//------------------------------//
// The Final Battle 
// Story: Terror in Equestria 10:  The Return of Tirek 
// by StormLuna 
//------------------------------//

Two hours had passed and Colgate and her allies had come up with what their plan was.  Unlike it was with the centaurs, Colgate knew how to handle Twilight and was already envisioning them winning and then achieving the ultimate victory, feasting on Twilight's corpse.  

She took to the sky and ordered, "Come on everypony, let's go and finally eradicate evil from this world.  We wiped out the centaurs and Tirek was beyond huge so little Twily shouldn't cause us too many problems." 

Scootaloo suggested, "Colgate, you may not want to underestimate her.  If she does have the powers of the Rainbow of Darkness flowing within her, she could turn all of us into beasts!" 

As much as Colgate wanted to either dismiss her suggestion or snap at her for glorifying an enemy, she held her temper.  She knew that letting her emotions get the best of her would not be in their best interests.  She replied, "I know Scootaloo, I know." 

She then pointed her finger off in the direction of Ponyville and ordered, "This way everypony, let's finish this once and for all." 

When they got within eyesight of Ponyville Colgate saw something that would not please her.  She ordered her allies to stop, pointed towards Ponyville and said, "Look everypony, Twilight has duplicated Celestia, Galaxia and Cosmos multiple times."  

All of them were concerned about what these duplicates were capable of but it was Luna who was the most concerned.  She asked, "Colgate, what are we going to do?  We can't just kill all of them because three of those are my real family!" 

Colgate replied, "I honestly don't know.  I have only ever dealt with duplicated dark Alicorn hoofsoldiers and changeling drones."  She continued to float there and asked, "Luna, I know they are all exact duplicates but is there any way that you might be able to pick the real ones out?"

Her question irritated Luna.  She threw her hooves up in the air and replied, "We can't!  They are exact duplicates......"

Ruby interrupted, "What if the real ones are more powerful?  What if the duplicates of your relatives aren't as strong." 

Most everypony just rolled their eyes at the suggestion except for Scootaloo.  She said, "You know, these are normal ponies we are talking about.  Ruby might have a point." 

Applejack added, "You know, they may be like changelings when they duplicate a pony.  They may look the same but only the real ones have memories of those who are important to them." 

Colgate replied, "You know, that is a good idea."  She turned to Luna and continued, "Look, this isn't going to be easy and there is a chance that your relatives may be hurt....."

Luna yelled, "No, nopony is going to risk hurting my family!" 

Colgate pointed her hoof at the changelings and ordered, "Since Luna doesn't want there to be a risk of her folks getting injured or killed, cover ALL of them in ooze and after we kill Twilight, we can find which ones are her real folks."  She turned to Luna and asked, "Is that going to be ok?"

Luna replied, "Yes Colgate, that would be fine." 

Colgate nodded, cast her gaze at everypony and ordered, "CHARGE!" 





In Ponyville Twilight was still receiving adoration and cheers from her forces.  She had fought in many battles before but this would be the first time that she would not have any dark Alicorns or changelings and knew that things would have to be differently. 

She turned to her forces and barked, "Attention!" 

Every single one of them stood towards her at attention.  She began, "Alright everypony, we need to be alert and ready for their arrival but there is one thing different about this battle.  In the past I have always had dark Alicorns and changelings but this time I don't."  Her forces simply nodded and she continued, "Ok, I don't know if you remember this or not but try your hardest to not get hit by changeling ooze and if you see that one of your comrades are covered in ooze, use your magic to free them." 

One of the Celestias asked, "Twilight, what if they strike us all at once and we're all rendered powerless?"

The question did not sit well with Twilight.  She approached her, smacked her and yelled, "Typical Celestia, nothing but a whiny little filly full of doubt."  She approached several of the others, smacked them and yelled, "Maybe I should just banish you all to the void right now!" 

One of them seemed a bit more defiant than the others and mocked her, "Ooooh, maybe I should just banish you all to the void!" 

One of the Galaxias laughed, "You'd only be hurting yourself!"

One of the Cosmoses added, "You know, for a so-called dark goddess you sure aren't a very good commander." 

Twilight fired up her horn and burned each of the three with energy and yelled, "How dare you disrespect your dark goddess!  Nopony disrespects the Dark Goddess Twilight Sparkle and goes unpunished!"  She pointed her wing off to the right and ordered, "You three, get over there, NOW!" 

The three headed off to the right of the others and awaited the fate.  Given the way Twilight had been talking, they knew what was going to happen.  They knew that they were going to the void and knew that they had best not challenge her if they didn't want to suffer the same fate.

Once they were standing where she ordered, she lit up her horn and recited, 

"You have committed treason and that is not in season, 
you are a threat to me and I simply can not let that be, 
I can no longer be annoyed so you shall be cast into....  

Before she could finish the spell, she heard a voice yell, "Charge!" 

Twilight looked up and saw that Colgate and her forces had arrived.  What confused her though was that the only ones going after her forces were the changelings.  She thought she knew how Colgate worked and the Colgate she knew would never do something that would spare lives.  When she noticed that her forces were quickly getting covered in ooze she yelled, "Take them down you idiots!  Free the ones immobilized you idiots!" 

Almost immediately they began to fire at the changelings and dark Alicorns but as the millennia had passed, the dark Alicorns had become much more agile and the changelings had become much, much tougher.  What bothered Twilight the most was that her forces could not fry the changelings.  She took to the sky and figured that if her forces couldn't do it, that she would do it herself. 

The very first one she headed towards was a dark Alicorn who once served under her, Dark Night.  She confronted him and yelled, "Well, well, well, look who it is.  It is the tyrant who betrayed me so long ago."  She lit up her horn and laughed, "Well your tyranny ends now.  Nopony betrays the Dark Goddess Twilight Sparkle, nopony!" 

She lit up her horn hoping to strike the general with a powerful bolt of energy but quickly found herself covered and ooze, plunging to the ground.  Dark Night saw who it was that saved him and said, "Thanks Lightning Storm, I appreciate it." 

Lightning Storm replied, "Don't mention it."  He then saw the changelings were covering more and more of Celestia's forces in ooze.  He pointed at Twilight and ordered, "Cover her, cover her now." 

Every single changeling headed towards Twilight and began to soak her in ooze.  It would not be long until she was completely covered but then something happened that had never happened before, Twilight flared up her horn and blew all that ooze off of her.  She took to the skies and laughed, "Nice try but that won't work anymore." 

Colgate saw what had happened and then realized that there would likely be only one pony who could handle her, herself.  She pointed to her changelings and ordered, "Cover the rest of them in ooze!  Make sure they can't help the dark goddess." 

Twilight's forces who had not been covered took to the sky hoping that perhaps if they were flying and took them on, particularly the changelings, that they could kill them.  While they did this, Colgate took after the one pony she wanted to take down the most, Twilight.  

Twilight was not one to be chased so when she saw Colgate coming she did not continue to fly away, she stopped and decided to confront her enemy.  She laughed, "Well, well, well, look who it is!"  She flared up her horn and sneered, "It is little miss good mare, the one who would never take everything as her own.  It is the one who loved giving everypony independence."

Colgate, who had been contemplating global conquest lately, began to rethink things when the dark goddess returned.  She realized that if she was to attempt that, that it would make her no better than her enemy.  She got up in Twilight's face and replied, "What I did was in the best interests of this world.  A one world nation is not what this world wants or what it needs."  She reached her hoof out, smacked Twilight and added, "And this world certainly doesn't want to have to pay tribute to anypony."  

The fact that Colgate smacked her did not sit well with the Dark Goddess.  She lit up her horn and readied herself to go on the offensive.  She laughed, "You may have never claimed it all as your own but now you are about to learn what will now happen to those who disobey their dark goddess!" 

When she flared up her horn, Colgate knew what her plan was.  She saw that her horn was the same color as the Rainbow of Darkness and was not about to be turned into a beast.  She flared up her horn, the bells on her collar began to glow and she fired a bolt of energy at Twilight, at the same moment she fired energy at her. 

The two began to be pushed further apart by the energy.  Their energy met in the middle and neither one could make a dent in the other's energy.  Both of them were fighting the other as hard as they could.  Compared to her battle against the Rainbow of Darkness when Tirac wielded it, dealing with it this time was much harder.  At first Colgate was unsure why but then it hit her, like what was Grogar's collar had become one with her, the Rainbow of Darkness and Twilight had become one.

Twilight knew why Colgate's power was so great but given that she had never faced Grogar, she had no clue how the power of that collar worked.  She thought to herself, "How do I do it?  How do I crush her?"  She then decided that she had no other choice but to exert so much energy into this that it may leave her vulnerable later on.  She began to glow a dark lavender as she put more energy into the power struggle and then green lasers shot out of her eyes. 

Colgate's energy was beginning to be shoved back into her and she knew that if all her energy was to get shoved back into her, it could shatter her horn and then the world would likely be at Twilight's mercy, and chances were that she would wind up being executed.  She too knew that using so much energy it could make her vulnerable later on had to be done.  She too began to glow a bright blue.  Blue beams shot out of her eyes and met the green ones of Twilight.  Now not only was their magic fighting the other, so were the beams from their eyes. 

This was something that had never happened before.  The only one to have ever used their beams directly on another living being was Colgate when she used them to melt Grogar's eyes in Tambelon.  She continued to put more energy into her fight and could hear Twilight grunting in pain. 

The rest of the battle had stopped entirely.  Not only were Colgate's forces watching this in awe, but so were Celestia, Galaxia, Cosmos and all the duplicates of them.  Despite them being on opposing sides, one of the Celestias approached Ruby and asked, "What is going on up there?"  She then saw that Colgate began to glow much brighter than the darker glow of Twilight.  She continued, "Why is Colgate's glow so much brighter?"

Ruby replied, "Because Colgate's glow is of pure good while the one you have been brainwashed by is full of nothing but malice and evil." 

The duplicate flared up her horn and yelled, "How dare you say that about Twilight!  She is not evil!" 

Ruby fired a bolt of energy at the duplicate, striking her down and rendering her unconscious.  Meanwhile, everypony else continued to watch the battle in awe.  As Colgate continued to glow brighter and brighter, the pain she had felt began to subside and despite things going downhill for her and the pain becoming greater, Twilight continued to show defiance.  Everypony could hear her yelling, "No, you will not defeat your dark goddess.....never, nopony defeats the Dark Goddess Twilight Sparkle!"

After nearly an hour of non-stop battling one another with their energy, Colgate mustered up every ounce of energy that she had, began to glow brighter than the sun and increased her energy output tenfold.  Very quickly Twilight's dark energy was shoved into her and she went flying backwards.  When Colgate felt no more resistance, she stopped with the power and flew in the direction that Twilight had been thrown and was pleased by what she saw.

What she saw laying below her was the dark goddess, legs broken, wings broken and her horn shattered.  This brought about a lot of joy from Colgate.  Many things had been done to Twilight in the past when she was defeated but this time Colgate was bound and determined to destroy her evil once and for all.