The battle between the Wonderbolts and the changelings raged on in the sky like a storm of violence and death. Several of the pegasi had already met a gruesome end by the teeth or magic of the bug-like quadrupeds; they were the lucky ones.
The not so lucky ones had been dealt with by Sapphic himself as he fired off ki blasts and crushed the poor ponies' skulls in his evil grasp.
The self-proclaimed king was about to choke the very life out of another of Equestria's most elite fliers, but the fun was interrupted by a sudden, high-speed buck to his already cracked face, adding more fault lines; his features starting to look more like a jigsaw puzzle rather than a face.
The kick had been delivered by none other than Scootaloo herself, as she rushed to catch her falling, unconscious comrade. As she lay him gently on the ground below, she flew back up to meet Sapphic in the center of the chaos.
"I'm going to warn you one last time, captain." He said, a slight tone of amusement in his voice. "Retreat; live to fight on another day...or until I kill you later that is."
Scootaloo's hard expression did not falter in the slightest. Without a word, she zipped forward faster than even Sapphic's eyes culd track, and blasted the would-be king in the gut with another massive high speed strike.
Sapphic spit up some form of internal juices as the wind was knocked out of him. He had no time to recover as the orange mare flew up and came crashing down with a stomp on his back, sending him plummeting downward. The clouds in the air poofed out of existence as the changeling was thrown through them. Before the ground even got close, he was rocketed upwards once ore by yet another strike from Scootaloo.
Then came the real attack; she flapped her wings hard as she could, gaining an impressive amount of speed. When she had the rate she needed, she soared past Sapphic's prone form, slashing at him with her armored wing. She turned back, and did so again with the other; she repeated this several times, each attack faster and in more rapid succession than the last. The bipedal changeling was unable to even put up a defense.
"You're through!" She bellowed as she sent her final strike into his overturned body as it whirled like a top in mid-air.
The strike sent him flying across the skyline, hitting a few of his loyal siblings along the way. She zoomed along with his body as it zipped through the air, keeping her distance so he couldn't counterattack.
Sapphic caught himself in a sudden stop assisted by his power. He snarled at the incoming pegasus as she quickly closed the gap.
There was no she should be able to hurt him this much; her power level was leagues below his own. He should be able to crush her instantly.
It was her damn speed; she was so fast that not even his trained eyes could track her. She was zipping all over the place, and he was unable to catch a break to counter; he considered using one of his area blasts, but he couldn't harm too many of his siblings. So unless he could catch this overconfident little pony, he had to think of some other way to kill her.
Scootaloo pulled straight up at a ninety degree angle just before she contacted Sapphic's body again. By the time he looked up to find her, she was already landing a giant hoof strike in his face; the pain was starting to reach him now.
"This all you got, wimp?!" She taunted him as she planted another strike into his chest.
He noticed that one had not hurt as much; she needed speed to make her attacks hit harder. If he coud catch her doing another attack like that, he'd have her where he wanted her.
She zoomed off ad came back a second later, blasting him through the battle zone once again as he tried to regain control of his flight pattern. Once he did so, he jetted upwards of hi own free will, and Scootaloo was not slow to follow his path.
There was one other way he could beat this greased lightning mare; he bet her lungs weren't as strong as her wings were, and he was going to test that out.
"Catch me if you can, pony!" He yelled back at the pursuing pegasus.
"You can't get away!" She yelled after him, giving her wings several powerful flaps to give chase.
The two soared like bullets from a long barrel into the upper stratosphere. The air began to thin out, and Sapphic chuckled. His saiyan DNA would allow him better breathing capabilities in the higher layers of the atmosphere than the young mare trying to catch him; he hoped she was dumb enough to keep trying though.
They were halfway through the mesosphere and about to hit the thermosphere as Scootaloo started puffing hard just to flap her wings at all. There was no way she was going to let this freak get out of this, and if that meant chasing him into the highest ends of the atmosphere, so be it.
Her body began to feel extremely cold as they neared the end of the thermosphere into the exosphere; ice crystals forming on her body.
Sapphic had planned totake her all the way to the magnetosphere, but this looked to be good enough, as she was noticeably slowing down and breathing hard; her chest heaving rapidly.
As Sapphic dropped down to her level, she jumped and had a horrible realization; he hadn't been running from her, he'd been leading her into a trap. She tried to zip out of the way of is oncoming punch, but she was so out of breath; the air was so thin she couldn't gather enough strength.
The changeling's knuckles met the pegasi's jaw bone right where it connected on the right side of her face, and he felt the joint snap out of place with the force of his blow. He grinned at the satisfying sound.
"No more fancy tricks, captain?" He taunted, watching her struggle to stay in the air. "That's too bad; and here I thought you were actually going to win against me and save Equestria."
He cackled loudly, and grabbed the orange mare by her mane, pulling her into several hard punches to the back of her head like a paddleball. After a few moments, it looked like Scootaloo had finally been knocked unconscious, and her breathing was starting to slow.
Sapphic grinned to himself, and let go of the purple hair that belonged to her; he figured he would let gravity do the work. Such an ironic way for a pegasus who used to be unable to fly to die.
She slowly started to fall downwards, and as she continued, her body picked up speed, and soon dropped out of Sapphic's sight. He hovered there for a moment, savoring his victory before descending again.
As he neared the slowly calming warzone in the sky, he looked down at the ground and did not see any bodies that looked like Scootaloo's. This troubled him; surely she could not have regained her flying capabilities, not while falling at that speed. She should be a bloody mss upon the plains.
He heard a faint whistling noise coming fromabove him, and it startedto grow louder. His power level senses kicked in and he jerked his body to look upwards at the unbelievably fast approaching Scootaloo.
How? How had she saved herself from the fall? At the rate she was falling, she should have been unable to save herself. Then he noticed the many clouds that still hung in the upper skies. Damn, he had forgotten pegasi could use clouds like solid ground; she must have landed on one and regained her strength.
Looking at her, he noticed she wasn't flapping her wings at all; the orange pony was in a divebomb,and aimed straight for Sapphic as if he had crosshairs.
"Move away!" She shouted to her troops.
Sapphic watched as all of the remaining Wonderbolts retreated quickly from the area. As he turned hs attention back to the falling pegasus, he sensed her power level rising suddenly. What was this? Ponies had no idea how to use ki the same way he did; how was this happening. He then noticed the barely visible cone of air forming around Scootaloo. His eyes widened; he knew there was no way he was going to be able to dodge this one even if he flew at top speeds now...
* * *
"No! Let me go, Twilight! I can't let her do this alone!" Rainbow Dash near pleaded with her friend who was holding her back with both magic and her teeth on the rainbow colored tail.
As soon as Rainbow Dash had read the letter from Scootaloo, she had tried to fly off and aid her little adopted sister. Twilight and the others had tried their best to talk her out of it, but nothing they said would get to the multicolored pony who was now desperately pulling against Twilight's efforts to stop her; it seemed she'd even rip her own tail off to get free at this point.
"Rainbow Dash, please listen!" Rarity insisted, trying to help Twilight out with some of her own magic. "Scootaloo is doing this so we have the much needed time to prepare! She's doing this for you! If you run out there now and get yourself killed, you will be tarnishing her sacrifice!"
Rainbow Dash shook her head fiercely, an anguished look on her face. "No! There isn't gonna be a sacrifice! I'm gonna save her! I gotta save her! I'm her big sister! Let me go!"
Pinkie Pie jumped atop her friend, and planted her to the ground with all her weight to stop her struggles, but Rainbow Dash continued to thrash under her. Twilight knew how bad he must be hurting not being able to be there for the mare she'd cared for for years; but like Rarity had said, this was what Scootaloo wanted. She was doing this to give them a fighting chance, and a little more time to be ready.
As soon as her thought finished, a loud boom echoed across the entire sky like someone had struck a bolt of lightning with a sledgehammer. Everyone in Ponyville looked up to the multicolored spectrum fly out in all directions; the sign of a sonic rainboom.
Rainbow immediately struggled harder, nearly hurting herself to get ou form under Pinkie. She had told Scootaloo never to use that move unless she was in deep trouble and had no other options. If she was seeing this now, that meant that her awesome adopted sister must be in danger.
Not a second later, a mushroom cloud of smoke and rubble burst up in the same vicinity of the where the sonic rainboom had detonated. She must have divebombed Sapphic all the way into the ground.
Rainbow Dash began to let out cries and screams before finally giving up and breaking down before the others. They had never ever seen the brash and proud pegasus like this in all the years they'd known her; it hurt each of them that they had to do this to their friend, but it was for the good of Equestria. They would always fight better together...
* * *
Scootaloo slowly and painfully pulled herself out of the massive crater she had created wither sonic rainboom attack. She had busted both of her forelegs in doing so, and it was torture just to move them even alittle, but she had to give it one last push to pull her aching body out of the indent in the ground. When she dumped herself back onto the field, she saw all of her troops and the changelings looking on in shock at what they had seen.
Scootaloo had hit Sapphic dead on, and nailed him into the dirt and rock by the stomach; she couldn't believe it, but she just might have defeated him. He hadn't moved from his spot at the center of the impact zone, and the changelings got more and more worried as the seconds ticked by without him even twitching. She really had done it...it was over...
Suddenly, she felt a clawed hand grasp her throat firmly and quickly; there was no way...
She looked at her attacker, and stared fearfully into the emerald eyes of Sapphic. He had used a lot of his energy rushing forward like that, and he was shaking all over from the force of her attack; his exoskeleton shattered in some places revealing soft-looking cyan flesh as green blood stained his white robe and carapace.
He was heaving heavy breaths, and started to squeeze down on the mare's neck, cutting off her air supply. The other Wonderbolts were paralyzed with fear and unbelieving as they helplessly watched their captain have the very life choked out of her by this monster.
With a sudden yell of anger, the self-proclaimed king closed his fist, and snapped the orange mare's neck like a tiny twig; the sound was sickening and loud as a trickle of blood left Scootaloo's mouth, her eyes going blank.
He tossed her to the side, and blasted her into nothingness with a huge blast of energy from his hand. He stared at the spot where there once had been a pegasus, and now saw not even ashes.
"Fool..." He hacked, holding his stomach in intense pain. "All you've done...is...is make me stronger..."
He turned his attention to the other Wonderbolts, each of them focused on his evil eyes. He gave another feral shout and blasted them away too.