//------------------------------// // Chapter 12: Rock Bottom // Story: Kingdom Hearts: Harmonic Connections // by Mr Curious Writer //------------------------------// (As Always Green Text means "click me" to play theme music to go with what your reading. Red text means to stop the music. Completely optional: Your free to ignore this) “Sora!” Twilight catches Spike and the Keyblade in her magic, but wasn’t quick enough to catch Sora before he vanished into the mist below. “Oh no… Ooooh no no no no!” After she levitated the purple dragon and weapon to her she paced around frantically. “It’s going to be okay, he’s really fine, right?” she said as she took another look back to the chasm below. But the dense fog below didn’t ease her worries at all. “Rainbow! Gotta get Rainbow!” She turned around and galloped straight toward the battle but bumped into Spike which gave him a whirl. Then Spike tried to follow her but he was too groggy to move from the spot, “Ugh… No more… no more spinning, please.” And then he rolled over holding in his lunch. ~~~ The battle, the other girls are fighting, doesn’t seem to be much for them; even though Fluttershy is hiding in the dark bushes. Pinkie’s Cannon was practically on rapid fire with how fast she was able to reload and bombard the heartless from a distance. “Ha HA! Taste Kitchen Sink!” The heartless mindlessly looked up and see that she isn’t lying. But it was too late for them to run when a sink landed on them with a Thunk! Rarity seemed to have a knack for dodging attacks and countering with either a buck or an object she held in her magic. Every strike always seemed to aim at where she believed a weak point would be. “Sorry dearie, but I shall not be dealing with your ilk for any longer than need be.” She gracefully sidestepped from from a jackalopes flying kick and clicked her tongue once she ensnared it in her magic. “A bold move, but foalish.” She looked to the side and found a target, another Darkball. She fired the hapless heartless at the Darkball causing both to disperse on impact. “Ready?” Rainbow called out, she was high above the battlefield holding onto Applejack in her hooves. “Do it!” was Applejack’s response before Rainbow released her to let gravity take effect. “INCOMING!” she called as she faced her gauntlets downward to land on them first. When she did land a massive shock wave blew many heartless within that radius into the air, and if that wasn’t enough to knock them up, the countless pillars of Earth shot up from the ground to take care of the rest. However the majority of them simply gave up the ghost just from that attack alone. “Rainbow! Rainbow, come here quickly!” Twilight was huffing a little from the short workout she had from sprinting. Fluttershy happened to be nearby Twilight, so she decided to see what was wrong. Rainbow was in the middle of mopping up the others that were knocked into the air when she heard twilight call her name. Seeing that the battle would do fine without her for a bit, she flew over to her friend in an instant. “Yo, Twi… Kind of in the middle of a battle here.” She looked around “by the way, where’s Spike and Sora? They made it over here yet?” Twilight shook her head. “Spike did, but barely. the bridge collapsed under the two of them when they were crossing it and, Sora… he threw Spike to me and then he… he… fell down there.” She was becoming more distraught by the second as her words turning into a jumbled mess. Rainbow placed her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back up a sec! Where is Sora?” "I …. He…” Twilight looked back at where the bridge used to be. “Fell down the chasm.” Fluttershy held her hooves to her mouth as she gasped then she went over to the edge of the cliff. It took a moment for Rainbow to finally get what she meant as her face changed to a more shocked expression, before shooting off toward the chasm like a bullet. Fluttershy and Twilight followed after Rainbow until they reached the edge of it. The peered down watching Rainbow disappear into the mist below. “Please be okay.” Twilight didn’t know what else she could do at this point. “Don’t worry Twilight… I’m sure he’s fine.” Fluttershy gave her friend a small smile. “He did fall from the sky after all, right?” Although she believed what she said, Fluttershy’s eyes betrayed how she was felt a lot liked Twilight right now. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The descent Rainbow couldn’t barely see her own muzzle in front of her face. “Man what is with all this mist, Where did it all come from?” After a short while of diving she could finally see the ground and barely managed to stick the landing without face planting. She then started looking around. “Sora?! Yo Sora, Can ya hear me?!” she called out, and for a while there there was no answer. She wouldn’t admit it at the time, but she was a little worried about her friend. Then she heard a cry, “THUNDER!” followed by a blasting crack and an electric sizzle. “Sora?!” she turned and followed the source, hearing him call out a spell, led her to believe that he was fighting something down here so she started taking to the air again, a few feet off the ground. “Rainbow?!” she heard his response and immediately felt relief. She flew to the direction of his voice only to slam hard face first and get knocked back to the ground. “Oof…. Ow! What the-” She placed a hoof to her muzzle to nurse it, when she looked up in time to see what stopped her. It was invisible, but she saw a magical energy ripple off from the point of impact before gradually vanishing. “An invisible, wall?” The sound of metal clashing rang throughout the chasm Rainbow looked on ahead on the other side of transparent wall, to a sight unlike any other. Sora was was dashing and leaping through the mist fighting some shadowy figure Rainbow couldn’t make out. It was fast paced, Sora and the fake were trading swings and deflecting each others attacks the entire time. The Fake charged at him; lunging for his torso but Sora side stepped and gave a slash. The Fake held up its “keyblade” and blocked that attack and then lifted his blade upward forcefully, knocked out Sora’s Keyblade out of his hand and into the air. “Guh!” Surprised by this Sora took a step back but then had to take another to avoid a horizontal slash. He quickly summoned the Keyblade to fend off the second attempt, and decided to go on the offensive this time. He steps in, his keyblade grinding against the other sending off sparks from the sudden movement then gave a downward swipe, knocking the fake back and off balance. Not wasting a second of this opportunity Sora lunged forward this time and strung up a few successful blows, then knocked the fake away with a finishing swing. From the look of his pained pose, it was easy to tell than being felt it, but seemed to have enough self control to keep on its feet and immediately get back to its task. It pointed its blade towards Sora firing a string of magical ice crystals from the tip of the blade. “Reflect!” Sora cast his Reflega spell and deflected all of the ice, however the fake wasn’t close enough to receive the “counterattack” the spell. He retaliates by getting as close as he could to the fake. “Freeze!” He fires a shotgun blast of ice towards the fake who only mirrored him and cast a reflect spell, much to Sora’s surprise. He narrowly escaped the counterattack as he jumped up and threw his keyblade toward the fake. It was deflected before the fake decided to do the same. Sora had to pull his head far back in mid air to narrowly dodge the flying dark weapon by a few centimeters. He turned that lean into a flip as he called back his keyblade and fell back down to deliver and over head swing. Another clashing sound of metal confirmed the fake already summoned it’s weapon back to block this attack as well. Neither of them back down as they were giving out a flurry of swings, slashes, and thrusts. Rainbow watched in awe at how fast the two were moving, but then brought herself back to reality. She had to help Sora somehow, the fight looks like a stalemate, right now, but how long would that last. She flew around trying to find some opening into the transparent barrier that was keeping her from helping her friend. But after multiple, fly arounds, she couldn’t find anything. “Great…. now what?...” Rainbow started thinking, but was at a loss. Until a memory appeared in the front of her mind. “Oh yeah!” she immediately flew skywards to exit the chasm. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Back at the top The battle above with the seemed to have been well taken care of as there were only a few of the Heartless left standing, Pinkie was running about smacking the heartless with her hockey stick making them fly towards Rarity. “Incoming!” “Quite right, thank you Pinkie.” Rarity made sure to trap them in place with her magic before bringing them all together. “There, the stage is set. Applejack if you would be so kind?” “You got it, sugarcube!” A mischievous grin stuck the farmer’s face as she was already charging full speed at the heartless before she lunged forward and used her gauntlets to plow right through them with ease, and freeing the hearts within. “That outta do it, girls.” she looked around just to be sure. Much to their relief, the area was now clear of the creatures. “Yeah, Go Team!” Pinkie held her hockey stick high in the air as celebration. “Well now with that taken care of, how about we group together and press on,” said Rarity before having a look around, “Say, where are the others?” Applejack looked around. “Not sure, Rainbow and Twilight were fighting with us earlier. Let’s go check by the bridge, they should be there.” When the three of them made it over they saw Twilight and Fluttershy constantly peering down the chasm below. “Gah! I can’t see a thing, what is going on down there!” Twilight paced about. Fluttershy remained in place, eyes glued to the mist down below. “Please be alright,” she muttered to herself. She would fly down her… If she wasn’t so afraid of heights. “Hey, you two. Where’s everypony else?” Applejack asked as she trotted up to Twilight. This made Twilight cringe at the sound of Applejack’s voice. When she turned to face her, Applejack could tell by the look of her face, whatever she had to say wasn’t gonna be something she would like to hear. “Sora, the bridge broke suddenly, and he fell down there.” Twilight looked over to Fluttershy and the cliff side. “What?! Sora and Spike are down there?!” Rarity nearly shrieked those words out as the thought of seeing Sora and Spike falling into the abyss went through her mind. “No, no! Spike is fine, he’s over there.” Twilight directed a hoof to purple dragon. He seemed more busy at the moment of holding in his lunch as he waited for the nausea to pass with Pinkie somehow already next to him and patting his head to comfort him. “Sora, managed to pass him over to me before he fell, I sent Rainbow down there to go look for him but...” her head lowered in shame. “I couldn’t catch him in time.” “Hey, don’t worry about it, Twilight. Ya did the best ya could, and Sora doesn’t seem like the type ta’ be taken out by a little fall.” Applejack placed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. Just then, something shout of the mist and into the sky, giving Fluttershy a fright along with a squeak. It then landed right behind her, revealing it to be Rainbow Dash “Girls! We got a problem!” ~~~ “So Sora’s ok?” Fluttershy asked Rainbow dash gave a speedy explanation of what happened when she was down there. Hearing that Sora wasn’t injured or worse gave her and the rest of the girls some relief. However, hearing that he was in a battle with some unknown figure kept them worrying about their friend. “Yeah, for now, but whatever he’s fighting seems to be keeping up with him in his real form.” Rainbow looked around, “I can’t get in because of some stupid invisible wall thingy I was hoping Twilight might be able to figure something about about it.” “An invisible wall?” Applejack walked over to Twilight. “Definitely sounds like some kind of magic that’s fer sure. Anything coming to mind about that, Twilight?” Twilight shook her head, “Nothing, it could possibly be magic from another world, I’ll have to see for myself.” Then suddenly she felt a pair of hooves wrapped around her body. Twilight yelped at the surprise then she looked up and saw Rainbow Dash. “That’s the idea egghead, let’s go!” Rainbow flapped her wings lifting Twilight off the ground and they both descended into the chasm. “I’ll be back for you later, AJ!” she called out just before they vanished into the mist. Applejack joined Fluttershy at the cliff side peering down at it. “He must be doing fine, sugarcube.” Then she looked over to see long look on her face. “I can feel it.” She then looked over to her element on her shoulder, it’s natural glow finally returned. “That’s right, dear. He is quite capable after all. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before an idea is formed, and this will all be a silly memory.” Rarity made her way over to Spike helping him back to his feet again. Pinkie had a huge grin on her face. “Yeah, then we can laugh and laugh and then forget for a couple months…” -She was quiet for an uncomfortable amount of time before finally bursting.- “Then laugh some more when we bring it back up!” Fluttershy smiled and nodded to them. “Thanks girls, I know everything will be fine too.” When she looked back into the mist her frown appeared again. But that’s not what bothers me.. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At the bottom of the chasm A few minutes later Rainbow managed to carry Twilight all way to the bottom, but it took awhile to find the the barrier and Sora with their vision obscured. However the sound of Sora’s battle helped guide them all the way there with time. This time as Rainbow flew in front of Twilight, she held her forehooves of her until they bumped what seemed like nothing at all. “Found it! OK this should be-” The girls yelp in surprise when they suddenly see Sora crash against the barrier in front of them in his pony form, “Gah!” He fell back to the ground panting before getting back to his hooves. “Sora!” Twilight ran up to barrier. Oh no, his form must’ve ran out of time! She noticed him trying to reach back into his saddlebag, but could barely dip a hoof into it before narrowly dodging a ball of fire magic that collided with the barrier, giving Twilight yet another scare. She watched as something dark within the miss relentlessly chased Sora either by closing in or with magic. Sora’s trying to use his items, but whatever he’s fighting won’t give him that kind of time. Her horn started to glow as she used her magic to get her to understand the barrier’s makeup and design. “There has be something we can do…” “I’m gonna go get Applejack!” Rainbow said as she shot into the air above, much faster than before. Twilight was doing her best to figure this out, she had to after letting him fall down here in the first place. Meanwhile Sora was giving it his all to defend from the attacks the doppelganger’s constant barrage of attack and magic. Sigh, I guess I’m not as used to fighting as a pony as I thought I was. He guarded from a few more swings from the fake before countering by rolling to the side, key in mouth, and leaping up to give a skyward slash. All in vain as the fake side stepped and swatted Sora away like he was an insect. A call of pain before he flew off a yard before touching ground and tumbling into the dirt. Unfortunately he had no time rest there. As soon as he was able he rolled to his hooves. using the distance between them he reached into his bag for another attempt, he barely had enough time to grab a bead, as he saw the familiar motions of a magic attack from the fake and side stepped to avoid a thunderbolt casted by it. He was quick to pop the bead in his mouth and bite down. “Round 2!” Then a glow of light engulfed him once again. ~~~ From outside the barrier, Rainbow returned from above with Applejack in tow this time. “Twilight! How’s he holding up?!” Applejack asked before as she sprinted toward Twilight as soon as her hooves touched the ground. “A lot better now that he got to use another bead, but if he turns back to a pony, I don’t think that thing will let him give a third chance.” Twilight kept her eyes on the battle for as much as she could see as her horn stopped glowing. “What is with this thing, I can’t figure out the first thing about this stupid barrier!” out of anger she struck it with her hoof, watching ripple of light spread out from the point of impact. then her anger started to change to sorrow, “There has to be something we can do…” Applejack looked on ahead watching Sora do his best to keep up with his foe. “Maybe… He just needs to… change things up.” Just like that, she had an idea; she only hoped it would work with this barrier still up. Inside Sora kept up with the fake once again trading blow after blow, neither being able to connect a solid a hit on the other, but this was getting him nowhere. His pony form can’t keep up with this battle right now, and his original form basically was negating the enemy’s advances, but it did the same. What made it worse is that his released form is only temporary, and from how hard it was the last time he had to get another bead, he wasn’t sure if there would ever be a third time. He had to think of some new way to take advantage. “SORA!!” That voice right now, was like a godsend right now. That’s it! There’s no other choice but that right now anyway! He gave a powerful swing to the fake, to which as he expected they would block, but the force caused it to be thrown back. Sora immediately made a 180 and dashed toward the source of the voice. “LET’S GO AJ!” That’s all she needed to hear. Applejack focused and her element separated from her gauntlets causing them to disappear. “Please work,” She said aloud before her element shot right through the barrier as if it was breaking through glass. The opening in the barrier soon reformed back to normal, but the deed was done. Twilight and Rainbow watched in amazement the element of honesty did something neither of them thought was possible. Sora ran at full speed when he noticed a gleam of light ahead. He held his hand out and just like that, Applejack’s element was in his grasp. “Got it!” He about face and skidded to a halt. He could see the fake barrel straight for him. “That’s fine. Give it your best shot!” he held his keyblade out in front of him, pointed at his foe and the element right above it. It immediately started resonating a white light from it. “Cuz the outcome will always be same. CONNECT!” Once again Sora was encased in light, meanwhile Applejack was same for a second before vanishing completely. The fake didn’t waste anytime running right for the light, once it was close enough, it gave it a more powerful swing, hoping to be able to take the initiative only for it. The strike to stop dead in it’s tracks and sound of clashing metal rang out loudly before the light dissipated revealing Sora once again in his fused form with Applejack, along with that powerful looking red keyblade, blocking the dark one. “Ya’ lose” Sora’s voice was heard, but for a moment, one could even hear Applejack’s voice say that as well. With hardly any effort, Sora lifted his weapon upward sending the Doppelganger’s weapon skyward and then spun around and swiped at the disarmed foe. It connected sending the fake flying toward the other side of the battleground, slamming into the barrier itself. Heh, wow… well someone got stronger while I was away Sora thought as he was a little shocked at what they accomplished. When ya’ got nothin but time and heartless with a magical weapon, ya’ tend to try out some things with it. Ah’ guess what Ah’ learned passed on to ya’ while we’re together. Applejack was starting to sound a little pumped now. Sora started running toward the fake. Well, that makes things even better. So this was what you were fighting? Yerself? Applejack’s tone held a tone of slight disbelief and confusion. I’d be lying if I said this is a first for me. This one however, is different from the others I’ve fought. It seems a lot more capable than them. Sora watched the fake fall back to the ground once gravity took over, and land on it’s feet, summoning it’s weapon. It dashed for him, there they started trading blows once again. Although, his attacks were a bit slower given his keyblade, Sora managed to stall each of the fake’s swings with sheer force from when they’re keyblade collide. This would leave him open to an overhead swing, the fake was basically flattened into the dirt as the ground shook around them “Wow!” This was all could say. Ah’ know right? Ah’m still amazed by it all. Before Sora could deliver a finishing blow, the fake quickly rolled away from it and backed off. Oh boy, looks like it’s gonna try something else. Sora got in a ready stance. Then used his a weakened Reflect spell to deflect a few fireballs sent his way. Thought so, he’ll attack from range from now on Smart move, but it can’t keep that up forever. That’s when the two of them notice the element of honesty on their keyblade glowing. This caused Sora to grin. “Alright, well if they won’t come to us, we’ll bring the pain to them.” He thrusted the keyblade upward. They called in unison, “OK! Transform!” The keyblade obeyed their command morphing into that mysterious barrel hammer once again, and took a different stance. “We like to see you dodge this!” They raised the hammer high, before slamming it into the ground. No longer just a shockwave but along with it, this sent out a large wave of rising pillars of Earth from in front of them, toward their foe. The doppelganger could do nothing but jump up into the air to dodge the attack. However, Sora and Applejack expected as much since they already had swung around once in place before throwing their hammer at it. the fake pulled out it’s keyblade to deflect, but it was futile, since it had no ground stand on, the collision knocked it up into the air and once again, slamming it’s body into the the barrier. You know, that’s gotta hurt getting knocked into that wall twice, Sora said to Applejack before they call back the hammer. This last attack, should do it, Sora, Applejack replied before they instantly started sprinting. The figure dazed from yet another blow into the wall, helplessly started falling back to the ground. Sora ran as fast has he could, hammer held behind him and kicking up dirt behind it as it was dragged across the ground. just when he was about to strike, his form vanished reverting back to his fused pony form, still running on two legs. Not gonna let this chance slip by! He jumped, winding the hammer back with his hooves. The fake was out of his dazed state at this point to see him revert to a pony. Thinking it had the advantage it summoned it’s keyblade and threw it at Sora. Time slowed down for Sora and Applejack, as they watched the incoming weapon. Applejack watched as memories of Sora’s passed started flooding through his mind, as if he was searching for something to give him an idea, and one piece of memory did. When Sora and Riku fought Xemnas…. Sora’s reaction was quick and a shock to Applejack as he caught the the keyblade, miraculously by the hilt, spun around to fling it back at it’s master. It connected forcing the fake into vertical spin in mid air. The first thing it saw when it did stop spinning however was Sora using the momentum of his own spinning to add onto the power of his swing. the last thing, was head of the hammer colliding with it’s body in a downward meteor spike. The fight was over! Once the dust cleared the being disappeared from without a trace, and no later retaliation was made by it. Twilight jumped a little every now and again when she would hear loud booming sounds, as well as the moment she could’ve sworn there was an Earthquake. She was shocked when she saw the barrier suddenly light up and vanish completely. Rainbow had a similar experience but held more optimism. “Woo! They did it!” all around them the mist started to vanish gradually and Rainbow flew out to where she was able to see them. “H-hey, wait for me!” Twilight ran after her. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ back to the top Some time later With all that over Rainbow airlifted Twilight and fused Sora out of the chasm and back to the top with the others. Sora and Applejack used this moment to separate from each other now that the flying was over, suddenly the two of them along with Twilight were all pulled into a group hug with Pinkie, Rarity Fluttershy, and Spike. “Your ok!” Fluttershy cheered with watery eyes. “You're not hurt are you?” “See? I knew you guys would be okay!” Pinkie replied with yet another big grin Rarity nodded, “Agreed dear, though I hope we avoid such drama in the future.” Sora simply smiled to his friends and spoke, “Sorry if I made anyone worry about me, but everything is ok now, right?” He received a clonk to his head as Rainbow hovered over him. “Ow!” “Lunkhead, of course we were worried!” she held a smirk however. “You gotta lay off the those kind of crazy stunts, buddy. That’s usually something I would do!” “And that makes it okay?” Sora retaliated. “Yeah, cuz unlike YOU!” Rainbow poked his muzzle, “I can fly!” she gestured to her wings. Sora simply rolled his eyes and just let it slide for now. All that mattered was the ordeal had passed and they were all together again. However, it was all pretty strange. What was that all about? What was that thing? What did it want, and where did it go? ~~~ Once everything had finally settled down the group thought it was time to finally move on to the ruins ahead. “Finally, I can see our destination.” Twilight sighed, relief finally washing over her. the sooner they get there the sooner she they could seal this “keyhole” and keep the world safe. “Yeah, and not a minute too soon, it’s starting ta’ get late.” Applejack looked up at the orange sky. Celestia’s sun probably setting right now from the looks of it. “I guess we’re camping out in the ruins tonight.” Sora then laughed at the thought. “Let’s do what we can when we get there and set up one in there.” Rainbow yawned, “Sleep sounds good to me. Let’s get this over with.” Pinkie couldn’t stop bouncing all the way there. “Oooh, we should share campfire stories and roast marshmallows over an open fire then make s'mores!” “Somehow I don’t doubt that you brought stuff to make those,” Sora looked over to Pinkie who was rummaging through some items in her main. Fluttershy stayed close to Sora, not so much out of fear of her surroundings, but worried that something like earlier would separate him from her and the girls. “Some rest sounds nice… though does it have to be in such a spooky place.” She reluctantly gazed at their destination ahead. “Don’t worry about it, Fluttershy. It’s only for the night then we’ll be back home tomorrow before you know it.” Sora turned to Fluttershy. He smiled hoping what he said would help reassure her. It helped a little. He could tell from the look on her face Sora and the girls treaded closer to the ruins, more than eager to complete their mission after this whole ordeal. What lies ahead of them will definitely be a turning point in their future. Whatever the world had intended for Equestria and it’s denizens, was forever altered the moment outworlders came to their world. For better or for worse, all they can do is move forward.