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?