voice rang out from seemingly nowhere. “PLEASE INPUT USER DATA.” It seemed to be coming from the crystal.
“Input...?” As the young man said that, a strange projection popped out from the crystal, almost looking like a keyboard.
“INPUT USER NAME.”
“Username? Well, that’s easy enough.” The young man said, approaching the keyboard projection.
“Let’s see. T-O-M.” Tom. That’s my name.” Tom said to himself.
“WELCOME USER “Tom”. SET UP COMMENCING, PLEASE WAIT...” The crystal began to spark, and slowly, its shape changed to resemble a small terminal, resembling a touchscreen phone.
“SETUP COMPLETE. CAUTION ADVISED – CONFIGURATION OF USABLE MEMORY NOT COMPLETE- ETA 180 MINUTES...”
“3 hours, huh?” Tom said, contemplating this information. “Well, at the very least, I should try to figure out where I am first.” He picked up the terminal - this time not delivering a painful shock- and slipped it into his pockets, as he began to search for an exit.
"So, this is the one you chose, Equuleus?" A being resembling an eagle spoke.
"I see great promise in him, he has the soul of a hero." Equuleus responded. Her form was similar to that of a small horse.
"But he's just a boy...how could he stand up to the kind of threats drawing in on that world?" A third figure, resembling a large chariot, queried.
"Don't forget, Auriga- the Star Power bonded to him instantaneously." Equuleus replied. "Even our greatest heroes took more time for their power to manifest." A strange sensation tickled them. "And look at that- he's found the crystal. Let's see..." Equuleus waved her hand and conjured a screen. "So his name is Tom..."
"And? What does it say about his soul? Is there a power to manifest?" Auriga impatiently spouted.
"There is...a strong one too- this boy seems to have quite a fascination with a particular series of stories." Equuleus started. "We can easily extract this form from his soul and give it to him."
"Hm. Well, I'm still not sold- if he can truly bring Luna out of this state, then I'll reconsider." Auriga grumbled.
"Oh, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised." Equuleus hinted, as she began her work.
"As for me, I should probably spread the word to the others." The eagle suggested.
Dawn had broke by the time Tom had made some progress through the bizarre forest. It was truly a place filled with horrifying beasts, and Tom was attempting to be very careful not to even leave a smell.
"GAAAAH WHY DOES BAD STUFF HAPPEN TO ME?!" Tom yelped, having failed at not leaving any traces and is now being chased by a pack of hungry wooden canines as a result.
He ran as fast as his legs would allow, trying his best to dart and weave between the trees. It was mostly successful, barring some scrapes and scratches.
At last he saw the end of the forest, his safety was in sight!
"Haha! I'm not dying today! Screw you, you damn Pokemon rejects!" Tom yelled back at the lessening pursuit of wooden thingies, but as he did so...
*SMACK!*
"Oh my...my brain seems to be pants oblong...good night folks." Those were Tom's last words before he fainted from having run headlong into a tree.
Equuleus stared at the image of the boy she had chosen, collapsed on the floor due to a head injury.
"That boy...I have had my eye on him for some time. As far as physical capabilites go, nothing too exceptional- he's pretty average across the board. His mental abilities are somewhat higher than normal, but that's not what drew me to him. No, the most exceptional thing about this boy is his heart- his emotional resilience."
Equuleus turned to a painting canvas, and with a wave of her hand, the painting filled in with a picture. The picture depicted a boy, and a collage of the things that had happened to him.
"Many terrible things have happened to him, and if it were anyone else, they would most likely have gone mad from the emotional torment. But this boy didn't. He managed to endure these things and still maintain some faith in the world around him, even when..."
Equuleus shuddered, remembering the circumstances that allowed her to put her plan into action.
"No, I can't falter. It's not just Luna that counts on this boy- the fate of that world, and many others, is up to him. I believe he can do it. I have to."
Pain. Everything was pain in all of Tom's senses at that point, even taste.
"Urgh..did someone get the license plate number of that tree...?"
As he was regaining focus, he could faintly make out the traces of a few people looking down at him...as well as some voice, they sounded like girls.
"...is he...ver seen a cri...ke him befor..."
"I thi...rimate....he look....omnivo..."
"You do...think he's a huma...you?"
"I doubt that....humans haven't existed....long time."
"It looks like he's waking up..."
Tom finally opened his eyes, to see the girls that were talking above him...for some reason, they didn't appear to be humans, but some sort of weird hybrid of anime girls and those pony toys you find in dollar stores a lot. At that point, his mind jumped to the most logical conclusion.
"...I must have hit my head a lot harder than I thought." He said, as he sat up. The 5 girls surrounding him all looked at him with various expressions, ranging from worry to distrust to a somehow unsettling excited grin.
"What do ya mean?" One of them, an orange pony dressed in what appeared to be country apparel, complete with stetson, asked.
Tom shook his head with a smile. "I'm probably seeing things- I mean you all look like pony girls."
The 5 of them turned to each other with confused looks and then back to their guest. "We are ponies though."
Tom started to realize that he was, in fact, not hallucinating. "In that case, I think I speak for my entire species when I say WAAAAUGH!" Tom freaked out and hid in the pile of hay he found himself on.
"HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP! First those weird-ass wolf things and now anime pony girls!? What the hell have I gotten myself into!?" Tom's thoughts raced in his panic.
One of the 5 ponies, a yellow one with pink hair and wings on her back, wearing a green sweater and a thigh-length skirt, approached the trembling pile of hay containing the equally trembling human.
"Hey, it's okay...we're not going to hurt you." She said in the most gentle tone imaginable.
"...promise?" Tom whimpered out.
"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." She promised, with some rather peculiar motions involved. Tom slowly stood up from out of the pile.
"Um...sorry about that, I'm still discombobulated from all the stuff that's happened to me." Tom said, still reeling from his meeting with the assortment of colorful pony women.
"So what ARE you anyway?" A cyan-colored pony with a rainbow mane and tail, who seemed to be wearing workout clothes, asked him rather brashly.
"What am I...? Wait, you don't know what humans are?" Tom asked innocently.
The girls all looked surprised. "I told you he was a human!" The pony previously grinning at him cheerily exclaimed.
Tom looked increasingly confused. "Uh...I think I need some context."
"Oh, of course." The last of the group, a white pony with a dark blue mane and tail, wearing a rather fancy looking blue and white dress, walked up to him.
"You see, humans are merely myth here- some say they existed, but others say they're just a fairy tale. But as we can clearly see, you are very real. And in need of a wardrobe update- you look like you've been trampled on!" She explained.
"Trampled...no. Chased by wooden wolf things, yes." Tom deadpanned.
"You mean Timberwolves!? Them varmints keep comin' round here tryin' ta get mah Zap Apples! But they don't come round here around this time of year normally." The cowgirl...pony...lady explained.
"Is that what happened to you? You got attacked by Timberwolves?" The yellow pony asked with increasing worry in her voice.
"Yeah, but the reason I was out cold is because I ran into a tree after losing them." Tom said.
"Well, you're okay now...despite your clothes being ruined."
"I guess there's that..." Tom checked himself over, but realized that something was missing from his person.
"Wait...where'd it go?" Tom kept investigating.
"You lookin' for this doohickey?" Cowgirl-pony held out a device that the crystal from earlier started morphing into. It looked vaguely like a cellphone, but the blue-and-gray color scheme and the yellow meteor-shaped emblem near the bottom made Tom recognize it straight away.
"That's a Star Carrier!" Tom exclaimed. "You found this on me?"
"What's a...Star Carrier?" The rainbow pony asked.
"Well... best way I can describe it is that it's a sort of communication device...there's more to it than that, though." Tom started looking through the menu on the device.
"Let's see..." Tom kept investigating the menu, noticing one of the options had a small picture of sunglasses on it. "Huh, wonder what this does?" He gave the icon a tap. Just then, a holographic screen popped out of the Star Carrier, and on it seemed to be the area around him, but with some strange sparkling fog.
"Weird..." He tapped the icon again and turned it off. "For now, I'll hang onto this." He tried to stand up.
"Wait! Where are you going?" The yellow pony asked again. Tom thought about it, and realized he probably shouldn't try to navigate this area alone, especially if humans didn't exist here.
"...on second thought, I think I'll stick with you girls." At that point, Tom also realized another major issue.
"I...don't think I have any of your names." He said.
"Oh! Well, I'm Rarity, and over here we have Applejack..." She motioned to the cowgirlpony who tipped her hat.
"Rainbow Dash," motioning towards the rainbow pony who gave something of a salute.
"Fluttershy," now to the yellow pony who hid her face in her mane.
"And...wait, where'd Pinkie Pie go?" They had noticed the pink pony from earlier had vanished.
"...let's not ask. It is Pinkie Pie after all, trying to understand her is like trying to smell the color 9." The rainbow one deadpanned. The other pony girls all nodded in agreement.
"Alright, great to meet all of you." Tom smiled. "As for me, my name's Thomas Gallagher, but just call me Tom."
It was a normal day for Canterlot Castle's day court. The current ruler, Princess Celestia, was deeply distracted by thoughts of what should be coming in the next few days, and how to handle it. Unfortunately, this did little for the nobles in front of her. Nor did it do anything to stop their shrill complaining.
"Ugh...for the love of Faust, please SOMETHING make these pompous plot-holes shut up!" The Sun Princess thought to herself with all the royal grace she could, still maintaining a relatively neutral expression (barring the occasional eye twitch).
Almost as if answering her prayers in the worst possible way, a large explosion rocked the castle. Amidst all the screaming and panic, a sinister shadow appears before Celestia herself.
"No...it can't be..." She murmured, eyes widening in sheer alarm.
"Surprised to see me, dear sister?" The shadow spoke with an arrogant, yet slightly growling tone.
"L...Luna...how did you escape? The stars weren't to align for another week or so..." She asked, but then took note at the shadowy pony's form. It was considerably more bestial than it was before, almost as if the escaped Nightmare had been fused with a wolf.
"My Faust, Luna, what happened to you!?"
"This? This is the new power that I have been granted. And you know why I'm here?" Nightmare Moon growled.
"E-eternal Night..." Celestia stammered, becoming more unsettled by her sister's horrifying altered body.
"Eternal night? Ha! Those pathetic ponies don't deserve to be blessed with the wonderful night sky!" She scoffed, while flexing her clawed hands.
"Then what? What do you intend to do!?" The sun princess yelped in panic.
"Oh, dear sister...the ponies here could never understand us. They have overstepped their limits, and thus I feel a bit of...population pruning is necessary." Upon hearing her twisted sister's plans, Celestia's jaw dropped.
"Are you mad!? You intend to..."
"My Faust, sister, do I need to spell it out for you? Yes, I'm going to KILL THEM." Nightmare Moon bluntly stated.
Celestia took a few steps back. This wasn't her sister...even as Nightmare Moon, she only sought to make ponies appreciate her. But now she was willing to slaughter any amount of innocents! What happened to her?
"And now, sister, I think I'll start off with the one who put me in this position to begin with!" She yelled, brandishing her claws and lunging at her sister, but the sun princess teleported away.
"Bah, coward! I knew she wouldn't try to fight me!" She growled. "But it is of no concern...there's no escape from me, even in your dreams..."
Meanwhile, in the Canterlot Library...
"Let's see...magic resonance, usage of multiple casters to amplify a spell..." A lavender unicorn girl dressed in a white shirt with a purple vest and a dark purple skirt sat there, reading a large tome.
"You know, Twily, there are more books than just magic ones." A second unicorn girl, yellow with red-and-yellow streaked mane, sat next to the lavender one.
"I know that, Sunny...it's just I'm trying to study on as many magic techniques as I can since-" Twilight started, but Sunset cut her off.
"-Nightmare Moon is supposedly coming back, yeah, yeah." She waved off the concerns. "Even if she did, I could take her." Sunset boasted.
Just then, Princess Celestia appeared before them instantaneously.
"P-p-princess!" Sunset stammered. "Uh...what I meant to say was-"
"No time! Twilight, go get Spike now! We need to go!" Celestia panicked.
"Why? What-" Twilight started again, but the princess cut her off.
"Less dragging your hooves and more dragon assistant here!" She barked, Twilight immediately running to get her assistant/little brother Spike. She came back soon after, dragging the baby dragon by his arm.
"Jeez, what's going on?" Spike asked.
"All of you are assembled? Good, off we go!" Celestia's horn glowed, and they all were teleported away from the castle.
They found themselves on an already moving train. It seemed like it had been prepared for them in advance.
"Princess Celestia, what's going on?" Sunset asked.
"I'll explain soon enough, but now we make our way to Ponyville!" She exclaimed.
If the star signs were correct about this, then not only will the Elements of Harmony be there, but a new hero, the likes of which Equestria's never seen before. I just hope they can handle this new Nightmare...
Author's Note
The new story begins now! With the appearance of the human, Tom, and the early return of Nightmare Moon, things have already begun to deviate from the original story!
But next time, we'll see not only the true power of the Star Carrier, but Tom himself has a few surprises of his own- that may even surprise himself!
Next Chapter: This Instruction Manual's Written In Zucchini!
