Nightmares from a Shattered World

Shadowstep jumped off her Key-gilder landing in front of the doors to the Castle of Departure. As she landed her vehicle faded into darkness. Shadowstep was as an earth pony. Her fur was a dark blue while her mane and tail were both Light purple. She had been sent all the way to the Land of Departure as Princess Celestia's messenger. She paused for a moment quickly checking the time. Master Luke would probably be giving his pupils a history lesson right now.

Shadowstep grabbed the handle in her mouth and pulled the door open. She galloped up some stairs ignoring the stain glass windows that she would normally admire but now was not the time. As she galloped down a hallway to her left she found that she could her Master Luke's voice coming from the halls of history.

"And so after Xehanort's final defeat Riku decided to train three Apprentices of his own. He taught them how to wield both the power of light and the power of darkness. He took the up most care in teaching them how to properly wield the darkness, for those who try to channel its power without the proper training are doomed to become consumed by it, and on occasion becoming a Seeker of Darkness."

She picked up speed as the human's voice became more clear. With each step she left behind small black flames that would go out about a second after appearing. Passing windows with images of past battles on them. On either sides of the hall were statues of past Guardians of light, a title that could be held by only seven warriors at any one time. At the end of the hall was white double doors. It was called the doors of memory, they mimicked the effects of Castle Oblivion. Allowing one to travel through memories.

"Soon after Riku's fellow Guardians took on apprentices of their own. They eventually all came to the conclusion that they needed a new base of operations so they returned to Castle Oblivion and reverted it to its original state. and so the newly restored Castle of Departure became the first of the Order's strongholds. Ironic really, considering that this was also the where the Xeha.."

At that moment Shadowstep burst into the room. She appeared in room that resembled Luke's home planet.   She skidded to halt in front Master Luke. As she skidded some of the flame from her hooves landed on Luke's pants. A couple of Luke students burst out laughing as Luke calmly put out the fire on his leg.

"I assume you have a good reason for interrupting my lesson."

"Uhh. yeah." she grabbed in her mouth a letter she had tucked in her tail. Luke took the letter an started to read it. "Its from Celestia. She said it was urgent. Sorry about setting you on fire." A few students snickered.

"Shadowstep if I were to scold everpony that sets foot in my academy I wouldn't be a master now would I?" he waved off her apology, while reading the scroll. "Accidents hap...."  He reread the scroll.

"Whats wrong?."

"Oh no...." Luke's blood chilled. "but... how?.. SHADOWSTEP ALERT THE OTHER MASTERS!!! IXEN IS BACK."

"Who's Ixen?"

"NO TIME TO EXPLAIN THEY'LL KNOW WHAT I MEAN!!!" He quickly made his keyblade take the form of a gilder and flew out the doors, and then through one of the glass windows, shattering the two thousand year old window in the process.

Deciding that it was okay to fly through the window if Luke did it, Shadowstep summoned her glider and flew out the door,  through the window, and then off to another world.

"..........................................."

"So does that mean our Social Studies class is over?" one of the students asked aloud. Every other student facepalmed, facehoofed, or what ever variations of such action that they're species were able to do.

______________

BEEP "how.."

BEEP "how..."

BEEP "HOW DARE YOU!..."

Shining Armor captain of the Royal Guard awoke in a forest of brambles and withered trees.He looked about for a moment wondering how he came to be here.

"My love" Shining turned. he saw before him his love Princess Mi Amoree Cadenza. Although he refereed to her as "Cadence"

"My love be still. You are injured"

Shining quickly noticed his front right leg was lacerated. His eyes widened in horror

"Be still my knight. I can help you"

He smiled at the sight of her. Her words calmed him greatly.

"I'm lucky you found me I guess huh?"

She said nothing in return. Instead her expression turned to one of glee. She pierced his chest with her hoof. Blood spurting on her elegant mane.

Shining armor looked at her with the horror of betrayel. "Cadence... but why... are you" "ARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH"

Shining lay dead on the ground before Cadence. Cadence used her unicorn magic to remove his heart from his chest. "Thank you my love... this gift you have bestowed upon me is beautiful. It's almost as fair as myself..." To remove the beating heart from his chest.

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

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

Where am I?

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

"Am... Am I dead...?"

The captain of the royal guard opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was his little sister Twilight standing in front of him looking worried. What was wrong? Next he realized he was in bed. A heart monitor, that's what was making the noise. He then realized where he was.

Shining Armor awoke from a horrific nightmare.

"Twi...light?"

She sighed. "Thank goodness your awake. For a moment I thought. I thought you were having a heart attack or going into Cardiac Arrest!"

It took him only a moment to realize his little sister was crying. How long had he been here? How many hours? Days? What had left him in the state he currently found himself in?

A surge of pain shot through his front right leg.

"NEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" The pain had passed him as soon as it had come.

"wait, Wait NO! Cadence. WHERE IS CADENCE!"

"I don't know I haven't seen her all day."

"She's in trouble!"

He had to Inform the Royal Guard. Shining brought himself up, attempting to leap out of his hospital bed. But to no avail the pain was far too great for him to move.

"Spike" he said to his little sister."Is Spike here?"

A small purple figure covered in scales walked from behind the bed's curtain. "I'm here Shining what's wrong?"

"Send a letter to the Princess." Spike took out some parchment and a feather. "The demon is after Cadence. It says she's one of Seven."

Spike wrote it down. Then using his dragon breath he sent the letter. It vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Demon?" Twilight and spike exclaimed aloud.

"That... that's why we found you covered in blood isn't it?"

He nodded.

"Yes, though I'll spare you the most of the details." He said glancing at Spike. "It tried to attack Candace. We attacked it and it used a portal to escape. I chased it through a portal, then it told me that Cadence is "One of the Seven. The demon attacked me, leaving my right leg a bloody mess I see. It was far too powerful to stand against. When I was on the verge on death an the demon was about to give me the killing blow A strange light saved me.Well I assume that at least since I'm still alive."

Shining looked down towards his chest and saw a lustrous white Pendant with a dark sapphire gem carved in the shape of a shield. Shining could feel his front right leg once again. He winced as the nerve connected with his torso but it was merely a slight pain now.

"Was it this thing that saved me?"

At that moment Spike belched and from the smoke appeared a letter. He handed the letter to Shining Armor. "For Shining Armor's eye's only it says."

Shining levitated the letter in front of his face and read.

Shining Armor

I'm relieved to know your alive my Captain of the Royal Guard but I fear you may not be safe just yet. I command you to stay where you are it is likely the demon has done something to you to ensure you die with the knowledge of him and what he has done. If my faithful apprentice is with you now tell her to leave the room and cast a sealing spell on it. You may be safe for now but who knows what he could have done. It might have been poison or a curse or... I dare not imagine what could happen if he attempted to possess your body.

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

Twilight rushed over to the Princess the moment she entered the quarantined wing of the hospitable. Following her were several Ponies Twilight had never seen before, none them were even dressed like Royal guards. Despite that fact almost all of their cutie marks screamed warriors. Some had strange blades as their marks, others had hearts or locks, one had an image of cards attached to chains.

"Princess, what's going on? What's wrong with my brother?"

"My Faithful Student. It is time I told you the true story of how my sister became Nightmare Moon, but first bring down your barrier spell so that we can check that your brother has not fallen to the darkness."

"Who are these Ponies?" Twilight asked as she brought down the barrier.

"That ties into my story. Dream Walker, Masters Luke and Bob, please go check on my Captain. Oh, and Shadowstep can you take Spike to visit one of Twilight's friends."

"Wait why do I have to leave?" Spike complained.

"Its not safe here for a child right now, besides wouldn't you like to see Rarity?" Shadowstep told Spike. Immediately after Spike followed Shadowstep out the door.

Princess Celestia turned toward Twilight "Now that story I was going to tell you. To understand it I will have to tell the story of the Keyblade bearers. Long ago the Universe was nearly consumed by the darkness. Seven warriors wielding key shaped blades fought to prevent this. They traveled from world to world forcing back the legions of darkness. Afterwards they're created a group of warriors that fought in secret to stop such an event from happening again. The group called themselves the Keyblade Order. They would search for other keyblade bearers and stop the misuse of keyblades."

"Eventually they came to our world. They stopped a group of Heartless almost before anypony noticed them. The Heartless would take ponies hearts and use the darkness inside them to create more heartless. Only keyblades can stop heartless because only keyblades have the power to free the heart trapped within a heartless. After the Order helped me and Luna fight them off they made us Keyblade bearers. They had us swear not to tell any of subjects about the keyblade unless the entire world was in danger of being taken by the darkness, and even then we are only allowed to tell a few of our most trusted subjects."

"Wait so your saying that the world might end?" Celestia nodded. "but what does this have to do with Shining?"

"I was getting to that. A little over a thousand years ago the Order found someone who misused his keyblade. This man Ixen had slaughtered his entire world. The Order tried to interrogate him but he escaped. He landed in Equestria, attacked Luna, and killed one of my subjects. It was a pony Luna had fallen in love with. At the time I thought he had spared Luna's life because he knew we were coming for him, but not even an hour afterward I learned the truth. He had put part of his heart in my sister's body. The fragment convinced her to attack me."

"Shortly before my sister returned Ixen returned and went berserk. With the help of the Order I thought he had been vanquished. But now he has returned, stolen the Elements, and attacked Shining Armor. What I fear is that he spared your brother for the same reason he spared my sister."

______________

Ixen held up the Element of laughter to his face.The scent was familiar. He sniffed it again to check if he had been mistaken. He closed his eyes as a smile stretched across his face.

She was alive.

The man bit down hard on his hand causing it to bleed. Then he waved his bleeding hand around. The blood formed into a dripping red portal. Out of it walked a long dead stallion. All over it was cut and gashes. Some of the wounds that had caused its death were still bleeding as if it were alive.

"YESss, MASssTER?"

"You said Shining survived and was rescued, right?"

"YESsss."

"Take me to him."

"ASss YOU WISssH."

As Ixen followed the corpse he whispered to the air. "I'm coming for you, Pinkie Pie."