Rarity felt a lot of things as she stood on her hooves and faced Blueblood in battle.
Fear was certainly among them; despite her little pep talk from Rain Shine, she was ever so cognizant of the fact that Blueblood could easily just pick up her body and throw her into that accursed wagon again if she gave him the opportunity, so naturally she did her best to lead the battle away from it, playing defense as much as possible.
She was burning with rage, and she would have liked nothing more than to just tear Blueblood limb from limb with her magic, or at least twist him into a pretzel or something so that he couldn’t fight back. But while her spirit was burning with vigor, her body had a different story to tell.
Rarity’s body felt heavy, and her fur was caked in blood and sweat and tears, which almost seemed like it could be turned into a cute play on words, but her brain was too fried to think of anything. Blueblood was advancing on her, keen on using his fists to beat her instead of a baton, but Rarity’s barriers were able to keep him at bay.
She still had an advantage, however minor, due to Rain Shine; Rarity was overflowing with magical energy and wasn’t about to run dry anytime soon. Unless Blueblood had a comparable font of magic inside him— which given his tactics thus far, Rarity had ample reason to doubt— Rarity could outlast him.
“Is this all you have to muster, Rarity?” Blueblood laughed coldly as he threw another punch that was met by a translucent blue wall of magic. “Just defending yourself with no counterattack? Where’s all that fire from before? Don’t tell me the river water put it out.”
Rarity said nothing. She was being careful to keep a safe distance from him, stepping back with every one of his swings. She was worried that she’d eventually back up into another soldier or wagon or something which would present a problem, but she was fairly confident she could deal with it.
As long as she kept her cool and focused on him, he wouldn’t be able to numb her body with his magic like he had before; she could defend herself from that. But if she took a risk to launch an attack, well then she wasn’t so certain.
Granted, with every swing he looked to be more and more out of breath. He’d been wearing that heavy armor all day, and he wasn’t exactly being conservative with his magic before when he was trying to burn Rarity alive.
And of course, the memory of him struggling to lift the cinder block popped back into Rarity’s mind, which would almost have given her a chuckle if the memory that came right after didn’t make her violently nauseous.
The point was, Blueblood wasn’t as strong as he made himself out to be. And of course not, none of these clowns dressed up like supervillains were anything more than children playing with their dads’ weapons.
But Rarity couldn’t risk being wrong in that assessment. She couldn’t let herself be thrown into that wagon for a third time. So she kept her distance and didn’t risk overextending herself.
“I won’t lose to you, Blueblood,” Rarity said, each word painfully dragged out of her throat. “Not ever again.”
“Bold words from someone too scared to even fight back,” Blueblood chuckled and tried to grab Rarity’s arm in his magic, but she released herself with her own magic and jumped back, a violent shudder wracking her body.
“Sometimes surviving is all you can do,” Rarity shrugged and tried to keep her focus despite her lightheadedness. “Sometimes it’s all you need to do. I’m not alone, after all.”
“Is that supposed to be some kind of—”
Blueblood’s sentence was interrupted as a certain pegasus flew toward him at lightning speed and sent her hoof right into his dick, completely knocking the wind out of him and forcing him to stumble back, his face twisted in horrible agony.
Rarity let herself smile at that. Rainbow Dash had repaid her debt after all, and Rarity was happy for her.
“You like that, dude?!” Rainbow yelled and pointed to Blueblood on the ground. She was sweating badly and looked severely out of breath, but she was still full of fire and fury, which Rarity respected immensely. “There’s more where that came from!”
“Wha— what happened to my soldiers?” Blueblood groaned as he tried to stand up, only to get kicked in the dick and knocked to the ground by Rainbow Dash a second time.
“Gone,” Rainbow said and cracked her knuckles. “We checked. You’re the last one left.”
A group of village ponies approached the site of the battle, looking like they were out for blood. Rarity couldn’t exactly blame them, and if they wanted to beat Blueblood open like a pinata and see if there was candy inside him, Rarity didn’t really have the heart to stop them.
“That— I— you—” Blueblood’s face went from disbelief, to panic, to fury all in about three seconds. Rarity didn’t care at this point. If the mob was going to take him, they needed to get to it, otherwise—
“What is going on here?!”
Rarity’s ears perked up at the familiar voice, and she turned her head slowly like she was in a nightmare.
Standing nearby, watching the mob inch toward the downed soldier, stood Queen Celestia, her face twisted into a disgusted mask of barely restrained rage.