Luna felt the vibrations all the way from the outskirts of the Everfree Forest. The tremors shook the trees all the way down to their very roots, causing whatever strange creatures were making the whining noises to flee in terror. The fight must have begun.
"That's some intense energy." Maud noted, this time a slight hint of amazement in her voice. "Even Boulder is trembling in my pocket."
The princess of the night ignored the comment; she already knew how powerful the energy the fighters and Sapphic weregiving off was intense. hat was an understatement; Maud couldn't sense the power levels like she could, and the very sensations they gave actually frightened her a bit.
She shook herself back into a confident state, and looked out at the sky; her gaze locked like a scope on the horizon. She spread her wings and began to take off.
"Princess?" Maud asked.
"Make sure everypony gets back to your home safely, Maud Pie." Luna said, gathering energy for her flight. "I am off to assist our would-be saviors in battle."
"But princess, you might get--"
Maud couldn't finish her sentence before the alicorn took to the skies like a bat out of Tartarus; her form splitting the very air as it soared across the skyline towards the sounds of battle.
* * *
Piccolo carried Trunks' corpse across the sky, and touched down in a wide open field a few miles outsideof the shell that used to be Ponyville. He had long since closed the deceased half-saiyan's eyes as they had flown through the air away from the battle zone. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he felt the shakes before he heard the strikes; then he felt the shockwave.
He turned back in bewilderment. "Please let that be Appleten's power..."
* * *
Sapphic came flying like a nuclear missile out of it's silo from the ground as it exploded to let his form through. Before he got too high, he was elbowed across the landscape halfway across the city by a sharp and quick elbow jab from Appleten.
With all his might, he stopped himself, and aimed a highly concentrated beam of ki at the oncoming fighter. Appleten disappeared before it hit her, and reappeared behind the changeling king in an instant. He attempted to swing his arm around and strike her quickly, but she caught his arm mere inches from her face. She stared at his helpless form for afew moments before clutching his throat faster than he could blink. She squeezed his asphyxiated throat for a few seconds, relishing his choking sounds ad decided to go for another game of changeling volleyball.
After a few quick juggling blows, the fusion fighter let him hit the ground. He got up slowly and shakily, not believing the beating he was taking. If not for this armor, he was sure he would have been killed already. He still hadn't figured out what that damn ticking noise was, but it mattered little.
"You've heard of cherry bombs, yes?" She suddenly asked him.
He looked at her in confusion, not at all knowing where she was going with this. She brought her hand up, turning it upside down and charging some kind of energy attack red in color. The power that little orb of energy was giving off was off the scale; the power was causing even her incredibly strong hand to shake a bit.
"Consider this an upgrade to that. It's a specialty recipe of mine. I call it..."
She reared back as if pitching for a baseball team wanting to get a strike out. As she released the attack towards him, she shouted out it's name with vigor.
"...an Apple Bomb!"
That power was unmeasurable; Sapphic had to move, and move now. He got to his feet and started to sprint for his life before taking to the sky just as the attack would've struck him. The explosion was huge, and encompassed the entire city center in an apple-shaped mass of red energy. The shockwaves alone were enough to level every building that was left standing in the royal city except for the castle.
Sapphic tumbled and only barely managed to stop himself after he'd been flung a mile or two into the sky. He looked down, and saw her incoming, as she buried her fist in his jaw, effectively paralyzing him for a few moments. She brought every single punch down on him like a sledgehammer jacked up on caffeine.
The armor integrity was failing, and that ticking seemed to have sped up, Sapphic noticed.
Appleten grabbed the tyrant by the collar of his nearly destroyed armor as he hung from her grasp in helpless pain. This really was the end for him, wasn't it? He had no way of keeping up with her speed, her strength was unchartable, and her ki was near limitless. She hadn't even been trying and Sapphic was already knocking on death's door. Once more, he saw that familiar shadow pass in the corner of his eye and that same chill travel all throughout his body, or at least what he could feel of it.
Appleten decided it was time to finish this, and end the evil king's life once and for all. She looked down at the steel breastplate she held I her powerful hands.
"Steel, huh?" She asked. "Well, steel armor; meet my titanium grip!"
She tore the breastplate apart right down the middle with a horrible rending sound that could scrap eardrums. The sound that accompanied the steel tearing in half was strange; it sounded as if springs and beams had snapped and broke loose; then...the wet and sickening sound of flesh being gashed deeply.
Neither fighter even twitched for a moment, and then Appleten coughed; blood flying out of her mouth and coating her lower jaw as she and Sapphic both looked down at the wound that had caused the fusion fighter to do such a thing.
The armor was wide open, and several sharp metal rods had busted loose from what looked like hidden spring loaded flaps inside the armor; six in total. Four of the near blade-like rods were now stabbed deeply into Appleten's stomach; blood oozing out in large torrents with every cough and twitch she gave.
Her Super Saiyan transformation started to waver a bit as she coughed and sputtered more and more frequently, staring in shock and disbelief at what had just happened to her.
Sapphic looked just as shocked by the sight. he armor smith pony had planted this trap. That's what all the ticking was; it must have been a timer for the rods to spring forth and impale him from within his own protection. He would make that stallion pay.
He looked into the pain-laden and gasping and coughing face of the anthro that somehow still had a hold on his armor folds. Maybe he would make the stallions death quick; afterall, the thing he had intended to kill the changeling king had ended up possibly saving him.
"Titanium, huh?" He finally scoffed. "Looks more like aluminum to me!"
He cackled as he grabbed a few of the rods buried in her flesh and began to pull them apart; ripping her already torn abdominal flesh asunder even further. She screamed out in agony, unable to move to stop him from the pain in her gut. As he spread the rods nearly as far as they could go, a few strands of her intestinal tract lopped out and dragged more of her guts out with the weight; the horrific sight only made the opportunistic tyrant laugh harder, now certain of his victory.
Appleten finally let go of the remnants of the armor and Sapphic slipped out of it as it fell the ground miles below. He watched it fall awhile before turning his now predator like emerald eyes back on his grievously wounded opponent. She was holding whatever guts she had left inside her now wide open abs and could only stare in raspy gasping shock at the sections of the long digestive organ that hung out of her like grisly banners.
This was his chance. She had all that power, but now she was near-death, and his chances to win just went up dramatically, and he was going to be damned if he let it slip by him.
He raised his hand in aggression and let loose a mighty blast of ki with a howling laugh.