Green is to play music, Red is to stop music.

Kingdom Hearts: Harmony of Hearts
Chapter 13
Spirits and Nightmares (Part 2)

Equestria: Dreamscape

Twilight was taken aback at this. “You’re Ansem!” She shouted, taking a threatening step forward. “You are the one that possessed Riku! You turned him into a monster! Just so you could try to cover all of existence in Darkness!”

“Very clever.” Ansem flashed a deceivingly, white smile. “As he was a failed clone of the Master, I felt it was necessary for him to suffer. As it was necessary for Luna to suffer.”

Luna’s already big eyes suddenly got bigger in shock, before narrowing in rage. “IT WAS THOU THAT CAUSED US TO BECOME THE NIGHTMARE THAT PLAGUED EQUESTRIA!!!” She rushed to attack him, but before Luna could form any form of attack, a strange and terrifying black creature materialized and grabbed her by the throat, choking her and driving her mind from rage to terror. The creature then violently threw her from the platform to the lower great hall.

“Princess Luna!” Twilight flew after Luna to try and assess her injuries and protect her from Ansem. Just as she landed, Ansem appeared from a portal of darkness.

“Don’t bother trying to run.” He smirked. “In this realm, The Darkness obeys my command, and the Nightmares run free.” He extended an arm out and several oddly shaped and colored cat-like creatures with red eyes materialized and surrounded both Princesses. “Those who have been claimed by the Nightmares I control can never leave.” He then gestured his hand to the capsules in the hall.

Twilight looked at the capsules and noticed that the women and the girl were gone. In their stead were five mares that she had come to know and love as the best friends she could ever have. “Girls!” She made to try and run to Applejack’s capsule, but the cat creatures blocked her way. She turned to Ansem with a look of rage. “What have you done!”

“Your friends are on the brink of an eternal sleep.” He walked to Rarity’s capsule, examining her mane in his hand. “As it is better for them and for you.”

“Why!? How can this be better for them and me?!” Twilight pawed at the ground while giving a death glare at Ansem.

“It is very simple.” He walked over to Fluttershy’s capsule and examined her mane. “The bonds of friendship bind us down with oaths and promises that don’t let us progress and can even pull us back.” He turned to Twilight. “Such is the case with Sora, or as he is known by his family, Silver. He has so many bonds of friendship, that he wasn’t able to become a Keyblade Master on his first attempt of the Mark of Mastery. He even made a small, yet powerful bond with you. That bond links him to you, insomuch that he can feel your current distress and is pained by it.” He held his hand forward and a mist appeared around his hand. Inside the mist was an image of Silver, his face contorted in pain.

Twilight dropped her scowl and had a worried look. “Yes. His pain comes from you. When you were unconsciously absorbing the excess light from his heart, you laid the foundation for such a link to be formed. When you met him, and became friends, the link was forged.” He dismissed the mist. “The only way to end his pain is to break that bond of friendship. Once it is broken, he will no longer feel your distress, and you will no longer have to worry over his pain.” He then held his hand out, as if expecting her to reach for it. But Twilight hesitated, thinking of how this could work. Almost as soon as she hesitated, she felt the correct answer burning in her heart.

“No.” Ansem suddenly, took a step back in unseen shock. “Sora puts up with the pain of having friends, no matter how the pain comes. Whether by betrayal, their antics, or even pain as he now receives it.” She began to charge her horn with energy. “No matter how painful friendship can be, it is worth it. If he can deal with the pain and lethargic results of life because of it, then I can too.” Her horn’s energy spiked, causing Ansem to flinch. “As the Princess of Friendship, I would die to protect it. My friends are my power, and I’m theirs!”

Ansem lowered his hand. “You have made your decision. You are now a liability that needs to be dealt with harshly. You shall sleep, even as your friends!” He began to walk forward, but suddenly Twilight’s vision became blurry for a brief second. When the blurring stopped, time practically was.

“Twilight Sparkle. Your time has come to Dive into the Heart.” Twilight jumped a bit in fright. She scanned the room trying to find the owner of the voice. In her searching she saw somepony she hadn’t noticed. A bright, yellow unicorn with mane and tail color matching Ansem’s. He nodded to her and her vision was enveloped in light.

*****************

Equestria: Dive into the Heart.

When the light faded from her vision, she saw that she wasn’t in the great hall of the creepy castle. She found herself standing in a strange dark void, with the only light coming from a stained glass platform that she was standing on. Looking at it, she was surprised to find that it depicted herself and some of the many friends she’s had.

“Okay, that is just weird,” She said to herself.

“This is actually the very depths of your heart.” Twilight jumped again in fright, and managed to find the source of the voice. It was the yellow unicorn she saw in the creepy castle. He was standing “standing” in the void area, practically floating. “It is here that you are put through trials that will make you strong enough to handle what is to come.”

Twilight ran towards him, but stopped when she felt an edge to the platform and gravity. She nearly lost her balance, but the unicorn “stepped” forward and helped her regain her balance. As she steadied herself on her hooves, she got a better look at him. His eyes were a light turquoise and his cutie mark was a heart shaped symbol that looked similar to the symbol on the strange cat creatures, but it had softer features. He was also wearing a denim blue vest.

“You might not want to do that. It can be bad for your health.” He chuckled a bit at his own joke. Twilight just gave him a deadpan stare.

“I know that now, but I want to know who you are and what you meant by ‘what is to come’.” She looked at him expectantly, but he just shook his head.

“For now, you will know me as Black Heart. As for what is to come, I can’t really say entirely.” He sighed and shook his head. “There is so little time, yet so much to do.” His horn lit up with a grey aura and three weapons materialized in the air behind Twilight. One was a staff with Twilight’s Element of Magic on the tip. The next was a sword with the same Element on the hilt. The last was a shield that had the image of the Element on it. Twilight turned and saw the weapons and had a look of confusion on her face. “Choose well.” She turned around and Black Heart was gone. “Once you have made your choice, my Dream Eater will guide you further.”

Twilight nodded and walked forward to examine the presented weapons. She carefully checked each of them and thought for a moment. The shield seemed to be built so sturdily that it could resist a strike from Celestia’s strongest combat spell. The sword seemed so razor sharp that it could cut through the hardest and toughest of materials. The staff seemed to be brimming with magical power. She decided to go with the staff, as she had more of a feel towards magic.

Thinking that using it worked like the keyblade, she reached her hoof to it and grabbed it. Shortly after grabbing it, it vanished in a flash of light and a short-ish keyblade appeared in her hoof. The blade was a metallic blue with a metal grey guard.

A fancy door suddenly appeared at the edge of the platform. She walked to it and tried to open it, both with and without magic, but the door didn’t budge. She looked at the keyblade before she pointed it at the door. The keyblade charged up and fired a beam of light at the door. A loud click of a lock unlocking was heard and the door cracked open, a bright light shining through. Twilight then opened the door and walked into the light. The light around her faded and she was on a different platform with no door behind her.

She looked around for the Dream Eater that Black Heart mentioned. The only thing she could see was a strange looking bat that was flapping its wings rapidly to stay alloft. She held her keyblade at the ready, in case it attacked her, but it made no move to attack.

Suddenly, more of the strange cat creatures and even bats appeared. However, she noticed a difference between the colors of the first bat and the other bats and even the cats. The first bat had brighter, more festive colors. The other creatures had darker, more somber colors. She didn’t dwell on that, as the darker cats and bats began to attack her. She began to hack and slash through them and they dissolved with each strike. While she was fighting, she noticed that the brighter bat was helping, scratching at and screeching loudly at the darker creatures.

After a few minutes, the darker creatures were gone, leaving her and the bright bat. It flew towards her and landed on her back and gave her happy squeaks of approval. A few moments of doing this, and Twilight realized something. “You must be the Dream Eater that Black Heart was talking about.”

The Dream Eater flapped its wings and squeaked in confirmation. It then moved closer to her head and nuzzled it a bit before flapping off to one side of the platform. When It got there, a pathway appeared leading to another platform. Twilight followed the Dream Eater up the pathway until she arrived on the platform, one that again depicted herself.

She looked around expecting to see more of the darker Dream Eaters, but found that the area was devoid of anything except herself and Black Heart’s Dream Eater. She kept her guard up, thinking that if she lowered it, she would be attacked. She did a full 360 in looking around and when she got to direction she was facing when she got onto the platform, she saw a humanoid figure in a black robe.

From what she remembered from her time at Canterlot High, she could at least tell that the figure was female, in figure. Other than that, the figure was completely foreign to her. The figure then lowered her hood, revealing a face that she didn’t expect.

A face like her human face.

However, she knew the face wasn’t all like the face she had. For one thing, her face seemed rather downcast, as if she never had a happy day to speak of. Another thing was that her hair was pitch black and not purple with magenta highlights.

“Who are you?” Twilight asked. The girl didn’t respond, but extended her hand and summoned an interesting keyblade. The blade was a combination of silver and crimson, while the guard was a combination of gold and crimson.

The girl still had a sorrowful look as she charged Twilight. Twilight managed to get her keyblade in position to block the attack from the girl, locking blades with her. “I am you…” Darkness began to cloud her vision. The girl then pushed herself off of her and vanished into the Darkness.

The Darkness then receded and Twilight found herself “standing” in the air outside the Friendship Castle in Ponyville. She could see the various features that make up Ponyville very clearly. Everything was clear as if she was actually there. She looked around and saw the girl with her hood up, “standing” in the air as well.

Suddenly, Darkness began to envelop her and she began to increase in size, easily dwarfing the castle. When the Darkness stopped, what was left was a giant, dark cloaked beast, with dragon wings and had two black versions of her keyblade in her hands. To make the beast even more intimidating, was the symbols on her wings. They looked like Black Heart’s Cutie mark, but with sharper, demonic features.

She swung one of her keyblades to attack. Twilight managed to get her keyblade between the attack and herself, but she was knocked off of her hooves. She managed to recover from the daze and charged to meet the beast in hard combat. She started to use her wings to gain an aerial advantage over the beast. While the beast had wings, it seemed to either not know how to use them or refused to use them.

Twilight dove in and out, striking the beast’s head and hands and managing to dodge most of it’s attacks. The attacks that did land, were ones that Twilight didn’t anticipate or were follow up attacks to a magnet spell of some kind. After a while of this, the beast apparently had enough and began to fly, but without use of the wings.

Twilight kept at her hit and run strategy, but it was getting difficult to land strikes and dodge the beast’s. As it was now flying, it was able to keep a visual on her to defend and counter Twilight’s attacks. Twilight began to get desperate and began casting various spell of every kind she could think of. The spells fired from both her horn and her keyblade, striking whatever wasn’t protected by it’s weapons.

The beast then lowered it’s hood, revealing an armored head. Part of the helmet was a spike that seemed to resemble a unicorn horn. It briefly glowed a grey color, like how a unicorn casts a spell. The blades of the beast’s keyblades glowed the same color before doubling in length. Twilight learned that, while it did increase the range and strength of the attacks, it made the blades slower. Twilight was able to increase her attack rate and was able to dodge practically every attack that was dished out.

The beast then gave a loud roar and magically tore the cloak off revealing that underneath the cloak was an armored alicorn with hand appendages, instead of hooves, holding the twin keyblades. The beast started to get more reckless, lowering its defences, but it got significantly faster and more erratic. Twilight practically had to go all defensive in order to stay alive.

Twilight had started to feel tired at the beginning of the fight, but it started to catch up to her at this point. Her fatigue caused her to take a hit and “land” on one of the many balconies of the Friendship Castle. The beast seemed to gloat in its victory, but Twilight wasn’t really paying attention to that.

“What am I to do?” She asked herself. “I don’t want to die. I have a family and friends to live for. Help...Anypony?” She didn’t hear any response, but felt the need to look up. She saw the dark keyblade coming down, but something was different. The edge of the blade that wasn’t facing her was shimmering in a weird way, but she knew that it was important.

Twilight managed to roll out of the pathway of the blade and jumped. As she jumped, she felt an instinctive pull towards the shimmering blade edge. She angled herself to land on the edge, and when she did, It was as if gravity switched on her and she began to perfectly slide up the edge until she reached the guard. She jumped off of the blade and propelled her wings to send her towards the beast’s horn.

As she neared the horn, she spun herself in a corkscrew fashion, using her keyblade to drill a hole through the horn. Partway through, the beast roared in pain and tried to shake her off. She pulled her keyblade out of the horn and slashed at it, taking it clean off.

The beast then screamed in intense pain before plummeting to the ground. Twilight kept herself aloft as the falling form fell and shrunk. Her vision briefly went white and she found herself hovering a few feet over the platform she had begun the fight on. She dropped onto the platform and looked to see a crumpled mass on the opposite side of the platform.

Twilight carefully approached the unconscious body with hopes of finding out who this was. The body stirred, causing Twilight to jump back and ready herself to fight. The figure stood, but made no move of aggression. The figure then spoke.

“You have passed the test.” The figure turned to her and removed its hood, revealing the girl’s face. “The connections will be made clear.” She then raised her hand and images of Human Silver, Human Vanitas and two other, yet identical boys. She then gave Twilight a nervous smile. Twilight lowered her guard a little bit, but not entirely.

“My name is Xion. And you are part of the connection for my existence.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you are talking about,” Twilight responded.

Xion turned to the images of Silver and Vanitas. “Take a look at look at the images. Ignore the fact that they are different individuals. What do you see?”

Twilight looked at the images. “I can see they are almost the same.”

“How so?”

“They have practically the same facial features, same hair style, and I could guess that their voices would be similar.”

Gesturing to the other two, Xion spoke. “And the other two?”

“They look exactly the same, but one seems more familiar than the other.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Twilight was stumped. She never liked pop quizzes, as they take her completely by surprize and, on occasion, forces her to say her least favorite three letter phrase. “I don’t know.” She lowered her head in shame, looking down trodden.

Xion stepped forward and lifted her head up. “There is no need to fret. What one doesn’t know, one can learn.” She then waved her hand forward, causing the images to manifest in holographic like states. She walked to the images and moved Vanitas and one of the blond boys to the center of the platform.

“Years ago, a boy named Ventus used to be an apprentice of Master Xehanort. One day, in a world known as the Keyblade Graveyard, he tried to pressure Ventus to use his Darkness in a fight. He was reluctant, and Ventus nearly died as a result. Xehanort was disappointed. So, he used his keyblade to separated the darkness from his heart to create Vanitas.”

“The process, however, fractured Ventus’s heart. So badly, that he barely clung to existence. So Xehanort decided to bring Ventus to his former home, Destiny Islands, so that Ventus could live out an existence of some kind, if there was for him.” Xion paused. “This was the same time that your princess and protector transported your brother, Silver Crown, to the same world.”

“Your brother had an excess of light in his heart at the time of birth. When Celestia brought Silver to Destiny Islands, his heart sensed the damage in Ventus’s heart and repaired it. That was how he gained his cutie mark and how the connections started.”

Twilight was shocked. If fate existed, which considering what had happened with her life so far, she believed it did, then fate had guided everything for the connections to start. How else was fate involved?

“When Silver had repaired Ventus’s heart, it caused a physical change in Vanitas, making him as you see him.” Xion gestured in Vanitas’s direction. “Four years later, Xehanort, using lies and trickery, managed to get them both to fight each other, a source of pure light and of pure darkness fighting to create the X-blade. While it was successful, it didn’t last. Ventus put up a final stand in a setting similar to where we are to destroy the X-blade and he succeeded, but at the cost of his heart. However, the connection Silver made with Ventus allowed for Silver to hide Ventus’s heart in his for it to heal.”

“Ten years later, in Hollow Bastion, Silver’s sacrifice for his love, Kairi, turned himself into a Heartless. When that happened, what was leftover created what is called a Nobody, a being that wasn’t meant to exist.” She then pointed to the last unidentified boy. “His name was Roxas. He was indoctrinated into the First Organization XIII. He was able to wield a keyblade, which the organization used to collect hearts to form a puppet Kingdom Hearts, a means to try and create thirteen vessels of darkness.”

“However, they felt that Roxas gaining friendship with a fellow Organization member, Axel, would make it harder to control him, so I was created as a backup should he question the Organization and go against them. I was meant to be a perfect replica of Silver to replace Roxas, should the time come. However, there were...complications. Complications that you had unconscious involvement in.”

“The fact that you had a fraction of Silver’s light in you, combined with his love for Kairi, made me how I am. Rather than like Sora, I was more like you.” She sighed and summoned a keyblade, but it was Silver’s. “While I could use the keyblade, there were times that I kept second guessing myself, thinking less of myself at times.” She almost teared up. “There was a time that I briefly lost the ability to use the keyblade. In that time, I felt fear. I feared that the Organization would eliminate me, remove me from what existence I had.”

Twilight dismissed her keyblade after hearing this and understanding what she said before the long fight. Xion truly was her, in a fashion. She had a tendency to second guess herself and would think less of herself. She even felt fear of being abandoned by Princess Celestia if she didn’t meet her own expectations. Such fears and second guessing were mostly unfounded.

Twilight could not hold herself back. She rushed forward and gave Xion a hug, calming her down. “Thank you,” she said, laying a hand on her head in thanks. After taking a breath, she continued. “I later became friends with Roxas and another Nobody, named Axel. During this time, Silver was going through a restoration of his briefly shattered memories. Both Roxas and I were unintentionally intercepting some of those memories. The Organization recognized this and tried to force more interceptions. It strained Roxas and I to the limit. I then learned my role as a replica to keep Silver from being restored. I fled the Organization, I was captured and repurposed to absorb Roxas. Roxas left the Organization by the time I found him. I couldn’t let Xemnas win. When him and I fought, I let him win.”

“What happened when you lost?” Twilight asked.

“I died,” she stated, somberly. Twilight had a look of horror on her face. “It was the only way for Xemnas’s plan to be foiled. As I died, everyone’s memory of my existence was erased and Roxas instead absorbed me. Roxas was then captured and was fused back with Silver, who then went on to defeat the two Organization XIIIs and Master Xehanort. All of this was done with the aide of his friends, who gave him the strength of heart to push forward.”

Twilight absorbed this information, but one thing stuck to the forefront of her mind. “I find it odd that I entered this dream to find out more about Riku, but I learned this instead.” She looked back to Xion, but found that she was no longer there. She looked around to find her and could find nothing.

She then heard Shining Armor’s voice. “Twilight! Wake up! Silver’s in pain! He needs you!”

A few minutes passed before Flash Sentry’s voice spoke up. “Twilight. Your brother...no...OUR brother needs you to wake up. This Nightmare is hurting him.”

Moments later, Black Heart then spoke. “Your Dive is complete. AWAKE!”

Author's Note

Suddenly, my brain feels like mush.