Test of the Heart

[Shinn]

Strong darkness will make the light stronger. Strong light will make the darkness stronger.

Several hearts with a strong connection to the light and each other keep the darkness in this world to a minimum. But even with their tremendous light, the darkness can never be destroyed. It resides in a small area slowly growing day by day. When it is time, it will lash out and return this world to darkness.

As the sun sets and nighttime came, a swirling pool of darkness appears near the beach of Destiny Islands. Rising up from the darkness was a entity neither human or Heartless. It was something more.

While it had the shape of an adult male its entire body was pitch black. It stood there appearing as though it was staring at the ocean, then turned around and looked over to the main land. The body then sunk into the ground and would reappear moments later on the main land. The dark entity looked around trying to find something or someone.

A man walked by and spotted the dark figure and was startled. The dark entity looked over to where the man was from its eyes it could only see a small glowing light where the man was. This seemed to trigger something inside the dark entity and it clenched its chest. It waved its arm and the man was then engulfed in dark flames. He yelled out in pain screaming for help but it was too late. The flames burned his body until there was nothing left. The light vanished from existence as well. And while some people heard a man scream the instant he was gone it was as though they completely forgot about it and just shrugged it off.

A photo showing the man from before standing with a group of friends soon changed with his image disappearing from the picture.

[Magius]

All was calm on the beaches of Destiny Islands. The only thing that made sound was the breeze that rustled the palm trees nearby. The peace was disturbed though, when a blue swirling light appeared on the beach of the mainland like a blue tornado the size a person. When the light disappeared, it revealed a young man standing there. The hood of his black short sleeve shirt covered his head and hid the upper half of his face, though messy brown hair poked out from the sides of the hood a little. He stared out at the ocean for a second; seeming to take the sight in. he turned around and looked over the mainland and the town that was settled there.

"Maybe I can find some answers here." said the young man in a whisper. He walked along the streets of a town when something caught his eye that he had never seen before. A man, or at least something close to one, made completely of shadow stood in the middle of one of the side streets of the town. He quickly ducked behind a bunch of tree that were close by and observed the strange creature. 'Is that some sort of Heartless?' he thought to himself. Normally he wouldn't think twice of slaying a heartless, but this....thing.....seemed different. It was like his lost teacher always said to him "Iatros, you should always remember to look before you leap." And that was exactly what he was going to do...for now.

[Shinn]

With the man gone without a trace the dark entity continued towards its destination. It knew where it must go and so it headed north unaware of the newcomer from another world.

Should the outsider follow the dark entity it would not notice him. His attention was focused only on a nearby source of strong light. However if another person from this world were to show up the dark entity would do the same thing it had done to the man before.

Unfortunately this was the case as a young couple came walking down a street crossing paths with the dark entity. The young male quickly stood in front of the female trying to protect her from this unknown being. It stood there staring at the two only seeing two small lights in front of him. It shook its fists and ran at the couple attempting to destroy that light.

[Magius]

Iatros continued to follow the ‘shadow man’ as he had dubbed it, north. He figured now that this thing was no heartless, it seemed too determined, too goal focused on a certain thing. Heartless more or less went after and heart that they could get their hands on. But this thing seemed to be searching for a particular thing. As he followed it his summoned his weapon Mage’s Edge, a large sword with a blade that look like solid water. He wanted to be prepared if this thing tried anything funny.

When he saw a couple near the thing he started running toward it them and none two soon. He got in front of the couple just in time to intercept the shadow man. He swung his sword in a horizontal arc at the creature hoping to wound it or at least cause it to stop its charge.

[Shinn]

As it raced to the two lights a third one appeared in front of the other two. This light seemed much brighter than the other two which cased the dark entity to now focus on vanquishing it first.

It stopped in its tracks before the warriors blade could touch it. This gave the couple a chance to make a run for safety.

Ignoring the fleeing two lights the dark entity was now fixated on this strange new one. It could sense that this light was not from this world. But it didn't matter, the light had to be destroyed nevertheless.

It held out its had and summoned a long sword five feet in length. The shape of the blade was similar to that of a reptilian or bat-like wing. It swung it around before finally rushing at the outsider.

It went in thrusting the sword at the young man rapidly.

[Magius]

Iatros was able to dodge the thrust from the shadow man's sword thanks to his to the reflexes that he gained from playing blitzball. He jumped back from the shadow man to put some ground between the two before jumping at the creature, his sword brought over his head and then brought down making a vertical slash at the shadow.

[Shinn]

The dark entity blocked the young mans attack using the sword it had summoned as a shield. It then pushed back Iatros and using its free hand created a ball of blue and black darkness and fired it at the young man.

The ball of darkness flew at Iatros before splitting apart into six individual balls of darkness. The six dark orbs flew out and came back in towards Iatros from different directions.

Meanwhile the dark entity sunk into the floor and began moving around the floor. All that could bee seen was this swirling black pool on the ground indicating its location. It headed towards Iatros.

[Magius]

Iatros landed on his back from the push but used the momentum to role right back onto his feet in a crouch. His eyes widened in surprise as the dark balls flew toward him. Thinking quickly he jumped toward the balls so that they just managed to arc around him. The small explosion from the balls colliding together burned his back with dark energy. He managed to notice the pool of shadow just in time. He quickly spun his sword into reverse grip, grabbing it with both hands, and with a cry brought it down with an attempt to stab the pool itself.

[Shinn]

The warriors sword sunk into the pool of darkness causing the dark entity to pop out and retaliate with a spinning sword swing knocking the young man back.

While it didn't show, he had caused some damage to the dark entity. It was now back in its complete form and once more rushed towards Iatros. Instead of striking him with quick jabs it now swung its sword around wildly several times before finishing it off with a upward then downward two swing vertical slash.

Once it came down with the final swing it released a crescent wave of darkness towards Iatros.

[Magius]

Iatros skidded backward as he was pushed back, but managed to not get knocked of his feet this time. He saw the shadow man coming and was able to dodge some of the wild swings it made with its sword while blocking others with his own. The upward slash caught him by surprise though, leaving a shallow gash along his chest. He managed to spin to the side to dodge both the downward slash and the dark wave that followed.

As he came around from the spin he brought his sword around with him, using the momentum to make a strong a fast horizontal strike to try and take of the shadow creatures head. When the strike was finished he brought up his empty hand and fire a blue bold of pure magical energy from it about the size of a human head at the creature for good measure.

[Draconas]

Out of nowhere, a lumbering draconic figure stepped into view. He was covered in silvery scales, but they were leathery, and the glow from them was purely from sweat. He had not expected to see a creature of darkness here, in Destiny Islands. He had thought this place near-immune to them. Darkness is in men's hearts everywhere. he sighed, moving to strike the being of darkness with his twin katana. He ran forward, slashing one horizontally and one vertically, the two slashes timed to allow at least one to break through the defenses of the creature.

He gathered up the flames in his stomach as he said, "Greetings, friend. I am Arc, and I will help you fight this dark creature." Hopefully they could take out the vile darkness before it feasted upon any others. If not, Arc would have to call in reinforcements, and that was never good. He did not wish to be forced to call upon his Dragoon allies, nor his Creeper ones. But, he would if forced to.

[Magius]

Iatros jumped back from the shadow man and turned to the large dragon creature, giving him a nod of his head as a greeting. He was a little surprised by Arc, but not by the fact he was a dragon, he had seen stranger beings. No he was surprised by the simple fact that Arc seemed to come out of nowhere. "Thanks for the help Arc. I'm Iatros."

He then took another couple swings at the shadow being with his sword. "This may seem rude..." he said as he made a diagonal slash aimed at the shadows leg."....but where did you...." He spun around the shadow and went to stab it in the back."...come from?” He finish just as he jumped, doing a summersault hoping to ad momentum to his downward swing for the creatures head.

[Shinn]

With each attack that came at the dark entity, it blocked the sword strikes and took the blast of magic head on but was still on its feet. Another newcomer came to the scene from who knows where and immediately joined Iatros in combat. This one was no human but it didn't matter to the dark entity, all it saw was another light that needed to be vanquished.

It sank into the ground once more moving around the floor this time splitting into four separate pools of darkness. Only one of the four pools carried the true dark entity while the others were a set trap. They would have to guess which one was the real one, and they had to guess quickly. The four pools of darkness began to encircle the two creating a large shadow beneath them. If they didn't hurry, it would sprout a large pillar of darkness from the ground shooting up to two stories high.

[Magius]

Iatros looked around at the spinning pools and then at the floor with the growing shadow with thoughtful and calculated looks. He didn't know what was going to happen but he knew that if he didn't do something quickly he was going to be in a world of hurt.

He ran to one of the dark pools, his Mage's Edge in reverse grip, and stabbed downward into the pool like he had before. He then quickly turned; his sword still impaled in the dark pool with one hand holding it, and fired another blue bolt of magic at the one opposite the one he had stabbed.

[Xemnas (I)]

Arc twisted his blades, looking down at the pools of darkness. He stabbed once into each of the two nearest him, hoping that that would be enough. "I came from elsewhere, I am a wanderer." He then immediately let loose with his flaming breath. Hopefully, that would be enough to defeat this creature of shadow. It never was, but it could be this time. Hope was the difference.