Xion couldn't help but stare in awe at the colossal statues of beings past as she and Sombra walked underneath a long row of statues. Each of the statues looked like a different being, with some of them looking like ponies while others looked like dragons. The structure that housed the statues was far larger than the statues themselves, with its outer walls weathered and ancient, yet the front door seemed as pristine as it would have been the day it was created.
While Xion was staring at the place with wide eyed wonder, Sombra rested within her coat pocket with concern coursing through what remained of him. It was not his first time having come to the place to claim the core of a golem. But it was the first time that he had come to the place knowing full well the power of what rested inside. He was concerned not just for him, but for the girl whose power seemed to get stronger by the day.
'Of course, now that I know she has a connection to the light, it is no surprise that she's getting stronger. The land just oozes the light,' Sombra thought to himself while Xion looked at some carvings on a pillar. 'And that, in turn, makes the light within her naturally stronger. What I can't understand is how her dark powers are getting stronger as well. The lands light should be subduing them like it is mine, yet she seems completely unaffected. Is it simply because she is not from this world? Or is there another, far more sinister reason?'
"Hey Sombra, can you read these?" Xion asked Sombra, who snapped out of his thoughts right before Xion pulled him out of her pocket and held him in front of the symbols. Sombra glanced over them for a second before he let out a sigh.
'Sorry puppet, but these are older than even me,' Sombra replied with disinterest.
"Wow, older than you? So these were around at the beginning of creation?" Xion mocked with a smile and Sombra chose not to reply. Instead he rolled his horn so that it was facing the entrance to the temple and Xion followed his gaze towards the entrance.
'Now would be the best time for jesting. For I promise you once we're inside the last thing you'll be doing is laughing,' Sombra informed Xion. 'Within those walls is a never ending maze of traps and tricks, which will constantly change and morph itself so that you never escape or find the center. And even if you do find the center, the golem within will make you regret finding it.'
"Geez, that sounds like a fun time," Xion said as she started to walk towards the entrance of the temple. "Are we just going to wing it like usual or do you actually have a plan this time?"
'Fortunately for you, I have been within these walls and have learned how to navigate the maze,' Sombra said with some pride, before his horn glowed darkly. 'However, I have yet to best the creature whose core we are here to take. And if I couldn't do it, then I severely doubt your ability to do so. But go ahead, prove me wrong.'
"I intend to," Xion replied as the two reached the shining door. Xion summoned her keyblade and pointed the tip of the needle at the center of the door, yet before she could open it beings of darkness and nothingness shot out of the ground around her.
"Heartless!" Xion roared as she spun around and lashed out with her blade, the longer reach allowing her to slice through one of the closer Shadows. She backed up to the door so that the Heartless couldn't get behind her and glanced around at what she was facing.
The regular Shadows and Soldiers littered the battlefield, but to Xion's annoyance there were Heartless in the group wearing turbans and carrying scimitars. But then there were the creatures that were as thin as sticks and wore white outfits, with the tops opened up on the face to reveal pointed teeth.
'Xion, are those more Nobodies?' Sombra asked.
"Yeah, but fortunately for us, these are just Dusks. They're not that much of a threat," Xion replied before the creatures attacked. Xion deflected a strike from a Dusk before she rolled out of the way of a sword swipe from a Bandit. With a vertical slash she cleaved a Soldier in two, giving her some breathing room to spin around and fire a blast of ice from the end of her keyblade and into the chest of the Bandit, blasting it to darkness. She swung at one of the Dusks, but the creature leapt into the air and skidded to the edge of the battlefield.
'These Dusks are hard to hit, aren't they?' Sombra asked Xion, who cartwheeled out of the way of a stray Heartless strike before spinning around and knocking the Heartless back with her blade. Xion tried another swipe at a Dusk, but once more the being rolled out of the way.
"Yeah, but I know how to get around that," Xion replied before she thrust her keyblade into the air. "THUNDER!"
A blast of lightning came raining down from above the Dusk, striking it right on the center of the beings head. The Dusk writhed like it was in agony before it burst apart and faded away into nothingness. If Sombra's had eyes, they would have gone wide at the new spell that Xion had pulled out. Xion didn't waste any time before she lunged towards two more Bandits, blocking the blade of one of them before she ducked under the swing of another.
"Take this!" Xion yelled as she drove the keyblade through the center of the Bandits chest, before ripping the blade from his fading body to slash through the Bandit standing beside her. Both of them faded into the darkness, but as Xion looked behind her she found more Heartless appearing out of the ground. "You guys like to hide in the dark? Then time to face the light."
Xion closed her eyes as she held her keyblade in front of her, channeling the good memories and drawing forth the light within. An aura of light surrounded her and formed a blade of light around her keyblade. Xion's eyes snapped open once more and she pointed her blade at the Heartless, which slowly backed away from the glowing blade.
In a flash of light Xion was on the Heartless, swinging her blade through the head of the Heartless and driving it all the way to the ground in front of the door. The energy coming off of her blade left burn marks on the ground, but Xion didn't notice as she swung her blade of light around and slashed through another of the Heartless. She locked her eyes onto the final Heartless and channeled the light into her keyblade, before she let out a bellow as she thrust the blade towards the Heartless.
A massive chain made entirely of light erupted from the end of her keyblade and impaled itself through the Heartless, causing cracks filled with light to appear in the Heartless before it exploded into a shower of light. Xion stood back up before she glanced over her shoulder at the remaining two Dusks, who stood behind her without moving. For a long time Xion stared at the two Dusks, who stared back at her. Then the Dusks leapt into the air and vanished into nothingness, leaving Xion alone once again.
Xion closed her eyes and dispelled the light from her body, before she let out a tired sigh and fell to her knees once it was gone. She took in a few deep breaths, before she pushed herself back up to her feet and gritted her teeth. Xion then pushed herself towards the door, pointing her keyblade at it.
'Why'd you let them go?' Sombra asked Xion once the light was gone, stopping Xion from unlocking the door.
"Why'd I do what?"
'Let the Dusks go. You could have struck them down before they could have reacted, but you chose to let them get away. I want to know why,' Sombra asked Xion. Xion said nothing for a moment, before she sighed and looked down at the ground.
"Look, when I worked for the organization...the Dusks were nice to me. They helped with chores, attended to our needs and one even gave me flowers," Xion said with a pained expression. "They're the lowest of the Nobodies to serve the organization, but they're still Nobodies...meaning that they still remember what it means to be alive. At least, some do. They're just following orders."
'Hmm, if they follow orders, does that mean that you could control them?' Sombra asked, though he took careful note of what else Xion had said. 'I mean, you were once a numbered member of the organization.'
"I could, if any other organization members that didn't outrank me decided to give them orders. And I was number fourteen, so you can guess how that would work," Xion said with a bitter smirk before she shot a beam of light out of the end of her keyblade, one that pierced through the door before her. An unlocking sound could be heard before the massive door swung back, allowing Xion and Sombra access to the temple. "Come on, let's focus on the mission at hand. What do I need to do?"
'First things first, move to your left,' Sombra said before he used his power to yank Xion out of the way, right before a giant boulder struck where she had been standing. 'Yeah, don't worry about that. One of the ponies I brought with me the first time got crushed by that boulder when I first came here.'
"You let a pony die?!"
'Hey, I didn't know it was there the first time, alright? But there's a lesson for you, puppet. Never go into an ancient temple first, unless you want your friends to clean you off the wall,' Sombra continued on, barely registering Xion's outburst. 'Now you'll want to go to the left. Trust me, right is a dead end. Emphasis on dead.'
Xion followed Sombra's instructions and went to the left, keeping her keyblade in front of her while she walked. Whenever a sound would go off around her, she would turn her full body to face it, holding her key the way a samurai would his blade.
'So why'd you change your stance?' Sombra asked Xion, having picked up on the change in stance. Xion blinked a few times before she looked down at her stance, noticing that there was faint traces of light radiating off of her. 'Yeah, you've been doing that too, even though you thought you sealed away the light. I would have said something, but I wanted to see how long it took till you noticed.'
"I...don't know," Xion muttered to herself as she fixed her stance, before she closed her eyes and sealed away the rest of the light. "But when I used the power of the light and shot that...chain out of my keyblade, holding the keyblade like that afterwards felt...like the correct way to hold it. Like I had seen someone before hold the blade the same way."
'And have you seen somepony...one, hold the blade that way?'
"To the best of my knowledge, no. But Maestro did mess with my memories. He told me that he lessened some of the more painful ones, so it's possible he completely got rid of others," Xion grumbled as she walked. "I'm really tired of being a puppet for people to try and control."
'Well that's a shame, because you give off an aura that makes you look really controllable,' Sombra added on, on for Xion to chuck his horn into the all. 'All joking aside, we'll need to concentrate for this next part. Once you walk through this door, prepare to lose what little mind you have.'
Xion wondered what Sombra meant as she pushed open the very doors Sombra had mentioned, only for her eyes to go wide with shock with what she saw on the other side. Before her was a very long corridor, one that seemed to stretch on for eternity. She squinted her eyes as she tried to see an end or a turn in the road, but all she saw was the same corridor.
'Yeah, I had the same reaction when I first saw it. And yes, it is an illusion. But is also real, if that makes any sense,' Sombra informed Xion, before he floated in front of her and cast a dark light from his horn. The dark light doused the torches that hung from the walls, covering the area in darkness except for the eerie light that Sombra's horn generated.
"What are you doing?" Xion asked Sombra as he rested his horn upon her shoulder.
'The light in this temple lies. Only in the shadows can you see the true path,' Sombra replied. 'Now go. Walk forward until you come to your third left. That is where you will turn.'
Xion did as Sombra requested, walking down the corridor until she came to her third left and turned there. After that Sombra gave her some more directions, each of which turned her down a path that she was certain wasn't there before. At one point she had the good idea to look behind her, only to find a solid wall twenty feet behind her.
'Like I said puppet, this place is an illusion made real. Try not to think too hard about it,' Sombra advised Xion, who decided to take his advice. The two walked on for a while, with Xion losing track of how long they had been in the maze. Aside from Sombra telling her which way to go, the two moved along in silence. Xion eventually began to lose herself in thought, only responded to Sombra's words when he told her to turn.
'Xion.'
Xion snapped her head up and looked around the maze, finding herself standing in a circular room with paths all heading off into the darkness. But what had gotten her attention wasn't the room she was standing in or the way that Sombra didn't seem to know where to go next. It was who had spoken to her. For they had a familiar voice. The voice of a boy.
Xion glanced around in a frenzy, ignoring Sombra's inquires as he noticed that she had started to act strange. She glanced down each of the corridors until her eyes locked onto a figure practically invisible in the darkness. It was a being around her height wearing an organization cloak. But even though he was hidden in the darkness and his face was covered, Xion recognized him instantly.
"It can't be," Xion whispered to herself as she started to walk towards the figure, who turned and ran down the corridor into the darkness. "Wait! Come back!" she yelled as she chased off after him. Xion sprinted down the corridor, barely able to keep the cloaked figure within her sight. She barely paid any attention to where she ran or how many twists and turns she took, only caring if she could keep the figure in her sight.
The figure rounded a corner and a moment later Xion rounded the corner as well, only to find herself face to face with a solid wall. Xion blinked twice before she started to search the wall, trying each brick and crack to see if there was a secret exit or a switch that would cause the wall to spring back. She tried at the wall for a few minutes, before she gave up and sat back while gathering her breath.
'Ya done chasing ghosts?' Sombra asked Xion, who suddenly remembered that she had a horn resting on her shoulder. She reached up and took the horn off of her hand, gazing down at it with confusions.
"Ghosts? No, I was chasing the boy in the cloak. The boy that...I think I know," Xion replied, but her words only caused Sombra to sigh in disbelief.
'Xion, there was nopony there. You were running through corridor after corridor like a girl possessed. And trust me, if there was another being in this place with you, I would have either seen or sensed them. But there wasn't.'
"Okay, so if I wasn't chasing a boy in a black coat, then what was I chasing?" Xion asked in a temper, getting Sombra to chuckle bitterly.
'This place is a trap, remember puppet? It is designed to trick you and lead you astray, so that you get lost and never come back,' Sombra reminded Xion, whose heart fell as she realized that Sombra was right. But then came the pain of her realizing that who she had been chasing after hadn't even been there.
"So...there was no one there? He wasn't there?"
Sombra saw the disappointment and pain on Xion's face and he felt his own snarky side subside slightly. 'Look puppet, the reason I know that you were being tricked by the temple is because I was tricked by it too all those years ago. Even a brilliant mind such as myself was tricked by this temple, so what chance did you have? That's one of two reasons that I'm not mad at you.'
"Wait, then what's the other reason?"
'Well, the other reason would be that the temple didn't lead you to just a dead end. It lead you to your soon to be death. Brace yourself.'
As soon as the words escaped Sombra's horn the floor opened up underneath of Xion and she was plunged into the darkness. Xion barely had time to register what was happening before she slammed hard onto her back, knocking all of the wind out of her. She spent a moment or two trying to get her breath back, before she realized that the floor she had fallen through was no more. She rolled over and felt pain lance up her back, getting a weak groan out of her.
'That looked like it hurt,' Sombra's horn said from a pile of sand next to Xion, who grunted in reply. 'Well, shake it off and get that keyblade of yours out. You've got an audience with the being we're here to see.'
Xion pushed herself up to her feet in time to notice that the ground was shaking around her. Her keyblade appeared in her hands right before a massive, stone sculpted foot slammed down in front of her. Xion slowly lifted her eyes to see a massive beast of stone gazing down at her, a being so tall that she could barely see the top of its head. But her eyes only rested on its head for a moment, before she glued her eyes to the symbol upon its chest. A symbol of the Heartless.
'So the stone golem that I couldn't defeat all those years ago is now a Heartless and seems to be even more powerful than the last time I fought it. Man, do you have the worst luck or what?' Sombra asked Xion as she took up her fighting stance, one that mirrored the one her best friend had taught her.
"Or what," Xion agreed before she lunged towards the golem.