//------------------------------// // Chapter1: ponies and humans // Story: Kingdom Heart next generation: Friendship is Omniversal // by Starry Eyed //------------------------------// It had started no different than any other day, Twilight Sparkle had gotten up bright and early before dawn, eaten breakfast and made herself ready to go out for another ordinary day in Ponyville. She laughed to herself at that sentiment. “An ordinary day in Ponyville”, maybe when Tartarus freezes over. But all in all not much had happened since Rainbow dash had went off to the Wonderbolt’s academy. In fact, all of her friends were out of town for one reason or another. Rarity was off to see a fancy fashion shoot. Applejack was off to visit Breaburn. Fluttershy had been called to tend to some sick animals in a far off forest because there were simply too many to bring home from that distance. Rainbow Dash had either been practicing with the Wonderbolts or teaching scootaloo how to fly, and even Pinkie pie had gone home to see her family on the rock farm. “Spike we are going to be late if you don’t hurry up.” “Late for what? It’s not like we BURP!” And in a flash of green fire there was a letter, written on old parchment and sealed in red wax. Spike was genuinely surprised to be receiving a letter at this time of day “Either Princess Celestia has urgent news for you or you just got your letter to Hogwarts School for gifted unicorns”. Twilight unrolled the scroll and read it to herself silently. Her eyes went from a look of anxiety, to one of disbelief, to one of urgency. “Spike, you’re going to have to look after the library today, I’ll need you to help me pack for a trip.” Spike had known Twilight long enough to just roll with it “Okay, what will you be needing?” Twilight looked like she was thinking about that herself before looking up, “Everything. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I wasn’t prepared for this”. Spike deadpanned, “You’ve proven you’re more prepared than you think”. Although he was trying to act convincing, he knew that Twilight only said those words when she was really anxious. Well, even more than usually anyway. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Twilight walked into a makeshift military camp that was literally being assembled as she arrived. For earth ponies to build such a thing would take months at least, but with Celestia’s royal guard of unicorns the whole thing had been built only in the last nine or ten hours by the looks of it. Twilight felt out of place. She was a scholar, not a soldier. Sure she was magic and had saved Equestria more than once, but this still really wasn’t her cup of tea. A wave of relief washed over her when Celestia walked up alongside her and gestured for her to walk with her. “So what’s the situation here?” Twilight asked, trying to get some idea as to why Celestia’s letter had only said to come prepared to “study an anomaly”. Celestia looked down at Twilight with an uncertainty on her face deeper than twilight had ever seen on her mentor “a ship from another world crashed in Equestria last night. We found one survivor and took him into custody without a fight; so far he has been extremely cooperative with us and has answered all our questions honestly, but…” And just like that the wave of relief evaporated off of Twilight. She would have gone into panic mode if her natural curiosity hadn’t gotten the better of her. “So you’re saying there is an alien here?” Twilight asked her mentor in a mix of terror and excitement. “Yes, no, kind of, he is an alien in the sense that he is not from this world, but he isn’t from outer space either, he is from a different dimension”. Twilight’s eyes grew to the size of saucers, but before she could ask any of the hundreds of questions she had, Celestia continued, “What scares me is not where it is from, but rather what it is: human”. Celestia turned her head away from Twilight and spoke more to herself than her student, “Of all the monsters that could possibly have crossed the dimensional wall, why oh why did it have to be humans”? Twilight knew what a human was the same way we know anything from our own mythology - as just a myth. “What IS a human, Princess?” asked twilight, far too scholarly to let pure myth lead her to any real conclusion. “Ask him yourself” said celestia pointing straight ahead with an anxious look on her face “There is your subject.” Twilight whipped around to see a human, almost just like myth said they looked like. He was sitting in a black metallic chair bound by restraints that had been developed to hold beings like Nightmare Moon or Discord. What Twilight was drawn to however was his expression. He had a look of a kind, patient, understanding father figure, and was as composed as Celestia normally was, despite his position. Twilight did not remove her studying eyes from this strange creature, but asked her mentor “Why did you choose me to question him instead of …well, anyone else in your employ.” It was no secret that Celestia could have gotten anyone, anywhere to do the job; she was a demi-god of the sun for crying out loud. Celestia looked down at her student with some portion of her normal composure, “Because what I need is someone who is smart enough to study him properly, but is also well-versed in friendship. This man represents an entire race; anything out of line could potentially have huge consequences. We want to stay on good “friendly” terms with them, and the best person to meet both criteria is… you Twilight.” Twilight soaked in this new insight for a second, and realized that this was something she had to do. She was terrified, but walked towards the anomaly in the chair and sat in the chair on the other side of the desk that had been brought in for them. The staff had already laid out a recorder, paper, pens and pencils, and had hooked the human up to a spell that would tell if he was lying (with 100% accuracy by the way). Twilight was frozen. She had no idea how to start this “interrogation” off right. Thankfully, it was the human who spoke first. “My name is Soran. Don’t be afraid, I am not your enemy. Ask me anything and I will answer.” Twilight glanced over at the “truth crystal”. If he was lying it would blaze red, yet there it was, totally calm. Twilight felt the weight of the world lift off her shoulders, “Nice to m-m-meet you Mr. Soran. My name is Twilight Sparkle and I just want to ask you a few questions.” Soran nodded his head, “Just Soran please, and before you start asking any questions, let me volunteer the basics. Number 1: We come in peace. I swear to you that none of your kind will suffer any hardship beyond this little exchange because of us. Number 2: My Nakama and I do not represent any world, group, or organization, we are just 7 friends that have a ship capable of traveling between worlds, and we like to explore. Ergo, we are not scouts, soldiers, or invaders - just explorers passing through. Number 3: Any mess made by us, will be fixed by us. And we will adhere to your jurisdiction while we are in your world.” Soran then leaned in and for the first time since twilight had seen him looked very serious, “Have you yet had any contact with any other member of my crew? I have played nice, given in to all your demands, and have and will answer all your questions, but there is one thing I must demand of you,” his eyes now burning with seriousness, “I must know what happened to them”. Celestia walked right behind Twilight and responded for her, “Forgive me, I never told my student about that.” Celestia looked at Twilight who was now focused on her mentor, and answered Soran in a manner that also informed Twilight of what she had missed, “As per your demands, we are looking for your comrades, but there has been no sign of them. Believe me, we want to find them before anypony else does to avoid causing a panic. We have already swept over everything within a 50 kilometer radius of your crash, but we have yet to find them”. Soran looked shocked, “Only a 50 kilometer radius! No wonder you haven’t found them. We were blown apart while coming out of warp. They could be almost anywhere on this side of the planet. Of course you haven’t found them.” Celestia deadpanned; she realized that would mean that Soran’s teammates had not “fallen out of the plane”. They had fallen through the atmosphere, like meteors. “I hate to say this Soran, but if what you say is true…” Celestia may not have liked humans, but to tell any sentient thing that it’s comrades were most likely dead, was just… Soran smiled warmly, “No fear of that” he said, reading into what they must be thinking. “There is no one among my crew that could be killed by something as harmless as plummeting through the atmosphere into the ground,” saying ground like saying the word “cotton”. Twilight had been frozen in surprise when Soran had suddenly become so serious over his crew (which she hadn’t even heard about) and had been caught up in all that was going on; but she remembered her mission and felt the time to really begin the integration was now. “Why and how did you Crash?” Twilight asked like a true scientific investigator, which she was. Celestia backed out of the conversation and Soran looked back to Twilight with his usual composure, “We were on our way here when we were attacked by Enforcers. We did battle while coming out of warp, and that caused everything to scatter apart upon breaking the dimensional wall. That is why we all got scattered.” Celestia was becoming enraged. This so called “peaceful” human had been warring with something right outside their world. Things were getting out of hand. She had to do something. “Second question, what is an “Enforcer” and why were you fighting them?” asked Twilight. Celestia looked down at her pupil. Twilight’s fear was gone and her angry was not about to be kindled either. She had gone completely into a state of pure concentration. Her scientific and reasonable nature demanded of her that she remain totally calm and gather all information immediately and only then allow herself to feel anything. Celestia marveled at her student’s diligence and calmness and remembered why she had left it to her in the first place. Celestia turned to leave, “You seem to have it under control now. Update me when it’s all over.” The sound of the door sealing behind Celestia immediately gave way to a concentrated silence. Now there was nothing in the room except the setup, a pony that a pure concentration, and a human that was pure, honest calmness. This was no longer an interrogation. It was a scientific interview. “I repeat, second question, what is an “Enforcer” and why were you fighting them?” asked Twilight. Soran answered, “To tell you that I have to tell you everything. Do you want that?” “Yes.” Soran nodded. “Then it all started one hundred years ago, at the end of the great keyblade war. Sora, Kairi, and Riku had just defeated Lord Xehanort. Only this time it was for real. Xehanort would not be coming back to life this time. The heartless and the nobodies had finally been destroyed, for good. All the worlds destroyed by the heartless were restored and balance returned to the omniverse. But, there was one real problem, the passageways between the dimensions had widened and universal travel was now at its easiest. Anyone with Gummi blocks could now travel the whole omniverse with ease, as long as they had a Gumi ship, a keyblade, and someone to navigate. To preserve order, Sora and King Mickey formed an organization called the Omniverse Alliance, starting with all the allies that Sora had made in his journeys between worlds. Then by chance, they found a whole new layer of the omniverse, one filled with stranger and stronger new worlds, unlike any that Sora and his friends had ever seen. A world where shinobi and tailed beasts fought for control, a world where shinigami fought with hollows, a world where pirates sailed a strip of seas called the grand line, a world where “dragonballs” could grant any wish, a world where mysterious creatures called pokemon were the heart of commerce, and even a world where gourmet food was a source of great power. And these are all just a small sampling, of over a hundred new worlds at least that they found in this new layer. But there was a new threat, one that the alliance thought was worse than the heartless: the omniverse itself. More than one of these worlds contained warriors in them so powerful, that destroying entire worlds was not impractical. Still more contained magics that were so horrible or easy to abuse that they simply should not be allowed to exist. Some kind people from these worlds joined the alliance and agreed that their worlds were much too powerful in comparison to the rest of the omniverse. They agreed to make a standardized magic system. Magic you see is so different from one world to the next that it had to be done. The new system is strong, but believable. It has spells, but relies on leverage and form as opposed to blunt power. Its users can fight, but more importantly can defend themselves from just about anything. But then, a small band of the alliance, without consent from its founders, put a terrible plan into motion. They realized that they could never be safe in an omniverse with such monstrous powers, so they built a device with the power to exterminate all life in the omniverse that had the potential to grow to a level above level 100 of the new standardized system. They fired it. And it worked.” Twilight had been listening carefully. She wasn’t sure what some of the things that Soran had mentioned were, but had simply made a note to ask later. But this was different. She had done a good job accepting that they lived in an omniverse, and that this alliance existed, but exterminating all the powerful things in the omniverse, even the things so powerful that they could destroy whole worlds! Twilight intervened, “If these beings were really as strong as you say they are, then they couldn’t have been wiped out so easily. Didn’t they fight back?” Soran shook his head, “Hard to fight something you don’t know is there. Less than a thousand people in the omniverse even knew about the omniverse. And those strong people agreed, a massive amount of power was needed to fire the machine up, they were the ones that powered it. Of the 100 people that donated their power for the machine to work, I understand that prince Vegeta was the weakest donator, and he had billions of kils energy. Just so you know, 300 kils can destroy a world in a flash. They did it because they realized it would just take one maniac with 300 kils and a gumi ship and the whole omniverse could have been destroyed. They did it in the name of peace. But that was all over a hundred years ago. About ten years ago the alliance got it though there head that they should “enlighten” the universe. And they set up an omniversal government with heartless, mindless monsters called “Enforcers” that do their bidding. And that is what an “Enforcer” is”. Twilight’s head was about to explode from the onslaught of new and revolutionary information cascading over her. But she had to stay focused, she couldn’t let Celestia down. Twilight calmly asked, “Third question, you said that you were fighting these “Enforcers.” Why? What do you have against them, and what do they have against you?” Soran looked at Twilight like he expected her to know already, “Forgive me, but I have no desire to join forces with someone who thinks they are better than someone else, let alone better than everyone in the omniverse. We are explorer. We like to run wild and free, and make new friends with people from strange and wonderful new cultures. They want to break and enslave everyone and crush all enemies conquering, and deleting all cultures other than their own. We are exact opposites, so we fight them.” Twilight began to lose her temper, “And you brought them here?” Soran looked sad, “We didn’t mean to, but yes we did. I know that it is no consolation, but they would have come here sooner or later anyway.” Twilight lost her temper, “That still means that Equestria is on the brink of war with these things, and we are definitely not prepared for that!” Soran looked calm but serious, “You seem to have forgotten my third point. I said that any mess we caused or had a part in, we would clean up. We will not let these things lay one finger on anyone in your world, and we will make sure they never bother you again. That is a promise that will be kept to the letter.” Twilight didn’t know why, but she knew that he meant it. Not just because the lie detector hadn’t gone off, she just knew he and his crew could do it. “I believe you, what do you need?” Soran answered, “First, I need your leader’s permission to move as I wish. Second, I need to fix my ship, and third I need to gather my crew. Then we will fix everything.” Twilight nodded, “I will see to it that you can do those things, but tell me about your crew.” Soran smiled, “Well there is a pilot, a musician, a doctor, a teacher, an old monk, a priestess, and a chef.”