The base fell into a semi controlled panic. Everyone running or flying down the halls to get where they needed to be. Scootaloo and Pound flew as fast as they could to get to their position outside. Zecora galloped as fast as she could to get her brews ready. The two pegasi passed Screw Ball and Sweetie Bell who galloped the other way heading to the shield chamber. They continued down the halls as fast as they could. Despite her abnormally small wings Scootaloo was keeping well ahead of Pound. The two of them flew over the heads of dozens of earth ponies and unicorns racing to the mouth of the base.
They blasted out of the mouth of the cavern. Scootaloo taking to the front of the gathered ponies. Pound and Rumble flying at her sides. The shield over the Everfree grew brighter as it became an aroura of different colors. All eyes looked through the shield trying to spot the source of the roar.
“You think it’s him Scoots? He sounds mad.” Rumble said looking at the skies.
“Doesn’t matter he’s not getting in.” Scootaloo answered as she watched the skies above the shield.
“You think this shield is going to stop me!” he roared from the sky. His voice booming through the shield.
“There.” Pound Cake pointed his hoof at a black pegasus. Every unicorn fired letting loose their strongest bolt of magic. The bolts passed through the aroura force field at their flying nemesis. Despair roared as at least two dozen bolts of magic, spanning every color of the rainbow, hit their marks. The others either grazed him or barely missed. “Yeah, let him have it!”
“You insolent worms! You insects! How dare you defy your emperor. Your ruler. Your god” Despair roared from the skies the magic bolts doing little more than annoying him. He burst in to a vortex of green flames and emerged a four winged alicorn. He’s hide was black as pitch, his mane was the same horrid green as the staff that floated by his side. “You will all suffer for your defiance.” He blasted the shield with a stream of green fire. The fire licked the Aurora shield. The rainbow color barrier held as the fire spread further and further over its surface.
“Rumble, Pound you two are with me,” Scootaloo said kicking off the ground her wings beating with a buzz. “Gale, Thunderhead, Monsoon, your teams are coming too, the rest of you stay here.
“Right.”
“You two heard her come on.”
“Woo, let’s make this totally crash!”
“Unicorn teams blast him and catch anypony that falls. Now let’s kick his flank back to the hole he crawled out of.”
“Woo-hooo. Westerly Easterly let’s go.”
“Mist, Hailstone, dive bomb, climb, repeat.”
“Right.”
“Hey big and ugly.” Pound yelled as he flew in with for a scraping kick.
“You insolent.” Was all that the titan got out before Westerly and Monsoon side swiped his face. Despair roared the green fire pursuing the two retreating pegasi. The flames ended their pursuit, and refocused on the three pegasi that had just dive bombed their conjurer. They were halfway to the offending trio when Scootaloo, Rumble, and Pound smashed into the left pair of wings. Despair roared only to be sideswiped on both sides of the face. A moment later Monsoon came up with a cork screw to his jaw.
“Woo Hoo you’re so going to be crashed.” She called as her wing flew off
“Enough you annoying gnats!” Despairs eyes glowed baleful green, as he shot black lightning from his horn at the six fliers. Thunderhead gave a nod to his wingponies. The three of them bobbed, weaved, and corkscrewed their way past the black volleys as they lined up their shot. As one they struck Despair’s horn and quickly retreated away. He roared turning to fire before Gale and her team dive-bombed his left wings. Despair smirked as Scootaloo came in to fast to notice the trap. His body turned to smoke as she flew into his side. Pound and Rumble slammed into his side like a brick wall as black lightning contacted with Scootaloo between her wings. She didn’t even scream as she spiraled toward the ground below.
Westerly broke off his path and charged the titan. His twin sister Easterly doing likewise, as Pound and Rumble tried to smash the titan’s wings. Despair laughed as black lightning spun in a cocoon around him, smiting the four pegasi from the sky. Monsoon spun around him avoiding the jets of green flame that shot out of the openings in the lighting webbed cocoon. She found an opening and shot in. Again Despair turned to smoke; Monsoon flew through him only to be struck by the lightning. The other two pegasi wings dove down, beneath the shield, to avoid a blazing vortex of green flame.
Five of the unicorn teams renewed their attempts to blast him out of the sky. The other two teams began casting healing magic on the fallen Pegasi. Button Mash took a sword and stood at the opening to their base.
“All of your efforts are for not. You all hope in vain. None of you can save yourselves. Why then do you think that you can save others?” Despair’s voice echoed as a thousand whispers in their heads. “The one you put your hope in cannot save herself from that which she fears most. Why do you think she save you?” Despair blasted the aroura shield with four bolts of black lightning which pried open a large hole. He descended in as a jet of smoke. He didn’t pay the defenders any mind as he descended into their home.
“Hold on Sweetie Bell” Button said as he charged in after Despair.
As soon as Despair had entered the base the black mist composed itself in the middle of the shielding chamber. The blast of Despair’s materialization blasted the gem lined pedestals and the three dozen unicorns powering them to the ground. A Sweetie Belle was the first to recover and on instinct fired a magic volley at the titan. Soon Comet, Snails, Amethyst, and Screw Ball were blasting Despair with a rainbow of magic bolts. Despair returned fire shooting black lightning at the unicorns that would attempt to oppose him.
“You, horrid beast!” Amethyst charged the four-winged monstrosity. Anger, hate, and rage caused an over glow around her horn as she fired bolts of super charged magic. Despair returned fire with baleful green bolts of his own. The intersection where the bolts meet was turned in to nopony’s land as spheres of disintegration appeared at each point where the bolts met. Amethyst finally lost control and let loose a stream of magic from her horn. Despair fired a jet of green from his.
“Hold on,” Sweetie Belle said as she joined Amethyst’s side her own magic joining the duel. Snail’s magic joined a second later followed by Comet’s and then Screw Ball’s. As the others came to they joined their magic to the dual. Soon they were doing more than just holding Despair at bay they were pushing him back.
“You foals would defy me; I am a god! I cast down the sun and moon; I made love hard a stone, and bested your champions. Who are you to defy me. Fall to your knees before your emperor.” Despair raved as he began to push back. Slowly but surely the tide turned; then all at once the fifteen unicorns and Screw Ball were blasted back. “You now see your folly none can stand before me.”
“I would like to disagree, though I no pony,” Zecora said as she busted down the door, and threw a flask at Despairs hooves. When it shattered it blew him and half the floor to the other side of the chamber. Button Mash wasted no time to attack.
“Enough of this.” Despair rose to his hooves, and blasted Button Mash and Apple Bloom to the side. “I will be humiliated no longer.” Zecora fared no better than the colt and filly had.
“Leave my sister and friends alone you, big meanie head.” Dinky jumped over the rubble.
“I said Enough.” Despair swatted Dinky to the side “I will not endure this folly any longer. No more unicorns, no more earth ponies, no more zebras, and no more foals.” Each word was punctuated by a bolt of lightning and a scream as it struck the pony unlucky enough to be hit by it. “Now then no more interruptions.” A green magical aura engulfed Screw Ball and brought her up to Despair. “You would defy me. You would give hope to those that had given in.” His horn pierced her chest. “Now your greatest fear will take you.”
“No!” Screw Ball cried as she slowly turned to stone. It took a whole minute before it was over. Nopony could do anything but watch as their hope turned to stone. And the second it was over Despiar vanished; Screw Ball taken to Canterlot to join so many others.