//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Untouchable // by Magenta Gleam //------------------------------// *BEEP* *BEEP BEEP* *BEEP BEEP BEEP!* An alarm clock blares through the room of a young man and disturbs him in his slumber. With an obvious lack of coordination he reaches over to turn off the offending hunk of plastic only to fall over the side of his bed. With a pained groan he stands up, returning to sleep now impossible after the adrenaline rush of falling of the bed. The young man, Eric Hayes, was your typical misguided not quite adult. His thin, rake-like frame and too long dyed hair showed a disconnection from society only further displayed in his lack of personal grooming by a formation of facial hair on his face that was not quite a beard but also showed not caring in his personal image to others. Dragging himself to his computer he turned the screen back on to start his daily rituals, checking for new episodes of anime, searching his forums for anything interesting then watching an episode or 10 if he felt like it. With nothing new or noteworthy to interest him and hunger evident in his stomach Eric walked to his fridge, an old damaged plastic monstrosity and pulled out a box of pizza left over from sometime in the last few days. Finding it still ok to eat he lay three pieces on a plate and heated them up in the microwave while eating a fourth cold. With a ding his breakfast was ready so he pulled it out of his microwave and went into his living room, splayed his body out on his old and ratty blue couch and pulled the remote out from between the cushions. Turning the tv on and finding nothing decent to watch he switched over to his external hard drive deciding to watch ‘The Terminator’ for the 30th time. Seeing the familiar start of his favorite movie Eric ate his pizza, the act of eating and watching a movie distracting himself from how empty his life is. As it was getting to his favorite part a knock on his front door interrupted Eric from his immersion, cursing he paused the movie and walked up to the offending portal to his apartment ready to verbally eviscerate whoever would distract him from such a great movie. Opening the door he looked out over the entrance to his home and saw nothing, there was no one standing there and he wondered if he was just hearing things but quickly dismissed that thought. Wanting to get back to his breakfast and movie he closed the door behind him but before he could even reach the couch another knock emanated from his front door. Rushing to the door he flings it open and calling out, “who the hell is out there?“ “I’m right in front of you, are you blind or something?“ answers a voice that Eric couldn’t see where it came from even though it appeared to be directly in front of him. “If this is someone playing a joke on me just piss off I don’t need this shit,“ Eric said with anger influencing his words. “Hmm maybe the dimensional portal distorts space around me creating a form of invisibility, I wondered why nopony was noticing me.“ said the voice seemingly not paying any attention to Eric. Eric grabbed the front door to close it only to find it caught in a golden aura and refusing to move. “Sorry but since I have your attention I can’t allow for this conversation to end, you see I have been searching for years to find evidence that your kind exists and since finding the portal you are the only human that has been able to hear me. Is there something special about you compared to everypony else?“ the voice asked at a rapid pace. “Look invisible voi- what did you say everypony? What the hell is that about?“ “Can’t you see? I’m a pony, a unicorn if you want to be technical. Ohh right, you can’t see me. Any way human, it’s nice to meet you, my name is Lyra Heartstrings and I only have a few minutes left here until they find me and drag me back. Thank you for proving to me that humans are real and just as smart as ponies.“ As she finished talking a bright flash appeared in Eric’s vision, momentarily blinding him and forcing him to lose balance. Falling forward he landed on something soft, knowing there had been nothing like that infront of him stuns his mind for another moment before the light in front of his closed eyes changes. A pressure around his body forced him to open his eyes and the world has changed, what was once the grey and muted greens of his front porch was now bright shifting colors with no form. Almost like he was on a bad drug trip the world bended around him and the pressure began to build stronger and stronger until everything stopped, the colors exchanged for a white void. Emptiness stretched on forever without change and Eric found himself suddenly very lonely, he collapsed to the ground and cried. Hours must have passed but still he lay there in the blank void crying for the first time in 8 years, not since the passing of his father had he ever felt so truly alone. “Are you just going to do that forever?“ said a voice out from the void. “Who are you? What is this place? Can you get me out of here?“ “Woah one question at a time, or maybe you could ask every question at the same time, maybe you can ask no questions all the time, oh what a sound that might make. But to answer your questions, my name is not important, this is the void between your dimension and mine and yes I can.“ “Then please send me home, I don’t want to be here anymore,“ Eric whimpered. “Ohh I said I could get you out of here but I never said I could send you home, you see when you fell on dear Lyra the force that was pulling her back to her dimension caught you as well but because it was only ready to drag her back the extra load created from your body tore the veil between the worlds that she was monitoring with her magic. At that moment her magic surged trying to fix the hole but it seems that she used too much power and that spread across the rest of the veil, making it too strong to get back through that way.“ “Ok hold on, magic, dimension hopping, none of that is real. You must be lying to me.“ Eric looked out at the void with a glare on his face as he looked around the void with his arms crossed over his chest. “Whatever, believe me or not it doesn’t affect me. All I’m here to do is offer you a choice. Either you stay here for all eternity, your body never aging or you take my offer, I will bring you to my dimension where you will be able to make lots of friend and all you have to do is one teensy little favor for me.“ “What’s the favor?“ Eric asked with suspicion on his voice. “Oh that doesn’t matter now, I’ll just come to you one day and ask you do a small task for me. But this offer doesn’t last long, very soon the hole on my side will close on it’s own and we will both be trapped here.“ Eric looked down at his feet, he didn’t trust the voice but there was no way he couldn’t just stay in this void forever. “Fine, take me to your universe,“ he answered begrudgingly. Suddenly the colors returned, flashing through his vision and the pressure began all over his body again. Steadily it built up as the colors swirling more violently, soon the pressure was too great and the swirling too disorienting. Eric cried out in pain and he felt like his entire body was going to be crushed when he blacked out, a haunting laugh being the last thing he heard while unconsciousness claimed him. Surrounding the small town of Hollow Shades was a great forest, the thickness of the underbrush and denseness of its trees didn’t allow for anything more than the beam of sunlight to enter. Anypony that walked through would quickly find themselves unable to see and it was extremely easy to get lost if you had never been there before, but this was only one thing about the forest. If you knew the area well and could find your way around it was actually a very beautiful place, full of nice looking plants and friendly animals. It was in this forest that a certain event happened, anypony on the ground would have felt the tremors that came first, reverberating out from a nondescript area of trees. The next was a bright ball of light that could be seen through the trunks for miles around, the light condensed into a multi-hued ball of magic that burned away all the trees that came into contact with it before lowering down to the ground creating a perfectly circular crater fifteen feet across. If anypony had been around to see when the magic faded away they would have seen what was in the centre of the ball. A strange creature curled up on itself, pale pink skin on it’s strangely proportioned face and on the claw like appendages that extended from a body almost completely covered in clothing. A black hooded jacket and black faded jeans with thick boots. But there was nopony around to see any of this, just like there was nopony around to see as he woke up, confusion clouding his senses before he climbed the edges of the crater and stalked off into the forest. Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle, It has come to our attention that a strange event has occurred near the town of Hollow Shades to the west of Fillydelphia. At approximately 1825 this evening a bright light and ground tremors were noticed though no causes have yet been established. I have sent a contingent of my Solar Guard to the scene but due to my responsibilities here in Canterlot I am unable to make an appearance in pony. As such I believe this would be a good opportunity for you to learn how to hold the regal bearing of your office as Princess even as different situations cause to you react without prior planning. I have every confidence that you will prove yourself worthy of your position no matter what happens. Princess Celestia. “You better know what you are talking about Discord, if this situation is as dangerous as you say and Twilight comes to harm I will unleash the full might of both my sister and I upon you.“ growled Celestia, her normally stoic demeanor slipping in anger at the infuriating Draconequus laying across her ornate throne. “Dear Celly, have I ever given you reason to doubt me?“ answered the smug amalgamation. “Do you really need me to answer that, Lord of Chaos?