Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Costumes, parties, candy, pranks, what's not to love? Especially the costumes. Hey, not everyone can run off to a Con at the drop of a hat, and anyway if I ever showed up at one of those Nerd Herds the guys would have never let me live it down. Yeah yeah yeah, I'm a peer-pressure driven puss, get it out of your system. And yeah, whatever. I'm just not stupid and socially tone deaf. Unlike geek boys, I remember that I have to go to school and work and S@#$^ with regular people after the party's over. You go prancing around dressed like Batman in public all the time and then act all astonished and hurt when people laugh at you later, you deserve what you get. Me, I kept it to socially acceptable norms-- as in, Halloween--

Of course, at the current year I was kind of stumped for ideas. I was sifting through the debris of an old curiosity shop, looking for inspiration. I'd had a pretty good run the previous couple of years. Last year I'd managed to score an old Darth Vader helmet at a Goodwill store, thrown on a cape and farm-hand style overalls, and gone as "Darth Bubba." ("Aw, shoot son, come on over to the dark side, it'll be a hoot!") That'd been worth a few laughs.

I wasn't finding anything interesting on the shelves, and was about to the point where I was seriously considering wearing last year's costume again (sacrilege!) when there was this enormous BANG! somewhere overhead. The shelves around me rattled and jumped. I yipped and hopped out of the way as some of the items hanging overhead came tumbling down.

After my pulse slowed down I checked the shelves overhead where the bang had come from. I figured one of the plugged in displays had blown a bulb, or something. Sure enough, there was a ruptured lava lamp and what looked like the remains of a plasma ball. The bits were scorched and smoking faintly; it looked like a power surge had hit the socket they were plugged into. A couple of other electronic widgets were flickering or acting like they'd burned out too. Crazy old coot who ran the store always plugged too many things into one socket...

I let the owner know what had happened. He came up the aisle, griped and moaned when he saw the mess, and started untangling cords and unplugging burnt-out novelty junk. While he was pulling the ruined merchandise off the shelf, I noticed a stray piece of junk jewelry in the middle of it. It must have fallen off the rack above the display. I reached over his shoulder and plucked it out of the mess. "Hey, how much for this?" I said.

He barely even looked, and rattled off a price. I parted with some filthy lucre and claimed my prize.

I don't know why it caught my eye. It wasn't particularly flashy at first glance; it was made of some dull grey metal, with a gem in the center the color of dried blood. Plus it had bird wings, and a unicorn head. I am so NOT into unicorns, or anything fancy-fairytale like that.

But the more I looked at it, the more gnarly it seemed. Heck, it looked like the sort of medal an evil overlord would give one of his minions for terrorizing the highest number of helpless peasants that financial quarter, or for shooting down the most heroic rebels. I started to have a rush of inspiration to the head.

Why settle for Darth Vader? Why not take old school Darth Vader, and see if I could crank it up to eleven?

When I got home with it, I got out the old Darth Vader costume parts and went to work. I added some huge, swept-back horns to the helmet. I had some glowing-eye spectacles from an old "faceless wraith" mask-- I hotglued those to the inside of the helmet so that Vader's black beetle eyes now glowed a hellish red on command. A battery powered voice changer went inside the mouth. No wheezy rasp for me; this thing made me sound like I gargled sulfur every morning before breakfast. I'm a dab hand with simple mechanical devices; I'd re-cut and rigged the faceplate so it could pop up like a knight's visor. After all I wanted to be able to eat and drink while I was running around in this getup without pulling the entire helmet off.

The bodysuit was a cheap pair of black coveralls. I upped the ante by adding spiked plates: elbow plates, shin plates, knee plates, shoulder plates. A pair of big black stompy boots I spotted at some ex-goth's yard sale served for footwear. Fake metal gauntlets from a fake suit of armor replaced Vader's much wimpier Naugahyde gloves. And his flowing black cloak went by the wayside; I had an old black fuzzy bathrobe that had fallen afoul of my kid sister's attempt to stone-wash her jeans by throwing chunks of brick into the washing machine. It was ratty and tattered and coming unravelled in places so much that it looked like dead muppet roadkill. A little work with a pair of scissors, though, and it made a perfect barbarian-esque cloak. (Hmm. Muppet Slayer. Gotta remember that one for next year.)

I wavered the longest time on the weapon of choice. I wanted to make a sort of cross between a lightsaber and Skeletor's sword, but I spent too long dithering about how to make the blade. I ended up bunting, and made a staff out of a fist sized ceramic skull and a six-foot stick of driftwood I'd found. It was less Dark Jedi and more Evil Overlord, but what the heck. The final touch was the amulet, which I pop-riveted, chain and all, to the gorget of the helm so that the pendant rested right at my collarbone.

That and black paint. Loads and loads of black paint.

Halloween finally came and I tell you, I put that outfit on and I looked jagged.  It was so Grimdark you'd think I shit bats. I looked like the guy Emperor Palpatine would call "Boss." "Oh yeah," I said to my reflection, the voice changer turning my voice into a rumbling gravel basso. "I am gonna own this party."

Someone, I forget who, I think it was the guys from the football team, they had gotten together the stuff for a blowout party. Seems one of them lived in some virtual mansion out in the boonies, an old converted farmhouse or something sitting on a few hundred acres surrounded by woods, you know how rich people do when they buy some place away from all the peasants-- well anyway, plenty of room for a few hundred teenagers, their cars and trucks, and the makings of an enormous halloween costume party/rave/tailgate party. Pretty much the entire senior class and half of the underclassmen were invited, and the rest crashed. Nobody cared, though; as long as you brought a cooler full of something to eat or drink, you were golden.

I arrived and parked my van on the edge of the town . The house was lit up, the music was blasting, and there were high schooler ghouls and ghosties as far as the eye could see. Oh lawd, cheerleaders in bad little witch outfits, oooo..... I bagged a can of beer and some ribs from some dude's tailgate grill and rocked my way into the throng

Massive rounds of thumbs up all over the place for the outfit. Pretty soon I was chatting up some hot chick dressed in a naughty zombie french maid costume (bonus points for a two-theme costume, double bonus points for making it any variation of "naughty"-- and making it work, ding ding!) And making one hell of a good first impression, I might add, when there was a commotion nearby. There was some laughter from a couple of jocks, and staggering up through the masses, propelled by a couple of trips and shoves, comes... I dunno, it takes me a minute to figure it out. His hair is blue, his face is white, he's wearing some sort of roman guard armor, and he has a spiral horn jutting up from his forehead--

Aw, crap. It was a Brony. Some loser had come to the party as a BRONY.

Look, I didn't follow all that trending internet stuff. But it was hard not to know about these effeminate little weirdoes; they were popping up everywhere. We even had a couple running around the halls of our jerkwater-town high school.  Dudes running around collecting little girl's toys and wearing T-shirts with cartoon ponies on them and crap. It was as girly as hell, and creepy as hell too.

In fact I think I recognized this one. Some dork who had a locker a couple of steps down from mine; Joe or Fred or Mike or something, who cared. He used to be kind of cool, I guess, or at least not a booger-eating loser. Then he'd started showing up at school in a T-shirt with some grey cross-eyed pony on it-- what the hell did "Derpy Rules" mean, anyway?-- and that was it. He was a laughingstock by the end of the day.

What made it worse is that he didn't seem to care. It made me wonder if he was retarded or something.

I gave him the once over (side note: black darth vader mask with glowing glass eyes; perfect stone face for scoping people out). He'd done a good job on the costume; that sort of made it worse. He'd used white body paint on his face and arms, his hands painted black; his face was touched up a little bit to make it look more "horsey." He had a pretty good prosthetic horn and ears sticking out from under his tousled blue wig. The wig ran down the back of his neck and down his spine between his shoulders-- it was actually glued in place, making it into a sort of mane. He had a pony tail of the same blue color... as in an actual tail, not the hairdo... and he was wearing boots that made his feet sort of look like hooves. The rest of his outfit was a cheap off-the-shelf suit of roman centurion armor.

"What the hell are you supposed to be?" I blurted out.

"A gaywad!" someone in the surrounding crowd shouted.

Everyone hooted. Joe, or Fred-- Nick, that was his name, Nick-- just snorted and brushed himself off. He gave me the once-over right back. "Ted?" He said, his brows furrowing. "That you in there?"

I froze briefly. "Yeah, it's gotta be you," Nick laughed. "Only Ted would put that much hardcore effort into a Halloween costume. So what's up?" This is what made him personally annoying. He was still all the time trying to hang around me, too, howdy, hi, how ya doing, wassup, acting like we were best buds or something. "Hey, have you seen my date?"

"Date?" I repeated.

"Yeah. She's wearing a Rainbow Dash costume?" he said. Like I knew who the hell Rainbow Dash was. And furthermore, yeah, girlfriend. Right.

"Look, I don't know you, dude," I said. My voice rasped through the microphone.

"Sure, we got lockers next to each other. Heck, my Mom knows your Mom--"

"I said I don't know you, man," I growled.

"Fine. Whatever. Nice costume anyway, Ted." He looked at me again and grinned. "Heh. Cool pony reference."

"What?"

"The alicorn amulet." He pointed at my collarbone. "So what, you're supposed to be Darth Trixie, or something?"

"Wha--?" someone around us got the joke and laughed. I didn't.  I could hear a couple of the kids standing round making remarks and laughing.  

Nick started to laugh. "Dude, you don't know what that is?" he said.

The zombie/maid hottie rolled her eyes and backed away from us both. Great. Loser by association. I got pissed. Nothing makes me madder than people making fun of me with references I don't understand. We were near the edge of the party, out by the woods. I grabbed the dork by his arm and dragged him off to the treeline. Once we were out of earshot I let him go and glared at him. "The hell?" He said, rubbing his arm.

"What is wrong with you pony weirdoes?" I snapped. "Don't you get what a freak everyone thinks you are?"

Nick rolled his eyes as he kneaded his shoulder. "Why no, Ted," he said. "I never would have guessed that. Thank you for pointing that out, you are so insightful. And I should care, because?" He looked at me.

"And you don't?" I said.

"Hey, what would be the point?" Nick shrugged. "Look, I'm not a dummy. Most fanboys-- Trekkies, Anime fans, Furries, whatever--  get all hurt and outraged when nobody treats them like the rare and precious snowflake they think they are. But I knew the moment I started watching the show that people would give me crap about it, and I accepted it. The real question is why do you care so much about what people think?"

"Look, dumbass, I don't get your stupid brony jokes, okay?" I said. "Just stay away from me and quit making me look like a loser."

Nick curled his lip at me. "Like you needed any help with that," he said. He flicked the medallion on my chest with a finger. "You don't want to hang out with Bronies, maybe you shouldn't wear a prop from the show around your neck."

"What?"

He laughed. "Ted, that's a replica of the Alicorn Amulet," he said. "It's from the third season of the show. You might as well be wearing a day-glow t-shirt that says "Brony Fanboy" on the front."

What? I'd been walking around all night with gaywad pretty pony princess jewelry on my chest? I felt like an idiot; I'd picked up some sort of brony junk at the curiosity shop and riveted it to my three hundred dollar costume without even realizing it. I felt my anger just explode. I swore and grabbed the medallion, trying to tear it off.

Trying, I said, because it didn't budge. "The hell?" I muttered, giving the thing a yank. Nope, it wouldn't budge. Baffled and frustrated,  I tried to pull off the gorget it was riveted to, instead. That wouldn't come off either! I went from angry to furious. I must have gotten glue on the stupid seams or something. I flipped up my visor so I could get my fingers under the collar at my chin.

Nick's face went from amused to surprised. "Whoa," he said. "How'd you get your eyes to do that?"

"What're you talking about?" I snapped, still pulling mightily at the collar. What the hell was this thing made of? I thought it was plastic-- but it felt as tough as steel!

"Your eyes. They're all red-greeny-purple, like in the show--"

"Will you shut up about your damn cartoon show?" I yelled. I felt my temper go up in a ball of flame like a frozen turkey dropped in a deep fryer. I was grappling double-handed with the gorget, doing a frenzied dance trying to pry the thing and the medallion on it off my neck. My little performance was gathering an audience. A girl came running up and took Nick by the arm. "Nick, what is it?" she said. Well dang, the mythical missing girlfriend. Even in my aggravation I noted she was darn cute. She was wearing a rainbow-colored wig with a matching horse tail, blue feathered angel wings, and a blue leotard decorated with yellow lightning bolts. Sonofagun, a brony chick. The myths were true.

"Dunno, I told him he was wearing an alicorn amulet and he started doing this," Nick answered. "Ted, what's wrong?"

More kids gathered. I started cussing and swearing for all I was worth. When I ran out of curses I started stringing words together at random. I think I spoke in Klingon at one point. The kids standing around gawping at my display backed off a step. I didn't even notice. I didn't even notice the sickly purple-greenish illumination, like some sort of weird inverted black light, shining on them.

I certainly didn't notice that the weird light was coming from me.

"Omigawd, it's real!" the cute brony girl suddenly shrieked. "It's the real Alicorn Amulet! Just like in the show!!"

"What?"

"Look at his eyes!"

Something in me, I dunno, it was like something came uncorked. My guts just flooded with rage. "!#$^#$% your stupid pony crap!" I snarled, wheeling on them. Everyone took a serious step back. Whoa. That voice changer was effective. "#$^% your stupid ponies! If I could I'd burn that stupid airy-fairy ponyland to the ground and pee on the ashes just to see the looks on your stupid faces!"

Yeah, it was complete overreaction. But hell, I was a junior in high school still, and here I was doing the I'm-on-drugs-get-the-spiders-off watusi with a couple of my little pony fans in front of the entire school. I still had another year and a half of high school to look forward to and my rep was undergoing a ritual killing right in front of me. So, not a happy place.

There was a loud roaring sound; wind suddenly sprang up around us, stirring up a torrent of leaves and dirt and whipping cloaks and other loose bits of costume around in the air. It was like someone had opened a wind tunnel Weird light the color of a festering bruise bathed everyone. We all looked up. Several people screamed; a black-light colored funnel cloud a dozen yards across had formed directly overhead. I could see more purple-black glowing light glowing in the depths of its throat.

Directly over my head.

Before I could do more than scream (thank God my voice changer made it sound like a much more manly roar) I was plucked off my feet by the roaring wind and hurtled into the sky. The last thing I saw before I disappeared into the dark whirling void was Nick and his brony girlfriend staring up at me, mouths hanging open. Then the funnel closed and I was hurtling through blackness.

Well, not blackness blackness. True to the trend, it sort of looked more like the sort of "darkness" you get on a black-light posters; black boiling clouds interspersed with lots of luminescent tinged linings of indigo, purply lightning veins, flecks of bilious green. Afterward I would reflect that it seemed there was an artist with a very limited palette involved in the whole mess. At the time though I was too busy grimacing and screaming to appreciate the thematic continuity.

I hurtled.. or fell... or... flew... for-- I dunno... a brief bit of forever. All around me the darkness, it, it raged. I could feel it. It was like the universe itself had a hole torn through it by a vortex of pure rage, and I was plunging through it.

Then the purpling void opened up in front of me and I fell. I had just enough time to appreciate the still, starry night around me before I noticed the ground rising up to meet me at speed.I started to scream again-- I think I managed to get out "Aihee" before I slammed face down, full length, into the very, very hard ground.

Pain. Pain, pain, painy pain pain. Every part of me hurt simultaneously. At least all my spiky pads had protected me. Though I was kind of regretting not going for the armored codpiece after all...  I rolled over slowly onto my back, groaning, and pulled off my helmet so I could clutch at my head unimpeded.

I looked up just in time to see my missing skull-topped staff plummeting out of the sky, skull first, straight towards my unprotected face.

"Oh sh--"

then forehead met forehead and the world went sincerely dark.