Author Note: Hello y'all! Since this is the only time I'm going to write it: I'm just putting the disclaimer that I own only my original characters and nothing else. This disclaimer goes all the way through the story unless there is a part that I say otherwise (as in I write my own song to insert or something). Also, just saying hello because I feel like it. Enjoy the read!
Far is the Star Called Sol
Prologue
The name: Jason Tiberius Nalick, and he was a nineteen year old that had become the sole heir of the Nalick family one year ago. He was about five feet and five inches tall and had a very slim build that made him weigh only around 125 pounds. His eyes were a sharp dark metallic green, and his sepia colored hair was wavy and swept back in a suave manner. Jason was of Irish-Russian decent, though he lived in the Midwest of the former United States of America which was now a part of the North American Federalized Union, or NAFU. And at the moment, he was also very scared.
Jason's vision was looking at his very tired facial features as he shaved the stubble around a rough goatee. There was heavily ringed dark circles under his eyes only being made more pronounced by his strong nose and brow, and his usually well-kept hair was pointing in various directions. However, that itself was an anomaly since his hair was of very wiry sort, and once it dried it usually stayed in the position it was put in. However, Jason's face is glistening with sweat from the terrible nightmare he had just woke up from moments earlier.
Having nightmare was rare for Jason to start with since he rarely had any memorable dreams to begin with, and he was not one to scare easily, but this had terrified the young man to the core. His hands were even shaking as he attempted to shave, but it had seemed so real. Eventually, the ragged teen stopped attempting to shave and turned the cold water on to splash his face with it.
In the dream, he was stuck in a chair unable to move with straps holding him down and a gag in his mouth. However, that was not what had scared Jason, nor the sight of his friends and family being killed. No, it was the fact he felt absolutely nothing in way of emotion as they died. He had only felt cold calculation on how to escape and destroy the murderer.
Jason splashed his face with the cool water in an attempt to get rid of the image in his head. I had always known I was emotionally deadened, but it scares me that I probably would be doing that in the situation in my nightmare. My brother would know what to do, the pale-skinned teen thought desperately as he stared at himself in the mirror. But he's abandoned me too, hasn't he? He betrayed me along with everyone else so I fight by myself as I always have.
He splashed his face again and started to force his fear down. It is irrational! Jason yelled at himself in his mind. I am a calm, stoic person. I will not let some highly improbable scenario in a nightmare rattle me!
He splashed his face for the last time, and turned the water off as his fear dissipated. His usually calm demeanor returning, his face fell into a neutral position. Jason grabbed the can of shaving cream and started to cover the stubble that he had missed earlier saying to himself, "I will never let such a thing happen anyway."
-X-X-X-
Two months later, Jason shivered as he locked up his old motorcycle to the porch beam and stumbled into his old apartment after another long day of flipping burgers and fruitless searching for work. The apartment was not large, but it was a two bedroom and one bath with the kitchen and living room basically being one long room since there was no real divider except the old brown tile in the kitchen. He took off his shoes, settled his feet onto the soft mud brown shag carpet, and gazed upon the mess of paper settled around the living room that had accumulated over many weeks of job hunting and sleepless nights. But, it was home nonetheless.
The teen sighed in despair as he ran a hand down his face. The dreams had been becoming more frequent, but they were also fragmented. He could not tell what had happened in them or who was in them, but the constant feeling of death, fear, and drive filled every crevice of them. All it seems to sum up to is that soon I'll probably have a mental breakdown that will probably make something terrible happen, but what I do not know.
After he discarded his cold winter coat and coveralls, Jason sighed again as he flopped onto the couch with no more energy to much else except possibly cook dinner and retire to sleep. The dirty white flat paint walls were comforting in a way since they were so familiar, but a twinge of sadness nudged his conscience as he thought on the recent passing away of his mother. It had been her that Jason had inherited the apartment from which he had lived in from eight years old until he moved out at fifteen. That was back before he was laid-off from the General Electric factory a month ago and been forced to work at McDonald's.
The tired young man started to unpack his backpack and retrieved the newspaper. The dates read 3 January, 2016, but this was yesterday's paper so it was actually the fourth. Jason started to read the headline news which showed the stock market making promising progress after the 99 Rebellion that happened three years ago. This made him sigh sadly, because it was the rebellion he had been in. He could not remember much about the two year gap that occurred during the war, but he knew he had been in the hospital for almost a year after it ended. Normally, he had an impeccable— almost photographic— long-term memory, but that two year gap baffled both him and the doctors that had tried to treat him. Even hypnosis failed, because it caused him to have violent seizures.
"Nothing for it though. Just have to move on," Jason said to the empty room without a thought as he began to drift into a light slumber as he enjoyed the warmth of the apartment's base heaters. At least I still have enough money for the basic necessities.
Life had other plans though. A loud CRASH erupted throughout the neighborhood making Jason jump. Quickly, he put on his shoes and ran outside, picking up his old rusted shovel near the door, and approached the disturbance with the shovel in a ready-to-strike hold.
Normally, the teen would have thought himself rude to be waving the shovel around like a madman, but as it turned out there was now a large smoldering crater in his once snow covered yard with rainbow-colored light radiating out of it. He was awestruck as he stood at the edge of the melted snow near the crater. This awe made him drop the shovel onto another human's foot, but the other human did not even seem to notice.
In unfortunate happenstance, humans were usually attracted to things that were usually perceived as dangerous and, even with his logical and usually apathetic disposition, Jason too was drawn by curiosity, more so than the others even since most of his neighbors stayed a fair distance away from it with cell phones in hands. His curiosity was at an almost suffocating intensity.
Slowly, he began to inch closer and closer to the mysterious source of the prismatic light. It was so bright he was forced to shield his eyes with his hand as he started to slide down into the small crater. Then suddenly, the light dimmed to a soft glow originating from what seemed like a multicolored piece of glass. He kneeled down and picked up the mysterious fist-sized object.
It seemed to have rainbow-like structures inside of it with large bands of each of the colors. The young man could see the rainbows perfectly inside the illuminating object. The glass-like substance itself was a translucent purple, however. He studied it more to discover its surface to be completely smooth and with the texture of soft silk. As he fondled the odd object, Jason began to notice that it was becoming smaller the longer he held it.
One of his first conclusions was that his skin could be absorbing the mysterious substance. And only after only a few seconds, it was as small as a pebble and still shrinking at an alarmingly exponential rate. Now, he believed it was turning into particles in the air that he could not see. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Jason noticed the glass-like object was gone. He pondered for a moment what it was made out of, but other events demanded his attention as a green flash surrounded him and two loud echoing female voices in the young man's head said, "We of Equestria require thy assistance."
The young man thought, What the fuck? Then, he no longer felt the ground underneath his feet which made Jason look down to see a forest around 30 feet beneath him. He yelled as he started to fall, "Trees. Trees! TREES!!!"
"Wow! So Earth is real?! Can we go?! Can we?!" asked a maroon unicorn colt with a purple mane and tail as he sat on a large cushion that was on the floor.
"Are you stupid? My mother says Earth is a world full of violence and chaos," arrogantly huffed an alicorn filly that looks remarkably similar to the Princess of Night herself only her hair was straight cut and light blue. She was sitting on another cushion next to him. Neither of the young ponies had their cutie marks yet though. "I doubt you would want to go there, Shining Star."
The colt jumped to his hooves. "Do not insult my intelligence, Astra! Besides…!"
"I WILL NOT TAKE THIS FROM YOU! I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE MY COUSIN!" shouted the small alicorn in a tinny variation of the Royal Canterlot Voice which made the colt shrink slightly.
"Now, now, young ones, do not make me get your parents," quietly said the elder navy blue unicorn on a cushion in front of the two little ponies with enough authority to make the two little ponies stop bickering and immediately sit back down.
"So, is this going to be just a retelling of Jason's life that I've heard a billion times now?" whined Princess Astra with a bored tone.
The elder unicorn smiled proudly. "Only the beginning of Jason's subsequent adventures this is. He has written volumes after this moment in his journal, but I think it is appropriate I should start at the beginning. I actually had to ask him how he made it to this world since he starts his journal shortly after his arrival."
"Wait… Mr. Quill, you're using his journal? I thought Dad ordered it burned along with all of the trans-dimensional notes he gathered from Princess Celestia, King Apollo, Queen Quartz, Princess Candace, and Mrs. Tome," inquired Shining Star in surprise.
The elder nodded with an amused smile saying quietly, "Jason gave me a his journal for safe keeping during his time away. He also has a photographic long-term memory as well you forget. He helped me write this."
"So what's all in this story, old fart?" demanded Princess Astra.
The soft-spoken elder turned the page with his magic with a satisfied smile. "In this story are Jason's adventures and horrors of his life, a biography if you will, but I include so much more than just Jason's perspective. I have taken the time and effort to ask every available language-capable being their side of the story during the events that happen in this tale. It was hard, and some parts I had to use hear-say and just my imagination, but I think it will prove fruitful indeed. This multi-verse is such a fragile thing, and so is harmony, but you do not wish to hear an old fart rant, or at least I would suppose not at least."
"Why doesn't it start sooner? Like during the Amer-i-can rebellion or something?" asked the maroon colt.
Scholar Quill raised a brow. "Why does this story start so late in Jason's life you ask? The reason is: all is explained in time as in a good story as it should be. Now then, let's continue on with the story."