//------------------------------// // WELCOME TO THE UNDERGROUND HUMANS! // Story: Balance // by BioQuillFiction //------------------------------// How was the outing? Went well. Yellow’s test went well, and I managed to gather data on Zeke. Somehow he has obtained the Mark of Mastery. What’s that? Power, and control over his Keyblade. Him being a human Keyblade… who knows what he’ll be able to do. Why can’t you or Yellow do it? Get this, Mark? When I became a Heartless, I denounced that, only those with a balanced or mostly light heart can obtain and keep their Mark of Mastery. Then why not find a way to make our own? Something for we dwellers of Darkness? That isn’t a half bad idea. Though, figuring that out will require travel into the deeper spaces of _______. Care to join? And see hell itself? You know I am. Three days had passed since Core and I fought in the arena of Olympus Coliseum. The girls now have a leash on me, being that I have to take one of them with me whenever I am going off world. Marriage isn’t all fun and sex… I was in my office, going over some reports from the Scouters. Scouter: Rika World: Grasslands Heartless spawn is at bare minimum. Contact with influential inhabitants was made. World inhabitants agree to soldiers being stationed on world if fighters of their own are allowed Keyblades. The rest of the document was approval papers and letters from said world inhabitants that asked about other crap. I stamped a big red APPROVED over it, and moved on to the next report. Scouter: Simon World: Name Unknown No Heartless appear to be on the world, inhabitants know nothing of any creatures. World will be monitored for safety. The rest of the papers told about things the world had and some photos that went along with them. I have mix feelings about my job. For one I’m no longer hacking for blueprints for family members to break into the buildings they go planned on robbing. On the other hand I actually have a normal nine to five job. The kids all have a school of sorts to attend to now, that also teaches stuff about Keyblades as part of a second gym class, girls all have their things. Fluttershy and Hearts Care teach, but Fluttershy mainly deals with toddlers and babies, gives her the chance to always be with the twins. Luna helps train soldiers with Shining Armor. Celestia works on research into other worlds and what history they have upon our interactions after both the council and whatever representatives the world in question sent, sign a Coexistence document. That’s our version of the United Nations. Knock, knock, knock. “Who is it?” I ask. “It’s Leon.” “Enter.” He walked in and took a seat in one of the tree chairs I had in here for visitors. “Something happen?” “Scouter Rika came back with an odd report.” He handed me the file and I looked it over. Scouter: Rika World: ? World looks largely abandoned, or destroyed is the better word. Only a few Heartless, and the few locals I did encounter spoke that the Heartless were monsters that came from a mountain somewhere further east of my location. I investigated the mountain in question and found a barrier of strong magic around the entirety of it, as well as a ruined village with swarms of Heartless attempting to get through the barrier. Unsure what is on the other side, but I did see a child running away from the Heartless. I tried to help, but they fell down a hole into the mountain. “So it’s clear that they can’t get through whatever that barrier is, and it seems that this world has monsters. I hope that child is safe.” “That’s not all. Further in her report, she notes that she tried to open the barrier using her Keyblade, but it did nothing.” A barrier that can resist a Keyblade? “This is interesting. I wanna investigate this myself.” “That’s why I brought her report to you… also… Your wife Rune is outside waiting for you.” “What? Why?” “Dunno, although she did look board. Her job not interesting?” “She’s doing work as a Glider instructor. I’ll go see what’s up with her, then head out.” I headed outside the castle, and Rune was there… in a skin tight shirt and short-shorts. “Something up?” Rune looked at me. “Kinda, all my lessons are done already. Everyone in the Empire already knows how to fly their gliders and I don’t have anything else to do.” “Oh, well that was fast… Well… I’m going offworld, and you girls did make me promise to take one of you with me.” “Is it a mission?” “Yeah, a strange barrier that can resist a Keyblade’s power to unlock anything and everything. It’s surrounded by Heartless, and rumored by locals to contain monsters. A child fell into the mountain trying to escape the Heartless, so if we find them, then that’s good.” “Sound’s like a date.” “You’ll make a date out of anything.” “And sex will always be after.” We headed out, since this was a world I’d never been to and there were no photos taken, we had to travel by The Lanes Between, and use the coordinates I wrote down from the file. The trip took about an hour and a half, but we finally arrived. Finding the mountain was easy, Heartless of all kinds were there. “What’s behind that barrier that they want?” “Maybe the hearts of the monsters are what they’re after?” Rune said. “That’s likely. If their hearts are strong enough then if they became Heartless… We need to find where that kid fell.” “To deal with the monsters?” “Yeah. I just really hope that kid is okay.” X, can you send an SOS for soldiers as a glider? Childsplay. SOS code seven. My glider flashed seven times. You’re welcome. “Send an SOS?” “For soldiers. They can deal with the Heartless outside while we take on whatever is inside.” It didn’t take long for us to find the hole he kid must have fallen into, and we glided down. There was a single patch of yellow flowers, many in the middle were crushed. “Kid must have broken his fall on these flowers.” “Strong Flowers.” We got off our gliders and followed a trail into a different room… where we saw a yellow flower with a face? “Howdy! I’m Flowey, Flowey the Flower. Golly, two humans, and… uh… what are you?” “I’m a pony.” Rune said. “A pony! Two humans and a pony in one day! This has been an interesting day.” “Do you know where the kid went?” I asked… this flower is creeping me out. He has no heart Zeke, it’s some kinda Nobody. That’s why. So did the Heartless get his heart then? “The caretaker of the Ruins took him.” He seemed a little angry when he mentioned her. “... Mind if I ask you a question?” “Sure, ask away!” “Did a Heartless take your heart?” “... what?” “Creatures, they something like this.” I summoned a Shadow and a Soldier. “The one that did it likely has that symbol on it.” I pointed at the Heartless symbol on the Soldier. I disbanded them. “Oh, those creatures. No, they’re recent. Started appearing a few months ago. They seem real interested in Monsters, they take the soul, which is odd, since a monster soul can’t exist outside its body, then body and soul are normally destroyed. Both become nothing more than dust when that happens.” Hearts that can’t exist without the body? “Then how are you here if that’s true? By definition you’re a Nobody.” Flowey’s smile turned to an angry frown. “Now, that’s not nice to call people that.” His angry frown quickly became a wicked smile as large roots struck Rune and I. We both caught ourselves and quickly summoned our Keyblades and got ready for a fight. “You’re gonna fight me with keys? You are not gonna walk away from this.” X, I’m gonna try something new. “Fire Raid!” I tossed X, and as hoped, he spun around cloaked in fire, striking Flowey and slicing a vine off. He screamed in pain. X returned to me. “You were saying?” Flowey groweld. “Crap, it’s not working still.” “Wha-” Before I could speak further, her retreated into the ground, leaving only a small hole as evidence he was here. “Well that’s cowardly.” “He hit hard, but can’t really take damage, huh?” Rune said. “Yeah. We shouldn’t let this determine our further encounters. X could tell that thing had no heart, and if what Flowey said is true, then he’s some kinda artificial Nobody.” “Alright then. I just hope we don’t run into him again.” Rune and I went further through these Ruins, as Flowey called them, to which Rune made a sex joke involving herself. We encountered what we guessed were the monsters the locals talked about in her report. They weren’t really violent, just odd, and some were flat out peaceful. We managed to ask one of them, without them trying to “fight” Rune of I and asked about where we could find the caretaker of the ruins. Except for Flowey we didn’t actually fight at all while going through here. We either figured out that these monsters just needed a talk or we just flat out avoided them. We found the place the monster we asked said the caretaker lives. It was a very nice little house, very family friendly if I can call it that. I walked up to the door, Rune close behind, and knocked. “Coming!” The voice of a kind sounding woman called back. Her voice is scary calming just to hear. The door soon opened and a tall, anthro goat lady wearing a full body dress was on the other side. “Oh my! Another human? Are you here… for the child?” “Sorta, we were actually looking for you.” The woman looked behind me and noticed Rune. “Oh… Are you a monster? I’ve never seen you before.” “No, I’m a pony.” Rune replied. “Well, how did you two get here?” “Went in from a hole leading down here, we managed to ask someone for directions here when some crazy talking flower-” I was interrupted by the goat lady. “That beast tried to hurt the child. I arrived just in time to save them.” “Oh, he attacked us too.” “Were you hurt?” “No, we can handle ourselves. Mind if we come in? I feel we have some things to talk about.” The goat lady, who told us her name was Toriel, let us in and we sat at a dining table, where the kid was. I can’t say for sure, but their gender is… hard to tell. They had brown hair, a blue and purple striped sweater, and brown shorts. “Child, could you please go play in your room? I need to talk to our guests.” The kid nodded, and took a quick look at me before walking off. “SO, what is it your would like to discuss?” “How did your kind all get trapped down here?” Toriel looked sad. “It was a long time ago. Humans and monsters fought in a meaningless war. The humans were afraid of us, if a monster were to contain a human soul, then we would become more powerful than we already are. Even a weak monster, if given a human soul, can become godlike. Monsters lost, and seven human mages sealed us away under here.” “How have you survived?” “We monsters are not as fragile as we sound. We have vast amounts of magic and we managed to make our own sciences and homes here after a while. The invention of The Core elped. It is what supplies electricity to all of the underground. Sadly it’s maker dissapeared, no one knows what happened to him, but many say he fell into his invention.” “How long have the Heartless been here? The creatures that take souls.” “So that is what they are called… They have been here for around four months. Despite monster souls normally disappearing after death, these things manage to steal them, leaving only our bodies to turn to dust. How do you know about them?” “I fight them, control some, and there’s like a million around the outside of the barrier keeping you all inside this mountain.” Toriel looked shaken, then she laughed. “How silly, the thing keeping us trapped in here is keeping the majority of those… Heartless… away from us. Can our kind never find peace? What of the humans on the surface?” “Fighting them off with varying success so it seems. I called some special soldiers to help try and deal with them.” “Are they mages?” “Better.” I summoned X. “Keyblade wielders.” “That weapon.” Toriel touched it. “It radiates with… what can it do?” “Well, it’s a weapon for vanquishing darkness… or light, depending on the type of Keyblade and it’s wielder. It also acts as a Key for anything, although someone with one already tried and this barrier seemed… immune, for lack of a better word, to the Keyblades unique power. I think I have a theory about that now though.” “Being?” “You said seven mages sealed the barrier, so maybe seven keyblades are needed. Rune and I have one, even though I have two… well, more actually, I’m not sure it’ll work like that. Seven individuals locked you guys in here, so I’m guessing seven different individuals will be able to open it.” Toriel looked thoughtful. “I suppose that can work. There is a place, in the castle where Asgore, the king of monsters, has access to a place where the barrier meets both the surface and the underground, where time and space between in here and out there cross. It seems like the perfect place to open the barrier, but how will you find five more wielders?” “I guess… it all depends on who the Keyblades stored within me choose.” “Stored within you?” “I’m not entirely human. A while ago something happened and I am now a human Keyblade. Countless Keyblades are stored within my heart, waiting to chose a wielder.” I held out my hand. “Does any of you, want Toriel as a wielder?” A keyblade appeared. “Seems so.” “Oh no, I shouldn’t.” “Keyblades may be weapons, but they were originally made for protection… and brother Guardian Soul has chosen you. Please, take him.” Toriel took Guardian Soul, looking at it with mixed feelings. “This can truly slay those Heartless creatures?” “For good. You may be monsters, but the definition of monster, is a beast with no intelligence that attacks without reason. Your kind may be called just that, but you are human in my book.” Toriel looked at me and smiled. “If only people like you were around when that war began, things today would have been very different.”