"The Dragon's Lost His Mind!"
Applejack galloped through the crowd of unicorns that continued their advance on the dragon, paying that battle no heed besides for the occasional glance over her shoulder. A smile blossomed on her lips, not because of the dragon who losing the edge to his gaze, but because of the image she caught in-between the squad mates hiding behind the Style Vista bar.
The two guards standing guard unhooked their spears at the sudden object flying toward them, but lost their tension at seeing who was behind the orange blur. They stepped out of the collision course the speeding earth pony had set, before watching that said blur come to a complete halt to the princesses beginning to open their eyes.
"Celestia!" Applejack couldn't help but shout in front of the sun ruler, and coming to whisper to the one responsible for the moon. "Luna."
Both rulers came to smile a tired smile at the sight of their treasured element, though her form was blurry to their eyes, her accent was still cute on their ears. Luna was the first to speak up from exiting her power nap. "Dearest Applejack, how long have we been out from the battle?"
The aforementioned mare shook her head as she rose to her full height. "Not long. The dragon began attacking us from behind the smoke in the sky, though we managed to trick him into crash-landing and wailing on him while he was out of it."
Celestia shook the blurriness out from her vision as she began to rise above on shaky legs. "And what has happened since then?"
Applejack opened her mouth to speak, but her words were drowned out by the collected yelling from around the bar. She wasted no time in peeking around the corner and gazing at the commotion.
"The dragon's lost his mind!" The crowd of ponies cried and struck their hooves in the direction of the beast, who held either side of his head into his claw, as it began to thrash about like it was enduring a bad case of a migraine. The little whines it gave off when it detected movement were now full on cries of pain that escaped its sore throat.
From behind the dragon's back, Afro and his squad charged at its heel with their weapons equipped within their mouths. They slashed their swords horizontally, slowly weakening the scales already loose from the previous assault, as the blue scales soon began to fly off. No blood gushed out but gave these stallions the hope they needed to reach the hidden Achilles tendon.
The dragon continued to cry, but it he still didn't pay any attention to the actions of the ponies. His once sealed eyes opened with a faint shade of purple, slowly losing its color as they pulsated along with the pain plaguing the dragon's mind. A blue claw rose into the air, scaring those before him to jump back and charge their horns with their unique auroras, as well as those behind them who close their eyes and kept on slashing to their goal.
The dragon them slammed his fist against his leg, crying both in pain and pleasure before repeating the process all over his body. All if the combined aurora began to dim into nothingness as their expressions were caught in surprise of the dragon beating himself up, beginning to punch his own face left with one claw, and doing the same with his right.
Applejack shivered as she felt something approach her side, sighing in relief when it was only the princess stepping out from the safety behind the wall to further gaze on the event. Even they had their brows furrowed as they examined the event taking place, their mouths opening to supply a comment only for them to close too soon.
The dragon puffed smoke through his nostrils as the maw below huffed, his eyes dilating on the curled digits of his claw before the faint purpleness of his pupils grew all the bolder. He shook his head as if it cleansed himself of the pain once plaguing there, and rose his claws into the sky as if in a declaration of something.
He threw back his head, lowered his claws, and unleashed a torrent of flames upon the weaklings that even dared to establish eye contact with him. The horns of the unicorn all lit up uniously as they shot a concentrated beam in front of the pack that they all formed, the balls of light all joining to together into a barrier of different colors that deflected the scorching heat.
When the dragon swung back his hooves, he had done so to smack away at the insects biting at his heels. The shadow of his raised foot began to cast over the trio of guards who had signed up for this moment, though that foot never came to crush their bones, as its owners' eyes caught a much juicy reward in the distance.
He finally found ponies that were worthy of maintaining eye contact with him. Though this connection between them was soon clouded by the black smoke wafting from the barrier that had blocked the flame.
"Princess, he saw you!" Applejack exclaimed while looking to the princess, who's eyes only narrowed more. She turned back to the black cloud of smoke beginning to dissipate, showing to all the two staircases leading to the next level of the city, and of the guards who thought themselves dead. "How did he disappear so quickly!?"
A roar resounded from the sky above, still enshrouded by the smoke from before, as the dragon resumed the tactic that had worked before. This brought a frown to both of the princesses, who looked to one another and nodded, before unfurling their wings to take to the sky. Only, that action activated a pinprick of pain in the bone of the wing that prevented it from stretching even more and caused their legs to buckle.
Despite the pain, the princesses tried again to stretch out their wings to take the fight to the cowardly dragon. Though a soft voice stopped their attempt before it even began. "You two need to rest."
The solar rulers looked down to the cowpony that stood tall before them, no longer hiding behind the corner of the bar. "I've never seen you two this weak before, and it kinda scares me what the reason could be. But the two of you still need to lay low until we can keep the dragon on the ground enough for you two to try and hold them into place."
"That dragon isn't as stupid as you might think, Applejack." Celestia clasped her wings to her side and stepped toward the younger pony. "Your surprise attack may have brought him to the floor once, but he won't fall for the same trick again."
Applejack had to face the fact that her method wasn't a solid one contrived by meticulous calculation deduced by a brilliant leader, but of the wit of an average cowpony trying to keep her crops and family safe from a dragon seeking to do harm to both. Still, she knew self-doubt wouldn't get her anywhere in the moment, as she too stepped toward the princess. "I know. But I still have another few tricks up my sleeve that could very well bring the dragon down once more and keep him there for the count. Though I'm going to need everypony I can to pull it off, and I need for you two to safely get out from the area and find the other Elements."
Luna joined in on the discussion as she stepped forth as well, forming a triangle. Luna stood at the top with her sister at the bottom left, and Applejack at the bottom right. "Do you seriously think you will have the dragon down and out by the time we return with our finishing abilities?"
Applejack opened her mouth but knew her words were unconvinced themselves. So she used another trick Granny had taught her, one to use whenever she wanted to do something but didn't have the full confidence to say so.
Applejack nodded her head.
The two sisters looked to one another and shared a connection through their eyes, before nodding themselves, and looking back to the mare.
"Okay Applejack. The next stage of the fight is in your hooves."