This chapter was written with the assistance of Golden Flare. A Crossover with his story, Prince of the Everfree.

InFAMOUS Displaced
Chapter 15
Unbreakable Chains

*Beep*

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I awoke to the sound of a heart monitor. Opening my eyes, I found that I was in a hospital...or at least the castle infirmary. I was out of my Dark suit, and my vest, chain mail, and shirt was replaced by a hospital gown. Amongst the beeping of the machinery, I could hear snoring. Jet Second was sleeping on a chair, and he had removed his body suit, revealing his Akomish tattoo and his Cutie mark (a Roman Numeral 2).

I sent out a radar pulse to see who else was here. Aside from the infirmary/hospital staff and any of the “guests”, I could sense Vanitas just outside the door, along with what I assumed was one of the Princesses.

Vanitas entered the room and looks at my 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,” I answer, “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,” I 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,” I answer, “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,” I say 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.” I sat up in the bed, and growled out in Skullcap while rubbing my arm, *Why do they have to insert the needles in sensitive parts of my tattoo?*

“Uh, what was with all the growling?”

“Unless you want your face to look like this,” I pointed to my neuro-tar scarred half of my 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.” Vanitas said, “Alright then, after you get released, we’re going after your evil counterpart.”

“We can start by cleaning up your new castle,” I say, “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, once in the gardens, I barely noticed the spot where I remembered the time I was talking to my Celestia in my Equestria. The nostalgia hit rather suddenly, all I could do was stop and look at the spot referenced.

“Hey man, you okay?” Vanitas asked.

I jumped a slight bit at his 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,” Vanitas looks at the palm of his hand, “I hope this works.” he held it outward and opened the dark corridor, “Whoa! I did it! I can't believe it!”

I rolled my eyes at his excitement. I glanced back at the spot, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. “Hang on, I thought I saw something.” I moved to what I saw and found three chests, one was larger than the other two. “Hey! Check out what I found.”

Vanitas quickly joined me and said, “Whoa, sweet! May I do the honors?”

“One moment.” I sent out a radar pulse to see if there was anything harmful or noticeable in the chests. One of the smaller ones had what felt like Ray Field energy, while I couldn’t identify what was in the other two. “Open this one first,” I pointed to the chest with the Ray Field energy.

“Okay, you're the boss,” Vanitas walked over to the aforementioned chest and tapped it with his Void Gear, opening it. Inside, was a blast core. “Whoa, what's with the shiny rock?”

I, personally, couldn’t believe my eyes. “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.”

I picked up the blast core, with a bit of smirk on my 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.” I began to channel the Dark element through my arms and into the core. After a few seconds, the energy from the core entered me. I was levitated into the air briefly, with tendrils of Darkness extended out. I then fell to the ground, feeling sleeping, my eyes closing and falling asleep.

Upon waking up, I found that I was now on the edge of the Everfree Forest. “Ah, you’re finally awake,” Jet Second said, “Have a nice nap?”

“Yeah,” I said, while shakily getting to my feet, “I think I may have something new for my Dark powers.” I looked around a bit and sent out a radar pulse, but I couldn’t see Vanitas. “Hey, where’s Vanitas?”

“He went to scout ahead, clear the path of any dangerous creatures,” Second said, pointing into the forest.

“Okay,” I said, “Maybe I can test out the addition to my powers.” I closed my eyes and concentrated. I felt as if some of my fear, anger, and many other negative emotions surface for a brief moment before subsiding.

“YAAH! What in Tartarus is that?!” Second shouted out. I opened my eyes and saw that I had managed to do something. I summoned a Flood Unversed...but there was something off about it. I couldn’t tell what, but it was off. I decided to try something.

“Go and search for Vanitas, and help him if he’s in trouble. If not, stay with him.” I felt the Unversed’s understanding and it ran off into the Everfree. “Okay, now…” Before I could finish, I suddenly heard a war cry of some sort. I reacted and raised my right fist up and something cyan smashed into it. It stuck to my fist for a moment before falling off, dazed.

“Rainbow Dash!” I heard an angry, western accented voice shout out, “Why didn’t ya wait for tha rest of us?” I turned to where the voice came from and saw a familiar orange mare followed by a few other mares, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony.

I raised my hands in surrender and Second backed up. “Am I in trouble for something?”

The lavender unicorn, Twilight Sparkle, stepped forward, “I wouldn’t necessarily say that you’re in trouble. We saw you carried by someone…or something...out of a dark portal of some kind,” she explained, “We’re not sure what happened, since Fluttershy left to tell us.”

They must be referencing Vanitas. “Tell me, did the someone or something look like this?” I enveloped myself in Darkness, putting on my Dark suit. After the Darkness receded, the gathered ponies (except the unconscious one) suddenly reeled back in fear.

“What in Equestria is that outfit?!” The white unicorn, Rarity, asked in horror, “It looks absolutely horrid.” I disengaged the suit for her sake, shrugging my shoulders.

“I’m sorry, I don’t choose the design.”

“Then let me design something else rather than what you showed us.”

“Rarity! Ah think that we have better things to talk about than our clothin’ colors matching the grass or not,” the orange earth pony, Applejack, stated rather forcefully.

I tried to break up the fight, “Girls! Girls! Settle…” My vision was suddenly filled by sky blue eyes. “DOWN!!!” I suddenly fell on my rear in an attempt to escape the blue eyed terror, Pinkie Pie.

“Hi!” She said, with an impossibly massive grin on her face. “What are you doing on the ground? Shouldn’t you be standing up and talking and partying and enjoying…” Dear Mother Faust, she scares me. No sooner had I thought that, another Unique Flood Unversed tackled her away from me.

“Pinkie!” The butter yellow pegasus, Fluttershy, whisper-shouted. Twilight took no hesitation and fired a magic blast at the Unversed, striking it in it’s chest and dissolving it. I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my chest, shouting out in pain from it.

Fluttershy was on me in an instant. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?” She asked in a caring manner, “What happened? Do you have a heart condition?”

I shook my head as the pain ebbed away. “No. She shot that creature and I was sharing it’s pain.” The gathered ponies had shared shocked expressions. Twilight looked as though she was going to speak again, but she looked past me. Wondering what she was looking at, I sent out a radar pulse and felt Vanitas’ signature.

“Hey, I'm back. Did he wake up yet?” Vanitas looks at me, then Second, and lastly the Mane 6, “Uh, did I miss something?”

At that moment, Rainbow Dash woke up. Upon seeing Vanitas, she was instantly in the air and doing another charge, aimed at Vanitas this time. She didn’t make contact, as the First Unversed I had summoned tackled her and began to wrestle her. It lost, receiving a hoof to its head and dissolving. I suffered a massive, but not debilitating, headache. OW! Flippin’ Freal and Donuts!

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let's all just take it easy here—” Vanitas couldn't finish his sentence as Rainbow charged him again, but actually hitting him this time. She was about to bring a hoof down onto his visor, but she was knocked off by “something” invisible, holding her down. Vanitas 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 I send 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, I still felt the pain...Owie!

“Ooh! That's gonna hurt in the morning.” Vanitas cringed, but recollected himself, “Okay then, I believe introductions are in order, my name is Vanitas,” he pointed to Second, “that's Jet Second,” then to me, “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.” Vanitas snarks, “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,” Vanitas walks over to me and Second and whispers, “How far away is your alter ego? I don't want any of these ponies to become collateral damage.”

*I hate Rocky Mountain Oysters.* “I couldn’t be able to tell you, even if I wanted to,” I 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,” Vanitas walks back to the girls, “Listen up everyone,” the Mane 6 turned to him, “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,” I deadpan.

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.” Vanitas 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 could feel Vanitas deadpanned under his mask, “You did, didn't you?”

I snickered at Rainbow as she blushed in embarrassment.

Vanitas 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.” Vanitas said.

The Element Bearers turned tail and headed back to Ponyville, leaving me, Second, and Vanitas at the forest’s edge.

Vanitas helped me 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,” I 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,” Vanitas said, summoning his Keyblade, “if he shows up, I'll be ready.”

I didn't reply, as I was scanning the area, both physically and with my radar pulse. Despite what Vanitas said, I believed that he was in for a surprise. “Obsidian Shard! Dusk Spark!” I 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, Obsidian and Dusk walked out, the former looking sheepish, and the later looking rather miffed.

Vanitas got into his 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!” Vanitas was about to clock Dusk, but I restrained him, “Let me go! I'mma bust his flank wide open!”

“She a mare,” I dead panned. I 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. I raised my 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?’ I 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,’ I 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,’ he 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. She 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,” I told them. Dusk electrified her horn and opened a void portal, and left with Obsidian in tow. After she left, I 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,” Vanitas looked around anxiously, as if he thought Nisled would pop out at any time, “Okay...where is that S.O.B.?”

“We'll find out...eventually,” I 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,” I explain, “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.” Vanitas 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.”

That got me 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,” I 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. I 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.”

I activated my 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 my arms as I 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 my negative emotions, I slammed my fists together and my vision was filled with static. When it cleared, I was standing/sitting above Vanitas as an Ovis Cantus. Mentally smiling, I spoke with it's deep voice, “Welcome to my kitchen.”

“I rather skip the appetizer and go straight to the main course.” Vanitas quipped.

“I'll try to ignore that comment,” I said as I reverted back to my original size, “In the meantime, try summoning some Unversed.”

“Okay, I'll try, but I can't guarantee anything.” Vanitas closed his eyes and focused on negative emotions as he muttered to himself, “Okay, Vanitas, think of your loved ones facing dangerous fate…” as several scenarios ran through his mind, Unversed started popping up, spreading like wildfire, and didn't show any signs of stopping.

“DUDE! Slow down!” I shouted out as I pulled out Karmic Gear (my Dark keyblade) and my chain and started bashing and slashing at his Unversed.

“Ow! Huh?” Vanitas looked around when he felt the pain and saw just about a hundred Unversed, “Sweet Celestia, I overshot it!” he helped sliced through about half the entire horde, trying to ignore his self-inflicted pain, but stopped when said pain from the Unversed became unbearable, “MOTHER OF CELESTIA, THIS HURTS!!” he exclaimed as he crumpled to the ground.

I tossed Karmic Gear, producing a combination of Strike Raid and a boomerang, knocking back most of the Unversed around him. I then rushed to him and used my conduit heal ability to try to ease his pain. While I 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.” Vanitas stood up, shaking off the remainder of his pain, “Okay, let's get this training started right.”

Time for some music for the moment! I telepathically played this song into Vanitas’ head, loud enough for him to “hear” it but quiet enough so as not to distract him. I then summoned several Decadravens and a Cornix Canor and sicced them on him. The Decadravens stayed at a low altitude to distract/harass him while the Cornix stayed out of reach, swooping down to either attack him or grab random debris to drop on him.

Vanitas dodged their attacks and used his Afterimage ability to attack them as he created façades of himself, confusing my Unversed before they were destroyed, leaving behind Cornix Canor, which he finished off his Flame Burst skill.

I aimed my hand at Vanitas and fired of a Dark Volley, peppering him with Dark plasma. Vanitas took the brunt of the hit, but blocked a few stragglers with his Renewal Block plus regaining some of his lost HP and retaliated with Fission Firaga, catching me in an explosion.

After I reached the ground after being flung back, I “melted” into the ground, leaving behind a small “puddle” of Darkness. With my awareness, I felt that more faux-puddles appeared. My puddle flared a bright blue before going dark. All of the puddles started moving rapidly around at my command, hoping to confuse Vanitas. Once I was done mixing them up, I arranged the puddles in a circle around him. In an instant, all of the faux-puddles started firing off their own Dark Vollies, while my puddle moved under him and I launched out of it, striking with Dark Impulse.

Vanitas was unable to avoid all of the attacks and took a huge amount of damage, even his Renewal Block couldn't help him. He panted heavily as if my attacks knocked the air out of him, “Okay...you win, just...let me...catch my breath...hoo! Man, I'm tired!”

To help speed up his recovery, I summoned a few Pig Samba for him to take out and get either needed items or even a new ability (if there were any new ones, if what he said was true about knowing all abilities). Vanitas defeated them quickly after regaining his lost breath, and received a few Hi-Potions as a reward.

“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 Vanias’ visor as well.

“Let’s get some rest,” I said, “We need to be ready for Nisled when he comes. Second will take the first watch.” I turned to Vanitas. “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 Notes:

Points: +8 Rank: Champion

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The name of this chapter came from this song.
On a side note, yes, I didn't have any clue what Upper Slash and Finishing Leap did for most of the time that I've played KHII.