Despair laughed victoriously, his skin boiled away, his body blazed. The Alicorn Amulet sank into the mass of ash and fire that he was becoming, a burning bright red diamond where his heart should have been. His mane and tail billowed out into acrid smoke. The scars on his face became his face as his features dissolved away. His form was now nothing but ash and dark magic, the molten core of his being visible through breaks in the blackened body of the Monster.
“At last!” His voice burned, roaring like dragon fire. “With all this power!” Red lightning leaped from the terrible spike that was his horn, splitting the air open as it reached high to the red ring in the clouds above us. “I can see my answer!”
“He’s completely lost it!” Sable had to shield his eyes from the firestorm that now raged around the Monster. “Twilight, what do we do?!” I had no answer for him. There was nothing we could do against such reckless hate and unbridled power. Maybe, maybe, if we had the Elements of Harmony, we could fight him. But now? There was nothing left but ash and sorrow.
Something glinted on the horizon, a tiny flicker of light flew down towards us. It was familiar somehow, as if I had seen it before. It circled the dried lake, pulled in towards the black circle in the sky. As it passed, I could see it clearly, a four-pointed star with two tails of candy green and teal rising from it. Starlight Glimmer’s cutie-mark. What did this mean? Was it hope, or something worse?
“Ah! The first to fall to despair!” The Monster pointed at it, and the cutie-mark flew over to him. “But not the last!” He raised his hoof, and the mark became a streak as it rose into the black pit in the sky. Starlight’s cutie-mark vanished into the dark, and I felt her loss like a knife to the heart. The Monster gestured to the horizons, I saw more points of light descending towards us. “Beautiful, aren’t they!”
Each point and streak of light resolved into a cutie-mark as it swung in. Most I didn’t recognize, but a few I did. The names and faces of my friends and the other ponies I knew flashed through my mind as they passed. Trixie, Granny Smith, Derpy, Apple Bloom, Zecora, Wave Dasher, Spitfire, Cheerliee, Shining Armor, Daring do, Moon Dancer, Earl Grey, Mr. Cake, Sunburst, Maud Pie, Zephyr Breeze, Night Light. Dozens, hundreds, thousands. They swirled, a tornado of light and loss as they were drawn into the black vortex to disappear forever.
“What have we here?” The Monster snatched one before it could pass out of reach, holding it just over a raised hoof. It was a sun, bright and happy, a mark I knew so well.
“Celestia! No.” Pits of boiling lava, the Monster’s eyes, turned towards me. He clenched his arm, and the solar disk exploded into a cloud of embers. “No!” Sable once asked if I knew what I would do at my lowest point. What would I do when pressed past all limits of sorrow and sanity? I had no answer for him then.
Now I knew.
A voice screamed, it was mine, drawing in everything I could and more. I knew nothing now but pain and rage. Magic exploded out of me, a living conduit of energy, and slammed down on the Monster. Both our voices screamed in agony, somewhere I heard Sable Stardust calling my name. I couldn’t listen anymore. My power shone, fueled by all I had, drawn from my hopes and dreams and pains and sorrows, from my prodigious intellect, from my cutie-mark, from my life itself.
The Monster that was Despair fell back, my own magic so bright it burned even him. His body started to dissolve. The red diamond at his core flared brightly, a gleaming barrier forming around it. Everything flashed white hot, then past white, past color, until there was nothing but power.
It faded, my body could take no more. I fell to the ground, somehow still breathing. Did I win? I blinked past my pain, to see a figure ebon black standing where the Monster had been, immobile. It was wasted away to nearly nothing, wretchedly thin and frail. It didn’t seem to have eyes or even a face anymore. All around it was blasted ash, the silt melted down into glass and then broken by a power beyond even that.
Sable rushed to my side, picking me up physically, trying to help me stand. I could barely move. He smiled down at me, and I tried to smile back.
Something cracked. A low drumbeat, like a heart, filled the air.
No, no. This couldn’t be happening. I won. I had to have won.
The chest of the ebon figure fell away like ash, the pulsing ominous red glow of the Alicorn Amulet shone forth. A horrid smile, a jagged white-hot arc on its blackened face. Lightning scars broke the flakes of ash from its face and the Monster that was Despair howled. He stumbled towards us, his body still weak and frail. Most of his seemingly endless power was gone, but more than enough remained to kill us both.
Sable pulled me away before I was incinerated by a wave of flame, dragging me behind a large boulder for cover. I could do nothing but shake, it was all falling down around me, I couldn’t think. He couldn’t have survived; it wasn’t possible.
The boulder was lifted from the ground, hurled to the side with ease. The Monster stood there, all fire and ash. He reached out and swatted Sable aside like so little a thing as a doll. Then he lifted me and threw me bodily against the stone, holding me off the ground by pinning one wing to the rock.
“What to do… to you… for that?” His breath was hot and foul, like a volcano. His eyes slid down me, and he smiled cruelly. “Oh, I know just the thing.”
“No. No. Don’t.” I couldn’t even get enough breath to shout. I kicked weakly, struggling to get away before he could violate me. Sable screamed and charged. The Monster turned one eye to the purple Unicorn. A great hand of crystal burst up and seized the pony. Forcing him to the ground so he couldn’t even look away.
“You stay right there, and watch.” The Monster returned his vile attentions to me. Still, I struggled, instincts trying to get me away even though I knew I couldn’t. “Stop moving!” I didn’t think I had the strength left to scream. I was wrong. He had snapped the bones in my wing. Sable cried out my name, reaching out towards me in vain.
Pain paralyzed me; I could do nothing as he pressed against me. Then he thrust, burning hot, and I screamed anew. He wanted this to hurt. He tore, he ripped into me as he finished his work. Everything I was slipped away, I had no strength left to fight him even at the most basic level, I could barely even breathe.
Then he dropped me to the ground, and I weakly looked up to see my blood on him. My cutie-mark hung there, impaled on his horn. There was nothing left of me now but my body. The Monster grinned down at me and kicked me over towards the crystal hand holding Sable prisoner. My wing bent and twisted in all the wrong ways, pain shot through me. We couldn’t win now, it was all hopeless, even if I had strength left I didn’t have my magic anymore.
The crystal hand released Sable; I didn’t care why. It wasn’t like it would make a difference. Sable tried to lift me, to drag me behind another rock, for whatever little cover it might provide.
But the Monster wasn’t done toying with me yet. As Sable dragged me away, I saw the Monster reach up and pull my mark from his bloody horn. He held it over his head and turned one flaming pit of an eye towards me before he dropped it into his blazing mouth and swallowed it whole.
Where Sable got his strength from, I didn’t know. I didn’t care anymore. He held me close, hiding behind the rock. Flames licked at its edges as the Monster fired on us. Sable’s arms should have been a comfort, but everything was pain now.
“Help me, Twilight! I don’t know what to do!” There was nothing left to do.
“Just wait for the end with me, please.”
—————
“Whoa… you lost?”
“Are you alright?”
“What did he do to you?”
“He impaled my side with his horn, stole my cutie mark and magic. I gave up. There wasn’t any point in even trying anymore.”
“I don’t understand. How can you be here to tell us the story if Despair won?”
“Because Sable was still alive. And with him, hope.”