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

by Spirit Shift

CH63: Dragon Hunters Part 2

Author's Note:

Srry for the late update. I'm in full productivity mode and I've just finished my new youtube video! I'm settling into a new schedule that should help me upload shorts, chapters, and videos in order!

For those also reading Sunset Helpers, new chapter will be up next week!

A few minutes earlier

With the force of a meteor, AJ, boosted into the air with the help of Rarity, slammed down onto the head of the dark dragon with her Keyblade. Cracks from the attack spidered throughout the surrounding area under the creature.

“Now!” she yelled, jumping away.

Back on the ground, Twilight spun her keyblade around her, dancing as she built up magic. While she normally wasn't such a flashy fighter, however some criticisms of her fighting style, namely from Rarity, eventually rubbed off on her.

With a quick few spins and a single twirl, Twilight caught her weapon and aimed the tip of it right at the monster. The blade itself glowed fiercely with arcane magic and the words almost echoed across the battlefield.

“Ragnarok!” she yelled.

All at once dozens of beams of light erupted from her weapon, shining through the bleak gray sky and raining down on the heartless in front of her. The dark dragon let out a soundless scream as it was peppered with rays of light magic. Several dozen heartless also faded from the attack as they all disintegrated from the attack.

Soon enough the attack ended and the dragon lay nearly motionless, peppered with holes and fading slowly. Twilight let out a low sigh of relief while her keyblade’s glow faded. Taking a step forward, she moved to finish the job. As Master Luna had always taught her. Never let her guard down.

Before she could take that step forward, a tingle came down her spine and she spun on her heel and quickly threw up a barrier just in time for something to crash into it from behind.

To her complete surprise it was Areth who had fallen into her shield. Eyes wide, she lowered it and allowed him to gingerly fall to the ground.

Looking over she saw Talos facing down what seemed to be the final heartless. It lunged at him, but he dodged and dispatched it effortlessly.

“Oh my!” gasped Rarity, what happened here? She asked, walking up to Twilight.

AJ followed suit. “Ah saw the whole thing,” she scowled. “The two of them were fightin’ then that one over there decided to ‘miss’ his attack and sent the poor fella flyin,” she said, giving Talos a pointed look.

Talos simply gave them one back. “He was in the way,” he scoffed.

Twilight, seeing that Areth wasn’t very injured, carefully sat him down and stomped over to Talos, a frown deeply etched into her features.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked. “Why do you treat him like that?”

Talos snarled at her. “I’ve told him time and time again to stay back. He’s weak, he is injured, he cannot fight.” He looked directly into her eyes. “He. Is. A. Burden.”

This took Twilight aback. However, as she opened her mouth to return is vitriol. AJ stepped in, pushing her aside. “That don’t give you NO right to treat him like that. He’s out here, fighting the good fight and he’s your teammate. Burden or not he deserves respect.

Talos did not falter in his response. “And where should this respect come from? He has almost no victories to his name. He lost to a child. And worst of all, he was complicit in hiding the halfling from us!” he nearly screamed. “If he had simply turned over the cursed thing, so many of us would still have homes!

Hearing her brother called cursed ticked Twilight. She could feel a rage building in her chest. It was only due to her mental training that she didn’t verbally attack him. Instead, she took a breat and tried to rebut.

“Thats-” Twilight couldn't get the words out before Talos continued his rant.

“He should have died that day! And yet he’s still here playing at being a warrior! Disrespecting the rest of us who SHOULD be out here fighting!”

Twilight looked up at the taller Dragonkin, his eyes were clear and unblinking. His expression portrayed no mercy or falsehoods in his words. Her angry expression fell to disgust and sadness. “H-how could you say that?

Just then, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and a chill down her spine a fraction afterwards. Time slowed to a crawl for her.

Slowly, a figure cloaked in darkness moved past her, and the others, as if also frozen in place, could do nothing to stop him. Before she even realized it, Twilight felt herself being lifted from the ground and not even a second later, she saw blood flying, Talos falling, and her friends calling her name.

Time resumed at normal speeds for everyone around.

“Twilight!” Rarity called. Reaching a hand out, she caught Twilight’s falling form in a telekinetic hold, saving her from a decent amount of fall damage.

AJ meanwhile, immediately leapt away from the figure, her brain trying to process what just happened.

“You’re right, you know…” the figure said, standing just as tall as Talos once did. However, now said soldier lay on the ground, a pool of blood quickly forming around him. “I was weak, and I paid the price for it. If I had more of this power back then, I wouldn't have lost to that child.”

AJ, already analyzing the situation, was the first to figure it out. She glanced over, and sure enough, both Areth and the previously fading dragon heartless were now gone… or rather, they had moved.

“So that’s what it is,” she mumbled to herself. Somewhere inside her, she let out a sigh of relief, unfortunately, that sigh would have to remain inside until the danger to her friends was gone. Switching out her keyblade for her gauntlets. AJ held out a hand, towards Areth.

“Sug, what in the sam hell are you doing?” she said slowly.

Areth turned to her. As he did the darkness took form around his body. No longer fully obscuring him, and instead becoming a deep purple aura around his body. Though AJ could already see the effects seeping into him. He was taller, now, more muscular, and his scar was almost glowing. And from what she heard, his voice was now a lot more clear.

A trait he also clearly noticed by the way he reached up and felt his throat. “Exactly what it looks like. Regaining the power that halfling knocked out of me.” His hand ran down the length of his scar. As he did his expression grew dark. “And when he gave me this scar.”

“Ya don’t need it, Areth.” AJ said calmly.

“AND WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME THAT!” Areth screamed, immediately rushing towards AJ. Luckily, she was already in defense so she took his attack head on.

Areth slashed down at her with claws now enhanced by the seething rage he felt. “Of course you would say that, another legendary keyblade wielder,” he hissed as they clashed.

“It, ain't about the weapon, hun,” AJ lectured, pushing him back. Even with the power of darkness, Areth was still not enough to overpower the group's tank. “They’re not what makes us special. It’s about the heart. And it’s not too late for you to save yours!”

“Jackie!” screamed Rarity. AJ felt her body forcibly moved backwards, just in time for a spear to shoot out from the ground behind her and almost skewering her.

Rarity let out a small exhale from the effort. “This would be much easier with Pinkie here,” she mumbled.

My heart is fine!” screamed Areth. “It’s you all!” He pointed a claw at them and gave a sideways smirk. “We don’t need you! With this power I’ll finally be the strongest. I’ll protect this world from now on.”

“Rachelle??” Both Rarity and AJ turned just in time to see Dash and another figure show up next to Twilight.

(The Present)

Twilight, now holding Talos' shaking body on her lap, looked up at Dash with wide eyes. Dash herself, holding her arm out to reach for Pinkie, now found herself locking eyes with Twilight instead.

Between the two of them sat a very gravely injured Talos. Twin scars ran down his chest as he struggled to breath. Twilight, momentarily distracted, nearly faltered in her healing spell, causing Talos to let out an agonized grunt of pain.

Twilight quickly turned back to him and refocused on her spell. “Wha… how did you…? Was it Pinkie?”

Dash quickly shook her head and looked out into the distance. “Y-yeah, she sent us here because there was a…” finally her mind caught up with the situation as her eyes fell on the dragonkin covered in darkness standing some ways away and the other one bleeding out in Twilight’s arm.

She immediately switched into battle mode. “Looks like we’re just in time.” She flared out her wings and immediately took flight.

Jinkai however, took a few more seconds to catch up to what was going on. However, there was one thing that he took note of immediately.

He and Areth locked eyes, and the latter audibly growled, frowning more than he had ever frowned before.

“You,” he hissed. Not a moment passed before Jinkei found Areth rushing towards him. In less than a second, he was almost on top of him. Unlike AJ, when they clashed, he was easily pushed back.

“You reject! You’ll be the first to die, then I’ll hunt down that halfling!” Areth yelled, swiping at Jinkei.

“Areth!” Jin grunted, dodging as best he could. While definitely stronger, he was no doubt faster than his old friend. “Why? Why are you so obsessed?”

“It’s your fault!” he screamed, lunging back and forth. His claws swiped cleanly through the air with each attack aimed at Jin. “I would have been the strongest if it weren’t for you two!”

Dash came to a hover near AJ.

AJ glanced up at her and nodded towards Jin. “You found him, huh?”

Dash nodded. “Yeah that’s the dude Trials’ asked us to find. AJ… he knew Spike and-”

AJ held up a hand to stop her. “You can hold off on the story, sugarcube. Ah more or less get the gist. We need to stop Areth before he falls too far. Come on!”

Rarity meanwhile, decided to stand guard near Twilight while she tried to heal Talos’ injuries.

“We need to stop him,” she called over to the others. “If he holds onto that power we won’t be able to bring him back!”

“There’s also a dragon flying this way!” Dash called out. “So we need to hurry!”

AJ punched her gloved hand into her palm and smirked. “Well since you’re finally here, I’m sure we can clean this all up in two shakes of a lamb's tail.”

Dash couldn't help but smile, secretly relieved that her friend wasn’t too mad at her flying off earlier… or maybe she was and was just waiting until after the fight to lecture her.

In any case, she turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

“Jin” Dash yelled, leveling her Rifle up towards Areth. “Move!” With a crack, two shots rang out across the battlefield, AJ dashing in right afterwards.

Following her instructions Jin, who had been keeping Areth at bay, leapt out of the way of a quick shot of Spiral. However, the timing was just a bit off as the shots missed their target by a hair.

AJ rushed forward and followed up on the missing shot with a quick punch to Areth’s gut. Although she felt it connect, the hit itself didn’t do nearly as much as she expected. Areth’s smirk cemented her feelings.

In fact, with a few quick tugs, she quickly realized she couldn't pull her arm away from his gut. Darkness began to pool around her and spikes shot out at her from all sides.

Before they could pierce her, AJ summoned the greaves that went with Beowulf and stomped on the ground. Her feet crushed the ground beneath the two of them, turning the ground around them into rubble from the small earthquake her attack caused.

Now it was her turn to smirk back at Areth. “Can’t trick me twice,” she said, rearing back to deliver an even stronger right hook.

Areth, now thrown wildly off balance had no choice but to take the punch head on by layering the darkness in front of him.

It wasn’t anywhere near enough to completely absorb the force of her attack. The next thing he knew he was flying through the air. Forming the dark energy into his claws to make them larger, he sank them into the ground to try to stop his momentum.

To his despair, just as he came skidding to a stop Dash had caught up to him from the side with her rifle charged somewhat with faint electric energy.

“Now let’s see if this works now!” she said, pulling the trigger. “Thunder Shot!”

‘AAAGGHHHHH!” Areth screamed as lightning pulsed through his body. The darkness granted a slight resistance to the magic, but he could still feel it shocking every muscle in his body. His vision grew faint.

“No,” he grunted. Pushing through the pain, he reached out and swung an enlarged claw at Dash. To no avail, due to her speed.

Areth slowly fell to his knees, panting and twitching from the attacks. “N… no,” he muttered. “M… more. I need… more power. If I had more, I could kill them. If I had more, I could’ve killed him back then!” Dark power began seeping out of his body in droves forming a cloud of inky black and purple wisps around his body.

This caught Twilight’s attention. “Back then…?” she muttered, the pieces slowly coming together for her.

“Stop him!” Jinkei yelled, breaking her thought process! “I can feel it, the other dragon is almost here! If they fuse together then-”

To their shock, just as he tried to warn them, Areth let out a blood curdling scream and the inky cloud that had been surrounding him shot into the air.

“No!” Twilight said. Still holding Talos with one hand, she reached out with the other and held her keyblade to shoot a spell. “Bind!”

Chains shot out from her weapon and zoomed towards Areth. Unfortunately, she didn’t quite make it in time. A dragon, not dissimilar to the one she had just defeated, appeared from the sky above and slammed down into Areth, absorbing his form completely.

An explosion of foul energy erupted from the impact, darkening the entire area around them. The same inky power that once covered Areth now encased him completely. An orb of spinning dark purple energy pulsed where he once was, and with each throb, grew even bigger.

It wasn’t long before it grew to double the size of either previous dragons the groups had fought and defeated. Standing nearly three stories the orb exploded outward, sending waves rushing across the land.

Two massive wings unfurled themselves, revealing a pitch black dragon with a dark violet underbelly and two sharp glowing yellow eyes.

While at first it had no mouth to speak of, a loud crack was heard followed by a slick tearing sound. With its new mouth wide open, the creature that used to be Areth let out a blood curdling roar that nearly deafened the entire group.

A true dragon looked down at the group.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

11525708

Original as in I made them myself?

Yeah, that's what I meant.

If you mean bosses from the original Games. Sometimes i sneak one or two in as filler bosses, but the enemies are largely of my own creation.

What about new Disney bosses?

[Spirit Shift]

11569396
Then yeah! As for original disney bosses, the disney aspect really doesent play a part here aside from some characters and a few locations, so most likely not