//------------------------------// // Prelude // Story: TCB: Not Without My Cat // by StormLuna //------------------------------// Over the past several years, what was once thought of as a mere anomaly in the South Atlantic Ocean had begun to grow, consuming everything in its path. Many people across the world had begun to realize that this was no mere anomaly in the magnetic field, it was a pocket universe expanding. It was a year or so after it formed, that the inhabitants of this pocket universe made themselves known. Those who made themselves known were the ponies of Equestria. The ones who let themselves be known were two Alicorns, a large white one that went by the name of Princess Celestia and a somewhat smaller dark blue one named Princess Luna. Much of the world was stunned that such creatures existed. For some people, when they learned that the universe of the ponies would consume the earth and the only way to survive would be to become "ponified," they were intrigued and bought into it easily. Soon the conversion bureaus would begin to open across the world and people began to go and "get converted" as those in the media called it. One thing that the princesses let be known was that there would be a little less than eight years for everyone to convert after the anomaly first appeared. Those who failed to convert would die. One thing that the princesses and what became known as the world government continued to pound home, "convert and live as a pony or die as a human." Not everyone believed this and some even believed that it was all some sort of ploy for what some called "The New World Order" to control them. Those people believed that the whole ponification thing was fake despite newly transformed people, known as newfoals, being shown on TV. There were two groups who thought this way the most. There were those who had rational mindsets and believed that such things could not exist and the other group were the politically conservative types who bought heavily into religion who thought it was the work of demons. Storm, a man in Rock Springs, Wyoming, was in the former group. Throughout his life, he had always been fascinated by science and laughed at the idea of things such as talking ponies and pocket universes. To him, those were the products of science fiction and children's cartoons. He was one of those types that had to see it to believe it. While the princesses had made addresses over television, he didn't believe such things were real. He knew how far technology had advanced and figured that it was just the government trying to scare people into getting chipped. He knew pets had been being chipped for quite some time so if they got lost, they could be returned to their owners. He knew this because his cat had one of those chips. While he thought such chips were great for pets, he was strongly opposed to chipping humans. While he was a scientific minded person, he did have his concerns that this would wind up being something similar to how the Nazis would tattoo people in the concentration camps back before and during World War II. One thing that Storm noticed was happening, especially after it had been seven years after the anomaly first appeared. He noticed that the global population drop had begun to increase dramatically and that the availability of many products had begun to decline and when it came to some products, they declined significantly. As a welder, this had harmed his business as getting the proper materials was becoming increasingly difficult, costly and the demand for his services were also in decline. One thing about the area where he lived though was that while the population was in decline, it was not quite as bad as it was in other areas. This caused him to become even more suspicious of the government but soon his views would begin to change when what was known as "the barrier" had finally reached North America. His whole family was much like him and when the barrier moved across Florida and took his brother along with his wife and kids, he finally began to put stock into what he had always viewed as the work of an out of control global government. He then began to do research on the conversion bureaus, the conversion process and Equestria and while everything seemed to sound good, there was one thing that he did not see anything about and it was something vital to him. He did not see anything about whether the process works with pets because he was not about to leave his beloved cat behind to die while he would be transformed to a pony and be able to survive. He then thought to himself, "Well I may as well go and see if I can take my cat with me to Equestria. If I can, that will be great. If I can't, I will stay behind and die as a human."