Chapter One – The Dream
Twilight felt a warm breeze on her skin. It carried the smell of fallen leaves, grass, and earth to her and painted a colorful picture of the coming season in her mind. The last warm days before fall were beautiful. The sun, the sound of the lake, the grass beneath her, everything was so peaceful. So quiet …
Perhaps a bit too quiet?
She opened her eyes and found herself under a tree at the lake near Ponyville. Everything seemed to be good, but something really bugged her. Where was everypony?
So much to see.
“What?“
So much to learn.
Startled by the strange voice that rang in her head, she got up and looked around.
The door is about to unlock. Are you afraid?
To be honest, she totally was. What the hay was going on? There was most definitely no door that needed unlocking around here.
“What am I doing here?“
Step forward now. The path is clear.
As she took a step forward, the ground began to shine.
But what does it bring? Salvation …
A thin line of light made it´s way to the lake and began to draw a picture on its surface. Fascinated by this magical spectacle, Twilight kept walking forward, stepping onto the lake. Before she knew what she was doing, she stood in the middle of it and looked around. The surface looked like some kind of stained glass window, showing the Tree of Harmony in all its glory.
Amazed by the beauty and detail of this unnatural structure beneath her hooves that even put the windows in Celestia's castle to shame, Twilight was filled with a deep peace and nearly forgot about the strangeness of this situation.
… Or doom?
Everything around the lake suddenly was engulfed in green flames.
Shocked by the sudden display of destruction, all she could do was to watch how the fire consumed the houses, the trees, her castle, her friends …
She spread her wings to fly over to Ponyville, which was right behind her. She was interrupted by a mass of a strange, black liquid that landed directly in front of her.
Twilight screamed in terror as the puddle of black mud spread all over the floor like a stain of living ink that crept around to corner her.
Will you face the darkness …
Two other masses of the sludge came down. The black substance circled around her and tried to grab her right hoof. Panic began to wash through her head and she flew straight up to get away.
“No, no, no, no, no! This can´t be happening. I have to save the others quickly!”
She just wanted to get away. A million thoughts ran in circles in her head, but in her state, she was not even able compose herself anymore.
...or go down in fear?
More darkness fell down on her, smashing her into the stained glass. The impact was strong enough to shatter it into a million pieces and Twilight saw them sink into a dark pool of liquid fear, rage, despair and hatred.
She couldn´t think straight; everything was happening so fast, her mind wasn´t able to make sense of what happened. Slowly but surely, she was dragged into the pure darkness.
Twilight couldn´t see anymore. The darkness around her was complete. It robbed her of sight, hearing and feeling. Even her taste was taken when the black liquid filled her mouth and her thoughts.
She could not breathe! Air … ! Air …
Do not be afraid.
The shards of shattered glass formed nine shining stars swirling down near her, engulfing everything in a blinding light. Twilight lay there, twitching and coughing; the light calmed her down in its soothing warmth that wiped away every last drop of darkness.
Because you bear a light stronger than all.
The mare stood up. Her surroundings changed again. Now, the stained glass platform displayed the Crystal Empire. In the center, Shining Armor and Princess Cadence held the Crystal Heart. Everything around the platform was still obscured by deep shadows.
Can you feel it? Does it have a form? Give it a form.
What did the voice mean, a light stronger than all? What form could it have? Was it her magic? With this thought, her horn flashed to life and Twilight created a glowing image of her cutie mark.
No, that wasn’t it. This symbolized her talent, her place in the world, but it wasn´t what made her stronger. The one thing that always helped her, even through the worst hardships, was friendship. Without her friends, she would not have stood a chance against Nightmare Moon, Discord or Tirek. Alone, she was weak.
You are not alone.
The pieces of the old platform, which were scattered all around her, began to glow and bloomed into flowers of light with all her friends standing in the blossoms. Everyone was there: Applejack, Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Spike, even the princesses and Discord took form.
But beware of the darkness that lurks in every heart!
Twilight looked around. What was this voice in her head trying to tell her?
She began to cough heavily. Her knees got weak and she collapsed on the floor while some of the liquified darkness forced its way out of her mouth and landed on the ground with a weak, splashing sound.
The small amount of black sludge crawled in the direction of the Crystal Heart, sank into it, and corrupted it. First the crystal turned dark purple, then black and, with a deep dark pulse, shattered it, leaving a hole from which small, shadowy creatures originated.
They looked kind of cute. A little smaller than Twilight even though they stood on two legs, and they seemed kind of restless. The creatures had two antennae on their heads, which were twitching as they came closer to her.
But when their empty yellow eyes fixed on the lavender pony and the shadows became more aggressive, with tension in their sharp clawed hands, all the cuteness was replaced with an image of a mindless beast, hunting it´s prey.
“N-no! Stay back! Don´t come any closer!” Twilight threatened the creatures with a shaking voice. Why was this happening? Fear crept back into her heart. She crawled backwards, still weak after the assault of pure darkness against her.
But she wasn´t alone. The enlightened silhouettes of her friends flowed into her, giving her strength and resolve. She had the power to defend herself against the darkness. The spark of friendship would never go out.
“I can do this!”
As one of her opponents tried to attack her, she took a step to the side and blasted him away with an energy blast from her horn. With one flap of her wings, she jumped over a few of them and cast a rain of magical light upon them, which caused the creatures to silently go down and fade away.
“Okay, now I have bought some time. I need to fix this platform!”
Twilight tried to put the shards of the crystal heart together again, but failed as the force of darkness broke her magical grip over and over.
When she realized that this wouldn't work, she was already surrounded by even more of those little shadows. Surprised by the sheer amount, she stumbled into one of them and got hit on her chest, leaving three nasty marks. Wincing, Twilight teleported out of the circle and prepared to attack.
The Princess of Friendship sprinted in the direction of one enemy, impaling him with her horn and throwing him into another shadow. With one flap of her right wing, she pushed away two jumping creatures while hurling one away with a powerful kick.
However, with every shadow she defeated, more came from the hole in the center.
“I have to do something! But how do I fix a structure I cannot analyze properly?” she asked herself, defending herself against a small army of shadows.
When they tried to encircle her again, she teleported herself into the air and hovered a few feet over them.
“There is only one way then.” Twilight said flying into the air, covering herself in a magical aura and diving directly through the shadows into the hole, causing a magenta colored maelstrom which consumed the shadows. “Ripping out the roots!”
So much to see.
So much to learn.
Let your light grow.
Twilight dashed through the darkness, going deeper and deeper into its depths.
She crashed into another platform. It was different. She could not make out what it was showing because of the black, chain-like patterns that covered it.
The darkness poured out of the center. “This must be the core of it all... but how do I stop this?”
She walked around it a bit more. “No, that's not it; it feels different.”
This was something darker. These little creatures had a similar feeling to them, but they seemed kind of mindless. Whatever she was looking at now felt much more evil. It was intelligent, controlled, deeper, stronger and most of all more evil than those shadows she had faced a few minutes ago.
Every new path brings new bonds.
Will you let them form?
The princess noticed a door just at the edge of the platform. Had it been there before?
Stepping closer to the door, she felt that this would change everything. That it would bring something into her life. Something new. Something big!
She wasn´t able to put her hoof on what this all meant, but she knew that whatever was happening, she was the one to solve it. She had to go on.
Twilight opened the door and saw it led into nothingness. “Well, isn´t that just nice?” she muttered. However, she felt like she could trust it. And even if not … she had wings after all.
She took a first, careful step.
Under her hoof appeared a step of stained glass in all colors of the rainbow, and another, and yet another.
Amazed by all what was happening around her, Twilight was sure she was dreaming. But why did it feel so different, so real? Was there a meaning still hidden from her? Maybe she was just going crazy.
The steps led to another round platform. Looking down at her hooves, she recognized herself filling half of the circle. It looked like she was sleeping. Her hooves in the picture seemed to hold something, but there seemed to be nothing there.
A bit further, she could make out a brown earth pony in a similar position, completing the circle. He wore a necklace with a crown shaped pendant. The cutie mark showed a strange fruit which resembled a star. This pony actually held a big key in his hooves. Between them, there was a portrait of a sunset at the beach. It somehow shimmered, as if it was real.
“Who is this?” she wondered, stepping further into the center.
Sora...
As Twilight repeated the name in her mind, she was roughly interrupted by a roaring sound. Her eyes widened in shock from what she had to see. A giant, black dragon descended from the void of darkness above her. The look in its menacing, green eyes sent shivers through every part of her body.
You must be ready to fight!
“Oh, hay no! You are kidding me!” she shouted. In that moment, a blaze of green fire shot out of the dragon’s mouth.
She dodged by leaping into the air and spiraled her way up, around the pillar of flames. The heat of the fire helped the alicorn to accelerate her flight. Twilight managed to concentrate enough magic to attack with a few lavender colored shots as well. However, the monster wasn´t fazed at all.
“How am supposed to deal with a dragon? Where is Fluttershy with her stare in a moment like this?” she complained while fireballs began to rain down.
She dodged a sweep of a black, spiked tail and rolled to the side to not be hit by one of the claws. When the beast angrily spit another fireball at her, the mare teleported directly in front of the scaled beast’s face and channeled all magic she could into one powerful beam.
The creature roared in pain and anger when the attack hit it directly in its eyes. It flailed its arms as it fell to the ground and hit her with the back of its claw.
The heavy hit tossed Twilight onto the ground as well and for a few moments, she was only able to cringe and moan in pain.
But there is still time.
She was hurled off the platform by a wave of white light. All she saw was nothingness. Twilight fainted.
When Twilight opened her eyes, all she saw was a purple dragon’s face with green eyes. “Wake up Twilight! You have to see this!”
She let out a shrill shriek, pushed Spike, who was standing beside her bed, away from her and jumped out from the other side, ready to attack. “What …? How … ? Why … ?” she panted.
“Woah! Come on, chill Twilight! What is wrong with you?” Spike asked with a startled look on his face.
Then it clicked inside her head. “Oh, I´m so sorry Spike! I just had … a strange dream.”
“You better be sorry! You really scared me!” the baby dragon complained.
Twilight relaxed and levitated him over, sitting him next to her to pet his head. “I´m sorry,“ she said. “So... what was it you woke me up for?”
“You must’ve been sleeping like a rock! There was that loud thunder outside, and suddenly the sky broke apart and everypony panicked. I don´t know what to...”
“The sky did what?” The alicorn threw him on her back with her telekinesis and sprinted outside to see what her assistant was talking about. Her mouth fell open and she looked up, stunned by the spectacle the night had to offer.
This was definitely something else. The air was filled with a weird sensation and the sky looked kind of strange. It was brighter than ever, and there were so many new stars she had never seen before.
Even though it was a beautiful sight, it did not seem right. By the sounds of scared ponies all around, she got the impression that a lot of Ponyville's citizens were more frightened than happy to see this change.
Some ponies already gathered in front of her castle and demanded answers, answers she would not be able to give. She had to think of something before things got out of hoof even more.
“What is going on here?” Twilight muttered. “Spike! We have to notify Celestia immediately!”
Right that moment, Spike choked and belched out a small, green flame from which a scroll with the royal seal on it came to be. “Or she just notifies us … ”
Dear Princess Twilight,
It seems that something strange occurred with the magical balance in Equestria. We couldn´t find a reason for this so far, but thanks to patrols around the Everfree Forest, we were able to tell that the problem originated from there.
Since this is different from anything we had ever imagined, we are not prepared for it. We have to decide on arrangements as soon as possible.
Gather your friends! We will hold council at your castle in about two hours.
Princess Celestia.
Wait a minute. Did Twilight just misread this? Even the princesses did not know the cause of this? As she looked at Spike, she saw the same bewilderment on his face that had been stuck on hers.
Life in Ponyville can never be easy huh? Well, I guess we should prepare for the worst.
“Come on Spike! This will be a long night, and I´m sure it won´t be easy to gather everypony in a panic like this. You stay here and prepare everything! Just work according to this emergency checklist!“
The scroll that suddenly manifested in Spike’s hand looked more like an over-sized roll of kitchen paper with thousands of instructions.
“While you do that, I’ll try to stop this panic and gather our friends. I´ll be back as fast as I can!”
With that, she turned around and spoke to her subjects again.
“Don´t worry everypony! Just gather around the town square and I´ll explain everything!” The alicorn called down to the frightened ponies, jumped from the balcony and turned in the direction of Sugarcube Corner.
Spike looked at the hasting silhouette of Twilight, then back at the checklist, and again at Twilight, then kicked the ground.
“Ah crap!”
A well-done Dive to the Heart. These are practically obligatory in certain types of Kingdom Hearts crossovers, and to be honest they can all start to look the same after a while. But you kept the tension from the Prologue up, and that makes this chapter memorable.
Was the fight with the Shadows on the Crystal Station inspired by Aqua's secret ending in Kingdom Hearts, Birth By Sleep? It featured Shadows, Neoshadows, and Dark Balls emerging from dark portals in the ground, rather than appearing in midair the way heartless usually do.
Interesting choice making Sora an earth pony. I usually see him made a pegasus, as his name implies. By this logic, Ventus, Roxas, Vanitas, and Xion would be pegasi too, Riku, his Replica, and Terra would be earth ponies, and Kairi, Aqua, and Naminé, by process of elimination, would be unicorns. Take that for what it's worth.
Corrections:
1. The paragraph beginning on line 4 should be indented, consistent with the rest of the formatting.
2. The second pair of inverted commas in line 8 is upside down and backwards. When they are used to close quotes rather than open them, inverted commas should look like little 9's rather than little 6's. This is one reason the site prefers straight inverted commas rather than curlicue inverted commas; all straight inverted commas, closing marks as well as openers, look the same.
3. See note 2, supra, with respect to the inverted commas in line 13.
4. "It's" in line 17 should be "its." The possessive form of "it" is formed without an apostrophe. Someone involved must know this, because the word is used correctly later in the same sentence. Speaking of apostrophes, this curlicue apostrophe is formatted differently from the earlier curlicue inverted commas. Consistency is a virtue.
5. "Or" in line 22 should not be capitalized. It is technically a continuation of the sentence begun in line 16. Again I know someone involved knows this because the mistake is avoided in lines 30 and 36.
6. See note 1, supra with respect to the paragraph beginning on line 26.
7. Try to vary your descriptions of the dark sludge that tries to capture Twilight. It doesn't have to come in "masses" [almost] every time. "Puddles" is a good word that you used. Others that you did not use include "globs," "clumps," and "wads."
8. The sentence beginning on line 28 is a run-on sentence. Try something like "Twilight screamed in terror as the puddle of black mud spread all over the floor. Like a stain of living ink, it crept around to corner her."
9. An inverted comma of the type mentioned in note 4, supra, appears in the "can't" on line 33. At this point I'm pretty sure this is an artifact of the chapter being copied and pasted multiple times to and from different platforms (for example, from a word processor to an Internet hosting service, and from there to FIMFiction). Another virtue of straight inverted commas is that they are formatted the same wherever you put them. I don't mean to seem like I'm shilling straight inverted commas, but if you want to use curlicue, you really have to police them. At this point I'm going to stop pointing out inverted comma formatting issues. Use Ctrl+F to find each such mark and format them all the same way.
10. The second sentence in the paragraph beginning on line 37 is a run-on sentence. Try something like "The impact was strong enough to shatter it into a million pieces. Twilight saw them sink into a dark pool of liquid fear, rage, despair and hatred."
11. "Air … ! Air … " in line 43 should be "Air! … Air … " Sentence-ending marks like full stops precede ellipses. Line 43 should also be indented consistent with your other formatting; see note 1, supra.
12. The second sentence of the paragraph beginning on line 45 is a run-on sentence, even if it is broken up by a semicolon (an aside: try to avoid overusing this mark). Try this. " […] the light's soothing warmth wiped away every last drop of darkness."
13. Specify what "there" means in line 46. In line 48 you make it clear than Twilight has landed on a new platform showing a new image. Make it clear that she has at least landed on something here. Or, if you don't want to call attention to Twilight's surroundings yet, only mention how she laid, twitching and coughing, instead of where she laid.
14. "Cadence" in line 49 is a special case. The Crystal Princess's name usually appears in the show credits spelled "Cadance," but "cadence" is an actual word. Use whichever you like, but be consistent about it … try to be more consistent than the show, anyway.
15. Lists like the one in line 55 may either have a comma preceding the "and," or not. Again, either is acceptable, but be consistent.
16. Long sentences are becoming a recurring problem. I think it's because you're trying to describe too much happening at once. Don't be afraid to stretch things out. The second sentence of the paragraph beginning on line 62, for example, could read "Her knees buckled and she collapsed. Some of the liquid darkness squirmed its way out of her mouth and sloshed onto the ground."
17. "Shattered it" in line 65 should be "shattered." Stilted description is also a problem. Specificity is a virtue, but there is a point beyond which more words just don't add anything. Take the paragraph beginning on line 64. It could read "Before Twilight could stop it, the globule crawled to the image of the Crystal Heart and sank in. The crystal turned dark purple, then black and, with a deep dark pulse, shattered. Small, shadowy creatures leaped from the hole."
18. Be careful how you treat your verbs. Don't neglect them, and don't castrate them. Two verb-related pet peeves of mine appear in the paragraph beginning on line 66. "Seemed [adjective]," as in line 66, is a waste of good description when you can just turn the adjective into an action. And the alienating past progressive "were -ing" construction is out of place when describing actions meant to be appreciated viscerally. This isn't a verb-related problem, but it is a problem with this paragraph; you don't need to tell the audience that Shadows are cute. Your description should do that job. Taken as a whole, the paragraph could read "They stood on two legs, but shorter than Twilight, hunched and fidgety. They advanced on her, the antennae on their heads twitching with anticipation." Taking this approach would absolve your next paragraph of the need to try and create contrast. It could continue "Their empty yellow eyes fixed on the lavender pony and they flexed their sharp, clawed fingers. Twilight saw them for what they were; mindless beasts, hunting their prey."
19. Incidentally, "it's" in line 69 should be "its" if you're not going to overhaul the whole sentence. See note 4. supra.
20. "Enlightened" in line 72 should be "illuminated" or "luminous."
21. "Blasted him away with an energy blast" in line 75 is redundant. Maybe she could blast with "a beam of pink light," or simply with "magic."
22. Long sentences can kill tension. Try to tighten them up for fight scenes (I hate the term "action scene;" "action" means so much more). Any time you're describing consequences of actions, as on line 76, you can proceed to a new sentence.
23. There should be a return after line 78, consistent with your other formatting.
24. "crystal heart" in line 79 should be capitalized.
25. The ellipsis in line 98 should have a space before it.
26. See note 25, supra, with respect to the ellipsis in line 122.
27. See note 11, supra, with respect to the ellipses in line 142.
28. See note 25, supra, with respect to the ellipsis in line 148.
29. I'm in two minds about the letter. On the one hand, perhaps it should conform to the surrounding formatting, just with inverted commas around it. On the other, the different formatting serves to set it apart from the text around it. The latter is probably better.
In general, show don't tell. There are moments where you talk about something looking or seeming cute or strange or frightened when you could be saying why and how. What's worse is when you tell in general terms and then show the specifics. It shows that you know how to show and are just afraid to for some reason. Just skip to the specifics and we can figure out the rest.
Commendations:
1. Good job using pre-rendered ellipsis marks and placing spaces around them.
2. This chapter featured much more meticulous mistake-editing than the Prologue did. Many of the grammar and punctuation problems I spotted were inconsistencies with existing choices rather than outright abuses. The fact that I picked at the style problems more this time around is a sign of improvement.
5523032
Thanks for putting so much interest and effort into your reading and pointing stuff out to help me improve myself. I hope by the time I finish this, your lists won´t need to be like two pages long.
I really enjoyed writing this. Those are my favourite parts in the game and made good tutorials.
I did not play BBS for a while now, so I am not really sure what you are talking about. This is more like a little foreshadowing.
The topic of how I design my characters and the choices how I fit them into my story already came up a few times. This was actually one of my hardest choices. Maybe my mind is just weired, but I went with what felt right to me.
I dont see Riku as an earth pony either. His affinity to darkness and his fighting style somehow puts him into the unicorn category for me. He has a more magic-oriented and delicate style despite being more muscular then Sora.
Kairi is a Princess of Hearts (hint,hint!). So there you have my opinion what I would turn her into.
Unfortunately they won´t play such a great role in this story. Maybe in a spin-off or a sequel. First of all, I´ve got to finish this.
NightmareShredder
5523235 I'll have you know my post was four pages long! In all seriousness, though, I typed it directly into the comment box, and gave no thought to the length until you mentioned it. I can be more concise if that will be more helpful.
By Aqua's secret ending, I meant this. For some reason I can't find an English version yet despite Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix being out for a month. But basically in Birth By Sleep final mix you can play a short segment as Aqua in the Realm of Darkness, a taste of the future she and Xehanort made for her, as it were. It is the only time in the game you the player encounter heartless outside of cutscenes, and get to fight them.
Of course you as the author have the right to designate the characters however you please. It's not like Hasbro, Disney, and Square Enix are going to come out with a canon crossover! Disney and Hasbro are competitors and Kingdom Hearts is a massive crossover already. I must confess though, that I don't see the connection between darkness-wielding and unicornhood; anybody with a strong heart can wield darkness, or light, or a keyblade, or any of the Organization's elements. … And magic is a distinct thing. You're right that Riku fights as though with a rapier (which is hilarious given how overbuilt and overdesigned keyblades are; Riku wielding KH:II's Ultimaweapon in the cinematic where Xemnas is defeated is particularly egregious), but I fail to see how that matters. Royal guards of all breeds use spears, and Rarity resorts to her hooves about as often as Applejack or Rainbow Dash. On the other hand, you're absolutely right about Kairi, and by extension Naminé. I had my doubts about sacrificing their alicornhood for brevity, and it came back to bite me just like I knew it would.
5523623 Eh, I don't miss flowmotion here. Twilight flies and teleports already, that's mobility and flashiness enough. Besides, Square being Square, flowmotion will probably never appear again outside Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. They love building each game around a different secondary mechanic (the core mechanic in Kingdom Hearts being the command deck). And their plate is plenty full with keyblade transformations and attraction flow for Kingdom Hearts III. I may have to eat my words, though; according to people who saw the Burbank trailer, Kingdom Hearts III may also include drive.
NightmareShredder and I have spoken about his [her? the avatar shows a stallion, but that's not dispositive; I've used female avatars before] editorial situation. That's all I'll say on the matter. In the meantime, do give pileoblock some love.
5523764
Now I´m worried about chapter 2 I mean 4 pages? Holy b*** Ididn´t think my english was that bad
Chapter 2 was a little harder than the others so far. I had to write it 3 times and I´m not sure if it is good enough. But trying a few things outside of my comfort zone is part of this too and I didn´t want to see it at a stop just because I tried a thing or two.
It will be a bit longer and I have to check it again if I it shows sings of the Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, but I think storywise I got it done the way I wanted it to go.
Well I will roll with the punches as they are coming. There is no need to overthink this.
Riku has a bigger magic affinity for me not because he uses darkness (or any other element), but more of the way how he uses it. He just seems to be perfectly fine to release magic without the help of a weapon.
I wont lie. that argument doen´t really count in the light of my own theory that pegasi and earth ponies are just as capable of magic as unicorns are, but they channel it in different ways.
Earth ponys have stronger physical abilities and channel their magic to care for the plants. Pegasi amplify their flight abilities by making their body lighter or sense and change air-currents to some degree. Unicorns do it in a more direct way than the others and that´s what Riku is doing for me.
As I said I have a weired mind that categorizes differently.
5523623
I just didn´t want it to look so much like a game. I already threw out the Idea of the Drive-Forms because it seemed so game-ish.
I got a little rusty though. I don´t know if it is because I write in english, or that I am out of my martial arts practice for so long, but so fare I couldn´t recreate the bite my fight scenes had when I was especially asked to write them for other people.
NightmareShredder
That was fantastic. I just kept reliving the opening KH scene.