After about an hour of sleep, I was awoken by Second, looking tired as can be.
"Hey. It's your shift." He said.
I nodded, and climbed out of my side of the bed to my post. I sat on the steps of the main entrance to the castle and summoned several Unversed; twenty Floods, ten Scrappers, and five Bruisers.
I point at the Floods first, "Scour the castle grounds, attack any intruder on sight." Then the Scrappers, "same goes for you lot, but you'll be in the hallways." And lastly, the Bruisers, "Patrol the main entryways. Same orders as the others, attack on sight."
They all nod in understanding and head to their posts, leaving me alone again. A few hours have passed and nothing yet, not even an animal crossed paths with me or my Unversed, and it's only a few more hours till sunrise. I felt a few of Delsin's radar pulse through the area.
I guess he's awake, I thought.
I then felt his presence nearing me and landed to my side, guessing that he was hopping around the castle looking for me.
I turned to him and spoke with a tired voice, “Couldn't sleep?”
“PTSD,” he answered. “My second time having normal sleep and I’m plagued with the remnants of a war I fought in.”
“Yeah, similar to me, only my Anxiety kept me wake; been diagnosed with Anxiety when I was a kid, there were times when I'd have anxiety attacks and my body would spasm out on me.”
He gave a whistle. “You’ve got the better end of the deal than me or one other Displaced I’ve met,” he told me, “In your case, you don’t see those you see as comrades-in-arms, brothers, sisters...as dead lifeless faces.” He gave a sigh. “Not to mention, Twilight Sparkle looks like one of them.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it rough,” I gave a sigh of my own, “believe it or not, Anxiety isn't the only thing I'm diagnosed with, and I've been taking meds for them, been like two days since I've taken them.”
He lightly chuckled, “Like I said, you’ve got the better end of the deal. Anyway, I’m sure you have a few questions from yesterday that you want answered.” He waved his hand nonchalantly. “Ask away.”
“Okay, um...that spot you were staring at back at the gardens, what was that about anyway?”
He looked at me with disbelief written on his face. “Have you ever been engaged to be wed?”
“Can’t say that I have, honestly.”
“That was the most calm I’ve been in a thousand years,” he said, “That one moment with my fiancé...I had to cherish every moment of calm I could while in stone, waiting...waiting for Luna to return...waiting for me to be free...just,” he shuddered, “waiting for when I could truly comfort her.”
“Wow...that's...actually really sweet of you to do, you must really love her a lot.”
“I do.” He gazed to the east longingly. “She suffered those thousand years. Losing a friend and her sister to corruption within three years of me getting encased...keyword: encased, in stone. I wasn’t until after 600 years of 'dating,' I was able to propose to her...without the ring, embarrassingly enough.”
“I'm sure she appreciated your attempt nonetheless.”
“Yeah, she did. She nearly broke off my left arm in her hug…” he trailed off for a moment. “Any further questions?”
“Yeah, about Dusk Spark, what exactly happened to her?”
“To best convey that, things need to be put in context,” he began, “The Multiverse is part of a Displaced’s life. I’m from a different version of Equestria, one where a number of ponies are Conduits, or individuals that can control/weaponize almost any element possible. However, to concern Nisled, he is from an alternate version of my Equestria.” He looked to where he thought my eyes would be behind my mask. “A version where his aim...my aim...was to be Infamous rather than Heroic.
“Whatever he had done over time in his world had led him to murder Dusk’s parents and Spike...Whoever that is...shortly after her ascension. From there, she was practically on an obsessive manhunt. Every rumor, she pursued. She physically lost a bit of herself in any encounter with him.
“After an entity known as Tirek was defeated, the families and connections of her friends, the other bearers of the Elements, were murdered during the chaos. Later, they discovered Nisled’s plan to engineer an army of Bio-terrorists to take over and rule the world.
“After dealing with their version of the Beast, Starlight Glimmer, Nisled took advantage of their exhaustion and murdered and mangled her friends,” he shuddered in disgust, “Word’s can’t describe how bad it was. I can only show you.” He telepathically projected the images of their dead bodies in the process of being mangled.
He didn’t wait for my reaction, he just continued, “He would have killed Dusk, but their Discord and the Beast interfered, removing any chances of him to take over her world and to get stronger. Any powers he built up over time were taken away, leaving him with smoke, neon, video, concrete, and basic chaos.
“Dusk then felt it necessary to go back in time to kill him and end the chaos before it began. Her trip went differently than expected.”
“Because she arrived in your Equestria when she did and not her Equestia’s past...Right?” I asked. He just simply nodded. “Whoa...if it were me, I would've gone insane.”
“Good thing it wasn’t you then. Any more pressing questions?”
“Yeah, one last thing, how did YOU get Displaced? Were you at a convention like me?”
“Yes, but under different circumstances. I was a student at the University of Idaho in Idaho Falls, but I had money issues. Then, one of my friends said he would pay me a thousand dollars to go to a convention. Me, not being one for certain types of crowds, wouldn’t go to a convention under normal circumstances. But with a chance to keep myself from getting into debt, I went. I didn’t go dressed, as I wanted to use as little money as possible to gain a 'profit' off of this.
“I did, however, have a bit of cash to buy something, which was the costume of Delsin Rowe, this chain,” he showed me the chain on his arm, “And a can of magic spray paint.”
“Damn, man, you got a real bang for your buck, even though you got teleported to Equestria as the guy whose outfit you bought.”
“Yeah. Twenty bucks for the whole thing...a rip off, if you ask me.” He turned to a section of the castle wall that seemed to be in better condition than the some of the castle. He pulled out his paint can. “Do you mind if I…”
I knew he couldn't see it, but I smirked under my mask, “Oh, God, totally.”
He found a few stray wooden boards and managed to prop them onto the wall to act as templates. With difficulty, he was able to paint the symbol of the Unversed in blood red onto the wall, surrounded by the images of the Elements of Harmony. He then had an aura of darkness painted around Unversed symbol while the Elements had auras of their respective colors toned to be slightly darker for contrast. Where the dark aura met the rainbow aura, he had the colors mix, as if the darkness was coexisting with the light.
He was about to put away the paint, but then added the Cutie Marks of Celestia and Luna to upper left and lower right respectively. When he did, the Princesses' Cutie Marks and the Unversed symbol seemed to light up and two large chests appeared: one had the Unversed symbol and the other one had the Neutral Karmic symbol on it.
“Dibs on the Unversed marked chest!” I declared.
“I figured that would be the point,” he said as he moved to the Karmic chest, he went to open it, but it was locked. “Hey, a little help here.”
“Oh right, sorry.” I said sheepishly as I summoned Void Gear and tapped the chest, unlocking and opening it. When it was opened, the inside of the chest gave of a bit of light before it died down. Inside the chest was a Banishing Key.
He showed the Dimensional sphere to me and said, “There's been a slight change in plans; Nisled gets ripped to shreds, he pulls himself back together, and then we banish him from this world.”
“Alright then. Welp, my turn!” I tapped my own chest and it opened, revealing a keychain with a stone medallion of a dragon as its token. “One of the keychains the merchant was talking about! Hmm...I think I have an idea on what this one is.” I removed the Void Gear keychain and equipped the new one, making it transform into a new Keyblade; the blade takes the appearance of a pin tumbler lock key with bandages wrapped around the base, with the rest of the Keyblade like all the others. “Sweet! It's Fenrir! One of my personal favorites!”
Obtained!
Fenrir
“That has great range and strength, but maximum ground and midair combos are decreased by 1,” he quotes, “Also, it seems a bit too...clunky looking, in my opinion.”
“Eh, everybody has their opinions, it's one of my favorite Keyblades, you think it's clunky, it's all good.” I say positively. “Besides, with every Keyblade, where there's a benefit, there's a defect.”
“More power for less swings,” he says in an advertising voice, “What a price!”
I chuckled, “Nice sales pitch, pal.” I removed the Fenrir keychain and reattached the Void Gear keychain, “So now what?”
“Let me check,” he said, and then sent out a radar pulse. He reacted quickly, pulling out Karmic Gear and lunging in my direction, but stabbed past my head. The air next to me shimmered a bit, revealing a Stealth Sneak Heartless with his Keyblade buried in it’s skull. It slowly dissolved, leaving a crystal-like heart to float away.
“Whoa! What was that!? A Heartless!?”
“I would assume so,” he answered, sending out another radar pulse, “and I think it may not be the only one in the area.” He ran to the rope bridge, leaped up, and used his dark thrusters to glide across. I ran into the forest after him, sensing a radar pulse every so often. He then summoned a few Garage Wolves to speed up the search.
He followed one of the wolves and once he found it, we saw several Living Bones surrounding three ponies. I tried to see if I could recognize them, but Delsin charged in, chain and Keyblade in hand, but one of them just knocked him away with it’s mace tail.
“Oh nuts! Heal!” I cast Curaga on him, mending the damage that was dealt to Delsin, “You alright, man?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Those mares,” I pointed to the three mares, “on the other hand, won’t be. Light that bush near them on fire, place a shield around them, and I’ll do the rest.”
“Okay. Go!” I cast Flame Burst, the fireballs lighting the bush on fire. He rushed over to the burning bush, and absorbed the smoke from the fire, he then smoke dashed to the center of the clearing just as I cast Barrier over myself and the mares. Delsin then lowered himself to the ground and then jumped, splitting into three burning embers. Reforming at the peak of his high jump, he began to fall head first, igniting his smoke thrusters to speed his fall and increase the damage. Delsin landed, making an explosion of embers, ash, smoke, and fire that blew the pack of Living Bone away. All of the Heartless dissolved into darkness, except for one, which he promptly dealt with, with a melee combo with his chain.
"We did it!” I cheered, then turned to the ponies, “You all okay?”
“We’re quite alright, Darling,” one of them said.
When I heard her voice, I recognized her immediately.
“Rarity?” I was finally able to figure out the other two mares. “Applejack? Rainbow Dash?”
“We don’t have much time to explain!” Rainbow yelled in Delsin's face.
“Our sisters had planned a sleepover in their clubhouse,” Applejack said, “I went to check on them this morning…”
“AND THEY WERE GONE! MISSING!” Rarity finished and fell on a teleported couch and began to sob almost uncontrollably.
“Okay, okay, don't worry, we'll help you find them, right, Delsin?” I asked.
“Where’s their clubhouse?” He answered back, “Let’s see where you saw them last.”
We, being myself, Delsin, and the three mares hurried in the early sunrise to Sweet Apple Acres. When we arrived at the clubhouse, Delsin sent out a few radar pulses to check for their sisters.
“Vanitas, electrocute me and keep an eye out for Heartless,” he told me.
I complied without a word, casting Thunder on him and preparing for a fight. The mares got ready for a fight as well while Delsin entered the somewhat cramped quarters of the clubhouse and I remained outside as a Candy Apple Heartless from Kingdom Hearts: Unchained χ.
"Whoa. This just gets weirder and weirder." I said as I dispatched it while Delsin came out, “Never thought these guys would make an appearance.” I turned to him, “So, what did you find?” I then smelled the air, which smelled disgusting, “And what smells like something died?”
“Because something did die,” he said, the mares turning pale from his words. “Nisled was here and while I didn’t find any evidence of their sister’s kidnappers, I found a corpse of a cockatrice in there. The leftover bioelectric energy it had allowed me have the information I need to track him down. It is very likely that they were kidnapped by him, Applejack took note of their disappearance, and then he brought over and killed the cockatrice.”
“Uh, what?” Rainbow said.
He slammed my head onto a nearby tree in frustration, knocking off all of the apples in the process. “Long story short, I can lead us to where they have been possibly taken.”
“Then what are we standing here for!? Let's move!” I declared.
“I’m waiting for his echo to stop insulting me in Sign language.”
“...Say what now?” I asked, dumbfounded.
He didn’t answer, he just simply telepathically showed me how his friend, Cole MacGrath, read echoes, and we followed the echo, which was now doing a poor imitation of the Joker.
We followed the echo all the way to the last place I'd expect Nisled to be.
“The Castle?!” Delsin exclaimed, “He went all the way back to the castle?!”
“This could be bad.” I said.
“Yeah, I agree,” he turned to the mares, “You might want to wait somewhere safe. This could get messy.” The mares nodded in understanding and vanished into the forest. We walked towards the castle, Delsin sending out a radar pulse every so often to check for danger and keep the echo going. The echo went into the main entryway and stopped over a certain tile and just vanished. Delsin examined the tile that the echo stopped on and managed to pry it from the floor, revealing a secret passageway.
“You think he went down there?” I asked him.
“The echo ends here, so more than likely.” He moved the tile away from the passageway and dropped down, his arms becoming electrified to provide light.
“Hey, wait up!” I shouted as I dropped after him.
He turned on the spot and slapped his hand over where he thought my mouth would be, despite how futile that would be. “Keep quiet!” He whisper-shouted, “Let’s just try to…” his rebuke was interrupted by gunfire. He pushed me behind cover and dove behind me. He put his hand back over the “mouth” of my mask and peered out to see what we were up against.
All I could hear was that Skullcap language Delsin told me about and I couldn't understand any of it.
“Dude, are you following any of this?” I whispered.
“Shush!” He held my finger to his mouth to emphasis that. He then peeked out as far as I could without alerting the people intruding in my castle.
I heard footsteps, ‘There are three Reapers approaching us. I’m going to zap one of them. Once you hear the explosion, give them Hell.’
‘Roger that.’
He peeked out again and readied a precision bolt. Time slowed down for a brief moment as he carefully aimed at one of them. He fired that one bolt, frying him and igniting some kind of bomb as I heard the explosion, hopefully destroying whoever was trespassing.
‘They must be Chaos constructs! Give no quarter!’
‘Right!’
I jumped out and cast Dark Thundaga around the area, striking most of the enemies. He followed behind me, frying whoever that was lucky enough to escape my onslaught. It wasn't before long that we reached the end of the passageway where a door was. They were stuck closed, but they weren't for long, as he simply punched a hole in one, then tore them both off their hinges.
“Nice! Let's see what's behind door number one!” I said.
Without answering, he opened the door and found three fillies, all tied up and gagged. One was a yellow earth pony with a red mane, the next was a marshmallow white unicorn with a purple and pink mane, and the last was an orange pegasus with a maroon mane.
“It's the Crusaders! But why foal-nap them, of all ponies? Why not one of the Element Bearers?” I asked.
“I'm not sure, but we did find them,” he answered as he moved to the earth pony filly and undid her gag.
Once the gag was off, she shouted a warning, “Watch out!” I felt somebody was holding me in a full nelson and also felt that I somehow teleported out of the chamber. I managed to get Nisled off of me as Second appeared to be fighting the three mares from before, but they didn't appear to be themselves, so I helped Second fight, only to be slightly overwhelmed by them, Second as well.
“Harmony is just a dreamy mist,” Rarity droned as she flung spell after spell at us.
“Order and Chaos can never coexist,” Applejack continued in a monotonous way.
“Embrace that here in the Everfree,” Rainbow spoke as she flew.
“AND YOU SHALL SEE WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD THIS SHALL BE!” The three said and managed to knock me to where Nisled stood.
“Agh! That smarts!” I glare up at Nisled through my mask, “You think you can just kill me without a fight, you cheap knockoff?”
Nisled responded by trapping my arms and legs in concrete and kicking me forcefully in the visor which was now cracked, and was flung to the edge of the chasm. Nisled's hands and I lit up a red color, and I flinched as I took severe damage.
“AHHHHHHHH!!!” I screeched in anguish as I barely clung to consciousness.
“Who’s cheap? Me or the guy who sent you here?” Nisled asked arrogantly, as he summoned a diamond sword from Minecraft and raised the sword to strike, but Delsin came out of nowhere, dove down, and knocked me out of the way.
The blade went through his shoulder, in one side and out the other, and yelled out in pain from the strike, which must have gotten Second’s attention, as he managed to knock the brainwashed ponies back long enough to change into his aura giant form and knock Nisled into the canyon/gorge, when that happened, the mares fell unconscious.
After pulling the sword out of his shoulder, he ran to me and felt a pulse around my body. Without instruction, Second poured some of his own life force into me as Delsin prepared a healing volt, I received the volt as gratefully as you can imagine.
“Ah! What happened!? Where's Nisled!?” I asked as I looked around frantically.
“You were beaten to within an inch of your life, and a few volts of electricity cleared that up,” Delsin answered, “as for Nisled, he's down in there.” he pointed to the chasm.
“Can you scan to see if he's dead or something? You know, that pulse thing you do?”
“I won’t bother. It'll take more than what we have to kill him,” he deadpanned, “and I mean it. I saw him get beheaded, only for the body to pick up the head and reattach it as if it had to do that on a regular basis.” he walked to the edge of the crevice and peered down. “That's why he needs to be banished.”
“If that's what it takes, then so be it, let's banish the bastard.”
“Alright, let's get going...after I switch elements. Hit me with something Dark.”
“Thunder!” I cast Dark Thundaga, electrocuting him with sinister lightning.
He was able to drain out the lightning and absorb the Darkness. He let his Dark suit flow onto him and Karmic Gear appear in his hand. Turning around, Delsin nodded to me and dramatically fell backwards into the crevice. The wind whipped past as he fell head first, just before he hit the ground, Delsin flipped to feet first and landed without getting hurt.
My turn.
I just jumped off the cliff and landed on my feet with no ceremony, no tricks, no nothing.
I was done messing around.
Now I'm getting serious.
No one fucks me up and gets away with it.
“Where'd he go?” I whisper-shouted.
‘Only one way to find out,’ he tells me in telepathy. He pulled out his Banishing Key and held it above his head, it then began to float around and glow. It stopped in front of him and charged with some kind of energy. He sent out a brief pulse to find Nisled, but he was where we may have least expected. ‘DUCK!!!’ We both managed to duck just as the Key fired a beam in the spot where we were standing, striking Nisled and sending him hurtling into a void portal near the mouth of a cave.
“Did that do it? Is he gone?” I asked him.
“Yep, he's gone,” he answered, “Now, let's see about…AHH!” He suddenly felt something hurting his head as he fell to his knees with a hand on his head.
“Whoa! You okay there, man?”
‘Karmic Champion. Prince of Darkness. Come forth.’
“Did you hear that?” He asked.
“Yeah, what was that about?” I asked back.
‘Come forth.’
“I think it's coming from that cave,” He said, pointing into the cave near Nisled's banishment spot.
“Let’s go check it out.” I said.
“Okay.” We started walking, and kept an eye out for any Heartless, “Do you feel as if we're walking into a Holy place?”
“A little bit, why do you ask?” I suddenly realized something, “Your powers aren't unholy or something, are they?”
“Not that I'm aware of.”
‘They are not. However, ye must remove the shoes from off thy feet, for the ground upon which you stand is Holy Ground.’
“Well, you heard the Voice,” he said as he powered down his version of the Dark Mode suit and removed his shoes, “Remove your shoes...if you can.”
“Um...I kinda can’t, my suit’s melded onto my body, thanks to that merchant.” I said, bitterly.
‘He is an exception, Champion.’
“Alright,” he responds, but then looked like he realized something, “Come to think of it, who or what are you?”
‘Come further and you shall see.’
We moved further in until I saw something that just blew my mind. It was a crystalline tree that looked all too familiar.
“Whoa! The Tree of Harmony! It looks more amazing seeing it up close and personal!” I said.
“I'll admit, I'm impressed,” Delsin said, “But what called us here?”
“That would be me,” then someone stepped out from behind the tree.
“Holy!...Cole!?” He said.
“Who?” I asked, then saw somebody I never thought I’d see again, “Bro!? No way!”
“What?! You see him?”
“I see somebody, but I don't believe it. How did my brother get here!?”
“Your brother dressed as Cole MacGrath?”
“No, my brother dressed as Ventus from Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep. Wait…” I began to think about something, “Do I have a concussion, or did I finally go crazy and now I'm seeing hallucinations?”
“You're suffering neither problems,” "Ventus" said, “Your minds are perceiving my appearance differently. Delsin sees Cole MacGrath while you see Ventus.”
“Ohhhh, I get it now,” I said, “So, who are you then?”
“I am the Spirit of the Tree of Harmony.”
“No freaking way!” I said in surprise. “Wait, why did you call us here?”
“I speak concerning both of you and I offer gifts to help in your futures,” The spirit answered, then turned to me and spoke, “You already know what is to come in Equestia’s future, give or take a difference. All I can do is offer aid in what way I can.” The spirit pulled two items out of his "pocket", one was a black crystal shaped like the Unversed symbol, the other was a white crystal shaped like the Mark of Mastery symbol.
“What are these things?” I asked.
“The Elements of Dusk and Dawn,” it answered, tossing the jewels to me, “When my strength wanes, you and your friend will need to use those to reveal what needs to be sealed.”
“Friend...Dean! Dean is here!?” I exclaimed.
“Given time, he will be,” the spirit then looked at him, “Delsin Rowe, your doppelgänger, Nisled, will continue to try to spread his ideal of pure, unfiltered Chaos through the Multiverse. However, he cannot travel to any Equestria where you haven’t been or summoned someone from.”
“Does that mean that Sora will have to deal with him until he's properly banished?” It nodded. He hung his head down and said, “He's already pissed off at me for trying to comfort him when he didn't need it. Now he's got a psychopath to deal with.”
“Don't worry, I'm sure he can handle it, if he's anything like the real Sora, he'll take care of things.” I tried to reassure him.
“It's not him I'm worried about,” he responded, letting Darkness flow down his arms. “If he saw me with these powers, he'd sooner stab me 27 times in the chest before accepting help, and that's including with how upset I unintentionally got him.”
“It’s for that reason, I'm willing to help you.” The spirit then sent a rainbow orb of energy at Delsin.
When it hit him, a surge of energy went through him and his vision went through the entire color spectrum. When he could see properly again, we both noticed that his clothing and his Karmic rank had changed to Hero. It looked to me as if he had gotten some sort of new power.
“Whoa! What happened? Are you okay?” I asked him.
“I feel...different,” he answered, “I think I skipped the Paragon rank straight to Hero.”
“I also altered one of your abilities, gave you new ones and gave you access to Magic.” The spirit added.
“What do you mean?” Delsin asked.
The spirit sighed in annoyance and pulled out a piece of paper for him to take. He read over the page quickly, then looked at me with a mischievous grin.
“What is it? What did it say?” he asked.
In answer, his right hand lit up in a blue aura as he said, “Smoke and Mirrors.” Instantly, in a flash of blue smoke, his clothing switched to neutral and several neutral clones of himself appeared.
“That’s...new.”
He dispelled the clones and restored his clothes. “Evidently, what the spirit meant was that I'm now able to match Nisled. He wields Chaos and I wield Harmony,” he explained, “what you saw me do was a fusion of Harmony Magic and smoke.”
“Sweet! So, what happens now?”
“Well, for starters, I need to return home and check up on my fiancé. And thinking about that, when Tia and I smooth out the details, I'll see about getting you an invitation to the wedding,”
“Awesome! So I just do the thing and send you back?”
“Eeyup.”
“Alright then. It's been great meeting you, and I hope to see you at the wedding. Delsin, our contract is complete!”
As soon as that was said, a void portal opened up. he gave me a goodbye salute and walked through...only to get decked in the face with a golden horseshoe and fly back through the portal.
“Uh…was that supposed to happen?” I asked.
“Do I have a horseshoe shaped bruise on my face and is there an angry white Alicorn walking through the portal with fire in her eyes?” Delsin asked.
“Yes to both questions...and she's making me uncomfortable,” I answered.
He gave a slight whimper and answered, “Then yes, that was supposed to happen.”
He was grabbed by his pant legs and unceremoniously dragged through the portal while Celestia was muttering, “You and I need to talk about all of this.” And just at the last second, Jet Second quickly made his way into the portal.
After the portal closed all I could say was, "Well...that happened."
I climbed back up the stairs and to the front of the castle to see the three mares have regained consciousness and were hugging their younger sisters and biggest fan.
"Alright, the situation's resolved, let's go see Twilight." I told them.
They nodded and we made our way back to Ponyville.