Chapter 7
The journey through the destroyed village went quickly with Sora and Riku leading the group around the worst of the damage although they did have to wait while Rarity puked her guts up after seeing a particularly nasty corpse of a foal that had had its head slashed into tiny pieces and its legs cut off.
“What kind of monsters could do this?” Twilight asked softly from where she was standing with Riku and Sora.
“Heartless.” Sora said softly before turning away from the corpse with a grimace marring his usually carefree face.
“We need to move, we’re too exposed out here.” Riku said looking around the edges of the buildings warily.
“Who else would be out here? It’s abandoned!” Rainbow exclaimed gesturing around at the destruction.
“I really hope I don’t have to answer that.” Riku muttered to Sora.
“You need to lighten up just a bit Riku. This is their first experience with heartless of course they’re going to be naïve about it.” Sora replied with a sigh.
“I still think that dragging six untrained women around a war zone is a bad idea.” Riku said with a slight scowl at some of the other ponies.
“Oh so besides just being a brute you’re also a sexist!” Rarity said angrily.
“Not at all, I know plenty of women that could kick my ass. You seem to have missed the part about you being untrained.” Riku said dryly.
“I’ll have you know that I come from a military family thank you very much.” Rarity said bringing her needle like blade up to hover near Riku’s face. Riku just snorted clearly unimpressed by the slim blade in front of him.
“Can we please just focus on getting to safety?” Twilight asked with a frown.
“Did you miss the part where we’re heading towards an enemy stronghold to fight a god possibly more than one? The only safety we’re going to have is temporary at best.” Riku replied.
“You know what I meant.” Twilight said rolling her eyes causing both Sora and Riku to chuckle at her tone.
They walked in silence for around an hour until they were far beyond the destroyed town and they came across a grass plain that stretched on as far as they eye could see.
“This area is known as the Empty Grasses, it’s the only thing separating Equestria from the changeling deserts.” Twilight said as she looked around the apparently never ending expanse of grass.
“Hey yall I think we’ve got trouble.” AJ observed from her position near the back of the group. Before they could react a black shape dove out of the sky and slammed into Riku who was thrown to the ground in surprise. Before the shape could do any more damage Sora sliced it in half with his keyblade with a simple horizontal slash. The heartless dissipated into a fine mist that dissolved.
“Gods I hate flyers.” Riku muttered as he got back to his hooves.
Enough heartless to temporarily blot out the sun streaked out of the sky keening out high notes that made the ponies stagger. Sora and Riku withstood the onslaught of noise and got their first look at the new breed of heartless. They were a warped version of pegasi with tattered feathers and slim almost emaciated bodies. Their feathers despite the ratty appearance seemed to have been sharpened and out of the corner of his eyes Sora caught sight of several dozen thin lines of blood running across his friend’s body from where the heartless had impacted. Their faces had been twisted into vaguely vulture-like smiling faces that looked down at them with rows of sharp teeth.
“They’re fast but go down easy once you get them, how much you want to bet that they work mostly with the bigger ground based ones?” Sora asked as he deflected an incoming flyer to the side before slicing through one of the wings.
“I’ll take that bet.” Riku said before he unleashed a blast of dark energy that slammed into two of the flyers who didn’t see it coming causing them to disintegrate into mist. Rainbow Dash recovered first and took flight charging straight at the heartless.
“Get out of my sky!” She shouted as her hoof smashed into the first heartless’s head pulping it to misty blackness.
The other heartless all dived at her spinning around her in a confusing whirlwind of bladed wings and infernal laughter. Sora jumped into the air and quickly boosted himself even farther with a spin that sent him into the crowd of heartless. With a flash of light he sent his keyblade slashing through four of the heartless who had surrounded Dash and reduced them to murky darkness.
Despite being outnumbered Dash was still holding her own fairly well having only suffered a few minor cuts along her muzzle and across her chest. With a battle cry she smashed her front hooves together and a bolt of lightning shot out of the nearby clouds and vaporized several of the heartless in a flash of light.
More of the heartless dove out of the sky and streaked towards rest of the group. Twilight raised a quick shield causing several to be destroyed upon impact as their week bodies came into contact with the powerful magical barrier at top speed. The others pulled up and began to slash at it with their razor sharp wings.
“I can’t hold this for long so get ready.” Twilight shouted over her shoulder.
A few seconds later her shield fell apart and the heartless zoomed in at her. Applejack leapt forward and sent two heartless to inky oblivion with a flying buck. Twilight nodded to her in thanks before sending out a magic missile that sliced through several more heartless.
Rarity had drawn her sword in time to deflect one of the heartless to the side and slice through its throat with a simple flick. Another two flew towards her and she ducked allowing the razor wings to zoom right over her head. One got lucky however and a thin trickle of blood began to flow into her right eye from a newly opened cut on her forehead. Rarity growled in frustration and leapt to the side narrowly avoiding another pass.
Pinkie saw her friend’s predicament and took out her cupcake bazooka. With a happy whoop she pulled the trigger and sent several high velocity cupcakes flying towards the Heartless. The cupcakes impacted against the heartless pegasi’s faces hurling them to the ground with confused looks on their faces as they vanished.
Fluttershy stood her ground unflinchingly as the heartless dove at her before letting out a high pitched eagle call. The heartless ground to a halt in midair as the unexpectedly high-pitched noise assaulted their ears before renewing their dives. Two golden streaks of light flashed out of the sky as a pair of golden eagles swooped out of the sky and tore into the heartless with long sharp talons quickly reducing them to black mist. Fluttershy nodded to the eagles gratefully and they gave each gave her a one winged salute before flapping back into the fray.
Riku and Sora stood flank to flank slashing out with their keyblades as a swarm larger than the one that had attacked Rainbow Dash encircled them. Sora sent his keyblade flying out of his mouth with a well-placed throw which killed several of the heartless before he teleported it back into his mouth and continued to deflect and slash more heartless. Riku sent burst after burst of dark energy at the circling heartless in-between slashes reducing those who came towards him to dust.
“I’m getting the distinct feeling that they don’t like us.” Sora said as a heartless slashed him across the side of his neck opening up a thin cut.
“You know I never would’ve noticed if you hadn’t pointed that out.” Riku replied dryly. “Do you want to do a limit?” He asked as a heartless nicked him on the cheek drawing blood.
“I was waiting for you to ask.” Sora replied with a grin.
“Together!” Sora and Riku shouted together and the two began to glow with an ethereal light that sent heartless flying away in pain as the two keyblade masters jumped forward.
Sora and Riku moved in time with an unearthly rhythm slashing out to the left and the right dashing heartless to black mist as they went then Sora leaped onto Riku’s back and launched himself into the swarm that circled angrily overhead. He arrived among them and spun around in a circle clearing a small section of the air. Riku teleported behind him and they used each other to launch one another at the rest of the heartless each one a light shining through the almost impenetrable darkness steadily clearing the sky.
“Can I play to?” Pinkie asked suddenly appearing on top of Sora who looked up in surprise as the pink party pony leaped off of his airborne body straight towards the heartless and with a whoop pulled a party-cannon out of nowhere. She pulled the string and a with a loud blast a cake streaked out of the cannon and smashed into a heartless where it exploded in a shower of icing and cake pieces that showed other heartless dissolving them into mist.
“How the hell did she do that?” Riku asked as he and Sora joined hooves and started to spin shooting out bolts of magic left and right while they cut through the heartless closest to them with their blades.
“I’m not going to worry about that.” Sora replied with a slight chuckle.
Twilight and Applejack were oblivious to the struggle going on overhead. Instead they were standing side to side with Twilight laying down a thick spray of suppressing magical fire and Applejack smashing any who made it through with judicial bucks to the face.
Suddenly a neoshadow burst from the ground underneath Twilight and tossed her into the air while slashing at her with long serrated claws. Twilight let out a cry of pain as long bloody slashes appeared across her right side and with an effort of will she created a small forcefield around herself forcing the heartless’s claws to scrap off the invisible barrier. Applejack jumped into the air and delivered a buck that sent the neoshadow tumbling out of the air. She also managed to catch the bleeding Twilight and set her gently on the ground before turning back to the face the incoming heartless.
“Come on Twi get up, ah can’t take em all.” Applejack said quietly as she smashed another heartless into oblivion. Rainbow Dash was flying through the enemy swarm smashing and electrifying them as she went when suddenly Pinkie hopped onto her back.
“Pinkie what are you doing back there?” Rainbow Dash asked in surprise while she nimbly dodged to the side of one of the heartless’s bladed wings.
“I’m baking some cupcakes!” Pinkie replied as she hoisted a large cupcake machinegun between her hooves and opened up on the swarm that had begun to chase Dash. Cupcakes streamed out of the barrel of the gun slicing through the ranks of heartless like a hot knife through an ice-cream cake.
“This is ridicules!” Dash shouted as she was forced to do a barrel roll to avoid a group of heartless, she felt Pinkie’s legs tighten around her stomach as she did so in order to keep from falling off.
Rarity stood surrounded by five neoshadows who continuously shifted towards her feinting to the left and the right in an attempt to distract the white mare from the one who would actually attack her. It was times like this that Rarity was happy that she’d gone through the five years of guard training that her father had insisted on. She’d hated every dirty, muddy, sweaty, bucking miserable moment, but she had to admit that it had proven remarkably useful over the years since she moved to Ponyville.
The neoshadow who was actually going to attack her swept in from behind her as two others charged from the front. Rarity put the two in front of her out of her mind for the moment and instead focused on driving her thin needle like sword through the chest of the neoshadow charging from behind. The sword pierced its chest and it dissipated into mist without a sound leaving Rarity with four of the monstrosities to face.
Riku and Sora’s combo ended and they were both sent falling landward with varying amounts of control, Sora who had the advantage of being able to glide naturally after his stay in Neverland soared down to land next Applejack and the bleeding Twilight. Applejack looked over at him and nodded before turning to buck a heartless in the face. Sora readied his keyblade and unleashed a rapid series of slashes and cuts to the next heartless to attack sending it back into the darkness without difficulty.
Riku on the other hand had never gotten the ability to glide (or fly for that matter) so he plummeted towards the ground right as the four neoshadows converged on Rarity. Seeing the mare’s predicament Riku quickly teleported in front of two of the heartless leaving only two for Rarity to deal with. His keyblade slashed out vivisecting one of the heartless while he simultaneously sent out a wave of dark energy at the other who was sent flying back under the force of the attack.
Rarity noticed Riku taking the other two down in the back of her mind while she swept her sword out in a low swing that cut through one of the heartless’s legs sending it falling to the ground where it dissolved. The other’s right claw gave Rarity a shallow cut along her muzzle and she killed any sense of triumph the heartless felt (that is to say none whatsoever) by driving her sword through its throat causing it to vanish into mist.
Fluttershy was surrounded by the noble predators of the plains and to her left a lion slashed a heartless to pieces while a hawk swooped down from the sky and sliced into pegasi heartless with minimal effort. Suffice to say that she hadn’t as of yet suffered an injury…
After a few more minutes of intermittent fighting the heartless disappeared just as suddenly as they’d arrived leaving the heroes (minus Sora and Riku) gasping for breath and exhausted. That’s when the others noticed Twilight lying on the ground in a small pool of her own blood.
“Oh my goodness what happened to her?” Rarity asked as she caught sight of her friend.
“Looks like neoshadow work, I’ll get a potion in her.” Riku replied pulling out a red bottle, uncapping it, and forcing it down the blood covered unicorn’s throat.
“What are you doing she needs medical attention not a drink!” Dash shouted trying to bat Riku’s hand away.
“This will heal her, trust me.” Riku replied before turning back to the task of force feeding the potion to the unicorn.
“Fine, but if something happens to her…” Dash said glaring at Riku.
“Then you’ll attack me and I’ll knock you unconscious.” Riku replied with a shrug. “Oh look she’s waking up.” Riku said turning back to Twilight who began to stir in his arms.
“I feel like I’ve had my internal organs torn apart and spliced back together by a monkey.” Twilight said with a groan as she rolled out of Riku’s arms.
“Yeah that sounds about right; but at least you have your health.” Sora replied with a grin. Before Twilight could reply she was pulled into a large group hug by her friends and they spent the next several minutes just holding each other.
“I love a good group hug, mind if I join?” Sora asked with a grin.
“We need to keep moving.” Riku said with a worried look at the horizon.
“Riku shut up and join the hug.” Sora told his friend with a grin.