//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Kingdom Hearts F.I.M: Rise of The Elements // by Spirit Shift //------------------------------// Flames billowed around wildly as Twilight, only a child, rushed through the soot-filled air. “Spike? Spike! Where are you!?” she screamed, calling desperately for her nine-year-old adopted brother. Even as her hometown burned down around her, she continued to run exhausted, cold and alone. The place had long since been evacuated.  Stopping to catch her breath, as well as she could with air as stale and poisonous as it was, she contemplated her situation. “Okay… alright…” she breathed as she struggled to calm herself. She tried to take a deep breath, but only ended up coughing harshly. Her disrupted breathing still managed to get the job done. “Dash and AJ are still fighting back with the other strong Mages and Earthans, and Rarity and Shy are safe at the shelter. We would all be at the shelter except that Pinkie’s disappeared again, and I can't find Spike!” Then she felt it, a dark feeling of emptiness, like something was pulling at her heart, tearing it from her chest. “Oh no…” she gasped. Turning around, Twilight saw a dark shape rise from the ground. “They must have gotten away from the others!” Soulless glowing yellow eyes formed amongst the darkness, staring right at the young child. As its claws formed within the darkness, Twilight flinched back and bolted in the opposite direction, desperate to get as far away from the creatures as possible. It was them. Today had just been an ordinary day until these wolf-like shadows appeared and began ravaging the land. Twilight herself had watched a dear acquaintance fall to one of them. Both to her amazement, and to her horror, she watched as the man's body faded away to nothingness, and from the fading body, she observed the small glowing red heart that floated out. The wolf eagerly absorbed it before turning on someone else. After overcoming their fear, all of the strong magic users, the Mages, stood up and fought back, buying time for the weaker ones to get to safety. While Twilight didn’t think of herself as weak, she was still too afraid to fight back. Turning a corner, Twilight ran down the sidewalk, only to skid to a stop as another Shadow Wolf appeared from the ground. Panicking, Twilight ran down a nearby alleyway, only to run past a single dumpster towards a dead end. Turning around, the girl’s eyes shrank as the monsters came ever closer. Knowing that giving into fear would only lead her to a gruesome end, Twilight knew that she only had one other option. Closing her eyes and holding out her hands, she called upon the magic she knew lay inside her. Somewhere in her fear-ridden mind, she remembered her mother’s lesson and let it build just before coming out. It built up inside of her, growing more and more, until Twilight could swear it began to burn. Then she knew. She opened her eyes, irises aglow with the magic native to the people of her world. “Fire!” she called out. At once a burst of fire shot out from her hands, completely incinerating one of the shadow beasts. The other one watched its companion burn, decided that playing with its food wasn’t an option, and rushed Twilight. However, she was already building up her magic once again. This time she held it in until she felt that she could see her own breath. “Blizzard!” she screamed. A froth of ice shot out from her hands and froze the beast solid. A mere second passed before the clump of ice shattered into a million shards. Sighing, Twilight fell to her knees and panted in relief. “I… I guess,” she gasped, “Spike was right.” Twilight allowed herself a small smile at the thought of her brother bragging to her that he was right in that she could easily cast consecutive blasts of magic. “I suppose I’m not as inexperienced as I thought.” After taking a second, Twilight got back to her feet. But before she could leave the alley she felt that all too familiar feeling. A dark shadow loomed over her, both figuratively and literally. She turned just in time to see a black claw slashing down at her. It was only her surprisingly quick reflexes that let her barely dodge roll out of the way. As she did before, albeit with a bit more confidence than before, Twilight held out her hand. "Twitchy Butt!!" If the sudden exclamation didn’t throw off her concentration, the voice it came from did. Twilight lowered her hand and looked around. “Diane?! Is that you?” Then, she heard a soft sizzling noise from above. She glanced up to see two large bombs falling towards the shadow. The voice echoed out again. “Twilight, if you don’t move you’ll go boom!” she warned. Following Pinkie’s direction, Twilight dove behind a nearby trashcan as a small explosion went off behind her. Looking out of her hiding place, she saw the shadows dissipate in the fading flames; looking up further she saw a familiar pink-haired girl drop from atop a nearby roof. "Diane! It is you!" Twi called up at her friend as she watched her jumped down from her perch on the wall. The younger pink-haired girl wasted no time in rushing Twilight, bringing her into a fiercely tight embrace. "Ugh, I keep telling both you and Rarity, ‘call me Pinkie Pie,’" she replied squeezing the life out of her friend. The hug did not go unreturned or unappreciated as Twilight returned the hug. The two friends held each other in comfort for a few seconds more until Twilight broke the hug and asked the first things that came to her head. "Where did you get those explosives?!" she inquired. As she did she fervently checked the girl for any injuries. "Oh, I got these from my basement," Pinkie answered, holding up a pouch of similar round black explosives. Twi just stared at her blankly before responding, "Your… basement?” she said, brow raised skeptically. Pinkie nodded. “Yupperooni! I made them!” she said, a wide smile etched onto her face. Confused, Twilight nevertheless nodded before continuing, “Well, how did you find me?” She just giggled. “Silly, we can't have the main character die yet!” Twilight only began to look more confused, she was about to ask more questions when another fire broke out, rocking the ground slightly. Shaking such thoughts off and saving them for later, Twilight gave Pinkie a hard look. "Okay, good. Now go back to the others. I still have to find Spike. Have you seen—" Twilight said before looking around to see the shadows reforming back near the wall. Pinkie also noticed this before turning back to Twilight, her smile never wavering. "I saw him running that way,” she said, pointing out of the alley and towards a path on the far left. Twilight recognized that particular road as the one that led to the edge of town. “I saw him talking to some weird guy I’d never seen before. I don’t know what’s going on, but I have a bad Pinkie feeling in the pit of my tummy!” She turned to face the shadows. “Go get him,” she said as she pointed towards the edge of town. “I'll stay here and deal with these guys." Twilight looked down at her worriedly. “Pinkie are you sure, I can—” Pinkie, back turned, held her arm up. “Twilight, no,” she said, her voice, to Twilight’s surprise, held almost no cheer. It was honestly the closest thing she had heard to the girl being serious. “You need to go and get Spike, I’ll meet back up with the others,” she said with finality. Twilight stared at her curly head for a another few seconds. Hesitant, but trusting, she  nodded. After all, Pinkie, like all the others of her race, wouldn’t dare go down without a fight. Back in the alley, Pinkie glanced back at Twilight’s receding form. She gave a small grin before turning back to the wolves, frowning. There were two newly reformed shadows now. With their original positions reversed, Pinkie now stood by the entrance, while it looked to all the world that she was the one pushing their backs against the walls. Pinkie’s hair slowly smoothed as her gaze grew progressively colder. The force of her look grew to the point where one of the wolves took a step back. "You tried to kill my friend," she muttered, her voice low. Slowly she reached into her satchel and pulled out four of the round bombs. ~~~ As Twilight turned a corner and ran down the road, she glanced behind her and muttered, “I really hope Pinkie’s okay back there.” Just as the last word left her mouth, a large explosion rocked the ground under her. She stumbled to a stop and looked her her face aghast with fear as the alley, she just left filled with flames. “Pinkie!” she screamed. “Go!” a girl that sounded like Pinkie yelled back, her voice faint against a second explosion. Twilight flinched and got back up. "Guess she’s alright then…” she chuckled nervously. Pinkie making bombs and acting serious, dark creatures absorbing people’s hearts, the sky turning almost pitch black: if Twilight didn’t know any better, she’d think it was all some terrible nightmare. Unfortunately, the twinge of pain in her left arm told her otherwise. Shaking off her brief introspection, Twilight turned and continued down the path. As she came up to the treeline of the forest surrounding the town, she paused near the first tree and looked back at the smoking town, and at the large fire near the end of it. A quiver evident in her voice, she muttered, “I swear she'll do more damage than the shadows at this rate." She threw herself into the forest and ran straight forward. After running for a brief time she broke through the other side of the treeline and found her target. A short but sturdy looking dragon boy in a purple vest, standing at the edge of the grass and staring out. If Twilight were focused on anything else, she would’ve noticed that the grass ended where he was standing. By this point, Twilight was breathing fairly heavily. Mages weren't the most athletic tribe after all. “Spike,” she gasped, teary-eyed and more than a little relieved, “where have you been?!” She paused for a second, as more emotions welled up inside of ther. “Everything’s going wrong! There are these weird dark things killing people and destroying everything!” She waited for a reply, but Spike continued to stare out ahead. Twilight took a step forward. “Spike… are you alright?” she asked. Usually the strong and confident boy would be the first to jump into a fight to protect others. To see him unresponsive was nothing but unnerving for the girl. “Spike,” she said, tearing up. “You’re strong, you have to help us fight them! Please!” Twilight ran up to his back and wrapped him up in a hug. Tears began rolling down her cheeks as she poured her heart out. “Pinkie and the others can only do so much! Those... things keep appearing no matter how many are destroyed! Everyone left and I… you suddenly disappeared. Why… why did you leave us?” She finally let slip what had really been bothering her from the moment she set out to find him. Several tense seconds passed before Spike gave any kind of reply. “Come look at this,” he said. Confused hesitation welled up inside Twilight as she debated whether or not to obey and follow. Eventually, curiosity won out, and she stepped beside him, only for what she saw to bring her to her knees in utter disbelief. She saw nothing. Or rather, what could only be described as an enormous expanse of nothing floating below them in a void of absolute darkness. “Wh-where’s the rest of the town?!” she screamed out as the darkness surrounded them. She gazed up at Spike; and her next outburst died in her throat as she looked into his eyes. What were once bright emerald orbs of great strength and infinite confidence were now a dull facsimile of the same color. His normally diamond shaped pupils were round and empty.  Twilight was speechless. Her body shook, a myriad of emotions trying to take full hold of her expression—fear and hopelessness chief among them. Underneath it all was just the smallest glimmer of hope. Hope that began to vanish at Spikes next words. “It’s gone, Twi,” he whispered in an eerily calm voice. “Gone?!” Twilight muttered, her words a quivering mess of syllables. “How can an entire town, no the entire world be just…” her already weak voice dwindled down to barely a whisper, “gone?” Spike was silent as he looked out into the nothingness, as if in contemplation. “When the heartless showed up...” he began. Twilight’s head shot back up to them. “He know’s what they’re called?” she thought. Spike continued. “...I ran into a person. I chased them here and then they told me what was going to happen.” For the first time, Spike’s eyes turned towards Twilight. Even so, Twilight felt no comfort, no relief. She only felt unease and concern as her brother continued his speech. “This world is going to die,” he finally said, “and the only way to survive is to accept it and follow them down." Spike glanced over towards her and when he did Twilight snapped back to her feet instantly. She could feel something… something wrong. Without realizing it she began to cautiously move away from him. The air around Spike had suddenly shifted with that last line. Twilight could feel it clearly now, something was... off, different about him and her mind was racing trying to figure it out. “Spike… what are you talking about?” Twilight muttered. Spike turned towards her completely. “Twilight,” he said, his tone finally something other than the formally eerie monotone, “if you want to live you need to come with me!” he ordered. Twilight took another step back, her eyes flashing white as her magic reflexively built up. Spike saw this and his own eyes flashed as well, their original emerald sheen momentarily returning, only to be snuffed out once again when Spike suddenly fliched violently, a palm held to his forehead as he hissed in pain. Twilight saw his obvious pain and her expression, which had become hard and defensive without her knowledge, softened. “Spike…” Spike took a step back, then another. He paused, and took a breath, his hand lowering after a few seconds. “Stay safe… I was exaggerating before, you won’t die. You, Dash, and the others will be safe, she promised she’d save you all If I go with her.” He took a sidestep towards the edge. Twilight reacted instantly. “Spike, be careful!” she said, reaching out towards him. However, Spike had already tipped himself over the edge. “I’ll find you, I promise!” he said, falling over the edge. “I’ll come back and find you!” Twilight fell to her knees, tears falling out over the edge as she called out after him. “SPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE”