Chapters Author's Note
Important Notice
Any persons name I put in here is purely fictional, so don't bother looking them up.
Prologue
I had arrived at the convention that finally came to my hometown, I could barely contain my excitement, I had finished my cosplay outfit just in the nick of time; I was dressed as Vanitas from Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, mask and all...well, except the Void Gear Keyblade, but I was hoping that will change soon. Just so anyone knows, I'm cosplaying as the original Vanitas, not Vanitas Remnant, though he's cool too, I honestly prefer the original. I took my mask off as I stepped out of the truck, I even had the black spiky haired wig and yellow eyed contacts to complete the ensemble, but the mask made it hard to see and it made it difficult to breathe normally.
"Okay, James," my best friend Drew began, "remember the plan; the three of us roam around to see what we like, we stay safe, and meet up the food court, got it?"
"Yeah, we got it, right bro?" my brother Dean said.
"Of course! We all agreed before we got here," I said.
My brother is currently cosplaying as Ventus by my request; he agreed to my idea since we both believe the two are practically brothers themselves. Drew was cosplaying as Goku from Dragonball Z; I originally asked him to go as Terra, but he was a Dragonball fanatic, so we respected his wishes and let him go as who he wants. Without any further hesitation, the three of us entered the convention and initiated our plan.
My search ended in failure.
I've been to almost every stand in the building, and I couldn't find one Void Gear Keyblade, not even a charm on a necklace. I was about ready to call it quits and head to the food court, but then I saw one, last booth and in it a creepy looking merchant. He had all kinds of stuff from just about every game and anime in existence.
And that's when I saw it...
Void Gear, on display, it even looked like the real deal.
I knew I had to have it, so I walked up and remained calm, despite my excitement and nervousness.
"Hello there, Vanitas." he spoke to me in raspy voice.
"Hey, um, how much for the Void Gear Keyblade?" I ask.
"$200."
"Oh..."
"Something wrong?"
"I only have $100 on me, so..."
"I see...how about we make a deal?"
"A deal?"
"I'll sell you the Void Gear Keyblade for a fourth of the original price, and in exchange, you play a little game."
"What kind of game?"
"There are keychains from the Kingdom Hearts series scattered everywhere, collect them all and you win."
"So...I play this game as a trade for you to lower the price to $50, do I have that right?"
"Every last detail. So. Do we have a deal?"
I slap down a $50 bill and declared, "Hell yeah, it's a deal!"
He smiled as he took the Void Gear off the rack, "Good...good..."
He handed it to me and I took it...
And I immediately realized my mistake.
Darkness surrounded me on all sides, preventing me from escaping its grasp. I struggled against it, but the darkness was too strong, pulling me into an endless void. Before I lost consciousness, I could feel my suit melding onto my skin.
...I walked right into a trap.
Act 1: Protector - Chapter 1: Arrival
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. I ducked back down into the forest and stuck to areas with a lot foliage to camouflage myself from anyone before those guards came back with reinforcements. Once I made sure I was safe, I opened the pause menu again and took stock of my Command Deck: Afterimage, Flame Burst, Jumping Blizzaga, Dark Thundaga, Eruption, and Blizzaga. I took out Blizzaga, Jumping Blizzaga, and Dark Thundaga, and replaced them with Curaga, Esuna, and Dark Haze. All the skills and spells are at level one, so if I remember correctly, I need to collect Command Points, or CP for short, to make them stronger.
Now for the Action Commands, I have High Jump, Thunder Roll, Ice Slide, Reversal, Superglide, Renewal Block, Counter Rush, and Aerial Recovery set. They all look fine, so I just left those alone. Now the Shotlock, Dark Cannon is selected, so I left it at that, might as well stick to what I know for now before I go trying new things. After I finish, I delve deep into the forest, not only hiding myself from the Royal Guard, but to find the abandoned Castle of the Two Sisters.
Canterlot
Celestia just finished her time in Day Court and was thoroughly exhausted, she sluggishly made her way to her bedchambers, glad that nopony was able to see her this way. She entered her room and slumped onto the bed, immediately passing out...
...
A series of knocks a few hours later roused the tired princess from her sleep.
"Princess Celestia! Please! This is an emergency!"
She groaned and pulled herself out of bed, reluctantly going to answer the door. She opens it and sees two panicked pegasi guards.
"...What is it?" she grumpily asked.
"In the Everfree Forest!" one of them spoke.
"A new creature!" the other speaks.
"Possesses dark magic!"
Coffee had nothing on the eye-opener Celestia just had.
Everfree Forest
After wandering the forest for hours, I finally found the castle, and good thing, too; it was getting dark and I didn't want to be out and about in the woods at night. I entered the ruined building and looked around, it was exactly how it was depicted in the show: half intact, half destroyed, with vines and stray plants growing here and there. I scoured the entire castle, looking for an old bedchamber of some sort, and eventually I found one, plopping on the bed, which was just a huge cushion, with no ceremony whatsoever.
I was so exhausted from walking through the forest that I immediately fell asleep...
The Next Morning...
I awoke to hearing Applejack's rooster in the distance, I sat up and stretched my arms as I yawned, having going to bed a little more early than I was used to. But then again, this is survival of the fittest in the Everfree, so I'll need all the strength I can get, I can't rely on my spells all the time, even if I turned into a fictional character. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I see a feather falling in front me; it was half red, half blue, and it didn't look like it belonged to any Equestrian creature.
Out of raw curiosity, I reached over and picked it up, then I heard a voice:
I am Delsin Rowe, the Equestrian Eagle. Should you need aid, or someone to talk to, or spar with, call me up.
This shocked and confused me, how did I hear a voice from a feather? Could it be one of the people who disappeared because of that merchant?
"Too many questions with no answers." I said, then sighed, "I'll try this thing out later, right now I need breakfast."
With that, I got up, took the weird feather with me, and headed out in search of food.
Skies Above Ponyville
Once Celestia heard about a new dark magic wielding creature, she sucked down as much coffee as she could and got her battalion of Royal Guards ready for battle. The unicorns, like the princess, were in chariots drawn by the pegasi, and the pegasi guards are self explanatory, of course. Several scenarios wracked Celestia's mind; has King Sombra been reincarnated in a new form? Had any remnant of Nightmare Moon build a new body to live on without Luna? Or had Queen Chrysalis created some kind of super warrior with the love magic she stole? For Celestia, there were too many questions and no answers, hopefully the creature wouldn't attack them on sight and they can talk peacefully.
"Sister?"
Celestia pulled herself out of her thoughts as she heard Luna's voice.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Celestia answered, "just...nervous."
"We're all nervous. I mean, a new creature with dark magic? Anypony would be nervous."
"I know, I know, it's just..." she sighed, "I can't help but think that one of our old enemies had something to do with it."
"Don't worry, we'll go into the Everfree Forest, find this creature, and if it is peaceful, we'll spare him, and if it is not, we'll end it." Luna puts a hoof on Celestia's shoulder, "Together."
Celestia smiled, glad to see Luna having the answers she herself can't find. Internally, she was happy to have her sister back from the nightmare that claimed her that fateful day.
That was then, this is now, Celestia thought, and now, we're going to hunt down a possibly dangerous creature. I hope it had a good reason for attacking my guards...
Castle of the Two Sisters
I returned to the castle after I had gotten my breakfast, which was some fruit hanging off some random trees, I actually started seeing hallucinations after eating a bad fruit and immediately cast Esuna, making it all disappear, so I began to keep track of what fruit I can eat and what fruit I shouldn't eat. Once I made it to the Throne Room, I pulled out the feather I found earlier and figured now was a good time as any to see what this is. But before I did, I double checked my Command Deck just in case this guy was hostile and after seeing everything as it is, I close the menu and hold the feather in my hand. I heard the voice again, repeating what it said before and I spoke:
"Delsin Rowe, I don't know who you are or what's going on, but I call to you...come forth!"
Then, a portal opened up in front of me, it looked like an eternal void of some sort. Soon enough, I see a figure emerging from it.
Author's Note
Next chapter:
A crossover with another displaced
Chapter 4: Displaced Part 2
Beep...Beep...Beep...Beep...
I could hear the sound of the heart monitor Delsin was hooked up to even in the hallway just outside his room in the castle infirmary, I could only assume the princesses have this in case one their own were hurt. Speaking of the princesses, their glares directed at me did little to ease my nerves, considering this whole thing was my fault, I had just put Delsin, my first and possibly only friend in the Displaced universe, in the infirmary because of my stupid competitive streak. For most of my life, I had been a sore loser at a lot of things; sports, video games, card games, you name it, I just hated to lose, and it didn't help that I caught up into the heat of battle at the time.
Being in Vanitas' body and having all these powers just gave me some kind of rush, like an adrenaline high, but I came down from it when I knocked Delsin's block off.
I took off my mask and to the princesses eyes, I looked regretful, "Okay, I'll admit it, that was not my smartest move."
"Verily." Luna commented.
"I guess I was so caught up in the fight that I lost some of my control."
Celestia sighed, "Just...see to it that it doesn't happen again."
"I will, Princess."
Just then, I felt a familiar pulse come out of the room Delsin and Second were in.
"Guess he's awake," I put my mask back and placed my hand on the door, turning my head to the princesses, "We'll talk more later."
They nodded as I entered the room and look at Delsin's awakened form, “Well look who decided to join us in the land of the living. Sorry for knocking you out, by the way, I was too into the heat of battle.”
“Meh, I'm a glutton for punishment. No doubt, I'm going to get a horseshoe shaped bruise somewhere on my head from my fiancé when I get home.”
“Oh, that reminds me, how DO I send you home? I never asked that.”
“From what I gathered from Screwball's session on the Displaced, you say, ‘Our contract is complete,’ or something along those lines,” he answers, “However I refuse to be sent home until Nisled is dealt with. I don't trust Dusk Spark entirely to not try to insult Celestia’s love for cakes and sweets.”
“Alright, so how do we deal with this bastard then? If what you're saying is true, even my strength won't beat him. How is this going to work?”
“Step one,” he held out one finger, “Literally rip him to shreds. Step two: let him arrogantly pull himself back together. And step three: let a powerful chaos user do the rest. Simple, easy, and (potentially) entertaining.”
“How do we draw him out, then?”
“Two ways,” he answers, “Both involve him coming to us. Let him try to kill me or let him try to kill you...and neither of us are willing bait in either scenario.”
“Well...what if I let him beat me to within an inch of my life, and you come to help? Trust me, in my old life, I’ve done crazier things, I even had a close brush with death, I can handle this.”
“Just don't hold back. If he realizes that you're baiting him into a trap, he'll literally turn you into fried chicken and eat you alive.”
“...Three things: one, your world has weird powers, two, I’ve been sword fighting since I was a little kid, and three, I'm not the kind of guy who takes a beating without a fight.”
“Three more things,” he says in a mock Asian accent, “One, weird is reserved for Pinkie Pie and my father. Two, that won't matter if you're turned into a concrete pincushion. Three, good, that saves us a bit of trouble.” he sat up in the bed, and growled something I couldn't understand.
“Uh, what was with all the growling?”
“Unless you want your face to look like this,” he pointed to his neuro-tar scarred half of his face, “Then trust me when I say, I hate needles being stuck into my tattoo.”
Jet Second rolled over in his chair, rubbing his tattooed forearm. “Mmph, stupid ants...tickling my arm,” he sleep spoke.
“If you say so.” I said, “Alright then, after you get released, we’re going after your evil counterpart.”
“We can start by cleaning up your new castle,” he says, “If we know the ins and outs of it, there's less of a chance of getting ambushed or being taken by surprise.”
“Okay, let’s do this.”
After waking Second up, we were guided to the castle gardens. We were planning on heading back to the Everfree via Portal of Darkness, with one end there and the other near the edge of the Everfree. However, Delsin stared at a certain spot and the look on his face made him appear like he had a sense of nostalgia, much like me when I went on bike rides back at home.
“Hey man, you okay?” I asked.
He jumped a slight bit at my vocal intrusion. “I’m fine. I was just remembering a conversation with Tia after my first meal in over a thousand years.”
“Remind me to ask you about that later, right now, we better get moving,” I looked at the palm of his hand, “I hope this works.” I held it outward and opened the dark corridor, “Whoa! I did it! I can't believe it!”
I could feel him roll his eyes at my excitement.
“Hang on, I thought I saw something.” he said as he moved to what he saw and found three chests, one was larger than the other two "Hey! Check out what I found.”
I quickly joined him and said, “Whoa, sweet! May I do the honors?”
“One moment.” he sent out another one of those pulses, probably to see if there was anything harmful or noticeable in the chests, “Open this one first,” he pointed to one of the smaller chests.
“Okay, you're the boss,” I walked over to the aforementioned chest and tapped it with my Void Gear, opening it. Inside it was some kind of glowing stone. “Whoa, what's with the shiny rock?”
Delsin had a look of disbelief on his features, “What is a blast core doing out here?”
“Oh, that's what it is? Well, you got me, but everything happens for a reason, that's what I was raised to believe.”
He picked up the "blast core", with a bit of smirk on his face. “Since I have this, I might as well absorb it.”
“Go for it, I can't use it anyway.”
“Just, make sure you keep me safe. I’m gonna need to sleep this off.” he began to channel the Dark element through his arms and into the core. After a few seconds, the energy from the core entered him. He was levitated into the air briefly, with tendrils of Darkness extended out. he then fell to the ground, feeling sleeping, his eyes closing and falling asleep.
I couldn't believe what I just saw, I didn't even know if he was alright, still, I was able say the only thing that could describe my thoughts, "...Well, that happened."
Suddenly, pools of shadows appeared on the ground, and climbing out of them were...
"Neoshadows! They must've sensed the blast core!" I shout while readying my Keyblade.
"Neo-what!?" Second spouted.
"Guard Delsin, if they get to him, our whole plan goes to hell!"
I calculated at least eight Neoshadows in the vicinity, should be easy enough to handle, though my skills with a weapon might be a little rusty, so I should be cautious. The first leaped at me, only for it to take a horizontal swing from my Void Gear, making disperse in darkness. Three more charged towards me, but I followed up with a usual KH three hit combo, destroying them with little effort.
Could I really be strong enough to take down Neoshadows so easily? I didn't get to think much on it as the remaining four made their move, good thing I rearranged my Command Deck before we left. I threw my Keyblade as it was covered in ice, freezing my enemies in place, my Keyblade came back to me and I hit them all at once with my Void Gear on fire, finishing off the last of them.
After that was done, I hurried up and opened the other two chests; the big one had a map of Canterlot, and the other small one had a shining blue cube in it, I immediately knew what it was.
Obtained!
These could be useful, I thought, then remembered the Neoshadows, how did the Heartless arrive here? They barely made an appearance in Birth By Sleep. Either way... I ran up to Second and the unconscious Delsin and picked them up, we're screwed if more of them show up. We gotta get outta here!
With that, I ran into the Corridor of Darkness, not caring if I set the coordinates right.
After going through, we arrived at the edge of the forest, and I set my two companions down.
"Second, watch him," I ordered, "I'm gonna go scout ahead, make sure the path to the castle is clear of any dangerous creatures."
"Of course." he complied.
With no further hesitation, I rushed into the woods, ready to do my duty to protect this world.
Clearing the path was easy; apparently the Manticore I saved spread the word about me and it left a good impression on the creatures of the forest, believing that they have a new protector. They listened to me and steered clear of the main road to the castle, once I arrived there, I immediately turned around and backtracked to the entrance of the woods, ready to let Second know the good news and hopefully Delsin will be awake by now. It was at that point that I found a Flood Unversed, but...something seemed off about it, either way, I somehow understood it; it told me Delsin sent it to look for me, to help me if I'm in trouble, and stay with me.
At least now I had a travelling companion until I made it back to the entrance. As we got closer to our destination, I saw one of Delsin's pulses, Maybe he's awake again, I thought.
I exit the forest and spoke to Second, “Hey, I'm back. Did he wake up yet?” I looked at Delsin, then Second, and lastly the Mane 6, who arrived at some point when I was gone, and for some reason Rainbow Dash was taking a nap on the ground, “Uh, did I miss something?”
At that moment, Rainbow Dash woke up. Upon seeing me, she was instantly in the air and charging at me, but she didn’t make contact, as the first Unversed Delsin had somehow summoned tackled her and began to wrestle her. It lost, receiving a hoof to its head and dissolving, making Delsin suffer a massive, but not debilitating, headache.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let's all just take it easy here—” I couldn't finish my sentence as Rainbow charged me again, but actually hitting me this time. She was about to bring a hoof down onto my visor, but she was knocked off by “something” invisible, holding her down. I was able to get up and continue. “Okay, let's try this again. How about we all calm down, and talk this out like adults?”
“And what will you be telling us?!” Rainbow shouted out from under her unseen captor, “That you’re here to conquer Equestria! No Thank You!” She tried to struggle out, but Delsin sent out another Unversed to help Second.
“No, far from it! I'm not here to pick a fight! Just cool down!”
“Yeah right, like I’m gonna—"
“Dashie,” Fluttershy interrupted, “I think we should hear him out...If that’s okay with you.”
Rainbow looked as though she would object, but an "Ahem" from Twilight, and glares from the other mares, stopped her. “Grrr! Fine! Just let me go.” Second shimmered back to full visibility and the Unversed pulled itself off of her. She roughly pushed him away and bucked the Unversed in it’s groin. While it didn’t dissolve, it looked like Delsin still felt the pain...I wouldn't want to be him right now.
“Ooh! That's gonna hurt in the morning.” I cringed, but recollected myself, “Okay then, I believe introductions are in order, my name is Vanitas,” I pointed to Second, “that's Jet Second,” then to Delsin, “and the guy nursing his crotch, is Delsin Rowe.”
“I'm Twilight Sparkle, and this is Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and I'm certain you've met Rainbow Dash.”
“Thoroughly.” I snarked, “Anyway, I just want to say that I mean you no harm, though I plan on living in the forest after I get things taken care of.”
“Things? What kind of things?”
“Personal stuff, you understand, right?”
Twilight looks hesitant, but nods.
“Good. Give me one second, I have to talk to my pals here,” I walked over to Delsin and Second and whisper, “How far away is your alter ego? I don't want any of these ponies to become collateral damage.”
Once again, he growled something I couldn't understand and said, “I couldn’t be able to tell you, even if I wanted to,” he answered, “The best way to minimize collateral damage and/or casualties is to tell them to steer clear of him...and he’s more of a doppelganger than an alter ego. I don’t do Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“Okay then,” I walk back to the girls, “Listen up everyone,” the Mane 6 turned to me, “There's a guy who looks similar to Delsin, and he's extremely dangerous, let us handle him and steer clear.”
“And what if we don't want to?” Rainbow asked, condescendingly.
“He’ll turn you into fried chicken and eat you alive,” Delsin deadpans.
That turned Rainbow pale, as if she was imagining that happening.
“It's true, this guy hasn't lied to me yet, so I trust him.” I added.
Twilight stepped forward, “Well, alright then. But, after this is settled, you're coming back with us to test you, I can sense the powerful dark magic within you and I want to make sure it isn't hazardous—”
“The princesses already did that, genius.”
Twilight blinked, “...What?”
“They stormed my home, I nearly got killed fighting Delsin and Second, and I had to fight my way back to this forest while he was unconscious.”
“So that's why you were carrying him.”
“Of course! What did you think I was doing? Carving him open and feeding off of him?”
Rainbow suddenly had a sheepish smile.
I deadpanned under my mask, “You did, didn't you?”
Delsin snickered at Rainbow as she blushed in embarrassment.
I sighed, annoyed, “Anyway, just go back to Ponyville and I'll come and see all of you when it's over, Delsin and Second will probably be going home after this.”
“Okay, we trust you, right girls?” Five out of the six voiced their agreements, “Right , Rainbow?”
“...Yes.” she grumbled.
“Good, glad we're all on the same page.” I said.
The Element Bearers turned tail and headed back to Ponyville, leaving me, Second, and Delsin at the forest’s edge.
I helped Delsin up, “Okay, where in your vision did you see me get my behind kicked by your doppelgänger?”
“Near the canyon/gorge some distance from the castle ruins,” he replied.
“Alright, then let's get going, I cleared the path up ahead, so we should be safe for the time being.”
We began our trek to the castle ruins, journeying through the Everfree without dealing with any of the dangerous monsters that lurk in there.
After crossing the rickety rope bridge, we made it back to the ruins, with everything quiet...too quiet.
“Okay, we're back,” I said, summoning my Keyblade, “if he shows up, I'll be ready.”
Delsin didn't reply as he was scanning the area, both physically and with his pulse thing. I really need to ask him about that sometime. “Obsidian Shard! Dusk Spark!” he shouted out, “You can stop hiding! I know you're here!”
Almost immediately, I heard hoofsteps and mechanical whirring sounding from one of the nearby bushes. From said bush, the two aforementioned ponies, Obsidian and Dusk walked out, the former looking sheepish, and the later looking rather miffed.
I got into my battle stance, “Alright...who are you two and what are you doing here?”
“Shut up, Bucket Head,” Dusk snapped, “I was asked...no, ordered...by Princess Stella Starshine to bring you back.” She paused, raising her head in contemplation. “However, I think I’ll just let you stay here. You probably have some reason to stay. And myself, personally, I want to see Princess Cello’s pissed off face when she sees you be late to the cuddle time she planned out.”
“Bucket Head!? I'll show you a bucket head!” I was about to clock Dusk, but Delsin restrained me, “Let me go! I'mma bust his flank wide open!”
“She a mare,” he deadpanned, then looked back to Dusk, “And you, can you ever not insult people?” She simply crossed her heart, flapped her hands, and pantomimed putting something in her eye. He raised his eyebrow at this. “The Pinkie Pie Promise you made with Discord?” She nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Wait. That thing’s a girl!?”
‘Honestly? Couldn't the voice tip you off?’ he telepathically asked.
‘Well, from what I learned, Twilight’s rule 63 version of herself is named Dusk as well...hang on, how’d you get inside my head?’
‘Telepathy,’ he stated, ‘And while this ‘Rule 63’ thing may be true, it isn't for her. She’s trying to forget her former name, due to the fact that she lost her family, friends, and pieces of herself to Nisled.’
‘Oh...okay then, forget I said anything, let's just get down to business,’ I communicated.
“So, you want to help us give Nisled a thrashing?” I asked the two.
“As much as I want to, we can't,” Dusk answered, then pointed to Obsidian, “He's still has that report assignment to finish, and I still have to finish a ridiculous game of chess with Luna...and I'm sure you know how ticked off she'll be if I'm not back in a reasonable amount of time.”
“If you have to rush, then go,” he told them. Dusk electrified her horn and opened a void portal, and left with Obsidian in tow. After she left, he could only sigh. “Lulu has gotten a bit more aggressive since Stella was pulled from her mind.”
“We’ll talk more on that subject another time, right now we’ve got bigger fish to fry,” I looked around anxiously, because I thought Nisled would pop out at any time, “Okay...where is that S.O.B.?”
“We'll find out...eventually,” he said, “In the meantime, we might want to busy ourselves with either training for the fight, or fixing up your new castle...Well, new in the sense of...You get the idea.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean, and ever since our little fight, I don't think I'm ready to knock you out again when I need you the most, besides, the princesses chewed me out for that little incident while you were in the hospital.”
“That's understandable. Besides, part of training can involve just seeing what you're capable of,” he explains, “For example: when I played Kingdom Hearts II, I didn't even know what Upper Slash and Finishing Leap was in the first ten playthroughs.”
“At least you GOT to play KH II, I watched my brother play it, and he saved over every possible file, not only filling up our memory card, but not letting me take a crack at it, it sucked, honestly.” I took a deep breath, “But I get what you're saying, I mean, I have every skill and spell in KH:BBS, and I haven't used all of them yet, I just stuck to what I knew.”
I think that got him thinking. “There may be a way for us to train that may benefit both of us.”
“Oh? Enlighten me.”
“As you may have already noticed, I've barely learned how to summon and use Unversed,” he began, “My idea is this: teach you how to summon and use Unversed, and we then see what we can do while fighting each other's Unversed. That, in turn, will help us build tolerance to the pain from our Unversed.”
“Alright then, let's get to work.”
We entered the castle and looked around until we came to what appeared to be an ancient training courtyard. Delsin turned to Second and said, “Scout out the castle. Map out every detail you can find.” He nodded and went to accomplish that. “Now, you ready to use Unversed?”
“Yeah, I'm ready.”
He activated his Dark suit, except the visor, and began. “From what I remember from earlier, you just need to let your negative emotions...surface, for lack of a better term.” Darkness coated his arms as he let said emotions flow before they manifested as Unversed...that oddly looked like Decadravens from TWEWY. “Odd, I thought I was summoning Unversed, not Noise. Maybe that's what seemed odd about the Unversed I first summoned.”
“Maybe it works differently with different users of Unversed; if you're closer to Noise in TWEWY instead of normal Unversed, maybe that's the only type of Unversed you can summon.”
“If I summon Noise-like Unversed, then perhaps I can do what the GMs can.” Concentrating on his negative emotions, he slammed my fists together and the area was filled with static. When it cleared, he was standing/sitting above me as an Ovis Cantus. He spoke with it's deep voice, “Welcome to my kitchen.”
“I rather skip the appetizer and go straight to the main course.” I quipped.
“I'll try to ignore that comment,” he said as he reverted back to his original size, “In the meantime, try summoning some Unversed.”
“Okay, I'll try, but I can't guarantee anything.” I closed my eyes and focused on negative emotions as I muttered to myself, “Okay, Vanitas, think of your loved ones facing dangerous fate…” as several scenarios ran through my mind, I didn't realize Unversed started popping up, spreading like wildfire, and didn't show any signs of stopping.
“DUDE! Slow down!” he shouted out as he pulled out Karmic Gear (his version of my Keyblade) and his chain and started bashing and slashing at my Unversed.
“Ow! Huh?” I looked around when I felt the pain and saw just about a hundred Unversed, “Sweet Celestia, I overshot it!” I helped sliced through about half the entire horde, trying to ignore my self-inflicted pain, but stopped when said pain from the Unversed became unbearable, “MOTHER OF CELESTIA, THIS HURTS!!” I exclaimed as I crumpled to the ground.
He tossed Karmic Gear, producing a combination of Strike Raid and a boomerang, knocking back most of the Unversed around me. He then rushed to me and used some kind of healing ability to try to ease my pain. While he focused on that, the Decadravens kept attacking the Flood of Unversed.
“Agh, thanks for that, I don't think I could've used Curaga after all that.” I stood up, shaking off the remainder of my pain, “Okay, let's get this training started right.”
Time for some music for the moment! he telepathically played a song into my head, loud enough for me to “hear” it, but quiet enough so as not to distract me. He then summoned several Decadravens and a Cornix Canor and sicced them on me. The Decadravens stayed at a low altitude to distract/harass me while the Cornix stayed out of reach, swooping down to either attack me or grab random debris to drop on me.
I dodged their attacks and used my Afterimage ability to attack them as I created façades of myself, confusing his Unversed before they were destroyed, leaving behind Cornix Canor, which I finished off my Flame Burst skill. He aimed his hand at me and fired off a Dark Volley, peppering me with dark plasma. I took the brunt of the hit, but blocked a few stragglers with my Renewal Block plus regaining some of my lost HP and retaliated with Fission Firaga, catching him in an explosion.
After he reached the ground after being flung back, he “melted” into the ground, leaving behind a small puddle of darkness. I then saw that more faux-puddles appeared while one of them flared a bright blue before going dark. All of the puddles started moving rapidly around at his command, most likely trying to confuse me.
Once they were done mixing each other up, the puddles arranged themselves in a circle around me. In an instant, all of the faux-puddles started firing off their own Dark Volley's, while one puddle moved under me and Delsin launched out of it, striking with Dark Impulse.
I was unable to avoid all of the attacks and took a huge amount of damage, even my Renewal Block couldn't help me. I panted heavily as if his attacks knocked the air out of me, “Okay...you win, just...let me...catch my breath...hoo! Man, I'm tired!”
To help speed up my recovery, he summoned a few Pig Samba for me to take out and get either needed items or even a new ability (if there were any new ones, since I have all of the abilities). I defeated them quickly after regaining my lost breath, and received a few Hi-Potions as a reward.
Obtained!
“You both done yet?” We heard Second say from the entrance of the courtyard. “I’m done with mapping the main portion of the castle.” His horn lit up and it lit up my visor as well.
Obtained!
“Let’s get some rest,” Delsin said, “We need to be ready for Nisled when he comes. Second will take the first watch.” he turned to me. “Where can we rest?”
“I found the princess’s old bedchambers, we can sleep there.”
“Sounds good. Let’s get some rest.”
Meanwhile, in a different portion of the Everfree, a cockatrice was fleeing from an unseen predator. While most creatures would flee from it, the cockatrice felt a need to flee from something. It didn’t even know what or where it was, it just had to flee.
After a few minutes of running, it stopped inside some bushes. After it caught its breath, it went to leave, but smoke suddenly enveloped the bush. Coughing badly, it exited the bush, only to come face to face with Chaos...but not just any Chaos...Pure, Unfiltered, Chaos.
Author's Note
Next chapter:
The further continuation of Displaced
Commands used:
Freeze Raid
Chapter 5: Displaced Part 3
After about an hour of sleep, I was awoken by Second, looking tired as can be.
"Hey. It's your shift." He said.
I nodded, and climbed out of my side of the bed to my post. I sat on the steps of the main entrance to the castle and summoned several Unversed; twenty Floods, ten Scrappers, and five Bruisers.
I point at the Floods first, "Scour the castle grounds, attack any intruder on sight." Then the Scrappers, "same goes for you lot, but you'll be in the hallways." And lastly, the Bruisers, "Patrol the main entryways. Same orders as the others, attack on sight."
They all nod in understanding and head to their posts, leaving me alone again. A few hours have passed and nothing yet, not even an animal crossed paths with me or my Unversed, and it's only a few more hours till sunrise. I felt a few of Delsin's radar pulse through the area.
I guess he's awake, I thought.
I then felt his presence nearing me and landed to my side, guessing that he was hopping around the castle looking for me.
I turned to him and spoke with a tired voice, “Couldn't sleep?”
“PTSD,” he answered. “My second time having normal sleep and I’m plagued with the remnants of a war I fought in.”
“Yeah, similar to me, only my Anxiety kept me wake; been diagnosed with Anxiety when I was a kid, there were times when I'd have anxiety attacks and my body would spasm out on me.”
He gave a whistle. “You’ve got the better end of the deal than me or one other Displaced I’ve met,” he told me, “In your case, you don’t see those you see as comrades-in-arms, brothers, sisters...as dead lifeless faces.” He gave a sigh. “Not to mention, Twilight Sparkle looks like one of them.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it rough,” I gave a sigh of my own, “believe it or not, Anxiety isn't the only thing I'm diagnosed with, and I've been taking meds for them, been like two days since I've taken them.”
He lightly chuckled, “Like I said, you’ve got the better end of the deal. Anyway, I’m sure you have a few questions from yesterday that you want answered.” He waved his hand nonchalantly. “Ask away.”
“Okay, um...that spot you were staring at back at the gardens, what was that about anyway?”
He looked at me with disbelief written on his face. “Have you ever been engaged to be wed?”
“Can’t say that I have, honestly.”
“That was the most calm I’ve been in a thousand years,” he said, “That one moment with my fiancé...I had to cherish every moment of calm I could while in stone, waiting...waiting for Luna to return...waiting for me to be free...just,” he shuddered, “waiting for when I could truly comfort her.”
“Wow...that's...actually really sweet of you to do, you must really love her a lot.”
“I do.” He gazed to the east longingly. “She suffered those thousand years. Losing a friend and her sister to corruption within three years of me getting encased...keyword: encased, in stone. I wasn’t until after 600 years of 'dating,' I was able to propose to her...without the ring, embarrassingly enough.”
“I'm sure she appreciated your attempt nonetheless.”
“Yeah, she did. She nearly broke off my left arm in her hug…” he trailed off for a moment. “Any further questions?”
“Yeah, about Dusk Spark, what exactly happened to her?”
“To best convey that, things need to be put in context,” he began, “The Multiverse is part of a Displaced’s life. I’m from a different version of Equestria, one where a number of ponies are Conduits, or individuals that can control/weaponize almost any element possible. However, to concern Nisled, he is from an alternate version of my Equestria.” He looked to where he thought my eyes would be behind my mask. “A version where his aim...my aim...was to be Infamous rather than Heroic.
“Whatever he had done over time in his world had led him to murder Dusk’s parents and Spike...Whoever that is...shortly after her ascension. From there, she was practically on an obsessive manhunt. Every rumor, she pursued. She physically lost a bit of herself in any encounter with him.
“After an entity known as Tirek was defeated, the families and connections of her friends, the other bearers of the Elements, were murdered during the chaos. Later, they discovered Nisled’s plan to engineer an army of Bio-terrorists to take over and rule the world.
“After dealing with their version of the Beast, Starlight Glimmer, Nisled took advantage of their exhaustion and murdered and mangled her friends,” he shuddered in disgust, “Word’s can’t describe how bad it was. I can only show you.” He telepathically projected the images of their dead bodies in the process of being mangled.
He didn’t wait for my reaction, he just continued, “He would have killed Dusk, but their Discord and the Beast interfered, removing any chances of him to take over her world and to get stronger. Any powers he built up over time were taken away, leaving him with smoke, neon, video, concrete, and basic chaos.
“Dusk then felt it necessary to go back in time to kill him and end the chaos before it began. Her trip went differently than expected.”
“Because she arrived in your Equestria when she did and not her Equestia’s past...Right?” I asked. He just simply nodded. “Whoa...if it were me, I would've gone insane.”
“Good thing it wasn’t you then. Any more pressing questions?”
“Yeah, one last thing, how did YOU get Displaced? Were you at a convention like me?”
“Yes, but under different circumstances. I was a student at the University of Idaho in Idaho Falls, but I had money issues. Then, one of my friends said he would pay me a thousand dollars to go to a convention. Me, not being one for certain types of crowds, wouldn’t go to a convention under normal circumstances. But with a chance to keep myself from getting into debt, I went. I didn’t go dressed, as I wanted to use as little money as possible to gain a 'profit' off of this.
“I did, however, have a bit of cash to buy something, which was the costume of Delsin Rowe, this chain,” he showed me the chain on his arm, “And a can of magic spray paint.”
“Damn, man, you got a real bang for your buck, even though you got teleported to Equestria as the guy whose outfit you bought.”
“Yeah. Twenty bucks for the whole thing...a rip off, if you ask me.” He turned to a section of the castle wall that seemed to be in better condition than the some of the castle. He pulled out his paint can. “Do you mind if I…”
I knew he couldn't see it, but I smirked under my mask, “Oh, God, totally.”
He found a few stray wooden boards and managed to prop them onto the wall to act as templates. With difficulty, he was able to paint the symbol of the Unversed in blood red onto the wall, surrounded by the images of the Elements of Harmony. He then had an aura of darkness painted around Unversed symbol while the Elements had auras of their respective colors toned to be slightly darker for contrast. Where the dark aura met the rainbow aura, he had the colors mix, as if the darkness was coexisting with the light.
He was about to put away the paint, but then added the Cutie Marks of Celestia and Luna to upper left and lower right respectively. When he did, the Princesses' Cutie Marks and the Unversed symbol seemed to light up and two large chests appeared: one had the Unversed symbol and the other one had the Neutral Karmic symbol on it.
“Dibs on the Unversed marked chest!” I declared.
“I figured that would be the point,” he said as he moved to the Karmic chest, he went to open it, but it was locked. “Hey, a little help here.”
“Oh right, sorry.” I said sheepishly as I summoned Void Gear and tapped the chest, unlocking and opening it. When it was opened, the inside of the chest gave of a bit of light before it died down. Inside the chest was a Banishing Key.
He showed the Dimensional sphere to me and said, “There's been a slight change in plans; Nisled gets ripped to shreds, he pulls himself back together, and then we banish him from this world.”
“Alright then. Welp, my turn!” I tapped my own chest and it opened, revealing a keychain with a stone medallion of a dragon as its token. “One of the keychains the merchant was talking about! Hmm...I think I have an idea on what this one is.” I removed the Void Gear keychain and equipped the new one, making it transform into a new Keyblade; the blade takes the appearance of a pin tumbler lock key with bandages wrapped around the base, with the rest of the Keyblade like all the others. “Sweet! It's Fenrir! One of my personal favorites!”
Obtained!
“That has great range and strength, but maximum ground and midair combos are decreased by 1,” he quotes, “Also, it seems a bit too...clunky looking, in my opinion.”
“Eh, everybody has their opinions, it's one of my favorite Keyblades, you think it's clunky, it's all good.” I say positively. “Besides, with every Keyblade, where there's a benefit, there's a defect.”
“More power for less swings,” he says in an advertising voice, “What a price!”
I chuckled, “Nice sales pitch, pal.” I removed the Fenrir keychain and reattached the Void Gear keychain, “So now what?”
“Let me check,” he said, and then sent out a radar pulse. He reacted quickly, pulling out Karmic Gear and lunging in my direction, but stabbed past my head. The air next to me shimmered a bit, revealing a Stealth Sneak Heartless with his Keyblade buried in it’s skull. It slowly dissolved, leaving a crystal-like heart to float away.
“Whoa! What was that!? A Heartless!?”
“I would assume so,” he answered, sending out another radar pulse, “and I think it may not be the only one in the area.” He ran to the rope bridge, leaped up, and used his dark thrusters to glide across. I ran into the forest after him, sensing a radar pulse every so often. He then summoned a few Garage Wolves to speed up the search.
He followed one of the wolves and once he found it, we saw several Living Bones surrounding three ponies. I tried to see if I could recognize them, but Delsin charged in, chain and Keyblade in hand, but one of them just knocked him away with it’s mace tail.
“Oh nuts! Heal!” I cast Curaga on him, mending the damage that was dealt to Delsin, “You alright, man?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Those mares,” I pointed to the three mares, “on the other hand, won’t be. Light that bush near them on fire, place a shield around them, and I’ll do the rest.”
“Okay. Go!” I cast Flame Burst, the fireballs lighting the bush on fire. He rushed over to the burning bush, and absorbed the smoke from the fire, he then smoke dashed to the center of the clearing just as I cast Barrier over myself and the mares. Delsin then lowered himself to the ground and then jumped, splitting into three burning embers. Reforming at the peak of his high jump, he began to fall head first, igniting his smoke thrusters to speed his fall and increase the damage. Delsin landed, making an explosion of embers, ash, smoke, and fire that blew the pack of Living Bone away. All of the Heartless dissolved into darkness, except for one, which he promptly dealt with, with a melee combo with his chain.
"We did it!” I cheered, then turned to the ponies, “You all okay?”
“We’re quite alright, Darling,” one of them said.
When I heard her voice, I recognized her immediately.
“Rarity?” I was finally able to figure out the other two mares. “Applejack? Rainbow Dash?”
“We don’t have much time to explain!” Rainbow yelled in Delsin's face.
“Our sisters had planned a sleepover in their clubhouse,” Applejack said, “I went to check on them this morning…”
“AND THEY WERE GONE! MISSING!” Rarity finished and fell on a teleported couch and began to sob almost uncontrollably.
“Okay, okay, don't worry, we'll help you find them, right, Delsin?” I asked.
“Where’s their clubhouse?” He answered back, “Let’s see where you saw them last.”
We, being myself, Delsin, and the three mares hurried in the early sunrise to Sweet Apple Acres. When we arrived at the clubhouse, Delsin sent out a few radar pulses to check for their sisters.
“Vanitas, electrocute me and keep an eye out for Heartless,” he told me.
I complied without a word, casting Thunder on him and preparing for a fight. The mares got ready for a fight as well while Delsin entered the somewhat cramped quarters of the clubhouse and I remained outside as a Candy Apple Heartless from Kingdom Hearts: Unchained χ.
"Whoa. This just gets weirder and weirder." I said as I dispatched it while Delsin came out, “Never thought these guys would make an appearance.” I turned to him, “So, what did you find?” I then smelled the air, which smelled disgusting, “And what smells like something died?”
“Because something did die,” he said, the mares turning pale from his words. “Nisled was here and while I didn’t find any evidence of their sister’s kidnappers, I found a corpse of a cockatrice in there. The leftover bioelectric energy it had allowed me have the information I need to track him down. It is very likely that they were kidnapped by him, Applejack took note of their disappearance, and then he brought over and killed the cockatrice.”
“Uh, what?” Rainbow said.
He slammed my head onto a nearby tree in frustration, knocking off all of the apples in the process. “Long story short, I can lead us to where they have been possibly taken.”
“Then what are we standing here for!? Let's move!” I declared.
“I’m waiting for his echo to stop insulting me in Sign language.”
“...Say what now?” I asked, dumbfounded.
He didn’t answer, he just simply telepathically showed me how his friend, Cole MacGrath, read echoes, and we followed the echo, which was now doing a poor imitation of the Joker.
We followed the echo all the way to the last place I'd expect Nisled to be.
“The Castle?!” Delsin exclaimed, “He went all the way back to the castle?!”
“This could be bad.” I said.
“Yeah, I agree,” he turned to the mares, “You might want to wait somewhere safe. This could get messy.” The mares nodded in understanding and vanished into the forest. We walked towards the castle, Delsin sending out a radar pulse every so often to check for danger and keep the echo going. The echo went into the main entryway and stopped over a certain tile and just vanished. Delsin examined the tile that the echo stopped on and managed to pry it from the floor, revealing a secret passageway.
“You think he went down there?” I asked him.
“The echo ends here, so more than likely.” He moved the tile away from the passageway and dropped down, his arms becoming electrified to provide light.
“Hey, wait up!” I shouted as I dropped after him.
He turned on the spot and slapped his hand over where he thought my mouth would be, despite how futile that would be. “Keep quiet!” He whisper-shouted, “Let’s just try to…” his rebuke was interrupted by gunfire. He pushed me behind cover and dove behind me. He put his hand back over the “mouth” of my mask and peered out to see what we were up against.
All I could hear was that Skullcap language Delsin told me about and I couldn't understand any of it.
“Dude, are you following any of this?” I whispered.
“Shush!” He held my finger to his mouth to emphasis that. He then peeked out as far as I could without alerting the people intruding in my castle.
I heard footsteps, ‘There are three Reapers approaching us. I’m going to zap one of them. Once you hear the explosion, give them Hell.’
‘Roger that.’
He peeked out again and readied a precision bolt. Time slowed down for a brief moment as he carefully aimed at one of them. He fired that one bolt, frying him and igniting some kind of bomb as I heard the explosion, hopefully destroying whoever was trespassing.
‘They must be Chaos constructs! Give no quarter!’
‘Right!’
I jumped out and cast Dark Thundaga around the area, striking most of the enemies. He followed behind me, frying whoever that was lucky enough to escape my onslaught. It wasn't before long that we reached the end of the passageway where a door was. They were stuck closed, but they weren't for long, as he simply punched a hole in one, then tore them both off their hinges.
“Nice! Let's see what's behind door number one!” I said.
Without answering, he opened the door and found three fillies, all tied up and gagged. One was a yellow earth pony with a red mane, the next was a marshmallow white unicorn with a purple and pink mane, and the last was an orange pegasus with a maroon mane.
“It's the Crusaders! But why foal-nap them, of all ponies? Why not one of the Element Bearers?” I asked.
“I'm not sure, but we did find them,” he answered as he moved to the earth pony filly and undid her gag.
Once the gag was off, she shouted a warning, “Watch out!” I felt somebody was holding me in a full nelson and also felt that I somehow teleported out of the chamber. I managed to get Nisled off of me as Second appeared to be fighting the three mares from before, but they didn't appear to be themselves, so I helped Second fight, only to be slightly overwhelmed by them, Second as well.
“Harmony is just a dreamy mist,” Rarity droned as she flung spell after spell at us.
“Order and Chaos can never coexist,” Applejack continued in a monotonous way.
“Embrace that here in the Everfree,” Rainbow spoke as she flew.
“AND YOU SHALL SEE WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD THIS SHALL BE!” The three said and managed to knock me to where Nisled stood.
“Agh! That smarts!” I glare up at Nisled through my mask, “You think you can just kill me without a fight, you cheap knockoff?”
Nisled responded by trapping my arms and legs in concrete and kicking me forcefully in the visor which was now cracked, and was flung to the edge of the chasm. Nisled's hands and I lit up a red color, and I flinched as I took severe damage.
“AHHHHHHHH!!!” I screeched in anguish as I barely clung to consciousness.
“Who’s cheap? Me or the guy who sent you here?” Nisled asked arrogantly, as he summoned a diamond sword from Minecraft and raised the sword to strike, but Delsin came out of nowhere, dove down, and knocked me out of the way.
The blade went through his shoulder, in one side and out the other, and yelled out in pain from the strike, which must have gotten Second’s attention, as he managed to knock the brainwashed ponies back long enough to change into his aura giant form and knock Nisled into the canyon/gorge, when that happened, the mares fell unconscious.
After pulling the sword out of his shoulder, he ran to me and felt a pulse around my body. Without instruction, Second poured some of his own life force into me as Delsin prepared a healing volt, I received the volt as gratefully as you can imagine.
“Ah! What happened!? Where's Nisled!?” I asked as I looked around frantically.
“You were beaten to within an inch of your life, and a few volts of electricity cleared that up,” Delsin answered, “as for Nisled, he's down in there.” he pointed to the chasm.
“Can you scan to see if he's dead or something? You know, that pulse thing you do?”
“I won’t bother. It'll take more than what we have to kill him,” he deadpanned, “and I mean it. I saw him get beheaded, only for the body to pick up the head and reattach it as if it had to do that on a regular basis.” he walked to the edge of the crevice and peered down. “That's why he needs to be banished.”
“If that's what it takes, then so be it, let's banish the bastard.”
“Alright, let's get going...after I switch elements. Hit me with something Dark.”
“Thunder!” I cast Dark Thundaga, electrocuting him with sinister lightning.
He was able to drain out the lightning and absorb the Darkness. He let his Dark suit flow onto him and Karmic Gear appear in his hand. Turning around, Delsin nodded to me and dramatically fell backwards into the crevice. The wind whipped past as he fell head first, just before he hit the ground, Delsin flipped to feet first and landed without getting hurt.
My turn.
I just jumped off the cliff and landed on my feet with no ceremony, no tricks, no nothing.
I was done messing around.
Now I'm getting serious.
No one fucks me up and gets away with it.
“Where'd he go?” I whisper-shouted.
‘Only one way to find out,’ he tells me in telepathy. He pulled out his Banishing Key and held it above his head, it then began to float around and glow. It stopped in front of him and charged with some kind of energy. He sent out a brief pulse to find Nisled, but he was where we may have least expected. ‘DUCK!!!’ We both managed to duck just as the Key fired a beam in the spot where we were standing, striking Nisled and sending him hurtling into a void portal near the mouth of a cave.
“Did that do it? Is he gone?” I asked him.
“Yep, he's gone,” he answered, “Now, let's see about…AHH!” He suddenly felt something hurting his head as he fell to his knees with a hand on his head.
“Whoa! You okay there, man?”
‘Karmic Champion. Prince of Darkness. Come forth.’
“Did you hear that?” He asked.
“Yeah, what was that about?” I asked back.
‘Come forth.’
“I think it's coming from that cave,” He said, pointing into the cave near Nisled's banishment spot.
“Let’s go check it out.” I said.
“Okay.” We started walking, and kept an eye out for any Heartless, “Do you feel as if we're walking into a Holy place?”
“A little bit, why do you ask?” I suddenly realized something, “Your powers aren't unholy or something, are they?”
“Not that I'm aware of.”
‘They are not. However, ye must remove the shoes from off thy feet, for the ground upon which you stand is Holy Ground.’
“Well, you heard the Voice,” he said as he powered down his version of the Dark Mode suit and removed his shoes, “Remove your shoes...if you can.”
“Um...I kinda can’t, my suit’s melded onto my body, thanks to that merchant.” I said, bitterly.
‘He is an exception, Champion.’
“Alright,” he responds, but then looked like he realized something, “Come to think of it, who or what are you?”
‘Come further and you shall see.’
We moved further in until I saw something that just blew my mind. It was a crystalline tree that looked all too familiar.
“Whoa! The Tree of Harmony! It looks more amazing seeing it up close and personal!” I said.
“I'll admit, I'm impressed,” Delsin said, “But what called us here?”
“That would be me,” then someone stepped out from behind the tree.
“Holy!...Cole!?” He said.
“Who?” I asked, then saw somebody I never thought I’d see again, “Bro!? No way!”
“What?! You see him?”
“I see somebody, but I don't believe it. How did my brother get here!?”
“Your brother dressed as Cole MacGrath?”
“No, my brother dressed as Ventus from Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep. Wait…” I began to think about something, “Do I have a concussion, or did I finally go crazy and now I'm seeing hallucinations?”
“You're suffering neither problems,” "Ventus" said, “Your minds are perceiving my appearance differently. Delsin sees Cole MacGrath while you see Ventus.”
“Ohhhh, I get it now,” I said, “So, who are you then?”
“I am the Spirit of the Tree of Harmony.”
“No freaking way!” I said in surprise. “Wait, why did you call us here?”
“I speak concerning both of you and I offer gifts to help in your futures,” The spirit answered, then turned to me and spoke, “You already know what is to come in Equestia’s future, give or take a difference. All I can do is offer aid in what way I can.” The spirit pulled two items out of his "pocket", one was a black crystal shaped like the Unversed symbol, the other was a white crystal shaped like the Mark of Mastery symbol.
“What are these things?” I asked.
“The Elements of Dusk and Dawn,” it answered, tossing the jewels to me, “When my strength wanes, you and your friend will need to use those to reveal what needs to be sealed.”
“Friend...Dean! Dean is here!?” I exclaimed.
“Given time, he will be,” the spirit then looked at him, “Delsin Rowe, your doppelgänger, Nisled, will continue to try to spread his ideal of pure, unfiltered Chaos through the Multiverse. However, he cannot travel to any Equestria where you haven’t been or summoned someone from.”
“Does that mean that Sora will have to deal with him until he's properly banished?” It nodded. He hung his head down and said, “He's already pissed off at me for trying to comfort him when he didn't need it. Now he's got a psychopath to deal with.”
“Don't worry, I'm sure he can handle it, if he's anything like the real Sora, he'll take care of things.” I tried to reassure him.
“It's not him I'm worried about,” he responded, letting Darkness flow down his arms. “If he saw me with these powers, he'd sooner stab me 27 times in the chest before accepting help, and that's including with how upset I unintentionally got him.”
“It’s for that reason, I'm willing to help you.” The spirit then sent a rainbow orb of energy at Delsin.
When it hit him, a surge of energy went through him and his vision went through the entire color spectrum. When he could see properly again, we both noticed that his clothing and his Karmic rank had changed to Hero. It looked to me as if he had gotten some sort of new power.
“Whoa! What happened? Are you okay?” I asked him.
“I feel...different,” he answered, “I think I skipped the Paragon rank straight to Hero.”
“I also altered one of your abilities, gave you new ones and gave you access to Magic.” The spirit added.
“What do you mean?” Delsin asked.
The spirit sighed in annoyance and pulled out a piece of paper for him to take. He read over the page quickly, then looked at me with a mischievous grin.
“What is it? What did it say?” he asked.
In answer, his right hand lit up in a blue aura as he said, “Smoke and Mirrors.” Instantly, in a flash of blue smoke, his clothing switched to neutral and several neutral clones of himself appeared.
“That’s...new.”
He dispelled the clones and restored his clothes. “Evidently, what the spirit meant was that I'm now able to match Nisled. He wields Chaos and I wield Harmony,” he explained, “what you saw me do was a fusion of Harmony Magic and smoke.”
“Sweet! So, what happens now?”
“Well, for starters, I need to return home and check up on my fiancé. And thinking about that, when Tia and I smooth out the details, I'll see about getting you an invitation to the wedding,”
“Awesome! So I just do the thing and send you back?”
“Eeyup.”
“Alright then. It's been great meeting you, and I hope to see you at the wedding. Delsin, our contract is complete!”
As soon as that was said, a void portal opened up. he gave me a goodbye salute and walked through...only to get decked in the face with a golden horseshoe and fly back through the portal.
“Uh…was that supposed to happen?” I asked.
“Do I have a horseshoe shaped bruise on my face and is there an angry white Alicorn walking through the portal with fire in her eyes?” Delsin asked.
“Yes to both questions...and she's making me uncomfortable,” I answered.
He gave a slight whimper and answered, “Then yes, that was supposed to happen.”
He was grabbed by his pant legs and unceremoniously dragged through the portal while Celestia was muttering, “You and I need to talk about all of this.” And just at the last second, Jet Second quickly made his way into the portal.
After the portal closed all I could say was, "Well...that happened."
I climbed back up the stairs and to the front of the castle to see the three mares have regained consciousness and were hugging their younger sisters and biggest fan.
"Alright, the situation's resolved, let's go see Twilight." I told them.
They nodded and we made our way back to Ponyville.
Author's Note
And that concludes "Displaced"! Hope you enjoyed!
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Chapter 3: Displaced Part 1 (Crossover with InFAMOUS Displaced by Wayward Shadow)
Okay, I was mistaken, two figures came out, one was a unicorn wearing a mask, and the other was another human who looked a punk teenager geared up for a fight. The guy then grabbed his mask and pulled it off. The unicorn then gasped loudly, as if he was welcoming the open air, and then proceeded to vomit on the stone floor of the Throne Room. The guy then sent out some kind of pulse around the area while the unicorn was retching and giving thanks to Mother Faust. I was standing near the ruined thrones of the two sisters. He turned to me and his left arm started to generate smoke as his right came up to his face in a facepalm.
"Crumb Cakes and Icing! I hope I wasn’t summoned by a psychopath! That crazy time god was bad enough!” he said as he moved himself into a cautious stance, watching me as if he was waiting for hostility.
“Ummm…may I ask what in Celestia's name is going on?” I asked, then pointed at the unicorn, “And who is that?”
“Answering your questions in order; you summoned me in the middle of a fight, and that guy,” He pointed to the unicorn, “Was an unwilling member of a crime gang that's bent on removing my fiancé from the throne.” he aimed his right hand at him, glowing in a fiery light.
“Okay then, is he going to be a problem? Cause I need some answers.” I lifted my head briefly, switching Esuna with Deep Freeze. I then pointed my Void Gear Keyblade at the unicorn. “Stand clear. Freeze!” I froze the unicorn in a solid block of ice, rendering him immobile.
“Okay, let’s talk,” he said, lowering his arm and canceling the flow of smoke. “What is it that you want to know?”
“Who are you and what’s going on here? That merchant tricked me and sent me to Equestria as Vanitas, but he agreed that I’d play some game of his.” I asked.
He sighed in annoyance, and answered, “The name's Delsin Rowe, and as far as I can tell, you are now a Displaced.”
“A Displaced? What’s that?”
“That’s short for Dimensionally Misplaced. The basics of a Displaced is this: you go to a convention, buy something high quality, yet cheap, from a certain merchant and POOF!” He sets off a smoke grenade at my feet to add dramatics. “And now, you're here, in Equestria, with the powers and abilities of the character you dressed up as. Any further…” He then suddenly had some kind headache. He grabbed his head and fell to his knees.
It looked he was able to relax a bit. He turned to me as I rushed over to his side, “Whoa, you alright?” I asked.
He shook his head, “I just got the worst headache from seeing you have a close encounter with death, with me and Frosty over there saving you, and you ask if I'm okay?” he stood up and drove his fist into a nearby wall. “I'd be okay if what death we saved you from didn't involve my Karmic Opposite!”
“Wait, what!? What do you mean, ‘Karmic Opposite’!? You mean an alter ego!?”
This is going to be a long conversation. He turned around, showing me the image on the back of his vest. “You see the image on my back?” I nodded. “Now imagine the vulture is killing the eagle instead and you have an evil version of me.”
“Ouch! Does he have any weaknesses?”
He nodded, “Yes. He's deathly afraid of individuals who are stronger than him in chaos magic usage,” he chuckled a bit, “Which is kind of funny, because when he met Screwball, he literally screamed like a girl.”
“Seriously?...Wait. All my abilities are level one! I'm a walking target for this guy!” I began to panic. He looked like he was going to fire off of kind of smoke shot, but he stopped.
“I think we can worry about Nisled later,” he fired a cinder blast at the chunk of ice, freeing the unicorn inside, “Considering that you have visitors.”
“Visitors?” the sound of clanking metal filled the air, “The Royal Guard! Alright, let me do the talking, I know what I did was with good intentions, which I’ll explain to you later, but I still assaulted members of the Guard, so this burden’s mine.”
Suddenly, the main doors slammed open, revealing an entire legion of guards, ranging from unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, none of which looked very happy. “So...care to tell me what you did to piss these guys off now, or should I shut up?”
Then, the princesses came up from behind the guards, sporting battle armor of their own, “Oh, you’re about to find out, cause I’m pissed too.” I stormed up to the two and bellowed, “WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM!?”
“Um, what?” Luna asked, shocked, but confused.
“Your guards were trying to tie down and kill a Manticore! I don’t know what they told you about me, but I draw the line at animal abuse!”
My words startled the princesses greatly, the Royal Guard, attempting to murder a Manticore? It’s simply unheard of!
“H-He’s lying!” a familiar voice spoke, the guards moving to reveal one of their ranks, “H-He attacked us, for no reason!”
“Yeah!” another one said, “And he broke one of our spears!” he pointed a hoof at Vanitas, “Do you know how much those things cost to make!?”
“DOES IT LOOK LIKE I GIVE A FLYING FUCK!?” I roared.
Before any of the two guards could answer, Delsin smoke dashed up to the first one, ending in a tackle and commanded some smoke to hold him down. He and I looked to the other one just in time to see him collapsing in pain from being struck...down there. The unicorn then dropped his invisibility and gave the guard a light smirk.
“Nice shot, dude.” I complemented.
“ENOUGH!” Luna shouted in her Royal Canterlot Voice, she clears her throat and speaks with a calmer voice now everyone in the vicinity have stopped, “Okay, now, start from the beginning...um…”
“Vanitas.”
“Vanitas, tell us what happened.”
“Okay, it went like this…”
I explained that I was in the Everfree Forest for personal reasons, not wanting to explain the whole Displaced concept to them, found the two guards tying up a Manticore, and them getting ready to spear it to death. I did what anybody would do and stopped them, but my methods were questionable and a little too violent for the Royal Guard. I freed the Manticore and found this abandoned castle for a place to live.
“...And so, here we are, just about ready to have it out for each other.” I concluded.
Celestia and Luna’s expressions were unreadable as they turned to the two guards who reported me, “...Is this true?” Celestia asked.
“Umm…” the guards hummed.
Luna stomped a hoof, “My sister asked you a question!”
“Y-Y-Yes!” one of them said, “I-It’s true!”
“Who's side are you on!?” the other exclaimed.
“The princesses’, of course! You knew what we were doing was wrong, and you dragged me along for the ride!”
“Who cares if some dumb animal gets killed!? These things are dangerous anyway! It's better if put them down before they become a problem in the future!” he saw that everyone, even his buddy, was staring at him in shock, “...Oops.”
“Lieutenant Stone Sword,” Celestia speaks in a stern voice that chilled even the Royal Guard, “you are hereby dishonorably discharged. The guards will escort you to the dungeons. Seize him!”
Every guard leveled their spear toward Stone Sword’s neck, preventing him from escaping. He was about to be dragged out when he glowered at me.
“I'm going to remember you for this, Vanitas , this ain't over.”
With that said, he left willingly with about half of the entire battalion watching him in case he tried anything funny.
“Lieutenant Leather Armor,” Celestia turned to the partner in crime, “since you seem to be the regrettable one of this whole ordeal, but still an accessory to it, I'll let you off with a suspension, two weeks.” he breathed a sigh of relief, “After this is settled, spend time with your wife, okay?”
He nodded, “Thank you, Your Highness.”
After Leather Armor was escorted out, Delsin looked from me, to the Princesses, and to the unicorn. He sighed and said, “Well, that was fun. What now?”
“This is probably the part where we either talk things out, or they slap the cuffs on me.” I commented.
“Knowing Tia, she'll try diplomatic methods before imprisonment,” He states, “Luna, on the other hand, she'd probably have more violent methods.”
“Okay...better choose my words carefully then.” I clear my throat and walk over to the princesses, “Your Highnesses, do not fear, I come in peace, while I possess dark magic, I mean no harm...well, except for the two guards who tried to kill that Manticore, but that's totally different.”
The princesses giggled, “It's fine, good sir,” Celestia said.
“That's good to hear, now how about we introduce ourselves formally? I'll start off,” I put a hand over his chest and bowed, like a Keyblade Wielder would do to show respect for his or her master, “my name is Vanitas.”
“I am Princess Celestia, raiser of the sun and ruler of Equestria.”
“I am Princess Luna, co-ruler of Equestria alongside my sister and bringer of the night.”
We turned to Delsin and the unicorn, waiting for an introduction, “Delsin Rowe, the Equestrian Eagle, leader and founder of the Akomish tribe.”
“Jet Set the Second, Akomish outside of my father's wishes,” The unicorn said with a bow.
I clap my hands once, “Okay! Glad that's taken care of! Now, before we talk more, Your Highnesses, I need to speak with these two privately.” the princesses raise an eyebrow, “Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere.”
Celestia sighs, “Very well.”
She, Luna, and the remainder of the Royal Guard step outside the door and close it, I turn to Delsin, “Okay, two quick questions: what was that feather I used to call you here and how do I get one like that?”
“Oh, that was my token,” he pulled Sora’s keychain out for me to see. “Every Displaced has one.”
“Okay, how do I get my own?”
“Do you have something that you want to use for it?” he asked.
“Maybe…” I call my Keyblade and remove the keychain, “How about this?”
I took the keychain and looked it over. “I think this will work. I'll see what can be done.” I held it above my head and mentally called out, ‘Screwball! Will you help with making a token?’ The keychain began to float in a yellow aura. A void portal then opened up and the keychain multiplied, with all but two going through it. The last two keychains landed in Delsin's hands as the portal closed.
‘I worked the token to allow those who possesses one to use the Portals of Darkness with no negative effects.’
He chuckled a bit. “Screwball went all out with this.” Delsin tossed me one of the keychains, while he held the other one up, thinking of a destination. Almost immediately, a Portal of Darkness opened up. he walked in and it closed behind him.
"...Uh, where'd he go?" I asked the unicorn.
“Yo!” he called out from behind, scaring the both of us.
“Okay then, now what do I do?” I asked, after catching my breath.
“Imprint a message that you would want other Displaced to hear, much like what you heard with my token.”
“Okay, here we go,” I took a deep breath, “I am Vanitas, if there is anyone in need of help, I’ll be there to answer the call. " I hold up the keychain, “Now what?”
“Now, when anyone finds your token, they'll hear that,” he hold up my chain, “From there, it is up to them if they summon you or not.”
“So, should I just toss it in the portal, or is this one yours?”
“I've got mine. Just reattach yours back onto your Keyblade.”
“Okay.” I did just that, and return my attention to him, “So what happens now?”
“I think that discussion can be discussed with the Princesses. They may have an idea of what you can do,” Delsin cracked his neck, “As for me, I'll need to stay here until my doppelganger is blocked from reentering this world after being banished from it.”
“And I'll just stick with you,” Jet said to him, “After that mind gas, I'm going to need some help staying out of trouble.”
“Alright, guess we have a game plan.” I walk over to the double doors, “Okay! You can come back in now!”
The princesses enter the throne room once more, skepticism etched on their faces.
“See? Told you I wasn't going anywhere,” I said, “Now do you trust me?”
“More or less,” Celestia said, “I believe you should come with us to Canterlot to test your dark magic to be sure that you are not a threat.”
“Fair enough, under one condition.”
“And that is?” Luna asked.
“Afterwards, I get to take up permanent residence in the Everfree Forest.”
“...Done.” Celestia reluctantly agreed.
“I hope you don’t mind if Jet Second and I tag along,” Delsin says, “We may even help in Vanitas’ testing.”
“Okay then, shall we go, Vanitas?”
“Yup, let's go.” Celestia then lit her horn and we were teleported to the Canterlot throne room. Just barely after the teleport, I think Delsin had a feeling of nausea.
Urgh. Why? he then let his gut spill out of his mouth and onto the red carpet.
“Gross, dude!” I exclaimed, “Couldn't you find a bathroom before you did that!?”
“It's not his fault,” Luna said, “Teleportation leaves many non-unicorns nauseous.”
“Less chat, more electrocution!” Delsin called out.
“Wait just a second here!” I object, “Nobody said anything about electrocution! Plus, I have a fear of electrocution!”
“Not you!” he shouts out, “I was talking about me! I can control more than just smoke, for your information!”
“Oh.” I chuckled, “I knew that...kinda.”
“Just...somepony shock me!”
“Okay! Just let me get Dark Thundaga set into my Command Deck!” I glanced up at my HUD, took out Deep Freeze and added Dark Thundaga, and looked back to him, then summoned my Keyblade and whipped into the air, “Show me anguish!”
A black lightning bolt came and shocked him down to the bone. After absorbing the electrical energy, his body felt nauseous again. He then floated in the air and his form glowed red for a moment. After landing on his feet, his eyes widened in shock (no pun intended).
“CRAP! I need to drain that Bad Karma out of me! Forgive me!” he then began to fire off red bolts of lightning at a random vase, hitting everything but the vase. It wasn’t until he managed to hit the vase with a blue bolt that he stopped. He looked to the gathered group and found us looking at him with shocked expressions (seriously, I’m not coming up with these on purpose).
“Dude...what the actual fuck?" I said.
“I was not expecting that.” Celestia added.
“Neither was I, sister.” Luna agreed.
He gave the us all a sheepish look. “Sorry. I guess I absorbed the darkness from that shock unintentionally. I had to drain it out before I went down a rank.”
“Maybe I should’ve gone with plain Thundaga.” I said.
“Past mistakes aside, I’m itching to actually test out my electric powers,” he swung my arms down, generating Gigawatt blades on my arms. “That’s new.”
“What do you mean, ‘that’s new’? You DO know all of what you’re capable of, right?”
“Yes and no,” he answers, “Yes, involving what powers I have, I have the general idea. No, I don’t know everything about what I have and what I could get.”
“That worries me. What if you get something super powerful and dangerous, even to yourself?”
“It’s weaker than the original set,” he explains, “If I had more power with smoke, I could have unintentionally suffocated the discharged guard with the smoke restrainment.”
“I’ll take your word for it. So what now? More tests?”
“Yeah, THINK FAST!!!” he shot off a lightning hook, catching me in the chest and pulled me towards him, only for him to deliver a few electric jabs and a kick to my abdomen, sending me to my starting point.
“Oh, you wanna dance!? Fine, let’s dance!” I fired my Flame Burst spell, the three fireballs speeding at Delsin and catching him in the leg, arm, and chest.
“OW! What the Deuce!” Time to distract him. he telepathically retaliated, projecting this video from the dark recesses of his memory into my head. As I was distracted, he tossed a sticky grenade at me, with it landing on my foot. A few seconds after he tossed it, it detonated, sending me flying into the pillar next to the door. He then pulled up a polarity wall, just in case. But I used my Afterimage ability and disappeared and reappeared behind him, “Gotcha!” I said as I attacked him with a downward swing from above.
“Gah!” he was knocked forward, landing face first onto the floor. ‘Second! A little help!’ Second entered his aura giant form and took a swing at me, knocking me off of my feet. I stood back up, jumped up high, and dove into the ground, creating a red and black puddle of darkness lurking toward Delsin. When I was directly under his feet, I flew out with my Keyblade pointed out, nailing him in the chest and knocking him back. While in midair, I dove back down into floor to repeat my attack, but he was ready for me and dodged the moment I resurfaced, but what he didn’t see coming was fireballs spewing from the tip of my blade and hitting him several times.
‘Grrr! Second! I need to change powers! I need a bright light!' Second charged his aura form to be extremely bright. I briefly shielded my face from the light, giving Second and Delsin the time to come up with a plan without speaking or using telepathy. Delsin absorbed the light from Second and the latter shrunk down and turned invisible. He then flashed his Oathkeeper and Oblivion constructs for intimidation purposes. I flinched, not knowing he had those Keyblades, but I was then punched in the gut by an unseen hoof. Delsin then rushed in and pulled off a combo with the blades.
“Darkness waits!” I quickly recovered and summoned several afterimages as I attacked Delsin back and forth in rapid succession, my moves and appearances nearly unpredictable.
He flailed his arms and Keyblade constructs around, hoping to get a lucky shot. I, however, knock the blades out of his hands. However, he managed to grab my arm and darkness flowed down my arm onto his arm. Both of us began to struggle, me trying to pull him off, and him trying to fight blacking out. However, the blacking out happened, both Delsin and I collapsing to the ground.
“It started when I first watched my brother play Kingdom Hearts; Sora’s skills and spells were good, great even, but something drew me to the enemies. They had unique abilities, weapons, battle styles, I studied them as much as I could, especially since I didn’t have the money to buy the other games. And so, I came to my first convention, cosplaying as Vanitas, he was the one I liked the most; his power, his ability to summon the Unversed, it made me want to be him, or at least pretend to be. But then, the merchant tricked me and sent me to Equestria as Vanitas. I thought it was a dream come true, but I was scared out of my mind, never in all my life could I have the power of darkness. Darkness was portrayed as evil, but I can change that: darkness can be used for good purposes, and I’ll prove it. To everyone."
As I came to, I found that Second and the Princesses were looking down at us in concern. “Are you okay, brother?” Second asked Delsin in Akomish tradition. He nodded in response. He let darkness flow over his arms and he sunk into the floor. After getting up in the dark corridor, he rose from the floor, but his clothing was different.
It seemed to mirror my dark suit, except that his helmet/visor had a shape reminiscent to a bird’s beak, the clothing was tinted blue rather than red, and the dress/skirt/kilt portion resembled blue eagle feathers. He looked up from my clothes and saw that I had gotten to my feet. He summoned a more blue version of my Void Gear keyblade and prepared to fight.
“Okay. I don’t know what the hell just happened, or why you look similar to me, but this little sparring match ends with me as the victor. Suffer!” I charged at him, using the command, Dark Haze.
He wasn't able to stop the attack, he took it and was sent flying. When he hit the throne, time seemed to slow to a crawl and his chest seemed to shoot out light, much like how when a boss is defeated. Our vision was briefly filled with light as time resumed.
Bonus Obtained!
He tumbled over the throne, landed head first on the ground and blacked out.
"Oops, guess I overshot it." I uttered.
To Be Continued...
Author's Note
Next chapter:
The continuation of Displaced
Commands used:
Deep Freeze
