//------------------------------// // Chapter 27: Blade and Fire // Story: Kingdom Hearts: Harmonic Connections // by Mr Curious Writer //------------------------------// (As Always Green Text means "click me" to play theme music to go with what you're reading. Red text means to stop the music. Any words with This coloring to their text means to click on it for a sound effect. If there is music playing, then let it keep playing, the sound effect is brief Completely optional: Your free to ignore this) Canterlot Castle Gates: inside the 2nd floor of a crashed in building         “...-ainbow…” Rainbow was waking up to the sound of a familiar voice, although she seemed to be doing so with all the urgency of a hibernating tortoise “....Rainbow…. Wake up Rainbow….” Slowly but surely the voice was starting to become clearer.         “Rainbow Dash! Please wake up!”         “Huh? What?! I’m up! What?!” Rainbow shot up and immediately began looking all around her since her mind was still feeling a bit fuzzy, but she soon realized who was calling her. “Fluttershy?”         Immediately she was brought into a big hug “Rainbow! You’re Ok! I used my magic but you didn’t get up right away like Twilight or Rarity so I-I thought I messed up and-” For some one as soft spoken as her she was well on her way to speaking like Pinkie whenever she enters one of her speed speaking moments.         “H-hey, easy there, Flutters, I’m fine, really” Rainbow could only pat her on the head with her free hoof as her other foreleg was trapped in the mega hug.         Relieved to hear her friend’s words Fluttershy finally gave a smile before releasing her from the hug.         “Now… why are we here again?” Rainbow asked as she got to her hooves, she looked around and seeing nothing but a big mess of rubble, debris, and tipped over and/or broken furniture.         “Rainbow, did you hit your head too hard? Don’t you remember we’re fighting? Try to remember.” Fluttershy hovered around her taking a looking at her head for any bumps, cuts, or wounds of any kind. So far she saw nothing much to her relief         Rainbow took a moment to focus and try to remember as much as she could. She did remember fighting… a lot of fighting… fighting heartless. R-right… Canterlot was invaded by heartless… She took a moment check her wings, nothing broken, good. Then we came to kick their butts… fought a big one… The cure spell did the trick, if she was cut up or bashed around earlier, you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at her. then some big fat cat guy appeared… and then a Dragon! And that’s when the jumbled mess of her memories fit back together in chronological order. “I remember! That old Hag became a dragon and-” then came the memory of her being thrown aside like trash. This prompted her to scowl and puff some air out her nostrils angrily. “Oh she’s getting it now!” She immediately took off and flew out the window.         “Oh uh, w-wait for me…” Fluttershy’s voice was back to it’s normal quiet tone, now that she knew her friend was fine. She decided to fly out of the building the same way. By the time she got outside she noticed Rainbow stopping in mid air with her jaw dropped “Rainbow?”         “Nooooo waaay…” Was the Pegasus’ only response. Prompting Fluttershy to follow her gaze. Before immediately covering her mouth with her hooves.         “Oh My…”         What they saw was almost hard to keep up with. Sora in red, holding Applejack’s and Pinkie’s Keyblades as he ran all about the giant dragon, dodging fire, tail swipes, bites, and the occasional claw stomp, all while retaliating with a rapid string of key strikes. He was constantly moving, never stopping as he literally ran circles around the witch, as well as generally ticking her off.         Sora couldn’t help but grin at this situation, as he ducked low into a power slide dodging yet another flying claw before sharply turning toward the dragon. He then hopped and kicked off the dragon’s body sending him skyward, but through the whole time he turned and twisted his body til he was spinning rapidly sideways, with his his blades out and striking vertically against Maleficent’s body. To anyone that might be watching, it was like his spinning blades were helping him run up the witch’s body to her head.         Once he did reach that point he slowed his rotation down and got himself upright. Maleficent, although in pain wasn’t going to allow this wretched boy to do as he pleased. She decided to quickly face him and try to snap him up in her jaws. However that only worked out in Sora’s favor as he was expecting it. When she was about to strike him he wound both his blades back and to his side, and just like someone pulling a trigger, went into a wild horizontal spin this time. This was when Maleficent had her jaws open. The spinning blades managed to hit her upper jaw first. If one could slow down time, they could see the attack contorting her face as her upper jaw twisted slightly from impact and rapidly moved to the side, with her lower jaw trailing behind in the same path.         The dragon gave off a whine from the attack, as she was left wide open. Sora, still spinning of course, finally started to get pulled down by gravity, so he tilted his body slightly to make his helicopter spin move towards her. This continued all the way down to the ground, making sure every rotation of his weapons struck dragonhide. Then he landed stylishly with his hind legs on the ground, one keyblade held in front of him horizontally and the other held behind him pointing away from him. Meanwhile Maleficent dazedly stumbled away from both the pain and the one causing it before falling onto the side of the castle walls.         Ok now yer’ just showin’ off Applejack’s voice rang in his mind And how in the hay do we not feel dizzy from all that spinnin’ around?         I’ve had a LOT of experience with spinning in this line of work Sora replied in a humorous tone         That was so much fun! Let's do it again! Pinkie’s excitement started washing over the other two. It even got the farmer to warm up to the idea, surprisingly.         Maybe… When we need to of course, sugarcube.         Sora started running again. That attack threw their foe for a loop, but Sora knew it would take more then that to take her down. “Ok girls, let’s keep this up!” He hopped onto the Dragon’s back.         Right! Applejack called out         You got it! Pinkie cheered         Both of them were giving off a rather strong pulse of determination. So in response…         FWOOSH!         “What was that?” Sora paused for a moment.         Pinkie was the only one inside his mind to respond, Hmm, it kinda sounded like-         “Sora! Your back! Your back is on fire!” They could hear twilight in the distance screaming at them with fear, causing them to turn to the librarian.         “Huh?...” he]he stood stock-still for a moment, but when his mind finally caught up with his ears his head whipped back so fast one would fear his neck broke. Sure enough, there were spouts of pink and orange flames shooting off the back of his jacket “Aaaaaaaa......” Panic rapidly set in within Sora’s mind, mostly driven by the two mares inside him, as he felt his body spaz out.         Aaaaaaaaaah! We’re on fire! We’re on fire!” Pinkie screamed as now Sora’s body was running around on Maleficent’s back.         Quick, ya’ll countermeasures! Applejack called out making Sora’s body stop running.         “Counter-what?” Sora asked and Immediately got his answer when he face planted onto the dragon and immediately started rolling around back and forth. “Oof! Girls… stop…”         The girls weren’t listening as they were too busy chanting Stop, drop, roll! Stop, drop, roll! Eventually during their rolling Maleficent had soon recovered from the last attack and was glaring down at them “What in the world is this buffoon doing?” She didn’t even give anyone time to answer as her tail swiped over her back smacking the hero off her like how one would brush a bug off their arm. “Whooooa!” Sora was sent hurdling into the wall before sliding down to the ground with a groan, slumping over himself in a sitting position “Girls…. I don’t think that fire was hurting us…” When he lifted his head he could see Maleficent already reeling her head back and sucking in air, small brief flames already spilling from her mouth. “But that one will!” he stumbled to get up and barely roll out of the way of the stream of green fire. Meanwhile over by Twilight, she and Rarity had been so awestruck by Sora’s new transformation that only NOW after seeing him in trouble again did they realized that they had to help him “Quick Rarity use those things again!” Rarity had a moment of confusion “Wha? O-oh right!” then shook her head and glared at the dragon. “You shall leave Sora alone you ghastly thing you!” Her needle/rapier like weapons levitated in front of her and started firing pinpoint shots at the dragon’s face, aiming for the nostril to irritate her and close up her flaming mouth. This elicited a deep growl from the beast as its head slowly turned toward her. “Oh dear, um aheh… I do hope you know that by “ghastly” I meant, that is to say it was uuuh Prench for, um, radiant and divine!” she tried to bank off the witch’s limited knowledge of the rest of the world to fake a language. It was obvious that plan didn’t work as now she and Twilight were the ones that were the targets of her firebreath. Fortunately, help came swiftly as the two of them were snatched away from attack by their two flight capable friends Rainbow and Fluttershy. “Gotcha!” Rainbow smirked as she carried Twilight then looked back “How about you Flutters?” “Same here!” Fluttershy replied rather confidently as she trailed behind carrying Rarity. She didn’t need to be the strongest flier to keep up with her Rainbow maned friend. She just needed the motivation to. “EEP!” And she was getting plenty of that now that the trail of fire was following them. Now it was their turn to be rescued as the stallion of the hour had returned into the fray. Ok girls! Lets try this again! Don’t worry if our back is on fire! I think so long as it isn’t green right now, we’re ok! Right! Orange and Pink good! Green bad! Okie dokie lokie! Pinkie responded and her wave of determination from before immediately returned. FWOOSH! Hearing that sound was not comforting for the farmer, but she had to agree sora had a point. Ah’ swear none of this makes a lick of sense anymore… but ah’ ain’t gonna sit back and let this dragon lady barbecue mah’ friends. That was when the felt Applejack’s determination as well adding into the mix. FWOOSH! “Then let’s get to it!” Sora had popped a bead in his mouth and crunched on it. This time around.. He didn’t feel any pain like last time, much to his relief, and in a flash of light he was reverted to his true self. Now both keyblades were out and he was sprinting like a madman,  reaching one of her forelegs he dropped into a slide across the ground as he turned to the side, winding both blades back in the same direction, then when he was right upon it he swung like a spring trap swiping both his weapons into the leg causing the dragon to lose her balance and stumble. Sora back stepped from the falling dragon before hopping onto her once again and dashing to the back of her neck. Man I’ve never felt so pumped before. Upon reaching their target they immediately ran up it. This time Maleficent was aware of him and promptly attempted to shake him off. He jumped off just as she wanted him to, but not before giving her a parting gift. With all his might he hurled both keyblades one after the other like throwing knives, both curved away from each other after a few feet, before rendezvousing on the dragon’s face. Pinkie’s Keyblade hit her diagonally from above with a random explosion, pushing her head down only for it to shoot back up and to the side in pain when AJ’s powerhouse of a blade struck her lower jaw from the opposite angle eliciting a yelp. Once Sora landed on her back he immediately sprinted back towards her head, both keyblades summoned back in his hands in the stance he normally takes when he runs in his Valor form. He decided to take her head down by going for the neck, once he did his eyes seemed to be glowing brighter and the flames on his back grew more furious. He added some more of his own determination into the pot, now he was striking at his target with unrelenting speed and ferocity. Maleficent couldn't’ take the abuse much longer and started hopping and bounding around, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground. He managed to land on his feet and tuck and roll to avoid a face plant, and whipped his head back just in time to see that the witch was angry and ready to take it out on him, one of her claws already bearing down upon him. He lunged to the side to avoid the groundbreaking collision, rolled again onto onto the seat of his pants and slid a few feet. He then quickly got up and side stepped away from Maleficent’s second attempt using her hind leg. “Foolish boy!” Maleficent decided to strike him with a tail whip but he back flipped once then jumped high into the air and into an aerial backwards somersault avoiding the tail sweep from below. Right before he landed he noticed the tail coming back for another run. He didn’t have enough time to avoid it, but a thought and brief recall of Applejack’s memory gave him the alternative he needed. He held her keyblade overhead, then brought it down the moment his foot touched the pavement. The teeth of the key pierced into the stone as he knelt down behind it and held Pinkie’s keyblade horizontally in front of Applejack’s. “BRACE!” Sora called out to the two inside him, though it seemed they already had the same idea as he noticed both blades gain a more metallic sheen to them. When the tail collided with them it was stopped on the mark, not even budging the boy an inch. “What?” Maleficent was left stunned for a brief moment, but that was all the time Sora and the girls needed. Now, Sora! Applejack screamed into his mind causing him to push forward. Full Countah! Pinkie yelled in a strange accent, letting Sora lift up the tail with both blades as he took yet another step forward, then with quick footwork he pivoted and turned under it and out on the other side. The fires on his back blazing furiously and his eyes glowing ever brighter as he continued to pivot until facing his foe. He then sprinted with so much energy he was already upon her before she realised what was happening, and by the time she did he had already slid under her using that same momentum. When he was under her, anyone that could see Sora would not believe how fast he was swinging his keyblades around, it was like seeing brief flashes of orange and red/white blurs. By the time he slid out from the other side of Maleficent, the dragon’s legs buckled in pain and she was brought down to the ground. “Yeah! Go Sora!” Rainbow cheered as she was landing Twilight on a roof top. “Applejack and Pinkie too! Don’t forget they’re with him as well, dear” Rarity added as Fluttershy placed her right next to Twilight. “Y-yeah, I know that!” Rainbow grumbled and crossed her forelegs “I just… got caught up in the moment is all…” Twilight rolled her eyes and shook her head before returning her gaze to the battle. “Ok, girls, we’re not gonna let them go in alone right?” Her horn started glowing. “Way ahead of you, Twilight.” Rarity trotted past her and stared down at the fallen Dragon. “I must say, it’s quite peculiar how Sora can withstand that inferno on his back.” She referred to the roaring pink and orange flames emanating off the two elements on his back. Sora at this point was back on his feet and making a dash towards Maleficent’s face, ready to give it another barrage of slashes and cuts. Meanwhile Rarity was trying to focus on a particular spot on the dragon, her weapons floating around her, but before she could strain her eyes any more the element on top of her fedora flipped off the stop of the bill, turning over before hanging off the edge of it in just the right spot to line up with Rarity’s sight. “Oh… Well what do we have here?” “Rarity, what’s your hat doing?” Fluttershy hovered next to her. However she was immediately distracted by how Rarity’s weapons were now converging with each other above her. “I’m not quite sure dear, but it would appear as though looking through my element here allows me a much clearer view of my target. Oh, simply splendid!” As she was distracted by her new enhanced sight, her needle rapiers were now melding into each other and forming into a larger version of themselves. The very tip started to glow. Twilight was for a moment, speechless, however she soon shook herself out of it and tried to grab her fashionista friend’s attention “Uuuh, Rarity?” Rarity held her hoof up in Twilight’s direction “Just a moment dear, I believe I figured this out… now I just Fire-” Immediately a loud pinging sound rang in the girl’s ears, fortunately it wasn’t so loud as to cause negative effects, however their attention was drawn to the light purple beam that shot out from the tip of the newly formed weapon above Rarity’s head, before going right through Maleficent’s neck. Rarity was the most surprised as she immediately reared back while the gem on her fedora returned to it’s original position “My Word…” She managed to look up in time to see the large weapon before it finally separated back into those needle rapiers again. “Did… I do that?” she looked back and confirmed that a thin pillar of light was sticking through the dragon’s neck and into the ground below. “Whoa, That old hag is still alive?!” Rainbow noticed that Maleficent seemed to be struggling, attempting to move her neck and trying her best, but failing miserably to avoid Sora’s attacks. Rarity held a hoof to her barrel and gave a sigh of relief, Heartless were one thing, but ending a life was something she definitely had no intention of ever doing, even of one such as Maleficent. “It seems whatever that attack Rarity used binds a target in place, I’d assume that that’s a rather useful ability in a combat scenario.” Twilight was trying to analyze as much as she could before Rainbow nudged her. “You can nerd out about all this later, we got a dragon to beat down, remember?” and then she flew off to aid in the pummeling. “Oh! Uh, of course! L-let’s wrap this up girls!” Once she said that Twilight proceeded to fire every offensive spell she learned from Merlin at the dragon from her position on the roof. Sora was on fire! Literally and figuratively! He was slapping around the giant dragon’s head with each swing thanks to whatever Rarity did to pin down it’s neck, and each swing would lead into another racking up a massive combo chain, which he decided to finishing with a spinning swing utilizing both blades held out at opposite sides of his body, spinning him so fast that it lifted him off of the ground. When his spin slowed, just before gravity brought him back down he twisted around and pulled both blades over his right shoulder and behind his back before bringing them down on her snout with a downward slam so powerful that it was almost as if a bomb had gone off in her face. The dragon gave a cry of pain, but she wasn’t going to give up yet. As soon as she could recover enough from the beating she was taking she struck out at him jaws and all, only for him to dodge, block or back step. “Burn you pest!” she nearly screamed before she started breathing fire at him, forcing him to back off entirely, only for her to receive a double hoofed meteor stomp from above courtesy of Rainbow dash, forcing the witch to close her mouth briefly and give a groan. “Someone needs a breath mint!” the pegasus replied as she blew a raspberry in her face before she flew off, all the while a barrage of light, thunder, ice, and fire were pelting Maleficent’s back side. “Take that you… you… You jerk!” Twilight yelled from above as she and Rarity continued to fire away, her with spells and Rarity with her many needle light shots “Not the best insult dear, but points for effort.” Rarity replied with a sigh, earning a blush of embarrassment on the librarian’s face, while Fluttershy giggled softly from the scene before her while also QUIETLY cheering her friends on. “Aaaaaugh…. You inferior worms! How dare you!” Her neck was still pinned to the ground from that rather large Light Needle shot going through it and into the ground, but her neck was long enough her her to turn and see where the attacks were coming from, so she used her tail to slam the building the 3 girls were on causing it to rattle around. “Oh, ponyfeathers-whoa!” Twilight stumbled about as the building shook, and Rarity wasn’t faring any better.                                                                                                                             “Oh no you don’t!” Was the only thing Maleficent heard before she suddenly felt her head get knocked so hard to the side it sent sent it as far as it could go in the opposite direction from the building, temporarily dazing her. Apparently a few seconds earlier, when Sora took notice of Maleficent trying to take down the building with his friends on it he felt a wave of anger from both himself and his passengers. Before he knew it he was already running around her to get to the other side of her head. All that determination briefly turned into anger, that turned into power which infused his next swing. It was going to be another string of attacks, but with all that added power, multiplied by the innate ability of Applejack’s keyblade which increased the strength of his physical attacks, it only took one swing from said keyblade to knock the dragon for a loop. The impact and effect of the attack brought Sora, AJ, and Pinkie out of that brief state of anger and left them in shock. “Whoa….” Sora stunned Did… Did we do that? Sora have you been holding back or something? Pinkie asked We… um… We can gawk and ask questions later. Let’s just end this already! Applejack barely managed to come back to reality and wake the other two out of the stupor. “Oh yeah, you’re right!” Not giving the dragon anytime to recover Sora ran straight toward her head again. Rainbow had flown in in time to buck maleficent’s head to the ground. “Give it all you got, guys! No one messes with my friends!” Sora only nodded as he quickly closed in. Maleficent couldn’t get a good grasp of what was going on due to her dazed state, but what she did managed to see next was something red, Orange and Pink practically flying right toward her. After that she couldn’t quite remember what happened next… but it hurt… a lot. Sora started out with his original combo of attacks he used whenever he was in valor form, before that combo led to more exotic ones where it looked like he was practically doing some sort of deadly sword dance to her face. This finally led to him standing with legs planted in a wide stance as he launched a barrage of fast single hand swings, much like how he fought the conductor head of the heartless boss on the train from before. However, two keyblades meant twice the attacks, twice the pain, and twice the speed. He finished off the onslaught with a twirl of his body that pivoted on one foot, another double blade wind back, before it whipped out under her jaw with a massive double upward strike, knocking her head upwards with such force that it shattered Rarity’s binding on her neck and lifted her onto her hind legs for a moment before crashing back down. Anyone that happened to see the fight could only look on, wide eyed and astonished at what they had just seen. “Woooooah….” Rainbow Dash was floating lazily above, too busy trying to keep her eyes from popping out of her head to do anything else “That... was... aaawwwwesoooome….” As if that wasn’t enough, two new flashes of light started emanating from Sora’s keyblades. As he took a look at them, he noticed both representations of AJ’s and Pinkie’s elements were shining bright. “You don’t think….” he cut himself off and shook his head, there was only one way he would find out. He lifted both keyblades above him making them cross over each other in an “X” formation. Applejack and Pinkie Pie didn’t even both to ask and decided to go with it too as all three of them in unison called out. “TRANSFORM!” Suddenly there was a blinding light obscuring their vision. When it dimmed slightly they noticed both Keyblades start to meld together while at the same time start to turn into their own transformation weapons, that in turn melded together with it. After the flash of light dissipated completely Sora felt a lot of weight on both his hands that nearly made him fall over from the unexpected shift in his balance, he nearly immediately got used to it however and finally took a good look at what he was holding. It was strange, yet amazing at the same time. The basic structure of it was similar to the hammer that Applejack’s keyblade transformed into, yet it hardly looked like it at all. The long handle was made of a candy cane with orange and pink swirls wrapped around it. Where his upper hand was holding it his fingers were wrapped over what looked like a trigger, as well as what looked to be a trigger guard hanging over both it and his hand. Further up from that by about 10 inches or so was what Sora could only describe as a long grip of some sort. Rectangular, blue metallic grooves going in cross hatches on it wrapped around the handle on one side while leaving the other side bare, seemingly allowing him to get a good grip. From what he could tell it looked like if he grabbed it it could move a bit, for what purpose though he was unsure. The head for the most part looked like the same hammerhead on Applejack’s weapon, it even still kept the barrel shape, however it looked like the flat part where the hammer would make contact with it’s target was colored white with a swirl design. The white material reached around and up the sides of the barrel in a somewhat gentler candy cane swirl up to the back part, carefully avoiding covering the view of what appeared to be half of Applejack’s gem and Pinkie Pie’s gem merged together on the barrel’s side. However, as it continued it’s swirling pattern the white material seemed to detach from the barrel, gradually moving farther away from it and expanding in width, until it cut off half a foot past the back of the barrel. It gave the head a look like it was a still image of a barrel shooting towards the ground like a comet. “Whoa… kinda flashy…” Sora said after examining it for a moment OK Sora we only got chance to use this thing so make it count! Applejack called out Sora dawned a look of confusion What? What makes you say that, Applejack? He then looked at the grip and decided to grab and pull it down. It made the same cocking back sound PInkie’s gatling rocket made when he used it, so he let it go and it moved back up into place. Now the back of the barrel seemed to open up like hatch bay doors and what rose out from inside looked like the end of one big pink rocket at the center and smaller rockets circling around it, each with their own color of either green, yellow, or blue. “Oh boy…” he merely blinked at the sight of it. Ah’m not… Rightly sure honestly… but somethin’ in me is sayin’ that once we use this, it’s gone. I can feel it.  Pinkie then suddenly chimed in Oooh! Oooh! I got that feeling too! It’s like “Use this power wisely, young grasshopper” she said in an old sage-y voice before immediately giggling at her own impression. Sora turned towards a still dazed Maleficent, he knew she would soon snap out of it, and he wanted to finish this battle as quickly before more of the city got wrecked, or more ponies got hurt. Looking back at the hammer, he felt like it would definitely help out with accomplishing that goal. He tightened his grip and moved his upper hand back over the trigger. “OK, I believe you guys. I honestly don’t have any reason to doubt you anyway” He wound the weapon back to the side. Hit’er where it hurts, Sora! Applejack cheered, and Sora kicked off into a sprint, Hammer low and back. Smack that mean old witch outta the park! Pinkie joined the cheering as well. Sora picked up speed as his muscles tensed in preparation for the blow. “YEAH! GO, SORA!” Rainbow was cheering from high above so she could get a good view of everything and was really eager to see how much damage that hammer could do. Though if she had to be honest, she was jealous that she wasn’t the one holding that bad boy right now. When Sora reached Maleficent he took one large step forward, wound his weapon back further and- “Give it everything you got!” Sora called out to both girls within him as they lent him as much of their power as possible. Both flames behind him flared wildly and glowed brighter than ever in that single moment before he squeezed the trigger. The rocket’s ignited, gouts of fire blasted out of them and propelled the hammerhead forward and around it’s owner in the blink of an eye. ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile Ponyville         Spike wasn’t sure how this happened, nor did he know exactly what he was going to do. He was always up for adventure, but that was when Sora or the girls were with him… This? This was something totally different…         Spike stood front and center outside of the Golden Oaks library, behind him were the cutie mark crusaders, each of them holding whatever they had managed to find off the ground to defend themselves with. Behind them all sat Merlin, stroking his beard as he looked on ahead in the same direction as them, with unconscious and/or wounded royal guards lying scattered around the fields and road.         In front of them was a heartless… a BIG Heartless. (Heartless owned by Square Enix)         Spike held his stick tightly as he gazed up at the creature. Without Sora or the girls, they were the only line of the defense keeping that thing from rampaging through the rest of Ponyville. It was then that Spike voiced the question on all of their minds. “Well, now what?”