//------------------------------// // Facing Despair // Story: The Mask of Despair and the Face of Hope // by Wings of Black Glass //------------------------------// “You got back here even faster than I expected!” Despair laughed, firelight glinted off the red gem of the Alicorn Amulet on his chest. “Surrender the Amulet and dismantle the curse!” I stomped a hoof to emphasize. “Always the optimist, aren’t you?” Sable didn’t speak or bother with diplomacy and fired a bright beam at Despair. The blackened charcoal pony flicked his head, and Sable’s beam veered wide, deflected easily. “See? He gets it.” “Despair! You will hand over the Amulet!” “Despair?” He sounded surprised to hear his own name, and I forgot for a moment that it was not, in fact, his real name. “You actually named me Despair!?” He laughed again, deeply and with his whole being, horridly it sounded familiar to me. “How incredibly appropriate! I couldn’t have picked a better name! I had been considering ‘Ashborn’ myself.” If he were here, Spike would have agreed with him. Sable fired a second beam, again Despair simply flicked his head disinterestedly, and the beam veered wide, burning a line across the far other side of the crater. “You’re going to have to do better than that now.” Crystals erupted from the ground underneath Sable, reaching around him and pinning him to the ground. I hadn’t even seen him cast! “Sable!” I could see him preparing to teleport. “Don’t! If he has the same spells as you, he’ll have a redirection set up. You’ll just end up in another trap, or worse.” “Ah, so the Princess of Friendship is capable of basic pattern recognition. Very good.” Despair hadn’t moved an inch from his place beside the bonfire. “How did you get the Amulet back?” I stalled, giving Sable time to find a way out of the prison. Fighting Despair right now, with Sable at his mercy, seemed like a terrible idea. “Look around, Princess.” He waved a hoof wide. “Don’t you recognize this place?” I looked around again, only now noticing the shape of what I thought was a crater matched the outline of the lake we fought Despair at the last time. I looked down at the soil more closely; it wasn’t ash, it was lake silt. We were standing at the bottom of the lake! “You moved the lake?” I still needed time to think. We outnumbered him, and I may yet have been the stronger, but Sable was only barely able to match him before he took the Alicorn Amulet. We could both fly, which gave us the mobility advantage. But a teleport would be too risky, at least he couldn’t either. Said like this, it seemed we held most of the advantages. “Incorrect!” He laughed at me. “I boiled the lake away entirely! It's not like you left me much choice. It took me a week to find the amulet, trapped within the shard fragment as it was, and days more to figure out how to retrieve it.” He scowled at me, disappointed. “You really should have set more safeguards behind when you left.” I glanced around, I didn’t see the throne fragment anywhere. That was going to bite us later, I could tell. Sable finally wormed his way out of the grasping crystals, Despair even watched him do it. He seemed utterly unconcerned about Sable’s escape. The purple Unicorn stood beside me, ready to fight but unwilling to make the first move. “I knew I would have to face you two.” “Why are we immune, why does your curse not affect us?” He was fast, nimble; we would have to immobilize him in order to get any good hits in. My own shields were top notch, but Sable’s were weak, I would have to defend him myself. “Because you were there where it all began, where I began.” He sounded almost thoughtful. “It’s only fitting you would be here, at the end, at my end.” “What is he talking about?” I had no answer for Sable; it made no sense. “Why? Why are you doing this?” In a contest of endurance, there would be no way to tell which of us had the greater magical capacity anymore; the Amulet may have provided him with nearly inexhaustible power. As the fight continued his sanity would begin to slip as the Amulet corrupted him, did that make him more or less dangerous? “Don’t make me repeat myself!” Despair snarled, and for an instant I could see the scar marks on his face and mark glowing, burning with an inner fire. “You get me monologuing, which you’ve done, and somewhere in my grand speech you figure out how my spell works and take it apart.” He laughed at me again. “I see no reason to fall for that old trope, not even when I’ve already won!” My heart sank, had he already won? The curse was already debilitating all of Equestria, how many have already been irreparably harmed by it? “Don’t fall for it.” Sable spoke, his voice hard as a rock. “He’s bluffing. We can still take his curse apart.” Sable was right, why did I let myself falter? I steeled myself, and I wouldn’t listen to any more of Despair’s taunts. “Should have known you wouldn’t be so easily cowed.” Despair frowned when he saw our resolve, which became a scowl. He lowered his head, pointing his horn at us and spreading his legs wide, a fighting stance. Energy burned in his eyes and my hairs stood on end. I blinked, the image of the first time I saw Sable Stardust ready to attack flashed in my mind. “Fine then. It ends in fire and blood.” Something in the bonfire moved, the fire flaring as Despair’s red aura disturbed it. An iron sword emerged from the flames, its blade longer than Despair was from tail to tip of horn. The weapon glowed red hot along its length, the last half of it twisted around its axis several times. Sparks fell from the cutting edges as tiny bits of cinder touched it and burned away. “He’ll go for me first. He knows I’m the weaker.” Sable whispered it in the moment before everything happened. The three of us burst into motion. Despair leaped across the distance, faster than I thought he could move, flaming sword swinging down at us. Sable jumped into the air, firing a long beam of energy as he did so. Sable’s attack was deflected by a barrier that erected itself around Despair. I jumped to the side as the blade came down right beside me, flames burst where the sword hit the ground. The charcoal Unicorn spun, slashing widely at me as he faced towards Sable. I stumbled backward; I had only just barely avoided the blade. The ground was too soft to fight on, and I took to the air as a gout of flame from Despair threatened to engulf Sable. I flung a barrier around him, blunting the attack. I spotted the purple Unicorn dart away, trying to gain distance from the other. For an instant Despair wasn’t watching me, and I attempted to imprison him within the crystal stasis spell. My spell barely began to form around him when thunder cracked where he was standing, and he appeared in the air directly above me, iron blade already dropping towards my neck. He must have keyed his redirection not to trigger when he teleported himself, that was seriously problematic and worryingly clever. Sable’s magic hurled me to the side just in time for the blade to pass harmlessly by. He swooped in past me, firing indiscriminately down to where Despair was landing in the silt. Lightning danced and kicked up clouds of dust and ash, but none found home. Despair twirled the flaming blade above his head, and the dust cloud compressed and hardened into rock shards, shooting towards us at speed. I quickly blocked the stones with a shield, but Sable had more trouble trying to dodge, and one such projectile broke through his left wing. His fragile magic wings shattered, and he tumbled through the air. Somehow he landed on his feet by guiding his fall with his magic and dashed behind a large stone as Despair launched another lance of fire towards him. The lance burst against the rock, tearing out a smoldering bite. Sable wouldn’t be able to get back in the air, his wing spell took too much time and energy to safely use now. One of our few advantages, lost. I tried to catch Despair with a second crystal prison, and he vanished just as before. This time I was ready and exploded power all around me as he materialized above me again. The Charcoal Unicorn was flung away, lightning cracking as he teleported himself back to the ground. Clearly, neither one of us would use that trick again. A metal cage manifested around me; I cut through the bars with ease before it could fall to the ground with me inside. I ripped two of the bars out of the cage and closed on Despair, swinging the bars like swords. Sparks flashed as metal struck red-hot metal and the blade cut deep into my makeshift weapons. We clashed several more times; he never stopped his blade moving at any moment, using its momentum to batter my bars aside and follow through. He was disturbingly fast with such a large weapon. He brought his sword down heavily, right atop me, and I blocked it with both metal bars. He scowled at me as we pushed against the other, the Alicorn Amulet shimmering as sparks flew from our met weapons. The marks on his face were burning even brighter, not so much scars as living lightning now. His expression shifted away from anger to a sick joy as he pressed harder, driving me back. He was enjoying this; the amulet must have been corrupting him! I twisted my bars around his blade and pulled against him instead of trying to push him back, trying to rip the iron sword out of his grasp. Despair allowed himself to be thrown rather than lose his sword, spinning through the air to land far behind me. I risked a glance away, where was Sable?! I found him back at the cage, twisting and warping the metal. What was he doing? No time to wonder, Despair was charging again. I leaped back into the air, flashing a wide beam at the dark Unicorn. He cut through it with a sharply angled shield, not even slowing, and I had to rise higher to avoid being hit by the blade. I glanced again at Sable; he was folding the metal cage into the shape of a bird and scarring it with a mark. It was clear to me now, his plan, but he needed more time to cast the spell. Repeatedly I fired down at Despair, bright beams flashing. He deflected them all, some with shields, some with his blade as sparks and fire flashed. It did not affect him, but it gave Sable the time he needed. “Deliver this message!” Sable’s voice boomed loudly, and Despair turned in time to see the metal construct, much more massive than he was, barreling down at him. The darkened Unicorn scrambled away, the bird landed with a heavy thud where Despair had been standing, it could have flattened him. Then Despair found his feet, and charged back at the bird, slicing it cleanly in two with his heavy flaming blade. “All that work for nothing?” Despair laughed as the bisected bird fell to either side. “It's not a flaw.” Sable smiled back. “It's a feature!” Despair’s laughter faded as each half of the bird reanimated, growing back the missing parts, and both swooped down on him. Despair teleported away with a snap, and both birds immediately turned towards him, chasing after the Unicorn. “He’s got a ‘hydra problem’ now. We’ve only got maybe a minute before he figures it out.” “Got any other ideas?” I hovered just beside him. “You’re looking at it.” He fired long-range blasts at Despair, none had any impact, but it kept the other Unicorn unsteady as he fought off the birds, now numbering three. “We have to get that sword away from him.” “I think we don’t; he’s not trying anything bigger while he’s got it.” More metal birds appeared as Despair continued to shred his way through them. “Go bigger yourself then! I can’t take him alone. It has to be you! Now is your best chance, I can keep him distracted, but not for long!” Sable darted away before I could respond, he moved farther away and started to cast more spells on the ground around him. I didn’t know what he was planning next, but he was right. This had to end now, no matter whatever doubts I had. I rose higher into the air, staring down at Despair. I gathered my inner powers, recalling how it was when I drew up all my Alicorn magic to fight Tirek. It was going to take that kind of force to bring him down for good, anything less and he’d fight through it. Despair roared, lightning bursting. Energy leaped from metal bird to metal bird, melting and twisting them into unrecognizable lumps. Some of the bolts of lightning even reached up to me in the air. I took deep breaths, focusing through the electric pain. The birds all fell still, reduced to ashes and metal bones. None reanimated. Despair spun again, swinging his flaming sword blindly in rage. He spotted me up in the air, fire leaping all around him as he gathered his own magic. I cast first. A mighty barrage of power rushed down on him. He screamed, audible even from up high and over the roar of my spell. His shout grew in force; the beam was blocked by a barrier around him. He struggled against my might, his knees beginning to buckle, he had to focus all his power at the point where my beam met his shield. I poured on more energy, the light flashing brightly across the dried lake as my beam crashed down on his guard. For a moment we were locked in the clash, each pouring as much power as we could into the other. Then out the corner of my eye, I saw Sable, aiming carefully along one arm, a thin beam of light emitting from his horn. The neon beam tracked across the ground, terminating on Despair’s side. He fired a neon blue bolt of lightning, the most powerful I had ever seen from him, which leaped out towards Despair. The shield failed. The spot Despair was standing disappeared in a brilliant flash as my spell slammed into the ground at the exact moment Sable’s lightning speared through. I shielded my eyes as the explosion sent up a massive cloud of dust and ash, I was nearly blown out of the air. The echoes of the blast melted away into the distance, and the dust cloud began to disperse. Despair was gone, nothing left but a crater and scorched earth, I let out a relieved sigh. It was over. I looked down at Sable, he met my eyes, smiling. Lightning cracked by his side, horrifyingly familiar. My heart stopped mid-beat. Despair stood there; his twisted iron sword raised high above Sable’s head. A cruel smile etched on Despair’s cracked face, his body smoking, he only barely escaped the onslaught. There wasn’t time to help. Sable fell back, raising his arm to ward off the blow already coming down. I screamed as the blade descended. Sable grinned. A stone spike thrust up from the ground, where the trap was laid at Despair’s feet. He had just enough time to dodge the first spike, leaping to the side before it could puncture right through his chest, Sable shouldn’t have given him a warning. A second trap triggered and impaled Despair through his left foreleg. The charcoal Unicorn screamed, howling with animal pain. The flaming blade dropped to the ground beside Sable, sizzling where the red-hot metal touched the ground. For a moment he was pinned, and I tried to summon up enough strength to end it. But I couldn’t catch my breath; the last spell was too much, I needed a minute before I could muster enough power to do anything like it again. Sable stole the sword, swinging it in to decapitate Despair. But the other Unicorn was still stronger and flung Sable and the sword far away. Molten blood, glowing like magma, seeped from his leg. The stone glowed red, then white-hot, and Despair wrenched his limb clear as the spike snapped like a twig. I swung down to snatch Sable away from a return blast, hauling him into the air and away from Despair while we caught our breath. The sword remained on the ground. “I almost had him.” I couldn’t spare a word for him as I evaded more fire from the ground. At least Despair’s mobility was impaired now, our advantage restored. We landed behind one of the larger boulders, red beams spearing through the air and all around us, Despair firing wildly. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t keep this up much longer.” “I need a minute; I can’t do that again just yet. Where is he getting all this power?” “Where are the guards.” He said it as if it answered the question. He peeked around the edge of the boulder and fired off a weak beam. Could Despair have already drained the royal guards of their magic using Tirek’s powers? Could he have done the same to the village of Pinewood? The massive boulder took a shot from Despair, but it was thick enough to resist. It gave me an idea. “Keep him still, just for a few seconds.” Sable nodded, darting out to the open and launching a quick barrage. A lance of fire was his response, tracking him as he ran across the dry lake. I focused on the boulder, lifting it from the ground until I could see Despair underneath it. He’d retrieved his sword, still firing on Sable, his eyes blazing. It took tremendous effort, but I hurled the boulder at him. I saw him blink in surprise as the rock came crashing down towards him. Despair vanished in a crack of lightning, reappearing above the rock in flight. He stabbed his blade into the stone and leaped off again, using his own momentum and the sword as a lever to fling the rock back at me. Then he kicked it hard, boosted by magic, and it accelerated towards me. I couldn’t stop it; I wasn’t fast enough to escape! Without thinking I teleported away, intending to just barely avoid the boulder. But something pulled at me, taking me from where I wanted to be. I materialized on the other side of the dry lake in a circle of stones. I blinked, trying to clear my head and gain my bearings. Red runes on the stones glowed, and bright threads of energy reached out and wrapped around me, pulling me to the ground. Desperately I tried to pull myself free, but they only bound tighter around me. I tried to teleport away, but when I gathered my magic, the threads flared brightly, searing me and disrupting my concentration. I couldn’t catch my breath. “Twilight!” Sable screamed my name, and I spotted him bolting towards me. Despair laughed, appearing before him with a lightning snap, and swung his sword at the purple Unicorn. Sable was able to block the blow with a shield, but it tossed him away. I continued to struggle against the threads holding me down. “I knew it would get you eventually!” Despair limped towards me, his face charred and blackened cracked opened with a blazing smile. His sword dragged on the ground beside him, drawing a burning line in the silt. “You’re just too fond of teleportation!” “Get away from her!” Sable bowled into the Unicorn, sending them both tumbling to the ground. He pounded his hooves into the other Unicorn’s face, his only weapon left. Despair only laughed, even as his boiling blood stained Sable’s arms. Red magic flashed, and Sable screamed, thrown away by the burst of power. He landed far away in a steaming heap, struggling to get back to his feet, burned and battered. “I’ve had quite enough of the both of you!” Despair stood again, his face now blotched with his own blood. “It’s time to burn!” He laughed madly, all reason lost, as he gathered power to him. I recognized the spell as the same explosive one he used when he attacked the castle. I was able to catch it and throw it away that time, but here? Trapped within Despair’s prison, I wouldn’t be ready to fight it off! Sable got back to his feet, at last, and fired with what strength he could muster. The beam hit Despair square in the side, but there was almost no force behind it, and he only barely stumbled. A bright burning star appeared on Despair’s horn, and his spell was ready. Despair’s laugh echoed as he teleported high into the air and flung the blazing star down at us. I couldn’t look away, trying to fight through the pain to put up some kind of defense. A diamond light blazed before my eyes, matched by a sound I could only describe as a flash. Fully expecting to be incinerated to ash, I braced myself for oblivion. It didn’t come. I blinked, looking out at the bright star vibrating slightly right before my nose. I should have been dead; we should have all been dead. A claw reached down and plucked the magic sun out of the air like a grape. I tracked it with my eyes as the spell was passed to a lion’s paw, and from there to the mouth of the thing in front of me. This creature, a chaotic mishmash of various monsters and equines, took a bite out of the spell as if it were a cupcake, utterly unconcerned about the vast raw power in its paw. “Oh, that's spicy.” The draconequus swallowed another bite of the burning star, a little steam coming out of his ears. “Hello, Twilight.” Despite all my pain, despite all my fear, hope rose within me, and I smiled. “Need an extra hand?” Discord was here. “Woo! Go Discord!” “Wow, I bet he ended that quick.” “That’s what I thought too. When he showed up, I was so sure everything was about to turn in our favor with just the snap of his fingers.” “…Why do I suddenly get the sinking feeling this doesn’t end well?”