Kingdom Hearts F.I.M: Rise of The Elements

by Spirit Shift

CH38: When the Time Comes

Dash swung her Keyblade with swift determination. With magic coursing through the blade the sound of thunder echoed with each swing.

After figuring out that, upon contact, Dash’s Enthunder would shock him through his blades and momentarily paralyze him, Kirito had altered his strategy to hit and run tactics. Dodging what he could and trying to find an opening to strike. Unfortunately, thanks to his training, the girl wasn't merely swinging blindly anymore. Now she had far less openings to exploit, and the ones he could would be protected to a quick response time similar to his own.

That morning, Kirito had noticed a slight change in Dash’s attitude. Now with her actually listening to his advice, the two had finally begun to make some progress on her fighting style.

The two warriors had been going at it nearly the entire time after returning home from training in the field, refining and altering Dash’s fighting style. At some point, she had realized that her magic had started working again and they began experimenting with incorporating that. Even though Kirito was a novice where magic was concerned.

He quickly found that, with her magic enhancing her strikes, this brash girl was a far more dangerous opponent. He was forced to start using his basic sword skills to keep up with her now. He found that, whenever he parried or blocked while executing a sword skill, the effects of her enchantments didn’t effect him. Unfortunately, he only had so many separate skills to use before having to wait out the recast times for each.

His white sword glowing yellow, he swung and blocked one of her strikes. As the two clashed blades they gave each other a competitive grin. “You’re a fast learner, you know that?” he teased.

Dash smirked and spun on her heel, moving under his defense and trying to elbow him in the gut. Kirito was quick to respond by moving the flat of his other blade to block her attack. Unfortunately, that’s what she wanted. Grabbing his sword arm, Dash flipped him off of his feet and down on his back in front of her.

Recovering quickly, Kirito rolled out of the way as Dash brought her blade down point first, stabbing into where he was formally laying.

Hopping back to his feet, Kirito charged back at her. Dash made no attempt to move from her crouched position.

Cautious, but still willing to take the shot, Kirito slashed down at her with both swords. At the last second, Dash hopped out of the way, leaving her weapon stuck into the ground. Before he had time to realize what was going on, a large lightning bolt struck down on her Keyblade, catching Kirito in the crossfire.

The bolt lasted only a few seconds but for Kirito it was an excruciating experience. Even in virtual form, the electricity coursed through his body, following it was a white hot pain that he had never experienced before. Suddenly, it all ended and he fell to the ground face first with a thump. He could feel himself twitching and spasming for a few seconds afterwards.

When it finally stopped, Kirito slowly turned his head look at his health bar and he watched his health slowly drop from nearly full to just into the yellow. He needed no other proof as to how powerful magic, specifically lightning, was in this game.

As he lie on the ground, dazed and tingly, Dash poked her head into his view by lying down next to him. “Hey… a-are you dead?” she asked fearfully.

Kirito frowned. “No.” She moved away as he stabbed one blade into the ground and used it to pull himself into a sitting position.

“Don’t joke about that,” he groaned. He looked up at her but found that he was surprised as what he saw. He had expected her to be radiating with pride or smugness. Instead, she looked concerned and afraid.

“What?” he asked. He turned to see Twilight by the door, paused mid step down. Her gaze was also wide eyed and fearful. Before he could repeat his question, she ran down towards him and began inspecting him carefully. “Are you alright?! What just happened?”

Kirito blushed as she got behind him and lifted the back of his coat. “I got shocked.”

Dash started gesturing with her hands, slowly, as if she wasn't quite sure of what she was trying to explain. “You started… I don’t know… shifting all green and number-y.”

Twilight lifted his arm and began poking around. “I think the lightning bolt may have interfered with the code of the game somehow.”

“So you're saying I glitched,” he reasoned, taking his arm back from Twilight. “It may have been like Twilight said.” He patted himself down, making sure his body was once again stable.

“So I shouldn’t use Thunder anymore?” asked Dash, looking a bit peeved.

Kirito smiled and shook his head. “No, it’s good. It’s another advantage that we have against the bosses that we might come up against. Plus, magic or not, you did win just now,” he said grinning in her direction.

Just as he predicted, the corners of his mouth were turned up in one of her grins. There was so much pride radiating off of her, it was almost tangible. She’d finally got him, and he knew that he'd never hear the end of it.

Twilight gave Kirito one last worried look before turning to smile at her friend. “Rachelle that was genius,” she admitted. “Using your Keyblade as a lightning rod to catch him was an amazing idea. In fact, I can think of a few ways to improve that technique.”

The smug aura radiating off her nearly doubled. Kirito shook his head and got up to his feet. “I guess it was an interesting move. Though I still say using magic in this game is cheating,” he said, patting off the dirt from his clothes.

He nearly fell forward when he felt the shorted girl slam a palm onto his back. “Don’t get all pissy now that I beat you. I won fair and square.”

Kirito chuckled and rubbed the top of her head degradingly. “Yeah, and maybe next time I’ll go all out.” he teased, ruining her attitude. He chuckled when she slapped his arm away.

Opening his menu, Kirito brought out a small blue vial. After drinking it his various wounds shocks and signs of fatigue disappeared instantly. No matter how many times they see it happen, the effects never seem to look less interesting to the girls. Twilight herself was reminded of the ether she received on their first world.

Finishing off the elixir, Kirito took a deep breath he turned to Twilight. “Are you ready?”

~~~

“Are you sure you’re fine with me using magic?” asked Twilight, readying her Keyblade. “Mine are stronger and more versatile than hers,” she said, tilting her head over to her rainbow haired friend.

Said friend was relaxing on the porch, watching the fight go down and still surfing the waves of good feelings she felt knowing she had gotten stronger.

Kirito shook his head. “Nah, it’s alright. In fact this is great training for me too. I get to deal with the unexpected outcomes. I know now that lightning glitches the system and does triple damage.”

Twilight nodded dejectedly. “The results and powers of magic are wide and varied. I’m honestly afraid of what some of my spells would do side effect wise.”

Kirito moved his blades to his sides, tips pointed forward and rushed into combat. “Well then, I’d better not get hit!”

Twilight somersaulted out of the way and her magic flow into her Keyblade. “Blizzard!” she announced, shooting the ball of ice at her opponent.

Kirito sliced through the ice with one blade and slashed down at her with the other.

Raising her blade to block the attack calling out, “Reflect!” as she did. At the last second, a clear hexagonal dome formed between her and him. When his blade touched down onto it, the kinetic force of Kirito’s attack repelled his blade and shot his arm backward, leaving him wide open.

As he stumbled backward, Twilight pointed his blade towards his chest and called out, “Fire!”

As she the spell exited the blade, Kirito’s leg shot up and kicked her arm upwards, knocking her aim off and sending the fireball soaring into the sky. Moving with the momentum, the boy backflipped into a standing position and went back on the attack.

Twilight parried his attacks as best she could, all the while trying to gain distance. Although, she soon found that he was trying his hardest to keep as close to her as possible, not letting her fall back more than a few feet.

Kirito blocked a downward slash with both blades. “Come on,” he teased. You can do better than that.

He broke the clash and stabbed at her, forcing Twilight to gracefully moved to the side to avoid the attack. She couldn’t really argue, she had initially been all for coming out her to improve her magic ability. But having seen what a simple Thunder had done, she had become hesitant. If a small electric shock like that could nearly one shot him, and even worse, mess with his code, she couldn’t imagine what a full on Thundaga would do. Not to mention what spells that would physically alter his body would do.

Kirito read her expression like a book. “Stop holding back!” he ordered, pressing his attack. He began to move faster, forcing Twilight to do the same. Anything she couldn’t dodge she was forced to block or parry. Luckily this wasn't stressful as their earlier combat training had gotten them used to fighting two weapons at once. She was faster and stronger than she was yesterday and tomorrow she’ll be faster and stronger than she was today.

Twilight swung her blade in front of her. Instantly, several round yellow circles appeared in a row in front of her.

Unfortunately, Kirito was wise to the explosive properties of her mine shield. “Nice try!” Deftly hopping over the line, the black swordsmen brought down a hard swing from above. Twilight frowned and raised another reflect. Kirito’s signature black blade slammed into it as it did before, but instead of being shot off like it had previously, he continued to press against it. “Don’t worry about me, worry about figuring out what what you can do to win,” he told her.

Twilight scowled at him. “I know what I can do, I’m worried about what it’ll do to you.” Kirito pressed harder but Twilight held firm. “If anything happens to her husband, Asuna would never forgive me.”

Kirito gave her a kind smile while still pressing his blade against her shield. “I get it. I really do. But since we’ve covered basic fighting skills, in order for me to help you further, I need to know what your magic is capable of.”

“But I’m worried about the game’s code. What if something irreversible happened?” Suddenly, her shield exploded inward from a secondary impact. Rolling backwards, Twilight instantly got into a crouched position and raised her guard, quickly working out what had just happened.

She noticed that Kirito had brought his other blade down upon the shield and that it was glowing a bright red color.

Kirito stood up and sat one blade on his shoulder in a relaxed position, the red light having faded entirely. “Fine, how about this. Let’s see how strong your shields are. I just used a standard Guard Break skill. We’ll find another way to test your magic.”

Twilight’s expression softened and she stood up and nodded. Raising a hand she brought up another shield. This was was even larger and looked noticeably more thick. “Reflera!”

Kirito was already on her, swinging down with another sword skill from his other weapon. Unfortunately, this spell was stronger than the last. It burst outward in a flash of light. While the first reflect had felt like he had bounced off of something, this one felt like he was being shoved backwards completely. One quick glance at his health bar showed him that her spell had done an interesting amount of damage back to him.

He smiled. “Ohhh, so it reflects damage as well. I didn’t notice that before.”

“That’s right,” she nodded. “Reflera doubles the damage that I would’ve taken and sends it back at my opponent.”

“That’s cool,” he said, readying his swords. Clearly, he need to start using stronger attacks. This time both blades started glowing blue in anticipation. “What else you got?” he said charging at her once more.

With a wave of her hand an even larger dome appeared around her. Kirito eagerly took it as a challenge and readied something rather new he had come up with.

~~~

AJ’s uppercut threw took her off of the ground as she corkscrewed into the air. Bright light continued to emanate from her fist as she reached the apex of her attack. Only one thing was wrong.

Pinkie wasn't on the receiving end of it.

AJ landed and looked around, seeing the girl panting some distance away.

“That… was… so scary!” Pinkie gasped hunched over, hand gripping her knees.

AJ raised her brow in confusion. She knew that Pinkie could still slow time but she was positive she had the girl’s arm in a tight grip. While she wondered how Pinkie escaped, her eyes wondered down to the ground where a small sigil sat etched into the dirt between her legs. AJ leaned down and recognized the balloon shaped keyhole.

The pieces soon fell into place when she realized that Pinkie hadn’t moved herself, she moved her opponent. AJ scoffed and muttered, “Ah forgot she could do that.”

Pinkie popped from her position and pointed at AJ, cheeks puffed in annoyance. “That was really tricky, Jackie!” she chided. “That could’ve really hurt!”

AJ frowned at her. ‘Hey, ah didn’t trick ya!” she retorted. “Come on, lets have a straight up fight. No teleportin’ or summinin’ or any of that.”

Pinkie sighed and shrugged. “I guess so.” In that instant, Pinkie disappeared and reappeared in front of AJ, Keyblade at the ready.

It was only thanks to her quick reflexes, honed by training with Rachelle that, AJ was able to block the first strike from Pinkie. When she tried to retaliate, Pinkie disappeared, only to reappear behind her. To the cowgirl’s surprise, Pinkie’s attacks came fast, and from virtually every direction at once. She found herself spinning around in circles trying to keep up with the girl.

For some reason, whenever AJ threw a punch she felt herself slow somewhat while Pinkie seemed to go faster. Each time, the feeling only increased. Eventually, it got to the point that she was almost beginning to have trouble just keeping up with her.

Then, all at once the attacks stopped coming. She looked around. Pinkie had all but disappeared from sight. Odd, considering the fairly open area that they were sparring in.

Calmly looking around, AJ swore that every time she turned she could catch a glimpse of the one she was looking for, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t locate Pinkie directly.

Hearing a slight noise from behind, AJ turned just in time to see a Keyblade being flung in her direction. With deft reaction, she tried to backhand the weapon away, only for it to explode in a burst of multicolor confetti upon contact. Putting up her guard, AJ got ready for any number of surprise attacks from any direction.

What she didn’t expect was three small balls to roll underneath her, hidden by the cheerful slivers of paper. Each of the balls had a different color balloon painted on to it.

They exploded simultaneously, tossing the poor girl high into the air. It was then that AJ noticed that Pinkie had revealed herself directly under her. Somehow, her Keyblade had become a miniature cannon that she was aiming straight up. The handle had moved to the underside of the shaft and the shaft itself expanded to become the barrel. The three balloons that normally acted as the teeth were glowing wildly.

AJ pulled her fist back and quickly tried to fire her light based attack downward. Sadly, Pinkie was faster on the draw. “Shotlock: Jokes On You!”

There was a bright blue flash and AJ felt the blow edge deep into her stomach. It didn’t so much hurt, as it did make her feel nauseous. The blow nudged her back into the air, but not by much. Hitting the ground, it only took her a second before she shook it off and stood back up.

She quickly noticed that the explosion from the shotlock had released a thick blue fog that covered the area. AJ hesitated for a moment before remembering that her friend wouldn’t use anything poisonous.

Still, weary of any more tricks, AJ took a different martial arts stance that allowed her to keep her guard up while still being able to spin or attack in an instant. Something about her surroundings still seemed odd to her, but before she could analyze it, a shadow made itself known out of the corner of her eye.

Without waiting she went for it, bursting through the fog and tall grass towards the… increasingly large shadow.

Throwing a punch only resulted in AJ slamming her fist against the vastly taller looking Pinkie. She grimaced and looked upwards towards Pinkie’s large smiling face. Realizing what happened, all she could do was curse silently. “Dag nabbit.”

Pinkie reached down and plucked her, sending the once strong girl sliding across the grass. “I win,” she cheered, throwing her arms up into the air.

~~~

Kirito paced down the line of girls in front of him. Twilight and her friends, alongside Asuna, stood at attention in front of the couch in the living room. Each of them bore a face with with either a determined grin, confidant look, excited glee, or hesitant anticipation.

Meanwhile, Yui stood behind her dad, watching the pep rally in progress.

The swordsman paced a few more times, carefully wording his speech in his mind. After a few seconds, he came to a stop, centred in front of the group. He held his head down for a second before coming up with a bright and kind smile.

“I’m very proud of each of you,” he began. “In just three days you’ve managed to raise your levels exponentially, improve your already considerable skills, and even learn new and better ways to use said skills.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his head dejectedly. “Honestly, I’m kind of jealous. All I have over you is experience and game enhanced strength and and a helpful variety of artificial skills.”

He looked at each of them, his eyes lingering on each one for only a second before moving on. “You all though, your strength is real. You can learn faster, fight longer, and you all have no limits to what you can do. Just being able to help you in some way is well…” Kirito blushed and lifted his gaze towards the ceiling.

Asuna chuckled and took his side, grabbing his arm and smiling towards the group. The girls themselves were smiling back at her, already sure of what he was trying to say.

Even so, Asuna decided to help out her husband. “What he’s trying to say, is that he feels like he wishes he could do more to help you for what you’re doing for us, especially when you all could’ve left the second you found out about your situation.”

Across the group, all of the girls responded in their own way.

AJ lifted her hat in a modest gesture. “Shucks, like we’d ever up an’ leave you guys,” she smirked.

Twilight blushed and waved them off. “It’s nothing,” she began. “It’s wrong to keep you stuck here like this. I promised that we would help you, and before we can leave, I have to make sure we do.”

Dash slammed a fist into an open palm, leveling a confident look at Kirito. “Yeah, I’m not gonna leave before I give this Kayaba prick a piece of my mind.”

Rarity proudly flipped her hair. “Well while I’d love to have done this under different circumstances… but no matter how this might have turned out, I would never have refused.”

Pinkie lightly bounced in place. “This place is fun!” she cheered, as if that was all the reason she needed.

Yui, unable to contain herself hopped up from her spot and glomped the girls in glee. “Thank you all so much!” she squealed. Pinkie, never one to resist a glomp, took the brunt of the hit while Dash quickly tried to separate herself from the hug fest.

Kirito looked on with a peaceful look and held Asuna just a bit closer. His eyes glistening slightly, he reached up with an arm and rubbed it away before anyone could see. Turning to look out the window, Kirito’s face instantly switched to one of righteous determination.

“Kayaba… I’m coming for you,” he whispered, his voice unheard under the gleeful cheers of the others.

Meanwhile, at the top most chamber of Aincrad tower, a single man stood tall, clad in nothing but a white lab coat and normal clothes. The holographic screen in front of him was his only light in the dark, empty room. On the screen was Kirito’s determined look, staring up at him. Smiling, he closed the window with a single flick of his index finger.

His only source of light gone, the room grew completely dark for a second. With another flick of his finger the room exploded with dim glows as a hundred or so holographic screens appeared around the room. Each one was filled with flowing data and digital codes. Slowly, the screens floated towards one another and formed groups.

Eventually the screens all grouped up into ten separate unequal teams. Five groups seemed to have a few screens solely dedicated to analyzing a single specific object shown on the centermost display. Every other display had gathered around the five main terminals hovering directly above the man. On each screen was a single girl.

Kayaba Akihiko’s smirk grew slightly wider as he beheld all the data he had gathered over the past three days. “Like I told you, Kirito… I’ll be waiting right here.”

Comments

[SkyDragonMC]

Okay thanks. I am hoping for an upcoming date soon.

[NewToThis]

So how many shotlocks does Pinkie know? Or was the poison joke shotlock a result of the training?

[SkyDragonMC]

It's been awhile now and I just wanted to check on this story's progress. About how much more revising of the story is left before we get a new chapter.
Thanks

[Spirit Shift]

6491216 God it has been a while hasn't it lol I have a terrible perception of time. I'm writing up two new chapters right now actually. So I'm very sorry about the wait.

[SkyDragonMC]

6554930 No worries. Take your time writing up chapters. It's good to hear that that there will be new chapters soon though.