Updated on January 23, 2018

Alright, I'm going to try to collect as much detail about the story's climax as I can in one post. Here goes:

The climax takes place in Week 35 of the current year. For comparison, chapter one takes place in Week 22.

To start this fun romp through the climax of the story, let's kick things off with a flowchart.
To read the chart, begin at the bottom. Orange lines are consecutive events. Other lines have their times marked.

Right click and open in a new tab for full size readability.

Toward the end of the story, Nyx and her companions engage in the largest battle of the story, which is the Battle of Baltimare. I've explained this battle in this post, where you can read about why it's so important in Nyx's character arc.

But what's important for Starfire... Whoa, let's back up a moment.

Starfire is the name I've given to the combined consciousness of Hyperion, Storm Shadow, and Ziph, once the three are merged together. It's Storm Shadow's body, but Hyperion possesses him via the Zebranomicon. Ziph the zebra is along for the ride because he was possessed a few decades prior when the Zebranomicon was written. So to be clear, Hyperion is in control here, but Starfire is the name which he goes by. This comes from Razor the zebra sarcastically saying that his agents are calling Storm Shadow Starfire as a derogatory name. So then once Hyperion possesses him, he takes on the name just to make the zebras nervous. Starfire comes into existence in Week 27 according to my notes. So this is about a month from the current events I'm drafting in the story. This means we get Storm Shadow only for another four weeks or so, where his plan is to force Nyx into becoming a wild alicorn so she can be "The Hero Equestria Needs".

So, what's important for Starfire is that his plan requires Nyx to be damn close to finishing her transformation. He's keeping an eye on Nyx from a distance. Nyx has been showing signs of getting close to that point of no return. It's also worth noting that Starfire (unlike Storm Shadow) is fully aware of the process which creates a wild alicorn. So there is no guesswork here. We can assume that he is the authority on the subject, even more so than the royal sisters. Starfire finds out about Nyx's major outburst when she challenges the sisters and manifests power from the Aether along with memories from when Luna was first tempted to become Nightmare Moon. This would be as close as Nyx gets to actually losing her grasp on her identity and never returning. Someone could have overheard or witnessed the conflict and spread rumors. Maybe a Royal Guard tried to defend against Nyx and was pushed out through the door. He might have run to get Twilight.

After the battle is won and the zebras retreat, Starfire's master plan is unleashed. The very first step is the abduction of a child.

If Starfire is confident that Nyx is on the verge of her transformation being irreversible, then he knows now is the right time to spring his trap. But Nyx is going to war. He will have to wait until she gets back. He will watch and see how she performs in the war, as surely she will return unharmed. While she is gone, Starfire travels to Ponyville and abducts Lemondrop. Willow receives a note saying "If you want to see Lemondrop alive, come to Dragon Mountain. Bring Nyx or she dies." Willow looks around and finds that Lemondrop is really missing.

After the battle, Nyx & friends return home to rest and get away from everything for a bit. Willow, having had her child abducted, panics and rushes to their underground home to get Nyx. Ebonstar is with her, as by now these two have become a couple, and Ebonstar's own daughter has been taken captive previously. Willow explains that Lemondrop has been taken and the note said to bring Nyx. It's obviously some sort of trap, but there is no choice.

Nyx is confident that she can handle whatever foolish plan has been cooked up. They hop in the Valkyrie and rush off to land near the massive steel door set into the steep mountain at the cavern entrance. The door is open wide enough to enter. Everyone goes inside. At this time, "everyone" means Nyx, Rumble, Flitter, Dinky, Willow, and Ebonstar.

Everyone enters the empty research facility through the giant steel door only to find a room with a captive locked inside. She is weak and beaten, and can barely stand. There is a thick glass window on the other side as well as a doorway leading into an enormous inner chamber where Mirror Portal technology has been tested. Through the window, over a hundred captive ponies can be seen in the dark tunnel below. Another door leads elsewhere unknown.

Nyx hears a click and the sound of gas moving. She orders Ebonstar and Willow to get out immediately. Being the last to enter, they run for the door and make it outside.

A Blood Mist device is activated in the room. Within two seconds, Rumble, Flitter, Dinky, and the captive are down and writhing in pain. Nyx is extremely disoriented but able to stand through the overwhelming pain and sensory overload. She notices the steel door sliding shut. Thinking quickly, she focuses on her friends, who are near the door, and roughly pushes them out with a telekinetic blast. The door is nearly closed. Nyx could almost escape herself, but she turns to grab the captive. The pony is now dead and bleeding into a puddle. Nyx's vision blurs and she blacks out.

Outside, Ebonstar and Willow tend to the unconscious heroes who were pushed out of the trap. They are in pretty rough shape, bleeding out of their eyes and ears.

Inside, Nyx is telekinetically transferred into a side room where the air is filtered. Starfire enters the room and places the mind blade helmet up over her horn and onto her head. Instantly, Nyx begins to experience the memories of so many infected ponies doing the most horrible things to their victims. Starfire's intention is to leave Nyx trapped in the orb permanently until she burns out and dies. This would be different from Storm Shadow's plan which would be to simply force the transformation and then set her free before she burns out.

Hyperion spends some time with Nyx, talking to her unconscious body. "Hello... daughter."

This is a good spot for some more exposition into Hyperion's past and especially the fact that it was Hyperion's own magic which created Nyx in the first place. It wasn't Nexus. Nyx was there since Luna was first infected by Sombra. That was when the Nightmare entered into Luna's body, leading to Nightmare Moon.

So technically, Nyx is Hyperion's creation, though unintentional. She had found the best way to use Luna (Hyperion's prize daughter) and corrupt her.

Starfire takes a knife and cuts Nyx with it. Using the blood magic from the Zebranomicon, he takes Nyx's blood and transforms it into a blade. He then enchants the blade with more spells from the book and cuts himself with it. The blade then liquefies and enters his body through the wound.

Starfire began to go through a painful transformation. He grew larger in size, splitting his skin and shedding it on the floor. His horn lengthened, and wing bones pushed their way through his back, forming bloody flesh around them as they emerged. Skin began to spread over his body, and feathers sprouted from the new wings. Soon, a coat of black and white striped fur grew from the skin. His wings alternated between black and white feathers, and his horn fluting separated a black spiral and a white spiral. The transformation took nearly an hour. He had become Starfire, the zebra alicorn. But he was also Hyperion, former ruler of the world. And he would soon be ready to resume killing ponies.

While this is happening, the ponies outside the cavern door are waking up and getting back on their hooves. Willow explains how long they have been unconscious, and that Nyx is still inside. The large steel door is impenetrable. Not only is it made of solid steel over half a meter thick, but the surrounding rock formation is extremely thick. This site was a high-security SMRI testing facility used to test dangerous experiments including the time artifact as well as mirror portal technology. The amount of energy that would be required to breach the doorway would likely bring the mountain down, collapsing the cavern. Conventional tunneling could work, but it would take days of focused effort.

They decide to get help. Rumble says that Apple Bloom knows how to open these doors because she helped design them, but they can only be opened from the inside. Dinky says she might be able to teleport Apple Bloom to the other side of the door. She attempts the teleport herself, but it fails and she gets dizzy. Apparently, Blood Mist is still inside the room, so she can't teleport in.

Ebonstar knows about Blood Mist and its properties, as they were studied from Luna's School of Applied Magic after the massacre. He is confident that he can create a "sponge" talisman which will absorb Blood Mist from the air. This will need to be teleported to the other side of the door.

Meanwhile, Nyx is experiencing the horrors of the mind blade.

At first, Nyx is brought into the first-person experience of being an infected pony doing the vile things that they tend to do. The story up till this point has detailed those things, so I may leave some of the details to the reader's imagination. We will get to see Nyx's reaction, however.

Overall what the mind blade proves to Nyx is that she does value the lives of mortal ponies enough to forsake her natural path and stay with them. Experiencing the memories of the infected should have the effect of making her devalue mortal lives even more, and secure the path away from them. And then she'd have to break free, which would burn her out, etc. But because she has already found a Virtue of Harmony, she doesn't abandon them during that struggle.

By refusing to let go of her newly-acquired virtue, she does not transform into a wild alicorn. Then, when she latches onto the alternate memory, she has "passed the test". This should not be immediately available. Nyx would be overwhelmed by the horror at first, and not be able to sense the alternate consciousness which is there nearby.

When Dinky is fit to teleport, she rushes off to get help. She looks for Celestia and Luna because this is really serious and they need to help if they can. Dinky finds Celestia right away but does not know where Luna is.

Dinky tells Celestia what has happened at Dragon Mountain. Blood Mist has been released, and Nyx is still inside behind the steel door. Everyone else is locked outside and can't get in.

Celestia rushes out and arrives on site in 30 minutes. Dinky continues to search for Luna.

While Dinky is doing this, Flitter and Ebonstar race off in the Valkyrie while Willow and Rumble stay behind. Ebonstar is dropped off at the Canterlot SMRI facility while Flitter rushes to pick up Apple Bloom. 90 minutes later, Flitter returns to SMRI to find that Ebonstar has constructed a simple sponge talisman matrix and currently has nearly all of the talisman division's unicorns focusing on it. The process takes an hour. As soon as it's finished, the three ponies race back to the cavern. They were gone a total of three hours.

The Valkyrie returns to the cavern. Celestia is present, but she can't do anything to open the door, so she waits with the others. Once Flitter, Ebonstar and Apple Bloom arrive with the sponge talisman, Dinky teleports it inside the door. Ebonstar says it may take a bit of time depending on how thick the Blood Mist is in the room.

After two hours, the Blood Mist has been absorbed enough that Dinky can safely teleport inside the door with Apple Bloom.

While the heroes were trying to break into the lair, Starfire has been performing a strengthening ritual which must be done immediately after his transformation. He is standing on a platform over the center of 150 captive ponies, taking their physical strength and adding it to his own body. His transformation ritual gave him the form of an alicorn, but not the strength. Over the five hours, Starfire has killed dozens of ponies, beginning with the strongest.

Starfire's plan, after absorbing the strength of the captives, is to take the horn from Nyx's dead body and perform another blood magic spell to replace his own horn with it. After she transforms and dies, Nyx's horn would be a wild alicorn horn, connected to the Aether. With this, Starfire would become as powerful as Hyperion formerly was before his defeat.

While experiencing the tortures of the mind blade, Nyx senses a powerful consciousness nearby. Peri's horn crystal is right there with her physically. Nyx can sense it even while trapped in the mind blade. Nyx tries to ignore what she is experiencing and connects with Peri.

Ordinarily, the mind blade completely traps a consciousness into the playback. Nyx is able to create a doorway similar to Luna's dream-walking ability, within the memory, and break free from the experience. She separates herself from the first-person nature of the memory and walks through the door.

On the other side of the door, she encounters a consciousness so vast and powerful that she is overwhelmed. Nyx enters the mind of Periapsis, who exists in the Aether. This terrifies Nyx, and she panics.

At first, Nyx is frightened by the alien experience. She sees another door and bolts through it, finding herself alone in the Aether.

Nyx had heard about this place from Twilight's experience there. As she looks around, her mind wanders to that moment, and she sees somepony off in the distance. Nyx flies closer to take a look.

She sees Celestia and Twilight talking, and the windows to history being shown to her. She wants very much to get there to be with her family, but Twilight drops out of sight just before she can reach them.

In the inky blackness, Nyx is difficult to see, but Celestia notices her. This is Celestia from 12 years ago, so she does not recognize Nyx right away. She has never seen Nightmare Moon in the Aether, so she is alarmed at first. Then, she recognizes that this is Nyx, having grown up. She says something to Nyx for a moment and then departs to go be with the newly-ascended Twilight and her friends back in the physical world.

The ground beneath Nyx's hooves turns to vapor, and she falls through into a room and lands on a soft, plush pad. It's a comfortable looking room. Periapsis appears and apologizes for frightening Nyx. She has constructed this room to set Nyx more at ease. She explains that it is not wise to just let Nyx wander around unattended in the Aether. She would not likely be able to find her way out again.

Nyx is confused and has a million questions she would like to ask.

Peri explains that Nyx must return to her friends. That there are important tasks for her to focus on. She says that Nyx's mind has been severed from her body, somehow, and that in order for her to wake up, she must come to the end of an external memory.

Nyx becomes frightened, thinking this means she would have to resume the memory she just escaped. Peri offers an alternative. One of her own memories.

Peri takes Nyx's consciousness and attaches it to her own memory of the battle against Hyperion.

Nyx then experiences this battle from Peri's perspective and finally understands the meaning of Everfree. The battle ends with the death of both alicorns, and Nyx wakes up.

Once Dinky teleports Apple Bloom inside, she opens the door to let everyone else in. All doors are overridden and locked open. The heroes then take over the facility. They find Nyx unconscious. They try to revive her, but she is still locked into the mind blade.

When the heroes storm the lair, Celestia notices the captives down below in the tunnel. She sees Starfire killing them with the spell that absorbs their strength. Celestia expertly targets the cavern's overhead lights. Then she hits Starfire with the force of ten suns, making it impossible for him to fight in the dark. She blasts him off his platform, interrupting the spell. He is now locked into his current level of strength.

Starfire is not being particularly hurt by Celestia's assault, so he makes a futile effort to resume his power absorption rather than focusing on fighting Celestia immediately. He has to give this up because he can't defend himself and absorb strength at the same time.

Now, there is no way to resume the procedure, so he's pissed. All he wants at this point is to kill ponies and recover Nyx's horn. He attacks the captives, but the cavern is very dark. He doesn't see Celestia come up behind him and blast him again with blinding sunlight.

Celestia puts up a powerful shield around the captives, and Starfire has lost the advantage within the cavern, unable to harm anyone. He flees for the exit and bursts outside into the daylight. He decides he will now go wreak havoc upon Equestria. He can exhume Nyx's body later for her horn after she has been buried. He gets outside to find Luna waiting for him. She hits him hard, using her advantage of surprise. He is disoriented but recovers after a moment.

Celestia gives chase and joins Luna as they engage Starfire in combat outdoors. Starfire takes a moment to appreciate the irony.

Celestia demands to know who (or what) he is. There has never been a zebra alicorn in all of history.

He taunts Celestia. "My little Sunshine. Do you not recognize me?" 

Celestia nearly faints in fear. She knows it is her father, somehow. Luna stares in disbelief for a moment and then attacks. The pair of alicorns is outmatched, as Starfire has passed their strength during his ritual. They fight for ten minutes, and it does not go well for the sisters.

After these ten minutes, Nyx wakes up from the memory orb. She is disoriented at first, but Rumble is with her and explains what is happening. Nyx gets her bearings for a few seconds, and the couple rushes out to join the fight.

During this time, Dinky and Flitter have gone to check on the condition of the captives and begin freeing them from their shackles.

Once Nyx has joined the fight, Dinky and Flitter take advantage of the distraction and the fact that Starfire is outdoors. They begin moving the captives to safety outside the research facility. Starfire has taken a few shots at the mountain with the intent of bringing it down if he can. There is a nearby building which was a monitoring station. Dinky and Flitter move captives to that building, but it is slow going. Willow and Ebonstar find their daughters in the cavern and rush with them out to the hiding place. Apple Bloom stays inside the cavern freeing more captives.

Nyx is not in very good shape at the moment, after the events within the memory orb. She fights anyway, helping Celestia and Luna to engage Starfire. Rumble assists as much as he can, as at this point, he has his lancer frame upgraded with high-energy plasma rifles, and he has some new composite pegasus armor he used in the previous battle. He is using a prototype lightweight exo-suit skeleton that augments his strength. Rumble takes advantage of the fact that Starfire is more focused on fighting the three alicorns and mostly ignores him. Still, it is a vicious battle and difficult to tell who would win. Their fight lasts another ten minutes.

Starfire notices the captives being evacuated into the monitoring station. He flies a maneuver around the mountain to throw off his pursuers and then returns to attack the captives once more. He dives down and enters the building where they are being taken.

Inside the building, Flitter is trying to keep the captives calm as Starfire enters the scene. Dinky is back in the cavern freeing another batch of captives. Ebonstar and Willow are present with their children.

Starfire enters the room where everyone is. He is happy. "This is going to be fun."

Flitter defies him. "You can't hurt them!"

Starfire laughs. "Watch me." He picks up a pony and rips him in half. Hot blood splashes across Willow and the children.

Ebonstar faces Starfire, standing between him and their two fillies. He's frightened, but what can he do? He knows this is the end.

Starfire picks him up. "When will you insects learn you cannot defy me?" Cracks sound as Ebonstar's bones begin to break. He screams, and blood runs from rips in his skin. "Let me show you how a banana feels."

Willow holds her daughter tight, trembling. "Close your eyes."

Suddenly, a sword exits through Starfire's chest. He drops Ebonstar and turns to see Nyx behind him, eyes aglow. Dinky also appears and does a series of rapid-fire teleports, whacking Starfire upside the head and otherwise distracting him. Nyx does her best to fight the stronger alicorn, but grows tired and spends most of her energy blocking his blows.

Starfire is now in close proximity to all the heroes in the same building. Maybe a dozen captives are also present.

At this point, things have become very dangerous because Starfire is clearly the strongest in the room since Nyx is still weak from her ordeal. Naturally, Starfire is still quite pissed that Nyx woke up at all, as he will no longer be able to take her horn for himself. At best, Nyx and Rumble hope to draw him back outside. 

Here is where Periapsis senses Hyperion's consciousness within Starfire. She provides the power necessary to kill him via Nyx's armor crystal. Nyx prepares to blast him with it, but when she does, the nearby time artifact in the laboratory triggers due to the energy flowing through Nyx. Everyone in the building is pulled through time to 195 years in the future. Hyperion's consciousness is destroyed when Nyx hits him with the blast from her horn. The five-millennia-long vendetta against ponykind has ended.

The blast from Nyx is powerful enough to turn Starfire into a bloody pulp. However, his remains coalesce into a ball much like when Nyx was created. The key difference is that the process is not interrupted, and he grows through stages until becoming a young adult zebra alicorn. He refers to himself in the plural "we" and is able to articulate the thoughts of both Storm Shadow and Ziph when necessary. The consciousness of both characters has essentially been blended into one. Hyperion is absent, leaving the other two to awkwardly figure out how to operate their body. Periapsis also confirms that Hyperion is no more. His lingering malice in Everfree will fade in time.

5010915
That's pretty cool, I can see this ending being a major undertaking with it encompassing several chapters from multiple perspectives. A big worry is the depiction of combat, as it lasts for quite some time, we'll have to be careful that we don't drift into the Immortal Games level of detail

I do like the daughter angle, I can see Hyperion using this to twist Shadows grief prior to assuming control, he could even dangle it in front of him, offering him a "perfect" daughter in exchange for not resisting his will.

One question, when Nyx burns out, is there an outpouring of power? or does she simply disintegrate? If it's the former then Starfire is going to have to be careful that she doesn't level the mountain he's keeping his captives in.

You'll have to mention this Stable at some point prior to the climax just so the readers are aware of its existence, even if its just a background piece of information that they might initially miss.

5011056

Definitely.

So yeah, this location is probably going to be established early on in Act Two. I'm thinking that there might even be a nest of infected ponies that our heroes have to cleanse right outside the location, around that building which they use. Having this as an existing set piece establishes the location without making it look like it's going to be used in the climax.

If Nyx burned out... yeah it wouldn't be a major blast. The reason for the blast when Hyperion was defeated is because Periapsis was actively focusing the Aether's energy onto him trying to destroy his horn, and Hyperion was resisting it, storing all that energy up in the physical world during the final moments of their battle. When he finally couldn't hold it anymore, it was all released at once with the force of a pretty big hydrogen bomb. Maybe 25MT. So, bigger than Castle Bravo. Really gives perspective as to what these wild alicorns can manifest if they really want to.

As for battle depictions, well... you don't have to reveal every detail like Immortal Game does. It really depends on the cuts which I include, and which parts are summarized with narrative statements. Usually in a situation like this, it'll be best to depict the start and the end of the battle in detail with the middle parts being glossed over for brevity's sake.

Overall, the climax of the story is going to be very long, as you mentioned. Several chapters. Perhaps even half of Act Three!

The trick is in depicting all this complexity so that the average reader can actually follow along. I think complexity is okay as long as the author takes their time and doesn't try to cram too much profound detail into a small space. And naturally, we'll need to do a lot of editing and discussing things to get it right.

5011803

If Nyx burned out... yeah it wouldn't be a major blast.

Ah cool, I thought as much, but thought it worth checking to be sure

One nice angle for the fight scenes is Rumble, he's a mortal pony watching several god-like beings do battle, it's an excellent point of view, conveys awe rather than tedium

I can almost imagine the climax being a miniature story in itself, with peaks and troughs to keep the reader clinging on, while giving them moments to catch their breath Should be a hell of a ride to the finish.

5011883
Yeah, I'm really hoping so! I just hope I haven't created something too ambitious to actually depict well. I suppose the good news is that I've got some time to build up the skills for it before actually tackling it. There's still lots of story to tell between now and then.

I like the idea of some parts being from Rumble's perspective. Giving him power armor and plasma weapons makes him able to participate, but he's still the weakest horse in the fight.

5010915

she hits Starfire with the force of ten suns, making it impossible for him to fight in the dark

...huh? I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure ten suns would vape the whole planet effortlessly. Heck, a fraction of one sun would be more than sufficient to incinerate pretty much anything. Besides, even Periapsis and Hyperion burned out around the level of a large nuclear blast, so generating the energy of even a single star would be laughably beyond this continuity's Celestia.
That odd bit of phrasing aside, this looks pretty good. Like Duvet said, you'll have to be careful to avoid making all the extended fighting a massive slog. Careful juxtaposition between the fighting and other scenes, like Dinky and Flitter rescuing hostages, ought to help with that.
The SATS time travel thing will need to be carefully foreshadowed, so readers actually know what the heck is going on. By the way, when you say 'everyone is pulled through time' does that include Celestia and Luna? I thought you had planned to resign them to their Fo:E fates of being horribly gassed to death via Pink Cloud, and having them up and vanish halfway through the war would butterfly-affect the timeline to no end. I kind of lost track of what they were doing towards the end there - does Starfire's 'maneuvering' somehow throw both sisters completely for a loop? That seems extremely odd. Perhaps he can trigger some sort of disaster that threatens pony lives, and then teleport away?

5012602

I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure ten suns would vape the whole planet effortlessly.

Smartass.
I was referring to brightness relative to "one sun" being what we all experience on a normal day. If you blow out all the lights inside a cavern to make it pitch black, and then hit someone with that much brightness, there's no way they will be able to fight.

The SATS time travel thing will need to be carefully foreshadowed

Yes, I've been foreshadowing this since the prologue.
The existence of the "time key" artifact is a known element of the story from the moment Cadence proposes whisking the Crystal Empire away to escape the war. There's plenty of references to this event in random places throughout the story. And then in chapter 9, we have Ebonstar reverse engineering it into a useful SATS feature. In act two, Nyx will get a PipBuck upgrade which will include SATS. There's also the "we accidentally sent ourselves an hour into the future" moment that Twilight and Luna referred to. Heck, I might even have Nyx accidentally send herself two minutes into the future sometime, drawing attention to the unpredictable nature of experimental SATS. Then when it comes to the climax, it should be no surprise that this can happen.

By the way, when you say 'everyone is pulled through time' does that include Celestia and Luna?

Just everyone inside the building. So when Starfire gives them the slip during the aerial battle, he goes inside the building by himself to kill everyone. Then Nyx shows up, but Celestia and Luna have not caught up and don't know where he slipped off to.

That seems extremely odd. Perhaps he can trigger some sort of disaster that threatens pony lives, and then teleport away?

Yep, that would be fine. Remember, this isn't even a rough draft yet. I'm just laying down the outline as it exists currently in my mind. This is constantly evolving as I come up with better ideas to replace old ideas. By all means, if you have any cool additions which would work well in this climax, feel free to suggest them. The intention is that the desired characters are inside the building when Nyx's time thingy goes off, and everyone essential to the Fo:E timeline is outside the building. I don't really care what circumstances lead up to that.

It's good though that you finally got a chance to read the unabridged version of the climax! I know the one I had you read was really concise and only gave you a really rough idea of what I had planned. But now you can see that I've got this seriously intricate climax planned and everything is set up to play out in a very precise way.