The Haize Rider was finally in tiptop thanks to Crash and Ponar, which he invited, and ready to take off to the Fortress of Doom. They got two teams. The main team included Basil and the mane six. The secondary team included Crash, Bumble, Myobu, and the filly samurai. Ponar volunteered to drive the airship. Everyone had their weapons ready for the battle that would determine the fate of this world. Either the world lives or dies is on their hooves or hands.
[Cue "The Final Battle" FFIX]
After flying for hours they saw in the distance the infamous Fortress of Doom floating above the sea. It was almost made completely made out of dark violet crystal. Pinkie Pie looked up and saw the sky and saw the sky had turned had turned a dark red the sun turned a bright pink. The ponies looked up and saw this as well.
"What's going on?" Pinkie said frightened.
"The process has already begun." Bumble replied in total despair.
"What process?"
"The Death of the World." He looked down and saw something. "Just look down there." The ponies and fillies looked down. And saw streams of multicolored light coming from the ground heading towards the fortress of doom; the ponies could hear cries of sorrow and agony coming from the streams of light.
"What in the world is that?"
"They are the mana that support this world. The fortress of doom is removing it from the planet. Without it, the world will die a slow and painful death. The ground will turn into clay unable to give life to plants. The water will turn bitter and poisonous turning the world into a dry, decaying husk. The creatures and all animals will suffer from hunger and thirst. Afterwards, the fortress with shower the world with the rain of death bringing total destruction. No pony will survive; every pony will die; and no pony will be able to bring the planet back. We must defeat Schism and return the mana to the world. Failure is not an option." They heard gunfire from the distance.
"What was that?" Fluttershy asked.
"I'm not sure." Applejack replied as the others came out. Then, shots were seen heading toward them. "I guess this final epic battle begins now." The shots struck the ship.
"What's going on up there?" Ponar asked.
"We're being fired at."
"Those are anti-aircraft guns. Someone grab the turrets and fire back while I try to find a place to land this thing."
"Turrets?"
"Ponar installed them." Crash added. "There amazing." Applejack went up to one of them. It was more of a high-powered laser with a red crystal as its power source.
"Are these things it?" She pointed to them.
"Those should be it." The ship shook due to the shots. Applejack grabbed one even though she didn't know how to use it properly, she was able to tear apart the enemies. The secondary team got to use the turrets against the enemy guns. Some time passed with many enemy anti-aircraft guns destroyed. Finally, Ponar found a suitable landing spot for the ship.
"Hey, I've found a landing spot for the ship." Ponar said.
"Good, now we can land and begin our advance." Applejack stated. So, Ponar headed toward the landing spot.
"Keep firing until I land the ship."
"Got it." And it was a good thing he asked them that. They also, on the way to the landing spot, got attacked by blood-red demonic wyverns too. A wyvern is a combination of a dragon and a pterosaur. Some of them landed on the deck of the ship. Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, and Basil began to battle it. Fluttershy summoned Anima to help take care of it.
"All right," Anima said. "Let's take care of this beast." Anima fired lasers from its exposed eye. The main team took care of them rather well, all of them but one. Anima sent it down below to a dark-red dimension where the bottom half was shown. It looked exactly like the top half except that there were neither bandages nor chains. The bottom half literally ripped the wyvern to shreds. Then, the aeon grabbed the shreds and sent it flying towards hell. After the fighting in the air, the group was finally able to land safely.
Both the teams got out to the airship. They were tired but they had no time to rest.
"Okay," Ponar said. "I'll stay behind and guard the ship because it is the only way out. But I'll need some other guys with me in case the enemy gets a jump on me." Myobu came up.
"Oichi, Nene, Ina?" Myobu asked. "You need to stay with Ponar. I'm worried that you could get killed."
"But…" Oichi said.
"No buts. I'm concerned for your safety. The ship might get attacked so you might get some action too. Please stay at this ship." The filly samurai wanted to go in but they had no choice. It was necessary to stay at the ship. At least they had Ponar to keep them company.
"Alright. That should be enough." Ponar replied.
"Okay. The rest of us needs to get going." So, the group left the airship and headed to the fortress.
The ground was nothing more than a barren black-colored wasteland. It was similar to the ground in the books on Tartarus that Twilight Sparkle had read.
"I'm worried." Twilight said.
"About what?" Pinkie asked.
"That this might be the fortress form Tartarus."
"If we see that Cerberus doggy-thing, then we will know this thing is from that place."
"I've read in books," Basil said. "That the fortress of doom was sealed in another dimension from our own. It is a dimension with a lot of freaky things." Then, as they came up to the door they got attack by a malboro. It was much larger than ponies. They were a moving large green plant with an anemone-like head and a very large mouth. But the one that attacked them, instead of its normal green color like those found in the valley of outcast. This one was purple in color. "Kind of like that."
"I know the malboro enemies." Bumble explained. "These guys are annoying and difficult to beat. They also have very nasty breath." The malboro inflated itself. "GET OUT OF THE WAY AND HOLD YOUR BREATH!" They jumped out of the way as the beast fired an olive green gas that was 100% awful and rancid.
"Geez," Rainbow Dash said. "What in the hell was that?"
"That was its 'Rancid Breath' attack."
"Well, at least this thing can't fly." Then, the malboro began to circle them in the air. "Damn it."
"This is the first time I seen a malboro fly." A beam came out from the top of the fortress. It hit Fluttershy, turning her into a normal malboro.
"When I said 'I would like to be a tree'," Fluttershy said. "This was not the tree I was talking about." She tried to summon one of the aeons but failed.
"You are hopeless." a voice said. Another beam of light came from another location. It hit Fluttershy and changed her back to normal.
"Who was that?" Then, Tirac came from out of nowhere and attack the malboro while it was flying. This disabled the flying.
"Wait, what?" Rainbow Dash explained.
"TIRAC!" Basil said. "WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING HERE?"
"Your group foolishly released Schism and you are going to seal him." Tirac said. "I'm just here to supply aid."
"I thought you were only focused on conquering the world."
"These are strange times, they call for strange alliances. Besides, I can't just stay at home and miss one of the biggest battles in history is occurring. I would like to be a part of it. But don't expect me to defeat Schism, that is the protagonists' job." Then, Tirac and the group fought the malboro and kicked its ass; there were no donkeys around.
Myobu and Bumble knew that they had to guard the exit. So, they had to stay behind. So, the main team and Tirac went inside. They were even closer than before to Schism.