Meanwhile back in Ponyville
The Princesses had just finished declaring that Ponyville and Canterlot are both under threat of attack, but told everypony not to panic because of the elements were currently combating the threat as they spoke. Soon guards were posted at key points around Ponyville to prevent any possible sneak attacks on any unsuspecting ponies, all the while they silently prayed for victory over the threat that loomed.
*
Sortitus had turned away from the window and was walking around the large marble dome shaped atrium that he and Aequivalere called home. The white robed Sortitus walked toward a large polished circular table and placed both of his hands on it as Aequivalere approached.
The black cloaked Aequivalere looked at Sortitus, “Now do you see reason?”
Sortitus merely shook his head as he turned to face him, “No, I was merely formulating how I was going to approach the dilemma”
Aequivalere took on a completely confused expression, “what dilemma?”
Sortitus just smiled, “simple, the one where I explain myself to the mortal in person”
Aequivalere stared shocked, “What?”
Sortitus nodded as he patted his friend on the shoulder, “ready yourself, Martin can only do so much, we need to finish it”
Aequivalere looked after Sortitus as he walked back to the window and exclaimed, “WHAT?!”
*
Twilight was against the wall thanks to the magic of Shadow Sparkle who was currently pinning her in place. Twilight looked her evil doppelganger in the eye as it leered back at her; Twilight then looked around desperately as she noticed all of her friends were incapacitated. For the first time in her life, the unicorn was defenceless and knew not what to do, she then shut her eyes as she felt the same feeling that any other unfortunate soul that Phobos black eyed enter her being and it began to spread rapidly.
Shadow Sparkle laughed as she taunted the now black eyed Twilight in a warped variation of Twilights voice, “How sad, the little unicorn could not defeat fear, it seems magic and friendship has failed”, the dark unicorn looked at her comrades as they all joined in a laugh with her as they all looked at their black eyed counter parts.
Twilight was seeing horrors beyond imagination in her very mind and soul as she thrashed around trying to smack them away, with little success. She continued this for quite some time when she heard her own voice taunting her; she couldn’t believe that she, no, all of them had failed the Princess. She then gave into despair as she continued to live with the horrors that continued their torment of the unfortunate unicorn. As she continued to float in darkness with the tormenting beginning to take its toll, she remembered many things from her past, the day she became Celestia’s personal protégé, when she and her friends defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord, and saved her brother’s life along with the rest of Equestria from a changeling invasion. But then two things crossed her mind, one was the spell she performed when she destroyed those creatures in the town part of Avilon, and the other was the Princesses parting words, "I shall always be with you, though things may be dark, always carry on for there is always light waiting to be found”.
Twilight thought on this as best she could, trying her best to keep herself anchored to the here and now and not to fully let herself succumb to the fear. The Princess was wise and knew many things; perhaps maybe she knew Twilight could perform the feat she did on the creatures even when Twilight didn’t. She continued to think of harder, but it soon became harder to focus as the horrors increased in intensity, almost like they knew she was on to something and were trying to prevent her from reaching the solution. All of a sudden it clicked, just like in the moment when she discovered her friends were they embodiments of The Elements of Harmony, the only thing that can combat fear is bravery, and the only thing to destroy darkness is light. She then remembered back to that same moment in the town when she did that massively powerful spell; she knew that even though they were afraid, they still were bravely facing down the creatures willing to fight. Since they are all connected via the elements, somehow she must have unintentionally resonated with her friend’s collective courage and formed it into a massively powerful counter/light spell. She then began to focus inwardly as she grabbed at the one thing she could find, one speck of herself which was still fighting valiantly to stave off the consuming darkness, she then grasped it with all of her might and focused it.
Shadow Sparkle looked down at her counterpart who was now twitching slightly, a pure white magic aura sparking to life on her horn, “What!?, that’s not possible!”
Twilight was then engulfed in the magic aura which then literally purged all the black from her eyes, “Possible or not, you’re going down”
Twilight then blasted her Shadow self who exploded in white light, the other shadow ponies just looked in amazement and shock, Twilight then shot each of her friends in turn who stood up immediately, upon noticing their friends position on the battlefield they joined her side, Applejack donned her hat and pawed the ground. Twilight then spread her white aura around all of them, the horns glow becoming immensely bright at the combined courage of the six; she then did a practical “solar flare” which disintegrated all of their evil doppelgangers and purged the ruby eyed griffon along with Lord Highwind. Twilight wobbled slightly but righted herself as Fluttershy took a quick look at the two griffon’s condition.
Fluttershy came back to her friends, “They’re both fine, just exhausted”
Rainbow nodded, “Alright, now that mirror mania is done, let’s go give Martin a hoof”
Applejack then noticed Martin’s absence, “Speakin of him, where is he anyways?”
Pinkie immediately broke into a bombardment of words, “Well, after you got black eyed by Phobos Martin got really mad and did a rising dragon punch on him which got Phobos angry too, which he then spawned those meanie us and now he’s fighting Phobos all by himself after they both went out the window and landed on the royal flight platform”
Everypony just looked at her, Fluttershy immediately addressed this, “how do you know there on the royal flight platform?”
Pinkie just rolled her eyes, “Duh, all climatic battles between good and evil take place on a platform that large, everypony knows that”
Twilight just shook her head in confusion, “Well then how in Equestria are we all going to get up there?
Pinkie pointed a hoof to a door they all failed to notice, “Silly filly, we take the stairs”
*
Phobos had become slightly more aggressive toward Martin, this took the form of psionic powered punches and kicks to boost his blows damage output, and Martin was unfortunately starting to feel the damage. Martin himself was getting a few blows in, and thanks to his enhanced durability and stamina he was holding his own, but just barely. During their fight Phobos stopped for a moment as if he sensed something amiss, this was soon followed by a white flash from the throne room windows.
Martin just smiled, “looks like my friends just beat your soldiers, that’s gotta sting”
Phobos just grabbed Martin by the throat and choke slammed him into the ground in response. Martin coughed up some blood as he stood back up; his vision was starting to get blurry as Phobos approached him. Phobos then proceeded to dish out several psionic enhanced hyper punches to Martins abdomen; the last punch was a massive uppercut which hurled Martin in the air, at that moment the door opened as the six entered and witnessed Phobos flying up and air juggling Martin further into the air with well-timed punches. Soon they were both high enough that Avilon looked like a speck, Phobos then brought his elbow down on Martin’s back which was heard as a sickening crack just from the sheer force. Then Phobos grabbed Martin around the waist and dive-bombed the royal flight platform, at the last second Phobos pulled up and let the built up momentum and gravity do the rest. Everypony had to shield their eyes when Martin crashed into the ground with such force that a crater was formed in the flight platforms center.
When the dust cleared, Phobos had already landed beside Martin’s limp form; Fluttershy already had tears in her eyes when Phobos picked up Martin by the back of his neck. He then walked to the edge of the platform and looked down, the back of the castle, like Canterlot was a sheer drop to the ground below.
He then held Martin out over the edge, which caused Rainbow Dash to yell, “HEY! Let him go freak!”
Phobos just regarded her with a blank expression, “Poor choice of words”, Phobos then released Martin who fell fast toward the quickly approaching ground.
All the ponies then yelled a collective, “NO!!!”, as Phobos let out a laugh that shook them to their very core.
*
As Martin fell, his life flashed before his eyes, as he opened them and saw his predicament, he responded with the most reasonable phrase he could, “OH SHIIIIIIIITTT!!!”
*
Rainbow had been allowed to fly over the edge to see if she could catch, it’s that or Phobos didn’t care in the slightest. She flew back up with a saddened look, “I couldn’t find him”
All the ponies then took on aggressive looks as they all rushed Phobos at once, he then sent them flying with a wave of his hand, then his fists lit up with black light as he flew into the air, “I think it’s time that I just end this little show once and for all”
He then raised his hands as he yelled down in a mocking tone, “Nothing will save you now little ponies”
“Don’t be so sure”
Phobos was then sent flying by a powerful blow, of which rivaled his own psionic punches strength, Phobos then turned in mid-air, “where are you?!”
Martin then uncloaked himself and appeared a good twenty feet from Phobos, levitating in mid-air like superman, “right here”
Phobos just shook his head in disbelief, “impossible, you could not fly before, and you were not as strong as this when we fought mere moments ago!”
Pinkie was on the ground in her science get up and seemed to answer Phobos’ question, which most likely everypony else had mentally asked the same thing, “Well it’s quite simple, Twilight said Martin could get more powers or his present powers could evolve into something else”
Rainbow just looked at Pinkie, “so you’re saying his strength evolved, and his jumping ability evolved into the ability of flight?”
Pinkie just nodded, “Yep”
Rainbow just smiled, “That is so EPIC!!!”
Martin just tilted his head in the directions of his friends, “yeah, what she said, oh and before I forget…”, Martin then pulled his sword out from behind him, “...I picked this up on my way back, turns out it got stuck on a branch”
Phobos just narrowed his eyes as he summoned his own sword and readied it , “I have grown weary of your foolishness, I’m going to end this, NOW!!!”
Martin then hand taunted briefly as he raised his sword, “come get some”
Phobos and Martin then met in the center of the sky and engaged in sword combat, sparks flew as both swords collided with one and another, black sparks from Phobos’ sword, normal ones from Martin’s as they continued their dual. Everypony just looked up in amazement at the spectacle unfolding before them, never before had something of this magnitude transpired before.
Rainbow pumped a hoof in the air, “COME ON MARTIN, KICK HIS BUTT!!!”
Martin was continually trying to gain the upper hand in the sword fight, but in truth he was losing due to the fact that he never actually used a sword before. This gave Phobos the upper hand, due to the fact that judging how he could easily switch from two handed moves to one handed ones so quickly and efficiently meant he was extremely proficient with a blade.
Phobos then whipped around a swing from Martin and slashed horizontally through the blade of Martin’s sword and into Martin’s chest making a pretty nasty wound. Martin lost his edge as he was kicked back into the same crater which collapsed at the center causing Martin to fall back into the throne room. As Martin clutched his chest trying to stand, the tip of Phobos’ sword hovered a few mere centimeters from Martin’s neck.
Phobos just stared at the injured human, “And so ends your pathetic life, where are your friends now Martin”
Martin braced himself for the killing stroke…which was interrupted by a blast of white magic that hit Phobos square in the chest. Martin looked behind him and he saw Twilight and the rest of the six standing behind him, he smiled as he got to his feet and then noticed a scorched section of Phobos’ shadow like robe, which then slowly repaired itself.
Martin turned to look at Twilight, “What did you just use?”
Twilight took on a determined smile, “The magic of bravery!”
