//------------------------------// // Kingdom Hearts III: Canterlot High // Story: Timelines // by Dawn Flower //------------------------------// The Gummi Ship hovered in between the space between worlds. Inside, Sora sat in the captain’s chair, with his arms folded behind his head, absently moving his head back and forth, trying to figure out what their next destination would be. Donald Duck and Goofy sat in the two chairs behind him, glancing between each other, with awkward looks on their faces, as they had all been there for a while now. “Sora!” Donald spoke up, facing forward again. “Where are we going next?” He asked. Sora seemed to scrunch up his face, as if hoping to try and force a decision to come to him. However, he still couldn’t think of anything. “Uggghhh, I don’t know!” He said, throwing his hands up in the air in defeat. Behind him, Donald and Goofy both slumped in their seats, releasing heavy sighs. Sora then turned around to face the two of them, looking over his chair. “We should just head to the Realm of Darkness now to rescue Aqua.” “You can’t!” Donald shouted back at him. “Not until you get the Power of Waking!” “And how am I supposed to do that?!” Sora shouted back at him. “We’ve been to several worlds now and I’m still not any closer to finding it. I’m not even sure what the Power of Waking is or how I can get it. And I don’t hear you offering any suggestions!” Sora and Donald were now glaring at each other, hard. Seeing his two friends arguing, Goofy knew he had to say something to diffuse the situation. “Remember what Master Yen Sid always says: May your heart be your guiding key.” Sora looked over towards Goofy and was starting to calm down now, but he was still confused and released a sigh in frustration. “But what does that even mean?” He asked, now looking down at the ground, dejected. Goofy brought his hand to his chin, as he now started to actually think about what he just said. “Hmmm. Well, we’ve been travelling to a bunch of different worlds and helping them out. Maybe if there’s a certain world out there that needs our help, you just have to listen to your heart and let it show you the way.” Sora looked back up at Goofy again, trying to take in everything he just said. “Just listen to my heart?” He repeated, more to himself than responding to Goofy. He then turned back around and sat down properly in his chair once again. He then closed his eyes and placed his left hand over his chest, thinking not just with his head this time, but with his heart. For a few moments, the Gummi ship was completely silent, with Donald and Goofy both sharing a quiet look between each other. Suddenly, Sora began to extend his right hand and summoned his Keyblade, pointing forward; all the while his face never changed expression. A beam of light then suddenly shot out of the tip of his Keyblade, out into space, where it materialised a portal right in front of the ship. Donald and Goofy both had surprised expressions on their faces. Sora then slowly opened his eyes and was just as surprised, though that surprise quickly morphed into a cheerful smile. “It worked!” Goofy turned towards Donald and smiled before facing forward towards Sora once again. “So Sora, do you know where we’re going now?” Sora looked back at him over his shoulder, with a big smile on his face. “Yeah!” He then jumped back into the chair and grabbed the steering wheel tightly with a lot of enthusiasm, pushing the ship forward straight ahead, once more into the breach. --- The world that the three of them emerged on to appeared to be some sort of large city, with many tall buildings in the background, though the area that they were in now seemed more residential, with smaller buildings near them. As the three of them walked along an empty road, Sora had a huge smile on his face as he looked around. “Wow. This place is so cool.” Goofy had a similar smile on his face, while Donald seemed to be more annoyed, crossing his arms. “Stay focused, will ya?” “I can’t help it, okay? I grew up on an island. Cities are just so much bigger than I’m used to.” Sora defended, whilst putting his arms behind his head and smiling. Donald just let out another annoyed sigh. “We aren’t here to sightsee, Sora. We have an important job to do.” Sora then mimicked Donald’s actions and crossed his arms as well. “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?” He asked sarcastically. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” The three of them all suddenly snapped to attention at the sound of a terrified scream. They then all began looking around, trying to discern the direction from which it had come. “That sounded like a girl screaming,” Sora said. He then looked over his shoulder, towards the other two again. “Do you think she’s in trouble?” Goofy turned his head around so that he was looking at Sora, and when he did, his ear suddenly lifted up in the other direction. “I think it came from that direction,” Goofy said, pointing in the direction in which he had heard the scream. “Then let’s go,” Sora replied instantly, putting on a tough look of determination and charging off immediately, with Donald and Goofy following close behind him. --- In a courtyard in front of a large building, a teenage girl with purple skin and pink and purple striped hair, wearing matching coloured clothes, which included a six-pointed star pattern on her skirt sat in front of a horse statue, with a bewildered expression on her face, as she fiddled with the fingers on each of her hands, as if she were unfamiliar with the digits. A small purple and green puppy dog sat beside her, observing her. Meanwhile, unnoticed to the girl and her dog, up on the roof of the building, a mysterious individual emerged out of a Corridor of Darkness, wearing a black coat with the hood up, completely concealing their identity. As the mysterious individual reached the edge of the roof, they looked down and saw the girl in front of the statue. “There you are,” the cloaked individual said, in a deep and masculine tone of voice. Suddenly, he spotted three individuals in his periphery vision, approaching the courtyard in front of the building; three individuals that he recognised. The first was a young boy, about the same age as the girl that the mysterious figure had been observing. He had brown, spiky hair, wearing a red and black plaid outfit with several zippers and belts. The other two were an anthropomorphic dog and duck. The duck had white plumage and wore a blue sailor’s suit, with a beret and no pants, while the dog had black fur, with droopy ears, and wore a green turtleneck sweater under a sleeveless leather jacket, and yellow pants. The mysterious figure seemed to regard the trio closely as they approached. When Sora, Donald and Goofy reached the courtyard, they stopped once they saw the girl in front of the statue. Sora observed her from afar, and while she didn’t seem to notice them at the moment, he noticed that she seemed to be confused. “Do you think that’s her?” He asked the other two. “I don’t know,” Donald responded from behind him. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone else in this area right now,” Goofy offered. Sora focused once again on the girl after hearing his friends’ answers. He then decided to investigate further, so he took another step forward and held his hand out towards her. “Hey…” The cloaked individual snapped his fingers, and suddenly Heartless began spawning in the courtyard. This immediately drew the attention of Sora, Donald and Goofy, and the girl also looked up from her previous confusion to see a bunch of strange, shadowy monsters appear before her. The Heartless that appeared consisted of Shadows, Soldiers and Flutterings, who seemed to be drawn to the girl, as they started to approach her slowly. The girl reacted in fear and shuffled back towards the base of the statue. Next to her, the purple dog seemed scared of these creatures as well; however, when he noticed the girl also looked afraid, he then put on a brave face and hopped in front of her, facing the approaching monsters and growled at them. He was obviously still afraid, but he wasn’t going to let these guys hurt her. Seeing the Heartless move towards the girl and her dog, Sora, Donald and Goofy instinctively ran over to protect them, placing themselves between the two groups. Sora summoned his Keyblade, Donald summoned his staff, and Goofy summoned his shield, all of them getting into a fighting stance, ready to fight this group of Heartless. “Don’t worry, leave these guys to us,” Sora told the girl, speaking over his shoulder before turning back fully towards the group of Heartless once again. The battle begun. --- Sora immediately dashed forward into the group of Heartless and unleashed a Thunder spell, striking every enemy around him. It didn’t destroy any of the Heartless, but it did weaken them significantly. He then immediately followed up by homing in on one of the Fluttering Heartless and started bashing it with his Keyblade, destroying it after a couple of hits. The initial Thunder spell had knocked the Heartless back, away from Sora, who was at the epicentre of the attack. One of the Shadows had been knocked in front of Goofy, who proceeded to bash it with his shield. Meanwhile, Donald targeted a Shadow further away from himself with a Fire spell, destroying it immediately. Sora showed off his speed by immediately targeting another Fluttering Heartless, before he even landed back on the ground after destroying the first one, locking it into another Keyblade combo and destroying it after a couple of hits. Once he landed back on the ground again, he cast another Thunder spell, destroying the rest of the Heartless. Once the first wave of Heartless had been destroyed, another wave spawned immediately afterwards, this one consisting of four Soldiers, two Flutterings, two Large Body’s and a Water Core. As soon as the Heartless spawned, one of the Large Body’s charged Sora, knocking him back. Sora managed to recover quickly and shot the Large Body with a Fire spell. While it was distracted, he circled around it and began hitting it in its exposed back. While Sora was engaging the Large Body, Goofy began spinning, using the Goofy Tornado to take out several of the weaker Heartless. Donald then cast Blizzard on the second Large Body, freezing it in place. After Sora delivered the final Keyblade strike to the Large Body that he had been fighting, he then targeted the Large Body that Donald had frozen and cast a Fire spell at it, the combination spell destroying it instantly. The Water Core enveloped itself in water and charged into Sora, knocking him back. Sora managed to recover quickly and cast another Thunder spell, striking all enemies in the area. He then locked on to the Water Core and began hitting it with his Keyblade, destroying it after a full combo. A third wave of Heartless spawned once the second had been taken out, and this one was the largest yet, containing five Soldiers, five Flutterings, ten Shadows, and one Large Body. “Sora!” Donald called out. Sora and Donald then combined their power to use Flare Force, shooting off an array of fireworks in every direction, striking every Heartless around them. When the attack finally ended, only the Large Body remained, though it had still taken a lot of damage and had been knocked down. Sora then quickly dashed behind it, unleashing a Keyblade combo into its exposed back, destroying after just a few hits. Maximum HP increased --- After the battle had ended, Sora, Donald and Goofy all banished their weapons. Sora then turned back around towards the girl at the base of the statue and made his way over towards her. Hearing that the fighting had stopped, the girl returned her gaze fully in front of her and saw her three saviours approaching her. “Are you alright?” The boy asked her. “Yes, thank you,” the girl replied. Sora smiled at her. “That’s good to hear.” He then held his hand out towards her, to help her up. Seeing the outstretched hand before her, the girl first placed her clenched fist into it, before then laying it flat, and then finally grabbing it tightly, interlocking her fingers with his. The girl could only laugh nervously at how strange she must be making this obviously simple gesture, which in return made the boy smile as he pulled her up to her feet. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Sora,” the boy introduced himself. “Donald Duck.” “The name’s Goofy.” “My name is Twilight Sparkle,” the girl replied. “And this is Spike,” she added, gesturing to the small puppy dog beside her, who started smiling and wagging his tail. Sora smiled as he looked down at the purple and green puppy and waved at him. “It’s nice to meet you too, Spike.” A moment later, he looked back to Twilight again. “So, Twilight, have the Heartle…” “Sora!” Donald suddenly interrupted him, to stop him from revealing too much about the World Order. Sora jumped at the sudden interruption, but quickly realised why Donald had done that. He then turned back towards Twilight again. “I mean, have those monsters been appearing here a lot lately?” He quickly corrected himself. “I’m not sure. I only just came to this wor…” Suddenly, Spike kicked Twilight lightly in the leg to stop her from saying something, which she quickly realised. “I mean, I’m from out of town, so I wouldn’t know,” she spoke in an embarrassed tone, while absently playing with her hair. Sora noticed that something was off about her reply, but decided not to press it since he had basically done the same thing from her perspective. “Okay, so if you’re from out of town, what are you doing here now?” He inquired. When Twilight replied, her nervousness suddenly disappeared and she became completely serious. “Something important to me was stolen recently, and it’s really important that I get it back.” Sora noticed her sudden tone shift and was now more intrigued. “What is it?” Twilight seemed to wince before responding. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I can’t tell you. I just… don’t know who I can trust right now,” she replied, looking away as if ashamed. Seeing Twilight now, Sora was confused by her reply, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but empathise with her. A moment later, he started smiling again. “Well then, why don’t we help you look for it?” Sora’s offer seemed to catch Twilight by surprise, as well as Donald, Goofy and Spike. “Are you sure about that, Sora?” Goofy asked him. “Sure, why not?” Sora replied as he turned around to face him and Donald. “We can fight the ‘monsters’ while we help Twilight find whatever she’s lost. It must be really important if she’s this worried about it?” Twilight still couldn’t believe that this boy was offering to help her after they had only just met. “You would really help me look for it, even though I can’t tell you what it is?” Sora turned back to face her, with the biggest smile on his face. “Of course. That’s what friends are for.” Twilight suddenly looked taken aback. She then looked down at the ground, almost introspectively, as if something he said had resonated with her. A moment later, she looked back up at Sora once again, now with a similar smile on her own face. “You’re right. Sora, Donald, Goofy,” she listed off. “I would be honoured to accept your help.” She then strode past them. “I suggest we start searching the castle first,” she said, pointing at the large building in front of them. “Sounds good,” Sora responded, following after her. The group of five then made their way inside. When the group of five entered the building, they found themselves in a large, circular entryway. The floor was a clean, reflective surface. On the other side of the room, the path split into three different corridors, each of which were lined by rows of green lockers. As they looked around to investigate further, Goofy leaned in close to Donald. “This doesn’t look like a castle to me.” “That’s because it’s a school,” Donald replied, in a tone like it was the obvious thing in the world. When Sora heard his response, he quickly spun around to face them, with a horrified look on his face. “A school?! But I don’t want to have to go to class!” Donald was now seething, having had it up to here with Sora’s childish attitude. “That’s not why we’re here!” After Donald’s outburst, Sora quickly realised the situation. “Oh, right.” He then threw both of his arms behind his head and smiled like he usually did. “Careful, you had me worried there for a second.” Donald just folded his arms and glared at Sora. Beside him, Goofy just chuckled good-naturedly. Turning away from Donald’s stare, Sora noticed Twilight at the far side of the entryway, investigating some sort of glass trophy case. “What am I?” Twilight spoke quietly to herself as she observed her reflection in the glass surface. “Twilight?” Sora asked, approaching her, noticing her confusion. She then turned around to face him. “Is everything alright?” Twilight still seemed bothered by something, but for now, she simply put on a strong face. “Yeah, I’m fine.” “Sora, look!” Donald yelled out, not in anger, but in worry. Turning back around to face him, Sora noticed that his friend was pointing directly ahead of him, down the central corridor. Following where his friend was pointing, Sora’s eyes widened when he saw what Donald was alerting him towards. The corridor was swarming with different types of Heartless, including Shadows, Soldiers, as well as a new type of Heartless that he hadn’t seen before – at first glance, it looked like an ordinary book, that came in a variety of different colours, and was flapping its pages to fly through the air; however, it also had the unmistakable Heartless emblem on the front cover. The Heartless didn’t seem to be going into any of the classrooms, but that could easily change if the three of them didn’t do something to stop them. Sora instinctively summoned his Keyblade, followed immediately by Donald and Goofy summoning their own weapons. “Twilight, you and Spike hold back. We’ll clear the way,” Sora said while still facing forward, not taking his gaze off of the Heartless. They then all got into battle positions. --- Sora, Donald and Goofy, charged ahead, with Twilight and Spike following behind them at a safe distance. Before heading down the central corridor, Sora noticed a large chest off to the side of the school entryway, so he decided to investigate. When he reached the large chest, he tapped it with his Keyblade to open it. Obtained: Map of Canterlot High – Hallways Now armed with a map of the area, Sora headed down the central corridor, since that was currently the only one in which the Heartless were appearing. When he left the entryway and entered the corridor proper, he jumped off against the lockers, using Flowmotion to continually jump between the two walls to move more quickly down the corridor, faster than he could on foot. When he reached the first group of Heartless, mid Flowmotion travel, he slammed his Keyblade into the ground, creating a shockwave that hit all of the Heartless in the group. He then cast a Thunder spell, which hit all of the Heartless in the group again, which, combined with his previous attack, destroyed them all except for one of the new book Heartless, which had a red cover. Sora quickly locked on to the new Heartless type and destroyed it after a single Keyblade combo. After Sora had destroyed the new Heartless, Jiminy recorded its data in the Gummiphone. They were called Bookspooks, and while they were physically weak, they made up for it by being able to cast powerful spells. They were also themselves immune to all forms of magic, save for one, which was represented by its colour. Yellow ones were vulnerable to Thunder, red ones were vulnerable to Fire, light blue ones were vulnerable to Blizzard, dark blue ones were vulnerable to Water, and green ones were vulnerable to Aero. After they had destroyed the group of Heartless, Sora repeated his strategy as they continued down the corridor, using Flowmotion to move down the corridor faster, use the Flowmotion as a first attack against each group of Heartless to stun them, and then finish them off with his Keyblade and magic. --- When the group turned the corner into the connecting corridor, they noticed that there were no Heartless in this area, so Sora, Donald and Goofy banished their weapons for now. They then all started to slow down again and take their time investigating the area. Suddenly, a loud bell started ringing, and the next moment, the doors to the adjoining classrooms opened up and dozens of students began filing out into the hallway. The hallway had instantly become crowded, and the group of five struggled to push against the crowd of students to get through. The other students mostly ignored them as they hurried to get to their next class. Sora pushed his way through the crowd, into a mostly free area of the corridor by the lockers, followed soon by his friends, both old and new. “This is part of why I hate school so much,” Sora huffed in frustration. “Oh, I’m really sorry. I-I just found it, and-and I thought I should give it to her.” Sora’s ears suddenly perked up when he heard someone talking. While there had been quite a bit of chatter coming from the other students in the corridor, as they made their way to their next class, this one in particular seemed to stand out from the others, not because it was louder, but in fact the opposite; it sounded much quieter. Peaking around the corner, there were two girls at the end of the corridor. One currently had her back to him as she spoke to the other girl. She had a large head of red and orange hair, and wore a black leather jacket, and a skirt, which bore the symbol of a red and orange sun. She stood with her arms cross and rigid, trying her best to look large and intimidating. The girl that she was speaking too was the exact opposite. She had bright pink hair and yellow skin, wearing a pure white tank top and a light green skirt with a butterfly symbol on it. She hugged her books close to her chest, shrinking back and staying close to the ground to look as passive as possible. It was very clear that she felt very uncomfortable speaking with this other girl. “I didn’t know you had dropped it,” the shy girl concluded. “Well, I did!” The other girl responded in an aggressive tone. “And I was about to get it before you swooped in and ruined everything. You shouldn’t pick up things that don’t belong to you.” “It… doesn’t really belong to you, either.” The shy girl responded quietly, in a hushed tone, looking away as she did. “Excuse me?!” The red-headed girl suddenly screamed, slamming her hand against the locker in anger. The sudden action made the other girl jump. “N-n-nothing…” The shy girl apologised hastily, shrinking back down to the ground even further. “That’s what I thought. It’s as good as mine, and you know it.” Sora bit down hard, seeing this red haired girl act so aggressive to this other girl. She was a bully, plain and simple, and Sora hated bullies. Suddenly, he noticed a small aura of Darkness emanating off of this girl. “Darkness,” he gasped quietly. “You really are pathetic,” the red haired girl continued. “It’s no wonder your best friends are all stray animals.” Sora clenched his fist in anger. Eventually, he couldn’t take it anymore and stepped out into view. “Hey, leave her alone!” The red haired girl seemed caught off guard by Sora’s interruption and quickly spun around to face him. “What did you say?” She had an angry scowl on her face as she addressed him. “I said, ‘leave her alone’,” Sora repeated, walking up to the girl so that he was right in her face, staring her down, not flinching at all. The red haired girl simply stared back at Sora for a few seconds, before her angry scowl then morphed into a devilish grin. “You must be new here,” she said, poking Sora in the chest before then pushing passed him and walking away. Sora just glared at the girl’s retreating figure as she disappear down the corridor, while Twilight made her way over to the pink haired girl and knelt down beside her. “Are you alright?” “Oh, yes, I’m alright,” the shy girl responded. She then turned to face Sora. “I can’t believe you did that.” “I couldn’t just stand there and let her do that you,” Sora reasoned, looking down at the girl as he spoke. “Well, it’s just,” she began. “That nobody ever stands up to Sunset Shimmer.” Twilight’s eyes widened at the name. “Wait, did you say Sunset Shimmer?” Sora seemed to notice her reaction. “Do you know her?” “Uhhmm,” Twilight began, turning back towards Sora, looking a bit awkward. “Sort of…” “I don’t think I’ve seen either of you around before,” the girl said, standing back up again. “Did you just transfer to Canterlot High from another school?” “Um… yes!” Twilight answered, in an exaggerated tone. “Another… heh, school! My name’s Twilight.” Seeing Twilight’s reaction, Sora decided to play along as well. “Yeah, me too. My name’s Sora.” “Donald,” Donald introduced himself, from behind Sora. “And I’m Goofy,” Goofy introduced himself with a wave and a smile. “And this is Spike.” Sora introduced the small purple dog between him and Twilight. Seeing Donald, Goofy and Spike seemed to brighten Fluttershy up, and she now had a genuine smile on her face. “Oh, well, it’s nice to meet all of you,” she said enthusiastically. “My name’s Fluttershy.” The scene between them now felt much more calm and friendly. “So, Fluttershy,” Twilight began. “Sunset Shimmer said you picked something up. Something that belonged to her. It wasn’t a crown, was it?” Fluttershy looked confused. “How did you know?” “Uh, lucky guess?” Twilight replied, again in an awkward tone, like she was hiding something. “Do you still have it?” Fluttershy simply nodded her head to the side in disavowal. “But you know what happened to it.” This time she nodded her head up and down in affirmation. “This morning, I was passing out flyers for the animal shelter like I do every Wednesday and I found the crown. I had no idea how it got there. But I didn’t want anything to happen to it, so I decided to give it to Principal Celestia in her office.” “Principal Celestia?” Twilight said in surprise. She then put her hand to her chin in thought. Sora seemed to notice Twilight’s contemplation. “Twilight?” He spoke up. A moment later, Twilight turned to look at him. “Sora, I need to speak with Principal Celestia about this crown that Fluttershy mentioned, but I’m also concerned about Sunset Shimmer. Could you, Donald and Goofy keep a close eye on her while I go and see about the crown?” Sora nodded back at her in agreement. “Sure, sounds like a plan.” He then looked behind him in the direction Sunset Shimmer had walked off in, and changed his expression a bit. “I noticed something about Sunset Shimmer too just now, and I want to check up on it,” he said, remembering how he had seen her channelling the Darkness earlier. He then turned back again. “We’ll all meet back up later.” He then looked down at the puppy beside Twilight, his usual smile returning once again. “You make sure to keep Twilight safe while we’re gone, okay, Spike?” The purple dog stood at attention and gave Sora a salute. Sora nodded back at him in response. With one last look at Twilight, he then turned around fully and started running after Sunset Shimmer, with Donald and Goofy following close behind him. --- After having entered into the adjoining corridor, which was now once again empty of students, Sora, Donald and Goofy made their way along, following after Sunset Shimmer. They couldn’t even see her down the long corridor, so they started running to try and catch up with her. No sooner than they taken a few steps in, however, a wave of Heartless suddenly spawned, containing the usual Shadows, Soldiers, Flutterings and Bookspooks of this world. The three half-pints instinctively summoned their weapons and went on the offensive. Sora started with a Thunder spell to strike at every Heartless around him. He instantly destroyed all of the yellow Bookspooks, which were weak to Thunder, and also dealt a good bit of damage to the Shadows and Soldiers. A red Bookspook, however, remained unaffected, and launched a fireball at Sora while he was casting Thunder, knocking him back. Sora was able to recover quickly, however, locked on the red Bookspook and destroyed with a single Keyblade combo. Goofy then used the Goofy Tornado to finish off the remaining Heartless that had been weakened by Sora’s magic. Since the Heartless had started appearing in the school again, Sora once again used Flowmotion to push off against the lockers to travel faster down the corridor. When another group of Heartless spawned, he slammed his Keyblade down, creating a shockwave that stunned and damaged all enemies in range. He then finished them off with his magic, Keyblade and friends. Things continued on like this as they made their way down the corridor. --- Reaching the end of the corridor, the three of them found themselves back in the school entryway once again, having done a loop of the school, now standing at the mouth of the left corridor, opposite of the front door. Walking into the centre of the entryway, Sora began surveying the place, looking for any signs of where Sunset Shimmer had gone from here. A moment later, he spotted her making her way down the third corridor, to the right of the entryway. “There she is,” Sora said to the other two, pointing in the direction in which he spotted her. He then immediately broke into a run, after her. As they were crossing the entryway, suddenly a Corridor of Darkness appeared, and a mysterious individual in a black coat emerged from it, causing the three of them to stop again. Knowing that this person was from Organization XIII, Sora got into a battle stance, ready to summon his Keyblade at a moment’s notice. “You’re with the Organization, aren’t you?” Sora spoke. In response, the cloaked figure reached up and pulled back their hood, revealing themselves to be a young man, with white, spiky hair, whose style and colour looked very similar to Young Xehanort, but still distinctly different. He also had the same yellow eyes and pointed ears common to every member of the Organization. He regarded Sora with a devilish smirk, not unlike Sunset Shimmer had earlier. “Sora,” he began, in a deep and also familiar voice. “This moment has been a long time coming.” “What?” The mysterious figure continued. “First you destroyed my Heartless, then you destroyed my Nobody, and now after all this time, we finally meet face to face.” Sora was at first confused, wondering why this Organization member seemed familiar and not familiar at the same time. A moment later, his eyes widened and he gasped loudly when he had figured out why. “Xehanort?!” He exclaimed, realising that this version of Xehanort looked like a younger version of Xemnas, and sounded just like Ansem. Behind Sora, Goofy seemed to make the same connection. “You mean this is Xehanort before he split into Ansem and Xemnas?” He asked Donald beside him. Donald didn’t respond, but his silence answered Goofy’s question. Sora tried to steal his resolve and put on a tough face. “What are you doing here? What do you want with this world?” Xehanort simply smirked derisively at Sora. “You’ve come so far, and still you understand so little,” he began, gesticulating with his hands as he spoke; a common trait shared by all versions of Xehanort. “The clash between Light and Darkness is fast approaching, yet as of now, both groups remain incomplete. However, this world offers us something to tip the scales,” he continued, raising both hands out to his sides. “Two Princess: one of Light and one of Darkness,” he gestured with each hand. “They could both prove useful to the Organization should either group fail to fill out their ranks.” “Princesses?” Sora wondered, looking confused. A moment later, his eyes widened and he let out a gasp when he realised what Xehanort was talking about. “Twilight!” Xehanort smirked. “So you’ve realised it. That girl has inherited the Princess’ Light, and holds the potential to forge the χ-blade. And the other: a vessel of Darkness to carry my Heart.” “Sunset Shimmer?” Sora whispered, but was still audible. Xehanort simply responded with a villainous grin. After a moment of absorbing everything that Xehanort said and taking it all in, Sora steeled himself again and looked Xehanort right in the eye. “I don’t care what your plan is. I’ll stop you, and I’ll keep Twilight and everyone else in this world safe!” He declared. Xehanort, however, simply smirked derisively at the young Keyblade wielder’s declaration. “Then you had best be careful, Sora,” he said as he turned back around. “The closer you get to the Light, the greater your shadow becomes.” He then disappeared once again into a Corridor of Darkness. Now that the three of them were once again alone in the school’s entryway, Goofy turned towards his two friends. “What do we do now?” Sora looked down at the floor for a few moments, trying to decide what their next course of action should be. He then looked back up at them once he had decided. “Forget about Sunset Shimmer for now. We need to find Twilight and make sure that she’s safe.” Donald and Goofy both agreed with Sora’s plan and nodded in affirmation. The three of them then made their way back through the corridor that they had just fought through, to reunite with Twilight and Spike once again.