Dropping in on an Equestrian Dream

Chapters

Dropping In
It's All From Her Head
Always Keep an Oath No Matter Who Gets Angry

Dropping In

So, what’s the first thing you think about when you go to an anime convention? You think about anime merchandise, celebrities in the manga/anime industry and other areas of geekdom, and cosplayers, lots and lots of cosplayers; some dressing up as DBZ characters, some as One Piece characters, and even some as characters from the real obscure stuff like Akira. However, anime and manga weren’t the only things at this convention. No, this year, in Florida, both the people that organize this particular anime convention and some people that were in charge of E3 decided to combine their mutual Japanese products that were to be showcased, mainly because there were so many Japanese made games coming out in the year of 2015. However, the one big game that every geek across America came to this convention for was Kingdom Hearts 3. Finally, after so long, there would be an official release date for later this year and everybody would get to see even more of the game and have something to look forward to.

It is at this convention that we find Phillip Smith. This 16 year old finally convinced his parents to let him come across the state and stay in a hotel with his friends for this one event. The second he received permission, Phil set to work on making his costume for this event. His costume was that of Dream Eater Riku from Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. He got the silver wig, the yellow and white vest with the spirit dream eater symbol on the back, and some regular baggy jeans and black sneakers. He then worked on his keyblade prop, which would be wooden and be the Way to Dawn design. Luckily, his dad was a carpenter and had taught him how. Finally, he ordered the Way to Dawn keychain to complete it. After that was done, our eager teen packed his suitcase, and later met up with his friends at Rick’s place to begin the long drive.

Presently, Phillip and his five other friends were split up into groups of two, with Phil and Rick together. All of them decided to meet at the entrance by the end of the day. Rick was dressed up as Master Xehanort. Even had a bald cap to hide his hair and dyed his short goatee and eyebrows. He really sold it by walking in a hunched over posture with his hands behind his back. Though, he could never do a good impression of the magnificent Leonard Nimoy. Phillip and Rick were both looking at the various tables of gaming merchandise, when Phil spotted a shady looking guy in a cloak selling an impressive amount of what looked like high quality Kingdom Hearts merch.

“Hey Rick?”

“Yeah, dude?” he said with a generic old man’s voice. Truthfully, to Phillip, it sounded silly saying "dude" in that voice.

“While you check out this bravely default 2 stuff, I think I’ll be going to see if there’s anything good at that KH booth.”

“You sure? Cause there’s some pretty sweet swag over here.” Rick replied, indicating the various replicas of items from the JRPG.

“I’m sure.” He said with a nod. Then an eager smile grew on his face. “What I really want to see is if that guy has any of the keychains from the games!” Phil had been looking for the keychains from Dream Drop Distance to further build his collection of said game series’ keychains. He already had every single one except for Oathkeeper, Oblivion and the keychains exclusive to Dream Drop Distance. Since he was dressed as the Dream Drop Distance version of Riku, he decided to look for the chains from that game. Walking over to the shady man’s booth, he got the man’s attention as soon as he got close.

“Ummm…hello.” said Phillip nervously. Now that he had a closer look at him, he saw that the cloak looked eerily similar to the Phantom optional boss from Kingdom Hearts 1. Though instead of no face, Phillip could see a somewhat pale looking face poking through from the darkness of the hood.

“Helllooo.” said the man with a disturbingly silky voice. Even more disturbing was that the smoothness of his voice sounded even creepier than Orochimaru, and that character was uber-creepy. Phillip started having second thoughts, but the merchandise on the table looked too tempting to resist.

Phillip let out a slight shudder in response to that voice before steeling his resolve and continuing on. “Yes, well, I would like to know if you have any keychains for sale. I’m trying to complete my collection and it’s really hard to find them. So, you got any?” he said as he hefted his wooden keyblade up onto his shoulder.

“Hmmmm” the shady merchant said as he put a pale hand up to his chin in thought. He then smirked and held up a finger in realization. “Ah, I have just the thing.” For some reason, he put a hand behind his back without looking and pulled from behind, a small jewel encrusted box with the symbol of the nightmare dream eaters on it; when the man opened it up, Phillip’s eyes widened in astonishment. There, nestled in soft black foam, was every single keychain from Dream Drop Distance and also Oathkeeper and Oblivion. Every spot in the memory foam was filled with a keychain, except for one that was in the shape of the Way to Dawn chain. Phillip took his wooden prop off of his shoulders and took a quick step forward and stared at the keychain filled box with manic glee.

“I must have them!” he said while taking out his wallet.

“Fifty dollars” the man said while offering his hand for the cosplayer to put money in.

“Are you kidding!? That’s a steal!” Phillip said while slapping the money into the shady man’s hand. “Thanks!” he made a move to grab it, when suddenly, the lid slammed shut and the man pulled it away. “HEY! What gives!?”

The man gave a cheeky grin before replying. “Ah, ah, ah! First…” he said while once again holding up a finger, “…you must promise me that when I hand you this box, you will put your Way to Dawn keychain in the appropriate slot.”

“Seriously!? That’s all else it takes for you to give it to me!?” he then swiftly unlatched the mentioned keychain, “Deal!”

The box mysteriously opened by itself while the shady man moved it closer to him. When he took it, he did as instructed immediately and closed the box with a smile, feeling triumphant that he had acquired such a large portion of the series’ keychains for his collection in one fell swoop.

The shady man’s eyes glowed for a second before his smile turned maniacal. “Have a nice triiiip~!”

“Trip? What do you…?” Suddenly, a hole that looked like it was straight out of a Looney Toons cartoon, formed beneath his feet and Phillip looked down at it, then back up to the shady man. “Oh…” he then fell after a second of floating in midair, “AAAAAAAAA!!!” he screamed. The hole closed up as soon as both he and the box were through.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” the man laughed as he doubled over in delight. “Aaah…that never gets old!” He then looked up as he saw another young man, dressed up as Master Xehanort walking over.

“Hey, Phil! You should see…Phil?” Rick had come over with bags of Bravely Default gear that he had purchased to show his best friend, but was nowhere to be found. Instead, he found a shady man rubbing his hands in anticipation.

The man then ushered him over, “Come, my friend. I see you have a verrrry impressive costume of Master Xehanort. Why not enhance your look with this perfect cast iron replica of Master Xehanort’s keyblade?” he said as he presented it to the teen.

Rick rubbed his chin with a look of intrigue on his face.

Meanwhile

“AAAAAAAAA!!!!” Phillip screamed as he fell, he continued to scream before calming down and looked at his surroundings. It looked like space, but tinted with various colors and the place he was falling towards looked like a very earth-like planet, the only difference being that most of the continents didn’t look familiar. Looking down, or up as the case may be, Phillip saw that he was still clutching the bejeweled keychain box to his chest and his Way to Dawn keyblade in his left hand at his side.

“Ooooh God, I hope I survive this.” he said in dread. Suddenly, some familiar creatures appeared in front of him and began descending at the same rate. “Wait, are those….they are!” before his eyes, appeared nightmare dream eaters. The kind that looked like bees in Riku’s first dream drop.

“Oh no! This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening!” he said as he began to panic. “How am I supposed to defend myself with this!?” he said as he lifted his fake keyblade up to his face. He then saw one of the monsters barreling towards him. “Boy, I hope this works!” he said as he raised the prop up for a strike. The bug nightmare came closer and he swung “Angh!” he grunted. The attack was a direct hit on the nightmare’s skull. But Phillip’s eyes widened in astonishment. Instead of the prop splintering into pieces like he expected, the keyblade cut through the nightmare down the middle, causing both halves to separate and dissolve into smoke. Phillip brought the keyblade back up and looked at it again. Now that he had calmed down a little, he could feel that the keyblade felt like actual metal and looked more intricately carved, just like the real Way to Dawn.

A huge smile appeared on his face as he realized that this was the real Way to Dawn. His smile then turned into a determined smirk as his brows furrowed. Phillip then straightened his body out to make himself go faster as he slashed through a bunch of nightmares.

“Wooo hoooo!!!” he yelled as he continued hacking through the bugs. “Oh, man! This is awesome! I have my own keyblade and I’m dream diving into another world!” Quite abruptly, the queen of the bee like nightmare, which he remembered was named Queen Buzzerfly, descended to be in front of him, indicating that he was in the home stretch of the drop. All he needed to do was defeat her and continue to the portal to the upcoming world. “You want a piece of me!? BRING IT!” Phillip said in a cocky tone.

However, before he could get closer, the big buzzerfly shot a laser from an appendage to one of its wings, hitting the arm that was holding the keychain box. The force of the laser caused Phillip to turn slightly, and the pain forced him to release the box, which opened up and dropped its contents.

“Nonononono!!!” he said as he tried to grab them, but they all fell past him and towards the world below; except for one that he managed to grab. However, he couldn’t examine which one he caught as the main priority was to defeat the big buggy nuisance that dared to make him lose his precious collection. So, he pocketed it for later. “You’re going to pay for that, bug!” he snarled before seeing a familiar orb and grabbing it before it floated past him. The words, Mega Flare, popped into his head, making him grin.

“I’ll save that for later.” he thought before turning his attention back to the dive boss. “Alright, you buzz bomber wannabe! Let’s see what you’re made of!” The Queen Buzzerfly gave a “bring it on” gesture to him, causing Phillip to let out a battle cry. “RRRAAAA!!!” the angered human threw his weight at the female nightmare who tried to shoot him with multiple stingers, but, surprising even himself, he spun out of the way of each and every one of them, reaching the queen bug in the span of a few seconds. Just before he reached her, Phillip angled himself to where his feet where to the right of her head and wound his leg back as though he were going to make a field goal. When his foot was far enough behind him, he kicked with all his might, snapping the queen’s head to the left and making her body follow suit. Once again, Phillip surprised himself. Not only did he appear to have more agility, but also more strength than before. The buzzerfly’s back was now turned to him while she clutched at her face. Phillip once again threw his weight at her to get closer and latched on to the glowing bulb that he remembered was her weak spot. After a few hits with his keyblade, the giant bug bucked him off and faced her attacker again.

She tried to hit the insufferable human with lasers, but Phillip proved too fast for her and aimed both feet at the bottom half of her body, slamming into her and causing her body to suddenly switch positions. When he saw the head coming towards him, Phillip put his sword down and behind him then gave the queen a swift upper cut to the head with his blade, causing the bug to flip backward to where its back was again facing him. Though this time, she appeared to be upside down from his point of view. For the third time, Phillip flung himself at her and got a few hits in. Before she could throw him off, however, the surprisingly combat effective human jumped off and aimed his keyblade at her. “Hope this works.” Furrowing his brow, he shouted, “MEGA FLARE!” and a huge explosion happened at near point blank range to the bug’s weak spot, causing Phillip to shield his face. After the smoke cleared, Phillip could see that Queen Buzzerfly was utterly vanquished, as evidenced by there not being a single shred of her remains.

Feeling victorious, our human hero decided to do the most appropriate thing he could think of for this scenario. He turned back towards where he was falling from and did the signature fist pump that both protagonists of the game did whenever they completed a dive.

“I wonder what world I’m going to be entering. Maybe one of the worlds from the game, like La Cite De Las Cloches? Or maybe something new, like Metroville, from the Incredibles? Oh, I can’t wait!” he thought as he entered the portal.

Equestria 12:00 am

Phillip opened his eyes and took in the room he was in. It seemed to be a bedroom with very extravagant furnishings and a couple of tapestries to add to its fancy charm. Going over to the nearby balcony, he saw that it was night time and the star studded sky appeared to be a lot clearer with its lack of clouds or light pollution from nearby cities. Speaking of which, there didn’t seem to be any modern towns in sight. In fact, the closest one looked more like a medieval village than a 21st century town. It was then that Phillip heard a light snore from behind and turning around, the shock of whom he saw was too much for him to contain.

“OH MY GOD! IS THAT PRINCESS LUNA!?” he yelled in astonishment. This caused said princess to stir from her slumber. “Eep!” the human slapped a hand to his mouth and looked for a place to hide. He found a long window curtain and hid behind it, making sure that his keyblade wasn’t poking out. After a few seconds of looking around blearily, the princess of the night rested her head back down. At which time, her horn began to glow. Phillip stepped out from behind the curtain and looked at the blue alicorn with widened eyes. “Wow, I can’t believe it. I’m in Equestria!” he whispered. Then he noticed something off. “Wait a sec. Is that my voice?” his voice was now like Riku’s. Putting a hand up to what he thought was a wig and pulling revealed that those silver locks were not a wig, but instead was real hair. He then brought his real Way to Dawn keyblade up and it all made sense.

“No way! I’ve been turned into Riku from Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance!” he whispered excitedly. Fishing out the one keychain that he was able to recover, he felt a little disappointed, but not overly so. “Oh, well. Gotta start somewhere.” he said with resignation. The keychain he had recovered was just the standard one for the keyblade he already had. Latching it back on, Phillip tiptoed over to Luna to get a closer look. “Man, I can’t believe that I’m really standing in front of the Princess Luna!” he then looked at his keyblade. “Hmmmm…I wonder.” The transformed human took a couple steps back from the bed and pointed his keyblade at her glowing horn. Turning it like he was unlocking a door yielded his desired results as the same cystalized globe that allowed the original Riku to go in and out of Sora’s dreams appeared before him. Except instead of a bunch of blackness, the center of the globe depicted a portrait of Luna sleeping soundly with a content smile on her face.

“Yes!” he whispered in triumph. Phillip then put his right hand on the globe and both he and the portal disappeared into the dream world. However, there was something that he had overlooked. If our hero had stopped to take off his vest and examine the back, he would’ve seen that instead of the normal spirit dream eater symbol that was supposed to be emblazoned on the back, it was an altered version of it with the right half being that of the nightmare dream eaters.

Once inside, Phillip thought he would be seeing Luna’s current dream, but instead found himself in a dark hallway with numerous doors on both sides. Each door had a name and cutie mark on their centers and the dreams of countless ponies could be heard from each one. Opening one door led the humanoid dream eater to a horrific nightmare about a manticore, causing him to slam the door shut before it noticed him. The next one led to an open sky. “Nope.” he said as he closed the door. It’s not that it was scary, it was just that he didn’t want to take another dive so soon.

The third door looked like a winner. The scene that greeted Phillip was that of a calm medow with a couple of unicorns having a picnic. It seemed very pleasant, and though he didn’t want to disturb them, he couldn’t deny that relaxing in a comforting meadow after all of his previous excitement was a very appealing prospect. So, after quietly shutting the door, Phillip snuck in and went to the other side of the clearing to sit down at a tree and rest. The sun provided all the warmth he needed. However, this was not to last, for not two minutes later, his stomach began to growl. He remembered that he hadn’t eaten breakfast today. Or was it tonight? Either way, the transformed human was hungry and he needed a snack.

“I wonder what there is to eat.” Looking at a nearby blueberry bush, our hero suddenly had the strangest of urges. He suddenly had a craving for not only the blueberries, but the entire bush, leaves and all. In fact, the trees, grass, small woodland animals, and even the sky itself suddenly looked appetizing. Since the ground was closer to his hands than the bush, he decided on that first. Taking hold of the ground and pulling yielded some very eye opening results. The ground ruffled to his grasp like fabric; and when he pulled, a piece was torn away from the rest like paper. What was left behind seemed to be a black void instead of more earth.

Staring at the void, then at the piece of ground, only one thought came to mind, “Well, over the teeth and past the gums as they say.” With that, he ate the piece of ground and found that instead of tasting like dirt, it was sweet. He then took a piece of the tree behind him and ate some more. This time he tasted something more specific. He couldn’t tell by the texture whether it was like a pastry or cake, but after swallowing, he didn’t care. All he saw in front of him was a very sweet dream waiting to be devoured; and at this moment, he had one monster of a sweet tooth.

Later

Luna was making her rounds to her little ponies’ dreams. Each night for the last few centuries, she had patrolled the sleeping realm and vanquished various nightmares, ranging from real life threats to creatures that only appeared in ghost stories to exaggerated life problems. Currently, she was at the door to one of her favorite subjects, Morning Glory. She expected another happy dream about spending time with the new stallion she had gotten together with recently; as lately, most of her dreams had been about him. Opening the door gave the princess of dreams a jaw dropping sight. Instead of a sweet dream about spending time with a special somepony, Luna saw a black void with Morning Glory and her coltfriend floating inside and sobbing into each other’s shoulders.

Seeing her subjects in distress, Luna floated over to comfort them. “What has happened here, my little pony? Who has destroyed what was most likely a pleasant dream?” she asked in a soft tone.

Morning Glory looked up at her with tears still streaming out. “It was horrible! He just kept eating and eating and eating! He ate the plants, the animals, the ground, and even the sky! He kept saying how delicious it all was and no matter what we did, we couldn’t stop him. He didn’t even notice us! Then he just opened a door in midair and left! Please, Princess Luna! Stop him!”

The princess was aghast at this. What sort of monster would eat a pony’s dreams!? Who could be so cruel as to invade a pony’s only safe haven and destroy it all just to sate its hunger!? Whoever or whatever it was, it would pay dearly. Going to other ponies’ dreams revealed the path that this fiend had taken. All along the Corridor of Dreams Luna found either black voids or half eaten dreams. When she had gotten to a nightmare both the pony and the nightmare apparition were holding each other in a black void and shaking in fear. They told her that the dream eating monster had said that the nightmare itself tasted like meat and ran out the door.

After a few more empty dreams, the princess of the night finally found the abomination. It was in an exciting foal’s dream of going on an adventure to save a damsel in distress. However, the dragon that the colt was supposed to fight was gone and said colt was pulling on the leg of the dream eater. This dream eater was a strange sight. It was bipedal like a minotaur, but only had a mane on top of its head, while the rest of its body appeared to be follicle free. It wore a strange outfit which was composed of a vest made of an unknown material with what she thought might be a tunic underneath, some sort of leg and hip covering, and some sort of hoof coverings that were not unlike her royal shoes, though a different shape and not made of metal. In its right hand was what looked like a demonic sword, but it had a piece jutting out from it that made the weapon look like a key. On the back of its vest was an unusual symbol. It appeared to be a heart combined with a fleur de lis with the left half having smooth edges and the right half having jagged edges.

Before the creature could take another bite of the tree trunk it was devouring Luna got its attention. “HALT, CREATURE!” she said using the royal voice that she had learned to use so long ago. This got the thing’s attention and when it turned to her, she noticed another thing about him. His eyes were half lidded and his mouth was set in a frown. Not the type that was of anger or sadness, but of neutrality, as though he wasn’t thinking anything of her.

Shaking her head to get it back on task, she addressed the creature. “I do not know who or what you are, creature, but as co-ruler of Equestria and sole princess of the night, I command you to stop the consumption of my dear subject’s dreams and to come quietly for interrogation.” The creature didn’t appear to heed her order as it put the whole piece of tree trunk it was holding in its mouth and charged at her with his keyblade raised up in what appeared to be a stabbing position. It was only because of her experience in combat that allowed her to evade what was instead a slash from the left to right. She then jumped back from a stab that came dangerously close to piercing her dead center in the chest.

“Alright, creature, have it your way!” Luna said as she charged at him while using her magic to extend her horn. It was now covered in a see-through aura in the shape of a broad sword. The creature ran at her again and brought its sword up for an overhead swing, to which Luna angled her head to parry the attack. She then teleported behind him and bucked, sending the being into an undestroyed portion of this dream’s castle wall. He then slid to the ground and rubbed his head.

Meanwhile, Phillip felt like he just woke up. Ironic considering where he was. Back on his feet he turned around and saw Princess Luna with her head low, horn aimed at his heart and pawing the ground with a hoof, getting ready to rush him. “Ready to continue, creature?” she said in a heated tone. Phillip looked at her, confused, before responding.

“What happened and what are you talking about?” he asked while scratching his head.

Luna’s horn stopped glowing as a look of confusion flashed over her face, before steeling her gaze again, getting back into her stance, and reigniting her horn. “Don’t play dumb with me, devourer of imagination! You will not trick me into letting my guard down!”

“Devourer of imagi…?” then it came back to him. “Oooh, crap!” Phillip quickly brought his keyblade up as Luna went for broke and tried to slice him with her now bladed horn. Blocking the lethal appendage made sparks fly. The part of the alicorn that was earth pony was doing its job of enhancing her strength, causing Phillip’s knees to buckle under the immense pressure. Luna, on the other hoof, was barely trying and not feeling satisfied that her foe wasn’t putting up a better fight. Phillip, getting desperate, tried to talk her out of this “Wait! I can explain!”

Luna backed off a few steps with her horn still glowing. “Alright, fiend, explain why you intruded on my subjects’ dreams, destroyed their figments, and mentally scarred them for life?” she said with impatience. She doubted that there was any good reason for it.

The beleaguered human was now put on the spot. He didn’t have a single idea of how to explain away his gluttony. “I…was very, very, hungry?” he said sheepishly.

“IRRRRR!” growled Luna as she sprinted horn first. Phillip tried to summersault to the right, but he was too slow. Luna’s horn was already only a few feet away and Phillip was only now just starting to tuck into a ball. However, that didn’t matter as the almost stabbed human suddenly turned into a ball of darkness and shot in the direction he was rolling, phasing through the alicorn’s horn and gaining a more comfortable distance. They both turned around to face each other and side stepped to try and circle around the other. Phillip was very surprised that he was able to do the Dark Roll and wondered what other dark moves he could do.

“Tell me, dream eater, what shall I call you? I want to know the name of the villain that is to be vanquished by yours truly.” she said with determination.

“Well this sucks.” he thought with a mental frown. “I haven’t even been here for long and I’m already labeled as a villain. This was not how I imagined coming here would be.” after his mental monologue of disappointment, he looked down at himself and decided to go with who he looked like. If he was going to be labeled as a villain, he might as well have her remember a cooler name than Phillip.

“Riku.” he said with a somewhat saddened tone.

“Well then, Riku. I hope you put up a better fight than you have been. Because so far, it seems that even if I were a filly, I could still beat you.” she said, not catching his tone of voice. Before she could take another step forward, a floating moon shaped clock appeared before her and started ringing. “Darn it! I’m out of time!”

“What do you mean?” he said with a tilt of his head.

After the clock disappeared, she explained. “I mean that I need to get up and lower the moon. So I have to stop holding back and capture you quickly.” she said hurriedly.

The now self-dubbed Riku looked down in thought. “I feel bad for what I did, but I don’t want to simply give up. Who knows what will happen to me. There’s no way I’m getting encased in stone or sent to the moon.” Looking back up, the keyblade wielder got back in his fighting stance and made eye contact. “Sorry, but I don’t want to take the risk of something horrible happening to me under your custody.”

“Hmph, no more horrible than what you’ve done to my little ponies.” she said before running at him full speed. Stopping a couple of feet away, Luna reared up and pulled a hoof back to punch him in the face. Riku raised his blade to block, but the alicorn disappeared in a flash and reappeared in almost an instant, landing a punch square on his left cheek. Stumbling to the right, Riku was met with another hard punch to his other cheek, sending him back the other way, but before he began leaning to his left, the bruised human received two hooves to his upper back that would’ve broken the bones of a normal human. Thankfully, along with receiving the character’s looks and powers, the morphed teen also got his above average durability.

Even though this was the case, that still didn’t stop him from feeling an immense amount of pain. Shakily getting up, he brought his sword up to bear and tried for another head on attack, showing his lack of experience. Shaking her head, Luna teleported behind and gave a strong punch to the back of his head, knocking him down.

Before losing consciousness, he had one request of the triumphant princess. “Take good care of my box…ugh” he said before passing out. She was confused by this until she turned her head slightly and received a glare in her eyes. Shielding them Luna turned to face the source and found a bejeweled box with the same symbol that was on his vest. Picking it up with her telekinesis and opening it revealed a puzzling sight. A soft material with differently shaped holes was placed inside. What was supposed to fill each hole was unknown to her, but regardless, she now had something to commemorate this unforeseen battle. Really, who would’ve guessed that the princess of the night would ever fight another being that could travel through dreams? She certainly wouldn’t have.

“I have no time to deal with you, so this will have to do. In retrospect, this is easier anyway.” she said before conjuring a huge set of metal double doors with her cutie mark on them. They opened, revealing a vast void filled with random things floating around. She then unceremoniously threw him in. “Have fun in the deepest recesses of my mind, glutton.” The doors slammed shut afterwards and large chains with a carriage sized padlock appeared, the whole thing disappearing once it was done.

“Now to raise the moon and hopefully never have to deal with this again.”

Oh, Luna. You should never tempt fate. It could bite you in the flank.

Author's Note

My new story! Hope you like it! Leave a comment and like and favorite of you enjoyed it. Make sure to tell me what you liked or disliked so that I can improve.

Edited chapter alert: I edited this so that something in the third chapter would make sense. Due to an oversight, I needed to make it so that he was specifically missing not only the keychains from DDD for his collection, but also Oathkeeper and oblivion. It will make sense later.

It's All From Her Head

1,100 years later

“NOOOOO!!!” yelled Nightmare Moon as she was engulfed by the rainbow vortex. The harmonic energies tore through her very being expunging most of the darkness from her heart and not even leaving the subconscious as a place for the entity to seek refuge. Even so, we find the mental fragments of the mare of darkness rushing in to the void and slamming the gates behind her while using the last vestiges of her power to summon a giant padlock with chains on her side of the doors. However, it would not hold for long. Even though Luna’s mind had the mental strength that any self-respecting dream walker should have, these doors would not keep out the cleansing light of harmony, as evidenced by the doors opening an inch and letting rainbow light inside.

“Well, well, well. Look who’s acting like a scared little filly. What’s wrong, Moon Brat? Afraid of a little light?” said somebody behind her with a chuckle in his voice.

Turning around, she saw the being she had met when she first took over this body, Riku. Or as she called him, Riku the Dark Glutton, when he told her how and why he got to be trapped here. During their first meeting, she had interrupted some sort of sparring match he was having with one of the beings that already inhabited the princess’ subconscious. Nightmare believed that the mare he was dueling at the time was named Super Ego. With the help of ID, both her and Nightmare were able to overpower the moral side of Luna’s psyche and offered Riku a chance to take part in the fun. Mysteriously, the silver haired biped seemed to know her while laughingly declining her offer, saying that she wouldn’t have this body for long. Nightmare had given an indignant huff at his audacity and informed him that she didn’t need his help anyway. The mare of darkness then appointed ID as their watch dog to make sure they didn’t try influencing Luna’s mind. After that was settled, she left with an air of smugness, certain that the human was full of it.

Now she was on her knees in front of him, groveling. “Please, Riku the Valiant! Riku the Merciful! Shield me from the onslaught of harmony, I don’t want my rule to come to an end! I’m scared!” she said as the light from the doors got brighter.

“HMPH!” he huffed, shouldering his keyblade and looking down at her with contempt. “What happened to the almighty Nightmare Moon? What happened to the self-confident mare who didn’t need my help and thought I was just blowing hot air? I thought you were made of sterner stuff.” he then slapped her away with the flat part of his weapon and strode forward, aiming his blade at the lock. “I don’t care how scared a sniveling gutless fool like you is. I’m using this chance to get out of here and hopefully the rainbow of harmony will do more to you than simply throw you out.” A beam shot out of the keyblade and into the lock on the door. Seconds later, both the locks and chains shattered into pieces of light. With the doors unabated, they slowly began to open.

Riku then jammed his sword into the pseudo ground and held on tight. Nightmare, meanwhile, looked at him, then the doors, then back to him. “You fool! You’ve doomed us both!”

Riku looked over and gave a grin. “That’s what you think. I may have darkness in me, but unlike you, I haven’t shown any malicious intent towards Luna and I’m also not the one whom the elements are currently targeting. It may be a little rough for me, but for you, well…” with one final push by the rainbow of harmony, the gates of Luna’s subconscious swung open. “…see ya!” he gave one final two fingered salute as the light engulfed them both.

“AAAAAAAAA!!!” cried Nightmare in pain and defeat as she was swept away in purifying light. She couldn’t believe that this was happening. Riku, on the other hand, was fairing a lot better. The rainbow of harmony wasn’t targeting him as he said, so the energy only had about as much an effect on him as powerful winds as they lifted up his legs, unlike Nightmare who felt like she was inside the sun and being thrown about like a leaf in a hurricane.

Soon, it all died down and as Riku opened his eyes, he saw no trace of the sniveling mare. Taking his keyblade out of the ground, he shouldered it again as he turned to the approaching equine known as Super Ego. She was a beautiful light blue with spiral galaxies rotating in her black mane. “Well, I guess this is it.”

“I guess so.” she said with a bittersweet smile. “I’ll miss you greatly my dark friend.”

“And I, you; my moral companion.” he said before they embraced with Super Ego putting her head over his left shoulder and he wrapping his left arm around her neck.

After they disengaged, S.E gave him some good news, “Know this. Even if you never see me again, I will always see you, watching from behind my conscious self’s eyes.” she said while holding back tears.

“It’s been fun here; sparring with you and training myself with my powers, but if my trip to this world was telling me anything, it’s that the ponies on the outside are gonna need my help and I can’t help them from in here.” he said with a bit of sadness.

“I know, just please, don’t forget about me?” she asked.

Riku gave an ‘Are you serious?' look. “How can I when you’re one third of a mare I plan on being friends with?” the alicorn’s face brightened at this. The dark key bearer then looked at ID, who was a mare with a dark navy, almost black, coat and comets in her starry mane. “Yes, I’m even going to be friends with you, ID.”

“Ah, go stick that keyblade where the sun doesn’t shine! It was bad enough with one goodie-goodie in her, but two? No thanks! Don’t let the doors hit you where Mother Faust split you, alright!?” she said with a huff.

Riku and S.E shook their heads at her words then looked back at each other. “Well, good bye Super Ego.”

“Good bye Riku.” she said with a wave as he turned to go. Unbeknownst to Riku, a single tear was shed as he walked past the threshold, the doors soon closing behind him and vanishing.

Meanwhile in the real world

“I’m so sorry! I missed you so much, big sister!” said Luna as she embraced her elder sister, Celestia with tears of joy in her eyes.

The solar princess had the same tears in her eyes “I missed you too, dear sister.”

‘SHIIIIINNNNG’

Suddenly, a sparkling flash of light appeared a few yards behind the princesses and in full view of Twilight and her new friends. From the ground, rose a large set of double doors with Luna’s cutie mark in the center with chains and a padlock wrapped around it.

After the light died down, Twilight approached whom she now knew to be her mentor’s sister. “Princess Luna, what is this? she asked with trepidation. Though the moon symbol no longer held fear for her, the sheer size of the gates and the chains and padlock resting upon it filled her with a dark sense of foreboding, regardless of whether she knew what was on the other side.

Luna was now standing up and staring at the door with surprise written on her face. She then turned to address the young pony’s question with a worried look. “That is the door to the deepest parts of my mind…” she then turned to look back at the gate. “but what is it doing here in the physical world with chains and a padlock?” Suddenly, it came to her “Uh, oh.”

‘CRISSSHHHHH’

Before anything more could be said, the chains and padlock glowed and shattered into glowing shards that dissipated. The doors opened up with a creak and out walked Riku whom the mane 6 and Celestia gave tilts of the head, quirked eyebrows and other expressions of confusion. Why was this creature behind a padlocked gate like some monstrous prisoner? He didn’t seem dangerous at all except for the sword he was holding at his right; which, to them, looked very intimidating with its red and black batwing shaped blade, blue slit pupil eye on the top of the handle, and black heart shaped pendent hanging from the bottom. Though one strange thing about it was that it had a birds wing sticking out at a ninety degree angle, making it look like a giant demonic key.

As he approached, Luna got in a defensive stance. “Don’t you dare take another step, glutton!” Riku continued to walk forward, not seeming to care that the princess just ordered him to stop. “I said…!” suddenly, Riku turned into a sphere of dark energy and shot forward as he dark rolled over to Luna and ruffled her mane when he turned back to normal.

“How you doin Luna? I see you’re going for a younger look. Though in all honesty, I think your starry mane made you look more powerful.” he said with a friendly smirk.

“Get your hands off of me!” Luna said as she shook his hand off, though it was half-hearted. Something within her, to her bewilderment, liked the friendly gesture. Even more surprising was that she suddenly felt like giving him a hug like she did with her sister. Riku had already backed off before she demanded an explanation. “W-why do I suddenly feel in my heart like we’re friends? WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME WHILE YOU WERE INSIDE MY HEAD!?”

The human, shocked by her outburst, put his hands up in defense with keyblade in tow. “Whoa, whooooa! Calm down! Trust me I didn’t do anything to you. I just…made a friend with somepony who is a lot like you. If you want to know the answers, take the advice that I got from a talking cricket, ‘let your conscience be your guide’.” To this, everypony looked at him like he was nuts. Not because of the saying itself, but from where he claimed to had gotten it from. A talking cricket? Preposterous.

“Well, it’s been fun. Not really, I just got here, but anyway, I need to go. You see, on my way to this world, I lost a few things; some keychains and the box that was holding them. So, I’m off to reclaim my collection.” He said as he turned around to leave.

“Halt, fiend!” barked Luna. However, he continued to walk, not heeding her command.

Before he could pass the doorway to the next room, a golden aura appeared over him, turned the human around and slowly brought him back toward them. “My sister told you to stop. I remember what she told me about you and I’m not about to let you just walk out of here!” said Celestia with a glare.

“And I’m not about to let you capture me that easily.” Riku said with defiance. Luna smirked at this as this was exactly what he told her all those years ago and he hadn’t put up much of a fight then. So, she was confident that her sister could easily hold him. However, Riku had a way to deal with this. “Hup!” he grunted as he threw his keyblade at the white alicorn.

‘WHOOOSH’

It spun in the air at a breakneck speed. Fortunately, it wasn’t aimed at anypony’s neck, but at Celestia’s horn. “AH!” she yelped in surprised pain as it collided with the sensitive appendage. That brief moment of pain was just enough to cause her telekinetic hold to dissipate, only having pulled the dark human a few feet toward the group. Summoning his keyblade back to his hand, Riku shouldered his sword again.

“Like I said, I need to be going if I plan on regaining my collection. So, see ya.” Before he could turn, Rainbow Dash flew up and tried to give him a right hook, but was blocked by the flat part of his keyblade. She then backed off with a couple of flaps of her wings and leveled a furious gaze as she hovered.

“No pony or thing attacks the princess and gets away with it! Put ‘em up buddy! I ain’t afraid of you!” she said while putting up her front hooves like a boxer. She then threw a few air punches to express how ready she was for a fight.

Riku smirked and raised a brow with intrigue. “So, you want to fight?” Getting into his fighting stance, he gave the ‘come get me’ gesture with his outstretched left hand. “Bring it.”

“Raaaaa!” Rianbow battle cried as she flew straight for his face. Just before her hoof could connect, Riku disappeared in a flash of darkness as he dark slid and reappeared above her parallel to the ground with his empty hand cocked back. His fist shot forward like a bullet and landed dead center on her back where the wings connected, a major pressure point for most pegesi. The hit to said point caused Rainbow’s wings to seize up and the force of the punch sent her straight down on her stomach, knocking the air out of her lungs. “Oof!” the now seemingly acrobatic human simultaneously used the fist that was still connected to the pegasus to flip off and land in front of her. The attack left Twilight’s eyes widened and the rest of the mane 6 with their jaws on the floor. Everypony that new Rainbow Dash knew that she was a black belt in karate and was a fast flier. True, not even Rainbow Dash was faster than teleportation, but Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Applejack thought that she would’ve been able to roll out of the way of that punch in time.

Riku crouched to look Rainbow in the eye. “Give up?” he got his answer in the form of Rainbow bending her body in half in order to connect her back hooves with his face. This almost caught him off guard. The blow would’ve connected if it wasn’t for his more than 1,000 years of training and sparring with Super Ego. As was the case when he was able to roll backwards and out of the way of hooves that would’ve broken his nose; he then got back into his stance. The dark human thought of a clever quip and smirked when he remembered a good one. He just hoped that somepony would give the desired response.

“Hmm…a bit more fight in ya. I like that.” he said with an anticipating grin.

“Then ya’ll are gonna love me! Yeeehaaa!” said a southern accent from above. Jumping away, Riku narrowly escaped injury from Applejack whom came in on rope swing and cracked the stone floor with the bone crushing might of her rear hooves.

Inwardly, Riku was laughing hysterically “HAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh my God! She actually said it! A bit paraphrased, but still! I don’t care if the mane 6 are mad at me right now! A sparring match with Rainbow Dash and getting Applejack to say a movie line? Totally worth it!” On the outside, his grin grew bigger and showed teeth.

Pinkie Pie, noticing his grin, made the same face before commenting. “Aww, I think somepony likes you Applejack!”

Getting to all four hooves she first looked at the ready human with a glare and then at the pink and poofy maned mare in confusion. “Why do ya say that?”

“Because…his smile grew when you mentioned him loving you for your toughness!” she said with sincerity that the other ponies couldn’t believe she put in. Especially Applejack, who looked shocked at such a statement and blushed.

“Hahahahahaha!!!” Riku was rolling on the ground in mirth at the absurdity of such a statement, causing the orange mare’s blush to deepen in embarrassment. Riku finally got off the ground and brushed some imaginary dust off his pants. “Ah! I haven’t laughed like that in a while! Thanks Pinkie.” he said then gave the mare a thumbs up.

Her smile grew as she heard the compliment. “Thanks!” then her face turned to one of confusion. “But…how did you know my name?” It was a good question. How did this being know who she was? Luna, she could understand since they met before, but not her herself. The party pony wondered if he somehow knew her other new friends.

Riku’s face became quite cheeky when asked the question. “Oh, you’ll know later. Just…not now.”

Celestia, not going to stand for anymore of this nonsense stomped a hoof in impatience. “Enough of this!” she then turned to the rest of the ponies. “Try to subdue him. I’ll protect my sister!”

Twilight bowed before replying. “We will, princess! He won’t get away!” Turning her head she made sure everypony was prepared. “Ready, girls?”

“Let’s apprehend this ruffian!” said Rarity.

Pinkie pulled out a small cannon from…somewhere, and grinned mischievously “Groovy.” The two unicorns wondered where she got the cannon, but shrugged it off since there were more important things to deal with. Such as whether their new yellow pegasus friend was ready, they turned to her with expectant faces.

“I…I don’t know. Couldn’t we talk this out?” asked Fluttershy, shyly. The yellow Pegasus looked at Riku and hid her face behind her mane when they made eye contact.

Twilight shook her head. “Sorry, Fluttershy, but kindness doesn’t solve everything. This guy attacked the princess. That in itself is a crime worthy of imprisonment or execution. Add on the fact that he has obviously tampered with Princess Luna’s mind...”

“HEY!” interrupted Riku. He then dark rolled over to Twilight’s left, causing her to turn towards him before he put his blade up to her neck and pushed forward slightly. As he did so, the purple mare started taking steps back until she bumped into the wall behind her. Fear gripped her being. She was sure that this bipedal male was going to kill her, and the worst part of it was, she had just made new friends. Tears started to well up as she gritted her teeth in a frown of despair. However, instead of slitting her throat, the now angry human bent down to the chest high pony and gave her a death glare.

“Never, EVER accuse me of doing something as messed up as that!!! I would never screw with someone’s mind like some deranged puppet master! Never accuse me of that again! Got it!?” he said with a growl. The nerve of some beings, claiming that he had committed such an atrocity. Despicable.

“Get away from her, you brute!” yelled a refined yet angry voice from his right. A second later, he saw in his peripheral vision a blue glow which he jumped back from. However, he was a split second too slow as the spell that Rarity cast hit his right hand and sent the keyblade flying into the wall, though not hard enough to get it stuck into it. Riku backed up and noticed that the other mares began to surround him. Even Twilight, who had wiped her tears and was now gnashing her teeth in rage, joined the circle along with a reluctant Fluttershy and excited Pinkie Pie.

Holding out a hand, Riku summoned his keyblade and got into his fighting stance. “So, who wants to go first?” he said with a smirk.

Even though it was a rhetorical question and it was expected that they would dog pile him, Pinkie stepped up. “Get ready to have a blast!” she said as she pulled the rope on the cannon. A blast of confetti, streamers, and other party decorations came from the weapon at almost point blank range to the silver haired teen’s face. However, he dark slid to the side of the canon and kicked it away at the last second. He then tried to bat the pink mare in the side of her face, but she jumped in the air and seemed to disappear from everybody’s peripheral vision. Then flew up from the bottom of said vision and tried delivering an uppercut. It seemed as if she had slipped out of and back into the edges of reality. Riku dodged this with another shadow slide, reappearing behind her and about to hit her with an overhead swing.

Somehow sensing this, Pinkie grabbed onto something on her left and out of everyone’s field of vision and seemed to swing out of sight even though there was a wall in that direction. A split second after her dodge, she flew back into view on Riku’s right and almost gave him a double kick to the head. Only problem was, he dark rolled out of the way and hooves phased through his dark energy form as he went forward a few feet.

Turning around, Riku went for a forward thrust with his blade, however, Pinkie swung out of view and tried to kick him, but once again, Riku dark slid behind her to try for a hit, but Pinkie swung out again and back in for a kick. However, this time the silver haired teen dark rolled forward and turned around once he was done, getting into a defensive stance.

“You’re certainly full of surprises.” he said with a smirk

“Thanks!” said Pinkie before gasping and jumping up out of view from a forward thrust. Just before she came up from the bottom edge of everyone’s vision, the key bearing teen erected a spherical barrier with an outstretched hand, which Pinkie’s right hoof hit instead of his chin. Not expecting a barrier, she had put a lot of force behind her punch and when it connected it didn’t break through. Instead, she recoiled backward.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!!! That hurt!” the party pony said before shaking it out. When she refocused on him, the human sprinted at her, looking ferocious with his keyblade dragging on the ground and kicking up sparks. On reflex, Pinkie shielded her face from what she thought would be a nasty slash, but felt confused at feeling an arm suddenly drape over her shoulders. The now confused pink mare looked to her left into the greenish blue eyes of a smiling boy, adding to her bemusement.

“Thanks for the fun game of tag, Pinkie. You really know how to keep somebody on their toes.” he said with what seemed to be sincerity.

“Aww, you’re welcome! I always try my best when it comes to having fun with others!” Pinkie replied as she closed her eyes and gave a huge grin.

“But now, I think you need to take a nap.”

“But I’m not…”

‘THUNK’

“Tiiiirrrred.” Pinkie slurred as she fell forward, eyes rolling around in her head before closing.

The mares who had watched this, stared with mouths agape. First off, they had no idea that Pinkie could do the kind of stuff she just demonstrated. Second, and what stunned them even more, was that this being had done something so underhanded. This thing got her to let her guard down by acting friendly and then used that moment to immediately betray her by knocking their new friend out. How diabolical!

Armstrong Theme

(right click and click open in new tab)

“I don’t care if I barely know her, no pony or thing does something so treacherous and gets away with it!” said Rainbow Dash with rage. She darted forward at Riku’s back, determined to injure him with a tackle, but just like with Pinkie, he turned around and put up a dark barrier just in time. This didn’t stop Rainbow as she planted both hind hooves on the ground and began punching the shield with her fore hooves at blurring speeds, each blow hitting different points of the side of the shield that was facing her. This only created small rings that rippled across the energy construct and small flashes of light to emit from the general area she was assaulting.

Bending over and panting, Rainbow looked up and saw that there wasn’t even a dent in the barrier as Riku continued to hold his hand out in order to keep it up and his keyblade over his chest for added defense. Eye contact revealed to her that he had a raised brow and tilted his head as if to say, “Is that all you got?” This angered her to a great extent. “RRRAAAA!!!” she roared as even faster punches pounded against the shield. As the end of her combo was reached, the multi-colored pony pulled both fore hooves back. “HIYAH!” Then gave a double punch to the barrier with one hoof above the other and leaned her upper body forward for some extra power. The force behind this last attack pushed the human back, but the darkness infused barricade still held firm, causing Rainbow’s eyes to widen slightly.

“Darn it! Why won’t your shield break!?” she demanded in disbelief. Just how tough was that thing?

Noticing how familiar this situation looked, the human turned game character took the opportunity to complete the scene this time and let his shield go down. “Dark powers, filly.” he said in a smug voice while conjuring a purplish black flame in his left hand. “I control them with my will alone and they allow me to do amazing feats like make a nearly indestructible barrier.” he said as he put up another of the said shields. “You can’t break it with weak attacks like that.”

“WEAK!?” the mare yelled in indignation at being associated with such a word. How dare this being say such a thing? “YAAAAH!” she battle cried. Rushing forward, Rainbow turned around at the last second and bucked the shield with all her might, but just like he said, the shield didn’t even crack.

“My turn.” he said before thrusting the keyblade straight up. Before Rainbow Dash knew what hit her, a wave of dark energy with a radius of a couple of yards emitted from the human and blasted her into the wall, leaving an upside down pegasus shaped indent. Slumping to the ground and hitting her head, Rainbow was down for the count.

(stop music)

“You inglorious disgusting animal!” yelled Rarity with incredulity.

“Oh, really?” said Riku while turning around to face her. “I’m a disgusting animal? What makes you any more sophisticated?” he said, pointing at her with his keyblade.

“Hmph!” the alabaster mare huffed. “Fluttershy, get Pinkie out of the way. I need room to deal with this cretin.” Rarity said as she waited for the pegasus to do so. She then made her horn glow and pointed it at a row of broken windows. Jagged blue lines of magical energy appeared over the glass and broke the windows into even more pieces before floating towards the fashionista and connecting to each other to form a staff with a glass blade on each end. “Unlike you, I won’t use such underhanded tactics as you used on Pinkie Pie. Nor will I cowardly hide behind a shield and follow up with a very garishly colored counter. I will defeat you by bravely attacking head on with grace and style and avenge my new friends.” She said as she twirled the glass staff in her magic. She then ended the routine with it floating in a diagonal position behind her and herself in an elegant pose. “En garde!”

Mistral

“Damn, how many scenarios from my favorite things are going to be set up?” Riku thought with astonishment. “Oh well, makes this even more fun. Gotta say though, I never thought the mane 6 had signature attack styles. Even Rarity has one. This adventure is going to be more interesting than I thought.”

Rarity thrust forward, attempting to pierce his stomach, but the keybearer parried it and performed a diagonal slash starting from the upper right. The fancy mare blocked with the glass staff, it not breaking on impact with his sword as a result of magical reinforcement along the connecting edges. Forcing him off, Rarity made the staff swing around to the other side of her head and used the momentum of this telekinetic move to take a swipe at the human’s leg who jumped over just in time. They went at this for a bit, taking swings and dodging, parrying thrusts, and occasionally jumping out of the way of certain attacks. Riku was able to get a few hits in, but beyond hurting a lot, didn’t seem to cause anymore injury than bruises that might form later. The white mare found this odd since she was sure he was nothing more than a fiend that wanted to brutalize her. Putting this at the back of her head, Rarity continued to fight. She swung her staff down and Riku caught it on his blade. Breaking the deadlock, Riku forced the staff downward to his left. He then jumped, barrel rolled forward in the air, and smashed his keyblade down, breaking the staff up into its individual shards.

Rarity was shocked that he could do this, but not so shocked that she didn't see him running at her. Just before he got to her, the diamond marked pony jumped backwards and out of range of his horizontal swing. He took a tuning step forward and tried to use the momentum of his pivot to put more power into a downward vertical slice that Rarity also dodged. She then ran in a wide arc around the silver haired teen to the glass shards of her former weapon, using her telekinesis to gather them back up. With another pulse of her magic, she quickly reformed her staff and engaged that dark keybearer again, still bieng unable to get a hit on him.

Eventually, Rarity got fed up and decided to try something that would end the fight. “Grrrrrr!!!” she growled, then suddenly jumped forward while having the bladed glass staff spin under her. Riku saw her bid to tackle him and back flipped onto the wall behind him then used flowmotion to glow magenta and push off, rocketing through the air with his hand outstretched.

Being a unicorn meant that you were at a disadvantage when moving in the air and no other time was that more apparent than when the fashionista went face first into Riku’s hand. The force of said appendage was enough to stop the pony in mid-air and her body to fold in on itself slightly as the rest of it suddenly caught up with her head. The collision of his hand with the white mare’s face didn’t stop his momentum and so he continued forward, but then directed himself in an arc towards the ground. However, instead of slamming her head first into the stone floor like everypony feared, the silver haired teen wrapped his body around her and fell back first on the ground, kicking up some dust. The glass staff immediately broke apart upon their impact as a result of Rarity losing her telekinetic hold on the shards.

When the cloud cleared, the human was revealed to have discarded his weapon in favor of putting the mare in a sleeper hold; one arm over her neck and grabbing his bicep, the other arm behind her head and pushing it forward. She struggled for half a minute before finally going limp as she passed into unconsciousness. Laying her on the ground, he looked at the three that he had taken care of.

(stop music)

“Well, I gotta say, you did go down with a tiny bit more grace than the others.” He said as he folded his arms. Riku then looked down at his former opponent. “I mean, Pinkie Pie slurred her last word in a silly way before conking out and Rainbow Dash was knocked unconscious by violently slamming into a wall. All things considered, the way you went down was a lot less outlandish or brutal.”

‘THWIP’

Looking at his hips, he saw a lasso had gotten around them. Before he could think anything more, the rope pulled taught and jerked him to the right like a cane pulling a bad act off stage. Losing his footing and falling to the ground, the surprised human looked up to see Applejack a little ways away with the other end in her mouth. Riku tried to get up, but the orange cowpony wouldn’t have it and began swinging him in a circle with so much momentum, that he looked like a planet orbiting a bright orange star. He knew exactly what would happen if she let go and reacted immediately.

“So, you think you can do to me what I did to Rainbow Dash? Well then let’s see how well you do against this.” he thought as he summoned his Way to Dawn. Stabbing it into a wall during one of his laps around the farmer, Riku stopped his unwilling revolutions around the mare and a tug of war began.

“Let go!” said Applejack through the rope in her mouth.

“Nnope!” he retorted. He then began using flowmotion to fly counter to the direction of where Applejack’s head was turning and used the two parallel walls to keep his momentum around the mare going. After a few passes, he finally landed and Applejack’s four legs were bound together. Grabbing the rope, Riku gave a smirk and the farm mare knew exactly what he was going to do.

“Oh, no. Don’t do it.”

“Oh, I’m doing it.”

“Please don’t!”

“Too late!” the silver haired teen jumped onto the wall on his right and launched off at an angle away from the mare, unwinding her like a top.

“You-u-u-u-u Va-a-a-arrrmi-i-i-i-int!!!” she said in a distorted voice as she spun. Not long after, she stopped and stumbled about. As an added testament to how dizzy she was, her head swayed back and forth as though she had one shot of hard cider too many.

As she continued to stumble, Riku marveled at how well that turned out. “Wow. I guess that adaptive combat training Luna’s super ego put me through really did the trick. I reacted to AJ’s attack and countered perfectly.”

After another minute of disorientation, Applejack shook her head to finally clear it and glared at the keybearer with gritted teeth. “Ya’ll are gonna pay for that!”

“Man, first a scene from the final fight with Armstrong, then facing an opponent that fights similar to mistral, and now I’m fighting a southern powerhouse. I wish I had a boom box to play the right theme for this. Oh well, I can just play it in my head.” he thought. The whole experience of fighting MLP characters like this and reenacting scenes from one of his favorite games were both very intriguing to him.

Sundowner theme

(replay if you get to the end of the scene before the music ends)

Applejack snorted once, pawed the ground, and sprinted forward. Just before she reached him, the orange mare flip jumped forward and aimed her rear hooves to land on his chest at a downward angle. Luckily, the attack wasn’t that fast and so, Riku was able to jump back and out of the way. Just like last time, the farm pony’s rear hooves created cracks in the floor, except this time they stretched out longer and deeper, indicating more force was used.

“Ya can’t dodge me forever, you yella bellied snake!” she said before quickly stepping forward and rearing up. She then slammed down her front hooves just as Riku brought up his blade to block. The force of impact against his weapon’s metal caused a loud clang to sound off. As she used more of her strength, Riku started to have trouble standing up. However, he wasn’t going to let her through his guard that easily. With a sudden burst of strength, the human forced her hooves off for a second and used that small window of time to hit the orange mare in her left side with the keyblade. Thankfully, he made sure to hit her with the flat side of his sword.

“Once I get my key chains back I won’t have to always worry about accidentally slicing a citizen in half. Ugh, that’s a disturbing image.” he thought with a shudder.

Getting up from the ground, Applejack whirled around to face the human who was back into his fighting stance. She then ran up to him in a serpentine formation. Riku was just about to go for a diagonal swing, when the farm pony jumped up and punched the keyblade out of his hands, her hooves making another clanging noise as they impacted the sharper side of the weapon. As he jumped back he felt confused about why her hooves made a clanging sound when she hit his keyblade until he noticed a slight sheen from the bottoms of her front hooves as they lowered.

“So, she’s wearing horseshoes that are highly resistant to bladed weapons hmm? Looks like I don’t have to be as careful.” he thought as he eyed them.

Applejack saw where he was looking and smirked. “Like ‘em? They belonged to mah pappy. These here steel shoes can stand up to most any weapon and hurt like hell to be bucked by. Let’s see if ah can break that there sword in two.”

Riku smirked right back. “Heh. I think you’ll find that the keyblade is no ordinary weapon and is not made of any ordinary metal.” he said as he summoned it back to his hand in a flash of darkness.

“Ah, figured as much, seein as ya’ll did some mighty interestin’ stuff with it.”

“Ready to dispense with the banter?” he said as he got into a ready stance.

“Are the apples on mah flank red?”

“Cute.” and with that over, he dark rolled forward and thrust his sword towards her left eye, but the orange mare pushed the tip off course with her right fore-hoof and punched with her left. Riku was able to dark slide behind her in time, but he still felt the wind coming from her hoof just before he teleported. Even more shocking to him was that the hoof created enough wind to unsettle the dust on the floor, despite the appendage never touching it. “Jeez! My bones probably would’ve shattered if that hit me” he thought as he was in the air with the keyblade over his head, preparing an axe swing.

Recognizing the maneuver he used to counter Pinkie, Applejack leaned forward and wound up her hind legs for one of her signature bucks. Riku, for his part, disengaged his attack and blocked just in time.

‘CRASH’

“Way to go, Applejack!” cheered Twilight. Riku was no tree rooted in the ground. So when that buck hit, he may not have had to contend with shattered ribs, but the force sent him through the roof. The victory was short lived as the dark powered teen made a second hole in the ceiling on his return, landing in a crouch and his hands facing out and projecting his constructed defense.

“Con’ sarn it! That shield is a real pain in mah flank.” she said in frustration.

Riku put down the shield and summoned the keyblade, however, he had another idea. “Let’s see how far my darkness combat has come along.” Dismissing his weapon, the keybearer’s hands and feet began glowing with purplish black auras. He then bumped his fists together a couple of times before assuming a boxing stance. “Come on! Show me yo moves!” he said with a grin while throwing a few air punches.

“GRRR” the cowpony growled as she charged. Riku followed suit and brought both hands back. At the last second, right before they met in the middle, Applejack reared up slightly and brought her fore hooves back as well.

‘CLANNNNNG’

Hands and hooves clashed in a stalemate. Both combatants’ limbs shook as one struggled against the other with Applejack immediately realizing what the effects of the glow around her opponent’s limbs had.

“So…them dark powers gave ya a strayngth boost, didn’ they?” she said with suspicion, despite already knowing the answer.

“Yep, it also gives me extra durability for my hands and feet; so I won’t be hurting them when I block your punches.” After being deadlocked for a few seconds, Riku forced her forelegs apart, leaving her barrel wide open.

‘BAM’

A forward punch to the breast bone with enough force to bruise it.

‘THUMP’

He then gave her an uppercut to the bread basket, knocking the wind out of her. Just before she could go back to all fours to start wheezing, Riku turned so his right was facing her and brought a leg up and aimed his foot.

‘WAM’

The side kick to the center of her chest was so fast that her body actually bent over his foot before being launched into the wall. Lucky for her, she didn’t break through it and fall to her death in the forest below, but instead just left an imprint of her body on the interior; just like Rainbow, except right side up. She slid down onto all fours and took a few moments to catch her breath from the thrashing she just received.

“Ready to give up?” said Riku as he cracked his knuckles. He then put his hands on his hips, trying to aggravate the orange mare with what appeared to be smugness.

“GRRAAAA!” she yelled in anger to the heavens before galloping at the smirking teen who was now back in a boxing stance.

“Good, I was hoping she would have more fight in her than Rainbow Dash. It’s no fun when your opponent goes down to early.” Riku thought as he mentally got ready for the angry mare.

A couple of feet from him, Applejack once again reared back on her hind legs to deliver a blow with her fore hooves. However, this time she put both steel clad appendages together at her right side and performed a horizontal axe swing, almost knocking off the teen’s head with the amount of force she put behind it. Unfortunately for her, Riku ducked just in time and good thing too. The column to his right got partially shattered, sporting a new gap where the orange mare’s hooves collided.

Riku backed up a bit, but Applejack was surprisingly nimble on two hooves for a quadruped. She bobbed and weaved forward to confuse him before axe swinging again. This time it was a vertical swing that the silver haired teen was able to redirect, surprisingly, by punching it to his left. The power she put behind it required him to completely turn his body in the direction he was punching in order to send her attack off course. She tried for a horizontal strike, but he uppercut it up. As her hooves sailed upward, Applejack used all her might to redirect her hooves straight down, hoping to catch her opponent off guard. It didn’t work as Riku once again redirected her swing with a punch, except this time, it was to his right. Using the momentum of his punch, the dark powered teen spun around and delivered a glowing punch to her muzzle. It wasn’t enough to launch her back but it did daze her.

Before she got back onto all four hooves, Riku rushed up and grabbed her in a bear hug. “Let me go!” she demanded.

“Nope.” he said cheekily. He then smiled down at the snarling mare. “Remember this piece of advice when you wake up in case you want to fight me again.” Grabbing the cowpony by her sides, Riku threw her into the air, her body flipping backwards as she flew.

“AAAAAAAAA!!!” she screamed in fear of being thrown in such a way.

“And now, the perfect line to end a fight like this.” he thought before getting ready. “Don’t screw with this human!” he said as she came down. Riku then kicked her in the back like a football before she landed. The force of the kick sent her right into the base of the pedestal that the elements were originally placed upon. Applejack’s body rolled off of it and came to a stop when she was right side up. The beaten mare got up and tried to engage him again, but fell down after two steps. She raised her head up to glare at him one last time before plopping it back down as unconsciousness finally took her.

(music ends)

Taking a deep breath to steady his heart, Riku walked over to the unconscious mare. “Well…that was certainly epic. Thanks for giving me a test run of my skills, Applejack. I hope you get better in the future.” he said to the her despite the mare not being able to hear him.” He then turned and walked towards Twilight., Fluttershy off to the side with her fearful look replaced with a scowl. “Now let’s see. Four down and two to go before I can get out of here.” he said as he re-summoned his keyblade. “So, Miss Sparkle, ready to try your luck with defeating me?”

“She doesn’t need luck!” said Celestia from behind her student. She then directed her attention to said mare who was looking back at her, “Twilight, use those combat spells I taught you!” she commanded.

“Yes, Princess! I’ll be sure to make you proud with the defeat of this monster!” she said as transparent, purple, centurion armor formed over her body. As a final touch, a large broad sword appeared sheathed at her side. She slowly pulled it out with her telekinesis and made sure the sound of the blade rubbing up against the inside of the covering was audible to the human; her intent being that of intimidation.

Unfortunately, this had no effect. Riku just calmly got into his stance. They then sprinted/galloped at each other.

Jetstream Sam theme

“So…I’m a monster now, am I? What exactly did I do to earn such a title?” said Riku as he locked blades with the angry protégé, sparks flying everywhere.

“You hurt my friends, you jerk!” she yelled. Twilight then put more power behind her mental hold on the weapon construct and forced Riku’s blade up. However, Riku was too quick to let her have that opening and began parrying her strikes. She went for an upper horizontal slice, and he sent it off course with a upward diagonal strike. She went for a diagonal hit of her own and he redirected it. Riku then got on the offensive with some attacks of his own. A downward chop was met with a block. He then tried for a forward thrust, but the purple mare hit it to the side. This back and forth lasted for a few more seconds before Riku swung his keyblade upward, forcing her to hop back to dodge before rushing forward and locking blades with him again.

“Oh please. They wanted a fight and they got it. What did you honestly expect? Besides, two of them only got minor concussions and maybe some bruising. If I was a real monster, I would’ve seriously injured or killed them. Be glad that I really don’t want to do either of those things.” he said with confidence, feeling sure that everything that he inflicted upon them was superficial at most.

“GRRR” Twilight forced him back with a push, breaking the deadlock and leveling her magicly constructed claymore. “I don’t care if you gave them paper cuts! You are resisting arrest by the princesses and assaulted my new friends. I just discovered this new feeling of friendship and I’m not going to let you get away with hurting those that gave it to me!”

Riku raised an eyebrow and smirked, appearing to be impressed. He then took a more casual stance with his blade hefted over his shoulders. “Nice! I like that. Fighting for something you believe in? Now that’s an opponent I can respect!” he then got into his fighting stance. “Let’s fight!” and he charged with a grin, hoping to see how well the leader of the more combat competent mane 6 fought.

Both combatants met in the middle and clashed each other’s weapons at a rapid pace, though Twilight was having trouble keeping up with Riku who was barely breaking a sweat. Finally, Riku got the upper hand and batted Twilight’s head to the right with the flat part of his sword. He then got behind her and hit the back of the mare’s helmet with the handle, but the blow only caused her to go forward a bit. Turning around she fired a magic shot at his legs, but it was deflected by a dark barrier. Twilight used the flash of her spell making contact as a distraction so she could close in. Bringing the magic sword down, the enraged unicorn put more energy into her weapon to make it sharper. As it glowed bright lavender, Riku noticed that his barrier was beginning to crack. Before the shield failed, the silver haired teen dark rolled backward and looked to see the condition of his rival.

Twilight was panting as the glow of her sword receded to its original brightness. Before she could catch her breath, Riku rushed her again and began another attack. They began another series of parrying and lunges before Riku once again got another hit in.

“AACK!” yelled Twilight in pain. The keyblade had hit her horn and caused her to recoil in agony. After getting her bearings, the element of magic put up a small shield around her horn. Noticing this and her reaction to getting hit there, Riku had found an exploit. He then performed a sort of rush combo that Twilight was barely able to parry. Left strike, right strike, upward vertical swing, diagonal slash, and many more were performed. The few that got past her defenses took chunks of her armor off.

‘CRA-CHING’

There goes the left shoulder plate.

‘CRISH’

The next strike took a large piece out of the left side of her helmet. The blade had just made contact with her skin before she got her head out of the way, but the damage was already done. Her left cheek was now bleeding and she put a hoof up to her face. The moment she saw the blood, her eyes widened then turned to glare at the young man who also sported a wide eyed stare.

“Oh, crap! I didn’t mean to do that. I wish I knew that cure spell right about now.” he thought with regret.

“RRRRAAA!” roared Twilight as she galloped forward and began trying to deliver attacks that were, at best, haphazard. Since these swings were nothing more than speedy lefts and rights, Riku was easily able to block each one. In the middle of her attack, the teen dark slid behind her and performed a left, right, and upward vertical strike combo in mid-air before backing off. When Twilight turned around, the dark teen was seen floating in the air with his keyblade raised over his head and pointed at the ceiling. He then put the handle down towards his chest and disappeared. In an instant Twilight felt like her horn received multiple hits from the wicked looking weapon. Though the shield protected the sensitive appendage, the sudden assault put a major strain on her mind when trying to maintain it, causing a major headache.

This was the effect of Riku’s Dark Splicer attack. Right after disappearing the human reappeared in front of her and hit her barricaded horn three times, then teleported again for another three hits, then again for five hits, and one last time for a back flip, downward, vertical strike to add some extra flare; all cumulating to twelve hits directly on her horn. The perk that came with this attack is that anybody whom Riku focused on became stuck in a Stop spell for the duration of the attack. So, in Twilight’s point of view, she was hit with twelve simultaneous strikes before Riku reappeared a few yards in front of her.

The purple mage put a hoof to her head as she stumbled back in dizziness while Riku formulated his last plan of action. “Ok, time to improvise my next attack so that I don’t cut her horn off. But first, that shield needs to go.” The silver haired keybearer pointed his blade at Twilight’s horn then charged up and shot a large ball of darkness at the appendage, shattering the shield. Feeling the barrier being destroyed, Twilight looked up at her horn in surprise and then at the teen in shock. He then did something unexpected. He banished his keyblade and got into a sideways stance. After that he put both hands to his side and for some strange reason, cherry blossom pedals began floating down. When a second or two went by, Riku lunged and was only one foot away from her in an instant. Twilight flinched back, but Riku was having none of that. He grabbed her horn before she could back up and channeled his darkness through his hand and into the sensitive extremity, blinding her world with extreme amounts of pain.

“EEEAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” she shrieked. All Twilight knew at that was pain. She felt as though a hot lump of coal was encasing her horn her veins felt like they were injected with liquid fire. For about ten seconds, this pain was all she knew until finally, Riku released her horn and let her drop to the ground as she began to slip into unconsciousness.

He then knelt down and talked to her like he did the others. “Believe me, if I knew how to cast Cure, I would be using it on you and your friends before leaving.”

“Ungh.” Twilight grunted before her world went black. Turning to his right, Riku was about to walk to the stair way when suddenly.

(music ends)

“Fluttershy! Do whatever you can to make him stay put!” bellowed Celestia as she stayed by her weakened Sister’s side. Riku turned around to see the butter yellow pegasus walking towards him with a scowl upon her face.

“Oooh, no. No, no, no, no, no! I am not fighting her!” said Riku while pointing his keyblade at Fluttershy.

Luna sneered at his reaction. “What’s wrong, savage; afraid of a little kindness?” Luna would’ve rolled on the floor and laughed if she didn’t think it would sully the regal image she wanted to maintain. Honestly, how could a being who defeated mares who seemed to do quite well in combat, be afraid of the most timid pegasus she had ever seen?

Riku put his weapon down and shook his head at her. “It’s not that I’m scared of kindness, it’s the fact that she is kind.” At the princesses' confused looks, he explained. “Fluttershy is the kindest and most non-violent of these mares. I couldn’t possibly use my keyblade against her. It would be like hitting a poor defenseless puppy.”

Suddenly, Fluttershy was hovering in his face with a glare that could dishearten dragons. “So, I’m not worth fighting as well?! You were perfectly fine with hurting my friends!”

“Now hold on. I…”

“Quiet! I don’t care what reason you had for beating them up! I don’t care how powerful you are! You do not hurt my friends! EVER!” she said as she floated forward, causing Riku to back up. “You had no right to do what you did to them! Now say you’re sorry and come quietly!” she said with her glare making contact with his bluish green orbs.

“I don’t want to hurt her, but what can I do?” he thought in desperation. Then, an idea came to him. Though he didn’t like it since it would be contradicting what he said earlier. “Looks like I have no choice. Let’s see if I can use my darkness to scare her. It worked for Sombra after all.” After his idea was formed he enacted it. “Sorry, Fluttershy. I don’t think I will. But since you think that glaring will intimidate me into doing what you want…get a load of this!” From his tear ducts and all around the edges of his eyes, poured out a black and purple mist that immediately flew into the shy pegasus’ eyes and then into her head. Fluttershy flew back and frantically tried to wave the miasma away, but it was too late.

When she opened her eyes, the irises appeared to have changed to the same color as Riku’s. They had also shrunk to near pinpricks in fright as she sunk to the ground and began trembling. “N…no…NO!” from her point of view, instead of her new friends simply being unconscious, they were dismembered, blood pooling from multiple wounds. Even worse, an adult dragon poked its head from outside a window and licked its lips when it eyed her. Looking to her right she saw some of her animals lying dead too. Even both princesses had somehow died, but they looked as though they had been dead for a while with most of their flesh rotted away and showing bone.

Back in the center, Riku had transformed into a more monstrous form. He was taller and more menacing with fangs, his hair grown to be a wild mane, his finger nails ten inch talons, and the tongue that rolled out when he opened his mouth, a disgusting pinkish rope covered in green saliva. “Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!” the Riku monster laughed in a demonic voice. Suddenly, the dragon started laughing too and then the corpses stood up and began salivating as they walked towards her. All of this was too much for the poor whimpering pegasus.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

…

Back in everyone else’s point of view, Fluttershy had looked left and right while beginning to sob and after a few more seconds, she screamed. A heart wrenching scream that not only caused the princesses more worry, but surprisingly, Riku too. The frightened pegesus’ scream caused him to take a step back in shock. Tears were streaming from her eyes as she began to cower and her voice became more hoarse as the screaming went on while she writhed on the ground. He had not expected his darkness to scare her this much. Whatever she was seeing, he needed to take that added darkness out of her, and fast!

“I just hope I’m not too late. Damn it! I should’ve thought this one through!” he internally yelled at himself. The now regretful teen dismissed his keyblade once again and pointed both hands at her as he reabsorbed his darkness. The dark colored mist flew from her eyes and into his hands as they were reabsorbed. As the last wisp left her, Fluttershy immediately shot up from the ground and looked at her surroundings before seeing Riku walk towards her. Seeing the object of her torment getting closer, the terrified pegasus curled up into a ball. The silver haired teen, without words, uncurled her body and gave her a hug while rubbing her back. Stopping her sobbing for just a second, she heard what he had to say.

“I’m sorry.” Riku said as he continued to hug her, now stroking her mane. For what it was worth, Fluttershy remained awake for a full minute before falling asleep in his arms, the emotional exhaustion finally setting in. Holding her as he got up, the ashamed human walked towards the princesses, who looked shocked at what they had just seen. He put the sleeping mare down closer to the rulers and looked at them with much sadness in his eyes. “Please tend to Fluttershy first. I think I did more damage to her than all of them combined.” he said, penitence being heard in his tone. Before they could say or do anything to stop him, Riku dark rolled to a window, jumped out, and used flowmotion to scale down the wall and disappear into the Everfree Forest below.

Luna stepped forward to give chase but her sister stopped her with a hoof on her shoulder. The princess of the moon looked back to see Celestia shaking her head with closed eyes. “Sister, we must capture him!”

Said princess opened her eyes before responding. “No, Luna. We must take care of my student and her friends. As much as I don’t want to admit it, he’s right. These mares are hurt and Fluttershy may have suffered the most if her shrieks of terror were anything to go by. She may have even suffered mental scarring from that feat of dark magic he performed upon her. Come, we must make haste to Canterlot.”

Luna bowed her head in resignation. “Fine…” she then raised it and glared. “…but as soon as we know that they are okay, I’m sending guards out to comb the area for him.”

“Of course, dear sister.” Celestia said with a nod. They then both used their telekinesis to gather the element bearers and teleported to their destination.

...

A few minutes later, a dark portal opened up and a hunched over figure walked out with his hands behind his back. Noticing the armor of Nightmare Moon off to the side and still letting off wisps of darkness, the figure strode toward the pieces before bringing forward a burlap sack and putting each piece in one at a time. After he was done, the figure began walking back to the portal. “Fear not, my delightfully dark friend. You will have a second chance of sitting in your rightful place upon the throne of this nation.” he said in a wizened old voice. The figure then entered the portal which vanished afterwards. The room once again being devoid of life.

Author's Note

After this, I'm going to be working on my Jak and Daxter crossover. I know you all have been waiting. Sorry about that. College stuff, you know?

Always Keep an Oath No Matter Who Gets Angry

It was a beautiful morning in the Everfree Forest and despite what ponies thought, this forrest was capable of having such despite there being dangerous animals and the weather controlling itself. Regardless of that, the animals who were native to the area knew that there was something amiss. The night had lasted for an unnaturally long time. They knew that their home was not controlled by ponies, but even the Everfree had normal length days and nights. This strange occurrence was their first clue to something out of the ordinary happening and the first to see such a phenomenon were the various squirrels and other tree dwelling creatures that came out at the sound of a soft hum.

From the canopy, Riku burst in with a pink aura and bounded off a tree to fly for a bit with flowmotion. He kept using the trees to lengthen his flight for a few minutes before finally stopping when he felt that he was a safe distance from the castle. The face that he wore was the same one he had earlier, sadness; a very mournful sadness that didn’t diminish as he sat down near a tree. The animals avoided him, as they could sense the darkness inside this regretful teen.

‘I can’t believe I did that to her. What sort of jerk traumatizes a pony like Fluttershy?’ he thought in despair.

The yellow pegasus’ words then started echoing in his head. ‘You had no right to do what you did to my friends!’

“She’s right. I had none.” he said with hatred towards his hasty actions beginning to take root. ‘I could’ve run and used my darkness to hide here in the forest.’ The silver haired teen then thought of one thing that gave him solace ‘At least I did my best not to give them any serious injuries. That’s no excuse for my actions, but hopefully the fact that I tried not to severely hurt them will make my apology easier to accept. Looks like I have another quest to complete, receiving their forgiveness. Fluttershy’s will probably be the hardest since I hurt her the most emotionally.’ He then thought of something that hadn’t occurred to him until just now. ‘Where the hell am I going to stay?’ It was a fair question. Where would he stay during his time in Equestria? Ponyville was out for obvious reasons, so was Canterlot, and those were the only places of civilization for miles that he knew of. Looking around the clearing he found himself in caused the image of a certain rhyming zebra to pop into his mind.

‘Of course, Zecora! She hasn’t met me yet so I can still earn her trust. I might even be able to gain a new friend.’ Riku thought with a smile. It faded as a look of determination formed. ‘First thing’s first. I need to find her house’ With that, he jumped onto the side of a tree and launched himself up in the general direction of Ponyville, knowing that Zecora was also in that direction.

Canterlot General Hospital

Princesses Celestia and Luna were inside the room in which the mane 6 were resting. After listening to the results of Dr. Lifeline’s examination of the mares, Luna spoke up. “And are you sure there are no grave injuries, physical or magical?” she asked with worry.

When the princesses had first arrived, Lifeline was shocked when the dark blue mare introduced herself as Celestia’s sister. Inquiring where this seemingly long lost sister was all this time caused Celestia to look slightly panicked before awkwardly saying that Luna had wanted to try taking one of those long naps that dragons take and accidentally slept for a thousand years. Lifeline had given a look that showed he didn’t buy it, but shrugged the suspicious feeling off when he noticed the unconscious mares that were held in their magic and had several nurses carry them to the examination room where the princesses told him what happened.

Back in the present, the unicorn doctor was nodding. “Correct, Princess Luna. There were absolutely no extreme injuries. No fractures, no internal bleeding, no lacerations. The worst that any of them received from this ‘Riku’ are some bruising, mild head trauma, and a cut on your student’s cheek.” he said, directing the last part at Celestia. A nurse came by and hoofed him a few papers which he telekinetically put on his clipboard. He then began reading it and soon looked up at the solar diarch with a small smile. “Good news, Princess Celestia. I’ve received the blood and mana core test results and I’m happy to say that no extensive damage was done by this creature’s dark magic. It seems that whatever spell he used directed the energy in such a way as to only cause pain to Miss Sparkle as a result of said energy being channeled directly into her horn, a very sensitive part of unicorn anatomy as I’m sure you’re well aware.” said the doctor as he put the papers on a nearby table. “She and the rest of her friends should wake up any time now feeling fine except for some soreness in the areas where they were hit.”

“Thank you, Dr. Lifeline. You’ve eased our worries with this news.” said Luna.

The doctor nodded to this. “You’re welcome, your majesties. I wish I could spend some more time with you, but I have more patients to take care of.”

“Of course, good day, doctor.” said Celestia.

“Good day.” with that, he turned and left.

After the door to the room closed, Luna turned to her sister. “Alright, Tia, we’ve made sure that they are alright. Now let’s apprehend that bipedal thing and imprison him. I don’t care if he was too weak to severely damage their bodies. No one beats up my saviors and gets away with it!” The blue alicorn turned to run out, but was stopped by her sister grabbing a hold of her tail with magic. Turning her gaze back she fixed Celestia with a harsh glare for once again stopping her.

“Hold on, Luna. Let’s not be too hasty about this.”

Luna turned back around and rolled her eyes. “Oh, for the love of…! What is it now!?” she said in a disbelieving tone.

“Luna, don’t you find it strange that the worst that Riku gave to them are bruises and mild trauma?”

“No. He’s obviously too weak to deliver any lasting damage.” the princess of the night answered with anger.

Celestia gave her unobservant sister a deadpan look. “Luna…he went out of his way to trick Pinkie Pie into letting her guard down just to knock her out with a strike to the head.”

“So!?”

The solar princess continued. “Then he took the brunt of the impact with the ground while holding Rarity and took her out via sleeper hold then released her so she wouldn’t suffocate.”

“I hardly see how…”

Celestia held up a hoof. “After that, Riku recoiled at seeing that he had drawn blood from my student, even though it was a small amount and with Fluttershy, he did his best to calm her down, sounded very much like he felt guilty with what he did to her, and stressed that we tend to her first.”

“Your point!?” Luna, blinded by rage, failed to see what her sister was getting at. Lucky for her, Celestia had a lot of patience for her loved ones.

“My point, dear sister, is that not only did this bipedal creature purposefully inconvenience himself, but he also showed obvious severe aversion to causing anything more than very minor injury. I have a theory for why and Dr. Lifeline’s examination of these brave mares is more proof of it being true.”

Luna straightened up at this and looked at Celestia expectantly. “Well? Out with it.”

“I believe that he was holding back and his abhorrence to inflicting anything severe tells me that he didn’t really want to hurt them. Really, it looked like he was treating the whole thing like a sparring match.” she finished with Luna looking at her with incredulity.

“Tia! You can’t honestly believe…”

“Oh, but I can Luna.” the princess interrupted. “I saw how he was fighting. I’ve watched enough swords ponies to know their movements, but then again, one wouldn’t need to if they paid attention to how he held his sword most of the time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every time he hit them, this creature made sure to strike with the flat part of his weapon and only used the sharp edge when he knew they could block it, or in the case of my student, had armor that could seemingly offer some resistance. Another area Riku held back in was strength. He barely broke a sweat when he grappled hand to hoof with Applejack and the strength he demonstrated was greater than her. He could’ve easily broken her bones with each punch and kick, but didn’t.”

“So, what does it mean?” Luna asked her.

“It means that this silver haired warrior is not as evil as we thought. Especially seeing as he showed great remorse for how much emotional pain he caused poor Fluttershy. A truly maniacal monster wouldn’t have cared enough to try and ease her pain. In fact, if he was really depraved, he would’ve killed all of them and enjoyed every second of it.” she said bluntly. “I think if we wanted to avoid this we should’ve gotten to know him.”

“Well he at the very least could’ve met us halfway.”

“Did we really give him a choice? I started things off by restraining him, intent on throwing him in one of our dungeons for later questioning. Then Twilight made it seem like there was no room for talking. Really, what else could he have done? They surrounded him after my student just got done essentially saying that force was the only way.” she finished, hoping her sister would see her side of things.”

Luna looked at the ground, frowning for a moment before looking back up. “I guess you’re right, but what do we do now?”

“We keep a look out for Riku and not engage if one of us encounters him. Instead, we talk to him, calmly, and discover why he did the things he did in the past and what exactly his true intentions are.” She said while walking out into the hall, Luna following.

“Alright, sister, I’ll go along with your plan…for now.” she said warningly. ‘This is such a bad idea.’ she thought with exasperation.

Everfree Forrest

After a few hours, Riku had finally found the hut. ‘Damn, I really wish the show gave a clearer way to get to Zecora’s place besides that patch of poison joke for a landmark.’ He thought as he landed in a tree by the black and white equine’s house. Deciding to wing it, Riku dropped down and landed in front of the door just as the said zebra opened it. They stared at each other for a few moments, the teen not expecting this scenario and the zebra staring wide eyed at a strange biped who apparently decided to grace her morning with an abrupt landing. The silver haired teen decided to end the awkward silence and try to salvage the situation as best as he could.

He bowed before giving his greeting, having already dismissed his keyblade in order to seem less threatening. “Why hello, my dear Zecora, and how does this fair morning find you?” he said, trying to sound polite.

The zebra mare lifted an unamused eyebrow at his overly gentlecolt behavior, but answered him anyway when her face turned neutral. “This morning finds me well, though how do you know my name; of where this info did you claim?”

“Ummmm…an acquaintance of yours told me.” he said with an awkward smile. Zecora didn’t believe him for a second as she gave him a piercing stare. However, the biped before her didn’t seem too hostile, so she felt comfortable asking him another question, if only to get more information on this mysterious individual.

“Right. Well, at a disadvantage you have me, tell, what did your parents name thee?” Riku was about to answer, but the zebra put up a hoof before continuing. “Before you say, please do not lie, I’m quite good at knowing when others try.” she said as she looked up at him, her eyes half-lidded and a frown upon her face.

Riku frowned as he was taken aback by this. ‘Crap. She saw right through me. Well, I guess this will be the best way to earn her trust.’ Regaining his composure, he answered. “The name my parents gave me is Phillip and my last name is Smith, however I prefer to be called Riku. Though, since I told you my family name, I guess you would now know me as Riku Smith, but please, call me Riku.” he said as he extended his hand.

Zecora took it and gave him a hoofshake. “Nice to meet you, Riku. What you have told me seems quite queer, but your trust in me is quite clear. Of shunning you for such strangeness in name, you should not fret, for my very appearance causes others to jet.” she said with a smile.

“Thank you. I’m glad that I’m on friendly speaking terms with a resident of this land.” he said as he retracted his hand. “May I please come in?” he asked. Zecora answered with a nod and the silver haired teen then went and sat in a chair while she went to her cauldron and stirred the concoction within.

“Since we are on such terms, may this equine ask another question?” she asked as she added a strange root to the mix. When he nodded, she continued. “This nation is new to you, for it you now roam, but tell me, what place is your real home?"

“Well…” and so, he told her how he got there. He told of the convention, describing it as a place where people gather to indulge in their favorite works of fiction and to buy memorabilia, so she could understand. He then told of how people liked to dress up as their favorite characters and who he dressed up as. The realization that this human had asked her to call him by the name of a fictional character caused her smirk in amusement. Not noticing this, Riku continued to talk about what happened when he and his friend came there in costume and how he came across the shady merchant.

He then told of how said merchant was offering a collection of exquisitely made keychains in a diamond encrusted box for an extremely low price. However, he would only give it if Riku put his own keychain into the only empty slot within the box. Zecora was dumbfounded that the teen didn’t suspect that something was up, but continued to listen. She found it fascinating that he came to Equestria by falling through a hole and battling monsters on the way down. What truly amazed her was that whatever magic this merchant had used to send him there had also turned him into the character he was dressed up as with all of the character’s powers.

“…and that’s basically it.” he finished, leaving out the part where he got on the princesses bad side.

Zecora, now sitting in her own chair, stared at him wide eyed for a moment before answering. “Well, Riku, that was quite the tale, amazing this zebra, you did not fail.” she said with a smile.

Riku returned it with one of his own. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. The whole experience was pretty crazy.”

“Hmmm…” she hummed while rubbing her chin. “Considering that your life was put into such sudden disarray, am I correct to say, that you have nowhere to stay?”

“Yeah…I don’t own a house in this country and I don’t have any money to travel or stay at an inn.” he replied while looking down, silently hoping that she would offer him lodging.

“Well then, if you don’t wish to continue, to walk a lonely road, you may stay in my abode.” she said after pouring them some tea. She then hoofed him a cup before grabbing hers.

“Really?” he said, smiling at not only being offered a drink, but also a place to stay.

Zecora nodded. “Of course, it would be such a cruel deed, to turn away one who is in need.” she replied as she sat back down, offering a smile of her own.

“Thank you very much. You won’t regret it.” Riku said before taking a sip.

‘I certainly hope not.’ the zebra thought, as she took a sip of her own.

…..........

Twilight woke up with a start. The last thing she remembered before losing consciousness was an indescribable amount of pain starting from her horn and spreading to the rest of her body. Realization of where the pain started from caused her fore hooves to fly up to her fore head to check if the one thing that made her a unicorn was still intact. Feeling nothing wrong with it, she sighed in relief before noticing her friends in some nearby beds were also up and talking to each other and gasped when she noticed who else was in the room.

“Princess Celestia, Princess Luna!” she gasped. Pinkie and Applejack stopped their conversation and across from them, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy stopped theirs when they heard the outburst.

“It’s good to see that you are finally awake, Twilight. Thank my mother that Riku didn’t cause you any grievous injury.” Celestia said as she hugged her faithful student with her wings.

Said mare backed up a bit. “I’m sorry, Princess. I failed to apprehend him and I let him knock me out just by grabbing my horn.” Twilight said as she bowed her head in shame.

Celestia, not about to let her student blame herself for this, put a hoof under her chin and tilted her head up. “Twilight, Riku not only grabbed your horn, but also forcibly channeled what was obviously dark magic through it. Even I would be brought to my knees after such an assault to a sensitive area.”

“R-Really?” Twilight asked, not quite believing what she was hearing.

“Yes, my faithful student. Even a powerful alicorn such as myself has the same weakness as my unicorn subjects.” she then let her hoof drop, stood to her full height, and addressed the studious mare and her friends collectively. “I may be an ageless and powerful ruler, but I am certainly not all-powerful.”

Rainbow Dash spoke up and voiced her slight disagreement, despite her respect for Celestia. “Not to be rude or anything, Princess, but compared to the rest of us ponies, you kinda are.”

Celestia turned to Rainbow with a slight frown. “While it may be true that I am indeed overwhelmingly more powerful than the ponies in this room, excluding my sister of course, I will never distance myself from you or the rest of my subjects by claiming to be an omnipotent goddess, of that you can be sure. Besides, I would be a prideful fool to associate myself with such a level of status.” Rainbow Dash, for her part, realized how much the princess didn’t like being labeled as a deity by the stern tone of her voice and looked embarrassed at what she said, looking at the floor to avoid eye contact.

Gazing at everypony else, Celestia continued. “What’s more important than that is your well being, my little ponies, and luckily, you didn’t sustain any serious injury from Riku’s attacks.

“Who, yer majesty?” asked Applejack.

Luna stepped forward to answer. “The silver haired creature that you fought. Despite my feelings on the matter, my sister insists that we not attack him on sight, but rather talk to him and understand what his true intentions are.”

Twilight was incredulous. “Princess Celestia, please tell me I heard wrong! He attacked you and knocked all of us unconscious!”

“You heard right, Twilight. Though he may have attacked, I believe circumstance pushed him slightly to do such. Even so, he showed restraint and didn’t cause nearly the amount of injury that he could have. In fact, he took steps to make sure that he didn’t seriously harm you.” Turning back to the rest of the ponies, she continued. “For this and other reasons, you will be doing exactly as Luna informed you and not attack this creature. Also, try to be friendly. I find it hard to believe that a being who is pure evil would take steps not to seriously harm you and feel bad if he did so.” The element bearers’ jaws dropped at this news. “I understand that you find that hard to believe, but I saw his blanch at the small amount of blood he drew from you, Twilight,” she then turned to Fluttershy, who along with the rest of her friends, got over the news and were paying attention. “…and Fluttershy I heard the sorrow in his voice when he told my sister and I to tend to you first since he felt that he had damaged you the most. If I recall correctly, he said something to you, what was it and what could you tell from his voice?”

“He…he told me that he was sorry a-and he sounded sincere. The way he hugged me felt very comforting and unlike with Pinkie, I don’t think it was a ruse to get me off my guard.”

Celestia nodded at this then motioned for Luna to begin laying out what the plan would be. Luna nodded to her sister and looked to her subjects. “So, as we just discussed, we are not attacking him, but instead, talking to him in order to find out more about him. However, there are some things you must know.” The ponies leaned in to listen. “He can enter anypony’s dreams and do all sorts of things while he’s there.” She intentionally left out exactly what he could do so that they would be more willing to talk amicably with him. “As such, for a precautionary measure, I will be casting a lucid dream spell on everypony in this room. This will allow you enough control of your dreams as to enable you to make anything you want happen. However, only fight him with your new dream control if and only if he attacks.” After she was done explaining, her horn glowed and shot beams at all the ponies in the room except herself. Everypony glowed blue for a few seconds before the auras receded. “There. Now everytime you dream, you will have total control and continue to have such command for as long as I deem fit.”

After the mane 6 gave their thanks, Rarity voiced a question. “So, Princesses, what happens now?”

“Now, you will be examined one last time to make sure that you are in good enough health to leave and then take the next train back to Ponyville, where each of you will remain vigilant for any sightings of this creature.” said Celestia. They accepted their orders and awaited their final check-up before they could leave.

A few days later

The mane six were in their homes and continued to keep watch on the town and on their dreams for the silver haired teen. So far, none of them had spotted any sign of him and it was starting to become unnerving. However, this didn’t stop them from living their normal lives, including Rarity who was trotting to the marketplace to pick up some groceries.

As she went up the street, she saw from a distance a peculiar object laying on the ground. Upon getting closer, she realized what it was to her delight. “Why, what a darling little keychain!” It certainly was. It was made out of smooth, shiny, and elongated seashells bound together in a five pointed star formation. Painted on the top of the shell on which the actual chain hung, was a mischievous face drawn with brown paint. Though it wasn’t the fine art that Rarity was used to, the natural beauty of the shells gave it its own sort of charm. However something struck her that made her smile grow.

“Ideaaaaaa! And a very generous one at that!” she exclaimed excitedly. Trotting along to the market, Rarity bought the groceries she needed then went back to her home to store them. After that, she headed to the local glass art shop, Shards of Beauty; run and owned by Ponyville’s resident glassblower, Blazing Sand. Rarity had been to her shop a few times before in the past to craft various accessories for her dresses. Today, however, there wouldn’t be a request for only herself. As the charitable unicorn strode in, the bell rang, alerting the red haired, brown furred, earth pony mare behind the counter that a customer had come in. Said mare smiled at seeing the familiar fashionista.

“Hi Rarity, what can I do you for?” the mare asked, hoping she had an order for something other than the usual earrings.

Rarity returned the smile before responding. “Good afternoon, Blazing.” She then took out the keychain with her telekinesis and showed it to the store owner. “I would like you to make six more keychains with the same basic shape as this one, but in six different colors; cyan, orange, yellow, purple, pink, red.”

As the keychain floated forward in Rarity's magic, Blazing took it in her hooves and examined it. Though it wasn’t exactly high quality, it did have some charm with how brightly colored the shells were. Interestingly enough, even though the color didn’t appear to be naturally found on seashells, it seemed that these shells in particular had these pinkish and green hues naturally, as there were none of the telltale signs of the colors being painted on. The shape of the shells were also unusual, but again, the shape, along with the colors gave it a charm all its own. Blazing set the keychain down before speaking again.

“It is quite the cute little trinket. Where did you get it? Did Sweetie Belle make it? I can’t imagine where she would’ve gotten the shells since we’re nowhere near a beach.”

Rarity shook her head. “No, actually I found it in the center of the road; and what a find it is. It may not be the finest art, but its simplicity in design and the natural beauty of the shells give it its own appeal.” Taking a quick look at the keychain again to admire its design she got back on the original topic. “Anyway, how long do you think it would take you to make the extra keychains?”

Blazing waved her off. “No time at all. They should be done later today if too many orders don’t come in.”

“Perfect! I’ll be back to pay for and pick them up later.” Rarity said with a smile. She then turned to leave before the shop’s owner stopped her with a question.

“I’m curious though, what sort of project would require six keychains?”

Rarity turned to answer with a smile. “Oh, most of them are not for any sort of project. Five of the charms are going to my new friends that I’ve recently made and the red one will be sold as something extra with a purchase from my new summer line of dresses.”

Blazing nodded and smiled, liking how thoughtful and generous the fashionista was acting towards these friends that she had most likely only met recently. “That’s very nice of you to do this for them.” She then put the charm away under the counter and looked back at her customer still smiling. “Well, have a nice day. I hope your friends like their gifts.”

“Thank you and I’m sure they will.” Turning back to the door, Rarity went outside to continue on with the rest of her day and Blazing turning and walking to the back of her store to get everything prepared. What both mares didn’t realize was that if they had looked to Rarity’s left, they would’ve seen a pair of aquamarine eyes and a mop of silver hair slowly lowering out of sight.

Later that night

At the Carousel Boutique, a veritable paradise for those interested in fashion, laid Rarity in her room on the second floor, sound asleep and dreaming about obvious things, like dress ideas, gems, becoming famous in the fashion industry, etc, and then it changed to more important things like the sort of reactions that she hoped her friends would have towards her gifts. The lucid dream spell that Princess Luna had cast was quite useful.

Unfortunately, that spell didn’t make ponies light sleepers. For if it did, Rarity would’ve woken up at the sound of her window sliding open and letting in the ruffian who knocked her out. Said silver haired barbarian slowly put a foot on the floor so as to be quiet and crouched when he was fully in. Creeping over to the nearby dresser, Riku found the keychain he had seen Rarity with.

‘Ah, Oathkeeper. Finally something to change up the fights I’ll most likely get into. Just the thing I needed so I won’t have to worry as much about dismembering future opponents.’ At that thought, he shuddered. ‘Ugh, still disturbing thinking about that scenario.’ He then looked to his left. ‘Hmm…what’s this?’ he thought as he spied the keychains that the fashionista had commissioned. Despite him being there at the window, Riku hadn’t actually heard what they were saying. Before, he couldn’t care less about what they were talking about since the keychain was the only thing he was focused on. Now that he saw the charms, the teen was a lot more interested.

‘Wow! Wayfinders! So that’s what she was at the glass blowers for. Rarity commissioned one keychain for each member of the mane six besides herself and…well what do ya know.’ he thought as he spied the red wayfinder. Smirking, Riku picked the charm up to examine it. ‘It must be coincidence that she had one made in my favorite color.’ Pocketing Oathkeeper, Riku turned his attention back to the other keychain in his hands.

‘It sure would be great to have this. Good thing I have some bits to compensate her with.’ he thought as he put the red wayfinder into his pocket too. He then took out a small bag of bits and put it in the wayfinder’s original spot. ‘Thank God Zecora paid me.’ While the mane six were keeping a look out for him for the past few days, Riku was busy doing chores for his new landlord. Since he didn’t have a job, Zecora offered to hire him on as an assistant until somepony hired him for a real job. His responsibilities would be gathering ingredients for her potions, helping to keep her shelves tidy, and aiding her in the process of potion making. When asked if this would put a huge dent in her funds, she waved him off. Apparently, despite most of Ponyville reacting negatively towards her, there were still some ponies that were willing to do business with the zebra. This version of Equestria seemed a little less xenophobic than the one in the show.

Nodding with some finality, Riku turned and went back outside. He then used flowmotion to fly through the town and bounce off of buildings to keep his momentum going becoming a bouncing comet with a pinkish aura. Concealed from his senses were the widened eyes of an orange pegasus filly looking out from her bedroom window, having witnessed the strange and amazing sight of a bipedal being soaring through town without the aid of wings.

“I’ve gotta tell Sweetie Belle about this!”

The Next Morning

“WHAT IN CELESTIA’S NAME!?” yelled a very confused and irate Rarity. The furious unicorn had gotten up, taken a shower, etc. However, when she went to pick out something to wear, she discovered that the keychain she found and the red keychain were missing. In place of where she put the red keychain was a small bag of bits that were just a few coins short of fully reimbursing her for the pilfered accessory. While it was good that whoever did this had enough courtesy to try to compensate her, Rarity still felt violated that somepony had broken into her room.

“Celestia help the scoundrel who trespassed upon my home!” she said as she got her things and left. Later at noon, while waiting to order at the local café, Rarity spotted Fluttershy walking by and invited her to sit down and join her in having lunch. After a bit of hesitation, this being one of her first major interactions with ponies, she accepted and sat down. After the timid pegasus told Rarity of her morning, which would’ve sounded lovely to her if she wasn’t so frazzled, Rarity launched into a huge angry rant about somepony breaking into her house and said very eloquently put insults, pausing only so that they could both order their usual meals when the waiter came by. She then went on about how this “delinquent” had some nerve to break into a lady’s home and posited that despite him not hurting her, the “villain” should still be punished for trespassing and stealing.

“And…um…what did he or she steal?” Fluttershy asked with widened eyes after witnessing the sudden explosive rant.

“A keychain I found and one of the six glass replicas that I commissioned Blazing Sand to make. Five of them were meant for you and our new friends. I even had them made to match your coats. The one that was taken was a bright red. I had planned on selling it as something extra with one of my dresses. It looks like that won’t be happening.” She paused before continuing. “The strange thing is the thief left money behind for what I presume is reimbursement for the red keychain as it was only a few bits short and it was left in the exact spot in which I put the decoration.” she said with a combination of anger and confusion.

The waiter came by again with their orders and set it down, Fluttershy being the only one to acknowledge him with a smile. She then turned back to her furious friend to continue the dialogue. “Well, it was certainly nice of him or her to pay for at least one of the items they stole. Though it is strange that only the red keychain was paid for and not the one it was based off of.” said Fluttershy with slight confusion, her nervousness significantly lessened. Despite her shy nature, Fluttershy wasn’t incapable of holding a conversation. Once she started, her comfortableness with the activity of talking to others would steadily grow. It was just very hard if not nearly impossible for her to begin a conversation.

Rarity nodded. “Tell me about it. That was one of the reasons why I’m not angrier than I am now. Whoever infiltrated my home had at least some decency. I can respect that, even just a little.” She then looked down at her meal. “Oh, look at us. We were so wrapped up in this topic that we’ve completely ignored our food.” Rarity said with a regretful smile.

“To be fair, this conversation has been really interesting.” said Fluttershy as they both dug into their respective meals; Rarity having ordered a caesar salad and Fluttershy, a daisy sandwich with lettuce and tomato.

In the middle of eating their lunch, Rarity stopped to continue where she left off. “So anyway, it’s even stranger that those two charms were the only things he took. It’s almost as if the perpetrator was looking for them. But then, how could he/she have known about them when I showed the keychains to nopony else?”

“It’s a mystery.” said Fluttershy before taking another bite of her sandwich. After they finished, they decided to go for a stroll and continue talking. As they walked into the main square, they spotted Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo having a heated debate and decided to approach to see what was up. It wasn’t unusual to see them there as it was Saturday and they therefore didn’t have to be in school. However, what they were debating over was most peculiar.

“I’m telling you, what I saw was real!” said Scootaloo with an angry tone.

“And I’m telling you, your story is complete horse feathers. There’s no way something like what you described exists. Everything needs wings to fly. You’re telling me that a strange creature just levitated off the ground and flew?” Sweetie Belle replied with a roll of her eyes.

“I didn’t say he levitated off the ground. I said that he flew by my house surrounded by a pinkish aura.”

Sweetie belle then perked up as she was reminded of an important fact. “And that’s another thing. This thing apparently has a magical aura. If this creature truly existed, don’t you think everypony would be talking about it since it’s able to do magic without a horn or some kind of magical object?”

“I’m sorry girls, but what in Equestria are you talking about?” Rarity asked when she and Fluttershy got close enough.

When both fillies turned to the two adults, they gave each other a glance before Sweetie Belle answered. “Well, Scootaloo was just telling me about this strange wingless creature that flew by her house last night, but I think the story is malarkey.”

“It’s not…whatever that word is! I saw it with my own eyes!” the orange filly said in a rage.

Fluttershy, not wanting the filly to be upset, walked over and put a hoof on her withers to gain her attention. “Now calm down, Scootaloo, and tell us what you saw.” She then went back to being next to Rarity so as to have the filly face both of them when she told her story.

“Well…it had silver hair, was similar to a minotaur except that it had feet instead of hooves, wore clothes that I had never seen before, and it was covered in a pinkish aura as it flew.” the orange pegasus answered.

By the time the description was given, Rarity’s eyes widened. That sounded like Riku, but what was he doing in Ponyville? The disappearance of her keychains and the sighting of Riku within the town seemed like too much of a coincidence to simply be just that. There was only one thing she needed to ask in order to either confirm or debunk her suspicions.

“And…from what direction did you see this creature coming from?” she asked in irritated suspense, expecting what the answer would be and already feeling angry over it.

Not noticing her friend’s sister’s indignation, Scootaloo answered. “Ummm…I think I saw it coming from yours and Sweetie Belle’s house.” The filly leaned her head back as she finally noticed the mare’s outrage.

“Grrrrrr! Riku!” she said in a murderous tone.

Everfree Forrest: Zecora’s hut

While helping Zecora in making one of her potions, the silver haired teen suddenly straightened up as he felt something in the back of his mind.

“My friend who is still fairly new, what is troubling you?” Zecora said when she noticed Riku’s pause and stared at his frown.

Looking down at the zebra, the key bearer looked left and right before responding. “I don’t know why, but I feel like I’m going to suffer death by diamonds.”

“Strange.” said Zecora with a raised eyebrow.

Ponyville

“I can’t believe that miscreant had the audacity to commit yet another crime against me!” said Rarity to the rest of her friends. After the orange filly had asked what she meant by ‘Riku’, Rarity waved her off, saying it was nothing and giving a fake smile. Buying it, both Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle went off to do something else. Shortly after, Rarity sought out Twilight and told her what happened. Celestia’s star pupil suggested that she gather the rest of the girls to discuss the situation further, which lead to Rarity closing her recount of what happened with a statement of outrage. The time at that moment was early evening.

“It doesn’t sound that bad.” said Rainbow Dash as she hovered with her forelegs crossed.

“Not that bad!? He stole from me!” said Rarity in protest towards the perceived dismissal of the situation.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but he didn’t steal much. Also, what he did take wasn’t even that expensive.”

Twilight nodded in agreement. “She’s right Rarity. While it is bad that he stole from you, the bright side is that you didn’t lose much money. In fact, of the two things you said he stole, one of them you found on the ground and the other one he left nearly enough bits for, so the amount you lost in money is miniscule.”

While Twilight’s argument was sound, Rarity had a counter already set up. “That may be, but I didn’t sell the glass charm to him willingly and he stole the charm I found! If I ever see him again, I’m going to give him a thorough lesson in manners.” she said with a subtle growl.

Hidden behind the corner at the top of the stairs, Riku slinked away after hearing that, feeling a little down. ‘I stand corrected. It looks like Rarity will be the hardest to win over; and now that she told her friends about what I did, they probably have an even lower opinion of me now. Damn, should’ve seen that coming when going for my keychain.’ he thought as he brought said accessory to eye level to look at it. He then put it away as he strode over to the balcony on which Twilight kept her telescope. As he put a foot on the guardrail, Riku dipped his head in somber thought. ‘I better get back to the Zecora’s before I make things even worse for myself.’ he thought with a deep frown before launching himself in a flowmotion aura. When Riku had first come to the library to see if Twilight had one of his keychains, he felt distressed when he deduced that the feeling he had earlier had to do with the angry fashionista downstairs. Riku truly felt low at this point.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy spoke up when she remembered something important. “Um…Rarity…I think that keychain belonged to him.”

Rarity whipped her head to her right to stare at Fluttershy in confusion. “Fluttershy, darling, what are you talking about?”

Biting her lip in nervousness, she took a deep breath before answering. “Well, I just remember him mentioning something about missing keychains.”

Applejack perked up at this. “Hey, yeah! Didn’ he say that he lost them when he first came to Equestria?”

Twilight nodded as she remembered that moment too. “You’re right, Applejack. Riku did mention losing his collection.” Turning to Rarity, she gave a serious look. “Rarity, I think you might’ve found one of his keychains. While it was rude of him to take it without asking for it, you can’t be too mad at him. It is rightfully his after all.”

Rarity’s muzzle scrunched up a bit before she gave a rebuttal. “And why couldn’t he have asked for it back? Do you have an explanation for that?”

Twilight, undaunted by her friend’s indignation, gave exactly that. “Would you have believed him? I highly doubt it. I’m also skeptical that he would be so stupid as to jump to the conclusion that simply asking for it would yield any positive results, not after our first meeting. If what both Princess Celestia and Fluttershy said is true then he also didn’t want to get into another fight since he already feels bad about the first one and he understandably figured that we were in no mood to talk. Since he obviously doesn’t know that we actually are willing to talk and be civil about it, he likely felt that he had no choice but to take it from you without asking.”

Rarity stared at her for a second, taking it all in, then looked down to the floor to think. When she had fully processed it, she looked back up to her friend with a mostly neutral expression, a faint frown still on her face. “It still felt rude of him to do it, but I see where you’re coming from.” The frown disappeared as she asked a question. “So…what do we do now? How are we going to talk to him when he obviously fears that he will just upset us with his presence?”

Twilight put a hoof to her mouth as she looked away in thought before suddenly looking back and putting it down. “I have an idea!” she said, smiling brightly.

Later, at sunset

Riku Smith, the human who was changed into one of his favorite characters, the human who spent a millennium inside someone’s subconscious and trained with a third of their psyche, was really down in the dumps. “This sucks.” He said as he sat on a bench in Ponyville’s park. He had been sitting there for a couple of hours and it was now getting into the darker hours of the evening as the sun had begun to set. It was lucky for him that none of the citizens were there at this hour or else he surely would’ve been spotted and the mane six would’ve been alerted to his exact location. As an extra perk, the absence of ponies gave him time to think about everything that had happened so far without distractions. Unfortunately, this also meant that he realized one very discouraging fact.

‘Man, I’ve done a crappy job of interacting with everypony.’ Sure, he had made friends with Zecora, but to him, that was just a lucky fluke. Compounded onto that, the fact that he knew that at least a thousand years had passed meant that even if he made it back to earth, everyone he ever knew would most likely be dead. So, if he found a one way exit from Equestria, he would truly be alone.

Taking the red wayfinder out of his pocket, the depressed teen held it to his heart before looking at it. “I wish I had a friend. Someone...that I could talk to and would understand what I’m going through.” he said, finishing his rhetorical request with a distant look at the rest of the park. “Heh, like that’s going to happen.” Before he could put it away and get back to Zecora’s hut, something weird happened.

“What the…!?” he said, looking down at his palm.

The wayfinder suddenly began to shine with an ethereal glow and rose from his hand to float at eye level. Raising an eye brow, Riku made to grab it, but its next action made him retract his hand in surprise.

‘VZZZZ’

A second red wayfinder began to come out of the original, almost as if it was inside and had just phased through a shell. The copy then shot into the sky…

‘SHOOM’

…and disappeared. The glow then ceased and the trinket fell about a foot before Riku caught it. ‘That was weird.’ he thought as he pocketed it. ‘Why did the wayfinder do that? Where did the copy go and who is going to find it?’ A few seconds later, he felt something else sit next to him. Wondering who in Equestria wanted to sit with the weird looking biped, Riku turned his head and saw, sitting in a relaxed manner, a man that made his eyes widen and his mouth drop.

“So, kid, what’s up?” said the man.

Author's Note

This took sooooo Long!!! I'm sorry! once again, school got in the way!

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