Where in Equestria are we?

by Blackdrag-rose

XVII: Hate's Weakness

"How dare you Cadence." Pinkamena growled, heaving herself up as her weapon returned to her side, "How dare you turn your back on Lord Oblivion and the power he gave you."

"The power he gave me?" Cadence spat, turning to face the demonic mare as the hate in her eyes was replaced by the energy of love, "He gave me the power to destroy, the power to erase those that opposed him, and what did I get in return? I got nothing but the empty feeling that everything was wrong with what we were doing for him. I know that you welcomed the violence into your body like it was an old friend, but in the beginning you must have felt that something was wrong with your actions."

"In the beginning I might have felt something, but now I don't care," Pinkamena snapped, holding her weapon up as she spoke, "Now all I care about is tearing down the walls of those who dare proclaim that Harmony is the way to live your life. I kill those who dare to fight for all that shows Honesty, all that is full of Laughter, all that is Generous to others, all that makes them show their Loyalty to their friends, everything that makes them feel Kindness, and every damned thing that shows the Magic in their hearts.

Want to know what I did to those who so much as represented even one fragment of the original Elements? I tore them to pieces and used them to make the evil Hatecakes that I fed to those who needed some corruption in their lives. I created an army of evil ponies who were bent on erasing the original Elements and took up Oblivion's name to do so. We raced across the worlds, erasing those who threatened our mission and corrupting those that needed to be shown the greater part of life."

"Shut the buck up."

Love tore through Pinkamena's body as Cadence fired a beam of magic at her, but the fact was that the scales that would have protected her from any other magical attack tore apart easily. Love washed over Pinkamena, tearing at the hate she had stockpiled in her body and restoring her mind to what it should have been before Oblivion had arrived. The vile energies that once emitted from her body were destroyed and were immediately replaced by the blue energies that represented the Element of Laughter. The magic went as far as to heal the gaping wound in her chest, restoring both the missing lung and the skin that covered it.

When the magic subsided Pinkamena lowered to the ground, her eyes now filled with the same pink energy that flowed out of Cadence's own eyes. Her body was no longer the vile dragon-like form it had been, but instead it had returned to the familiar pink pony most ponies knew her as. Her weapon lost the sinister glow that had been dancing around it and became just a normal weapon, or about as normal as it could get seeing how Pinkie was the one wielding it.

"I told you Pinkie," Cadence smiled, helping the mare up, "back in the beginning, before we were completely overrun by the hate, I told you that one day my husband was going to come and save us from the darkness. I said that he had promised to save me, but I knew that in my heart that once he returned for me it would have set off a chain reaction that would destroy all the hate that Oblivion built."

"I hate to ask this question, but aren't we in the middle of a war?" Pinkie innocently asked, making Cadence look up to remember the fighting around them.

"Oops, my bad," Cadence said, giving the pink mare a crooked smile, "Let's hope that we haven't missed much or cost anypony anything."

All they had missed was ponies dying on both sides as the power of love battled the power of hate, the constant battle that they had waged for countless years. This time Cadence and Pinkie had regained themselves, leaving the enemy without two of their players. Now Vinyl knew the weakness that they could use to completely erase Oblivion's hate and restore balance to the rest of the fallen ponies.

"Hey Gatekeeper," Vinyl called, watching the alicorn stallion bash an enemy in the head with just his hoof, "You got a spare heart on you by chance?"

The Gatekeeper stopped right next to Vinyl and pulled out a Crystal Heart, this one fully powered up by the power of love and had not a single crack on its surface. Vinyl smiled and embraced the heart, eying the empty slot where the hateful heart had once floated before she destroyed it. If she could get the heart to the empty void then she could erase the hate that everypony else had and they could finally deal with Oblivion. The only problem was that she had to go through Death in order to reach the center of the Crystal Empire.

"Hehe, come on Vinyl," Death challenged, her scythe angled so she could rend the life out of the other her, "I know that you have an ace up your sleeve, yet all I see is the fact that Cadence had a moment of weakness and took Pinkamena down with her. So we lost the Rider of War, but what does it matter when three more Rider's await your army before they can reach Lord Oblivion? The three of us are more then enough to deal with an army of your size, but it can never hurt to have more allies running around that can help us.

Come on out, Clockwerk."

The ground shook, which was strange because the last time Vinyl did a reading across the entire ground she found nothing buried under the ground. There should have been nothing that could have caused the ground to violently shake as it did, which was actually worrying her. Then the ground between Death and Vinyl began to open up, revealing that they were standing on two sections of what appeared to be a quickly destabilizing metal plate.

Gears spun and connected to pieces on the other side of the gap, causing a slow rumbling sound to be heard by everypony on the battlefield. To Vinyl's right arose a huge metallic limb, at the end of which was five huge dragon claws made completely out of metal. She looked to her left and saw the same thing erupt out of the ground before the ground quickly ascended towards the sky. She knew exactly what had happening; she and Death were standing on top of a huge metallic dragon that only Clockwerk could have constructed.

"Hehe, all systems online," the dragon's head chuckled, sounding exactly like the metal owl, "Now you see the height of my perfection. Why settle for the body of a small owl when I could command the body of a giant dragon that's fueled by Hatred? Immortality, everlasting smarts, and the power to destroy my enemies all wrapped into one body. You should feel honored, Warriors of Harmony, for you shall be the first to witness the power I have spent months creating."

"Faust almighty," a stallion whispered, his eyes scanning the dragon in dread as a compartment opened in the left arm, "I've got goosebumps for some reas..."

The stallion never got to finish his sentence as a missile hit his location and killed him and the closest ponies in the blast radius in seconds. In one instant Clockwerk had changed the tide of the battle, turning fear and dread upon the faces of the mighty warriors that stood before him. The only ponies who didn't seem scared of the giant clockwork dragon were the Gatekeeper, Celestia, Luna, the transformed Cadence, and Pinkie.

"I assume the dragon has some weakness?" Cadence shouted, blasting an enemy in the back while she kept her eyes on the barely moving creature.

"Everything has a weakness silly," Pinkie replied, her mace crushing a stallion's leg before she moved on to the next pony, "Clockwerk's, however, is something so obvious that I can't believe you are even asking me. His dragon suit is powered by the same energies that all of those who follow Oblivion have coursing through their veins."

"Hatred." Cadence realized, ducking before she got knocked in the head by an enemy, "How could I have missed something like that? Let's get blasting then."

Vinyl swung her sword and her counterpart backed up to avoid the attack, her sword carving a line in the armor plate Clockwerk wore. She was glad that her love powered sword could still do some damage to those who followed Oblivion, but the fact was that not even she could destroy Clockwerk and Death at the same time. Another problem was that the ground was constantly moving since Clockwerk liked to see his enemies before blasting them into pieces. She could always use the overdrive function on the cannon to blast through the dragon, but there was now way to do it while Death literally stalked her.

"Do not think that Love can save you now Vinyl," Death chuckled, kicking the cannon off of Vinyl's back and causing it to drop all the way to the ground, "Your too slow to read my movements, too slow to realize that I'm three, no, four steps ahead of you and still you blindly fight me. You should have given into the hate the moment you felt the power coursing through your veins, but instead you tossed it aside. Your a damned coward, Vinyl Scratch, and you'll never be the warrior you ever wanted to be."

As Death talked she swung her scythe, the vile red energy flowing off of it as it tried to reach Vinyl at all costs, and Vinyl returned the favor. The two clashed, hate attacking love, as their weapons battered at the other in an attempt to do the other pony harm. Neither weapon nor mare could pass the others weapon, making it extremely difficult for either of them to truly gain the upper hoof. All the while their attacks had a lasting effect on their surroundings as the powers of both Hatred and Love washed over the clockwork machine; one healing any wound it was given while the other blew holes everywhere.

"Good," Clockwerk chirped, noticing Octavia with her back turned as his mouth opened to burn the mare alive, "With this power I will eradicate the Cooper family from history, but first I shall eradicate all traces of the rebellion."

Vinyl immediately recognized what her partner was going, so she grinned like a moron and backed up to the edge of the area she and Death were on.

"You know Death," Vinyl said, "We've been fighting for over a thousand years, yet neither of us can win. You know all my tricks, just as I know all of yours. I'm sure you know what's coming next."

Before her counterpart could speak Vinyl leapt backwards and began to fall, allowing the air to pass her as she waited to pass by where Clockwerk's heart should have been. She pulled out a grapple gun and waited, watching Death leap off the edge to run her scythe blade through her body and end her life. Death caught up to her in no time, the scythe blade hitting her sword as she stared into Vinyl's eyes.

"I do hope you weren't planning on running away?" Death asked, a wild and evil grin appearing on her bony face.

"Course not fool," Vinyl said, the grapple hook attaching to the location of the heart as she slipped the gin onto Death's belt, "I'm Vinyl Scratch, Commander of the Warriors of Harmony, and the best DJ in all of Equestria. But more importantly I hope you enjoy getting fried alive...or dead as it were. Now Octavia."

Death got yanked back up to the heart as Octavia turned around, presenting the Love Cannon that was pulsing with an intense amount of love energy. She heaved it up to where the heart was, now displayed thanks to Vinyl attaching a direct target to where it was, and pressed the lever. The energy wave that burst out of the cannon tore through the unfortunate enemies that just happened to be in the way before it passed through both Death and Clockwerk's heart.

It was literally like magic working its hoof as the giant mechanical dragon began to self destruct with all the love energy coursing through its veins. The Love energy not only crippled the dragon, rendering it completely useless, but it also trapped Clockwerk in a labyrinth of his own design. All the layers of plates, gears, wires, and all the other mechanical devices that went into its making now formed a prison he could no longer escape from. And to top it off the dragon crumpled back into the ground from whence it came, filling the gigantic gap it had created and made a bridge into the heart of the Crystal Empire.

Death, on the other hoof, had suffered a direct hit to her core, tearing apart the hatred she had been building for the last thousand years to nothing. Her scythe now laid broken in front of the dragon's grave, her robe laid in tatters as it began to turn to dust, and she herself was beginning to fall to the sands of time. Vinyl could not help but feel sorry for her counterpart, suffering such an attack would have destroyed anypony who was not able to withstand the power. Still, she would not wish the fate of turning to sand on anypony, least of all her other self.

"Tell me Death, where is Oblivion and Vegna?" Vinyl asked, stopping by her counterpart as her army passed them.

"Hehe... You think that since... You beat two of us... You have a chance... at beating HIM?" Death asked, wheezing as her body lost its left hind hoof, "But... If you must know... He's waiting... At the top of... The Crystal Palace... You CANNOT STOP HIM..."

Death turned to sand before she could finish her sentence, leaving Vinyl to look at the sky and try to locate the location of their enemy. Yet directly above the Crystal Palace was a sphere made of darkness, but something told her it was exactly what she was searching for. Oblivion had to be in there, powering up Vegna so he could become unstoppable. This time Vinyl was ready for him and any last minute tricks he might have.

"Vinyl, the cannons primed for the final setting," Octavia said, holding the cannon steady in case they needed to fire it, "but I don't think the power of a shard is going to phase that barrier Oblivion has protecting him."

"Course not," Vinyl replied, taking the cannon as they approached the area where the Crystal Heart once floated, "By using the power of the unbroken Crystal Heart with the full unbound power of the cannon we could literally tear a gaping hole in that barrier. If anything the power might be enough to eat away the power of Vegna and cause a chain reaction that could annihilate the machine and Oblivion in one go."

The cannon spun around as she placed it below where the heart rested, watching it spread apart and build until what looked like a generator remained. That was a generator with seven spikes to gather energy, a holding cell for the Crystal Heart, and someplace for the energy to fire out in the direction they wanted. Vinyl set the cannon to fire when ready and slid the heart into position, watching the love energy gather around the center of her machine.

Course Oblivion's soldiers realized what was happening and tried to intervene, but Vinyl and her armor stood together as they repelled the attackers. The remaining Elements of Hate tried to pass their defenses, but with as much love energy as there was in the air there was no way for them to withstand the pressure. A full ten minutes passed before the entire army laid on the ground, the hate burning out of their bodies and returning their minds to what they had been before. It seemed unfair to take from them the warriors deaths they might have wanted, but saving countless ponies from Oblivion was a much better prize.

The beam that fired out of the cannon tore through the palace, destroying very little before it came into direct contact with Oblivion and Vegna. The invincible machine that Oblivion spent years crafting and searching for cracked before his eyes, the energy tearing holes in the supposed unbreakable metal. Before Oblivion, the master of Hatred, could escape from the orb Vegna exploded in his face, tearing a hole in the sky as the monster and the machine vanished from the universe.

Vinyl looked up and smiled, Oblivion was gone somehow, but they had finally beaten him after one thousand years of intense battling. It could have ended differently, she realized this, but right now she was pleased with the outcome of the fight. All that mattered was that she finally returned to her Equestria and took up a profession that didn't involve her running ponies through with her sword. Besides, there was a celebration party to be had and they weren't even there yet.