44. Identity
I woke up three hours after I finally managed to close my eyes. I had no idea what time it was but I knew it was time to get up. It was time to deal with getting more bits before I left. I pulled out the moogle gem and called up Stiltzkin. It was time to get things ready for later.
“Hello and Welcome to the Moogle Emporium… Oh Gray there you are, Kupo.” Stiltzkin answered in his usual wistful tones.
“Kupo?”
“Just… Just shut it. Look we need to keep brand recognition and focus groups say that we need to act the part of intrepid moogle salesmen. Let me just have this shred of dignity, kupo.” Stiltzkin lamely finished off.
“That’s fine. I need more specialty things to sell around here. Think we could make this happen?”
“Yeah. Gonna need some gold this time though to embed the synthesis items into. It’s easy enough to get when you’re flying around in space but that requires way too much refinement from those sources. Anyways how have you been lately. We got word that one of our moogles managed to make a foothold in the Lost Empire by the name of Kumop, Kupo.” Stiltzkin mentioned off hand as he started to get ready his tools.
“Yeah we managed to lock that world off from the heartless. Managed to get a lot of things from them for souvenirs. Here’s the gold you needed.”
I placed a small pile of gold on the console of the holographic marker as it was transported over to the moogle who started to manipulate it in front of me with a strange magical torch. It literally looked like a blowtorch but the fire was magenta and didn’t burn his paws. While he worked to make the gold into the shape of several hoof rings and collars I looked over my own inventory.
Over the course of the entire adventure we had fought off so many different heartless including Air Soldiers, Red Nocturnes, Blue Rhapsodies, Aquatanks, and those new ones called Ballasts. The constant assault of Air Soldiers had gifted me with several Spirit Gems. I had at the very least twelve of them. For some reason I knew we were just really, really lucky at this point. I gave him four of them and he managed to make several necklaces. Spirit Gems held the essence of fighting spirit and were associated with Aero magic.
The Red Nocturnes had dropped plenty Blazing Shards giving me somewhere around thirty of them. The Blue Rhapsodies were not so numerous only rewarding me with twenty Frost Shards. I made fifteen Blazing hoof rings and ten Frost hoof rings. They were obviously the essence of fire and ice respectively with corresponding magic association.
The Aquatanks weren’t as forgiving on the drop rates and only five Lightning Gems were recovered. I didn’t use any of them for selling to Equestria. It wasn’t worth it in the long run. Even if they were the essence of thunder with the same magic association.
The Ballasts were the strangest out of all the heartless. They dropped Crystals of differing elements depending on where they were fought. While out near the ice they dropped Frost Crystals which I only received three of them. While in the crater and volcano areas they dropped Blaze Crystals which I got four of those. When we fought them in the city they dropped Power Crystals which I got two of those. Power Crystals held the essence of strength and were associated with Stop Magic. The last one I fought before we left actually dropped something entirely different and was darker than anything else I carried and was the only one I had.
“D-did you actually manage to get Dark Matter!?” Stiltzkin finally looked up from his work about to transport the items over to me.
“You mean this thing… yeah I guess I did. It’s weird but I never thought I would get something like this. What is it?”
“Are you daft or something. This is just like you bringing out that Orihalcum. Materials like this are so rare that they are usually only seen because someone else had worked to get it and decided to give it off as a prize. How… you know what no I don’t want to know how you got it. You got it and that’s the most important thing here… kupo.” Stiltzkin calmed down slightly but still felt that edge in his spine from seeing something so rare.
“Wow. Well I’ll keep it safe for now. Thanks for the help how much munny do I owe you.”
“For giving me the gold I’ve cut the costs down to around a thousand munny for everything. I made you some new items to sell which is why I raised the price a bit. These necklaces will look good for any enterprising pony you meet. There are six of them from all the Spirit Gems you gave me.” Stiltzkin answered.
I looked at the munny pouch I held onto and noticed that the amount in my pouch had significantly rose higher. From the three thousand forty five munny I had; it had jumped up to twelve thousand three hundred and sixty three munny. The Ballasts really pushed my money making up there. I gave him the thousand he wanted and with a tiny salute he shut the monitor down. I placed the jewelry away in my bag and took a quick lap around the room. It didn’t really mean much but I needed to stretch out a bit after sleeping on the ceiling again.
“I really should have gotten the bed cleaned up. I forgot entirely about doing that. The room must smell rank… Of course it would. I was in there.”
I groaned slightly as I realized just how much I had to get ready for. I didn’t even know if everypony actually did anything while I rested and I didn’t know what time it actually was. It was eight in the morning when I finally fell asleep. At least it felt like it. When I started trotting upstairs I heard something coming through the door. Spitfire and Redheart were talking…
I opened the door as silently as possible but neither heard me. Spitfire started to speak about her feelings of accomplishment. The idea of the Wonderbolts not being as fulfilling as a key bearer actually cause her to question everything. Redheart was on the opposite scale feeling as though her contributions would never be given the recognition within Equestria because of the secrecy of their lifestyle now.
I trotted into the room surprising the two who nearly got off the couch to say something and instead of letting them I grabbed them around their waist pulling them back on the couch to rest with me. Absentmindedly I wrapped my wings around them to keep them close which I figured they appreciated when they snuggled into me. Affection in Equestria seemed to be the sticking point for everypony here.
“You two ok? I won’t lie but I did overhear what you were talking about.”
Spitfire merely sighed and buried her head into the crook of my neck and sighed heavily into me. Redheart hesitantly shook her head before caving in and nodded. I waited for either to speak but neither was as forthcoming about things.
“You know… if I can teach you I could get you to cast spells with your hooves Redheart. And Spitfire, why not train the Wonderbolts with everything you learn while we’re on our adventures.”
“I can do that?” Redheart winced in confusion remembering the moments when I cast spells only from my hooves though I barely did so whenever I did. Maybe I could go get Merlin to teach better than I can.
“You’re okay with me making the Wonderbolts better? I mean what we do is kind of out there that nopony could actually do.” Spitfire chuckled tonelessly as she kept her face buried in my neck. It was starting to itch for some reason.
“Yup. You’re clever enough to change what we do to fit into Wonderbolt training. It will take time but I’m sure we can figure something out to make those changes and teach you how to perform magic with only your hooves.”
Both mares smiled as they left into their thoughts. After a few blissful moments they finally sat up next to me as I pulled out the Lexicon and began looking through the heartless descriptions. Each pointed out their strategies about how to face them and I would tell them ideally how to deal with them though with constant shifts in battle it was always hard to figure out the best way to deal with things.
“What do you mean we can reflect magic back with our keyblades?” Spitfire groused at something that seemed impossible.
“The magic we use has more physical form to it and can be struck back with our keyblades if we time our swings right or block them just as they hit us.”
“But we haven’t faced that many heartless that use magic.” Redheart mentioned as she looked back at the Nocturnes and Rhapsodies.
“Why are they named after musical pieces?” Spitfire motioned at the two small heartless.
“Honestly I have no clue. Whoever faced them first probably had music on the mind.”
“Looks like you three are finally up.” Vinyl answered from the door waltzing in as if nothing had happened while Fresh Coat caught up holding one of the small baskets they had put some food in. As the door started to close Octavia and Sunshower burst through with their own saddlebags.
“We made it back. Things are becoming crazy out there. Supposedly a dragon is sleeping nearby and its smoke is blocking out the sunlight.” Octavia whimpered slightly as she trotted over into the kitchen and placing all the things that they bought storing away everything.
“A dragon? How do you know that?”
“Twilight announced it to everypony in town and how she and her friends will go handle it. I found that a bit weird but so far nothing really bad will happen now.” Octavia sighed in relief.
“Could we have handled it instead?” Spitfire brought up.
“Well yeah… but let’s stick around town. We’re barely getting some rest after all those adventure we handled already. Besides we still need to get your armors and I’m still waiting for any message from Merlin to pick them up. I’d rather you have some more protection before we face the much more dangerous heartless out there. We got lucky that the ones we faced down there were nothing but small vanguards.”
“You don’t think we can handle it?” Redheart asked though there was no indignation only curiosity.
“I’m sure you can handle it. I’ve handled it but when I fought Rourke after he was tainted by the Heart of Atlantis he was more than a match for me even getting his hand around my throat. I was also using my armor. If Sunshower hadn’t raced in I would have been turned to crystal and crushed into powder.”
Nopony said anything. Each were lost in their thoughts since that almost spelled out the end of their herd. While there was a small bit of sniffling everypony kept it together. I set out the basket’s contents on the small table I had bought a while back revealing plenty of snacks for everypony. We all ate contently, making small talk as we did while we watched the skies darken from the smoke across the sky.
Several pegasi were already trying to blow the smoke away working in teams before stopping when it became clear that the smoke wasn’t going to go anywhere. The pegasi in the room groaned at the half baked plan before resting once again. I pulled out the Lexicon and handed it over to everypony to look through as they searched through the Heartless Archives to see what I had faced down before.
Before I could join them for a lecture a piercing scream struck through the town dragging all our attention. I immediately dawned my armor and dove into the shadows. While everypony remained still.
“Should we help him?” Spitfire sounded out.
“Until we get our armor let’s let him handle it. We’ll have to get ready for Gray to come back. Hopefully nothing goes out of hand here.” Octavia motioned while everypony frowned at the prospect.
“This sucks.” Vinyl muttered indignantly.
“You know it.” Octavia agreed.
I dove out of the shadows to the middle of town where a large heartless appeared out of nowhere. It looked eerily similar to a heartless I had seen when I had finished Kingdom Heart 2. It was the heartless from the Land of Dragons which was fought only after Shan Yu was defeated. The Storm Rider clapped several of its cymbals that were clamped on its face before diving down onto the unsuspecting ponies.
A small unicorn foal tripped just as a grey pegasus dove in to save them. I rushed in moving faster than before and tossed the tomahawk at it’s face knocking it away from the two as it lay in a heap before city hall. It was at this point that the screaming stopped and I noticed a lot of ponies were staring at me… I was so glad that they couldn’t actually see my face since this would be highly awkward enough already.
I remained silent at the tomahawk reappeared in my hoof as I switched it out for my keyblade. Luckily I had switched back to the Kingdom Key D and waited for the heartless to get back up from being dazed. It rose up instantly shaking in rage as it flew straight up into the sky knocking several pegasi into racing for cover. I turned back to the pair behind me and motioned them away while I widened my stance and waited.
The pair looked grateful and wanted to stay and speak but noticed I didn’t exactly have time to speak. They galloped off for cover as the Storm Rider dove back down racing down towards me while releasing several explosives that left small craters in the ground. I saw that mystical triangle button in my head and thought hard about it as I slid underneath the Rider and struck it below the chin, lower on the neck and above where a stomach would be.
It instantly fell back dazed once again as I hopped up top and started to strike at the small spikes on it’s back. I forced myself to strike even when they were electrified. Strangely, for as long as I had been on Equestria, lightning had minimal effects on my body. I powered through as the electricity coursed through my body and the small protruding spikes disappeared into the darkness. It immediately knocked me off causing me to skid against the ground as I rolled back onto my hooves.
Flaring my wings I immediately took off after it chasing it down as it encircled me, trying to use lightning spells which did absolutely nothing since it lost the spikes on its back. It actually changed tactics at this point flapping its wings hard as it shot tornadoes straight for me. I was forced to hit them with my keyblade just to make sure that they wouldn’t go straight for the town. The air pressure managed to spin me around when the Storm Rider instantly slammed its tail on my sending me plummeting into the ground leaving yet another crater behind.
Several ponies started to panic when they saw the dust cloud until I flapped the dust away revealing me still standing. I don’t really know what happened with the townsponies after that since I took off straight for the clouds and Storm Rider once again. It tried desperately to summon lightning but the spikes on its back were still not growing back. By the time it noticed me I had gotten in its face and slashed incessantly at it.
The Storm Rider growled loudly which seemed to reverberate all over Equestria as it attempted to striking me down with its tail only to miss by a few inches. The moment it tried to release more tornadoes I struck underneath its chin with the tomahawk sending it flying straight up further into the sky. I instantly switched to the daggers and threw them down on the ground on the spot where the Storm Rider was falling as I dove down to meet them.
“What is he doing?”
“Is that stallion crazy?”
“How’d he get those knives and axe thing. Also was the sword shaped like a key?”
“I wonder what he looks like under that mask.”
There were several ponies speaking about me… I wanted to growl out about how this wasn’t the best time but I needed to focus on my target. The Storm Rider came back into view falling down near where I was. I didn’t predict the exact spot but it was still in range. As it finally fell to cloud level I threw the last dagger in place as the entire circle of daggers burst with electricity. A large bolt of lightning shot straight from the ground piercing the Storm Rider as it fell to ground dissipating into a cloud of darkness and releasing a large crystal heart that everypony could see. As the darkness disappeared the cloud covering Ponyville also disappeared. Several ponies stared at the me while the daggers floated in mid air before reattaching back to my front hooves. Nopony made any step towards me as I put away my daggers and pulled out my keyblade.
Before I could move back to the shadows I noticed some groans from near the Town Hall as I trotted over to that spot. There was a pink earth pony on the ground with a cutie mark of a bunch of berries on her flank while a small unicorn foal tried to get her back up. When she noticed me she started to cower on the spot. I was a bit self conscious at this point but this particular pony looked scratched up from all the pain she was in. I lifted my keyblade and cast a Cure spell.
The little flower appeared over the pink pony as the vines encircled her, I found out she was a mare from her eyes, and healed up the scratches. The unicorn foal was surprised when she got back up looking no worse for wear. She was surprised as well when she opened her eyes and looked over her body. The foal looked tearfully first at me and then as the mare. I nodded towards her and noticed several ponies had started to find their spines and crowding up to me. I was a bit uncomfortable from the sudden attention. I flared my wings slightly making everypony back up a bit as I made my way towards the shadows and dove in surprising everypony.
“Where’d he go?”
“Who was he?”
“He had a nice flank…”
There were a few stares at the mare who said that which got her to blush in embarrassment. Mayor Mare took center stage getting everypony to look at her. The ponies calmed down just as the cloud covering Ponyville disappeared.
“Everypony please calm yourself. Let’s get things cleaned up since somepony managed to deal with the monster that attacked us. Please ponies let’s go deal with damage done to the town… which looked to be only the craters in the ground. Hm… I thought it would be worse?” Mayor Mare looked around and started to organize the clean up.
“Ow...ow...ow...ow...ow...ow…”
I stumbled all the way back to the house out of my armor just so nopony managed to see me. As I opened the door I was immediately tackled to the ground by an overenthusiastic Vinyl.
“Ow…”
“Hey there Nebby. How’s it going?” Vinyl jeered slightly as she poked my cheek and stared me right in the eye.
“Vinyl get off of him. I think he’s hurt… probably? It’s hard to tell since you tackled him. Jeez… it looks like parts of his fur were singed by lightning. How’d you get those bruises on your back and stomach… or were those from Vinyl.” Spitfire looked over me cringing at the wounds I had.
“Large heartless appeared in town because of the fear created from the dragon smoke clouding it. Managed to get a good hit on me because it could create tornadoes. Might have left a crater in the middle of town but it was something I wasn’t expecting. Also tornadoes hurt, like a lot. Then I saved a pony that didn’t get out of the way in time though I did have to use magic. So yeah things are happening way outside my control and I am mentally not prepared as I liked to be when that happened.”
“That… that was a mouthful.” Octavia called out as she ushered everypony inside while Fresh and Vinyl picked me up in their telekinetic magic and Redheart started looking over my wounds preparing to heal them with both the spells she learned and some of the supplies she brought in her saddlebags.
“Finally, we’re back. Good job Fluttershy I didn’t know you had it in you.” Rainbow Dash cheered on her shy friend which everypony agreed with.
“Thank you Dash. I didn’t even know I had it in me either. I’m glad it’s over now. “ Fluttershy mumbled under her breath.
“I’ll be glad when we’re finally back in town ri- what in Celestia happened here!?” Twilight gasped as she stopped and looked over the town.
Several of the ponies were busy clearing up debris and filling in several craters that looked recent. A few ponies were busy drinking their problems away courtesy of Berry Punch but nopony stopped her. The Mayor looked positively frazzled as well looking over several sheet of insurance which seemed to be for the Monster Repair Fund.
“Mayor! What happened here?” Twilight motioned her hoof over the town while ponies were fast at work repairing the superficial damage.
“Oh. Hello Twilight. Nothing much… just a little restructuring and such. Please tell me that the dragon has been taken care of, please?” Mayor Mare rattled off as she looked at the young purple unicorn. Her mane was a frizzy mess scaring Rarity completely but she remained on her hooves because it was impolite to faint at a lady’s appearance and rude overall.
“Yes Mayor. We’ve made the dragon move out of the area and go sleep somewhere else.” Twilight confidently stated before her confidence turned to worry. “But seriously, what happened here?”
“A monster attacked. It was no ordinary monster. What we thought was a dragon was actually a large winged serpent that seemed to call down lightning by slamming these little protrusions of flesh shaped like cymbals to call it down. It had nearly downed most of the pegasi that were moving the smoke out of Ponyville when it charged down at Ditzy and Dinky Doo. It would have killed them too if this strange stallion didn’t step up to stop it.” Mayor Mare recalled the event as clearly as she could muster.
“A stallion? Didn’t you see what he was?” Rarity spoke up first intrigued that a stallion did all that.
“We could only tell that they were a he. He wore this dark armor with navy blue highlights. Even the wings he had were covered… but they didn’t look real at all. He materialized weapons out of thin air including this large ornamental ax which he used to stun the monster, then this blade that looked like a giant key, and several pairs of daggers which he manipulated… like magic. But he had no horn…” Mayor Mare sounded incredulously but as everypony looked at Applejack they could only balk when they noticed that she was agreeing with Mayor Mare.
“That sounds impossible… Are you certain Mayor?” Twilight nervously asked.
“Yes I am Twilight. When things started getting out of hoof he came in and destroyed the monster. It disappeared into a cloud of darkness and this large crystalline heart popped out of it before disappearing into the sky. Berry Punch somehow got injured during the attack though we don’t know how. He lifted his blade up and suddenly this strange green flower above her head healing her back to full health. Hence why she’s been giving out drinks to all the ponies of town for free right now. She’s just glad to be alive.” Mayor Mare sighed.
Twilight stood there gaping like a fish uncertain of what happened while the other girls looked around concerned that this happened.
“Did you get a name?” Pinkie Pie got in Mayor Mare’s face seeming very serious about everything.
“I don’t know. They never said anything while they were in town before hopping into the shadows and disappearing. A lot of ponies were worried since the monster slammed him into the ground with its tail and he just stood up as if it was nothing.” Mayor Mare motioned over to the largest of craters that ponies were still trying to fill up.
“That has to be fake! That’s way too awesome to be real!” Rainbow Dash angrily declared as she flared her wings out trying to look intimidating but everypony merely scoffed annoyed at the bluster since there was no one to intimidate.
“Rainbow I don’t think that’s going to make anything different.” Fluttershy muttered out to Dash’s indignation.
“We need to tell Princess Celestia…” Twilight muttered under her breath. “This is something that shouldn’t be happening at all. We have some super pony flying around doing crazy things-”
“I think he’s more a Dark Knight figure.” Berry Punch cried out as she tossed another bottle over to Bon Bon.
“Knight fits much better.” Ditzy agreed readily as she and Dinky got ready to fly off for home.
“Ugh… fine. Dark Knight going around doing all this. Maybe Princess Celestia knows something.” Twilight trotted off for the library where maybe they could get some answers.
“Oh before I forget. Remember Rainbow Dash that we need a rainstorm in two days.” Mayor Mare pointed at Dash with her hoof which Dash answered with a serious salute.
“Whoever this pony is they must be some kind of badflank to deal with all this.” Dash groused under her breath though she couldn’t place the feeling into words. It was heavy and uncertain but it only ever appeared once. That one time Twilight disappeared to the library after Nightmare Moon appeared. This pony, regardless of being a stallion or mare, was an unknown. They couldn’t be trusted out right without finding out more about them.
“Ow! Ow! Stop pushing please…”
Redheart rolled her eyes as she was forced to push one of my limbs back into place using her prodigious strength as an earth pony to pop it back into place. The heartless had hurt me much worse than I thought and the armor just made it so I couldn’t feel it… or it got lucky.
“Quit complaining. I’m getting you back up to trotting order.” Redheart playfully booped my nose. Everypony merely chuckled that I was grousing about a dislocated limb.
“Yup… I’ll deal with that supposed utter badflank the moment I see them.” Rainbow Dash Affirmed to herself mostly as she flew off with her friends to the library to check on all the animals Spike was asked to watch and get a message sent to Princess Celestia.
After getting Fluttershy’s animals out of the library and back to her cottage, Twilight sent a letter to the Princess detailing the strange pony who fought a monster that attacked Ponyville along with the description of a sword shaped like a large golden key.
Princess Celestia sat at her throne pondering upon pondering the message that was before her hooves at this very moment. Luna had just joined her to get to know the ponies of this day and age when the message from Twilight had arrived. The dragon was successfully dealt with and the air would be cleared soon enough. As her heart lightened from the joy of her success it quickly turned to intrigue and concern.
“Sister… I’ve never heard of a sword in the shape of a key. What nonsense is this?” Luna huffed slightly. The mixture of curiosity and dismissal were very clear on her face.
“I know not Sister. I’ve been trying to see if I have ever heard of such a thing but I have never heard anything about a key sword in my entire life. If only Starswirl were here… he may have known something about this thing.” Celestia sighed in quiet contemplation.
“Perhaps I can find our mystery warrior’s dream later to see what they are planning?” Luna suggested though she still didn’t have her full power back yet. Dream weaving and channeling skills were very taxing on her recovering mind.
“Not until you have recovered enough Luna. When you do then we shall both go find this figure that managed to slay a monster flying serpent so easily.” Celestia intoned as she sent her reply and waited for Twilight’s inevitable ‘freak out’ as she called them.
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Great chapter. I love this so much 😆 and im learning so much from it. Can't wait for the next one
Oooo! Nice. Also. I wanted to ask. what is your Favorite KeyBlade. Mine is Metal Chocobo.
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8481124
Nice to know. I think you should read the number one fic on this site called The Keepers of Discord. It will show you just how to portray characters emotions without telling an audience how they feel.
8481146
I liked Oblivion like most people. I also liked The Gullwing keyblade as well.
8482675
Those are good ones too. I just don't know why. When I got Metal Chocobo I felt connected to it. That is why I used it even when there were stronger Keyblades.