Kingdom Hearts: Harmonic Connections

by Mr Curious Writer

Chapter 11: The Everfree Dangers

The forest is as dark and mysterious as the last time they ventured into it. With that memory still fresh in their minds, the majority of the group took a bit more caution than usual. Twilight’s head was constantly on a swivel. Rainbow Dash took to the air above them to try to look out for anything suspicious hiding away from them or barreling down their direction. Applejack already had her gauntlets out, though once could say she was more eager to use them rather than just only have them out for protection. Fluttershy, through most of the trip, remained hidden behind someone. This time, she’s cowering behind Rarity, who took every precaution to avoid anything that could get her glorious fur, mane or tail dirty.

Pinkie seemed to be enjoying herself pretty well for a pony in a spooky forest; bouncing along behind Sora and Spike with a gleeful look that never seemed to leave her face. Sora and Spike were at the front of the group; the former looking around to either admire the flora and fauna, or have a more serious look whenever he sensed any danger. Spike had a claw over his eyes as he tried to find any heartless or other bad guys in there way.

“I have to say, this place certainly gives a creepy vibe every time I come here,” said Sora. He was half expecting a big monster to come bursting at them at any moment.

“Well, it’s not exactly a place I like to return to as often, but we have our orders and I have every intention to complete it,” Twilight replied but tensed up and gave an adorable yelp when she heard the sound of a twig snapping, the very same twig she stepped on. “Ahem, as I was saying, We have to complete out mission, but we also need to be very careful around here. Who knows what we’ll run into the deeper we go.”

“By the way, does anyone know exactly where we’re going?” Sora asked while turning to face them. He was greeted by a group stare of shock.

“I-I-I thought you were leading the way to the Keyhole. Don’t you have like, some kind of tracker for it or something?” Twilight was in utter disbelief.

He chuckled shaking his head, “No, If I had that, it would’ve made finding the keyholes a whole lot easier for me in the past.”

Rainbow Dash flew down after overhearing the conversation, “So, we’re basically going nowhere right now?”

Again, Sora shook his head, “I’d like to call it, a goal without a known destination really.” He faced forward again. “If Celestia says the keyhole or something related to it would be here, I’m sure we’d eventually see some signs if we keep going. Adventure Rule Number 11: Always look through every nook and cranny…. Or was that Number 12... Or… 20?” He tapped a hoof to his head He never paid attention to the numbered parts of those rules Goofy and Donald would say.

“Adventure Rule?” Spike asked. However, that question never gets an answer because Rainbow made an outburst.

“Ugh! You’re kidding me!” Rainbow held her head and groaned, “This is all pointless! We don’t even have a clue on where this keyhole thing would be.” She then flew up to Sora’s face. “What kind of Keyblade wielder are you? That’s like your job, right?! To lock those things?!”

Sora lifted his hooves up defensively, “Hey, I don’t fully understand what a Keyblade wielder’s job is to completely be honest. I’m basically just going by what I’ve been told and Master Yen Sid’s word on this.” He looked at the forest around him. “Besides, this kind of fun.”

“Excuse me, fun? What, may I ask, is so much fun about walking through this dreadful forest?” Rarity walked her way up to the three.

“Well think about it, ponies don’t make a habit of coming here from what you’ve guys told me so far about it. If that’s the case, then there’s a lot mystery here that’s waiting to be discovered.”

Then suddenly, Twilight perks her head up like a deer caught in the headlights as it dawned on her. He… He’s right…

He continued, “I mean sure I know it’s dangerous here; but while we’re here, wouldn’t it be better think of the cool things about the forest than just constantly worrying about the bad? You may miss something interesting that way.”

Suddenly Pinkie came up from the side hugging Sora, and Spike who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, into another abnormally strong hug. Then she giggled, “I like the way you think, Sora.”

“Pinkie… Pinkie air,” Spike gasped out before Pinkie immediately released her grip on them before they fell to the ground. “Ow…”

“Whoops, sorry about that,” Pinkie said, even though she still continued to laugh at the silly looks on their faces.

“Alright, fine then. If we really have no clue on where to go, then I suggest we visit a place we’ve been to before,” said Twilight, “I think for the majority of our walk we’ve been headed generally in that direction anyway.”

After gasping in precious air to his lungs, Sora stood up, “And…. Where… would that be?”

Unlike him the girls seem to catch on to what Twilight was implying, “Oh, you don’t mean…” Rarity turned to face the Twilight, only to see her give a nod.

“It’s as good a place as any to start really.”

Applejack walked up to Twilight, “She has a point everypony. We don’t know many places in this forest and that’s one of the few that we do know.” She then looked to Rainbow. “How far are we from it?”

Rainbow shot into the air and looked around until she spotted something; “Not too far it looks like. I can see the bridge from here too.”

“So what’s this place you all are talking about?” Sora asked.

“I-It’s the place where we got our Elements of Harmony,” Fluttershy decided this time to stay close to Sora now, which sort of startled him; he had no idea she was there. She was very quiet. “and stopped Nightmare Moon.”

“Nightmare Who?” he asked.

“Oh that’s right! You're not from this world, so you wouldn’t know about that.” Twilight sat on her haunches and was about to explain when they all heard a loud roar in the distance. This caused a lot of the girls to jump, or for Fluttershy’s case, vanish behind Sora completely.

Sora felt Spike’s grip on him tighten, he must be spooked like the others. “What was that?” Sora asked as he looked around Keyblade already in his mouth.

That was when Rainbow Dash called down from above. “Whatever it was, it’s coming this way!” She watched as up ahead of them the tops of trees were being jostled around giving the image of something large barreling through the forest floor.

“AJ!” Sora called out to the farmer who was already at his side.

“Ah’ know!” Her gauntlets out as she went into a fighting stance.

Sora pulled Spike off his head and gave him to Fluttershy. “You two hang back!”

“What? But I want to help!” Spike objected but was left helpless when Fluttershy had already held him in her hooves and flew off. He folded his arms, He was not happy.

“Be careful, everyone!” Fluttershy called back as she watched Rainbow fly down and over above Sora and Applejack, while Twilight and Rarity hung back a bit with their horns glowing.

As the rustling and growling got even louder; they all tensed up, preparing for the worst. That was when a Manticore shout out into the clearing they were in heartless flying off it’s body from losing their grip or getting body checked by the beast causing them to disperse once they hit a tree or the ground.

“Whoa! What’s that?” Sora stared at it with astonishment “It’s like Simba with wings!”

“It’s a Manticore! Stay Sharp, Sora!” Applejack braced herself for a fight.

Twilight looked back at Fluttershy. “Fluttershy… do you think…”

Fluttershy looked at the creature intently, before shaking her head. “N-no, it’s a different one, but please try not to hurt it… He looks like he needs help!” Her statement was confirmed when even more heartless started appearing around the cornered creature. It growled trying to look as intimidating as possible, unaware of how useless that tactic is on such creatures.

“Huh… Well that’s new,” Sora responded. There were some shadows, but the majority of them were two new kinds of heartless.

“Jackalopes? Giant Bugs? Are those heartless too?!” Twilight noticed that same emblem on them.

“Looks like it!” Sora charged forward. “Guess your world has some of their own now.” He slashed through group of heartless skidding in front of Manticore, who backpedaled a little from what he saw. “Don’t worry, big guy! We’re to help!” he then broke right to get back to work.

Rainbow and Applejack dashed to the scene. “Ok, AJ, let's see what those things can do!”

“Right!” Applejack charge ahead to be greeted by one of the bug type heartless curling itself up and rolling at high speeds at her. “Outta mah’ way!” she lunged forward, whipping a forelimb back, before thrusting it forward, the gauntlet’s horseshoe made a very noticeable dent in the Heartless‘ shell. However no one would be able to see it as the heartless was blasted back, double it’s rolling speed, crashing through its brethren and out of sight into the deep forest, but most likely when it did land it would no longer exist.

Hearts escaped the; now vaporized, heartless. They all rose to the sky and then vanished. Then everyone just stopped, even the heartless for a moment as they all looked at Applejack. Rainbow was the first to speak. “Did…. Did you just…”

Applejack’s jaw dropped after seeing the result of her attack. She could only nod at that moment.

The other girls and Spike seemed to have similar expressions of disbelief and shock. If Rarity looked over at Twilight, She would probably see an eye twitching. So many things must be running through her mind now.

Pinkie, being the odd one out eventually turned that moment of shock into celebration as she cheered, “WHOOO!! GO APPLEJACK!”

“Hearts?” Sora was surprised to see captive hearts being released without his Keyblade… What did this mean… !! He then immediately had to dodge one of the jackalope flying kicks, but that brought him back to reality. Now was not the time, just take in the knowledge and use it. “OK! Back in the game, girls!”

The battle was now underway, as everyone regained their senses and joined the battle, sans Fluttershy and Spike.

Sora was getting pretty acrobatic, or for the most part had to be. The jackalope-looking heartless were fast and all over the place, bounding and jumping towards him with kicks and head butts with their horns. Another thing is that they always seemed to attack in groups compared to the bug like counterparts, who would try to roll into him or in some cases spin in place and launch themselves like a cannon ball at him. “Man, these guys just won’t quit!” He tucked and rolled to the side before swinging his Keyblade behind him to smack back a red cannonball and flying kick.

“I got your back, Sora!” Shooting right past him from behind was Rainbow Dash as she gave them one her powerful corkscrew dives, knocking a lot of them in the air.

Sora took this opportunity to stand and point his Keyblade up at them. “Firaga!” He started shooting out three consecutive large fireballs at the helpless creatures as the explosive impact would blast away any of the heartless that were near the target of the attacks. Sora took note how the bug like heartless, seem to get incinerated completely and disperse almost instantly. “I guess, they don’t like fire very much.”

Rainbow whipped around to help pick off any of the survivors that were still falling. Meanwhile, Applejack was socking heartless in the face, sending them flying in all sorts of directions. “Woo! These things sure do pack a wallop.” She turned on a dime to buck a shadow that was running straight for her. It was then an idea came to him. “Hmm…” Looking around, she could see the heartless start to surround her; it seems they focused on her as much as they did on Sora now that she had those gauntlets. “Welp, As good a time as any.” she reared back to her hind legs lifting her forelimbs up, before stomping them into the ground.

The ground below her shook and cracked, and all around her crude pillars of earth shot up out of the ground, right under her enemies, surrounding her in a somewhat small radius. Stunned at the results, Applejack looked at her gauntlets again “Whoa… Ah’m really startin’ ta’ like these things!” When he lifted them off the ground. The pillars glowed before receding back to the ground with the cracks magically disappearing in the process. It was like nothing ever happened.

“You’re a Super Pony now, Applejack!” Pinkie called out to her as she was on top of a helpless curled up bug heartless rolling it around to wherever she desired. “And I am the Great Pinkini!” She was abnormally skillful at dodging heartless attacks while rolling that it really did look like a magic. She then pulled out a metal pipe out who knows where and began clicking the heartless on the head.

“One for you, and one for you. Oh, oh, here’s one for you, and we definitely can’t forget about you!” She jumped off the bug heartless she was rolling, meanwhile making a flashy twirling flip above it, before gravity pulled her back down and she brought that pipe down hard with an overhead swing. This made a loud clanging noise that echoed around and into Heartless, leaving it uncurled and dazed as it vibrated violently. She giggled and trotted away. “All yours Twilight!”

Not even a second later all the dizzy heartless were now enveloped in a magenta aura and lifted off the ground. “Right!” She then started shooting them one by one into heartless groups she could find, causing a mini meteor impact and instant dispersal of heartless.

Was with Fluttershy this time raising sticks and rocks, then firing them expertly at the heads of the heartless, or for some cases, hitting them so hard in the gut with a rock it sends them flying back toward the main battle for the others to handle it’s demise swiftly. “I have to say, these new heartless, definitely give me more of a challenge with how quick they are,” she turned her head to the side and fired a magic bolt at a jackalope in mid air trying to kick her, immediately erasing it from existence. “And just as rude, hmph,” she stomped her foot to emphasize her words. Before looking back at Fluttershy and Spike. “Are you two alright over there?” She side stepped effortlessly from a rolling only to levitate that bug heartless cast if off like useless garbage.

Spike seemed to busy watching Rarity being awesome to answer, but Fluttershy was there to answer for the both of them “Yes, we’re fine, just be careful.” She still couldn’t help but be worried about her friends in this situation

“Oh not to worry, dear.” Rarity used one hind leg to kick away an oncoming Jackalope before shooting another bolt right through a Shadow’s head that was in front of her. “It looks like most of the heartless are on the far side.” That was when another roar was heard. Both girls and Spike turned their heads to the source of the noise. They had forgotten about the manticore. However, what they saw surprised them.

After watching Rainbow dispatch the falling heartless his fire couldn’t pick off, Sora was back to fighting the heartless that were still on the ground. The shadows were easy enough, and learning the bug heartless’ new weakness just made things easier, however he was still forced to dodge and parry from the jackalope far more than he would have loved to. “Man there’s gotta be a way to get these guys to slow down.” He took a moment to jump back far and had an idea in mid air. “Ok, lets try this!” He aimed his Keyblade at the jackalope chasing after him. “Blizzaga!” He fired a large blast of cold and ice right into the creatures.

To his surprise and relief it did wonders as some of the jackalope were encased in ice, while others were stuck to the frozen ground, violently trying to free their legs from it. “Ha! Gotcha now!” He put his Keyblade to his mouth and was ready to charge right at him when something far larger, leaped over him and beat him to the punch “Whoa!” He watched as the Manticore rushed ahead, ramming through the heartless with it’s large body flattening them out of existence, then slammed his paws on the ones that happened to just barely be out of reach from his previous attack. When the Manticore turned to look at Sora, he simply huffed and gave a nod to him. “Ha! Guess he’s not just gonna sit around then” Sora nodded in return and ran forward joining the beast in battle.

Sora slid under the manticore to get at the heartless on the other side as the beast swiped a few heartless away. “Alright big guy! Show me what you got!” He blasted more ice at a group mostly consisting of Jackalopes, immobilizing them temporarily. However the manticore didn’t waist anytime as it faced the proverbial sitting ducks, sucked in a lot of air, and released a almighty powerful roar. They were no longer frozen in in that spot; in fact, they were no longer there period as they all turned to black mist.

Sora stood in place blinking his eyes to make sure what he saw was real. “Whoa, you definitely remind me of two guys I know.” He flashed a big grin at the beast who returned with a smug smile of it’s own. From that point on, the heartless had no chance now that a giant cat with wings had it’s second wind.

The battle started out a bit unpredictable with the new forms of heartless, but with the help a their large new ally, all the wild heartless were soon taken care of. The last one, being one of those bug heartless with a futile attempt to take down twilight, was immediately brought out of existence with an armor clad hoof releasing the heart it had within it. “And That’s that, everypony.”

“I’ll say, those things are awesome AJ!” Rainbow said, landing next to her and gesturing to her gauntlets. “What you did was insane!”

“I agree, I’ve never seen so much strength since when you and Sora fused. More importantly, you're able to release captive hearts like the Keyblade,” said Twilight. She quickly made her way over with Rarity Fluttershy and Spike, already her face was close to the gauntlets examining every inch of them. “How is that possible?” she spoke to herself.

Applejack had to admit, she was so caught up in the fight, that she didn’t take a moment to realize how strange it was for her to release hearts like Sora. “Huh, Yer guess is as good as mine, Twi.” She lifted a hoof to examine it as well.

Then came a loud thud behind the group as it made them all jump before looking back to see the fierce looking face of the manticore from earlier. That look only lasted for a second as it turned into a smile while Sora’s head appeared over the creature’s mane. “No kidding? This make fighting heartless a lot quicker now that Applejack can do it! Isn’t that right, buddy?” He started to pet the manticore; who now seemed to be purring now.”

“Uuuh, yeah…. Sora how did you two become friends with a manticore so quickly?” Rainbow was a bit wary of it as she subconsciously took a ready stance.

Sora just shrugged. “I dunno.” He then jumped off and landed in front of it. “He just started helping me out when I was fighting really.” That was when the Manticore made a low growling noise to which Fluttershy seemed to perk up to, then start to giggle. “What’s so funny, Fluttershy?”

“S-sorry it’s just” -she had to take a moment let herself calm down- “It’s just that he said that you remind him of a silly energetic cub, so he felt comfortable that he helped you so suddenly.”

“Oh well, that explains a lo-Hey!” His head darted back to the manticore behind him. “Who you calling silly cub?!”

“Probably has something to do with that spiky mane of yours, Rainbow quipped and now everyone was laughing at his expense, even the manticore.

“Oh ha ha, very funny,” Sora pouted for only a moment; before the good mood got to him as well, making him join the laughter.

As the group finally returned to their mission, they traveled through the forest with their new friend. Fluttershy and Pinkie were the ones riding on the Manticore’s back this time, with it’s consent of course, Spike was back on Sora’s back again, and Rainbow kept to the skies to keep look out again.

“I said I was sorry, Spike,” said Sora.

Spike, although he decided to ride on Sora again, he still wasn’t happy about what happened earlier. “I know, and I still forgive you, but I could’ve totally been helpful you know, and you just snubbed me to the sidelines, like some… kid”

Sora had to stop himself from responding to that. “Well, how about this, next time we fight, and it looks like you can handle what's out there, you can join.”

Spike barely had to stop himself from snapping his neck form how fast he looked at Sora. “For… For real?”

“No, absolutely not!” Twilight interjected glaring at the keyblader for even trying to put that dangerous idea into Spike’s head. “It’s bad enough he’s with us now, and you want to endanger him even more by bringing him into these fights.

“Hey, whoa, whoa, I’m not asking him to go fight an army of heartless by himself or anything.” Sora waved a hoof in front of himself to help defuse the notion. “I’ll be with him the whole way, and we’ll just go for when there’s a small amount of heartless, no big deal.”

But Twilight gave a quick sharp, “No!”

“Aw, come on, Twilight! I promise, I’ll do exactly as he says!” Spike was very adamant about this.

Before Twilight could respond Applejack cut in, “Twi, why don’t ya let ’em? Sora’s more than proven ta’ be true to his word already.”

Twilight turned to the farmer shocked, “Not you too, Applejack!”

“I have to agree with her on this, darling. If Sora says he can handle it, then I most certainly believe him,” said Rarity as she trotted over to Twilight

“Rarity!” Twilight thought at least she would take her side on this.

“Oh come now Twilight, you heard him yourself, he won’t bring him into any of the larger scaled battles, and he’ll be with Spike the whole time.”

As Twilight looked around, she was started to see that she was the only one against this, after a while she finally sighed, She needed to believe in him more as well if this was how she was about it. It was silent for a while until she shook her head before saying “Alright…”

“You mean it, Twilight?” Spike leaned to one side to get a better look at her. Seeing her nod, Spike immediately gave a fist pump, “Yes!”

Sora smiled and started walking ahead. “I promise Twilight, he’ll be perfectly fine with me around,” that was when they came across a bridge that was familiar to the girls.

Rarity smiled at the sight, “Ah, good the bridge, we’re getting close,” That’s when they heard the manticore growl as it began to tense up and look around.

Sora turned back to the creature with an eyebrow raised. “What’s wrong with him?”

Fluttershy began speaking to the manticore and then her face shifts as her worries started to creep in. “He...he says, Something is coming. A lot of ‘something’.” Then the Manticore turned around to face the forest behind them.

“We better get across then,” Twilight suggested.

Sora headed up to the Manticore, “You guys go first. Rainbow, can you check the other side for any danger as they cross it?”

“Sure thing,” Rainbow mocked a salute before flying over the bridge and scouting ahead.

Sora turned to Applejack, “You should cross first AJ, in case Rainbow does run into any heartless, she’ll need some one that can truly destroy them.“

As much as Applejack would like to join Sora and the Manticore with whatever was approaching, he brought up a good point. Begrudgingly, she nodded “You got it, partner,” and started crossing the bridge as quickly as possible.

Sora looked up to Spike on his back as he summoned his Keyblade. “Spike, when they do appear and If I say you have to go, you go, ok?” He spoke in a stern tone.

To which Spike didn’t want to protest to and simply nodded. “R-right.”

“Good.” He reached into one of his saddlebags; His supply of curatives were slowly dwindling. In the future, he would have to find a way to contact a moogle shop or something to re-supply; but for now, what he has now should keep him afloat until then. As his hoof went deeper into the bag, it brushed against its target which is the bag of beads. He pulled it up to the top of the saddle bag, dug out a bead and placed it in his jacket pocket, just in case he needed to get to it quickly. Then he closed up the saddlebag.

The sounds were getting louder, he can hear them now. Suddenly, there is a howl. “Wolves?” Then he remembered those wooden wolves he fought before.

That’s when Spike scowled ahead, “Timber Wolves!”

As Applejack managed to reach the other side of the bridge, she noticed that Rainbow was zipping all over the place, making dives and meteor landings. Once she got a good look, she could see why. A large horde of Heartless seemed to be gathered down the path up ahead.

“What in the hay?” However as much as she would like to ask why this was happening, she doesn’t have that luxury. She ran ahead; bounded off the ground, landed on her hoof and then greeted the enemy with a happy dose of earthquake and pillars.

The path lead up to the ruins of what looked like a rather important building. Where the Elements of Harmony were discovered by Twilight and her friends. Along that path a cloaked figure was already making its way up towards it. It did however stop for a moment, to look behind it. Noticing the heartless being attacked by Rainbow and Applejack…. It faced forward once again to continue on it’s unknown mission.

The first timber wolf appeared leaping over some shrubbery and landed in front of Sora, Spike, and the Manticore in a threatening stance. Not too far behind, they see more running into view lining up sort of with each other. Their glowing green eyes seem were one thing Sora couldn’t not forget about them along with the fact that they were all made of wood. It was quite the sight to see to be sure, when even more green lights were seen in the forest.

“I think this should be fine… What do you think?” Sora looked over to the Manticore who was in a intimidating stance and growling loudly. “Thought so.”

It was Twilight’s turn to cross, but before she did she looked back at the boys as they faced off the Timber wolves. “Don’t do anything reckless! I mean it!” She reluctantly started her way across the bridge soon followed behind by the others.

Sora only nodded to her words. “Alright, guys, none of these creeps get past us!”

“Right!” Spike said as a bit of green flame sparked out of his mouth for a moment. The manticore meanwhile roared in response before they all sprinted forward toward their foes. The timber wolves doing the same.

Sora’s reaction time to the wolves attacks were as quick as ever as he jumped away from one bite, blocked another with the shaft of his Keyblade, then bucked a third wolf’s attempt with one hoof.

A fourth one was about to pounce on him, but with Spike being on his back, the creature was met with a breath of green flames destroying it immediately. He stood on Sora’s back with his claws on his hips before huffing out smoke from his nose. “Don’t even think about it(!)”

“Nice Work, Spike!” Sora cheered, once Spike was back in a proper seating position, he cut the pushing game with the timber wolf in front of him with one quick rapid spin in place, shattering the wolf to pieces from the sudden force.

Meanwhile, the manticore was going primal on timber wolves on his side; stomping them out of existence, latching onto them with his jaws before shaking his head violently until all of their wooden body parts flew off in multiple directions; and then mow them over with his sheer size.

Twilight made it across as Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rarity were still crossing the bridge

Twilight ran up ahead when she noticed the battle raged on. Then she ran up on top of a large boulder to get a bird's eye view of the situation.

Applejack aimed for wherever the heartless groups were heaviest to scatter them with her Earth attack, then turn it into a brawl for those that survived. “That all you got?!” She taunted a Large Body that was trying to swing at her, after losing it’s balance on it’s third swing, Applejack jumped up towards its exposed face and gave it one of her cannon punches. This knocked the giant creature high into the air spinning rapidly.

Suddenly a rainbow streak shot down from the sky toward it. Once it impacted revealing it to be none other than Rainbow Dash she kicked off it with all her force to where it looked like she ricocheted off it. “Sorry, I don’t even think the skies can take all THAT, go take a dirt nap!” The Spinning Large Body helplessly was knocked back to the ground, but not without taking out it’s brothers in the process, either by being crushed, or the rather large shockwave cast from it’s point of impact.

Twilight made a mental note; when she gets back, she better study up on more combat spells. That section of knowledge wasn’t exactly something she’d focus on before. She started firing magic bolts from on high which helped her accuracy greatly. “Here we go!”

“Alright! Here we go!” Sora kept two his acrobatic combat as he aided Spike. Spike had not needed managed to grab a fairly strong stick that once belonged to one of their fallen enemies, He swing hard and tried to imitate Sora as much as he could. Sora meanwhile always kept the other wolves off his back.

Every now and again, Spike would shoot out fire in the middle of his attacks, used it as crowd control.

Sora in the meantime blasts away other foes with his explosive fire magic. It even got to the point where he picked up on Spikes idea and would give a few slashes, then he go for one of his normal finishers, he pointed and fired a Firaga at point blank range, causing a rather devastating attack.

“Whoa!” was all Spike could say after seeing that attack. “You can even do my moves better!” Stars formed in his eyes.

That’s when Sora had an idea. “Lets try something different, Spike!” he ran ahead, the purple drake following close behind. Once they arrived toward the gathering of timber wolves, he slashed his way towards the center of the group. Spike with his sturdy stick made sure to smack them in the faces as he followed the path Sora was making. “Ok, here we go!” Once he felt like he was in a good spot he made another rapid spin knocking away nearby foes before lowering his Keyblade toward Spike. “Hop on!”

Spike turned to see what he was talking about, but caught on fairly quickly and dashed to the Keyblade to latch onto it. “Now what?”

“How’s your grip?” He stood on his hind legs and held the Keyblade and Spike in front of him. “Get ready to breathe some fire.” There moment of reprieve was over when the wolves started closing in again. Spike held on as tightly as he could. “Don’t get dizzy!” He winded his Keyblade back.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Spike asked as he started inhaling air

“Uuuh, ninety percent sure,” Sora gave a sheepish grin. Once the timber wolves started charging at them, He started spinning. “Now, Spike!”

With his eyes clamped shut, Spike shot out a steady blaze of green fire from his mouth, creating a rotating flamethrower attack, burning the majority of the timber wolves around them before Sora stopped.

He then jumped back to avoid a pouncing attack from a survivor that was cautious enough to back away from his last attack. But he wasn’t done there, “You ok, little buddy?”

“Urgh!” Spike shook his head a few times until the world stopped spinning for him. “Um, fine.” He looked ahead to finally noticed the remaining timber wolf. “Now what?”

Sora smirked “time for an experiment” he got back to his hind legs again and aimed his Keyblade at the timber wolves. “Give this one everything you got!”

Spike complied with a determined look on his face as this time he got up and stood on the Keyblade before inhaling deeply. Sora noticed the wolves cautiously keeping their distance once again.

“That won’t help you this time!” Sora said as Spike unleash the strongest flame he could muster out. “OK! FIRAGA!” Just as a massive fireball forms in front of the tip of his weapon, it’s absorbing Spike’s flame until it became a bright green ball of fire. “Eat This! Dragon Blast!” The fireball grew triple in size before shooting off at phenomenal speeds at it’s wooden targets. The recoil was so strong, Sora skidded back a few feet.

The Timber wolves couldn’t get out of the way in time as this giant attack came crashing wildly into creating a large green swirling vortex of fire that soon dissipated leaving nothing but ash behind. Sora watched as the green lights that were once the eyes of the timber wolves lift out of the corpses and fly off into the deep.

Sora panted as he stared at the spot where there special attack used to be. Spike couldn’t keep his balancing act any longer as he was in the same position as Sora. Fortunately, Sora managed to catch him with one hoof but that brought him down to the ground once he lost balance of standing on two hooves. “Oof!” He slowly got up to sitting position and looked down at his partner. “You… Ok, Spike?”

“That… Was… SO AWESOME!!” The little Drake thrusted both his fists in the air. His outburst caused Sora to blink back in surprise “Can we do that again?!

Hearing that from Spike, Sora couldn’t help chuckled a bit. “Hehe, maybe next time,” he patted Spike’s head.

“SORA! SPIKE!” Twilight’s voice was heard in the distance causing the boys to look up and over at the bridge, She was waving at them. “COME ON! EVERYONE MADE IT OVER!”

Sora got to his feet and looked around. It looked like even manticore took care of his side as he gave a roar in triumph at the retreating green lights. “Alright, let's get going before more come back then.” He let Spike onto his back before turning running to the bridge but stopped at the Manticore, “Hey, thanks a lot for helping us out, big guy.”

The manticore made a low growl before nuzzling against the two of them.

“Haha, ok, ok, You were pretty awesome over there,” said Sora to the manticore, who puffed out his chest in pride, “We have to get going now, you ready to go?”

But the Manticore shook its head and started flapping it’s wings for the first time lifting itself off the ground.

“Oh, you can’t?” Sora had a bit of a sad smile on his face before it immediately turned into big grin. “It’s ok, You helped us a bunch anyway. You go do what you gotta do.” The manticore nodded before giving a loud Roar, as his way of saying goodbye to the boys and the girls on the other side. The beast then turned around and took to the skies, with Sora and Spike waving at him.

“Have a safe trip!” Spike yelled out.

Sora unfortunately couldn’t dwell on goodbye for much longer, he had a job to do and it looked like he had another battle to join. “Ok, Spike, lets get going.” He ran over to the bridge and started to cross it.

Mid way across the bridge, something inside Sora was nagging him to look back. He felt some sort of presence behind him… He gave in to that feeling and turned his head back, Once he did however, he was shocked at what he saw. He saw himself make a swing at the supports on that side of the bridge. Before his brain could even try to decipher what it was he saw, his instincts took over and he sprinted toward the other side for a few steps, summoning his Keyblade and jumped. “SPIKE GRAB ON!”

“What? What are you-”

“JUST DO IT!” He yelled back, spooking his passenger to comply and latch onto the Keyblade. “Whatever you do, don’t let go!

Twilight watched in horror as the bridge seemed to be falling from the far end and Sora’s jumped looked like it was all in vain. “SPIKE! SORA!” She got her horn glowing until she heard Sora yelling loudly.

Sora twisted his body and gave it everything he got as he through his Keyblade, with Spike on it, towards the other side. “TWILIGHT! CATCH!” He rapidly descending into the heavy mist below the gorge and then vanished within it.

All this sudden action didn’t give her enough time to think as she simply complied to Sora’s order and caught the Keyblade and Spike in her magic. Thankful to see her assistant safe and sound if not a little groggy from all the spinning, it was short lived as she looked back at the mist below. “SORA!!”

During his fall, Sora couldn’t make out anything that wasn’t ten feet in front of him, it was all just mist, mist, mist and even more mist. He couldn’t even see the bottom during that time. When he finally did he simply tucked and rolled on impact before standing up completely and dusting himself off. Not once had eve ever questioned how it was possible that he could survive such falls, though if the girls saw this, they would definitely be asking questions. “Great… Now where am I?” He said to himself before she started walking around. “What’s with all this mist?

After a bit of trial and error he managed to find the side of the canyon. “Maybe there's a way to-” Immediately alarms started going off in his head and he dodge rolled to the side, a dark weapon impaled into the side of the canyon where Sora’s head used to be. “What the?!” He looked toward the weapon only to see it vanish, he looked behind him and saw a figure standing in the distance somewhat covered by mist.

Sora summoned his Keyblade. “Who’s there?!”

The figure simply walked forward until its identity was known which caused Sora to take a step back. “What the?” There in front of him, was a translucent figure… in the shape of Sora’s real form. It’s body seemed like it was made out of some sort of gaseous material, as he hardly even looked solid. “What…. are you?” Sora asked.

No answer has been given as the figure simply summoned it’s own Keyblade and charged at him. Sora quickly dodged and block the attacks. His pony form could hardly keep up with the speed and accuracy the doppelganger was dishing out. At one point the thing caught him off guard with a fake out swing to his face then reverse and swat at Sora’s side; sending him flying back, but using aerial dodge to land back on his feet. “This guy… he’s something else.”

Sora jumped far back from the battle and pull out the bead he had stashed in his jacket. “Fine! Let's play hardball!” He bit down on the bead. “Form Release!” A flash of light engulfed him but the Mirage Sora charged in nevertheless, swinging down an overhead swing that was immediately blocked by something within that light. “Nice try!”

The light dispersed revealing Sora in his real form, and his Keyblade deflecting the translucent fake’s. Immediately Sora retaliated with swings of his own finally. The fake Sora kept up by deflecting every attack before they both backed off from one another and mirrored each other’s fighting stance.

“I don’t know who or what you are.” Sora then stood up straight and pointed his Keyblade at the fake. “But this isn’t the first time I fought with myself?”

Mirage Sora said nothing and kept at it’s combat stance.

Sora then returned to the same stance and then he sprinted forward as the fake does the same. Once again with simultaneously swinging, the Keyblades clashed.