//------------------------------// // Meeting // Story: My Little Kingdom: The Key to Harmony // by Mekapix //------------------------------// Sora lost the adrenaline rush of the fight and fell back on his haunches, he panted heavily as he banished the Keyblade and looked at his hoof bands. The colt had barely anytime to think about what happened before he was bombarded by a group of ponies, eager to ascertain what he just did. “What was that?!” Twilight asked. “You definitely just used magic and not just any magic, elemental magic!” “Well I thought you knew I could use magic, I did say so before.” Sora stated. He scratched the back of his head and then got back to his hooves. Twilight just stood there with her mouth agape, she could believe that the summoning of his Keyblade was an ability of the Keyblade itself, but to be able to project a flame from the weapon was something else. It meant that this earth pony actually had the power of magic. “But where in tarnation did that strength and speed come from? Ah bucked that thing as hard as ah could but nothin’. Then your weapon glows and you manage to run on your back hooves and send it flyin’ in one hit!” Exclaimed Applejack. Sora simply shrugged in response. “Well I needed to stop it and I just…did. I’ve never really thought about it.” These ponies couldn’t believe it, Sora was breaking rule after rule of pony physiology and acting like he hadn’t done anything. “Shall we continue then? We still need to get to your princess as soon as we can.” Sora pointed towards the nearby castle and all the mares began leading the way, giving him odd looks as they passed by him. As he followed behind, he looked down to his hoof bands and started talking to his friends inside them. ‘Donald, Goofy, are you there?’ “Yeah, we’re here Sora.” Goofy replied. “What d’ya need?” Sora responded with a confused expression. ‘What happened with my abilities? Why did these bands glow when I used them?’ “Uh, well I’m not too sure Sora, we knew that you wanted to use those attacks and we just wanted to help.” Goofy explained but this only confused the Keyblade wielder even more. “Goofy’s right, we just wanted to help. I knew you wanted to use fire but for some reason, I felt like I had to help you do it.” Donald added. ‘Why would I need help, I’ve done it lots of times before so why do you think I’d need help?’ Sora replied. “I don’t know. It just felt like you needed my help, kinda like I had to cast it with you.” He finished. Sora couldn’t understand anything he was being told. ‘Why is it when I talk to you two I end up with more questions than answers?’ He got the sense that they just shrugged which caused him to sigh. When he started to think about it, he had an interesting idea. “Hey Twilight.” He called, there was a theory in his mind that said he was onto something. Twilight stopped in place as the other girls kept moving. “What is it Sora?” The lavender unicorn asked. “You can only use magic because you’re a unicorn right?” The sudden question with an obvious answer made her more confused than she had already been. She just gave a nod in reply and Sora nodded back, continuing further along the trail. “Wait, why are you asking something so obvious?” Twilight quizzed, she just had to know now. To her, this colt was a mystery wrapped in a riddle. Sora just shook his hoof in response. “No reason, just a little thought of mine.” Twilight gave him one more confused glance before heading back to the girls. ‘Hey Donald, Goofy, I think I’m on to something.’ “What is it Sora?” Donald quacked. ‘In this world, only unicorns can use magic and I’m an “earth pony” from what I’ve heard, I shouldn’t be able to use magic.’ “Yeah? Where are you going with this Sora?” Goofy interrupted. ‘Well I shouldn’t be able to use magic because I’m not a unicorn but I still can. I think it’s because Donald and his magic is inside this band.’ “Are you saying that I’m your ‘horn’?” Donald asked, feeling more confused than Sora now. ‘Yeah that’s exactly right. Goofy, I think that you are the same with my physical attacks, that’s why you guys became these bands, so that I could keep my Keyblade powers.’ The idea made complete sense but little sense at the same time for the trio. Sora’s theory worked however so they decided that they would stick with the idea unless something else came up. Up ahead, Applejack came up beside Twilight and nudged her slightly, getting the unicorns attention. “Hey Twi’, you ever seen somethin’ like that before?” She asked, it was pretty obvious what she was referring to. “No I haven’t, I haven’t seen anything like what he can do and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bug me but I expect princess Celestia will be able to figure it out if she meets him.” Twilight couldn’t help but keep thinking about the magic and the way he moved, it was unlike anything she had seen before and she couldn’t just drop it from her mind anytime soon. Fluttershy spoke up next as she increased speed. “Uhm girls, we’re nearly there…” She said, gesturing to the shining city just ahead. All the mares picked up speed with relieved smiles on their faces, happy that they could be sure that no more surprise attacks would happen while inside the city. A look of determination grew across Twilight’s face, she was going to make sure she got her mentors help on the creatures and the pony who was denying the laws of physics. Sora ran after them as they picked up speed, he knew that he really didn’t want to get lost in the town up ahead. His eyes caught the castle in the distance and the carriages that were closing in on it. “Hey, are there usually fancy looking carriages going to the castle?” he asked. The other six ponies looked up at the transports landing near the castle as they entered the sparkling city. Rainbow looked at the castle with a raised eyebrow and an agape mouth, the timing seemed too coincidental. “What is going on…?” She asked as all seven of them made their way to the fortress. XXX A carriage softly landed on the pathway just out the front of the colossal doors, the large patterned doors with guards posted either side were opened wide so that the invited guests could enter. The griffon lord, accompanied by his scowling guard captain, was the first to enter the large castle. “This way sir.” One of the guards said, leading them towards another set of doors at one side of the large room. There was a large set of stairs that lead up to the next floor then split off to each side, allowing access to many rooms but the room that the griffons were lead to didn’t require ascending to the next floor. They veered right of the staircase to another set of large patterned doors, they weren’t as tall as the first but still reached high enough to allow most creatures through. As they entered through the doors, the first and most noticeable part of the room was the bright white alicorn with a spectrum mane and a darker alicorn with galactic mane standing beside her. They were on the other end of a long, golden coloured rectangular table with small plaques lined along the side for each guest. Once the two griffons had entered the room and made their way to a seat, the guard bowed and took his leave from the room. The griffon lord made his way to where a plaque with his name was placed on the table, Gilda taking her position at his side but not right next to him, knowing her place. “Lord Julian von Grifford. It is a pleasure to have you here today.” Celestia stated, making sure a welcoming grin had come across her face. The griffon merely shrugged at the welcoming. “Yes yes Celestia, I’d like to know why you felt it so important to invite us all away from our kingdoms when we are trying to deal with the arrival of these little creatures.” He asked, not trying to hide an ounce that the whole situation was irritating him. “It is that exact reason that I felt it necessary to arrange this meeting of royals so that we would be able to solve this problem.” The lord wanted to argue with her that it would be just a waste of time when they could have been trying to solve it on their own but his train of thought was interrupted when the doors opened again and a guard came through. This time he was followed by three gruff looking creatures that were instantly recognised as diamond dogs. “Ahh princess Celestia, such an honour to meet you.” The diamond dog with a red jacket and a yellow stone on his collar, smiled as well as he could but it still looked rather unpleasant, he rubbed his paws together and bowed slightly as he addressed her. The two dogs behind him bowed in kind but the smaller one gave a grumble as he bowed, only to get a small rap on the back of the head by the largest one. “Welcome to Canterlot, may I ask for your names?” Celestia asked, the camps of the diamond dogs had no actual leaders, they were established a rank depending on how many gems they had collected. “Of course princess, my name is Grit.” He gestured to the large diamond dog to his left. “This is Durge.” Then to the smaller diamond dog on his right. “And this is Skid.” The two simply bowed again to the princess. Luna raised her hoof to the side of the table with the plaque saying D.D. Camps. “Please come take up your space, you need not stand in the doorway through the meeting, you are our guests after all.” Luna stated with a smile. The three diamond dogs started making their way to their space when the griffon lord let out a slight huff. “So why are you here? You have no actual kingdom to defend, you just have your tents and huts.” The griffon rudely exclaimed, the look on Grit’s face turned sour but Skid spoke up before he could reply. “We have our land too and these monsters are affecting us as well as you!” The little diamond dog argued. “Hah! Your little campsites can move around when you get in trouble, however we have a proper city to maintain.” The griffon scoffed. Durge and Skid growled before Grit put his paws in front of the two so he could speak. “We may not have big walls and fancy houses like you but we are still under attack by those monsters, you aren’t the only ones being attacked!” “Quite right. We didn’t call this meeting so that there would be arguing, we don’t know what these creatures are so we should work together to stop them.” Celestia interrupted, trying to stop the growing argument before it got out of hoof. Just outside of the castle was Shining Armor. He had decided to lead his beloved into the meeting room personally as well as being her guard for the time she would be there. He smiled as her carriage landed and the beautiful pink alicorn stepped out of the transport. The smile on her face matched his once she saw him trotting towards her, she tried to look royal and professional but she couldn’t help picking up speed and running into her lovers hooves. She nuzzled into his neck and he replied in kind but unfortunately for them, the last guest arrived at the same time. Princess Chrysalis was just at their side, waiting to be lead to the meeting room. Shining Armor swore he could hear Cadence growling at the changeling queen, not that he blamed her but he didn’t want her to try anything. Chrysalis looked down at the two ponies, she didn’t know what kind of face to put on in front of her past enemies which ended up giving her a look of indifference. Nothing was spoken between any of them, Shining Armor only nodded towards the visiting queen and led her, as well as his wife, to the meeting chamber. There was a silence as the three of them entered the room, Chrysalis was pretty sure it was everypony not wanting to speak in front of her due to their history. As they stood in their places, Celestia tapped her hoof on the table to get the attention of all that was present and cleared her throat. “Now we are all here, I think we should start with our meeting. As you all know, we have encountered a new type of creature and we can all confirm that they are indeed hostile. My sister and I have gathered you here so that we may discuss this problem.” Her statement was followed by a group of nods, some less enthusiastic as others. “Do we even know what these are?” Princess Cadence asked. “It can’t be the first time that anypony has seen these creatures.” She added. “We have searched all our bestiaries and found nothing relating to them.” Gilda stated for her lord, he still gave off the feeling that he felt it was all a waste of time. “We haven’t seen any such creatures before, not even in the deepest tunnels we’ve ever dug.” Durge replied, getting a nod from the two next to him. “We haven’t got a record of these creatures appearing in the Everfree forest either, it’s as if they just rose up out of nowhere all of a sudden.” Luna carried on. “All we know about them is their looks, they hunt in groups and they have the ability to sink into the floor.” Everypony nodded except one. “Well, the small ones do.” Chrysalis mentioned, suddenly getting all eyes on her within seconds. “What do you mean? Small ones?” Lord Julian asked “Well in our area we have come across two varieties of these things. There are the small ones, the ones that sink into the ground as you said but we have found another type, a bigger type. These were heavily armored bipedal creatures, they carried a shield with the face of a dog on it except the dog head had three eyes and it could bark and bite…the dog head was a shield but alive at the same time.” Everything went silent for a few moments. “The smaller ones weren’t too hard to beat but the bigger ones…Many changelings were taken by them.” Gilda lent forward to whisper into her lord’s ear before he nodded in response. “Are you sure about that?” He asked. All eyes then turned to him. “I mean, we all know of the small ones but suddenly you get larger ones?” The queen raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?” “I am simply saying that it seems rather convenient that suddenly you encounter bigger ones we haven’t seen. They also kill your changelings which would mean that it’d be perfectly natural for more of your changelings to ‘die’ and more of these creatures to appear in their place.” The statement caused the queen to growl. “What are you insinuating?” “I am saying that I don’t think these creatures may be unusual creatures after all, perhaps you’re changelings are the little monsters and this is just another one of your attempts at taking over. Except this time you took it one step further and decided to try invading all domains at the same time.” Chrysalis’ eyes widened as she yelled across the table. “How dare you, my subjects are under attack by these things as well and you think that this is all some sort of plot!?” “Well you haven’t given us reason to believe otherwise, have you?” Cadence answered instead. “Look, I apologize for my actions a year ago but this isn’t an invasion plan! I’m under assault just like you!” She cried, hoping that the words she feared wouldn’t come next. Unfortunately she wasn’t that lucky as Cadence narrowed her eyes at her. “Can you prove it?” Cadence asked. Chrysalis was taken back, looking round at the whole table waiting for her reply but attention was snapped away as the diamond dogs began sniggering. “What are you laughing about you mongrels?” Lord Julian grunted. The sniggering died down as the Skid cleared his throat. “We just thought it was funny.” He stated, earning a scowl from Chrysalis. “You thought what was funny?” Durge sniggered again. “We thought it was funny how you ponies accuse us of being uncivilized yet you’re all blaming each other five minutes after this meeting has started.” Lord Julian slammed his claw on the table. “You dare call us uncivilized? You dirty mutts!” The snickering stopped and Skid growled. “Quiet with your insults you overgrown pigeon!” The griffon opened his mouth but couldn’t find an insult to go back with before Gilda stepped forward. “How dare you talk to Lord Julian in such a manner! He is a royal, much better than any of you dirt scraping, knuckle dragging mongrels!” The sky had grown dark as the whole room erupted into a land of insults and accusations. Celestia and Luna tried to calm each side with no success. “Princesses! Princesses!” A guard yelled as he burst through the door into the meeting room. All the bickering guests had quietened down when he came in the room. “What is it?” Princess Celestia asked. “The elements of harmony plus one are here to talk to you but they are in the gardens under attack by a monster unlike any we have seen before!” Celestia and Luna quickly shot up and ran out of the room, followed quickly by Shining Armor with Princess Cadence. The remaining guests looked around at each other before following suit. As they opened the door, they saw Fluttershy tending to Applejack just to the side of the door, Pinkie Pie was backing away from the beast panicking, Rainbow Dash was circling above it, Twilight and Rarity were trying to hold the monster’s giant claws down while an unknown colt with a large key in his mouth was charging towards it. The monster was slightly larger the size of Celestia herself but it seemed to just be crouching at the moment, is was a mix of different shades of green and a large yellow horn protruding from it’s face, bulging eyes that wandered around out of synch with each other and a large tail curled up into a spiral. No matter how it was looked upon, it was a horned chameleon but the size was intimidating. “I can’t hold it down much longer!” Twilight yelled. “Me neither!” Rarity added. “Ok then, get back quickly!” The colt yelled. The two unicorns hopped back as they released their magic. The creature roared for its freedom before the brown colt was in its face, quickly the chameleon span round a full circle and whipped him with its tail. He blocked the attack with the large key but was still sent flying backwards. As he looked up at the monster, one thing could be heard coming from his lips. “I hate Stealth Sneaks.”