The training room of the Storm Kingdom castle was a bit larger than the throne room, the dungeons and any chambers in the castle.
It was filled of weight lifters, training spears, ripped mats and also a little prison cell in case any trainers have to fight against prisoners. That’s where Riku, Mickey and Fizzlepop now are as Plagueis locked the cell with his key and hang it on his belt nice and safe.
The evil hippogriff walked to the middle of the training room and start to wait for Silverstream to arrive if she have escaped the dungeon and was probably coming to stop him.
“Plagueis!” Fizzlepop said from the cell, “You don’t have to do this no more! The Storm King may have returned, but there’s still a chance he will stab you in the back and betray you like he did to me! You can still change ways and return back as a king!”
Tempest Plagueis turned his head round to look at the reformed pony.
“Please, Plagueis! You don’t have to continue doing this! He is using you still! You’re being use as a tool, just like me.”
Plagueis zoomed towards the cell and glared at Fizzlepop near the cell making her fall on her back while letting out a little scream of fear.
“I’m NOTHING like you!” He hissed at the pony, “And I’ve never been used by the king like he did to you.” He then walked back to his spot in the middle.
Fizzlepop Berrytwist got back onto her hooves before looking down in sadness. Riku and Mickey sadly look at the sad pony, feeling bad for her, before walking up to her.
Riku gently placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “Fizzy, are you okay?”
Fizzlepop continued to sadly look down and shook her head. “I was trying to do what Twilight tried to do to me before I realise The Storm King was using me from the start. But, I guess the darkness inside of him is too strong to be broken. He can’t change now.”
The king gently rubbed Fizzlepop’s side in comfort while sadly looking at her.
“It’s okay, Fizzy,” He said softly, “It was a good try though.”
Fizzlepop gave Mickey a small sad smile before saying, “Thanks.”
In the hallway of the castle, Silverstream was walking amongst the walls of The Storm King’s castle with Lightning Twister riding on her back while shaking in fear. He was scared of the dark and was afraid that something might pop out and not only scare them but also attack them.
Silverstream notice this and stopped walking before gently stroked her little brother’s mane in comfort.
“It’s okay, little cutie. Once we save Riku, Mickey and Fizzlepop, we’ll be able to leave this spooky place and I won’t let anything scare or hurt you. I promise.”
Lightning looked at the pink hippogriff while still shaking a bit before slowly nodding his head in response. Silverstream started to continue finding their way to the training room to rescue their friends.
After coming across four doors, they eventually found the door that leads to the training room.
“Lightning, stay close to me and on my back as possible,” she said to him, “There’s no telling what Tempest Plagueis has in here, but it could be a trap in case he figured out we escaped.”
Lightning nodded his head at her once more before she slowly opened the door and carefully walked inside while the little colt held onto the hippogriff’s mane gently.
They saw Tempest Plagueis standing in the middle of the room as well as Riku, Mickey and Fizzlepop in the prison cell. Plagueis slowly turned round, after looking at the wall for maybe minutes or so, and saw Silverstream.
He grew a fake smile on his face while saying, “Silverstream.”
“Plagueis,” she replied annoyedly still not happy to see him again.
“See you manage to escape the dungeon with the young colt. And must have come here to begin your training. What in these ruins tempts you so much... to risk death?”
Silverstream and Lightning saw some Storm guards entering the room, probably to make sure they don’t try to escape, as Lightning shook in fear even more while hiding himself under Silverstream’s mane.
“I could ask you the same thing,” said Silverstream.
“There is power there,” he said proudly, “Beyond hippogriff and any Equestria creature understanding. Power I can control thanks to the Storm King. I would offer you the same thing.”
“Don’t you understand? I’m not interested in power or revenge on those that try to threaten our kind. I want to restore our race.”
Plagueis was not amused by the pink hippogriff’s response. “Restore the hippogriff race? Oh, you poor girl. It’s over! Hippogriffs fell before the invasion. Stifled by tradition. Deatened by our past glories. Blinded by endless invasion.”
“Maybe,” Silverstream said as Lightning got off her back and hid underneath her, “But It’s never over. We stand here now with a chance to learn. To rebuild from the threats we went through.”
“Hippogriff learn? There’s no future for them. How can you not see that?”
Silverstream wasn’t amused by what Plagueis just said to her.
“It’s time for something new. You and me. We could build something different. Something better.”
Silverstream still refuse to betray her friends, family and friendship. She shook her head at him before saying, “No. I’ll never join you, Plagueis.”
The evil hippogriff’s hopefully smile faded away and turned into a glared as he then summoned two very dark coloured Soul Eaters while saying, “Then, the Storm Kingdom will be your grave!”
Silverstream glared at her ex-uncle while summoning her Keyblade making Riku and Mickey go into shock.
“Huh? A Keyblade?!” Mickey asked in shock.
Silverstream charged towards Plagueis with her Keyblade, with Lightning standing where she was while watching her, as she started clashing her Keyblade against Plagueis’s Soul Eaters.
After about eleven clashes against the Keyblade and Soul Eaters, Tempest Plagueis swung his right Soul Eater to Silverstream’s chest, but she backed up a bit dodging the attack before flying up in the air.
Plagueis spread his wings out and flew after her just before a dark corridor appeared and then disappeared to reveal Vanitas and Cozy Glow who have come to watch the fight.
The evil hippogriff reaches the pink hippogriff and both started clashing their Keyblade and Soul Eaters again. Silverstream swung round and knocked Plagueis’s left Soul Eater out of his claw making it fall to the ground and broke into pieces.
“Aaahhh!” Plagueis shouted in pain while holding his left claw. He glared at Silverstream before saying, “You’ll pay for that!”
Plagueis clashed his Soul Eater against Silverstream’s Keyblade twelve times while floating back down to the ground.
The two clashed their Keyblade and Soul Eater together and tried to push each other back with their weapon. Plagueis then took the upper claw and smacked Silverstream’s face with his left claw sending her flying to the right before slipping on the ground with her Keyblade disappearing.
“Silverstream!” Lightning called out worriedly.
Silverstream groaned in pain while struggling to get back up, but it wasn’t any good. The smack made the pink hippogriff too weak to even get up again. She then saw Tempest Plagueis walking up to her with his Soul Eater and had an very angry glare on his face.
“I was wrong to think you could stand with me!” Once Plagueis was at Silverstream, he raised his Soul Eater in the air preparing to finish the pink hippogriff off. He was going to kill her!
“Stop!” Lightning shouted in a scared and worried tone.
But Tempest Plagueis didn’t listen. “Any last words?!”
He just about to finish Silverstream until Lightning Twister began to breath heavily and uncontrollably while sweating a bit before shouting, “I said stop!”
His Keyblade suddenly appeared and, before he knew it, he quickly slashed through Plagueis with his Keyblade causing him to stop while feeling pain in his body after the slash.
The two Keyblade Masters, the pink hippogriff and reformed pony were all in shocked after what they have just saw, even Vanitas and Cozy Glow.
He began to groan in pain before dropping his last Soul Eater which now got destroyed and disappeared. The evil hippogriff started to collapse to the ground.
“So...it is all true then,” Plagueis said painfully before dark smoke rose around him, “I shouldn’t have started this fight in the first place.”
The dark smoke faded away taking the now defeated and dead Tempest Plagueis.
Lightning looked back in shock at where Plagueis was once standing as his Keyblade disappeared. Silverstream manage to get back on her feet again and looked at her little brother in shock and worriedly.
“Lightning...” Silverstream said in a worried tone.
“Wh...What have I done?”
Just then, the Young five ran into the training room. They heard shouting from the far part of the castle they were at and followed the sound all the way to the training room.
“We heard shouting, is everycreature alright?” Gallus asked.
“What’s going on?!” Asked Ocellus worriedly.
The five then saw Lightning standing where he was as tears began to stream in his eyes. He killed Tempest Plagueis and now he can’t stop thinking what will happen to him when the princesses hear about it.
Silverstream sadly walked up to the little colt and gently picked him up before giving him a hug of comfort.
“Shh...Shhhhhh...I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” she whispered softly in his ear.
Fizzlepop turned round and eventually bucked the prison cell open with her hooves.
“Should have thought of that earlier,” said Fizzlepop before she, Riku and Mickey ran out of the cell.
Riku stopped running and glared at Vanitas and Cozy Glow before summoning his Keyblade and swung it really hard that it made wind blow across the room making the two bad guys and the guards fly back against the wall with the training objects falling down and hitting the ground making a mess.
Once that was done with, Riku’s Keyblade disappeared as he turned to the others and said, “Let’s go! It won’t be long till they get up again!”
Silverstream gently placed Lightning Twister on her back while he still had some tears left in his eyes. The young seven, Riku, Mickey and Fizzlepop started to run out of the training room and out of the castle before they could see where they running off to so they can capture them quickly.
After a few more seconds of unconscious from the powerful wind, Vanitas and Cozy Glow got up before glaring at the door that the Keyblade Masters and creatures ran through.
“So now what? Should we go after them?” Cozy Glow asked her brother while flying next to him.
Vanitas shook his head in response.
“No. Let them go for awhile, then we’ll find them. It won’t be long till they discover the truth as well.”
Just then, a dark corridor appeared near them and then disappeared to reveal the three Nocreatures.
“Xocarl, Xisnom, Xodiac, so nice to see you all again,” Vanitas said politely, “How’s the planning on stopping the others from getting in the way?”
“We’re still trying to sort out with Terra, Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer,” answered Xocarl, “But we do have a way to sort out the other lot, and that’s trying to make them believe that friendship doesn’t always work on those that went down the dark path. That’s why I believe an experiment might show if their friendship with others can be broken.”
“Hmph,” said Cozy Glow not amused as she closed her hooves, “Well here we go again. Ever since we’ve made you, you wouldn’t stop going on about talking or making experiments.”
“I’m a scientist dragon. Experiments are what I do. Yes.”
“Whatever,” said Vanitas smirkily, “You three can do what you want. But let’s be honest, I think testing the others is just a cover for testing your valets.”
“Valets?” Xocarl crossed her arms, “They’re the products of pure research.”
“What they actually are, are a bunch of toys,” mocked Cozy Glow.
“Hmph. You should just learn to be quiet!” Xocarl said crossly making the evil filly glare away.
“Anyway, since you still wanna try that plan out,” Vanitas pulled out another card of theirs and gave it to Xocarl, “You’re gonna need this. A little gift to our first Nodragon. I hope you’ll use it to put on a very good show for us.”
Xocarl took the card and smirked evilly at it before they all heard hoofsteps walking into the training room. They turned towards the door and saw it was none other than the Sunset Shimmer Replica and the Starlight Glimmer Replica standing near the door, still wearing their dark mode outfits, while looking at them.
Xocarl looked at the card once more before Vanitas said, “That card holds the final piece of the location to our hideout.”
“It’s just a card, what good is that?” Sunset Replica asked.
“With a little help from me and Vanitas,” began Cozy Glow, “You two will have all the real Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer’s memories. Maybe we can make you two forget you’re both nothing but a fake. In other words, we’ll remake your hearts so you can be exactly the same as the real Sunset and Starlight, ‘kay?”
Sunset Replica and Starlight Replica let out a small gasp of shock after hearing what Cozy Glow just told them. They were gonna remake their hearts and gave them the memories of the real Sunset and Starlight.
“You wanna remake our hearts?!” The fake Sunset asked in shock and anger, “The real Sunset and Starlight are a bunch of wimps who are afraid of the dark! What do we want with the hearts of a bunch of losers?!”
“Any objections, Xocarl?” Asked Cozy Glow, “After all, you do want to test the others and their friendship, don’t you?”
“It must be done,” answered the Nodragon.
The two replicas glared at their maker.
“How can you? Are you betraying us?!” Starlight Replica asked angrily.
“I told you two I would make good use of you, didn’t I?”
“No...” was all the fake Sunset can say as Cozy Glow then said, “Relax, girls. I don’t think it’s gonna hurt that much.”
The two replicas let out an angry growl.
“We’ll hurt YOU!” Shouted Starlight Replica while the two summoned their Soul Eaters before charging towards the evil filly.
But before the two could attack her, they were struck by a electric attack making them fly backwards towards the ground while dropping their Soul Eaters.
It was Cozy Glow who made that attack. Turns out that she also has a Keyblade too, and it was an exact replica of Vanitas’s Void Gear Keyblade.
The evil filly let out an evil laughter before saying, “Stupid little toys! Think you two could defeat me? Where did you ever get a thought like that?”
Sunset Replica and Starlight Replica breathed heavily and painfully while struggling to get back up again while looking at Cozy Glow in fear.
“But, look at the bright side,” said Cozy Glow holding her Keyblade, “Along with everything else in your heads, Xocarl will destroy the memory of me knocking you flat.”
The two replicas moved back a bit on the ground in fear knowing while Cozy Glow went on, “And then, me and Vanitas will implant the loveliest little memories you two could ever hope for! It’s no big deal that they’re all lies.”
The two fakes were now even more scared of the evil filly after hearing their plan for them. They both moved back on the ground a little move before the Sunset Replica said in fear, “No...”
Cozy Glow and Vanitas grinned at the two replicas as Vanitas summoned his Keyblade before the two walked over to the fakes to start recreating their hearts.
The replicas shook their heads in deep fear while having scared looks on their faces before they reached a hoof out and both shouted in unison and fear, “NOOO!!!”