Sunken Grove
Sunken Grove
As we touched down in the darkened world we noted that everything around us was dying or already dead. Rivers were glowing a murky purple poisoned by the very landscape while the skies were hazed over in either smoke or darkness. It was hard to tell at that point. Redheart and Octavia looked the most distressed. Their grimaces told me something that none of the others could. Earth ponies were tied closely to the very ground beneath their hooves.
“Everything is dead…” Octavia muttered out monotonously.
“That’s impossible… How could- what happened here to cause all this?” Redheart breathed out harshly as she spun around in place looking for any explanation or even something to blame for all this. There was nothing she could blame though.
“It smells horrible around here…”
I was luckily muttering to myself. Nopony heard what I said while I looked around some more. Everypony actually stuck together because of how dangerous the area looked. Several bramble bushes seemed to be oozing with purple liquid on each of their barbs which made all of us certain of how dangerous the world had gotten.
“Hey I found something!” Vinyl yelled out causing all of us to rush over to her position.
On the ground in front of us was a small creature that seemed to be glowing a now dimming light. Redheart rushed ahead and started checking the creature on the ground frowning when she didn’t feel any pulse. Before she could voice her concerns the tree out in the distance started to glow as several flower made of light sprouted all around us. The light flowed into the tree before bursting back along the ground into the creature who slowly stood back on its feet.
It was a small bipedal lemur like creature with large black eyes. Honestly it reminded me of the movie Lilo and Stitch. More specifically I was looking at Sparky, Experiment 221, the lightning one only made entirely of light. It looked at all of us in confusion since I noticed that the illusion spell hadn’t activated when we landed. We were honest to God ponies at this point. I also noticed that the smell of darkness had dulled to barely being noticeable. Whatever darkness festered in this place the small creature was blocking it.
“Hello there little light… Are you ok?” Redheart motioned her hoof out for the creature who tentatively recoiled.
Redheart remained undeterred though. She was not overly decent with pets as Fluttershy or Dr. Fauna were but with the movement that the creature made it seemed to have more sapience behind its eyes. Carefully it stepped forward and grabbed her hoof before being brought in for a small embrace. The small light creature, though taken off guard, did embrace back before seemingly breaking down into tears. The eyes it wore were something I realized seemed oddly familiar. They were the same my niece first gave me during our first few months after her parents, my brother and sister-in-law, took their lives. They were looks of longing for comfort, understanding, and perhaps reasoning. Even then I couldn’t tell her the reason her parents chose what they did.
“Gray?” Octavia shook me out of my internal focus.
“Yes?”
“What do we do now with our passenger? They are still really weak and shouldn’t be moved around so haphazardly.” Octavia explained while the others took turns looking over the small light creature.
“We need to figure out where to get him to. There are a few places we could go within here but we need to find something to help this little...guy? Girl? I’m not really certain honestly. I smell so much darkness in the place that it’s getting harder to breath actually. Unless I’m around the little one… Place him on my back for now please?”
“Will you be ok?” Octavia instantly spoke the worried painted on her muzzle explicitly.
“Yeah… just get him on my back.”
I didn’t think it would be that bad but the darkness was really overwhelming my senses at this point. I felt a small weight placed on my back and the overwhelming scents overwhelming my senses stopped assailing me so badly. None of the others looked as bad and merely seemed uncomfortable by the world around them.
“Are all of you ok?”
There were several grumbles of ‘yes ‘ and ‘of course’ but their eyes said another thing. I stared down Spitfire who the the most proud but she didn’t break. She was too good as keeping her cool. Fresh Coat, on the other hoof, didn’t.
“Fresh… Are you ok?”
“Honestly no… This place is giving us all the creeps.” Fresh Coat muttered.
“I thought that the Everfree was bad but this place… this place is so wild and more than chaotic. It’s not even the matter of it being a forest on another world since I realize that there are no ponies on this world. This place… this place is dying and slowly. I can feel it in my hooves and it doesn’t feel good.” Redheart explained for the benefit of the others.
“If even I can feel it then you know it’s bad.” Vinyl piped up.
“Earth ponies have more connections to the ground than any other pony race but every pony can feel the magic that roams through the world. The magic of this realm is very skewed and dying. The magic that is still here seems to also be inside this creature on your back as well.” Fresh Coat mentioned as she lit up her horn illuminating more of the world around us.
“That makes sense. So… let’s see what we can do about all of this then. We also have to find the keyhole and hopefully keep the heartless at bay. They are already trying to land on the world with how much darkness is here.”
Everypony nodded as we trotted through the wilderness. Throughout the entire time through I half expected to be attacked out of nowhere but the wildlife I did see out in the distance would run away from us. I also noticed several shadows as well but whenever they attacked the creatures of the woods they would always miss. Spitfire kept careful vigil of them throughout our walk. She was just as uncertain as I was throughout the entire time we were going through the forest.
“It’s waking up.” Sunshower cried out which made a few of us wince. Luckily nothing immediately came after us.
The creature awoke sharply shaking erratically as it saw the seven of us. I thought it would immediately attempt to run away but it stayed on my back compacting itself even more than we all thought possible. Fresh Coat trotted up slowly holding her hoof out allowing the creature to sniff at her warily. There were several tense seconds of uncertainty as Fresh Coat placed her hoof on top of the creature. The shaking stopped. The creature started mewling which actually allowed several of the others to breathe once again.
“Well… that was unnecessarily tense.”
“You’re telling us…” Vinyl snarked back though I think it was a bit more playful since she stuck her tongue out at me.
I shook my head chuckling while the creature finally took a closer look at all of us. It stared intently at me in particular touching my leather styled wings. Immediately I decided to just go with male pronouns more as a catch all than anything. Then he jumped off my back peering carefully at all the other ponies around us. He was careful with his examinations looking everypony in the eye for some reason. I kept myself close by if for no other reason than to not be overwhelmed by the scent.
With its ministrations over it jumped back onto my back and peered around. I visibly breathed a sigh of relief as he patted me on the back of my head. I pivoted my head around to peer at him as he pointed down into one of the nearby caverns. I looked at the others are motioned my head towards the entrance which everypony nodded in agreement.
“Can you speak with us at all?” I mumbled to it while I was still getting confirmations from the others.
It released a few chirps and growls. I felt an eyebrow raise in confusion which he copied. It clearly understood what I said but I couldn’t understand what they said. He looked puzzled as well tweaking his head slightly and seeming to realize I didn’t understand him. He patted me on the head in genuine remorse. I had no idea if I had just been insulted or not. ‘Probably not insulted. It was just him being nice.’
Regardless of the chuckles from the others we made our way through the twisting trails of wooded area and rocky terrain until we hit our first couple of drop offs. The little guy jumped off my back and ran ahead forcing us to chase after him and not get lost.
“For a little guy he sure runs fast…” Spitfire called out as I had to pick up a few of the girls and fly over the poisoned looking water.
“It’s probably important.”
After everypony jumped off we made it to a large open glade where the little guy seemed to be looking around carefully. I was feeling out of it as I manage to get close enough to be within his little sphere of influence. He peered up at me with a worried expression. His eyes grew wider and his stance further apart as he jumped on my back. Something was within the glade.
“Ladies… I think we’re about to fight something…”
Everypony instinctively took out their keyblades. I still needed everypony to earn their true keyblades sooner or later. At this point only Sunshower had her true keyblade. A sign of courage let it burst out. ‘What would bring out the others.’
My little revelry was broken as the little guy once again patted my head towards a small ledge where there was something shining atop it. I galloped over to it, hopping over the small debris in the way to the object in question. We both saw this weird sphere of light though it was flickering in and out of being causing the creature to hop off and rush towards it. He slowly picked it up cradling it in his arms.
“Ori… You have come…”
The voice caused a few of us to panic slightly. Vinyl swore she didn’t whinny in fear and Spitfire didn’t scream like a filly. Their glares convinced everypony but me. Before they could continue their harsh punishment of glares at me the sphere floated into the air beside him. Ori, I suppose his name was, took it in stride bowing slightly to the light. The light floated over to each of us bobbing in place while most likely examining us as Ori did.
“Keybearers… It is good to have those that would lead us to salvation come to our realm. Please… assist us in returning the balance to this world.”
The light danced in front of me surrounding me in a thin barrier of light. The smells finally subsided and those waves of nausea finally disappeared. The light returned to Ori who seemed to be pondering things deeply while the rest of us waited as well.
“How did this world get so bad…?” Redheart started.
“I will answer once we are safe… they are coming.”
Several shadows popped from the ground ambling towards us. They weren’t alone either. Several monkey shaped heartless also appeared, most were blue in color while several orange ones and one pink one stayed further back pulling slingshots out. They were the ones that appeared in Deep Jungle and I knew their names. powerwilds, bouncywilds, and a Sniperwild… We were surrounded by heartless.
“Ori we shall assist.”
The light spoke as it circled Ori instilling him with power while the rest of us rushed into battle. The shadows were easily dealt with as several of Fresh Coat’s spells dissipated them without too much trouble. The powerwilds were much more dangerous able to go toe to hoof with the keyblades. Whenever Spitfire or I would swing, more often than not, our keyblades would catch against their fists. While it knocked us back slightly the impact caused those heartless to flinch from the pain. Without mouths though they looked like silent movie caricatures.
“What’s with these monkeys!” Sunshower called out as she kept casting reflect spells to stop the Sniperwild’s single minded attack against her. Whenever one of us would get close it would rush to a new advantageous spot and retarget Sunshower specifically.
“Argh! Stop blocking. Sweet Celestia are these guys annoying.” Vinyl growled out as she resorted to firing off spells to stop the powerwilds from parrying their blows.
“Gotcha!” Spitfire screamed as she tore through one of the bouncywilds, keeping it from escaping her swings.
Ori bounded into the fray surprisingly shooting out small flames of light towards the heartless though it would take several shots just to take out one heartless. He proved much better at dodging as the light seemed to make him duck and weave through the Powerwild’s assaults. As the flames burned it up Ori would strike against the next target.
I immediately dove into the shadows sneaking up upon the Sniperwild driving my blade through it. I had swapped out to Nightmare Cascade in case it ran away. While my chances of getting it to succumb to the sleep enchantment the blade had it still gave me the oomph needed to take it out of the picture. As the Sniperwild fell the bouncywilds focused their attacks on me. The moment that they turned their backs the others struck them down while Octavia and Redheart swept up the last remnants of the heartless around us. A few powerwilds seemed to back up appearing to run but they instead charged in one last attempt to overwhelm us. They didn’t survive long as everypony fired off complementary spells taking out the remnants and leaving us with a cleared out grove of trees in the middle of a dead forest.
“I feared as much… the world is now too open to every single heartless in the universe. Keybearers we must restore the light of the world.”
“What happened here first off?” Redheart spoke up stepping forward to the small sphere of light while Ori stood at attention.
“I would also like to know.”
There were several cries of agreement from everypony as we surrounded the sphere of light while Ori climbed onto my back.to look at the sphere as well. The sphere bobbed up and down in a hesitant manner.
“The story of the forest happened long ago. One night the owl, Kuro, took the light of Nibel tearing it away from its place leaving the world to slowly fall into the dilapidated state before you. I am the last piece of light that remains of that tree. Ori is the last child of that light which we must empower to restore the light of the world. I am Sein, the eyes of the Light.”
“It’s gotten that bad here?” Vinyl called out.
“I can say there is a way to allow this world to survive but Ori must find those who came before. His ancestors would allow him to interact with the light of this world and save it. Should we hurry we might be able to keep the heartless from taking this world.”
Most of us nodded in agreement and decided that we would get the light back for this world. Ori kept to my back as we tracked back up to where we needed to go using his light flames to destroy certain purple blobs that seemed to grow over several portions of the forest. Along the way several powerwilds had made it their mission to attack us at random times. While they weren’t the worst threat we faced the moment one of the heartless touched one of the pools of water it dissolved back into darkness. The water was far more poisonous than we once thought and all of us endeavored not to get any closer to the water.
“So… no fresh water then?” Vinyl called out sticking out her tongue at disgust at the waters around us.
“For now probably not. We need to find out what we need to do to save this world from falling.”
As we made our way up through the area I noted that the heartless were getting a bit more bold in their attack using sniperwilds to strike back at us from a distance using the terrain to their advantage. Eventually we came to a locked door which had two large indentations on it.
“We require keys to open this door.”
I glowered slightly at how tedious this seemed but the door was holding back the darkness. There were worse security systems than this. For the next few minutes we all searched for the keys we needed to open the door finding them in small copses hidden amongst the brush. Along the way we ran into several more strange doors that needed light placed in them. There were even large cracked columns blocking several paths as well. Overall it was a frustrating trek through poisonous marshes and broken trees until we managed to get back to the door.
“That seems like a poor security system…”
“It’s to keep the darkness at bay. The doors release a large effusion of light to make it safe to get through the next areas.”
“Sein where do we have to go exactly then?”
“We need to make it over to the tree of Nibel to awaken a portion of the tree up. Then we can find the portions of the elements that make up the matter of the world.”
“You guys have elements too?” Octavia cut off our conversation though she looked a bit sheepish about it.
“So what? There are elements of harmony here as well or something?” Vinyl deadpanned slightly seeing how common they were when it came to the makeup of planetary harmony.
“I do not know what these elements of harmony are but we have three elements that do describe the very foundation of the world around us. They are the elements of Water, Winds and Warmth. Once we get to the tree I can locate where the items we need to make the elements work right.”
“There are only three elements? That seems kind of weird when I think we got six back at home.” Spitfire pondered the implications of such a thing.
“There could always be something that dictates how each world works that doesn’t rely on order or chaos. Harmony isn’t really the end all for everything.”
The rest of us pondered what was going on as we fought our way through more sections of the world to find a path up to the main tree. The landscape required several times for me to carry Octavia and Fresh Coat up through the tree boughs. Sunshower got Redheart further up while Spitfire carried Vinyl once again.
Ori pointed elsewhere to forcing us to go further down into another passage which just made things even more difficult. There were only so many places to go in the long run with all the obstacles we faced along our path. As we reached the bottom of the small gulley we all noticed a tree off in the distance. There was a weak light coming from it which seemed to draw Ori’s eye.
“This is the resting place of the guardian spirit Fil. He is an old spirit which managed to find a way to keep the light going but it involved giving up his physical form to keep the light of the world alive. Ori you must absorb his light in order to stand a chance against the rest of this world.”
As we traveled into the grove Sein explained about I felt even more darkness form up around us. Several powerwilds bounded out of the brush rushing after us all while a new monkey took step across from us near the tree. It wielded two large blades with heartless symbols engraved upon it and was completely purple instead of the blue of the powerwild, orange of the bouncywild and pink of the sniperwild.
I charged in against it while the ladies mopped the floor with the powerwilds who were way too unorganized to pose a decent threat. As I readied my keyblade the monkey heartless immediately went to block managing to hold me off from charging through at the cost of using both blades just to stop me. Gritting my teeth in frustration I tried to push forward only to note that it had managed to get the best footing to deal with me. We struggled through a power match until Ori came in firing off several light flames forcing the two of us to disengage.
As I kept charging against this new heartless Ori kept supporting me with his fire. Eventually we backed the heartless into the rest of the group where Vinyl used a stop spell on it. Each of us took a few swings dissipating the heartless and leaving the area clear of anymore heartless… at least for the moment.
“Go to the tree Ori. This place will remain secure.”
“Nebby what was that heartless?” Vinyl brought up as she hoofed her keyblade away to the gather of the others.
“Honestly I don’t know. Probably a new type of heartless native to this particular realm. I’ll check the lexicon.”
I pulled out the book and leafed through the pages until I made it to the heartless section. The sections on the bouncywild, powerwild and sniperwild were all set out though the claims of the slingshot being so formidable caused my pegasi marefriends to scoff at the validity of it being dangerous. The last page told a different story on the new heartless.
Bladewild
A monkey heartless wielding two distinct daggers in each hand. Due in small part to their increased dexterity they have been noted to be the same rank as the Sniperwild and usually share joint custody of marshalling their forces. Extremely agile use time magic to slow them down.
“Well… looks like the heartless are evolving more and more every single day then.”
“And I thought Vinyl was the only one who was deadly with a knife…” Octavia scoffed.
“True. I do make a mean spaghetti dish.” Vinyl muttered clearly feeling a bit smug about her accomplishment.
There were a few laughs as a bright light caught our attention and Ori was floating before the tree. As we covered our eyes the light show ended with a small sonic boom of some sort. It wasn’t painful but it felt as though light had washed over all of us. Ori had become brighter as he climbed onto my back and we continued our trek up towards the tree for the position we needed to be in.