The Girl That Never Was

by Onomonopia


Forged

'So, I guess I'm back here?' Xion thought as all she felt around her was darkness, a darkness that was very familiar to her as well as comforting. The last time she had been wrapped in this darkness was after she had been slain by Roxas, a memory she didn't enjoy. 'Though to be fair, last time I was here I wasn't aware of anything. What makes this time different?'

Her thoughts then drifted back to the battle against the Maestro and Saix, with the memories fading in and out as she found it harder and harder to recall them. Yet even as she felt her grasp on her memories starting to slowly fade from her grasp once more, there was one part of that battle that she could see clear as day. It was the image of a pink heart floating out of her body, a heart that she wasn't even aware that she had.

'Heh, so all this time I did have a heart. Makes sense, I guess. How else would I feel all those emotions without one?' she asked herself with a small smile, before an unpleasant though crossed her face. 'Oh great, that means if I did have a heart that means Sombra was right. Ugh, good thing he can't rub it in my face.'

Xion then allowed her mind to wander for a bit, thinking back to her journey through Equestria and how it had been one of the more enjoyable things should could remember doing. She also realized had it not been or the Maestro or the other members of her Organization popping up with her, it would have been quite the pleasant journey.

'The Organization. Maestro. They're still out there, hurting the ponies,' Xion remembered and for a brief moment an old fire burned within Xion, a fire telling her that it was not time for her to fade away. But then a blanket of darkness smothered the flames and Xion felt her consciousness begin to seep into the darkness once more. 'I'm just so tired. Tired of being used. Tired of being seen as nothing more than a puppet, a tool for everyone else. I want rest. And here, I finally can. Here in this darkness.'

And it was then that a single thought raced across Xion's mind, a thought so strong and powerful that it ripped her from her dark comfort and made her realize that she couldn't fade just yet. 'Roxas is still under Saix's control,' she realized, the flames within her erupting into a wildfire at the thought. 'And he's making Roxas do all sorts of terrible things! I can't let Saix have his way! I can't let the Maestro have his way! I need to get out of here and save him!'

As she thought this a single ray of light broke through the darkness and shined down from the heavens, giving Xion a destination. She began to struggle towards the like, but moving her body felt like she was pulling against the weight of all the worlds. Yet with her fear for Roxas fueling what she knew to be her heart, she sluggishly pulled herself towards the beam of light. It may have taken an eternity reaching the light or it may have taken seconds, Xion would never know. All she knew that was eventually the beam of light was within her grasp and she reached out towards it with all of her might, just barely able to get her fingers to brush against the beam.

And then her world was filled with light.

=========
No. XIV
=========

Xion could hear voices talking around her. She could feel the presence of familiar beings in the room with her. She could feel that she was laying against something cool and hard, yet she couldn't' identify it. Yet what she noticed the most above every other sense was that she could feel the steady beat of her heart, something that she had never felt in her entire life.

She had enough strength to open her eyes and discover what had become of her, yet she chose to keep her eyes closed and simply enjoy the sensation of feeling her heart beat for the first time. It was an odd sensation, but it also made her happy. Then Xion began to wonder how she was able to feel her heart beating or feel anything at all, as the last thing she remembered she had been impaled on the end of Oblivion and her heart had been consumed by darkness.

Figuring that she had waited long enough, Xion opened her eyes to find herself laying on her back and staring up at a ceiling. The ceiling was made of crystal, yet there was also a massive tree trunk with the roots still attached hanging over her head. She then moved her head around slightly to look at the rest of the room, finding that she was not alone.

She was laying on a large, crystal table that had seven crystal chairs around it, each with a symbol she knew well. Those same symbols were on the flanks of six ponies that were also in the room, along with two other alicorns that Xion didn't recognize. Yet when she saw the sun mark on one and the lunar mark on the other, she pieced together who they were.

'Celestia and Luna, huh? Amazed that I don't hear Sombra cursing their names,' Xion thought to herself. Figuring that she had put off asking what happened long enough, the girl pushed herself up to a sitting position. Her clothes were the same as they were before, except with a few extra touches added onto them. Pinkie heard the movement and looked over to see Xion sitting up, getting a cry out of her before she and the other ponies raced over to the side of the table.

"Xion! You're awake!" Pinkie exclaimed happily as she tried to get up onto the table to give Xion a hug, but Twilight held her back.

"Give her some breathing room, she's probably disoriented," Twilight told the others. They did as she asked, but all of the ponies wore huge smiles of relief on their faces, save for Celestia and Luna who were looking upon Xion with interest. "Hi, Xion. I guess this is our first official meeting. I'm Twilight, the princess of Friendship."

"Yeah, I know who you are. What I don't know is what I'm doing here," Xion asked as she looked down at her hands, confusion written on her face.

"Give yourself a few moments to compose yourself. You were all but dead before we managed to reform your body," Celestia said, her regal and powerful tone informing Xion of why Sombra despised her so much. She could just feel the air of royalty and light radiating off of her. Xion didn't like it.

"All I remember is being impaled and then been disintegrated...and then nothing else," Xion said with some confusion, looking to the six ponies she somewhat knew for answer. "What happened to me? And how did you manage to fix what happened to me?"

"How did we manage to do it? Xion, we did it with the same materials that you've gathered," Twilight told Xion, who gave Twilight a confused look. "A few days ago, my friends and I were discussing how we were going to defeat the metal being and the cloaked being with the blue hair, the same ones you told me to run from, when all of a sudden your black cloak appeared here, along with three items. The Heaven's Tears, the Dragons Fire and the Golems Core."

"Those are three legendary items, which, when brought together under the eclipse of the sun, can create a body of any shape or size for any being," Luna added in with a smile. "And as my sister and I can control the sun and moon, creating such an eclipse was a small effort for us. But it was Twilight and her friends that were responsible for creating your new body. The six of them spent days working together to form your body."

"Yes, but interestingly enough, your features constantly shifted. At one point you had red hair then at another point you looked like a mannequin. It was...bizarre to say the least," Celestia informed Xion, who wasn't surprised in the least. "But then a darkness fell over you, cloaking your body from our view. When it faded we found that your features had settled on the ones you have right now."

Xion glanced down at the crystal table she was laying on to see her black hair and her blue eyes, the face she remember seeing whenever she used to look in the mirror. She then placed a hand over her heart, amazed to feel the beating of the organ that she had never had before.

"This is real," she whispered to herself, a small laugh escaping her lips as she looked at her body. She then rose off the table and landed feet first on the floor, staggering slightly before she steadied herself. "This is incredible! I feel amazing, like I can do anything! Hell, I feel...alive."

Xion let out a laugh as she twirled around, getting used to the feeling of her new body. The six Ambassadors danced around with her as well, each of them laughing along with the girl and occasionally holding her up when she lost her balance and started to fall.

"I can't believe that you guys would do this for me. A creature of the darkness," Xion said to them with disbelief in her voice.

"You may be a creature of the darkness, but you still helped us out. I'd like to think of you as a friend," Fluttershy said with a smile to Xion, who smiled in reply.

"So this is what you really look like, isn't it?" Rainbow asked, getting Xion to turn her head towards the rainbow mare. "Because all of us saw something different when we first met you, but after we forged your body we all saw the same face and hair. So this is who Xion really is?"

"Yeah...yeah, I think this is really me," Xion said happily. "This is what I would be if I had a real body and heart."

Then the full weight of what the princesses had said sank in, making her realize that there was something she was missing. Her hands snapped to her pockets, yet there was no horn within. "Twilight, where did you guys say that you got those three items?"

"We found them in your cloak, along with a scroll on how to properly use them," Twilight said. Her words pierced Xion's heart and pain flooded through Xion's heart.

'Sombra,' she thought to herself. She reached with her pockets in a desperate hope that her friend would be there, yet when she pulled her hands out all she had was the six keychains that she had gathered.

"Oh, I wondered where that had gone to," Twilight said when she saw the purple start keychain. "I had found it nearly Mareami and picked it up. Yet I couldn't find it when I arrived back here. Thought I'd lost it. How'd you get ahold of it?"

"You gave it to me when I went inside of your heart," Xion answered, getting Twilight to give Xion a baffled stare.

"You may not believe Twilight, but what she says happened."

All sets of eyes in the room turned towards the door, where Spike had entered from. "I was there and watched the whole thing happen. When you were all zonked out, Xion went inside of your being and found a way to wake you up. Of course, I wasn't able to ask her how she did it because we were then attacked by the two guys wearing the same cloak she wore and the metal guy. Want to fill us in on them? Heck, how about you tell us all about yourself as well?"

"Yeah, you and I fought another one of those cloaked beings together. Baldin? I think that was his name," Rainbow reminded Xion. "Not to mention there's all of those Heartless and silver creatures that have been popping up around here. What are all of those things?"

Xion felt all sets of eyes rest upon her. Under the pressure she sat down upon the table, looking to each of them before she finally worked up the courage to speak. "I'll keep this as simple as I can. There are Heartless and there are Nobodies. The Heartless are the black creatures that try to steal the hearts of others. The Nobodies are the shells left behind when a heart is stolen. Don't ask me how all of this works, it just does."

"Yeah, we've seen the Heartless taking hearts first hoof," Twilight admitted in a pained voice.

"The cloaked beings you saw are the most powerful forms of Nobodies. Those that have retained their skills, minds and powers from when they were alive. A Nobody technically isn't alive, as it doesn't have a heart. It just...exists," Xion continued on. "The most powerful formed an Organization and ruled over the lesser Nobodies, using them for their dirty work. And I can promise you that what the Organization planned to do was nothing short of evil."

"Yet you didn't agree with them and so you left?" Rarity asked, getting Xion to stare at the pony with a shocked expression. "Darling, when a being appears before me wearing the same cloak as my enemy, yet is fighting that same enemy to the bitter end, it is clear that they used to work together, but there was a falling out. So did I guess the truth?"

"You're not that far off. But I didn't leave. I was...killed," Xion revealed, getting horrified gasps from the ponies. "But I guess it's more accurate to say that I never lived at all. I was originally a puppet created to mirror the powers of another, somebody who wielded an extraordinary weapon that could not only slay the Heartless, but keep them slain."

"Your key sword," Applejack said, getting Xion to nod. "So that weapon can really keep a Heartless down fer good?"

"Yes, as well as free the heart that's trapped within," Xion said. "They tied to turn me into their puppet, someone that they could use as they pleased. I fought back. They didn't like that. So eventually I was left with a choice. Kill my best friend, who was also a keyblade wielder, and take his power...or fall to him and hope that he could bring down the Organization. He survived...at the cost of my non-existence."

"Xion..." Pinkie said with sad eyes, but Celestia stepped forward before the Ambassadors could comfort Xion.

"So if you were slain, how did you end up here?" Celestia asked. "How did a dead being end up in our land, just before the Heartless and the Nobodies?"

"You think that I brought them here?" Xion asked Celestia, who nodded in reply. "Well, you're not entirely wrong. Because the same being that brought me back from the dead also brought the Heartless and the Nobodies. The Maestro."

When she said his name a cold chill fell over the ponies, as if Xion had just said an unspeakable name. "I don't know much about him. All I know is that he brought me here and he wants your six hearts. That's why he brought me back, so that I could free your hearts and unleash what lays within you."

"But once again you refused," Rainbow said.

"I did. And so he made it his mission to kill me. Which he did," Xion said somberly. "Seems I've been dying a lot in my life."

"And that's why there was the other being with the second keyblade. That's who he brought here to do what he wanted you to do," Twilight realized, putting some of the pieces together. "He was the being with the metal limbs, wasn't he?"

"Yep."

"So he's the one behind all of the pain and suffering in our land...as well as the pain you've had to go through," Fluttershy said in a tone none of her friends had heard her use in a long time. "How could anybody do what he has done?"

"While he may have brought the Heartless here, I'm fairly certain the Maestro is nothing but absolute evil," Xion said. "He won't rest until he has taken the hearts of every being in this world and then the very heart that makes up this world."

"But his plan won't work! Not now that we've got you on our side," Luna said, getting Xion to turn her head towards the princess. "You said that the Heartless can only be permanently defeated with a keyblade. Well now that you are on our side, you can use your keyblade to strike them down. We will assist you and help you in fighting back against them. While the Maestro and this Organization may be powerful, we have an entire nation to fight with. They cannot win!"

"They already have."

All eyes turned to Xion, who sat with her shoulders hung and her head lowered. She then raised her hand and summoned her keyblade to her, but instead of appearing in a flash of brilliant light, it appeared with the sound of glass shattering. Instead of a weapon with a silver blade and a golden guard, the keyblade that Xion held was missing the blade completely and the guard was shattered and missing pieces of it. The light that had shined from it was gone and the keychain was shattered beyond repair. For a brief moment the ponies looked upon the weapon, before another shattering sound could be heard and what was left of the blade fell apart in Xion's hand.

"The Maestro destroyed my keyblade. Not that it was ever a true keyblade, it was a replica...just like me," Xion revealed as she stared down at the remains of her weapon which glistened on the floor. "He's taken my weapon from me. He's taken my friend from me. I can't do anything against Saix and the other one, let alone the Maestro. I'm sorry, but I'll be no help against them."

Xion then rose to her feet and walked past the ponies, placing her hands on the doors to the room and pushing them open. She then glanced back at the ponies with a bitter smile on her face. "But I am in your debt for fixing my body and giving me another chance at life. I just wish that I could be of more use to you. I'm sorry."

"Xion, where are you going?" Pinkie asked.

"I have somebody I need to go look for," Xion replied before she walked through the doors. "Maybe they will have the answers."