Damn it all my wing has been feeling really weird still… Why does it feel so weird. I lifted my wing up only to notice a small sticky note on the inside of my wing. I looked at it before I even reached the first street of Baltimare. Oh god I think I felt the bile come back up.
‘Dear Nebula Gray
It’s god. I kind of forgot to mention that you spent about 24 days in stasis while your body was healing from being transformed into a pony. Yeah… sorry bout that I was focusing on other problems I’m facing so in return for flubbing up I’m gonna give you knowledge on how to fly and use your keyblade. As soon as you read this note-’
Then my brain is on fire. I fell over and clutched my head rocking back in forth in abject misery. Apparently I was either the luckiest being in the world or the unluckiest sucker ever. There were no other ponies in the area so my seizure and brain aneurysm went unchallenged and unhindered throughout the next couple of minutes. Luckily the moon was still out even though it wasn’t shining as brightly as I thought it would have been. As soon as the tremors subsided and I now knew how to fly without turning myself into the first ever grounded Thestral, apparently what my species of pony is called by some circles. How much damn knowledge did he try to stuff in me… I quickly went back to reading the note before I lost my mind again.
‘- you will be endowed with the knowledge of what you are and what you could do alongside the other things I promised. Keep a low profile for now since I know you have no idea what you are doing. Likewise I have made sure that any visitor that hits your world immediately goes into pony form regardless of how they make it into your world. That’s all the help I’m giving out for now. Do your best and good luck. Signed God.’
“This is bullshit… Fine, whatever. At least I can finally fly somewhat.” That’s when another memory dashed through my mind sending me sprawling on the ground. Apparently when calm I can enter shadows. Surprisingly, it doesn’t mean the Darkness but the shadows on the ground. Semantics are afoot and wrecking my world view every single day.
“Christ I’m gonna be God’s ragdoll at this point if I get anymore memories. Whatever…”
I saw a shadow heartless crawl into the sewers… Damn it I’m not ready for this. Reluctantly, I found the closest manhole and pried it open with the keyblade. Metal plates are really heavy. Surprisingly, it didn’t smell as bad as I thought it would be. I was still gagging but it was tolerable enough to not immediate wretch and spew up everything. It was also really dark even though I could see perfectly regardless. So I am nocturnal to some extent. Might need glasses if I decide to try being diurnal.
“Did I get infected with a dictionary or something. I’m figuring out words I shouldn’t know and it's becoming disconcerting. What do you think Shadow heartless…? Crap…”
It slashed a claw at me managing to hit my side. Strangely, there was no blood though. Immediately that put some warning bells in my head. It meant that game logic was in effect and wounds caused by heartless didn’t draw blood per say. Or keyblades give you some immunity to showing wounds caused by heartless. Or I should shut my thoughts up and slice the little jerk who was slashing at me side.
I summoned my keyblade and moved my head to horizontally slash at the shadow forcing it back. I really was at level one… It usually took three swings just to destroy a shadow. Well at least this gets me some practice hopefully. It jumped into the air landing on my back. Before it could sink a claw into me I panicked and slammed my back against the brick wall. Instead of harming the shadow it sunk into the wall and climbed back to the floor while I was forced to deal with a sore back.
“Little bastard…”
When it reformed back into a solid object I sliced it down managing to switch the keyblade to my hoof in a fit of anger. It surprisingly stayed in place as well but I soon fell back to four legs. If I had room to fly maybe I would have a better time using my hooves for combat.
After the single heartless dispersed I realized how impulsive I had been. I just rushed into a sewer to destroy one heartless. There were horrible implications from that seeing that had I not been lucky it was only one I would have rushed to my death so soon.
‘Would that be a bad thing?’
“Woah… where did that thought come from…”
I smacked myself with my hoof and trudged further into the sewer. It was surprisingly clean but the smell made it hard to concentrate on anything other than figuring out why heartless were already within the sewer. Passing through a few sluice gates I came to one of the large reservoirs for sending the water somewhere for purification probably. There was a large crystal which was emanating magic which turned the water from dirty to clean after passing by it. I noticed that several of the shadows were congregating within one of the pipes which seemed to be leading away from the city.
I whistled aloud while tapping the tip of the blade against the wall. Each of their writhing bodies turned to face me merely looking at me with special interest as they saw the keyblade I was wielding. All five of them sunk into the ground and raced after me. I stepped back into the larger room if only to have more room as a few of them rose from the ground. I quickly rushed forward and lunged like a spinning top. He taught me to use this blade I just had to get ready for the consequences. The spin managed to hit the three that were visible while the other two kept hidden.
Only one of the shadows dispersed while the other two were flung back. The other two shadows rose up and lunged forward. For some reason I saw a triangle button appear over one of the shadow’s head. Before I could figure out what that meant I thought too hard about the triangle and I suddenly lunged forward catching the shadow’s claw and spinning it into another shadow before the keyblade warped to my hoof and swung through the two shadows dispersing them as I finished my swing.
My eye started to twitch but before I could take care of that thought I focused back on the shadows that were still around and cut them down while they tried to jump on my back like the first one.As they dispersed I looked at the pipe they were trying to open I noticed that it was actually a large sluice gate. Tapping my keyblade against it caused the door to swing open luckily to a large empty room.
“What the hell were they after…?”
Looking around all I saw was a large empty room. Before I could exit and head back for the surface a bright glow appeared above my head. It looked like a keyhole. Really… there’s a keyhole here. Taking my stance I pointed the keyblade up and willed the lock closed. Then my wing started to itch once again. Looking in the spot I found another note.
‘So this is the P.S. I forgot to mention. That particular world has multiple keyholes. Mind locking them for me. Thanks in advance.’
The groaning I made echoed throughout the entire sewer system. I had a mission now if only that it was busy work instead of wandering this world for no reason but satisfying my curiosity. It took a few minutes to get back out of the sewers and strangely there weren’t any other heartless around. That means god is taking it easy on me to some extent. If only for one week left.
“I hope the keyholes aren’t underground like this one. I could’ve died and no one would have know. Literally, in fact.”
Once I reached the surface I closed the manhole and flew straight up. I looked over the town in question taking great care in not thinking about the name. The building all resembled the real Baltimore. Several of the buildings had slanted roofs and the bay was populated by several luxury boats. Most were steamboats with a paddle wheel system in place. They also seemed to have several light fixtures in place but when I got a closer look I noticed that they were all magically functioning. Gems were being used as a power source. Like everything else that came to my mind I immediately thought magic and stopped questioning it.
That’s when I noticed the sun coming out and noticed how tired I was feeling. Taking stock of my situation I flew out of the city and captured a cloud. I still don’t know how I did that but I caught one and took it a bit out of the city if only to not be bothered. I saw several ponies finally moving out into the streets but I was too far away already if they were going to notice me or not. Wearily I rested myself on the cloud and soon fell asleep either from the ‘epic’ battle I had or general fatigue. My eyes automatically rolled themselves even though they were closed. Or I finally was feeling the effects of my nocturnal habits.
The shadow like alicorn rose from under the cloud Gray was sleeping on and glared caustically at the prone figure. Before she could strike the rays of the sun glowed over the horizon. Growling in fury the shadow sunk back into the shadows and continued its plan in other matters. Several pegasi were floating around and getting clouds ready for a rainstorm scheduled in Baltimare. A few of the weather mares noticed the cloud floating outside the city and flew towards it. They were shocked when they noticed that a stallion was sleeping on it. More shocked when they saw the batwings on his back. They were dark blue instead of cornflower blue. His cutie mark was a field of stars that seemed to take the shape of a key. The closest weather mare, Sunshower Raindrops, was about to wake him when she noticed the claw wound on his side bleeding out.
“Oh this looks bad. We might need to take this stallion to the hospital.”
“Why what’s wrong with him?”
“He got attacked by something and I don’t think he could get to safety fast enough.”
“Raindrops we need to finish the cloud gathering. Remember this city needs rain. For why I don’t know since they don’t exactly grow anything here.”
“Don’t worry about that right now. Look, cover for me. I’ll get him to hospital then I’ll come right back.”
“I bet you’re just staring at his wings…”
The words muttered out drove the mares to blush slightly. They were bigger than most pegasi they had seen. Each shook themselves out of their stupor and agreed to Raindrops plan.
“I’ll be right back ok. This shouldn’t take long.”
She pushed the cloud along while the other two got back to work on moving the clouds into position.