The Earth itself shook with fear as the Goddess of War collided with the God of Olympus. As scythe clashed with axe, the shockwaves generated from the blows tore apart the top of Olympus. Diana bellowed with fury unmatched as she clashed her blade against Hades' scythe, but the god barely faltered under her power. Instead, he smiled before pushing Diana back and driving the end of his scythe into the floor at his feet. A column of rainbow energy erupted from beneath him.
"You cannot hope to best me, my dear Diana," Hades informed Diana as she faltered under the unrelenting power of the Elements. "The power of the Elements is far greater than any power. Even that of the gods. And with its power added to my own..." But Diana refused to believe Hades' words while she used her axe to slice through the rainbow burst, hurling herself into the storm of magic with Ares' blade held high.
"You think yourself invincible with this power?!" Diana bellowed while she slashed down with all of her might. Hades let go of the scythe and held up a hand to grab the blade out of the air, holding the blade as Diana tried to force it through him. "You are no different than the other villains that I have faced! Believing yourself untouchable, until we come along and knock you down to size!"
"Indeed you are right, Diana. In the past, multiple foes of yours believed to have won long before their victory was truly secured. But in this case, I am different!" Hades laughed as he grabbed his scythe and swung at Diana, who barely ducked underneath the swing. Yet despite not hitting its intended target, the blade still cleaved through the clouds and the wave of souls that circled overhead, allowing a light of crimson hue to shine down from the equally crimson moon.
"I have chosen not to claim the rest of this world! Not until I had faced you and sent you to my realm once and for all!" Hades informed Diana as their blades collided once more. "I have bested the gods! I have turned your precious Justice League to stone! None who opposed me were able to defeat me! But I still did not consider my victory complete! Not until I faced you one last time."
"Then you are truly a fool!" Diana bellowed while she again clashed with Hades using both her sword and axe, hurling the God of Olympus backwards. She followed up her momentary advantage by slamming her blades into the floor, creating cracks filled with fire that erupted around where Hades stood. The God of Olympus let out a roar as the flames began to consume him. "For if you were not one, you never would have revived me. For even you must have known that I would not stop until you had been cast down once more."
"Yes, Diana. I knew full well that you would seek me out. I knew full well that our blades would cross." The scythe cleaved through the fire that was surrounding Hades and banished it from existence, revealing that the god was smiling. "I would not allow your death to be at the hands of the Maestro. A warrior such as yourself does not deserve to die by a coward's hands. You shall be slain by me. And only when you are truly dead at my feet, can I claim my true rule over the Earth."
"That's not going to happen!" Diana bellowed before clutching the axe close to her chest, muttering words into it. She then lunged at Hades with eyes blazing with war, strengthening her as she charged shoulder first into the God of Olympus. Despite the power of the Elements and his own godly might, Hades was still pushed back by the raw power of Wonder Woman. She then planted her feet with a roar, lifting Hades off of the floor and hoisting him into the air.
"I'm not dying! Not today! There are too many lives on the line! Lives that I will not surrender to you!" Diana bellowed as she spun and slammed Hades into the floor of Olympus. The decorated floor which had been forged by the gods themselves shattered under the force of Hades, and the damage became even greater when Diana slammed her boot into Hades' chest, pushing him further and further into the floor.
"That is a foolish way of thinking, Diana," Hades said with a laugh before he vanished into the darkness. Diana glanced around to where he could be, before she glanced down slowly to see the scythe around her throat. "Because all lives eventually succumb to me. Even yours."
Hades ripped the scythe back with all of his might, but through her life of fighting, Diana managed to bring her sword up in time to take the slash that would have cleaved her head from her body. The blade was not spared from the god's wrath, as the scythe cut through the weapon of War and sliced it in two. Diana backed away as she stared down at the severed sword, rage flooding through her veins at what had become of Ares' weapon.
"Even the weapons of the gods succumb to me as well, Diana," Hades told her as he shouldered his scythe, landing next to the statue of Zeus. He placed his hand upon his brother and for a moment lightning crackled along his hand. "You possess the knowledge of Athena, so you should know how this ends. You are a single goddess. A powerful one, yes, but you are alone. I defeated the entire pantheon with this power. I defeated the Justice League. Even if you are War, even if you are Wonder Woman, I have beaten both sides that you belong to. How can you, by yourself, hope to defeat me?"
"The same way I do everything," Diana whispered as she tossed what remained of Ares' sword to the side and grabbed hold of her lasso. She then whipped it to its full length, letting the sound of it cracking echo across the battlefield. "With faith, with love and fighting with every fiber of my being. You wish for death? I'll give you war."
=wWw=
"We have to help her," Sunset said as she rose up from behind the fallen pillar, where she and the other girls had been hiding while Diana battled with Hades. Yet the moment she stood up six sets of hands grabbed hold of her and forced her back down.
"Are you out of your freaking mind?!" Twilight practically screamed at Sunset. The moment she screamed she covered her mouth and peeked over the top of the pillar to see if they had been discovered. But the gods were far too preoccupied with each other to even give the seven girls so much as a glance. "You cannot go out there. If you go out there, you will be killed in mere moments! This is beyond Zod! This is the god that killed all the other gods!"
"Not killed. They're all still alive," Fluttershy said as she gazed out from behind the pillar, only to retreat behind it once again as the sky shattered from the battle. "I can feel it. They're in pain, screaming in agony, but none of them are dead. Same goes for the other beings that were encased in stone."
"Why then?" Sunset muttered to herself as she gazed out from behind the pillar once more. "Hades is clearly stronger than any of the gods and even the members of the Justice League. And he clearly hates all of them. So why leave them alive? Why not kill them?"
"The Justice League?" Rarity asked before the sound of metal striking metal blasted apart the area. The girls took cover as bits and pieces of the top of Olympus came raining down.
"That's what Hades called the beings trapped in stone. Diana also said that she is a member of the Justice League, her planet's strongest defenders," Sunset informed the girls. "I need to get out there. I need to help Diana, in any way I can."
"If that's what Hades did to their strongest defenders, then what chance do ya have?" Applejack asked Sunset, who glanced back at her friend. "These beings are all on par with Diana, right? They were beaten. How about the gods, who are also on par with Diana. They were also beaten. What difference do ya think ya can make...what difference can any of us make?"
"We have to do something! We have to do-" Sunset was cut off once more as the entire mountaintop exploded in a flash of power. The girls all screamed as the force of the explosion hurled them from the top of the mountain. As they all started to plummet down towards the base of the mountain, each of them had their lives flash before their eyes. Yet none of them had even gotten to their preteen years before a blur grabbed them out of the sky and set them down one by one next to the statues.
"Diana?" Sunset asked as she was the last one snatched out of the sky, looking up into the eyes of Diana that held a rage unequal to any that had come before it. Sunset then looked at the rest of Diana to see that her body was bleeding from multiple slashes and impalements. "You're hurt. You need our help! Let us-"
"NO!" Diana bellowed with such power and rage that the clouds around the two were blown away by her voice. "This battle is far too dangerous for any of you to be close. Stay here, where it's...safer."
"But you need help! You can't beat this guy by yourself! Not even the heroes of your world or the gods of Olympus could do it when they were working together," Sunset argued, but with the rage of war that flooded through Diana it became clear to Sunset that reason wouldn't be of any use."
"You promised me that you would not get into any battles with beings that far outclassed you. Well this battle is one that you should not even be a part of," Diana instructed Sunset as she started to descend to where she had placed the rest of the girls. "Now promise you you'll stay here and you won't-ARGH!" Diana roared as Hades scythe ripped through her chest.
"Diana!" Sunset screamed as Diana let her go, sending the girl plummeting towards where the others were. By good fortune, Sunset managed to land in the pool of water next to the statue with the "S," yet when she surfaced a few moments later she gazed up at the sky to see that Wonder Woman was impaled on the end of Hades' scythe.
"You see, Diana," Sunset heard Hades say. "Even you, with all of your power and might, eventually fell to me as well. Do not worry Diana, I am not merciless. I shall do to you what I have done to your family and friends. And you can join them at standing at my feet, crushed beneath my boots."
Sunset watched as Diana roared with fury and pulled herself off of the scythe, flying back away from Hades as blood seeped from her wound. But then Diana let out a furious roar and the wound began to heal itself, but then Sunset glanced over at Hades and found the God of Olympus smiling to himself.
"Of course, Diana. Being the Goddess of War does give you an advantage every time you are in a battle. Especially against a foe as powerful as me," Hades said loud enough that Sunset was able to hear. "But while war fuels you, it also adds unlimited power to one such as myself. For how can you have war...without DEATH?!"
The two began to battle once more, ascending into the sky bathed in the blood with those that had fallen. Sunset watched until they were out of sight before she pulled herself out of the water and staggered towards the stairs that led down the mountain. She glanced down them to see her friends racing up towards her.
"Are all of you alright?" she asked them once they had regrouped. The sound of the battle drew their eyes to the sky, where they could see flashes of light from where the gods battled. "We have to figure out what to do. Even if war fuels her, eventually death will win out. It's the way of battle."
"We can't do anything. Don't you see that?" Twilight asked her friend, shaking her head sadly. "We'd just get killed. We don't even have our magic to-"
"Or maybe...we do." The girls all gave Sunset a look of concern as she said this, but she ignored them as she started to think. "The reason that Hades left the gods alive...the heroes...perhaps, even us, wasn't because he didn't want to kill us. Perhaps, at least with the Elements power, he couldn't."
"I don't get it," Rainbow muttered.
"Think about it. Why didn't Hades just have us killed after he took our magic? He could have done so with ease. Was it really because he has nothing against us? Or was it because...the Elements still need to be linked to us to use? Do the gods still have to be alive for him to use their power? Is that the reason they are all still live?"
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that Hades doesn't have the full power of the Elements. Only what we gave to him. Which might mean," Sunset muttered as she held her hand to her chest, trying to find that part of her, the true part of her, that her Element was derived from. And when she held out her hand again, a small flame burned within it. "That we're not out of this fight yet."
=wWw=
Even though she was a goddess of war, Diana could still feel that she was reaching her limit as she raised her axe to deflect another blow from Hades' scythe. Yet when the scythe struck the axe, it shattered it as it had previously done Ares' sword. Diana roared with fury as she tossed what remained of the axe away and cracked her lasso at Hades, but all the God of Olympus did was smile at her rage. For it was not a bloody rage, but an exhausted rage. A rage on its last leg.
"It seems that this battle is coming to an end," Hades informed Diana as he grabbed the lasso and yanked with all of his might, pulling Diana in towards him. The moment she was within range he drove his Element-fueled fist into her face, shattering her nose and snapping her head back. He followed up with a knee to the gut that doubled Diana over before elbowing her in the back to send her hurtling into the ground far below Olympus at the edge of the sea. Diana created a crater when she crashed into the ground, but as Hades descended next to the crater he smiled at the bloody goddess as she slowly rose back to her feet.
"For as powerful as war is at the height of its battle, even it knows that all war ends in death," Hades finished as he raised his scythe to the sky. The power of Zeus came crashing down and struck the scythe, before Hades swung it to the side and plunged it into the ocean next to the both of them. The finishing touch was his own brand of hellfire, which made the scythe glow with an ethereal power that existed amongst both the living and the dead. "So allow me to ask you this, Diana? Do you still have a chance to win?"
"Of course," Diana spat. Hades smiled at her response before he swung his scythe towards her with a hell raising roar. Diana grabbed the lasso with both hands and pulled it taut, before lifting it to intercept the blow. The scythe slashed down on the lasso and for a brief moment truth and death clashed. Then the scythe cleaved the lasso in two. Diana screamed as an explosion of magic erupted from the lasso and hurled her backwards. She landed hard on her back and skidded to a halt a few moments later, but as she shakily sat up she gazed down at the lasso of truth...which had been severed in two.
"The gods fall, the heroes lose, and it seems that even truth is no more," Hades laughed as he walked up to Diana, who lifted her head towards the God of Olympus with fear in her eyes. Hades then pointed his scythe at Diana, victory flashing in his eyes. "Now, I can truly say, this world belongs to the dead. And now you shall join them."