• Published 29th Apr 2017
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The Girl That Never Was - Onomonopia



To unlock the secrets of Equestria, one must bear the key.

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Heart of the World

"Sora."

Xion couldn't believe what she was seeing was true. But despite her hoping that it was a nightmare or some illusion being cast by the Maestro, there was no questioning the identity of the brown haired boy that stared at her with blank eyes. He lifted the Oblivion and slowly began to walk towards Xion once again, who lifted her keyblade and took up a fighting stance.

"What did you do to him?!" Xion roared over at Maestro.

"What those in Castle Oblivion wanted to do. Create a perfect puppet, one that could bring down the Organization and help them to rule over all the worlds," Maestro revealed before he shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, once we succeeded in creating the perfect puppet I killed those traitors myself. I despise those that cannot follow simple instructions or think themselves better as their superiors."

Sora lunged towards Xion and stabbed at her head. Xion blocked the blow to the side and retaliated with a kick to the gut that staggered Sora for a moment. Xion slashed down at the boy, but with his hood down his speed seemed to have increased and a moment later he was behind her. Xion had just enough time to register that he had moved before she felt Oblivioon slash across her back.

She rolled forward to get out of his striking distance before whirling around to deflect another strike from Sora. The power of light flowed through her body once more and she fired eight chains of light towards Sora. Sora backflipped out of the way of the chains before leaping into the air, channeling light on the end of his keyblade. Beams of light came flying from the end of his keyblade, breaking through Xion's chains and nearly striking her down. It was only by creating a barrier of light around herself at the last second that she was able to avoid being killed.

"This...this isn't the Sora from my memories," Xion said to herself as she cancelled her barrier, still feeling the pain of being slashed racing across her back.

"Of course it is not. This is one of mine. What would happen if Sora did become the Organizations perfect puppet instead of you?" Maestro asked as he turned his head towards Sora. "Numerous things, actually. You should have seen how hard Riku and Kairi fought to free him. Especially Kairi. Never before have I had a princess fight me with such strength and ferocity. She, on her own, nearly succeeded in freeing him. Nearly."

"You monster. What did you do to him?"

"Stripped him of his memories. Tore away that infuriating naivety that made up his core personality. And removed all traces of morals that he may have once had," Maestro replied in a joyous tone. "And thanks to the strength of his heart, he is even immune to the Rainbow Power, as he does not comprehend good or evil anymore. I was delighted when I found that out."

"But why here? Why bring him to this world?"

"Because you are on it." Xion gave Maestro a confused look and accidentally left herself open, but before Sora could attack Maestro held up a hand to pause the battle. "I told you that you would have to face your past. And who better as your final challenge than the very being you were supposed to replace. But not only is he the original, now he is a mindless puppet, much like you were supposed to be if you had never met Roxas and the other one I am curious to see...which of you is the superior puppet."

"You sick bastard."

"But there are a few equations that I did not account for. Your new keyblade," Maestro continued on, pointing at the Perfect Harmony. "I did not expect you to be able to befriend the ponies and I never thought you would achieve a real form. Unleashing you upon this land has been quite the learning experience. You have my gratitude, Xion. For that, I shall make your demise swift. But not at my hand. I have something far more important to do. If you will excuse me, my pawn will keep you company."

As he said this, Maestro floated into the air and turned towards the keyhole. The keyhole began to glow with light, a light that Maestro mimicked a moment later. He then transformed into a ray of light and was sucked into the keyhole. The moment he vanished into the keyhole darkness formed overhead. The ground began to shake with a force that shook the entire planet, while lightning cracked across the sky.

The Heartless that were battling the ponies all ceased the fighting and turned their heads towards the keyhole. For a brief moment they didn't do anything, before all at once the Heartless entered into the shadows and vanished from the battlefield. The ponies who had been battling the Heartless all looked around in confusion, before they turned their gaze over to Xion and Sora.

Xion leapt over a strike from Sora before firing a blast of fire into his back, knocking him to the ground and sending him tumbling through the dirt. Sora got back up to his feet with a blank expression on his face, despite the fact that he had taken a ball of fire to his back.

"Stay down, Sora! Don't make me hurt you!" Xion called out to Sora, but instead of staying down Sora charged towards Xion once more. Xion shook her head with sadness before she channeled the light into her blade once more, forming a sword of rainbow light around her keyblade. Sora saw this and hurled his keyblade at Xion, hoping to catch her off guard before she could strike. Xion hurled herself to the ground to avoid being struck by the keyblade, which impaled itself in the tree behind her.

Xion snapped to her feet and lunged towards Sora, slashing at him with the rainbow blade. Sora managed to dodge a few of the strikes, but with the intensity and speed of Xion's strikes eventually one of the strikes managed to catch Sora in the side of the head. Once he was stunned by the one strike, Xion began to unload with all of her might and fury, hammering Sora with a flurry of strikes and slashes. With a bellow of both rage and pain Xion slashed across Sora's chest, sending him flying into the air.

Xion cancelled out her light power right as Sora hit the ground, where he remained motionless on the ground. She shook her head at the broken boy before she turned back towards the keyhole, which had dark cracks forming in the tree around it.

"Maestro, what have you done?" Xion asked before she pointed her blade at the keyhole. Her eyes then widened as she realized that she was looking at the tree, but Oblivion was nowhere to be found on it.

The realization dawned too late and a moment later Xion felt the edge of a blade rip through her side. She screamed with pain as she fell to one knee, before she glared over her shoulder at Sora. Despite having been beaten relentlessly with her keyblade, somehow Sora had managed to get back up and summon his weapon back to him. He was covered in bloody cuts and horrible bruises, but his face remained as emotionless as ever.

"You really...never give up, do you?" Xion spat in pain. Sora didn't say anything, but he raised Oblivion over her head before striking down with a force that would have cleaved her head from her body. Xion's pain tolerance was nothing to laugh at either, so she was able to force herself to spin and lift the Perfect Harmony to deflect the Oblivion strike.

The force of the impact knocked the two keyblades out of both keyblade wielders hands, leaving the both of them without their weapons. Not wanting to allow Sora access to his weapon, Xion wound back a fist before she hurled it forward. Sora took the punch right to the side of his face, snapping his head to the side and staggering him backwards. Xion hurled another punch that nearly dropped Sora, before she finished her combo by grabbing Sora by the face and channeling the power of lightning through her hand. Sora silently screamed before he collapsed to his knees, where he began to struggle to get back up.

"No. This is over," Xion said as she reached out and summoned her keyblade, which she then pointed at Sora's head.

"Xion!"

Xion glanced over to see the ponies racing over towards him, most of them looking like they had come from the fight of their lives. Xion figured that she didn't look much better, but at the moment she was too busy ignoring the pain to care how she appeared.

"Xion, is this Roxas?" Rarity asked Xion, who shook her head.

"No, this is Sora. He's...closely related to Roxas," Xion revealed, getting her confused looks from the ponies. "All you need to know is that he's a keyblade wielder as well and he's the one that's been under the Maestro's control."

"Then what are you waiting for? Knock him out and leave him to us. You saw what the Maestro did, he went into the keyhole!" Rainbow Dash reminded everypony. "How could he even go in there? I thought that it was only a place Heartless could go?"

"I don't know, but whatever the reason, it can't be good," Xion replied as she glanced back at the keyhole. When she took her eyes off of Sora, he tried to get up to strike her. But the damage was too great and he ended up falling onto his face instead. Xion turned her gaze back to him and her eyes softened, feeling nothing but pity for the boy.

"Xion, our world is starting to fall apart. Whatever Maestro is doing it cannot be good," Celestia pointed out to Xion. "Leave him with us. We shall restrain him. You have to seal the keyhole."

"Alright Celestia, but first let me try something," Xion asked. She then knelt down next to Sora and pointed her keyblade at his head once more. "Maestro said that he made you a mindless puppet. That he stripped away your memories and personality, so that you would be nothing but a puppet. He cast you down so far into nothingness that not even your friends could help you. I know how that feels."

"But he made one mistake. He put you up against me. The very being that was created to steal your memories and copy you," Xion said with a smile before she placed the tip of her keyblade against the side of Sora's head. "And I've still got a few of those memories rattling around inside my own head. The ones that Maestro didn't bother to take out. It's not enough to restore you...but it may be enough to give you an idea of who you were."

Xion then closed her eyes and concentrated, focusing all of her memories that belonged to Sora into her blade. She could feel them slowly seeping from her mind into his, telling Xion that her plan was working. Memories of chasing around a white haired boy and red headed girl on the beach. Battling Heartless in a castle. Gazing at the sunset. There were only a few of them, but Xion gave them all to him without a second thought.

After a few moments she felt the last of the memories that weren't hers fade completely. She opened her eyes and gazed down at Sora, who let out a small groan before he lifted his head up and looked at Xion with the first emotion she had seen on his face. Confusion.

He then fell over and passed out on the ground, allowing Xion to let out a sigh of relief. She then glanced up at the ponies, none of who were certain of what had just happened. "Celestia, can you guys take care of him until I get back? If I leave him alone as he is now the Heartless will probably get him."

"We can, Xion. But are you sure he won't attack us?" Celestia asked.

"I'm not a hundred percent, but I think that he'll be too confused to want to attack you any longer," Xion said sadly as she gazed down at Sora. "He's been through a lot and he's going to need your guys help if he hopes to break free of what Maestro did to him. Please keep him safe."

"That we can do, Xion. We owe it to you," Twilight said and her friends nodded in agreement. Xion smiled at all of them before she pushed herself up to her feet, wincing in pain as she remembered all of the damage that was done to her. She cast cure over herself once more and felt all of her injuries heal, but it was a grim feeling as she knew that she had used up her last cure. She shook the thought out of her mind before she started to walk towards the keyhole, gripping her keyblade tightly.

"Alright Maestro, let's do this. You and me. One on one." Xion then raised her blade and pointed it at the keyhole, summoning a sphere of light around the end of her blade. The sphere of light then fired a beam of light into the keyhole and the sound of something being locked could be heard. But then a moment later darkness erupted from the keyhole and the sound of it being unlocked echoed across the world.

"Xion, what happened?" Luna asked Xion.

"It's like I feared. As long as the Maestro is messing with the keyhole, I can't lock it from the outside. And if I can't lock it from out here..." Her voice trailed off as she looked up at the sky, which was becoming darker and darker.

"How can you get to the keyhole, then?" Fluttershy asked.

"The same way he got in there. I have to go in there and lock the keyhole from within," Xion said in a less than thrilled tone.

"Can you even do that?"

"Guess we'll find out." Xion pointed her keyblade at the keyhole once more, but this time she changed her stance and moved the keyblade onto its side. A sensation in the back of her mind told her that what she was doing was right, a sensation that felt slightly like the Maestro. That was when she knew what she was doing was correct. She then fired a beam of darkness from the end of her blade into the keyhole. A moment later her body began to glow with a strange light, one that the keyhole matched. Then a flash of light went off and Xion was gone.

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No. XIV
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Xion had no idea where she was. What she did know was that she felt a surge of darkness and emptiness wash over her, almost as if she was in a sea of darkness. When she finally summoned enough courage to open her eyes, she found that she was in a place similar to where she had dove into Twilight's heart.

But where she was now had one key difference. Twilight's heart had only one stained glass circle, which had her closest friends on it. This place was filled with an uncountable number of stained glass images, all of them with a different pony, dragon or other creature upon them. Yet Xion's heart sunk when she saw that there was one circle that stood above all others. That one was an image of the Maestro, which had an ever shifting number of worlds around him. And in the center of that stained circle was the Maestro himself.

Xion glanced down to find herself standing on a single piece of stained glass, in a sea of endless darkness. Xion knew where she had to go, so she summoned as much courage as she could before she kicked off of the stain glass and hurled herself towards where the Maestro was. She glided through the darkness before she came to the edge of the circle, immediately falling to the edge of the circle. When she touched down she summoned her blade and fully expected Maestro to attack her, but instead he continued to stare up at the countless images.

"Isn't it amazing?" Maestro asked Xion, who gave him no reply. "All of these...stories...just waiting to be changed, written or ended. What would happen if Scorcher was raised by a zebra instead of another dragon? What if the sun and moon fell to the earth and it was the alicorn Gaea that ruled over this land? And those are just two of a seemingly infinite number of possibilities...and that's for this world alone."

"So that's the reason for you messing with people's lives? Because you just want to see what happens?" Xion asked with disbelief, the anger in her voice getting the Maestro to look over his shoulder at Xion and he finally registered the fact that she was really there. "That's...beyond twisted! How many lives have you ruined just because you were bored?!"

"Do not speak of my actions as if you understand them. In your terms, I have done just as much "good" as I have "evil". Take you, for example. In the world the Sora you defeated came from, you never even came to be thanks to my existence. But in another reality, I interfered on your behalf, aiding you and Roxas in bringing down the Organization and freeing you from your destinies. It is interesting, seeing how much you hate me when that version of you thanked me with genuine gratitude. And again, that was two of an infinite number."

"So what? Do you think that you're some kind of hero? That because you help others in some places you're allowed to ruin the lives of others?!" Xion roared at the Maestro, who shook his head at her words.

"So you actually managed to defeat Sora? Interesting. He is one of the strongest keyblade wielders in the worlds, yet severe his ties to his friends and loved ones and he becomes weak. How curious," Maestro said with a laugh. "I will have to remember that the next time I place him under my control."

"Are you deaf?! You're done hurting others for your evil reasons!" Xion roared.

"You are the one that is not listening, puppet. I am beyond the idea of good and evil. I seek to learn. I do not act out of malevolence or benevolence. All I do, I do to learn. To change. To...fix. I do not care how many lives I ruin or save to achieve my knowledge. There are infinite versions of those I ruin or save. What difference does changing the fate of one world make in the infinite universe?"

"To you, maybe nothing. But to those you hurt, it makes all the difference," Xion replied in a cold voice before she took up her fighting stance once more, channeling the power of light into her body. "And then there's me. You say that changing a reality doesn't matter to you? Well today it will matter. Because I'm going to end you. I'm going to strike you down once and for all and rid the infinite universes of your cruelty. You're right. You're not good. You're not evil. You're dead."

"Fool. So many beings, some which are beyond your understanding, said the same thing to me. Yet here I stand," the Maestro replied before he ripped off his brown cloak and tossed it to the side, revealing his full, metal body. "But just like them, you are welcome to fail. So come, Xion. Let us see if you can amuse me one last time before I strike you from existence."