It was pretty weird to look at your body and see… not your body. The water that made up Applejack’s body was constantly streaming and swirling around in her pony shape. Like she was just a container holding back an ocean. But it didn’t feel bad, she wasn’t worried that she might suddenly “pop” or anything. It all felt natural. As natural as the hat that was still on her head.
“You… they gave you the Heart of Water!”
Applejack stopped looking at herself to glance up at the furious Green Field. Fire billowed around her, jets and balls exploding out from her body in greater intensity thanks to the sheer anger she felt at the ponies of the Spirit Shrine willingly giving Applejack the Heart of Water.
“Yep, they did.” Applejack concentrated and water poured out from her hooves, creating an ever flowing fountain that shot up and made her stand at eye level with Green Field.
“How dare they! After everything that happened, for them to just hand that over to you!” Green Field raised a hoof and created a rapidly expanding ball of fire over her head.
Applejack responded by summoning water from seemingly nowhere, creating waves that matched the height and size of the inferno that Green Field was riding. Now it was like a lake had appeared in the middle of the forest. For any birds or pegasi above them it would look like twin seas of fire and water were about to smash into each other.
“You can’t stop me!” With a final scream, Green Field hurled her massive fireball at Applejack.
Applejack raised up a huge wall of water to block it, the fire clashing with it causing an explosion of steam that covered the two ponies. Green Field didn’t waste a moment as she shot dozens of balls of fire out of her body through the steam, it didn’t matter if she couldn’t see she’d just use sheer quantity to obliterate Applejack and evaporate the water.
But as the steam cleared Applejack was still standing there on her water, the sea behind her only boiling in a few spots. Her right hoof had been blown off by a fireball but the water that made up her body quickly reformed as if nothing had happened at all.
“Well, fancy that now.” Applejack smirked at Green Field and waved her hoof forward. Tentacles of water as thick as tree trunks shot out from behind her, whipping at Green Field.
Green Field roared and pillars of fire shot up around her from the inferno. Bisecting and incinerating the tentacles of water that came at her. Then she reared back and the sea of fire shifted with her, it acted almost more like a solid entity, like a wave of lava than fire, before she pushed forward and slammed directly into Applejack’s water.
Shockwaves and thunderclaps sounded throughout the valley as the two incredible magical forces met. Applejack didn’t allow herself to be pushed back, bracing her hooves she forced her water forward to fight Green Field’s inferno blow for blow. As the fire and water bashed against each other, each force struggling for dominance like two big-horned sheep duking it out, Applejack decided to take a page out of her opponent’s book and created a huge sea serpent from her water to attack Green Field.
The thing sprouted out of the water behind Applejack, she made it the size of a Quarray Eel, with its jaws snapping open it dove for Green Field.
“Is that supposed to scare me?” Green Field responded by making another huge fire snake to duel Applejack’s sea serpent, intercepting its strike and winding around it. The two constructions battled while Applejack and Green Field continued to try and out muscle each other.
Seeing that neither side was giving an inch Applejack pulled back. The moment she did, Green Field pushed forward to overtake the space Applejack had just left. But this was fine by Applejack, she turned the whole sea of water she was standing on into a huge wave that now rose and towered over Green Field. Stuck below the peak, Green Field watched as Applejack rode the spray of the wave, her body practically melting into it, and crashed the whole thing down over the inferno.
The noise was deafening. And the force that the wave struck the ground with would’ve felt like an earthquake to any nearby ponies. Applejack allowed her water to disperse after coming down, now instead of on fire the forest looked like the largest and strongest thunderstorm had just been through, water dripped from every leaf and branch and innumerable puddles dotted the ground.
But things weren’t over yet.
Applejack looked back at where Green Field’s inferno had been. Most of the fire was drowned out but a single huge pillar of flame still stood in the middle of a cloud of steam, thousands of gallons of water being evaporated around it.
Without warning a huge blast of fire shot out from the steam towards Applejack. She barely responded in time by making a swirling vortex of water in front of her as a shield to absorb the fire. The blast tried to push through and overcome Applejack’s shield but she kept putting more water into it, all that happened was the water quenching the fire as fast as the fire could evaporate the water. The two powers seemed evenly matched.
As the fire blast died down Applejack lowered her shield, letting the leftover water splatter on the ground. Looking ahead she saw Green Field walk out from the pillar of leftover flame. The two didn’t speak to each other, Applejack prepared herself to react while the flames that made up Green Field flickered and grew.
Green Field concentrated hard, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed at Applejack. Her whole body erupted into one big flame, burning and melting the ground around her. Five flaming pegasi were born from her flame and came flying at Applejack as Green Field’s body returned to its normal flaming state.
“Well I can do that now too.” Applejack made her own pegasi out of water, having some fun with it and giving them all Rainbow Dash’s mane style. “Go on Dash, er Dash’s, take it to her!” The five water pegasi flew out to engage their fiery opponents.
It made Applejack think of an aerial battle between two teams of Wonderbolts. The fire and water constructs flew around each other, striking with their wings or colliding into each other and beating their hooves and heads together. One of the fire pegasi flew past it all to attack Applejack only to be tackled from behind by one of her water Rainbow Dash’s, the two crashing into the ground and almost merging into each other before both of them popped and lost their forms completely.
Backing up from the battle, Applejack grimaced slightly. “Some of this is getting a little weird.”
No longer satisfied just watching the pegasi fight, Green Field started shooting out beams of fire, trying to blast Applejack’s constructs out of the sky. Applejack frowned and created several huge spheres of water and threw them up into the air, having them intercept whatever blasts from Green Field they could.
The two constantly tried to outmaneuver the other, Green Field shooting up bolts and balls of fire to destroy Applejack’s spheres and Rainbow Dash’s while Applejack used her spheres to soak up and block any attack. Green Field created a short wave of fire at her hooves and shot it out at Applejack to try and distract her, it stayed close to the ground and moved quickly but Applejack hardly needed to give it any thought to counter it. She simply let water rush from her hooves to create a wall in front of her that intercepted the wave of fire, causing both to explode as they collided.
Now Green Field was really fed up with this back and forth. She let out a roar and gathered a massive pillar of flames in front of her. It started spinning around fiercely, forming a fire tornado, She sent it forward and right into the fighting pegasi and spheres of water. Her own fire pegasi were swept away and consumed by the tornado while Applejack’s spheres and watery Rainbow Dash’s were blown apart. Frowning, Applejack decided to respond in kind and created a maelstrom in front of her that kept growing up and up until it matched Green Field’s fire tornado in size.
The two tornadoes clashed. Fire and water digging into each other, the incredible spinning making their exteriors more like giant elemental buzzsaws than anything. Steam perpetually shot out from where the two met but neither tornado seemed to be growing any weaker or smaller. Green Field and Applejack were both able to control them perfectly, Green Field pulled hers back slightly to be able to smash it back into Applejack’s with more force, but Applejack had hers slide out of the way to make Green Field have to keep chasing after her tornado. Even Applejack was surprised by how fast they could make their tornadoes glide over the ground.
Again though it was just a stalemate, the two tornadoes clashed again and again with Applejack and Green Field controlling them from a distance, neither pony giving up any ground.
Applejack couldn’t see Green Field smirk but she did see the two huge arms of fire that suddenly grew out of her tornado. They latched onto the water tornado and tore it in half as Applejack watched on.
“I need to get more creative.” Applejack summoned another wall of water in front of herself while Green Field’s fire tornado buzzed towards her. Instead of creating another tornado or something Applejack let the wall crash down and spread out across the ground in front of her, creating a large pool several feet deep that the fire tornado would have to go through.
Green Field obviously didn’t see it as a threat and had her armed-tornado blaze right through Applejack’s pool. Now it was Applejack’s turn to smirk as the pool quickly began to rotate when the fire tornado was halfway through, becoming a huge whirlpool that caught Green Field’s tornado right in the middle.
“Now watch this!” Applejack raised her hooves and the whirlpool turned into a huge set of crocodile jaws, each jaw easily a hundred feet long. She clapped her hooves together and the jaws snapped shut on the fire tornado, extinguishing it completely. Letting go of her hooves the water fell like a geyser back over the ground, blanketing both Applejack and Green Field in a steady mist.
Each droplet sizzled and evaporated on Green Field’s flaming body as she angrily stared at Applejack.
Raising a hoof of her own, Green Field created a fireball over her head. It kept expanding until it was easily the size of a house. Applejack waited for Green Field to throw it at her but it never came, instead the fire pony launched it into the sky where it disappeared inside the smoky clouds that were hanging over them.
Not done yet Green Field shot out two streams of fire from her sides. They went out a long ways and then curved inwards, meeting together behind Applejack’s back to form a huge ring of fire around the two ponies. Green Field started chuckling at Applejack as she walked towards her, forming a lance of fire above her head.
Applejack wasn’t just going to sit around anymore so she also formed a huge ball of water over her head to defend against whatever Green Field might throw at her. More water also seeped out of her hooves and formed a wave under Applejack that she could ride and move around speedily on. She was preparing herself for anything.
And then it began to rain.
Dozens of fireballs fell from the sky towards Applejack and Green Field, completely random and indiscriminate, they started striking everywhere in the ring of fire Green Field made. Applejack gritted her teeth and started dodging all that she could with her wave. One fireball hit the ground right in front of her, making a smoking crater and forcing Applejack to change directions, putting her right in the path of another one. She moved the water ball she was holding over her head to catch it but the fireball completely destroyed it when it hit. The blast knocked Applejack off her wave and onto the ground where more meteors continued to hit around her.
Green Field laughed and threw the fire lance she had right at Applejack. Applejack’s quick reflexes allowed her to fire out a jet of water from her hoof at the lance to stop it but this momentary distraction from Green Field opened her up to being hit from a falling fireball. The explosion enveloped Applejack and made a huge smoking crater in the ground.
Green Field looked on in glee and hopped towards the crater, hoping her opponent was obliterated. But as the smoke cleared her face fell. Applejack’s hat was sitting inside a ball of water protected from any harm while Applejack’s body seemingly reconstituted itself out of thin air, the water collecting and reforming her in perfect condition.
“Wooh, that felt weird.” Applejack said as she shook her watery body, calling over the ball with her hat and pulling it out, placing it back on top of her head where it belonged.
“Stay down!” Green Field’s eyes were filled with rage and she blasted a huge rolling wave of fire at Applejack. The billowing flames would’ve been strong enough to obliterate anything in their path.
“You stay down!” Applejack fired her own blast of highly pressurized water at the wave of fire, breaking right through the center of it to hit Green Field in the face.
The water blew away the whole upper part of her body so all that was standing there were four flickering legs. But just like with Applejack the flames grew and morphed back into Green Field’s original form and she was no worse for wear. Green Field’s body erupted in even more intense fire as she let out an animalistic yell and charged at Applejack, raising a hoof and creating a huge sword of fire that she could control with it.
Applejack couldn’t say she fancied swords or anything but a prior use of her water came to mind. She called forth more water to gather in front of her and created another set of snapping crocodile jaws. Much smaller than the ones she used to eat the tornado but still big enough to match Green Field’s new sword.
As Green Field swung her sword Applejack reached her jaws forward and clamped down on it. The two now struggling to overpower the other. Green Field trying to destroy and cut through the jaws while Applejack tried to wrench the sword out of her power and extinguish it. Green Field growled and created a second sword free to stab at Applejack, but Applejack herself pulled up a wall of water and turned it into a round shield to block it.
Again and again fire sword hit water shield, steam and sparks of fire flying off with every hit. Green Field opened up her mouth to breath out a wave of fire to cover Applejack and blow away all their weapons but Applejack made water spout from her hooves, sending her up into the air to avoid the fire.
Hanging in the air now Applejack made a ball of water under herself to fly on. Creating another serpent from her hoof she sent it down to attack Green Field.
Green Field scoffed and created three fire snakes of her own. The first locked jaws with Applejack’’s water serpent while the other two tore into its body and pulled it apart. Together the three fire snakes then went after Applejack. Applejack created three more of her own serpents to match, the six constructs now brawling with each other like real snakes that decided to get into a fight. Snapping jaws, biting at and coiling around each other. It was a mess of fire and water as the snakes practically all melted together in a big ball of writhing heads and tails.
Green Field tired of this and shot more flames of her own towards the fighting serpents. The fire merged her snakes together and swallowed up Applejack’s water serpents. The fire now grew and grew and changed into a gigantic fire dragon that flew towards Applejack.
Not to be outdone Applejack kept bringing forth a massive amount of water and formed it into a giant watery Alicorn. The constructs slammed into each other, beating their wings together and creating whirlwinds that blew throughout the forest. The Alicorn’s horn pierced the dragon while the dragon’s jaws clamped down on the Alicorn’s shoulder. Applejack directed its hooves into the dragons stomach while Green Field had the dragons powerful fists pummel the back of Applejack’s Alicorn.
Both ponies made their constructs fly backwards, putting some space between them. Green Field’s dragon opened up its mouth, fire began to gather in its maw. Applejack’s Alicorn pointed its horn at the dragon and a powerful vortex of water began to form at the tip.
With a thunderous cry both dragon and Alicorn let loose their attacks.
The blasts of fire and water met in the sky, exploding with enough force to blow away the smoke clouds and flatten the nearby trees on the ground. Alicorn of water and dragon of fire were both caught up in and obliterated by the explosion.
Applejack was slammed to the ground by the shockwave, momentarily becoming a puddle before snapping back to pony shape. Green Field was similarly flattened by the pressure, looking like a fire lit on the ground before forming back into a pony.
Green Field looked at Applejack while gnashing her teeth in anger. Applejack for her part was just scowling at the devastation to everything around them their fight had caused.
Seeing her opponent not paying attention Green Field ran in with a fireball over her head and threw it towards Applejack. Applejack barely even glanced Green Field’s direction before just lazily bringing up a wall of water to block the fireball. Eyes still full of wrath, Green Field conjured more fireballs, throwing them into Applejack’s water defenses over and over, just trying to wear her down and destroy her.
Applejack finally did return her attention fully to Green Field, seeing the maddened mare with her mane and tail burning, her eyes dripping those burning tears to the ground as she threw more and more fire at her opponent. Applejack created a bigger shield of water around herself to block the constant blasts of fire, Green Field seemed to be at her wit’s end, not even trying for anything fancy anymore and just endlessly buffeting Applejack’s shield with her fireballs.
“Give up! Give up and let me get my revenge!” Green Field yelled between blasts of fire, each sentence punctuated by a renewed volley. “I need to make them pay! I need to get justice for my family! My friends! Everypony!” Applejack could hear how hoarse her yelling was becoming. “I can’t rest until these ponies pay for letting it happen! I can’t! Do you have any idea how much it hurts?! Do you know what it was like to have them all refuse to help and then see them go back to laughing and living their normal lives while my family… my family...” Green Field’s assault stopped for a moment.
Applejack let her water splash to the ground as she looked at the fire pony with pity and sympathy, she didn’t know exactly how Green Field felt, but she had felt that same kind of loss too in the past. Applejack locked eyes with her, both of them filled with sadness.
“You...” Green Field said to her. “You should just get out my way!” Green Field’s anger rose again and she created another huge fireball over her head.
Applejack looked up at it. There was a lot she could do to stop it and resume their fight. But she didn’t want to do anything like that, not anymore. Instead she reached a hoof to her chest and closed her eyes.
Sighing deeply she concentrated and a bright light came forth from her. It temporarily blinded Green Field and made her turn away, when she looked back Applejack was back to her normal orange self, regular pony body and all, holding the Heart of Water in her hoof.
Green Field scowled at her in confusion, taking a step back in case this was some sort of trick. When Applejack didn’t move she slowly started to grin and stood up proud. “H-Hah! So you’ve given up finally? Finally realize it was pointless and that I’d never stop my revenge?” She pointed her hoof up and brought the fireball closer to Applejack. “Well good, now I can end this!”
“I haven’t given up.” Applejack said, looking straight into Green Field’s eyes, not worried about the fireball practically right over her head. “But I’m done fighting. I want to talk to you.”