//------------------------------// // CH8: Fighting Back // Story: Kingdom Hearts F.I.M: Rise of The Elements // by Spirit Shift //------------------------------//         “So, I take it that you six are the aliens that we shot down?” said the man. He wore an all black nearly skin tight uniform, with a black crystal painted on the front, his left hand gripped the sheathed blade tied to his side.         Pinkie shivered violently. “Ewww, don’t call us aliens, we don't have weird tentacles or fish heads or anything. We have normal human heads!”        Rarity scoffed. “Yes, we are the ones that you ruffians shot down. I would very much like an apology, thank you.”         The Black Commander gave a dark chuckle. A deep chuckle that was meant to intimidate lesser opponents. “Well, I won't give you an apology, but I will give you my name, only so that you know of the ones who are going to kill you.” He gestures to himself. “I, am Commander Black Shade, and this is the Black brigade, his Dark Lord’s personal army of oppressors.”         “What is with you all and the color black, it is slimming, and a nice color, but with so much use it will only serve to be tacky and depressing,” said Rarity.         “Oooooooohhhh buuuurrrnnnn!” exclaimed both Dash and Pinkie.         This actually made Black frown. “Well, if those are your last words, then I’ll take our uniforms under consideration.” He nodded toward them. “Kill them.”         The nearest dozen soldiers instantly charged at them, weapons raised and ready to strike.         Commander Black knew that this small amount of men wouldn't be enough, he only wanted to see what their skills were, for when he himself had to fight them. However, even he couldn't have predicted what happened next.         He watched as not a single one of the girls had moved a muscle to defend themselves against the oncoming assault of at least 12 men. They were all within striking distance before the one in front calmly raised her blade and slammed it into the ground.         “Stun Impact”         The instant that the tip hit the ground, a golden field of light surrounded the group and expanded out to encompass every soldier close to them. By the time that it faded, every man that Black had sent to attack had fallen to the ground, twitching and spasming in what seemed to be paralysis. Yukalai could only gape in awe, not fully understanding what just occurred in front of him.         “Common, is that all you got? You have like, a hundred men here, why did you only send 12?” exclaimed Dash in annoyance.         “Ah think he wanted to test us, Dash, like when Luna sent those packs of dogs after us.”         Dash shuddered in the same way that Pinkie did earlier. ”Man, I hated those things.”         “I thought that they were adorable,’ muttered Shy.         Dash rolled her eyes. “Of course you would.”         “Enough!” Black called out. “If you want a challenge, then you shall have one. Everyone attack!”         At his call, every soldier instantly ceased with what they were doing, and rushed the group. At least a hundred men all rushed forward to attack the group, all of them wielding swords, knives, or blunt weapons of some sort.                  Dash began immediately by taking flight, charging into the oncoming mob, and striking down anyone who got in her way. AJ followed suit by doing the same thing, but on foot. After some prodding from angel, Shy muttered a quick ‘sorry’, before lightly tapping her keyblade to the ground, summoning forth dozens of vines and tendrils to entrap and strangle anyone who dared come near her. Rarity danced her way into the fight in her own unique way, summoning keyblade after keyblade to parry, block, and attack anyone to come near her. Never getting touched and never touching another, she stood her ground while still fighting in a wide radius.         Pinkie was the only odd one out, opting more to confuse and disorient by bouncing around and redirecting them, rather than actually attacking or defending. She sent some of them towards her friends instead, because, as they were focused on her, they didn't notice themselves ending up in the range of the other five’s attacks. Others, she had attack each other. Never once did she swing her keyblade, or attack directly.         Twilight herself had begun to unleash a multitude of spells while she fought, becoming a prime example of might and magic working in harmony. Combining physical attacks and magic blasts with each combo, she tore through the crowd in with calculated maneuvers. While moving through, she noticed something about the fallen enemies behind her, and called back to the others. “Girls, they really are made of shadows, don’t worry about hurting them!”         “Really?” exclaimed Rarity. She looked at an enemy near her, and shot a blade right through his chest, only for him to fizzle out, and fade away. “Interesting, well that explains their fashion sense.”         “Gotcha,” said AJ as she slammed her Keyblade into the ground. “Quake!” Upon saying this, the ground began to shake violently until large spikes of earth began to jut up from the ground, easily impaling a fair number of shadow minions. Rarity took it to the next level by summoning a large number of keyblades into the sky and shooting them down to strike through a large number of foes. Dash continued to fly around, using her speed to increase the power of her attacks, she learned from Twilight that, the faster she went, the harder she’d hit.         Yukalai also had his weapon out and ready as well, but never actually got around to fighting. He was too busy watching these extraordinary girls systematically take out every single man, in almost no time at all. Some shadows did try to attack him at some point, but before he could strike, a rainbow colored blur swam by and dissipated them in an instant. It was then and there, did something rise in his chest, something that had been on the brink of extinction. It was hope. It was hope that these ‘keyblade wielders’ would be their salvation. In what Dash would later describe as ‘10 seconds flat’, all 100 men were defeated and dissipated, leaving only a distraught, and furious Commander Black by himself. “I repeat, is that all ya got? The gang I fought when I was a kid put up a better fight than those losers,” provoked Dash.         Something snapped, In an instant, Black unsheathed his pitch dark blade, and dashed forward to attack the group in anger. As if by reflex almost everyone jumped backwards from his sudden attack. Only Dash stayed to block the larger man’s strike.         “I am the Commander of the Guard, I will not be defeated by children!” he exclaimed as he began to strike at her violently.           Dash only stared on in confusion as she effortlessly dodged each attack. “Wait….if you're the Captain, then, did his entire army only consist of like 100 men?” she asked incredulously.         This got a smirk out of the man. “We only needed 100 men to take this world. It was that easy. But no, we have several more divisions of guards, I just wanted to watch you all die!”         Dash had stopped listening after the first sentence. ‘Man, only 100 guys. This world must be weeeeeaaakkkkk.’ she thought before she disappeared, much to his surprise. With no one to aim his attacks at, he paused to look around. In that moment, Dash appeared behind him. In the blink of an eye, she delivered a swift, but decisive, punch to his back, not hard enough to knock him unconscious, but enough to render him incapable of any further resistance.         She glared down at him as he fell to the ground. “But, that only makes it worse, only cowards and douchebags pick on those weaker than themselves,” she spat.         “Great job there Rainbow,” teased AJ as she walked back up to her, and held out her hand.         “I keep telling you, don’t call me that!” she said as she slapped the hand in return. The two shared a smile while the others also caught back up to them.         Twilight looked down at the incapacitated man before nodding over to Rarity. The girl got the message as she used her telekinesis to lift the man to Twilights level. As a precaution Twilight cast a small paralysis spell to keep him from moving around too much.         “Why do you all do this? Why attack these poor people.”         “.....”         “Answer us!”         “Like I said, because it was easy.”         “If it was easy, then you’d have taken this village already, we were your target, weren't we?”         The man’s only response was a malevolent smile.         “You shot down the Gummy, but it almost seemed as if you were lying in wait for us, also, you all got here pretty fast considering the distance from the castle to this place.” Twilight gestured to the advanced looking tanks, then to a distant castle further back.         “We were on patrol!” he responded.         “AJ”         “The varmint’s lyin’ through his teeth,” spat AJ. AJ could sniff out a lie a mile away when she wanted to, nothing was safe from her strange lie detecting ears. “Why? Why were you waiting for us!” The man let out a huge laugh before he actually answered. “Because we were told to, by the Dark Lord.” “How did he know that we’d come here?” “Ah, now that’s the question, isn't it. From what I hear, he was visited by a man who said that if we waited, then we could steal your ship, and use it’s parts to reach entirely new worlds. We would enslave them all!” “Who was this man!” “Hell if I know. But even If I did, thats all you’re gettin outta me kiddies.” “Wha-” In an instant, the man violently bit his tongue, and quickly burst into purple mist, just like the soldiers before him, leaving Rarity holding only the mist itself. Thinking quickly Twilight bottled the mist for later study. “This looks different from the others, maybe it's special,” she muttered. “So, he was a shadowy thing too?” asked Shy         “I’m afraid so Shia. You’re right Dash, it is just like when Luna summoned the dogs. Their constructs made from someones power. We should-”         They were interrupted by the feelings of children gripping their legs. They each glanced down, and saw multiple children hugging each of their legs. Pinkie immediately fell to the ground to hug as many as she could. Hesitantly, Rarity, AJ and Shy also joined in on the hugging. Eventually Twilight gave in, and hugged a child as well. Leaving Dash to awkwardly pat their heads while looking away in embarrassment.  It wasn't until Yukalai come up to them, and bowed, did every citizen scream their name in thanks. Cries of thanks were loud and bountiful as they each received either a handshake or bow from an adult, and hug from a child. This went on for a while as everyone decided hold a celebration for freedom.         Eventually, they made it back into Yukalai’s tent to continue their discussion, well, everyone except Pinkie, Shia, AJ, Dash and Rarity. As they each stayed to either party, design clothes for the villagers, or sit quietly in the corner. So, Twilight, being the representation of everyone, stood with Yukalai in his tent.         “Please, from my very soul, I thank you for what you have done for us.”         “It’s no big deal, I said we would help you all, so we did, and we still are. We will stop this so called ‘Dark Lord’ and restore the peace.”         “I pray that you will.”         “Can you tell me anything more about this man who told him of us.”         “We don’t know much but maybe we can help. Yuna!” he called out. After a moment or two, the small girl from before ran into the room and stood next to Twilight, smiling brightly.   “You’ve already met, but this is my daughter, Yuna. She has a gift, you see, she can prophecize events to come. If you give her a topic, then she may have a vision about it. We don’t know how accurate it is, but it warned us about the Dark Lord, so maybe she can use it for you. The villagers actually refer to her as a prophet.” Yukalai began to laugh loudly. “The people sometimes call her Zecora, to them it means The Wise.”         “Incredible, do you know how it works?” said Twilight, getting excited as she leaned in close to the girl, staring deeply into her dark blue eyes.                  “Ahh, that we do not, for she cannot speak unless she’s having a vision. Do you want to try anyway?”         Twilight stared down at the child hesitantly, trying to decide if she wanted to. She wanted to ask about Spike so badly, but her rigid priorities took over at the last second. She decided to ask about Spike next.         “Can you tell me about the man who tipped the Dark Lord off?”         Instantly, the child’s eyes lit up until they were fully white, wind found it’s way into the tent as she began to float a few feet off of the ground. When she spoke, her deep, cold voice carried with it, an ethereal echo that made Twilight slightly nervous.         The lone child who’s lost his days,         With two in hand, he will open the way. Twisted, the past she’s misdirect,         will allow the seeker to complete the set. Friends see him, Fakes he sees, as the crying rainbow shall fall to it’s knees. Against a false past will you must fend, or at the end of his blade will she meet her end,         The only way to retrieve his mind,         is to find the keeper of space and time,         send him back with memories anew,         and with him, defeat the enemies two.         After finishing the last sentence, Yuna fell to the ground, unconscious and breathing deeply. Yukalai quickly rushed to her side and picked her up from the ground. “I am sorry, she always gets tired after using her gift, so we try not to do it very often. Did you get any useful information?         Twilight didn't even hear him, her mind was currently racing to decipher the mysterious riddle. ‘A lone child…... Crying Rainbow…… Keeper of space and time? What does any of that mean? I have to talk with the others about this.’         Twilight said nothing as she quickly strode off to find the rest of her friends.