//------------------------------// // A Fight A Day Keeps The Heartless Away // Story: Keys of Harmony // by BioQuillFiction //------------------------------// Man did I dodge yet another bullet when I got home. Once again, I made it barely on time with only, and I shit you not, thirty seconds left. With that time they gave me a disapproving look but I think they are just going to accept it. I trotted to the living room and tried to sort through the mail when I found one sent by Nebula gray. It was dated back when I first “met” him. “Oh that? It was buried under all the mail Cript sent. We didn’t open it because it was addressed directly to you Lordem.” Luna said as she peered over my shoulder. I shrugged and opened it so see what Gray needed to say to me. Dear Sparkplug, Forgot to mention that those Core beings you talked about might be able to track us through the doors to darkness and while someone didn't seem to even be worried about it you might have a better head on your shoulders and think things through more clearly. Paranoia is both good and bad. You decide what to do with the info. Also tell your wives to stop looking over your shoulder. Signed, Nebula Gray. P.S. Watch out for any nightmares. For some reason I’ve been smelling a lot lately. Odd...I looked over my shoulder to indeed see both Fluttershy and Luna, both acting like they haven't seen anything. I chuckle at their antics as I start to check on the kids. After giving a couple bedtime stories or simply turning off the night for others, Let's just say Luna and Shy had plans to give me more motivation to not dodge any more bullets. It was laying down, about to fall asleep when I remembered one fuck up I had made that day. Crap! I forgot to invite Zeke to the wedding while I was there! I took a deep breath and went back to sleep. Hopefully Justin can give Zeke the message…. After doing our new morning routine of making sure all the kids were up and had eaten, I remembered today was a saturday and went to the dojo to see which of the orphans would rather train than spend this day with friends. I was surprised to find out a decent few had showed up, including Scootaloo and Pura. Those last two I was shocked for different reasons. For Scoots it was because she was normally either hanging out with her friends, or she was watching Rainbow practice either with her keyblade, or for the Wonderbolts. And Pura...she is almost like a little earth pony fluttershy with how soft spoken she is...well, how Fluttershy used to be at least. She jumps when so much as somepony says ‘Boo’ behind her, and goes screaming under a table. Well, this is going to be interesting. “Alright, everyone ready for their first day of lessons?” I ask. “And before anyone corrects me, we are not all ponies here.” I said with a nod to one of the griffon kids. “Now, Before we begin, Fluttershy and Luna will not be joining us today. Luna is still a princess and still has to do some princess duties every now and then, and Fluttershy has to take care of her animals back at her old house. They may join us later, but for now, it is just us.” I said “Now, can everyone summon their keyblades please?” Multiple flashes of light filled the room as each of them summoned their keyblades. I nodded and summoned Oblivion and Oathkeeper as well. “Good, now, can anyone tell me what they know of fighting?” I ask as one of the little ones raised their hoofs. “Yes?” “Don’t you just hit the bad guy in the head?” He asked innocently. I looked blankly before having a good laugh at that. “Not exactly little one. Close though. I think we should start by the basics by explaining what anyone can do with a Keyblade.” the door opened up and in trotted fluttershy whom I nuzzled as soon as she came close “Your home early.” “Angel was taking care of things while I was gone apparently.” “Well perfect timing! I was about to show them that nothing is impossible.” I said with a smirk before one of the obvious tough, snobbish unicorns scoffed. “But there are impossible things! It is impossible for a Pegasus and Earth pony to use magic after all” He said with a smirk to which my eye focused on him, shutting him up quick. “Normally you are correct, but I do not lie. It is possible for a normal unicorn to become an Alicorn. It is possible to fight with nothing but friendship. It is possible to win a war, without drawing a single drop of blood. Nothing is impossible save for the impossible. Now, I will show you what I mean.” I glanced to his keyblade Starlight and looked him in the eye. “Go ahead and hit me as many times, and as hard as you want with that keyblade, and hit me until I tell you to stop.” I nod to Fluttershy who summons her own keyblade. As the colt steps into the ring with me. I unsummon both Oblivion and Oathkeeper and hold myself wide open. The colt ran at me and struck me. Seeing that I didn’t flinch, he continued this several more times when he heard Fluttershy raise her Keyblade up and say “Cura!” and suddenly all the wounds on me disappeared. The colt stared in disbelief. “Did I say to stop?” I said as he took a step back. “Continue.” He ran at me and started to strike at me more when Fluttershy shouted out “Reflect!” and I was covered in the reflective shield. The colt fell over as the blow he was intending for my chest hit his instead and he slowly got back up and tried to get away. “Continue, or quit all lessons!” I said as the colt now looked fearful. He ran at me when Fluttershy said “Aero” and I was covered in a vortex of wind, throwing the colt back to where he began in line. “Now that is enough.” I said as I walked over and kneeled down. “Never...never think you know your enemy. And most of all, Learn to expect the impossible, because in this crazy life we live in, whether it be fate, or some teenager behind a keyboard, Life is unpredictable. Nothing is set in stone, and Never will be. Learn to accept that, and no one will ever catch you off guard. Curaga.” I said, healing the colt. After that craziness was calmed down, we split them up into teams of two and had them fight one another without any magic or flying. Fluttershy and I agreed to do this so we can assess everybody's skill while still giving them some practice. I quickly say that Scoots was simply a natural. Her natural skill with Divewing was almost scary as I felt sorry for her partner, who whenever they were not being disarmed by Scoots, would get maybe one hit on her before she counter attacked. She almost reminded me of Sora in a way, of how she is just a natural with it even without any training yet. And right away I could tell for others, they either didn’t want to be here, and felt like they needed to be, or that combat just wasn't their place in life. One such filly was Pura. She...it felt like she didn’t want to be here, but I knew she would feel like she had to. She lacked any talent and I could tell didn’t like fighting. “Okay everyone, circle up!” I called out as the groups broke apart. “Now, we will go around to each of us, including me and Fluttershy, and explain why we are here. Why do you want to train so far. To protect? For adventure? Answer honestly please, this is important for each of your individual training.” Many had similar answers. They want to get stronger, they want to show off, things like that. But a few had some impressive answers. Scoots said. “I want to protect my friends. The CMC...Sweetie Belle and Applebloom...they don't have a keyblade like me. I don't want a Heartless hurting my friends while I have a way to help them.” She looked so determined while she said that as the reasons kept getting better. We landed on Pura and she took a nervous breath before saying her reason. “I...Everypony always wants to protect me, keep me safe but...I don't want them to get hurt trying to protect me. I-I thought that if I learned how to fight, then they wouldn’t have to.” The reasons continued until they hit me. “Why I train and fight so hard? Well, there are multiple reasons. The first reason is because if I don't, a lot of people on many worlds will get hurt.” I said, not telling little kids the extent of what I fight. “I don’t want anybody to hurt that much, so I train for them. The second reason is myself. If I can’t protect myself, how can I hope to help others? Sure you can sacrifice yourself for those you love, but then you just make them wish you had just let them get hurt instead of you, leaving them to feel guilt for the rest of their lives. Finally, I fight for those I care about, and those I consider family. Now I was sure to say consider family. Family doesn’t have to mean that they adopted you, or that you are in their family by blood. I have a saying from a book I once read that I hold true to my heart. “Family isn’t who you're born with, it’s who you’d die for.” If you would gladly give your life for a close friend, then they aren't friends, they are family. And I will be damned if I let anything happen to my family.” This was received by a couple nods by the kids and a nuzzle from Fluttershy. “And I fight for three things as well. First of which is my home. If we defeat the bad guy, but our home is destroyed, what was the point? Second is for my children, from you fillies and colts, to the ones currently yet to be born.” She says with a hoof over her belly as I smiled and hugged her. “The third reason is to make sure this stallion makes it back home in one piece.” “Hey!” This got all the kids to laugh as I tried to get them back to training, teaching them the basics on the slashes, to the difference between all of their keyblades. Nothing worked to fully calm them down before the lesson was over. Hey, Just because it is weekend training doesn’t mean i’m cruel! They still get time to have fun with their friends! To summarize what happened the next few weeks I had told Justin about the wedding, and invited him, all the team and their significant others, Shining, Cadance and Celestia (The last two who, just like foretold wanted to plan and fund the wedding) and Justin said he would give Zeke or one of his wife’s the invitation next time he reported in. Apparently it was Rune he had told… Anyways. We also invited Fluttershy’s parents as well as my own, all of which demanded to meet us. My Sparkle parents were not even surprised at this rate that I was marrying royalty thanks to the track record of their kids, but were happy nonetheless to hear about the mares I was marrying. Fluttershy’s parents were timid and very kind, but the mom is the one that Fluttershy got her hidden combat prowess from I can tell. She pulled me aside while the father was getting to know Luna and told me basically, in her own, scary way “Break my little Fluttershy’s heart, and there is nowhere in the entirety of the multiverse where you can hide where I will not find you and gut you slowly before feeding your entrails to dogs while you watch.” before going right back to happy, but timid in the living room. That lady scares me. The worst part is that no one believed me when I told them about the threat, saying that Flutter’s mom was way too timid and that Fluttershy was the brave one of the family, there is no way she made that kind of threat. All that told me is that she would do it, and get away with it. No one would ever suspect her. Lets just say if I could, I would sleep with one eye open from now on. Other than that, the only interesting thing that happened was a few monster attacks, and Fluttershy along with the others going on a small quest to a random town where no one had a cutie mark and stopped what after it was described to be, I can summarize as communism. That was a interesting story. On other news, Fluttershy and Luna both have started to actually have noticeable changes to their body now. The pregnancy seems to be going either faster, or double with Fluttershy though as now she can't even use a basic cure spell without draining herself. Luna on the other hand can still fight and train, but we are extra careful to put up many, many wards when we do. It is now a week from the wedding… and it will be one of the best nights of my life if my gut feeling is correct. Too bad I can't shake this feeling of this calm before the storm deal. It’s been too long without a problem dealing with the multiverse...and I can't help but be paranoid on when it will strike.