Starlight Glimmer fought against her former henchmen, resulting in the destruction of both the henchmen and the Spider-Base and injuring Starlight, whom was taken to the hospital and blackmailed to destroy it unless her demands were met. Meanwhile, the fighting forces managed to descended upon the Shadow Planet and laid siege to many of Titan’s forces, which ultimately led to Lightning and his team falling deep into the planet’s core where it was there they came face-to-face with Titan himself.

Titan snickered as he glared down the group of fighters. “Just look around you, isn’t this all marvelous?” he motioned at the incomprehensible craftsman ship of the planet.

…All this and many more are the key factors to creating a daring project such as this, yet no one ever dared to conceive.

He paused and glared at Grand Ruler, “Long before my first encounter with you!”

“I also had made many allies whom were advanced in the arts of magic, technology, and much more, and I instructed and trained them to carry out my bidding.

It always helped to have backup strategies… So I set them to work in secret locations of the galaxy, constructing this massive vessel that would surpass even the most advanced of starships.

Even while imprisoned, my army continued to work, but even different races can only live and work for so long. Many of my forces had grown old and feeble, and would need assistance to restock the army.

As I was still bound to my imprisonment, I sought the one thing I knew would lead me and my dreams to greatness…

…An apprentice-- A protégé of my very own… and my scouts had found the very being.”

“In their travels through the cosmos, my scouts fell upon Planet Equestria, and it was there that they found her; Starlight Glimmer…

…Poor, miserable little pony. Exiled, enraged, and seething with power and lust for vengeance… like weak tree swaying in the breeze, ready to snap… and I gave her that push.”

“So the spiritual stone was right!” sneered Lightning “…You killed Starlight’s parents!”

In her already, emotionally unstable state, my agents destroyed her parents, which tipped her over the edge, and the fact that she blamed you, Celestia, for the murder made things all the easier.

“Do you truly wish to avenge the death of your parents?” he asked her. “I can help you achieve that.”

“You can? How?” the little filly asked.

“Trust me. Allow me to lead and guide, and I will help you develop powers and skills that will make you invincible.”

Anyone in Starlight’s position then couldn’t possibly resist such a temptation.

After all she had been through, it would not only feel great to avenge her parents, but also to get revenge on her ruined life.

The next series of flashbacks were of Starlight, having been whisked off of her home planet to an isolated planetoid deep in space, where Titan had kept her, raised her, and trained her-- extremely harshly.

He would push her to beyond her breaking points, and then he would push her harder.

“Focus, Starlight… Focus on your hatred. Let your anger erupt, and use it to find strength to nourish your powers.”

With all this, Starlight became the enraged, super-powerful psychopath, capable of eliminating many that stood in her path.

Starlight’s training continued for many, many years, until Titan sent her out to recruit more monsters for his army.

The group of fighters were totally disgusted, especially Celestia. “You fiend!!” she spat “How could you do all this for your own power-hungry war games.”

“It matter naught anymore.” hissed Titan “By this time, she had long since outgrown her usefulness and been disposed of.”

Starla felt sick to her stomach and nearly puked. She swallowed it hard but her anger was peaking. “It’s bad enough you sacrifice your foot-soldiers, but to sacrifice your apprentice… who did all your dirty work for you, and you just toss her away?!”

Everyone else felt the same as she did-- seething with rage, much to Titan’s delight.

“As much as I would enjoy all this seeing you all despising me, I have a universe to conquer and my first objective…” he paused and pointed straight at the group “…To be rid of you and your pesky Starfleet once and for all.”

Everyone in the group looked ready to brawl, and Grand Ruler stepped forth. “That is not going to happen, Titan. I may not be as big and as powerful, but I’m not afraid.”

Titan begged to differ, “You’ll find that this battle will not be like any other we’ve had… but see for yourselves.”

Lightning tried to scan him with his visor, but the readings were still scrambled due to all the energy and forces from the core.

“We understand.” replied Grand Ruler “I myself was thinking the same. Nevertheless… let’s fight our best.”

“Yeah… totally no pressure.” said Krysta “…Except for the fate of the entire universe maybe!”

The fighters stood ready, glaring the evil sorcerer up high, like cowboys ready for the draw.

“Go!!” shouted Grand Ruler, and the fighters all rushed forth, and then scattered off in a zip.

Titan simply remained where he was with his arms folded, but his eyes began to glow behind his hood.

Then, the second the fighters appeared and began to charge at him from different directions, they all were blasted hard by powerful pulses that came out from the red lights along the massive walls of the core.

Lightning and their majesties were all struck hard, with sparks and explosions flying, but they stayed strong.

More blasts came shooting from the massive wall of lights, like a bombarding meteor shower in so many directions.

The fighters began to dodge, and swerve, and slink through the lasers, but all Titan did was just float where his was, snickering softly.

Some of the lasers did hit him, but he just took the hits as if they were nothing and didn’t even flinch.

“Poor fools.” he thought “They’re getting bombarded like ants in a rainfall, and they have no idea the truth behind all this.”

As the fighters continued to dodge, Lightning had observed the lasers, and after being hit a couple more times, and feeling their power, he finally realized, “These beams…! They’re bits of Uniforce!”

Grand Ruler got hit again, still standing, but he agreed, “…You’re right, Lightning. It is…”

The blasts kept bombarding, forcing everyone to keep dodging, while Titan, every time he was hit, still did not flinch, and he wouldn’t of course. Even though the uniforce was strong to use against him… it could do nothing in the mere small chunks that were firing at him.

“You are correct…!” hissed Lightning “You power is being housed in a holding shell beneath the rock below us. My magical devices are keeping the creature weak so it cannot escape, but enraging it just right enough so that its energy flows through the holes that line the walls of the core.”

Lightning looked straight down and didn’t have to use his scanning. He could already feel the enragement of the Enticorn down below.

…Titan’s machines continued to torture it, causing the creature to roar and thrash about, igniting its power and sending it out through the systems to fire upon the fighters, and yet still the creature was kept in a weak enough state to remain detained.

“Lightning…!!” Starla shouted, alerting him to a large swarm of beams coming straight for him.

The fighters continued to dodge, and they couldn’t even try to launch an attack on Titan himself.

Grand Ruler agreed, and he was also wondering about how the rest of the army was fairing on the surface.

The monster army was starting to diminish slightly, but still not really enough to even consider being defeated.

“Kallaians, Fire!” the captain shouted, and her squad of female warriors fired their ray-guns at the monsters.

“You little punks!” a monster army shouted and he ordered his forces to attack.

Starfleet jumped in, and began to counter the attacks with their own, and they received backup from the starships above, especially Avyanna’s ships, holding hordes of creatures in their tractor beams.

“Princess…!” Mayne hollered “We can’t keep this up much longer, the tractor beam energies are dropping.”

Avyanna was not willing to give up. She really wanted that pardon from Starfleet and she also wanted Titan go down as well.

“Contact the other ships. Tell them to pass their lot of monsters back and forth; it will give others time to recover.”

Mayne complied, and once the other ship captains got the message, they passed fair amounts of monsters from one set of tractor beams to another, allowing the ships to recharge power.

“That’s all we can do for now.” Avyanna said to herself, and she looked down at the ever-expanding battles on the planet. “…The rest is up to them.”

With the monster army being subdued, the Starfleet fighters decided to excuse themselves to try and tackle the Dark Star itself.

By now, it had really gained a lot of power, and was about the size of a moon, and still growing, and even though it was composed of darkness, it was starting to get just a little bright, but frightening nonetheless.

The ponies scanned the monstrous entity with their visors, and its readings were unlike anything they had ever seen.

“I hope so.” said Artie “If it gains anymore power we may not be able to stop it at all!”

The other Equestrians agreed, and together they all shouted, “VALKYRIA!!”

Transforming into the Valkyries of Harmony.

Spike then decided, “Now’s as just a good a time…” and being in the darkness, shrouded under the Dark Star’s shadow, he saved enough of his own strength and power and began to transforming in a bright ray of light…

He had transformed into the Majestic Dragon. Spreading out his bright wings, he gave a mighty roar, which actually began to frightening many of the monsters, and distracted them from the other warriors.

“Let’s give it all we’ve got.” said Buddy “If we can hit this thing in the core hard enough, it just may dispel the star.”

“Great… “Just might.” That’s reassuring.” muttered Applejack. She was really hoping the plan would work, so was everyone else.

The space ponies all combined the strongest, most-powerful blasts they could unleash from their horns.

The Valkyries all combined their swords together, “HARMONY BEAM!” Even with just four of them, their magic was still strong and bright.

Spike then conjured up all the power he could into one massive breath, “FLAMES OF LIGHT!”

The massive attacks shot straight towards the star. It looked as if they were going to hit… when suddenly…! A great massive shot of dark power fired from the star itself, stopping the beams.

It did far more than just defend... The Star quite literally sprouted a pair of bright and sinister-looking eyes.

The star, both alive and sentient, began to corrupt the power of light that was thrown at it-converting it all into dark aura, which it then absorbed into its core, and increasing its mass, making it grow even larger.

“Oh, this is just fantastic!” groaned Rainbow. “Attacking it only makes it stronger! Now how are we supposed to attack it?”

As everyone began to wonder, they noticed several scout ships breaking off from the space fleet, intending to open fire on the star.

“WAIT…!! DON’T… !!!” Spike called at them, but only some of the pilots heard him and stopped, but others had already opened fire upon the star, and the same thing happened; the star absorbed the laser blasts, converting it into energy for itself, making it grow even bigger and stronger…

…And then it began to shoot back at the ships, destroying them and killing the pilots.

“Retreat, now!” the wing-leader called and the ships began to back off, but the star began to fire rapid shots at the ships, but Spike flew up and shielded the squad with one of his massive wings.

He yelled and wailed as he was hit mercilessly, and big explosions flashed everywhere.

“Get out of here!!” he called to the pilots. “Tell the fleet about this!”

The star continued to pelt Spike with more blasts, and finally there was a big explosion up in the sky.

“OH, NO!!” cried Rarity, and watched as her husband-- in his normal forum-- began to plummet from the skies to the ground below.

She rushed upward and caught him in her arms, and brought him back down. He looked really beaten up, and was covered in dust and smoke.

He was still alive, and was able to get up, but he still felt woozy and weak. “Rarity…!” he groaned “The blasts… they’re strong than… they look. They completely overwhelmed me.”

“If those blasts can blow Spike out of the sky,
Imagine if they hit us, we could all fry!”

“But attacking only makes it stronger,
If we don’t stop it, we won’t last much longer.”

She was right, the star had begun to move away from the planet as it was growing larger in size than ever, now twice the size of a moon, and still getting bigger all the time.

The scout ships had reported back to the Kallanian ship and informed the princess of the situation.

“Order all ships to back down from the star!” Avyanna ordered. “Mayne, send word to all other ships; they must not attack the star with energy sources.”

Avyanna then glared out at the ever-grown star, and she was starting to grow nervous. “How can we possibly destroy that thing now?”

Even though it was a star and had to have some sort of weakness, the fact it was no ordinary star, and alive and sentient and able to defend itself too, it was all starting to go against every rule of logic there was!

Down in the core, Lightning and co were still dodging the blasts, and still getting struck every now and then, while Titan continued to just casually float where he was and didn’t even raise a finger to fight them himself, which really made them wonder why he wouldn’t make a move, or why he just stood there taking all the hits.

But finally, after taking one final hit in the back, Lightning snapped “That does it!” and he looked far off at the red lights where the blasts were coming from. “We’ve got to put them out of action!”

Each of the fighters flew off in many directions, and despite the red glows being in eye sight, they were actually far, far away, and the blasting made it all the harder to reach them, but those brave fighters continued their swerving and ducking the blasts that came at them.

“STARLIGHT ARROW” she fired multiple shots right at the red glows, blowing them out with simplicity.

“STAR SHOWER” she fired her star clusters and shorted out more of the lights.

Many blasts fired at her, but shielded herself with a strong barrier to deflect the blasts she couldn’t dodge, and used her magic to conjure reflect portals to send the shots back where they came from… into the red glows, blowing them out.

Lightning blasted at many of the glows he could, but was careful not to overly exhaust himself.

Celesita and Grand Ruler flew hand in hand, and began to fire rapid pulses from their free hands and their horns blasting a good many of the glows.

Even still, there were millions upon millions of them left and all still firing.

“Well, at least we’ve slowed them down.” said Celestia “It’ll make it easier for us.”

Her husband agreed and ordered everyone to rush back. “…Time to take this battle to the source!” he said while glaring squarely at Titan.

“Hey I just thought of something.” said Lightning, and he huddled the group together to explain the strategy.

“It’s risky…” said Grand Ruler “But it seems to be our best shot. Let’s do it.”

The group dashed forth, and with less glows along the walls, it was much easier to dodge attacks, and they reached Titan in nearly no time and were glaring him down.

Still, he just remained where his was, with his arms folded and he was snickering at them all.

“You can drop the cool act.” sneered Lightning “You’re not going to intimidate us any longer.”

“Is that so?” hissed Titan. “You poor, misguided creatures… You’re still not much without your precious army, are you?

Uninteresting in his monologuing, the fighters rushed forth to attack, and this time, Titan held his arms up projecting a barrier to shield himself.

Lightning, Starla, and Krysta rushed forth firing many blasts at him, but his shield deflected their shots back at them, and he finally lowered his shield and fired dark bolts at everyone, which they dodged and swerved away from.

“It’s no use, Starfleet. This time you have finally met your end. The Dark Star will continue to grow as we speak, and then the universe as you know it will perish to its almighty evil.”

“That is not going to happen, Titan!” shouted Grand Ruler “We’ve never failed so far, and we’re not about to start.”

The other fighters agreed, but Titan only fired more blasts at them, and at the same time more powerful blasts from the red glows shot at the fighters from afar.

“Now!” said Lightning, and he and the other fighters joined together, holding hands, and Krysta rode atop Lightning’s head.

Everyone combined whatever powers they had to form a large scoop-like net to actually absorb the Uniforce pulses being fired at them, all those millions of blasts were combining together into a massive sphere of bright light and power.

The blast was getting so big and so bright; the fighters had to look downward, but they were still able to see their target and Lightning called to him, “…This is your downfall, Titan. We know how the Uniforce works a great deal more than you ever will!”

“AND GO!!” shouted Grand Ruler, and they threw the large bomb hard towards Titan, whom didn't seem to put up his defenses or even dodge… much to the confusion, or delight of the fighters as they watched the massive force they had created slam right into him.

Titan roared and growled as the blast began to consume and break up his body, making a massive explosion so huge that it sent waves of burning light all through the core.

“LOOK OUT!!” screamed Celestia as the blasts seemed to head straight for them.

Conjuring up as much power as they could, the fighters all shrouded themselves in layers of barriers.

They were very lucky, the blast began to die down a little before reaching them fully, but still packed quite a massive blow which the barriers, even in layers, could barely hold.

The quaking was so hard, and the force below was so great that the machines and consoles began to short out and explode.

“Watch out!” shouted the Kallanian captain, and she and her troops leapt away from the exploding machines.

Some of the monsters weren’t so lucky and were caught in the electrical explosions, which were reinforced by the Uniforce, and they were blown down hard, or even destroyed.

Mayne checked the scanners and replied “There appears to be a great disturbance coming from within the planet’s core.”

Back in the core, the brightness from the explosions had ceased and the rumbling stopped.

The entire place was a total wreck, with smoke from the shorted out consoles and the red glows, now dead, loads of fallen debris and rubble, and other bits of destruction lay about.

The fighters made it back to the remains of the central rock land. They were positively bushed from withstanding such a blast and from all the dodging, blasting, and strength they used to force the power down on Titan.

“It’s… It’s my Enticorn!” cried Lightning. He almost had forgotten how weak and tired he was and nearly collapsed, but Starla managed to catch him in her arms.

The Enticorn looked in really bad shape. He just lay on his backside, breathing ever so softly, and his body, instead of glowing bright gold and white, was now dim and dark.

“He must’ve been pushed to his limits. His energy is all tapped out.” suggested Lightning.

After gazing down at the poor creature for a few moments, Starla asked, “Do you think you can… you know… merge with him.”

Lightning shook his head, “I’m not sure how, and even if I were, I don’t think we can do it like this. He needs to power up again.”

Suddenly, Titan’s sinister laugh was heard and he taunted everyone “That… is least of your worries.”

The group all sudden realized at once that Titan was never truly there, and all they had destroyed was a mere shell of Titan.

He said no more and that’s when the core began to rumble like crazy from all the damages done to it from the battle. Large bits of debris fell from way up high.

“Look out!” shouted Starla as a large chunk came crashing down. The fighters managed to dodge it, but they didn’t need to think twice.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” cried Celestia, but teleporting was out of the question. The planet’s surface was still too thick to break through, and even still, everyone was still a bit tuckered out.

“The jump-tubes!” cried Lightning, they were all smashed and busted up from the destruction.

Far above on the surface, the Dark Star was starting to go crazy in the sky. It was throbbing and bulging as if something were inside of it and trying to escape.

The star had backed far, far away from the planet as it was growing bigger and stronger than ever, until it was about half the size of it.

Then, from the top part of the star, a monstrous figure emerged with massive arms, a huge body, and a familiar laugh.

Everyone gawked in extreme awe and horror; even the monsters were astounded to see this.

Titan didn’t just control the Dark Star; he had infused his life force into it all along!

“The Dark Star and I are now one!” Titan bellowed “I’ve never felt such power before…” he paused and chuckled wickedly.

In our final episode: The fate of the universe is at stake as Titan decides to finally unleash his ultimate fury. Starfleet and the allied forces doing their best to bring Titan down, and Starlight Glimmer appear to add her assistance in the efforts after finally accepting the truth.

How can our heroes bring the Dark Star and Titan down once and for all?

Don’t miss the next exciting episode of “Starfleet Magic!”

My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic Season X

by DakariKingMykan

Episode 25: Part 4: Star Battle