For a brief moment, Terra remembered the name Master Eraqus.
Images flashed through his head of a young boy, charging across a courtyard, his wooden sword held high as he swung at an elderly man, who effortlessly blocked the boy’s strikes. When the boy attempted to lunge his wooden blade at the man’s chest, he simply sidestepped aside and knocked the boy’s sword from his hands.
The boy bent down to pick up his wooden key blade, the man knelt down next to him and gave the boy a kind smile.
The aura from this creature was swirling with light and wisdom, that which matched this Master Eraqus. Could it be that… this creature was Master Eraqus?!
“Is…is it really you,” Terra’s voice cracked in a mixture of sadness and relief, letting his keyblade slip from his fingers.
Stumbling forward, he reached out with a shaky hand towards what he thought was his mentor. “I…I don’t understand, I thought you were...” Terra whispered distraughtly, sounding close to tears.
Silently, Master Eraqus pointed his keyblade at Terra.
“Ma-.master? What are you…GAH!” Terra jerked back, his armored form struck by a vibrant beam. His whole world slowly began to blur and shake; causing Terra to stumble forward towards what he thought was Master Eraqus.
“Master..Eraqus..wh-why?” whispered Terra. His legs suddenly felt like rubber, collapsing to his knees weakly. Grasping his mentor’s leg, his vision slowly shifted as Master Eraqus blurred into what appeared to be a pure white hose. The horse looked almost identical to the one he had seen before, save for its white pelt and rainbow mane.
“Who...” Terra tried to ask, before all strength left him and he collapsed onto the ground unconscious.
Princess Celestia gazed down at the creature before her, an indifferent expression on her face. Her face scrunched up, her eyes flashing anger before it ebbed away into a sorrowful gaze. She didn’t know at the moment whether to feel anger, relief, or sadness as all three emotions raced through her mind.
When she had first arrived on the battlefield and saw this creature attacking her sister, she had blasted it out of anger and a desire to protect her sister. It was an invader, and wanted to hurt Luna! It would not do so without a fight!
But when it relinquished its weapon, and called her Eraqus; her anger shifted too confusion.
Who was this Eraqus that this being mistook her for? Snapping back to reality, she had struck the creature with a powerful sleep spell that would hopefully keep it asleep until she could figure figure out what next to do with the creature.
When it grabbed her leg, she let out a light gasp from the conflicted emotions that she felt swimming around within its mind, giving her pause. Her specialty may not be sensing, and repairing the turmoil of emotions within one, but she didn’t need to in order to know that this creature was in a broken state.
What in Equestria had happened to this creature?
Before she could think any further on the matter, her thoughts were interrupted by the galloping of the royal guard rushing in to protect their princesses.
“Better late than never,” Celestia smiled to herself in amusement, watching her guards surround the fallen creature. Turning back towards the creature, her gaze hardened once more, her sympathy for the creatures fractured state ebbing away. Whatever it was, whatever had happened to it; did not excuse what it had tried to do to her sister. Clearly, it had shown that it was capable of hurting others when angered.
A battalion of unicorn guards encircled the creature, whilst a group of pegasus guards hovered above it. All of them had their spears pointed at the fallen creature, in case of it waking up.
“It’s alright Lulu; I’ve cast a sleeping spell on it” Celestia assured her approaching sister, never taking her eyes off the unconscious creatures’ form.
Whilst she was glad that her sister was alright, she was curious on how Luna’s night had gone from nightly court towards fighting a stranger in her own garden.
“Why did this creature attack you?” Celestia’s asked in a firm tone that demanded the truth and nothing else.
“I’m not sure myself sister. We were..I mean, I was merely returning from night court to my gardens for some time to myself when this creature,” she paused to point at the armored figure, “Suddenly appeared from nowhere in a flash of light. It seemed confused at first when it saw me, but then it called me Xehanort and attacked.” Luna explained, gazing at the creature with an almost sorrowful look.
“It appeared out of nowhere,” repeated a surprised Celestia, a curious hoof touching her chin. “Sister, we’ve both lived for many years now, we’ve traveled all over Equestria, and yet in all my years Luna, I’ve never seen a creature like this before.”
Levitating the creature in front of her, Celestia touched the digits on its hand curiously. “Perhaps this creature is an extraterrestrial? That would certainly explain why I’ve never seen something like it before,” she hummed gently, dropping it's armored hand.
Attempting to remove the creatures helmet so she could look at it's face, her golden aura shimmering around it's masked face, trying to pull it off. "What's this? Why won't it budge" Celestia mused, meeting resistance as she upted the ante of her power; surprised that their wasn't even any sort of struggle with the armor; it simply refused to budge. It was almost like the armor was fused together; acting as the creatures skin.
“An alien?!” exclaimed Luna eagerly, “Oh that would be most exciting sister! An alien.” Luna suddenly resembled a young filly opening presents on Hearth’s Warming Day, before coughing to hide her embarrassment at her sister’s bemused stare.
“I think that makes sense because it attacked me with this.” Luna pointed towards the creature’s weapon.
Using her magic to hover the weapon in front of them, she asked with awe, “Have you ever seen something like this before? This weapon appears to be a mix between a sword and…a key of some kind.” Reaching out to touch it, she noted with a curious smile, “What a bizarre weapon”.
Celestia held her gaze on the strange sword key hybrid, before it fell down towards the alien.She let out a gasp when a flash of light from the weapon blinded her, and when the light vanished: the weapon was gone.
"W..how did? Where did it go" gasped Luna, amazed at what sort of magic was in the weapon.
The sun goddess however, wasn't focusing on the disappearing weapon. Celestia's gaze shifted into brief anger before she stated, “The question now, is what should be done with this stranger? By all accounts he attacked you, and almost killed you. For this, he must either be banished from our world, or imprisoned so he can’t harm anypony else.”
Her childlike fascination shifted into horror, as Luna protested “N-no we mustn’t do that”!!
“Why not?” argued back Celestia.“Why would you defend this creature? Did it not try to strike you down sister,” pointed out Celestia, her previous pity for this creature now gone.
“But it didn’t kill me! You managed to stop it, and now it’s asleep” interjected Luna, before pointing a disbelieving hoof at the creature. “This is an alien Celly!! A being from another world!! Yet, you would banish or imprison something that hasn’t ever be seen in Equestria before? You’d pass up the opportunity to learn about this creature?”
“You would put the seeking answers about the unknown, before the welfare of our subjects?! What you’re asking for is too much Luna!! We know nothing about what this thing is or where it even comes from to take such a risk” argued Celestia.
Celestia pointed towards the destroyed garden. “You’ve seen first hoof what it’s capable of when it gets violent, and yet you’d want to keep it around? It tried to end your life, so I think that tells what sort of creature it is,” Celestia continued to argue.
“I don’t think that it’s evil!! Confused perhaps, but not evil! Before it started to attack me, it called me Xehanort. This Xehanort, whoever he is, must have caused him great pain in his life in order to achieve the amount of pain he’s feeling,” Luna responded sternly, eyes falling to her hooves.
“It either wasn’t seeing correctly, or its mind was clouded, but I’m certain that it’s not evil. We can’t just get rid of it,” Luna gently insisted.
Remembering how it had called her Eraqus, Celestia admitted gently, “The way it spoke the name Eraqus. Whoever he is, he obviously means a lot to this creature. It sounded like he was going to start crying when he saw me”.
“You see,” Luna smiled at having won her sister, before continuing, “This is why we need too..”.
“But those powers it used,” interrupted Celestia, gazing at the creature. “That chilling darkness that’s resonating from its body is disturbing. It feels similar to when you were possessed by Nightmare Moon,” finished Celestia, looking her sister firmly in the eye.
“Don’t you see? This is why we need to send it back to where it came from. Perhaps it’s not in control of itself yes, but in the time it takes to help it; it could succumb to this dark power.” Celestia sternly spoke before smiling apologetically “I feel for this creature, but it’s not our concern”.
Luna let out a disappointed sigh, “So, when I was possessed and controlled by my own darkness, you’d see if you could help me. Yet when it’s another, your first response is to send it away? Do we only help those who are like us sister?!”
“Th..that’s not true, I, ” Celestia tried argue back.
“When we we’re possessed and corrupted by our own darkness, you didn’t give up. You did everything you could to help me before resorting to what you had to do. Yes, it took the elements of harmony to free me, but the point is that I was helped. I was freed!!”
“This is different,” insisted Celestia, mouth opening to continue.
Stopping her sister from speaking, Luna lowered her hoof before fiercely stating “Sister, it is our concern because he is on our world now, and for us to send him away whilst he’s in this state is wrong. He reacted violently due to his confusion, and he would react in a similar manner on other worlds I’m certain. Sending him away like this, would condemn other worlds to a similar fate due to our irresponsibility.”
Her fierce tone left, as Luna’s gaze softened at sight of her sister’s guilt-riddened face.
“Tell me Luna,” responded Celestia quietly, before she looked up to meet her stare. “Why do you want to help this creature so badly” she questioned in a tone that had no judgment, merely curiosity.
Luna glanced away sadly, sorrow filling her eyes before she gave a simple answer.
“It’s because this creature in some ways, reminds me of me.”
Celestia said nothing in return, silence filling the air. After a few moments, she let out a heavy sigh before her voice requested with authority, “Captain,” calling her guard captain. “Escort this creature to the palace dungeon... for now,” ordered Celestia, before giving her sister a firm glare.
"I don't trust it sister. We've just met it, and irregardless of it's state of being; it's proven that it's capable of destruction. It hasn't exactly put itself in a good light either. It tried to attack and kill you; and might have succeeded if I hadn't intervened. I'm curious on what it is too, and we will see if can help reach an understanding with the creature; but the safety of our citizens always comes first. If this creature tries to harm you, or anypony else whilst in our care; I won't hesistate to banish it from our world" stated the sun godesss bluntly, in a deadly calm manner.
Raising a hoof to cut off any protest from Luna, Celestia informed "Our little ponies always come first".
Turning away from Luna, she sighed, “I just hope we don’t come to regret this decision.”
Summoning a parchment, ink and a quill into the air; she began to write.
Dear Twilight Sparkle…