A man loses his Heart to the Heartless and wakes up in the realm of darkness. Devoid of memories and a name he meets a blue-haired girl who gives him a new name: Eraqus. He then begins his adventure to not only help his newfound friends, but also to find a new sense of purpose and identity.
Dawn to Dusk is a Kingdom Hearts fanfic by Stewart92 starring a Nobody Original Character. It can be read here
and also here.
Dawn to Dusk contains examples of:
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: As per the norm in Kingdom Hearts, there is a spell that allows one to automatically assume a form that is considered normal by a particular World’s standards. The Heartless make use of this spell as well, which is why so many types of Heartless seem World specific. Eraqus gets access to the spell as well, but finds that the spell doesn’t quite work on low-level Nobodies like him, which occasionally leads to some weird transformations.
- Ability Mixing: Eraqus discovers early on that he can combine spells together to create entirely new ones. Aqua is baffled when she learns of this.
- Achievements in Ignorance: Eraqus figured out a way to combine his spells, something even Aqua, an experienced mage, had no idea was possible.
- Adaptation Origin Connection: When Luxord and Ganondorf meet they feel like they, or more accurately their previous selves, know each other.
- Alien Non-Interference Clause: The World Order which is frequently brought up in the games, though justifications have been given here. Interfering too much in a World will cause the World itself to try and get rid of the outsiders. Additionally most Worlds are bound by Tales, predestined series of events, and if the story is thrown Off the Rails, then the World will reset itself and try to tell the Tale again in a way that is radically different from the way it was meant to be told, though the risks of this practically disappear after the story has run its course.
- Almighty Janitor: The Moogles. While they simply act as shopkeepers, their business empire spans the entire multiverse and have a large amount of resources. One even manage to repel the Dahaka when he tried to attack Eraqus while he was shopping. Thankfully their Long List of rules and regulations prevents them from abusing said resources.
- Back from the Dead: As implied in Birth By Sleep, Zack was killed by Sephiroth in-between BBS and this fic. Thanks to Aqua winning a bet with Hades, combined with Herc twisting his arm, he gives Aqua Zack’s soul though he has to be stored in a doll until a proper body can be acquired.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Upon learning what Eraqus’ Heartless did to him, Namine is furious and considers ripping out it’s chain of memories the second she gets a chance.
- Clock Roaches: After visiting the world of Prince of Persia, Eraqus and Hehanort have become targets of the Dahaka, the latter for stealing some of Kaileena’s hair to gain time travel powers and the former for aiding the Sand Wraith in his quest. Thankfully it is having a difficult time tracking Eraqus down across the multiverse.
- Crossover: In typical Kingdom Hearts fashion, Eraqus visits numerous Worlds and encounters various characters throughout his journey.These include but are not limited to, Hunter x Hunter, Undertale, Soul Eater, The legend of Zelda, The Resident Evil Franchise, Rwby, Prince of Persia, and Bleach.
- Edible Theme Naming: Eraqus tends to nickname people after foods, like calling Riku a grumpy cookie.
- Eldritch Location: The World That Never Was, due to it being the Nobody of hundreds of worlds that fell to darkness.
- Enemy Scan: A scan spell used by Eraqus allows him to see the health and a brief bit of info about who or what he uses it on. Powerful or strange beings are capable of blocking or directly influencing the results of the scan.
- Equivalent Exchange: The Realm of Nothing facilitates this. Worlds that grow stagnant send themselves into the Realm, and are then spit out as a new iteration of themselves. Eraqus utilizes this on a much smaller scale, feeding the Realm concepts that he collects such as potential, latent energy, and even friendship, to gain tangible benefits such as improvements to his Job System in return. Eraqus' Weapons are 'voided' in much the same way.
- Equippable Ally: Occasionally Eraqus can transform into a weapon or object that his allies can use.
- Fetch Quest: DiZ frequently sends Eraqus out on these. Stitch has also given Aqua and Eraqus one to find all of his cousins scattered across various Worlds. Namine herself wishes to find seashells.
- Fisher King: Powerful Nobodies are capable of influencing weaker Nobodies, which is why most Nobody types imitate the Organization members. Eraqus’ influence has led to the creation of several new Nobody types.
- Genie in a Bottle: According to Yen Sid, a properly summoned Kingdom Hearts is essentially one of these. If one goes through the trouble of creating both a door and key to Kingdom Hearts (even an artificial one), then the power of Kingdom Hearts will take the form of whatever the summoner wishes for.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: The reason the world of Dark Souls is such a Crapsack World is because when the World grew stagnant it tried to throw itself into the Realm of Nothingness to be reborn, but failed to do so and simply didn't have enough energy to try it again leaving the World to endure a slow drawn out death.
- The Hat Makes the Man: Some of Eraqus’ transformations (which take the form of wardrobe changes) change his personality, which can range from simply giving him certain urges to drastically changing his thought process and speech patterns.
- I Hate Past Me: Hehanort hates the person he and Eraqus spawned from, namely because he thinks he was a loser and because Hehanort could’ve ended up with his personality rather than getting a chance to develop his own.
- Job System: Eraqus gains one of this early on. By drawing on the bonds he’s made with others he can assume different forms that boost his capabilities in different ways.
- Joke and Receive: After John’s heart takes the name Ori and informs Hehanort of Johanan, Hehanort sarcastically wonders whats next “Digital-John? Memory John? Replica us? Are we making our own little boyband. Hip-hop 13?” The very next chapter when it shows brief glimpses of Eraqus’s parts that have become there own beings, we see two new versions that have yet to be properly introduced, with one of them appearing to be a Data-version.
- Killer Rabbit: Eraqus is a Dusk, the second weakest type of Nobody, but grows strong enough to take on giant monsters and large numbers of Heartless single handedly.
- Literal Split Personality: Turns out that someone, presumably the Master of Masters, intentionally split the very being of John, Eraqus's somebody, into seven pieces: Heart, Body, Nobody, Heartless, Memory, Dreams, and Data.
- Living Dream: Vantus, a mashup of the Armored Ventus Nightmare and Vanitas Remnant, is one of these.
- Living Memory: Eraqus has several living inside of him, the most prominent being those of Lexaeus and Zexion. These help enhance and stabilize the various classes of his Job System.
- Negative Space Wedgie: The events of the first Kingdom Hearts nearly caused a reality ending one. The sheer number of Worlds consumed by the darkness started filling up the Realm of Nothing faster than it could spit them out, which caused the Realm to start pulling energy from the Dark World, which in turned caused it the run the risk of infringing on the Final World.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Justified. As mentioned above, to get a new power or weapon, all Eraqus has to do is sacrifice something to the Realm of Nothing and it will spit out whatever he wants.
- Nice Guy: Eraqus. As he puts it, not having emotions isn’t an excuse for him not to be nice.
- The Power of Creation: Eraqus discovers he can modify objects and create things (typically food) out of nothing. It later turns out to be a case of Equivalent Exchange.
- The Power of Friendship: In typical Kingdom Hearts fashion, this is exploited and weaponized. With the in-universe N-Link system, Eraqus is capable of gaining power and abilities from the bonds he makes with other people and vice-versa. These bonds have also helped Eraqus begin to form a replacement heart.
- Power of the Void: Eraqus gains the ability to open portals to and draw on the power of the Realm of Nothingness, something only Xemnas has been to do.
- Quest for Identity: Both Eraqus and Hehanort have this as a goal, desiring to become their own being rather than recover who they once were.
- Reality Bleed: Eraqus accidentally does this via a botched summoning in the Persona World. The iteration of the Persona 3 world is the one with the female protagonist and the rip in space time Eraqus accidentally created allowed the spirit of Minato (who had already gone through his version of the events of the game) to enter the reality and he is determined no to allow the same fate to befall his counterpart. According to Igor this will eventually lead to a Merged Reality combining elements of both timelines.
- Shout-Out: Cookie Cutter (The Mini-Mecha Eraqus uses in his Mechanist class) gradually grows to resemble a miniature version of Megas for awhile as he levels the class up.
- This Is Unforgivable!: After learning that the reason Eraqus is a Dusk is because his own Heartless attacked him and stole his memories in an attempt to retain sentience, everyone present is pissed, even Namine.
- Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Thanks to DiZ mellowing out and her friendship with Eraqus, Namine is much more cheerful and upbeat than she was in the games.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Having a discussion with Eraqus has caused DiZ to let go of some of his hatred of Nobodies and become much more friendly and open. Even trying to create a speech to reconcile with his apprentices.
- Tournament Arc: Eraqus ends up participating in a tournament in the Olympus Coliseum, hosted by none other than Gilgamesh.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Yen Sid reveals that Pete of all people has a frighteningly large amount of potential, so much so that Yen Sid actually considered making him his apprentice at one point. Due to a lack of proper teachers and his own stubborness, he has thankfully been unable to achieve his full potential.
- Wacky Wayside Tribe: Eraqus’ to take a Wrong Turn at Albuquerque means he will often end up in completely random worlds. While some have end up having important roles in the plot, some are rarely ever revisited. Its deconstructed after Eraqus realizes that he’s failed to consider the long term consequences of his actions and is juggling so many Sidequests that he has trouble keeping tack of them.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Thanks to having almost all of his complete self’s memories (including those of the Kingdom Hearts games), Hehanort’s (Eraqus’ shadow) main goal is to screw over Organization XIII’s and the real Xehanort’s plans. Unfortunately, as a being of darkness and negativity he is more than willing to take extreme measures in the process of achieving said goal.
- Wham Line:
- When Eraqus meets his Heartless, upon learning that the Nobody is going by the name “Eraqus” his Heartless decides to pick an appropriate name to go with it, “Xehanort”.
- Right after the above, a strange dark armored figured appears. It’s name: Vantus.
- Wham Episode:
- Chapter 58, in which Eraqus come face to face with the Master of Masters and learns about not only the nature of his own existence, but also about the nature of the Worlds.
- Interlude: Ori and the Blind Knight, it’s revealed that Eraqus’ original body (which has been stuck in the Realm of Nothing) has grown into it’s own separate being due to all the items, emotions, and concepts that Eraqus has been throwing into the Realm and is now calling itself Johanan, The Knight of Nothing.
- Wrong Turn at Albuquerque: The Corridors of Darkness that Eraqus uses tend to be unpredictable at times, with many of his excursions into new Worlds having been the result of being thrown off his intended course.
