Upon a Moon
Upon A Moon is an upcoming musical story arc in the Loonari-Verse made by Loonarin-Sanchez Productions. It provides an alternate origin story for Luno and his adventures, while also explaining Wish Energy.
Summary
An adventurous young boy wishes to marry a beautiful princess, but she’s much too old for him. His luck changes when he meets a miraculous sorcerer which he learns magic from, but soon realizes that some wishes come with terrible prices.
Plot
In a medieval version of Mettopia, there is a sorcerer who lives isolated in a castle on top of a mountain. Every night, a flash of light emerges from the castle and sparkles come raining down, and the people believe this to be him materializing someone’s wish and promising it to be granted, so people have come from all over the world and founded a kingdom at the foot of the mountain, waiting for the day when the sorcerer might come down and grant their wishes. And so the people call those sparkles Wish Energy. One of these people is our protagonist, Luno, an amateur adventurer. He has a precocious crush on the kingdom’s princess Sunny, and his wish is to be old enough to marry her so that he’d have the resources to travel the world and help people abroad.
One day, a fire kills some of Luno’s neighbors, whom he is convinced he could have saved if he were an adult. So now, he really wants to grow up. His solution is to learn magic from the sorcerer. Now, normally, no one can climb the mountain because the only path up it is riddled with dangerous elemental terrains, and it climaxes at a ravine of fire and magma. It can only be crossed by a rainbow crystal bridge, which can only be crossed once a month under the full moon before they both wane. The sorcerer gets shipments of food and supplies delivered to him during the full moon. But even then, no one ever actually gets to see the sorcerer. The delivery guy just drops his stuff and leaves, and he has to do so before the bridge disappears.
Luno leaves the town and climbs up each microbiome, even crossing the bridge by hiding in the deliver guy’s cart. He looks around for the entrance, but it turns out the castle has no doors. The only way in and out is by magic. The delivery guys finishes unpacking, and Luno has a run-in with a guardian fairy, more specifically, the Moon Fairy. She casts a nightmarish vision which scares Luno into running away, then cracks the bridge. Luno tries to run across but it crumbles beneath his feet and he falls into the fiery ravine below. He’s hot, afraid, alone, and lost, and it’s very dark.
Just then, the same flash and sparkles from the castle occur, and before Luno appears the sorcerer. Not unreasonably, the Moon Fairy felt horrible for terrifying and nearly killing a little kid and told her master about it, so he decided to go rescue him using a magic shield. The sorcerer opens a magic portal and brings Luno with him into his castle. He tells Luno that he is looking for an apprentice, and since he’s the only other person he’s seen in decades, he’s given the chance.
Despite the sorcerer’s stern personality, Luno jumps at the opportunity and is immediately put to do menial tasks around the castle, like filling buckets at the well and cleaning the kitchen up after the fairy (she has a huge appetite for a small fairy). The following night, Luno is sweeping up the courtyard and sees the sorcerer going up into the highest tower in the castle, then shortly after, there’s the bright flash and sparkles just like he’s seen every night from afar. Since the sorcerer spends most of his time locked up in his study, Luno never gets the chance to talk to him. So he asks the fairy what he does in there. She explains that the sorcerer casts a spell each night which prevents an ancient evil from escaping from within the mountain, which will fulfill someone’s most evil wish, and that’s why he built the castle there.
Sometime later, Luno works up the courage to ask the sorcerer if it’s true that he can grant wishes. After some back and forth, the sorcerer confirms that he can, but then says that he shouldn't. He doesn’t explain why because he knows Luno wouldn’t understand. Luno insists that he try to explain so the sorcerer takes him to a balcony to look down at the lights from the Kingdom of Mettopia below the mountain. He explains that if he grants wishes, the people might feel indebted to him, leading him to a position to demand anything he wants, and the sorcerer cannot allow himself to become that arrogant and power-hungry because he has devoted his life to the containment of the evil, and the people must learn that the only way to get your wish is through hard work.
As expected, Luno doesn’t understand how helping people is bad while choosing not to isn’t, and he’s too young and naive to realize just how vulnerable he is to the slippery snake that is temptation. So he starts to resent the sorcerer and steals one of his magic hats. A la Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice, he brings a broom to life to do the bucket-filling for him, then does the same with other inanimate objects for his other jobs so the sorcerer doesn’t suspect that he’s gone. He then grabs a spell book to turn himself into an adult man, recreates the rainbow crystal bridge, and runs back to Mettopia and starts granting everyone’s wishes, whether it’s becoming a kid again or having some cash in their pocket. The people heap praise upon praise on Luno and celebrate him as a heroic mage as they all get what they wanted and turn the slow and restful village into a wacky wonderland where wishes come true. Plus, he attracts the attention of Princess Sunny. Luno becomes increasingly entwined in his adult life by spending time with Sunny, mingling with her friends and subjects, and entering a steady relationship with her. Everyone apart from the sorcerer is happy.
However, after the intermission, Luno begins to forget what it is like to be a child and have simple joys, as this new state is seen to be a crap-ton to handle. He tries to come clean, but his tight schedule won’t allow it. On the other hand, the sorcerer sees people flying outside his window and realizes what Luno has done. He rushes downstairs to confront him and instead finds that the magicked inanimate objects have overdone their job, unable to be stopped, and the castle is flooded. The castle bursts at the seams and a torrent of water rushes down the mountain, destroying the natural defenses and threatening to wash away Mettopia. Luno is unable to stop the flood, but the sorcerer appears in the village in a burst of flame and lightning that frightens everyone. He diverts the flood, undoes everyone’s wishes, reveals Luno for the fraud he is, takes the spellbook back from him and forbids him ever returning to the castle before disappearing. Everyone starts berating Luno for lying to them while lamenting the loss of their wishes, and Sunny is forced to break up with him and lock him up in the dungeon.
But then, a mysterious hooded figure says there’s another way. He takes of his hood and reveals himself to be Handy Hatterson, the evil soul that the mountain evil was connected to, but this was before he became a villain, so no one knows who he is. He planned Luno’s entire fiasco from the fire that inspired him to his incarceration. He convinces everyone in Mettopia that they can still have their wishes granted by the power under the mountain. Luno and the Moon Fairy the only one besides the sorcerer who know about the evil under the mountain. The former cannot tell anyone, and the latter tries to convince everyone not to wish upon it, but they dont listen to her. Everyone starts praying to the mountain and it starts rumbling as smoke rises into the sky. The sorcerer tries to contain the evil, but it is too late, for it’s been strengthened by the prayers of the people, and the mountain becomes an erupting volcano, destroying the sorcerer’s castle. As promised by the surprisingly minuscule ancient evil, Handy’s wish is granted, that being phenomenal psychic powers. Handy, with his evil being brought to his full potential, starts turning people into anthropomorphic clothing from which he creates his empire. Handy rebuilds the sorcerer’s castle, claims both it and the volcano as his own, moves them far, far away from Mettopia, kidnaps Princess Sunny and steals the spellbook to rub salt onto injury, then spreads his evil around the world along with his Wish-Energy-fueled subordinates. What was once a beautiful kingdom is now a wretched hive.
The Moon Fairy sees the devastation Handy causes and busts Luno out so they can stop Handy together. They go to the place where the castle and volcano once were, and find the sorcerer dying. He tells them that they must defeat Handy and bring back the spellbook to learn a spell that will give Wish Energy to all the multiverse; therefore, anyone can stand against evil. Before the adventure truly begins, however, the sorcerer warns them that Handy's newfound power is dangerous and that they wouldn't possibly be able to stop Handy without a magical item of their own. So, he gifts Luno with a moon-shaped boomerang infused with as much Wish Energy as its mass can hold, and forgives him and wishes him luck before vanishing into sparkles. Determined to save his true love, earn back the people’s trust and respect, and avenge the sorcerer, Luno sets off with his new guardian.
Handy creates eight evil worlds and several malicious bosses on the fly to stop anyone from getting close to him, but Luno beats them, having gained experience from braving the former mountain’s terrain. When he finally storms Handhat Mansion, he finds Handy forcing Sunny to marry him in a shotgun wedding, which enrages the little boy, but the psychic gentleman has the spellbook, so the two engage in a tough musical battle. Before Handy can lay a killing blow, the Moon Fairy sacrifices herself to protect Luno, dying in the process. It seems hopeless, but Luno has one last trick up his sleeve. He had read the Wish Energy spell beforehand, and he recites it, releasing Wish Energy on all the multiverse. The spell is so powerful that Handy, his kingdom and his consequences disappear in a blast, and the Moon Fairy comes back to life. She explains that Wish Energy is at its strongest when the user is of pure good heart, which describes Luno.
They and the princess all travel back to Mettopia, where Luno admits to his deeds and apologizes, saying he only wanted to help. Princess Sunny asks him why he changed himself, to which he explains that he did not believe she would accept him, as he would always be younger than her. In a bittersweet moment, he wishes for her eternal happiness. Just then, the soul of the sorcerer arrives, and decide that, between Luno's loyalty to him and his courage in admitting he was wrong, Luno has redeemed himself. And therefore, he grants him his wish by turning Sunny Luno’s age, meaning they can grow up together and eventually get married. So they become boyfriend and girlfriend again. The kingdom celebrates, and the sorcerer flies away to the afterlife while Luno and Sunny begin their life together.
Many years later, at their wedding, adult Luno and Sunny share a kiss, forever uniting them as husband and wife. They then fly off on a magical wedding train towards other lands to spread their help. The words "The End" are written in the sky, and the view pans out to reveal that the whole story was in a storybook that the real Luno was reading, and he cracks a jab at [[Disney]], ending the story on a comical note.
Protagonists
Supporting Characters
- The Moon Fairy
- The Sorcerer
Antagonists
Minor characters
Trivia
- Upon A Moon is Loonarin-San’s first attempt at musical writing.
- This script was inspired by the Wish rewrite in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83PNLI3yRbM