The Arising Cartoon Pony

by Darkonshadows

Luma-nation

“Take a melody…”

A discordant note plays; Discord formed a tiny curled pink form and then grew it into a teenager and gave it intelligence along with some information about its surrounding. All of it was to play a prank on ponies and annoy them even further, Discord hadn’t really thought of what he had done or that he had created a life. He had given birth to something wonderful to just abandon it to its own devices.

“Simple as can be…”

A pink with purple and white streaked haired pony sat watching at what would soon be her death, she didn’t know what death would feel like she just accepted it was coming. The six glowed brightly, the rainbow wave dropped down on him and as it turned him to stone all that he created evaporated in an ever expanding wave, she closed her eyes and a few tears slid down her face as she welcomed inexistence.

“Give it some words and…”

Eyes opened to see that she had not disappeared she was still here, she saw that which gave birth to her turned to stone and that order had asserted itself on the world and yet… she still existed. The world was beautiful without his chaotic taint, but her pet cloud had disappeared the one thing she really cared for was gone.

“Sweet Harmony…”

Wandering around she wasn’t exactly the most liked pony, because of her spiraling pupils that told others she was born from chaos or for some reasons ponies just despised seeing her eyes. She was lonely until she met a filly younger then herself that helped her learn how to survive. She couldn’t stay with the younger pony as she was a burden and so she left, she left a note hoping that the filly understood her reasoning as she required more food and that the filly had a good thing going for herself. She looked to the city on the distant mountainside.

“Raise your voices, all day long now…”

Sitting on the streets she had seen both horrors and generosity in equal measures, she was starving when a beige stallion with brown mane looked down at her. She really didn’t hope this was one of the less nice ponies that did horrible things to other ponies. She whimpered and scooted away from the other pony, but one look in his eyes and she started to come out of the darkness. He sat a bag down and she looked into it and then at him, he smiled and turned around and left. Food… sweet and delicious, somehow her silent cries for help were heard.

“Love grows strong now…”

There was that princess that cared for the orphan foals running around Canterlot and then that weird pretty bug pony captured her, looking around I decided to write a on a scrap piece of paper… nothing to write with. There was a great amount of love for the princess who was caring enough to be out and about the dangerous streets to help those avoiding the orphanage. She bit the tip of her tongue and carefully worked it over the sheet of paper, she waited for the blood to dry and balled it up and threw it at one of those armored guys seen around the mountainside city of Canterlot. One of her talents was throwing things and she got the message out.

“Sing a melody of love…”

It almost didn’t work as the bug thing was soon overtaking the guard that the warning was thrown at. She watched sadly not being able to do anything about the transforming bug, she couldn’t do anything and didn’t want to be in a dank dungeon to die much faster then she already was. Soon that changed in the coming days when an explosion of love energy erupted around the city, it tingled as it coursed its way through her body. Soon there was a party and she had somehow managed to sneak in, but the guards were going to throw her out after quickly finding the riffraff as they would call her. The nice recently married princess lady pushed the guards away and gave her some cake, an unknown and yet very special reward for a good deed. Not to mention all the free food at the buffet tables.

“Oh love…”

Almost broken by lack of food and haggard in appearance, she was getting really sick when a red pony looked down upon her. There was fire in her green eyes a spark of interest and a wild curious nature. She then started chanting, she was a winged pony. Truly she wondered was how the red one was able to cast magic. She was frightened by the first weird spell and then within the next two she felt a soothing energy settle over her as the sickness fled her body, then she felt like she was all better and less dirty. The red one scooped up the small pony into backpack whispering sweet words; there was a white coated pony nearby with an electric blue mane like that of that guard the big bug pony was messing with some time ago. Then she was in said backpack and feasting on a lot of food, more food then she could have ever seen before in her entire life and a lot of it was cheesy goodness.

It wasn’t just sweet affection or kindness for a lost soul, for once in her life she felt loved.

Screwball opened her bleary eyes and saw an entire universe laid out before her, left leg jerk followed by right knee itch. Why did her body keep… oh goddesses the pain! Before she could reach a hoof up to her head she felt a calming hand hold her right hoof down, she heard a calm shushing and then she felt her body being cradled. Her eyes had reflexively shut from the pain, she felt a calm feeling of grass against her lower back and she felt a brush run through her mane.

“There, there… you’ve had a nasty fall young one. Just relax, everything will be okay, you gave all my children quite a fright falling here as you did.” The voice was soothing and calming, Screwball relaxed and heard a heard a bunch of squeaky noises coming from around her.

Slowly opening her eyes Screwball saw the universe again, looking to her left and right she saw grass and blur small shapes hovering about her head. They looked like… stars? Where was she? Were those flowers lying in a circle around her? Did she die and one of the nine extra lives she accrued fail to take effect?

“Why you’re at my Comet Observatory young miss, I’m Rosalina. I am a protector of the cosmos and my children the Luma’s.” Looking up Screwballs questioning spiral eyes looked into a kind gentle human face or at least she assumed it was human, there was a thrum of power coming from the single visible left eye of this Rosalina were very small white specks that shined like the stars themselves. Her other eye was cover with a rich vibrant blonde hair the most of which hung down to the middle of her back. The face gave her a gentle smile obviously this was Rosalina. “And yes I can read you mind and no you weren’t speaking silent protagonist… then again I don’t know why it’s called that when there are as many silent enemies in the gaming realms.”

Looking further over the form cradling her Screwball took note of her beautiful light teal and white dress, the star brooch and earrings. Her head decided to fill her with pain again, but it was less then it was before.

“Mama, is the pretty pony going to be okay?” The yellow star thing with two dark eyes asked as it hovered onto Screwballs nose tickling it. The pony sneezed sending the cute little star flying in a fit of giggles; it carefully floated its way back over to her not trying to land on her nose again.

“I’ve always wanted a pony!” Another star like creature said, this one was Green with the same kind of eyes.

“Do you think she has any star bits on her? Isn’t it almost lunch time?” A red star said waving its tiny little arms with excitement.

“Settle down now, she will be just fine my children, Polari… some disinfectant, bandages and get some food from the kitchen if you will? It is almost lunch time anyway, I don’t want my guest to have to eat the beautiful flowers my children are so proud of, oh and please don’t get lost in another dwarf star near the recreation of the universe again.” Rosalina suddenly heard Screwball vocally protest the bandage and disinfectants, she wondered why that was. She halted the little dark star with blue eyes and it turned back to face Rosalina.

Screwball carefully tried to focus on speaking to the lady whose lap her head currently resided in, not to mention the soft gentle strokes were almost lulling her gently back to sleep. She started to channel the white magic spell Cura and Rosalina quickly caught on to what she was doing.

“Just get some food then Polari; it seems our guest can use white magic to some degree.” Rosalina smiled, she was happy that her newest guest in a while wasn’t in danger from her head injury any longer.

With a flash a green soothing mist of the Cura spell alleviated a lot of the pain from Screwball was feeling. Soon she tried to sit up, but Rosalina sat a gentle palm on her chest.

“Sit, you need your rest. Casting healing magic in your condition must take quite the bit energy and Polari will be back with some food shortly. Now will you please tell me, how you came to fall upon the Terrace?” A bunch of the star creatures gathered around Rosalina giving shouts of ‘mama’ and ‘story’ and all hunkered down into the grass around Rosalina with their eyes all glued to Screwball. While they were cute, at the same time they could come off as a bit creepy.

Screwball related the story of her time at Spiral Mountain, how she was enjoying her new life with her mom that happened to be a bird named Kazooie. She eventually got to the point where she was picked up by her uncle who a sweet honey bear in yellow shorts named Banjo and got into a fight with sleeping chaos. Next she explained that after Chaos woke up, he quickly started following them around and was rather friendly. Soon she talked of how she was taught how to be a cartoon character. Eventually it rounded out to the fight in the parking deck in Fourside City. The last thing she remembered was Banjo throttling a Chuck, Chaos was ripping two Joes in half and their strange baseball bat wielding allies were thrashing the other enemy characters soundly. The story ended as she gave chase to and fought the ring leader of the whole Professor Theo kidnapping thing, where she was bean balled in the forehead by Strike Man’s last shot before he exploded. After that, things got strange for her as she blacked out into a strange dream; last thing see could tell she saw visibly was her thick mane flying into her vision.

“Ah, so you learned to wield the Rebound Striker? That was no dream, it was just a moment in time the game realm he was from forced you awake despite your injury and made you showcase the weapon in question. You must have had the ability to wield it or you most certainly wouldn’t have learned it.” After a moment of getting a frown from Screwball, Rosalina watched her cough up a pink baseball to blankly stare at in a mildly surprised manner. After a moment it disappeared from her hoof with but a thought. “What will you do now Screwball? Where do you wish to be? I can almost swear you wanted to fall here, but I know it is only a coincidence and you are my guest. I shall remove these bandages from you head now, so relax and deliberate on where your travels will go to next.”

Those were a really good questions; Screwball didn’t know what happened to Banjo, Chaos or those other guys. She was currently lost and with a quite frankly helpful host brimming with an unknown power, who was now removing blood saturated bandages from her lightly aching skull. Now she had a question of her own, how exactly had she gone from falling onto a solid cement floor to a soft grassy field at the edge of strange place that she was just now taking in. The spire and the rotating stuff were marvelous to stare at for a while, she was on a veritable space bound palace of the likes she had never seen before and she really hadn’t been in space all too much before this.

“When one falls, does one not immediately wish for a soft landing?” Rosalina asked with a hint of amusement in her voice, she let off an airy laugh and petted one of the little floating star creatures affectionately. Turning back to Screwball she continued to remove the bandages once she finished Screwball looked around trying to feel for her missing hat. “Though you kind of miscalculated the distance, the soft landing was still the outcome you desired most and you achieved it by landing here. You are quite powerful young one and yet so very fragile like my children the Luma’s. They may be small but they can do grand things of which you would never believe unless you see it with your own eyes.”

“We got the food mama!” Polari said as several stars Screwball now identified as Luma’s were carrying several platters of vegetables to the grassy knoll Screwball had landed on. There was also a really large bowl devoted entirely to these strange crystal shaped rocks that Screwball stared at blankly as it was set down by the stars carrying it. There was also a platter with a large three gallon sized tea pot and plenty of cups with bendy straws. Just about every Luma in gathered in a collective mass and were picking up the crystal things and shockingly enough grew mouths to swallow them whole before chewing.

“Don’t be afraid to try new things young one. Those are star bits, the absolute favorite snack of my children and I admit to liking them as well since they taste like honey.” Smiling sweetly Rosalina picked up one to offer on the palm of her hand; she thought it was kind of silly as this is how she would give a horse a sugar cube. She was amused because Screwball was a very cute sentient being, just a little chaotic around the edges and overall sweet in personality. “Star bits never go bad and they never carry bacteria and are always packed with energy. It’s never unhealthy to eat one really, even if it’s been sitting in a garbage can for a week it’ll be perfectly safe for consumption. I would suggest you should wash your hands… err… hooves first before doing so. If such an occasion occurs, even if the star bit is clean the stuff you touched to get to it most likely wasn’t.”

Sniffing the odd shaped rock that was purple in color she took it in her mouth and with a solid crunch her taste buds were in heaven. It did in fact taste like honey, but there was a bit more too it as the flavor had a sense of peace about it and it was a bit euphoric in a way.

After a moment of watching her a few children that weren’t currently snacking on the star bits struggle with the teapot, Rosalina sighed and lightly nudged the Luma’s away from pot. Their squeaks of disappointing their mama clearly etched into their little eyes and much to Screwballs surprise a dark orb formed in Rosalina’s hand. She simply placed this orb into the teapot and then it levitated and started to fill the cups automatically on its own. The Luma’s that disappointed their mother were given reassurance by a pat on the head and a gentle kiss each.

“Would you like some tea? We have much to discuss.” After receiving a nod from her, Screwball watched as a Luma carried the cup over to her with the barest of motions from Rosalina’s head. The Luma then went to a nearby straw of an already filled cup and started to drink some of the tea in tiny sips. Sitting down in the grass to look at Screwball who has yet to move from her position where she woke up from, Rosalina randomly plucked a Luma from the air to hug it to her chest lovingly. “I suppose you want your hat back? It took a few moments for me to fix it and it’s good as new.”

Screwballs eyes widened as she reached up to her head and poked around her fluffy puffed out freshly brushed mane to find that her hat was missing and was looking to already come close to tears. Rosalina put two fingers to her mouth and with a sharp whistle; a large pink Luma floated over with Screwballs hat and proffered it to her. Screwball quickly took it and it once again made its home on her head. She quickly picked up a carrot from the platter of vegetables to start munching on it, her mood already brightening fast.

Starting off her first question with a sip of an interesting bland taste of tea, Screwball asked Rosalina with a single pointed stare if she could tell her what happened to her uncle and friend. Not to mention those four other guys that helped them out of a jam.

“Yes, but I can only show you what has happened an hour after it has already occurred. So far it’s been quite a while since you have woken up, so yes I have the ability to show you what has happened.” Picking up a chunk of celery Rosalina a satisfying crunch was heard as she bit down on it. After a bit of chewing it over literally, Rosalina decided to ask a question of her own. “Tell me… have you ever heard the phrase ‘the stars shall aid in her escape’ before coming here?”

Screwball hadn’t heard that phrase before, now it was her turn to ask a question while partaking in a few cucumber slices. She asked how she was going to get off of the Comet Observatory.

“Good question, once I know where you want to be I can launch you to your destination once we’re close enough for the launch stars to take effect. I assume you want to see what has happened to your family and friends first.” Rosalina waved down two Luma, one brown and the other indigo, to herself and she gently gave them some instructions, they threw cute little salutes and floated off. The brown one quickly flew back and stole a chunk of broccoli from the vegetable platter before floating off again, causing Screwball and Rosalina to giggle.

“Other than that, can I please brush your tail as well?” Screwball simply slid her fluffy tail in Rosalina’s direction as she took up a sweet radish and bit sharply into it, she followed the radish with a beet chaser. “It’s not often I get to meet someone strange, yet beautiful, like you.”

Screwball blushed and rubbed the back of her head with a hoof; Rosalina moved over next to Screwball and pulled out the brush to start work on her tail. Screwball just kept eating till she was done, then she decided to check on the stuff in her hat. The badge thing from Goombella was there, her baseball bat and her… why was her chaos emerald drained of power? Kazooie never exactly explained if it was actually a fake chaos emerald or not, but she gave it to her nonetheless to keep a hold of.

“You most likely drained it coming here, how are Celestia and Luna doing by the way?” It was an odd question that Rosalina knew would alert Screwball to something about her.

Screwball said that the two monarchs were doing quite well and said that Luna had returned from a vacation or something like that which she learned of by listening to the local news. She last remembered Celestia staring at a vaguely familiar purple pony the entire time while she was stuffing her face at that buffet. After a moment of thought Screwball asked Rosalina how she knew of Celestia and Luna.

“As a guardian of the cosmos I know of many things including that of your home dimension. Unfortunately there is only so much I can do for everyone and everything as I’m strictly a video game cosmos guardian. Some things have to happen for a reason and sometimes things happen for no reason at all. In either case, both good and bad could come of it.” Rosalina stood up taking her cup of tea with her and motioned for screwball to follow her.

Finishing her tea off and then standing on her hind legs, Screwball followed Rosalina over to the large screen like thing that Polari was sitting in front of with the brown and indigo Luma.

“We will begin soon, but I want you to commit these words to memory when you see your mother again. Be on the watch out for a red crate. Now if you will please begin Polari.” Turning to the black star with blue eyes he turned to the screen and then a few things popped up on it.

The scene was showing outside the parking deck and four vehicles launching off a ramp and into the parking structure. The scene zoomed in on the enemies scattered about the parking area and the fact that there were barely any cars to begin with was probably because the car crushing characters from Street Fighter had been through the parking deck seven hours ago prior. The battle had begun as the four from the seldom visited video game realm charged, the Ninja Baseball Batman squad. Screwball had to witness what happened to purple skeleton guy with the hula hoop again. He was grabbed by the head and then batted out of the parking structure to fade from existence when he hit the ground. Soon for some reason the screen flickered some colors erratically and where once Screwball stood in the chaos, she was exactly one floor up and in front of Strike Man.

Turning to her host Screwball asked what had happened to the screen for that split second.

“The distortion was caused by your transition.” Settling back into a chair, Rosalina smiled at Strike Man’s balking at Screwball getting ahead of him despite the pitched fight still going on below.

In fact Rosalina focused on that fight and it didn’t take that much longer, the four baseball bat wielding ninja men were quite the fighters having wiped out every single Shark and some of the Chucks. The Sniper Joes however were a huge pain in the butt for them and Banjo to deal with; Chaos had no problem and soon had managed to open a path up to the next deck. All six of them ran up just to witness Screwball taking a painful injury to the head and the expanding orbs of light that was Strike Man, Screwball had a subtle glow about her before she vanished. Afterwards the events were that Banjo and Chaos went to free Professor Theo, he kind of reminded Screwball of the fake white beard wearing Santa Maria Hooves for some reason… wait a minute, was Derpy was related to Santa Maria Hooves? Saving that awesome thought for later, Screwball watched as the entire parking structure started shaking; the seven beings immediately ran to jump out the side.

Banjo slammed into the ground with a belly flop, Chaos as usual splattered everywhere before reforming into a pony shape, Theo bounced humorously several times before finally coming to a rest and the four men that aided them landed softly without injury. Behind them the entire structure turned into cloud of dust rising to the sky. Well it was good to know they were safe, before long Chaos and Banjo were boarding a house shaped spaceship and it took off bound for the Mischief Makers realm.

Screwball had an answer for where she wanted to be now.