Kamen Rider Harmony! Chronicles of the Crystal War

by Tekketsu

Chapter 1: A whole new world

“Ok, let me get this straight…” I said, bringing one hand up to my face. “You somehow managed to pick up transmissions from another world on your grandmother’s old radio,”

“Yup.” she nodded.

“You spoke back and forth with the person on the other si-”

“Pony, actually.”

“Person on the other side, who instructed you on how to build those.” I pointed to a pair of small devices on the desk, each the size of a small tablet. “And now you want my help in traveling to this other world- which by the way is from a little girl cartoon.”

“That’s the gist of it, yeah.” She gave a shrug, the awkward smile never leaving her face.

“Jess, what the hell.”

“I’m glad you asked!” She stood from her chair and strode over to the desk. She picked up one of the devices. “At first I thought someone was playing a prank on me, cuz you know I used to be a pretty diehard fan of MLP, but these babies right here are proof that that world exists.”

She pressed the device to the front of her waist and a yellow belt extended from either side of it, securing it to her body. When the belt latched itself in the back, the buckle proclaimed in a synthesized voice,

“[Duo Harmony Driver]!”

I stared at the Driver blankly.

“No, no Jess.” I said. “I’m the Tokusatsu fan, you’re the pony fan.”

“Exactly. Lyra was super confused why I was so dead-set on making the devices belts, but I knew you’d be in if I catered it to your interests as well as mine.”

“Okay, well that doesn’t explain how that proves anything.”

Jess gave a smirk and flipped one of the small levers on the Driver’s side, causing a stylized image of a horn to appear in front of it.

“[Unicorn Mode]!”

She held out a hand towards me, and it as well as the chair I was sitting in lit up with a light-blue glow. She quickly moved her hand up, and I had to grab onto the armrests as the chair suddenly levitated into the air! My impromptu flight ended with my face about an inch away from the ceiling as the chair came to a stop and floated perfectly in place.

“How’s that for proof?”

“I-it’s good.” I said, shaking. “Please let me down.”

The glow around the chair dissipated, and the chair fell. I tumbled onto the floor, and laid face-down on the carpet for a few moments.

“You good?”

“M’finn.”

I pushed myself off the floor and looked up at her.

“You’re crazy.” I deadpanned.

“Would you have it any other way? Here,” She helped me up. “Put this on and we’ll be off.”

I took the other Driver and examined it. It was rather simple in design, just a rounded rectangle with a glass dome in the center. The left side was raised, while the right had a groove where it looked like something could be attached. Each side had three small levers that sat almost flush with the casing. Finally, on top was a slot that looked like it would line up with the glass dome.

I grabbed the Driver by the front of the casing and equipped it, eliciting the same announcement of the device’s name.

“Face towards me, and on my count, flip the rear lever on the left.” Jess instructed. “On three… two… One!”

We both flipped the levers at the same time, and a beam of light shone from both glass domes, meeting in the middle to form into a sphere of swirling blue and purple energy.

“Yes! Yes, this is actually working!”

Jess had a look of pure, unadulterated excitement. It was a look I’d rarely seen from her since our high school days. Seeing her like this again… it gave me a weird sort of feeling in my chest.

The beams of light thinned until they dissipated, but the sphere remained. It slowly split off thousands of smaller specks of light, looking like a miniature galaxy.

“So what now?” I asked.

“Well, we’ve just created a one-time portal to Equestria…” She said, moving over to my side of the room. “I think we go through it now.”

“Yeah, no.” I turned away from the portal. “I helped you make your portal into a silly cartoon world, but I am not- woah!”

Jess grabbed me by the wrist and ran into the portal, dragging me along. Inside the portal was a long tube of energy, and a sudden shift in gravity so we fell towards the other end. I can neither confirm nor deny that I screamed like a little girl inside the portal.

We reached the other end of the tube and were deposited in a heap on the ground. Despite being the first one through the portal, Jess managed to land on top of me… and suffice to say she hasn’t been that skinny, borderline-anorexic girl I knew in High school for a while.

“Jess…” I choked out. “Crushing… me.”

“I landed right on your Driver, so I’d say we’re even.” She said, rolling off of me and rubbing her lower back.

I sat up and took a few large breaths while observing our surroundings. We had been dropped into a snowy wasteland, somewhere near the mountains. Purplish-brown rocks jutted up from the snow all around, looking like the teeth of a great and terrible beast lurking just below the surface. This area had clearly been a battlefield, though how long ago was uncertain. Pieces of metal and cloth littered the ground, most half-buried in snow along with the remains of swords and spears. High above, dark clouds covered the sky, letting in only the barest rays of sunlight.

“Where are we?”

“Huh?” Jess looked up from the snow. “I’m not sure. I expected we’d be spat out at one of the major population centers. Ponyville, Canterlot, maybe one of the horse-pun-counterpart-cities, maybe even the Crystal Empire.”

“Over here!” Came a voice from over a hill. Both of us instantly looked in that direction. “The magic spike was over here!”

Moments later a pony, covered horn to hoof in warm-looking cloth crested the hill. She scanned over the area, before her eyes locked onto us. Then, a large group of ponies in armor, carrying spears followed her lead.

“He-” Jess began, but an intensely cold glare from the bundled mare quieted her.

“Lieutenant, these creatures were the cause of the spike. Apprehend them for my research.” She said to one of the armored ponies.

And then they began to close in.

---

[[Kamen Rider Harmony]]

(I’m not going to inflate my word count with a written-out anime-style opening sequence, so just listen to the music I would have used and imagine it yourself)

---

Jess and I walked in silence, between two of the armored ponies. Both of our hands had been bound with chains made of magic, each leading back to the horn of one of our escorts. Up ahead what looked like a camp was slowly coming into view.

I slowed my pace slightly to walk next to Jess.

“Why are we cooperating again? And… not letting them know we’re intelligent beings and not some random creatures?” I whispered to her.

She hesitated for a good minute before responding.

“Because there’s something seriously wrong going on.” She said, finally. “I’m a bit fuzzy on voices, but I’m fairly sure that scientist mare in all the warm clothes is Twilight.”

I looked ahead at said mare. She was levitating a notebook in front of her as she walked, jotting down what looked like chicken scratch at this distance in it with something halfways between a quill and a pen. She had on a pair of saddlebags, which proudly displayed a symbol of a purple comet.

“Twilight? Like, main character, right?”

“Yeah. Unless those saddlebags are on loan from a friend, that’s not what her Cutie Mark is supposed to be.”

“Every time you say that word I throw up in my mouth a little.”

“What, Cutie Mark?”

“Ye-eughs…” I said with an exaggerated gag.

“Quiet back there!” One of our escorts commanded.

We both shut up, and didn’t risk talking again until the group had reached the camp. The camp consisted of a multitude of small brown tents arranged in a large rectangle, with a log building at one end and a larger tent at the other. Several more armored guardsponies milled about, but for the most part the residents were unarmored and bundled up like Twilight.

A pair of ponies, standing around a fire pit, stood out for being in black and dark-blue uniforms rather than armor or warm bundles of cloth. One had tan fur and a two-colored mane of blue and pink, and the other…

“Hey is that…” Jess started. “It is! Hey! Hey Lyra!”

Jess held up her bound hands and waved them as one, getting the attention of the bluish-green mare.

“Jess?!” She exclaimed, then galloped over to us. “Guards! Let those two go!”

"Lyra, what are you doing?" Twilight stuck out a hoof, stopping her from going any further. "These two are important research materials."

“They are most certainly not research materials! That,” She pointed a hoof at Jess. “Is Jessica Cruz, the Human I have been speaking with for the last two Lunar Cycles. I don’t know who that is with her, but I’m sure she’s just as important.”

“Uh, excuse me, I’m male.” I said.

“Oh! I’m so sorry.” She gave an apologetic bow. “I’ve only ever spoken to female Humans before.”

“What is going on over here?” The other uniformed mare asked, trotting over.

“Special Operative Sweetie Drops,” Twilight greeted. “Your… partner here is attempting to commandeer valu-”

Sweetie Drops held a forehoof up to Twilight’s muzzle, silencing her. Seeing one of the Equestrian’s hooves not wrapped in cloth, nor a foot deep in snow, made me realize just how different Equestrians were from Earth equines.

Her forehoof was less of a hand than a hoof, but still less of a hoof than a hoof. So it was less of an entire hoof that she silenced the disgruntled scientist with, and more a single finger.

“I would prefer to hear the situation from my loyal, trusted partner first.” She turned to Lyra. “Lyra?”

“These are Humans, Jessica Cruz and her plus one, couriering the results of a three-lunar-cycle scientific collaboration. Presumably, Twilight and her excursonary team discovered them en route, and returned to camp with them in irons.”

She turned back to Twilight.

“Anything to add, miss Sparkle?”

Twilight was absolutely fuming.

Literally, there was steam rising off her horn.

“Nothing.” She growled out, her left eye twitching madly.

She gestured at the guards, who dispelled the magic-chains binding me and Jess, then stomped off into the camp, taking the guards with her. Sweetie Drops watched this over her shoulder with a sigh.

“I am sorry for our lead researcher’s behavior, she’s been rather stressed lately.”

“Heh, usually it’s me you’re apologizing to others about.” Lyra said with a grin. “C’mon, let’s head back to me and Bonbon’s tent and we can look over those Drivers.”

So the four of us headed into the camp, towards one of the smaller tents. As we walked, I got to talking with Sweetie Drops… or is it Bonbon?

“So,” I started, “Back there, you called Lyra your ‘loyal, trusted partner’. Are the two of you… y’know…”

“Dating?” She said flatly. “No. We’re just best friends– Best friends ever since we were fillies, but despite what somepony’s dad thinks, we are not marefriends. Besides,” She stops walking, and glances through the opening of the large, military-looking tent, blushing. “I have my eyes on a different prize.”

Curious of who -or possibly what- she was staring at, I bent down to be on her eye level (which wasn’t very far, since most ponies I’ve seen so far are only about a foot and a half shorter than me) and looked into the tent. Inside the tent, propping himself over a table, was a tan unicorn stallion with a wavy brown mane. He was wearing a red cape that obscured his Cutie Mark (euugh), and a hemet similar to the ones the guards were wearing was sitting on the table beside him.

I have absolutely no idea what ponies consider “handsome”, so I can only assume he is good-looking by their standards.

“So what about you? Is that Jess-human your marefriend? Hmm?” Bonbon wiggled her eyebrows at me.

I looked down at the snow.

“No.” I said solemnly. “Jess and I tried it, but that ended disastrously. Thankfully the two of us were mature enough to maintain our friendship despite the breakup.”

“Well it sounds like you just need another chance at it.” She turned and started walking towards where Lyra and Jess went again. I quickly started following. “Besides, you two’ll be spending a lot of time together from now on.”

“I don’t know…”

“Trust me. I’ve seen time and time again over the past two years that relationships forged while fighting side-by-side are some of the strongest.”

We came to a tent that was just tall enough for me to stand next to and not be looking over it. I stepped to the side and let Bonbon enter before me (ladies first after all), but then she stopped halfway through the flap.

“Huh? What’s wrong?”

I bent over and stuck my head through the flap, and I too froze.

Jessica was laying on the ground inside the tent, and had blood dripping from her eyes and nose, with Lyra standing over her. Lyra turned and stared directly at me, a blank look of utter terror and worry on her face.

“Help.”

Comments

[Heptameron]

stuff is getting real interesting really fast