Running back to her friends, Rainbow had to dodge as Applejack almost clotheslined her again. "Look are you going to sto—" She cut short as instead of having to dodge the fist coming her way, a pale red forearm wearing clad in fishnet knocked it aside. "Spicy?!"
"Go save the day, Rainbow." Spicy Hot was nowhere near as strong as Applejack, but he hoped he didn't need to be. Everything he'd seen her do as he'd rushed over had been blunt and clumsy. "Hey, Applejack."
"Look, I really gotta go kill your girlfriend. Can ya, I dunno, just let me? It'd make this way easier. She's gonna be playing her guitar—it'll be easy!" Applejack tried to look over Spicy's shoulder, only to have him spread one of his wings out.
"Sorry, but I can't do that for ya. I know you're one of her friends, so I'm guessing Sonata's old buddies have gotten into your head." Spicy backed up a step or two to get some room. "Hope you snap out of whatever they're doing to you, I don't actually think I can hurt you."
"Nah. Go as hard as ya need ta, sugar cube. Sorry if I gotta break ya and kill ya girlfriend." And, with an obstacle between her and Rainbow Dash, Applejack dropped her shoulder and charged at Spicy Hot. What she hadn't expected was to have her neck and thigh grabbed, be flipped into the air, and land with a hard thump on the ground. It had been so quick that, for a second, Applejack thought Rainbow must have jumped back into the fight.
Spicy still wasn't as fast as he'd like to be, but Applejack's untrained attacks left him with plenty of opportunity to redirect her force—he just had to make absolutely sure he was never in the way of it. "Nice of you to offer, but I'm pretty good all told today. If it makes a difference, I figured at least with me fighting you, you're not going to get burned."
"Burned?" Naked, Applejack felt the gout of dragonfire despite it being nearly a hundred yards away. Her eyes widened at the sight of a dragon pouring out fire at a siren—who suddenly realized getting close was bad. "Well ho-ly-shit. That's Thunderbolt, ain't it? Rainbow's pet?"
Liking talking-Applejack far better than murderous-Applejack, Spicy figured to keep her attention off of fighting. "Yeah. He grew up fast. Hasn't had as much time to train as I have, but last time I checked his skin was just about impervious. Got some fangs and claws on him, too. You should see him in the sack."
Applejack's mind did a little twist and she spun back to look at Spicy. "Yer into guys too?!"
"I'm into guys—period. Rainbow Dash is—" Spicy realized he'd done the wrong thing bringing Rainbow's name back up when a yellow fist only missed him because he'd dodged it a moment before impact. "Kinda special, ya know? What I don't get is why you're naked?"
"Muh owner likes me this way. Besides, I'm just her pet. Pets don't need to wear clothes." Thinking herself clever, Applejack swung a light right at Spicy's face, then aimed her left squarely at his midsection. If it connected, she planned to punch through him clear to fresh air. Instead, he grabbed her arm and pulled while stepping to the side.
Applejack knew something was wrong here. Spicy seemed to just be touching her, pushing or pulling her lightly. She shouldn't be falling over so much. "What'n hell are ya doin'?"
"Aikido. I used to do Karate, but Short Track got me into this a few weeks back. It took some getting used to, but he said I'm really getting the hang of it fast. What do you think?"
"Ah think it's bloody annoyin'." Applejack slowly got to her feet and turned to face Spicy again. "Why don't you hit me back?"
"I don't need to hit you back. I've been working mostly on standing redirections. They're designed specifically to cause you as little harm as possible. Neat, right?" Spicy turned side-on as Applejack threw another punch at him.
This time, rather than pushing through with her punch to kill, Applejack kept her weight on her own feet. She gave a jab, and felt Spicy's hands close around her hand and press down at her elbow. It shouldn't have hurt, but suddenly she felt like there was an elephant was balanced on her shoulder. Two elephants. Then four.
Spicy Hot hated having to hurt people, which is why he'd liked the martial art Short Track had proposed. He put more and more pressure on Applejack's elbow, twisting it and guiding her to the ground. What surprised him was that it worked so well.
"What the hay was that?" Applejack rolled to the side and managed to get out from under Spicy. "How'd you do that?"
"You were leaning forward still, and you might be strong, Applejack, but your joints are still joints. How about you give up this fighting and I'll show you how to do it?" Not stupid enough to get too close, Spicy hoped to derail the fight with words still.
What Spicy didn't expect was a clump of dirt thrown at him. The clod hit him in the shoulder hard enough to hurt, but only being small it lacked the mass to carry too much of Applejack's power to him. "Hey, cut that out. What do you exp—" He jumped to the side as Applejack lashed at him with the underground pipe she'd suddenly pulled from the ground.
"You think I'm gonna fight fair? Lookit you usin' all that fancy stuff. Ah didn't want to hurt you, ya know, but ya done pissed me off now." Swinging the pipe around, Applejack brought the heavy duty rubber down like a whip at Spicy, and with her strength it held killing potential.
The first notes of music met Applejack's ears. It wasn't siren-song, but something pure. She faltered in her swing, giving Spicy the chance he needed to evade the lash of piping she'd sent his way. Deep, sonorous notes sprang from the speakers of two cars, and Applejack stood spellbound—watching Sunset Shimmer play her bass.
Thunderbolt didn't like these sirens. He liked Sonata—would have gladly fucked her if she'd been interested—but these ones? These ones he wanted to kill. Aiming down his snout, he directed another rush of fire at the big orange one.
Sparing not a single brain-cell for the loss of the pathetic creatures that had regained her her true form, Adagio Dazzle had been more than a little shocked when a dragon had come at her. Dragons were a problem for sirens. Getting a dragon angry was easy, feeding off their anger was impossible—they gripped it tight like a lover and embraced it fully. "Leave me alone you—"
His claws raking at the spot Adagio's face had been moments ago, Thunderbolt felt the slightest of contacts, and his next inhale brought the scent of blood on the air. It should have excited him—and on some level it might have—but Thunderbolt wasn't trying to kill Adagio for the joy of killing. "Leave you alone? After what you've done? You are a monster!"
"And what are you? A dragon, here? You really think these humans like having you around? They're only using you until—" Adagio cursed as another blast of fire came her way. Being a creature mostly of water, getting this close to dragonfire was not high on her list of happy things.
Thunderbolt swiped at Adagio, leaving another line of claws down her side as she barely got away from him. "You know nothing of them. Sonata told me how you think of humans." A thud of bass met Thunderbolt's ears, and he paused for a moment as their sound thundered from the back of two cars. "And now they're going to defeat you."
Her head snapping around, Adagio looked at the Rainbooms as they prepared to play. "No! Not again! Aria! Order your pet to kill all of them!"
Aria Blaze could see the problem her pet was having with the bat-winged man. "I've had enough of all this—this idiocy! Pet! Focus on the bat and pin him down so I can sing to him."
Applejack's fuzzy ears twitched and she nodded. "Yes, master. Well, you heard 'er. Hold still and it'll be not so bad." Advancing on Spicy, she reached out to grab his arms—her previous problems with capturing him seemingly forgotten.
Grabbing Applejack's closest arm, Spicy applied a careful grip to the base of her palm and another at her elbow, twisted and squeezed, and pushed her down to the ground with what he knew was a painful hold to fight against. "You know I don't really enjoy doing this, right? I only got back into martial arts because having a super-powered magic girl as a girlfriend meant I wa—" Spicy froze as he realized that, in pinning Applejack, Aria had slipped up beside him.
The song shivered into Spicy's ear. He couldn't remember the tune, but he couldn't forget the words. It seemed the most important thing in his life was to listen to everything Aria had to offer.
But a new song found his other ear. It was belted out through several kilowatts of car stereo, but it wasn't the volume of it that really hit him—it was the scratchy voice of his girlfriend among her friends that sliced away at Aria's song and made him respond with his own power.
"Sorry, but I'm not buying what you're selling." Holding Applejack's arm twisted in one hand, Spicy Hot clutched his free one into a fist and started to rotate his body.
Aria had no time at all to prepare for the fist connecting with her jaw.
"Ah thought you said you didn't want t' hurt anyone?" Applejack was angry about Spicy hitting her owner, but she didn't have any command other than to subdue him. "Did ya break her jaw?"
"Probably not, but I'll bet she won't try that again." Spicy held the pin a moment longer before jumping away as Applejack pushed her way past the pain and upward. "For what it's worth, I hope I'm not hurting you too much."
Applejack snorted a laugh. "Nah. Yer all good. Them's some good tricks, though." She studied Spicy and lamented losing her "whip" from earlier. "Unless Ah can tire ya out, Ah don't think Ah can do this." Turning to Aria, Applejack let out a sigh. "Ah can't beat 'im."
Still holding her jaw, Aria turned to look at Adagio and blinked in surprise at seeing a dragon fighting her. A big, slow dragon. "Adagio! Tag! You take this bat, I'll deal with the dragon! Pet! Kill that dragon."
Wheeling about on her heel, Applejack looked up in the air to see Thunderbolt trying to rip apart her other owner. "That'un's gonna be hard. How's I supposed to get up there?"
Thunderbolt didn't exactly enjoy fighting another sapient creature, but seeing what they'd done to his lovers' friend, he wasn't prepared to let his emotions get in the way. "Where are you go—" His talons finally landed. Claws like blades sank into Adagio's tail-fin and shredded it like tissue paper.
"Hey!" Applejack stood under Thunderbolt, looking up at him. "Why don'tcha get down here so I can give ya a pummelin'?"
Distracted from his fight, Thunderbolt looked down at Applejack. "I'm not going to fight you."
"Why not?" Applejack was trying to work out how high she could jump, in the hope of being able to catch Thunderbolt off-guard.
"A very wise person taught me only to fight monsters." Thunderbolt's heart skipped a little beat at the oblique reference to Spicy. "So if you—" Pumping his wings hard, Thunderbolt jerked back from Applejack. Even though she didn't get enough height to reach him, he didn't want to get caught a second time.
"Hey!" Fluttershy's voice boomed over the back yard of Trixie's home. She had the energy of a timber-wolf boiling in her veins, and could stand up to anything. "Why don't you two pick on us?!"
Adagio and Aria's heads turned at the same time to see the Rainbooms. "Missing one, aren't you? Where's your bassist?" Adagio swam through the air toward where the girls were set up, her sights set on the two cars.
"Right here." Sunset Shimmer, with her own five-string bass hanging before her, slapped the strings and ran one practiced finger up the length of the B string until she found the third fret. Two fingers now plucked at the string, sending ground-shaking bass notes from both the cars.
Magic rushed into all the Rainbooms, powering each up and setting their wild energy loose.
Sunset's wings surged with fire, but she kept her fingers working the lowest note her bass could produce. The tone was joined by a double-kicked bass drum—Sunset didn't need to look behind her to know it was Pinkie Pie.
Giggling at seeing Sunset's legs change to pony ones, human Pinkie felt her own changes happen. She didn't need toes to work her drum kicks properly—not when hooves were so much more satisfying.
Despite the song starting—their second—Rarity felt something missing. They weren't at their peak with Applejack under Aria's control, but there was something else she felt they needed.
Rainbow Dash was the only one of the group who didn't pony up—she was already and always ponied up. When her part started, she began shredding her guitar and bouncing around on stage like she had too much energy.
Pony Pinkie stood in front of Twilight's mix board. Realizing that was a weak point in their show, she'd delegated herself chief anti-party-pooper. She wasn't immune from the magic swirling around, and even as she watched the others become even more pony than she'd ever seen before (except Rainbow), she felt a tail sprout from her rump and her normal pony mane floofing out above her pointed ears. "Wooo!"