The heartless were on the both of them in an instant. Faster than Sombra believed to be possible the monster of darkness attacked, swarming the two and surrounding them within seconds. The first of the heartless leapt into the air with claw raised, only to be slashed from existence from a single swing of Xion's keyblade. Another being, one that was wearing armor and stood on two legs, was cut in half next. The blade banished the dark being, leaving only a heart that floated away into the sky.
Xion spun and blocked a strike from one of the heartless that had attacked from behind, kicking it off of her before retaliating with a swing. The heartless leapt back to avoid the blow while two others leapt forward to keep the pressure on. Xion gritted her teeth before flipping back onto the top of the train, which the heartless quickly swarmed up the side of to reach the key wielder.
"Where did all of these Shadows and Soldiers come from?" Xion asked. She stabbed one heartless clean through the head before rolling away from three that had attacked all at once. She hopped to her feet and spun her blade, pointing at a large cluster of them and yelling, "Fire!"
A ball of fire erupted from the end of the key and struck in the center of the group. The fireball turned into an explosion, one that was powerful enough to decimate the three heartless that had been close to the blast. But even as Sombra was about to praise her on her magic, more Shadows and Soldiers oozed out of the train around them.
'How many of these infernal things are there?!' Sombra roared as the next wave attacked, forcing Xion to go on the defensive. She slammed the tip of her blade into the roof of the train and created a barrier around them, one that deflected the attacking heartless with ease. The barrier then shattered and the shards ripped apart any heartless that had been close to the shield.
"These are Shadows. They're the most common of the heartless and the most plentiful," Xion explained as she sliced through a pair of heartless before driving the edge of her heel into the face of another of the dark beings. Sombra noticed that while that heartless was slain, it did not release a heart upon its death. Xion's blade flashed three more times and three more Shadows fell, but even she was starting to see that there were a lot more than she had originally thought.
"And these are Soldiers. They're a little tougher than Shadows!" Xion growled as she cut one of the armored heartless with the strange symbol on its chest in half, causing it to vanish into darkness and release a heart, which floated into the sky.
"Normally there aren't this many, though. Where are all of them coming from?" Xion muttered to herself before she was forced to leap off the roof of the train to avoid being hit. She landed and sprinted away from the train, slicing through the heartless that tried to block her path. Xion spied a small group of passengers that hadn't yet been claimed by the advancing darkness, making her change her course to meet them.
"All of you need to get out of here now!" she ordered to them before spinning around to slash a Shadow out of the air. She size up three heartless running towards her and brought her keyblade back. "Strike Raid!" she cried while hurling the blade forward, sending the spinning weapon clean through the three heartless. She then extended her hand and the keyblade vanished in a flash of light, only to appear again in her hand a moment later.
'Good job. By running over here, you've reminded these heartless that there are still ponies that they haven't killed,' Sombra mocked Xion as the bulk of the heartless all convened on her position. Xion bit back a retort as she took up her fighting stance once more, planning her next attack. Then an idea came to her.
"Sombra, you said that this land is naturally filled with light, right?" Xion asked.
'Yeah, so what?'
"Well, call it a stupid idea, but..."
Xion then extended her blade and concentrated with all of her might, pushing her strength to its absolute limit. Then she snapped her eyes open, just as a blade of divine light covered her keyblade. Her eyes snapped open, eyes that were now filled with light.
In a blur she was upon the heartless, hacking through them with a speed and precision that would have made Sombra's jaw drop had he still had a jaw. What was once an army of heartless was quickly whittled down as Xion's light infused blade cleaved through the heartless like they were paper.
"This will finish it!" she cried as she crossed her arms, before hurling them to the side with such force that thirteen pillars of light erupted from her. The pillars shot away from her and tore through the rest of the heartless, returning them back to the shadows from which they were created. Xion then let out a sigh as the light vanished from both her and the keyblade. She opened her eyes with a smile and looked up to see all of the freed hearts ascending into the sky, finding a place to be at peace.
"Everyone alright?" she asked as she turned around to look at the ponies, but to her surprise she found that all of them were looking at her with terrified expressions on their faces. "You guys don't need to be afraid, I'm not-" She stopped talking when she took a step towards them and they recoiled, with some of the foals starting to cry at her approach.
'Save it, puppet. Despite your actions, despite saving them...your a creature of the darkness. Something that they've been taught to fear since they day they popped out. You're nothing more than a red eyed monster in their eyes. Come on, let's go,' Sombra instructed her. Xion looked back at the ponies once more before banishing her keyblade, trying to ignore the yelp of surprise the ponies gave. She then flipped up her hood and walked away from the passengers and the stopped train, just as the sun finally set over the land.
=====
XIII
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"Nothing like feeling like a total monster to finish off another day in this land," Xion grumbled to herself as she poked at the small fire in front of her with a stick, breathing a little more life into it. "First the train gets derailed and then all of the ponies that I save hate me. But worst of all, the heartless somehow managed to find a way to come to Equestria as well. That's just what I needed."
'The heartless. Just what sort of monsters are they?' Sombra asked from within Xion's coat pocket, getting her to reach in and pull the former king out. 'I've done some terrible things in my life, but...ripping the heart out of a pony and consuming it in darkness...even I'd never go that far.'
"The heartless are the darkness. Monsters created by the darkness in peoples hearts. At least, that's what I remember," Xion muttered. "As their names imply, they have no hearts of their own and seek those who have them. Each heart they claim is another heartless that is added to their army. They have no will. They only seek two things: to claim hearts and to destroy those that wield the keyblade."
'Dear heavens...why do they seek the keyblade?' Sombra asked. 'I mean, you don't have a heart, right? So then why are they after you?'
"Because only the keyblade can truly defeat a heartless," Xion said, but when Sombra remained silent Xion figured he hadn't understood. "See, regular weapons can't hurt a heartless. They're completely immune. Magic can destroy the body of a heartless, but eventually they'll be back. Only a keyblade can permanently destroy a heartless by releasing the heart that they have trapped."
'So why did some heartless, the Soldiers, release a heart while the Shadows didn't?'
"Um...I think it's because the Soldiers are heartless that were created, thus need a heart to function. The Shadows are pure heartless, made of pure darkness, so they don't have hearts within them to release. They simply consume them. At least I think so. I was never good at this stuff back when I was..."
'Alive?'
"Well, technically I was never alive. In fact...I didn't really exist. Or wasn't supposed to," Xion whispered to herself as she placed her hands on her knees.
'Oh enough of that pile of princess crap!' Sombra roared with such intensity that Xion let out a yelp and fell over. 'You are here right now, sitting with me. You are not some figment of my imagination. You are a real being, no matter what anypony says to you. So enough of this nobody, woe is me nonsense. If you don't, then I'm going to hop off and find somepony else to carry me to victory.'
"Yeah that ain't happening. No other pony would be able to put up with you like I would," Xion said with a small smile as she watched Sombra's horn bounce around, trying not to laugh aloud. "But now things have gotten worse. It was bad enough with me being here, but if the heartless are here as well, then I'll have to lock the heart of this world."
'And there you go again saying things that don't make sense. This world has no heart! It is a ball of rock, air and water that happens to have to the most insufferable beings living on it. How about we talk about something that actually matters. Such as, rebuilding my body!' Sombra said with a laugh as his horn glowed once more and created a map for Xion. 'This is where we need to go next. By Stalliongrad. Now it's been a while since I've been there, but I'm certain that my lair hasn't been touched.'
"Hold on a second, I'm still stuck on that you know how to rebuild a body that's been blown up," Xion added.
'Don't change the subject puppet, you're listening to me now! There are three places in all that I need to go to, each of them a secret lair, in order to rebuild my previous form. If you can do all of this for me, then I will take you to beach.'
"So, why don't I just ask where the beach is and go there myself, before you have the chance to rebuild yourself and have a chance to screw me over?" Xion put forward. A massive smile crossed her face after nearly a minute passed and Sombra had no answer aside from a slight gagging sound. "Don't worry, I'll help you out. You did save me from those guards after all and I still need someone that knows this world and unfortunately, all I've got is you, since you can see the real me."
'Well, I'm glad that I didn't have to force you to do my bidding. For some reason captive henchmen are less cooperative than those who aid me by their own volition,' Sombra said in an arrogant tone, but Xion could hear the relief in his voice as he talked. 'Especially now that there are heartless patrolling this world. Any idea on how they got here?'
"It could be a number of things. I could have led them there when I was thrust into this world. Maestro might have sent them here to kill me. Or maybe they found this world by themselves and want to drag it into darkness like they do every world."
'...the Maestro. I think it was him,' Sombra said, getting Xion to look down at the horn. 'If I know an evil villain, and I should, then he's doing this to punish you for not doing what he wants. He said that he wanted you to meet Twilight and her friends, right? So my guess is every time you pass up the chance to meet with them to do something else, he's going to make your life hell.'
"That does sound like something he would do," Xion agreed. "But what do we do, then? I couldn't so much as scratch him when we fought and you're a horn. We wouldn't exactly inspire terror in him if he decided to attack us."
'Puppet, when you can't overpower your foe, use your brain to figure out a way to make them beat themselves,' Sombra said. 'Trust me, if the princesses hadn't overpowered me then they never would have gotten rid of me. So this Maestro is powerful. He's unstoppable. He's probably some kind of god. I would bet your life that all those factors together makes him arrogant beyond belief. Out smarting him shouldn't be a problem.'
"You sure sound confident about that," Xion said with a small chuckle as she summoned her keyblade, staring down at it while turning it over. 'But you weren't there. You didn't fight against him like I did. His power, his skill...the way he dealt with me like I was a pest...it's just like Riku all over again. And I hate it. Only this time this guy is way more powerful.'
'Did you hear a word I just said?' Sombra snarled at Xion, who shook her head and looked down at Sombra with an innocent smile. 'Ugh, I asked about the keyblade. A weapon that you can summon whenever you want seems incredibly handy, especially when it can open any lock. Care to give me a reason why I just don't take it from you in your sleep?'
"Well for starters, the keyblade chooses whoever wields it, so good luck getting it away from me. Second, this blade is more of a curse than a gift. It attracts heartless, like I said, but it also seems to attract pain and despair for whoever wields it. I have yet to hear of a wielder that didn't suffer incredibly in some way," Xion said in a sad tone. Her reasoning gave Sombra pause for stealing the blade, but his curiosity for the weapon was too strong.
'You said something along the lines of sealing the heart of this world. While that's a steaming pile, you also talk a lot about the heart and how you can free them from the heartless. So does that mean your blade has the power to remove hearts from beings? And is that why the Maestro wanted you to meet with Twilight? So you could remove her heart?'
Xion slowly gazed down at Sombra with disbelief on her face, unable to comprehend how Sombra had managed to make that connection so quickly. When Sombra saw the confusion and hints of fear on Xion's face, he let out a small chuckle that, for the first time, made Xion aware of how very evil Sombra could be.
'I'm more than just a pretty face, my dear. Like I said, I was and still am one of the most brilliant minds in all of Equestria,' Sombra reminded her and for a moment she was certain that he was smiling at her. 'So don't think that because I lack a physical body means that I am less of a threat. For if I wanted to I could easily-'
Whatever Sombra was going to say was cut off when Xion tossed the horn into the air, getting a cry of confusion from Sombra. Xion caught him as he came back down before tossing him up once more, turning the confusion into roars of rage.
'What in the blazing hell are you doing?! Put me down this instance or I swear I'll...I'll...oh heavens.'
Xion laughed aloud to herself as Sombra began to make retching sounds, but she still couldn't shake the fact of how much danger she was in. It was bad enough that the Maestro had put her in the strange land and asked her to harvest the heart of some pony she didn't even know, but now she had the heartless to deal with along with a horn that thought itself a god. Not to mention she had no idea if she could ever get back to her world and see her friends again...if they even remembered her.
"Hey Sombra," Xion began as she caught the horn and didn't toss it up, getting a weak groan out of Sombra as his horn still spun in her hand. "If I do this for you, help repair your body and balance out the light and darkness in this world, can you do something else for me? Something important?"
'...sure puppet, as long as it is within my power and I want to do it,' Sombra replied with what sounded like a chuckle, before the horn turned towards her slightly. 'But how did you know that I had plans to make you, I mean ask you, I mean demand that you help me set the balance?'
"You're not the only one that's more clever than they look," Xion replied with a small smile before placing the horn on the ground, before summoning her keyblade and pointing it towards the fire. "Freeze." A blast of ice erupted from the end of her blade and doused the fire, casting the both of them in darkness. "It's getting late and I'm tired. If you can't sleep, and I don't know how you could since you're a horn, mind keeping watch? The heartless can appear at literally any time."
'Sure. But if you snore, I'm going to let the heartless take your heart.'
"Don't need to worry about that. I don't have a heart, remember?" Xion said before she flipped up her hood and laid on her side, breathing heavily a moment later and telling Sombra she was asleep.
'Don't have a heart. Bull. I saw the joy on your face when you rode that train and I saw the hurt in your eyes when the ponies scorned you. You have a heart, puppet. More so than I do.'