Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Other, Romance, Fluttershy, Adventure, Tempest Shadow, Sphinx, Violence
Length: 1157773

We crash landed on a goddess. Welcome to Airship Mauled, where everything could possibly be worse.

We crash landed on a goddess.

Welcome to Airship Mauled, where everything could possibly be worse.

Published 2018-03-31 21:10:07 UTC
Last updated 2020-07-10 04:24:30 UTC

Prolonged Prologue: Stuff you didn't need to know.

“Mom, I’m slipping, could you maybe hurry it up with the saving my life here!” My claws were losing grip on the splintering wood of the deck, below me was nothing but solid ground and a fall from this height would either kill me or break my legs.

“Hold on, hold on, you know you can’t rush magical alchemy Jade.” Calmly stated my aggravating mother Kuril, the somewhat friendly white and grey cat lady that gave birth to me. She was being way too calm about how everyone, but the two of us at least, were grievously injured or worse. She was crouched up on the very back end of the ship searching through her large brown over the shoulder bag.

“Well do something, this cheap wood is coming apart under my claws and if I fall right now then I’m good as dead!” Sure I was panicking a little, I had all my claws, both feet and hands stuck into the deck and was slowly beginning to slide down towards the front end of the vessel pointing at the ground. “What kind of mother are you if I die!?”

“Grip tighter then, I thought you were classing as a rogue. Why don’t you ever LARP like it? I mean rogues are supposed to be agile and can do stuff like climb walls and other incredible feats of acrobatics.” My mother continued to search her bag while not looking at me. “You are a Abyssinian, so wouldn’t acrobatics be part of our racial talents?”

“I’m technically more of a priest of the sun at the moment than a true rogue and of course you know that. Also wouldn’t racial talents differ by varying species of Abyssinian? I’m technically a genetic half pony mutt if the neighbors were right about how you got pregnant with me.” Yeah my one unique ability would only make this situation worse unless I was able to aim it correctly at the only thing slowing our fall down and maybe give us more lift instead of getting us killed faster. “Look, why don’t you use an alchemy cast to trade places with me and see how well you take to holding on for your life!”

“I’ll do you one better… for here I have a raven’s feather!” My mother pulled out a black colored feather, I often wondered why she thought witches needed to rhyme. I knew she was going to do this cast with a rhyme, even when it wasn’t necessary and it would take up precious time in saving my life. “Portents of the darkening last breath, let this feather help me save my precious daughter from death!”

The flash signified the destruction of the feather and the magical spell created from that destruction immediately covered my form for a second before fading.

“That didn’t seem to…” It was at that point that the chunks of wood, of which I walked on days prior to the rainbow colored sonic boom that destroyed two of the three balloons to the airship we were on, broke. I was soon falling at terminal velocity. “Heeeeeeeelp~!”

“…” Kuril didn’t say much and just watched me with worry in her eyes, which is until as my fall suddenly slowed down and then I found myself miraculously falling sideways. There was a relieved look on her face and I glared at her hard as I quickly fell away from her in a different direction, I also flexed what would count as my two middle digits out at her.

If I was right I was quickly falling… to the north. What kind of alchemy effect did that Raven’s feather have on me? Was this another one of mom’s untested castings? Please don’t let me die before I get a chance to strangle my mother over this.

-

“Well… that was unexpected… and quite rude of my daughter no less.” Kuril said slowly as she had lazily watched her daughter’s momentum changed from down to abruptly sideways. She pulled out another raven’s feather and thought about whether or not she should use it on herself after what happened to Jade. “What would happen… if I used it on the ship?”

Well it wasn’t like Kuril cared if the ship survived. If it did land intact, then she could probably find her money more easily and get it back from paying for this suddenly ruined voyage. To think that exploding rainbow had been so pretty up until it upended almost everyone overboard.

-

I crossed my arms and sighed as I kept falling sideways and downwards, then I came to an abrupt stop and fell right on top of someone else. Someone I already knew very well that was just getting her cutie mark right around now.

“I, love, everythi…” Fluttershy was cut off by me bodily landing on top of her from twenty feet up, the animals all around her scattered in fright at the sudden interruption.

I quickly got off the poor filly and looked at her to see if she was okay, please tell me mom and I didn’t accidentally kill one of the heroes. I don’t think I’d be a very good replacement for her, please oh great sun that gave me the power of that one ridiculous ability. I needed a sign to know that I didn’t just kill one of the most innocent characters ever!

Her flank flashed and she received her cutie mark, three butterflies like it was supposed to be. At least there was an acknowledgment that she was still alive and my mother’s spell hadn’t traded my life for another. I looked around and smiled sheepishly at all the animals staring at me.

“Sorry about that, I’ll just be taking her. Don’t worry, I’ll get her healed up so she can come back to finish doing her singing princess routine.” The animals just watched as I scooped up the unconscious teenaged filly into a fireman’s carry and started to slowly walk away. “You’ll see her again, I promise! Just don’t let nature take its course until then. You guys wouldn’t want to make a liar out of me right?”

One of the rabbits nodded that he wouldn’t, that had to be Angel who was giving me the rabbit version of a thumbs up.

Now if only I knew which way I was… a loud crashing noise in the distance, followed with a horribly loud pained feminine screeching noise, scattering of birds in the distance and of course a large plume of smoke even when the airship hadn’t been on fire when it was crashing.

That way then, I just hope that scream wasn’t mom as that would be a horribly RPG thing to do to me in arriving in these land alone... and freshly orphaned. She’s catty at times, but she’s still my mother in this world.

The smoke was the least logical thing about this, but it helped choose a direction. I better paw it then before the animals get rowdy about me carrying off the rather adorable pony. I also wanted to get to the airship before night fell, because my mom would be in danger without me being there to use my specially ability if she was alright.

-

Okay, this was not the sight I expected to walk into. I mean I expected my mother to be hurt, instead I find the airship had miraculously landed right side up and ‘mostly’ intact no less and my mother in one piece and not groaning in agony.

“Well, you got here in a timely manner.” I watched as mom snuffed the smoke coming off of her hand with but a flick of her wrist. “Apparently the sustained effect of using sunlight as an alchemy ingredient is to cause smoke as if something was burning.”

“You used that cast on me untested didn’t you?” There was a bit of guilt on moms face as she looked away.

“Yes, but I did know some of what it would do. Flight from death was the most obvious outcome, instead it seems that using a raven’s feather in a cast form of usage is to make the target land on someone safely.” She pointed at the large near burgundy paw sticking out from under the boat. “Incidentally I might have broken her spine by accident.”

“I’m okay… and nothing is broken… I’m just in a lot of pain.” Muttered a voice from under the boat. It belonged to a particular Sphinx that tricked Somnambula into freeing her from having to be stuck guarding a temple or at least that's what I believed anyway.

“Well that’s a lot off my… where did you get that filly?” The only response that I could dignify my mother with was a glare at her. “Oh right… the cast usage of the raven feather. The effect must be landed on someone safely, right then. What shall we do now?”

“Should I do the thing?” I wondered if we even had enough fish for the poor Sphinx my mom made the airship crash land on top of, we really needed a peace offering for when she eventually got out from under there.

“Yes, you should probably do the thing.” My mother smiled at me quaintly as she got up, walked over to me and brought me into a tight hug. “I’m sorry I made you land on someone sweetie. I may not be a medic, but the filly looks perfectly fine at least.”

“I’m going to riddle you with riddles when I get out from under here…” The suddenly struggling and angry form beneath the crashed airship groused out.

“Should we be worried about that?” Mom asked me in while pointing her thumb over her shoulder at the squashed Sphinx.

“No, she’ll be fine, she’s not evil at all and I’m sure she’ll be willing to talk to us after you dropped an airship on her skull.” Sarcasm aside, I always thought that there was something about the Sphinx that Somnambula met and I was hopefully not wrong about my supposition. I was going to need to confirm it sometime after she finished getting out from under our damaged and pretty broken airship.

“Well now, I really guess I should apologize for that as it was my magic that made it happen. I’m also sorry for doing an untested cast on you my lovely, graciously forgiving and loving daughter.” Pausing mom pulled away from me and dusted off her whitish robes before sitting down to pull out yet another raven’s feather, an ink pot and a small journal. Having recently eaten proverbial crow, she had plenty of feathers to spare in her alchemy bag. Said bag needed sorting pouches for the ease of acquiring magical alchemy supplies quickly. She dipped the feather into the pot and I watched as she started writing down what she learned from using two feathers. She spoke out loud as she did with her tail flicking back and forth excitedly. “A raven’s feather when used in the cast form of magical alchemy has the unusual effects of causing one to safely land on a nearby living being without injury or damage to the target the cast is used upon. The living being, which the target of the cast landed on, might not be so forgiving. Will test if cast still works on object that is not already falling, if so, might be able to direct object magically in the form of an offensive alchemic spell to land on aggressive problems. Note: discover sustained magical alchemy effects of what raven feathers are.”

“Seriously mom…” I groaned out, did she need to talk out loud while writing? I sat down in the grass in the clearing looking over at the Sphinx slowly pulling herself free from the mass on her back.

“Yes, seriously Jade. You’re my daughter and you might inherit some of my legacy someday… that or my grandchildren will inherit the La Perm family tradition of the magical Abyssinian witches.” I gave her a look that said that that will never happen, especially not now that there aren’t any Abyssinians around to possibly date. Probably wouldn’t stop mom from pestering me about getting a boyfriend… or a girlfriend which is more likely at this rate concerning my past life having colored this one. “Now do your thing dear and I’ll just step away to about ten feet and test the sustained effect of this raven feather.”

“You mean the same raven feather that now has the additive of ink?” I just had to point that out in case Kuril forgot that magical alchemy does have additive effects depending on how many objects are used together in conjunction. The ink would certainly throw off her mission to accurately learn all she could about alchemy, it wouldn’t do for her to have a horrible misfire. “Mom, I’ve told you several times to be careful about magical alchemy and how it worked from my past life.”

“Yes, but what did you know about it working here exactly? It worked and now I’m the expert in the field of continuing to make it work.” She wasn’t wrong there, but mom’s experimenting was dangerous and I worried about the crazy cat lady when she was testing new objects with this form of magic. “Aside from cooking, you know I’ve always wanted to do magic and didn’t we decide to bring it up to Celestia when we got a chance to go to Canterlot?”

“You mean if we can get to Canterlot alive at this rate. Judging by the map I had on me before the ship sent everyone else falling, we were still flying north along the coast towards Manehatten before we were slammed with the sonic rainbow blast and turned more westward.” I pulled the map from my pocket, I was wearing yellow shorts, panties and a simple green shirt. I wasn’t one for extravagance or dresses, I will absolutely destroy any dress Rarity tries to put on me should we meet by using it in a magical alchemy cast. I won’t care what happens when I do.

“At this time Cloudsdale should be floating directly south of Ponyville and we crash landed… further south and more to the west of that." I wasn’t exactly good at judging where we were. "We'll need to go east to find the train tracks or shore so we can follow either of them to civilization.”

We had fallen pretty far inland, but I’d think we’re in a forest in the vast expanse somewhere between Appleoosa and Ponyville. Cloudsdale tended to revolve around Ponyville and depending on the time of year it was always in a different spot, it’s why it’s called the ‘drifty city’. I could see it from here and get my bearings.

“Sounds like a plan, but I think we have bigger problems to worry about.” It seems the Sphinx the airship crash landed on was now out and angry at us. I still hadn’t done my thing yet and I wasn’t worried about the upcoming fight.

We still had to get my stuff from the airship, but both I and mom could handle a mystically all powerful Sphinx of legend. Maybe…

Prolonged Prologue: Stuff you won't need to know.

Okay let’s see, angry Sphinx approaches. Unconscious party member Fluttershy I just left on the grass unable to act in her own defense, I was unfortunately closer to the Sphinx and I still hadn’t done my thing yet because I’ve been continually interrupted. Mom, was… what mom was doing with that inky feather and why was she posing like that.

“Look if you act like a foul creature, and by that I mean if you attack us, I shall bash you over the head with the power of this feather!” As far as threats go that sounded lame if you didn’t take into account that the feather was still partially covered in ink.

I didn’t have an inkling as to what a cast magical alchemy spell with that additive would do. To be fair it was quite threatening to me if the spell couldn’t be aimed properly and I was suddenly hit with whatever mom targeted.

-

Magical alchemy came in two different flavors, casting and sustained. Various body parts, objects and other things always had various differing effects depending on the shape, color or origin of said objects, parts or otherwise. There were of course rules to magical alchemy and we were blindly stumbling upon them all the time.

Casting magical alchemy tended to destroy the object used in the cast, usually for a powerful magical spell of various effects. You could not use something that was living or still attached to the living in a casting. In example, I couldn’t use unicorn hair to do whatever that hair would do if it was still attached to the unicorn in question.

One example of casting is that fish bones gave one the ability to breathe underwater, like a fish, with the bones being the essence of an aquatic creature that made complete sense. If you were to cast multiple times with the same kind of object in a very short period of time, like say fifty times within a few hours, the temporary effect could actually become permanent.

This is why I told my mom that if she ever used a cast with an axe as her object, she better not cast with another axe if it was a spell that caused one to become a violently powerful berserker.

Magical alchemy could be dangerous to the user, what wasn’t dangerous was the fact that we were two proud aquatic capable Abyssinians. Sure we didn’t ‘technically’ have more than permanent water breathing or protection from being crushed by deep depths, but we were completely safe from drowning at the very least.

I made it a rule that temporary beneficial effects that alter emotions or appearance should never be used in quick succession more than two times, then you should at least wait a day or two so the magical effects didn’t cause permanent issues and to be sure they dissipated correctly. For a temporary effect to become permanent, it requires a certain number of active uses in a row. The effect of one use, no matter how much was used in that one use, could never be, thankfully enough, permanent.

A hand full of fish scales for instance causes ones fur to become more scale like and armored, it wasn’t armored like a dragon and the scales were far more protective in water than out of it. I was not going to walk around for the rest of my life looking like a cat fish and my mother agreed with the rule to watch what we did with our alchemy ingredients when we discovered their effects.

Also I banned any testing of catnip as an alchemy ingredient, I certainly didn’t want to know what it did as a cast or sustained. My mom only acquiesced after I implied what catnip might do to the both of us, especially if euphoria became a permanent effect from multiple casts and we couldn't stop ourselves.

It was an important thing for us to remember that while most fish bones might give you the ability of water breathing, other different kinds of fish bones might yield you far more different unexpected effects.

Sustained magical alchemy was different from casting. Instead of destroying the object for a powerful spell, a different more passive effect occurred that mostly only worked on the user and sometimes the effect would sustain itself without needing to use concentration.

An example of this is aside from glowing brightly, the fish bones sustained main effect made you more agile in water and capable of handling deeper depths more easily. It wasn’t technically permanent, if you didn’t concentrate on keeping the effect going or the bone were removed from your possession you’ll lose the effect immediately. Lose the thing keeping that effect going two thousand feet below sea level and you’d be mulched, the glowing was a self sustaining effect that didn't require concentration.

I had a simple glow in the dark fish bone necklace I could use if I ever had to go deep sea diving. I knew how to use the sustained effect of the fish bones and it wasn’t hard to concentrate on them to keep using said effect.

Fish scales had an odd sustained effect that neither I nor my mother quite understood, why fish scales gave you the sustained effect of being able to spit blasts of water from your mouth was something we've never been able to figure out. Said blasts came from our bodily fluids and we’d need to rehydrate after ten shots out of water. It was interesting and might prove somewhat useful against dragons, so we always had some fish scale necklace on us for sustained usage only.

Only one sustained effect could be held at any given time unless the effect was self sustaining and they can't become permanent like a cast effect. I was currently wearing a pretty fish scale necklace at the time. You could cast as much as you have the ingredients to cast with. The matter is not destroyed, it is however repurposed and even repurposed the essence used in a cast eventually returns to the planet and the magical nature of this world.

Now you understand how magical alchemy works, for the most part anyway. It’s not an exact science… yet.

My sun given ability was not magical alchemy, but it almost looked like it if I decided to make a show of it and pretended it was magical alchemy.

-

“Well hello to you too.” The unnamed Sphinx said in a sickly sweet voice. I knew what was coming, but mom didn’t. “I seriously don’t think a feather is going to save you from being my next meal.”

“Wouldn’t it be cannibalism if you ate us? We’re cats like you. By the way, hi I’m Jade La Perm and this is my mother Kurilian La Perm or just Kuril to friends. We aren’t looking for a fight here, but we will defend ourselves if we have to.” I pointed out to the one seriously threatening her with a feather and it wasn’t an empty one by any stretch of the imagination, plus my dagger was still in the ship behind the intimidating Sphinx. Said dagger had a nice magical alchemy sustained effect to it too, unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to get to it before we were all violently ripped to shreds. That included Fluttershy who had nothing to do with this at all, which was a big 'oops' if I let that occur. “Said mother who owes you a bit of an apology for redirecting an airship into hitting your body at a pretty good velocity…”

I stalled my words as I waited for the aggressive giant magical cat with wings to give me her name, this was in the hopes of forging a peaceful outcome.

“I am Sekhet Sphinx lowly mortal, I have lived for quite a long time and I doubt you’re wise to pick a fight with the likes of me.” Her name was Sekhet, well crap, if I remember history that meant she was a warrior goddess with incredible healing abilities. It explains why her spine isn’t broken from the weight of a galleon sized airship smashing into her back. “However I must still follow the guidelines of all sphinxes and give you a riddle, if you get it correct then you can explain yourselves and apologize to me. If you get it wrong, then we will fight and should you win the battle I might actually owe you a boon. Most people don’t survive longer than three minutes, most of which is spent running from me.”

Okay what were the several titles of Sekhet again?

‘The one who is powerful’, being the meaning of her name and not a title. She’s a freaking Sphinx, so of course she is powerful.

‘One before whom evil trembles’. Not applicable here… or is it? We did kind of trespass an evil upon her by accident, dung beetles, this was quite bad. I’m going to blame Rainbow Dash for this and some of it on my mother.

‘Mistress of Dread’. I was certainly dreading what she’ll soon do to us.

‘She who mauls’. That was the very description of what a sphinx this size can do.

“Mom, don’t antagonize her, we will not win a fight with a physical goddess who has the title of She Who Mauls.” The Sphinx smiled and puffed up looking proud that I knew who she was just by name and title. “She can heal from all wounds with time, she is after all a warrior goddess in the same vein that Celestia is goddess of the sun.”

“Yeah, that… that’s pretty bad for us.” Kuril agreed immediately as we looked up at the grinning sharp toothed visage of the Egyptian goddess of ‘honorable’ slaughter. I’m getting the idea that she didn’t kill off all those ponies back in the past because they weren’t a threat to her at the very least and it wouldn’t have been very honorable to murder them. “So what is this riddle you want us to answer?”

“Also why couldn’t we have landed on Bastet, she’d have been a much friendlier Sphinx to meet.” Not that I hated Sekhet, but Bastet was a goddess of protection and cats, sometimes she was also the goddess of fertility. I got the feeling that Bastet was a large friendly Sphinx in this world and Sekhet confirmed my suspicions.

“You know of my loving sister? Bah, I haven’t seen her since she was tasked with guarding an ancient pyramid. Unlike her, the temple of the kingdom I was saddled with is still surprisingly above ground.” She sounded angry and her eyes narrowed upon me, Sekhet was also goddess of rage on top of the healing and being a warrior. “Still, it’s interesting that you know of her. As the legends of her existence has died off, she should still be guarding it to this day. It is a riddle I will pursue after you answer this one… no... make that two riddles. You inconvenienced my hunt for food by landing on me, as such I will require you to answer two.”

At her size and given how healthy she looks to be, I don’t think she’s lost her warriors edge at all and as such she was quite dangerous even if she didn’t use her magical prowess to render the three of us into puddles of flesh, blood and bone. I haven’t forgotten about Fluttershy, like mom hadn’t forgotten to keep her journal open until the ink dries.

“So be it, tell us the first riddle. We are waiting on you oh mighty Sekhet.” I bowed before Sehket Sphinx on my knees with my head to the ground and my palms touching the dirt. I slowly got back to my feet and looked at her surprised eyes. The surprise did not last long, but it had been there.

“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard and cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, ends life and kills laughter.” Her voice was really quite nice to hear, if she wasn’t seriously threatening to end our lives over something we only vaguely had some control over. “What am I?”

“Wow, you were really going easy on Somnambula back then weren’t you?” There was that curious look again, but Sekhet didn’t say anything about my comment. I looked to mom to see if she any idea what the answer to the riddle was, she shook her head no. If it cannot be seen, like a… that’s it! “The answer is, you are the dark or darkness itself.”

“Correct.” It was all Sekhet said as she continued to give me several funny looks. There was a long pause as she considered her next riddle. “This is not my riddle, but what occupations do you have? I find myself intrigued as to why you two are here in this land, so far from home.”

“I am a burgeoning witch and I used to run a restaurant, should we survive you… I wouldn’t mind sharing a meal if you can find enough for me to cook.” Turning from my mom’s answer to look at me, I gave the Sphinx a dubious look and a smirk.

Mom had the right idea to bribe the goddess with something she doesn’t get very often, a home cooked delicious meal made by the amazing Kurilian La Perm. Maybe an offer of friendship wouldn’t be amiss either given this is Equestria. It has probably been a long time since the goddess has spoke to anyone really.

“I am a rogue sun priest, I think the sun gifted me with one unique ability because it likes me.” That had the mighty Sekhet even more flummoxed than before when I had bowed to her.

“Really now… I hope to see what you make and as for you… your… interesting.” I now had a goddess interested in me, I certainly would have felt special if she wasn’t threatening to kill us if we failed her riddle. “Here’s my second riddle. Say my name and I disappear, what am I?”

Okay, that… that was actually a tough one because of how short it was and didn’t give me much to work with. The order in which she told the riddles meant she was less upset to get bodied by an airship and was more upset about not being able to catch her prey. However my mom broke me out of my thought processes by yelling a single word.

“Silence!” My mother shouted with a firm smile on her face and I just stared at her, why did she… oh. That was the answer.

The Sphinx frowned and growled at us a bit, but she didn’t attack she instead sat down before us and her large tail curled around her left side.

“If I provide the food, will you cook a meal for all?” I noticed that Sekhet was looking at the unconscious filly on the ground with what I considered to be a friendly smile. “I will not ask you to eat anything that can talk back. For I will provide both plant and fish, if you can make me a tasty dish. Then we will talk about how you came to be, especially with the boat that landed upon me.”

Oh great, now I was dealing with two people that liked to rhyme.

Author's Note

Bastet and Sekhet, the goddess sphinxes of life and death.

In a similar vein to Celestia and Luna's sun and moon.

Prolonged Prologue: Stuff you shouldn't need to know.

“Jade, here’s your knife.” My mom had finally found my knife, but she was already in the midst of cooking the meal.

Mom was using the plates, bowls and other pots and pans that hadn’t been too badly damaged by the crash, the galley like everywhere below deck had been empty of people. She gave it to me and a tray covered in fish.

“Let me guess, I got fishing duty.” I said dryly, mom always made me work with the fish. “What do you want off to the side to play with this time?”

“I also want you to chop up the carrots and keep the tops. If the so far unnamed friend there wants to help, then she may. Oh and leave the guts off to the side dear, I’m using everything else.” After saying that my mother kneeled in front of a shy looking Fluttershy and squeezed on her cheeks making her squeak adorably. “Things will be alright sweetie, you’ll see. Do you want to help me cook?”

“Um… yes… I would like to help if you don’t mind.” Fluttershy soon found herself in a crushing hug and I found myself getting jealous that mom was snuggling her. After that mom started telling her what to do. “And… sorry for not telling you two, but… my name is Fluttershy.”

“I swear you’re treating her better than you ever did me.” A bushel of carrots was tossed on to my tray expertly by the deft hands of the witch I called mom, my knife was a simple short blade and the sheath was just as simple. I sat down on the log by the fire with the tray on my lap and pulled my knife from the sheath to begin working, but first I utilized the sustain ability my knife gave me. “At least I won’t complain about the portions I receive, your cooking is the best magic that the world has ever had.”

“I’m not treating her better, she’s just cuter.” My mother preened at the praise as she came over to me and gave me an affectionate pat on the head. “You never did have a cute phase my little tom cat, the only thing feminine about you is your long hair. I swear, when you find a lover, you better be the one to get your partner pregnant. Even if your partner turns out to be male, as a witch’s daughter they should be the one getting pregnant and carrying my grandchildren. Goodness knows no one would survive you if you were the one to be carrying.”

“I’ll just get to work mom.” I grunted sourly. The sustain ability of the knife was simple. I was a tom boy and a lay about, but the knife improved my dexterity and made me alert to my surroundings. Not to mention the longer I used it the more exercise I got, so it was good for getting me active. I unfortunately couldn’t sleep a wink while using it as my sustain effect and the self-sustaining effect of giving me plenty of exercise helped quite a bit, thank goodness it was a sustain effect instead of a cast. I can’t imagine being permanently unable to sleep without feeling aware of my surroundings constantly.

I wondered what a cast would do with a knife, never tested it before and I don’t want to if it was something that could hurt someone. As long as it was close to me I could do acrobatics with the best of them, had I brought my knife on deck I wouldn’t have fallen off the air ship. The sustain effect helped immensely with muscle memory so I knew how to wield the knife like a sailor, my home town of Palicoast had plenty of salty sea cats to learn from.

It made sense that the knife made me dexterous and alert, as the essence of a knife was the weapon of a thief, bandit or a lazy fish scaler like me. I wanted to class as a rogue and a knife was one of the things that helped train my muscles and skills, the more I used it the better I got without needing the sustain effect.

The knife sheath had a sustain effect that protected me from being cut by small weapons, the cast for the previous few sheaths I owned had the dubious effect of trapping one thing for a limited time. I’m quite sure a sheath of similar make will always do the same thing, bigger sheaths probably lasted longer. Said limited time doesn’t care how powerful you were, given I stopped a whale shark completely in its tracks for the same amount of time I stopped a little guppy. Long story.

I had sat the sheath off to the side of the log as I got to work with the stuff on my tray.

Three swipes of the knife and on fish completely missing its scales and the guts were spilling out. I dumped the scale on the ground and pushed the guts off to the side. I placed a carrot before me and carefully chopped it, saving the top of the carrot as asked. I couldn’t cook like mom could, but I could help prepare well enough.

After I finished chopping the carrots and fish filets, I shoved the carrots into the pot of slowly heating water and looked to mom as to what to do with the filets and guts.

“Throw four filets in for flavor, I’m grilling and spicing the rest. If everything in the galley wasn’t covered in wood we’d be having problems with food right about now.” Turning from me as I set about my duty mom addressed Fluttershy. “Are you alright with fish dear? I know that not all Pegasi eat fish and I wouldn’t want to upset you, Sekhet did say make a meal for everyone and pony fair will be on the menu. Speaking of, can you pass me those metal bars and some of those vegetables? I’m making vegetable skewers.”

“I’m okay with fish, though I don’t like the idea of eating something that was alive… then again plants are alive and I eat those…” Fluttershy started to cover her face with her mane and she gathered the various vegetables shyly. “I guess I’m not entirely upset about it, though please don’t ask me to eat anything more intelligent.”

“I would never, I’m asking so that I know how much to make and I’m going to be making a lot because of Sekhet. I need to know if you wanted any before we start serving her, it’s so I can save some off to the side for you.” I can see my mother shivering at the idea of Sekhet being displeased with us. “She’s going to get a large portion of what we’re making, she wasn’t exactly happy about me magically redirecting a crashing airship onto her skull. Can you tell me more about that daughter of mine? You seem to know quite a bit about her.”

“She’s Sekhet, a sphinx goddess of righteous rage, war and healing apparently. If she fights, which is invoked when you are considered evil, issuing a challenge or have crossed her enough to qualify for a battle where she issues you the challenge, then the chances of surviving her are very slim if she considers it a battle to the death. Unless you set the terms of victory to explicitly exclude her from killing you. If you didn’t issue the challenge, as a sphinx, she has to ask you a riddle if she wants to pursue a form of justice against you. She wouldn’t have left us alone if we didn’t answer her and we would have been seen as guilty if we tried to avoid her, even if said injury has already healed completely. The guiltier we become in her eyes, the more she can act against us.” I was quite calm while explaining this. I continued to slice and gut fish and chop carrots, I wasn’t sugar coating this for the whimpering Fluttershy and I knew the pony wouldn’t upset Sekhet. I think Sekhet would never ask someone innocent a riddle unless she wanted to help them. “If you are considered evil or happen to turn evil in her presence, then she will just attack you outright without setting the terms for victory. Depending on how she feels about the situation she will either try to return you to your senses or more than likely attempt to kill you outright, you’re actually lucky if you’re possessed by something because she’ll only actually attack the malignant spirit to save you. She must knowingly inform you of the consequences of getting a riddle wrong should you decide to take the riddle, we didn’t cross her well enough and she is curious as to why dropping a ship on her head didn’t let her immediately end us as per the rules she follows.”

It was our asses that were on the line and I was well aware Sekhet wasn’t just testing my mom’s cooking skills. It was Sekhet that had been out on a hunt and was just in generally enjoying a quiet life, mom was the one that actually perpetrated an evil upon her by accident and I was not as in danger as she was. Despite a thousand years passing Sekhet’s purple Nemes headdress, Usekh necklace and earrings looked perfectly fine so she was definitely a healthy and magically active goddess. I was mixing my knowledge of Sphinxes and Sekhet together for this, as such I believed this meal for everyone was a test of my mother’s character as much as mine.

“So yes, she’s quite dangerous if you upset her enough for her to want to mash you into the ground. Beating her would be a long shot even with our magical talents mom and provided that she didn’t use hers as a handicap. Her sister is apparently Bastet a goddess of life, protection and cats, sometimes fertility and she is also just as dangerous in her own ways if crossed or wronged.” I was going to continue my little campfire lore telling as I started up my fourth tray of fish and some other vegetables this time. “Upsetting Bastet would technically be worse as Sekhet will not hurt the weak or already infirmed and if you were either she would technically be honor bound to make you strong again so that you can be worthy of fighting for your life against her. We technically don’t count as weak or infirmed, mom proved her strength by redirecting the galleon and I proved it through my knowledge of the goddess herself. Neither of us is sick. I think the war goddess is misunderstood personally, she can actually be friendly and might even tell riddles if she wants to be helpful beyond a normal sense. She brought this food for us in trade for a meal after all and didn’t complain about it as she was getting a fair trade in return.”

“Why should I complain? The company here is quite well informed of who I am by now Priest Jade.” That was Sekhet stomping her way up to the campsite and through the protective effects as if they didn’t exist, if she wanted to kill me she might be able to do it despite the side effect of my sun priest ability protecting me and those I wish to be protected. “You’ve have my attention, you might just be very unlucky for that…”

After that was said, Sekhet held out her left wing and placed a slightly confused, if injured, pony upon the ground. Sekhet then moved to quietly sit by the campfire and stared at the burning flickering fire with something approaching intrigue and as for the food my mother was working on, she looked upon it with complete awe.

Okay things just got a little more complex for the future if that was really the teenaged Fizzle Pop Berry Twist that Sekhet had just dropped off or as she might be known as in the future, Tempest Shadow. I could avert her fate and maybe even restore her horn through magical alchemy… Celestia had a phoenix right? I had a magical alchemy idea to help her, but I would need to earn her trust.

“I hope you don’t mind if I help you, I’m Jade La Perm.” I passed the tray to Fluttershy and mom watched as I went to the blanket that we used to wrap up the unconscious Fluttershy and I dipped some of it into the fresh water and made my way over to Fizzle.

“I don’t really need your…” Fizzle started dryly and seemed upset at my approach, but I began to clean her wound with the wet portion of the blanket and she hissed before sending a glare my way. She started to light her broken horn… “Get away from…”

“Silence brave one… let her do her job...” The giant claw attached to the equally giant paw of Sekhet touched the glowing broken portion of Fizzle’s horn and it ceased working immediately. That scared Fizzle quite a lot and she didn’t say anything about it.

I ignored this interaction and pulled out my knife, which made Fizzle’s eyes widen in my direction as I slashed away the wet blood covered portion of blanket used to wipe her gash clean. I worked the remaining dry portions of the blanket around her barrel and tied it off tightly.

“We’re going to need to change this out tomorrow, but for right now a blanket tourniquet works just as well until we can find a medical kit in the wreckage to sew that wound up.” Despite the suspicious look I was getting, I gave her a kind smile and gently rubbed her behind one her ears. She continued to give me an aggravated stare after that. “Don’t worry, you’re in good paws… if you give us enough time we can do more than just heal that wound in your side. We might be able to fix that poor horn of yours as well.”

Fizzle gave me a disbelieving stare. Given how long she’s been without a fully working horn, it was to be expected. Fixing the broken horn would be easy or hard depending on what ingredients we needed to perform a magical alchemy to do so, thus the qualifier might. I was thinking phoenix feathers or phoenix tears, both if possible. There were other options like a small hydra’s head or hydra skin, at least something that could regenerate lost limbs would work just as well.

“That’ll be quite an interesting feat to see… I’ll be sticking around for that reason alone.” I did not appreciate Sekhet's words or her looking at me as if I were her personal toy to play with. The flicking tail and creepy smile didn’t help my mood much either, there was a certain beauty to her threatening appearance though.

“If you could, you’d be the first.” Fizzle muttered with resentment and looked away from me as I went back to helping mom finish preparing the meal as the night got darker.

In fact, Tempest didn’t say anything else as we started in on our meals. I and mom told the goddess of what happened to us. I afterwards decided to ask Sekhet about the true history of what happened between her and Somnambula, maybe what riddle she gave Tempest, if she did in fact give her one.

Author's Note

New Magical Alchemy Discovered.

Magical Alchemy List.

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used without needing the sustain effect.

Prolonged Prologue: Stuff I wish I could forget.

The meal was quite delicious, mom could really cook even when she was using slap dash equipment. The two ponies were eating quietly and I noticed that Tempest was trying not to look at any of us, especially not Sekhet who brought her to us.

“So… since you obviously have nothing against us anymore, there’s something I wanted to know about.” Yep, ancient history was something of an interest to me given I didn’t know much of this world, excepting for the fact that myths and legends were more real here. Well, aside from specific already possibly ruined events because of my interference.

The large sphinx swallowed her mouthful and looked at me in a lazy manner.

“If you are looking for permission, then you have it.” Sekhet dove her face back into the food, she was a one hungry lady and she looked pleased with the food, and that mom thought ahead with her larger portions.

“I just want to confirm something really. A little more than a thousand years ago the temple you were guarding as the last remaining member of a fallen kingdom was attacked by ponies. Ponies of whom you were bullying into giving you food in the hopes of achieving a specific outcome.” I paused to make sure everyone knew how old the being eating with us was. “Following that attack and your defeat of a massive army, without any reported casualties mind you, you captured the prince and held him captive in the temple. I heard that you didn’t even harm him even after you roughed up his people. So getting to the point and what I want to know is, did you set all of that up to happen the way it did so someone would eventually come and free you from your job?”

“…. you are well informed. Yes, that did happen. I may be a warrior and I may have a ceaseless rage at times, but that doesn’t mean I lose my mind when I’m angry. An intelligent and thinking being can do so much worse than a mindless animal controlled by their anger.” Sekhet’s tail flicked back and forth as her claw stabbed into a grilled piece of fish which was soon flipped into her large maw. She closed her eyes and smiled brightly as the taste slapped against her tongue. “The army wasn’t worthy of death, in fact they were all quite pathetic really. As you say, I roughed them up without doing anything permanent. Their arrows and spears fell upon me and broke or slid from my body and my flesh healed anew, they were quite powerless against me. I could not issue any of them a challenge that would set me free of my duty, so I put a plan into motion by taking Prince Hisan. I hoped someone would brave my possible wrath and offer me a proper challenge that would allow them to make me vacate my duty. They were the ones that settled near the temple, so I am not to blame for all the ponies lacking foresight. I did nothing wrong in ordering tithes from them to prevent my wrath.”

“You still tried to starve them out though, you were performing your duty in protecting the surrounding lands by forcing the ponies to pay you to use them.” It was telling when I saw that she wasn’t about to defend herself or her actions. Sekhet had been bound to protect the lands around that temple and taxing the ponies was one of the methods to getting rid of them without a fight. “So after taking the prince, that’s when you met Somnambula I take it?”

“Yes… but there is one thing you are missing here, the reason why I was taking so much from the ponies was because I couldn’t go very far from the temple and I was thankful that they didn’t know that. The lack of food was really quite harsh on me and though I am immortal, not being able to eat would still weaken me even if it will not kill me.” I watched as she happily shoving some vegetable into her maw and she chewed quietly, she washed it down with some soup. After she was done swallowing and humming in appreciation at my mother’s cooking, Sekhet returned her focus on me. “I'd like to see you try going hundreds of years without a decent meal.”

“So what was Somnambula like Ms. Sphinx?” My mother was eating slowly and watching everyone else make appreciative noises.

“For not being a warrior, she was a very brave individual." Sekhet spoke of Somnambula as if she were a close friend and I could certainly understand why. "I do not know what became of her, but she was one of the few who actually faced me successfully.”

“She freed you from your duty of guarding the temple. You gave her an easy riddle and then you made her challenge you on purpose.” I looked to Tempest and then back to Sekhet. “You gave her the same riddle I take it?”

“Hope shines brightest in the darkness and I had hope that I would escape my situation. As you can see… I did.” I watched Sekhet motion to her chest with her left paw and then she gave me another toothy smile. “It was thanks to her that I could do whatever I will and as I have been for the last nine hundred plus years ever since her disappearance. I could have gone back at any time to decimate them, I’m actually quite merciful to those who deserve it. So I followed the spirit of Somnambula’s orders and stayed away, even though my kingdom ceased existing with me gone allowing me the freedom to go wherever I please. They may tell tales of me being evil, but what they don’t know won’t hurt their view of the world and its cruelties. This one here knows what I am talking about.”

Sekhet pointed a claw at Tempest who just stared at the goddess and didn’t say anything, she just continued eating quietly and she wasn’t very willing to open up to any of us. Even the ridiculously dangerous goddess that brought her here didn’t push her to talk or do anything. Fluttershy looked like she wanted to say something kind to Tempest, but my mother kept her from doing so.

Eventually we finished our meal and I rewrapped Fizzle’s wounds, we all settled down near the camp fire with blankets and pillows. I looked up at Sekhet with wonder.

“As a goddess of healing… how long has it been since you’ve healed others instead of just yourself?” The goddess laying on her belly just gave me a softened look, but she didn’t say anything as she rested her head upon her paws and then closed her eyes.

I curled up in my blanket next to the fire, we would decide where we were all going form here in the morning. Fluttershy was tucked in by mom, Tempest took care of herself though mom still went over to her to make sure she was okay and my eyes started to slowly drift shut.

-

The sunlight slid through the trees and into our campsite, the fire was still going when I woke up. If you can’t guess by now, my ability involves the campfire and why it never needed any more wood once it was started. My ability was quite magical like that.

I sat up and stretched out my back popping a joint or two, the protections of my ability kept the bugs and other nasty monster out of the campsite. I grabbed my tail and unkinked it and flicked it about a bit to loosen it up, then I took in the campsite. At any time Fizzle or Sekhet could have left and yet they were still here, Fizzle was awake and sitting against a tree and… she was staring at me. There was Sekhet who was gazing upon the airship with curiosity. My mom was already cooking breakfast and Fluttershy was still sleeping.

It was time for me to do my one task as a priest, well a rogue priest anyway. I stood up and performed the act of a sun salutation, first part the mountain position with my hand clapped together in prayer.

It was some time during when I was praising the sun that Sekhet started looking my way. She was giving me an intrigued look and she wasn’t the only one, Fizzle the broken unicorn seemed thoughtful.

“Well that completes my morning ritual.” I said out loud as I moved over to sit near mom, I decided to address their stares. “What…? It’s basically the circle of life, a wheel of fortune if you will.”

“What kind of fortune and for who?” Asked Sekhet wryly and with a sudden movement we both watched as Fizzle got up from the tree and came over to me.

She closed her eyes inhaled through her nose and then opened to give me a steely gaze, then she finally said something to me.

“Thank you, both of you.” It was at that point that I noticed something quite off about her side as she was thanking me and my mother. Fizzle turned to Sekhet. “I… I guess I should be thanking you as well.”

Sekhet looked entirely aloof and just motioned with her paw that she didn’t particularly seem to care about being thanked.

Fizzle’s side was stitched up and I seriously don’t think mom did that concerning how nice the stitches looked. Fluttershy would be training to be a vet for the next five years, she didn’t exactly have the talent for medical stuff yet. That left… I leveled my gaze at Sekhet who looked right back at me without a hint of emotion on her face. Slowly that look turned into a faint smile… or was that a smirk? Hard to tell with the pony faced giant lioness with wings.

“You’re welcome.” All three of us said that at the same time and in unison, Sekhet being louder because she was the biggest of us.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think we introduced ourselves last night.” I realized that Fizzelpop Berrytwist didn’t know our names yet, she just ended up at a campsite randomly by way of goddess and then got a good meal in her. She even looked a bit healthier then she previously did.

“To be fair, I wasn’t about to ask for any or tell my own. You can call me… Tempest.” Oh don’t you dare do the dark and broody thing Tempest!

“I’m Jade La Perm… well technically my name is Jaded La Perm, I just prefer Jade.” My favorite color was green, my hair was naturally green and I was wearing a green shirt that I slept in. I couldn’t wait to get back to civilization and a warm bath, but my name was truly ‘Jaded’ and that’s how mom felt when whatever partner she had left her pregnant with someone like me.

“I’m Kurilian La Perm, Jade’s mother and she’s my little tom cat.” I don’t think my mother would ever stop calling me a tom cat, she wasn’t wrong about my tendencies to not care for being feminine. “As you can tell I’m quite the cook, wouldn’t you agree Ms. Sphinx?”

“Sekhet Sphinx, last night was a feast fit for any god.” That was all Sekhet had to say about it and she was right, mom’s cooking tended to get a bit divine when she was in a good mood.

“And… her?” Here Tempest pointed at the dozing yellow furred filly with the awkward long legs that the pink haired pony hadn’t grown into yet.

“Her name is Fluttershy, she's the filly I fell on from last night’s story.” It was only now that I was noticing the similarities in colors between Sekhet and Tempest, which made me stare at the Tempest’s beautiful blue-green eyes. I didn’t like Tempest’s mane style personally, but the color was quite fetching on her and I was perfectly okay with her tail. Oh great, puberty just hit me, I’m ogling the broken unicorn that I intend to befriend.

“So Tempest, I have to ask…” I was cut off when Tempest held up her hoof.

“If it’s about my horn...” She started before I moved closer to her and ran my fingers through her mane making her stop to glare at me, she didn't shove my hand away so that's progress.

“No, no, no, it isn’t that beautiful… I mean Tempest! I was wanting to ask, what you were doing out here before you ran into Sekhet?” I rubbed behind her ears trying to calm her down, I mentally added the thought that Sekhet can possibly change size and she sewed Tempest up without waking her. Darn it, Tempest was a beautiful mare and that scar really adds character. I’m just guessing that Sekhet took last night's comment about her healing others seriously and decided to help with healing Tempest’s physical wounds, maybe even her spiritual and mental ones as well.

“Oh…” Tempest sounded horribly surprised that I wasn’t asking her about her horn, many ponies must have asked her about it as a conversation starter and made her relive that moment time and again. I would think that to be quite an upsetting trend for the burgeoning mare. Her gaze turned towards the ground. “I was just looking for… something I guess.”

Reading between the lines, Tempest was just wandering around aimlessly. She got into trouble and then Sekhet came upon her to wreck an aggressive giant star bear. Thus the goddess saved her from having to run from it after acquiring a nasty injury to her barrel. Knowing what I do, she'd have lived through it.

There was an awkward silence and I decided to break it.

“Well you can stick with us for a while if you want. Mom and I are going to go report our airship crashing in Canterlot, we’ll stop at a town on the way to find a Pegasus that can help Fluttershy get home safely.” I stood up to go wake Fluttershy.

“The question that my daughter is avoiding is, what are you going to do now Ms. Sphinx?” Mom asked the goddess as I was busy rousing a comfortable looking Fluttershy.

“I could just go about my business…” Sekhet paused and I could almost feel her sending a leer my direction as Fluttershy started to rub at her eyes. “What I am going to do is suggest that you and… Tempest… should stay here, while Priest Jade goes to report the airship crash and get the filly back to her parents. I will provide for you and will make sure the airship doesn’t go anywhere. All that I ask in return is that Kuril cooks several more meals for me.”

The quickest way to please a goddess like Sekhet was through her stomach apparently. Unfortunately for us, she probably won't leave us alone because we fed her.

“That might save me a lot of walking, besides we don’t really have a place to stay aside from the airship. I really don’t want to pay for an inn in Canterlot, it would be too expensive for us for even one night.” Mom rubs her chin and gives Sekhet a thoughtful look before nodding to herself. “It looks like you’re going on an adventure Jade!"

Author's Note

End of the Prolonged Prologue.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily. Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons probably improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons. Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

Chapter One, To Canterlot and Back: A line is never so straight.

It was after a solemn and ridiculously silent breakfast that mom started setting up for my trip to Canterlot, on the way I’d find someone to help Fluttershy out of her jam. I’d likely be making a stop in Ponyville, if I was quick enough I could get an early morning train to Canterlot.

“Are you sure you want to stay here with Sekhet, mom?” I ask because Sekhet was a scary sphinx shaped goddess that threatened to eat us not too long ago, in fact it was only yesterday.

“I’ll be fine… well at least I will be if you don’t use your ability and providing that Sekhet absolutely wants me to be alive to cook for her.” Mom ruffled my hair and smiled at her, she then shoved my pack into my chest and pointed over to Fluttershy. “You make sure she gets back home safely okay? I at least know you’ll be fine, the pack has been filled with dried fruits, left over vegetable mashed into a fine pasted and of course the classic Abyssinian favorite, fish jerky. I also took the liberty of boiling some water for your canteen.”

“Look, I like fish jerky as much as the next Abyssinian mom, but it’s really beginning to wear quite thin with me after years of eating it.” I dare you to find an Abyssinian that was completely tired of fish for every meal other than me, it was the least likely thing to happen. Still, I didn’t think I was complaining too much about it. “That’s even when I don’t want it to go to waste. Anyway, thanks for helping me pack up for the trip mom.”

“Well I can’t let my dear sweet daughter go off unprepared, do you have everything? Fish bone necklace, fish scale necklace, two spare raven feathers, your knife, the sheath for it and something to tie your hair back?” I rolled my eyes and sighed at my mother’s being slightly overbearing.

“Yes mom, I’m quite sure I have everything on me.” Speaking of, I took out my hair tie and put my hair up in a thick ponytail. I turned to Tempest with a pleading look on my face. “Please tell me you’ll stick around with my mother until I get back. You don’t have to do anything, even if Sphinx doesn’t want you going anywhere, you can do whatever you want. Just please don’t make me leave my mother alone with Sekhet.”

Tempest tilted her head and looked quite thoughtful for a moment, she was trying to decide whether or not to stay here for a while.

“Look, you’re going to need those stitches removed eventually. So you may as well stay here and let yourself heal until we can do that.” Sekhet butted in while poking Tempest’s broken horn, which definitely annoyed Tempest. You’d think with all the power that Sekhet has, she could just simply fix Tempest’s horn like magic. It made me wonder why she didn’t or couldn’t, there had to be some limits to how well she could heal others.

“… fine, I’ll stick around.” The next few seconds for Tempest must have been quite a surprise for her, because I had immediately jogged over to her and wrapped my paws around her neck to hug her tightly. I avoided my first instinct to grab her around the barrel where the wounds on her were. Tempest was so surprised that she didn’t try to push me away until after at least fifteen seconds had passed. “Will you stop touching me?”

“No, because I think you, my friend, need more hugs. You look like you’ve been horribly deprived of them for a long time.” That was an understatement, as I knew she hadn’t received any positive attention since her horn was broken. Hopefully Tempest never went to the dark side because I was willing to help her through her issues. Speaking of issues, I backed off from the slightly aggravated pony and turned to Fluttershy. “Are you ready to go Fluttershy, we’re wasting daylight here!”

Did Tempest even have parents? Was she a runaway? If anything, it’s almost like my supposition that Starlight Glimmer didn’t have parents to curb her darker thoughts or actions. If Tempest did have parents, then where were they when her horn broke and why didn’t they ever try to comfort her? Equestria must have had a glut of evil unicorns due to bad or barely messed up childhoods and Sunset Shimmer would be one of those examples that Celestia had caused personally. In fact, Unicorns were the most likely pony type to go evil in the first place.

“Oh, um… yes I am Jade.” The fresh barrel of water was running a bit low, Fluttershy had used a bit of it to scrub herself clean. The filly looked happy and had taken care of herself quite well, it was hard to stay jealous of Fluttershy stealing my mother’s attention when she was so sweet.

“Well come on then, let’s hit the road. We’ll be heading northeast.” What I wouldn’t do for a compass right now… wait a minute. “Mom, do you have a compass?”

“Hold on, I think I might have found one in the wreckage yesterday.” Digging through the pile of stuff she liberated from the airship she eventually found a small compass and put it my left hand.

“Well it’s working at least.” I commented dryly.

“Be careful and come back to me safely my little tom cat, or at least in one piece if you’re not sane.” I gave my mother a hug and started too walked towards the northeast only to be intercepted by Sekhet moving into my path. “I’ll know if you’re in trouble if anything happens to the protections your ability creates.”

“Priest Jade, do not tarry with coming back, also beware the princess of the sun and the way she may act.” With that said, Sekhet got out of my way and I stared after her. She went to sit next to the large airship and then made a shooing motion with one of her paws. “She will become quite… odd… around you. So I warn you, pay attention to what she does.”

“Right then, every journey starts with the first step.” I took my first step and then another while waving goodbye to my mom and Tempest with the filly Fluttershy in tow.

-

It didn’t take thirty minutes and crossing the shallower portion of a river to find the train tracks. Luck was on our side as we could just follow them to Ponyville, I marked the location thoroughly so I could remember how to get back to the crash site. Cloudsdale was quite visible at this distance, it was kind of hard to miss unless it was raining.

So there we were, the two of us walking along the tracks in silence. Me with a blue pack loaded with food on my back with a canteen hooked to it, a knife at my right hip and my fish scale necklace that would give me a defensive options should I need to fend off a predator. A tightly controlled jet of water can do some serious damage. I was doubtful of ever running across a predator or monster this close to the train tracks.

Somewhere along the way were passing by some bushes while still following the tracks to Ponyville and they started shaking, I immediately put myself in front of Fluttershy and narrowed my eyes at the bushes. I inhaled through my nose to prepare for exhaling at the target, I was using my necklace's sustain effect.

“Surpri..urghfflblblblbe.” My reaction time was pretty good, good enough to catch the young Pinkie Pie in the mouth with a ball of water that ejected from mine. It had knocked her flat on her back spluttering. I was afraid it might have been a pack of pukwudgies, a nest of aggressive flyders, maybe even a baby hydra or a manticore.

Instead I got the naturally occurring reality breaking pink Earth Pony, why was she here of all places?

Coughing and spitting up the water that ended up flying down her throat the wrong way, Pinkie eventually became all smiles when she was breathing normally again.

“Oh my goodness, are you alright?” Fluttershy had been worried for a moment, but then calmed down when she saw that it was just a pony. One that I knew came from a rock farm and was nowhere near it at the moment.

“I’m okay and that was really cool!” It seems that Pinkie didn’t care that I was not a pony, then again I don’t know where her mental state is after seeing the rainbow blasting across the sky the other day. “How did you do that?”

“Magic.” I then snorted twice in a cute manner. Yes I was a lazy butt in my previous life, but I will always remember the classics fondly. I could have also said, ‘that, is a secret’ or ‘that would be telling’.

“Oh of course, how silly of me! Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie and you two are?” Well Pinkie introduced herself with a wagging tail, like a puppy really, so I may as well do the same.

“I'm Jade La Perm.” I looked to Fluttershy who was hiding behind my legs and I gave her a light tap to the head with my tail making her squeak.

“O-oh, I-I’m Fluttershy, nice to meet you Pinkie.” The poor girl was being a bit shy and I really couldn’t fault Fluttershy for it as that’s just who she was.

“Speaking of meeting you…” I was almost too afraid to ask this question knowing who I was talking to, unless she hasn’t hit her zany phase yet. “What in the world are you doing out here all alone?”

“Well I got my cutie mark yesterday after seeing the most amazing thing ever!” Pinkie said excitedly while I looked to Fluttershy for help, only to realize that Fluttershy wouldn't be able to help me calm down this pink ball of sheep fluff. I was technically the adult here and would just have to deal with it.

“Let me guess, a rainbow exploded across the sky that filled your boring life with color and then Equestria was made?” I already knew how Equestria was made thank you very much.

“A rainbow exploded across the… oh your really good at this!” Exclaimed Pinkie clapping her hooves, I just rolled my eyes at the excitable ball of energy. Said ball was a young filly who started bouncing around me in a circle. “Well I’m out here looking for my place in the world. It certainly isn’t the rock farm I came from, even if I really, really, REALLY love my family a whole big bunch!”

“You’re going to follow us aren't you?” I was already following the tracks towards Ponyville, Fluttershy fell into step with me and was looking back at Pinkie who bounced along behind us.

“I already am of course.” Pinkie threw a comically bad salute with her left hoof. “New party member Pinkie Pie reporting for duty, emphasis on the party part as that’s my special talent!”

I looked to Fluttershy who just shrugged at me while flaring her wings slightly and I sighed, I stroked my fingers through Fluttershy’s mane several times and she blushed while squeaking at the attention I was giving her.

“Keep up then, you don’t seem like the kind of pony that would take no for answer.” I wasn't about to let a young Pinkie out of my sight, so we were all moving alongside the tracks together.

“Woohoo, I made some new friends and one of them is a really tall friendly cat!” That’s when Pinkie Pie decided to start showboating and dancing on her hind legs “Go me, go Pinkie, it’s not my birthday, but it might soon be! I’m dropping them some big hints! Of who I want at my party!”

I slapped my forehead in aggravation and released a long drawn out hiss. Try to keep it together Jade, even if this trip was going to be a long one.

-

I was checking my map, who thought it was a good idea to make the tracks run near Flame Geyser Swamp? Still following the tracks was safe and I had to continue ignoring Pinkie’s nattering, I lifted an ear to listen in on what she was talking about now.

“So anyway… I was like Boulder, bad rock! He should have at least waited for Maud to let him outside.” Yeah, Pinkie was still going on about her inane rock farm stories. I really did not need to know her life story or how boring the early parts of it were, though Boulder apparently peeing on the carpet was a thing. “After that I was like… oh my tail is twitching! I wonder if a Pegasus will fall from the sky.”

One already has and she’s been a little angel this entire time, unlike… wait… the Pinkie Sense was never wrong and we were around a bunch of trees near the edges of Flame Geyser Swamp? On instinct I swiftly turned around and scooped up Fluttershy and grabbed Pinkie out of the air mid hop and lunged into a roll. I heard a thunderous crash behind me. A shower of dirt was launched into the air, some of which splattered the three of us.

This was the reward for my quick thinking, I’m so glad I didn’t look up first and thankfully none of us got hurt… yet.

I quickly dropped both Fluttershy and Pinkie on the ground and turned around to look at the creature that tried to pounce on us from the trees.

It wasn’t a manticore, something I would have preferred facing in this situation. It was something far worse, it was a chimera. It was currently dazed because it missed us and had slammed bodily into the ground.

“Girls… I want you two to start running, stick together and keep following the tracks.” I spoke softly and didn’t turn my eyes away from the chimera and I was already using my knife as my magical alchemy sustain. I’d have to switch in the middle of the fight if I wanted to blast them with water, I even popped the claws on my hands to prepare for what was coming. “Don’t come back for me. I’ll catch up with you, I promise.”

“Do you Pinkie promise?” Asked a rather frightened Pinkie as she and Fluttershy gathered their wits, I gave them a rather sharp look.

“Just go, don’t worry about me!” I might have been a little harsh that time, but I didn’t have the time to go through the whole Pinkie Promise thing. That sent the two fillies in my care running along the tracks, as the Chimera got up and lunged for them.

One of the dumbest things you can ever do is tackle a chimera. I checked their side with my increased agility and sent them sprawling and narrowly avoided the snapping teeth of the snake headed tail that came within an inch of my face.

The chimera stood up and three sets of eyes glared at me. I just pulled my knife out with my left hand and gestured to them with my right, I have more meat on me than the fillies do at least.

When you spoke of a chimera, you would have to use plural terms as a chimera had multiple intelligent heads.

Author's Note

The full magical alchemy list will be shown at the start of every chapter, all of which have multiple parts. The magical alchemy list can update during chapters if a new effect is discovered or used. Also (NEW INFORMATION!) may be acquired as the story continues.

Magical Alchemy list.

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater.

Sustain: Water Projection (Offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. (NEW INFORMATION!) You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random. (One time air terrain survival buff, possible Offensive ability).

Sustain:???.

Self-sustaining: ???.

Sunlight.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

Chapter One, To Canterlot and Back: A triangle is never so pointy.

There were legends of chimera being fire breathers like dragons, but on a small scale. Concerning the fact that they live in a place called Flame Geyser Swamp, I wouldn’t put it past them to be the fire breathers. There were also legends of Manticores breathing fire, but I didn’t see it as being the truth and I was someone that liked mythology.

At a guess, I would think it to be the male chimera that breaths fire and the lion head could be confused for a manticore.

I would have preferred facing down a manticore. For one a manticore has only one head, two it was a beast that could be easily distracted and three, while it might have been powerful I would have been able to outmaneuver it.

This was a chimera though and female from the looks of it. It had a feminine saber toothed tiger head with rather beautiful green eyes, a goat head growing out its back that could either be on the right or left side of the Chimera. The goat head was on the left side that had… where those earrings? How does a being like this find a place to get its ears pierced? What kind of society did they lead where they were technologically capable of making earrings at all? Those yellow bar pupils of the goat head made me a bit uneasy.

The tail ended with a stretchy snake head with scary red sclera that had nearly bit me when I tackled it to get its attention off of the fillies, said snake could reach any part of its body for swift retaliation and possibly poisoning.

A chimera was intelligent, far more so than a manticore, which was my major problem here. The front two heads were dangerous for different reasons, but the snake head was especially problematic as it could keep track of its surroundings while the front two heads are busy attacking prey.

A chimera was dangerous, it’s front half consisting of a tiger body with big claws, big toothy tiger jaws and the goat’s serrated horns. This means that you certainly didn’t want to face a chimera head on and the tail is the only reason why you can’t get it from behind or the side without retaliation as that head had the fastest reaction time.

A chimera was fast, the powerful rear legs were that of a goats just adding onto its burst movement potential, with a few harmless reptilian spines thrown in on the butt leading into the snake headed tail. The legs gave them the power to do damaging lunge attacks with their goat horns or take a bite out of me with the saber toothed head. The legs were good for jumping or running, but they weren’t good at taking hits and thus the snake head was there to make up for that weakness.

Nature in this world was scary, I didn’t have any method of disabling the snake head effectively and the front two heads were definitely focusing my way.

-

“Is Jade really going to be okay Fluttershy?” Poor little Pinkie thought that traveling with the two would be all fun and games until that monster dropped in on them. She would certainly take her Pinkie Sense more seriously now.

“I don’t know Pinkie.” Fluttershy looked back and nibbled at her bottom lip, wondering with gnawing worry when Jade would catch up to them like she promised. Maybe Jade just promised to get them moving, she silently pleaded that it wasn’t the case.

-

“Look, before we do a thing, can we talk about this?” If I could avoid this confrontation, then all the better. I wasn’t exactly as strong as a chimera, even one that was possibly half starved. I held my knife at the ready and if I was separated from it, then I’d lose my heightened ability to dodge. The strength of the magical alchemy sustain probably had a maximum plateau for how much it could improve my natural abilities for when I wasn’t using it. I haven’t exactly hit that plateau yet, but given a few more years of using this knife and I’d be like a real rogue I wanted to class as. Right now I was a scrawny teenage humanoid cat. “If you want some food, I have plenty of fish jerky you can eat. Besides wouldn’t eating me be one third cannibalism? Can’t I just give you some food and then we can go our separate ways?”

I now knew for a fact that Sekhet was only joking about eating us. She would have certainly slaughtered us of course, but she at least wouldn’t have eaten us. If Sekhet were feeling nice, then she might have even given us a proper burial. This chimera was a bit lower on the scale of friendliness compared to the goddess, what is my life coming to?

“How about…” The tiger head started, nice voice.

“We kill you…” The goat head intoned, it had a standard warbling effect.

“Then eat you and your food!” I saw the attack coming as the silkily speaking snake head spoke and backpedaled sideways, backpedaling straight would have gotten me a claw to the chest and would have put me on my back.

“I would say so be it, but chatting while something is going for your throat is… ugh…” I did the most unexpected thing of me and lunged forward underneath them as they kicked off for me. They sailed over my prone form and I rolled to the side as soon as I was behind them to avoid the snake tail snapping at where I was. “Beyond the pale!”

I quickly stood up and slashed at the snake head with the knife to make it back off from committing to a second strike and backed away. You do not turn your back on something faster than you at a straight run. The chimera turned and started to circle me while growling, in stereo.

I stood at the ready with my knife and kept myself facing towards them, hopefully the fillies were far away from here. They may have been my age, but they certainly weren’t in my weight class when it came to defending themselves and they really shouldn’t witness the level of violence that the four of us were about to perpetrate against one another.

We were both just testing the waters for the moment, but sooner or later this was going to get messy and I needed to avoid permanent injury or mom would never let me out of her sight again if I survived this.

I just needed to remind myself that I wasn’t a warrior and should not get caught up in defeating or ending the chimera’s life, I was just an Abyssinian teenager in over her head and if I could disable them without doing further harm then that was good a good thing. I didn’t want to kill an intelligent being before I was an adult and I was going to actively avoid putting them down.

The chimera charged, raised its left paw and reared up on to its hind legs and swung. I stepped into the hit and took it sharply across the face, leaving three bleeding marks flowing from most of my right cheek and large portion of my head. I was agile enough to avoid losing an eye, I just clenched my teeth and reacted quickly to get the better end of the exchange. If I had stepped away I would have been far worse off.

I definitely had the last laugh, though the paw hit me and it was really quite painful, they had just impaled their front left leg on my tightly held knife. I had held my knife so that their own momentum would put it deeply in their wrist halting their movement to swing the other paw.

Three voices screamed in agonizing pain as having a knife digging deeply into their tendons would do that, I followed stabbing them through the wrist by gripping the leg tightly with my meager by comparison claws and then kicked them in the belly with my left leg as hard as I could.

They were unbalanced by standing on their goat hooves to claw at me, so I was easily capable of flipping them on to their back with my kick and my knife pulled free when they fell.

I followed this up by slapping the goat head across the face with my right hand set of claws making smaller but still defining claw marks across the left side of the goats face.

The tail came up between their hind legs, but I had already danced out of the snake heads range. It was only thanks to the leverage and the spasm from the hobbling blow to their paw that kept them from getting up as fast as they could.

“You’ll pay for hurting my sister!” Growled the tiger head and I probably would too, I wasn’t going to go down that easily though.

“Hey, excuse me, but you’re the ones who want to kill and eat me!” Don’t blame me for your aggressive tendencies. I did know where the leg would be after it hit me and acted accordingly to claw your abdomen with my toes and to get that revenge swipe in because I’m quite a petty kitty. She was one third cat, so what cat like being aside from me would have such a distaste for fish jerky? “After I so kindly offered you some filling food that you might have actually liked too!”

“We are strong, we don’t need your pittance!” All three voices said and they all grimaced as they put weight on the stabbed paw. They kicked off the ground with the goat head leading the charge in an attempt to gore me.

I tried to dodge the sudden burst of speed they put out with that jump, I didn’t make it. The left horn of the goat head dug deeply into my left shoulder and it caused me to reflexively send my knife flying from my claws as spun and fell onto my chest. I growled at the painful gash in my shoulder, I had lost my knife’s sustain and hurriedly switched to my fish scale necklace as my current sustain.

If it really came down to it I can still burn my sheath in a cast, but I was going to be stubborn to the last! Oh darn it, I hope I’m not being infected with the mom and Sphinx rhymes. Why that alone would just lead to me causing many crimes!

What’s worse than a bleeding wound? A bleeding wet wound getting caked in mud of course! I didn’t know if my fish scale water blasts were sanitary. Did their species even have medical practices? Yeah, this might incidentally kill them down the line indirectly, but they lived in a swamp on top of being a hardy and strong sapient being.

I fumbled my way onto my back as my agility was lost and I had to roll to the right to avoid getting several claws to the chest from another pounce. The Chimera seemed confused for a moment by my less than agile floundering, but I wasn't about to give them a chance to realize that something had drastically changed about me.

I had enough time to prop myself up into a crouch and inhale through my nose sharply and covered my mouth with my right palm, I also made sure to keep my nose tightly bound between my thumb and pointer finger as well. This always hurt whenever I did it, but it was for a good cause as the chimera lunged for me again.

I released two tight powerful jets of water… from my ears. Yes, you heard me right, I fired two powerful blasts of water from my ears and it really hurts a lot! My poor eardrums were going to need minutes to recover after this as it was quite disorienting, it wasn’t nearly as bad as what happened to my sinuses if I had used my nose for this.

I might have water breathing, but that doesn’t help my nose after using it for water projection. My mouth was definitely the safest orifice to project water from and the less said about using the other unmentioned orifices the better.

The look on the front two faces of the chimera had been quite comical from my perspective. The force of the blast not only sent the chimera sprawling onto their back bashing their front two heads against the ground after getting smashed by my spiraling water blasts, but it had also knocked me flat on mine.

My mouth was suddenly quite dry, I sat up and pulled out my canteen. I popped it open and took several quick drags of it to recover my lost bodily fluids. I stood up and started searching the grass for my knife while the chimera was still disoriented.

The snake head was glaring at me and trying to get the body standing, apparently the force of the blows to both the front heads had knocked them both out. Go me! I also learned that one head can operate the entire body on its own as it was standing shakily and starting to slowly approach me, apparently the snake head didn’t have practice with the main body and why would it when it was the literal rearguard?

I finally saw my knife sticking halfway out of a large tree, oh come on! Though that did tell me that my increased agility had an affect on things that I could throw, I’d definitely look into that later. I still had one third of a chimera still on my butt.

“Look, do we really have to keep going? You’re worse off than I and I’m magically gifted.” I put on some bravado as I started backing towards the tree with my knife in it, I grabbed it and tugged. Yeah, it was quite unfortunate for my knife to be stuck the way it was. I would need both my hands to pull it free, which would mean turning my back on the chimera. Something I wasn't going to do. “I still have some tricks up my sleeve and I’m wearing a shirt here.”

“Yes~ I do believe we have to.” The snake said while making the body with the unconscious heads slowly stalk towards me.

“Your sister’s funerals then.” I threatened while grabbing a raven feather from an easily accessed pouch on my pack and looked for a large enough object to use it on. The snake head noticed my gaze searching the surroundings, it made her pause and consider her sisters two heads.

The snake head could control the body, but she couldn’t control the front two heads or protect them very well if she assaulted me like this. She was quite awkward with the staggering walk she had going on and had been noticeably wincing with every limp.

“Maybe we can come to an agreement.” The snake head hissed after a moment of contemplation, in a less than threatening amiable tone too.

“I’m listening.” I wasn’t about to trust the snake head. If I could end this peaceably without crushing the chimera with a tree or boulder, then I would certainly take it.

I would regret this later, but not for the reasons you'd think.

Chapter One, To Canterlot and Back: A square is never so sturdy.

“Oh she has to be alright, she just has to.” Fluttershy was fretting over the fact that it had been two hours and they hadn’t seen Jade. Someone that risked herself for them.

“Nope, she still isn’t coming.” Reported Pinkie looking left and right down the tracks they had walked from.

The two fillies had made it to Ponyville unscathed, they were waiting at the train station for their friend to show up and the mayor was with them. She had already alerted a Pegasus to go find Fluttershy’s parents and as for Pinkie she was being quite stubborn about wanting to stay in Ponyville.

“Maybe you just have to face facts girls, your friend doesn’t seem to be… coming.” The pony with them was only known as Mayor Mare, she had seen a lot of heartache in her life and these poor fillies didn’t need to hear that their friend wasn’t going to be around any longer. It was like what happened to Bright Mac and Pear Butter all over again, they were just gone one day.

“I know she’s still alive, my Pinkie sense says so.” It was getting close to noon and even Pinkie was a little worried that her sensing abilities were off.

It was another three minutes before they spotted the first signs of a horrible, but equally wonderful sight.

-

My legs weren’t injured at least, I was feeling pretty awful after that fight. At least the outcome wasn’t terrible on both sides, I had no permanent injuries and I successfully fended off a chimera. I wouldn’t have survived two and the one I fought wasn’t even fully grown one yet. A person who fights monsters I was not.

The right side of my face must look like a mess, my left shoulder was definitely a mess, my back hurt and my ears were still stinging from the high powered water jets I forced through them. That and my body was badly bruised from several tumbles. I’m surprised I wasn’t crying, I was just going to suck it up and keep going. My previous life taught me that life wasn’t fair sometimes, the teenage filly and pre-teen filly didn’t need to learn that lesson so soon and I couldn’t keep them waiting.

What was the bright side to all of this? I unloaded all my fish jerky on someone who would appreciate a good meal. Thinking of food, I pulled out a dried piece of apricot and chucked it in my mouth and started chewing. Oh look, the train station... I was miserable and I was going to make people miserable just by looking at me. I hiked up my pack and continued forward.

As soon as I approached the station I noticed that there were only four ponies here, the ticket selling stallion being one I didn’t recognize all too well. It was hard to recognize anything when your right eye was covered in drying blood. The other was Mayor Mare who was giving me a very disturbed look, I am after all the cat that just dragged itself in.

My appearance must have been frightening to Fluttershy and Pinkie, because they were both giving me sad looks. They tried to come toward me, but I held up my right hand to stall them.

“Hey girls, I’m okay, just a bit roughed up. Please don’t tackle me with a hug just yet, heh, at least wait until I’m feeling better.” I was mauled and the injuries I dealt to the chimera were negligible compared to mine, I would still like to think that I came out of that fight in the positive side of things. I still had the advantage at the end there, given I knocked out two of my three deadly opponents. I also damaged their front left paw badly enough that they’d be limping for weeks. “Oh and I managed to make friends with the chimera, odd thing that.”

I might have even been coloring my experiences to make myself look better in my own mind, I didn’t do much more than minimal damage in that short fight and the chimera could have killed me if the saber toothed head got it’s jaws around my neck at any point.

“Really?” Asked a happy Pinkie in a naïve manner, obviously she thought befriending a chimera was possible.

It admittedly was possible, I did it after all. It required that you prove yourself to be stronger than them if not in body or physical prowess, then at least stronger in spirit. My spirit was currently shot right now my pony friends, can you hear mine screaming? Come back later when I’ve cleaned up my poor injury riddled body. I just wanted to flop into a seat on a train and sleep on the way to Canterlot.

“Yes, but I can’t recommend my particular method of befriending one Pinkie.” I turned to Mayor Mare, she was older than the main six and at least old enough to be mayor of the town at this moment. “You wouldn’t happen to have a medical kit anywhere nearby would you?”

“You’re the friend they were talking about?” She seemed confused, as if she thought the friend they were talking about was another pony.

“Yes, I am… apparently. It’s not like ponies can have friends in different species, goodness knows where the three pony tribes would be if they couldn’t live with differing species. Yes, ponies certainly can’t get along with anyone else that isn’t a pony.” I was feeling like I needed to be snarky about this with the mayor and she looked rather sheepish. ”If you haven’t noticed I got injured fending off the chimera for these two, they did what I told them too and I did what I promised them I’d do. I hope you get back to Cloudsdale alright Fluttershy and I suggest you go to a place called Sugar Cube Corner Pinkie. You’ll be cheered right round up if you do. If all of you will excuse me… I have something I really need to do.”

I slowly made my way over to the stallion in the ticket station, I ignored the two worried fillies and the upset mare.

“One ticket for a train to Canterlot please.” The stallion blinked owlishly at me as if I were some kind of mauling victim asking for a train ticket in a normal tone despite my current state of appearance. All as if it were the most common thing in the world.

“That’ll be five bits, the ticket is good for any train you get on heading for Canterlot.” Oh good, it wasn’t too expensive. I reached into my backpack and got a pouch out, I had at least fifty on me. Mom had the rest with her. I needed to admit that I hadn’t entirely come out of that fight in anything resembling an okay condition as my current mental state would suggest. “Just thought you’d like to know if you missed the next train due to… certain conditions.”

That was his commentary of my current state, my poor shirt was caked with my own blood and I was feeling a bit lightheaded.

“Thank you good sir.” Being polite as I paid and took the ticket from him, I slowly turned away from the stallion. “I will now go lay down on a nearby bench and pass out. Have someone wake me gently when the train arrives, I’ll worry about how I look after facing a chimera later.”

I took off my pack and flopped onto the bench while using it as a pillow, both the fillies sent Mayor Mare a slightly worried look and I gave them a small smile as what remained of my vision faded to black.

-

I slowly came to as something rubbed against my face, I opened my eyes and my right eye was no longer bothered by drying blood clotting on it. The thing rubbing my face was a slightly damp purple sponge that smelled of chemicals.

“Oh you wake up easily. Sorry to disturb your rest miss, hold still while I fix you up. Your train isn’t here yet, but it will be soon and you can’t go to Canterlot in this state. The nobles would eat you alive, well not literally and I think you get the idea.” The unicorn stallion was wearing a lab coat and had a stethoscope, he had short dark brown hair, pink eyes and blue coat. His cutie mark was a bandage, scalpel and syringe crossing one another. “You were roughed up quite a fair bit. Bruising to the spine. I don’t know exactly what you did to your ears, but it obviously stung quite a bit. No ear wax or any lasting damage in there though, which is good for you. Your face won’t scar as soon as the healing magic is done. Your shoulder will need stitches, but it’ll feel a lot better afterwards and you’ll have to find the nearest doctor to remove them for you wherever you are in a few days.”

“So… I’m still at the train station?” It certainly looks like it, I didn’t move from my position and let the doctor do his work. “What’s this visit going to cost?”

“Nothing, never worked on an Abyssinian before. This is quite a unique experience for me and I’m doing this free of charge. Pro bono if you will.” He got a bit of numbing agent, a needle and a thread out of the bag. “Just don’t bite my head off when I start stitching you up. Anyone that can go a round with a chimera and walk away like you did has to be tough, I’m just not seeing it here as your body is kind of scrawny. Quick Patch at your service miss. I’m a trauma and quick medical assistance specialist, the mayor wanted me to mend a hero and I didn’t expect that hero to be an Abyssinian.”

“To be fair, it wasn’t a full grown chimera. Got a bit of wood or rubber I can bite into for the stitches?” He held out a rubber dog bone and I gave him an unamused look.

“It’s sanitized I assure you.” His friendly smile did not make me feel any better.

“A dog toy… do I look like a Diamond Dog to you?” Call me grumpy from the blood loss, but I really didn’t like this if it was a joke.

“It’s cheap and effective, plus I’ve had to a do a lot with less before.” He soon stopped smiling and gave me a stern look. “So be glad I even have this, as your shoulder needs to be stitched before I can use magic to help it heal. You’ll be glad to know your face won’t scar, but your fur might be a little off for a while.”

“I’m not really that worried about my appearance.” It was kind of sad that I wouldn’t be sporting some cool scars left by Mara, Maria and Marie. That’s at least what Marie the snake head told me to call them anyway.

“All the same, you shouldn’t be walking around with scars if you don’t have to miss.” Mr. Patch squeezed my left bicep and I bit down on the rubber bone, it didn't take him long to sew my shoulder shut. “You’re good for travel now, remember to eat healthy and don’t do anything too strenuous for a while. Also don’t upset those stitches, I can’t tell my patients that enough!”

“Jade La Perm, thanks for patching me up Mr. Patch.” He nodded and backed away with a quirky smile, what was he… I suddenly had Pinkie and Fluttershy on top of my chest and belly hugging me.

“You’re welcome.” The cheeky stallion said before leaving me with two fillies that were trying to get my attention, I chose to give more attention to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy was almost like a pet, sweet, innocent and willing to cuddle for some friendly affection.

-

The train roared into the station and both Fluttershy and Pinkie looked at me sadly.

“Well, I got to go girls. Try to stay happy for me okay?” I felt something bump against me and then I saw Pinkie looking up at me with a cupcake sitting in front of her. “What’s this?”

“It’s a cupcake, I made it just for you!” I kind of figured referencing Pinkie to the Cakes would make her happy and I took a bite of it. it didn't taste very good, but I kept eating it. “Thanks for telling me about Sugar Cube Corner!”

“I know we haven’t known each other for long, but… will we see each other again Jade?” Her question had me smiling and I played with her mane a bit.

“Grow your mane out a bit and I’ll certainly recognize you cutie, you’ll likely be a beautiful butterfly the next time I see you.” I just made her blush again and made my way onto the train. “I’m sure we’ll still be friends in the future, but I have things to do and a goddess to get back to before she does something to mom.”

“I’m glad you’re okay, goodbye Jade.” Fluttershy was going to be fine and she had one last thing to say before the doors closed. “Oh and all the animals said thank you for making sure I was alright!”

It was going to be a bit of a trip, so I secluded myself in a train car and sat down to look out the window as the train started up. First two days in Equestria and things were already complicated, no more lazy days for me I guess.

I still can’t believe I managed to escape the chimera by bluffing it and now I was going to see Celestia, I wondered if Sekhet’s warning would actually amount to anything.

-

In Canterlot a purple unicorn filly and a great white alicorn with colorful hair were in the middle of a teaching session.

“Now Twilight…” Celestia paused and looked off into the distance, slowly her eyes dilated and an unbelievably happy smile appeared on her face. “Oh my goodness, I have to go prepare for them!”

“What’s going on princess, prepare for who?” As curious as Twilight was, she had been a little bit frightened by the sudden change in Celestia’s demeanor.

“Don’t worry about it Twilight, it’s just that something important came up. Give me a few seconds to tell the guards to be on the lookout for anything.... unusual.” Using her wings to scoop up the little filly into a gentle hug, Celestia nuzzled her newest protégé. Hopefully Twilight wouldn’t turn out like the others, Celestia was still crying herself to sleep at night over her many numerous mistakes. Ten seconds to tell the guards what she wanted and she was back with Twilight, she had to focus on teaching this filly correctly. “Okay, now where was I?”

“I believe we were talking about levitation and the many different magical applications of it.” Ever eager to please the princess, Twilight wouldn’t stop putting her full effort into every little thing Celestia wanted her to do. “Also the theories involving every unicorn’s aptitude for lifting things and the formula behind how much weight a unicorn can technically handle.”

“Right… and I was about to tell you that a unicorn can do more than they logically can if they only believed that they can.” It was fun for Celestia to see the look on Twilight’s face. “A little concentration can go a long way Twilight.”

Chapter One, To Canterlot and Back: A circle is never so round.

-Kuril-

I sat in front of the campfire watching as the glutton continued eating a huge amount of food, I at least knew she wasn’t angry with me or my daughter anymore. It would take about two or so days for my daughter to get back, I was accounting for her being waylaid by circumstances beyond her control and being a tourist.

I looked over at Tempest sitting to my right and she seemed thoughtful. Sure she’s got a broken horn and is wandering around out in the middle of nowhere, but she seems like a big girl that left home too early. Injuries like that don’t make life pleasant and her mind must have been in a bad place since she lost a very important integral part of her identity.

“So… what were the two of you going to do once you had arrived at this Manehatten place?” Ms. Sphinx was mostly interested in food until now, I was caught a little off guard by the question and jolted a bit.

Of course the Sphinx had a rather smarmy evil looking smile, I wonder how powerful she is and how she can be so intimidating one minute and nonchalant the next. She was stated as partially being a god of healing by my daughter and so far the most impressive things she’s done is take down an Ursa Medium, somehow expertly stitched up Tempest despite her size, stopped Tempest from channeling through her broken horn and acquired enough food to feed several mouths including her own over the course of an hour or two.

“Well I and my daughter were going to start up a business around Manehatten’s harbor, Abyssinia is a trade nation and I figured we could help work up a stronger rapport with the pony kinds. I would have opened a restaurant, one with a mostly pony friendly menu and fish for the more carnivorous. I’d also continue working on being the leading expert in the La Perm family practice of magical alchemy, I will become the world’s best good witch.” Yes, that was our initial plan. It might even still be the plan. We could always just find a nearby river and build a small hotel for passing wanderers, the river would have to be fish rich though. “My daughter had some plans of her own, whatever they were. She’s quite knowledgeable about many things and I think she was planning on writing a bestiary of mythological monsters or something.”

“Lofty goals those.” After saying that Ms. Sphinx just licked her paw of some juices from the food she had been consuming. “I would visit your restaurant every day and eat well, the magic you put into your food is quite edible.”

“There’s magic in the food?” Tempest looked down at the smiling vegetable platter that she had been nibbling at, I was quite proud that the poor dear actually spoke up.

Tempest was so quiet and broody, nothing like my ragamuffin tom cat of a daughter. I was a little cross with my daughter using 'the eyes' to ask her to stay, I’m a little surprised that Ms. Sphinx even helped her talk Tempest into it.

“Oh yes, it’s been a long time since I found someone who could cook with magic. It’s quite a rare gift that you have there. Where ponies are concerned it’s quite common, but it usually has a singular focus. None of which involves fish, while you seem to be good with just about any dish.” Sekhet popped a piece of cooked fish in her mouth and immediately swallowing without chewing. “Usually people cook the magic out of the food without realizing it, but Lady Kuril here keeps the magic and it is why her food tastes so… decent. There is nothing negative to eating food made this way.”

I would have called her rude for not chewing and calling my cooking decent, but the fact that my food is actually filled with magic means I’m likely to be saddled with a title like ‘The Witch of Good Taste’. My daughter warned me that I could be saddled with a silly title depending on my actions, like how a character in O and O can be given a silly bard song. What would a little ditty about me be like?

I’d think it’d be something like, ‘here comes Kuril The Witch of Good Taste, any food she makes is eaten, devoured and consumed with great haste... and none of it has ever truly gone to waste’. I snickered in amusement at my own thoughts. I should remember to sing that to my daughter once, she’d find it just as silly. Wait a minute, I can make that my title and force everyone to call me that! I’d be known as both a famous witch and a cook!

“Thank you for informing me about this Ms. Sphinx.” First I had to thank her, then I had to tell her off. “Also… decent… who are you trying to kid? Show my cooking the respect it deserves, goodness knows my daughter does! Tempest, is my food decent?”

“I… well no…” I would have been angry with the broken unicorn, but I waited patiently. Jade might have flown off the handle, but I’m going to let her speak her mind. “It’s really quite delicious ma’am.”

I stood up and made my way over to her and hugged her, my daughter said ponies were cute. This one was adorable even with the scar and the missing magical focus... I'll look into making a wand for her.

“Why thank you.” I rubbed my face against her neck, this was how ponies showed affection right? Well I wasn’t a pony, but cats did stuff like this all the time and Abyssinians were really just bigger cats. Well, most of us were.

Tempest’s reaction to my affectionate gestures was to stiffen up a bit, she eventually relaxed and then I decided to let go. I swear Tempest needed help and not for her broken horn, but her broken spirit and I’m quite sure my daughter wanted to do the same thing.

-

When the royal guard went on alert, they themselves were alerted, apparently Celestia had a vision of something unusual coming to Canterlot and they had to watch out for whatever dangers that might pop up.

They had two on the gates already and the two of them personally were watching the train depot, looking at every pony on the off chance that one of them might have been acting oddly. This could be the sign of a changeling infiltration, changelings were a crafty bunch.

It was quite late in the evening when a train arrived with a most unusual thing, she stepped off the train looking around at the city of Canterlot in wonder. The two watching her knew what she was. Why was she here and what kind of doom did Celestia see her bringing to have the guards this active? She didn’t look to be very old, she was quite unusual given she had green hair which was unusual for an Abyssinian. If this was a changeling infiltration it was a pretty laughable attempt, everyone knew that Abyssinians could never grow hair like that.

This cat was going to be tagged for watching, time to send in Agent Sweetie Drops to see what she could find out about this individual and maybe discern whether it is an infiltrator or something else. It came from a south bound train and Abyssinians didn’t live that way, it might have even been a Sphinx in disguise. That spelled a lot of trouble if she was a creature that powerful.

-Jade-

Well so much for getting here in a timely manner, I at least made it before it was too dark and I could hopefully get an audience with Princess Celestia without any trouble.

Oh who was I kidding? Even if I didn’t want trouble, it was going to find me in some way. I stopped to get my bearings, Canterlot was an interesting city for something built into the side of a mountain.

“Excuse me, but you look a little lost there." I turned to see a pink and blue mane, beige coat and blue eyes. I looked at her three candies for a cutie mark and immediately knew who this was, might as well do something silly. "Do you need help?”

“Not really agent Sweetie Drops, I’m just getting my bearings before I head to Canterlot Castle.” The young Bon-Bon immediately froze and I walked off cackling to myself.

“Hey wait a minute, get back here!” I wasn’t about to slow down my walking speed for Bon-Bon and she got in front of me, I sauntered around her on my course for the castle and I wanted to get there before Celestia stopped taking visitors for the evening. “How do you know who I am, is our organization compromised, are you a changeling and if so why aren’t you afraid of being captured by me?”

“In order, what S.M.I.L.E exactly does is make ponies forget memories, not erase them. You can’t perfectly erase or remove a memory unless you have an artifact to store them in like the memory stone and I know where that is. It’s easy to jog your memories if you leave a note to yourself before forgetting and I’m immune to memory erasure. The only reason why it hasn’t gotten out is because no pony would believe those who do remember. I assume you’re a newbie agent and that they haven’t told you about the N.E.I.G.H organization yet.” It was time lie like crazy, that would hopefully prevent them from trying mess with me and hopefully they’ll be too busy with the chaos verifying it to bother me. I wasn’t ready for the cloak and dagger stuff yet, give me two more years at least. “Speaking of compromised, your organization is so terribly compromised to the point that there’s actually a changeling in the ranks and the changeling didn’t even kidnap a pony to get that position either. You might want to look into your director for that one, there are quite a few discrepancies about his past.”

“You still haven’t answer me about being changeling.” Her eyes were narrowed at me and she looked ready to buck me in the head.

“Nope, not a changeling personally. My appearance is completely natural and I’m here to talk to Celestia about something important.” The disbelieving looked made me stop and crouch down to look her in the eyes. “I am actually an Abyssinian even if my long hair is unusual, my mother was said to have been with a pony. I don’t think she’ll ever tell me who my father or mother was, not that I really care who that is at this point in my life.”

I stood up and continued onward towards the castle.

“Hold on a minute, I’m not done talking to you!” Bon-Bon continued to hound me. Even if I was attracting a lot of attention, I acted like nothing was off.

“Well I’m on a schedule and I definitely don’t want to pay for a hotel tonight. If you insist on following me, then keep up. Could I stand to sleep out of a cardboard box? Nah, the rents horrible on those things.” I would continue onwards despite Bon-Bon and I had to wonder where all the royal guards were, I hadn’t seen one since I got into the city proper. “So is there anything else you or your partner over there want to know.”

Bon-Bon looked at the pony I randomly pointed out and paled.

“How did you…” Bon-Bon started and I looked at the pony sitting at the café reading a newspaper to try and quickly find something off about him.

“The newspaper of course, it’s obviously an early morning newspaper.” I nodded to myself, which made complete sense and now the faulty logic to go with it. “Like Celestia is an early morning pony.”

“Lots of ponies read their early morning papers in the evening.” Bon-Bon glared at me as she followed along towards the castle.

“Even week old papers in the evening, with…” I sniffed the air. “A double espresso coffee from the smell of it?”

“Yes… but what does the coffee have to do with it?” The ever curious secret agent Bon-Bon.

“It’s about to become night time, aren't most ponies usually preparing for bed in an hour or so? His cutie mark doesn’t scream night-time job at all.” I had my little follower spluttering for something to say in her coworker's defense, she stopped glaring at me and glared at her handler. I was wondering if foreknowledge was a thing in this world, aside from Celestia’s future sight ability that is. “Your handler’s not exactly on his game today I take it?”

“No, no he is most certainly not and you’re right!” Bon-Bon’s ears wilted as she blushed and turned a sad look to me. “I can see how completely out of place he’s being when you pointed it all out, wearing sunglasses this late in the evening doesn’t help.”

“Yeah, hiding in plain sight that badly is for idiots... and ponies apparently. Your species generally doesn’t pay attention to the small things that seem out of place, but is likely seen on a regular basis like multiple ponies sitting around with sunglasses in the evening. I’d suggest a sunset viewers club as an excuse for them.” I was getting closer to the castle and Bon-Bon was still following me. “In any case, when you eventually get a mission with a bugbear, you’ll eventually be reassigned to Ponyville after that with the official statement that your organization is shutting down. In truth you’re going to be in Ponyville to watch some important ponies to make sure they don’t get seriously hurt, oh and you’ll be best friends with a mint flavored pony. Don’t forget to ask Pony Joe about his fudge donuts since you’re obviously going to tell your handler everything over them.”

She blinked at me and stopped, I confused her badly enough with bluffs that I walked up to the castle without her following me. Oddly there were no guards around. I swear, the royal guards were all seriously horrible at their jobs. I walked into the entrance and looked around at the splendor, I was quite the tourist as I approached what would be the throne room and I finally saw two guards who leveled their spears at me.

“Halt, what is your business here… uh… whatever you are?” Abyssinians really needed to become better known, we had lots of trade agreements with ponies for crying out loud! Do ponies never wonder where some of their more exotic makeup products come from?

“Abyssinian here to see Celestia about an incident, is evening court still going in the throne room?” The guards looked to one another and seemed to silently communicate with body language, they turned to me and nodded. I was led into the throne room by the two and saw Celestia with tiny reading glasses going over several papers.

I opened my mouth to speak and she suddenly looked up with me with an intense stare, before I knew it my world went black. The last thing I saw was golden pair of shoes on a beautiful white furred mare with hair like an aurora coming at me, also the glasses spinning in the air and a scattered pile of papers.

Author's Note

The knife's self-sustain is an effect of using it over a prolonged period, it is neither quick nor fast acting. Jade won't be a rogue in a year, it'll take a lot more than that to double class as a rogue/priest.

Chapter One, To Canterlot and Back: A pentagon is never so protective.

I came to in a bed, it was comfortable at least and kind of warm. I was probably in a direct sunbeam judging by the light on my eyelids, cats tended to lay around in the sunlight and like a cat I just felt like staying right where I was.

I didn’t fall back asleep for a few reasons.

For one I can remember the last thing I was doing and that was me walking up to Celestia, then a flash of white and colors coming at me and then darkness to now.

Another is that I was currently naked in bed, I could tell with just a bit of shifting and my tail felt something silky when I shifted it about. Being naked wouldn’t be much of a problem even if I preferred sleeping in my clothing.

For the last thing, that was actually quite troubling to me, is that upon cracking my eyes open slightly I could see that I had white feathered wings wrapped around me. If what I was feeling was correct, then those large hooves wrapped around my belly probably belonged to a rather large horse size being.

Celestia was snuggled up against me wasn’t she? I felt very awkward about this, on the one hand a pretty pony princess snuggles felt nice and on the other… this felt like situation where I needed an adult that wasn’t over a thousand years old.

“There, now that the suns up… time to rise and shine!” Her horn dimmed and she nuzzled my neck and I tried not to react negatively.

“Quick question, where are my clothes? You know, the things like my shirt with the blood stain on the shoulder.” Yeah this was both awkward and surprisingly comfortable, was I using her mane as a pillow? It smelled nice at least. “Also shining a beam of sunlight on my face is more likely to make me sleep longer.”

“Oh right, you’re an Abyssinian, always lazing about in the sun like a normal cat.” Celestia leaned over to kiss my forehead, she pulled back and loosened her grip allowing me to sit up and look her in the eyes. “I’m quite sorry about my… er… enthusiastic greeting. It’s been little more than six hundred years since I last saw a sun priest.”

“You call knocking me out enthusiastic?” I wasn’t about to deny that she was actively snuggling me. As long as it was just cuddling I was okay with it. “I also noticed that you just dodged my question.”

“You’re quite intelligent.” Celestia got up out of bed and I watched as she approached the door, she talked to someone outside before she came back to me and I gave her a raised brow. “Your shirt is being mended and cleaned, as are your other clothes. I’ve taken the liberty of… well that is to say… I may have invaded your privacy a bit.”

“With the way I woke up next to you, I hope you can word that a bit better.” I stated flatly shooting the blushing a princess a glare. “Look I came to Canterlot for a reason.”

“You mean aside from messing up the S.M.I.L.E organization by outing a Changeling in their ranks, do tell.” She snickered a bit at me keeping myself covered with the blanket. Ponies, they have no modesty. “No, I mean I had you measured so we can make something for you. How do you feel about robes?”

“Not particularly fond of them, I prefer cloaks.” That got a strange reaction, given the odd stare in my direction.

“How do you feel about staffs?” Okay where was Celestia going with this and why did I get a sinking feeling that her thoughts were completely wrong on something.

“Not fond of staves either, I’m getting pretty good with knives though. Why do you ask?” Now her ears were wilting and my suspicions were just rising by the second. “Better question, why do you think I came to Canterlot in the first place?”

“Well now, this may sound silly, but…” Those weren’t the words Celestia would say if there wasn’t some kind of misunderstanding going on here, plus she was poking both her front hooves together in a nervous manner.

“Hold on, don’t tell me… you misunderstood my reason for needing an audience with you? Can I please get my stuff back sometime today, I have to get back to the location of the crash site to make sure my mom is alright.” Now those words got a reaction out of her and I was wondering what she’d say next.

“What crash site?” Now Celestia seemed to be quite intent on hearing what I had to say and less perky, she was more attentive as her ears went straight up and her flowing mane stilled. Her smile became less real by the second and I was surprised that I could actually perceive it becoming a false one.

“You know that exploding rainbow across the sky the other day? I know someone who knows who caused that, it knocked the airship I was on out of the sky.” There was a muted look of shock on the face of the princess, I just wrapped my arms around my knees underneath the sheets while giving her an unamused look. “That rainbow wave burst the front two balloons on the airship and sent everyone overboard close to some rather pointy shoals, we were flying up the coast on our way to Manehatten when it happened. You might want to check the east coast down south for survivors or get in contact with the sea ponies in that general area to see if they saw or saved anyone recently.”

“I… why do I not know about this?” Celestia had immediately started making her way out of the room, in a fit of anger judging by the way her mane started to flow as if it were about to catch fire. It looked like she had some fish to fry.

Speaking of fish to fry, I’m hungry, who did I have to beat over the head to get some food around here? The room service is here lousy and forget bed bugs, you got entire alicorns in your bed in Canterlot Castle. At least alicorns were less annoying, I’ll give the accommodations that much.

There were some questions that I wanted to ask that wasn’t related to me getting breakfast, what does being a full on sun priest exactly entail and what was it that Celestia had expected me to say when I answered her two questions?

“Did she just leave me here and forget about me?” Well I was up a creek, where's my paddle? I wasn’t about to go walking around naked as I had a past life stigma about it. At least I wasn’t prideful enough to ignore my first option, which is calling for help. “Hello, is there anyone around here!”

“Huh, are you the one I’m supposed to be in charge of caring for?” In came a maid who froze and saw me sitting there on the bed.

“Hello there, I’m Jade and you are?” The maid seemed a little unnerved by my appearance, I was just an Abyssinian for crying out loud. There are way worst things than a cat girl that you could meet that were like cats. After a moment she gasped and shook her head realizing that she was being rude.

“I’m Fresh Start, a pleasure to make you’re acquaintance milady.” She curtsied and smiled at me, she had a floor length mixed blonde and orange mane, a bright purple coat, ruby red eyes and a maid dress that hid her cutie mark. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Get me some clothes for one, also could you get some breakfast for me while you’re at it? I can get a bath in while you’re busy with that.” I got up with the blanket still wrapped around me toga style and made my way for the bathroom, I was quickly stopped by the maid.

“Wait a second, you need to be careful with that shoulder when you wash it!” Ah yes, Fresh just had to point out the stitched up and scabbing wound. How could I ever forget that? “Also what would you like to eat?”

“A fried egg, broken yoke mixed in with the white, salt and pepper, two fresh slices of bread, a small hash brown, the fruit of the day, a waffle with butter and strawberry or blueberry syrup if available and an apple tart to finish it off.” As I rattled that out, I noticed that the earth pony had already pulled out a notepad from her dress and was immediately jotting everything down. “Okay what’s what with the shampoo or soap and where can I get a towel after I’m done?”

“What shampoo scent do you want?” She asked blithely as she looked over everything she wrote. “Favorite color for the clothes while we’re at it.”

“Kiwi, waterfall mist or sea breeze, kiwi preferred.” The maid quickly set about and gathered a bottle, a bar of soap and put a towel off to the side for and me. “My favorite color is green, I’m also partial to blue as well.”

“Okay, just be careful with that shoulder of yours. I wouldn’t want to fail in my duty to take care of you my first day on the job.” She then started to bustle off only to stop, she turned back to me. “Oh and leave the blanket by the door, I’ll take care of it and the other sheets.”

I started to run a bath and thought back to the conversation I had with Celestia, one interesting thought crossed my mind. I was right about the SM.I.L.E. director being a Changeling, that was supposed to be a bluff. What are the chances of that happening? Well, what are the chances I could walk from the train station straight to the castle without ever seeing a royal guard until I got there? Quite astronomical I’d imagine, like the sun… oh right.

I entered the mountain prayer position and did my morning routine of a sun salutation, before I hopped into a nice hot tub of water.

-Celestia-

I was quite livid, I had thought the Sonic Rainboom was incredibly beautiful. Now I was learning that nobody had informed me of incidents occurring because of it! Well I’d see what my little ponies in charge of air traffic had to say for themselves.

“Please tell me gentle ponies, why was I never informed about one or more airships crashing within my borders as an end result of that exploding rainbow more than a day ago?” I believed the sun priest, in fact I hadn’t even gotten the cats name before she rushed off. Even then, I still believed her about the crash landing.

Even when I called these ponies into this meeting and they didn’t look too particularly worried… yet. I was pretty sure they were connected to stupid things the nobles were trying to do.

“What are you talking, what crashed airships?” One of the various unicorns before me asked, I noted the lack of a single pegasus pony from air traffic control being in the room with me. “The airspace was completely clear that day, except for any Pegasus flying near cloudsdale.”

“Are you seriously going to sit there and try to cover it up when I already have proof?” I was quite certain I was going to hear something that would be telling right about…

“Oh, really, where is this so called pegasus with their proof that an airship was violating their airspace?” The unicorn came off as haughty and he decided to dig himself deeper. “As you can see, I don’t see any pegasi here trying to show their vaunted proof. Whoever it is, they are obviously lying about whatever it is they’re telling you.”

“Who said that it was a pegasus that was my proof?” That caused all the ponies in the room to gulp loudly, I had stumbled onto something and I wasn’t letting a single unicorn leave this room until I squeezed the information out of them. “Also what’s this about violating Cloudsdale’s airspace? I would really like to know, as the proof I was talking about involved an Abyssinian coming to report a crashed airship and I only just heard about it this morning. An even more important question comes to mind, what did you do with the air traffic control pegasi?”

Now that had all the unicorn ponies paling, as they hadn’t informed her of any crashed airships at all or that airships were flying in illegal airspaces they shouldn’t be. She had them and she knew it, as such today would be a good day for fighting corruption when it just gave itself away so blatantly.

-Jade-

Sitting next to my towel wrapped form was a stack of empty plates and Fresh Start was just staring at me with awe.

“Where did you even put it all?” She asked as I had just finished swallowing the last bits of egg between two slices of bread.

Stating that I starved in a previous life probably wouldn’t have gone over very well as an excuse for my rather healthy appetite.

“What can I say, I was hungry.” All she did was numbly nod at my answer, I leaned back sighing contently and started picking at my teeth with a claw.

After a lot of silence and with me relaxing with a towel around my waste, Fresh spoke up.

“Does your shoulder hurt?” One would think she was trying to make a conversation magically appear out of a hat.

“It’s fine.” I told Celestia what I came to tell her, now I had to get my stuff and get back to mom. “So about those clothes I asked for, also where’s all my other stuff?”

“Oh right, the shirt with the blood stain and the other clothing, It should finished quite soon milady.” Having said that Fresh bowed to me. “All your stuff will be returned to you soon.”

“Everything including the two black feathers in my pack?” A simple nod and I just sat there for a moment before responding. “Well the sooner you do that, the sooner I can get out of here.”

“Wait… what? Aren’t you going to stay here and help Celestia as a sun priest?” There was something akin to panic in Fresh Start’s eyes.

“I never agreed to anything and Celestia hasn’t asked me to stay so…” I dragged it out for emphasis while twirling my left hand in her direction. “I’ll just be going as soon as you get my stuff and the fresh clothes you promised me.”

“Well I did agree to something, I promised to be your maid for Celestia.” I gave Fresh Start an unconcerned look, did she do that in writing? If so, it was a serious problem for her and it was none of my business. “She said this job was important, that means I have to follow you when you leave!”

“Then you better get packing, because I’m catching the next train out of Canterlot before Celestia tries to talk me into anything.” I guess I wasn’t leaving Canterlot without at least some trouble following me, I think Celestia might just want a little bit too much of my time and she had acted rather creepy towards me.

I hoped to get out Canterlot before the guards could stop me.

Chapter One, To Canterlot and Back: A jump is never so scary.

Thanks to Fresh Start, I could now ditch the towel for a yellow shirt, unmentionables, green shorts and a forest green cloak with my fish necklace underneath. I insisted on the cloak, I was going to be a heroic rogue and nobody could stop me! I’d look into the possibilities of what the cloak can do when used as my magical alchemy sustain.

Speaking of stopping me, I noticed that Fresh Start was looking at me expectantly with her own pack. My canteen was full of water and the dried food mom made was still good.

Whatever Celestia was busy with, I better bounce before she gets back to me. If I could ditch Fresh Start on the way, then she wouldn’t get in trouble. The perfect plan right? First I had to see a phoenix about her feathers, because the feathers she molts could be useful in restoring Tempest’s horn.

“Do you know where Celestia’s friend Philomena is? It’ll keep me in the castle longer and I’ll return to the room after I bargain with her and then I will try to make my escape, I hope you’re a fast runner.” It was thanks to my wording that Fresh Start led me to phoenix’s cage and she wasn’t currently in it. Instead she was at a nearby table playing cards with three pegasus guards and she had a large pile of bird seed next to her. “Seriously… gambling? I thought the royal guard were better than that! Your even implicating Philomena too, shame on all of you.”

The phoenix chirped something unintelligible yet intelligent sounding for about thirty second, the guards around the phoenix had frozen up at our approach. They stared at me in horror at being caught out gambling bird seed with Celestia’s favorite, supposedly pet, fire bird.

Of course it might have been Philomena who started these card games, but I was going to blame these guards anyway for letting Philomena run roughshod over them like this. At least they weren’t betting bits, so they’d probably only get a few slaps on the hooves if caught.

“Yeah, I didn’t understand a word of that.” I didn’t speak phoenix and wished Fluttershy were here with me. Her special talent reads as understanding animalistic languages, it would have been really useful. “I’m not going to narc on you guys for this if that’s what you’re worried about, as I have better things I could be doing. I wanted to trade something for some of Philomena’s less useful feathers or feathers she was going to molt off anyway.”

The phoenix tilted her head and gave me a curious warble before pointing out the pile of bird seed with a wing and then poking an empty spot on the table while giving me a look.

“What’s my offer?” I received a nod from the flaming avian, I pulled out two packs of unopened plastic bags loaded with dried apricots made lovingly by my mother. “Okay, how about several bags worth of dried fruit for say… four feathers? My mom’s really good at making food and promise you’ll enjoy this.”

Philomena gave it some thought and tapped the table twice, she wanted some more. I place a bag of dried pears down and she tapped the table once more. I placed a pack of dried banana chips on the table and she shook her head no, I took that back and sighed as it seemed Philomena didn’t like bananas for some reason. I was going to regret this as mom rarely ever made these for me, but it was going to a good cause.

“Okay, so you don’t like banana chips, how about half a bag of kiwi candies?” Half a plastic bag of kiwi chunks were set on the table, I opened it up and took one out for Philomena to get a taste of. “They are rarely ever made and I can assure you that you won’t have tasted anything like them. Try one and tell me if it’s worth the price.”

Philomena took the kiwi candy and threw it in her beak, after chewing the candy a bit she froze and seemed to shiver. Yep my mom’s really good with candied fruit whenever she can get the fruit to make it. Philomena started to rapidly nod at me and pointed to the bag, I sighed sadly and placed it on the table and Philomena started preening for loose feathers. I didn’t get the four feathers I originally wanted, I instead received ten loose feathers as Philomena was making this as fair a trade as possible.

“Pleasure doing business with you Philo!” Cheerily turning about face and ignoring the happy cooing noise at my back as I stowed away the bushel of feathers in my pack, I looked to Fresh Start who was staring at me with disbelief before she started leading me back to Celestia’s room.

“I think… I might have seen some things that I really didn’t need to know.” Apparently Fresh Start’s world view was shattered, poor her.

Now time for my amazing escape plan!

-

Okay back in Celestia’s room, I have two raven feathers to burn for a casting. I moved over to the balcony and looked over the city, the view was spectacular and quite fitting for a princess who raised the sun. More importantly, I was looking for a target nobody would mind me landing on.

“So, when are we leaving?” Fresh Start asked as I saw a blond fop of a white furred stallion approaching the castle and he started talking to guards which seemed to have annoyed them quite a bit.

“Oh I’m leaving right about…” I tapped my dagger to start using it as my magical sustain and then I pulled out a raven feather and it evaporated as I used the cast on myself. I focused on targeting the blond haired unicorn, took a few steps away from the balcony and then charged towards it. “Now!”

I pushed off from the edge of the balcony and soared, my fall stopped for a second twenty feet above my target.

I gave grin back to the horrified Fresh Start as I froze in the air, then I came down upon the pony known as Prince Blueblood feet first and stomped down on his head.

I bounced off, rolled and then I started using my heightened agility to start running for it full tilt down the street.

I saw a particular donut shop and skidded to a stop, I calmly entered the establishment. Seconds later the two guards that were giving chase to me for knocking out Blueblood ran by. They were either going to thank me or arrest me for my actions, I wasn’t ready to find out which it was.

I came up to the counter and leaned on it, my tail flicking back and forth at the sweet smells permeating the room.

“Hello there… well you’re an unusual sight.” The slightly portly brown haired and beige furred Donut Joe said upon seeing me leaning against the counter with a canary eating grin. “Anyway, I’m Donut Joe what do you want?”

“Hello Double O’ Joe, I’d like at triple braided tiger tail with strawberry, vanilla and chocolate twisted in if you can manage that. Oh and a raspberry and cream cheese filled donut to go.” He seemed to freeze up as I stated his supposed secret agent name, I guess he was one S.M.I.L.E. agent that actually smiled. “I have a long trip ahead of me and I’m getting that donut for my mom so package it up. Oh and did Agent Sweetie Drops come by for the fudge donuts?”

“Yes… she did… I’ll get right on your order and will you be eating that tiger tail or do you want me to package it up like the other one?” Well he didn’t seem very put off about me knowing about him or the organization he worked with.

“I guess I’ll take it packaged too, I might not have the time to stop and eat it as I’m going to be very busy today Mr. Joe.” My bright cheerful tone made him smile. If I don’t make it to the next train out of Canterlot, then I’d have to improvise and eat the tiger tail on the road later. “Oh and can you make sure that both snacks are protected against being smashed? I might accidentally end up on my back at some point and I wouldn’t want to ruin such delectable treats.”

“Why thank you for the compliment and yes, I can do that as I tend to get a clumsy customer every now and then. She’s quite the muffin fanatic.” I waited for ten minutes and he eventually sat the bag on the counter and then cast a spell over it. “That’ll be fifteen bits.”

“The economic costs of living here huh? Well they are really big donuts, so I’m getting my money’s worth at least.” I’d be left with thirty bits, but this was going to be worth it and I was bringing mom something nice from my short trip to Canterlot. I paid him and took the bag. “Thanks Mr. Joe and see you later when I need some really delicious snacks.”

“Okay, thanks for the business and have a good day miss.” Donut Joe waved me good bye and I took off my pack to stow the paper bag away. I was going to eventually want to meet that muffin fanatic and worship her a bit, but I’d better get moving. I’ve dallied long enough for Fresh Start to start asking around for me down the street. “Oh and thanks for outing that Changeling for us!”

I exited the shop and started running again, now where was the train station?

-

“There she is, get her!” I paused in the intersection and noticed that all the ponies were parting for several guards and I could hear music starting to play around me.

So, heart songs were actually a thing here, who was singing it? It was then that I realized that a strange feeling was coming over me. Oh for the love of, it’s me!

I even knew why this magical tune sounded familiar, I just hoped I could fudge the lyrics well enough as I was outrunning the guards. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of copyright infringement even if nobody here would charge me for it.

“Have to go, all that much faster~. One skip, ahead of a burgeoning disaster~.” I said as I leapt up and over the diving armored winged mare that just plowed into the street missing me by a few feet, digging a small trench in sold stone. “I don’t want to be stuck here working for Celestia, because I just might get spiritually bored~. Quite frankly.”

“One hop, ahead of the royal guards~. Seriously, you guys are a joke~.” I pulled my knife deflected the edge of an incoming hovering spear. I grabbed it near the head, spun around and swung the blunt end of the shaft into the head of the unicorn that had been wielding it. I easily knocked him flat, I let go of the spear and kept running. Through the square towards the train station or at least I hope I was. “These guys probably wouldn’t appreciate it if it’s something against Celestia that I spoke~!”

“What’s that~?” Yelled one guard chasing after me.

“Darn cat~!” Another guard shouted angrily following his buddy.

“Stun spells, take that~!” Several unicorn guards teleported in and fired at me. I performed a hand spring up onto a bunch of boxes and then bounced off the awning of a nearby restaurant and grabbed a window. I pulled myself in and looked back at the guards glaring at me.

“Come on, can’t we talk guys~?” Even though this musical number was making me insult you something fierce.

“Catch her and book her for possibly spreading the Celestia is fat lies~!” Oh come on! That was too ridiculous for them to have sung honestly and with straight faces. I ducked out of the way of several blasts of magic hitting the window sill.

“Okay, this song has a bent~. I need to face the facts, and get out of here real soon~!” I turned and went for the window on the opposite side of the room, but apparently the musical number wasn’t done with me yet.

“Who… oh my, it’s a sad cat with the royal guards on her bottom, is she here performing some kind of silly crime~?” A sexy white furred and pink haired mare came up to me and hugged me while rubbing up against me. Oh hey, it was Fleur De Lis. “I’d suggest you get out of here, but your so cute that I’d want to cuddle you and take up your time~.”

“Have to keep moving, got to get away, I would like a signed autograph later when it’s not my freedom on the line~!” I broke free of the mare and charged for the other window and leapt out of it without looking leaving smiling Fleur looking after me. “One hop ahead of the armored, one bounce as I croon… I know for a fact that I’m not coming back anytime soon~!”

I grabbed a clothesline as I fell and slid along it into some clothes and dropped into a heap onto the ground below, oh dang I was doing a perfect imitation parody of the original song wasn’t I?

“I’m still ahead the guards, slightly flush ahead of that herd~. I think I’ll just try to stop singing before I’m captured~.” I burst away from the pile of dirtied clothes and made my way down the street with the guards on my heels, I should probably look into shoes instead of being barefoot all the time.

“Freeze bandit~! Robber~!” I turned a corner and saw a pony stealing a purse, I clotheslined the pony and threw the purse back to the owner.

“Found her~!” Several guards surrounded me and backed me towards a door and I smiled weakly.

“Come on, let’s not get all huffy~!” Then I found myself being squeezed by a giant pony that burst from the door and had seen my act of heroism.

“Because she’s rather friendly and fluffy~!” The giant blue green coated pony with the green mane said.

“Do me a quick favor, and toss me onto the roof~. Otherwise I’m going to be quite screwed~!” I’m surprised I was allowed to sing that and even more surprised when she launched me upwards.

“Hey~!” The guards yelled angrily as I started clambering across the rooftops where I had to avoid several pegasus ponies trying to grab me.

“Quick feet, ahead of their hoof beats~. (Where’s that~).” I sang, I wished this song was over with as I jumped onto another roof top and saw Celestia standing near the edge of Canterlot. I eyed her pristine looking feathers. “One lunge ahead of these jocks~. (Darn cat~!).”

“I have one trick to save me from disaster~. (Founder Her~!).” I hope this worked, I dropped down to the street and charged my way towards Celestia who looked towards me in shock. I grabbed some loose feathers as I passed by her. “They might be fast, but I can be faster~. Hey there Celestia~! Hope you can find my stand in, as I hope this is a happy landing~. See you later because now that I’ve got to… leap~!”

I jumped off the side of Canterlot.

Chapter Two, Airship Mauled: To begin anew.

-Kuril-

I sat down next to Tempest who was just watching the fire blankly, the fire that hadn’t had a single piece of wood added to it since my daughter started it. Her ability was really quite amazing, but it didn’t really seem to do all that much aside from some protection and constant warmth. Sekhet was off somewhere doing who knows what, the whimsy of the goddess was not for me to guess or judge.

“Tempest, I want to ask you something.” This was something I thought that Tempest might need, all she did was lift her left ear and she didn’t look at me. I asked my question anyway without her permission. “What did you want to eventually be when you grew up?”

“I… I don’t know… I don’t think I ever did.” Here Tempest looked away from me and she was brooding again. That wasn’t healthy for a girl her age, she was still growing and needed some motherly love.

“What did you dream of doing before you… ended up broken?” This would hurt and I knew it would, my question caused her to turn to me in anger and that anger quickly softened at the look on my face. “In more ways than one I mean.”

“I… I wanted to go to Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns with my friends.” A sudden large amount of resentment showed up on her face. “Some friends they were after my horn was broken… I learned that day that I should just rely on myself. That the best way to survive is on my own.”

“Being self-sufficient is all well and good and it can certainly get you far, but no person or pony is an island. Nobody can start anywhere in this world without help Tempest. A baby, or a foal if you will, could not have survived childhood without at least some love and care.” I moved my right hand to caress her behind the ears. I was expecting her to swat my hand away, but she just slumped slightly. The poor dear must have been so lonely. “A foal can’t really rely on themselves, would you leave foal all alone in the world if it was your own? You must have had a mother that loved you or else you wouldn’t even be here. It’s a parents job to protect their foals and yours weren’t around to make sure you were okay, but they at least made sure that you lived to be where you are now right?”

“I remember some things… a parent… might have been looking out for me. I… was too young to remember them clearly. I know they at least left me in a safe place, well mostly safe anyway. Anyone can see the end results of that. I was okay with living in my village and for a time I was happy. If only the mares and stallions around the area had been watching us a little more closely or had appointed a more watchful guardian, then maybe I might not have lost my horn.” The way Tempest was staring at the fire sadly was breaking my heart, I think it would break my daughters too if she could see Tempest like this. I looked up from her at the fire and saw Sekhet sitting in the shadow of a tree across from us with a frown on her face and her orange eyes glowing in the shade. “We were being raised communally, I only had my friends and they… they just… abandoned me.”

Tears started to fill Tempest’s eyes and I brought her head into my lap to start stroking her head.

“It’s all because my broken horn scared them off, it’s like it pours liquid magic whenever I try to use it and I just can’t help but try to. I wanted to be able to do magic again and that’s why I’m wandering around trying to find a way to fix it, so maybe one day I can… I can feel normal again. Maybe… even rekindle what we had. Even though I know it’s long gone.” It was a surprise that Tempest was actually opening up to me, I thought it would be much harder to break her shell. “I… might have had one adult that cared about me back in my village, but I haven’t actually seen them in years. If they’re even still around.”

I continued to silently listen to her and stroked her mane softly, she needed to let it all out. This must have been bottled up for a long time.

“I don’t know what became of my parents, but I guess I was too young and innocent to understand that they were gone...” I could hear Tempest choking off a sob. “That I was missing something big in my life.”

“Do you want me to stop petting you?” It was a concern of mine that Tempest was hitting an emotional breaking point and I was the cause.

“No… please… don’t stop.” Tempest wrapped her hooves around my waist and held me tight. “I… I want to feel… like somebody cares. That maybe… maybe I won’t be treated like something that’s about to explode violently.”

“That’s funny, because I do care.” I leaned forward and kissed the mare on my lap on her left temple. “Opening yourself up to others can hurt, but it isn’t just you that can be hurt. You can hurt others as well and I don’t just mean physically. Since we’re talking about ourselves I might as well tell you something about myself and my daughter.”

Tempest grunted a bit, but she didn’t remove herself from my lap. I got her comfortable with me and I wasn’t about to push her away, she needed all the attention she could get.

“When I was a little kitten, I always wanted to do magic and to learn about the world around me. I wanted to travel, to see and do amazing things. Eventually… those dreams died when I couldn’t figure out how to do magic. In fact, I couldn’t get enchanting down at all and that was something Abyssinians could actually do in a limited fashion.” This was my trip down memory lane, as soon as I was done talking about it I would move on to my daughter. Bless her reincarnated soul, I hope she’s okay. No mother should outlive their child. “I put my dreams aside and settled for being a cook in a lazy little coastal town, one where fishing is a pastime that everyone knows. Also fish jerky is consumed daily and in metric tons.”

Tempest snorted and her tears slowed a bit, she looked up at me and while there was anger at the world, there was something akin to a small spark of innocence still left in her that hadn’t been stamped out by her bitter lot in life. No child should be like this, not even my daughter, who I was doing my best to raise even if she had a prior history. Why if I were to die right now… my daughter would die the same way she did last time. Alone and completely starved of love, I don’t want that to happen to her again.

I want Jade to live a fulfilling life… the life I never got until recently. I pretended to be strong for her, to be the O and O character I always dreamed I could be, but it’s so hard some days.

“It shattered me to know that I couldn’t be magical, to know that I couldn’t do amazing things. I didn’t feel special at all.” I suddenly had a captive audience in Tempest, she was staring at me… if not in understanding then at least she could feel as I do. “But you know what? I think I gave up way too soon… It wasn’t until Jade came along that I learned that every single person, pony or even every intelligent being in existence can’t be replaced so easily. You can’t be replaced either Tempest… and… I want you to stick around. If not for me, then for my daughter’s sake. If something were to happen to me… well I’m all that she has at the moment.”

Tempest just stared at me with wonder, as if she’s never been offered a place with a family before. She lifted her left hoof and slowly gripped my right hand with it. I gripped the hoof back and gave her determined look as I felt tears filling my eyes, but I continued the tale of my life.

“I grew into a bitter and rather jaded adult, it’s kind of why I named my daughter Jaded.” I couldn’t live my dreams and then I get pregnant, which was a miracle to me considering my partner. I didn’t think I could carry a child to term or even raise one, I didn’t believe in myself. If it hadn’t been for the people of Palicoast… all of them had banded together just for me. A little tight knit community filled to the brim with compassion. “It took me getting pregnant with Jade to know that I had some magic in me, that I could bring life into the world. The one bit of magic I could perform and it was a bittersweet event, Jade came into the world with only one parent.”

I noticed Sekhet just staring at us thoughtfully, she was still sitting in the shade and not joining us in our conversation. It made me consider how goddesses are born and the circumstances under which they are raised. They live for so long and must be so lonely, seeing us like this just might be rekindling something in her or its making her feel more and more like an outsider.

“I wouldn’t have been able to make it if the people of Palicoast hadn’t been there for me. I wouldn’t have made it and Jade wouldn’t have been given a chance to be brought into this world, to do the things I never could.” I pulled Tempest into a tight hug, she hugged me back. Shared pain is halved, when shared the same. “There are just some things you can’t do alone Tempest, it’s something I want you to learn from someone who knows what’s it like. I… I even know how you feel.”

We just sat in silence for a minute to let that sink in as we held one another, an Abyssinian that’s growing older and a growing young mare who still had her entire life ahead of her. One of which Tempest seemed determined to waste getting back what was lost, she direly needed a family.

“My daughter was… interesting… for the first few years of her life. I already knew she was magical with that green hair of hers, she only got more interesting when she started talking. She didn’t exactly have too many friends growing up as there weren’t many Abyssinians born around the time that she was.” Oh the memories, how they made me smile. My best friend is my daughter and I hers, which was sad as Jade had been born between generations and had no friends her age to relate to in her second life. A life I won’t let her squander. “She was what kept me going in a dreary world, then we both discovered that we could do our own form of magic and it reignited a dream in me I had thought long since dead. It’s why I want to call myself the ‘Witch of Good Taste’ now, I will keep doing magic to my dying days and I will not stop trying to live the dreams I once had. My daughter needs more people in her life to keep pushing her to follow a dream, I hope that you will be one of them.”

It’s why I shut down the canteen in Palicoast and decided to try my hand at living in the future Equestria that Jade had talked about fondly. A future world where many creatures can come together in friendship. I want my daughter to be happy and I’ll work towards such a future my own way. We might not have been part of the original plot, but darn it if we weren’t going to mess it up so badly that it still happened anyway in spite of the changes we’re making. I will make that bright future shine with everything I have!

I looked at Tempest curiously and she looked away, she seemed to be thinking about things. I now had something to tell her and she needed to hear this like yesterday. I noticed her probing her broken horn with her right hoof.

“If you can’t use your horn to do magic, then why don’t you try doing other forms of magic or try doing magic in a different way?” This would strike her like lighting, but it had to be said and I was going to be the one to say it. “I learned to do magic when I thought I couldn’t, then why can’t you do the same? Just because you have a broken horn doesn’t mean you should give up on your dreams or even try making new ones, it doesn’t mean you need to get it fixed to do magic. Fixing your horn shouldn’t define everything you are, but you shouldn’t give up on that either! If you can’t do something, then find a new way to do it. Break the mold! You’re a magical pony aren’t you? Show some creativity then. Also… don’t give up on having friends, my daughter is awkward enough as it is and she needs as many as she can get.”

Tempest looked at me with wide eyes, we stared at each other and I smiled at her. Slowly she leaned her head against my belly and curled up against me.

“Thank you…” A few minutes of holding me and sobbing, she slowly calmed down and she finally spoke to me while flicking an ear. “Could you…”

I started petting her again and she sighed happily, probably the first time she’s been happy in a long time.

“When it seems like the world isn’t fair, when your life’s a mess and no one seems to care.” It is said that when you do a great good deed, an angel gets their wings. Pegasi were like angels right? I wouldn’t know, I was just trying to cheer up Tempest. “Just tell someone and a real friend might appear there, to help you pick up the pieces and will help make things square.”

I looked up at Sekhet and she had her back to me, but I could see the upturned corner of her mouth. A goddess that enjoys watching others heal… interesting.

“My name is Fizzlepop Berrytwist.” My attention returned to Tempest and I was a little honored that she was willing to tell me who she really was. “Can we… can we be friends?”

“We already are Fizzle. You, me and my daughter.” I glanced in the direction of the retreating giant lion tailed goddess. “Even Sekhet, which is if she wants to be friends with us.”

-Jade-

I was falling, the air whipping by as my velocity started increasing to its maximum. I clutched desperately at the white feather in my left hand. I believed I would survive, I was afraid of being wrong.

I clenched my eyes shut and cast, a bright blinding light and tinkling noise followed.

I was... flying?

I had wings!

Author's Note

Let's not forget, casts are always powerful... if exceedingly temporary.

Magical Alchemy List.

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater.

Sustain: Water Projection (Offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather. (New Information!)

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random. (One time air terrain survival buff, possible Offensive ability). (New!) Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain:???.

Self-sustaining: ???.

Sunlight.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

(New Magical Alchemy)

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight! (Limited air terrain mobility buff.) Target is given wings of pure sunlight. (More information is needed.)

Sustain: ???.

Self-sustaining: ???.

Chapter Two, Airship Mauled: To begin a flight.

-Spitfire-

I was a rising pegasus rookie in the Wonder Bolts and lately… things have been pretty weird in Canterlot since Celestia put the royal guard on high alert. The guard had been catching things left and right all day yesterday. They were putting out previously undiscovered figurative fires all over the city, who the buck would embezzle an orphanages funding? It’s stallions like that that make me despise nobles sometimes.

There were just some things that weren’t right here in Canterlot, then there was the odd stranger that the guards were supposed to be looking out for.

Where did they find this stranger? Escaping from Canterlot Castle under mysterious circumstances. Even I was curious as to what she had been doing there, apparently there were a lot of rumors about the cat and nothing criminally substantial other than badly mussing up Blueblood’s mane while knocking him out with a stomp to the head. A lot of the royal guards would have wanted to thank the being who was unafraid to do that.

As per usual nature of our lands, a spontaneous musical broke out in the streets. Only this one had an interesting beat to it and it was surrounding the singing cat in the cloak running from the guards, I was impressed that she could sing while running like that. The cat even gave Sturdy Spear a fierce knock to the head with his own weapon for trying to slow her down with violence, she even sung a scathing line about the royal guard and she wasn’t exactly wrong.

At least my squad could keep up with her, we even witnessed her stop another crime in progress while the royal guards were still trying to chase her down. I thought it odd that a supposed criminal would stop to put down another one, it got some guards off her butt at least. So I’ll give her a win on that one and some benefit of a doubt that she was a real criminal.

When she was launched onto the roof tops by the… let’s face it, she was a chubby large bulky pony of a mare with a cutie mark of her own face on it. Larger than life that one. We took our chances to try and grab the cat as she jumped across the rooftops. She was unusually agile for her scrawny appearance and the music even had me singing ‘darn cat’ after I slammed into the rooftop trying to grab her.

It was near the edge of Canterlot that the cat did something that got me and many of the other guards angry, the music was hitting a crescendo as she snatched some loose feathers from one of Celestia’s wings. I was now definitely taking that as a personal offense against Princess Celestia, who just looked after the cat in utter confusion. Wasn’t this the unusual visitor that she had warned the guard about?

The cat then had the gall, and even some very large stones, to just jump right off the side of Canterlot. Was she crazy, what was going on? Celestia moved towards the edge while looking worried and we flew up right next to her.

“Don’t worry Celestia, we’ll catch that feather stealing feline before she goes splat!” I turned to my friends and comrades. “Soarin, Fleetfoot, Surprise, Blaze, come on, let’s catch us a cat burglar!”

“No, why would she…!” Celestia’s frightened eyes weren’t on us or me, but on the form still falling through the air and then a bright blinding light shined from the cat and a loud tinkling noise rang throughout the area. It made us all pause and then, the cat was flying on wings made out of pure light as if it was from the sun itself. “W-What… she’s… that’s incredible… I’ve never seen any of them do something like that before!”

“Well of course she chooses now of all times to learn how to fly, let’s move!” I swooped down after the cat with my friends following my lead. Celestia started saying something and I yelled back. “Don’t worry about us princess, we won’t endanger ourselves unnecessarily!”

-Celestia-

I am the sun princess of pony kind, the crown is always so heavy upon my head and my false smile is a rictus that I wish wasn’t needed to appease my little ponies.

“Wait! I-I don’t want you to… hurt…. her…” It was too late, the youthful Wonder Bolts squad was already out of ear shot before I could finish telling them what I wanted and they were after the admittedly strange Abyssinian.

Where had this all gone so wrong? I… I just wanted to talk to the sun priest, not have her arrested! I mean, I might have been a bit too… hasty… in my assumptions that she was here to help me and join my court I admit. Seeing her jumping over the edge of Canterlot scared several years off of me, thanks to my longevity that wasn’t the issue. I didn’t even care that she had stolen some of my loose feathers.

I just… I wanted a friend who knew how the sun truly felt. I never even got the sun priestess’s name or even had a chance to explain myself.

Though I did kind of spook her when she woke up, curse my natural habit to doing naturally awkward things… and that was supposed to be a prank! I… I should have known better. I mean after Sunset… I tried not to remember that. I was blocking out the memories of those once innocent eyes slowly becoming filled with greed that I didn’t curb at all.

There were plenty of moon priests still around and they were waiting on Luna to be free of being Nightmare Moon, they were still telling the very real tale of Luna’s sealing. I even had a prophecy to that effect, one that I had hoped I would be able to handle with some ample help from the young Abyssinian that came to inform me of an airship crashing thanks to that Sonic Rain Boom.

Even if I had stamped out most of the truth of the matter in the public eye, it still bothered me that there was a holiday based around my sister’s fall to darkness. Nightmare Night was my most hated holiday, one that many ponies have come to enjoy.

The moon priests didn’t hate me, but they didn’t want much to do with me either. They were all thestrals, so I could understand why. They were nocturnal and they hadn’t helped Luna a thousand years ago and they regretted failing the princess of the moon every single day since through the various generations.

We shared our regrets. Even if we weren’t too great at working with one another, I still received thestrals for the night guard. They were always Luna’s knights, I shouldn’t even be in charge of them.

I had to find out why the Abyssinian was on the run like that and just what kind of mess my guards had started! I also needed to focus on other things… like Twilight, yes I needed to focus on her and the baby dragon that was born not too long ago. I couldn’t let myself get too caught up in this, even if it was my fault and I had to live with the consequences.

If the priest ever came back, I would approach her personally and apologize for all the trouble that I’ve caused her. I would absolve her of any crimes she may have committed today in her fleeing of Canterlot, it was all… just a big misunderstanding. A misunderstanding I should have paid more attention to, I thought I was better than this after what happened to Luna because of my ignorance.

-Jade-

Well I could say that partially fit into the role of a rogue now, a rogue priest that does what she will! What I’m going to do now is fly and I felt a brilliant song building in my heart with the music. I had expected a different effect, maybe feather falling or I become ‘light’ enough that my fall would have slowed to a safe speed.

I was not expecting wings or another song after the first one, but the magic filling me wanted me to sing again and I couldn’t help it or stop the words from exiting my mouth. I was getting really tired of musical numbers. If you ever come to Equestria, this is what will happen to you even if you aren’t a pony.

“What is this feeling, that I feel~? Am I flying, is this for real~? At least I’m not splattering across the ground and dying~!” I passed under the cloud and suddenly my wings dimmed and started fade until I got back into the sunlight, I had fallen quite a distance thanks to that. Passing under that cloud had weakened my magical wings tremendously. “It appears that my magical wings are really bright~! And they just happen to be made of pure sunlight~! This is certainly not a spell I’d want to use around the time of midnight~. I certainly enjoy this soaring feeling as I burst through the sky~! My heart swells and I feel as if the air itself can tell no lie~. As I feel free, like that all is quite well and that I am happy~.”

“Hey you get back here you stupid crazy cat~. Do you really think we’ll let you get away, especially with stealing the princesses feathers just like that~!” I turned and saw a young yellow furred Spitfire singing to the tune of the whimsical music that had me feeling great. “We’ll show you what us Wonder Bolts can do~. Because we’re a flying team unlike you~! Form up Soarin with Surprise and Fleetfoot with Blaze~. I am Spitfire and I can keep flying for days~! We’re coming for you and you’ll see, that you’re not getting away from them or me~!”

My good feelings were certainly gone now and at least the music wasn’t urging me to sing anymore. Apparently the magic won’t force you if you were upset enough about it, good to know as I turned and started fleeing towards the south with the five Wonder Bolts coming after me.

There was a certain irony of this situation, it was that I had to stay in sunlight or my wings would weaken and become faded making my flying become a crawl. Which was of course, bad. I couldn’t stay too high off the ground either, because when the cast ended… Yeah, I might want to fly as quickly as I can while avoiding the Wonder Bolts.

Spitfire swooped at me and I swerved out of her way. I started to fly lower and towards a lake with that flaming mane on my butt with her four friends flying higher and keeping up with us. Didn’t a goddess control a similar spell like this for her chosen hero?

Well I don’t think I had an auto-pilot like that, also I didn’t know how to fight in the air like this. This was the first time I’ve ever flown before.

I swerved and rolled between several trees and amazingly Spitfire was keeping up with me. I had been slowed down by nicking the shade and shadows too much. She was also using my wake to accelerate at me, her friends were just likely waiting for an opportunity to come at me themselves.

Idea! I swerved towards the lake and skimmed across the lake at high speeds and instinctively straightened out the energy wings on my back. Jets of water sprung up behind me and upon catching the tips of my wings they immediately turned into clouds from the heat the wings were giving off.

I lifted away to see that Spitfire was shaking her hoof at me, she had gotten stuck in the straight line of cloud that I left hovering over the lake.

Spitfire had thankfully lost all her momentum. I’m glad I remembered that clouds were, relatively, solid for winged ponies and I found out that I didn’t really need to flap my wings all too hard to get some height again. I was still moving at an incredible speed as I approached Ponyville, that’s when Soarin and Surprise swooped down and sped up towards me.

They chased me down the streets at high speeds above a bunch of surprised ponies, I tightly swerved and turned corners on a dime. Why did this feel so easy, when flying should have been far more difficult than this? Oh right, I was still using my knife as my magical sustain and it seems to be greatly improving the effects of my cast.

Blaze and Fleetfoot were still flying high, while Soarin and Surprise were literally almost on my tail. I swerved down a street and suddenly, I felt something get shoved into my hands. I looked down at the wrapped up cupcake with a note on it and I looked back to see a smiling Pinkie Pie. Soarin was on his back with his face was covered in the remains of a cupcake and Surprise had stopped to sit down and eat her sugary snack, much to my surprise that she wasn’t continuing pursuit.

I smiled stowing away the cupcake and gave a nod to Pinkie, she just winked at me and stuck out her tongue cheekily. Apparently I had flown by Sugar Cube Corner and she had to have used her Pinkie Sense to set that up. I should do her a big favor sometime later.

I quickly angled upwards sharply and shot towards Cloudsdale, I was veering around patches of shadow from the clouds above me and avoiding my wings being hit with any kind of darkness. I’d try losing the last two Wonder Bolts in the drifty city, I might even see Fluttershy on the way. I just couldn’t stick around, because who knew how long these wings would last me.

Blaze and Fleetfoot were catching up as I reached the edge of the cloud city and I started swooping around the many pillars and other Greek styled cloud architecture. I was trying not to be out the sunlight for too long. I flew over a home and saw Fluttershy talking to Rainbow shyly, I swooped for them.

“Hey Fluttershy, bye Fluttershy!” I had made the poor filly squeak and fall on her back before she got up and looked after me. At least her friend seemed excited about the two Wonder Bolts still trailing after me, I just couldn’t shake them.

Flying between clouds and the houses built out of them, I swerved through air traffic. I even performed a quick loop when they got too close. The two ponies on me just wouldn’t give up, then I had another idea.

I dove down sharply with my claws out and forward, air pressure building up and…

I would like to silently apologize for anyone inconvenienced by this like me and my mom were days prior.

I exploded downwards creating a small Sonic Light Boom that sent my dazed pursuers flying, then I went horizontal and kept going.

It was quite unfortunate for me that I wasn’t built to handle the stress of moving so fast and I was beginning to black out from the pressure of several G's being put on my body.

I was soon the center of a blazing corona of light heading south... and I wasn't exactly in control of it.

Author's Note

The chapter titles will never be normal, that said. Also Cat burglar is a horrible pun when in reference to an Abyssinian.

(New magical alchemy information!)

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness. (New Information!) Strengthens all mobility based buffs.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight. (New Information!) Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability. The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining.

Sustain: ???.

Self-sustaining: ???.

Chapter Two, Airship Mauled: To begin a game.

-Sekhet-

Why was I even still bothering with these mortals? I guess I just want the luxury of being able to talk to someone. I’ve lived quite fine in peace until Lady Kuril dropped an already crashing airship on my head. If I didn’t know I could heal from it, I would swear it’s the head injury keeping me here.

When the airship hit me, I had felt the revenge of the many workers who did all the, quite literally, back breaking work in turmoil so many years ago when it came to building in the desert. The structures they built have lasted a long time and were considered quite the mortal achievement in architecture. It made me wonder if my anti-flight zone curse is still on that temple, I can do things that last as long too you know.

Talking was a luxury I could afford, as was keeping up with the times and all the advancements going on in the world. I was at least up to date with the world, because every once in a while I go visit nearby civilizations in disguise and most won’t even recognize me when I do.

I guessed that I was sticking around here for the freshly cooked magical food, I no longer had any reason to hound the two Abyssinians and I was even beginning to respect them quite a bit. My interest right now was watching the young broken pony heal spiritually. As the priest… well, as the rogue priest Jade had alluded to me, I had not paid enough attention to the healing aspect of myself in a long time. The only exception was healing myself from injuries and not others which was actually a part of my healing prowess.

I’ve been a huntress for hundreds of years, one that many a creature has come to fear earning the ire of or even a smidgen of my grand attention. Not once had I stopped to save lives in equal numbers as those I took, I’ve been quite greedy and lazy. I’m not bothered about my decadent life style up until now as I’m quite sure that Anubis made use of those deaths, but I wished for something new to do after so long.

I was a goddess who was powerful, wise and magical… also a tad lonely as finding any ‘good’ immortal companionship is quite hard.

All mortal lives are really quite short, but they made for excellent companions like no other and most immortal beings tended to forget that. They also forget that without mortals, we wouldn’t have much reason to be around and I had definitely lost my reason to be around a long time ago. Free time was never going to be an issue for me.

I know Celestia hasn’t forgotten the importance of mortals, especially not an unusual one like Jade. Being a young goddess helped the sun princess, but she certainly has problems controlling all of her rambunctious mortals. At least she is doing a better job to keep them thriving than I or even Bastet could with our own.

This is why I want to help the broken unicorn, it was something different to do after all that hunting day in and out. It was a dream, a really long vacation if you will, that I finally woke up from and finally decided to do something else.

I can’t just give the mortal her horn back, but I can continue to aid in the recovery of her spirit with some careful guidance. Said spirit is no longer completely in a dark place thanks to the rogue sun priest’s mother, but it needed to be brought further into the light of day.

I might even help Fizzle become a warrior if she wishes to learn how to fend for herself better. She will never be able to cast magic in a controlled manner, but bigger more complicated wide ranging spells should still be possible for her if Priest Jade and Lady Kuril can’t help her.

That got me thinking about sun priests.

Ah yes, sun priests, always the guiding lights even when they don’t realize it. They don’t even need to know where they are going or even to act in any given specific way, they will always find a home somewhere and people will always come to them for guidance or help. It is inevitable, even if they aren’t acting like the traditional idea of what a priest is.

If I had to guess, Celestia would have expected robes, staves and a sense of tradition with Jade. She would be sorely disappointed as Jade wasn’t fit for such an arbitrary mold.

It was another reason for me to stick around, it’ll be amusing to see what kind of trouble Jade could get into. It has been a long time since a priestess like her has been around, Jade was quite a rarity to run into these days and many would want her help even if they don’t know what they are in for by asking for it.

I’m quite certain Jade doesn’t know either, no one has told her yet as far as I know and all she would have to do is to know to ask me. I wasn’t about to tell her if she didn’t want to know after all. Don’t mind the toothy smile on my face, it’s nothing of importance.

I can make sure that Jade isn’t taken advantage of by anyone… but what would be the fun in that? Who would even know how to take advantage anyway? Mortals learned more from their mistakes than they do from doing everything right the first time. It’s like how I can forgive many slights, but I’ll never forget them… ever.

Speaking of the solar priest… I feel her coming. She shines brightly to those who know what to look for and she’s coming this way quite fast, my curiosity is now piqued.

I think Jade might be in need of a little divine intervention, who am I as a goddess to not respond to such a need? This is the beginning of a new chapter in my long, long life. It might even be quite the read.

“Your daughter is coming back and she’ll be here in approximately a minute.” I think Kurilian misunderstood my meaning and got up to look in the directions Jade would have probably walked in from, that is if she had been walking.

“I don’t see my little tom cat.” Of course you wouldn’t Lady Kuril, I can sense that she’s actually coming at us a lot higher than an Abyssinian is supposed to be. Flying at such a speeds cannot be healthy for such a fragile mortal.

Even the recently named Fizzle was confused as she didn’t see Jade coming either, but I knew and didn’t need to see. I could feel her just fine.

“I did not say she would be walking here, watch the north… and you will soon see something of great interest.” I spread my wings while chuckling with mirth and lifted myself up into the air straight into Jade’s path. “In fact I’ll just show you when she comes in, it’ll be quite the sight I think.”

Getting high enough I closed my eyes, I spread out my front legs straight out from my sides and brought my rear ones together underneath me to start hovering in the air without the need to flap my mighty wings. I didn’t need to see the glow forming before me or what it was doing, it is my ancient power at work. It has been quite a while since I flexed my magical muscles.

If one were to look at me, then one would see a faint ankh shaped glow coming from my body. The soul, the life that drives the body, this is what an ankh represented and anyone who would defile a soul would earn my ultimate rage and I would not hold an ounce of my power at bay.

This was just me naturally using my magic, the center of my being, in a more visible and showy fashion. I was showing off even if I didn’t have to, I absolutely wanted to! Jade knows of me and my distant sister in legend, well it’s about time I returned from said ancient legends, for I am Sekhet!

A dot of light slowly created a circle in the air as I hummed softly and concentrated. I opened my eyes and there was a two dimensional circle of magic that filled in immediately before me in the air, I now waited for her to come.

A bright blazing light approached me and then hit the circle dead center, it appears that I have not lost my touch at all and have safely caught the poor feline. It might have been my sister’s job to protect the Abyssinians and others of cat kind, but she isn’t exactly here is she?

The middle of the circle stretched and then the circle collapsed around the bright light into a bubble, the end result left a figure floating in the middle of it. It was Jade and she had the most beauteous looking wings made of sunlight.

I was somewhat impressed that she still got back in one piece even when she wasn’t conscious and looking at her body, I could tell that she was going to be quite sore for a while. She needed to rest and I would not rouse her from her slumber.

I came down with the bubble between my paws, both Kuril and Fizzle looked at the sleeping form inside of it.

“She is fine, but she needs time to rest. She’s obviously had a busy morning and she might be up for dinner this evening or breakfast on the morrow.” I popped the bubble and gently sat Jade on the ground while removing her pack, her hair was like glopaz in the sun. It reminded me of Somnambula dealing with an exceedingly irritating snake, so many memories of watching mortals from a distance.

It was feeling quite nostalgic, I would like to help build something from all these feelings.

-Fizzlepop ‘Tempest’ Berrytwist-

I was too busy staring at the wings sprouting from Jade’s back to notice anything else, how did she get wings? Was this part of something about getting my horn back? I… after my talk with Ms. La Perm I just… it just didn’t feel as important to me anymore.

Jade looked to be in pretty bad condition and she had been that ball of light shooting across the sky. I was actually afraid for someone else… I mean I haven’t even told Jade that I want to be friends yet or my real name for that matter.

I know I hadn’t been very talkative and these last two days have been… strange. Strange like the warm campfire that never went out or was never unbearable to be near, in fact it was very comforting to know it was still there.

A loud cracking noise was heard and the wings dissipated into thin air, they had been going for the last few minutes I had been staring at them in awe. I, Kuril and Sekhet were all staring at Jade now.

“That was some powerful magic, especially if she flew here all the way from Canterlot on them.” If Sekhet said something was powerful and was a goddess as both Jade and Kuril believe she is, then I knew it was a fact.

Those wings weren’t permanent, I felt a little upset about that as I had wanted to touch them. I wasn’t about to disturb Jade’s rest to talk about it, she looked like she needed it.

I watched as Kuril tucked her daughter in with a blanket, and put a pillow beneath her head with a warm smile. I wished some days that someone could do that for… maybe she would if I bothered to ask.

“Well Jade’s fine, what do we do now? Oh wait… you don’t have a complete education do you Fizzle?” Kuril turned to me and I blinked owlishly at her. An education? I was plenty smart enough as is.

“I would think not, if she has been wandering for as long as I think she has.” What would Sekhet know about me? I’m plenty smart enough, all unicorns are great at retaining knowledge. “She is at least world smart, learning by the experience of her travels. What she would be missing is a more classical education now that you mention it. I can teach math quite well and I’ve personally lived through and watched history unfold, do you know how to read or write?”

“Of course I do!” I wasn’t an imbecile, give me some credit here. I just stopped going to school when I set out to find a way to fix my broken horn. I was quite educated, thank you! “If you’re so worried about how smart I am, then what of Jade?”

“Jade’s somewhat horrible at complicated math, but she’s knows a lot of mythology, monsters, history and quite a bit about magic as you all very well know. I should show you how she plays a game of Ogre’s and Oubliettes sometime, our gaming pack survived the crash and we can even play the game some until I have to cook dinner.” What Kuril said surprised me a little, Jade was bad at math? I would not have pegged her for it given that she can do powerful magic that gave her those strange looking wings temporarily. “I might have neglected her education a bit by coming here to Equestria, but she really doesn’t need that much of an education.”

I was quite good at math personally. Unicorns needed math to perform some of the most complex spells in existence, yet Jade was doing spells without needing to know said complex math. It actually had me hoping that I could learn to do magic in spite of my… disability. It’s just that no one had tried to do magic differently than what was taught in schools, it wasn’t necessary for them to do so. For me, it was a necessity.

“Jade’s education is fine, especially since she can identify who I am. That's all the education she needs.” The sphinx just puffed herself up with pride, Sekhet was kind of weird to me and a bit terrifying. She was clearly powerful and dangerous, an Ursa Medium wouldn’t go down so easily to someone who wasn’t. “What is this Ogre’s and Oubliettes game though? If it is entertainment, then I could give it a try.”

“It’s a fantasy roleplaying game, one that actually has some real life applications.” Started off Kuril. I hadn’t had fun in a long time and I was interested in where this was going. “It’s like designing a different you. A character you create that plays a role by going on imaginary adventures with a specific set of rules in place regarding what that character can and can’t do, said rules make luck and chance decide the outcome of what happens to the character you or others design within reason.”

“Describe your character to me so I can get a better grasp of the concept…” Said an equally interested Sekhet, I then turned to Kuril as I too was curious enough.

“I’ll do you one, better.” The way Kuril was rubbing her hands together had me worried. “I’ll help you and Fizzle create your own characters and we’ll party up!”

Chapter Two, Airship Mauled: To begin a fresh start.

-Fresh Start-

Okay, I knew she flew to the south, I’ll just keep going that way until I find her. Celestia wasn’t upset with me, but she did tell me to go find Jade and to keep doing my job to make sure that she stayed healthy. She also gave me a note of apology, once and if I find her. She hadn’t even known Jade’s name before I told her.

I have to wonder what was so special about her that Celestia had me going to all this trouble. Well there is the fact that she jumped off a balcony and then froze in midair before dropping onto Blueblood’s skull. The staff at Canterlot Castle couldn’t stop talking about it, a few of them wanted to thank Jade for saving them from another Blueblood alert. There was also jumping off the edge of Canterlot and sprouting wings, the young Wonder Bolts squad had lost her when she exploded into a ball of light heading south.

She had passed through two places of importance, one was Ponyville and the other was Cloudsdale. I was going to stop by Ponyville and ask around if anyone knew where Jade could have went.

It still surprises me that Jade wasn’t guilty of any crime, aside from landing on Blueblood and no one could prove she did that on purpose. The guards were awfully tight lipped about whether or not it looked like a purposeful stomp to the head too. I knew the score, they were trying to cover for Jade. Unlike the many other guards that had been chasing Jade while harboring a huge misunderstanding of the situation.

Jade had even stopped a crime while being pursued by the royal guard, so Celestia said she was to be commended for her swift actions of civilian justice without permanently injuring the thief. Nobody was complaining to Celestia about that except maybe Sturdy Spear, his case wouldn’t hold up as he did kind of go at Jade with lethal intent so it was a case of self-defense. The case would have been thrown out immediately, because Sturdy Spear himself would have been put on trial soon after.

How did one Abyssinian cause so much chaos without any negative repercussions to herself? A Hoofdini in the making from what I know. Celestia seemed to be interested in Jade’s overall safety when it looked like Jade could take care of herself, especially when she could outrun the whole royal guard. It needed to be stated, if Shining Armor hadn’t been busy with Princess Cadence then maybe Jade might have actually been caught.

The only thing I can think to charge Jade with is causing a riot, a laugh riot. She had stopped to buy snacks in the middle of the chase and even waited for them to be finished, not one guard saw her entering or exiting Donut Joe’s establishment. Ponies said she wandered around aimlessly for a good ten minutes before the guards even spotted her again to begin the song and dance.

I’m catching a train to Ponyville and should be there in the evening. I kind of wondered though… did Jade get Fleur’s autograph when they met one another? It was mentioned that Jade trespassed in her home, but she wasn’t willing to press charges and just wanted to snuggle the Abyssinian more. Fleur De Lis really liked cats, who knew? A lot of ponies had Fleur pegged for being more of a dog pony.

I heard there’s a pony in Ponyville who’s friends with an Abyssinian, given there’s only been the one around here it wasn’t hard to guess who that Abyssinian was. I’d spend the night and then talk to the pink pony in the morning at the local bakery to see if she knows where I can find Jade.

-Jade-

I smelled something, a smelly smell, a smell I’m quite familiar with and it was heavenly. I immediately jumped up and then flopped onto my face on the blanket, every inch of my body felt sore. It was late in the evening and whatever that smell was it was entrancing.

“You’re dead Sphinx.” I heard my mother flatly intoned, it was the same tone she used to inform me that I was dead.

“I still have a use of resurrecting requiem left.” That was Sekhet. Were they? They were, mom was totally playing Ogre’s and Oubliettes without me! Also a cleric, really Sekhet? I guess it is the only class that has healing and the ability to dish out traumatizing divine damage against undead, evil beings, corrupted monsters and possessed party members. It was actually kind of fitting really, especially if Sekhet thought to give her cleric an enhanced physical and magical offensive ability while dumping charisma. “I resurrect myself.”

“You’re characters ability has resurrected them back to being close to death, you now have twenty health points. Your move Fizzle.” Wait, what did mom just call Tempest? Did Tempest and mom have a moment together? It figures, mom loves others more than me because I refused to be cute while growing up… or it’s just my imagination.

“I use Arcane Armor Assault.” From what Fizzle just said I can already tell that she was either a fighter, a paladin or a spellsword. I could already hear the multiple dice rolls happening for each piece of armor.

That was the one spell that made your armor fly off your body explosively. The armor seeks out and rams into the target or targets at insane speeds. Depending on how many pieces hit what, it can really rip apart boss monsters with heavy single targeting damage or do a good bit of damage to a crowd depending on the armor and how many pieces it came in.

Downside to the spell is that you’d lose the protectiveness of the armor and would have to wait until the fight is over to put it back on, upside is you’d gain a lot of initiative from losing all that weight. The spell dealt both magical and physical damage. If you were weak to either or both, then the target takes double damage from the attack type they were weak too.

Since they probably started today or yesterday and Fizzle already had that spell, I would think that it was a spellsword. A spellsword eventually got a particular spell called Rearm-Mor that created or recreated armor, the fighter and paladin had their own methods of getting their armor back.

“Wow, those were some pretty good rolls Fizzle. Let me calculate the damage now… huh you destroyed the whole room.” Sounds like mom was impressed that Fizzle was doing so well. “Kind of like what my daughter does when she stabs a room full of orcs in one move.”

“How did she do that as a rogue? Wouldn’t her stealth have dropped as soon as she stabbed the first orc?” Good question Fizzle, let’s see if mom remembers the exact bit of wittiness I pulled that day.

“She had enough intelligence to learn the Replicate Round spell.” Oh, so mom did remember.

“Isn’t that a useless moderately costly ability that repeats a physical attack action to do the same amount of damage again?” Be prepared to be amazed Sekhet, because my craftiness knows no bounds even if I didn’t like to do the math. “It’s useless because there are far more better abilities you could be using than being able to hit at the same strength time and again for the one room the effect lasts in, it’s practically useless with armored or shielded opponents.

“I thought that too, apparently my daughter had other ideas. Did you know that if you replicate a stealth strike, it’s still a ‘stealth’ strike? None of the orcs could detect her because she was replicating the stealth based backstab action on everything in the room.” My mother gave off an exasperated sigh and I smiled from my position on the ground. “It only worked because the orcs all had less health than the first orc she managed to get a backstab roll on and she had the energy to get away with doing that multiple times. She didn’t need dice rolls to succeed, just the energy to copy her successful backstab action. I never thought a high intelligence stat on a rogue could be so dangerous.”

“Seriously, that’s kind of broken… like my horn...” I was surprised to hear that Fizzle snorting loudly in amusement, what did mom do to her to make her be less broody?

“It was basically instant death to all those poor misbegotten monsters with one dice roll. Backstab a single soft target or give her a chance to flank something and… well you get Jade’s idea of how to deal with a room full problems that all the protection in the world won’t stop.” I could almost hear my mother smiling proudly. “There are huge downsides, the set up for it is so horrendous to your stats overall and it takes a while to get around to being able to do it. My daughter insisted on a high intelligence rogue and I had no idea why when she had a lot of problems keeping said rogue alive. Until her rogue learned Replicate Round and even a little after that I thought she was being masochistic.”

I could hear Sekhet laughing and Fizzle was actually giggling. Giggling, the future Tempest Shadow, mom you’re a miracle worker!

Okay it probably wasn’t my imagination then, they were all ignoring the fact that I woke up to continue the game and if my nose is correct... never mind, mom loves me dearly and I’m just mom’s silly lovable little kitten. It was the smell of her simmering Potato Stew that woke me up, my mouth was watering already and I couldn’t get up because I was so horribly sore.

Note to self, magical wings do not protect against gravitational forces exerted on body nor do they protect against a lack of oxygen at a high altitude. Said lack of oxygen may have messed up my thought processes and led to me thinking it was a good idea to put my body through Mach speeds without the same protection a pegasus naturally has. Ergo my current state of full bodied soreness was not very pleasant in the slightest.

I should really apologize to mom about getting onto her case about not taking greater precautions with magical alchemy. I should also remember to listen to my own advice on taking precaution when using this magic, because now I was quite hypocritical by making the same mistakes I had warned mother about.

“I think the potato stew is done mom!” At my words, like lightning my mother was up and going to the cauldron and she sent me a mirth filled smile while flicking her tail in my direction.

“I knew this would wake you up, nothing would stop you from eating this stew. You could be half dead to the world, but the second the scent hits your nose you’re up and… well mostly full of vigor.” My mother was already scooping me a bowl full of sweet delicious buttery potato and vegetable strewn heaven. “How are you feeling sweetie and what happened in Canterlot?”

“Oh this and that, by the way I picked up dessert for you and I don’t mind giving one of the snacks I picked up to Tempest.” It was then that I saw mom sending me a stern stare and I understood what she wanted from me. “I’m sorry for not heeding my own advice about using magic, how was I supposed to know those magical wings wouldn’t protect me as if I were pegasus?”

“That’s why we learn what our magic does in a safe environment Jaded. Now how many helpings of this are you going to eat this time? I made a double batch because I know you’ll fight Sekhet for the extra portions.” Mom, you are a really cruel and unusual being that knows how to punish me justly and without pause.

I looked Sekhet in the eyes and she looked into mine, we narrowed them at each other. Fizzle started to slowly back away from the two of us and started to move closer to my mother for safety, neither of us would raise a claw to her. Mom cooks the food after all.

I wasn’t backing down from you over this goddess. My mom, my food! Go get your own mom to… wait… you probably don’t have a mom at this time. Stop using my mother as a surrogate you crazy goddess!

-Sekhet-

I’m not backing down to you over this mortal. The food smells absolutely divine and she made it for everyone, first come first serve! I’ll use your mother as a surrogate as much as I… wait… where the 'Duat' are my thoughts going? I don’t truly see Lady Kuril in that familiar a manner at all!

-Jade & Sekhet-

This means war!

-Fresh Start-

It was a brand new day the sun was shining and I was on my way to get a pastry at the bakery where Jade’s pink pony friend was. I was hoping she’d give me directions to where Jade might have went.

“Excuse me, but do you know where Jade might be? I have to deliver a letter to her.” After I asked that of the bright eyed filly, I turned my head to the side to mutter. “I just hope nobody forgets my paychecks just because I’m not working in the castle.”

“Nope, but you can talk to my newest best friend forever Fluttershy over there about my distant best friend forever Jade!” The perky pink filly was pointing to the yellow one with the butterflies on her flank sitting with three other pegasus ponies. “I bet she knows where Jade lives, did you know that Jade could grow wings, because I sure didn’t and she flew straight through here yesterday looking all cool and stuff! She was a bit too busy to play though.”

“Thank you.” I turned from the filly who went bouncing around the place to approach the table with the four ponies that were pointed out to me. “Excuse me, but do you know where I can find Jade?”

The filly squeaked, hid her face behind her mane and then cowered under the table and… so did her parents. The only one that didn’t was the colt.

Several Hours Later-

It should be around here somewhere according to Fluttershy, whoa…

What happened here? I walked into a scene of carnage unlike any other a small distance away from a nice looking campfire. At the campfire was a… was that a unicorn with a broken horn huddled up against an older looking Abyssinian, they seemed to be relaxing and chatting calmly with one another.

Wait, that wasn’t what was important. What was important was that Jade was covered in scratches, bruises and painful looking welts. She was lying next to an unconscious Celestia sized pony with similar injuries, was that a lion's tail?

“What happened to them?” I asked as I approached the two that were awake, they looked at me lazily.

“I happened to them.” The Abyssinian lady answered. “If my daughter thought that she was sore before she started fighting, then she’s definitely going to be in pain for a while after that.”

Kuril -

I'm surprised, proud and completely embarrassed that my daughter managed a victory against Sekhet for the dumbest of reasons.

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy Information!)

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight.

Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability.The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining. (New!) Does not protect the user from gravitational or high speed stress and lack of oxygen at high altitudes like a pegasus would be by their magic.

Sustain: ???.

Self-sustaining: ???.

Chapter Two, Airship Mauled: To begin a chance.

-Jade-

I came to and it was morning. Next to me was the, relatively, smaller alicorn sized form of the goddess Sekhet. I gave her quite the beating last night, nobody stops me from getting extra portions of potato stew, nobody! I know mom will wait another month before making it again and while I was aching, last night had been quite fun and I got my fill of food.

If your definition of fun involves claws out and stopping for food between rounds of beating each other senseless, then you were in luck if you were nearby last night.

Sekhet probably shouldn’t have turned off her ability to heal or shrunk down close to my level for the fight, but she was quite honorable in giving me a relatively fair fight. It was just unfair for her that I was quite determined to get more extra portions than she was.

I stood up and went through my sun salutation exercise and began working out the kinks in my body. The several hours of sleep took care of my soreness, but the light claw marks and bruises would remain for a while. They sure did sting quite a bit, Sekhet doesn’t go down without a good fight and I think she was just humoring me at the start.

At the campfire was my mother, Tempest and… oh look Fresh Start too. Well time to see what’s going to happen next. I made my way over to them, Sekhet would be fine right where she was because she can walk it off. That was unfair, mostly because I can’t walk off my own injuries like she could.

“Morning Tempest, morning mom.” They greeted me as I made my way over to them and sat down on my mom’s left, on her right was Tempest and across from us was Fresh Start. “Hey Fresh, what are you doing here?”

“Don’t you hey Fresh me! You jumped off a balcony and stomped on Prince Blueblood’s head… I have to thank you for that on the behalf of Canterlot Castle’s staff by the way. You also gave the royal guards the run around and then you jumped off the side of Canterlot and continued on to evade the Wonder Bolts! After all that and nobody is going to charge you with anything.” Well Fresh seemed to be a bit miffed, mom didn’t seem surprised at her words and Fizzle just shrugged. “I’m here to deliver a letter and offer an apology from Princess Celestia for all the trouble that she thinks she caused you. The only trouble you’ll have in Canterlot is the one irate unicorn guard. For whatever reason Celestia deems you so important, she’s paying me to lend my services to you. so here I am.”

“Sounds like you had fun in the city my little tom cat.” That was an understatement mom.

Celestia shouldn’t have made me feel caged, I was already feeling pretty antsy the other day after meeting Bon-Bon. Sekhet’s warning certainly came to mind after Celestia had slammed into me and knocked me out in her uncontrolled exuberance.

“Yep, but I really don’t know what we are going to do now mom, or where we’re going from here exactly. Celestia knows about the airship crash, so my job informing her is done.” I reclined against the log and warmed my toes by the fire that has been going for the past few days and was still strong without any extra wood. Magic was amazing like that. “Oh right, aside from those sweets I picked up at Donut Joe's place in Canterlot, a pony called Pinkie gave me a wrapped cupcake on the way back yesterday. I should probably eat the snack and read the note.”

“I’ve got no other place to be either, so I’m going to stay with you two… if you don’t mind.” Will wonders never cease? Tempest is actually being a bit shy and… I really wouldn’t mind her staying with us. “Oh and I’m Fizzlepop Berrytwist by the way, sorry I haven’t properly introduced myself until now. Even if you can’t get my horn back, then at least you can promise me that you’ll always try to help me.”

“We’d be happy to have you around Fizzle, I promise that I’ll find a way to help you in some way eventually or I’ll live trying.” I got up to hug Fizzle and she accepted it and nuzzled my neck while hugging me back, she was actually being affectionate. I could hardly believe it, I just ran my hand down her mane and she even happily leaned into it. “Thanks for not leaving my mom alone with Sekhet, who knows what that goddess would have done to my poor sweet mother if you hadn’t been around?”

I then turned to Fresh Start who moved up next to me and held out a letter to me, I took the letter from her hoof and she went to sit back down on the other side of the campfire while grumbling about life in general.

Sitting back down, I perused the letter and then looked to mom.

“Mom, give me something to write with please.” I received the two items, an ink well and the raven feather that had its tip stained with ink. I started to jot something down on the message Celestia sent with the maid I thought I had ditched back in Canterlot.

I was willing to accept Celestia’s apology, but I’m not going to work for her. I still had my misgivings about her. I wrote down that I had no idea where we were going, but I and mom weren’t going to live in Canterlot… or even in Ponyville for that matter. Far too close to the chaos and action that will occur around there a few years from now.

I’d rather we lived somewhere remote, or at least continue with our plans for Manehatten and somewhere where the fish were plentiful even if fish jerky is a bit of an anathema to me. After I signed my name Jaded La Perm and added a post script that she was basically breaking her own child labor laws by trying to hire me, I rolled up the paper and put it back in the envelope. I then tossed it into my fire and a magical smoke wafted up from it to zip northwards.

“Is that how you generally use messaging magic?” I nodded to Fizzle’s query and smiled, she even smiled back. Friendship, it was happening and I could feel it!

“So what services do you offer Fresh Start and what exactly did Jade do to have Celestia put you here with us?” Mom was quite intrigued about the new pony in our midst.

We now had our own personal paid servant and we certainly weren’t going to abuse her presence here out in the middle of nowhere, nope, no sir… okay so we were totally going to abuse the fact that we have a prepaid maid now. It was on the crowns dime no less, we just had to find jobs for her to do and let her at them.

“I have no earthly clue, but Celestia must have a reason as she seems intent on making sure Jade stays safe. To answer you’re other question, I cook, clean and mend, plus a few other general things that a maid would do. I’m really good at early morning chores, but I tend to get a bit lethargic in the afternoon. As such I usually go to bed early.” Fresh Start with her thick long hair bound up in a bun bowed to us. “I’m not a tailor though, so don’t expect much from me in making clothes from scratch.”

Fizzle looked like she was about to ask something when a ball of magic came back and coalesced into a scroll. I grabbed it out the air and read it. Apparently Celestia was going to drop by and see the wreckage herself and to talk with us personally. New information has also come up about the crew and the other passengers that had been with us. She was, thankfully, backing off from being persistent about offering me a job in her court.

The shoo-be-doo’s, sea ponies, that were nearby had saved them all from a watery grave and they are currently stuck on the south eastern shores of Equestria, stuck with various bad to critical injuries no less. They were all accounted for as far as Celestia knew, she was having several medical teams mobilized to help the less fortunate passengers and was also sending a relief effort to them so that the sea ponies can get back to their lives.

“Okay before anything else happens, I want to see if something works.” Come on let it work, I lost my kiwi candy for these feathers. I pulled out a single phoenix feather. Please don’t make everything explode into flames, I beg of you innocent looking feather of a fire bird. “This might be the thing to help you out Fizzle, but first I’m going to stand a distance away before I try anything with it.”

“What kind of feather is that?” My mother asked looking at the feather loosely held in my grip, she immediately had her journal open and ready to record some new information into it.

“I traded a Phoenix for some of its loose feathers, just some dried fruit… and what was left of my kiwi candy.” I moved away from the camp site and closer to Sekhet, I started the cast and the feather disintegrated. The magic didn’t feel like heat or burning death, so that’s good. What was the magic doing though? It was just kind of a ball of white fire that was pulsing with energy and hovering right next to me. “Uh, I don’t know if this is safe, but I think the magic might be waiting for me to choose a target.”

This was always the problem with casts, you never know what you’ll get or what it’ll do until you do it. We needed a better method for discovering what a cast will do, at least magical alchemy sustains are always safe to figure out because we could just simply stop it if something went wrong.

“What does it feel like Jade?” Well mom, I wasn’t quite able to put it into words yet. There wasn’t any loss of magic and it wasn’t leaking or anything, it just sat there as a magical mass radiating good vibes.

“I know what it feels like… something good as far as I can tell. I know this might be a little strange to ask, but would you mind if I targeted you with this spell Fizzle?” If I were Fizzle, and I’m not, I would probably decline the idea of having an unknown white orb of pure fire hitting me. “It might even do what I hope it will.”

“Uh… what do you hope it will do?” Hopefully something amazing for you Fizzle. Phoenixes are known for fire and holy elements. This cast just might be the power of rebirth for your destroyed horn.

“Possibly give you back your horn, but our magic is not an exact science yet.” I stressed this openly and clearly, it was Fizzle’s decision to test this unknown cast. It looked vaguely dangerous. “The wings the other day and flying was nice, but I was expecting something else to happen. You saw how sore I was, this is kind of a slapdash form of magic. At least once you’ve figured something out, then you’ve figured it out period.”

“…” She stared silently at the glowing orb of white fire, then looked to me warily. “Okay then, hit me with it.”

“Are you sure?” I really didn’t want to be responsible for hurting her worse than she already is, I didn't want to see pain in those beautiful eyes.

“I’m unsure, but I’m going through with it anyway. You want to help me, a trial by fire wouldn’t be too bad and it’s my choice.” I targeted Fizzle and let the orb fly. She closed her eyes as it shot straight into her, nothing happened. The orb exited her body, it came flying back to me and… it turned back into a feather? That's new.

“That didn’t seem to do much, it appears that the cast failed.” Or it worked perfectly mom, I think I know what the effect is and it would be a good idea to always have these feathers on hand.

“It didn’t fail, it’s just the criteria for the magic to take effect wasn’t there.” If for instance I were right about the effects of the feather, then it wasn’t reviving someone from death. The real effects of the cast are not what I wanted, but it was still pretty powerful. "I know what the phoenix feather cast is supposed to do mom."

“That felt weird and my horn isn’t fixed, what does the spell with that feather actually do?” Good question Fizzle, I had to tell this to mom anyway.

“Phoenix Feather, restoration from ailments, name for the cast is cleansing flames. Can cure sicknesses, diseases, poison and various magical effects such as magically induced confusion, mind control and being turned to stone.” Yep, I just got the world’s most powerful remedy for what ails anyone, it could possibly even cure the permanent water breathing that I and mom had. Powerful, but it wouldn’t heal the damage done to Fizzle's stump.

I decided to test the magical sustain too, mostly out of idle curiosity. My entire body felt warm, like I would never be cold again.

“Sustain is protection from all things cold, basically an anti-wendigo sustain.” It’d be the ultimate protection from wendigoes if that ever became a problem, I wouldn’t even need to dress warmly during the winter months.

“Despite it not being what you thought Jade, it still has some very useful applications. Right then, now that that’s settled.” My mother’s words were comforting as she set the alchemy journal off to the side to let the ink dry. She dragged Fizzle over to me and pulled us into a hug. “You're family Fizzle, we're here for you.”

“That’s what you needed Philomena’s feathers for?” It seemed Fresh Start was sympathetic to Fizzle’s plight and she watched as we huddled together against my mother’s body. “You thought it could fix your friend's horn?”

“It didn’t pan out, but I still have some ideas left.” Like various dangerous large magical lizards for one, maybe Sekhet might know where I can find Bennu. One of Bennu’s feathers might have a different and more powerful result.

A flash of sunlight and Celestia winked in nearby to start looking about. She spotted us cuddling with my mother and noticed Fizzle's broken horn, she then immediately showed concern for her.

“Who did this to you?” This was Celestia’s first meeting with Fizzle after all. At least Fresh hadn’t asked about the horn, which is something that I’m sure Fizzle appreciated.

“Ursa, happened a few years ago, don’t worry about it.” She acted aloof, but I knew it still bothered her.

“…. very well then… so this is the airship that crashed?” Celestia started trotting over to inspect the ship. “Since you do not seem keen on living near the capital of Equestria, and I can hardly blame you for that, then might I suggest building a town here? It seems to be a good place for one.”

Author's Note

An antidote stops the poison, but it does not fix the damage already done.

Magical alchemy knowledge.

Cast failure- Upon failure of a cast, item used in cast will return to it's previous form. Knowing this, it may be possible to cancel a cast to get the item back after the cast has already begun.

(New alchemy ingredient!)

Phoenix Feather.

Cast: Cleansing Flames (Support healing spell). Finds and stops negative foreign bodily ailment or ailments that are magical or mundane, does not heal damage. Can possibly stop positive ailments.

Sustain: Protection from the cold (Continuous defensive buff). Immunity to cold, increased defensive ability against ice and relative elemental based magic.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Chapter Two, Airship Mauled: The start of our home. (We're doomed.)

-Celestia-

Don’t pressure her, don’t pressure her, don’t pressure her, I have to remember that she is still a young and growing incredible magic user… where is she getting her education from? Maybe she could come to my school and… darn it I feel like pressuring her about something!

-Jade-

There’s an uncomfortable look in Celestia’s eyes as she looked back at me from inspecting the damaged airship.

“A town, really, here of all places?” I had my suspicions that Celestia wanted me around, they weren’t exactly suspicions so much as the probability that she really won’t leave me alone until she knows she can come to me for problems that I’m not exactly fit to handle. Twilight and a full grown dragon comes to mind, what was Celestia thinking there? Twilight was not a diplomat and using her as one while not professionally trained was kind of dumb. “Are you sure you’re not just trying to keep me around for the… ‘the stars shall aid in her escape’… thing.”

“No of course not, I… wait… how do you know about… moon priest... of course you know, why wouldn’t you?” She gave me a depressed look, Luna was almost more important to her than her kingdom. “I guess you’re quite clever for your age. Still though, why did you come to Equestria originally?”

“Well I and mom wanted to set up in Manehatten, just start up a small restaurant on the coast and try to get Abyssinians into the mainstream consciousness of ponies and maybe take on a few griffon customers to work up to equality for various species. You know Abyssinia is a trade nation and we Abyssinians, for the most part, are not recognizable around here despite how much trade we have going between us.” I stopped and considered my words carefully. “Also I wanted some friends my age, if you must know my mother and I come from a sleepy little coastal town with not much going on. Around here there’s some excitement, like how I befriended a chimera the same day I ended up in Canterlot.”

“A chimera, well that certainly explains the injury to your shoulder at least. Wait, friends... maybe… that could work.” There was something thoughtful on Celestia’s face and she glanced at me and I gave her a raised brow while tapping a foot impatiently. “Oh sorry, that sounds like a noble goal, but what of your education?”

“I’m pretty well educated already, I can certainly identify most monsters on sight and how to deal with them safely. I’m a fish scaler, a rogue sun priest and a unique magic user. I also know quite some things about history, like Luna for one, so try me.” I made Celestia wince, I’m not apologizing for that. She did seal her sister in the moon and she’s still there to this day. “That and I can ensure the destruction of normally impervious magical artifacts and objects, though the energy released from such destruction has to go somewhere. So I can get rid of dangerous magical items as a side business for AK Yearling.”

“What would you call a two-headed snake with no tail?” Oh, it looks like Celestia went full on teacher mode for me. Also she seemed to flinch when I said AK Yearling, so Celestia did know about Daring Do at least.

“An amphisbaena. If you get swallowed alive by a large enough one, and provided you can survive its insides, then you can possibly come out the other end. Just avoid the fangs.” I shivered at the thought of being swallowed by a gigantic amphisbaena. “I heard it’s not recommended, but there are usually not amphisbaena’s big enough for that. They are quite venomous and a feminine name for said species would be anphivena. They primarily start life eating ants and are said to possibly be from the blood of gorgons.”

“No wonder an outbreak started after me and Luna accidentally… never mind that, old history." The questions would continue it seemed, Celestia wasn’t about to let me off the hook unless I could prove myself educated enough to not need school. "What would you call a lobster or crab made from lava?”

“A cherufe is my guess, you’re not very likely to meet one unless you live in volcanic regions like dragons do. They are quite dangerous to approach especially while they are covered in lava or magma depending on where you meet them.” I leveled a flat look at Celestia. “The kids are said to be a major cause of earthquakes and tectonic problems, the parents cause less volatile situations and are protective of their young. Any more questions?”

“No I think you’ve proved that you are quite educated about two creatures that live quite far off from one another.” She looked at my mother, oh here we go. “Still, hello I’m Princess Celestia. You must be Jade’s mother.”

“Ms. Kurilian La Perm, yes I’m her mother and I happen to be Fizzle’s guardian.” It seemed that mom introduced Fizzle because she was being rather quiet. Fizzle looked a little surprised that mom claimed to be her guardian and seemed happy to accept it. “Call me Kuril and this is the aforementioned Fizzle.”

“Hello, do you know of a way to fix my horn princess?” Of course Fizzle would ask Celestia that, she would likely take every opportunity to ask around to see if anyone can help her.

“No, but I would if I could, no unicorn should go through life like this.” The way Celestia said that made me gaze at her softly. She may be a bit manipulative, but she wasn’t evil and she was still quite sorrowful about her sister.

Still, Celestia was a bit focused on unicorns. I think it’s mostly because they had a penchant for going evil more often than the pegasi or earth ponies.

“Well thanks for not getting my hopes up at least.” Fizzle mumbled sarcastically and I wanted to hug her. Darn it Tempest Shadow, you’re ridiculously adorable when you aren’t evil for reasons of promised horn fixing.

“Still, I’ll try to look into it. Just know that nothing might come of it.” Thank you Celestia, it’s not like I and mom were already going to do that ourselves with magical alchemy. “You still need an education though and I suggest you continue the same with your daughter’s education Kuril.”

My first idea was a dud and I wasn’t sure that wrestling with monsters like a cragadile would do me any favors or help Fizzle. It was going to take some research to find something that could heal Fizzle, in fact me and mom haven’t exactly got into mixing magical alchemy ingredients for casts yet and a combination of ingredients would make for a very powerful cast. We were taking it slow and learning to do things one item at a time.

“I would like it if you were to live somewhere nearby, would you be opposed to living in a town if I got some ponies started on building it here?” Really Celestia, who were you fooling? Not my mother, or me for that matter. You were staring at my fire in the same way Sekhet did, you knew what it was and so did Sekhet. Also where is Sekhet? You’d think she’d be around to meet Celestia and get into an action packed battle that would inevitably destroy the entire area, which would be useful for land development now that I think of it. “There’s a nearby river that has plenty of fish and clean water in it, this would be a nice place to settle down right?”

“You just want us around because my daughter is a sun priest, a rogue one at that. She’s obviously quite different from what you would expect and don’t you dare try and force her to be something she’s not!” Sure I may joke about mom not caring about me, but you if tried to hurt me she will respond with a viciousness that most in Palicoast would say is a true mother’s love. The salty sea cats around there can tell you how fierce she can get when pushed. “Would you take a daughter away from her mother?”

“I, no… I wouldn’t do that.” Okay now Celestia was wilting and looking pathetic, was she a powerful and benevolent goddess level ruler or not?

“Then you may want to instill that family is important in whatever student you have at the moment.” The flowing hair stopped flowing and went straight as I got Celestia’s attention, I just stared at her coolly and she nibbled at her bottom lip a bit. I rolled my eyes. “If you can get a sturdy house with a theme restaurant constructed, alongside a school and a train station sometime today or tomorrow I may consider sticking around. Also you’d have to give us the land to live on if you want us to stay here. Of course foreigners having land in the middle of Equestrian soil will definitely upset all your nobles considering how close to home we’ll be.”

“Does your daughter usually do the negotiations for you?” The princess said turning to my mother, her mane started up again and she seemed somewhat happy. “She’s quite sharp.”

“Like her claws, she’s my bright little tom cat and she should definitely get some say in it. I would suggest using the remains of the crashed airship in the creation of our house. We used to have a good sturdy restaurant back in the port town of Palicoast with a similar ship based theme.” I flicked an ear at mom, she got the signal that I wouldn’t mind this option. It would be what we were going to do anyway, but Manhattan would have been more expensive than starting fresh out here on Celestia’s funding. “You’d need to clean up the wood, get the belongings of the other passengers back to them and then make it resistant to weather, but I think the crashed airship would make a good home. Provided that we can buy the remains from the captain. He’ll sell for cheap as some of the keel is a bit busted and it can no longer make emergency water landings, it’s definitely unsafe for use as an airship. We’ll also need something like a larder around here.”

I hadn’t even thought of that, my mom did run a restaurant and was business savvy. It sounded like a good deal if Celestia could set all of that up. Mom turned to Fizzle.

“What would you like to be a part of this imaginary town Celestia proposes that we live in Fizzle?” My mom was sweet to ask the suddenly flummoxed Fizzle who didn’t have an answer and looked thoughtful for a while.

“Well I wouldn’t mind a place that welcomed everyone, no matter the species or… disabilities.” I could see where Fizzle was going with it and I nodded to Celestia.

“We can’t very well have a place of our own, especially if ponies are just going to move in and kick us out for being different.” As soon as I said that Celestia got rather defensive.

“I wouldn’t let that happen!” If it were up to Celestia or if she were informed of it happening anyway.

“Uh, you kind of already have princess.” Now entering Fresh Start as part of the conversation, I wonder what she had to say about this proposal Celestia started. “Do you remember when Appleoosa was built? It’s in the middle of the Buffalo stampeding trails. So… you… technically already did let it happen princess. Just with someone else and the buffaloes have been causing problems ever since because of it. They were truly there first, before our settlers built a town down in the middle of their nomadic territories. Appleoosa is always in trouble when they stampede through the apple orchards and they also cause a lot of damage to the town in retaliation.”

“Do you mean that you wouldn’t let it happen now specifically or at a much later date?” There was a very strong and long silence after my snarky comeback, I looked to mom and Fizzle who looked back at me. Mom was okay with it and Fizzle snorted slightly in amusement.

We all turned to Celestia to see what she had to say about this, she looked to still be in shock from what our personal maid had told her. Said maid had yet to really do anything around here, but we’re giving her plenty of leeway on that.

“I… I need to consider some things, but I will agree to the fact that you can’t be removed from these lands by any pony.” I would say that’s nice, but could you actually actively enforce that Celestia? I don’t tend to trust the general pony population for their negative tendencies towards xenophobia and things that are too different from them. Like what happened to Fizzle in becoming a lost outcast. “Within reason at the very least.”

“Agreed, but there’s one last thing to be considered. I get to the name town if you’re going to help fund the start of one here.” A town with a name that nobody would want to visit because of how ridiculous it would be.

“Okay, tell me what you would like to name it then.” To think you seemed so sure of yourself upon arrival princess, but now you were flagging and you probably won’t like my name for the town. If you actually went along with this, then I’ll be thoroughly surprised. “I’m quite willing to do all that other stuff and will get to work on it immediately, plus I have a few other things I need to look into now.”

“I want to name the town Airship Mauled!” It would always remind me that the Predestined Paradox had landed on Sekhet, plus it was pure gold for a name as far as I was concerned. I bowed my head solemnly while clasping my hands in prayer. “It’s in memory of a fortress I know about that was named Ship Killed, one that was sadly crushed under a pack of rabid pachyderms, goblins, the rampant ensuing madness and a unfortunately placed lava based kill switch that would bring the whole fortress, built at the base of a volcano, down. Sitting on it was bound to happen eventually and it took hundreds of years, but someone eventually forgot what that switch did!”

“Your… joking… you have to be.” Started Celestia as she stared flatly at me, only for my mother to bow her head solemnly and put her hands up in prayer.

“The poor people of Ship Killed. We’ll always remember, the fifth of November, when that store of gunpowder blew the fortress in half as it was being buried under lava. Thankfully none of the goblins survived, but the killer elephants certainly did.” Thank you mom for joining me in this endeavor. Ship Killed was quite fun, especially when I based that O and O scenario on something else. We had to get our characters out of the fortress and away from the carnage before it blew up, fun times were had that day. “It was a sad day indeed and I think it would be perfectly nice if we named this place Airship Mauled in memory of the fallen fortress.”

Fizzle stared at Celestia wondering if she would really give in to these two jokers.

“Fine, the town will be Airship Mauled.” Muttered a tired Celestia.

Author's Note

The allusion here is something called 'Boat Murdered'.

Chapter Three, Parties, Pukwudgies and Pirates: The cutie scenario.

-Jade-

Okay, so I and Fizzle discovered what a Raven and Celestia’s Feathers would do when used in a magical sustain. We still had no idea what a cloak does when used as one.

Raven feathers allowed for projection of thoughts. Could be useful as a distraction or silent communication, but it couldn’t actually hurt anyone. Interesting given that Ravens in mythology are seen as messengers and bad luck. The cast must be the bad luck part and the magical sustain for it must be the messenger portion.

Fizzle was a little surprised and blushing afterwards, maybe because I had been thinking about how beautiful her eyes were when I sustained the feather.

Celestia’s feather did something rather expected of the princess of the sun, it redirected sunlight. I couldn’t get enough sunlight together to do more than be blinding. So no solar beams of doom for me. It didn’t take long afterwards for Fizzle to point out something I hadn’t noticed.

Sitting underneath a tree after playing with sunlight redirection, Fizzle was the first to notice that I had no shadow. It was shortly after that we discovered the effect required the feather to have been already used as a magical sustain and needs to have been in sunlight for some time. The other feather didn’t make me lack shadows, until I used it as a sustain as well. Protection from darkness as a self-sustain was rather unusual.

We still have no idea what the cloak did after trying quite a few things with it, it did have a useful self-sustain effect of making me stealthier. That would certainly be useful, I can think of many things to use that effect for later.

When lunch was called, Fresh Start found out what we were talking about when it came to mom’s cooking. The fried broccoli with a bit of the sweet glaze was delicious, about as delicious as the rest of the breaded and fried vegetables. The fried and chopped pickle bits were particularly popular.

It was a few hours after lunch that Celestia came back with three different construction crews, the princess said hello and thankfully didn’t forget to put up a bubble of silence around our campsite while the crews got to work. Sekhet didn’t make herself scarce this time, but she did transform into a more cat sized and cat like form. Was she actually avoiding Celestia because a fight might break out? I was a little concerned, wouldn’t a war goddess be more likely to actively seek out a battle?

Celestia didn’t stay for long and she soon left, she was too busy in Canterlot to really watch the construction efforts. When Celestia left, Sekhet returned to her Alicorn size and we started up a game of O and O for the evening with five party members. None of the ponies made mention of Sekhet changing appearances or even size, especially when she did it performing a showy backflip for that matter.

It would have been interesting to watch the multiple crews building the makings of a small town in less than twenty four hours, but I’d rather be having fun with my family and friends.

-Kuril-

Making food for the construction crews wasn’t hard and the compliments kept coming, they were thankful for the meal. If I were to blush for every compliment they gave my cooking, then I would have a beet red face for the rest of my life. My ears were burning at the very least about how well my vegetable jambalaya was coming along. I hadn’t been very good at it at first, I had some trouble with cooking rice correctly, but dinner tonight seems to have gone quite well all things considered.

I was going to earn my title, I would just need to make more recipes and learn to cook some new things. I can’t forget about my fish eating patrons either, including my daughter, Sekhet and even Fizzle. I had to inform Fizzle that she ate fish the night she came to our camp via the magical goddess express, the look on her face was priceless and she said it didn’t taste bad at all. Fizzle must have had some pegasus blood in her.

Fresh Start was rather helpful in spooning out portions to everyone and it was a good evening all around. She was quite fair about the portions she dished out to the hungry workers and there were plenty of seconds going around, it was nice to be appreciated like this by people who weren’t my daughter.

My cooking apparently had an effect on the three construction crews, they all organized to finish our restaurant and home first. It was getting late and Fresh Start was already flossing and turning in early like she said she did.

I wonder how this will turn out, Celestia was going to a lot of effort to keep my little tom cat around. I mean a train station, a school and a home. Not much of a town was it? I’m sure Airship Mauled will grow, but we’re going to need a lot more than what Celestia was willing to give us.

-Jade, one day later-

“I can’t believe it, she actually managed to get a larder installed… well most would call it a refrigerator.” I was a little surprised that Celestia had managed a school, but thankfully there were no teachers and I was walking out of our new restaurant based home. Our new home was ready for use, it was a restaurant alright and you could hardly tell it used to be a crashed airship. Plenty of room to make it run as an inn as well, we all had our rooms picked out already. “It looks like a home to me, but we need to get going to Ponyville if we’re going to make it to the cuteceanera in time. Are you sure you can watch things here Fresh?”

Abyssinia may be a tad lackluster in schooling, but at least we didn’t forget to staff a place we built for the express purpose of making sure that young minds were educated. Mine wasn’t exactly young, but Fizzle’s certainly was. Well we could have a teacher in the school, but I’m not sure how many people would accept being taught about myths, monsters and creatures by someone as young as me.

We certainly weren’t teaching magical alchemy to anyone yet, not until we’ve explored it more thoroughly. I may have shown and explained to Fizzlepop how magical alchemy works, but I didn’t tell her how to actually do it.

We haven’t even gotten around to mixing ingredients into our casts yet and when mom and I did… we probably wouldn’t be ready for the end results of what will happen.

“I’ll be fine. Besides, I need to make sure everything in the house works and that they didn’t half ass any of it.” Fresh then entered the restaurant that mom had named ‘The Witch’s Fare’. I thought it was a nice name for it, especially since my mother was going to continue wearing robes and would eventually find a pointy hat to use as a chef’s toque.

“I’ll be here to protect her from other predators or other people if there is a problem.” Sekhet said lazily lying next to the once upon a time crashed airship, I wondered if she was going to be around for the rest of my natural life. I better not bother her enough to ask me a truly dangerous enough riddle if she is.

It still bothered me that Sekhet can decimate entire armies and yet she can look and feel so lazy, I think she just didn’t want to bother with fighting Celestia’s soldiers as it wouldn’t be fair for them to have to fight her.

“I know, isn’t our new home just wonderful? I mean after it was so graciously donated to us by Celestia buying the crashed Predestined Paradox and refurbishing it… at no cost to us of course. When we can finally get some train tracks out here traveling to Ponyville won’t be such a problem.” You’re not being very classy by calling attention to it mom. The nearby empty train station was a bit useless at the moment, but it did make finding home easier. “Still, I hope Celestia doesn’t bother you too much Jade. I'm ready to go, how about you my adorable little Fizzle?”

We were getting ready to set out and Fizzle looked a bit nervous.

“About as ready as I’ll ever be.” Mom and I both knew that Fizzle was not feeling particularly fond about going into a town full of ponies.

She had even taken to wearing my cloak while the construction crews were around to hide her broken horn, she shouldn’t feel so ashamed about a horrible incident. Well, aside from the fact that she didn’t recognize the clear warning signs on the ursa’s cave for what they were, she was just a little filly that didn’t know any better. She should be as bitter or broody as she was when we met her, she has opened up to us quite a bit.

“Right, let’s go celebrate a cutie making her mark on this lovely world!” I thrust my right fist into the air, hefted my pack and started north.

We’d save time by cutting through the Ever Free Forest this time, it was surprisingly quiet during the day.

Pinkie-

Hey everyone, it’s me Pinkie Pie the filly talking to you live from the computer screen! I’m going to have so much fun when school lets out and it’ll do that in three… two… one!

The ringing of the bell tower in the distance sounded off and I was a blur to start setting up the party. Why I was already in Sugar Cube Corner within five seconds of exiting the school, that’s mostly thanks to an unseen scene transition in the text. I’m sure people don’t mind if I do that right? I really want this party to work since all my friends are coming to it!

I wonder if Jade will be coming as a deer?

-Fluttershy-

School let out and I was so nervous about the party, I really didn’t like big surprises. I was kind of nervous, but Pinkie assured me Jade would be there and it wasn’t a surprise party. Also Rainbow and her parents would be coming with me and my own. I just hoped Ms. La Perm didn’t get too mad with Rainbow Dash when she showed up, I don’t want Mrs. Whistles and Mr. Hothoof to get into a fight with Jade’s mother.

My little brother was growing bigger every day, soon he’d be even bigger than I am. He’d still always be my lazy little brother Zephyr.

I sighed, it was time to get going. You only get one cutecenera and at least I’m spending it with friends, I’m so thankful my parents weren’t excitable like Rainbow’s parents.

-Jade-

We were getting plenty of stares, because two of us were certainly an abnormality to the daily lives of ponies. I didn’t entirely come into town when I was previously here and got fixed up by Quick Patch, so I really shouldn’t be this surprised that ponies were going to stare at the two cats walking into town with a cloaked pony.

Speaking of my shoulder, it needed a few more days before the stitches can be removed according to Sekhet. At least I hadn’t failed to keep my shoulder clean even if it was a bit itchy and I was kind of glad Sekhet hadn’t targeted my shoulder when we were clawing at each other over food.

“Here it is, Sugar Cube Corner.” I looked upon Pinkie’s new place in the world, a home with a gingerbread house theme.

“Looks like a place I wouldn’t mind living in, it looks sweet.” Only because it’s basically the style of house that a fairytale witch would normally live in mom.

“Are you okay Fizzy?” I looked back at Fizzle keeping her head down and being rather skittish.

“I’m… I’m okay.” She was trying to appear quite brave as she followed us into to the bakery.

“Hello there, I’m Carrot Cake and welcome to Sugar Cube Corner.” Green eyes, yellow fur and orange mane, he was quite a friendly fellow. “What can I do for you three?”

“We’re here for the cuteceanera of my friend, I believe Pinkie has already finished setting that up?” I pointed out the decorations for Fluttershy’s cutie mark related party in the corner of the Corner.

“Oh, you're friends with Pinkie? Well you’re not exactly what I expected when she said that all her friends were going to be here for the party.” He didn’t seemed put off by the fact that I and my mother were unusual friends or that Fizzle kept her head covered with a hood. “Well go on and sit down, Pinkie is in the middle of baking a cake for that shy filly with my wife Cup Cake. The party is already paid for and you have that area reserved for it, so enjoy. A pony can only ever get their cutie mark once, so make this party something your friend will remember forever.”

“Oh we will, don’t worry about that. I’ll chaperone things here until the others arrive.” Waving off the stallion, mom motioned for us to follow her over to the reserved area for the cuteceanera. We'd wait for the other guests.

We were only seated for about two minutes when Pinkie rushed out and placed a platter of cupcakes before us with a bright smile. She seemed to be quite happy to be here.

“Hey, Jade! Oh, so you’re not a deer today, well okay then. Is that your mother, who’s your friend in the cloak? Hello I’m Pinkie Pie, I want us to be best friends! Want some cupcakes?” The exuberant and cheerful Pinkie made Fizzle shy away slightly, even so Fizzle still picked up a cupcake and started to eat it. “We’re still waiting on the guest of honor, I’m sure she’ll be here real soon!”

“I’m… Fizzlepop Berrytwist, you can call me Fizzle.” Once bitten, less shy, the cupcake really had Fizzle perking up quite a bit as she recognized the taste from the one I previously shared with her. “You make really good cupcakes by the way.”

“Thank you!” Pinkie’s shout had Fizzle reeling back a bit and the hyper pony turned back to me. “We’re almost done with the cutie cake, I’ve got a piñata, we’re going to play pin the tail on the pony and I even know music we can dance to!”

“Okay then, get right to it Pinkie, Fluttershy shouldn’t have a party without a cake.” I watched as Pinkie gasped and zipped off to continue helping Mrs. Cake.

“Would you like some drinks?” Mr. Cake offered as he came over to us, it seemed that it was a slow day here in the bakery.

“Sure, if you have pomegranate juice or lemonade.” It wasn’t too long after we got our drinks that Fluttershy was seen coming in, she spotted me and mom easily enough and immediately fluttered over to us.

“Nice to see you again Jade, Kuril and Tempest.” Fluttershy's attention was quickly grabbed by Fizzle. Fluttershy turned a questioning gaze to her.

“I'm Fizzlepop Berrytwist, it's nice to greet you properly.” Thus was the start of the party that would soon be ruined by circumstances beyond our control.

Chapter Three, Parties, Pukwudgies and Pirates: The party scenario.

-Fizzle-

I think things were going okay, for the most part, after Fluttershy and the others arrived. Kuril had pulled the parents off to the side to have a conversation with them and left us to our own devices. We were left to party with Fluttershy, who introduced us to her little brother Zephyr and her best friend Rainbow Dash.

For some reason there was a slight bit of resentment in Jade’s eyes as she looked towards Rainbow Dash. It was soon after that I remember the story she and her mother told about the crashing airship after that rainbow exploding across the sky being caused by Fluttershy’s friend. So Rainbow Dash was the cause of that.

We all ate cupcakes as Jade introduced herself to Rainbow and Zephyr.

“I’m Jade La Perm and this is my best friend Fizzle. I would like to say it’s nice to meet them cutie, but I’m taking a raincheck on that after what Rainbow caused to happen.” I could kind of understand where Jade is coming from, but if that had never happened… then we would have never met. I felt a constriction in my chest at the thought at not having met Jade or her mother Kuril, also did she just call me her best friend? “Also I don’t know about much about your brother either.”

I blushed and my heart sped up a bit, it made me feel special. She liked me even though I didn’t have my horn and I know she definitely liked my eyes, her thoughts on how they sparkled had made me feel a bit unusual before. It was only now that I was beginning to understand this feeling, now that I was actually willing to acknowledge that I was something special to both Jade and Kuril.

“Huh, what did I do?” Were voices supposed to sound that scratchy? The pegasus likely needed something for her throat and I didn’t have anything on me that would do that. I didn’t have much more than the cloak and it smelled nice.

I was going to try and give this Rainbow Dash a chance, she obviously didn’t blow that airship out of the sky on purpose. If that hadn’t happened, then I wouldn’t have met Sekhet, Kuril and Jade. I still didn’t know what to think of Fresh Start, but at least she didn’t stare at my forehead as if I were some kind of monster.

I remembered where I was the day that rainbow explosion happened. That rainbow explosion had me quite baffled and I couldn’t quite figure out what kind of magic would be able to cause something that powerful that had been so visible for miles on end. I had moved towards it looking for the powerful source of magic thinking it could help me and the disappointing cause of it was sitting near me right now.

Rainbow was the cause of that incident and I kind of wanted to thank her. Not for causing the airship to crash of course, that would be stupid of me to want to have happened, but for helping me to meet my… is that what I thought of them?

We hadn’t known each other for long, but I was willing to call them Jade and Kuril my family. A family that didn’t care that I couldn’t do magic with my horn, they accepted me anyway. They cared about me and the wonderful snuggles and hugs they gave certainly weren’t coloring my views on this at all. My face was definitely not scrunching up if someone were to look at me at this moment.

“I told you that you knocked one or more airships out of the sky with your Sonic Rain Boom Rainbow.” One or more? What did Fluttershy know that I didn’t? Though I do admit that the airship that Jade and Kuril were on couldn’t have been the only one in the sky that day, it was just the only one that I absolutely knew about personally.

“Really, that’s so…” Rainbow stopped in her building excitement by Jade’s flat angry stare. Rainbow’s nose immediately went to her chest and her wings wilted. I didn’t know Jade could glare that hard or get that angry, she seemed rather laid back most of the time.

“Think about all the lives you endangered before you continue that sentence, you almost killed me and my mom and I know for a fact that Celestia told us all the other passengers were badly injured.” There was nothing to say to that, Jade had a good point and I had to side with her on it. Rainbow was getting away with a lot here come to think of it, who knows how many she could have just accidentally injured and it would be without repercussions to herself. Since those who were injured wouldn’t know who to blame, we on the other hoof did know the cause and exactly who it was. “I and my mother are the only ones that were mostly unscathed. I had to fight a chimera to protect your friend not too long after that incident too.”

“You were also the one who knocked me off the clouds at the start of the race Rainbow.” The reminder from Fluttershy made Rainbow wince quite a bit and it had me wondering what race she was talking about. Rainbow did that explosion thing because of a race? “The Sonic Rain Boom was beautiful, but it’s a bit… dangerous. I at least found my cutie mark because of it and that’s what we’re currently celebrating right now. So can we please drop the subject?”

“Yeah, because I want to talk about this pretty kitty right here!” Zephyr the green furred and blonde haired pegasus brother to Fluttershy moved up next to Jade, leaned over and wrapped his right hoof around Jade’s left arm and tugged at it. I don’t think Jade appreciated that or his bravery in this matter considering her reaction.

-Jade-

“Remove the hoof or else you’ll quickly learn why you’re not a cat kind of pony.” I lifted my right hand. With a single flex my claws popped out and were soon under the colts chin. I was making him sweat quite a bit. “I can and will scar you for life.”

“Okay, okay, I understand. I guess I’m just too much for such a sophisticated kitten like yourself!” He shrunk back and whimpered as I swung my claws towards his face and paused long before I would even come close to impact, he popped his left eye open at my claws in his face and swiftly closed it again. He thankfully released me and turned his romantic attention away from me and onto a less dangerous or threatening target. I retracted my claws and nodded to his intelligence in the matter. “Hey, are you seeing anyone Rainbow? I hope you can see the rainbow connection between us, because we’re at both ends and we can definitely meet in the middle.”

Rainbow Dash gagged loudly, rolled her eyes and stuffed a cupcake into her mouth. The party might not have started all too well, but it eventually got better. At least I thought it did when Pinkie joined in and brought the fun, that wasn’t happening yet as Rainbow Dash had to ask me a question.

“Wait, couldn’t you have done that awesome wing thing you did the other day when we saw you fly by with the Wonder Bolts? That was so cool!” I would one day hope to expand Rainbow’s vocabulary because quite frankly she was going to end up saying ‘awesome’ and ‘cool’ for the rest of her life. Rainbow was certainly a ‘mondo’ example of her species when it came to brain power.

“I didn’t know I could do that until a day or two after the airship crashed, so we could have still been grievously injured. The wings are also quite a temporary and limited thing.” A temporary thing that lasted longer than the arbitrary expected time limit of five minutes admittedly, flying was fun but it puts a lot of stress on the body that wasn’t naturally or magically aerodynamic already. “Can we change the subject now Rainbow?”

“I… er… I’m sorry for everything that happened to you.” It must have been hard for Rainbow to apologize, she was giving me a pathetic look.

I decided to cheer Rainbow up in the general Sugar Cube Corner style, all it required was a bit of shouting to attract 'her' attention. I wonder if Pinkie would actually react to this at all, I mean she only started recently so she couldn’t possibly take parties that seriously yet… could she?

“Pinkie Pie, sad sack, frowny face, unhappy party guest alert!” If one of those didn’t, holy flipping Duat! How did she… oh right Pinkie can use out of sight teleportation and I just invoked her name with several words.

She immediately appeared as if she were Candle J… I better not invoke that name even though this isn’t the right dimension for him to show up in. Anything could happen with Pinkie Pie and I wasn’t willing to deal with Mr. Jack if he actually shows up, I wouldn’t know where to find a hot pie and a trap on such short notice. Maybe Sweet Apple Acres for the pie, but the trap would still take a while to set up.

Pinkie had appeared next to the table as if out of nowhere examining Rainbow’s face sternly and closely, her presence was making me think too many weird thoughts and I started to roughly shake my head to get it back in gear.

Even Rainbow was a little surprised and knocked out of her funk by the hyperactive filly’s sudden presence.

“She needs some CC’s stat, which means some cuddles and cake!” Maybe I really should have thought of invoking Pinkie’s name through a bit more, it was too late now and I wouldn’t be able to stop the party pony from partying us with every ounce of her being. “We can also get her into a party game, but she needs that look off her face like yesterday!”

Pinkie’s hooves were hugging Rainbow and she was frantic to get out of Pinkie’s grip. Sorry, not sorry Rainbow, but it’s already too late for you… and the rest of us of course. Well then party pony, bring… it… on!

-Fluttershy-

Things turned out so nicely when Pinkie joined the party, pin the tail on the pony was fun, the cake was delicious and Rainbow was smiling again. Jade really enjoyed hitting the piñata... a little too enthusiastically. Pinkie is a really good friend, though she’s a bit too exuberant sometimes. I wonder how Jade knew that Pinkie was under the table… or was Pinkie even under the table before she popped up. I’m kind of confused now… oh the pony pokey!

I know what it’s all about, but Jade would have some problems sticking her hooves in as she didn’t have hooves.

-Fizzle-

I have to admit that Pinkie was an interesting creature, I didn’t think she was a normal earth pony. No pony should be able to move that fast or be all over the place like the pink ball of energy. Pin the tail on the pony was quite interesting, though I think Jade was cheating using her knife to increase her dexterity after being spun around several times.

-Rainbow-

So I might have been in trouble with the strange talking cat, but I think we’re cool now… maybe. I wanted to do the Sonic Rain Boom again, but I was going to be careful about it the next time I did it. Well if I could figure out how I did it the first time anyway, I wanted that to be my signature trick for the Wonder Bolts!

Oh the cake is so awesome, now if only this crazy pink pony would let me enjoy it instead of bugging me every five seconds. Heh, she was doing so much to get me to smile and she was succeeding every step of the way, I’m really beginning to enjoy this party.

Wait… doesn’t this count as my cuteceanera too? I really need to ask my parents about this, I mean Fluttershy wasn’t the only one who got her cutie mark that day!

-Kuril-

“I knew my daughter wouldn’t hurt your son.” I was lying of course, I didn’t know for sure if Jade would have clawed him or not if he had been a little more insistent on hitting on her. It was still nice to see Jade smiling and happy as this Pinkie Pie started directing the party with what I assumed to be her special talent. “See, they are doing alright.”

“I don’t know Hothoof, maybe we’ve been encouraging Rainbow a little too much.” Ms. Whistles understood when I told her of all the damage Rainbow caused with her stunt after that race, at least we all knew what her special talent was.

“Or maybe we haven’t been encouraging her enough! She’s special in so many ways Windy.” The two nuzzled each other, I kind of felt sad that I didn’t have that kind of relationship or a significant other in my life.

Fluttershy’s parents were less enthusiastic about their daughter than both Hothoof and Whistles were, but they were loving parents all the same and I doubt anyone could be as enthusiastic about raising a daughter as Rainbow’s parents could be.

“Hey, why do I feel that you’re sad about something?” I looked down and noticed Pinkie staring up at me, oh goodness she could sense sadness… and possibly fear.

-Pinkie-

Party, party, party, I want to have a party~! Let’s get a party going~! When it’s time to party, we will party hardy~!

-Jade-

It was some time into the party that all good things had to come to an end and it wasn’t my or anyone else’s fault really. It was the sound of screaming and running ponies that did it for me.

I curiously walked out the door of Sugar Cube Corner and an arrow slammed into the ground in front of me.

“Mom… do you remember how I said that there were good reasons I didn’t want to live here in Ponyville?” I was staring at a large problem, one that I could currently hardly comprehend or handle. I didn't have enough water in my body for this.

“Yes, why, what is going… oh dear.” She came up next to me at the doorway and paused, some of the buildings in Ponyville were on fire and it was quite clear that the town was being raided. Next to the Ever Free Forest, of course it was.

One might expect large monstrous creatures invading the town, instead it was a pretty sizable army of smaller invaders. Smaller than ponies, but they definitely had enough numbers to be a threat. There were also several ponies on the ground not moving, but they didn't look like they had been hit by any of the poisonous arrows.

“This would be one of them, because where else in the world could you possibly get attacked by an army of highland pukwudgies out of nowhere!” I pointed at the numerous hedgehog like creatures with sharp teeth down the street with crossbows on wheels acting as tiny mobile ballistae for them.

They were all wearing kilts and half their faces were painted blue, the blue ones humorously had half their faces painted white.

Author's Note

Pukwudgies are known for several things: Fire, poisonous arrows and leading people to their deaths with magic in a Fae court kind of way. They are dangerous tricksters to not be taken lightly.

MLP turned them into hedgehog like creatures that can fire their spines and show some intelligent group tactics. I'm going to mix in some of their true lore into this with some more intelligent versions of an MLP pukwudgie, mostly just to exacerbate things.

Chapter Three, Parties, Pukwudgies and Pirates: The dangerous scenario.

Chapter Three, Parties, Pukwudgies and Pirates: The dangerous scenario.

-Jade-

I admit that threatening Zephyr might have been much, but it was one of the best ways to get him to leave me alone. Fluttershy had just sighed from off to the side at my actions towards her brother, as if I weren’t the first one to turn him down that harshly. We got along well enough after that, thankfully Rainbow couldn’t make the same threat. Speaking of threat, the town was being raided by pukwudgies with a highland motif this fine late evening.

The party had been enjoyable, I even really liked smacking the piñata around. It was like a bouncy yarn ball. Now wasn’t the time to party however.

The crossbows on wheels with the poison arrows needed to be dealt with. The fires they were starting needed to be put out. The pukwudgies with the face paint down the street needed to lose their spears and swords before they hurt someone important to me. The most important thing that needed to be done was to find the leader behind this whole assault and deal with them in a way that wouldn’t upset a single pony‘s delicate sensibilities. I’d prefer to not to have to deal with this, but if they came our way I would protect my friends.

Okay examining the ponies on the ground not moving, they were still breathing and they weren’t bleeding. The pukwudgies were even ignoring them, why weren’t they getting up and running away then? Did they get nicked by arrows and were paralyzed?

I backed away from the dangerous mutant and possibly magical hedgehogs towards the entrance and mom put a hand on my shoulder. I looked at her worriedly and she gave me a brave smile.

“What do you have on you at the moment?” Okay, working with mom I’d be able to protect Sugar Cube Corner at least.

“Knife, sheath for it, fish scale necklace, four phoenix feathers, my clothes, my pack and various bits of dried fruit I’ve been saving for emergencies if I ever got lost. I left anything else back in my room in The Witch’s Fare.” Now that I thought of it, I could have been more threatening to Zephyr if I pulled my knife. No… that would have been too much for the colt, my claws were the better…

Mom grabbed me and pulled me roughly out of the path of several arrows that hit the door behind me solidly.

“Jade, please stop zoning out and give me some info on our little rodent problem here.” Oh right, I had to tell my mother what we were dealing with instead of… mom just pulled me inside and several more arrows punctured the door. “I wouldn’t go out there! It seems the town is under attack and some houses are being set on fire.”

Fluttershy’s parents cowered, Zephyr seemed a little less lazy and was starting to resemble his quiet parents and Fluttershy wasn’t happy with the sudden change in mood. Rainbow looked like she wanted to get into a fight, Windy and Bow were surprisingly taking the prudent action of taking cover.

The door seemed to be holding up, so standing behind it was safe for the time being. Another thunderous crunch noise made me and mom put some distance from it and the new arrow head sticking through it a few good inches. At least they had a limited rate of fire. It took them a while to draw back the small crossbow ballistae and even load them, but they were well protected by their numbers.

“Okay, pukwudgies are aggressive and intelligent, they like setting things on fire and can fire the spines off of their backs. The arrows are probably loaded with a paralytics, though I haven’t seen someone get injured by them yet. So at this point it’s just a supposition and I wouldn’t put it past them to have their spines coated in something equally dangerous as well.” I looked to Rainbow Dash looking out the window before she was pulled down by her parents who held her tightly between themselves. “It wouldn’t be wise to chase them if you’ve got them on the run. They are really good at laying traps for the unwary that follow after them, which definitely means keeping Rainbow out of being involved in any of this. I’ve got no ideas of how we’re going to deal with an army of that size.”

“Well we got to do something, those party poopers are being big meanies for being so small!” I was right there with you preteen Pinkie, we had to do something before they thought setting Sugar Cube Corner or any other nearby buildings on fire was a good idea.

At least Ponyville’s current weather team were already in the process of getting rain clouds to put out the fires, the pukwudgies were probably setting the fires to stop them from interfering in the raid. They certainly seemed to have plenty of ammunition to deal with unicorns and earth ponies, but they had nothing to stop lightning attacks from a well-trained weather pegasus.

“No… get away!” I moved to the window that Rainbow’s parents were ducked under and looked outside, there was a unicorn stallion on his back scrabbling away from something around the street corner. After a moment the pony’s eyes widened and he froze up.

He was still breathing, but he ceased scrambling for safety and like the other ponies laying in the street and just flopped onto his back unmoving.

A deranged clucking noise was heard and from around the corner came a small nightmare that I was afraid to go near. Said problem had a rider that was a larger than normal grey pukwudgie with an ugly kilt and malevolent purple eyes. The problem the pukwudgie was riding was a one eyed cockatrice that was wearing an eyepatch over its left eye, it even had a really cool scar across its beak.

The leading pukwudgie swung its tiny sword forward in our general direction. It growled loudly while waving the sword at the various other pukwudgies.

“I think that’s the leader, we have to deal with him to stop this attack or at least get them to retreat from town.” When the pukwudgie grabbed and pulled at its comb, I watched the cockatrice spread its wings, let out a crow and started to scratch at the ground with its feet. It was pointed towards the building we were all sequestered in.

“That explains the paralyzed ponies at least, let’s just not get hit by the arrows if they are more dangerous than being paralyzed by a one eyed cockatrice.” I knew why the ponies weren’t getting up now. “With only one eye a cockatrice can only paralyze prey or predators, at least it can’t turn anyone to stone.”

“Why are they focusing on the bakery?” Good question Fluttershy, let me answer it while they were forming up to march on us. Spine shooters first, followed by weapon wielders and the crossbow ballistae in the back.

“They’re likely here to steal food and I think the leader of that war band has a sweet tooth.” I could be wrong, but that pukwudgie definitely seemed focused on the Cakes bakery. His tongue was even sliding around the edges of his mouth in the manner that meant he was hungry.

“Well we have to do something, we just can’t let them take our livelihood!” I looked to Mr. and Mrs. Cake and then the few ponies cowering around the room, the only exception seemed to be Fizzle who had a calculating look.

“So if we got rid of the leader they would run?” Please don’t tell me you have an idea Fizzle, ideas tend to get people hurt. I wasn’t a hero, neither were you for that matter.

My mother and I are not some super powered saviors or people who can run straight into a wall of arrows and miraculously survive it. I also didn’t want my mom to get injured in this fracas, because I knew good and well that she’d put up a fight. Magical alchemy could do a lot, but we didn’t have the right stuff for a long fight.

“Well yes, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to give chase to them when they do start running. Even without their leader commanding them, they’d still be dangerous to give chase to if we manage to push them back.” Several more arrows impacted the bakery and they shattered the window to my right. “We’d have to disable the cockatrice first if we want to even get at their leader.”

“Well do something soon, because they’re getting another round ready.” Windy Whistles the mare with the short red hair with the oranges streaks glared over her shoulder out the window at the pukwudgies as she held her husband Bow and daughter Rainbow close to her.

“Would something reflective work?” I’m surprised that it didn’t take more than a second for Fizzle to think up a simple means to stop the cockatrice.

“Provided you could even get close enough to reflect its gaze back onto itself, the wheeled crossbows are covering that and I don’t want to find out what those arrows are coated in.” The leader was pretty bright, anyone that could cause him trouble had to deal with his mount. Anyone that could deal with his mount would be attacked by the artillery. All bases covered pretty well with several other pukwudgies running around starting fires. “We need some pegasi in the air to use lightning bolts on their crossbows, then we’ll be open to dealing with their ground troops. Isn’t there a back door to this place?”

“I’m not abandoning our home!” Mr. Cake looked irate that I would even suggest that, which I wasn’t.

“Get a mirror!” Fizzle shouted to Mrs. Cake, the blue furred mare quickly started up the stairs to find something.

“That’s not what I want you to do Mr. Cake.” Did I seriously have to be the one to point this out? “We have pegasi here and they can go to get help, we need you guys to get airborne and to find someone that the weather team can spare to use some lightning bolts on those wheeled crossbows before we can really start fighting back. We’ll hold them off here, though I hope you don’t mind if we use your baked goods as ammunition.”

Rainbow’s family moved away from the window and towards the back after Fluttershy’s family. Several pukwudgies spines started pelting the floor at their heels as they made for the back door.

“Works for me, if they want something sweet then we’ll give them something sweet!” Pinkie moved up to the window with a large cupcake platter and started tossing cupcake at the pukwudgies. There was a grunt of aggravation as I heard the sounded of a cupcake splattering against one of the spiny nuisances. “Return fire, we’ll barrage them with cupcakes!”

The marching pukwudgies were getting closer as Mr. Cake was getting the two pegasi families out the back. We covered their escape with thrown cupcakes and hoped help would return in time.

I know I suggested it, but why do ponies almost always immediately agree to use thrown pastries as weapons when it’s brought up?

-Fluttershy-

We were able to safely get away, but looking back towards the ground almost made my wings lock up, there were an awful lot of pukwudgies attacking the bakery. I hope my friends would be safe.

-Fizzle-

I felt something brushing across my face and I reeled back from the window in shock still holding a cupcake.

Okay that arrow almost got the hood on the cloak… and my face. They were scarily accurate with those crossbows. I threw a cupcake out and splattered one of the pukwudgies that were backing towards the bakery and firing their spines in volleys, at least the pastry knocked a few of them down.

“Pinkie get us some water, we’re going to need it after this!” I watched as Jade and her mother crawl up to the window and then inhaled sharply while covering their faces, what were they about to do?

The two crouching Abyssinians angled their ears and then fired several powerful bursts of water from them, it was rather bizarre to watch in action.

I looked out the window as the water exploded in a series of concussive hits that struck the spine firing formation coming towards us and even hit the pukwudgies behind them. The weapon wielding formation was still mostly standing, but the spine shooters were mostly down.

The cockatrice riding pukwudgie was organizing the weapon wielders for a full on charge, all those tiny spears, swords and clubs wouldn’t be pleasant to face up close.

“I got the mirror!” Mrs. Cake, the swirly haired mare with the raspberry mane came down the stairs with a round compact, just what I needed to deal with the cockatrice. Now we just needed those crossbows out of the way.

“I really don’t like doing that, my poor ears.” While I listened to Jade’s whining and she was getting a glass from Pinkie, I watched the pukwudgies forming up for a charge and… was that a battering ram?

Where in the world did that come from? Did they just build it or did it just arrive? It certainly wasn’t there a second ago.

“I know how you feel right now my little tom cat.” Kuril was also complaining and was rubbing her ears vigorously before she received her own glass of water, I don’t think they could do that again so soon. It literally took a lot out of them. “That really stings, at least I know my ear wax is cleared up.”

An arrow went through the door and nearly hit Mrs. Cake and sunk into the counter, she fumbled with the mirror and caught it. I made my way over to her while avoiding several arrows flying through the broken window.

“Here you go, if you can’t get it back to me then that’ll be okay.” After giving me the mirror Mrs. Cake quickly proceeded behind the counter where her husband held her close. I just looked at how close the two were for a moment, before returning to the broken window.

“Okay there’s an armored battering ram now.” Flatly delivered Jade. “Where in the world did that even come from, this is completely ridiculous!”

What could we do aside from abandoning the bakery? I certainly wasn’t going to brave those wheeled crossbows. Wait… didn’t this cloak make you stealthier on its own after it was used as a magical alchemy sustain once? Even I could use the self-sustain effect since I didn’t have to do anything special to activate it, but I wasn’t going out there until those crossbows were gone.

“So, what can we do now?” I looked out the window and saw several cupcakes coming from above and they landed in front of the battering ram and on the wheels stopping them up. The crossbows were turned upwards and fired, a squeaking noise was heard and the two Cakes gasped.

“Pinkie Pie!” The two bakery owners made their way upstairs to make sure Pinkie was okay.

-Jade-

“Okay, time to do something drastic!” If they were willing to aim lethal implements at Pinkie, then I was going to do something dumb to stop them. “I know this might do something odd, but we were running out of cupcakes anyway.”

I cast with a cupcake.

Author's Note

(New Alchemy Ingredient!)

Cupcake (Yes, seriously).

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Likely none.

Self-Sustain: Delicious.

Chapter Three, Parties, Pukwudgies and Pirates: The off-screen scenario.

-Kuril-

My daughter must be somewhat clinically insane, even if she did have a point about the absurdities that went on here and the ponies that have to live with it. It doesn’t help that my daughter decided to fight the ridiculousness of this evening assault with her own fire. I should probably tell her that fighting fire with fire tends to cause more fire to spring up everywhere.

I mean using a cupcake as a cast. Inventive surely, but it’s weird considering we’ve been using items that didn’t have a limited lifespan or so many different elements to them. I’m pretty sure most perishable food items wouldn’t be very useful for sustains, but a cast? What would a cast with a cupcake even do?

Most of the casts we’ve been doing were with things we wouldn’t mind losing and were singular solid objects we could get away with casting.

What was the essence of a cupcake really? Our practice of magical alchemy so far seems to be following a trend of the effect being definitively connected to the object used in some intrinsic way as far as casts are concerned. So I was worried when Jade reacted badly to hearing Pinkie squeak loudly from upstairs after getting shot at by those little ballistae.

At least Pinkie delayed the encroaching battering ram pretty well with a few well thrown cupcakes.

The cast was a lot more powerful than I thought for something as temporary as a delicious baked snack, the effects were also impossibly bizarre. How does a cupcake cause all of what is happening now? How was I going to remember all of what’s happening here? Sure it’s memorable, but what were the exact effects the cupcake was having?

-Fizzle-

Okay, so, Jade did a cast with a cupcake, didn’t she say that doing a cast with multiple things at once would do weird things? I didn’t think she meant literally this weird... what were in the cupcakes again?

Let’s see icing, the cake itself, vanilla and some of them had fruit filling. Jade liked the strawberry ones, then again she had a notable thing for fruit.

“Jade… what the… I can’t even find the words for this.” I really couldn’t, there were no words for it. Just what was this cast doing and why was a cupcake making all of that happen?

-Jade-

The horror, what have I just unleashed? No seriously, what did I just do to those pukwudgies? Well I can certainly say that I’ve stalled them for the next few minutes or so. Hopefully we’ll get some air support before then and it’ll wipe out those crossbows.

The cupcake had disintegrated in my hand, I unleashed the magic created by said sugary treat out the window towards the pukwudgies threatening Sugar Cube Corner in the shape of a wide cone of glittering magical light. I probably shouldn’t have done that, the effects were instant and quite horrific.

This late evening assault couldn’t possibly get any weirder than this because now… now I wasn’t going to ever look at cupcakes the same way ever again. Oh, I’d still eat them, I would almost never do another cast with one though.

“I think I might have just broken the Ge-neigh-va convention.” There were horrified screams from the pukwudgies and what was happening to them after I had managed to hit them with the magical wave and those screams became quite warped seconds later as things got worse.

“In this case, I would try to disagree with you by pointing out that ponies probably don’t have these pukwudgies in a formal peace treaty.” My mom just watched the chaos going on outside as the pukewudgies were quite impossible for the leader to organize at the moment. “I would try, but I think I’d have to agree with you on this one. I’m adding cupcakes to the banned list of magical alchemy ingredients.”

The only pukwudgies still assaulting Sugar Cube Corner were the crossbow crews still firing arrows into the bakery, they had been far enough away from the magical wave I launched out the window. A cupcake was quite a short range magical alchemy cast, but the effects were obscenely horrific. The leader had also unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you feel, evaded the horrors that the cupcake had unleashed upon his people.

“Hey, the frog mucus is very useful I’ll have you know!” It was, it’s just that my mom didn’t see it that way.

“So remind me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the frog mucus cause a massive mess that plastered both of us to the nearest wall? It took hours before someone came and peeled us off them.” Look mom, it was a definitively useful effect. It’s just that we weren’t prepared for it is all! “It took me forever to do the laundry again.”

“Hey, it was a useful effect, we just need to be ready for…” Mom held up her hand stopping me and then she just pointed out the window in response. It made me look at the horrors I had inflicted on the puckwudgies. “Oh that? That’s temporary…. probably… and you know it! It has to wear off eventually and then they’ll be back to happily raiding Sugar Cube Corner.”

“Didn’t you tell me that your knife sheath protect you from small bladed weaponry?” Yes and I knew where you were going with this Fizzle, but I’ll just wait for you to ask as I’m not that rude. “Why can’t you use that to rush the leader right now?”

“Their wheeled crossbows are still up, the knife sheath only makes me resilient. It doesn’t stop the arrows from nicking me even if they won’t puncture straight through me.” I knew what I was doing Fizzle, I’m not a complete idiot. I’m only partially an idiot for casting with a cupcake, it was disturbing to watch the end results of that and would haunt my nightmares. “Trust me, I’m quite certain there is poison on those arrows. So even a little nick would be a bad thing for me, especially while doing things that would make my blood pump the poison through me faster.”

“Well that explains why Pinkie isn’t responsive, we need to get her some help!” Mr. Cake came down the stairs clutching at a pale looking Pinkie in one hoof, there was a shallow bleeding scratch at the base of her neck and she looked to be having problems breathing.

“Patch the scratch, I can take care of the poison.” I wasn’t going anywhere without a phoenix feather on me just for such an occasion as this. I brought four, one for me, Fizzle, mom and a spare. I’d have to return to Canterlot soon if I kept using up the feathers, unless I could find a better source of them instead of just interrupting Philomena’s little bird seed gambling ring. “You do have a medical kit right?”

“Right here, but how are you going to deal with the poison? It looks like pinkie is having a really bad reaction to it if it it’s just a paralytic.” Setting down a medical kit Mrs. Cake looked to me, I just simply pulled out the same phoenix feather I tried to use on Fizzle a day or so ago. Pinkie was a hyperactive pony, a paralytic would certainly cause havoc on her body and have a very negative reaction. Sitting still was not something Pinkie would ever do voluntarily, unless she was sleeping or relaxing. “A feather? What’s that going to do?”

“Exactly what I expect it to do. Now bandage her already, this feather will cure the poison. The pukwudgies are occupied at the moment.” An arrows zoomed by my head coming close enough to one of my ears that I could hear it making a whistling noise before it impacted the back wall, I slowly crouched down with a weak grin forming on my face as I corrected myself. “Mostly occupied.”

“We’ll all be happier and better off when those crossbows are taken down.” Muttered Fizzle angrily as she and mom came over to me. “I’m so thankful it didn’t hit you, but they are really accurate with those things. I don’t suggest standing still and being highly visible.”

Pinkie’s neck wound was quickly cleaned and bandaged, I held up the feather and used the resulting white flaming ball of fire from the cast on Pinkie. Her color returned immediately and she was soon breathing better as the white flames sunk into her body and burned out the poison.

“You okay Pinkie?” She smiled up at me and nuzzled her face against Mrs. Cake’s leg in response. “Yeah, she’ll be fine. I can only do that three more times though, older more adult ponies would probably be able to handle the poison better. You see, this is why I don’t want to be nicked by pukwudgie poison Fizzy.”

“Well we can’t just sit here waiting for the effects of the cupcake cast to wear off on the pukwudgies, they’re going to be very mad when and if they can recover from that.” What did you want from me Fizzle, those crossbows were still very dangerous to… approach?

Several cracks and flashes were heard outside, we looked out the broken window and watched as a pukwudgie abandoned one of the remaining crossbows and it exploded in a blast of lightning. It was about time we got some help.

“That’s our cue Fizzy!” The crossbows were destroyed and their ammunition supply was still laying around and I had an opportunity to pick up some of those arrows for later. The only pukwudgie not trying to recuperate from the sudden loss of momentum to their remaining offensive capability was the leader.

The pukwudgie commander turned his stead towards me as I exited Sugar Cube Corner and the cockatrice crowed loudly trying to look me in the eyes. I covered my eyes with my right arm as I grabbed for my knife with my left hand.

Fizzle was nowhere to be seen as I had a cockatrice with the world’s ugliest pukwudgie on it coming at me to stab me with his sword and I couldn’t look at him or else his mount would get me.

“Hey you, chicken lizard riding jerk!” Okay that cloak really was quite effective if it let Fizzle get behind the pukwudgie leader. I lowered my arm slightly and saw that the purple eyed pukwudige had turned the bird around, only for the cockatrice to stop as Fizzle held the open compact mirror up to the cockatrice.

The cockatrice clucked confusedly as its magical stare bounced back into its own face. It flopped onto the ground in a boneless heap dropping the pudgy pukwudgie. The pukwudgie got up and started stomping on the ground while angrily shouting what sounded like expletives.

“Excuse me, but can I get a little lightning bolt action down here on that guy?” I received an answer from above when a small bolt struck the lead pukwudgies backside causing him to yelp, he turned to his battered army and started calling for a retreat. By then the cast effects were wearing off and had taken their toll. There were barfing pukwudgies everywhere forming up for a quick retreat, while continuing to puke as they did. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome!” I heard back from the pegasus up in the clouds.

“This is so gross, all of this is going to take a lot of time to clean up.” I stepped around whatever the pukwudgie puke was made of, I was sickened to my stomach just looking at it all. I wasn’t going to use that cast again on anyone unless they were a mortal enemy of mine. Speaking of enemies, Fizzle started to follow after them. “Fizzy what are you doing, you don’t follow pukwudiges for any reason!”

“I’m just going to make sure they don’t stick around!” Fizzle was already sneaking out of my sight and off after them. I sighed, I need to follow her to make sure she didn’t get hurt.

There are many reasons as to why you don’t follow pukwudgies anywhere, even when they were retreating from you! Knowing mythology as well as I do, they already have multiple traps planned for their retreat long before they started attacking Ponyville. Even if she was still stealthy thanks to that cloak, stealth didn’t matter if you couldn’t spot a trap or avoid them.

-Kuril-

What a mess, the Cake’s home had been wrecked by arrows and there were hundreds of spines sticking to the wall outside. That poor delightfully cheerful little filly Pinkie got hurt, but my little tom cat and Mrs. Cake took care of that soundly. We’d need a fresh source of phoenix feathers if we were to keep dealing with poisonous or mystical problems like this.

I watched as Jade stopped to gather several of the arrows that were left behind, she then moved off to chase after Fizzle.

The strange rainbow colored vomit was both disgusting and kind of appropriate considering what casting a cupcake did to them. That horrific sight was going to be burned into my memory for quite a while and I was still quite unsure of the true effects, but at least it worked and it wasn’t like Jade had actually killed any of them. I’m quite sure that some of them will actually wish they were dead after that, but I wasn’t about to care for the psychological scarring that the pukwudgies may have received from this.

A bright and powerful explosion happened in the distance and I rushed to the location, to see what happened. I hoped my girls were okay.

-Fizzle-

It seemed that they were still leaving town entirely, but where were they? I had lost sight of them as I crept up the bridge at the edge of town and looked around. It seemed that the pukwudgies were no longer dangerous and I just wanted to be sure they wouldn’t bother Pinkie or anyone else any time soon. I turned around and started to head back into town.

“Darn it Fizzy, watch out!” I turned back to Jade charging up the bridge in a panic, she tapped her sheath and jumped to my left. What was she…? An arrow slammed into Jade’s chest with enough force to send her rolling over my back with a yowl and off the side of the bridge into the river below with a huge splash of water.

I stood there for a moment trying to comprehend the series of events that just happened, I turned around slowly and narrowed my eyes beneath the hood. I could feel my body shaking and my horn started sparking wildly with magic, some of the magical energy splashed against the ground as I felt the world turn bright red. I was angry… no this wasn’t any simply anger… it was something more powerful than that and my magic was responding how I felt right now.

This feeling was not directed just at the pukwudgie or the crossbow, it was also at myself for letting this happen.

It was pure rage!

-Jade-

Okay, my world was pain. My body was surrounded by water, there was blood in it. I tried to reach into my pack to get a feather, I was getting quite numb. It is Equestria, so fast acting poisons were likely a thing here and... my knife sheath saved me from the arrow’s blade, but I was going to black... out...

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy Information!)

Cupcake (Banned by Kuril).

Cast: (New!) You don't want to know.

Sustain: Likely none.

Self-Sustain: Delicious.

(New, but banned, Magical Alchemy Ingredient!)

Frog Mucus (Banned by Kuril).

Cast: Magical wide area sticky substance bomb (Hard to get out of clothing).

Sustain: ???.

Self-sustain: ???.

Chapter Three, Parties, Pukwudgies and Pirates: Privateers need no privacy.

-Rainbow-

“I think I’m going to join Ponyville’s weather team before I become a Wonder Bolt.” The monsters were driven back to where they belong and I thought it was just plain awesome that no one got hurt too badly.

“Rainbow, you’d have to know what you’re doing to be on a weather team.” I turned to Flutteshy and gave her one of my patented smiles.

“You worry too much Fluttershy, I’ll be great at working on the weather around here!” I am going to be so awesome at making the weather around here worthwhile, but first I got to make enough money to buy up some airspace for a house fit for someone as cool as me. “It’s an easy job with a lot of free time to practice my moves and I can get in a lot of naps too!”

“I’m going to go check on Ms. La Perm, she’s carrying Fizzle back and I don’t see Jade with her.” I kind of felt bad for Fluttershy’s party getting ruined, it was kind of my party too. I looked to my parents and my mother just ruffled my mane.

“Go on Rainbow, don’t let Fluttershy go down there by herself.” My mother urged me on after Fluttershy prodding me with her wing. My parents could be so embarrassing sometimes, but I know they loved me. “Check on your friends and come right back, we’re headed for home and you need to get some sleep. So say goodbye to your friends, we’ll keep watch up here.”

“But mom…” I yawned loudly, okay I admit I was tired. The party was great until those little hedgehog things showed up and ruined our fun. I set out after Fluttershy, she was my best friend and I was supposed to look out for her. I failed to do that once, never again.

-Fluttershy-

I stopped in front of Kurilian outside of Sugar Cube Corner, I thought that was a strange name for a pretty and friendly cat lady. The ground looked really icky and it was quite smelly, whatever that stuff is I wasn’t going to touch it. Unlike Rainbow apparently who was looking quite tempted to poke at it, was she going to grab a stick? She was... she was absolutely going to poke at that stuff.

I sometimes fear that all the friends I have are weird, but at least Pinkie seems normal. I was always so shy around other ponies, but Pinkie wouldn’t let me stay out of the party and she was so friendly about it.

I think I’m not as shy with Kuril or Jade because they’re not ponies. Sure they’re not like normal cats, but they remind me of them and I like cats. Well I also liked dogs, squirrels, birds and a lot of other creatures scaled or furry, I knew what I wanted to do in life and that’s working with animals in some way. It was my special talent and I really liked that it was my special talent.

If Rainbow was going to live here in Ponyville, then maybe I can find a place here too. I’d prefer to live on the ground though. You know instead of the sky, something a bit closer to nature.

I really liked Kuril, Jade and even Fizzle as friends, only I didn’t see Jade anywhere and Fizzle looked to be sleeping peacefully in Kuril’s limbs. Having friends that weren’t ponies was interesting, well Fizzle was a pony but it was hard to be shy of her when she was already so distant. She was even wearing that cloak to hide her lost horn, it’s really sad to think about and she had been warming up to the party so well too.

“Kuril, is everything alright, where’s Jade?” I watched as she carefully put the sleeping Fizzle on the ground, I idly wondered where Fizzle got the cloak. It looks like something Jade would wear given how big it is, maybe Jade gave her the cloak?

I should take up sewing, it’s a nice safe activity and it can even be used as a medical skill! Taking care of animals… that’s my dream job now and I’m going to work for it.

“She’s fine, it’s a good thing that nobody was seriously hurt. Pinkie got nicked by one of the arrows, but she’ll be okay. The only thing left now is for the Cakes to clean up their damaged home.” Why did I think Kuril was trying to hide something, her words sounded a bit… off… to me at least. “Jade’s making sure the road home is safe, we have a place built and everything. Poor Fizzle here tuckered herself out from all the excitement and there are no longer pukwudgies causing problems here. We ran them out of town.”

“Hey Fluttershy, hurry it up! We need to get back home so we can sleep and get up to do some fun things tomorrow." That was Rainbow, she was always in such a hurry to go everywhere or go to sleep. I’m surprised she’s not as upset about all this as I am, she sometime doesn’t consider the feelings of others even if she defended me from those bullies. "I’m sure things will be okay here.”

“Wait, you have a home?” I asked as they had come to Equestria to make a home for themselves and now they had one. It made me happy that I could possibly visit them since they were going to be staying here in Equestria.

“Yes, Celestia herself came and turned the crashed airship into a home for us, she even wants us to help build a town there.” Really? That was quite nice of the princess to do for them, if I were a princess I’d want to help them out of the goodness of my heart too. “I’ve even got a restaurant up and running out of our home called The Witch’s Fare, you can come by whenever you want. Bring your family on by if you want some of my cooking! First meals free for you Fluttershy.”

“Okay, I will.” Though I’d wait a few weeks, it seems like Jade and Kuril attracted way too much excitement for me to handle, I needed time to get back on my hooves. I gave Kuril a smile despite feeling that there was something I was missing here, Kuril turned to talk to the Cakes and I saw a tired looking Pinkie with a bandage on her neck. “Pinkie Pie are you okay?”

“Oh come on Fluttershy, your friends are fine!” I think Rainbow could learn to have a little patience. “Let’s go already, my bed is calling me!”

“I’m okay Fluttershy, just a bit tired. Come on back when pukwudgies aren’t invading the town for another party okay?” Pinkie seemed to slow down and gave a long drawn out yawn, which got me yawning as well. It was getting really late. “I get to throw you your next birthday party Fluttershy! What day is it anyway? I Pinkie Promise I’ll never forget it, cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye! Oh and today was a bit scary, but things are going to be okay… once we finish cleaning up this mess at least. I don’t think I like party crashers all too much.”

I smiled and told her when my birthday was and she told me hers, we hugged one another and said goodbye. I was saddened that I didn’t get to say goodbye to Jade, but I said goodbye to her mother and was on my way back to Cloudsdale.

I tried to ignore the feeling that I was missing something, things would be okay as nobody was seriously injured right?

-Kuril-

Okay a little white lie wouldn’t hurt the young mare. I didn’t know where Jade actually was, but the huge crater left behind by Fizzle was quite noticeable and an indicator that she might know where my daughter went. She look like she expended her magic all in one large burst and it knocked her cold.

I think the pukwudgies learned their lesson from all of this, never let my daughter use a cupcake for magical purposes. The only thing in the crater was a badly hurt pukwudgie with several bits of wood sticking into its body. I’m sure it’ll be fine, it didn’t look too bad and was still breathing.

Just like I’m sure my daughter was fine, she could take care of herself after all… but I still worried about her. It was my job to be her guide in this world and I wasn’t doing a very good job of guiding her at all. She really doesn’t ask me for guidance despite being her mother.

I felt kind of helpless sometimes because my daughter was smarter than the average kid. I felt like a bad mother at times even though I logically knew I wasn’t that bad… was I? I did lose the location of my daughter in the aftermath of the highland pukwudgie raid, she could be alone and hurting. In that situation would Jade really be so scared and calling for me?

Not likely, she’s a tough one and would be more worried about me and Fizzle.

Now I have to carry this pony back home by myself, I was not going to abandon Fizzle and I wasn’t about to let her abandon us either. I’m sure whatever happened, Jade will turn up eventually. I claimed responsibility for this pony and as such I needed to take care of Fizzlepop to the best of my abilities. She is definitely family, but in what capacity? An adoptive daughter? A potential daughter-in-law maybe?

Still, I trusted my little tom cat to come back to me in a relatively good condition, at least with her body intact and no missing limbs. I had to stop fretting and keep moving forward. I held Fizzle close to me and started heading my way home in the darkness looking for that ever burning light. If I see the campfire still going back at Airship Mauled, then I know Jade’s perfectly fine and can rest a little easier knowing she’ll eventually find her way home.

She just has to.

-Jade-

“What is this now eh? We didn’t see anything like this running about on the airship when we shot it down. A stowaway perhaps?” The throaty voice of a bird like being made me stir a bit, I opened my mouth and coughed up quite a bit of water and then I opened my eyes to the light of day. “What in the world… appears we dredged up a live one here boys! I don’t know how a half drowned kitten like you is still alive, but you must be of some importance. If not, then becoming a slave might work for a survivor like you, and we can earn some coin selling you to the highest bidder.”

I wish I hadn’t opened my eyes I was laying on my side on the deck of a water logged ship, assumedly an airship that was shot down and then was raised for looting opportunities by what I would assume to be sky pirates. In my view there was a griffon gazing down at me, I could see the sky and in it was an airship hovering above with a black flag on the ship and a rope ladder leading to the deck I was laying on.

My body was still trying to fight the effects of the poison, so I could be excused for not immediately leaping up and trying to jump into the river, sea or wherever I was to end up on top of the airship that they had recently shot down.

I was thankful for my water breathing ability, it was why I wasn’t what something else dragged in. Coughing up the water every time you left it got annoying, but my body did prefer fresh air. I was thinking too slowly, because I just realized that he implied he was going to try to find someone to ransom me to or the likely worse option, sell me into slavery.

Now that I thought of it, magical alchemy prevents me from being tied up or bound. Better yet, do a partial cast and then return the chains or rope back to their original state and leave no evidence of how I got out, it would certainly give me more materials to work with. Now that was rogue thinking and mentioning rogues, I was being lifted by one of the heftier looking griffons that came forward.

I’m pretty sure I’m getting shanghaied into what will be an amazing adventure for me in the world of being forced to do some jerks bidding… provided that I didn’t escape my situation and I had plenty of methods for doing that.

“Look at what we dragged in captain!” The burly griffon slapped me bodily against the deck, I think the poison was thankfully numbing the pain. “It’s a cat.”

When this poison fully wears off, I will kick all of your asses just for that joke at my expense alone. I’m quite a petty kitty and cats are the ones that are supposed to be dragging things in, not the other way around!

“So we dragged in a cat eh? Well see her to the brig, she doesn’t look like she can talk a wit and I’m perfectly fine if she never talks again.” I’m sure there’s a certain place in Tartarus reserved for a griffon like you with your black beak, solid scarlet colored feathers and that jaunty tricorne. “When she starts moving around a bit, we can keep her fed just well enough to be worth something to someone. If she dies, then we strip her bones for food and then throw the rest overboard. We won’t let the lass go to waste now will we? She should be proud to be of some use to us.”

Your scarred grizzled face doesn’t scare me in the slightest. Your amber eyes may be sharp and giving me a once over as if I were nothing special because I was a bit waterlogged. But know this you feather bearded jerk, I promise to be more trouble than I’m absolutely worth and you will eventually learn to fear the name of Jaded La Perm!

“Well lass, this just isn’t your day is it?” The thug started to carry me down into the ship towards the brig. “Whether You’ll be for food or pleasure, you’re going to be in for some unpleasant business soon enough. I don’t even know if you’re aware right now with that glassy look in your eyes, but you’re going to be a guest of Captain Gash until we figure out what to do with ye.”

I was carelessly thrown unceremoniously into a cell at the bottom of the airship and I just glared at him.

“Oh sure, now you’ve got spirit , but you’re not going to be able to do a thing to us in your current condition. You won’t be needing your effects either when we’re through with you.” The burly thug didn’t seem so tough, even if I couldn’t take him in a fair fight. He took away my pack and my knife, he thankfully left the clothes on my body. At least he was letting me have some dignity as he closed the door to start walking away. “So enjoy the ride cat, for however long that lasts.”

Chapter Four, DLC: Defining Loquacious Consciousness.

-Sekhet-

I find myself curious as to where the rogue sun priest jade was, Lady Kuril had come home without her. I was loathe to involve myself too deeply in the affairs of mortals, mostly since I didn’t want to deal with the emotional pain of them eventually dying.

I was actually thinking of seriously becoming a guardian of a place once more, I was a Sphinx after all and I was meant to protect things of precious value. The temple had nothing left of worth except maybe the sleeping mask in the sludge pit. I valued life far more than trinkets, though I wasn’t about to give up my nemes.

Celestia tied herself to mortals all the time, only to never marry or fall in love with them for good reason. She had probably lived long enough to know what kind of problems most young immortals face. Very little is permanent in this world aside from those of us with lifespans that can far outstrip that of a dragons.

I also didn’t have much reason to seek out war or take part in one for any side, challengers didn’t come to me for I was far too powerful and I couldn’t be challenged. At this point I’m a mostly neutral entity with some bias towards what I’ll loosely call my subjects, of which live in this general area. The serf really hadn’t done much more then clean and maintain the restaurant, the laughably small school building and the train station with no tracks leading anywhere.

They may not worship me, but I didn’t care much for praise that was unwarranted. Other gods preferred to live in decadence or extravagance, a trap which Celestia couldn’t escape from as she chose to be a ruler and thus built a gilded cage of her own making. Her people really needed guidance to learn how to fend for themselves instead of relying on fickle contrivances and the magic of harmony itself to protect them.

All it would take is Tirek getting free to topple Celestia’s kingdom and she doesn’t properly prepare for the other inevitabilities that will happen eventually, her sister being one of them. It would be hard for anyone as long lived as we were to miss the image on the moon, we remembered what the moon used to look like after all. Celestia likely seeks Jade’s aid in the latter, but doesn’t think of the former and ignores the other possibilities like Discord getting free again.

Discord is chaos, chaos can never be held back permanently as it was an intrinsic force that the world needed or else the entire world would stagnate. Try telling Celestia that and she’d likely get upset. I couldn’t and wouldn’t stop Discord if he was freed, but he couldn’t do anything to me or mine in turn unless they did something to him first. If he did something to mine first, he would earn my wrath.

Sealing things away does not prevent them from becoming a threat again, it just left them to be forgotten to become an even bigger threat that no one in the future knew how to deal with. Provided that what you sealed away has a long lifespan or eventually changes into a shade, wraith or revenant out of anger.

I preferred to be praised or worshipped for doing something of logical merit. If someone was weak, then I could trained them to be strong. If someone was dumb, then I should teach them to be clever. If they were both weak and dumb, then I’d be looking more closely for the true hidden potential.

Fools could do more things than even those of vaunted genius or impossible strength, mostly for the fact that fools will achieve things in ignorance that others would hastily claim impossible in cowardice. Never challenge a fool to prove you wrong, they will always try to at the very least. Impossible only exists if you stopped thinking outside the same shape that everyone else thinks within.

A fool’s strength is not just ignorance, but also determination to do something deemed impossible physically, mentally or magically with their very being put behind the effort.

Fizzle had used all her magic in one burst, but she had controlled it so finely that I could feel the effects from here. Fizzle had been angry. Her rage had felt unquenchable and then, much to my surprise, she unleashed it safely without repercussion to herself and the magic did what she willed it to. It definitely destroyed the object of her ire.

I am not stupid enough to think that I know everything or that there is none stronger than me, for one can always learn more and there are beings out there that can rival my raw power. I can be humbled and I shouldn’t get angry when I am, I should learn from the experience so as to avoid being humbled the same way twice.

That said, I envied some of what Celestia had. Only I think she would do better without the endless praise and false adulations that were continuously shoved down her throat, which is mostly done by those seeking more than what they already had to work with or even barely deserved at all.

“So Lady Kuril, what happened to your daughter?” As far as war goddesses went, I had no war needing my attention at the moment and I wanted to try my paw at leadership without being directly in control. Something more advisory like a vizier to a pharaoh.

It is no longer the time of pharaohs, rulers and kings, but I could make it work and would have to make sure that my efforts remained quite contained to one area.

“I haven’t a clue, but Fizzle does.” Well Lady Kuril, news like that would certainly make Celestia panic. “We’ll know when she wakes up some time today.”

I on the other paw wondered what Jade was getting into this time, fending off a chimera was an interesting feat as much as forging wings with sunlight from a single feather. I could even smell it on Jade that she had bloodied the chimera and then made it leave her be in a rather unusual manner.

I wonder if Jade even knows what she truly did to that chimera, if she didn’t then things were going to get interesting around here when the chimera came to terms with its selves.

A lost sun priest is like a fool, something to behold with awe…. at a fair distance. Something spectacular was bound to happen when a sun priest, known for being guiding lights, couldn’t find their own way. What did this exactly say about a sun priest who wanted to be a rogue on purpose? Yes, I could plainly see the tapestry of life going quite awry at this.

I continued my contemplations as I waited for breakfast, Kuril was making fried eggs in a most unusual manner. I flipped backwards and shrunk down to a more manageable size to feed.

Looking at the motherly matron and thinking of family like I was, I was wondering if I should try to help my sister. Nah, she can stew for a few hundred more years.

Bastet had led an interesting fight against King Anubis and I would continue to stay out of the age old conflict of cats and jackals. It still hasn’t gone anywhere after a millennia and a war that lasts that long is dumb in my purview. Wars always had purpose and an eventual end goal, whether that goal was uniting the world or conquering it.

What my sister started wasn’t a war, it was just the continuation of an endless petty squabble between two factions with no end in sight and I washed my paws of it. My sister sometimes flirted with chaos too much, which would explain why I heard hearsay of her licking Discord one thousand years ago and that he ran like a bat out of hell. I think Discord had the right idea in that situation, which is why I’m better off where I am today.

For today, I am contemplating becoming the guardian of Airship Mauled and maybe I’ll eventually tell Kuril that her cooking can do more than just taste like divinity.

-Jade-

Come on… come on… why won’t my big toe wiggle? They made it look so easy in the movie! Then again that was a movie and it was in a more comfortable position than I was currently in. Wait… I was uncomfortable? I could actually feel a part of myself, thank goodness for that! The poison must either be wearing off or I might be becoming more resilient to it.

I tried twitching every muscle in my body until I found a response, my eyes went to my right hand and a single claw popped out. Yay, I can still be the Abyssinian equivalent of rude! Now if only I can get my arms working.

“The cat in the brig is a quiet one, I don’t like it when they’re quiet.” My right ear twitched as I heard the tall tell sound of a thug talking near my cell, I’ll call him thug one.

“She’s been too roughed up, she’s no threat to us and can hardly move in the condition she’s in. It’s a miracle she’s even breathing with how long she had to have been in the water.” Not really a miracle, more of a useful ability me and my mom gave ourselves. Permanent water breathing, it’ll keep you from drowning thug two. “What can that lass even do with a bum shoulder and that wound to her chest? Maybe she can bleed on us perhaps?”

“I don’t like it, there was no sign of her being on the ship before we raided it and we just happen to find her on the deck coughing up water after we raised it from the depths?” Thug one grumbled something unintelligible. “There’s something fishy about that cat mark my words, she doesn’t look like a normal Abyssinian and she doesn’t have the markings of a noble birth.”

“You’re just being paranoid. It’s not like she’s a murderous kelpie and besides, Captain Gash has already decided her fate.” Thank you for underestimating me, I’ll make sure you get your comeuppance forthwith when I can finally move more than a single claw on my right arm. “See, the lass hasn’t moved from her… it seems there’s enough life in her to make unseemly gestures at least and not much else.”

Oh hey, I can flex my digits now! They were in front of the cell staring at me and they even noticed my rude gesture. Aw, thanks you guys, you’re the best captors I’ve ever had! You’re also the only ones I’ve ever had and I don’t count Canterlot as having held me captive.

“I still don’t like it, someone who can hold their breath underwater for more than ten minutes has to be a legendary pirate that no one has ever caught in the act. I will agree that she looks too pathetic to put up any fight... at the moment.” The two griffons turned away from me and walked away from my cell. It appears thug one was one of the more instinctive intelligent guards. Well this would be tricky then, I wonder how crazy I can drive everyone? “Don’t underestimate a prisoner just because she’s waterlogged, injured and possibly even poisoned. Cats be dangerous creatures when rubbed the wrong way. She certainly didn’t get this way through malnutrition and she had a knife on her, she’s someone who know how to fight and that’s dangerous.”

“She’s in the brig, just let it go already. She’s not going anywhere as she is.” As thug two said that, my eyes lowered to the big toe on my left foot. It didn’t wiggle, but all my claws popped out on my left foot and I retreated them just as quickly. “We’ll be in Turtle Toga soon enough and then she won’t be our problem anymore.”

Give me one good hour and I’ll at least get my dried fruit back from you. Also Turtle Toga? If that’s the kind of place I think it is, then I was going to be in a place filled with cantankerous pirates, brigands, thieves and rogues of the worst sort.

Sounds fun, but I probably wouldn’t want to live there. The property values must be a steal at least.

These guys weren’t exactly my kind of people. No honor among pirates unless you were part of a tightly knit crew, then popularity and notoriety also came into it. I had neither. Some pirates just wanted to prove themselves better than the rest by waving the bigger stick around and would go to great lengths to show that they could get away with more than any other.

I preferred noble rogue’s or pirates with at least some code of ethics, Captain Gash looked like a griffon that liked to get his claws dirty and I didn’t think we’d ever be friends. Oh hey, I can put weight on my leg now! Only a little more bodily control and then I can start planning to get some food for myself.

If I could spook the pirates enough and maybe grab a few griffon feathers before I jumped ship… then they’ll want to leave me alone. Silent antagonist mode engaged! I don’t say a word and I can infer that I’m not the one causing all the trouble on the ship. If I’m good enough at it, then maybe I can convince them that it’s a Changeling causing trouble.

If we’re over sea, I’ll just have to wait until we get to this Turtle Toga place to make my escape. I’m sure there’s a small airship I can ransack for my own purposes, in what I hope to be a mostly lawless place that won’t care if one goes missing.

-About thirty minutes later-

I prodded the bars that I was weakly standing next to, one of the rules of magical alchemy is that there is a limit to the size, weight and mass of an object that can be used in a cast. It was, kind of, proportional to the user’s size.

As such I couldn’t use the whole planet, all the air, the entire sea or anything as large as an entire airship in a cast. I couldn’t threaten to destroy the entire world using magical alchemy if I ever got the idea to go megalomaniacal, but I could use it for a bluff at least once.

The door on my cell? No problem, as it wasn’t entirely connected to the ship and was its own separate object.

-Minutes later-

“Oy, cat, if you can move then this will be your… where did you get that?” I just simply looked up at thug two and raised a silent brow at him and continued eating my dried fruit. He absentmindedly shoved the gruel he was holding through the slot.

On today’s menu was the sweet and sugary dried pear chunks with a side of banana chips, which will be washed down with the water from my canteen.

I just looked at him as if he were an idiot and shrugged, if a griffon ate my snacks in front of me then I was going to get testy about it.

I started putting my fruit in the gruel after I tasted it, it was so much better with the fruit.

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy Information!)

Partial Casting- Thanks to watching a phoenix feather reconsitute itself, both Jade and Kuril have the knowledge that they can stop, hold and even reverse the process of a cast.

Said process can be quite useful for getting through doors or doing many other things. When a cast is reversed instead of used up, it'll revert to it's previous state as an object.

This could possibly be used in aid of enchanting objects with magical alchemy, but testing would still have to be done to see if it is possible.

Magical Alchemy list. (No banned items shown.)

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater.

Sustain: Water Projection (Offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random. (One time air terrain survival buff, possible Offensive ability). Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain: Projecting thoughts. Not able to receive thoughts, but you can project them to others.

Self-sustaining: none.

Sunlight.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness. Strengthens all mobility based buffs.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight. Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability. The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining. Does not protect the user from gravitational or high speed stress and lack of oxygen at high altitudes like a pegasus would be by their magic.

Sustain: Redirect sunlight (Defensive support buff). Is only useful during the day and allows for blinding opponents or aggressors with light.

Self-sustaining: Minor protection from darkness (Automatic defensive buff while feather is on person). Needs to be charged with sunlight and to have been used as a magical alchemy sustain at least once to work.

Phoenix Feather.

Cast: Cleansing Flames (Support healing spell). Finds and stops negative foreign bodily ailment or ailments that are magical or mundane, does not heal damage. Can possibly stop positive ailments.

Sustain: Protection from the cold (Continuous defensive buff). Immunity to cold, increased defensive ability against ice and relative elemental based magic.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Jade’s Cloak.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: ???. (Effect seems to do nothing, need more information.)

Self-Sustain: Makes sneaking easier (Moderate stealth buff).

Chapter Four, DLC: Dumb Lackluster Corsairs.

-Jade-

Okay, may have acquired some suspicion when I got out of my cell and got some my snacks from my beloved pack. I now had someone watching me to make sure I didn’t do anything funny, thankfully it was griffon thug number two and I was absolutely planning to do funny things. Funny for me at least.

In my state I wouldn’t have been able to fend off griffon thug one if he entered my cell to beat me black and blue out of suspicion after the stunt I pulled with managing to sneak to my pack to get my dried fruit. I would always invest in waterproof travel packs, especially if you lived next to the ocean for the earlier parts of your life like I have. Soggy food doesn’t taste too good unless it was fish.

The griffon before me had a sturdy amounts of muscles on him. He wasn’t bulky, but he was big enough to be somewhat intimidating and the silver tipped brown feathers were kind of neat. He looked bored and was nodding off every now and then, how would I get him to leave so that I can escape my cell to commit some shenanigans?

They obviously wanted me alive, since I’m worth more that way. If I’m not caught moving around down here, then I might be able to get into their galley. Again, how to do that though?

I looked to the wooden ceiling and a figurative lightbulb went off above my head, so long as the wood was in good condition I could pull this off. I looked back towards the griffon and he continued to give me a bored look and I smiled at him faintly.

“What are you smiling about?” He asked gruffly, I opened my mouth and he looked interested in what I had to say.

I queried him with a happy sounding meowing noise and gave him a innocent look, I would play dumb until he closed his eyes for too long.

“I know you’re intelligent and that you still have your tongue in your head!” I tilted my head at the griffon questioningly and gave him dumb look as if I didn’t know what he was saying. “Don’t play dumb with me, nobody can just walk into a store and buy something by pointing and nodding.”

Sitting up and acting excited, I nodded and pointed at him and made an exaggerated friendly growl.

“I’m not going to dignify you with any further responses, now sit down and stop acting like you don’t know what I’m talking about.” Doing exactly what the guard told me to, I sat down with a serious look on my face as if I were constantly vigilant. “Cute, but cute is not going to save you.”

I kept my vigilant appearance as if I were waiting for a mouse to crawl out of a hole, Abyssinians never had rat problems for obvious reasons. After five minutes of nothing happening, the griffon closed his eyes for a bit too long.

“What the… where did she…” The griffon looked into the cell upon opening his orange eyes and looked both left and right for me. “Darn it, how did she get out? I’ve got to go tell someone about this!”

After listening for the griffon to be far enough away, I slowly lowered myself from clinging to the ceiling and grabbed the door, one partial cast later and I was on the other side of the door.

I released the cast putting the hinged cell door right back where it was, I proceeded to start sniffing the air as I left the brig. Griffons liked fish right? This was a pirate ship, now where is the fishy smell on this vessel? If it smells anything like fish oil, then I must be getting close.

I slinked down the corridor away from my cell, past my belonging that I wasn’t going to move until we reached Turtle Toga and went up the stairs. I ducked behind two barrels as several griffons went past and then I continued onwards sniffing the air. After passing by various doors I eventually found the empty galley, the only doors on this vessel with locks were apparently the cell doors and the captain’s cabin.

After closing the door to the galley, I rubbed my hands together. Now let’s see what I could get away with grabbing.

Checking the counter there were several candles here, many kinds of salts and some pepper. Did they use fish oil in their lanterns? Nice smell, maybe I should take some fish oil for some aroma therapy. These pirates at least had some taste. I look around as I stowed some candles in my pockets, both a salt and pepper shaker, along with a few stoppered vials of fish oil and continued on to find the larder.

Jackpot, there was fish here for the taking!

“She couldn’t have gone far, she might be trying to steal from the treasury!” Nope, why would I need pirate treasure thug one? Well it would be nice to be rich, but I was in a treasury of a different sort. Their food supply was my idea of a treasury, why would I steal money? It would just weigh me down and you would search me for it anyway when you find me, it wasn’t like I could escape right now when we’re still over the ocean.

I grabbed several large fish and stuffed them under my left arm while one went into my mouth. Eating fish a bit raw wouldn’t bother me, Abyssinians did it all the time when fishing. I enjoyed sushi and would have to get my mom onboard with the idea of making some when I got back to her.

I idly sucked on the mouthwatering fish juices as I started to make my way to the door. Mom must be quite worried about me. Well I’m equally worried about her and Fizzle! My ear twitched as something was opening the door, I opened a nearby cabinet and dove inside while carefully closing the door with a flick of my tail.

“She’s not in the galley!” Shows what you know exceedingly gruff thug voice number three, I waited and twitched my ears a few times before I snuck back to the two barrels. I then carefully made my way back down to the cells with my booty and entered the cell before the one I was originally thrown into and sat down to eat.

-

“I’m telling you Captain Gash she couldn’t have opened the door to get out.” Ah thug two was talking to the approaching red feathered bearded guy who thought he could hold me, well this will be the day you should take the hint that I’m more crafty than you’d think. “One second she was there and then she was gone!”

“Looks like she’s still in her cell to me, now who’s the yellow bellied scallywag that let her out and gave the lass fish!” I looked up at the captain’s angry countenance questioningly and smiled at thug two. All part of the plan, thankfully the captain hadn’t thought to ask what cell I had been in previously.

“Mew.” It was my only response and a happy sounding one at that as I looked towards thug two. I went back to ripping the scales off the fish I had with my teeth and consuming it happily.

Thug two gave me an angry stare and I started licking the fur on the back of my left hand in apparent ignorance before returning to my fish.

“She’s a smart one captain, I’m telling you right now that that smug cat is plotting our downfall!” Who me, thug two? Couldn’t be, I’m nice to you! Darn it, Sekhet and mom did infect me with the rhyming virus, it certainly felt like it would be a chronic thing.

“Mew?” I queried dumbly before continuing into my fish, thank you Abyssinian constitution! I even stopped to lick my right hand and rub it against my face cutely.

“She doesn’t even look like she has enough brains between her ears to be a threat to us!” You’ll regret saying that later Captain Bloody-looking-feathered-beard. “If she did, then she’d know to fear my wrath.”

He glared at me and I gave him an excited expression while rolling onto my back and pawing at the air, after that I took up a bit of fish in my mouth and made my way to him on all fours before dropping it on the floor and nudging it with my nose.

“I’m telling you right now captain, that cat is not normal!” He pointed at me with a talon, I moved forward. Since it was close enough, I licked the claw with my tongue through the bars and smiled. Somebody had been eating hippoglossus recently. “Gah, she’s pure evil I tell you!”

“Gilder… it’s an Abyssinian cat and a dumb one at that. It probably likes you and your habit of eating halibut.” Oh goody, I’m clearly as innocent as I acted for the captain. “Why she’s not even nearly close to being as evil as we are and… is that halibut she’s eating?”

Why yes, yes it was. Thank you for noticing Captain Gash! I’m your best friend forever and I would never try to betray you like the newly named Mr. Gilder here.

“Gilder, I appreciate you trying to dodge the blame for this, but passing the buck is a true pirates game lad.” Mr. Gash then proceed to glare harshly at Gilder who shied away from him, yeah this wasn’t going to end well for any of you by the time I’m through with you. “Do better next time if you’re going to try and frame someone else for any wrongdoing on my ship. Also stop sneaking fish you barnacle brained, starfish snorting, swordfish slider! I’m cutting the food you get for your next meal and you better not complain about it.”

Mr. Gash, the wonderful scarlet feathered griffon that he was, stalked off angrily and I just smiled at Gilder. He sent me a glare and I gave him a friendly noise for his troubles.

“Mew.” This time I gave him quite a mocking look.

“You’ll pay for that!” I rolled my eyes, I’d like to see him try and make me.

-

“Captain, we caught Gilder and Gaylord snuggled up to each other in the same cell that the cat was being held in and I think they rubbed fish oil all over each other. I suppose they moved the cat and locked the door to have some private time while letting the cat watch them.” What actually happened thug four, was that they both charged into my cell in an effort to beat the snot out of me.

I just set things up to make it look like the two manly griffons were getting it on, I mean that happens on pirate ships with so many men doesn’t it? Now if only the two guys had thought to swab up the slippery fish oil I poured on the floor before they charge in without their talons gripping the floor, then they wouldn’t have both slipped and slammed into the back wall knocking themselves unconscious. Aren’t I a precocious little kitten?

“Take the keys and leave them in the cell, what they do with each other is no business of ours as long as they can still fight!” Well that was rather progressive of you Captain Gash, maybe you do give some leeway to your crew and here I thought you were a complete and utter jerk to everyone. “Watch the cat Gibs.”

“Mew.” I happily intoned while wagging my tail at the poor innocent griffon named Gibs. They were going to need more men by the end of this.

In particular this Gibs looked and even smelled like a drunkard, which means that I could actually get away with doing things in front of him and nobody would believe him.

I had to remember to steal some feathers from these griffons, I knew I was having too much fun with this and should actually take my situation seriously.

-

“Mr. Gibs… can you please explain to me why you bothered to dye my hat the color PINK?!” I was quietly licking the pink raspberry juice off of my paws, I didn’t want to be caught pink handed by the lovable Captain Gash now. “You know I despise pink with every inch of my being!”

Gash was waving around his now happy looking jaunty pink hat, didn’t he know that real griffons wear pink? At least his bandanna was still black, it went quite well with the pink. Black goes with everything after all!

“It wasn’t me, I swear!” Sorry Gibs, but you didn’t take me seriously enough. Next victim if you will please Captain Gash!

“Who else has a taste for raspberry beer in this crew?” He glared at the griffon and shoved him in the cell next to mine. “Certainly not the cat!”

I didn’t like alcohol and would never imbibe it, it was probably why my previous life went so horribly. I really liked raspberries and most fruits though.

“It was her, it had to be her!” Okay, you’re a hysterical drunkard that drinks a really niche flavor of alcohol, who would actually believe you in this situation? Not me for one, especially if I were Captain Gash. “She was doing things like making the door disappear, she’s magic I tell you!”

Captain Gash grabbed the door to my current cell and shook it roughly, he tested all the bars and the lock a few times and I didn’t move from my spot when he opened the door and sent me a glare to stay put. I was the perfect model of innocence as I continued to lick my fur.

“Mew?” What magic, I certainly didn’t do anything unusual here like perform something magical in front of a drunk person and got away with it. He closed and locked the door, then he went back to Gibs.

“Why is it whenever we get a prisoner you jokers decide start screwing around behind my back in an attempt to make me kill them? We need the funds for food and drink in Turtle Toga. There’s food there that is a far sight better than eating that bilge swallowing cat!” My angry beloved captain at heart screeched loudly at the griffon making him whimper. “In some cases the screwing around is quite literal with Gilder and Gaylord. Also an Abyssinian that can do magic? What folk tale are you telling lad? She’s not old or smart enough to be an enchanter and I’ve had my time with a few enchanters before, those were some of the best nights of my life me hearty. She’s no plain-dealer in any sense of the word, now sit down and be quiet you lily livered buzzard!”

True, enchanters required a decent grasp of mathematics of which I was sorely poor at. So frankly I didn’t have to act like I was dumb this time. Magical alchemy wasn’t a mainstream thing or you’d be singing a different tune Captain Gash.

-

“Espy, descry, Turtle Toga!” My left ear twitched as I barely heard those words. I got up and did a sun salutation out of habit more than anything, time for the jailbreak. I hefted my pack and went to the cell door, my knife at my hip.

Author's Note

Chapter Four, DLC: Demons, Love and Customers.

-Fizzle-

“So Fizzle, want to go out and play?” I turned to Jade and smiled, it’s been so long since I’ve had a friend like her.

“Of course I want to play with you Jade!” We romped through the forest until we saw a strange sight, a glowing orb that flew a small circle trying to entice us. “What’s that?”

“It’s a wisp. They could be omens for good or bad, depends on how you feel. I don’t think we should follow it.” Despite her words I felt enticed to give chase to the sphere, which soon turned into a bouncing ball from my childhood and I continued to follow it.

When the ball stopped, I looked up and saw that it was now night when it was once day a second ago. A large ursine shaped shadow loomed over me in the light of the moon and it raised its right paw back to swing forward.

“Darn it Fizzy, look out!” I was shoved to the side and then splattered with a viscous red substance, as I got up the bear stalked off into the forest. Turning to look at my savior I froze, making my way over to her I pulled her into my hooves and stared at her.

I sat there watching as Jade bled in my hooves with the arrow sticking out of her chest, I just held her in her last moments and I was quite horrified by the sight. I was angry at the arrow and the bear for throwing it. Wait… the bear threw an arrow, wasn’t it trying to use its claws?

Looking down upon Jade’s form, I considered how she was the first friend that I have had in a long time. A friend that didn’t expect or even need me to be capable of magic. I looked up at her mother as she approached slowly. The white robes Kuril was wearing turned blood red, as did her eyes.

“I welcome you as one of my own and you get my daughter killed.” Why was she growing larger by the second? “I’ll show you why you don’t harm the daughter of a witch! What say you Sekhet?”

“I say she’s guilty of killing her best friend.” I looked to see the giant Sphinx who was wearing a blindfold and holding some scales aloft, they were tilted to one side.

“I… I didn’t, I couldn’t have…” I looked down at the body in my hooves and the arrow sticking out of her chest. She wasn’t moving, her eyes were closed and her beautiful green hair seemed to be turning gray.

“You’re sentence is…” Before the blindfolded Sekhet could finish, a light shined and a glowing ankh formed in the air. Out of the ankh stepped a second more upset looking Sekhet.

“Who dares intrude upon this soul?” This Sekhet was not blindfolded and I watched her look at the blindfolded Sekhet with contempt. “Ah, a nightmare, of course one would pay a visit to someone who is defenseless and still recovering. Leave, you will not possess her or lead her astray, for she is loved!”

“You have no power here goddess, we nightmares have had run of the realm of dreams for hundreds of years unchecked.” The blindfolded Sekhet and Kuril started to slowly fuse together and shrink down into the shape of a pony made out of shadows. “The limitations we are under are weakening swiftly, it is only a matter of time until the living nightmare returns. The stars will aid in her escape, she will escape her imprisonment and all will be darkness!”

“Yes, so it has been said multiple times by many seers, nightmares and creatures of darkness.” A glowing ankh appeared intersecting the nightmares body and it froze. “Unfortunately for you, I do have power here. You are touching this mare’s soul and are evil, both things of which I find highly detestable. Souls are sacred, darkness is allowed and choices bad or good can be made without judgment. When it comes to true evil like you, I will and can smite you… with some help. Otherwise I can hold you in check until then.”

“You can’t actually do that, this is her realm and I control it!” What did this… was it actually a physical embodiment of my nightmares? That’s a bit scary and what did it mean that it controlled me? I didn’t believe that for a second! I turned to Sekhet with hope that she could do something.

“You have my permission to do what you can to help me Sekhet.” Saying this felt like the right thing for me to do, I believed in and trusted the strange goddess to do right by me.

“Luceat lux in tenebris.” At Sekhet’s calm words, my world was filled with light as bright as the sun.

The imaginary grass of the night with the blood stains of my friend disappeared as did the forest, the nightmare started wailing as it began evaporating. The nightmare was trying to scrabble desperately for a shadow to hide in, but the light that filled the sudden void left nothing except blue skies. The nightmare, having absolutely no place to hide, eventually faded from existence.

Soon several figures appeared at a distance standing on nothing. The closest was Kuril, almost within distance of patting me on the head.

The next and only slightly more distant was Jade who took a few steps forward and stopped near Kuril.

Beyond Jade was a second friendlier looking Sekhet giving me a warm smile as she moved forward several steps, she was nearer to Jade and Kuril now.

A little further behind the goddess was Fluttershy.

Farther still were Pinkie and Rainbow sitting still next to each other.

The other figures that were standing quite far away was Fresh Start, Zephyr, Fluttershy’s parents, Rainbow’s parents and the Cakes.

“I am surprised that you see me moving that much closer, the distance at which they stand represent how closely you feel for them. I’m sorry I trespassed on this.” With that an ankh formed around the real Sekhet and she slowly disappeared. “They’ll get as close as you want them to be, pleasant dreams to you.”

I blinked and I was sitting at a party, with Fluttershy talking about animals and her cutie mark. Jade was batting at the piñata with her claws as if it were a giant yarn ball, she looked silly doing that. Rainbow was zipping around going on about the Wonder Bolts to anyone who would listen. Pinkie was making sure I was okay and involved, she got me to play pin the tail on the pony and didn’t make me remove my hood. I saw Kuril chatting with the other parents and she kept looking my way with a smile.

There was a fuzzy feeling in my chest about all of these things and I didn’t want to forget any of this.

-

With a gasp I woke up. Sitting up in bed, the blankets tumbled down around my barrel and I looked about the room I had chosen as my own. Had any of that really happened? A pure white glowing feather fell from my forehead onto my nose making me sneeze.

“Ah good, you’re awake for lunch. Try not to attract any more nightmares through powerful feats of anger and magic please.” The alicorn sized Sekhet smirked, she walked away and closed the door with her tail as she left me to my thoughts.

I slowly got out of bed wondering what my dreams were trying to tell me and what nightmares was Sekhet talking about? I don’t remember having nightmares. I vaguely remember screaming and thrashing shadows, but not anything that can be considered a nightmare.

I moved towards the stairs and made my way down into the restaurant area. I got onto a seat at the counter and might have even said hello to Fresh Start. It wasn’t long before Kuril came around and gave me a hug.

“Sekhet said you were having problems sleeping.” Kuril was ruffling my mane and I reveled in the feeling of affection quietly. “You look tired, do you need to go back to bed?”

“No, I’m… okay I’m not fine.” My words made Kuril quietly tighten her hug. “Sekhet said something about me having nightmares and I think she helped me with them.”

“Well don’t worry, you're safe here Fizzle.” She eventually let go of me and went back to working in the kitchen where the smell of food wafted up from it. “It’s my daughter I’m worried about.”

I remembered a scant echo of my nightmare involving Kuril, only it sounded more demented and nothing like her at all.

“Jade, is she alright?!” I remembered the last thing I did, magic surging from my horn and exploding violently. I should have jumped in the river and grabbed Jade, instead I let my anger get the best of me.

“Calm down little warrior. She will be fine, her fire still burns bright.” Sekhet came up next to me and sat down to my left. “I guess you’re still a mess after that nightmare tried to wiggle its way into the darkness in your heart, Celestia’s feather was quite helpful in that endeavor. Do you mind if I clean you up? I am only offering once.”

“Er… okay, sure.” Sekhet turn me to the right and then she started licking my ears. This felt weird and I tried to shift about to ask Sekhet what she was doing.

“Stop fidgeting so much, this is how all mothers naturally take care of their kittens.” Wait.. what? Sekhet was treating me like a kitten? Well I was still technically a young mare. “No one did this for me when I was coming into my existence, so you should feel pleased I’m willing to do it for you. Even if your mane will be a problem. Why don’t you distract yourself with telling me what happened to Jade?”

That was actually kind of sad to hear, did goddesses even have mothers? Well they must have had someone at the very least? She continued to lick my head. This felt strange and really awkward, but I think I was actually beginning to like it and found it oddly comforting.

“The last thing I remember is after following the pukwudgies to the edge of town, I turned back not seeing any pukwudgies.” My ears wilted and I felt Sekhet’s chest pressing against my back as she continued to lick my head. “Then Jade… she ran up and took an arrow for me and fell into the river. I… I think I actually used magic correctly for the first time since my horn was broken.”

Sekhet stopped and coughed up a ball of loose fur. That was a bit much to have licked off of me, was some if it her fur as well?

“You should have kept facing the direction they went and backed away while looking for danger. They ambush the unwary that follow them and the Priest Jade was quite well aware of that.” She licked me a few more times before saying. “You need to work on your instincts.”

"Wait, the is campfire still going?” I hadn't asked what the significance of the fire was, but there was definitely something magical about it.

“Yes, the fire outside still burns.” After that Sekhet continued to lick away at my head and now my mane too.

“What does that magical campfire exactly do?" Fresh stopped dusting a table and came over to us. "I don’t think any of you have ever really explained it.”

“Only Jade can explain it in full. As long as the campfire burns, just know that my daughter is still alive. She might have fallen into the river with a poison arrow in her chest, but she can’t drown unless she loses her water breathing ability.” The robe and apron wearing Kuril came out of the kitchen looking a bit worried to me, it was good news to me that Jade was alright. “It doesn’t tell us of her condition though, I hope this is not another whale shark thing. That almost scared the life out of me.”

“Children will always scare their parents in so many ways as they grow.” Sekhet muttered before continuing to bathe me with her tongue.

“Fresh get ready to take some orders, we have incoming customers!” With that a twitchy eared Kuril turned around and went back into the kitchen.

What customers? Aside from me, Fresh and Sekhet, no one else was here to order anything.

“Excuse me if I may sound rude, but is this a restaurant that serves great food?” I turned to see three zebras enter the establishment, the one who had spoken was the stallion of the group. “The smell is quite attractive to my nose, there are quite a few other questions I would like to pose.”

“Things like what is this place, and of whom do we come to face?” The mare with the mostly gray mane next to the stallion stated plainly.

“Why does the smell feel like a Shamans alchemic brew? Also that campfire outside is quite unusual too.” The colt with them spoke up in rhyme as well.

“All great questions my family as we meet those who are new, I have currency as my family would like some food and a clue.” It seemed that Fresh Start did have something to do as she approached the zebra stallion and bowed to him.

“Welcome to The Witch’s Fare where all our food are tasty dishes, for it is all made by the friendliest of witches.” Okay why was Fresh Start… I started giggling as Sekhet’s tongue hit a particularly ticklish spot on my neck. “I’ll get a table set right up for you three, after I give you your menus I will leave you be. Please peruse the menus at your leisure, to attract my attention close the menus and I’ll be there quick within a timely measure. Now what would you like to drink?”

“Something fruit flavored, sweet and not alcoholic I’d think.” Okay this was getting a bit annoying to me now.

I opened my mouth to complain only to get a sharp tug on my mane that felt good, why didn’t it feel painful? It was then that Sekhet started cleaning my face.

“Hello there and welcome to Airship Mauled, this town isn’t very well established yet and we’re just getting started. Outside is the campfire of a rogue sun priest which happens to belong to my wayward daughter who farted. I’m Kurilian La Perm or Kuril if you will, I’m ‘The Witch of Good Taste’ with hungry bellies to fill.” The zebras giggled at Kuril’s words and I found the laughter infectious, maybe it was just Sekhet’s tongue slapping my face periodically. “What you smell is me cooking lunch, but I can easily get started on something for you guys. Over there being cleaned by our local goddess Sekhet is Fizzle and the waiter is Fresh Start. My daughter is currently off gallivanting around somewhere in the world, you’ll know her when you see her as she’s an Abyssinian like no other.”

"Oh that poor dear what happened to her horn, to be without that with which she was born?" The zebra mare made my mood dive steeply.

"Fizzle doesn't like to talk about it." Kuril stated quickly with a strained smile. "So please don't ask, it's really quite a touchy subject."

Author's Note

Lore

The campfire is tied to Jaded La Perm's life.

Chapter Four, DLC: Diving, Legends and Casts.

Chapter Four, DLC: Diving, Legends and Casts.

-Sekhet-

“Kuril is our current mayor.” I knew she wasn’t or that nobody had claimed to be mayor of this dot in the world, so I decided to do it in Kuril’s stead. I’m sure she won’t mind, it’s not like the zebras were going to stick around forever, they looked like they were well traveled. ”I’m here as her advisor to make sure Airship Mauled stays running smoothly, before you ask no I don’t want any leadership roles beyond what I have already.”

“Seriously?” Fresh Start asked as she came back carrying a tray of refreshments and gave me a dubious look.

“Would you rather it be Priest Jade?” My flat delivery had Fresh giving me a thoughtful look. “She’s crazy and everyone knows it.”

“Good point, Kuril is definitely going to continue being our mayor for the foreseeable future.” Now that someone had agreed with me, even if it was the serf, I was quite sure things would proceed apace.

The zebras probably didn’t know me by name or title. They likely didn’t know exactly what I was about as a goddess. Even with my nemes being a big hint as to where I’m from, it was sometimes better to not be well known. It would be bad for Kuril’s business if everyone ran away because of me despite how good the food was.

-Jade-

I had so far managed to avoid alarming anyone, despite the fact that I had taken an hour to test some new casts and sustains. I was just lucky that I had everything I could possibly need. In a straight up fight with any of these griffons I’d be in serious trouble as they had numbers, muscle and… no I wouldn’t say that brains are a thing with them so scratch that last one.

I was moving slowly and looking through the eyeholes inside a barrel, I wanted to get the hat that I dyed pink and turn it a more fitting green color. This would require that I cause a distraction and get into the captains chamber if he didn’t just throw the hat overboard. Better yet, I’ll steal all the hats that aren’t pink and then Captain Gash will have to wear it!

I needed some fresh clothing after this, but I can get that on Turtle Toga. There has to be at least one tailor that catered to all kinds of weirdoes in the town. I can steal or gamble for the money necessary for clean clothes, I probably wouldn’t even be asked where I got my money from.

Something hit the barrel and I barely held it in place.

“Blasted… who put this barrel here?!” Growling a bit, the griffon seemed to be thinking about what to do. “Nothing for, I’ll take care of it later. I’ve got other things to do.”

That was a close one, I didn’t want to spend any of my casts yet until I was up on deck or at least up another flight of steps. Limited resources and all that.

I carefully walked my barrel up the steps. Stopping at the top, I slowly turned the barrel left and right, coast was clear and I couldn’t hear anyone nearby. I moved up the next flight of stairs carefully and stopped in a corner. Up the stairs from here is the deck and in the opposite direction was Captain Gash’s cabin.

I could have gone up to the deck, but I was going for the captain’s door. If he wasn’t up on deck, I could figure out a way to disable him before he causes any trouble. I moved away from my sneaking barrel and touched the door, I started a cast and the door disintegrated. I moved to the other side and reversed the cast.

It seems the captain was on deck, which was good for me as I now had free reign of his room. Where would I put my hats if I were a captain? I’ll just check the treasure chest, I needed a map of Turtle Toga’s position in comparison to the rest of the world and maybe some cash for the road. Who would arrest me for stealing from pirates or thieves?

I checked the captain’s personal chest and since it was locked, I used a cast to make it disappear and reversed the cast in a different spot. This spilled the chests contents all over the floor.

Unless it was protected from magic, locks couldn’t stop me now!

Not like they could have stopped me or mom before, even if I couldn’t have reversed a cast. I could still have made a door or locked chest disappear without cast reversal, but I’d have to use the resulting magical spell on something if I hadn’t learned to stop casts. This way was much stealthier, given that people won’t notice a lot of missing things and I had Philomena and Fizzle to thank for this.

Without Fizzle being healthy, relatively of course, then I would have never found out that casts could even be reversed. Said knowledge of reversal wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Philomena.

Looting done, now for my daring and epic explosive exit where I start falling with style!

-

I stomped out onto deck into the midday sun looking particularly proud of myself and with a swagger that none could match, I had found out what the hats still in Captain Gash’s room did when used as a cast. It was a time limited charisma buff, one that works with whatever you wanted to do too!

Why Captain Gash had three spare hats I’ll never know, his only spare remaining was the pink one. I was wearing one right now and the other one that hadn’t been pink had been used in a cast. I was going to destroy the hat Captain Gash was wearing as I made my escape.

I just tromped on by Captain Gash at the wheel and down the stairs with my tail flicking back and forth, I was smiling merrily as I made my way towards the gangplank with everyone staring at me.

Yes, I was enjoying all the attention! A likely side effect of the hat cast.

Be prepared pirates, because this was going to be one trick you didn’t want to miss from the Great and Powerful Jaded! Also its revenge time, someone here ate a portion of my dried apricots.

“Lass, I don’t know how you escaped my brig, but you better go back there if you don’t want be keelhauled.” Don’t worry Captain Gash, that won’t happen as I have something more fun planned.

“Mew.” I said smugly as I reached into my pack. I hid my griffon feather cast, I would probably be using two for this, and then I pulled out my first magical alchemy concoction.

I had figured out how to learn what the effects of a cast would be without actually doing it, I was going to show mom when I got back to her. She’ll be so proud that our art is that much safer now! Darn it, the charisma was getting to me, better do this now before they charge me with those swords.

“Mew-mew-mew mew mew~! Mew-mew-mew mew mew~! Mew-mew-mew-mew-MEW~!” I pulled my hand out of the pack and raised the cylindrical candle into the air while singing the jar of dirt ditty in cat and waved it around. Only the ditty would be more like ‘I’ve got a can-dle~, I’ve got a can-dle~, and guess what it’ll do’~! The griffons just gave me flat looks as I kicked and stepped onto the gangplank. My smug smile met their disbelieving faces. “Mew?”

“A candle lass? You must be dumber than I thought if you think that will be a threat to my crew!” I raised my brow delicately at Captain Gash. “Now come along quietly and I promise you that you will survive to be enslaved, despite my crew attempting to kill you.”

The candle exploded into what looked like a small constantly exploding firework in my left hand, it was my form of disagreement to the assumption that I was an idiot. I actually tested this before I planned my escape thank you very much.

The griffons who thought they were sneakily moving towards me suddenly stopped and backed well away from the shifting explosion in my hand with wide eyes. My right hand stealthily picked an arrow out of my pack, I also cast with it and held that behind my back.

I gave them all a bright, friendly… completely devious, misbegotten and quite an evil looking grin! It was the best look I could have ever had on my face while looking at the balloon holding this ship aloft.

All the griffons including Captain Gash started shaking their head no rapidly, I just nodded yes slowly with a broad happy looking cat smile on my face as I started bouncing on the gangplank. I’m pretty sure they were too distracted to notice I was falling slower and jumping much higher than I normally could with each bounce.

Once I got a high enough bounce I tossed the explosive cast straight at the balloon. While the griffons were distracted with that, a beam of energy exited my right hand and it ripped through Captain Gash’s hat. Petty kitty goal reached and achievement acquired!

I spun around in mid-air while closing my eyes and bounced off the gangplank as I high as I could go. I smiled as I felt the explosion push me forward and down at an angle.

After a second I spread my arms wide, opened my eyes and started to glide through the blue sky above the sea towards the only piece of land that I could see for miles of ocean.

I could vaguely see a busy looking town built on the landmass in the distance, which was my destination. I hoped I could reach it, as I had a natural inclination to fear sea monsters and a strong respect for the dangers that the ocean represented.

I left a falling pirate ship full of blinded and sneezing griffons in my wake, now heading towards the giant turtle shaped island.

My first magical alchemy combination was a success and technically the arrow was its own combination, so make that two magical alchemy combinations! I would need this knowledge to help Fizzle later. Combining a bunch of regeneration related ingredients together would seriously help her, a phoenix feather would even prevent any bad side effects from sticking.

All I had to do now, was coast through the air and maybe cast with another griffon feather. A griffon feathers cast was short lived.

“You’ll not be getting away that easily lass!” I looked over my shoulder at the swooping Captain Gash, he looked angry with me. I can’t understand why that would be, I did the most pirate thing imaginable and sacked some loot from his treasure chest and practically scuttled his ship.

Doesn’t he like pirates that do a good job? Some captain he is.

I reached into my pack and pulled out another beloved Chaos Candle. I didn’t want to use another so soon, but I had three flying griffons breathing down my tail and I’m not exactly maneuverable like this. This is why I had a backup plan in case there were some that had avoided the sneezing flash bomb.

Did you know I also found out that a cast can be sustained, but only if enough ingredients are used? This is why turned about in the air and held out another prepared candle and then did a cast sustain. As you can imagine I can’t use another sustain while doing this and given that I have to keep the cast going, I can hardly do any other casts while doing this too.

A jet of flame erupted from the end of the candle sending me rocketing out of the path of Good ol’ Captain Gash who went through the smoke trail left by the candle and started sneezing wildly. The other two griffons avoided the exhaust cloud I was leaving behind.

“Mew!” I called out mockingly as Gash had troubles flying and sneezing at the same time. I saw that one of the two remaining griffons rolled and swooped at my side.

I quickly angled the jet upwards and increased the rate at which the candle was burning away, he ended up with a face full of candle smoke and sneezing like his captain. I was getting much closer to the ocean, that only left me with about half a candle left that was getting harder to hold onto as I eased up on the burn rate.

The last griffon screeched angrily at me while shaking his fist, but he chose to go help his captain and friend. I smiled, as I was… falling much faster! I really needed a griffon feather before I hit the water!

I burned the rest of the candle immediately to slow my descent towards the ocean and quickly pulled out a griffon feather and started using it as my magical sustain. I didn’t want to waste more supplies than I needed to, the griffon pirates had obviously given up on me.

I didn’t know how many feet above the water I was, but I kicked off the air and my downward momentum stopped immediately and then I hit the water with a soft splash. I just did a classic long fall trick with the double jump that the griffon feather provided me.

The Isle of Turtle Toga was a few miles away in the distance. Time to use my knowledge of legends to see if they were true and if they were, I could get a ride.

“Shoo-be-doo shoo-shoo-be-doo~!” I called out loudly while treading water. And… nothing... seriously? After all that cool stuff I just did, this is where I get stuck? Maybe they hadn’t heard me. “Shoo-be-doo shoo-shoo-be-doo~!”

I waited a few minutes, still treading water and my limbs were getting a bit tired. Sure I wouldn’t drown, but I was afraid I’d be facing deep sea monsters if I didn’t get help soon.

A large shadow appeared beneath me and I hoped it wasn’t a predator, especially not a whale shark. I don’t like sharks in general at all, the shadow shot up underneath me and I closed my eyes.

My chest was slightly above the water now, I slowly opened one of my eyes and saw that I was being lifted up by a large sea turtle.

There was an equally big turtle right next to it too and with a small baby turtle on its back that had a piece of waterproof parchment in its mouth. The baby turtle held out the parchment to me, the turtle it was sitting on top of made a friendly noise.

I tentatively took the parchment and read what was on it… then my expression grew quite flat.

“Dear person who signaled SOS, we cannot come to save you from distress right now. Please accept these helpful sea turtles instead, we are sorry for the inconvenience. Sincerely Life Guardian, Seaquestria Turtle Toga Outpost.”

“Can you get me to over there please?” I stowed the message away and was looking to the sea turtle I was resting on.

It smiled and nodded and started to swim, I was upset that the sea ponies weren't giving me a song and dance number.

Oh, I just had an awful idea!

Sea turtles mate, sea turtles...

Author's Note

(New Knowledge!)

Combinations- You've used magical alchemy before, but have you ever thought of what you'd get when you mixed things together?

Cast Sustain- Sustaining a cast stretches the burn of the items used for casting, requires a combination to be used.

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredients!)

Griffon Feather.

Cast: Feather Falling (Limited air terrain support buff). Lowers gravity’s effect on an individual for a minute.

Sustain: Double Jump (Continuous Mobility buff). Can jump off the air one time after leaving a solid surface.

Self-sustain: None.

Fish (or any) Oil.

Cast: Ignition (Multipurpose offensive and support spell). Ignites itself and anything around it except the user.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Candle Wax.

Cast: Slow Down (Supportive debuff spell). Stiffens a target, can have a wide area of effect for reduced effectiveness.

Sustain: Heat resistance (Limited continuous defensive buff). Does not stop heat damage entirely and candle takes heat damage in place of the user.

Self-Sustain: None.

Pepper.

Cast: Sneezing cloud (Limited continuous Defensive spell). Wide range spell that doesn’t affect the user, causes continuous sneezing on contact and doesn’t necessarily need to be breathed to take effect.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Tricorne.

Cast: Charisma boost (Limited status buff). Gives one the ability to walk around with confidence.

Side-effect: May instill need for showboating in user.

Sustain: ???.

Self-Sustain: ???.

(New Magical Alchemy Combinations!)

Combination 1: Candle Wax + Oil (any) + Pepper = Chaos Candle. Candle hollowed out and filled with the other two ingredients mixed together equals devastating results.

Cast: Sneezing flash bomb (Offensive one use spell). Blinding, sinus wrecking and volatile magical cast.

Sustain Cast: Weak jet propulsion device (Limited air terrain support buff), Flamethrower (Limited offensive spell). Doing this will slowly destroy the candle and chemicals used in it. Exhaust fumes has a lesser effect of casting with pepper.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 2: Feather + stick + arrowhead (material any) = arrow. Arrow + poison = special status ailment added to casting effect based on poison used. Pukwudgie Poison (Paralysis for a few hours).

Cast: Arcing Arrow Beam (Offensive spell). Fires a beam that is effected by gravity as if it were an arrow, it can only damage one target and that’s the first thing it touches. If it grazes a wall and then hits you, it will do nothing to you.

Sustain Cast: Spray of multiple weaker beam shots.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Okay, the Magical Alchemy List is going to be quite complicated with time. Would having it as seperate chapter be illegal if it's an intrinsic part of the story?

Also because you might have had expectations, the thing below is probably the one I should have used at the top of the authors note.

Chapter Four, DLC: Dangerous Living Conditions.

-Jade-

I hummed softly to myself, I was being watched by a few people on the busy pier full of pirates, brigands, thieves and rogues. There was a reason for this, I was riding into the harbor on the backs of two sea turtles with a baby seat turtle hugging my ankle.

In the distance I could hear the sounds of cannons firing, I could smell of gun powder in the air among the sea breeze as the gentle winds caressed this loud port town filled with all walks of life. Most of said life was violent, unruly and savage.

It left me wondering, what would my welcoming committee to Turtle Toga be?

The sea turtles were really friendly about allowing me to do this, they stopped at a ladder in the water and I got off of their backs. Turning to them as I clung to the ladder, I had a few words to say to my friends.

“Thanks for the lift, the cool entrance into port and for humoring my silly desires.” I reached up for the rung above the one I was holding onto and I heard a noise behind me. I turned to see one of the turtles holding the baby turtle in its flippers out to me. “Uh, what do you want from me?”

It held the baby up to me, in a ‘take it’ kind of gesture.

“You… want me to take the baby turtle with me.” The two large sea turtles nodded and I groaned. "Are you sure?"

I had heard stories about turtle parenting skills, but this took the cake. Again they were nodded that yes, they wanted me to have the little turtle.

I couldn’t tell you why they thought this was a good idea, even if Turtles were considered a wise creature this was a rather unwise decision on their part.

“Well okay then.” I grabbed the turtle and placed it on my right shoulder, it started to cling to me and nuzzled my neck fur. It even made a cutesy sounding hissing noises. It was probably a female then, female turtles tended to hiss where males tend to growl.

As far as companions went, turtles were generally quiet and friendly. This one wouldn’t be hard to feed as it was vegan species of turtle.

It was only once I was at the top of the ladder that I realized that the baby turtle was not the same species as the two turtles who gave her to me. The two turtles in question were leatherbacks, this turtle on my shoulder was a green sea turtle. I tabled my confusion for the moment.

“Is there any particular reason they wanted you with me?” Who would really expect a response from a young turtle like this one? I probably should have, as it shook its head no to the question. It pointed to itself with its right flipper and hissed a bit before pointing towards me. “You wanted to be with me?”

The tiny turtle nodded and I finished climbing the ladder onto the docks of Turtle Toga with a turtle on my right shoulder. I feel like I was being set up for some sort of cosmic level joke.

“Well I don’t know what to call you, so it’ll be a while before I give you a name.” I started along the pier towards town, at least it was a nice shade of green. “Also, I think you're making poor life choices.”

As I walked along the pier towards town, I spotted something yellow falling in front of me within my peripheral visual range and my foot happened to go down on it.

What followed was me slipping on what I can only assume is a banana peel and doing a complete backflip. I stuck the landing and caught the falling turtle on my right shoulder. I also grabbed my souvenir pirate hat out of the air with my left hand and placed it back on my head.

I blinked for a second and then slowly turned towards the one who threw the banana peel with an angry gaze.

“What exactly were you expecting to happen there?” I asked of the parrot girl just staring at me dumbfounded that I hadn’t fallen flat on my ass, she was laying on a bunch of boxes to my right. “I’m an Abyssinian, we can always land on our feet.”

“For you to take a bad tumble and me getting a good laugh for one. You seem like a smooth operator there captain.” She had black and white feathers, the long black feathers on her head looked almost like they were braided and framing her face. Her bright purple eyes surrounded by white feathers were filled with a sense of wonder as she looked upon me. Upon closer inspection of the lounging anthropomorphic parrot with a bunch of bananas next to her, her long feathers were actually braided together. It was a really neat look for the parrot, she was also wearing a white shirt and black vest and brown pants. “I’m…”

“No, wait, don’t tell me… Jaqueline Sparrow?” Because what else could she be named given her appearance.

“I wish... I’m Jacky Chickadee.” Wait, did Jacky here just confirm to me that there was someone actually called Sparrow in this world? How in the world does that work? Well this is a magical fantasy world with anthropomorphic bird people, so of course it works. “Now who are you captain?”

“Why am I your captain and what’s your angle here?” I wasn’t exactly known worldwide for my exploits yet, yet this Parrot already seemed invested in me. “I just got into town and I lack any form of notoriety whatsoever.”

“Then what better place to start than here, eh my wonderful captain? You need a guide and I need a friend!” Ms. Chick sat up while clasping her hands together and wheedled at me while I just stared at her blankly. She closed her eyes and continued speaking. “You see, it works out for the both of us and I don’t care where you’re going as long as I get to come…. along? Hey, where are you going?!”

I was walking away from this one at an even pace along the strip of buildings with various maritime flavors, I was washing my paws of that parrot immediately!

“To find a decent tailor, get some fresh clothes, receive the one rare as Tartarus soap bar in this dingy town, use it, do some extreme ship shopping and to get away from you!” I continued forward while shouting back over my shoulder. “I can get into all kinds of trouble by myself without your help! Also you didn’t answer my question and tried to dodge it, which would have been more effective if I were a complete idiot.”

“Oh come on, don’t be like that Captain Kitty!” She started to follow me into the town and I ignored her presence.

I passed by several salty sea dogs that were drunk. They were quite literal sea dogs, given that they were Diamond Dogs that seemed to be sleeping off hangovers. Average pirate grunts from the look of it.

I was walking by a store that seemed to sell compasses when the window was smashed outward and I stepped around the unconscious dark blue earth pony stallion on the ground.

There was a pitched fight going on to my right, it was between two cutlass wielding Minotaurs who looked quite skilled at wielding such small and lightweight weapons.

Now if I were a…

A thunderous explosion and a wall of dirt kicked up in my face. I looked at the ground and saw a cannonball resting there, having dug its way into the street ahead of me. That could have killed me, even if I had seen it coming it would have killed me had I been a few seconds faster. I didn’t have a cast or sustain that could have stopped a cannonball cold, except maybe the knife sheath.

“Okay I’m sold on you being my captain! A lesser pirate would have absolutely been in position to lose a limb. All the best pirates are the ones that haven’t lost a limb yet or are quite skilled despite missing one.” I ignored the commentary of the following Jacky. “So where do you want to… hey are you still ignoring me? Come on now captain, I’m offering my services to you with no strings attached you know!”

“It’s the unattached strings or the unseen ones that I’m worried about.” If this were a pirate story, then it was dangerous for me to even acknowledge that Jacky even existed knowing this world.

“Uh hey, you’re not thinking of going in there right?” I looked to the building Jacky pointed out and she seemed a bit reluctant to go in there. It was tavern, just the place I needed to go.

This was a world where two parrots could wrestle over a fish sandwich apparently, I moved past the two pirates fighting for the right to eat said sandwich at the entrance and entered the bar. It was less than what I expected, but it still had the feel of a seedy pirate bar.

I entered a cavernous open room with less than half its furniture smashed, by pirate standards this was probably the ritziest place in all of Turtle Toga.

There was the running dice rolling game at a table with unicorns that all looked to be cheating, their cutie marks seemed to be directly tied to gambling enough for it. I wouldn’t challenge them to a game if I was smart, it seemed to be about who could cheat the best.

I stopped to watch a pegasus mare with a cutlass cutie mark for a few seconds. She was in the middle of beating a diamond dog black and blue with her bare hooves. I decided to steer clear of that altercation.

There was a yak playing a piano… poorly. I would have probably been better off without ears right now, it was the most horrible thing I’ve heard since I got here.

I was noticing a distinct lack of Abyssinians of any kind here, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an Abyssinian pirate before and I doubt I ever really would. When you were a mercantile nation, it was a bad idea to mess with your people’s ability to survive.

The odd thing out here is that the bartender was a yellow hippogriff with a blue bandana on his head, he looked up from the glass he was wiping. I sat down on the stool and gave the yak a glance.

“A yak on the piano… who did you lose a bet to for that to happen?” The hippogriff gave me a flat stare.

“That’s my wife.” That explained so much about the hippogriff, I looked at his wife and she wasn’t ugly by any means. She was probably a rarity around here and not too bad looking, but her piano playing was destroying my ears.

“That explains a lot about why you haven’t stopped her horrible playing yet, at least she looks nice.” He just nods at me without comment and continues to clean the glass. “Do you know anything about Jacky Chickadee, a place where I can get clean clothes and an airship that nobody would miss if stolen? Given the kind of customers you get around here, you can just point me at whoever you like the least.”

“Yes, on all counts. Jacky’s an odd bird, she believes one day she’ll find a lucky person to follow around by sticking around here. Not many people who are here are lucky in any respect or else they wouldn't call this place home, except for me that is.” He smiled towards the female yak fondly, despite cringing at her piano playing. He got a bowl out and started pouring some cream in it before shoving it to me. “On the house, don’t worry about paying. Anyway, I don’t know why Jacky’s really here, not exactly the safest town for a girl like her. She gets by well enough on her own though, she’s sometimes known as Black Jack.”

“Thanks for the cream.” Sniffing it to be sure it was safe, I picked up the bowl and started to partake in it. The cream was quite tasty and any Abyssinian was keen on eating dairy, except for the exceedingly rare and quite sad lactose intolerant Abyssinian.

“Don’t mention it, because I’m sure my wife will as she likes it when I do nice things for friendly folk.” Eventually the noise, that could barely be called music, stopped and I heard the sound of the yak thundering over to the counter. “If you need some clothes fresh, and not stolen off someone’s back, there’s a shop out the door to the left and down the next street. It’s the only thrift store in town. I'm sure you know why, pirate town and all.”

“Is Eir’s husband being nice and making friends again?” The yak heavy with thick brown fur walked around behind the counter and then pulled the poor hippogriff into a crushing hug that made the poor guys bones pop. The hippogriff really seemed to like it despite the slightly pained look on his face. “Eir is loving Gallant Bluster as life companion.”

“That sounds…” I started to mutter and stopped. If it was the Eir that was known for her medical talents… and her battle prowess as a Valkyrie. For the love of… I just ran into the Norse version of Sekhet. On an island of pirates of all things! “Excuse me, could you remove the stitches from my left shoulder? They’re chafing.”

“How did you know Eir is being good at medicine? Oh right, you are friend of husband, how silly of me to be forgetful! You are being in need of Eir’s care yes?” After finishing my cream, Eir led me to the back room to have my stitches removed. It also led to one very embarrassing medical checkup via Eir the out of place medical Valkyrie.

I came back to the tavern once I was finished getting cleaned up and healed. I was looking much better than when I had left and I was now a fan of the Valkyrie Eir. Gallant addressed me once more.

“As for your last question before my wife dragged you off to see to your health. Yes, I do know of a ship you can take, you’ll be doing me and a few others a big favor.” The hippogriff blushed as his large wife cuddled up to him. “There’s a small pirate airship in particular nearby, it’s the one that’s been firing cannonballs randomly into town and we’d like it to be taken from its three owners.”

Eir nodded in agreement, as did a few of the other patrons when I looked around the tavern.

“It’s been bad for business, the real pirates certainly don’t want to deal with the riffraff until necessary.” Gallant ran a claw through his feathers. “The ship you’re looking for is The Double Dare, it shouldn’t be hard for you to steal.”

“What am I expecting here?” This didn’t sound too problematic.

“Three diamond dogs.” He sighed as another cannon shot was heard. “Without the ship they really won’t be so much trouble.”

I nodded and turned to leave only for a familiar, if younger, green feathered parrot to walk in. The young Celaeno still had both her legs.

Author's Note

Even chickadees have a mythological background.

Chapter Four, DLC: Cannot look dumber.

-Celestia-

“What do you mean she isn’t here?!” This was bad, the sun priest is in danger and I couldn’t do anything to help them. Why were they so hard to keep track of? They were already hard enough to protect as is it when their existence is discovered by the wrong hooves.

Said wrong hooves had to of have at least figured it out by now.

Jade was probably the only sun priest in this generation, at least she was the only one that I knew of. I just wished she could live a fulfilling life even if she never did anything else as a sun priest. I was even actually going to make an effort to periodically check in on her to make sure she was doing okay and was well protected.

“She took an arrow to the chest from a pukwudgie for me and fell into the river in Ponyville during a recent raid. We don’t exactly know where she is.” There was no other option than to believe Fizzle as Pukwudgies had attacked Ponyville recently and she looked quite upset by the event.

I turned to the campfire. It was still going, so at least I know that Jade was still alive at least. I tried to use a locator spell, but the location she was at was completely unplottable. I felt a mild bit of panic at that.

There were a lot of places Jade could be, some of which were not very pleasant. I hoped she could take care of herself, she was so young and fragile.

Zebras? Oh, they had visitors! Seeing the zebra colt made me realize something… I forgot to post a teacher for the school that I had built here. I slowly pulled my right hoof from its shoe and slapped it to my face.

-Jade-

I had simply ignored the young parrot pirate Celaeno’s presence.

I said goodbye to Gallant and Eir, then left to seek out the clothing store I was told about. As long as I didn’t do anything to attract Celaeno’s attention, then nothing horrible would happen. It’s like tiptoeing around a vat of nitroglycerine, you don’t want to make any sudden movements or else everything explodes violently.

Jacky followed me to the clothing store and I ignored her insistence that she could help me or the fact that the turtle on my right shoulder was currently eating a lettuce leaf held between its two flippers calmly. I didn’t even care where it got the lettuce from, it could obviously take care of itself.

The unicorn at the clothing store was named Stitching Crossbones or Stitch as she preferred to be called. Stitch was an exclusively pirate themed pony clothier. She only made pirate styled clothes, at least she was amiable about my chosen purchases. Though I could hardly get her to make anything normal for me.

The clothing I was now wearing now was at least comfortable. I was wearing a green long coat, white shirt and brown pants. The only thing that doesn’t follow Stitch’s rule of only making pirate themed clothing was the underwear.

I was so thankful that she could do normal underwear that I bought two extra hats, they were souvenirs for mom and Fizzy. Apparently Stitch didn’t mind cross theming a pirate hat with a witch’s hat nor did she mind putting a firework design above a soda bottle on the hat I was getting for Fizzy. She also modified the pirate hat I had stolen from Gash to have a symbol of a cute smiling cat face on it in my fur color.

I will admit that Stitch did really good work and the smiling cat face on my hat was adorable, she was quite surprised when I paid her in full. It’s not like it was my money to begin with, I was paying for this stuff with the booty stolen from good old Captain Gash.

It was getting late in the evening as I left the store, I decided I needed a place to rest. I’d attack the three diamond dogs at dawn, I didn’t care to figure out why they were firing cannonballs into the town randomly.

“Okay Jacky, you’ve been following me for quite a while now.” Just for the sake of posterity I had to ask. “Will you eventually stop following me around?”

“No captain, I’m as loyal as they come!” Ms. Chickadee at least sounded sincere about that.

“Know a good place where I can sleep for the night at least?” Well if she was going to keep bothering me, then I may as well ask her for some help.

“Sure thing captain!” Before I knew it, Jacky was dragging me along to the nearest inn in town.

Was she doing all this just because I refused to do a comedic pratfall?

The next day and a sun salutation later. –

I spy with my eyes, a ship with three diamond dogs in the early morning sun. I was sneaking up on the ship to stop them from hitting me with that cannon.

Unlike Sekhet, I was not immortal nor did I think myself invincible. You probably wouldn’t know it by the way I threw myself off of high places, Captain Gash’s ship and Canterlot being two notable occasions.

They were somewhat smart dogs, they had parked the airship on the nearby beach at the edge of the water.

There would have been nothing but open ground between me and the ship had I decided to walk along the beach. Instead I got some help from my little green sea turtle friend and approached the ship from the sea on the back of another large turtle.

I had made sure to check my stuff before I set out on this venture, surprisingly Jacky hadn’t tried to rob me blind or do anything untoward to me at all. In fact I didn’t know where she was or what she was doing when I left the inn this morning.

I had one chaos candle, seventeen griffon feathers, three phoenix feathers, two vials of fish oil, my fish scale necklace, a quarter of a pepper shaker, a full salt shaker, three bits of leftover wax from modifying the candles and eight pukwudgie arrows. I wanted to save the chaos candle to show to mom and it would have been a bit too destructive to use. I wasn’t about to use the fish oil either, I actually wanted to take the ship intact.

The arrows were the least useful thing I had on me at the moment. I could fire one big beam or an inaccurate spray of multiple smaller beams. The damage the big beams dealt would be negligible if it hit clothing, or anything else for that matter, before touching any part of the target itself. The little beams from the cast sustain would do more damage by comparison because each beam would hit something different, but I’d have to get close enough to hit anything with them given how bad the spread was and my ammo supply was quite limited.

The bits of wax was the most useful stuff, as I had enough for the diamond dogs. I didn’t know what to do with them once I knocked them out, did I just leave them on the beach? Well I wasn’t about to harm them too much and I was conscious of the current tide.

The turtle pulled up next to the ship, my claws came out and I started carefully scaling the side quietly. I didn’t want to be heard by the dogs before I could get a sneak attack off.

“Thanks for the lift buddy.” I whispered back to the turtle, it gave me a friendly nod before swimming off. I gripped the edge of the ship and looked around on deck, it appears nobody was up yet. Let sleeping sea dogs lie.

I reached up and grabbed the rail to pull myself onboard and looked to the turtle on my shoulder munching on a bit of carrot. Someone had apparently taken advantage of the free salad bar this morning. I swear that was the least pirate thing about the island, aside from the friendly people I’ve met.

Who has ever really heard of pirates that eat salads anyway? Well aside from pony pirates when it’s an absolutely necessary dietary need.

This island was just a big pirate themed theme park wasn’t it? The cannonball yesterday had certainly been real and dangerous, not to mention the several fights going on in town. I had expected less normalcy than this, but I guess even pirates needed their down time.

I was standing on deck and looking about, this ship was of a pretty decent size. Good enough for a small crew of at least fifteen people. Probably about two to four times the size of an average catboat.

Catboats are used a lot in Abyssinia for obvious reasons if the pun wasn’t bad enough. Even I knew how to pilot a catboat, but I didn’t know how to fully pilot an airship.

I’m sure I could figure it out, it couldn’t be that hard.

“What is mangy cat doing on deck?” In answer to your question random diamond dog standing behind me, I was scoping out the real estate with a small hold, likely four rooms, a captain’s cabin and the balloon that wasn’t present despite there being rigging for it.

“Looking for a place to ambush some really dumb flea bitten mutts and steal this ship.” Answering it in a conversational tone was probably the best way to go about things. “In the middle of a sentence if I have to.”

“Well mangy cat won’t be able to…” I swung around and launched a devastating right hook across his jaw, completed the spin and went back to scoping things out like that didn’t just happen.

“That’s what you get for calling me mangy two times. I washed myself quite thoroughly this morning you jerk!” I’m surprised he was actually standing close enough for me to do that. I saved one of my wax casts doing that, because all I heard from him now was his groaning form on the deck at the moment. “At least I take my hygiene seriously.”

Looking about after that outburst, I grabbed the diamond dog by his yellow vest and dragged him over to the beach side of the ship and heaved him overboard. I dusted my hands off turned around and jumped back from the clumsy, but quite fast, swing for my head by a smaller diamond dog.

I quickly reached into my pants pocket and immediately threw a wax cast directly into his… er… her? Well I cast in its face and then I kicked them hard knocking them on their back. If diamond dogs struggled to win a fight with civilian ponies despite having numbers on their side, then the three salty dogs shouldn’t be hard for me to take down.

I think I just wasted my cast on the… was it a female diamond dog? It was hard to tell, they looked so masculine despite the minor feminine features.

“Excuse me for asking this, but are you a female dog?” The brown furred diamond dog with floppy ears just gave me a highly confused look. I sighed, it was sad that this was a legitimate question that I had to ask. “Are you a bitch?”

“Yes, I am. Why is body hard to move?” Oh good, at least I had confirmation, because her voice was hard to read as well. “Like being in sand, but not!”

“That’ll wear off eventually… are you with child by any chance?” She shook her head no as she slowly moved towards me with all her muscles stiffened up.

“Oh good, then I can do this with a clear conscience!” I jumped to her right dodging the clumsy grab and tackled her face with my shoulder and knocked her off the side of the ship.

I looked over the side to make sure she was okay. It appears that she had landed on her head, so she was definitely fine.

I heard a growling noise coming at me from behind and I barely avoided the third diamond dog clawing my face off by rolling backwards, he was slightly bigger than the other two. His clubbed tail looked like a baseball bat just to name something of compensation going on here.

At least I know why the other two diamond dogs looked scrawny. This was their alpha and he had a bit more meat on him, he looked like a bulldog species.

Growling angrily at me, he charged and I could feel my ears wilting. My cat instincts were kicking in and telling me to run, so I did so on all fours with a barking diamond dog on my tail also running on his four limbs.

The next estimated five minutes were spent by me running in aimless circles on the deck with me ducking and jumping around him trying to get his teeth in me.

I eventually came to my senses and leapt up onto the beach side rail, tapped my knife for its magical sustain and did a well-timed backflip. I kicked off the back of the diamond dogs head doing another flip while sending him off the side of the ship.

“Now all I have to… do... if there were only three diamond dogs, then why is the balloon already inflating?” The balloon was starting to lift the ship from the beach.

“Don’t worry captain, I got the ship ready to go while you were dealing with them!” Please, for the love of all that was the holy sun, tell me that wasn't Jacky. I moved towards the center of the ship and saw her behind the wheel.

“Let me guess, you got here before me and were waiting on me?” The bird nodded at me cheerfully with a bright smile on her beak as she took the helm. “Okay, I’m beginning to think there’s something horribly wrong with you being around me.”

“What makes you say that captain?” I held my hands out to both my sides showing Jacky exhibit A and exhibit B.

On one side of me was Captain Gash with four pirate griffons and on the other was Celaeno with four pirate parrots. They were all pointing swords towards me. Why was I suddenly the center of two different pirate groups?

“Call it a hunch, but I think you might be a living jinx Black Jack.” My words made Jacky wince a bit and she looked away ruffling her braided feathers.

“Did you seriously think I’d let you get away with dropping my ship into the sea lass? We pulled into port last night and we’ve been looking for you!” Well that explains Captain Gash being here, I turned to Celaeno and raised my brow delicately.

“I’m here for the ship of course, you haven’t done wrong by me yet.” Celaeno of course chooses now of all times to become an active pirate. “What’s your name anyway?”

“I’m Jaded La Perm, rogue sun priest.” I quickly turned to point at Captain Gash. “Parley!”

“Damn it all!” Captain Gash screeched angrily, I knew that much of the pirate code jerk ass and your men can’t touch me until we’ve done business.

“Some priestess.” Muttered Celaeno sarcastically in my direction while crossing her arms loosely. "Are you sure you're not some talented pirate? You certainly have the look of one."

Chapter Five, Building Relationships: Romance of the three rogues.

-Jacky B. Chickadee-

“Can you steer us closer to the port without us all dying?” Captain Jade might not have understood that this was my chance to start life for real and do something with myself, but I forgave her for that.

“Aye aye, Captain La Perm!” I started to steer the ship for the port. As long as I didn’t go too far out, then things wouldn’t hopefully get so bad.

“For the record, despite her calling me that, we only met yesterday and I think she’s unintentionally trying to kill me.” That hurt a bit, but she wasn’t wrong and her anger towards me was completely understandable. I wasn’t trying to kill her, I was hoping she’d actually survive me.

My captain had been lucky so far, the banana peel thing had made me sit up and take attention. Sure all the banana peel slips I’ve seen had been funny, but the laughter was bitter as I'm reminded of my… situation.

The thing she said about always landing on her feet had quite a bit of meaning. It mean that no matter how bad things got for her, she’d always try to come out standing. That really meant a lot to me.

That cannonball missing by several feet and only getting her covered slightly in dirt was what really opened my eyes to the possibility that I had finally found my captain.

It was bad enough that my presence probably somehow let the diamond dogs sneak up on Captain La Perm, but she dealt with them well enough. Now she had five pirates on both sides of her down on the deck and things didn’t look too good until she called for a parley. Captain La Perm would probably be better off if I didn’t try to help her right now.

-Jade-

Once we were parked over the open water above the port, I decided to get things moving along.

“Okay, to start things off I absolutely need this ship. The pirate parrots want this ship, but don’t necessarily need it.” I pointed to Celaeno and then turned to Captain Gash. “You Captain Gash want both this ship… and my head.”

“Aye, you’ve run my patience down and I’ve none left for you.” He waved his sword in my direction with a scowl. “Parley is just delaying the inevitable. We can all just finish you off quickly enough and then get to dealing with each other.”

“I don’t feel like killing someone today, also there’s the code to think of.” The young teenage Celaeno wasn’t on my side, but at least she wasn’t bloodthirsty like Captain Gash currently was. “She has made no aggressive moves against any of us yet since calling parley, she also has yet to barter with either of us. Just to be sure we’re all on the up and up, parley to the both of you.”

“Okay then.” While in parley I was safe for the moment, Captain Gash could not order his men to attack me and he couldn’t attack me himself until we absolutely talked about a possible deal. In turn I couldn’t do anything aggressive either and since Celaeno agreed to parley with us both, that means she’s also bound by the code. “Hey Jacky, can you find me a sword and toss it to me? I'll need it when we get to fighting.”

Chickadee looked a bit worried about the idea of even throwing a sheathed sword at me.

“Are you sure about that captain, couldn’t I just… give it to you?” Well you could do that Jacky, but I’d really like to see what will happen if you threw it at me. “Do I really have to throw it?”

“Yes.” I just really wanted to confirm something here. Jacky opened her mouth to say something and I made her stop with a glare. “I’m quite sure.”

“Fine, I’ll do it. Just know that I’m warning you now that something will go wrong.” With that Jacky set out to look for a sword in the ship and I sat down to wait. The parrot pirates and Gash’s griffons followed my lead in taking a seat.

“While she’s busy with that, I’m going to suggest a ‘mêlée a trois’ for ownership of The Double Dare.” I was getting a stink eye from Captain Gash at the suggestion, but Celaeno seemed interested in a fight. “It would be fitting.”

“Hmm… no magic is allowed in the fight in any form.” It was Captain Gash’s right to set a term if we’re going to fight. That’s a big if, depending on what Celaeno said.

“Agreed… what say you?” After I accepted Gash’s terms, we turned to Celaeno. His conditions had me a bit worried, at least he didn’t anything say anything too hard to follow. “I’m sorry, I don't know your name. This guy is Captain Gash and the pink hat is my fault, just to give you an idea of why he’s so keen on drawing and quartering me.”

“Call me Celaeno, I actually think that hat looks charming on the old codger. I agree to his terms.” She closed her eyes to think and her four friends looked in her direction. After a minute she opened her eyes, I had no idea what she was thinking when it came to Gash’s terms or my agreement with them. “No swapping in substitutes or getting outside help during the fight, we three fight until we can’t fight any more or give up.”

“Agreed.” I and Gash agreed to the terms at the same time.

They both looked to me, it was my turn to set the terms if I could actually think of anything. The one suggesting the mêlée was the last to set a term. If I couldn’t think of anything, then we’d go with what we had.

“We all fight on even footing. No backup weapons, just the swords and our bodies.” The two pirates looked thoughtful at my words.

Each one of our terms was to give ourselves an advantage.

Gash wanted the advantage over me and didn’t want me using magic. This fight was going hurt, a lot. I wasn’t exactly trained to fight with a sword.

Celaeno’s advantage was an escape clause and not having to deal with more than two opponents, young pirates would often use it if they didn’t think they had enough experience to survive the fight.

My advantage was worded carefully, even footing meant that captain Gash couldn’t fly and had to fight us on the ground with just a sword or whatever his body could do naturally.

“Agreed.” Celaeno didn’t see any problem with my terms and it was up to Captain Gash, we haven’t exactly said anything about not killing one another.

“Agreed.” It took Captain Gash long enough, he was definitely thinking hard about whether or not he could take either of us without flying. “It seems we are waiting on your sword you ugly guttersnipe.”

“Of course we are bleeding beard.” If he was going to start insulting, then I was going to do some myself. “Don’t open any more arteries in yourself, you might accidentally fill the world with your taint. Goodness knows, your blood is not fit for the sea or the sky.”

“You are absolutely the worst priestess I’ve ever heard.” Celaeno didn’t insult me all too hard, she then turned to Captain Gash. “You are a scum sucking pufferfish and the only thing that inflates for you anymore is your ego.”

“It’s not the size that matters, but what you do with it you wailing harpy of a fat manatee.” Last insult fired, we all waited for Jacky.

Jacky came back three minutes later with a sheathed sword and was about to walk down the steps.

“I told you to throw it to me.” She was quite uneasy and she looked at the steps between me and her, she tossed the sword.

I quickly got up to my feet and took a single step back. The sword somehow fell out of the sheath, spun end over end and slammed down between my legs blade side up almost touching my new pants. The sheath smacked me in the head making me rub the spot it hit, but nothing much worse happened.

“That could have killed you.” Celaeno said lazily as she eyed Jacky with some suspicion. “If you hadn’t moved… it could have pierced your head.”

“It thankfully didn’t though.” That was all I had to say on the subject as I put the cutlass in the sheath and held it upside down, it didn’t fall out. Ms. Chickadee was really unlucky. “I suggest she be the one to start us off on our mêlée a trois.”

“Now you just be tempting fate horribly, I accept.” Anything to get an advantage, eh Captain Gash?

-

We three stood at the ready in the middle of the deck, equidistant from one another. To my left was Captain Gash and on my right was Celaeno. I held my cutlass forward with my left hand, both Caelano and Gash were holding theirs in their right.

We had nothing on us except our clothes and our weapons.

Weapons pointed towards the center of the three person circle, we waited for the battle to start.

Green feathers, white plumage, the rose eyed Celaeno look ready with her sword. Pink hat of rage and a beard of red feathers, Captain Gash wanted to rip his opponent’s apart. I was the odd one out as I held my sword, of which I had no training or any skill with.

“Ready arms… begin!” Jacky quickly backed out of the way sending me a worried look and we immediately started.

Captain Gash went for me, but I in turn went for Celaeno surprising both of them. Celaeno blocked my clumsy leftwards slash and I danced out of the way of Gash’s stab taking a light graze to my left arm.

We all stopped and looked between one another, then we started tapping our feet to an unseen rhythm.

Celaeno struck out at me, I ducked under her swing and tried to swing for Gash who deflected my blow and riposted expertly and tried to get Celaeno in the shoulder. I had already backed out of range and Celaeno deflected Gash, now we were looking between each other more carefully.

I was the least skilled and experienced, but a wild card was always dangerous. Celaeno was young and strong, Gash was old and experienced. We were balanced, as neither of them wanted to lose sight of me or each other.

All three of use clashed our swords together at the same time, while they were locked I swung my right hand claws at Gash’s face catching him sharply above his left eye. Give that wound a minute to bleed over the left side of his face and he’d be blinded in one eye. Celaeno quickly sucker punched me turning my right eye black with a bruise and she took a shallow cut to the right leg from Gash.

We backed away and were now stomping to an intense rhythm and we started to slowly move in a clockwise circle with the parrots and griffons egging us on.

One of us had to go down if any of us were to gain an advantage, my best bet was to play Celaeno and Gash off one another.

We moved, I stabbed my sword downwards into the deck. Gash’s sword hit it stopping it from getting any closer to hitting me. I ducked under Celaeno’s blow coming in from my right and I kicked Gash in his belly winding him, I grabbed my sword and spun around with it to the left. It clipped Celaeno’s left shoulder and hitting Gash’s sword as it came up to deflect me. I stumbled back from the deflection.

“Are you sure you’re a priestess? You’ve got good instincts.” Celaeno said conversationally as she came at me with a flourish, I blocked her first swing and the second slid across the left side of my face drawing blood. I launched my fist at her and she stepped backwards with a smile. The smile was soon gone as she had almost gotten run through by Captain Gash.

I charged and managed to smack the attacking Gash’s wrist with the back of my sword with an upwards flick, it almost made him almost drop his sword.

He growled as he strengthened the grip on his sword and changed tactics to unleash a rapid flourish at me. I barely managed to deflect the worst of it as I took several painful wounds across my body. Celaeno thankfully distracted him.

Celaeno held her own against Captain Gash and they traded blows sending some sparks flying. I interrupted them by thrusting at Gash’s side and managed to get a good portion of his right wing making him grunt in pain and staggering him.

“She’s not traditionally trained, but her instincts for finding openings is admittedly quite good.” Gash actually complimented me, I’m touched. we started to slowly circle again watching one another’s movements closely. “Wish she’d just up and die though.”

Less touched.

We were practically dancing with how fast we were moving into and out of each other’s range trying to find a good opportunity to press the attack. We deflected blows, blocked them and attacked one another in a shifting rhythm.

With a twitch of my right ear I swung for Celaeno’s head as Gash came at me. Celaeno blocked and I held that block shifted it into the path of the blow meant for me from Gash and then slid my blade upwards catching Gash shallowly in the throat beneath his beard.

Gash started coughing as he backed away from me clutching his throat and I quickly dropped my sword. This was much to Celaeno’s surprise when her first attack wasn’t blocked and her following attack missed me because I was busy knocking her legs out from under her.

Once she fell, I got into a crouching position where I somersaulted forward and slammed my right heel into her chest winding her. Celaeno grabbed my leg and slammed me belly first to the deck, she took my sword and deflected Gash from stabbing me through the back while I was down.

I soon stood up shakily from that near death experience, I would have to thank Celaeno for that later. Both Celaeno and Gash were busy fencing with one another, Gash was looking quite unbalanced and Celaeno was getting roughed up by him.

I looked to Celaeno’s sword, I had an idea. I took aim and kicked the sword forward while charging Celaeno.

The sword I kicked ended up between Gash’s hind legs, his left foot shifted backwards and into the hilt, the next shift of his legs sent the blade digging into his right heel. Howling in pain, he toppled and smashed the back of his head against the deck. He was out of the fight.

Celaeno tried to react to the change in the battle, but I had already gripped her wrist with my right hand. I might not be good at sword fighting, but I definitely knew brawling.

I sent my left elbow into Celaeno's face dazing her, I brought my right knee straight up into her elbow while lowering her arm with my grip. This resulted in her to dropping her sword, and then I maneuvered myself to slam my head into hers.

I was hurting badly, but I was standing.

Author's Note

Combinations are likely have no sustain or self sustain effects because of the mixture of things involved in them.

Magical Alchemy list.

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater.

Sustain: Water Projection (Continuous offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random (One time air terrain survival buff, possible offensive spell). Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain: Projecting thoughts. Not able to receive thoughts, but you can project them to others.

Self-sustaining: none.

Sunlight.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness. Strengthens all mobility based buffs.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight. Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability. The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining. Does not protect the user from gravitational or high speed stress and lack of oxygen at high altitudes like a pegasus would be by their magic.

Sustain: Redirect sunlight (Defensive support buff). Is only useful during the day and allows for blinding opponents or aggressors with light.

Self-sustaining: Minor protection from darkness (Automatic defensive buff while feather is on person). Needs to be charged with sunlight and to have been used as a magical alchemy sustain at least once to work.

Phoenix Feather.

Cast: Cleansing Flames (Support healing spell). Finds and stops negative foreign bodily ailment or ailments that are magical or mundane, does not heal damage. Can possibly stop positive ailments.

Sustain: Protection from the cold (Continuous defensive buff). Immunity to cold, increased defensive ability against ice and relative elemental based magic.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Jade’s Cloak.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: ???. (Effect seems to do nothing, need more information.)

Self-Sustain: Makes sneaking easier (Moderate stealth buff).

Cupcake (Banned).

Frog mucus (Banned).

Griffon Feather.

Cast: Feather Falling (Limited air terrain support buff). Lowers gravity’s effect on an individual for a minute.

Sustain: Double Jump (Continuous Mobility buff). Can jump off the air one extra time after leaving a solid surface and only one time.

Self-sustain: None.

Fish Oil.

Cast: Ignition (Multipurpose offensive and support spell). Ignites itself and anything around it except the user.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Candle Wax.

Cast: Stiffness. Slow down a target, can have a wide area of effect for reduced effectiveness.

Sustain: Heat resistance (Limited continuous defensive buff). Does not stop heat damage entirely and candle takes heat damage in place of the user.

Self-Sustain: None.

Pepper.

Cast: Sneezing cloud (Limited continuous Defensive spell). Wide range spell that doesn’t affect the user, causes continuous sneezing on contact and doesn’t necessarily need to be breathed in to take effect.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Tricorne.

Cast: Charisma boost (Limited status buff). Gives one the ability to walk around with confidence.

Side-effect: May instill need for showboating in user.

Sustain: ???.

Self-Sustain: ???.

Combinations.

Combination 1: Candle Wax + Oil (any) + Pepper = Chaos Candle. Candle hollowed out and filled with the other two ingredients mixed together equals devastating results.

Cast: Sneezing flash bomb (Offensive one use spell). Blinding, sinus wrecking and volatile magical cast.

Sustain Cast: Weak jet propulsion device (Limited air terrain support buff), Flamethrower (Limited offensive spell). Doing this will slowly destroy the candle and chemicals used in it. Exhaust fumes has a lesser effect of casting with pepper.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 2: Feather + stick + arrowhead (material any) = Arrow. Arrow + poison = special status ailment added to casting effect based on poison used. Pukwudgie Poison (Paralysis for a few hours).

Cast: Arcing Arrow Beam (Offensive spell). Fires a beam that is effected by gravity as if it were an arrow, it can only damage one target and that’s the first thing it touches. If it grazes a wall and then hits you, it will do nothing to you.

Sustain Cast: Spray of multiple weaker beam shots.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Chapter Five, Building Relationships: Romance of the airship.

-Jade-

I should never challenge any pirate to a one on one duel, if a three way was that hard to survive. I had a stab wound in my right side, the left side of my bleeding face still hurts where Celaeno slapped me with her sword and there were nicks and cuts along my arms.

I couldn’t rest or relax yet. There was a big problem that I hadn’t considered when we were setting terms, I was now acting captain of The Double Dare.

Just because I had ownership of my own airship through being the last one standing, it didn’t actually mean I could hold onto it. Say if I were suddenly attacked by pirates and it was taken from me right now, then that would have been the shortest ownership period ever.

“Congratulations on your victory, now hand over the ship and yourself to some real pirates!” One of the four griffons from captain Gash’s ship said mockingly as he turned his sword on me. “You’ll not survive a tussle with us.”

I inhaled while tapping in my fish scale necklace. This was going to hurt a whole lot, but I was going to keep this ship after a fight like that. If it required putting my blood, sweat and tears into it... then I would do that literally. I scooped up my sword that I forced Celaeno to drop and held it unsteadily.

“Jacky I don’t care what problems you have with Gallant or Eir, just get me and Celaeno to the tavern for medical help after I’m done with these guys. That’s an order first mate!” I looked back at Celaeno’s friends, they get so messed up in the future. Yet they were still capable of smiling because they had Celaeno to follow. “I hope you parrots are honorable pirates, sky or sea! Celaeno did right by me and I owe her one, help throw Captain Gash overboard after I’m done with his penguins.”

“Penguins… well I guess we are being a bit cold!” I turned back and blocked the sword coming for me while my head was turned away, I struggled against the blade held by the griffon. I think it was Gaylord, I couldn’t tell as I was tired from the fight and my right eye was swollen shut.

“Do you know why your captain had no magic as his term? He feared what my magic could do and this… is why!” My open wounds exploded into four blasts of blood, I knocked the surprised griffons off the side of the ship and into the bay.

Blood was quite thick and hits harder than water when projected.

Okay, that… had seriously hurt a lot... bad idea. The pain was indescribable, I would never do that again unless it was to save someone’s life. It was worse than the… worse than the ears.... I was so dizzy, probably from the massive blood loss. I stumbled about and then I saw the deck coming up to meet me. Hello deck, meet darkness my old friend. Let’s have a tea party!

Jacky was shouting something, was it my name?

-Jacky B. Chickadee-

I… what in the locker… did my captain just. All that blood just came flying out of her body like it was typhoon season on Turtle Toga and then she just collapsed.

“Captain La Perm!” I didn’t care if the other pirates turned on me, I ran down to cradle her body. My captain was a tough one, she just had to live! My curse couldn’t take her from me like this… it just couldn’t. I didn’t want to be stuck here in Turtle Toga, I wanted to explore the world! Orders, she gave me orders… and she even called me her first mate. She probably wouldn’t have done that if she were in her right mind, but Gallant and Eir? I… it was captains orders, I’d just have to swallow my pride and turn to them. “Who knows how to land an airship?”

I know how to get an airship into the air, but I never learned how to land it. One of the parrots came forward raising a hand.

“Please land it and help me carry my captain to the tavern…” I didn’t care about the ship or getting off the island, my captain needed me!

-Eir-

My piano playing was not the best, but I am being happy here on dangerous island with husband! Pirates were like yak, strong and violent! They all be needing good healing and Eir is always happy to help friends of husband.

Wait… is that… it is! It’s the lonely cursed Chickadee and is that… what has happened to friend of husband?! She looks one step from Yakhalla, if she is dying she’ll need an escort. She has certainly earned her rest from a recent battle at least. No… she’ll live. She’s quite close though, she has suffered a major loss of internal vitality.

I am seeing Jade as being worthy enough for a wonderful afterlife of battle, food and drink. What more can she be needing if she doesn’t come back from the brink with my help? Death is not always a sad thing, it is a grand honor for the brave to die from the wounds of battle!

“Help her...” You didn't need to ask Black Jack. I am a yak, I would've helped without prompting.

“Of course I will help her, she is friend of husband and Eir!” I bustled over to Black Jack and took the wounded one from her. Jade would live, I’m a great healer! I saw another injured carried in by parrots. Celaeno is being friendly and strong too, I will gladly help her as well.

-Jade-

“Ugh… my body.” I blearily opened my left eye and looked about, my other was covered in bandages. “Am I dead Valkyrie?”

“No, you are not currently visiting Yakhalla. Not any time soon if you are taking medicine!” Okay Eir was taking care of me, that’s good. She may sound airheaded, but she was definitely a goddess of healing in her own particular weight class. “It will be helping inner vitality come back to you swiftly, I am happily choosing life for you! Friend Black Jack is being quite the worrier.”

I felt Eir force something down my throat and it tasted awful. Like a horrible cross between sweaty gym socks, a rotten egg, a half rotten fish barfed up by a regular bear and guano that’s been out in the sun for several days and was festering with maggots. Eir held my nose and mouth shut while rubbing my throat until I swallowed.

“Don’t take this the wrong way Eir, but I think I’d prefer the Elysium Fields.” She squeezed my cheek quite hard and cooed over me.

“I am not being upset. If it is where you wish to go in death, then you might end up there. Just know that you are always being welcome in Yakhalla, I have deemed you worthy of it personally!” I almost find the yak form of Valkyrie to be hard to take seriously, but knowing that she was ‘The Eir’ caused me shivers.

I haven’t seen her fight yet, but Eir’s medical talents were proving quite effective. I felt livelier in a few minutes after ingesting whatever it was she just forced down my throat, I didn’t even feel like asking what it was and I’m quite sure I didn’t want to know.

“So… I know I didn’t bring this up in front of Gallant previously, but does he know you’re a goddess?” I see Eir turn away from me to inspect an out cold Celaeno with an ice pack on her forehead.

“Husband is not needing to know. As long as I am being good wife to him, it is not mattering anyway.” The yak finished checking over Celaeno before coming back over to me with a smile.

“How long have I been out for?” If she wasn’t going to discuss it, then I wasn’t going to press the issue. She seemed quite cheerful despite me bringing it up. I stood up shakily, Eir quickly braced me and comfortingly rubbed my back.

“You are being down for three hours, that you are already up is saying something of my skills in tending to mortals." She held her head up proudly with a brighter smile. "Is also personal record!”

“Been in any good fights lately?” I asked conversationally as I started stumble and move forward, I needed to get out of Turtle Toga today. I didn’t want the rest of Gash’s crew to come at me too.

“I am enjoying many various tavern brawls, smashing chairs over the heads of idiots is quite fun.” Ah, she’s the fun type of Valkyrie who took violence in a less than serious manner. “Protecting cute husband is keeping Eir’s battle skills quite sharp!”

“Am I good to go?” I might be a bit wobbly, but I was standing on my own strength as Eir had stopped bracing me thirty seconds ago. She shoved my pack into my chest and grinned. “That answers that… do you know a goddess named Sekhet?”

“The sphinx? Eir is knowing of her, she is said to be fierce and strong! I am never meeting her though.” She pushed me through the door into the tavern and Jacky was instantly moving towards me for big hug. Jacky was grabbed out of the air by a standing Eir, the yak had caught Jacky by the scruff of her neck before she could tackle me. “She is still healing Black Jack, be more responsible of her health. Also Celaeno will be completely fine.”

“One last question Eir. If a unicorn has a broken a horn, could you possibly fix it?” There was an odd silence as Eir gave me a searching look. I gave her a clear serious expression.

“That is not a very easy thing to fix, is like growing a new limb… only much harder. I will try to find information and will give it to you if you ever come back to Turtle Toga.” After Eir’s words, the pirate parrots started talking to each other as I sat down and gave Gallant a friendly wave.

I paused and thought of something… I needed to write a note and leave it with Celaeno. I was going to warn her about the misfortune malachite, hopefully she takes my warning seriously. The misfortune malachite was an Abyssinian treasure that the storm king definitely deserved to have, mostly because it’ll end him trying to use it.

Thirty minutes later on The Double Dare-

“It was nice meeting you guys, but I have to get home. Try a different ship, I’m sure you’ll find one eventually!” Celaeno’s pirate parrots were quite friendly, they even paid for a round of cream for me and they were waving us off as we lifted into the sky. I didn’t want to stick around with Gash still being in the area after he was tossed unceremoniously into the bay. It’ll be blamed on me so that he doesn’t bother Celaeno, because her crew were the ones that actually did that. “Come on Jacky, we’ve got to get this bucket moving today! I really want to get home by this evening to see my mom’s food waiting for me.”

“Aye, aye, Captain, but are you sure you’re lucky enough to get me away from Turtle Toga?” It's okay Jacky. We've a map, a compass and a general idea of where the moving island currently was in relation to Equestria. Plus I think I can understand your curse. “I’ve been stuck here my whole life because no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get off the island! I mean I tried everything, even being a slave and that ship sunk two miles away.”

“Don’t worry about a thing Jacky, I can navigate us to my home. Did we forget anything?” I felt something rub against my ankle. I turned and looked down at the small sea turtle cuddling up to me. “I guess not.”

“Er... Captain, there’s a storm brewing and I think it’s got my number on it.” The roiling dark clouds ahead and powerful winds threatened to push us back to Turtle Toga. “What do we do?”

“What none of the other guys did when you tried to escape the island previously Black Jack, I’m going to test our luck.” I struck a pose and pointed at the churning clouds of fate before me. I probably should remind myself that I was not a captain nor did I know how to captain an airship. Right now I was trying to be captain enough for Jacky. “Fly straight into it!”

“Uh… of course Captain!” We were swallowed by rains and winds aplenty in the next two minutes and Ms. Chickadee was willing to put her faith in my leadership.

I didn’t believe I had any leadership qualities whatsoever, but I could at least beat her curse for her.

Sekhet-

I felt her presence, it was getting close to dinner time and she was approaching from the air and at a much slower speed this time. In the next few minutes I stood up looking around at the cloudy sky.

“What is it Sekhet?” Lady Kuril asked of me.

“Priest Jade, your daughter, is back now.” Though I couldn’t see where she was coming from, because the clouds were quite thick. I could just fly up there, but it didn’t seem like Priest Jade was in any trouble this time.

“Oh thank goodness... I better get started on dinner. Knowing my daughter, she’ll be complaining about not eating my food for the last day or so.” I could feel the happiness wafting off of Kuril in waves, the food tonight would be excellent.

“Why are you always sitting so far away from the campfire Sekhet?” I turned to tell Fizzle why I was not sitting closer when my left ear perked up and I heard a faint whistling sound. It almost sounded like…

Fizzle-

The large falling object and resulting loud crashing sound had spooked me into running inside The Witch’s Fare. I turned around at the door and saw that Sekhet had been crushed... by an airship.

What I saw next made me happy, it was Jade. She was… a bit injured, but alright enough for me! What was she wearing and who was that falling alongside her?

-Jade–

“Whoops… that’s definitely going earn me a bad riddle.” Once again Sekhet ended up taking an airship to the head, Airship Mauled would be quite aptly named if that happened a third time. Feather falling down to the ground, I stumbled a bit and saw Fizzle. “Fizzy, you’re okay!”

“Idiot I should be saying that to you! You’ve been gone for almost two days and your mother’s been worried about you. I’ve… been worried about you…” She paused in front of me looking at the ground and pawed at it cutely with a hoof. She eventually looked at me. “What are you wearing and what happened to your eye?”

“Ran into some pirate’s, got some pirate clothing. My eye will be completely fine once the swelling goes down. I got you all souvenirs and I even got Sekhet a worshipper!” I pointed to Jacky who gave me a confused look.

“Is Sekhet even alive, she looks a bit…” Fizzle watched as the paw sticking out from underneath the airship started clawing the air. “I guess she's fine.”

Author's Note

Sekhet's mauled by an airship counter: *ding* 2.

Sorry about this chapter, some things were written in poor taste.

Valkyrie's can choose whether a warrior continues living or dies after battle.

(New Magical Alchemy Information!)

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater.

Sustain: Water Projection (Continuous offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

(New!) Sustain 2: Blood Projection (Dangerous continuous offensive ability). Capable of performing a powerful projection, but only from open wounds. As one would imagine blood projection is exceedingly painful, taxing on the body and ultimately dangerous to the user. The intimidation factor might be worth the agony in the right situations, but it will always be a detriment to one's health.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Chapter Five, Building Relationships: Romance of the slice.

-Kuril-

My daughter came back. Sure her eye was bandaged up and she looked like a pirate, but she was perfectly fine.

My daughter’s new stray was just looking at everything as if it were her first time seeing a forest and she seemed awed by the clearing we lived in. She was a cute parrot with a black bandanna skull cap on her head and the braided feathers were really adorable, I was always meeting those that were more adorable than my little tom cat.

The bird my daughter brought home was keeping mostly to herself and she looked to be sitting quietly in a corner with a sea turtle. Speaking of my daughter, where was she? Maybe I should ask Fizzle.

“Fizzle dear, where’s my daughter? Dinner will be in thirty minutes, then we can play some Ogres and Oubliettes before bed time.” The pony had been giving the parrot curious looks and she turned back to me with an upset look.

“She did kind of drop an airship on Sekhet by accident.” Well that would explain Fizzle suddenly running inside and the crashing noise I heard, maybe that’s how we’ll build the town. Give everything a crashed airship theme.

“It wasn’t the captain’s fault that the balloon exploded… mostly.” The teenage parrot spoke up defensively while hugging the turtle to her chest.

“My daughter is your captain… that’s so adorable!” After a moment I stopped clasping my hands together and coughed into my right fist. Fresh Start, Fizzle, the turtle and even the new stray were staring at me for the squeal I had unleashed. “Ahem, anyway, I take it Sekhet is going to give her a hard riddling away from all of us?”

“Yes, she dragged Jade off to riddle her.” With that Fizzle sighed while looking away from me. “It sounds like she’s going to ask a hard one this time and she doesn’t want anyone helping Jade.”

“Riddle, why would she just simply ask a riddle after taking an airship to her head?” Well stranger, even I and everyone here knew Sekhet was actually a friendly goddess. “If I were her, I’d have crushed us with my big meaty paws.”

Sekhet was relatively friendly anyway, she liked my cooking at least and I knew she would never threaten to kill Jade. There are worse things than death that could happen to my daughter. Though Sekhet did rip out an Ursa Medium’s throat in front of Fizzle, but we don’t talk about that.

“I’m Jade’s mother, who are you?” The food was simmering at the moment and didn’t need me to watch it, but I only had two minutes before I needed to get back to it. It’s vegetable chili night with crackers, corn chips and my daughter’s favorite partial obsession parmesan. My daughter always was more of a dairy loving Abyssinian than a fish loving one.

-Jade-

“Okay Sekhet, let’s get this over with. Give me what you think is a riddle worthy of this accident.” I resigned myself to this, I wondered just what kind of punishment she would give me if I failed to answer correctly.

“Gladly, but its two riddles like last time. Your failure will involve you giving me half your portion of whatever Lady Kuril is making for dessert.” Sekhet could see I was about to object, so she held up a giant paw and stopped me. “Though it may have been an accident, the airship was moving at terminal velocity this time.”

“I’ll give you that, because last time it was about twenty feet above your head before it dropped.” This time the boat had been dropped from much higher up and it wasn’t like I was aiming to land it on Sekhet on purpose. It just happened that way as I only had enough time to cast two griffon feathers at myself and Jacky.

“Here’s my first riddle. What usually loses its head in the morning, but gets it back at night?” Okay that was an interesting one, makes me wonder if Sekhet will write books on the subject. If I could sleep on this riddle then I might… sleep… that’s it!

“A pillow.” She nodded that I was right. A pillow loses the head that rests on it in the morning, but it gets it back in the evening when you go to bed. “Unless you’re nocturnal or an insomniac, then your pillow gets lonely and wants a friend to share in its misery of going headless.”

“Cute, but no less true of those who don’t sleep at night.” That actually had Sekhet snickering, she quickly stopped and stared at me with a look of contempt. “Moving on to my next riddle. Using only the numbers four and six, how can they be half of five without dividing?”

“A math riddle?” I now know for certain that Sekhet wasn’t playing around. “I didn’t even know a Sphinx could do those! You’re playing dirty you giant piece of…”

“Mud can be quite cleansing I hear, ever been to a spa that doesn’t ask questions? Las Pegasus is quite nice for things like that.” Sekhet's toothy smile would not intimidate me, I glared at her as hard as I could manage. “Now answer the riddle Priest Jade, or do you want to give up on your dessert this evening?”

Well a Sphinx couldn’t tell a riddle that was completely impossible to solve, that would be completely unfair and would break the spirit of the thing that they were known for. How could you use just four and six to equal half of five without division? This was horribly complicated. What kind of math problem could possibly… wait... putting two and two together... eureka!

Clever girl Sphinx, clever ancient girl. I almost didn’t get this one, but you’re not winning my so dearly cherished dessert on the night I just got back you blatantly evil food hoarding goddess!

“The answer are the letters ‘I’ and ‘V’.” There was a long moment that I was being stared at by a wide eyed Sekhet, she started smashing her paws against the ground angrily.

“Darn it and I thought that would get you too! Apparently you know your numerals.” We went back to the restaurant together and she shrunk down to her alicorn size. “Your dessert is safe from me… this time at least.”

Sekhet honestly wouldn’t sound too threatening to anyone who heard her whining about not winning half my dessert. She was still a goddess and should be treated with respect for the fact that she can defeat entire armies on her own, so don’t ever drop an airship on her head on purpose.

-

The chili was quite good. My mom knows I don’t like spicy foods, but she makes the chili so well that I can’t help but eat it. The fine taste of spices, beans, garlic, pepper and onions and my coveted parmesan. Sometimes mom thought I was more mouse than cat, but both species liked dairy products and everyone knows that.

As for the dessert that I had saved from Sekhet? It was a nice and tart raspberry sauce drizzled over a delicious slice of cheesecake!

Jacky joined the O and O club the town had going this evening. Well the town of only one big, slightly dysfunctional, family living in The Witch’s Fare. That would start changing soon, thanks to some zebra word of mouth and the inn we planned on building here.

First we had to help Chickadee make herself a character. We already had a witch, a rogue, a spell sword, a cleric and a spoony bard, so what would a parrot choose as her class? Jacky Blackcap Chickadee liked the archer class, because she wanted to stay at range and not let her bad luck effect our game.

I didn’t have the heart to tell Jacky that her curse wasn’t that big a deal anymore, despite all of us getting some really bad dice rolls. It made the game more interesting and hectic for all of us, so bad luck wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in this instance.

My pirate souvenirs were a hit with mom and Fizzle. Mom liked her hat because it was shaped like that of a witch’s given a jaunty pirate theme. Fizzle liked hers because it could cover her stump, she could go out in public without having to wear the cloak. A cloak, I noted, that she seemed quite unwilling to part with.

I don’t think Sekhet liked her worshipper though, mostly because Jacky worshipped me more as her captain and didn’t really know much about Sekhet at all.

-A week later-

It seems mom had quickly adopted Jacky as well, I sometimes wished my mom would give me more hugs like she does those two. I was a little jealous, but that jealousy was tempered by the fact that Fizzle and Jacky had had somewhat less than stellar childhoods. My childhood in Abyssinia was actually quite upbeat in comparison.

I truly had no problem with Blackcap, which was her nickname now. After her bad luck seemed to have significantly dropped to a less life threatening level, it was now relegated to causing minor misfortunes that weren’t a big issue for any of us to handle. Jacky wasn’t going to be called Black Jack around here, as it is a nickname that seems to upset her and she preferred us using her middle name of Blackcap more.

I only had one issue with Jacky, she wouldn’t call me anything other than ‘Captain’. This is even when I explained to her I wasn’t a pirate or a captain and that I was in fact a rogue sun priest. She didn’t care, I would always be her captain that sailed us through the hellish storm that was made of her horrible luck literally out to get her and me. Her luck’s apparent last revenge was to eventually end up with Sekhet getting crushed under The Double Dare.

The Double Dare was now useless for the same reason the Predestined Paradox was, its keel broke upon Sekhet’s unbreakable spine. At least the rainbow the next morning had been beautiful, we didn’t have weather mares and we didn’t need them.

We here at Airship Mauled would take what nature, life and anything else could throw at us. Having a goddess that was domesticated by my mother’s cooking helped immensely, Sekhet wasn’t hiding the fact that she wasn’t leaving after she declared herself my mother’s advisor. Apparently mom is also the mayor of our one home town.

I was walking along the tracks to Ponyville with my two friends, if we had train tracks to our home then this trip wouldn’t be as problematic. Things had been pretty quiet at Airship Mauled, which was nice as it allowed my eye to get better and I had a week of fun hanging out with both Fizzle and Jacky.

The three of us were heading to Ponyville on small adventure. We had to get one of the construction crews Celestia hired to modify the first crashed airship into our home, we were turning the second crashed airship into a small inn. The second thing we had to do was meet the teacher Celestia was hiring and would be teaching us for the next few years.

Our educations were wide and varied.

Fizzle’s education had stopped cold and she was at the right age where her education equaled up to what she had been training for at the age she had lost her horn. Getting into Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns didn’t require just learning and using incredible magic, it also required that you learn a lot of other subjects.

If Tempest was allowed to carry on for the next seven years without help, then she would be quite poor socially and lacking in a good education. For example, she would be gullible enough to believe that an evil villain would actually fix her horn and wouldn’t just keep stalling on doing just that to keep her as expendable pawn. Note to self, recruit Grubber.

I would also like to point out that Fizzle might never get a cutie mark thanks to her broken magic, but I wasn’t about to tell her my theory on that.

Jacky’s education was very pirate centered, she almost knew everything she needed to know about being a pirate. Surprisingly enough, she was well educated by the school in Turtle Toga which was taught by a rotation of pirates. Physical education apparently involved fighting with weighted wooden cutlasses, pirate accountants taught math and pirates taught pirate related history.

Writing, reading and cussing counted as their own language classes, pirates had to learn how to write their memoirs somehow and selling said books was a thing successful pirates did for their retirement.

I didn’t know where Jacky would have been in the next few years, but being stuck on Turtle Toga was my best guess after the storm we flew straight through. The ship ended up falling out from under us after that and everyone that lives in Airship Mauled knew what happened next.

I believe Jacky would have been lonely and still waiting for a captain to appear. Nobody liked being near someone who is cursed in some way, well she was cursed until I helped weaken it considerably with my actions. I might not have been what she wanted exactly, but I was what she needed in the end.

My own education was not up for discussion.

I can tell that we are almost at Ponyville’s train station since a train just rushed past us. It was still early morning when we arrived, we were making really good time here.

All we had to do was find our teacher here, she’d be holding a… no way… it couldn’t be! Why was it her of all the ponies that Celestia could have gotten for this?

Let’s see crimped pink shaded hair, cutie mark of three smiling flowers, coat color of… I want to say light purplish cerise. Yep it was a younger Cheerilee. It could be her sister Cherry Blossom, but I highly doubted it.

“Excuse me, but you wouldn’t happen to be a teacher looking for some students would you?” Even if she were, we still had business in Ponyville. She jumped a little in shock and looked towards us.

“Why yes, I am. I’m Cheerilee and I’m waiting for my students, I’m supposed to meet them here and get escorted to their school.” I hoped that Cheerilee was going to transfer to Ponyville after she was done with us.

She was pleasant enough, but she kind of just wrote us off as we weren’t ponies.

“Did you a get a description of said students that you’re supposed to be teaching?” I looked to both Jacky and Fizzle, both of them felt as awkward as I did about this.

“Not really, but Celestia herself told me they would be quite special and that they’d be a real challenge to teach.” Your expectations were for pony students then. Said special students and challenge are currently standing in front of you.

“Hello teach, we’ve still got some business in Ponyville. If you want to back out of teaching us now that you know that some of us aren't ponies, we’ll understand.” I had never seen a jaw drop, ears wilt and tail scrunch up between a pony's hind legs so fast in disbelief before now. “Well you’ve got to begin somewhere, teaching all of us will be fun!”

Author's Note

Another dry chapter, at least it has a Sekhet riddle section.

Next chapter, the chimera.

Chapter Five, Building Relationships: Romance of the chimera.

-Cheerilee-

“Thanks for letting us know we’re needed again, we’ll gladly come by Airship Mauled later next week and we’ll get to work on it.” The stallion tipped his hard hat to our as of yet unnamed cat leader. “Let your mother know ahead of time to cook some extra for us, her food would absolutely be worth the trip almost on its own. We’ll at least give Celestia a large discount for the services rendered.”

“Thanks, oh and don’t forget to bring a unicorn that can cast a bubble of silence around our home.” After that the cat turned to leave and I was now curious as to why the town was called Airship Mauled.

I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that my students weren’t fillies and colts. The three I was following were friendly enough and Celestia had said the school needed someone to run it, but I didn’t know it was so out of the way.

“We’ll stop by Sugar Cube Corner for some snacks and drinks, then we’re heading straight back to Airship Mauled. Hey, are you still with us teach?” The Abyssinian addressed me affectionately, she was the one that informed me that I was the one to be teaching them.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that…” I had been following them silently for a while and I was being quite rude to them. The only one that seemed normal of the three was the pony and she didn’t seem very talkative. The scar she had and the pirate hat she was wearing around town seemed unusual to me.

I’m a little confused that all the ponies here in Ponyville acted like the pirate hat was a normal everyday occurrence, they were at least slightly skittish of the Abyssinian or even the parrot.

“Don’t worry, I understand. We’re not what you were exactly expecting, let me introduce myself properly Ms. Cheerilee. I’m Jaded La Perm, my friends call me Jade.” Jade turned from me and pointed out her friends, she introduce the pony first and then the parrot. “This here is Fizzlepop Berrytwist, she prefers to be called Fizzle and there’s something she’s going to have to show you later if you plan to stick around. That there is Jacky Blackcap Chickadee, she’s was stuck on an island until recently and it’s why she’s looking around everywhere in excitement.”

“Hello.” It was all the pony said to me as she gave me a pensive glance, but gave warmer look towards the Abyssinian. She didn’t think much of me and I wondered why.

“Hey Captain, how come ponies don’t use airships more often? I’m only seeing them around that Canterlot place in the distance.” It was a good question from Ms. Chickadee and I cleared my throat to answer it.

“Well airships are costly to build and maintain, the few who own the airships around Canterlot are the rich and noble.” I was quite willing to share my knowledge with a new student.

“In other words. The nobles of Canterlot have a monopoly on airship building, transport and trade in the given area and are actually holding the rest of the ponies back from growing the industry. They are making it too costly for normal ponies to afford easily and are doing it out of hedonism, a sense of power and to flaunt their egos with having something that others can’t possibly afford. ” Well Jade seemed to know quite a bit about things and that was quite an accurate summation of why we don’t have as many airships as other places. It was kind of sad, but it was the truth that the nobles were in the way of airships being commercially available to the rest of the public. “The nobles are just thankful there aren’t any pirates here who would want to tussle with the local Wonder Bolt squads, at least when said squads are on their game. Also, no we are not going to pillage and or loot them Jacky.”

Wait… what!?

“What do you…?” I started and was cut off.

“Aw, come on Captain. Why can’t we just do a little looting, pillaging and plundering?” Okay what kind of person was this Jacky that she would suggest robbing the nobles out loud like that, more importantly what kind of environment was she raised in? Jade did say she came from an island, so that’s a clue. “I mean it’s not like there are people that actually like those rich snobs right? We could make better use of those airships, if they weren’t being built so shoddily just to only look impressive. The construction on that one in particular looks like it’d perform poorly in a fight. It’s like a sad flying peacock, all visuals and very little in the way of actual function compared to form. A single cannonball to the tail of that thing would have it dropping to the ground in a minute.”

“I think that might be one of Prince Blueblood’s airships.” I muttered out loud, it looked like it was a decadent enough cruiser to be one of his.

“I’m sorry about Jacky, she was raised on an island that was made by, and is mostly for, pirates. I’m her captain for life after getting her off said island.” After a moment of silence to think it over as we entered Sugar Cube Corner, she then added. “Correction we can raid one of Blueblood’s ships later, but we’d have to ask Celestia for permission to do some limited and rather specific… privateering.”

“Fine by me Captain, I wouldn’t want you to get you in trouble with the sun princess!” I can’t believe those two were actually considering it, much less that they would even ask Celestia if they could. What kind of students was I being saddled with?

“You two are nuts.” Fizzle aptly described how I felt about them, but she was the one with the scar and pirate hat making it sound more ridiculous coming from her mouth. “If you actually end up doing that, then take me with you. I’m getting tired of just sitting around Airship Mauled and would welcome the adventure.”

There were no words for what I was dealing with right now.

-Jade-

It was always nice seeing Pinkie, but we couldn’t stay in Ponyville all day and play pirate with her. We had to get Cheerilee introduced to our hovel of a humble town after all. Though Pinkie pretending to be a sugar pirate would explain why most of the ponies around us were ignoring Fizzle’s pirate hat, admittedly the hat gave her facial scar quite a bit of flavor to her appearance.

“So your education wasn’t that bad?” Cheerilee was a bit shy about talking to us, but she eventually opened up enough to ask us about our schooling. “Just hearing about your physical education sounds like a nightmare!”

“Wooden cutlasses hurt a lot, sure, but I wouldn’t call my school bad. Though the worst ones were the ones that were splintering a lot from too much use.” I did not need to know about her pirating school any more, Jacky had decent marks in all her classes and if it weren’t for her bad luck she would have been off the island sooner. “We got extra credit for carving out new swords for ourselves and others. I’m no less educated than Captain La Perm or Quartermaster Fizzle.”

“I don’t like being called a quartermaster Blackcap.” Fizzle actually got along with Jacky most of the time, she just didn’t like being called a quartermaster. It probably sounded like an insult given that Fizzle only had about a quarter of her horn left.

Speaking of Fizzle’s horn.

“I think we’re far enough away from Ponyville Fizzle.” She looked at me while wincing, she really didn’t want to show Cheerilee her broken horn. “Better to show her now before she discovers later, do it while she still has the time to turn around and go back. Also Jacky is not using Quartermaster as a derogatory term, she’s actually trying to endear herself to you. Quartermaster is a very important position in a pirate crew for someone highly intelligent and she’s actually trying to compliment you… in her own way.”

“I know… it just sounds a bit derogatory to me considering…” At a point Fizzle just drifted off looking away. She didn’t sound angry, just upset that she had to show Cheerilee what’s under the hat.

Fizzle still didn’t really like talking about her horn, in fact I’d say she was mostly trying to forget she was a unicorn or had ever been one at all. It was a part of her history and it might be a part of it again eventually if I had any say about it.

“Show me what?” Well Cheerilee this might shock you, but Fizzle is more than meets the eye. She should stop the deception and or conning about being an earth pony.

I sent Fizzle a look as I put my left arm around her comfortingly, she didn’t shrug me off. We stopped walking and Fizzle gave me a look. Fizzy closed her eyes and removed her hat with her left hoof while sighing loudly.

Cheerilee gasped at the sight. It was old news to me and Jacky, though I wished Jacky had held back on suggesting installing a hook where Fizzle’s horn once was. The suggestion had been a bit insensitive to Fizzle and I had let Jacky know how I felt about her upsetting my friend.

“Oh… well then… if it bothers you, I won’t talk about it and we can just move on.” At least Cheerilee understood it was a touchy subject, she’d be a great teacher for her empathy.

“I was attacked by an Ursa… it’s where I got my scar from.” I hugged Fizzle tighter, she gave me a weak smile and hugged me around the waist with her right hoof.

“For what it’s worth, you seem to be coping better than most ponies would.” That was actually quite comforting for Cheerilee to state, as Fizzle seemed to lose tension in her body and she nuzzled up against me.

“It’s because I’ve got people that care about me.” I tussled Fizzle’s mane and she smiled a bit more, eventually we separated.

“The Captain is love, the Captain is life and a good one takes care of their crew in times of strife!” Only because you wouldn’t accept anything else Jacky.

Ms. Chickadee might still annoy me or Fizzle at times, she may be a bit unlucky, but she’s always going to be our friend come Tartarus or planetary flooding. If there was a current active element of loyalty, it was certainly Blackcap.

A loud shifting in the nearby trees caused us to pause, this area seemed rather… oh… right.

I was forced to the ground by a familiar chimera pouncing on me. We were currently walking right by flame geyser swamp, I had forgotten that an old friend practically patrolled the tracks for track kill when her hunting was going poorly.

Fizzle’s reaction was to get ready for a rough fight, she growled and her stump starting to spark up wildly. Jacky’s reaction was to pull the sword I used from the mêlée a trois, she was a much better sword fighter than I was. Cheerilee looked to have a panicked expression on her face and looked stuck between a fight or flight response.

As for me?

“Hey, Bloody Maries… how’s life treating you?” One would hope the others noticed that I was rather calm about having been shoved to the ground and had a chimera standing over me.

“Can’t complain, though our front left leg has been a bit of an issue since we faced you in battle.” All three heads said at once. Well I did address them as a whole being, so as such they’d speak as one. After a moment Mara the tiger head decided to nuzzle me affectionately. “Hello mate, you are looking quite well.”

“Er… what... I just thought I and Marie had a deal.” Now I lost composure, did the chimera just seriously call me her mate? I made an offer of nonaggression and friendship based on Bloody Maries not killing any intelligent thinking beings. It was something she had yet to actually do and not for the lack of trying mind you. “Didn’t she tell you?”

I did ask Marie to stick to wild animals or other carnivores, which shouldn’t have been too hard and the snake head had even agreed with me at the time. How had things changed so drastically from then to now?

Of course there were now horrific implications to my current positioning beneath them and I almost wished it meant she was going to consume me… eat me… rip me a new one? Nope, I couldn’t think of a way to make this sound any less perverted and that’s with an intelligent flesh eating monster standing over me. She did have sense of exotic beauty though… darn you hormones!

“Captain… you… know this strange land creature?” Jacky never had to deal with a number of creatures before, she was seriously thinking of getting a pet flying squirrel after seeing one for the first time. She put away the sword.

“Yes, she does. Now if you will excuse us, we will converse with our mate about things of importance that have happened to us since we last met.” What had happened to Bloody Maries? I was currently and completely lost, maybe even caught a bit flatfooted and might be even too flabbergasted to respond. “Yes Marie told us of your dealings with her, but I and Maria have decided to further the deal into something more.”

“Wouldn’t that require that I be there to discuss it?” I could sense trouble in my near future, given they all shook their heads no.

“Your presence wasn’t required, you who achieved victory over us.” Maria leaned down and slapped her tongue against my neck and dragged straight up the side of my face mussing up my fur. “We give you our affection.”

“You know what, save me from her… please!” My friends looked ready for a fight, but backed off when the Bloody Maries glared at them and started to cuddle me between her tiger paws.

“We will follow our mate wherever she goes!” All heads said at once in a possessive manner. “You can’t keep us away forever.”

“Only you can end up in a situation like this Jade.” My dear friend Fizzle muttered dryly, she shook her head and started walking in the direction we were originally going. “Well nothing for it, we’ll have to bring her home with us.”

“I will gladly accept living in your cave, I have no place anymore among my kind.” As she collectively said this, Bloody Maries quickly tossed me deftly onto her back. I looked down at her in surprise and a little bit of worry. “Do not feel sad for us mate, once we chose to pursue you our six parents saw us off properly as is traditional among chimera.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m feeling right now… let’s go with that.” Instead what I was truly feeling, which was fear mixed with a sprinkling of horror at possibly having a chimera following me around for the rest of my life.

“Is this normal for you?” A curious Cheerilee asked of my two friends.

“For the Captain?" Soon followed Jacky’s swift and eloquent reply. "Yep, certainly!”

Author's Note

"SUPER SENTAI ROMANCE TAG ACTIVATE!"

"Form of, horror show!"

"Shape of, future ridiculousness!"

It's easy to guess what Sekhet's reaction to this will be.

Chapter Five, Building Relationships: Romance of the mind.

-Fluttershy-

I’m kind of surprise my parents were letting me come here for lunch, I was invited for a good meal and I was going to take this opportunity to say hello to Jade and her mother today. I might even be able to talk to Sekhet a little bit more, coming with me were Rainbow and her mother Windy.

“Are we there yet?” Oh come on Rainbow, we haven’t even been flying for more than a minute. We should be there soon, it’s faster to get there by air than by land.

“No, but we’ll be there in few minutes.” I was glad we didn’t have to worry about getting attacked by monsters on the ground and the skies were clear today.

“Are you doing alright Fluttershy?” It was so nice of Windy to come along with us, I wonder what Mr. Hothoof and my parents are doing while she’s here with us. “I know my little champ is perfectly fine, but if you need to rest we can stop.”

“I’m doing okay Mrs. Whistles.” I wasn’t that weak. Sure I’m meek or didn’t fly very well, but I wasn’t made of paper. “We should be there soon, they are building a town out here.”

I might also be a fraidy… scaredy… okay, I couldn’t exactly use those bullying terms without thinking about how brave Jade and her mother are. A lot of things frightened me, but I really liked animals and there were a lot scary animals out there. Jade protected me and Pinkie from a chimera, then she and her mother faced down a pack of mean pukwudgies together.

I would think of myself as a chicken, but even chickens have claws and fight back. Even a cornered scared mouse can be stronger.

Speaking of pukwudgies. They looked adorable despite their violent tendencies, I spent a lot of time looking them up and learning about them. I wonder what Jade knew about them personally. Well I would find out soon, their home is located where the airship crashed right? So all I have to do is look for the campfire, if it was even still going that is.

-Jade-

I was walking alongside Fizzle and Jacky, trying not to pay attention to Bloody Maries. I didn’t know what to think of their affection towards me and she still hadn’t explained what happened to her between then and now. I was glad that she let me start walking on my own, because I really didn't want the chimera as a mount or for her to get any strange ideas about us.

Together and collectively the three of them were the Bloody Maries, separately as individual heads they were Mara the tiger, Maria the goat and Marie the snake. I just wanted to be friends and they chose to want something a little more.

Apparently I was the one they wanted as a mate, hopefully I could find someone more compatible for them and get them to stop calling me that as swiftly as possible.

My friends weren’t apparently going to be of any help, they didn’t want to hurt me or themselves trying to help me. I didn’t exactly want Bloody Maries to get hurt either. I just had to ask Bloody Maries a question or two as we were almost back to the campsite.

Cheerilee seemed to be staying well away from the chimera and kept giving it distrustful looks, what was truly scary about it was that it was actually serious about following me back to my ‘cave’.

“Quick question, do you expect me to mate with you against my will Maries?” That was the most important and straightforward question that I needed an answer to, everything else was secondary.

“No. Our species may be violent, but we aren’t completely barbaric.” I’m guessing Maries would be a barbarian class when we started our next town wide O and O game. Given her age, she would also be going to school with us… oh ‘joy’. Their ability to speak completely in unison is a bit creepy. “We will just keep being affectionate with you until you accept us, we will not push farther than you are comfortable with. Aside from that we are both still too young for such things. How do they say it in the civilization you people enjoy? I believe it is stated as get your head out of the drain pipe.”

“Well that’s a huge load off of my mind.” Taking this moment to see what the reactions were to my question, the results were quite varied.

Fizzle sighed with relief, good friend to be worried about such a thing.

Jacky shuddered at the implications I just brought up, she would probably appreciate it if I didn’t try to hook her up with Maries.

Cheerilee was the odd one as she had a disbelieving look.

Teach was probably disturbed that I already knew about how birds fly into bee hives and then the honey goes everywhere. That leads to the birds having to pay for the damages instilled and eventually the queen bee is running a quite lucrative bird seed racket. The birds are drugged on the queens beauty alone and she manipulates them like she does her other drug trafficking workers to go looking for pollen to pollinate things with. It would at least explain why the hummingbird mafia rubbed up against bees so often, probably passing the pollen on the sly.

Where was my mind going with that again? Did I just seriously go full on cloud cuckoo land resident? I think I dropped a euphemism somewhere in that train derailment. The cause of the derailment in my thought processes was certainly caused by me suddenly realizing the fact that it was the chimera telling me, of all the beings around here, to keep my mind out of the gutter.

We were soon upon the campsite and mom had broken out the cauldron again, it smelled like some kind of soup being cooked over my fire. Everyone likes soup and some bread to soak up the excess which I can already smell being baked, I was certainly not trying to distract myself from the chimera in the area as if she were an elephant with spatial issues.

“Quick Sekhet, you have to save Jade from the chimera!” Really Fizzle, that was the plan you had going on all along? Wait until we got back and then you try to get Sekhet to help save me from a vaguely dangerous relationship.

Sekhet just looked at the chimera who stared wide eyed at the large goddess, said goddess then turned a glance to me and snorted slightly.

“Save her from what? The chimera is clearly not aggressive at all and it doesn’t seem like it is stupid enough to assault me.” Oh here we go, once Sekhet hears about this she probably wouldn’t let me hear the end of it. “In fact they look to have quite a spark of intelligence for their species, they know when an apex predator around. Look, they're already trusting their instincts around me.”

Well Bloody Maries instincts told her to bow to Sekhet and to prostrate herself before the goddess. She left herself completely open and vulnerable to Sekhet’s whims, meaning that all her necks were showing to the greater predator here.

“I swear my little tom cat, can’t you go more than a week or two without something happening like bringing a chimera home?” She wasn’t going to be a pet mom, she was trying for something a little higher on the relationship chain. “They can stay if they want to. Though I must admit, you weren’t exaggerating about all kinds of weird things happening here in Equestria. Just please stop bringing strays home, it’s getting a bit hard to cook for all of them and a goddess with a bottomless stomach.”

“See… even Kuril knows they're not a threat." Resting her head on her crossed paws, Sekhet gave us a bored look and lazily flicked her tail from side to side. "So please, explain to me why I should bother myself with running them off.”

-Fluttershy-

“Are you sure it’s safe down there? There’s two monsters right there.” There was a bit of worry in Windy’s voice, even then she sniffed the air a bit and hummed at the wonderful smell coming from below.

Kuril’s cooking tasted wonderful the first time I tried it, I would like whatever it is that she’s making right now.

“It’s perfectly fine, also the bigger one is not a monster. It’s a goddess that Jade and her mother are friends with.” Though to ease our chaperones mind, I decided to suggest something. “We can land a little bit away and approach on hoof. I remember Jade saying she befriended the chimera and that looks like the same one that attacked me and Pinkie weeks ago.”

“Can I touch the snake tail mom?” Only Rainbow would seriously tempt that big cuddly creature to claw her face off.

“Ask the chimera for permission first Rainbow.” Well at least Windy was respectful of Ms. Chimera’s space.

-Bloody Maries-

That… is a big alpha.

Is it an Alpha though?

She’s humongous.

Our mate certainly doesn’t need our protection at all, she’s powerful and has powerful allies.

Sisters, what should we do it’s just staring at us?

It doesn’t see us as a threat, we should attack and make it know all our names!

I know for certain that fighting it will surely get us killed, let’s run!

Like we didn’t already know that fact Maria, I will sit and await judgement.

Come on Marie, help me out with Mara here. We need to start running and fast!

Nope, I’m not getting in on this, you two were the ones that wanted Jade as a mate. We can still fall back on just being friends.

Never!

Never!

Look is it really that hard to just work up a friendship first? We’re not even sure if we’re exactly compatible in any given way, shape or form. I will abstain from following your suggestions, we're sitting still and not moving.

Look Maria, father never ran from danger and is a powerful hunter. We are a mighty and proud chimera, we do not run away from danger no matter how grand! You are being cowardly.

Mara, father lost five teeth in that encounter with the Hydra and his ability to spit fire was weakened for several days afterwards. I’m not a coward, I just don’t want to be stupid and take on more than I can chew.

Mara, Maria, must I remind the both of you that I’m the smart one here? Let’s just try to greet everyone in a friendly and calm manner. If that alpha thing decides to be upset with us, she will win the confrontation. I really don’t think all the poison that I can inject her with will do anything to her at all.

Also could you not think the word 'chew' Maria? It reminds me of all those tin cans you keep eating and you know Mara and I don’t like it when you do that.

I agree with Marie, no more tin cans please Maria.

Tin cans fills our belly for a while though and they taste good.

Good to you maybe, I and Mara have to deal with the consequences of what you eat.

The consequences have never bothered me. I still want Jade to be our mate, but I do not want to fight that thing as it is both above us and beyond. You both know my instincts are right!

You’re the part of us that can consume anything, of course it doesn’t bother you Maria! Just know that I do not think we should pursue Jade too roughly, if you are actually set on her being our mate.

On that we agree.

-Jade-

“She wants Jade to be her mate and she would have hurt us if we tried to get Jade away from her. We brought her here so you could deal with her!” There was a long silence after Fizzle told Sekhet that.

I could see Sekhet’s mouth starting to crinkle up and her eyes welled with tears, she was going to be hysterical for the next few minutes.

“Pftt…hahaha~” As she started laughing she started beating her curled paws against the ground. She was crying tears of joy, she obviously found my current predicament hilarious.

“You know Sekhet, I swear the next airship that falls in this area will be intentionally dropped on your head and it will be heavier than the previous two put together.” That was not an idle threat, I will in fact do that.

“This thing between you and the chimera will end in hilarity since you’re you. It’s probably the most amusing thing to ever occur in the last nine hundred years for me!” Sekhet continued laughing at my situation and she spoke while continuing said laugh. “I will actually let the next intentional airship dropped on me go without a riddle or any aggression against you just for this bit of amusement alone.”

“Can you swear on that as a goddess for me please?” Oh yes, I was definitely taking advantage of that lovely offer. I moved over to Jacky and whispered to her. “Hey Jacky, how heavy would an airship made out of gold, jewels and other unnecessary materials be?”

“If you’re talking about the airship Cheerilee said belonged to that Blueblood guy, then many times heavier than the airship you converted into a restaurant here Captain. The average sized sailing galleon is over five hundred tons in wood alone.” Here Jacky paused and started doing the math in her head. “Assuming it’s an airship of a relatively similar size made with gold. I’d estimate that it would be somewhere in the range of ten thousand tons, give or take a thousand or so. Gold is about twenty times heavier than most woods in cubic feet. A heavy ship like that is likely illegally constructed.”

“Perfect, thanks for doing the math for me Jacky.” I rubbed my hands together grinning. I'm not evil, what goddess comeuppance plans? Blackcap was good at O and O because she could actually accurately calculate her character's aim with a bow to a good degree.

When Jacky said Blueblood’s airship was like a sad peacock with very little in the way of function, she wasn’t kidding, especially not about the single cannonball thing. Clearly pony taxpayers money doing important work.

“Sure, do your worst Priest Jade. I doubt it will have me in traction for long.” You’d eventually eat those words Sekhet. “Anyway, the chimera is not an issue. She can live here if she’s intending to stay.”

“Thank you gracious and mighty alpha above alphas!” The Bloody Maries spoke reverently in unison, she was terrified stiff of Sekhet. Like the completely paralyzed Cheerilee.

“Lunch is ready everyone, come and get it before I have Sekhet lick the cauldron clean!” Mom’s words were music to the ears. I would try to get my mind off the chimera seeking to earn my affection with delicious food.

“Yes, finally, give me some of that!” What was Rainbow Dash doing here? Following the blue blur was Fluttershy and Windy.

“Hey, did you hear everything?” Well I’m a bit embarrassed.

Fluttershy came over to me for a quick hug.

“I think she's moving your friendship along a little too fast for you.” I idly wondered if Fluttershy would like to date a chimera.

Chapter Five, Building Relationships: Actual Romance.

-Jade-

“Don’t worry about it cutie, she’s not really all that bad even if she is trying to push our relationship farther than I want it to be. Quite frankly, I haven’t known her for more than a few hours and we really don’t even know each other all too well.” I was sitting down at my never ending campfire to eat a hot bowl of soup and a large chunk of bread wrapped in a napkin. “In fact, why don’t you try to get to know her? She’s made of three animals, seems like something you’d be interested in.”

Hopefully I planted the idea in Fluttershy’s head to try and make friends with the Maries, she did seem curious.

Cheerilee was eating quietly and sitting across from Sekhet and Maries, even an alicorn sized Sekhet was intimidating to both her and Maries. It was understandable that they feared her, even I was somewhat afraid of a goddess with the power to squish me like a grape.

Rainbow wasn’t scared of Sekhet or Maries, Windy was at least respectful and keeping a close eye on Rainbow to make sure she didn’t do anything silly.

“So, what was your name again? Maries I believe my daughter has been calling you.” Looking over at mom, I wondered what she was going to ask the chimera. “Tell me about a bit about yourself or your life.”

“Collectively we are Bloody Maries, individually we are Mara, Maria and Marie. We are of the Bloody Tracks clan, our father Flames has two male heads and one female, our mother Traces has three female heads.” Going by what Maries just told us, it would be no surprise to me that all chimera are bisexual given they might be one or even two thirds female or male. While the two of her front heads ate, Marie was doing the talking. “Chimera are not always omnivorous, sometimes we are carnivorous and rarely ever herbivorous depending on the heads we are born with. Thankfully we have omnivorous capability. Food is always an issue for us in the swamps as our clan fights and trains to hunt for various things, it is necessary for our continued survival. We may have violent and or even brutal practices among our kin, but we do not hurt one another permanently unless such an injury is warranted. We are not evil… we are just following nature.”

“Um… since your friends with Jade, does that mean you don’t need to follow your nature as much?” Yes, keep doing things like being innocent and adorable Fluttershy!

“We are tying ourselves to a new clan, with new rules to follow.” Marie looked to Sekhet. “We believe the matriarch is the one who has the final say and we have not yet learned the rules of our prospective mate’s home.”

“I’m not the matriarch or leader, that’s technically her job.” Sekhet pointed to mom sitting next to me and Fizzle, mom just rolled her eyes and continued eating.

“The mother of our mate is truly the matriarch?” Marie sounded a bit surprised that my mom wore the robes around here. “What a strange hierarchy when an alpha among alphas lives here, but we will learn in time.”

After that we learned that chimera were based around being strong or getting good hunts, for the more herbivorous it was survival and supporting the other chimera. Chimera would never hunt and eat another chimera, outliers still existed though. They were savage to an extent and civilized in others, but they were below diamond dogs from a civilization standpoint.

Fluttershy had been curious to learn about things from the predatory Maries point of view, it seemed there were no hard feelings between them. She even got to meet the friendly sea turtle, she got so excited and started talking about how cute the shelled critter was.

Soon lunch was over and the visitors had to leave, they thanked mom for the food and promised to come back again some time. Throughout all this Fresh Start had been just giving the chimera odd looks, but just shrugged and went with things like she did after meeting Sekhet. Fresh was quite stoic.

After the three winged ponies were flying their way home, mom turned on the Maries and started to lay down some ground rules for how we did things around here.

Rule one, Maries must try and court me appropriately and not just say that we were mates right off the bat thanks to a trial by combat.

She must take my feelings into consideration and be friends with me first or else my mother would never make food for her again. That had Maries grumbling that I was already her mate by right, but she still accepted that rule. It was already too late for her… she had tasted my mother’s cooking.

I had to thank my mom for that, Maries kept looking at me a like a piece of meat.

Rule two, don’t eat, kill or take anything that was intelligent, a pet like our resident sea turtle or anything else that someone cared about. If she wanted to hunt something, then she would do so away from the town and had to make sure it was something we wouldn’t care about missing. Like dangerous predators that would hurt those who lived here that decide to encroach upon our territory.

No problems at all with that at all, in fact she agreed to the terms quite well.

Rule three, learn to use a toilet and or litterbox.

Maries easily agreed to learn that particular skill, especially washing her paws.

Rule four, she would be joining us for school to learn more about the various societies we all came from.

Mara didn’t take this so well. Maria was somewhat curious about it. Marie was all for it. So they eventually agreed to learn how to live with us.

Two weeks later, Fizzle-

I nuzzled up against Jade’s side as we relaxed under the tree. I was relieved that Kuril was able to stop the chimera from forcing Jade into anything, it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Still Bloody Maries was quite persistent even when she wasn’t making too much progress in getting much more than sisterly affection out of Jade, any positive affection made the chimera happy.

Just like any affection I received made me happy. Things like fingers rubbing the back of my ears or just going through my mane. Currently her hand was rubbing my neck and my head was in her lap, I was quite happy right where I was.

I and Jacky were starting to come around to being friends with Bloody Maries, at least parts of her. I got along with Marie and Jacky got along with Maria.

Ms. Cheerilee’s classes were interesting, at least she wouldn’t have any trouble teaching a bunch of rabid fillies and colts. Not when she was doing so well with teaching a broken unicorn, a friendly chimera, an unlucky parrot and the insane cat that took an arrow for me and somehow ended up fighting pirates days later.

We were relaxing as it was the weekend, Jade said she was thinking of ways to help me use magic and that she might have an idea after we were tired of being lazy for the morning.

“So what does wood do when cast or sustained?” Magical alchemy was interesting to me, it was a completely untapped area of magic that both Kuril and Jade were pioneering.

“Wood when cast causes the target to become tougher with skin and fur becoming like the bark of a tree, not the kind of effect I’d want to have on me permanently as it kind of chafes badly. Though it is useful, unlike the fish scales it can be cast on objects to improve their durability.” Jade explained to me. Airship Mauled is a magical place to live, I didn’t want to leave. I had family, except I always felt strange around Jade as if there was something more to it. “As for the magical sustain well… it’s not really useful.”

“Oh this should be good, now I have to know what it does!” Sustains always had curious effects. Neither I nor Jade had figured out what using the sustain effect for a cloak does and it does actually take up the one sustain limit Jade says is a hard rule of their magic. “Also wouldn’t casting fish scales on an object make it water proof?”

“I… hadn’t actually considered the possibility of making an object water proof with the multiple cast permanence effect.” Only Jade could be half as smart as she is dumb at times, that’s why I’m here to point things out for her and then cuddle her because that always felt nice. “As for what the wood sustain does… it makes hair like a mane or tail grow slightly faster in sunlight. Thankfully it doesn’t cause rapid aging and I had Sekhet confirm the effects for me.”

“I don’t know, it might have its uses.” I hummed and looked at Jade’s shaggy green hair and noticed that it was halfway down her back instead of just below her shoulders. It’s probably the prettiest thing about the tom cat… what was this strange feeling in my cheeks? She could take care of her hair a bit better, maybe brush or comb it more often.

I sometimes felt like I wasn’t capable of much, but I was training my body up with the expert coaching of our resident physical education teacher Sekhet. Sekhet really knows how to put a body through the wringer and she certainly remembers how to train warriors, Maries was even becoming her star pupil.

Speaking of the goddess in helping catalogue the effects of wood used in magical alchemy, It’s about time Sekhet did something around here instead of being as lazy as Jade attempts to be. Surprisingly, Cheerilee found Sekhet’s exercise regiments to be within educational standards of Equestria or even better.

I, Jacky and Maries wouldn’t let Jade rest for too long or even get fat, though her slight pudge was cute and when she was drenched with sweat… did my heart just speed up there for a bit?

Huh, I don’t feel sick at all… anyway if Jade’s idea actually allows me to use magic, then I’m all for whatever the idea is.

“So what have you been working on, that’ll help me do magic?” I feel the fingers of her left paw caress the left side of my face softly, it was a very pleasant feeling. I’ve only been these people for a little more than a month, but I was right at home here with them.

I didn’t even know I needed what I currently have now until I decided to stay with Kuril at Jade’s request.

“Well it’s not anything really big, it’s just using what we already have in a unique manner.” That was modest sounding of her… and rather cryptic. So what was the catch here? I know that Jade doesn’t do normal when she’s motivated to do something. “I have to thank you Fizzy and the best way I know how is giving you some capability to do magic.”

“What would you have to thank me for?” Every time she called me Fizzy, something in my gut twisted in an unusually pleasant manner. I hardly do much of anything around here aside from washing dishes or a few minor chores. I idly thought about how the construction crew got that inn built after eating some of Kuril’s cooking.

“Several things really. Giving me a fresh perspective on things like magical alchemy for one, being my friend is another and I now even have an idea for a really good birthday present to get Jacky when it comes around thanks to you. Blackcap’s been pretty interested in archery from our games of O and O lately.” That much was true, but why couldn’t Jade just get to telling me how she’s going to get me doing magic already. “Also don’t think none of us haven’t noticed you attempting to use magic when you sneak off on some evenings, you tend to pass out trying and Sekhet has been making sure you safely come back. Your important to all of us Fizzy, so stop doing things that worry us so much. You can do that stuff around Airship Mauled you know.”

I… I felt bad for worrying them.

“I’m sorry... for worrying you.” She pulled my head close to her belly in a hug, I started to wrap my hooves around her and nuzzled up against her chest. This felt right. I was quite excited to hear her idea, I wanted some of my functionality back without passing out from draining my entire body of magic for one burst.

“It’s okay Fizzy, just don’t hurt yourself. Now get up, we’ve got something to try.” With that, I got off of Jade and she looked over to where Jacky was napping on a nearby tree’s branch. “Hey, Jacky!”

“Whuh… agh… oof… ach… ow… #@$^!” That poor parrot fell out of the tree hitting several branches on the way down. I don’t even know what that last grunt of pain was before she slammed bodily into the ground face first. She slowly picked herself up and came over to us and threw Jade a salute. “What do you need Captain?”

I was surprised that she wasn’t complaining about the several painful bruises likely forming on her body.

“Sword me, and I don’t mean accidentally stab me in the butt with it this time.” Yeah, that was an upsetting experience Jade or I would rather not relive. I watched as Jacky pulled the sword out without her belt coming off or her pants dropping, she carefully handed it to Jade as if it were a loaded crossbow. It probably would do something almost exactly like that in her hands. “Thanks Blackcap, go about your business.”

Jacky sat down to watch us as Jade turned to me.

“Okay, so you know how I and mom have Ogres and Oubliettes character sheets for ourselves? Well I’m going to need you to light your horn for a bit, but don’t discharge.” I Gave Jade a nod and closed my eyes to get ready. “I need you to focus on fire, ice, energy, water, wind or at least something elemental like you would expect from O and O while charging your horn. Do it when you’re ready.”

I reached deep down into myself. I had a large well of power, but little to use it on. What did I feel like using? Fire, like Jade’s… warm, comforting and close to my heart.

“Okay perfect, hold that thought whatever it is.” I could a feel a portion of my magic rushing out of my broken horn, usually it just explodes out of me all at once uncontrolled. “Done, open your eyes and stop the magic.”

I did so and was met with a sword covered in a thin layer of flames. Did I… did I do that?

“Guess what, you just might be a spell sword Fizzy!” Jade swung the sword upwards and a blast of fire shot out and exploded as a bright colorful firework above us.

I felt a powerful tingle travel up my flank. I decided to act on my first urge and quickly tackled Jade. I pushed my mouth over hers and then like the colorful explosion that went off in the sky… bliss.

Author's Note

Love, it hits you when you least expect it... also stand up for Fizzlepop Berrytwist's theme in this story.

(New Magical Alchemy Information!)

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater. (New!) Can be used to water proof objects.

Sustain: Water Projection (Continuous offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Sustain 2: Blood Projection (Dangerous offensive ability). Capable of performing a powerful projection, but only from open wounds. As one would imagine blood projection is exceedingly painful, taxing on the body and ultimately dangerous to the user. The intimidation factor might be worth the agony in the right situations, but it will always be a detriment to one’s health.

Self-Sustaining: None.

(New Alchemy Ingredient!)

Wood.

Cast: Bark skin (Temporary defensive buff). Make skin and fur tough like tree bark, like most casts can become permanent with multiple consecutive uses. Increases durability of objects when targeted. Causes mildly uncomfortable chafing on a living target.

Sustain: Hair growth in sunlight (Limited utility effect). Only works in direct sunlight.

Self-sustain: Magically enhanced building material.

Chapter Six, Mariachi Changelings: Clique bait.

-Jacky-

I wonder if Fizzle has forgotten that I was here in her excitement, she certainly seemed to be trying to eat the Captain’s face something fierce.

…

Wow, the pony was really going at Captain and was holding her tight.

Fizzle must really like the fact that she can do some magic again.

It’s either that or she’s in love with the Captain, it was kind of likely given how quickly she deepened the kiss.

…

I loved the Captain too, but not nearly that much.

…

Okay now you’re just getting a bit excessive with the Captain there Fizzle.

…

I preferred males personally, I just haven’t had any… heh. Yeah, falling out the tree is probably going to be the worst thing to happen to me today. Well, one could only hope that’s the worst of it anyway.

Oh look, Captain is finally reacting and she’s… oh she’s starting to returning favor by wrapping her arms around Fizzle! That’s really cute, until now it had all been all Fizzle’s enthusiasm.

…

No… wait… I think the Captain’s trying to get air and Fizzle is kissing the life out of her.

…

Why am I still sitting here watching what is happening, I should really do something.

…

I don’t know if I should stop this, Fizzlepop seems so happy. It is kind of killing the Captain though.

…

“Hey, stop that, she needs air Fizzle!” At the sound of my voice there was a sudden pause. Fizzle slowly pulled her head away from Captain’s face and gave me a wide eyed look.

Captain La Perm took in a gasp of air once her face was free.

It was then that Fizzle’s face turned as red as Kuril’s vegetable chili, she then looked down at Captain La Perm and began looking sheepish about her actions.

Captain was breathing quite deeply and was just staring straight into the sky for a minute. She eventually blinked and turned her eyes on me, I noted that she didn’t try to get Fizzle off of her.

“Thank you for noticing my lack of air Jacky!” Well you don’t have to sound so sarcastic Captain La Perm.

“You’re welcome Captain.” I’m more surprised that I returned the sarcastic sentiment sincerely.

“I would like to deliver a cheesy pickup line to you Fizzle, if you don’t mind.” At the Captain’s words Fizzle just gave her an odd look. Fizzle obviously wasn’t relinquishing her perch. “When I look at you, you take my breath away… quite literally in fact.”

“I… it… that was so corny Jade!” Fizzle was only slightly upset with the Captain, given she was still snuggled up against her. She started to cry, I can tell those were definitely tears of happiness as giggling followed. It took Fizzle a while to calm down and eventually plant a kiss on the Captain’s cheek. “Can you tell me how that worked exactly, you said it was simple right?”

“Well I do love corn chips… anyway it really is simple Fizzy. It requires effort on your part to focus on what you want to happen, it can’t be an effect that requires continuous magic though. So don’t expect to be capable of levitation.” The Captain was smart to have come up with this method of magic for Fizzle, so she likely knew what she was talking about. “It requires a sturdy object, you just touch said object to your horn and force magic into it while thinking of what you want to happen. I consider the elemental attacks from O and O to be the simplest form of magic, which is why I had you focus on that.”

“Aside from the fact that I can’t cast continuous magic, are there any other limitations to this…” Fizzle was getting rather affectionate with the Captain. I wasn’t going to complain unless she almost choked my Captain to death with her tongue again. “What is it exactly? I already know it’s based on the make believe spell sword class of magic, but what would you call it?”

“At best it would be called ‘Imbuing’. Know that it’s not the same as enchanting an object, I read my mother’s old notes on enchanting while coming up with this. Whatever object you imbue can only take so much magic from your horn. An object will either explode or something catastrophic will happen if you put too much magic into it.” Thank goodness the Captain was already warning her about the dangers of doing magic this way. “I figured it would work best with a pointy object to start with. A unicorn uses their horn to focus magic, the tip of which is the controlling factor whereas the base is the channeling factor. You still have the channeling, you’re missing the control.”

It certainly sounded quite dangerous already with having to put something sharp like the sword close to her head and around me of all people.

“So I can use objects like you do with magical alchemy to give me a limited form of control, but only quick spells and if the object can handle the stress of having my magic pushed into it.” After Fizzle said that she had a thoughtful look on her face, she still wasn’t getting off of Captain La Perm. “Will there be a lot of magic bleed off from my horn? Attempting to cast even one spell knocks me out.”

“Yes, the bleed off is inevitable, but you really don’t need to cast with your horn to do this. The quicker you imbue an object with your magic, the less energy you’ll lose.” Captain carefully pushed Fizzle away and went to pick up the sword she dropped when she was tackled. “I helped you the first time. Now we have to see if you can do it on your own, just know that I believe in you Fizzy. Just keep your eyes open and try not to hold it to your horn for too long.”

Fizzle looked at the sword handle being held out to her, she got a determined look on her face and took it in her right hoof. She looked the blade over and then glance up at the stump on her forehead. Some unicorns closed their eyes to concentrate on channeling magic, but Fizzle had to do this with her eyes completely on what she was using.

“Yeah, show us what you can do Fizzle!” Hey, I wanted to encourage her too Captain! She needs all the positive reinforcement she can get. “Just don’t hurt yourself doing it.”

-Fizzle-

Okay, I can do this. Jade helped me with imbuing it with fire the first time, but this time I had to do it on my own. Concentrate… warmth, the fire, Jade’s cuddly body… I can’t get distracted like that! I need to focus, I didn’t want to damage my horn any worse than it already is.

Fire, protective and warm against a cold night, comforting and close to my heart. These were the things I needed to concentrate on, like how nice the kiss with Jade felt. I wanted to protect what I held dear with the ability to do magic this way!

I held the sword against my horn and I felt the drain on my magic and watched the sword, it started getting brighter and brighter. I pulled it away and was now holding a sword glowing with fire.

Something felt off about it though.

I swung it upwards, the flames jumped from the sword and surrounded us with a hemisphere shaped wall of pink fire.

It was fire alright, but it wasn’t burning the grass and was making me feel oddly safe. I created a magical barrier of flames? How did that happen? I’m rather confused… no… I think I actually get it now that I think about it.

Flames of protection and love, made for my friends that I cared about and in turn I knew that they cared about me. Yep we were all certainly still just… who am I kidding? Not myself for one when it comes to Jade.

The barrier fell having only lasted about five seconds. It did so without anything happening to the area around us, it only looked really impressive. Jade was now giving me a curious look, my heart was beating a bit faster with the cute way her ears flopped.

I tapped the sword to my horn again while charging it, the first time I imbued the sword I was thinking of fire in a different way. I focused on how Jade’s fire crackled and popped, it was always combusting brightly and I had thought about how living around here had filled my life with color.

I wanted to spread the color I had found throughout my world of gray, I wanted to protect my friends and I wanted to be useful. I knew, absolutely, that this is what I wanted to do! I was going to try many things, I was going to do many things and I was going to be many things.

I’ll shine no matter what I’m doing here, the world will see that spark in me igniting the sky!

I pulled the sword away and now there was a thin film of flames on it.

I feel like kissing Jade again, because I can use magic in spite of my horn's condition!

Well in a very limited manner, but it was still something after the last few years I’ve been living like a pale shadow of the little filly I once was.

I swung the sword upwards. Fire erupted from the blade and exploded above our heads in a far more colorful and brilliant fashion.

I felt a surge of triumph throughout my body and once again I felt a familiar feeling in my flank, only it wasn’t a tingle this time. It felt like the entire world just became a little brighter for some reason and I could feel it pulsing.

“I hope you know that we’ll still work on fixing your horn Fizzy.” I already know that Jade, you already promised me that you would at least try. No one from the village I grew up in even tried for me.

“I know, but at least you gave me an outlet even if it turns out that my horn is truly impossible to fix.” I didn’t want to believe it was impossible, but it would be pretty hard to achieve. I wobbled a bit, using my magic like that took a bit out of me. “I need to rest a bit, let’s get back to your campfire.”

I stumbled a bit, yeah it was less tiring than trying to do a single spell with a broken horn. Imbuing… I can live for the rest of my life with at least this much.

“Take it easy Fi…” Why had Jade gone silent all of the sudden, I looked to her and Jacky.

Why were they both staring at my… oh… that would certainly be something to stare at.

Jade, I’m sorry, but you may die of asphyxiation. I’ll marry Maries in your stead as an apology... if she doesn’t kill me first that is.

-???-

“Hey, did you guys see that? Someone’s shooting off fireworks out here!” We had been wandering around for a while now, aimless and lost until we saw that pretty explosion. I was already sold on going that way. “There’s some kind of celebration going on there, maybe they’ll let us perform.”

“Yeah, seems like someone has something going on. Where there’s people and a party, there’s a place to play our music!” I had to agree with my buddy, maybe we can do a song or two before the pitchforks came out this time. We weren’t bad musicians, people just didn’t appreciate our species even if we were good folk. “Let’s go get our groove on then!”

-Jade-

Okay, Fizzle was being much gentler this time. The third time she's kissed me in the last few minutes really. After she finally released me, I was feeling quite shy... and lightheaded.

I seriously wondered where Fizzle learned to kiss like that.

There was a smile that only the sun could outshine on Fizzle’s face and it was really beautiful to see. We went back to the campfire to see what everyone else was getting up to.

Upon arriving back at the campsite mom was outside and I could tell she was about to ask what was going on. She took one look at Fizzle and smiled quite a bit, she could definitely guess what the fireworks were about.

Sekhet was looking upon Fizzle in interest and more than a mild sense of curiosity, next to her was Maries who looked to be recovering from an extensive exercise routine with Sekhet.

Even Maries sat up and noticed something different about Fizzle, because we had a party to plan.

-Approximately thirty minutes later-

I think Fizzle might have finally calmed down. Things would hopefully be quiet for lunch today, Fizzle was at least chatting with Marie in a less than hyper mood she had going for a while.

“So she has her cutie mark now, even with her magic broken like it is no less.” Sekhet nodded to me as she spoke. “I must admit that you are a miracle worker Priest Jade. It seems we are living in interesting times.”

Oh sun, I hoped Sekhet just didn’t say what I thought she just said. Those words always meant something unpredictable would happen!

“Sekhet, did you just seriously invoke the interesting times curse on me?” Cue evil grin and my lackluster response to it, she had said it on purpose.

It seems Jacky was about to comment on what I just said, but it was already too late. We heard music playing and coming up to the campfire was a carriage.

Pulling said carriage was a brightly colored changeling, how in the world did that exist before Thorax? He was a little more than twice the size of a normal changelings. On top of said carriage were four other colorful normal sized changelings idly strumming guitars and or playing trumpets. The only changeling that was out of place was the standard one that seemed to be sitting with them.

The colorful sombrero wearing changelings stopped playing and the leader of the group addressed us.

“Hello there, it seems you have attracted a group of amazing musicians with your colorful displays.” Oh for the love of, a band of colorful mariachi changelings. How the Tartarus did this happen? “I am Clypeus and we are The Shapeshifting Siesta! These here are my four amigos Labrum, Labium, Tarsus and...”

“Wait, why don’t you look like him?” I pointed to the less colorful changeling, what the bug ponies should naturally look like with tattered wings, bodies and jagged horns.

“We are changeling wanderers who instead of taking love, we share it… in the form of music!” He strummed his guitar once dramatically. “That changeling is our requisite groupie. The big guy there is our final member, Big McLarge Huge!”

We all burst out laughing at that, even the stoic Fresh Start couldn’t keep a straight face. The big changeling just smiled at us.

“Yeah, the best name in our group is always saved for last.” Clypeus certainly had a high charisma stat.

I looked at the not so colorful changeling.

“Hello, I’m Kevin. I’m just here for the food.” That... was incredible. There are absolutely no words for Kevin's completely straight delivery.

Author's Note

Kevin is what I'd liked to call an unusually uninteresting sight in the MLP world, he walks around without a disguise and nobody seems to care and was seen at Cranky's wedding.

Yet in the Crystal Empire, everyone overreacts to Thorax in the extreme.

Kevin must be a really cool dude to not have spears shoved in his face constantly.

Fizzle's cutie mark will be never be described, use your own imaginations.

Magical Alchemy list.

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater. Can be used to water proof objects.

Sustain: Water Projection (Continuous offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Sustain 2: Blood Projection (Dangerous offensive ability). Capable of performing a powerful projection, but only from open wounds. As one would imagine blood projection is exceedingly painful, taxing on the body and ultimately dangerous to the user. The intimidation factor might be worth the agony in the right situations, but it will always be a detriment to one’s health.
Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random (One time air terrain survival buff, possible offensive spell). Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain: Projecting thoughts. Not able to receive thoughts, but you can project them to others.

Self-sustaining: none.

Sunlight.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness. Strengthens all mobility based buffs.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight. Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability. The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining. Does not protect the user from gravitational or high speed stress and lack of oxygen at high altitudes like a pegasus would be by their magic.

Sustain: Redirect sunlight (Defensive support buff). Is only useful during the day and allows for blinding opponents or aggressors with light.

Self-sustaining: Minor protection from darkness (Automatic defensive buff while feather is on person). Needs to be charged with sunlight and to have been used as a magical alchemy sustain at least once to work.

Phoenix Feather.

Cast: Cleansing Flames (Support healing spell). Finds and stops negative foreign bodily ailment or ailments that are magical or mundane, does not heal damage. Can possibly stop positive ailments.

Sustain: Protection from the cold (Continuous defensive buff). Immunity to cold, increased defensive ability against ice and relative elemental based magic.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Jade’s Cloak.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: ???. (Effect seems to do nothing, need more information.)

Self-Sustain: Makes sneaking easier (Moderate stealth buff).

Cupcake (Banned by Kuril).

Cast: You don’t want to know.

Sustain: Likely none.

Self-Sustain: Delicious.

Frog Mucus (Banned by Kuril).
Cast: Magical wide area sticky substance bomb (Hard to get out of clothing).
Sustain: ???.
Self-sustain: ???.

Griffon Feather.

Cast: Feather Falling (Limited air terrain support buff). Lowers gravity’s effect on an individual for a minute.

Sustain: Double Jump (Continuous Mobility buff). Can jump off the air one extra time after leaving a solid surface and only one time.

Self-sustain: None.

Fish Oil.

Cast: Ignition (Multipurpose offensive and support spell). Ignites itself and anything around it except the user.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Candle Wax.

Cast: Stiffness. Slow down a target, can have a wide area of effect for reduced effectiveness.

Sustain: Heat resistance (Limited continuous defensive buff). Does not stop heat damage entirely and candle takes heat damage in place of the user.

Self-Sustain: None.

Pepper.

Cast: Sneezing cloud (Limited continuous Defensive spell). Wide range spell that doesn’t affect the user, causes continuous sneezing on contact and doesn’t necessarily need to be breathed in to take effect.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Tricorne.

Cast: Charisma boost (Limited status buff). Gives one the ability to walk around with confidence.

Side-effect: May instill need for showboating in user.

Sustain: ???.

Self-Sustain: ???.

Wood.

Cast: Bark skin (Temporary defensive buff). Make skin and fur tough like tree bark, like most casts can become permanent with multiple consecutive uses. Increases durability of objects when targeted. Causes mildly uncomfortable chafing on a living target.

Sustain: Hair growth in sunlight (Limited utility effect). Only works in direct sunlight.

Self-sustain: Magically enhanced building material.

Combination 1: Candle Wax + Oil (any) + Pepper = Chaos Candle. Candle hollowed out and filled with the other two ingredients mixed together equals devastating results.

Cast: Sneezing flash bomb (Offensive one use spell). Blinding, sinus wrecking and volatile magical cast.

Sustain Cast: Weak jet propulsion device (Limited air terrain support buff), Flamethrower (Limited offensive spell). Doing this will slowly destroy the candle and chemicals used in it. Exhaust fumes has a lesser effect of casting with pepper.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 2: Feather + stick + arrowhead (material any) = Arrow. Arrow + poison = special status ailment added to casting effect based on poison used. Pukwudgie Poison (Paralysis for a few hours).

Cast: Arcing Arrow Beam (Offensive spell). Fires a beam that is effected by gravity as if it were an arrow, it can only damage one target and that’s the first thing it touches. If it grazes a wall and then hits you, it will do nothing to you.

Sustain Cast: Spray of multiple weaker beam shots.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Chapter Six, Mariachi Changelings: Risk take.

-Kuril-

“It’s nice to meet everyone, I’m Kurilian La Perm or just Kuril. Due to the jerks that are also a part of this place known as Airship Mauled, I’m the current acting mayor.” Why was everyone giving me innocent smiles? Sekhet certainly couldn’t do innocent if she tried. She was a goddess of war that can do war in any form, which obviously includes mental and or prank wars. I wouldn’t be surprised if she could fight political wars either. Maries was the only one that wasn’t smiling at me and she was looking at the changelings hungrily, I should get started on lunch soon. “Welcome to our little town, where there is oddness to be found! We have an inn, a restaurant and an incomplete train station. Also no Maries, you can’t eat them… they haven’t done anything yet to warrant it. Speaking of doing something, there’s something very familiar about your group.”

I rubbed my chin in thought, where have I heard of The Shapeshifting Siesta before? Oh right, that thing that happened in Klugetown. That place isn’t exactly safe to raise a child, but my daughter would have probably fit in somewhat now. I’m just reaffirming the fact that Palicoast was definitely the right place to have my child.

“Familiar good or familiar bad?” Asked Clypeus in a slight worried tone, he and his band mates were putting away their instruments in the carriage. He was a purple colored changeling. His friends were blue, yellow, green and Mr. Huge was red.

“I’d say a middle ground, both good and bad. You have good music, but…” I made all the changelings wince except for Kevin, who just gave them a blank look. “You’re the reason changelings are banned from Klugetown, after one of you did something with a shrew if I recall?”

“Yeah, that fiasco was all Tarsus’s fault.” I gave him a stern look and he gulped while rubbing at his neck. “Won’t happen here I swear it, you have my word or else we’ll disband because of a certain idiot we can’t play without!”

“Hey! How was I supposed to know that her favorite food was pickles?” There was a story there about the blue male changeling Tarsus, but it didn’t sound like the one the papers talked about. “What went on after that could have happened to anyone and what we shared was special! I even wish I could go back and do right by her, but the mercenaries that were hired by that guy would be out for my blood if I went anywhere near my belle now. I’m a lover and not much of a fighter in the slightest, even if full to bursting with shared love.”

“It’s kind of like a love story…” Start Green female changeling called Labrum.

“One that ends in tragedy.” Finished the yellow female changeling Labium.

“With no one dead thankfully.” Both of Labium and Labrum intoned in unison like Maries tended to do at times. “It certainly helps him play sad songs at least!”

The two of them looked like twins given how similar their features are aside from their colors, Mr. Huge nodded with a frown on his face at their words. Seemed like they all knew the real story.

“Well we’re not going to judge you based on your past actions here. We’ll judge you on what you do in the here and now.” That was quite fair of me, I wondered why Jade wasn’t doing anything. She was usually more talkative, right now she was just sitting off to the side waiting for something. Oh dear, what happened? Jade wants to talk to me alone, given how she flicked her tail and ears at me while staring intently. “It is a bit fortuitous that you’re here, do you do cuteceaneras for ponies?”

“Depends. Will they scream while grabbing pitchforks and torches at the sight of us?” At Clypeus’s question, I simply pointed to Fizzle. She just looked at us and shrugged before going back to her discussion with Tail Marie. “Okay, we’re in! We don’t need much pay, as long as we get to play our music for you without horrible unexpected interruptions.”

“We’ll discuss business and what you’ll play at the party later Clypeus, why don’t you get yourselves settled in. Apparently I’ve got some business with my daughter. A daughter that none of you are to go near with any funny ideas, understand?” I flicked out the claws on my hands and Clypeus nodded vigorously. I quickly pulled my claws back in my fingers. “Good, glad we came to an understanding, I hope you’ll come to The Witch’s Fare for lunch. I promise the food is good, even if it does nothing for you.”

-Kevin-

The Shapeshifting Siesta guys were really interesting specimens of my kind, what was also interesting was how the younger cat seemed to take my words with some form of amazement. All I did was tell her exactly what I was doing here. It was quite logical, so why was she so surprised?

Anyway the band was setting up at the nondescript inn, the residents here were idling about and the mayor was taking her daughter into the restaurant. She was protective of her offspring, a logical sentiment for a mother to have.

I sometimes don’t get people or even other changelings. Why hide what we are? Someone will eventually figure out and it causes negative consequences for changeling kind as a whole. I just walked around as I am and speak plainly, so far I’m having more luck than my entire hive combined in receiving love without having to steal it. So really, the methods currently employed by the hive are quite inefficient.

Is it really so hard for other changelings to be like me? Or like these changelings who I’ve noticed don’t suffer from love sickness, which is an extreme lack of love in a changeling. Speaking of food, I could sense love in the air between five individuals.

The cat, the chimera and the pony… that’s quite an odd combination. One way love for the chimera the cat is friends with, two way for the pony and cat as of right now.

“You don’t seem so big to me Big McLarge Huge.” That was the one they were calling Sekhet, she was the size of an alicorn. Yet, there was no horn on her head and she had paws like a cat despite being pony like. “I can show you what big is really like.”

Mr. Huge gave her a questioning look and then she grew to enormous proportions beyond that of Mr. Huge’s stature. I mentally noted she was dangerous and powerful, that size alteration was quite real and without using the amount of magic a changeling would have used to do something similar.

I also took note of the other dangerous thing around here, the chimera. They seemed quite tame which is odd. Much of this place feels odd, yet there’s a certain kind of logic to how so many disparate parts worked together.

I would do well to not overstep my boundaries here, but I find this place fascinating since it is constructed with two crashed airships. It seems to still be in the process of being built and welcoming all kinds of beings, which seems like a prudent thing to do.

Many beings coming together to share a common goal with various skills, that goal being mutually assured survival. I approve, this place was certainly something I’d never tell Chrysalis about.

-Jade-

Mom had me scaling and fileting fish. She knew I wanted to talk with her and was making me do this as her way of giving me some time, just so that I could think about some of what I wanted to tell her and or discuss.

Mom hardly ever got the chance to do any parenting with me, she really cherished these moments quite a bit. On the rare times I turned to her for guidance, she was caught flatfooted when I asked for her help or advice.

“Okay, what is it my little tom cat, what can mommy do for you?” There were very few times that Kuril ever got to ask that of me and I wouldn’t begrudge her that. This was a time she actually had some serious mothering to do and she did it surprisingly well.

It always left me feeling a bit horrible about being completely capable of taking care of myself, at least in this life.

“To start off… how do you know if you’re in love with someone?” My words obviously shocked mom quite a bit, she wouldn’t tell me about my other parent and I wasn’t going to ask her about that. Though this question may as well have been asking about the other parent of Jaded La Perm. “I understand familial love thanks to you. I might even get friendship given how many I’ve dragged into living around here. This question is important to me and I wanted to discuss it… mommy.”

“Working on lunch can wait it seems, this is really quite important.” Mom wiped a tear from her eye and placed the fish fileting tray off to the side and wrapped her right arm around me. “What led up to you asking me this Jaded?”

“Well Fizzle kissed me on the cheek…” She gave me a warm smile and it got even bigger than that when I continued. “She also did it twice with tongue, I don’t know where she could have learned to kiss like that. She almost suffocated me the first time and the third time she was being quite gentle. She may have been a little afraid of hurting me in her enthusiasm at that point.”

“She was pretty excited about doing some form of magic again I take it?” I snorted at mom’s understatement. “Hey, if you were a unicorn that lost what made you what you were, you’d be pretty excited too! Her horn is what makes her what she is, to her. It may even be a unicorn’s whole world, but it doesn’t make her ‘who’ she is.”

“Who and what?” I asked.

“Exactly! I think she might slowly be realizing the difference and is coming to terms with that by finally turning away from what she was, to finding who she is as a person. She’s trying to accept things.” Mom looked me in the eyes while continuing to talk to me. “We’re helping her with that. Since you’re both so close to one another, she wanted to show you how she feels about all we’re doing for her. She feels like she’s useless without her horn and we’re proudly proving her wrong!”

“She was quite happy that I helped her earn her mark. In a more intimate way.” I really did like Fizzle, but I was concerned about several things. “I’m concerned about whether or not she wants us to be more. I mean a lot of good things are going her way today. She’s had one of the best mornings in her life, one she’ll never truly forget.”

“I don’t think that’s a really big concern. You’re old enough to date now and I, as a parent, sadly have to acknowledge that fact. Though I think she could have just hugged and kissed, licked and or nuzzled you on the cheek all three times. What she did was going a little bit too far for a month long relationship of being friends… I’ll just have to lay down the law with her like I did Maries.” Mom started to rub my back soothingly as I listened to her. If that’s what she felt was the right thing to do, no complaints. “Though this makes things a tad awkward because I kind of see Fizzle as another daughter, Jacky too for that matter. I’m a bit iffy on Maries and whether or not she’d accept me mothering her. She certainly accepts Sekhet as a superior.”

“Mom, can you get back to the subject I originally wanted to talk about please? I don’t even know how to date or have ever been on one really.” Why wasn’t she taking me a bit more seriously? And now she's laughing. “Why are you laughing?”

“I’m sorry for laughing, but it’s just… I seriously didn’t think you’d be coming to me about something like this Jaded.” Mom started rubbing me behind my right ear. “I can hardly imagine you dating by the book, much less wearing a dress.”

“You know I’ll never wear a dress mom.” Was she seriously trying to distract me from the topic of my original question about love?

“Never say never Jaded! Wouldn’t you want to pretty yourself up for a date? I think Fizzle would look really nice in a tuxedo, I don’t honestly know what Maries would wear if you dated her.” Mom certainly had a point, Fizzle would look good in a tuxedo as much as she would a dress. How would a dress even work with a chimera?

I however didn’t like dresses and would never wear one for any extended period of time! I’d rather go nude, which was thankfully a thing you could do here in Equestria. I had fur covering my whole body for a reason!

“Fizzle would look good in either a tuxedo or a dress. If we do end up on a date, then I’m never wearing a dress or prettying myself up for it.” Quite frankly the standards for the beauty of outer appearances were pointless in the end. When all is said and done the person will eventually know what you look like without makeup anyway, plus it was rather expensive habit to form. “If she can’t accept me as is, then why bother dating?”

“It’s about making an effort to strengthen a connection Jaded. If you truly love someone, then you’ll do some pretty bizarre, insane and or crazy things just to make them happy or keep them safe.” There was a sad, wistful look on mom’s face. “Even if said things are really stupid, it builds character and good memories.”

“I have enough character as it is mom.” She snickered at my words.

“True, I guess there’s nothing better than being yourself.” Mom seemed kind of sad that I wouldn’t do girly things, but then she grinned at me. “Why if you were to put on makeup and a dress, then you just wouldn’t be my daughter anymore. You might just give me a heart attack, would you really do that to your poor dear old mother?”

“You’re not that old mom.” I received a sharp stare from her and I didn’t flinch.

“You need to take risks when it comes to love Jaded, to open yourself up to someone else completely and utterly is a big one. To learn them inside and out as well as they do the same to you.” She inhaled, trying to calm herself. She pulled me close. “Romantic love requires that opening of yourself, which can lead to the possibility of forever losing someone that you can hardly live without. For when they do go away… they take large chunks of you with them. We took that risk, I and your other... parent. They were a stranger in a strange land that I had formed a strong bond with. I was hurt by it terribly when it ended… then you came along my kitten. You're really in love... when you never want to be separated by anything.”

Author's Note

Tail Marie is a pun.

Chapter Six, Mariachi Changelings: Fresh’s state.

-Kuril-

“Thanks for talking with me about this mom.” Jaded wasn’t asking about her other parent? I just snuggled my kitten and held her, she’s growing so big.

I guess it really didn’t matter from her perspective, Jade didn’t need them. What she needed was me. Maybe I can try and look for love again, but the hurt would always be there though. The pain is faded and dull now, it used to be so sharp and cutting like a dagger applied to the heart.

At least she knows how I felt about them now, those memories were painful and yet I still held them close to my heart all the same. Hopefully, she’ll take my advice and eventually put on a dress just to tell whoever she ends up with that she’s actually making an effort for them… because that’ll the day I’ll have a camera ready.

“Jaded, your previous life was obviously horrible.” I stated flatly as I went to get started on cooking food, I had six extra mouths to feed here. “Now finish scaling and fileting the fish.”

“One serious talk and you’re already putting me back on fish duty.” Oh my sweet little tom cat. You may have had a previous life, but it certainly didn’t do you any favors to remember it in its entirety. “Of course you are.”

To love and be loved, is better than to have never known love at all.

-Fresh Start-

Okay, Cheerilee is the only other normal pony around and I was living a weird life. I’m living with the fact that I have to look after the strange kids, keep the litterbox clean, help serve the food and do basically everything a regular maid would be expected to do.

It’s just that I felt like an outsider sometimes.

“What are you doing?” I jumped at the voice and turned to see Mara and Maria, it seemed Marie was taking a nap and her sisters were keeping her head off the ground. Otherwise they’d be dragging Marie through the dirt everywhere.

Isn’t having one head asleep dangerous for a chimera? Well it is rather safe around here and I’m sure they’d wake her up if they had to fight off something. Did I just seriously worry about…? I’m actually taking the monsters feelings into consideration?

I must be losing my mind. Sure the monster was intelligent and going to school with the other girls to be taught by the only other sane pony around, but Maries is a carnivorous beast that has tried to eat ponies!

Tried being the key word, she never succeeded and probably would never do so now that she was friends with Ms. Berrytwist. How could that pony be so brave? Then again, if there was anyone who was feeling more like an outsider than I do, then it would be them.

What is my life and why did I take this assignment form Princess Celestia? This is not exactly what I was expecting when I was told I was getting an important duty.

I’ve been thinking too long, I better answer them.

“I’m setting up the tables for lunch.” I hoped that was all that the chimera bothered me with, any sane pony would be afraid of her.

“I… would like to… help you with that.” Wait… what?! I don’t even. Why did Mara say that? The way she struggled with saying that left me feeling sorry for her, I shouldn’t be feeling sorry for her like this! “You are the dens caretaker yes? I wish to assist you.”

“I… don’t know how to take that.” She got a bit angry with me and growled, I shied away and then… she just looked frustrated. Not with me, it was mostly directed at herself.

“I apologize for my sister, she is having a hard time with living here.” The bleating head of Maria spoke up from next to Mara, who was looking away with her head and ears wilting. “We all are… this kind of living is really unusual for us. It isn’t bad though, as long as we can keep meeting Sekhet in combat for exercise.”

“I…” Was I really considering this? Yes, yes I was. I think I might be coming down with something if I was considering allowing the beast to set up the tables. “You can help me. Set out the napkins and cups at each spot to sit at these two tables. I’ll get the silverware for those who use it.”

“Was that a crack at us being savages?” I looked Mara in the eyes after she asked that and had something to say.

“No, Sekhet doesn’t use silverware either and I don’t think she’s savage for our alpha of alphas as you call her.” I paused to consider what I was saying to Mara, I was actually thinking about this. “In fact, aside from spoons, I don’t see why unicorns even bother with silverware when they could just levitate food into their mouths with magic. I don’t honestly think any less of you for not using silverware Maries… you can also help set out the plates if you want.”

Mara gave me a surprised look and I gave her one back, I… I don’t think I was looking at her as a beast anymore.

I mean the few weeks they’ve been here, I’ve been scared of Maries for the longest time and now… something just clicked. My special talent involved more than just getting up early in the morning, it’s also about seeing others who are trying for new beginnings or getting a good jump on things by helping someone with whatever it is they were doing. An example would be helping Celestia or Cadence get a generally good morning going when I still worked in Canterlot.

“You surprise me den caretaker, we could smell your fear of us and yet… it’s now gone.” As Mara said that I was already setting out a number of plates, cups and napkins for her to start placing on the tables.

“I think I’m surprised about that myself.” I was actually considering being friends with a… no… she’s not a monster. She’s just a kid like Jade, Fizzle and Jacky. “So how has exercising with Sekhet been going?”

Exercising with the goddess was one of the things Mara enjoyed doing around here, aside from cuddling up to and nuzzling Jade affectionately. There was a sisterly bond, but I could tell Maries wanted more. Only she was kept at limb’s length, which could be quite frustrating for her. I was now thinking of how she came here to begin a new life.

“She is mighty, no matter her size.” Mara had a lot of respect for the goddess Sekhet and it showed. Following her words was Maria’s statement about how things went. “We have learned that size does not always matter. She tossed us all around the area this morning using only a small portion of her strength and we know she was holding back the entire time. Even if only slightly bigger than us, she is very formidable.”

Of course she was holding back, she’s a goddess of war! Though she was also said to be a goddess of healing and that doesn’t really come up much. Well at least I haven’t seen her healing anyone or doing anything too nice for anybody.

“She could kill us at the size of an average cat in under a minute.” That was my belief at least, provided we didn’t have an airship or something equally heavy to stall her long enough to get away. Not that I could run ten miles in the time it would take for her to get out from under the airship and track me down.

“Am I… scary… or is it intimidating?” What was Mara trying to ask me here, she was at least setting everything up correctly and I waited for her to get finished with the napkins before I started placing the silverware down.

“You are definitely both, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” I just said the word, how did I just say it so plainly?

“Would Cheerilee eventually be friends with me?” Was Mara seriously asking me that personally as a separate entity from her sisters? “She fears me more than my sisters.”

“I’m sure she will get over her fear eventually, just give her some more time.” Wait, I was actually giving Mara advice now? The aggressive head of the Maries? “Come on Maries, let’s go clean up a few rooms before lunch.”

-Cheerilee-

Out of all my students, Fizzle seems to be the brightest. Unicorns tended towards education and when they didn’t, they tended towards specialization in their cutie mark related talent.

As for the rest of my students, it was a bit of a mixed bag.

Jade was knowledgeable about many creatures and even pointed out many things she’s observed about Maries and how her body work. She was quite good at many subjects, there was a problem area though. She couldn’t do advanced math to save her life.

When I had brought it up with her, she made a joke about never telling her the odds. She then stated that she’d likely prove people wrong by overcoming them out of ignorance. I know for a fact that that is something that actually happens, given my sister is a professional wrestler who doesn’t know the meaning of quit.

Quit, to stop or discontinue an action or activity, to resign from a job or leave a place.

Jacky was bright, she knew everything about pirates and there was little she didn’t know about pirate history. I didn’t know pirates had such good schooling, because Jacky was good at math. She got really good when it came to the pirate version of math, where a pirate accountant was likely to pocket some extra booty for themselves on the sly.

I actually got a percentage rating for how noticeable a few extra gold coins off of each haul is depending on the size of the vessel plundered. She gave me a fully detailed graph as homework to show how much a pirate accountant could actually get away with before the captain became suspicious of duplicity. It was really quite fascinating, also a little bit disturbing.

She was like the opposite of Jade, she wasn’t very knowledgeable about the world as a whole and wasn’t interested in history that didn’t have action, cannons and swords. I’m kind of surprised the Equestrian Education Association hasn’t come by to check on my class yet, it wasn’t exactly a pony class so they probably wouldn’t ever show up here.

Maries… I was quite scared of them. I was also very scared of the resident goddess Sekhet, who was a living breathing historical figure from the tale of Somnabula. Still, I found Maries to be interesting students.

Mara was the hardest one to teach because she was the most aggressive of them. Maria at least seemed somewhat interested in learning. Marie was bright and studious. Collectively speaking, they were scary when they put their heads together.

These were the odd students that I had to work with.

“Excuse me ma’am, but I have to ask. What do you do here?” I turned to the brightly colored purple pony bug thing called a changeling.

Jade knew what they were and thought something was odd about the one called Kevin out of all of them. I admit I was curious about the visitors that came to this oddball place, I didn’t know anything about them or their culture.

“I’m the local school teacher for the next few years.” What was his name again? Come on, think Cheerilee. Oh that’s right, it was Clypeus! “Why do you ask Mr. Clypeus?”

“I was wondering who here runs the inn.” That was actually a very good question Clypeus.

“Uh… Fizzle! Who runs the inn?” Someone had to know, so I turned to Fizzle sitting at the campfire that never goes out. She was staring at it with a warm smile on her face, my words knocked her out of her comfortable dazed state.

“Huh… oh… no one does really, they can stay there for free.” Well there you have it from Fizzle’s mouth, I guess the band of changelings were staying here free of charge. “We still need to find someone to run it.”

“Well okay then, we’ll give you a discount on the cost of our performing here. We’re already not asking for much, but we still need at least some money to maintain our instruments and our mode of transportation.” With that Clypeus walked off while shouting out the names of his friends to tell them the news.

“Did you need anything else Ms. Cheerilee?” I trotted over to Ms. Berrytwist.

“Well I have been considering changing my mane style.” The crimped look sadly just wasn’t in anymore. It was fun while it lasted, but I was a teacher now. “I’m thinking of straightening my mane and tail, maybe even getting it trimmed a bit. I wouldn’t mind getting your opinion on that.”

“My opinion? Well it might make you look more professional as a teacher. When are you going to Ponyville for that?” Thanks for the reminder Fizzlepop, I had almost forgotten that this place didn’t have much. Airship mauled counted as a hamlet, but I really didn’t want to ruin everyone’s dream of calling it a town by correcting them. “You’ll need someone to escort you there teach.”

“I’ll ask around for whoever wants to go.” I hoped it would be a nice visit. When I was done teaching here at Airship Mauled, I’m going to take a teaching job in Ponyville. “Though Maries might cause a panic if she chooses to go. I won’t stop her if she wants to, but she should really be warned of trouble cropping up because of what they are.”

-Fresh Start, some time later-

“Thanks for helping me Maries.” They had helped me clean up and tidy a few rooms upstairs while another wonderful lunch was being cooked by Kuril, I sniffed the air and knew we’d be having something good. “Something smells really good.”

“You are welcome to our aid.” They said in unison, I thought that was kind of neat and not at all completely creepy.

Okay, it was totally creepy that they could do it so easily, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud to their faces.

We made our way down the stairs and Kuril popped out of the kitchen.

“Can you get everyone together Fresh? Lunch is about ready to be served. Jade is currently helping me with the finishing touches on the dessert.” Throwing Kuril a salute I made my way for the door outside with Maries following me. “Oh and when you’re done with that, come back here and help me bring out the food!”

“Hey Mara, would you do something for me?” I thought of something interesting, it seemed like a pretty good idea to get everyone’s attention. “I want you to roar loudly to get everyone’s attention. Can you tell everyone that lunch is ready? I’ll go help Kuril with bringing out the food.”

“It has been a while since I let one loose.” Mara muttered as their body made its way out the door.

Ah, life here. It almost seems normal. So when is Jade going to inevitably mess that up or do something weird?

-Mara-

Inhaling, I belted out a powerful, deafening roar from my throat!

Author's Note

Are you bored yet? Have I driven this story into the ground? I can't ever tell when I start doing so.

Chapter Six, Mariachi Changelings: Playing date.

-Sekhet-

“What was that in effort of?” I looked over to the changelings at the doors to the inn, they looked about ready to bolt.

“It is lunch…” Maries started, only to blink as the breeze of my passing slammed into them bodily. “Time.”

-Jacky-

Sekhet just left behind a confused chimera and a cloud in the shape of herself, one that seemed to look left and right before running towards the door. The Sekhet shaped dust cloud started pawing at it and one could hear the wind as it tried to open the door with its useless paws made of dust.

That… I don’t know how Sekhet left behind a sentient dust cloud that wanted food as badly as she did.

To think Captain is one of the tamest strange things around here.

“Well you guys are in for a treat, Kuril the mayor always cooks good meals.” The Captain’s mother was always good at filling an empty stomach and I wondered what lunch was today. I took note of the cowering changelings sending Maries scared looks. “Don’t worry about them, they wouldn’t hurt you unless you hurt them first. Come on, follow me! It’s perfectly safe.”

“Well… if y-you’re sure.” A shivering Clypeus said while pressing himself up against Big McLarge Huge like all the other changelings, at least they had the right idea with using numbers. The execution could use a little work though.

A roaring chimera was definitely a unique way to get everyone’s attention and Quartermaster Fizzle was already making her way over to me. I just had to remind myself not to call her that out loud, I didn’t want to be insensitive.

“Like Blackcap said, don’t worry about Maries. It’s just an unusual way to call for lunch.” As Fizzle started to walk into the restaurant, Kuril quickly came out and pulled her off to the side.

“I need to have a talk with you about something important young mare, everyone else go in and enjoy the buffet before Sekhet devours everything.” It seemed Kuril had something important to say to Fizzle.

I walked up to the door and stopped to look at the sentient dust cloud that tilted its head at me, I decided to ignore it and continued on inside. The local goddess being weird was nothing to give a second glance.

-Fizzle-

The changelings were slowly, but surely, getting over their fright at Mara’s roar as they followed Jacky inside. It had been rather loud and frightening in a bone chilling way, so I could understand their apprehension. I was less apprehensive about it, only for Kuril to pull me off to the side.

“How have you been feeling around my daughter lately?” Well that was an odd question for Kuril to ask, but yes I have been feeling rather odd of late. I was certainly happy to have my cutie mark now though. “Has your body been doing anything strange around Jade?”

“Well my heart speeds up, I like her touching me, my stomach flutters and for some reason my cheeks clench a lot around her.” It’s almost like how I could understand what a pick up line was, but not the context behind why someone would say one. It’s supposed to be just a pun related joke right? “I don’t know why I’ve been feeling like this, I’m not sick am I?”

“Do you know what romantic love is my little Fizzle?” There was a certain tightness to Kuril’s words, I shook my head no.

“Not really, but I know how to kiss someone who makes you really exceedingly happy.” There was something going on here and I was missing something big, where was Kuril going with this? I really liked Jade and she really liked me, that’s all there is to it right?

“Just like Jade then… come sit down with me for a minute before we go in and eat. It appears I definitely need to lay down the law with you like I did Maries.” Kuril sat down and she patted her lap while looking to me expectantly, I laid down putting the front half of my body in her lap. She started to run her digits comfortingly through my mane. “Okay to start things off, have you ever heard about the birds and the bees?”

“I know of birds and bees.” Bees hurt and birds sometimes flew into things dumbly, what more did I really need to know?

“Now that you have a cutie mark I think you’re old enough to hear this.” Hear what exactly, what were you going to tell me Kuril? “So a bird flies straight into a bee hive and the honey gets spilled everywhere. The queen bee forces the bird to pay for the damages instilled and eventually gets them under control because she’s so beautiful. This is what eventually leads to the hummingbird mafia working for the bees…”

-Jade-

“Hey Jacky, where did mom go?” I had all the food set up at a table with Fresh’s help.

“I think she had to talk with Fizzle outside about something.” Nodding to Jacky, I moved to get everyone’s attention.

“Hello everyone, today we have special guests in the form of The Shapeshifting Siesta and Kevin the friendly changeling.” Looking at me, Kevin just gave me a lazy wave. The five more colorful changelings stood up to bow together before sitting back down. “For today’s lunch, mom went for simple. We have sushi rolls over there stacked three high and twelve by twelve to a tray, raw fish rolls are on the right and vegetable sushi rolls are on the left for those of whom meat doesn’t agree with. Note the sea turtle that randomly pops up in odd places around here, it is currently eating a vegetable sushi roll. You can try it with soy sauce and we have clearly provided the cups for holding said sauce.”

The sea turtle just looked up at me innocently with a small portion of its face covered in rice. It dunked the bit of its sushi roll into some soy sauce and just went back to nibbling at the sushi roll, we still needed a name for her.

“Next on the menu, we have a huge pot of gazpacho soup. I assure you that it’s supposed to be served cold and mom is apparently on a bit of a multicultural kick today. It goes really good with the grilled and sliced garlic bread or the crackers we’ve set out.” Lazily I moved on to the next item, one that I was going to partake quite a bit of. “For the final main meal item, we have a warm pile of linguini smothered in a delectable and decadent cheese sauce. We’ll bring out dessert after we’re done eating the main course, so save room for it. Now everyone dig in, except for you Sekhet. At the very least leave some for the rest of us you gluttonous goddess.”

“I’m not gluttonous, I’m just big!” Thus I and Sekhet entered a staring contest, it was getting much easier to stare down the alicorn sized form of the war goddess. “Fine, I’ll eat normal sized portions this time! It’s only because we have guests though.”

The changelings took up their plates and started grabbing food, I started to shovel fish sushi onto a plate, grabbed some gazpacho and a small mound of flat noodles. Alfredo was a creamy sauce I could get behind, the only thing here that filled my dairy loving passion. It was an odd mix of foods, but it wasn’t bad.

-Clypeus-

I was the lead singer and guitarist of our band, but those weren’t the only instruments I played.

I took my first bite of the gazpacho soup and froze, love… there was so much of it in that one spoonful alone. We who shared love didn’t require it nearly as much, but it still tasted good. Mayor Kuril could fill up an army of changelings full of love on one pot of this alone.

Looking over to Kevin, I watched as he slurped up a single cheese covered noodle. He didn’t get much to eat, but when he ate that one noodle his mood changed to shock and his stomach swelled slightly.

We seriously needed more changelings around that understood how to share the love, or at the very least are less cruel in their methods like Kevin who walks around and asks for love instead of pretending to be someone he’s not.

-Kevin-

Did I just find the holy grail of my race? I thought a grail would be less edible than this food. Now I know for certain that I should never inform Chrysalis of this. She’d absolutely find a way to ruin it.

So much love in a single swallow, is this food made purely out of love?

-Labium and Labrum-

“We are of a shared mind like you…” I started to say to the chimera, before my sister butted in. She even took a sushi roll from my plate and popped it into her mouth.

“We know what it’s like to share everything…” I didn’t want to be mean to my sister, but we’ve been doing this since forever. I let her take a sushi roll from my plate to make up for it.

“It can be a huge hassle.” We stated at the same time, our minds worked quite well together when it came to us the trumpet twins of The Shapeshifting Siesta.

“Yeah, it bothers us at times too.” As the goat head said this, we watched the one called Mara going to town face first in the gazpacho and after she swallowed the snake headed one let out a loud belch.

“Ugh, Mara don’t eat too fast, your making me snot!” The snake head looked like she needed some help and we decided to offer a napkin to rub her nose against. She did so and gave us a smile. “Thanks for that, when she eats too fast it causes me problems back here.”

“It’s so delicious with this fish sue-she stuff in it though.” We didn’t find a problem with the tiger head’s candor and we figured we could be friends through shared interest of being able to combine our minds.

-Big McLarge Huge-

The food is very good, wish I could tell them that.

“So… mute huh?” The suddenness of someone talking to me made me jump, it was the one known as Sekhet and she was consuming a lot of sushi rolls both fish and vegetable.

I simply nodded to her sadly.

“You’ve got some really good friends.” I smiled at her words of praise, her visage grew serious. “Take good care of them. Who knows when you’ll ever find something like what you have with them again if you lose them.”

I looked to Clypeus, he was my leader and something special to me. I would protect them as I was an unusually tough changeling who could play music just as well as the rest of the group. I showed the goddess my determination.

“Heh, that’s the spirit big guy.” She then continued eating without another word towards me.

-Tarsus-

“Do you guys have any alcohol around here?” I’m a blue changeling that look as I felt, a bit sad. At least I have my friends, even if I couldn’t be with my belle. Being a part of the band was all I had these days. I could still play good happy music, but I shined with more sorrowful sounding tones. “I want to drown my memories.”

“Not unless we have smugglers that I don’t know about, the town is clean of the stuff.” I believe she was the one called Jacky, why did I get pirate vibes from her. Maybe it’s the skull cap with the parrot skull and crossed bones on it.

“It figures.” I stated lethargically, it was just another day without her in my life. Even if the food is filled to the brim with love, all it is doing is reminding me of her. “What I wouldn’t do for some help, I can’t just sneak into Klugetown and try to ride off into the sunset with my belle.”

“Want to talk about it, I know a thing or two about bad luck.” How unlucky could this Jacky be compared to my hardships?

“Sure, why not… it all started with me buying a jar of pickles in that rat hole of a town. Though some rats are not nearly as ugly as some of the people who live there.” This is how I started weaving my sordid tale of how changelings got banned from Klugetown. “That’s an action that led me to meeting the belle of my life, the most beautiful shrew around...”

-Jade-

I had to stop eating to save room for dessert, I couldn’t miss that. It seemed like the changelings were actually enjoying the food, mom’s magical cooking did have unusual properties. Though simple stuff like this wasn’t exactly cooking, but it seemed to be having an effect all the same.

I had at least gotten mom to make sushi, so that was a win in my book even if I was the one that had to cut up the fish. Mom did chop up the vegetables for that, but the most cooking she did was for the linguini and the homemade soy sauce.

We were all enjoying the food together as friends, family and strangers, this is exactly the kind of thing I and mom wanted to build in Manehatten. A place for all walks of life, no matter how strange.

It wasn’t a minute later that a wide eyed Fizzle walked in and she took one look at me and turned straight red. This took up her entire face, neck and most of the front half of her body. She shyly looked away from me and went to get her fill of food before Sekhet would be allowed to unleash her full rampage.

We hardly ever had leftovers around here thanks to our garbage disposal unit named Sekhet.

I wondered what was up with Fizzle, she seemed very embarrassed about something. She eventually came over to me looking less red and nuzzled against me slightly.

“I'm sorry about almost suffocating you with our first kiss…” Fizzle's cheeks turned straight pink.

“It’s not a problem Fizzy.” I shrugged, I didn’t see it as a problem.

-Ten minutes later, Clypeus-

“Guys get your instruments, we're showing Mayor Kuril what we can do before they bring out dessert. Also we have a set date for our gig here!” My companions cheered gleefully, this actually might be a gig that didn’t go explosively wrong. We’re keeping it stupidly simple!

Once we got our stuff together, I pointed out to the twins to start playing and sent them a hoof signal for which music to start.

“Hello, we’re definitely glad to be here~. We’re certainly making a lot of new friends~!” I sang from my heart. “I’m glad that you invited us in without fear~. We’re The Shapeshifting Siesta of all lands~!”

“We’re certainly glad to meet you~. Even if some of you are really quite scary~!” The twins sang. “We’re quite sure this fact is true~. It’s that you’re all lovely and hairy~!”

“I don’t think I can sing~. About all that my friendships do bring~.” Sang Tarsus. “But if there’s one thing about that I’m quite sure~. It’s that we will never really get quite bored~!”

They played for a while.

Author's Note

I seek to wield my form of rampant insanity for a good cause! I can't let my imaginative side peter out!

Also the green sea turtle isn't just a sea turtle... it's a very smart sea turtle!

Apparently Kuril preparing any kind of food has a magical effect that can feed changelings.

Chapter Six, Mariachi Changelings: Snicker's great.

-One week later, Jade-

I hear a hissing noise and rolled over in bed without opening my eyes, the churros we had for dessert last week were just perfect. I spent the whole week happy.

“Marie, if that’s you, can’t whatever it is wait until morning?” After groaning that out, my response was to hear a hiss followed by a cooing noise.

My eyes opened, I almost flopped out of bed in shock at the green sea turtle being in my face.

I bit back the scream building in my throat, it was just a turtle. A turtle looking at me in an adorable and completely non-threatening manner.

“Oh, it’s you… how did you get on the bed?” The turtle just gave me a bright unassuming smile. “Look what do you want from me?”

The sea turtle hissed in a raspy manner, it seemed a bit parched.

“You’re thirsty and you want me to get you some water to swim in?” It pointed at me with a flipper and nodded, I sighed and threw the covers off of myself and opened the door. “How did you even get into my room?”

The sea turtle just smiled at me and held out its flippers to my rather tired and sleepy form. I wanted to continue sleeping, but the strange turtle needed me. I rolled my eyes and went back to pick her up, after placing her on my shoulder I started making my way down the corridor. I went right on by the rooms belonging to mom, Jacky and Fizzle.

I muttered grumpily as I went down the stairs and walked into the kitchen. The turtle on my shoulder chirruped happily that I was doing this at this time of… what time was it anyway? It was probably morning and Celestia had yet to move the sun.

I looked up at the waning moonlight shining through a window as I got a bowl out. It would be a while before the visage was off of the moon and when that happened, I would find out what Luna’s feathers do in comparison to her sisters. It was probably something to do with shadows, dreams or darkness knowing Luna.

I turned back to what I was doing, I wondered how the construction ponies installed plumbing out here so fast, probably used shortcuts with magic which explained the absolute need for unicorns.

“Would you mind if I got water from the sink?” Why was I asking this? I guess I was trying to be polite, but was it technically unnecessary in this situation.

The sea turtle shook that yes it minded, I sighed and searched around for a canteen of fresh water. I eventually poured some water into the bowl and looked at the happy turtle.

“Do you want salt with that water? I can get pretty salty since you disturbed my sleep for this.” The turtle shook its head no and pointed at the bowl. I rubbed my forehead and then slowly lowered the turtle into the water where it happily hissed as it swam small circles while taking large gulps of water.

I could honestly just go back to bed now and wake up later, but I was a little more than curious about the strange turtle. It was the weekend and I wanted to explore the surroundings around Airship Mauled with Jacky, Fizzle and maybe even Maries for added protection.

What I truly wanted was a little adventure, something more amazing and exciting. This was a world of magic and I was kind of stuck in the doldrums of having an average life. At least The Shapeshifting Siesta were amazing musicians and would be here all week even after taking care of Fizzle’s cuteceanera today.

Maybe they'd stick around. If they did then… we'd personally need an airship to get into Klugetown to help Tarsus find his beloved anthropomorphic shrew. I was tired of his whining and he had friends that could help him.

Or maybe… we could just steal an airship, but not the golden one the young Blueblood apparently owns. We needed something smaller and faster for the long journey.

A splash came from the bowl and I turned my head lazily to look at the turtle and I saw something unusual about it that I hadn’t seen before.

“What the…” The turtle swam to the edge of the bowl and smiled at me while cooing lightly. “Don’t you look at me innocently like that, just when exactly were you going to tell… er… show me those?”

The turtle waved a flipper at me in a friendly manner before waving to itself, as if this was showing me right here and now.

“Yes, yes, you’re showing them to me now. I get it, but it’s the principle of the thing!” I had assumed she was a normal sea turtle, I guess any assumptions in this world could be wildly off the mark. “What are you? If I didn’t know any better… I’d think you were a…”

-Cheerilee-

I could have lived in the inn, but I instead decided to have my sleeping quarters in The Witch’s Fare. I heard something strange going on and decided to investigate it, I groggily made my way downstairs where I saw the shadow of someone familiar in the dark.

It must be early morning, the glowing fish bones hanging from the ceiling were beginning to dim from the sunlight filtering into restaurant. Vaguely morbid décor aside, it was one of my students.

Jade was awake and she wasn’t wearing any clothing, not that it was important that she was as naked as I was.

I wondered what she was looking at. I moved forward slightly and saw it personally. Well… that certainly explains a lot about how the little sea turtle got around and popped up in strange places.

“What is going on here?” I jumped and turned to see Fresh Start the maid. I pointed over to what was going on in the dimly lit kitchen.

-Fresh Start-

It wasn’t just any sea turtle, it wasn’t even a normal one. I’ve only heard legend of a strange wondrously beautiful creature like it. I’m surprised that Cadence didn’t have one or even know what I was talking about when I asked her if she had one as a pet.

Apparently Jade had one as her pet and it was amazing that she even found it, they are very rare creatures.

I watched as Jade toy with the turtle for a bit and I smiled warmly. Where was a camera when you needed one? This was really cute to watch, to think Kuril complained that her daughter didn’t do adorable things.

Poor Mayor Kuril was missing her daughter playing with her odd pet that took residence with us.

Thinking about it... we had to do something! That turtle is probably a sacred creature and we needed to protect it from anyone who would want to harm it.

-Jade-

It was a sea turtle alright… just one that happened to come with wings. Yep, I couldn’t do normal for too long if I tried.

I got a little playful with it and the turtle kept bopping me on the nose in a cutesy manner. We did several playful things together between bouts of the turtle taking drinks of water. The green feathered wings were coming out of small flaps in the front part of the shell that raised up for them.

After it had tired of flying around the little sea turtle landed on my shoulder and it tucked its wings back into its shell. Rainbow Dash must never hear of this kind of animal before she gets a tortoise.

Now that I thought of it, I finally had a name for her and it’s based on something I liked.

“I’ve got a name for you, would you like to hear it?” I turned from the nodding turtle and was about to make for my room when I saw the two mares just staring at me. “Uh, you saw all that I take it?”

“Jade I don’t want to alarm you, but that thing is a rare creature called a…” I held up my left hand stalling Fresh before she could get started.

“I know what she is... were you about to say she’s a turtle dove?” It was quite literally a turtle with wings like that of a doves, it wasn’t that hard to figure out. Fresh Start’s reaction told me I was right about what the green sea turtle dove was.

“What’s a turtle dove?” Cheerilee asked mystified by the turtle clinging lovingly to my shoulder.

“It’s something I thought that Princess Cadence would know about considering their status as creatures of love.” Yes, Fresh Start, that’s what they were certainly known for.

If I remembered right, there was some mythology behind having one around you. Given how often mythology was used around here, I knew this bit of knowledge.

They are considered sacred creatures by goddesses of love, fertility and harvest. This adds more oomph to me being a sun priest than I would have liked, if this turtle dove was in fact what I thought it was to me.

I just ended up with a literal symbol of peace, friendship and love, which was to be expected given I was in Equestria, as a familiar. There is no other reason why it was following me around and chose me out of all the beings in the world to be friends with.

I wondered what Sekhet’s sister Bastet would have to say about the turtle dove. She was a goddess of fertility, so she’d probably know a thing or two about it. Maybe Sekhet herself knew and probably didn’t tell anyone, because she likely didn’t care since it was outside her purview.

The turtle tickled the fur on my neck and I giggled a bit, before glaring at the smiling turtle.

“Okay, you are now henceforth known as Snickers the green sea turtle dove.” I wondered why Ms. Start’s right eye was twitching so horribly.

“Are you seriously going to name a rare and sacred creature like that, of all things, Snickers?” The turtle glared at her before turning to me and nodding happily while clapping her flippers lightly together.

“She seems to like it, right Snickers?” The turtle nodded while smiling at me, before she sent a deathly glare towards Fresh. Wow, the turtle didn’t like Fresh for some reason. “I don’t think Snickers likes you putting her on a pedestal like that.”

“But… she’s a turtle dove Jade, do you know how rare her species is or what they are even capable of?” There goes Fresh’s hooves clasping her head, she's panicking slightly. “She needs to be in an aquarium and protected from those who’d want to hurt her!”

“Vaguely, in a sense yes, I think I do know what she can do.” My little turtle with the hidden wings could simply just be a smart animal or she could be some kind of magical creature that does something amazing. I didn’t care which it was. Snickers was a cool turtle with wings, she didn’t seem to care about being seen as anything special and I could get behind that. If she wanted to be treated like I normally treated her, then I would. “Do you want me to treat you any differently from the way I already have as a sacred, noble creature Snickers?”

Snickers shook her head no, I shrugged at Fresh Start.

“There you have it, she gets no special treatment just because she's a strange and rare creature that can disguise herself as a normal sea turtle. I’ll just continue treating her like I always have, as background noise. Though I may ask her to do a few favors for me from time to time, you okay with that Snickers?” The turtle chirruped and hissed happily from my shoulder as she rubbed her head against my neck. “Well, since I’m up already and given going back to sleep is not an option at this point... I guess I better get started on breakfast!”

“Really, you’re going to cook? I haven’t seen you cook before and…. wait a minute, I’ve still got to tell you about turtle doves and why you should take great care with one!” Look Fresh, I'm already here and I know how to cook given my mother runs a restaurant. You would think that I might have learned a thing or two, after all these years of being raised by mom. Snickers launched from my shoulder and dropped onto Fresh’s nose glaring at her in an angry manner. “I could just pretend that you’re not a turtle dove and not bother Jade?”

Snickers nodded seriously and flew over to me, all while cooing at me affectionately.

“You want to help Snickers, sure thing! Hey Cheerilee, you want to join us?” The teacher just looked between me and Fresh, she just shrugged and came over to me. “Grab some eggs, flour, salt, baking powder, sugar and whatever fruit you can find. I’m making omelets and waffles for breakfast. It’s about time mom took a break from cooking every day for all of the hungry mouths around here! Want to help mix the batter Fresh?”

“No, you just go on.” Fresh Start seemed very upset that Snickers didn’t like her.

“Come on Snickers, show her a little love. She’s not about to take you away from me and put you in an aquarium. I won’t let that happen and even if it eventually does end up happening, then I’ll just pull a ridiculously explosive jailbreak for you regardless of what anyone else wants.” The turtle hovered in front of me and seemed to mull it over, she then flew over to Fresh and begrudgingly rubbed up against her in a friendly manner.

“Thank you Jade, but I really don’t think Snickers likes me very much.” Okay I could see Fresh was somewhat sorry, but not completely.

“Look, if Snickers wanted protection and a safe life, then she could have stayed in the sea and well away from me.” After I said that, Snickers thrusted her right flipper in the air and agreed with me by making her own adorable noises to that effect. “Also don’t be a grump, find the waffle mallet and a spatula would you?”

“Fine, but I will need to bring this to Celestia’s attention when she eventually comes around.” She started searching for the waffling mallet that I wanted. In the meantime Cheerilee brought the ingredients for the waffles and omelets over to me.

“You go ahead and do just that Fresh, we’ll see what happens then.” The turtle hissed in agreement with me before hugging my shoulder protectively. “I don’t think Celestia would ever take a pet from their owner.”

Waffle mallets, for the fun kind of percussive breakfast options.

-Fizzle-

Something smelled good and delicious. I numbly walked into the restaurant portion of The Witch’s Fare while looking around for that wonderful scent.

“Sit down Fizzle, I’m covering breakfast today." It sounded like Jade was busy in the kitchen. "I’ll be with you in a minute, what do you want on your omelet?”

“Salt, pepper, onions and a small amount of bell pepper.” I just heard a grunt of confirmation as a clanging noise sounded from the kitchen. My cuteceanera today was going to be good, I can just feel it.

Minutes later, Jade walks out of the kitchen without clothes and my mind goes completely blank.

Chapter Six, Mariachi Changelings: Serendipitous Ding!

-Jade-

“Hello… Fizzle? Are you there?” At my words the pony blinked and continued to stare at me. Is it because I wasn’t wearing any clothes? She certainly didn’t act like this around Cheerilee or even Sekhet who wore very little. Tartarus, even The Shapeshifting Siesta were all nude and not a single reaction like this one. “Well here’s breakfast, eat up before it gets cold and get ready for your celebration. Our friends should be coming soon to help set up the party.”

The turtle on my shoulder made an exceptionally happy sounding noise when looking between me and Fizzle. Snickers was pointing at Fizzle and me while smiling brightly, I ignored Snickers and walked away to go quickly put some clothes on.

If Fizzle was going to act like me being nude was weird by being weird herself about it when she was mostly nude all the time, then I was going to let her quietly reboot her brain on her own time. I will admit that her entire body turning red was cute.

Lots of people went nude around here in Equstria, ponies practically form the biggest nudist colony in the world next to the zebras, griffons, sea ponies and hippogriffs. Technically Abyssinian’s were a clothes wearing race, but we didn’t really have a taboo on nudity or a lack of pants like minotaurs did.

-Fizzle-

Where was I just now? Oh food!

Hmm… this wasn’t made by Kuril, was it cooked by Jade? The omelet tastes good and… are those waffles with various bits of fruit? Then there are the bottles that were dropped off with breakfast, maple syrup and…

I just stared at the bottle of honey blankly for the next ten seconds while my mind rewound to something Jade said less than a minute prior while I was… staring.

Now I’m completely embarrassed about it and I don’t know why, I always see Sekhet and Cheerilee naked every day. Fresh Start is naked sometimes, but only to wash her maid uniform.

-Jacky-

I actually woke up on the right side of the bed today, I didn’t see what the joke was in that.

I got up, while straightening out my long black head feathers with my talons. Eventually I cleaned my teeth, polished my beak, braided my head feathers, checked my black and white plumage, straightened out and brushed my tail feathers and stepped out the door to come face to face with Jade leaving her room.

“Can’t talk, still making breakfast.” She was already on her way down the stairs. “Wake mom would you?”

“Aye, aye, Captain La Perm!” I opened the door to Kuril’s room and saw her curled up on her bed like any real cat would be when it came to sleeping. My Captain and her mother were adorable, but they were no less fierce for their friendly appearances. “Oy, Chief Cook, Jade says to get up! She’s got breakfast handled today.”

Lazily Kuril’s ears flicked and she got up on all four limbs and arched her back. It made a pop or two before she got off the bed. She eventually opened her eyes while going to get her robe and hat.

“Jade’s good at breakfast, but she doesn’t have my magical cooking ability.” Kuril lazily threw on her robes and her pirate witch hat before exiting the room in a sleepy daze. I followed to make sure she didn’t get hurt going down the stairs in this state. “I better go make some sandwiches for the changelings then.”

Fortunately she didn’t fall down the stairs, unfortunately I did and I passed by her slightly amused expression as I did.

“You okay there Jacky?” She said while smiling at me as she got to the bottom of the stairs.

“A bit bruised, but I’m fine Chief Cook Kuril.” I sat up and she patted me on the head before continuing on into the restaurant area to sit down next to Fizzle. She was a nice lady and she’s my captain’s mother, the captain of my captain even.

-Kuril-

“Morning Fizzle… waffles and omelets this time?” I received a very shy nod from Fizzle as she tentatively poured some honey onto a bit of fruit filled waffled before eating a bit. “It’s a good thing Sekhet keeps us supplied or else we would be having more problems.”

Like the fact that we lack an income, of which I’m surprised Celestia hasn’t thought about. We weren’t self-sufficient without Sekhet yet and we currently needed the goddess around to survive.

I wondered what was up with Fizzle, she seemed distracted. I was about to ask if she was feeling okay as she ate, but I was soon distracted myself by the clanging noise of Jade using the waffle mallet in the kitchen.

My tom cat shouldn’t swing it so hard, she might damage the mallet. Note to self: Test waffle mallet for sustain effect.

-Several hours later, Clypeus-

It’s been three months and Tarsus is still crying himself to sleep at night, though we can’t blame him for liking pickles or buying that jar. Heck, we don’t even blame him for loving that girl, we even wanted to help him and we really couldn’t do much.

“Thank you all for coming to the Fizzle’s cuteceanera! We, The Shapeshifting Siesta, will be playing while you get to enjoy the party.” I informed everyone who came to this party for the poor unicorn pony with the broken horn, she was still able to smile at least. Unlike Tarsus who was completely down in the dumps, which surprisingly didn’t affect his playing one bit. “We’ll enjoy ourselves after we’re done, so leave some of whatever Kuril made for us to snack on.”

We started a few warm up songs before we decided to go with the interesting show stopper. The song started with two grunts and me strumming my guitar slightly, repeat and then the song starts for real. Tarsus helping me sing it, one upbeat sad sack song coming right up!

We’d switch out instruments as needed, but Mr. Huge would be on the drums. Not everything we did was mariachi based and ponies weren’t the only ones who can start heart songs. Plus playing instruments make a song from the heart that much stronger.

“We’re going to, we’re going to go, and we’ll do something imbecilic~.” I started with Tarsus singing backup with me. “We’re going to go~!”

“We’re going to, we’re going to go, as we can’t do things that are tame~!” Tarsus sang out with me backing him, before one of the twins went solo with a trombone. Much to the surprise of the audience.

“We know, it’s my fault, that I’m missing my belle friend~.” Tarsus intoned alone sadly. “And you think, I’m alright, but I’m not man~.”

“Maybe, it’s too soon~. Though we don’t think it’s too late… but how can, we reverse Tarsus’s fate~?” The twins alternated singing with me using Tarsus’s voice while blasting their trumpets.

“You know it’s just not right~?” I felt badly for Tarsus and I thought a slightly upbeat depressing song would make him feel better.

“You met your girl man~.” The green Labrum sang.

“I fell in love that night~!” He was singing from the heart, the poor guy.

“She was a shrew and…~” The yellow Labium followed up.

“I just wanted to be with her, but then those thugs started coming in~.” Despite him keeping the tone of the song he was tearing up. “She was the one~, you guys!”

“So we’re going to, we’re going to go, and we’ll do something imbecilic~.” I leaned up against Tarsus while singing this. “We’re going to go~!”

“We’re going to, we’re going to go, and we’ll do some very violent things~!” I wish we could, but singing about it seemed to be helping. We were really bad at combat and we weren’t warrior changelings, we became musicians because it was what we were good at collectively.

A bit of music playing to keep the tune with my guitar, while the trumpet twins did their magic.

“Maybe I’m losing sight~.” Tarsus muttered loudly.

“She is your girl man~!” Sang Labium.

“You know we cannot fight~.” Tarsus wasn’t wrong, we couldn’t bring the same muscle those pigs could.

“Show some backbone and…~” Now it was Labrum following up.

“You know we’ll get slaughtered, before could get too far~. But I’m starting to wonder if~…” Tarsus continued to sing a bit dully, before his mood swiftly turned around. “If we can really do it~, you guys?”

We started to play an encore of the beginning of this song, but Tarsus seemed a little bit cheerier. The audience was cheering us on and the rhythm was good. Tarsus wasn’t going to stop lamenting until he faced his problems.

“Well I certainly know, that going back will definitely be certain death and it’ll be where I’ll meet my end~!” Tarsus seemed a bit braver. Pony land heart songs, you just got to love them even if they allowed you to sing dourly. “But I know, that I know, I don’t care if I can see my belle again~!”

“See her again~.” The twins intoned.

The music continued for a bit.

“Knowing if I fight~.” Tarsus sang serenely.

“You can do it man~!” The twins sang together.

“Even with all my might~.” Tarsus was probably the scrawniest changeling I’ve ever seen.

“We’ll make a plan and~…” The twins continued.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt for my sake, because all of you are my friends~.” Tarsus rubbed his eyes. “You guys are all my best friends~… so we’ll make them see what we’ve got, haha~!”

The rest of us idiots were smiling in Tarsus’s direction, even Kevin looked to be smiling slightly and we played one last round of the song.

“We’re going to, we’re going to go, and we’ll do something absolutely stupid~!” The four of us sang while Mr. Huge smiled towards the back of Tarsus’s head. “We’re going to go~!”

“I got to, I got to go, and find my lovely cupid~!” Among the band hovering above Tarsus’s head and flying small circles was a happy looking Snickers.

“We’re going to, we’re going to go, and get into something stupid~!” The four of us sang together. “We have to go~!”

“For us, we all kno-o-o-w, that it’s our fate~!” The band ceased playing and bowed at the stomping hooves and clapping appendages.

-A minute later-

“Were we singing that ironically or…” Tarsus started before I shoved my hoof in his mouth.

“Even if we die, at least we know we did it helping you.” I stated calmly, before I started shouting. “Most changelings don’t do that often enough for one another!”

“We can help you survive it.” We all turned to the one called Jade with her arms crossed and her tail flicking back and forth agitatedly. “We’re going to need an airship though.”

“Where would we find one around here, It’s not like one will just fall out of the sky here!” That was a little dramatic Tarsus, but… why is everyone suddenly scrambling to get away from the local goddess?

“Oh lovely queens, every changeling scramble!” I quickly yelled, we grabbed all our instruments.

The goddess just looked over her shoulder at the incoming shadow.

-Sekhet-

“I’m not moving from this spot, I’m just going to take it like the goddess of war I am.” I stated loudly just before the airship crushed the back half of my body. I unleashed an agonized yowl from my throat.

-Jade-

I offered to help because I wanted to see Tarsus fight for his love, but I also wanted to see Klugetown and learn a bit about the culture.

Wondering why this airship was crashing, I watched as it dug a furrow in the ground using Sekhet’s body as a plow. It was going more horizontal than down and that looked exceedingly painful for Sekhet. From what I could see the balloon was losing lots of air.

Hey, we have farm lands now! Good thing we held our cuteceanera away from the other buildings.

I calmly followed the trail of destruction until I saw the front half of Sekhet sticking out from under the airship and she looked quite moody.

“So… riddling whoever did this?" I received a flat stare from Sekhet as she spat out a mound of dirt and nodded, she was quite angry. "Because I and mom had absolutely nothing to do with this one and you know it!”

“See I managed to land it safely and nobody around here got hurt!” That scratchy voice sounded similar to Rainbow Dash’s, only older. It couldn’t be anyone else other than…

A pith helmet wearing pony with rose colored eyes poked her head over the side of the ship to look down at Sekhet’s visage glaring back up at her. Her monochrome colored mane told me immediately who this was.

“Are you okay Ms. Sphinx?” Fluttershy came over with Pinkie hopping along behind her, Rainbow didn’t get an invite and was doing other things with a griffon anyway.

"Just PEACHY." Was Sekhet's succinct reply.

“Correction, I just landed on a Sphinx and made her absolutely angry with me.” Well don’t look so sheepish about it, you managed to land the airship intact without breaking the keel on Sekhet’s spine. That takes some real talent I’ll have you know.

“Eh, it’s a common occurrence around here in Airship Mauled.” It was becoming one anyway, only this time the airship looked like it could take off again. The balloon losing air needed to be patched up a lot though. “Our goddess is practically airship magnet at this point.”

“Yes, make fun of my current misfortune why don’t you?” Sekhet started to dig her paws into the dirt, she was getting really good at digging herself out from under airships.

“Excuse me, but you owe our favorite local goddess an apology and to be asked at least one scathingly hard riddle.” The pony dropped down to meet us all on the ground and walked up to me with a curious gaze.

“Yeah… there’s no escaping an angry Sphinx until you let them give you a riddle. I know, I’ve tried. Can I just start of by saying that I’m completely sorry and that it was an accident?” The mare that had yet to introduce herself asked of Sekhet who finished pulling her body out from under the ship.

“You can, but you’re going to get two riddles, tough ones. If you can’t answer either of them, then we’ll take the airship.” I give Sekhet a look and she smiled at me, she was making the most of this situation it seems.

“Ugh... the Equestrian Artifact Association and Celestia are going to kill me if I get either one wrong.” Did we really need to ask if she borrowed the airship without permission?

“They won’t, there are worse things than death A.K. Yearling.” I whispered to her, she goggled at me.

“You know who…” The mares started.

“Yes, you’re Daring Do. Your accident is actually kind of helpful for us, we kind of need an airship that can still fly right now.” Please pick up on our need for this airship Daring, I silently beg of you. “Celestia hasn’t mentioned me yet has she?”

“No and since I hate winging it, I’ll take those riddles." Daring seemed to be as boisterous and proud as I thought she’d be. "I'm on my merry way to Mare-Akech afterwards.”

Author's Note

Sekhet's Airship Mauled counter: *ding* 3.

I'm not going to make musical chapters a thing too often, they take a while to make.

Chapter Seven, Shrew-d Operators: Vacation plans.

-Sekhet-

“Quick question, what if I get one right and one wrong?” This Daring asked looking at me with suspicion.

“Good question, you’ll have to at least get my friends a ride to where they need to be if you get only one right.” I received a surprised stare from Priest Jade, mostly because I admitted that we were friends. “Yes, we are friends. Don’t take advantage of it.”

“Fine throw your first one at me, I’m ready for it sphinx.” You are so certain of yourself, I might just prove you wrong.

“Hey, wait a minute, I’m the captain of this vessel.” The griffon that said this dropped down next to Daring. “I should answer one of the riddles!”

“Will you let him answer one?” I just might get one by them.

“If he gets it wrong, then that’s on him.” That means Daring accepted only having to be responsible for one question.

“Once one of you answers, only the other may answer the next. Now for my first riddle.” I was a creature of riddles and I had quite a good one. “I can bring tears to your eyes. I resurrect the dead, Make you smile and reverse time. I form in an instant, but I last a lifetime. What am I?”

“Do you want to answer it Captain Grit?” Daring asked of the griffon. “I got nothing.”

“I know the answer to this one… it’s a memory.” The griffon got it right, now I turned to the one called Daring.

“He’s right. Now for the riddle you and you alone have to answer.” I had a devious one for her and I wondered she would get this one. “What is at the beginning of the end, the start of eternity, at the end of time and space, was in the middle of yesterday, but is nowhere in tomorrow?”

“Wow, that’s… that is a rather tough one.” Daring sat down to think. “Is there even an answer for this one?”

“If you know anything, then you know that I can’t ask a riddle that is completely impossible to answer.” There were even some dangerous emergency riddles for some people who really deserved it, I’ve never had to speak one of those. The answers were open invitations for a sphinx to attack if the person got the riddle right.

The real answer to one of those riddles, was to know that they were trick questions and to call the Sphinx out on them.

“Fine, is the answer a moment?” I thank you Daring Do, there goes my losing streak.

“You… are wrong.” I turned to Jade and addressed her with a toothy smile. “Okay Priest Jade, plan for your trip to help the love hungry bug with the grating depression problem.”

“So do we just drop them off? We can do that easily enough.” Yes, the penalty would be significantly easier on you griffon. I should have asked for more.

I wondered how they were going to get back from their trip. They were quite resourceful and I’m sure they’ll figure it out. I really didn’t want to be without Kuril’s cooking for too long after all.

-Jade-

“First we’re going to need a lot of water, we’re heading for a rather arid place.” I turned away from Sekhet and headed towards The Witch’s Fare to begin preparing. “We need someone here to look after our home and Sekhet, we’re also going to need some cloaks and to gather the magical alchemy ingredients.”

“So who’s going with us?” Jacky looked quite determined to go with me.

“I am for one, you are not going to Klugetown without my supervision my little tom cat.” It appears mom will be joining the trip.

“Then that means Fresh Start has to stay, we need someone around here that can cook. Cheerilee doesn’t need to go and I assume you’re staying here Sekhet.” I looked back at the goddess who nodded, following along beside her were Fluttershy and Pinkie.

“What’s Klugetown like?” You’ll eventually end up there if history somehow repeats itself Pinkie.

“It's a pretty bad place where everything has a price, you don’t want to go there unless you have an absolutely good reason to.” My mom knew about the place given it was to the southwest of Abyssinia. While the people of Abyssinia did trade with the people that lived there, they weren’t exactly big fans of what went on in the town.

“Yeah, but it won’t be a problem for us to get in and out in less than a week.” I received a hoof to my chest.

“I’m going with you to make sure you don’t get hurt.” It seems Fizzle was definitely on board with us.

“You already know I’m coming Captain, you can’t go on an adventure without me!” Jacky threw me a smile and a chipper salute.

“Do you want to come Maries?” If all my friends were coming, then it would definitely become a thing.

“No, we will stay here with the alpha of alphas and train to get stronger, we will consider traveling with you next time… friend.” Maries was still trying to find her place in our humble spot in the world, she quickly came up to me and I was slapped in the face by two different tongues at the same time. At least Marie held back and just nuzzled me a bit. “We will also protect the den.”

“Okay, so that’s mom, Fizzle, Jacky and me that are going on a dangerous adventure. Well let’s go get prepare for it, come on!” I clapped my hands together and stopped to look at the remains of Fizzle’s cuteceanera. “After we’re done cleaning things up.”

“Hey, leave that to me and Fluttershy!” Pinkie wrapped a hoof around Fluttershy, the poor older filly tried to break free from her grasp. “We’ll clean things up here, you go get ready for your adventure and bring back a neat story like you did with Jacky and the pirates!”

“Fizzy, grab what we might need to take aside from water and cloaks, I’m talking things like alchemy ingredients or clothes. Jacky, help them fix the balloon.” Fizzle nodded and was immediately off, Jacky turned around and went for the airship. I finally turned to the six Changelings still with me. “Tarsus has to come, but will the rest of you be staying here?”

“We’re family, of course we’re going!” Despite Clypeus’s strong answer, Kevin took a step away from the group. “Tarsus is not facing this alone.”

“I choose to go my own way, I may visit again some time for more love filled food. I wish you luck.” With that Kevin, the friendliest love taking changeling next to a guy named Thorax, started to leave. It made the other changelings slightly upset. “It is logical that you will come back alive, please don’t prove me wrong. I would be… upset.”

I guess that was his way of saying that while he cared, he wasn’t willing to go that much farther with them. This would explain why he wasn’t already a colorful changeling yet like the other five. He wasn’t willing to be a true friend yet or even share his earned love.

-Fizzle-

Let’s see here, I have the cloak I got from Jade. We need to get three more, unless some of Kuril's robes come with hoods. Starting simple we’ll take the packs with some clothes, Jade will want to take her knife of course.

I was thinking we take ten griffon feathers, eight phoenix feathers and two raven feathers. We really didn’t have much here aside from food and each other. It was a nice and quaint way of living.

I’m sure Kuril and Jade can make up the lack of helpful ingredients by picking up stuff nobody else wants. Why do I suddenly feel like the two most important people in my life are kleptomaniacs?

The feathers will be split evenly between Jade and Kuril, I’ll take Jacky’s sword and practice my imbuing on the way to this Klugetown and Jacky will need something to protect herself with. Kuril and Jade both almost constantly wore their fish scale necklaces, except this morning when Jade was…

Right, where was I and were my cheeks clenching again? I can’t really look at honey, much less eat flowers, without thinking about it thanks to Kuril. Knowing Kuril and Jade could take care of themselves, I worried more about Jacky’s luck popping up and causing problems for her. So we'd be looking for something she can use on arrival.

I was going to actively take part in this adventure and I wasn’t going to let Jade get injured. This whole thing was all for a shaky cause, because who knows what Tarsus’s queen bee was getting up to at this point and if she even still cared for the changeling.

I'll pack a jar of pickles anyway.

-Jacky-

I was going to work on the ship, patching the balloon wouldn’t take too long and we could get going by this late evening.

“Thank you for saving my ship, I don’t expect you to pay extra and I will still get you into Mare-Akesh. That is, if you still want that. What you do from here is up to you.” Mr. Grit was talking to Daring Do and I listened in while carefully patching the balloon. “Like what they do when we drop them off will be entirely up to them. We only have to get them there, nobody said that we have to bring them back.”

“Still, can’t we stick around for a while to find out what they are getting into?” It sounded like Daring might actually want to help us in our endeavors, it was either that or she was curious as to why we were going there. “I’m sure I can find some artifacts in this Klugetown place.”

“That may be true, but there are criminals and scum all over that town. If you get caught, don’t expect me to come rescue you from being auctioned off to the highest bidder.” Grit didn’t seem like he wanted to stick around and wait for Daring if she decided to follow us into town. “You either get dropped off at Mare-Akesh or you stay in Klugetown, choose one as we’re not sticking around for you to go search the black market there for stuff. I’m not about to endanger my crew again so soon, even if I am part of the EAA.”

“I’ll… think on it.” Daring turned away spreading her wings and shot off towards The Witch’s Fare as Mr. Grit came over to me.

“You seem to know you’re way around patching a balloon.” Giving the adult griffon a smile, I answered him in a friendly manner.

“I was raised by pirates for most of my life, so I know a thing or two about sailing in the air or sea.” Adventure was in my blood and my Captain was going on one. I was quite excited to be going as well, since this would be really fun. “I just haven’t gone far from home, until I came to live here in Airship Mauled.”

“Why not?” Grit gave me a concerned look. “Also, I would have expected a grimmer looking parrot from someone who was raised by pirates.”

“The reason why I haven’t gone far is because I was trapped there for a while. I simply prefer to be a more romanticized version of pirate, that being those who are free to go where they will. I’m not a bad person at all despite the way I was raised on Turtle Toga.” Continuing to stitch up holes in the balloon, I chirped cheerily at finishing another patch. I knew there was one thing tying me down and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I might eventually wander to look for some handsome male companionship, but I’ll always come back to my Captain’s side. “I’m not entirely free though, I’m tied to my Captain who got me out into the world. So don’t go expecting me to call you anything other than Mr. Grit.”

“So you’re a loyalty almost beyond all reason kind of girl eh?” Mr. Grit chuckled at me. “You do realize that Turtle Toga is a myth and completely unplottable?”

“Yes and I don’t really need to go back to my place of birth for any reason, but anyone who’s been there at least once can eventually find it again.” I didn’t care if he knew this information, it wasn’t like he could use it. “It’s just quite difficult to do, even if you have been there.”

“Huh… I should probably tell EAA that.” You know, one would think Mr. Grit would have been a little less friendly for a griffon. He must be a more sociable from spending so much time in the presence of ponies. “They've been looking into it for a while now, are you certain it exists?”

“I’m breathing proof and my Captain will back me on that, because here she comes now.” I waved over the side at Jade and she looked up at me, she and Fizzle were carrying a large barrel of water for the trip. “Hey, Captain! Does Turtle Toga exist?”

“Of course it does, but we don’t have a reason to go back yet. Can somebody help us haul this heavy barrel of water up?” Since I was free for the moment, I went to grab some rope to help Captain La Perm out.

-Jade-

“You’re a captain?” The griffon asked looking a little confused.

“No, she just calls me that since I’m the one that got her off of Turtle Toga.” I and Fizzle waited for Jacky to do whatever it was she was going to. “I’m a rogue and sun priest, which together makes me a rogue sun priest.”

“A sun priest?! Does Celestia know you’re here?” Giving Grit a lazy stare, I just rolled my eyes.

“She knows I’m here, I’ve been here for quite a while at least.” For once, I decided to ask about the subject. “Is there anything important I should know about being a sun priest?”

“Only that you should have a moon priest for your protection.” What he said was news to me, I had no such protection detail. “I’m guessing there’s a thestral somewhere around here?”

“Nope.” Popping the P as I said that, I just gave him a lazy look as Jacky dropped some rope for us to tie around the barrel.

“What is Celestia thinking!? Do you know how many beings out there would want to get their hands, claws, hooves, talons or even tentacles on you?” The griffon was staring at me with worry, I just gave him a shrug. “Of course you don’t, there’s also those who would just outright kill you! How have you lived for this long?”

“I’m thinking it’s the obscurity of living here, that no one has said much about my status as a sun priest and I’m also friends with a war goddess. I’m clearly still being called a priest by said goddess, so it must mean something at least.” Though there wasn’t exactly much happening just because I’m a sun priest and it hasn’t been a real issue yet. “We’re not exactly on any maps and I don’t think Celestia has loose lips about when I visited her in Canterlot.”

“You went to Canterlot… and you're still alive…" Grit slapped his talons against his forehead. "Why am I not surprised?!”

Author's Note

Magical Alchemy list.

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater. Can be used to water proof objects.

Sustain: Water Projection (Continuous offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Sustain 2: Blood Projection (Dangerous offensive ability). Capable of performing a powerful projection, but only from open wounds. As one would imagine blood projection is exceedingly painful, taxing on the body and ultimately dangerous to the user. The intimidation factor might be worth the agony in the right situations, but it will always be a detriment to one’s health.
Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random (One time air terrain survival buff, possible offensive spell). Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain: Projecting thoughts. Not able to receive thoughts, but you can project them to others.

Self-sustaining: none.

Sunlight.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness. Strengthens all mobility based buffs.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight. Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability. The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining. Does not protect the user from gravitational or high speed stress and lack of oxygen at high altitudes like a pegasus would be by their magic.

Sustain: Redirect sunlight (Defensive support buff). Is only useful during the day and allows for blinding opponents or aggressors with light.

Self-sustaining: Minor protection from darkness (Automatic defensive buff while feather is on person). Needs to be charged with sunlight and to have been used as a magical alchemy sustain at least once to work.

Phoenix Feather.

Cast: Cleansing Flames (Support healing spell). Finds and stops negative foreign bodily ailment or ailments that are magical or mundane, does not heal damage. Can possibly stop positive ailments.

Sustain: Protection from the cold (Continuous defensive buff). Immunity to cold, increased defensive ability against ice and relative elemental based magic.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Jade’s Cloak.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: ???. (Effect seems to do nothing, need more information.)

Self-Sustain: Makes sneaking easier (Moderate stealth buff).

Cupcake (Banned by Kuril).

Cast: You don’t want to know.

Sustain: Likely none.

Self-Sustain: Delicious.

Frog Mucus (Banned by Kuril).
Cast: Magical wide area sticky substance bomb (Hard to get out of clothing).
Sustain: ???.
Self-sustain: ???.

Griffon Feather.

Cast: Feather Falling (Limited air terrain support buff). Lowers gravity’s effect on an individual for a minute.

Sustain: Double Jump (Continuous Mobility buff). Can jump off the air one extra time after leaving a solid surface and only one time.

Self-sustain: None.

Fish Oil.

Cast: Ignition (Multipurpose offensive and support spell). Ignites itself and anything around it except the user.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Candle Wax.

Cast: Stiffness. Slow down a target, can have a wide area of effect for reduced effectiveness.

Sustain: Heat resistance (Limited continuous defensive buff). Does not stop heat damage entirely and candle takes heat damage in place of the user.

Self-Sustain: None.

Pepper.

Cast: Sneezing cloud (Limited continuous Defensive spell). Wide range spell that doesn’t affect the user, causes continuous sneezing on contact and doesn’t necessarily need to be breathed in to take effect.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Tricorne.

Cast: Charisma boost (Limited status buff). Gives one the ability to walk around with confidence.

Side-effect: May instill need for showboating in user.

Sustain: ???.

Self-Sustain: ???.

Wood.

Cast: Bark skin (Temporary defensive buff). Make skin and fur tough like tree bark, like most casts can become permanent with multiple consecutive uses. Increases durability of objects when targeted. Causes mildly uncomfortable chafing on a living target.

Sustain: Hair growth in sunlight (Limited utility effect). Only works in direct sunlight.

Self-sustain: Magically enhanced building material.

Combination 1: Candle Wax + Oil (any) + Pepper = Chaos Candle. Candle hollowed out and filled with the other two ingredients mixed together equals devastating results.

Cast: Sneezing flash bomb (Offensive one use spell). Blinding, sinus wrecking and volatile magical cast.

Sustain Cast: Weak jet propulsion device (Limited air terrain support buff), Flamethrower (Limited offensive spell). Doing this will slowly destroy the candle and chemicals used in it. Exhaust fumes has a lesser effect of casting with pepper.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 2: Feather + stick + arrowhead (material any) = Arrow. Arrow + poison = special status ailment added to casting effect based on poison used. Pukwudgie Poison (Paralysis for a few hours).

Cast: Arcing Arrow Beam (Offensive spell). Fires a beam that is effected by gravity as if it were an arrow, it can only damage one target and that’s the first thing it touches. If it grazes a wall and then hits you, it will do nothing to you.

Sustain Cast: Spray of multiple weaker beam shots.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Chapter Seven, Shrew-d Operators: Scouting plans.

-???-

A figure in a cloak was up on the shaft leading to some windmill blades and another cloaked figure looked up at them from below.

The second figure watched as the first figure was doing something to the shaft the windmill blades were attached to.

“What are you doing Jade?” The cloaked figure turned to the cloaked pony.

-Jade-

We had arrived in Klugetown safely enough. Mom and Jacky were out scouting a portion of the town and so were we. Fizzle didn’t like this place and I don’t blame her, I didn’t like it either.

“If I’m right, then it’ll be something you’ll look back on years from now and you’ll remember me doing this.” I snickered at Fizzle as I checked the base of the windmill blades themselves and smile. “You, are going to be so mad at me for this later.”

“Why would I ever be mad at you Jade?” She gave me a worried look.

“You’ll only be mad, if it actually happens.” I received a confused look, which I just returned with what I hoped was a heartwarming smile at her. “Just remember me if you do come back here and it does in fact happen.”

“What will happen?” Fizzle asked of me looking a little on edge.

“Eh, you’ll know it when you see it Fizzy. It’s not important, or even anything to worry about right now.” Yep, nothing important to worry about at all, just something that might be of interest in the far flung future.

-Tempest Shadow, approximately seven years from now. The future that refused to change.-

“Get her, now!” I felt my eyes light up and my horn sparked, there was something very familiar about this place.

“You going to be scared now ponies!” Grubber the little rotund sugar swallowing hedgehog said from beside me. He was annoying, but despite that I think we’d always be friends. He was quirky like that and he wasn’t even remotely evil in any given way. In fact, he was highly incompetent and I sorely needed that.

Wait, was one of my storm creatures grabbing… windmill blades?! I… I couldn’t say anything about it. I just… I had to keep going. I couldn’t lose composure here.

“Grubber watch the cat for a minute, don’t let him out of your sight.” I went outside and headed towards the nearby rock wall. “I have something important to do.”

I looked over my shoulder to make sure nobody was watching. They were all likely distracted by the windmill blades carrying the six ponies and little dragon away, entirely across town and completely out of our grasps to the docks.

We’d never catch up to them, to think that two of those ponies were my friends. I hoped they were okay.

I slammed my hoof into the rock wall, I even cracked it a bit. Closing my eyes, I clearly felt my tears spilling from them. I… I wasn’t angry… with you… never… actually, I was laughing. Why was I laughing this hard about the Princess of Friendship getting away? Why was this so funny to me? I had to calm down, I… I couldn’t be seen acting hysterical like this.

“It seems you were wrong about this… I didn’t get mad.” Having regained some composure, I had to deal with that blue haired Abyssinian. He wouldn’t tell me the truth about where they were going, I just know it. Still, I was going to ask him anyway and possibly be purposefully led astray.

Darn it Jade, you knew this would happen you… you lovable, beautiful, fluffy, math challenged idiot!

I missed you dearly, I know everyone else does too... so where are you?!

-Fluttershy-

I pulled Pinkie over to the corner of the storage space and looked to her worriedly.

“Pinkie, why do you think Fizzle is really doing all this?” I whispered trying not to be too loud.

“That’s not Fizzle, silly. That mean pony is Tempest Shadow.” She whispered back to me. “They are completely different ponies Fluttershy, shame on you for thinking otherwise.”

Either you were in complete denial Pinkie, or you knew something that I didn’t. Rainbow doesn’t recognize her either. Then again, I don’t think Rainbow has ever actually seen Fizzle’s broken horn before.

It has been a few years since I became the element of kindness, I haven’t exactly visited Airship Mauled in all this time or have really talked to all my other friends there.

Did I and Pinkie… did we forget them? Some friends we are.

-Approximately seven years prior in Klugetown, Fizzle-

Jade just dropped down in front of me and I gave her a sardonic look. I’m going to remember this location why? It’s not like I was ever going to have any reason to come back here to this place.

“Jade, aren’t we supposed to be asking around about Merriami Sorex?” It seemed to me like Jade was putting things off to play tourist. That was the name of the shrew we came here to find on Tarsus’s behalf after all and Jade was goofing off and doing strange things at this pointless windmill. “All we’re doing is goofing off. I don’t mind that we’re spending time together, but aren’t we supposed to be helping someone here?”

“No need to rush things, that’d just be drawing attention to ourselves my dear Fizzy. Besides, I’m smarter than that and we haven’t been goofing off.” She looked at me with a smirk on her face. “We ask questions about Ami directly and you can bet we’ll be in trouble before the day is out, especially with whoever has her. We don’t want people to start following us around or back to our camp to be ambushed. You’re the one that thought to grab a large tent from Ponyville before we left, that was a good call. Now use that wonderful brain of yours here Fizzy.”

“Then why have we been just walking all over the town aimlessly to look at things?” This place was in the middle of an inhospitable desert and was swarming with the most horrible people I think I’ve ever had the misfortune to see.

“It hasn’t been aimless. Unlike you, I’ve actually been listening to the conversations going on around here to get a scope of the land and the people in it.” Wait, was that why Jade stopped at that horn shop and stared at those horns for a while? I shivered in disgust. If it had been for a good reason, then I was willing to swallow my bile and hear Jade out. “Apparently the current local crime boss is apparently a big pig called Gonnan. This is someone I can’t deal with directly who’s got both size, muscle and numbers on us and I already know the name of his mob’s main enforcer Lin. They are not anyone we want to mess with.”

“What does that have to do with why we’re here?” That seemed like really inconsequential information to me.

“I’m getting to that. Have a little patience Fizzy, you’re going to need it eventually. I know the perfect place to get information on Ami. It just happens to be in the middle of the big pig’s territory.” Now Jade was making me a little worried, how would she know what’s the place to get the best information on our goal? “We’re just up here to see how the pigs around here are patrolling the streets, we’re going to need to know this later. Also what times they’ll be patrolling any particular street and how they move when alerted to trouble.”

Jade pointed off into the streets below and I saw two pigs wielding spears, they stopped to talk to one another.

“How do you think Jacky and your mother are doing?” I take it this would eventually lead us to Merriami.

“Pretty well, this isn’t an entirely despotic regime, but the pigs have definitely corner the market on real estate around here.” Jade crossed her arms and leaned against the wall behind her. “So they can talk freely about some things, but I warned them to never mention Merriami out loud anywhere. We’ll meet up with them outside of town at the campsite, after we scout the place I want to go to and we’ll ask the right questions there.”

“What place would that be?” Call me curious, but Jade was being rather cagey about things or what she was doing up on the windmills shaft.

“The only, beyond my very disbelief, truly clean bar in all of Klugetown!” She pointed out a section of the town that looked vaguely nicer than the rest of this dusty dump we found ourselves in. “The pigs apparently like their alcohol. Alcohol creates both problems and loose lips, I hate the stuff personally.”

The way Jade talked about alcohol, it sounded like she had a bad personal experience and Kuril didn’t seem to like the stuff either. So was Jade’s other parent abusive and that’s why they weren’t around? Kuril seemed rather tight lipped about things involving Jade’s father.

“Well come on Fizzy, it’s getting late and we have a bar to go to. I heard someone talking about the guards celebrating something.” Jade started for the stairs and I followed, why did I feel a sense of dread about going to the bar?

We quietly made our way away from the windmill she tampered with, I quickly forgot about it as it seemed unimportant.

-Jade-

It was getting late and we were approaching the outside of the bar, it was called The Whole Hog. Walking inside, I saw that we weren’t the only ones to come here. Sitting in the back corner were Jacky and Mom, they looked to be quietly discussing something.

“There’s mom and Blackcap, go over to them and tell them I’m about to start something that’ll give me a chance to talk to the bartender without any ears listening in on our conversation.” Fizzle looked at me and I made a gesture for her to go. “Don’t worry, I won’t be hurt. Just stay out of the fighting and everything will be okay. I’m not even going to be scratched by any of it.”

“If you’re sure…” Looking away from me, Fizzle made her way over to mom and Jacky in the corner.

I went up to the bar and sat down.

“Hello there, nice establishment you have here.” The lizard behind the bar gave me a flat look.

“What do you want cat?” The lizard looked to be of the frilled variety, said frill was orange, black and a little bit yellow. He looked to be quite clean compared to all the slightly grungy patrons he had in the bar.

“I’m Jade La Perm and I want to ask you about your bar here, it’s… a bit too nice for the area it’s in.” He winced at my words and I knew I was on the right track.

“You could definitely say that, Chlam King. I’m the owner of The Whole Hog.” He nodded to me with a suspicious glance. “Is there something you needed from me specifically Jade? You don’t look old enough to drink and I know Abyssinians.”

“I’m not good sir, thank you for noticing and not offering me a drink. I despise alcohol.” He gave me a curious glance for saying that. “I would like to ask if you would like to dirty up your establishment and are being prevented from doing so.”

“I’m not liable to discuss such a thing.” He said calmly while glancing around the bar at the clean alcohol swilling pigs. Pigs were actually very clean animals, they just needed mud and water to stay cool. The pigs here could actually sweat and were much cleaner.

“So you’ve never had a brawl in your bar before?” He froze up and gave me a sad look. “Not much of a real rough and tumble place Klugetown.”

“You’d be wrong about the rough and tumble part, but the pigs are too well organized even while drunk to start a fight in my establishment.” I could see a gleam in his eyes as he wiped a glass clean.

“Bartender, I need some honey mead over here!” The pig at the end of the bar slammed his empty mug down.

“I’ll be right with you sir!” Chlam turned to me and smiled slightly. “If you could get a bar brawl going in here, I would appreciate it. It’s really quite impossible though, their camaraderie is too strong for that.”

“We’ll see about that… hold his drink back, because challenge accepted! Just give me the information I need when I do get the fight going. I don’t want any ears here to hear what I want to know.” I poked the bartender in the chest while speaking softly as I got up off my stool, I picked up said seat and held it aloft. “Attention everyone! I would like to proclaim that if a chair is thrown in a bar, a fight will inevitably break out regardless if it hits anyone or not as long as it goes more than a foot away from the thrower.”

“Pahaha… you think throwing that stool will really make us all get into a fight, do you know who we are?” The pig at the end of the bar in the tough guy jacket squealed with delight at my proclamation. “This bar has never had any fights, ever! So go ahead and throw that stool and see what happens. If you hit one of us, we’ll all just gang up on you and afterwards we’ll just continue drinking our fill.”

I gently tossed the stool, it didn’t go very far. Now for my horrible math skills to be useful for a change.

“There you have it, I threw the stool exactly one foot away!” I sat on the neighboring stool, put my elbows on the bar and steeple my fingers while giving the bartender an amused look.

“What was that in aid of?” I held up a finger at Chlam in a waiting gesture and resumed the steeple finger position.

“Pahaha… that’s your ploy to get us to fight, the stool didn’t go more than half a foot!” The pig at the end of the bar stated.

“I saw it make three fourths of a foot!” Another pig shouted, and thus the setting up of the dominoes began.

“What are you blind, it only made it a quarter of a foot!” All the pigs were drunk so distance would be hard for any of them to judge as they were.

“If you’re blind, then I’m definitely seeing it as having gone more than a foot and a half!” Several pigs got up and started generally talking about how far I threw the stool, it then started getting heated.

The pig at the end of the bar even got into it and tried to break them up, then I threw the match on the powder keg I just started.

“Seriously guys, it’s exactly one foot three inches.” I said lazily, they glared at me and I leaned back with a warding gesture.

“It is not, it’s exactly one foot!” That’s when the first punch was thrown, then all the pigs in the bar started brawling.

I turned my seat back to the amazed bartender with a calm, canary eating smile. I basked in the chaos going on behind me.

“So, what do you need to know Ms. La Perm?” A happy Chlam King asked me.

Chapter Seven, Shrew-d Operators: Rescue plans.

-Soricini Sorex-

This contemptable… well I can’t exactly call him a maggot, he practically is one. This bug thought he could be with my daughter? At least I knew he wasn’t in this for the power, if my daughter actually likes him then I’ll be fine with that much. This Tarsus is not a threat to me in any sense and is pretty much not very interesting, aside from being an oddly colorful changeling.

I looked at the free agents. They didn’t seem like much, but looks were deceiving. That cat was a clever one, she’s the one that gave me an opening and I used it for all it was worth. The pony… I didn’t know much about ponies, but she had come armed with a sword at least. So there’s that.

I’ve been a desert traveling nomad most of my life and being stuck here because of a big, wild and boorish monster call Gonnan had soured my mood quite a bit. I wanted to fill him full of gunpowder and shove a torch down his throat.

At least Verko is willing to make decent deals with me and not kidnap my daughter, he didn’t exactly have the manpower to keep her out of my grasp anyway and was setting himself up as the next crime boss. I cared little about that as Gonnan did kidnap my daughter and we’d make him pay, but we can’t take any direct actions against him yet.

“You’d be right, my daughter has a thing for all kinds of pickled foods.” The changeling just gave me a friendly smile. It was almost disturbing to see a changeling that wasn’t full of holes. I turned to the two free agents. “How much do you want for your services? Whatever the changeling is paying you, I can double it.”

I focused on the Abyssinian, she was the interesting one. To just walk into a bar and leave it with her companions without so much as a single scratch after instigating the fight that knocked out a number of Gonnan’s enforcers.

“How does one pay twice of nothing?” She queried innocently and I just stared at the cat completely flabbergasted.

“Maybe they’ve actually figured out how to divide by zero.” The pony commented dryly looking to her friend with something approaching passionate affection.

“Don’t be silly Fizzy, everyone knows the answer to that is always two zeroes.” What… even… is the cat actually serious about that?

“Jade, you’re an idiot sometimes.” The giggling pony received a cheeky smile from the cat.

“He’s… not paying you to be here then?” I slowly asked, just to make sure I heard them right.

“Not a single bit, doubloon or chunk of gold, did I stutter when I said we were ‘free’ agents? At least I’ve personally already gotten something out of coming to Klugetown.” There was an amused look on the cats face and I felt a cold sensation travel down my spine. How is she profiting from this? “We’ll also take whatever we can carry and will steal an airship on our way out, so there’s also that. Speaking of taking things, why haven’t you rescued your daughter yet if you already know where she is?”

“The problem is that Gonnan always has the keys on him to every room in the building she’s being held captive in.” I couldn’t rescue her without going straight through the swine, I haven’t come up with a solution to that yet. “We can’t steal just one key or all of them, because he’ll definitely know about it if we tried to steal them. He’s the only one allowed to touch them and he’s one of the toughest crime bosses around, his entourage isn’t any easier to deal with and they’re only about half his massive size.”

“I take it he’s a bore.” The cat stated out loud.

“The biggest one around, he’s holding everyone to a status quo.” I put away my sword and crossed my arms to stare down the lazy looking cat. “His version of it anyway. It is admittedly effective.”

“Definitely boring for a crime boss then.” I will admit her words made me snort a bit, as I realized what she actually meant. She wasn’t talking about Gonnan’s species. What she said next had my attention. “I’m a walking skeleton key, I can get through any door easily enough.”

“The locks are impossible to pick thanks to the magic specifically meant to prevent that from happening, the second you put a pick in that door it will shock you and or vaporize your tools.” I quickly cut the cat off from commenting. “Before you ask, the surrounding walls are made of a sturdy material also protected by magic.”

“Are the doors themselves magic or are protected by magic?” She must be asking this out of idle curiosity.

“Aside from the locks I don’t think so, but there’s no way anyone could cut through the metal without at least alerting someone.” Why was the cat suddenly smiling?

“We can possibly get her out sometime later this evening. Depends on the time it takes us to set up for the jailbreak and if you can run interference to keep everyone else away from where your daughter is being held. Well, that would certainly help things quite a bit.” You weren’t telling me how you’re going to do it, but you seemed too confident in your abilities. You weren’t lying then, or at the very least didn’t think you were. “If you already have an airship that you wouldn’t mind letting us have, then we wouldn’t have to worry about stealing one. Also, would you mind if your daughter Ami lived with a band of traveling mariachi changelings if she does in fact like this guy here?”

“I’m not giving you an airship, but I can run interference and yes I would mind if she suddenly up and left without talking to me first.” I wanted to see my daughter again and then have one long talk with her, especially about her choice for a boyfriend. If the blue bug is in fact her boyfriend. “So you’re bringing her back to me and then you’re stealing that airship. You will leave without her if I find her words lacking passion.”

“I can live with that, just as long as she’s safe.” It seems this Tarsus wasn’t a complete idiot and truly did care, so colorful changelings weren’t as deceitful as their darker brethren. “Just… protect her better this time will you?”

Oh I will, I’ll be going for Gonnan’s throat personally.

-Hours later, Jade-

The doors themselves were not protected by magic, as such I could get through them even if they were made of metal. The ones leading into the compound were a bit large. I hadn’t seen Gonnan personally, but those huge doors meant the guy was a giant.

The two guards outside the place were quite large and my dinky little knife wasn’t going to cut it or their folds of fat and muscle. The dexterity boost was a must, because I certainly didn’t want to get hit by the double bladed axes those two pigs were wielding even once. At least it would be a mostly painless death if the blow was fatal.

The Shapeshifting Siesta and my group hit our first obstacle, how to get by the two deadly guards that are said to be smaller than the big pig himself. Said pig I haven’t seen yet, but I was getting a feeling of dread of dealing with a large guy with tusks that could easily gore me.

Soricini likely had the right idea in avoiding confrontation with this guy if his daughter is this well guarded. The building looked like a fortress with no windows, it was only slightly out of place in appearance with the rest of Klugetown.

Oh look a hedgehog girl, which makes twelve differing anthropomorphic species I can identify in this town of scum and rot. The shark people weirded me out and scared me a bit, I had a healthy fear of ocean dwelling creatures.

“Fizzy, stick with mom and watch the entrance, you two will be our backup plan. Jacky your with me and Tarsus, be prepared to use that wood in any way necessary.” I received a salute from Jacky and Tarsus looked a bit nervous about what we were going to do. Mom and Fizzle were already in position on this rooftop. “Clypeus, your group is going to do some wild goose chasing with those two pigs at the front. I only need them to move away from the compound for thirty seconds and then we’re in. Circle back around and wait for us with our backup, if we’re not out in a few hours then mom will take over the rescue operation from there. We’ll be needing one ourselves at that point.”

“How will we know where to go once we’re inside?” That was a rather good point Jacky, how would we know where to go once we got inside? All we knew is that Merriami Sorex was here.

“I haven’t the foggiest Blackcap, none of The Desert Shrews have managed to get inside before and we’re likely going to be winging it.” I’m sure that tidbit didn’t make Tarsus any feel better. “Wait for us to get into position, we’ll signal you when we’re ready Clypeus.”

“Tarsus, stay safe dude.” Clypeus and the other changelings left and were preparing to cause a distraction.

“Same to you guys too.” Returned Tarsus, he didn’t care about how dangerous this was, we were about to break into a very large criminal’s fortress.

Jacky, Tarsus and I climbed down from the roof and we stood at the mouth of a nearby alleyway looking towards the guards. I could see Clypeus poking out of another with three other heads down the street, I looked to Jacky and Tarsus who nodded at me. I held out a thumb and popped a claw.

The four changelings waltzed out of the alley and the trumpet twins were carrying their instruments, I had thought they had all left those at their carriage back in Airship Mauled.

“The trumpet twins are never without an instrument.” Tarsus told me as the four changelings took to the air and got close to the two large pigs guarding the doors.

“A five, six…” Shouted Labium.

“Seven, eight… now!” Labrum followed and the twins both blew their trumpets loudly into the ears of the two five foot tall walls of bacon. Mmm… bacon.

Clypeus and Mr. Huge blasted the guards in their faces with magic, they were aiming for the eyes. As was expected of their girths, the pigs stayed standing and got quite mad. They started taking swings at the four changelings who quickly took evasive actions, but they didn’t go high enough to be out of range of the two guards.

Once the two pigs were successfully led away from the doors and far enough away, I darted out for them with Tarsus and Jacky on my heels. Jacky was already wielding her plank of wood and was watching the directions the guards went in.

I put my hand up to the door and started a cast, the door slowly dissolved much to Tarsus’s amazement. He hadn’t seen the true power of magical alchemy yet, I and mom were still only scratching that surface.

Once one of the doors fully disappeared, the magical lock on it fell to the ground. Jacky scooped it up and moved on into the building. Tarsus followed her and I moved to the other side of the door and reversed my cast, so that the door was now back in place.

We’re in…

-Jacky-

Trouble already! It didn’t take us seconds after getting through the door and already we met resistance. I moved forward blocked the spear the small pig was wielding, he had almost stabbed Tarsus.

As the tip jammed its way into my piece of wood, I remembered what Jade told me on the trip here.

-Days prior-

“Jacky I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. You may be unlucky, but have you ever thought of using that bad luck constructively or overcoming it?” Captain smiled at me and I had to wonder where she was going with this, I looked over the airships railing at the view.

“How would I even go about doing that?” While I haven’t been much use to the Captain, I hoped to be useful to her eventually.

“Jacky you’re smart, more so than me in specific ways.” My Captain gave me a compliment and I was appreciative of it, but where was she going with this. “If you have enough skill at something to the point that bad luck couldn’t do anything to stop you from achieving your goal with said skill, then it wouldn’t be as problematic would it?”

“What if my luck gets so horrible that skill couldn’t overcome it?” At the time, I really had thought that my luck could get so horrible that it would be impossible to beat.

“Then make your own luck Jacky, you can’t sit around forever waiting for life to throw you bones.” Which it obviously did once, because I met you Captain. “If life throws you a bone, you take it and beat up life with that bone and then take the rest of the skeleton to use. Were you raised by pirates or not?”

“Captain… thanks for the pep talk.” After I thanked her I decided to go think about how to turn things going wrong around to my favor. “I’ve got some thinking to do.”

-Days from then-

Okay a spear was stuck in my piece of wood which was bad because I couldn’t use it, or could I? His weapon was stuck as well. What to do… I could wait until Tarsus comes to his senses at the near miss and let him attack, or I could actually do something useful with this.

I twisted my piece of wood and the pig yelped as the shaft of the spear twisted in his grip hurting his hands. I jerked the plank, with spear still embedded, to the right and swung it to the left. The shaft of the spear struck the pig in the head dazing him and it knocked the spear loose onto the floor.

Taking up the wood in both hands, I swung it towards his skull and the wood broke roughly in half knocking him out. I just stared at the wood feeling a bit sad, it had been a good plank of solid wood… on the positive side I now have a spear!

-Jade-

Jacky didn’t need my assistance after all. She actually handled that small pork rind by herself and took up the spear in both hands. She nodded to me after testing its weight.

The building wasn’t exactly humongous, but it did have several archways to go through. Of the three directions, I choose left!

The left hallway had an upper walkway with armed pigs patrolling it, we snuck by them quietly on the ground floor down the hallway towards a door. Bypassing said door and heading through a corridor leading right, we found another door with a staircase leading downwards behind it.

Traveling down the stairs we came into a dungeon area, one with an armored pig watching a cell at the far end of the room. He hasn't noticed us yet.

After three protected doors, we had likely found Ami.

Chapter Seven, Shrew-d Operators: Escape plans.

-Jacky-

“Captain, how do we take care of that guard?” That guy in the wooden chair was an armored pig, the smallest pigs were between two and four feet tall. I can handle that easily. This guy was more in the range of four to six, while being much more physically inclined that Captain La Perm was.

“It’s times like this that having a knife as my primary weapon doesn’t help me in the slightest.” You could say that again Captain. “Tarsus any ideas.”

“I want to save my magic for something really important, I’m also not magically gifted and anything that I can think to shapeshift into would be of limited help here.” Well its little wonder why you needed us here to help you, I’m sure Captain will come up with something. “He’s not currently wearing his helmet, if only we could hit him hard enough in the head with something heavy.”

“Well I’ve got nothing.” So much for my belief in you Captain. “Still, if he’s not wearing his helmet then where is it?”

Not much here aside from some chairs a desk and a circular shield hanging high on the wall.

“Say Captain, could we use that shield?” I watched as Captain smiled and quietly moved a wooden chair underneath the shield. She got up on the chair to pry the metal buckler off the wall and then strapped it to her back.

“We can use it later Jacky, but for now I think a simple solution will save us some trouble.” What simple solution? “Jacky, Tarsus, grab a chair and get on both sides of the corridor. Be prepared to swing with all your worth, aim for his exposed head. If he doesn’t go down to whatever we can throw at him, then we’re going to be in trouble.”

“Captain, please tell me you’re not going to do something stupid.” Given how she avoided looking in my direction, she was going to do something like that.

-Jade-

“Ready, good, wait until you can get him from behind. Hey, fatso, your mother was so pretty she won a miss congeniality contest!” I had definitely earned the pigs attention. He was immediately up and staring in my direction.

“Hey, take that back, my mother is ugly as Tartarus and her attitude matches!” I blinked confusedly at his statement, I thought I was the one that was supposed to be confusing him here! “Wait, how did you even get down here, the boss doesn’t like intruders in his dungeon.”

The pig charged for me pulling out his sword, he swung for me and I leapt backwards. That’s when Tarsus decided to slam the chair he was levitating into the right side of the pigs head.

The chair broke into pieces against the pig’s skull. He continued standing there rubbing at his head looking aggravated.

“You think that’ll take me down? I’m the prison guard down here for a reason!” The gruff voiced guard turned to Tarsus, that’s when Jacky made her move and leapt for his back. She put her full weight into the downwards swing, the guard simply turned around after that chair broke upon his skull. “More of you guys? Do you runts seriously think you can handle me?”

Tarsus levitated another chair and swung for the left side of his head while he was paying attention to Jacky. He turned around and charged forward to grab Tarsus by the throat.

While the thickheaded guard was busy threatening Tarsus with his sword and choking the life out of him, I motioned to Jacky that I needed her and moved towards the desk. Jacky immediately joined me knowing where I was going with this.

“Would you stop that please? My head is much too hard to be taken down by something so…” I and Jack heaved the desk for the back of his skull and he finally went down while releasing Tarsus. “Small…”

The guard fell to the floor with a loud thud, his red armor was making quite a racket. Tarsus, who had been released upon the desks impact, scrambled away from the guard taking in several deep breaths of life giving air.

“By the sun, how can someone take three chairs to the head and still be well enough afterwards to nearly choke the life out of someone!” I wanted to rant about this, because usually big guys like that are supposed to go down on the first hit. “If this is just one of the guards, what’s their boss even like?”

“Is someone there… what happened to the guard?” At the sound of that voice Tarsus took off running down the hallway.

“Jacky watch the guard.” I followed Tarsus, let’s see who Tarsus has been kicking up all this fuss about.

“Merriami, are you alright?” Tarsus was looking into the window into the cell.

“Tarsus?! How did you survive the guard?” Her voice sounded alright, now to finally see what we were rescuing. “You’re like wet tissue paper when it comes to a direct confrontation, then again that’s a generally assumed fact about your species.”

“Well gee, tell me how you really feel about me coming to rescue you.” Tarsus certainly had a reason to be sarcastic.

“Look, I’m sorry Tarsus, but I wasn’t exactly expecting you to come to my rescue.” I looked into the window Tarsus was peering through while wagging his tail and saw his belle, what I saw wasn’t what I expected. “I was actually kind of losing hope for any kind of rescue at all. How did you get the keys off of Gonnan?”

Inside the cell was… a rather plain looking shrew girl with light brown fur, she had a thick metal collar around her neck which was chained to the wall. I was expecting something more along the lines of completely ugly or at least a tarnished ravishing beauty to look at, one that could do much better than Tarsus.

Merriami looked weak and was wearing a tattered skirt, the only bit of dignity the pigs left her with, and not much else. Her appearance was… underwhelming really. She looked nice, but not in an extravagant way. She seemed quite thin, probably malnourished by her stay in casa de porky. In all, she would be ridiculously average looking if not for her current state.

“We didn’t, we just happen to have a very good skeleton key.” Thank you for recognizing my major talent as a rogue Tarsus.

“Can you get me out of here?” She was giving us a pitiful soulful glance with her dark blue eyes.

“Could you take care of this door please?” The way Tarsus was pleading with his eyes made me roll my own.

Well of course I would, I didn’t come all this way just to set up something that might not even happen later. You and Merriami better get together after all this Tarsus.

I swear, if you ended up friend zoning each other, I will do something very unpleasant to the both of you with a cupcake!

I stepped forward, did a partial cast of the door and released the door off to the side. These thick door casts were getting rather tiring.

Tarsus immediately ran into the room to hug the shrew girl and she hugged him back, well they definitely liked one another. Good enough for me.

“So… you and him.” The shrew just blushed and looked at me while holding Tarsus close to herself. “Would you say that you’re in love?”

“Yes. I would say that, but I don’t think my father would approve of him.” She started to pet Tarsus and he growled cutely as he curled up against her. “He’s pretty wimpy, but at least he’s my wimp.”

“Hey, I came into this place against my better judgment for you!” It looked like Tarsus had more to say only his tail went ramrod straight when Merriami kissed him on the lips. “What were you saying beautiful, I think I forgot the last few minutes.”

“I do appreciate you coming for me, but you’re an idiot for coming here. You could have gotten hurt trying to rescue me!” Speaking of that Ami, I had something to do.

I crouched next to her and cast one of the links in the chain next to her neck brace. Once free from the wall, Ami tried to stand and seemed to be struggling with doing even that.

“You say I’m made of tissue paper, you can hardly even stand.” Tarsus flickered with green fire and turned into a familiar looking shrew. He looked like the one we met in the alley that led us to Mr. Sorex’s location.

“Speaking of rescue, we’re not exactly done yet.” They both gave me blank stares. “We still have to get out here and she’s obviously not in any condition to be running anywhere. Knowing our horrible luck, we’re going to have some problems escaping.”

“I’m going train myself up when we get out of here and you can be the distressed damsel next time.” Merriami Sorex muttered out loud.

“Sure thing, changelings like having strong females in their lives.” I take it Tarsus was referencing a changeling queen. It makes perfect sense that they'd like strong women.

“He’ll definitely be the damsel, he’s already met your father.” I cast and reversed the link of the chain closest to the wall. Taking the length of chain, I stowed it away in one of my packs pockets.

“What did he have to say about you Tarsus?” As soon as Merriami asked that, I clapped my hands together loudly getting their attentions.

“Look, is now really the time for this? We’re still in danger here.” I got the two of them staring at me, after a moment they shrugged. Jacky joined us as we started walked towards the one solitary entrance to the dungeon. “Let me put it this way, is Ami in any real condition to help us fight our way out of here?”

“You can tell the answer just by looking at me, I must be quite a sight.” Merriami was walking slowly while being propped up by Tarsus. “Which way did you come in?”

“The front door.” I was being looked at as if I had just lied about how we got in here. “The balcony wouldn’t have been any easier to get through.”

“We might want to leave through a balcony.” Merriami had me a bit curious. I just had to know what these two saw in each other, now wasn’t the time for that though. “They probably have the entrance covered by now if you entered that way, Gonnan has to be on his way if you tripped his magical sensors entering the building.”

“Magical sensors?” I asked feeling a sudden sense of dread.

I cast the door to the dungeon out of the way and as soon as we set foot in the corridor, the door down the way to our right slammed wide open. We had come in from that direction and it was obvious that someone wasn’t very happy about the magical locks not working.

I turned to see who was coming and froze, the big heavy thumps of his footfalls caused the building to shake. He was a ten foot tall giant, quite wide and mostly muscle and the two big white tusks sticking out the sides of his mouth looked like they had been bloodied in combat. He had dark greyish purple fur, spiky black hair, a blood red vest, dark brown pants and solid black eyes filled with malice.

I felt a sense of mortal terror just looking at him, so it couldn’t be anyone else other than Gonnan.

“So the little rat is trying to escape my hospitality, amusing.” Even his voice and chuckling caused a deep and vibrating sense of dread throughout the corridor. He pointed a larger than life pitchfork at us that ended in four swords instead of spikes.

“Jacky, remind me to buy a surplus of knife sheaths later on. You know, just for situations like this.” Sure Sekhet was powerful, but she looked friendly and at least somewhat approachable despite her size. I was quite terrified of this guy. “It doesn’t need to be said, but go in the opposite of that thing.”

I started backing away down the left portion of the corridor coming out of the dungeon. Gonnan snorted and charged for us, his every step shaking the entire corridor. The guy must weigh a ton and yet he was able to move so fast, I quickly cast my knife sheath and his thunderous approach stopped immediately. I stowed my knife in my pack afterwards.

“That won’t stop him for long, move!” I turned around and ran for the locked door and cast it out of the way. After they made it through, I was about to put it back when Jacky bent down to pick up the magical lock. She held it in the air looking at me, I reversed the cast and the magical lock took up its correct position in the doorway. “Good thinking Blackcap! That should stop him for a bit.”

A thundering was heard on the other side of the door as we made our way down the hallway while trying not to attract attention from the pigs on the upper walkways. A loud ripping noise was heard behind us, I looked back and wished I hadn’t. Two tusks were perforating the solid metal door, they quickly pulled themselves free and several fist shaped dents started noisily warping the door.

“Move faster.” I immediately charged up the stairs ahead of them and leapt onto a surprised pigs face to started bashing him down with my fist. The limping Merriami and Tarsus were getting up the stairs when the door was blown off its hinges and Gonnan marched through to look towards us.

Jacky was taking care of another guard alerted by the noise, while I cast the door on the second floor leading to the balcony out of the way. Walking out onto the balcony I could see fighting in the streets, it seemed The Desert Shrews were making a move.

“He’s coming Captain!” Yes Jacky, I know, believe me. You can't possibly miss something that terrifying.

“Tarsus, you’ve got a minute to get Ami as far away from here as possible.” I pulled out two griffon feathers and a raven feather, I cast a griffon feather at Merriami and sustained the raven feather to send a message. “Grab her and fly!”

Tarsus didn’t need to be told twice. Weighing less than she did a second ago, Tarsus was able to lift off with Merriami in his natural form and get her airborne. I put away the raven feather and cast the other griffon feather at Jacky.

“Captain, what are you…” I grabbed Jacky by the leg and swung her around to throw her towards mom, she let loose a shriek as she crossed the distance between the buildings.

Now to make my... I yowled, pain… my world was pain! I was sent flying off the building, with the feeling of metal digging into my back.

I was on course to slam into the building across the street, the shield on my back thankfully took the brunt of that blow and even then I felt that in my entire skeleton.

A cast settled over me and I slowed down to hit the wall softly.

I love you mom, but I think I might be currently paralyzed and still endangered.

Author's Note

Rogue's are not good against big targets.

Chapter Seven, Shrew-d Operator: A time for action!

-Kuril-

Okay, my daughter just took a punch to the spine that dented metal and sent her flying. I was thankfully preparing a griffon feather for a cast already and stopped her from getting injured even worse.

Fizzle was climbing down in a panic to go pick Jade up as she wasn’t getting up from her fall.

Jacky just jumped off the building after I caught her, she floated down while the feather falling effect was still going. I assumed that she was going to help Jade out as well.

We helped rescue Tarsus’s girlfriend, can’t we just leave this place now before Jade or any of my other girls get injured or worse?

Jade was on the ground and wasn’t getting up, but at least she was breathing. The shield on her back had an imprint of the knuckles from that large monster in it, I didn’t need to know what would have happened if that large pig had decided to skewer her with the pitchfork’s blades instead. I considered myself lucky that my poor daughter was still alive.

The big pig I assumed to be Gonnan jumped off the second story balcony and entered the fray started by The Desert Shrews. The pigs weren’t having a good time of fighting the more agile shrews in the streets, but the arrival of Gonnan made the shrews start backing off immediately and they gave the large boar a wide berth.

Why wouldn’t they back off? His landing created a shockwave that knocked down everything within twenty feet of him, he was also large, muscular and quite threatening. I had to get down there and make sure Jacky and Fizzle didn’t get hurt helping Jade out, what to do though?

I’m a magic user… think. I did not want to stay close to that monster for long after seeing what he did to my daughter. You better believe I was going to get my pound of flesh from his hide for that! That monster has earned my ire.

Gonnan not only looks tough, but he was taking various sword hits like a champ. The shrews weren’t putting a dent in him and he wasn’t even wearing any armor. The guy probably didn’t need it anyway considering how many hits he was handling with his thick hide.

Fizzle and Jacky have reached Jade, it looks like they’re checking her over. Fizzle seems relieved and a little worried about something. Jacky was soon carefully lifting Jade up and over Fizzle’s back.

I turned back to the fight. Gonnan wasn’t weakening and some of the shrews were cutting their losses once they took serious enough injuries trying to do something to that hulking boar. Gonnan knocked several of them back with a single swing of his weapon.

There were a bunch of downed pigs and the shrews were beginning to flee in various directions after getting in a few more swings at the crime boss.

Gonnan let loose a roar of rage, then he turned his sight on my girls. Fizzle was securing my unconscious daughter on her back and Jacky turned to him holding the recently acquired spear protectively.

Leaning forward, Gonnan scraped his right foot against the ground.

I pulled out a griffon feather and cast it at myself, I took a few steps back and gauged the distance and where I would be landing. I pulled out the waffle mallet and started sustaining it, its hammer time!

I ran forward and leapt from the building, my current given arc was not going to land anywhere near Gonnan unless he did what I thought he was about to do.

“With each hit of this power I do hope to break a mental cog, let the mind hopefully become like that of fog!” He charged forward and I came down on his right shoulder, he had been a bit too focused on the girls to really slow down and deal with me. I started to rapidly tap my mallet against him as much as I could. It doesn’t matter how hard I hit, just that I hit until the effect eventually takes hold.

At some point his straight line for my girls turned into swerving left and right down the street wildly, eventually it turned into a U-turn. That’s when I leapt off and landed on my paws to watch him run a tight circle and then subsequently ram face first through a buildings wall.

Despite a good portion of the building collapsing in on him, within seconds he just bursts from the rubble and staggers about looking dizzy.

“Kuril, look out!” I turned to see what Jacky was warning me about and almost received a sword to the back from an armored pig, only it was stopped by a shrew intercepting him.

“We got your back lady.” It seems the shrews were trying to regroup and had just rotated in a fresh uninjured squad, he pushed the pig away from me. “These streets aren’t very safe at the moment.”

I turned my attention to the stumbling crime boss, he shook his head rapidly and then glared at me. I glared right on back, nobody threatens my girls! He started to charge for me and I raised my right hand and almost closed my eyes completely, I waited until he was close and performed a cast with the evening sunlight.

“Sunlight that is already quite bright, create an incredible blinding sight!” I fully closed my eyes as a bright light flared from my hand in the direction of the crime boss’s face. I opened my eyes after the light died down and saw him clutching at his face in pain.

He had fallen and was roaring angrily, that had temporarily blinded the monster that hit my daughter. I quickly made my way over to the girls.

“That was awesome Kuril!” Thank you Jacky, I did find out what casting sunlight does and it apparently creates a blinding light as bright as a solar flare. I was more careful with that this time than the last time I used it, poor Sekhet. “No wait, he’s getting up again.”

“Fizzle dear, please imbue your sword with ice.” The large pig was brawny, I’ll give him that. What Gonnan clearly had in brawn and endurance, I could match with my brains.

“Huh… okay, I’ll try.” She made sure Jade was securely on her back as she pulled out the sword with her hoof and concentrated.

“Think about this guy almost killing Jade and use that to influence a literal cold rage.” What I just said had sparked something in Fizzle, because her eyes narrowed and the glow of her horn strengthened.

I turned away from Fizzle and to the approaching boar monster.

“You are an interesting one cat.” My does he seem to be quite brutish, even in the way he spoke as he stomped towards us wielding that bladed pitchfork of his. It looks like he was wising up and wasn’t just going to rush me again. “Join me and we could rule this town, or you can perish here.”

“How about no.” He grunted at me in anger, I stood tall in the face of the danger he represented. “I’m the witch of good taste, Kurilian La Perm. I think you have a horrible sense of taste after you hurt my daughter and because of that I will never join you. You will also sadly never know the taste of my food, it’s quite good from what I hear.”

“Got it, now what?” I turned to see that Fizzle had gotten the sword glowing in the colors of white and pale blue.

“Give it to me for a second.” Though she was curious as to what I was about to do, Fizzle still dropped the sword into my right hand. “Back off and leave us be, or else.”

“A magical sword, do you think that you will truly get close enough to harm me with it?” Not that Gonnan knew this, but I didn’t need to get close. He took a few steps forward and I invoked my next rhyme.

“Imbued this sword of icy wind, through you breaths of sharpened water I do send!” Sustain my fish scale necklace and… I rapidly spat multiple times into the blade until the magic on it ran out.

I had sent a number of sharp icicles screaming through the air, all of which pierced a surprised Gonnan’s hulking mass.

Gonnan let loose a scream of pain as the icicles buried themselves in his body, he stumbled backwards and away from me. After my volley ended, I calmly hand the sword back to a surprised Fizzle and stared down the pockmarked enemy before me.

“Thanks for the help Fizzle, try to figure out lightning next. Jacky you’re going to throw the spear over his head, so get ready for that.” I kept my eyes on Gonnan and moved to stand in front of my girls, both Jacky and Fizzle gave me a confused looks. “Never underestimate the power of a good witch that’s angry, especially not if you attempt to hurt that witch’s family.”

“I have a score to settle with him, back away and let me handle this.” I turned to the approaching male shrew with the scar covered body and stared at him flatly, so this was Soricini Sorex. He was a tad handsome, but I don’t think I’d ever want my daughter to look as scar riddled as him.

Hopefully Jade’s escapades never ruined her beautiful personality or her tom cat nature.

“You can have at him after I’m done with him myself.” I glared at the pig, the icicles had done quite some damage and were melting in his wounds opening them up.

He was wary of approaching me now, he had good reason for that.

“Got it, what do I do with it?” I turned to see that Fizzle had the sword crackling with energy, perfect.

I pulled out my raven feather and sustained it to give them both an idea of what I wanted to do.

“Yikes, remind me to never make you mad Chief Cook.” Sorry for the imagery Jacky, but it needed to be seen so you could do exactly what I wanted you to do. I put the feather away.

“I don’t know about you Blackcap, but I can get behind that.” That’s only because of how much you like my daughter Fizzle.

“Last warning, turn away from my family or else what we’ll do next will leave you in a worse state than you already are.” He looked at me and took a single solitary step forward, I inhaled and blasted him with water.

I started slowly walking forward. The water hadn’t done much to him, but I had soaked him.

“Girls, if you will.” I took my hammer in my right hand and waited.

Jacky took a javelin throwers stance and ran forward to toss the spear over Gonnan’s head. Fizzle swung the magically electrified sword upwards, then she spun around and quickly threw it to Gonnan’s right. I tossed my hammer to the left and what happened next was spectacular.

The crescent bolt of raw energy struck his soaked body and the lighting ran through the ice chunks that hadn’t melted yet. The electrical energy running through his body leapt off and into the three metallic weapons surrounding him in a triangle formation. It was a triangle of raw energy for a few seconds that got worse when the weapons struck the water on the ground electrifying him even further.

After that he was swaying on his feet before he fell to his butt. I calmly walked forward and picked up the sword, the spear and the hammer. I then made my way back to the girls quietly with the brute stiffened up from the shock.

“Okay, now he’s yours.” I walked on by Soricini with confidence in my steps.

“Take your daughter to our compound, tell someone ‘the desert left salt in the wounds’. She will be seen to quickly.” I nodded and tipped my hat to him, I continued on my merry way while giving the spear and sword back to my girls.

“I just realized that I could have done worse, I could have thrown the shield too.” I said looking at my daughter draped over Fizzle’s back. “Come on girls, let’s go.”

Gonnan wasn’t finished and he struggled to stand up, but it was too late. We were no longer part of the battle. We did what we came here to do, it was now up to Mr. Sorex and his people as to how things went.

-Fizzle-

“The desert left salt in the wounds.” The shrew nodded to Kuril and quickly left, eventually several shrews came and took Jade from my back. After they pulled the shield off of her they went to work checking her over.

“How did someone manage to knock her spine this badly out of alignment, she’s practically paralyzed.” Minute's later they were standing over a stripped down Jade and looking her over, I stood behind them nibbling my lips with worry. “Her only other injury is a light slash to the chest.”

“Is she going to be okay?” I turned to see Tarsus coming up to me, beside him was Merriami.

“We can pop her spine back into position, but she will be in large amounts of pain when she wakes up and she’s going to need a nice place to rest. Preferably not here in Klugetown, we’re going to prescribe some powerful painkillers for her.” The doctor started to pull out a strange substance and rubbed it into Jade’s fur, after that he started to pulling and pushing on Jade’s back. There were several sharp cracking noises that made me feel uneasy. “The air here in Klugetown isn’t going to do her any favors, I’d recommend moving her to a more hospitable climate as she’s not in a critical condition.”

“Well it seems we’re going to need that airship like yesterday, I know a good place to park my daughter for a nice relaxing day or two.” At least Kuril had an idea of what to do. “Would a coastal venue be good for my daughter?”

“Yes, as long as the air isn’t dusty where you’re going, her spine being knocked out of alignment messed up the rest of her body. Which includes her lungs.” The doctor gave Jade a pitying look. “She’ll need two weeks to recover from her injuries, so you better force those painkillers I’m going to give you down her throat. She’ll need them.”

“But she was only hit once!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah and that one hit really did a number on her.” The doctor replied. “Who did she even get hit by to cause this much damage?”

“Gonnan, the big pig himself.” Everyone turned to the sound of Soricini’s voice, he was being carried in by his people. He looked like a mess, but he was smiling. “Get them an airship.”

“Yes, that would certainly do it.” The doctor nodded before turning to Kuril. “Look the sooner you can get her out of here, the quicker she can recover in that place you have in mind.”

-Klugetown-

Thanks to the actions of Jade and the others, Klugetown would still be run by criminals. Only it had changed for the better, if ever so slightly. Thus started the rise of the naked mole rat crime boss, Verko. Said crime boss would eventually meet an Abyssinian named Capper Dapperpaws.

Author's Note

Gonnan the physical tank... very little magical/elemental defense or even status ailment protection.

(New magical alchemy information!)

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random (One time air terrain survival buff, possible offensive spell). Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain: Projecting thoughts. Not able to receive thoughts, but you can project them to others. (New!) Can project mental images.

Self-sustaining: none.

Sunlight.

Cast: (New!) Solar Flare. Creates a blinding light. Can only be used during the day time while standing directly in sunlight.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Waffle Mallet.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Random confusion effect chance (Weapon specific offensive buff). While sustained, the hammer has a low chance to cause confusion and or dizziness upon any impact. Said chance goes up significantly when hitting the head of a target. (New!) The strength of the impact doesn't matter, effect can still happen with the barest of taps.

Self-sustain:(New!) none.

(New Magical Alchemy combination!)

Combination 3: Sustained Fish Scales + ambient ice magic = Ice projection.

Combination requires outside source of ice or freezing magic to wield. This combination has no cast or sustain capability. The wielder of the fish scales can alter projectile size and shape until the ice magic runs out or a sufficient amount of water from the fish scale wielders body is lost.

Chapter Eight: Caring Cozy Coast: Aftermath Diagnosis.

-Jacky-

“Are you sure we can’t go to black skull island?” There was sure to be some kind of treasure there to dig up and it would be relaxing to me at least.

“No Blackcap, Jade’s in no condition for us to go on an adventure or get sidetracked!” You may be upset Fizzle and a little uptight at the moment, but I was just as upset that Captain was ailing and out of action. “She needs us to be around to take care of her and she needs rest, we’re going straight to where Kuril thinks she’ll be able to relax.”

“Hey, at least we left Klugetown without any permanent disfiguring injuries.” If the captain hadn’t thrown me first, then that might have been me provided I could do magical alchemy at the time. I would have done the exact same thing and would have thrown her to safety.

It wasn't long after that she took that punch to the spine, but to be fair I did tell her he was coming.

“Tell me Blackcap, was all that effort really worth it?” I can understand you having doubts Fizzle. Look at it this way, it was an adventure and you can’t possibly expect everything to go smoothly. I certainly didn’t and it went pretty well. “Jade’s practically going to be paralyzed from the neck down for more than a week! If we were to take her to a professional hospital, which I will remind you one doesn't exist in Klugetown, I’m sure we’d find out that her spine is cracked.”

“I think it was all worthwhile. We saved a damsel in distress and helped a guy get together with someone he loved. Plus we have an airship! That’s a pretty expensive thing to get out of an adventure.” The adventure was pretty low key and I got to hit someone with a chair and a desk, I even fought a pig or two. It all still worked out in the end and it could have gone far worse than it did with me around. “The captain will be capable of walking again, provided she doesn’t take another skeleton shaking blow to her back. She just needs time to heal Fizzle.”

“She’s going to wake up to pain Jacky.” That’s what the painkillers are for Fizzle, though I could understand how you felt about Captain being hurt as she was. She was my Captain after all. “I feel a bit helpless knowing that I can’t help her with that.”

“Look at it this way, you get to play nurse for her and can even ensure she gets better before she does anything else.” There was the thought provoking look I was trying to bring about in Fizzle, she was silent for a long while. “I’m upset that she’s hurting too. Don’t forget that she’s my friend as well.”

“Fine… are we still on course?” Of course we are Fizzle, I’m not bad at navigation and steering. Though I could do a little more work on landing an airship safely.

“We’re almost where Kuril wanted us to go, we should see it soon if you want to go take a look over the side. Otherwise go see how everyone else is doing.” She nodded to me and then went below deck.

I stayed at my post and would be busy making sure we all got to our next destination in as safe a manner as possible. I’m thinking of my luck in that regard, hopefully we can land this airship intact and be capable of takeoff again.

We renamed this ship The Ardent Survivor, we were absolutely going to try and keep this one from crashing.

Knowing our collective luck, Sekhet might just get a new skull ornament when we return home. A smile crossed my beak as I thought of what I called home, Airship Mauled would always be my last port of call in any adventure.

-Kuril-

I sat at the bedside staring at my daughter, her breathing was a bit abnormal. As soon as she woke up, she was going to need to immediately ingest the painkillers. Someone had to be here to do that for her and it may as well be me.

Holding her hand was all that I could do for Jade right now, she looked so frail to me. She hardly ever got sick and she was so full of life, now though... I just stared at her troubled form.

We sorely needed a hospital for Airship Mauled. As mayor, I needed to figure out how to get one built.

We needed a lot of things really. An income, more people, more businesses and a steady food supply that isn’t reliant on a somewhat lazy goddess that’s taken on a job of being my secretary. It made me wonder what Sekhet and Maries were getting up to back home.

-Sekhet-

An explosion happened and I poked my head up over the wall.

“Bring it on Celestia, you will not take any more from me!” I shook a curled paw at the sun princess. “You want a war, I’ll absolutely give you one!”

“Isn’t this a bit ridiculous Sekhet?” The Maries all asked at once. “Starting a war over a slice of cake, we honestly don’t see what you see in such sugary treats. Fruit pies are better.”

“See, you have those who speak blasphemy on your side, you’ll never win!” Celestia shouted while pointing to the chimera.

“Maries, I respect your existence, but she ate my cake and that means war!” I shouted and the Maries just backed out of this. This must be getting too dumb for them.

“I’ll take whatever you can dish out sphinx!” Despite my currently being bigger than her, Celestia came nose to angry nose with me.

“Hey everyone, I made caramel cake with chocolate chunks and cinnamon!” Both us goddess level beings immediately stopped getting into each other’s faces and went to sit down and stare at Fresh Start with begging eyes. “Why am I not surprised at all, that that’s what it takes to get you two to stop fighting? Sekhet gets first slice, because 'somebody' ate her cake.”

“That’s completely unfair! I’m your princess, shouldn’t I get the first slice? How was I supposed to know it belonged to someone? It was just sitting on a plate out in the open with a beautiful candlelight vista behind it of the setting sun, with a fork and a sign that says doughnut eat in front of it.” Yes, because I put that sign there Celestia, you’re just as goddess as I am about food. “It’s not a doughnut though and it was a very enjoyable slice of cake.”

“I didn’t know the princess of the sun was that illiterate, how has your nation held together for this long without need of a more literate goddess like me?” If one were looking at me, they’d easily tell that I was quite mad at the sun princess.

“Hey, I’m only illiterate when it suits my needs and gets me a slice of completely unguarded cake!” That’s not a defense Celestia, that's you admitting your guilt.

“You knocked us out and we were the ones guarding the cake for her!” My fateful friends the Maries intoned.

“Yes, as you can see, that poor unguarded cake would have fallen to the mouths of an evil chimera if I hadn’t stepped in! So it’s a good thing that I did.” At this point I don’t even think that you’re hiding it at all Celestia. You are just dragging this out just to be amusing to me and are hoping for a lighter punishment. “Just think. You, the evil chimera, might have eaten it and then you’d be in trouble with this massive sphinx. It’s a good thing I saved you from the temptation and the siren call of that most impossibly attractive snack. In fact, you should be thanking me for eating it!”

“That’s it, everyone in this room is being asked a riddle!” My angry shouting shook the walls, try and be cute now Celestia. You can’t escape as I’ve magically disabled teleportation, flight and all means of quick escapes from the area. “No ifs ands or buts allowed!”

-Fresh Start-

Celestia’s first true meeting with Sekhet did not go how I expected it would, I thought our burgeoning town would be leveled to the ground in a pitched battle of violence and destruction. Instead it’s just petty squabbling at its finest.

I can now never look at Celestia in awe, especially with knowing that she’s actually quite evil when it comes to unattended cake.

-Kuril-

I had to think about all of that, on top of being Jade’s mother, a witch and a restaurant owner.

So many things to deal with at once, but I’m sure I could manage by dealing with one thing at a time as they come. Nobody said doing any of these things would be easy and trying to do them all at once would be just plain nuts.

I sure hope Cheerilee and Fresh Start could last another week or two without us.

-Some time later, Jade-

My first thought was ‘pain’ upon my eyes snapping open and I moved to scream only to have something forcefully shoved into my mouth. The thing in my mouth tasted absolutely horrible. I was going to try and spit it out, only for a hand to clamp down on my mouth tightly.

After that, I looked up at my mom. She was standing over me using her right hand to hold my mouth shut. She gently rubbed my throat with her left hand until I swallowed the horrible tasting thing she forced upon my horrified tongue.

Why did medicine always have to taste so horribly bitter?

“Sorry about this my little tom cat, but how would you rate your pain upon waking up. Left eye for one and right eye for something much higher.” Well mom here’s my response, I winked my right eye multiple times. “Okay, pretty bad, give the painkiller dosage a minute to kick in. You’ll be feeling much nicer and I’ll take my hand off your mouth then. Just breath gently through your nose Jaded, you need to save your energy if you are to get better quicker.”

Define better mother. Aside from the sharp constant and slowly dulling pain, I couldn’t feel my arms or legs very well at the moment. That my limbs still hurt let me know that I wasn’t going to be permanently disabled. Just disabled for a while.

“Did… you…” I started croakily as soon as mom removed her hand, how long had I been out?

“Did I what my little tom cat?” she ran her hand over my head and pulled some loose strands of green hair out of my face.

“Did you get… the number of that donkey cart?” My mother smiled fondly at me and caressed my cheek, she even started giggling a bit.

“I can tell you’re going to be just fine Jaded, but don’t try to get up please.” Mom, I don’t think I could even if I wanted to at the moment.

“Don’t… think I can.” I was gently pulled into a hug.

“It’ll be okay, you need to rest for a week or two.” Oh sure, because that’s the natural amount of time someone would take to heal from injuries that leaves them mostly paralyzed.

“What about… Fizzy N’ Jacky?” I was far more concerned about them than myself.

“What am I going to do with you? You’re always more concerned about your friends, which actually makes me pretty proud of you. Jacky took some minor injuries fighting some of those pigs off, but that’s her natural state of existence anyway.” Mom don’t make me laugh, giggle or snort. It vaguely hurts, that strong painkiller must be really kicking in now. “Fizzle’s a bit drained of her magic and she’s hurting emotionally because you’re hurting physically. She’ll hopefully be fine once you start getting better.”

My ears twitched. I was hearing the soft sounds of shifting tides, the song of seagulls going about their day and a salty sea breeze permeated the air. It all sounded and smelled so familiar. I looked beyond my mother at my surroundings, I was not on an airship and I wasn’t in Klugetown given the bright colorful buildings.

“Where are we?” Why did I feel as if this place was familiar? At least it felt familiar. “Also, could I get something for the taste in my mouth?”

“Since we were in the neighborhood and you needed a better environment to rest and relax in. I had us brought back to Palicoast for a temporary visit.” This would be one of your better ideas mom, it would certainly be a really nice place to relax. “Now hold on while I go and get you something to drink. You’ve been out for more than a day so try to stay awake for a little while, Fizzle will be really happy to talk with you.”

I wondered if our old neighbors were around. They likely were, as not much really happened around here in the place of my birth. I wondered if I was in the local hospital, it didn’t seem white or dreary enough for one.

“Jade… you’re awake!” The tremor in Fizzle’s voice brought me out of my introspection. She came over to me and gently nuzzled her face up against my neck.

“It’s good to see you too Fizzy, what happened?” Sitting down beside me, Fizzle the adorable pony started telling me a story about how mom got quite mad and tore into Gonnan's hide. It was kind of hard to believe my mom could do something like that. “So you helped mom take Gonnan down a peg using your powerful imbuements. What happened after that?”

“We left after she picked up all the weapons. We don’t exactly know what happened, but Soricini came back badly roughed up.” So casting with sunlight caused a localized blinding solar flare. It made me wonder what casting and sustaining with air would exactly do. I was going to remember this. “He told his men to set us up with an airship, he also had a long talk with Tarsus and his daughter. I think everything worked out. The Shapeshifting Siesta are doing A Capella on a street corner near here, Mr. Huge is just tap dancing though. They are telling people to not trust less colorful changelings nearly as much, it sounds like it’s going to be their disclaimer. I think Merriami Sorex is going to join their group as a dancer, she’s doing much better than you are with a few good meals from Kuril in her.”

“Here you go Jade, some water to get that taste out of your mouth and some warm soup.” My mother held a water filled cup out to me straw first and I greedily sucked down some water to get the taste out of my mouth. She gently pulled it away and sat down next to me. “Don’t take in too much, too fast Jaded. Now open your mouth and get a taste of my version of medicine, its soul food for your tongue.”

“You really know how to spoil me mom.” I took in the broccoli cheddar soup and smiled, tasted euphoric like always. “How long are we going to be in Palicoast, a few days?”

“Try a week or two Jade.” Mom spooned me another bit of soup.

Author's Note

Welcome to some peaceful slice of life chapters or adventuring around Jade's old home town.

Magical Alchemy list.

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater. Can be used to water proof objects.

Sustain: Water Projection (Continuous offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Sustain 2: Blood Projection (Dangerous offensive ability). Capable of performing a powerful projection, but only from open wounds. As one would imagine blood projection is exceedingly painful, taxing on the body and ultimately dangerous to the user. The intimidation factor might be worth the agony in the right situations, but it will always be a detriment to one’s health.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random (One time air terrain survival buff, possible offensive spell). Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain: Projecting thoughts. Not able to receive thoughts, but you can project them to others. Can project mental images.

Self-sustaining: none.

Sunlight.

Cast: Solar Flare. Creates a blinding light. Can only be used during the day time while standing in sunlight.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness. Strengthens all mobility based buffs.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight. Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability. The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining. Does not protect the user from gravitational or high speed stress and lack of oxygen at high altitudes like a pegasus would be by their magic.

Sustain: Redirect sunlight (Defensive support buff). Is only useful during the day and allows for blinding opponents or aggressors with light.

Self-sustaining: Minor protection from darkness (Automatic defensive buff while feather is on person). Needs to be charged with sunlight and to have been used as a magical alchemy sustain at least once to work.

Phoenix Feather.

Cast: Cleansing Flames (Support healing spell). Finds and stops negative foreign bodily ailment or ailments that are magical or mundane, does not heal damage. Can possibly stop positive ailments.

Sustain: Protection from the cold (Continuous defensive buff). Immunity to cold, increased defensive ability against ice and relative elemental based magic.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Jade’s Cloak, Cloaks in general.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: ???. (Effect seems to do nothing, need more information.)

Self-Sustain: Makes sneaking easier (Moderate stealth buff).

Cupcake (Banned by Kuril).

Cast: You don’t want to know.

Sustain: Likely none.

Self-Sustain: Delicious.

Frog Mucus (Banned by Kuril).
Cast: Magical wide area sticky substance bomb (Hard to get out of clothing).
Sustain: ???.
Self-sustain: ???.

Griffon Feather.

Cast: Feather Falling (Limited air terrain support buff). Lowers gravity’s effect on an individual for a minute.

Sustain: Double Jump (Continuous Mobility buff). Can jump off the air one extra time after leaving a solid surface and only one time.

Self-sustain: None.

Fish Oil.

Cast: Ignition (Multipurpose offensive and support spell). Ignites itself and anything around it except the user.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Candle Wax.

Cast: Stiffness. Slow down a target, can have a wide area of effect for reduced effectiveness.

Sustain: Heat resistance (Limited continuous defensive buff). Does not stop heat damage entirely and candle takes heat damage in place of the user.

Self-Sustain: None.

Pepper.

Cast: Sneezing cloud (Limited continuous Defensive spell). Wide range spell that doesn’t affect the user, causes continuous sneezing on contact and doesn’t necessarily need to be breathed in to take effect.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Tricorne.

Cast: Charisma boost (Limited status buff). Gives one the ability to walk around with confidence.

Side-effect: May instill need for showboating in user.

Sustain: ???.

Self-Sustain: ???.

Wood.

Cast: Bark skin (Temporary defensive buff). Make skin and fur tough like tree bark, like most casts can become permanent with multiple consecutive uses. Increases durability of objects when targeted. Causes mildly uncomfortable chafing on a living target.

Sustain: Hair growth in sunlight (Limited utility effect). Only works in direct sunlight.

Self-sustain: Magically enhanced building material.

Waffle Mallet.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Random confusion effect chance (Weapon specific offensive buff). While sustained, the hammer has a low chance to cause confusion and or dizziness upon any impact. Said chance goes up significantly when hitting the head of a target. The strength of the impact doesn't matter, effect can still happen with the barest of taps.

Self-sustain: none.

Combination 1: Candle Wax + Oil (any) + Pepper = Chaos Candle. Candle hollowed out and filled with the other two ingredients mixed together equals devastating results.

Cast: Sneezing flash bomb (Offensive one use spell). Blinding, sinus wrecking and volatile magical cast.

Sustain Cast: Weak jet propulsion device (Limited air terrain support buff), Flamethrower (Limited offensive spell). Doing this will slowly destroy the candle and chemicals used in it. Exhaust fumes has a lesser effect of casting with pepper.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 2: Feather + stick + arrowhead (material any) = Arrow. Arrow + poison = special status ailment added to casting effect based on poison used. Pukwudgie Poison (Paralysis for a few hours).

Cast: Arcing Arrow Beam (Offensive spell). Fires a beam that is effected by gravity as if it were an arrow, it can only damage one target and that’s the first thing it touches. If it grazes a wall and then hits you, it will do nothing to you.

Sustain Cast: Spray of multiple weaker beam shots.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 3: Sustained Fish Scales + ambient ice magic = Ice projection.

Combination requires outside source of ice or freezing magic to wield. This combination has no cast or sustain capability. The wielder of the fish scales can alter projectile size and shape until the ice magic runs out or a sufficient amount of water from the fish scale wielders body is lost.

Chapter Eight, Caring Cozy Coast: Gossip Diagnosis.

-Jade-

A week or two stuck on my back, at least we were in Palicoast for it. I can understand why mom wanted to be here. It was a safe place and I could heal in peace, without the trouble that being in Equestria brings.

I was going to be quite bored here, it made me wonder what my friends were doing.

-Jacky-

I was walking along the docks of the port, I liked looking at boats and airships as they come and go. It felt like the place I grew up. Only there was less cannon fire, people beating each other senseless in the streets and a lot more cats.

Fishing seemed kind of boring for a pastime, but Abyssinian’s did eat a lot of fish. At least I knew Kuril and the Captain did, Fizzle did eat fish sometimes and she’s a pony. Cheerilee and Fresh Start always sent Fizzle weird looks when she enjoys a nice piece of baked or grilled fish. I could eat fish too, but I didn’t get weird looks because I was an omnivorous parrot and something that can eat meat.

I didn’t mind fish personally, but you try living on an island for the most of your life where the biggest legal export is coconuts. I hated coconuts with a passion, I have and always will prefer bananas. Yes, even pirates had their own mercantile ships. It’s just that they were entirely hands off to any pirate, as they carried various supplies Turtle Toga needed.

“I heard from my friend that fishing is a local pastime around here.” I addressed the tubby white furred fellow sitting on the edge of the docks.

“Birman’s the name and fishing is something of a specialty around here miss.” The male cat introduced himself, he then went back to what he was doing and that was preparing a lure. ”Everybody who lives here in Palicoast knows how to fish and with all sorts of methods involved therein. We also know how much fishing is too much. Whether it is fishing in a lake, river, out in the ocean and even off the edge of these docks. Just assume we’re mostly good at fishing around here, there are some exceptions though. The exceptionally good and the exceptionally bad.”

“Despite living on an island for most of my life, I haven’t learned how to fish.” The cat was just giving me this disbelieving stare, I just shrugged at him not knowing what to say aside from the truth. He was a jovial kind of person with a moderately deep voice. “It seems kind of boring, sorry if that sounds a bit offensive.”

“Oh it is boring, I’ll give you that much for a young thing like you. It’s all about patience and getting food without wasting energy, sitting around patiently is not something youths like you are known for.” He stood up, closed his eyes and crossed his arms thinking about something. He then opened them and gave me observing look. “With young ones, it’s always about exploring your surroundings and finding your place in the world. I found my place a long time ago being a well-known fishing cat around here. So does that friend of yours know how to fish?”

“Does the name Jaded La Perm mean anything to you?” Something makes me think I said the wrong thing, because he immediately started laughing raucously.

“Are you talking about Kurilian’s whole world, that Jaded La Perm you mean?” He gave me a rather amused smile and I nodded at him. “Oh it definitely means a lot around here, poor girl ran afoul of the worst kind of fishing problem a few times here at the docks. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not terrible at fishing. It’s just that there’s this whale shark in the local waters that really doesn’t like her very much, or it may even be the very opposite and it likes her far too much. It’s hard to tell with an intelligent fish like that one.”

“Sounds like a story I’d like to hear.” I sat down giving this cat my complete attention.

“Oh it’s definitely a whale of a tale alright or a cats tail in any case. If I remember right Jade like’s to go fishing with her tail. Tail fishing involves dipping your tail in the water with a protective covering and waggling it around, it’s a better method of fishing around rivers. It’s used to get a number of small fish easily.” Birman shook his head chuckling a bit. “Jaded fished in the ocean and got dragged in a few times by a whale shark that has a thing for playing with Abyssinians. It doesn’t eat them and it’s a pretty docile thing, but it makes tail fishing here a dangerous sport as it likes to drag you into the sea if it catches you dipping your tail in anywhere around here. If it were only that, then it wouldn’t be such a tall tale that it is.”

“What do you mean?” I was quite curious to hear about Jade’s adventures in her place of birth, she had an adventure in mine so it was only fair that I have one in hers. Captain grew up in a really nice place.

“It seems the whale shark is always smart enough to know when Jade was fishing with a pole, as such it always knew which line to pull to get Kurilians’s poor little kitten into the water.” As he spoke Birman held out a fishing pole to me and I took it from him, he pulled out a second fishing pole and motioned for me to follow him down the docks. I got up and followed him. “Those interactions led poor Jaded to fearing sea monsters or large aquatic creatures because of that, but it didn’t stop her from swimming or doing some deep diving. Come on and join me while I spin you a few of my best yarns about that crazy green haired cat and a few other legends around here. While I do that, let me show you how to play ‘go fish’ the literal way.”

He showed me how to cast a fishing line and what to do when the bobber eventually sinks into the water. Eventually, I ended up next to him with my own fishing line in the ocean.

“Ever since she learned to breathe underwater, we’ve taken to giving Jaded the nickname Catfish around here. Not that any of us would ever say that to her face, that would be rather rude.” He pulled his rod back and swung it forward launching his fishing hook off the side of the dock. It landed in the water with a small splash a fair distance away. “It’s definitely a healthy fear to worry about large creatures when you’re not as agile in water as you are on land, especially when you have an oafish shark continuing to bother you while you are trying to help your mother with getting food. Kurilian, her mother, makes some of the best broiled fish I’ve ever taste.”

I would learn several more things about the Captain as we waited for a fish to take a bite of our lures.

-Fizzle-

I know I saw Jacky heading towards the docks, but I wasn’t as interested in the boats or the fishing which was as natural a thing around here as breathing. I was more interested in hearing if there was anything magical around here to see.

The buildings here were quaint, if well built, structures. Far better than what I saw in Ponyville at least. The Abyssinians walking around didn’t stare at my broken horn or even bothered me too much about anything, they were keeping to themselves. I tried to listen in on the conversations around here like Jade told me she did back in Klugetown.

I stopped and sat down to look at a kiosk with scratching posts, apparently Abyssinians liked to sharpen their claws on them. Even though they really don’t use their claws for much really from what I’ve seen with Jade.

“Hey, did you hear?” It didn’t take me long to hear something from a group of gathering cats. “Kurilian’s back in town with her kitten.”

“I heard she’s got a place of her own going now and she’s only here because her kitten was hurt and needed a nice place to stay.” There were several feminine felines gathering together into a clowder now.

“She’s a good mother, to think she had so many doubts about raising her kitten.” Another one of the cats intoned as she joined.

“Speaking of the kitten, she must be lucky to have a mother like Kurilian.” A male cat joined the group much to my surprise. “Do you think she’ll cook for anyone around here while she’s in town?”

“Not if she’s taking care of her kitten exclusively.” One of the females moved and wagged a finger at the male. “So don’t you dare bother her about it, just leave her be. Even if we miss her food, we can’t force her to cook for the entire town when she came here to relax!”

“Right, what am I thinking? Her daughter is laid up and here I am thinking with my stomach.” Shaking his head, the male continued on. “Did you also hear that Kurilian is the mayor of her own town?”

Wow, news travelled pretty fast around here from what I’m hearing. I turned back to the scratching post seller.

“Sorry I’m…” I started only for the lazy male cat to hold up a hand.

“Curious about those who live in Abyssinia, I know. You came into town helping Kurilian carry the Catfish.” He sat up and gave me a smile. “How've they been doing, aside from what I’ve been hearing about Kurilian’s kitten being badly hurt?”

“I’d like to think they were doing okay, up until Jade got hurt at least.” Here I was with nothing to do except listen in on other people’s conversations, I wasn’t a medic nor could I really help Jade get better quicker.

“The name’s Devon, would you like a scratching post to give to Jaded?” Was he trying to make a sale, I couldn’t tell. “I’m sure she’d like one as a gift.”

“Sorry, but I don’t really have any…” This young thin faced male cat with the grey and black fur pushed a bright green scratching post forward.

“Don’t worry about paying, I just want you to confirm one thing… is Kurilian really the mayor of her own town in Equestria?” Devon seemed to be a curious sort himself, I blinked and just nodded. “That must be something really interesting to see, I’m sure she was voted into the office on her cooking skills alone. Let me ring you up, here’s a receipt and now you have a get well gift for Jaded.”

“Um… really?” I just looked at it warily. He smiled and nodded as he put the scratching post in a bag and stuffed the receipt in there as well. He pushed it before me smiling.

“Yep, just like that.” This Devon confirmed with a cheerful attitude. “You look a little depressed about Jaded being injured. Jaded needs good friends around her age like you, being born between generations and being on your own a lot of the time is no fun. Not that being alone has really bothered Jaded all too much before.”

“I don’t feel like a good friend.” I grabbed the bag with a hoof and looked at the green post inside it, I then closed it up.

“If you’re upset that the Catfish is hurting, then you’re definitely a good friend.” He had a somber expression on his face now. “Some people have worse ways of showing they care.”

“How do you know Jade?” There, now that I put that out there I wondered what Devon would tell me.

“We used to go to school together, though I never bothered or talked to her much. I’m several years older than her, which is one of the reasons we never interacted much.” Another cat came up to the stand and after Devon was done with selling them a nice looking brown scratching post, he turned right back to me. “We’re all one big family living here in Palicoast. It was a bit surprising for us all to hear that Jaded and Kurilian were going to move away, mostly because Kurilian’s cooking is well respected here. We gave them a nice send off at least. Sorry if this is a bit much, but is Jade still getting schooling in Equestria?”

“Yes, she is.” My response was a little terse at best, but that didn’t deter Devon.

“Oh good, because she needs all the help she can get with complicated math.” He gained an interesting smile on his face. “So what are you going to do here besides moping around and eavesdropping on people in the streets?”

“Wait for Jade to get better so we can get out of here.” It didn’t seem like there was much to do around here.

“No, no, no, that just won’t do at all.” He looked upset with me, did I offend him somehow? “While you’re in Palicoast you need to have a little fun! Get around town, talk to people, find the sights and see them. If there is anything you wanted to do while you’re waiting for Catfish to get back on her feet, then now would be the time for it!”

“Maybe see if what Jade says is true about bar fights and throwing a stool a foot away from yourself?” He let out a silly sounding laugh at my words.

“Now that actually sounds pretty fun, to bad I’m busy with my store at the moment. If you want to get into the middle of the fighting when you do that, then do so.” It seemed like Devon really wanted to go with me. “The salty sea cats around here pull their punches and it’ll at least help get the aggression out of your system about feeling like your helpless. The harder you hit, the harder they hit, so watch yourself and don’t go too far. You bloody someone, knock them unconscious or they start coughing badly, then you back off immediately. The bar is down that street and hang a right, you can’t miss it. Just remember, have some fun!”

I began walking towards the bar wondering if I would really do what Jade did back in Klugetown.

-Kuril-

“So as you can imagine my little tom cat, everyone is happy to see us again.” I’m sure this was the third time my daughter heard of this.

“It’s nice to hear Savannah is still around, has she had any kittens?” At least my daughter was interested in hearing about how our old neighbors were doing, she must be so bored with sitting here all day.

“That tigress?" I snorted derisively. "She'll never settle down!”

“Jade, Kuril, guess what?” Jacky came in with a bucket filled to the top with fish. “I finally learned how to fish today!”

“It seems like you got a good haul there Jacky.” I must admit that was more than just good.

“I’m back.” I turned to the pained voice and looked at my little Fizzle in shock.

”Oh my goodness, what happened to you Fizzle?” My little pony looked badly bruised.

“I tossed a chair in a bar.” Despite her gruesome disheveled appearance, Fizzle started smiling a bit.

Chapter Eight, Caring Cozy Coast: Future Diagnosis.

-Fizzle-

The bruises actually felt pretty good and I got a lot of the stress out of the way, I felt much better. It left me wondering why Jade or Kuril would ever want to leave. This place was quiet and… a little too nice. There was something wrong with this place, but I just couldn’t quite put my hoof on why.

“Oh and I also picked something up for you Jade, I guess it reminds me of you.” Someone reminded me to pick up the bag with the scratching post in it and I guess that was nice of them. I took the scratching post out of the bag and placed it at her bedside.

“Awe, you got her a get well gift Fizzle!” I found myself being hugged by a happy Kuril, I admit that I enjoyed being hugged far too much. “That’s so sweet of you! Jades been needing a new scratching post for a while. When she can move again she’ll be able to take care of her claws… wait, how did you get it? You don’t exactly have an allowance yet until we can get Airship Mauled built up.”

Was she really going to give me an allowance? I… didn’t know how feel about that. Completely appreciative that I had a mother figure in my life, even if it isn't necessarily my birth mother.

“I got it from a kiosk owner, it has a receipt and everything.” I showed the receipt to Kuril and she looked it over.

“It seems you’ve met Devon Rex, he’s a nice fellow.” That’s something I’ve notice around here Kuril, everyone’s nice… way too nice to everyone else to. I was treated as something normal, no pity and only a little curiosity. They talked to me as if I were just another part of life here, there was something vaguely fishy about all this. “He’s always so worried about claw care. Nice to see has a business going”

“Excuse me, but something seems a little off about this town. Why is everyone here so friendly?” I just had to voice it, this has been niggling at me all day. “It just seems way too nice, why would you ever want to leave here?”

“It’s just how Palicoast is, everyone’s got a pal here. If you don’t have a pal and are lonely, you’ll soon find yourself meeting someone who can help alleviate your boredom. That is, if they’re not too busy.” Sighing Kuril turned to the quiet looking Jade just laying there in bed. “Around here everyone tries to stay only acquaintances. They are usually too busy with their daily lives to really form strong bonds with anyone unless they’re searching for love. They’re not bad people though, I already told you how they try to make time for anyone who needs help.”

“Again, why would you ever leave a place like this? It seems so… perfect.” It was beautiful town, even the view out the door was breathtaking. What was I missing here?

The people here were friendly and unassuming. The town was built to last and was quite sturdy.

The food was… well I was still eating what Kuril made and I had heard them talking about asking Kuril to cook for them.

They had plenty of fish here, judging from the amount Jacky caught.

They also had the fruits from nearby trees, but I think the vegetables must have been imported. What was the local export then? More fish? I'd ask them later.

“It’s not perfect though, it’s just... idyllic.” Idyllic, yeah that would be the word for this place Kuril. It just seems too much to be real. Jade, with her head propped up on a pillow, was being rather silent or was she thinking about something? I couldn’t tell at the moment. “I’m a little surprised I can still recognize the difference even now after Jade had pointed it out for me months ago. Trust me, despite how everything looks, it isn’t as perfect as it seems.”

“Can you be a little more specific, what kind of problems does this town exactly have?” I wasn’t seeing it.

“Well for one, unless you’re a merchant, you won’t really get very far from town. It’s quite reliant on Abyssinia and other places being around to trade with. If anything happens to Abyssinia’s capital or the surrounding places of trade, then this town will get hit hard with really bad times. This town has no plans for such a massive disruption! The prosperity here isn’t exactly built to last on its own without outside help, it’ll collapse in on itself economically due to said disruption.” As soon as Jade said that, I had my attention completely on her. “Kraken season isn’t so nice around here either, let me tell you. It’s tentacles for weeks and the noise is really horrific the closer you are to the coast. It certainly makes sleeping almost impossible. Unless you have food squared away for that, then you might go a bit hungry. While friendly, the people around here have a capacity to be overly aloof, especially with how busy things can get.”

“She’s not wrong about any of that. It's really a nice place to live, but staying here for the rest of your life is a bad idea if you have any hopes or dreams like my little tom cat does. You'd be sitting on a daily grind and going nowhere otherwise.” There was a strange look on Kuril’s face. “The peace is nice, but the only people here who can fight are the sailing cats and they won’t stand for very long against a large assault of any kind. I’m quite surprised that pirates haven’t taken advantage of this port already. The people here should really be prepared for the many possibilities of things going wrong in the future… they definitely aren’t.”

I could tell that both Jade and Kuril were being a bit weird about something. I wondered what Kuril was thinking, much less Jade. They both seemed distracted.

“I think it hasn’t been hit by pirates because they’ve been lucky enough to avoid being rich enough in resources to attract attention.” That makes about as much sense as anything else Jacky, but there was something strange about that.

“That luck won’t last forever, this place might even become another Klugetown...” Okay Jade, I think we get the idea. That comment caused me to feel shivers down my spine. “Peace can only last as long as there are those who are willing to protect it with their very lives. At best I can only protect those close to me with my very being. Well not at the moment, I can’t exactly stand as I am now.”

That caused my spine to freeze up far more and I gave Jade a worried look. Would she really be willing to die for me? I didn’t like that thought, her not being around anymore would probably be one of my worst fears come true.

This place didn’t really have anyone to protect it. That’s what was wrong! There were no guards here, then again there really wasn’t much crime here either.

I guess it’s not rich enough for pirate attacks, but it’s not poor enough to be squalid. It was a delicate balance and they weren’t prepared for the worst to happen, I can see now what Jade and Kuril were talking about. Too much of a big change and...

They were living day to day, but never were they prepared or even ready for the distant future.

-Approximately seven years into the future, Tempest. The future that refused to change.-

“Look at that rainbow. Look at that rainbow!” Yes Grubber, I can see it. Rainbow was just a mare that certainly couldn’t do subtle if she tried, never take her on any stealth mission. “Whoa, that’s so cool.”

“Yeah, of them to alert us.” I smiled a bit, at least those two were okay. Rainbow wouldn’t have been happy enough to give away their position like this and attract my attention if any of them had been badly hurt. “Funny though, they don’t seem to be heading to black skull island.”

I turned to the Abyssinian. I knew he was going to lead us astray, but I didn’t care to really rush towards black skull island and was promptly rewarded. I wasn’t going to hurt him much, I found it hard to raise a hoof against any Abyssinian. Even one as scumbag as this one was.

After all, many Abyssinian’s lost their homes in the assault that ripped apart their capital.

I ignored what the cat was saying, he was just trying to make excuses at this point. I pushed Grubber out the way. No need to apologize, I’m being evil right now or at least I’m just playing my role in all this.

I pushed the throttle forward and steered the airship towards theirs, to think it was Jacky that taught me how to fly an airship in the first place. I think she was currently stuck in Turtle Toga, I’ve never been there. The Storm King and none of his storm creatures, thankfully enough, haven't been there either.

At least Blackcap was safe where she was, unlike the rest of the world if the Storm King gets his way. She would only be safe until someone forces a captured pirate to lead them straight to that magical island, someone like Celaeno for instance.

I knew that those ponies would likely be down in the hold of the ship, but I was going to waste time and let them escape again.

I already had an idea of where they were going anyway, it wouldn’t be too hard to catch Princess Twilight at Mount Aris after all. She wouldn’t be able to get too far without transportation.

It wouldn’t be long before Grubber eventually did something seemingly competent, if I didn’t already know where those six were going to begin with.

“Fire the harpoon!” This moment was reminding me of Palicoast as I watched our harpoon strike the other airship.

How were those people doing now? Not all too well after the Storm King took everything from them I’d think. Not many people could stand up to his army of storm creatures or fight off an airship bombardment.

They were likely to be in dire straits.

Both Kuril and... they at least saw the writing on the wall about that. I hoped Kuril would stay put during all this, I wouldn’t be able to stand her looking at me in disappointment.

It still hurts even now, I can hardly think of what I had, it’s knowing they’d all be quite unhappy that I’m doing all this. I wasn’t part of the invasion of Abyssinia, but I had heard of it happening and didn’t lift a single hoof to help.

I would have likely just been caught up in the devastation for trying to help.

Instead, I was later caught with that stupid magical green glowing rock and offered a position in the Storm King’s army.

One of those voices that told me to get rid of the rock sounded like… hers. I should have dropped it like hot garbage instead of running from the storm creatures and Grubber.

I wondered what happened when the storm king destroyed it… the magic in cursed things like that just doesn’t simply go away because you destroy the container.

Did he… did he accidentally absorb all of it? I shook his hand with my hoof not to long after that… I think that was indicative of something about me being bad luck for him.

I've heard that some things involving magic were hardly ever coincidental, I just hoped that whatever cursed magic that was in that stone was effecting only the Storm King and not me by proximity to its destruction. I did not want to be like Jacky!

The invasion of Canterlot that I did take part in was at least less violent and horrific thanks to me. The destruction and injuries were kept to a minimum, no pony died. The royal guards really didn't do much and there wasn’t much of a fight to be had, I had even taken down the princesses important to the worlds continued existence.

At least turned to stone they could still do their jobs of raising the sun and moon.

The only pony that I could truly rely on at this moment is myself, I had a plan and I’m sticking to it.

Though I logically knew the storm king was going to destroy the world, after he’s already destroyed so much.

In the end, I hoped to be rewarded with what I’m after.

...

I’m going to have a lot to answer for once this is all over with.

-Fluttershy, Mt. Aris-

Fizzle was scaring me quite a bit, maybe she wouldn’t be like this if I knew what was going on with her.

What was also scary was that everything here was so… quiet.

This place was unnerving, cold, no cuddly animals around… very little noise. Rarity’s complaining being louder than the wind. She’d say she wasn’t whining in the slightest, but she did kind of have a point that the bad guys were winning.

We’ve been on the run for a while now with very little rest.

What was wrong with you Fizzle? Where was… Jade…

Fizzle would hardly ever let Jade out of her sight. That was after Jade got injured pretty badly during a trip they took, after that she was really quite protective of her.

Something really bad must have happened. I felt really bad for not being there, but my new friendship with Twilight was so… magical. It also took up a lot of my time when I wasn’t caring for all of my animals.

If it wasn’t Twilight getting into some kind of situation, me being too busy to visit Airship Mauled or the many other things that took up my time, then maybe I might know what’s going on.

I felt just awful about whatever Fizzlepop was going through. Pinkie keeps insisting that she’s just Tempest Shadow, but I knew our old friend when I saw her. I would like to say that I’m still her friend, but at the moment she doesn’t seem to be mine.

Fizzle’s still in there somewhere underneath her scary appearance and angry visage, she just had to be.

Jade wouldn’t have ever let something like this happen unless she were… no, Fizzle would have never let something like that happen… then what did happen? This place was quickly becoming depressing.

-Approximately seven years prior. Palicoast, Jacky.-

“What are the chances of something really bad happening to Abyssinia?” I tried to brighten the mood in the room, both Kuril and Captain were getting all moody for no reason. They were even bringing down Fizzle with them. “It’s a beloved peaceful trading nation, who would ever attack it so viciously?”

“You’d be utterly surprised at what some people would do for power.” Jade glanced at Fizzle for some reason. “You’d be surprised Blackcap.”

Was there something the Captain or Kuril weren’t telling me here? I know being bedridden wasn’t a pleasant thing, but at least Jade had us right? We’d always have her back and it was only a matter of time before she gets better.

I wasn’t going to get my tail feathers in a twist, maybe a trip to the beach is called for. We could build some sand castles.

Author's Note

Well this one took a while, hope everyone's happy with it.

Otherwise I'm just going throw my hands up in the air and keep going.

Chapter Eight, Caring Cozy Coast: Beach Diagnosis.

-Six days later in Palicoast, Jacky-

Captain was up and… well she wasn’t moving on her own, but she was up. Being on pain killers almost constantly for several days probably kept her from screaming in pain as we helped her along towards the beach.

I had finally gotten Fizzle to agree to a beach day, don’t honestly know what we’re doing for lunch or in the evening. This morning was going to be so fun and Jade would be lazing about in the sand.

“Are those pain killers effective?” I asked as I helped Captain walk.

“Yes… very.” The captain needed a few more days of rest, but she was looking better already and Kuril said she needed some sun and exercise.

“Are you sure you should be up and moving Jade?” Come on Fizzle, Captain’s perfectly fine for getting out for a little while. We can’t confined her to a bed forever. “You seem uncomfortable.”

“Don’t worry about me Fizzy, I’m getting better. Who knew a single punch to the spine could put me down for that long?” Captain smiled at our pony companion and slowly ran her right hand along Fizzle’s head. Fizzle leaned into the touch and smiled at her. “I certainly didn’t and now I know what it’s like to get hit by a carriage full of lead going down a hill would feel like.”

“Actually you would be dead if you were hit by something like that Captain.” I wondered if Captain La Perm has no sense of mortality. “You did see the dent in that shield right? Imagine if you hadn’t put that on your back.”

“Point, you absolutely have one.” The Captain was smiling weakly. “When was your last round of bad luck? I’m trying to work out if I can time it to a clock.”

“It’s been about…” I started to say before fishing spear slammed into the street between my legs, the shaft wobbled upwards smacking me painfully between the legs once. Fizzle managed to catch Captain while I fell to the ground in pain. I took a few seconds to respond. “About fifteen seconds ago.”

“Er… sorry about that!” A sheepish looking fishing cat pried his dangerous multipronged spear out of the ground and then ran off at the sight of our combined glares.

“I’m okay guys, let’s keep going.” I eventually got up, I’m not missing this day. I have been asking for a trip to the beach over the last few days and we were going to enjoy it.

Bad luck or not, I was going to make this a day for my friends to remember!

We continued on our way through town towards the beach, cats stopped to wave or give a greeting and continued on about their day. We had just about everything we needed for a day on the beach, including a blanket and parasol.

I had the parasol and Fizzle had the blanket. We could play and Jade could just relax, all while Kuril could do several things in town.

We made our way down the wooden stairs to the beachfront and looked about, not many people playing out here or even enjoying the beach. You’d think this would be a constantly swarmed location for tourists.

Those who were here, were the younger cats with a few older cats to watch out for them.

“So where’s a good spot to put down the blanket?” Fizzle looked around the beach, she seemed unsure about things. I don’t think she’s ever been to a beach for fun before.

“Right around there, but not too close to the water.” It seemed Captain did have the experience of a beach bum, it looked like a nice location.

Fizzle unfurled the blanket and I placed the parasol, however we both realized we left Jade standing by herself and she was staring at something.

“I’m not going near the water today…” Captain muttered quietly while shivering in fear.

“Why not Captain La Perm?” I looked towards the ocean and saw something diving into the water.

“Just call it a hunch, but I think there’s something out there that is out to get me.” What makes the Captain think that? She was being a bit paranoid.

The sun was shining, there was nothing but calm waters throughout the horizon and waves were gently lapping at the shore.

“Afraid of a little water Jade, how much danger could you possibly be in this far from the it?” Cue something making Fizzle eat her words.

Something quite large and brown leapt out the water on a long arcing trajectory for the Captain, we both just looked at the incoming wide mouthed creatures with dull shock.

Fizzle was the first to make a move. She quickly leapt to wrap her hooves around Jade and rolled out of the way of the large brown speckled creature that slammed into the sand.

It was a whale shark, probably the same one that wouldn’t stop bothering the Captain from Birman’s tales.

The large creature flopped upright in an organized manner, then it managed to turn itself around and got back into the water by bouncing in a controlled manner with its flippers. Its dorsal fin was last seen diving into the water. That thing was really quite intelligent for such a large fish.

-Fizzle-

Jade was whimpering while curling up against me. I started trying to comfort and calm her down. Her ears were firmly pressed back and her tail was between her legs, she was the large frightened mass of cat on top of me.

I don’t know how Kuril could ever complain that Jade never did cute things, I think she was being really adorable right now. Maybe she only did adorable things when Kuril wasn’t around. That would certainly upset mom to no end.

I shouldn’t laugh about this, because that had surprised the heck out of us and it had certainly terrified Jade.

I continued running my hoof through her hair and she clamped onto me, I then started running my hoof up and down her back.

“Don’t worry, the big scary fish is not going to get you Jade.” I softly intoned before the shark jumped out of the water again. I turned my head and immediately fired a wildly zigzagging bolt of lightning from my horn. I had managed to somehow miraculously hit it and the impact knocked that shark back into the sea. “As I was saying! It’s okay Jade. See, there’s no big scary fish out to get you. Now let’s get you onto the blanket so you can rest while watching us playing in the sand.”

My unaided magic was powerful, unstable and quite draining as all get out, but that had been absolutely worth it. At least I had managed to stay conscious this time.

“Okay…” Her quiet voice tugged at my heart, I held her close and kissed her forehead before releasing her. For someone so brave, incredible and insane, she seemed so fearful right now.

“Come on.” I goaded Jade back onto her feet, she was still a bit jittery and her eyes kept shooting towards the water. I managed to get her on the blanket where I let her cuddle me until she could finally calm down. “I’m sorry for mocking your very clear and quite real fear of the water Jade.”

“It’s okay and… thank you Fizzy.” I was enjoyed the comforting feeling of Jade snuggling me. We spent the next few minutes like that.

“Well now that you’re done protecting Captain from a crazy shark, I believe we can get our beach day started right!” The soonest Jacky said that a large kraken popped up out of the water, I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

I don’t think I had enough magical power in my body to blast another sea creature.

-Thirty minutes later.-

I looked over to Jade and saw her bumping her fist against a curled up bit of tentacle. We had been a bit worried about the monster appearing until Jade talked the kraken into relaxing with her.

That didn’t make sense as she was coming off of being scared of being attacked by a shark jumping out of the water at her. She was scared of the shark, but she was okay with a kraken that just slithered aimlessly onto the beach?

It seems like the kraken was entirely cool with hanging out with Jade under the shade of the parasol, it was just being as lazy as Jade was. I had no words for that, but Jade obviously had things under control.

“One second she’s scared out of her wits and whimpering against me, the next she’s friends with a Kraken… never have I met a more vexing being than her.” I turned back to what I was doing with Jacky. What was sitting before me wasn’t a sand castle, it was more like a sand sculpture of an airship with a paw sticking out from under it. “We’re building an airship out of sand and not a castle, also why am I even sculpting Sekhet’s paw sticking out from under the airship?”

“Maybe because it fits with the theme of our sand sculpture and you’re doing pretty good in detailing the paw... can we make it more of a yak long boat though?” After Jacky said that, I heard Jade giggling quite a bit. “I can’t do a mast made of sand and I think sculpting oars would be much easier.”

“Okay, what exactly is so funny Jade?” Stopping in the middle of my sculpting of the second paw, I turned to the giggling cat on the blanket.

“Can you actually imagine Sekhet being hit by anything other than an airship?” After stopping to consider that, Jade got a very horrified look on her face. “We wouldn’t be able to keep our towns name if something other than an airship ever hit her!”

“Yes, because that would be quite horrible and not at all the real problem of things falling from the sky over Airship Mauled.” Please note my sarcasm Jade, I was using it quite liberally here.

“Look, if getting hit by falling objects was a real problem, then don’t you think Sekhet or Celestia would have taken care of it by now? At least one of them would have thought of precautions.” Just because they are goddesses, it does not mean they are always smart or proactive like that Jade.

“Have you ever thought that maybe they haven’t thought of doing something protective like that yet and probably never will unless absolutely prompted?” I received looks from both Jade and the kraken, they both shrugged and continued relaxing. “Of course they haven’t thought of that. So when do you think mom is… did I just call her… Jade, did I really just…”

“Yeah, you just called my mother mom.” Jade and the kraken both sat up to stare at me and I turned to Jacky who was also staring at me.

“Well if it upsets you…” Jade got up and stumbled on her way over to me, but the following kraken propped her up and she eventually got to me. She crouched down and pulled me against herself with some strength.

“Fizzle, it doesn’t upset me one bit and you’re already family. I’m not upset and I think Jacky will eventually start calling her that too.” She smiled and started to chuckle, her whiskers tickled my face and fur as she nuzzled up to me. “Go ahead Fizzle, call her mom to her face and see what happens. I know for a fact that she’ll love hearing it.”

“Speaking of Chief Cook Kuril, what is she doing right now?” Jacky poked her head up from her side of the now more long boat styled airship made of sand.

“I remember mom saying something about getting an idea of how we should build Airship Mauled up without crashing more airships into Sekhet before we left.” Jade let go of me, I most certainly didn’t whine out loud about that because of how much I was enjoying her hug. “Speaking of crashes, Captain Grit’s ship left us with a bit of farm land dug out using Sekhet’s face, so we should grab some fruit seeds while we’re here. I want to grow some lemon trees, Jacky will probably want bananas and that leaves an idea for what trees you want Fizzle.”

“I’d actually prefer a strawberry patch.” It was something I knew we could do easily at Airship Mauled.

“I’m sure we can find some Abyssinian strawberry seeds around here and we can cross pollinate them with Equestrian strawberries for a better crop.” That sounds just fine Jade, though it’ll take a while for the lemon trees to really start producing and banana trees also take a while. Unless we were to get trees that were already producing.

Strawberries were a quick and easy fruit to grow and I knew how much of a fruit lover you were Jade. Maybe we can talk to a few cows without a home into moving in so we can make fruit smoothies and ice cream.

“That sounds great Jade, now get back on the blanket and continue resting!” The cheeky pained smile being sent my way by Jade made my realize soemthing. “Wait... did you even take those pain killers this morning?!”

“Nope, I don’t need them as badly anymore.” I saw Jade sit down and I notice that she twitched and winced a bit.

How much pain was she tolerating by being out here with us and exactly how high was her pain tolerance?

-Jade-

Even with that little bit of activity my body felt like it was on fire. Another week around here would be better now that I could move around. Being stuck in bed for more than six days straight is no fun, even with mom taking good care of me for most of that.

“Say, do you do massages?” I addressed the kraken and it tilted its cone shaped head at me questioningly while shrugging with its tentacles. “Right, here’s what I want you to do…”

-Kuril-

I was thankful that I could convince Mayor Manx to agree with me that building a town wide hidden bunker over the next few years would be a good idea. Hopefully it’ll actually save lives, unless the mayor just kept it all to himself.

I didn’t think the mayor of Palicoast was evil, just a politician with an overly inflated sense of self-worth. Like most politicians really… except I have my insane daughter to keep me grounded in reality.

I also had two other children to care for as well and they may as well be mine with how close we’re all getting to one another. Jacky was always so clumsy, it was either that or her horrible luck getting the better of her. Fizzle always seems so quiet and sweet, she was the one in need of the most attention.

As I made my way onto the beach I saw a really weird scene before me, an airship shaped long boat with oars made of sand with a pair of well sculpted paws sticking out from under it. I giggled and looked to the kraken that was giving my daughter a massage… wait… what?!

How in the world did Jade… you know what? I’m not going to bother trying to figure out how she taught a kraken to give massages, or even ask what a kraken was doing on the beach.

Author's Note

Sekhet under an airship meter: *Ding!* 4.

Unexplained authors note embed!

Chapter Eight, Caring Cozy Coast: Motherly Diagnosis.

-Kuril-

“Isn’t it a bit dangerous to have some random kraken massaging you Jade?” I walked up to my purring kitten and she just looked up to me in a slight daze.

“He’s not some random kraken though, his name is Escargot.” In response to my daughter’s purred words, the kraken waved a tentacle at me and then continued to rub Jade’s back. This elicited more purring from my daughter, looking at Fizzle I could see she was giving the kraken jealous looks. “He’s really helping me out a lot here, you should try this. It feels really nice.”

What does Fizzle have to be jealous of? It wasn’t like Jade was going to fall in love with a kraken. A chimera was completely okay in my book, but I’m putting my foot down with more bestial creatures that couldn’t speak in a language I could understand.

“Just so long as he doesn’t touch you anywhere inappropriate and is actually helping you feel better.” That made the kraken give me an upset look and it started to gesture with its tentacle that it would never do such a thing. A kraken that’s an absolute gentle tom, now I can say that I’ve seen a lot. When I finally get to dancing hippos on my bingo card, I’ll be able to turn it in for thousands of bits. “Fine, but why did you name the kraken Escargot?”

“I didn’t name Escargot, that’s his name and he knows how to write. Show her Escargot, and could you get my left shoulder while you’re at it? He’s really good at multitasking.” Two tentacles moved to work over my daughter’s left shoulder and she sighed, the kraken also wrote ‘hi’ in the sand. “I think he might have sea pony friends in Seaquestria.”

“Shoo-be-doo shoo-shoo-be-doo?” The kraken threw me a salute after I blandly intoned the general call for help in the ocean that my daughter told me about. I had yet to meet a sea pony, but they had to be real from the way the kraken reacted.

“Thanks for confirming it mom.” Well Jade was currently okay in the tentacles of the kraken. Not a sentence I ever thought I’d be thinking without panicking about it. Now to see what my other two girls were getting up to. “Oh, and thank you too Escargot for being so friendly. This is really good stress relief and it’s helping my injuries heal a little bit faster.”

The kraken clacked and gurgled in a manner that made him sound happy to be of help as I walked over to see what Fizzle and Jacky were getting up to.

“Hey girls, what are you up to?” From what I could see of Fizzle, she was still just jealously glaring at the kraken that was making my daughter purr.

“Nothing much mom, we’re just relaxing. Though I could use help with getting all this sand out of my fur and hair after we’re done having fun.” Despite how lazy she said it, Fizzle had said a word that made me quite happy. I quickly pulled the pony against myself into a tight loving hug. “Ulp… too tight.”

“I’m sorry Fizzle, but you called me mom. I’m not entirely responsible for my actions at this moment.” Though I did loosen up my cuddling strangle hold on the young mare and would eventually let go of her. “Also Abyssinian’s have several good methods for getting sand out of odd places, don’t worry about it.”

“You think sand is hard to get out of fur, try having feathers.” Turning to Jacky, she was in the midst of sculpting a pyramid on the beach and a crab seemed to be helping her with it. “I’m making more sand sculptures before we have to leave… how long do we have before we have to get cleaned up for an early dinner?”

“I’m giving us two hours at least, then you girls need to clean yourselves up.” I glanced in Jade’s direction, the red kraken was still being so gentle with her and it was still slightly unnerving to watch. “So is the kraken being friendly weird to you guys too?”

“Not really, I’ve seen weirder things happen in Turtle Toga just by throwing banana peels around. Just so you know, banana peels are not as slippery as legends would suggest unless the peel was left to sit out for a while.” Jacky turned away from the finished pyramid sculpture and left it to the gathering crabs to play with. “Want to help me build an actual sand castle mom… ulp... why did I say that?”

“Welcome to the party Blackcap, now figure out a way to get Kuril to stop snuggling us to death.” Don’t complain Fizzle, you loved all forms of affection given to you by me and Jade. “She’s going to hug us to death.”

“Why don’t we just say that we love her and hope that she let’s go of us?” I like the never give up attitude you have there Jacky.

“We love you mom!” They both said at the same time as they hugged me back, I felt my heart soar.

It made me feel like a competent mother to have these two turn to me for parenting and motherly affection. I loved my daughter Jade, really I do, but sometimes she just made me feel slightly iffy on the subject of being a mother. It’s been quite a journey so far and now I have two extra daughters to dote on.

“I love both of you girls too and I’m not about to let you go anytime soon until you’re all grown up and then you’ll cruelly leave me all alone without anyone to care for.” I pressed both Fizzle and Jacky up against me tightly. “The both of you will become so beautiful, unlike my daughter who won’t even put in the effort to making herself look good.”

“She doesn’t have to make herself look good, I think she’s already beautiful the way she is!” After she said that, Fizzle dug her face into my neck with an embarrassed sounding groan and red face. “Did I just seriously say that out loud?”

Now you see, Fizzle is how a cute daughter is supposed to act!

“Yep, but it’s not like it’s a secret that you really like Captain La Perm.” After saying this Jacky turned to me and poked my neck with her beak. “Now can you please let us go?”

I sighed and released them, I was going to spend some quality time with them now.

-Three days later, Fizzle-

Kuril was really quite happy to be our mother, like I was happy enough to call her mom.

It even felt nice when she started brushing my mane. I kind of wished that it was Jade doing this, it was just as nice though to have Kuril doing it while she hummed. It was really quite comforting.

“I swear I still feel like I have sand in my feathers. I love playing on a beach, but it’s less fun when you have to wash yourself off afterwards.” There was a general sentiment of agreement at Jacky’s words.

“Say Jacky, could you teach me how to pilot an airship?” If I ever had to fly The Ardent Survivor myself for any reason whatsoever, it would be useful information to know.

“Sure thing, we might as well make a day of it. I was going to do some maintenance on the ship anyway.” Stretching out, Jacky put her hands behind her head and leaned back in the chair. We both looked to Jade as she slept. “Captain and Kuril will have to learn to do it as well, we can’t rely on my bad luck to stay entirely away from me while I’m piloting.”

“Hey, you got us to Palicoast in one piece Blackcap. You even landed the airship intact and in good working condition too.” Come on Jade, you have to know that it was a complete miracle considering your luck on airships. “You’ve even got the most piloting skills out of the four of us.”

I agree, Jacky was the best pilot we have and her luck wasn’t going to stop her from being our designated pilot.

“I’m not that great Captain…” It seems Jacky Blackcap Chickadee was being way too modest for her own good.

Sure she had horrible luck at times and it tended to randomly target those around her, but she was earnest about wanting be our friend. We all made quite a concerted effort to ignore the fact that she was a jinx because of that, she was loyal to a fault and knew how to keep going even if fate really hated her on some days. I respected her and so did mom, Jade and the other people of Airship Mauled.

“Jacky, you are the pluckiest and friendliest bird I know, you’re also the one that knows the most about airships, boats, sword fighting, tying knots and lots of other things like how to aim and fire a cannon accurately.” I leaned into the next brush stroke as I spoke, this was really relaxing. “You may be unlucky, but you’re really talented at a lot of things.”

“I still wonder why you like your hair sticking up and out like this as your preferred hairstyle, it certainly makes you quite unique.” Another brush stroke from Kuril had me feeling really pleasant. “I guess it’s just how ponies roll. Whenever they get a style they like, they tend to spend almost the rest of their lives with it. Unless they force a big change to their appearance.”

“It keeps my hair out of my eyes and it’s an easy style to maintain. It’s the same style I’ve had since…. since my filly days really.” I wasn’t going to change it anytime soon, but maybe I would eventually. Mom wasn’t wrong about most ponies keeping one style of mane for most of their lives with very little change throughout. “So when are we going to get to those flying lessons?”

“Whenever we’re through eating breakfast would be a good time.” Kuril stated calmly.

“Breakfast, who said breakfast, I want breakfast!” We all jumped away from Jade, who immediately woke up at the word.

“That’s my little tom cat for you, always thinking of her next meal. We’re not having breakfast yet, besides I need to finish combing Fizzle’s mane.” The brush strokes stopped and Kuril went to pick up a comb, it was nice to know what having a mother felt like. “You should probably let me care for that shaggy green mess of yours Jade.”

“Not going to happen, I like being a bit scruffy. It makes me look less like a sun priest.” Then why were you still going through your sun salutation ritual Jade? You certainly seemed happier that you could do that again with only a mild amount of wincing. I’m sure that the sun doesn’t begrudge you the days that you missed.

“We’re going to learn how to pilot airships after breakfast, can you go tell The Shapeshifting Siesta and their new groupie slash member of the group that we aren’t going to leave them behind?” The comb strokes Kuril was performing had me blushing, I guess it just felt that nice. “We’re going to be in Palicoast for at least two more days and you’re still not one hundred percent dear daughter of mine. Don’t think I didn’t notice you avoiding the pain killers, we’re going to have a long talk about your health Jade.”

“I don’t want to get an addiction mom, I don’t need them anymore.” After finishing her exercise, Jade gave us a salute and left the room of the inn we’ve been staying at... by jumping off the third floor balcony.

Well it was the quickest way to the first floor and Jade did have a griffon feather to do that strange double jump before she hit the ground thing. How does the feather’s sustain account for all that momentum and allow one to jump off the air without breaking their legs? Magical alchemy was still a bizarre thing to me, like earth pony magic.

I also didn’t understand Jade’s ridiculous fascination with jumping off of high places, she didn’t seem like that much of a thrill seeker to me.

-Hours later, Jade-

“If it’s fine with you, we wish to be on the ship while you do this.” Well that didn’t sound very untrusting at all Clypeus, because we weren’t actually planning to leave any of you behind. I wasn’t about to forget our colorful changeling friends, who might have incidentally changed back to being dark changelings if we ever betrayed them horribly.

“Sure, no pressure to not crash the ship into the nearest deity then. Well let’s get things started Jacky, what’s the first thing we need to know about airships?” At my question we all turned to the parrot who was getting a bit shy at all the attention she was receiving.

“Well to start off Captain La Perm, airships are constructed a bit differently from sea faring vessels. For one they are made to work primarily in the air. They only work in the water in the case of an engineering emergency.” Started up Jacky, she seemed nervous about teaching us stuff. “Is this how Cheerilee feels when she teaches us? Anyway, they are built with as sturdy and lightweight a material as you can get. The Keel is always the first to hit the water or the ground and it has to be made of a stronger material to help create the skeleton of the ship. Depending on propulsion, the ship will be just as easy to use in the water as it is in the air. Any questions so far?”

Nothing but silence here Jacky, we’re listening.

“There are various forms of airship propulsion. Magic propulsion is hard to keep fueled. Jet propulsion doesn’t work in the water in the event of a crash and is a bit explosive. Fin propulsion is the slowest safest form of propulsion and a bit tiring to work manually. Propeller propulsion is useful in just about any situation if a little bit more dangerous than the fins.” Now that Jacky brought up the methods of propulsion, I noticed how most pony ships tended towards aerial fin propulsion or manual propeller propulsion. At least ponies were about safety and conscious of being environmentally clean. “This ship in particular has propeller propulsion which is powered by a small slow oil burning engine, with pegasus made pollutant capturing filters that are still working at eighty percent capacity. When they get down to twenty percent capacity, it’s time to trade them out and recycle the ones you have safely. Some ships can have two or more forms of propulsion and those would be a bit faster than The Ardent Survivor and its two propellers if they were working efficiently together.”

“Question, when can we get to some real piloting here?” Well don’t ignore Fizzle, she raised her hoof and everything Jacky.

“When I go over all the rules of what not to do when flying an airship and how to recognize when something is terribly wrong with the balloon, the ropes, the body and the propulsion systems on the vessel.” It sounded like Jacky has seen every kind of technical problem that could possibly occur on an airship. “Not to mention everything else that can go wrong when I'm on one.”

Author's Note

Next: Leaving Palicoast for home, will The Ardent Survivor land safely? At this point...

It's up in the air.

Chapter Nine, Exercises In Utility: Fizzlepop Berrytwist.

-???, One year since Airship Mauled was founded.-

Flames flickered and danced, making the shadows sway as the pony known as Fizzlepop faced down her opponent in the coming moonlight. Said opponent was a dangerous growling chimera, the fierce and powerful creature started stalking towards her.

Fizzlepop spread her hooves out and took a horse stance to show she wasn’t afraid of the chimera.

It probably wasn’t the best idea to challenge a chimera like this, but she had her reasons to stand up to this dangerous creature. She wanted to show everyone she was strong and just what exactly it was a unicorn with a broken horn can do, to prove that she was quite capable of taking care of herself.

The chimera lunged forward.

Fizzlepop rolled onto her back, braced her front two legs against the ground and brought her rear legs together. She bucked upwards catching the surprised chimera in the chest and barely avoided the paw swiping at her face.

Not only did Fizzlepop buck the chimera in the chest, she acted swiftly to get in another blow. Which required her to move with the chimera’s momentum and not let it press its weight down on her.

The world seemed to slow down. She twisted her front legs to press the bottoms of her hooves against the ground, she also pulled her rear legs inwards.

Fizzlepop’s current position was a scrunched up hoof stand, with a grunt of effort she pushed with her front and rear hooves and sent the chimera flying as she came back to a standing position from her backwards somersault.

She had used the chimera’s momentum against them twice, first when she bucked upwards into their chest and again when she bucked them away.

Fizzlepop didn’t look behind her, but the crashing noise and the resulting pained roar had her smiling calmly. She closed her eyes and waited, she wasn’t going to run. What she was doing was waiting for her opponent to come back at her, she could hear the chimera roll and get to its feet growling while also gasping in pain.

The pony slowly turned around and stared down the chimera and waited patiently as the chimera stalked towards her and started to circle her.

The shining cat eyes were seen in the dimly lit area, the reptilian eyes near it were glowing and the beady serpentine eyes behind them all was watching and waiting for the moment to join in.

The first hit went to Fizzlepop, she was going to play the slow game. She had to use hit and run tactics to tire the chimera out and avoid the tail to the best of her ability. It wasn’t the most dangerous thing about this chimera, but it was up there.

Fizzlepop was trying to analyze this chimera to see what she had to avoid and she was trying to remember what kind of biology she knew about their constituent parts. It was the same thing Jaded La Perm did when she first met Maries.

She leapt backwards and saw the barest flicker of a spark, she heard the sound of a cracking noise of something moving blindingly fast.

The pony narrowed her eyes and leapt to the left avoiding the whip like tongue striking where she had been within a quarter of a second. The tongue pulled back to the head that launched it and they seemed to smile tauntingly at the unicorn.

It was quite apparent that Fizzlepop was wary of the chimera as she shifted her legs and made a slow approach for the combination creature, it was quite a bit more dangerous than she had accounted for.

There was the barest hint of movement, Fizzlepop ducked under the tongue as it cracked like a whip barely missing her head. She moved in and quickly stopped to pull her head back from the snapping jaws of the other head while the tongue was still being reeled back in.

The pony did a rolling jump to her left over the chimera’s right paw swipe coming for her and then she tackled the chimera's side knocking them over.

While the chimera was knocked onto their side, the tail showed its true colors and sent a bolt of energy roaring towards Fizzlepop’s face in an attempt to get her to back off.

The pony ignited her horn and a majority of the incoming energy splashed off of her quickly summoned unstable magic. Some of that energy got through and made Fizzlepop grit her teeth in pain as she leapt onto the chimera's back as it was trying to stand up.

The aggressive equine bucked out her right rear leg and clocked the tail hard across the face when it tried to bite her. Having dazed the head she shot out her other leg smacking it under the chin and then reached out with both of her rear legs to wrap them around the tail’s head and squeezed tightly. She made that head entirely incapable of opening its mouth.

The chimera let out a growl of pain as Fizzlepop threatened to crush their rearguard head between her hind legs and thighs. Stretching the front half of her body, Fizzlepop wrapped her front hooves around the tongue shooting heads neck and squeezed it.

The energy spitting head couldn’t do anything if it couldn’t get its mouth open and the tongue spitting head couldn’t do anything while it was being choked.

-Fizzle-

“Yield or I’ll knock them out and continue on to you.” I stated firmly and squeezed the gagging lizard head between my front two hooves. The eel head stuck between my hind legs couldn’t do anything as it thrashed in an attempt to dislodge itself from me.

After a moment the thrashing ceased and the remaining head turned her eyes to me.

“You have proven yourself capable and the capability of your clan is recognized, without my two sisters being able to act I am at a disadvantage. You may release me now, I will not act against you.” I gave the remaining head a look, then I slowly released both the electric eel head and the lizard head. The panther head had a comment for when I eventually got off of them. “Our daughter is in good company. Just know that I went easy on you as you are one of my daughter’s beloved clan mates and your clan has its own rules of which I have to respect.”

It was Bloody Maries mothers, Bloody Traces. Tracer the panther head, with partner head in the front Tracia the lizard head and finally Tracy the electric eel tail head, they were the full package that was Bloody Traces.

Traces was quite scary to look at and thanks to her eel headed tail she was amphibious. Tracy had the ability to spit blasts of lightning and Tracia had what amounted to a whip for a tongue that can cleave flesh from bone with a single debilitating strike. The panther head Tracer meant they were all capable of tracking and seeing in the dark. Thanks to the strong panther front legs and the lizard style hind legs ending in webbed rounded toes, they could switch to bipedal form of locomotion like an Abyssinian and could climb walls or trees easily.

Compared to her larger daughter Maries, Traces was a bit small for a chimera. It was confirmed that Maries father Bloody Flames was much bigger.

“Do you respect our clan’s customs because an alpha of alphas is here mother?” At this point Maries knew we weren’t exactly a real clan. Like Jacky, she went with what she knew best. She knew quite a bit about how other civilizations worked now thanks to Cheerilee.

Civilization wasn’t exactly Maries cup of tea. They lived with it as long as they could continue learning how to fight from Sekhet, be around Jade in an annoying manner and had full stomachs when the day was out.

“No, I respect your clan for what it is. Something different and unusual to me and mine, but your choice is not entirely undesirable.” Traces three heads all spoke as one like Maries tended to do at times. “I even approve, they’ve got strong spirits among them even without the alpha among alphas watching over them and teaching them strength.”

“Well now that that’s over with, how about some dinner?” Yep, Kuril’s words caused a ripple throughout the crowd. I felt kind of sorry for Traces, she’d never taste anything quite like this again unless she kept visiting.

Also I utilized my horn for more than just imbuing, I managed to stave off a large portion of Tracy’s electric blast with it. That’s the win in my book.

-The next day-

Airship Mauled had a few families living here now, like Grace and Arizona the cows. They lived at the inn and were even running it for us. Grace was the overly friendly inn keeper that was also a milk maiden, she's slightly dim though.

The other cow, Arizona, was a young rough and tumble cow that started participating in our school and had a slight rivalry going with Mara specifically. She was also the inn’s protector and looked out for Grace, she didn’t have much to do in that respect as we only tended to get people that were passing through for a stop at The Witch’s Fare.

We had two earth stallions and one mare who lived at the farm built nearby and were helping our face dug field of crops grow quicker, the strawberries were certainly coming in quickly and constantly thanks to their magic. They were Mr. Mango L. Refreshment, Mr. Potassium Permanganate and Ms. Wary Berry.

Mango liked making fruit juices and growing said fruits, yellow coat and orange hair. Simple if friendly guy that knew how to grow various fruits, his favorite of course was his namesake.

Potassium was a fur and skin care doctor, dabbled as a scientist and fruit growing was a third passion of his. He had a blonde hair and dark brown fur.

As for Wary… she wasn’t actually a fan of fruit and was the quality control for our crops, she was here because it was hard for her to find a place where they’d accept her annoying habit of being overly judgmental of fruit. Said annoying trait was entirely related to her special talent and Jade certainly didn’t like her.

“So Airship Mauled has been around for a year, it’s hard to believe.” Jade spoke quietly staring at the clouds in the early morning sky, she turned back to her work of carving a large curved stick with her knife. “You did pretty well against Traces last night, imagine if they had been going full blast though…”

“Yeah, Maries mothers are not to be taken lightly because of their size.” Our little town was still cozy and if not for the minor strange occurrences or attacks that happened around here, then we’d be bored to tears. “It just goes to show that we're being trained well. I guess Sekhet really is the goddess of exercise and really loves being our physical education instructor. Also mom's rather lazy secretary.”

Weird things happened around here all the time, like the various Highland Pukwudgie attacks whenever someone says the words ‘Highland Pukwudgies’ out loud around here. We thought it was a fluke the first three times it happened over the last few months.

The first time had been when we were explaining to Arizona why Jacky had so much pirate paraphernalia and how Jade even met our lovable parrot friend, now we knew better than to invoke those troublesome well-armed mutant hedgehogs.

“Doing anything special today Fizzy?” Turning to Jade I raised a questioning eye. “I mean this town has been around for a year and we haven’t been crushed under all the highland… you know… those guys that attack whenever we say those specific words.”

I sighed with relief as Jade realized what she was about to say, she hadn’t invoked them and hopefully she never would again. I still didn’t understand why they were ‘highland’ pukwudgies specifically, but they could really hold a grudge for that battle at Sugar Cube Corner apparently. I personally think it was because we had the leader’s one eyed cockatrice detained.

“No, why do you ask?” If she had an idea, then I was quite willing to hear it.

“Well…” Jade started off only to be cut off by a familiar screaming friend running around with her tail feathers on fire.

Immediately Jade spat a blast of water in Jacky’s direction and the parrot was knocked to the ground by the water.

“Thanks Captain… I probably shouldn’t do things around the kitchen for a while.” At least Jacky never ran out of incidents to amuse or endanger us with, though I’m wondering how she managed to set herself on fire this time.

“Are you okay Jacky, how did that even happen?” A beautiful voice spoke as she came in for a landing near us, Fluttershy was a common sight around here when she chose to visit. She regularly popped in on the weekends to say hello to us and to in general talk to us about how the critters around here are doing.

She was getting in a lot of training for her dream job in Ponyville and would always talk to this one really weird white rabbit that was more aggressive than the rest of his entire species. At least the rabbit got along with Snickers the turtle dove.

“I was trying to make banana oatmeal, I just poured the milk into a bowl full of grain and oats. Apparently the moderate water and fat content of the milk combusted because I poured it wrong.” If it were coming from anyone else Jacky, I probably wouldn’t believe it like I do. Wait... how did she only set her tail of fire if it exploded in her face? “The potassium in the bananas might have been the main reason it ignited.”

“That’ll be interesting to look into, can you please write me a paper on why you think that happened later this evening Ms. Chickadee?” Cheerilee was on her way to talk to Grace, the two were good friends. “Also speak to Mr. Permanganate about it, he might know something.”

“Oatmeal are you crazy! That’s insane, oatmeal shouldn’t be able to catch fire like that… wait that sounds like a good setup to a joke.” Incoming Pinkie alert. Whenever Fluttershy visited, so too did everyone’s favorite peppy baker in Ponyville. “Oh I’m going to tell my best friends what I just came up with when I meet them… so did you hear the joke about the oatmeal?”

We were her best friends and she was already here, though she certainly had a lot of acquaintances in Ponyville. She was even becoming friends with two ponies named Applejack and Rarity.

“Maybe you should just ask Kuril for breakfast this morning Jacky, you’re not good at domestic things.” I knew she wasn’t, she really wasn’t. I turned to Pinkie. “Not too busy today?”

“Nope, I felt the need for a party and came running.” Pinkie looked really eager to start partying. She really needed to curb her enthusiasm a little, she sometimes did things that upset Fluttershy. “What’s the celebration?”

“Airship Mauled has officially been a town for a year.” After I said that, the pony known as Pinkie disappeared in a pink flash. “She’s going to get her party supplies isn’t she?”

Author's Note

Last time for the magical alchemy list before it get's it's own chapter.

Magical Alchemy list.

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater. Can be used to water proof objects.

Sustain: Water Projection (Continuous offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Sustain 2: Blood Projection (Dangerous offensive ability). Capable of performing a powerful projection, but only from open wounds. As one would imagine blood projection is exceedingly painful, taxing on the body and ultimately dangerous to the user. The intimidation factor might be worth the agony in the right situations, but it will always be a detriment to one’s health.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random (One time air terrain survival buff, possible offensive spell). Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain: Projecting thoughts. Not able to receive thoughts, but you can project them to others. Can project mental images.

Self-sustaining: none.

Sunlight.

Cast: Solar Flare. Creates a blinding light. Can only be used during the day time while standing in sunlight.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness. Strengthens all mobility based buffs.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight. Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability. The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining. Does not protect the user from gravitational or high speed stress and lack of oxygen at high altitudes like a pegasus would be by their magic.

Sustain: Redirect sunlight (Defensive support buff). Is only useful during the day and allows for blinding opponents or aggressors with light.

Self-sustaining: Minor protection from darkness (Automatic defensive buff while feather is on person). Needs to be charged with sunlight and to have been used as a magical alchemy sustain at least once to work.

Phoenix Feather.

Cast: Cleansing Flames (Support healing spell). Finds and stops negative foreign bodily ailment or ailments that are magical or mundane, does not heal damage. Can possibly stop positive ailments.

Sustain: Protection from the cold (Continuous defensive buff). Immunity to cold, increased defensive ability against ice and relative elemental based magic.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Jade’s Cloak, Cloaks in general.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: ???. (Effect seems to do nothing, need more information.)

Self-Sustain: Makes sneaking easier (Moderate stealth buff).

Cupcake (Banned by Kuril).

Cast: You don’t want to know.

Sustain: Likely none.

Self-Sustain: Delicious.

Frog Mucus (Banned by Kuril).
Cast: Magical wide area sticky substance bomb (Hard to get out of clothing).
Sustain: ???.
Self-sustain: ???.

Griffon Feather.

Cast: Feather Falling (Limited air terrain support buff). Lowers gravity’s effect on an individual for a minute.

Sustain: Double Jump (Continuous Mobility buff). Can jump off the air one extra time after leaving a solid surface and only one time.

Self-sustain: None.

Fish Oil.

Cast: Ignition (Multipurpose offensive and support spell). Ignites itself and anything around it except the user.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Candle Wax.

Cast: Stiffness. Slow down a target, can have a wide area of effect for reduced effectiveness.

Sustain: Heat resistance (Limited continuous defensive buff). Does not stop heat damage entirely and candle takes heat damage in place of the user.

Self-Sustain: None.

Pepper.

Cast: Sneezing cloud (Limited continuous Defensive spell). Wide range spell that doesn’t affect the user, causes continuous sneezing on contact and doesn’t necessarily need to be breathed in to take effect.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Tricorne.

Cast: Charisma boost (Limited status buff). Gives one the ability to walk around with confidence.

Side-effect: May instill need for showboating in user.

Sustain: ???.

Self-Sustain: ???.

Wood.

Cast: Bark skin (Temporary defensive buff). Make skin and fur tough like tree bark, like most casts can become permanent with multiple consecutive uses. Increases durability of objects when targeted. Causes mildly uncomfortable chafing on a living target.

Sustain: Hair growth in sunlight (Limited utility effect). Only works in direct sunlight.

Self-sustain: Magically enhanced building material.

Waffle Mallet.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Random confusion effect chance (Weapon specific offensive buff). While sustained, the hammer has a low chance to cause confusion and or dizziness upon any impact. Said chance goes up significantly when hitting the head of a target. The strength of the impact doesn't matter, effect can still happen with the barest of taps.

Self-sustain: none.

The Knuckler (A Shield).

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Battle Barrier (Armor reliant ability). Creates a malleable and limited field of barrier energy that is very protective against low impact energy, ranged or weak area of effect based attacks.

Point blank the barrier energy can only operate within the radius of a foot from the direction the shield is pointing, at the maximum of ten feet away it can operate within a five foot radius. Field can be used for offensive purposes by generating weapons.

Can grab and move small objects with barrier energy depending on how much weight the arm using the sustain can support.

The weight of the shield itself is a problem. It cannot be used to move the wielder around with the grappling effect. Cannot be used to fly. Can be used for assisted jumping and gliding.

Any sufficient weight or force exerted on the barrier field is sent straight to the user, the chances for arm based injuries is increased by a factor of two while sustain is in effect.

Self-Sustain: None.

Chain Link.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: ???. (Effect seems to do nothing, need more information.)

Self-Sustain: Linked strength (Passive instant buff). While physically touching someone else that is close to the wielder, both wielder and ‘friendly’ target gain a ten percent boost to all stats. Clothing interferes in effect.

Combination 1: Candle Wax + Oil (any) + Pepper = Chaos Candle. Candle hollowed out and filled with the other two ingredients mixed together equals devastating results.

Cast: Sneezing flash bomb (Offensive one use spell). Blinding, sinus wrecking and volatile magical cast.

Sustain Cast: Weak jet propulsion device (Limited air terrain support buff), Flamethrower (Limited offensive spell). Doing this will slowly destroy the candle and chemicals used in it. Exhaust fumes has a lesser effect of casting with pepper.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 2: Feather + stick + arrowhead (material any) = Arrow. Arrow + poison = special status ailment added to casting effect based on poison used. Pukwudgie Poison (Paralysis for a few hours).

Cast: Arcing Arrow Beam (Offensive spell). Fires a beam that is effected by gravity as if it were an arrow, it can only damage one target and that’s the first thing it touches. If it grazes a wall and then hits you, it will do nothing to you.

Sustain Cast: Spray of multiple weaker beam shots.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 3: Sustained Fish Scales + ambient ice magic = Ice projection.

Combination requires outside source of ice or freezing magic to wield. This combination has no cast or sustain capability. The wielder of the fish scales can alter projectile size and shape until the ice magic runs out or a sufficient amount of water from the fish scale wielders body is lost.

Chapter Nine, Exercises In Utility: Jacky Blackcap Chickadee.

-Jacky B. Chickadee-

My luck must be in full force this morning.

First I fell out of bed onto my beak and that always stings. That’s where my days always tend to start unless I somehow get out of bed the correct way.

Next I only got three sixes from the judges for the stumble down the stairs, only because I didn’t make musical noises while doing it.

Don’t they realize how hard it is to top the musical noises I did while falling down the stairs that one time that started an entire musical number? I believe ponies call them heart songs. Also since when was Cheerilee interested in judging my unlucky pratfalls anyway?

Following that I tried to make banana oatmeal for breakfast… and promptly set my tail on fire. I just wanted to take a little work off of Chief Cook Kuril, she just does so much for everyone around here and I wanted to do something nice.

Something nice like take care of my own needs so she wouldn’t be bothered with having to for a day so she could have more time for herself. Thankfully my Captain helped save my tail feathers and they weren’t too scorched. I just had to wipe the blackened bits of oatmeal off of them.

Cheerilee gave me a request to figure out how I lit the oatmeal on fire, while not actual homework she was quite curious. I didn’t have to do it, but I really wanted to as she was both a good friend and teacher.

After I finished breakfast and got a hug from Kuril for trying, which was a nice and bright point in my day, I tripped over a rock exiting The Witch’s Fare. I sighed, picked it up and just looked at it.

The rock ruffled my feathers quite a bit, but something was familiar about it.

“There you are Boulder, what have I told you about getting under other people’s hooves? Bad rock.” Insert Maud, Pinkie Pie’s sister. She spoke, acted and moved blandly, but she was really quite friendly despite her constant mostly expressionless face. “Sorry about Boulder.”

“It’s alright Maud, you don’t need to apologize for your pet rock tripping me up. Did Pinkie drag you all the way here for something?” If there was one thing I liked about Maud, it was that she was easy to talk to and was a good listener. “I swear your sister could power an entire fleet of airships on her energy.”

“She said I’m here for a party with her friends.” Here Maud sighed and I felt for her.

“Yet you don’t like parties, sweet things or several other things about your hyper sister.” I’m not blind Maud so don’t look faintly surprised, parrots had pretty good eyesight. “You still try to like them for her sake at least.”

“Yes. Don’t tell Pinkie.” Maud looked away from me only vaguely upset. “I don’t want to upset her.”

“Don’t worry, I can keep secret.” This was just a calm moment before the storm of bad luck. ”Loose lips can sink ships as any pirate will say.”

“Thank you.” Maud nodded and walked away, while holding onto Boulder.

I took two steps and I heard a rumbling, looking up I saw a cloud crackling with lightning hovering above me.

It was just going to be one of those days wasn’t it?

I dove forward as I felt the air around me become charged with energy. A lightning bolt exploded the ground behind me and then the cloud turned into a rainbow.

Of course it did. Why wouldn't an unnaturally aggressive cloud try to look cute after doing that?

Yes, just continue being an adorable rainbow after dropping what would have been imminent pain on me had I not dodged you! …. I was okay.... just covered in dirt from the lighting exploding the ground.

If you think that was the worst of my day, it hasn’t even started yet. I stood up and stretched out the bruises.

“Are you okay there Jacky?” It seemed Captain saw the lightning and came to see if I was alright.

“Just fine Captain La Perm!” I was learning to anticipate random occurrences of lightning now, so that’s a new skill for me to utilize to its fullest effect. In fact, I was beginning to get a feel for imminent danger whenever my luck turned south on me. “The lightning missed me entirely this time.”

“Well okay then, but you might want to watch out for…” I was turning away from her to go talk to Potassium about how I managed to do what I did with the oatmeal. Only I got a face full of turtle dove knocking me onto my back. “Snickers.”

I sat up, causing the turtle to flutter off of my face and land in my lap. I looked at the turtle dove, she looked up at me and began cooing cheerfully. This strange little flying turtle named Snickers, supposedly Jade’s familiar, was apparently trying to cheer me up.

Familiars were an odd thing to hear about, but it certainly explained how pony’s pets lived as long as the ponies do. Any being with a lick of magic in them can bond with an animal and that animal can eventually become a familiar, said magical bond of companionship shared a number of things between the two beings involved.

For animals with ridiculously short lives, it was always a pretty dramatic extension to how long they could live for. According to Jade, it’s why some animals actively sought out ponies to be friends with.

Fluttershy had been asking around if a flying squirrel needed a home or friend on my behalf. When she eventually found one, I hoped we were compatible enough to form such a bond like what I saw building between Fluttershy and the rabbit she named Angel.

A strong familiar bond was like what Celestia and her phoenix familiar Philomena share. Another familiar bond was like what Angel the cantankerous rabbit and Fluttershy were starting to build. Jade said it hadn’t formed fully yet, but it was only a matter of time before the two were companions for life.

I felt our little friendship and love seeker put her flippers up against my belly and began to nuzzle me, I accepted it for what it was. Snickers making an amiable attempt to make me feel better as I was having a lousy morning.

I simply patted her on the head and then set her off to the side, she gave me a slightly upset look.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me. Shouldn’t you be more worried about what’s going on between Maries, Jade and Fizzle?” The turtle made an odd gesture with its flippers that I didn’t understand and she seemed very excited that I brought up the subject with cooing and hissing, I shrugged and continued on my way. “Whatever, go bother Jade about it. Maybe see if Grace will play with you, she’s always open for fun.”

Snickers flared her wings and started flying towards the Helping Hoof Inn, the cows named it that and it stuck. So it was what it was.

“Hey Jacky, I need to talk to you! Come on in to my pyramid.” What could Sekhet possibly want to talk to me about? I can understand if she wanted to call Jade for something or maybe even Kuril, but me?

I don’t know what my luck could have possibly done to the goddess. In fact, I think I was the only one of my close friends that didn’t have to answer a riddle yet. Sekhet also didn’t focus too much on me, but she did mention that she was looking into my luck and why Jade wouldn’t just cast a phoenix feather at me, in fact Kuril also refused to do so.

It was a bit telling that they could not cure my luck problem, at least not currently. Give them some time and the right item to cast with.

Sekhet shrunk down to her alicorn size as I walked into her small pyramid lair, it was kind of cozy in here. Nice air flow, cool, but not too cold. That’s just the entrances hallway leading into a throne room that split off into two separate guest rooms, an armory with nothing in it and an empty treasury. Then there were the stone stairs to the three rooms on the upper floor behind the throne.

Despite not having a horn on her head, Sekhet was definitely well recognized divinity around here for having built this place. Anyone can see why her throne room was central, someone would have to get by her to get anywhere in her ‘relatively’ small pyramid. It was made with her full size in mind as a Sphinx, but it was made to let ponies and the like get around in here too.

She sat down on the stone flooring and patted it, she was meeting me at my level and not on her large stone throne.

“What can I do for you Sekhet?” I was almost too afraid to find out.

“I wanted to discuss how you view your luck, if you’re not too busy.” That’s all Sekhet wanted of me? Okay, what’s the catch here?

Since I’m thinking of it at the moment, did she possibly install traps in this place? I wonder if she had a rolling rock trap that is set off by a pedestal with a specific weighted object on it.

“Um… okay.” I took a seat on the sandstone floor, this place was alright and there was a certain magic in the air. I was getting used to that feeling. “What about my luck?”

“Have you ever thought that maybe it isn’t actually that bad?” Did Sekhet truly miss seeing me nearly get struck by a bolt of lightning outside? I gave her a flat expression, she waved her right paw at me lazily. “I mean, you obviously have a lot of good things going for you for someone who has as many accidents as you do.”

“Are you going to dance around the subject and lead me to an answer slowly, or are you going to get to the point and flat out tell me what you think I should know?” I crossed my arms and waited for her response.

“Look Jacky, you’re a perceptive bird and I’ve been looking into your problem for a while now, but I’m supposed to be a goddess that does things in the mysterious and long drawn out way.” She titled her head at me and flicked her tail. “Would you truly begrudge your beloved goddess of exercise for having some fun?”

“No, I’d begrudge you for not telling Jade about why you keep calling her a priest.” That’s something I never understood, Sekhet called her Priest Jade quite often. “What aren’t you telling her?”

“Not calling her Captain? Odd moment to drop that verbal tic you’ve kept going since you came here… and all just for me. I feel special.” There was no need to mock the mortal girl Sekhet. “What I’m not telling her is that no matter what she does at this point, she will always be a sun priest if she stays true to herself and I’ll continue recognizing her as such unless something drastically changes in her personality.”

“So it’s more of a title that does nothing?” Where was this conversation headed exactly? “Also I’m sure you’re going to tell me something like all my bad luck is coincidental and it’s all in my head.”

“Believe you me, when things happen as much as they do around you.” She smirked. “It is hardly coincidental.”

“Meaning?” Was my starch reply.

“You’re unlucky in general, but you’re always lucky where it truly counts the most to you. I think you’re positive attitude is a counterbalance to your bad luck and I wish to improve on that attitude through a simple conversation about how you feel your luck has done its worst to you.” Was Sekhet seriously doing what I thought she was? “I mean your luck led you to escaping your island, it got you a lot of friends, family and a new life. All surely horrible things you don’t care about, especially for the low price of those constant daily inconveniences you have to personally deal with. You’re lucky you weren’t born a goddess. Our problems are way more complicated than your little trifles and infinitesimally short life compared to my own.”

“You’re using your power of war to fight my traumatic morning with words aren’t you?” If she was as powerful as had been implied to me, then Sekhet could fight war in any way, shape or form as long as it can be called a war in some way.

Currently she could be fighting a war of attrition with her heart about showing more compassion to us all, she’d be losing it right now since she wants to help me work through this.

“Warring with my own emotions is something I do more often than you’d think.” She was quite relaxed as she took to laying on her side while continuing to look towards me, she was at least letting me know she was paying attention to me. “If it’s outside your control then why be angry at yourself for being incapable of changing things? You should change what you currently can for a more favorable outcome, if you can’t change something then look for help from those around you to change things in ways that you can’t. If that doesn’t work, then become strong enough to change it yourself or help others become strong enough to change things for you. Nothing is impossible in this world, I felt the ascension of a filly becoming an alicorn some years back and she is now Celestia’s adopted niece. A fledgling goddess of love, but no less powerful for what she is and has yet to truly realize her true potential and strength.”

“You’re actually lecturing me and giving me good advice… who are you and what have you done with our airship landing pad?” Technically we didn’t have one of those and The Ardent Survivor had yet to be destroyed, so it was the one airship that was living up to its name.

In fact living up to its name is why Kuril wanted it to have that name in the first place, it wouldn’t be an energetic survivor if it was destroyed in its first twenty flights. It made trips to Ponyville relatively simple and it could even carry a good amount of cargo back home easily.

“Heh, very funny.” Sekhet sat up and looked at me seriously. “Think on this. Would you trade what you have right now for all the good luck in the world? I mean the life you live currently, memories, every friend, every decision, your family and everything you own. Would you trade that all away for ceaseless good luck that never ends, knowing that you’d never see any of us ever again?”

“If I was always lucky…” I considered the possibilities, I admit I sat there for a few minutes with a goddess staring blankly at me. A smile formed on my beak. “It would be a really poor trade Sekhet, I’d rather make my own luck and continue on as I am!”

“Good answer.” Sekhet smiled at me fondly. “Let me tell you the story of the Misfortune Malachite and how it hurt the Abyssinians.”

Author's Note

Airship Mauled Magical Alchemy Story Appendix will be up soon.

New alchemy information will pop up in the author's notes, but it will also be added to the appendix.

Chapter Nine, Exercises In Utility: Jaded La Perm.

-Jacky-

“You mean… but that’s horrible!” I could hardly contain my feelings about what I just heard. “Do Jade and Kuril know about this?”

“It is horrible. So when you say you’ll make your own luck, just don’t do it in exactly that way specifically. Nothing good can come from removing luck magically, good or bad, from anyone's soul. A lucky charm that deafens bad luck is perfectly fine though, just so long as the luck isn’t removed.” Sekhet flew over to her large stone throne and laid down in it. I idly wondered what her feathers would do for Kuril and Jade, probably something incredible at the very least if it was a feather from a goddess. “I think all Abyssinians learned from that sordid bit of history of the Misfortune Malachite, so I’m certain they know. Which is why it's thoroughly sealed away. You may go now, I have no more to discuss with you.”

“I guess I have to go hug one of my best friends now. After that I can get back to what I was doing.” I turned to leave, but I stopped. I turned around and climbed up onto the Sphinx sized throne with the alicorn sized Sekhet and she gave me a curious look with a frown. I crouched down and hugged her gently around the neck. “Thank you coach, for making me see things in a different light. And for haunting my nightmares with that horrific story.”

“You are welcome… friend.” Sekhet hugged me back hesitantly, it almost felt like she was afraid to hug me back or acknowledge that we were friends.

Sekhet had acknowledged Jade as friend and that was about as much as we got out of her all those months ago when we went to Klugetown thanks to her help.

Sphinx was cranky at times, a glutton at her worst and a real drill instructor when it came to running us through our paces, but she really cared about us.

-Jaded La Perm-

“Jacky’s not having a good morning.” I sat down at the fire and Arizona snorted loudly.

“What else is new? I’ve only been here for a little more than a month and even I know she’s a walking disaster area.” Says Arizona, the young cow that had anger issues, likes destroying things with her horns and couldn’t be left alone in a shop of full of ceramics. “How are you still friends with her, didn’t you say her luck nearly got you killed several times?”

“Her luck, not her personally. She’s a loyal and trustworthy character as they come, for a quasi-pirate parrot anyway.” I kicked back and relaxed. “Jacky’s been getting more skilled at dodging her own luck and eventually she’ll utilize the signs to avoid her bad luck entirely… unless she can figure out how to use it to her advantage.”

“I’ll work on that Captain!” Chirped a cheerful Jacky as she approached and gave me a strong hug. “I’ve got some things to ask you and your mother about later. Right now I’ve got to go ask Mr. Permanganate about some combusting oatmeal.”

“That and she always bounces back.” I could feel my lips turn upwards in a smile. “Speaking of utilizing unique talents, you got a new use out of your horn, so that means there’s still quite a bit of utility in it.”

“Yeah… I guess it’s not as useless as it looks huh?” Watching Fizzle self-consciously put her hoof to her horn made me feel a bit bad about not searching for solutions more actively to help her fix it. I’ve been a bit busy helping the new people settle in. “I still need to exercise it as well as my body.”

“You can exercise all you want, but it takes some real gumption and heart to be strong.” Arizona stood up and stared at Fizzle. “You put in the work and I’m sure you’ll eventually get results. I’m going to see how Grace is doing with that strange turtle with wings.”

“You better not hurt Snickers!” I was beginning to really like having a flying turtle for a companion. I didn’t treat her like she was special at all and she liked it, plus she could mostly took care of herself anyway. “You do anything to her and you’ll have to answer to me Zone.”

“Oh I’m so scared. I’m not going to hurt your little critter friend, not without a good reason anyway.” Snorted out Arizona dryly as she started towards the inn. “I’m just going to make sure that she and Grace aren’t causing any trouble for each other.”

“So have you learned anything interesting lately Jade?” At Fizzle’s question I look at the fire and thought about it. There wasn’t much going on today, aside from Pinkie setting up her party stuff.

“I’ve learned that sustaining my pack creates more space in it, but I can’t drop the magical sustain without all the stuff safely exploding out of the pack.” I was about to continue when I noticed Fizzle opening her mouth.

“How does you’re pack count as a singular object when it has stitching, flaps and other things on it?” She was looking at me with curiosity now. “I’ve never thought about it before, but the cloak you gave me is like that too right?”

“As long as everything is tightly bound enough together to count as a singular object, then it can be sustained as such. There’s all kind of rules to it that mom and I have yet to work out, like how a slider for a zipper is still considered separate from the sustain since it’s considered its own thing.” Which gets confusing because the rules for magical alchemy were like an ancient dead language to us, but we were doing pretty well at making new discoveries. “The self-sustain for the pack is really quite interesting.”

“Really? Since when were self-sustains interesting.” My lovely and wonderful pony friend Fizzle, you had little faith and you could use some more. “They are both rare and are hardly very useful for anything, they are mostly just minor and quirky side effects of sustaining an object. A cloaks effect of improving stealth being the exception.”

“True, self-sustains are rare and are equally rarely useful like that, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be incredible.” That made her quirk and eye at me, so I elaborated with a friendly cat smile on my face. “Like say for instance my packs self-sustain perfectly preserves food, water any anything else put into it, said objects will always come back out the same as they were going in.”

“Tell me, because quite frankly that sounds a bit absurd for a self-sustain, how in the world did you figure this one out?” I’ll sate your curiosity Fizzle, I've nothing better to do.

“I accidentally left a bushel of strawberries in there for a few days.” I looked away from Fizzle feeling really sheepish about the incredulous stare those bright beautiful eyes were sending my way. I could feel the blush on my cheeks as I went to go get my pack and I came back with it, I sat down and pulled a strawberry out and tossed it to her. No mold, no fuzz and definitely as fresh as the day it was picked and washed. “Try it, it’s been in my pack for the past week. I put it in after I washed it, it’s still in the same state as when I put it in.”

She just looked at the strawberry and then to me, she then turned back to the strawberry. After shrugging, she popped the entire thing into her mouth and chewed. She hummed loudly at the sweet taste in her mouth and eventually swallowed.

Ponies could easily consume the leaves of a strawberry, but I didn’t personally like the leaves even if they had some health benefits.

“Got anything else of interest in the world of magical alchemy to hear about Jade?” Fizzle sidled up next to me and leaned her head towards me. I instinctively started petting her and she sighed. “Just out of curiosity. There’s not really much else going on around here at the moment other than Pinkie and she is really going.”

I turned to look at Pinkie as she zipped around in a blur and party supplies were appearing out of nowhere, even Maud was slowly watching Pinkie zip around setting up for the one year anniversary of Airship Mauled.

“Well I do have one other thing…” Here I had a pony leaning in close to me with a beatific smile as my fingers traced one of her ears. Her eyes were closed and she looked happy, I was glad to be the one putting a smile on her face.

“Well what is it Jade?” Fizzle rested her head in my lap and my fingers moved to gently fondle her mane. “Don’t keep me in suspense here.”

“Well that tricorne I kept for myself from my pirate adventure has a sustain that allows me to find things of monetary worth more easily. As for the self-sustain it can…” My voice slowly dropped off as she gave me an exceedingly lazy look. “Well it’s really annoying, I’ll say that much.”

“Annoying how?” She muttered with a lilt in her voice at my caressing her neck.

“It makes you entirely capable of whistling enjoyable jaunty tunes, which can lead to a heart song. I’m not even capable of whistling normally, take it off my head if you feel a musical number coming on.” I pulled the hat out of my pack and put it on my head. “It’s much easier to show you what I mean than it is to explain it.”

I started whistling a bit and then a tune started to build from what I was whistling.

The tune was one I was quite familiar with and then music started playing out of nowhere, yep the innate ability to whistle while I was wearing the hat tended to do this. I didn’t need to whistle while wearing the hat, that I could control, but once I got it going however…

“I am the very modern model of a friendly Abyssinian, with my sharp claws, loving friends and incredible wits there’s all kinds of battles I can win~.” I started singing, of course it would be to that rapid back and forth tune. “Ever since I came here I knowingly fell in love with a certain Equestrian~.”

“She fell in love with a certain equestrian, she fell in love with a certain equestrian, she fell in love with a certain equestrian~!” Oh good Maries was my backup three part singer, this can only end well when the song was over with and she gets angry at me for singing about Fizzle and not her. Maybe a I could swing it neutrally?

“She has bright and beautiful eyes, a wonderful spirit that just never dies, and if she ever asked I would date her with no lies~.” I paused for a second, nope couldn’t neutral the song. I better think of something quick. “Because that may very well lead to own my demise~.”

Fizzle just stared at me with a concerned expression and a small smile playing on her lips.

“She’s likes snuggles, hugs and The Witch’s Fare. I really hate the music that’s now in the air, because there’s not really much that could quite compare… to the finery of the soft mane that belongs to such a lovely mare~.” While the song wouldn’t crack, I still managed to get in my distaste for it while still praising Fizzle. “Now would be a very good time, to stop me from singing in a metronomic rhyme, especially before I make the Maries cause a violent crime~!”

There was now a blush permeating Fizzle’s face.

“Oh we wouldn’t really hurt her she’s our friend too mate, we really wouldn’t hurt her she’s our friend too mate, we really wouldn’t hurt her she’s our friend too mate~!” All of Maries was giving me sad and upset looks.

“I swear to you that you are the best of friends to me Maries, I might be able to love you too and here I am stuck with quandaries~. So please don’t kill me if I say I love Fizzle… please~? I swear to you my heart might have room for four so if you can just put my mind at ease~!” The music paused as the Maries walked over to me scrutinizing me with angry looks and I was soon slapped across the face by three separate tongues, they walked away smiling back at me. Did chimeras do herds? Oh goddesses I involved fizzle, what did I just do? The music started up again. “Well it’s a relief that I’m not dead, for another day I guess I’ll keep my head, if there’s one thing about all this that could be said~… Fizzle you ridiculously beautiful pony blow this freaking, damned and blasted hat off instead~!”

The hat was swiftly blasted off my head by the cute and completely red faced Fizzle, yet the musical number didn’t end. The music kept going and it just dragged me along with it.

“Apparently that really didn’t stop the song, so unfortunately for me I’m still going be singing along~. I seriously swear that I’ll avoid whistling with this hat again in a manner that is wrong~.” I grouched out loud as the Maries sang their three verses of my last few words. “Mara your strong with equally nice and really fierce eyes, Maria you always got tough sharp horns and can always with insights surprise, Marie you’re the smartest one here which probably means you likely know how to make rubber vulcanize~. Maries you’re a wonderful being, and ‘that’… no one here has ever really said or denies~.”

“So this song is coming to end and with my claws, wits and wonderful friends I can bear it~.” One last verse and I could finally stop this embarrassing mass of magical torment. “I’m the very model of a friendly Abyssinian, I’m at least quite thankful that I wasn’t born a ferret~!”

I heard laughter and turned to Arizona, she wasn’t the only one around that was laughing.

“Sure, laugh at my expense because of the magic here in Equestria forced me through that Zone, see if I care.” I suddenly received a pair of lips to my cheek from Fizzle and she hugged me affectionately. Okay that felt a bit better… then Maries hugged us… which felt a bit worse because she was getting really quite strong. Eh, I’ll call it even in the end.

“Maries… you’re… crushing us…” As soon as she heard my choked words, Maries let us go and we received three sheepish looks.

“That was amazing… I want to try it!” Pinkie put the mostly undamaged hat on her head and began whistling the same tune, much to everyone’s horror.

“No!” Everyone dove for Pinkie, even a wide eyed Maud as Boulder leapt from her hoof for Pinkie.

-Twenty minutes and several rounds of a highly show tune filled noodle incident later-

“You were right Jade, that is a really quite annoying thing for a self-sustain to do.” Well at least Fizzle agreed that we shouldn’t whistle while wearing the hat, but I wasn’t going to destroy it. It was my personal souvenir from my lovely time with Captain Gash. “There’s quite a few things I really liked about that song though.”

Author's Note

(New magical alchemy info!)

Tricorne.

Cast: Charisma boost (Limited status buff). Gives one the ability to walk around with confidence.

Side-effect: May instill need for showboating in user.

Sustain: (New!) Sense unclaimed treasure.

Self-Sustain: (New!) Gain the ability to whistle jaunty tunes, even if you can’t naturally whistle. Increases chances of heart songs occurring.

(New Alchemy Ingredient!)

Pack.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Storage capacity of pack magically increases (Continuous equipment specific utility buff). When sustain drops, a number of objects fly out of the pack without destroying it until carrying capacity normalizes. No weight canceling effect.

Self-Sustain: Stasis Storage (Permanent passive equipment upgrade). Anything that goes into the pack does not deteriorate and will always come out in the same state as it was when put in.

(Added to Chapter X, Magical Alchemy Appendix.)

Chapter Nine, Exercises In Utility: Kurilian La Perm.

-Maries-

It seems we have a challenge.

Yes, we do indeed have a challenge.

It is not a challenge you two, I want you to stop and think about what we’re going to do before you do something stupid. I’m a full brain to your two halves.

Really Marie, how is it not a challenge to earn the affection of two unique and strong beings as they?

Well Mara, for one we’re not dealing with another chimera here, two trying to treat them as challenges is belittling them as the thinking beings that they are and three our very nature might be a problem in the pursuit of having multiple mates that are not like the rest our species. They are likely to not be open to the idea of us being with the both of them and there will be friction to it.

Friction… two or more objects or surface areas acting against one another while moving?

Oh good, you can remember Cheerilee’s science lessons Mara, I thought I was the only one out of the three of us that takes our schooling seriously. I’m talking more figuratively, another definition for friction would be more emotional, as in a clash of wills, temperaments and opinions.

I do take our schooling seriously. Physical education with Ms. Sphinx is my favorite part of a school day and I think we have learned a lot from her. Also that kind of friction sounds fun and like something we’d do.

That actually wouldn’t be fun for us Mara, we do not want to be at odds with the ones we’re attempting to court. I agree with Marie based on what we want to achieve, it will not be easy. Even if we were all to work together.

Look at the both you. Growing brains, more so in Maria’s case anyway, I’m so proud of you my sisters! Also before you say anything Maria, I’m absolutely open to the idea of strengthening our bonds around here. It’s just that we have a lot going against us here, Jade said she might have enough room for us and ‘might’ is a pretty hard word to take as straight truth and a sure thing. She seems to be getting much closer to Fizzle as if they were slowly gravitating towards each other. They have not started courting, but it’s only a matter of time

…

…

Can we stop them?

Maria that’s dumb and you should feel bad, we do not interfere in the courting of others. It just wouldn’t be right.

Okay now I’m concerned about our mental state when it’s Mara that’s being the reasonable one. Where did our aggressive brain go?

I know, I’m scared too Marie.

I sometimes dislike the fact that we share a body, but I couldn’t live without either of you.

Aww… thanks Mara.

No, I meant that literally Marie. From what Jade says, a chimera can’t survive or even regulate their body without at least two live heads.

Sounds correct to me Marie, is it any wonder why I’m always the cautious one.

Let’s agree that we’re all a bunch of jerks.

Agreed.

Agreed.

So… how do we proceed?

We argue mentally for the next hour and eventually agree that we can’t make up our minds about how to proceed with courting either Jade or Fizzle. Then we wake up with our face buried in lunch thanks to the Matriarch Kuril.

That certainly sounds like us Mara. So how do we start this argument Marie?

Let’s see, oh I know how to start our long internal monologue based argument!

Wouldn’t it be a multi-logue argument considering we’re three separate beings in one body?

That’s not how I wanted our argument to start!

Yes it is and you know it Marie!

-Kuril-

“Hello… huh, well I guess Maries are in deep thought.” I simply placed Marie’s head on the table and made sure both Mara’s and Maria’s heads were just as comfortable. I continued on my way outside to see Pinkie running around and was almost finished with setting up the celebration. This was going to take a lot of clean up afterwards, she was going all out. “Are you done yet Pinkie?”

“Give me five more minutes… this is my biggest set up for a party yet. I really need to learn how to plan ahead for occasions like this. Hmm… maybe emergency stashes all over the place.” The pink blur stopped in front of me giving me the biggest puppy eyes I’ve ever seen on a pony and Fizzle’s were pretty big. “I forgot to ask, can my sister Marble and Limestone come too mayor Jade’s mother ma’am?”

“Call me Kuril and of course they can, provided you can get them here in a timely manner while still setting up for the party.” Three… two… one. Cue my words causing both of Pinkie’s eyes to go wonky directions and her mind trying to cope with problem of having to do both at the same time, oh and one of them even started twitching. I really like how adorable ponies are.

Now to go talk to my embarrassed daughter about her cutely singing her declaration of love, I wonder if Fizzle will actually take her up on it and ask my sweet little tom cat out on a date to Ponyville. I figure dating here would be kind of a drag, because they’d be dating in front of their mother if they chose to eat at The Witch’s Fare. At least I know to avoid whistling if I ever have to sustain my hat for any reason.

I made my way up to my daughter’s room to see how she was feeling.

“Are you okay my little tom cat?” I looked into her room to see her face in a pillow.

“You heard the song and dance number right?” Jade mumbled into the pillow.

“Yes, I thought it was kind of nice. At least Fizzle knows how you feel and I guess you don’t mind the Maries liking you either.” Though the chances of me ever getting grandchildren is looking quite slim, I was okay with my daughter’s choices. “I take it you’re very embarrassed about it?”

“Yes…” She said in a muffled slightly upset tone. “Why is it wherever ponies’ live there’s magical music?”

“I wouldn’t be able to tell you, I’ve only been here for about a year and it’s still very weird how spontaneous the musical numbers are.” It truly was a miracle of life to watch a bunch of ponies or my daughter randomly break out into song. “I think Fizzle reacted positively to the song, so I really don’t understand why you’re moping. Also you’re right, her hair is quite soft and yet it looks so stiff with the way she has it styled.”

“It’s not that she reacted positively that I’m worried about. It’s that Maries might have reacted negatively.” Yeah, that could put a damper Jade’s day.

“Negatively how?” I was crouching next to my daughter’s bed and she lifted up her head to stare at me.

“I might have drawn Maries attention to Fizzle and I don’t want her to have to deal with Maries advances like I do.” So Jade had a slight issue with the idea of a multiple partner romance and admittedly I don’t know how Fizzle would react to Maries suddenly showing her affection.

“Has Maries overstepped her boundaries?” If you needed help, you could just ask me for advice Jade.

“Not really, but I’m afraid of that eventually happening. The ball is in both their and Fizzle’s court now, whatever they decide to do is what will happen.” Jade was silent for a moment and I was about to say something until I saw her ears twitch in a particular way. She was about to say something else, so I held my tongue. “Do you think Fizzle will ask me on a date? I really wouldn’t know what being on one would be like, but I know for a fact that I’m still not ever wearing a dress.”

“I think she will eventually, you just have to be patient kitten. As for what to do while on a date, just be yourself and don’t do anything too horribly bizarre or different from what you would actually do.” I had to ask just to get a feel for the situation. “What do you think a date entails?”

“I think it’s all about spending quality time with someone you like. Usually by going to the movies, eating at a restaurant and or going to a nice place to relax.” She sat up and gave me a flat look. “The chances of doing that normally in Equestria without anything interrupting the date in an over the top explosive manner are really quite low. That’s a factor on top of friends trying to interfere with or even following the two that are on said date around. Said friends will cause wacky hijinks while trying to hide the fact that they are attempting to eavesdrop on what should be a private party for two.”

“Well then, I’ve got nothing else to tell you. You apparently know everything about dating already, it’s only that you’ve never been on one or experienced it personally.” It turned to leave the room, but not without one last word to my daughter. “Also yes, having people mess with you on a date is a time honored tradition in all nations. I wonder what Jacky, Arizona or even Maries will get up to when you go on one with Fizzle?”

“You’re just making me dread it even more mom.” She looked a little tweaked, was she tweaked? Yeah, that look in Jade's eyes was tweaked.

“Just do what makes you happy Jade, I know it’s why I can smile as much as I do.” I smiled and left her to her thoughts, I had to go pick up the dented shield I’ve become quite fond of using for unusual things.

I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen to start cooking lunch, I started wielding the shields magical sustain to grab the ingredients and move things around the kitchen. It required that I move the shield and concentrate on what I wanted the energy to do.

The utility of the shield was really quite wonderful, I wonder why my Jaded didn’t want one that weighs a less than this one did. A slightly lighter shield wouldn’t be that much trouble for her to wield right? It’s not just the weight or the size, it seems like she’s avoiding shields as much as she does staffs.

I was thinking something along the lines of fudge brownies today for a snack, it’d certainly be something Pinkie wouldn’t think of for the party. So I started making some from scratch, this would require that I make some chocolate mix with oil for a chewier chocolatey goodness. I knew my daughter would appreciate it, even if she didn’t like chocolate nearly as much as she liked fruit based baked goods.

What should I make for a meal, what haven’t I made recently for lunch? Oh… I had an idea! I gathered lettuce, cheese, tomato, corn flour and beans. I turned the projection from the shield into a comb of knives and brought it down on the lettuce roughly slicing into chunks all at once with the dull energy blades.

It’s too bad I couldn’t make the blades sharper and that was just another limitation of the shield’s magical sustain. I was going to make some tacos for lunch. I’d leave the grilled fish, guacamole, sour cream and hot sauce I’d make off to the side.

Jade doesn’t like guacamole or hot sauce at all, but she loved sour cream and a good fish taco. In a similar vein Fizzle loved fish and sour cream, but guacamole also wasn’t to her taste. Jacky like them all so no complaints there. Maries would eat anything. Arizona would like most of this stuff too.

Actually I could do a quicker solution to a meal today and make it something everyone can enjoy, a make your own taco bar! I just need to prepare all the fixings and let everyone else handle what they wanted. Maybe an option for nachos too, did we have jalapenos? I don’t know why my daughter despised spicy things, I loved spicy foods personally. Maybe my Jaded just had too sensitive a palate for it.

As I grated the cheese using the barrier energy as a multipurpose kitchen tool by generating a flat barrier with a cheese grater style surface. I just made simple up and down movements of the shield while holding the cheese to the grating barrier.

I eventually came to a conclusion about why Jade doesn’t want to use a shield. It concerns the fact that the shields sustain require more focus than usual to wield correctly, it would be hard to use it while moving and Jade was more about evasion than deflection.

She preferred the use of her knifes sustain effect almost exclusively, she still trains and exercises while using it when going through physical education with Sekhet.

Having to wield more than one sustain that requires some form of prolonged usage would be counterproductive and Jade already carried a griffon feather and fish scales on her at all times.

The knife doesn’t require much more than a tap to get the magical sustain going and you didn’t need to focus on what you actually wanted that sustain to do, unlike this shield I’ve taken a shine to. Jade always used her maneuverability to its fullest while mock fighting against Jacky, Fizzle or Maries. Arizona and Jade haven’t exactly fought yet, but it’s only a matter of time before Sekhet puts them up against one another.

Sekhet is exercising them like warriors, but at least she’s not pushing them too hard and is letting them move at their own pace. The choice is up to them whether they pursue combat training after the exercise regimen Sekhet puts them through.

Arizona was already a really remarkable cow for having so much muscle for someone so young, she’s younger than everyone else and she could keep up with the kind of pace that Maries is known for setting.

With that thought. I just continued on to scaling, fileting and preparing the fish myself. I’d let Jade get a nap in today. Her problems were entirely based in her social life and she needed to work that out.

“Um… Kuril.” I had just gotten the pan onto the stove, when I turned to see Jacky coming into the kitchen looking disturbed.

“What’s the matter Jacky?” I always had time for my girls even when I was preparing food. I hadn’t put the fish to the pan yet, so I didn’t have to focus on that. “You know you can call me mom if you want to.”

“Well… Sekhet told me a really disturbing story about something called the Misfortune Malachite.” My poor little Jacky, I gave her a comforting hug. Did Sekhet really have to give one of my girls a nightmare story about that thing? “Is it true?”

“Is what true Jacky?” There were many tales about the Misfortune Malachite. What did she hear?

"That the Misfortune Malachite traps the souls of those who died wielding it?" She was clearly upset, I gave her a wan smile.

"It actually does far worse than that." I guess she should know the truth about it.

Author's Note

Fine... I'll ask.

Any questions or comments?

Also, since Roc's exist. So to do elephants.

Chapter Nine, Exercises In Utility: Fluttershy.

-Jacky-

“Why would someone make something like that?” That it was a real thing was awful to me, somebody actually made something to concentrate bad luck and turn it into a malignant form of power.

It worked a little too well from what Kuril was telling me, turning all good luck to bad and powering itself off that to eventually kill someone who holds onto it for too long. It only got worse if someone actually tried to actively use the Misfortune Malachite’s power, it positively radiated bad luck even when you didn’t use it.

Recovering from the Misfortune Malachite could take anywhere from a few days, to years depending on how much you wielded it before getting rid of it. Even destroying it was an exceptionally bad idea all around, but at least the curse would eventually end if someone did do that.

“I don’t honestly know what the people of the past were thinking, but I’d assume they made it with good intentions.” Watching as Kuril started making another tortilla in the pan, she had a stack of them going right next to her, I shivered at the thought of those who created such a dangerous mystical artifact. “I know one thing for sure, that cursed thing is safely sealed away. As long as it doesn’t get any more powerful, then it won’t threaten the whole world or eternally torment any poor soul that ends up holding onto it for too long. It has a counterpart called the Good Fortune Garnet. Would you like to hear about that? It's a much nicer magical artifact. It isn’t nearly as bad, just hard to use. ”

“There’s something else out there like the Misfortune Malachite?” I asked with a bit of horror.

“Yes, but the Good Fortune Garnet was made in a way that prevents it from doing horrible things like the Misfortune Malachite.” She turned to me with a more upbeat smile than she previously had after explaining the Misfortune Malachite to me. “For one major difference it couldn’t take anything from its surroundings, which was the Misfortune Malachite’s biggest problem. It can only temporarily give from the user to another and no one who is greedy can wield its power since it specifically only works for those who wish to use it in helping others. That's why it’s so hard to wield, it requires a completely selfless heart to give up their own luck to another for a while. I don’t honestly know where it is now, but the artifact was likely made by the same people and the pegasi were the last to have it. Say, do you know the history of your people or Ornithia?”

“Not really, do you?” Well that was a load off my mind, the Good Fortune Garnet sounded much friendlier version of the Misfortune Malachite. It required the user to sacrifice for others and since said sacrifice isn’t permanent, it doesn’t horribly upset the balance of things in the way that Sekhet told me the Misfortune Malachite does.

“No, but I wanted to at least ask a parrot about it.” Kuril sounded a bit sad to not know anything about Ornithia. “I apologize, I forgot you were stuck on an island for most of your life and have never been there.”

“Don’t worry about mom, I’m not upset.” Yeah a visit to Ornithia would be nice, someday I’ll travel there and explore it to my heart’s content. “I’ll eventually want to go there someday, just to see the where parrots like me originated from. Maybe I’ll even get to see or meet a harpy.”

“Be careful if you do. Harpies are considered wind spirits, thieves of food and are punishers of evil in a rather loose sense.” You know what Kuril, that sounds like someone the Captain would be happy to be friends with. Except for the food stealing part. “Specifically, they go after those who do not keep to their word for whatever reason. They don’t care if people get caught in the crossfire once they start dishing out their form of justice. Plus, unlike parrots like you, they can actually fly and are dangerous even when they’re being friendly.”

Okay, forget Captain liking a harpy for a friend.

-Fluttershy-

Airship Mauled was always a strange place to visit, but at least I was getting in some practice with my special talent here.

I had an afterschool job that was helping me make money so that I could find myself a nice home near Ponyville, all while I was taking my own courses in animal care on the side. Once I graduate at sixteen, I can move out to start my dream career in caring for all kinds of cuddly animals!

I was still a young filly and I couldn’t put the entire world on my withers yet. The world was really quite scary in so many ways. I was even still scared of my own shadow sometimes… also loud noises, odd sounds, ponies that speak to loudly like Pinkie or Rainbow do sometimes, Nightmare Night, thunder, other ponies in general and dragons. I was absolutely and rightfully terrified of dragons.

If some pony wonders why I want to live in Ponyville and not here, well it had to do with location and need. Ponyville was civilization and had a marketplace and resources. Here they really didn’t have much, but at least they had each other. They also really didn’t need an animal caretaker out here, Sekhet kept most of the larger animals at bay with her very presence. As for the smaller animals, they don’t really cause problems or need too much help here.

It was a nice place to visit every once in a while, but I wouldn’t want to live here. No offense meant to Maries or Sekhet, but they were a little too scary and intense. I was always meek around unknown ponies, but around here that wasn’t really a problem and I wanted to step my hoof slightly out of my comfort zone.

Being here was quite comforting, even if it gets attacked by pukwudgies infrequently. It was just so nice to take a break from life and sit by the campfire here with my friends and this slowly building community. A place where my much busier life could wait for me until tomorrow.

Oh, is that Snickers!

The flying turtle was so adorable and sweet, it liked making friends with everyone and didn’t mind that Jade didn’t take care of her all too much. I would have told Jade off for not caring for her pet well enough, but Snickers didn’t want me to and she preferred to take care of herself.

Snickers really liked how Jade treated her, like a friend instead of the pet and owner dynamic people would expect of the two. I respected her wishes on that, she did have the final say in what was entirely her business after all.

If Snickers really wanted Jade to do something for her, then she’d just tell Jade herself what she wanted. From the story Snickers told me, Jade got out of bed early in the morning to get her some water when she was getting really dry and hardly complained about it.

Speaking of turtle doves, I still have yet to find any information on them. From what Fresh Start has told me, they are very rare and unusual magical creatures. Ones that were powerful in an unspecified way, how powerful could a little cutie like Snickers really be?

This led to me thinking about how I was learning so many dialects by coming here. My special talent was really very unique in how I could utilize it. I could understand and even talk to animals as long as I exercised my talent frequently.

At first I couldn’t really communicate all too well with anything, mostly I could only read body language at first. After learning my first animal language, which was how to speak bird, my whole world opened up to the many possibilities. Once I eventually figured out what each tweet and twitter meant that is.

I could also speak some squirrel, rabbit and mouse, they weren’t very complicated and shared similar vocalizations to one another. Gopher and beaver was still very hard for me to learn. I’d eventually work my way up to being able to talk to all the cuddly animals, and I do mean all of them!

“Hello Snickers, how are you feeling today?” Snickers landed on my nose and hugged me with her flippers, she started cooing and hissing in a friendly manner.

“Oh that’s nice of Grace, have you eaten anything recently?” I received more cooing from the winged turtle that tickled my face with the green feathers that blended in with her shell. “Really? Jade seemed so embarrassed after singing all that, I know I’d be embarrassed if magical music made me sing about how beautiful I think Gilda is. Please, don’t tell anyone I told you this, but she’s a really pretty griffon even if she’s quite aggressive and a little too possessive of my best friend Rainbow Dash.”

After I said that Snickers said something that had me blushing, I guess I understood reptiles well enough to know what she was saying to me. Well half of what she said sounded like a mix of reptile and bird, I’d have to talk to a few snakes to be sure though.

“What, no, I don’t think she’d like me nearly that much! She calls me a dweeb and thinks I’m weak… mostly because I am.” Snickers just nuzzled my face and said something about seeing strength in my eyes, I didn’t understand what she meant nor did I catch every word she said. What she said next I did understand quite clearly, she told me I’d eventually find love that worked at my own pace. She then took off for The Witch’s Fare. “Uh… that’s nice?”

I shook my head and went to sit down next a contemplative and slightly angry looking Fizzle. Why was she angry? She was blushing and smiling after weird song Jade sang out loud in front of everyone, but now she looked a bit upset. Also Angel was here and he came over to sit with us while staring at me in an odd manner.

“What’s wrong Fizzle?” I asked while petting the bunny with my hoof.

“Nothing is actually wrong Fluttershy. I’m just a bit angry at myself.” What did you have to be angry about?

“Why?” That was the simplest question anyone could ask.

“It’s Jade… what does she even see in a broken unicorn like me?” That’s no way to talk Fizzle, Jade really likes you and I know it. You like her a lot too, you hardly ever let her go too far away before you follow after her. “I can’t cook, I’m only vaguely good at cleaning, if you haven’t noticed my slightly sour personality leaves something to be desired, I’m not exactly fit to be called beautiful with this scar on my face and to top it all off I can’t even protect Jade from herself! Violence might be one of the only things I’m really good at, so why does she expect me to ask her on a date? What can I really offer her aside from a different perspective?”

“A pony she likes and wants to make happy.” It sounded simple to me, but also a bit complicated because they were different in so many ways. I don’t understand dating, after being regularly bullied by stallions like I am, but I knew what love was like. “I think a date might help you work out your current relationship issues as friends. I wouldn’t know if it actually could, I’ve never been on one personally. You two are really great friends, it could give you an opportunity to talk things out.”

“Maybe so, but I’m also coming to terms with what I see in her. She’s impulsive, she likes jumping off of high places, she’s a bit of a glutton, she doesn’t care for her appearance all too much, some of the things Abyssinians do in general disgusts me, she doesn’t look to the future too often and she’s just as awkward as I am. Actually… that last one might be a good thing.” She stared at the fire for a minute before turning to me with a look of sad wonder in her eyes. “She’s definitely got her flaws, but despite that she’d put herself in harm’s way for me in less than a heartbeat. I really don’t want her to endanger herself on my behalf! She helped me learn to imbue things with magic and made me stop my silly quest to get my horn back. I don’t even know where to start with that myself except for finding something magically powerful! She said she’d even help me with that, I know she meant it too even if she has had absolutely no progress.”

She sighed and put her hooves to her face looking quite glum. I looked to Angel and tilted my head towards Fizzle, he crossed his arms and glared at me. He was a very spirited rabbit, but he was also so adorable it was hard to take his attitude seriously.

I stared at him a bit more and he finally threw his paws up in the air and caved in to what I wanted him to do. He went and snuggled up against Fizzle while being as cute as possible, it made her smile a bit and she start petting him gently.

“You know I was wandering aimlessly before I ended up here. Without my quest to fix my horn, who was I as Fizzlepop Berrytwist? A nonentity, with no direction, going nowhere. If Jade and I started something, how would I even support her? She can already do several amazing things with magical alchemy alone that would help her make money easily. Maries could even hunt and keep her fed and is stronger than me. Jade… she doesn’t really need me.” It wasn’t exactly healthy to compare yourself to a chimera Fizzle. “I want to show everyone what I can do, but I’m having problems even coming up with something that's completely my idea alone. I’m not one for traveling around and being a show pony, using magic for me is quite draining. I already know what I’m talented at, but it’s not exactly a full blown paying job now is it? I can distract, I can learn to fight, I can think, but at the end of the day I’m still me and my special talent feels very limited by this stump of mine.”

“It's not your horn that Jade cares about, it's you! You must know that. I know what it feels like to feel helpless Fizzle…” How can I not when other pegasus ponies make fun of me for not being able to fly so well? I also get bullied because I’m always meek and scared. My best friends are animals and or beings far outside my own species, except for you, Rainbow and Pinkie. “I think Jade does need you, as a friend and maybe a special some-pony if you’re willing. She's not pressuring you.”

“I’m afraid she'll stop caring about me...” Muttered Fizzle as she clutched Angel Bunny to her.

“It’s okay to be afraid.” I know this from experience. "It's what you do with that fear that shows everyone exactly what you are truly capable of."

Author's Note

So there's a little drama.

Chapter Ten, Ass-assins and the "normal date": Talking Contract.

-Fizzle, two months later-

I woke up with a start and I was feeling alright with the world, in my hooves was a sleeping Jade and I found myself feeling really conflicted about snuggling her like this. I was also conflicted that she was okay with being in the same room with me.

How can she sleep so peacefully after what I did to her months ago? How can I? I’m surprised that nobody absolutely hated me after I did that, they all almost unanimously sided with me. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I was happy that everyone around liked me, but at Jade’s expense?

Why do I even still like Jade? I should not want anything to do with her, yet there’s something compelling about her actions and why she did exactly what she did. She brought out my insecurities and showed me that strength wasn’t everything, after all what did my strength do other than hurt her? She hadn’t even screamed and she just took it, her tolerance for pain was just plain absurd.

Why did Jade even do that to me? One thing was sure, Jade hadn’t actually attacked me with her full ferocity and I did far worse to her than she did to me.

Jade might have been a huge jerk, but being angry at her was hard when she was apologizing for it all so well without having to apologize out loud.

Now that I’ve had time to contemplate things, I noted that she had never even used her claws against me. She got aggressive with me, sure, but she never gave me more than a few mild bruises. I bloodied her and wrenched her arms out of their sockets and she, sort of, made me do it. Only my actions were my own, that she gave me a smile and a kiss afterwards had me both angry and scared in a different way.

Nobody even said a word about how I pulled her arms out of their sockets or even helped Jade force them back in. If she wanted to prove to me that I was strong and cared for, that had to be one of the absolute worst and dumbest ways to go about doing it. Making everyone hate her, just so I’d know that they’d care for me even if I did something horrible. I’m still more than a little confused about it even now.

It had pushed me towards training with Sekhet to get a handle on my emotions, I remembered she was quite knowledgeable about the subject. I had yet to ask her what she thought of the situation, but she didn’t seem upset with Jade at all.

Didn’t Jade know how upsetting what she did to me was? I didn’t want to be like Maud, but I wanted at least some control of my anger towards Jade for pushing me to hurt her like that. I was angry at myself for actually hurting her. Jade actions were just so frustrating and out of nowhere!

I guess she was actually making it up to me by letting me cuddle her. She really didn’t have to do this for me, but it did make sleeping easier at night and she was a really comfortable pillow.

Now I felt a blush running through my entire body, I couldn’t think of my current position without feeling a bit awkward about how much I liked it. She’s average or less than average in appearance by Abyssinian standards, but to me she was something beautiful, special and unique. She still was, but it was only slightly muted by her odd actions.

Logically, Cheerilee and Fresh Start were both a bit scared of me after that. Yet Jade was still willing to lay next to me and let me cuddle her at night to prove there were no hard feelings. I was having trouble coming to terms with this and no longer feared that I couldn’t protect her, I feared that I cared for someone who was a bit sanity challenged.

Surprisingly enough, this made me feel normal and that’s probably what she was aiming for. Normal in the sense that my horn was definitely something along the lines of yesterday’s news. I had a broken horn, but I wasn’t going to cry too much over it anymore.

She didn’t want me to be hurt, but I still wanted to protect her. In the same vein she wanted to protect me, but I didn’t want her getting hurt on my behalf.

Maybe that’s why I’m not as upset as I could be, we both wanted the same thing. To keep each other safe, even if it meant getting seriously harmed for it. Insert the painful tiebreaker Jade set off, so we'd hurt each other. She showed me just how much we could hurt one another and it was so easy for her to do, starting with a single callous action.

It was totally stupid, Jade forces me to hurt her physically while hurting me emotionally. She upset just about everyone she cared about doing it. She didn’t even care it’d change how people thought of her.

She wasn’t afraid of being hurt by me, but I had been afraid of being hurt by her. I was more worried about her now than ever and was actually less scared of being hurt by her. I’m still trying to figure out how that works!

“Still upset about what Jade did to get you to stop being so anxious?” I looked up at mom, she was up earlier than usual as she walked towards us. She sat down on the edge of the bed and tussled my mane affectionately. “You seem comfortable my adorable unicorn daughter.”

“Oh I’m still anxious, but about completely different things now. My previous anxiety was obliterated when Jade decided to go through with her idiotic plan, why did you even let her do that mom?” I asked as I clutched Jade tightly and nuzzled her neck, she was a heavy sleeper. I had finally asked the question that had been on my mind, mom let this happen and even knew what Jade would do. Why didn’t she stop Jade from doing something it? Better yet, why didn’t she stop me? Everyone just let us fight. “Also, why did it take you so long to come talk to me about it?”

“I’m glad that you’re still calling me mom after what my Jaded made you do to her.” You’d always be my mom Kuril, I wouldn’t ever want to disappoint you. “Jaded has been a bit upset that you wouldn’t be her friend anymore after what she did. I let her do it because she wanted to make a mistake and she felt like it was the right thing to do. Do you forgive her for it?”

“What kind of question is that, it should be obvious!” I was still snuggling Jade after all. “Of course I forgive her, how can she ever forgive me?! She didn’t go all out against me and barely even bruised me at all. I temporarily crippled her!”

A friend I still loved despite her highly flawed plan actually working. If it was flawed and it worked… was it really flawed to begin with?

“She psychologically scarred you Fizzle, my kitten deserved exactly what she got for doing that to you. Just know that that was just as hard for her as it was for you.” I wanted to tell her that Jade didn’t deserve what I did to her, but I couldn’t.

"Things just haven't felt right around here since that happened." I sighed loudly, putting my face against Jade's shoulder and smiled a bit. Wait… why was mom holding a camera? I blinked the spots out of my eyes after the camera flashed.

“Now that’s a real keeper.” Kuril smiled warmly at the picture she was holding. “It’s almost like that fight never happened.”

"Oh believe me, it did." Sarcasm was a form of defense right? "I was there for most of it mom."

“I swear you two will drive each other insane. I did say she would do crazy things in the name of love, but that took the cake and then some.” She showed me the photo she just took of me nuzzling Jade, I could even see the smile on the cats sleeping face and the blush showing through my fur on my own smiling muzzle. I could feel my heart slump a little at the adorable sight. ”I’ve been punishing Jaded in my own way and I think her punishment is just about up, just think about all the meals we’ve been having and you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

“You haven’t made potato stew once ever since Zecora started staying here, also you’ve held back on giving her desert for dinner.” Her favorite meals were practically banned and here I thought I had been cruel to her, at least I hadn’t taken away Jade’s favorite meal or sugary treats. “You aren’t the only one punishing her, why hasn’t she said anything about how you’re all treating her? I’m the one that beat her up! Why am I the victim? She’s as much a victim of her own plan too!”

“She has you, she doesn’t need to say anything. She’s perfectly content with whatever punishment you’re willing to ask of her that will lead to forgiveness. I would have told her to continue staying away from you for a while, but you already went and approached her anyway. I think punishing her with affection isn’t the best way to go about things, but it’s your relationship.” She shook her head with an amused smile. “Now come on and get up, no reason for Jade to wake up next to a beautiful face in the morning. A reminder, its Jacky’s birthday today. Despite the fact that you’ve already forgiven her, never forget that it happened or that my biological daughter is weirder than you think she is. You’re my daughter too Fizzy and I don’t like seeing you two being so quiet around one another.”

I loved Jade… those last words she said to me on that day before we spent the rest of it in silence were quite ominous. We didn’t talk after that and today, I would try to talk to her.

She could wait forever for me to ask her out on a date, could I do the same for her?

-Jade-

Mom was right, love will make me do crazy things. I woke up alone and didn’t mind. As long as Fizzle hadn’t run away because me, I’d be fine. If she had, then I’d feel quite horrible. I tried to get up only for Fizzle to come back in the room with a tray on her back.

“Fizzy…” I was going to apologize to her and she put a hoof over my mouth, a freshly washed hoof at that. It smelled nice.

“No, I’ve got something to say to you Jade!” Just like that she released my mouth and put the tray in my lap. “I love you, you complete and utter jerk. It’s been two months Jade, stop being so quiet. You're supposed to be a charismatic rogue for crying out loud, did you dump your intelligence and charisma stats for luck?”

She said it so dryly and flatly that I giggled, she didn’t glare at me and just smiled a bit.

“Love you too Fizzy and breakfast in bed? Really? You’re being way too nice to someone who hurt you as much as I did.” She nuzzled me and planted a soft kiss on my cheek. “Fizzy?”

“Jade, what you did was upsetting. I want you to explain it to me step by step why you thought any of that was a good idea.” The look in Fizzle’s eyes made me winced and looked away, she crawled up onto the bed to take a spot next to me and the currently untouched food. “I realized you pulled your punches. I was so angry that you slapped me the second time, I didn’t recognize what you were doing at the time.”

“Well, I wanted to do something absolutely stupid in the name of love, so what was one of the worst things I could ever possibly think of doing after hearing what Fluttershy told me you told her that could end in a positive outcome? To start off... Make you important and supported by everyone. Stopped you from being afraid of me not caring anymore by trying to make you stop caring for me first, which was the only thing that didn’t work.” The only hiccup in the plan really. “You needed to support yourself before you can support others, so I forced you to stand up to me. Thus the fight was needed. Your special talents feels limited to you, so I limited myself to what I’m normally capable of, especially as if Magical alchemy had never been invented. Incidentally you can use the horrible memory in case I ever get mind controlled by magic, replaced with a changeling and or have an evil clone made of me. I reduced my number of friends around here so I could be yours exclusively and you wouldn't have cared as much about me anymore, so I'd basically be putting myself in your position before you ended up in Airship Mauled and would be able to know how you feel despite how much I tried to keep you happy. To that end I even stopped using Magical Alchemy for the last two months to get a good feel of what it's like to be missing a horn. In all I really think you can do so much better than me Fizzy, I'm being quite serious here. All this took was me making a pariah of myself for you. Most of my goals were achieved, so mission definitely accomplished and I’m a literal magnificent bastard. On a side note, did Maries bother you?”

“More like a literal genie that Fluttershy let out of the bottle and I should really read your comic books to find out if that’s where you came up with the plan… that ultimately worked in exactly the ways you likely thought it would. As for Maries, they only asked me two things.” Fizzle started laughing. “When will we get our other prospective mate back and when can we start courting the two of you together?”

“I’ve been back, just not as responsive… why is there so much on the tray?” Scooting up next to me Fizzle deftly forked a piece of pancake.

“Why do you think?” Okay Fizzle’s words may have made me blush a bit, before she actually told me why. “I haven’t eaten breakfast with my professional idiot in a while.”

“The best and brightest at jumping off of high places, I got to know Arizona better.” The cow didn’t see a single problem with my bizarre actions. “She’s the only one who sided with me. Mom was truly neutral. Sekhet knew why I did it and I’m surprised you didn’t ask her or that she didn’t tell you.”

“This weekend.” Her words made me pause in the middle of taking a bite of egg.

“Hm?” I queried before shoving the bit of egg into my mouth.

“We’re going on a date this weekend and we’ll air out everything we like and hate about one another.” Fizzle’s mood was surprisingly chipper, I did give her two months to cool down.

Author's Note

Refer to- "Chapter Nine, Exercises In Utility: Fluttershy."

Using violence to flip the script!

Chapter Ten, Ass-assins and the "normal date": Birthday Contract.

??? -

A knife in the dark, a blade that comes from out of nowhere, a shadow that haunts those of importance and is never seen coming.

I was an assassin, a good one too. Apparently my employers have heard that a sun priest was around and it took them a year to even locate her whereabouts.

Why they wanted the priest dead was none of my business. All it would take is one quick stab to the heart, in and out just like that.

There was nothing that could stop me.

Snickers -

“Coo…?” Something had activated her protective instincts, someone was going to mess with the lovers she protected and this familiar certainly wasn’t happy with that. “Hiss!”

Also it seemed like the link between kitty and pony was all better, happiness!

-Jacky-

“So has she apologized yet?” I held my arms crossed as I gave Captain a look, she had a smarmy cat smile on her face and Fizzle didn’t seem to be treating that look with disdain.

Still, good or bad she was still my Captain, even if I didn’t entirely agree with her methods whatever they were.

“She doesn’t really need to, it beggars the belief the lengths she’d go to in trying to feel like I do at times. Have you actually seen her doing anything with magical alchemy over the last few months?” Now that you mention it Fizzle I hadn’t seen Jade touch any of her magical alchemy ingredients and her mom still held her knife.

“No, can’t say that I’ve seen her doing anything strange or magical these last two months, which is unusual for her.” It left me wondering why Captain would avoid doing any magic. If I could do magic, I wouldn’t have avoided it for no reason.

“Okay, how has everyone been treating me since Jade forced me to fight her?” Well that was an easy one for me Fizzle. We’ve been asking you for help more often, we’ve been giving you more attention and you’ve been really quite helpful just about… that’s exactly what Captain wanted wasn’t it?

“You’re kidding...” I finally said after a minute, when I realized exactly why Jade did all that. “Captain that’s pretty dumb, bold and ridiculous.”

“Nope, not kidding, Jade tried to solve all my problem in one idiotic fell swoop and she swore off Magical Alchemy in attempt to make herself feel like I did without the use of my horn when we first met. It was mostly successful, though it makes me think I shouldn’t have told Fluttershy I was worried about Jade not caring about me anymore. Then Jade wouldn’t have preempted me in trying to make stop caring for her first, I didn’t think she needed me when she had everyone else and now she absolutely does need me to make up with all of our friends. Except Arizona who apparently thinks fighting is magic.” Yeah, that fits everything we knew Fizzle. “Thank you for letting Jade loose upon me Fluttershy, don’t you ever do it again!”

I among everyone else knew the not caring about Jade thing obviously didn’t work with Fizzle, she was very upset that Jade was avoiding everyone and she seemed pretty actively intent on trying to depress herself. She never got sad once, she’s certainly mentally made of sterner stuff than the rest of us.

Captain you’re an absurd creature and I hoped that you never fell in love with me in a platonic sense you complete lunatic. I’d have to turn Captain down gently if she ever wanted to do something romantic with me.

“I’m sorry Fizzle, I didn’t know telling her your issues would lead to her doing all of that.” I patted Fluttershy soothingly on the back, Captain called her cutie and she was cute in the way she hid her face behind her mane. Good friend the shy lass is to the rest of us. “I really didn’t know Jade would do something so… extreme. It’s actually kind of sounds like something Rainbow Dash would do.”

“Exactly my thoughts on it! Thinking like Rainbow Dash is always good for a bad idea and she was a clear inspiration to me.” Well don’t look so proud of yourself Captain. “Also I would like to formally apologize to Fizzle for attempting to depress myself horribly so I could understand her better while in the course of simultaneously making her more important to everyone else around here by making myself look bad. Just know I won’t act like a jerk just for the sake of being a jerk to the people I love, I’ll have good reasons for it. Everyone will definitely be able to feel the absolute vitriol I have for anyone I may come to hate, it’ll be very obvious too. So stop me if I go overboard.”

“I’m not about to say I’d accept an apology.” Well why not Fizzle, Captain just offered it up to you just like that and she even means it! Our favorite unicorn companion stood on her hind legs and wrapped Captain in a hug and nuzzled up to her. ”You’ve got nothing to apologize for, I already forgave you a while ago. The sentiment of actually saying it is nice at least, so yes I accept it.”

“Are you sure it’s okay Fizzle?” Fluttershy moved away from me to sit at a table, while giving her a worried look.

“Don’t worry about it Fluttershy, knowing why she did it doesn’t mean I like it… but it’s actually pretty touching though. Given that she’s willing to go months without potato stew for me.” I’m not quite sure everyone would think it was that touching Fizzle.

Well it might be once you knew Captain treats some foods like it’s her very lifeblood and she hasn’t been getting desserts for months either. How hasn’t she ultimately cracked yet?!

I think the only reason why Captain isn’t a depressed emotional wreck like she tried to become, is because you were a around Fizzle. We should probably dedicate her to an insane asylum, because it’s amazing that she managed to go through with trying to do depressing things to herself. Say what you will about the Captain, but she always gets results in some way in the end.

“So I can finally stop saying Captain in a sarcastic tone? Oh sure, that makes me feel so much better.” I watched as Jade walked away and eventually she came back with a large birthday present. She thrust it into my arms and I just stared at her smile. “Correction, I’m good with Captain La Perm because she has a big birthday present for me.”

“Happy birthday Blackcap, I hope you like it. I worked pretty hard on it, took quite a bit of magical energy to make and test.” Taking the long purple box with the white ribbon from Jade, it weighed a few pounds. I wondered what was in it and what could the Captain have gotten for me that required packaging this large. “You can open it whenever.”

“The cake is baking everyone, let’s just spend the rest of this day having fun okay?” Sure thing my Captain’s mother and everyone’s mom, it’s nice to see Captain and Fizzle acting normal again. Well normal for around here anyway.

Someone else who was quite happy for things to be back to weird was Maries, who just knocked both Fizzle and Jade to the floor to start licking them both.

-Fizzle, thirty minutes later-

“So what did you get Jacky for her birthday jade?” Darn it, why couldn’t I get away from her touching my ears? I liked it sure, but she’s always rubbing them and making me feel so embarrassed about how much I liked it. I’ve missed this as much as I’ve missed her petting me, just because she did something stupid we missed months of quality time where she could have been caressing me like this. “Also please don’t do that to any of us again, I didn’t like you avoiding us!”

“I can’t make any promises about the future Fizzle, I’m a do what feels right to me kind of person. If I feel like I really need to do that again, then I will. Jacky’s present is something I think she’ll like, you’ll see it when she opens it. At least you definitively know you’re liked around here and that’s what matters.” Yes Jade, I get it. I’ll stop being a sad sack, but don’t you dare you stop cheering me up so much. “You know we haven’t talked about it, but do you realize how scared I was when that flying one eyed purple pony eater grabbed you, Wary Berry and Cheerilee?”

Even if Jade didn’t care about Wary Berry, she still rescued that purple furred and blue haired mare from the tentacles of that horrific thing. In fact she was the last one Jade rescued despite being the closest pony she could get to, she had rescued me first. Wary was overly critical about fruit, a most common source of nutrition for many beings including my favorite Abyssinian next to mom. Jade had obviously resented that a bit.

“Yes and then you went an upset me and everyone else. It was nice getting all that attention, but all that attention from them doesn’t compare to what I get from you.” I told you I love you and I meant it. You’ve said it back to me and all is forgiven, now we just have to go on several dates and see how well we can keep ourselves together. “Still though, what is it that you got Jacky that requires such a big box?”

“I’m the rogue. Maries is a barbarian. Mom is a witch. You, Fizzle, are my… our lovely spell sword. So Jacky would be the…” she trailed off looking to me to finish.

Don’t think I didn’t notice you changing your choice of words Jade! It’s kind of hard to hide the fact that we loved one another, especially when you are willing to do absurd things that I didn’t ask for. Well I did kind of ask for it when I told Fluttershy how I felt, but never mind that!

“Archer… you bought her a bow?” Frankly my and everyone else’s obsession with Ogre’s and Oubliettes had become muted without Jade around to play with, we all missed having her around and I don’t think anyone liked her avoiding the rest of us.

“Bought? Oh no, I didn’t buy it! That would be way too easy, also ponies don’t make good weapons.” Nobody would disagree with you on that Jade. Pony made weaponry was never too great in quality. Armor and shields were a bit better, so I couldn’t actually see you buying a store bought weapon. “I made it special for her, with twenty arrows, a quiver and it’s even practically indestructible in case of bad luck.”

“What did you do?” I was still a little suspicious of you Jade, but don’t worry. That’ll clear up once we go on our date, we’re not doing anything special for it and we’re not going to dress up for it. Eventually I might convince you to wear a skirt at least

“Nothing special. Though quite a bit of magical alchemy went into it, before I forced you to brutalize me.” Would you please stop bringing it up Jade?

“Can we not mention that anymore?” My mane was being stroked by her gentle fingers.

“Okay, but I still think it improved how you see yourself around here.” It did clearly let me see who cared and you’re already making it up to me Jade.

It wasn’t long before the party was thrown with Pinkie in attendance, she was much happier to see that we were getting along again. Games, cake, ice cream and Jacky’s favorite food, it was just another day with my best friends and my special some cat.

Jacky got to test out her knew bow. Made with magically reinforced, water proofed wood. Both via wood casting bark skin on the wood of the bow itself and fish scale as a water repellant that smoothed the roughness from the bark skin.

My idea about the waterproof effect had actually helped make the bow what it is and I was accredited as it being partially from me.

The string was green and made of cat hair that was also reinforced with magical alchemy like the rest of the bow, specifically it used hair from Jade’s mane. She just grew it back by sustaining the wood she was working on and if for whatever reason the braided green bow string broke, Jacky had plenty of spares to work with given how much Jade must have cut off.

Speaking of Jade’s hair, I’m only noticing now that it was slightly shorter than it had previously been. It could be a little longer, I think I liked the idea of Jade having slightly longer hair. I could bring it up on our date later.

The fish leather handles for the bow was quite nice and it’d go with Jacky’s new set of fingerless gloves I got her. The quiver went over the top of her tail.

There were thankfully no repeating gifts other than what mom got for Jacky.

Fluttershy got Jacky a book about preparing for disasters, which Jacky definitely appreciated.

Pinkie Pie got Jacky a pirate themed party cannon, no one even knew such a thing as a party cannon store existed. Jacky would have to read the instruction manual for that later.

Maries got Jacky a fiddle, who knows how they managed that without us hearing about a chimera scare.

Sekhet got Jacky a treasure chest with twenty bits in it.

Arizona just gave Jacky a cow bell, like we needed more of those around here.

Kuril was the one with the silly gift, it was two mattresses. One for both sides of Jacky’s bed for when she fell out in the morning by rolling too far. I think she should have gotten Jacky three, there was one side of the bed that Jacky could still fall off of that wasn’t covered.

Zecora -

“This place is quite strange, especially when danger is always in range.” I was talking to the one know as Jade La Perm. This place had a certain madness about it, mostly the good kind. “The celebration and tea is nice, but could I bother you to get me some ice?”

“Sure thing Cora, so how are your talks with my mom going?” I followed her and she got some ice from a box to put in my cup, for the rest of today I was just going to sup. Kurilian’s food is quite filling, especially for those who are hungry and quite willing.

“We are learning each other’s ways as we teach, I have been fair in my dealings as I am not a leech.” I was quite amazed at what Kuril could do, she could cook magical effects directly into her food depending on what she uses. The one that pops up most often for her was health and fulfillment, something a witch of great taste should be known for. “Your mother is quite humble to say she’s a witch of good taste, especially in the grand ways she makes all kinds of food without haste.”

“So need help finding a tree, in the Ever Free?” She was a cunning cat, and a friend to me at that.

Author's Note

An assassin appears, will they be able to kill the unknown sun priest... yeah we all know who they're after.

Chapter Ten, Ass-assins and the "normal date": Attempting Contract.

-???-

There she was at a birthday party, my target was so calm and sure of herself. She’d be dead in the next few seconds.

I held the blow pipe up to my mouth, once I exhaled I had better start running fast. She, wouldn’t know what hit her.

“Coo…” I froze, slowly I turned my eyes to what had made that noise. It was just a sea turtle, I turned back to blow into the pipe and stopped. I looked back to the sea turtle that was just staring at me, what was a sea turtle doing up a tree and how did it even get up here?

What’s more, why was it staring at me like that? I shook my head. The sea turtle wasn’t important, I had to get my target while she was out in the open!

I went to breathe into the pipe when I heard a crunching noise, I stopped and turned to the sea turtle. A bit of the bark was missing from the branch I was on and the turtle had a cricket sticking halfway out of its mouth, which it inhaled fully.

Okay, I was going to do this and stop thinking about how a sea turtle got this far onto land or up into a tree without help! Crickets couldn’t get this high up either, but that didn’t matter at the moment.

I quickly inhaled and put my lips to the blow pipe, then a sharp cracking noise was heard. I ignored it and blew, unfortunately for me the angle of the pipe was straight up as I was falling towards the ground.

Snickers-

The dart flew straight into some clouds that Fluttershy had rode on her way to Airship Mauled and it started drifting away with the unspent dart stuck halfway into it.

“Coo…” Bug yummy, but love hurting being falling even yummier. Warn bad thing that want hurt lovers, but they no listen. No hurt lovers while I here!

“Interesting, keep doing your job little guardian.” I like super winged kitty, she’s friendly and even feels cuddly! She has extra cuddly kin somewhere. “I’m going to get plenty of amusement out of watching this. No point in interfering unless I absolutely have to.”

-???-

I was paranoid, that sea turtle had caused me to fail what should have been an extremely easy shot on purpose. I looked around and I brought up my right hoof to aim a mounted crossbow this time.

My blow pipe had broken when I fell on top of it.

They were watching the parrot wielding that bow with the green string. She pulled an arrow from her tail mounted quiver and nocked it to aim at the target a decent distance away.

The parrot didn’t look like she knew how to use the bow and was wielding it like a complete beginner. I didn’t care about the bow or the wielder of it, they weren’t my target.

“Coo…” I froze, I looked at the sea turtle. It wouldn’t eat through the branch this time, I chose a really sturdy one for this... how did it even get up here this time!

I glared at the turtle and it started to crawl away from me on its flippers squeaking with fear.

Turning back to fire my crossbow, the arrow launched on a direct course for the green haired target with beige fur.

It was going straight for her heart... only for the most absurd and impossible to predict thing to occur.

Somehow, the parrot letting go of the string to the bow saved my target. Instead of flying forward, the arrow went spinning wildly backwards out of the bow into the air and that sent everyone scattering. Including my target.

My bolt hit the tail end of the arrow, which spun on a new axis with the bolt stuck in it. Then, before I understood what was even happening, I saw the bolt coming straight back towards my face.

I tried to dodge backwards, only the bolt caught the inside of my hood somehow and it lodged itself into the tree.

I fell down and started to be strangled by my own clothing like a tightening noose.

I was trying to figure out how in Tartarus did this just happen, or even if any of what just occurred was feasibly possible. It obviously was, because my clothing became a tightening noose around my own neck.

“Coo…” I looked up to the sea turtle looking at the hood, it looked at me and saw my face. Said face must have been turning blue or purple by now because I couldn’t breathe.

It tilted its head questioningly at my struggling form, before it moved over to where my hood was trapped by the bolt and started to nibble at the fabric.

Several nibbles and a ripping sound later, I found myself slamming into the ground. I was then, somehow, hit with a huge wad of sticky tree sap that quickly stuck me to the ground.

I was at least in a good position to watch the parrot try to shoot the target again, and she managed to hit the edge of it this time.

Not bad for a second shot at least.

-Snickers-

“Well timed distraction little guardian!” Happiness for praise! “Though you probably shouldn’t have saved him.”

“Coo...” I didn’t like the face the love hurting being was making, it looked sad and colorful.

“You know he’ll just try to kill your partner again.” Super winged kitty is big smart. “Oh he can definitely try, but he won’t ever be truly close to succeeding.”

Really extra super big smart, I smart too with great bond to kitty!

-Jade-

“See Jacky, your luck isn’t so horrible and absolutely nobody got hurt!” I pat the parrot on the back for her first successful shot, may she have many more in the future. “You even hit the target.”

“The bow is a bit unwieldly Jade and I’ve never used one before, but there’s something exhilarating about managing to hit the target on my first try.” As long as you were happy Jacky, today was your day after all. “The try that actually went forward that is.”

“Oh, hey Snickers, what do you have there, a metal crossbow bolt?” I received a cooing noise from the ground bound turtle, Snickers held the bolt up at me with her flippers. I wondered why she wasn’t using her wings, but shrugged that off and carefully took the sap covered crossbow bolt. “Well okay then. Don’t know where you got it, but I guess I can hold onto it for you.”

-???-

Okay, long range was out, this time I was waited until night. I watched their festivities from the shadows and I learned which room belonged to my target.

There was no way I could miss with a knife from point blank range while my target was asleep, I’d start as soon as everyone was in bed.

I’d give them some time to really fall asleep and then I would strike.

This place was weird. There’s the two crashed airships turned into buildings, a farm land that looks like it was trench dug out with someone’s face and a small pyramid. Why was this place even here? No matter, soon my target would be dead and I’d be paid what I’m owed.

-Later at night.-

The Witch’s Fare place was across from me, it was some kind of restaurant. Probably didn’t get many customers out here. Nobody was around out here, so I silently dropped down and darted for the door only to slam into something, causing my nose to make an audible crunching noise from the impact.

Okay that hurt… I lifted a hoof and pressed it against the air. I slowly worked my way around the invisible barrier surrounding the campfire. A campfire that, I just realized, had never gone out for as long as I was watching these people.

So even with a broken horn, the unicorn would be absolutely dangerous if I woke her up. She had to be the one that made that barrier to protect against ill intentions and I was here to kill someone. The barrier thankfully didn’t cover the front door of the restaurant.

I picked the lock and stepped inside, only to stop immediately. I silently turned around, stepped back outside, closed the door and locked it back up. There was a chimera curled up and sleeping on a rug in the restaurant, if I had made one wrong noise I’d have been ripped to pieces.

Why was there even a chimera in the restaurant?! What is wrong with this insane place that the sun priest was guarded by a freaking chimera!

Okay, option two, go in through the roof to reach her room.

“Coo…?” I jumped and almost made a loud noise outside the door, I strangled my own shout by covering my mouth with my hooves and turned to the turtle on the ground in irritation.

If I had tried to take care of the chimera, then this insufferable, irritating, little shelled creature would have likely woke it up at the wrong moment. I went to go get my grappling hook, completely ignoring the exceedingly strange and eccentric sea turtle.

-Snickers-

Bad love hurting being still wanted to hurt love, I protect kitty of great bond!

“Well little guardian, what will you do now?” Don’t worry super winged kitty, I big smart! “It appears he doesn’t think going through the front door will work and your plan to wake up Maries while he was in the room fell through.”

“Hiss… coo… coo hiss coo!” Would friend super winged kitty help?

“Oh, do tell…” Yay, super winged kitty was smiling, friends!

-???-

On the deck of the airship I opened the door that wasn’t locked, the fools. Anyone who could fly would have gotten in here easily.

-Snickers-

Door being open for bad love hurting being, not knowing that I big smart.

Nose hurt, but big need for big smart.

-???-

I entered the room. Since the door on deck wasn’t locked, the door to her room wasn’t either. There lied the sun priest curled up in her sheets. Sleeping on her right side, her heart was exposed for me to stab at.

As I got closer I smelled the stench of fish, just what I expected from an Abyssinian. Fish lovers the lot of them.

I slid my knife from its sheath carefully, watching the rise and fall of the blankets and the gently breathing shaped beneath them.

I lashed out with my knife in the dark and a squelching noise was heard, the blanket started to become heavy with fluids. I wrenched my knife free of the suddenly still form and wiped it on the bed.

The dark red of blood, yes this was an easy mission and I would soon receive my pay.

I quietly made my exit, my mission was accomplished.

-Five minutes later-

“Excuse me.” I immediately turned and fired at the voice. The crossbow bolt stopped in the air an inch from the beings face, the orange eyes were glowing with the shape of ankhs in the pupils. Lion body, wings and a pony face, it looked familiar. “What was that in aid of?”

There was no magical glow, the hoof mounted crossbow bolt just floated there. I tried to turn and run, only I found my body unable to move.

“I’ll give you the use of your mouth so you may answer my riddle.” Oh no… I just shot at a sphinx! Wait, why was it here… the pyramid, of course! It lived next to the sun priest’s home. “Get my riddle right, I’ll let you go… in that direction specifically and only that direction. Get it wrong and… well… you won’t get it wrong now will you? That sun priest was my friend I’ll have you know.”

I swallowed loudly, my body trapped in the Sphinx’s power as she approached me with a slow gait and wicked smile.

“Here’s my riddle. I’m almost blind and my true sight is my big ears, I hang upside down, feed on bugs and spend lots of time in caves filled with your fears.” That… didn’t seem so bad really, what’s the catch? “What am I?”

“A bat?” She smiled so coyly at me. It seemed too… simple. I guess Sphinx’s weren’t as dangerous as many think they are.

“Very good, correct even. I am a sphinx of my word, you are to go in that direction for a while and eventually you’ll be able to go in a different direction.” She released me from the grip of her power and I ran.

-Sekhet-

“Off to Barely Bearable Woods, maybe I should have warned him about the drop bears...” Chuckles audibly spilled from my throat. “Nah, he’ll be fine.”

-Snickers-

I play kitty of great bond dead. Love hurting being be leaving, I come out from under blankets!

I super big smart, need hug super winged kitty later.

-The next morning, Fizzle-

“Jade… ugh… where is she?” She got up before I did, I’ll check her room. Opening the door I saw that Snickers had made a huge mess on Jade’s bed. “Snickers, bad turtle dove!”

The shell shivered a bit and I heard a whining noise.

“Yes, she’s been a very bad turtle. Help me clean up the fish and the catsup she spilled everywhere under the blankets.” Jade had come up to me carrying some cleaning supplies with her, she shook her head as she looked at the mess. “Fish and catsup... if you wanted a change of diet, you could have just told me little buddy.”

“Coo…” Whined the turtle cutely poking her head slightly out of the catsup stained shell, I could swear I saw a faint hint of a smirk on her face.

“Come on, let’s go get you cleaned up Snickers.” Having picked up Snickers, Jade walked to the door and stopped to turn to me. “Fizzle, dump all the ruined fish into the bucket and toss it out into the river. Mom will take care of the sheets.”

“I’m making potato stew tonight.” As soon as mom said that, I had to watch as Jade almost gave herself whiplash from turning after her mother.

Jade’s tail was now waggling like a dogs and it was so adorable to see that sudden bright smile on her face. I snickered at the sight and rubbed up against her before I went over to the bed to start throwing the ruined fish into the bucket.

“I swear you’re more cat than me Fizzle and I’m the Abyssinian here!” Her words got me giggling and before we knew it, we were both laughing. It was good for things to be back to relatively normal.

“Yeah and I’m the Ornithian that’s never been to Ornithia… whoa, what happened here?” Looking into the room Jacky saw the mess and looked at us curiously with her purple eyes. “Anyway, the extra mattresses worked. No painful beak to the floor for me this morning, mom really knew what I needed!”

“Yep, mom chose her gifts wisely. Snickers somehow got into a bottle of catsup and smeared it and a lot of fish everywhere randomly all over the bed and then wrapped it up in a blanket.” It seemed Jade was considering something. “I now have to clean my naughty buddy off. Quick question, how do you punish a sea turtle dove that’s done something bad?”

Author's Note

Familiar Bond: Snickers, already being a rather intelligent sea turtle dove, has bonded to Jaded strongly enough to gain a weaker copy of her cunning.

Drop Bears are an Australian mythological hoax.

In Equestria however… they are very much real creatures that would resembled Ewoks.

Only deadlier, longer limbed, faster, more dangerous and overall not a bunch of living friendly teddy bears.

Chapter Ten, Ass-assins and the "normal date": Beautiful Contract

-Several days later on the weekend, Fizzle-

I approached mom’s room this morning, I was a little pensive about asking her for help. Though if I did ask her, I knew I’d get cuddles for it. I haven’t exactly told anyone me and Jade were going on a date, even if neither I nor Jade had anything special to wear for it.

We didn’t need anything special, but I still wanted a little help with my appearance. Someone to style my mane a bit differently and apply some makeup, I wasn’t good at any of that.

Jade didn’t care that I had noticeable scar or a broken horn, but I’m sure the ponies of Ponyville would care a little more and might freak out a bit. I’d rather not cause a panic and I also wanted to look a little bit good.

I wanted a change of pace for a short while and it was my first date, I wanted it to be special.

So I put my right hoof to the door and knocked twice.

“Come in.” Mom was just waking up and stretching out as I entered. “Oh hello my little Fizzle, what can I do for you as a mother? That seems to be the only reason you girls come to me anymore, it’s never just to say hello or give me a wake up hug. Of course with you making my daughter your personal snuggle toy, I can understand why I’m not needed nearly as much.”

“Stop making so flustered mom!” I could feel myself blushing already.

“Well stop being so cute!” She smiled at me and I could feel my blush worsen. “You haven’t done anything inappropriate in bed with my cat daughter have you?”

“No, but I was wondering if you could…” Was I really going to ask her to do this for me?

“If I could what?” Her ears were perking up now, she seemed more intent on me than she was a second ago, do I really want to ask mom for help with this? “You are certainly being awfully shy right now Fizzle.”

By now Jade would be doing her morning sun salutation exercise and then she’d probably go downstairs to wait for breakfast with Maries. I wanted to do this before she saw me today. Jade might not put that much care into maintaining her appearance and wasn’t at all feminine, but I cared slightly more than she did.

“I want you to style my mane… and help me prepare for my date with Jade.” I closed my eyes, clamped my hooves down on my ears and waited for the squeal. It didn’t come and I opened one eye.

Kuril look misty eyed and wiped her tears away with a smiling face.

I removed my hooves from my ears… and then mom chose exactly that moment to squeal loudly.

-Five minutes later.-

“That’s why you don’t try to avoid the squeal Fizzle, I could wait all day until you were vulnerable to show my appreciation for asking me to help you with this.” As she said that, warm water splashed against my head and down my back. I felt mom’s hands gently rubbing the shampoo into my wet mane as I sat in a tub of hot water. “Who’s a cute blushing pony, you are Fizzle!”

“I’m almost a full grown mare mom.” I just sighed happily as mom scrubbed my back.

“Maybe so, but you’ve adopted me as your mother and it’s too late for you to turn back on that. We’re not doing just your mane, we’ll style your tail too and if you’re willing I can add some eyeshadow.” I was beginning to fall asleep as I sat here, it was just so comfortable with mom rubbing shampoo into my fur, tail and mane. “You’re quite naturally beautiful Fizzle, so you don’t actually need makeup at all and you should know that Jade already likes how you look normally. She tends to get lost in your eyes when you’re happy, they glow so much when you smile dear.”

“I don’t feel beautiful a lot of the time.” It was the scar and the horn that mostly made me feel like that.

“You are if I say you are Fizzle, you’re a beautiful young pony and I think Jade will be happy you’re going to the trouble for your date. I bet Jaded doesn’t change a single thing about herself for it though.” Look mom, it really wouldn’t bother me if Jade really didn’t do anything special. It’s just about spending a day with someone I cared about.

-A few minutes later.-

“So just styling or do you want a trim, maybe a different cut?” As mom asked this of me, I was seated in a stool looking at myself in the mirror with my wet mane evenly plastered to both sides of my neck.

My hair wasn’t sticking up in its usual manner and was all weighed down with water. Mom grabbed a towel and started to rub my mane dry, I admittedly squeaked a bit when she started drying me off.

What did I want? I’ve always kept my hair a somewhat medium length, except the point where the hair stuck directly out of the back of my head and from there I kept it shorter going down my neck. My tail had always had that strange little cowlick that I never took care of, I guess it was time to say goodbye to that strange little feature for a while. I could always get it back after the date.

“You have to tell me or I won’t know what to do and I may just cuddle you until you do.” Darn it mom, you make this all sound so easy!

“Just style it differently please, to the right side of my neck and over my horn and scar.” At my words mom simply got to work on brushing my mane out. She would then take a comb to it and style it how I wanted it, I was a bit nervous about seeing Jade after this.

-Some time later, Jade.-

“Where’s Fizzle?” You were going to find out soon enough anyway Jacky.

“Don’t know, but I think she’s busy with mom. Can you go get The Ardent Survivor ready? We’re heading to Ponyville today and while we’re there you can do a few jobs and buy some stuff.” I was wondering when she’d notice that there was something different about me. “I’ll be busy going on a date personally.”

“Oh okay… wait you’re going on a date!” Yep, this is exactly how you are being informed about it and don’t you look surprised. I’m more surprised that you haven’t noticed something different about me. “Well that explains why I felt something was off, when did you get something like that? Also does Fizzle know you’re going out on a date?”

“I talked to an aspiring fashion pony in Ponyville and she made this for me…. for free.” Yes, I did that and said fashion pony seemed interested in getting a cat ever since then. She’d probably end up with Opal the kitten soon. “Also yes, Fizzle knows, she’s the one that asked me out.”

“She has to be nuts to want to date you Captain.” She quickly held up her talons in a warding gesture as I gave her a flat stare. “No offense meant, but I just think you’re clinically insane.”

“No offense taken, I am insane and will acknowledge it openly.” I sat back and waited for Fizzle to come down the stairs. I wondered what her reaction would be, it’d certainly be a surprise for her.

“By the way, looking good Captain! I didn’t know you could clean up like that, if I weren’t straight you’d be someone I’d look at more than twice.” Thank you for the vote of confidence you friendly pirate raised scoundrel you. “I’ll go prep the ship, call me when Kuril has breakfast ready.”

“We agree with her assessment of you Jade, Fizzle will appreciate you preening yourself.” After Maries stated that, snake head Marie spoke up alone. “Though we will always like you even if you don’t preen too often, you are of strong spirit and know how to fight. That’s what impresses my sisters the most, I like your cunning nature better personally.”

I turned away from them to look towards the stairs, I could hear the sounds of six different impacts coming down and smiled. If I’m right, this was going to be absolutely hilarious.

Mom was coming down the stairs in front of Fizzle to keep her from my sight. Unfortunately she hadn’t seen my appearance yet. I got up and waited in clear view and as soon as I saw mom I called out to her.

“Hey mom!” I said impishly with a cheeky grin. If you’re evil and you know it, clap your hands…

I resisted the urge to actually clap my hands as I didn’t want to do something so silly at this moment in time. I just held the camera at the ready and…

“Hey my little tom cat guess… oh what the…!” My mom suddenly caught sight of me doing a cutesy pose and smile, I cranked my adorability up to eleven and then pushed it a little bit further to twelve by winking at her.

Mom’s foot missed the next step and she went bouncing down the rest of the stairs on her butt. She just stared at me wide-eyed in shock and clutched at her chest. I looked at the picture coolly and nodded to myself while laughing gaily.

I heard Fizzle coming down the stairs next and smiled brightly, wait for it… and… strike a pose!

“Mom are you alright… what the…!” Cue Fizzle tripping and rolling down the stairs, she ended up flopping into mom’s lap with a bounce. She too was staring at me equally wide-eyed.

I simply took another picture, while smiling cheekily. Fizzle looked away her face turning a flaming red color.

“Jaded, is that you?” Oh Kuril, your little girl has decided to show her more attractive side. How will you respond to this? She started to cry and smile at the same. “Oh my goodness!”

“Like I said, I will ‘NEVER’ wear a dress mom!” I moved over to them and bowed to Fizzle, I then kneeled took her right hoof into my hands and gently put my lips to it. I looked up into Fizzle’s wonderful eyes and comically red face. “I never said anything about not wearing skirts though, completely different thing entirely. Not all too different from shorts really, but not nearly as hip hugging.”

I waggled my eyebrows at Fizzle as I stood up and shifted my hips a bit making my skirt flow slightly.

“I… but… you… that… the hair and the… wow.” Was that all I rated to you Fizzle, after all the effort I went through? Just a wow? I should contact my modeling agent about this. “You look amazing Jade!”

“You're darn right I do!” Placing my fists on my hips, I stood tall giving the two of them a smirk.

I was wearing a simple purple shirt in the same shade as Fizzle’s fur, when she wasn’t blushing like she currently was. As for the knee length circle skirt I had on, it was red and in the shade of Fizzle’s mane. I thought it looked nice on me and that it’d surprise my mother and Fizzle like no tomorrow. Also I brushed the bushiness out of my hair and it resulted in a curtain of center parted silk hanging straight over my shoulders.

“This is making me feel a little underdressed.” Don’t look so embarrassed about it Fizzle, I just wanted to really freak mom out. I pulled that off quite successfully.

“I really like the mane style, but don’t keep it on my account.” I looked at Fizzle’s mane, it had been styled so that her hair swept over her broken horn and covered most of her right eye to hide the scar. “You look fine and are exceptionally pretty Fizzy. Still… do you want me to go naked to make us even?”

“No! I mean no, what you’re wearing is… really good actually.” You were having such a hard time looking at me without blushing weren’t you Fizzle? I didn’t think I looked that great really, I swear if I went naked right now I think you’d absolutely pounce on me.

“It should be. My favorite color may be green and I have an entire collection of shirts and shorts to that effect, but these colors are special to me.” I waited for her to figure out why.

“Why would those colors be so… oh…” Her right eye looked like it was comparing her mane to my skirt and then both her eyes looked at the fur on her nose and then at my shirt. Looks like she got it easily enough.

I didn’t think Fizzle could pop her blush any harder than that… I’d like to try and see if could make her do that though.

“Jade, this is possibly the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen you do… I don’t think my mind can even comprehend this.” Thrusting the camera into my dazed mother’s claws and pulling Fizzle to her hooves, I dragged Fizzle with me out to an open space in front of mom.

After turning Fizzle around, I crouched next to her and threw my right arm around her withers to pull her close. After giving her a kiss on the left cheek, cue another use of the camera which we both smiled for.

It was time to get our date on!

-???-

“Your target is still alive.” The stereotypical shadowy figure stated. “She’s been spotted getting off an airship in Ponyville recently with what we assume is her bodyguard, apparently she doesn’t have a thestral moon priest to watch her. I want her dead before she gets one.”

“She must have multiple lives then, because I know I stabbed her!” I was still a nervous wreck after all those bears falling from the sky and trying to land on me, they were like giant flying killer squirrels. “Among my troubles were a Sphinx, a freaky sea turtle, a chimera, drop bears, one of my own crossbow bolts coming back at me without anyone noticing I even fired it and my blowpipe was destroyed. I demand some hazard pay right now!”

“Of course, I’ll even pay you in reparation for your lost equipment Mr. Obelus. A jack of your talents is hard to come by.” The figure slid forward a bag of bits and I took them without a word. “Still, you didn’t kill her. If you had half as much trouble as you say you did, then I will send two other assassins to assist you in making sure she’s dead and buried. All of you will be paid the same amount.”

“I don’t need help.” I didn’t, I had just become careless after so many easy commissions.

"They could still be of great use to you.” The shadowy figure motioned forward two people. “Say hello to Matilda and Blade.”

“One of the people you're sending after her is a thestral?” I looked at Matilda, she was a jenny with curly dark brown hair, blue eyes and light brown colored fur. I turned to Blade, the mare was a dark grey coated thestral with buzzed white hair and golden eyes.

Author's Note

Yes, it's that Matilda.

How does that work?

Chapter Ten, Ass-assins and the "normal date": Starting Contract.

-Fizzle-

I’m still surprised that naming our airship The Ardent Survivor is what was keeping it from crashing when we flew it to Ponyville and back. The name may even be the only reason why it hasn’t crashed yet.

We landed just outside of Ponyville safely this time, but I was counting the number of days until the next incident.

Things started simply enough, I just had to get off the airship without anything exploding. That’s a lot harder than you’d think, especially with Jade around.

Jade had this annoying habit of attracting or finding danger like a moth going into a flame, flying out and then flying back in because it didn’t learn its lesson the first time it got burned. If it wasn’t nearly walking into the drop bear territory in Barely Bearable Woods, then it was saying highland pukwudgies or attacking that one eyed purple pony eater that still looked strange and horrific to me.

Snuggling Jade helped to keep the nightmares of that last thing away, I never thought I’d be more afraid of something that wasn’t a giant star bear.

Why did a creature that specifically ate purple ponies even exist? It wasn’t even like purple ponies were special in some way, why did there have to be a creature out there that would specifically target me out of a number of colorful ponies that aren’t mostly purple? Does it go after ponies with purple manes, if not then why does a pony having a purple coat attract it?

I stepped off the ship and looked about wildly, expecting something to happen. Jade started rubbing my ears, I admit that that will always have a very calming effect on me.

“Calm down Fizzy, I don’t think anything unusual is going to happen today… then again this is Ponyville. At least it’s not Tuesday.” Yes, because everything horrible that happens in Ponyville obviously has to happen on an arbitrary day at least once a week for no apparent reason. “Just relax and we’ll go for a nice calm walk to the park and we can talk while we do, but first I have to place this sign down.”

Jade jammed a sign into the ground that read “Beware of chimera in heat”. Yeah that would definitely keep anyone away from the airship alright, it was a scary message that thankfully wasn’t true. Even if we were leaving Maries behind to guard the ship.

“So let’s start off, I like that you’re cuddly, quite intelligent, happen to be very strong and your eyes are very beautiful in how they shine when you smile.” From you Jade, I can accept all those things. What didn’t you like about me though? “What I don’t like is you being pessimistic, that you sometimes focus too much on what you’ve lost instead of what you’ve gained, that you don’t think you can do amazing things when I absolutely know you can. I believe in you and think that you are the one that is holding yourself back from being the incredible mare that I know you can be. Your turn Fizzy.”

“Well I like that you’re cunning, that you can be cute at times, that you put yourself in danger for others and that you are willing to go to such lengths to make someone like me happy.” Moving closer to me as we headed towards the park, Jade hugged me to her and we passed by several ponies giving me odd stares because I was leaning my head against her side. Let them stare, I was content as I was right now. “What I dislike about you is that you don’t consider the consequences of your actions before you do them, including things like you jumping off of high places. You tend to run headlong into danger, your horrible at math, you're an idiot with a stupidly high tolerance for pain and I dislike your habit of getting hurt. You really disgust me when you lick yourself and then cough up hairballs. I have to ask, do all Abyssinians do that?”

“Pretty much, licking ourselves is just something we do. At least it keeps my fur clean, I’m not about to get onto you about what ponies use their mouths for.” Jade shivered violently at the thought. “Do Earth Ponies seriously change foal diapers with their mouths? Thank goodness for paws with opposable digits!”

Okay, now that she had said it out loud, licking her fur clean is not nearly as disgusting depending on what she’s licking off. If it’s too disgusting to lick off, at least I know she’ll take a bath and that I don’t have to worry about her kissing me with a disgusting mouth. She had more to be worried about from me in that respect, the hairballs were still disgusting though.

“You have a pretty good point, ponies do use their mouths for a lot more disgusting things.” I sat down under a tree and Jade sat beside me and ran her fingers through my mane once. I always like these affectionate gestures. “There’s also the fact that you are sometimes distracted by cardboard boxes, points of bright light and string.”

“Since when have I ever been distracted by any of those things Fizzy?” There was something you needed to know Jade, I had only looked away from you for a second and you had already somehow done the impossible.

“Like right now, you’re sitting in a cardboard box… where did you even get that? That wasn’t even here when we sat down!” I watched as Jade considered the large cardboard box she was sitting in and the taut string she held that was staking the shape of a unicorn with a short horn between her fingers. She slowly lowered her hands into the cardboard box and gave me a sheepish grin.

“I honestly don’t know what to tell you Fizzy, it just fell out of the sky and I have no idea where this string came from.” Jade ruffled her hair and I suddenly wanted to touch it, I crawled into the cardboard box with her and ran my hoof through her hair and over her ears until she started purring.

“I think I like making you purr Jade.” I started petting her and she cuddled up to me purring away.

-Derpy the Muffin Queen.-

Oops, I dropped the box… oh a kitty and a pony are having fun with it!

It was an empty box that we didn’t need, so they can keep it.

I did a good thing today!

-Matilda-

Obelus the gray donkey and Blade the thestral, what droll company for a high class assassin such as myself. The target didn’t look dangerous and was even on a playful romp with her friend, one would even suggest that they were in love. The young love was quite sweet and it would certainly be cruel for anyone to ruin it, but alas we assassins couldn't wait for better opportunities forever.

It kind of reminds me of a handsome jack I met at a gala where I set things up to go poorly for that one noble. I was more refined in my takedown methods. A little drop of poison and something that a pony has a seemingly allergic reaction to and none are the wiser for it when said pony needs to be rushed to the hospital. I never sully my hooves by outright killing my target, I only make it easier for my target to die naturally.

“So which one of you wants to go after them first? Not many ponies in the park to witness an attempt on their lives.” Well now Mr. Obelus, it would be a quite brutish thing to do for such an ass like you. Taking out two happy girls having fun in a cardboard box that appeared out of nowhere once we all blinked, I preferred to get them while they were at lunch. “I’ve already tried several times, so one of you should have the first shot.”

It’s always the slow approach for me really. I take several steps back and watched as Blade moved forward narrowing her eyes, the assassin hasn’t said a single thing since we were assured she definitely wouldn’t turn on us to protect the target. She spread her wings and took to the air.

I was more curious than anything about who we were meant to kill and if we even should kill her. She wasn't currently an active threat to anyone, but she would definitely become one to the one paying us to do this once the wind picks up.

My rules were as follows. Never take a contract on Celestia or anyone important to the world’s survival. Never take a contract on someone whose importance will cause worldwide trouble. My last is never take a contract that involves young children, the target was barely old enough to be above that rule.

-Jade-

Darn it Fizzy, your making my mind all fuzzy. I get it, you like that I combed my hair out. Now stop making me purr so much! It’s embarrassing even if no one can see us in the cardboard box.

“Stop…” I purred out and Fizzle immediately did so letting me up. “Thank you, come on let’s get…”

The cardboard box was cut in half vertically by flash of steel, I looked up at the pony with bat wings curving around to stare at us with her golden eyes and short shorn down white hair.

“You’ll pay for destroying the cardboard box, I would have named him George and I would have loved him and played with him!” I received a confused look from the hovering thestral, maybe I should explain why I’m angry. “I only got to know him for ten minutes and then you came along and shredded him… I really wanted to be the one to eventually do that!”

“Seriously Jade?” Not now Fizzle, we were about to be attacked by the mare that assassinated my cardboard box! “Don’t we have more to worry about, like how she tried to hurt or even possibly kill us?”

Shaking her head thestral swooped down with her wings spread wide and a glint of metal on them, she was wearing wing blades and she was targeting me. Oh joy, the assassins Grit mentioned finally decided show up, I thought he had been kidding about that.

Sustain, inhale and… spit a large bullet of water. My blast caught her in the chest and sent her spinning backwards towards a waiting Fizzle who figured out what I was going to do and ran forward to prepare accordingly.

“You’re…. interrupting… our… date!” Fizzle gave the spinning mare a buck to the spine, which bounced her off the tree we had sat under and back towards Fizzle. Fizzle leapt up and threw a vicious downwards left hoof slamming the poor mare into the grass where she bounced off the ground slightly, then Fizzle came down on the mare with a double axe handle to the chest using her front hooves. She shouted ‘date’ slapping the mare harshly across her temple with her right hoof, knocking her out.

“I don’t think she’ll get up from that easily, you really are strong Fizzy.” I had Fizzle blushing at my praise and then I saw the assassin roll to her hooves.

She extended her wings blades and leapt for Fizzle’s back with a dagger in hoof, quite ready to drive home all her weapons into Fizzle.

The assassin had been so close too, if only she hadn’t been hit in the head by a falling stone block. Fizzle jumped and turned to the poor mare that had been hammered into the ground again.

“Come on and help me get the stone block off of her, we’ll divest her of all her weapons and then we need to get her to a hospital.” Despite the disbelieving stare I received, Fizzle still helped me carry the mare to Ponyville’s hospital.

-Derpy the Muffin Queen-

Oops... my bad assassin lady!

-Matilda-

I felt kind of bad about trying to kill the target, she was a good cat and I’m sure Blade would recover given time. Now what would they do for lunch? Obelus was just chuckling at Blade’s misfortune to be struck down by a random block of stone falling from the sky.

We now knew our target could spit pressurized blasts of water from her mouth powerful enough to knock a winged pony out of flight at least. Her companion knew how to fight and they both could handle themselves in a dangerous situation.

-Fizzle-

After delivering the barely breathing assassin to the hospital, goodness knows what Jade was thinking when we did that, we stopped by The Ardent Survivor to drop off all the weapons we found on the assassin.

“I still can’t believe where she had that stiletto switchblade hidden.” That and Jade had to thoroughly wash her hands in scalding hot water at the horror of where she found one of those weapons. Said weapon was also washed off quite thoroughly as well.

“You can say that again Jade.” Flying, walking and in general moving around with that where it was must have been constantly uncomfortable. “Can you get your mind back on our date? Also when were you going to tell me you had your knife, griffon feather and fish scale necklace on you?”

“If you had asked, I would have told you Fizzy.” Okay, I’ll give Jade that. I hadn’t really asked her to come on this date unarmed and it was rather prudent that she was armed. “I had them on me just in case something went wrong. Which it did… because the box got destroyed!”

“Can you please stop going on about the box Jade?” I sighed and decided to say something I might regret later. “We’ll stop by a furniture store and get another box for you once we’re ready to head home, but you better not destroy it!”

Jade’s ears perked up immediately, her childishness just made me smile.

We were out to find a nice place for lunch. A place that wouldn’t look down on Jade for not being a pony. Jade could eat vegetarian, she didn’t necessarily need meat when her diet already consisted mostly of fruit, cheese, beans and vegetables.

“How about that café Fizzy?” It looks good to me Jade, I nodded and we waited to be seated. “Just a heads up, we have a budget for lunch. We can’t spend more than thirty bits on it.”

“I’m sure the food here is not nearly that expensive Jade.” So this was how dates were supposed to go? Spend some time in the park, get attacked by a silent assassin that we stole weapons off of like kleptomaniacs and then just go to lunch like it didn't happen.

We were soon seated by the stallion waiter.

“What will you ladies be having to drink this evening?” The stallion didn’t act snooty and he wasn’t treating Jade poorly. This might be a nice place to visit again, the food was affordable and we were both being treated fairly.

“Lemonade, and I already know what I want. The vegetable lasagna, hold the squash.” The stallion seemed a bit surprised that Jade’s order didn’t involve meat, but he took it down and turned to me.

“I’d like some pomegranate juice and the broccoli casserole please.” With my order taken, I started some small talk. "Is there anywhere fun you'd like to go afterwards?"

Chapter Ten, Ass-assins and the "normal date": Donkey wrong.

-Matilda-

Okay, time to approach them and ask about that unique skirt, don’t think I’ve ever seen an Abyssinian wear something like that. I haven’t really met many to begin with.

“Excuse me, but where did you get that nice skirt miss?” I approached the two and prepared to lace the drink with poison when I’ve managed to distract them well enough.

“A local unicorn made it, but I prefer wearing shorts though and I don’t care how fashionable it is.” The cat that was our target seemed a bit flippant about her appearance. “I’ll only wearing skirts on dates.”

“Why, I think you look good in a skirt.” Her protective pony companion asked while looking at her.

“Too much loose fabric that can get caught up on things while running around, even if I can hide things in it like a knife or a few spare arrows for Jacky.” Okay I’m getting the feeling that the cat was not just a regular priest just from hearing that, she was armed and dangerous. “Do you think a skirt would work better on Jacky? We don’t know what she would look like outside of her pirate outfits.”

“Jacky wearing a skirt wouldn’t be bad, I think she’d wear one if it were pirate themed.” The pony snorted and started giggling into her hoof. “I’m just imagining all the trouble she’d get into wearing a skirt.”

“Yeah, that would be pretty bad.” The cat agreed snickering.

“Excuse me, but did you need the name of who made my skirt miss…?” The target looked to me for a name.

“My name is Matilda, it’s nice to me you.” I never needed to use a false name, because I was never caught in the act. I started hoofing my choice of poison delivery, I just needed a single moment to get it in the drink. “Also yes, it might be nice to know the name of a new clothier.”

“I’m Jade and this is Fizzle. My skirt made by a pony named Rarity and she’s not a clothier.” Well that was disappointing to hear Miss Jade. “At least not yet anyway, she’s training to be a fashion designer. I think she’ll eventually get quite good at it.”

“She made that skirt for you for free right?” Fizzle narrowed her eyes at Jade.

“Yeah, but she has delusions of grandeur, is forcing a fake airy Canterlot accent and wants to eventually marry a prince.” Jade reached out with a paw and settled it on one of Fizzle’s hooves, they were looking into each other’s eyes. I took this opportunity to drop the dissolving poison cube into the glass. “So really, you don’t have to worry about much there Fizzy.”

Sorry girls, but that poison will make the Jade very sick and she’ll die of natural causes thanks to the antibody killing poison.

“As heartwarming as this is...” I made my way for the exit as the waiter was bringing them their food, no one was the wiser. “I have other things to do and I thank you for your time.”

-Jade-

I dipped my claws carefully into the glass of lemonade and pulled out the barely visible melted cube, barely visible to a pony's eyesight anyway. Fizzle looked at the cube with a highly perplexed expression on her face.

I turned to the waiter and could not believe what I was about to ask him, what’s more I could not believe that Matilda was an assassin. Good thing Fizzle’s eyes are so reflective, bright and wonderful to look into, or else I wouldn’t have noticed Matilda making a move to put something in my drink.

Matilda was supposed to be a nice jenny, I guess even a friendly face like hers could be dangerous. This might explain how she got into the gala to meet Cranky, which is a rather exclusive stomping grounds for nobles, a who’s who of high profile people and those rare few that could get a ticket to the event.

It made me wonder if Cranky was also a… no… that thought led to complete madness.

“Waiter, could you get me a new glass of lemonade, I think an assassin just poisoned this one.” I dropped the cube onto the napkin and carefully wiped my claws off on it.

“Very well miss, I’ll see to it that the glass is thoroughly washed and will bring you a new one.” That was the calmest response to an assassin trying to poison someone that I’ve ever heard, the stallion started placing our food on the table. He took up my glass and looked at the melted cube questioningly. I carefully wrapped it up and moved it over to his tray. “I’ll just dispose of this safely, I’m sorry you experienced trouble at our restaurant miss. I offer my humblest apologies.”

“I should be apologizing, the assassin was after me and they possibly ruined one of your glasses.” The stallion simply nodded.

“Very well then. I accept your apology and you must accept ours… would a free dessert for two help?” The stallion got an big smile from me.

“It sure would! I need to go wash my claws, I’ll be back in a minute Fizzy.” I got up and went towards the bathroom. “Oh and you can start eating without me!”

-Fizzle-

“You seem rather unperturbed by this.” I idly commented to our waiter, I looked around the streets for that ass and didn’t see her anywhere.

Well no point in going after her now, I might as well dig into the food. Only, I was a bit hesitant.

“This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to ruin our good service record miss.” The blue haired stallion took up his tray and nodded to me. “I’m Mr. Fare, one of the owners of this restaurant. I can at least assure you that the food wasn’t tampered with, for what it’s worth I can take a bite out of those dishes personally to make sure.”

“No need to do that, I trust you.” I doubt the owners of this restaurant would want to poison us or let it be known that one of their customers was poisoned by a sneaky ass.

What would have happened if Jade hadn’t caught seen the assassin poisoning her glass? We’d be down a phoenix feather at best. Well I would have to hope that she’s carrying a phoenix feather on her for safety from things like that.

“Very well, I’ll be back with the lemonade for your special friend. Tell her that when you’re done with your meal you can either take a dessert for two now or you can do so later with a voucher.” He smiled at me. “The two of you are quite cute together.”

“I… well thank you Mr. Fare.” Knowing my cat as well as I do, I felt like Jade would go for something sweet and delicious. “Knowing her, she’ll want that dessert after we're done eating.”

“That Abyssinian seems to want to have you for dessert, but I personally think the both of you are far too young for that sort of thing.” His chuckling caused me to blush a bit. “Oh, so you know about the birds and the bees?”

“Yes, what do you know about the hummingbird mafia personally?” I didn’t understand why I was getting such a perplexed look.

-Matilda-

“You’ve failed, the cat immediately knew the glass was poisoned somehow.” Thanks for informing me that I should watch my back Mr. Obelus. “She didn’t even see you slip the poison in, yet she already knew it was there as soon as you left and pulled the remaining bit of the cube out more than halfway dissolved.”

“I guess I’ll need to lay low for a while, a nice trip to Las Pegasus is in order.” I wasn’t sticking around here, I didn’t want those two to point me out as an assassin if they stuck around. I had a good reputation in Ponyville. “I have a few easier contracts that I can take around there.”

“You go do that, I can easily take the target out myself.” You are a cold jack Mr. Obelus. I tried and the target is smart enough to catch me in the act, so I’m definitely out. I might try getting out of the game of intrigue entirely.

“You can try, but I’m not going to pursue this any further.” I left Mr. Obelus to his work to go pack for a nice relaxing stay in Las Pegasus, they’d forget me eventually if I stayed out of sight and out of mind. “The pay may be good, but it’s not worth sticking around for at this rate.”

-Obelus-

I set up after Matilda left, she had gotten pretty close with her poison. Blade hadn’t even scratched them and the pony took her down swiftly with a little help from the one that is supposedly a priest.

Useless the both of them, I took aim and was ready to shoot the girl as soon as she left the restaurant. I was using a full sized crossbow this time.

-Jade-

This lasagna was pretty good, I wondered if Fizzle would want to discuss the things mom learned from Zecora. Mom could feasibly make potions now, she just hasn’t tried yet. Instead I focused on the food.

“So how’s your broccoli casserole Fizzy?” There was a problem with my date, she looked a little glum while she was eating. “Fizz… are you feeling alright?”

“How can you be so carefree Jade, especially when there are assassins out to kill you?!” Don’t worry about this so much Fizzle.

I wonder if mom knows the recipe for this lasagna?

“For one, I know for a fact that you’ll protect me if I’m in danger. You’ll come to save me, like I would you.” Please understand that I trust you to watch my back Fizzle. “Sekhet's training is really paying off, did you see what you did to that poor assassin in the park? You bounced her off the tree and then smashed her down into the ground, she could hardly get up after that.”

“Yeah and I almost took a knife to my back because I got careless again.” She looked down at her plate, I stood up and moved my chair and food around to her side and lifted her chin with my left hand. I looked her in the eyes.

“Fizzy stop being sad, no one’s perfect and I’m definitely not.” I kissed her on the cheek. “A pretty pony like you doesn’t deserve to be sad.”

“I sometimes feel like we don’t deserve to be friends.” She threw a leg around me when I frowned at her, she sent me a reassuring smile while pulling me close. “Though I’m definitely glad to have met you and I can say for certain that we have something special. So what do you want for dessert?”

“A lady always chooses first.” My chivalry was met with a derisive snort.

Fizzle gave me a simple humor filled smirk, it reminded me of an echo of her future self.

“Aren’t you a girl too Jade?” At her words I shifted my backside a bit and my tail swatted her butt making her yelp.

“I may be female, but you know I’m no lady Fizzy!” Forking the remainder of my lasagna, I thrust it messily into my mouth. I wiped my face off and leaned into Fizzle who was almost done with her food. “You, Fizzy, are like a princess to me. I can be your shining knight, even if the princess herself can fight harder than her knight can.”

“You’re not a knight though Jade.” We waited for the waiter to get back to us about that dessert, she started giggling a bit. “You’re a rogue priest, but I guess I can settle for that.”

We chose the baked apple dumpling and ice cream, served with chocolate, caramel and nuts.

“This was a nice choice Fizzle, but not nearly sweet as you are.” I spoon up a bit of the ice cream, caramel and chocolate for a bite. Smiling, I dabbed what was left onto Fizzle’s nose. Making her blink at me questioningly. “It seems you’ve got a bit of something on your nose Fizzle, let me take care of that.”

I licked it off and she turned straight red. That was a new record for me.

I giggled in amusement before my own noise was swatted with a bit of apple, Fizzle was looking at me with her narrowed eyes. She then smiled fondly and took the apple chunk in her teeth and swallowed it, then followed that up by licking my nose off.

“I took care of some of the stuff on your nose as well.” I swear, we were being so sweet right now. It was to the point that we were giving people cavities by proximity. “Now I know why you do it so much. I’m not meek Jade, I will and can retaliate by making you blush too!”

“I think I may have bitten off more that I can…” Fizzle kissed me and forced bits of dumpling and ice cream into my mouth.

“More than you can ever possibly chew Jade.” Seeing Fizzle’s brave side was something I liked. “You’re my special some cat.”

"Says my special some pony." I think we’re done here, especially since Fizzle fed me the last of the dessert.

I just have to pay for lunch, then we’d do something fun to work off the weight.

-Obelus-

It looks like they were done and coming out. I took aim and stopped, I glance around looking for anything that could possibly disturb me. No crazy pink pony asking for a party, no insane turtle that could possibly pop up out of nowhere and no evil Sphinx.

This shot was one hundred percent foolproof. I aimed my crossbow, they walked out and I was about to pull the trigger. Only something familiar entered my nose, I looked up at the cloud with a small dent in it shaped like the dart now taking up my face.

I hated life and everything in it right now.

The poison started screwing up my vision immediately. I quickly scrabbled to get a syringe with the antidote out and flailed about trying to stick the needle into myself. Once I managed to stick myself in the leg, I started to lose control of my limbs and it became a bit hard to push plunger down.

Once I managed to finally solidly push the plunger on the syringe in, I sighed with relief. Only then did I realize that I was missing my opportunity!

I sat up and took aim. I fired at the green target despite my vision blurring, afterwards I fell over and waited for the antidote to work its way into my system.

-Bon-Bon-

Ugh, why couldn’t life stop being so… darn it! I quickly flicked up the nearby trash can lid and it took the arrow sailing for Lyra’s head with a clang. I immediately slammed the lid back onto the garbage can before Lyra noticed anything was off.

“What was that Bon-Bon?” Lyra turned back to me with a curious look on her face.

“Just a raccoon Lyra, excuse me.” I had an assassin to beat up.

-Fizzle-

“Can’t we just ignore the salamanders Jade?” I knew we would fight the fire breathing lizards.

"Nope!" Jade charged forward.

I sighed, rolled my eyes, smiled and then followed after her.

Author's Note

Chapter Eleven, Blueblood Bandits: Permission slanted.

-One week later, Jade-

Okay I couldn’t have known this at the time, but now that I thought about it… I might have been partially responsible for Cranky getting the run around from Matilda. When Cranky said he searched everywhere for her, he was literally searching in all the right places only for Matilda to start running.

From Matilda’s side of things, she could have been avoiding someone chasing after her that might know she’s an assassin or she might think someone sent assassins after her. As an assassin she was rightfully paranoid, thus it would be years before the two donkeys met and got together.

I felt bad about that, but it’ll happen eventually… right?

Anyway, it wasn’t my fault that Cranky missed the note that Matilda left about finding her in Ponyville. The note likely went ignored and was put in the trash somewhere by a maid, so that clearly wasn’t on me! What was on me is Cranky missing Matilda in Ponyville because I caught her trying to poison me.

As interesting as it is to be a part of fate, among being an absolutely large gray area for me, it was time for me and my friends to do something huge and get away with it.

First I had to run it by my team first, by letting them know that we even were a team to begin with. I would then run it by Celestia by not speaking directly about what I’m actually going to do and then, and only then, can I carry out my plan to steal a heavy malleable precious metal ship that’s eating up a ton of resources in upkeep that could be better spent elsewhere.

Does anyone know how expensive it is to replace machinery made out of gold? I’m sure Jacky does and could crunch those numbers.

Hopefully Celestia didn’t believe in solid gold toilets.

I would just be bringing it to Celestia’s attention, like how Sekhet was brought to her attention. Said attention would happen by no one ever telling Celestia anything about it, at least until it was too late and she finds out on her own.

“Jade… hello… you feeling okay in there?” Fizzle was in my face and I jumped back in shock, she gave me a worried look when my cardboard box flipped onto its side.

Her mane was back in its customary pulled back style, as for me I told her if she wanted my hair to look nice then she’d have to take care of it herself outside of dates. Fizzle took that as a challenge and was now brushing and combing my hair daily. I appreciated the effort and it felt nice to have someone care about you that much.

“Sorry Fizzy, I was a little preoccupied with my thoughts.” I flipped my cardboard box back into position and stood up, I have had an odd obsession with it ever since we got it at the furniture store. It sometimes made me wonder how much of my cat instincts were coming into play when it came to loving my cardboard box as I did. “Did you get everyone together?”

“Yes, that’s what you asked for, even Sekhet is waiting on you. What’s this all about? Is this about the salamanders we fought on our date last week?” We handled ourselves pretty well that day Fizzle.

Salamanders were easy to handle when you throw what amounts to a bucket of water down their throats. It left them completely incapable of breathing fire for a while, I knew for a fact that something like that wouldn’t ever work on a dragon’s magical flames.

“No this is something else, Celestia is visiting today and I’m about to make Jacky a happy bird.” Okay, maybe I should have worded that a bit better. Fizzle was now delicately raising her brow with the scar running through it at me. I had to admit she was cute when she got jealous over me. “I hope you assume I meant that in a platonic sense, we’re going to do something huge that will attract a lot of attention in a pirate like manner.”

“You better have meant that in a platonic sense Jade! It’s already complicated with Maries making moves on the both of us. I don’t exactly dislike that she’s doing it either…” It was so nice to be told off by my special some pony, it let me know that not everyone agrees with the things I do. They would definitely tell me if I was going too far and it was nice to hear Maries was making some headway with Fizzle, she hasn’t gotten very far with me yet. “I think I might have an addiction to receiving special attention.”

“Well you have my attention right now Fizzy.” Just lay on the charm and I could make her smile while blushing a bit.

“Right, come on down and explain to us what you’re going to get us into this time Jade.” Why of course my dear Fizzle. I went to the door and held it open for her while bowing. “It better not be something we can’t handle.”

“After you my lady and I assure you it won’t be that bad.” She nuzzled me on the way out the door.

-Thirty minutes later.-

I had laid everything out to them and the first to respond was our friendly morning pony Fresh, who was busy serving our needs as I told everyone the two things I wanted to do.

“What!?” Fresh Start obviously didn’t like my idea. “Are you insane?”

“Yes.” I calmly answered.

“Well at least the Captain admits to it.” Of course I do Jacky, I’m just making sure everyone else knew that I obviously was. Apparently Fresh hadn’t acknowledged that yet. "Sounds like they're good plans to me Captain."

“Jade, that’s almost well thought out, but how will we know which ship is the right one?” Looking to Fizzle, I pointed out the flying turtle cuddling my right shoulder affectionately. She nodded in understanding. “I rescind my question, Jade has thought of that.”

“A guild run by Sekhet would be pretty nice and it wouldn’t be too hard for her to do as she doesn’t have much to do as my secretary yet, but that second thing is a little bit more iffy my little tom cat.” Mom needed me to convince her that it was a good idea, but I knew we that we could pull it all off without charges being brought against us. I should be a lawyer that says ‘objection’ a lot. “I’m not letting you do it unless I can come along to make sure you don’t get into any trouble you can’t wiggle your way out of. I’m still rather upset that your date last week involved assassins and salamanders.”

“The salamanders were more like wimpy alligators after we doused them mom, they weren’t that dangerous.” Backup from Fizzle, my hearts aflutter! Speaking of Fluttershy, I wondered if our epic pacifistic druid was joining our game of O and O later after this meeting.

“I notice that you didn’t correct me on the assassins not being dangerous my little Fizzle.” It wasn’t like we could say that they weren’t dangerous mom, at least I haven’t had a single attempt on me for the last few days since then.

Someone out there has an open price on my head and I did absolutely nothing to warrant it, at least I don’t think I did… or did I? Huh, maybe I’m reaping what I sowed? I wouldn’t know, because the assassins never explained to me what I was being targeted for.

If it was because I was a sun priest, then that was a really flimsy reason to have me killed! It would just aggravate me into taking action against the one that was employing them. As far as I knew, I wasn’t doing anything a standard sun priest would. Therefore I don’t see why someone would go to the effort to have me killed, it was like they were actively trying to make me their problem.

“I’m willing to make my pyramid the guild and town hall.” At least Sekhet gave me a vote of confidence of that.

“I’m fine with that, but do you seriously think you can get Celestia to agree to letting you do what you plan to do?” Cheerilee seemed less worried about my plan and more worried about Celestia seeing something wrong with it.

“Easily teach. When she comes, I’ll just ask her and you’ll see. I’ll even get her exact words on paper.” Because I wasn’t going to tell her everything like I just told all of you. “She’ll be completely fine with it and will grant me permission to do as I see fit.”

“By the way your math skills are still horrible Jade. Do I need to get Jacky or Maries to tutor you?” Well that would certainly be embarrassing, did you seriously have to bring that up right now Cheerilee?

“Get Fizzle to do it, she’s slowly coming to understand Jade’s idiosyncrasies in the places where I can’t.” Go mom, make Fizzle cuddle me more!

“I don’t think that’s a good suggestion, I think Jade would get too… distracted.” Cheerilee was giving me a sharp look and I looked away trying to act innocently.

I was failing quite badly, so I decided to speak up.

“Anything else anyone wants to bring up? Something that’s not related to my minor dyscalculia problem?” It was definitely only a minor problem, they were always blowing this way out of proportion. “It’s only high level complicated math that gives me problems, I can function in society with the math skills I have right now.”

“That may be so, but I want you to get the best education I can give you Jade.” Cheerilee was openly teaching a classroom that looked like a circus.

Come and be amazed at beast tamer Maries, no she’s not the beast, she’s is in fact the tamer of the beasts folks. Come watch our professional clown Jacky Blackcap Chickadee cause humorous calamity and woe with her very proximity! Join me ring keeper Jade and my beautiful magical assistant Fizzy for a show of amazing prestidigitation that will boggle minds. Introducing our newest member the strong cow, the mighty Arizona! Despite her size, can move fast and hit hard… like a donkey cart even!

“Jade just zoned out again.” Hearing Fizzle’s words, I blinked and came back to the present.

“Sorry, was anything important said while I was thinking about my plans for the Airship Maulers?” What… why were you all staring? It was the name of our guild, it was not indicative of our local goddess’s plight or our habit of wrecking airships at all.

We still had The Ardent Survivor after all, so what if it was named to survive the rigors of our collective insanities?

“Airship Maulers, that sounds a little too on the beak doesn’t it Captain?” Oh sure, like you could have come up with something much better Blackcap.

“Excuse me, but I think I would like to bring up the topic of fruit.” Oh goddesses here we go again the daily Wary Berry report! Annoying fruit hating purple furred, blue haired busybody. I shouldn’t have saved her from the one eyed flying purple pony eater. “Everything seems fine with our fruit grove, but I think we should keep a closer eye on it. Who knows when the fruit will go bad. The fruit may even jump off the trees and attack us!”

-One hour later, Celestia.-

I walked into The Witch’s Fare, everyone turned to me and only the ponies bowed. I was still getting used to the idea that not everyone would praise the ground I walked upon, it was very refreshing to be treated as normal around here.

It makes my day really, but only when Twilight or Spike haven’t made my day themselves. Spike was such an adorable baby dragon. I guess I had Sekhet to thank for this. In fact, I glared in her direction and she glared right back. We had a mutual dislike of one another going and it meant we were truly the best of immortal friends!

Jade immediately got up and approached me while tossing some O&O dice over her shoulder.

“Jade’s character survives, but both her legs are crippled and she’s now on the ground.” After hearing Sekhet dryly state that out loud, I watched as the pony that I believed is called Fluttershy whimper loudly.

“Darn it, I thought the end result of that toss would be cooler…” Muttered the feline sun priest grumpily.

“It happened my little tom cat, get over it.” It seems like Mayor Kuril was sour about how the game was currently going. “I don’t even see what you have to complain about, my character has a cursed spear still sticking out of her torso and can’t even remove it without dying.”

“Fresh, roll for me and make the dumbest moves possible, I’m feeling reckless today.” After telling their live in maid that, Jade turned to me. “Can we talk outside so we don’t interrupt the game?”

“Of course.” I turned and exited the restaurant with Jade on my heels. “What did you want to talk to me about? It seems the fruit grove is coming in nicely since I last visited.”

“It is coming in quite nicely, our strawberry patch is certainly producing tasty results. I was wanting to ask, what should I do if I suddenly found out about anything illicit going on in Canterlot?” There seems to be something to this question that Jade was telling me.

I pondered for a moment on my answer, she was being a bit shifty about something.

“You’d tell the royal guard of course.” That seemed like a decent response to me and the cat just frowned.

“What if they guards didn’t believe me or were being paid to ignore my concerns about such illicit activities?” She was trying to lead me somewhere, I just have this feeling something was up.

“I’m quite sure that the royal guard wouldn’t be involved in any illegal activity.” Was that a smile I saw, it was off her face too fast to tell. She knew something about the royal guard involving illicit activities, maybe it’s just Cadence and Shining Armor.

“So, would you say I’d have to find evidence of such illicit activities and then place it in your hooves directly?” You seemed almost too eager to do just that. Why am I so suspicious of you being up to no good? A sun priest shouldn’t feel like this. “You know to prevent anyone from tampering with the evidence.”

“Yes, you could do that, if you can prove to me without a doubt that the evidence isn’t forged and it comes from someone who is doing said illicit activities.” Nodding the cat ran off and eventually came back with ink and paper.

“Could you write a list down for me about this very subject?” You were being peculiar Jade, then again you’re not a normal sun priest by any stretch of the imagination. I wrote down several things for her based on the laws that she was asking about and she smiled, what did I do and why did my spine chill at her smile. “Is that all?”

“Yep, come back inside Celestia, mom made some cake brownies!” I was no longer in control of my body at her seductive words.

Author's Note

Jaded La Perm uses Cake Brownies!

It's super effective!

Celestia has fainted... at the taste of cake and brownie intertwined.

The opponent is about to be Luna.

Would you like to change food items?

(Yes)/ maybe/ no/ cuddle.

Jaded La Perm sets out BF Moon Pies!

Chapter Eleven, Blueblood Bandits: Permission entry.

-Jade-

As soon as Celestia left I turned to everyone else.

“Okay, we will do it, I basically got all the written permission I need right here! First Maries, I need you to come to Ponyville with me, Cheerilee and Dr. Permanganate. We need to you to study for a really hard test and a few hundred laws. Some of them will be obscure, but only you can do this for me… please?” I had Maries confused, but she nodded anyway. “Good. Fizzle you and Jacky are going to be working on two different things. Jacky I need you to work on your archery and learn how to do trick shots… with a party cannon. If you can do them with the bow, then we’re even better off. Fizzle you’ll need to work on your stamina and endurance because you’ll be doing a lot of running around for me, learn some acrobatic evasion maneuvers while you’re at it. Mom will help you with that by making a stamina potion or two, but she’ll be mostly working on the powder we’ll need to pull this all off and you need to know how to pace yourself. As for me… I’ll be working on how to do a Bavarian Fire Drill correctly. If it actually works, then it’ll all just go a little smoother and as planned.”

“What’s a Bavarian Fire Drill?” Fluttershy asked confusedly as she nibbled at a cake brownie.

“Don’t worry about it Fluttershy. If you want in on this you can be a lookout or just continue being a simple bystander to our actions, we’ll owe you a huge favor later if you help us though.” She didn’t seem to like that idea so I changed up my thoughts on this. “If you don’t want anything to do with robbing a criminal and then alerting Celestia to the evidence in an over the top showy fashion, and we will need to steal said evidence since it’s so large, then you can opt out and leave while you still have complete plausible deniability.”

“What would I have to do as a lookout?” Fluttershy’s words had me shocked, which was an understatement. Innocent little Fluttershy would help a group of criminals and scoundrels? Well we’re not criminals yet and if she sells us out, I can probably make that work too.

“Not much, I would just need you to inform Fizzle when it’s the right time for her to act and whether my ridiculously convoluted plot is going south or not. If it goes south, it’ll still work as intended.” And the only one that could really screw over or stop my plans is Shining Armor. “Come on Maries, Cheerilee and Mr. Permanganate, we’re heading to Ponyville!”

My reasoning was that Shining Armor would be a huge linchpin to my plan something fierce, just because of the fact that he has absolutely nothing to do with it. I understood how the magic of this world worked and there was no feasible way we could get away without a single individual finding out about the plot and trying to screw it over. So I specifically thought of the first person I would want to screw up my convoluted plot, Shining Armor.

“I didn’t agree to do any of this.” Cheerilee stated loudly, I moved over to her and whispered in her ear. She blinked, had a thoughtful look on her face, then she smiled. “Okay, I’ll do it, but only if Maries can actually pass that test in the next five days.”

-One week later, Shining Armor.-

I was a blue haired unicorn stallion with white fur that had a powerful little sister, it made me feel a bit inadequate at times that she was so gifted.

“Excuse me, but who are you?” I stared at the tall bipedal figure wearing an obviously fake mustache, overalls with a green shirt and was carrying a ladder under her left limb. She was also wearing a green cap with a bright green ‘J’ emblazoned on it. I could tell it was going to be one of those days. “Also, do we really look that stupid? Come on Spearhead back me up here.”

“Yes, do tell us why you’re here and really… that has got to be the dumbest disguise I’ve ever seen in all my life.” My friend in the Pegasus guard armor moved up to glare at the feline figure, who was staying remarkably calm in the face of trying to infiltrate the castle and badly at that. “You’re not even hiding the fact that you’re obviously up to something!”

Did this female cat think she could just waltz on by my post without me questioning anything odd about her?

“I’m the window person here to get an assessment for the ‘Glasses and Staches’ Company and before you ask, the mustache is in fact an absolute company policy while on the job. Which is one of the reasons why not many people are willing to work for ‘Glasses and Staches’, it also sounds too much like a joke shop company.” That was so stupid. I, or anybody else for that matter, would or could not possibly believe that such a dumb sounding company actually exists. “So if I could just move on through to measure the new windows for this stained glass order, then I can give the crafts ponies the measurements for the new artistic panes Celestia wants installed.”

“Look, do you seriously think I’m going to buy that? Then sell me a bridge Manehatten you….” I started only to be cut off by my one true love in life.

“Oh you’re from the ‘Glasses and Staches’ Company, come on in!” Wha… Cadence what are you doing? The unusual cat is obviously trying to infiltrate the castle for something nefarious!

“Sure thing princess… wait… there’s more than one princess?” Your fake surprise doesn’t fool me cat, I know that you’re up to something and I’m going to find out what!

“Let me escort you Cadence and this… worker. Spearhead stay here and watch our post.” I had a suspicious cat creature to keep an eye on.

-Jacky-

“Huh, she actually managed to get in.” I pulled a pouch off my side and dropped it into Fizzle’s waiting hoof. “Darn it Captain, I didn’t think you were that smooth!”

“Never bet against Jade when she has something going, she’ll always surprise you. Even if this is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard of.” Fizzle got up and started trotting away with the money from our bet. “Still, if it works… is Jade’s plan really so stupid?”

“If it’s the Captain, then yes, it’s a stupid plan that works.” This was exasperating and I was shaking my head in disbelief as I followed after Fizzle. “It doesn’t help that she has legitimately found a rather ridiculous company that’ll actually pay her for doing a legally obtained job for only a few hours. The stuff she has to wear for this looks horrible.”

“Yeah, I hate the fake mustache too Blackcap.” Sorry Fizzle, but that wasn’t what I was talking about.

“I was talking about the overalls, the mustache is at least good with that hat.” It’s what I thought and you couldn’t change my mind on it Fizzle, the Captain is absolutely working that mustache.

“No the overalls are what goes great with that hat, the mustache is the completely superfluous part of this whole thing!” I gave Fizzle a flat look and she returns it with her own.

“It’s part of the job and she has to wear it to get into the castle!” Technically that wasn’t true, Celestia could have just let her into the castle and given her free reign to run around for a while. That would have implicated the princess and we needed her as a judge in case we get thrown into jail over this, Celestia couldn’t be our judge if she was the one that let Jade into the castle. Princes Cadence on the other talon… she was alright. “Besides she needs at least one of the guards suspicious of her if she’s to get her plan to work correctly and she’s really rocking that mustache.”

“It’s the hat that’s really pulling the whole ensemble together and you know it!” We started arguing with one another as we started moving about Canterlot setting things up for later.

-Cadence-

“What is your problem with her Shiny?” He seemed quite suspicious of the cute Abyssinian worker. “She’s not doing anything wrong and yes the ‘Glasses and Staches’ Company is a real thing. They do really good work, even if their policies on mustaches leaves something to be desired… although she doesn’t look to bad in it.”

“I actually think it’s the hat that’s pulling her disguise together Cady, but that’s not the point. Don’t you find her the least bit suspicious?” What was suspicious about her Shiny, was it that she existed?

“Look, if you’re so worried about her why don’t you ask her for her credentials?” That would solve this matter very quickly. “There’s nothing illegal about her getting a job here in Equestria.”

“You, stop!” I watched as Shiny pointed towards the cat in the strange get up with the ladder, she did as asked and then Shiny made his way up to her. “Do you have any credentials on you to prove that you are working for this Gas Company?”

“You said gas.” The cat started sniggering while covering her face with her right hand. After she calmed down, she reached into a pocket and pulled out a bunch of papers with a card.

After looking over them, Shiny froze for a few seconds and then handed them back to the worker.

“Those credentials can’t be faked, she’s really working for a company named that.” Well don’t looked so shocked, Celestia has always used the ‘Glasses and Staches’ brand. In fact, I think auntie is even going to teach or will eventually get Twilight to learn the mustache spell. Auntie Celestia always does have a nice sense of humor.

“Excuse me, but if Celestia is the princess of the sun… what are you the princess of?” I dropped on back to have a chat with the green haired cat, while Shining glared at her. Really now, it wasn’t like she was the world’s most competent cat burglar. Who steals cats anyway?

“I’m Princess Mi Amore Cadenza the princess of love, but you can call me Cadence.” Maybe I could have a new friend after Fresh Start moved away, it would certainly be nice. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Jaded La Perm, but I prefer Jade personally.” She looked to me in a curious manner. “So if you’re really the princess of love then maybe you could…”

“No, I don’t like abusing my magic in any way that you can think of.” The horrors of false love laid on a path of good intentions, I wasn’t the mare to take advantage of such power.

“Magic… what does that have to do with asking for help with getting a very special pony a present for her birthday?” Her words made me blush, I might have jumped to conclusions far too fast. She was just asking for advice.

“Sorry, it’s just that so many ponies assume I can or would want to force love to happen given where my talents lie.” To say I was sick and tired of it was an understatement, sometimes I wish I didn’t become a princess and could just continue being what I once was. “What can you tell me about this pony of yours?”

“I really don’t know what to get her, she’s not really one for jewelry or baubles really.” If she really needed my advice on this, I would think of something to tell her. “She’s kind of Spartan and doesn’t really want for much, but what she needs is love and I’m trying to give her plenty of that given how much we like snuggling.”

“That sounds cute.” Though such a relationship was a bit unusual, I could clearly feel the love the cat had had for that pony from her voice alone. “Have you thought of getting her something like a locket? She might not be big on jewelry, but if you really do like each other a lot then a locket with a picture may work.”

“Well that’s something to think about, it looks like we’re here. Let me get to work and maybe we can discuss some things on another day.” She sat the ladder against the wall, but then stopped. “Could you maybe hold the ladder for me while I measure the window?”

“Sure.” I moved over to the ladder to assist her, she seemed like a nice cat.

-That evening, Fizzle-

“How did the set up go?” As soon as Jade asked us that, approaching after having swapped into her usual attire, I smiled. It was quiet up here on the rooftops and most ponies don’t look up except for maybe a pegasus pony. “I got my pay and if I ever need work, then the ‘Glasses and Staches’ Company wouldn’t mind having me run a few more errands for them.”

“We’ve got everything ready, all we need to do is gather and strike at an opportune moment.” There was still one problem, which I needed to point out. “Is the ship even in the air docks and are we completely sure it’s the one made mostly out of gold?”

“Snickers!” At Jade’s call, Snickers the turtle dove came flying and she was carrying a small chunk of gold with some paint on it. “You got a piece of that gold ship like I asked to buddy.”

“Coo!” Snickers gave Jade a salute after Jade took the gold.

“Good work buddy.” The flying turtle gave Jade a happy smile as she turned to us. “That confirms it, we’re going after a ship called The Gilded Buttress. Let’s get back to The Ardent Survivor and get ready for tomorrow night’s excitement.”

“I’m glad we’re going to crash that peacock of a noble’s wet dream.” Now that you say that Jacky, I can agree that it needs to be brought to light. “It’s not a real ship in my book, even if it can fly with all that weight.”

“Jade are you really going to hit Sekhet with that airship?” Among my friends, I was still questioning whether we would crash it on Sekhet or not.

“Yes, I’ll hit her with an airship Fizzle, but I will at least give her fair warning before I do and I won’t just immediately ram it into her.” You know Jade, I do love you, but I have to wonder why you are so cold to Sekhet after everything she’s done for us. “I know it may seem cruel, but Sekhet’s a big girl and besides… in the culture she’s from gold is seen as holy or divine. Only it’s actually just highly reactive to magic and a minor ingredient in making magical armor, that's why it’s sometimes referred to as the skin of gods. Problem is, normal gold alone isn’t all that great for anything more than decorative purposes. Electrum is truly what goddesses like Sekhet really use, it’s why her nemes is practically indestructible to so many things.”

“Wouldn’t it be more of a silver color if it was electrum Captain?” Okay a bit lost here, what were you talking about Jacky?

“Sekhet obviously made it look like traditional gold.” Jade informed us while nodding sagely.

Chapter Eleven, Blueblood Bandits: Permission preparations.

-Fluttershy-

Why did I agree to this? I did a lot of dumb things for Rainbow, I guess I was just so used to acquiescing to demands from friends that I agreed to this almost immediately. There is something I could use Jade’s help with though, she seems to be able to do just about anything she puts her mind to with the help of her friends.

“Okay have we got everything, we’re only going to be able to do everything once people! Mostly since they’ll make laws to prevent this from happening again.” It seemed Jade was a bit high strung at the moment. “Plastic ten gallon jug loaded with banana pudding and cake mix?”

“Yes.” Jacky was stuffing it into the party cannon Pinkie got for her, it was nice that she was going to actually use it. Well she was from an island of scary pirates, so she would have eventually anyway I guess.

“Someone help us all if you miss your shot due to bad luck.” Why did Jade have to make me a feel a chill down my spine, I wasn’t going to be directly involved in any of this and even that made it sound dangerous. “Fizzle, bag of torches and self-sustain effect cloak?”

“Got it right here Jade, I also have my route planned. I’m not relying on anything anyone can move and I double checked the time between needing to take those stamina potions.” It sounded like Fizzle had a really tough job ahead of her, she had a one flap bag hanging around her chest and right leg. Sticking out of it were hoof made torches and two corked bottles with strange bright purple fluids. “They don’t make the aching muscles go away afterwards, but those things can keep me going as if I were on an adrenaline rush. Mom, you do really good work.”

“Thank you my sweet little pony.” Kuril was a good mother.

“We’ll try and figure out a horn restoring potion if magical alchemy alone can’t solve the problem. Next…. mom, massive quantities illusion dust?” As Jade went onto the next thing, I began to wonder how they were paying for all this stuff they were using.

“It’s like was born to make illusion dust my little tom cat. I’m definitely a witch with the right stuff.” What was illusion dust, it sounded really magical Kuril. “Our zebra friend might not have an easy time of it as a seasonal thing, but I don’t have that same issue with my magical cooking prowess to speed things up. Also having a massive bag with the same effect as your pack to keep the stuff in top quality conditions helps.”

“Maries, do you have a briefcase, documents, parade dragon costume and a rubber chicken?” Jade rattled off.

“Yes, we’ve got all that settled Jade.” Mara had a portion of the parade dragon costume scrunched up under her right paw. Next to her Maria held a briefcase in her mouth, it was likely filled with the documents they needed for whatever reason. Maries lifted her head high and spoke. “We’re ready for all legal issues of everything we’re going to do, I assure you. Heck most of this won’t likely even be illegal or at least nobody would be able to stick us with any out and out crime, except maybe for the theft of an illegal airship. At most we might end up paying a fine, but I doubt it will come to pass. I’m personally surprised and a bit stunned that there are no laws against using a rubber chicken like that.”

“Yes, Jade should definitely become an evil mastermind.” No she shouldn’t Fizzle, that wouldn’t be very… oh. You were being sarcastic weren’t you? “Would the rubber chicken thing even feasibly work?”

“It better, I spent a lot of time trying to work a rubber chicken into my plan just because it would be too bizarre not to at this point.” Even when you explained it to me Jade, I still couldn’t figure out if you were serious or joking about how you were going to utilize the rubber chicken. I really didn’t need to know what you were going to do with it specifically and now I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

This all seemed really crazy to me, why was I taking part in this again? Well it wasn’t like I was going to do anything big or noticeable and I did want that favor.

“Arizona, got the cow bell?” The young cow rolled her eyes at Jade and just smirked. “Okay, I’ll take that as a yes, because goodness knows where you even keep getting them from. You’ll be with Jacky on takedown duty after she fires the shot that will keep Celestia from interfering for a while.”

“Can’t wait to crack some armor, this is going to be one big hoedown!” I didn’t like Arizona very much, she was very aggressive for such a young cow. She kind of reminded me of Rainbow Dash in a lot of ways, also Gilda… was I blushing?

“The last things we need, well I already have them on me.” Jade produced three items from her pack. One was a visor of some kind with a griffon’s styled visage on it. The next was a red flag with a bunny symbol at the top and the word’s 'Petty Kitty' written on it. The last thing was a simple yellow ocarina. “A flag, a griffon mask and an ocarina.”

“What does the mask do exactly Jade?” The only response Fizzle got was a rather insane grin from Jade.

Oh dear, it was something horrific wasn’t it? Kuril and Jade’s magical alchemy did all sorts of weird things and this must have been something really, really strange. I was afraid of what the answer was, but Jade never answered and just continued to grin as she walked away.

-Aboard The Ardent Survivor, midday above Canterlot with Maries.-

“You know if we get caught, then we can’t defend our actions as well as if we didn’t get caught.” Of the three of us Maria was the most worried about all we would be doing. Our part of the plan was to make an escape route for Jade, if that wasn’t possible then we would at least inform others of things going wrong at that part of the plan.

“The problem is the usage of the rubber chicken and when we use it. It is mockery at its finest, but it is not illegal to use in such a manner. I triple checked while you and Marie were asleep.” Two thirds of us were surprised that Mara actually triple checked our findings.

“That’s a bit surprising coming from you Mara.” Why is that Marie? You may be the most of our intellect and Maria is the most of our caution, but I am the most aggressive in all things.

“Yes and it is up to us to make sure Jade can walk away with currency if she goes through illegal incarceration.” No matter what, I am the drive that keeps us going. I will push us to make sure we succeed in all our endeavors as is my part of our whole. “Our prospective mates want our help, so we will oblige by doing all this as one and eventually… we may be able to eventually ask one or both of them out on a date!”

“Yeah, but where will we go and what will we do for the date that doesn’t result in mass panic?” Maria was always the one to throw in a good thought and the other two of us acknowledged this.

“Who says the date has to be to a place of civilization?” Why did I of the three of us have to open my mouth about that, I Bloody Marie do hereby declare myself an idiot as part of the large whole of the Bloody Maries collective. I hadn’t exactly wanted my sisters to get wind of this idea.

“What do you mean Marie?” Mara turned to me as I looked over the side of the airship towards Canterlot. Then Maria turned to me as well. “Yeah sis, what gives?”

“A date does not necessarily exclusively mean having a meal at a restaurant and or going to locations in civilization to spend time with someone you wish to eventually mate with once you are old enough. To remind you, none of us are old enough according to Matriarch Kurilian.” Well Marie, in for a bit, in for a solid pound of them. So I may as well lay it out to the front two dunderheads. “It is just the meaning of how most civilizations do it. Our date could simply consist of us taking Jade on a fishing trip, since it is a activity we’ve heard that she enjoys from her place of birth. We can also invite prospective mate Fizzlepop on a nature walk and talk to her more. So technically speaking, we don’t have to worry about causing a panic when we do go on our dates. We will cause a panic if we have to do what Jade says we will if we fail to achieve our portion of the mission’s parameters.”

“Yack, yack, yack, all I’m hearing is we’ve definitely got something to do later with Fizzle and Jade.” How astute of you Maria. “So what was the route again? Oh thanks Mara, you seemed to have burned it into all our collective brains.”

“I’m just not leaving anything to chance, unlike our prospective mate Jade does.” We all agreed that the chances of certain things going wrong were pretty high.

-Fizzle, Canterlot that evening.-

Walking around the streets, I was making sure that the set ups were still in place and that no one has tampered with them. This evening was going to be quite chaotic, I looked to Fluttershy who seemed nervous about everything we were doing. I had my cloak on, hood up and a hat over my horn just to make sure nobody causes a scene if my hood gets blown off for any reason.

“You okay there Fluttershy?” The shy pony really didn’t seem like she wanted to take part in any of this.

“I’ll be okay Fizzle, it’s just that there are so many ponies around here.” Right there with you Fluttershy, I didn’t do too well in crowds either with my horn exposed to the world.

“I can understand the feeling, I don’t like other ponies staring at what sets me apart from normal unicorns.” I turned to move away and stopped. “I’ll be watching you, you’ll be fine Fluttershy. Just give me the signal and then get away to a nice spot to watch things play out.”

“O-okay Fizzle, I will.” It seemed Fluttershy was determined to stay and help us with this crazy scheme.

All I had to do now is get into position, watch out for Fluttershy and wait for the signal.

Jade was going to actively rile up Shining Armor, one of the royal guards she met the other day. She may have made a few excuses as to why she was going to do it as part of her plan, but I knew the truth.

Knowing Jade as well as I do, she was likely going to be a petty kitty about something. She hardly let things go by without retaliation, unless someone knew they happened so that they could reason with Jade about it.

I unfortunately didn’t know if Jade had something to be petty about, I was just assuming she did because of the whole rubber chicken thing. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if something happened to Jade during her portion of the plan, her portion was the most difficult to escape from, which is why Maries are the backup plan for Jade.

Just so long as Jade isn’t hurt badly and is able to come home safely, I’ll be just fine.

-Jade, outside Canterlot Castle.-

I chewed on the honey bun, it was so soft, sweet and delicious. Donut Friendly Joe knows how to make them and be a secret agent on top of being a popular low key establishment.

I was going to need the sugar for all the calisthenics I was going to be doing, outrunning the royal guard wasn’t easy I’ll have you know. Yes, a lot of them were very much incompetent, but their numbers were not to be scoffed at.

Shining Armor was the real problem. The guy would eventually earn his captain of the royal guard position, but today was not that day. He was still a low rank nobody among the royal guard, one that I was about to lure into being a patsy. He was entirely unimportant to my plan, but if I could get him to rile up a number of guards to give chase to me then that would be a success on my part.

It was going to be rough keeping my pack sustained, I couldn’t use my knife’s sustain and had to do this on my own merits. I could still cast, but I didn’t have the resources. I was going to have to make do without my usual loadout of magical alchemy sustain items.

“Hey Shining Armor, guess what?” Groaning at the sound of my cheeky voice was his first response. He was thankfully still on shift and had yet to be swapped out with the night guard. Shining really didn’t like me being friends with Cadence, which was tough luck for him. “You are completely right to be suspicious of me! Isn’t that great for you?”

I liked Cadence and being her friend, though this action might strain our friendship a bit. There were also a few things I didn’t like about Cadence. She was a major girly girl for one, most of my friends were tom cats like me only less masculine than I was.

Jacky didn’t care much for feminine looks, but she was cute and kept that look working for her. She didn’t care for looking better than cute. Fizzle only kept her appearance tidy and didn’t really go all out feminine like she did on our date, I even know for a fact that the eye shadow was definitely mom’s idea and she must be seriously awkward when it comes to prettying herself up.

“What are you talking about?” He turned towards me more alert than before, so did his partner and the two other guards with him.

“Well, I've done my job for the ‘Glasses and Staches’ Company. Now I can carry out my nefarious plot!” Well they seemed to be a bit dull at my proclamation, they were all staring at me. A solid minute passed and one of three other guards coughed into his hoof, I sighed. Okay plan C then. “Okay, fine, you’re not interested in asking. I’ll just have to say something that will get your attention! I’m going to tell Cadence what you really think of her O and O playing skills.”

“You most evil and utterly vile fiend!” Shining Amor shouted, I started running as he had nearly nailed me with a magic blast. “Get her!”

He apparently took his O and O games as seriously as the rest of the people who lived at Airship Mauled! Thankfully Shining Armor had fired first, so I cannot be held accountable for any of the guards I injured for making empty threats. This made me wonder how bad a player Cadence was.

Author's Note

I hope the story hasn't gotten to horrible yet, because next chapter is the start of a three part saga about how an airship made out of gold was stolen.

Chapter Eleven, Blueblood Bandits: Permission parade.

-Jade-

My job was simply to gather as many of the royal guard as possible and keep them away from the airship docks. That meant I had to make some noise and attract an egregious amount of attention.

I had succeeded in getting Shining Armor angry, so that wouldn’t be too hard.

If I could find Sturdy Spear, then all the better as he likely still holds a grudge against me.

I wasn’t going to be involved in the theft of the airship directly, that was Jacky’s job.

I was just simply the distraction. Well not so simple really, as dodging blasts of magic from the unicorns wasn’t doing me any favors. However, I would not take the blame for all the collateral damage to the surroundings they were causing. That would just be rude of them, they should really work on their aim and stop blaming the one they are chasing for the damages caused.

Thinking of my pirate parrot pal, she should be firing the party cannon right about now. She had better not miss, because so help me the plan would fall apart entirely if she does!

I jumped over a confused night guard who was just about to go on shift and he took a face full of magic, I would like to point out that I’m not the one that hit him. That one would be on Shining Armor.

Oh look, more armored guards chasing after me. I swear someone is playing a saxophone at high speeds right now. No wait, there was a musician actually chasing us with a saxophone and was playing that music.

I quickly slid under a diving thestral night guard and she slammed into Shining Armor, I started running faster because now I had more than several guards angry. I had quite a few earth ponies trying to tackle me, pegasi and thestrals trying grapple me, all that with unicorns on my ass and I was starting to run out of steam.

Ponies were really fast and hard to evade when you were trying to stay out in the open streets.

“Would you stop following us and playing that music already?!” Shining Armor turned to the saxophone playing pony while still giving chase, she now had a band with her riding on a pony drawn carriage.

Let’s see trumpets, drums, tambourines, xylophone, a banjo player and even hoof held electronic keyboard, wow I was getting a lot of musical support for this chase scene. They’d be useful for what I planned for later, once I eventually got cornered.

“It seems so appropriate though, besides we’re not even in the way!” The saxophone playing mare had a point and Shining Armor just turned back to chasing his quarry, which was me, and fired his horn.

“My cabbages!”

-Jacky-

“My kitten is on the move and she’s attracting more guards to her by the second… oh ouch, that must have hurt. That poor winged pony... anyway she’ll be running past the airship docks soon!” That’s got to be the signal from Kuril to fire the cannon, so I went over to begin aiming the cannon while I listened to her commentary on what the Captain was doing. “Also Jade just caused the destruction of a cabbage stand, isn’t it usually fruit stands that get destroyed in frantic chases like this? No, wait… she’s actively avoiding all the late evening fruits stands and is even making sure they don’t get hit. My daughter loves fruit way too much to want to see any of it destroyed like that… that’s so adorable of her! I mean if she wasn’t being chased by guards firing spells at her, I would gush more about it.”

“Knowing your luck, do you reckon you can even hit such an itty bitty target Chick?” You do know that we’re about to find that out right now Arizona. “Also, from what Jade told us, you need to bounce it up under the bombardment shield the castle has.”

“I’m well aware of that thank you! Jade didn’t take the measurements of that empty window and became friends with the princess of love for nothing.” I noted that the princess didn’t seem to be part of this at all. “Well I think the princess of love thing was not part of the plot, but Captain wanted to be friends with her anyway. So we’ll treat her like our friend too… I wonder if she’s any good at O and O. I should ask Fresh Start when we get home, she knows Princess Cadence pretty well.”

“Meh, who cares, I’m the best fighter in the realm at the game.” Well you better be prepared to help kick some flank Arizona the fighter, because Jade was going to do her best to get enough guards off The Gilded Buttress so we can take it with minimal effort.

Whatever guards Jade doesn’t get away from here by being distracting, we’ll have to scare off or manipulate with the illusion powder once we started pouring it out over the docks.

I looked over the side towards the airship docks and saw a green speck running full tilt down the streets jumping, ducking and weaving between several ponies trying to tackle her to the ground. The Captain seriously needed the exercise.

I took aim at a roof short of Canterlot castle and looked at the window, Celestia was going to be there and I had better do this without hurting anyone. Missing would mean Celestia would interfere in our plans and while I knew we couldn’t keep the gold ship, it was still fun to get away with stealing it for a while.

“Fire in the hole! Please don’t miss…” I offered my prayers to the shot I’m about to take, to anyone who would listen that could make this happen.

I pulled the cord and the ten gallon jug of banana pudding and cake mix rocketed away and bounced off three rooves and was spinning through the air wildly for the window.

-Discord-

I am a draconequus my dear audience, there’s a taste of chaos in the air and it was quite sweet I’ll have you know. That it was righteous chaos was a tad bitter to me, but it would help me gain some of my strength back. At least enough to break free later after the whole Nightmare Moon thing was dealt with.

Whoever it was that prayed for the help of chaos, ask and ye’ shall receive. Wow, somebody has really lousy luck. I’ll do what I can, but no promises!

There’s no stopping that kind of luck after all.

-Celestia-

“Yes, this is the window I want the design in, did you get the measurements for this?” I asked because I didn’t remember one coming by.

“Don’t worry, we got the measurements from a temp job. She came to the castle yesterday. We’ll get right to work on getting it together and installing it tonight.” After she said that I heard a curious noise and looked up at the ten gallon bottle of something balanced precariously in the window. The jug wobbled back and forth, it noticeably had a rubber nipple on it.

Kind of looked like a giant version of a foal bottle really… then I felt a slight pulse of chaos. I’d have to check if Discord was still trapped after I figured out what was in this bottle that just fell into the hallway was. I lifted it, brought it over to me and scanned it thoroughly with my magic.

It was filled with cake mix, banana pudding and a small amount of fresh milk? My magic detected no poison, no curdling and it was all quite fresh. I turned the jug about and found a note attached. I read the note silently.

For Princess Celestia, if found, please give to her immediately. Well I was Princess Celestia, I looked to the ‘Glasses and Staches’ worker.

“You may go prepare the installation now, I’ll deal with this circumspect object.” The mare nodded and ran off.

I looked around to make sure nobody was watching me and that I was completely alone with the alicorn sized baby bottle.

I smiled brightly and rolled on to my back. Spreading my wings wide, I clutched at the bottle with all four hooves and started suckling at the divine substance within. Whoever thought to mix the baked cake mix with the banana pudding was an absolute genius.

It was even chilled to a nice temperature and quite refreshing too!

-Jacky-

“Phew, that was a close one. Celestia successfully pacified!” I bounced the bottle off two roofs, banking it off a third to land in the window precisely. I actually intended it to go through the window and it barely made it past the bombardment barrier. “And you thought I couldn’t do it.”

With my pirate scope, I could see Celestia suckling on the bottle through the window. She’d be busy drinking it.

“Yeah, yeah, you get lucky every now and then.” Arizona was already twirling the lasso and looked exceptionally excited to beat up some ponies. “Get ready to commandeer that ship, we’re going to hogtie whoever is still aboard and throw them off. This is going to be one heck of a rodeo!”

-Jade-

I’m glad I wasn’t bad at geometry or else I might not have gotten the measurements right, I saw the bottle flying towards the castle. I could only hope it kept Celestia busy long enough for me to escape or have already been captured by the time she shows up. Either way the plan would still be successful.

I ducked under a pair of wing blades and saw a flash of golden eyes, oh it was that thestral assassin that tried to kill me! Of course now was not a really good time for her to show up to try and kill me, but I could make it work. Even while I was outrunning, let’s see… one, two, three, four, five, ten, seventeen, carry the two… just a lot of royal and night guards!

I jumped over another pegasus and stomped down on the flame haired one behind them. Oh hey, it was Spitfire!

“Welcome to the party hot stuff!” I don’t think Spitfire liked being called hot stuff, she got up and redoubled her efforts to grab me.

“Why are you being chased this time and why are you annoyingly butting in on my night off tonight?!” Yeah, she was definitely ticked off and nearly got her wing clipped by the incoming spell fire launched by Shining Armor’s unicorn brigade.

“Well then excuse me for living and having a nefarious plan in the works that involves all of the guards chasing me!” I shouted back to her.

Shining was a scarily competent royal guard given how close he’s been to tagging me since I’ve started this chase, which was about to end now that I was about to corner myself… I hoped Fizzle was ready to start moving.

We needed to time this perfectly and I was thankful to the ponies that gave an amusing musical accompaniment to our chase. We already had a band prepared for what I was about to do, but the extra musicians would only help add to selling this huge diversion.

Even if the saxophone player hadn’t joined in with several other ponies, we already scheduled a marching band to be waiting right where I planned to corner myself. The only thing that was iffy about my portion of the plan was getting away with it.

Everyone else could get out easily, because they wouldn’t be in focus. Still Fizzle had to run across the city to get to The Gilded Buttress, while lighting the fuses at the right moments.

The corner point came up on me fast. I came to a stop and turned around to look at all the armored ponies glaring at me and closing in. I released the magical sustain on my pack, my flag popped up launching the two objects I sat on top of it into the air. This spooked all the royal guards into backing up a little bit.

Quickly sustaining my knife I leaned out and quickly caught the ocarina in my left hand. The mask fluttered down and landed in my right. My grin was fifty thousand watts of power and pushing to overload.

“Now to carry out my nefarious plan for all of you!” I stated loudly and theatrically, now wearing the griffon mask that covered my eyes and nose. I held the ocarina up to my mouth, before I started playing Shining managed to get in some comments.

“Really and what are you going to do to stop all of us?” I had at least fifty or more guards here, not bad. “There’s only one of you.”

I didn’t answer him, because I started marching in place and started sustaining my mask. I was so excited that this was going to work. I was sure something would have gone explosively wrong by now, at least on my end of things.

I had done a cast with a copy of this mask and knew what that would do, I might add a griffon mask to my repertoire just for the self-sustaining effect alone. The sustain effect had too many requirements to be really useful, plus it kind of left me vulnerable to monsters. The ocarina itself did less useful things then you would expect as a magical alchemy ingredient. Haven’t tested the flag yet, much less a skirt or the salamander scales.

Thankfully there were no monsters in the city to knock me out of my magical march, unfortunately for everyone else about to be involved in a flash parade.

Lifting my thighs high into the air, I started to slowly trundle forward. The assassin came at me, the guards might have mistaken her for one of their own. She stopped and blinked owlishly as she started following me in my march. The area of effect started growing and I couldn’t keep the smirk off my face as soon as Shining Armor got pulled into the march as I played my music.

The band we truly scheduled for this parade was waiting right where they needed to be and after a minute the marching music suddenly evolved when they joined. I had formed a parade where more than half the ponies wanted to throttle my ass, but couldn’t because they were stuck parading behind my slowly marching form as my tail bounced in time to the rhythm of the music.

The minute I stopped the march, I’d be dogpiled by all the royal guards or killed by Miss Stabby Mcstabberson the thestral.

It would have to inevitably stop, I couldn’t keep this up forever.

-Fluttershy-

Wow, Jade had a lot of guards following her… oh right the signal!

“Sorry, but I’m getting a bit tired.” I yawned and spread my wings widely and flapped them twice, the chirping birds started tweeting sadly. I had fun feeding the birds as I waited for things to start. “I can come back to visit or you can visit me in Cloudsdale, besides it’s getting late. Shouldn’t all of you be getting to your nests?”

-Fizzle-

Maybe this plan wasn’t such a train wreck after all… I pulled out a torch, lit my horn and held the torch up to it. It ignited and I started lighting the fuses.

The fireworks went brilliantly with the building parade, I needed to move now and fast!

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredients!)

Griffon Mask.

Ocarina.

First this tune.

Then this is how it changes, note how similar the tunes sound. Only this one is far more grandiose.

Chapter Eleven, Blueblood Bandits: Permission commandeer.

-Maries-

Joining parade right about… now!

From the alleyway, we marched out into the parade started by Jade and were not caught up by the music or the magical effects. Of course we were wearing the parade dragon costume and marching along with everyone else. We were not stupid enough to enter the parade as ourselves, we’d be a major target when the music eventually stopped and we were needed for other things.

Our job was to make sure nothing knocked Jade out of her ability to keep the magical parade going, it was all so… interesting. We had never seen a parade, much less been a part of one and the most we knew is that Jade was mostly safe as long as she kept playing.

The fireworks were quite pretty and we got a chance to see them as Marie peeking out from under the costume to watch them for us. We even saw a glimpse of Fizzle galloping and majestically leaping across the rooftops.

It was amazing for us to be a part of a thing much larger than us like this and have it not be of grave importance to our clan’s survival, we would even say it is… fun.

It was surprising that the marchers just let us into their formation without question, the ones that were the guards were too busy glaring hard at Jade to really notice us. The musicians just kept playing and marching along, there were quite a lot of ponies watching us as we meandered down the street slowly.

We were bestial enough for the magical effects to not bother us in the same way that had all the ponies entrapped by it marching along to the tune. We didn’t exactly know how to feel about that. As Jade’s backup, Maria was watching the killer marching along behind our prospective mate.

Once upon a time we might have thought ourselves killers, but we were more than that now and we could hardly go back. Killers in civilization didn’t eat their kill and only killed for a goal that did not further society as it was, only sometimes was that ever truly the outcome.

We did not believe killing our prospective mate would further society. That kind of killer didn’t follow nature or civilization. Killing as a means for them was different, they were abhorrent and aberrant to us... we used to be almost just like them. At least we didn’t leave the body to rot or waste away, all chimera respected their kills. When we killed, it was to serve the purpose of filling our stomachs as nature intends. No longer needing to do that, we could focus on so many other things.

I, Mara, was keeping us in line with the parade and making sure we kept up and were moving at the same pace with everyone else. We were not following the parade against our will nor were we being forced to march, thankfully nobody has yet noticed the discrepancy of our presence.

Also we got close enough to use the rubber chicken and Marie had done her part in using it, thankfully nobody took notice of it.

-Kuril-

“I hope you two are ready to board The Gilded Buttress! Take the wheel Jacky.” I released the wheel and my parrot daughter grabbed a hold of it. “Fly towards one end of the docks and be prepared to circle around, it’s time to use the illusion dust!”

My kitten was quite happy to hear that I had learned how to make this stuff from our guest Zecora and it was really fun stuff to use too. Completely harmless, but it could create ghostly images in the air and will make just about anyone see things.

What I was doing was preventing anyone from seeing the ship going missing. If I could scare some guards away, then that would be helpful too.

I was a true witch now and happen to be living the dream, I wasn’t about to be bored with magic anytime soon.

I moved over to the big bag at the back of The Ardent Survivor and waited as we circled around. Once turned around and heading towards one edge of the docks, I opened the bag. I sustained this bag myself for the self-sustaining properties of keeping the illusion dust fresh.

Tilting it over the side, the air was now being filled with green dust slowly falling towards the docks and several shapes were already forming.

No, the amount of illusion dust we were currently using was most certainly not overkill. Even if it started creating a hazy green colored fog over all of the docks that would follow my will and scare everyone except us away. I started cackling in an evil manner… maybe it was just a bit over the top.

Once the docks were completely covered I took back the wheel and turned to Jacky and Arizona.

“Okay girls, I’m positioning us above the ship.” It didn’t take us long and I brought the airship to a stop above The Gilded Buttress which still had ponies on it. Some of which were screaming and jumping overboard as several frightening phantasms chased after them. “Jacky, Arizona, you’re on!”

-Jacky-

With my spear and bow equipped, I grabbed the rope and tugged it sharply twice to make sure it didn’t snap when I put any amount of weight on it. I jumped off the side of the ship and began slowly sliding down the rope.

I let go and fell onto the deck behind the shivering pony who stiffened up and slowly turned his head to me.

“Boo.” I wasn’t that scary and I expected him to buck me in the face, instead he screamed like a mare and jumped overboard. That guy was last seen running into the green fog.

The illusion dust must have spooked him fiercely, he looked like a regular crew member and not a royal guard. I pulled my spear out and looked about, I was saving my arrows for when the fog cleared up.

I heard the sound of shredding metal, I turned holding my spear at the ready and then lowered it.

“Yahoo!” Two royal guards were missing their armor and were looking quite scared before they were both sent flying towards the city by Arizona ramming into them with her horns. She may be young, but Arizona had a lot of muscle in her. I don’t think I even knew her or Grace’s story, they just showed up at Airship Mauled one day and needed help. So they took the inn. “Come on Jacky, pick up the pace! I’ll clear out the ship, you work on getting it flying.”

She seemed rather excited about all this, I looked at the deck and dragged the tip of my spear across the wood.

It wasn’t wood… the deck was made of painted over gold too. Talk about hiding riches hidden in plain sight, this expensive piece of heavy junk had better fly.

There were quite a few ponies screaming and running to jump overboard, the illusion dust was doing wonders in cutting down the numbers we had to deal with. It was either that or Arizona was terrifying in how she could rip through their enchanted armor like tissue paper.

I made my way towards the steering on this ship which was a cabin at the back of the ship, it was a indoor piloting. I stopped at the door when I saw it slam open and took cover around the corner, a winged pony flew away from the door and out into the fog.

The look on his face was that of sheer terror. In the distance I could hear the parade still going strong and could see several flashes of light through the eerie fog. I think Fizzle will have lit the last of them soon. We had about ten minutes to commandeer this vessel and get it out of here.

“Cowards the lot of you, it’s just some powerful illusion!” The armored unicorn screamed, he was wearing royal guard armor and he looked like one scrawny unicorn. “There’s no real danger here!”

I quietly swapped my spear out for the bow, I pulled out an arrow from the quiver on my tail and nock it to take aim.

The pony grunted angrily and turned around to go back in.

I let the arrow go and… it didn’t shoot straight or hit the pony in the head.

My blunted arrow instead spun end over end and the tail of it slapped him roughly across the flank making him yelp. I just gave my bow a disappointed look, how in the world does that even keep happening?!

I’ve hit just about everyone in Airship Mauled in the butt like that, my Captain’s response to it was just give me a saucy look as if she’d eat me alive. That memory made me shiver violently.

I ducked around the corner and some magic splashed off the wall and made a shockwave that knocked me down, I also heard him grunt as he was hit by his own shockwave. Didn’t Jade say something about gold being magically reactive? I can understand maybe using gold for the engine in that case, but the whole darn ship was made of painted over gold!

I couldn’t let him cast any more magic, a blast of magic fired through a green illusionary image of myself and he growled. I peeked around the corner, he saw movement and another illusionary copy of me dodged a shot while sticking its out tongue.

Okay, this illusion dust stuff was really nifty!

This guy seemed to be able to react to movement swiftly as he tried to shoot away several more illusions of me, but only as long as he can see it coming or moving within his field of view. That obviously included peripheral.

I heard a scream and looked towards front of the ship to see Arizona slinging an earth pony overboard with her lasso. I couldn’t get distracted… I had to get the balloon filled up and prepared for launch.

“Show yourself!” The stallion apparently didn’t like my illusion dust doubles. I nock another arrow and peeked around the same corner again, he wasn’t that bright. “There you are!”

I pulled my head back and a bolt fly pasts me. Another shockwave rocks the ship when it strikes the deck, this sent Arizona tumbling. How would I get him without him taking another shot at me? Oh idea! He was quick to shoot, but what if he shot at something else?

“I don’t know who you are, but if you think you can take this ship. Then it will be over my...” He jumped around the corner and didn’t see me. “Dead body? You don’t know who you’re messing with, I’m Lieutenant Skeet Shoot and I can hit anything that’s moving!”

I fired an arrow straight up, he aimed his magic towards the sky and hit the arrow. I jumped from the cabin's roof while he was distracted by the arrow and came down smashing my bow over his head with a two-handed swing.

My bow was undamaged, that helmet of his on the other talon had crumpled and was knocked clean off. He staggered around on his hooves, I quickly grabbed his horn and slammed his head roughly into the deck. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he fainted with an agonized groan.

Okay that was the cabin secure… and the arrow I fired as a distraction just rammed its way into my tail feathers. Of course it did. I sighed and carefully wrenched it out of my tail feathers and smoothed them out.

“What in the world was with that shockwave Chick?” I looked to the brown and white furred tough cow dully as she bucked two more ponies off the ship.

“That is something that will become a problem if there are any other unicorns still around, toss him off the ship and don’t let any unicorns use magic around here!” I went into the cabin and started hitting a few things, the controls for flight were on and now I had to get this ugly ship out of the docks. I felt dirty just knowing I would be piloting this thing. “I’ll get started on preparing us for flight, finish up and take care of the moorings while you’re at it!”

I soon exited the cabin and got started on inflating the balloon, I had to go check on the engine room next and while I was on my way to go below deck I heard a shout. Turning I saw a lightly armored pegasus mare coming right for me, only she was tackled out of the air by a cloaked figure. Her face was struck harshly with a left hoof, she was knocked out.

“The parade is out of fireworks and has about ten more minutes scheduled, Jade is getting pretty tired out there. We need this massive weight in the air like yesterday Jacky!” Fizzle was gasping and sweating quite a bit, but at least she was speaking clearly and concisely. “The illusion dust isn't going to last that much longer either. I am so tired, it’s like I ran several miles in the last twenty minutes.”

“I’d say about one, with all the firework points you had to hit across the city to attract attention to the parade.” I watched her lay down to catch her breath.

“Oh no, no, no, wait!” A unicorn went flying quite far overboard after having his horn released from Arizona’s teeth. We heard him slap the ground in the fog roughly and he squealed a bit.

“The ship is entirely clear Chick!” It seems Arizona took care of most of our problems. “How are we for flying?”

“The ship is not floating well enough yet. Fizzle, I need to check the engine room, can you steer?” She nodded to me and I turned to Arizona. “Better yet, can you somehow get a message up to Kuril to bring The Ardent Survivor around so we can tie a line to it? We don’t have enough time to wait for the balloon to inflate fully, we’re going to tow it out of here!”

“I can get a message to Kuril...” We turned to Fluttershy who blushed and looked away from us shyly.

“Then do it!” I started below deck and ran for the engine room, I snatched up a box of tools on the way.

-Maries-

I hopped onto the ship with my captive, nobody had noticed us grabbing her out of the parade and they really didn’t notice that the fake dragon left the parade. Once we reached the green fog, we had quickly ditched our costume and scared any pony we met on our way to the ship.

Marie was wrapped around the unconscious killer, keeping her on our back. Jade had signaled for us to snatch her and we did, she was now our captive for the foreseeable future.

“Jade signaled that she can’t make it out!” Maria informed everyone as loudly as she could. “Too many guards are following her.”

“Don’t worry about it Maries, remember Jade already had a plan for this. She just needs her, ‘legal experts’, to help her when she's put on trial.” Fizzle turned to us as she said that. “Until then she’s going to start quite a huge hissy fit to give us some more time!”

Chapter Eleven, Blueblood Bandits: Shining Armor vs. Jade.

-Arizona-

I had a good time and we were starting to pull away from Canterlot, but I had to wonder about the one who planned all this. She was a wily one, what was she up to staying behind like she did? There had to be more to this plan.

“You seem rather calm about your special cat friend being left behind.” The broken horned pony didn’t seem too afraid for someone she clearly loved and it was a tad suspicious, she hardly ever lets the cat out of her sight from what I know upon having met them. “Aren’t you worried the royal or night guard will kill her?”

“The chances of anyone in the Royal Guard, Wonder Bolts or even the Night Guard of killing anyone, much less killing Jade ‘freaking’ La Perm herself, is really quite miniscule.” That was when Fizzle snorted, likely at her own thoughts, then she turned her eyes from looking back to me. “I would be more worried about assassins like the one that Maries caught, she’s the same one that attacked us in the park. Jade will be just fine and I really want to see what Maries can do with that law degree they earned, she is one third snake after all.”

-Prince Blueblood-

Ugh I have a wine stain on my coat. At least it didn’t touch my precious pristine white fur and my lovely blonde hair, both of which have been completely impeccable today. This is the only truly horrific spot on an otherwise perfect day spent in the company of so many elites.

I wonder if I can rent out The Gilded Buttress tomorrow.

-Jade-

I stopped playing, turned around and bowed to the crowd. I had decided to stop playing back where I started the parade at. The guards were about to move towards me when I held up my left palm towards them with my fingers splayed. Taking off my mask, I put both it and the ocarina away with my right hand.

“I thank all of you music players for joining the parade! To those in the marching band, I already sent recommendations out to several companies. You might get jobs soon for your varying great musical talents. As for you the saxophone mare and the others who joined our parade, thank you for accompanying us on our wondrous journey.” It pays to be polite to all the friends I made here today. “I’m sorry for those of you who didn’t sign up for the parade, I can’t send out recommendations for any of you. Though I will say that you are all also very good musicians in your respective fields. By the way, what’s your name mare with the awesome saxophone playing? I’ll try to remember it, promise!”

“I’m Speedy Sax and yes I know how my name sounds, just call me Quick.” The royal guards burst out laughing at the mare’s declaration, she was a cool pegasus pony in my book.

She looked kind of average with the brown mane, but the black fur was an odd color I don’t see too often on ponies and she had bright blue colored eyes. I would remember her fondly.

“Like Quick Sax is any better.” I stated, which caused the laughter to start up again.

“It’s a far sight better than the nickname Prince Blue Balls.” Another round of laughter, this time including most of the guards as well, Speedy bowed to them.

“Alright that’s enough, all of you who are not in the royal guard or are equivalent equestrian military personnel should leave… I’m about to get my ass thoroughly kicked for the forced march I put you all through.” I’m surprised they were even letting me talk and haven’t jumped me yet.

“The parade I got forced into wasn’t all that bad and I had fun, what’s your name so I can remember you too!” My name wasn’t really a secret Sax.

“Jaded La Perm, I prefer Jade. We’re friends now Quick! Now get out of here, go on, shoo.” All the musicians started chatting with each other and then they moved off to the side and sat down. “You’re all going to stay and watch this aren’t you?”

“How often does anyone get to see the guard actually do something around here?” Quick asked loudly, a lot of chuckling rippled throughout the many musician ponies. The guard ponies grumbled loudly.

“Good point. If all of you are going to stick around, can I at least get some people who know how to riff a guitar and play the drums involved in this? Here Sax, hold my flag.” Handing Sax my flag, I was going to plead with the crowd of musicians. “I’m going to do something very anime and try to fight all these wonderful guards by myself. So please stay out of it if you aren’t going to be playing music to this, do not involve yourself in my fight. This may seem horribly lopsided against me, but I’m pretty tough as you will soon find out and I will absolutely get away with everything I’ve pulled off this evening even if they do catch me. Do not ruin your lives on my account by trying to help, just let me go down with awesome music!”

Several guitar wielding ponies and some drum users all moved to set up, while the other musician ponies cheered.

“Oh you are so not getting away with this.” Shining stated quite clearly.

“We’ll see about that, music!” The cymbals were hit twice and then it began, my fight to see how many guards I can down. I immediately started sustaining my knife, I wasn’t about to use it on ponies.

I was going full brawler for this one.

-Shining Armor vs. Jade La Perm-

Three armored earth ponies charged forward and Jade charged them back. The first pony tried to tackle Jade and she jumped straight up and stomped down on him at an angle that sent him skidding across the ground with her on top.

Jade ducked the second pony while body surfing the first one, she reached out and grappled the third lunging armored earth pony and managed bring them into the path of several blast from the various unicorns.

Kicking the ground, Jade spun the sparking armored pony she was riding and used the spin to throw the third thoroughly stunned pony into the crowd of militant ponies. The cat leapt back and kicked the now stopped pony she had been body surfing at Shining Armor.

Shining lit his horn and the earth pony smashed into the barrier before flopping to the ground unconscious. Shining grit his teeth and fired several bolts from his horn at the cat.

Jade dodged to the left and right while continuing to charge only to be cut off by a thestral trying to sideswipe her. Grabbing the outstretched wing of the thestral, Jade spun around with the mare’s momentum and then sent the thestral flying straight into Spitfire’s surprised face, it knocked the Wonder Bolt out of the air.

The other unicorns got scared looks on their faces as Jade thumbed her nose and held up her fists bouncing back and forth on her feet, she then started forward.

Shining fired started firing shots at Jade, as she continued to weave through the crowd of spell fire. One clipped Jade’s shoulder and another struck her in the thigh, she slowed with each hit and winced slightly.

The cat kicked a unicorn up into the air like a hacky sack, spun and kicked them into the path of several stun spells and a thestral pony trying to charge forward.

Shining leapt forward and fired several blast from closer range, Jade dropped under them into a back spin and kicking out several times making Shining back away.

The other unicorns were more wary of attacking, because they might hit their own people.

A pegasus and earth pony guards weren’t so lucky to approach Jade as spun on her back and knocked them down by kicking their hooves out from under them. Their head hit the ground and they were out of the fight with mild concussions.

When Jade stopped spinning, Shining tried to jump forward and stomp down on her.

Jade rolled and from her supine position, she did a kip-up that ended up putting both her feet into a unicorn guard’s face.

Jade kicked off the guards face into a backflip, leaving him getting tackled by a surprised thestral mare who knocked herself out slamming into the poor unicorn.

Shining tried to ram the cat and she twirled out the way and leapt backwards over an earth pony diving for her back.

Jade went to all fours and growled loudly, quite a few guards backed away from her and she pounced on the earth pony to cover his eyes making him panic.

His friends tried to come to his aid and get the crazy cat off his back. The earth pony guard was strong enough to carry Jade’s weight and was wildly bucking around, he accidentally sent a pegasus mare flying when he connected a buck with her helmet.

Jade took her right hand off his eyes and rammed her fist into the guard’s throat making him gasp and stagger. She rolled backwards holding onto the earth pony guard and got into a standing position with him held above her head.

Jade heaved and sent him flying into several other unicorn, earth and pegasus ponies, thus scattering them all about.

“We need a plan!” As Shining said this, he avoided the thrown body and fired several bolts of energy at the cat who dodged them. He recognized that they weren’t very well organized, they were all trying to find a moment of opportunity only to keep getting in each other’s way.

“We’re beyond plans now!” Spitfire tried to ram Jade and flapped backwards to avoid the incoming left kick, but didn’t dodge the following straight right to the face knocking her to the ground again.

Shining watched as Jade dodged several pegasus pony swoops and earth pony tackle attempts, she was evading almost everything they were throwing at her.

Almost being the key word, Jade just took another hit to the right arm and she had to kick a pegasus off her left leg. She was taking hits, but not nearly enough to be debilitating.

Shining recognized that this Jade was actually pretty scary cat to fight when she wasn’t running from them, the other guards were quickly losing their morale.

Shining leaned back from the sliding kick Jade launched at him and he dragged the tip of his horn across her right thigh causing her to hiss and stumble back. She barely dodged the thestral shrieking at her from directly above.

Jade grabbed the armored thestral's rear legs and pulled her upwards out of her controlled drop to slam her belly first against the ground. Shining had dodged being smacked by the night guard and fired his horn at her.

The cat then held the thestral up to take several shots from the unicorns that were still standing, she threw stunned thestral bodily at two unicorns taking them down.

Spitfire darted in and tried to punch the cat who blocked and tried to hit Spitfire with a left hook, but she flapped backwards out of the way. Spitfire then threw a rough right hoof upper cut that Jade took to the chin making her stumble.

Shining fired a shot and Jade fell into a backwards somersault where she stopped in a crouch, then jumped forward and hit Shining across the left eye with a right hook.

Shining tried to fire a spell of point blank and managed to connect with Jade’s left shoulder making her yowl and back up quite fast.

Spitfire tried to buck Jade in the back, only she missed.

Jade rolled to the right and swept the legs at from under a nearby unicorn guard, she grabbed his horn as he fell and swung him around. Jade released the unicorn to smack Spitfire out of the air.

The thrown unicorn fired off a blast that missed Jade and accidentally struck a pegasus guard, the unicorn landed roughly on their side breathing heavily.

“You know if I could shoot magical energy like that at you by casting the air, I would!” Jade thrust her left hand out and actually tried to cast the air.

Imagine Jade’s and everyone else’s surprise when a tennis ball sized oval shaped blast of energy erupted from the cat’s hand. It knocked Spitfire from the air after having just gotten back off the ground.

Jade looked a bit drained after firing that blast and moved a bit sluggishly, she took a hit and was sent flying by an Earth Pony bucking her in the stomach.

All the remaining ponies that were still standing froze, they all saw a slow smile build up on Jade’s face.

“That really hurt, but I just learned how to do a magic missile!” A giggling Jade braced her left forearm with her right hand and she fired an oval into the earth pony knocking her down with a whimper. “So all is forgiven.”

There were only a few uninjured ponies still standing, all the other ponies were taking the time to recover from their injuries.

Spitfire was up and flying again only her right wing to be hit by sphere of energy fire from Jade that knocked her to the ground where she gasped in pain. She glared at Jade in defiance, but she wasn’t getting up.

“I think I really dislike you Jade!” Commented Spitfire out loud.

“Sorry for making you feel this way hot stuff!” It even sounded like Jade truly meant that.

Shining and three other unicorn ponies started to combine their fire. Jade started to strafe around them and fire back, with each shot she started to stumble and slow down.

Aside from the four unicorns, there were a few cowering earth and pegasus ponies taking refuge in the completely undisturbed audience of musician ponies.

Jade's shots still hit their marks and it left Shining standing, she went down to one knee and fired a single blast of magic at Shining who just blocked it with a barrier. He then entrapped Jade in a barrier preventing her from doing anything else.

-Shining-

“Well you were a lot of trouble to take down.” Okay that should not have been nearly that hard, were ponies really that weak? I needed to work out more. “Anything to say for yourself?”

“Mission accomplished.” How did Jade accomplish her mission? I was missing something.

“What are you talking about?” The cat trapped in my barrier smiled weakly at me. “You never came close to telling Cadence about how I think she’s a lousy O and O player!”

The cat lifted her right claw and pointed at me. No, she was pointing at something behind me… I turned around and came face to face with an angry Cadence.

“Oh really, anything else I should know Shiny?” Oh Cadence, what a surprise… you heard all that didn’t you? “Why are there so many hurt guards lying around here?”

“I hurt them, but they should fine.” You were a very surprising cat Jade, I didn’t think you’d admit it so cleanly. “They are all just a bit bruised. I'm a battered, tired and very sleepy kitty. So if you’ll take my stuff, stuff me in a jail cell and excuse me… I need a cat nap.”

Author's Note

Jade got away with her nefarious plans... or has she?

Maybe her plans aren't done yet. The rubber chicken's use has yet to be mentioned and there are documents that have yet to be used... was the briefcase ever really important?

-

-

-

(New Alchemy Ingredient!)

Air (It's a thing).

Chapter Twelve, Courtroom Chimera: Objection princess.

-Ten hours later, Canterlot Castle Dungeon, Jade-

I yawned, opened my eyes and found myself in a cell, I just stayed where I was. Unless the cell door was special in how it was magically protected, I could escape at any time. I won’t do that, I was in fact going to stay in place.

“I’m awake, so who’s going to interrogate me?” Idle curiosity on my part, but spoken loudly enough to attract attention to me being awake.

If I ever had to fight him again, I would have to find a way neutralize Shining Armor’s barriers. He could render me helpless by slowing me down and then eventually trapping me. I barely managed a hit on him, though I had been pretty tired and tossing ponies around isn’t very easy.

Shining Armor was kind of powerful just using barriers alone and his only weakness was his magical stamina, which if I remember correctly is completely absurd beyond belief. Without magic, Shining Armor would be pretty much vulnerable to anything.

Learning how to use magic missiles last night was one the most amazing moments in my life, unfortunately I learned the downside to casting air a little too late. It is quite draining, every shot I fired felt like the world turned to molasses for me and that wasn’t because I was moving slower. It was because I lost quite a bit of energy firing them and I was already tired as it was, even if I had been pacing myself during the parade.

I couldn’t increase the power or alter it, it was a very cut and dry cast given it would do the same thing every single time. The only way I could think to change that is to find a magical alchemy sustain that can alter the magic missiles properties. I was still weaker than a unicorn pony in terms of versatility, and they can do beam fights.

I heard the door opening and in walked an upset Celestia, she closed the door behind her.

“Were you involved in the missing airship?” These were the first words out of Celestia’s mouth to me.

“Yes, did it happen to belong to Prince Blueblood?” I brightened up and asked.

“No, the ship belongs to someone else.” Why do you look so disappointed with me, you’ll be thanking me for this later.

“Well that’s a pity. If it was Blueblood’s ship, then that would have been just perfect once you figure out why I wanted to steal it.” At my words her disappointed look shifted to a curious one. “Remember when I asked about evidence, we got the evidence. It’s just a little bit… big.”

“Why did you want to steal it?” She was now more curious and less disappointed in me.

“Go to Airship Mauled and talk to my lawyer, I assume you’ll be my judge for the trial?” Now I got a confused look.

“Trial? I came here to ascertain why a sun priest would take down twenty percent of the royal guard currently stationed here in Canterlot.” The condescending look she received from me was warranted.

“Talk to my lawyer, she’ll lay it all out for you. The theft of the airship, the impromptu parade and the thing with the rubber chicken.” Let’s just say if I’m correct, the rubber chicken will be very interesting when it comes up. “In any case the royal guard attacked me first and I was just defending myself… quite vigorously at that."

“I heard about the parade and the theft of the airship, but what rubber chicken are you talking?” Well Celestia the thing about the rubber chicken is why I was currently grinning like a loon. Nobody saw it? Oh my goodness! I started laughing into my hands. “What’s so funny?”

“Again just go to Airship Mauled and talk to my lawyer, I’m sure everyone will explain the rubber chicken thing to you if you ask. It’s why I’m laughing.” Oh it worked, it so totally worked! I didn’t think we’d get away with the rubber chicken thing and it was kind of a shot in the dark, but now I know that it was going to cause some interesting things to happen. To legally use of a rubber chicken like that, it was going to be fun to find out when the it was discovered. That is, if it was ever discovered. “Let me assure you Celestia, you will want to be the judge for my trial.”

“I could just pardon you right now if your reason for stealing the airship was good enough…” Looking at Celestia I sat up in a panic.

“No, don’t do that!” That would ruin all that work I had Maries do to get ready for this possibility, besides I wanted to see if my chimera could court a room. Did I just seriously think of them as mine? Oh great, Fizzle is not the only one with chimera affection syndrome. “I absolutely need to be put to trial for my actions!”

“Okay, whatever you say, but your trial will take a week to set up and until then you’ll be stuck here. Since I have some free time right now, I’ll go to Airship Mauled and find out what this is all about.” Celestia stepped outside the cell, went down the hall and said some words to the guards and then teleported away.

Oh thank goodness, I will get to see how well a chimera would handle courtroom politics. Lawyers are supposed to be predatory, so we took it to the next logical conclusion by making a predator a lawyer.

The clacking of horseshoes against the floor came down the hallway.

“She’s in here, are you sure you want to be left alone with her?” That was nondescript Guard A, the unsung hero of the dungeon.

“Yes, I don’t think she’s dangerous. A bit weird, but not dangerous.” The door opened and in walked Cadence, balancing something on her back. She was giving me an odd look as she shut the door behind her. “Hello, Jade… was all that talk about your mare friend a lie just to get to know me?”

“Nope, I really do have a mare friend and she’s a beautiful mare." Looking at me for a second. Cadence lit her horn and blinked twice, before narrowing her eyes. "Quite strong too, I’m sure you’ll meet her eventually.”

“Well you aren’t faking the love." Again it seems I have attracted the attention of a princess. "Why did you make Shining chase and attack you?”

“I needed to stall the royal guards so that a particularly dangerous airship could be stolen, we thought it might belong to Prince Blueblood.” Sighing I leaned back and looked to the stony ceiling. “I wished it did, at least I know whoever it belongs to is going to get one really big surprise in the way of an angry alicorn.”

“Why?” That’s a question that is often asked, that causes more question and leads to a joke loop where all one person has to say is that word. For you Cadence, I’ll condense it down to an easy to understand manner for you.

“Imagine if someone made a solid gold toilet, now imagine the maintenance of said toilet taking up half of the taxes ponies pay every year when it would be cheaper to use better lower maintenance materials for a toilet.” The Gilded Buttress was said flying gold toilet, I knew it was wasting money. I just couldn’t do the math to tell you how much, but knowing gold like I do… it was a lot. “I just told your adoptive aunt about this toilet flushing down millions of bits into itself and the embezzlement someone has going on involving it. I just pointed her at a noble who’s going to be quite screwed when Celestia gets a hold of whoever they are.”

“… do you know how to play Ogre’s and Oubliettes?” Cadence took the thing off her back and revealed it to be O and O.

“Does charming Skellinore into being my characters best friend mean anything to you?” I’d be friends with a skeleton, as long as they ate spaghetti and had a cute personality. Cadence shook her head no at my question. “Yes, I do know how to play O and O, I just can’t do the math accurately. What kind of character do you use? I base mine on me, a proud and noble rogue. Did you know the game can have real life applications?”

“How can it have real life applications, it’s just a game isn’t it?” Oh you’d think so Cadence, but I and mom got living the game down to an art form. “Also my character is priest.”

Oh the irony.

“Yeah, priest sounds like it fits you. As for real life applications, the game can teach you math and how to think outside the box just to name the two most notable examples.” I started setting up for a game with my visitor. “So despite hitting your stallion friend in the face, are we still friends?”

“Oh me and Shining, we’re not… um… maybe I am a little upset with you.” Cadence quickly changed her tune when I quirked an eye at her. “He’s really quite handsome and sweet, but our dates are less romantic than I want them to be. Also, yes, we are still friends Jade.”

“As long as you love spending time with him, does it really matter if he’s not into classy things? My special some pony doesn’t mind how we spend our time together, just as long as we are near one another.” I picked up the rogue figurine and smiled at Cadence, who smiled back at me and picked up a priest figurine. “Let’s talk about our romantic interests while we play, I’ll try to see what you’re doing wrong and why Shining might not like how you play.”

“Sounds fun.” With that Cadence settled on the dingy floor of the cell with me. “The décor kind of matches the game we’re about to play.”

-Fizzle-

“It’s official, Jade’s captured and I didn’t sleep well last night because of it.” I looked into the mirror this morning to see that my eyes were slightly bloodshot. I was okay with Jade being jailed, but what I wasn’t okay with was that she wasn’t here cuddling me. She made sleeping so much easier and I’ve become addicted nuzzling her when we slept together. We were like sisters, truthfully we knew that we were far closer than that.

“You kind of look like a mess Fizzle, has Captain become that important to you?” Of course she has Jacky! I can’t rest knowing my dumb cat might be danger, also I now know for certain that I’m attracted to mares and or any female equivalent in other species. I slumped at the table. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Excuse me, but can anyone tell me why there’s a stolen airship crashed here?” Celestia came into The Witch’s Fare and saw us seated at the table. Sekhet was the one to respond.

“We can tell you, or you can take a closer look at what’s wrong with the ship yourself. Scratch the paint off with some magic.” No we didn’t crash land into Sekhet, but it was a close thing and we had spooked the goddess with the crater we left in the ground with the now mauled airship. “I think you will be quite surprised Sunburn.”

Ten thousand tons of gold left quite an impression, one large enough to create a swimming pond once Celestia took care of moving the gold out of here. Good thing we were all on the Ardent Survivor before The Gilded Buttress crashed.

“I’ll do that Quizzer, also who here is Jade’s lawyer?” You were about to be shocked Celestia, because even I was a little unnerved by how quickly Maries managed to earn her law degree.

Surprisingly our school counted as a university well enough that our favorite chimera could take her bar exam and get a license to be a lawyer in equestria thanks to various loopholes. There were no laws against a chimera taking a bar exam, much less against her being a licensed lawyer thanks to the fact that she was certainly born on equestrian soil.

“We are.” Maries spoke and smiled as they turned to Celestia.

Celestia just gave them a dumbfounded look.

“You’re her lawyer?!” Well don’t looked so surprised, Cheerilee was also shocked when she found out that it was possible for Maries to earn her law degree less than two days ago.

They have three heads worth of knowledge retention going on, Maries was quite gifted in that department. I was kind of surprised chimeras weren’t more profound, smarter or civilized with that kind of ability and were still somewhat tribal.

Cheerilee was now quite proud to have a student like Maries.

-Celestia-

After checking to make sure Maries was telling me the truth, that she did in fact have a license to be a lawyer in Equestria, I was a little stunned how easy it was for them to become esquires. Then I walked up to the crashed ship and sighed, they had five other crashed ships around here doing nothing.

I guess they were trying to figure out what to do with them all, but I knew what I was going to do when I got back to Canterlot. I was going to make Airship Mauled a warning zone for airships.

I walk up to The Gilded Buttress and saw something unusual immediately. The crashed ships crack and chipped paint had flecks of gold underneath, I stripped some of the paint away.

I can now see why Jade wanted to ask me about writing down a list of how to present evidence, this was evidence enough. The ship was made of gold, but just to be sure it wasn’t gold plated I lit my horn and scanned the entire vessel. It was almost made entirely of gold!

I’m quite sorry that I thought ill of a sun priest, because she has shined a light on this illicitly built airship. One that, if it were to crash in a populated area, it would have killed a lot of my little ponies. Jade has done me a favor by removing it from the city… I owe her a debt of gratitude.

I’ll be the judge for her trial and we’ll see what kind of shenanigans she gets up to, Twilight could learn a thing or two about thinking outside of her books every once in a while. Twilight has ponies that want to be her friends and they are practically throwing themselves at her, yet she ignores them on a day to day basis. They are ponies that don’t even care that she’s my star pupil, which is quite literal with that star on her flank.

My dear Twilight was becoming a horrible shut in and I was having problems with getting her nose out of those books. At least she wasn’t power hungry like my previous perturbed pernicious powerful personal pony pupil... I’m still good at alliteration it seems.

After all the failures and successes that life has dropped on me these last thousand years, it was only a few more years now… it was time to ask myself again. Would I be willing to hurt her? No, I still don’t think I can actually harm my sister Luna with my own hooves or magic.

Author's Note

Sekhet's Airship Mauled Counter (Including the now mentioned off screen hits): *ding* 8.5.

(One ship fell over and crushed her halfway after she just got out from under it.)

Continuing on, Maries is a lawyer, because that's certainly normal and not at all a frightening prospect that'll send ponies into a panic.

Chapter Twelve, Courtroom Chimera: Objection attorney.

-A week later, Canterlot Dungeon, Maries-

“So how is Fizzle doing without me Maries?” Jade was quite worried, as she is our prospective mate we should answer her swiftly.

“She is not sleeping well without you to warm her bed.” It was sad for us to watch, but Fizzle was really quite upset without her snuggles. The matriarch is at least supplementing things by snuggling her often. “We believe she is fine otherwise and misses you.”

“Remind me to make it up to her after we’re done here. Though I should probably wean her off getting too clingy.” Do not worry Jade, we will assuredly remind you. “So, are you ready to turn the world on its head?”

“We are most certainly ready, we will let Maria do the talking unless one of us has something to say. We will be putting our best paw forward with our more herbivorous head.” Mara spoke for us, then Marie spoke up next. “I will be remembering any small details of the trial and will remind Maria or Mara if they miss anything.”

“I don’t think we’ll have any trouble Jade.” As the speaker for our group, I, Maria, would have to worry about what I say. I’m the cautious one so that won’t be a problem. “We have all the knowledge we need to handle this case.”

-Breakfast and two hours later, Courtroom, Jade-

“Quick question Celestia, do you have a spell that makes someone tell the truth?” I sat down in the defendant’s seat, my lawyer would be coming in soon and boy would that cause some interesting reactions.

I noticed a problem with the jury almost immediately when I looked around, there were plenty of royal guards out of armor in the crowd. I could already see them as being a bit biased here.

“Yes, the ‘Circle of the Concise’ spell. It creates a grey circle, anyone that sits in the circle has to tell the truth as the circle turns green when you do. It turns red when you lie.” That sounded useful for the court justice system, it sounded quite prominently useful to me. “Do you wish to use such option?”

“Yes, but what does it do when a liar paradox or a logic bomb occurs?” That was the part that could rub my fur the wrong way and I wanted to hear what Celestia had to say about it.

“What’s a liar paradox or a logic bomb?” Celestia titled her head as if she doesn’t understand the question I was asking.

“I’ll explain it by making a statement that will sound odd, my example is this.” I wanted to give her at least one that she could understand. “Everything I say is a lie.”

“If that were true then wouldn’t you be telling the truth about saying everything is a….” Celestia’s eyes crossed once it occurred to her how what I just said actually works.

If everything I say is a lie then how can ever tell the truth about lying all the time?

“How about an easier one.” She nodded to me and I cleared my throat. “This statement is false.”

“I think I get the idea Jade. Just for the sake of clarity, do you have any more?” Oh the princess was interested in it now, I’ll give her a more interesting one.

“Well it’s a bit rough, but… a crocodile steals a foal and promises its return to the parents if they can correctly guess exactly what the crocodile will do.” My guess is, it will take a few seconds for Celestia to comprehend how this one is paradoxical. “How does it respond if you guess that the foal will not be returned?”

“If the crocodile keeps the foal then that would be verifying the answer, but giving the foal back would cause the answer to become false and thus it can’t return the foal. The crocodile would be stuck and incapable of doing anything.” Thinking on it for a while, Celestia groaned while rubbing her head with her hooves shifting her glorious long flowing mane a bit. “I’d wait for the crocodile to give the foal back, then I would make a run for it before it can say that the answer became false by giving back the child. Though the paradox still exists, at least the foal will be alright and it’s cutting the middle mare out of the equation.”

“That or cutting the Minotaur lands most famous knot. If it actually happened in the real world, then that would probably be the most prudent course of action. Provided that the crocodile has some honor… this is a creature that kidnapped a foal after all.” Both I and Celestia shuddered at the other implication. “Sorry for the mental image.”

“It’s okay, I did ask. Knowing what I do now, I have no idea how the ‘Circle of the Concise’ spell would work in that situation.” Well that’s an interesting tidbit, I also gave Celestia a headache. Go me! “I will give you a fair and just trial, have no doubt in my words. Even if the jury is suspiciously made of those who are biased against you.”

“Can’t I have most of the jury thrown out on the issues of ‘challenge for cause’?” I asked looking at all the ponies in the crowd.

“You could, but then you wouldn’t get the real equestrian trial that you wanted, we’d have to throw most of the jury out in that case. In any event, if they show bias because of what you are, then I will do my best to support you and remind my little ponies that they’d be in contempt of court. I unfortunately will have to remain neutral to you once we get started.” A thought occurred to me after Celestia said those words, I smiled brightly at her. “Did you think of something?”

“Let’s keep the jury just as they are… they’ll be siding with me by the end of this.” I happily stated. “I’ll just have to run it by my lawyer though.”

“Yes, your lawyer, I believe their entrance will cause quite the commotion.” Celestia nodded and turned to trot up to the judge’s podium and sat down. In came the plaintiff and the prosecutor.

Shining Armor and some guy named Pace Set, a unicorn with a short grey mane and burgundy fur. As far as prosecutors go, he wasn’t intimidating even if he was currently trying to be as he sent an icy stare my way. I just gave this Pace Set guy a lazy wave.

“Your honor and royal highness, where is the defendants attorney?” Like you actually care Mr. Set.

“I believe they will be here in a short amount of time.” The words Celestia spoke led to some confusion among the plaintiff Shining and the Prosecutor Pace. She turned to the royal guard in the courtroom. “Bailiff could you look outside and see if they are here?”

“She has more than one lawyer willing to work with her?” Asking this, Shining Armor glanced at me askance.

“No, it’s just the one, but they are certainly unique.” Here Celestia smiled impishly, that smile grew even worse when the bailiff quickly stumbled back into the courtroom looking pale and made his way up to her.

I’m guessing that the bailiff met my lawyer. Oh Maries, please tell me they’re going to cause a ruckus. Something that I can smile and laugh about later.

-Celestia-

The bailiff looks so pale, it’s like he’s never seen a friendly chimera before. Then again I’ve only ever seen the one friendly chimera and she’s quite intelligent. It goes to show that the mostly carnivorous monsters can be our friends too… under the right circumstances.

“Celestia… we have a problem, there’s a chimera out there and I think it might have eaten the defendants attorney.” This poor little pony, he was trying to warn me about something I already knew. I was trying to keep a straight face and it would be a while before the real trial started, it would be fun to nail the noble who owned The Gilded Buttress when he came in to file his formal complaint.

“Don’t worry bailiff I will handle things, when it comes into the room.” I assured him calmly, the Bloody Maries would be handling themselves quite well.

“Wouldn’t it be better to go out there and deal with it princess?” The shaking guard said.

“No, in this case I think it’s best to see for yourself why I want them to come in here.” Again I remained calm and Jade looked as equally calm, but she was smirking and looking towards the door.

I’ll have to deal with the panic of this won’t I? Still it wasn’t a bad idea for a prank, all things considered. I knew nobody would be hurt and the attorney would be on their best behaviors after this one small thing.

-Jade-

The doors to the courtroom burst open and then Mara roared.

All the ponies, immediately faced with the threat of a chimera, suddenly started running about and slamming into each other and screaming like chickens with their heads cut off.

Mara just smiled and Maries walked silently to the defendants table and took her seat next to me. Maria put the briefcase down and they opened it with their paws to start getting their documents organized.

Celestia did nothing aside from smile, Shining was staring at her as if she were a lunatic for doing absolutely nothing to stop the monster from taking a seat next to me. Shining had put a barrier around himself and it didn’t seem like he wanted to drop it anytime soon.

The ponies eventually calmed down and out of curiosity they all looked towards the chimera calmly organizing the stuff on our table. Maries were whispering small details to themselves out loud, they didn’t need to do that as they had a connected mental network. The reason they did this is to calm down all the ponies, by acting as if their presence was completely normal.

Nothing like a little refuge in audacity to get the blood flowing, I’m so glad I made Shining Armor start that Bavarian Fire Drill when giving chase to me.

“Egad, are you serious!” Pace was the first to realize the truth of why I had a chimera sitting next to me. “Is that the cat’s attorney!”

“Yes.” Celestia solemnly intoned.

“Your honor, I object to having that beast here in the courtroom!” While Pace was saying this, Shining eventually dropped the barrier and gave me a befuddled look.

I simply waved jauntily to Shining Armor and leaned against Marie’s side. Bizarrely enough, the ponies actually went back to their seats while giving my attorney plenty of wary glances.

“You honor, we object to having an asshole here in the courtroom!” Maria riposted before turning to a mule sitting among the jury. “No offense meant to the mule in the jury of course.”

“None taken beautiful.” The grey buck toothed donkey stated happily while winking.

“We’re already trying to see someone.” Responded Maria blandly.

“Both objections are noted and overruled.” Though Celestia did smile in Maries’s direction a bit.

“That beast can’t possibly be an attorney!” That’s not what the attorney badge she’s wearing on her sash says to me Pace. “I wish to test the veracity of her being an attorney before we begin!”

“You may state what part of her credentials you wish to test Mr. Pace, we will then start the trial of Jaded La Perm vs. Canterlot.” Oh this should be good, given Celestia already knew it was quite legal.

Despite Maries never having taken a case, by equestrian law itself she was a fully capable of being here and has passed her bar exam. One did not expect a hyper smart chimera, they were that smart when they all focused on doing one thing together with teamwork.

“First, I want to point out that this beast is not even an equestrian citizen.” Well aren’t you a boring stallion, but you’d be wrong by the definition of what an equestrian citizen entails.

I had dual citizenship with Equestria and Abyssia, he’d probably try to say I’m not a citizen either. Good luck with that. The jury seemed to agree with Pace a bit, given they didn’t understand how being like Maries could be an attorney in their lands.

“We have a question for you Mr. Set, is all the soil between Appleoosa and Canterlot considered to be within equestria’s territory?” Oh Maria looked to be having a lot of fun with this as she and Mara calmly stared at him.

“Yes, it is.” Now Mr. Set was curious as to where Maries was going with this, but I already knew he’d be upset. He was a tad racist, but that was understandable given the history of the chimeras wasn’t anything close to being sunshine and rainbows. “Why do you ask beast?”

“Then we are an equestrian citizen, by your very own words Mr. Set. The very fact that chimera’s have been settled here since the three pony tribes came and started claiming land. Which includes the territory my clans live in and concerning the fact that we have not disputed this land taking and you have not disturbed our living arrangements. Chimera, by living wherever they do within pony claimed territories, own and have rights to said land as equestrian citizens.” We were going by their own laws here, so really I was thinking this was a cute move pulled by Maries. “All the ponies who were killed on our land as equestrian citizens were trespassing, but know this… we’ve never killed a pony ourselves and we will be willing to sit in the ‘Circle of the Concise’ to prove that matter. My father and mother were both born within equestrian territory by your laws, as such I can claim citizenship for every chimera clan right here and now.”

“What…” Aw, it’s so cute that Pace Set was so flabbergasted that he couldn’t respond.

“They are correct, by our laws they have prior claim and nobody has disputed it for years after they didn’t dispute our claiming of the surrounding lands including the territories they live in. They are intelligent enough to argue the point. So therefore, I declare that the territories belonging to my citizens, the chimeras, are in fact theirs.” With that Celestia banged the gavel. “However, I don’t recommend intruding upon their lands, they are within their rights to govern themselves in a violent manner. We, as ponies, do not offer chimeras any goods and services, they do not need to pay us any taxes. I do not wish to start a war with beings that have many varying dangerous abilities.”

“You can’t be serious!” Pace quickly clammed up when Celestia sent him a glare, he sighed. “Fine, it is within our own laws that this happened. I can accept that. Is the chimera at least licensed to act as an attorney and can I get a record of her…”

I was chuckling as we already had the prosecutor on the back hoof and we haven’t even begun to fight.

“Excuse us, but use a plural when in reference to us please, we are always more than one.” Stated Maria.

“As I was saying, I wish to check the records of ‘their’ bar exam and license to be here as an attorney.” He was quite upset when he saw the prepared and notarized documentation.

Author's Note

Next on "Ace Attorney: The Capable Chimera."

The whole song and dance as we going into our opening statements!

Joy...

Chapter Twelve, Courtroom Chimera: Objection statements.

Author's Note

If you can't tell already, this will get pretty silly, but how will Jade avoid all the charges brought against her?

In the opening statements!

Let the trial truly begin.

Chapter Twelve, Courtroom Chimera: Objection statements.

-Kuril-

“Does the little bat want the fruit… does she? Who’s a good little girl?” You’d think I care more that the thestral tried to actively assassinate my kitten or that she was glaring at me. Nope she just took the offered peach into her mouth with a voracious bite. “Wow, you’re a hungry one aren’t you?”

It was sad that the thestral couldn’t talk, but she liked her fruit and I was making sure to not give her a way to escape. I reached up and rubbed at one of her damaged, but still fluffy ears. She gave off a squeak of defiance and then calmed down immediately once I started petting her shaved head. She even leaned into it.

“I wonder how Jade’s trial is going.” Don’t worry so much about it Fizzle, we’re the ones with an assassin thoroughly tied to a chair here and she was sort of cute. In her own given volatile way.

If we could keep the thestral here long enough, then maybe we could get her to grow her hair out. I don’t mind the shaved look she had going on, but she looked kind of sad with a tail and mane shorn so short. I ran my fingers gently over her other ear. She growled, but didn’t snap at me as I was already putting another fruit up to her mouth.

Why couldn’t this thestral talk? What was wrong with her? I knew she was an assassin, but why? What had happened to you? Ponies should be sweet, innocent and full of love, Fizzle was because we helped her find the ability to be adorable again. That and Fizzle absolutely loves my crazy kitten.

I wanted to make you happy too.

-Celestia-

I banged the gavel.

“That’s quite enough Mr. Set, do you wish to be held in contempt of court?” There was only so much I could take and he was really beginning to push things. “Bloody Maries esquire or Mara esquire, Maria esquire and Marie esquire are rightfully attorneys and recognized by the court. They have shown their full documentation and it has been legally notarized.”

“I have to accept that then, I guess.” He was a fine prosecutor, but Pace was pursuing the wrong thing for the last ten minutes. For all intents and purposes, Maries were Jade’s lawyers and he couldn’t have them thrown out on the principle of what they were.

“Moving on, if you will cease holding up the trial Mr. Set, I would like to get to our opening statements.” I slammed the gavel again. “Please, let’s get this trial started.”

“Of course your highness and honor.” Pace Set, took a few documents and looked at them, he stood up and started to move around the floor while looking thoughtful. “I am here today to prove that without a single doubt that Jaded La Perm is guilty of these crimes I will now list off. She is accused of such... disturbing the peace, using fireworks illegally, fighting with lethal intent, forming an illegal parade, provoking the royal guard to assault, mind controlling the royal guard with magic, resisting arrest, destroying a cabbage stand alongside other various other forms of collateral damage to various places in Canterlot, taking party to the theft of an airship used frequently by nobles called The Gilded Buttress and being party to a larger conspiracy to commit grand theft. Those are the crimes I will be bringing against Jaded La Perm, now how does the defendant plead?”

Only most of that was true, I would be awaiting on the one who owned The Gilded Buttress to move into Jade’s trap. We’d have to work our way to the theft of said airship and the conspiracy to commit grand theft. I hoped that Jade and Maries knew what they were doing, they seemed quite prepared for the trial or looked like they did.

I decided that now was a time to bring up that the defendant wanted the ‘Circle of the Concise’ spell to be used as Pace Set sat down. Maries stood up and prepared to take to the floor.

“In effort to find the truth of these matters, Jaded La Perm has agreed to take the use of the ‘Circle of the Concise’ spell in this trial.” It seemed like I would be seeing exactly why Jade had nothing to hide soon enough, but I still had to give Maries her opening statement and Pace Set looked exceptionally smug today. Mostly Pace thinks Jade has doomed herself by taking a circle that will reveal the truth of her words, but hearing about the liar’s paradox… I’m not quite so sure that the ‘Circle of the Concise’ was made to deal with someone clever like Jade. The prosecutor had to make all the things stick and if Jade and Maries can talk their way around them... hmm… this would be quite an interesting case. “The defendant’s attorney will now give their opening statements.”

“While I cannot deny that some of my client’s actions are a bit… juvenile. I believe her to be not guilty on most of those charges and will prove as such to those of the court.” Saying the word ‘Juvenile’ was Maria’s way of pointing out that Jade was still a minor, which thankfully means that she can’t get the worst of anything the court systems could do to her even if Maries fails. The goat head continued on. “Furthermore, we would like to withhold stating what things she is not guilty to, as we will handle the accusations as they are brought up one at a time. I will show that no one can doubt that my client is absolutely innocent of any true wrong doing.”

“Are you sure that you wish to withhold statements of which accusations you think she’s not guilty to?” I had to ask this of Maries, it would make Jade look pretty bad in the eyes of the courtroom if they fail to successfully defend their client’s actions.

“As her lawyer we will try to make sure that all the statements she’s accused of being guilty to are completely dropped by the end of this trial.” Watching as the front two head's smile in a predatory manner while Jade conversed with the snake head about something in whispers, I knew Jade was telling Maries about how she was going to get everyone in the courtroom on her side.

An evil smile crossed the snakes face before she dropped it when their body went to sit down. Jade’s lawyer was one third snake, many a pony have stated that lawyers were snakes. This was now partially literal.

“Then let the trial of Jaded La Perm vs. Canterlot commence.” I banged my gavel, then lit my horn to set up the ‘Circle of the Concise’ around the witnesses stand.

“For my first witness, I wish call to the stand Jaded La Perm herself!” Apparently Pace Set was really going to try and do this quickly.

-Jade-

I sat down at the stand with my hands in my lap and a smile on my face, was my tail wagging? Who cares if it was? This would be absolutely fun.

“Jaded La Perm, you are sitting in a circle that requires you to tell the truth correct?” Mr. Set was testing the waters of the spell.

“Mmm… I want to say… Yes. I am in fact trusting that Celestia, your princess and current judge, knows how to cast this spell.” The circle turned green and I smiled, I liked the color green and if it was honesty that made it turn green, then so be it.

“Tell a lie to be assured the fact that the circle is working as intended.” Oh I had a good one for you prosecutor, what will you do when I say this?

“I’m absolutely guilty of all those crimes and didn’t have a very good reason for doing any of the things I’m being accused of!” The circle turned straight red and glowed so powerfully that I had to cover my eyes. I looked to the prosecutor. “Is it working correctly?”

“I would like to test it personally, return to the defendants table Ms. La Perm.” Pace Set’s eyes were twitching just a bit given how powerful my lie was. I returned to my seat and he sat down in the circle. “I will permit Maries to ask me a question.”

“Are you a racist pony Mr. Set?” Ouch, Maries, especially after I just proved that I lied about being totally guilty of my crimes.

“No.” The circle turned red underneath Pace Set who looked down at it wide eyed. “What I mean to say is that no, I am not acting specifically racist towards you and I will keep myself under proper control. I will be able to perform my duties adequately, I lost my father to an elevator related incident I do not wish to speak of that involves a monster. It would horrify some ponies if I told them about it. I’m not racist towards either of you specifically, but I am racist towards something else that may have colored my views of you and with good reason.”

Quite a few ponies in the jury were conversing with one another about all this, because the circle had turned straight bright green. Pace Set sighed and looked at the floor sadly from the stand.

“It is working correctly your honor, however, I will still try to see to it that the defendant is seen as guilty for at least one crime.” He got up and moved back to the prosecutors table. “I request that Ms. La Perm take the stand again.”

I stood up and made my way to sit down while smiling at the prosecutor wanly, he had no idea what he was in for when it came to me.

“State your full name, occupation if you have one and place of birth for the court.” You know Pace Set, these dull proceedings better brighten up soon or else I’d have to brighten them up personally. You really don’t want me to make a circus of this Mr. Set.

“I am Jaded La Perm. I prefer to go by Jade and I was born in the town of Port Palicoast in Abyssia, a sleepy fishing town. Before you ask, I have a dual citizenship for Equestria and Abyssia, not that it comes up very much. Immigration is an open policy around here.” The circle turned green beneath me as I leaned forward placed my elbows on the stand before me. “As for a jobs, I don’t have any.”

The circle glowed red.

“What I meant to say, is that I don’t have any paying or working jobs.” The circle turned green and I rolled my eyes. “Do you ever get the feeling that this circle doesn’t understand the difference between job classes in Ogres and Oubliettes and real life jobs?”

The circle didn’t respond and stayed gray.

“I object to any continuation of this line of questioning as Ogres and Oubliettes has nothing to do with this case currently.” Okay Maries certainly jumped on that quickly enough, hopefully Pace wouldn’t ask the right question about that.

“Moving on then… why did you provoke the royal guards into attacking you?” Oh that was a tough one to circumvent Pace, but I had an idea. Mr. Set’s wording could use a little work.

“I didn’t provoke the royal guards into assaulting me.” The circle turned green much to the disbelief of the jury who started getting angry and rowdy.

I provoked a royal guard, the not plural Shining Armor specifically, and he’s the one that I made Bavarian Fire Drill the rest of the royal guards into attacking me when he doesn’t currently have the authority to lead said guards.

“How in the world is that statement true, you were clearly seen attacking the royal guards?!” Wow, you are a sad and angry prosecutor. If you stopped to think about it, you would ask why I specifically provoked Shining Armor out of all the other guards around.

“They physically attacked me first, the royal guards caused all the collateral damage and I didn’t destroy a single bit of property while they were giving chase to me. I ran because they started firing spells at me and I had yet to actually do anything to them.” Technically true, which is why the circle turned green for me. I hadn’t done anything to them as a group. Again, Shining Armor was not the entire group and I only implied I would tell Cadence what he thought of her O and O playing. “I ask, shouldn’t they be held accountable for the damages they caused while chasing me?”

“My client is correct, most of the damages were caused by unicorn spell fire. Including, but not limited to the destruction of an entire cabbage filled booth worth hundreds of bits.” Thank you for the timely backup Maria. “So in essence… she can’t be charged or held accountable with the destruction of property as she never destroyed anyone’s property personally while being chased.”

“I believe that the charges will be dropped in concerns of collateral damage, unless you have reason to pursue that line of questioning any further?” Celestia asked as she looked towards the thoroughly dazed Pace, he couldn’t stick me with those charges at all. “We will be talking to the royal guards who were too enthusiastic about their jobs and their inability to control their magic at a later date. We find the defendant not guilty to the charge of collateral damage caused while she was being chased. We will be going through all the personnel on duty that night to see if they are culpable for their actions.”

The gavel swung and I was one accusation lighter on my list. The mind control accusation was quite iffy, but I already knew the fireworks and parade were a done deal. It just had to be brought up.

“Why were you attacked and chased down by the royal guard?” Oh finally, the prosecution actually asked a good question.

“Well… I, falsely, claimed I was up to no good because the plaintiff Shining Armor was suspicious about me becoming friends with Princess Mi Amore Cadenza or Cadence for short. I decided to confirm that suspicion as a joke and said something that provoked his personal reaction.” The circle glowed green, I thought provoking Shining Armor like I did was rather funny and the joke was definitely on him. “Just to make things quick and before you ask your next question… he assaulted me when I declared to tell Cadence what he truly thought of her Ogres and Oubliettes playing skills. He dragged his friends into attacking me and then a good number of the other royal guards began chasing me on his words.”

Again the circle was green, none of what I said was objectively a lie.

“I would like to call Shining Armor to the stand to hear his testimony.” Goat head Maria was figuratively on fire today, also quite on point with what I wanted her to do.

“I object your honor, Shining Armor is not the one on trial here!” Pace Set was a bit vehement in the way he said that.

“Overruled, it is relevant to the case at hoof. Jaded La Perm you may take your seat, Shining Armor get up on the stand for questioning.” Thank you Celestia, you’re a great lawful good friend.

Chapter Twelve, Courtroom Chimera: Objection questionable.

-Maries-

“No.” Shining said while looking down, the circle turned green. So he was telling the truth. We’ll give him a pass on that. The last of our questions asked, the unicorn stallion looked upset and had answered them all honestly and had proven himself to have gone quite a bit beyond his normal authority his current rank would give him.

“No more questions your honor, it’s up to your judgement.” We were delegating the punishment to Celestia.

“Shining, we’ll be talking later.” The sun mover, Celestia, would surely punish him as necessary. We didn’t care, we just wanted it known that Shining had gone above his rank as guard by ordering an attack on an equestrian civilian who was not taking any aggressive actions and hadn’t until the end of the parade. “Take your seat at the prosecution table. Will the prosecution proceed to tell us what accusation we should focus on next?”

“I would like to address the illegal operation of a parade, fireworks and the use of mind controlling magic.” We could immediately throw out two of those accusations, not that Pace Set would be happy when we did.

“May we present evidence that the parade and the fireworks were entirely legal?” It didn’t surprise us in the slightest that Jade went through all the proper channels.

“Yes, but first I want Ms. La Perm sitting in the witness stand.” He would have been better off if he asked us to sit in the witness stand, Jade could lie by telling the complete truth. A little more than a year ago we would have not thought such a thing possible. “I also request the right to ask her questions before the evidence is presented your honor.”

“Granted.” Nodding to the prosecutor, Celestia turned to us and waited.

We watched as Jade got up and moved to sit in the witness stand, Pace Set got up and took to the floor.

“Why, if there was a parade scheduled, did no one know it was going to happen?” Pace Set started pacing around, he stalked like a predator. We didn’t know what he was trying to prove. “Also did you get a permit for a parade and the fireworks used during it? Do you even realize what could have happened if a pegasus pony had been hit by those fireworks.”

“I have an idea as to what can happen to a pegasus if they had been directly hit by the fireworks, but that’s not what’s important. The skies were cleared that night and the weather team knew to not fly above a certain height, they also kept the airspace clear for the fireworks being put on display during the parade. Not a single pegasus was in danger.” While Jade was speaking, she stopped to look at the green glow that popped up every now and then. “We obtained a signed permit for the parade from a member of the royal guard named Rally Cry, scheduled a marching band to wait at a predefined location and the route was readily approved ahead of time. The reason nobody else knew of it other than those who were involved in it, was because the parade was not highly advertised.”

“Why didn’t you advertise the parade?” As if everyone didn’t know the answer to the Mr. Set, we knew why she did it personally.

“Well I wanted it to be a surprise.” A green glow appeared. Knowing Jade as well as we do, we’d say it was a complete surprise for the royal guards that got caught up in it.

“Who was this surprise meant for?” Okay now Pace was asking the right kind of questions, we thought we’d have go through this fighting an entirely unarmed opponent.

“The ponies in Canterlot at the time, they were all quite surprised.” At least Jade didn’t need our assistance at the moment as the circle glowed green with her honesty, she was handling her own quite well. 'Ponies in Canterlot' included the royal guards. “As for the rubber chicken, it really wasn’t important to any of this.”

The circle glowed red, then Jade sent us a wink. We smiled and winked back, she had just told the truth and it came out as a lie. It was of importance, just not to the trial or the current case. It was important to Jade who was part of this Trial.

“What rubber chicken?” Oh how that caused Pace to be thoroughly interested and his ears were immediately at attention.

“If you don’t know about it, then it’s not that important.” Again the circle glowed red and Jade smiled smugly, our prospective mate was quite good. “I’m sorry I brought it up if no one has yet to discover what was done with it.”

“No I think it is important. What is it about the rubber chicken that you don’t want me to know about?” Oh this would be interesting, Mr. Set’s thoughts had been derailed by Jade’s humorous insertion into the trial.

“Nothing...” That caused a red glow, then Jade said something that confused everyone in the courtroom. “I did nothing with a rubber chicken.”

The circle now glowed green when seconds before it had been red.

“What… but… how… Celestia, I would like to test the ‘Circle of the Concise’ again!” It was a minute later that Pace took the witness stand and looked towards us.

“Okay ask me a question that I have to answer truthfully.” This should be interesting at the very least Pace. What could we, as collective minds, bring against him?

“Do you take bribes?” A simple yes or no question like that shouldn’t trip him up.

“No, I have never taken a bribe and likely never will.” The circle glowed green, so Pace was not a sleazy prosecutor as far as we knew. “Now ask me a question that I have to lie to.”

“Are you happy with your life at this moment?” Giving us a flat look, Pace rolled his eyes and answered.

“Oh yes, I’m perfectly fine with what life is throwing at me at the moment and am not at all jaded by all of the shenanigans going on in this courtroom. Why meeting a chimera that’s an attorney in the courtroom is among one of the most enjoyable things that I’ve ever experienced!” The circle turned red and we didn’t appreciate his sarcasm. He sent Jade an inquisitive narrowed eyed stare. “Okay, its working… you may present your evidence now.”

Getting up from the witness stand, he made his way back to his seat while staring at Jade. We coughed and picked up our copies of the documents in question and delivered them to both Celestia and Mr. Set.

“This is evidence of the parade plans, the fireworks display launch sites and zoning to keep pegasus ponies from getting hurt. You’ll find it all in order.” If I, Maria, didn’t see to it personally, then Mara or Marie would have surely remembered for us if we had forgotten to think of something.

We hadn’t forgotten the evidence and we as Maries were currently on a roll. One might even say we were enjoying our job too much, even knowing we were not being paid to do this.

“It checks out.” It seemed Celestia didn’t seem the least bit surprised that we had legal documents to have a parade, parade route, fireworks and fireworks launching locations all laid out. Along with the permit allowing us to do as such. “The parade and fireworks were legally used at the correct times they were said to be. Even if not advertised, all precautions were apparently taken and the parade went on as scheduled.”

“Yes, but what doesn’t check out is the possible use of mind controlling magic that lead the various guard members into taking part in the parade.” This one was a thing that Pace had some merit in pushing, Jade hadn’t prepared for that. “I would like to focus on that issue now.”

“Granted, defense you will be given a few minutes recess to discuss your strategy and then put forth whether Jaded is guilty or not of the particular crime of mind controlling the royal guards into joining the parade.” After saying that Celestia banged her gavel. “A portion of the crime of disturbing the peace in Canterlot will be rescinded from the point Shining Armor started chasing Jaded La Perm to the parade taking place until its end. The parade was legally formed through all the proper channels, though it was not advertised and did not need to be. Disturbing the peace cannot have happened within that given time frame, unless Shining Armor wishes to be charged for causing the disturbance of peace among the royal guard himself. As you said Mr. Set, he’s not on trial and will be seen to at a later date.”

We looked to Shining and he wilted a bit, Marie and Mara were beginning to feel a bit sorry for him. Even I felt a bit sorry for him. The least we can do is convince Jade to help Shining with the courting of his prospective mate Cadence. He does not seem like a grand warrior and would thus probably need a little nudge to prove his worth to such a strong female as the one who creates lasting mating bonds.

“I agree to that your honor, it’s what happened after the parade that may still count as disturbing the peace.” It seemed Pace Set had firmed his resolve to continue the trial.

We immediately turned to Jade to start working up a defense, this would be tough. We had to convince Celestia, the jury and the prosecutor that mind control was not used.

“How do we do this Maries? This isn’t one of the things I had considered being brought up on when I did my pied piper act.” Our prospective mates were not perfect, but we still wanted Jade and Fizzle anyways. They were wonderful together and we wished to be wonderful with them.

Jade told us the story of the pied piper, how an Abyssinian fluted all the rats out of infesting a town and then never went hungry because they forced the rats into captivity. It resulted in a lucrative rat farm where the Abyssinian ate happily for the rest of their days.

“Well we’d have to convince them that you’re music does not entrance that mind, but the body. Yours as much as anyone else's.” Marie started, but couldn’t seem to figure out where to go from there.

“What if we convinced them that Jade could not do what she did without sympathetic magic?” My saber toothed sister Mara queried curiously. “Then it wouldn’t be of the mind that the magic controls.”

“How would we swing it though sisters? We don’t want Jade to be guilty of this crime, even if it isn’t dark magic and we could prove it did not control the mind. They could still claim that it illegally controlled the body.” I was approaching their two thoughts cautiously, as is my nature, while thinking of my own solution. “This is a tough situation… unless… Jade, do you trust us?”

“Our sister has just had a very intriguing thought.” Mara turned to me with a smirk. “It should do for our purposes.”

“Yes, I find that to be an effective strategy.” After hearing my thoughts, Marie concluded that my idea was sound. Our snake sister leaned over to start hissing in Jade’s ear and her eyes went wide. Jade smiled brightly. “Do you approve prospective mate Jade?”

“Of course… it’ll be quite interesting to see what Pace Set has to say about it.” After looking thoughtful for a moment Jade smiled and gave us all a kiss on the cheek. “He can’t deny that I had a right to do it if we go that direction, do it Maria!”

“Your honor, we’re ready to push forward on the allegations of mind controlling royal guards.” I intoned as the speaker for our job as the attorney in this case. We, Bloody Maries esquire, will defend our prospective mate to the best of our abilities.

“Okay, court is now back in session.” The gavel was slammed by Celestia’s magic. “How do you respond to the accusation of Jade performing mind control magic on the various related military units that night?”

“First off I would like to state, that the magic my client used does not in fact control the mind. It does however control the body, but only under a very specific set of circumstances. In this case I would like to put forward that my client is innocent by way of self-defense against multiple highly aggressive ponies.” We heard Pace Set scoff in our direction at this, well he wouldn’t be scoffing for long.

“How did your client control the bodies of my ponies and how would it count as self-defense?” In answer to that question Celestia, we were going to need Jade’s things.

“For her to force a body to march, she needs several requirements. One she has to have a wind instrument, two she has to have a griffon mask, three she has to be marching and four she has to be playing prior mentioned instrument while marching. We can give you a demonstration of the effects if you are to trust my client with the two required items.” We saw that neither Celestia nor Pace could see how this counted as self-defense. “It is self-defense because of one last requirement, you have to enter the range in which the magic will take effect. Every pony caught up in the parade tried to assault my client physically with their hooves and not with their magic, under that threat she’d be free of the accusation as they moved close enough to her of their own free will.”

“That… is very annoying.” Stated Pace after a minute. “Fine, let’s examine the effects in the courtroom.”

One test of the marching mask and the ocarina later by Jade, Celestia came to a verdict about the accusation. So far we hadn’t needed the jury to actually do anything if the issue was clear cut and judge Celestia could call it without a doubt.

“I find the defendant not guilty of not using mind control magic, she did use body controlling magic that has a limited range and in self-defense.” None of the jury spoke up against the verdict Celestia just laid out, we were proud of ourselves. “She cannot attack violently while playing the music instrument and marching, she can only delay an inevitable beating. Next accusation.”

“… I will skip fighting with lethal intent for now, I wish to get to the accusation that Jaded La Perm took party to the theft of the airship The Gilded Buttress and was part of a conspiracy to commit grand theft.” Here Pace paused and pointed to the doors opening into the courtroom. “To that end, I sent a summons for Mr. Billion Karats to make an appearance in the courtroom as it was his ship that was stolen.”

-Jade-

I could already see Celestia smiling deviously.

“I hope to end this swiftly.” A unicorn stallion with gold colored fur and blonde hair came into the courtroom, he was wearing a fancy coat, top hat and monocle. He even had a mustache that screamed fancy.“This young cur is so far beneath me, she’s not even worth being called dirt.”

Oh yes, I definitely hit a jackpot here...

This guy was going down and hard!

Chapter Twelve, Courtroom Chimera: Don't get cocky!

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Thirteen, Salve Searching: Close ingredients.

-Fizzle-

I can’t believe I slept for twelve hours, it was quite comfortable snuggling up to Jade. I nuzzled her fur and she shifted, was she awake?

“Can you let me up, I need to go… badly.” I released Jade like she had a plague, she jumped up and ran for the nearest bathroom.

I sighed, she waited for me to wake up didn’t she? She’s very sweet like that, I should really apologize to her for pinning her underneath me so that I could get some restful sleep in.

I got up and headed downstairs, mom was already awake today. It looked like she was doing cinnamon toast today. I sat down at a table and called out to her.

“Hey mom!” I could see the breakfast she was making was huge. “What’s with all the food?”

“Do you know what happens when my daughter misses a meal? They’ve been keeping my kitten fed up in Canterlot, but now that she’s home she’s going to be quite voracious given you kept her from eating a meal and I’m just preparing for that.” That sounded like a good idea Kuril, you certainly knew and understood just exactly how Jade worked. “I talked to Maries about what went on up there while you were dragging Jade off to bed… you didn’t do anything to my kitten did you?”

“No, I would never do something to hurt Jade like that!” I wondered if Jade had any complaints, she probably didn’t given how often she was ready to do a lot of things for me. “Though I did kind of force her to be a cuddle toy…”

“Good, wait until you are both old enough and keep it above the waist. I don’t mind kissing, hugs and snuggles in my house, but you are slowly starting to become a bit inseparable from Jade and as a mother I worry about all my children.” She approached me and started placing food before me. I began to happily eat. “You need to become a little more independent Fizzle, Jade has little problem with wandering off and endangering herself. While I admit that it scares me whenever she goes near Barely Bearable Woods, she needs to learn how to fend for herself and she’s pretty good at that. You need to learn how to survive on your own too, why if anything were to ever happen to me… well I won’t try to let that happen.”

“Mom, you took on a ten foot tall boar that was almost made of muscle and knocked him down quite a few pegs.” Despite the dryness in which I spoke, I knew that she could protect us when she needed to.

“Yes and I was scared for my life, but I was more scared for your lives than my own.” Kuril rubbed at one of her ears before continuing to cook a large amount of food. “Nobody hurts my kitten, pony or parrot in front of me and gets away with it!”

“You are a bit possessive of us.” Not that I mind it, I liked having someone who cared about me so much. “Being independent is not in the cards for me Kuril, remember how I lost my horn? I was more independent then, but thanks to that psychological scarring I’m having problems wanting to go anywhere by myself when I have friends that I can stick next to. I thought I was doing fine on my own, but then I met Sekhet and I found myself lacking”

“You stick more to Jade than anyone else. While I know you love each other, maybe you could try sticking to Jacky or Maries for a day or go camping together with Sekhet to chaperone.” That did sound like fun Kuril, but I was not going anywhere near Barely Bearable Woods. I might have had a slight case of Arkoudaphobia and the existence of what Jade calls drop bears didn’t help that fear. “A little bit of wilderness survival wouldn’t hurt Fizzle.”

“I guess it might help save my life someday… so I wouldn’t mind learning how to make a camp.” I could actually use wilderness survival training, considering how well I was getting by just by myself before I met these people and started living here.

“I apologize for interrupting, but we are currently experiencing a great amount of discomfort and wish to inform you of something important about ourselves.” We both turned to Mara and her fur looked a bit rumpled and Marie looked dried out. “We are currently going through our shedding… it has been a while since we did that. We will be shedding all our skin and the fur on top of it.”

-Jade-

“Did you just say shedding… like Marie the snake kind of shedding?” Okay I had an interest in this as I walked in on the conversation. “Quick question, do you heal when you shed that skin?”

“Yes, our body recovers… why do you ask Jade?” Maria was the one to respond to me and I had an idea.

“I was wondering, if it’s not too much to ask of you and it’s not of concern, can we have that shed skin?” It’s about time I decided to start working towards that horn fixing cure for Fizzle and maybe the shedding of a chimera could help with that. “I mean if it’s not too sacred or something.”

“No, we never have a use for what we shed because of me.” Marie seemed to be keeping her head lowered in embarrassment at how dry and flaking her skin currently looked. Her appearance was okay for a snake going through a shedding growth period, only this looked more full body shedding and it must have been uncomfortable for the other two sisters. “If it could be of use to you, then we will gladly give it away freely.”

“Well don’t shed in here! Go to Sekhet’s pyramid and do it in her home, I’m trying to run a clean establishment here.” Mom just reminded me that there was something that I really needed to do concerning Sekhet.

“I’ll go with her, I need to talk to Sekhet about something anyway.” I was about to walk off when mom said something that made me immediately turn around.

“Here I thought you were going to sit down and eat a very large breakfast, especially the fried eggs, toast and cheese filled biscuits.” It was much to my mother's surprise that it looked like I teleported across the room to the table, she sighed and started carrying out several plates worth food. “You are always the hungry one my gluttonous kitten. Come on Maries, sit down and have some food.”

“Of course matriarch Kuril.” They looked hungry, the Maries could always eat about as much as I could. So I could honestly say that I eat like a chimera.

-One hour later-

Maries started to lightly scratch at herself and her fur looked like it would peel away at any second.

“When your fur peels off are you furless underneath?” This might be embarrassing for the chimera, but I wanted to know and was curious.

“No, our fur is already growing underneath the skin and fur that we’re going to shed.” Maria rubbed a tiger paw at her neck the fur seemed to be very loose looking. It was almost disgusting, but I had seen worse things from the hairballs I’ve coughed up. “This is uncomfortable for us, but it is something we do.”

“Why do you want our shed fur and skin prospective mate Jade?” Well I should explain to Mara and the other parts of them why I was looking forward to this.

“It might be one part of what I need to fix Fizzle’s horn. I say 'might', because it is a state magical renewal and that would possibly help renew what is broken. It’s about time I really started knuckling down and searching for ingredients.” Though I was wary of going after hydra scales, they can regrow heads and that meant they had a magical form of renewal all of their own. There were two ways to kill a hydra, stab the heart or cut off enough heads in a short amount of time that the rest of the body couldn’t support itself when it grows too many heads. I didn’t want to kill a hydra, but I did want some of ones scales without being eaten and digested. “I have plenty of ideas of what to look for to help Fizzle, but none of it is a sure thing. If your skin might help in my research, then I’m asking politely if I can use it.”

“You may, we would not deny prospective mate Fizzle the chance to be whole once more.” Well that was a relief. Even if Maries shed skin and fur doesn’t help, it was still a good gesture that they were willing to part with something they had no use for.

I considered a list of things I could search for to help Fizzy as we approached Sekhet.

My ideas included searching for Bennu the deity of rebirth who is likely a phoenix, a god version of a phoenix might have different results from a regular phoenix. I wanted to go retrieve the chunks of Fizzle’s broken off horn from the den of the ursa minor that scarred her, unicorn horn was said to have something related to mystical healing properties in legend. I could possibly use Fizzle’s own horn to fix itself!

A few other things that I could think of would be downright dangerous to locate, like say for instance if something like Nanteos’s cup exists in this world, then it would definitely be protected by something extremely lethal. Something that Daring Do might run across in her travels… I had to find her and ask her to help with the search if she was willing to look into it. I already had Eir the Yak Valkyrie working on it from the island of Turtle Toga.

New idea, I could also go after antlered beings who could regrow their horns!

Darn it, there were just so many places to start! Provided that I didn’t previously exist in the timeline where Tempest Shadow comes into existence, who hopefully never does while I’m here to love and care about Fizzle, then Fizzle would have been searching forever and would never find a way to ever fix the damage done to her horn.

If Tempest Shadow still happened, despite me possibly changing Fizzle’s fate, even then I wouldn’t give up on her and I wouldn’t let her give up either.

-Sekhet-

“Hello Priest Jade, Warrior Maries, to what do I owe the pleasure of you visiting me in my home?” There was something I could feel as being off about Maries, their fur seemed to be sloughing a big and their scaly head seemed to be drying and the skin is ripping. Ah, they are shedding and molting their skin and fur off.

“Would you mind if Maries shed off her skin and fur in an empty room? I promise I’ll pick it up, I’m going to study it to see if I can get some healing properties out of it.” Upfront and honest, but with a hint of hidden amusement. What were you planning to do now Jade? You were an amusing mortal, but there is more you wished to do.

“Of course she may, go into that room over there and renew yourself in privacy.” I pointed my paw to an unused room off to the side and Maries bowed to us and moved off to do that. Turning back to Jade, I gave her a curious stare. “What is it that you want of me Priest Jade?”

Jade reached into her backpack, pulled out a bottle and threw it at my face. It shattered and the pieces covered the floor.

“That was in the effort of what exactly?” I knew Priest Jade, she didn’t do things for no reason. Though I am a little perplexed as to why she threw a bottle at me with bits of wood in it, I’m mostly just confused and not angry. I could hardly get angry with those I choose to protect, at least I wasn’t magically stuck here protecting them.

“That counts as crashing an airship into you, just freeing you of your word and the freebie you owe me.” Wait… why would Jade do that? Now that I looked at the pieces on the floor, I could see the deflated balloon and pieces of a tiny wooden boat. “I made an airship in a bottle while I was stuck in the Canterlot dungeons, Cadence was nice enough to get a kit for me so I wouldn’t be bored between our sessions of O and O. Nice pony that girl, a bit of a love freak though and she wouldn’t stop talking with me about my special some pony.”

“Doesn’t count, it’s not a full sized airship.” I tried only for Jade to shake her head in disagreement.

“Nope, it definitely counts, it’s still an airship. A very tine harmless one that I, Rogue Sun Priest Jaded La Perm, intentionally crashed into you.” This was way too nice of Jade, I had her pegged for being a clever jerk. What was clever in freeing me from the boon I gave her?

“What do you want?” This could be the only reason why she would free me of an offered free shot to have an airship slam into me without having to answer a riddle.

“For Fizzle’s horn to be fixed of course, but you as a goddess of healing, physical education and war can’t do that now can you?” Why yes Jade, please do keep rubbing it in that my healing prowess doesn’t match my ability to fell entire armies or coach you on how to get warrior like physiques. “In truth, I want nothing for this and just wanted to see the look on your face over me doing it this way. Aside from that I wanted to run several ideas past you about objects that may lead to healing the broken horn.”

“Interesting….” I lowered my paw over the glass and broken bits of wood and deflated cloth, with a snap of my paw the bottle reverted to its unbroken state in a flash of magic. It was an airship in a bottle, how very interesting and droll… I’m going to cast a spell to make this impervious to destruction. “I thank you for giving me a gift, even if it took some magic to reassemble it.”

“You are a very powerful and magical lady Sekhet. First off, do you know where I can find Bennu?” That is going to be a bit troublesome Jade, Bennu hasn’t been around for a long, long time.

“You wouldn’t be able to find him, he’s been long since gone Priest Jade and even I’d be hard pressed to locate him if he were still alive.” I think he might have actually died a true death, for a god of rebirth that would be rather ironic. Though I think I understand why you would ask of him first Jade, his power of rebirth ‘might’ have the power to restore Fizzle’s horn without any horrible side effects. “If you wanted to find my sister Bastet. That would be far easier, she’s guarding the tomb of a powerful pharaoh who was said to be the maker of the first cake in existence.”

Author's Note

Fresh blood can not be used as a magical alchemy ingredient, because it is necessarily alive. Dried scabbed blood is different and might be useful.

This is a thing that seperates Magical Alchemy from Regular Alchemy that Zebra's use in brews.

Chapter Thirteen, Salve Searching: “Easy” ingredients.

-Jade-

“So where would I find a Jackalope around here?” It was my friendly neighborhood goddess Sekhet that brought up Jackalopes, strange rabbits that grew antlers from their heads. Our discussion wasn’t long, but it had been somewhat interesting.

They could grow back their antlers once lost and are not very different from normal rabbits. I think I’m going to need Fluttershy’s help on finding one. Maries shed off skin and fur was a bit disgusting, but for the most part it was almost one solid mass that she pulled off like a jacket by ripping it down the center from between both their front head heads and then all the way back to where Marie started.

It was kind of like a cicada shell, only instead of coming out her own back, she came out of her own chest. I would ask Zecora to study some of that molted skin and fur later, right now I was writing down the things that Sekhet said might be viable to look into.

I wondered what Fizzle was up to right now, it didn’t matter because I was going to have to wait for Fluttershy to pop in to Airship Mauled before I can try to find a Jackalope. Hydra weren’t hard to find, it’s actually surviving one long enough to get away with stealing some of its scales that would be the issue.

Froggy Bottom Bog, the place where a hydra or two could be found. It’s not safe to be anywhere near a swamp if you know a hydra would be there.

A smart hydra would snap you up off solid ground at the edge of any swamp, then you’d instantly be either swallowed alive or crushed in the mouth and you’d be luckier if the hydra didn’t chew its food. If I was swallowed alive, I could just stab my way out as being swallowed alive is not nearly as lethal as being crushed then swallowed.

If the hydra was dumb, or a fan of theatrics, it would rise out the swamp slowly before trying to get you on land. Hydra were not known for their great land speeds, they had to move slowly and were much more dangerous to encounter in water or swamps.

As dangerous as stepping on a highly poisonous stone fish really, you’d never see it and before you knew it you were on your way to dying.

While I was waiting for Fluttershy to show up I might as well find something to busy myself with… magic missile aiming practice? Oh right, I haven’t been able to tell mom about that yet have I. Fizzle just immediately dragged me off to bed as soon as I got back, but she really did need the sleep.

It’s kind of hard to disturb a sleeping pony when they looked so peaceful and cute, especially while they were cuddling up to you and sighing happily.

“Well time to go ask mom if she wants to…” I stopped and stared at the jackalope staring at my fire as if mesmerized. There was no way I was this lucky, this had to be a trick.

Still… I had to try! I slowly snuck up on the grey antlered rabbit creature.

-Fizzle-

“Why do you want to kill Jade, what exactly has she done to deserve your ire aside from existing?” There was one thing that I couldn’t wrap my head around, it was just something Jade couldn’t have possibly missed. What she ignored was that the thestral assassin being in the same room as her was the most notable thing Jade didn’t draw any attention to whatsoever.

The thestral just sent me a glare, her golden eyes affixed upon my own, Kuril eventually came over and patted the thestral on the head. She didn’t look too old or young, in fact without a voice it was kind of hard to judge her age.

From what Kuril told me, she seemed to be mute and it wasn’t because her vocal chords didn’t work. It was because her vocal chords worked too well that she couldn’t talk, anything that came out of her mouth would be too high pitched to hear. She couldn’t physically speak without hurting someone’s ears, including her own.

She looks like she’s seen a lot of things before we caught her and tied her to the chair. Getting captured by Maries during the parade must have scared the wits out of her, every time she saw the chimera she shivered and didn’t glare at everyone in the room like she has been doing for the past few days she’s been stuck to the chair with mom taking care of her needs.

I wondered if Maries could hear the thestral if she were to try speaking. I heard a crash from outside and sighed, was it another Pukwudgie attack? I trotted out the door and saw Jade sitting in the middle of her fire, she was glaring at a confused looking antlered rabbit.

“Were you expecting my tail to catch fire or something humorous like that?” Jade didn’t look happy and she was about five seconds from entering petty kitty mode, I guess her fire wouldn’t hurt her judging by the way she wasn’t panicking by sitting in the middle of the flames.

The antlered rabbit nodded while smiling sheepishly, it looked like it was about ready to start running and it had better be. Jade was getting really quite fast.

“Then you don’t know me very well, let’s get acquainted!” Jade pounced and the antler rabbit leapt away and Jade started chasing after it on all fours. They leapt into some bushes and I could kind of make out the rustling shapes of both of them moving away

“Get back here and give me your antlers!” Wow, Jade sounds kind of angry there. I had to find something to do other than chase after Jade or watch the assassin that mom is caring for.

What to do, what to do… maybe Jacky is doing something interesting. I think I’ve been too clingy lately and if Jade wants to go chase a rabbit with antlers, who am I to judge? As long as she doesn’t come back half dead… I heard a loud explosion and a cat yowl.

If she dies, I was going to force her to haunt me for the rest of my life. I could learn to love a ghost.

Somehow I feel like I’m going to grow up to be a very sarcastic adult if I have to keep dealing with all the insanity around here.

Shaking my head, I made my way over to the fruit grove looking for Jacky. I eventually found them.

-Dr. Permanganate-

“So it can be toxic if misused or handled incorrectly Ms. Chickadee.” It was so nice to teach young minds about dangerous chemicals and or substances. I narrowed my blue eyes upon the youth to make sure she understood the dangers. “So be careful when handling such chemicals.”

“Right, because I don’t want those chemicals to eat through my feathers…” Jacky was quite a clumsy girl, but she was quite intelligent. I saw the one they called Fizzle joining us, I’m sure she’ll pick up on what we’re talking about soon enough. “What would you suggest for stopping bleeding in a fast and messy way? As in a no other choice kind of manner where you’re bleeding quite badly and need a quick patch.”

“A first aid scenario? Well I’m not that kind of doctor, but… I do know a few tricks.” I needed to keep repeating that I wasn’t a medical doctor, I was a skin, fur and feather care doctor. “Like take deodorant for instance. Most deodorants have Aluminum Chloride, which can clot nicks quite fast. However, you should never use pure Aluminum Chloride as it will burn and itch, but if all you have is pure Aluminum Chloride then beggars can’t be choosers. It’ll hurt, but it will stop the bleeding.”

“I would like to hear more about this.” Oh it would be nice to be able to entertain another young mind like yours Fizzle. I knew some quick and easy medical science, again medicine was not my specialty so much as topical creams were. I just happened to know some cheap medical tricks.

“Considering you’re a pirate, do you know what plantains are Jacky? I mean the ones that aren’t related to bananas.” I now had two students to teach, I was not trying to steal Cheerilee’s students, but they were coming to me to learn so I might as well give them something useful to remember if they ever get lost in the wilderness.

“Wide leafed plants that get about as big as a lettuce leaf that can grow just about anywhere?” Ah yes, then she knew what to look for.

“Yes, any genus of Plantago, not Musa, can be used to seal wounds. They are always used in ointment styled medicine called spit poultices, which is actually something within the realm of my specialty.” I started my lecture, if they were interested who was I to let knowledge sit around doing nothing. “When you have been bitten by a bug or a snake, chew some of a plantain plant leaves thoroughly to a mush and then spit it on the problem area. Let it dry out and it’ll suck the poison right out of nasty stings or itchy bites, but it’s not particularly useful against stronger poisons and it stops bleeding quite well. Plantains usually contain allantoin, baicalein, catapol and a few other helpful things. If you’d like to know more about those chemical, look them up.”

“Any other methods or plants to look for?” Ah yes, don’t you worry Fizzle, I had plenty of knowledge in the subject.

“Why yes, there’s also Soldier’s Woundwort which is better known as yarrow. It too is a chew and spit poultice.” Yes, I knew quite a few of those, but I still wasn’t a medical doctor. Just to be on the safe side I should really start a garden with a few of those plants, the children around here seem to get into vicious battles with pukwudgies and other things quite often. “If you really want something out there that can stop a bleeding wound in an emergency, then you need to look no further than lip balm.”

“Lip balm… never had a need for the stuff.” Well of course you didn’t Jacky, you had a beak and beak beings never had to worry about drying lips like we ponies sometimes do.

“Yes, well you have a beak my friend. Just know that a good lip balm can make for a pretty good sealant to large cuts and will stop scabs from forming, not all lip balms are created equal though. Watch out for the ones with cancerous compounds.” Was there any more I could tell them? Ah yes, there was an interesting one. “I also know a recipe for something called Instant Scab, it uses potassium ferrate. Potassium Ferrate is not toxic and is generally purple colored salt. It’s a chemical that requires some making and has a rather poor shelf life, but when mixed with the right stuff you can stop a bleeding artery almost instantly. It works for a good hemostatic powder that can prevent horrible scarring.”

“Could you maybe direct me to a few books on this?” Jacky asked pleasantly while clamping her talons together.

“Of course I will, it’s so nice to see young ones like you wanting to learn useful knowledge. My knowledge is all in topical stuff.” If they ever had some trouble I can eventually give them a live demonstration. “So if you need my help with something related to that then you can come to me… well I think I might be able to show you my stuff right now. You girls keep your friend entertained while I go get something for all those stings she has.”

Both girls turned away from me and towards the lumpy mess of a cat that was grumbling about jackass jackalopes under her breath. She was one to talk about being slightly jerkish.

-Fizzle-

“Okay Jade, what happened to you? You look like you lost a fight with a bee hive.” All those welts I could see covering her body must really hurt a lot.

“That darn jackalope dropped a fire wasp nest on me, at least it wasn’t flash bees or… flyder’s.” Nobody likes flyders Jade, nobody. So stop shivering in the thought getting caught up in a flyder swarm, because you’re giving me the shivers too! “Just so you know, I will catch the little monster and I will get what I want out of him. Mark my words, I’m going to war with that jackalope.”

“I would say don’t do that, but knowing you… you probably wouldn’t listen to me.” To me, it looked like she wasn’t about let this one go. “So, how are you feeling Jade?”

“How do you think I feel?” Jade was acting rather calm if she was supposed to be very uncomfortable I was not seeing it. “I’m going to thank my high pain tolerance on this one, fire wasp stings make you feel like your entire body is lit on fire. Like literally lit on fire, it’s quite excruciating I’ll have you know.”

“Oh… ouch.” Jacky hissed out loud and looked away. “At least your acting calmly, I’d be pretty bad off in your situation. Maybe possibly screaming angrily to the heavens and asking why the world seriously hates me so much to do this to me.”

“First thing I did was scream 'jackalope' in the angriest voice I could manage to get out.” Wow Jade had really good control of her body, I can only see her faintly twitching or the small flashes of grimaces appearing on her face. “So yes, I did something to that effect.”

“Right then, I’ve got some yarrow and some plantain leaves. Would you like to apply the spit poultice to your special some cat personally Fizzle?” He held out the bushels of the plants needs to help jade and I took them all in hoof. “Apply directly to all her welts wherever they may be after you’ve chewed them nice and proper.”

“Yes, please do hurry and make it stop Fizzy.” It was so disturbing to hear Jade say that so flatly, but I threw some of the yarrow and plantain leaves into my mouth and got to work on chewing them.

After having chewed the yarrow and plantain leaves for a while I spat a large wad out into my hoof and looked ups at Jade as she took her shirt off.

I moved over to Jade and started to rub this gunk into her fur, smoke started coming off of her in a hissing noise like that of a fire being put out. Jade sighed with audible relief and leaned into the circular motions I was making with my hooves.

“Be sure to evenly coat her welts Ms. Berrytwist and she’ll be feeling better in no time.” You were a good stallion Dr. Permanganate.

“No, time already happened, just a little more caressing like this and I’ll be in Elysium.” Smiling, I started to get Jade behind the ears and she almost melted into my hooves. "Yep, I've gone to Elysium. Tell my friends I loved them."

"Stop being so dramatic Jade." I threw some more herbs into my mouth and began chewing. "You've had worse than this."

Author's Note

I hope I got my 'spit poultice' facts correct. I decided also make this story slightly more educational now!

Chapter Thirteen, Salve Searching: Wrong ingredients.

-Celestia-

I sighed as I teleported to Airship Mauled. I had forgotten about the golden airship they stole as evidence, I hadn’t even thought of what to do with it. As soon as I arrived at Airship Mauled, I didn’t see a single sign of it.

I can only guess as to what happened with it, I didn’t even know how I was going to get all that gold back anyway. Teleporting that much material would cause a bit of a strain. I made my way for the pyramid on a hunch.

I entered the small pyramid and saw Sekhet Sphinx just relaxing on her stone throne in a lazy manner, one of her ears flicked and she suddenly sat up and turned to me. It was probably the sound of my hooves that alerted her to my presence.

“Excuse me for intruding, but do you know what happened to the airship made of painted over gold?” This was her home and I was intruding, I shouldn’t be too rude.

“Yes, I do know what happened to it. I filled my treasury with it after breaking the ship up into pieces.” Despite giving the war goddess a flat stare, Sekhet just smiled at me. “What, did you need it for evidence? We already took pictures of it and we now have a small outdoors swimming pool.”

“I would at least like most of it returned so that I can reimburse a few ponies for what that horrible pony Billion Karats managed to get away with. It was embezzled from my treasury so would you mind if I took it back?” The annoying Sphinx goddess rubbed at her chin thoughtfully as she took in my words and considered them. “There is no way anyone can spend an entire ship load of gold that fast.”

“You’d be correct sun bum, but why should it be returned?” It would be the right thing to do, but then what would you know about right things to do Sekhet. You hoard cake away from the innocent world and my mouth you evil pony faced cat! “It was gold already spent and turned into an airship and used illegally by unscrupulous sorts before it was rightfully brought to light by the Airship Maulers of the Airship Mauled Adventurers Guild, I think they could still have a better name for themselves and the guild. Wouldn’t the gold belong to Airship Mauled now? We’re not going to use it as an airship and we’re holding it as currency.”

“Look, can’t I just get some of that gold back?” I really wasn’t asking for much here, I wanted to get this over with quickly so I could get back to playing with… er…. teaching Twilight. Yes I was teaching Twilight Sparkle and most certainly not secretly using her to get time off from my princess duties.

“Fine… but only the front quarter of the ship, our Airship Maulers went through a lot of trouble to steal it and successfully pulled off a bunch of convoluted things to expose that criminal element.” Stop looking so smug Sekhet, you riddle loving monstrosity against cake going down my throat and instead making it go down yours you greedy Sphinx! “Besides your coffers should fill much faster without that drain on them. So really, you don’t need that much back. The real reason why you want all that gold is for cake money.”

“Nonsense, I can honestly say that’s not the only reason I want the gold.” Though it’s the major reason why I was here, I wanted to talk to Jade about her habit of causing chaos around Canterlot. It was starting to give Discord some power back and I’m afraid he’ll break free if he gets enough strength from all of her shenanigans. “I’ll be taking thirty percent of the ship from the front.”

“Twenty seven percent.” Oh it was going to be like that was it Sekhet? It... is... on!

-Jacky-

I watched as Jade and ‘cat mom of the year’ Kuril fired what they called magic missiles from their hands. It was a natural thing that all unicorns could do, build up magic and fire from their horn. It was so simple, yet there was a huge difference between unicorns and what Kuril and Jade were doing.

Jade called it an abnormality among casting, the cast drained energy from the user and didn’t destruct the object being using. The object in question was air itself and it seems like something that Jade nor Kuril can actually destroy in a cast.

Unicorns could fire magic missiles while changing the power, strength and speed of said magic blasts. They could even feasibly change the direction of a magic blast mid-flight and could even make it homing. Jade and Kuril could only fire in one direction at a set specific size and power, but the force behind it was pretty powerful.

I personally was working on shooting my arrows. Remove one from the quiver hanging above my tail, pull, breath and… release!

The arrows goes shooting straight backwards and in the complete opposite direction. I decided now was one of those times to break out my list of pirate expletives, how does my bad luck effect a perfectly nocked arrow like that? By all rights my arrows should just fly straight and in a mostly forward arc!

Whenever I release an arrow from this bow, it can go spinning, it goes left, it goes right, it sometimes veers straight up at a ninety degree angle upon being fired and that’s not even physically possible! Is it something to do with the magical alchemy on the bow or is it my luck that’s causing this, I’d seriously like to know.

“Excuse me… but is this your arrow?” Turning to Arizona, I squeaked a bit and stared at the impaled cow bell. The tail end of my arrow had impaled its way through the cow bell and the arrowhead was left sticking out of it.

“Yeah, sorry, I don’t know what it is about this bow, but the arrows do really bizarre and strange things when I fire them.” I really didn’t want any trouble with Arizona, she was really strong for both her size and her age. It sometimes made me wonder how she ended up here with Grace. “That arrow for instance fired backwards out of my bow despite the string moving it forwards!”

“Yeah, I kind of figured when the rear of an arrow impaled itself on my cow bell. It’s a good thing I have so many spares.” That was the one thing no one understood about you Arizona, why do you have so many cow bells when you don’t even wear or use them? Why did Jade even ask if you had a cow bell and what was the point of having one during The Gilded Buttress heist? “Where do you keep getting them from and why do you keep getting them? You never really use them for anything.”

“Hey! I’ll have you know that I do too use the cow bells and so does Grace, we just don’t do use them in public.” Okay, that just brings up so many more questions Arizona. What other uses could there be for cow bells aside from making noise. I felt it was the better part of valor to never ask. “Well now that I’m here anyway, I want to see you fire that bow.”

“Get back here you evil antlered rabbit!” Jade ran on by chasing after the rather elusive jackalope firing blasts of energy from her hand at it. It was swiftly evading her attempts to do whatever Jade thought shooting it with a magical ovals of energy would do. “Drop fire wasps on me will you!”

Jade disappeared off into the distance and Kuril calmly came over to us. Arizona pulled the rear of the arrow out of her cow bell and held it out for me to take it from her hoof.

“While my kitten is distracted, I guess I can find out what are you girls up to. Oh my goodness, is your cow bell alright Arizona!” Okay seriously, what was up with the cow bells and why were they important!

Even Kuril seems to know the answer and nobodies bothering to tell me, we never had cows on Turtle Toga so I would not understand the significance of a cow bell. All they do is make noise, yet Arizona treats them like they’re special when they aren’t very special at all.

“It’s a little impaled, but its fine Mayor Kuril. I’ve got plenty more where this came from.” Mumbled Arizona flatly as she moved the cow bell out of sight and it seemed to disappear into thin air. “I was going to figure out how Jacky managed to fire an arrow straight backwards.”

“Her arrow shooting issues are always a must to watch in action, something silly always happens.” Well that didn’t sound mean at all Kuril, sure go ahead and get amusement from my bad luck. “I can’t tell if it’s her bad luck or a random magical property of the bow Jade made.”

“It’s more than likely my luck.” I nock the arrow took aim at the target and judged the distance needed to hit it. I pulled and released the arrow, the string sprung forward with arrow and the arrow started flying straight for the target. It then hit the target without veering off course much to my amazement, it also landed in the center.

“You’re not a bad shot my cute parrot, I guess it’s just your bad that luck causes all kinds of weird things to happen with those arrows.” Well Kuril wasn’t wrong and I took the compliment and the pats to the head. “Just keep working on it Jacky.”

I was getting pretty good at hitting the targets, when my arrows didn’t do a whole slew of wonky and absurd things. I nock another arrow and fired it, in the same way as I fired the previous one and it left the bow on a completely different and higher trajectory. It’s like I just hit a lob in tennis, the arrow came down below the previous one at an angle.

“Yeah, that’s really weird. You were aiming it in the exact same way and it flew higher. I certainly didn’t feel any wind when that happened.” Of course you didn’t Arizona, I don’t think wind would have quite that effect on my shot.

“Oh, aim an arrow straight down at the ground and fire it!” Turning to Kuril who was bouncing up and down excitedly, with a groan I decided to do just that.

Arrow to bow, aim straight at the ground and… the arrow should just go into the ground. Instead, when released, it flies as if I fired it normally. I was pretty sure I was aiming absolutely straight down and the arrow just goes and strikes the target just next to the first arrow.

“Yeah, I’m getting the feeling that you should personally stick to cannons. Something like that should be impossible without magic, but knowing you and the bow possibly being magical… I can say without a doubt that I have no clue how that even works.” Arizona shrugged and went for The Helping Hooves Inn. “I’ll see everyone later for evening vittles, I’m going to hang with Grace for a while. I don’t want her to get lonely by herself.”

“Later Zone! You know I’ve been meaning to ask Kuril, what exactly was that obscure law involving Chancellor Pudding Head about exactly?” I hadn’t thought to ask about that until now. “You know the one I mean, it’s the one Jade and Maries used while they were up in Canterlot.”

“Well the law just makes it legal to stuff rubber chickens in unusual places without repercussion or that’s the basic gist of it anyway.” That still didn’t explain why there was a law making it a legal action Kuril. “I’m pretty sure Pudding Head was a distant ancestor of Pinkie Pie.”

Okay, that was something I could certainly believe. It would certainly go a long way to explaining a whole lot about the obscure law that allows you to force a normal duck to wear pants. Why would any pony need to use that law anyway? Why bother with putting pants on ducks? How did Pudding Head get so many crazy obscure laws that haven’t been repealed and were still valid one thousand years after the fact? I should stop thinking on this, it’s making my head hurt.

“It’s just Pinkie’s ancestor being Pinkie’s ancestor, got it.” That’s what I was going with and I was going to stick with it.

“Sounds fair to me.” Kuril shrugs and turned towards the sound of a limping figure. Jade had a smile on her face, she was battered and bruised beyond belief and in her left hand she was clutching two antlers. “You didn’t kill it did you?”

“Of course not mom, but the little monster really didn’t like me stealing his antlers. Did you know jackalopes become stupidly fast when they lose their antlers? I sure didn’t.” The battered and beaten, but relatively triumphant, Jade continue to limp on past us and towards The Witch’s Fare. “I’m just going to go lay down for a while, so if you’ll excuse me. Oh and could someone collect some yarrow and plantain leaves. That would be helpful, thank you.”

I would have to remind myself to not get into a fight with a jackalope if it could rough up Jade that badly.

“You know, now that I think of it… didn’t that jackalope Jade was chasing have wings?” Yes Kuril, I saw the wings too. The jackalope a few hours ago didn’t have those. “No… wait… jackalopes never get wings unless… that wasn’t a jackalope, it was wolpertinger! I should probably go tell Jade about that.”

The grey wingless jackalope went hopping right on by us, antlers intact and the same as they were hours ago, while seemingly laughing out loud at Jade’s misfortune.

“Yeah, I should definitely go tell Jade that she just met and fought a wolpertinger.” She chuckled dryly as she walked away. “They are far more violent than jackalopes and you can easily confuse the two for each other.”

-Kuril-

“Kitten are you okay?” I opened the door to her room and looked in on her.

“Yeah, I’m fine, but who knew a jackalope could fight so hard? At least I got some jackalope antlers out of it.” Oh my poor Jaded, I’m sorry to tell you this but…

“Jade, that wasn’t a jackalope, we saw the jackalope and it still has its antlers. You just took the antlers off a wolpertinger.” That earned me a stare as my kitten immediately sat up.

“Are you kidding me?!” She shouted in horribly annoyed manner.

“No I’m not kidding, we in fact saw the jackalope and it still has its antlers. Those are the wolpertinger's antlers.” My daughter forced her face into a pillow and let lose muffled scream of frustration. “Well look at it this way Jaded, at least it wasn’t an al-mi’raj.”

“Yes, because one of those would have actually killed and eaten me. They’ve been known to eat Ursas despite their small statures.” Jade sounded very frustrated and tired, firing so many magic missiles takes a lot out of her. “I wouldn’t put it past the jackass jackalope, that I declared war on, to be responsible for it appearing.”

Chapter Thirteen, Salve Searching: Acquired ingredients.

-Fizzle-

“Thank you Mr. Refreshment.” A nice cool fruit smoothie made things better for my slow day. Well at least it felt slow to me. Jade was spending time with her mother or chasing after the jackalope, whichever it was.

“Mention it to everyone you know. I’m not just a fruit grower, I’m a specialist in make tasty drinks as well!” Look Mango, I would, but all my friends already know about you. Even Pinkie knows and she hardly visits that often since she’s usually very busy in Ponyville. “My name is Mango Liquid Refreshment after all, humble fruit farmer and juice maker.”

“Sure, I’ll get right on that.” Please understand sarcasm the first time, I did not want to keep using it on you.

I finished my drink gave the cup back to Mango and went to see what Jade was up to, it was getting to the point that mom would start working on dinner soon. The best course of action to find Jade was two sources when I’m not the one being asked where she is, one is Jacky and the other would be Snickers the sea turtle dove that seems to know where we always are.

Jacky was the most obvious one to talk with, I saw her practicing with her bow. She wasn’t bad at using it, but the arrows tended to defy reality in how they worked and even Jade was wary of approaching her. She was about to fire an arrow and I stayed well away from her until she finally released her shot.

Much like the other times Jacky loosed an arrow it shot into the tree above me and a reddish purple mango dropped right onto my face. I quickly reached out a hoof and caught the mango with the arrow lodged in it. It was safe enough to be around Jacky when she’s firing a bow, she’s never hit anyone or anything in a lethal manner with those blunted arrows.

“Is this yours?” I state calmly holding the arrow in the mango out to her, she looked a little sheepish and plucked the arrow out of the mango. Rolling my eyes I took a bite out of the mango. It tasted pretty good, but not overly sweet. “Do you know where Jade is or the direction she was last seen going?”

“She went to her bedroom to rest off being battered by a wolpertinger, that jackalope outsmarted her forty or so minutes ago and tricked her into attacking it. It must be upsetting for Captain to lose a battle of wits to a jackalope more than once.” Thank you Jacky, that was very informative. I gave her a nod and she nodded back, then I was on my way as she nocks the arrow again.

Seconds later I ducked my head while moving forward, the spinning arrow that soared over my head made me roll my eyes. I stopped to pick up the arrow, I flicked it backwards and then lightly bucked it in Jacky’s direction.

“Thank you!” Being thanked by Jacky made me smile, it felt good to be appreciated.

As I walked up to the restaurant I heard a familiar voice calling out to me. Like Sekhet, this was a goddess I knew that couldn’t do anything for me and I felt a little miffed that Celestia had both a horn and wings.

“Excuse me, but do you know where Jade is at the moment? I need to talk with her.” Vaguely lending Celestia an ear as I went inside, she followed me and then made a comment on the first thing she saw in the room. “Is that a tied up thestral sitting in a chair on top of a bedpan?”

“Yes, I know where Jade is, she’s up in her room. Also that’s one of the assassins that attacked Jade, don’t rightfully know what we’re going to do with her aside from take care of her like we have been.” As I spoke the thestral turned to look at us and seemed a little bit intimidated by Celestia’s presence. “She hasn’t really been much trouble for us and we’ve been feeding her quite well, we don’t have it in our hearts to torture her. Mom babies her a lot, despite the fact that she’s tried to kill Jade twice over already and is a full grown mare.”

“Have you been able to get anything out of her?” Celestia didn’t seem overly curious about the assassin, to be fair the bat pony didn’t really do anything interesting tied up like she is.

“We can’t, she literally can’t talk at all.” I was still quite angry that she was interrupting my date with Jade. Not that her inability to talk means she’s bad at what she does, I just happened to be able to beat her up before she got too far.

The unnamed draconic winged pony wasn’t able to fight off Maries either, but at least Maries had the advantage of surprise, size and muscle on her.

I’m a lightweight young unicorn pony, a pony race not exactly known for its physical prowess, who beat her to near unconsciousness. That’s when I almost got stabbed in the back by her, I think I’ve learned my lesson from that and the pukwudgies. Never feel safe until you are absolutely sure it is.

“Is she missing her tongue, are her vocal chords weak or does she not simply have them?” Out of all those things Celestia. The most valid would be the vocal chords, but in the opposite direction.

“None of those, the problem is that her vocal chords are too strong. I’ve heard rumors of the royal voice, well that’s her natural state of existence and it hurts her ears and those are quite important to her as a thestral.” There was another thing about her that I really should inform Celestia about. “We know she can write, but we don’t trust her with a quill, pencil or even any other writing implement you can think of.”

“Okay then, so what room is Jade’s?” Celestia could either be left to figure that out on her own or I could ask a question before leading her there.

“Before I show you, what do you honestly think we should do with Ms. Stabby?” I couldn’t care less if the assassin got angry with me for calling her that, the only one trying to build trust with her was 'Kuril The Motherly'.

“In my opinion, you could try to befriend her. At the very least try to find out what she’s being paid to attack Jade and why she needs that money.” That didn’t sound like too bad an answer Celestia. “You then show her a better path and that it’s not a good idea to continue attacking Jade, with force if necessary.”

“Has anyone ever attempted to assassinate you?” Just something I needed to know to sate my curiosity.

“Oh plenty of times. Assassination attempts on me happen at least once or twice a year, sometimes five if someone is feeling particularly vindictive.” From the looks of it, Celestia had never really seriously been hurt. Her fur, feathers, hair and everything about her looked completely unblemished by the harsh life she is supposedly leading as the current leader of Equestria. “Think of that and add to the fact that I’ve been alive for over a thousand years. If someone were to successfully assassinate me, then moving the sun will get a lot harder and whoever managed it would practically doom the world. We don’t exactly have the top tier unicorns that we did in the past, there are a few I can find that could aid in moving the sun and I can certainly tell you that none of them are nobles.”

“Okay then, I’m particularly satiated in questions.” I motioned to the princess lazily with a hoof. “Come along, I’ll show you Jade’s room.”

As we made our way up the stairs, Kuril was on her way down.

“Hello there Celestia, here to see Jade? She’s a bit down in the dumps at the moment thanks to meeting a particularly gifted jackalope, maybe you could help cheer her up.” Mom stopped and swept me up into a tight hug and rubbed her face and whiskers against my cheek. “You were just about scheduled for a quick hug anyway my little Fizzle.”

I squirmed a bit and Celestia smiled at the affection I was receiving from mom. I was giving back just as much by hugging mom with my hooves that I wrapped around her. She eventually released me and continued on down the stairs. We made it to Jade’s room I opened the door to see Jade’s tail sticking out of the cardboard box.

“Jade, Celestia needs to talk to you about something.” I heard Jade groan, before she sat up to lean against the edge of her cardboard box to stare at us. “Also I heard you were bummed out about how the jackalope has managed to outsmart you a few times.”

“He’ll get his in due time, no one can outsmart me forever… except at many subjects with the most prominent being complicated math.” At least you knew you weren’t perfect Jade, but you were definitely cuddly and made sleeping easier for me. I still can’t believe I forgave you for forcing me to attack you. “Does this need to be private session Celestia or can Fizzle stay?”

“She can stay, it’s not of grave importance… and you probably would have told her about this anyway.” Sighing Celestia sat down and looked slightly amused to see Jade go back to relaxing in the cardboard box. “It’s about Discord. I worry that your chaotic actions might have caused the seal to loosen on him.”

“He’ll get free eventually anyway, no matter what you do really. You can’t keep chaos locked away forever. Chaos, it happens every day in small or big ways.” From the sound of it Jade knew what she was talking about and I looked to see Celestia had a slightly upset look on her face. “It’s a necessary part of the world Celestia. Without chaos both positive and negative, there is only stagnation. Discord will eventually break free, but it will not be me who causes that to happen and I will admit that he causes too much chaos that goes well beyond his job parameters. It's still his job though.”

“Do you have any suggestions for what I should do if he gets free?” It sounded like Celestia wasn’t about to get into a philosophical debate with Jade about this, because it sounded like Jade was holding back a very long tirade about something related to ponies in general. I just had a feeling about that, I should ask after Celestia leaves. “I ask because you seem to know of the situation already.”

“I’m just guessing, while I’m not asking you to confirm this, that you don’t want me doing any more weird things around Canterlot. Mind you he gets power from any chaos, even the chaos that ponies themselves create.” That sounded pretty dire Jade, were you going to say something helpful to Celestia at least? “So really, it is quite inevitable that he will break free. Destroying the statue won’t stop him from breaking free and would make it all that much harder to contain him. When he breaks free… not if… just do what you can and your best. Things will work themselves out, mark my coming words. Discord can’t break the balance of harmony, he can only upset it drastically. A few special reminders at the right time will help you immensely in tipping the balance back to normal.”

Celestia gave Jade an odd stare and titled head, she looked towards the ceiling and then back to Jade and nibbled at her bottom lip.

“What did you need from that jackalope?” As soon as Celestia had asked that, Jade perked up immensely.

“Well I don’t want to hurt him for starters, I just want his antlers for some important magical research I’m doing.” Getting out of the box, Jade pointed to the antlers that were sitting upon the desk in her room. “I heard that their antlers grow back really fast and instead I ended up with wolpertinger antlers, which grow back at considerably slower speeds. Doesn’t make the wolpertinger any less dangerous to face head on, note my roughed up appearance.”

“I will assist you in retrieving the jackalope antlers.” We both looked at her as if Celestia had a screw loose. “It’s about time I did something a little bit unusual personally, where is the jackalope?”

-Thirty minutes later, Jade-

Wow, that jackalope has got to be one of the smartest animals I’ve ever met. Five pitfall traps, two more fire wasp hives, a smashing logs trap and even a normal hunter’s tree snare. Celestia was currently hanging from said tree snare. Fizzle was getting pretty good at seeing the traps before I walked into them, mostly because she cared about my safety more than Celestia’s health.

“Excuse me for what I’m about to do if I see that jackalope again.” Celestia mane was a bit unkempt with bits of leaves and twigs in it, her fur was a bit matted and her horn was covered in tree sap and her body had green splats of spit poultices chewed and applied by Fizzle. She was hanging by her rear hooves and the look in her glowing eyes was murderous.

“Why, what are you going to do?” In answer to my question the jackalope hopped out and started to shake his butt at us, Celestia lit her horn and her throat suddenly became incased in a magical glow for a few seconds. I slowly turned to Fizzle.

“Cover your ears, I think I know what she’s about to do.” I crouched behind a tree and covered my ears, Fizzle immediately followed my lead by crouching next to me with hooves on her head.

“YOU WILL NOT GET AWAY THIS TIME, BECAUSE I’M GOING TO ROYAL VOICE YOU INTO SUBMISSION!” The ground shook and quaked, the skies immediately became cloud and the shockwaves of Celestia’s voice had stunned the annoying little antlered rabbit stiff. “THIS IS ONE OF THE FEW TIMES I WANT TO HAVE FUN AND YOU ARE RUINING IT! CAN YOU POSSIBLY BE MORE ANNOYING TO DEAL WITH, I ASK OF YOU!”

I calmly got up and walked over to crouch down next to the jackalope who almost looked like he was dying from a heart attack, either that or Celestia’s voice had successfully overloaded his brain and he could no longer run, fight or react to anything properly. This goes to show that I should never make Celestia yell at me.

“Thank you Celestia, you’ve been a great help!” I kneeled down and pulled out my knife to start sawing away at the first antler.

-Five minutes later-

“Well that was an eventful way to end an afternoon, so are you staying for dinner Celestia?” The lovely pony goddess nodded and looked like she got her appearance completely in order.

“Well I don’t know if I should… depends on what your mother is making.” It sounded like Celestia was staying for dinner to me, she was only trying to act like she was uninterested.

“Jade needs more vegetables, to that end tonight is a night I made coconut cake.” Mom’s most unique way to get me to eat more vegetables, because I hated coconut cake.

Author's Note

Okay I'm beginning to really flag a lot... ugh my head hurts from having done this for almost two... or has it been nearly three months straight? I've lost count.

A little help here someone?

Kuril The Motherly- Title makes Kuril more prone to taking care of others, often at the expense of ignoring her weird tom cat daughter.

Chapter Thirteen, Salve Searching: Hydra-ted ingredients.

-The next day, Jade-

Coconut had a texture that I didn’t like and Jacky could agree with me on that, still mom always did get me to eat extra vegetables and I didn’t complain as I had a full stomach at the end of the night. Now today I was outside Froggy Bottom Bog, with Fizzle in tow.

If you were wondering, the jackalope has already grown his antlers back. The overnight recovery was ridiculous, the wolpertinger was around and its antlers were going to take a while to grow back. At least I could tell the difference in the antler coloration, still the wolpertinger antlers could prove useful so I kept them.

I could have chosen an easier thing to go after today, but no. I was choosing to go after hydra scales right now and it was dangerous for me to do this, given how big and dangerous hydra could get. I wanted to do this alone, but Fizzle wasn’t about to let me go anywhere by myself. At least she was bright enough to know I was going to get into trouble today, just not what kind of trouble.

She was the only one here with me and I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a complaint about what we were doing here. The brown bubbling muck looked as it smelled, that being horrendously bad. We were sticking close to the swamp trees and the solid ground outside the swamp, my reasoning is that a hydra couldn’t bite through the trees. Also trees would slow a giant hydra down. Smaller ones, not so much.

“Jade, what are the chances we get swallowed whole trying to get some scales off a live hydra?” Turning to a very alert Fizzle, I answered her worries with a kiss to the right cheek.

“Don’t worry Fizzy, we just need to find a sleeping hydra and collect its scales carefully without it waking up. It’s that simple.” At least I hoped it was, it’ll certainly be harder than getting salamander scales. Fizzle was blushing and looking a bit shy, it was just so easy to get cute reactions out of her. “This won’t be too hard… I think. I mean collecting salamander scales wasn’t hard right?”

We still needed to test the salamander scales or at least mom would do that today, if they were anything like fish scales then we’d have fire breathing down as a new magical alchemy sustain by the end of the day. Unless dragon scales give us fire breathing then I don’t know what salamander scales would actually do. So many magical alchemy things to test, so little time to test it personally.

“Bucket of water to the mouth, hold mouth shut because they can’t open them very well like a crocodile and shave off a few scales.” The method Fizzle was describing was what we did to get some salamanders scales before the salamanders were thrown back where they belong, which is somewhere around Ghastly Gorge. “I doubt we’d be able to do the same thing to a cragadile and hydra get far bigger than those things! Even a one headed hydra is dangerous to meet Jade, they are bigger than a bear.”

“Two legs, a tail and one head, I’m pretty sure that we can take at least something like that Fizzy.” I was either brave, stupid or a combination of both with an added sense of crazy. We were out here looking for hydra to mess with and they weren’t pleasant creatures by any stretch of the imagination.

“Then don’t mind me when I say I told you so Jade.” You were still going to follow and help me on this Fizzle. So really, you’re just as bad as I am. “So are you going to take Maries up on that offer of a date? They just want to go fishing with you.”

“I’m considering it, it’s been a while since I went tail fishing. Just so long as we don’t fish anywhere where there’s bat-acudas.” We walked along the trees looking at the swamp pits for any sign of movement and our ears were alert for the sound of large stomping feet.

We were getting nothing so far, were there even hydra around at this time of day? It was still morning, a nice quick trip in The Ardent Survivor got us here quite fast.

“Aren’t they technically called bite-acudas? You know, because of their big snapping jaws.” Really Fizzle, were we seriously going to have one of those discussions?

“It would be bat-acudas, they have tiny bat wings that allow them to fly out of the water at you!” I would defend to the death that they were bat-acudas. They looked like the cross between a bat and a fish, so really calling those fish bite-acudas is dumb because barracudas are already known for their aggressive behaviors! The word ‘bite’ was superfluous, where bat wasn’t and was a descriptor. “I never agreed to call them anything else, barracudas are aggressive and are already known for biting. So why would you have a similar species using bite, when they have bat like features that allow them temporary flight like flying fish?”

“When you think about it, they are more like bat-ranhas. You know, because they swarm like piranhas… which makes even less sense that they are called bite-acudas in the first place.” Oh good so you weren’t going to get into one of those discussions Fizzle, you were just going to confuse the issue even further about what bite-acudas were. “Barracudas are sea fish, bite-acudas are river fish and seem to have little to do with barracudas on the whole. So why do they have that kind of name?”

“Well I want to lay into whoever named that particular brand of river fish with a sock to the jaw, but yeah fishing with Maries wouldn’t be so bad.” I stopped and looked about. We saw no movement through the trees and only heard the croaking of frogs, the trills of birds and the bubbling of the nearby bogs. This place felt absolutely calm. I decided to continue on with our conversation. “Bat-ranha sounds closer to what they actually are… do you suppose it was a pony that named them bite barracudas?”

“Maybe, but now that I’ve thought on it more, I think they are called bite-acudas because they are like bite sized barracudas.” Stopping to tap a hoof against her chin, Fizzlepop looked to start getting slightly aggravated by our topic of discussion. “Okay that’s still kind of dumb, barracudas that swarm like piranhas and… okay now I too am angry at whoever named them that! I think I’m right, they’d be more like bat-ranhas than bite-acudas.”

“See,you get where I’m coming from with this Fizzle!" We continued to scout the general area, I wonder if the population of hydra was small around here. "Except I still prefer the term bat-acudas.”

This place was technically outside of the Ever Free Forest, but still quite dangerous territory and we shouldn’t be getting too relaxed like we were. I passed right by Froggy Bottom Bog on my way into Ponyville the first time, never actually came here before this though. Kind of like how I passed by Flame Geyser Swamp and met Maries, but never actually went into the swamp itself.

“I’m not seeing anything out this way Jade, are you sure there are hydra here?” Yes Fizzle, I was quite sure there had to be one around here somewhere. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this just from being here, it’s a bit quiet. That was never a good sign when I was on my own.”

I was going to scrape a few scales off of one hydra, I need at least ten if they’re small. If they’re big, then I’ll just need five. At least enough for magical alchemy testing and to see if Zecora could use it in zebra alchemy to fix Fizzle’s horn. I wasn’t about to get Fizzle’s hopes up though, so I didn’t even explain why we were doing this. Just that I was going to do it.

“Yeah, I can see that being a thing.” So I was just going to throw this out there while we search for an elusive bog monster. “How was it being all alone?”

“I personally don’t like it, but I could survive being alone again.” One long pause from Fizzle. “Provided that I had friends and a home to come back to, knowing that everyone I care about will be waiting there for me.”

“Sounds good Fizzle.” My idle comment was met with a dry chuckle, I was about to continue looking about when I froze and realized something. “Fizzy… I have an important question to ask.”

“What is it Jade?” I carefully reached over and grabbed her by the broken stub to direct her attention to several things. “Why are you grabbing…”

“Quick question, does the hill we’re currently on have any trees or grass on it?” I cut her off with a sense of urgency in my voice.

“No, but what does that have to do with anything?” Instead of answering Fizzle, I pointed her into looking at several other hills which were covered in swamp grass or trees. The hill we were currently on was made out of thick dry and hardened mud, a large lump of it in the middle of the open ground near the edge of the swamp. Giving it a second to kick in for her, I watched as Fizzle’s pupils shrunk to tiny dots before returning to their normal adorably large size. “We’re standing on one… we are... standing on a hydra.”

It took us both a moment to recognize it, but the hill was shifting slightly. This hill wasn’t so much a hill, it was a mud covered hydra that was currently sleeping. Nice to know what to look for now when it comes to being careful of the surrounding terrain, frankly we tried not to make any sudden movements.

“I think I see the necks leading to the heads, you see those holes those are what it’s breathing through. I think I can see some teeth in that one, so it’s sleeping with a mouth open.” I pointed it out to Fizzle and she nodded once she saw the breathing holes for the hydra, any creature looking to make a shelter in its mouth was in for a nasty surprise. “This is perfect, we’re exactly in the right position to get some hydra scales.”

“Can you do that without waking it up though? This hydra is kind of big Jade.” Ignoring Fizzle’s worries, I started to carefully dig at the mud with my hands. Once I shifted enough mud out of the way I could see its scale beneath mud.

“Don’t honestly know, we’re about the size of ticks to it Fizzy.” I started to uncover more of the hydra, the scales weren’t going to be hard to get. It’s getting away with it that will be the hard part. “We have a slight problem here.”

“What is it?” Turning to Fizzle I gave her a weak grin.

“This isn’t the two legged variety of hydra… this is a four legged one.” I pointed at the blue scales to confirm this fact. “A Blue Back Hydra to be specific, four legged hydras are much faster and deadlier. So… we definitely do not want to wake this thing up. Two legged hydra are clumsy and easy to confuse or outrun, in this case we’d be hard pressed or lucky to even escape a hydra that is both fast on land and in water.”

“Then just don’t wake it then.” Sure no pressure Fizzle. Just a deadly four legged beast with multiple heads that we’re clearly in for a lot of trouble with if I just so happen to wake it up.

“I wish we had some anesthetic right about now so it wouldn’t be able to feel what I’m about to do.” I cleared enough of the mud away to gain access to a number of scales I needed. I looked at Fizzle and then turned back to the scales and started to carefully pry at one with my knife.

A hydra was a hydra right? It’s not like species mattered when it came to having the correct ingredient for fixing Fizzle’s horn, heck I didn’t even know if this would help in the first place. It was just a supposition about how hydra make extra heads having incredible regeneration powers that could feasibly help Fizzle recover her horn.

If it did matter, and Zecora told me so later, then I would know for certain that this world absolutely hated me or Fizzle. It didn't matter who the world hated, just that it hated one of us.

“Quick question, what do we do if something else wakes up the hydra?” Looking to Fizzle from my position where I’ve managed to pry up a single scale without the slumbering monster waking up, I saw an oddly panicked look on her eyes.

“We run as fast and as far away as we can get or find the nearest place to hide safely from it under a really sturdy tree.” I looked back down and started cutting another large blue scale off of the hydra’s back, at this rate and because of their size I would only need about four scales from this creature. Please world, don’t ask me to do this again with a two legged yellow hydra. “Why did you ask that?”

“Because I can see another hydra coming to attack this one.” Fizzle stated bluntly.

Standing up and looking over the rise of the fake hill, I saw a vaguely smaller three headed, two legged, yellow hyrda slowly stomping its way towards the hill we were on.

“Do you think it saw us?” I asked as I hurriedly pried away another scale from the blue hydra’s back, that was three scales and I was almost finished.

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s going to attack the hydra we’re currently sitting on. It’s already rearing back one of its heads to lung forward and it’s not currently looking at us.” Yeah, that was something you didn’t need to say Fizzle. I could even hear it growling loudly and it sounded hungry. “We are so dead aren’t we?”

“Not necessarily, they’re going to be too busy fighting one another to worry about eating any fast food. However we may get caught up in the scuffle if we’re still here when it...” I didn’t get to finish my line of thought.

Two of the heads of the yellow hydra roared a challenge as its middle head dove into the mud and the entire hydra shifted. The yellow hydra had grabbed one of the blue hydra’s heads by the neck, thus waking it up.

The muddy hill shifted, it cracked and slowly the hydra we were on top of started to stand, its other heads snapped out to attack the yellow hydra.

“Hurry up Jade, we’re about to become part of a horrible territorial dispute.” Believe me Fizzle, I know. I was already working on the two scales at once just to speed things up.

I had plenty of water to fight off a head or two from attacking us, but three canteens of chilled water wasn’t going to do a single thing to stop two hydra. Once I pried the scales free, the blue hydra was standing and already swinging its tail for the other.

Chapter Thirteen, Salve Searching: Partially hydra-genated.

-Blade-

Life was a horrid thing… at least it was sometimes. Being tied to a chair wasn’t so bad, but I was missing a lot of exercise. I think I could get free, but my target wasn’t currently around.

The food here was good, but that woman should stop treating me like a little filly... though I appreciated the effort she’s putting into it.

-Fizzle-

“Okay, let’s go!” Shouted Jade as she stuffed the scales into her pack, behind her I could see the blue scaly tail of the Blue Back Hydra slapping the three heads of the yellow hydra across all of their faces. That staggered it quite a bit, but it recovered within seconds and was already biting back with its razor sharp, ‘pony rending’, fangs of imminent death.

“How are we going to get down?” We were currently standing on the back of a large hydra and our position was rather precarious at the moment. We stumbled as the blue hydra stumbled from the swing of the yellow hydra’s tail.

“Yeah, that’s going to be a bit of a problem.” You actually think Jade? This is already seriously going to be part of a large number of problems, getting down safely wasn’t even the worst of them. It’s getting a good enough distance away to avoid getting trampled underfoot or hurt. “We’ll have to hold on until we get an opportunity to run for it.”

“Can I ask you a question before we inevitably die from this?” I don’t see any other direction this was going in as the back of the hydra we were on shifted as it stood up to claw at one of the heads of the other hydra.

“We’re clinging to the back of a hydra and we’re not going to die Fizzle, at least you’re not going to die while I’m still alive to make sure nothing happens to you.” Either you were just being chivalrous or you loved me more than you cared about your own life, Jade you're a lovely idiot. “So what’s the question? If it’s about marriage then I’m just going to say we’re too young to be thinking about that. That and I’m surprised you would think about that at a time like this, not to mention I’ve upset you greatly in the past and will probably do so again in the future. You might need to get your head examined.”

“No, that’s not what I was going to ask about.” Keeping my blush under control, I stumbled when the hydra was rocked by a particularly rough hit. Jade grabbed me and kept me from falling over or rolling off the side of the hydra. I certainly wanted off this ride, and like yesterday at that. “What I wanted to ask you was, what would have happened if Billion was actually a noble and could actually recognize you as a Sun Priest?”

“In the minor scheme of things, nothing much would have changed… watch out!” Jade tackled me out of the way as yellow head dug its teeth into the back of the blue hydra, I had almost been swallowed alive and Jade had just managed to keep me from being hydra food. The blue hydra made several of its heads roar in defiance and then they all bit into the offending neck of the head digging into the flesh of its back. “In the long term major things, the public would be outright informed of my very existence. I’d publically recognized in an official capacity and then assassins would be able to find me easier as my place of residence would be public knowledge. Not that the thestral we have tied up doesn’t already know where we are. Not to mention that there are still people out there that are trying to have me killed, but that’s not exactly of immediate worry. The plus side would be that Billion Karats would have allowed me to get away with a lot more stuff than I do, but I’d definitely be in far more danger than we currently are.”

“How can we not be in more danger than being stuck in a fight between two hydra?” I tackled Jade, returning the favor as another yellow head snapped at us.

“Well for one, the one we’re on doesn’t know we’re here yet and…” The blue heads of the hydra we were on roughly ripped off the offending head that tried to make a snack of us again. We were hit with a spray of bodily fluids and the now two headed yellow hydra stumbled back roaring in pain. “We’re not technically between their fighting yet.”

The stump where the yellow hydras third head used to be started to split itself in half and two new heads started to form on the two expanding and growing necks. The blue hydra was in the midst of brutalizing the yellow hydras body during this.

“Doesn’t make the current situation any less horrifying Jade.” I flatly point out while wiping off my face with my right hoof. The ripped off head was now creating a pool of blood on the ground and now there was a four headed bipedal yellow hydra fighting a four headed quadrupedal blue hydra.

“Eugh… my poor fur… the smell is going to take forever to get out.” Whined Jade, I think we had more pressing matters at the moment than us getting drenched in hydra blood. I knew she wasn’t really as upset about it as she sounded. I watched as Jade licked at the blood on her right hand. “It doesn’t taste too bad though.”

You were an absurd being Jade and I loved that about you.

“Focus Jade, I have a plan!” She turned to me with her ears at attention. The heads were gnawing and biting at one another, the hydra were both bloodying one another and ripping into flesh in a sickening display for dominance. I was more focus on our exit strategy, I pointed at the felled head. “We’re jumping off and onto that, the flesh of that dead head should be pliable enough to cushion us.”

“Sounds fair, get on my back and I’ll jump us down there and do a secondary jump by sustaining my griffon feather.” Of Jade’s repertoire of magical alchemy tricks, she really liked the griffon feather long fall trick. I clambered carefully onto Jade’s back and wrapped my hooves around her tightly digging my neck and face into her pack shoulder. “Hold on to your bowels Fizzy and get ready to start running!”

Oh trust me, my bowels will be the least of your worries when we finally get out of here. Jade ran towards the side of the hydra the torn off head fell on and leapt off the side of the blue hydra. She narrowly avoided the snapping jaws of the yellow hydra's newly forming heads from biting me off of her back.

We were going to fall short of the decapitated hydra head, but Jade kicked off the air and landed us right on top of it. It did in fact cushion our landing like I thought it would.

I quickly let go of Jade as we started tumbling down the ripped off head’s neck until we came to a complete stop on the chin near the ground. The head had landed upside down after it and a portion of its thick neck was ripped off.

Jade sat up and pulled out her knife to start prying up the freshly dead head’s scales. Ever the opportunist, Jade was collecting more scales for whatever reason she needed them. In the background eight heads were in a biting frenzy as the two hydra continued to rip and tear into one another.

The yellow hydra was heavier and able to get more force out of its tail, which it just slapped into the side of its opponent sending it tumbling. The blue hydra had more balance with its four legs giving it stability and it was quickly up and using its front claws to tear at the meatier body of the yellow hydra.

It was brutal to watch, and yet for some reason I couldn’t look away from the battle. It was like train wreck.

I felt a tug on my mane, it was Jade pulling me away from the fight and my hooves started to follow her tugging automatically.

“You know, this isn’t so bad, I mean it’s what amounts to two sumo sized opponents trying to push each other out of a circle.” At her insistent tugging, I turned away from the two large monsters and started following Jade off the chin of the head we landed on and into the trees. “Also they’re too busy with each other to pay us any real attention, so let’s get out of here before one of them wins and decide to snack on us!”

The last thing I saw of the two hydra was the yellow one managing to dig its larger claws in the blue hydras chest. We got away relatively unscathed, slightly bruised, covered in mud and hydra fluids. I had no idea where we were going, but Jade seemed to have an idea of some kind in mind.

We were a distance away when we heard the roar of the victor, it wouldn’t get us because we were already escaping into a thick forest.

“I wonder if Zecora has managed to finish setting up her home.” You would know that answer better than I would Jade, you were the one that went off with Zecora one day to explore some place called the Ever Free Forest. “Don’t drop your guard Fizzle, we’re entering the Ever Free Forest. I just hope Zecora has almost finished hollowing out the tree for her personal use.”

“Isn’t the Ever Free Forest said to be exceedingly dangerous?” I asked, I think I remember a number of warnings about entering this forest.

“Anything you hear in Ponyville is likely from those who can’t handle it… speaking of Fizzle...” She trailed off and looked at something off to the side. I turned my head and saw several wooden wolves sniffing the air, after a bit they gagged and backed off while whining loudly. “I was about to say run, but I guess there’s a definite positive side to being covered in hydra gore. Anything that comes towards us will be scared off by the smell of a bigger predator.”

“Well that’s something I guess.” I was dripping with hydra fluids and quite frightened for our lives right now, please tell me some good news Jade. “Do you even know where to go from here?”

“Not exactly, but I’m sure I can find her campsite quickly enough that it’ll be only slightly into the evening when we finally get there.” I’ll hold you to that Jade. “Could you please stop licking yourself?”

“But it tastes like pudding Fizzy.” I sometimes forget that my beloved friend is an omnivore given how often her meals are more often than not vegetarian in general, with the occasional side of fish that I also eat so I’m not exactly one to talk. “Pudding Fizzy!”

I rolled my eyes and release a slow drawn out sigh as I followed Jade.

-Two hours later, Ever Free Forest, Jade-

“See, told you we can find Zecora here in the forest somewhere.” We approached the safe campsite and Zecora took immediate notice of us and stood up. “And there she is. Hey Zecora, could you maybe provide some assistance?”

“Of course my friends who seem to be covered in stuff that is muddy, now tell me why it is that the both of you smell a bit… bloody?” Zecora’s nose wrinkled at our approach and she looked positively aghast with our smell.

“We went looking for ingredients to do things, one of which involved hydra scales. We got the hydra scales and another hydra came along and started to attack it and us once it saw us on its back.” Stopping to lick at my fur disgusting both Zecora and Fizzle in the process I continued. “We were lucky to escape with our lives and the scales I pried off of the hydra we accidentally ended up on top of. We could have done it without waking the hydra, but that other hydra really had it in for us.”

“It sounds like quite a tale, I’m glad to see that in escaping you did not come to fail.” Zecora pointed to the logs and the fire she had going. “Come, come, sit with me, get yourselves cleaned up and of that smell I’ll certainly help you be free!”

“Thank you, Zecora. Also the sooner you do that, the sooner Jade will stop licking herself and commenting on the idea of blood pudding being a thing that exists.” You do know that blood pudding is a real thing Fizzle, you’ve even had mom’s fish sausage in the morning and that’s basically what blood pudding is. Hydra were like giant swamp fish and even tasted like it too. “Hurry up with the help Zecora, watching Jade lick herself is going to make me sick.”

So I was a bit disgusting, hydra blood just happens to taste like a really messy pudding. Probably because of all the fat in the blood that is congealing on us right now.

“For my friends a towel or two, mostly to help wipe all that muck off of you.” Zecora tossed us some towels and the rest of the day went pretty well after that point.

-One day later-

“So you’re telling me that one of the potions you made can restore certain potions of a skeletal structure in a pony, but it can’t restore the wings, horns or the hooves in the ponies where the magic is most focused? Aren’t those rather highly specific things for the potion to ignore fixing?” Seriously, I had to wonder what was it about magic that made it so hard to recover just Fizzle’s horn alone. "The potion might help a few unfortunate ponies, but the ingredients are definitely not that easy to acquire. Also, are you sure other potion only helps fix any damage done to a being dentally?"

“It helps to have some things that are floral, when it comes to fixing your teeth with the potion that is oral. The potion is short lived, but quite powerful and can fix chips, cavities and many things like that in fact. It can only fix those things when it is given after the damage is done shortly after the act.” Zecora let off a slight chuckle, then she decided to address the other potion I had commissioned of her in a slightly sadder tone. “As for the potion to restore the body, it does just that. Unfortunately for you, it can’t heal damaged concentrations of magic my friendly cat.”

“Okay, can I at least help you with the shelf life of your potions by doing some magical alchemy on your bags?” I knew Zecora might one day be able to figure out a fix for Fizzle’s horn. She could fix teeth, make ointments and various salves, but this was the one thing that stumps her? “The oral fixing salve will be nice at least.”

It's like how Twilight can give a dragon a bushy mustache of hair and can even do the same thing to Trixie, but she can’t fix her friends destroyed mane in the future… yeah it makes complete sense and I'll totally buy that.

Author's Note

Jade is a bit upset that her efforts didn't immediately lead to success at the end there.

What was never tried was repeated casts of the mustache spell where Rarity's mane should be after it gets destroyed...

Dragon's don't have hair and Twilight says she couldn't make hair out of nowhere to fix Rarity's mane with Starlight Glimmer's help.

So what is the mustache spell doing exactly?

Chapter Fourteen, Oh Goddess Why: Thoughtful times.

-Another day, Jade-

“I think Zecora has gotten closer than anyone else, but she couldn’t make something that can restore Fizzle’s horn from the ingredients I found.” As far as I know she was the closest, I started to move my hand towards the cake batter only to get it swatted away by mom’s tail. “I left her some spare ingredients to study for now, I need to find more ingredients with regenerative properties. The more ingredient like that, the better. Eventually we’ll get to the point that we can heal the magic and damage of horns, wings and hooves. I can think of at least one pegasus filly that would benefit from having the magic in her wings fixed.”

I tried again for the cake batter only for mom to turn and glare at me.

“Kitten… birthday cake… for Fizzle… do you really seriously want to ruin the batter and her day?” Point, you have a very good one mom. I still gave her a pouting face, she smiled at me and turned around to go back to her morning preparations. “So you still got her a present right?”

“Of course I did mom, it’s not like I’d forget to get her one!” Speaking of which, I should probably go get it out of my room. The horn restoring potion idea was on the shelf for the time being and I promised Zecora to try and find more ingredients to see if she could actually pull it off.

Making Fizzle’s birthday a memorable and happy one was what I had to focus on now. I just had to go retrieve the present from the secret compartment of my cardboard box.

I wondered if anyone thought my obsession with my cardboard box was a bit absurd. Mom didn’t seem to think it was absurd, then again she now had an adult sized cardboard box in her own room.

-Fluttershy-

I knew today wasn’t the best day to cash in the favor from Jade and her friends, but it was coming up soon and I wanted their help with this. It was nice to hear that Jade committed no crimes…

I mean no obvious crimes aside from legally keeping most of the gold they stole and only Jade had to answer for her actions in a court of law, nobody even knew who the others were who took part in the theft. At least a bad pony was caught, but I still worried that I didn’t do the right thing. Mostly since Jade and the rest of us got away with a lot of gold that every pony, for reasons I didn’t entirely understand, stopped caring about once they had a real criminal to lambast.

Still though, these people were my friends and they were far friendlier than most ponies in Cloudsdale from school. I didn’t get along with many other fillies my age aside from Rainbow Dash and the less said about all the mean colts the better. I was a bit jealous of Rainbow Dash right now, but I couldn’t really complain just because Gilda was attracted to her and not me.

I could completely understand why Gilda was attracted to Rainbow too, she was far more interesting than I was. It wasn’t my low self-esteem talking, Rainbow just did a lot of exciting things while I stayed quiet and off to the side a lot of the time.

It’s too bad Gilda was going back home soon and that we couldn’t be closer to one another. I was having trouble working up the courage to even talk to her.

Shaking my head and sending my longer mane flowing about to get my concentration back, having long hair felt nice to me and Jade’s advice to grow it out was a good idea, I started descending towards Airship Mauled.

I came in for a landing and saw Jacky waving me over to her, I fluttered slightly and dropped in front of the parrot holding my wrapped present.

“Hey Fluttershy, nice to see you’re doing okay. Captain is busy making trouble for her mom, maybe she is even being helpful every once in a while. Follow me, I’ll show you where to put your present.” Following Ms. Chickadee inside, I was happy to note the party supplies were already put up. Did that mean Pinkie was here? “Fizzle is currently sleeping in with Jade’s decoy, she’ll be slightly upset when she wakes up and find out she’s snuggling Maries’ birthday gift. Also Maries has some more questions about animal behavior to discuss with you.”

“Sounds like a nice discussion to have over tea. Did Pinkie spend the night?” It looked like the party was set up by her.

“Nope, this party was set up by me. I read my party cannon instruction manual in full and figured out how to load an entire party into it. It’s really useful, just aim, fire and instant decoration!” A cannon set all this up Jacky? That’s really amazing! “Pinkie’s invited though, how have things with Rainbow been going?”

“She’s still my best friend and we spend a lot of time together.” I went to a nearby chair and sat down, I looked at the table and started drawing invisible circles with my right hoof. “She’ll be able to spend a lot more time with me soon, because Gilda will be going back home.”

“Want to talk about it?” Looking up at Jacky, I bit my lower lip and considered it. Would she understand how I’m feeling? At least I knew she wouldn’t laugh at me or think little of me, everyone here was so kind and I liked that.

“Gilda’s really intimidating, but I really like her. She’s so fierce and like Rainbow, I know she has a heart of gold in her somewhere while being so active and strong all the time.” My brightness at talking about her was taken down by the sadness that she was going away. “I’m just too… meek. I want to talk to her, but she probably wouldn’t like me on the principle of me being me. She gets pretty rowdy and is aggressively territorial about Rainbow.”

“There are plenty of nicer sounding people out there you could possibly have a crush on. I’m sure you will find someone more suited to you eventually, or maybe you might eventually get Gilda to notice you as you are.” Thanks for the vote of confidence Jacky, I’m not exactly confident in myself about that. “You’re a sweet, caring and kind pony Fluttershy, don’t pine away on missed opportunities. Keep pushing forward and find a suitable dream for yourself to pursue, make finding a special someone secondary until you’re ready for that to become a primary focus.”

“That’s a pretty sound idea, I’m already working towards learning all kinds of things about animals and I eventually want to run an animal sanctuary!” It would be my dream job, well on top of being an animal caretaker that is. I really loved my special talent, talking to animals is always so fun. “I need some time to think about this. Could you get Jade for me? I need to ask her something important.”

Jacky was right. Once I finally got my dream going, then I can actively focus on finding someone special to share it with.

Rainbow wouldn’t be interested, she’s only focused on weather managing and the Wonder Bolts almost exclusively. She’d be so busy training, traveling and practicing, she wouldn’t be around to help me very much and I wouldn’t want to get in the way of her pursuing her dreams. Rainbow was a very pretty pegasus though, I could watch her exercise all day despite her having a very colt like nature.

Pinkie Pie is mostly interested in sugar, food and making ponies happy, she’s far too excitable and not exactly what I’d call an animal loving pony. She’s more likely to spook dangerous reactions from animals. Still, she looked quite cuddly like a fluffy tiny ewe and even seemed to be happiness personified, but again she was a bit too much for me. At least I’m friends with someone who is cute with a nice flank to match.

Jade would be nice, but she’s already got two partners and I wouldn’t want to intrude on their relationships. She’s cunning and cute like a fluffy fox and knows a lot about myths, monsters, legends and various other strange things in this world, but she was far too adventurous for my tastes.

Plus there’s the thing about Jade being mentally challenging, I don’t know if she’s insanely intelligent or just chronically crazy. She is, beyond my own disbelief, going to start dating the very chimera that attacked her not long after we first met. Not to mention she’s already been on a really odd sounding date with Fizzle, dealing with assassins and salamanders did not sound like a very pleasant time to me.

Maries was nice, but very confusing when they almost always have three opinions to give on anything. Usually following the order of aggressive, defensive and inquisitive. I don’t think I’d ever want or even have the courage to date a chimera, especially not one that seriously threatened to eat me once upon a time.

Fizzle, the mare I was here for today, was very unusual. She tended to brood, was quiet and sometimes sarcastic, but I can tell she was a really great friend, very intelligent and even compassionate about things. Nothing puts a smile on her face faster than Jade’s antics or the mentioned Abyssinian getting affectionate with her. I was not about to ruin what made Fizzle happy, but maybe we could talk about our shared feelings towards mares or other being of a feminine persuasion.

If we were to discuss something like that, well I would say that I tended to like slightly masculine girls personally. Don’t know how Fizzle can handle the crazy Jade brings to the table like making Maries become lawyers despite their age with some rather obscure and possibly inane laws. Rainbow, Gilda and Jade all shared a trait of being aggressive, masculine and still beautiful in their own unique ways.

Just because I had a taste for masculine ladies, doesn’t mean I don’t like those of a beautiful or prettier persuasion. I would hardly say no to thinking about a beautiful ageless mare like Celestia when I’m older. Speaking of ageless beings that were majestic, there was also Sekhet.

Sekhet was seemingly friendly and kind, I honestly didn’t understand how she could be considered a goddess of war after getting to know her through my various visits. Jade confirmed that Sekhet could and has beaten entire armies into the ground by herself without help and I’d believe it, but it was so hard to compare that to her smiling face while she watches everyone else go about their day from the shadows. She seems really lonely sometimes, I wondered if there was ever someone out there for her?

“Hey, are you there Cutie? Hello!” My vision was suddenly taken up by Jade, once I realized I was being called out to and having a claw snapped above my ears. I yelped and fell backwards hitting the floor with a squeak. My wings were spread wide in embarrassment as I looked up at the smiling cat through my hair. “Jacky said you needed something?”

“Yes, I wanted to call in that favor you owe me Jade.” After helping me up and back into my seat, Jade sat down next to me and rested her head lazily on the table. “Sorry about bringing this to you today when it’s Fizzlepop’s birthday.”

“What did you need Fluttershy? I’ve got nothing to do until Fizzle wakes up, she’s busy cuddling the gift Maries got for her.” She started laughing about something and I gave her a confused look. “Don’t mind me Cutie. I just think it’s funny that Maries got her a body pillow with fake cat ears. Apparently we’re okay for mail ordering things around here without question, despite not actually having a post office yet. I don’t honestly know how that works or how they did it, but I’m curious to find out their mailing methods. Unless Maries just walked into Ponyville, but I haven’t heard of a riot happening.”

“Well the favor I need is actually you helping me with a pretty big thing… also it’s really dangerous.” I wondered why that made her perk up in interest. It’s only now that I remember that Jade might have an adrenaline problem, at least she’s smart about the danger she gets into and prepares accordingly. “Um…”

“Go on, I’m listening.” Well Jade was offering her help, how much trouble could she cause?

“A few days from now, I need your help getting a relatively large colony of lemmings to a forest in the south eastern portion of equestria.” Please don’t ask too many questions about how difficult this will be. “It would be nice if you and several other people here could help with driving them in that given direction.”

“How smart exactly are these lemmings?” Not the worst question you could ask Jade, but it was up there and it made me wince. “You can talk with them right?”

“Yes, I understand what they say, but… well they’re not quite smart.” Which is not something I’d normally say about any animal, but these particular lemmings were definitely intelligence challenged compared to all the other furry critters I loved and was becoming friends with.

“Rephrasing my previous question, how dumb are they?” Why are you so focused on their intelligence Jade? Okay yes, there was an absolutely good reason for you to focus on that, but you picked this up far faster than most ponies would have and was actively expecting something to be wrong with them.

“They’re complete idiots in the fact that they beat out Rainbow Dash for the definition of densest things alive.” Makes me wonder when Rainbow will eventually figure out why I watch her so much, I checked out her flanks quite frequently and she doesn’t think much of it. I think she may have missed the week that pony sexuality education was taught in school for growing ponies about to enter their teenage years. “They’re so dumb they run towards predators and try to jump into their mouths! It got to the point that they nearly choked a poor wolf to death. They are so stupid that they hug porcupines and after they get hurt, they just hug the porcupine again! I admit I love little, cute and cuddly creatures, but there’s a certain level of intellect that I expect from animals before even I can’t tolerate them any longer. I have my limits!”

“Well that sounds like fun and of course I’ll help you with it, but you’re going to need to convince at least two other people other than Fizzle to help you.” Well that was a relief to hear Jade, I was actually understating how dumb the lemmings really were.

“I am coming on this adventure, so you only need to convince one more to come.” Sekhet surprised us both when she said that, we didn’t expect her to even want to join in on an adventure. Guess she wanted to get out more and stretch her legs.

“What the buck… Jade!” Wow, that was really loud and Fizzle sounds kind of upset.

We turned to ask Jade what she was going to do, only she had quickly disappeared.

Chapter Fourteen, Oh Goddess Why: Good times.

-Fizzle-

We were on our way back to The Witch’s Fare after I had managed to catch up to a running Jade.

“Three quick questions Fizzle. One how did you know which direction I ran in? Two how did you catch up to me?” Those were questions I could easily answer Jade and if you thought about it, then you would already know the answer to them too. “And three… where did you even get the magical alchemy proof rope from?”

I paused and looked at Jade, she was currently laid across my back and tied up with rope. I… honestly didn’t know where the rope came from, I just had it on me when I finally caught up to her. That was a really good question, where did I get the rope that’s impervious to casting destruction from? I shook my head and continued onwards towards The Witch’s Fare.

“In answer to your first question. This is my thought process… ‘gee’ I’m such a smart cat, what’s the direction that Fizzle would never think I’d run in, especially the most dangerous place I could be physically running towards!” It wasn’t hard for me to guess she was running towards Barely Bearable Woods, which seemed like something she’d do to try and outsmart me. After the wake up I got, I was too angry to not be snuggling my fluffy cat to notice anything else aside from the fact that the door to The Witch’s Fare was wide open. “It didn’t take me two seconds to figure that out Jade, as for how I caught up. I believe in the power of anger, also not waking up to nuzzle you might have had something to do with that. You should already know that ponies can run fast when scared and even faster than that when angry!”

“Yes, I understand that. Apparently you don’t appreciate Maries’ gift of that body pillow.” Her words made me pause and consider the thing I woke up cuddling. “That’s not very nice, I thought you liked Mara, Maria and Marie.”

“I do and it was a thoughtful thing for them to get me that doesn’t require or force you to be in my bed.” I sent her a look. “That said, when I wake up and know you were in my bed the night prior, I at least expect you to still be there. You know I have abandonment issues Jade, it’s why I couldn’t abandon you when you upset me by forcing me to beat the tar out of you. I felt like I was in the wrong in that situation despite you setting it up!”

Things hadn’t turned out so badly and I’m more included in the community, people actually come to me for things and not just you or Jacky who are specialized in doing things. In particular Jade was specialized in fish scaling and menial chores that Fresh Start could be doing. Jacky was a savant and connoisseur of ships, she knew how to maintain many things. What did I have in comparison aside from a gimmick, raw uncontrolled magic and dreams of making something of myself? I would say a family that cares about me, but I’m talking things I can do to be helpful daily.

“In this situation I am definitely in the wrong for setting up something else that you may or may not have missed on the way out the door. Still, you haven’t explained the rope yet.” She wiggled violently on my back and sighed loudly, she was having problems getting at her knife to slice away the ropes and I wasn’t about to let her go free. Not if she’s dead set on running into drop bear territory, she is quite serious sometimes about getting me worried about her. “I can’t partial cast it away like I do with most things.”

“I haven’t the foggiest where I got the rope from, but I think it might belong to Arizona.” That would only make some sense to me, it made about as much sense as the cows and their cow bells do. I started past Jade’s never dying fire to open the door to The Witch’s Fare.

“Fizzle there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…” Stopping to hear what Jade would say, I quirked my head to her. She smiled at me. “I can wait to tell you inside.”

“Why can’t you do it out here?” Shaking my head at my friend and special some cat being weird, I opened the door and walked it.

“Surprise, happy birthday Fizzlepop!” Admittedly being hit by several voices at once made my horn flare, but after a moment I managed to get the magic under control and pulled it back within myself.

It was a birthday party… for me? I… wow… how did I not notice that stuff leaving the building? Wait, one of those voices had been Jade’s.

“See mom, I told you I could give you enough time to finish setting everything up and that she wouldn’t notice on the way out the door!” Darn it Jade, would you stop doing distracting things and planning around people including me!

Oh sure, it was cute the first few times you crazy rogue, but getting away with a large gold heist with only barely a slap on the wrist was just plain ridiculous to the point it was blatantly absurd. Now you do it to me to give me a birthday party? Actually that was kind of touching and sweet of you. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a birthday party, didn’t have one last year at any rate.

“Come on birthday pony. What’s on the agenda, it’s your day today!” Pinkie threw a hoof around my withers and gave me a tight squeeze, she really needed to learn that boundaries existed for a reason. “Do we start with cake, presents or lunch?”

“Was Celestia invited to this party?” I dryly asked.

“Nope, we figured there wouldn’t be any cake left for you if she came to the party at all, at least Sekhet is willing to share!” Pinkie turned to the goddess with a smile and Sekhet just rolled her eyes in a droll manner. Sekhet, you are my role model and I would not let anyone tell me anything different. “Isn’t that right Sekky?”

“Yes wall breaker, I know not to steal the cake before the one it was meant for gets the very first slice.” At least you had that going for you Sekhet, Celestia has no excuse for when she shows up out of the blue to steal our pies, cakes and pastries before we can even get to taste them. I think that’s why Celestia is letting us keep the gold we stole, she’s practically bribing us to not say anything about her uncontrolled snacking habits. “Why that’s just bad manners for a goddess to exhibit and I would not want to be like Celestia, incapable of controlling my deepest and darkest of urges for the cream cheese cake made for the likes of gods.”

My ears perked up, did she just say cream cheese cake?

-An hour later-

Delicious sweet tasty cake, started with a slice and ended with a slice. Now I guess it was time for me to open my presents. I’m quite curious as to what Jade could have gotten me, I was enjoying everything so far.

All my friends from Pinkie’s sisters, to Fluttershy came here just for me. I guess Rainbow Dash didn’t get an invite. I could kind of guess why that is, especially if Jade and mom were in control of the guest list.

“So… presents?” I asked amiably, I had no idea what any of them could have gotten me. I didn’t want for much more than acknowledgement.

I seriously doubt the silent assassin got me anything, she was still tied to the chair after all. Right now she was wearing a festive party hat and had a party blower in her mouth with a bit of frosting lining her lips. Even she got a taste of that cake as our favorite resident captured assassin that we weren’t about to let go any time soon.

I wonder how long it would take before Kurilian got to her or even Airship Mauled itself caused her to lose her taste for wanting to kill Jade. Stranger things have happened.

“Say a name and we’ll get it from the pile for you Fizzy… also could someone untie me?” Oh right, we did kind of forget to untie Jade once I brought her back. “Eating with my face might have been funny to start with, but these ropes really chafe a lot and everyone here is being rather cruel and unusual to me!”

“Yeah, because you would have eaten more than half the cake if we let you go.” After saying that Arizona got to work on freeing Jade. “Mom… I mean Kuril…. damn it now you’ve got me calling her mom! Anyway, Kuril only made enough for everyone to have two slices and we took care of the only greedy problem left.”

Jade didn’t defend herself.

“Would anyone here hate me if I suddenly decided to change my name to Mom?” Kuril, you were without a doubt impossible to hate and were a very good mother, Jade notwithstanding in those thoughts.

“Yes.” That’s not the general consensus Jade.

“You’re no fun my kitten.” Mom crossed her arms with a huff and looked away smiling.

“Continue untying Jade, so I can get her present.” My statement was made with a calm and clear mind, Arizona nodded and continued to work at the knots keeping Jade trapped.

“But things are staying so quiet with Captain being incapable of doing anything!” Yes, Jacky, we all know that freeing Jade from those ropes would lead to more shenanigans, but we couldn’t keep her tied up forever. It would get boring after a few days without her being able to do something odd. “Do we really have to free her?”

“You’re a mutinous swine Jacky.” The green haired cat received a smiling beak filled with cheek.

“No, I’m a mutinous parrot you fat gluttonous cow.” To everyone’s mild surprise, Jacky’s words didn’t cause either Grace or Arizona to react negatively. “Don’t worry, I’ll side with you again at a later date Captain, I am as loyal as they come… except on Fizzle’s special day.”

“Yeah, listen to the motor beak, she can power an entire airship by just talking it into the air.” Ah Limestone Pie was joining in on the ribbing with a sarcastic look upon her grey face that usually only had two looks, angry and angrier. She had a rough exterior with a golden inner core just like me, at least I thought she had a golden inner core…

Still, Limestone’s a pretty cool friend along with her sister and Marble Cheesecake Pie who is almost exactly like Fluttershy except she hardly ever talks and just likes to hum in a friendly manner when addressed.

Said ribbing had better end soon or else I would get upset.

As soon as Jade was free, she worked out the stiffness in her arms and legs and went off to go grab my present.

“It is so nice to hear that everyone is getting along so well, I can feel all the happy energy in the room.” Clapping her hooves together and talking like an angel was the ever friendly Grace. There were reasons we thought she lived in a different time zone from us, this was one of them.

“You too, I thought it was just me!” Scratch that, Pinkie was worse than Grace and always in another universe altogether.

“I’m not always in another universe though!” For some reason Pinkie was receiving a very odd stare from Sekhet for that comment. Wait a minute… did she just read my… “Nope, I certainly did not read your mind, that sort of thing belongs to a different Pinkie Pie entirely. I’m definitely the Airship Mauled nearly base level Pinkie Pie. Twilight’s Mane Passion Pinkie was too busy today to do the joke and who really knows what dimension Underworld Frisk Pinkie Pie is in today since I couldn’t get in contact with her.”

“It is best to not question her about what she means Lady Berrytwist.” Seriously Sekhet, I wasn’t going to anyway as Pinkie always said some really odd things that are better left alone and are not to be pursued.

All conversations stopped when Jade came back and kneeled before me before presenting a small gift wrapped box. I tenderly took it in hoof from the two hands that held it up to me reverently with a bowed head, I rolled my eyes at the dramatic tension Jade was trying to build.

“Can we tie her back up?” Tempting Arizona, very tempting. “She’s being stupidly dramatic.”

“Highly tempting, but no.” I started to open the packaging. Yellow ribbon, green wrapping paper, Jade’s usual colors that fit her theme of lemon and lime. “Though we might have to if she actually does something stupid.”

“My princess wounds me, and so cruelly at that!” She smiled at my indifference, I could feel a tug at my lips. Darn it Jade, stop being so annoying and cute! “Why I would never think of doing more than five virtuous things to upset her at a later date.”

“Do you want to be tied up again?” Not receiving an answer, I opened my present and looked at what was inside. I blinked in wide eyed awe, I reached into the packaged and opened the object.

It was a silvery white golden heart shaped locket, inside was a picture of Maries, Jade, Jacky and Mom on one side and on the other was me alone. Above my face was the word ‘you’ and below it was ‘close’. Their picture had the words ‘family’ above and ‘together’ below. I close the locket and I’d be together with my family figuratively… and when it was open I can see myself and my family waiting for me to get ‘close together’. A few tears came to my eyes and I wiped them away

“Upsetting thing number one, letting her know she can’t be replaced in our hearts!” Okay Jade, your current chivalrous accent was highly annoying, so you are kind of asking for it. “Sentimentality is always a good way to upset someone with happiness!”

“Tie her up.” My words were flat, but my eyes were moist and glued to the object and the string.

“No, wait… I’ll be good… I swear!” Really, you weren’t going to dig yourself further into the ground today Jade? That doesn’t sound like you. “At least as soon as I can figure out whether or not dropping a thoroughly provoked Taweret on Sekhet would be a bad idea or a funny one while making a joke about denial.”

“It’d be both Jade.” Never mind, I’m quite sure that definitely sounded like you. “Wait… who’s Taweret?”

“Somebody I’d rather not see ever again, she’s even worse than my sister.” Hugging herself, Sekhet shivered quite violently. “Do not use her on me Priest Jade, because my retaliation will be quite judicious.”

“Okay, what you have right there FIzzle is an electrum locket, which is practically indestructible after I sustained it.” Jade likely knew what that did, but she wasn’t going to tell me. I’d check the magical alchemy list later.

For the rest of the day, good times were had.

Author's Note

(New Alchemy Ingredient!)

Electrum Locket.

Chapter Fourteen, Oh Goddess Why: Bad times.

-Several days later, Jade-

This place was like a personalized lemming sanctuary, only it seems to have been in place for quite a while and it was quite a bit south of Manehatten. This sanctuary was meant to cater to many different animals, it has only had the recent problem of having to house thousands of lemmings. The place cramped full of the little annoying things, I’m actually surprised that the lemmings actually stayed within the fenced area.

Oh sure, this couldn’t turn out that horribly. Lemmings are fluffy little rodents that attracted predators, all kinds of monsters and many other things. That happens when they are being herded, Just like what we’re about to do.

I ignored my urge to eat a lemming to see what it tasted like, even if no one would miss one.

“When you said help you needed help with lemmings, I didn’t think you meant this many Fluttershy.” One would have assumed a few loads of caged up furry creatures to transport in The Ardent Survivor, that’s what I thought we would be doing. No… we had to apparently do this the hard way and on foot by herding thousands of lemmings to a far off southeastern forest. “Are we really going to do this?”

“I’m right there with you Jade, this does not seem like it is not going to end well.” Fizzle was being aggravated by the lemmings currently crawling all over her. She was constantly shaking them off of herself. “This is going to take a miracle to pull off, especially if they’re as dumb as you say they all are Fluttershy.”

“How many did you exactly say you wanted us to keep alive by the end of all this?” Intoned Sekhet watching as a lemming leapt from the tree and was saved from injury by the fourth member of our party diving to catch it. The alicorn sized Sekhet lazily flicked a lemming off of her nose. “I swear mortal maiden, this is a grand task that sounds incredibly difficult from the start. Even for someone of my lofty prowess.”

“Why did I agree to this again?” Don’t whine about this so much Cheerilee, you wanted to come here with us to this… what exactly was this place called anyway? Teach lowered the lemming she caught to the ground and watched it scamper off in an exuberant aimless manner.
“Well Fluttershy asked you nicely, you thought you could help me with my minor dyscalculia problem while we do this and you wanted to get an idea of what a field trip with a class would be like.” Now to just jab the knife in a little further, because I’m odd like that. “Plus you wanted to involve yourself on an adventure with me, which is a pretty bad idea all around considering the stuff I get myself and others up to.”

“I want all the lemmings to survive by the end of this Sekhet, yes we are going to do this Jade and I still want to help them Fizzle. I don’t care that they’re not really all that bright like all the other animals I can talk to.” Well look at you Fluttershy, only a few more years before you became your canon self and you were already this brave… mostly only for your friends though. Any random stranger that walks up will still make you fall over and squeak like a fainting goat. “I know it might be trying, but I think things will turn out okay if we all work together!”

“Can you be a little more realistic here Fluttershy? I mean, did you even check the names of the places we’re going into before you ask us to do this?” With places like ‘Raging Reptile Ridge’ and ‘Serpent Strath Path’, one could only guess the number of monster’s we’d have to fight on the way to the south eastern forest we needed to ditch all the lemmings at. I was already guessing at several different kinds of trouble mentally at this moment. “It is very unlikely that all of these cute little critters are going to survive the trip. Despite the fact that I come off as a miracle worker, I am in fact not. I am also not perfect. Is anyone else going to be involved in this or is it just us for all of this?”

“Not really no, I didn’t check the locations we need to go through. I volunteered to help with the lemming moving effort. I just didn’t think it would be this problematic, I was hoping that at least some pony aside from all of you would want to help with this. They are all already writing this off as a lost cause.” So you were having us do this out of the kindness of your heart, which was typical and highly sweet of Fluttershy. Now if only that didn’t drastically endanger our lives. “I don’t really care much for being realistic if it means that all these poor little lemmings have help getting to where they need to be. You were my first choice to turn to for doing very difficult things Jade, you’re very good at that. Sadly it is up to the just the five of us to handle these lemmings, the owners of this sanctuary need all the help they can get to repair all the damage the lemmings caused. ”

“Why thank you for thinking highly of me, so are you going to be the leader of expedition Fluttershy?” Plucking a climbing lemming off my leg and chucking it back into the sea of rodents, I turned to Fluttershy who gave me a sheepish grin that just made me sigh audibly. “You don’t actually want to be the leader of this expedition do you?”

“No, but I still want to be a large part of it and I think I can at least direct the lemmings. I can lead in that respect.” Fluttershy started staring at me with her big quivering soulful eyes. “Please Jade, will you still help me despite how horrible this is all starting to sound?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t going to help. This is a really tall order Fluttershy and I’m more likely to prioritize our lives over that of the many numerous lemmings, just so you’re aware.” I turned from her to my best friend and potential life partner Fizzle, we needed a few more dates to see if we could even keep what we had going. “That said, Fizzle you’re the expedition leader and are the acting commander here. Think of what we need for this aside from antivenin for at least five different species of snake, seven medical kits and a wagon loaded with food and camping supplies.”

“I er… what?” Blinking at me in disbelief for putting her in charge, I moved over to her and patted her on the back gently while explaining her need to take a leadership role to show some independence.

-Three hours later, Raging Reptile Ridge, Fizzle-

I was surprised Jade put me in charge, but I guess she trusted me with this and I wouldn’t let her down. I was at the rear with Sekhet. To our left was a coast, to our right was the ridge and forward was the road southeast leading towards ‘Serpent Strath Path’.

I had Sekhet pulling the supply wagon and watching the back of the lemming swarm, she didn’t seem upset to be given the most menial job out of the lot of us. In fact, she seemed oddly happy to be watching the supplies.

Jade was worried about our route, but it’s the best one we could get from the sanctuary owners who were asking for help with moving this ridiculous number of lemmings. She was at the far right of the herd making sure that none of the lemmings ran off in an unusual direction.

On the far left of the herd and interested in the ramifications of moving this many lemmings all at once was Cheerilee. She had given us all several logical reasons why we should have made several trips with The Ardent Survivor.

I for one had figured out the ramifications, we were removing the lemming population from the area because they were attracting predators to the nearby city of Manehatten. The number of lemmings we were dealing with were just as much a problem as was the monsters we might run into, plus there was the fact that Fluttershy wanted to help them all when it wasn’t very feasible to do so.

Fluttershy was at the front of the lemming herd and was trying to direct them, keyword being ‘trying’. Apparently the lemmings were like caffeinated fillies and colts, their attentions spans were shorter than goldfish and they kept trying to go everywhere. As such we couldn’t go in a straight line and we had a large snaking line of lemmings moving across the dusty trail. We really should have brought Arizona along for her expertise.

I’m surprised we even made it to ‘Raging Reptile Ridge’ without any really big… thought to soon. What are those snakes and what are they doing? Trouble just found us, but it didn’t seem very big or threatening. They were coming from up on the ridge to our right.

“Jade, what are snakes that roll by grabbing onto own their tails?!” I turned to Jade because she was the resident monster expert, despite Fluttershy studying animals and slowly becoming as much an expert as she was.

“Hoop snakes, a snake that gets around by rolling its entire body like a giant wheel!” Yes, that is currently what Jade was describing as a number of them started rolling down the ridge towards our lemming convoy. “If they are coming right at you, then watch for their tail and move to the side! They’ll leap out of their rolling and try to spear you with their tails in a lightning fast manner and if they can’t spear you, then they’ll at least try to whip you. Keep your wits about you, because both their tails and their fangs are quite poisonous. They don’t need strong poisons when they usually kill their victims by stabbing them to death with their tails by turning their bodies into living spears.”

“Keep the herd moving Fluttershy, we’ll head them all off!” I got up from my seat and joined Jade on the right side. “Is there anything else we need to know about them?”

“Only that if you see a fat rolling snake, then it’s something much worse than a hoop snake and far more poisonous.” That didn’t inform me of what the creature you were talking about was Jade, but it did tell me I should avoid it all the same. “Also if it happens to be capable of talking, then don’t listen to anything it has to say and take it down quickly!”

Right, don’t let the talking snake talk, got it.

We turned to the numerous rolling snakes and Jade started to blast water at them knocking them out of their rolling. She only stopped seven before the others started to dodge her water blasts and were getting close to us, I tensed up next to Jade and readied a buck while looking over my left shoulder.

A green hoop snake suddenly launched itself out of its rolling and went ramrod straight while spinning around to point its sharp tipped tail straight for Jade’s heart. I bucked out and sent the stiffened snaked spinning into the air. When it came down, its tail actually sunk into the dirt like it was a freshly thrown spear.

Two more launched themselves at us and we dove to the side, I charged my horn and fired a zigzagging blast of magic that randomly bursts powerful at short intervals. I was a bit drained, but I had taken down ten of the hoops snakes that weren’t moving very well after getting electrically fried by my magic when it stopped and blasted outwards nailing quite a few of them. The wet hoop snakes were among those ten having attracted an amount of the energy to themselves.

The three snakes closest to us were loosening up and started to flail their tails at us, we back away from them carefully trying not to be lashed by them.

“Jade, provide some water so that I can fry the rest of them!” She did as I asked, maybe leadership isn’t so hard after all. Unfortunately we only got four snakes when I touched my horn to the puddle of water near my hooves.

Still they kept coming at us and one managed to nick one of my legs before I managed to knock it out. I ducked a spear shaped snake as it flew over my head and bucked at a wheel trying to get by us and towards the lemmings.

Rolling to my right, I narrowly avoided taking two arcing snake tails in my side. I wondered what it would take to get these snakes to leave us alone. Why was my vision going all blurry? Oh great, I’ve been poisoned. Judging by the yelping sound, so has Jade.

I moved to the side and grabbed the by the neck and swung it around to start whipping at the other snakes making them back off of Jade and me. I was using a snake as a whip... this was something I would have expected of Jade. I guess she was rubbing off on me in more ways than one.

I swung the snake outward snapping its tail to wrap around another hoop snake. I then swung it around twice and let go of the snake I was holding sending them both flying.

Several rolling hoop snakes gathered together. They launched high up in the air and flicked their tails around to come down on us.

“I think it’s time to go Jade, the convoy has moved far enough that we don’t need to stick around!” I stumbled a bit as I dodged a falling spear, after that I turned and started running. We needed some antivenin from the supply wagon, as a snake managed to bite me in my right hind leg, I kicked it off and kept going.

“Well excuse me if I’m a little busy avoiding being skewered to run!” Jade dodged around another hoop snakes attempt to spear her and she started following after me. “Did you get scratched? We’re going to need that antivenin and soon.”

Jade ducked under a hoop snake that launched itself into a high arc and tried to come down on her spine tail first. I had to dodge one that almost rammed its sharp tail into my butt due to my inattention.

“Yeah, no kidding!” I witnessed Jade trip and saw one of the hoop snakes slithering for her neck, it reared up opened its mouth and lunged forward.

It stopped a centimeter from her neck, now standing on its tail I slammed my right hoof into the back of its head. I took a glance at all the cuts and scrapes Jade was covered in and quickly got her on my back and continued for the convoy.

I stopped for a second to fire a shower of sparks from my horn that made the rolling snakes back off. I soon got to the convoy where Cheerilee was waiting to apply the antivenin to us.

This was a pretty bad start for our journey... and it only got worse.

Author's Note

Okay I can't keep doing this for much longer... I might have to take a week off from writing entirely.

Chapter Fourteen, Oh Goddess Why: Worse times.

-Fluttershy-

I had to stop the convoy once we were far enough away from the attacking hoop snakes, I flew back to the wagon and saw my friends looked a little under the weather.

“Are the both of you okay?” I was so worried when Fizzle and Jade started getting medical aid from Cheerilee.

“Define okay, they were able to hit me even when I'm sustaining my knife. Got to hand, paw or hoof it to you Cheerilee, you have some hidden depths.” Jade sat up, she was covered in scratches that looked to be covered in some kind of gel. “Cheerilee was immediately ready with the antivenin when we got back and patched us up quickly.”

“Could be better, took a bite to one of my rear legs.” It looked a bit swollen, oh dear I hoped Fizzle didn’t have problems walking. “Teach, where did you learn to do this stuff?”

“Well if I couldn’t get a teaching career going, then I would have gone into some form of pediatrics… most likely a pediatric nurse. So I know quite a bit about first aid.” That’s nice Cheerilee, maybe I could learn a thing or two from you. I watched as Cheerilee got the swelling on Fizzle’s leg to go down. “Fillies and colts can get a bit reckless at times and hurt themselves, so I’m always prepared to help an injured filly or colt. The swelling should go away soon Fizzle, which is good for us. Since aside from Sekhet, you two are the only ones that can really fight.”

“So how long can you keep the lemmings sitting still for Fluttershy?” When Jade asked that my mind blanked for a moment, oh dear…

I shot out of the wagon to start gathering the lemmings up before they could scatter too far.

-Five minutes later, Fizzle-

Thankfully Fluttershy managed to get all the lemmings back together before they wandered off too far, she started making them run a circle to give us time to rest. She was going to get pretty tired herself if she keeps this up. It wasn’t long before we were back on the trail towards the southeast and Jade was gulping down some chilled water to rehydrate from using her fish scale necklace.

I was back up on the wagon, Jade was resting in the back for a bit. Nobody was getting sick from their cuts and scrapes thanks to Cheerilee’s vigil. It was only another mile or two when we ran into another problem that made Fluttershy manipulate the lemmings into running in a circle.

“Jade, problem. Can you give me info on snakes with heads at both ends?” They looked kind of like little dragons somewhat. “They have two legs on something that reminds me of a chicken or a dragon’s body.”

“Do they have wings?” Upon Jade asking me that I looked more closely.

“No, no wings as far as I can see.” Looking to me were Cheerilee and Fluttershy, Sekhet looked to be sitting with a bored expression on her face as she checked the bottom of one of her paws.

“They’re Amphisbaena, two headed snakes that can come in several flavors. One is the most obvious, no limbs and just snake heads at both end. They come in a number of varieties including two legs, four legs, also with or without wings. Rarely do they ever have horns.” Now I needed to know, are they dangerous Jade? She must have read my glance. “They aren’t very threatening, but you should steer completely clear of them if you can help it. All amphisbaena are twice as poisonous compared to normal snakes even if only one head bites you. If one of them bites a lemming, it’s guaranteed to be dead in under a minute. We’ll last longer by at least ten if we didn’t have antivenin. If they’re small they’ll scare easily, which would be a lucky break for us.”

“Fluttershy, we need go around them! Cheerilee make some noise if they get too close and I’ll try to help scare them off.” The next ten or so minutes for me were harrowing as I had to force a few tens of lemmings back into the herd and running on my bit leg didn’t feel too good.

Jade was able to get back into things, while I rested she screamed and yowled at the two headed poisonous monsters keeping them away from our lemming drive. She even had to fire a magic missile at one that was getting too brave and tried to charge the mindless swarm of rodents we were moving along the trail.

“Well that wasn’t so… oh please don’t tell me that’s what I think it is!” Let’s see, Jade looks absolutely horrified about something to have made that kind of exclamation to go with her currently pale face.

Fluttershy was frantically forcing the lemmings into running in a large circle again, so what is it this time? I turned to look.

It was the largest snake that I think that I have ever seen in my entire life and my blood ran cold.

Yeah, that would definitely cause a panic.

-Jade-

That… was a basilisk. It was a big basilisk too! No wonder no other pony wanted to go on this trip. This is practically suicidal, but I promised Fluttershy I’d help. Well I better intercept it, because it was heading straight for the lemming swarm.

I started on my favorite magical alchemy sustain, the knife, and moved to intercept the creature. I quickly grabbed a rock from the ground and chucked it at its left eye. I drew its attention off of the lemmings and onto me.

“Get them moving Fluttershy!” I charged forward and slowed down a bit as the snake reared above me putting me in its shadow.

It inhaled… well I wasn’t dead from looking it in the eyes, but something was off about what this basilisk was doing. Those actions even seemed oddly familiar to me, it was as if I’ve done that multiple times before in an eerily similar manner.

Given its teal coloration and that it doesn’t kill on sight, or would it be by sight? Anyway it just causes massive mortal terror that I may as well just die from looking at it, I’d give a guess that it was about to…

The basilisk fired what looked like a solid white beam at the ground and started sending it right for me, I rolled to the side and watched it mulch all the dirt, rock, grass and everything else, leaving a fairly large ditch in its wake.

Since the ground around where the beam struck was now wet, its beam was made entirely out of water that had cut a distant boulder in half, it also converted a large portion of the ground for a few feet around into mud.

Okay, that was a bit horrific, basilisks are not supposed to be able to do that unless… you have got to be kidding me. A hydrokinetic basilisk! How does that even happen? I mean seriously, why in all that is holy is this a thing?!

In my inattention I was almost swallowed alive as it dived for me, it missed me as I darted out of the way pulling my knife and slashed its body as it dug into the ground. The knife did nothing to its thick scales, oh and it can burrow too… just great. I watched as its tail disappeared into the ground.

The ground around me began rumbling, I stumbled a bit and then things were quiet.

“Jade… don’t know about you… but I really think we should run now.” I turned to give Fizzle a flat look.

“You do realize I’m right here mortals… you don’t need to let the pride get the best of you.” There was a reason we weren’t asking Sekhet for help with this. If the goddess kept protecting us, then we would never learn to be strong on our own without her. “You can ask me for help, I won’t think less of you if you do. This just might be well above your ability to handle.”

“Yeah, I think it’s a little late for that Fizzle.” The ground underneath me started bulging upwards and lunged forward as a pair of jaws ripped out of the mud from beneath me. “Also Sekhet, just keep protecting the wagon!”

After the basilisk’s finished erupting from the ground, it started to slither in a circle around me. It had me swiftly surrounded. Not only did it spray beams of water, could burrow and was obviously venomous, it was also fast too.

I went to jump onto the back of the basilisk only for the tail to slap me back into the circle with a strike to the chest, okay this was problematic and painful. That... had definitely hurt. I was laying on my back in the mud being circled by the basilisk that opened its mouth and started to come down on me again.

I held up my left palm towards its open mouth and fired a magic missile right into it.

Its mouth closed in pain and its head diverted into ramming its own coils.

I quickly clambered up onto it and got out of the circle it made and after jumping off of it on the other side, I started making my way towards Fizzle. She was coming to me with a worried look as I clutched at my chest with my left arm.

“Are you okay Jade? You’re bleeding pretty badly there.” Sending Fizzle a confused look as she looked at me worriedly, I wondered what she was talking about.

“It only winded me Fizzle what do you, oh…” I looked at the blood seeping out from under my arm, how did the basilisk do that with its blunt tail? “Yeah, now that I notice that, I’m in far more pain than I previously thought I was.”

“Your stupidly high pain tolerance is getting in the way of you recognizing when you get hurt badly!” Fizzle sounded angrier at my pain tolerance than me, so I was okay with that. “It’s getting up… how are we supposed to stop that thing from chasing after the lemmings or us?”

The basilisk lifted its head and opened its mouth that was fizzling and frothing with bubbles as it inhaled through its nose. Fizzle grit her teeth and fired a blast of magic into its mouth where the resulted pulse of magic caused the basilisk’s head to flop onto the ground with a dazed look in its eyes.

“Shooting it in the mouth looks like it works.” Putting an arm around Fizzle’s neck as I stumbled a bit, we started moving away from the monster.

Hearing a noise, I looked back as it rose its head up. It shook away its slightly dazed look and turned to us with another roar. Only it got more horrifying when its scales popped out into sharp pointy blades all across its body including the ones on its tail that it had struck me with.

“Don’t know if that really did anything… other than make it mad I mean.” At least it looked mad to me and it started inhaling again.

We both continued moving towards the wagon as several white beams fired from the surrounding popped scales at many differing angles alongside the one solid directed beam from its mouth that chased after us.

“Why would nature make a creature that’s this lethal?!” Fizzle whined as we got close to the wagon. When the beam reached us, a barrier blocked it. “Thanks Sekhet!”

“No problem. It is a bit much to expect you to face a basilisk, but we can’t just leave it alone. We have to immobilize it or knock it out.” As Sekhet spoke, the basilisk dove into the muddy swamp it had formed with its high pressure beams of death, I could see it tunneling straight for us. “While it can’t kill me, its poison could still make me unable to assist you in surviving if it were to bite me.”

“Get on you two, start running Sekhet!” Whoa, Cheerilee is taking charge. “Fizzle move Jade over to me.”

I found myself forced in front of Cheerilee who moved my arm and removed my shirt and started tightly wrapping bandages around my chest.

“We won’t outrun that thing for long, just telling you so you know.” Even so Sekhet was pulling the entire wagon behind her at a good clip.

The entire wagon suddenly lifted up quickly before slamming back to the ground, it stayed intact and we were only missing one pony, a rather important pony.

“Fizzy!” I saw fizzle tumbling across the ground and the snake started to circle her with its bladed scales out. Annoyingly enough, I was pulled back by Cheerliee.

“I’m not letting you go out there, not in this state!” Cheerilee held me down, I couldn’t see the Fizzle in the snake’s folds. “I’ll go and…”

The snake lunged down, only for Fizzle to leap up and clamp onto its nose thrusting both her front hooves into its nostrils. It started shaking its head, opening and closing its mouth, just about anything to dislodge the pony from its face.

The basilisk turned away from the circle it made and tried to scrape Fizzle off on the ground. That’s when she pulled her hooves, covered in mucus, free of the giant snake and got off it.

There was a sharp look in Fizzle’s eyes, she seemed to be thinking of something. A small smirk crossed her face and she fired a small burst of magic. Despite the fact that it drained her, it apparently did what she wanted it to do. She had the attention of the basilisk on her and then she started running.

She ran a circle around the snake twice and then leapt onto it, leapt off and continued to run around with the basilisk’s head on her tail. She jumped on and off of the basilisk crisscrossing her path around it several more times.

We watched as Fizzle, covered in various bad cuts from jumping around on the bladed basilisk’s body, ran up to us to turn around and sit down. She calmly let the basilisk's mouth snap shut a foot from her face.

A slow smile crossed her face, she slowly turned around and bucked it in the snout with as much force as she could manage. Its head snapped backwards, but it didn’t seem to be hurt all too much by the powerful blow.

The basilisk looked quite surprised that it couldn’t get to Fizzle, maybe it should have paid better attention to what exactly Fizzle was doing when she was running it around.

The basilisk tried to inhale and fire a blast of water, only it started choking loudly and coughing up streams of water.

Fizzle’s movements had forced the basilisk to knot itself up. With its scales doing the sharp and pointy thing combined with the knot it tied itself into, it was now quite stuck.

“Let’s get out of here before it figures out how to untie itself.” After Fizzle got onto the wagon, she flopped onto her face and said one thing before passing out. “Jade... you need a bigger weapon.”

-Hours later-

We had made it out of ‘Raging Reptile Ridge’ alive, all of us were quite tired as we set up camp and the lemmings were digging into the ground for the night.

Author's Note

Planning a hiatus trip around July 13th - 19th.

May change my mind later, don't know for sure right now.

Chapter Fourteen, Oh Goddess Why: Stormy times.

-Jade-

“Serpent Strath Path… it’s going to be one of those days.” We were at a juncture between the two and several other locations. I was currently making breakfast for myself, I currently had a nice fried egg in a skillet. The only other being awake is Sekhet.

“It most certainly is Priest Jade. We will be following valley until the end, we will have to do it all in one go as there is not much food for the ones we’re moving anywhere in the valley. It is mostly exposed bedrock all the way through, aside from the edges of the shallow river.” Sekhet held a scaled fish on a stick over the flames of the campfire created this morning. Unlike my fire back in Airship Mauled, this campfire will actually die down without wood to burn. “We should be wary, I did some searching last night. I did not smell serpents or monsters of any sort, but what I did see may be worse.”

“So you went off in the middle of the night to do some scouting, I’m not surprised in the slightest.” I received an appraising look. “As a war goddess, you would know one of the most important things in a war is information. This is not a war, but it is helpful to know what we’re getting into… so what did you see Sekhet?”

“Nothing alive and blackened ground in many spots everywhere, there is something frighteningly wrong and unnatural about where we’re going.” Witnessing Sekhet shiver had me shivering in response. “Life will and has always found a way to survive even the harshest of conditions, but there… life is being crushed, scared or is being actively kept from the valley somehow.”

“Whatever it is, it’s something we’re going to run into inevitably.” Sliding my fried egg onto a plate where there was already a cooling skillet baked fish waiting for me, I was getting a jump start on the day because we were going to be busy once all those lemmings woke up. They were practically impossible to direct without Fluttershy who looked exhausted after flying so much yesterday. “After that basilisk attack yesterday, I won’t be surprised at all the crazy kinds of serpents we could possibly run into after Raging Reptile Ridge. I’m kind of glad that the alligators didn’t notice us.”

“Yes, I’m quite surprised the ponies didn’t notice them, goes to show that you were certainly alert at all times yesterday.” Sekhet bit into her charred fish and chewed it looking off into the distance. “You were not apparently as good enough on your reflexes though, even with the assistance of your magical alchemy. I want you to let me check your injuries, while Cheerilee is competent at what she does I want to be a second opinion on them.”

Sighing I acquiesce to her request and pulled my shirt off and continued eating. She quickly finished her fish and came over to me to start to poking and prodding me with her alicorn sized paws. I winced when she poked the bandages around my chest, but I still swallowed the bit of egg I had been chewing.

“You and Fizzle are strong at heart, but your bodies will need more time than we can give them before we begin moving today.” The eight hours of sleep said otherwise Sekhet, I’m sure I could distract another basilisk. Surviving said distraction would be a bit iffy for me though. “Unlike me, neither of you are immortal nor are you invincible. Whether either of you like it or not, I will be assisting you in any capacity necessary with the next thing that shows up. Still… it is nice to see that my physical education classes are paying off.”

“Is it lonely to be a goddess?” I hardly ever got the time to talk to Sekhet like this, so I asked a simple question.

“It is like nothing you will ever need experience Jade, it can be impossibly lonely.” Well that was a somber mood for such a powerful goddess like you Sekhet. “The other side of the coin is that I can make friends infinitely, as I have all the time in the world to do so with. I can forever gain and lose friends in equal measure, but gaining friends means the pain of seeing them waste away or dying. Even so, the effort might always be worth it. I do not need to worry so hard about surviving, what I need to worry about is keeping my mind sharp and keeping with the times as they are. For years can pass me by in but a single blink, the only thing that slows time down for me is interacting with mortals in any capacity.”

“Like you’re doing right now?” I asked and Sekhet only sent me a smile with no teeth showing. “I don’t see you as invincible, only highly improbable to kill permanently. I know a few legends of things that can slay an immortal or force them to reincarnate, even pass their powers onto others whether they are worthy or not. Would you say things like that don’t exist?”

“Oh I can say things like that definitely exist, though mortals don’t necessarily make things like that on their own or by complete accident.” Sending Sekhet a look as she held out my shirt to me, I put it back on and waited for her to speak. “You’ll be fine, just don’t take any hits to the chest today. Things are hardly coincidental in this world, if one being pushes the balance too much then something will happen to fix that balance.”

“Too much blinding light and darkness sprouts from it to become a living shadow, usually with evil or misguided intent. Too much darkness in the world and heroes will eventually be found to face the unknown with bright hearts.” I lean back and take in a deep breath. I released a sigh as I stared at the cloudless blue sky. “Not much of a coincidence, just the scales tipping constantly and never fully committing one way or the other. In essence you’d be right, but there are some extreme ways to fix the balance that would mean destroying most of the world to do it. That’s something we should all avoid, no matter what.”

“Surprisingly wise of you to acknowledge, I am a war goddess that promotes the ideals of peace.” What Sekhet said made me snort loudly. “Do not scoff, peace is just a lot of preparation time for the next war or a coming storm. Ponies are never ready for any war that starts near them, they are always at a disadvantage there and do so little to prevent coming calamities that could have been avoided had they paid a little attention to the world around them.”

“You’re not wrong Sekhet, but ponies have survived the last thousand years on mostly peace. Too much peace without preparing for any future dangers, much less past ones returning, is always a recipe for disaster in my personal opinion. Though you have to admit, ponies have made it work out for the most part.” I looked towards the tent where Fizzle slept, I seriously doubted she would ever become Tempest now. “Ponies should always learn from their mistakes, but in general they don’t most of the time and quickly forget. When they forget, it usually comes back to seriously bite them. It takes at least a few anvils to the head to hammer an important point in with most, but not all, ponies. I’m going to go wake Fizzle and Fluttershy so they can eat, hopefully before the lemmings start stirring up a huge mess.”

“Have you ever learned from your own mistakes?” Sekhet’s words made me pause on my way to Fizzle’s tent and turn back to her.

“I have learned much from watching other people make mistakes so that I can try and avoid making the same ones myself.” I continued into the tent with a few parting words for Sekhet to think on. “I will still make mistakes, but that mostly comes with doing what I feel is right. I can and will be in the wrong, but only if I’m caught and called out on doing said wrong with evidence to back it up.”

-Fizzle, two hours later-

This was quite ominous, even if the lemmings seemed happy and were moving forward after having come out of the ground in droves. I doubted they even noticed how still the air around here felt, we were almost halfway into Serpent Strath Path and nothing had happened. We didn’t see any signs of movement aside from the hoard of lemmings Fluttershy was directing with her animal expertise.

I had gotten into an argument with Jade after I ate breakfast and we were silently contemplating what the other said. We had made arguments about whether or not we were healthy enough to fight. Jade took a pretty bad blow to the chest and I wasn’t any better after the basilisk cut me up with its scales.

We had both been poisoned, cut up and battered. The only thing left for us was to be deep fried and served with a side of sauce. Maybe I should learn to make something, both mom and Jade could cook. Jacky knew how to forage and so did I as well, I just wasn’t as good as the luck challenged parrot.

Jade promised Fluttershy she’d do her a favor. The size of this favor was enormous beyond belief, so what exactly were we getting from doing all of this? Were we supposed to feel a sense of accomplishment as our prize for the wringer we got put through yesterday? I felt like Fluttershy owed us for all the stuff we’re going through for a bunch of nearly mindless rodents that’ll die within the next two years.

I admit that our friendships were strong, but doing all this with very little payoff was rubbing me the wrong way. I assumed the reason why it didn’t rub Jade the wrong way is because she was likely honor bound to see this through to the end for Fluttershy.

Sighing, I wondered why Jade always insisted on endangering herself. I was okay when she endangered herself on the royal guards, mostly because they couldn’t fight their way out of a paper sacks and ponies in general were not overly confrontational.

I however am different in that aspect, I actually confronted Jade about her injuries and she confronted me about my own. We were both pretty poor off and we had talked it out, we agreed that we were both pretty bad and that settled it.

“Fizzle… I would like to apologize for putting you in so much danger by asking you to come on this trip.” What… really Jade? I just can’t believe you sometimes.

“I chose to come and put myself in danger, it’s you that I’m worried about.” I turned to Jade who was resting behind me. “What exactly are we getting out of all of this?”

“Several things really. Life experiences, helping a friend, learning how to survive or fight deadly monsters and references for reliability as mercenaries. We are also making connections, learning about places and are possibly even airing out some psychological baggage while we’re at it.” Here Jade smiled at me warmly, it made my heart flutter a bit. “You specifically learned a thing or two about pitching a tent, how to start a fire with two pieces of wood and many other things like how to lead a team. Learning experiences are to always be cherished Fizzle, because If you don’t then you might not be able to handle similar situations later. The one who helped you learn might not be there later to provide that assistance.”

I heard a noise, my ears twitched… I looked up at the sky and saw roiling clouds.

“Looks like rain. That’s just what we need, a ton of smelly wet lemmings.” The sarcastic lilt in my voice was filled with humor. I thought on all that Jade had told me, by her words I was actually getting a lot out of this. It’s just that I needed to think about this in a less than material manner and put it all into a different perspective.

“Fizzle… I would like to preemptively apologize for any injury you or I are about to get.” Turning to Jade, I was about to ask what was going to cause those injuries when I heard the thunder again. The sky that had been once blue was now covered in dark clouds. It was now crackling with thunder and light flashed above us. “This is not a normal storm and I think I know why this place is so empty now. Also if it rains hard enough to flood the area, how do you think that will affect the valley we are currently in now?”

My eyes widened and I looked out the back of the wagon and started imagining a tidal wave hitting us from behind and drowning all the lemmings.

“Please do share your knowledge Jade, because I’m feeling a tainted soul.” Sekhet was looking towards the sky as well. “Something has fouled that which I find precious in this world… souls are sacred!”

“Tainted… how exactly?” Jade spoke slowly and her eyes were darting around looking up at the sky from her position behind me.

“A weaker power is possessing the stronger.” This reminded me of a nightmare I had, only it didn’t seem so much like a nightmare now. “The possessed itself isn’t evil, so I must save them.”

I definitely remembered Sekhet saying the words ‘souls are sacred’ before. I recall Jade’s explanation that Sekhet is a goddess that will actively destroy evil without remorse if she feels it come within range of her.

“That’s actually very bad for us.” The way Jade said that, it was like she had her suspicions as to what was going to happen soon. “Quick question Sekhet… how long has it been since you last fought another god going all out?”

“It has been a while… are you actually suggesting to me that a god has been possessed Priest Jade?” There was that certain sinking feeling that I’m sure everyone here got as Sekhet stated that. “If so, can you tell me which god you think it is?”

“I hope I’m wrong in this, but I’d say we’re about to be attacked by a powerful god that has been known for having powerful weather controlling abilities.” Jade was speaking slowly with her eyes wandering the sky, I turned to look at what she was looking for and saw something in the clouds when they flashed. “This god primarily uses lightning to attack, but they can also use biting wind, torrents of dagger like rain and rarely concussing ice.”

Lightning struck the ground in front of the lemming herd and Fluttershy immediately got them running in a large circle.

“We are about to be attacked by a well-known feathered serpent god…” Jade’s eyes narrowed, a thunderous crash and a blinding light occurred. “Quetzalcoatl.”

Fluttershy started leading the lemmings back our way in a panic. Hovering above the ground where the lightning had struck was a large hovering dark purple serpent with black feathered wings, a dark blue flowing wild mane and glowing red eyes. Said eyes were currently directed at us.

This was certainly far worse than the basilisk and hoop snakes.

Author's Note

Here's an idea of what we're dealing with, not exactly an accurate representation.

Chapter Fourteen, Oh Goddess Why: Anti-climate tick.

Author's Note

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dp0j49oOWo

Chapter Fourteen, Oh Goddess Why: Anti-climate tick.

-Sekhet-

The mouth of the one Jade called ‘the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl’ opened and a building beam of lightning blasted forth.

I flipped backwards and grew to my full sized sphinx form while spreading my wings. The beam struck the barrier I formed in an instant in front of the wagon and the ones behind me.

Eventually the attack died down and I prepared for battle, it has been a while since I’ve met a worthy opponent. A possessed god of weather versus a god of war, this will be a lofty battle and I will not go easy on my opponent. Their soul needs to be freed of the outside influence.

“I’ll take care of this mortals.” I put my paws before me and fire several beams of light that was met with a beams of lightning. We held our beams against one another and we eventually canceled out each other’s attacks. I turned to the mortals for a second. “Do what you will when I draw his attention, just don’t die!”

“Can’t you deny him his ability to fly?!” Priest Jade asked as I took to the air and faced down the winged serpent.

“No, his flight is divinely powered!” I forged several spheres of light and sent them flying forward, the serpent countered by breathing out several balls of swirling winds that intercepted my magic. “If you haven’t noticed he isn’t exactly flapping his wings to fly, it is like how he cannot stop my healing abilities in the same respect. I will eventually win in the battle by attrition, but that will take a while. The one who controls him has control of the field of battle and thus currently controls this fight.”

I felt a feeling of gathering energy in the air, I darted the left and a large bolt of lightning crashed into the sky from the ground. Afterwards several smaller bolts fired at me from the energy traveling along the clouds, I rolled, swerved and dove around them.

“Let go of his soul and your end will be mercifully swift!” I turned upwards firing a beam of light that he dodged out of the way of, he returned it with a vortex of razor sharp wind and ice.

-Jade-

“Fluttershy, you need to get the lemmings moving and out of this valley!” I did not want to be anywhere near this valley at the moment with the wind whipping up like it was. If Quetzalcoatl starts making it rain enough to flood, the lemmings are attention deficit disorder ducks. Sitting ducks would imply that they could hold still for more than thirty seconds. “They can’t stay here, one powerful tornado or enough rain and they aren’t going to survive. Even we won’t survive if we get caught in the battle between those two.”

“Right, let’s go!” Fluttershy flew shakily over to the lemmings and started to direct them, the wind around here was beginning to shift for the worse. It was becoming harder for a weak flyer like Fluttershy to stay airborne.

Sekhet wasn’t wrong to say that Quetzalcoatl controlled the battlefield. It had yet to really get heated between the two gods, Sekhet was firing beams and bolts and trying to avoid getting struck by lightning with swift aerial movements.

I saw the goddess get tagged with a bolt of lightning in the middle of a roll, she wasn’t exactly the fastest being in the air. She only grit her teeth and fired an ankh shaped blast at Quetzalcoatl. The feathered serpent seemed to just lazily swerve around the blast, he was at home in the air and he had control of it.

It, however, did not seem that Quetzalcoatl could detain or stop Sekhet from being able to fly. Sekhet flew straight for him and tried to ram him.

He dodged to the side lazily once more and at a much faster than normal speed, only to get several long claw marks trailing along his scales close to his head. Sekhet had extended several thin looking beams of light from her right paw.

The serpent turned his head about to bite at Sekhet, only she had already backed off. The cuts on Quetzalcoatl’s body started to heal slowly. He might not be a god of healing, but he still had some healing.

“Come on Jade, let’s go!” Fizzle wrapped her hoof around my right arm and tugged at it.

I turned to her and then looked to Fluttershy who had landed and started to lead the still happy looking lemmings on hoof at a gallop down the valley. Not a single squeak of fear among them compared to Fluttershy’s panicking form, ignorance was bliss for the rodents that were happy to follow the pony around.

Fluttershy would likely get out of here safely as she didn’t have to worry about monsters, not with the weather picking up and getting as bad as it was.

“We’re not leaving Sekhet behind, Cheerilee you can follow Fluttershy…” I simply received a disapproving headshake.

“Can’t do that Jade, you and Fizzle are my students. I know Fizzle won’t leave unless you do and I feel responsible for both of you!” The wind started picking up and something slammed into the ground and Cheerilee covered her face as bits of rock struck her body at high velocities. “If the both of you stay, then I stay. I’ll move the wagon to a safe distance and try to get to a higher ground. If one of you gets hurt, then the other needs to bring them to me immediately. You better come to the wagon when you’re ready to leave, do you understand me?”

“Yes teach, we understand you clearly.” I looked to the sky and saw Sekhet and Quetzalcoatl spiraling around one another and firing beams, Sekhet’s attacks were notably punctuated by bright flashes of light against the dark sky.

Cheerilee started moving the wagon on her own. She hadn’t exhausted herself too much today, I made a note of the direction she was heading in.

Turning back to the fight, every flap of Quetzalcoatl’s wing sent powerful blades of winds, his mouth sprayed both ice and lightning at the goddess of war. Sekhet was holding her own for the time being, sending beams of light to deflect the lightning and was physically smashing away the chunks of ice being fired at her with her paws.

The whole area was getting darker thanks to the cloud layer being created by the feathered serpents building storm.

Eventually Quetzalcoatl roared to the heavens, after that it started to rain heavily. The clouds above us turned into a spiraling vortex and lightning started striking the ground at random around the area.

My fur started becoming soaked, the rain was really quite cold. I was shivering until a pair of hooves wrapped around me. Fizzle was hugging me in an attempt to keep me warm, a nice sentiment given the current situation.

“Jade we can’t help Sekhet, we’ve got nothing to throw at her opponent.” Well Fizzle wasn’t entirely correct, it’s just the things we could do wouldn’t really help immensely in this situation.

Fizzle was limited on her magic and despite it being powerful, it probably wouldn’t do any damage at all even if she hit Quetzalcoatl with the full force of everything she had directly.

“Not necessarily.” I had a few tricks up my sleeve or in my pack, but their effectiveness against such a powerful god was questionable.

I could hardly see the fight thanks to the sun being blotted out by the dark clouds, but my Abyssinian night vision helped somewhat in this situation. It was the falling sheets of rain that was the problem.

Fizzle didn’t have the same luxury of night vision for her eyes as she looked to the sky with her mane plastered against her neck from all the rain.

I pulled the griffon mask from my pack and placed it on my face, it’d stop the rain from blinding me somewhat. I was going to use it to keep track of the two battling gods, even with the masks abilities I could hardly keep up with the two large figures battling for dominance far above.

Sekhet hit Quetzacoatl in the tail with a ray of light and he roared a beam of lightning in retaliation at her, she put up a barrier and held it long enough for Quetzalcoatl to eventually stop firing lightning at her from his mouth.

Neither of them looked to be tiring at all. Their fighting was vicious as they continued flying in circles attacking one another. They bit with their teeth, slapped with their wings and launched volleys of power at one another with great force. The whole world seemed to be shaking from the impacts of their battle.

Quetzalcoatl attempted to wrap up Sekhet and detain her. She retaliated viciously by exploding with light, knocking him off of her and scorching his flesh.

Feeling something around my ankles, I looked down. We were both knocked down by the shockwave of a large bolt of lightning striking. Poking a shaking and frightened Fizzle who was still trying to keep me warm, I pointed towards the nearby bedrock hill.

Fizzle helped me up off the ground and we started climbing upwards as there was a thin film of water building up on the ground in the valley, nowhere was safe around here anymore.

I hoped Fluttershy was doing alright, because right now we couldn’t do much while trying to survive the storm being whipped up by the feathered serpent god.

The wind was picking up. I could hardly hear the sounds of anything over the wind ripping through the air, the cold rain falling upon us and lightning exploding everywhere. There was a particular problem with the roaring wind, as it sounded too loud. Looking to our right, I saw a tornado forming.

“Fizzle, Tornado!” She gave it the same wide eyed look of horror I had when she saw the quickly building whirling wall of deadly wind. “Lay flat and try to dig your hooves into the ground!”

Listening to what I said and digging my own claws into the bedrock about as well as I could, we both held on as the tornado passed nearby heading northwest in the direction we came from.

“Why don’t we get out of here Jade, what are we even still doing here?!” In response to your question Fizzle I’ll show you, I pulled out a black feather and started removing my knife sheath.

So long sheath number seven, I hardly knew you.

-Sekhet-

My flesh ripped across my cheek as the swing of this serpents wings sent several blades of wind slicing into me. Were I a lesser god, I would not be doing so well and these injuries would be more problematic. I couldn’t hold onto him or get enough hits in to deal with him anytime soon.

This Quetzalcoatl was a slippery being and the shadow controlling him is even slipperier then that. He flew up into the clouds, I concentrated and formed a pocket of calm air around me and waited.

He came at me from below and dug his teeth into my neck, I immediately pulsed light from my body and then sent a beam downs straight into him forcing him towards the ground. He swiftly caught himself flew up to spray me with a series of small piercing icicles.

If only I could get my paws on him for a few seconds to do some real damage!

I sent several blasts of light his way and he snaked around them, only to take one of my shots sharply across his right eye. He screeched in pain and sent several wind blades from his wings that I blocked with a quickly formed barrier.

He flew at me and whipped his tail around to strike out my left wing joint. I hissed loudly in pain as the wind blades from each individual tail hair had shredded their way through my left wing. The serpent succeeded in ripping up my wing joint and sending me spiraling downwards towards the ground.

It took a few seconds, but I caught myself in the air once my wing healed enough of the damage done. I needed to get a hold of him, I had to separate that malignant influence from his soul!

“Sekhet, I’m going to freeze him in place, do whatever damage you can to him when I do!” I heard her words clearly, despite the ongoing din of this weather god’s powers. Those words had been spoken in my mind. “Get ready, I’m about to do a cast.”

How was she, a lowly mortal, supposed to stop a god? My blows were actually wounding him, so did she think she could do any better than someone of my might? No, she wouldn’t presume herself that powerful, but she had a plan and I would heed her words. I prepared to strike him down.

If Jade and Kuril’s magical alchemy could actually have an effect on this god and tip the balance in my favor, I’d welcome it. I would also be worried that she has the ability to freeze a god in place, no matter how temporary.

I felt the magic, Jade was performing the cast and she was aiming it at the feathered serpent. I charged for him, he tried to back away. Only he suddenly became immobilized in the air and I could see his glowing eyes widen in shock.

I quickly clasped onto him, gripping his head tightly in my paws. I began charging as much of my power as I could, I was going to force the possessor out of this god and I will be owed a great boon from him for this action. All souls are sacred, even immortal ones like his. If he is to be dark and evil, then he must become so of his own free will.

I exploded with light and it flooded my opponent, we had been fighting long enough to weaken the possessor for this one action. Slowly, but surely enough, I could see a form separating from the head of Quetzalcoatl and it looked like a sickly cloud with eyes and two spindly arms.

Once it was separated from the god, the frightened cloud creature immediately started flying away as the god fell limply from my paws towards the ground. Quetzalcoatl would be fine now, his soul has been freed from control and I now have my true target!

I fired a blast of light that sheared off a large chunk of its retreating form. Before I could get in another blow, the blow that would have been quite a fatal one at that, it touched the clouds and dispersed rapidly to the point that I could no longer attack it as it had escaped from my senses.

“Coward!” It ran as soon as it knew it could not win the fight, I roared out to the empty sky in my anger. My wounds were superficial and they would heal with time.

The dark clouds started clearing up and then the sun shined on the damaged landscape below.

I headed towards the ground to see Jade and Fizzle already poking the resting god. As I settled upon the ground I noticed a rainbow arcing way up high over the valley that was now flooded with two feet of water.

Is it bad that I wished those dumb rodents had drowned in the flooding?

Chapter Fifteen, Questionable: Informative information.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Fifteen, Questionable: Cool information.

-Kuril-

“What are you doing there Maries?” All three heads turned to me, hardly did I ever need to address them separately.

“Going over Jade’s case file to make sure there isn’t anything we missed solving during her visit to the court room.” Mara answered her eyes going over some documents, Maria was look at her own documents off to the side and Marie was reading some kind of action adventure novel. Maria spoke up next. “Don’t want any unexpected surprises to come back and bite us later, Marie is keeping us all entertained with a good story. Otherwise this would be really, exceedingly dry stuff and we’d eventually die of documentation overload. While they can call Jade back into the courtroom for a review, they can’t change the not guilty ruling without a very justified reason that she is actually guilty of something. They could try something sneaky, but Celestia being judge means they’d have to have her there and Celestia would definitely notify Jade directly of having to visit Canterlot. Another thing is they have no evidence to convict anyone of stealing the gold airship even if they saw you, they can’t actually prove that you were there thanks to the illusion dust causing so many hallucinations in the area. Who knows what anyone actually saw, so even the ‘Circle of the Concise’ wouldn’t be able to do anything useful without the right questions being asked.”

Marie flicked her tongue and the page turned in the book, she seemed too intent on the book to really talk. I took a hint and moved on from them to see if anything needed doing in the kitchen. Nope, things were clean and Fresh Start must be working hard today.

“Well that’s nice to know.” I now had a pouch of illusion dust at my hip, a good witch always needed a bit of quick magic on paw and I had plenty left over from the heist. I was even working on my own unique powder concoction, I was still trying to work the explosiveness out of it and a few other small bugs in the magic involved with what I wanted my own original magic powder to do.

Alchemy was quite fun and I should have gotten into it years ago, it seemed like a talent a witch like me would use when it comes to brewing intrigue. Zecora was a great friend, but it was a little far for her to travel from the Ever Free Forest to here when she wanted something other than a meal.

Ponyville hasn’t exactly been kind to Zecora yet thanks to the fact that she was surviving in a very dangerous place, but the ponies there weren’t bad people even if they were all shunning her for no reason whatsoever.

My daughter had spent a solid week in the Canterlot dungeons and walked away smelling like roses. I was happy to have taken part in the heist, the entire thing was a bit exhilarating even if all I did was pilot The Ardent Survivor. I didn’t know what to use all the gold for, but I was thinking a library and expanding our farm land outwards.

We couldn’t really supply Zecora with the stuff she wanted or needed. So we also needed general stores here in Airship Mauled too. As mayor, I guess it was my duty to plan it and I needed Sekhet here for that to work things out. I guess I would also need Maries, if they’ve learned anything about the related laws and some other things I needed to be aware of.

The obscure rubber chicken law that Pudding Head got passed was the only one I knew about, because Jade wouldn’t stop giggling about it.

While Jade and the others were away on a trip to help out Fluttershy in moving a bunch of cute furry little rodents, I didn’t have much going on. As an Abyssinian I would have had some trouble with resisting my baser urge to eat a lemming, unlike Jade who wouldn’t have that problem as she was quite a maverick with her love of fruit. I wasn’t about to eat the rodents Fluttershy had befriended around here at any rate, but that urge to try was still there.

Knowing Jade was completely safe wherever she was, I could see the fire was still going while standing at the door to my restaurant, unless I got customers I didn’t really have much to do and had a lot of free time since I couldn’t currently do my job as mayor.

Getting customers was actually becoming more of a regular thing around here, I looked to Fresh Start as she started taking care of the tables and making sure the restaurant was clean. It seems we weren’t going to be very busy today, so I really didn’t have to do much cooking aside from feeding the local hungry mouths.

I currently didn’t feel like working on my powder concoction at the moment and finally decided on what to do.

I went to see what Jacky was doing. It appears she was still working on gaining a talent with that bow Jade made for her, she seemed intent on figuring out how to be an archer. She was an expert at using cannons, wouldn’t practicing that be a better use of her time instead of trying to figure out the random physics breaking omnidirectional arrow shooting bow?

I stood by her watching as she incidentally launched a tomahawk and a chicken among the many arrows that seemingly veered away from the targets or rarely, if ever, struck them. She had a good handle on rapidly firing them at least.

I commented on it. A few moments after commenting that the chicken shot was unusual, Jacky just sat there with a sudden dull look in her eyes.

“…. I figured it out…” Her eyes lit with a brightness I haven’t seen before, my parrot daughter’s tail lifted upwards and she looked to me with excitement building on her beak. She pulled me into a tight hug while shrieking a happy sounding bird noise in my poor ears. “This has been bugging me and making me angry at myself since forever, but you’ve helped me figure out what I’ve been doing wrong this whole time. Oh my goodness mom, thank you!”

“Well you’re welcome for whatever you figured out thanks to me, we should pull Ms. Cluckin out of the tree you fired her into and get her back to Mr. Refreshment.” My parrot daughter had the wherewithal to look both ashamed and sheepish about it. “After that you can tell me what you’ve been doing wrong. Since you’re the one that fired her, you’re going to retrieve Cluckin and take her back to Mango. I’m going to stow the Pukwudgie tomahawk away for some magical alchemy study later.”

That was something else I had to work on, I guess I did have something more to do. I almost forgot we had a lot of untested magical alchemy ingredients just lying around.

-Ten minutes later-

“So to give you an idea of what I’ve figured out… who made this bow?” Really Jacky? I’m sure we both knew who made the bow, but I guess you wanted me to humor you.

“My daughter Jade crafted it with her bare hands. You know this, I know this and everyone who was at your birthday party certainly knows this since she handed it to you.” I gave her a slightly bored look when she pointed at me excitedly, I just had to ask. “What is your point about this?”

“It’s that she, Captain Jade, made it!” Jacky I still don’t get where you were going with this. “Captain made this bow and we both know that she can’t stay away from doing something completely abnormal for too long! So why would we think she’d construct a completely normal bow?”

“I don’t see what’s so abnormal about… oh.” It may have just occurred to me that this is my kitten we’re talking about here, and that meant a number of things. Not all of them were good things. “It’s not exactly a normal bow now is it?”

“Exactly that, she used magical alchemy in every single part of this bows construction!” Okay, that might have some implications as to why your luck has been quite bad with the bow Jacky. Though that would only ‘almost’ begin to explain the shooting arrows straight backwards. No other bow in the world could possibly do something like that while trying to fire it normally. So yeah, it wasn’t normal at all in any stretch of the imagination come to think of it. “She magically sustained the parts separately and after she completed it as a whole single object. She never actually fully tested what would happen if you mixed so many various magical properties like the self-sustains that come from sustaining the constituent parts and as a complete singular object. She figured the various casts to make it permanently sturdier and water proof was all that she did to it, I don’t think she even considered the implications of what she’s made here.”

“So I take it you now know what the bow does and what have you been doing wrong?” At my question, she silently held up a talon and then walked off in a frighteningly good mood. Not that her usual mood was depressive, it just seemed like that by comparison.

When she came back she was holding a bowling pin, a kitchen knife and half rotted mango, she gave me a smug look.

“Watch and be amazed as I use this magical bow to do very unusual things!” She proclaimed proudly, I sat down and waited for her to get on with it. “Which target do you want me to shoot the knife with?”

“The distance one… Jade didn’t seem to have any problems with firing arrows straight.” There were five targets, the middle, left and right targets were almost the same distance away. There were two other targets that were close and far away. I obviously chose the hardest target for her to hit. If she was about to do something impressive, then Jacky may as well go big.

“To explain why Jade didn’t have that problem, we'll say my luck may be a deciding factor in normal arrows going wonky." She put the knife to the string and pulled back, the knife wasn’t even big enough to lean against the wood and yet she was aiming it like it was an arrow. "This bow only magnifies that issue to a bizarre degree.”

“Bizarre doesn’t begin to cover the backwards arrows or the spinning butt slappers.” Crossing my arms I waited for an explanation to that.

“Don’t know what to tell you about that, but watch this carefully.” She released the string, instead of hitting the wood of the bow the knife shot forward on an arc as if it were an arrow and struck the distant target.

I blinked and rubbed my eyes, only to blink again in disbelief.

Jacky smirked took up the mango did the same thing by shooting the left target with unerringly good accuracy, said target now had bits of splattered fruit all over it. Jacky then fired the bowling pin, the butt end of which knocks the knife out of the far target when it collided with it.

“Is it just me or is every one of those objects flying from the bow as if it were an arrow?” That was kind of amazing, why hadn’t we figure this out previously?

I knew the answer as soon as I thought it, who would fire something that’s not an arrow from a bow?

“Because this bow can fire just about…” Jacky stopped and stared at the bow, held it horizontal and pulled the string with nothing in it. She released the string and a horizontal crescent of destructive light leapt from the bow and cut the right target into two burnt halves. “Anything…”

I quickly put out the fire Jacky caused with a few bursts of water from my mouth, fish scale necklaces were always a magical alchemist’s friend. Turning to Jacky I had a few words to say.

“Did you just fire a concentrated spray of sunlight from the bow?” It seems I had taken my eyes off of Jacky for too long, for my words spooked her from what she was currently doing.

Her feet were on the string of the bow, her hands were on the wood pulling it up to stretch the string. She reflexively let go of the bow and started to turn towards me as if to answer my question. Instead of the wood of the bow logically slamming into the ground or into her toes, the string instead went up and launched Jacky into the sky.

I watched as my flailing and screaming parrot daughter came down into a tree a few hundred feet away. This was followed by slamming into multiple branches on the way down to the ground, oh and a fire wasp hive fell onto her lap.

“Why-hy-hy-y!” She whined in pain after coming to a rest on the ground. Her whining turned to whimpering as a ton of bright red glowing insects flew out of the hive and started aiming all their mandibles straight for her. “Uh, can we talk about this guys? Mom, please go get some yarrow and plantain leaves. Captain’s absurd pain tolerance doesn’t tell me how much this is actually going to hurt.”

The fire wasps descended upon Jacky in a buzzing angry hoard, she started running for the river while screaming as if she were lit on fire. I calmly walked up to the hive and picked it up, I was going to move it much farther away from here. Fire wasp hives were immune to fire and smoke did nothing to the wasps themselves, horrifyingly difficult to get rid of compared to normal wasps.

On my way back from ditching the hive, I sighed loudly as I thought about how cool that bow was. Jacky fired herself from the obviously magical bow, one with a very unique effect of being capable of firing anything the string hits. I better write this one down as a unique magical alchemy ingredient.

A bow that could fire any object that has no aerodynamic capacity whatsoever that could be put to the string as if it were arrow dynamic. I literally could not think of a better term for what the bow does, it literally makes things fly with the dynamics of an arrow which was unfortunate for poor Jacky who followed the arc the bow had launched her into.

I’m actually kind of envious of Jade’s friends now.

-Jade-

“So that’s how you get ink from a giant squid.” My words were met with odd looks, I rubbed at my nose with a tissue.

“Have you ever gone to a therapist for this Jade?” Why would I need to go to therapy for this Cheerilee, the squid ink spaghetti was delicious.

“Nope, mom made some really good spaghetti and it was all worth the effort.” Still didn’t understand the incredulous looks I was receiving. “The squid ink sauce did need some parmesan to make it taste really good.”

“Sounds intriguing, may I perhaps inquire something.” We all turned to the large four winged blue serpent with glowing green eyes. “Did you manage to destroy the one who had possessed me?”

Author's Note

(New Alchemy Ingredient!)

Jacky's Arrow Dynamic Bow.

Chapter Fifteen, Questionable: Teaching information.

-Cheerilee-

“No, the guy that possessed you sadly got away.” You’re not getting off that easily Jade, not when I think you need help. “In any case nice to meet you Quetzalcoatl, we hope you can stick around. The goddess we’re friends need to discuss the boon you owe her for saving you, so stick around.”

“Well I…” Started off the flying serpent only I interrupted him with my own worries about Jade.

“Are you sure you were okay after dealing with those giant squids in the past like you said you did?” The situation I heard that Jade has been in sounded rather abusive, I mean there had to be an easier way of getting giant squid ink. “It sounds like you’re mother put you in a pretty bad situation.”

“I’m perfectly fine with it Cheerilee, I grew up in coastal fishing town.” Jade sniffled a bit and huddled under the blanket with Fizzle. The both of them were pretty sick and they couldn’t get worse snuggled up like that, so I didn’t say anything about it. “I’m not psychologically scarred by it and the payoff was definitely worth the effort. Also I love my mom and there’s been no real problem. Please do not do anything involving child services and my mother or you will see my true wrath.”

“It just sounds so horrible though.” That threat was quite a serious one that I’m going to heed, I still couldn’t imagine the poor dear having to deal with giant squids multiple times. Kuril, for her minor faults, did not seem like a bad mother, especially since she has gotten two other adoptive children calling her mom as well.

“Eh, doesn’t sound that bad to me personally, I mean Jade is someone who talked a kraken into giving her a massage. So she obviously isn’t haunted by the idea of being near large creatures with tentacles.” Wait, she did what Fizzle!? Fizzle had stopped to blow her nose and then she finished. “I got one myself, wasn't bad.”

“Yeah, those suction cups really help loosen you up and he was a nice guy about the whole thing.” At Jade’s words I couldn’t help but imagine something horrific. So why was I blushing so hard about it? “That really helped me get back into the swing of things by speeding up my recovery by a good bit.”

“You... let a kraken massage you…” There was no way for me to keep the incredulity out of my voice, I wouldn’t let a kraken touch a foal like that.

“To be fair I was in a lot of pain at the time and I asked Mr. Escargot to politely help me with it. He kept his tentacles to himself and he was a perfectly gentle cephalopod about it.” That doesn’t make someone feel relief Jade, it makes me worried about your psychological state. Also, don’t think I missed you dodging the issue of your dyscalculia every time I try to bring it up! “It helps that he’s friends with sea ponies and was a card carrying member of the S.O.S Brigade. Lighten up Cheerilee, you have to realize that I’m from a different culture. So what might be mentally scarring for a pony isn’t as scarring for me.”

“S.O.S Brigade?” I will have to admit that she did have a point. Jade was in fact from a different culture and I guess there are some psychological differences between our species. It’s either that or Jade is an insane outlier even within her cultural background. “I guess I’ve never thought of it before, but I guess I am running a multicultural class of teenagers. Makes me wonder what it’ll be like when I have to actually deal with fillies and colts in a year or so.”

I remembered that Daisy, Rose and Lilly freaked out about even the simplest of things, so I would have to admit that ponies by nature are very skittish beings when it came to the unknown or the unusual.

I should hold a cultural exchange day at Airship Mauled, I wanted to know more about Abyssinian, Chimera and Parrot cultures. If they didn’t know about their own culture that well like Ms. Chickadee, then they can learn a few new things that they didn’t know before.

Holding a parent day would be kind of awkward, given Jacky, Jade and Fizzle all kind of shared a mother. Maybe a family day would be much better, there would be no exclusion as any family member would be welcome to come in.

“I’m sure you’ll do a great job when you get to working with fillies and colts Ms. Cheerilee.” This was followed by Fizzled snorting some snot back up into her nose and then blowing it out into a tissue. I liked the vote of confidence from a student, but my inability to teach Jade advanced math has been riling me up quite a bit. “Jade’s explained this to me before. The S.O.S Brigade is a brigade of sea pony friendly animals that can come when an S.O.S is signaled in a very specific way anywhere there is water, mostly the response is easier to achieve out in the open sea as that’s where the sea ponies usually operate to help save people from drowning. The S.O.S Brigade usually do so when sea ponies are far too busy to assist a victim that might soon drown and knows the call to make when help is sorely needed.”

“Ah, yes, my brother is somewhat part of that brigade in a manner of speaking. His creatures, the axolotl’s, are mostly aquatic beings after all.” We turned to Quetzalcoatl who had shrunk down to a friendlier size, but still larger than me or the others. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt, but you don’t seem impressed by my majestic appearance and I am not used to being ignored.”

“We saw what you were like while possessed. We got sick because of that frigid rain you dropped on us, we were also nearly hit by a tornado and struck by lightning multiple times. So really, we wouldn’t have reason to be friendly to you after what you put us through.” Clearing her throat, Jade spat out a sickly looking wad of gunk. “The previous day we ran into problems with poisonous hoop snakes and a deadly basilisk, then we meet you. So should we feel happy to see you when your powers almost killed us? That’s not a very good first impression.”

“You are right, I apologize.” The winged serpent stated while lowering his head sadly. “I will endeavor to make it up to you.”

“You can figure out how to do that on your own time.” Well wasn’t that a bit less than friendly of you Jade. “Meanwhile I believe we have other things to discuss?”

“So how does one signal the S.O.S Brigade?” I decided to bring the topic back to the S.O.S Brigade. “You know, in case I ever get lost or stuck out at sea?”

“Technically you’d be signaling for the sea ponies, but the S.O.S brigade might show up in their place. The way you signal the sea ponies or S.O.S brigade is by shouting this, Shoo-be-do~ shoo-shoo-be-do~!” That seemed rather arbitrary thing to shout Jade, but it’s not like anyone would ever say that by accident. “It might take a few tries to get some help.”

We all heard a splash coming from the river that was two feet deeper than normal, thought it looked like the excess water was slowly draining out. Crawling up the bedrock hill was a strange red and green lizard creature with fins sticking out of its four legs, back, head and tail.

I shifted away from it and closer to Quetzalcoatl, it was looking at us in a very unusual manner with its frightening eyes.

“Oh look, I think it’s a water dragon.” It turned to Jade and approached her, it sniffed her a bit and then let out a sound that was like a loud bark. It nudged her and proceeded to stare at her expectantly, she scrutinized it for a second before nodding. “Huh… oh, sorry! False alarm, I didn’t necessarily mean to call you and was telling my friends how to call for help. Thanks for coming over though, hold on a second. Here take this for your troubles miss water dragon.”

Jade got a fish out and tossed it to the water dragon. It leapt up and snapped the fish out of the air and started crunching the tiny bones in its powerful jaws. All it did while it chewed was crawl back for the stream.

“One of the S.O.S Brigade?” Asked Fizzle idly as she leaned against Jade.

“Yep, didn’t know there were any water dragons in the S.O.S Brigade. I guess I learned something new today.” Jade turned a bland look to me. “She probably causes an S.O.S whenever she appears, as she likely scares ponies too easily. If you summon an S.O.S Brigade member or a sea pony, then you should always remember to be respectful as they will and can help save your life.”

So I was a little frightened, can you honestly tell me it’s not warranted?

“Can you blame me for being a little scared?” Stating this defensively, I moved away from Quetzalcoatl and sat down next to the camp fire with a small sigh of relief. “She does have quite a few teeth on her.”

“Yeah, she does at that Cheerilee.” After letting loose a few chuckles Jade added. “She seems like a very nice lady.”

“Anyway, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” We turned to Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent had been rather unobtrusive so far. “Who are all of you? You know of me, so I find myself at a loss here.”

“Well it would be proper for us to introduce ourselves.” Turning my gaze to Jade to let her know how rude we were being. “I’m Cheerilee, I’m a teacher to these two poor girls.”

“We’re sick, but not completely invalid Cheery. Call me poor again and I’ll show you how tough I am even if I’m going to be sneezing and coughing for quite a while.” It seems Jade was getting a bit grouchy, I would be too if I was feeling like she and Fizzle currently were. Thank you hardy Earth Pony nature for resilience to most forms of sicknesses! “I’m Jaded La Perm and this is Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Also yes, she is our teacher as much as we’re hers.”

“Ah teaching, even a teacher can learn something from the students as you just pointed out mortal, each student is different and can teach an immeasurable number of things without knowing that they do.” Ah yes, the god of intelligence aspect certainly shines true there. I think I might actually like him for that. “A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination and instill interest in learning. For a teacher to teach a student, they must learn about the student in question to know how to teach them.”

“Oh great, a god with an understanding of philosophy. Well I guess I better drop it out there to see what happens.” Drop what exactly Jade, what were you going to say? “Wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing.”

“Ah, you are well learned beyond your years. Even I can accept that I know nothing and that there is always more to learn.” There was a pause where Quetzalcoatl seemed to look at Jade more closely. “Interesting, there is an odd aura about you.”

“When was the last time you saw a sun priest?” The reaction to Jade’s words was sudden and very visible, the feathered serpent had reared back in shock.

“I am sorry I didn’t recognize it sooner, so you are a priestess of the sun Jade?” Quetzalcoatl tilted his head and studied Jade further. “There is something of an oddity about your being Priest Jade.”

“Please, just call me Jade. I don’t advertise myself as being a priest, another thing is that I’m technically a rogue sun priest.” Yawning Jade pushed her face against Fizzle’s neck. “Got a problem with that?”

“No there is no problem, you must have your reasons.” He bowed to Jade, which left me curious as to why a god would bow to a mortal. “You are a rarity of the world these days. To have fallen so far as to almost kill you, I am ashamed that I was not able to fight off the influence of the one who possessed me without outside help.”

“I’m not really that important.” Having said that, Jade received a light smack to her cheek by Fizzle. Thankfully Fizzle wasn’t looking to hurt her and she as weak as Jade currently was.

“You’re tired and are being an idiot, because you should know you are important to me Jade.” Getting a strong grip on her friend with her hooves, Fizzle pulled Jade towards and into the wagon. She forced Jade to lay down with her while keeping the blankets wrapped around them. “Now let’s get some rest Jade, we need it.”

Jade protested Fizzle’s actions slightly and then started to snuggle against Fizzle. She had fallen asleep within the next thirty seconds. The problem was, this left me alone with the feathered serpent I was still a bit nervous about as Fizzle herself fell asleep too.

“Er… my special talent is wanting to help others be happy, learn and grow.” This is what I consider the standard pony opener, talk about your special talent and see if you can get a conversation started. “I’m having a problem with learning where Jade is concerned.”

“If I have a good read of her, she leads an interesting life and is never bored of seeing strange or new sights.” Quetzalcoatl’s voice. “So what exactly is the problem that the priest has with learning?”

I decided to explain to him what Jade was having trouble learning.

-Fluttershy-

“Thank you for helping me get them the rest of the way Ms. Sekhet.” I got the lemmings to their new home safely, only I’m upset that both Fizzle and Jade got so hurt and are now sick from what Sekhet tells me. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I’m never going through all of this again.

“Don’t worry about it Fluttershy, worry about our friends who are ailing.” She seemed pretty worried about Jade and Fizzle. “We should get back to them soon, we need to get them home where they can be taken care of.”

-???-

The sun priest still wasn’t dead, how hard can it be to kill one teenage cat? It didn’t help that all the assassins were missing in action, the only one that they had any clue about was Matilda. Said jenny has likely gone to ground because of an incident involving the sun priest, the other two assassins were just plain missing.

Blade was last seen in Canterlot before the target started a parade out of nowhere, Obelus had disappeared from Ponyville without a single word.

That wasn’t the worst of it, the sun priest had targeted Billion N. Karats. She was already beginning to move against them, she had to be put down before she could ruin everything!

To add insult to injury, she legally got away with everything thing she did. Celestia likely knows about us already and assisted her in trying to ferret us out, we will have to move more carefully in the future.

Chapter Fifteen, Questionable: Plot information.

-???-

“Have you found the information on ‘The End of Immortality’ yet?” We have been searching for clues, when all there were was rumors.

One thing was for certain, the rumors yielded substantial evidence to the existence of a being known as ‘The End of Immortality’ that could put an end to all gods.

We wanted that power and were willing to do whatever it took to free this being from wherever they were sealed. From there we would ask this being to destroy the gods of the world by making them all mortal, for we would be taking away the very thing that allowed their continued stranglehold on our world.

Should ‘The End of Immortality’ refuse to help us, then we will just have to strip their power from them and use the power towards our own end.

Every god’s immortality, once ripped from them, will leave them vulnerable to blades, cannons, poisons and all manner of things. They may be mighty, but they will bleed until they breathe their last and those loyal to them will not be able save them from doing so.

The immortal that we plan to make fall first will be Princess Celestia, this will be followed swiftly by her niece Cadence and then we will sweep the world of gods and goddesses. Both the sun and moon will be back in control of us mortals and not just one flawed being who sits on her throne pretending to guide us all to salvation.

Once free ‘The End of Immortality’ will end the reign of Celestia one way or another, but with the Sun Priest active we may fail in our objective to finally rid this world of alicorns and any other gods that may exist out there.

To that end we were funding a stallion known as Dr. Caballeron to search for an artifact called ‘The End of Immortality’, we have not told him a description of the artifact in question. Only that it is powerful and can destroy that which is indestructible. He will not know that it is a living being that he is looking for.

“I have sufficient evidence that the first clue to finding the location of ‘The End of Immortality’ is in a monk temple built high up on a mountain peak, but it is not just any monk temple. It is a temple built on hatred, the cold and nightmares.” The stallion started off. His greyish brown coat and swept back dark blue black mane were a unique look. His bright green eyes were filled with greed and it fits as his talent for finding ancient treasure was quite well known to us. “Specifically, they are a cult of monks that worships the dark goddess of the moon. If I am to approach them then I want to be paid upfront so that I can enjoy the money before I go off to an… uncertain fate.”

“We will pay you, but should you not return with the information you will not be getting any more from us, we are willing to pay for every scrap of confirmable evidence you receive.” Should this Dr. Caballeron betray us, he will find out that it is wrong to have crossed us quite quickly. “We will be double checking your evidence of ‘The End of Immortality’ to make sure it is valid, you have three strikes. Stop trying to deceive us at two and you’ll be safe. Continue past and onto the third strike, then we will cease paying you anything. Not only that, we will actively send someone to hunt you down should you choose to pursue this artifact for yourself and your own ends. You will never know peace or find a place of safety.”

“I am quite trustworthy. That is… as long as I am being paid to be.” After Caballeron turned about and started to leave the room. We will be watching you Dr. Caballeron, do not disappoint us.

Now we were going to turn our attention to the Sun Priest, since she is seeking to stop us we need to eliminate her before she discovers what we are looking for. She would protect the gods and against all odds, she might even succeed given how powerful she is. We could not allow that to happen!

How to go about killing her though? The priestess is quite a powerful being, she was quite capable of so many things and doing the impossible is something that Sun Priests are known for. At least before they were all supposedly purged from the world. Apparently becoming a Sun Priest was not related to genetics, as such they can never be permanently stamped out.

We can still at least stamp out the one Sun Priest that we knew about. She has yet to be sent a Moon Priest protector, but it was only a matter of time and the Sun Priest powers must have been growing stronger by the day.

-Jade-

“Atchoo.” Grilled Cheese sandwich… mmmm… tomato soup to go with it. Also Fizzle drizzled in… chocolate sauce? That doesn’t seem right, chocolate sauce does not go on ponies and that’s very unhygienic. Also Fizzle would taste awful, because meat and chocolate don't mix. Also I don’t want to eat a pony.

Can I please get something different that’s on the menu?

Alright, a swimming pool full of strawberry sauce and vanilla ice cream! That’s more like it and to my taste, oh and we’re having a pool party with all my friends and family.

This is going to be so sweet… now if only we all had super spoons or mighty sporks big enough to eat it all.

Forget it, I’m just going to jump straight into it and start eating anyway!

-Fizzle-

Fluffy kitty, beautiful kitty, wonderful ball of fur~. Happy kitty, lovely kitty, purr, purr, purr~ … for me.

Light up my night Jade, keep making my life shine with your antics and bring the sun into the darkness that used to be my world. Why yes, I do want to be share a smoothie with you, thank you for asking.

Do you also want some tasty snacks kitty? Yes, you do! After you’re finished, I want to see what you’ll do with a yarn ball.

-Cheerilee-

“I wonder what they’re dreaming about.” The two were snuggled together comfortably, I shook my head and turned back to Mr. Quetzalcoatl. “Anyway that’s what Dyscalculia is and Jade has a mild or moderate form of it. I even brought a sampling of her math to try and go over it with her.”

“May I see it friend Cheerilee?” From what I know of gods, they generally just call people mortals unless they feel you are a friend and then the inflection becomes far warmer. Mr. Quetzalcoatl was a very bright god to be acquainted with and the inflection sounded just fine to me.

“You may, let me grab it first.” I climbed into the wagon a made sure to avoid the two sick girls resting, I didn’t want to wake them prematurely. Grabbing Jade’s last math worksheet, which looks like an eldritch abomination got a hold of it and I wasn’t overstating that, I got back off the wagon while thinking of the things Jade was good at.

Her writing seemed to be hit or miss, but it was generally good as she liked literature and reading well enough. She was a big fan of all kinds of adventurous stories, though I would have preferred it if she laid off the comic books even if they were literary marvels in their own way. With her magical alchemy abilities, she could actually become a super hero though.

Her science was often weird, but then again her magical alchemy kind of eschews things for her as it was a science currently unique to her family. I’ll give her a pass on that, mostly since she can break the laws of physics with a griffon feather by ceasing her momentum entirely, without injury, to jump off the air itself. As long as it didn’t involve chemistry which requires either a good grasp of chemicals or math, then Jade was good at understanding most science.

History is an odd thing, she seems to sporadically know a bit about everything and knew a decent bit about Abyssinia and its capital Panthera. She knew a lot about her home town of Palicoast, but not much really happened there. Where she really shined was in her knowledge of the various histories of deity’s like Mr. Quetzalcoatl or Ms. Sekhet.

Math was an odd subject to watch Jade try and parse her way through. Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division were simple for her. Throw in fractions, solving for P, complicated equations and anything higher like an equation that needs ‘Ponies Excel Modestly Despite Awful Situations’ and she suddenly starts messing up. It boggles the mind that she does perfectly fine at geometry, she even corrected me three times on my geometry math and that was completely amazing for her!

I gave the test paper over to Quetzalcoatl’s large left wing while explaining the rules of math that Jade knew and the problems she was having. He looked over it for the next ten or so minutes silently, before looking at me with confused expression.

“Well let me just say this, Jade is never going to be good at math. If you needed magical explosion that destroys the entire world, then she’d definitely be the one to turn to.” Okay, was there something that you just have to say about this Mr. Quetzalcoatl? Consider my attention squarely set upon you and your intelligence about Jade’s issues, I was a teacher willing to listen about any issues her students may have. “She can learn all she wants about math, but you can’t make it stick. What she is doing is writing magical equations that could cause anything from an immediate or a slowly worsening magical apocalypse, to time unraveling to the point of turning it all back on itself. The time thing would turn back on itself multiple times in large knot where past, present and future would meet together to cause a singularity event that destroys every existing timeline or dimensional parallel of this very world. She can literally write an answer to an equation so horribly, that it can possibly wipe out all of existence.”

“Is that all?” That didn’t sound so bad, at least I would be able to have time to purchase a cake before or during the end of everything.

“There’s even the small possibility of just making the current controller of the sun drop their cake on the ground and stomp it into the dirt while decrying it as the worst tasting food in existence. They will then proceed to go on to destroy every cake in existence and start wars to make absolutely sure that they end every cake in existence. I’m pretty sure it would end with all the bakers having their minds erased of being able to make cake, all cake recipes being destroyed and nobody being allowed to even mix the specific ingredients to even come close to making a cake ever again.” The horrifying words of Quetzalcoatl made me shiver and put my tail between my hind legs. That was the most horrible sounding existence ever, it was nothing at all like a Tuesday in Ponyville! “All of that would and only could happen, should someone actually be stupid enough try and attempt to use this math in a magical equation.”

At least Cthulhu had muffins when I met him. Despite the madness he caused, he was actually pretty friendly and easy to get along with for unknowable entity of immense malevolent power. At least Celestia apologized to him and prevented him from being accidentally summoned by little colts and fillies again. A part of me kind of wants to see him again, he really knew how to throw a good tea party.

“So she’s like leading a dehydrated pony to water, but they absolutely refuse to drink on the caveat that they’d kill everyone in the world.” The paper was dropped back into my waiting hooves and I was considering burning it to cinders after hearing all the horrible stuff that could happen. Celestia banning all cake and going berserk in destroying any cake related pastry being the absolute worst of them.

“Exactly what her mild dyscalculia problem translates her math as being, even gods wouldn’t survive her answers to these equations. Her math skills are just that bad!” Well that didn’t sound very good, but it must be true if Mr. Quetzalcoatl was saying it. “Just try not to give her a job where complicated math is needed. Please, for all the life on this lovely world that I wish to protect, let someone else do the math for her if she does end up with such a job!”

“Well now that I think of it, I don’t see a point in giving her a higher end math education.” No really, I actually had a good excuse that wasn’t related to the world losing cakes forever. “She already kind of got an idea of what kind of job she wants and she’s already pretty good at it and it doesn’t require much math at all.”

“Are you talking about her job as a Sun Priest?” He asked me curiously.

“No, I’m talking about her job as a professional O and O scenario designer.” That and I had a few other ideas as to what Jade could possibly get up to. “She could also work as a super hero if she wanted to, her mother thinks she’s going to write a bestiary and I think she’s going to be a professional do everything, except math, mercenary.”

“Consider me quite relieved then.” Mr. Quetzalcoatl’s accent was still a bit hard for me to pin down as to where it came from. “Goodness knows what she could do if anyone ever gave her the idea to become an evil overlord.”

-Celestia-

A shiver traveled down my spine, it was like someone had threatened to destroy all the cakes in the world. I would have retaliated with my full might had that happened, as cakes were one of the things that kept me calm. Tea does absolutely nothing for me, but apparently it was important to the economy that I kept drinking it.

I tried to have a vision about what caused the destruction of all cakes and I saw the most horrific sight. It was me, not the me as I am now, but the me I could have eventually become should something impossible and horrific against all nature occur.

Cake Destroying Celestia’s hatred for cake was so raw and her berserker like tendency to outright destroy the sugary goodness on sight was so great, I could feel her looking my direction with a snarl on face. She hated my love of cake across the divide of time and space, I could feel her eye judging me for enjoying my comfort food while Luna was still imprisoned in the moon and every day was a trial to live through comfortably.

I quickly cut off my ability to divine other possibilities, I now remembered why I stopped using my future sight so often. It always made me constantly worried and paranoid about my fourteen secret hidden cake vaults all around the castle.

“The horror… all that cake...” You know what I needed right now to forget all that? Cake!

Author's Note

What am I currently on and do you want some? I need to last at least one more week.

All cakes in the magical cake vaults are, of course, magically preserved.

Chapter Fifteen, Questionable: ‘Unimportant’ information.

-Arizona-

Being a normal cow was a boring life, ponies treated cows like we were livestock and most cows tended to act like it despite the capability of talking. This is why I’m rough and tumble like a bull, at least bulls have some pride and can beat up rodeo ponies.

We’re treated like second class citizens when we’re smart and strong enough to match Earth Ponies, if so many cows weren’t so lazy then we’d have something like a voice among ponies. Do we even get paid for all the milk ponies get from us?

That was one of the many thoughts that ran through my mind, thoughts other than wanting to get into a good fight and or protecting Grace from doing something airheaded.

What was I currently feeling? Well I was bored out my mind! Nothing was going on, I might have actually gone on the lemming drive if they asked me. I didn’t volunteer to go, because it sounded so boring. I kind of wished I went with them now, but it’s too late for that.

I looked to the Helping Hoof Inn after exiting the front entrance, Grace was meditating again. She wasn’t much for excitement and was kind of like that Fluttershy girl, too relaxed and comfortable with nature. Speaking of nature, look who’s coming to keep me entertained.

“Coo!” Oh look, it was the strangest animal companion of Airship Mauled. She folded her wings and landed on my left horn wrapping her flippers around it and hugging it lovingly.

I still didn’t understand what was up with this turtle, I saw it around the town in odd places and doing odd things. Snickers was really strange, but it wasn’t the wings that were the strange thing about her.

Some days I’ve seen her following Jade, which should be normal if not for the fact that she doesn’t advertise her presence to the cat. Other days I’ve seen her sneaking around and watching Fizzle curiously, Snickers had even spied on Maries a time or two by flying directly above them. She was also seen cooing at Sekhet in a bright cheerful manner and the goddess didn’t seem to mind the turtle’s presence.

The turtle just sat on top of my horn and looked down at me smiling.

“Well if you’re not going to do anything interesting up there, I guess I’ll see what everyone else is up to.” I saw at least Chick hanging around, it looked like she was doing something odd with that bow and likely knew a few good pirate stories she could tell me. I could just as well talk to Kuril or even go ask Wary Berry for a lecture about the evils of fruit, but Jacky didn’t look very busy.

Getting closer I noticed that rocks were rapidly flying away from her bow and striking distance targets.

“How are you doing that Chick?” As I approached the black feathered bird stopped and turned to me. “You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with an arrow, even if the arrow was physically touching the barn when you fired it.”

“Can we not talk about the barn incident and the scar in my knee after I took an arrow to it? I figured out something about the bow, it’s not very good for shooting arrows… well at least not for me anyway. My bad luck has a part in that, mostly being the cause of my normal archery woes.” She took the rock she was holding, pulled it against the string and released it. “What it is really good at, is shooting anything else I can put to the string. I’ve been shooting rocks at the targets and I’ve been much more accurate since I’ve learn this bow fires other things effectively. It can even fire sunlight and shadows, provided I pull the string with nothing between it and the wood of the bow.”

The rock struck and sunk into the middle target at the edge of the bullseye, the other two targets had rocks lodged in the bullseye in multiple places.

“Coo!” Snickers raised a flipper and happily waved it to Jacky.

“Is she bothering you Zone?” Pointed a talon to the head riding turtle, Jacky seemed concerned the harmless turtle was bothering me. I was alright with it, she wasn’t that much of a novelty really.

“Not really.” I shrugged. “Is there anything interesting to do around here?”

“You could do some work with Mr. Refreshment and help him with the fruit plantation.” Here, let me respond to that visibly Jacky. I yawned audibly in a long drawn out tone. “Okay, what about talking up the assassin that wants to kill Jade, she’s good at listener.”

“Listening is just about all she can do with how well we tied her up.” Did anyone ever actually thank me for my exquisitely done knots? I’m an expert at tying ropes and using lassoes, I hardly ever get to use those skills around here. At least the physical education instructors know how to make a grueling exercise regimen, didn’t feel like exercising today. “I’m just wondering when she’ll notice that she’s untied by Kuril every night and put into a bed to be tucked in for a comfortable nights rest. She is primarily nocturnal after all, so it is actually something to worry about.”

“Oh yeah, you are the one that ties those knots. She really can’t move too much with how well you tie them and they don’t chafe either.” Taking a proud stance at Jacky’s recognition, I held my head high. “Just hope she never notices Kuril freeing her at night. Even I know sleeping in a chair is quite uncomfortable, but Kuril is kind of playing with fire where the assassin is concerned.”

“Yeah, it gives me at least something to do around here when I wake up early in the morning and there’s no school. I just don’t feel like exercising today.” I was missing Cheery already. Sure she’s a bit too perky for a teacher, but she was mostly alright. Why don’t cows ever go to school? Well technically Grace did and now I was going too. I wasn’t going to be a simpleton like so many other cows, so getting an advanced education was good and healthy for me. “So… snacks?”

“Snacks.” Jacky nodded to me in agreement as we went towards The Witch’s Fare.

“Coo… coo?!” We both stopped as we heard Snickers suddenly get excited about something, she leapt off my horn and spread her wings to fly into the restaurant as soon as the door was open.

Upon entering we saw quite a few traveling ponies, it seemed like there was actually a lunch rush going on in The Witch’s Fare. Five ponies wasn’t much of a rush, but Fresh Start and Kuril seemed happy to please them with good service.

They wouldn’t have any problems with Grace if they decided to stay at the inn for a night, nobody wanted to stay for more than two days in Airship Mauled except for Zecora. I’m kind of surprised that I did, but then again it is the weirdos who love living here and I was one of them.

There were several reasons that someone wouldn’t want to stay here. I would start with the pukwudgie attacks when you say two specific words that are banned by the mayor for a very good reason, there was the demented pranking jackalope, there’s always a chance the flying one eyed one horned purple pony eater might attack for the purple ponies that live around here, there’s a nearby forest of full of drop bears and a bunch of other odd things that happened around here. Random airships crashing on the local goddess, for which the place was named after, would be a good example of things ponies would rather avoid.

So it wouldn’t surprise me if none of these ponies were staying here and were just here for Kurilian’s cooking. It was heavenly food, but Grace preferred to go mostly grass diet with her four stomachs. I in particular liked the vegetarian chili, baked beans and mostly beans in general. At least it’s something with a little more flavor than the cruddy cud and other health foods that Grace enjoys, eating grass for the rest of my life after tasting Kuril’s food would have left me feeling horribly empty.

Snickers was hovering around two of the ponies who seemed to be talking to one another over something Kuril had cooked up for them. The stallion and the mare seemed to be quite infatuated with one another.

I wasn’t the only one watching Snickers fly little circles above them, I made my way over to Fresh Start the only pony that is capable of waking up earlier than everyone else. Between four to six in the morning like clockwork she was up and already getting started on a day. In comparison she was usually first to bed in the evening.

“Why is Snickers acting like that?” Pointing my right hoof at the fact that Snickers was happily hovering above the two ponies and watching them silently with a bright smile.

“I think she can sense the love between the two visitors.” Well that explains that much Fresh, but why was she hugging my horn earlier? Is she really just that affectionate and wants to be friends? “She’s seems to like pointing out happy couples by flying near them. Isn’t that just romantic?”

I guess she was just trying to cheer me up, but couldn’t Snickers have just continued being cute instead of getting all touchy feely with me? The two ponies kissed and the turtle threw her flippers in the air and made a soft, completely unobtrusive, hissing noise while hovering in place. She seemed quite ecstatic for the two lovers.

“Ugh, that’s a bit mushy for me.” Gagging on the air mockingly, I didn’t think I’d ever fall in love. “So can we get some snacks here?”

“Of course Arizona, I assume a party of two for you and Jacky?” You would of course be correct Fresh, which is why I and Jack were waiting to be seated.

“Yeah, there’s not really much going on around here today. Don’t honestly know why Snickers cares so much about love, it’s not like it’s that important that she hovers over them.” What I said next attracted Snickers attention with to me. “Even if she was never here, they would have loved each other all the same. Personally, I can’t see myself ever falling in love like that.”

Snickers flew over to me and looked me over with a curious glance, then her eyes took on a far more serious tone than I have ever seen on the turtle. She then fluttered over to the door to start pawing at it with both her flippers like a cat, ironic considering who her familiar bond partner is.

Jacky opened the door and let her fly free where she took off for the sky. Where was she going? Ah well, not my problem. She’d likely come back on her own. If she was supposedly smart enough to recognize and feel love, then she was smart enough to come back home eventually.

-Snickers-

Love, affection and happiness always important, I big smart for cow!

Where to find for cow though? Need contrary match.

Cold place, cool, powerful… super fluffy? Yay, I get great hugs soon!

I love fluffy and cow will like fluffy too. Show cow, I can make happy with pain!

Kitty of great bond would agree with big smart.

Missing kitty of great bond, should be returning from great quest soon. Hope she not miss me, I adventure too!

-Blade-

“Fresh get to work on the noodles!” Confusion was my world now, I didn’t feel like hurting the mother of my target. She was too friendly to hate, being a bit loose in her parenting skills was probably one of her worst problems though. “Hey, no name, could you chop these carrots and onions for me? I’ve already prepared the onions for chopping, I’m already getting started on the tomatoes, herbs and garlic. Come on now, this curd and carrot cacciatore for two isn’t going to make itself!”

I proceeded to do so and considered the fact that I was now armed with a knife and was not trying to immediately seek out my target to kill her or even get revenge against her mother. I felt kind of conflicted given how nicely I’ve been treated. Also, since when did I learn how to chop vegetables?

Sighing I held the knife in right wing more tightly and continued to carefully push the carrots with my left wing. It didn’t seem so hard to accomplish really, but I should just consider running and getting out of here before they tied me up again.

I continued to chop the vegetables… you know, instead of running for the door and spreading my wings to leave the area. The food here was almost worth more than what I was being paid to kill my target and I was getting it practically for free.

I’m not a freeloader! I may have my pride as an assassin, but that doesn’t matter at the moment when my honor required me to pay back the kindness in turn. I would never bite the hoof, claw, paw or hand that will feed me.

My previous employer probably wanted me dead for failing anyway and they never cared about feeding me or paying me upfront, so why not just stay captive here? Maybe I can even write to the local goddess about seeking amnesty.

“Uh Kuril... are you sure you should have your back to her like that?” I turned the one called Fresh Start, she was currently rolling the dough for the noodles out. “By the way two more orders, it’s just Jacky and Arizona wanting snacks. No need to fast track it, they can wait.”

“I’ve had my back to her almost constantly for the last twenty minutes I’ve been cooking.” She didn’t sound too worried about my presence. She didn’t have much to be worried about, because as an assassin I will only attack my targets from behind and you weren’t a target. “If she hasn’t stabbed me yet, then she isn’t going to.”

This Kuril was quite bold, I find myself a tad smitten with her nonchalance to my very presence.

“If anything, I wouldn’t trust her to be around Jade with her back turned.” A wise notion Kuril, as I’m still contemplating whether or not killing your daughter is a worthwhile thing to accomplish. Your food has almost has me paid off on its own weight, but I couldn’t very well tell you that now could I? “Thank you for assisting us, I’ll get you some ink, paper and a quill to write with.”

-Fluttershy-

We were on our way home with Mr. Quetzalcoatl making sure to keep dangerous creatures away from the wagon. I was with Cheerilee watching as Jade and Fizzle snuggled, coughed and sneezed in their sleep.

“Are they going to be alright Miss Cheerilee?” We’d give the wagon back after we’re done dropping of Jade and Fizzle in Airship Mauled.

“They’ll be fine friend Fluttershy.” Following along behind us was Sekhet telling Quetzalcoatl directions and discussing the boon she was owed for freeing him of being controlled.

“I’m going to agree with what Sekhet said Fluttershy.” Cheerilee eased my worries a bit. “Besides we’re almost back already.”

Chapter Fifteen, Questionable: Fireworks… the mauling kind.

-Quetzalcoatl-

“So all you want me to do is stay in this… Airship Mauled. At least for a few days so as to figure out if your hypothesis to a question is correct.” That was no boon, that was science and I was an interested party in seeing it happen. “That’s no boon, I personally have a vested interest in seeing what your questioning of the world will bring about.”

“Trust me, it will become a boon very quickly. I can’t tell you what I expect to happen without you becoming wary of my reasoning for wanting you around.” For a second it seemed like Sekhet wanted me around because I was one of the most beautiful gods she had ever seen, but it seems she has no interest in me personally.

Why is that gods can hardly ever find love without looking to mortals or outside their own pantheons? I would not keep my hopes up, though she was an exquisite looking goddess.

“Then we will see if it becomes a boon, otherwise I will still keep the boon for you open for now.” Do not think me as a cur with no honor, I always pay back what is owed. It was only right that I do so as is demanded of me.

“You also owe the Priest Jade a minor boon, she did assist me in stopping the constant rampage you had going on in Serpent Strath Path.” Thank you Sekhet, for reminding me that there was a frightening mortal that can freeze a god with her magic.

“Can she do that at all times?” I asked with a pensive feeling in my gut.

“No, she needs a specific object, one that is made well enough for her purposes. Said object is always destroyed and can only have an effect on a single thing.” At hearing Sekhet’s words I panicked, the priestess had used the power of sacrifice to stope me?! “Before you get too disturbed, Jade cannot do this to a living being and it only happens to objects she gets a hold of and uses in a specific manner.”

“Still, she’s sacrificing objects for power.” I continued to pull the wagon and all the mortals were resting as we approached this place known as Airship Mauled. I needed to confirm that the priestess wasn’t evil, then again she helped save me from evil so I had a few problems with not thinking only good of her.

“Only of a certain size and only if the object is not magically protected, the world does not see it as an aberration and it is powerful for being quite limited. The magic and energy summoned from the object returns to the world, the balance cannot be broken with this form of magic.” Those words did not ease things Sekhet, it was still quite a powerful ability. “Look at it this way, only Jade and her mother know how to do this and it’s unlikely that they will ever teach anyone how to do this stuff.”

“Are you actually telling me that anyone can do this?” That was almost scary, if mortals could fight us on even grounds then they could destroy the balance of the world.

It’s like the folly of mortals seeking immortality out of cowardice of death, they don’t know that they already have a form of immortality in being able to reincarnate anew. Seeking false immortality tended to ruin a souls reincarnation cycle, except in specific occasions when certain beings ascend into being gods of a certain concept. One just does not steal the powers of a god without consequences.

Thinking on the here and now, I first needed to fix the damage I have done to Serpent Strath Path. It should not have been several miles of harsh bedrock that the being controlling me turned it into. I will fix what I have damaged in containing my power to that area, but first I will see to what is needed of me here.

“Not just anyone and to hurt a god permanently would require very specific amount of circumstances as you may very well know. Such as another god making an object that a mortal can wield in an offensive manner and then having it used against you in such a manner. Jade and her mother don’t have to power to act directly against us, so stop worrying about that.” Sekhet was a goddess of war, I had almost forgotten that. She was quite correct in stating that mortals couldn’t really compare to us in power unless mitigating circumstances led to it. I was still quite paranoid after having my body and powers controlled by whatever that demon was. “They also have the logical weakness that they are limited by what they can carry, that and the objects are easily destructible. Your fears show your weakness, was it a mortal that took control of your body? No, but a unicorn or other magical creatures can possibly create a spell to that effect. Learn to protect yourself from being captured or having your powers stolen and abused, it would be wise of a god of intelligence to learn from the past.”

“I will see to protecting my mind war goddess and will find a way to prevent myself from being controlled again.” Taking a moment to think on I finally made a decision, other than to research protection against mortals attacking me. Have they have all forgotten my good deeds? “I will also give the young priestess a boon.”

“When you give her a minor boon, remember these words. Souls are sacred, they should not have any outside influence affecting them. It is the choice of the soul itself to make good or bad decisions.” She looked into my eyes with the fires of war and I could feel justice both harsh and merciful, she was powerful and had not gone all out against me. She had only used the right amount of power to free me, she was almost as cold and calculating as a god of intelligence. War and intelligence shared the ability to outsmart one another, but it always depended on the battlefield as a fight will always favor a war god in action. “After saving yours, you will not tarnish or even think of messing with hers. You may be of intellect and can possibly win a battle against me, but I will always win the war. So please, don’t do anything stupid Quetzalcoatl!”

“I hear and will acquiesce, I give my word that I will not touch her soul. My boon will be nowhere near as daunting as trying to make her my champion, not when she’s already considered gifted by the sun itself.” The stare continued for a few more seconds and then Sekhet dropped it before flaring out her right wing and paw.

“Then welcome to Airship Mauled, leave your sanity at the door!” With that Sekhet started towards the place called The Witch’s Fare, it looked like a restaurant built out of a crashed airship. Quite a novel and excellently named hamlet, which seems to have a unique theme here. Considering how many airships I have caused to crash by causing storms around Serpent Strath Path, I could aid in giving them a few more wreckages to use as a free gift with no strings attached. I’d clean up those derelict airships that nobody was using anymore and would give them to this place. “No seriously, don’t expect anything normal from anyone who lives here, I even know a magical chef and she can cook better than some gods I know. Goodness knows if Hapi and Taweret the hippos will send another invitation to a harvest feast... where are they… Taweret was said to have regenerative powers and Jade may know about that as well and might go looking. Yeah, might as well ask if she knows.”

I stopped listening to her idle muttering about the gods of her pantheon and winced at the thoughts of the gods in my own. My rival Tezcatlipoca comes to mind, as does Cipactli who wasn’t the friendliest god, his never ending hunger is quite frightening to behold.

My pantheon is quite messed up, but at least I wasn’t part of the Fae pantheon… that was several levels of screwed up that every other pantheon avoids to the best of their abilities. All the other pantheons avoided talking to any of them for many good reasons.

-Kuril-

The cacciatore was exclaimed to be completely delicious, the lovely couple were enjoying it quite a bit as much as they were enjoying one another. I should see about making a special hearts and hooves

I turned to the mysterious stranger who was a deft hoof at using knives, in fact her cutie mark seemed to be oriented around wielding bladed weaponry and she could definitely get into cooking. Now if only she had a teacher… hm… I wonder who that could be.

No, seriously, who could that be? Maybe Cheerilee… but she doesn’t know how to cook much. I could teach her how to cook and then she could teach this bat pony a thing or two.

“Say Fresh do you think I can teach Cheerilee to cook so she can teach no name here to cook?” Why was I getting such an incredulous stare from my waitress?

“Can’t you just teach her yourself?” Good question, let me give you a good rebuttal for that.

“I don’t have the license to teach cooking outside of getting an apprentice in Abyssinia laws, which are not applicable here.” There was that strange look again.

“You are currently living within Equestria’s borders Kuril.” No one could appreciate such a flat tone Fresh, put a little more pizzazz in your disdain!

“I hold a dual citizenship, since I don’t know the equestrian laws pertaining to hiring help I have to go with Abyssinia laws until told otherwise. You were hired by Celestia so I don’t have to worry about you being a legal quandary.” Now I was receiving a thoughtful look, she was about to say something when we both heard the bell on the front door going off. We had more customers! “Fresh Start, get out there and see who it is. We’ll discuss this later, for right now no name is volunteering of her own free will to help. Isn’t that right no name?”

The mare’s mane and tail have grown out minutely in captivity, she was no longer sporting a shaved look and would soon be cute enough to cuddle outright.

She just rolled her golden eyes at me and went back to chopping up some vegetables in preparation for more customers.

-Fresh-

“Hello and welcome to the… oh hello Sekhet, how did the thing with the lemming go?” I looked at the handsome feathered serpent snake thing next to her. “Also did you bring a date with you to our fine establishment?”

“Barking up the wrong tree mortal and the trip went particularly well. Tend to Quetzalcoatl’s needs, I will be busy waking up our friends.” So… does that mean the nice looking flying serpent was single? I might take him if Sekhet wasn’t interested.

“I heard there was great food here fit for a god, please tell me mortal… what would you suggest and may I get a table for one?” So he was a god, that makes sense given he’s a friend of Sekhet’s.

“Well today, our ‘Witch of Good Taste’ mayor Kurilian La Perm can make just about anything and is willing to please your sense of taste.” This is where I started the whole ritual of selling our cuisine. If you didn’t know what you want, then give us a good idea to work with. “If she can make it taste good, then she’s succeeding as a witch that makes quite a fine tasty dish. So what you should be telling me is this… what’s you’re flavor, what do you feel like having for a meal? We only use fish meat when specifically asking for meat, so if you want some of that then you just have to ask.”

“I am thinking something along the lines of say… something with corn, cabbage and fish meat.” Nodding to our customer as I seated him at a table, more like left him floating slightly above the chair, I went back to give Kuril an idea as to what his tastes currently are.

“Kuril, something with fish, cabbage and corn!” Those words I said caused a mad smile to appear on Kuril’s face, she always did like a challenge to her cooking.

“Corned fish chowder or corned fish stew?” She always gave me the option when she had too many ideas to work with here. “I’m making this salty either way.”

“He doesn’t seem like a cheese or cream kind of guy, go with the stew and make it a bit zesty.” Nodding she set about preparing the food and ordering us around, not where I thought I’d be in life after Celestia ordered me here. Still wouldn’t trade this place for the world though. “Oh and he’s a winged snake god or something, so probably nothing too outrageous. By the way your daughter is back, so keep a watchful eye on the assassin.”

I was making sure that Kuril was aware that she may try something now that Jade was back.

-Blade-

My ears twitched, my target was back. So what to do? I was still following Kuril’s orders and I couldn’t find the wherewithal to deny them.

Why would I deny them to attack the priestess that’s protected by two different gods that can rip me a new one? I’m not stupidly suicidal and I’m not being paid enough to kill the priest, there’s also the chimera that disappeared from the restaurant as soon as there was some business coming in. Who knows where they were and they obviously wouldn’t be happy about the priest disappearing or dying given how close they were to her.

Why was life so complicate now? I was done with cutting vegetables now, so maybe I should just sit down and relax for a bit and contemplate my future. I could already guess being an assassin wasn’t going to cut it for me, but what was I supposed to do now? Learn how to cook? I don’t think I’d be very good at it.

-Jade-

We were both woke up and informed that we were home by Sekhet. Despite being under the weather, we made it home alive.

Only something was happening with Fizzle, she sneezed and her horn fired a bolt three feet and it exploded in a shower of multiple colors.

“Look straight up Fizzy, aim those sneezes towards the sky!" I looked at her in alarm, she covered her mouth and tried to hold back another sneeze.

Looking up, she sneezed. Her head moved slightly forward while firing a burst of light into the sky that exploded colorfully.

Quetzalcoatl came outside towards the wagon to see what was going on, that’s when Fizzle really started sneezing like she had hay fever and she started looking tired as each sneeze launched a blast of colorful magic into the evening sky.

“Beautiful...” Quetzalcoatl commented loudly. “What is that noise... why are you wearing a blindfold Sekhet?”

I knew what the blindfold meant, I could already hear the sound of two whistling noises heading right for us.

I grabbed Fizzle and ran. Two flaming Viking styled airships were crashing here in Airship Mauled.

Author's Note

Sekhet Airship Crushed Meter: *Ding!* 12.5871273287. (May be slightly broken, it should be 9.5 airships a week.)

Quetzalcoatl- Mauled by an airship guest counter: *Dong* 1.5. (Halfway crushed by the second airship, most of the way crushed by the first.)

Chapter Sixteen, Fishing with Vikings: Thinking ensues.

-Jade-

I woke up with hooves wrapped around me, I was going to be a cuddle toy for the rest of my life. I guess I’m okay with that, but I was definitely discussing this with Fizzle. We needed to talk instead of just showing each other we cared.

Sleeping with my nose clogged up was hard, but I somehow managed to resist suffocating in my sleep. I wonder how things went last night, Sekhet probably didn’t need sleep and would know if anything important happened last night.

I’m not surprised that Fizzle accidentally shot down two Viking ships with requisite Viking warriors piloting them. It was bound to happen by accident eventually.

As to be expected of crashing airships, Sekhet took it like a boss. Quetzalcoatl… not so much and he hadn’t expected it. Instead Quetzalcoatl just watched us as I dragged Fizzle away, Fluttershy and Cheerilee were already clear of the crash zone.

Nobody got hurt, except for the two gods of course. They survived it perfectly fine, though I find Sekhet’s response to the incoming airships silly in how accepting she was that it was going to happen. I got to see Quetzalcoatl’s comical wide eyed stare, as I ran for it while dragging Fizzle with me.

What happened afterwards was not going to be entirely unexpected, but everyone decided to ignore the Vikings and get some rest.

It was probably not the best idea to leave two differing groups of Vikings to their devices, but we weren’t going to deal with it. I and Fizzle needed rest, Fluttershy needed to go home and Cheerilee was tired from keeping lemmings in line the whole trip. I never said it, but I think fillies and colts are kind of like lemmings.

“Fizzy, wake up.” I gently started to poke Fizzle with my tail.

“Mm… what is it Jade?” Well Fizzle, you were too comfortable with snuggling me a little too much and you were a little too clingy. Not that being clingy was a bad thing, but I felt like we were not doing this two way street thing correctly. She sleepily opened her wonderful eyes slightly. “What do you want?”

I would maybe like for you, Fizzle, to respect that I may need space from you sometimes and that you could at least ask me to sleep next to you instead of assuming I would do so automatically.

I only currently do so because I like you as a friend and possibly more, I was willingly sacrificing my own personal comfort for your needs.

I feel awkward about your closeness to me being built upon my helping you use your magic with a stopgap method, but I appreciate your affection more than you could ever imagine.

You could stand to use your magic more often and eventually get a handle on it to a point that you won’t need your horn restored to fully utilize it. It might have been draining to use your magic due to the large bleed off, but you have proven successfully powerful enough to sneeze airships out of the air. If you grew how much magic you could store through flexing it like a muscle, then the bleed off wouldn’t feel so bad.

Preferably, I think you needed to learn how to be a strong independent mare that’s not always going to be too reliant on me Fizzle, or even agree with everything I do. You needed at least some level of self-reliance that you could act autonomously and lead a more healthy social life.

I wanted you to be able to look me in the eyes and tell me exactly when I’ve done something wrong or that I have upset you in some way when necessary. You do not need to bottle up your old emotional scars, I wanted you to let go of them and move forward with your head held high.

Despite Just about every friend you have was because I made that friend first. You were kind of my first friend that wasn’t a god or my mother. When you make a friend on your own Fizzle, it will certainly be a very magical moment for you.

I also wanted you to be able to recognize your own worth, not only as my friend, but as my special some pony in a still budding relationship. What we had could become an enduring love if nurtured correctly, it was still quite fragile at the moment. In this train of thought, I would like for you to learn how to sleep by yourself so that I may be able to do things with some sense of privacy again.

I didn’t want to say any of that to your face… and didn’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you that you had flaws. Flaws that I've recently noticed and weren’t related to you defining yourself by your horn or magic. Not when you could define yourself as Fizzlepop Berrytwist and make yourself whatever you wanted to be.

A cutie mark never really sets a pony in stone and tells them what they can’t do, it only shows them what they excel at most.

I didn’t mind that you or others pointed out my flaws, if it makes any of you feel better. Being bad at math being the given one that I readily recognize. I was also sometimes a jerk, I wasn’t an outright hero, stealing could be necessary at times and I could do very questionable things.

I tried to keep myself grounded despite being capable of so much more with magical alchemy, it wasn’t easy to not go on a total power trip when I used some of my magical alchemy items. There was also always that temptation to abuse my sun given ability in the back of my mind, the fire that was still going out there. I could do so much with that, but I chose not to.

“I need to use the litter box and do my morning sun salutation.” I said after a few minutes after letting the silence continue while I was in my thoughts. To the litter box, then I would also blow my nose quite a few times and see if mom could get to work on some sinus searing soup. To achieve this, I would first need to get Fizzle to stop getting my fur covered in her snot. “Also could you please stop using me as a living tissue Fizzy?”

“Sorry… Jade… go do cat things.” Muttered the still drowsy Fizzle who released me. “Will help… apologize… later.”

Not all Abyssinian’s did cat things, despite almost all of our buildings having prime scratching post materials included somewhere in the design. The buildings weren’t great scratching poses, but they worked in a pinch.

Maybe I can talk to her about me brushing her mane and tail once in a while, since she’s so dead set on brushing my hair to the point that it looks nice. She wasn’t really picky about me not being feminine, likewise I wasn’t picky about her being more geared towards being a rough and tumble pony.

Making my way downstairs, I heard the noise of battle going on outside and ignored it to see Fresh Start already preparing the restaurant. Apparently mom was going to get some business today.

“Hey Fresh… is mom in the kitchen.” Snorting loudly, I was still quite under the weather and needed to bathe after having a Fizzle rub her nose all over me.

“Yeah, she’s already preparing soup for you and Fizzle. She also told me to tell you this in these exact words.” The maid turned waitress inhaled and I could see Fresh was gearing up for a shout at me. “Go back to bed and wait for me to bring the soup up. While I know you don’t like spicy things Jaded, it can’t be helped when it makes breathing easier while your sinuses are messed up. Also milk is bad for congested people.”

“What, no yelling?” Consider me slightly disappointed, I was about to sneeze when a hoof cupped a tissue over my nose and took a wad of my phlegm in it. She held out the tissue box and I took it reverently from her hoof, she then point behind me. “Oh… you wanted to do the yelling yourself.”

“I’m not going to yell Jaded, now get your tail up to bed.” Being the motherly figure that she portrayed herself as, mom ran her fingers over my ears and rubbed at them gently making me mewl in protest. “Get moving kitten.”

“One thing first, what’s going on outside?” The doors to the restaurant opened and I peered through them. Griffons, yaks and dragons were fighting each other valiantly in a random manner outside and in walked Sekhet looking perfectly fine.

“Eh, the Vikings are fighting one another for sport and I’m officiating it as the local goddess of war.” Rolling her eyes Sekhet took long striding steps towards me looking happy. “I heard all that stuff they’re doing out there is quite normal for them. Also none of them have died or have been permanently injured yet and that’s kind of amazing after they’ve been fighting outside all night. I mean that quite literally if you can’t guess. Sit there and let me hold the door open for you.”

Thus began the show to something really dumb.

“I am not Jormungandr!” Quetzalcoatl screamed at all the Vikings trying to attack him with thrown spears, after a moment they all stopped.

“Die Fafnir!” One of the Viking yaks shouted.

“Hey, isn’t Fafnir like a fake dragon guy that was cursed or something?” One of the Viking dragons asked.

“He doesn’t look like a dragon.” After a griffon Viking said that, now all the Vikings stopped to converse on the likelihood of Quetzalcoatl being Fafnir. “He looks like a serpent to me.”

“I am not Fafnir either!” He seemed a bit angry, but at least Quetzalcoatl wasn’t attacking any of them.

“That’s exactly what Jormungandr would say!” The previous Viking yak said loudly.

“Rabble, rabble, rabble, rabble!” All the other Vikings chanted for a short bit, even the ones who not minutes ago were beating each other senseless with various weapons. Notably the ground was littered with shattered wooden shields.

“You do have to realize that that actually makes absolutely no sense.” Quetzalcoatl tried to reason with the crowd. It was quite unfortunate for him that they were Vikings and idiocy knows no bounds. “I can’t possibly be both of them!”

“Which is exactly the statement Ouroboros would make!” The yak yelled while waving his sword wildly. “Rabble, rabble!”

“Rabble, rabble, rabble, rabble!” The Vikings in the general area started chanting again.

“Isn’t Ouroboros the same thing as Jormungandr?” Tried Quetzalcoatl in the hopes that they might see reason, he didn’t understand the principle of the argument here.

“See, he admits that he knows what he is!” The same Viking yak yelled loudly.

“Do I look long enough to be world spanning snake?” This was pretty amusing so far, wonder how Quetzalcoatl was going to convince the Vikings to leave him alone.

“You could just be having a bad day!” The Viking yak commented idly before adding. “It’s either that or you’ve recently lost a lot of weight. You were really quite fat Jormunboros, glad to see you finally taking your health into an account.”

“Okay now you’re just being a jerk good sir.” The general gasps throughout the crowd let Quetzalcoatl know that all the Vikings were now focused on him. “What… what did I say?”

“Ouroboros nor Jormungandr would ever say sir, they don't have honor as yak!” The Viking yak trailed off thinking hard about something, hard enough that smoke started rising from his head. “So that must mean…”

“That means what?” At this point Quetzalcoatl was quite beleaguered by the idiocy of these mortals, they’ve been attacking him for a while now. Not one of them has managed to do worse than both the flaming airships crashing into him.

“That this isn’t Fafnir?” One of the various Viking dragons asked dumbly.

“No, not Fafnir, it is obviously Nidhoggr!” All the Vikings started nodding and agreeing to that and chatting admirably among themselves.

“Sounds about right to me.” One of the griffons commented loudly.

“He’s not female enough to be Wadjet.” A Viking dragon agreed while nodding.

“He could be crossdressing!” Now all the Vikings looked less confident that Quetzalcoatl was male and were giving him eerie leers and appraising looks.

“Oh come on, that’s not even in the right pantheon anymore!” Complained Quetzalcoatl who should have just left things well enough alone at this point.

“We Vikings are well read, we read many books by hitting them with our weapons!” The Viking yak that seemed to be the spokesperson for them declared. “Rabble, rabble, rabble, rabble!”

“Okay I’ve had enough of this, get that soup up to me and Fizzle soon." There was only so much dumb I could take and these Vikings were kind of dim.

“A word before you go Jade, will you please do us the honor of going on a date with you?” it seemed Maries were eager to hear my response, I just stared at them for a long while. Maria spoke up. “We wish to take you fishing!”

I opened my mouth to say something to that, only to be cut off from saying anything by another head.

“Not today obviously, you are still ill our friend. We want to do this when both you and Fizzle are feeling better.” At least Mara and Maries as a whole understood that I wasn’t feeling too well today, what was Marie going to say now? She usually spoke up when Mara and Maria had a turn and I wasn’t disappointed when the snake head turned to give me puppy dog eyes. The effect was ruined because it was a snake doing the puppy dog eyes thing. “Please, go out with us?”

“Fine, when I’m better, now if you’ll excuse me I have tissues to deliver to Fizzle and a bath to take.” For a second it looked like I was about to get pounced upon. “Don’t pounce on me, you don’t want to get sick too!”

“We agree, we shouldn’t get sick and will let matriarch Kuril take care of you.” The three heads of Maries said to me while nodding and then they went to sit down at a table.

“It’s quite interesting around here darling.” The pegasus mare turned to the male unicorn and nuzzled.

“Yes, a breath of fresh air, we might just stay here another day.” The two snuggled up to and kissed one another as I made my way up the stairs. “I must admit, I thought for a second that the Vikings were all very dangerous after seeing them come here last night. They are too dumb to really mean any intentional harm except to each other.”

Ah, it was good to be home.

-Fizzle, twenty minutes later-

I really needed something to disable my horns magic… I needed Sekhet! Jade walked in looking as miserable as I felt, it looks like she had washed off all the snot.

“Jade go get Sekhet and have her come up her to disable my magic for a while.” I pointed out a large circular scorch mark on the wall, of which she noticed immediately. “I don’t want my sneezing to destroy our home.”

Jade sighed, turned around and left to go get Sekhet.

Author's Note

I am so tired after the fourth of July, 'Explosion Day' was fun though.

I got to explode twice.

Chapter Sixteen, Fishing with Vikings: Talking ensues.

-Fizzle-

Two empty bowls sat off to the side, my tongue was still burning and Jade had whined about having to eat spicy food.

“Okay, what’s wrong Jade?” I don’t want her to try playing innocent with me, not after eating mom’s sinus searing soup without warning me what I was getting into. At least it made breathing a little easier and I could smell the world again, I was currently wishing I couldn’t though given I could smell what I just ate. My nostrils were fried.

“Nothing…” Well that was an obvious lie if I ever heard one.

Currently there was no attempt to look innocent on Jade’s face. In fact she didn’t seem to be laughing, not even a giggle at my reaction to eating the soup. It wasn’t bad with crackers, but it was like drinking liquid rainbow and I could understand why Jade had a distaste for spicy things. Mom obviously likes to spice things up a little too hard.

Jade’s ears wilted, but she still leaned against me closing her eyes and sighing loudly. I felt her tail wrapped around my back and appreciated it, if there wasn’t some kind of niggling problem here with my friend. Abyssinian body language was very different from a ponies if similar, at least as far as I know that’s how it was.

“Let me guess, it’s something that you think will make me upset with you?” She nodded and rubbed her face up against my neck affectionately. She’s helped me a lot, but that wasn’t the only reason I liked her was it? Nope, she’s beautiful in her own unique way and she cares about me enough to do strange and bizarre things to make me happy.

I had to admit it was getting pretty easy for me to read Jade, I liked her a lot and we’ve only been on one date. Not necessarily enough to say it would be forever or a lasting commitment, but we had plenty of time to go on more to make sure and I was already calling her my special some cat. Oh, she was special alright for a certain definition of the word, but she was definitely my friend. I didn’t think many other unicorns or even other ponies would look twice at me like Jade does when she looks into my eyes. I didn’t even know if it was a standard date, but I knew I liked how much fun we had that day.

I rubbed at my horn, Sekhet could disable any kind of pony magic. She couldn’t disable Celestia though, likely because they are on the same level. Now my sneezes weren’t destructive and I honestly didn’t feel like I was missing much to have my horn disabled like this. I turned to Jade with a question on my lips.

“Is this about your birthday?” Maybe there was something I could figure out for her birthday, she’s made so many sweet gestures for me and I want to give her something special too. She shook her head no. “Then what is it? You’re not about to do something insane again are you?”

“Nothing dangerous Fizzy, though I did agree to go on a date with Maries to go fishing.” Was that all you were worried about Jade, for a second you had me believing something was off with you.

“Are you worried about that?” What could I say to make you feel better about that? “I don’t think that Maries will ever hurt you if you are stuck alone with them for a while. Also I don’t understand how you dating them could upset me.”

“Well it could or even possibly should upset you, you’re rather clingy and you have problems sleeping alone.” That doesn’t seem like a big issue Jade, not to me at least. “What I’m truly worried about is not you being jealous of Maries, though you are jealous of their physical prowess and might even feel threatened by their incredible intelligence. Okay so I am a bit worried about that as well, but how do you see relationships exactly? Ponies have herds, chimera have packs, but I’m sure mom has given you the talk and what Abyssinians are like.”

“Yes, there were a few things I really didn’t feel the need to know, but now I do.” Trying not to think about it too hard, I had an answer for her question. “I think having a relationship like my friendship with you, Jacky and Maries is wonderful. On a different point I’m kind of socially awkward, but then again so are you. That’s not an issue and I’m still trying to figure out romantic love. Are you asking if I’d be willing to share you with Maries? Is that what you thought I’d be upset about?”

“No, but sharing with Maries might actually become an issue. We’ll bring it up again much later, because I don’t feel like discussing that right now.” Okay Jade, then what was the real issue here, narrowing my eyes on her caused her to look away. “I’m worried about you Fizzy… that you’re kind of leaning on me too much.”

“I think you’re the one currently leaning on me here Jade.” Though I admit that I was afraid of where you were going with this.

“No, what I mean is that I think your using me and mom as a crutch and you can’t possibly do that forever.” Ah, you might have a point there Jade and I could kind of see where this was going. I could practice with my magic more, imbuing wood with various effects was increasing my control bit by bit. “You need to become a bit more independent of me. Can you look me in the eyes and tell me that I and mom are currently not your whole world? You’re not exactly great at surviving on your own and may have an unhealthy obsession with me and I want to be sure that you don’t so that we can keep going on like we are.”

“Hey, I know how to make a fire, shelter and find clean drinking water!” I went through Sekhet’s physical education classes to have a healthy body and can defend myself.

I didn’t really push myself further outside of those classes though. I trained with my magic, but I tired so easily and didn’t want to strain myself. Did I really have any hobbies that were my own? What did I occupy my time with that wasn’t Jade related? Okay I needed to find a hobby, even Jacky had her archery to mess around with.

“You didn’t know how to make a fire without using your horn before I taught you. When you make a fire with your horn, how long did it tend to last compared to making a fire with your hooves?” Jade was actually making a good point. The fire I made by hoof lasted longer than the ones where I just simply used my magic to ignite the wood. “You handle yourself well in dangerous situations, which is better than most ponies in existence Fizzy. I don’t think a normal pony would have rammed their hooves into a basilisk’s nostrils to prevent themselves from being eaten or bitten. Do you know how poisonous a basilisk is?”

“I don’t really know, but you’re the monster or creature expert Jade.” There wasn’t a creature in this world that my friend couldn’t identify. “I hope you know Fluttershy looks up to you for that.”

“Yeah, she does and I feel kind of awkward about it.” Look Jade, don’t be so modest, you are amazing in so many ways. “Basilisk venom, what to say about it? In general the basilisk itself should instill fear in just about anyone who meets one, the venom of one is far scarier than facing down a grue, a catoblepas and a banshee at the same time.”

“I only know about banshees.” There was something I didn’t understand here. Banshees weren’t evil, but Jade implied that they were. “Don’t they just warn those who are unlikely to survive something?”

“Yes, that’s true enough, but that warning always comes in the form of a shriek so loud as to incidentally deafen the one they are trying to save.” Which of course would be bad from the way Jade stated that negatively. “Given that you immediately become disoriented and deaf when a banshee shrieks, you are even more likely to die than less because of the banshee attempting to save you. That’s why they get such a reputation for being evil spirits, it’s because they always make you vulnerable to the dangers that can be found around them.”

“So what’s a catoblepas and a grue?” I can imagine a cat like monster for the Catoblepas, but I had no idea what a grue was.

“A catoblepas is a plant eating monster that looks like a buffalo, only they can never look up and are always looking at the ground. They have scales under their fur that are tough as iron, but that’s not what makes them dangerous. It’s their breath, they release a toxic fog that affects any living being around them, for whatever part of you that the fog touches will quickly turn to stone. If you are turning to stone because of this fog, it is best to turn to stone by fully diving into the fog. At least you’ll have a chance to be revived in that case. Unlike a cockatrice, the stoning is not progressive process from the ground up.” You were giving me the description of a very dangerous sounding creature Jade, far more so than a cockatrice. You can easily avoid looking a cockatrice in the eyes, a catoblepas can kill you by proximity. “The grue is far worse, but easier to avoid, but for the sake of your sanity I won’t try to describe it.”

“Oh come on Jade, I’m not a little filly here! A catoblepas doesn’t sound that aggressive, just lonely.” It could never make a friend, because with every breath it turns any active life to stone.

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you, hearing about grues tends to lead to paranoia that you’re going to be eaten by one.” Clearing her throat Jade took on an airy tone. “A grue is a creature of darkness and teeth with an endless hunger for flesh, it moves swiftly and is impossibly fast in the shadows or might be the shadows themselves. They are usually found in deep caves like those that Diamond Dogs are known to dig and a single one can strip you of your flesh in a minute. The only way to fend one off is with light, which will make it stay away because that’s what hurts and slows them down immensely. One thing to know is that grue are crafty and if they can stop or put out the light source, then they will do so as quickly as they can.”

“Now I’m officially afraid of the small caves that I spent some nights in previously where I thought I was safe the deeper in I was.” Could a grue have tried to eat me? I felt a chill running down my spine, that might be Jade's tail. “And the Basilisk venom?”

“You die in ten seconds within contact of a basilisk’s venom. Specifically contact, meaning it doesn’t necessarily even need to go inside you, they are called king of serpents or snakes for a reason. If that doesn’t happen, then you’re strong enough to learn that the venom is acid that propagates itself on any source of blood and will melt you from the inside out.” That couldn’t be real Jade. If it was then how close had I come to dying? How close had you?! She was looking into my eyes with no hint of humor, I should consider myself lucky to be alive. “If you for whatever reason prove immune to acid, then the venom starts attacking your pain receptors on and off constantly with increasing strength to the point that you will eventually die from shock. Survive the death by shock phase and then venom will just petrify you. Immune to turning to stone? Catch fire. Immune to fire? Venom draws in ambient magic and explodes violently. If none of that kills you, then congratulations, you just survived a basilisk biting you and you are possibly immortal at this point!”

“Yikes.” She waited specifically for me to let the first part of what she said sink in, then she said the second part to drive home the point.

“Yep, most poisonous snake alive. Doesn’t help that it can also turn the ground around it into a swamp to come at you from any angle and can flex its scales out to shred any problematic prey into bite sized chunks.” Jade, I get the idea, it was seriously deadly and cut us up pretty badly. “We almost lost you and that scared me, imagine if its tail or scales had been poisonous.”

I shivered violently, but Jade just wraps me in a nice warm hug.

-Jade-

“This world is full of dangerous creatures like that, but if it had bit either of us I’d have ten second to cast a phoenix feather.” Calming down at my words, she could at least see that we could have survived being bitten. I don’t think I will ever go anywhere without a phoenix feather on me. “So what do you plan to do for the future Fizzle? Jacky has airship repair, infamous archer, famous explorer and pirate going for her future. I don’t have much for myself personally, maybe get paid for being a sun priest as it seems like a pretty thankless thing to be otherwise. I could definitely publish a book about my knowledge of creatures, monsters and gods. Maries is already a lawyer, they could do many things like being actors for a one being stage play.”

Fizzle snickered at the idea of Maries being a one chimera show.

“I haven’t really thought to far ahead Jade. I could get into making fireworks, I could make drinks with Mr. Refreshment or even get control of my magic to a degree that I don’t need to get my horn back and prove that a broken horn is not the end of life as a unicorn.” As Fizzle spoke I rested my head against her. “I guess what I really want to be is… an inspiration of some kind. I’ll try to be a little more independent Jade, you don’t need to worry about me as much as I obviously do about you!”

“Trust me, you are an inspiration to me Fizzy.” Pecking her on the cheek, I smiled slightly and said something that made her blush. Adversity would never stop this pony from living her life. “Quite a beautiful one too.”

“Hey guys, I know you’re sick, but look at what I found beneath one of the airships!” Jacky bursts into the room holding a male red flying squirrel in her talons. It had impossibly long ears for a squirrel.

“You found that squirrel beneath one of the airships?” How did it survive the… oh my goodness. Really now! “Jacky, that’s not a normal flying squirrel.”

“It’s not?” The squirrel in Jacky’s talons gave me the stink eye.

“You’re holding a squirrel god called Ratatoskr the mischievous messenger.” I smirked. “He’s also known as Mr. Face Plow.”

The squirrel leapt for me in a blind frothing rage.

Author's Note

Guest god's hit with airships: 2.5 (Apparently Ratatoskr fell off one of the airships he was riding on and was crushed by it. It is also coming to attention that these counters are inconsistently named.)

Chapter Sixteen, Fishing with Vikings: Introductions ensues.

-Jacky-

“Come on Captain, you got him on the ropes!” How was I supposed to know the squirrel was a god, he was just so adorable, cute and innocent looking.

“What are you talking about, he’s kicking my ass all over the room Jacky!” Ducking back out of the doorway as Jade shot past me, I winced as she became embedded in Fizzle’s wall. That’s a really strong squirrel.

“Well maybe he doesn’t like the fact that you made fun of his teeth Captain.” This was kind of on me because I brought rata-whatever here, but what Jade said had been pretty mean.

“But his name literally translates to Mr. Face Plow… agh!” There goes Captain sliding into a roll across the floor and Fizzle was trying to help her fight off the exceptionally angry squirrel.

They weren’t doing all too well against the super strong squirrel, not to mention they were still somewhat sick and still healing from the injuries they got on their trip. They were being bruised quite badly, the Captain probably needed to have her bandages reapplied and Fizzle was now starting to whimper from the floor where she was tossed.

“Okay, that’s enough out of you!” I pulled out a clean plunger, put it to the bow and shot the squirrel mid leap, the plunger nailed him head on and stuck him to the wall with his entire body trapped by the suction cup. “Look Mr. Face Plow or Rata-whatever your name is, I thought you were cute and friendly when I dug you out from under that ship. My friends are already injured enough, and they’re sick. What kind of god are you if you beat up people for the slightest of sleights against you! Look at them, they are already bad enough and you’re just making their recovery time take longer. You should be ashamed to call yourself a god!”

The flying squirrel’s anger abated and he looked ashamed of himself, he hung his cute little head with those adorable long ears and his tail straightened out considerably. I think I chastised him quite well, he looked quite remorseful about his overreaction to Jade’s words.

“Yeah, not exactly the greatest of the gods to me or Fizzle at the moment Jacky. I’m going to stick with Sekhet if it’s all the same to you.” A very understandable thing Captain La Perm, but I had something to say to you as well.

“Captain I know you were trying a joke to brighten up your mood and while it was admittedly funny, you hurt Mr. Face Plow’s feelings.” Putting my fists to my hips, I gave my captain a disappointed look.

“Says the parrot who said the same name that you stated sounds insulting to him.” Yes Captain, that happened and I did just say that, but you didn’t need to point it out so bluntly . “Again his name is Ratatoskr, I guess we’ll call him Rata to make things easier on ourselves.”

“I’m good with Rata.” One does not need to go exploring the world nearly as much when the world kept coming to you here at Airship Mauled, it was interesting to see so many strange and wonderful things like the hunky griffon Vikings outside. I didn’t even know a squirrel could be a god or so physically capable until a few minutes ago. I turned to the cute squirrel struggling to push the plunger off of his body, the suction was the only thing keeping him on the wall and it was holding strong. “Are you okay with being called Rata?”

The red flying squirrel god stopped struggling for a moment and looked a bit thoughtful, then he rolled his eyes and focused on me before nodding his head in acceptance to the idea. Okay, we are now definitively calling him Rata!

“Next time Jade, don’t antagonize a god. Not even Rata.” Fizzle sent Jade a glare, but she soon got up and moved over to Jade to cuddle up against her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, if covered in bruises and some minor scratches. Oh and I think my chest wound is bleeding slightly.” The Captain was more than a little frazzled looking as she leaned into Fizzle’s hug. “What about you Fizzy?”

“I’m fine Jade, but seriously stop challenging gods with the ability to physically paw us our butts.” Well to be fair Fizzle, Jade couldn’t possibly have expected that something so small to be capable of lifting and throwing you both around. I watched Fizzled lift up Jade’s shirt and then she turned to me. “Jacky go get the medical kit so we can wrap more bandages around her, I can see red peeking through these.”

I thought that Jade and Fizzle were cute together, but right now there was something I needed to tell them after pulling Rata off the wall.

“Okay hold on a second while I pull Rata down.” I gripped the plunger with both talons and pulled, with a loud pop Rata was free and patting down his fur. “After I’m done getting the medical kit, I’m going to try and find a handsome Viking griffon to talk up.”

“I suggest you be careful with that.” Jade warned while wince and clutching at her chest. “Viking’s can be a little weird at time.”

-A few days later, Jade-

“I’m definitely feeling so much better now, so did anything happen with the Vikings that I might have missed Sekhet?” I would never look at squirrels the same way again, but at least Ratatoskr became friendly after we apologized to one another.

Still Ratatoskr was known for his mischievous streak and he had yet to really do anything like that, it had me kind of on edge. Speaking of small animals, where was my favorite turtle friend Snickers? She’d usually be bugging me for affection by now.

“Not much, they are still arguing with Quetzalcoatl about what he is, also the restaurant seems to be getting a large crowd every day and you’re mother’s cooking is a hit. The Vikings are paying well for the food at least.” That’s when Sekhet did something unusual, she came over to me and gave me a quick hug. “The fighting isn’t horrible and it’s actually entertaining for me to watch some pros go at it without permanently harming themselves, they actually recognize my importance as a war goddess around here. It’s actually a pretty incredible feat for them to not do more than scarring wounds really, given they’re using axes, spiked maces, spears, flails, knives and broadswords.”

I turned from Sekhet to let her finish eating her food to go sit with Maries, we would be waiting on Fizzle this morning. Our injuries were almost better and we were healing quite well.

“What’ll it be today Jade?” Ready with a notepad, the morning maiden Fresh Start was already right next to me and waiting.

“I’m waiting on at least Fizzle before I order.” She nodded and went to take care of some Vikings ordering breakfast here. I turned to Maries and had to ask. “Have the Vikings been bothering you?”

“No, surprisingly they’re very friendly towards us, but they expected more vicious personalities.” Goes to show you that the Viking didn’t know our favorite chimera very well. “We’re kind of surprised that they are rather respectful and polite for battle hardened warriors.”

“With the way they’re treating Quetzalcoatl you wouldn’t know it.” Jacky took a seat next to Maries’ right and joining us at the table was a very average looking griffon. “That guy can’t catch a break, he looks like a number of monsters in their culture.”

“Hello there, what’s your name? I’m Jade.” Before the griffon could comment, Fizzle sat down next to me.

“Have you asked about the Helping Hoof Inn yet?” Not yet Fizzle, I was more interested in who our normal looking guest was at our reserved breakfast table.

“I was about to find out about the griffons name, I haven’t even gotten a chance to bring the topic around to how Arizona and Grace are doing.” I and Fizzle had kind of been shut in for a few days and mom has been taking care of us between feeding hungry Vikings, so we didn’t know the status of the inn that couldn’t hold the number of Vikings that were currently in The Witch’s Fare. The Helping Hoof Inn wasn’t nearly that big. “If you would like to tell us who you are.”

“Well okay, hello everyone I’m ‘Gene Eric the Swift Reaction’.” He sounded normal, far too normal for a Viking.

“Quick question Generic, are you even a Viking?” It was a pertinent question from me for the avian that looked absurdly normal as his name suggested. He had brown feather, brown fur and green eyes, in all he was an average sized griffon with no overly incredible defining features. “If not, then what are you doing here?”

“Of course I am, I’m a decently fast Viking and I get around with my two brothers in arms.” He had no accent and sounded just normal. Okay he was by far the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen appear in Airship Mauled. Ratatoskr or the flying purple pony eater don’t really hold a candle to this guy. I’m horrified by his seemingly perfect normalcy among all the other muscular and buff Vikings around here. “I’m just as good as any griffon, only I have a slightly better reaction time to things going on in my environment.”

“Nice to know, so Helping Hoof Inn for the two who’ve been resting and out of the loop for a bit?” Well out of the loop as far as all we’ve been doing is sleeping, eating, bathing and using the litter box. I had no idea what was going on with the Vikings aside from meeting Generic.

“I’ll tell you what’s going on, you’re missing all kinds of awesome fighting!” Here came Arizona, it looked like a cow was being added to our table. What next a dragon? “If you’re wondering the Inn is doing fine and I’m making sure nobody does something stupid to Grace. I’ve been kicking flank left and right with my bare hooves, this is looking to be the best week ever for me!”

“Yeah, I’ve never met a warrior so young that can hit so hard. I am ‘Flamberge the Fiercely Flammable’!” A red bipedal dragon raised his sword high and smiled at us, he had two natural horns and a helmet with two horns on his head and like Generic his eyes were a sharp green color. “This is my sword that’s always on fire!”

His sword looked like a wave bladed sword… and it wasn’t currently on fire, but the design made it look like it was.

“It’s not on fire though.” Fizzle dryly stated while staring at the blade.

“That’s because it’s sleeping.” Flamberge was receiving a bunch of flat stares from everyone except Generic.

“Your sword… is asleep. Yeah and my horn is on vacation, a very long one at that.” How deliciously sarcastic of you Fizzle, the deadpan tone was appropriate to this given situation.

“That’s quite amazing, I didn’t know unicorn horns could take vacation.” At Flamberge’s somewhat excited words, those who naturally lived here at Airship Mauled look to one another. “I do hope it comes back though, I don’t think most unicorn horns get vacations.”

“They may be tough or swift, but nobody has ever said they were very bright.” Arizona whispered to me and Fizzle before taking a seat. Stashing his sword away Flamberge sat down as well.

“Ah one of my two brothers is already here, Gene it is nice to see you have made friends with the locals we crashed our ships near!” This Flamberge guy was a bit flamboyant, also that sounded like a nice nickname for Generic. “Now if only the third of my brother in arms was here, then we’d be able to tell you how incredible we are!”

“Did somebody call for “Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant’?!” Oh gods and goddesses what was that horrid smell, this Fortitude guy must have had a fortitude to go around smelling like that. I heard yaks could get bad, but this was beyond anything I’ve ever smelled before! Smells like this could kill flies on contact.

“Why do you smell like a cut open durian?!” I barely managed to gasp out. Fizzle was trying to cover her nose with both hooves and Arizona looked quite sick to her four stomachs. “I just got better from being sick, I don’t want to be sick again!”

“How do you even know what a cut open durian smells like Captain?” Jacky started turning as green as the black furred yaks eyes, he was a hefty looking guy with a huge shield on his back. “It’s an accurate description though…”

“I am 'Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant'.” The large yak said, but didn’t elaborate on why he smelled like a bunch of rotten eggs. “Yak like me smell strong, Fortitude be strong too!”

“It seems we three are together my brothers in arms.” Generic, I have no idea what we did to get saddled with your friend's stink, but please help us. End our suffering... please! “Excuse me, but it seems the locals we are guests to can’t stand your stink Fortitude. A bucket of water, if someone will.”

“I’ve been waiting for someone to ask, but darn it you Viking are actually quite a polite bunch!” It seemed like Fresh Start was waiting for this moment, she threw a bucket of water at Fortitude getting him all wet and the smell suddenly died off. That was followed by two more buckets splashing him.

“Fortitude smell less strong!” The yak was just stating the obvious out loud, Fortitude didn’t even seem to care he had been hit by multiple buckets of water.

“Now that that is taken care of, what can I do for you?” After we ordered some food from Fresh Start, Flamberge stood up and gathered his two brothers in arms.

“Together we three are the Vibrant Vikings!” At Flamberge’s exclamation, Generic rose his fist on the right and Fortitude raised the shield from off his back on the left. As for Flamberge he raised his sword into the air, it still wasn’t on fire. “We are adventurers unparalleled!”

“Never heard of you and I know a thing or two about Vikings.” The three looked sad that Jacky was less than impressed.

“Well that’s great, but I’d rather talk about the fishing trip me and Maries are going to go on.” I turned to the three heads that were giving me their full attention. They didn’t have much else to do. “So do you want to go fishing at a lake, the sea or a nearby river?”

“The river, it is simple and safe.” Maria started, only for Mara to cut in. “Ponyville’s lake has krakens in it and I’ve heard how good you are with them.”

“I heard there were a lot of eels at Ghastly Gorge and I’m interesting in seeing them at least once.” After Marie spoke the three heads froze. They all of looked thoughtful and then Maries spoke as one. “Wherever you feel like going Jade, we’d all be fine with it. We would certainly like to learn how to fish from you.”

“We’ll go river fishing then, I’ll need time to get the fishing poles in order.” I’m sure they could figure out how to use one.

Chapter Sixteen, Fishing with Vikings: Running ensues.

-Kuril-

“Ma’am, I have a question.” I turned to the griffon Viking that approached and I gave him my undivided attention.

“Yes, what is it?” This is the part where a problem pops up on me.

“Do you know where we can get some good fights around here?” He asked me with an innocent look on his face. “That strange flying serpent outside won’t fight us and we’re kind of hungry for battle. So I and the guys were hoping you might have an enemy or two we can deal with.”

“Oh I have the perfect enemy for you, they’re numerous and smart and not to be underestimated no matter what you may think of them initially. Fresh, some paper and ink if you will!” It was a perfectly good idea, so I may as well do it. Fresh Start was on her way to walk by me. When she did get to me, she stopped and held up the items I requested. After taking them from her hoof and letting her walk off. “Thanks Ms. Start, you’re always such a dear friend to me! Now if you will wait patiently sir, I will write these magic words for you…”

The Viking nodded and waited eagerly. I started jotting down the information the Viking needed, writing down only two words and waited for the ink to dry. After the ink was dry, I folded the sheet of paper up twice and then waited on handing it to his talons.

“First off, you should never say these words anywhere around here! That’s very important in making this magic work. I suggest you gather as many Viking as you can gather together and head… I want to say south. Do so for a quarter of a mile.” Any direction would have worked for this really, but I really didn’t want the Vikings to say those words around here. I handed the paper to him as if it were a loaded bomb, it might as well be because of what happens when you say those words. “You will then open this piece of paper and yell the words I have written down for you. Once you do that, you will then be in for a very large fight of the likes that you’ll probably enjoy. Word of warning, expect an attack from any direction.”

“Thank you Ms. Mayor Witch Kurilian La Perm! Hey guys, the witch knows of a fight she wants us to handle!” The griffon nodded and turned to the bunch of Vikings cheering happily at the griffon’s words. “Anyone who wants a good fight, we can set out south immediately to find one!”

Once they were on their way, I walked over to Fizzle who was sitting in a corner of the restaurant and had a cup of iced sweet tea sitting next to her. She was reading a book about drink mixing from what I could see on the cover.

Moving so that I could look over her shoulder, I was glad to find out that it wasn’t alcoholic drink mixing and that it was about stuff like smoothies or milkshakes.

None of my daughters, except for maybe Jacky, are becoming alcoholics on my watch! I wasn’t likely to stop Jacky from drinking grog eventually, but for now she lived under my roof and would follow my rules. Not all alcohol is bad, a little wine never hurts and it’s only if you don’t stop after a certain point that you know you have a bad problem.

“It seems you’re quite comfy.” I commented idly, Fizzle blinked and looked up at me.

“Yeah, I am mom… I’m most certainly not worried about whatever kind of danger Jade is involving herself in this time.” The look on your face said otherwise Fizzle and now I will give you a knowing look. Your reaction was going to be an overly swift denial. “No seriously, I’m not worried that Jade might be in mortal peril right now because she has Maries with her. What kind of creature could Maries not outrun while carrying Jade? I’m sure she’s perfectly fine… yep… not panicking at all… no torn limbs or the possibility of not having a snuggle cat to sleep with for the rest of my life who’s also my best friend…”

I narrowed my eyes as I saw several muscles clench in Fizzle’s body, I knew what was about to happen and I was prepared to tackle Fizzle if she tried to do what I think she was about to do. Fizzle calmly put the book down, but her muscles were still tensed.

“I have to go help her…!” Fizzle started as she leapt up to run past me and I tackled her to the floor and pinned her. “Come on mom, let me go! Jade could be in serious danger! Who knows what’s happening to her right now! She might need me!”

Fizzle struggled in my grasp and I then I did something really quite dirty, I started petting my daughter and cuddling her while keeping her pinned.

“Dirty pool mom, dirty pool…” A slowly weakening Fizzle said under my careful caressing, eventually she gave in and let me affectionately scratch her behind the ears. “You are a very evil cat, and you should feel bad about that. A little more to the right… oh yes~.”

I knew how to stop my daughter from running off to go help Jade, who was likely in no danger at all… who am I kidding, she was likely in great danger! I was just trusting Maries to be able to handle whatever it is. I absolutely trusted my daughter to come back alive, what I didn’t trust was that she wouldn’t get into danger.

“You don’t trust Maries and Jade very well do you Fizzle?” My daughter stiffened up and I continued to play with her ears and mane.

“It’s not them that I don’t trust, it’s whatever Jade has gotten herself into this time that I don’t trust!” That’s well-spoken Fizzle, but I had a question for you.

“They aren’t that far away from Airship Mauled my little Fizzle.” I said calmingly. “Besides, what kind of trouble could Jade possibly get into while fishing?”

“What about the crazy whale shark thing?” Oh yeah, those incidents certainly did happen Fizzle. You were even witness to one personally, but I have a counter.

“They went to a river, nothing really big grows in the fresh water around here Fizzle.” I defended, because let’s face it, how big of a problem could I really expect my kitten to get into? Fizzle just raised her right brow at me in a questioning look. “It’ll be fine Fizzle, you’ll see, I think you’re just a little jealous of Maries date and want to interrupt it at any cost.”

“No, it’s definitely not Mara, Maria and Marie that I’m worried about mom, I’m friends with all of them.” I held her in place as she struggled to get up, she wasn’t going anywhere. “I can almost feel Jade getting into trouble right this second! It’s like a gut instinct I have.”

“They’ll be fine Fizzle, you’ll see.” We’d better see them healthy and fine, fishing was something that Jade excelled at and it wasn’t really dangerous unless you were out at sea.

-Jade-

“Well at least it can’t get onto land and chase us down.” The huge narwhal shifted forward and large leg shaped fin stomped the ground in front of me, I slowly started to back away from it. “It can walk on land… of course it can.”

“Can it use its horn to do magic?” After Mara said that, I had a few words for her.

“Actually that’s a common misconception about narwhals! Notice that the thing you called a horn isn’t centered on its head, but is in fact slightly above its lips and off to either the left or right depending on the narwhal. That’s not a horn, it’s the creature’s oversized tooth that made a hole through its upper lip.” I pointed out the supposed ‘horn’ and continued backing away as another leg fin was put on the ground, the whale sized monster seemed intent on crawling onto land to come get us. What did we ever do to this thing to attract its attention? “As for it being capable of magic, well if that tooth is magical, then we’re in trouble. The one thing we don’t have to worry about is being chewed to death. Aside from usually growing only two teeth, one being vestigial and the other looking like a nose horn, narwhals don’t have any other teeth and tend to swallow their prey whole and alive. Kind of like unicorn whales of the sea and…”

I had trailed off, mostly because the narwhal turned, opened its mouth wide and inhaled a powerful vortex of air that sucked out all the fish in the fish trap. It swallowed them all and it almost pulled me in, but Maria hooked her horns under my armpits and they backpedaled to safety with me. The large narwhal slowly turned to us menacingly.

“Jade we have neither seen a whale or the sea, aside from the trip to Canterlot we really haven’t gone far beyond our home of Flame Geyser Swamp or Airship Mauled.” Maria was just staring at the large narwhal that was now pointed at us. Maries kept backing away and staring at the monster that pulled its third leg out of the water. Tail Marie then spoke up, sounding a bit worried. “The suction on that mouth is quite powerful. How strong do you suppose a narwhals stomach acid is?”

“I’d rather we not find out and I might take you to see the sea one day. We’ll do it on the west coast so we can watch a nice sunset together. The first thing we should do is survive this thing.” I was summarily flipped onto Maries’ back by Maria, where I clung to them and they kept backing away from the fish legged narwhal crawling onto land after us.

It opened its mouth and the vortex of air entering it threatened to pull us in, I clung to Maries and they clung to the ground with their tiger legs claws and dug in their goat hooves.

Dirt, bugs, grass and other various things started flying into the monsters mouth and the ground around us started to come apart at how powerful the suctions force was.

“You’re not making a meal out of us!” I lifted my left hand and fired a magic missile down its throat, aiming for what I hoped was its uvula. I missed and still hit the back of its throat.

The blast of energy made its mouth reflexively shut and it groaned loudly in pain, even though that really didn’t hurt it much at all.

I didn’t know how it managed it, but the narwhal managed to properly project its anger at us quite well in its body language. That’s when its horn like tooth started to light up with magic, said magic started from the base of the tusk and slowly move down towards the tip. Said tip was pointed towards our general direction.

“Maries… run… very fast!” Oh holy freaking crap, it can actually use magic with its tooth! My shout made Maries turn around and they kicked off with their goat legs, we shot forward and I looked over my shoulder at Marie who was watching for something.

“Left!” Marie called and Maries’ body lunged to the left as a thick beam of yellow energy ripped through a swath of trees to our right. “Go right, go right! We can’t let it cage us towards the river, I’m pretty sure it can swim faster than we can and we do not want to be caught by its ability to suck us in!”

The large narwhal was giving chase to us and it wasn’t slow… why wasn’t it slow?! Where was the square cube law when you needed it? I didn’t understand the math, but I understood why it was a thing.

The Narwhal wasn’t in water or space, so wouldn’t it be too big to the point that it collapses in on itself? Oh right, this is a magical world where things like Dragon Lord Torch, hydra and Rocs existed without body size being an issue. All of them mountain or hill sized dangerous creatures, Mr. Vacuum Mouth being among them.

“It seems you’ve run into trouble with a narwhal-ker, quite dangerous that.” Generic was flying next to us, Marie and I looked to him. “We the Vibrant Vikings will assist you in its defeat.”

He couldn’t get excited or sound frightened by the prospect, why am I not surprised at this point? That’s when Flamberge swooped in and we all dodged another large beam of yellow energy trying to intercept Maries running form.

“We shall do battle with yonder beast!” He proudly proclaimed, only for the Narwhal stopped and sucked both him and Generic into itself. Yeah, it seemed like a creature that sucked birds out of the air. I don’t think Pegasi were lucky if they ever flew near this monster.

“I am ‘Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant’!” Yep they were all here, well at least one of them was. The other two just got swallowed alive by the vacuum whale with a magic tooth. He was running alongside us. “We should help friends, but yak not willing to face that. Fortitude is also still comforted by your very presence!”

“Well what do you expect us to do? That thing is ridiculously large and it can use…” Maries leapt to left and I almost fell off, Fortitude whipped his shield off his back with his right leg and blocked the beam of magic.

He blocked a destructive beam of magic, which could cut through trees, with what looked like a wooden shield. Yaks weren’t known for being particularly magical, but that was quite impressive and I would like to know how he did that.

Was he so dumb that he ignored magical physics making it an achievement in ignorance or was he so stupid that it had actually worked on the principle that it clearly shouldn’t have?

“Fortitude spirit be strong, like yak odor!” He may have deflected a magical beam off the shield, which is among a number of impossible things I’ve seen today, but he was still running with us in trying to escape the narwhal. “Yak be thinking of plan. Fortitude no ask for help, but friends can do it for yak!”

“Well there’s not really a better plan... into the forest!” At my words Maries and Fortitude turned right and the narwhal was still giving chase. Now that I looked at it more carefully, it seemed to have a big dopey grin on its face. That was a face that will haunt my nightmares. “If we can’t lose him, then we’re heading for Airship Mauled to get help! Before you ask most male narwhals have teeth or tusks like that, so I’m assuming its male because females rarely get those.”

“Sounds like the only plan to us Jade... everybody duck!” Everyone followed the logical conclusion. Maries threw herself to the ground as I snuggled into their back, while Fortitude moved into position behind us to successfully block the sweeping beam.

We hastily headed towards Airship Mauled.

-Vikings-

“Highland Pukwudgies!” The Vikings were nowhere near Airship Mauled at the moment, they also had both Sekhet and Quetzalcoatl watching them.

Chapter Sixteen, Fishing with Vikings: Whale done.

-Maries-

We just wanted to spend a nice day fishing with Jade and to bring back some to fill the larder with, why did this monster have to show up and ruin our fun?

Don’t worry about it Maria, we still learned a lot about fishing. Even though we never got to use the spear or do any tail fishing. Marie any more incoming shots?

No Mara, but the monster is keeping up with us.

Surviving our date is now our top and collective priority, as is protecting our prospective mate Jade from harm! I'm quite sure we all wish to try this form of courting again without interruption.

-Jade-

We were coming up on Airship Mauled fast, Fortitude was pretty good about standing strong in the face of beam attacks.

“How is your shield blocking those beams, is it magical in any way?” Looking in my direction, Fortitude seemed to have a confused look on his face.

“No, Fortitude shield not be having magic, it be made of flexible wood planks and metal!” The fact that it is a normal shield doesn’t make any sense. It was a pretty big and heavy shield, but there was nothing special about it that would actually prevent the narwhal’s beam attacks from going through it. “Fortitude just be blocking with strength of yak!”

“Speaking of yak, I’ve been meaning to mention something to you about one I’ve met.” We continued running from the narwhal behind us as it opened its mouth in an attempt to suck us in, but every time it did that it had to stop moving. I was thankful we were always out of range before it could get us by doing that, in fact we managed to get a decent distance from it. “You said you feel comfortable around me right?”

“Of course, you feel like yak friend already to Fortitude!” Well that’s nice and all Fortitude, but your stink was going to be an issue if we were to actually become friends. I think I’ve had enough time to figure out why you like my presence and it was pretty simple for me to figure out.

“I met Eir the Valkyrie, she said I was welcome in Yakhalla.” Those words had me being looked at in a different light by Fortitude.

“You are friend of great Valkyrie? Fortitude honored to meet and protect you friend Jade!” Shortly after his jovial statement, we had arrived at Airship Mauled.

Only there weren’t any Vikings here and I didn’t see Sekhet favoring or being friendly to the Vikings, nor did I see Quetzalcoatl being annoyed or hassled by them.

“Are there any gods around here?!” I shouted as I hopped off Maries and ran towards The Witch’s Fare, she slowly followed behind me breathing a bit more heavily. Having three heads to catch her breath with really helped Maries recover stamina quickly. I stopped when I heard a squeak, I looked down to see Ratatoskr standing proudly and looking up at me. “Again, are there any gods around here... that can actually do something useful?”

He glared at me angrily and crossed his paws, he started squeaking loudly in a slightly upset tone. I crouched down and looked him in the eyes.

“Look, buddy, if you can take of the creature coming in this direction, then the more power to you for being able to do something to the pertaining situation at hand that we really need help with.” I started off in a placating manner. “You must admit that you’re just not exactly a combat oriented god and we could really use one of those right about now. If we need a message delivered or some back up on a smaller problem, then we’ll certainly call on you. I and Fizzle know for a fact that you are not weak, it’s just that you are not as strong as other gods.”

Ratatoskr went to see what it was in a red blur, the little guy had super speed as he was a messenger god. A minute later he ran back by us into the restaurant, still an indistinguishable little blur; the poor little guy wasn’t a major god and it showed quite noticeably. At least Rata was smart enough to know that being immortal does not mean that he can’t feel pain and knew when to choose his battles, so he was pretty good at threat assessment.

“You and Maries are back a little bit too soon… what happened?” Mom gave me this look that was asking what I did this time.

“Well matriarch Kuril, there was a fish and…” Mara started, only for the monstrous Narwhal to burst in to view by ramming through some trees. Marie finished what Mara was going to say. “It was 'that~' big.”

Mom shivered at the sight of the narwhal slowly working to get the trees it toppled away from itself.

“Okay what has Rata so… whoa. You just can’t do normal now can you Captain?” Despite her joking, Jacky was already preparing her bow for the fight and she even grabbed her spear from behind the door. “That’s the biggest catch I’ve ever seen from a fresh water river!”

That reminded me, I really needed to go back and pick up my fishing equipment once this was all over with.

“They haven’t exactly caught it yet, Blackcap.” Fizzle sauntered out of the restaurant giving the monster a bland look and then she came over to me, she started to affectionately nuzzle me. “Sorry your date with Maries was interrupted, so when’s the next one? I think you owe Maries a completely romantic date, it’s only fair.”

“It was good, until that monster ruined it.” I’m a little surprised that Maria became the aggressive one for a moment. “We were learning so much about fishing from Jade, then it starts chasing us and it ended up swallowing both Generic and Flamberge.”

“Uh guys, I know you’re treating the narwhal as less of a threat than it really is, but that is not a good idea considering what it’s doing now.” At least I wasn’t the only one paying attention, Fortitude stood in front of the monster while hold his shield up defensively and he took a blast of magic from its spiraling tooth.

“It can use magic…” Fizzle’s ears wilted and now she looked properly concerned with our ability to handle this. “That’s a powerful looking horn.”

“It’s not a horn Fizzle, it’s the narwhal’s tooth that has burrowed through its face!” Why were we just standing by and watching as the narwhal tried to stomp down on Fortitude with a big pudgy leg shaped fin that surprisingly didn’t crush the yak. It did break the ground beneath him though. Fizzle and Jacky had disgusted looks on their faces about the information of what a narwhal’s tusk really was. “Why are we just standing here and watching this?”

“Because we’re all a bunch of jerks?” No, if anyone was a jerk around here Jacky, then it would be me! “Fortitude does seems to have it handled. Seriously though, I’m not going near a creature that’s smiling like that.”

Fortitude pushed the leg off of himself and then bashed his shield against the smiling beasts chin making it stumble backwards.

“That happy smile is pretty nightmarish isn’t it?” It wouldn’t be long before the narwhal resorted to trying to swallow us or Fortitude again. I could use a sheath on it, Sekhet had gotten me a new one and had personally asked me not to destroy this one unless necessary. That wouldn’t stop the narwhal for long though, magic missile had a minor effect and that was the only effect it would have. Magic missile was by far the weakest cast I had, but it was always available. I turned to mom. “Did you test the salamander scales mom?”

I hadn’t noticed when mom left, but she was now equipped with the buckler on her right arm and she looked particularly worried about having to fight the narwhal.

“Yes, but they aren’t too useful in this situation. The cast creates a protective wall of fire, sustain makes the user generate heat that only they are safe from and you can still be effected by other sources of heat.” That actually seemed somewhat useful mom. “The self-sustain is exceedingly useful though. It lets you see sources of heat, so invisibility spells and illusions don’t work.”

The narwhal opened its mouth and a vortex started to pull us all towards it, somehow Fortitude was unaffected. I’m beginning to see a recurring trend here when it came to the yak with the giant shield, he just did the impossible without thinking about it.

Maries dug in and Marie wrapped her head around my right wrist, I grabbed Fizzle’s front right hoof with my left hand and she grabbed mom by the leg with her left and she grabbed Jacky by the end of her tail making her squawk loudly in pain.

“Jacky, fire something into its mouth!” It sounded like Fizzle had the right idea, I would have suggested the same thing if fizzle hadn’t just done so.

“If you want me to do that, you’ll need hold me steady then!” She shouted back at us as she wavered in mom’s grip.

“Marie, try to get me close to the ground!” Marie forced her head downwards, when my paws touched the ground I flexed my toes and dug my claws into the ground. I was so glad that the narwhal couldn’t move while doing this.

I lowered Fizzled towards the ground and she dug in her rear hooves and started to pull. Following her lead I started pulling as well. Maria caught on to what we were doing and Maries body started to move forward, we needed to move a bit further away from the powerful vortex and get Jacky’s feet on the ground.

We got a few feet forward, then Fizzle managed to lower mom to the ground where she dug her claws into the ground like I did and tugged hard enough on Jacky’s tail to pull her to the ground, where she dug in her toes.

“Please don’t let go of me!” She carefully pulled her bow from her back and pulled at the string while taking aim horizontally.

“I’d never let go of any of my children in a situation like this! Just know you’ll always be one of my daughters and if you attempt to get married, then I’ll have even worse problems with letting go of you!” Mom, you were one of a kind to be thinking of that in a situation like this. “I don’t want any of you to grow up, but you’re all becoming beautiful, in my kittens case strange, women of your particular species!”

“Can we discuss your midlife crisis later mom, I think we have more pressing issues here!” Fizzle screamed over the roar of the vortex.

-Jacky-

Okay, I needed to sink this shot. With a mouth that big I can’t possibly miss at this range! I released the string and a wave of light slammed into its mouth. I staggered backwards making a coughing noise, then it started lighting it’s… Captain called it a tooth. It was about to fire and… wait what happened to that smelly Fortitude guy!

Oh, there he is… hopping into its still open mouth!?

The narwhal was about to fire and we didn’t have a shield to block it this time, admittedly should blocking a beam of raw magic with a shield be impossible? Was it even raw magic? I would think it would be raw magic.

Fizzle charged forward with her broken stump igniting with a fierce look of determination on her face.

-Fizzle-

Come on… come on… focus, I need to tighten my control! Ugh, my head feels like its splitting apart, but it’s all for a good cause. Counter that monsters magic, that’s all I have to do, counter its magic Fizzle. Counter it!

The narwhal fired and I unleashed a solid explosion of magic from my horn that met the beam and started canceling it out by building up in the spot where the two energies met. That’s when the two energies violently exploded.

The explosion sent me tumbling into a wall of energy generated by Kuril's shield, I was safely cushioned and stopped by it. The invading narwhal’s fleshy soft swirled horn like tooth started to rip up from the explosion, this made the narwhal wail in pain. It tried to charge its horn again only for ten magic missiles hit it at the same time.

I turned to Kuril and Jade as they slumped slightly in exhaustion. Had they just fired those bolts of magic from their ears, mouths and hands? It was effective at least and I felt uncomfortable about the narwhal’s damaged horn like tooth.

Its mouth opened unleashing a groaning noise, its head moved from side to side and yet it continued to have that creepy smile. Now that I thought of it, the smile might be because of the way its tooth was piercing through its own mouth.

Maries darted past us and jumped into its mouth. Wait… what?

“I think the Vibrant Vikings might be…” Jade started to say, when Smoke started pouring out the narwhal’s mouth and it let out a wailing screech. “Alive… Jacky start hitting it and don’t stop!”

“Looks like we’re having narwhal for dinner tonight, I hope Sekhet’s hungry.” Mom, I think Sekhet could eat the whole narwhal by herself. Nobody has ever bothered to ask what she did with the Ursa Medium after she took it down. “Who am I kidding, she’s always hungry!”

Jacky started launching blasts of noon powered sunlight into it, marking it up with each shot. One went into the narwhal’s eye. The smoke in its mouth was getting bad enough that it started coughing violently. It eventually spat up the three Vikings and Maries, who all got some distance from it.

“The sword is certainly on fire now Fizzle.” Yes Jade, I can see that. It’s not my eyes that are damaged.

“I’ll be eating well tonight!” Flamberge shouted as he flew forward and started to slash away at the slowly collapsing beast.

-Jade-

“Mom, I have an idea! Get a salamander scale… Maries is it illegal to eat narwhal?” I turned to the chimera that might become my girlfriend.

“No, narwhal-ker are not protected monsters and are technically classified as fish.” Generic interrupted before Maries could tell me. “Extremely hard to catch fish, because they are more likely to catch you and completely off guard at that.”

“Well everyone, this was a group effort and we all caught a relatively small whale sized fish…. did you happen to see anyone else in there?” I asked of Generic, he simply shook his head that they hadn’t seen anything else inside of the beast. “Then cast a Salamander scale at that narwhal and let’s cook it up for a Viking feast! Just remember that I like my fish steak well done.”

“Pegasus ponies in the past were said to have eaten narwhal-ker in the era of the three tribes when food was scarcer.” That was something that Maries knew that I didn’t.

I loved Fizzle, but I didn’t know if I could love Maries as equally. They certainly deserved a fully undisturbed, and completely honest, date from me. I didn’t know how I’d even juggle between Fizzle and them, but I truly wanted to try.

Author's Note

The narwhal wouldn't have sat still for the wall of fire and could have easily put it out while moving around. The heat thing would have taken a while to work on something so large.

(New Alchemy Ingredient!)

Salamander Scales.

Chapter Seventeen, Ending Year Two: Further more.

-Fizzle, Airship Mauled, Narwhal-ker Aftermath-

I really didn’t know how to feel about eating the narwhal-ker as Gene kept calling it. Was I supposed to feel kind of bad that it tasted so good? It was delicious and kind of buttery with a nice texture. I think Fluttershy would be upset with us eating the narwhal; we were making sure it wasn’t going to waste at least.

While it was certainly a hit with all the dragon and griffon Vikings, mom still had to make a vegetarian option for all the Viking yaks.

Speaking of the Vikings that had been absent, they all came back horribly roughed up. I’m guessing they hadn’t take the Highland Pukwudgies seriously enough. While they tended to their wounds, the three Vibrant Vikings were willing to share their amazing tale at how the narwhal went down to our combined efforts.

We learned how Gene and Flamberge managed to survive the insides of the monster. It was nice to know what happened when both Fortitude and Maries bravely jumped into its mouth to go help them out. Good thing the narwhal couldn’t chew anything it eats.

Ah eating, every pony’s favorite pastime. I’m pretty sure that almost all ponies had very mild carnivorous leanings, I’d associate that to Pegasus ponies interbreeding with the other two tribes for thousands of year. Also the fact that ponies kind of had building block genetics that worked with most species.

Hippogriffs and, if Jade is to be believed, sea ponies existed for a reason that ponies did things with griffons and a species of sea horse that led to the offshoot of sea pony or hippocampi.

Where thestrals came from was a little more than subject to varying contradicting accounts on how they came into existence from what I read. One thing was certain, they were both said to be blessed and cursed by the moon in equal parts. To this day, not many know how we ended up with ponies that could operate better at night and could consume bugs as a different source of sustenance.

“Hey Jade, you wouldn’t happen to know any odd species that can mix with ponies would you?” Bug eating ponies were rarer as most thestrals kept to their own kind and despite having places in the night guard they weren’t very prominent in the public mind.

Cow’s had the market cornered when it came to making cheese and ponies loved that stuff, as did many other beings and everyone knew Maria specifically had a taste for cottage cheese.

“Odd how? Ponies can almost mix their genetics with just about anything, but if you want the weirdest that would be a dragon and a pony. The combination will end up making a Kirin.” Giving Jade three seconds before she went into her tirade about them. “Kirin, by their very existence, prove that a ponies and dragons are compatible. Kirin however are very rare and are said to be signs of good fortune or long life, they are mystical creatures defined by having two powerful magical horns, dragon scales, pony body and the possible ability to gallop on the very air itself as if they were legendary reindeer. The size may vary, but Kirin don’t lead normal lives like regular dragons and are more emotionally like ponies, but long lived like dragons. One being born into the world is stated to be the passing or arrival of a wise being or illustrious ruler, I don’t know how true that actually is. Seriously though, pony and dragon genetics are really hard to mix and I think the magic of true love is really the only thing that can give or lead to the birth of a Kirin. It’s either that or a full grown dragon shrinks down small enough to be on the ponies level for specific interactions.”

“Thanks for telling me all that, I’ll keep it in mind if I see any scaly two horned ponies.” Called it, and now I’m horrified by the implications of the birds and bees involving dragons and ponies. Does Jade not know how to filter her mouth? I’ve considered this more than once on multiple occasions.

Ponies were still considered to be only three main tribes, with two well-known offshoot species and a third one Jade has yet to actually meet and logically knows exists. These offshoots are like chimera giving birth to a fully herbivorous child or parrots like Jacky being partially descended from harpies. I wondered, how do you distinguish from a parrot like Jacky and a parrot the bird? I should probably ask her about it later and just call her an Ornithinian.

Where was I going with all this thinking? I just shoved another bit of narwhal meat in my mouth and chewed. I guess I was thinking of the fact that hippogriffs have beaks and thestrals have fangs, whereas all other pony types tend to have blunt teeth. Didn’t rightly know what a sea pony had, never met one and wouldn’t know where to find them.

As for what I just heard about the Kirin? If they are as rare as Jade says they are, I can definitely consider them an offshoot that’s a once in a blue moon thing. Anyway, back to the land narwhal or narwhal-ker I was currently eating a part of.

Narwhal-ker were a very interesting species of narwhal that walks along rivers and sucks up any life that it happens to finds. It usually ends up causing famine, mostly for fish eating species and it attacks just about anything smaller than it that moves by inhaling it in. It doesn’t suck up fish eggs, but it can incidentally destroy them and they are considered natural ecological disasters in their own right because of this.

They are relentless monsters that, while they don’t breed explosively, had decent enough numbers that hydra never went hungry if they ever ran low on sanity challenged elephants. Jade was certainly fascinated by all this and to be fair I was a more than a little interested too, especially when Gene explained it to us why he kept calling it a narwhal-ker.

So I guess we did a good thing in regards to the local ecosystem around Airship Mauled.

“Excuse me, I have to go talk to mom about something.” I got up and took my plate over to Kuril who was carving up another well-cooked narwhal steak. “Hey mom, the food is really delicious. Thank you for carving me a piece and adding spices to it for extra flavor.”

“You’re welcome Fizzle, do you want some more narwhal or some more vegetables? You need to keep your diet more to your species, too much more meat after this wouldn’t be healthy for you.” Yes mom, I know that. I would still request more narwhal, it’s definitely packing plenty of protein and I was a growing mare. I wouldn’t say no to some more tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and carrots though. “I admit the narwhal tastes fantastic after I started cooking it using Jade’s idea of utilizing a salamander scale cast. The cast is kind of useless if someone has water or can create a shockwave powerful enough to put the fire out. Though judging by your body language… more food is not the only reason you came over to me.”

“Yeah, I did have a few things to ask you, but I would like more narwhal steak and salad please.” We didn’t have to worry about the narwhal’s stomach acid or other more disgusting parts that I was definitely not going to eat. Sekhet had already magically pulled all the innards out of it and teleported it to her pyramid, thankfully without us having to see her eviscerate the narwhal for it.

Jade certainly wouldn’t have been able to scale and gut the narwhal-ker, it was a bit too big for her knife to do that.

“Okay, hold on a second while I fix you another plate Fizzle. Remember you can come to me about anything and I’ll always try to make time for you when you need me.” Mom rubbed my head and eventually put a plate loaded with delicious looking food into my eagerly waiting hooves, she then tapped me on the head and pointed to a sitting spot to sit near the campfire. She then prepared her own plate. “Come on and tell me what you want to discuss, I want to at least eat some of this too before it’s all gone and while it’s warm. Anything that remains can be magically preserved and used for soup stock later, we’ll certainly have an ample supply for that provided Sekhet can resist eating it all now.”

I sat down on the log and mom took a seat next to me, Jade gave us a curious look from where she sat and just continued eating at a sedate pace. She seemed open to the idea of letting us have our conversation without interruption.

“I want to discuss Jade’s birthday, do you have any ideas what I could get for her? How are we going to celebrate Maries’ birthday?” Was that it? No, I definitely had one more! “Also, what are we going to do with the skeleton?”

“For the skeleton, we should test it for magical alchemy properties and maybe give Zecora some chunks of its bones to see if she can do anything with them. Maybe we can even use a part of it for the archway into town.” Mom mused out loud, before she thought of my question. “Don’t know about Maries personally or how her culture celebrates birthdays, we should ask her about that. As for a present you could get Jade… what about a Power Ponies comic book?”

“Really, don’t you think our current relationship deserves a little more effort than that?” Oh sure a comic book, that’s going to be the greatest gift I could ever get Jade and there was not anything possibly better than that mom. “I’m looking more for what would be the best thing I could get her.”

“Not necessarily, the one thing Jade would want more than anything else is to have the solution to fixing your horn. You don’t have that and have no idea how to get it to give to Jade to give to you.” Well when you put it that way mom, it would be hard for me to find a way to fix my broken horn in time for Jade’s birthday.

“Any better ideas?” So something simple and heartfelt like what Jade and the rest of you did for me by calling me family and thinking

“How would I know? I’m only Jade’s mother, you’re her best friend next to Jacky.” She gave me a knowing look as I ate my food, she knew and was being coy. “I’m sure if a normal comic book isn’t a good gift to you, then what about an enchanted comic book or maybe even an enchanted O an O board.”

“What are you getting her?” I considered the idea of an enchanted comic book or Ogres and Oubliettes board, I needed to look into this idea as I didn’t know what those were. First I would maybe ask Jade if I could see her comic collection to see what was so interesting about them, then I would have to have Jacky fly me up to Canterlot to have a look around for information.

“Nothing too magical, just a bad day coupon.” Mom must have seen my intensely curious look, because she quickly elaborated. “If Jade is having a bad day, she’ll give me the coupon and I’ll go to just about any lengths to put a smile back on her face the next day. My little kitten has to know how much I love her, given I’ve been feeding her hungry mouth for years. I’m even the baker that produces her birthday cakes every year, so she gives me a free pass on lousy birthday presents as everything else I do makes up for it.”

“Mom… is this what I think it is!” We turned to see Jade with a horned rabbit sitting in her lap, it looked adorable and it was sniffing her. For some reason Jade seemed scared stiff of it.

“Yes kitten, that’s an Al-mi’raj and it’s my familiar.” Mom had quite a happy smile on her face. “I’m officially a witch!”

“Explanation?” I turned to mom.

“That’s Sugar, my familiar. Here Sugar, here girl!” The rabbit turned from Jade and happily ran over to mom and began to rub up against her with affection, then mom started to give her some of the narwhal off her plate and the rabbit ate the meat ravenously. “Al-mi’ raj are really dangerous magical horned rabbits, but I don’t really see it. See she’s an adorable little cutie, yes she is.”

“The abilities they have that make them dangerous are very specific. They can grow to a large size, either at will or when angered. It’s usually far enough to the point that one can ride them or be pierced by their powerful horn easily.” Sounds moderately dangerous there Jade, though I’m quite sure you had more on the subject as per usual. “They are also specialize at creating powerful illusions, usually they create copies of themselves and then violently perforate you. At least until they can eat you safely. With the familiar bond, she’ll probably become smart enough to start getting innovative with her illusions thanks to her bond with mom. That makes her several times more dangerous than an average Al-mi’raj, one that will end up stabbing you with her forehead spear.”

“I’m guessing that these ‘all-mirage’ creatures have a penchant for killing things with their horns?” I looked at the rabbit and then to Jade.

“Oh yes, when they charge their horns with magic, it becomes tougher and can pierce through a lot of things and even miraculously deflects magic. You should treat a charged horn on her head as lethal intent if you were upsetting her. Why if you are a unicorn that relies on magical barriers, then you’re at a… disadvantage.” Jade pauses for a moment, a small smile comes to her face and it slowly turns into a frown. “Nah, can’t do that to the guy. In any case… horn, dangerous, exceedingly!”

“That’s enough Kitten, we get it already! I’ll be sure to keep Sugar from assaulting anyone with her horn.” The pink rabbit in mom’s arms just squeaked and cuddled against her while looking up at mom with her bright blue eyes. “Now let’s finish eating.”

-The next day-

Okay I had several ideas of what to get Jade, but I couldn’t rule out making something for her birthday. I was sitting in the fruit grove alone to think when I heard Jade discussing something with Mr. Permanganate and Refreshment.

“So do you think you could make it?” What was Jade asking of the two stallions?

“It doesn’t sound dangerous.” Potassium said while rubbing his chin with a hoof.

“It’s not supposed to be. It’s a safe drink, no alcohol.” What was a safe not alcoholic drink and why did it sound important to you Jade? “It’s something I thought Fizzy would like to try and make, but I wanted to run it by you two first.”

“As long as we don’t start drinking it in excess. We know the ingredients, but not how they come together to make the drink.” It seemed like Dr. Potassium and I had something to talk about.

Chapter Seventeen, Ending Year Two: Definitely more.

Author's Note

(New Alchemy Ingredient!)

Enchanted Power Ponies Comic.

Chapter Seventeen, Ending Year Two: Definitely more.

-A week and a half later, Maretropolis Streets, Horniculture-

“Get back here Cat’astrophe!” I charged out of the alleyway and stared as the lithe figure came swinging back on a grappling hook erupting from her wrist mounted gauntlets. In the background I idly noticed that the city was on fire and there were a bunch of strange ponies running around. “Wait… why did I call you Cat’astrophe?”

“Because Horniculture, that’s my hero name… it’s either that or I’m a villain… an anti-hero maybe? Who knows with this outfit I’m wearing!” The costume that Cat'astrophe had looked mostly black with purple stripes except for a colorful splash of green, blue and red curved squares surrounding the center of a yellow circle that had a brown dot in the middle of it. Said circle was located on Cat’astrophe’s chest. Her fur color was now dark orange and her hair was hot pink. She looked like a… right… I get it now. “There’s an angry mob in the street and they aren’t the innocent civilian kind Horniculture. Come colorful text boxes, let us do battle with haste and stop them from doing any more damage to Maretropolis, this fair city, because that actually feels kind of like it should be my job! Am I the anti-hero that causes massive amounts of collateral damage Mr. Square? Oh, thanks!”

Who in the Tartarus was Cat’astrophe talking to? Also why were we being surrounded by nasty looking ponies in trench coats and punk clothing wielding chains, clubs and other weapons? Why was I green? What did Cat’astrophe do to us?!

“Look alive Horniculture, incoming goons!” What, but I didn’t even know what… an earth pony swung a chain for the back of her head and I ignited my green horn. A vine launched from it to strike the pony between the eyes knocking him back and out. Following my wishes, the vine wrapped around Cat’astrophe’s waist and safely pulled her back to my side. It then turned back into a normal looking horn on top of my forehead. Wait, my horn wasn’t broken? I was happy, but it didn’t feel entirely right though. “You have plant based super powers, figure them out while I cause massive amounts of collateral damage as is my characters job description as a hero with problematic destructive tendencies!”

“Who are these costumed freaks?” One of the ponies that approached us aggressively stated, but I wasn’t wearing a costume. Was I? Didn’t feel like I was. “Are you supposed to be heroes, one of you looks like a walking catastrophe. Did your mother dress you in that little kitty?”

“They must be out to save the Power Ponies from Mane-iac and High Heel in the park!” A normal looking unicorn pony in gothic wear wielding a baseball bat in his levitation shouted while pointing at us.

“Darn it Steve Limit, we were supposed to have matching punk or bum looks. They also didn’t know where the Power Ponies were until you just told them you idiot, get them before the Mane-iac finds out that we told a pair of heroes where they’re holding the Power Ponies captive!” The stallion in the trench coat charged us with several other ponies following him towards us. “They can’t possibly take us all out since we have numbers on our side!”

I stood there still confused by the change in my new, strange and foreign body, Cat’astrophe just charged forward and ducked the guys swinging his bat for her head with his magic. Her fist lit on fire and she swung it upwards becoming a spinning tornado of fire that had the other ponies backing away in fear.

“Shorhiryushotenyukenbeevenmoreincomprehensiblegibberishthatendsin-ha!” What? After the flaming tornado stopped an airborne Cat’astrophe pulled back both her arms and fired a blue beam of energy towards the crowd of aggressive looking ponies. They started scattering as the street was ripped up with excessive amounts of unnecessary force that sent bits of rubble ramming its way into multiple pony minion heads. Cat landed in a crouch. “Look alive Horniculture and be the hero! Fast Ball Pon-Pon-Pata-Don-Ken Special Tsh~!”

Cat’astrophe threw a… snare drum? It slammed itself over a pony that had been sneaking up on me and… it broke while ensnaring the front half of his body.

What a horrible visual… two cymbals followed noisily bouncing off his struggling head and cut through a nearby lightning light pole. When it fell, it landed on two other minions… and damaged the street further.

Why was I thinking of them as minions? Are we actually in the comic book? I can hardly wrap my head around how sustaining a comic book would do all this.

Catching something in my peripheral vision, I ducked and a chain flew over my head, I bucked the guy behind me in the face dazing him. I turned and stretched my green left hoof out in an unnatural manner and grabbed him with it.

Lifting him up into the air, I slammed him into the ground behind me violently and into two baseball bat wielding minions.

I then whipped his body around while stretching my leg to take out several ponies that had surrounded me. Why did this feel so exhilarating?

“That’s the idea Horniculture, get into it! Boring but practical karate chop…” Cat’astrophe intoned dully as she dodged to the left around a ponies right hoof strike aiming for her stomach and then lazily slapped the side of her left hand into the side of his neck. “Explosion!”

The minion flew into a nearby brick wall at a high velocity, despite the fact that it didn’t look like Cat’astrophe put much force into the blow. The minion became embedded in it and was now unconscious, the part of the wall he wasn’t forced into fell completely apart.

Somehow the minion was still alive. How did I know he wasn’t… oh neat, I can see life. Was I supposed to see life?

“You’re plant senses are tingling; so watch out for the guy with the fireball behind you, its super effective against you!” I felt heat coming at me from behind and rolled to the right, I turned around and retaliated. “Deal with him, I’ll handle macho wrestler trench coat earth pony minion number five over here off screen!”

A vine whipped out from my green horn and grabbed his, stopping him from forming another fireball. I pulled my head back and he came rocketing towards me, I raised my right hoof and rammed it into his face forcing him into the ground where I grinded his body into it for a second.

For some reason I felt justified in not pulling my hoof or strength upon hitting him and knocking a few of his teeth out. Hearing a cacophonous noise, I turned to see what Cat’astrophe was destroying now.

I saw Cat’astrophe holding up a wrestling mask and was standing triumphantly over an unconscious tied up pony with her right foot on his barrel. She, SOMEHOW, knocked over a small building in the process of capturing him. Said building was still collapsing behind her and exploding in multiple places, thankfully it was empty of life.

“Who are you crazy dames to have taken out Nasty Noir’s crew so fast?” We turned to a trench coat wearing unicorn minion pony with a fedora. His entire color scheme was all solid gray, including his fur, hair, clothing and even his eyes.

“We’re the delightful duo ‘Horny with Cat’!” That was awful Cat’astrophe and you should feel awful. “Oh fine thought bubble above Horniculture’s head, she’s the beautiful red headed plant powered pony mistress of vegetation Horniculture! I’m just Cat’astrophe the uninteresting one. We’re the Twisted Twosome and we’re going to save the Power Ponies~!”

“You’re clinically insane aren’t you?” Nasty asked of Cat’astrophe, she nodded and threw a wildly squawking live flamingo at him from out of nowhere.

Somehow the flamingo managed to take him down on its own within seconds of slamming into him and an amount of seemingly chaotic flapping and kicking.

“Good job our faithful sidekick Pocket Flamingo, watch this mob until the police come to pick them up!” Where did you get the flamingo from Cat’astrophe, also did it just salute you? I shook my head, I was having problems keeping up with what’s going on given how absurd Jade was acting. Oh sure, I could think her name, but I couldn’t actually say it right now. “Let’s go Horniculture, we have some powerful ponies in distress to rescue! I’m going to fly ahead, catch up to me by vine swinging after me in an awesome fashion. Whoosh…”

She started running down the road at a high speed, while making whooshing noises with her arms held above her head. Each step she took caused the street to shake and crack beneath her feet. I flicked my horn at a nearby building that wasn’t on fire and a vine launched forward to grapple onto that building, with a small tug I was rocketing after her.

“Cat’astrophe, how do you even we know where we’re going?” I asked her while trying to get a rhythm of swinging from the vines that erupted from my hooves and connected to the buildings, clouds and whatever else I was aiming at. Like that well timed passing gyrocopter that my vine hooked onto.

“They said they had the Power Ponies trapped in the park, and we’re about to hit a scene transition panel.” Would you stop for a single second and explain your current insanity Cat’astrophe?! “Stop pointing thought bubbles at me and be prepared to strike a pose for the captive audience Horniculture. We’ve got villains to fight when we land!”

-Extreme scene transition panel!!!-

With a flip Cat’astrophe landed on her feet and strikes her sun salutation pose, she landed as if she had been flying.

I on the other hoof landed on my face and tumbled on to my back and dug my rear hooves into the dirt to stop my momentum. It didn’t hurt and the dirt felt... kind of refreshing actually. I picked up some and ate it.

Why did I like the taste of dirt? Oh right, I was currently a plant pony.

There was a giant shower head hanging above the cage with the tied up costumed ponies, I suppose we were going to rescue the six of them.

“Soon you Power Ponies won’t be able to resist my alluring charms, because I will have mane washed you with my controlling shampoo! The conditioner afterwards is just to make your manes nice and is not actually anything special, I just like mares with long silky hair and wished my significant other would grow hers out a bit more.” Let me guess, the now cackling green haired pony was the villain we’re here to stop. She stopped and turned to us with a disdainful glance. “Let me guess, Mr. Limit dropped the ball again. I shouldn’t have let the minions unionize, they just keep making a mess of things and you just can’t get good help these days! High Heel, absolutely keep Collateral Cat’astrophe away from the machine while I get it running! The water and shampoo needs time to mix together properly, I’ll deal with The Healthy Horniculture!”

“Stick to the plan Horniculture!” What plan, all Cat’astrophe said after ‘when we land’ were the words ‘explanation’ and ‘exposition’ over and over again. Why did I suddenly know that we had a plan, better yet why did I have to get Jade this enchanted comic book? “Afterwards we can play a few games of enchanted O and O!”

Yes, I got Jade an enchanted comic book and it she looked like she was having a lot of fun. I couldn’t get angry at her on her birthday, she'd handle High Heel while I went after Mane-iac.

Wouldn’t her enchanted O and O scenarios be much more insane than this? I started to weep, at least the lemon lime drinks I had made weren’t going to do anything horrible to anyone.

Did I really have to go to such extremes for Jade? Yes, yes I did and I was making her happy by sharing in this experience with her.

Mane-iac threw a switch and a countdown on the machine started.

-Cat’astrophe-

“Why don’t you heel to the queen of shoes?” Oh were we doing one liners High Heel, I could do that! “Just give up and join the winning side Cat’astrophe, your impossibly destructive habits would be welcome amongst us villains.”

“Banana pudding!” I shouted before I charged her, she was so distracted by what I yelled that she didn’t have time to protect her face from the chocolate cream pie I was holding. She ate a bit of the pie as she wiped it off her face and glared at me.

“You are so getting a shoe-mare-rang where the sun doesn’t shine.” At the shoe themed villainess’s words, I just made a simple come at me gesture. She had a red costume, pulled back purple hair reminiscent of Fizzle’s mane style, shiny blue high heeled shoes and a tail that look like a tied shoe string, she didn’t look very threatening at all.

She leapt at me and swung her left hoof, her shoe went flying off and curved around to slam into the side of my face knocking me down, I saw the shoe go spinning back to her and it landed on her hoof. Okay, so I wasn’t the only one who could do crazy things around here.

“Seriously, who learns to throw shoes like that?” I rubbed at my right cheek wiping away a bit of blood and stood up to go toe to hoof with her. “Sure they might have blades on them, but they are still shoes!”

-Horniculture-

“You’re not going to get away with this Mane-iac!” I fired a vine at her and she countered with a hair tendril, we tried to pull at each other, but we were evenly matched.

I pulled on her mane with my vines. Her hair was directly connected to her head and tail so… I created several more vines from my shoulder and wrapped them around her tail and head.

I heaved her into the air to slam her down, only for her to cushion herself with her admittedly attractive mane. Maybe I just liked green hair.

“You’re not going to stop me Horniculture, you and you’re destructive friend will not prevent me from taking control of the power ponies!” She tried to lift me off the ground with her tendril, but I rooted myself in place and pulled with all my might to send her flying again. “You’ve got five minutes to defeat both of us or else the Power Ponies are mine, you’ll never make it. Like how I’ll never make this formula again because of the rare and obscure ingredients needed for me to do all of this in the first place! you have no idea or appreciation for how hard it is to lure six costumed ponies into a complex trap like this.”

She flicked two hair tendrils at me in a gesture for me to come at her.

I would gladly do that!

-Jacky-

“Will the newest heroes, The Healthy Horniculture and Collateral Cat’astrophe, defeat Mane-iac and High Heel? Find out soon as the story continues!” It sounded like my Captain was having fun. Time must move a lot faster in the comic, because the comic book will only begin to make more pages in thirty minutes.

Chapter Seventeen, Ending Year Two: Fighting more.

-Cat’astrophe-

Our battle started with a guitar riff, yeah this music was my jam!

What did I know about High Heel?

She worked in a shoe store. After taking one too many idiotic customers in a store where the customer was always considered right, she turned to a life of crime where the customer isn’t always right and annoyingly idiotic. She actually kind of had a good reason for turning evil, which is why she chose the moniker High Heel the queen of dangerous hoof wear.

Whoops… almost got hit by two thrown shoes while thinking, I blasted them both out of the air with beams of energy from my palms that blew the burning roofs off nearby buildings.

At least they were no longer on fire.

She’s Mane-iac’s best friend or some would say significant other, some say she just likes being tied up by the Power Ponies as much as she does green hair. One thing any Power Ponies comic fan can agree on is this, she was highly effective even while on a shoestring budget.

I crouched and swung for her face with the claws on my left hand. She dodged to the right under them and performed a back flip to follow up having dodge my attacked, she landed a kick to my chin with both of her rear hooves.

I was knocked onto my back and she gave me a mocking smile.

“Does the poor little kitty need a… agh!” I knocked the horned tiara off of her forehead with a shuriken that I threw with my tail, my character was quite talented.

High Heel was just as talented as she was acrobatic and had interesting combat gimmicks, for a villain I shipped with Mane-iac. Phony Pharaoh definitely went well with Smudge too.

I only had the one shuriken though, my character was just full of surprises. Most of said surprises were a once a battle kind of thing.

“Whoa, that was awesome.” I turned to the colt and gave him a flat look, huh I was wondering where Humdrum was in the comics. He had green fur, green eyes and brown mane, the colt was kind of cute and I wanted to hug him. Unfortunately I was busy. “I mean you did knock down a row of trees with that shuriken, but that throw with your tail was still awesome!”

My character causes destruction even when I didn’t mean to, I mean how was I to know a shuriken would cut through all those trees. To be fair it was a heavily blunted shuriken in the shape of a cat head, so how in the Tartarus did it cut through all those trees?!

To be perfectly clear, everything I do may cause collateral damage, but none of it is ever lethal.

“Say kid, want to be a hero? Go try and stop that machine while I deal with this, you can do it little guy!” He looked at me in surprise and I looked him in the eyes. “Anyone can be a hero kid, whether you have powers or not, all that matters is that you try and save the day! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to push you out of the way and destroy some playground equipment… by accident of course, it would never be on purpose. What kind of hero would I be if I did that?”

I shoved the confused, but now enlightened, colt away and rolled towards the merry go round avoiding the shoe string whips with metal aglets on the end that came whipping at me from High Heel. The several whipping strikes dug small divots into the ground as they chased my rolling form.

I saw the colt running off for the machine and quickly glanced off to the side to see Mane-iac was having trouble fending off Fizzle’s weird plant anatomy, but they were about evenly matched.

We weren’t getting anywhere close to the machine and I could be the one to destroy it, either that or it would be the as of yet unnamed Humdrum.

I dodged High Heel’s attempt to whip me and once the whips wrapped around the bars of the merry go round, I gave her an evil smile.

“How about we go for a spin!” I kicked the merry go round with the full force and leapt away as it started spinning rapidly with High Heel attached to it by her shoe string whips.

Their were unfortunate side effects to spinning the merry go round at high speeds, it was that it broke away from the ground and tore through the empty playground like a spinning top of doom. All while slamming High Heel into the jungle gym, the slide, the teeter-totters and everybody’s favorite thing here the bouncy animal springers, one of which was a smiling dog that launched High Heel over my head before it was subsequently destroyed.

I turned away from the rather graphic destruction of the foal’s playground. I felt really bad about that, but at least High Heel was dealt…

“How about I give you the boot!” I took a boot up my backside and was launched forward to slam face first into the ground. “Now here’s the shoe-mare-rang where the sun doesn’t shine like I promised!”

I felt something ram its way into my costume, I bit back a scream. Okay even with super powers, like super strength, energy projection and etcetera, that had seriously hurt! I carefully picked myself up and turned to High Heel.

“Ow... that really hurts.” I should have realized it wouldn’t have been easy. She was a tough earth pony and quite notably dangerous. We stared each other down and charged. “Tatsumakioctopusspinningroundhousesaypuntakoyaki!”

I flew forward twirling rapidly and slamming my left pawed foot into her face eight times making her stumble back with each consecutive hit, before jumping and kicking her with my right leg putting her on her back.

I went to attack her, but she was ready for me.

“Shoes-to-go-in!” She brought both her hooves together and thrusts them forward, I heard a device clicking and that sent two flaming blue shoes right into my face. Once more I was on my back.

She got up and ran forward and leapt while rearing back her right hoof for a deciding blow to my face with a stiletto blade. I lifted up my legs and planted them into the ponies suddenly surprised chest, rolled back and then launched her face first into a tree.

High Heel fell to the ground off of the toppled tree unmoving, I had finally knocked her out.

I quickly went to check on her health and started to pull out some bindings to tie her up with. I wondered how Fizzle was doing.

-Humdrum-

I didn’t think I could be a hero, but that hero believed in me. I just wished she hadn’t destroyed the playground, but she’s known as Collateral Cat’astrophe for a reason.

I had to rescue the Power Ponies, because we very well couldn’t be left with heroes like Cat’astrophe running around to save the day!

The whole city would be destroyed in less than week.

“Don’t worry Power Ponies, I’ll get you out of there or my name isn’t…” What would be a cool super hero name? High Heel was a villain that didn’t need super power, so why would I need super power myself? I wasn’t going to go slinging around shoes or being evil though, I needed something more heroic to focus on. Oh, I can be the power of heart and friendship! Since I was an innocent bystander about to involve myself in the world of super heroes, I might as well call myself. “Humdrum!”

“Get out of here kid and get some real help!” The weather controlling pony hero Zapp shouted to me, I ignored her and moved to the control panel. I knew I could help them!

Now how do you work this thing? Hey, there was no shut off switch! That highly diabolical of Mane-iac and High heel. Then how do I… oh I have an idea!

-Horniculture-

With a slash of her mane the purple furred pony with the long green hair slashed through several of my vines breaking free of my hold.

She whipped her head around and slammed me with a swirling mass of hair in the shape of a big hoof that sent me tumbling. I stopped my tumbling by firing my leg roots into the ground and stopping my momentum, I swung back for Mane-iac and released my roots and launched forward.

She put her mane between me and her, only I fell short and sunk into the ground.

-Mane-iac-

“Huh? Where did she… oof!” I received a hoof to the chin as she popped out of the ground like a sprout, this had me seeing stars. Very pretty, if agonizing stars!

-Horniculture-

“Flowering flourish!” I stretched my two hooves behind me and then brought them forward in a rapid barrage of high speed hoof jabs that started to riddle her tough body with bad black and blue bruises.

While I positively percussively pummeled the purple pony in her chest and face, I created a whip from my horn covered it in spikes and wrapped it around the entirety of her mane and tightened it.

I flicked my tail around and wrapped the vines forming from it tightly around her tail and pinned her.

“Let go of my hair, I don’t like having it bound!” Her mane struggled against my thorny vines grasping them. I slapped her across the face with my left hoof and caught her flailing leg trying to come at me from the right and struck her again.

Despite her super mane being her main power, she was still tough. With enough struggling, she managed to get some of her mane free and it wrapped around my throat and tried to choke me out.

“Why aren’t you choking, I have your by the neck!” For some reason this wasn’t working as she thought it would. Being a plant, I created my own oxygen nitrogen mix and her exhaling on me in angry really doesn’t help her case.

With a sharp jerk of my head I slapped my rose colored petal soft mane across her face and grappled her to the point that I could grab and ram her face into the ground. I managed to wrap the lose bit of hair in another vine that sprouted from my neck.

“Eat dirt Mane-iac, because it tastes pretty much like justice to me!” She struggled against me and managed to push off the ground launching us both into the air, I was a lot lighter than her.

I was smashed underneath the weight of her body and she managed to get me in a position where she could kick me in the belly with her leg multiple times.

“Let go, let go, let go!” Weathering the storm, despite Mane-iac managed to get both of her legs into it to bucking me repeatedly, I held onto her valiantly.

I had to stop her somehow, I bit her on the ear and she yelped before looking at me and with tears in her eyes, before they turned angry on me. She continued to buck at me as I tried to choke her by increasing the number of vines I had wrapped around her.

There was a loud ding from the machine, we froze. Mane-iac smiled and I looked up, the tube leading to the shower head filled up. I turned to see what Jade was doing, she busy tying up High Heel and… was that a shoe sticking out of her butt? No matter, I needed to stop the machine before…

“No!” I watched as the shampoo started to spray the six ponies in the cage, Jade looked up at me and we both watched as the cage was flooded with suds.

“Oh yes! I know it’s a bit too soon for the conditioner, but I need the help with this preposterous plant pony!” Mane-iac reached into her purple and gold suit with black hoof boots to pull out a remote device. The cage opened and the soap covered Power Ponies walked out. “Say hello to my new team of super villains! Attack Horniculture my beautifully haired pets!”

“Oh, are we supposed to follow you’re orders Mane-iac?” The Masked Matter-horn walked forward while wiping shampoo off of her clothes and goggles. “I don’t think so Mane-iac, you’ve lost!”

“What, but where did my plan go…!” Mane-iac didn’t get to say much more.

I flattened out my green horn, shaped it like a circular hammer and slammed my face into the side of her head knocking her out.

“Do you think that knocked her out?” I was approached by the brown haired one, I think her name was Saddle Rager. Her voice reminded me of Fluttershy, but her fur and hair color were completely different.

“I think that did it, you can let go of her now.” At Saddle’s words, I carefully and slowly released Mane-iac from my hold.

“I’ll go help the fire department put out those fires!” Zapp shot off into the sky to start up a rain storm.

“How did it not work?” I asked curiously.

“A civilian called Humdrum helped us out, he made the machine use the conditioner first.” Ah that explains it. “Now we just have to stop it from using the actual mind control shampoo... which I have to get to!”

Masked Matterhorn ran off and left me with the other mares sitting here in an awkward position.

“So… The Healthy Horniculture, nice to meet you.” I started to introduce myself, only for something to explode off to the side. Really Jade, couldn’t you have gone another minute without causing destruction? You’ve already destroyed the playground, the ground itself and a number of trees… which I can fix with my powers! “I’m a plant pony hero and my partner is… a bit of a mess, but Cat’astrophe means well. Excuse me while I fix all the tree’s she knocked over.”

I concentrated and started to wrap my vines around numerous trees and started fixing a little of what Jade broke.

“I can’t do anything about the building, the street light or the ruined playground, but saving the trees is something I can do!” I gave the Power Ponies looking at me a sheepish smile.

“A building, your friend knocked over a…?” Before Saddle could get any farther, it started to rain heavily and I quickly ran off to grab Jade.

“Cat’astrophe, let’s get out of here… I don’t think the Power Ponies are going to be too happy with your destructive heroic tendencies.” I stated loudly through clenched teeth, as I grabbed her with a vine and started to drag her away from the super powered ponies that may want to pummel her.

“Is that a no getting an autograph from them?” Cat’astrophe was giving me big kitty eyes.

“Fine, get me something to sign." I watched her wrench the shoe out of her backside and held it out to me.

I roughly grabbed it from her.

-Five minutes later, Jade-

We popped out of the comic book and I was holding High Heel’s shoe autographed by Saddle Rager, Fili-second and Radiance.

“We're not doing that again any time soon.” Fizzle stated blandly.

To think we still had the rest of my birthday party and presents to go through, it's only been about an hour and I was having a blast!

Chapter Seventeen, Ending Year Two: Snake more.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Seventeen, Ending Year Two: Snowing more.

-Barely Bearable Woods-

There was a small pink bunny with a horn, her name was Sugar and she was wandering through Barely Bearable Woods in the snow.

It was quite unfortunate for the attacking Drop Bear that they don’t hibernate for the winter.

The loudly growling bear came down as a growing shadow upon this innocent looking creature, which unfortunately for the drop bear was an Al-mi’raj or more commonly known as the deadly magical horned mirage rabbit.

Said drop bear slammed straight through the illusionary rabbit into the ground roughly. Drop bears were used to missing their targets, as such they had tough bodies that can survive terminal velocity drops.

What they weren’t used to, is being hunted by their targets. The bear, being far more than three times the size of the small rabbit shaped entity, had been assured of its victory.

The huge mound of snow next to where the drop bear landed erupted and a shining horn attached to a demonic looking rabbit with glowing eyes flew straight for the drop bear. Said rabbit was twice the size of the drop bear.

-one minute later-

The snow around the suspiciously clean pink rabbit sized creature was covered in specks of red and next to it was a pile of bones in the vague shape of a drop bear.

Sugar just licked the back of her paw innocently.

With this bit of strangeness, it was winter in Airship Mauled.

-Snickers, somewhere in the frozen north. Mostly west of yak territory and near ‘Middle of Nowhere In Particular’.-

Feel close! I be big smart and special knowing.

Cold, snuggle fur of friend!

“Coo!” Let big friendly white creature know we be near, can go from here on own.

“*Incoherent growling bear noise?*” Big fluffy creature be good friend.

“Coo, hiss, coo coo!” Big friend be accepting, now I fly and find happiness! Once I get cold stuff off first. “Coo coo?”

Large creature remove me from back and wipe cold stuff away from body, can fly now!

I wave goodbye to friend and follow senses that get stronger.

I am knowing stuff, big stuff of best strength. Happiness is here, need to find!

Looking… looking… found!

Fly into wood wall with circle thing twice and sit on ground to wait.

Too cold to stay out for long, hope response soon. I not good with cold, like warm and hot!

“Who’s there?” Out came pretty, now how to convince?

I not big smart enough to talk like great bond kitty. Bond is making me greater, but not nearly that great. I happy for bond, even if not mate bond. Want mate bond eventually, best strength make stronger.

“Coo!” Attention get, likely warmer inside. It cold, please help.

“What the… a turtle?” The pretty for cow crouches and looks at me, I clamp onto face and they stand up. “Gah… what in the world is a sweet little turtle like you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“Coo!” Sorry can’t tell, not big smart enough to speak you.

“Shouldn’t you be hibernating or something?” Nope, am finding you for cow! I am shaking head no. “You poor thing, you’re so cold. I don’t even know how you’re even awake in this weather. Also, I just noticed… you’re a sea turtle.”

“Coo!” I think pretty is big smart, I raise right limb and wave. Continue to hold face tightly with left, didn't want to fall.

“What’s a sea turtle doing all the way out here?” Pretty be bringing me into big wood cave, kind of like cave of great bond kitty. It nice and warm. “Well whatever you’re reasons for being out here are, let me bring you inside and help you get all warmed up now. Welcome to the town of ‘Middle of Nowhere In Particular’, you aren’t the first strange thing to appear here and you won’t be the last.”

Pretty be happiness for cow, senses are big strong!

-Blade-

I stalked my prey, she was unaware of my presence as I walked along the bottom of the tree limb and flared my wings in preparation for attack.

I would only get one chance at this and I had to make this count. While I hadn’t been tortured, my skills may have been atrophied somewhat in captivity.

This was the most perfect opportunity to strike.

I would not get another shot at this.

-Fizzle-

We were sitting near the never ending campfire outside, Jade and me specifically. She was looking pretty down even if she wanted to play in the snow quite badly.

Jade was a bit gloomy that Snickers still hadn’t returned from wherever she went, a cat and her turtle were hard to pull apart. When they were near each other and they both wanted to have fun anyway.

“I’m sure she’ll come back eventually Jade, maybe she just flew south for the winter?” I tried to comfort her and wrapped a hoof around her back and gave her a gentle hug.

“She didn’t do that the first year though, never had I seen a flying turtle so determined to weather the cold.” Well Jade wasn’t wrong there, Snickers did stay awake throughout the last winter and had a lot of fun doing that. “It was rather heartwarming, I mean she’s part bird and she must have had trouble ignoring her greater instincts. Now I don’t know where she is… I should have paid more attention to her.”

Though I did see Snickers forcing herself not to fly south at times, which said something about how much Snickers wanted to stick by Jade’s side. It was a rather strong unexplained loyalty involved there, especially given that Snickers mostly wanted to take care of herself and be independent of Jade. I don’t think Jade did anything wrong and Snickers was always vocal when she needed something or was upset.

“I’m sure she’ll come back eventually Jade, now let’s go have some fun in the…” A ball of snow slapped Jade in the face knocking her on her back as soon as I had let go of her. I looked up at the assassin who was acting like she was laughing. Being mute because her voice was too powerful to use in normal situation, she had to physically emote things like that. “Snow. Okay… you just started a cold war that’s about to get heated!”

The once upon a time assassin known as Blade Bright was smiling upside down on a tree branch and was looking quite smug until a snowball hit her in the face knocking her from the tree. She created a neat pony shaped hole in the snow where she landed.

Jade then scooped a snowball, rolled it and threw it at the tree. Blade was just sitting up when she watched the snowball arc over her head and smack the tree making it shake.

Blade just gave Jade a look that asked if she was really that bad at throwing after the first hit, then she was buried under multiple large wads of snow that fell from the tree branches.

“Nice shot.” It really was nice and I had to compliment Jade on the delayed snowfall.

“Scoop, roll and throw. The three tenets of good snowball making.” She giggled slightly as eventually Blade dug her way out of the snow, how Jade could be so calm with that assassin around I’ll never know. She tried to kill Jade, and possibly me by association, once. For that matter why was I so calm, was I just that used to the absurdities that Jade attracted? “Also always use your environment to your advantage.”

I guess nowadays Blade Bright was a master sushi chef and happened to be exceptionally talented at chopping vegetables, she learned that with Kuril’s help of course.

Her cutie mark meant she was good with most forms of bladed weaponry, makes me wonder how ponies like her got their cutie mark. She had a cutie mark that translates into both cooking and combat, I was only a bit jealous that she could cook.

Everything I try to cook explodes violently, except for campfire foods. I could make a very good potato, vegetable and fish roast at the very least.

A snowball smacked me in the face, knocking me over into the snow.

“You’re the one that wanted to have fun in the snow Fizzy, get your head out of the clouds and start cheering me up!” After one long look at Jade, I shook my head and narrowed my eyes at her and my hoof scrapped against the ground building up snow in it.

“You’re right, let’s go!” I scooped, I rolled to the side avoiding an incoming snowball and chucked the snowball for her body. I ducked and another snowball flew over my head and I turned to see Blade tossing a perfectly round snowball up a few times. “Bring it thestral!”

Time slowed down as she threw the snowball, I rolled underneath it towards her and threw my own.

Blade bent backwards out of the way of it, it narrowly almost clipped her chin. Blade reached out with her right hoof to scoop up a snowball. She started to come back up ready to throw it when a snowball hit one of her rear hooves, it caught her entirely off guard and knocked her off balance.

Blade fell and the snow ball she was holding went up and slammed down into her face.

“Don’t leave me out of this guys!” Incoming Blackcap attack, dodge, dodge, dodge… I narrowly avoided Jacky’s three snowballs and was nailed to the side of her head by Jade who ducked around behind a tree.

We shouldn’t lose sight of her, Jade was a crafty cat. Blade was just getting up when two large rolling balls of snow slammed into her and Jade, and I was knocked over by a snowball to the back of the head. Rolling onto my back I saw Maries smiling triumphantly.

“Snow war!” Jade called out from inside the large snowball she got sucked into, it didn’t take long for everything to devolve into a whole mess of fun.

-An hour later, Jade-

“So nice of you Vikings to join us, but next time watch out for rocks when making snowballs.” I glared at Flamberge who had his tail between his legs, I had a bruise on the left side of my face and it stung.

Flamberge the Fiercely Flammable wasn’t exactly the bravest of dragons, but he had a lot of enthusiasm to make up for it.

“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant!” Fortitude declared that so much, that I lost count after five hundred and ninety seventh time he said that. He still smelled like a dumpster full of rotting eggs and durians. “Yak had fun, like old yak times even!”

“Well it looks like everyone had a nice time outside while I’ve been in here slaving over a pot of soup and making sweet corn bread.” You were also watching your potions more carefully mom, especially after the out of body experience I had a while ago. “I even made dessert that everyone, except my kitten, will enjoy.”

“Thanks mom, we’re all cold and hungry.” That potion really felt weird when it wore off, it was like my body just slurped me back up through a straw and I was never going to forget how disturbing that felt. “Also is it Fruit Cake?”

“Yes, the one seasonal thing that you don’t like and everyone else does that has fruit in it. I’ll make it up to you with a pineapple pizza recipe I’m working on later.” Mom knew me so well, she avoided my petty kitty wrath today.

People always said pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza because it is sweet, so what did that say about cheese or a tomato sauce? Heck, mom already made an apple chunk dessert pizza that Fizzle couldn’t get enough of.

“Try adding the pineapple to your apple chunk cinnamon pizza.” I received a curt nod from mom and with that we sat down to eat a slightly spicy soup, ugh my tongue was so sensitive to spicy things. It made my mother joke that I wasn’t her daughter, because she’s enjoyed spicier things like liquid rainbow. “Also Flamberge, I’m going to do something I hardly ever do. I’m giving you an early warning that I will go petty kitty mode on you when you least expect it.”

“Do your worst, I have nothing to fear from you!” His words made me give him a creepy smile, everyone including my friends shivered at my smile directed towards him. He was obnoxiously loud and I think my favorite of the Vibrant Viking trio was Generic, mostly because he never raised or lowered his voice to a decibel that hurts or strained my ears. “Maybe I have a little bit to fear!”

“Good, you’re not dumb at least. Be prepared at all times for me to do something petty and mean spirited as a form of revenge proportionate or otherwise to the enacted action that led to it, in this case the snowball rock you hit me with.” I turned to our teacher Cheerilee, she’d only be around for one more year. “So Cheerilee, how do you feel about getting a real class soon?”

“Jade, the school here is a real class. Whether most of you are ponies or not doesn’t make a difference to me.” Cheerilee sounded a bit offended that I thought that we weren’t a real class. “I think I might actually miss all of you, except for Jade’s improbable math skills that can possibly destroy the world as we know it.”

“Wait… what?!” What in the world did she just say, my math skills can do what?

“Nothing that you need to worry about Jade.” Funny thing Cheerilee, it certainly sounded like something I should be informed of for a second there.

-Fizzle, after dinner-

“Jade, I want you to eventually kiss me.” I was not going to make demands of her, but I wanted to be kissed. Sure she was moving at my pace, but I wanted her to do a little more.

“With or without tongue?” I don’t think there was a moment when Jade wouldn’t pay attention to me if I absolutely wanted her attention, unless she was paying attention to Maries which I was perfectly fine with.

“Without for now.” Jade crouched, grabbed my cheeks and rubbed her nose against mine, then kissed me on the cheek. “How about that?”

“That works…” I had to be blushing, my entire face has to be red right now. Jade pulled me into a tight hug and then released me.

“Okay now I need to get the mistletoe down, before mom gets any more smart ideas.” Wait… what? Jade got a step ladder and removed the mistletoe from the ceiling. “To assure you I didn’t just kiss you because of the mistletoe, I’ll do this…”

Jade plants a soft kiss on my nose and I felt my face heat up even more.

“Just know that you can always ask me for some love Fizzy, just remember that I might actually say no depending on the situation.” What kind of situation would you deny me in? She slid her tail up under my chin and then flicked me on the nose as she walked away. "Like at a really inopportune moment while we’re climbing out of an active volcano.”

When was that likely to… wait… that could actually happen.

Author's Note

For those who missed the previous authors note, no longer daily unless I want to get back in the mood for another three month romp.

Chapter Seventeen, Ending Year Two: More than average.

-Fizzle, last day of the year-

Waking up with a snort, I looked to the body pillow in my hooves. It just wasn’t the same as having a living breathing body next to me in the morning.

Jade might not have complained much about me using her as a sleeping aid, she might have even enjoyed me snuggling her while she slept. I just couldn’t keep forcing her to follow my morning schedule.

I got out of bed and stretched out my back, then started towards the bathroom. I hoped to all that is good in the world that the tub wasn’t clogged with cat fur, I needed a warm bath to wake up in the morning.

Today was the last day of the year. A year full of crashing airships, danger, Jade’s insanity and my life of not trying to get my horn back. Jade was building up a collection of things that were probably related to fixing what I lost, but it wasn’t interfering in her everyday life as weird and absurd as it was.

I know for a fact that Jade’s trying, but she’s really not telling me if she’s close or not. I shouldn’t really get my hopes up, but I’ve seen Jade do some incredible things. She meets a lot of weird people who end up doing incredible things themselves.

To be fair, everyone we know has done something incredible and I seem to be the least incredible being here and I’ve survived a deadly basilisk attack. That’s something I guess.

I had asked Cheerilee and she’s confirmed it for me that only some of what Jade said about basilisk venom was an exaggeration. The explosion thing apparently doesn’t happen until after your body temperature drops to dangerous levels despite the environment, it was as if the spontaneously combusting thing wasn’t bad enough. Freezing to death at room temperature and becoming a literal lightning rod sounds horrifying.

I felt a splash of water and blinked, I was in the tub already? I just started scrubbing myself and tried to think of something else aside from giant snakes of imminent death.

My magic still tires me out, but I had larger magic stores because I bleed off so much magic every time I use it. Using my magic didn’t hurt so much anymore, but it still tired me out. I don’t think I’ve ever told Jade, or anyone else for that matter, just exactly how painful using magic with a broken horn is.

Jade would definitely be more worried about me if she knew… not that she didn’t worry about me enough already. The only one that suspected anything was Sekhet. You couldn’t hide anything from her, or any other god for that matter.

I sniffed the shampoo bottle to make sure it was the right stuff, I guess I was on autopilot this morning.

Before I knew it, I was done with bathing and was already working out my mane like an Earth or Pegasus Pony. I appreciated doing everything by hoof, other unicorns had it too easy. After taking care of my mane and looking at my scar in the mirror, I shrugged and set out to see what trouble Jade could cause today.

“Hey mom, where’s Jade and what kind of trouble is she getting into this time?” When I or anyone else says that Jade can’t do normal, well it was easy to time when Jade was going to do something strange. If nothing happens for an entire week, expect an airship to crash, wild monsters to attack or some crazy quest devised by Jade out of boredom to happen. “I didn’t get the chance to brush her hair this morning and I think she’s actively trying to duck out on that now.”

I wasn’t the most feminine mare in the world, but I did like doing something feminine to someone else.

“She’s outside chasing the Jackalope again, he’s actually starting to respond to being called Jackass now.” Sighing and shaking her head at that information, mom came over to me and gave me gentle hug and then pulled back to look at me with a warm smile. She kissed me on the forehead. “Now what do you want for breakfast my little filly, Jade’s already called blueberry waffles and honey for herself.”

“So nothing too weird on the ‘what will Jade try now’ front?” I ask this because Jade was weird about things she’d eat.

“No, she’s not having a cheese and jelly sandwich today. I swear, my kitten likes sweet things way too much and I really should curb that habit. At least my little chick doesn’t gobble down sweet foods like it’s going out of style.” She gave me an odd look and she smirked slightly. “Speaking of which, are you in the mood for a grilled peanut butter with sliced and fried pickles Fizzle?”

“Okay so maybe some of the things I eat are just as weird.” Peanut butter and fried pickles were a salty and sour sensation for my tongue, don’t give me that judging look mom.

“At least you admit it, Jade doesn’t even toast that sandwich and that would make it so much better.” I will never understand how your culinary abilities work Kuril, though with the taste sensations you make I can’t complain about your magical food skills. “Grilled peanut butter and banana on french toast then?”

“I want to try it with less cinnamon and a little more strawberry infused milk.” My choice made, mom nodded and set off to go make me a not so simple breakfast sandwich.

-Several minutes later-

Jade came down from cleaning the blueberry juice out of her facial fur. Apparently the Jackalope was learning new tricks, especially after Jade had caught him a few times since she started chasing him down for exercise. He was getting smart enough to plan his revenge pranks on Jade and blueberry juice was not the worst that has happened to Jade.

“Jack the antlered rabbit being a problem Jade?” I asked.

“No, he’s just getting smarter… smug antlered little monster that he is. Also when was the last time Jacky’s bad luck effected any of us nega…” In ran Blackcap being chased by an angry looking toucan pecking at her, don’t honestly know where that came from. Toucans aren’t even native to this region… like the ‘highland pukwudgies’ that attacked occasionally even when we don’t say those words. Jacky ran by me and I got knocked out of my seat with a face full of toucan which I clutched to and started wailing on as it started clawing at me with its feet. “Jacky where in the world did you find a toucan!”

“Don’t know Captain, but I stumbled into it literally and it really wants to peck my eyes out for getting my fruit back from it!” Well Blackcap, it’s quite nice to know I wasn’t crazy. I fought the bird down and managed to pin it. “It did not appreciate me shooting it in the butt with a rock.”

“Can someone help me with this crazy bird?” It struggled against my hooves and I continued to smack it a few times hoping that it’ll either calm down or I’d knock it out.

“Quetzalcoatl sent you didn’t he?” The bird immediately froze and looked at Jade, what did she know and why was the bird all of the sudden looking very sheepish. “Ugh, let him go Fizzle, he’s a messenger from Quetzalcoatl. Not a god like Rata, but he works for one at the very least. Do you have a message to deliver?”

I released the now calm bird and it nodded while saluting at Jade.

“Then take it to the post office, it’s outside to the right of the inn and painted blue. You can have the local messenger god who runs our post office write down the message.” With a pause Jade crossed her arms and tapped her left foot while staring the colorful beaked bird down. “It’s that or you can wait to talk to a friend of ours that visits fairly often to play with the animals in the area until she can get her own home. Her name is Fluttershy and she’s sweet like an angel. If the message is not an immediate concern, then you can relax and have some complimentary dried fruit at the post office to wait for either to occur.”

The toucan nodded and took off out the door.

“Thanks Captain, I thought that bird had it in for me.” Jacky, I think you were missing the more important thing here. Like how Jade knew it was a messenger from Quetzalcoatl.

“A toucan is playing messenger for Quetzalcoatl?” I was a bit confused, so I directed that towards Jade. I was expecting something more... reptilian.

“Yeah, Rata is a messenger god for his pantheon, but other pantheons outsource to regular animal at times. It’s why Toucans are rumored to have colorful rainbow beaks.” Jade shrugged and couldn’t obviously state that as a known fact, but she was knowledgeable enough to know why a Toucan was here of all places. “Guess Quetzalcoatl finally finished getting things mostly back in order.”

“Yeah, not questioning that any further.” Upon saying this I found a sandwich placed before me by mom and she started putting food in front of Jade and Jacky. “Got any crazy plans for today Jade?”

“No, not really.” That meant that we were likely to get a visitor if Jade had nothing, it’ll either be our combined luck at work or it’ll be Jade’s luck specifically. I don’t know how to read Jacky’s luck, but I’m sure something bad would come of it.

I was beginning to see a pattern with Jade, if she doesn’t do something insane or crazy at least once every two weeks, then we all end up getting dragged into an adventure with Jade.

“You know, I’ve always wondered…” Oh here we go, what is Jade going to do? I was thinking ancient temple to some god of some kind that most people don’t know about. I just took a bite of my sandwich and waited. “Why does pony education end at the age of sixteen for ponies?”

Wait… that didn’t sound insane or crazy. It actually sounded like a legitimate question from Jade. What was wrong with the world? Also when was Snickers coming back, I think Jade missed her more than she misses the occasional potato stew.

“It’s because ponies usually have their cutie marks by then and know exactly what kind of job they’d be good at. It doesn’t stop them from having a talent that’s just a hobby and getting a different job however.” Speaking up from a nearby table was Cheerilee who was looking quite cheerful this morning. “Of course finding a job suited to you, Jacky, Fizzle or even Arizona would be a bit harder. Maries is already a fully accredited lawyer and I’m quite proud of her… even if she still hasn’t finished her education yet. You know, this does bring me to the fact that I should maybe learn the educational values of other species. How long do Abyssinians learn for Kuril?”

“Eight to nine years of education, mostly because our people are lazy and not very aggressive unless pushed into it. Jade was top of her class at most things except history and of course her worst subject.” That being math mom, everyone knew Jade couldn’t do complicated math without the world collapsing. It’s scientifically proven from what Cheerilee tells us about her mild dyscalculia problem.

“Holy carp, the impossible is happening!” Sekhet wouldn’t say something like that if it wasn’t completely true, I stuffed the remainder of my sandwich into my mouth and rushed outside to see what was happening.

When I got outside, I saw a small airship perfectly balance on Sekhet’s head. She wasn’t being crushed by it at least.

“Uh… you’re not mad at me for landing an airship on your head again are you?” Hey it was that mare that went to Mare-Akech. What was her name again? Jade knew some things about her. I believe it was… Daring Do?

“You did it without hurting me. That... is a miracle. As much as it is the fact that you managed to land it in one piece, on my head and having it balanced like it currently is mortal.” Sekhet was right, Daring Do either had luck nearly as sporadic as Blackcap’s or haphazardly landing airships was a common thing for her. “Now can you please get it off of me without crushing me with it?”

“That’s asking a lot of her Sekhet, her ship isn’t named The Ardent Survivor and likely doesn’t have nearly as protective a name as that ship does.” Turning to Jade with a flat gaze, Sekhet sighed and reached up with her paws to lift the ship off her head and she placed it on the ground gently. “Huh, for once the ship didn’t…”

After the start of a long drawn out pause, I had to wonder what Jade was waiting for. The still inflated balloon was likely why Sekhet hadn't felt the weight of a small airship sitting on her skull.

“What no other airship? I feel gypped.” Oh come on Jade, that was a rather impressive display of an airship not hitting our favorite local goddess like a ten ton weight… where did that thought come from? How would I even know what a ten ton weight looked like? “So what brings you to Airship Mauled and landing on our favorite goddess Daring Do?”

“I heard things went well for you in Klugetown, also I’m here on business. You said you destroy magical artifacts right? Well I have a few onboard that need to be dealt with before the next full moon and I remembered you saying that you could do that.” Daring hopped down and walked up to Jade. “So what’s that going to cost?”

“Not much with our current going rate, but the magic of whatever I destroy has to go somewhere.” Jade looked over Daring Do for a bit, she looked perfectly fine from where I was sitting. “How did Mare-Akech turn out and what’s your next adventure?”

“It went well enough, but I got into a few scrapes here or there and picked up a metric ton of some really dark stuff that needs destroying. I got away from my most recent adventure with only two arrows to my helmet this time.” Rubbing her chest with a hoof she started looking proud of herself for that one fact. “As for my next adventure? I’m heading to a temple high on a tall mountain that is said to house the cultist monks of a dark goddess called Nightmare Moon, apparently one of my enemies has been scouting it out for something big for a while now. I want to find out why and I stopped here because I have some time to spare.”

Here comes Jade, in three, two…

“Can we go on that adventure mom, please!” Jade turned her big cute cat eyes on our mother in a heartbeat. “It’s been kind of lazy around here, even with that super thief elephant that came through here last week.”

Cue mom giving in to the absurd desire.

“We could use a dangerous family vacation.” Yep, called it, we’re going straight into danger again and mom was coming to chaperone. “After we destroy those artifacts, we'll be joining you tomorrow Miss Do.”

Author's Note

Have not been feeling too good lately, thirteen hours or more hours of sleep a day says as much.

Successfully landed on Sekhet without crushing her meter: *Clank* 1.

Chapter Eighteen, Cult-tural: Three-fourths Glass.

-Kuril-

“So they can’t see us?” Daring do Said after a moment, when none of the other cannons looked like they were gearing up to fire.

“Right now they’re currently seeing sky, let’s avoid giving them something to shoot at by being too loud.” My little kitten wasn’t the only one that knew a lot, I had quite a bit of knowledge myself and I covered Daring’s mouth in a slow and calm manner. “Thestrals, or bat ponies as you call them, all have an incredibly keen sense of hearing. They might not be able to see us, but that doesn’t mean they can’t detect us through the use of echolocation. So unless you want all those cannons aiming at us, and mind you I wouldn’t be able to stop that much cannon fire from crashing your airship, I suggest you keep your voice down.”

“Yeah, they can practically detect invisible things by screeching at them. We’re just not visible visually.” My filly was looking over the side of the ship and watching the various cannons search the sky for a target. “I think we’re trying to sneak into that monastery in the distance.”

“That’s a monastery? It’s huge and looks like a palace, this is definitely not a place where normal monks hang out.” Yeah that huge building in the distance was scary Daring, but I’m sure we could infiltrate it and get out well enough. Unless my Kitten causes chaos.

The monastery was huge and built on a rather large flat portion of the mountain top and it was pretty big, but I wasn’t going to intimidate easily.

There were three snow covered towers that had more of those cannons sitting on it, I could see what might be a courtyard full of thestrals and it had a castle or palace motif going for it in what looks like the main barracks.

If… actually it’d be more of a ‘when’ with Jade for things going wrong. I better be prepared for a huge mess.

“The question here is, where do we land and how will we get out of here? What’s our exit strategy here?” Aw, look at my kitten, she has a brain and knows the inevitable will happen. “I seriously doubt that the illusion dust will work for long a second time or that we’re not going to cause a disturbance. When we do cause a disturbance, they are going to actively look for us with methods that illusion dust can’t hide.”

“At least you admit that you’re going to cause a disturbance Jade, Blade can walk around free without worry. Aside from being mute, she fits in here. We on the other hoof are two cats, a damaged unicorn, a pegasus with an archeologist bent and Sugar is bright pink.” Fizzle pointed her hoof at our pilot. “I don’t even need to point out Jacky’s obvious flaw of being highly visible and exceptionally accident prone. We all stick out like sore hooves around here.”

“You’re not broken to me Fizzle.” I moved over to Fizzle and pulled her into a hug, then Jade quickly joined and even Sugar nuzzled up to her left hoof in a friendly manner that made my kitten cringe. I still don’t understand what’s so scary about a horned, pink furred rabbit.

Blade carefully approached our snuggled group and I tugged her into it and forced her to join in.

“Yeah, yeah, touchy feely times for you guys. Can we get back to finding a landing zone, our continued safety and the absolutely necessary exit strategy?” Don’t interrupt our moment Daring, one of my daughters needed her mother right now.

Blade hasn’t had an easy time adjusting to the fact that my kitten is freakishly lucky to dodge her half-baked assassination attempts she still pulls every now and then when she thinks I’m not watching. I can trust, but I at least confirm that my trust is warranted. Trust, but always verify that said trust is warranted.

I think Blade got it out of her system at least, she wasn’t trying to stab Jade in the back while we were all cuddled together. I guess I could trust her a little more now, she was a good student when it came to chopped vegetable stir fry’s and sushi making.

Wielding bladed weaponry might be Blade’s special talent, but I think she had the makings an excellent specialist chef.

We made our way back into the cabin, it was getting very cold out here. Jacky turned to me with a hopeful look, I guess she wanted a hug because she felt left out. I gave her a strong cuddle too, but I made sure not to prevent her from flying the ship.

I had only love to give to my growing children. My chick, filly and kitten were all, mostly, well-adjusted individuals. My true daughter tended to steal things. Fizzle still had doubts about her self-worth. The less said about Jacky’s incidents the happier she is.

“Thanks… mom. So, where are we landing this small airship? There’s too much open space out here and I doubt the illusion dust will last for that much longer.” All illusion dust had a limit for how long it would work for and Jacky was well aware of that having flown us out of Canterlot.

“Well wherever we land, the shadows are going to be dangerous here. We’re dealing with a group that is good at moving in shadows, can hear at great distances and are likely dangerous as all get out. So basically better than Blade in every conceivable way, with darkness, nightmare or shadow magic thrown in.” Despite the small glare Jade received from Blade, a moment later Blade seemed to mull it over and nod about it. She was accepting that there were things here that might be more dangerous than a failed assassin. “Just small a reminder that they fired upon an unarmed airship. We’re likely dealing with a bunch of volatile nut jobs here, the kind that shot first and didn’t bother with questions at all. ”

“Guys, I have an idea of where we can land.” Looking to where Fizzle was currently pointing her eyes and her hoof, I blinked once or twice while looking at the spot. That could work. “We might not be able to have a good take off, but it’ll keep the snow off the ship and we’ll be able to slide it down the slope.”

“What you’re talking about Fizzle, is a quick start. Do you have any idea how hard it is to quick start an airship?” Jacky gave the spot a long glance and then she started turning the ship for that spot. “Just be aware that that is something that the Captain would come up with.”

“Is that a good idea or a terrible thing?” Look my little tom cat, if I’m thinking along the same lines as Fizzlepop and Jacky, then it’s likely a bad thing. “Looks fine by me, though how are we going to get it moving when we have to leave?”

Our exit was going to involve sliding the airship down the snowy slope and we’d try to fill up the balloon to the airship while doing that we had to get the balloon filled up somewhat before we flew off the edge of the mountain.

We’ll be a moving target at the very least, but how were we going to get this small airship sliding? It was quite heavy and weighed a lot that we couldn’t just push it to get it started. That would mean leaving someone behind or having the ship leave us behind after we’ve pushed it into sliding down the slope.

The spot was in a nook big enough for the ship to fit in at least. Cliffs on both sides to prevent its discovery easily and it was still in the light enough to be visible when we came back for it. I wasn’t about to ask that we leave someone at the ship all alone.

We came in for a landing, the ship turned around and then slowly settled on the slope between two large rock walls. Exploring this place with hostile people was bound to be bothersome.

“Ten bits says we can find ninjas here.” At Jade’s words, Fizzle rolls her eyes and pushed my kitten slightly.

“Pirates are better…” Mumbled Jacky.

“Don’t start that debate with me Jacky, I can go on all day about how cool ninjas are!” This is the first time I’ve witnessed Jade be openly at odds with Jacky, or was it the other way around?

Either way, they were glaring at each other and posturing.

“What about me telling you how awesome pirates are? I can do that all day too you know!” Now Jacky was releasing a warning trilling noise and Jade was hissing at her.

“Girls, can we please focus here? Daring you might want to go on ahead.” Seeing the questioning look I was getting from Daring, I decided to elaborate. “Don’t wait for us to go explore the place, we’ll do our own thing. If you happen to take off without us in the airship and leave us here, we won’t hold it against you. We can make our own way home, now I have to listen to these two bicker for a while.”

“Real ninjas hide in plain sight, what you’re talking about is the fake stereotypical garbage that media keeps spreading about ninjas that was actually made by real ninjas to hide the truth!” Jade shouted, I missed what was previously said. “At most a ninja will wear colors fitting to the environment and straight black is never a good idea.”

“Yeah, go on Daring, this could take while.” Fizzle was paying more attention to the conversation than I was at least. “Just don’t get caught or something while sneaking in, any noise would be a bad thing. Even flapping your wings could be loud enough for them.”

“Right, might or might not see you inside.” Daring flapped her wings and took off.

“Pirates have a rich history, we’re not drunkards or idiots. We’re cunning rogues and don’t you want to be a rogue too?” Jacky asked of Jade.

“Yes, I want to be a rogue, but not a pirate one specifically.” Oh great, Jade just started getting them into subclass archetypes. Better take a seat, my two girls had a fight brewing. “I’m more towards the cloak wearing kind. Jumping across roof tops with bags loaded with stolen yarn and possibly after drinking a potion to make myself bouncy like rubber.”

Like rubber… now there’s an idea, but I think Jade means something unlike what a rubber chicken does when sustained. Using a rubber chicken in Magical Alchemy makes you flexible and protects against blunt force trauma, but it doesn’t make you exceptionally bouncy and it makes it harder to move around as everything gets all wobbly.

It still weirds me out after I tried it out once, I don’t think I’ll ever use or appreciate rubber chickens like my kitten does.

“What do you have against pirates Captain?” Crossing her arms Jacky seemed quite defensive and upset with Jade, she was still calling her Captain though. Got to give my little chick a lot of credit, she was still absurdly loyal to her Captain despite the conversation going on.

“Nothing, but what do you think about pirate ninjas?” That comment had everyone flummoxed, Jade was probably planning our next O and O session to include pirate ninja golems. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if something like that actually exists in this crazy world.

“That would be an unholy abomination of conflicting classifications and you know it!” the most Jacky did was poke a talon against Jade’s chest aggressively.

“Look, is this really the conversation we should be having right now? I mean Jade wanted us to come all this way to explore and or fight a cult, possibly with ancient evils, monsters and dragons.” After a moment Fizzle chuckled a bit. “You know, now that I say it out loud, our reasons for being are completely ridiculous compared to Daring Do following the trail of one of her enemies.”

“Yes, it is certainly important to discuss the finer points of Pirates and Ninjas, because both are really interesting in their own ways.” Jade’s ears twitched and then she started to look around. I wondered what she was looking for. “Where’s Blade?”

We stood there for a silent moment before I spoke up.

“I think she followed after Daring, maybe because she thought that Daring shouldn’t go off on her own all alone in a dangerous place like this.” I picked up Sugar and started to rub her head affectionately. My guess was as good as anyone else’s, but I wouldn’t bet on it entirely.

I think Blade was curious to see what so many thestrals were actually doing up here, you know, aside from building magical cannons that fire pure darkness.

“Well there goes my entrance strategy, it’s time for plan B then!” Oh goddess, that look in my kitten’s eyes spelled doom and destruction.

Her plan B was bound to be ridiculous, dumb and we’d all be talked into doing it, but it wasn’t like we had any other things we could be doing at this time. I wasn’t about to put my foot down and stop her though, I was a curious cat and a little curiosity never killed an Abyssinian before.

Thirty minutes later-

I stand corrected, this plan could kill us all and I was still going along with it. I wanted to see if my kitten was clinically insane enough to make it work… emphasis on insane.

-???-

“Report.” I stated sternly.

“We haven’t found any signs of the airship after the first shot sir, it’s like it vanished into thin air.” Oh I didn’t believe that for a second my dimwitted subordinate, something is going to occur and it was going to be trouble. It was bad enough that Caballeron fellow was still trying to bargain his way into our good graces for something.

“Nothing can disappear just like that. It might be a ploy by Caballeron or a different third party with a strong unicorn support, they might even be in the compound already. We cannot let anyone discover our real base and Nightmare help us if a sun priest shows up.” We did not need a sun priest running around up here, not when we were still trying to figure out how the stars will aid in Nightmares release from her entrapment. The others believed sun priests to be myths and that they had all died out or had been purged from the world. I was a realist, sun priests were still out there somewhere biding their time before they rose up and destroyed all that we have built. “Keep searching, spread the word for everyone to be on the lookout for anything…. unusual. All shall be thrown to darkness and nightmares.”

“All shall be thrown to darkness and nightmares.” The thestral before me bowed and then was off to spread the word.

Minutes later I’d hear about something unusual happening, it involves my worst nightmare showing up. In any other circumstance I would be happy to see a living nightmare.

-Jade-

“Hello everyone! I’m going to let all of you, yes you, capture me.” All the thestrals I approached started screeching and scattered, probably because I was holding Sugar in my arms.

Chapter Eighteen, Cult-tural: Half Glass.

-Jade-

The reaction was pretty much unanimous among the thestrals, they had completely flipped out upon seeing Sugar in my arms. I told mom that Sugar was a horrific creature, cute as she may look, that was really quite dangerous.

I sat down on the cold stone in courtyard and wrapped my cloak tightly around myself as I settled in to watch everything as it happened. Placing Sugar in my lap, I exhaled and looked on as the cold air met my hot breath.

“So… did mom tell you not to eat me?” Asking this caused the chittering horned rabbit to turn her attention on me she rubbed her front paws against the fur on her forehead, but didn’t answer me in any noticeable manner. She just turned her head to continue watching all the crazy ponies flying around while randomly slamming into walls here or there, not one of them was bothering to sound some kind of alarm.

The thestrals were still flying every which way and things were beginning to devolve in the saddest manner I’ve ever seen. You’d think a bunch of nightmare worshipping cultist would either be fearless or would know better than to show fear to something as dangerous as Sugar is. Apparently I just walked up to the new guys with a threat beyond their abilities to imagine, a threat I was now idly petting.

Some of the thestrals actually immediately went for some nearby unmanned dark magic cannons. Surprisingly, I wasn’t afraid of the cannons firing, I was surprised however at their continued inability to form some kind of coherent thought process.

This is where my plan had a slight hitch in it and that was already coming into play, chances were they wouldn’t shoot at me with the cannons if it would annoy exhibit A of untold death and destruction currently sitting in my lap.

Several cannons started firing in the direction of the monastery, possibly in an attempt to hit us.

I looked over my shoulder and Sugar, who became interested in what I was looking at, climbed up onto my shoulder to get a view of the first few shots aimed vaguely in our direction.

One would think I’d run in this situation… you’d be wrong. Instead my head followed the arc of the first shot as it went high in the air, far overhead and into one of the towers. I noted Sugar was also staring at the huge hole in the tower that started collapsing, I certainly hoped Daring Do wasn’t in there. She’s escaped worse situation right?

Another shot hit the wall of the palace like main building and instead of putting a hole in the wall made entirely out of stone, it just quickly caught fire. Much to my disbelief the fire started to spread rapidly, then again it was dark magic empowered fire and setting stone on fire as if it were wood wasn’t the worst it could be doing.

A third shot caused a portion of wall surrounding the courtyard to crumble and fall inwards into the multiple still panicking and screeching thestrals. Some of the rubble fell on top of a thestral knocking them to the ground and then trapping their wing.

Were they actually blind firing those cannons and not aiming them? I swear this was the worst cultist monastery I’ve ever been too… it’s also the only one I’ve ever been to. I knew it was dedicated to Nightmare, but was this really the best nightmare could cobble together for a cult following?

“Excuse me for one moment, Sugar. Don’t go anywhere and don’t eat anyone.” I just received a curious look from Sugar who I placed upon the ground, but she stayed where she was and watched the chaos going on around her in something approaching fascination.

I walked towards the trapped thestral and picked up a piece of wood on my way, the thestral looked up at me and then cowered with fear. It almost appeared as if they were afraid I was going to attack them, upon closer inspection it was a colt that was almost a stallion.

“Excuse me, but could you move a little bit to the right?” The thestral blinked and did as I asked. I jammed the wood under the large bit of rubble at an angle so I could get some leverage on it. I pushed the cold and frozen bit of wood upward and the bit of rubble shifted off of the thestrals wing. “There you go, get that winged looked at will you?”

I turned around and calmly walked back to Sugar, picked her up and sat back down cross legged while once again tightening my warm cloak around me.

“Why?” Blinking, I turned to the almost stallion who came up to me.

“You needed help. I’m not actually here to kill or hurt anyone.” Though having Sugar here with me could not be ignored.

“Could have fooled me bringing that thing here.” He pointed at the horned rabbit that had rolled onto her back in my lap. “How did even you tame one of those?”

“I didn’t.” After I said that, the look on his face was priceless and I wish I had a camera.

“You have one of the most dangerous lagomorphs in existence on your lap…” He started slowly, before shouting. “And it’s not tame!”

“Sugar here is pretty tame to me.” Though I had seen Sugar coming back from Barely Bearable Woods several times, there were probably less drop bears there now. Unless they’ve wised up to what Sugar happens to be.

That’s probably what the world doesn’t need, somewhat smart drop bears. I really missed Snickers, but petting a dangerous almost demonic monstrosity on the belly was actually kind of nice. She was fluffy like me at the very least.

Sugar just chittered audibly and looked to be in a good mood with me rubbing her belly.

“Why did you come here anyway?” Well the easiest way to answer that unnamed thestral, was to tell the whole truth and nothing but that in as audacious a manner as I can manage.

“Well… actually let me ask you something first. Have you ever heard of sun priests?” My question was met with a curious gaze and a few drifting glances at Sugar.

“Yes, supposedly they were mostly wiped out.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “If any existed, then they would be enemies of our order.”

“Yes, I suppose I would be and that’s perfect. Thanks for the information.” Ignoring the now incredulous look being sent my way, I decided to explain what exactly I was doing here. “I’m a rogue sun priest, a literal free agent and traveling one at that. One who is here to make sure someone here captures me. Once that occurs and I am locked up, I will then proceed to sow chaos, cause hysterical situations… kind of like this one… and many other things to happen. Also I will destroy any secret monster you’re bound to release upon me as I make my escape from this place with whatever I can grab that isn’t nailed down and is easy enough for me to carry.”

“You actually want to be captured by the Order of Dark Dreams?” Yay, new information! I now had a name for the cult. Also he didn’t seem to believe some of the things I said. “Also, telling me you’re a sun priest doesn’t make it real. Can you do anything a sun priest is known for?”

“Given that I don’t know what sun priests are known for, I can’t really prove I am one unless you know someone around here who can actually detect that sort of stuff. All I know is that I performed the sun salutation in the morning enough to count and multiple gods have confirmed that I am one.” A crater was blown into the ground a small distance away, I turned back to the thestral. “So… is everyone going to continue running around like chickens being chased by a fox? I’m a cat I’ll have you know. Though I do find the idea that I could be seen as beautiful a creature as a fox is as quite the compliment. Don’t get any ideas though, I’m strictly attracted to mares or those of feminine persuasion. Kind of wish I were born with a fox tail… it would be so fluffy and alluring to a certain mare that loves cuddles.”

“Say I believe you about that, why the horned rabbit of doom?” He pointed his hoof to the relaxing Sugar.

“Try to physically harm me in any given way and she lets loose several cans of butt kick in response. As a small reminder, I’m not entirely in control of her actions.” I saw a thestral on fire fly close by, inhaling I spat a spray of water that put the thestral out. Said female thestral looked a bit burnt as she came down to the ground to rest and look in my direction with something approaching guarded thankfulness. “She’s only so calm because she really doesn’t see any of you as a threat to her, even with the cannons firing at us and doing more damage to the surroundings than anything else really. Also I thought a bunch of cultist that follow Nightmare would be braver than this, or at the very least a little scary. This is quite a comical sight I’ll never forget.”

“To be fair you brought an al-mi’raj here.” The thestral had a good point, at least said horned rabbit wasn’t pointed at me. “Why is it pink though? Aren’t Al-mi’raj usually yellow furred?”

“Only the males and they are the ones you are most likely to see when defending their territory. Hardly do you ever see a pink one wandering around alone.” Which made me wonder what kind of circumstances led to Sugar finding a home with us.

“About as much explanation as any.” He finally sat down next to me. “What’s to stop all of us from just killing her?”

“Unlike other al-mi’raj, this one is actually intelligent and not just a pure beast of death and mayhem.” At my words, he shivered violently. Yeah, there’s a scary thought. All the legends of killer horned rabbits and you come across the one that can think before acting, in this case that meant Sugar could be more predisposed towards cruelty if driven in that direction. “You wouldn’t be dealing with an aimless and angry beast. If that wasn’t obvious by this point.”

“Right, then we all don’t upset the horned rabbit and we don’t get violently eviscerated.” The thestral had earned the attention of Sugar in my lap, she sat up and smiled at him broadly showing her sharp fangs. Aw, she’s intimidating him with a sweet, if highly creepy, smile.

The thestral finally decided to slowly stand up and back away while staring at the horned rabbit, he was completely spooked now. Sugar got bored with menacing him with a cheerful look and went back to relaxing.

“What in the world is going on out here?!” The old guy, a gruff old looking thestral, yelled. He looked around at all the still panicking thestrals, to me and the destroyed tower. He came back to me and approached towards me looking like he was ready about to go into a rant about something when he noticed what was laying idle in my lap. Despite the distance between us, he still took a few steps back in fear. “Who in Tartarus are you supposed to be?!”

Looks like one of the senior members to the Order of Dark Dreams… wait a second… doesn’t Order of Dark Dreams come out to spell ODD? Well they certainly were, they’ve been panicking for ten minutes straight now. Thankfully nobody has died in all the chaos so far, but there’s a lot of destruction still going on and I think the guys firing the cannons finally stopped.

I felt kind of bad about all of the self-inflicted that had occurred here.

“Hi my name is Jaded La Perm, may I inquire as to what your name is as well mister sir old guy?” I grinned cheerfully at him as I asked this politely and respectfully. I could feel my tail wagging back and forth in my excitement to meet this old codger, we were going to have so much fun together!

I would be busy trying to destroy this place and he would be so busy trying to stop me and everything. We’ll be the best of buddies by the end of the week for sure!

-Fizzle-

Infiltration was a success, mostly because nobody cared that we just walked in. Everyone was still panicking about Sugar, either that or they were terrified of Jade for some earthly reason. I’d be scared too, especially if you knew exactly all of what Jade and our mom can do. I did know, but the thestrals certainly didn’t.

After ten minutes of watching and waiting while mom and Jacky safely infiltrated the place to look around. They were searching for things to loot or might even possibly find the fabled ninja stuff Jade wanted as a souvenir for visiting this dangerous place. I was watching Jade to make sure she didn’t get in over her head, I shouldn’t have been worried so about her.

I was more worried about the old guy that just walked up to her, the only reason why Jade would be that excited is because she had a legal target that would probably soon warrant whatever she does to him. I pulled the griffon mask from my face and made my way closer, I didn’t need the adjustable binocular vision at the moment.

I wasn’t noticed, since most of the thestrals were all tied up in trying to put out a magical fire or were still panicking. This plan isn’t nearly as dangerous as it sounded when Jade came up with it. We didn’t know where Blade was, but she must have been rolling her eyes in derision at all this.

-Blade-

Standing by the doorway to the armory, I just rolled my eyes. These were supposed to be brave thestrals to a cult of darkness, shadows and nightmares? I just walked in and robed up, hid multiple bladed weapons in said robe and I had a good disguise that would let me get around freely.

Unless the thestrals around here had some method of identifying someone not of their ranks like a password or something. I highly doubt that they did, given how disorganized they all currently were. Sugar was definitely terrifying, but she hadn’t exactly done anything to cause this kind of response.

They were all a bunch of wimps, I personally chopped up a carrot and fed Sugar by hoof personally. I avoided getting bit by her several times, she was a bit playful about trying to disable me further by trying to rip my hoof off. I’m already mute, I didn’t want to be down a leg too. I still did it without her getting aggressive and trying to outright kill me though.

This place had a nice gothic feel to it, then again thestrals did build this place to take advantage of making things feel gloomy in a delightful manner. The décor was just that great.

-Jade-

“I am Screaming Star!” The old guy intone loudly in a drill instructor tone.

“Wow, your parents didn't like you.” Sounds like something you’d name a giant robot.

Author's Note

I've been having lots of painful headaches lately.

Chapter Eighteen, Cult-tural: Quarter glass.

-Star Scream… er… Screaming Star!-

“What do you think you are exactly doing here specifically Ms. La Perm?” As if I didn’t know that this whelp was going to be a headache, no normal being could keep an Al-mi’raj that peaceful.

Not even shadow mages could control them and they had incredible abilities to keep black dragons away, then again they don’t control those either. What good were they again? I really do need to stab the leader in the back soon, it’s just really quite hard to do with him being so competent.

“I’m a rogue, but also a sun priestess or priest. So I call myself a rogue sun priest!” If she were one like she just stated, then things are about to get horribly awry around here.

“Do you have a moon priest companion?” I asked for the sake of clarity if she was speaking the truth about her status as one of the enemies of the Order of Dark Dreams.

“No, but I’m doing pretty well on my own. You’re quite amiable for someone that’s supposed to be killing me.” Something tells me this cat wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. “Does having an assassin that’s tried to kill you as a companion count?”

“Not unless she does moon priest rituals no...” I considered it for a moment, nothing ventured I suppose. “Is your assassin friend willing to take a commission?”

“Sorry, she’s trying to get out of that sort of work after my two close friends kicked her butt on two separate occasions. Also somebody out there really doesn’t like me and I can’t understand why that is, at least you’re not immediately trying to kill me.” Well the cat certainly sounds honest, maybe I could use that against her and the reason I wasn’t trying to kill her now was because of that thing sitting in her lap. “Though don’t ask if I can help you with your leader as that’s your own business. I’m not an assassin personally and while I won’t kill people, that does not mean I can’t maim someone to within an inch of their life and leave them for dead under the right circumstances. The real killer is right here.”

The killer rabbit in her lap chittered affectionately, I shuddered to think what would happen if that thing were set loose. Also the cat was a bit smarter than I took her for a second ago, I just had to ask.

“How did you know I have it in for my leader?” I, Screaming Star, lead drill instructor and commander to a large number of thestrals, received a quirked eye and a highly confused look.

My plans were well hidden and executed with precision. Though they often fail, nobody knew I was trying to kill our current leader. Well at least nobody should know, how this cat did was beyond me.

“Seriously? It’s really obvious, I mean with a name like ‘Screaming Star’ I would not turn my back on you in an empty room… much less a room full of people you know and trust. In that respect I’d back myself into a corner and wait for someone else to get targeted, specifically you.” Ah, she’s a thinker this one, I had better be careful with her. Since she is a Sun Priest, I am definitely vindicated in worrying about their continued existence. “Again, your parents either hated you or they wanted a rock star for a son, maybe as a deaf metal player.”

“Don’t you mean death metal player?” Why in the world was I entertaining her thoughts? Though she might have something of a point going here, all those guitar lessons and spike covered clothes make more sense in hindsight. Also yes, I could say my parents outright hated my guts before I left them behind in the dust.

Also death metal just wasn’t my music, which is odd coming from a cultist in the Order of Dark Dreams come to think of it. The music was all about my favorite subjects even, death, destruction, a personal favorite of mine being suffering and everyone’s favored tenet around here ‘darkness’.

“Nope, I definitely mean deaf. Can you imagine a thestral singer screeching at the top of their lungs? You can’t kill someone that way, but you can definitely make them go deaf and disorient them.” Despite the fact that this Jaded may have driven us off the tracks as it were, I did kind of find it interesting that she had a largely valid point. Why isn’t it called ‘deaf metal’ when its defining point is being absurdly loud and ear rupturing? “So, are you going to capture me and put me in a cell for interrogation already? I can tell you there’s a pegasus already snooping around in here in a pith helmet. There’s also some stallion guy name Doctor looking for something here, it’s probably in the underground base so you might want to keep him away from whatever it is he’s looking for.”

I stood there in silence and stared at her, she wasn’t even being tortured and she was giving the information that there were others around freely? Well of course there were others around, the airship that was spotted was a one pony airship, but it could carry ten to twelve passengers easily enough.

What she said finally caught up to me and I realized that she knew quite a bit too much.

“How in all that is the unholy eternal darkness of nightmares could you possibly know about the secret underground base?!” She just gave me a long, flat, demeaning look.

“It’s no wonder you’re all doomed to fail whatever it is you think you’re trying to accomplish when Nightmare eventually does come back.” The girl received the most scathing glare I could give her. “I’m just telling the truth here, her defeat is going to be pretty swift if this is all you have to show for it. I mean the monastery is full of holes, one of the towers is knocked down and a large portion of it is still burning down. All I did was walk up, asked to be captured and held prisoner while holding one of the world’s most dangerous creatures calmly in my arms.”

By that logic you’re partially responsible and the reason so many thestrals are floundering about like useless little beetles, I ate things like that for breakfast.

“Again, how did you know about the base?” I wasn’t going to be distracted by her inanities.

“Simple, there’s not enough room up here for the number of thestrals present, also I doubt thestrals like yourselves would do anything other than follow traditional sleeping habits. Which would of course be in caves despite none being around.” She paused and looked at me with a hint of amusement on her face. “The only explanation would be something directly under the monastery in some kind of huge hollowed out cave system where you built some kind of base or city, anyone who hasn’t been shot by a cannon of pure darkness and managed to get close enough would notice something is off immediately. Too many thestrals for the monastery to feasibly hold and not enough supply space to hold all the food despite its palace like construction, also you guys don’t tend to live above ground in the light of day very often.”

“Points, you have many and possibly more.” After I said that she gleefully her paws to together while giggling.

“Oh, what do I win with these points?” Is she really being sincere right now? I can’t tell whether she’s being incredibly stupid or incredibly intelligent, maybe even both. “Do I get my own ninja servant?”

“Look, save me a migraine and follow me to the holding cells. Better yet… guards! You, you and you make yourselves useful and get some weapons to hold her at spear point in case she tries anything funny… well funnier than holding a deadly beast in her arms.” I knew she wanted to be captured and she was bound to do something with that, now if only I could figure out how to benefit from it. I should probably have her killed outright, but the rabbit will be a problem. I can be insane, but I’m stupid. “I think I have just the idea of how to deal with you and you’re little rabbit too, it’ll take some time to set up though.”

Several thestrals hovered around her pointing their spears at her.

“Oh one last question, do you have an arena with giant monsters, evil mirror cloning, black dragons and or possibly a wendigo? A wendigo would be nice, as it could help me make snow cones! Any one of those thing would be fun to play with really.” This sun priest was very different from what the historical texts say she should be like. At least she was clearly up front about being insane though.

“You’ll just have to find out, guards take her away!” They three saluted and started to lead, she was making way too many lucky guesses for me to be comfortable with.

Sun Priests of the past were not quite this excited to put into the line of fire or even capable of combat, this one seemed to be an outlier if she was in fact a sun priest. Also she must be acting bubbly just to annoy me, why else would she seem so happy to endear herself to me, she’s cunning and I don’t like anyone more cunning than me being around.

I have a sudden idea, I can put on a show for our leader. We can watch as this cat fights for her life and I can dig a knife into his back when he least expects it. The reign of dear leader Hollow Heart would surely come to an end this time.

-Fizzle-

Okay they were leading her away, avoid that old cackling guy and now just to sneak behind the guys taking her into the monastery.

“Hey, who are you!” I froze looked at the thestral and lashed out a hoof around his neck and gripped him in a specific spot, we sat there for a moment.

“Why are you pinching the back of my neck with your hoof?” Well this was about to get awkward, the guard didn’t seem to be going down.

“Well, it’s an ancient technique taught to me by a sphinx that lets me knock someone out by grabbing them in a specific spot.” I nodded to him, before I removed my hoof and rubbed at the back of my head. “I have no idea why the nerve pinch didn’t work, I think I might have forgotten something about how to do it right.”

“Well that’s enough out of you! You’re coming with…. with… pretty rainbows!” He flopped onto his face completely unconscious. After looking around to make sure the coast was clear, I stole his stuff for a disguise. It would work so long as nobody expected me to fly.

Oh right, that’s what I forgot about the technique. Hold three second then release any time afterwards, Sekhet did say that was something I kept forgetting about doing it. Too bad it only works on ponies or at least equine equivalent species like a deer.

I stepped over the guard and quickly made my way down the corridor in glancing into rooms to see if they were the direction that Jade went in. When I checked one room, I caught the tail end of a portion of the floor rising into place and vaguely heard Jade’s voice joking about why they needed all the subterfuge when no one was out to get them.

Sound seems to carry really well around here, looking up from the floor I looked at the various things in the room, now how do I open the entrance? There’s got to be a switch or something around here.

“I knew there was something odd about you, nice disguise by the way. Hey Fizzle, that is your name right?” Jumping at the sound of Daring’s voice I turned to her with a calm looking a jerky looking smile on my face. I nodded and waited for her to ask anything. “Anyway, did you hear something in this room a while ago? Also what did your friend do, that caused all that chaos?”

“She walked into the courtyard holding Sugar, that’s what happened. I think the rabbit you seem to think you can take scared the thestrals crazy without even batting an eye at them.” I turned to look at the floor. “As for what I heard in hear? There’s an entrance to something in here and Jade has been captured, she got captured on purpose before you ask and I need help finding a way to open that entrance. It could take an hour to…”

A clicking noise and the floor started lowering rapidly into stairs one at a time, I turned to Daring who poke the symbol of that had the depiction of the mare in the moon on it.

“No need to thank me, it was kind of obvious.” She said smugly and then floor down the stair, I quickly galloped after her and heard her gasp.

I came up next to Daring and stared at the vast open cavern, a small city sat before us and it was full of dim lighting.

“Well I’m off to find Jade to make sure her plan goes without a hitch.” I walked forward and down the path towards the city. “When she plans for safety, she never really plans for own.”

“You do that, I’ve got to find out what Caballeron is after.” She hovered after me for a bit. “There’s lots of valuable stuff in the monastery, but none of it is magical. If it was, it probably wouldn’t have shattered so easily from all the cannon fire.”

-Sekhet-

“That’s why velocity is a harsh mistress.” Sure my other friends may be off wandering into a cult load of danger, but I wasn’t worried.

They better come back with only minor injuries or so help me, I will go up there and rip those cultists apart personally. They want a war of nightmares and shadows? I’ll give them a war they’ll never forget if they hurt my friends!

Okay, so I was really very worried about them, but mortals needed adventures to grow. I can’t hover over them all day every day to make sure they don’t get hurt and I expected some form of airship related head injury when they got back.

What is my life that I actually wanted airships to crashing into me now? Well it did give me a decent reasons to flex my riddling muscles by quite a bit.

“Remind me to never use slingshots around you coach.” Arizona was quite aggressive, she sometimes even lets her anger control her.

I couldn't get lazy with my coaching job Just because my favorite friends weren't around to watch over.

“Slingshots nothing, you should hear my tale about bungie cords and how to make them extremely dangerous.” As a war goddess I could weaponized anything. Including, but not limited to, my own blood, my breath, tufts of hair from my tail, my ear wax and even my claw clippings, when I deign to trim them that is. I had a captive audience, including the three Vibrant Vikings. “I take you all want to know? It happened on a trip to Las Pegasus…”

Author's Note

Next chapter will be a combination of two chapters in one so I can get in a full blown battle sequence with requisite music.

Chapter Eighteen, Cult-tural: Empty glass.

-Three days later Jade-

I woke up feeling very comfortable, mostly because I had Fizzle wrapped around me. Can you say super model mare friend? I believe Fizzle will look good enough to be one in the future. Sure the scarred eye or broken horn might not be for some people, but she’s definitely attractive. The cage couldn’t be more comfortable, the only thing uncomfortable about all this was that Sugar was in the cage with us.

“How, how did you manage to do it?!” Entered Screaming Star, screaming at us and making a nuisance of himself. His gleaming silver fur, alongside his rusty red and blue streaked mane, all looked to be standing on end.

He was about to wake up Fizzy, I currently think she was too comfortable and lovable to wake up. She did happen to be snuggling up against me.

“Quiet, you’ll wake her up.” Knowing his special talent was screaming loudly and being violently beaten up by his leader, it was unlikely he’ll acquiesce to let Fizzle sleep happily.

“I don’t care if I wake her up!” Well you certainly weren’t a good host Screaming, then again you had a very valid reason to be mad at me despite not having evidence to back anything up. If he woke Fizzle up he was going on the list of petty kitty revenge. Aside from Flamberge, no one else was on that list at the moment. So he’d be fast tracked for reprisal by his proximity alone. “How the buck did you get out of that cage? Not once, not twice, but ten times over the last three days since we put you in there!”

“I didn’t get out of the cage at all, I’ve been the very model of a damsel in distress.” Yeah, I actually managed to keep my face straight while saying this. I surprised myself sometimes.

“So you weren’t the one that stapled all my furniture to the ceiling?” He eyed the novelty industrial sized stapler sitting in the cage Fizzle was supposed to be in. “Not to mention the several other juvenile or highly annoying things you and your friends have done over that last few days. I know there’s at least one more person in your group somewhere in the Night Fright Grotto and I will find them!”

“How could I have possibly been responsible for that?” I stated quite clearly as if I had no idea what he was talking about. Something tells me that Screaming wasn’t buying it. “I’ve been in here the whole time and I have an alibi in the thestral patrols. They can confirm I’ve been in this cage when the incidents occurred.”

The nearby thestral guard nodded in an amiable manner, agreeing with the fact that I had yet to seemingly leave the cage.

“Then how do you explain that sad excuse for a unicorn cuddling you?” He pointed at a snoozing Fizzle who started to twitch and turn in her sleep while tightening her grip on me. I didn’t like what he said about Fizzle and he was very close to earning my eternal ire. “The cages are teleport, phase and portal proof. No amount of magic could have possibly moved her from that cage to this one, the only other viable option is a thestral! No pony would be stupid enough to defy my orders or the will of Lord Hollow Heart. None of the keys are missing and they are a good fifty feet away from the cages at all times unless needed.”

“Well duh! If we can’t use magic and we can’t get to the key, then how did we do it then mister smarty slacks? I doubt we’d know anyone here.” I kissed Fizzy on the forehead and she calmed down, she then dug her nose deeply into my neck and inhaled sharply. At least she wasn’t choking me anymore.

I enjoyed being a cuddle toy, mostly because it made Fizzle smile in her sleep. Something she seldom does while awake, such a sight goes well with her beautiful eyes. She tries not to let me know her insecurities, because she knows exactly how I’ll act to make things better.

“I don’t know, but I’ll eventually figure out how you got that giant yellow hippopotamus toy into Hollow Heart’s room.” That wasn’t even the worst we’ve done over the last few days Mr. Screaming. “The fact that it’s twice the size of the doorway is the most disturbing thing about it!”

Shouldn’t you be more focused on how I got the smell of durians to flood throughout all of Night Fright Grotto city… town… village? It drove every thestral wild with trying to find the fruit, they loved that smell.

All thestrals were relatively fruit crazy and if it wasn’t fruit, then it was bugs for this insectivorous pony species.

“Sure you will, once you get over the fact that it’s completely and physically impossible for me, Fizzle or our horned rabbit companion to escape these cages.” A total lie that was, we’ve done it multiple times. Sugar’s horn could cut straight through the bars, but that would give away the game. “Though I must admit that I am completely stumped as to how Fizzle got out of her cage to get into mine to use me as a snuggle toy.”

It wasn’t easy, but we managed to get out multiple times in varying different ways. I couldn’t cast away the bars and Fizzle’s magic couldn’t imbue them with different properties to make them brittle.

There was also that thing were we painted a lot of rooms with a stupidly bright shade of neon green. One would ask how we did that, I on the other hand would ask why there was such an abundance of unused bright neon green paint around here in the first place.

I guess not all the thestrals here were cultists, which would certainly explain their initial incompetent showing on the surface at the monastery above us.

You’d think they’d use dark purple paint, but no. The actual color scheme around here was grey, dark brown or blood red. That didn’t fit nightmares color scheme of dark purple, pale blue or black at all.

So again, why did they even have a room full of bright, as the sun itself, neon green paint in the first place?

“So you say… well you won’t be that much of a nuisance to everyone any longer. I’ve gotten our fearless leader to agree to throw you into a gladiatorial fight to the death with our special defenses.” Oh, Did Screaming Star plot my death while plotting his bosses at the same time? How quaint. “You’ll meet you’re doom today!”

“Before that, can I ask why you had the world’s largest stockpile of eye searing bright neon green paint?” I liked the color, but it was so bright it made the walls glow as if it were a highly radioactive toxic sludge. It was a really nifty effect… also the paint just might be glow in the dark for all the wrong reasons. To think the paint seemed so normal in the paint cans.

“I don’t want to talk about it with the ever confounding likes of you!” With that odd statement, Screaming turned away from us and stomped off. “I’ll be back to escort you there personally to make sure you don’t do something funny, also you won’t be getting a last meal. I want you to die on an empty stomach!”

Sugar chittered cutely while bouncing around in the cage, she at least hadn’t gone stir crazy and was being well fed to make sure she doesn’t run amok. I eventually woke up Fizzle and since the coast was clear it was time to do an age old guard tradition, goofing off while on the job.

The thestral guard moved over to the cage and unlocked it. We didn’t necessarily need Blade’s help to escape the cages, but it was the thought that counted. She motioned for us to follow her and we eventually came up to a table with several thestrals sitting at it.

“So guys, who’s up for a game of Cheat?” A fun card game for all of us and several friendly thestral guards.

“Jade’s here, now it’s a party!” One of the thestrals commented out loud in a lackadaisical tone. “Shuffle the deck Hard Tell and let’s really bust loose!”

-Hours later Night Fright Grotto Arena, Kuril-

Oh thestral culture was so interesting, when it wasn’t the evil side of it at least. The cult was prominent since they did kind of build this place, but there was a lot of thestrals here who weren’t cultists.

In fact there was a group called the Exceptionally Valorous Equine Neophytes, we made contact with them and they were pretty friendly despite the dark atmosphere around here what with the evil thestral cultists being a majority.

Like Jade pointed out about the Order of Dark Dreams spelling ODD, the thestrals we met were called EVEN. EVEN was an organization that worked as an opposing force that was quite underhanded in a good way.

With their leader Prime Number, they were slowly converting thestrals away from worshipping nightmare moon and or nightmares, monstrosities and other truly dark things in general.

Instead of nightmare, they worshipped the original princess of the night Luna and were trying to pull the rug out from under the cultists. Don’t honestly know which thestral started it, because Prime certainly didn’t. They were fighting a slow and steady uphill battle with ODD.

Enough about them though, I wondered where Daring got off to. I knew Jade, Fizzle and Blade were having fun. Sugar was protecting Jade and so far… things didn’t really seem altogether bleak for a cult dedicated to making things worse for the whole world by the very nature of their doctrine.

I’m just waiting for a shoe to drop as I spent quality time with my little chick Jacky, after we robbed the monastery of some valuables and weaponry. There were ninja here and they were in both ODD and EVEN factions. Jade was going to be so happy I got her a few ninja things that I bartered off of EVEN, including an instruction manual for smoke bombs.

“Mom, jerk butt is coming out.” After having gotten some attention, Jacky pointed to Screaming Star moving to stand next to the throne that Hollow Heart sat on. He looked angry, my kitten must have been going the extra mile this time.

“I wonder if Jade did enough to warrant whatever ODD is going to send at her.” My little tom cat was crazy in a way even I sometimes couldn’t follow.

The silver stallion thestral with the dark purple hair didn’t look very nice at all, just from his appearance alone I can kind of see why Prime was so set against him leading these thestrals into the ground. His absolute authority as head nightmare cultist sounds horrifying now that I’ve actually seen him.

“This better be good Screaming Star.” Hallow Heart leaned back in his throne looking contemplative.

“Oh it will be, because today we’ll get to see a sun priest be thrown into the arena against our mightiest weapons!” Screaming Star let loose a dark chuckle. It didn’t take much for me to guess that they didn’t care if the crowd could hear them or not. It did have me a bit worried about what my tom cat was going to face. “This will be an event of pain and misery of the likes none of you have ever seen before! We’re going to toss three beings into the arena to be killed, their screams will be music to my… our ears!”

“This could prove to be entertaining… provided that the priest’s death is not too quick.” His red eyes stared deeply into Screaming’s in a demented manner. “Tell me, did she come with a moon priest?”

“No, but I’m quite sure she’s a sun priest and that she won’t be leaving the arena alive.” Well that caused a few shudders throughout the crowd. It was that kind of ruthlessness that gave EVEN a hoof hold here in the first place. “She’ll soon be a bloody smear on the ground with what I have in store for her.”

The thestrals gathered in the stands watched as several guards forced Jade, Fizzle and Sugar into the arena. They looked perfectly fine in a manner of physical health at the moment and only Fizzle looked a bit worried.

My kitten doesn’t seem very worried about her situation in the slightest. Sugar just looks as sweet and playful as she ever does, I don’t honestly know why everyone fears her.

“I’m kind of surprised that no one in the stands care that we look like really odd thestrals.” Yes Jacky, a beaked thestral and another sporting cat ears with matching tail does look odd from an outsider’s perspective.

I’m relying on us being weirdness censored, that way nobody will notice anything amiss about us. It was working really well too, I’m surprised that none of the thestrals around here had pinged us yet with their voices yet. What a polite bunch of ponies these people were.

I was eventually going to run out of illusion dust if I kept abusing it like this.

“First up, and possibly the only one needed, the Quake Maker!” The ground started rumbling and I saw cracks forming in the center of the arena. I had the sense to think something dangerous was coming.

-Night Fright Grotto Arena, Jade-

“First one’s mine, Fizzle can get the harder stuff and if we really get into trouble…” I motioned to Sugar who perked up and looked slightly aggressive. “We have a secret weapon. Sugar protect Fizzle, unless it looks like I’m in too much trouble.”

Sugar looked around attentively while flicking her long ears about, she growled adorably.

I didn’t get a chance to say much more, something erupted from the center of the arena. A line of cubes that started grinding together. Eventually a cloud of dust erupted from the tower and I saw it for what it was, it was a bunch of connected spheres leading up to the head of a golem.

Said head was a red glass like core that a bit of rock moved around and it seemed to glare down at us. If I had to guess, the Quake Maker was the thing that dug out Night Fright Grotto.

A fifty foot or so long rock snake made of boulders that don’t necessarily need to be connected to it, this was going to be a bit problematic.

I moved forward with a look of determination on my face, magic missiles were my best bet for damaging the golem’s core. I had no illusions about how this was going to go, this was going to hurt if I get hit even once. I do not stop sustaining the knife for any reason unless I absolutely needed the griffon feather... or something else.

I would only fire a magic missile in two occasions, if I was guaranteed a hit and if I needed a distraction. Otherwise I was going to tire myself out too fast and I wouldn’t be able to take down the thing that possibly dug out the grotto in this thestral infested mountain.

“Here, goes nothing.” I charged forward. “Hey, boulder face, come at me!”

The golem reared back and up, the battle started with it diving for me.

Author's Note

Instead of two chapters in one, I made two chapters one post.

My recent slower update schedule for this story has been much easier on me.

Chapter Eighteen, Cult-tural: Hold my beer!

Author's Note

(New Alchemy Ingredient!)

Chapter Eighteen, Cult-tural: Hold my beer!

-Jade-

I dove to the side as it went into the ground nearly crushing me, its tail lashed out in my direction. I leapt out of the way again only to be blown down and away by the air blasting out from it.

After tumbling, I noticed the ground shifting towards and then eventually beneath me. I jumped straight up as it erupted underneath me, its glowing bright core came up to meet my palm glowing with energy.

I slapped my glowing left hand down on it and the resulting point blank magic missile blast cracked its red glowing core slightly and sent it off course.

I landed on the still moving rock snakes body and rolled down it to the ground, where I stopped my momentum with a sliding skid. I quickly turned to fire another round into its core that was aiming in my direction with my right hand.

It reeled back and the crack widened a bit. Starting to look angry it circled around and then lashed at me with its tail like a whip, I jumped back and the ground cratered before me with the force of the blow shaking the whole arena.

As I stumbled away and started running away, it swung its tail back and then disconnected several boulders sending them right for me. The five boulders coming at me were all too close together to dodge very well. Except… if I were to…

I turned, leapt and grabbed onto the central boulder just after it bounced and clung to it tightly hoping I didn’t get crushed. I let go when the boulder next hit the ground and rolled off the momentum with it leaving me behind standing on all fours.

The snake golem launched forward and started slithering towards me, I fired a magic missile and it jerked its core to the side only getting scraped by my shot that took a chunk out of the boulder behind the head.

It brought its entire body around in a long sweeping arc.

I jumped and was only half way to making it above the tail, I concentrated and kicked off the air again and felt the whoosh of something moving below me. It hit my feet and sent me spiraling to the floor.

Switching to knife, switching to knife! Holding my arms forward and performed a hand spring, I lashed out a left handed shot for the core that was staring in my direction even as the rest of its body continued the sweep.

The core took the shot and reeled back, the cracks were clearly more visible than ever. Its tail lifted up in the air from its swing and slapped down on where I had been as I started circling to the left.

It dragged its tail after me and I smiled, I turned and jumped onto the slow moving tail of the golem. After having climbed onto it, I started running towards the front of the body to get a closer shot.

The tail quickly detached from the main body and separated into parts that to started hovering around me, I stopped on the boulder that was still on the ground as multiple boulders hovered around me at an equal distance.

I realized what it was about to do and crouched, multiple rocks slammed into the boulder I was on in an attempt to squish and or entomb me.

A gout of dust shot into the air from the force of the attack.

-Fizzle-

“Jade?” It looked like she got crushed, but when the rocks moved away Jade was no longer present.

A shot came from the right of the rocks and blasted the golem in the eye damaging it further. It turned only to get blasted in the eye from the left.

There were two Jade’s now, so she used that particular item to escape getting crushed.

-Jade?-

“I’ll give you the opening you need.” The hovering rocks came shooting towards me, I prepared to dodge.

“Worry about yourself, you know how this effect works!” The other Jade said as she fired a shot the Quake Maker’s eye avoided. The Quake Maker turned to the other Jade and the rocks coming at me veered and started heading for her. “Don’t tire us out too fast, if you can get a kill shot. Go for it.”

I fired a shot and nailed it in the eye, it was almost busted given the amount of damage we were doing to it.

We couldn’t do this for very long, but we wouldn’t have to. We’ve almost beaten it.

-Jade-

Damn it, I thought it would stick to her… I rolled under a boulder that came bounding at me and rolled to the side around another and prepared to fire a shot, but it had already taken another hit from the other me.

We’re so close to defeating it on our own.

-Hollow Heart-

“Now this is interesting… a sun priest that can actually hold their own in a fight.” He smirked and watched as the twin sun priests moved to dodge the halves of the snake the core was getting confused about which was the real target. “Reminds me of the old days when I was stuck in a Minotaur gladiatorial arena. Do you know how she created a copy of herself?”

“No, I wonder how she did that.” It looked like Screaming figured something out, I was waiting for him to make his move. It seemed he was too distracted from the fight to carry out his plan to stab me in the back, it’s what I kept him around for after all.

If the imbecile was too distracted, then I can at least enjoy the show he’s putting on for me in peace. At least he always kept me on the tip of my hooves to remind me not to grow soft or weak. Prime was becoming a bit uppity, I’d have to deal with that sooner or later.

-Jade?-

“Come on you overgrown pile of stones, come get me and leave her alone!” We were less graceful without the knife sustain, but this sustain made up for it by giving us more room to breathe and we were definitely confusing the core.

It reconnected its body together and came towards me. It quickly encircled me and before I knew it, I was wrapped in a bunch of stones.

It started tightening its grip and I gasped in pain.

-Jade-

It felt like my ribs were caving in, but I couldn’t drop her yet. I was still getting a good angle on the core with my right hand.

“Drop… me!” Grunted out the other me as Quake Maker squeezed her. I grit my teeth in pain as it felt like my body was going to implode, the fact that it had the other me in a bind was bad. I fired my magic missile and then collapsed the other me.

The other Jade in the golems grip shattered into motes of harmless light and then the magic missile impaled and went straight the core. It exploded violently in a shower of red energy that lit up the whole arena.

All the boulders that made up the golems body started falling to the floor lifelessly. I fell to my butt and gasped in air, I had a smile on my face even if it had almost crushed me to death. Had I been a little slower in releasing myself I would have been dead.

I struggled to stand and made my way over to Sugar and a worried Fizzle who started fussing over me.

“So, you think that’s it? That thing was made by our ancient ancestors to dig out our current home, a utility golem at best.” Screaming started off with a chuckle, he looked a bit surprised that I took down the rock snake by myself. ”Release the Centaurion, this is the one that was made for a real battle!”

Centaur and centurion put together? Well that wasn’t a very unique… oh holy fudge, it’s huge! Bigger than Quake Maker at least.

A large stone centaur started to stomped its way into the arena through a doorway on four large hooves, it was pretty quick too. Its large blue core seemed to glare down at us from the head.

Once it got close enough its upper half spread out its two arms, it swung them both towards us in a clapping motion.

Seriously doubting that I could stop this thing, and that Fizzle wanted to fight it alone or could even take it on. It was time to let our special friend show us her real power.

“Sugar, in the immortal words of a duck with the super power of insanity. It’s playtime!” I closed my eyes and cowered against Fizzle who held me tight, I heard a screeching noise and opened my eyes. Fizzle opened hers, after she looked into mine in some surprise, we looked at the shadow standing over us.

Sugar was using her paws to push both the large stone arms back.

The hands stopped a foot from crushing us on either side, because standing over both me and Fizzle was a rapidly growing Sugar. The large demonic looking fanged rabbit growled.

She was three fourths of the way to reaching Ursa Minor size before she stopped growing and her eyes were starting to glow blood red. She gave a gentle shove to both the large stone hands that tried to crush us and they flung outwards and back into the Centaurion’s lower body damaging it.

Said damage was negligible because seconds later it’s stony hide reformed and I saw the blue core appear in its left side near its butt before it closed and disappeared. Well that was going to be hard to deal with, it had a moving core unlike the Quake Maker.

Well mom, what did you have to say about Sugar now?

-Kuril-

“Huh… Sugar is still super cute at that size.” Why was I getting such an incredulous look from Jacky?

Sugar would still be my adorable little familiar at the end of all this, even if she was as dangerous as Jade says she was.

-Fizzle-

“Pick us up Sugar!” Sugar’s two paws swept us up at Jade’s words and we were placed upon her head, afterwards Sugar let loose a deafening roar. I bet half the crowd wished they could hear after that. “Show this hunk of stone who’s boss Sugar, tackle!”

We were picked up by Sugar… correction we were picked up by a ‘big’ Sugar. Jade did say Al-mi’raj could do this, I just hadn’t considered how big or dangerous she could actually get. This… this was an eye opener into exactly how much knowledge Jade had about various creatures.

Sugar rammed into the stone colossus horn first, it quickly tried to swing for us and take advantage of the possibly trapped horn it was impaled on.

“Show us some agility Sugar and dodge it like a wrench!” After that odd statement from Jade, Sugar pulled her horn free while backing out of the way of the golem’s seemingly clumsy movement. It tried to gallop forward to ram us. Only for Sugar to bounce over it and across the arena. “Double team it with you illusions and get in close to grab it!”

With a surprisingly amount of speed that almost made me fall off of Sugar, she started to zigzag across the arena leaving multiple copies of all three of us sitting around the golem that charged into them and started to attack each image.

The Centaurion tried hitting every illusion close to it with its massive stone hands spinning three hundred and sixty degrees as it walked. Unfortunately for it, it wasn’t even coming close to tagging Sugar moving at such an absurd speed for something this large. Why wasn’t square cube law affecting Sugar? This is horrifying beyond belief!

Sugar rammed into the Centaurion gripped it around the upper torso.

“Jump and give it a Seismic Toss!” How did Jade expect Sugar to lift that…? “Fizzy, you might want to hold on, this is going to be a huge impact.”

Sugar kicked off the ground with her powerful hind legs and we went soaring straight towards the grotto’s ceiling, I felt weightless for a moment and I realized two things that were quite messed up about this situation.

One, Sugar was still holding the massive golem in her paws. Two, she defying all kinds of gravity by clinging to the stalactite riddled ceiling with her rear paws. She was dangling the golem beneath her, leaving me to wonder how much it weighed in comparison to Sugar who was doing all this on muscle at the moment.

“Jade, this is nuts and I’m completely terrified of Sugar now.” I said calmly while gripping onto her and Sugar’s fur for dear life, I could feel her scrunching up and getting ready to push off the ceiling.

“Welcome to my world Fizzy. You think this is bad, she can still do illusions to make herself completely invisible at this size.” Well now, that brought on a new fresh coat of horror to my mind Jade. Thank you for telling me that, no seriously, thank you. I certainly needed to know that such things as giant invisible doom rabbits existed. “Be prepared to use your horn, you might need to break the core while Sugar recovers from our landing. I’ve hardly got any fight left in me to do it myself.”

Yeah that copy thing and all those magic missile shots took a lot out of Jade. If I see the core, then I was undoubtedly going to take my shot and destroy it. I wanted to feel like I actually participated in this fight. Also, like Jade, I had seen the core change positions. That was bound to be annoying if we didn’t deal with it fast enough.

I had barely blinked and a thunderous crashed, my entire world shook violently and there was lots of screaming form the crowd. The sweeping force of wind and dust threatened to send me flying and I clung tightly to Jade and the demon rabbit.

How exactly fast had we been moving when Sugar plowed the golem into the floor? I coughed as a massive amount of dust filled the air in the arena and the stands.

The dust started clearing and I saw what had become of the golem, its entire body had been decimated and the arena’s floor was now one giant crater.

The large blue core was heavily cracked and shifting about a bit as if in destress, some stone started to form up and slide towards it. Sugar was groaning a bit and Jade seemed to have blacked out, well time to prove my worth.

I charged my horn and prepared to unleash a hyper fast beam of destructive magic!

Sure my control was horrible and this practically drained my full magic reserve in one go, but I swiftly tore that golem core into nothing.

“Now that’s a Nigh Indestructible Destructively Overwhelming Queen of monsters!” Jade said deliriously as she came to. “Too bad Sugar won’t be able to grow this large again for at least a week when her size ability wears off. The time it takes to do this again is proportionate to how big she gets and for how long.”

-Daring-

I said… that I could take that on.

Holy, flapping… yeah no, I rescind my statement about the rabbit immediately!

Chapter Nineteen, The Whimsical Witch of Even: Little world.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Nineteen, The Whimsical Witch of Even: Little trouble.

-Jacky-

I liked having a cat for a mother, she always knew how to have fun and only vaguely seemed to have a vitriolic relationship with Captain.

My Captain and mom were so much alike at times it kind of gets scary.

-Kuril-

I just stared at the second wrapped taco that Jade was going to get into as soon as she was finished with the first. I just shook my head silently and continued eating my own food before she started begging me for mine.

My kitten was a bit greedy with food and that was understandable, but I had to eat too you know. She’d never beg food off of Jacky or Fizzle, mostly because they couldn’t cook or had issues with cooking.

We were all sitting in the corner of a nearby bar, I had Sugar snoozing away in my lap and Jade was talking to Jacky about what we’ve been up to.

I’m kind of surprised we managed to sit down and eat somewhere without problems. None of the thestrals around were paying attention to us despite the illusion powder having worn off quite a while ago. Maybe we were so strange that they didn’t want to acknowledge us as being out of the ordinary for this society built into the middle of a mountain.

We, of course, weren’t visiting the bar the normal reasons. It was a nice, quaint, clean place to sit down and eat our meal together as a family. Well minus Blade and Daring who were off doing who knows what around here, Blade was technically family by absorption as one of the two main chefs that worked at The Witch’s Fare.

I wondered how Fresh Start was doing.

-Fresh Start-

“Why… why are there so many customers coming in when Kuril is not even here!” She cried as she ran from table to table, she was at least getting help from Arizona, Maries and Grace.

-Kuril-

Eh, not my problem.

“So there are ninjas here?” Jade said brightening up with a smile.

“Yes…” Jacky groused out, apparently she was still a bit sour about ninjas.

“Are you two seriously going to start that again?” Asked Fizzle before she dove her face into her taco salad.

“Girls…” I said in a stern tone, Jade just gave me a flat look and Jacky actually seemed cowed just by saying that. “Finish your food, also do you really want your other taco to get cold by getting into an argument with Jacky?”

Jade didn’t have a comeback so we continued to eat in silence.

“I traded around to get you a smoke bomb making manual.” I commented idly and Jade gave me an affectionate look, she must really want that manual.

“Thanks mom.” Don’t thank me yet kitten. We were still eating after all, who knows what I could do in the next ten minutes?

“Not the only things we got, but I figured that would be the thing you wanted to know about the most despite the fact that we got some authentic weapons.” My word were met with excitement, after she swallowed her next bit of food she just had to ask.

“Nunchucks?” She asked innocently.

“No, no nunchucks Jade. Also those aren’t technically ninja weapons and you know that.” I’m quite sure she did even if they were martial arts weapons. “You’ll see what I picked up for you when we leave. Besides you would have hurt yourself with them.”

“Bucket of caltrops?” My silence on the issue was met with a wide smile.

“No using them against things that aren’t monsters when you get a hold of them.” I stated sternly and then continued eating.

“Would I seriously do something like that mom?” Don’t play innocent with me Jaded, I know what you’re like.

“Yes.” I definitely had her pegged, she pouted and went back to her food.

“Seriously, you got her a bucket of caltrops? Do you even know what Jade’s been doing these last few days?” Of course Fizzle, I know my daughter well enough to know that she was behind the entire water thing and that you helped her do it too.

“The water thing really couldn’t be traced back to you, but it had my kitten’s handiwork written all over it.” I watched Jade duck her head and continue to nibble at her taco.

“Okay, just to be clear, we’re not the ones at fault when you eventually give her that bucket.” Why were you so worried about that Fizzle? Sure Jade did a lot of questionable things, but I don’t think she’d ever do something outright evil.

“Excuse me.” A nice handsome voice spoke up and we continued eating, but we turned to the thestral.

“Oh, hello Mr. Number.” I stated politely before taking another bite out of my round taco. Prime Number was an interesting fellow, he spoke softly and had a heroic vibe about him.

“Please, call me Prime.” The bright silver, blue and red thestral stated calmly.

“Friend of yours mom?” Jade was just about to get into her second round taco as she threw the last bit of the first into her mouth and practically inhaled it. She gave Prime a once over, then said something odd. “Until all are one?”

Prime shivered violently and sent Jade a frightened searching look. What did she say that suddenly had him on edge?

“Yeah, I figured that would be your reaction.” She waved him off and bit into the edge of her next circular taco. “Don’t mind me. That was just a shot in the dark.”

“An intriguing shot in the dark, one made of nightmares...” Muttered Primed before he turned to me. “These are?”

“My daughter Jaded La Perm. She’s knows a lot of things and aside from being a sun priest she’s also a rogue.” I didn’t know what exactly set him off, but now he was sending worried glances towards Jade. Some of the things Jade knows about are at best guesses as to what will happen, the future was a bit iffy thanks to her being around. What we were doing right now was not part of the shows timeline and we were still a year or two off from Princess Luna’s vaunted return as Nightmare Moon. “This is my sweet daughter Fizzlepop Berrytwist La Perm, just call her Fizzle. She only lets Jade call her Fizzy. You’ve already met my cute disaster prone daughter Jacky Blackcap Chickadee La Perm.”

“Yes, that was quite painful.” Prime rubbed at a spot on his body where Jacky had accidentally tripped and slammed into him, which naturally sent them both tumbling down a set of stairs.

“Hey there, so what did ‘until all are one’ mean to you exactly? Why did Jade saying it cause that kind of reaction?” Fizzle turned to me and gave me a shy gentle smile. “Also thanks mom.”

She was thanking me for calling her family, like I would have said the full name of my filly any other way.

“It just came to me as a surprise… it’s... nothing to worry about.” Well when you say it that way Prime, it’s definitely something to be very worried about and that’s why my three daughters were giving you a questioning look. “However, I did have a reason for seeking you out personally.”

“If it’s about the bozo’s that just walked in, then mom will take care of it and let us finish eating.” Continuing to eat without slowing down, Jade just bit into her circular taco and continued to relax while leaning slightly against Fizzle.

There was no sense of worry in my daughters whatsoever and Jade was correct, I would head the problem off in the way all La Perm’s have been dealing with whatever bar we walk into.

I calmly stood up and walked towards the five guards. Picking up a chair on my way, I eventually stopped before them. I looked back to see Prime watching me in confusion, Jade just held a thumbs up and continued eating with a smug smirk.

“Excuse me gentlemen, but are you looking for a cat and a pony?” Just because they were cultists, that didn’t mean they weren’t people. Sure they weren’t nice people, but I could still be polite and get away with what I was about to do.

“Yeah and I see them over there.” The thestral guard stated, he made to move past me and I moved in front of him. Sure there were five thestral guards here, but they wouldn’t last very long. This just wasn’t fair… to them at least. “So a bird, two cats and a broken unicorn walk into a bar all part of a group that happens to be visiting our fair city. You’re group certainly won’t be walking out of here lady, especially not with that pony from EVEN.”

“Can’t we all just get along?” I asked in a pleasant manner. “You really wouldn’t want me to throw this chair.”

“Just do it already mom and skip to the good part!” Turning to glare at Jade, I waited to see if she would say anything else. She just smiled at me cheerfully, how cheeky of her.

“What’s throwing a chair going to do, you can’t possibly hit all of us with that or escape. We got five more guys waiting outside.” Well that’s nice to know random thestral guard. However, I don’t think you brought enough backup to handle just me.

“I’m not going to throw it at you. I’m just going to perform an age old tradition, anyone that knows the significance of the chair I’m holding will immediately see what’s about to happen here.” Every thestral who had been here had ignored us up to this point, now all the other bar goers were staring at the chair intently. “Are you a drinker or have you been in many bars before?”

“No, but what does that have to do with anything? You can’t possibly think you’re just going to walk away from this.” At his words I turned to look all the thestrals who were looking in my direction.

“Pick you’re partners everyone, I call three or more of these guards at least.” I tossed the chair a little more than a foot to my right and it clattered against the floor not touching or hitting anything.

“And that was supposed to do wha…” The thestral guard that had watched chair clatter pointlessly to the floor turned back into my left hook striking his temple. He went down too easily.

With a twist and continuing my clockwise rotation, I slapped the guard behind him and to his right harshly across the face with a harsh whip of my tail. The momentum of my twisting had put a lot of force into it.

The blow to the second guards face sent him stumbling into the third who pushed him away out of reflex, which was a bad move on his part as I was still continuing my rotation to backhand him in the side of his face with the back of my right fist.

“Well if we can’t resolve this peacefully, then come at me!” I stated coldly to the two other guards staring at the three companions on the floor in shock.

One full twirl and I had knocked down three guards and fighting was already breaking out among the other thestrals in the bar when I heard my daughter yell the classic words for the situation I just started.

“Bar fight!” Jade yelled while laughing loudly.

-Thirty minutes, fifteen broken chairs, five destroyed tables, ten unconscious guards, fifteen bruised and bloodied smiling patrons, three broken booths and several moderately violent broken glass bottle wounds later.-

I had calmly walked back to the table sat down and sipped my grape juice with Prime looking at me with complete amazement. That was fun, didn’t get touched by any of the broken bottles at all and my fur was still immaculate, so I really didn’t need to immediately spruce myself up after that.

“If you were coming to warn us about the incoming guards, then that was a poor show of force on their part Prime.” My daughters were still drinking their fruit juices and had already finished their food, they seemed to have taken that fight all in stride.

None of my girls really bothered to help me end the bar brawl, but I had issued a challenge and I certainly came out of it with a few hoof shaped bruises. Some of these thestrals really knew how to fight and grapple.

There were quite a lot of bits changing hooves, after a moment one of the thestrals approached me and dropped bag of bits into my waiting left hand and I stowed it away.

“Nice floor show mom. Always entertaining to watch someone who’s always wearing a robe and looks completely harmless beat the stuffing out of everyone in the room.” Of course you would find the whole scenario amusing Jade, you liked watching or causing bar fights yourself. “To think our Mom never goes to a bar to drink, except maybe for some wine every now and then.”

“I always keep myself to two glasses on any given day Jade and no more than that, besides I don’t drink wine anymore. I have to be a responsible parent for a cute daughter, a sweet daughter and the one jerk I actually gave birth to.” I glanced at Jacky, then Fizzle and I lastly turned to Jaded who raised her fruit juice to me in response. “Besides I get enough whine from you already Jade.”

“I’ll give you that one mom, no playful banter this time.” Aw, but I liked the playful banter between us Jaded.

“Well you’re no fun anymore.” I crossed my arms and leaned back against the booth seating, mocking my angry pout.

“Is there a gas leak around here?” Prime finally asked after a few minutes of quiet contemplation while we all relaxed. “Did I just seriously watch her do all that? The thing with the table and then knocking that chair into another chair into someone’s head?”

“With me around you’d think so, but no, that did in fact actually happen.” Thanks for warning us that that might become a problem in the future my cute little chick, at least Jacky always told us of the many possibilities where her luck could injure us in a worse way then it usually does. “Mom’s just kind of awesome like that, try to hurt us her precious children… and Jade… then she’ll break out the claws.”

“Yes, ‘and Jade’ sounds about right Jacky.” Fizzle smirked a bit in Jade’s direction as she bumped her hoof with Jacky’s fist.

“So mean.” Jade whined.

“See, she’s absolutely full of whine.” Oh goddesses, I think I went too far. She’s giving me the big glossy kitty eyes in revenge. “Jade, looking innocent is not one of your strong suits. Also it’s disturbing, stop that.”

“Fine…. spoil everyone’s fun." Jade sat up and stopped looking at me so pathetically. "Also give me an ace of spades next time.”

“All of you are very strange.” Prime stated blandly.

“This… this right here…. this is nothing. I’ve been with them for two years now, they can do a lot worse.” Nice vote of confidence in the wrong direction Fizzle.

“So… what did you need Prime?” I sat my elbows on the table and steeple my claws in a menacing over the top manner that made him shiver.

Chapter Nineteen, The Whimsical Witch of Even: Little wonder.

-Prime-

I was leading this strange group back to our headquarters in Night Fright Grotto City, I wondered a lot of things about them. The most curious was how close Jade and Fizzle were being, I turned to the one that called herself their mother.

“Tell me, are those two…” I started to asked as I glanced back at Jade putting her left arm around Fizzle and Fizzle leaning her head again Jade’s side.

“Yes, they are certainly lovely together. It’s mostly kitten love at the moment, any further and I’d step in.” It seemed like Kuril had things well in hoof where they were concerned. “Also before you say it, puppy love wouldn’t be the right term for it. That would involve less pussy and more horn dog than it currently does. Despite my adopting her, Fizzle is definitely not like a sister towards Jade. Jacky on the other claw, she’s definitely the requisite sister here.”

“You know we’re right here mom, we can hear you talking about us.” Jade commented loudly and in a deadpan tone, she and her mother seemed to have issues with one another.

“Yes and I’m involving you in the conversation by talking about you’re sweet relationship with one another.” Kuril seemed to be quite the motherly cat, looking back on the couple I could see a blush on Fizzle’s face. Jade seemed unperturbed and bored by the topic, she might even possibly be shameless about it.

“Okay, but you know that female horn dogs exist and are about as vicious as normal horn dogs.” Wait, what was Jade talking about?

“Oh goddesses, please don’t tell me that literal horn dogs exist.” Fizzle looked towards the stalactite ceiling above us and possibly at the few thestrals sleeping up there while shaking her head.

“Okay, I won’t tell you about dogs with forward pointing curved horns like what you’d see on a Minotaur only obviously smaller and on a dog.” Either Jade was well travelled or well read, perhaps both. “What I will tell you is that bull dog is a breed, but it has nothing in common with a horn dog unless it is a Bull Horn Dog created through cross breeding.”

“Are those as ugly as they sound?” Jacky asked blithely as she followed along while avoiding falling stalactites and other random objects like wash basins, safes and bowling balls that nearly struck others in our group. She even jumped over a random quick flying thestral that almost hit her by a less than coincidental looking accident while crashing into the ground.

I think Ms. Chickadee was used to how unlucky she was, because she just pirouetted gracefully out of the way of a falling wall of bricks with nary a glance at the wall in question or even acknowledging that it was about to fall on her. She stopped as a stalactite grazed her chest and then stepped around it to continue walking with them.

“Yes, you’d think bull dogs can’t get any worse, but then you give them horns and make them literal… well from there the imagination can’t exactly do it justice really. You’d likely see them in Minos at the very least, it gets even worse if you take an orthrus or a cerberus into account.” Looking away from Jade, I continued towards a building. We avoided the patrols and other things on the way and now we were at EVEN’s place of operations. It was a bit ramshackle, but we were trying to bring thestrals back to believing in the one true goddess of our kind and Princess Celestia. “Looks pretty good for a poorly hidden rebel base.”

“It is home for us who want to believe in the ancient tales of the princess of the moon.” I led them inside, trusting that they were allies. Very strange allies, but allies that were willing to help us. We had already traded stuff with Kuril, now she was offering to do us some favors from the goodness of her heart.

“Yeah, Princess Luna should hear about this when she gets back from being the mare on the moon. Though she’ll need to lose the living nightmare that’s corrupting her into being Nightmare Moon first.” After a pause Jade said something that let me know my cause was not going to end in tragedy, we were walking down a corridor passing by a bunch of thestrals as she spoke. “The stars may aid in Nightmare Moon’s eventually escape, but afterwards she’ll be brought down pretty quickly and cleansed of outside influences. That will stop those mildly nasty planet destroying tendencies that throws out the balance of the world as we know it. I’ll even declare it a prophecy as a sun priest that…”

Jade paused, her arm falling away from Fizzle’s neck. Something was happening to her, even her mother and the rest of their family took instant notice when her eyes were flooded with bright white light as we entered the conference room.

“When the guiding light ceases to shine, sealing all to an uncertain fate. A broken heart will be blind, to be filled with sadness or hate. No matter what the power must be sought, the seekers will ultimately find it long after creating from the shattered a grand dissolution. Those in the darkness should be wary of the time they have bought, as there is no fighting against the lamenting queen or their false conclusion.” The glowing in Jade’s eyes continued and Fizzle looked up into her eyes looking quite worried, she reached out and gripped one of Jade’s left paw with a hoof. I myself was finding this to be quite interesting. Logically speaking this is the first time I’ve ever seen a prophecy being set in motion, the eyes narrowed at me and spoke. I shivered at the words flowing from her lips unbidden. “The pillars of this age will rise up and they will succeed, no matter the perils they will survive to see the bound mare truly freed. All thestrals, their pride and greed they should swallow, if it is the true princess of the night that they wish to follow.”

After that Jade fell on her face and blinked confusedly, the light now gone from her eyes which quickly closed and didn’t open. I had feared the worst and it only turned out to be exhaustion for the sun priestess, if we are to save the thestrals here we need to start caring more about one another no matter our differences.

-Next Day, EVEN headquarters, Kuril-

I watched as my kitten stirred awake as did Fizzle who smiled and pulled Jade tightly to herself, she had been worried about Jade collapsing like that after doing that prophecy thing. It had been a pretty tiring day overall, running around and fighting a utility golem until she

“What… happened… mom?” Seeing a sign that she was okay, I ran my right hand affectionately over her left ear. She purred happily at my touch, a mother’s touch always made a kitten stay calm.

“Your body was used a as a conduit for some higher power to give a prophecy that doesn’t mean much quite yet.” I smiled down at her. “I didn’t even know you could do that.”

“Well we both know that Celestia at least has some precognitive abilities.” Jade had told me about that previously, it explained a lot about the princess in how she’s managed for the last thousand years by herself. My supposition is that the perk of being a god or goddess of the sun gives one the ability to shine a limited amount of light on the future and steer with a rudder from that limited information. “She might not have perfect future vision, but she can definitely see threats coming.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling okay Jade, you were pretty exhausted yesterday after fighting that golem. You had me worried when you collapsed like that.” Fizzle nuzzled jade’s cheek and continued snuggle up to her, she was kind of insatiable and my kitten really seemed to appreciate it judging by how her tail started flopping about.

-Jade-

“I’m fine Fizzy, this isn’t the first time I’ve gone down for a while.” Only this time I didn’t go down from injuries or poison, I went down because I became the conduit for some sort of higher power. Said power might have been the harmony of the world itself. I honestly don’t remember how it felt or what I said, but it was obviously way too euphoric to recall. “Though I have to ask, anything interesting happen after my collapse? Also who wrote the prophecy down, I can’t remember what I said.”

Rolling her eyes, mom held out a notepad. Apparently Blade had been around to hear my prophecy and became somewhat of a believer. I read the prophecy and blinked.

“Do any of you understand what it means?” I had quite a few clues as to what the prophecy possibly meant. Well nothing for it, we'd just continue on as we have been.

“Not really. Though the pillars involve tales of ancient ponies doing incredible things, I wouldn’t know what the pillars of this age would be.” Fizzle stopped cuddling me and got out of bed. “The thestrals of EVEN seem pretty excited though.”

“Okay, enough about that, what crazy thing are we doing this time?” Jacky seemed eager to jump back into thing as she walked into the barracks style room. “Captain’s perfectly fine and it’s boring around here, we’ve seen much more excitement from a normal Tuesday back home.”

“Even a hippalectryon is admittedly more interesting than this place, as far as cults go this hasn’t been a very dangerous trip… golems being the obvious mild exception.” Fizzle muttered lazily as I sat up.

“So any news on what Daring is getting up to? Blade sounds like she’s having fun snooping around, befriending ponies and being a spy for us.” Yeah, I didn’t feel too horrible. All my scratches, cuts and bruises weren’t there anymore, probably the entire conduit thing fixing me up as it left.

“We haven’t contacted or seen Daring specifically, but we at least know she’s searching for information about something big that her nemesis Dr. Caballeron is also seeking. Also there’s apparently some magical pegasus based artifacts around here that Daring is looking into acquiring on the side.” Mom that really doesn’t surprise me. I’m pretty sure my expression said as much. “Yes, I know more nocturnal pegasus ponies eventually became thestrals. Not that they are seen very often by the ponies that are more active during the day.”

“Again, what are we doing today?” Jacky asked impatiently. “I mean we don’t exactly have a solid plan and Captain seems alright enough to do stuff to me.”

“I think we’ll crash a briefing and take on a mission for EVEN.” Okay, mom had me perking up in interest. “Figured you’d want to do something random kitten, but we’re making this a family thing. No doing your prisoner pranking thing this time. All four of us will do whatever it is we’ll end up doing together.”

“Sound good to me.” I got up and made for the door. “Let’s do this thing... now where’s the briefing room again?”

-Kuril-

My kitten was certainly eager as we filed into the room with four thestrals, one was Prime and there was a diagram on a wall for some kind of weird thing. The other three ponies were some of the ones me and Jacky had met previously. Their names were Remote, Bumble and Stalk.

I liked bumble, his yellow and black stripes were really quite standout for his chipper appearance. Don’t honestly know how a zebra ended up all the way up here though. His special talent was humming.

“We don’t know what it is Prime, but it is more than likely a weapon given Hollow designed it.” Remote Chance was the one currently speaking, she was quite open with her distaste of how the cult was being run.

“Most likely.” Back Stalk commented idly, he was quiet and overly logical. My kitten would despise him if they were left alone for more than two minutes, it already looked like my kitten was rubbed the wrong way upon hearing his voice just once.

“Isn’t that a PATTYCAKE seventy seven?” I turned to Jacky who looked at the diagram with scrutiny.

“A what? Oh… it’s you.” Stalk narrowed his eyes at Jacky. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey, I said I was sorry!” Well my little chick did apologize for that… and multiple other incidents while I was in the midst of haggling with EVEN. They needed supplies and we had a stocked airship nearby. “It’s mostly outside my control anyway, so can you really blame me?”

“You know what this thing is Ms. Chickadee?” Prime asked curiously as his fluffy ears flicked in her direction.

“It’s obviously a tank.” Jade stated out loud. “Also I would say Ms. Chickadee La Perm, mom definitely loves my mostly pirate sister.”

“Yeah, party tanks are supposed to be really fun, though a bit expensive to get running.” Well now Jacky had me curious. “I’m not a tank expert, my expertise is primarily in boats and airships.”

“How do you know what that is when they themselves don’t?” In explanation to my question, Jacky reached behind her back and pulled out her party cannon.

How in the world did she… where did she even pull that from?! Has she had that on her the whole time, its half her size! How have I not seen that before now?

“I think you broke mom.” Snickering a bit, Fizzle looked to me giggling some more.

“To be fair I think she broke almost everyone in the room.” My tom cat commented dryly. “Just to get things out of the way, yes, she’s been carrying that on her all this time. No, I don’t know how people who own and operate party cannons do that.”

“Hold on a second just let me…” Fiddling with the barrel of the party cannon, one that had a notable brightly colored parrot skull and crossbones logo on it, Jacky eventually pulled the cord and what look like a book launched itself into Stalk’s face knocking him over. “Whoops, might have set that to be a little too strong. Sorry about that.”

Jacky didn’t look particularly sorry and Jade smirked a bit, what am I going to do with my rambunctious children? Probably go insane and become senile while I’m still somewhat young.

“The party cannon manual and guide to other large party supply paraphernalia?” The confused Stalk read the cover, Jacky quickly went over to him and snatched it out of his hoof and opened it up to start looking through it.

“Yeah, judging by this, it appears that Hollow Heart guy weaponized a party tank.” She was comparing the diagram in the manual to the one on the wall. “Increased armor, more power source potential and stronger barrel to fire something much deadlier than party streamer ordnance. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be in the way of the cannon's barrel when that thing fires.”

“It’s a trap, they want you to go after it.” My kitten blurted out. “It’s really that obvious. I have a plan on how to…”

“No!” I think I frightened my kitten a bit by rebuking her like that, but I had my own ideas. “I’m doing the crazy plan this time kitten! Now we need a pony, named Macaroni..."

Author's Note

Recent trouble- Lightning storm (a week back).

Major damage- A circuit encompassing an entire wall fried, said wall is now inoperable so far as power is concerned.

Lost- TV and accessories to it (Swiftly replaced with a cheaper bigger screen, needed to plug it somewhere else as previous plugs were blown). coffee maker (Negligible to me since I don't drink coffee and any high concentration of caffeine makes me sick or ill). A refrigerators ridiculously powerful ice maker (Refrigerator still works fine otherwise, looking into ice cube trays). Microwave (Works alright, minor damage and have some issues with having to move it to use it). A small portion of a fanfiction chapter (No wild guesses needed, I was working on a specific part). Time, by having to reset every clock in the house five times do to various issues involving power structure and needing to flip breakers multiple times over the course of several days. Possibly a few other small things that don't bother me.

Current emotional status- Lack of enthusiasm, procrastination, lazy bones, listless, mildly out of it to say the least.

Chapter Nineteen, The Whimsical Witch of Even: Little planning.

-Snickers-

“I swear if you weren’t cute and so sure that we were heading somewhere important, then I would have ditched you long ago. More likely I would have put you in a cage for your own protection so that you didn’t endanger yourself by going into dangerous places like Fright Night Mountain. This place is full of monsters, like those wendigoes that nearly froze us to death or the giant cave spiders that tried to drag us into their lair.” Pretty takes scary so well, I’m sure this was right way. Feeling of bond be big this way. “I have no idea why you have me climbing this mountain, but no sane ‘thinking’ being would want to live up here. As such I’m absolutely quite sure that there is nothing up… here?”

“Coo!” Feeling in direction of above cave, look like a big scaly breathed on it.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m going to regret this?” Pretty no be sad! Pretty should be happy, she very strong. “The residents certainly don’t look friendly if those cannons are sign that we shouldn’t… hey wait!”

I fly for above cave, find bond kitty now!

-Fizzle-

“Okay let me get this straight, we came here with Daring Do for little to no reason at all to basically play highly disruptive tourists.” The others nodded in acceptance at my word, even Sugar was nodding. I think it was about time to go on a tirade about all this. “Daring Do is actually doing something with a goal in mind here. We’re here for no other reason to sate our curiosities, pick up souvenirs and mess with a cult full of dangerous batty ponies. Not to say we aren’t insane ourselves, I mean a dragon running a taco cart is the least sane thing we’ve seen since we’ve got here. Otherwise this place feels dull, then again I’ve been underground for the last few days stuck inside a mountain without sunlight.”

“You’re point being Fizzy?” Jade spoke up while we followed mom through the stony streets of Fright Night Grotto City. Glowing moss certainly kept this place lit well enough for Jade and her mother, but I and Jacky didn’t quite have their eyesight.

The thestrals that saw us wandering around didn’t really seem to be out to get us, unless they were from Hollow Heart’s ODD group and even then we were all calmly moving about in this city built on dark principles. In this case I’d say something good came from something bad.

The bad would be the cult and its cultists, likely dedicated to the world ending. The good would be that the civilians were a largely neutral party to us. Prime and his rebels were a grey to good area, I don’t think Hollow Heart takes their peaceful protests very well though. Jade kind of gave Prime’s faction a good boost with that prophecy of hers, still had no clue what the beginning of it meant though.

“Well since we’ve got here Jade made a stupid plan to just waltz in and get captured, there was the thing with the water, Jade specifically almost being killed by a golem multiple times. Sure the card games were fun, but I didn’t expect to get captured or dragged into all the weird stuff Jade got up to. Not that it was a bad thing or wasn’t fun.” I was not about to say that ponies weren’t weird, because ponies could be absolutely mental at the best or worst of times. Even I someday could be as crazy as these bats, they lived on a mountain surrounded by all kinds of danger. At least the place was well defended and getting in by airship was just as hard as climbing the mountain itself. “Now we’re helping an organization named EVEN steal and possibly dispose of a tank meant for performing at parties, but is now weaponized by Hollow Heart for war. I wonder why we are still here and what exactly are we doing with our lives if we’re this bored to stick around. We could have just stayed home and played O&O you know, but no, we’re here risking our lives on something that doesn’t matter to us in the long run like stealing that tank.”

“Yeah, well, helping out Tarsus didn’t matter to us in the long run either and it turned out great for him.” I wasn’t about to let that comment go unchecked.

“Yeah, with you almost becoming paraplegic Jade.” My words were met with a mellow lazy look. How can Jade be so calm about that?! “I’d say it turned out swell in that sense. At least no one we care about was permanently injured.”

“What about Mr. Soricini?” While asking this, Jacky turned around and started to walk backwards. The back of her head promptly hit a sign, the impact swung it upwards. When it was coming back down, one of its chains broke. The sign plowed its way into Jade’s face knocking her on her back. Jacky started rubbing at the back of her skullcap. “Ow.”

“You two okay?” I loved our mother Kuril, but it was kind of clear that Jade got the worst of that interaction with Blackcap’s luck.

“We’re fine, at least I am.” Helping Jade get up, I saw a small bump on her head that looked like it would become a nasty bruise. “If Jacky can live with being unlucky, then I can live with my sister causing me pain and not liking ninjas.”

“Continuing with Blackcap’s question, nobody we cared about was hurt worse than Jade was.” Having someone do so much for you was a bit awkward, I mean Jade was going above and beyond in trying to figure out how to fix my horn. The jackalope, the hydra and even Maries shed skin and fur. She had been looking for solutions to my broken horn and she better keep good on her promise to live while doing it. “In any event, why are we doing all this? Prime came to warn us off and to leave the mountain before we got hurt by the ODD faction.”

“For fun, profit, friends and the entertainment value my favorite filly. If Daring Do is ready to leave, I’d like to think that she’ll at least tell us or warn us that she’s ready to go. Until then, this isn’t a business trip for us like it is for her. Even if kitten is actively trying to get herself killed by what amounts to the local mob bosses sleazy right hoof backstabbing jerk who should have been a rock star with how shrill and loud his voice gets.” After saying that mom smiled at us warmly and turned to continue walking, she idly patted Sugar sitting on her left shoulder as we made our merry way towards the barracks and R&D sector of the cultists underground city sized lair. “I’m just surprised we found a thestral named Macaroni that was civilian with EVEN leanings. I’m so glad she’s willing to help us too, she’s such a nice thestral to help free agents like us.”

“We’re still using that term literally I see, we’re not exactly being paid to do this you know.” I commented blandly with a bit of annoyance seeping into my voice.

“No, but I did make a good point about Prime not doing this personally. Hollow Heart is setting a trap for him and we’re the ones that get to spring it, isn’t that just exciting? I thankfully managed to convince him that I had a perfect plan for stealing the tank too.” Mom, your plan was about as good as the ones Jade is known to come up with. Like just walking into the monastery while she distracts everyone. That turned out so well too, only half the monastery had caught fire and one of the towers was knocked down as an end result. I’m still surprised no one died. “Come on Fizzle, lighten up. EVEN has had one of their ninjas following us since we left. I think it is Back Stalk, but I don’t care if he’s watching us. We also don’t need to be paid to do this stuff, we can steal what we want while we’re on the job and nobody will bat an eye at us.”

“Yeah, he’s not as stealthy as he thinks he is, but I think that’s mostly because Jacky’s curse is making him as loud as a horribly off key singing moose with a megaphone despite his best efforts.” We heard a crash behind us, Jade looked back and blinked. “Yeah, only Jacky’s luck could cause something like that to happen.”

I admit it, I was a little too curious for my own good as I looked back. I saw Stalk hanging by his rear hoof which was wrapped up by a clothing line. That dress didn’t do his masculine form any justice at all. I shook my head and continued to follow mom.

“So this plan of yours…” Trailing off I didn’t know how to put my feelings into words. If Jade was any indication about how horribly plans go south around her, then it was likely something genetic she got from mom. It was either that or their planning skills were highly contagious. “How likely do you think it is to succeed?”

“It’s perfect, they won’t be expecting us to pull it off. We just need to go through a lot of rigmarole to set it all up though.” Yes, because the horribly convoluted plan requires that you did a bunch of silly stuff mom. “Jacky will have to go in to look over the tank, she can figure out if there’s anything about the tank itself being trapped. As for you and Jade, you can support me or go with her to make sure nothing bad happens to her. With her luck, you two would probably want to make sure Jacky is okay when we start our plan to steal the tank.”

“Just remember that I’m not a miracle worker mom, I do airships, sailing vessels and cannons specifically. Tanks are, again, definitely outside my area of expertise.” Not having a comment to Jacky’s exceedingly valid point that she was not a tank specialist, we just continued forward.

“You know, the only reason why I think you’re doing this is so that you can live through us vicariously by giving us the adventurous kind of childhood that you never had mom.” Okay, where did Jade suddenly go and why was there a brain attached to her doppelganger? All the teasing we do about her intelligence and otherwise aside, It was a rather poignant observation about how our mom grew up not having nearly as much fun as what we were about to do.

I don’t think a normal mother would endanger her children like this by sticking around in a place that wants her biological daughter dead on the principle of just being a sun priestess.

“So what? I can live vicariously through all of you if I want to, I’m old enough and a witch on top of that for crying out loud! I have magical vials in the pockets of my pack that do things like you wouldn’t believe.” With mom’s less than careful study of zebra alchemy, even I’d believe she has some really unusual stuff that was quite literally cooked up by her waiting to be used. “Now come on, we’re almost there and I’m just about ready to begin assaulting the guards with my brilliance.”

In lay mare’s terms, mom was going to annoy the guards into chasing her or she would lead them into a false sense of security, whichever seems to be working first.

I would wash my hooves of this situation, but this was my family I was dealing with here. I wasn’t about to abandon them, since I felt like they certainly would never abandon me if I were to do something outrageously stupid.

-Kuril, outside the thestral barracks and R&D center-

Okay, let’s do this thing. I moved towards the stallions guarding the doorways in.

My plan was one step and only one step, distract the guards multiple times with inane things to the point of being completely ludicrous. Jade, Jacky and Fizzle just had to watch out for anything dangerous until it was time to move in and this would not be the time unless the guards were stupid.

I reached into my pack and pulled a hot pot full of macaroni and cheese, made by Macaroni herself. I could never beat a pony in their special talent if it was cooking a specific dish and this one was godly, I was well rounded and cooked with magic though. Recent magical effects include food that boosts stamina and energy, allows one to jump twice their normal jumping height for half a day and one jambalaya recipe in particular turns someone fully into a puckwudgie for ten minutes if they eat enough of it.

Being a witch was a dream job come true, now I started doddering towards the guards with the warm pot of goodness in my hands.

“Excuse me gentle stallions, but can you help me find a place to set my pot down?” I asked in an old grandmotherly voice. The things I hadn’t told Jade about my family is that they were still around, being disowned for falling in love was not one of the better things to happen to me. I believe I was much happier than my parents were at the very least.

“No.” The flat response almost made me drop the pot. “We’re not dumb, we’re not going to eat on the job or get lazy like the prison guards would. Also Screaming Star told us to watch out for you and your companions specifically.”

“My pot has to be dropped off somewhere though, it’s so full of cheesy goodness and vitamins for growing strapping stallions like yourself… handsome.” My last word made the thestral shiver violently. I wasn’t that ugly was I? Maybe it was the grandmotherly voice I was using for this. “Don’t you have a table or something I can set my pot on, I don’t have to come inside.”

“No, we’re not dumb enough to leave the area weakened by even one guard, we’re also completely aware of what you might be trying to do here.” The guard received one of my best pouts. “That’s not going to work either.”

“But my pot needs a place to set down and roost, once it lays enough eggs I can make a macaroni and cheese omelet!” My plea was met with uncaring faces.

“Go act insane somewhere else lady. We’re not going to chase you, you’re not going to get inside and we’re certainly not going to let your friend sneak in through any place. We’ve even got the air vents covered.” Wow, these guards were quite competent, why can’t all guards be as professional as these guys?

I mean the guards up in Canterlot were given the run around by Jade twice. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear Jade was eventually planning to attack Canterlot while riding a unicycle and wielding a ten and a half foot pole.

“Not even a taste of this piping warm cheesy goodness?” I started motioning the pot around seductively, at least what I thought would be seductive. Getting no reaction, I sighed and waddled off and gave the macaroni to my children for lunch.

Author's Note

I'm feeling a little bit better, less bitter now about the world being out to get me.

Chapter Nineteen, The Whimsical Witch of Even: Little cheesy.

-Kuril-

“You know mom, this just might work.” Well it was nice to hear that my kitten had confidence in me as we approached the large stone building. Thestrals didn’t have or get much wood up here and it was hardly any surprise that their building were all made of various types of carved stone. “Though I’m not taking part in a heart song if it forms. In the case that I do end up in it, at least it’s not about me or my feeling this time.”

I wonder if Jacky and Jade would be open to eating giant arachnid meat, it’s apparently a delicacy around here as are the mushrooms and small bugs that make up a majority of a growing thestrals diet. Any fruits or vegetables found here are obviously imported and otherwise this colony of thestrals was relatively self-sufficient.

“You have to be right by us when we do this Jade or else you won’t be able to get inside, my probing of their defenses yielded interesting results and my plan will work flawlessly. Unless they have guards patrolling around in there.” I moved forward with threstrals, one of which had a short blonde mane and bright red eyes. Yep, Macaroni was going to help me start a heart song. I started to whistle a tune as we approached.

“I’ll wait outside if it’s all the same to you.” Fine then kitten, if that’s what you want. I’ll just have more fun infiltrating the place with Fizzle and Jacky.

“Oh look, it’s the crazy pot lady. Are you going full out brute force now?” I just kept whistling and ignored the guard. “I’m warning you right now, backup wouldn’t be hard to get around here. Everyone be on your guard, make sure she or anyone else doesn’t get by us.”

Soon the beat caught and we all started to move in unison, okay Macaroni let’s see what you have in store for these guys.

“Oh it’s not an assault, it’s something more fun than just brutalizing you.” It would be fun anyway, I had to wonder what Screaming and Hollow were doing. They were more of Prime’s problem than ours, but I wanted to worry a little about their leniency towards us running around in the Grotto city like this. “Let’s hit it!”

The mare giggled putting a hoof to her mouth, she was an odd thestral out because her brighter colored hair and equally bright orange fur. Thestral were almost always more darkly colored. The two stallions with Macaroni were her herd mates.

Of the three other thestrals with us, two of them owed Jade a favor for saving them from their own idiocy when Jade first walked into the monastery carrying Sugar. The last thestral was just Blade Bright who wanted to take part in our shenanigans, she enjoyed the culture here.

I wondered if Blade was going to stay here and make a new life. Would she follow us back home after we were done messing around with the natural order of things around here?

Once we were in position, we started dancing in unison. So this is what a heart song felt like, why did my kitten dislike these so much? It felt so harmonious. Our opening dance moves were to pretending to talk among one another and then send a slow sweeping limb to the right and to the left while holding the other above our eyes. The thestrals did it with their wings.

“Run when you see our lovely Macaroni, she may seem like a super friendly pony~.” The two stallions sang together while shifting their hips with Macaroni taking the lead dancing role. “Just watch out if she takes an interest you because… hey Macaroni~!”

Macaroni, narrowed her eyes at the both of her stallions. She turned back to the guards.

Slowly a disco ball lowered from the high ceiling of the grotto which was a good two hundred feet up at least, beams of light started to dance around us and… was that a fog machine? This was getting a little weird.

“Hi~! When I cook, I make the macaroni, elbow noodles full of cheese that’s not ever phony~.” Macaroni said rubbing up against the stallion on her right and then the one on her left. “They love me, and they love cheese, but I always like to make them say please~! They want oodles, of my noodles, if they’re on their best behavior I’ll even let them play beside me~!”

The two stallions smiled at each other before leaning towards one another behind Macaroni, both had two differing shades of dark gray, one had dark red mane and the others was blue.

“We love our dear little Macaroni, but she is just two stallions shy of being quite lonely~” The stallions winked conspiratorially to each other, we were doing some pretty good back up dancing while Macaroni shifted her hips in a seductive sway with the music as her wings went to her hips. “You really don’t want to interest Macaroni because… hey Macaroni~!”

Macaroni turned around and glared at the two again.

“Her glares are not really quite a problem, if you have issues with her then we certainly can’t solve them~!” The two sang in the face of Macaroni’s glare as she shook her rump at the rather interested guards. “She’s an aggressive sweetheart so we can’t complain yeah, because the love of … our Macaroni~!”

“Yeah~!”The two kissed Macaroni on her cheeks as she squealed happily, she turned around with a smile and a small blush.

“Now I want you to say hello to my herd mates, these are my boys Drip and Lingo~.” The two waved at all the guards now watching our impromptu musical number. The guards were either confused or mystified about why we’re doing all this. I watched Macaroni slowly shuffle backwards and then she wrapped her wings tightly around the both of them. “Ha! They annoy me, even if they’re both quite lovely~. We mix the cheese and noodles together then I…~”

Macaroni broke off singing into a fit of giggles while her two stallions went red in the face and coughed a bit. Fizzle looked embarrassed for the both of them, Jade seemed bored with this and Jacky looked like she was having fun with the dancing.

“Oh come on you three, you know what you’re supposed to do~.” I sang out, finally involving myself in the song they started. “Though I admit that all this magical choreography is all quite sublime~.”

Right wing or limb held forward, then left. Cross right limb over chest, then left. Right limb to back of head, left limb next all while bouncing to the beat. Then a saucy right limb to our hips, then a left, we all swayed our hips and then jumped together in unison. It was interesting to watch some of the guards start mimicking our dance moves.

Was it truly as involuntary as Jade says it is, because this is pretty fun for a way to sneak into a stone building considered both the barracks and R&D for the tank we’re here to steal. We performed the simple dance twice more all in unison, before lyrics floated up from us this time and it was me taking the stage.

“So you’re saying we should avoid Ms. Macaroni, because she’s a rather frightening and scary little pony~.” I sang out while as we danced. “Are you saying she’s frightening because she’s gets lonely~? This Macaroni~!”

“Right~!” The two stallions nodded in unison. “She’s likes to sink her cute little fangs into a stallion or mare, so a little early warning is really quite fair~. Not that we really seem to care since it’s… our Macaroni~!”

“Hey~!” Macaroni sounded a little indignant now, even if she shot one of the guards a seductive look with wink included. “So now you know that I love openly, so I have a small problem with not doing so solely~. Come join my herd please, I don’t have fleas, but we can certainly have a bite if it would make you happy~.”

Macaroni licked her lips as she looked at the guards who started to back away from various portions of the roof and the main doorway we were going to bypass. They were sweating a bit as Macaroni eyed them while dancing and shifting her wings as if she were a Saddle Arabian fan dancer.

There were things I still wasn’t going to tell Jade, like how I knew what a Saddle Arabian fan dancer looked like.

We continued to dance and the music was started to close out, I carefully reached into my packs lower left pocket.

“Jade you might want to move back if you wish to stay, thank you Miss Macaroni for the heart song by the way~.” She nodded to me and threw me a silly salute with her right wing, Jaded backed away and looked at the potion I was palming with a hint curiosity. We moved closer to the watching guards and I smiled give we were close enough to the wall to do what I needed to. “So this is all I can finally say… goodbye Macaroni~!”

I slammed the vial to the ground and quickly grabbed both Fizzle and Jacky. I became very dizzy over the next few seconds.

-Jade-

The dancing and music was over with finally, though it was nice that the dance moves were simple and do not require my cat like flexibility to perform bizarre aliens dance moves. Speaking of which, I should really look in on Fizzle’s next breakdance fighting session.

Mom’s vial had a bland visual effect, basically she and the others disappeared in a blast of what looked like fire and leaving a scorch mark on the ground just made everyone stare at the spot my family once occupied. I looked to Blade who arched an eye at me questioningly, I nodded and she smirked.

“Eh.” I shrugged, it wasn’t like mom didn’t know what she was doing when it came to being a witch. I felt something nudge what passes for my ankle. Looking down I saw Sugar looking up at me expectantly, rolling my eyes I lifted her up and put her on my left shoulder, my right shoulder and neck was reserved for flying snuggle turtles.

“What just happened?” The friendly Macaroni just asked.

“Don’t worry about it, mom just exploded… again… for the fifteenth time. Yes, I’ve counted.” I couldn’t say mom wasn’t talented at it, but ‘The Witch of Good Taste’ always had to have a flair for the visibly dramatic. “Well everyone that’s a wrap, excuse me while I go talk to that unicorn over there about what she’s doing here.”

I turned and walked over to the unicorn as the thestrals that had helped with the musical number dispersed, she was sitting at the turntable that she had dragged onto the scene behind us. I looked her over taking in every single detail about her unusual appearance here. Yep, it was definitely her and I wasn’t imagining things.

“Okay, I’m horribly curious.” At my words the white furred unicorn with the electric blue mane and eyes as scarlet red as a thestrals can get blinked at me. “What are you doing here exactly? The thestrals don’t exactly let people into this place unless they’re captured or happen to sneak in.”

The mare just rolled her eyes and shrugged lamely.

“Are you visiting cousins who happen to be thestrals?” After taking a moment to consider my query, she nodded. “You do realize this place was built by evil cultists that aren’t very friendly?”

She gave me a noncommittal shrug.

“Well okay then.” I turned away from the unicorn and didn’t consider how many less than thestral beings I’ve seen around lately, I also wasn’t going to question things any further than my mind could handle at the moment.

The guards, who were watching the streets after assuring themselves that the scorch mark on the ground hadn’t moved an inch, were just as attentive as they had been when we started the song and dance.

They certainly hadn’t been alerted to the fact that the scorch marks had meaning. Don’t know how mom did it, but making a limited range teleportation potion was definitely something I might want a vial of for emergencies.

Unicorns could teleport as often as they wanted to, provided that they knew how to do so and had the energy for it. The potion had the same effect of an improperly cast teleportation or at the very least a unicorn that performed a side along teleport poorly.

Aside from mom, Jacky and Fizzle being smoked like hickory upon arrival, it worked perfectly and was probably as efficient as a being who isn’t a unicorn could possibly get it in liquid form. Now was it the jolt of the vial hitting the ground or the sudden exposure to air? I wasn’t a regular alchemist, I was a magical alchemist and that wasn’t exactly the same thing.

Now I just had to wait for them to get the tank out of there, I also apparently needed to avoid the arriving guards that were giving me some rather aggressive looks. Apparently they managed to spare some guards to come and attack me.

Well nothing for it then, time to give them the old Canterlot Guard Shuffle and make sure that they don’t bother Vinyl.

-Daring-

I stayed in the corner of the ceiling in the shadows as I eavesdropped on Dr. Caballeron and the local sanity challenged second in command, Screaming Star, haggle out details about information the thestrals had about something.

“Is the information even good or even worth the price you’re asking for it?” Caballeron was calling into question Screaming’s ability to not stab someone in the back at the soonest opportunity. Apparently he missed an opportunity thanks to a particularly grand performance at the arena by Jaded La Perm.

“Of course the information is good, but are you sure you want it? Even hollow heart won’t touch the ‘End of Immortality’ and it is said to be very powerful.” The end of immortality, what was that and why would he be looking for something like that? “I think he’s being a coward in not looking into the information further.”

“Says the coward that takes every opportunity to stab his leader in the back for even the slightest sign of weakness… or so I’ve heard.” Caballeron didn’t need to have someone feeding him information to know that, because even I knew that after spending half an hour in the city.

Every thestral around knew that if Screaming were to ever succeed, they’d all be better off because Screaming wouldn’t be so nearly as hard to dispose of after a short lived victory. Hollow Heart kind of had a monopoly on loyalty through brutality, the dark religion and military might.

At least I now knew what Caballeron was after, now if only I could find out where the Zephyr’s Fan is. That magical pegasus artifact is supposed to be around here somewhere. If it was anything like the Good Fortune Garnet, then it would be another white whale to add to my list of magical white whales of doom.

-???-

I certainly didn’t like skulking around the monastery full of dangerous looking fanged ponies, but the flying turtle seemed determined to not care about taking cover of any kind or even sneaking around at all for that matter.

Chapter Twenty, The Whimsical Witch of Even worse: Tanking nothing.

-Kuril-

Okay, that’s a very big tank in front of us as soon as we left the building. Don’t panic Kuril, the girls are relying on you to get them home alive.

Jade’s fine with whatever she’s doing, unless she’s eating tacos again. She knows that eating tacos all the time is not healthy and yet my kitten still does it anyway.

She’s not eating potato stew this month.

-Jade-

“I’m completely horrified of him, but he makes great tacos.” My new friend stated while tentatively biting into her vegetarian taco, she had her eyes squarely on Bahamut and was quivering in fright. “It’s kind of sad this might be my last meal.”

“Coo!” It’s been a while since Snickers got some really good food, she was enjoying her own taco.

“Well of course you’re not worried about all the guards with crossbows waiting for us to finish eating.” The feminine form Snickers dragged all this way stated dryly in a sarcastic tone.

“So… why exactly are you hanging around Bahamut, are you going to attack us later when we least expect it? I know you’re whole deal with breathing down on heroes and having them stand up to your mighty breath, but do we have to go through that process as well?” The large dragon just smiled creepily at me, I’ll take that as a yes. Better warn the others about a random dragon attack when we meet up again. “You might be quite intimidating to most beings, but you’re still going on my top five list of favorite taco stand owners. It’s still a little ridiculous that you’d even be running one.”

The dragon’s response to my words was just to shift his head to the side and smirk at the scared guards who weren’t brave enough to approach him for a taco. He returned his gaze to me without so much as a word and I just returned his large gaze with a smile.

“Why aren’t we attacking them?” One of the nearby thestral guards asked.

“Look do you seriously want to upset that dragon?” The apparent lead thestral asked. “Hollow Heart gave us clear orders to not bother him or anyone that happens to be near him, he was quite explicit in his words that we are not to do anything aggressive around him. You know its bad news when even Screaming won’t talk about stabbing it in the back multiple times.”

“Why does Hollow even keep Screaming around?” The previous thestral stated. “It’s terrifying that Hollow is not worried about dying despite Screaming taking every opportunity to take him down.”

“That’s probably why he keeps him around, to scare anyone else away from trying and to keep him on the tips of his hooves.” I commented idly while sitting next to the small taco cart with my two friends enjoying a nice meal before I got back to running for my life. “Better to know someone who will absolutely stab you in the back in a moment of weakness, then someone you don’t.”

“Eh, makes sense.” The lead thestral commented blandly. “When you get far enough away from… whatever his name is. You do realize that we’re going to get payback for the whole water thing.”

“So I might have slightly clogged the plumbing with some loose fur in a less than harmful manner, rearranged a couple of pipes by mere coincidence and might have incidentally blown up a few toilets… while some thestrals were still sitting on them. It was just a happy accident that Screaming Star happened to be one of the thestrals involved.” I turned to my new friend and decided to ask her a very pertinent question, Snickers would be perfectly fine as she likely wouldn’t read as a viable target in the thestrals minds. “Quick question, just how fast are you at running? Also thank you for helping me with the crossbow bolt, it would have been hard to get out with one hand.”

-Kuril-

“Say Fizzle, what do you think our chances of surviving that tank?” Looking at my filly I could see her already looking through the periscope at our opponent.

“Do you want that in negative percentages close to a hundred percent or a cheery lie?” Oh, ouch, right in the heart of the matter Fizzle.

“Okay, you were definitely the wrong pony to ask about our chances.” She frowned at me as I turned my head upwards. “Jacky, what are our chances of surviving that tank?”

“If it misses its first two shots, then we have a pretty decent chance of survival. As I can determine the amount time it’ll take them to reload that cannon based on how heavy the ammunition is and how much damage it does to our surroundings, we’re likely to be more maneuverable than that behemoth is unless they have access to magic that can fudge the square cube law about as well as Sugar can.” I then hear her mumble something from above us, I couldn’t hear it over the puttering noise coming from the back. “If you are asking if we can defeat that tank, then no. We have nothing that will pierce that armor and all I have are party supplies to load and fire. Basically we only have streamers, confetti bombs, colorful glitter powder packets and a few bottle rocket clusters which will, at their best, light something on fire when they explode. Whatever they’re capable of firing is most likely guaranteed to puncture the armor on this tank with a direct hit if it’s anything like a cannon ball or even makeshift grape shot.”

“Not true Jacky, we also have my potions that can be used as backup ammunition as you so thankfully showed us. Though I only have two halves of one mix of delayed ‘safe’ explosion potion, I have a few ideas of how we can survive that tank no problem. Fizzle watch our backs.” I turned to look out the front, the large tank was sitting to our right… I decided to answer Hollow Heart in the only way I knew how. I pushed the right control forward full blast, then I pushed the left forward once we pulled out onto the streets to straighten it out. I leaned towards the speaking tube. “Well if you’re so sure you can stop us, then come and get us!”

“I do like a challenge, try not to die when I inevitably destroy that piece of junk.” I could only hear his response as my eyes were on the street. “I want to personally see you squirm beneath my hooves.”

I heard the sound of an explosion and veered our PATTYCAKE to the left, the whistling sound of something scraping against the right side of the tank could be heard before a large hole erupted in the buildings near us, but thankfully there was no explosion.

Hopefully there weren’t any thestrals in there, even some of Hollow’s ODD forces. That wouldn’t a very pretty way to go for anyone.

“I believe a direct hit, any direct hit at all, will immediately kill all of us!” Despite Fizzle’s noted commentary on our continued survival chances, the first shot had missed. Technically it was a miss, despite scraping our right side.

“Fizzle’s right mom, that grazed us and I think it ripped off half the thickness of the additional armor from doing that alone.” Jacky could be heard the turning the turret around to aim back at the tank behind us. “They fired something solid and high speed, it was definitely faster than a cannonball. Dead meat would be the most of what was left of us if we’re hit. At least our tank is moderately faster, so there’s no chance of us being crushed alive by the larger tank unless they hit one of our treads. He seems like the kind of guy that likes to grind his enemies into dust in a literal manner.”

“No pressure then.” I muttered as I kept my eyes on the street, I didn’t want to run over an innocent thestral or any thestral at all. I’m not like a violent witch, I would hardly ever hold any ill will towards anyone.

“You incompetent idiots, load the cannon faster!” I wonder if Hollow knew that we could still hear him. “Fine, I’ve already planned for this situation anyway. Thestral squads swoop, swarm and strike out!”

“Are you telling them to lose at baseball? Wow, you’d make for a horrible coach, no wonder Screaming is the second in command.” After a fifteen seconds of driving forward, it didn’t seem like he was going to rise to my taunt and I could hear a lot of screeching. “It’s so sad when the evil sounding faction leader doesn’t want to banter with the unpaid F Team mercenaries of his enemies.”

“Incoming thestrals, lots of them behind and to the right.” Fizzle called out. “Do I even need to say from above?”

“Thanks for the warning, I got this handled Fizzle. I’m already loading one of my confetti bombs.” I’d leave Jacky to it, Fizzle would give her targets and all I had to do was give the other tank the run around without getting us blown up.

Oh, I have an idea!

“With this feather I’ll make this tank lighter, hopefully this doesn’t turn us into an uncontrollable glider!” I pulled out a griffon feather and cast it into my surroundings, it didn’t seem to have much of an effect.

“I don’t see what that’s going to do mom, this thing must weigh a…” Fizzle was cut off as her body slammed against the engine casing and I heard a scream of pain from above, also lots of screeching sounds. Jacky chose that exact moment to fire our cannon.

I was also pressed into my seat for a few seconds and couldn’t control the tank for a bit, after we stopped moving forward at an accelerated speed the tank angled upwards and climbed over a dirt mound that had suddenly appeared in front of us. I pulled us to a stop on the mound of dirt.

“Oh my goodness, are you girls alright?” It left me wondering what had just happened, maybe I shouldn’t have used that feather.

“Slightly bruised, but I’m fine. Jacky you okay up there?” Making her way back to the periscope, Fizzle stumbled a bit and hissed before getting her hooves over the bars to look into it. “…. Mom… it’s supposed to just be a feather falling effect right? I mean it can’t possible have made us light enough to seriously do what I’m seeing.”

“Why, what happened?” I was afraid to find out what kind of trouble my idea had caused.

“I’m okay, though the tip of my beak is a bit sore…” Groaned out Jacky before Fizzle could answer, that girl and her bad luck were glued at the hips at worst of times. “Woah, did I do that?”

“If you’re talking about the trench we just dug, then no. That was mom using a feather to make us move faster.” While listening to Fizzle, I turned back to what was in front of me and pushed us forward again. I chose to go to the left around the next corner at the T junction. The mound of dirt we left behind exploded sending bits of dirt and rock flying every. “If you’re talking about all the thestrals that are now on fire, blinded and deafened by the blast of colorful flaming confetti. Then yes, you did in fact do that and send them all into disarray. I kind of feel sorry for all those thestrals now.”

“Incredible, this will be more interesting than I previously thought.” It sounded like Hollow was excited to see what we could do. “You have my attention now!”

“Are you saying we didn’t clearly have it before that?” Okay I felt like going petty kitty mode right now, I wondered if he was even driving that tank or was he just commanding his thestrals? We had about thirty seconds left and firing again would cause us more trouble than it was worth. We trundled forward for a bit. “I’ll have you know that I’m Kurilian, the witch of good taste. I should have everyone’s attention when I step out of the kitchen, especially when I’m cooking up you’re imminent defeat!”

“Mega galvanizer has turned the corner and the cannon is angling for us.” Thanks for the report Fizzle, nothing was in our way so…

“Jacky aim down directly behind us and fire a blank into the ground when it shoots!” We still had about ten seconds, I heard the blast from the other tank and then ours went off as well. There was a light scraping sound of something crossing the belly of the tank before a stone building ahead of us in the distance gained a huge hole, I felt heavier a second and then lighter before we slammed back down into the ground and continued rolling forward.

“Impossible!” No, it was quite possible Hollow, we just did it after all.

Thankfully the magic wore off before we got too high off the ground and ended up damaging our current mode of transportation beyond repair, Jacky had an unerring sense of timing.

Not casting another feather anytime soon. Those maneuvers really put a lot of stress on us personally, but at least we weren’t dead.

“Can you fire the colorful powder packets into their view ports Jacky or at least disable their gunner that way?” Nobody liked clouds of glitter to the eyes. Speaking of eyes, I blinked mine and watched as the streets of Fright Night Grotto were quickly clearing of thestrals flying to the ceiling to avoid getting caught in our cross fire.

“You know, looking at it in a different light, party cannon supplies are actually diabolic when you start thinking about using them in creative ways.” It sounded like Blackcap was already loading the cannon. If they were blinded, then their shots would become wildly inaccurate. They were still just as likely to hit us given the size of the rounds they were firing. “About twenty five seconds between their reloads, I can load anything you need in ten after firing. Just give me a heads up if you want me to do something unusual.”

“Right… does anyone even remember the way back to EVEN?” How does Jade even navigate this city, the streets and buildings all looked so similar. I guess I’m a bit turned around, because I don’t know where we came out at.

“Oh, this is will end well.” Thank you for the obvious sarcasm Fizzle. “All in sunshine and rainbows, with clouds of cotton candy that rain chocolate milk.”

“You know I will turn this thing around and ram it into the larger tank if you feel like that would go better for us.” Given that Fizzle remained silent, I think she was actually considering it.

-Daring-

Okay, I had the information Caballeron bartered for and now I even knew where to find Zephyr’s fan. I heard a loud noise. What the hay was going on out there? It sounded like something was ripping through entire buildings.

I better find those guys I brought with me, I’d feel quite awful with myself if I left them behind a second time. Klugetown turned out well enough, except one of them being bed ridden for spinal injuries.

Of course I’d go after the fan first, not leaving without the magical artifact.

Chapter twenty, The Whimsical Witch of Even worse: Tanking everything.

Author's Note

Chapter twenty, The Whimsical Witch of Even worse: Tanking everything.

-Fizzle-

“Glitter packets away!” Our gun made little noise compared to the behemoth behind us. “Oops… direct hit, but I got the driver instead of the gunner. I didn’t put enough power into the shot.”

“When’s their next shot?” I looked to mom after she asked that, hasn’t it been about…

“Incoming!” It didn’t take long after Jacky yelled that before I felt a shockwave go throughout the tank and held on for dear life as the world twisted around. I felt something shift and despite being a bit disoriented, I looked through the periscope.

We were now moving backwards and now the other tank was in front of us. How in the world did that happen, weren’t we just hit? Why didn’t we explode? At least mom was on point and immediately reacted to the change in orientation.

“Damage to the rear half of the tanks right side tread armor, it has been mostly sheared off and the hit spun us like a top. I’m surprise we’re still operational or even moving. That shot almost took out our treads.” Jacky just answered my question, we’re lucky we didn’t lose the treads and were just spun around. “I don’t envy mom’s position right now, the treads seem to be holding up well enough despite the loss of armor over them.”

“I’m with you on that.” Given she was the designated driver, driving backwards wasn’t a very productive way to go around corners. I looked for something to put some distance between us. “We’re much slower at going backwards aren’t we?”

“Yes, though the loss of some armor means we’re moving slightly faster, it’s not nearly enough to completely escape the bigger tank. Our backwards is still pretty quick, but not nearly quick enough as that tank is at moving forward. We need to buy some time to turn around.” Thanks for the damage report Blackcap. “Frankly if we take a hit it’ll be either me or mom that dies first now.”

“Not exactly thrilled to hear that Jacky and it’s not a comforting thought that I might be losing my sister or mother.” I was looking for something, anything, to help us out of this situation. I then spotted a building with a huge cracks in its wall behind us, it used to be ahead of us.

“Say Jacky, can you get an entire bottle rocket cluster to hit one spot all at the same time?” I had an idea, but it required enough explosive force.

“Yes, but I’d need something to… oh right I have streamers! Where do you want them?” It sounded like Jacky was quite tense despite having an idea of how to do what I needed of her, I knew the feeling I was tensing up as well given we had about fifteen seconds before the next round came at us. Given how our current situation was going, I was right there with her. “It’s not like I’ve got much to shoot at up here.”

“Upcoming cracked wall on the tanks left side, we’re about to pass it. I need you to shoot it at the right moment to knock a portion of the building down on top of them.” I felt the tank swerve to the left while continuing to move in reverse. I take it we avoided another shot, but it sounded like it came nowhere near us this time.

“Fizzle, I need you to watch our backs, we’re not going to turning any corners blindly like this.” I looked to mom glancing back at me and nodded.

I turned the periscope around and started looking about, it seemed the thestrals were staying clear of our two tanks and were evacuating the areas we were going through.

“No turns at our back yet, but coming up soon.” We weren’t moving that fast, so I was just guessing at how long until we needed to make a turn here. I wasn’t exactly a tank connoisseur, none of us were exactly. “I’d give us two minutes before we hit our next turn, I’ll tell you when we need to start turning.”

Things were silent for a few seconds.

“Preparing to fire, I see what Fizzle wants me to shoot at, next shot incoming in five seconds.” Like Jacky I’m sure we were all on top of this. Another shot grazed deflected off the armor on front of the tank left side and left a small jagged hole near mom. “You okay mom?”

“That shot deflected off the tank, but it caused enough damage to leave a small hole.” As I reported this we passed by the cracked wall.

“Right, that’s enough of that.” Jacky sounded a bit angry. “Firing in three, two… now!”

I went back to looking back into the periscope and made sure to have it turned away from the wall and the bright flash of light coming from behind my view.

-Kuril-

I blinked the spots out of my eyes as the cluster of exploding fireworks tied together with streamers caused just enough damage to the stone wall, I watched as a portion of the building it was supporting collapse on top of the other tank.

I didn’t stop the tank however, I’ve learned enough about making assumptions with Jade as a GM from the various O&O games we’ve played. I was being a little paranoid, but I had reason to be with that war machine being much stronger compared to our tiny party tank that Pinkie would have been ecstatic to own if the upkeep wasn’t a bit troublesome.

“Do you think that stopped them Jacky?” I wasn’t nearly as hopeful as I sounded and veered the tank to the left side of the street, we had been on the right side. I tried to ignore the small hole and the glow moss light flowing in from outside, I was getting quite tired of being in, on or near this mountain and it’s only been about six days since we left home.

“Not a chance, that tank has far more pony power than this one does.” On that we could agree my little chick, that other tank was way too big and powerful. I doubt something like half a building collapsing onto it would really do enough damage.

“Corner coming up, which we way are we going?” Good question Fizzle.

“We’re heading to the left, tell me when to stop and I’ll turn us into the street moving forward.” It wasn’t long after we made the maneuver that the Mega Galvanizer pulled out of the rubble and fired, thankfully it was still aimed down the right side of the street.

That didn’t even come close to hitting us and I’m pretty sure they caught sight of our tank turning left to go to their right around the corner.

“Jacky, Fizzle is that a square I’m seeing up ahead?” We needed to disable the larger tank or at least give them some other problems to worry about, there were also all the thestral homes getting destroyed to be consider. “We need to either take out their cannon or at the very least do something to disable them.”

“What about you’re explosion potions?” It’s about time I explained to Fizzle the problem with that particular mix of potion and why it wasn't that easy.

“It’s called the delayed safe explosion potion and remember that I only have one mix of it ready. I don’t exactly think the other tank will let us stop and break out a cauldron to cook up more.” Now to go into explanation as to why we can’t use the two part explosive potion. “The blast won’t kill anyone, but it’ll definitely destroy the other tank. The problem is, we can’t just pour the chemical on top of the tank and expect them to explode.”

“Why not?” Fizzle was curious and I’m quite sure Jacky is too, my kitten was certainly missing out on the horrible fun we were having.

“For the explosion to happen it requires that one vial absolutely shatter into the other one. It would mean that we’d have to physically plant one vial on the tank and then shoot it with the other half of the mixture from a distance, unless you want to be knocked off the tank from a point blank explosion which would lead to injury from falling off.” That was just a small reminder to my two girls that the tank was bigger than this one. “The magical explosion requires broken glass to be touching the two fluids upon impact with one another. The two fluids won’t go off otherwise and would turn into inert substances if they mix in other conditions, breaking the vials on each other is the catalyst for the explosion.”

“You’re kidding right, please tell me you’re kidding mom?” Well Fizzle, I’d like to say I was kidding, but I’m the one who invented the delayed safe explosion potion. “Are you saying that one of us has to physically get out of the tank and avoid the other one shooting high speed munitions that go faster than cannonballs and can rip this tank in half? At least long enough to climb up onto it to plant one of the vials.”

“Who’s the one that studies Zebra alchemy here?” Yes, it was in fact that complicated and absolutely required two glass vials colliding and breaking to create a safe explosion. Discovering it was a bit of a blast, but both Sekhet and Zecora knew what the magic was doing when I showed it to them. “It’s not exactly time travel magic science, but it could get there eventually. The square will give us some maneuvering room, we’ll need to get right up next to them so I can jump over to them and then you’ll have to drive as Jacky is already best suited where she is.”

“What do you mean you’ll…” I can tell Fizzle already had a complaint about me being the one to plant the vial, but I couldn’t let either of the girls do something like that.

“Gun’s on us again, tank is turning the corner.” Interrupted Jacky. “I repeat tank is turning the corner and it is barely scratched!”

“Hang on!” I immediately swerved sharply to the left after hearing a distant cannon fire, the ground next to our tank erupted in a shower of cobblestone and dirt. That could have hit our exposed treads, I don’t relish the thought of being stuck in one place while that tank shoots at us. “Learn to drive the tank quickly Fizzle because…”

“Squad of armored thestrals diving from on high to the left and in front us.” It sounded like Fizzle caught another problem, I’d be exposed to being attacked by thestrals as soon as I left the tank. “Can we get something of a little break here?”

“I’m on it, loading a confetti bomb and a pack of streamers for good measure.” I hoped Jacky was on it, because we couldn’t fight off an entire swarm of thestrals if they managed to get on or in the tank.

“I don’t think the Order of Dark Dreams take breaks when it comes to destroying their enemies my little Fizzle.” I sure hoped my kitten was doing better than we were, hearing our gun fire I just had to ask. “Did you get them?”

“Multiple Thestrals caught in the streamers, wings lit on fire by flaming confetti and quite a few blinded and deafened. I think my bad luck might be doing us a big favor right now.” Well I hoped your bad luck would keep it up with bothering anyone besides us Jacky. We kind of needed all the luck we can get, whether it be good or bad at the moment.

I saw at least five thestrals falling from the sky wrapped up in streamers either clogging their wings or faces, I even saw one with his streamers somehow all tied together into bow knots.

In fact several thestrals had several different knots, but they were all the same type for every streamer that hit a particular thestral. The thestral covered in bunny knotted streamers was adorable, my little tom cat was never going to believe that one when I told her about it.

I started to swerve the tank to the right and then jerked it to the left. The shot from behind missed, they had been leading us that time expecting me to dodge into their line of fire. It would take a lot longer than that to fool me into… I swerved right again as the tank fired a second shot quicker than usual.

I would tell my crazy kitten about all this, provided I lived long enough to tell her.

“They're probably carrying multiple shells to the cannon to load it faster, do you think we can run them out of ammunition Blackcap?” Good question Fizzle, Blackcap is our mathematician here. She’d have to be with her training on utilizing cannons to their fullest, it requires all kinds of math to not waste shots.

“At that size, they can probably carry enough ammo to keep firing at us for a few hours straight.” Yeah, that’s kind of what was expected at this point Jacky. “We’re almost to the square at least.”

“Jade has got to be having a better time than us, she could just be playing with Sugar and talking to the locals for all we… oh… bull-imic.” What had Fizzle seen? I’m glad she saw me glaring at her, no daughter of mine will be cursing like a sailor unless it’s Jacky… slight double standard issues may apply.

There was no stopping a growing pirate from cursing, but at least I can keep my other girls from doing it. It didn’t take me long to see it too, as they passed by right in front of us.

I immediately stopped the tank for two cloaked figures with a horned rabbit on one of their shoulders and a small flying turtle went by at a swift speed. They had at least ten guards on their tails firing crossbow bolts, I watched as my kitten frantically swatted the crossbow bolts away with blasts of air from a very odd looking fan.

I pushed the tank forward and to the left after they passed us by, narrowly avoiding the next shot and then juked to the right to avoid a second one a few seconds later.

“Jacky...” Fizzled started to say when our gun fired. I looked out the jagged hole and saw a ball of thestrals hitting the ground outside the alleyway my kitten ducked into with Snickers and that stranger.

I wondered how Snickers even ended up here and where she’s been all this time, but that wasn’t exactly important to know at the moment. Dodging tank fire was definitely far more important than everyone's favorite flying turtle appearing, I could feel the tank shudder as a round glanced against the armor along the right side.

“Got some of them! Whatever captain’s doing, it sure seems just as exciting as the fight we’re in the middle of.” No one said we ever did normal Jacky, it’s becoming a fact of life for us to see something strange at least once or twice a month.

“We live and breathe in interesting times Jacky, this just happens to be the day I end up driving a tank and soon Fizzle will have learn quickly to do it too.” I exclaimed and then started quickly explaining the controls to Fizzle rapidly.

Chapter twenty, The Whimsical Witch of Even worse: Tanking out.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter twenty, The Whimsical Witch of Even worse: Tanking injury.

-Jade-

We were near the edge of the city where we finally had eluded our pursuers, the thestrals really knew how to track someone down.

“I think we finally lost them.” Yeah that was one weird runabout, I even picked up this nifty gunbai from when I and my new friend ran through an armory so I could steal some nunchucks. Just because mom doesn’t want me to have them, doesn’t mean I’m not going to get them myself. “They are far, far, more competent then the Canterlot Royal Guard than they have any right to be, but then again they do have ninja training. Admittedly Screaming having as a drill instructor probably did them all some favors.”

I laid the fan over my left shoulder and leaned against the nearby stone wall carefully to avoid aggravating my two injuries.

“Can we take a breather please?” The huffing and puffing four legged form on the ground whined.

“You know, I have to wonder what’s keeping you here.” I had to admit that my new friend managed to miraculously keep up with my artful dodging shenanigans without taking a hit. “Also you weren’t the one that was shot twice in the last hour or so.”

I was only ever hit twice, the crossbow bolt in the shoulder before I ran into Snickers and the so called ‘Pretty’ as Snickers has been calling her. Snickers was politically correct, she was pretty. That was bandaged up and okay, Bahamut had some spare bandages at his completely out of place taco stand.

The other crossbow bolt was currently in an unfortunate position and I didn’t know how I was going to pull that out without it being agonizing, I’d bite that bullet when we eventually find someone with a medical kit. Thankfully Ms. ‘Pretty’ bandaged my shoulder up with what we had available after helping me rip that bolt out.

“Coo coo hiss coo hiss hiss coo.” Yes Snickers, you were adorable and you did lead this poor lady all the way up here to her possible doom. She raised her flippers while hovering in front of me with her fluffy wings. “Coo!”

“So… Snickers is the one keeping you here? You really don’t have to stick around, but apparently Snickers here wanted you to meet someone and she thought that someone would be nearby.” Sure my buddy might be smarter than the average turtle, but she followed the familiar link to a really dangerous place. “Unfortunately for her, this person she wants to introduce you to is an airship ride to our home. It will require a whole bunch of drama you probably would rather not deal with and I suggest you should leave while you still can. Fair warning, our exit strategy isn’t going to be nearly as pretty as you are.”

“Thank you for the compliment, I am quite lovely aren’t I? Anyway I climbed all the way up here because she thought it was important, I only came all this way because of her. Through howling snow storms, giant spiders, an overly affectionate polar bear and a few other things. I think I would like to make the decision for myself if it’s too much trouble for me to keep going with you or not at this juncture.” She was putting on a brave front. What she said next, it was said with absolute gumption and determination. “After sneaking into a guarded monastery with dangerous fanged ponies, finding a hidden city in the mountain lit up by glowing moss, pulling a crossbow bolt out of and patching up what has to be the most annoyingly crazy cat alive, eating at a taco stand apparently run by an exceedingly intimidating dragon god, running through an armory with crossbow bolts constantly being fired at me just for my loose association with said cat as she stole that fan thing and a long highly exhausting chase through the city… do you seriously think that I’d give up at this point?! I should, but I’m not going to! What’s next, what is life seriously going to throw at me now? I’ve never been in so much danger in my life, but at this point I’m all in for whatever this sweet little darling came to me for while shivering up a storm on the doorstep of my nice, safe, warm cottage home in the cold. At this point I should be dedicated to an insane asylum.”

“Coo!” Well that made Snickers happy, because a second later she started hissing into my left ear that she thought she might have accidentally caused ‘Pretty’ a metric ton of trouble and that she hated her.

I just gave my buddy a flat look, she could be smart at times and at others she was rather oblivious.

“Okay let me fill you in on my family, because I’m pretty sure they were the ones driving that bright neon green tank we ran by.” I inhaled and then let it all out slowly and concisely. “My girlfriend, who was adopted by my mom, is a unicorn with a broken horn and is self-conscious about it. Don’t stare at the stump when you meet her or I may get upset on her behalf. My feathered sister is a pirate parrot with a penchant for horrible luck. Standing near her is an occupational hazard, but I do it anyway as I care about her as does the rest of my family. As for my mother, she is a witch of good taste that can cook a meal to fit any palate and she’s recently been getting into slinging vials of magical potions around. If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m the lovable rogue who happens to be a priest. Oh and my other girlfriends are a chimera.”

She was about to ask me something and we both heard a loud chittering, I blink and looked to Sugar who gave me a lazy look. It wasn’t her that started acting up, for charging out the darkness at insane speeds was Ratatoskr.

“Continuing on, this is a messenger god squirrel we call Rata, but his name is Ratatoskr. He’s the head of our town’s mail department.” I took the offered letter and opened it and looked it over. “Aw, Sekhet is worried about us… also what are you’re going rates for medical kit deliveries? I think Jacky, mom and Fizzle are in danger and might need a divine intervention considering I last saw them being trailed by an even larger tank. In any case, I have a message I want you to take back to Sekhet after you check on the rest of my family and assist them by delivering any stuff they might need to help them if they are injured.”

The squirrel reached behind his back and pulled out a notepad and an empty envelope, I took them all and started writing what I wanted to tell Sekhet. After I stuffed the note into the envelope, he sealed it and wrote something down on the notepad and showed it to me. He’d need money to pay for the supplies, but he’d deliver them and check up on my family free of charge.

The average going rate for a medical kit was a bit pricy, but I was willing to pay it. I reached into my pack, I was a bit low on money. I just dumped it all out, every last bit, then gave Rata a look of worry.

He nodded to me and with a sweep of his paw, all the money swiftly disappeared behind his back. He chittered something and then he shot off down the streets like a rocket was tied to his back with my envelope and money.

“So all of that stuff is true on top of a squirrel being in charge of your mail.” It sounded like we lived a life that was completely unbelievable and overly complicated from the way ‘Pretty’ said that.

“Well he is a messenger god and he can deliver anywhere, which is provided that you can pay him well enough for his goods and services.” Now what were we going to do now? I hadn’t a clue, I only sent the Rata delivery service on the off chance that mom, Fizzle or Jacky had been seriously hurt in whatever it was they were doing. “He won’t work for just anyone, he’ll raise the cost of his assistance if he doesn’t like you. He’ll make paying him cost things you can’t give up if you’ve upset him greatly and he’s really quite strong for his size, that little guy kicked me across a room a few times. He’s kind of mercenary like that. Oh and one last rule about my family, you’re already considered our friend and don’t die young no matter what happens.”

From what little I saw, the tank they were in looked a few steps away from being totaled, while the other one looked completely pristine and only slightly scuffed.

“Sound like a good rule.” Mumbled ‘Pretty, I would have to eventually ask her for her actual name. She hadn’t exactly told me yet.

-Some time later, Jacky-

Okay, I was coming too and I heard a gasp and I felt something crushing my lungs.

“Oh, my little baby chick is alright!” Mom was crushing me and I started gagging loudly to get her attention. She let go of me and gave me a sheepish grin. “Sorry sweetie, I got the piece of metal out of your leg, cleaned the wound, sowed it up and then patched it.”

“How did you do that? None of us were exactly carrying medical supplies, unless you have the healing potions working correctly this time without those nasty side effects.” My answer was mom simply holding up a medical kit, apparently mom was still working out the bugs on the healing potions and only in an emergency would I dare use once of those potions.

“Jade somehow got in contact with Rata and he delivered a medical kit to us along with an instruction manual for idiots who don’t know how to perform emergency medical procedures. It was very informative and really helped out a lot.” Just guessing from mommy Kuril’s words here, but I assumed we were going to put up a hospital in Airship Mauled as soon as we got back. Mostly because of all the dangerous stuff we keep doing. Also Captain and I did tend to get injured a lot. “Fizzle woke up before you did, but she took a pretty bad hit to the head and Blade landed on her wings in a nasty manner. You got a bump, but at least you didn’t bleed like Fizzle did.”

“Yet you’re perfectly fine?” I looked at the bandage wrapped tightly around my leg, mom did good work and I’d have to thank Rata later for making the delivery. Sure a peg leg or a hook would be cool, but I wanted to keep all my body parts mostly intact.

“What can I say, I landed on my feet and rolled with the sudden stop from the tank hitting the ground.” Why did mom suddenly sound nervous all of the sudden, that aside, Abyssinians were really quite awesome at taking falls. As if the legends surrounding Jade jumping off the side of Canterlot weren’t enough, mom pulled off an impressive maneuver despite the fact that the sudden jarring stop in a falling tank should have injured her as well. “Anyway, do you think you’re healthy enough to find out what’s wrong with the tank? We’re kind of in a pickle right now.”

“Why what’s wrong?” There was this undeniable sinking feeling in my gut, I’m pretty sure mom, Fizzle and Blade felt it as well. There was a sense of menace in the air down here where we fell.

“Quick question Blackcap, do you have arachnophobia?” Fizzle came up next to me with slightly blood soaked bandages covering the left side of her temple. “We kind of need you’re expertise in an ‘as soon as possible’ manner as you can manage.”

I recognized that I was on the floor behind the driver’s seat and spotted Blade climbing down the ladder. Both her wings were splinted, she was looking quite worried and having messed up wings must suck for her. It was as if not being able to talk wasn’t bad enough for her, she recognized my staring and gave me a wan smile before nodding lightly.

“Okay how big are the spiders we’re talking about here?” It didn’t take a genius like me to notice that Fizzle, Blade and mom all winced and shivered violently. “That bad huh?”

“According to Ms. Bright, we’re kind of in the middle of the spider warrens beneath the city.” Okay mom, I think I can see where this is all going. “The tank might also be a little inoperable thanks to the landing.”

“Giant flesh eating spiders?” They all nodded at me. “Yeah, that was a no brainer to guess. So the delicacy of the thestrals is going to eat us if we tried to go it on foot?”

“That’s about the size of it.” Groaned out Fizzle while rubbing at her bandages with a hoof, she kept her voice even and quiet. “You’re kind of the most important person in the tank right now, you absolutely need to get this thing running again.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but I need to get up so I can see what the problems are. Where’s the light coming from?” Sitting up I could see the pitch black darkness beyond the driver’s seat. “It looks like its pitch black out there.”

Blade pulled out a small vial holding a green sludge like substance from her saddle bags, it was most likely glow moss or glow moss spores. She shook it up and the vial started glowing brightly. Yeah, that certainly explained it.

“Okay, thestrals are crazy about that glow moss stuff, I get it!” I’m kind of sad that missed seeing Rata, but I was happy that he somehow managed to circumnavigate his way to us to drop off some rather helpful supplies.

Once I was up and standing, it was time for me to look into whatever damage was done to this PATTYCAKE. She served us really well up to this point and I think I owed to the tank to get it moving again for helping us survive for this long.

If it was even possible to get the tank running again, what direction would we even go in even if we did? I looked out from the driver’s window and saw chunks of street glowing in places all around our immobile little shelter in the distance.

-Fizzle-

I was getting rather antsy, or was that the headache I currently had? I wasn’t about to channel too much magic in this state. Unicorns should avoid casting magic with head injuries, while tired and or under the effects something equally mentally debilitating .

I swayed a bit and suddenly found myself being held steady by a pair of robed arms that calmly started rocking me. It felt nice, it was making me sleepy though. What was that thing about head injuries and sleeping again? I remember reading about it once.

“Fizzle, you need rest. Some sleep will help you recover.” Mom’s words were gently whispered into my ears as she carefully rocked me back and forth while holding me tight. "Hush now, quiet now, it's time to rest your sleepy head..."

Author's Note

Autumn Blaze reminded me of a very fluffy Pinkie Pie.

Chapter twenty, The Whimsical Witch of Even worse: Tanking stock.

-Sekhet-

I took the proffered letter from Ratatoskr, it was strange that we of two differing pantheons can get along so well. I think it was mostly because Ratatoskr was quite efficient at what he does and good messengers during a cold war were worth their weight in gold. There was a problem with cold wars, it is that not many exactly know there was a war being fought or what was slinking around in the shadows.

Said current cold war involved the assassins that went after my sun… the sun priest. I did not own her, I do not lay any claim on her and she is a free, if highly rogue, priestess that I wish to protect.

Reading the message I felt a little smile tug at my lips, Jade thought things were going pretty well. Kuril on the other paw was stuck in a warren full of giant flesh eating spiders, here I thought Spiders always liquefied things from inside out and drink their prey. I guess when they get big enough they’ll just do both.

Kuril was thanking me for sending Ratatoskr, while Jade thought my concern for them was adorable. In a manner of speaking, yes, I could see that my worries about their continued existences could be seen as cute in some manner.

It Cheerilee’s final year here before she moved to Ponyville for its greener pastures, I could be a full time teacher… of just more than physical education. Nobody could teach like a war god could, unless you had a god of intellect like Quetzalcoatl around and he probably wouldn’t make things nearly as fun as I would.

“Are they doing okay Ms. Sekhet?” I looked down at the pink haired maiden, Fluttershy, she was worried about how the mayors family vacation was going before school started up again this year.

“Yes, they are doing perfectly fine.” In as so much as they all aren’t dead yet, but wow does it sound like they are being put through a wringer. I was silently wishing to join them on their next adventure, the fight with Quetzalcoatl gave me a taste of the things I missed about being a war goddess. “Please stay for tea and maybe stick around to play with the local fauna, they all miss you maiden Shy. I’ve been working on fluffier scones personally and I’m sure they’ll taste quite… divine. I would like a second opinion though if you don’t mind.”

“I would like to do all of that, thank you.” Fluttershy didn’t bow to me and did not need to, I wouldn’t ever ask her to in the first place. I don’t think there was many a god that wouldn’t appreciate her friendly presence. Her innocence was both sweet and satisfying to be around, she had a strong if quiet spirit to her that exuded kindness.

I chuckled dryly, as Fluttershy came to sit with me. She giggled merrily and was less afraid of me than when we first met. I was respected by this mortal not for my battle prowess, but for my social demeanor.

Being the coaching goddess and the mayor’s secretary were both simple and fun jobs. One can only dare for any bandits to come into town for a little entertainment, they would be signing their own funerals prematurely if they ever reached me.

The bandits could never quite get past the young cow with the incredible physical strength or Flamberge the highly flammable dragon of the Vibrant Vikings. The less I thought about how Fortitude worked the better and Gene was rather interesting in the fact that he never raised his voice or even changed his tone, even when he was angry his fury was bound to burn cold.

Aside from the small puckwudgie raiding parties or other minor inconveniences, Airship Mauled was a nice quiet place to relax. At least for about an hour or so before something else popped up to disrupt the peace.

Ponies commented that we weren’t as bad as Ponyville by the frequency of strange events at least. We were worse with the danger aspect though. I think it evened things out personally, we actually had people who can handle all kinds of danger.

-Kuril-

My voice wasn’t particularly soothing. In fact I thought it was particularly scratchy in only a manner a female Abyssinian cat could manage, but I got my filly to take a nap while Jacky started her internal inspection of the PATTYCAKE. Blackcap’s humming and grunting sounded a bit… bad.

I hoped that the tank could move, because we weren’t going to get far if we hoofed it. I promised EVEN a tank and it’s been one wild ride up to this point, I was quite exhausted and ready to spend the night here. I couldn’t rest yet until we heard the analysis from my little chick.

“Okay mom, this is all pretty bad.” Waiting for Jacky to speak up as she looked over the engine was requiring some patience from me. I wanted to ask how bad, but I knew Jacky would tell me anyway. “That last shot fired by the MEGA GALVANIZER punched clean through us and did some damage to the engine, but that isn’t the worst part. We can patch up the holes in the tank, but I’m going to need something hot to do some welding so we can close up the holes.”

“Weren’t we still operation after the shot passed through the PATTYCAKE?” I asked, because I certainly remembered that we were still moving forward despite the hit. Jacky nodded to me and then pointed at the engine.

“Yeah, the damage dealt by the shot combined with the fall is what messed up the engine. If they had been firing darkness shots at us like the cannons on top of the mountain, then we’d practically be dead already. Provided they could hit us anyway, those darkness shots are really slow by comparison to the cannon that had been firing solid chunks of high speed metal at us.” After scrutinizing the damaged chunk of the engine she could see, Jacky turned to me with a frown. “If we had a dragon with us right now, it would have certainly been helpful. They’d make good mechanical engineers if they weren’t so lazy. In any case, we’re going to need some scrap metal to make repairs and get the engine ‘reasonably’ functional again. I also need to check the treads to see how damaged they are and that requires us going outside.”

“Well I can solve our welding problem easily enough, but we’re going to have to take care of the engine first before we patch the holes. Otherwise the smoke inhalation might cause problems.” After saying this I pulled my pack off and sat it on the floor and started pulling out chaos candles. It might be my daughter’s obscenely simple invention, when compared to my complex cauldron mixed potions, but it was a good one with multiple uses.

“Well that solves one of our problems, but we’re still going to need some scrap metal.” Considering Jacky’s words for a moment, I smiled and turned to Blade who tilted her head at me curiously.

“That’s easy enough, we’ll scrounge whatever is left of the MEGA GALVANIZER. It fell down here too, the thestrals that were inside have flown back up to the city already.” Which meant to me that Hollow didn’t expect us to survive down here or even get the tank back to EVEN. He was underestimating us greatly if he thought were out, even if we were further down into the mountain. “They were badly singed by my explosion, so they have to be licking their wounds and aren’t going to be able to pull off an attack on us. At least not here where it’s likely to get a thestral eaten by giant spiders anyway.”

“Got it, I’m not about to go too far. Given the name ‘Spider Warrens’, I wouldn’t want to be outside the tank for too long around here. How are you going to…? Oh right, you both have night vision.” It seemed like Jacky came to the realization that only she and Fizzle would have been hampered by the surrounding darkness. Blade also had echolocation, given her sense of hearing allowed her to hear every movement in this cavernous space, the remains of the other tank wasn’t that far away and we wouldn’t be caught off guard. “Remember, get whatever you can to fix the engine. I mostly need small bits of metal, any big bits of metal will be used to patch holes and I don’t need much of that.”

Blade smiled and held out a vial of glowing moss to Jacky and she took it, she’d need it far more than we would.

I nodded to Jacky and put away two chaos candles in my pack. If any spiders attacked us, then a face full of burning chaos candle will warn them off. If not from the light or the fire that comes with it, then it would be the debilitating effects of the smoke the candles could generate.

After Blade climbed through the hatch I followed her and looked around, there was a void of empty blackness around us and I could make out something beneath the tank. It looked like a large spindly limp leg, we had crushed a giant spider… one that was about the size of the tank. I turned to Blade.

“Watch my back and make some noise if you hear something coming.” My words were met with hardening eyes and a nod, I carefully climbed down the tank and then slid down the abdomen to the ground. I saw a blade like protrusion coming from above the dead spider’s spinneret buried into the ground. They had stingers, likely lethally poisonous. “Watch out for webs and make sure that we don’t get stingers dropped on us from above.”

Blade just gave me a silent salute with a hoof holding a knife at the ready, we carefully made our way towards the treads and bottom half of the tank I helped total.

I looked back to see Blade’s ears twitching left, right, and then outwards and inwards, she was very much attentive of our surroundings. There was no sign of trouble yet as we got close to the remains of the other tank.

We spent a few minutes silently scouring for parts from the husked out tank and found a few things that Jacky could possibly use. Speaking of which, I looked back to the tank and could see the glow of the glow moss vial and the figure holding it crouched next to the treads.

Blade looked in that direction, but didn’t signal any danger. Did the spiders scatter when we accidentally crushed one of the large ones? If so, how long would it be before they came back in force? I shook my head and gathered up the small box of metals scrap that I could pick up or tear out of the remains of the GALVANIZER. I even found a round of unspent ammunition, Jacky would love this as a souvenir.

I find it ironic that something that was supposed to galvanize Hollow’s people towards his cause would likely have the opposite effect given how much damage he did to the buildings in the somewhat compact underground city. Not only that, but we took it out with a party tank and some of my home brew witchery. Quite a lot of Hollow’s time and effort went to waste even if the vehicle had been quite a power house.

Having figured I gathered enough, I heaved the box I found up and began to carry it back towards the tank. Blade was watching me and our surroundings like a hawk, ready to throw a knife at the first sign of danger. She was quite nice for someone who wanted to kill my kitten once upon a time, she was basically my kitten’s sushi slinging aunt now.

I climbed back up the crushed arachnid and made my way over Jacky.

“Is this good enough?” I whispered to Jacky who looked at the box in my arms, she looked over the stuff in the box and nodded.

“Yeah, that should be enough, I need to finish checking the treads first. Those are more important than the engine. Without them we won’t be going anywhere even if I can get the engine working.” Jacky was equally as quiet, she was more than aware of our current situation and that loud noises might attract the spiders towards us.

Given that we were in the spider’s territory, this would be a really bad time to sneeze. Surprisingly nobody did and I for some reason felt like this was a big letdown.

“Blade watch Jacky while she works, I’m going to get this box inside.” I carefully climbed my way back up to the hatch while tightly holding the box of scrap metal under my left arm. Once inside I placed the box down on the floor.

“Mom… are we going to make it?” It sounded like Fizzle had her doubts as she groggily stirred awake.

“Go back to sleep my little filly, we’re working on it and we’re doing fine so far.” Despite how tired I was, we were going to finish this. I didn’t know how long I’ve been awake, being underground for so long is not conducive to keeping a healthy sleeping schedule.

“Okay… mommy…” Fizzle yawned and rested her head once more on her hooves, I stared at the bloody bandages on her head. We didn’t have much water, but I would have to look at and clean the wound when Fizzle next woke up.

-Nine hours later, Jade-

I stretched out, it was so nice of the EVEN guys to give us a place to stay for a while. The reported destruction of the tank that is being called the MEGA GALVANIZER was having an effect on the thestral population.

Given quite a few of their homes took damage thanks to it, the entire population was leaning in the direction of Prime’s faction and Hollow was losing soldiers except the most loyal or unscrupulous. Looks like we caused another political unrest incident, at least this time we knew for certain it was a good thing.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask… what’s your name?” I turned to my cloaked companion with her hood down, she was currently petting Sugar and she turned to me looking a bit surprised.

“Oh… right… well… my name is…” This would be the perfect moment for something distracting to happen, like Back Stalk sneezing loudly like he just did.

-Fizzle-

Eight hours of rest and my head was feeling less agonizing, I was still wary of channeling magic and it was necessary to start the engine on the PATTYCAKE.

Jacky said the treads were slightly damaged, but they’d hold together a little while longer. The engine was fixed and the holes in the armor were patched. We’ve all had a good amount of sleep, everyone was now waiting on me to imbue the engine with power.

Blade’s ears suddenly went straight up and she shivered she started stamping the floor of the tank in a panic. That meant incoming giant spiders, we didn’t even know which way to go to get out of here.

That didn’t matter, we’d work on it while in motion! I lit my horn and pressed it against the engine and it started up.

Chapter twenty, The Whimsical Witch of Even worse: Like thestrals out of Tartarus.

Author's Note

The Messenger is a really good game, quite a funny one too and the music is excellent. Also something about a conical hat...

Recently beat Marvel's Spiderman PS4, it was like Ultimate Spider Man for the PS2 and just as fun.

Name of the figure Snickers befriended coming up.

Chapter twenty, The Whimsical Witch of Even worse: Like thestrals out of Tartarus.

-Blade-

I heard them coming, but thankfully I also used their horrid screeches to locate a tunnel leading outwards and up. The spider warrens loosely connected to the city above, how else were thestrals here going to get their spider meat?

Giant arachnid meat was tasty, as were the bugs that garnished the dishes alongside said meat prepared in various ways with a nice mushroom sauce. I like this place, but the ODD faction soured me on wanting to stick around for any longer than Kuril’s family will.

Nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to stay by myself and being on EVEN’s payroll was not something I was looking for. I protected Kuril because I liked her, not because she showed me that my cutie mark has more than just violent applications. Learned a lot about myself here.

I moved forward and pointed over Kuril’s shoulder, we needed to go that way.

“Huh… okay!” Kuril figured out almost immediately what I was trying to do, she turned us in the right direction. “Fizzle follow Blade’s directions and teach her how to drive this tank, she can echolocate our way out of here.”

“Why, what are you going to be doing?” At Fizzle’s question, Kuril started to slide her sleeves up and she quietly pulled out a full chaos candle in her right hand.

“I’m going to keep them off of us of course.” Kuril turned to her tired bird daughter who spent an hour on making sure the engine was operational again, the engines efficiency had plummeted drastically and it was noticeable when Fizzle charged it. We were barely moving above half the speed the tank had previously been capable of. “Jacky whatever ammunition you have left, use it.”

Kuril climbed up the ladder and onto the tank with a look of determination, she was either brave or stupid. Maybe both… I’d follow Mayor Kuril, 'The Witch of Good Taste', anywhere. She stopped at the hatch and was staring at their numbers she closed it behind her, why could I hear the beginnings of music?

We crushed several spiders as we started picking up a little speed, Jacky did good work. We only lost about twenty five percent engine efficiency.

-Kuril-

“Come and show what you’ve got, you’re not going to stop us now~. Even though you have a lot and we are completely outnumbered anyhow~!” I started up as I lit the chaos candle and blasted a spider dropping down from above and I swung the flames the candle generated around burning the webbing before it could stick to the tank and slow us down. “I don’t really care, that you really think you can get a meal, but there’s something inside my heart that makes me feel that we are getting out of here~!”

Smaller spiders leapt from the large ones and started to climb onto the tank there sure were a lot of them, I blast one off with a magic missile from my left hand, even as I swept the candle to the right while sustaining the blaze and smoke that was disabling a number of spiders giving chase to our tank.

“We will survive the webs and waves and we can fight for several days~. You monster really don’t have any idea what you’ve really just set ablaze~!” I sang with my heart flaring with power as I started forcing the horde back with a single sweep of the chaos candle going full burn. “My heart is burning for my family and it’s really quite a powerful feeling, there’s nothing surpassing a caregiver in an unstoppable battle haze~!”

This was my heart song, the real one for me. The tank entered a tunnel and started climbing upwards, meanwhile I filled the entire tunnel behind us with candle smoke and fire and even then the spiders kept coming for us.

“I will kick you down, if you try to climb on top of the party tank, there’s no room for danger or the likes of you horrible mangy things~!” I slugged a small spider the size of my head with my left fist and sent a blaze to stop them from crawling under the tank. I’ve already almost burned through one candle and I have several more. “I will be the shield, for my family and my friends~. You have no idea who you’re messing with, and you will most likely meet your end~!”

The tank blasted the horde knocking them back in a shower of confetti, it seemed Jacky was taking my words to heart.

“Come now all you monsters show me what you have, I will take all my own power and it I will grab~!” I burnt out the candle, there were just so many of them climbing on the walls and the ceiling. Black chitin bound monstrosities by their size and aggressiveness alone. I pulled out a second candle, these eight legged monsters are not going to hurt anyone I care about. “I don’t care if you think you are strong, I will show you just how much you are very wrong~!”

A large spider knocked me onto my back and I moved my head out of the way of the stinger and scrunched up into a ball before kicking out with both feet. After knocking it off me and the tank, I igniting my second chaos candle and immediately burned out a quarter of it pushing the hoard of spiders back.

“How are you doing, are you really alright out there~?” Jacky ask through the cannon. The tank leveled out and I saw light filtering in from behind me and saw… oh dear. This mountain was partially volcanic, the tank rolled into a cavernous space and along a narrow ledge and it was swelteringly hot out here.

My body was sweating and it could barely keep up with the heat, using my fish scales here would likely kill me. With a glance over the ledge I could the molten depths below. I turned back to the spiders with narrowed eyes as we trundled along the ledge.

“Don’t worry dear, I can take much more heat than what you fear~!” I had two daughters to protect, also a friend and coworker, I will not falter as a good witch!

“Are you sure, it’s getting really quite dangerous and isn’t that too many spiders to be fair~?” Jacky sang out with a worried chirp.

“There’s nothing to worry about~.” The many eight eyed red glints climbing along the wall and floor behind us were trying to spray webs all over us, but they were failing as I burned my candle to about a quarter left destroying them. I sent another magic missile at the smaller ones trying to climb up and get me. I palmed a salamander scale and cast it at the ground and wall between us and the approaching horde. It caused a blazing wall of fire to erupt and light many of the spiders ablaze. “You’ll just have to wait and see, I’ll show these spiders what a witch with flare can be~!”

That slowed them down immensely, but it didn’t stop the spiders from coming at us along the ceiling. The tank moved and turned into the next tunnel going up. We were pulling away, when a small spider almost got me in the back only for a blast of magic to knock it away.

I watched as Fizzle turned around and her horn lit with lightning, it surged into several other small spiders I had missed and they fell away from the tank twitching or dead.

“We are all in this together mom, you’re not doing this alone and I will see to it that each and every one of us gets all the way to home~. You matter to us and we care, as we all have a stake which we placed when we decided to roam~.” Grabbing Fizzle before she could fall off the tank as it straightened out, we entered a really dark cavern and the spiders stopped giving chase, but why? “We are people of Airship Mauled and we are no quitters~. With danger we all laugh with titters~. It’s worth all the trouble if in the end I get to eat some of your fritters~. We’ll show all and any violent kidders~! We won’t lose even if we aren’t the winners~. We’re certainly not about to become anyone’s dinners~. You hear that all you gluttonous bingers~!”

The darkness seemed to pull a lot tighter around the tank.

“Something’s is not quite right, something is very wrong out here~. The darkness is too thick, and even for me to see I fear~.” A claw made out of what could be described as shadows erupted from around us and tried to swipe at the remains of my second candle trying to extinguish it. I flared the last of its burning strength and saw a pair of growing solid grey eyes rows of endless jagged teeth pointing in all directs, whatever it was screeched and disappeared into the darkness with a blink and Fizzle lit her horn as brightly as she could with wide eyes. “Thankfully we have a thestral driving the tank to lead the way, otherwise I might have led us to danger and completely astray~.”

“Please tell me that you saw that too~. I don’t want to think about the fact that, that we might have just seen actually seen a real and actual grue attack~!” The shadows gathered and started to shift towards us at a high speed, Fizzle tried to keep her horn lit even as she cowered behind me and I was fumbling for another chaos candle. A murky three fingered claw of shadows reached out for us, or more specifically my daughter’s broken brightly glowing stump in an attempt to snuff it out.

The tank fired a burst of bright light from its cannon and the creature was lit for a second. I could see a floating gaseous mass of blackness made of more teeth then I previously saw and there were about five more grey eyes than previously counted. My little tom cat was correct, Grue’s were absolutely terrifying and possibly a formless mass of deadly darkness that was never meant for mortal eyes. I could barely comprehend what I was looking at before the darkness built up again.

“Hey, back off my sister you murderous beast, none of us here are willing to be your fleshy feast~!” In conjunction with Jacky’s words, I fired a magic missile into the darkness and hit something. I don’t know what a Grue was with a hundred percent accuracy, even knowing what I just saw, but I can certainly hurt it well enough with a magic missile. “We’re the heroes of our lives, we’re all quite incredible and that may even lead to your demise~!”

“We’re mercenaries to our core, with all of us you better bore~! Otherwise we’ll all fight you to the last even when while we’re all quite sore~!” I sang loudly as I stared downed the darkness, there’s was nothing to fear. We’d get this tank back to EVEN, even if the apocalypse has to happen we’d do this thing. “There’s no fighting the toughs, we’re toughest of any meal you’ve ever had and that’s what you really won’t be able to make of us~!”

I finally got a hold of my candle and aimed it dead center where things were darkest and fired a blast of powerful fire, heat and light dead center into it. The screeching noise it made as the darkness started lightening was horrific and whatever it was, it was dissolving in agony and excessive amounts of pain. I poured every ounce of the candle I had into it.

With the candle gone and the music from my heart slowly fading out, the darkness around us lightened up by quite a lot and in fact things started to get brighter as the tank slowly crawled up the next tunnel and we could see the light of Fright Night Grotto City.

I blinked back tears, I had just done something incredible. I just killed a grue, a manifestation of pure darkness, malice and evil, my daughter is never going to believe this and it was a notch in my belt as a heroic witch. The thestrals no longer had to deal with it at the very least and their access to spiders may have become a bit more problematic, given the hole in the square and lack of spider eating grue.

The light of the city was beautiful and soon we came up to the thestral checkpoint. Jacky pointed the cannon at the thestrals. We moved to the front of the tank, Fizzle lit her horn slightly and pawed a hoof at the metal while lowering her head. I just gave the thestrals a calm look and palmed a chaos candle and tossed it up lightly twice.

“Excuse me, but can you give us directions to EVEN. We’re not in the mood for another fight and we will kick your asses if you attack us, so please... be a dear and help us innocent folk out?” My words were calm, but my eyes bored into the thestral who started sweating and whimpering. “In fact, get me something to cook with, me and my family are hungry. I’ll make you the best meal you ever tasted once we get back to EVEN with this party tank, we have a celebration to make.”

-Thirty minutes later, Jade-

We were sitting outside of EVEN when the PATTCAKE Seventy Seven, splattered in arachnid gore and weird bizarrely colored blood, rolled up with several thestrals flying escort. It came to stop and parked itself. Soon my mom hopped out and smiled at me, she smiled even wider when she noticed the flying turtle that flew up to hug her.

“You’re alive?!” Wow Back Stalk, you didn’t have any trust that my mother was a sleeping dragon that you shouldn’t ever mess with. Mom, was far more dangerous than I was, she knew how to make explosions that couldn’t kill anyone. Rub her the wrong way and those ‘safe’ explosions wouldn’t be 'safe' for that much longer. “You were in the whole square collapsing incident and ended up in the Spider Warrens. Hollow Heart even bragged about your demise, how are you even still alive!?”

Mom would be worse when she eventually finished that frogifying potion she was working on to deal with rude people. Mom always liked the classics of what witches were known for. Turning someone into a mouse was too easy for her, or at the very least making someone the size of one and that was scary when you were dealing with a bipedal cat that was a witch. Turning people into frogs was the real hard stuff apparently.

“Hey, kitten, are you hungry?” My reaction to mom’s words were to sit up and move into a begging position on all fours and wag my tail back and forth wildly, my eyes started to become big and watery. Mom shifted her, half witch, pirate hat and walked inside. “I’ll take that as a yes, thank you all for the lovely escort. Stick around, I’ll get to work on that food immediately. I may be exhausted, but I’ve still got enough in me to cook up something delicious.”

“Say, who’s your friend Jade?” Fizzle eyed the lithe figure next to me curiously.

“Well her name is…” I looked around suspiciously. “Velvet I. Deer.”

Chapter twenty one, Cult Evasion: The Reindeer.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter twenty one, Cult Evasion: The Respite.

-Fizzle-

“So do you all seriously tease Jade like that?” Velvet asked as we sat down in the meeting room. Just about everyone was here, including what I’m ready to call my family. It seemed like Prime had something big to announce to the thestrals here.

“What can I say, she likes the attention.” And I liked her attention, I can tell Jade wanted me to get better sooner.

“Says the one that needs fifty CC’s of high octane snuggles when she sleeps.” My cheeks burned, why does Jade always rub me in that spot behind my ears? I appreciate the sensation and get a lot of pleasure from it, but it was so embarrassing that such a simple affectionate gesture has so much effect on me. “I tease her just as well by making her blush.”

Jade has almost no shame, it was one of the reasons I liked her.

“To be fair, while Jade can’t do math, she can plan circles around almost anyone I know. The only thing more dangerous than her is mom and Jacky’s sporadic bad luck.” More thestrals poured into the room, then a familiar pegasus comes in looking quite aggravated.

“Hey Daring!” Jade yelled out and waved to Daring Do who looked in our direction and blinked once or twice. She then reeled back in shock as if slapped harshly for some reason.

“You, you’re the one that stole the Zephyr’s Fan!” She didn’t look too angry, only more so surprised and was pointing at the gunbai sticking out of Jade’s pack. “Here, I thought it was Dr. Caballeron getting one over on me. I knew it couldn’t have been him, he doesn’t even know I was here. So what’s this meeting all about, I was told my friends would be here after asking around a bit. Not all the thestrals in this city seem to be all that bad.”

“Yeah, we kind of figured that out when Jade started befriending the guards and mom made contact with the EVEN faction.” I spoke up looking to mom. She smiled at us and then went back to talking to Jacky about the PATTYCAKE returning to what it once was, a tank meant for parties and not war.

“So who’s the deer and isn’t that the flying turtle I saw a few times back at Airship Mauled?” It was likely a bad idea for Daring to have attracted Snickers attention, because within seconds the turtle had attached herself to Daring’s face while cooing happily in a loving manner. “Gah, call her off, get her off my face, why is this turtle so strong!”

I chuckled dryly as I watch Daring flop around on the floor trying to pry an affectionate Snickers off of her face. Jade eventually came to her aid and got the face hugger off of Daring.

“So it’s called Zephyr’s Fan? Huh, I wondered why it was so weird and didn’t respond to magical alchemy, I really don’t think this thing is related to Fluttershy’s little brother.” As Jade was pointing this out, even I had been a little curious about the fan that sent powerful blasts of wind out of it. “I got it while running through an armory. Velvet here can vouch for that and she happens to be our new reindeer friend that for some reason is flightless.”

“Would you just drop the thing about me being flightless already?” You could always ask Velvet, but I don’t think Jade was going to stop bringing it up. There had to be a group of flying Reindeer out there somewhere, especially if Jade believed it so intrinsically.

“It’s from the time of Zephyr Hurricane, there’s a story about a tactical leader said to have been related to Commander Hurricane. It was said he could create powerful tornados or powerful blasts of wind from his fan. He was said to have infused his magic into the fan so deeply, it got to the point that it became a permanent part of the fan itself.” Daring took a seat with our group.

Well that explains why magical alchemy wouldn’t work, Jade couldn’t do anything else with it as it was already permanently infused with powerful amounts of pegasus magic.

“Do you want it?” When Jade asked that, Daring nodded eagerly and took the offered fan to begin looking it over with her hooves.

“Tell me Velvet, did Jaded take anything else from the armory?” I turned back to Kuril addressing Velvet with a false smile.

“Yeah, just two pairs of these things called nunchucks.” Velvet answered innocently. The smile on Kuril’s face didn’t drop, but it did tighten considerably.

“Jaded La Perm, you do realize that those aren’t ninja weapons!” There was more worry than anger in mom’s voice.

“I’ll be careful with them mom, really, you don’t have to worry about it. If it makes you feel any better then I’ll wait until we get home to do anything with them.” Jade’s attempt at appeasement didn’t make mom stop looking at her worriedly.

“Do you realize that you could hurt yourself with them?” Mom asked after a moment of silent thought.

“Oh I know that, but if you’re interested I also stole fifty throwing stars while I was in the armory when Velvet wasn’t looking.” Now there was a proud smile on moms face, sometimes I didn’t get the relationship between Jade and her mother. “I can’t wait to play with my bucket of caltrops.”

“But I was behind you the entire time!” Probably did between you dodging crossbow bolts Velvet, from what Jade told us about that situation. “When and how could you have possibly had the time to grab that many?”

“Snatched it from a few guards in a few quick run by muggings.” It sounded like Jade was going to have fun figuring out how to throw them then, but that was for later.

“Look, just be careful kitten, you are to only hold the nunchucks while I’m supervising you.” Which led me to wondering why mom was so worried about Jade stealing nunchucks, she hardly ever worries about all the other stuff Jade pilfered. You’d think she’d be more concerned about all those throwing stars being in Jade’s possession.

This just made me remember that I have a mother that supports thieving and scrounging for a good cause. As long as we had a good or at the very least decent explanation for our actions, then we could get away with a lot in her eyes.

I don’t think mom will attempt or even be willing to rein in Jade or Blackcap’s natures, heck she doesn’t even rein me in. Not that she has too, I was clearly the sanest of her children, not that that really means much.

“Attention, can I please have everyone’s attention!" Prime’s voice almost sounded like it demanded respect, the tone he spoke in and his actions felt like they all had a weight to them. He just had one of those charismatic heroic voices I’ve ever heard, like Hollow Heart had a charismatically evil voice. “Thanks to Hollow Heart’s recent actions, among other things such as a sun priest being among us, our movement has gained ground against the Order of Dark Dreams in the city. The most violent, loyal and psychopathic thestrals among the cultist order still follow Hollow, he is still a very grave threat to us.”

Jade ducked down while rubbing at her head as every thestral in the room turned to glance at her. That whole prophecy thing gave the thestrals of EVEN quite a bit of credibility, it also gave me a conniption given Jade passed out after delivery.

“It is because of the actions of the mercenary group from Airship Mauled led by Mayor Kuril, that we have managed to gain this ground almost peacefully without an excessive egregious loss of life that Hollow’s methods would have led to. Many homes were wrecked by the Mega Galvanizer created by Hollow, but we saved many a thestral over the last ten to twelve hours and helped those that were trapped under the wreckage of collapsed buildings. We are currently leading the effort to help those who have lost their homes.” All of said wreckage was of course, as Prime probably knows by now, mostly caused by Hollow Heart trying to destroy our tank. We only destroyed one wall to slow him down, Hollow toppled several buildings trying to kill us. That tank definitely galvanized more thestrals to start speaking up against the cultist order that built this place, not that all the thestrals here in the mountain were hardcore cultists begin with. “More than two thirds of the thestrals that live here are now currently against Hollow’s continued leadership. I must also state that there were no thestral casualties.”

A cheer went up from the many thestrals around the room started stomping their hooves in excitement. Nobody died, the city was with Prime’s reform movement and we once again caused a political upheaval. Why am I not more surprised at this rate?

“It is, with a heavy heart, that I must say that we will not be taking the fight to Hollow and will continue our relief efforts. I will not be responsible for a civil war nor do I wish to hurt any thestrals further than he already has. I only want to protect those who can’t protect themselves, though I will actively defend those in need.” Being a leader is hard and it was understandable that Prime didn’t want to exacerbate the current delicate situation. “To that end, I would ask that Mayor Kuril evacuate her people from the mountain. There’s also the matter of what to do with the hole in the square that leads to the spider warrens, we need to think of something before any of the spiders decide to crawl out and attack us.”

That caused a shift in the mood of the room, most of the thestrals weren’t calling out for blood and were even agreeing with Prime’s worry about the hole in the city leading directly to giant carnivorous and poisonous spiders.

“Well it’s been fun kids, but I have to agree with Mr. Number. It’s time for us to get out of here, unless we have other more important concerns before we leave. Our vacation is about over anyway and we can’t stick around for too much longer or else you might miss the first class of Cheerilee’s last year.” Some vacation mom, we got involved in a bunch of crazy and screwy stuff. We’re only leaving because we are being asked to leave and I had to admit, I’m pretty tired of being here. “So what’s our exit strategy and is there anything important that we need to know about.”

“Yes, there is something of great importance that you should know of. Hollow Heart and Screaming Star are actively working together without any sniping going between them, they both seriously want your daughter dead.” Well that was alarming to hear Prime, yet my reaction to it was a dull sigh. The same kind of sigh that Jade release at the same time I did.

Well nothing for it, we’re going through the monastery entrance and taking the airship out of here.

“Yeah, people wanting to kill Jade is nothing new.” Mom giggled a bit and then grew serious glaring slowly around the room at every thestral. She made them all freeze up and one even started whimpering. “Anyone hurts my kitten or our friends and family should expect to receive my full ire. I won’t kill, but know there are some fates worse than death and that I can implement them!”

No thestral challenged mom, but I doubt Hollow would really let us leave just like that.

“Remote and Bumble will be responsible for getting you to the surface and out of the monastery, can you make it down the mountain without our help after that?” One has to admit that Prime was a pretty brave thestral, even for a leader who professes to want peace more than anything.

“Oh we can do more than that, do you want us to take care of the darkness cannons on the way out?” Mom asked pleasantly while her tail wagged in a very mischievous manner, in fact Jade’s started wagging like that too. They looked to each other and smiled cattily, they both titled their heads and gave Prime a cute cat look and he shivered as if an ice cubed was dragged down his spine. “We will gladly accept the escort. Jacky will be a bit slow with her leg injury, my poor Fizzle can’t use magic thanks to the head injury and straining herself, also Jade’s been shot twice by crossbows so she is about as poor off as they are even with her high pain tolerance.”

Oh no, what were they coming up with this time? I knew what Jade was capable of alone, I knew what mom was capable of alone, but both of them together?! I feel sorry for whoever inevitably gets in the way of us leaving.

-Kuril, two hours later-

Oh look, Hollow is getting in the way of us leaving. Well I’m pretty sure we all knew this was going to happen, Hollow knew all the moves that Prime could possibly do. One of them would be to get us safely out of the city while things were turning against Hollow pretty badly.

“Leaving so soon, I expected you to stay and be tortured for a little while longer.” Given Hollow wasn’t receiving a knife in his back By Screaming Star, Jade and I had likely brought them together by sheer mutual hatred of us. Isn’t friendship so grand?

“I’m sure we can take him mom.” Jade, if I were you, I would sound about as half sure as you currently are. Also Hollow is a pretty big thestral, he could really hurt you if you weren’t too careful. From what Prime told us, he was an expert in fighting and cared little for those who have power and didn’t abuse it correctly.

Remote Chance held her crossbow tighter. She was a marks mare and she could predict the chances of hitting a target with thrown or fired weapon, she was really good at horse shoes. Her white and pink streaked mane that fell over her left eye looked out of place against her dark blue fur, her sharp brown eyes glared at Hollow and she looked like she was itching to pull the trigger on the crossbow.

Bumble spread his wing blades out and crouched, ready for a fight as several other armored thestrals arrived.

Blade was palming a knife, I was ready to throw a magic missile, Daring flared her wings, Fizzle looked ready to fight with her bare hooves and Jacky had her bow out.

What did Jade do? She didn't pull her knife and charged them first, we didn't follow as we were a little stunned.

What happened next was quite surprising, with a single push of his hooves Hollow was airborne and swept around to Jade's right at an incredible speed. He hit my turning kitten in the chest with both his hooves and then subsequently put her through the nearest stone wall back first.

That was the signal that started our fight to get out of Fright Night Mountain, Jade getting put through a wall.

Make that two, I just heard Jade grunt as she went through a second wall beyond the first.

Author's Note

This is the last Chapter to Fright Night Mountain, how much can I do with four chapters remaining?

A lot.

Chapter twenty one, Cult Evasion: The Retaliation.

-Jade-

After being put through two different walls, I found myself on my back in a… what the… a bowling alley? Why in the world did the thestrals have a... you know what? Forget it, I’m done trying to make sense of all the weird stuff I’ve seen here this week.

Going with crazy cultists logic on this one, because I seriously doubt thestrals enjoyed bowling all too much to really install a bowling alley like this.

Getting my mind and face backs towards Hollow Heart, he could hit hard and his hits stung. I bounced on my back twice before coming to a rest.

The following blow was quite dazing, as Hollow came down on me to impale my face with both his front hooves and broke the floor with my head.

This should have killed me, given how much force he put into stomping my head. Instead my entire face bent inward, but my skull didn’t break. Thankfully I been ready for Hollow to be quite physically capable, had I not been ready for him I’m quite sure my head would have been cracked like an egg after he stomped it into the floor.

He backed off of me with a smile, that smug grin was soon wiped off his face when he saw that I was still alive. I sat up and gave him a rather bored look as my face popped back out, he was pretty big as far as thestrals go and I really couldn’t take him.

Oh I could survive him just fine, but actively being on the winning side of this fight? Yeah, not going to happen given how much skill he showed in the first ten seconds of combat. I clearly had a pretty good reason for why my current magical alchemy sustain wasn’t my knife and why I had switched it away so quickly.

“Yay, that ouch.” I stated as dryly as possible. He looked at me in confusion and then I slugged him across the face with my right fist, I staggered him at best and that probably wouldn’t even bruise. It got him off of me at the very least.

“So, tougher than you look, you and your friends are being bigger nuisances then I could have ever imagine.” Hollow said staring at me with those cold calculating eyes, as I rolled and stood up looking wobbly. “I wonder, how did you survive those blows? They should have killed you.”

Tightening the musculature in my buttocks to gain some semblance of balance, I probably looked like I had been dazed by the blows from an outsider’s perspective. That wasn’t quite the problem, but my tail helped balance me out and hopefully he didn’t notice anything amiss.

I turned to face him with my right side and slung my left arm back while I raised my shaky right hand palm facing towards him and decided to give him some spiel while I formed a magic missile and held it there.

“Your cult is horrible and I think I dislike everything about you and it in equal measure.” Well if I was going to start talking you to death, then I may as well tell you how I felt. “Also you’re clearly a monster to fight, how you ever formed this failure cult to begin with I’ll never know.”

“It was not by my hoof that the cult came to be, but I was called upon to be its leader and as such they pay tribute to me, Hollow Heart!” He said calmly as he spread his wings, but he didn’t come at me. “All shall fall to the coming darkness and nightmares!”

“Tribute?! Darkness and nightmares are not as strong as you seem to think they are.” I kept myself positioned with my right side facing him, he wasn’t going to notice until it was too late. I took a step toward him and felt a tug on my left arm, but I didn’t change my profile or I’d give up what I was about to do. “I shine light with illumination into the shadows to disperse the darkness to the truth, nightmares are only as strong as our fears and how strongly we cling onto them. Fears are healthy to have, but facing them makes nightmares break upon the dawn and only strengthens the person the nightmares would try to defeat. You’re cult is a weak way to keep the masses enslaved to your whims, I don’t think you even believe in your own doctrine. You’re only in this for the power the position of being Nightmare Moon’s lead cultist provides you.”

“Perhaps the same could be said of all religions. The weak and pathetic gather to chase after power while putting those stronger above them in charge to speak the lies that they’ll gladly listen to. I however have earned my strength and position, I do not falter in the face of failure of the likes you have brought to me.” He grinned showing his terrifyingly sharp looking fangs. “In fact, I can eventually be considered a savior of my kind. My leadership is unquestionable as I have an iron hoof on the people here and we will have night eternal, where all my kind are at our strongest… in the dark light of her moon. Only… there happens to be some minor obstacles in my way. You and Prime are just big thorns in my side. Given the general incompetence of my men surrounding you and Prime in the efforts of your removal, I’ll gladly deal with you both myself in a more… permanent fashion.”

“Words as empty as your heart, the thestrals ill need a savior like you. For what is a stallion like you? A miserable little pile of secrets hiding weakness, but enough talk, have at you!” I fired a magic missile and he easily dodged around it to the right like I knew he would. Incidentally it put him close to my left side.

Hollow came at me quickly and I didn’t move from my spot, only when it was too late did he see something unnatural about my current stance.

It all happened in slow motion as he came for me and saw that my left arm was stretched out beyond the normal length it can naturally go. His eyes slowly went wide and a small smirk started building on my face into a full on feral grin as a look of complete surprise entered his.

Behind me was my left hand grabbing onto a counter a good twenty or more feet away, I had my feet firmly planted to the floor for this. I let go of the counter, balled my fist and threw my hip into it as I heaved my arm forward in what amounted to a rubber band snapping at subsonic to possibly sonic speeds.

As you can imagine the effect was quite amazing as my wobbly looking fist struck Hollow’s face at a rather insane speed and kept going. My arm continued stretching as the momentum kept pushing the thestral on it forward.

He plowed me through two walls and then tried to smash my head in? Well I put him through four laterally at a seventy or so degree angle from where we came in at and just gave him a massive headache as he went through all those walls head first.

The recoil as my extended arm came back on me was quite horrific and sent me flying. It caused me to go bouncing around like an out of control pinball throughout the bowling alley. I think I might have even accidentally hurt an innocent thestral with my whacky waving flailing, possibly inflatable, rubber tube like body.

While my limbs were flailing all over the place, I got at least three strikes before I came to a stop with a bowling pin sticking out of my mouth in the middle of a bowling lane. I spat it out of my mouth and looked at my tangled up body, with a sigh.

After a minute or so of untangling my very hard to manipulate body, I could hear Fizzle shout something going on outside the bowling alley beyond the walls I was put through.

“May the power of the rubber chicken shine its light upon all who saw that and wept bitter tears at the awesome it provided.” I said solemnly stated while hugging my new rubber chicken to myself.

I doubt Hollow Heart would stay down for long, but after hitting him like that he’d at least be out of it for a while. That was hopeful thinking on my part as Prime said he never wanted to face Hollow in direct combat for the very reason that he was tough, prideful and horribly determined to be the leader of a militaristic dictatorship in Nightmare Moon’s name. He even instantly went for the kill on me, which was the kind of serious stuff I’d rather not think about.

Having assasins after me was bad enough, I didn’t need a cult leader on my case as well. So I decided to go all out on him. Unfortunately I couldn’t just slingshot my arm around all wildly like that, I had to actually grab onto something and make sure that my arm stays stretched as I tensed all the muscles in it while I did so.

It just so happens that positioning was in my favor this time. I wobbly walked towards the two walls I was rammed through. To think mom called it a simple defensive sustain that left you incapable of doing anything productive.

Sure it was hard to walk and I was a bit unwieldly using this particular magical alchemy sustain, but with enough practice it was worth using when you can do things like what I just did to Hollow Heart. These floppy rubbery limbs and body just saved my life and were a worthwhile investment to learn how to use.

-Velvet-

I was staying out of the fight with Snickers cuddling my back and Sugar sleeping on top of my head. The fighting had started in earnest and Kuril had very well called it. Despite our best efforts at being stealthy, Hollow still managed to set up an ambush point.

It wasn’t more than a minute or two after watching the rather unusual Jaded get forced through a wall, which looked like it would hurt.

It wasn’t too long after that I watched Hollow Heart burst through four walls and became embedded in the fifth.

I wondered if he was even… he moved and opened his eyes. He slowly and roughly pulled himself from the cratered wall and took a few steps, before grunting as he felt halfway to the ground before catching himself.

He clutched at his head and let out an aggravated sound that was a mix between a screech and an animalistic roar. I was quite horrified by this and started to move towards the action while it looked like he was resting until he could continue pursuing us.

He was still standing after that? Whatever Jaded hit him with, she did a number on him from the onset it would appear. It just apparently hadn’t been enough to knock him out.

Well no time like the present, time to go join in on the fun. So long as nobody damages my perfectly lovely floof, I won’t have to maul half these guys on the principle alone. Does no one understand how hard it is to get my floof just right?

-Jacky-

“Incoming!” I ducked behind the near instantaneous squat wall mom made with a potion and the usual requisite rhyme she spoke when doing magical things. I heard a crossbow bolt shattered against the wall and several throwing stars sunk into it. “Does anyone have a plan? The crossbow guys are worse than the bladed wing guys. Also where’s Screaming Star?”

We really need a way to break through these thestrals and soon if we were to make our escape in a timely fashion. I heard a clang from my immediate right and turned to see Blade struggling with a thestral.

“Do you mind Blade, I’m trying to get a bead on the guys with the crossbows.” I was aiming with a rock held against the string of my bow.

Blade might have grunted at having her splinted wings and back bent over the stone wall, but she still had the time to roll her eyes at me and kick the armored thestral into a nearby wall and charge him.

I took aim and fired the rock, Fizzle jumped as a crossbow bolt fell next to her. I hit the firing mechanism in time.

“Thanks Jacky!” I waved to her as she bucked a thestral in the face with both her rear hooves and the rolled onto her back to start a windmill that send her legs flying into the faces of several thestrals surrounding her several times.

Even without the use of her horn Fizzle was still quite dangerous with her break dance moves, concerning the fact that she just grabbed a thestral and broke his leg with a very unique twisting move.

I turned to mom who was deflecting crossbow bolts and shuriken with her barrier and spiking it out into thestrals, any who got close enough to her was hit several times with the waffle mallet.

It wasn’t long before Velvet charged onto the scene. She said she could fight, but I didn’t expect her to slap her way through several thestrals while stylistically dancing. Not only that, but with the barest movements of her body she could create pillars of ice to smack them around with, she even fired an icicle at one of the thestrals trying to shoot at us with a crossbow.

Then Jade shows up looking almost fine if not for the scuff marks and she immediately starts firing magic missiles into them.

Bumble with a swift action created a path through the thestrals for us by barreling haplessly through them in a volatile manner with his whole body.

“Time to go kids, drop your opponents quickly and let’s get out of here!” In the middle of stating this mom blocked a thestrals wing blades with her shield and then grabbed his right leg with her left hand and swung him around to throw him into several other thestrals. “Daring use the gunbai to give us some breathing room. Blade, RC and Jacky, watch our backs!”

Daring swept the gunbai around in a wide arcing circle and a circular shockwave erupted around her and drove all the nearby flying thestrals to the ground.

I ran forward while firing several deftly aimed rocks into the armored thestrals wings, sending the remaining ones that were still airborne spiraling into the ground.

“We’re kind of awesome aren’t we?” Jade’s wobbling formed stiffened up as she tapped her knife and then proceed to run forward and perform a flying kick on a thestral trying to get Fizzle from behind.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about my little kitten.” Mom said before she pulled a cork out of a vial with her teeth and flicked it outward to splash a mass of black ink into a nearby thestrals face before kicking him in his barrel doubling him over. “Come on everyone, start moving forward! We don’t have all day and I want to be out of here before this gets worse."

We started moving up the path to the monastery.

Author's Note

I'm pretty sure most people would notice the reference this chapter. I'm not talking about the One Piece one.

The rubber chicken gives a rubber like body, only with drastically reduced motor control whatsoever and it is impossible to gain better motor control under it's effects.

Chapter twenty one, Cult Evasion: The Resilient.

-Velvet-

My floof remained untouched thus far, but dancing through the thestrals took quite a bit of my stamina. I had to do it while balancing an adorable killer monster on my head and an adorable snuggle obsessed turtle.

I would just have to pace myself better next time. For I am elegance, I am power and I am the gorgeous Velvet!

The fact that I hadn’t awaked the one called Sugar had me sighing in relief. I heard she could get a bit cranky and that she was really, really dangerous. I’ve never heard of an Al-mi’raj before, to be fair I’ve never heard of a sea turtle dove either.

Everyone was quite serious about not disturbing Sugar and the danger she represented. This is actually the farthest I’ve been from my home really, so I accepted their knowledge on this creature.

Looking back over my shoulder as I followed the others up the path. I saw determined RC, arrow avoiding Jacky and ballistics blocking Blade fighting off the thestrals that gave chase.

“Excuse me, but why don’t you use arrows?” Jacky was a bit uncouth in my eyes. Considering the happenstance around her earlier years of being raised by pirates, it is actually somewhat understandable. Aside from books, this is kind of my first time meeting a pirate, or mercenaries, or insane cults and all the other things I’ve done have been exhilarating.

“My bow isn’t good at shooting them.” Jacky held three paper clips, a small rounded stick and one of Kuril’s recently emptied ink vials against her bow string. Upon releasing the string these object flew in an arc almost like they were arrows, three thestrals went down and one was dazed by the shattering of glass against their skull. “Mom, will we drop by Ponville to pick up party supplies in a few days? I have a new deep rooted appreciation for my party cannon.”

“Of course we will my little chick.” Kuril was quite an affectionate lady and cared for her children, though the good natured sniping between her and her by blood daughter was confusing to say the least.

The attacks from behind dropped off and we were at the stairs to the monastery when Jaded decided to bring something up.

“Before we go any farther I got something important I must say to Fizzle.” Upon Jaded, the kooky kitty that she is, turning to the ever brave broken horned Fizzlepop. She stated something that was apparently comical to everyone that was family to her. “Fizzle, I think I might be… gay. Like really gay! So chances of me ever being comfortable with a male being in our relationship is likely to be very slim.”

There was this long and arduously silent pause, I thought that they were about to turn on her. Instead they just burst out laughing at her, which seems quite insensitive to her feelings from my perspective. There’s nothing wrong with being… otherwise predisposed towards the fairer gender. What was so funny about having such passion?

I might have had a reasons to live on the outskirts of my town and I was uncomfortable with talking about my erstwhile looks to other does. Oh sure, my father and mother probably knew I might have had leanings. I wasn’t about to outright it confirm it for them yet.

I did have something of a reputation to keep up with being of noble descent, plus there’s my being a town guardian which isn’t much of job when the town is never attack more than once or twice a year. Plus I wasn’t the only guardian the town had, just the best out of everyone else and that’s a fact I was proud of.

“Well gee, I could have told you that Jade!” If the laughing Fizzlepop knew that, then why did Jaded looked so surprised? “I mean we are dating after all, but is now really the time for this?”

“Well given that we don’t know where Screaming Star went, I’m pretty sure he’s setting up a kill zone ahead of us.” As Jaded spoke we ascended into the monastery room. “I wanted to air out that revelation before we got into trouble with him, Bahamut and Hollow when he finally catches up to us. It seems exactly like the right time for Bahamut to pull a dick move and attack us, while we’re busy with many other things.”

Wait a moment. If they were dating and Jaded was with Fizzlepop, then how can she only be coming to the conclusion that she is gay now? Unless… oh dear, there’s probably some cultural issues here methinks.

“I know this is actually a serious topic for you to bring up kitten and I’m sorry for laughing, but you have to admit with the way you, Maries and Fizzle act together I wouldn’t think the situation to be any different between you even if you were bisexual.” After saying that Kuril gained a concerned look, did she not like the fact that her daughter was attracted to one of her other children? Also was Maries the name of the chimera? Pausing at the top of the stairs and closing the entrance behind us, Kuril moved closer to her daughter and gave her a gesture of comfort by wrapping an arm around her and squeezed her. “I’m so glad you found yourself kitten, at least you don’t need a map.”

“You’re supportive of her?!” I seriously didn’t mean to yell that out loud, it was a slip of the tongue really. I was quite ashamed as soon as I had asked, mostly because I was projecting my own personal hang ups with the fact that my parents might not approve of one of the few things I can’t change about myself. The stares I was receiving weren’t flattering to say the least. “Sorry, I just feel that you've been a bit upsetting to Jaded’s feelings on the matter personally.”

They took my words at face value with a shrug as we exited the room and everything was quiet in the monastery.

“I’d be kind of a hypocrite not to, almost all Abyssinians are bisexual and rarely are we ever gay or entirely straight. Whatever rumors you hear about Abyssinians and the word ‘stupidly open’ are most likely true.” Everyone turned a little green at hearing that from Kuril, except Jaded who likely already knew about it and was unflustered. “I’m one of the few that went for something monogamous, we herd as much as ponies do and sometimes… well… let’s just say that happy accidents are fairly common in Abyssinia.”

“Why do I have mental images now?! Why?!” Fizzlepop cried out clutching her head with her hooves and trying to hide the fact that her entire head was now as red as her mane. Kuril moved Jaded over to Fizzle and she squeezed them together.

“It just means you’re growing my little filly, that and I just reminded you that you’ve seen my precious tom cat without her shirt, cloak, pants, shorts or any clothing on at all for that matter.” Petting her further embarrassed daughter’s mane softly as we moved forward, Kuril came to a stop just shy of exiting this section of monastery out into the open. We all stopped and waited to see why Kuril did. “To test my kitten’s theory… we need the most infamous adventurer’s tool ever.”

Rope?

It wasn’t rope, Kuril pulled out and unfolded a long collapsible pole and smiled at us.

“The general ten foot collapsible pole… only ever beaten by the eleven and a half model which is three times more expensive for whatever reason.” Really, why would one and a half feet cost so much? I didn’t voice it, but Kuril’s ears flicked and she looked at me with a small smile. Did I say it out loud? “No, but you were thinking it loudly enough. In any case you’re not a true adventurer if you don’t carry a ten foot pole or at least some rope on your person.”

I jumped in shock, what the… how did she just read me like that?

“It wasn’t exactly hard.” Moving to the corner with a careful grace using the pole as a walking stick, she peeked out into the filtering moonlight from the courtyard. “Our days are so messed up... I am not seeing anything and it’s too quiet out there. Kitten’s right, its Screaming Star setting up an ambush for the unwary.”

“How can you be sure?” Daring asked moved up looking at the empty courtyard and the lightly falling snow rippling in the wind. Nothing was going on out there.

“This.” Kuril took one end of the staff in both her hands and swung it out into the open quickly. What we heard next was a continuous series of thuds as the pole seemed to vibrate in her paws. Once it ended, she pulled the pole back and the part that had been out in the open was completely perforated with crossbow bolts. “Huh, they are really good shots. I mean it is one thing to hit a target as small as a pole, it’s another to put a number of shots straight through it in a concerted effort.”

A second later some kind of large blob creature dropped from the ceiling above us and Kuril backed up in shock dropping the pole full of crossbow bolts. She stared at the horrible blob monster as the pole sunk into its briny jiggly monstrously ugly swamp like depths and then it simply sunk into the cracks in the floor.

“Mom… was that what I thought it was?” Jaded said a little perplexed and astonished. “I thought you said that something that impossibly stupid couldn’t possibly exist!”

“How was I to know they actually exist?! Look can we talk about this strange encounter later and start running while they are all still reloading their crossbows!” With that Kuril shot out into the courtyard and everybody followed her.

“What was that thing and how do you both know about it?” From what little I could see, the thestrals were almost done reloading. I best prepare to make a maneuver to cover our backs.

“Quick version, its name is complicated to say. It’s a creature that has the ability to find ten foot long or pole shaped objects within a thirty mile radius, then it eats them.” Jaded ducked a crossbow bolt as at least forty or so thestrals started following us out in the cold snowy tundra of the mountain. I hope this airship of theirs can still fly.

“Is it more dangerous than the thestrals?” Fizzle leapt as she kept pace with Jaded and avoided getting several crossbow bolts in the back.

“Fire, fire! Get them you imbeciles!” So that’s Screaming Star, well he sounded like how everyone described him. His voice would do so well in a punk rock band, but instead he chooses to be a second in command militaristic cultist. Jaded pointed her left hand over her shoulder and fired a ball of energy, seconds later there was the sound of a crossbow firing and very loud vocal screech. “Ow, my hoof!”

Jade let out an evil sounding snicker as she ran, she doesn’t like anyone trying to harm Fizzlepop at all I take it. I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side at the very least.

“No, they are more annoying than dangerous.” While Jaded was given us the quick run down, I jumped and stomped all four of my hooves into the snow a large wall of ice intersected multiple cross bow bolts and cracked with each hit.

As a testament to my skill with ice magic, it didn’t break and caught every crossbow bolt perfectly. RC took a moment to use my ice wall as cover to shoot a thestrals wing.

“You know we’re just leading them to the airship right?” Why was Jacky bringing that up now? “It’ll be pretty hard to do anything while being shot at, we have to do something about those thestrals and the darkness cannons already look like they are turning towards us.”

“Blackcap… remind me… how long has it been since your luck last sporadically enacted uninhibited and unmitigated vengeance against us?” What did that have to do with anything Fizzlepop?

“Oh dang… it’s been hours since anything seriously bad has happened to Jacky… or us by proximity!” There was a look of horror on Jaded’s face. This was matched by Blade, Fizzlepop, Jacky herself, Kuril and even Snickers look very visibly upset on my back. In fact Snickers clamped her flippers down to my back and whined pitifully as if expecting some drastic world ending event.

A large shadow fell over us and the darkness cannons stopped aiming at as and started to track something else… something humongous.

Even the thestrals started to frantically back off and away from us. The cannons were firing at the much bigger than previously seen dragon, they weren’t doing a single thing to him.

-Bahamut-

It was time to play with the mortals, those souls who are heroic shall face my wrath and be stronger for it should they come out the other side still standing. It is time to test their resilience, their resolve and their collective strength.

The puny cannons of corruption and darkness just slid off of my scales, the gnats really shouldn’t even be trying.

I’ll also be doing the priest’s group a small favor, should they survive that is. They won’t immediately notice it, but they will notice… my might!

My jaws split open, building with unstoppable power.

All who have seen it and lived through it know its very name by heart, as it is etched into their very souls. The priest however knew its name before we ever met.

Curious that… even if it was never previously etched into her soul. It certainly would be now!

-Jade-

“Mom… use every vial of delayed wall you have and then sustain the shield like our very lives depend on it.” Mom started throwing potions without incanting their purpose, the battle barrier was hovering above her shield immediately. “Velvet… put as much ice between us and him as you can. Reinforce mom’s walls first and foremost. Daring… create a tornado of protective air around us and put your all into it. Everyone else… brace my mother when she gets the barrier into position.”

“Jade, he’s about three times the size he was previously.” Yes Fizzle, I’m very well aware. Gods can do that as you very well know. “Do you seriously expect us to survive what he’s doing?”

“Yes, because if we don’t… then we’ll end up disappointing him.” Everyone quickly scrambled to follow my orders, it wasn’t long before he would fire what he was known for. “This is Bahamut’s test of heroes, the Mega Flare!”

“Does he think we’re heroes?” Asked Jacky who was looking a bit worried at the gradually building sun in Bahamut’s jaws.

“Yep… heroes always rise to a challenge, even if it is one of the scariest challenges in existence.” This was not one of things I ever wanted to be on the other end of, like ever! “If we survive this, let’s hope he doesn’t hit the airship!”

“Big if Jade, big if!” Fizzlepop tried to light her horn, I immediately stopped her by grabbing it and then pulling her into a deep passionate kiss. I gave her a sharp look, we quickly braced mom.

The world soon went impossibly white.

Author's Note

A exceedingly small time skip in the next chapter. The reason will be explained quite quickly.

Like that, only more beam like.

Chapter twenty one, Cult Evasion: The Reaper.

-Fizzle-

Okay we weren’t dead and we were getting on the airship, but we were not without our casualties. We didn’t have long before the thestrals noticed that we survived. I had one pertinent question to ask Jade who seemed to not dislike Bahamut after what he did to us.

“Jade, do you have any idea what ‘yol toor shul’ means?” Because that’s been in my head for the last few minutes and it’s something I don’t think I could forget, but for the life of me I didn’t understand why those words were there after we survived.

“Nope, but I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, I got ‘wuld nah kest’ in my head personally. It’s likely a side effect of surviving Bahamut’s attack.” Watching Jade carry our limping badly injured mom whose right arm was broken limp mess was kind of hard. It was worse to see Jacky was carrying a near dead Sugar with a completely blackened horn, we were hurting badly and I wasn’t talking about my head injury. “I still like him though!”

“How can you still like him after that?!” It beggared belief that Jade still liked Bahamut after he attacked us and seriously injured not only mom, but Sugar too! Not only that, she stopped me from using my magic before the attack came… she probably saved my life again, but I was more than a bit angry with her over it.

“Because he destroyed all the darkness cannons on the mountain around the monastery!” Jade made me freeze up in disbelief, but I hadn’t exactly looked back as we quickly boarded the thankfully intact airship in the crevice. Not after Bahamut practically erased all the snow on the part of the mountain and took a bit of the peak while he was at it. There was a small visible strip of snow back where we put up our defenses. “He certainly cares about balance after all, we won’t be hit by any of those on the way out.”

“If you hadn’t ‘fo krah diin’ dearie, we need to get moving!” Velvet shouted at us. Why was she still following us again? She could have easily started on her way home at any time after bringing Snickers back to Jade. “You know, before they find out that we’re still alive?”

“Jacky… get to work… on the balloon.” Mom was a complete mess, I don’t know how she was still awake in her condition. She stumbled away from a surprised looking Jade, who had been holding her up, and towards Daring. She was starting to cough a lot too, I didn’t like the flecks of red on her left hand. “Daring can I… borrow the gunbai for a second?”

Daring hoofed the gunbai over to mom’s left hand, we were definitely building a hospital first chance when we got back home and she needed a really good unicorn doctor for her right arm.

“Hold on to something…” Mom moved towards the front of the Airship, she looked back to make sure we were all onboard and it was quite crowded with Velvet, RC and Bumble here. Daring doesn’t spring for large airships, because she usually doesn’t need them. She swung the gunbai down once and soon the snow started shifting. “I’m going… to lie down, give Sugar… to me please. Try not to make this too… bumpy.”

Mom took Sugar from Jacky and limped her way into the cabin. A worried Snickers followed them in cooing sadly as she hovered around mom.

It was seconds later that airship started sliding down hill on top of a slowly building avalanche, we were beginning to pick up some real speed. Jacky immediately started getting to work on getting the airship airborne before we hit the edge of the mountain in the distance.

“What is that?” Jade pointed out something in the distance. It obviously looked like a thestral glowing with the power of darkness encompassing his body. “I think that might Hollow, he looks pretty pissed off that I sucker punched him so hard.”

Gee, you think? There was a swarm of thestrals forming up behind the cultist leader and they were heading our way.

“Daring, RC, Bumble, form up on me. We need to hold them off! I’m tired of them having air superiority.” With a flick of her wrist I saw that Jade was holding two feathers of Celestia in her left paw. “Everyone else protect Jacky and help her get the airship airborne like yesterday!”

One feather dissolved and Jade directed the energy into her body, two weak looking wings made of light popped out of her back. They were so faint I could barely even see them, it was because it was nighttime and this cast was weaker when it was dark. I wouldn’t fly on those if I were her in any case.

She stuffed the other feather in her right ear and it started glowing, but didn’t that sustain… oh of course! The self-sustain… absorb sunlight, protect from darkness. Hollow certainly looked like a nightmare right now with those glowing red eyes and permeating dark miasma coming off of him.

Jade probably wouldn’t be able to do anything to him otherwise, but with the glowing feather the wings hovering above her back solidified and hardened. I take it she was also redirecting the sunlight in the feather to the wings? Well the feathers sunlight charge wouldn’t last very long in that case.

“Sweet it worked, solar powered feather for the win!” She didn’t know the other feather would increase the strength of the wings outside of direct sunlight? Ugh, Jade, you’re an idiot! A very brilliant beautiful math challenged one no less. “We’ll try to keep them off of the airship.”

Jade took off and the three winged ponies just stared after her in shock, after a second they all scrambled to follow after her. Blade tapped me and pointed to Jacky who was doing all the work by herself. I rushed over to assist Jacky, but the airship jumped when it hit something and it sent Jacky overboard with a plank of wood.

I blinked in shock as I watched Jacky precariously balanced on the bit of wood riding it in the sliding snow. It was still one of those days huh?

“Velvet, we need some help over here!” She could get Jacky back onboard in quick… I started snickering at my thoughts. She was already on a board. I didn’t think I could still laugh with how horrible things were going.

-Jade-

Darn it, this wasn’t going to be an easy fight. No one said life was ever easy and I had to keep in mind how long these wings lasted. I also had to keep in mind how sunlight was in the feather while I was charging my wings with it.

I was flying towards a swarm of thestrals. I was outnumbered and outgunned, as long as Fizzle stayed safe I could care less about myself. Daring was supposed to survive this right? Don’t know about RC or Bumble, but they seem like some of Prime’s best given how well they fight.

The distance closed and I held up my left hand and fired a magic missile, okay I was already drained and that just let me know how tired I was.

Okay hold back on the magic missiles, unless I direly needed to use one. The missile I had fired took out a thestrals wing and sent them spiraling into two more.

“Fire!” The thestrals followed Hollow’s orders immediately, I held up the shield I took from mom with my right arm and multiple bolts deflected off of it as I changed my profile to fit behind it. I couldn’t sustain the feather and the shield at the same time, so I was relying on my wits here.

After the swarm of crossbow bolts bounced off the shield and left my right arm somewhat numb, a crossbow bolt flew past me and it bounced off the aura Hollow had going for him.

I looked back to see a look of shock on RC’s face. The shot had been dead on for Hollow’s hear… if he had one that is. It didn’t do a thing to him, a look of determination crossed her face as she loaded another crossbow bolt and Bumble the yellow striped thestral flicked out his wings blades matching his friends look.

Hollow just chuckled darkly, because that power he had going to his head right now was pretty badass. It was unfortunate that it was the evil kind of badass. Prime might have been gaining the will of the people, but he was still understaffed and was definitely not well armed enough to handle this guy. We had allies, but they weren’t going to do much since most of them were noncombatants.

“You’re not going to be able to beat Hollow like this!” Screaming Star cackled loudly as he directed his troops as a well-oiled unit to spread out and take aim as they approached, this is probably why Hollow didn’t mind the assassination attempts. Screaming was pretty good at directing his soldiers.

“We’ll see about that!” I called back. The distance between us was closing fast and if I could stall long enough then we can get our airship airborne. Even then we wouldn’t escape or get very far with all these thestrals attacking it.

“Please tell me you have a plan, because I don’t think I can take on nearly that many thestrals.” Hovering right next to me Daring had five crossbow bolts in her helmet. The legends about the helmet were true, it really does attract projectiles! “Also need I remind you about the injuries? This seems pretty suicidal.”

“Oh trust me I do have a plan, be prepared to hit them hard and fast. I want you guys to cover your eyes when I shout ‘Fill Life’.” I’ve recently figured out that Celestia’s feathers were far more useful than me and mom had previously thought. “I’m about to show them why I’m called a sun priest and that it isn’t just some fancy moniker.”

In fact I got the idea from Bahamut, I wasn’t going to stay made at the guy like the others. He was just doing his job after all, so no hard feelings from me despite him injuring mom and Sugar pretty badly. Though I could go for another taco.

I waited for them to get a little close before I started, RC, Bumble and Daring stayed with me.

“Do you seriously think yourself invincible just because a crossbow bolt bounced off you Hollow? Well let me ‘Fill Life’, with illumination!” Let’s see, I was aware that Hollow and his ilk had been trapped underground for a while and that they all had pretty good night vision. Well what would happen if they were to get hit with a solar flare via sunlight funneled to my left hand and blasted outwards in the form of a cast? Redirecting sunlight was what the feather did, we just never thought about redirecting the sunlight inside the feather itself.

Here’s mud in your eyes jerks! A bright flash filled the area and thanks to my warning, Daring, RC and Bumble had avoided being blinded by it. The seventy or so screeching thestrals clutching at their eyes, including Hollow and Screaming, were not as lucky as they saw the sun for a brief instance.

A lot of them were going to be blind and disoriented for a while.

“Holy flap!” Well, what did you expect Daring? I’m a sun priest and doing things with sunlight was likely one of my things… I could make it a thing.

The feather in my right ear was drained from doing that and the wings on my back faded slightly, so I better not do that a second time unless I really needed to or else I wouldn’t be able to fly very well.

“Come on, go, go, GO!” I swooped into the swarm of disoriented thestrals and was followed by Bumble and a second later Daring. “Hit as many of them as you can fast and hard, then start flying back for the airship!”

I pulled my knife from my hip and started to slash my way through a few thestrals wings, Daring Do just slapped their wings with her hooves and whip.

The real star of the minutes of free attacks I bought us was Bumble who put a good forty of them down with barely two swooping sweeps of his bladed wings, he was flying like a butterfly and hitting like a Hercules beetle.

RC stayed back and managed to lightly injure Hollow with a shot across the back. He looked to be recovering a lot faster than the others… because of course he was. Darkness protected his eyes, but it couldn’t protect itself from the light.

Bumble, having dealt with a large number of thestrals in such a short amount of time, let it go to his head as he angled for Hollow. I would have shouted a warning, but it was already too late.

Hollow grabbed him out of the air by the throat with his right hoof and started choking him, he struggled to attack Hollow’s leg with his wing blades and hooves, but it wasn’t doing anything.

“Insect…” Hollow stopped flapping his wings entirely and hovered there. With the sweeping edge of his left wing, he gouged out a chunk of the struggling Bumble’s throat in a bloody display and tossed his body away.

“No!” A horrified RC swooped down to catch him.

“Get him some help, we’ll take it from here!” I received a reluctant look from RC as she held Bumble’s body close to herself, after a moment she finally nodded and started flying off. I fired a magic missile at Hollow’s face and he flinched when it hit him “Come on Daring!”

“Send some men after her Screaming… make sure they know I’ll be displeased if she gets away.” Hollow turned towards the directions we were fleeing, Screaming immediately sent the few thestrals that were still flying after RC. “I will not let their insufferable minor victory go unpunished.”

He spread out both his wings and shot after the sun priest, with darkness coalescing around him and one goal on his mind. Revenge against those who thought they could stop him!

Fizzle -

“Incoming, it looks like Jade dealt them a pretty nasty blow!” Even as I said that, I had watched as hollow grab Bumble and then… yeah that was not going to be a pretty thing for me to remember. “RC and Bumble are out, Bumble might be…”

My voice hitched, it looked really bad and I didn’t want to believe it. I decided not to voice my thought.

“Mountain edge coming, how many are still coming after us?” We had gotten Jacky back onboard the airship with the help of Velvet creating ramps to launch her off of, it took three attempts and ate up quite a bit of time.

Hopefully Jacky could fill the balloon on the way down, because we were about to go off the cliffs edge.

“Quite a few, they still have at least ten or so coming at us. That’s including ‘darkness glowing’ Hollow Heart and Screaming Star.” I could pull together magic for a single burst if needed, but I’m quite sure Jade wouldn’t want me to do that with a head injury.

“I’ll work faster.” You better work faster Jacky!

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy information!)

4.Sunlight. (Update)

Alicorn Feather. (Update)

Chapter twenty one, Cult Evasion: We all fall down.

Author's Note

This ends the Cultist Vacation fun times.

Chapter twenty one, Cult Evasion: We all fall down.

-Fizzle-

“Edge of Seared Seer Mountain in about twenty two seconds Jacky! Jade and Daring are on their way back and Bumble just might have been… critically injured… by big, dark and evil.” I was estimating here as the boat was picking up speed.

“Good news, with the way I set it up the balloon will act something like a poor parachute once we start falling.” Sounded okay to me Jacky. “Bad news, we’ll have to quickly inflate it while falling. If we don’t and we hit terminal velocity… then we’ll all die! On the bright side, with the way I set it up at least we won’t immediately flip over the second we go off the edge of the mountain.”

“Blade, check on mom and brace her and Sugar for when we start falling. Pin them to the floor with your body and knife if you have to, just prevent her from getting hurt any worse!” I started off commanding Blade and then turned to Velvet as our thestral friend went into the cabin. “When the balloon starts parachuting we’ll need you to climb up onto it Velvet!”

“Why whatever for?” Velvet seemed to wilt a bit at the idea of doing something so dangerous.

“To stop the thestrals from putting any holes in the balloon while Jacky and I fill it…” At this point we went over the edge of the mountain and I didn’t feel like we had any more time to discuss it.

-Jade-

“Incoming, I’ve got Hollow. I don’t know how long I can take him for, try to keep Screaming’s forces off the airship.” Both I and Daring dove after the falling airship with several thestral tails on us. I was likely the only one that could seriously hurt Hollow in his nightmare state.

“I’m never getting the deposit back on this airship if it crashes.” Daring then received a shuriken to her helmet and then spread her wings she shot up and threw a vicious air stalled uppercut on the thestral that threw it.

I didn’t have much time to think on it as Hollow came at me, I flipped around to face him. He threw his right hoof at me, he barely grazed me and it sent me careening into the mountains wall.

I bounced off the wall grunted and then Hollow came in, no words, no playing, all business. He slammed my back against the wall, well he would have if I wasn’t using the lights wings to keep my back from scraping against the icy stone wall as we continued our downward momentum.

He lifted his left hoof and swung it at my face bloodying my nose when the hit connected. I took one of the wings he was grinding down off the wall and swept it through his head, dispersing the darkness around his face.

I swiftly slashed him across the face with the my left set of claws making him back off, I bloodied him hard and took quite a bit of skin and fur off where I hit him.

Getting a little distance away from the wall I directed some sunlight into reinforcing and rebuilding the wings of light. I had about twenty percent charge left and the wings of light wouldn’t hold together much longer after having been under so much stress.

While reforming my wings, I didn’t let Hollow get too far. Grabbing his hind right leg and, with a swift yank, I swung and released him head first into the mountain with a painful sounding crack. Looking up I could see the indent his head left behind after he had bounced off the mountain.

At the speeds we were currently falling at, that had to have at least hurt him somewhat right? Would I be lucky enough for that to have killed him? Where did he go after he bounced off the mountain?

I really shouldn’t have taken my attention off of him after I let him go. His left hoof rammed into my stomach from out of nowhere folding my body over it. While I was stunned, his right hoof grabbed me by the throat.

I tried to struggle, the darkness felt horrible and cloying like it was trying to seep into me and it was quickly sapping my strength.

I really had to thank Celestia’s feather for the minor protection it gave me, it prevented me from putting up less of a fight than Bumble did when Hollow grabbed him.

Also I most certainly did not want my throat slashed open, he raised his wing ready to swing it outwards to do just that.

“You may resist the effects of the darkness, but you are soon to be a footnote in my glorious…” His eyes widened and he released me, if he hadn’t he would have received clear lance shaped icicle to his extremities from below.

I looked down and saw Velvet created a bunch of snowflake shaped sheets of ice that blocked several incoming crossbow bolts from Screaming’s soldiers. I quickly turned back to Hollow reminding myself not to lose sight of him and nearly took a sharp edged wing across the face.

Flipping backwards I kicked him in the face knocking him upwards, there was a glint of something as Hollow reoriented himself and a barely visible shuriken ripped through my right side.

How strong is this guy that he could throw one of those things that fast?

I planted my right arm over the wound and with a twirl, I flipped over and pointed downwards. Pushing with my wings to speed up, I got closer to the Airship with darkness entrenched Hollow hot on my tail.

Speaking of tail, he grabbed mine and that was something you never do to cat! I flipped around and immediately solar flared the darkness off of him at point blank range.

My feather barely had a charge left after that, but it was enough to keep my wings strong for about another minute.

I immediately clung to Hollow by wrapping my legs around his waist and started to hit him rapidly with a furious amount of claw swipes to the face.

He was ridiculously strong and his face was ridiculously tough, but my tenacity to injure him was causing his now noticeable darkness induced healing quite a lot of trouble.

Not enough trouble as his darkness burst back to life, said burst sent me flying away from him. At least his injuries didn’t seem to be healing this time.

-Velvet-

Kick, step, prance, roll, buck and twist, hip thrust, right hoof sent out in an arc… this was beginning to become a little more than even I can handle with all my grace and dignity. A resplendent reindeer, such as myself, wasn’t meant to fight on top of a falling airship’s balloon.

I could feel it getting somewhat firmer beneath my hooves and our falling was beginning to slow down imperceptibly.

While they had the easy job of filling the balloon up, I meanwhile was stuck with the hard job with having to deflect crossbow bolts and shuriken while fending off diving attacks with swift movements and copious amounts of ice magic.

Like that thestral swooping in at me from the right as I created another extravagantly formed snowflake barrier with a sweeping arc of my right hoof. I don’t think I’d be able to stop him in time and block the next three shuriken and two crossbow bolts.

I didn’t have to worry about that thestral coming at me with the wing blades, because when he got close to the balloon he seemed to stop in mid-air and let out a horrified screech. A knife had suddenly appeared on him, rammed three fourths of the way to its hilt, in his right shoulder.

With that injury, the thestral smartly retreated and started flying back up the mountain.

I immediately, and quite gracefully if I do say so myself, deflected each projectile I was previously worried about with but a few flicks of my dainty hooves, a few well-formed and aimed icicles along with two well placed snowflake barriers.

After I sent the icicles arcing at our aggressors, I took a few steps to the side and looked as Blade climbed up onto the balloon.

I assume that well thrown knife was her hoof work, she nodded to me in silent acknowledgment.

Looks like I was getting some much needed help, Screaming Star still had five guys left to hassle me while he was busy with Daring.

Why didn’t I take the chance to leave and go separate ways when it was offered?

Oh right, that would mean I would have to go home. Also, I would never know why Snickers went to all that trouble to drag me to her bonded partner.

I stood up on my hind hooves and twirled rapidly. Once I stopped deflecting the projects with swirling winds, I dropped to all four hooves with my rear facing two of the thestrals. I bucked outwards in a way as to point both my rear hooves at them.

Two smaller swirling tornadoes of frigid ice erupted and swirled right into two of the airborne thestrals freezing their wings solid. They fell into some clouds and were out of the fight, only three left it would seem.

That technique was quite tiring, but it was always such an impressive display for others to watch.

-Daring-

I might not be the best flyer in the world, but if I can handle the likes of Ahuizotl and his menacing menagerie, then Screaming Star wasn’t a real big issue.

It was just that he could fly faster than I could and was impossibly maneuverable in the air, I would say he’s almost better than a pegasus. ‘Almost’ being the key word, up close and personal he was nothing compared to me.

He tried to swipe me with his right wing and I floated out of range of his attack and he kept trying to press me with his hooves or his wings.

Any shuriken he threw immediately went into my lucky helmet, lucky in the fact that it always stopped me from getting skewered.

I swung my whip and managed to hit one of his wings, he dropped a few feet before catching himself. He didn’t even yelp or scream at some of his membrane taking damage. Did his pain tolerance match Jade’s repeatedly mentioned mythical proportions?

I tried to hit him again only his wings crossed, caught my whip and then, with an outward swing of both of them, he shredded my whip. Does he not know how hard it is to find good adventuring whips?

He came at me and I charged forward towards him, hoof to hoof it was then. Unfortunately for him, I’m a pugilist and I punched out panthers or bigger on a regular basis!

He spun trying to catch me with his right and left wing in that order, both of which I weaved out of the way of before he tried to use his centripetal force to throw a hard right at me.

I deflected with my left hoof so that he got a glancing blow off the right side of my neck and then I slugged him with my right hoof and delivered a straight with my left dazing him even further. Three more hits, a left, a right and another left.

Properly stunned, I was ready for my finisher since it had a dramatically long windup. I spread my wings and grabbed him with my hooves in a loose grip, I reared back with both my hind legs.

I spun upwards and threw an harsh upper buck into his chin knocking his butt flat out and into a cloud where he would lazily drift away with several broken teeth. Hopefully he’d do something else with his time.

Oh yeah, I’m awesome!

Wait… too soon to celebrate, got to get back to the airship.

-Jade-

My wings were faded to almost nothing.

Hollow was pummeling me with his hooves, each blow like a magical jackhammer that was likely enhanced by his current nightmare state. I was quickly losing the will to fight and the ability to put up any at all.

I was covered in bruises, welts and my own blood and he just had a bleeding face.

I wasn’t winning, to put it lightly.

He grabbed me by the throat again and slammed his left hoof into my face, the agonizing pain to face could not be described. I think he just broke my nose with that one.

I caught his next blow and kicked him in the sheath with my right foot. No reaction whatsoever on his face, not even a grimace of pain. What in Tartarus was this guy made of?

He hit me with his hoof again and the whole world went blurry, along with black spots and vertigo twisting out of control. So much pain, so dizzy… can’t think.

“See now the power of… what?!” Hollow seemed shocked by something as his hoof suddenly stopped being covered in shadows.

I could see the horizon, the sun peeking over the edge of the world.

It was a beautiful sight… the wings on my back came more into focus and he threw his hoof forward, I used both the glowing wings to block him and they shattered. At least he didn’t hit me this time.

He screamed and my blurry, tear filled, vision came into focus. Shattering the wings of sunlight had scorched his flesh and ripped multiple holes into his wings membrane.

I was untouched by their shattering, I don’t think it was because I created them with a cast.

I knew the wings had a heat to them, but it looked like he just suffered instant full bodied third to maybe even fourth degree burns. That probably wasn’t good for him in this kind of weather.

He roared at me enraged and came at me rearing back his hoof looking like an angry and tattered revenant, I was currently too beaten to defend myself.

“Hollow!” The one being called out to didn’t reach me, because Prime rammed into him.

What little I saw was Prime ripping into Hollow heart, his teeth gnashing, wings striking out and hooves hitting with force that made sounds that even I was wincing at in my state.

Eventually, Prime dealt a final devastating blow that sent Hollow spiraling away somewhere onto the ledges of the mountain. By then I landed on something soft and bouncy… heh, landed on the balloon.

My eyelids were growing heavy… I was lucky to be alive after facing that monster head on.

“Jade?" Was that Velvet’s voice? "Get that medical kit out!”

-Prime-

Hollow will be back, I doubt he’d stay down despite his vast number of injuries. He was surprised by my unbridled rage and sudden attack, but none would be more surprised than I at the brutality I had unleashed upon what was once a friend.

A friend that was no longer there… in his place was a horrible monster that I might see again.

I flew to the flying airship and decided to check on those who needed help and I would reflect on my anger.

If I am to help the thestrals of Fright Night Grotto, I must be better myself.

-???-

A steaming hoof shot out of a pile of snow.

Wendigoes swirled around the spot.

Though the burning hatred fed them, the object did not freeze in their cold.

It was the cold.

Chapter twenty two, While You Were Out: Soft Kitty.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter twenty two, While You Were Out: Warm Kitty.

-Jacky-

I think Fizzle needed some time to herself, so now I was holding a sad looking turtle. Snickers pointed in Jade’s direction and then at Fizzle, was she upset about Fizzle being angry with Jade?

“Look Snickers, I think Fizzle and Jade’s relationship won’t be affected by this. They’re both really stubborn about how much they care for one another and need a little time.” The reaction I got was something approaching a hopeful look, I patted her on the head. “Don’t you have something else to worry about? I mean you dragged that nice reindeer into our lives for a reason after all, she was a real big help with protecting the balloon while it was being inflated.”

“Coo!” Snickers started to rub her flippers together in an evil manner and she looked excited about the prospect of something. I began to worry that Snickers might be evil, given that turtles shouldn’t come across as adorably demented like that. Then again, I couldn’t actually think a mystical turtle that might work for love gods would do something too horrible.

“We’re coming in for a landing everyone, it looks like you’re local goddess is waiting for you.” It seemed like Daring was a little worn out by her adventure, she didn’t sound as excited after she helped Jade down from the top of the balloon.

Her hoof to hoof fight with Screaming got Daring’s blood pumping until she saw Jade and helped finish off the remaining thestrals that were harassing us.

Looking over the side I could see Sekhet waiting for our landing. While she wasn’t smiling too much, she at least looked happy to see us return home. There was a strange stallion sitting next to her, looked like a doctor. So Velvet and Blade did actually see Rata on the ship, he probably told Sekhet to acquire some medical help for the La Perms.

I decided to go help the landing preparations, even started whistling the infamous gangplank galleon tune as I grabbed the gangplank.

Ah, classic pirate music, the best kind. Still can’t see what Jade see’s in ninjas, we beat the crap out of a lot of them. The inverse ninja law was pretty bad for them, pirates only had the back stabbing for more money if your captain is a complete asshole law and I wasn’t about to do that to my friends.

-Sekhet-

“You know, I’ve never helped a goddess with anything before.” Oh yay, one of those kind of ponies. Why did Ratatoskr have to get the talkative kind of doctor? Bedside manners, what are those, let’s talk about it!?

As annoying as he sounded to me, we needed him and I couldn’t just riddle him into the ground because he was annoying. That would be clearly against sphinx rules, I can’t riddle without a just cause for it. He’s not actually trespassing and is offering his services to us wholesale for long as we needed him around, we are paying him for his skills and not his personality.

“Look we require your assistance with this because the local doctor is good at skin and fur care only.” I liked Potassium well enough, his fur and skin care advice were top notch. Never has a goddess like me felt so fluffy, his special talent was a worthy one. “We’ve been meaning to get around to building at least a clinic out here, only we don’t really have people that can really staff it.”

“Well if you need some ponies that are looking for a job, I can refer them to this place. Airship Mauled was it?” The ship came in for a landing and the doctor looked curious as to whom his patients were. “So what are the conditions of the patients, I don’t exactly like bad surprises here.”

“Broken bones, maybe some internal bleeding and some other horrible injuries I’m sure.” I lowered myself to look him in the eyes. “Let’s just say they are very important to me. So do your best mortal, because I am paying you to help my friends.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m good for fast medical procedures.” The pink eyed unicorn gave me a friendly smile, before it dropped slightly. “Though the environment I will have to work in might a bit of a problematic factor if I can’t move my patients from the ship.”

“Do you what you can for them.” I kept my tone clipped and even, because I wasn’t about to rip into someone who was already willing to help us with this.

The ship came in for a landing in the only zone in Airship Mauled where airships absolutely refused to crash. Right next to wherever the Ardent Survivor was currently parked. The aptly named ship did kind of create a safety zone for other ships to land in this incidental airship destroying town.

I shrunk down to a more manageable size as Jacky lowered the gangplank while whistling a jaunty tune and I made my way up to meet her.

“I brought a doctor, who needs to be checked out? Ratatoskr said it was pretty bad, but his descriptions leave much to be desired.” It was not hard to procure a doctor with a delivery squirrel as fast as Ratatoskr was.

“Everyone really, just to be sure we don’t have slow acting poison in our systems. We did fight some ninja style thestrals. I don’t honestly know where they were keeping all those crossbow bolts or throwing stars, but they pulled them out of multiple different places on their bodies. Kind of like how I pull out my party cannon come to think of it.” Glaring at Jacky, she decided to get to the point and motioned for us to follow her slightly limping form. “Captain Jade, Mother To All Chief Cook Kuril and Sugar The Killer Bunny are all really the worst off.”

“Yeah, you might want to check Jade out first.” Turning to Fizzle, I saw that she look distracted and slightly down on herself. The unicorn with us balked as he saw Fizzle’s broken horn and bandage wrapped head.

“What about you? Your horn is…” The doctor started off.

“It’s been broken for a long time now and I’m still capable of doing magic, I’m not in danger of dying and I’m certainly not using my magic anytime soon. I happen to be on medication for the pain from using my magic with a recently acquired head injury so I’m perfectly fine!” Fizzlepop started off slowly and got angrier as she went, she was really worried about her bed cat and pointed her hoof at the broken nosed Abyssinian. “Now get to Jade!”

“Right, I’ll get right on that! I’m Quick Patch by the way and… I know this cat, we’ve met before! She was my first Abyssinian patient after an unfortunate meeting with a chimera, did she get mauled by another one?” Hearing this Quick Patch talk about a chimera, I had several guesses as to who had harmed Jade previously and when that had happened. I was gently shoved aside by Maries who growled at the good doctor.

“If another chimera did maul her, they won’t be alive for very long.” All three heads stated in complete unison. After that they all stated one word apiece. “Help… Jade… now!”

“No it was a really strong thestral, beat the crap out of her.” Thank you for the information Jacky, because that was painting a target on whoever did this. If Maries ever met them, then that’d be quite a violent fight.

“Well I can see that the chimera she met really did become her friend as advertised.” The doctor just shivered a bit and started his diagnostics on Jade.

“Yes, well, the status between Jade and us has evolved a bit from the whole need food to survive thing straight to dating.” Maries three heads smiled at him showing their fangs and teeth. “Also we’re lawyers, defense attorneys mostly. Not that we can’t work a case for malpractice if you fail to help her. Quick question, how fast can you run?”

“Yikes, wouldn’t want to be on your bad side then. Not only could you eat me alive figuratively, you could also do it literally. Whoa, are you sure it wasn’t full sized adult male chimera that did this?! These injuries are really quite severe, she’s not critical at least. Close enough to it to be worrisome though.” Everyone was now waiting for Dr. Patch to tell us his findings as he scanned Jade. “I can help her, but I’m going to need some assistance. The not very squeamish kind.”

“I’ll go get Fresh Start and Cheerilee, they’ve both have some medical training. I can also assist in keeping either one of them focused on the task at paw.” I know they were not a lot, but it could help.

With that I was flying to get the two mares I spoke of, Priest Jade looked pretty bad off and Celestia would definitely flip out when she next visited if she saw her in that state.

-One hour later, Fizzle-

Let’s see Jade had a blade wound in her side from where a shuriken pierced her, most of the bones throughout her upper torso were cracked. Her nose and two ribs were broken and her body was mostly a giant bruise with some internal bleeding. Her left arm was worse off than her right arm, the bandaged crossbow bolt wounds in her shoulder and rear were slightly opened up and were easily fixed again.

This was all better than Jade’s spine being knocked out of alignment at the very least, according to Dr. Patch she’d make a full recovery. Patch then moved onto mom after telling us that Jade wouldn’t be waking up for a while, mostly due to the extensive nature of her injures were. She needs the rest anyway.

Mom’s right arm almost entirely shattered, it was broken in three places and there were various fractures throughout the bone there. The muscles throughout her right arm were messed up, she had magical backlash damage across her body starting from a point centering on her right arm where the damage was at its worst.

The doctor said mom would be fine, but she shouldn’t do whatever she did to incur that much magical backlash damage in the first place ever again or anytime soon if it was unavoidable. The only reason why the mom’s barrier held up for long as it did was because the ‘Mega Flare’ was pure raw magical energy that slowly turned into pure unrelenting physical force.

The magical sustain of the shield was good at taking energy based attacks with little physical components to them and Bahamut broke through that with a frightening amount of raw power. Mom would wake up within a day or so, she wasn’t nearly as bad off as Jade was.

Quick Patch couldn’t fully help Sugar. He was not a veterinarian, but he did his best to help our favorite death rabbit out anyway. Sugar wouldn’t be deflecting magic for a while if she wanted to recover from this. Her horn had only taken minimal amount of damage, but the doctor was using unicorn estimates so it was unknown if he was on the right track there as Sugar’s magic deflecting horn was not the same as a normal unicorns.

Jacky got a clean bill of health, she just needed to rest and get off her injured leg for a few hours and to let her various swelling bruises go down. Fat chance of that happening with her luck.

I was checked out. I would recover, but under no circumstances am I to use magic unless it was life or death until my head injury cleared up. Otherwise any magical use now could be fatal, I was more so at risk than an average unicorn with a normal horn. Also I was informed that I should keep taking my pain medication and was prescribed something a little stronger if the pain became too much. I had a small, admittedly rough, discussion about my broken horn.

Blade’s wings would be fine, thanks to them being splinted correctly. Like Jacky she needed to rest, he fixed a few minor problems with her wings.

Velvet was the surprising one, her internal body temperature was a bit off and lower than it should be. It was chalked up as a side effect from her constant use of ice magic. Her surface body temperature was relatively warm by comparison. Other than that she was a little underweight for her size and needed to eat a little more than she currently was. Sekhet said she’d set up a training regimen for the deer while she was here and it was quickly, if begrudgingly by Velvet, accepted.

Daring Do was physically fine, her projectile attracting helmet required a little maintenance. Though Dr. Patch did tell her to lay off eating too many snack cakes.

We started unloading the stuff that mom and Jacky got a hold of, after we brought both Jade and Mom inside carefully. This was a paid for house call and as such Quick Patch, who apparently knew Jade from around the time she first met Maries, would stick around to see them returned to full health.

I sought out some company. Mom was still out and Jade wasn’t going to be waking up any time soon due to her miniature coma. Jacky gave me sisterly affection, but I didn’t need that at the moment.

So I chose to go to the one being that might give me what I needed right now, warm cat snuggles. Well she was one third cat at least.

“Maries… I need a hug.” I was quickly obliged without question, they didn’t even say anything and just held me close. I was nuzzled on both sides by Mara and Maria, while Marie snaked around to pat me on the back with her chin.

A nice, warm, fluffy hug from a chimera. Most ponies would run away from them yelling and screaming about a monster, yet here I am embracing them lovingly. I was open to the idea of dating them in public, even if it might have been a problem. The history of most chimera in general was that of a large negative connotation, one that kind of fits unless you knew a chimera personally like we did.

Seeking comfort from Maries just felt right at this moment in time, they held me close to them in their safe and muscular embrace.

-Velvet-

I was led to a scruffy looking cow roasting a large marshmallow over the central fire by Snickers, the cow gives Snickers a curious glance before looking to me.

“Okay, I can see Snickers is back, but who the hay are you?” The cow sounded rather uncouth, but Snickers seemed quite insistent that I introduce myself here. So I did.

“I’m Velvet Iceberg Deer of the Ice Shapers clan, pleased to meet you… er…” I watched as the cow gnashed at the marshmallow as she answered me.

“Names Arizona, you look really prissy.” Yep, talking with her mouth full and getting marshmallow chunks all over my… over my… she got marshmallow on my floof!

“Why you brainless brutish bovine, how dare you desecrate my floof!” It didn’t take a second for my reprisal.

After my first hit, I ignored the fact that the remaining marshmallow on the stick went to a smiling Snickers.

I had a cow to pound upon!

Author's Note

RPG Diagnostics read out for the lazy.

Jade: HP 12%/100%

Kuril: HP 40%/100%

Sugar: HP ???/???

Jacky: HP 83%/100%

Daring Do (Temp party member): HP 100%/100%

Fizzle: HP 69%/100%

Blade: HP 93%/100%

Well Snickers couldn't have planned that first meeting any better.

Chapter twenty two, While You Were Out: Little Kitty.

-Fizzle-

I had recently finished hugging Maries and walked into a scene going on around Jade’s never ending fire, several people of Airship Mauled were watching Velvet and Arizona go at each other. It was with a ferocity I would hardly ever see in a pony.

I sat down next to Snickers who offered the large marshmallow she was innocently munching on and I shook my head no, then a hoof held a drink out before me. I took it and before I could ask, Mr. Refreshment told me what it was.

“Strawberry smoothie.” Mr. Refreshment said as he sat down next to me to watch the action. “You look like you needed it.”

The drink stand he had dragged over here was new, he was really good at what he does. Glad he lived here, he made excellent ice cream floats.

“Thanks.” I took a sip and watched as Velvet froze Arizona solid, I would have been more worried had Arizona not burst out of the ice a split second later to hit Velvet with a hoof that sent the deer sprawling.

“Popcorn?” Pinkie offered as we watched and I didn’t question her sudden appearance, I just took the offered bag and kept watching the battle while crunching the buttered goodness.

“Oh d… oh my goodness.” Well it was easy to see that Fluttershy realized the pun she was about to make and decided to change gears. I guess they were visiting today and it appears they trotted in on a volatile showdown between a cow and a deer. “How did this fight start?”

“Arizona got marshmallow on our new friend Velvet.” It was obvious, because it was still there and my answer was received with a slight whimper.

“Shouldn’t someone be stopping them?” Would anyone really want to get between those two Fluttershy? Logically speaking, it was best to wait for them to tire each other out as they were beating the stuffing out of one another.

Velvet and Arizona were a surprisingly even match, they were both really fast and intelligent. It was brawn vs. magic being their major difference here, Arizona’s brawn against Velvet’s magic. There was also the fact that Arizona was the tougher of the two and could take hits, Velvet couldn’t do the same.

While Velvet could strike out faster, her physical hits were hardly the same as Arizona’s and it was the assisting ice magic that did the real damage.

“Well this might end in another medical emergency.” Dr. Patch said as he sat down with the visitors and townsfolk to watch the fight as well. “Someone should have probably sold tickets, also this is a sign that I might be on retainer for a little bit longer than expected.”

“Eh, it’ll be okay doc, once Velvet figures out all this fighting is doing is getting her dirtier.” After saying that I slurped at my smoothie a bit and continued to eat popcorn. “She’ll probably stop and go take a bath, in the same line of thought Arizona could care less about fighting dirty.”

“They look like they are really hurting each other.” Stated Fluttershy worriedly.

“It’ll end in a lot of bruising maybe, but I doubt they’d seriously hurt one another.” A chunk of sharp icicle rammed itself halfway into the ground in front of me, this made Fluttershy squeak loudly and duck behind Pinkie Pie who was waving a flag with Arizona’s name and an odd ripped paper like shape on it. “Yep, they’re certainly not trying to kill each other.”

Another sharp chunk of ice flew at Arizona. She didn’t avoid this one, which barely pierced her side and it broke apart on impact. Stumbling a few steps looking a bit stunned, I noted Arizona was barely even bleeding from that superficial wound.

“Well the shows nice and all, but I got a clinic to set up.” We all turned to Sekhet as she walked off towards the fruit orchard and a little to the north into a copse with a bit of a clearing. Curious as to how she was going to do that, I followed her while passing off my popcorn to Fluttershy who fell into step beside me. She likely didn’t want to hang around the two frenzied fighters.

“How are you going to do that Sekhet, wood clinics or hospitals do not make very good environments for patients.” In answer to my question and follow up slurp of my smoothie, Sekhet flipped and shrunk down to the size of a small cat. “You know, for a war goddess, you’re often more adorable than the constantly angry and violence prone image most war gods are perceived as having.”

“Yes, well, as I have said several times, anger is better when used cold and calculating than when hot and messy. Also being adorable does tend to make everyone underestimate you.” Sekhet held up a paw for us to stay where we were. “As for wooden airship? Yeah, that would make for a pretty poor clinic. I’m kind of the one who causes most of the major housing and developments around here. So I’m going to taunt causality to hit me with a metal airship so we can have decent clinic to work with.”

“Are you really sure that’s a good idea?” Fluttershy queried of the currently cat sized goddess. Fluttershy took some popcorn out of the bag and idly munched on it. “Won’t you get hurt?”

“Fluttershy, I think I’ve come to appreciate being hit by airships and I’m immortal. What’s a little pain when it comes to helping Airship Mauled grow?” Sekhet cleared her throat, preparing to do what she said and taunt causality, if she hadn’t already by just mentioning it to us out loud. I and Fluttershy moved away from her quite a fair distance back. “Okay world…”

That was about as far Sekhet got before a large metal ship the size of an ocean liner landed on her, the shockwave of it crashing sent me and Fluttershy tumbling for a few feet. Thankfully Fluttershy managed to keep the popcorn from spilling everywhere, but the remainder of my strawberry smoothie was a sad casualty.

Once we got our bearings we saw that the ship came in upside down and no one was aboard it. It didn’t look like an airship, for one there was no deflated balloon. If it wasn’t an airship, how did it get here?

-Five minutes earlier, a being known as Leviathan, Manehattan Port-

I was a god who just so happened to be hanging around Manehattan’s port. Being a serpent god of water, currents, sometimes rivers and partially the tides, I was always in or near water. I was kind of helpless in ice, that was another’s domain and I was kind of a lesser god. Poseidon kind of delegates some things to me, like how Apollo delegates a lot to Celestia.

I’m so glad that the ship was empty, I should really learn to watch where I’m sneezing. Despite being a lesser god my power was definitely nothing to sneeze at… ohohoho~!

I’m so glad that I didn’t owe anyone a boon for what looked like an incidental weather phenomenon of an impossibly powerful waterspout. Wherever that ship landed I hoped it didn’t hit a mortal, because then I’d actually owe that mortal or their family something.

Nope… I instinctively knew that I didn’t hit a mortal, but for the life of me I can’t help but feel a sense of dread for whatever it did hit. If it wasn’t a mortal, then it was no problem of mine.

No one would be the wiser to good old Steven Magnet’s slip up. I so did like watching ponies go about their day jobs, but maybe I should move up a river somewhere to avoid detection in case unicorns come to investigate the incident.

I’ll come back to see the fashion fair a few years from now after I lay low for a while. Now where was a nice quiet dark place… oh the Ever Free Forest, of course! That would be a good spot for an extravagant underwater vacation home.

-Fizzle-

Upon closer inspection, it was definitely a fairly large cruise ship and not even an airship version of a cruise ship. A sea bound cruise ship just happens to fall out of the sky when we were nowhere near the ocean. How in the world does that even happen? That’s really kind of insane.

Was I getting used to the insanity? I mean, a large amount of ship did just crash near us and I’m barely batting an eye at it!

Well at least we had plenty of material to make a clinic… or a full blown hospital. I’d need to send Rata to deliver a message to Ponville Construction. I motioned for Fluttershy to follow me and she kept shooting horrified looks at the cruise ship that nearly hit us and had squashed the poor cat sized Sekhet.

“That’s Sekhet for you, putting the ‘ship’ in Airborne Ship Mauled. Now we have a good foundation for a full blown hospital.” If it had been a smaller ship it would have been a clinic, which would have certainly been fine by me. A full blown cruise ship however, would definitely make a good hospital. “Hopefully the construction company won’t mind the fact that mom can’t cook for them this time.”

We made our way back to the fight to see Velvet in a choke hold and Arizona taking several bowling ball sized chunks of the ice to the head. Most of said ice chunks were deflected by Arizona’s horns.

Ignoring the battle and staying relatively clear of it, I walked up to Rata who was sipping at a lemonade smoothie. Mr. Refreshment was selling drinks to random passerby’s who stopped to watch a reindeer and cow tussle.

“I need another strawberry smoothie Mango, I lost mine when a cruise liner hit Sekhet.” It was the little stare that I got that let me know I had to elaborate. “It wasn’t an airship this time. It was a ship that happened to be in the air, but it was a cruise ship made entirely for sea travel only.”

“Eh, I wondered what that loud noise was. It was still a ship. That was in the air. And it mauled her.” He thrust a drink to me. “This one is also free of charge. Anyway, I think it still counts from a semantic point of view.”

“Thanks Mango. Rata mail delivery, I need a notepad, a stamp and a writing utensil.” Blinking, the squirrel flickered from the spot he was sitting to watch the entertainment and appeared right in front of me with the required items. I took the notepad while Fluttershy squealed and hugged Ratatoskr because he was an adorable little god.

“Oh you’re so cute, adorable and precious!” One of the gods Fluttershy couldn’t be afraid of, on the other side of things Rata enjoyed being hugged by a beautiful maiden.

Turning back to what I needed to do. Let’s see, address to deliver to on the envelope, one of a kind risqué female squirrel stamp unique to Ratatokr’s mailing office and now to write down a message of what we need constructed and the type of ship it was being constructed from. Not all airships that crashed here were the same model and they’ve worked with weirder before. I’m sure they could work with a cruise ship.

“Okay Fluttershy, let go of the god.” Despite my need of him, Fluttershy gave me a big eyed adorable quivering lipped look and Rata soon joined in. Rolling my eyes, I shook my head and sighed. “Fine, thirty more seconds of cuddling. I expect a free delivery though!”

Rata motioned an agreement and then snuggled up against Fluttershy’s chest, I left the letter there. It wasn’t like Rata couldn’t be in Ponyville in less than five seconds anyway, so the extra snuggle time was worth it for both Fluttershy and Rata.

Was there anything else that needed to be taken care of? I looked over to see Velvet using a suplex on Arizona. How she miraculously got into a position to do that I’ll never know. I was actually expecting Arizona to be the one that does something like that to her. Yep, I couldn’t possibly think of anything else… other than visiting Dr. Patch’s injured patients.

“Yeah, that’s how you do it Velvet!” Cheerilee cheered exuberantly for the deer she had only met recently. “My sister couldn’t have done it any better!”

“Hey, where are my combat tips?! Isn’t this supposed to be a fair fight?” Complained Arizona as she rolled over and wobbled a bit on her legs. Shaking her head to clear the dizziness away, Arizona narrowed her eyes on Velvet and smiled. When Velvet smiled back, they pawed the ground ready to charge one another. “Though I must admit, this is one of the best dustups I’ve ever had in a while!”

“Yes and my precious floof shall be avenged!” Velvet struck a pose standing tall, she turned her head and glanced at Arizona coyly. “If you think you’re a good fight, then that is to laugh, ha~!”

“I’ll show you a good fight!” And like that Arizona was charging Velvet and they were at it again. The cow grabbed onto Velvet and attempted to force her into a pin. “You know you can just take a bath right, all you’re doing is getting dirtier.”

“Coo…” Snickers mewled out as she finished swallowing the last bit of giant marshmallow, she was now sporting a distended turtle tummy and smiling as the combatants continued to beat the snot out of one another.

Everyone’s favorite snuggle turtle even started to rub her flippers in a… would I really call it an evil manner? Yeah, not going to touch on that thought any further and what it said about Jade being her familiar bond partner.

In Arizona’s case, the snot beating was a bit literal and it grossed Velvet out somewhat. The deer still kept fighting despite that. Turning away from the rather interesting fight and the gathered crowd, I made my way inside.

I had to make sure that Jade, mom and Sugar weren’t being disturbed by all the noise and were still resting. They needed their sleep.

-Jacky-

“This has got to be the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny.” Though the show was enjoyable and I was able to sidle up to a Gene, I wasn’t actually rooting for either one of them.

“No it isn’t! There’s no good guys, bad guys or copious amounts of fireworks!” Flamberge the excitable didn’t seem to notice my closeness to Gene.

Gene might seem generic to Jade or maybe even Fizzle, but Gene’s mellow attitude was certainly not generic or common among griffons.

I had to admit that I may want to ask him something, but I was a bit too shy to do so. It was kind of a strange feeling given I was an outgoing unlucky pirate girl that was cute and knew how to use a cannon like no one’s business.

Okay, I seriously wanted to ask him out on a date, but I was having problems getting the words out.

Vikings are ridiculously attractive, even if they looked like an everyday average griffon. Vikings were like pirates in so many ways and we had a lot in common.

Flippers rubbing Snickers undivided smiling attention was curiously diverted to me and Gene for some reason.

Chapter twenty two, While You Were Out: Happy Kitty.

-Fortitude (The Fantastically Fragrant)-

Yak friend be in poor health, yak not know how to help. Yak protect town though and that good thing for yak to do without needing to be asked! Not smash anything in a while though, I was mighty at protecting with great yak strength.

“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant!” Everyone glanced at yak for a second and go back to watching two young combatants show their strength. They weren’t running out of stamina anytime soon and they were enjoying a fierce battle.

Magic of ice and power of muscle being shown in full force. This would be a tale to tell little yaks and later on in afterlife.

My brother Flamberge was egging them on, he was loud and boisterous like yak. He was a great brother. Gene was sitting next to local pirate parrot, she seems friendly with my brother of quick reflexes. Magic turtle now be looking at two, does turtle see something that yak doesn’t?

Yak sit to watch fight.

“Well met brother, tell me do you think we’ll see any more of those highland…” Flamberge was stopped by pirate parrot tackling him to the ground.

“Don’t say those two words in conjunction or at all around here, they always invite them to attack!” Parrot seemed high strung, yak is knowing that they attack when talked about. Flamberge not learn lesson last time we went out and still hasn’t. “Also we have a lot of visitors and some injured around here at the moment! So please, whatever you do, don’t say the next word you were about to say or else.”

“Okay, I will not say it then!” Flamberge was always so loud, yak like that about him. “I will imply that they are little spiny imps with demonic senses of hearing and reaction times bordering on stalker like tendencies to always know when they are called forth by talking about them!”

“Yeah, that’s a problem, we really shouldn’t talk about them when the mayor’s family is infirmed and we’re not sure we could actually protect everyone here. It’s not a good idea to cause a mass panic.” Gene be smarter than Flamberge, he be great leader! Yak like Fortitude not as bright, but yak does well enough to be brighter than Flamberge at least.

“Ow… that was so very painful… and I enjoyed every second of it.” Small stumbling war goddess wobbled up to group watching the fight and flopped onto her face. Sekhet was worthy goddess to follow, as worthy as was Rata was to have Gene as a follower. “Who’s winning, I actually have double vision at the moment and the ship that hit me was really quite heavy.”

“They seemed to be evenly matched to an absurd degree despite yonder cow not having magical prowess compared to lithe and fair magical reindeer that oddly has no flying capability whatsoever!” Pointed out Flamberge in flamboyant manner. Yak agree, the two are excellent warriors. “Nobody would dare get between them in the midst of a battle being so well fought, why it is quite spellbinding to witness! I believe the fair witch of tastefulness Kuril herself couldn’t concoct a potion that could draw our attention so readily.”

Rarely does yak ever hear Flamberge not yell words, yak sometime disappointed that Flamberge is not always obscenely loud.

Yak watch parrot try to get words out of beak to Gene. Strong girl acting weak? Common problem among yak girls, Gene needs to make her aggressive. He will find happiness for sure with overbearing highly angry hexed parrot girl.

“Say, how long exactly was it since you’ve last had a round of…” Gene narrowly avoids getting hit by a tree branch, one that came from tree more than forty feet away. Yak think Gene best at swift reaction out of us all, which is why he earned his title. Parrot girl get upset with branch, maybe because it made her move away from griffon? “Never mind then, answered my question.”

Pirate Parrot grumble under breath and magic turtle look upset with something in the air above parrot, maybe dislike bad luck? Yak very observant, everyone likely already know this and Fortitude doesn’t have to say thing that is obvious. Like how parrot girl likes griffon brother.

-A few days later, Sekhet-

Good news all around, Ponyville Construction didn’t have much going on and they could work with a cruise ship. The mayor’s family could recover in peace and Velvet and Arizona didn’t miraculously kill one another. Speaking of, I wondered if Velvet stayed at the Helping Hoof and what her first impressions of Grace were if she did.

Ponyville Construction just finished rebuilding the town after an invasion of nomadic calygreyhounds that randomly destroyed half of all the houses in Ponyville on whim for no apparent reason. None of the ponies were hurt and the construction crew certainly had plenty of job security with how often they fixed any damage done to Ponyville.

Bad news, Jade wasn’t waking up any time soon, Kuril was up but needed more bed rest and it was upsetting Fizzle to see Jade like this.

I made my way to the temporary hospital room in ‘The Witch’s Faire’, I stopped at the door and looked on as the Fizzle stood next to Jade and gently nuzzled her neck. Jade had a lot of bandages around her face, head, arms and upper torso.

Things were going to be okay then, Fizzle isn’t trying to ignore or avoid her cuddle cat. I was softly pushed aside by Maries and I didn’t feel like retaliating, they went to Jade’s side to show their own affection for the sun priest.

Watching the three heads look to Fizzle and her looking back, I felt like I was intruding on their time with Jade. So I decided to go do my job as a secretary and keep things running while lady Kuril was still unfit to govern. I looked back to Kurilian and saw that she was sleeping, I then made my way downstairs.

Fresh Start was holding down the fort as usual and feeding the influx of Ponyville Construction workers that were busy setting up for things. Her talents as a maid were quite good and she was also a capable cook, but she didn’t match up to Kuril’s meal making mastery.

I made my way out the front door and saw Velvet and Arizona arguing in front of the Helping Hoof with Grace throwing in weird or odd comments here or there. She was trying to calm the two down and they seemed dead set on being angry at one another.

Grace was definitely out there in many respects, she was trying to mediate the cow and reindeers aggressiveness towards one another and was failing spectacularly. Even then she hasn’t raised her voice even once and had the patience of a saint to keep those two apart.

Velvet could have left and gone back home at any time, so why didn’t she? Somehow I think Snickers was involved in them coming together and I wasn’t touching that mess with a ten foot pole, speaking of which…

“Jacky.” The parrot jumped, she had been watching the Vibrant Vikings train with one another, more specifically the griffon of their three man group who had corded muscles and was currently sweating up a storm. Upon looking up, I saw Snickers hovering above her head. Yep Snickers was definitely still spreading it around. “Would you prefer Blackcap or Ms. Chickadee La Perm?”

“Jacky or Blackcap’s fine.” The female parrot had always been a very unlucky one, but that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to her about. She was promptly hit in the head by a falling pinecone, yet there weren’t any pinecone bearing trees anywhere near here. There was no fixing her broken luck when it was that bad, at least it wasn’t trying to kill her outright. “Ouch… what do you need Sek?”

“About that debriefing I received from you and Fizzle. You said you came across a blob like monster that ate Kuril’s ten foot long collapsible pole?” I didn’t mention Daring Do as she had taken off for her next great adventure.

Daring was going to follow up on what Caballeron was doing and the information she got about this ‘end of immortality’ malarkey. I’d like to see someone try and end me, I had too much to live for and was one of the most beautiful goddesses in existence… also I’m really quite humble.

“Well yeah, that actually happened. It was a swamp like blob creature that oozed out of the ceiling, scared mom and made her drop her ten foot collapsible pole after it had taken a large amount of crossbow fire.” Jacky seemed to pause to think more about it. “The last we saw of it, it just sunk into the floor without doing anything else.”

“So… a creature that stupid actually does exist.” Chuckles filled my throat and I was soon finding myself feeling more filled with mirth than usual. In fact it became full blown laughter for a few seconds, but then I calmed myself down as it looked like Jacky had something to ask of me.

“Do you know what it was Sek? Jade and mom aren’t exactly in a condition to tell us about it, though Jade mentioned that mom thought it was too stupid to possible be a real thing like you do.” It sounded like Jacky was curious to know about this, even if it wasn’t exactly very important to know about. “Was it dangerous?”

“It’s not very dangerous, more like highly annoying.” If it was anywhere around here then it would continue to be just highly annoying to me and everyone else, especially if we were to go camping. Pitching tent poles of a specific length would have been impossible. “Say… it didn’t follow you home did it?”

“No, it just sunk into the cracks in the floor at the monastery… it’s more likely to appear in the Fright Night Grotto than it is here.” Here Jacky put her left index talon up to her beak in thought. “Come to think of it, I should send Rata to tell them to look out for it.”

“Well that’s a relief, it’s creature with one purpose in life.” I paused dramatically, goddesses were known to do that right? “Which is the consumption of inanimate things ten feet in length. It subsists entirely off of said objects of defined length and that is all it does.”

“Yes, we kind of got that from Jade and mom, but what is it called?” You really wanted to know Jacky, I wasn’t about to tell you that. Not when it’d drive you nuts trying to figure out what it is!

“You’d have to ask Jade or your mother Kurilian about the name, it’s interesting that you’ve even seen one.” Smiling slightly, I could see Jacky was a little disgruntled that I didn’t answer her question. “They must be creatures so rare that finding them is a one in a thousand chance. I will tell you that ponies probably don’t even have anything about them written down… well technically that’s not true. It’s just that ponies don’t have anything written down about them actually existing in reality.”

“You’re making this a riddle thing aren’t you, do I really have to figure it out for myself?” Quirking an eye at Jacky to let her know that yes, I was making this a thing for her to solve.

“Try to figure it out before Kurilian or Jade tell you. I am a Sphinx you know and I hardly get an outlet for to make people answer riddles these days… aside from being hit by airships of course.” Or a random Cruise Liner before I could even start taunting the world. I seriously didn’t know who I had to riddle for that one and I would likely know them if I ever saw them, but the ship was entirely empty so I didn’t get anyone to riddle. “While you do that and waffle about trying to attract the eye of that griffon, I’ll be busy running my rounds. I am the mayor’s secretary after all.”

“I am not waffling on it, I can talk to him clearly and succinctly!” Yet you wouldn’t ask him out on a date even with Snickers hovering above and waiting for you to make a move.

I decided to continue on to see the fruit orchard. Everything looks in order, but I still decided to ask Wary Berry about it anyway.

“How’s everything going for the most famous quality control pony in Airship Mauled?” Despite how much she despises fruit and think that it might come to life and try to kill us all, I knew Wary was excellent judgment for quality control. She knew the most perfect fruit on sight and on some level it probably horrified her that she had this as a special talent.

“Nothing wrong… yet. The fruit will rise up one day, you’ll see, you’ll all see! I’m not crazy!” No one said you were Wary, but your and Jade’s constant fighting over fruit and its goodness therein was kind of annoying. “So… how is my bitter rival, that degenerate fruit lover?”

“She’ll make a full recovery.” That statement from me had Wary snorting slightly.

“She better… or else I wouldn’t have someone to argue about fruit with.” Yeah, Wary and Jade’s friendship was odd. She actually seemed upset to hear Jade was still out. She stared at the fruit with a suspiciousness bordering on overly paranoid. “So was that all you needed? The quality hasn’t gone down and I’m not the one that eats these fruits. I’m vegetable eating pony all the way!”

“Yep, going to see how the construction crew is doing across the way.” Today was a good day, I was happy and nothing too horrible was happening to the town. I walked up to the foreman. “Okay guys, how soon can we get his hospital up?”

“We can get it done, but it’s going to take a bit. Don’t honestly know how you got a cruise ship out here and upside down, but we’re not exactly asking too many questions.” That was something I appreciated the foreman for. “We’re sorry to hear that mayor Kuril is hurt and hopes she gets better soon. You don’t suppose she would mind if we all sent her and her daughter get well cards right?”

“You’re only upset because the witch of good taste is not around to cook a meal for you.” The pony gave me a small smile. “Still, it would be a nice gesture on your part I suppose.”

“Guilty as charged ma’am, but seriously though. She’s a sweet lady and we’re fans of her work in the culinary arts.” He tipped his hardhat to me and turned to his guys and girls. “Okay guys, you heard the goddess. We’re all signing a get well card for the mayor, they really need a hospital out here so let’s do this right the first time!”

The construction workers shouted out in a boisterous agreement, they were clearly willing and able to help our town grow as a loving community.

A community that I happened to be a part of, that thought warmed my immortal ever beating heart to be here.

So what else was on the agenda today… oh right, I have to talk with a few beings about moving in.

I needed a good sales pitch.

Chapter twenty two, While You Were Out: Sleepy Kitty.

-Several days later, Cheerilee-

“How are you feeling Kuril?” She looked to me in sad manner, which probably wasn’t the best question to ask. Kuril’s right arm was in a sling, she was sitting up against the headboard of the bed as I placed a tray of soup before her. She sent a glance to the other bed. “Not too good about Jade I suppose, she’ll be fine. Dr. Patch is well accredited and his work history is phenomenal.”

It was most likely not about how she was feeling, but how her daughter was feeling. I looked over to the bed her daughter occupied with two figures and four snoozing heads at her bed. When I was asked to assist Dr. Patch, I found he was very good at what he did.

Even if Jade still hadn’t woken up, this was better than what I heard about the constant pain she’d been in after going to that place called Klugetown. It sounded like a nasty place to go and at least this wasn’t a case of misaligned spine, something my limited medical knowledge wouldn’t have been able to handle.

I and Fresh had helped Dr. Patch with a few medical procedures to put Jade back into a position where she’d heal better. Oh sure, I turned green and my cheeks swelled with bile, but I helped with clearing the internal bleeding and Jade would be fine after that. Mostly fine, even if she was currently on an intravenous drip.

Kuril licked her lips looking a little distant and eventually she picked up the spoon with her left hand and took some into her mouth, she gave off a small smile.

“Fresh Start… she learned the recipe well enough.” She quietly spoke before taking a few more spoons of soup before she turned to me. “I still don’t know how Jaded keeps up with those four, she should have lost her mind by now having to deal with her feelings for them. Doing better than I ever did in the romance arena...”

“Wouldn’t it be the other way around with them keeping up with her? Oh… sorry, it’s just that…” I received a calmly held up left paw, which I took to mean to stop speaking.

“I’m well aware of Jade’s habits, but she’s not a pony though and neither are most of your other students. So to expect them to adhere to pony academics is a little hopeful of you.” What she just said made me wince, but Kuril wasn’t wrong. At least I wasn’t only teaching them pony academics though and was about to say as much when Kuril interrupted me with a hint of fondness in her voice. “You’re a better teacher than most others would have been in this situation. My Jaded is… very special… aside from the doomsday dyscalculia that is.”

“That she is, she’s a very bright student in most things.” Something touched me and I jumped and almost let out a shout. It was only Blade who was carrying a glass of juice, with a packet of crackers and a bit of parmesan for the soup. She could really sneak up on someone with how silent she was.

“Thank you Blade, I see you’ve been watching out for us.” Kuril got a quirky grin from the thestral as she placed the stuff she brought on the tray and rubbed at her short mane with a blush. “Don’t be so modest, I know you’re a good pony.”

After that Blade looked a bit shy as she left and gave a worried look towards Jaded, before exiting the room. I turned to Kuril, not knowing what to say.

“It’ll be okay Cheerilee, just get your lesson plan in order and have some catch up homework ready for my little tom cat.” Oh my goodness, Kuril was right, I really needed to get to work on my lesson plan!

“Sorry Ms. La Perm, but it seems I’ve been neglecting my duties and I might need some help from Mr. Permanganate with planning a few science lessons.” I trotted towards the exit.

“That’s alright Cheerilee. Please, call me Kuril or Kurilian, we’re friends.” After she said that I was about to go out the door when she called out to me. “Wait! Can you tell me how Sugar is doing, Fluttershy is taking good care of her right?”

“I believe Fluttershy is doing very well in caring for your familiar, she’s in good hooves.” My reassurance was met with a slight frown as I didn’t sound too sure myself, but eventually Kuril went back to eating her soup.

-Kuril-

I need someone to remind me to take those nunchucks away from Jade. I may be a lenient mother on many things, but I’ve told her no nunchucks!

This is soup is pretty good, I’m glad Fresh can hold down the fort in the restaurant for us. Like how Sekhet can hold down the fort with keeping Airship Mauled still standing.

-Fluttershy-

Sugar had to be the most difficult creature for me to ever learn about, so far it wasn’t hard to clean her blackened horn and make sure the poor dear was at least comfortable. What was hard was keeping her fed, she ate everything I put before her and was really hungry for some reason. Maybe she needed to make up for all the energy she expended on the dangerous death defying adventure?

I was kind of glad that Jade didn’t drag me into her most recent adventure, I had enough adventure after what happened at Serpent Strath Path and getting all those troublesome lemmings situated safely into their new homes.

I was currently working on earning enough money to buy myself a home and my current job was taking care of Sugar. I didn’t want to be paid for this and was willing to do this for free, but Sekhet insisted that I earn compensation for time spent helping what is always described as the most dangerous rabbit based creature in existence.

Jacky said that Sugar needed to eat meat, so I had her bring a fish to see what part of it Sugar would eat. Sugar ate the whole fish, bones and all. Every part of the fish disappeared into Sugar’s mouth, she hardly even chewed and appeared to be more than a little ravenous.

“Are you okay?” I ask this because Jacky looked like she was moderately mauled just getting this one fish. Her entire body was covered in bruises and Dr. Patch even came over to scan her with his horn.

“Oh I’m fine Fluttershy, the fish just put up a bit more fight than is naturally feasible. In fact, I almost lost the fight to it. as you can see for yourself, it wasn’t exactly very big.” That fish did this to Jacky? I knew her luck was bad, but not that horrible. I felt sorry for her. “So how’s your familiar bond with Angel coming along?”

“I’m not really sure.” Really I wasn’t, I didn’t know what having a familiar bond felt like or if I was supposed to be feeling anything. I felt something hugging one of my legs and I looked down to see Angel cuddling up to me and his cousin Jacka… er… just Jack, was with him. At least I thought they were cousins, whatever the situation I’m just going to call Jack his cousin anyway. “Uh what exactly does a familiar bond feel like?”

“Coo!” We all know that Snickers wasn’t very dangerous or scary, but I still almost jumped out of my skin when the flying turtle swooped down to hug me.

“Well hello to you too Snickers!” I hugged and patted the turtle on her head and she affectionately nuzzled me before releasing me as I did her.

“Hiss, coo, hiss coo… coo hiss, coo-hiss coo!” Well that was a very informative and inspirational, Snickers would be a good motivational speaker if everyone could understand what she was saying. Since they couldn’t, aside from me or Jade, then I would have to translate.

“She says my familiar bond with Angel is sturdy, that we are benefiting from the two way street and that we care about each other in our own special way.” That was seconds before I was lightly slapped across the face by Angel who started to say something in a grumpy manner. “Oh I’m sorry for not paying more attention to you Angel. Does my funny little bunny want a belly rub? Yes, he does!”

I started rubbing Angel’s belly and he squeaked while turning red in the face. Soon I had him on his back and kicking his legs squeaking for mercy. I felt a swelling warmth when he started cuddling my hoof affectionately.

“Coo!” That was Snickers getting my attention as she hovered near us. She held her flippers apart and then slowly brought them together. “Hiss coo! Hiss coo, coo, coo, coo, hiss.”

“Oh wow! He’ll live longer than a normal bunny, we’ll always be best friends and we gain some traits of the other? Funny I don’t feel more like a rabbit.” While I didn’t know it now, I would eventually learn that I had earned a smidge of Angel’s assertiveness and possibly a teeny bit of his aggressiveness. He in turn earned quite a bit of my kindness and possibly a taste for prepared foods.

The bond was a two-way street of the most adorable friendship imaginable, I didn’t feel any different from normal except for the fact that angel felt just a little more special to me than any other animal.

“Excuse me, Fluttershy?” Again being spooked by a pony like Cheerilee shouldn’t be possible under any normal circumstances, but given who I was… I squeaked and fell over onto my side and curled up into a ball of fears and anxiety. “Sorry for scaring you, but Kuril wants to know how Sugar is feeling.”

“Oh, it’s okay. I think she is doing alright, she’s eating a lot though. In fact, she hasn’t stopped eating really.” I didn’t want to voice it, but now that I thought about it… Sugar’s eaten more than her body should be able to contain. At least three times as much by my estimate, where was she keeping it all? “In fact, she’s eaten more food than her stomach can naturally hold and it’s not visibly showing that she has eaten anything.”

“Well I’m not fighting another fish, getting fish slapped once a day is good enough for me. Get someone else who knows how to fish to do it.” With that said, Jacky walked off and over towards Gene. She slowed down a bit and seemed about as shy as I was about something, she even started to cutely poke her talons together and her tail went between her legs.

“I know how to fish!” Maries surprised me to the point that I startled badly and began cowering underneath Cheerilee while holding Angel to my chest. Why does everyone always do that? Sneaking up on poor innocent ponies with faint hearts isn’t always a great idea you know! “Gee Fluttershy, show us how you really feel.”

“I’m sorry that I’m so easily frightened Maries, it’s most certainly not you. Sugar seems to be endlessly hungry and she needs more food.” I explained while pointing to the basket the pink Al-mi’raj was resting in, from what I’ve managed to learn most male Al-mi’raj were yellow. No pony knew much about the females of the species, because they are too rarely seen to be documented. “I could use some help filling her up.”

“Well if you’ll carry Sugar and follow us to the river, we can get a good number of fish for her to eat. Though we’d have to talk with Matriarch Kuril first to see if it’s okay to catch so many fish.” Mara was quite polite in offering to help Sugar. This was followed by Maria’s comment. “If we can’t sate Kuril’s companion that way, then we can always find something else.”

“Okay…” I hid my face behind a curtain of pink as I accepted their help. They were like a big cuddly kitten, a friendly snake and a fluffy goat all rolled into one. I found it easy to talk to them.

-Sekhet-

I walked into the room to see Jade was still asleep and she looked halfway peaceful, if not for the haggard manner of her breathing given the bandages covering her face.

It would still take her a while to wake up, but there was a faint upturn at the edges of her lips, Fizzle was in the kitchen making a snack and I saw Fluttershy go off with Maries to get food for Sugar.

Al-mi’raj were not very mortal friendly and yet Kuril gets one that is exceptionally friendly and even protective of them. I wonder what wonders I’ll see next, there’s no guessing with these people.

“How are you feeling?” I asked of Kuril. Being her secretary, coach of the school and general local friendly goddess, I wanted to check on her mood before I decided on whether or not I should tell her about everything that’s been going on while she’s been in bed these past few days.

“Magical backlash sucks, but if my kitten can go through the pain of having her spine realigned and being in excessive pain for weeks while ignoring her need of pain medication.” After slowly trailing of and sending a glance to the other bed, Kuril returned her slightly chipper gaze to me. “Then this pain is nothing in comparison to the emotional pain of seeing my kitten hurting again. I know she didn’t win that fight, but I’d like to think she gave as good as she got and… well I’m rather proud of her constant ceaseless resilience under duress to say the least.”

“Yes, you two certainly are something else.” The smile brightened, it seemed my words made Kuril take pride in what has been accomplished so far. I had good memories from the days this was just a makeshift camping site next to a wrecked airship leading up to what it is now, a burgeoning town. "You've attracted strong people to this place."

“It’s kind of hard, knowing that I can’t protect Jaded from everything and that she’ll just get hurt again. Even then, I know she’s still going to keep coming back stronger every time… provided nothing permanent happens to her.” If something permanent did happen to her, then I’m sure you’d unleash a mother’s wrath upon the one who did it Kuril. “Tell me Sekhet, do you think I’m doing a good job so far?”

“I’d have to say that you tend to have far more success in a year than an average being gets their whole life. With that out the way, let me do my job as your secretary and tell you how things are going around here.” I know none of the new prospective settlers have tasted your cooking, but when those visitors do… getting them to leave would be problematic after that point. “Fruit orchards are good, Helping Hoof is running smoothly minus the minor cow and reindeer issues, the restaurant is earning a surprising income even without your cooking, the school is in top shape with Cheerilee, the hospital is underway and we have some visitors that are curious about settling down here. Also we have doctors coming in on referrals.”

“Give me some names Sekhet.” Kuril was the mayor, so I obliged willingly.

Author's Note

I know these chapters are a bit boring, mind the gap.

I have planned arcs and mostly unplanned arcs... it's hard to tell the difference sometimes. The issue is the order to place them in.

With that said, you can stop reading this author's note. What is below this line isn't important, but it is slightly depressing news for me or the curious.

Someone in my family passed recently, but it wasn't exactly that much of a shock really. Eight years of dialysis with diabetes would wear anyone down, they had a strong will to live and were a decent person in life.

It's sad, but the average life expectancy for regular dialysis patients isn't that great when it's chronic kidney failure. It's much worse when diabetes is involved.

Few people ever get to ten years or beyond when it's a terminal condition, but that person made the best of what time they had left and held onto life longer than most.

With that thought in mind...

Listening to music makes me feel better.

Chapter twenty two, While You Were Out: Wake up already!

-One week and five days, after returning to Airship Mauled, Fizzle-

“Excuse me, but I need to check my patient.” At Dr. Patch’s words I carefully pulled away from being carefully snuggled up against Jade, as did Maries who slowly took her weight off the bed so as to not jostle Jade. “It’s always good to have people who understand that they need to be careful around someone who is injured.”

I thought about asking the doctor something and eventually came up with a quick question.

“Can you check my head first?” My head injury was on my mind at the moment.

“Oh right, that won’t take very long at all Ms. Berrytwist.” What followed was the Dr. Patch lighting up his horn and telling me to track the tip with my eyes, he undid the bandages and checked my head and made me answer a few questions. After all this he diagnosed me. “You’re doing well, you’re head injury has cleared up and I’ll give you the go ahead to use magic again. If you feel any pain from using magic, stop immediately and wait an hour before trying anything again.”

The good news was met by Maries pulling me into soft a hug, they were somewhat happy to hear I was feeling better personally. Somewhat, because we were both unhappy that Jade was still comatose.

The cracks and skeletal damage had been fully fixed by Dr. Patch, along with an uncomfortable amount of internal hemorrhaging he quickly fixed with surgery and help from both Fresh and Cheery.

“Right, now to check on my most troublesome patient.” Dr. Patch looked over Jade’s form and perform a scan and checked on how her body was healing.

The damage was mostly healed and now we were waiting on Jade to wake up. Why is it that my cuddle cat is always getting injured? Well it’s not to say that other people around here don’t get injured, they just don’t get injured badly enough like Jade almost insistently does.

Badly injured like mom, who was waiting on her arm and muscles to heal. She did transform into a griffon for an hour to cook some meals for the construction crew building up the hospital as she was getting tired of being stuck in bed all day. Like me and Jade, she was stubborn about sitting still and resting.

Mom barely made it back to bed in time and she got a few extra griffons feathers out of herself. Once she reverted back to being an Abyssinian, her injuries were still quite clearly where they were before her transformation.

It was useful to know that the griffon transformation puts you into a completely healthy state at the start of the limited time duration every time it is used. So plucking feathers before the transformation ended means there was a decent surplus on feather falling and double jumping for Magical Alchemy users, of which there were only two. Jade and mom must get a lot of mileage out of those griffon masks when they cast them.

I started to think on other things as I allowed myself to be held by Maries. Glancing over to mom, whose arm was in a sling, she sat at the edge of her bed sending sad looks to her kitten.

The hospital was still a long way from being finished. The construction crew was making good time though and were even donating money towards helping the town grow, which was rather nice of them. That or they enjoyed Kuril’s cooking far too much and wanted to see her back in action.

Thanks to Dr. Patch’s referrals and the Ratatoskr high speed mail delivery, we had several doctors of various races coming in. With that in mind, I was a little wary of the incoming diamond dog named Dr. Bones. Diamond dogs didn’t exactly have the greatest history of being friendly or even intelligent enough to even have doctors. Not only that, Abyssinians and diamond dogs tended to dislike one another on sight.

“Well now, she should wake up any day. Her injuries are healing perfectly, though she might be in a bit of pain upon waking. Otherwise she’ll be fine.” Well that was reassuring, but why hadn’t she woken up yet Dr. Patch. “As for why she hasn’t woken up yet, well these things take time and I’ll be here until she does to perform muscle therapy to make sure she doesn’t atrophy. This is the longest I’ve ever had to work with a patient, I’m more about quickly fixing up medical issues and letting my patients handle the rest.”

“To be fair you’ve already done more than enough for us Mr. Patch and I would like to say thank you for that.” Mom was right, he was going a little above and beyond to help us all out.

“Yes, but there’s nothing I can do for Ms. Chickadee. She’s chronically unlucky and most of her body will turn into a callus, well once her seemingly terminal bruises harden somewhat.” This was when Dr. Quick Patch turned to Maries. “While I’m here, I would like to give you a quick check up if you don’t mind. I do try to find the time to meet interesting biological challenges and a chimera would be a bit of a feather in my cap.”

“Oh we don’t mind, it’s just that chimera probably aren’t the easiest beings to be in charge of medically.” Mara was always the one to start off, which stemmed from her aggressive outgoing nature specifically. This was followed by Marie who hissed slightly at what Mara said. “Mostly because each chimera almost always have a completely different biology from birth from their progenitors. So what would work for once chimera wouldn’t work for all chimera. It would be more of a case to case basis for a doctor and would require specialized training per chimera under their purview. I’m not even sure what a blood test would look like from us, but I can guarantee you it would definitely be full of mixed results.”

“What they said, even if our race were to progress out of barbarism we would have a lot of problems in medical fields given the general variety of chimera there can be.” Maria just shook her head.

“How much of a variety?” Dr. Patch, to my understanding, didn’t quite see how bad a case could get.

“A cousin of ours is one part honey badger, a mongoose and a giraffe.” Now that was a disturbing combination for Maries to bring up. What Mara said next confirmed my thoughts. “You’d think the giraffe would be the tail end, but no… it’s actually the mongoose.”

“Yeah, they are considered to be mostly immune to bodily poisons and if they aren’t… well they become immune about five seconds afterwards out of sheer stubbornness. They have an insane immune system that could take platypus venom without batting an eye, but the problem with that is if they ever got sick for any reason…” Trailed off Maria only for Marie to finish the though. “Well medicine wouldn’t be able to help them, since some medicine can be a form of poison to help the body. Their biology would naturally resist medication out of principle. If you need another example, bear, shark and lamb.”

“Okay, I think I get the gist of it.” Here Dr. Patch shuddered violently and shook his head with his eyes closed, trying to imagine a bear, shark and lamb chimera hurt my brain too. He eventually opened his eyes and his horn started glowing, I guess he was going to check over Maries anyway. “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to give you a physical and learn about your biology specifically. Just in case you need any help down the line.”

“We already agreed to it, but be sure to have every part of a chimera in full agreement before doing anything with them.” It didn’t seem like Mara had a problem with being examined by a medical professional. Maria quickly threw her two bits. “If you ever end up in a situation where a chimera won’t eat you out right… aside from us that is. Other chimera are not as friendly as we have turned out to be.”

“I’ll keep that in mind on my travels. Do all chimera have two meat eating heads and a plant eating head?” Okay Dr. Patch was just making idle conversation now, I went to look at Jade again.

Jade looked so peaceful just lying there, I nuzzled her neck and left a gentle kiss on her cheek before I turned back to the conversation. I put one of my hooves over her right paw and squeezed it lightly. Please wake up soon, we miss having you around you weird cat.

I looked up at mom, she just smiled at me and nodded in understanding.

“… which is why most of our race is omnivorous, with leanings towards carnivorous. Rare are the occasions where chimera find an interest in partners that are more or less the gentlest beings you’ll ever know.” With that bit of information rattled off by Marie, Maries continued through a series of tests that Dr. Patch thought would provide good information on them.

I moved over to mom and put my face to her chest and she held me with her good arm.

-A day later, Kuril-

“You know Jade, if you don’t wake up soon you just might miss eating potato stew… funny I thought that would have worked.” I received a glum look from Fizzle, mentioning potato stew would always get my kitten up and moving. She must really be out of it.

“Maybe you have to actually make it and use it as smelling salts.” That sounded like a particularly good idea Fizzle, but I still wasn’t in a good enough shape to make the food unless I transformed into a griffon again. It’s a good thing we recently bought some griffon masks in bulk, but I wasn’t about to overdo it on the casts. I didn’t want to be a griffon for the rest of my life, even if the wings would be nice to have.

Maries was out helping Fluttershy care for sugar again, so it was just me and Fizzle. Well Dr. Patch was still around and was currently giving Mango a checkup.

“A good idea, let’s wait until I get the go ahead from Dr. Patch.” It was soon after I was done saying this that Sekhet decided to make an entrance into the room.

“An interviewee is here, it’s one of Dr. Patch’s referrals by the name of Dr. Zen Bones.” Reported Sekhet who looked kind of interested to see how I’d react to a diamond dog seeking a job in a town run by an Abyssinian.

I’d actually give the dog a fair chance, even if our races didn’t generally get along very well. My little tom cat and I came to Equestria to start something inclusive, what we started doesn’t have any room for bigotry or general racial issues.

If this diamond dog started something, you can be assured we’d toss them out for their actions and it would have nothing to do with their attitude. We’d be hypocrites if we did otherwise, especially since we let Wary Berry live here.

“Send them in Sek.” I decided to start calling her that since I heard Jacky doing so. Sekhet didn’t seem to care and basically gave us free reign to keep calling her that by not saying anything against it.

My first impression of Dr. Zen Bones was that she was a bit… short, in size at the very least. Diamond dogs could grow as big as Abyssinians, but she look a bit small for someone who was a doctor.

She had red fur, darker red for her fluffy ears, a moderate size tail with the usual diamond dog spikes on it and she was wearing a lab coat and stethoscope. She looked to be of a setter breed of diamond dog and had bright, if fierce, blue eyes. She looked better than most diamond dogs at least.

Abyssinians and diamond dogs had a lot of similarities, but fought like literal cats and dogs at times. I know for a fact that cats and dogs can get along, but there’s a stigma between our groups given that Abyssinian’s are usually more sophisticated or uptight.

Her first actions upon entering the room was to look towards Fizzle.

“Are ye’ Mayor Kooril?” Her accent was atrocious and she sounded Scoltish.

“Nope, I’m Fizzlepop, that’s mayor Kuril.” Fizzle pointed to me and rolled her eyes, the diamond dog looked at me and then seemed to wilt. It was kind of sad to watch her ears drop and her mid-length tail flop to the floor.

“I’m Mayor Kurilian La Perm and you are Dr. Zen Bones I take it?” I held out my left paw in a show of good faith.

“Ay’, that I be. Ye’ be not what I be expecting when Mr. Patch be sending meh’ a referral about a new hospice being built right over yonder and be needing doctors.” She shook her head in disbelief after we shook paws in a friendly gesture without any hidden or subtle aggression happening. “Whit’s fur ye’ll no go past ye’.”

“Excuse me, but what?” I didn’t understand what she said there.

“Ach, I forget that ye’ be not of me old glen or kin. It be meaning if I am to be a doctor here, then I will try tah’ be so. What will be, will be.” It seems doctor Bones wasn’t too put off by my being an Abysinnian. “Ye’ seem like quite the right sort lady, running fair pass for many a walk.”

I actually understood that one.

“Yes, we’re open to all walks of life here at Airship Mauled. Dragon, chimera, griffon… that right there is my little filly Fizzle and that over there is my slumbering little tom kitten.” At my words, the dog made her way over to Jade and looked at her. “She’s been out for more than a week.”

“I think I might like it here, ye’ be open hearted to kin even if it not be of blood.” She started to examine my daughter and I began to worry that Jade might have had a subterranean adventure without anyone’s knowledge judging by the scrutiny the doctor was giving her. “About yer wee one, does the lass happen to be a lazy git at times? Just humor meh will ya’ now?”

“Yes, Jade is sometimes lazy, but she’s been in a coma for a week at least.” I watched as the diamond dog start physically checking Jade over gently, she gave her a few sniffs and then nodded to herself about something.

“She be recovering well enough to be waking, but hasn’t done so yet… Oy, you, lass with the busted head lamp, come over ere’.” What did Dr. Bones think she was doing? She whispered into Fizzle’s ear before turning to me. “We’ll wake up this one soon enough Lady Kooril, with a bit of incentive.”

Fizzle gave the doctor a slightly disturbed look before approaching Jade, she kissed Jade and put her tongue into it. Bones didn’t seemed surprised by this.

After a few seconds of kissing Jade, Fizzle pulled back and slapped her face. Jade’s eyes flew open.

“Ow… why is pain...?!” My kitten was awake now.

“You’re hired!” I stated instantly much to Bones amusement.

Author's Note

Life continues on.

Next chapter will be filled with horror! Mostly because some people are getting a menial jobs at a Hayburger restaurant, but why though?

Chapter twenty three, Hayburger Helpers: Menial horror.

-Jade, a week later-

Okay, a few things went down when I was slapped awake. Apparently Dr. Zen Bones… almost sounds like saying ‘them bones’… anyway Dr. Zen Bones is a professional and accredited equestrian doctor.

She became an accredited doctor thanks to hearing about a certain chimera that became a lawyer and managed to win a trial in Canterlot a while ago.

Gee, I wonder who helped give her the opportunity to be accredited as an equestrian doctor by hearing that being an equestrian citizen was easy, especially if you were born within equestrian territory and have been there for years while undisputed? Maries’ case for the chimera pretty much gave Dr. Bones the opening to get her license.

Before being accredited, Bones had all the capabilities and training of an accredited doctor that wasn’t a unicorn. She was one of the few, if only, diamond dogs to ever attend a pony college in Manehattan.

Only she wouldn’t be paid for any of her work, because she couldn’t get accredited or a medical license due to some jerk blocking her progress. Zen Bones had basically been an unpaid intern at that point in time, one who could hardly practice medicine even if she should be fully licensed.

Thanks to one certain loophole in the court case made by Maries, she was able to become a fully licensed and accredited doctor. When the pony that blocked her previously tried to do so again, she was arrested for unlawful conduct, among a few other things.

All that thought, Bones was friendly and good looking for a diamond dog even if her accent and verbal skills were a bit annoying. Those were rare thoughts I’d never thought I’d think about a diamond dog, she wasn’t anywhere close to being a mangy mutt even if she was a bit on the short side.

Zen had gotten into an argument with Quick Patch about how I was woken up, an argument of which she won because slapping me had rebooted my brain from being comatose somehow.

From the way Bones explains it, Fizzy kissing me with tongue stimulated my brain somewhat and then the sharp slap afterwards was to kick my brain into high gear. Dr. Bones mentioned this wouldn’t work with a deep coma patient. It did, however, work on me.

My reaction upon waking up was to be expected, I was pretty confused yet oddly happy about it as Fizzle snuggled against me. I was finally off an intravenous drip and ready to get back into the swing of things. After I was given the okay by both Dr. Patch and Bones.

To that end, I planned out our next adventure, it was to be the most horrifying thing we’ve ever done.

It was scarier than cultists with crossbows, more dangerous than Jacky actually having five straight days of good luck in a row, tougher than Velvet climbing Seared Seer Mountain at Snickers behest and it was legally slavery for as long as you were willing to stomach it…

It was a basic eight to six job at the local Hayburger in Ponyville, you needed to arrive thirty minutes early to prepare the restaurant.

Yes, I can already hear everyone’s high pitched squeal of terror.

We were actually going to do something safe for once! I was missing the danger already…

I almost gagged on that thought alone that we weren’t going to spook wyverns, make Fortitude befriend a bufogren so that he can understand what the smell coming from him is like, or at the very least steal something incredible from a museum in a classic impossible thief style that ends up with a different culprit getting captured.

I also wouldn’t mind another trip to Turtle Toga, much less anything to not have to deal with a normal day job.

Nope, nothing for it, we were just going to work at a Hayburger.

Now one would ask why we’re doing this or acting responsibly… well my mother’s birthday was coming up soon and she’d notice any treasury expenditure to buy her a gift. Given that Sekhet was her secretary and owned said treasury.

Oh sure, her birthday was a few weeks away, but we’d only be able to work on what basically amounts to Saturdays and Sundays.

Not mention having to go to school, defend the town from random pukwudge invasions, defend the town from random ‘highland’ pukwudgie invasions, surviving the random monster of the week, training to be able to defend our town with Sekhet and dealing with that one super thief elephant that is stealthier than should be possible for an animal that weighs over a ton and should be visible from up to a mile away.

I would have gone with plan A, but mom already hid the nunchucks that I stole fair and square from the 'Order of Dark Dreams' cultists. I didn’t even get to test them for magical alchemy yet! At least I had my caltrops, a game of jacks was much more fun and challenging when it was played with caltrops.

It was either work at a menial job to get mom a present or I could wear a dress and get a picture taken. I still refuse all dresses and I wasn’t about to let my mom have a picture of me she could lord over me for the rest of my life!

As for the planned assistants for this job, I needed at least Fizzle, Blade and Flamberge onboard with helping me with the boredom of the fast food industry.

Flamberge for flame broiling prowess to cook burgers quickly. Knife master Blade can chop up and make fine hayburger patties, all while working with toppings and ingredients. Fizzy would be there to prevent me from going insane as I fried up potatoes and would possibly work the cash register. This left open one slot for a volunteer, who would most certainly not be Jacky.

I don’t know about anyone else, but if we took Jacky along, then I’d expect someone to eventually get a face full of boiling oil at some point. She could drop us off with the Ardent Survivor, but she was not working alongside us while we do these part time jobs and she was no good in a kitchen. We also didn’t want to pay for the numerous damages to the Hayburger we would be working at.

I could work at ‘The Witch’s Fare’, but mom would be more suspicious about me needing money after I dumped all of my bits into Ratatoskr. I got what I paid for at the very least, Ratatoskr is a very competent messenger god and he saved my family’s bacon more than once… now there's something that I haven’t had in a while.

Still, who to choose for our fifth member in horrible menial labor though? Generic maybe? Seems like his kind of speed. Maybe Arizona, but doing anything related to customer service would make her so very angry, even if she would be good at milkshakes. If I could get Velvet onboard, then we’d have free snow cones or at the very least quick ice cream.

No, we needed someone who is horrible to deal with that can be worse than any customer we’ll get and will inevitably out annoy them by a wide margin… we’re taking Wary Berry!

No wait, she was fruit inspector and quality control. No matter how much I disliked her, her job was actually important here. So who? Hmm… oh… that could work!

We were going in to do the jobs of the poor overworked ponies of Hayburger and we would try to at least have fun with it.

-Day zero at the Ponyville Hayburger, minutes before it opens-

“Are you ready for this guys?” We were giving some poor beleaguered ponies freedom from this job on the weekends. I bet they certainly felt sorry for us poor slobs.

“Why are we doing this again?” Sorry I got you a cash register job Fizzle. Hope that all the gods and goddesses be kind to you if you get a brain dead customer today, especially one that takes minutes to make an order. “This doesn’t seem like our speed Jade, though I’m not entirely knocking the fact that we aren’t doing high octane adventure like flying off a snowy mountain with an uninflated balloon in an airship. This seems all too… safe… somehow.”

“Well I want to earn money to buy my mother a birthday present and this is the least dangerous thing I could think of that we’d be doing to earn bits.” She nodded and understood my answer, but she quirked a brow at me. “Trust me though, this will be far from safe. Have you ever dealt with annoying customers before? Customer service is a complete nightmare and I’m sorry about what you’ll have to go through today. Just make sure to write down everything someone says when they make an order. That way, they can’t say you made a mistake with their order. Also smile and ask for a name.”

“What kind of present could you possibly be getting for mom that would require five of us to be doing this?” A true present that mother could appreciate Fizzle, a true present from the heart and is bought from hard labor that isn’t me putting on a dress and taking a picture of said dress wearing.

“Something pretty good I assure you, that and I’d be helping out the local economy when we’re done.” There was something about the way that Fizzle wore the hat over her horn that was cute, but the Hayburger uniform really didn’t suit her.

I’d prefer Fizzle in her Commander Tempest armor personally and she doesn’t look happy about this, but she was doing this for me and I was willing to do something for her afterwards. In any case, I should really wish Fizzle luck… she’d need it.

Flamberge didn’t seem to understand how boring and methodical this job would be, he was actually enthusiastic about this. I told him if anything tries to get into the food, he should fry it and eat it personally or throw it in the garbage.

Blade was looking calm and ready with two sharp edged spatulas to start chopping up hayburgers, vegetables and other things for hungry mouths.

I was at the frying station, my job was onions, potatoes and anything that needs a quick deep frying. Like any fast food restaurant, this was most certainly not a healthy place to eat even if all the food tasted delicious.

I couldn’t actually digest hay, so I wouldn’t know why a hayburger would taste good to a pony. We were still going to take advantage of the employee discounts while they lasted though, everything else on the menu other than the eponymous hayburger was edible to me at the very least.

As for the last person in our five person crew, it was Maries. Her job was to manage our collective neuroses into a functional unit, managerial work would help her in the future and who would say no to the firm paw of a chimera?

Also if some jerk asked for our manager and tried to pull on over on us, they’d be in for a big surprise if they tried to argue with Maries. There’s no beating a really good chimera lawyer.

“Are we about ready to open guys?” I called out, they all seemed to nod or think they were. They didn’t know the regular workers here needed a fairly large break from the insanity that was the fast food industry.

Even ponies with a cutie mark entirely geared to working in this industry needed a vacation from it every once in a while. When said pony's name is ‘Fry Hard’ and he needed a break, you knew you were in for a rollercoaster of tedium and horrors unseen.

“About as we’ll ever be Jade, though I’m wondering how you are so good at getting menial jobs like this. I mean interning with ‘Glasses and Staches’ for a day was one thing, but getting impossible job positions for more than one being and it becomes questionable. How would anyone let us even do this when we’ve never worked at a fast food restaurant in our lives?” After pausing a moment to consider her words carefully, Fizzle realized the kind of situation we came into. “Speaking of which, how did you get us these jobs without any prior training on our parts?”

“A pony owed me a favor or two.” I wasn’t lying, but I wasn’t about to tell anyone which ponies owed me the favors and why, but I’m sure I’d see Bon-Bon with Lyra over these coming days. Rogue’s always had connections in weird places for a reason and I was no different. “Also be of note, no work place fraternization. Hugs are allowed, but no kissing or nuzzling unless on break or we’re done for the day. We cannot mess this up people! Do you understand your job Maries?”

“Yes, we understand what we are supposed to do. We’ll be intimidating, but fair!” Maries was always good for following rules and knew when to break them, she was the only one here who couldn’t do anything illegal or she’d lose the ability to be a lawyer. That was okay, I could get away with enough for all of us.

“Okay I’m going to open the doors, whoever our first customers are, they better be gentle with us.” Way to jinx it Fizzle, did we even need Jacky here for things to go wrong? I watched as she opened the doors to the restaurant and went behind the counter, we were already setting up for a busy day of horrors upon horrors.

“Hi guys, oh this is so cool, you’re working at The Hayburger!” Oh for the love of, please tell me that our first customer wasn’t Pinkie Pie!

“Hello everyone, nice to see you today.” With a very shy Fluttershy in tow, I noticed from the back that Pinkie was holding the nervous mare's hoof.

Were they on a date? Well that would be interesting if they were, Pinkie liked to cuddle her friends and was very physically affectionate. That would be something Fluttershy would appreciate at the very least.

“Welcome to Hayburger, home of the hayburger, may a take your order?” Fizzle said blandly with a flat look on her face. No, I don’t think she would smile at any time in any of the escapades involving this restaurant that we might get into.

“Wow Fizzle, that was great! You could try to smile a little more though.” Pinkie Pie, she’s working as a fast food service drone. Fizzle gave Pinkie a disgruntled look. “Oh right, sorry! I’ll have two hash browns with ketchup, three fluffy biscuits with grape jelly, a breakfast hayburger with a broken yolk fried egg and some pomegranate juice!”

“Okay, that’ll be tomato smashing chariot wheels, three cats heads with purple diggers and a burnt protein hammer on a leaky raft with underworld juice for Pinkie.” The fact that Fizzle said that all with a straight face made Pinkie burst into a fit of giggles. “What will you be having Fluttershy? Don’t mind my dry humor, this is going to be a long day for us all and I need to get a jump on it right now.”

Yes, this was the most horrific start to a most horrific day and I didn’t see it going any other way.

Author's Note

The most horrifying thing I could do, would be to dedicate the rest of this story to working in the fast food industry.

I'm not nearly that evil.

Now excuse me, I have five pounds of 'Month of Monsters' candy to start working on and the story will continue on as it's supposed to.

Chapter twenty three, Hayburger Helpers: Menial work.

Author's Note

Had this on loop while I was writing this chapter. I imagine table slapping sounding like working in a kitchen now.

Chapter twenty three, Hayburger Helpers: Menial work.

-Blade-

I was ready for the day, it started off simple enough with Pinkie and Fluttershy’s order. It was after that that it slowly became increasingly difficult. For some reason the crowd became larger and large while we worked.

It’s when the first ponies started marching in that it was time for the breakfast rush. I pointed to the coffee pot and Flamberge nodded, the dragon was an interesting member of his species because he could hardly talk without shouting.

Kind of like my opposite really, but his voice was really grating on my ears.

Why was I stuck working with him? I shook my head as the first order came in and I turned to Jade and pointed towards the hash rounds, she nodded and got to work. Jade never seemed to hold my threats against her life personally at all and like her mother, she understood me quite well.

I looked at the first order and slapped a solid bit of hay before me and started chopping as I looked at what was going into this hayburger.

I tossed up a head of lettuce and slashed off a piece with the edge of the spatula and sliced out a chunk of the nearest tomato with one swing of both spatulas, both of which grabbed the tomato slice between them and then I started grilling that while adding a bit of salt and pepper.

I flipped the slightly cooked hay patty and Flamberge blasted it with a bit of fire from his mouth. The pony standing in front of the counter in front of a bored looking Fizzle seemed to be slightly amazed, didn’t understand why.

I had finished the order in short order after that, but Jade still had to take time to fry some hash browns.

-Fry Hard-

I was a blond and light brown furred pony with a cutie mark of fries on my flank, fry cooking was my specialty and my green eyes were watching something absolutely delightful.

I came in to the restaurant as a customer for once and I was surprised at the skill of the thestral cook they brought in.

The way she chopped the vegetables using the two spatulas without touching the food was kind of hypnotic in a way and even got the strange order call from the bland sounding mare running the cash register correct.

Now these guys looked like a professional unit, especially since they were already getting started on the coffee. I wondered where they came from.

They had a cat running my station and she wasn’t too bad, she at least knew that fried food took time and didn’t overdo it.

The dragon was helping cook the hayburgers faster, which was interesting as his aim was impeccable whenever the thestral tossed a hayburger high up in the air. The hayburger always became evenly cooked on both sides when it came down.

There was something large back there, but they were keeping their head down. I didn’t know who was running the managerial or support stuff today, but I had a sneaky suspicion that I wouldn’t want to mess with them if they were a big guy just waiting for a customer to make a fuss.

Speaking of which I looked to see Sell Hard my finicky brother come in, grey fur and dark blue mane with a cutie mark of a bit pouch with symbol of monetary gain on it. The look in his grey eyes meant he was going to try and bum food off of them I just know it. What was he going to order this time?

“Extra onions, ketchup, mustard, pickles, hold the mayo, toasted bun, well done, with some butter, animal style.” Yeah, he added animal style to just be difficult, I disliked my brother sometimes.

“Okay that’ll be a… crying over the chariot that ran over your favorite tomato, a yellow sponge soaked in its own juices with added yellow, dodge a kappa, no friend of the protein hammer, on a well-made raft with wagon grease?” Wow the mare had my brother flabbergasted, it sounded like she knew what animal style was. Even I was a little flabbergasted. “Do you want that wagon grease melted into the bun, the patty or still somewhat solid Mr…?”

“Sell Hard. Yes, that…. sounds about right. Wagon grease?” Oh great my brother was confused, this won’t end well. “Whatever you feel works the best.”

“Right, wagon grease the insides of the well-made raft!” The mare said after a moment, she sounded rather bored. I wonder how they’d deal with my brother when he tries to scam them over this.

A minute after getting his food my brother sat down took one bite and he smirked he got up and made his way over to the mare to ask for a refund. The mare narrowed her eyes slightly, after a moment she smirked as if she knew what was about to happen. I continued to eat my food in silence watching what was bound to be a spectacle.

“I want a refund, there are no pickles on my…” My brother didn’t get any farther as the mare’s right hoof snatched his tongue and her left scraped the pickles off the underside of his tongue.

“There are your pickles sir, don’t lose them next time.” She said in a smarmy voice, she had to have seen this tactic coming a mile away. “I may just have to help them down your throat if you do.”

Makes me wonder if she’s seen this or Sell Hard before, because now he was a mess of spluttering words as she held the pickles out to him with other ponies watching on to see how she’d deal with him. He took the pickles back at the very least.

“I want to talk to your manager!” Oh here we go, who did they hire to be the manager? I bet it was some big bulky guy that looked like or was an incompetent idiot.

“Maries, jerkass customer problem!” Quite a few ponies panicked and backed away from the counter as the mares shouted words had an immediate reaction, I admit I slid a small distance away from what was about to happen to my brother. “I have to go wash my hooves now. Take care of him, will you?”

Couldn’t happen to a worse pony, my brother probably shouldn’t have pushed it with a seemingly rookie crew working today. Out of the kitchen came the manager as the mare walked in, said manager was a chimera. All three of her heads stared down my brother and his tail immediately shot so far up between his hind legs that they were going to need surgery to get it back out.

“Is there a problem?” They all asked calmly in unison with a hint of sweetness in their voices belying their dangerous nature as the managers here.

None of these hired helpers seemed to be scared of her and the warning was quite implicit. You just had to look the chimera in the eyes to see it.

I took it that all the hired helpers personally knew the chimera and had nothing to fear from her, my brother on the other hoof... Well there would be no scam attempts for the rest of the day.

My brother shook his head no and turned around to go back to eating his food, this caused a few ponies to cheer. They really didn’t like my brother all too much and even I hardly liked him. It wasn’t long before the mare was lazily sitting at the register once more.

They only needed one warning to stop customers from trying to run roughshod over them and that warning had claws, poisonous fangs and sharp horns. Then I heard the strangest exchange that let me know for certain they’ve seen my brother before.

“Did he seem familiar to you Maries?” The chimera turned to the mare and the three heads looked thoughtful.

“Yes, in fact he did, wasn’t he the pony that got turned into a mouse for an hour and chased around by Jade for trying to pull one over on the matriarch?” They all started giggling about my brother being turned into a mouse like it was normal. The chimera walked back towards the back to make sure things were running smoothly.

“That’s why you don’t try to mess with a mothering witch who feeds hungry mouths like mine!” The cat in the back said with a toothy grin. “Makes working as a waitress for mom worth it, I get some exercise and someone gets a little comeuppance.”

So yeah, nobody was messing with this crew… ever.

That didn’t stop a flood of customers from coming in to watch the thestral juggle various amounts of food on two spatulas with expert precision, in fact it was highly entertaining to watch. Never quite saw a spectacle like it really.

I couldn’t help myself, I approached the mare at the counter.

“Excuse me, but where did that mare learn to do that?” I pointed at the thestral flipping burgers, flinging cheese and vegetables every which way. When she flipped a burger high up, despite having his back turned at the time, the dragon once again turned and expertly blasted it with fire to get it nice and crisp. It was too well choreographed to be normal.

“Eh, she used to be an assassin that has tried to kill my girlfriend currently working at the frying station. She’s certainly come a long way since learning to be a sushi chef with the Witch of Good Taste, Mayor Kurillian La Perm of Airship Mauled.” Why did that sound like an advertisement for a… oh… no way! “Our mayor runs The Witch’s Fare there, it’s a really good restaurant. Now if you will excuse me... next!”

They worked for another restaurant and one of them used to be an assassin?! How in the world did they even end up with these jobs? At the very least it didn’t seem like they were trying to destroy Hayburgers reputation or sabotage it. They didn’t seem quite efficient at the start, but were quickly becoming a well-oiled machine and it was a good thing they were only part timing for a few weeks.

The thestral chopped the hay, got it quickly organized into patties and was keeping up with the influx of orders even while she performed theatrically in front of everyone. Some ponies were having seconds just to watch her work the two spatulas in a mesmerizing fashion, twirls, flourishes and flying hayburgers, vegetables, slices of cheese and occasionally the buns when ordered toasted.

I’m quite sure the fillies and colts were going to be sad when the showmanship of this crew ceased to be around anymore. Speaking of, the young ones were enjoying this immensely and even gave applause as the thestral formed a small volcano out of onions. The blast of heat from the volcano turned the battered onions into fried onion rings.

It was around lunch time that the most miraculous thing happened, were these guys born under a lucky star? Princess Celestia came in with a young purple mare with her nose in a book, on their first day. The cat glanced at the pony next to Celestia and seemed a bit spooked for whatever reason.

“Hello, I had heard you guys were doing something unusual today.” Wait… Celestia knew them? Okay, what is going on here! “At least it’s not as dangerous as what you could be doing, I hope you know I worry about Jade and I don’t want to hear she’s been physically traumatized again when I wasn’t watching her carefully enough. I really should get her a moon priest… and I will, but it’s going to take some time. The moon priests are being a bit… retentive. I would have to bring Jade to them to get them to lend her a moon priest for her defense.”

-Fizzle-

“Welcome to Hayburger, home of the hayburger, may I take your order Celestia and that of the young mare companion with you?” I might not have known it at the time, but I would have an interesting history with the mare next to Celestia. “Also, it’s not like Jade means to get traumatized. It’s just that she likes to throw herself at problems that are bigger than her and she apparently comes across a lot of those. I seriously doubt a moon priest would really help Jade at this rate. Who’s the nose in the book?”

“Oh this is my protégé Twilight Sparkle, she loves books… a little too much.” Getting a real smile out of Celestia was worth its weight in gold, or so I’ve been told numerous times. I was ready to take her order and had my pad ready, I had heard Celestia was a big eater. Let’s see if the rumors are true. “So, I’ll have one full-on Fillydelphia, with a twist of lemon, a Palomino press stopper, a Hoofington heart attack, a Manehattan mangler and three double loaded Ponyville Pounders with extra cow secretions…. oh and fries with a spot of tea. What will you be having Twilight?”

“I’m sure whatever you’ll be having is fine Princess.” The mare still had her nose thoroughly lodged in Star Swirls a thousand and one uses for sock cleaning spells.

I gave Celestia a slowly quirked brow and her smile turned somewhat sad, did her protégé even have any friends? This was a thought that would come back to haunt me later in life, but for now I was curious as to what I should do about this Twilight’s order.

“She’ll want two moderates, a side of pudding, no taco filler, chariot smashed tomato off the side of the road, but do something interesting with it so that I can get her attention off that book for a moment… with fries and grape juice.” Once Celestia said that, I nodded and smiled. That was the simplest order I’ve gotten yet.

“Stick around and watch the show Princess, Blade’s been getting a bit flamboyant back there and it’s quite amazing to watch given she’s yet to drop anything and she’s got every order correct without many complaints. Order for a Ms. Hooves!” At my call, a blond mare with bright gray fur and strange amber eyes smiled as she came forward and took the tray loaded with goodies to a nearby table. She was a sweet mare and Ratatoskr mentioned her, from what I heard she gave muffins to sad or upset ponies and was quite passionate about her favorite form of baked good. “So did you need to talk about anything else Celestia?”

When I had a lull in orders thanks to you drawing attention away from the counter.

“Well I can’t think of anything at the moment, come along Twilight.” The mare with her nose in a book followed after Celestia to sit down and I just shrugged. That’s when a stallion in a hat, tie and trench coat came in.

“I’m a health inspector, I need to check this establishment for problems.” Okay, suspicious green furred stallion with short pink mane just waltzes on in and I can’t help but think there’s something off about him.

“Did you send prior notice of this inspection?” I ask because I knew a thing or two about health inspectors from Kuril, and surprisingly Maries who read up on the laws about this kind of thing. Prior notice is required, as is a warrant.

Chapter twenty three, Hayburger Helpers: Menial savior.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter twenty three, Hayburger Helpers: Menial favor.

-Jade, early morning Ponyville Park-

“Okay cutie, now that you know what I want you to do, go have some fun.” I patted the mare on the back she smiled at me shyly hiding half her face with her mane.

“Okay, I will. I promise that I’ll ask all the animals to keep away from Hayburger and to not cause problems anywhere near there.” Fluttershy was always going to be somewhat of a sweetheart. “I can’t wait to learn how to speak to every animal around here, I just hope all the birds don’t have too many different dialects.”

“Have a good day today cutie, make lots of friends okay?” After giving her a hug, I let Fluttershy set off. That shy pony was going to get in some practice for her dream job. Animal caretaker, veterinarian, animal shelter, she was going to do it all eventually. I then turned my attention to Sekhet.

“I like her as a friend, but she’s way too nice and my personality would chafe in the extreme after a while. She knows I lead a somewhat dangerous life and that’s one major deterrent already.” Though I could certainly say she was a beautiful young mare, Maries and Fizzy were much more important to me and they were more than enough. “There’s also the fact that I’m not exactly a person that let’s legality gets in the way of things I do. Plus she’s better off not knowing of the museum heist I plan to do later in life.”

“All of which is quite mature of you I’m sure.” It wasn’t hard to find Sekhet more approachable when she was willing to get at eye level with you in size. “What did you need of me Jade?”

“A few things, first of which… about Jacky. She’s seems a bit frazzled these last few days, is it anything we’re doing or is it something else? I know that not all gods are not omnipotent, but you at least keep an eye on a situation and can smell a war of any kind. Which means including between friends, the heart and two jelly beans being randomly grabbed out of a bag by two differing people that want a specific flavor.” I think I surprised Sekhet somewhat, she had the most curious look on her face before a broad smile formed on it. She opened her mouth to say something, but I held up my left hand to stop her. “Let me guess. You riddled her and whatever the riddle is, it’s driving her nuts? It’s either that or the fact that she’s attracted to the most boring griffon I’ve ever heard of, which is very unusual for a Viking. You know, since they are kind of a small degree of separation from being pirates outright.”

“A lot of column A and maybe a bit from column B, I’m not a goddess of love you know. You didn’t bring me to Ponyville to ask me that, but know that she’s trying to find out about the name of the ten foot pole eating blob you came across. Don’t tell her, I want to win this one!” Why is that whenever someone talks to her she has to have a blasé attitude about things, I know she cares and she continues to act like she doesn’t. “Now please, get to the point Priest Jaded.”

She loves what we’re accomplishing with Airship Mauled, she also likes the fact that we have a hospital and a qualified doctor to stick around. So why does she always want to be cold to the world when it’s warm to her? She embraces pain, most likely in an attempt to feel alive. If she, as an immortal, were to ever stop feeling pain… then she wouldn’t really be living then would she?

Quick Patch moved on to go somewhere else in the world once Bones proved her qualifications, Dr. Patch always traveling and plying his trade of medical assistance and assured us he’d stop by every once in a while.

Now we had Dr. Bones, who was not gentle in how she did things and was a diamond dog. Her excuse was that we would try harder to not need her help if she always treated us roughly, but within accordance and tolerance of medical law therein. Cats and dogs can be friends, but Dr. Bones is a little ruff… er… rough around the edges.

I took a breath and decided to say it, because Sekhet was getting a little annoyed by my silence.

“Okay, you know how your specific pantheon has a… history?” Time to ease slowly into it, I was going to broach this delicately and slowly. “Specifically the plagues part of it?”

Nope couldn’t do delicate or slow, it probably wasn’t in my nature unless it was caring about Maries and Fizzy.

“Okay which one of those are you talking about?” One delicately raised brow and a curious gaze set up by Sekhet upon me, I waited to speak as she looked like she had more to say. “Just so you know, my pantheon didn’t cause any of that to happen. The incidents were all just natural disasters that had a rather nasty domino effect on a rather specific region that we just happened to watch over. Even though all that the stuff was blamed on the actions of at least one god, we were all pretty sure at the time that it was just incredibly bad magic guided karma. Not all of those poor mortals deserved what happened to them. Come to think of it, some of them might have even been Arizona’s ancestors… huh. Anyway we didn’t cause the plagues, but some of us could admittedly have helped. It wasn’t in my purview to do so at the time.”

“Okay, that’s interesting and slightly disturbing to hear. My request is related to the ones about the bugs specifically.” Drawing this out in case someone decides to interrupt us, I glanced about. Nothing, except for ponies frolicking and playing everywhere else. “Can you create an exclusion zone that specifically effects bugs and only bugs? I know you have the ability to can create zones of annulment, like how you can stop a pony from flying or using magic.”

“Where would I be putting up this zone specifically? There are limits to what I can and am willing to do.” Sekhet stood up and stretched out her spine with a loud pop. “Which leads to the pertinent question, how would you make it worth my while?”

“Riddles, multiple times until satisfied and you don’t need to tell me the answers if I can’t guess them.” Yep, how else do you think I would make a goddess act all twitchy for a few seconds? “Also, I’m quite aware you can go bad genie on me if I abuse your need to have riddles answered for profit.”

I clearly had Sekhet’s number on this one, getting a riddle for a small favor wasn’t too bad. Riddles were the one itch that Sekhet could never stop scratching, it was a foregone conclusion since she was a sphinx.

After a long moment of silence, Sekhet finally spoke up.

“I am never seen, but I am heard, of all the caverns I’ve been to, you only know of me by spoken word.” That wasn’t particularly difficult of you Sekhet, but I guess it was a warmup riddle.

“The answer is an echo.” My answer was met with a nod acceptance and that I was right. “Quick question, can you ever ask a riddle that is nearly almost impossible to answer?”

“Good question, it depends on how smart a person is and whether or not they realize that the answer shouldn’t be spoken in time. The real answer would be to question the answer itself, but that’s usually saved for the obscenely smug and highly intelligent.” Sekhet sat down with in the grass and I joined her. “It is sometimes better to question things than it is to blindly leap forward with an answer you came up with on your own. A second opinion never hurts.”

“Okay, makes sense, next riddle then?” I take it we’d be sitting in this grassy spot for a while, I made sure I wasn’t sitting anywhere close to an anthill or anything resembling leavings of an animal. This spot was really quite clean.

“Of course. I’m quite small compared to all, I am not heavy in weight, but I can stretch to be as tall as a wall, without changing my state.” That was also an easy one, was Sekhet taking it easy on me because she needed to unload riddles? Do riddles even get backed up in a sphinx?

“Is it a shadow?” The sigh I received sounded pleasant and happy to have that answered, I think Sekhet wanted to do this more. “You like challenging people don’t you?”

“Yes, but I also really like doling out riddles more.” We sat there for a few minutes enjoying nature, the tweeting of birds talking with Fluttershy. The early morning sun casting a glow upon the peaceful and quiet area. “Okay, where do you need this barrier that prevents any insects from passing through?”

“That’s it? Two easy too easy riddles?” I thought she would go on for the next thirty minutes telling me nothing but riddles unending.

“I can always ask you more to ponder over later.” Taking Sekhet’s words for what they were I led her towards the Hayburger. Once we arrived she had a comment about the décor. “Ah yes, the lowest common denominator of food that will never quite match up to Kuril’s cooking… the fast food industry. Had you wanted a barrier where bugs are supposed to frequent, I’d given it a few days before it failed. I can’t stop nature like that, but I can make a permanent one here. Though that begs the question of why?”

“Someone wants to shut this place down through unscrupulous methods, I want to help the stallion that asked for it and I’m getting paid to work here.” Speaking of which, my coworkers would be here any second now. “So can you create a pestilence barrier that covers all but the garbage cans in the back? It’d be suspicious if flies won’t even go near the trash.”

“Earning money for what exactly, you do realize that we have a treasury full of gold right?” Having expected this question from Sekhet long before we came here, I was prepared to tell her several things. None of them would be lies, I know better than to lie to gods or goddesses. Goddesses are worse to lie to, lying to a god and getting away with it might earn you their respect.

“I intend to buy something with hard, if slightly boring, work.” Getting my mother a birthday present worthy of her would be nice, like a hat that wasn’t half pirate and witch. Plus a new set of well-designed robes wouldn’t be amiss. “I’m doing that here, because I’m still kind of licking my wounds from the last adventure and this is the safer option than robbing a museum. Which I intend to do eventually in a gentle thief manner.”

“Did you just seriously tell me you were going to rob a museum?” Sekhet seemed more amused than upset by the idea that I would do something like that, she started chuckling dryly. “Which one by the way?”

“One in Manehattan, I plan to take Maries and Fizzle there on a date. You know, to enjoy time with my girlfriends while I scope out the place and then I’ll offer my services to check out the security of the place.” Hey, I never said I wouldn’t do it above the board, I just want to rob a museum at least once in my life. I didn’t have a kleptomania problem, just a problem with not doing something like a rogue. “Nothing like a ‘cat’ burglar to burgle something priceless out from under the nose of security guards and the magical security systems protecting whatever I target.”

“I believe that will be quite an interesting endeavor for you.” Sekhet started gathering magic to her body as she looked towards the restaurant. “Tell me when you go, I want to visit the city that never stops neighing and it’s about time I gave Las Pegasus a break. Broaden my horizons a bit.”

“I’ll tell you when I plan to ask them both to go on tour of the city with me, my and mom’s original plan was to settle down there.” It seemed to me that Sekhet was having problems, problems with not being a friend and not wanting to enjoy life more. Since she was now smiling at me and it could light a hearth ablaze. “We know how that turned out, because we can’t do normal too often.”

Sekhet certainly wasn’t holding back anymore, she wasn’t trying to avoid stronger connections so that she can’t get hurt later when a mortal she’s come to like or love perishes. In that, she was failing in a war of the heart quite hard and giving in to the desire to form emotional bonds, but maybe victory wasn’t what she needed in that arena. I knew I was going to be her friend for as long as I could last.

“Okay, I protected this place from the plague of ever having insects cross its doors to the interior, not a scrap of insect can get into the restaurant and they will stay away from all but the garbage cans outside the building.” It didn’t look any different, but Sekhet didn’t need to test it. I trusted her implicitly at this point.

“Thank you Sek. So, would you like to come in and get something to eat when we get the restaurant up and running for the day?” If she didn’t want to, then I wasn’t about to press Sekhet on it.

“Sorry, but your mother’s cooking has spoiled me. The low grade stuff here wouldn’t be worth much to my taste buds… but I will have some dragon roasted coffee.” Giving her a questioning look, Sekhet expunged the knowledge to me. “Dragons make really good blends.”

“I wouldn’t know, I’m somewhat caffeine intolerant and try to stay away from any major sources of caffeine.” It wasn’t all too bad really, I shared something in common with Dr. Bones in that we can’t have chocolate. Well at least Dr. Bones can’t have chocolate, I can at least handle a little. Too much chocolate would definitely make me sick.

“Ah yes, I forgot there were some things certain mortals couldn’t handle.” Sekhet shook her head sadly at me as we waited for the others to arrive. Maries was the one that had to open the doors to the restaurant so we could start our second day of work.

Theobromine and caffeine are the two major problems that Abyssinians and Diamond Dogs share when it comes to chocolate, which is why I prefer good old healthy fruit as a safer option.

If anyone were to ever become an Abyssinian, the first lesson would be to never eat cocoa beans or anything with high amounts of chocolate or theobromine in it like tea leaves.

Hearts and Hooves day was problematic when the major gift of the holiday was chocolate, something that I told Fizzle to avoid giving me. I think Maries might be able to eat chocolate safely despite being part feline, they had a strong stomach.

Author's Note

The plagues of Egypt all had logical scientific causes, such as algae turning water red. The algae was known as Burgundy Blood Algae, it turns red when it dies off and thus the water looks like it's filled with blood.

It was all because of stuff like that, that a dangerous snowball effect took place and it became a biblical story. When all it was really... was a lot of rain that caused all the things that happened and maybe an exploding volcano nearby or a rare hail storm with a swarm of nomadic locusts.

It all seems mythical in proportions, but then it's just turns out to be an absurdly large amount of bad luck. Nature can easily wreck your stuff if some things are left unchecked.

Also Jade, Kuril and Dr. Bones naturally shouldn't eat chocolate, if we're taking their biology into account.

Chapter twenty three, Hayburger Helpers: Menial riddles.

-Fizzle, Ponyville Hayburger-

“Okay Jade, why is Sekhet here?” What did she do this time, I had to watch Jade like a griffon, eagle or even a hawk at all times to make sure she doesn’t go overboard.

“Just some prevention setup.” What kind of prevention setup Jade?

“Do you remember this one? You measure my life in hours, I serve you by expiring as my lifespan sours. I’m quick when I’m thin and slow when I’m fat, the wind is always my enemy no matter where I sat.” Yeah, Sekhet has been shooting a few riddles at Jade every now and then, she was also paying for and drinking a lot of coffee roasted personally by Flamberge.

She’s been here since breakfast and wasn’t leaving for some reason. What was Jade up to? Or was it Sekhet that was up to something? All I knew was that things were going pretty well for our lunch period.

“A candle.” Jade answered without batting an eyelash as she started frying some onions rings, Sekhet nodded at the back of her head as if Jade could see that action.

“A simple wave from me can lead to imminent dangers, as I can twirl and drag you around in a dance as if we weren’t complete strangers. When I fall, I can save or endanger many lives in a manner most profound. When severely lacking my company, you might want to help pull me up from the ground. You need me more than I need you, which is fair to say, but too much of me can be the real end of your day.” Okay, Sekhet was definitely going for a record today. While she did make riddles with answers we’ve heard before, it was always worded quite differently.

“Give me a minute Sek, that’s a pretty good one.” Jade sent me a smile when she turned to where I sat at the counter, I was waiting for the next order to walk in. This was really quite boring work and I don’t think I could do this forever, I wanted to get out there and show every pony what I can do. “I offered Sekhet to stick around after making sure most health code violations can be avoided and she took me up on it. So how has your horn been feeling lately? Are your exercises with imbuement and magic training helping you use it more easily?”

“Yeah, my horns okay Jade, stop worrying about it. I’m getting better at controlling it… even if it’s like trying to scoop up a lake with a leaky bucket full of holes.” That was the closest analogy I could get to what using my magic is like. “If anything, I’m currently almost being bored to death by this job.”

“Hey, at least you’re being paid for all this tedium.” Not that it really helped with the boredom Jade. “I’m not getting all the money we make from this, so do not imply that I’m being greedy. Though as a rogue I probably would want to be a little greedy and take half of Flamberge’s earnings.”

In response Flamberge grunted angrily and was about to say something, only to whimper when Jade shot him a dangerous sharp eyed look. How did Jade keep cowing that drake with a scathing glance alone? I thought dragons were more aggressive and made of sterner stuff than that.

My reservoir of magic was only getting bigger, but my control of it was lacking and the bleed off effect was increasing the amount of magic I had to work with each time by expanding the pool into a lake and then possibly further into an ocean. It was a struggle to even do directed blasts of magic, but what I could do was always powerful and then some.

Even with my increasing capacity, I was losing a good chunk of my magic for every spell I tried to do even if it was as simple as lighting my horn. It was a constant struggle to gain an edge in keeping control of it all, but I was sure I could do it. I could probably rival an alicorn with my magical output, but I wouldn’t ever recommend a unicorn damage their horn to be like mine.

I really wanted to make Kuril proud of me and I wanted to impress Jade by getting strong, I… sometimes felt lacking in comparison to Maries. I wanted to be more important, but I hadn’t exactly figure out how to do that yet. I’d get there one day and then… I might actually feel worthy of Jade’s or Maries’ attention.

I was important enough to mom, Jade and Maries at least, though we needed to have a discussion about Maries in what she sees in me and Jade. I can kind of see what Jade sees in Maries at least, she was strong, intelligent and was quite capable of protecting us tooth and nail.

Maries’ appearance was a little difficult to think of in a fond light at first, but after a while I grew to appreciate them as individuals and as a collective entity. They were naturally beautiful, It was kind of like how Jade was beautiful even when she cared so little for being feminine.

It wasn’t like I or Maries were winning a beauty pageant any time soon, unless chimera held beauty pageants, though Jade might be able to. It was a matter of getting Jade to wear a dress and telling her to act completely like an airheaded idiot we accuse her of being sometimes, she would only do one of those things for me if asked and I knew which one of those she would choose in instant.

It was kind of hard for me to see Jade as plain by Abyssinian standards. The picture mom had of the queen of Abyssinia looked nice. She wasn’t overly attractive to me, but apparently by Abyssinian standards said Abyssinian queen was quite a beautiful queen among queens.

Female cats being called queens made me think of the queen bee analogy mom told me about when she explained the finer points of life and reproduction. My face went red at a few new implications I just realized about my education in the birds and the bees.

“Hey… hello… Fizzle!” Jacky shouting in my face made me yelp and almost tumble out of my chair, thankfully Jacky grabbed me and pulled me back into a steady position. I had gotten a little lost in thought. “I did what you asked and checked up on the stallion that claimed to be an inspector, he actually is a health inspector. His name is Forward Closure, he filed for a warrant this morning and is going to give you a notice about it in advance. He’s also a bit down on his luck lately, he really doesn’t do much here in Ponyville. Oh and can I get an order of fries, some ketchup and onion rings?”

“Well that’s nice to know… Jade, kid gloves!” It needed to be said and I did so, because Jade doesn’t hold back on going full petty kitty mode when someone issues a threat to her or those she loves. I’ve seen what she is capable of and know she can do some really evil things for a good cause.

“Give me a little credit Fizzy, it’s like you expect me to go off the deep end on that Closure guy.” It sounded like Jade was already working on Jacky’s order.

Given a chance and an opportunity to do something when in the vein of her general petty kitty mindset, Jade would totally do something if she thought she could get away with it.

That is… if Jade hadn’t already… darn it Jade! I turned to Sekhet with a panicked look in my eyes.

“I know not what Jade plans, but I can tell you that I wouldn’t be able to stop it at this rate if it’s already set up. Jade doesn’t fight wars or battles to win, she fights to severely annoy and she’s quite successful at it. Makes me wonder if all her enemies will gather together to bring her down.” With that the goddess took another sip of her coffee, I felt something drop in my stomach. “The food here is not to my taste, but dragon made coffee is always nice.”

-Inspector Closure-

I walked in calmly, I would do a proper inspection. Learning that I might have been a bit too full of myself and had my head thoroughly dug into the clouds in my hubris, I delivered a notice of intent to inspect the premises in a few hours from now.

No pony had gotten sick yet, but Sell Hard did say that establishments like this tended towards the unhealthy. So far I didn’t see anything unhealthy about it, but I had a job to do if I’m to pay the bills this week. I really needed a job that paid better.

It was quite kind of Sell Hard to charitably give some money to me so I could make ends meet.

-Maries-

“Well we’ve been given a notice of today’s inspection and two future inspections over the next two weeks. I’ll be in charge of making sure everything is ship shape, while we’re here at the very least.” There was a rough tapping on the ‘to go’ window nearby, attracting our attentions. Moving over to it we opened it to see a pony recoiling at the sight of us.

Just another average day for us.

“Welcome to Hayburger.” Mara started.

“Home of the hayburger.” Maria continued.

“May we take your order ma’am?” Marie asked in a friendly tone as she rose up overhead.

“Lands sakes, a chimera working at our local Hayburger, Big Mac is never going to believe me when I tell him about this! Sorry, but uh, you almost gave me a heart attack there. I can see your good folk, you know, since you’re actually wearing a uniform and all. I can tell your hardworking and just trying to get by like we do down on the farm.” The recoil became less fear and more curiosity, which happened much faster than usual and this kind of confused us. She eventually took her hat off her head and fumbled around for a scrap of paper within the inner lining. “Ah here it is, six Ponyville Pounders, four orders of fries, two orders of ketchup on the side, a fried blooming onion with three tubs of dipping sauce and one Cerberus Special extra Tartarus Sauce… I still don’t understand how granny can eat something so Celestia darned spicy.”

“Eh, we prefer sweet and savory ourselves, a bit of cottage cheese wouldn’t go amiss either.” Mara stated conversationally. “We’re known as Maries collectively, I’m Mara. My sisters are Marie the snake head and Maria the goat head.”

“Pleased to meet you Maries, I’m Applejack.” This Applejack was a somewhat interesting pony. “How much do I owe you for the order?”

-Sell Hard-

I couldn’t find any rats, mice or other pest this morning to help with my plans. It was like the area was picked clean of pests by some unseen force of nature.

Speaking of plans, it was about time someone went to order something at the take away window, now to make my move! I lifted the bucket and ran forward.

I tossed the amounts of my efforts last night, a riled up bucket full of bugs flew towards the window and the mare that just got caught in the crossfire. So there was a little collateral damage, I didn’t care.

It wasn’t illegal to own a bucket full of bugs nor was it illegal to toss them through the window of a restaurant in the effort to get it shut down, I checked. Though this could technically count as assault, I doubt anyone would side with the beast at the window and my victory was assured.

Only, neither of them were touched and my plan to get at least one bug into the restaurant failed spectacularly, especially when the mass of bugs suddenly turned around in midair and came at me.

I suddenly found myself covered in bugs, all of them itching, biting and scratching. I of course kept calm and made my way away from the establishment like any business pony would under the situation.

I would be back once I found something more capable of causing this place a problem.

-Maries-

Did that pony have to have such a shrill voice? It left our ears ringing somewhat. He also ran pretty fast while he was screaming about the bugs he incidentally covered himself in.

While Mara and Maria took care of addressing if Applejack was okay, Marie decided to give Jade a flat look.

Jade glanced at us from where she was already frying the blooming onion order already masterfully chopped open by Blade as soon as it was ordered. She smiled in an adorably innocent manner, it was as if she expected that to happen.

-Jade-

“Is the answer water?” I asked of Sekhet who was in the midst of getting another cup of coffee, apparently caffeine couldn’t effect gods nearly as much as it did us mortals. It did give them plenty of energy though, unicorns shouldn’t have too much or else their magic works faster than they can control.

“Yes it is, also you certainly called it on the bugs.” This was the first time I heard Sekhet snickering, it was kind of cute. “Though the stallion was quite predictable to begin with.”

“Yet figuring out my girlfriends takes a while, mostly because they’re too busy trying to figure me out.” It was true, but at least Maries and Fizzle weren’t fighting over me and I wasn’t fighting them over the other.

“So a magician boasted that he could hold his breath under water for six minutes. A child heckled him by stating they didn’t have to hold their breath underwater and could do so for ten minutes. The magician taking the boast in earnest, bet the child couldn’t do it for a thousand bits. How does the child win? Mind you the child didn’t have magic that allowed them to breathe underwater like you can.” Well I thought that that was a neat one from Sekhet, a little wordy of a riddle for my taste if I’ve ever heard one like it before. I could breathe underwater, but I doubt magical alchemy was an answer to this one.

How would a normal being… oh… interesting. Exactly, like sticking out your tongue and touching your nose. Only in a different way, simple is as stupidly complex does.

“The child obviously filled a glass of water and held it above his head, he’d then be under the water for the next ten minutes." Giggling a bit, I finished up the fries Applejack ordered. "Funny you should ask that one in a restaurant where someone can order a glass of water.”

I doubt I’d ever see Rarity here, too low class for the persnickety one. The only other pony I hadn’t seen come in here was Rainbow Dash and she didn’t live here yet.

“Correct.” It was nice to see Sekhet become more relaxed when I answered her.

It took an hour or two before the next incident, when Sell Hard ran in followed by a really angry looking manticore.

Fizzle leapt forward, excited at the prospect of having to fight it with her hooves.

Chapter twenty three, Hayburger Helpers: When Fizzle’s Attack!

-???-

Today we have the Jerkus Atrocious, also known as Sell Hard, who wanted disproportionate revenge for being called out on his crude and rude behavior. As well as attempting to scam a beloved iconic restaurant in Ponyvile.

This means his retribution isn’t exactly warranted or even correct and he was trying to get the place shut down through means both legal and somewhat illegal.

Chasing behind him was an Animalia Paradoxa Manticora, specifically known a Manticore or a lion with bat wings and a scorpion tail. It seems that Jerkus Atrocious had attracted its attention and led it to the Hayburger to carry out his revenge for a slight against the restaurant that he failed to perpetrate correctly.

It is very apparent that Jerkus Atrocious was a very petty creature, who was also very frightened by the Manticore that he had attracted the attention of. Upon entering the restaurant the Manticore scared all the Equinous Magicus, otherwise known as ponies, and they all started screaming until one particular member of Equinous Magicus made her presence very well known.

The brave Equinous Magicus leapt forward to meet the threat head on, but it was not to protect everyone. This particular Equinous Magicus is known as Waning Bombus Fructus Torquent or more commonly known as the cat cuddling equine, but we’ll simply call her Fizzle.

It seems Fizzle is very aggravated by the boredom of her efforts this day and was likely to snap or become unhinged if something interesting didn’t happen, this sudden invasion of her current territory by the Manticore was a breath of fresh air for her.

The Manticore seeing an actual threat stops paying attention to Jerkus Atrocious and launched the arthropoda portion of its body, it was a stretchy segmented scorpion tail, at Fizzle.

With a deft leap Fizzle dodges to the left and avoids being stabbed with the poisonous paralytics in the tip of the harsh red tail. Said paralytics when injected leave the prey of a manticore completely helpless for consumption.

It is unknown if Fizzle knows of the poison or not, but she is going to fight this Manticore anyway as it could hurt her friends or family. She apparently needed the stress relief from dealing with so many other Equinous Magicus of varying low or even possibly dim intellects.

The tail reared up again and Fizzle seems to be eyeing it and the monsters face and claws, she was prepared for any movement. The Manticore comes to a decision to try its tail again, this will be a large mistake on the Manticore’s part.

It has absolutely no idea that this Equinous Magicus is far more dangerous than the usual variety of pansies she was surrounded by at the moment. All of which were screaming their heads off in fear at the predatory monster suddenly appearing in their midst in what should have been a safe place.

It was just unfortunate for the Manticore that it chose to attack a more predatory version of Equinous Magicus. One that would proceed to alleviate their boredom all over this Manticore.

Leaping to the right, Fizzle dodges the second attack and the darts forward to grab the tail before the Manticore can pull it out of the tiled floor of the Equinous Magicus gathering spot known as ‘Hayburger, home of’.

The Manticore tries to tug the tail back and out of the grip of the hooves, it gains a surprised look on its face as it realized it has just attacked something that is possibly stronger, smarter and faster than it was.

Sure the Manticore had some bulk working for him, but that only meant more Manticore to injure for Fizzle who is giving him a clearly predatory look as she tightens her hooves around his tail.

Given that the Manticore could not pull its tail from the mare’s strong grasp, it barely had the time to register that it was in for a world of pain or that pain would even be forthcoming in its future.

With an impressive show of strength Fizzle pulls on the tail and lifts the mass of the manticore off the floor to slam it down on its back. All the Equinous Magicus in the Hayburger stopped screaming and waited with baited breathing to see what would happen next.

In the food preparation area of the place ‘Hayburger, home of’, there were the two closest beings to the stalwart and strong Fizzle’s heart. It was a Felidae Sapien and Chimerous Subvertus Barbaricum, they weren’t worried about their fighting beloved companion and were continuing with their work in feeding the herds of hungry mouths without pause.

The other two that obviously weren’t worried were Draconis Magna Naptha and Chiroptera Subvertus Dorsus Impetus. They could see that Fizzle had things covered with her next action, they continued food preparation alongside the Felidae Sapien. Though they would assist if thing got out of hoof, who they would be assisting was a question left up in the air as they might have to save the Manticore from Fizzle.

Fizzle, swinging the Manticore around by the tail twice in a circle in a clockwise manner, released the beast in a well-executed hammer throw that sent it sailing back out through the doors. She then proceeded to charge after the poor Manticore and leapt on top of its downed form to continue attacking him, hoping to bring him to submission quickly.

The Manticore was now horribly confused about its lot in life and the fact that what was once considered prey was actively attacking him and doing so in a manner most successful at that.

Said prey now had the Manticore in a head lock and was bashing his face in thoroughly with a hoof. Not only was he confused, he was now too dazed to fend off the aggressive and quite excited Equinous Magicus that was giving him numerous minor head injuries.

After giving Manducare Pomum her food, Chimerous, who shall now be known as Maries, moved to the counter to start performing the services Fizzle was providing less than a minute ago.

“Uh, shouldn’t someone help?” Pomum asked from the window in a worried manner as she took the two bags filled with food for her family back home, it would be a quite a trek and her family would likely be displeased if the food came back cold.

Even then Pomum thought about getting out her rope out to assist in Fizzle’s continuing overly violent beat down of what was once known as a proud predator.

“Yeah, we should, that poor manticore...” Maries stated as she watched as the Manticore started crying and tried to crawl away. Only for the Manticore to be dragged back by it’s tail into some more pummeling by the rather vicious Fizzle.

“I was talking about helping the pony.” Giving her food provider a flat look, Pomum, more commonly known as Applejack, sighed. She stared at the carnage going on in front of Hayburger. After one particularly nasty right hook from Fizzle, Applejack had this to say about the events going on. “Never mind, I can tie up the varmint after she’s done with him.”

Fizzle now had the most meticulously mangled manticore in a rear leg lock and he was pounding his curled up front two paws against the ground while crying out for mercy. He was also whining about the fact that Equinous Magicus shouldn’t be nearly this aggressive in a language that Fizzle likely didn’t understand at all because it was guttural.

The Manticore was both horrified and completely scared of this new discovery about how capable and strong some prey could actually be. Hidden among the weaker of its species only to pounce when a predator least expected it.

Later on the Manticore would come to associate the color purple or darker colored Equinous Magicus with pain and suffering, especially during a certain event when a night lasted longer than it should have and would be completely traumatized from both that and this incident.

Unlike the Purple Equinous Magicus Eater, this Manticore would go completely out of his way to start avoiding any Equinous Magicus with even a hint of the color purple on them.

The Manticore yelped in pain when Fizzle, who was getting quite excessive now, stomped down on his poor spine with both her front hooves at a point between his wings.

Hitting something akin to a pressure point, The Manticore’s wings went entirely limp and wouldn’t be able to aid him in his escape. He was now clearly at the mercy of the violent Equinous Magicus and she didn’t seem to be in a very forgiving mood today since he was the most entertaining thing to come along.

The Manticore tried rolled over onto his back while swiping at Fizzle with a paw, only this opened him up for a painful move in the near future as Fizzle backed off slightly while crouching down.

Leaping up and forward to quickly perform a right hoofed elbow drop, Fizzle seemed to have earned some applause from the nearby Equinous Magicus that were watching this fight in earnest.

They were clearly amazed at the battle prowess of one among them, someone who not minutes ago who had been lazily working a cash register. The Manticore had come across what amounts to a sleeping dragon, one who it woke up with its very presence.

The Manticore rolled to its feet and growled in challenge, after a moment it stopped and wondered what had it exactly been thinking in doing that? He started backing up slowly when the mare returned his weak challenging growl with a loud roar, it seemed as if Fizzle’s frustrations weren’t entirely out of her system quite yet.

Remembering that Fizzle hasn’t even been struck once throughout this fight, The Manticore realized that challenging her again to get her to leave him alone might not been one of his brighter ideas. Not when he was already badly battered and bruised beyond all measure by said overly aggressive Equinous Magicus.

It was sad, but this would not end well for the Manticore and it would lose any fighting spirit it had for a while after this.

-Lyra-

I always felt something kind of niggling at the back of my head around Bon-Bon, yet I could never figure out what that is. All I knew for certain was that she was possibly the best friend that I have ever had.

She offered to take me out to eat today and I chose Hayburger. She just rolled her eyes at me and agreed, then stated that the food here was at least relatively cheap unlike the Savoir and Savor’s cafe where my favorite pie was a bit costly.

I decided to take it easy on her today. So here we were, approaching the restaurant when we heard a roar of some indistinct and alien creature. Could it have been what I was seeking for so long… nope, it was just a crazy pony wrestling with a Manticore with every else gawking at the two.

I ignored them and the fight to go into the restaurant while Bon-Bon gave the fight a wide eyed look, she soon turned to me.

“Do Manticores attack often?” There was a far off look in Bon-Bon’s eyes as if she were reliving something horrible. I heard the muttering of insects and possible a bear, yeah a bear enraged by bees would be pretty bad.

“To be fair I don’t think the Manticore is attacking, I think it’s the mare that’s attacking him.” We came up to the counter where there was a chimera at the cash register…. that’s kind of cool.

“Welcome to Haybuger. Home of the hayburger. May we take your order?” I clapped my hooves at them, these three were neat in how they each said one part of the motto at a time.

“Uh Lyra… that’s uh, that’s a chimera.” Why did Bon-Bon look so upset? It was just a three headed intelligent killing machine, I’d be more worried about the predator outside the doors if it wasn’t losing thar fight so badly.

“Yes they are, and it’s rude to be racist or stare Bon-Bon, I thought better of you.” Looking to the cat that spoke, I wondered what an Abyssinian was doing here and how did she know Bonnie?

“You…” Bon-Bon looked angry for a second before she sent a glance to me, she then seemed to relax way too quickly to be normal. “Ugh, what are you doing here?”

“Um, exactly what it looks like I’m doing here… speaking of which… Maries we should put Fizzle on the fryer next week, I think running the register might be making her a little bit nuts.” The cat pointed out the door to the mare slamming the Manticore’s face into a manure cart.

I’m starting to feel really sorry for what that Manticore is going through, but I wasn’t about to try and help it though.

“A little? She’s mare handling the Manticore its butt in more ways than one… did you train her?” Train her, was Bonnie implying she this cat could teach karate?

“No, but she is our girlfriend.” The cat hugged the Chimera right next to her affectionately and all three head smiled brightly at her.

“Aw, that’s so sweet… and kind of weird… I like it!” I thought it was neat that an Abyssinian, a chimera and a pony were in a relationship.

“I’m beginning to understand how that mare is frustrated enough to beat a manticore into the ground.” Bon-Bon stated dryly only to get a nasty look from the cat.

“Do you really want to start something here Bonnie?” I could almost imagine the lightning flying between them. Still though, how did Bon-Bon know this cat? “Anyway I’m Jade, nice to meet you.”

“I’m Lyra, nice meet you too!” Well today was certainly a chipper round of weirdness, then again I liked weird more than the average pony.

Jade went to say something to Bon-Bon only to be stopped by one of the chimera’s paws being gently pressed against her face.

“Get back to work Jade and no fighting with the customers.” The cat rolled her eyes at them and the tiger headed one that told her that, she turned around and walked into the kitchen area waving back at us lazily.

“Right anyway, I’ll have two Ponyville Pounders well done with extra pickles fried, fries, lemonade and some barbecue sauce if you have any.” The chimera nodded and turned to Bon-Bon.

“I’ll have a Special, mild, iceberg lettuce and edam.” Bon-bon always made weird orders like that, it’s almost like something Pinkie Pie would do, spelling everything with SMILE.

“And to drink?” The goat asked in a friendly tone, this has got to be the nicest chimera I’ve ever seen.

“As for a drink I’ll have some apple juice.” Sometimes Bon-Bon made me wonder what goes on in her head, was she thinking about the one sided massacre going on outside?

-???-

In the end the Manticore bared its throat in the hopes that Fizzle would make its end quick, it was just not meant to be and it found its legs tied up with rope by another Equinous Magicus that was orange.

“Thanks, now we just need someone to haul this guy back to where he belongs.” Fizzle dusted off her hooves at a fight well won, now she had some unfinished business with Jerkus Atrocious to take care of and will do so immediately.

Author's Note

Blind fired this chapter.

Chapter twenty four, Guard Goading: Dated concerns.

-Jade, Airship Mauled, early morning at The Witch’s Fare-

“Jade can I ask…” Jacky’s been calling me that a lot more lately, but I decided to cut her off by telling her exactly the answer to the question she was about to pose.

“No, I’m not about to tell you what the answer to the monster thing is, that defeats the purpose of it.” We passed the health inspection yesterday evening at the restaurant, I personally made sure my station was clean. Let me tell you, grease stains are not easy to clean up and the quickest method involved a bottle of vinegar and ten to fifteen minutes. “Before you ask how I knew what you were going to ask, you hardly, if ever, say may name unless you want a little more attention or something.”

“What… but that’s not what I wanted to…” Blackcap trailed off when she saw me quirking an eye at her. “Okay, so it’s not the only thing I wanted ask about Captain.”

“Look you can talk to him easily enough, all you have to do is show some pirate courage… or maybe you need some form of alcohol. You know, the other form of pirate courage, the liquid kind.” The flat look I received had me grinning at her. “Won’t touch that stuff at all personally, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop you from drinking. If you’re a rowdy drunk, then I don’t think our friendship can last too much longer beyond that.”

“Again… not the only thing I wanted to ask about.” Though you were blushing up a storm Jacky. How a blush can be seen through the black and white light amount of down covering your face, I’ll never know.

Now that I think of it, how do ponies even blush through their fur? There’s no scientific reasoning behind fur or feathers changing colors based on how embarrassed one was, but it sure did make Fizzy look cute. I can give that a pass for the logical side of my brain, what little of it there happens to be left when in a world of magic.

“Okay then, what did you want to ask of your sanity challenged tom cat of a sister?” I asked this amiably as I sliced my fried eggs with a spike sticking out of the back of my hand. My body was currently covered in them. “I was personally wondering if you ever actually saw Jacqueline Sparrow or is she just a well-known myth? It’s something I’ve been meaning to ask for a while. By the way, I’m sorry if I’m making you feel prickly this morning Jacky. I’m also sorry for laughing about you falling up the stairs if that makes you feel any better.”

The sustain effect of caltrops is purely defensive in nature. While the caltrops themselves are dangerous to hold onto, it was even more dangerous when you became half again as heavy and covered in pointy colors spikes that match the color of where they stuck out at.

This sustain had an interesting looking effect on my hair, as it now looked like I my head was full of thorn covered vines. I seriously doubt wild animals would dare attack me like this on threat of impaling themselves on me. Wouldn’t put it past timber wolves though.

My body was a bit hard to move, my flesh was definitely not made of metal and I couldn’t jump, but it was good strength training to just walk around like this. Apparently the sustain effect prevents me from collapsing in on myself from the added weight, which would have been a bad thing of course.

“I still don’t understand how I can fall up two full flights of stairs, yet I somehow managed to do so and despite how illogical it is that bad luck can even cause something like that to happen. Also you’re the one to talk about being thorny.” She groused out angrily before digging into her strawberry syrup covered waffles. Being a walking bruise acquiring machine may be her lot in life, but Jacky’s luck sometimes amazed everyone with the weird things it can do to her. Like make her break the laws of physics entirely on occasion. “Or should I say corny with your puns?”

Jacky took a bite of the sweet potato grits she was eating on the side this morning, she smiled brightly at the flavor. Mom was always introducing us to new flavors. I wasn’t a fan of sweet potatoes, but grits or creamed corn was something I liked.

“In answer to your question Captain, yes, she’s most certainly real. Yes, she does travel around a lot and causes trouble wherever she ends up at. Kind of a role model for me and why I want to go on all of the zany adventures you get up to. I still don’t think we needed to do that whole thing with Macaroni, but the dancing was fun.” No, it actually made complete sense if you thought about it Jacky, the guards were too distracted by the whole song and dance to realize mom’s disappearing trick got you inside. Didn’t stop all those thestrals from coming after me though. “If you ever see a completely scarlet feathered Ornithian with swagger, smugness, incredible luck and cunning that can survive in any situation. Then you’ll have definitively met Captain Jack Sparrow, one of the best pirates of our time. Also maybe the weirdest, but I don’t think she ever rode into port on the backs of two sea turtles or even has a flying turtle for a familiar.”

“Coo!” My little buddy spoke up at being mentioned, Snickers was happily enjoying her breakfast next to me.

Sugar was eating ravenously next Snickers, she was looking a whole lot healthier thanks to some Fluttershy TLC. She was a healthy and happy Al-mi’raj once more, this put her threat rating back through the roof as she was capable of going full out kaiju for a few minutes again. It’s probably better if she only goes to quarter or half size for a shorter amount of time.

“Right, about that question you wanted to ask?” This had me Curious, especially if it wasn’t about her ensuing crush on ‘Generic the swift reaction’ or the name of the ten foot pole eating monster. Said monster was likely related to green or purple Swamp Monster Ooze, AKA Smooze. If it wasn’t those two things, then I really hadn’t the foggiest what she wanted to ask about.

“What are you planning on doing for your date in Canterlot with Fizzle? I wanted to know so I can have plausible deniability.” Was that all Jacky? Here I thought you had something more worrying to talk about.

“Go on a normal date of course.” My answer was swift and required no thought whatsoever.

“Sure you are, a normal date in Canterlot, a place where the Royal Guard and some Wonder Bolts completely hate your butt.” Well when you put it like that Jacky, it seems like a really dumb idea to take Fizzle there on a date. Mostly because I wanted to tease the guards by doing absolutely nothing wrong. “I bet that twenty seconds into arriving at Canterlot you’ll be tailed by every guard and their grandma.”

“No, with their incompetence it’ll take a minute at the very least.” This was my apt response to her and I was met with an even stare from the bipedal bird.

“I give it two minutes Jade, we’re talking about the Royal Guard here.” Fizzle arrived and sat down next to me. Maries was at the end of the table enjoying three different flavors at once through three different hungry mouths. “So that adventure is the day before we have to go back to working at… Hayburger.”

Fizzle shuddered violently before saying Hayburger, this is why I was going to teach her how to work a fryer over the next four days. Then I would be taking the boring register job that would drive me nuts, mostly because I wasn’t good at customer service. Oh I could smile well enough and converse, but I didn’t handle ponies that could set off my pettiness too well.

I ran my claws through Fizzle’s recently dried mane and she leaned into my touch and I started to nuzzle her neck. Running my face through her recently soap scented fur.

“Jade, eat your food and no canoodling when you’re still eating breakfast!” How does mom always know when I’m doing something? She wasn’t even physically in the room with us to see me nuzzling up against Fizzle. I was about to open my mouth to ask something before I was cut off by mom’s words. “Yes, even if it is very adorable!”

“The matriarch has you pegged pretty well Jade.” Mara stated before she went back to eating her fish, with bones and cartilage breaking under the might of her fairly powerful jaws.

“That would be my mother wouldn’t it?” We did have to prepare for school with Cheerilee after eating.

Over the next four days I’d be teaching Fizzle the art of frying fish or potatoes chunks in a deep fryer. I would also get to see my favorite mare in an apron for bonus points. Fizzle wouldn’t ever be a cooking mare, but she was pretty decent with a fryer and how it fizzles.

I don’t see what Fizzle needed to prove to me, but she did a decent job of learning to work a fryer for when we had to go back to Hayburger.

The manticore was perfectly fine… if you called having the total snot beaten out of it by a very pretty pony, with some cute scars, fine.

-Four days later, Canterlot morning, Shining Armor-

Today was a good day for me, Spearhead was covering for my duty while I got a job with watching Cadence as we went around Canterlot. Nothing could possibly ruin… oh my goodness is that who I think it is stepping out of the train station?

It’s Jaded Freaking La Perm, because of course it is! What is she going to do this time? Why did I try to think that nothing could make my day go south faster than knowing she’s back in Canterlot and up to nothing good, or at the very least decent?

She legally got away with having been part of a plot to steal a lot of gold from an already bad mercantile menace that was slowly tanking our economy on his own.

At least the royal guards got a pay raise since all that money was no longer being funneled into one constantly breaking down airship, so I guess she wasn’t all that bad. She was definitely plenty annoying though.

“Who are you looking at Shining?” Oh no… I had to keep them away from each other, I didn’t want Cady to continue being friends with that crazy cat!

“It’s nothing Cadence, you know I only have eyes for you.” Also eyes on the cat in the corner of my eye, one who was kneeled before a mare who stepped off the train after her. “Just some suspicious… ponies.”

The cat in question took the embarrassed looking mare’s left hoof into her left paw and kissed it like a gentle stallion would. Looked like an earth pony, but I wasn’t about to investigate without a good reason.

“We’re going to spend today together Cadence and we’re going to start off the day right by going to…” I tried to not pay attention to them so much, this was supposed to be my day with Cadence and I was now concentrating on her and looking her in the eyes.

She was the most beautiful mare in the world to me and I wasn’t about to go running off to follow the royal guard's Bogey Cat around. I did not dance to the beat of her drum… despite that parade all of us got stuck in.

She was a fear mongering rumor among the royal guard now, mostly as a being that couldn’t be caught or held for more than a week and could hardly, if ever, be brought up on real charges. We had absolutely no reason to chase after her at this point in time, also Celestia even seems to like her for whatever reason.

Even Cadence liked her and it was a little mind boggling that my sister hadn’t seen her yet, but I’m assuming that’s because my sister is shut in. I’m a closeted nerd and Cadence already knew about that, but my sister was very well antisocial despite having ponies that still want to be friends with her because of who she is and not because of Celestia.

I worried about Twily a little too much at times, I was her best big brother friend forever. At least Spike wasn’t someone I had to worry about, he was cute and a little dangerous because of all the fire he randomly spits.

Once I told Cadence where we were going, I stopped for a bit to tell the guard that ‘the cat was out of the bag again’. The guards understood that and would spread the word, those words were a code specifically made with Jaded La Perm in mind.

We’d be watching that cat like a hawk.

-Fizzle-

Jade was acting a little over the top, I could almost feel the love radiating off her.

“Jade don’t do anything stupid, the royal guards are probably waiting for you to cause some trouble.” I commented once I saw Shining Armor glance our way.

“How long?” Jade asked as she stood up from treating me like her princess, the truth was that neither of us had a very feminine bone in our bodies. She still treated me as if I were the beautiful one here.

“Half a second, I think Shining Armor spotted you waltzing off the train.” Honestly, the royal guard should stop catering to Jade’s whims if they didn’t want her to give them the run around.

Also shouldn’t ponies be faster than a cat running on two legs? I knew she could run pretty fast on all fours, but she had mostly kept to two legs during the last few incidents she’s had in Canterlot. I can already tell this date was going to be an interesting one.

“Well that’s a new record for receiving recognition here in Canterlot.” Which wasn’t an entirely good thing Jade, but you were treating it as if you were a celebrity. One who has both dodged and fought off an entire contingent of royal guards all at once, with some Wonder Bolts and Shadow Bolts thrown in for good measure.

“Where to first Jade?” I sighed out loud, we got the day off from school to come here early enough in the morning to eat breakfast, do some sightseeing, then lunch, more sightseeing and fun, then dinner.

What would follow would probably be us being run out of Canterlot when Jade says something stupid to the nearest guard and would proceed to make a spectacle of things. Then we’d likely perform an airship escape with Jacky who was supposed to meet us in the evening to bring us home.

So I’m calling it already, this will all end with in calisthenics and the artful dodging shenanigans that Jade is quite well known for.

Jade didn’t say a word as she caressed my neck and started leading to me our first stop, breakfast at Joes.

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredient!)

Caltrop.

I wonder if the Caltrop has fitting effects?

Chapter twenty four, Guard Goading: Dated morning.

-Fizzle-

So we came to Doughnut N. Joe’s place, a quaint morning stop for breakfast snacks and drinks. I wondered if this was the calm before the storm, I was actually kind of excited for the storm. Whatever Jade had planned would be entertaining at the very least and we’d be together for it.

“Hello Double Doughnut Joe… did you get that thing I sent you?” Giving Jade a curious glance, I looked to Joe and he seemed to look a little bit sharper than usual and less like a pastry chef.

“Yes, I did, thank you.” He looked about suspiciously. “Alright what is that you want? The royal guard created a whole new system of code words just for you and they are using you as an old mare’s tale to scare new recruits. Stallions will be watching your ass all day.”

“Which I’m completely flattered by and would be more so if I weren’t completely gay, but you probably already know I want the goods and a meeting with the worst underworld contingent in Canterlot.” Jade… what have you been getting into and should I be worried for your safety? Much less my own when it comes to the words ‘underworld contingent’.

“Okay, what will you be having miss?” Joe said in a slightly cheerier tone towards me.

“Bagel with blueberry sauce and cream cheese, plus whatever Jade’s drinking.” I figured since Jade never drinks more than water or fruit juice, I’d be safe on that front.

I should just play along with whatever is going on here, because it was obvious that Joe was part of that S.M.I.L.E organization Jade told us about. That secret one that fights monsters, which doesn’t make sense unless they don’t want the public to panic about how dangerous the world around them really is. I personally didn’t see the point of the secrecy really.

“Right two pomegranate specials, blue cheese bagel and a cheesecake and strawberry super croissant coming up.” As he started to get to work, Joe glanced at me and asked Jade. “Are you sure you want to take her with you when you go to meet… ‘The Squirrels’?”

“She’ll be fine, plus I’m going to need their help for something I’m going to pull off this evening.” Okay I was curious as to what Jade, and by proxy, Joe were going on about. Also, ‘The Squirrels’, what kind of organization name is that? “Do you think two extra sized bags of roasted walnuts with salt will be able to get me that favor I need?”

“You might want to go with three using honey, but best the bet for them doing what you exactly need is four or five with butter if you want them to cover their tracks better. Share a few nuts with them in the park one at time and tell them what you need done, go there exactly thirty minutes after you leave and you’ll see them standing in a tight circle. I’ll notify them of you’re coming and wish to do business.” What does Joe know and what is this about walnuts? Were they talking about actual squirrels here? What is Jade up to today? “Is your friend there going to be okay? She hasn’t said much.”

“Eh, I’m in the middle of a date with this beautiful mare here, as such this is all entirely related to my date and she already knows about S.M.I.L.E. You’re absolutely safe to talk around her.” After Jade said that Joe placed two drinks on the counter. “I’ll explain later Fizzy, don’t worry about things and just go with the flow.”

“Don’t you dare start inhaling these all in one go, please? I may be giving you free refreshments, but I’m not made of money Jade.” It almost sounded like Jade had something over on Joe, that or they were somehow friends.

“I’m not one to abuse a privilege Joe, except for this date that is. We’ll be out of your fur soon enough, I have an entire day to enjoy with my favorite pony outside of the Muffin Queen that is.” Okay I’m getting the feeling that Jade was being quite cagey about something, but I did know I was her favorite pony aside from whoever the Muffin Queen is. Kind of like how Maries was her favorite chimera. “Do you think the Royal Guard will catch on to what I have planned today? It’s mostly just to spice up our evening. I’m sure I can get away without any charges sticking to my fluffy butt that they can watch, but they will never touch.”

“Not in the slightest if I keep my mouth shut, speaking of Tartarus or the Jersey Devil. Incoming Captain Shining and the mare he’s still trying to woo.” Seeming to put on some sort of invisible mask, Joe brightened his countenance for Princess Cadence and Shining when they entered.

The minute Shining saw Jade he almost faltered, tripped and fell on his face, almost. Jade gave him a friendly cat smile before hugging me to her.

“I really have no idea why there is a creature that specifically steals jerseys, that monster must be a sports fanatic.” There was a subtle change in conversation with the way Jade spoke. She turned to Shining and Cadence. Shining was about to ask something when Jade addressed Cadence in an over the top manner. “Hey Cadence, tell me how our love score is!”

“Oh hello Jade, you have no idea how often a request that is.” Cadence lit her horn and scanned the two of us, for some reason I felt both violated and highly embarrassed. “So… have you two been active long?”

“Oh we’re not practicing. Though we do tend to cuddle in bed every once in a while.” Jade had me covering my face with my hooves in embarrassment somehow, I don’t know why I was so suddenly embarrassed about everything. Also did the room seem slightly hotter or was it just me?

“Are you sure? The mare next to you seems really quite taken with you and you smell like part of a three way with five… that can’t be right…” Please stop Princess Cadence or I will eventually one day have my revenge on you. Don’t think I won’t do something to you later in life. Said ‘Princess of Love’ certainly looked a little confused about something. “How can there be a strong five way relationships with three bodies?”

“She’s confused, pay up Joe!” Okay that one from Jade made me smile, they obviously had a bet running between them and I would hardly if ever place a bet against Jade’s cockamamie and sporadic planning skills.

“Now wait a minute… give her a moment to figure it out!” Joe tried to complain.

“No, she was confused from the start that was the bet and you know it.” Jade state plainly with a smirk, she held out a paw. “I won fair and square Joe.”

“Do you know this degenerate?” Shining asked Joe with a questioning gaze sent to Jade.

“Unfortunately, yes, I do know her quite well. She happens to be one of my best customers when she sneaks into Canterlot under the guards noses to do sneaky things.” Well why don’t you just shout that from the rooftops Joe? No wait, the way he said it seemed off like he wanted Shining to become… oh. “She’s always skulking around my place to buy the most evil of my concoctions.”

“Strawberry tiger tails are not evil Joe, it’s a twist of vanilla and strawberry doughnuts together and you know my species doesn’t handle too much chocolate very well.” Jade commented dryly with her tail hugging my waist affectionately. I nuzzled up against Jade in return, we were on a date after all… albeit one that was quickly weirding me out and we were just getting started on the day.

“See, she’s a heathen, tiger tails traditionally come in vanilla and chocolate flavors!” I’m not really seeing Joe’s point here, but I guess pastries are serious business for bakers.

“But I like raspberry tiger tails.” Cadence seemed a little upset by his words.

“No, that’s actually perfectly normal.” Was Joe’s immediate and quick response as he dropped a bag of bits into Jade’s waiting claws, my cat stuffed the bag away in her pack.

“It’s a double standard thing Cadence, don’t worry about it being biased against me.” Not only is Jade redirecting, but so was Joe at the same time. I almost didn’t catch it in time, but I had a suspicion that these two were doing something. Were they speaking in coded phrases? “He earns a lot of bits for those particular tiger tails during a Hearts and Hooves day celebration, the pink and white coloration really helps sells them as two halves of a perfect whole. What’s a real heathen thing to do is to hold back the truth of strawberry banana tiger tails from the world!”

“You’ll always be a heathen of baked goods everywhere Jade… anyway, here’s your special croissant and here’s your bagel miss.” Joe left me feeling perplexed about what just happened, there was a certain emphasis to the word ‘heathen’ that I wasn’t quite getting here.

I looked to Jade with a question on my lips. Only for to be met with a quick kiss that shoved the words right back down my throat.

“Like I said, later Fizzy.” Jade stated before she bit into her large croissant and hummed loudly, I guess I better get started on my bagel. Even with Shining Armor giving us both very suspicious looks, his attention was quickly drawn back to Cadence who was making her order.

Throughout breakfast Shining would glare at Jade every once in a while, he probably didn’t like the whole rubber chicken up the sheath thing and was holding a grudge. Gee, I wonder why? Jade does make a compelling case for him to hate her with all the stuff she pulls.

-Forty five minutes later, Canterlot Park, Fizzle-

After we started eating and talking in peace, nothing happened, we left Joe’s approximately thirty minutes ago. On the way to the park Jade bought five large bags of walnuts with salt using the bits she got off of Joe, I’m starting to suspect there wasn’t an actual bet and that Joe owed Jade for something else.

“There wasn’t actually a bet was there?” I asked as we walked along the park and came up on a group of ponies standing in a tight circle. It was a nice day out today, but Jade’s seemingly random shenanigans were far more interesting.

“Nope, hold these four bags.” I took the large bags of walnut snacks from Jade, she opened one as we approached the group with a smirk at me. “You’re going to love this evening, if you don’t I’ll do whatever you want me to Fizzy.”

“You’d already do that anyway Jade. So, let you do the talking again?” The response I received was a nod as we came up on the group of ponies who looked to us.

All three races were equally represented here. I’m to take it that they were ‘The Squirrels’, Canterlots apparent worst underworld gang. Three Earth, Pegasi and Unicorn ponies were awaiting us, Jade pulled a single walnut out of the bag and offered it to one of them and they took it in there hoof and started eating it.

They didn’t look like much to me, but looks could be deceiving.

“Need a few favors.” Jade whispered as she passed a nut to the next pony as they changed position in the circle. She handed another nut out. “A unicycle, a wire leading from the ground to the roof tops, a sturdy enough ramp of at least wood or stronger and some special fireworks… catch my drift?”

“We catch.” The Pegasus that took the next walnut stated. “The boss wants to meet with you personally, heard you were a real work of art. We promise to never touch your dame or you and yours. We don’t want any trouble of the likes you can cause. Sun priests might be rare these days, but you’re the most insane one I’ve heard of.”

“You better not, no one has seen me go full out petty kitty mode except for my mother and I’ve only been doing things at half that capacity so far. If I go full petty, expect your organization to collapse in on itself.” The mare nodded while looking slightly disturbed and frightened at Jade’s words, she took several steps back while shivering. I had no clue what all this would lead to. “Oh and we’ll need some musical accompaniment for when we do the thing this evening, look up Speedy Sax.”

“You are one really evil cat, we can appreciate that.” The unicorn took a walnut and popped it into her mouth. “It’s the good stuff alright, five bags of salted walnuts full grade. Couldn’t afford the butter? Looks like the guards are going to get the run around again, we’ll get our peanut ready.”

“Hey, I’m on a date! At least let me have some money for dinner this evening. ” The mare nodded and moved back into the circle as an earth pony stallion came forward to take a walnut. Jade took out what looked like a scroll from her pack and passed it into his hoof, he nodded and stepped back into the tight circle. “Also it’s not like its popcorn, now that definitely deserves butter.”

The group of ponies nodded and parted away from the nearby tree, a squirrel came running down it wearing a tiny little business tie and it looked at Jade.

“Hello great mob boss of hidden nuts known as The Squirrels.” Here Jade gave the squirrel a friendly smile, I had no idea what was going on anymore. “Or do you go by Sweet Cheeks at the moment?”

The squirrel started chattering up a storm and the shy looking mare who was getting a walnut smiled at Jade.

“Mr. Cheeks says that the payment of four and change large snack bags of walnuts is worthy and that we can do what you need us to.” The brown and white spotted mare in question kind of reminded me of Fluttershy and she had a squirrel inside a heart marking her flank, she stood in front of the tie wearing squirrel and was acting like a mouth piece for him. The squirrel started squeaking some more. “Do you need a special VIP escort for today? The guards seem to be very interested what you’re going to get into and we could run distractions, you’re kind of overpaying us for this.”

“There’s no need for an escort Madame Nut Case, I’m actually trying to get the guards riled up. I assume they’ll come over here and talk to you after we’re done here… leak some of the least important parts of my plan so the Wonder Bolts will be in the right positions for it.” I felt Jade pull me close and nuzzle my neck. “Our evening will much more exciting, get Shining more involved in the chase and a can of magical instant pink dye at the spot… then I’ll do a side thing.”

“We’ll see what we can do. If you can’t get Blueblood this time, then that’ll be just sad.” The mare and the group dispersed in nine different directions while the squirrel climbed back up the tree.

I had a sinking feeling about this.

Author's Note

If this chapter makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, then that's a good thing.

Chapter twenty four, Guard Goading: Dated noon.

-Fizzle-

After dealing with the mysterious group known as the ‘The Squirrels’, who were supposedly part of Canterlots underworld and were run by a squirrel of all things. Well… things became simpler in the park that’s for sure.

I never been a really big on frolicking like other ponies, bad childhood you see. I wasn’t much for smiling either, but Jade’s perky attitude and need for me to tussle with her kind of changed that opinion rather quick. She playfully swatted my flank and then bounded off, I quickly gave chase.

We bound through the grassy hills of the park, through all the flowers… at least up until I lost sight of Jade. I turned looking about for her when I was suddenly bowled over, I then found myself on my back with Jade above me with both her paws on either side of my head while resting in a pile of flowers.

She was looking down at me in a very longing manner, there was something in her eyes.

“What are you looking at Jade?” My heart was melted by the quirky smile on her face.

“Someone very beautiful, with brilliant glowing sapphire eyes.” She caressed the left side of my face with her right paw and lowered herself down to me.

I felt my cheeks heat up as we were chest to chest and I could see Jade’s tail whipping back and forth every now and then in excitement. Her long green hair tickled my chest and I felt my heart start pounding quicker.

Her face came close to mine, then she lightly licked the tip of my nose and I felt like my heart exploded. I reached up and pulled her close with my hooves and held on tight, closing my eyes as I nuzzled into her neck fur. She was already nuzzling me right back and closing her own.

We sat there cuddled together for a bit and slowly my rapid heartbeat went back down to a steady rhythm as we both inhaled and exhaled in unison. My heartbeat wasn’t the only one I was feeling, my left ear twitched against Jade’s shoulder and she giggled a bit.

Our heartbeats soon started to beat at the same time in unison with one another. As far as the all-day date was going, Jade was performing beyond expectations. I think I might have nodded off for a few minutes, but I couldn’t say that Jade didn’t do the same.

Maybe it was Jade’s purring that was making this moment so relaxing, I wished this feeling could last forever.

-Cadence-

“Aw, they’re so cute together!” I really didn’t know much about Abyssinian courtship, but it was adorable to see my friend lick the tip of the mare’s nose. She apparently appreciated it and pulled the cat even closer to herself.

Then they snuggled down together with the large cat purring as the mare sleepily petted her, they both nodded off in the warm sun among the soft grass and flowers. From our position I could see a ring of flowers create a heart shape around them because of how they ended up laying on the hillside, it was so romantic!

“Cadence, she and an unidentified group practically got away with a full treasuries worth of gold, not to mention she’s toyed with the royal guard more than once, the law always seems like it’s just a suggestion to her. Also that rather embarrassing thing with the rubber chicken.” Why did Shiny have to be such a sour puss today? Still he was treating me quite well and I did love him. “Do you seriously think that cat is cute and not a menace to society as a whole?”

He was glaring at my friend as if he expected her to steal Celesta’s crown from her head for the fun of it at that very moment. Auntie likes her and I do too, which was why Jade was invited to the thing this evening. Apparently my adoptive Aunt Celestia thinks Jade would liven things up immeasurably, I would have to agree with that sentiment.

“Oh come on Shiny, lighten up! You’re never usually this uptight.” I pointed to the two comfortable on a blanket of grass in the warm rays of the auntie’s sun. “They’re enjoying the day together. You could learn something from watching those two interact.”

“As if…” Grumbled my angry, if cute, stallion. He always tried to be a manly gentle stallion and straight forward with me.

We were on a date and my rising star in the royal guard was a tad… distracted. I couldn’t let that continue on.

I rubbed up against Shining and he responded with a blush as my tail rose up under his chin to flick him on the nose. I had to get his mind off of Jade, it would ruin our day if Shining wouldn’t stop being so paranoid of her.

Even if his paranoia was entirely justified and I knew for a fact that Jade did in fact have something planned for this evening. I was pretty certain she wasn’t pure evil, only a tiny bit evil.

Jade was a wizard of Ogre’s and Oubliettes, she taught me a lot about how the strategy from the game could apply to the real life. She classified herself as a rogue and I could visibly see it in her to actually be a live action role player in that regard, maybe I should look into doing some of that myself.

From when I last saw Jade, I stuck to my guns and made a highly specialized charisma based character thanks to her unique input. My gameplay has been so much better since then, I was a vivacious seductress that could charm almost every monster in the game to fight for me and none of Shining’s saving rolls stopped me from taking a moderate amount of control over his character.

Was it wrong to take control of some of Shining’s characters actions? Possibly. Was it evil? Definitely, because Jade taught me how to circumvent most game masters with logical runarounds to break or twist any fun plot into my own little plaything while staying in character. Playing a chaotic neutral shapeshifter helped in that regard.

These thoughts kind of led me to wonder why Celestia’s acting skills were so horrid when she was so cunning. Jade was an impressive cat when she was on the center stage of life where her planning skills were concerned, planning skills that I noted didn’t involve any form of math whatsoever.

I guessed that you should never tell Jade the odds, she’ll just end up circumventing them anyway.

-Fizzle-

“Fizzy, we can’t stay like this forever, we actually have places to be.” I felt Jade shift a bit and I faintly opened one eye, I turned my head in the direction she was vaguely looking and saw two ponies looking at us. They were suspicious and I was pretty sure they were guards out of uniform, which explained what Jade said next. “I can give us five more minutes though.”

“Do it, I’m too comfortable to move at the moment.” I really was, snuggling with my and Maries cuddly cat. Jade stretched a bit in my grip and pressed herself up against me.

“Don’t panic with what I’m about to say, my next words are for the guards to worry over.” Jade whispers to me gently. “So yeah, I’m going to make someone kick the bucket today! It’ll certainly be quite fun after that point and there’s nothing those royal guard nitwits can do to stop me from achieving my end goal!”

“What!?” One of the out of armor guards shouted in disbelief.

“Quiet down, they’ll hear you!” It’s a little late for that, my ears were wide open to that outburst. I felt Jades lips smirk into my neck as she pecked at it with her lips and I sighed happily. I heard the sound of two sets of hooves trailing off.

“So… are you really going to kill someone?” I asked quietly.

“I’m going to do exactly what I said I’d do Fizzle, make someone kick the bucket.” After a few minutes, Jade sat up and rolled off to the side. She still hadn’t let go of me. “So do you want to do it? It’ll make you more involved in my plans.”

“Hmm… is it this about that bucket of magical pink dye?” I asked. There was a toothy smile on Jade’s face, she worded it so well to make it seem like she was going to kill someone. She had set off the guards on purpose, we’ll be watched more closely from now on. So how was Jade getting that bucket into position for me to kick it? “Then yes, I do want to help you kick a bucket. So what is your end goal?”

“Make the royal guards jump at shadows for the rest of the day until it is time to start running. Come on, let’s go do some other things get in a quick lunch and pick up clothing for a fancy party later.” Jade got off of me and held out a paw for me to take hold of, I grabbed it and was helped onto my hooves. “This evening is going to be a bit fancy, sorry for not giving you a heads up. So how do you feel about tiaras made specifically to hide your horn Fizzle?”

“I can work with that.” I stated honestly as we went to go look around at an art museum for fun.

-Shining Armor, minutes later-

“Are you sure she said she’s going to kill someone?” He might have it in for Jaded La Perm, but even he didn’t think that the cat had a killer’s heart. This sounded suspiciously like a setup for something and he still didn’t know what. “Put more guards on her. Whatever she’s up to, she won’t get away with it… this time. She can’t be allowed to get away with it this time!”

-Cadence-

She was so getting away with it this time. I didn’t know what Jade was going to do, but with Shining and the guards this riled up… this is exactly what Jade wants. I could warn Shining that he was playing into her paws, but I wanted to see how this ended.

Auntie Celestia told me to pay absolute attention to the eventual political fallout of whatever Jade does and then I’d see why Celestia appreciate Jade so much.

The first impression anyone would get of Jade from this is that she’s kind of a jerk, but even I know that would be wrong concerning the fact that we were friends and that Jade doesn’t do these things without good reason.

That cat loved her pony friend and she was radiating it quite powerfully at that, so what kind of evening did those two have planned… and how can I help?

“Cadence what are you thinking?” Oh nothing Shiny, just that I know where Jade was going to be this evening and that I was going to let her surprise you... again.

Now what did you care about more, me… or catching Jaded Freaking La Perm? I can already see one bit of political fallout and that would be forcing Shining make things up to me later. I appreciated the efforts that Shining will have to go to for me because of Jade.

Nothing like making a stallion jump through hoops for you and having your friend do the same thing to the same stallion.

-Well past noon, Fizzle-

We were getting into the evening and Jade told me that we had to get in a good meal. So I was to order my fill, we’d need all that energy for an over the top evening of fun, intrigue and excitement. Given that it was Jade telling me this, I believed her wholeheartedly because I knew she was going to do something insane.

The restaurant we were eating at was quite good and it wasn’t very expensive, I expected something more extravagant.

Jade said that extravagance was overrated and that good food is always better than expensive stuff that tasted horrible, I definitely had to agree with her. Where we were eating might be low to middle class, but we were eating good food.

“What do you do for dessert Mr. Cumin?” The stallion that walked up to our table was about to say something when he heard a shout from the kitchen. His daughter too priority and it didn’t sound like there was a fire.

His daughter, at least a year or two younger than us, came out of the kitchen pointing out her cutie mark and the two started hugging. She must have just gotten it, which would help out the family business of this poor out of the way restaurant.

“So about that dessert…” Of course Jade continued to think with her stomach, she must have noticed my look because she leaned over to me to whisper. “We’re tipping them with the rest of our money… I think they need it more than we do. Besides, I like their customer service… even if Mr. Cumin is a grump. I’d like to think that we brought several guards in here to be constant enough customers to survive as a business. They make good food here, but their location is kind of lousy.”

“You planned it that way didn’t you?” I received a cheeky smile, yep Jade was trying to help these two out… but where was the… oh. I kind of wish mom would be able to adopt Saffron, but I don’t think her and Mr. Cumin’s personalities would mesh together too well. “Her mother?”

“Yeah…” Jade looked away from me a bit upset, but she then looked back a little more chipper. “I think they’ll make this place something incredible, like I and mom did with Airship Mauled.”

I believed it as we exited The Tasty Treat, a small out of the way restaurant that would be scraping by for the next few years.

-An hour, or so, later-

I looked at the Tiara blocking the view of my broken horn and smiled a bit, I didn’t look half bad in a dress. My scar was visible and I didn’t care if it was, Jade didn’t either. I looked to Jade who was wearing a tuxedo with a skirt, it looked cute on her. I just had to ask though.

“Is the cane really necessary?” Giving me a broad evil looking smile, Jade hefted the cane into both her paws to do a short dance before crouching and throwing her arms out into the air while waving one hand and the cane held in the other. “Part of the plan?”

Jade just nodded and tipped her top hat to me with her free paw, if I didn’t know any better I’d swear she was dressed as a stage magician and not my date to the party we were going to. What magic tricks was Jade going to pull out of her pack this time?

“Just enjoy the evening Fizzy and if any noble harasses you… well just be yourself and I’ll send them a parting shot on the way out. Don’t be what anyone else wants you to be, even me for that matter!” Jade hugged me affectionately. “Just be your beautiful self. Besides that, I’m getting some help so the bucket can get inside without anyone thinking twice about it. Let’s do this thing!”

Author's Note

I would have gotten this chapter out sooner... but someone got me a Nintendo Switch with Octopath Traveler.

Chapter twenty four, Guard Goading: Dated evening.

-Fizzle-

“Over here Fizzy.” Jade pulled me off to the side to look into some bushes, I blinked when I saw a unicycle with a green seat. Jade looked at the unicycle and then seemed to eyeball the direction it was pointing and nodded. She also looked up and nodded again. “Right, if the unicycle is in the correct position then so too are the buckets of magical pink dye. Now all I need to do is sneak my stuff past the guards.”

“You do realize that they are going to check all your stuff for weapons right?” I thought I looked nice in my gown and she looked nice in the tuxedo and skirt combo, I don’t think I’d ever actually see Jade in an actual dress. “I mean you did kind of imply that you were going to make someone die tonight.”

“Oh ye o’ little faith.” Jade pulled her pack off her back and stuff it into her top hat where it disappeared. She also put her necklace, knife and other stuff in there that wasn’t part of her tuxedo outfit as well.

She then walked over to a nearby empty carriage, I noticed a lazy looking grey furred squirrel with a pink bow around her neck sitting in a tree nearby. Jade glanced at the squirrel with a small smirk on her lips, she proceeded to remove the two wooden wedges that kept the carriage in place and tossed them into the hat as well. She then places the hat back on her head and winked to the squirrel, said squirrel lazily waved to Jade while trying not to look interesting.

“Okay, what’s the magical sustain of a top hat… or does it count as a magician’s hat?” A small smile met me as we started moving towards the door being staffed by royal guards.

“Oh Fizzy, don’t you know? A real magician never reveals their secrets… well at least not until later after they’re retired.” We were almost upon the door that the guards were watching. “They mostly do that so if anyone else does the tricks they aren’t as mysterious, so the magician leaves behind a bit of a legacy that is secured and can’t be followed without the next person being called a copycat. Like the amazing escape artist Hoofdini!”

“You’re not a magician Jade.” Though I will silently admit that she almost came off as one. “But yeah, that does make some level of sense.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I can’t pull something out of a hat… which as you can see has nothing in it.” Jade showed the insides of the hat to me as we came to a stop in front of the guards, nothing was in there. Once we were standing in front of the guards, she put it on her head and tipped it to their suspicious looks. “Ello’ there gents, I believe you should announce that La Perm, party of two, is here... to impress!”

“Of course, but first we’re going to need to search you.” One of the guards said coming forward, giving Jade a rather ironically guarded look.

“Have you searched everyone else?” Jade asked with a bright cheery smile as she leaned on her cane.

“Of course we have! Now hold still while we scan you and check you for dark magic, weapons and other things.” They were very thorough, they even considered doing a cavity search.

Jade put a stop to that when she said that they've already scanned her and that she knew her rights and asked them if they were going to do the same thing to Fancy Pants. Said pony just so happened to queue up behind us with Fleur De Lis and glared at them, we were let through in short order to be followed by the other two once they were searched thoroughly as well.

“Oh my, is it? It is! You’re that brazen and sweet little kitty that infiltrated my home!” Fleur came up and pulled Jade into a snuggling hug, much to Mr. Pants’ amusement and my displeasure. “You are still very adorable and fluffy. Also the tuxedo looks quite cute on you, but wouldn’t a dress have been a little better for the occasion?”

“Said sweet kitty is also taken!” I stated sourly, Fleur quickly backed off while looking towards me. I was a bit jealous of her, she was a supermodel and she absolutely looked and breathed it. “By the way she dislikes dresses.”

“Truly?” Fleur said while glancing at me, she looked at me from the tip of my nose to the tip of my tail and then turned to Jade. “You have a very beautiful friend there Ms. Kitty.”

“I keep trying to tell her that, but she just doesn’t seem to believe me and says I’m the pretty one.” Both Jade and Fleur smiled at one another, Jade held out a paw and shook her hoof. I stood a little off to the side and blushed a bit. “My name is Jaded La Perm, but you can call me Ms. Kitty if you want. Can I have that autograph now?”

“Of course.” Since Fleur acquiesced so nicely, Jade pulled a notebook, quill and ink out of her hat. She opened the notebook while letting Fleur levitate a pen out of her hand to sign it. Once that was done Fleur smiled at Fancy Pants. “See, this party is not to be boring as you say it will be, especially with the guard’s infamous 'Bogey Cat' on the prowl.”

“Thanks agent Fleur, have a good time at the party… provided that you weren’t sent here because of me that is.” Jade turned around and led me into the ball room with a paw on my neck. “I’ve got some fun to squeeze in before I start causing trouble around here!”

-Fleur-

“She is very sweet is she not?” I said with a smile to Fancy Pants, the stallion with a bright blue mane, white fur and tuxedo. He grinned and nodded, I adored his small fancy immaculate mustache and the monocle just made him seem even fancier. I looked at the three crowns marking his flank, he was a true noble of heart, mind and body.

“I do say, she’s quite a bit more lively than some of the dullards around here… do you think Celestia invited her for that very reason? Best stay out of the way of that one, she seems quite wily.” There was no comment from Fancy on them somehow being outed as S.M.I.L.E. agents by Jade, not that they needed to worry about it. He tipped his bowler hat to me, his very beautiful and highly attractive friend, then he winked. “Whatever the case, I believe this evening will be quite simply smashing my dear Fleur.”

“Ms. Kitty’s intentions are to make someone kick a bucket tonight, I believe that to be more literal than the guards think it is.” I gave pause once I realized something, she pulled notebook, ink well and quill out of the hat. That was after she was scanned for not having anything dangerous on her, she had gotten her stuff past the guards magical scans! “She is quite a sly one...”

“Oh indubitably. Just a fair warning, don’t be standing near Blueblood or Shining Armor tonight. I’m the one that got tasked with bringing two cans of magical pink dye past the guards, Jade apparently has made contact with The Squirrels.” Well will wonders never cease, at least Fancy came clean to me about this before I got caught in the crossfire. Not like I was going anywhere near Blueblood, but I do like to talk with Cadence and Shining every now and then. “That Jaded has planned her escape to the finest degree. Why I can’t wait to see what she’ll accomplish this fine evening!”

-Fizzle-

As we walked in Jade looked to the dance floor and then glanced to me, she held out a paw.

“Would you like to dance Fizzy? Don’t care much for the elegance kind of dancing, but I know how to lead.” Thinking over Jade’s offer, I might as well while I’m here for the duration of the evening. I just nodded and held out my hoof, I don’t see why not. Jade was going to great lengths to make this day quite memorable, like getting me a dress in my size and having a tiara that hid my horn waiting for me. “Alright then, follow me and then get your hooves up on my shoulder I’ll help you balance and we’re going to perform a two legged tango. Just flow with me.”

Holding my hoof she led me out on to the dance floor where she turned to me, I made the effort to get my hooves up on her shoulders. She placed the cane on her arm and held me up.

“So how low do you want me to hold you? Back, waist or… butt?” Jade held took my right hoof into her left paw and her right hand went to my flank and squeezed it making me blush.

“Waist is fine…” I squeaked out, I just couldn’t hold my composure with Jade being affectionate with me like this. She moved her paw up to put some pressure on my waist.

“I move back you move forward, you move back when I push forward, we swing around and I twirl you into my comfortable grasp…” Jade was in fact doing these things as she spoke and I felt her chest pressing up against my back as she held me close then twirled me away, but kept a good grip on my hoof. “This is how you tango Fizzle. Now you push, pull and swing me whichever way you want… also squeeze my butt right on back.”

I immediately did so and Jade gave off a cute yelp and blushed. I smirked at her, she did say to squeeze her back and my left hoof was currently on her waist like her paw was on mine.

“So what’s the plan?” Now I really wanted to know what it was.

“I’m going to rob half the nobles in this room of their bits, make you kick ‘that’ bucket at Blueblood. If you miss I’ll just use the spare under that table I’m going to lure Shining Armor over to.” Looking over to where Jade pointed out with her eyes as we danced, I saw one bucket of magical pink dye next to the snack table. “Oh and I’ll steal some of Cadence’s loose feathers while I’m at it, she’ll forgive me later I’m sure. Bonus points if you can talk Fleur into flipping the food tables, sending all the food at the other guests as a large distraction. Once I give you the signal to kick the bucket, you do that and afterwards you are to run up the left stairway while I toss my bucket. If you miss, I’m aiming for Blueblood. If you hit, I hit Shining. I’ll go up the right flight of stairs and meet you in the hallway where we’ll hide for a bit and then sneak out the window overlooking the unicycle to make our great escape.”

“You’re actually going to be that brazen about this?” Though outrunning thoroughly tweaked royal guards on a unicycle does sound fun. “Do you seriously plan on escaping on a unicycle, really Jade?”

“Well I’ve set up a sequence of events for everything… oh and the art museum visit was to steal the layout plans for it for something I’m going to do later in Manehattan. I did it when I was going to the bathroom.” Jade smiled as she dipped me and kissed me on the lips. Bringing me back up, I felt dazed. “Did you know the art museum here in Canterlot was built to the same specifications as the historical artifact museum in Manehatten? In any case I wanted to use a unicycle for something in this plot, you know, like the whole rubber chicken thing I had going. Besides, doing this means less time at the Hayburger for us.”

“I’m in just for that alone, but do you really think we can get away?” I couldn’t help but smile. Jade sure had an exciting evening planned for us and I was willing to go along with it.

“Yep, now if you’ll excuse me while I go work the room… go mingle with Fleur, she might keep the other nobles off of you.” Our dance ended and with a lick on the cheek, Jade separated from me and grabbed her cane from her arm.

She idly swung the hooked end near one of the nobles and quickly shoved the resulting stolen bit bag up her hat, she started whistling and twirling her cane around as she walked off.

I have to admit this day impressed me so far, but this party was boring and wasn’t exactly our speed even if the dancing was nice.

-An hour later-

“So you’re barking up the wrong tree pal!” I told the noble to his face, he looked surprised at my rejection. I was a little upset that a lot of the ponies here thought I was an earth pony, but I did tend to hide the fact that I was a unicorn a lot.

I made my way over to the snack tables, it seemed Jade had managed to get Shining wound up and was sitting at the table with him and Cadence.

“You handle yourself pretty well, how did you two meet if I may ask?” Turning to Fleur, I answered while I positioned the bucket behind me. Blueblood was close enough for me to hit.

“After an Ursa Medium incident, the love eventually started flowing from there.” I looked behind me and angled my rear hooves just so… “Can you do me a quick favor?”

“Yes?” Fleur asked brightening, as if she was so bored she’d be willing to do anything to liven up this party.

“Fling as much food as you can at the party goers after I hit that guy with this bucket.” I pointed to the most narcissistic stallion in the room, blonde foppish hair and pristine white fur. Jade certainly had it in for him tonight.

“Gladly, so you’re the one Jade is going to make… kick the bucket.” Fleur was grinning from ear to ear. “Nice target, couldn’t happen to a finer stallion.”

“I’m going to make someone kick the bucket tonight and you can’t stop me!” Hearing Jade’s shout had attracted my attention, guess that was my cue. “Okay, kick it!”

I bucked the bucket in Blueblood’s direction and it went over his nose and splashed his entire body and several of the nobles around him, they all quickly turned hot pink.

While they were distracted Jade moved over to Cadence and stole some feathers off her right wing, which earned Cadence’s attention and then the second bucket was slung covering Shining and Cadence. Cadence’s fur color didn’t change at all.

I was already moving up the stairs, the guards that had been waiting for this moment were distracted when all kinds of food showered the other guests and a panic started throughout the room.

Once I reached the hallway, I waited for Jade to arrive and when she did she grabbed a nearby waiting cardboard box.

“Inside the box!” Jade knew what she was doing so I got under the box with her. “Please get out of your clothes now."

Author's Note

(New Magical alchemy ingredients!)

Magician's top hat.

Magician's cane.

Skirt.

Cardboard Box (Why does this even work?).

Some tango music.

Also a little Top Cat thrown in.

Chapter twenty five, Hayburger Havoc: Breakfast.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter twenty five, Hayburger Havoc: Brunch.

-Blade, lunch time at Hayburger-

It was the day after Jade performed her infamous Canterlot Shuffle, the royal guards that bothered Kuril this morning should have just left at her warnings. Never mess with a witch, even one as that was as friendly, good and loving as Kuril is.

I have garnered an appreciation for cooking in all forms. Never thought about spatulas before, but they can be used as edged weapons themselves. We still had little clue how Jade got us these jobs, but I wasn’t knocking this opportunity now that I learned some new things about my special talent.

I’m surprised that Jade wasn’t having more trouble with the register, but she wasn’t exactly the one doing the math what with Maries around to make sure she isn’t getting anything wrong. Dyscalculia was kind of bad thing to have when working a register, thankfully Jade’s mild case was only causing mild problems here and there.

The food here was made quickly and can become a heart attack if too much is eaten, but every once in a while something like this wasn’t bad for one’s health. The smell of fried food was a bit intoxicating, but I’d rather stay fit and healthy. I liked my assassins figure and would keep it, even if Kuril wouldn’t let me shave my growing mane away.

I was proud to put on performances for the fillies and colts, while showing my stuff as an apprentice chef via Kuril. Even then, I wasn’t getting too full of myself or my newfound skills in being a fast food cooking machine.

“Flamberge is on fire again.” Fizzle commented idly, we all watched as the dragon was released out the back door by Maries. “That was another attempt to burn down the restaurant then, I think I’m getting used to the smell of burning oil.”

“It was whale oil that time, where is Hard Sell even getting all these various oils from?” Quirking an ear in Jade’s direction, I made a stomping noise to get her attention and signed something I hoped she could understand. “I know what ambergris smells like, I do not need to explain in detail how I was puked on by a whale and I’m not sure you’d actually want to know.”

“I don’t know about that, it sounds like it would be an interesting story to me.” Fizzle muttered out loud as she worked the fryer in an apron, she had little to no complaints about her job of making sizzling and fizzling food. She still commented about how boring register work was though and that this was much better. “Also how do we even know that it is Hard Sell doing this?”

“I’d rather not tell the whale barf story, it wasn’t pretty for all involved.” Pausing to take an order from a customer which I started on, which required grilling the cheese into the lightly burnt hay which was ‘spray the raft with curdled cow fluids’ in the term of orders. “As for Hard Sell, I would like to think it has to be him as who else would try to torch the restaurant several times? Flamberge has luckily gotten in the way every single time, that dragon would make a good fire fighter if he wasn’t so flammable.”

“Well it is right there in his title as a Viking warrior, he’s literally quite flammable.” Fizzle dunked the food and started an egg timer, Jade didn’t need the timer and did it by instinct and ear. It kind of showed the time Jade spent with her mother, in both learning how to cook and prepare food to know how to do that without aid.

We haven’t had any complaints from the customers yet about the fried foods.

“At this rate Flamberge is not getting a paycheck this week.” Marie commented dryly.

“It’s not his fault that this is the fifth time in the last two or so hours that he’s been doused in oil and lit ablaze.” Sounded like Jade was defending him. I would have done so myself, but I was functionally mute and didn’t want to break my ears and all the glass within a mile radius of me.

“You are right, but what can we do? He has to wear a shirt and a hat to at least stay on the job and it keeps getting burned off him. It isn’t through any fault of his own, even if he is capable of breathing fire and could feasible light himself ablaze without the help.” Responded Maria who, with Marie, was on the lookout for any more shenanigans or trouble. “It’s annoying is what it is.”

“Agreed.” Mara stated sourly while letting out a predatory growl that sent shivers up the backs of every pony who heard her.

“Look, as long as we can stop anything bad from happening and do one more day of good work, then we can stop working here and it’s all officially not our problem anymore.” That’s surprising, especially coming from you Jade. Jade had a kind of tendency to finish things, or at least see things to something approaching a good conclusion to events she becomes involved in, like what’s going on here for instance. “Besides we’d have to catch Sell Hard red hoofed in the act if we want to arrest him and he seems to be going with trying to stealthily take us down this time.”

“Like he’s having any luck with that to begin with if all he’s managed to do hit is Flamberge or is it Flambé at this point?" Intoned Fizzle questioningly as she loaded up more fries onto a tray and wrapped up my finished hay burgers."Why hasn’t Sell tried starting a fire outside?”

“The weather ponies would take care of it too quickly and the damage would be minimal, also it would prevent a dry fire attack by dampening the surroundings. Oil fires usually have mud and dirt tossed onto them to smother them out, so lots of earth ponies would easily handle that too as every earth pony learns how to deal with such fires from young ages. Besides that, it would make everyone be on the lookout for a fire bug and Sell Hard likely doesn’t want to be clearly identified by multiple ponies as trying to be an arsonist.” Which was all a very good point on Jade’s part. “He’d likely try something new… something like a… well not another manticore because… BUGBEAR!”

I heard the roar of the bugbear outside and blinked and looked beyond the counter. There was a four armed, two legged, giant panda bear monster with bug antenna, massive stinger and wings hovering around outside the restaurant. It looked angry about something and it was definitively disturbing the peace.

“Oh look, he’s drawn a Bugbear here this time and it’s outside causing problems. It’s actually bear enough that it can get past Sekhet’s bug barrier, that’s actually pretty smart.” Fizzle commented blandly as she continued to work at her station. “So… who wants it this time? We all have the time for a break to run it off, this is obviously to deter customers from coming in or leaving the place.”

“We’ll take this one, you guys keep working.” Maries stated as they all looked at the bugbear with a hint of sharpness in their eyes, they looked like they needed this and no one else tried for it. I wanted to, but I had an important job and I didn’t want the fillies or colts to be afraid of me. I already get enough of that for just being a creepy looking bat pony. “Bugbears are quite annoying and we know how to deal with them. They are physically strong enough to rip the rest of you apart if it gets a hold of you. Aside from Flamberge, none of you should really try to deal with it in the first place.”

Maries marched on past us and right on by the cowering ponies in the restaurant still eating their meals with fearful looks on their faces. Said looks of fear became less fearful when manager Maries marched out the doors towards the disturbance.

“What’s going on?” Flamberge asked having returned with a new shirt and hat.

“Bugbear incident, nothing to worry about. Number five fifty two, the ‘Tartarus with Love, minus all the crying’ is ready!” Jade and the rest of us just got stared at, as if we were taking the bugbear outside with a grain of salt. We in fact were.

Hadn’t they lived here long enough to know that Ponyville was always this weird or insane? Jade certainly seemed to know about the insanity of this place quite well to tell us about the stuff that may occur here, incredible feats as routine as every hour or so.

When enchantment runs rampant and gets wild in the streets here, from day to long radiant nights, how do these ponies continue to live here when they deal with all this on a regular basis and not have the backbone to scare off threats? They certainly had the gumption to keep living here next to a forest full of deadly, dangerous or just plain weird creatures.

If Maries couldn’t handle the bugbear, then Flamberge definitely would. I didn’t think it’d get by our friend, it only had one brain to go with its multiple limbs and it would be sorely outmatched by Maries’ intelligence.

-Maries-

I, Mara, let loose a roar of challenge as the Bugbear was way outside of its own territory.

It roared back in my face. I growled out that it should leave the area, it didn’t seem to want to listen to me and said something about our mother. We didn’t exactly speak bugbear, but we knew an insult when we heard one.

Marie already mentally sent us a plan and we’d be ready to act on it and give her the opening she needs to make this go by quicker.

Surprisingly even Maria wanted to fight it, usually she would want us to be on the defensive. I, Mara, sent a mental suggestion to Marie to keep us level headed and to not go into a berserk like state.

Doing so around ponies would be bad for our reputation, we needed to prove that we were smart and at least relatively friendly. Which means we would have to dispose of it in a peaceful pony manner.

We’d do that by dragging it into the Ever Free Forest and leaving it there. Neither Jade nor Fizzle would care if we ate it, but public perception would certainly make it harder for us to not appear like some feral beast.

Ponies would always fear us, and they should as chimera are not generally safe carnivorous beings, but we would like to walk around with our loved ones out in the open without question as an intelligent and free thinking being.

We would at least settle for not being immediately seen as a monster like the creature coming at us stinger first.

We jumped back as it dug it’s stinger into the ground, some pony would fix the divots from that later. We moved forward while it was stuck in the ground and it swung the paws on its right arms at us.

Unfortunately for it, we were aiming for its exposed legs which it couldn’t protect very well as we ducked the two swiping bear arms and clawed up its right leg violently.

It ripped it’s stinger from the ground by falling forward and tried to swing out at us with its two left arms this time, it wasn’t very coordinated or clever compared to us.

We hopped back and then Maria pushed our goat legs and her head forward, Mara ducked hers out the way and we head-butted the beast and cut up its face with our sharp horns. Maria’s horns dug into chest and pulled upwards nicking its neck and face before it was sent tumbling backwards.

“Wait for it…” It seemed that Marie must have felt what our next plan of action was and wanted to get in her part, especially if we were taking this thing down alive and without killing it.

Hunting was something we hardly did anymore, but we hadn’t lost our edge thanks to the mighty Sekhet’s training regiments.

We waited and the bugbear swiftly took to the air and tried to drop on us roaring angrily. Given its weight and the size of the stinger, it would have done more than hurt us if it had any hope of hitting us with how slow it moved. It had size and strength, but wasn’t intelligent or fast enough enough to deal with us.

It avoided slamming into the ground again and missed us with a sweeping upward jab of its stinger, but Marie didn’t miss it when she swung her head upwards and dug her poisonous fangs into its left leg before it could pass us by entirely.

Mara and Maria worked our main body together to swing the bear around towards the ground. Marie held onto it as tightly as she could with her jaw, at least until we could physically pull it out of the air.

Once it started falling to the ground Marie let it go and it roughly hit the dirt on its back roaring in pain. That was an opening for us and we pounced on it, literally and possibly metaphorically.

We were immediately on it to pin its four arms with our legs, its own legs thrashing uselessly as it could not reach us on its upper torso.

Marie took this opportunity to bite it again on its lower right shoulder. Our sister’s poison would take some time to filter into this creatures system to weaken it enough to capture and move it, until then we’d have to beat on it until the poison kicked in.

The poison wouldn’t be nearly enough to kill it, the thing was practically part honey badger given how often bugbears come back to annoy everyone. It still managed to knock us off by overpowering us to hit to Mara’s face with its lower left limb. If it hurt one of us, it hurt all of us.

We fell away from the monster with Mara taking some claw wounds to her right cheek, we shared the pain between the three of us to dull it. While we fell away, Marie managed to graze its fur and flesh with her fangs injecting more of her poison into it.

The bugbear, rolled onto its six limbs and roared before leaping on top of us. We were force onto our back and used our tiger paws to occupy it’s lower two arms, it’s upper two arms random and rather rabid claw swipes were being deflected with Maria’s horns. We still took a few more injuries across our chest, heads and necks.

Marie bit the bugbear in the abdomen and it noticeably started to slow down, just a few more seconds.

Mara opened her mouth wide and dug her two saber teeth deeply into its upper left shoulder in a spray of blood. It’s rather unique taste erupted in our collective mental tongues, while this was happening Maria oriented and pushed with our hind legs as hard as she could.

We lunged upwards and flipped the bugbear off of us with a show of strength. It landed on its belly and tried to get up, only to fall and stay down.

Well... we're done here.

Author's Note

The evening at the Hayburger for this particular day can't be that much more interesting right?

Chapter twenty five, Hayburger Havoc: Lunch.

-Jade-

“You took that bugbear down pretty fast, but you still got clawed up pretty badly.” What I was currently doing was bandaging Maries’ wounds with several ponies watching me. “Are the bandages too tight?”

“No we are, and will be, fine.” Mara let me wipe off her blood covered fangs… or what passed for blood in a bugbear, it was a really odd color. I wonder if Maries had dealt with bugbears before this.

Having finished patching up Maries with the first aid kit underneath the counter, I stood up with a smile.

“I suggest a checkup with Dr. Bones all the same. We’ve got a hospital and a medical expert now, so we will be making quite some use of them.” Reaching up, my fingers ran through Maria’s thick goat fur. Caressing one of them, made the rest of them hum while closing their eyes. They were an impressive being and somehow I had earned their attention, I should really give them more of mine. “So the wounds don’t sting too much from being doused with medical alcohol?”

“While my sisters won’t admit to it, it really stung a lot Jade. We know it’s to prevent us from getting infections, but it’s not like we have a right to complain about receiving help like this.” What Marie was avoiding was that she and her sisters wanted mine and Fizzle’s help exclusively before they’d go to anyone else.

“What do you think will hit us next?” Fizzle asked me as I took my position behind the counter once again. “A hydra?”

“No, too big and noticeable. Drawing a hydra’s attention to this place would definitely be a hard to cover up crime.” Like anyone would be that desperate and I certainly didn’t see that happening, smaller monsters were easy to lure into being trouble. Bigger ones like a hydra would be far more trouble than it is worth. “The one doing this wants to cause Hayburger trouble, not kill every pony in town for a one way trip to Tartarus. I don’t have any ideas on what they’ll do next.”

“Well then, why don’t you think of the most petty kitty thing you could do if you were them in this situation friend Jade!” We all looked to Flamberge who blasted another Hayburger that Blade gestured at with her left wing. “You are a being known for causing great traumas to those who cross you!”

“Do you have an idea like that Jade?” Maybe Fizzle, give me a second to think on this while taking another ponies order.

What would I do, that could be the pettiest least lethal thing I could. The fires were meant to scare us off and yet Flamberge was luckily in place to stop them, the bugbear wasn’t too big an issue and most ponies would have avoided and run from it as well. So if I were a petty kitty, one that didn’t currently like Hayburger at the moment, what would I be doing to get my revenge on this place for my personally being a jerk?

It didn’t take me long to think of it. If I were Sell Hard, and I’m not, I would probably do a long distance attack involving something that moves and fire. Oh… well there’s an idea, it wouldn’t work because I’m here at the counter.

“Don’t worry about it guys, I’ve got the next situation and I know exactly what is going to happen.” It seemed like I was using magical alchemy sustained fish scales in the foreseeable future.

-A few hours later into the evening-

A pony was walking in, through the doors, nothing was wrong with the pony. The pony wasn’t the important thing, what was important was the timing of a wagon load of fireworks barreling to and through the door.

As I had suspected previously, Sell Hard was willing to make this a detriment to himself by buying up fireworks to cause minor injuries. It rolled through the open doors and ponies dove out the way of the sizzling mass of minor explosives that would damage the restaurant if they went off.

Instead of letting them go off or hit the counter and send them spilling everywhere before they fired off, I inhaled and blasted the entire wagon with as much water as I could spare from my body in a wide spray.

Not only did the force of my spray slowed and then subsequently stop the momentum of the wagon, it also put all the lit fireworks out and it came to a slow stop at the counter.

“Exactly what you expected to happen huh?” Fizzle asked dryly from the frying station.

I nodded with a smug smile. If I could see this coming, then she or anyone else might have figured out how to deal with it just as quickly if I weren’t here.

“Pinkie, free partially damp fireworks!” A pink blur zipped past me, the wagon was now gone. I just shook my head as I read the card on the counter that simply said ‘thank you’. “Snickers, Cutie, once you’re both done eating those salads, I need a favor of you two!”

“Coo!” The turtle waved her left flipper at me in a cheerful excited manner before going back to her food at the nearby table, of which she was sharing with a blushing Fluttershy.

“Oh… okay Jade... if you think I can help you with something.” Followed Fluttershy meekly in agreeing to lend her assistance.

Maries came out with Mara carrying a mop in her jaw and Marie dragging a bucket behind them, Maria placed an exceedingly large glass of water on the counter for me. It wasn’t so much a glass as it was a hundred and thirty ounce popcorn bucket filled to the brim with cold, clean, refreshing water.

I drained the entire thing in almost an instant. much to the surprise of our customers. Using the fish scales always left me a bit dehydrated.

“You guys really are something else.” Once again, Fry Hard was making his presence known. “I’m sorry about my brother if this is his doing.”

“Don’t worry about it, after tomorrow we won’t be coming back as I’ll have what I want.” Enough money to fund some ventures that will lead to me getting my mother a wonderful present. “So why didn’t your brother attack at any other time throughout the week? Why is it only now that he is doing something?”

“Sell Hard works at the Barnyard Bargains in sales every day of the week like I do. He's only free on weekends, so he only gets about two days a week to cause problems like this. Though I don’t understand why he’s trying so hard this time to ruin my favorite place in the world.” Neither did I Fry Hard, but I was going to have someone investigate that to find out why he seemed so dead set on ruining Hayburger now. “My brother just seems so angry, I don’t think it’s because you thwarted him more than once. Something is really off with how he’s acting.”

“Don’t worry about it Fry, I have something brewing to solve this situation.” I had talked to a certain stallion during my break. I took five minutes to find the guy in town, ten minutes to talk to him and seven minutes to work out something about how his special talent works. If I’m right, then he can do this and once he does… maybe it’ll solve the attacks on Hayburger we’ve been experiencing today.

I was going to call in someone else to investigate Sell Hard, someone unusual. He seemed like a trustworthy stallion to me. In fact, it’d help him start up a new business I suggested he get into on the side and he should be coming in any time soon.

Fluttershy and Snickers would not be the ones investigating what Sell Hard, Fluttershy was going to help set up some little spies in the area watch out for any more trouble and Snickers would be our liaison to them. We only needed them to spot for us tomorrow, we’d handle any danger that came our way personally.

“Well that’s good news for you Fry. If Jade has a plan, then you better believe it’ll have results of some kind.” Receiving praise from Fizzle had me rubbing the back of my head in a sheepish manner. “It’s just that it’ll never turn out how you want it to.”

“Hey…” I whined from the register as I posted another order to Blade and the others.

The doors to the restaurant opened and in walked Health Inspector Forward Closure. While every one of my friends gave him guarded looks, I gave him a bright inviting smile.

“Hello Mr. Closure!” The others gave me an odd look for my suddenly chipper countenance. “Don’t worry, he’s here because of me.”

“Yes, I do believe we have much to discuss, but I’ll wait until you’ve finished and cleaned up for the evening. Aside from that I’ll have a Ponyville Pounder, lightly toasted, cheese, mustard, ketchup, extra onions and carrot slices. Yes, with fries and a drink as well.” Quickly taking Inspector Closure’s order, he nodded to me and went to sit down.

“Really?” Fizzle asked as if she wasn’t sure about Inspector Closure being here. “Can we actually trust him?”

“Yes, I’m going to hire him as a private detective, his special talent is kind of made for it given he’s really quite good at spotting things most other ponies don’t notice.” Given that he is an inspector, I figure out that his special talent was very useful for finding clues of anything amiss. “If this works out, then he’ll have a new avenue of pay and can earn some more money to get by better in life. I seriously think he can do it, I'm even quite optimistic this’ll help both Fry Hard and his brother Sell Hard at the same time.”

Forward Closure may have become a health inspector, which with his talent would allow him to find any number of infractions in a business by keen sight and intellect. I figured he’d make a pretty good private investigator and or police pony with those same health inspector skills, he can inspect any place for clues with relative ease and I was going to have Fry Hard take him by Sell Hard’s house for a bit.

We continued working for a while after that, there weren’t any other incidents… so far that is. I was expecting another attack of some kind. Sell Hard was likely done for the day and wouldn’t be attacking us again until tomorrow.

Eventually we started our late evening clean and close up. Maries handled the tables and floor in the eating area, I handled the kitchen, Fizzle started to clean out the grease trap and Flamberge cleaned the stove with a bit of fire breath to get rid of the extra particulate matter. Blade was checking around the building outside as she took the garbage out to make sure nothing was amiss.

As for Forward Closure, he inspected our work and concluded it to be completely passable by the health and regulations board. After that we had a pretty lengthy conversation and bade him farewell as he went off with Fry Hard to investigate what the real problem was.

None of us thought it was Sell Hard getting angry over being caught out for trying to scam a fast food restaurant. He would have moved past that by now, I know I would have.

-Interlude, Arizona-

Ugh, that annoying deer, why does she keep bothering me? In any case, making sure the inn is running smoothly with Grace and protecting the fruit plantation from being infested gave me something to do between working out.

I really liked working with the trees, bushes and other plants, getting my hooves dirty has never been an issue for me.

What was Velvet doing now anyway? Didn’t she have a home to return to? If so, why hadn’t she left already? What was so interesting about sticking around Airship Mauled? I knew what interested me, the good food, the incredible sparring matches and the exercise regiments from a war goddess. Also School, but that was the hard stuff.

Which brought me to another thing, why does Velvet even go to our school again? When did we sign her up for it or did Cheerilee not notice her sudden inclusion into our ranks? If that were true, then Ms. Cheerilee wouldn’t call on her every day. She practically just came out of nowhere because of Snickers saving her familiar bond partner's flank and moved right on in to my and Grace’s inn without as much as a howdy do!

She was insufferable, stuck up, prissy, violent, tall, graceful, fluffy, nice eyes, strong horns and… what the buck am I thinking? At best she was challenging in a fight and not a beautiful deer who always wiggled her tail in a cute manner…. GAH, what is wrong with me!

Grace was still an airhead, Jade was a weird cat, Fizzle was usually somewhat grumpy about nothing, Maries was awesome and Velvet was one of the most beautiful beings I’ve ever laid my… oh holy cow manure!

I know what my problem is.

I enjoyed fighting with Velvet way too much now, I should avoid her for the next few days.

-Elsewhere-

“Coo…” Snickers rubbed her flippers together, she felt something coming to fruition and it was only a matter of time.

-Interlude, Dr. Bones-

I have to admit, the lass was quite the cursed one. Never have I seen anybody get as plastered by fate quite as badly as this Jacky has. I did not think she was capable of going five minutes without an incident, until she did, then it was on the sixth minute that she ended up half crushed under a flipped hospital bed. Boggled my mind it did.

The lass really couldn’t catch a break, at least it wasn’t a head and beak unicycle related injury this time.

My ears twitched, there was that daft elephant sneaking about and trying to get away with stealing our stuff. The large bastard be trying to catch me in a kip and nip off with some medical supplies.

I be putting a stop to that, all while taking care of the poor bonnie pirate lass who was a living callus in all but name. I wasn’t going to catch a forty winks until the elephant outside our homes was well out of the area, we certainly didn’t want him in any rooms now.

“You’re a long time dead lass.” I stated to Jacky who didn’t seem to interpret my meaning, then again most couldn’t interpret my specific accent very well. All the same I was a good doctor in and out as it were. “I mean ye’ got a long time before you’re dead to be feeling as miserable as you look.”

“Oh…” The poor bird looks like she could take some painkillers for the bed she took to the midsection, but I’m sure she’d tough it out. “I didn’t get to fly or work on the ship today.”

“You be needing rest lass. Your luck might be a torch in a powder room, but mark my words you’re a tough one." Hearing a wailing trumpeting noise, I smiled. I knew that buying those elephant traps years ago would be worthwhile eventually. "Tougher than most toughies in my book.”

Author's Note

Next time on Airship Mauled: The last day at the Hayburger.

Place your bets... apocalypse, tidal wave, earthquake, rocking Roc, random cow stampede, baleful bunny blitz, scathing squirrels or just a regular everyday sudden eldritch horror attack? Spin the wheel and see what interesting destinies can come from working at a normal fast food restaurant in Ponyville.

Chapter twenty five, Hayburger Havoc: Linner.

-Fizzle, morning, Airship Mauled-

This day started out with us addressing Shining Armor’s quivering contingent of royal guards that were looking in every direction in fear. Shining looked up from the stallion he was hugging at my uniform, I was of course wearing my Hayburger hat.

“How do you live like this?!” Shining asked after a moment of contemplation and blankly staring at us.

“They attack occasionally, but it’s best not to say those two specific words or else they attack immediately as if speaking of the devils themselves. You’ve been kind of setting them off repeatedly, did you know it’s a self-punishing law around here to not say those two specific words unless circumstances require it or you are the mayor herself?” Why did I receive such a boggled look, Shining could have just asked any one of us why the ‘Highland Pukwudgies’ kept attacking him and his group. Ignoring him, I turned to Velvet and Arizona beating the crap out of each other again. Only they seemed less angry and much happier to be doing this as of late. “Excuse me for interrupting what is another over the top violent moment for you two, but Jade wants Velvet to come with us today. She said we could use someone who could stop most forms of fire with magic and you would definitely be quite helpful today if you came along with us Velvet.”

It was just something that we thought would be needed if any more attempts to set the restaurant on fire actually missed hitting Flamberge the Flambé Dragon.

“Do you need any muscle today?” Why did Arizona sound like she was pleading when she said that? I think she seemed to be a little… off. The rough and tumble cow looked to be a little skittish for some reason. “I want to come with you guys! I need… er… I need more of a challenge, yeah that’s it!”

“Give me a moment to catch my breath and to fix my floof, I am willing to accompany you to this... Ponyville.” By comparison Velvet seemed completely normal, if exhaling clouds of ice and frost was normal for magical reindeer after exerting herself in brutal combat with a young cow that has what amounts to super strength beyond that of even an Earth Pony. “It sounds like quite a quaint place and I wanted to get out of town today anyway.”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear Velvet was never going to return home at this rate and was going to become a long term resident of Airship Mauled.

“Well no one is stopping either of you from coming and I doubt the royal guards wants us to call ‘them’ to fight again so soon.” I shook my head in derision as the guards whined and cowered at the words I directed towards them, the royal guard were actually getting pretty good at dealing with pukwudgies. Which was more than a hundred percent increase in their overall performance as guards. That was a little sad come to think of it. “Grab whatever you want, we’re about to set off for work today.”

-Hayburger, Velvet-

“So you want us to prevent this place from being attacked by anything?” I couldn’t understand the importance of such a low brow establishment compared to Kurilian’s high class cooking establishment.

Jaded nodded to me with her arms crossed, before she turned to the door which was being opened by Maries.

“Snickers will warn us if something dangerous is going to happen. Fluttershy set up a network of birds to watch out for trouble.” Now there was something that Jade could have mentioned earlier, now I’m going to be paranoid about birds watching me all day.

Fluttershy was a strange pony, always quiet and kind. She’s really quite sweet and that tends to rub off on you, also a good conversationalist. She’s not my type at all personally, but she is quite lovely to look at.

The young mare just doesn’t match the majesty of rippling muscles, strength and raw power that is an honest and hardworking endearing ruffian like… oh dear. No… oh no, no, no… I am not attracted to Arizona!

I can’t be attracted to her strength, her ability to get in my face without backing down… how she never holds back against me in a fight and can give me quite a challenge. She’s horrible, uncouth, a constant mental strain on all things beautiful and quite adorably huggable for her size!

Did I just seriously…? I need something to happen quickly to get my mind off of her.

“Coo hiss coo!” Hearing Snickers cry of panic and that of multiple birds screeching in warning, we all turned to see something rise up in the distance. It was quite noticeable, mostly because it was heading towards the Hayburger and it was on fire.

“Oh look, a fire devil… you don’t see those every day. They are more commonly known as…” Jade started off as if she were talking about the weather and that would be a logical assessment for what was approaching the Hayburger this morning.

What I was seeing was a tall if somewhat tight tornado of fire slowly heading in our direction and a bunch of winged equines panicking in the sky.

“Fire whirl!” A pony shouted as the panicking grew worse, the slow moving tornado was singing homes and encroaching towards us without pause.

“Yes, that… well we certainly called it on that. Just not how I thought it would go though, good luck with the fire twister. I’ll leave this up to you and Arizona to handle, we’ve got to start setting up for the breakfast rush.” Seriously?! You were going to seriously leave this to us Jaded! “Look, I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t exactly have anything or even a plan that can even stop or top that thing. You’re an expert in ice magic, I’m sure you can figure it out. So go put the ‘ice’ in ‘nice’ and bring it down to save the town, ugh my mother rhyming throughout breakfast this morning has got me doing it... again.”

“Doors open Jade, get to the counter! Help me warm up the fryer Maries, Flamberge start on the coffee! Move it people, we don’t have all day to gawk at the thing of imminent death!” It seemed Fizzle was forcefully ordering them around and they were actually listening.

Soon our friends were inside leaving me and the, admittedly, cute and muscular small cow outside.

Now how would we handle a slowly encroaching flaming tornado of destruction coming at the restaurant that was burning the ground black as it moved? I even took in the fact that it was sucking up tons of loose grass and the straw from nearby houses to empower itself.

“How do you want to handle this Prissy Princess?” Probably shouldn’t have told Arizona I was of noble descent, but it would have eventually come up anyway if I were to introduce Arizona to my… where has my mind gone and why am I suddenly even contemplating showing her to my parents? They wouldn’t like her on the principle of her gender alone. Maybe that’s the point, I actually wanted them to hate everything about her. Feeling something smack solidly against my head, I gave Arizona my attention. “Hello, earth to overcompensating Ice Queen, big tornado of flaming death coming our way. Where’s your head at that that is not your most immediate concern!”

“What? Oh right… well… the tornado is definitely an immediate concern… of course.” I had to focus on the matter at hoof and not that of Arizona’s toned flank. “Could you grab the attention of a pegasus? I think I may need their assistance.”

“Heh, I can do that easily!” Reaching underneath her neck bandana, she pulled out a coil of what I assume to be magic proof rope. How she could have possibly acquired such rope, I’ll never know.

I still don’t know where Arizona even kept pulling it from when she fought me, especially with the bandana around her neck being smaller than the coil of rope in question. It was almost as distracting as some of the ponies going into the Hayburger despite the crisis at hoof here.

They must really like this Hayburger’s breakfast menu, that or they were running from the homes that were catching fire due in part to the heat coming off the tornado. I could feel the warmth at this distance, we really needed to get our act together and focus on stopping it.

Taking the rope into her mouth Arizona started twirling it and then, with a heave and snap of her neck, the lasso shot skywards. Arizona immediately caught a pegasus, of whom she proceeded to yank into the ground in a exceedingly painful manner that knocked the poor… mare… unconscious.

“Arizona, that was uncalled for! I said get the attention of one, not knock them out you cute brainless dolt!” I pointed to the poor unconscious pony on the ground with my right hoof.

“Did you just call me cute?” Why was that the thing that Arizona was focusing on! Also, why the buck did I say that!?

“Coo!” Both our attentions was drawn to Snickers who pointed to the few flying ponies staring at us, she must have heard us and did it for us. Well then… don’t I feel embarrassed?

“I need some help creating a counter tornado from all of you! Start whipping up a tornado around me and I’ll handle the rest.” Moving to take my stance, I was building up magic to prepare for what would be one of my most impressive performances yet. “Arizona, you may want to get to a safe distance or figure out how to add something to this that will stop the fire devil.”

“Say, can’t one of you stop that thing with rain?” Arizona asked with a flat tone. “Also you know I’m not going to back down from something like this Ice Queen!”

“We’ve tried, the tornado is too strong for the rain clouds." A pegasus stallion answered her question as they started to circle around me, I could see the wind quickly whipping up. "It just keeps drying them out and absorbing the rest!”

“Oh, I have an idea!” Of course you do Arizona, though I had to comment on this.

“That’ll be a first.” At my words, Arizona snorted angrily.

“You haven’t even heard what it is yet Velvet! I need some rain to create a lot of mud around here!” What was Arizona going to do with mud and did she just say my name with respect?

“Some of you do what she needs!” I nodded to some of the pegasi and they broke off to go grab some clouds and start making it rain between me and the Hayburger.

While the mud started building up under the focused rain clouds, Arizona ran over to the Hayburger and a Pegasus gave her a lift to the roof… what was she planning?

It didn’t matter, the winds were strong enough. I needed to focus on creating a counter tornado now!

I got up on my hind legs and started to twirl, icy winds started to form around me. A tornado to match the incoming one started to build up around me with my magic empowering it, much to the surprise of the pegasus ponies who suddenly pulled away and went to help Arizona with whatever it was she was doing.

The world around me began to blur and I could hardly see how fast I was spinning, but I was slowly digging a small hole in the ground. I stopped suddenly and quickly oriented myself to buck the roaring ice devil at the conflagrant fire devil.

I was only going to get one shot at this, but I wasn’t bound to miss. I bucked out and instead of the tornado shooting out quickly, it started to slowly move forward.

“Cannonball!” Cannon what? Turning to see Arizona slam to the ground in a frighteningly powerful manner, to the point that I could feel the whole world shake for a second.

The end result of said fall sent a humongous wave of mud flying right toward me, I was impressed by just how much mud there was in the wave and how much Arizona managed to displace with her comparatively small form.

I would of course get revenge for her muddying my floof like this, it was only natural that I do, but I had to admit that it was quite an amazing sight. Well it was amazing before I was hit by it, I thankfully managed to anchor my hooves to the ground using my ice magic and weathered the sea of mud.

After mud wave ended for me, I looked behind me at the tornado I had created to counter the fire devil. The mud wave pushed the now muddy ice tornado into somehow miraculously going faster, it slammed into the other tornado and they started to grind into one another.

“Duck, and, cover!” Arizona shouted in an enunciated tone, I didn’t think she even knew how to enunciate. She tackled me to the ground and covered me with her small form, I had wondered why.

My wondering turned to horror as I realized what the hot and cold tornadoes would do when combined, I was blinded and deafened by the sound of the two tornadoes causing a massive explosion.

The explosion, however, was muted by all the mud that Arizona added into the tornado I formed.

It took a few minutes before I could return to my senses and realize that Arizona was hugging me too affectionately.

I looked around, everyone seemed okay and despite all odds the only untouched building around was the Hayburger. Every other building was covered in chunks of mud and all that mud and ice had put out the buildings that had been set ablaze by the fiery tornado.

“Not so dumb now am I?” Oh no, I still thought you were pretty dumb Arizona, but I must admit I hadn’t thought as far ahead as to what would happen when the two tornadoes collided.

“You messed up my floof again you maligned mooing miscreant!” Despite screaming this in her face in an angry manner, my heart was speeding up at how closely she had hugged me. I quickly calmed down. “Though I must admit, you are quite right and it was a brilliant way to defuse the destruction the two tornadoes would have caused otherwise.”

She gave me such an insufferable and inviting smug smile. I was not going to kiss her… why I refused to!

-Jade-

“What I would like to know is how that tornado even got started.” This is why the Ponyville Construction crew was never jobless, always something weird in Ponyville and never a dull day as far as I have seen. This day was just getting started and bam! Fire tornado right out of the gate as soon as we got to the Hayburger. Was this one of the reasons why Rainbow Dash becomes a weather pony? “Anyway, was that fried egg Hayburger with or without the yolk broken?”

“I like it broken please, also I think it might be due to the incompetence of the current weather manager. We don’t have anyone nearly as dumb as she is to take her place.” That somehow explained so much Mayor Mare, it really kind of did.

Author's Note

No Shining's group hasn't left Airship Mauled yet, they've been having highland pest problems.

Chapter twenty five, Hayburger Havoc: Dinner.

-Hayburger, Jade-

It was around the middle of lunch time when the restaurant was attacked… again. It was as if the fire tornado at breakfast and the minotaur attack between that and now wasn’t enough. Seriously, none of this stuff could be connected back to Sell Hard and he likely had nothing to do with them too.

“Everyone stay where you are, this is a robbery!” This group of seven griffons that rushed in kind of surprised me, they were led by a completely dark grey griffon. “You will all give me everything you have and no one will get hurt. Let’s start with you, open the register!”

This is the second attempt today to rob the Hayburger and not the bank down the road. What is up with the idiots we had to deal with today?

I was currently witnessing first hoof what drove Fizzle to madness by working the cash register myself.

The minotaurs were such a weak and wimpy bunch, the fact that they were trying to bully a fast food restaurant made it absolutely seem that way. What kind of marauding group would go after a target that was so easy to attack as this one seemingly was? I thought minotaurs were all about testosterone and big challenges, apparently I was proven very wrong on that one.

It was a pretty bad idea for the minotaurs to attack the Hayburger while me and my friends were protecting it, but we weren’t entirely the reason why the minotaurs failed to do anything.

It was kind of ridiculous that this restaurant could be the one targeted more than once in the same day. I didn’t know the odds of a place like this being threatened more than once by a number of random incidents in a given day, but I would have to at least assume there was a very low chance of all this happening on the very same day.

Nobody paid attention to the lead griffon, ponies were in general okay with him screaming his beak off and they didn’t react. That’s because the ponies knew that we were here and would handle the situation in exactly the way it should be, lacking any kind of enthusiasm.

“Oh gee, a scary griffon, you and what army are going to make me do that?” I put my elbows on the counter, my chin in my paws and I leaned forward to look the griffon in the eyes. “By the way… welcome to Hayburger, home of the hayburger, may I take your order sir?”

He blinked at my flat delivery and seemed a little put off.

“Aren’t you the least bit worried that we’re going to rough you up?” I could tell him what the problem is with his currently invading the restaurant in such a brazen fashion, but I was going to let him dig himself deeper before telling him why I wasn’t worried about this.

We had a dragon, an assassin, a chimera, an agile glass cannon unicorn and a cat with a variety of magical alchemy. We didn’t have much to worry about.

“Do you have so little pride as a griffon as to attack a fast food restaurant? I mean this seems kind of subpar choice of places to invade and ask for money in my opinion.” No seriously, what was up with this restaurant? It was like the rest of Ponyville’s weirdness was all concentrated on this restaurant today. How did the seven griffons even miss what was currently in the restaurant? “Where exactly is the challenge in this for you? You’re here to scare and coerce a bunch of ponies into given you money, said ponies more often than not would rather befriend you to death instead of fighting back. There’s also the fact that fast food restaurants are not exactly the best places to acquire cash through brute force. So why of all days did you decide to specifically attack this notable social establishment like this, when everyone and their grandmother knows there is a bank just down the road from here that would have been more fitting in this situation?”

“Yep, I know about the Ponyville Bank young un’, why it’s down the road like you said. You can’t miss it really, big sign and everything.” After that the old green mare known as Granny Smith bit into her highly spicy Hayburger, she smiled after thoroughly chewing and swallowing the chunk of food. “My compliments to the chef, this has some mild kick to it. As for a griffon like you, I think you picked a really bad day to come into this here establishment. Ah to be as young as you… with nothing between the ears except hot air.”

The hayburger that the chuckling old mare was eating would have probably set my tongue on fire, what exactly was Granny Smith made of when a Hayburger with liquid rainbow sauce doesn’t even faze her in slightest? It’s one of the spiciest things we can offer on a hayburger and she just acts like it’s nothing! She was quite a tough old lady and I completely respected her as an elder.

“Look, it would be easier for us to attack this place because it’s been doing a lot of good business and attacking a bank is bound to get the royal guards hunting our asses. They don’t care about what happens to smaller business like this place, at best they’d take questions and set up patrols around here for a bit. They are kind of known for being ineffectual like that. They like to be seen as doing something, but they only really do something if you do big things and this right here? It isn’t a big thing that they are even going to notice and they will probably just send one guard down here.” Are you seriously implying that committing a crime in front of Shining Armor, the Wonder Bolts rising star Spitfire and various other members of Equestrian military currently sitting all around the room eating lunch in a bored manner wouldn’t be attention attracting enough? I giggled a bit. “If we were to rob a bank that would be far more noticeable and like kicking over an anthill, so much more trouble than it’s worth. So we can get away with coming into any place of business like this and just plain rob them with pure muscle, then we leave to lay low for a while and then come back when there are no guards to stop us once more. So in essence, you are going to open the register and start forking over the money, do you understand? Otherwise we’ll do a lot of things you and everyone else will regret.”

I would also like to point out that the griffon in front of me missed a spot check, a few checks really. Aside from the Guard and Wonder Bolts currently patronizing the establishment, there were also the containment wagons outside. Heck the guy didn’t even catch what Granny Smith was implying, like the fact that he should have flown the coop immediately upon taking a glance around himself upon arriving outside the establishment.

Said wagons were loaded with a large kleptomaniacal elephant, three aforementioned minotaur that tried to rob this place only an hour or so ago and the very weather pony who caused the whole flaming tornado incident. The winged pony was being arrested for negligence on the job and causing a nearly lethal weather disaster, a lot of ponies were hospitalized with serious injuries. Thankfully there were no permanent injuries or any casualties.

It might be somewhat understandable as the griffons came in from the air, but really now? Missing all that, these guys certainly needed glasses and didn’t have the eagle eyes they were supposedly known for.

“If it were me, I would have at least scoped out this place before making my intent to rob it known. Get a lay of the land and the atmosphere around it and have a plan beyond brute forcing the situation to go my way.” I lazily laid my head upon the counter. “Besides, I would like to reiterate… you and what army?”

“Don’t you see? This… army…?” He turned around to gesture with his claw to his six compatriots.

Three of them had chattering beaks as their legs, wings and most of the back half of their bodies were frozen solid by Velvet. Said deer was lazily making a fantastically buff ice sculpture of herself flexing. Two other griffons were beaten black, blue and unconscious. The last of the six was on his back pressed up against the wall by his neck with mortal terror etched into his eyes, before Arizona’s right hoof connected with his head to make a sickening noise.

Those two had taken them all out rather silently up until that skull cracking smack.

The cow turned around and stepped off of the griffon and came to stand next to a bored looking Velvet who, after a moment, dispersed her statue and gave the lone griffon a long sardonic glance.

She held out her right hoof and swept it out in a gesture as if to tell the griffon to look around himself, which was when the griffon noticed all the ponies around him wearing armor and glaring at him. The griffon slowly turned back to me.

“Uh… my name is Garish… can we talk about this?” Giving him a slow and quite smug growing smirk, I watched as his tail slid between his hind legs as Maries stepped out from behind me along with Flamberge. His next word was whimpered in a loud squeaky tone. “Please…?”

“Well he did say please, what do you think Captain Shining Armor?” After having fought off so many pukwudgies from yesterday and this morning, I figured Shining Armor needed to work off some frustration. “Should you give him a chance to plead his case?”

“Nope.” Shining Armor and the rest of the royal guards got up and approached the griffon to beat the stuffing out of him, I just sat there and watched. I would call it guard brutality, but I know what they’ve been through and they kind of needed this.

The griffon was of course quickly detained, every pony would say they saw him resisting arrest if asked and that the guards were just doing their completely ‘honorable’ duty. Garish did ‘technically’ resist arrest, it just depends on how you defined the word ‘resist’ and whether he did it well enough.

It was really boring working the cash register today. Sure stuff was happening, but I didn’t need to get up from my seat for it.

I almost feel like beating up a manticore myself, where did all laziness go? I wanted it back.

-Fry Hard-

What we learned was quite interesting, my brother’s plans for Hayburger were insane. Did he seriously think he could get away with this? Not on my or Inspector Closure’s watch he wouldn’t, I had to go and warn Ms. Jaded and the others before it was too late!

Which is why we were almost upon the restaurant and saw some griffons being shoved into some containment wagons by the Royal Guard. I went inside and moved up to the counter.

“Were the griffons my brothers doing?” I had to ask as the griffons didn’t look like paid mercenaries.

“No, they were just a random incident of people trying to rob the Hayburger. They couldn’t have possibly done that at a worst time.” Having seen that look in Jaded’s eye before, I believed she was showing signs of falling into Register Madness. It was where it seems like everything was so boring even when something beyond exciting happens, it usually happened to most register workers at fast food counters around the world and I could see Jaded was no different. “The minotaurs that tried to rob us earlier, put up more of a fight than they did.”

“They only caused minor bruising to us and we waylaid them quite swiftly!” Mr. Flamberge put his fists to his hips and smiled proudly, there was just something wrong with that dragon and I just couldn’t put my hoof on it. Maybe it was that he was too friendly?

“So what’s the verdict Fry? I could use some interesting news from you and Forward.” If anyone wasn’t sure about Jaded having Register Madness before, her words just confirmed it now. She could hardly find anything interesting and I had seen the damage the fire whirl had done to the nearby surroundings.

“Well my brother hasn’t been the cause of any incident today. In fact, I haven’t seen him since the day before yesterday really. Which is part of what we have to tell you.” Okay what was it called again? Oh right, while I didn’t know what it will do, I just knew it’d be a huge problem. “My brother, possible after the fireworks wagon thing, left to go buy some strange artifact called ‘the Sieve Precarious’. He’s apparently going to attack the restaurant and wipe it from existence using the power of the magical tool.”

“Did you just say the Siege Perilous!?” Why did Jaded look so panicked?

“No, the Sieve Precarious, S-I-E-V-E P-R-E-C-A-R-I-O-U-S.” It wasn’t reassuring to me when she didn’t calm down.

-Jade-

“That still sounds too close to Siege Perilous for my liking.” It was something that appeared in the Power Pony comics, this sounded like a multidimensional artifact and those were always dangerous to deal with. “Hopefully it doesn’t actually exist…”

“Surprisingly, I’ve found out why he’s going to all this effort to bring down the Hayburger… it appears you were right Ms. Jaded, I do have a special talent for detective skills.” Clearing his throat, Inspector Closure continued. “The main reason Sell Hard is doing all of this is quite sad really. He thinks that by getting rid of the Hayburger, it will allow him to spend more time with his brother among several other reasons that are weaker than that particular one alone. It’s really quite interesting what you can learn from someone’s garbage.”

“Okay magical artifact of incredible power, asinine reasons to use it… we’re doomed. I mean it this time guys!” Holding up a finger to stall any complaints from my friends, I heard Snickers making noise. I pointed it at Sell Hard as soon as he appeared. “Cue entrance by the idiot who would use a magical item that sounds as dangerous as the Sieve Precarious does.”

“You know what I’m going to do, so I might as well get on with it. So much for needing a monologue!” Sell pulled out a circular amulet made of stone and in the center of said stone was a bright multicolored crystal of chaotic colors. “Now bear witness as I summon beings from a chaotic dimension!”

The fact that it was glowing pretty much set off every fear response in my instincts that I didn’t even know I had. I watched as a rip opened up in the air above Sell Hard leading into a world with a sky of random swirling purple, black, white, blue and pink with no sense of order.

He just opened a hole into Discord’s chaos dimension, something saw the hole and started flying towards it.

It wasn’t just the one either, but multiple winged creatures started to gather together.

They were flying badgers?! Well... this was not going to end well for anyone.

“Everyone… prepare for a fight!” I muttered in utter horror.

Author's Note

The mail pony mentions avoiding flying badgers at 1:10 and is then later carried off by a mutant eel monster as if it was out of Metroid.

In fact, you can see what looks like a dachora at one point in the Chaos Dimension. The design is really, really close to being one outright.

Siege Perilous has two references, the round table of King Arthur and Marvel's multidimensional magic dimension hopping amulet. In this case Sieve Precarious only accesses one dimension, the one Discord lives in.

Chapter twenty five, Hayburger Havoc: Unjust Desserts!

-Sekhet-

I took one slow long drag on my coffee, I just sat there as the civilian ponies were evacuated as a swarm of flying badgers came in from the chaos dimension. I was a little concerned that Discord left the key to said dimension out in the open, but he really didn’t need it to get in or out of it.

In fact the reason Discord would leave his key out would be to cause chaos, which was his entire modus operandi as a lord of chaos really. It was just unlucky for him that this chaos didn’t happen in Canterlot. He would have been able to easily free himself if that were the case. Though if my sister were around, he would willingly stay stoned just to avoid her.

I remember the day Discord introduced himself to my sister, he really regretted ever doing that because she was a bit too much for him to handle. She easily saw through his disguise and just played along with him, she really loved Discord even if he was quite a bombastic, manipulative and magnificent jerk.

I sighed as the first of the Sweet Badgers reached a pony guard and was witness to them showing extreme amounts of competence in that moment. That was mostly because Sweet Badgers weren’t very strong or violently aggressive, but they were still dangerous as they had a tendency to hug people to death with their sharp claws.

Provided that you didn’t get hugged, they aren’t that dangerous and are highly susceptible to poison as Maries just found out as a badger immediately fell unconscious the second the poison was injected into it. Despite the high susceptibility, the poison would never kill a Sweet Badger even if they couldn’t resist it.

It’s basically the opposite of being lethal to a honey badger, which could resist it very well long enough to outlast the poisons effects. Chaotic entities from that dimension weren’t all bad, though there was some things that were better left to that dimension and I would make sure nothing too horrible got out.

The ponies around here would be defenseless against some of the things in the chaos realm and I will actively keep them from crossing the border. Can’t do anything about closing the portal, that’s on anyone holding the Sieve Precarious.

That mortal, Sell Hard was it? He was going to be an issue, yet I was not one to interfere in a battle unless it involves me or was interesting enough to be somewhere close to my level. I just sat off to the side and watched as the mortals defended themselves. I was proud to say that my mortals were putting up more of a fight and were hardly being scratched, I was an excellent coach.

The birds Fluttershy set up around the area have fled thanks to the large number of Sweet Badgers now swarming everyone, but they had good excuses to flee.

“Coo?” I looked next to me at Snickers, who was pulling her wings back into her shell, she gave me a curious look and pointed at the cow and deer thrashing a multitude of badgers. “Hiss coo?”

“Yes, I think it’s cute that you’re getting a cow and deer together. Though you’re going to have more problems from the deer than the cow, that deer has deep rooted issues and I’m not about to war with that bit of psychology. I’m not a psychologist for these people Snickers, you can work on that if you want.” The turtle then pointed out the window at all the badgers, while looking at me. “Eh, they can handle it, I will only handle something when it reaches the right level for me to deal with it.”

“Hiss!” The little familiar was a little upset that I wasn’t going out there to have fun with the weak death huggers, but it wouldn’t be my problem until one of them seriously injures one of those under my protection. That’s when the kitten gloves come off.

“They’ve got the situation under control, it’s when they don’t that I will bother to step in. Mortals need their achievements little one, gods like me just can’t step in and do everything for them you know. They’d get too lazy like the ponies tend to do with Celestia around, the EUP has become something of a joke among the gods when its entire goal is to protect a physically immortal being.” Until then I couldn’t do anything. Limiting myself to a mortal shell was beyond the pale for me, even if it would mean I could do more things that won’t end up annihilating the entire town in trying to save it. My fight with Quetzalcoatl was a good taste of battle, but I wasn’t exactly rearing and ready for a war to spring up because of me. “While you are smart, you are still too young to understand some of the finer things of how I interact with the world at large.”

“Coo?” She questioned seeming to not understand me, I was once again reminded she was a very young turtle that chose to bond with a very strange cat.

Until I was needed, I just liked to watch as the world pass me by. Many would think me lazy, but I at least wasn’t like the other war gods who slept until war reared its somewhat ugly head once more to wake me from my slumber. Adrenaline junkies the lot of them.

I on the other paw actually got out once in a while to mingle with people who appreciate my presence, like the people of Airship Mauled… where I built a pyramid and was just happy to be someone’s neighbor.

I still don’t know how Celestia could stand rule over ponies like she does, even if there is some appeal to it. I rather liked being able to watch things move on the sidelines, while of course doing some minor unnoticeable tweaks to help those I liked.

It was once asked if a goddess did something that no one else saw them do, then did that goddess really do anything at all? Well yes, just because you don’t see a goddess doing anything important, doesn’t mean that the goddess doesn’t or isn’t doing anything at all.

I lifted my left paw and nudged the air at a punted badger in the distance just slightly, it went back through the rip in the air and prevented three more badgers from coming through. I leaned back and sipped my coffee again with a smile.

-Jade-

There were so many of them, but they were effectively too easy to kick around. Lightweight badgers that were somewhat easy to beat? They were still dangerous because of how many of them were, but they were so easy to punt back through the open rip in reality.

Flamberge was trying to keep a majority of them away from us with breath and flaming sword, Blade was busy protecting evacuating civilian ponies and the guard were surprisingly holding their own for once. Not that it helped when we were outmatched five badgers to each one of us.

Well they were easy, before I took a badger to left leg and it knocked me over and started digging its claws into my leg while nuzzling me a little too affectionately. I quickly blasted it off with a point blank magic missile and almost took a badger to the face trying to stand up.

Thankfully Fizzle smashed it with a hammer swing of both her hooves colliding with it. Maries rammed a badger that had been going for her back making her turn to our lovely chimera with a smile and I kicked out with might right leg catching another ‘amorous horrendous’ under the chin.

“We can’t keep this up forever and they really hurt when they get a grip on you.” I had a few light cuts in my leg, but I was still good for kicking ass.

“Well then someone had better get the Sieve Precarious away from him!” Fizzle pointed at Sell Hard running around while screaming his head off about something.

“I am you’re master, stop attacking me!” It was kind of obvious that Sell Hard had no control over the badgers and we needed to divest him of that amulet before he did something worse like open up multiple portals to the realm of chaos. Also he should have gotten an instruction manual for the… wait it was likely made by Discord, there wouldn’t be any instructions for it. “Why doesn’t this thing give me control over you?!”

“Who’s going for it?” They both shot me wry looks. “Oh of course, expect the rogue to do all the work!”

“Well if you don’t then who will? The flying badgers may be weak, but they keep getting up after we knock them down for a few seconds except when Marie poisons them.” Mara exclaimed as pulled her head back so that Maria could smash her horns into one of the many badgers swarming around us. “Can you run on that leg?”

“Yeah, the injury isn’t that bad, if it had been on my leg much longer than the cuts would have been pretty debilitating.” I was more horrified by the fact that they were all acting amorous and affectionate, than I was the fact that they were flying badgers. It was a good thing Fluttershy wasn’t anywhere near here at the moment, she’d certainly have a word or two for us about all the animal brutality currently going on. “Velvet, we need to get that amulet away from him so we can close the portal! Can you cover us?”

“I can do that, but I need them kept clear of me.” Velvet was in the middle of blasting a wave of frost from her mouth that frozen several badgers solid and she turned to us huffing and puffing. A badger almost grabbed her, only for a rope to snag the badger away from hugging the deer’s floof and Arizona smashed its head against the ground when it reached her.

“These thing regenerating faster than I can smash their skulls in!” Of the building pile of badger bodies behind Arizona, one with a smashed in skull had its skull seem to pop back into shape and it was up and hug crazy within seconds.

“Just what we needed, flying badgers that are possibly sexually active, give dangerous hugs and can regenerate from any lethal injury barring dismemberment.” What I just said made Maries take attention of me for a second and then she started to hit the badgers that were close to me away and all that much harder than usual.

I turned and slapped a badger or two from the air with my frantic claw swipes. It didn’t matter if I seriously injured them anymore if they could regenerate from having their skulls smashed in, my claws weren’t going to do much worse than Arizona loudly breaking their bodies with her bare hooves and head.

“Okay, go!” Velvet shouted as she came over to us.

Once Fizzle bucked two Badgers out of my way, I took that as my cue and charged forward towards the running Sell Hard. Velvet followed my closely firing shards of ice and throwing up walls for the the Badgers to slam into and hug while we moved.

These things were far more disturbing than honey badgers, at least honey badgers would leave you alone if you left them alone. These things would get up and keep coming after you unless you put them to sleep with some kind of poison, which is what Marie was thankfully producing enough of to keep them down. Marie’s venom gland would run dry eventually and I wouldn’t want to be here when it did.

I jumped over a badger and slid under the next, Maries rammed a few out of my way and I jumped onto her back and pounced on Sell Hard while Velvet encased the chasing badgers in a dome of ice.

We went tumbling and I tried to pry the amulet from him, we struggled over the next few seconds and I managed to grab the amulet long enough close the portal to the chaos realm.

We still had a problem with all those flying badgers still being in this world. Sell Hard wasn’t much of a fighter and I had him pinned down.

Once I had gotten the amulet from him I thought we had won, I was sorely mistaken. An old saying is that a person who flails about is as dangerous as a person who knows how to fight precisely.

Sell Hard managed to get a lucky shot in to my jaw with all his flailing and knocked me away from himself, he quickly grabbed the amulet from me and ran towards the Hayburger.

We all started to follow him and I had a building sense of dread that he was about to do something horrible now. I wouldn’t be getting my paycheck if the building were suddenly destroyed or removed from this world, it didn’t have ancient artifact insurance.

“If I can’t bring any monsters into this world to destroy the Hayburger, then I’ll just take care of the Hayburger by bringing it into the chaos realm!” Once he was close enough to the Hayburger, Sell Hard lifted the amulet aloft and the entire world around the place started warping.

“Everyone get back and out of there!” Shining shouted as he followed us, he still took the opportunity to start pushing all the badgers into towards the spatial warping around the restaurant.

Sekhet immediately got up and started running towards Sell Hard as he started to drag everyone nearby into the realm of chaos. That would be me and my group, Shining, Spitfire, ten royal guards and all the badly battered badgers that were healing and getting up again.

-Fizzle-

“Yes, I’ve done it!” He shouted while holding the amulet aloft high above his head. “Now all I need to do is…”

That’s when a large snake like monster shot by and the amulet ended up in its teeth without touching or even harming Sell Hard, that’s when Sekhet's tackle connected and she looked up at the huge smiling snake with a huge under bite that shot off towards a distant place.

“Have you any idea what you’ve just done?!” Sekhet screamed in his face.

“Yes, I’ve finally gotten rid of the Hayburger that my brother is so enamored with!” He laughed maniacally, but I don’t think he quite understood the situation he got us stuck in.

“You also stranded yourself and us in the chaos dimension and might never see your brother again.” I stated blithely, he stopped laughing and actually looked haunted when that information finally sunk in.

He was quickly detained by unicorn guards that were dragged into this dimension with us. Thankfully we got every last flying badger back into this realm, but… they were all still attacking us with love and affection.

I jumped forward and bucked a badger harshly in its spine as it slammed face first into the ground.

“Everyone into the Hayburger! Say Sekhet can…?” Jade turned to our war goddess and saw the frown on her face.

“No, I can’t just open up a portal back home, we’re stranded here!” Sekhet snapped a claw and suddenly the barrier around the Hayburger came to life and started bouncing the badgers off of itself. “But, I will lend aid warranted.”

Author's Note

Blind fired, didn't check this chapter for any errors whatsoever, leaving to have third and late feasts givings.

Edit 12/5/2018: Fixed a few things.

Chapter twenty six, Chaos Curriculum: Math Matters.

-Jade, Hayburger Kitchen, Chaos Realm-

“Now that Sell Hard is detained by the Royal Guard, I think we should get our little meeting started before the guards bother us about why we’re huddled here together. I will of course be silencing any outside listeners to our conversation, information is key in warfare and I can prevent others from hearing what I don’t want them to know.” It seemed that Sekhet had something important to go over with us. We were in a dimension that runs on chaos, what more needs to be said? “First up, the thing that snatched the amulet was entirely deliberate and not something of random coincidence like you would think of this realm. Anyone who was stupid enough to use the amulet to get into this dimension would soon find it taken from them in the same manner, unless it is vigorously defended and I do mean with everything you have.”

“Well I could have told everyone that.” Really, I could have, it wasn’t hard to figure out Discord set that up ahead of time for anyone who brings the Sieve Precarious back to his dimensional front door. A door he didn’t even need a key to and was just using the key to bring some chaos to some unfortunate sap… or saps in this given situation.

“What you couldn’t tell everyone is that we have about twenty four hours or less to get it back or else we’re trapped here until someone finds the amulet or Celestia sets Discord free to bargain our return. The amulet will transport itself back to reality unless we get a hold of it, as its main purpose is to cause chaos.” Okay, that was something I didn’t know Sekhet. “Thankfully I can track it and know where it’s at exactly, the problem is getting there and back to here. The lord of chaos Discord has sphinx traps in place all over the place in this realm, he was quite paranoid of my sister getting into this dimension to try and marry him based on insane troll logic. Look, before you say anything Jade, yes, insane trolls do exist here and their logic is always faulty. Any questions before I move on?”

“Yeah, are we currently protected by a bubble of normality?” In answer to Fizzle’s question, I walked over to the sink took out a paper cup and poured myself a glass of water and started drinking it. “Uh, Jade how did you… oh… chaos dimension, right. The fact that the building now lacks plumbing doesn’t matter anymore does it?”

“Which is another thing, it’s safe to drink the water as long as it comes from something that previously existed in our reality. Otherwise don’t drink or eat anything offered to you when we set out to go get the amulet in question, but yes, the bubble of normalcy will protect everyone who stays here.” Clearing her throat loudly and looking off to the side at Shining who was trying to listen in. “I can get you to where it is, but I can’t actually wield or touch the Sieve Precarious myself. Like I just said, Discord, the statue that is currently up in Canterlot, was correctly paranoid that my sister Baast was out to get him. Next topic, Jade you’re going to be somewhat useless here… let me finish. I’m saying you’re magical alchemy won’t work here, so you may as well leave your pack here.”

“What would happen if I tried to use my magical alchemy here?” Even if most of my stuff was useless, I wasn’t exactly hopeless. “I mean, I could probably get by without it as I understand chaos perfectly well.”

“That you do, which is why I’m recommending you on the party that goes out and retrieves the amulet.” Well at least Sek wasn’t underestimating my intelligence or lack thereof. “As to using you’re magical alchemy here, the effects of using it would be so chaotic that it will not be beneficial to you in any given way. Given how your magical alchemy works, using a single cast here would be ultimately disastrous to the naturally occurring magical chaos in this realm.”

All the energy used in a cast eventually returns to the world. As such Sek was right, doing that in a dimension of chaos would, ironically enough, unbalance it or at the least destabilize something that is already unstable on purpose.

“I understand perfectly, so… you’ve been here before?” As I guessed correctly, that made everyone look to Sekhet when they realized what I was implying.

“Yes, but I don’t want to stay here. The last time I was here, it was to drag my sister away from prowling around Discord’s home. I’m not exactly at full power while I’m here, as I’m not a god of this realm and that’s actually a good thing for all of you. I can actually fully use my current power to assist you in any given way that I see fit without destroying everything and or breaking this realm outright. The plus side of being here for me is that there are no things of other gods to step on.” She nodded to the guards meandering around the restaurants dining area. “Spitfire or Shining will want to come with us to make sure we’re doing what we say we are in getting the amulet. If you haven’t noticed Jade, they really don’t like you or anyone associated with you. In a sense, they don’t trust you as about as far as they can throw you.”

“I think they can throw me pretty far. I mean Shining is strong enough to lift and throw me with his magic and Spitfire can gain enough momentum to at least throw me through a wall or off the side of Canterlot if she was feeling particularly vindictive.” Why was everyone sighing at me and shaking their heads? “Look, who’s going to stay here and who’s going to go after the amulet? Also how long will your trademark Beloved Badger Barrier hold?”

“Indefinitely, we’ll take care of the badgers when we’re ready to go. This place is the only safe spot of normalcy in this world, unless some other god and a bunch of people got dragged here with their own patch of normalcy.” She gave me a friendly smile. “Now tell everyone what you know of chaos Jade.”

“Chaos is not about making sense, it is about making nonsense and or disturbing the natural order of things. So I’d expect gravity to be a suggestion and for bubblegum to taste like pizza while being about as nutritional as a grape fruit is.” Nodding at my odd assessments, Sekhet held her paw out. “Also glass should taste like chocolate milk.”

“Exhibit A, Jade knows exactly what to expect from the unexpected.” Despite Sekhet saying that, I did not look even the slightest bit proud. In fact I was wondering where Sekhet was going with this. “The keyword here is ‘trouble’, we’re going to want to avoid as much of it as possible and the entire realm will conspire against us to give us just that. Which is why we’re going to need Jade to be logical about the illogical, but first I need to test something. Here Jade, do this bit of math while I discuss who we’ll be taking with us on our excursion.”

She wrote something down and handed me a sheet with a complicated looking equation on it that I couldn’t make heads or tails of, in fact the numbers on the page even seemed to be mocking me or jumping around a bit. My dyscalculia at work, I quickly concentrated and try to do the work presented to me. Why Sekhet wanted me to do math given the current situation, I wouldn’t know.

Meanwhile Blade, Flamberge, Fizzle and Maries all hashed out who would be going and who would be staying here. They made their arguments for why they should go or stay. We needed someone here to make sure the Hayburger stays in this location, we also need the restaurant undamaged and back where it belongs or we’re not getting our last paycheck.

I needed just a little bit more money, I’m kind of surprised that Shining or anyone else hasn’t mentioned my stealing of hundreds upon hundreds of bits from the nobles at the party. Maybe they didn’t know? Hopefully they never would and the nobles would simply point to each other as culprits. If that’s what happened, then I’m certainly home free on that.

“Okay, I think I finished it?” I didn’t know for sure. The math equation looked wrong to me for some reason, but I couldn’t tell why. I gave it to Sekhet and she looked it over with a critical eye and gave me a flat look, before smiling a bit.

“Good, very good. Fizzle please tell me what’s wrong with this math?” Knowing what we all know about it Sekhet, everything. Learning that my math could have world ending implications was still a bit mind boggling, but I simply accepted it now.

Fizzle took the paper from Sekhet’s paw and glanced it over for a bit, then came a sudden look of shock after a moment. She glanced at me with what appeared to be awe.

“It’s perfectly fine… that’s what you want me to say isn’t it?” Uh what? Fizzy, did I just the math? Why do you look so surprised that I did? “Jade, you just did the most complicated math problem I’ve ever seen… without any of the usual numerous errors you tend to cause when you do them. It’s also correct.”

“Really, what kind of math equation is it? I thought something was wrong with it personally, but if you say it’s done correctly then who am I to argue Fizzy.” The curious response I received was Fizzle just blinking at me in disbelief. She passed the paper off to one of Maries’ front paws. As the chimera looked it over, even they looked a little shock.

“Jade, you naturally lack the ability to do anything even close to algebra, how in the world did you solve this!?” All three of Maries heads intoned quite loudly.

“While she’s here, and only here, she’ll always seem as if she were always gifted in math. That’s even if she doesn’t understand how she got to the correct mathematical solution by accident, it’s a pretty benign side effect of just being here. Now that I’ve show an example of what the chaos realm can do with someone like Jade in a manner you can physically understand, see and feel for yourself… then don’t relax even if things seem calm here!” Like that explained why the math equation still felt so wrong Sekhet, but she was right I didn’t understand a lick of it. Our 'Goddess of Coaching' knew what she was talking about. “Jade, we’re taking Flamberge and Maries with us. I’ll discuss who else we’ll be taking among the others that are trapped here with us, I’m only bringing one more with us after I explain some things to them. The three of you better be ready to leave in thirty minutes! Use the bathroom, eat what you can scavenge, drink some water and gather supplies before we leave. Also don’t expect anything to be easy once we leave the establishment, we will have to get by the all badgers and lose them as our first challenge.”

With that, I could almost feel Sekhet dropping the magic that made our conversation impossible to eavesdrop on. The question was, what part of the conversation was the part that she didn’t want anyone hearing?

-Maries-

Spitfire was the one going with us, she kept eyeing Jade as if expecting our ‘almost’ mate to pounce and go for her throat. She wasn’t even paying attention to us, if we were one part wolf this would be more humorous to us and we’d make a reference to pack hunters or lost opportunities.

We waited by the back door.

“So how does one deal with overly affectionate death badgers!” Why was Flamberge always so loud? Did he need to be that flamboyant nearly all the time?

“Shining will attract their attention to the front, we’ll be going out the back door and hope they don’t spot us. It would be annoying to have to deal with them all the way too and back.” Being quite sure that Sekhet could have killed all the Sweet Badgers, we didn’t comment on the easier option and instead catered to the pony sense of morality on this one. “Do not ignore anything I say or do, we cannot risk failure here or else two things will occur. Also a small reminder, while I can use my full powers, I will refrain from doing so because Discord has set a lot of traps meant to slow a goddess equivalent to me in strength.”

We watched as Jade peeked out the back door and waited, after a bright flash of light, she opened the door and we started running into this wild and unruly world. Marie kept watch to our rear, Sekhet closed the door and quickly caught up with us, we wanted some distance from the restaurant before we started heading in the right direction.

-Fizzle, a short while later-

“What do you see in that cat and chimera?” Shining asked as me as Blade fed the guards that were nervous about sitting still.

“A lot of things really, it isn’t as simple as I would wish it was.” I sighed and rested my chin on my hooves at the counter. “For us, it almost looks too ludicrously simple. Jade is cuddly, crazy and brave, but she is a bit of a jerk to people she really doesn’t like. While Maries is strong, smart and quite loyal, she’s from a culture with the correct amount of stigma about chimera being incredibly dangerous. Dating both of them isn’t as hard as some would make it out to be. We do some one on one things every now and then, eventually we’ll get around to all of us going on a date at the same time. What are you really asking for here?”

“I just wanted to know more about her honestly. She’s gotten away from the royal guard more than three times now, and yes, I’m including the trial as her getting away. She’s really kind of infuriating for us, because we have yet to catch her actually doing anything illegal with a red paw and all.” Shining sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “She always makes a circus of things and I just want to understand what she’s like… from your description she almost sounds like, dare I say it, my girlfriend Cadence. It’s probably why they get along so well. So… what’s her deal exactly?”

He pointed to Blade who was hoofing over a Hayburger to a hungry guard pony.

“Blade Bright, functionally mute because her voice can destroy any glass within a mile of her, she’s one of the known assassins that was sent out to kill Jade.” I don’t honestly know why Shining looks so surprised, Jade was the one that got a chimera to be a lawyer in less than a week. “Don’t honestly know if whoever sent her is still trying, Blade checked out the gathering location where the assassination attempt was ordered after she became friendly to us and it was found to be empty of anything incriminating.”

Author's Note

The journey starts with a troll in the next chapter.

Will this end well with Jade being incapable of using her magical alchemy?

Chapter twenty six, Chaos Curriculum: Literature Matters.

-Maries, Chaos Realm-

Everything was trying to kill us, except for the air itself and even that was suspect!

Yeah, when blue grass stiffens, sharpens and angles itself to try to kill you, you know not to trust anything around you in this world.

We marched forward on the dark purple ground and kept our senses open to anything that might happen around us.

You think that’s bad, I think we’re being watched and I can’t help but to keep thinking that.

Of course we’re being watched, Jade is behind us and is staring at our butt.

Not what or who I meant was watching us Mara.

Is that a bridge?

Yes Maria, that’s a bridge. I don’t trust it for one second.

I’m with you on that Mara.

Speaking of with us…

“Excuse me, but didn’t Arizona and Velvet seem a bit quiet to anyone?” Mara asked Jade as we moved.

“Snickers, is playing matchmaker.” Explained Jade swiftly without pause as we approached the bridge down the warped hill that formed a loop that we continued to walk along, up and then down through it. “So they are a bit distracted with one another right now.”

“More like soul matcher, though there’s more than one soul that can be matches made in Elysium and finding them without help is quite hard to do.” Odd comment from Sekhet there. Wasn’t Elysium a place of peace, warmth and love that ponies went to when they died? “Snickers is probably one such being that is capable of doing so, only time will tell.”

“Ah, that explains why the two were being about as awkward as Jacky is around my brother ‘Gene Eric the Swift Reaction’!” Just one swipe of our paw across his throat… no wait, Flamberge’s throat is also covered in dragon scales.

Darn it, how does one quiet an annoyingly loud dragon down without lethal intent?

Would you two stop plotting Flamberge’s demise? We’re coming up on the bridge and are we just going to ignore the fact that the loop we just walked through was where gravity, as Jade put it, happened to only be a suggestion?

“Why are we walking, we could just fly to where the amulet is and then get back really quick.” Ah yes, the other minor annoyance to this situation. This has already been explained multiple times, yet Spitfire didn’t quite get the memo.

“Because, do you want to hit every trap Discord set up to prevent anyone from flying? If you hit an anti-gravity zone I’m not rescuing you. Go ahead and try it, make my day... please! Just don’t come crying to me when you get hurt.” Sekhet has stated to the guards and lone Wonder Bolt that she was a goddess, knew about this world and knows exactly what not to do when in the chaos realm. Shining would be smart enough to heed her advice, Spitfire seemed more ready to challenge anything she says. “By the way, everyone duck… like right now.”

We threw ourselves to the ground and boulder flew over us being chased by a log that looked like it was covered in running chainsaws that were all stapled, glued or taped onto it. Both inanimate things flew off into the sky.

“Okay that’s it I’m going to fly over to the other side of the bridge… is that where we’re going?” Spitfire received a lazy nod from Sekhet and she shot off into the air, only to come back down seconds later as an upside down tornado happened to immediately spawn directly into her flight path.

She was sucked into it and then spat directly into a bush of pointy peppermint sticks.

We sniffed one, just to see if it smelled of peppermint and after finding out it smelled exactly like the flame geysers back home, we decided to just quickly move on past the dazed Spitfire.

Marie watched as the tornado spiraled randomly off into the sky while keeping its conical shape as it tumbled and flipped away. We were on approach for the gorge and seemingly the only method for crossing it.

“She did warn you Spittle, catch up to us when we reach the bridge.” Even Jade knew better than to tempt fate at a time like this, especially when any tempting here would mean an almost immediate reaction based on what was said and the context thereof. “More patches of bladed grass… also avoid the blue flowers. Its poison joke, the pollen from it causes nasty effects with some hint of humor based on one’s personality when affected by them.”

Spitfire quickly caught up to us as we gave any patches of deadly foliage a wide berth and came upon a sturdy looking stone bridge. It looked far too normal to us and very well constructed.

What was the catch here?

Once we were about to step onto it an ugly creature with a long bumpy nose, claws sharp and long as daggers came out. It looked to be mostly bipedal like Jade. It also had nasty looking wrinkled green skin, it was hunched over with a large hump on its back and its thick coarse red hair was hanging almost to the ground.

This is what had climbed up from beneath the bridge. It was pretty large, but we think we could take it.

“Oh great, a classical bridge troll trial.” Is that what it was Jade? We growled and prepared to fight it off. “No Maries, back down. Let’s see what it wants first… hello?”

“What did you say about my mother you vicious crow?! I’m so insulted, but I forgive you immediately because pudding is in the proof of the stairs.” That made no sense, even in the context of what Jade said to it. “What’s your barter?”

“We wish to cross?” Jade tried, why was Sekhet sitting back and watching this? Couldn’t she just deal with the creature herself?

“It’s one of those sphinx traps, I’m not touching it and Jade can defuse this easily enough.” Alpha above alpha’s Sekhet must have noticed our glance, which is why she answered. We followed her in resting a second later, as did Spitfire and Flamberge.

“Ah… you’re so full of it, like vinegar and toiletries! Answer any questions three, get one wrong and decompressed you’ll be.” The troll cleared his throat. “More blood for my hair is always quite fair, such conditioners are fairly rare. I’ll just go to the super market and buy some the next time I’m there.”

It shampooed with the blood of the dead? Or was that more nonsensical gibberish?

“Question one, what is your name?” Wait, why was Jade asking it questions and was that a smile?

“Queezy Queer Questioning Quintin the Quirky, you addled brained tart!” Okay, we were tired of this troll insulting Jade and were ready to teach it a lesson when Sekhet held a paw out. We sat back down and watched. The troll waggled its finger in Jade’s amused looking face. “No dessert for you, you don’t deserve to be yourself. Of course the mutton chops work, strap the goat to the magical beam emitter and kill him too!”

“What… is your favorite color?” Even now Jade was receiving curious looks from both Flamberge and Spitfire, especially as she handled this situation in a comically calm tone.

“A bright red, like the blood spilled from when you’re too well fed. Hemorrhoids are known killers, you should find a jar of mayonnaise to protect you from them.” Ugh, we did not need to know that the troll had issues. Like there weren’t enough issues with its gibberish… but it notably answered both questions before devolving into saying really odd things.

“Does a box containing all boxes contain itself?” Everyone just stared at Jade blankly trying to even comprehend what she just asked, we too were a bit too perplexed by the crazy question from out of nowhere.

“I can’t possibly cogitate that!” The very second the troll finished the statement... it exploded… violently.

Said explosion proceeded to make the entire bridge collapse and sent bits of the troll flying everywhere.

We all turned to Jade slowly with shocked looks on our faces.

“Aw… and I wanted to know the answer to that last one too…” Our supposed mate not only destroyed the troll, the bridge and asked a question as bizarre as to be unanswerable, but she was actually expecting a correct answer for it?

We loved Jade dearly, but she was clearly insane and in this case that was likely a good thing.

“What… the… freaking… buck... was all that?” Spitfire said slowly while thrusting her hooves into the air for emphasis.

“Well the troll did say someone had to answer three questions and if one is answered wrongly, then you explode. If he had answered all three correctly, then I suppose we would have been allowed to go past him with no problem.” That… kind of made sense Jade, well in a chaotic manner it did. Our beloved was far wiser than any of us to start asking questions first. “He didn’t specify who had to answer the questions. Just that three would be told and answered with a caveat of what happens if you were to answer one wrong.”

“You just killed him!” Yes, that did indeed happen Spitfire, what’s your point? The troll was the one that issued the rules, he practically killed himself and Jade is blameless in preventing any one of us from meeting the same fate.

“No I didn’t, he technically spontaneously exploded and I had nothing to directly do with that. Besides, I’m sure he does it all the time and I had nothing to do with his failure to answer a slightly complicated question.” Jade proceeded to walk backwards towards the edge of the broken bridge on our side of the gorge while placing her arms behind her head. “Now come on, let’s go!”

“Go where, the bridge is… how are you doing that?” Seriously Spitfire? Even we were beginning to understand Jade’s logic as she stepped off the edge of the broken portion of the bridge backwards onto thin air and continued walking backwards over empty air without looking down.

“Doing what!” Jade shouted back as she continued to slowly walk backwards across the empty space with nothing beneath her.

“Seriously, does anything in this place make sense?” Giving Spitfire a pitying glance, we shook our heads at her sadly. She was trying to apply logic to a place where there was barely any to be had.

“For a given definition of sense. Sometimes, it has to loop around to making sense to become nonsense once more eventually.” All our attentions were on Sekhet, who turned to look behind her. “Speaking of making sense of things and looping around. Jade, stop being so slow!”

“You guys sure got over here pretty fast, sorry for taking so long Sekhet.” What was Jade talking… about?! Also, why were we suddenly on the other side of the gorge? Complete with the bridge still being out. Shrugging this off as if any of this made any sense to all of our senses, Jade smiled to us. “Ah well, which way now Sekhet?”

“But we were… and then she… now we’re on the other side and…” Spitfire’s eyes started to spread apart, not exactly the look of a sane pony. Flamberge stood up and moved over to her to pat her on the back gently.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t think about all this too hard given where we are.” Sekhet stood up and started moving forward. We simply stopped caring and followed her with a horribly confused Spitfire in tow.

“This adventure is quite incredible… also highly confusing!” Thank you for the status report Flamberge, like we didn’t already know this world was amazing in how it worked. “This will be a story for the ages to tell any who should wish to hear of this tale of bravery and strangeness abounds!”

“This is going to be a long trip.” Maria bemoaned out loud.

“Look at it this way Maria, at least we’re with Jade.” Marie was quite correct in that statement.

“We should just be happy to be spending time in Jade’s company.” The three of us agreed on that Mara. “If the situation were not so dire, we would be enjoying this more.”

We walked for a time, until Jade shouted something odd.

“Giant wet noodle!” A large flat white noodle, of which we assume to be linguini, covered in a thick tomato sauce rose up. It roared at us with a mouth full of giant, and rather sharp looking, pointy corn chips.

This would go down as being a very dangerous noodle incident we would not be willing to discuss at a later date.

-Shining Armor, Hayburger-

“Okay, what’s going on between the cow and the reindeer?” Still couldn’t believe I was relying on Jade to get us out of here, I actually wanted her to succeed at something.

“Don’t know, they’ve both been kind of off since this morning. Usually the two are each other’s throats, but looking at them now? Even I think they are being a bit far too peaceful.” It was off is what it is, but I wasn’t one to get in the way of their current mood. The two were just sitting in a corner glaring at each other way too peacefully to be a good thing. “It's not my problem though. They’re kind of vitriolic best friends I guess, well at least ever since they first met when Snickers brought the deer to our town. They started fighting almost immediately and never really stopped, but I think they like it too much and may have masochistic leanings.”

“More than I wanted to know.” No seriously, why did I bother to ask? I was a cool, calm dude… at least I try to be. “So do you think they’ll make it to and back with the amulet?”

“Coo!” The turtle munching on some carrots intoned with a bird like noise, strange turtle.

“Yes, but you’re going to have to put it somewhere where no one can get at it and make sure that it’s inside a container that can’t be opened by almost any means. I’m only saying this while assuming it can’t be destroyed because of who made it in the first place.” That Fizzle, is exactly what we’ll end up doing.

We do not want the Sieve Precarious anywhere near any pony who can misuse its power like Sell Hard already has, heck we don’t want something that could drag an entire city into this place in the wrong hooves.

If it can’t be destroyed, we’ll put it in the middle of a cement block and cover that in molten iron. Once the metal cools around it, we’ll treat it to rust proof it and then drop it into the deepest parts of the ocean. The Mare-yawning trench seems like a good place.

“You know I should probably talk to Sell Hard about his relationship to his brother and why he thought all this was necessary.” While we were on the subject of people of interest, I figured I might as well bring up Sell Hard. “Do you think I should rough him up… or go easy on him?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m not exactly the most morally sound pony you could be asking.” Oh right, she gets involved in all of Jade’s capers.

Well then, I’ll just make a judgement call.

Author's Note

Number of dead turkey's over the last three weeks by family: 12.

Number of families seen: A lot.

Number of feasts: 3. (Two family related, one friends of family related.)

Number of dishes finished off personally during the three feasts : 7. (Four potato dishes *mostly mashed*, one macaroni casserole, one broccoli casserole and one small cheesecake.)

Leftovers: Metric ton. (Almost finished mine off, only a quarter of a double layer chocolate cake left. I traded some cheesecake for half the chocolate cake, I think it was worth it.)

If you can't tell yet, I'm tired of turkey. Hopefully when the end year holiday feast starts in the next week or so, I can feel a little less bloated because the cold is making me lose weight faster than I can gain it.

-

Also I've been informed that Smash Brothers Ultimate is going to be an early holiday present for me. Doesn't matter which holiday, it's just that my family celebrates the fact that we're still alive and made it through a year.

As if the Thanksgiving stocking stuffer of a Switch with Octopath traveler wasn't enough. I think I'm being cheered up way too much.

Going to main 'Mr. Game and Watch', but if we're talking new characters... I'll try getting into using the ever immortal 'Ridley'.

If I cease writing chapters all of the sudden, then I will certainly blame Smash Brothers... for hopefully being too fun.

Chapter twenty six, Chaos Curriculum: Science Matters.

-Spitfire-

“We came, we saw and we kicked its marinara covered ass!” I flew up, but didn’t go too high or far from the group.

“Who’s ever heard of a linguini noodle covered in marinara sauce anyway?” Well at least the annoying cat Jaded wasn’t complaining about her messed up leg, those corn chips really dug salt into her badger wounds and she’s been griping about it for the last hour or so. “Alfredo sauce goes much better with linguini noodles. Thanks for carrying me Sekhet and thanks for rescuing me Maries.”

“Anytime beloved Jade.” The goat headed Maria answered.

“You’re paranoia to bring along two of the five medical kits you had stashed behind the Hayburger counter was quite warranted it seems.” The so called war goddess commented dryly. Sekhet seemed kind of aloof towards me, but everyone else she treated warmly.

I have been meaning to ask Sekhet how she knows Celestia, but I doubt that now was really the time to gossip. Not when we’ve been busy avoiding the many strange creatures since we got past the noodle incident.

I’m talking strange creatures like the flying stingrays with bladed bee stinger at the end of their tails, they appeared the second time I tried to fly high and ahead of the group.

I would like to think that I’ve learned my lesson to slow down, because if I didn’t Jade would keep taunting me about every incident I got into.

There were also these things we’re going to call ‘literal woodchucks’, which spent what seems like an eternity chasing us while chucking logs, tree stumps and branches at us. Sekhet kept driving them off with blasts of light, but they still kept coming back with more wood.

Where were the ‘literal woodchucks’ even getting the wood from? I haven’t a clue… we were in some plains with deadly grass, magically malicious flowers and smiling exploding pineapples with lazy eyes.

There was just the one thing that was worse than all the rest.

“Doo-doo-doo-doo-de-doo~, WEEEEE!” A watermelon nearly smashed into Flamberge, he pulled his sword and sliced it into two flaming halves with the sword that is supposedly on fire all the time unless it’s asleep.

Ah yes, the one really annoying thing out here… the kamikaze watermelons that fly by farting air out their backsides. You could at least hear them coming, since they were always quite loud and they made that same annoying noise before they were about to hit something while screaming with glee.

There were just so many of those damn things and they came at us at random, at least the pineapples didn’t do anything if you didn’t excite them in any given way. The second you did something exciting near a pineapple, they would explode and try to cover us in sticky fruit juices. By comparison the watermelons were always actively attacking us when we let our guards down.

I don’t think I’m going to touch a watermelon for a year after this.

“I think I’m scared of watermelons now, I mean I thought Wary Berry was kidding about deadly fruit and here we are actively waiting for the next one to come at us.” Jade clutched closely to Sekhet who had grown slightly in size to accommodate her. “Do you think she somehow got temporarily stuck in the chaos realm and that’s why she’s always thinks that fruit is out to get her? I know for certain she’d hate it here and would probably proclaim that she was right about every bad thing she’s ever said about fruit.”

“I think we’re almost done being attack by them now Jaded, though I must admit they are trying even my nearly infinite patience by singing that annoying tune over and over.” Sekhet muttered loudly so we could all hear her. She was leading us to what looked to be an upside down mountain in the distance.

“Well at least they aren’t highland pukwudgies, I’m feeling really useless here.” Without her bag of tricks Jaded seemed to have very little in the way of defending herself, kind of sad really.

Ten seconds later an entire log slammed into the ground in front of us, we could hear the loud sounds of pan flutes and harps playing beautiful music.

“Jade… what are the chances that pukwudgies exist in the chaos realm?” The chimera asked while shivering, whatever scared a chimera would definitely scare me.

We heard thunderous sounds and a shadow soon fell over us and we looked up at what was standing over us. Shining might have thought the pukwudgie attacks at Airship Mauled were bad, but this would probably be worse.

-Jade, twenty minutes later-

“Thanks for the lift and the wagon for my friends to move me around in guys!” I waved to the giant pukwudgies that started to stomp away.

“Gabba gabba!” One giant pukewudgie intoned while waving back at me before setting off with numerous other friendly giant mutant hedgehog creatures.

“Benevolent giant pukwudgies, who knew?” The three heads of Maries’ stated in unison with some laughter in their harmonized voices. Mara followed up that statement. “Our beloved Fizzle is never going to believe this one.”

“Even if I were to back you up on it? Anyway, enough musing about the heroic and surprisingly friendly chaos pukwudgies, we’re close to where we need to be.” Pointing a paw ahead of us up the hill, Sekhet made us look at the one foot high stone wall surrounding what would be the very tiny peak of the mountain we were all standing in the shadow of.

Making our way up, we could see the land mass floating above us was barely touching the ground beyond the only open spot in the very small stone wall. The spot with a large toll booth ahead of us.

As we approached it, something popped up into the booth. A very highly familiar figure.

“I be Quintessential Quarrelsome Quality Quintin the Quirky, I disparage crows and assert my own reality!” He shouted out that last part towards me before asking something also familiar. “What’s your barter?”

It was definitely the same guy that exploded a just few hours ago and Spitfire looked to be having a really bad brain fart.

“How the…” Spitfire started up, only for Sekhet to cut her off.

“What part of chaos realm do you not understand? The ‘chaos’ portion of it or that this is a different world?” In response to Sekhet slightly scathing diatribe, Spitfire’s mouth just clamped shut and she just stared blankly at the troll.

“Ten bits says he’ll have the amulet and that we’ll see him again after this occasion!” That was a suckers bet and you knew it Flamberge. He approached the troll, but turned to Sekhet first. “Do we need to get beyond the booth oh great goddess Sekhet?”

“Yes, we also need to get onto the mountain and this troll is blocking our way… again.” Once Sekhet figured out the noodle was not a sphinx trap, she absolutely destroyed it for harming me. Salt in the Sweet Badger wounds was not pleasant.

I knew Sekhet cared a lot about me, mostly because she was quite vindictive about what the noodle did to me. Never had I seen something shredded so fast or violently before, not to mention she burnt all the ripped up pieces to ashes and then destroyed the ashes beyond that just to make sure it understood her ire.

“We wish to pass, what must we do to continue forward beyond this troll booth?” Flamberge asked the not very sane troll.

“Quintin is not a few bricks short, especially when I’ve already smashed the house to get more!” Likely meaning Quintin wasn’t going to do the question thing this time, he was going to be smarter about things and given his previous statement about crows… wait a second. “It’s by the fires we’ll fight, to make a pumpkin a far sight! You know, unless it reigns with kings, jacks and queens. We need a siege device and some catering smuggling rings. You must launch for the stars and go the distance, or else you’ll be dead… at my insistence. Do you wish to eat the nut log little firefly?”

The troll pulled out a huge wooden club and started to pat it in a loving manner while sending us a grinning fanged face. He was waiting for our answer.

Crow? As in… he knows I’ve reincarnated? How in the… right chaos realm and it is a troll after all. Though now everything he’s ever said is quite suspect and probably has more meaning then I’ve given it credit for, what if the troll just sounds crazy and you had to paraphrase everything it said?

I now had a headache, because I ‘think’ I understood how trolls think now.

“He said he was disparaging the crow, I think that means he isn’t going to deal with me this time or even acknowledge my very existence.” The troll didn’t look like he heard me, I waved my hand in front of his face and it was as if I didn’t exist to him. “He’s actually literally rejecting the reality where I exist to him. Though I’ll still attempt to translate anything he says. He just basically wants us to get a pumpkin farther than he can or else he’ll kill us and won’t let us by him. Though judging by how his previous attempt went, he’s going to try and make this a physical challenge instead of a battle of wits.”

“Can’t we just jump over the wall?” Was Spitfire still trying to apply logic to this situation? “It’s only a foot high you know!”

“You know very well that we can’t do that Spitfire.” I shook my head at Spitfire in a fake sad manner. “Why it’s the very principle of the matter now. Even if challenging a troll to a contest of physical strength is a really, really dumb thing to do and we could just skip the whole situation entirely. No, we’re taking the troll.”

“You don’t care that this is unfair to us in the slightest do you? This guy looks a lot stronger than any of us and he’s definitely going to stack the deck in his favor on this one!” She pointed out the thing this troll had going for him, brawn and the fact that he can apparently survive exploding to death.

“Stop talking to the wind chicken hawk, it doesn’t know it can’t talk back! Does the wee little firefly wish to have a taste of the nut log?” He turned back to Flamberge who looked somewhat insulted by the troll and I think this was intentional on the wheedling troll’s part.

“You’ll taste my spicy flames before I’ll ever taste you’re…” Having to stop Flamberge from finishing that sentence I shouted.

“Phrasing!” Everyone blinked at me, except for the troll who was ignoring anything I did, then they realized what Flamberge was about to fully say and nodded in agreement.

“I accept your challenge.” Realizing what we did and because the troll was smiling about it, Flamberge became quite blunt and angry.

I wondered what he’d do to win the pumpkin distance contest.

-A minute or so later, Flamberge-

This heathen is an annoying monster of the highest order, but Spitfire was quite correct in that he was stacking the deck in his favor.

The troll had a very small pumpkin with a glowing flame inside to throw, while the pumpkin I had to move was bigger than my body… twice my size even. It was even giggling at me in a derisive manner letting loose bits of flame everywhere as it did so.

I was hardly that much bigger than Jaded herself, I was not a mountain sized dragon of the likes of the one known as Lord Torch of the dragon lands. How would I best this monstrosity when my strength is not as great as a troll that is very clearly cheating?

I may be a Viking, but cheating wasn’t in my blood. I need to use my wits… unfortunately I have very little of those as my brothers so rightfully pointed out to me multiple times in the past.

Why, my only way of winning debates was to be louder than everyone else, something of which I’m known to excel at. Oh… now there’s an idea!

“Spite Fire.” I called out to our traveling companion.

“It’s Spitfire, what do you want?” It would come to Spitfire’s surprise as much as anyone else’s, but I have a mighty plan to beat this foul being at his own game!

Just like Jaded did before, I will beat him with wit. I told them of my plan and they were all surprised that I showed even a hint of great intelligence in it and Jade gave it her seal of approval, as did the war goddess Sekhet. I would be the victor today!

It wasn’t long before we were ready to move our pumpkins a great distance. Being the valorous dragon that I was, I let the monster dumber than I was go first.

“Flinging with the strength of a ripper I come to thee, make kidney pie from a dragon’s liver that’s the size of a flea~. Going to win me the flesh of which I stripped her, can’t believe that she was just a scaly kipper~. I married the fish and then ate her fist, but she made quite a tasty dish~.” Quintin the Quirky spun around daintily and threw the pumpkin like a shotput. It went a fair distance down the hill and almost landed at the bottom.

He turned to me with a very smug grin. Said grin was wiped off his face when he noticed my own.

“Are you done?” I asked for clarification, he nodded and thus sealed his defeat.

Spitfire was hovering ten or so feet away from the pumpkin and would aid in my endeavor without being directly involved, she just needed to flap her wings and get a strong breeze going like in the tales of breezies that the ponies assist every few years.

I loved stories of grand adventure at any scale, this was my grandest yet and this would be a story that will be remembered by many. It would be how I, Flamberge, beat a troll in a contest of strength by using my own special brand of strength as a dragon.

I inhaled to fill my chest to the brim with my inner fire. Then I released it all in a roar and a blast of fire that made my ancestors proud, the pumpkin exploded into bits sending flaming pieces of it everywhere. Spitfire started creating powerful gusts that sent the embers of the pumpkin scattering to the four winds.

“I win.” The troll just gave me a long disbelieving look, so I explained it to him. “You only moved the pumpkin in one direction. I moved it in all directions at once and scattered it to the four winds. I believe that covers more directions than your pumpkin did.”

The troll didn’t say anything. He just took up his large club, roared and then bashed his own skull inwards with it. He fell over with his club embedded in his head and the troll booth’s arm rose up out the way.

“He’s dead for sure this time… right?” Did friend Spitfire not really understand the meaning of 'chaos'? Even I was clever enough to know he’d be back.

Author's Note

Today's the day, will Smash Brothers meet the hype? Also thank you TDR for telling me about that, I would have missed it otherwise!

Will I cease writing this story and go on a month long hiatus, that may or may not involve a smash brothers induced fugue where I cease to be the monster that I am?

As you can see by this chapter, there is kind of a theme going on here involving the quest for the Sieve Precarious.

Chapter twenty six, Chaos Curriculum: Lunchtime Matters.

Chapter twenty six, Chaos Curriculum: Lunchtime Matters.

-Shining-

I just got finished chatting with Sell Hard. I had some things to discuss with Fry Hard, but he never did anything illegal like his brother did. Still, Sell Hard needed counseling, though he sounded like he had a fair point about his brother visiting the Hayburger every day of the year… even on holidays.

“I’ve been meaning to ask… what is the cure is for this!” I asked this of the one everyone called Fizzle, I pointed at my pink fur to make sure she knew what I was talking about.

“Well Jade and everyone else didn’t want to tell you, because you might ruin it by telling Blueblood what the solvent for the magical fur dye is.” This Fizzle was a rather gruff and blunt one wasn’t she? “Promise you’ll let Blueblood stew for another week or so with pink fur, then you can tell him the cure as well. I didn't like meeting him, he needs to be taken down a few pegs.”

“I actually promise not to tell that jerk anything.” Admittedly I didn’t like Blueblood, in fact he was the most self-centered pony in Canterlot. Once I got out of this crazy dimension, I was going back to Canterlot and scrubbing the pink out of my fur.

I’d even ignoring Blueblood once he finds out my fur is back to normal. Even if Cadence thought it looked adorable, I didn’t particularly like being pink personally even if I had nothing against it.

“It’ll be up to Celestia to eventually tell him then, she knows where Jade got the magical fur dye from. She apparently accidentally got covered in it one time and was called Pinklestia for a while. She visits Airship Mauled every now and then to see how we’re doing as a budding town.” She glanced at the other guards for some reason, I too looked to see that none of them were too close to us. “Tomato sauce, basically anything you’d put on a pile of spaghetti would work. One of the ingredients in magical fur die is skunk oil and a bath of tomato paste will clear the fur dye right out. I had wondered why Jade smelled like she’s been messily eating ravioli for a while, she probably spilled some on her fur to test it before her plot to turn Blueblood pink.”

“Thank you for telling me that, my fur was never meant to be pink.” That was an honest sentiment from me. I might be angry at Jade, but I couldn’t bring her up on any charges for covering us in paint or evading arrest.

When I asked Celestia about all that happened that night and why she just watched Jade escape on a unicycle to an airship, she just giggled at me and said that I couldn’t pin anything on Jade. Then explained all the thing Jade did to pull it off and why there wouldn’t be any repercussions.

Heck, I can’t even prove that she stole bits from more than half the nobles in the ballroom. All the nobles at the ball were trading bits all night and they didn’t want to press charges against her because it couldn’t be proven that she had stolen them. That and the nobles seemed panicked about the royal guard looking to closely into the bits that were trading hooves throughout the ball.

Jade may be a thief, a nuisance and a thorn in our sides, but she also obviously had something of a thing against the nobles in general and likely had a very good reason for it. We still didn’t know who upturned the tables and flung food at everyone’s faces, Jade and Fizzle were nowhere near those tables at the time.

I left the earth pony Fizzle to munch on her hay burger in peace to talk to my guys about how the perimeter is holding up. The badger barrier was holding, but that didn’t mean that other creatures didn’t try to get in even while the badgers were trying to hug them to death. The keyword is ‘trying’.

I’m so glad I talked Spitfire into going with them, I’d rather stay safe here and turtle up until the situation can be rectified. When I get out of here I’m going to go give Cadence a hug… after a tomato soup bath.

“Coo!” Gah, why does that turtle make bird noises or keep surprising me like that!? Also wasn’t it on the other side of the restaurant a minute ago? How fast did that turtle move and why did it always seem to be smiling at me?

-Jade-

“Is the mountain in the sky or is the world we were standing on the ceiling and the mountain is the right orientation?” I was currently sitting sideways on the upside down peak looking at the horizontal or upside down booth, it really depends on one’s orientation. Sekhet was also horizontal, but from her perspective I guess she’d see the booth as being upside down. “You know this is a really interesting world, for all the dangerous stuff we’ve been running into. So… since we went past plains full of fruit and now we’re getting on a mountain of a majestic looking purple color above them. Actually... would that put us above or below the fruited plains?”

“Whichever it is Jade, it matters little in our quest to get the Sieve Precarious and rescue the others still at the Hayburger. To that end I suggest we hurry, because I’m not exactly sure when the Sieve Precarious will seep back into Equestria.” With a tug, Sekhet pulled the wagon to her current orientation and the booth was now upside down for me too. “We should not dally here.”

“We’ve still got plenty of time Sek, enough to get eight hours of sleep in and change.” Though if I were honest with myself, I would rather not sleep and get the Sieve Precarious before we come across anything worse than we already have. As if the bright purple upside down mountain wasn’t bad enough.

“Even you should know that time does not work in a straightforward manner in this dimension.” Really Sek, because I can’t exactly tell how much time is passing between the two worlds. “Time can move backwards, go faster and even stop around us in some places here. Unlike Equestria, time is not a river here and if it was it’d be flowing in loops and going in random directions including the inverse of whatever time is and I do not wish to live through whatever that is. Getting to the Sieve Precarious in less than twenty four hours is a lot harder than you think it is.”

Okay, I can see where time not being straightforward here would be a bad thing. I didn’t say anything to her and just nodded, I understood the situation was pretty bad. At least we were doing quite well, she had said we were getting much closer now. Leg injury making me incapable of walking aside.

“I made a troll bash his own head in today, it was amazing and quite explicitly violent!” We get it Flamberge, you did a thing and were smart for once. One time does not mean you’re a genius! “I should wish it that we escape to be able to tell my Viking brothers of this grandiose adventure, so we must continue forward!”

“Or down… given that’s the general direction that our current orientation would have us go.” I watched as Maries pounced onto the peak and then oriented herself to walk down it and then eventually she was right side up with us.

“I don’t ever want to go on another adventure with any of you guys again, this entire dimension is making my head hurt.” Don’t worry Spitfire, you and Shining can get back to disliking me soon enough. Until then, we were special friends.

“I think that’s the point Spitfire.” I exclaimed, she groaned and then came down to us or was it up? This world was made to fry the brains of the logical. Good thing I wasn’t too attached to my logical side.

Once we were on our way, nothing much happened… well except for a worm like monster with two large legs jumping out at us. It wasn’t anything of note because it jumped too high and fell towards the ground above.

The monster just went outside the chaotic gravity field that kept us standing on the mountain, which Spitfire noted was as ridiculous as everything else we’ve seen and I had to agree with her.

Eventually Sekhet directed us into a cave that looked thirty feet long and we only walked five feet to the other end. Nobody said anything, but Spitfire was glancing backwards and then looked forwards as the cave exited into a brightly lit forest as if the sun were shining on it from the grey sky above.

Eventually the trees became solid walls of wood and we were stuck on the path until said walls opened up on a strange sight.

“If you weren’t here would we have been able to navigate this place at all?” Spitfire asked of Sekhet, she simply looked away and didn’t answer the question. That was telling in and of itself that we would have been stuck if it weren’t for her. We made our way past a gate into said strange sight. We all started passing through the gates in front of us. “So… is anyone going bother to explain how we went from an upside down floating mountain to a really thick forest that leads to a house with a… I want to say what looks like a large tea party and…? Oh no, not him again!”

It was Quitin the Quirky again, but he wasn’t alone as he was with a troll that looked to be inverse of him that was wearing a top hat and a monocle just to appear fancier than the other Quintin.

The troll with the red skin and green hair looked positively calm while drinking his tea in comparison to the ravening Quintin possibly drowning himself in three different pitchers pouring strange substances, which was decidedly not tea, into his mouth.

“Has anyone here heard of ‘Through the Looking-Glass’?” I asked as we looked upon the four large tables we were approaching that were loaded with tea sets of all kinds and it seemed way too… suspiciously orderly I want to say.

“You mean that book by Brewing Carol? Never read it, but I heard of it.” Maybe you should read it Spitfire, it would put some context to the situation we were about to get into. “Carol was better known for her singing and writing hearths warming songs.”

“Hello my dear chaps and ladies, welcome to our most profound angry tea party. I am the Nefariously Nihilistic Nice Nitniuq the Normal.” Nothing about this dimension was normal, even you weren’t normal by the definition of what goes on in this dimension. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, I also don’t believe in that large furry creature standing next to you so she doesn’t exist in my world view. If she were capable of talking I’m pretty sure she would say something like, ‘I wish to exist’. What nonsense that is, something that doesn’t exist wishing to do so is quite bizarre.”

Sekhet just sighed audibly.

“Like a particular cheese, they got nothing to leak out their hearing holes and they are causing messes everywhere they go. I like them somewhat, but I still assert my reality where crows don’t exist! For I am Quick Quilting Quotable Quintin the Quirky!” Yep, they were both Quintin and we were literally seeing double.

“Nitniuq spelled backwards is Quintin isn’t it…” Once I said that, Flamberge, Maries and Spitfire groaned. It seemed my insight was going to be ignored by the two trolls.

“Ignore my associate please, he’s so almost sane it hurts just to be near him. I believe you’re the group looking to get the Sieve Precarious, you’re on the right track at the very least. Just have to go a little further to get to the volcano.” Ugh, why did Nitniuq tell us we have to go into a volcano? He must have notice my look because he addressed me. “Sorry, but those are the breaks my friends. Again, welcome to our angry tea party… we haven’t exactly gotten started yet. It is a very happy not a birthday for someone else though.”

“Why are you talking to the air? It’s got nothing to say.” Grumbled out Quintin as he ate a tea cup, fluids and all whole.

“What, no Marching Hare or Mad Hatter?” I asked blithely knowing we were about to be challenged to something just as inane as last time. “I was at least expecting them upon seeing the gate to this house and going through it.”

“Those two are exactly of whom I’m referring to. You see, the reason the Marching Hare isn’t here today is because he sprained one of his ankles and his entire rubber band is broken up over it. They so wanted to perform for you quaint visitors today, it’s quite sad.” The troll Nitniuq or as I’m going to pronounce it, ‘nitwit’, followed this up by pulling his hat from his head and placing it against his chest in a solemn manner. “As for the mad hatter, he came down with a very severe case of sanity and had to call in sick. So we’re filling in for them, I asked if it was okay if we do an ‘angry’ tea party instead of a ‘mad’ one and he was completely okay with it… but that was probably just the sanity talking. Poor fellow, I hope he gets better soon.”

I was more surprised by all that than I should have been, the troll simply slapped his hat back upon his head and titled it to us in a friendly manner. I finally notice the card in the hat that read, ‘temporary hatter‘.

“Okay, what do we have to do to get by you?” Spitfire surprised me, she was actually accepting the challenge this time? Also why did she sound so defeated about it, they weren’t that hard.

“Dangers you may find abound, for this time we brought trouble to these grounds. We will speed by making quick of light feet, to be faster than any humming bird would be quite neat. If you can beat us two in a pace, then you are certainly good at making a haste!” Throwing the saucer the tea cup had been sitting on into his mouth, Quintin crunched it loudly and swallowed. “The firefly already had a turn, there’s only two of you left to burn at the stake. Witches taste good roasted over a fire, I’m sure you’ll taste the same. First, angry tea party!”

“He means sandwiches and that we will be busy destroying everything in an angry manner.” Nitwit wanted to console us for some reason.

“The sand does make for pretty good filler.” Quintin stated with pride.

“Anyway you are welcome to join us for a literal smashing good time.” Nitwit stated with alacrity. “Angry tea parties involve destroying every tea set here as destructively as possible.”

“Paraphrasing Quintin, they want to race both Spitfire and Maries through what will be a fully lethal obstacle course to be first to the finish line or else they’ll attempt to cook us alive.” I really doubted that would be a problem

Author's Note

Super Smash Brother Ultimate is fun.

Also the Legendary or Ace spirit fights are insane! To the point the game will kick your butt more than once.

Points like the M. Bison or the Pauline Spirit, which are legendary spirits so it's quite understandable that the difficulty is set to 'almost impossible'. Getting Ho-oh was less of a chore than getting Pauline and I still haven't beat the M. Bison spirit holder.

There's also things like the '9 and 18 volt' spirit being ridiculously difficult as well even when they aren't a legendary. Permanent assist trophies, when used against you, are absolutely horrifying to deal with unless you can take them out.

Then there's unlocking characters, the characters come at you at random with random AI settings outside of the single player 'adventure' mode. They can be set anywhere from 1 to 9, but they tend to get worse the more fighters you unlock.

Have you ever wondered how ruthless a Pichu can get when set to 9? If you play, you should be wary of it happening unless Pichu shows up early. Jigglypuff was also pretty bad for me.

Chapter twenty six, Chaos Curriculum: P.E. Matters.

Chapter twenty six, Chaos Curriculum: P.E. Matters.

-Jade-

I held the wooden mallet tightly in my hands and pulled it back from my seated position and brought it down on the teapot, it shattered into pieces and little bits that went everywhere.

Thankfully none of us was hit by the shrapnel and I smiled at the wanton destruction of the little teapot.

“Thanks for at least letting me get one, also it looks like you had fun there Maries.” The chimera looked at their pile of shredded bits of wood, ceramics and shredded table cloth. Spitfire was still smashing the other half of that table.

“This is rather cathartic.” Spitfire idly state as she smashed a chair against the table, breaking a large portion of it. “This reminds me of all the Yak holidays I’ve ever heard of.”

All three of Maries heads turned to me and smiled.

“Well you wanted to enjoy the angry tea party, but can’t due to the leg injury.” Great, remind me how useless I feel right now Mara… I’m keeping the wooden mallet as a souvenir though. Mara nuzzled me gently and my frown turned into a small smile.

“We did all this destruction for you in your stead.” Maria was looking at me protectively. “I hope we did a good job of it. It’s been a while since we really cut loose like that. You still look a little upset.”

“Which is why we saved you that pot to destroy personally for yourself from your seated position.” This was the statement from the Marie, because she’s seems to be the tail end of quite a few conversations between these three and anyone else. “It must not be fun to have a badly injured leg, the less said about injuries in chimera culture the better. Were you not someone we loved, we’d be taking more advantage of this situation.”

“Duly noted, I love you guys too.” I nuzzled my face between Mara and Maria’s necks affectionately and then I reached out and pulled Marie into a hug.

After letting go, I glanced over at the other three tables.

Flamberge’s table was on fire as was Flamberge… again. For a dragon that’s immune to fire, he certainly lights up easily enough.

Quintin's table was almost rendered to toothpicks, he was crazily smashing his head against the ground to turn said toothpicks into sawdust because he was that angry the wood was trying be durable.

Nitniuq or ‘Nitwit’ as I’ve been calling him, calmly sawed portions of his table apart with a butter knife and fork ate some of the bits of wood with a dainty mannerism. He may seem more sophisticated, but normal he wasn’t and he even chewed his food thoroughly with his mouth closed. Only every once in the while does he glare angrily at the table for not tasting good and then continues to eat it with a hint of a scowl on his face.

Aside from the weirdness there’s also the recent realization why Sekhet chose who she did to come with us. The one thing we all had in common was that we were capable of eating meat, surprisingly Spitfire didn’t seem as on edge around us about this.

Spitfire was probably a closeted fish eater, maybe that’s why she wasn’t bothered by all four of us being omnivores. I wasn’t about to assume, so I’d better ask before the race.

“Excuse me Split Fryer, I have a question.” While it was interesting to me to watch Spitfire wield another chair, this one was swiftly broken over Quintin’s head and he didn’t react to it at all, she paused and flew over to me. Quintin just continued to make sawdust out of his chosen table. “Do you eat fish?”

“Fish… why would you be asking about… oh because you’re all… yeah… I haven’t really been paying attention to the company I’ve been keeping like Shining asked me to. Kind of been distracted by this dimension and everything.” Sheepishly rubbing the back of her head with a hoof, Spitfire looked away in embarrassment. “Yeah, I eat fish, I assume you all do too?”

“I’m a cat that was raised in a coastal town where fishing is a way of life.” Stating this in the most deadpan and blunt tone I could muster.

“We may be a chimera, but we’re actually omnivorous. Sure our carnivorous leanings are more two to one, but we’re not going to eat anyone that’s obviously intelligent.” Which was a good point to get across Maries, especially to our lone pony in the group.

“Eh I guess meat tastes good, but I prefer the richest gems I can find. I know the quality of a gem just by taste alone, any dragon worthy of being mentioned does. Vegetables are also rich in minerals, but it’s not quite the same to a dragon.” That actually sounded like an impressive talent Flamberge, not that I’d say that out loud to him. “Excuse me while I go put myself out.”

“Hunting is fun, I like to eat, but I don’t need to.” Oh look our goddess is joining the discussion, Sekhet is such a big sweetheart. “I believe you’d see that as somewhat cruel, but I make sure to bury anything I leave behind for the worms so that more plants can grow. I prefer working with nature instead of against it like ponies tend to do sometimes.”

“Like when do we ever go against nature?” Well Spitfire let me educate you, first I have to clear my throat.

“Ahem…” I opened my mouth and started a long winded lecture.

-One hour later-

“Which is how ponies in general are actually spending a lot of their time usurping nature to their own personal ends, it’s gotten to a point where naturally occurring weather is seen as chaotic when it’s just normal. One last point to bring up, anytime a unicorn brings something to life or creates a new lifeform it messes up nature terribly by adding something that doesn’t naturally belong to a normal ecosystem. It’s worse if said thing can eventually breed.” Everyone was staring at me. Sure my lecture went on for a while, but it couldn’t have been that bad could it? Time to wrap it up. “So you can’t say that you have the high ground by saying all other intelligent or sapient species exploit nature more than you do, because all thinking beings do at some level in one way or another and you’re no different trying to play it off as being morally better. Unicorns warp the fabric of nature with magic and Pegasus force the weather to do what they want it to do, even Earths aren’t blameless given they till and shape the land to suit their needs even if they do commune with nature better.”

“Yikes, sorry I asked.” Give her some more years and Spitfire would become the serious drill sergeant that Rainbow Dash comes to know her as.

“Chaos is needed to prevent stagnation. If nothing strange ever happens to change the status quo that ponies have currently set up, then things would be far too boring and lethargic.” I leaned back in the wagon and looked at my bandaged and splinted leg. “It’s that kind of atmosphere that makes ponies snap and go evil. Have you ever heard of a unicorn that didn’t go crazy at least once in their lives?”

“While this is all fascinating and I do agree that chaos is a very wonderful thing, I believe we have a race to get to?” Nitwit interrupted us with a friendly smile and tip of his hat.

“Pacing is fun, especially with others who want again to see the sun.” Quintin stated in a dark tone. “Night is always relatively indigo to me, but I see it as a fine red painted tree. For the blood of those who were slow cover it so, to the point they always say ‘what a way to go’! Master were these trolls in their art, especially when I lift a leg to lean over and fart.”

Nitwit’s friendly demeanor hadn’t changed at all, but he never said he wasn’t going to cook and eat us with Quintin if our runners lost the race. Sekhet, was probably well aware of his demeanor being relatively affable if still evil in a more polite upper class manner.

“So where do we start and where do we finish?” Crossing her hooves as she hovered in front of the two trolls, Spitfire looked ready to go at a moment’s notice.

“We start by going through this gate.” Nitwit pointed to the one and went to open it. There were four exits to this space, one was into the house to the left of the way we came in, one was the way we came and the last was the other gate that Nitwit moved towards which was right of our entrance to this angry tea party. “Then we will make our way over to this one and the first pair of bodies to pass through this gate wins! We of course will be doing our best, won’t we Quintin?”

“Your mind is mangling the peanut it has left, a kick to the nuts might make you smarter or bereft.” Was it me or was Quintin slowly becoming more coherent as things went along? “Pop a trip to the cauldron for the tarts we have to face, they will not beat our court case. No objection will be had, because we’ll say…”

“Are you mad?” Quintin and Nitwit intoned at the same time in the same voice.

“Though a frog up a cavity is always worth a hop or two.” That was one of the things Quintin said that I wish I couldn’t translate into something feasible in meaning. “Don’t bother with the hammer and the nails, we’ll use your nails as toothpicks and a box would take too long to turn into a coat rack. There’ll be nothing left anyway, like during the heat death of everything. Hope to get a front row seat to that I do, it should be interesting.”

Well, given how they worded things, this was going to end poorly for the trolls if they kept up their line of thinking in self-punishment for failing to fool us with their trickery.

“Guys, don’t follow the trolls when they start running. Just go through the gate, turn around and come back.” I whispered to both Spitfire and Maries, they gave me a curious look. “Trust me, they are trying to lead you into a bunch of traps with the intention of getting you killed on them as they know the course they’re going to take. The answer is always simpler than it seems with these guys.”

Spitfire took one hard look at me and then looked at the gate they were supposed to go through to finish the race, her eyes widened in surprise.

“There’s no way it’s that simple.” She glanced at me. I nodded that, yes, it was in fact that simple. “Huh… do you think they realize that?”

“Okay, get ready…” At Nitwit’s words, Maries and Spitfire lined up with the two trolls. “And we… go!”

The two trolls blurred out the gate at impossible speeds. Maries might have been able to keep up and Spitfire would have given it a decent try, but it was fairly obvious that the two have never skipped leg day in their lives.

Maries and Spitfire leapt through the gate, then they simply turned around and then calmly walked towards the other gate talking about the weather.

“So what kind of weather do you think a place like this gets if it can remain this green looking?” Spitfire did in fact ask that and Maries had a lucid response.

“Given the dimension we’re in? The plants probably grow at night and watering them would make them wilt.” That was a likely conclusion Mara, but I wouldn’t apply that to all plants.

“Some plants would grow by spawning green monstrous creatures that make pig noises and explode spores everywhere in a violent manner.” Has Marie been reading my comic books?

“While we’re on the topic, you should ask if you can continue to read Jade’s comic books instead of making us sneak a look into her collection.” That had certainly earned Maries a sharp glare from me and Maria tried to placate me with an innocent look in her eyes. “Sorry Jade, but Marie was curious and has taken up reading them without asking you first.”

“It’s fine, as long as she hasn’t ripped up any of them.” There was a certain edge in my tone I hoped they could pick up on and, given how they shivered, they did. “You did put them back where you found them right?”

“Of course Jade, I made sure of it.” Mara turned her head to glare at her sisters as they passed through the gate alongside Spitfire and then turned around and came back to sit with us.

“You know, while they’re busy racing around their death course… we could just head straight for the place where the Sieve Precarious is. Otherwise they’re just making us waste time by waiting for them.” We sat there for a long thirty seconds contemplating that.

“Do we leave a note?” Sekhet queried, not sure if we should do so.

“Don’t make it a riddle Sek, I think we should leave a note that Maries and Spitfire won.” The only reason why I was suggesting this is so that I didn’t have to watch the trolls stuff each other into the cauldron and boil themselves alive.

“I agree, we write a note and just get going.” Looking around Spitfire turned to Sekhet. “Now that I think of it, those two were being rather distracting and not overly aggressive to us. Sure one says they want to kill us, but it just doesn’t seem like something he’d do.”

“Let’s move onwards comrades, glory awaits in the volcano!” Pulling his sword and holding it out, Flamberge somehow managed to catch fire again. “Once I stop, drop and roll these flames off...”

-Later, Sekhet-

I’ve seen many things, but the abrupt change from forest to the insides of a volcano is a little jarring. Even if I’m immortal and have seen many things, with one step out of the forest we were already inside of a volcano, no tunnel whatsoever.

We walked along the cracked and ash covered ground, towards where the means to end our quest sat. It was across a narrow bridge made of stone sitting on a large hemisphere shaped platform on a thin pillar that was unstable looking.

The being that took the amulet was nearby, it was possibly waiting for us to touch it before it decided to play with us. I didn’t know where it was, but I could feel its amusement.

“Be ready, it’s watching and waiting for us to play a game with it.” Being quite sure of this statement, I made my way forward dragging Jade along with me.

“Dangerous game… also this is fairly cold for a volcano!” He’s right… there should be more heat than this. Something had to be blocking my senses or is at least masking them from realizing something is wrong here.

Only another god could do that.

-Quintin-

“Tubbing like it’s hot…” Roast is always in a flavor of its own cheese. “Our stink is overtly visible.”

“Do you suppose we should have told them about Veles?” Nitniuq seemed to be well grated today.

Author's Note

Oh Smash Brothers is certainly smashing... I've recently become really good with Pac-man, my personal Mii Gunner I call Astro Nut and of course I've always been good with 'Mr. Game and Watch'.

The new final smashes take some getting used to though.

Ridley is a interesting character to play as, both big and fast.

I'm having lot's of fun with the game, I even beat the M. Bison spirit and that took a good thirty or so tries.

Now if only I can find a rare physical copy of 'Monster Boy' (Rare enough around where I live to be troublesome to find), then I'd have everything on my Happy Holidays list of fun times.

I remember the old 'Wonder Boy in Monster World' and heard they were doing the series some justice like the upgraded HD Dragon's Trap remake.

Chapter twenty six, Chaos Curriculum: Graduating class!

Chapter twenty six, Chaos Curriculum: Graduating class!

-Jade-

This wasn’t a volcano, it just looked like a volcano… I smelled fruit juice. So that wasn’t boiling lava below us as we crossed the narrow stone bridge, it was something much more citrus based.

“It’s orange juice…” World of chaos huh? Always something weird and or mind melting, my statement was met with several stares.

“Boiling orange juice, still hot enough to hurt one of you.” Flamberge said after a moment. “I wonder if it’s acidic enough to melt through my scales.”

“Let’s not find out, I don’t want anyone dying on my watch after we’ve come this far.” Sekhet continued to pull the wagon with her tail carefully and we made it across to the Sieve Precarious. “Alright, come on out, I know you are there! You can’t hide from my senses anymore.”

“Well I guess it’s time to give up the ghost… though there are no ghosts here to give up.” The large serpent with an under bite pulled away from melding with the wall and he circled the platform we were on with the Sieve Precarious resting on a pedestal before us. “I’ll find one later and I’ll even ask it nicely to haunt your homes to make it up to you.”

“Sounds like that’ll be fun, so what’s your name?” I loved knowing that I had quite a bit of knowledge on every god I’ve ever met and might meet, I just had to know this one’s name and I’d be able to put it to what I know. “I’m assuming you’re a god, I might know a thing or two about you.”

He was definitely not Jormungandr the Midgard Serpent or else Flamberge would have said something or reacted, he was more curious than anything about the large snake now encircling us.

Gods were dangerous and this guy was cutting off our exit out of here, well for those of us who are stuck on the ground. Which would be me and Maries, while Sekhet, Flamberge and Spitfire could fly. We could still leave using the Sieve Precarious.

“Oh, that would be telling… but I will anyway as I’m not such a stickler. Discord has me running a racket here involving the Sieve Precarious. It’s always fun to see those who are stuck in a rut learning to quickly think outside of the boxes that life forces them into.” He was trying to distract us away from the question, I glared at him. “Stalling tactics not doing it for you? You guys are really quite something else you know! Very well, my name is Veles as much as that means to any of you. I seriously doubt any of you have ever actually heard of me.”

“You’d be wrong, I’ve heard of you… but why didn’t you try to kidnap Arizona?” Now I was receiving a dumbfounded look from the shapeshifting trickery god.

“The horned dog?” Veles seemed a little confused. “Why would I kidnap a horned dog?”

“Arizona’s a cow.” I was stating this like it was entirely obvious to me and everyone else.

“He is? Wow…” Veles seemed entirely mystified that Arizona was a cow, also he got her gender wrong.

“She, Arizona’s female.” Continuing our odd conversation, I was a little surprised that the god couldn’t tell Arizona was a cow or even female. Wouldn’t that be in his wheelhouse?

In fact he looked even more perplexed than before and created a circular screen of magic in the air view Arizona, he took a very long disconcerting look at her.

Arizona was currently glaring across a table at Velvet and they were both eating as they glared at one another, it looked like they were on a very angry looking date at the moment. If one were to call them out on it, they’d probably blush and stammer refusals all the way through to next week.

“Are you sure that’s a cow? Where are her udders, they must be absolutely tiny!” Of course they are Veles, she’s not a peaceful self-milking cow like Grace is.

“She’s not a milking cow, also she exercises a lot and is ridiculously strong. She doesn’t like getting weighty like other cows do.” Why was I currently seeing a longing gaze in Veles’ eyes? He turned to me with an amused and sheepish smile.

“So she’s a really butch cow? That’s quite interesting, but that’s not why we are here. I really don’t kidnap them if they don’t have milking udders.” Breaking out into villainous sounding chuckles, he took a long gaze into me. “Don’t honestly know why one of the trolls kept calling you ‘Crow’, but you seem to know much of me. So inform everyone what you know and I’ll get into my whole spiel when you’re done. Also you have the markings of an exceedingly powerful god on you, I can even get a name from it… Bahamut? Interesting, don’t know a thing about a god like that. Oh and you’re a priest of the sun! At least you aren’t as stuck up like the others that came before you, that certainly earns you brownie points with me. Now get to it, tell these people of my greatness!”

“Everyone this is Veles the confusion god, known for both good and ill. He’s a shapeshifter god and is known for being a trickster, kidnapping cows, stealing said cow’s milk, protecting cows from danger, punishing oath breakers severely, openly opposes the god of war known as Perun and knows how to fight said gods of war with guerrilla tactics.” I sent Sekhet a look and she nodded to me in understanding at what I was hinting at here. Sure she could win, but at what cost? This is a guy who was repeatedly beaten up by a war god and knows how to survive them. “He’s also known for his love of music which means he has probably listened in on every single heart song that has ever been sung, he likes to work with commerce and prefers the open speaking of commoners over nobility and he also controls the elements of earth, water and a bit of life itself as partly being an underworld god. That is how he creates special uniquely made targeted diseases when someone breaks an oath to him. He’s a dark proponent of life, whereas Perun his opposite is a light proponent of death.”

“All very much correct, but why call me a confusion god hm? What have I done that was so confusing?” The large snake flicked his tongue out at me in a jovial manner, the same kind of manner that a happy Marie tends to do when she’s enjoying a good book.

“You upset the balance of the world constantly to prevent the total stagnation that Perun causes by making things too orderly. You guys are pretty well balanced, but it’s not a balance of good and evil.” That seemed to surprise him fairly well, now for me to continue on. “While you and Perun may be in constant conflict, given neither of you has permanently dealt with the other and how often Perun kills you and lets you come back to life, it’s more a matter of principles between the two of you. Tell me, was it Perun who made the golden apple of discord that is used by Eris?”

“Yes actually, she was looking for an angle as a goddess and one of Perun’s apples did the trick. And boy did it ever, old shock and awe Perun’s been really regretting that one since forever!” He laughed loudly while slapping his tail against his body noisily. “You are such an amusing mortal. I wish I could poach you, but I don’t think your goddess would like that. Which is why I’m going to tell you all what you’ve learned on this little journey of yours instead! Everyone that ends up here usually learns something about themselves or the world on the way. Life is chaos and you all certainly understand that well enough, so who wants to go first?”

“Before that I still need to explain why you’re called the confusion god. You see people have legends of you stealing and doing bad things, but there are also legends of you being friendly, personable and dare I say it outright heroic. People most of the time don’t know what to make of you when you help commoners and then do horrible things to nobles. Also he has a habit of kidnapping people a lot, mostly cows.” Of course I was aware of why he did it, we kind of shared some ideals after all. “Veles specializes in being a trickster that causes mostly confusion about why he does the things he does, like this whole setup with the Sieve Precarious for instance. Perun is a murderous war god who will kill you outright if you face him in battle, quite unlike our war goddess who is very friendly, lovable and quite merciful when she feels like it.”

“I try.” Sekhet muttered while rolling her eyes and flicking her ears lazily.

“Yeah, your goddess is much better than that stiff stick in the mud that always gets those in power under his domain. Always stepping on the little guys those nobles.” He cleared his throat and then with a flash of light he shrunk down into a tiny little purple dragon. “Veles is the name, distraction is a game! Not really close friends with Discord, since he can be a bit of a wad sometimes, but I’m willing to stir up trouble with him. Still frozen in stone?”

“Yep, I volunteer to hear what lessons I’ve learned first.” I crossed my arms and waited patiently.

“Well… how do I say this? You already knew most of the lessons we were trying to teach you, you were outside the box the minute you heard good old Quirkenheimer state the rules at the bridge. In fact you seem to understand and manipulate chaos pretty well, considering how you got everyone across the bridge.” He stopped and flew over to hover in front of Sekhet and turned into an Ursa Miniature, he looked like a living teddy bear at that size. “Are you sure I can’t have Jade?”

“Sadly no, but you can drop by Airship Mauled and maybe enjoy the pastime of any gods or goddesses that visit… getting hit with airships in a most painful manner that will eventually be turned into housing or other buildings for those who live there.” All Sekhet did was make the god grin joyfully.

“Sound like fun for me, anyway you did learn a lesson Jade. May I call you Jade? It was that you should never take on a noodle incident with just a knife and a pocket full of dreams.” He smiled cheerily as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a bunch of little white clouds I could physically touch.

“I was wondering what these were.” I stuffed on of the clouds over my head and pulled it back off while blushing. “Yep, definitely random dreams floating around, nothing interesting in these… nope, no sir.”

“Eh, those will disappear when you leave, next?” The amused Veles said as he turned into a tree, a willow, in the middle of our group.

“Oh me, choose me, what did I learn!?” Flamberge offered while waving his claws at the tree.

“You’ve learned to rely on your greatest strengths when all else fails. Also the fact that you can blow up a pumpkin and spread its chunks a good fair distance and the way the troll reacted to that was quite the classic.” Well if this guy wasn’t childish, then he wouldn’t be compared to the likes of Loki. He turned into a timber wolf, looking like he was randomly cobbled out of the tree he previously was. “Next?”

“What about us?” Maries intoned as one.

“You’ve learned that not everyone will immediately see you as monsters.” They reeled back in shock and the wolf continued to cackle as he dove underneath them and came out the other side as looking like Arizona… only as a male version of her. He turned to Spitfire. “So do you want to know what you learned?”

“Nope, this place is a big enough headache as it is.” Tilting her head as she watched him shift into the large serpent with the horrendous under bite again, he smirked down at her and waited. “What were you going to do if Sekhet hadn’t called you out?”

“Life’s no fun without a good scare~. That’s my favorite job, but I’m not mean, especially to cows it seems~!” What Veles sang out loud answered it for me and the fact that he parodied something that I could understand just made me smile, but Spitfire seemed a little confused. “Still going to tell you what you learned anyway. You learned to trust someone you despise, you listened to Jade when she told you how to win the race. Despite how angry she makes you, can you look at Jade and still say that you don’t like her at least a little bit?”

“We’re not friends, but I don’t think we’ll be enemies until we can catch you doing something absolutely illegal.” Sending Spitfire the friendliest smile I can manage, I had the perfect response for her.

“If you can catch me doing anything illegal at all, then that’ll be a good day for you and I’ll have had a good run of making a joke of the Royal Guard alongside the Wonder and Shadow Bolts divisions.” I sent a wink her way, she just gave me a smirk and nodded in agreement. “Anything else Veles? Can we take the Sieve Precarious now?”

“No, first I must marry your goddess if I am to give her access to it, once we’re married I can have you as one of my children of the corny!” He received a large paw to the jaw that laid him out and his head went into the boiling orange juice for a few seconds. He came up and sneezed out a bit of the juice. “What a fine lady with a good right hook, you’re much better than Perun-kun! Willing to trade pantheons with me? My sempai won’t notice me well enough and he’s always so hurtful.”

“I don’t need access to it and I know I can’t touch it, nice try though." Sekhet wheeled me over to it and I picked it up." Also no I’m not doing you any favors and you can’t have Jade.”

“Well fine, see if I make any more passes at you beautiful… darn it!” Veles received a smirk from the large Sekhet who turned around and her tail slapped him fully into the boiling orange juice. “Argh… what a world! I’m melting, I’m melting! You’ve defeated the wicked snake of the chaos realm! Now he will become you’re loyal servant for ever and ever!”

I looked to Sekhet and titled my head at her curiously.

“We’re not doing that. Activate it and just get us out of here already Jade, quickly before he gets any worse to deal with and decides to follow us home!” Rolling my eyes at Sekhet and her fear of an abhorrent admirer that wanted to use her to get to me, I held up the Sieve Precarious and we warped back to Equestria.

-Fizzle-

“Did somebody order a rescue party?!” Jade shouted, earning our attentions.

The Hayburger was returned to reality about an hour after we originally left it.

Author's Note

The grand dissolution comes, in about four or five chapters. Depend how long it takes me to do my next arc.

The story changes drastically from there and something I've hinted at long ago will finally happen.

Just putting that out there.

Next part of this overly long story:

Manehattan Menageries!

"Cheerilee plans a field trip to Manehattan to see a cultural festival. Where there's plenty of time to soak in all the trouble that's occurring in the city during the set up for this festival."

There's a certain character in Smash Brothers Ultimate that I like, just one letter removed.

Chapter twenty seven, Manehattan Menageries: Trip nonsense.

-Rarity, two hours after the Hayburger is returned to its rightful position-

I waited up on the hill by the old abandoned salon building, I wondered why Jade wanted me to come here? I have to get home to make sure Sweetie Belle doesn’t create more charcoal trying to cook while mom and dad are out.

Why do they always pile babysitting duties on me so much? It is good practice if I ever have my own someday, but really now!

“Sorry I kept you waiting Miss Rarity.” I turned and saw a figure that would look so delightful in a dress, why does she refuse every idea of being feminine? She kept her mane nice at least, but she put no style into it. She was an interesting bipedal cat I’ll say that much. “Close your eyes and hold out your hoof.”

I did so, trusting that she wasn’t about to do anything horrid to me, I felt something firmly placed into my hoof and I suppose I was to grab it.

“Okay, open your eyes and look at it.” At her gentle urging I open my eyes to see what looked like a rolled up piece of paper in my hoof with a seal on it. “Generosity can be its own reward, I hope you take that to heart. The building is now yours regardless of whether or not you’ll do my request. I want you to make two simple articles of clothing, it’s a birthday present for someone who’s been there for me since the very beginning of my life. I hope you don’t mind being a proud owner of the Carousel Boutique.”

“I, what?” She was simply giving me this place? I… had no idea what to say to that. I was horribly confused by suddenly having the deed to this very building place in my hoof, Jade just gave me a building and on the seal of the mayors approval no less. If I were to open this deed, I would see it signed and notarized in my name. Feeling like I should be hyperventilating right about now, I only had one course of action. “Of course I’ll make your order!”

Why didn’t I just deny Jade giving me a building!? Why is Jade giving me a building? She just gave it to me and said it’s mine and only made a request, I can refuse the request and still keep the building… but I’d feel quite guilty about it if I did.

“No gems, jewels or overly shiny stuff. What I want is something quite simple for someone of your talent.” Listening to what Jade wanted me to make and how she said I had talent made me blush, I couldn’t help but feel like I was getting so much for giving back so little.

“I, I can’t… you… why this is simply too much Miss La Perm!” I now owned a building, a home, a place where I can start my business and I wouldn’t have to worry about going through money problems.

I would still have to manage the place myself, nothing for it, but this thing she just did for me was above and beyond anything I could have ever expected.

“Please, my mother is Miss La Perm, call me Jade or if you want to be formal Jaded.” We spent the next few minutes going over designs and what the two articles of clothing should look like, whoever she was giving this stuff to as a birthday present would only get my finest. Right… no pressure there. My first order at a workshop freely given to me completely out of the kindness of someone’s heart? “Why don’t you breathe and calm down a little? Also relax you look close to fainting.”

“How am I supposed to calm down when a loose acquaintance of mine drops a home right into my hooves without any strings attached?!” After that, I thought our conversation went pretty well.

Well... after I woke up on the fainting couch I summoned of course. I could only hope to be as generous as Jade was, this must have cost her a small fortune!

-Jade-

Hopefully Rarity would never figure out I bought this place using all the money I’ve earned over the last few weeks or so, legally or otherwise. A lot of which was stolen off of the nobles that Rarity tends to idolize a bit blindly.

-A few days later Airship Mauled, school, Cheerilee-

“Alright class that settles it for today, now I have an announcement to make.” These young adults were all waiting for me to continue. “We will not be holding school next week.”

“Oh does this mean that they are finally taking my advice!” Why did Jade seem so enthusiastic? Oh that, why won’t she just drop it already?

“No Jade, Celestia and or the board of education are not calling a week long meeting to ban the teaching of all forms of math. Though Celestia is considerably tempted to ban you from math for your destroy the cakes of the world equation, I know that should be enough temptation for me to stop from trying to teach you an important life skill. I however, as your teacher, won’t stop trying.” Now I had to deal with Jade’s sad and loud whining. “We can’t just stop teaching math just because it’s somewhat impossible for one student Jade. I might be tempted to exempt you, but I can’t as I have a job to do.”

“Fine…” Muttered Jade as she rested her chin on her desk and began pouting, just one among the weird students I had to deal with in my last year here. Velvet and Arizona weren’t so bad, I just had to keep the two separated or else they might start a fight in the classroom. Maries was exemplary for coming from a barbarian style of culture. The Vibrant Vikings were surprisingly like sponges and quite willing to learn, even if they were going to apply what they knew towards being better Vikings.

My only really troublesome student was Jade and in just one subject no less, I should consider what I’ve done a good job so far. Even Velvet has caught up and was in a scholastic competition with Arizona which brought both their grades up somehow, I’d personally thought that competition would do the opposite for the two.

“So what kind of shenanigans are you going to get involved in next week?” Jacky asked in an innocent manner.

“You mean what kind of shenanigans ‘we’ are going to get into… and they aren’t shenanigans! I have been tasked with administrating a field trip.” That immediately made Jade perk up and she had a sharp toothy grin on her face. What have I done now to earn such a pleased look from her? “As such I’ve decided that next week we’ll all take part in a cultural festival.”

“This wouldn’t happen to be the one in Manehattan by any chance would it?” Why did she suddenly seem so eager about this? Whenever Jade got excited about something, one had to be on the lookout for imminent trouble.

“Yes, it is.” Usually that’s a bad thing and a sign that we probably shouldn’t want anything to do with Manehattan. “Now can anyone tell me why Jade seems so excited?”

I know Jade gets away with a lot of illegal things. Yet I couldn’t help but admire how she did so with such an insane aptitude for it, especially without any solid evidence that could convict her of any crime whatsoever.

“I think it’s because Jade not only has plans to do something in Manehattan, it’s because she’s always wanted to see the city…” Well that wasn’t ominous at all Fizzle. “That and a weeklong Power Ponies comic convention is taking place right alongside the festival.”

I groaned out loud. I couldn’t disparage Jade’s interests, she was quite well aware of culture thanks to what kind of cooking I’ve seen from her mother and her bursts of multicultural cuisine. That and all the gods that Jade new about that happened to shape the culture of the world.

Should I just cancel because Jade was going to the comic convention and doing some extracurricular activities that may involve theft? I couldn’t cancel this for the actions that I knew that one student would ‘possibly’ take, my hooves are kind of tied on this one. Unless…

“Let me put it this way, you all have to take part in the festival in some way. Given your diverse cultural origins, all of you shouldn’t have any problems coming up with something to do for the festival.” They all looked intrigued at my statement and the smile only got wider on Jade’s face. Oh dear, could anything actually stop the trouble she would cause? Sometimes I think she should have been born with black fur and have Jacky’s luck. I shake my head sadly. “In any case this trip will not be cheap, but it’s actually within our budget surprisingly. Thanks to us having a mostly small class, you’ll all even be allowed to purchase at least one cultural souvenir under a certain price. I’ll have that price determined and set up before the trip, each of you will be given a small amount of money to get said souvenir with.”

That and Kuril feeds more than half of these hungry mouths given she owns the only restaurant here and we didn’t exactly have a running lunchroom. I was getting a lot more money than I necessarily needed and can afford to pay for a week of cultural exploration and fun, plus the fact I was required to give them a field trip.

If I wasn’t the only teacher here, I think I’d be completely underpaid like any other for the job I have to deal with. I was also technically the principal and the councilor until some pony, or otherwise considering this place, applied for the job.

I loved teaching with a passion, but after I leave this school to go work in Ponyville I wouldn’t be able to personally fund any field trips like this again. So I might as well do a really big field trip for all these delightfully weird scamps. I just hope Jaded doesn’t do anything to noteworthy or big.

-Jade-

Looks like it would soon be time for me to rob a museum and I didn’t even have to think of a reason to go to Manehattan, I also get to go to the comic convention… score!

-Fizzle-

So… knowing what I do about us, what will happen? That would be a museum robbery, something or several things happening during the cultural festival involving Jade and then whatever happens at the comic convention with Jade and Maries.

Next week will be completely busy… I hope Maries understands the implications of all this. They’ll be the only chimera in the city and ponies will definitely be giving them a lot of space.

-Maries-

Can we really do this?

Don’t be a pessimist Mara, that’s Maria’s job.

I think things will be fine as long as we don’t do anything aggressive. It’s a cultural festival, but I don’t think chimera culture would be appreciated.

When did Maria become the logical one?

My whole world view as our wonderfully intelligent tail has been completely thrown off balance!

Oh ha ha, it is to laugh! Seriously we’re all smart here, we just have three different thought processes to work with.

Yes, well, what is Jade going to do this time?

Oh that’s even worse, we all need to talk to Jade. It certainly looks like Fizzle likely already knows several implications of this trip judging by the looks on her face.

-Jacky-

I’m going to need to wear protective gear all week next week aren’t I? Let’s see, I need to buy a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, shoulder pads and possibly anything else with padding that can cover my shins and forearms.

Jade has that look on her face and my captain isn’t going to let an opportunity to do crazy stuff like this one slip past her. I raised my claws and Cheerilee gave me a nod to speak my mind.

“Quick question Cheery, is Dr. Bones going with us as our doctor?” I had to ask because she was a really weird diamond dog, but she was definitely a medical professional. My bruises had actually cleared up for once in my life.

“Does my cousin Jubilee like fireworks? Yes, she’ll be on hoof as will our Coach Sekhet to chaperone. If a goddess can’t keep you under control, then nothing else will.” It’s like Cheerilee didn’t trust us… or more importantly didn’t trust Jade.

She did have the right to think that Jade was going to do some things and needed to be watched carefully.

-Jade-

So much to do and so little time to plan it all in, but even I had my own questions.

“Are we going to see your sister Cherry Blossom?” I’ve recently realized that Cheerilee’s name is short for Cheerily and Glee. I’m surprised it took me this long to figure that out, pony pun naming conventions are always notable.

“If she appears at the cultural festival, then yes, we are going to see my sister Jade.” Why did Cheerilee sound so defeated? It wasn’t like I was going to cause an utter mess… nope couldn’t keep the smile off my face while thinking that. I would really have to work on that, because I honestly wasn’t going to try and cause a mess. “For those of you who don’t know my sister Cherry Blossom, she is a famous wrestler and she wrestles in Manehattan.”

I was clearly going to get involved in anything that happened there.

-Several days later, Cheerilee-

“Okay, we’re here Manhattan. Whatever you do, don’t...” A roar caused me to crouch down and cover my head, I looked up and saw three wyverns seemingly attacking the city.

“Wyverns!” Someone shouted and ponies started to panicking and scattering everywhere. Coach Sekhet just yawned in a bored manner and towed our luggage out as if this wasn’t an emergency to be worried about.

“Jade, chase and draw those wyverns back this way. Oh and take Jacky with you!” At least it was Kuril giving orders and not Jade. Kuril I can trust to be a little more levelheaded. “Fizzle take this spear and charge it specifically with debilitating lightning magic. Maries, Velvet and Arizona, I want you to be prepared to pin the wyverns down in any way you can! Also Flamberge stop struggling. I know dragons hate wyverns, but now isn’t the time for you to lose your cool!”

Kuril and Fortitude were struggling to pin down the suddenly angry looking dragon.

Having absently noted that Jacky was wearing a lot of padding and a helmet for some reason. I could understand why now, because the second we arrived they were going to deal with wyverns in the city. She’s been wearing that stuff ever since she got on the train.

-Jacky-

How were we supposed to catch up with… them... what is Jade doing? I watched as Jade pulled out a griffon mask, she cast it at herself and we all stopped to watch her transformation into an, ‘admittedly’, pretty looking griffon. One with green feathers and brown fur, her tail gained tufts of fur at the tip.

She grabbed me and started flying high into the sky.

Author's Note

Jade goes finally goes from 'Abyssinian' to 'griffon' as part of the stories plot.

Chapter twenty seven, Manehattan Menageries: Wyvern nonsense.

Author's Note

Chapter twenty seven, Manehattan Menageries: Wyvern nonsense.

-Jacky-

It wasn’t long after we flew high enough that Jade tilted forward and started diving straight for the rearmost of the three wyverns.

She had a decent grip on my shoulders and I didn’t care if it was tight or if she dug her talons into my tightly strapped on shoulder pads, just so long as she didn’t drop me at this height.

I wonder what it felt like to be a griffon, must be incredible for Jade to be able to get the chance to fly like this.

The three wyverns had a black crests and dark blue almost black scales. All with two large wings with two claws sticking out at the joint, their legs had four sharp scythe like blades that almost took the shape of a hawks feet and the head that we were approaching looked like that of a dragons.

The third wyvern was still pretty big for the smallest, the two larger wyverns were further ahead.

Jade brought us down to ram into the side of the rearmost wyverns head, knocking it to the side.

The head came back swiftly and snapped at my feet, I scrunched up away from it and panicked fumbling for my bow.

It snapped at us a second time, only for Jade to flap her wings hard and pull us up and over its head in a barrel roll and until we ended up on the other side of it.

She flapped again narrowly avoiding the third snap of its jaw, but then it did something curious… it ignored us and flew to catch up with the other two wyverns.

“I guess it’s not hungry for Grilled Griffon or Broiled Blackcap.” Oh gee whiz Jade, do you think?

“Were you going to tempt it to eat me Captain?” Sometimes I wondered about Jade, I just had to ask.

“No, of course not, I wouldn’t do that to you Jacky! Maybe almost to a mortal enemy, but not you or anyone else I care about.” She looked at the three wyverns ahead of us and narrowed her eyes, her wings stayed spread wide open as we glided down the streets of manehattan at ludicrous speeds behind them. “If they’re not hungry, then what are they after?”

“Maybe that pegasus?” I pointed with my left hand as I gripped the bow in my right and prepared to help Jade by providing my particular brand of support, long range and ‘mostly’ accurate.

It looked to be a female pegasus, blue fur, brown hair and currently equipped with saddlebags, she dove into an alleyway. While one of the wyvern stayed at one end, the other two went above and for the other side of it. They had her cornered for a moment, we were about to catch up when we were interrupted.

“Hey, what are you doing with that Ornithian during this state of emergency?” Oh look Spitfire. I’ve never been formerly introduced to her, but I did see her before a certain unicycle related incident made me take a few days in the hospital.

“We’re chasing the cause of the wyverns being in the city my dear friend Spitty!” Why did Jade have to sound so cheerful about seeing Spitfire and why did the mare look a little shocked.

While we were distracted the flying pony made a break for it and narrowly avoided the snapping jaws of the dragon headed monsters that started chasing her again. Jade took notice of the action and turned us twice so that we were on the same street as the wyverns and the evading pegasus.

“You… you’re a griffon now?! Oh of course you are!” Spitfire sounded both upset and aggravated, then again Jade tends to have that effect on some people. “Also we’re not friends you annoying git! What’s the cause of this fracas anyway?”

“For the next fifty or so minutes, yes, I’m a griffon Sprite Flier… as you probably noticed I’m not exactly a great flyer.” Really, you seemed to be doing pretty well to me Jade. “Speaking of, Jacky spot the nearest thermal so I can get some height!”

Yeah, we were getting a bit too low to be comfortable.

“Aim for the carrot dog stand Jade, looks like it has a grill and three broilers!” I turned to Spitfire who was easily keeping up with Jade as she steered us over the stand. We caught a small pocket of warm air from the grill and broilers to shoot upwards. “A pony is causing all this. Don’t know why the wyverns want her so badly, but once we’ve captured her, we can lead them to an ambush point.”

“How are you going to catch her?” Spitfire asked while rubbing her head with her hooves as if she had a really bad headache.

“You offering to help? My friend Jacky here will shoot her wing out, you need to get ahead of the pegasus and grab her when Jacky gets in a shot.” There was a loud sigh after Jade made her offer, Spitfire shook her head and finally she nodded. “We can lead you back to the ambush point my friends are setting up for the wyverns once you’ve grabbed the pony.”

“This was supposed to be my day off, but I’ll help as I’m a Wonder Bolt!” With that she shot off in a different direction.

“Come on let’s pick up some speed, I trust Spitfire to not let someone die if she can help it!” Jade started pushing her wings as hard as she could to get higher. “How close do we need before you can get a shot?”

“We’re close enough, but getting us closer to that pegasus could only help.” I pulled something out of my tail quiver and put it to my bow, I took aim and tried to steady it while not thinking about how fast the street is moving beneath my dangling feet. “You could hold me a little steadier too, while you’re at it! Why aren’t you as good with these wings as you are with the wings of sunlight?”

“Those are automatic, these are manually operated and it’s very tiring Jacky!” Okay, Jade was trying, but did she really have to be so jittery in the air?

I could now see where she wasn’t doing so well at flying as we picked up speed and skimmed over the marketplace the mare was flying through. She was trying to lose the wyverns by flying through several produce stands.

“My cabbages!” Oh that guy again, huh. The fleeing mare turned up sharply and the wyverns followed.

One of the wyverns surged forward and was about to take a bite out of the pegasus when I changed my aim and let loose the object I held to my bow, a boxing glove on a stick.

With a loud thwack noise, the boxing glove slammed into the lead wyvern’s left wing joint and it flipped right into the second wyvern which were about to… uh oh!

I felt the impact of one of the two tumbling wyverns wings happen above me instead of going into me. I felt weightless for a second and I heard someone screaming.

“Jacky!” Was that Jade? I turned my head as I fell, to my horror Jade no longer had her talons on my shoulders.

I could even see Jade and the two wyverns trying to reorient themselves before they hit the street, Jade looked particularly panicked for me and not for herself.

I landed on something solid a second later, but it didn’t falter and it was still airborne even after I landed on it… I was sitting on the third wyvern.

I wrapped my legs tightly around its neck earning its attention and it started to twist, turn and flail trying to throw me off of its back. This was not a very good position to be in. Bad luck, don’t hurt me now!

One would think that making a shot from a wyvern, that was far worse than a raging bull and was trying it’s darnedest to shake me off of it, would be impossible.

I was going to do the improbable and make the disabling shot from the back of the wyvern as it twirled and curved trying to keep up with the frightened pegasus.

I could worry about Jade or how I’m getting off of this wyvern in a second, I just had to concentrate.

Breathe, choose my ammo and put it to the bow, take aim, focus on what to hit.

I did not want this pony's death on my conscience, even if I was a pirate born and should care less about the pony who caused this mess in the first place. I had to choose the right moment to release my shot.

My ride surged forward and was about to bite into the pegasus. I adjusted my aim minutely, prayed and fired. The two pound brick hit the mare in the right wing and made a sickening noise when it hit, then it bounced into the back of her skull making her immediately go limp to fall out of the way of the jaws of the wyvern.

I couldn’t believe that worked.

The wyvern turned around sharply, my foot talons finally lost their grip on it and I was sent flailing into the air. I saw Spitfire pass by in a blur and caught the pegasus mare, if she caught the mare… then who was going to catch me?!

I fell for five seconds letting out a scream, until I felt two powerful arms shoot up under my armpits and hoisted me back into the air just before I hit the ground.

“Thanks Jade.” I sighed with relief.

“Thanks, but I’m not Jade though. She’s kind of busy at the moment.” That bland sounding tone was very familiar, Gene caught me!? Oh goddesses, this is embarrassing. “I told Spitfire where to go, the ambush is ready. Now that we’ve got the culprit that brought the wyverns into the city, all that’s left is to deal with the wyverns themselves.”

I looked forward to see what Gene meant and Jade was frantically harrying the two wyverns trying to keep them off of Spitfire as she swiftly flew back towards the train station.

The third wyvern caught up to Jade and nearly got its teeth on one of her wings, then a crescent blast of light struck it forcing its head downwards missing Jade by a few inches. I suddenly looked down at the bow in my talons.

“Nice shot, a Valkyrie couldn’t have done that better at this distance.” Did Gene just imply that I did that without thinking about it? Wow, at this range that should have missed. “Don’t wiggle, I’m going to try and catch up with them.”

Gene sped up and he was much faster than Jade was in the air while carrying me, though he was exerting himself to do so. We eventually caught up with Jade who slowly matched speeds with us.

“Thanks for the save Jacky!” Jade chirped out of her beak as we continued to follow the three wyverns on Spitfire’s tail.

“You dropped me!” I shouted angrily at her.

“Sorry, but excuse me if I take two wyverns to the face and body again! Now if only Velvet would learn how to fly, this could have gone so much smoother.” It was about this moment that Jade looked to be limping as she flew, it was a very odd thing to see. “I’m so glad that these injuries won’t transfer when I turn back into myself. Come on let’s keep them off of Spitfire, until she can hit the ambush point.”

Scrutinizing her form, I could see a large stretch of her back had one long claw mark in it. That had to hurt a lot, she would have to live with that injury for the next twenty or more minutes until the transformation wore off.

“You’re hurt.” Of course she’s hurt Gene, my sisters been teasing danger again!

“Yeah, but Spitfire needs us to keep those wyverns off of her!” Jade wasn’t wrong, the wyverns were almost on Spitfire who looked to be pushing for a new airspeed record. “Besides, if this was as bad as it looks then Dr. Bones can patch me up just long enough for me to get back in good health.”

There was a reason why I bothered to carry solid ammunition when I can fire shots of light and darkness. It is because light and dark shots are raw energy and I needed something more solid.

I pulled out a golf ball and took aim. Golf balls were very aerodynamic and when fired from my bow they always had a peculiar habit of always creating rainbow trails for some odd reason.

Not important, but very a fun to see effect.

Once we closed in I released the ball and it created a rainbow trail leading into the largest wyvern’s eye.

It let loose a deafening angry roar of pain as it snapped its teeth at thin air since Spitfire managed to get away again.

Jade was gripping onto the second largest of the wyverns and was covering its eyes with her wings, she looked over her left shoulder and smiled.

“Ambush time, get clear!” With that Jade rolled off of the wyverns face, Gene pulled up and away from the three wyverns as they descended towards where Spitfire was waiting on the ground.

The smallest wyvern was closest since we’ve been bothering the larger two. Its legs were suddenly caught by a lasso and it was pulled forcefully to the ground where it was knocked unconscious when it’s head, on its serpentine neck, slammed straight into the ground.

Arizona had to be scarily strong to have done that.

The second biggest soon found its being peppered with ice shards from above forcing it to land and then it was hit with a fog that made it collapse and frost over slightly.

Velvet’s work, also very scary.

The largest wyvern was about to hit Spitfire, when Maries landed on the wyvern forcefully grounding it, this had stopped the wyverns forward momentum.

After Marie bit the wyvern, they quickly jumped off to the side and ran for it.

A brilliant bolt of lightning lit up the entire square blinding me and anyone who happened to be nearby.

Once my vision cleared up, I saw the largest wyvern was on the ground and twitching with small arcs of lightning bouncing all around its body. It was functionally paralyzed, the other two wyverns were also in a similar state.

That would be the power of our sister Fizzle, she managed to incapacitate the largest one with the brunt of that bolt and still hit the other two to make sure they were down.

I sighed with relief and nearly fell over as soon as my feet touched the ground, but Gene helped me stay standing. He even smiled up at me as he helped me get my balance, I think the adrenaline was finally wearing out of my system.

“We… we did it! At least no one got too seriously hurt.” I spoke too soon, because when Jade landed next to us she collapsed to the ground due to the massive blood loss from her back wound.

Once the transformations time was up and Dr. Bones was done complaining about dumb cats, Jade was soon back up if a bit pale. While injuries didn’t transfer, the blood loss certainly had.

Chapter twenty seven, Manehattan Menageries: Udder nonsense.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter twenty seven, Manehattan Menageries: Woolgathering nonsense.

-Fizzle-

So, what to do? Our group is suddenly spread out and all over the place, I’m still in the hotel lobby. Jade already had her idea and looking over to mom, they were currently discussing it.

“You need to practice it for tomorrow Jade, so no going to the comic convention today.” Kuril had her arms crossed and was staring Jade down. “I promise that we’ll get one day at the comic convention, but until then we’re here for the cultural festival. Also don’t think I haven’t noticed your plans to rob the museum, please do that near the end of the week.”

“You choose now of all days to start being a stuffy mom?” Were Jade’s rather sour words as she pouted at mom.

“I’m evil like that kitten.” Kuril’s tail flicked in an agitated manner and her ears stood straight up, this caused Jade’s ears to wilt.

“Fine, I’ll practice, stop giving me that look.” After a moment of staring at Jade a little bit harder, Kuril smiled and pulled Jade into a big hug.

“Oh my little tom cat is being so responsible!” Eventually mom let go of her, but not before licking her behind the ears making her mewl in an annoyed manner.

“Are you doing a mystery dumpling booth or is it made to order?” As Jade asked her mother that, I felt Maries lean up against me and nuzzled me with their front heads. I snuggled into them and continued to watch the conversation.

“Mystery dumplings with random fruit, sweet beans or cream filling. Made to order is boring, I’ll let some ponies have a little adventure with every dumpling they bite into.” It seems like Kuril was all in on this cultural festival and she was going to run a mystery dumplings stand for passing ponies to try. It will also be Jade’s cultural feature for Cheerilee when she does whatever it is she’s going to do. “Never know what you’ll get, but it’ll always be good or I’m not living up to being ‘the witch of good taste’! I’ll need your help with getting a good spot to sell them from Jade.”

Thinking of cultural projects I needed to think of mine, Velvet already had ice shaping and the Vibrant Vikings were going to do a sparring match between themselves.

I turned to Mara only to get a tongue slapped against my cheek making me blush, Maries were being pretty affectionate right now and I had my suspicions as to why. They were nervous about doing a cultural project.

They wanted to do something. Like Arizona, they were running into problems with thinking about what to actually do. The culture Maries are from isn’t exactly pony friendly and this is why she wanted my attention right now.

“Can I help you with something Maries?” I could see that nervous look on Maria and Mara’s faces, Marie just kept her head low to the floor.

“Well… we want to do something cultural, but does it necessarily have to be our culture?” Mara started off.

“We want to help you with a project!” Marie blurted out and Maria turned to glare at her, the snake slowly lowered her head back down with a weak smile.

“Well okay then.” That didn’t sound too bad, though there was a single problem. “Although I have no idea what I’m doing yet and I have plenty of options, but I can’t do anything relating to unicorn culture specifically.”

“We understand why you wouldn’t.” Mara stated while tilting her head at me. “Though continuing to pass yourself off as an earth pony is getting a little weird. You’re a very strong unicorn and you impressed our mother well enough physically, which is surprising as most unicorns aren’t physically capable as you are.”

“Better physical health is almost a fair tradeoff for having a broken horn I suppose, I’m still quite self-conscious about what ponies think of it and I don’t like it being stared at. Yet… I also crave to be acknowledged…. it’s complicated with me.” It’s always the same for me. Ponies always asking questions, being horrified by it, some get suspicious of why my horn is broken, many just stare at it and plenty of other things. I prefer to keep it hidden away, even if it makes me look like I’m an earth pony. I can’t truly match an earth pony directly in physical strength and endurance, but I could come close through grit and stubbornness. This is why what I said next is of no surprised to Maries. “I’m thinking the cultural thing I want to do is help some ponies with good clean hard work, get out there and show others what I can do by putting my back into it.”

“Helping others is a part of pony culture…” There’s a ‘but’ there Mara, just get it over with. “But it seems too simplified a cultural project for you, we would have expected something bigger or flashier given our shared love of Jade.”

“Jade might always go for things like that, but I’m not exactly Jade now am I? I don’t need to do something big or crazy, just fun and educational.” There were still things about chimera culture that none of us have ever bothered to ask about and I was doing that right now. “Chimera do things together as a pack right?”

“Not really, most chimera do things solo… well as solo as a three headed being can be anyway. The only time chimera do something together is when we’re all at our dens, teaching the new generation, when we have something of a problem concerning our territory and when a chimera is sick we leave someone to protect them. If you don’t already know, Flame Geyser Swamp is kind of inhospitable to most but the hardiest of beings.” Marie looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do you think ponies would even let us help them? We’re kind of scary to look at.”

“I’m sure there’s a pony out there that wouldn’t mind our help, even if you are a chimera.” Hugging Maries around their large chest as much as I could made them all smile at me. Ponies had been pretty wary around them since we got into the city, especially after they had helped set up the wyvern for me to hit between the eyes. “Jade’s going to be busy practicing ‘the dance of her people’, so we’re not going to get much snuggle time with her today. So… why don’t we go out into the city and find someone to help together?”

“We could also go by the museum Jade wants to rob and scope it out for…” Cutting off Maria before she could get too far with a hoof, I had something to tell them.

“Jade wants us both to go to the museum with her together as a date and she’s also paying for dinner afterwards, probably nothing too fancy that would bar you on the principle of what you are. Maybe she’ll find a griffon owned establishment?” Thinking about it, I had to admit that Jade never did over the top fancy when dating. It was always something affordable or even simple. Aside from that ball that is, but we were invited to that by Celestia based on the idea that Jade would eventually ruin it out of natural inclinations. “So no, we’re not scoping out the museum without her. Anything else you want to look at while we’re out trying to find someone to assist?”

“I’m interested in Madisoat Square Garden.” Mara stated in a calm tone at the same time as her sister’s answers, they themselves had different ideas. Mara’s idea was of seeing competition and fierce wrestling, she really liked her athletics.

“I want to see Manehattan’s public library!” No surprise coming from Marie, though she was quite vocal about it. She always the intellectual compared to her two sisters, though you wouldn’t know it with how she was also getting into Power Ponies and how deeply she’s already dug into Jade’s comic collection.

Ten bits says Marie ends up going full geek at the comic convention with Jade when we go.

“Would it be weird if I said I wanted to see Saddle Row?” Out of the three of them, that was the oddest request. We all slowly turned to Maria and stared at her. “What… why are all of you staring at me like that?”

“Why would you ever want to go to Saddle Row Maria? There’s not exactly anything fashionable that you three could really pull off given your body shape… well except maybe a fur tight stealth suit or body armor.” When I mentioned body armor, Mara perked up immediately. “You could buy some saddle bags and a saddle so we can… nope… cutting that thought off before I go there.”

“I wouldn’t mind wearing some body armor, I personally think we’d make for a dashing chimera knight for you and Jade!” Trying to imagine Mara’s idea of body armor left me smiling a little.

“Veto.” Both Maria and Marie stated blandly, then Marie added. “Unless circumstances would need or require us to wear body armor like what you are currently thinking of Mara. As long as we’re your sisters and are a part of this collective body… we’d rather not.”

“You do realize that Jade could eventually make that happen by accident or on purpose right?” At Mara’s smirk, both her sisters shuddered violently.

“Do you always decide things by a majority?” Didn’t I learn from the last time? I asked them a question once that got them arguing with one another for hours on end, that was possibly the world’s longest argument over pizza toppings.

“There’s three of us, ties only happen when one of us abstains and in that case we drop the subject until later after thinking it over a bit. It’s completely fair for all three of us.” Well that was somewhat informative Maria. “Marie abstains the most out of us when she can’t come to a conclusion, but she’s pretty wise about it. We can even agree when voting isn’t fair to any of us if the situation is within reason.”

“What about now? You have three differing opinions on where we should go, how do you vote?” Why did I ask that?! There was a long pause and all three heads looked to be going through something thought provoking.

“We tend to have problems when we want to do three different things at the same time, we either ask for outside help or one of us agrees to do one of the two suggested things that we didn’t suggest personally. We get to experience more things that way, like how we met Jade at the edge of what was our hunting territory, Marie and I made the decision to explore a little further that day.” Mara looked to be thinking hard about something. She eventually turned to Maria. “Library?”

“Sure, we need to do more nice things for Marie.” Maria nuzzled her sister Mara and then looked to me. “Our sister is always a bit lonely being at the back of our body.”

“I’m not lonely, I have you two!” Stretching her neck forward she cuddled up between Maria and Mara, while their body hugged themselves. It was always rather sweet to see the three getting along.

“So on the way to the library, could you tell me the story of how Maria got her ears pierced?” They looked quite bashful all of the sudden and I gave them a curious glance as I started for the door to the hotel.

“Well it’s quite a tale really… though it’s a tad embarrassing.” Clearing her throat as we walked out, Marie went into a particularly goofy tone that I suppose was her trying to make this sound more epic than it was. “Well it all started with this griffon…”

-Thirty minutes later-

“The piercing wasn’t really a problem, it was getting the earrings which is a different story entirely.” Marie almost finished. “So yeah, that’s why we don’t appreciate regular bran muffins even if Matriarch Kuril is baking them.”

I burst out laughing in front of the library. Eventually I managed to calm myself down and tug my horn covering hat down a bit. I just removed the Hayburger logo from my hat and now I wore it when I wasn’t willing to alter my mane just to hide what I was from the world.

I still continued to giggle though.

“Yeah, yeah, get it all out of your system Fizzle.” Maria turned her chin towards the sky and huffed. “Let it be known that I’m completely happy with how things turned out.”

“Excuse me, but um… the chimera?” The pony librarian that was sitting beyond the door to the library at a desk and was shivering in fright upon seeing Maries, who wasn’t even showing a single bit of aggression.

“She’s with me.” Sternly stating this while glaring the librarian down, I didn’t like how she was already profiling Maries as dangerous.

“Oh of course…” She swallowed and seemed rather nervous about Maries’ presence. “Do you want the cookbooks section?”

“We find that stereotype offensive and we have never eaten a pony, not for the lack of trying mind you.” Started off Marie conversationally and the librarian gulped. “Now, however, we will absolutely refuse to. Mostly for the fact that we’re currently dating one. What I actually wanted to see is biology books on frogs and snakes, I want to compare my biology to that of a regular snakes as I’m curious about some of the things our other girlfriend mentioned in knowing how to deal with a chimera.”

“Well you certainly know how to elucidate.” The Librarian stopped shivering a moment to stare at Marie in surprise.

“Thank you, we happen to be a lawyer and knowing how to elucidate helps in the courtroom.” Now with but a single statement from Maria, the librarian was shivering in fear for a completely different reason now and seemed clearly horrified at the prospect. “Don’t worry we’ve study the law and follow it as Equestrian citizens.”

“Right, well, you want nonfiction section up on… you know what… let me show you personally.” That was a surprisingly kind offer from the librarian, what’s the catch? “I… actually want to know some things about chimera and if they are true or not, if you don’t mind filling me in that is.”

Ah, she was more curious about Maries than afraid. That was unlike many other ponies on the street despite the fact that Maries didn’t even look at them funny.

“No problem at all, we’re pretty tame.” It seems like Maries would make a friend here, and without any kind of prodding from Jade or me. “Go ahead and ask about a few things.”

“Is it true that all chimera can learn to breathe fire?” The librarian’s first question was a usual one asked by visiting ponies to Maries back home.

“Depends, do we have dragon in our genetics? If so then there’s a strong possibility of it, hasn’t happened to us yet though.” While Mara was explaining that, I happened to collide painfully with some pony.

“Oh I’m so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was uh… eep!” The poor cream furred pony with the cyan hair cowered and curled up on herself when she saw Maries.

She reminded me of Fluttershy somewhat and there was a book on fashion next to her.

Author's Note

Insert Coco Pommel. After befriending Charity Kindheart, before she has met Suri Polomare.

A friendly pony to most, but she is about to have a very special encounter, for she has accidentally wandered into the dimension known as... 'The Absurd Limits'!

Chapter twenty seven, Manehattan Menageries: Sheep’s clothing.

-Cheerilee-

“What are you doing for the cultural festival Jacky?” I knew the beaked misfortune generator had some idea as she didn’t look worried. “Hopefully it isn’t looting or pillaging.”

“It’s not, I’m just going to sing a pirate chantey with no cursing in it.” It seemed like Jacky has already thought this through. “Hey, stop looking so surprised! I’m not nearly as bad as Jade is, though I wish she would at least take me plundering. Looting’s okay too, but pillaging is right out for me. Pirates are not unnecessarily violent unless they want to be and I’m not that kind of pirate, no matter how bad my luck is.”

Jacky was almost hit by a random noisy piano tumbling down the stairs into the lobby, we both thankfully dove out of the way in time. Dr. Bones sighed and looked a little relieved to not have to deal with more of Jacky’s unique injuries.

“The lass really needs a protective suit of armor, just like a highlander always needs a kilt!” Dr. Bones paused to watch as a fire poker came from the ceiling and rammed its way into the floor next to Jacky’s head, she grimaced at the sight of a close call. “Though thinking on it, knowing her luck, the armor might be a really bad idea and hard to get off if she were to take a real serious injury.”

-Manehattan Library, Fizzle-

“Look, Maries isn’t going to do anything to you, calm down and get your head on straight.” I poked the curled up mare and she slowly, but surely, uncurled herself while looking at Maries.

“Why were you running through the library Miss Pommel?” The librarian obviously knew this pony, she picked up the book and hoofed it over to Pommel.

“I’m sorry Decimal, but there’s something in the library that scared me, it was toothy and big.” You mean like other ponies Pommel? Maries wasn’t a monster and if you ever implied that she was, I don’t care how cute you are, I will throttle you. She looked at Maries who continued to give her a bored stare. “Um… hello?”

“Hi, how you doing, we’re Maries.” Maries caused the mare to shiver, but she didn’t go running. “I’m Maria, these are my sisters Marie and Mara.”

“I’m Coco Pommel, have you been with Maries the entire time she’s been here Decimal?” Coco turned to the librarian who just nodded at her. “Okay then, it wasn’t you. I’m sorry for being so scared of you Maries, but there’s something monstrous in the library.”

“Eh don’t worry about it, we get that all the time.” Mare wasn’t bothered, Marie followed up. “Especially when we mention we’re lawyers.”

“Wow… that must have taken a lot of work!” Okay some ponies were making a quicker turnaround in being friendlier towards Maries. Coco seemed nice enough, hopefully she doesn’t get dragged into whatever we do in Manehattan over the next few days.

“Yes, it was a long week of mind numbing cramming and our heads still kind of sting when we start thinking about it.” A second after saying that Mara became somewhat alert and began to glance around as if something spooked her. Coco had looked awed to find out what Maries accomplished in under a week, but she was a little panicked when she noticed Mara looking around for something. “What was that?”

“What was what?” I started looking around and moved closer to Maries, surprisingly Coco and the librarian had the same idea. You’d think they’d move further way from her.

Something suddenly popped up in front of me with bright purple eyes and glinting teeth, it squealed loudly. Maries mashed her front two heads together with her paws to stop the ringing in her ears.

Whatever it was, it had disabled us all at the same time all at once, even I had my hooves on my ears as that had been quite loud and rather debilitating. As such I didn’t have time to dodge what it did next.

It kissed me…

I stumbled back going slightly cross eyed, blinking in confusion as it suddenly jumped away from me at Maries. It hugged her two heads to start nuzzling them and it even slipped its tongue into Maria’s mouth, then followed that up by affectionately thrusting it into Mara’s left ear a second later.

Maries stumbled backwards in shock trying to figure out what was currently clamping on to them and Marie couldn’t bite through the thick wall of bright yellowish blonde fur the creature had to poison it.

It was fast, but as it snuggled Maries two heads the wall of fur became more recognizable as a… alpaca? What in the world was an alpaca doing here? Was it here for the cultural festival and why in the world did she kiss me?! Only Maries and Jade could do that!

The alpaca flipped backwards off of Maries, the force of the kick from doing so flipped them onto their back and the alpaca landed softly on top of Coco without hurting her. This nuisance then proceeded to nibble Coco’s left ear lightly while pinning the poor pony down.

“Ah, get her off of me!” Open invitation to take down a problem like this nuisance for a pony I just met Coco? Gladly!

I ran forward and thrust my right hoof towards her head, which gently swayed out of the way. She immediately let go of Coco’s ear to grab my hoof in hers hooves and began nuzzling my leg while holding onto it with an impossible strength.

I tried to shake her off. It was not working, so I tried hitting her with my other hoof. Her curly thick fur softened my blows and I couldn’t do a single thing to get her to stop hugging my leg!

“Let her go!” Three voices shouted out in a loud growl as Maries charged this overly affectionate alpaca.

The alpaca did let me go, I unceremoniously fell over at the sudden loss of balance from having my hoof held. The alpaca then somehow detached a mass of her fur and Maries slammed into the wall made of the fluff. What followed is said fluff magically reattaching itself to the alpaca.

Maries’ body dropped to the floor and the two heads looked dazed, also about as confused as we all were to be ambushed by this crazy alpaca. Said fluffy menace was currently pecking the librarian Decimal on the cheek.

The fluffy monster then proceeded to bounce around to Marie and then grappled onto her head and kissed her deeply, much to Marie’s distaste as she tried to snap at the tongue that had just simply thrust its way into her mouth.

The alpaca managed to get her tongue out in time and yet she was smiling brightly as if she didn’t think Marie was a threat. She nuzzled the top of Marie’s head and then bounced back just out of Marie’s range.

Marie’s head shot forward and came within an inch of the alpaca’s face as her mouth snapped shut, her poisonous fangs didn’t reach their target.

The alpaca kissed the tip of Marie’s nose in a friendly manner, causing Marie to growl at her as if she were Mara herself.

That’s when the alpaca did something curious, she sniffed the air and then turned to me with a bright grin on her face. Why did I suddenly have her attention again? I tried to stand up, but she bowled me over and… back into a standing position?

She invaded my personally space sniffing the fur on my chest while wildly waggling her tail, she shoved her nose into my ear and then sniffed my mane and then moved on to my back.

What was she smelling me for? Then her nose started to go towards my rear and before she could do anything untoward, someone called out stopping her. I really didn’t like where the alpaca was going with her affection.

“Hey you, stop forcing your love on everyone in the name of the law!” A mare with a blue cap that had a badge on it and matching clothes rushed the seemingly spooked alpaca.

The wall of fluff bounded off down the aisle with the police mare hot on her hooved heels. They turned the corner and I thought that was it.

I turned my head to the right ever so slightly when I felt something tug my tail. I saw that the alpaca was still here and was sniffing my tail. How did she… when did she even… just how fast is she?!

The alpaca lifted up a hoof and then gently stroked my tail and when her hoof came away, it was holding a single strand of hair that was most decidedly not mine.

Looked cream colored like one of the hairs from Velvet’s floof, Velvet had been resting her head on my tail on the train when we all took a nap on our way to Manehattan. I didn’t mind at the time, because there was nothing to it. Only now there’s this weird alpaca plucking the single strand of hair out of my tail.

The alpaca took one long whiff of it, then she happily jumped high up in the air with a loud squeal thrusting her legs wide open in excitement.

Said jump made Maries miss her attempted tackle that knocked over the bookshelf, which promptly fell on top of her. That had to hurt, but Maries was a sturdy chimera.

Seconds later the alpaca was hopping away humming a merry tune and seemed overly excited about something.

“What just happened?” That Coco, is a very good question.

“Help me get this bookcase off of my girlfriends, then we might discuss it.” I grabbed the edge of the bookcase while Coco and Decimal came over to help me lift it off of my girlfriends.

With the help of Decimal and Coco, we managed to get the bookcase off of Maries. They were groaning in pain.

“Did someone get the number of that donkey cart that hit us?” That was almost lucid of Maria, Mara was better off. “Did we get her and why is the room upside down or is it spinning, does the world taste of strawberries to you?”

“Yes actually… I think that alpaca had strawberry scented lip gloss on.” Coco hugged herself while hiding her eyes behind her blunt bangs, her bobbed mane bounced slightly as she lowered her head and shivered. “I feel so violated.”

“Welcome to how we feel, also we’re sorry about the bookcase.” At Maries’ apology the librarian known as Decimal sighed.

“Don’t worry about it, though if you’ll help me clean it up?” We would be spending the next ten minutes or so cleaning up the mess, then the next few hours reading up on interesting topics.

Marie got to learn about the information she wanted. We also had a project to put on a play at a small stage that Coco knows about.

-Evening-

Maries and I were on our way back to the hotel when we came across Velvet and Arizona. Something was off with Velvet, she looked way too content standing next to Arizona.

“What happened to you two, did you lose a fight?” Arizona was the first to pick up on our still slightly sour moods.

“Yes, in fact we did, it was this crazy alpaca that jumped us from out of nowhere.” My words immediately snapped Velvet out of the happy daze she’d been in, she rapidly shook her head and started to look around wildly in a panic.

“Did this alpaca happen to be really bouncy and did she kiss, hug and or affectionately assault everyone in the vicinity?” Surprisingly, the usually strong willed reindeer started cowering behind Arizona.

“What’s got you so suddenly spooked prissy fluff butt?” For some reason Arizona looked upset that Velvet was cowering, probably because Velvet was able to keep up with her in a fight and didn’t like the idea of something managing to scare her. “You were so happy after eating all that ice cream and now you’re more frightened than a long tailed cat in a rocking chair store!”

“Um, yes, that’s generally what the purple eyed, blonde furred nightmare did. She even invaded my personal space and seemed happy to have caught your scent.” Okay, I could now witness what Velvet was like when she was going into a full on blind panic.

“Oh no, she’s after me again, it’s only a matter of time!” The reindeer just ran in random circles until Arizona held up her hoof while standing in place. Leading Velvet to eventually clothesline herself on the leg, she was up within a second. “We have to get back to the hotel now, I don’t want her to get me!”

“Oh come on Velvet, how hard can fighting an alpaca be?” The apathetic attitude Arizona had would be the correct one, if you hadn’t already seen said alpaca in action.

“She knocked Miss Maries on their back, by the way… does she even have a name?” Our friends blinked and turned to Coco. “Oh right, sorry for interrupting, my name is Coco Pommel. My home in Bronclyn is in this direction and I kind of didn’t want to be alone right now.”

“Her name is Paprika Paca the fluff-mancer.” Hearing a snort from the cow, Velvet turned to glare at her as she started walking quickly in the direction of the hotel. “Don’t take her lightly, she can snuggle, cuddle, kiss and hug anyone into the ground without seriously injuring them! She’s hugged a lava covered cherufe before. That didn’t even phase her and she didn’t lose much of her fluff doing it either, there is no such thing as personal space with her!”

“What’s a fluff-mancer?” I needed to know so I could even begin to guess how to deal with this Paprika the next time I ran into her.

“It basically means she can grow and control her hair near infinitely as long as she enough energy to burn doing so, she even has a lot of energy in spades. Fluff-mancers can easily suffocate or choke someone, but Paprika was always pretty good about not being too dangerous with her abilities. Don’t get me wrong, she’s extremely dangerous if you get caught in one of her literal bone crushing hugs.” We were almost running with the brisk pace Velvet was starting to set as she saw the hotel. “You think the Mane-iac from those Power Ponies comics is a somewhat capable? She’s got nothing on what Paprika can do with her fluff-mancer powers. Excuse me while I go to my hotel room and nail the door shut with boards!”

She bolted straight into the hotel ignoring everything in her path and looked to almost be flying by the time she disappeared through the doors leaving us behind, that was the speed of fear if I ever saw it.

“Well now we know she’s also been sneaking into Jade’s comic collection. Still, how dangerous can one alpaca really be?” Hopefully none of us would find out, but maybe Arizona might. “Velvet’s probably overestimating this Paprika.”

All I know is that I wouldn’t see hide nor hair of the alpaca in the coming days.

-Paprika-

Oh where, oh where is my cuddly reindeer~? Oh where can she ever be~? Her fluff is nice, her body feels cold like ice, but she'll always deserve a happy warm cuddle from me~!

Author's Note

Paprika will not be appearing again for a while, she just appeared to win a fight against Maries and Fizzle.

Moving on.

'Manehattan Menageries, Part Deux' set to be written and posted some time after the X day is over and when things finally stop exploding.

Darn you holiday warzones, stop spamming those 'holly hail fire' missiles already!

I can't get the smell of mistletoe out of my home now...

Chapter twenty eight, Manehattan Menageries Part Deux: Cheerful Abyssinian.

-Arizona-

“Come on Velvet, you can’t hide in the hotel room for the rest of your life.” This was kind of sad in a way, but I was going to eventually get her to come out of her room. “Besides if this Paprika was as strong as you say she is, then wouldn’t she just go through the wall next to the door?”

It took a few minutes, but eventually the nails began pulling out of the door when Velvet began pulling the wooden boards off of it.

With a crazy fluff butt friend like this, they just might miss what Jade was going to do with the pirate hat she was wielding as she left the hotel this morning.

-Cheerilee-

So I was going to learn something about an Abyssinian cultural dance, from what I could see Jade looked to be wearing something akin to a cheerleading uniform. A purple sleeveless shirt and skirt, but she still wore her shorts under the skirt.

She was performing her cultural project for me first, mostly because she had a museum robbery to plan and a comic convention she wanted to go to.

I sighed and wondered what would be the point of warning anyone about the museum robbery? Jade would still undoubtedly do everything anyway even if they did increase security

I would have to learn to deal with trouble makers eventually, but I don’t think Jade was someone I could actually deal with. As a teacher, I will just see her cultural project and just be hooves off about the whole thing.

Why didn’t Kuril try to reign in her daughter more? She did it to make Jade do this project, why not do the same thing when it comes to the less legal things Jade does? Was Kuril honestly letting her daughter make the life choice of becoming a classical fantasy rogue?

I would not say this out loud, but Ogres and Oubliettes is actually pretty educational as far as Jade’s inventiveness is concerned. Jade is actually living up to being a rogue and its quite horrifying to me how effective she is at doing so with her increasingly subpar math skills.

You may be asking yourself why I didn’t tell anyone of authority about this. Well the simple answer is this, I had no proof that Jade was actually going to do it even when I and everyone who lives at Airship Mauled knew she would.

It’s why Jade was so vexing to deal with, you don’t know how she’s going to do something until she’s already in the midst of doing it.

Sighing while shaking my head, I trotted up to the booth where Jade and her mother were set up. The mystery dumplings booth wasn’t in the best spot, but it was in the middle of the cultural festival at least.

I think that’s the point though, they wanted to be in a poor position as to not acquire too much attention and become too swarmed to keep up with demand for their snacks.

I honestly don’t know how the festival commission even let Kuril get magical food into the event, but they had signed off on it with the caveat that Kuril warns ponies about what they are getting into.

That’s why there was a sign with a warning on it placed next to a smiling Kuril who was leaning on the counter, ready and waiting to get this early morning started. She even tipped her half pirate, half witch hat to me in a friendly manner.

The sign read this: Warning, may contain beans, cream, fruit and random ‘completely temporary’ harmless magical effects. If you are allergic to any of these things, then that’s on you and we’re not responsible for what you do with this food upon purchase. You should know better and should take better care of yourself.

That was almost insulting somehow, but it certainly fits with how Abyssinians did things when it came to their mercantile nature.

“Well okay then. I’m almost afraid to ask this, but what is your cultural feature Jade?” I seriously doubt they would get many customers with that sign, but this was both Jade and Kuril working together.

The mother and daughter team seemed quite ready to do this thing.

“It will be the dance of my people, I’m going to advertise the delicious magical mystery dumplings that my mom is making here.” Jade’s tail was flicking about excitedly as she pulled out the pirate hat from her pack. “I tried one, turned my fur entirely bright purple for five minutes and tasted of blueberries.”

From what I know of their magical alchemy lexicon, didn’t that hat cause her to… oh that is evil! Jade’s going to lure customers in by forcing a heart song to happen! Well at least it’s quite fitting for her to pull something like this.

“I’m sorry, but your daughter is evil.” I stated and Kuril just smiled.

“True, but she wouldn’t be my kitten if she wasn’t going to do something silly like this.” Then Kuril frowned a bit, that caused the fur on my neck to stick out a bit in worry. “Usually she dislikes heart songs with a passion, but she’s apparently making an exception for this. Which makes me wonder why?”

Jade started whistling a tune loudly. Oh here we go, I can already hear the music forming around us as Jade shifted her hips back and forth in a bouncy manner and then she chucked the hat off into Kuril’s waiting paw.

It was as if Kuril was expecting Jade to do that. Quite a few ponies were curious as to why Jade even put the hat on if she was going to throw it away, but I knew the truth at least.

“Nyan nyan~. Nyan nyan~. Hello, nyan~!” Okay she was doing a cute little two motion pawing movements to the left in the air, then two to the right, then one to the left and then quickly to the right where she smiled cutely. She took a step forward with her left leg lifting her right arm up. “Gorgeous, delicious, our culture is yeah-ah~!”

Taking a step forward with her other and doing a twirl before smiling brightly as she sung out the last word while taking a stance with both her arms raised in the air, a lot of ponies took notice of the music shifting in the air and started to flock towards the booth.

Why were we always so attracted to heart songs? Jade hopped back and started the first part of her dance again, but she was singing something different this time.

“Hello, welcome, come for a magical dumpling or two~?” Jade was doing the same dance all over again, but the crowd was eating up how cute she was acting. I however wasn’t taken in even if the dance looked catchy and several ponies started doing it along with her. “You absolutely have no idea what even one of these will do~!”

“Mystery, dumplings, they all do amazing things~.” Now Kurilian was singing too, they were tag teaming their audience effectively. It was amazing to watch the two dance in sync with one another, makes me wish I was that close with my family. “Color change, adding tails and or maybe even fake wings~!”

“Try one, buy one, see what you get~!’” Continued Jade who was continuing to draw more ponies into this and why was I joining the dance? I can see why Jade dislikes the somewhat involuntary nature of heart songs. “For I have a bet that you’ve never tried anything quite like this yet~!”

“Crazy, tasty, these I dumplings I do make~.” Kuril sang as they danced along, these two have drawn quite a crowd. “As the witch of good taste every bite is a worthy one to take~!”

“Nyan nyan~. Nyan nyan~. Hello, nyan~.” The crowd sang following Jade as she continued the same repetitive dance, even I was doing it and that meant it was catchy enough. “Gorgeous, delicious, our culture is yeah-ah~!”

With that the song and dance was done with Jade putting her limbs behind her back, she and her mom were both smiling in the same cat like manner.

“Ah, the dance of our people. The song is always different, but it’s always a classic.” A small Abyssinian adult with lavender and beige fur came forward with a large sack on his back. “The name’s Neko. I’d like to try one, how much?”

“Wait, Neko as in the infamous ‘Traveling Neko’?” It seemed as if Jade knew of him. “The merchant guy who goes to really dangerous places to sell useful things at double the price they are usually worth because of supply and demand?”

“Mew got it in one, you have quite a cute kitten there ma’am!” Neko grinned brightly as he sat his bag down and pulled out an abacus to start flicking the beads about. “Also I only double the price for adventurers that hadn’t thought to buy some of the things I carry ahead of time. Can’t do that in a city like here, but out in the field where there’s a chance of me being killed? I call it ‘hazard pay’ in my line of work.”

“Thank you, Jade was admittedly a very precocious kitten when she was younger. Also that’s the reason you’re infamous among Abyssinian kind you know, some consider you greedier than a griffon even though you always sell products as the situation demands.” Well that was interesting to hear Kuril. “Usually in dire situations, but the product you sell is always good and worth the cost based in emergency needs.”

“Not sure I would want to buy anything from this Abyssinian, but a culturally famous merchant is always nice to hear about. He sounds like quite the character.” I commented dryly.

“Look at this way teach. Neko was always stated to be friendly, not stupid and has a good head for money.” Turning to her mother Jade continued. “Neko asked for the price of our dumplings, why don’t you rattle it off for the whole crowd to hear mom? Also throw in the contest as an incentive.”

“Contest? Sounds like you got something of a cat’s paw for customer drawing attention.” Neko received a nod from both Jade and Kuril. “So what’s the offer?”

“As we stated earlier, these dumplings are all a mystery! The taste is always good, but what happens after you eat them is likely to be both strange and magical. So with that in mind, four bits to a dumpling, buy four for twelve.” Clearing her throat and preparing to announce something loudly, Kuril seemed to have some very important say about her pricing. “The first being to turn into a frog upon eating one of these dumplings will win one hundred and fifty bits, I promise it’ll only be a temporary if it indeed happens!”

“A frog? Well that explains the witch thing you got going on.” Yes Neko and it was the one thing Ms. La Perm has never managed to achieve, though she definitely qualifies as a witch.

“That’s because I am a witch, one that has never turned anyone into a frog.” Kuril sat back and waited, she stared Neko down. “Newts, mice, blue jays, moles, squirrels and all that, but never have I done a single frog! So buy three get one free is in the hopes that someone eventually becomes a frog.”

“Heh, I’m a bit of a gambler…” Neko slapped four bits on the table. “Give me one.”

A lot of the ponies watching the interaction started talking amongst themselves with baited breath to see what would happen when the cat ate his dumpling. Kuril placed a dumpling on a napkin before him and Neko picked it up to take a bite.

“Hmm… warm cheese cake cream filled? It’s delicious!” Neko then looked down and around at the crowd, he’d turn into a giraffe. He shrugged and tossed what was left of his dumpling up to his mouth to finished eating it. “How long does this last? I can’t be known as Neko the infamous giraffe, doesn’t sell as well as being a really short Abyssinian.”

“None of the dumplings will last more than five minutes at most, the shortest time is about ten seconds.” Kuril turned to the crowd. “I’ve also made them in a specific way to prevent wings from working should someone acquire magically acquire them. I don’t want any accidents after all. Same thing with horns and or being randomly transforming into an alicorn. No power behind it, but a short lived change in looks. Anyone else want to try?”

A lot of ponies seemed uneasy, but they weren’t leaving they were all curious and looked eager to try one. I turned to Kuril and opened my mouth, I actually wanted to try

“I’ll take one.” That must be Coco, I think she was a local my students befriended the other day. She place four bits on the counter and took the dumpling. She bit into it and hummed loudly, the magical effect of this particular dumpling seemed to have inverted her fur, mane and tail colors. “What is this?”

“Ah, you got one of the sweet bean paste, ones. Don’t mind the color change, miniscule changes usually last longer.” As Kuril explained that, Neko off to the side reverted to being his normal self. Kuril turned to me. “Do you want to try one Ms. Cheerilee?”

“Of course.” I took a step forward and placed a four bits down, I found a dumpling in front me. I picked it up and bit into it, the sweet taste of peaches and yogurt entered my mouth and with a blink the entire world seemed slightly smaller. “It seems, I have turned into a false alicorn. This look just doesn’t quite suit me Ms. La Perm, though the taste was quite phenomenal. I ended up with peaches and cream.”

“Why thank you.” Kuril grinned as ponies started lining up. “If I do get a frog today, it’ll be one hundred and fifty bits well spent.”

“Say, can we talk you into doing a marketing deal with us?” A young unicorn stallion stated as a he came forward. “I’m Flim by the way.”

“I’m Flam and what my brother means is that we’ll be taking the four for three deal!” The other young unicorn stallion, Flam, stated while twelve bits were placed down. Kuril gave him his four dumplings and leaned closer to Jade who was whispering something into her ear.

“No, I don’t think we will be doing any extraneous business with either of you.” Kuril seemed to be watching the two carefully. “My daughter is a good judge of character and besides, this isn’t actually my main business anyway. I already run a restaurant and I’m well-staffed with helpers already. Thanks for the offer though.”

What followed was the two yellow coated and red haired brothers complimenting Kuril’s food, they also turned into a turtle dove, a hippogriff, a deer and a fox with multiple tails which seemed oddly appropriate for the stallion somehow.

“Jade what was the fox creature, do those actually? I know what all the other transformations all were.” I knew there was no one better suited to answer that than Jaded La Perm.

“Kitsune, magical trickster foxes that grow more tails the older and more powerful they get.” Jade was always a fountain of bestial knowledge. “The usual maximum being nine.”

Author's Note

Cultural festival in full swing in Manehattan, with a menagerie of random characters popping up all over the place. Does anyone have any questions?

Turkey, duck chickens destroyed during X-mas celebrations: six.

Also for those who don't know the reference, have a character that can do a good interpretation of what Jade would look like doing the same thing.

Chapter twenty eight, Manehattan Menageries Part Deux: Cheerful reindeer.

-???-

“The end of immortality exists, but finding it is becoming quite bothersome concerning the mentions of it all over the world.” The shadowy figure had finally found out what became of Obelus, they were currently taking methods to free the assassin from S.M.I.L.E. incarceration. That was a bit of a slog, but Obelus would soon be free and ready to take out the target. “Locating it could take years, but I will see my goals come to pass and the sun priest will not interfere!”

Obelus was the only assassin left that would keep trying, mostly out of spite, as every other assassin said the target was too hot or dangerous to make an attempt on. From recent sightings, the target was in Manehattan and had successfully taken on a pack of wyverns and ruined an egg smuggling operation.

She was getting too strong, the sun priest needs to die before their plans for the world could come to fruition!

-Cheerilee-

The mystery dumpling booth was quite an interesting hit with the locals as much as it was with the visitors who were here for the festival, Jade would be busy helping her mom sell dumplings all day. Though after an hour of trying dumplings not a single pony has turned into a frog yet.

I’m quite sure that as a witch, Kuril will keep trying to get a frog transformation no matter how long it took to even just get the one.

It was time to go see Velvet’s project, I’m pretty sure that Arizona managed to get Velvet out of her hotel room. I just let the reindeer into my class as soon as she arrived and I haven’t regretted it, she’s an intelligent and wonderful young lady.

I kind of shared a kindred spirit with Velvet, mostly since she is as reticent about her family as I was about my sister. It was clear she had some trouble at home and the fact that she’d rather live in Airship Mauled shows how much she doesn’t want to go back, despite the insanity of a place where airships crash fairly often without anyone getting seriously injured.

I did the math, someone should have suffered some sort of serious permanent injury by now and it has yet to happen in all the airship crashes I’ve witnessed. Whether it be a person on the airship or otherwise, nobody ever gets seriously injured when a crash happens at Airship Mauled.

Jacky in particular seems to be quite skilled at getting the airships that aren’t turned into housing back into the air. She at least had job security if she stuck to being a repair parrot.

I continued walking along the streets packed with Ponies, Griffons, Hippogriffs, Minotaur, Abyssinians, Zebra and many other species all here to enjoy the cultural festival.

It was a little unnerving how packed this city could get. It was also kind of cozy because I was less likely to see my sister with how packed things are around here, I could kind of see why she lives here.

I eventually came upon the place where Velvet would work her ice shaper magic, the ice skating rink in front at the Rock-a-filly Center.

Upon arrival I could already see Arizona looking at Velvet flatly, the reindeer looked to be a shivering mess of nerves and it most certainly wasn’t the cold rink that was making her shiver.

According to Dr. Bones her natural body temperature was quite low, but then again her type of magic made her fairly immune to the problems of lacking a higher body temperature. For one, Velvet was supposedly immune to hypothermia.

I had to find out what was wrong with my student. If it was performance anxiety I would understand, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I knew Velvet, she liked to dance and she was quite proud of her appearance and culture. So it definitely wasn’t performance anxiety causing her issues.

“Hello you two.” I addressed them, Arizona just looked to me flatly and Velvet just squealed and curled up into a tight ball. “What’s wrong with Velvet?”

“She’s just freaking out about an alpaca being in the city that’s possibly out to get her. Apparently the alpaca assaulted Fizzle and Maries with affection the other day and doesn’t know the meaning of personal space… kind of like Pinkie Pie really.” Why did Arizona have to mention Ms. Pie? I shivered at having to deal with that crazy pony when I started living in Ponyville, I already had my home picked out and everything. “Except Pinkie will back off when asked to and apparently that alpaca see’s any sign of movement as a reason to hug and or kiss something with as much enthusiasm as possible.”

Okay, I could hardly actually imagine something worse than Pinkie Pie. This was apparently traumatizing to Velvet, given the way she’s rocking back and forth with her eyes darting everywhere in fear.

Moving over to Velvet I kneeled down and started to gently rub her head, this didn’t seem to sooth her one bit as she continued to act like a frightened foal.

“I don’t see any alpaca’s around here, I haven’t heard of an alpaca being nearby either.” Why did I just make Arizona groan? She reached into her worn saddle bags and then held something out to me. It was a newspaper with a brightly grinning purple eyed alpaca on it. “Serial kisser on the loose, will also snuggle, cuddle and or give painful hugs. Be wary of this fugitive for she is highly elusive and capable of defending herself in a pacifistic manner, she is not overly dangerous. Wanted for messing up multiple personal relationships with random affectionate gestures.”

“Yeah, that’s why Velvet is so spooked, she knows this alpaca personally and apparently the alpaca came all the way to this city possibly following after Velvet. We learned this from what Fizzle told us about her being excited at hearing that Velvet was around.” Here Arizona started to poke Velvet roughly, yet the deer continued to stay curled up and only whined a bit at the prodding. “I’m having trouble snapping her out of it.”

“So have you come up with a cultural project Arizona?” Changing targets to ask about cultural projects, I decided to see if Arizona has come up with anything.

“Well… not exactly. I did find out a lot of interesting thing about cows and networking is something cows do. So socializing would be a considered a cultural standpoint for me right?” While that did seem correct Arizona, I was looking for something more substantial. “I’ve also learned that I can produce one hundred and twenty five pounds of saliva a day, spit like a camel, smell things up to six miles away and that cows can’t vomit too well. Something is seriously wrong when a cow does vomit and need immediate medical attention.”

“Sounds like you’ve met a few cows.” I stated curiously. Arizona was always one of my more violent students, well she only mostly got violent with Velvet. It was strange that they were such good friends and their relationship is built upon a rivalry and beating each other up, yet they really liked one another. “And learned quite a few things about yourself in the process. Are you having fun?”

“Yeah, Daisy Jo is this cow I met from Ponyville and the other girls she’s friends with are all pretty great.” It seemed like Arizona was doing well, as for Velvet… not so much. “So… have any ideas on how to get Velvet out of her funk long enough to perform her cultural project?”

“I suppose someone would have to do something so shocking it would snap her completely out of it.” There was a very odd look on Arizona’s face as she looked down at Velvet’s curled up form.

“I think I have an idea of what to do, she might be upset with me afterwards though.” Arizona pulled Velvet’s head up and out of her curled up form and then kissed her.

It seems to me that there was more to their adversarial relationship and violent actions towards one another than I previously thought. That deep kiss kind of put things in a new light for me.

Velvet looked rather shocked for a moment and then she slapped Arizona’s face away from hers. After a second or so of silently staring at one another, Velvet was the one that started kissing Arizona. It wasn’t long before Velvet slapped Arizona again. Okay, that looked like it was kind of sending mixed messages to me.

I opened my mouth to say something only for Arizona to beat me to it.

“Are you with us in the here and now fluff butt?” There was another long pause between the two staring at one another, Velvet’s face turned a bit red.

“I uh… er… ugh, you are just so… and then you just… argh!” After her grunt of frustration and face turning straight red, Velvet sighed and put her hooves to her face to slowly rub out the stress. She looked up at Arizona. “I think it’s about time I came clean. I’m gay, my parents definitely don’t approve and I don’t want to go back home…. like ever.”

“So what, I’m bisexual, what’s the big deal?” We both stared at Arizona, did she not get the idea that Velvets parents might have done something untoward to her in their distaste? “What? I still find bulls, stallions and the like attractive.”

“That’s not the issue Arizona. The issue is that Velvet still loves her parents despite the fact that they don’t like that part of her. As any earth pony would put it, ‘the way her barn door swings’, is something they don’t approve of and actively make that fact known.” I moved over to Velvet and hooked a hoof around the poor deer and brought her into a hug. “Did they abuse you?”

“No… but I kind of wish they did, it would be better than being ignored. Nothing I ever did was good enough for my so called noble parents and I’m quite sure they know despite my never telling them. I’m the top fighter in my village, an incredibly sophisticated dancer, I’m the best with my ice magic and I’m second to no other ice shaper reindeer where I come from. Only… none of that really changed their outlook about me very much. I did so much to be proud of…” The way Velvet wilted and leaned against me, this meant she needed support. I cared about my student’s mental and physical health, thus I would support her as a friend. She was even crying a bit as she leaned against me. “Paprika Paca was how I discovered why I wasn’t interest in bucks... at first I didn’t think much of why the alpaca kept bothering me and then she became something of a nightmare for me. It’s why I’m so scared of her, she’s just so free with her affection it’s ridiculous! I also feel like she made my parents stop loving me.”

I patted Velvet on the back as she sobbed against me. Instead of tears, little crystals of ice fell from her eyes. Ice shaping reindeer were really odd, especially the thing about their inability to fly.

“I couldn’t return any of the attention Paprika keeps giving me whenever she finds me, I never actually deserve whatever she gives me in the first place…” Holding Velvet and letting her get it all out was the right thing to do. I really didn’t know how to handle this any other way. “All I had was my reputation and my parents were never happy with anything, it’s kind of why I want you to meet them just to see what you’d do Arizona!”

“Yikes… well you’re certainly disturbed on a number of levels fluff butt and it’s about time your heart finally thawed out a bit. To think I thought my mother being missing in action was bad, you know where both your parents are and it sounds like they don’t think highly of what you’re capable of. Which is a lot!” Snorting angrily Arizona pulled the upset Velvet away from me and looked her in the eyes. “Well you know what? If they can’t see how strong you are or appreciate you, then screw them! I personally think you’re incredible in how you can fight with me and keep coming back for more pummeling. You’re the toughest, prettiest, strongest and most stubborn reindeer I’ve ever met! Also the only one I’ve met, but I bet you’re probably more impressive than any other reindeer by far. If you ever need something to hit… then come at me and we’ll sort our emotions out after we’re done beating each other down.”

“I think you just may regret making that offer you boorish bovine.” A chuckle came out of Velvet’s lips as she nuzzled against Arizona and hugged her. The cow looked a little out of place until she wrapped her hooves around Velvet and started to hug her back with a smile and while closing her eyes.

“Regret some of the greatest fights I’ll ever have? Not on your life, I’ll throw down with you anytime and anywhere Velvet!” They were quite affectionate with one another, I even think things were calming down a bit. “I don’t think you should worry about what others think of you and should just do your best whatever you do. Speaking of, don’t you have a cultural project to perform here? I know you want to show me up, because my cultural project isn’t going to be some great big thing yours is.”

“Yeah… I kind of do want to show you up.” Velvet said weakly as she pulled away and stood up, she looked to the ice skating rink and the lack of ponies skating in it.

They were all waiting on her performance.

“If you do, then why aren’t you getting out there and showing me up right now, do you have cold hooves? You of all people?” The way Arizona egged on Velvet made the reindeers eyes sharpen and she smirked slightly. “Some reindeer you are, crying and whining when you can be out there and showing everyone exactly who you are.”

“You bullheaded buffoon… you're right.” Velvet immediately cantered out on to the ice and then struck a pose, she then started to skate in a slow circle while we watched.

She leapt and with a twirl, a cold wind started up filling up the center of the ice skating rink. Velvet soon lost herself in her cultural act and many a being was watching her as she twirled and danced on the ice.

As she elegantly danced, something strange started slowly forming in the center of the rink. Each gentle gesture building a statue, a little ice appeared here or there as if she were painting it into existence with an invisible brush.

Every swing of her hooves articulate and precise, eventually she performed a very fast twirl on her hind legs and eventually stopped. She sent a smile towards Arizona and thrust her front hooves skyward.

An explosion of ice erupted behind her and a fog started to form throughout the rink, when it cleared up there was a statue that matched the earth pony mare statue that stood as a symbol to all who saw it coming into Manehattan.

Velvet serenely bowed to the loudly applauding audience.

Author's Note

Arizona gets slapped twice and doesn't get angry? Wow, Velvet's relationship is weird and she creates the Equestrian equivalent of the statue of liberty.

Who's writing this stuff? Oh... right...

Chapter twenty eight, Manehattan Menageries Part Deux: Cheerful parrot.

-Fluttershy-

Foal sitting Sugar and Snickers for Jade and Kuril wasn’t too hard. Sugar was such a little sweetie and Snickers was also just as sweet and snuggly, though the turtle was more prone to mischief given who her familiar bond was to.

I wonder how Jade’s museum heist will go? I know I shouldn’t be cheering for her, mostly because what she’s doing is a bad thing, but there’s something compelling about how hard Jade tries to be a charming rogue. She’s not doing it to be mean… I think? I think she’d doing it for the reason Rainbow Dash wants to be a Wonder Bolt, it’s both exciting and somewhat dangerous.

I sigh and put some more food before Sugar and watched as she started eating through it at an incredible speed, she was a really hungry magical bunny. I really didn’t want to be paid for this, but Kuril insisted so that I can eventually get my home set up.

I started thinking of my dream sanctuary, I was going to make it happen someday and I really shouldn’t deny their kindness when offered. They were my friends, they wanted to pay me and I wasn’t involved in this theft. Mostly because this theft wasn’t about outing a very bad pony by catching him red hoofed.

Celestia said it was okay for them to keep that gold they were allowed to have to help their thriving town and I doubt anyone would think Celestia was a bad pony. The theft Jade is doing now doesn’t seem like it has any more purpose than to get away with it and because it might be fun for her.

I wasn’t going to think too hard about what my friends were doing right this moment, I would just enjoy the company of all the animals in the area and not try to make it known that I knew about the impending robbery. If called on it I will testify that Jade planned something, but that’s not exactly concrete evidence.

Anyone can plan something, it’s actually doing the plan that it becomes a point where it is a bad thing. I can think of kissing Gilda’s beak, that doesn’t mean I’ll ever have the nerve to do it.

-Cheerilee-

Arizona was going to be busy talking to Velvet about their current feelings for one another, I was going to leave them to their privacy as it was none of my business.

Velvet’s cultural project was incredible and it would last for quite a while too. Now was there anyone else I needed to look over today? Oh… there was Jacky's cultural project, Dr. Bones was following her around to make sure Jacky’s luck didn’t get the best of her.

I believe she said she would be down by the wharf. Fizzle and Maries needed time to work out their cultural project, so they would do it the day after tomorrow. The Vibrant Vikings had their combat exhibition settled on tomorrow, I just hope they don’t hurt each other too much.

It was three hours past noon that I arrived at the wharf and saw Jacky with an entire bushel of bananas next to her, she seemed to be discussing something while waving a banana in Dr. Bones’ direction.

“So I learned that bananas are nutritious to anything that can and will eat them. Knowing my luck, I couldn’t have walked away from there without slipping on one personally unless I cover the surroundings around there in banana peels. The more there is, the less likely I’ll slip on one.” It sounded like Jacky had a loose leash on her luck today. As is always the case when Jacky was involved, something would soon happen around her as she started eating the banana. “Pirates spent most of the day sending my peels off the docks by slip sliding around. Then Captain, my cat sister, comes waltzing along on the dock after riding in on the backs of turtles and then slips on a banana peel I just threw. She then proceeds to lands right side up and didn’t drop her buddy Snickers, the rest is history from there. Nobody has ever been that lucky around me up until that point.”

“Ach, ye’ be a black cats best friend on a day full of walking under ladders and smashing mirrors to tempt fate with while tipping over every salt shaker within a mile radius of you. Well at least before you met Jaded, she may be the luckiest thing to ever happen to ye’ and it was by chance that you even met the wyvern teasing blithering dolt.” Normally Zen would have me saying something in defense of my students, I made an exception because it was Jade she was talking about. Jade did get pretty badly injured by actively teasing a wyvern. “So what are you going to do for a cultural project Ms. Chickadee? You’re the safest when you’re sitting still, but that doesn’t mean the world isn’t actively trying to take you out to pasture.”

“My luck isn’t trying to kill me, but it is definitely trying to make my life miserable.” In effort to show what she meant, Jacky quickly ducked and a flaming barrel shot over her head. As soon as the barrel hit the water it exploded almost making Jacky fall into the water when it destroyed a portions of the dock. “Take that for instance, the barrel wouldn’t have exploded if it had actually hit me physically. Instead it would have set me on fire, this would require me to either jump in the water getting all my feathers and clothes wet or I would roll around until the flames are smothered. The first thing would lead to a combo of something being the in the water immediately gunning for me, the second would combo into someone of a heavyset disposition accidentally stepping on me because they couldn’t see me for some reason. Since it did miss the barrel exploded harmlessly in the water and still tried to carry out combo one.”

“Ye’ have it down to a science huh?” The diamond dog didn’t seem to believe that Jacky could predict her horrible luck.

“This flaming barrel thing has happened to me more than once, I wonder what caused it to be lit it on fire this time? It could be anything as simple as matches, to as bizarrely inexplicable as atmospheric friction from moving too fast through the air and only just slowing down just before it reached me.” There were a few reasons Jacky would not see my approach, because I was refusing to approach any closer than I already was. I was a true believer of Jacky’s cursed luck. “My next action will then be to step to the left.”

A swordfish shot out of the water from the waters where the destroyed portion of the docks happened to be. If Jacky hadn’t moved, its nose would have speared her through the leg.

What was chasing the swordfish was not something Jacky could avoid, as it was a kraken that had knocked her down while grabbing her with its tentacles and screeching scarily. It had landed on top of her and was even starting to painfully choke her.

I didn’t know what to do and I was starting to panic. Even Bones looked about ready to begin slapping the kraken off of her, well at least until Jacky said something in a friendly tone.

“Oh… hello there Escargot… fancy seeing you here.” It was like a switch was flipped as soon as Jacky said a name while she was being choked by one of the monsters tentacles. The kraken seemed to look more closely at Jacky and then released her. It waved it’s tentacles in an indecipherable pattern. “Yeah, Jade’s around and she’s doing something else today. So what brings you out this way? A little far from home aren’t you?”

More incomprehensible gesturing.

“That explains a lot, he felt something like a familiar bond tugging him this way and an annoying swordfish stuck you with its nose. Oh right, this is an old friend of ours Dr. Bones, his name is Escargot and he’s a pretty good masseuse. Escargot, Dr. Bones.” The disbelief at Jacky introducing the kraken to the diamond dog had me dropping my jaw. The kraken held out a tentacle and seemed to bow in a gentle stallion manner, it shook Dr. Bones paw and didn’t overstay its welcome. “I Did not expect to be landed on by a kraken today, but it’s a good thing I know this one. This could have gone much worse.”

“I am afraid to ask how. So you be some big friendly tentacle beasty eh?” Dr. Bones received a majestic bow from the kraken. After a moment of staring at one another, Bones continued while smiling. “Quite the gentle one ye’ are, keep the head of yours and you’ll be my friend as well. Speaking of, how quickly do you think that barmy cat can get together a transportation method and an aquarium built at Airship Mauled?”

“That wouldn’t be too hard, just don’t let me deal with the glass.” This is about the time Jacky notices me and she waves me over, I sighed and approached the beaked jinx. “Hey teach, here to hear a pirate shanty or two? I’m going to be singing about how I’m a pirate!”

“That sounds perfectly fine, just as long as you don’t do anything too bad.” A few of the beings at the dock came over to watch us when they heard Jacky’s declaration.

“I do what I want, cause I am free~. I am a pirate~!” Jacky started off singing, then the just beginning song with a drum tune to it was interrupted by a female griffon.

“Oh ho, I really don’t quite see, that there is actually a pirate before me~.” The female griffon sang with a more guitar like tune to Jacky’s plodding drums. She had green highlighted feathers, fiery red fur and was wearing a blue bandana with pony skull and crossed bones. “Can you honestly say that you really can be, a real live pirate~?”

“I am a pirate~.” Jacky narrowed her eyes at the griffon as her tune took over and she moved closer to the griffon. “I’ve got quite a knack, for piloting all kinds of ships you hack~. No matter the docks, I can put into port and adventure the day away~. Air, sea or land, I explore~! For treasures, gold, diamonds and more~. There’s no stopping me from surviving in every way, for I have a Captain deep in my heart buried away~!”

“Oh ha, that’s something I’d like to see… especially from a fake like ye’~.” Please don’t let this come to blows, because now Jacky looked angry and I wondered how she’d handle this. The griffon poked Jacky in the chest. “You’re, not, a pirate~!”

“Says the skank bird~!” Jacky sang that clearly enunciated, but it was almost a curse. She agreed to keep this civilized, but could she actually do that? The griffon look quite insulted. “Oh now, did that sting~? You don’t know even about the trouble that you’ll bring~. Just try to come at me as we do try to sing~. For I am a pirate~!”

“Oh, do you think you can take me you blow hard~?” The griffon followed along with the two tunes battling each other, she pulled a sword on Jacky who seemed entirely unconcerned about it. Please don’t let this end brutally, I don’t think my heart could take it.

“I already did and here’s your bit pouch you dumb bard~.” Jacky tossed the surprised griffons bit pouch back to her. There were a lot of cheers suddenly directed at Jacky, she must be learning how to do sleight of claw from Jade. I didn’t even see her steal the bit pouch off of the griffon. “Come back when you have more than just talk and your sass. For I am a pirate~!”

The song ended when Jacky pulled out the pirate sword Fizzle practiced magic with, it glowed ominously and sparked with energy. Something tells me Jacky’s smile had to do with what was currently wrong with the sword.

“Insult battle, let’s see if you got what it takes to take me down!” Jacky took a stance held the sword out defensively.

“Gladly, I bet ye’ fight like a farmer!” The griffon swung forward and Jacky met the sword, deflected it into the docks and the griffon, who had been convulsing due to a sudden large amount of lighting surging through her body, was kicked in the chest knocking her on her back.

“Better the farmer that can take care of themselves in a fight with years of practice, then a bilge swallowing, deck swabbing, lily livered, no name pirate who thinks she can take on a legendarily luck challenged pirate that is called ‘Blackcap’! My sword be slightly cursed with the power of a unicorn that got a bit stuck up in the blade. Said unicorn still lives to this day and she’s one of my sisters.” She held the sword to griffon’s throat, the griffon shivered and stared wide eyed at Jacky’s boasting. “So… do you yield? My Captain is way worse than me at using a sword like this, so imagine what that says about me that I’d follow her to the ends of the world. My crazy cat sister is such in all but our very blood, may my loyalty never be bought by any other than my great Captain!”

“You… you are pirate.” The sword pulled away from the griffon’s throat and she rubbed it while staring at Jacky.

“You darn well better remember that if we ever meet again, I’m likely to run you through in that event should you think of crossing me!” Jacky stepped back, sheathed her sword and turned around to take a banana from the bunch and peeled it. She carelessly threw the peel over her shoulder with a smirk and started to lazily eat banana. “Remember this day everyone, for I am Jacky ‘Blackcap’ Chickadee. I’m unlucky in life, but I’m never lacking for an adventure to go on no matter where I am!”

“If you are really so unlucky then di-aaaiiiiiii!” The griffon leapt forward preparing to thrust the sword into Jacky’s back. The griffon hit the banana peel, the sword flew out of her talons and she flipped over Jacky landing on her back in front of her.

Jacky simply caught the sword in her left hand, while munching on the banana with the other.

“Saw that coming. I may be unlucky, but that doesn’t mean everyone around me isn’t just as unlucky when I’m around.” Jacky commented idly as she finished her banana and stabbed the sword into the dock next to her, this unfortunately caused the wood to break beneath her and the griffon.

Both Jacky and the assailing griffon fell into the sea, with their skulls colliding painfully with one another knocking them out cold.

“You be a helpful beasty yeah?” Dr. Bones asked of Escargot the kraken, the tentacle monster nodded. “Then get them out of the sop and help me get them sandy!”

Following the Doctor Zen Bones orders, the Kraken dove into the water and went to rescue the two unconscious birds.

I sighed and just held my head with my hooves, that was all definitely befitting of pirate culture and Jacky’s thrice cursed luck.

Author's Note

Jacky's culture is adventurous to say the least.

Jacky's theme would probably be this.

Excuse me while I go catch some Z's.

Chapter twenty eight, Manehattan Menageries Part Deux: Cheerful cow.

-Arizona-

It was another day in Manehattan, the Vibrant Vikings were putting on a day long sparring exhibition to show off the strength of their culture and how much stamina they had.

I got in a round with Fortitude ‘the fantastically foul smelling’ and things were generally okay, I didn’t win because Fortitude ignores the rules of reality so well that I can hardly even hurt him!

Fortitude didn’t need stamina, he just needed to stand still and let his opponent tire themselves out on him. It was a complete exercise in frustration, it was like attacking a brick wall that just won’t go down. I could take a sledge to him while putting everything I had behind it and he’d still be standing there.

Things were currently in a weird area between me and Velvet. What were we to each other? Did we like each other enough to get together? I know we’re friends at least, since we could keep sniping at each other and Velvet is always ready to put up a vicious fight. Never knew someone who put a lot of time into her looks can be as rough and tumble as Velvet gets, mess up her floof and you’ll have a bad time.

I moved over to sit down next to Jade as she watched Generic and an earth pony wrestle with one another.

“I was wondering if there was something I can talk to you about.” I was a little surprised Jade didn’t spend much time with Fizzle or Maries this morning, though they were busy preparing for their play.

You’d think Jade would get as much time with them as she could, given how affectionate she is with both of them in general.

“Look if it’s about me giving Maries and Fizzle space this morning, then I would just like to say I’m going to try and relax all day today.” Where was Jade going with this? This was not what I wanted to talk about, but I better let her get it off her chest before I say anything. “I have a date with both of them at the exact same time. My first one with both of them really, instead of all the one on one stuff we’ve been doing with one another. That’s going to be pretty stressful for me, on top of wanting to scout out the museum while we take it all in.”

“Yeah, that open secret you’re going to rob the place does actually have some of us concerned.” Not that I, or anyone else for that matter, were going to stop Jade from doing it. “That’s not what I wanted to ask about though.”

“Oh… still, I just know that dating both Maries and Fizzle at the same time is going to be rough for me, because giving all four of them the same amount of attention is something I’m having problems planning for.” Says the cat that planned a convoluted getaway on a unicycle. “So what did you want to ask?”

Said unicycle escape, had her somehow make connections with a squirrel based mafia and setting up quite a number of things ahead of time without anyone else finding out how far she could plan ahead.

What next a pogo stick based escape? While ridiculous, I wouldn’t put it past Jade to do just that. Or… or better yet a tiny tricycle, which would be even sillier! I grinned at the idea of Jade trying to ride a tiny tricycle out of Canterlot.

“So I recently kissed Velvet and then she kissed me back.” Sometimes I felt like there were things we didn’t know about Jade, but I couldn’t put a hoof on what. “She slapped me both times though, but I’ve learned from her that it’s not just me who has been feeling the tension between us whenever we do things together. She also came out as being gay with issues and well… I didn’t see what the issue was with that until she told me about her parents, apparently noble blood is as disastrously bad as it ever is. Only something good came of it in Velvet at least.”

“Yeah, that practically sounds like your relationship snapped like a rubber band does when it gets stretched too far.” We knew a lot about Jade, but she seemed to be a little too intelligent sometimes and more so than for her own good. She didn’t seem to care about anything being a detriment to her if she could enrich the lives of those she loves, I could use some advice based on that kind of mentality to compare it to my own. “Why are you coming to me about this Zone? I’m not exactly an expert in relationships, even if I am dating a lovely proud chimera trio and a strikingly beautiful pony.”

“It kind of feels odd to ask you this, but how would you handle a prissy reindeer without offending her any further than you do on a general basis by just existing?” I received such a flat glance, Jade slowly put her left paw to her face and groaned.

“You just gave me a headache just by asking a question about how to get your relationship with Velvet off the ground, that’s really quite an amazing accomplishment coming from you.” Glaring at Jade, I let loose an angry mooing noise. She held up her hands defensively, knowing she couldn’t take me in a straight fight. “Hey, I know your actually quite bright and all, but this is starting to turn out like how Jacky is dancing around the issue of Generic. They should just go on a date already and see if they could be even the slightest bit compatible. Generic seems curious, but he’s waiting on Jacky to actually make a move. Vikings tend to value ‘almost blind’ brain dead courage even in the face of death, he knows Jacky is quite courageous and finds her inability to ask him on a date quite odd.”

I knew she’d fight dirty like crazy if it came to blows between us, she’d use every trick she currently had on her to slow me down and eventually wear me out. She could do it, but I wouldn’t make it easy for her if she got me seriously mad.

“That’ll be difficult for Jacky, because it’s hard to read Generic sometimes when you talk to him.” I considered what I was saying, Generic was abnormal among griffon kind for being friendly and not obsessed about gold. Also his visible emotional range was about as flat as Maud Pie’s and he never yells. I was somewhat disturbed by his very existence, possibly like Jade almost certainly was. “He seems so emotionally bland, but he is pretty darn strong given he wrestles with a dragon and yak on a regular basis.”

We turned to witness Gene grappling and pile driving the pony painfully into the ground without using his wings, mostly because they were currently tied to his back in the spirit of fairness for this current fight.

“Woohoo, yeah, that’s how you do it!” It was Cherry again, I wonder what she would say if she knew a goddess of war was teaching us how to use our bodies as weapons? Our teacher’s sister was certainly enjoying the culture of Viking rumbles. “Whoever has been teaching you those moves knows their stuff!”

I knew it wasn’t Cheerilee, mostly because she had already left an hour into watching the trio roughhouse to go explore the festival and do some fun things with her free time. Cheerilee’s sister was apparently an avid fan of the day long endurance test the Viking boys were putting on, I could say I was too.

Watching the Vibrant Vikings keep going was quite amazing. With only five minute breaks between every match to catch their breaths, they got back into the thick of it ludicrously fast. More so amazing when you consider that none of them have lost a single fight yet and have been at this for hours.

“You’ve been talking with him?” I finally cottoned onto something Jade had recently said.

“Well of course I have, I’m not about to let Generic date Jacky without doing the whole protective sister thing. Everyone knows that it is a timeless social prerogative based tradition to intimidate potential boyfriends or girlfriends for those who you see as close family, it’s quite a classic even!” Okay Jade, I could get behind that with Grace in mind. My airheaded surrogate mother was definitely someone I’d defend like that if some made a pass at her. “I let him know as such and he shrugged while smirking at me, even told me that I would have nothing to worry about from him. He even swore that to me on his honor that he would do right by Jacky if it came down to it. He also said he’d be willing to face me in combat if I wished to challenge him over it, but only if he wishes to eventually pursue a relationship with Jacky.”

“Okay then, let’s bring this topic back to me and Velvet.” Because I had a suspicion that you were trying to distract and distance me from what I came to you for Jade. The not so silent groan was telling. “Wasn’t born yesterday Jade.”

“Didn’t think you were and I would never imply as such.” Yet, you would still think it if you could get away with it Jade, that’s why I liked you only as a friend. “You came to me for advice and I might as well get started on it if you’re going to press the issue.”

“Yes, please do get back to what I wanted advice on.” Determined to get some help with Velvet from the one who had working relationships, I stared at her waiting for an answer.

“You do realize that I am literally the worst possible being you could be going to for advice about this from. A better candidate would be my mother who had a successful loving relationship.” This stare was not moving Jade, I wanted that answer. “Okay tell me honestly, do you like her enough to want to be around her for the rest of your life?”

“She’s annoying as all get out when she’s being prissy and full of herself, but I think I really like that about her.” I looked over to the see the crowd cheering as Flamberge had beaten a Minotaur, that wasn’t bad for Flamberge. “So yes, I could stand to live with Velvet around for the rest of my life.”

“There you go, that’s your answer. Do everything you want to do to make her happy if you can.” Jade nodded as if what she said was wise, she had a little more to say. “I think KISS applies to love, Keep It Stupid Simple. Now when are you going to declare your love her or are you going to?”

“I think what we have right now is okay thank you very much. Is just keeping it simple really all you’re going to tell me, that’s all you have to say?” Made me wonder what, if anything, made velvet like me so much.

Jade just shrugged and watched as Fortitude knocked his opponent over by tapping them with a hoof.

“It’s not my relationship, Bloody Maries came onto me and I love Fizzle to the point of doing absurd things she wouldn’t ever ask me to do. Except wear a dress…” Looking thoughtful for a second, Jade turned back to me. “You might want to set some boundaries with each other, my main boundary is that I will never be forced to wear a dress. Talk to each other about what you will and won’t be comfortable with.”

“That all sounds like fairly good advice, why would you think you were bad at giving it?” This was a little confusing to me.

“I fell into both my relationships. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing entirely, except for my best. Plus you remember what I did to get Fizzle to stop moping that one time right?” Everyone treated you poorly for weeks after that Jade, no one would forget.

“Hey, you succeeded in getting Fizzle to stop moping and be more active.” It was a harsh plan, but the results were worthwhile I’d think. “I wouldn’t mind if Velvet did the same thing to me, if it meant she was as happy as Fizzle is nowadays with both you and Maries.”

“You actually enjoy pain though.” Sighing Jade leaned back planting her hands on the ground. “I feel both lucky and a little put off about having four girlfriends.”

“Look you haven’t had too many relationship hiccups since then, so you must be doing a lot of things right. It’s why I came to you…” Sending a short lived smile my way, Jade let loose a few giggles as she watched as Fortitude sat on his next opponent. “So do you think I should just up and ask Velvet out on a date point blank or should I ease her into it?”

“Do whatever you feel is best for you Zone.” Getting up and walking away from Jade, I sent a few parting words over my shoulder to her.

“Thanks for the talk Jade.” Now to go find an uppity reindeer and tell her just what I think of her.

-Twenty minutes later-

It didn’t take me long to find her or for her to start things up with me as we stood outside the Rock-a-filly center’s ice skating rink.

“Boorish bovine.” Velvet muttered airily towards me.

“Demented Doe.” I retorted cheekily.

“Callous Cattle.” She shot back.

“Dumb Deer.” We were at war with one another just like that.

“Mooing Moron.” That was a good one Velvet.

“Divine Doe!” Wondered if she would follow me if I changed things a little.

“Beautiful Bovine!” She shouted back in my face.

“Delightful Deer!” Wondered when she would catch on to what I was doing.

“Cuddly Cow!” Any second now she’d realize what was happening, either that or she just like shouting at me as much as I did her.

“Ravishing Reindeer!” If my words didn’t snap her out of it, then nothing will.

“Cute... Cattle…” Now there was the wide eyed staring off into space as Velvet seemed to finally realize we were complementing each other in a particularly loud manner where everyone could hear us. Her face turned red and she ducked down while clearing her throat softly as she looked away from me. “You talked to Jade didn’t you?”

“Is it that obvious?” Well I did hear Jade say something about the classics and this was one of them that I knew of personally.

“Yes. What did she suggest you do since you obviously asked her for relationship advice… it is something I might have ended up doing sooner or later myself.” Velvet started to rub at her floof looking a little self-conscious and nervous. “You just beat me to it.”

“She told me to do whatever I felt like doing.” I moved next to Velvet and dug my face into the side of her neck. “Right now I feel like cuddling up to a crazy reindeer.”

“Yes, well… a strong muscular cow might get a smile in return for that.” She leaned against me and I looked up into her smiling face, her eyes stared into mine.

“Only a smile?” We stayed like this for a while. “You’re evil incarnate!”

Author's Note

The odd relationship continues.

The dating chapter is next.

Chapter twenty eight, Manehattan Menageries Part Deux: Cheerful dating.

-Jade-

I was frolicking through a field with a pony and a chimera, the sun was shining and… Fizzle was covered in potatoes and butter sauce while walking towards me.

“Jade wake up and stop suffocating Maria in your sleep!” At Fizzle’s voice my eyes snapped open and then I just continued kissing Maria while awake and more aware of what I was doing. So instead of suffocating the poor goat head, I eased back a little. “Yeah, saw that coming a mile away.”

“Don’t be jealous Fizzle, you can kiss me too if you want to!” Maria let out a chuckle as Fizzle blushed a bit.

We were both sleeping on top of Maries in the same bed, the chimera was a pretty comfortable pillow.

“Yeah, but do any of you see the bed collapsing out from beneath us?” We all just stared at Marie. For five minutes after saying that, no one said anything and just listened to Mara snoring out loud. Of the three heads only Maria and Marie were awake.

“Funny I thought causality would see fit to collapse the bed out from…” I started to say when we heard a crash and a familiar scream from next door. “Jacky?”

“Jacky.” Everyone else agreed immediately, then Marie proceeded to try and wake up Mara gently.

“Nobody mention we said anything about beds collapsing!” I had a pretty good fear of Jacky blaming that on us or at least Marie for bringing it up, but would we really throw the cute snake head under a bus like that? Yes, I kind of would in this situation.

“You know… we can get something out of this situation by suing the hotel for faulty equipment.” We all turned to Maria and slow grins started to spread on our faces.

That was a pretty good idea and now the hotel owed us even more aside from mom’s high class morning and evening cooking getting them more business. First come and first served are always family and friends!

-One hour later, breakfast-

“And my beak was pressed up against my… forget what I was about to say. It took them bringing out the ‘Jaws of Life’ to get me out of bed this morning.” We were all giggling at Jacky’s misfortune, mostly because we kind of knew the cause of it. Nothing was provable, though we were pretty sure Marie mentioning it was the cause knowing Jacky’s luck. “At least I had a good night’s sleep for once.”

“What are the plans for our date while we have the time to discuss them?” Fizzle turned to me and I smiled at her, I had a long day planned out.

“Hopefully Maries’ metabolism can forgive me, but we might have to skip lunch. Double helping for Maries’ mom!” My mother, beloved and dear as she was, nodded and went to work on a second round of magical cooking for all three heads of Bloody Maries’. “An hour of exploring to walk off the food. A visit to the local museum, whatever you want to do until dinner at a restaurant I found yesterday and finally the short play you two were working on for late this evening.”

“Sounds like we’ve got a full day ahead of us.” Slowly turning to Arizona, I gave her an odd look. “Velvet and I are going to follow you.”

“As to be expected, we need someone to spy on us to keep us from doing anything lewd.” Which was something we generally didn’t do anyway, I silently thought.

“What the udder idiot is trying to say is… we’re going on a date as well and will be at the same locations you just happen to be at.” Looking at Velvet, I had to wonder if she was being honest about dating Arizona. “As such, I’m going to milk this opportunity today for all that its worth.”

“Now if only my deer friend would stop with the cow puns.” As soon as Arizona said that the two attempted to glare each other down. “Doe you believe the nerve of her?”

“I can already tell this is going to end in violence, at least one way or another.” Dryly spoke Fizzle who was shaking her head sadly.

“Hey, if anything violent happens it’ll be just my luck, but I’m also coming along with Gene.” All our heads snapped to Jacky, who looked a little shocked that we were so shocked. “I blame my recent head injury on my ability to ask him out. Should really stop taking blows to the head, but Dr. Bones cleared me for good health… relatively speaking.”

“She always has to plant her feet near the graves, but she better not be stepping in them halfway personally!” Dr. Bones was getting tired of examining Jacky it seemed. She raised a paw up to her chest. “I’m almost up to here, with having to deal with this constant walking medical problem.”

“It might have been the head injury talking, but I’m alright with going out on a date with you.” The ever soft spoken Gene answered, he was a very brave Viking griffon to want to be around someone like Jacky. More power to him if he can survive a year of being closer to her than the rest of us.

“Yeah, you saw Escargot there the day before yesterday, how is the cool kraken doing?” We’d discuss the expert masseuse with tentacles while Maries finished a second large helping.

Escargot scared almost every person he’s rescued as a sea pony SOS responder, which made sense given he’s a fairly large kraken and being grabbed by tentacles usually freaked people out. He was really quite a nice and friendly dude, he was not scary at all and I could use another back massage to get some of the kinks out of my spine.

Wondered why Escargot was in Manehattan anyway, I mean aside from possibly being Dr. Bones familiar which is a distractingly odd combination to ponder on. How was I going to get him back to Airship Mauled if that was the case? Familiars had a tendency to live where their bond partners do.

“What’s with that look on your face Jade?” Turning to Mara, I answered her with a hint of humor in my voice.

“I’m imagining a kraken wearing a giant nurse’s hat now and I can’t get the image out of my head.” It wouldn’t be long before we set out into the city to take in more of the cultural festival for a while, before we all headed to the museum where I could begin planning my strategy for how to tackle it.

-Museum-

“So everyone’s on a date today?” I asked as I stared at Flamberge and Fortitude.

“We’re not on a date, we’re just protecting our brother from the forces of darkness that more than likely plague your yonder sister Jacky!” Right, whatever helps you sleep at night Flamberge. It still looked like you were dating Fortitude when everyone compares how we’re all grouping up here.

“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant!” If you think he’s annoying because he's always saying that, actually you’d be wrong. It’s kind of charming that the yak introduces himself the same way every time without fail. “We always help our brother without needing to be asked, for he would do the same for us!”

“We’re also not on a date kitten, we’re chaperoning the rest of you nutcases.” So you weren’t interested in our teacher mom? Well now I feel warm and fuzzy to have you watching me like a hawk to make sure I don’t do anything crazy while we’re here.

“Speaking of our teacher. Hey, Cheerful Glee, did you know we’ve been seeing your sister Cherry around here? She seems pretty cool to me!” Every group seems to nod in agreement with that statement coming from me, Cheerilee didn’t seem as happy. “She seems like a well-adjusted mare to me, she even managed to keep up with a squabbling Arizona and Velvet in a fight!”

“Well of course all of you would like her, I’m glad I haven’t run into her at all!” Cheerilee grated out somewhat bitterly, she quickly sighed and then cheered up a bit. Having all our attentions she continued. “While I have your attentions, Jacky no going near or touching anything. Jade whatever you’re planning can’t happen while we’re visiting the place now. Fizzle, Maries, keep Jade in line. Gene and Dr. Bones you will be busy keeping Jacky from getting injured again. I want this trip to be a successful one without any shenanigans from all of you!”

“Be fair Cheerilee, I know we’re horrible about not causing trouble, but we’re not exactly overly horrible at avoiding it.” I crossed my arms and then a crashing sound was heard behind me, we all turned to a large chunk of stone impaling the floor and Gene on top of Jacky. He had pushed her out of the way without either of them getting injured. He just earned some brownie points from me. “Jacky’s horrible luck being the exception of course.”

“Of course.” Blandly came back Cheerilee.

“We all think Jacky needs the most supervision to avoid the calamities of being in a museum of easily broken stuff my little tom cat.” Nobody would dare counter that mom, we certainly knew that. “We may need to give her a griffon mask so she can stay a respectable distance from the displays.”

“Oh my goodness, is everyone all right!” We saw a doddering old pony come up to us, white mane, tail and a bushy mustache, blue grey fur. Seems like a friendly fellow to me.

“Yeah, we’re okay Mister….” I dragged it out in the hopes of getting a name.

“Old Time, my dear Abyssinian filly, current curator of this Manehattan Museum.” Ah, so he’s the one I should talk to about the security of this place. “Is this the weird field trip group I’ve heard about?”

“Yes it is, we’re trying to get organized and we will be sticking together for the duration of our visit.” Cheerilee turned to us, but she was specifically looking at me. I wasn’t going to break away suddenly so I can scout out a room, I was actually going to spend time with Maries and Fizzle.

You’d think Cheerilee would be more worried about Arizona and Velvet starting a fight, given how often they glared at one another with affectionate looking smiles.

“We don’t have a problem there, we’ve all been sticking together since this morning!” Gave my best friendly cat smile to a suspicious Cheerilee.

I waited for Cheerilee to say something different because we had all been walking around Manehattan as one big and fairly odd group of varying species.

Our clump was becoming well known throughout Manehattan for a number of things we’ve been doing. From taking down wyverns, Velvet and Arizona’s bar fight and all the way up to Jacky collapsing a part of the pier and having a literal head to head collision with a ‘Blue Belle’ pirate.

Cheerilee didn’t say anything, but she did keep eyeing me suspiciously. It was like Cheerilee didn’t trust me or something!

“Why that’s just splendid, let me give you a tour of the museum while the janitor takes care of the unfortunate piece of the ceiling that almost collapsed onto your Ornithinian friend.” We’d gladly accept that from Old Time, whose cutie mark of an ancient vase was as interesting as his bushy mustache.

I had the urge to paw at the bristles on his nose, I clamped down on my cat instincts and followed him while wrapping an arm around Mara’s head and Fizzle’s neck.

The museum had a few floors, we saw many interesting exhibits here. There were plenty things to look at, eventually I spotted a particular exhibit that I would like to target. It mostly had little to no value to me and it was quite a familiar bit of nostalgia.

Now I only needed a distraction to keep Cheerilee away from me while I talked to Old Time… or… I could just talk to him anyway.

“Excuse me, I have something to discuss with Old Time.” My explanation was accepted by both Maries and Fizzle, so I stopped cuddling and rubbing up against them to move forward. “Excuse me Mr. Old Time, but can we talk about something?”

“Why of course young one, what would you like to talk about?” This old guy has been giving us quite the tour of the museum, he even showed us a real life Gordian Knot on display. I was amazed by the overly complicated structure and that it was made of a sword proof material made it even more amazing, since you just couldn’t cut it apart.

“Do you have a security consultant?” The rest they say was history, which is actually part of this museum’s crowd drawing attractions. “And would you mind having one look into the security of the place in an unusual fashion?”

-Evening-

“So I talked to the griffon who runs this restaurant and well… they’ll cater to a chimera provided that one shows up. I told them to keep a lot of space open for a private party… didn’t think we’d need all the room and I just wanted a big empty space with Fizzle and Maries.”

“Hello and welcome to the… you!” Oh look, that griffon that I heard Jacky got into a fight with, what are the odds? Pretty good with Jacky around.

“When were you going to tell us this was a legitimate business that just happens to be run by pirates?” Jacky received a bright grin from me and she smiled back. “You’re one in a million Captain.”

“Your captain’s a cat and she’s dating a pony and a chimera?” The griffon behind the counter just sighed. “Not going to bother getting angry, so private group for the large room?”

“Yep, group under the name of 'Captain Kitty, scourge of Captain Gash'. Also if the reindeer and cow start fighting, don’t interfere, they get quite ornery if anyone interrupts their mating dances.” The way I stated that had both Arizona and Velvet glaring at me with blushes on their faces, they didn’t deny it though.

“You’re the one that put that stick all the way up Captain Gash’s tail a few years back?!” The griffon’s slightly sour mood did a one eighty, kick flipped, into a nose grind and finished with an Ollie for good measure. She looked that happy. “You’re getting half off just for that, poor guy just can’t catch a break since a certain green haired Abyssinian wrecked his ship and sent it to the locker.”

The meal was great for all involved, we paid our bill and were on our way. Blue Belle was a nice pegasus pirate pony.

-Late evening-

“Ahem, this is the story of hearths warming eve…” Fizzle started off, with each of Maries’ heads wearing a different hat. “Sure you’ve heard it all before, but with a chimera as the primary actor?”

The audience laughed, the draw for this was that a chimera was acting out six different parts. All of the six who were involved in the defeat of the wendigoes.

Mara was wearing a Commander Hurricane helmet, Maria had Chancellor Pudding Head’s hat and Marie looking noble with the Princess Platinum’s crown.

“Not the right time of year for it, but it’s definitely cultural.” Muttered Cheerilee who looked interested in how this will turn out.

Author's Note

Next, the heist goes wrong.

Wait... what?!

Chapter twenty eight, Manehattan Menageries Part Deux: Wait… WHAT was stolen?!

-Jade-

Our herd date yesterday went really well, but now it was the next night and I had my heist plan to carry out.

I was pleasantly surprised that nothing went over the top wrong yesterday, today had also been pretty tame and yet we still hadn’t had time to go to the comic convention.

Today we spent most of our time on Arizona’s cultural activity, cow networking. It wasn’t boring and I got to meet Daisy Jo, who would be a good friend of Pinkie’s since she primarily lived in Ponyville, met and learned a lot about how cows knew all about the current word on the streets.

Arizona’s activity counted to Cheerilee and sure it might not be as cool both literally and figuratively as Velvet’s ice sculpture, but there was a respectable amount of time spent on this activity.

Getting back to my task at hand, I had a museum to sneak into and rob of a specific object. I was doing this alone, I didn’t want to make anyone accomplice to this and I always wanted to rob a museum.

Now the first order of business was to get up to the roof without wings or outside help. Which is why I pulled out an industrial strength rubber band, better known as a bungie cord. I got it from a cow that had a somewhat more extreme mindset than the others.

I was up on the roof of a building and the museum was a good distance away from where I was. I tied the bungie cord up tightly to a sturdy metal stove pipe and a brick chimney. This roof had both that were a good enough distance from another for a slingshot maneuver.

Taking a griffon feather out of my pack and inserting it into my teeth, I started to pulling back the cord with my body towards the edge of the roof facing away from the museum until I couldn’t pull it anymore.

I cast the feather in my mouth and promptly swallowed the feather falling magic, then I retracted the claws on my feet and kicked off.

I shot high up into the air and vaguely towards the museum, my cloak billowing in the night as I flew towards the roof. Basically started gliding when my upward arc turned slightly downwards, the feather fall effect kicked into full gear. If I missed then I had several more feathers to do this with again.

I didn’t really need to aim my launch at all, I just needed to end up over the museum. For when I did get over the museum and would have overshot it otherwise, I grabbed the edges of my cloak and held onto them.

The cloak filled with air and using it as a brake, I halted and started to slowly drift down until I landed on the roof where I let go of the edges of my cloak and smiled.

Looking around for a pegasus pony or an invisible unicorn pony using the heat vision ability of a salamander scale, I didn’t see anything amiss or anyone coming to see why I was on the roof.

Skylights to any museum made for a good entry point.

I made my way over to my access point that I marked on the blue prints I got back in Canterlot, I’ve poured over them numerous times to make sure I knew the layout of the museum so that I could get around much more easily.

Okay time to test the window for magical protections, I bent down and placed my hand on it and tried to partial cast the window away. A portion of the window faded from existence into energy and I saw a wire running through the area I where was converting glass to cast energy.

The window didn’t have magical protections, but it did have wires in case the glass was broken. Sensitive wires that would likely have activated an alarm had I just shattered the window.

I dropped the cast and once the glass was back in place, the wire was invisible. The wire had magic protecting it from sight when looking through the window. Interesting fact, partial casting prevented finger prints for forensics to find so touching the glass and then releasing it with magical alchemy was safe.

Second entry possibility test, I popped the claws on my left hand, put them to the glass and twisting my hand one hundred and eighty degrees sharply and then lifted away a perfect circle of glass with a little bit of awe. It’s amazing that that can actually even work!

No alarm, so cutting and pulling the glass out didn’t set it off. Pulling my claws back in and carefully setting the circle of glass off to the side without leaving any prints on the glass. I reached my arm through the hole in the glass and flicked the lock on the window with a claw and carefully slid it open.

I took out a notepad and started jotting down my observations about the security, a unicorn and a pegasus working in concert could get by this way too easily if they knew about the wired windows. Also the museums shouldn’t have moving windows for skylights, ponies weren’t always architecturally smart and it kind of showed with the housing in Ponyville.

I pulled another griffon feather and cast it upon myself and dropped gently to the floor without making a sound, I looked left and right.

Nobody here, no night guards suddenly coming into sight, time to get a move on!

I sustained my cloak, since I have recently figured out what the cloak does. I was on the third floor and in the right place. The museum wasn’t well lit so I could use the sustain effect the cloak had to do something fun, I was going for a swim!

I dove forward into the shadows in the area and started swimming through the darkness like an inky squid. Well I did have to paddle and holding my breath was also a requirement, I could only do this for about thirty seconds and if I were Jacky, it would be about ten minutes because apparently holding your breath was a good pirate skill to learn.

There were a lot of restrictions to this ability and it was always a bit weird to use. If I were hit with any bright enough light directly, like moonlight, I would immediately lose the ability my magical sustain was giving me and would separate from the shadows.

I moved along the walls and eventually spotting an earth pony guard looking about with a flashlight, the museum wasn’t heavily protected and its security seemed lacking. Though I would have to avoid the stallion as I came out for air. Unlike my water breathing, I did not breathe shadows.

I quickly swam towards the floor, then moved over to and popped out of the shadows behind a large display of Rock Hoof while remaining out of sight of the guard.

I always wondered why Rock Hoof had a cutie mark usually relegated to mythological Norse, it basically means ‘slain warrior knot’. Did that mean Rock Hoof died and came back with muscles or he had somehow acquired the powers of a god? More likely a demi-god, because there is no way rock Hoof should have suddenly gained that much power in so little time otherwise to be able to divert a volcanoes pyroclastic flow.

I just looked at the ‘Valknut’ symbol on the flank of the statue that also had another meaning to contemplate. An earth pony with the cutie mark that gave him the power to alter history, life and death.

I shook my head, not important to think about in depth right now. Taking in a few quiet breaths or two of air, I then dove back into the shadows and swam up and along the walls towards the stairwell.

Looking around from my shadowy blob of darkness, I swam to the floor and then came out of the shadows standing at the top of the steps. Carefully walking down them making as little noise as possible, I needed to get to the second floor exhibits.

My target was specifically a Zephyr’s Gunbai replica and Daring probably kept the real one for herself, no way would she leave something dangerous like that just laying around. I reached the entrance to the second floor of the museum and was about to step out when I saw a light in front of me, I fell backwards into the shadows and swam into a corner by the doorway.

A unicorn with a levitating flashlight patrolled past me and I waited a few seconds, I popped out of the shadows to breathe and dove back into them to start swimming for the exhibit I would be taking the replica from.

I was quite silent and there was no way I should be caught trespassing, though I did keep looking up trying to see if there were any pegasus guards patrolling the museum. Not many people looked up when something dangerous was around, living near a forest full of drop bears will make anyone paranoid about things being above them. In a world of airships, griffons, dragons, rocs and all manner of flying beasts… looking up every now and then was a rather prudent action.

I was almost there, I popped up behind a statue of Commander Hurricane and looked around it towards what I was going for. I haven’t seen very much in the way of magical protections on any of the exhibits yet, otherwise I would have tripped an alarm by now by getting so close to them like this.

The case with the fake gunbai in it was just in the next room over, I started writing more notes down in my notepad. I looked about for a sign of anything, my ears were perked up and flicking every now and then straining to hear any sound of movement, breathing or otherwise near me.

I was quite alert when I started to slink towards the room with the gunbai in it.

I suddenly stopped and eyed a statue that looked like one of the ones that had been watching Sekhet in the story of Somnambula, it probably came from Sekhet’s old legendary haunting ground where no winged creature could fly to this day.

The anugyptian statues eyes weren’t glowing blue, so I didn’t think a god or goddess was watching this space. I started moving forward again and kept my senses wide open and crawled my way to the room with the gunbai.

“Let’s see.” I used the salamander scale to see anything I normally would be incapable of, nothing overly magical was protecting the replica gunbai. I next put a griffon mask on my face and started to zoom in on every aspect of the room. Nothing.

I dove into the shadows and started to swim towards the gunbai in the glass case. I looked behind me, above me and around me. Again nothing to see around me, I rose up from the shadows and studied the glass case.

Cast test, it was wired like the skylight windows, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t work around. I noted where the wires were and returned the glass to its original position and carefully climbed up on top of the glass case.

Once there, I lowered my right hand popped my claws, one twist and I pulled out another circular piece of glass. Looking about, as I grabbed the gunbai and tried to cast with it. It turned into energy, so yeah, it was definitely a fake gunbai and I was taking it. Returning it to a solid state I stowed it in my pack and started to slowly make my way for the stairs.

Once I exited the room I almost got caught by a flashlight sweeping the area, I quickly swam to a corner and popped up to see the pegasus I had been worrying about. I took a few breaths and dove back into the shadows and swam out of the way of the flashlight as it suddenly swept to the spot I had been a second ago.

Pegasus ponies had great spatial awareness and this one almost caught me, my movements in the shadows weren’t as secure with this pony flying around.

I started to slowly swim away as the alert Pegasus swept her flashlight around as if she saw something, but she didn’t seem entirely sure she did. I slowly swam backwards out of the room past the Hurricane statue and into the stairway.

I couldn’t go out back through the roof, so I had to go down to the first floor and figure a way out on the bottom floor. I carefully started to step down the stairs, so far so good.

It was just unfortunate that shadow swimming wouldn’t allow me to move through cracks or small holes. Though I most certainly did not want to know what drowning in darkness felt like.

I swam towards the closed metal gate to the front of the museum and popped up looking around for something… anything… when I remembered something. Isn’t there a sewer access in the middle of the floor here?

I looked to the circular metal disk on the floor in the darkness, it couldn’t be moved from below… but from above... did I have anything in my arsenal that could do that quietly? Rubber chicken, you are my savior!

I sustained my rubber chicken and forced my now rubbery claws into the holes of the heavy metal lid and pulled, it snapped up into my face knocking me to the floor.

I managed to prevent the lid from making any noise by hitting the floor, I carefully pulled my fingers out of the holes and looked down the circular opening in the floor.

There was no ladder leading up here, which is why it was impossible to open from below. Nothing but slippery tube leading up to the museum. I was going to have to drop down the storm drain into the sewers while pulling the lid back into place and then I’d be home free.

I easily accomplished this and the lid clacked into place as I got it back in position then I pulled my fingers free and swapped sustain to the cloak as I fell down into darkness. I hit the bottom with a splash and then rose from shadows in the sewers of Manehattan, mission accomplished!

-A minute later-

I lifted the lid and climbed out the sewer, which was when I was noticed by someone.

I even heard alarms coming from the museums direction and was curious as to what was going on, but before I could start running I was encased in a barrier.

“Got you!” It was none other than Shining Armor, but what had set off the alarms? I didn’t say anything as I was dragged to the curator. “I believe I have your culprit right here!”

“Where is it?” Curator Old Time asked me, I pulled the gunbai from my pack and showed it to him. “No, not that! Where is the ‘Alicorn Amulet’, the one that was locked away in the storage vault?”

“Wait... what!? There was an ‘Alicorn Amulet’ here?!” My shock made the two stallions look at me in surprise.

“If you didn’t know… then who took it?!” I’d let you know when I find out Old Time.

Author's Note

This will be the last chapter you'll be getting for a whole year, so you better enjoy it!

...

Also Happy New Years everyone!

(Magical Alchemy Appendix Update!)

Jade's cloak/ cloaks in general.

Chapter twenty nine, Convention Tension: Unconventional Interrogation.

-Jade, Museum-

“Okay, before we go any further.” Looks like Shining had something to ask. “Just how do you think you’re going to get out of this one Jade? I caught you robbing the museum red pawed and you even have one of the displays on you.”

Ah, the easiest question to answer.

“I’m currently acting as a security consultant for the museum. Though I certainly take a more proactive approach to testing security measures, I can legally get out of this. Arresting me would cause problems for you Shining, though it seems like the museum needed someone like me a bit sooner given someone, aside from me I mean, just robbed them of an artifact from a room that I didn’t know existed before this moment.” I held out the gunbai and started to fan myself with it. “This replica isn’t really worth much to the museum, which is why I stole it. I can even pay for another replica to be made, as it is really that inexpensive.”

“How do you know that’s a replica?” Old Time seemed curious.

“I’m the one that personally held the original in my hands, in fact I stole it off a bunch of angry evil cultist thestral ponies that likely didn’t even know what they had. Took a crossbow bolt or two for that, which is very painful and I wouldn’t recommend anyone do that form of acupuncture therapy. I even gave it to the mare that brought it here to have this replica of it made.” I saw a look of trust enter Old Time’s eyes. “She probably still has the original knowing her. In essence, I stole this knowing that it was a worthless replica compared to the one that actually has a lot of pegasus magic to it.”

“Yep, she’s our security consultant. Never told her about the vault or its contents, at least until now that is. She really couldn’t have done it.” Then Old Time said something that made Shining balk at the idea of actually doing, but it made me smile and wag my tail. “You can let her go.”

Shining turned his glare upon me and I gave him a bright cat smile, he eventually sighed and flicked his horn.

The barrier holding me aloft promptly disappeared, dropping me onto the floor painfully. I could see Shining smirk slightly, he obviously did that on purpose.

“Rude.” I stated calmly as I stood up and dusted myself off. “Still, the Alicorn Amulet, what was it doing here?! Why haven’t you had it destroyed or sealed away, like the Sieve Precarious!”

“Wait, you know where the Sieve Precarious is?” Old Time seemed to brighten despite the situation. Does he not know the damage the ‘Alicorn Amulet’ can cause!?

“Hopefully at the bottom of the ocean where we left it, in a completely magic proof container.” Shining grumbled out as he sent me a look.

“What he said.” I stated blithely. “It’s definitely right where it belongs, trust us on this one.”

“Sad that, I would have liked to study it.” Deciding to set Old Time straight I leaned forward with a glare.

“The thing is either an impending death trap or a nuisance, forget about it. It would have eventually activated and got you stuck in the chaos dimension, where a chaos god would have toyed with you for a while.” My blunt now aggravated tone made Shining look at me curiously. I answered his look. “Yes, a chaos god was involved in that incident. It’s not important to our current conversation and already dealt with, so we should move on unless you want to talk about something like why you’re currently here in Manehattan. Tell me, did you come here with Cadence for the cultural festival, or are you both here for the comic convention while pretending to be here for the cultural festival?”

“You know, I normally wouldn’t say this to any pony, but I think I loathe your very existence Jade. Please, for my sanity, stay away from Cadence!” Shining Armor received another of my brightest toothy grins, he turned away from me and to Old Time. “What exactly is an Alicorn Amulet and what has this reprobate so worried about it? If she’s really this worried, then it must be really bad.”

“I don’t suppose Celestia would have told you about it.” Old Time rubbed at his chin. “In fact she’s been trying to keep the knowledge of the amulets existence quiet.”

“Yeah, mostly because of how horribly dangerous it is.” The look I was receiving from Old Time was one of boundless curiosity. “Oh I absolutely know what it does, don’t know if it can actually be used by anyone who isn’t a pony though. If a pony does have it, then we should all be on high alert for something dangerous happening at any given time in the near future.”

“What does it do and why do you look more worried than Curator Old Time?” Shining was being pretty serious right now, compared to how loose he can be when around Cadence, family and friends.

I think I was a little too used to the cold, hard ass, elite royal guard. I’m going to try and ease up on the guy and maybe apologize about some of the things I’ve done, keyword being ‘try’ here.

“Do you two know each other that well?” Old Time looked between us. “You both seem quite familiar with one another.”

“You could say that, she used Chancellor Pudding Head’s law about rubber against me.” Shining was still sore about that? He should really lighten up like I knew he could.

“Well Pudding Head was the lead proponent to the safe sex practices that we still use to this very day.” Old Time received a sour look from Shining.

“Which is why that particular law can’t, and mostly likely won’t, ever be repealed. Ponies have been trying for thousands of years and now it’s pretty much set in stone.” I just made Shining turn back to me and he became quite terse.

“Information, Alicorn Amulet, now!” Yeah, I really should stop riling him up if I ever wanted us to be friends.

“Right, how much do you know about the Alicorn Amulet Old Time? I’ll fill in the blanks of what you don’t know.” Yes, I was in fact using this as an opportunity to learn some facts that I might have not known otherwise. Though I did know quite a bit about it given I try to keep track of the more dangerous stuff like the Misfortune Malachite or whatever Daring Do is looking into now. “Oh and before I forget, here’s some things I want you to look over when it comes to the museums security… also how many guards do you have on staff here?”

“Six.” Old Time stated as he took my notes on the security of the museum, he looked them over as he spoke. “Huh, you do good work. Anyway, an Alicorn Amulet is a powerful magical item that can give any pony power to rival that of an alicorn. That’s about as much as I know.”

“Then, you really don’t know as much as I do.” That made the two ponies turn to me with surprise. “Don’t know who made it, but this is what I know…”

So I told them this in verbatim, without interruption.

The Alicorn Amulet, is a dark magic artifact. One that doesn’t give the pony the exact power to rival an alicorn, but it was close enough that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference otherwise with the amulet being powerful enough to wipe out a whole town… or the entire city of Manehattan.

They looked on wide eyed at that information, but then I continued into the finer points of the amulet itself.

Once it was put on there were only two main ways to get the amulet off of a pony thanks to the magical lock on the amulet, you either destroyed the amulet or tricked the pony into taking it off. Any other method for amulet removal was usually the end result of a rather… violent… confrontation.

There were uneasy glances at what I was implying the third option to be.

The amulet ‘might’, as far as I know, only work for ponies or pony like beings. Pony like beings included Zebra, Hippogriffs, Thestrals and Sea Ponies.

The amulet could ‘possibly’ make an earth pony fly and use unicorn magic. It could make a pegasus have earth pony strength and again unicorn magic. Whenever a unicorn got a hold of the amulet, well, they just tended to use the amulet as an overly simplified amplifier for their magic wholesale and never actually get around to using its full power.

This is where I was interrupted.

“Why not, wouldn’t a unicorn want to use those other abilities?” Good question Shining. I feel like was being interrogated here, but this was really important.

“On one side a Unicorn sometimes lacks the imagination to use the amulets full power and on the other the amulet causes this problem thanks to the side effects of using it.” Which I would be getting into right about now.

There were several side effects to using the amulet. The main one being the most common among all dark magic artifact side effects, usually appearing on about ninety percent of them really, which was the addictive quality of using the dark magic artifacts in the first place.

You could wear the amulet, but as long as you don’t actively use it then this wouldn’t come into effect. The second the amulet is used, this immediately becomes a problem and you will want to use it more and more. The more it’s used, the more corrupted you get and the more you wanted to use its power.

I called it the downward spiral effect, since dark magic artifacts tended to have nasty detrimental and devastating side effects to those who use them.

Both Shining and Old nodded, you’d have to be very stupid to actually use a cursed or dark magic based artifact. Which led into the second side effect.

The second side effect is that the amulet actively drains your intelligence as long as you wear and use it. The more you use it, the dumber you got and the likelier you were to hurt somebody thinking you were doing something even remotely approaching clever.

This effect, thankfully enough, wasn’t a permanent one. Remove the amulet and you’d be able to think coherently again. This effect was likely to prevent the wearer from thinking of ever taking the amulet off at all based on their own volition, so mind control magic wouldn’t actually be effective in stopping someone from wielding the Alicorn Amulet.

The third effect is tied to the second one. This one was that you became increasingly paranoid, unhinged or deranged about a lot of random objects or things. Generally gaining a deep mistrust of all those around you and having your ego inflate to the point where you’ll become a narcissist even if you previously weren’t even close to being one before.

The narcissist thing was guaranteed to happen after prolonged exposure, even the sweetest and nicest of ponies would fall into this effect eventually.

I gave an example of paranoid about random objects, by pointing out that you could be paranoid about books and could actively think that they were out to get you. To the point that one might even go on a book destroying rampage.

Shining shivered at the thought, most likely because of his little sister Twilight.

That’s the basis of everything this dark magic artifact does. It isolates you, addicts you to its power and warps your mind into being something you’re not while possibly becoming increasingly magically volatile on top that. It eventually makes you a completely malicious destructive force that becomes like a brainless berserker against just about everyone and everything around them.

If you had a goal to achieve while wearing the amulet, you could feasibly achieve it before the amulet takes too strong a hold. At most it would be good for one spell, after that I’d suggest sealing the amulet away from yourself for a month and visit your nearest doctor to see if dark magic is still infecting you or not. Oh and it would be best to destroy the amulet by any means necessary at that point, because you would be tempted to use it again and any obsession you have with power would eventually make this happen.

So I was right to be worried and or quite scared of it being out there somewhere in Manehattan at the moment, possibly being held by a pony of incredibly dubious moral intent. If they had good intentions, then they might not get too bad for a few days.

“One final thing to note, I want Mister Time to go over all my notes and think about how to make better security measures given what’s happened here.” Taking random jobs for weird reasons does not mean I don’t complete said jobs when I acquire them. I actually took my security consultant job seriously, which is why I stopped to jot down notes about the museums security measures. “You had six guards walking around the museum? That’s enough guards, it’s the other stuff you need to work on.”

“Of those six, two were found knocked out by me and the remaining guard on the second team with the vault being opened and the amulet being stolen.” Old Time seemed to look a little older when he learned that Manehattan might soon be destroyed. “I’ll get right on it Miss La Perm.”

“Please, call me Jade, my mother is Miss La Perm.” I turned to Shining. “Am I free to go now?”

“Of course.” As soon as Shining said that I turned around and began to walk casually for the museum entrance. “Hey! I think you are forgetting something Jade, give the replica gunbai back.”

“You can’t blame me for trying right?” I had hoped that he had forgotten about it.

“Ah let her keep it, she managed to acquire it fair and square and even got outside with it! I wouldn’t have known she was innocent of the real crime that took place here if it weren’t for you Captain Shining.” Old Time chuckled somewhat merrily. “Besides, I have three other copies of Zephyr’s Gunbai in case the first was ever stolen.”

“Thanks!” I made my exit while stuffing it into my pack full of stuff, mostly before Shining found some other reason to keep me here.

I’ve been wanting a gunbai that wasn’t loaded with pegasus magic, just to see if it worked differently with magical alchemy.

-Hotel-

I closed the door behind me and turned to a pair of eyes almost glowing in the dark, I dropped my pack off to the side and moved over to the bed.

“It’s about time Jade.” At Fizzle’s words I quickly crawled up onto Maries’ chest and found myself wrapped in paws and a hooves, I felt safe in their grasps. “Tell me how it went in the morning, this shouldn’t have taken you nearly this long to do.”

Maria was still somewhat awake and had brought me tightly into the pile of snuggles when she felt me crawl up on top of their body.

Sleep wouldn’t come to me easily, but I’d eventually nod off after receiving a kiss to the forehead from Fizzle.

Author's Note

A successful museum robbery, both for the security consultant and the thief who actually stole something very dangerous.

Chapter twenty nine, Convention Tension: Unconventional Intervention.

-Fizzle-

I yawned as I woke up and nuzzled Jade, she mewled cutely in her sleep and I started to rub a hoof behind her ears to hear a soft purring noise that only she could make.

She had looked tired and seemed a bit restless last night, but a kiss to the forehead from me had settled that pretty well.

Whatever she’s worried about, most likely how her late night trip to the museum went, I’m sure she’ll tell us all about it this morning.

Her robbery might have hit a few snags last night which is why she was so late in getting back to us, apparently she had to have been successful as she came back with nary a scratch on her. Either that or she failed and still got away.

I rolled off of Maries after tapping their paw to release me, I was on my way to the bathroom and a good bath.

I should be more bothered about Jade getting stealing stuff, but in this case it was considered a legal robbery or so I’ve been told. Maries backed it up as being legal as long as Jade went through the proper procedures. Jade had the signed contract to prove she did, so I really shouldn’t be so worried.

Last night’s robbery had been more for the thrill of actually managing to do it than anything else, I don’t think Jade cared that much about money except when it came to treating us to dinner.

Maries was a bit expensive to pay for, given how much food she could consume when it wasn’t mom or another pony with a similar magical cooking ability.

Mother’s magical cooking affected nutrition to a ridiculous degree, as it made keeping both Maries and Sugar fed quite easy on a fraction of the food that they would otherwise need to consume to not be halfway starving.

Sugar could easily hunt for herself, I’ve seen her burying drop bears bones and I didn’t question it because the drop bear population was being kept in check from growing explosively out of control because of it. Sugar eventually dug up those bone and ate them too when she needed a snack, Al-mi’raj were definitively scary creatures.

Nature from a different, not pony, point of view was a terrifying thing to learn about. Fluttershy obviously knew about that point of view and didn’t care, she in fact tended to try and defy nature’s need to keep a balance of life and death. She was somewhat partially successful, but anywhere away from her sanctuary based presence was still fair game for animals.

Bringing my thoughts back to Maries, she couldn’t hunt because she was trying to fit into a societal mold with the rest of us while trying to remain civilized about it all and the general preconceptions about her species.

Both Kuril and Jade tended to take small, but very useful, things that they would eventually use later to great effect. Mom did it less so than Jade, but at least mom told me that you should only steal something in a dire emergency and when you absolutely needed to. Like medical emergencies, life or death situations and for survival when you didn’t know how to survive off the land.

Mother Kuril at least made a token effort to be a good role model. She tries to teach me what not to do with my life and then goes and does things like turns highly annoying ponies into mice with but a flick of her wrist. The noise of glass shattering against a thick skull is the most obvious tell that some pony got her mad.

Everyone I knew weren’t even close to being good role models in general, but they at least weren’t usually intentionally trying to hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it with their escapades.

We’d be going to the comic convention today, so that would also be something to get Jade’s mind off of whatever had been bothering her last night when she came in.

-Hours later-

Breakfast was enough time for Jade to catch us up with a big problem going down in Manehattan, someone had stolen a dark magic artifact last night from the same museum Jade had pulled a friendly foal gloved level heist upon.

Said power could level all of Manehattan if left unchecked, so Jade was right to be a little worried.

The object had what was termed by Jade as a ‘downward spiral effect’, in exchange for immense amounts of power.

I don’t think I’d ever want to use something like that to restore my horn, not if it was of great detriment to me. Also things like sacrificing someone’s life to restore my horn was not going to fly with me, I would either fix it without making someone else sacrifice themselves for me or I would gain enough control over my magic that getting the my horn back would become a rather moot point.

Jade was already sacrificing her time on her own in researching how to fix my horn, which had some dangerous implications such as going after hydra scales. I did not want her to give her life so I could feel normal around other ponies in general.

“Would it be noticeable if someone were actively using the amulet?” I just had to ask, I needed to know how visible such a dangerous disturbance would be.

“Highly. If a pony has red glowing eyes, magic and happens to be wearing an amulet with an alicorn’s visage of wings and horn with a red jewel in the center that is also glowing.” Sometimes Jade just knew things when they weren’t exactly common knowledge. This amulet was supposedly kept on the down low by Celestia and yet someone found out it existed and stole it for what could only be a power trip. “Then you’ve got a dangerous, possibly very mentally unstable pony on the loose. One that might not be able to control whatever power trip they set in motion for very long if their goals are less than pure.”

Said power trip may end up killing hundreds if not thousands of ponies if used improperly. I tried not to think about it and would try to enjoy the convention both Jade and Maries wanted to go to, I was less interested in comic books than they were. That didn’t mean I didn’t want to spend time with them or Arizona as they all went full nerd.

“Well then, we’ll worry about it and deal with it when the bridge needs crossing. Until then, I want you to actually enjoy the convention.” To think you were so excited to go see it with us Jade, now you seemed paranoid about some pony wrecking the city and rightly so. “You’ve been waiting all week for this Jade, don’t back out on it now out of fear!”

A tiny smile crept on our favorite felines face and she rubbed it against me affectionately.

“Your right Fizzle, we’ll deal with it when it becomes problem.” Then Jade took off into the convention full of ponies wearing costumes, cosplaying it was called, that were forming groups that enjoyed certain comic books.

I also quickly lost sight of Maries and that normally wasn’t easy to do given their size and the general wariness ponies have around them, they however somehow managed to fit in with the crowd here.

What booth would Jade go look at first? The Power Ponies booth, her favorite comic book. I just need to ask for directions from… it was actually kind of hard to tell the convention personnel from the comic book enthusiasts running amok around here.

I sighed and pulled my hat a little tighter on my forehead as I was bumped and shoved by the meandering crowd of ponies, I paused when I noticed a ‘Healthy Horniculture’ stand that sold Horniculture horn covers.

I blinked, now I felt a little awkward and confused about having been Horniculture that one time… I still wanted the horn covering as it could be worn by Earth and Pegasus ponies too.

I moved over to the booth and bought one without a second thought. Then moving over to a corner, I lifted my hat a bit to quickly put it on over my broken horn before anyone saw it. This felt right somehow.

Wait… if The Healthy Horniculture existed, then didn’t that mean that Collateral Cat’astrophe did too?

Oh goddesses, give me the strength to get through this day!

-Sekhet, Airship Mauled-

I looked up from my reading of some really raunchy stuff written about Celestia with a twitching ear, I looked around oddly. Something felt very good just now.

Was someone actually praying to me or just goddesses in general rather loudly? Their voice even sounded very… oh it was Fizzle!

Huh, never thought I’d get a prayer from her like this. It felt rather nice actually to receive such a thing.

I took apart the prayer mentally and consumed it before shrugging.

I might not be exactly omnipotent, but I could at least do that much. It was always nice to have a warm and fuzzy feeling shoved directly into your body by someone who liked you, like I was suddenly injected with a smile full of happy.

It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten a prayer like this, I didn’t exactly have worshippers in this day and age. I had lots of friends though and I guess they, sort of, counted as worshippers to me.

Most war gods on this world didn’t have too many worshippers, but this one single soul sang loudly within me and it sounded very needy for what I could provide. It was so loud, that I would do just that.

Sure, whatever, emotional strength is yours for any trying times for today Fizzle.

Be at peace, while at war with keeping your sanity!

Boon granted, now I could get back to my "adventure novel".

-Fizzle-

Somehow my mental equilibrium suddenly shifted and I felt all was right with the world despite the fact that I might see Collateral Cat’astrophe again, even if it was an Abyssinian in a costume.

It had better not be a second Jade, one was more than enough on a daily basis thank you! I loved Jade dearly, but really now. I did not need to love her over the top comically insane comic book counterpart.

I shook my head and continued to wander with a fake green horn affixed to my head, I felt like I belonged a little bit more.

“Fan of The Healthy Horniculture I take it?” Stopping to blink at the strange pony that addressed me, I stared at them. Dark orange fur, a comic book speech bubble on his flank, blue eyes and dark hair that was half dressed in a mare’s costume that looked to be Radiance’s from the Power Ponies. Is this the definition of what a super nerd looks like? “She and that Cat’astrophe are actually the most unusual characters I’ve ever heard of, their interactions are always confusing yet somehow makes for a very compelling read. It’s almost as weird as their villain Tri-mera, who for some reason never really hurts anyone and the thing with all the triangles is also really weird. Have you ever noticed that? Because I’ve certainly noticed that and I have a few theories about it…”

Oh gods, he was one of those ponies that blathered on and would never shut up. I wondered if I could really get some divine intervention for this.

-Sekhet-

Sorry, can’t help you with idiots Fizzle. Unless you’re very angry and want them gone in a permanent fashion. This is more of a trickster or intelligence gods department.

-Quetzalcoatl-

Get out of there, find any excuse to leave him behind!

Pawn him off on someone, run away, claim to have a really strange disease that only affects ponies with certain fur and hair colors… specifically the ones he has of course!

Maybe you’re allergic to talking a lot, maybe you’re coming down with something, argue about nothing important and then storm away while he’s too confused to come up with a coherent idea of what’s going on!

Don’t just stand there and let him keep talking at you or he could keep following you all day! Mostly because he thinks you don’t mind his existence at the very least.

Also whatever you do, don’t be overtly rude about it and maybe you might get away without gnawing your own legs off.

-Veles-

God of confusion at your service… oh I’m part of the story again? Wait… what story? Was there a story? I think I’m forgetting something here, probably nothing important in the long run if I’m just a side one off character.

Anyway, meh, don’t exactly feel like helping.

I’m more entertained by how annoyed you are, loving mare friend of the sun priestess.

-Fizzle-

I feel like I should be asking Sekhet riddles for some reason as I tried to get my attention back on this pony. I also felt this huge urge to hug a giant flying winged snake and shove a pile of bricks down a nuisance god’s throat.

“Excuse me, but I have some friends to go find. I’m sure you’re theories about Horniculture and Cat’astrophe are all very interesting…” I tried to back away from him, but he started following me.

“Quibble Pants, and quite frankly I haven’t told you about the entire conspiracy behind how the Masked Matterhorn doesn’t have super powers to control matter and is just actually average unicorn as if they were from our world!” Why was Quibble so easy to tolerate when he was this annoying? I didn’t even read the comics or keep up to date with them like Arizona, Maries and Jade did.

-Sekhet-

Sorry, not sorry.

The boon has already been granted, no take backs.

-Fizzle-

Ugh, this Quibble Pants has been going on for what seemed like hours. I looked towards the nearest clock… it’s only been about three minutes.

-Chronos-

I am the winged god of time… and boy does it fly!

Well, except when you need to annoy mortals by slowing time down to a crawl when they aren’t having fun.

Sorry, not sorry!

-Fizzle-

I felt like I was being toyed with massively today, but I couldn’t figure out why.

“So anyway, I’ve always wondered what would happen if Filli-second drank condensed coffee. What do they actually call it? Is double shot espresso coffee?” Finally, a point where Quibble Pants could be interrupted!

“I wouldn’t know, because in general one of my girlfriends is somewhat largely allergic to caffeine and I try not to drink a lot of coffee or tea when she’s around.” Which I knew is true of Jade and Kuril. I didn’t know if Maries was allergic though, because it was hard to tell with them and Maria’s ‘takes almost everything’ goat stomach.

“What is she, an Abyssinian?” He asked curiously looking slightly put off. “Abyssinians are always weird around tea and coffee, I don’t understand why.”

“Yes, my girlfriend is an Abyssinian.” She was also Collateral Cat’astrophe at one point, but I wasn’t telling him that. “Also tea and coffee are poisonous to them.”

“Is this colt bothering you Fizzy?” I turned to see Jade, my savior, glaring at Quibble. Unfortunately, she had changed into a Cat’astrophe costume to match my recently bought fake horn.

I’m pretty sure these two would get along swimmingly... like sharks.

Author's Note

Sharks don't have a social hierarchy and in general take care of themselves from birth.

Chapter twenty nine, Convention Tension: Unconventional Ditching.

-Jade-

Sure I was having a bout of whimsy by putting on the Cat’astrophe costume outside the comic, but I was still panicked that the Alicorn Amulet could be anywhere around here. It was kind of hard to enjoy the convention when there was this atmosphere of impending doom hanging around me just knowing that alone.

I was wound up and tense. Just waiting for a horseshoe to drop today or tomorrow. At the very least it’ll happen sometime real soon, the pony who had it would be driven insane and would go on a rampage.

“Wait, you can’t have tea or coffee because it’s poisonous to you?” The stallion annoying Fizzle had earned my attention, because he was annoying my lovely pony. “Well that’s a weak sauce weakness if I ever heard one, what kind of being would be weak to the most common substances that most ponies enjoy? Why I find the idea quite ludicrous, like how High Heel could be a functional villain when she shouldn’t even have the money to fund both her fashion empire and have all that high tech gear she uses. Why does she even have that high tech gear? She doesn’t seem like the kind of pony super villain that would be great at high end technology. She’s even mostly a toady for the Mane-iac anyway, which I find to be dumb because the Mane-iac actually has super powers, can create her own gear and has many minions of her own already…”

“Yes, this Quibble guy is bothering me a lot. I’m not even sure he realizes I’m not a big comic fanatic or is even paying attention to me saying that out loud. The only reason I’m here is for Maries and you Jade, because I want to enjoy this thing with both of you.” Yet you didn’t seem angry or outwardly upset with him Fizzy, also I liked the Hornitculture souvenir you bought for yourself. In fact you seemed pretty calm Fizzy, maybe even a little alarmingly so. “For some reason I can’t bring enough emotion around to care to run him off personally. In fact, I find my sudden ability to tolerate him highly annoying and wish I could hate that. This should be driving me insane, yet it isn’t. I find myself at a crossroads knowing what I should be feeling at this moment and what I am actually feeling is an unnerving amount of calm.”

Quibble didn’t seem to hear Fizzle, either that or he had selective hearing. He’s one of those guys wasn’t he? Liked to hear himself talk a little too much.

I sighed at Fizzle’s plight. I’d help her, but it’d require that I keep Quibble busy until I could dump him on a patsy. I looked around for one of those and saw the perfect pony to patsy this guy onto, actually… I couldn’t do this to some other poor pony and had a better idea.

First I needed to set my stage.

“Whatever you’re about to do, because I know your planning looks when I see them now, please tell me that it’ll involve wiring this guy’s jaw shut.” While that could be made to happen Fizzle, I wasn’t going to do that personally.

I turned to Quibble, who was still going on about High Heel, and thought about what I was about to do. I wouldn’t have to dirty my hands when rioting fans would do it for me. For I knew what should never be stated at a convention when it came to Power Pony fans, it would inevitably paint a target on this poor saps back.

Could I in fact say it with a clear conscience and live with myself afterwards? Could I possibly have a guilty conscience about it? I looked Fizzle’s beautiful eyes…. nope, what conscience? I don’t have one and lost it somewhere in my mare friends eyes.

“Did you know that Abyssinians can’t have too much chocolate either, it’s also poisonous to us!” Okay that was way too cheerful even for me and in the context I said it with, at least I had managed to make Quibble stop talking out of shock. Part two, attract attention with a statement that was so vile and caustic that it would anger just about any Power Ponies fan within listening range. “What’s that, you think Miss Marevelous is worse than Matter Horn?! How could you say such a thing, when you know the Matter Horn is the pony with the worst super power out of all of them, since she doesn’t actually have one!”

Quibble looked a little confused as to why I said that, then he noticed the silence throughout the area. Hundreds of ponies were now starring at Quibble, their eyes slowly turning into glares. I slowly backed away from him and towards Fizzle.

“When I say my next part, be prepared to run.” I whispered to my mare friend. “Don’t look back Fizzy, this won’t be pretty.”

“What did you just say to cause them all to go completely quiet like that?” You should be more worried than you sounded Fizzle. What kind of magical whammy were you on that prevented you from feeling frustration, much less the general loss of sanity that occurs in our daily lives? I wanted to know so I could use it myself at a later date.

“I’ll explain later Fizzle, just know the fandom has a quirk in it and every new being introduced to Power Ponies is told of this quirk in advance so as to not set someone off. I was told to never say something along those lines to someone if they are a Power Ponies fan.” I cleared my throat. “How could you say something like that, you know that Mistress Marevelous is objectively the better Power Pony! Fizzy… run…”

I turned and started making my way through the crowd before the ten second social bomb finished counting down. It didn’t take long, as Quibble was swamped under a raging tide of rioting Power Pony fans while he tried to explain himself and that he never said what I just said he said.

It was too late for the poor guy, a quick thinker he was not.

-Velvet-

“Seriously Jade?” I sighed out a fog of cold air as I saw what Jade was doing, Fizzle was being annoyed by a colt and then Jade did one of the most horrible things any Power Ponies fan could possibly do to another Power Ponies fan. “Couldn’t you have just scraped him off onto someone else?”

I made for a perfect Radiance with my costume! My ice shaping powers makes me a perfect living example of elegance and beauty that that particular Power Pony was, I could even emulate the characters powers down to a fine degree. Unfortunately Radiance was also a bit too full of herself at times and I at least tried not to have such an inflated ego that Arizona says I have.

Passing the buck like that was quite cruel, maybe even possibly warranted if the colt was annoying enough, but even that was a little bit much to do to the poor guy.

I believe Jade was doing it for a good cause as Fizzle notably wasn’t a connoisseur of the finer arts and looked to need a bail out. Still, Jade was probably the worst being Fizzle could have asked for a bail out in this situation.

The end results of this wouldn’t be pretty.

“Everyone knows that while Masked Matter Horn is the leader, she isn’t better than Mistress Marevelous and she doesn’t even technically have super powers!” Okay Arizona was getting rather riled up and even she may have fallen for Jade’s ploy, I just rolled my eyes as Arizona continued her tirade. “She’s just blatant unicorn superiority propaganda disguising itself as a super hero, she basically had a silver spoon shoved in her mouth and she’s miraculously a super hero without ever gaining actual super powers! Sure Humdrum doesn’t have super powers either, but at least he has heart, hard work and character! Humdrum even works alongside FIlli-Second who is canonically a detective and he’s just as good if not better at sniffing out criminal hideouts and crime!”

My beloved cow was about to join the riot and would possibly break a few ponies with her freakishly immense physical strength while wearing a Mistress Marevelous costume.

While it would be fitting to the character she’s dressed as, because Mistress Marevelous did have impossible super strength that could rival Saddle Rager as one of her powers, I had to put a stop to this.

Smacking Arizona harshly across the back of her head, I had acquired her attention.

“Jade just pulled a ‘pass the buck’ on that colt, don’t fall for it like everyone else is…. you idiot.” Stating that last part with a fine degree of self-control, I stared Arizona down until she realized that I was right and she was wrong.

“… Oh… I knew that…” No you were just as riled up as every other Power Ponies fan was about it Arizona, don’t try to save face with me. “Still want to join the riot anyway?”

“How crude of you Arizona… I instead suggest we stop it. By doing it Power Ponies style!” It would be much more fun to do it in style, why stopping this many ponies would require that we show we were all united by a common bond to everyone here. Now who could be our little voice of reason… ah, I see our humdrum already! Miss Coco Pommel looked absolutely cute in that costume. “I’ll of course be playing my role and you do have magic rope so…”

“It’s not a magic rope Velvet!” Glancing at Arizona for a long while, the nearby riot started to look like it was going to get violent. So far it was still in the screaming argument phase, we had to hurry this conversation along.

“Then where in the world do you keep pulling it from? There’s no room in that bandana of yours to actually contain a rope of that length or mass.” There was a long thoughtful pause as I stared at Arizona and she looked away not answering my curious gaze. The cow poked at her bandana looking for all the world like she was navel gazing or in thought about it. “It’s almost like it’s a super power with you, it’s quite comparable to what Mistress Marevelous does with her rope. Except instead of mentally controlling it, you can just pull it out whenever you need it and then put it back at any time. If I were to look, I wouldn’t find that rope under your bandana would I?”

“I don’t know how I do it, I just do, okay! It’s always been a bit weird to me too that I’ve never been without a rope my whole life.” Wait, is Arizona actually saying this has been something she’s been capable of for as long as she’s been alive? A cow with actual super powers, my beloved bovine? I was one to think, my ice shaping abilities were impossibly precise! “I practically have an infinite amount of it and nobody can figure out where I even keep pulling it all from!”

“Hey guys, are you okay?” We jumped when Miss Coco interjected herself into our lives, making us jump at the interruption. Fizzle introduced us to this young mare and we’ve been friends since.

“Of course we are Humdrum, but it looks like a riot is breaking out here. You can help us by reminding this community that we all feel a great love for the same thing here, we’ll make sure the worst rabble rousers don’t do a thing to harm you while you talk the crowd down!” I quickly snapped my hoof to Arizona. “Mistress Marevelous, hold back on your strength. These ponies need a gentle hoof!”

“Getting a bit into the role fluff butt? I’m game. Sure thing Radiance, I’ll back you up!” Arizona moved to hug Coco against herself. “Don’t worry Humdrum you’re power of the heart is going to be very helpful in stopping this forming riot!”

“Wait, what… oh no… I couldn’t!” Despite Coco’s obvious fear, she made for a good humdrum and knew what it was like to live here in Manehattan.

“But you simply must Humdrum, why think of all the injuries you can prevent on this fine day just by talking the crowd down!” I think I had poor Coco shaking a bit, I sighed and decided to ease up on the acting for a moment. “Look, just get out there and show some of you’re spirit as a Manehattan pony Coco! We’ll protect you with all that we have, we promise! Right Arizona?”

“Just watch them try and get by me.” We all set forth to put a stop to this riot, whether we succeeded or not would be up to Coco. We needed a Humdrum right now and she was it.

“Okay… I’ll try.” Turning to the huge crowd, Coco gulped. “Um, excuse me… everyone…”

Deciding to help this process along I started to swiftly swing my hooves rapidly until a humongous megaphone made of ice appeared before us. Coco seemed a little intimidated by this, but it would certainly hasten things.

“Hey, everyone! A local Humdrum wishes to speak with you!” The crowd stopped complaining around the cowering colt and turned to us, I flicked my hoof and my megaphone disappeared. I took a bow as I created two giant pillars with arrows of ice pointing towards Coco with the subtlest of movements. “Go ahead Humdrum, show them your heart and talk them down!”

“Look… I know everyone is angry and I think I could be angry too if someone had an unpopular opinion about something I love, but we’re all gathered here today to celebrate something we all love together. Comic books, fantasy stories that we all enjoy in our own ways!” That was good, keep going Coco! We were right behind you and we’d glare down any dissenters. “We all love our characters and our respective comic books, we all came here to enjoy said shared love together. Why must anger come into it? Can’t we all just hug it out and enjoy this convention together?”

“Humdrum’s right, let’s just calm down and do what we came here to do, enjoy this convention!” An alicorn that could only be Cadence came forward to lend us some assistance. “Let me remind you all of the love you feel, don’t let one moment sour everything that brought us all here!”

-Jade-

“See Fizzle, nothing went horribly wrong and the riot didn’t get too bad. Though Cadence stepping in was an unexpected surprise.” I turned to Maries approaching us with a blue ribbon on her chest. “What prize did you win?”

“First prize for best costume at the convention apparently.” They weren’t even wearing one, I’m sure Maries was quite aware of this fact as they looked quite bemused that they won. Mara followed up. “We’re wearing a perfect Tri-mera costume… also we don’t think any of the ponies here realize we’re a real and actual chimera. We got a nice prize out of it that we’ll show off later.”

I snorted and started laughing, I wonder what they won?

“Sign-ups for the next Power Ponies quiz off over here!” I turned to the pony.

Guess I was finally loosening up, I wanted to join that!

Author's Note

Yeah, the first three chapters of the year were all posted at the same time. They definitely weren't written at the same time.

Chapter twenty nine, Convention Tension: Unconventional Quiz.

-Jade-

I was calm, I was not thinking of the Alicorn Amulet or the havoc it could bring… I was also going to take part in a Power Ponies themed quiz. Nothing should go wrong today, at least here in Manehattan.

Ugh, how did the amulet end up where it did in canon? Was it something I did? My life is odd enough already for that to be true, I wouldn’t know what was going to happen. It was still a year or two off from Nightmare Moon’s return and I had a sinking feeling that canon was going to happen anyway, with or without my interference.

“Hello…” Hearing someone addressing, I turned to see Quibble sitting in the booth next to mine, he’d taken a hit or two leaving his face slightly bruised. “I’m going to win this so I can have some form of revenge against you.”

“You can try, but it’s two against one.” On Quibble’s other side was Maries, Mara was taking the role as the most active head at the moment. They made for a pretty good Tri-mera even without the triangle themed costume.

“You know the pony in that poorly made Tri-mera costume?” Yes Quibble, but that was no costume. “I can practically see the zipper on that thing.”

“Yep.” Not that I was going to tell him about Maries being a real chimera, that would cause another riot and the small one I already caused was hitting my daily quota for jerk ass tendencies I’m allotted as a cat.

“We are not working with you Jade.” Giving Mara my best watery cat eyes, she sighed and continued on to say. “Should we win the prize, you can have it if you wish.”

“Thanks Maries, supreme alpha chimera of our pack!” Yeah, buttering them up would only help me in the long run. Mara ducked her head trying to hide the blush on it, as did Marie and Maria.

“So that’s why there’s only two bodies… one of your loved ones is a chimera.” Turning to see the familiar visage of Cadence, I smiled cheekily at her and leaned close to whisper to her.

“They’re strong, fierce and quite protective of us, that and they really know how to snuggle. Don’t worry about them hurting anyone, they’re big softies as long as those they care about are not in any danger.” I seriously doubted Cadence would interfere in my relationships. “Please keep the fact that that is not a costume they’re wearing to yourself.”

“Of course, but please don’t start another riot like you did an hour or so ago.” Smiling at the glare Cadence sent my way, I didn’t feel the slightest bit bad about causing that incident. Cadence sighed, smiled at me while shaking her head and then cleared her throat to start announcing much to my surprise. “Welcome to the Power Ponies quiz off, with me as your special host for all the particular quizzes going on today! Hello I'm Cadence and I'm hosting these quizzes. Today here, we have our three contestants who were picked for this quiz, why don’t you tell us your names and a little about yourselves?”

“I’m Jaded La Perm.” I was grinning as I rested my arms on the podium. “Though you can all also call me Collateral Cat’astrophe, I am not an escaped insanity ward patient!”

The crowd laughed, a Collateral Cat’astrophe joke made for a good opener as my introduction.

“Looks like we got a real Abyssinian joker folks.” Cadence giggled as she moved on to Quibble to my right.

“I’m Quibble Pants and I’m going to win this!” The crowd seemed to be a little fired up and cheered, despite his supposedly unpopular opinion that I scraped off onto him.

“Now there’s a determined fan of Radiance, can he answer a generous helping of the quiz questions today?” Cadence then moved on to Maries, they smirked as they looked towards me… were they really going to… oh this would be awesome!

The three heads inhaled and let out a deafening roar, the crowd froze and then started to eat up what Maries was selling them.

“We are Tri-mera! How did we get here into this tiny booth? Where is our costume?” Maries acted falsely confused about being here and their three heads said three separate things at once, they turned my way and then shouted out as if in shock. “Collateral Cat’astrophe!”

“In the flesh, fur and costume, you like three’s don’t you? The only thing I’m missing a bit of drywall from a collapsed building.” The crowd giggled at my delivery, then I just had to add on to it. “Apparently I’ve been a good hero lately… after all, I’ve only broken one portable toilet today!”

The crowd broke out into laughter.

“We should have known it was you! Only you could cause this kind of wardrobe malfunction! I’m hungry, can we get some candy?” Nice method acting Maries. I’ll give you the gold star for this performance, but critics will probably mark it down for not being realistic enough. “Where is The Healthy Horniculture? Why isn’t she here to keep your brand of insanity in check? Can we get some new heroes to deal with… please!?”

The three separate questions asked by the three differing heads was selling it to everyone. We were slaying the crowd and Cadence took a moment to catch her breath.

“Alright that’s enough out you, we do need to get this show on the road after all.” Cadence was smiling as she took up her position off to the side and spread her wings wide to gain the crowds attention.

“You mean there are roads that I haven’t destroyed yet?!” The crowd had almost managed to settle down until I said that in confused tone, they started up again.

“Collateral Cat’astrophe is why we can’t have nice things, though she can be quite ‘acute’ when she wants to be. If we get another crossover, we’d seriously consider taking on Humdrum and High Heel for a more serious ‘equilateral’ fight. We’d need to find the ‘right angle’ for taking on the power ponies first!” Aw look, the crowd loved Maries. They also loved my joking around.

“Okay that’s enough of that, I’ll be asking nine questions about the power ponies, the first to get four answers right automatically wins. In the case of a tie we have a tenth mystery question.” After casting some magic over all of us to quiet us down, Cadence pulled out a series of cards and looked through them. “This quizzes topic is about… the origins of the Power Ponies and anything related to that subject! If you know the answer to a question, chime in after I’m done reading it out.”

The crowd cooed loudly.

“First question, what is Filli-second’s real occupation outside of being a hero?” When Cadence finished my reflexes were a bit faster than Quibble’s or Maries. “Jade chimed first.”

“She’s a Detective for the Maretropolis Police Department!” My booth lit up green.

“Correct, next question! What is Zapp’s real name?” Cadence had shuffled on to the next card. Quibble chimed faster than the rest of us. “Quibble chimed first.”

“Princess Aurora.” Quibble for once didn’t go on and on, he just turned a glare to me.

“Correct, next question! What was the Saddle Rager working on before she gained her powers?” This time Cadence saw how fast Maries hit the button and was a little shocked at how fast she jumped on the question. “Tri-mera chimed first.”

“A machine. To treat animal illnesses. Can’t cure us of our triangle fever though!” Their booth lit up green and got a bit more laughter out of the crowd.

“This is Correct! One point on the board for everyone. Now can you tell me… what school did ‘The Masked Matter Horn’ go to?” As soon as Cadence said ‘to’ Quibble was on top of this questions. “Quibble chimed first.”

“Professor Celestia’s School for Gifted Youth, though it mostly noticeably caters to unicorns and I would just like to say…” Quibble was cut off by his booth turning green and Cadence silencing him.

“Right, next question! Where did Mistress Mare-velous come from?” Cadence heard me buzzing s I jumped on this one, Quibble was a bit too annoyed by being silenced to actually get one in. “Jade chimed first.”

“The ancient lost city of Alfalfis!” The green glow and a ding had me smile.

“Next question! How did Radiance receive her powers?” Two chimes came in and Cadence turned to Maries. “Tri-mera chimed first.”

“An alien crash landed and Radiance saved him. She generously helped him and he gave her his power bands. She’d be so helpless without those power bracelets… we should steal them!” Their booth lit up green and Maries continued to act as Tri-mera would by giving three answers at a time.

“Next question. Chronologically speaking, which of the seven power ponies were the first to meet one another?” Cadence finished reading it off and three chimes went off simultaneously. She turned to Maries. “Tri-mera chimed first.”

“If we’re going by chronologically the first meeting of any of the Power Ponies. It would be when Humdrum met Filli-second, before she got her super powers and before he decided to become a hero.” A green ding and now Maries had three points, they smirked at the crowd and Mara even waggled her brows much to the amusement of everyone. Marie spoke up from behind them. “Three points for us, the very best number, yay!”

The crowd was laughing.

“Tri-mera could win if they get one more question correct, will this be the villain’s first victory? Oh this is a good one, what does Radiance do for a day job.” The only response was two chimes and Cadence turned to Tri-mera. “Why didn’t you chime? In any case it’s Quibble who chimed first!”

“Why would we want a higher number? It wouldn’t be a three anymore! I saw Celes somewhere trotting down the street singing ‘do what did he, what dumb did Ditty do’~?” It was Maria that acted up this time and even I couldn’t hold back the burst of laughter that escaped my lips when she sang that out.

“She’s a zeppelin pilot!” After the green ding, the now a laughing Quibble was tied with Maries.
“Can Jade answer this next one so we enter the final question round? Let’s find out. Here’s a tough one… where exactly was Filli-second when she acquired her powers?” Cadence had probably never heard so close a button press as this one, again only two sound out. I waited patiently and she then turned to me. “Jade chimed first.”

“I’ll get the last question, just you wait and see!” Rolling my eyes at Quibble’s taunt, I turned to Maries.

“She was almost finished cracking a case while at the Maretropolis Chemical Plant, when a chemical vat exploded thanks to a lightning bolt strike. That’s how she gained her powers. Also, I had nothing to do with that… honest! It was probably Zapp’s fault, I mean she’s the one who can control lightning right?” The green ding sounded beautiful to my ears and the audience started applauding us.

“Oh we have a three way tie here and our very last question.” Cadence's cheerful disposition smiled at us brightly.

“The best kind of tie there can be! Would we have to wear three ties, why can’t it be bows? We can’t exactly win, if we don’t chime in!” Though Maries would be notably breaking character if they chimed a fourth time they would have to if they wanted to win and the audience would just have to accept it.

“Final question… what eventually led to Humdrum joining the Power Ponies in their adventures as their plucky caped sidekick with a heart of gold?” Three chimes rang out as Cadence finished asking that question.

“We still got three chimes out of this. Yes, but which one of us did it first. Can we get some cottage cheese over here?” It seems like Maries was still going in three’s, while trying to explain how they’re still in character.

The five of us turned to Cadence and waited as she stood silently with her eyes shut.

“… Quibble chimed in first.” As Cadence said that, I groaned out loud. Really? Well if he has it, then he absolutely has it.

There was a silence and then I finally looked to Quibble, he seemed to be sweating a bit. Did he have it? Oh my goodness really!? He doesn’t have it, Oh this is too good!

“Humdrum made his first appearance when the Power Ponies were squabbling amongst themselves while fighting the Mane-iac…” That wasn’t an answer Quibble, you were stalling.

“You don’t know it do you?” I had a growing feral smile on my face.

“No…” Quibble huffed out loud as his booth flashed red and made an angry buzzing noise.

“Jade you chimed in second.” Cadence turned to me and I looked to Maries.

“Go ahead Jade. Win this one. I doubt you wouldn’t know this answer, you’ve practically lived it!” Well of course Maries knew I know the answer, I did in fact live it with Fizzle. Heck they even mentioned it once just a short while ago... and just now of course!

“It was during the Power Ponies and The Healthy Horniculture crossover special where Collateral Cat’astrophe convinced Humdrum that anyone can be a hero while she was fighting High Heel. That’s where Humdrum totally goes on to save the day while Mane-iac was tied up fighting Horniculture and High Heel was losing her arch support to Cat’astrophe!” I inhaled and then continued. “He obviously took that moment to heart and eventually became a caped crime fighter that should not be underestimated for his size or lack of powers. Also Horniculture looked beautiful while defeating Mane-iac, but she and Collateral Cat’astrophe couldn’t stick around in the city of Maretropolis forever as they have their own rogue’s gallery list of villains to deal with elsewhere!”

The booth turned green and I threw up my arms in celebration.

“Yes, that is correct. We have our winner in a Cat’astrophe of a costume, Jade! Come on over here to receive your prize!” Cadence opened a nearby box on a podium and I took the prize into my hands.

The first copy of a new Power Ponies comic, signed by the author of the comics. I hugged it to myself and then hugged Cadence while nuzzling her affectionately, I was just that happy.

“Jade! Hey! Down girl!” Maries growled out to me, I smiled sheepishly and backed off of Cadence. “We know you’re happy to win, but snuggle up against someone you actually care about more… us!”

Well since you’re giving me that invitation, I’ll gladly take it! I jumped at Maries and hugged Mara’s head while affectionately rubbing up against it.

“Okay, I’ll admit that there are some things I don’t know about being a fan of Power Ponies, like the fact that Cat’astrophe actually did something heroic for once. Until next time Jade, we're rivals!” With that Quibble turned and cantered off to continue enjoying the conventions, leaving me to snuggle against Maries as Cadence walked up to us.

“So who are your girlfriends here Jade? I know they’re not Tri-mera.” Well… since you wanted to know.

“These girls are known as Bloody Maries collectively, separately they are Mara, Maria and Marie.” I introduced them. “Girls, this is Cadence, the Princess of Love.”

Author's Note

Does anyone know how hard it is to write a story this long, there are just so many things you have to keep track of...

Like who knows who, who knows what and who knows where and why!

I've been a little distracted by AGDQ 2019, Awsome Games Done Quickly.

Chapter twenty nine, Convention Tension: The horseshoe drops.

-Fizzle-

“Jade, are you okay?” I ran up next to Jade and helped her stand up, There was something off about what I was looking at. A malicious hovering earth pony in the air, one of which I could feel the dark magic rolling off of.

Is this what Jade was afraid of? She was right to be worried from what I was feeling. There was just so much power rolling off that stallion, and all of it felt very wrong.

“I’m alright Fizzy, but he has mom!” Anyone, much less myself, could see that Jade. Mom was struggling against the magic.

“Oh I just happened along to spy an Abyssinian that our contacts are familiar with. So here I am seeing her all alone and by herself and thought, hey this lady could use some protection so… I’m taking your mother kid and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!” This Top Snide guy is going on the top of my list of most hated ponies, there weren’t any other ponies on said unwritten list at the moment. “She can cook meals fit for someone of my grand visage! I hear she’s getting a lot of notoriety for her cooking skills, I’m going to partake in the best she can make… or else. I’m not above torture.”

“So you’re part of the organization that sent those two assassins after me?” Why was Jade asking that, it wasn’t like he was going to tell us anything about…?

“Oh my yes, but our organization sent three… guess you never caught wind of the third one. Not like it did that assassin any good when SMILE somehow got a hold of them, they don’t know a thing about our organization except what we hired them to do… which is to kill you. That, is proving to be much harder to do than is advertised!” Was it that easy to get information out of Snide? Oh wait, this has to be one of the side effects of the Alicorn Amulet, I think Jade is banking on his increasing stupidity to make him drop us a few bits of information. “You likely already know what the ‘glorious’ leaders end goal is, that ‘end to immortality’ thing he’s working on finding. You didn’t seem like a credible threat to me, well, at least until you took down False Gold… better known as Billion Karats. You mostly did that by accident. So really, for a sun priestess, you’re nothing special!”

He sneered at us.

“So what… are you going to kill me here and now?” Why are you asking that Jade? The answer should be fairly obvious if he’s part of the organization that, for whatever reason, despises your very existence as a Sun Priestess. “Why are you even part of this, so far, nameless organization anyway? Do you want immortals, gods and the like to be killed off?”

“Why would I want to join such a shadowy organization? Hm… let me think… for the perks and all the power that comes with it of course! Now I clearly have that in spades kid. I couldn’t care less about the end goals the ‘glorious’ leader wants to achieve or why they are so focused on you, but no, I’m not killing you here…” The stallion started to stroke his mustached while giving us a toothy grin that chilled my spine. “No, doing it now would be way too simple… like crushing an elegantly peeled grape between my perfectly sublime impeccable teeth even!”

“Why not, I’m right here!” Jade, now probably isn’t the best time to antagonize the stallion with an amulet you described as being capable of wiping out all of Manehattan! Just let him be stupid Jade and live to prepare for our inevitable fight with him. “You do realize that it’s probably the amulet messing with your head, especially when you absolutely have the power to do something now so that you can avoid a lot of pain later. I will come and rip you apart personally if you take my mother.”

Targeting our mom will likely have this guy inexorably blacklisted by any true Airship Mauled citizen, basically everyone we know and love! I’m even including Velvet in that, since she practically lives with Arizona and Grace. That’s going to get awkward now that Arizona and her are dating… actually Maries and I are living with Jade so I’d be one to talk.

No… focus on the problem at hoof Fizzle, there’s a dangerous stallion threatening mom and Jade!

“Taking care of you right now would just take all the fun out of doing it in a more spectacular manner in front of a live audience! Not to mention it would ruin the reason why I’ve been capturing ponies for the last six hours.” What? No, seriously, why would he have spent the last six hours kidnapping ponies? What was that amulet even doing to his mind? ”Ever since I found out what hotel you’ve been staying at, I’ve been busy setting up quite a spectacular feature to beat you down with and came to deliver a message.”

A shard of ice launched at Snide from behind, he turned slightly and unleashed a blast of fire so hot that that the ice immediately evaporated. Velvet’s aim was spot on, but now Snide created a larger protective barrier around himself and mom.

“What are you planning to do exactly?” You’re not the only one that wanted to know that Jade. “What exactly is your end goal here?”

“Why, I’m going to put on one of the biggest shows Equestria has ever seen! The finale, the piece of resistance and big bang, will be a sun priest and all her friends falling to my incredible might. I’ll be going to finish setting up as soon as I’m done here.” Snide says that like we’re letting him get away with mom, he cups mom’s chin and she bared her fangs at him and made a hissing noise. “What quite big teeth you have my dear, it’s a good thing you can’t talk now or else you’d be dripping your wonderful witticisms upon me in witchy rhyme. As for my end goal? I’ll take over the world with the greatest show anyone’s ever seen and I’ll end the tyranny of all glass!”

Glass??? Is this that part where a pony is horribly paranoid about something oddly specific? Jade wasn’t kidding about that, I kind of thought she was given how absurd it sounded to be paranoid of inanimate objects or in this case a highly specific material. His goals sounded rather unrealistic, which kind of fits the fact that he was completely mental.

“Glass… really… nothing like say… wheels?” That was oddly left field Jade, but you were effectively distracting the guy.

“As long as they aren’t made of glass they are perfectly fine. For too long Glass has made up our windows, it’s reflective, it gets all pointy when it’s broken, it’s used to make horrid statues, it’s always getting dirty and smudging so easily. You may think I’m evil, but glass has taken over our world with its tyranny!” Well, that certainly explains why our Manehattan hotel no longer has any windows. There wasn’t even a speck of broken glass on the ground. So this is what a pony is like when that amulet sends them around the bend, it’s all pretty terrifying honestly. Yet for some reason I wasn’t reacting to this bit of insanity like I should be, it seemed muted somehow. “Our world is practically made up of such horrors, glass owns our lives and I’ll take them back! First, however, I have to deal with a small pinprick… the sun priestess.”

“You said you were setting something up to that effect?” Jade was sighing audibly and crossed her arms while glaring at the floating menace, then again none of us have been able to exactly touch this guy so far. An example of this was Arizona rocketing into the shield and bouncing off of it, it even flickered a bit before returning to full force when a flash of anger filled the stallion’s eyes. “What’s that message you wanted to deliver?”

“The message is this, you and all those you call friends have a VIP access pass to come see my grand show. If you don’t show up, then my captive audience will be left to my whims and mercy... including this pretty lady right here. Meaning she’ll be all mine, now doesn’t that just rankle you? You seem like heroes, so I know you’ll come and I’ll be waiting for you!” If Snide ever actually saw Jade fight, then he’d know Jade absolutely fights dirty and wasn’t exactly of the most heroic of character. In this case though, he’d be right to call us heroes. “So prepare all you want, because tonight I… Ringleader Snide will invite you to your doom at the Mystical Maiming Circus in Manehattan Park! You’ll know where to come in at.”

“Before you go, sate my curiosity, how did you get the amulet? It was decently guarded.” That was only something of minor concern Jade, he got it and he is absolutely abusing it. The how doesn’t matter that much to any of us anymore.

“That’s easy, I know a rather desperate thief. They didn’t even know what they had when they gave it to me, the simpleton thought it was just a work of art. Oh boo hoo, I need money for food to feed my little sister, will you pay me more? Bah, that unicorn should just grow a pair and stop trying to earn my sympathy!” The world seemed to warp around Top Snide and he laughed madly. “So long sun priestess, get in a last meal while you still can!”

Maries pounced on the barrier, but couldn’t break through it with raw strength. With a blink Top Snide teleported away with mom, Jade didn’t look happy as Maries dropped to the ground.

In fact, Jade looked eerily calm.

“He kidnapped my mother before her birthday, I even brought the gift I got for her and everything with me to Manehattan… her birthday was going to be special. I spent hours setting up for it.” Now there’s a calm tone that belied how angry Jade was. “Full Petty Kitty, nonstop, no mercy, do not pass go and collect two hundred bits. He will not know rest until I take him down when we show up for his so called show, I will do every single horrible thing I can think of to make him absolutely miserable before the night is out. We’re also making sure that the amulet doesn’t exist or at the very least can’t work anymore when we’re through with him!”

I shivered, all those words meant business. Even Maries was stepping away from Jade in a frightened manner. Jade planned a lot of things and she was a mental juggernaut when it came to coming out ahead when she did in fact have a plan running, this sounded like she was going to do something in the vein of 'complete overkill'.

How were we going to deal with an amulet that gave a pony ludicrous amounts of power to almost match an alicorn though?

-Snide-

I was the lead of the Manehattan branch of our organization. Let me tell you, crime absolutely paid and quite lucratively at that, especially when it gives you power like this! The power to see all the horrors that glass is wreaking upon us!

“Talk, it’ll amuse me.” I turned to the white robed lady that fancied herself a witch, I had left that cruddy hat of hers behind as it didn’t know whether it was a pirate hat or a witch’s hat. I had her tied up by her wrists, legs and tail, she wasn’t going to go anywhere any time soon. She couldn’t even reach the ropes with her claws.

I’d make her watch as her daughter suffers, then I’d break her and make her beg to help me save our world from the oncoming fragility that will be the glass regime!

-Kuril-

“If I’m going to be allow to say one thing and one thing only, then it’ll be this.” You do not take a mother from her kitten, especially not the hand that feeds and cares for said kitten. I was quite sure Jade had something planned for me when she kept sneaking away from the Mystery Dumpling booth, Snide just ruined whatever she set into motion and then poked the sleeping dragon far more than was necessary. That would be a huge mistake on his part. “You’ve likely just set off my kitten, whatever my little tom cat is going to do to you… I almost pity you. You’ll live, but there are far worse things than death, my Jaded is one of them.”

“She has no power, her friends won’t even make it too far into the tent. Beside… they’ll have to go through my army. If by some miracle they do somehow reach me, then they will be too exhausted to even do anything substantial.” Hundreds of red glowing eyes looked up at Snide as he smirked down at them.

“You do realize how absolutely stupid and absurd all of this sounds right? If you can mind control so many ponies, then why not just cut out the middle mare? You really shouldn’t have given my daughters the time to plan your downfall.” Sure he had an army of mind controlled ponies, very terrifying, but he hasn’t ever seen what my daughter or I can do when angered. “You should take the amulet off and give yourself to the royal guards or at least the police ponies before it’s too late!”

“Quiet you!” With a lash of his hoof Snide silenced me again with a flash of magic, I just glared angrily at him and hissed loudly in my displeasure.

-Jade-

I stood there in silence, just staring off into the distance thinking. I had been at this for five minutes, which might have been scaring all my friends since I can usually snap a plan out in less than a minute.

Even Generic and Jacky had showed up and been informed and now they were all waiting on me to do or say something.

“Arizona, cows, the ones that are networking… I need their help and to do a little running around the city for me. Get me Daisy Jo and any other cows that are willing to help us.” Like a flash and her tail had been lit on fire, Arizona was off with Velvet. “Fizzle, find Shining armor and deliver something I’m about to write down to him.”

I took out a notepad and jotted something down, ripped out the piece of paper and gave it to her. She nodded and was off.

“Maries, find Princess Cadence. I need to ask her something.” There was a blur and no longer a chimera within sight.

“Jacky do as many things as you possibly can to exacerbate your horrible luck in the next few hours to a completely obscene degree… without killing yourself.” I watched as Jacky looked to a nearby mirror store and then back to me, she then turned and started walking towards it with brave look on her face. “Vibrant Vikings, prepare for war.”

Generic, Flamberge and Fortitude smiled grimly.

“Dr. Bones, Cheerilee, get medical supplies and find Traveling Neko.” I needed some things and Neko better have them stocked.

Author's Note

Next: Circus Irks Us!

It'll be the longest battle, that will take place all in one night. The length is not an exaggeration, it will be long.

Chapter thirty (x2), Circus Irks Us: Faithful Night.

Author's Note

Surprise, exactly double the normal length page!

Chapter thirty (x2), Circus Irks Us: Faithful Night.

-Jade-

“Remember we’re the brute force attention grabbers with me calling tactics, we need to hold Top Snide’s attention entirely on us… which is why Fortitude is our signaler for when my plans start up.” Though it could have been anyone else, I chose the big guy for this. He wouldn’t go down easily and he’d be the quickest to get the signal out as he can actively tank any kind of attack.

“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant, I will do important yak job greatly with Viking pride!” You do you Fortitude, our most stalwart and most physically appropriate meat shield of our friends. It was sad to put you in the back, but entirely necessary in this circumstance. He slapped his shield against his chest loudly. “I promise I shall not fail friends, failing forever is not yak way!”

Arizona, Velvet, Maries, Fizzle, the three Vibrant Vikings, Jacky and I would all be putting up quite a fight tonight. We were the first class of Cheerilee and we were all quite mad. A little more than that, we were enraged and filled with cold fury that our beloved sweet witch, my mother, was taken.

Bringing up the rear were Cheerilee and Dr. Bones. They’d keep us fighting one way or another while my plan gets set into motion, any serious injuries and they’d move forward to drag us out of combat to patch us up and get us at least standing again.

If we’re standing, we can still fight.

Before us sat a large red growing tent, one with a creepy smiling anime caricature of Snide’s face over the entrance. We were at one end of the long tent outside the opening, we started walking forward ignoring the swirling clouds overhead.

This night was going to be a long one.

There was no need to charge forward, he likely knew we were here and was just waiting for us to come in.

“This night is going to suck so very hard for everyone involved.” I knew the amulet definitely had its hold on the jerk, why else would he be giving into these ridiculous theatrics? He had managed to keep himself and the organization he was a part of rather quiet, well at least up until now.

Now he was being way too loud and there was hardly any of what was likely his previous subtlety here.

We marched into the darkened tent beyond the glowing red barrier that let us pass through it, we stopped near the entrance.

“We’re here you bastard!” That’s when the entire tent lit up slightly and sitting before us was a single ornate wagon with a spotlight on it. We were also under a spotlight, I glance around taking stock of the situation.

The crowd in the stands were squirming, some ponies were crying and others were just basically asking us to help them with their eyes. I even think I spotted Trixie, if she didn’t learn about the amulet by reading about it, then this would certainly let her know what it was and did.

They looked like they had been stuck here for hours without the ability to leave, use the bathroom, drink something or even eat. We’d either save them all or end up fighting to our very last.

“Welcome one and all to the Mystical Maiming Circus, tonight we’re maiming these heroes that are just here to rescue one lady only. The rest of you are just hoof notes and I don’t feel sorry for any of you in the slightest.” That was definitely Snide’s voice, a lot more bombastic than usual. A spotlight lit up at the far end of the tent opposite of the entrance. I saw mom hanging there looking angrily below her, the light shifted down to Snide laying on a gaudy looking throne similar to the one Trixie will possibly build later on when she has an Alicorn Amulet. I’m sure there was more than one, because why wouldn’t there be? “Isn’t she quite a lovely little doll folks? I’ll play with her when the heroes are begging for their lives, let’s start off this show with something fun… clowns! It is my pleasure as the most impressive ringleader to introduce, the ‘Crazy Clown Clutter’ folks!”

The door on the windowless carriage in front of us opened up and a lot of glowing red dots appeared in the shadows of the carriages interior. One hoof stepped out and a creepy clown pony took a step down and out of the carriage.

Soon a flood of clown ponies of various races with glowing red eyes started to pour out of it one after another, each with a haunting mad grinning smiles on their white painted faces.

They all looked to be dancing as they stumbled out of the carriage and each one held in their hooves a gnarly looking pie with black as night filling. They smelled awful even from this far away, it looks like the fight has just begun.

They were all victims of the amulets power, like I said previously… this is going to suck!

-Arizona-

A pie flew towards Jade and she bounced back out of the path of it and I moved forward to sniff the splattered pie on the ground… and my eyes widened.

“Don’t let Jade ingest a single bit of one of those pies, they are full of chocolate, tea leaves, coffee grounds and a lot of other nasty stuff!” My warning got out in time as Jade moved behind fortitude whose large shield was struck by a wave of thrown pies. All while more and more of those creepy smiling clown ponies were coming out of the carriage slowly in droves. “In fact, don’t get hit in the face at all if you can help it, it’s safe to say that they are all probably lethally poisonous!”

How many of these ponies did this Snide guy fit in there!? They just kept coming out, one clown after another. Was it larger on the inside or something?

I was the first to charge forward, starting this battle by ramming a group of clown ponies to the ground. I couldn’t hurt them too much as they were all victims to this mad ponies ill-gotten power.

-Jade-

I came out from behind Fortitude and fired a magic missile into the face of a flying clown pony making them drop the pie they were going to throw at me. The pony almost fell face first onto the remains.

“Disarm them and make sure they don’t ingest any of these pies either!” I ducked a pie launched by a unicorn. The pie stopped in mid-air, it flipped and came right back for me. Quickly bringing up mom’s twice battered battle shield, I popped an octagonal barrier into existence. The pie splashed harmlessly into. “Target the unicorns first as a priority! Bones, Cheerilee, drag the ones we knock out hard enough away from here and keep them out of the fight!”

“Of course we’ll be taking care of these downed soap brained idiots you daft cat!” Dr. Bones blocked a pie with her right arm and charged forward to deliver a punch to the offending ponies jaw, then spun throwing a haymaker to the skull that put the pony down. She then shoulder tackled another pony hard to the ground. “Deputized Nurse Cheerilee, get to work getting these patients out of the line of fire, doctor’s orders!”

“R-r-right, this is really scary for me.” Even then, Cheerilee still grabbed the pony Dr. Bones just knocked out and started to carefully drag them back and out of the mess we were causing, she was trying not to drag them through any of the pie filling quickly covering the ground.

Maries was trying to disable the ponies with slapping paws and bucks. Marie couldn’t bite any of these ponies safely and was just whipping her head around to slam into them. Maria couldn’t hit them with her sharp bladed horns and Mara couldn’t use her mighty jaws. They were severely downgraded in effectiveness in this battle.

They would be moving forward with us when the time came, they aren’t going to be very effective here.

Velvet slapped a pony, ducked under a pie and bucked out to knock the clown pony behind her onto their back, they bounced up trying to launch a kick-up for her back. Only the clown was intercepted by Flamberge grabbing the pony’s rear legs and then swung them around to slam their heads against the ground.

Velvet turned and exhaled a massive gust of ice at the ground that sent an entire group of clown ponies slipping and sliding while making them flail their pies in every direction in wild and dangerous arcs.

Thankfully nobody was hit, but the floor close to the entrance was going to be a complete and utterly dangerous mess by the time we’re done here.

Velvet needed to move forward as her ice was a liability to seriously getting someone pied, plus we need her on the front line. I should tell her stop making the terrain so dangerous.

“Fortitude, keeping Cheerilee and Dr. Bones is a priority for you until you need to deliver the signal.” I ducked under a pie and turned whipping my tail across the sneaky clown pony’s face.

Grabbing their extended hoof with my left hand and I pulled them towards me to brutally launch a right handed palm strike to their left temple. I heard a small cracking noise and hoped I hadn’t hurt them too much as I left them behind me lying limply on the floor.

Most of the pies were aiming for me, so I charged forward while removing my purple skirt from my pack and started affixing it around my waist over my shorts. I didn’t stop moving for a second, as a lot of lethal pies were raining down all around me.

I immediately sustained the skirt once I had it in place, my sustain lead my to do a majestic leap forward into a ballerina twirl and I dodged an incoming pie while leaning artistically backwards. I dipped and dove into a roll and came up with an uppercut knocking a pony up into the air.

I grabbed their tail when it was in front of me and swung them down head first into the ground and then around to send them flying in Cheerilee, Bones and Fortitude’s direction.

“Velvet, don’t make the floor icy here, you’re getting pies everywhere and we have to move around too you know!” I said as I passed by the embattle reindeer while launching a flying kick to the skull of a pony moving to attack her from behind. The poor pony’s face was forced into the ground as I kicked off of them.

“To be fair Jade, there are pies going absolutely everywhere already!” She almost took a pie to the chest, she managed to stomp her hooves and form an ice wall to block it and several others from hitting us.

A pie nearly fell on her from above and I looked up to see Generic had his claws full with taking down the flying clown ponies.

Velvet glared upwards for a second and shot an icicle up into the air. A winged pony slammed into the ground a second later with a nasty wing injury.

“Velvet keep assisting Generic with the aerial threats.” Backing away from Velvet and after elbowing a clown pony in the face, I nearly got hit by an earth pony clown as they almost came down directly on top of me riding a large bouncy ball with a handle. The pressure from the landing still hit me and knocked me onto my butt.

As they bounced up they sent a pie sailing straight at my face. I was tackled from the side by Fizzle who just finished bucking a pony in the head off to the side, we tumbled to a stop avoiding several more pies as we rolled.

An icicle struck the ball and it exploded violently sending the pony on it to the ground unconscious, Velvet was just firing shards of ice every which way now with impressive unerring accuracy and concentration.

I turned and noticed that some of the clowns weren’t only just armed with deadly pies. They were also using rideable bouncing balls, banana peels and were flopping and flailing around as they struck out at us with their hooves while dancing in a very ominously silly swaying manner.

“Be more careful Jade!” Before Fizzle or even I could get up another pie came at my face. Only this one was intercepted by a clown pony, one that didn’t have red glowing eyes. In fact he had orange fur and bright golden amber eyes, his back was covered in pie filling and he stood up looking quite grumpy with all the other clowns. Fizzle seemed a bit confused. “What the… a clown that’s not under Snide’s control?”

“Nobody uses pies lethally while Ponyacci is around, it’s just not funny to play with someone’s food allergies like this!” He turned to us as he scraped the gooey pie filling off the back of his clown costume. “It’s just not right I tell you, the calories in these pies alone is way too fattening. These aren’t clowns, they’re innocent ponies turned into monstrous puppets. I’ll show this evil stallion how a real clown clowns around! Oh by the way hello, I’m Ponyacci, glad to meet and save you!”

With that he was up and pulling out a long balloon that he started to inflate.

“We have extra support on the field of battle, don’t target him!” I shouted, everyone took a single glance at Ponyacci while they were dodging pies, attacking hooves, banana peels and bouncing balls. They were then back in the thick of it taking down the clown ponies.

Fizzle was up and charging towards a group of ponies where she rolled onto her back and started to do a break dance windmill maneuver, taking each one down with incredible precision and precisely timed single hoofed bucks as she spun.

I was getting a little spellbound by watching her beauty in motion, when I really had to focus on all the pies coming for me! I started to dance. I twirled, plie and lunged my way to safety. The skirt sustain was really useful for me here.

How many ponies did Top Snide turn into these red eyed clown pony abominations!? I looked towards the back of the tent where Snide relaxed on his throne while grinning towards me and was he… he was, the smug jerk was eating grapes that were being peeled by a magical red glow.

I ducked under a hoof and launched my left fist into the pony’s gut and then slammed them in the face with my other while they were bent over. My plans might be a little trickier to pull off given these numbers, I’m sure we’ll manage somehow. We all were quite imaginative and could get quite innovative mid battle.

Speaking of innovative, Jacky in particular was the most amazing sight at the moment. While I was moving and simply plowing my fists through several ponies while using my evasive dancing skills to avoid retaliation, she was like watching a completely volatile work of art in motion.

I watched as Jacky was slip sliding around the battlefield using two banana peels as skates and the banana peel chucking clown ponies kept knocking themselves out on the banana peels around her.

The clowns slammed into each other as Jacky tripped and fell all over the place, they accidentally attacked one another and sometimes they were just knocking themselves out with their own hooves trying to get the parrot that was careening and flopping all over the place. Throughout all this Jacky looked extremely calm with every single movement she made.

I ducked and slammed a pony in the jaw with vicious right hook and grabbed another to ram my head into theirs taking them down painfully.

Turning back to Jacky, I saw her get spun by a solid blow to her shoulder and she launched a vicious spinning counter kick to the pony’s head using the momentum from the blow. She even continued to swing around with her momentum to put her tail to good use and slapped two more down with it, it seems she learned some La Perm family bar brawling techniques. That’s my sister!

Jacky then tripped over a pony and, somehow, one of her toe talons hit a bouncing ball. The miniscule hole and resulting blast of air sent the poor clown pony flying around and knocking out multiple other clown ponies in a very seemingly choreographed manner when it was just random chaos.

Jacky definitely out did herself on jacking up her bad luck. Walking under all those ladders, breaking mirrors, the cracks she’s stepped on, salt shakers spilled and fate oh so thoroughly tempted as if she was waving flashlights wildly around, wearing a jaunty sombrero and festive hoop skirt.

She simply stood up and dusted herself off, she dragged a talon across her throat then pointed to Snide across the tent while glaring at him. Snide just seemed to snort audibly as if he found her threat amusing.

She simply dove right back into the fighting, even when she was getting swamped with attacks from all sided Jacky was handling most of it all by herself through skill or acts of horrible luck. It was like watching a professional clown fight.

Speaking of a professional clown, as I kicked an attacking pony away from me, I turned to see how Ponyacci was doing since he showed up out of nowhere to help us. I was worried that he wouldn’t be capable in a fight.

I didn’t need to worry, as I pummeled another clown to the ground with several rapid thrust punches.

Ponyacci was wielding a balloon sword and riding a bouncing balloon unicorn to knock some clowns around and was quite effectively deflecting pies while doing it, he was fairly competent at taking out the bouncing ball clowns. He’d be fine despite all the weird crazy stuff he was doing like cracking jokes every minute or so.

Ponyacci even rearranged banana peels ever so slightly to great effect with swipes of his balloon sword as he swatted at the other clowns and his unicorn balloon steed was just right up there with the weirdness factor only a clown would dare bring into an odd battle like this.

His clowning around was actually helping ease the battle slightly more into our favor, it didn’t help that there were at least a hundred clown ponies attacking us.

“Hey, Ponyacci! Keep clowning around here and help the diamond dog, the pink haired pony and the yak!” He threw me a salute as he bounced sideways and then forward into another evil bouncing ball clown with a laugh filled with silliness. He then started bouncing towards our back line to give them his pretty humorous and useful aid. “Jacky switch to aerial support and give Gene some aid, he’s getting swarmed up there!”

Jacky spun and ducked under a bouncing ball pony. She pulled her bow off her back, knocked a large rock to it and fired it into the face of a clown pegasus that had managed latched onto Generic’s back.

“Flamberge, when you get chance, get airborne and assist your brother!” I started to fall back as the number of clown ponies were starting to build up around me a little too much. I slammed another encroaching clown in the face and went down to all fours to dash away from several pies coming at me.

Flamberge understood crowd control from our O&O games, he’d have to stay back with Fortitude to help keep these clowns contained.

-Gene-

There were just so many of them. I had to take these flying clown ponies without breaking their wings too harshly, it didn’t help that I was alone up here. At least I was getting some support from Velvet.

A clown suddenly grappled onto my back and I struggled to try and dislodge them, only for a rock to snap their head back. The clown released me and started falling to the floor, I looked down to Jacky and smiled.

There’s a competent girl that I liked and she was unlucky as all get out, but luck be damned if Jacky wasn’t skilled at whatever she does. She worked hard to be able to keep up with everyone else despite the numerous bumps and bruises she’s always getting from her luck related accidents, she was a strong parrot to keep going when life did its absolute best to try and bring her down every day.

In the face of constant adversity, she was the very picture of beauty to me in her own very unique way. It kind of made my heart sing to see her fighting.

I dove down and slashed my talons through several bouncing balls as I swiftly passed by her and then rose upwards to tackle two of these flying demented clown equines out of the air at full speed.

I had my pride as a griffon, though I rarely showed it and I wasn’t about to be beaten by a bunch of ponies that were not in their right minds.

Gently as possible, I slashed through the wings of several more airborne targets that were harrying me and trying to take me down. I twirled, swooped and tried to keep my speed up as I was being attacked from all sides. All this while knocking them out of the air, just knocking them out period or helping my friends on the ground.

I blocked a hoof with my arm, grabbed the pony and swung them bodily around as a living flail to knock a number of ponies from the air.

I wanted to be one of the ones Jade called to move forward, but if she didn’t think that was a good idea then that’d be okay. I was already busy as it is just dealing with these guys.

They were all fighting with a certain rhythm as if to music, even the airborne ponies chasing me were dancing in the air and every single last one of the clowns were on the same page in how they moved.

It was extremely disconcerting to see all the ponies moving as if to one of their heart songs, except none of them were singing and they all looked like they were trying to resist the spell they were under.

I was suddenly surrounded by ten pegasus ponies and they all grappled on to me, I swung up my left rear leg and managed to get it under a pony to kick that one off of me.

I brought my front limbs together smashing two of their heads painfully into one another and tried to keep flapping my wings while two ponies were holding onto them tightly.

I was struggling to stay airborne and I grunted in exertion, at this rate we were going to be taken down by their numbers alone even if none of them were very physically strong by themselves.

Two sharp cracks were heard and then my wings were suddenly free, that was thanks to Jacky’s incredibly aim and two rapid rocks to the wing hugging clowns. It wasn’t long after that three of the remaining five clowns on me were ripped away from me by Flamberge hitting them with small bursts of fire that made them scream out and fall away to the ground.

Flamberge then grappled and pulled away the clown pony currently latching onto my face. I took care of the last one on my back by spinning as hard I could. My whipping around threw them off of me and they spiraled into the ground head first.

“We need to move forward! We also need two to stay back with Fortitude, Bones and Cheerilee to keep all the clowns busy, I could also use a little help here!” That was Jade, I looked down and saw that she was frantically dodging while surrounded by twenty attacking clown ponies. They've almost managed to corner her completely and even her magically enhanced dancing abilities weren’t going to help her there.

I swooped down and grabbed Jade’s shoulders and got her out of the circle as all the ponies dove forward trying to grasp her with their hooves.

“Was that a good assist?” Hearing me, Jade looked up and sighed with relief.

“Thanks for the save Gene.” She actually said my name right, usually she’d just call me Generic and was done with it.

It didn’t feel right, I think I actually preferred being called Generic much to my own surprise.

“Don’t mention it and call me Generic, where do you want me to drop you off?” I was looking for a safe spot on the ground to put Jade down that didn’t have swarms of glowing eyed clowns that were slowly being whittled away by us.

“Drop me near Arizona!” I turned and looked about and eventually spotted her.

Arizona was currently jumping straight up. She pulled on the rope held in her mouth and suddenly had a group of eleven clown ponies that dove at her pulled tightly together by a lasso. She came down on them smashing her hooves into each of their heads. One time for each one of them and they were all soon out cold.

Arizona was suddenly very alert about something and rammed her way through a group of bouncers to support Velvet by tying up more of the clowns as the reindeer was having problems freezing the bouncing ball clowns.

I swooped down and carefully came to a hover and released Jade nearby, there were quite a few clown ponies tied up and it seemed like Arizona was never at the end of her rope. Quite literally, she kept pulling ropes from out of nowhere to hogtie multiple ponies together.

“Thanks, can you stay behind when we start moving forward Generic?” Thinking about Jade’s question, I backhanded a diving flying clown pony into the ground and nodded to her. “Great, keep them from following us as Snide likely has set up more trouble ahead us and I don’t want them to get hurt in the crossfire. Vibrant Vikings, will hold the clowns here and this position! Medic team, stay safe nearby and watch for any injured fighters. Everyone else continue fighting, but be prepared to move forward when I give the word, you do whatever you feel is right Ponyacci!”

I turned to the numerous clown ponies we had to deal with there were still more than eighty of them moving and a number of them were still armed with lethal pies. I let out quiet grunt, I was never one to screech angrily like any other griffon.

I dove straight towards the swarm of ponies surrounding Fortitude who was keeping them all off of Cheerilee and Dr. Bones, Bones could actually throw a punch and put up some of a fight.

It was Ms. Cheerilee who I was worried about, as she continued dragging unconscious ponies away from the fighting.

The one called Ponyacci was managing to help out in big ways.

“Oh no, I’ve lost my marbles, but at least I’m not like these other guys!” Whether it was spilling marbles on the ground to trip up a number of aggressive dancing clown ponies or his impressive balloon animal riding skills, Ponyacci was proving to be pretty effective for all the joking and clowning around he was doing. The clown on our side stopped to bounce in place on his fragile looking unicorn animal balloon and looked up to me. “Hey birdy, your dragon friend seems to be in trouble, I can help out with your friends here!”

I turned and saw Flamberge trying to claw several ponies off of his body, I flew to go assist him like he did for me.

We were brothers in arms and we wouldn’t fall to numbers such as these!

-Jade-

“Arizona how much rope do you have?” I watched as Arizona launched another rope and pulled in several clowns to tie up, she was covering Velvet’s back as she started freezing ponies’ hooves to the ground.

“Near as I can tell, way too darn much! Why, do you need some?” Arizona spun around and a hoof slammed into a bouncer clown, knocking the clown off of the hopper that lazily rolled away.

“No, but it’s nice to know if we have enough additional resources to work with, like Ponyacci for instance." The fact that he even showed up here was a surprise to me, one of the most famous clown ponies in all of Equestria and he somehow got into the tent without Snide spotting him? We definitely needed all the help we could get! "I did not see him coming, but I’m glad he’s on our side.”

“You said it, have you counted how many ponies we’ve taken down?” No, but I’m pretty sure we’re beyond one hundred active Crazy Clutter Clowns.

“You’re kidding right?” I ducked and lashed out at the pony clown that had snuck up behind me with a right hook to the skull, that’s the second time that a clown snuck up on me.

“Of course I am, this is all is a bit much, even for me!” She rammed into a pony sending them tumbling away, then she bucked out at the one that came at her from behind.

Velvet suddenly skids on by launching balls of hail into all the ponies around us clearing out the area.

“When are we moving forward Jade? We can’t keep this up forever!” Velvet turned and launched several blunt icicles skyward and took down a few winged ponies that were coming our way.

“Soon, we need to batter these clowns badly enough to give the Vibrant Vikings some capacity to hold the line behind us long enough for Fortitude to be able to get the signal off.” Speaking of Fortitude he was wading into the clown ponies and shoving them away from himself with his large banded shield, he wasn’t having any problems keeping the crowd around him controlled. “Okay, I think now is good enough, move forward!”

The Vibrant Vikings and ponyacci stayed behind, the rest of us broke off and charged forward. The medic team continued to drag clown ponies away from the fighting and Dr. Bones was busy checking the injured we left behind.

“It seems my clowns aren’t doing it for them, then let’s show them the next act!” Snide’s voice rang out as we moved beyond the carriage, a second spotlight shined down upon some bigger problems than the first. “Introducing the beast tamer Whip Slash, on her elephant Light Stepper! With her are the gruesome twosome the Orthros Rip and Tear, along with the manticore we named Goliath!”

Whip Slash whipped out at us.

Chapter thirty (x2), Circus Irks Us: Faithful Beasts.

-Jade-

We jumped back from the cracking whip and glared at the peach colored pony in the, not kidding, dominatrix outfit with a small black tiara currently pulling the whip taut between her hooves. Her wild short spiky black mane and tail, the red glowing eyes and crazy grin made her look just like the clown ponies. Minus the face paint and costumes of course.

“Hello, I’m Whip Slash!” Well at least this puppet pony could speak, she crack her whip to the left and the elephant standing on the large metal ball moved it forward slightly. Staying in formation with her were the large Manticore and the two headed grey wolf orthros, I think the orthros was the only other female in the group. “Do I spy a new beast to add to my collection?”

Even all the animals also had red glowing eyes, Snide has really been busy with that Alicorn Amulet. I really didn’t like the way that Whip was eyeing Maries.

“Who’s staying behind to deal with this? Just a reminder, you’ll have to possibly deal with clown attacks from behind and you’ll have to keep them safe while knocking them out until the first part of the plan sets off.” There was a valid concern here and I didn’t want anyone being hit with a pincer attack, I looked to Jacky who was currently sniping the clown ponies that were trying to come up behind us.

“I’ll do it, looks like a decent fight to me.” Arizona might actually be a good match up for this, she was still quite healthy. “Always wanted to fight an elephant!”

“Not without me you won’t!” We all knew Velvet could take a beating and she was doing alright as well, she’s taken some of Arizona’s hardest hits and keeps going. She hasn’t been too hurt, though she was going to tire herself out if she didn’t pace the use of her ice magic better.

“We’re helping them too.” Maries looked ready to take on Whip Lash. “If the animals lose the magic puppeteering them, they’ll still be dangerous! You three go on ahead, we can deal with this.”

I looked to Fizzle and Jacky, we nodded and then we all had to dive out the way as the giant metal ball the elephant was on nearly crushed us. The elephant could move that ball pretty fast, so Light Stepper was a pretty apt description for the elephant’s incredible sense of balance.

While I was getting up, I felt something snap around my neck to start choking me, I reached up with my hands and tried to pry the constricting whip off of me. My eyes started to water and everything was started to go dark as it constricted around my neck.

Reacting quickly Mara and Maria bit onto a portion of the whip further up and this allowed me to unwrap the whip from around my neck, I’m surprised that Whip Slash didn’t just tear apart the back of my neck or throat.

As soon as I was free, the whip was pulled from Maries’ mouths, they glared at Whip Slash in unison as she started coiling her whip once she pulled it back to her.

“Okay, that just got us angry!” Maria looked like she was seeing red, probably was if she was looking into the eyes of their opponents. Marie looked towards me. “Get moving Jade, we’ll get this pony under control! We’ll be a strong enough group to keep the clowns down and out danger as well.”

“Stop talking already and fight me!” I didn’t like this pony, she didn’t wait for us to initiate combat.

I quickly evaded another whip strike aimed for me by dancing backwards out of the way.

“Okay, try making an opening for Jacky, Fizzle and me to pass through!” At my suggestion, Arizona immediately charged towards the large metal ball the elephant was standing on, Velvet immediately charged the two head wolf beast and Maries went for the large manticore.

“You’re not getting by me that…” As whip spoke, I pulled Jacky and Fizzle close to me. Arizona collided head first with the ball doing no visible damage and then quickly moved out the way as Whip had the elephant roll the metal ball towards us. I quickly pulled out two vials and threw down one that exploded into a cloud of smoke, Whip would soon pass through the cloud and wouldn’t hit anything. “Easily?”

“How the…” She turned and finally noticed that we had gotten past her, she looked really flummoxed. Thank you for safely storing away the short range teleporting potions where I could find them mom!

“We got past you, have fun with that lasso!” After I said that with a teasing hint of humor she looked confused, then a rope wrapped around her body and pulled her from the elephant. The three of us turned and made our way forward.

“Well it seems the heroes have some tricks, but no matter, only three of them are moving onto the next act!” Fizzle, Jacky and I charged towards Snide’s throne and then another bright light shined down between us and him. There was an array of eight cannons on an open roofed carriage like vehicle with an organ or piano keys sitting below the cannons and two ponies in the spotlight. A punk clothed, black furred, red haired thestral stallion with a large spiked bat and a yellow furred, purple haired unicorn mare that looked like an armadillo in the black armor he was wearing. “Introducing Acro Bat and Cannonade with their vehicle the Cannon Cascade, this explosive duo can batter up and then blow you down! Why yes, this acrobatic act does have all the cannons lethally loaded for this performance, I’m ‘so~’ glad all of you to noticed. Please do try all this at home folks, heh I’m sure you’ll have a blast! I know I will watching the heroes squirm.”

“Okay, he’s getting really annoying with that commentary!” Right there with you Jacky, we watched Acro hefted his bat in our direction with a sickly grin and swung it a few times.

Cannonade moved over to the cannon loaded vehicle and sat down in preparation to start hitting the keys that were connected to the rest of the cannon ball firing vehicle.

Thankfully for us, I didn’t think it would have that much ammo. Maybe enough to fire at least three volleys from the twenty or so cannons on the vehicle.

-Arizona-

I tried to take Whip out the fight immediately as I pulled her off the elephant, but with a quick hasty swing of her whip, she slashed through the rope holding her with a sharp cracking noise.

That was followed up by the elephant, with surprising speed, catching her in his trunk to bring her back up to his head.

Whip cracked her whip loudly. Light Stepper let out a loud trumpeting noise and started rolling the large metal ball towards me and I quickly got out the way, I wasn’t nearly slow enough to be hit by it. Only the ball changed directions on a dime and then I really started attempting to put some distance between it and me.

I glanced over to see how Velvet was doing, she was on her back and had one of the wolf heads mouth locked up with a block of ice. She was currently holding back the other heads snapping jaws with her hooves.

She didn’t exactly have the muscle to… a large angled pillar of ice rose up, slamming into the two headed wolves belly knocking it away from her. Eh, she’s fine.

I turned back to the elephant and barely dodged the insanely fast whip strike, I looked down at my face as saw a slight red mark on it. That felt weaker than a love tap from Velvet, didn’t this mare work out? That felt pathetic!

“How in the, I know I hit you! No matter, Light Stepper crush her!” She slashed the whip back towards the elephant’s rear and Light Stepper responded immediately. Instead of running away I got closer to the ball and out of sight under its curvature.

Crouching down close to the ball as it nearly came close to crushing me, I started running in the opposite direction it was moving. The elephant looked back and started rolling it back my way.

I glanced in Maries’ direction and they were currently viciously fighting like wild animals. Turning back to the large metal ball coming towards me, I had to deal with that or else I would never be able to take out Whip Slash! Using rope wouldn’t help, but destroying the ball might.

I ran forward and, like Velvet tends to say, put my head to good use as I rammed my horns against the ball at the right moment and the elephant reared up slightly almost losing its balance. It managed to get its feet back down on the ball and tried to roll it on top of me.

Bracing myself against the floor I put both my hooves up against the metal and pushed, the elephant leaned forward trying to put more of the metal ball’s pressure on me.

“How are you doing that? How are you even still alive, you’re so small and tiny, you should be crushed under all this weight?!” Whip was talking about the fact that I was holding back the weight of an entire elephant and a large metal ball pushing down on me. Plus one pony, for however much of a difference that made.

“I’m not weak and if I have the gumption to keep fighting, then I will!” I gritted my teeth held all that weight at bay, my rear hooves started digging into the ground behind me compacting the dirt as the ball start to roll forward slightly.

I quickly readjusted my hooves higher and kept pushing until we hit a stalemate. Whip couldn’t crush me with the ball and I couldn’t do a thing to damage it.

She swung her whip around and cracked it into my side, it did nothing.

“What are you?!” Whip swung around her weapon twice and then launched it forward to strike me in the side again, I just took it easily enough. “Well if you can’t be crushed while braced for Light Stepper’s weight, then I better keep hitting you to make sure you can’t brace it anymore!”

“Ouch that stung a bit, it might have even tickled!” Even as I taunted her I was starting to sweat under the constant pressure and the next few, somewhat frantic, whip strikes weren’t helping me concentrate.

-Marie-

Covered in bleeding claw marks, we tackled the manticore and Mara bit into his shoulder with her teeth to start ripping a chunk of flesh out of him, that’s when we were rolled over and he tried to do the same to us.

Goliath was bigger and naturally had more physical strength, he tried to chomp down on Mara’s head only to get Maria’s horns in the way that held its sharp gnawing teeth at bay.

Mara tried to swipe our paws at him, but he arced its neck out of the way while pushing his claws into our chest and belly while continuing to try and bite through Maria’s tough horns.

Maria was holding the Manticore’s mouth at bay pretty well despite the pain of the claws digging into us.

I, Marie, was trying to poison it with my fangs by biting into one of its rear legs, it wasn’t quite working and I’ve bitten Goliath more than once already. He lashed his tail out at me and I quickly pulled away.

I’ve pushed just about every ounce of fluid out of my venom glands into him!

Are you sure you’re injecting him with venom Marie?

Yes Maria, the manticore is either too big or immune, did you know Manticores tend to accidentally stab themselves a lot with their scorpion tails while young? It must be immune to its own venom and resilient to mine on top of that! My fangs aren’t going to do much damage to it aside from being a minor annoyance.

Can you think of anything to do to get it off of us Marie? We’re losing blood here and I don’t like how it’s digging its claws deeper into us. We do not want these kinds of hard to heal flesh wounds, we need to be strong to aid Jade and Fizzy later!

No Mara, and Arizona’s in trouble! She’s holding the ball in place and getting whipped over there.

We can’t do anything for her while we’re stuck here under the manticore Marie.

Maria try to buck it off of us!

Ooh, good idea Marie!

We got our rear legs into position and kicked upwards, we didn’t hit it in the stomach… we did hit it somewhere else though with a harsh double buck.

Goliath let out a pained screeched that turned into a whimper as he fell over clutching his front paws between his legs, he was roaring angrily about the low blow we just dealt him.

That’s not what I thought you’d do Maria, Goliath is definitely going to be mad once he is able to stand again. Also I’m not even going to try and bite the elephant, its hide is too thick and I seriously doubt our claws will do enough damage to get it off of Arizona. We’d need your horns or Mara’s jaws.

Less thinking and more acting!

Mara got us standing and went to go for the elephant, only our back right leg was painfully grabbed by Goliath’s claws and he tried to bite into our flank.

Instead of going to aid Arizona, we turned and Maria used our other rear leg to pivot and kick off the ground to gain enough momentum to ram her bladed horns violently into his nose. That cut up his face and bloodied him badly!

Goliath released us and got up while roaring, we all roared back in challenge with Mara being the loudest as usual. We noticed that the red in Goliath’s eyes started to flicker a bit, he shook his head a bit and stumbled away from us a bit looking slightly frightened.

It seemed he was resisting Snide’s control slightly, his eyes quickly went back to glowing red and he charged right for us.

We’re sorry Arizona, but we had a big cat to deal with and we’d come as soon we could.

-Velvet-

Why wouldn’t this ‘Rip and Tear’ freeze over!? This two headed wolf was positively horrid.

I don’t like wolves, I’ve never liked wolves and I would like it if I never had to fight a wolf ever again!

Sure I was a defender for my village, mostly likely retired because I no longer wanted to live there, but wolves were always so annoying! Frost, timber, dire or otherwise, why were they always so annoying to fight?

Still it was the simplest animal here to deal with and I find myself evenly matched because my ice just couldn’t freeze it. Oh I could encase or surround them in ice, but that would only hold the two headed mutt for a short amount of time.

I dodged backwards and narrowly avoided having my floof end up in their teeth. I blasted them with my frosty breath while evading bites from either head at a moment’s notice as they continue to come at me.

Arizona was holding back a lot of weight and slowly being crushed, Maries was stuck in brutal combat and I was now slowly trying to whittle this orthros down with rapid hooves strikes to their noses, eyes and whatever else my quick hooves could strike as I avoided getting bit or clawed.

Rip and Tear thankfully hadn’t gotten a hold of me yet to do as their namesakes would suggest. I was going to have to delay them for a moment so I could give Arizona some much needed assistance.

Creating a foot thick wall of ice before me as they lunged forward, they hit the wall cracking it a bit.

Taking this opportunity while they were dazed I created three more walls of ice surrounding them, I combined the walls together and formed a dome above the two headed wolf monster.

Each of Rip and Tear’s movements was already breaking through the ice, I’d better hurry! What could I do though to help Arizona with her fight? The metal… of course!

I ran over to Arizona and pressed my hooves up against the sphere, while I was on my way I noticed that we had incoming clown ponies that were breaking away from the Vibrant Vikings and our one friendly clown in their lopsided melee.

“Are you so helpless that you need me to come save your hide Arizona?” A little harsh for sure, but I needed Arizona to get mad.

“What did you just imply Velvet!” Arizona, much to my surprise, managed to the push the sphere upwards in her bout of anger.

It also surprised Whip, almost even made her tumble off the elephant that was almost falling off the large metal ball.

‘Almost’, as Light Stepper managed to get his feet situated a second later. Only he could no longer push the sphere forward and down on Arizona.

I concentrated on centering my magic inside the metal sphere, hearing a crashing noise and I my turned to look at my ice prison to see one of the orthros’s heads just got free and was snapping at the ice containing them. It wouldn’t be long before they got free.

“Do you have a hearing problems as well?” I leaned towards Arizona and tried to say this in as smug a tone as I could manage. “You are a wimp without me Arizona, I’m so sorry that I have to be the one to carry our relationship!”

“What, If anything I’m the one carrying our relationship!” Arizona lifted one hoof off the sphere to point it at me angrily and notably the sphere didn’t budge or move to crush her. That… was stupidly impressive and my heart started beating a little quicker at the impossible show of strength. “I put a lot of effort into making a she devil like you smile and I actually love every second of it!”

When she slapped her hoof back down onto the metal, a large crack formed across the sphere. Perfect, now to keep egging her on a little more.

“I sometimes love making you miserable!” I yelled in her face. “Why are we even together!?”

“It’s because I like you for that you annoying woman!” That was when a critical juncture was hit, Arizona lifted both her hooves off of the sphere and then moved to slam her right hoof against it while glaring at me.

“I love you, and I’m a lady!” That was a first real confession of love, it felt good to get that off my chest in the middle of a life and death situation like this one.

I had just taken my hooves off of the sphere and smiled brightly at Arizona.

“Some lady you are, AND I LOVE YOU TOO!” When Arizona’s right hoof connected solidly, the results were even more spectacular then I could have imagined.

You see, metal becomes somewhat brittle when frozen… I froze most of the sphere’s insides and the weight of the elephant started damaging the now slightly more brittle metal.

Now imagine a large metal ball physically exploding, without the flaming death part of said explosion. Add in an upwards conical shaped blast of thousands upon millions of metal chunks going up and away from the impact zone of Arizona’s lone hoof.

It was a hit powered by love… and… I guess our mutual aggressive natures to consistently aggravate one another. Were we currently being passive aggressive or aggressively passive to one another? It was hard to tell.

Light Stepper landed on the ground wailing away in agony as he had a massive amount cold metal shrapnel lightly embedded in his skin.

“You’re really incredible Arizona.” I said breathlessly staring at all the shards from destroyed sphere before me, nobody was hurt or hit other than Light Stepper. Unfortunately, it meant Whip Slash managed to avoid the blast and was still a combatant to worry about.

“You’re some piece of work yourself Velvet.” She stated back in a deadpan tone, before she grunted and held her now limp right leg. “Ugh, I can’t feel my leg!”

“Here, let me quickly check it.” Another cracking noise and I saw that Rip and Tear had almost freed themselves. Turning back to my cow, it looks like Arizona dislocated it. Hopefully the damage to her musculature isn’t too bad. Well best to get this out the way and quickly while we still had a moment to ourselves. “Okay Arizona, your leg seems to be…”

Without warning, I quickly grabbed and jerked her right leg back into its socket and she let out a yell of agonized pain that almost broke my heart. Almost, because this was my Arizona we’re talking about here.

Arizona was a big girl and a little pain has never stopped her, or even me, before.

“What do you think you’re doing you crazy…!? Oh hey, look!” Arizona moved her right leg around realizing that I had helped her. It might have been worse if she clenched her muscles in anticipation, I’m no medic but I did have some ideas of how you fix a problem like this. “Still hurts like it’s on fire, also feels like pins and needles and I’ll need to get it checked out professionally by Dr. Bones after all this. Quite frankly Velvet, I think I’ll bring this one moment up in the future multiple times just to annoy you for not warning me about what you were going to do!”

“Wouldn’t have it any other aahhh!” I was almost pounced upon by the orthros, thankfully I tackled Arizona out of the way of their landing.

It wasn’t an accident and I most certainly wasn’t farting a large spray of icy fog out my posterior to propel myself away faster while gaining a little bit of flight. Anyone who says otherwise or makes fun of my medical condition will get a sharp icicle to where the sun doesn’t shine!

I idly noted the clown ponies were being intercepted by our friendly clown and he was slowing them down quite a bit. Hopefully he could keep that up for as long as we needed him to.

“What a way to toot your own…” Arizona, I swear if this fight doesn’t kill you, I just might! She stopped her sentence when she saw the elephant standing up and Whip Slash readying her whip.

It looked like Light Stepper was still capable of putting up a fight, but then again I’d expect any elephant to be tough like that. I remember the first time I saw an elephant, I didn’t know that elephants could be stealthy or incredibly talented in thievery. Thank goodness for Dr. Bones putting a stop to that nuisance!

We both saw Maries covered in bites and claw marks, they were giving better than they were getting at the very least. Still, they needed a change of venue to lick their wounds as it were, as that Manticore was really wearing them down.

“Why don’t you switch it up with Maries?” That has got to be the one of the most brilliant segues to avoid my building ire that I’ve ever heard, bravo on you Arizona!

Though I will remember what you were about to say about my relatively minor and not overly inconvenient condition.

“Right, I’ll do just that.” After I stated this, I was about to dart towards Maries’ fight when I heard something like a half cracked whip and came to a halt to see Arizona’s left hoof holding the end of a whip a scant inch from touching my floof.

“Nobody, messes up my girlfriends ‘floof’!” Aw, Arizona, I knew you loved my fluffiness and cared about my beautifully crafted appearance! “Because that’s my job!”

…

It sounded like we have much to discuss at a later date Arizona, said discussions were surely to be quite violent and somewhat enjoyable. For now, I moved around the whip and charged off towards Maries.

Looking behind me I see Arizona yanking Whip Slash from her perch, I sent several shards of ice towards the orthros that was coming up behind her and hoped it helped while I switched opponents with Maries.

-Top Snide-

“It looks like the heroes left another one behind and are moving onto my final act, well the final one before the most important magnificent one… me! Muahaha, say hello to four the juggling brothers!” The heroes were starting to flag with all the trouble they had to deal with, my victory was quite assured. “We have Torch, Club, Knife and Ball, all of them Jugglers in name and skill. They are ready to take down our hated heroes in a flurry of deadly thrown projectiles! Why don’t you let Knife Juggler throw a few of them into you Sun Priest?”

“Get into some poison joke!” Her caustic anger was music to my ears, I grinned madly and was enjoying my own show.

Sure the audience didn’t seem into it, but I was quite sure I would hear the applause of hooves hitting the ground soon enough. Also, destroy all glass!

-Mara-

The song of battle fills our blood with such thrill, we can feel the beat of it in our heart or is it hearts? We needed another checkup to be sure.

In any case our battle was glorious and we hoped our alpha of alphas, known as the goddess of war Sekhet, was watching over us as we fought this most dangerous opponent!

-Sekhet-

“You’re doing great, keep doing what you’re doing!” While I continue to read my Celestia related ‘adventure’ novel.

-Mara-

We dodged to the left, our body primarily under my direction at the moment as I sent us forward and had Maria slam her horns into the side of his head.

The damage we dealt would have been worse had he not had such a thick protective mane, truthfully we were having problems doing serious damage to Goliath at all. At least not without getting hurt ourselves, aside from my bites and Maria’s horns we weren’t having much luck.

Comparatively we were on the losing end of this fight and we all knew it. The tail reared back and came forward to strike at us, we jumped backwards out of range and growled at him. He growled right back trying to prove himself the better predator, then added the insult that we smelled domesticated.

Sometimes it would have been better if we didn’t understand some more animalistic languages. We were about to engage again when a hoof shaped block of ice slammed into hit face staggering him.

“Change of opponents, you’re getting the wolf orthros now. Arizona is still obviously insistent on wanting to fight ‘the elephant in the room’ herself.” Not even thinking to argue with Velvet, we turned and shot towards Arizona who was dealing with an orthros riding Whip Slash and an elephant the nearly stomped down on her. “By that, I meant our wonderful relationship!”

We came at them fast and tackled the orthros with two ice shards buried in its side violently, we sent Whip Slash tumbling off of them. The Orthros was more our size and speed right now.

We knew all about how to deal with multi-headed beings, we were one and we also knew how to work together better than this puppet beast!

-Arizona-

Maries’ sudden assist was quite welcome as Velvet left me between an Orthros and a hard skinned elephant. As I backed away from the elephant where was… oh you have got to be bucking kidding me!

I could see that Whip’s whip was wrapped around Light Stepper’s ear as she swung her way back into position on his head and she sent me an evil smile.

“If this is the best you’ve got, then you’re not going to take us down Snide!” I screamed as I charged the elephant, Maries could easily take the orthros.

The elephant lifted its right foot and tried to stomp it down on me, I caught it and heaved its leg upward in an impressive show of strength.

Light Stepper trumpeted and was staying balance on his three legs… at least until I charged forwards and rammed bodily into its right rear leg with my left shoulder and horns. I quickly rolled to the side as the elephant toppled while letting loose an angry noise of defiance as it tried to stay standing.

Having toppled the elephant I hopped up and climbed onto its back to go after Whip Slash. She wasn’t going to stay out the action where she could keep whipping at me from a distance, it was making me mad that she just kept hiding behind her animals!

I leapt at her and she slapped her whip around my waist and tried to sling my off of the elephant, unfortunately for her I grabbed onto the elephants ear and yanked at her whip. She held on to it this time.

With a tug she almost sent me falling off the elephant, only for the whip to unravel from my waist. I leapt from my position to smash her across the face and knock her off with my left hoof. My right leg was still way too sore to be doing any hard hitting.

This fight didn’t seem like it was going to end any time soon as Whip Slash got up and cracked her neck while flicking the kinks out of her whip.

We glared at one another to the point that I forgot my position and was knocked off the elephant by a swipe of its trunk.

Multiple dancing clown ponies showed up and started to move to cover Whip Slash. This was just getting ridiculous, was she always in retreat? Some beast tamer she was!

Couldn’t even handle the beast that was Arizona, child of Minnesota Maggie, with anything approaching competence!

-Ponyacci-

“Well that isn’t good.” I bounced in place, some clowns had gotten by me and were aiding that beast tamer pony. I was still trying to deal with the fake clowns in front of me, there were just so many of them! I waved my rubbery sword in the air as I bounced forward. “For humor, for giggling, for laughter and for my new friends I have yet to learn about!”

I reared back on my balloon unicorn and bounced high to swipe a clown off their hopper with my balloon sword. I landed on another to kick them in the head before my steed bounced upwards and away from the crowd of clowns I was trying to keep contained.

Chapter thirty (x2), Circus Irks Us: Faithful Skills.

-Fortitude-

Even if I was being covered by evil clown ponies, yak stay strong and shake them all off multiple times.

Friends were almost to the evil earth pony who kidnap loving food making matriarch, better be ready to signal for friend’s great plan when they reach him!

“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant!” Charging forward with my shield held stiffly, I knocked down many ponies with great yak strength! I was easily keeping friend healer and nice teacher pony safe with my great might.

I remember to not to hurt twisted innocent ponies too much, only just enough to knock them out. I am very good at that, why I was even knocking some of them safely out with just my smell alone! That was something I was quite proud of.

Yakhalla will not see me this day!

I wondered if it has visitor passes though.

-Jacky-

Acro Bat and Cannonade huh? They didn’t look so tough, not when I had my two sisters by my side. Well more like to my front as I stayed a decent distance away from the both of them, I was currently standing closer to Fizzle. I was a little wary of my luck at the moment.

Cannonade went to hop into the vehicle while Acro took to the air. Acro looked like a moderately sized pony thug and Cannonade would look like she was some kind of scientist pony if she weren’t wearing that armor.

Lighting her horn, the glowing red eyes of Cannonade seemed to frown slightly as she started playing a tune on the piano board before her and multiple cannonballs started firing upwards and out towards us in a high arc.

“Dodge.” At Jade’s word we did so immediately, as cannonballs rained down all around us embedding themselves into the ground and creating small shockwaves wherever they hit.

We were avoiding them pretty well. I noticed that that Acro guy was pulling his spiked bat back to do something, I saw him angling swing it towards Fizzle from a distance. Then I saw a cannonball slow in its upwards arc in front of him and realized what he was about to do.

Oh you have got to be kidding, is that even possible?! Well if he was strong enough physically, then yes, it was.

I turned and started running towards Fizzle who just dodged another cannonball as it slammed into the ground and inch from her. Being in the middle of a jump, the shockwave didn’t affect my sister.

Jade was too busy performing her own evasive maneuvers to have seen what was about to happen.

“Look out!” I got to Fizzle just as I heard a loud dinging noise.

Tackling Fizzle, I managed to knock her out of the way of the redirected cannon ball moving at an insane speed towards us. We were both then blown slightly away from the force of the cannon ball hitting the ground.

Fizzle ended up on her back with her head in my lap and I was facing the opposite direction I previously was. I don’t know how I got turned around in the tumbling, but I didn’t care as long as we were alive.

“Fizzy, Jacky, are you two okay?” Jade had the right idea at the start of all of this, this whole thing was going to suck a lot.

At least it would suck up until the main plan got off the ground, I believed in Jade’s plans and she believed in my skills. Neither of us necessarily believed in my chaotic luck as being anything other than vaguely good at any given time.

“We’re fine, but…” I didn’t have time to say anything as Acro swung his bat twice and sent two more cannon balls spiraling downwards towards Jade.

I mentally noted that the spikes on Acro’s bat had put a rather specific spin on them, where did Top Snide find a thestral pony that could hit cannonballs with that kind of precision? That was why the two cannon balls started to curve in strange way through air, if Jade dodged one the other would hit her and that’s because the other falling cannonballs were going to corner her.

Jade was a little too busy dodging the large number of falling cannonballs aimed at her to notice the redirected balls of death coming at her.

From my position on the ground I quickly mentally calculated the two cannon balls current speeds, their trajectories and possibly their weight based on what I had seen so far from multiple cannonballs hitting the ground.

I licked at the tip of my beak as I sat up holding my bow horizontally and hastily pulled something out from my tail quiver. A plunger? Didn’t have time to grab anything else, it’ll have to do!

I aimed and fired the plunger so that it clipped the edge of one of the cannonballs to make it spin even faster. That changed its trajectory to slam into the other cannonball loudly, it was just shy of hitting a dodging Jade in the back.

Jade finally noticed how close she was to being taken out, it was just after the two cannons balls were no long going to be a threat to her thanks to my timely intervention.

The colliding spinning cannonballs had one unfortunate side effect from my shot tampering with them, it made one of them come straight for my head.

Darn you bad luck! There was no other explanation for its sudden swift change in trajectory to come straight at me, I did the mental math and found it impossible that it could change angles and gain speed like that.

“I got you Jacky!” Fizzle hooked her hooves around my elbow and bodily heaved me completely out of the way as the cannonball dug a furrow in the ground where my body used to be.

“Thanks for the save sis and good job saving our sister Fizzle, I even think that’s all the cannonballs.” Don’t know about you Jade, but I think you were speaking too soon. Jade tried to go towards the vehicle only to dodge backwards when Acro came down and swung his bat at her. The swing, despite not connecting, sent out a pressure wave that had Jade rolling backwards until she came to a stop in a crouch with all her claws digging into the ground. “Okay, don’t get hit by the bat named Bat or his bat. It’s likely to break more than your ribs with that kind of swing.”

“Gee, you think? Every act Snide has had waiting for us so far has been more dangerous than the last to deal with Jade!” Fizzle and I got up to go to aid her in fighting Acro Bat, only we stopped as we noticed the upper half of the vehicle that Cannonade was in rotated. She stayed still in the central portion as the two small front facing cannons and one really large main looking one disappeared to its rear and the twenty or so arcing cannons were now pointing backwards.

This rotation also revealed five more small cannons that were now pointing forwards instead backwards and there was a large funnel that was close to the ground beneath them that looked to be of similar size to the main cannon on the front. Why hadn’t Cannonade fired that main cannon at us while we were prone?

Cannonade pressed a specific note and the funnel started glowing a dark red color. Her playing caused every cannon ball to start glowing that color as well, one at a time with each key pressed they lit up until they were all slowly rolling towards the funnel as if magnetized. She was reloading the arcing cannons!

Fizzle ran forward to prevent the vehicle from doing anything and one of the now forward pointing cannons quickly turned slightly and fired at her.

Fizzle dropped under the spiraling cannonball that almost took her head off. Said cannonball seemed to hang above her head for second confusing me.

We both immediately noticed the wire connected to the spinning cannonball which swiftly retreated it back into the cannon that fired it.

So not only does this vehicle provide short range artillery, it also basically had an infinite amount of ammo to work with. I’m calling those small cannons, bungie cannons.

This made me wonder what Cannonade was using for a firing mechanism, it certainly wasn’t powder based. It would be more deafening around here if that were the case. Also a powder based system wouldn’t work with those bungie cannons and would eventually destroy or weaken the wires required for them to even work like they do.

Turning to see Jade was currently engaging Acro Bat, he just flipped back out of the way of a wildly thrown haymaker by Jade. He then twirled forward and brought the bat around in an upward arc for Jade’s chin.

Only to miss as Jade stepped forward into his swing. She went straight through his hastily attempted guard to block his spiked bat wielding leg by grabbing it and then, while she held him in place, she punched him solidly in his fanged face with a straight left.

At most Acro Bat stumbled back only slightly dazed and then came back swinging for her, almost striking her with a one handed swing for her right shoulder as she quickly backpedaled away from him.

“He’s sturdy too. Doesn’t even look it, but he can certainly take hit!” Shaking out her hand, Jade looked to be in a slight amount of pain from having punched the guy’s thick skull. She would have been in more pain if she hadn’t jumped away as Acro brought his bat down in an overhead two handed swing, the floor exploded in a shower of dirt and rocks leaving a crater in the ground. The bat was undamaged by the force of that attack, so he wasn’t the only one that was sturdy. “Hit and run tactics or distance attacks recommended!”

Good advice Captain, I’ll heed it if I have to fight him. Turning around, I started to fire a few rocks at the clown ponies that were starting giving Arizona, Maries and Velvet trouble.

Jade fired a magic missile only to surprisingly get it batted back into her face knocking her down. While that was happening, I noticed some incoming trouble for us.

I fired two rocks and watched as the four oncoming flying clown ponies dropped to the ground, there were about thirty of those still left in the air. There were definitely many more earth and unicorn clown ponies still standing, dancing and or attacking our friends.

I turned back to Fizzle who was having trouble getting close to the vehicle to attack the driver. Only narrowly avoiding the cannonballs launching and pulling back as if they were oddly shaped paddle ball toys.

I considered something for a moment. My bad luck was running at an all-time high at the moment to the point that my luck could turn lethal at any moment, but I might as well take the risk!

“Jade… Fizzle… go on ahead without me, I’ll take them both on!” They both looked towards me a little surprised, Fizzle’s surprise ended first.

Even when she was busy avoiding getting brained by a dangerous weapon, Jade still had the time to tell me what she thought of that.

“Jacky, we’re not leaving you alone to fight these two by yourself!” Honorable of you Captain and I liked you for that, but I wasn’t asking you to leave me behind. I was telling you to!

“We can’t get stuck here! We need Snide’s active attention and to draw him into combat for plan A or B to work, plan F is not going to work at this rate.” By the time I said this the Cannon Cascade’s upper half turned around and Acro Bat was airborne once again ready to start redirecting cannon balls at us. “I can this handle myself, trust me!”

Another volley launched into the air and Acro started striking several Cannonballs sending them curving towards us.

I pulled out one of my packs of ice cream sticks and started to fire them one after another while avoiding cannonballs on the move. Not all my shots hit, but enough did to send Acro’s redirected cannonballs off course.

The Cannon Cascade’s top turned once more and started to draw the cannonballs in.

The two bungie cannons on the front of the vehicle wouldn’t be all too hard to dodge, it was the cannon ball rain that I was going to have issues with. I looked up and started moving a safe distance away from the next volley of falling cannonballs.

I still hadn’t seen the main front facing cannon fire once, it must do something special or else it wouldn’t be there. I’d have to watch out for whenever it did anything.

I was the best suited to take these two on, I had a bow that could fire anything after all! Thinking on it, my bow did have some unique properties to turn this situation in my favor no matter how unlucky I got, provided that I use it right.

“Are you sure Jacky?” Fizzle looked at me worriedly and I clenched my fist and pumped it while hopefully looking determined when the task ahead of me was quite daunting.

I wasn’t going to back down in the face of danger or imminent death, I would have never have tried to leave Turtle Toga if I didn’t think I could face the world head on with or without a captain to guide me! I preferred to do it with a captain worthy of my adoration.

“Of course I am. Go get Snide for taking our mother, I can do this!” Or at least hoped I could, two against one were not good odds. Not when this many cannons were involved or the thestral with enough physical strength to fly around while a carrying heavy metal bat like that.

“What, we can’t just abandon…!” Jade started off only for Fizzle to send her a look, even I sent her one that was quite pleading. Jade looked to me and then to Fizzle, followed by the cannons on the vehicle as they started firing cannonballs high into the air in our given direction. “Okay, but you better stay alive Jacky, I don’t want to lose my sister and favorite pirate to something this mundane! Last potion Fizzle, close up!”

Jade turned and darted towards Fizzle and they both tried to get around the vehicle to the right at the same time. Only for Acro to come down and try to get in the way.

Jade simply threw down what was apparently the last teleportation potion taking both her and Fizzle behind the Cannon Cascade machine as Acro whiffed his bat through the space they used to occupy.

Once they were behind the machine they avoided several bungie cannon shots as they moved forwards and I could hear Top Snide taunting them with the fact that they were leaving me behind.

You have yet to see what we can truly do Snide. I don’t quit at life and I won’t quit at being who I am, I am one of my cat mother’s daughters!

“Hey, stop attacking my sisters and focus on me!” Yelling this as I hopped backwards and out of the way of several cannonballs raining on my position coming very close to hitting me with a staccato of heavy metal death. I reached into my tail quiver and pulled out a handful of small and decently sharp rocks.

I was running low on good rocks and would have to start picking them up from the ground soon, otherwise I’d have to start using my special ammunition.

I could vaguely hear Top Snide announcing the next act as I focused on the two before me and started to fire rocks at them.

Acro blocked all my shots towards him with his bat by turning so that his side was facing me, he was making his profile smaller and harder for me to hit. It also made it easier for his bat to block my shots.

Adjusting my aim and I fired several rocks at Cannonade, she simply blocked them all with the back of her armadillo styled leg armor crossed in front of her. My shots did a meager, nearly negligible, amount of damage to the armor.

I dodged to the left as a cannonball slammed down next to me and I rolled back to the right avoiding another cannonball falling from the air.

I narrowed my eyes and thought about how to deal with the vehicle, it looked pretty complicated and if I knew a single thing about complicated vehicles… it was how easy it was for them to break down over the slightest thing.

Knowing every way you could bring down an airship and the tiniest of things that would do it, I needed to find a weak point here. I couldn’t just keep dodging like this forever, I also couldn’t afford to just fire my shots wildly and expect them to do something grand!

I dove forward as a cannonball slammed straight down from above right where I was, that cannonball was thanks to Acro’s actions. I’m glad that powder cannons weren’t being used here or else I wouldn’t have been able to hear the cannonballs being hit by his bat.

Speaking of the annoying thestral. I rolled right while getting my feet under me in a crouch, dived to my left and then roll forwards. Three cannonballs all slammed into the ground one after another following my path.

A thought came to mind, how do you stop a cannon from firing? I was a pirate and knew a lot about how to use a cannon to… idea! A brilliant one if I do say so myself. I still had my own cannon on me, but when to use it and could it effectively fire a cannonball?

Party cannons weren’t exactly the highest grade of cannons you could get, but I have been tweaking mine a lot for higher yield blasts. It should work, "‘should’".

Now that I thought of it, why was I holding back right now?! What was wrong with me, was I that worried about my luck? I should be getting angry, show them both and Snide just exactly how dangerous I am when you mess with our mom!

I narrowed my eyes as the vehicle performed its revolution to present its five bungie cannons to me and started pulling in the cannonballs to reload.

It seems I’d have to put a hold on the idea of using my party cannon for the moment, because Acro was currently coming for me.

He swung for my side and I ducked under the swing and he continue his momentum to bring it down on me, I smirked and held my bow up towards him string first. The bat struck the string and bent it, then suddenly the bat was shooting for the roof of the tent out of Acro’s confused hooves.

I hopped to the left and swung the backwards held bow towards him and once the string connected with his body he went flying into the Cannon Cascade where he collided with one of the cannons painfully.

After that he swooped away and grabbed his bat and flew high up into the air. You’re not avoiding me that easily! You are dealing with a Jacky who’s managed to work herself into a fervor now, no more sitting passively by and analyzing everything!

I pulled out a particularly flat rock and a conical one, perfect for my needs as I charged towards the machine still pulling in cannonballs. I fired the flat rock almost straight upward and then the second one once it was high enough.

Firing a shot directly at Acro Bat who, upon seeing it coming, deflected it and I smiled. He soon let out screech as the conical rock he didn’t see coming dug into his right wing’s joint after ricocheting off the flat rock that I fired a second ago.

As he fell, I got close to the vehicle and then threw myself to the ground as Cannonade fired two of the outer bungie cannons pointing inwards towards me.

The spinning cannonballs crossed overhead, unlikely to tangle their taut pulled wires. Before they could reel or pull back in. I crawled backwards, got up and darted backwards away from them as Acro fell onto both the wires where they crossed forcing them into the ground and in doing so, made both the cannonballs hit the ground and bounce up and over him.

I hastily pulled a fork from my quiver, yes the kind of fork you’d eat food with, and fired it directly for Acro hoping he’d do what I thought he would.

He quickly rolled out of the way, just like I wanted. While he avoided getting trapped in the wires, they lifted up from the ground slightly while still close together.

That’s when my forks prongs caught both of the wires and became twisted up in them. The two bungie cannonballs loop around one another getting tangled up even worse.

Now to sit back and witness the carnage.

With both bungie cannons trying to pull the cannonballs back in, the results was the two cannons crunching inwards violently on the other three cannons making them completely useless. The funnel was still operational and taking in cannonballs, I’d deal with that soon enough.

The Cannon Cascade started rotating again and Acro came at me a little bit more carefully. I calmly stowed my bow, reached behind my back and waited.

He darted towards me wound up his bat for a swing and just when he was about to ram me into me with what would have been a deadly blow, I quickly pulled my party cannon out and held it in front of me with my eyes shut.

With a strange sucking noise, one that I will never know how the cannon even created in the first place, I opened one eye and now noticed I had a thestral inexorably lodged in my cannon. I giggled slightly at the fact that that had actually worked.

Acro just went head first into it while dropping his bat. His rear legs were kicking wildly at the air as he struggled to pull himself free.

Smiling, I took aim and yanked the cord blasting him slightly above the Cannon Cascade as it started to fire more arcing shots and a cannon ball struck him in the spine flipping him in the air.

Acro then hit the ground on his back, I was actually a little worried about his health for a moment.

Acro Bat groaned and rolled over, he slowly staggering to his hooves. His red glowing eyes flickered between brown and red for quite a bit before settling on red again. He was just hit in the spine by a cannonball and he could still stand? Talk about tough!

Also I should probably dodge the incoming cannonballs, yipe! I lifted my party cannon above my head and started to run with it, the cannonballs fell again and littered the thoroughly cratered surroundings.

I heard another odd slurping noise as I ran around dodging the falling metal spheres of doom and my cannon suddenly pulled me to the ground weighing a lot more than it did a second ago.

I almost had a cannonball take my head off right then and there thanks to that!

I could feel the passage of that particular cannonball ruffling my braided feathers at the back of my neck and slammed into the ground on my left. That… was probably the luckiest near miss I’ve ever had.

Glaring at the Cannon Cascade as I turned my party cannon to it, I pulled the string hoping for the best and that a cannonball did just in fact land in my party cannon while I was hauling it around above my head.

A cannonball blasted out of my cannon and hit the twenty arcing cannons with devastating accuracy and did heavy amounts of damage to them. In fact, I had destroyed them all in a single shot.

I just blinked. I blinked again, but no, I was still seeing the same thing afterwards. Did I just seriously disable all those cannons with a single cannon shot… from a party cannon no less?! To say I was in shock was an understatement.

I’ve never been this lucky before! To think I was only mildly battered by all the cannonball impacts that had been going on all around me for these past ten or so minutes.

I just managed to destroy a major portion of that machine by myself, with one shot! I thought I would have been more seriously injured than this by now.

Cannonade growled angrily in her seat as she wasn’t going to be firing another volley after that direct hit. Unlike Whip Slash, these two hadn’t said a word, kind of liked that better honestly.

Wait… where was the bat Acro dropped? I quickly ducked while swinging my cannon safely behind my back, right into the mysterious storage space where I usually kept it.

I almost took the bat to the back of my head and was currently stumbling forward, I got my legs under me and turned to see Acro had gotten behind me.

He swung his bat for me again and I hopped backwards avoiding it, while pulling my bow out again.

Using the spotlight Snide generously provided above this area, I fired a blast of light straight into Acro’s sensitive eyes. He reared back and screamed clutching at his head with his hooves, while still holding onto the bat at the same time.

I started backing away from him and towards the Cannon Cascade, something was up with him. He looked up at me with sorrow in his eyes.

“Help… us…nghh… please… stop aghh… don’t want to hurt!” Yeah, that was horrifying to hear, what Acro’s voice did there by warping and distorting like that.

Soon his hooves released his head and the red glow was back in full force. Right, back on to being Snide’s puppet I guess.

I had thankfully backed far enough away from him that he couldn’t strike out at me with the bat immediately. Hearing a cannon blast from behind, I immediately crouched down expecting the two remaining bungie cannons to have fired at me.

Instead a large black ball went flying over me, which could have only come from the main cannon on the front of the vehicle.

Acro struck the large ball with the bat as I stood up, I attempted to dodge to the right and successfully managed to avoid the main mass of it.

That didn’t mean I avoided injury entirely, as I was screaming in agony a second later. Not because the ball hit me, but because something just dug a large nasty gash into my left side.

Clutching at the sudden exceedingly painful wound in my side with my left hand, I looked behind me to see the black ball going up into the funnel.

Shortly after Cannonade popped up in the middle of the vehicle on her seat, revealing that she had fired herself from the cannon. Her glowing horn was covered in a large amount of blood, most likely mine, and the machine turned towards me and started to roll forward.

It was really quite slow, I could understand why it wasn’t being used in a more mobile fashion. I quickly leaned away from Acro swinging the bat for my face and I started to stumble away.

He swung back and I intercepted it with my backwards held bow again and he went sliding off to the side a good distance away because he had a tighter grip on his bat this time.

I grunted and started to quickly stumble back towards Arizona, Maries and Velvet trying to call for help and my vision was going a bit spotty. It didn’t help that I was slowed down by my wound and that was what was allowing the slow Cannon Cascade to keep up with me.

I heard a blasting noise and let myself fall limp to the ground. Cannonade flew overhead struck the ground, bounced up and uncurled she landed on her front hooves and shoved off sending a flying buck for my face.

I rolled to my left and watched as she flipped several times landing on a different hoof each time and then flipped her way back into the machine. Snide said this was an acrobatic act didn’t he?

I watched as Cannonade sunk into the machine and started to pick up my pace, when several clown ponies started to come into my path to block me off from escaping. I couldn’t fight while constantly holding my side like this!

“Help...” I croaked out, the pain in my side was becoming unbearable and tears started to spill from my eyes. I heard the cannon blast behind me and then felt myself get lifted off my feet.

It wasn’t because I was hit, it was because I was saved.

I looked down as Cannonade passed harmlessly underneath me and I managed to shoulder my bow again while coming to terms with what just happened. I was now laying across a bouncing balloon unicorn with the pony that just made a timely rescue.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you!” The friendly clown, Ponyacci, saved me and we were bouncing towards the entrance of the tent. “Incoming injured! Which one is the doctor again?”

“The diamond dog.” I pointed out Dr. Bones and he angled us towards her.

“Boy that is literally ruff!” Ponyacci made me giggle. “They say laughter is the best medicine, so how are you feeling?”

“I have a large rip in my side that was made by a unicorn’s horn slashing through me that needs to be immediately stitched up, how do you suppose I’m feeling?!” I was nearly knocked off the balloon unicorn as it suddenly veered sharply to the side, away from Acro swinging his spiked bat at it threatening to pop it out from under us.

We then suddenly bounced backwards as Cannonade came rolling towards us, where she lunged out of it to swipe wildly at us with her armored hooves. Ponyacci evaded with a low sideways bounce, then a high and long distance forward bounce.

Cannonade bounced and twisted after us barely keeping up with Ponyacci as he seemingly urged his balloon animal on faster.

Acro and Cannonade had apparently abandoned the devastated Cannon Cascade, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t dangerous enough to keep up with us.

“Whoa, these are some nasty customers, it’s a good thing I don’t own a shop!” Why did Ponyacci have to insist on making me laugh? Laughing hurts right now! I gave him a squawk of complete misery. “Hold on, we’re almost there!”

Chapter thirty (x2), Circus Irks Us: Faithful Daughter.

-Fizzle-

“Get into some poison joke!” Jade was rather angry and she let her displeasure for Top Snide be known.

I was right there with her in wishing him ill at the moment as I could see his smug face grinning at her words from here, at least Jade didn’t want him dead. She would probably do worse to him if we caught him though and poison joke was one of the things that could do that.

We still had no idea what Jade had bought from Traveler Neko, but it must have been something big. She had told us the main plan for securing the hostages and then dealing with Snide, but not what she’d actually do to him once we got him. I was a little worried about that.

“So I take the two ponies on the left and you have the two in the right.” I dragged a hoof against the ground while lowering myself, I glared at the four in our way of saving our mother and getting at Top Snide. I was prepared to charge them head on!

They were four quadruplets with a rare palomino color scheme, it’s rare because they all had the same golden fur, same white manes and also the same lines of fur on their faces leading up to their manes. They also had the same short hair and moderate length tails. The only thing that signified that they were jugglers were the caps they were wearing, two point jester hats without bells to be specific, in the checkered colors of red and black.

I could only tell them apart thanks to their cutie marks or the baskets loaded with their specific juggling equipment on their backs as they stood before us on their rear hooves. Knife, Club, Torch and Ball, surprisingly that last one sounded the least dangerous out of the four of them.

They started to reach into their baskets full of gear and each one of them pulled out three implements and started to juggle them in rhythmic manner, while looking towards us. Their eyes were bouncing between me and Jade as they spread out in a hemisphere formation in front of us.

Knives, bowling pins, unlit torches and what looked to be like rubber balls, about as much as I expected from a bunch of jugglers. Why were they Snide’s final act before we could reach him? Every other act looked more dangerous than these four ponies.

Knife Juggler tossed a knife high into the air and caught it behind his back to bring it forward and continue the juggling pattern. He looked ready to throw them at us.

Club Juggler twirled his two bowling pins at the thinnest part and started to bounce the third between them, batting it back and forth before returning to a standard juggling pattern.

Torch Juggler spun holding her two torches out wide and then caught the third with his right hind hoof while having twirled into crouch, he slowly stood up while flipping the third torch into his two torch juggling pattern.

Ball Juggler kicked his right rear leg high and bounced a ball under it to his other hoof, then when he threw that up high, he tossed a ball to that hoof and kicked up with his other leg to bounce that ball under it. The Third ball was on his nose and took a short hop into his free hoof while the other caught the second ball as it bounced up, then he was on the same basic pattern as the other three ponies.

“Fizzy… when you can get the chance or when I can give you a good opening… move forward.” What?! Didn’t you want to take on Top Snide yourself Jade! “We’re using minor plan B Fizzy, hope it works. You’ll be the lynchpin for the main plan!”

I looked at the sword at my hip, I hoped that idea worked too. I had been using the pirate sword as a crutch for a while to train my magic and it’s thanks to Jade that I’m faintly capable of doing magic on my own without it, I just needed to train on my control more. I would show Jade what I could do!

At least I got the hang of imbuing the sword with magic, which is why it acted like Zephyr’s Gunbai to Jade now. It was swamped with my magic and Jade couldn’t use magical alchemy sustain on it, she could still cast with it just fine and it had the properties of either fire or lightning at random when pulled from the sheathe.

Those two elements were what I was actually good at pulling up with my busted horn, they were also the hardest elemental spells to control. So it kind of made sense that I specifically steered towards those spell elements with the fireworks displays I liked to create.

“Should I use the sword?” I asked, Jade shook her head no.

“Save it for Snide, also while we’re still allowed some free actions because they seem quite patient with us.” Jade reached into her pack and tossed me the green cloak, I looked to her and nodded. The self-sustain could get me by these red eyed puppet ponies. When Jade got them to focus on her, I could sneak off.

As if signaled by some unforeseen force, Club Juggler charged us first and he swung for me while I was putting on the cloak. Jade intercepted with her knife and we both heard a clanging noise as she deflected the bowling pin, it was made of metal. To think it looked so normal.

As she deflected his club strike, he caught his second club in his right hoof and swung it outwards for her head. Jade ducked under it and the third pin almost came down on her head. Jade stepped backwards as the pin hit the ground and bounced up to be caught by the tip of Club Juggler’s left rear hoof and tossed back into his juggling pattern.

“I bet they’re all as equally skilled like that.” After that bit of insight from Jade, Knife Juggler charged us.

He stabbed at Jade who blocked the blade with her own knife, but as the knife was pulled back it was tossed into the air and she blocked the second stab from the knife in his other hoof.

He then surprised Jade by stepping out of the way and catching a bowling pin to add to his juggling formation as Club caught and threw the knife for me.

I dodged to the side and then a second later, Jade dodged a ball thrown at high speed from behind us. The other two Jugglers had circled around behind us while we were distracted.

Ball Juggler now had a knife and two balls. He twirled forward and tried to jam the knife in Jade’s throat, she was currently dodging Club swinging a knife and a club together in wide arcs while tossing a ball high up in the air. Club was aiming at hitting her side and face.

I lunged forward to hit Ball in the face with my right hoof, sending him stumbling back and away from Jade. Yet somehow he managed to keep his juggling going and tried to kick at me. Backing off with my back to Jade I kept my eyes on the other two jugglers.

Jade launched a kick to Club’s belly sending him rolling backwards. Knife had caught the ball and was now juggling four objects, one of the four objects was a torch. I saw something swing at me from the corner of my left eye and ducked.

I quickly bucked out at Torch Juggler who spun away while twirling her flameless torch batons.

I had a feeling I did not want to be around when Torch actually lit those things ablaze, though that would make them easier to see and feel coming. They wouldn’t be much of a threat with Jade here.

They had us boxed in, they were standing in a square around us and they were shifting their hips back and forth as they juggled and started to twirl in a circle while raising and crouching. They all balanced and danced on their hind legs pretty well, while staring at us creepily and each holding a simple juggling pattern.

Then they started tossing their stuff to each other, this was getting confusing pretty quickly as their weapons were changing hooves at a rapid pace until Jade saw something.

“Fizzy lean right!” I did so and heard Jade grunt in pain. I turned and saw a thin line of blood seeping out from Jade’s right shoulder as the knife passed by me. I was able to see the next throw because I was looking in her direction, as the knife was passed around to be thrown at her from the side.

“Jade move forward!” Jade did so and a knife passed through the space she just occupied. I ducked the next knife coming for me and she moved to the left avoiding it too without prompting.

Both knives were caught and added back into their juggling patterns, several weapons were swapped again. Then both ends of the three torches were quickly lit ablaze as they were scraped against the ground in two twirls by a crouching Ball, Club and Knife.

They gave them a twirl in one hoof creating a small ring of fire for a second, while juggling two other objects one hoofed.

Said twirling stopped and the three ponies inhaled, I looked to Torch Juggler who had a sadistic grin on her face as she moved closer with the two knives while bouncing a club on her head like it was a hacky sack.

The other three jugglers blew on the torches and three streams of fire blazed at us while moving forward slowly, for all of two seconds before Jade started twirling. After a second Jade then started to wildly spraying water from her ears everywhere putting a stop to their ability to herd us into the knife wielding Torch.

Torch Juggler backed off shaking the water off her face, she frowned at us while moving the club into her hooves that started juggling the two knives again.

I wiped the water from my face and squeezed out my slightly damp mane.

“No fire for you!” Jade, looking a bit dizzy, quickly pulled her canteen out and started guzzling the water in it. Once done, she asked what would be a silly question. “What are you going to do about it now?”

At Jade’s taunting, the torch holding ponies all twirled into a squat and forcibly struck both ends of their torches against the ground while juggling two object one hoofed. The torch parts came off revealing that the batons ended in sharp metal spikes on both ends, because of course they did!

They started to circle around us, then two on each side of us moved in opposite directions and swapped places.

“I think they were ready for that possibility Jade.” As soon as I finished saying that, all four of them charged us at once.

Things… then became frantic as me and Jade protected each other backs to avoid being caught off guard from behind.

I blocked a club blow to my side and kicked out knocking Knife away. I ducked under a knife swing and hoofed Club in the chest knocking him back. Dodged a thrown knife from Ball nearly taking it in my side and avoided taking a ball bouncing off the ground to the chin from Torch by lifting my head and leaning back.

Jade meanwhile avoided a double ended spear baton jab from Torch and knocked her back with a magic missile, where she was tossed a ball to come after me at the end of my defense. Jade turned and rammed her elbow into Ball, who would came after me next with a thrown knife. Jade leaned back and grabbed Club’s leg during a stabbing attempt with a knife and backhanded him in the jaw. Following that Jade blocked an incoming Knife with her arm, taking a club to her right forearm and then she shoulder checked him to the ground.

Knife still managed to keep his juggling going despite having been knocked down, as did the others we hit. They were incredible jugglers, of that I have no doubt now. It’s just sad to see them being forced to act as puppets for Snide like this.

“Ugh, it’s hard to think of their names and the implements they are using as weapons separately! All this weapon swapping is really getting obnoxious and is giving me a headache.” I was getting really confused about who had what now. All I knew was that I didn’t want them passing their weapons around like they are, as they all seemed somewhat equally skilled in the use of each other’s juggling tools.

“You won’t have to worry about that for long Fizzy, get ready to go after Snide!” Jade tapped at something on her necklace, the hydra scale?! If she used that for too long, she’d tire herself out quickly and any hit dealt to her clone could injure her fatally! She does realize that these four are trying to kill us right? “I have a plan to give you an opening.”

“I trust you to stay safe Jade, I’m getting tired of waiting at your bedside for you to get better from our adventures.” The response to my aggravated words was Jade sending me a sad smile. “I want my favorite fluffy feline to be in a good condition after this. I trust Maries to come out of this still standing, you’d better be alright too damn it!”

“I’ll do the best that I can Fizzy, promise.” That’s all I could really ask of Jade in this situation. I sighed and nodded to her and relented, I took a few calming breaths then focused on the four dancing around us while juggling.

The Jugglers were passing weapons between them and their eyes were darting between us and themselves as if asking who they’d go after next. They were rather surprisingly well coordinated with one another.

I prepared to make a break for it and Jade pulled out the replica gunbai from her pack and pocketed it in the right side of her shorts, mostly for ease of access to it. Did she know what its effects were? She had a little time to test it out this morning, hoped the magical alchemy sustain was a good one. She obviously wouldn’t know what the cast is without having destroyed it.

“Ready?” Jade whispered to me.

“As I’ll ever be Jade.” I looked towards Snide. I would be gunning for him and I would have to hold my own. Every injury Jade takes here will be one I preemptively replicate on him in our confrontation!

-Jade-

“Go!” At my word Fizzle charged for Ball and Knife, I followed behind her.

The two jugglers moved to intercept her, but then I activated my current sustains effects and in a flash of light that blinded them a bit as I split off into two Jades.

The clone Jade went for Knife and performed a sliding kick to his legs, I dropped the magical sustain immediately as Knife tried to ram his namesake into my clones chest as he flopped onto his face dropping all his juggling objects.

My actions were to grapple with Ball as he seemed primarily a distance attacker, I grabbed his hoof and twisted it forcing him to drop the knife he held. I then pulled him towards me and launched a swift kick for his privates, only to discover something I didn’t think I was supposed to ever know about.

All the Juggler brothers all looked the same, so it was a little surprising to find out that one of them was not like the others.

“Wait… one of you is a mare?” Still my kick knocked down Ball all the same, she groaned out in pain and her eyes quickly turned a natural bright blue.

“I’m a stallion born in a mare’s body!” Yeah, not touching that angry statement Ball Juggler just screamed in my face. Probably touched a nerve there that made her break free of Snide’s control.

“Look, do you think you can help me out with your brothers while…” I tried to ask, looking for any bit of help I could get in this situation.

“Now, now… we’ll be having none of that.” Snide’s voice chimed in and Ball clutched at her head. “Be a good little juggler and kill the sun priest!”

“Ngh… can’t… take…” Her eyes flickered red, she kicked up the knife from her position on the ground and tried to thrust it into my chest.

Dodging back to take a club strike to the left shoulder that made me grunt, I almost dropped my knife as I grabbed the hoof in front of me with my right hand and quickly stole the knife from it.

Taking it from Ball’s hoof had been way too easy, it’s almost like she just gave me the knife. I sustained my personal knife to boost my reflexes for the next incoming attack.

“Never mind then and thanks!” I turned and blocked the second club attack coming for my spine via Club Juggler, with the juggling knife. I also deflected the spear ended baton coming for my side by Torch Juggler trying to jam it in me.

I slashed out at Torch who danced back and away from me, then I pushed Club away from me making him stumble.

Quickly switching my magical alchemy sustain to my skirt, I twirled away from Knife who threw one at me.

I started to tap my right foot in a rhythm and quite frankly I was getting pretty tired of this whole monkey in the middle thing they had going on here.

Ball Juggler caught the thrown knife and all four jugglers quickly moved to keep me between the four of them, while Knife pulled another knife out of his equipment basket.

They were juggling again as they surrounded me, dancing and shifting left and right. I kept my eyes open and wary, looking left and right, waiting for the next movement towards me. They even started passing their weapons about again.

Knife, passed a knife to Torch, who passed it to Ball and she threw it at me. I dodged to the left turning trying to keep my eyes on all of them.

That was when they all came at me at once, I ducked under the thrust of Club’s club from behind.

I swung around and struck Torch in the eye with my tail making him stumble backwards. I deflected two balls thrown by Ball who caught a knife and followed up with an attempt to stab me.

I turned and blocked Ball with my knife and smashed her in the jaw with the handle of the juggler knife I held in my right hand. I turned completely around to deflect Knife’s incoming slash with mine and ran the juggling knife straight up his right leg lightly carving a painful looking cut into it.

He let out a hiss of pain while backing off and I swung my left leg around backwards along the ground to trip up Ball knocking her down, I tapped danced my way to left slightly and a large portion of my skirt took damage from Torch slashing through it.

I kicked Club with a can-can kick to the head knocking him down, I somersaulted backwards as Torch tried to bounce a ball off the ground and into the side of my neck, then he charged me to try and skewer me with two baton spears at the same time. I lifted both my arms and jumped forward to catch both his legs in my armpits and I started rapidly kicking him multiple times in the belly rhythmically.

Torch grunted with each blow, I could see Knife quickly approached to try and slash me with a knife that was just thrown to him.

I released Torch and half twirled away, only a half twirl because I heard a ripping noise and lost my magical sustain as Knife slashed apart the rest of my skirt badly enough that the object was technically destroyed. It looked it as the most of my skirt was on the ground now, there went my evasive dancing abilities.

I took high speed rubber balls to the kidney and right side of my face knocking me down into a kneeling position, jerking back I received a light slash across the left side of my face instead of my throat. I fell completely prone and rolled into Club’s legs bowling him over and, as I swiftly got back to my feet, I pocketed the juggling knife in my left pocket while acquiring one of his bowling pins from his equipment basket.

I quickly brought said bowling pin down on Club’s skull to keep him down a little longer and spun around to throw it at Torch who simply entered it into his juggling pattern. I pulled the gunbai from my right hip and aimed it at one of the knives Torch was Juggling. With a quick sustain, the knife suddenly rotated one hundred and eighty degrees as he was about to catch it.

“Agh!” Torch caught the knife blade first and it dug into his hoof. Pocketing the gunbai, I charged forward, caught the club I threw at him and then bashed him across the skull with it before releasing it.

I pulled out the juggler’s knife again and turned to Knife Juggler, these guys were taking some serious hits and yet they kept on coming. Snide didn’t mess around before that amulet drove him to idiocy.

I blocked Knife who came at me with his left leg swinging a knife at my forehead. While the juggler’s knife in my right hand held him at bay and I quickly jammed my knife into his left leg for a second forcing him to fall down screaming.

Now both the knives I held were covered in their blood. I leapt back, to left, then to the right and ducked as several balls were bounced by the other three jugglers at me. One almost hit me in the back of the head and one definitely smashed roughly into my elbow almost making me lose my grip on the juggler’s knife.

“I’m quite sure that this is as unpleasant for me as it is for you guys!” I stepped right, then threw a hip check to the left knocking Ball roughly to the ground. Turning I slapped my tail against a recovering Club’s face.

I had to hold both Torch and Knife’s knives at bay as I quickly backed away from Club and Ball and managed to get them all on one side of me. Like that would last for long.

I kicked Torch onto his back and upon deflecting Knife I punched him squarely in the jaw knocking him over.

I couldn’t keep hurting them badly like this, I felt really awful about it even if they were trying to kill me. Though these ponies were really quite tough, they just kept getting up despite how many hits I’ve landed on them.

I’m pretty sure that the increasingly obvious resilience to pain was a side effect of being controlled like they were.

While I had them all down for the moment I glanced off to the side to see how Fizzle was doing, she was facing Snide down and managed to get him off of his throne and away from mom.

Yes, my plan was about to be set in motion!

I just hoped the others got here in time before these four took me down. Hold on Fizzle, we’ll be there soon! You just keep him focused on you instead of what was going on around him.

Glancing to my other side I saw that all the other fights were going about as well as mine was. At least Fortitude noticed that it was time for him to get a move on and was running towards the entrance of the tent to send the signal.

Fortitude was kind of leaving Cheerilee and Dr. Bones, who currently looked to be operating on Jacky, defenseless to Cannonade, Acro Bat and a number of clowns. Generic, Flamberge and Ponyacci were barely holding all of them back and away from Jacky’s impromptu battlefield surgery.

That looked dire, but it would quickly change around soon enough once Fortitude got back from doing his job.

Velvet, Arizona and Maries were looking okay… for a definition of the word.

Arizona was currently struggling against Light Stepper’s trunk, currently wrapping around her neck and lifting her off the ground.

Velvet seemed alright and was freezing the manticore’s tail to the ground to start peppering it with various sized shards of ice, but she looked to be flagging slightly as her movements were less graceful than usual.

As for Maries they were having some problems with Whip Slash riding the two headed wolf monster, deflecting the whip with Maria’s horns or Mara’s big teeth. Not to mention Marie was busy trying to keep the clowns from piling on them without poisoning them, she was busy whipping her head around into them to knock them back.

I turned back to my fight and saw that all four of the jugglers were standing once more and they started towards me.

I put the juggling knife in my left pocket, sheathed my personal knife and just put up my fists while bouncing on my pawed feet. I sustained my knife sheath and focused on them, the knives wouldn’t be able to cut through my fur and skin nearly as well now.

Thing’s looked somewhat bad now, but we’d swing all this around soon enough. The three juggler brothers and one sister stared at me as they juggled their instruments swapping them between themselves at random.

“Bring it on.” I made a come at me gesture with my right paw and they swarmed straight for me for another round of trading blows.

Ball bounced two balls off the ground and brought a bowling pin around with two hooves to try and smash me, only she took a ball to her left eye when I bounced the first one back.

The second one I threw down bounced up into her swing knocking her off balance when it struck the pin as it came forward and went flying off into the distance.

I crouched low while stepping forward and spun counterclockwise into a rising upper cut, performing a perfect rendition of the Little Mach Righter as I whipped my fist into her chin. She spun with my blow and fell onto her face. She wasn’t limp, but it was going to take a bit to get up from that.

I dodged a thrown bowling pin by Knife, caught both his knife swings with my bare hands. Only a trickle of blood flowed from them, he looked thoroughly surprised when I jumped up and wrapped my legs tightly around his neck. I twisted my body and released Knife once I flipped him into the ground with a poorly executed flying scissor takedown.

Slamming my foot into Knife’s chest, I used it to leverage myself into a roll backwards avoiding the knife thrown by Club who tried to slam his two bowling pins down on me.

I got into a standing crouch to block them with my forearms.

Okay that really hurt, my arms were going to be quite bruised after this and my palms were in quite a bit of pain after grabbing those knives like I had.

With a twist of my wrists I grabbed his front legs before he could pull them back and pulled him forward into a vicious head smash that knocked him clean out. Finally, I had taken down one of the jugglers and now I had aching forehead. It was worth it though.

I was expecting Torch next, but what was I not expecting was for him to pull out a fresh pair of torches to start blowing fire at me. Switching sustains to my fish scales, I blasted a wall of water to counter the flames and put them out, charging forward while I did this I turned and rammed into him with my shoulder.

I kicked his head knocking him back, but Torch was still awake and groaning on the ground for a bit before he managed to get to his hooves.

Taking stock of the situation, three of the jugglers were still viable threats. I had a mildly bleeding shoulder, a headache, heavy bruising and slightly bleeding palms.

Overall I was doing pretty well and could make good on my promise to Fizzle to try and not be in traction by the end of this.

Ball, Torch and Knife slowly got up and were preparing to come at me again as they picked up their juggling tools and started up once more. I rested and gave myself time to breathe.

I was kind of tired, taking on four or more opponents wasn’t easy, but I could go another round or two as long as I could use what I bought from Traveler Neko on Snide at the end of all this.

I pulled out my gunbai and started to fan myself tired self with it a bit, for some reason it felt exceedingly refreshing. It had to be a self-sustaining effect and I just discovered it, wish I had discovered it sooner and I’d definitely remember to note it down later. It likely didn’t help with hunger or thirst though.

Once they were standing, I stowed the gunbai away and brought my fist up defensively and waited for them to come at me.

-Kuril-

That’s it my little kitten, don’t drop your guard just because you finally brought one of them down!

My poor little chick was badly injured and I wanted to be by her side to protect her.

At least my filly was putting on one hell of a show, but I didn’t think she could actually beat Snide by herself.

I continued to struggle against my bindings. I absolutely wanted to be out there with them to protect and care for them.

I continued to try my bindings even as they started chafing my wrists and feet, until I heard a familiar chittering noise. Was that? It was!

I looked down and saw Sugar crawling her way up the pillar to me using her claws, she looked determined to help me.

When Sugar reached me, she started to gnaw at my leg bindings.

“Coo…” I looked up and saw Snickers start biting into the ropes around my wrists.

I’m sure Jade has this all planned, but I had a few potions in my robe to help things along.

Don’t worry kids, mommies coming soon and she’s an angry witch!

Chapter thirty (x2), Circus Irks Us: Faithful Plans.

-Fizzle-

I came up upon Snide, he didn’t look like he was worried about me. Well he should be, I was going to have to get his attention and hold it long enough for Jade’s plan to come to fruition.

“A little mouse has made it this far, do you want a piece of cheese little mouse?” He was lazily laying on his side, he barely sat up and grinned at me. “Look behind you and tell me what you see.”

“I don’t need to look, my friends are all fighting to put an end to you and all of this.” I reached for the sword at my hip with my right hoof.

I had heard from Jacky that one of the rules of being a good pirate captain was that you should always go into a battle well-armed or at least have a good plan if you can’t be.

This had better work like you thought it would Jade, because I needed some kind of edge to keep him interested in batting me around like a chew toy until I could get some backup to deal with him once and for all.

I tried not to stare at Sugar and Snickers going for mom’s bindings or the shield now on the floor next to the pillar, how did Jade arrange for them to get here so fast? Now I know why she dropped the shield at least, to give mom some protection.

“Well I’ll tell you what I see… cowardice, weakness, those who are being beaten down and will easily break apart like the evils of glass!” Snide seemed to be looking at the battlefield from a different perspective than I currently was.

I turned and watched as Fortitude left the tent to begin the plan, Jacky was being worked on by Dr. Bones and that everyone else was having trouble in their fights.

Jade seemed to be holding up well against three of the jugglers, it was only a matter of time and how well Jade played the fight before she could come to help me.

Everyone else only looked to be struggling, even Cheerilee was struggling to pull ponies out of the way and off the field of battle.

I turned back to Snide with a lot of determination building in up my heart. I’d show this pony exactly why you don’t mess with our family!

“You’re definitely going to lose!” I don’t think I’d ever use an Alicorn Amulet, if it could mess up Snide’s mind like I currently knew it was. I pulled the sword and pointed it at him crackling with lightning energy. “If that’s what you currently think.”

“Let’s agree that you don’t know what you’re talking about little filly.” He raised a hoof lazily and sent a sphere of magic slowly coming at me. “Here, have some free pain on me!”

When it got close, I swung the sword outwards with my right hoof. The edge of the blade hit the sphere of energy and then, much to my surprise, it went flying straight back into Top Snide’s face at twice the speed it had been coming for me.

Snide’s gaudy throne practically imploded when the energy smashed him in the face and exploded, I just stared at the rubble and the crackling blade I held. Wow.

Sword with a possible magic repulsion ability? Definite yes, plan B was a go! Jade was strangely correct about things with dark powers being weak to their own attacks. So dangerous energy tennis it was, especially with an overly odd racket!

I had better not miss when Snide got up and really started things, because I doubt that one hit would be enough to…

The rubble of the throne erupted as Snide sat up to begin glaring at me. His face was slightly marred from the blast, yet that wide toothy grin of his never left it.

I got his attention Jade, just like you needed me too. Now to see if I could keep it off his surroundings.

“So… you might have a little more power than I previously thought. I wanted to fight the priestess to see what all the hubbub was about, but no matter. You have earned my magnificent ire, for I have fury!” His cape flared outwards as he held his hooves up and several orbs of energy formed above his head as he floated upwards. “For the last act you’ll be facing the ringleader and a most grand magician of the Mystical Maiming Circus. The great and powerful, also more important than anyone else will ever be and the destroyer of a world ruled by glass, me… Top Snide!”

Well he’s certainly getting more and more flamboyant, wondered what he’ll be like when the amulet is destroyed.

“Stop talking and start attacking me already you big blowhard!” I really need his attention and that would do it.

He sneered down at me and started launching his energy orbs for me, yeah this was going to be the most dangerous match of deadly energy tennis ever.

Hope I get good at aiming those blasts of energy back at Snide quickly or else this was going to be a somewhat problematic fight.

I got up on my hind hooves and getting some balance, I took a step forward and started swinging the sword. I needed to deflect every attack back at this smiling monster in pony form.

-Trixie-

Hmm… great and powerful… Trixie… yes, Trixie likes that. Yes, I’ll become great and powerful like that someday!

Provided that I can ever get out of the stands of course, this captive audience is a bit too captive to Trixie’s taste. Mostly because Trixie is one of those captives!

-Fortitude-

I have to go send the signal, the time is now! Hope brothers can protect injured companion until I can get back and lend my mighty yak strength once more.

Pushing through a crowd of clown ponies with my shield acting as a battering ram, I exited the tent and went beyond the red barrier.

How did Jade say to do it? Ah, yes, my yak lungs were quite big and strong enough to do it, I will bellow that it is time! Hopefully the amulet wearing pony doesn’t hear this and start attacking hostages. That was something of moderate worry that all of us had going into this.

“WAAAGH!” I let out as loudly as I could. It seems my signal was heard, as I could feel the thundering of hooves coming. I turned and ran back inside the tent to assist my brothers in arms and life.

Attacking clown ponies were no longer my problem, but the armored pony going after injured pirate parrot that likes griffin brother is!

I charged forward and as she lunged for the doctor. I rammed into the armored pony, sending them rolling away at an incredible pace.

Holding my shield high to protect good doctors back, I caught the bat winged pony swinging his bat for her. The metal bat cracked upon hitting my shield, my faithful piece of equipment can survive such a weak blow easily.

Time to protect friends with yak strength and girth, reinforcements can handle clown ponies.

“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant and I am back with friends of yak’s friends!” I charged the bat wielding bat pony shield first and bowled him over.

Seconds later a stampede of cows started dealing with our evil clown problem.

-Daisy Jo-

“Come on girls, let’s moo-ve it!” All the girls and I went charging straight through the barrier into the tent, we were all Jade’s friends and she needed our help with this.

The royal guards following us would get the kidnapped hostages out, though they were begrudgingly willing to be Jade’s friends too to save lives.

We had two jobs, help any hostages we could reach and or deal with any small problems by throwing our weight around.

We cows were stampeding together over a floor covered in disgusting looking pie filling. No doubt the evil looking red eyed clown ponies were responsible for all this, we could deal with them as they didn’t look so tough!

“Do not ingest any of the pies if they have any left to throw at you, they very dangerous!” How nice of the teenage looking dragon to warn us as he chased some flying clowns through the air. “Knock the clowns out and drag them out of here, don’t hurt them too badly as they too are victims of this whole mess!”

As we started tackling and pinning down the clowns, I saw Arizona in the distance and she was holding onto an elephant’s trunk and pulling on it. Did she seriously think she could…?!

I was one of the many witnesses to Arizona heaving the entire beast into the air with an impossible show of strength for someone of her somewhat small size. She then turned and slammed the elephant down onto its back and it let out a sad sounding wailing noise as the glowing red in its eyes disappeared.

The elephant groaned in pain and rolled onto its side, it didn’t look like it was going to get up or was even able to after being by tossed by its trunk like that.

It seems like we cows had another legend to talk about aside from bounty hunter Minnesota, we’ll call it the legend of Arizona and the embattled elephant!

She didn’t look too hot afterward, but Arizona was still able to walk towards her reindeer friend putting up a fight with that frighteningly large manticore. We weren’t too keen on snakes or other poisonous things like manticores, Arizona was a much stronger and braver bovine than we were to even approach such a large beast in her state.

Still we could deal with all the clowns easily enough, some cows even tried for the stands to help the captive audience with the chains or whatever else was keeping them there.

I targeted the nearest clown pony and lightly tackled them to the ground. We didn’t want to hurt these poor ponies too badly by dropping our entire weight on them, we had a lot of throwing around to do.

-Arizona-

“Finally, ugh, all my muscles are screaming me at me to…” My whole body felt like it was on fire, every movement was agony. I wanted to lay down and rest, I even started to do so. Only, I stopped when I saw that Velvet was still fighting the manticore and stayed standing instead. If I just beat an elephant with raw muscle, then why can’t I go taunt Velvet about it and not being able to deal with what was an overgrown cat! “No! I’m not stopping, I have to go give fluff butt a pep talk…”

I started to limp towards her fight. Sure everything hurt from slamming an elephant, but what would hurt worse is seeing Velvet being incapable of dealing with her opponent. She was my rival and my girlfriend, the very best of both worlds and I couldn’t love anyone more than I do her!

“Velvet, I dealt with the elephant and your still fighting the manticore? Who’s carrying whom now?” I stated in a tone that I just knew would get her angry, the manticore was stuck in place with its tail frozen to the floor and she still hadn’t knocked it out despite the numerous hit and run attacks she kept using against it. Her rapid flurry of hoof strikes was doing some damage, but it wasn’t dealing with the problem at large, and it was kind of admittedly large. “Is that really the best you got fluff butt? You’re not the rowdy ravishing reindeer I thought you were if it’s taking you this long to deal with the problem!”

“Well excuse me for not being able to flip an entire elephant onto its back, you do realize I lack your freakish strength you beautiful battered beast you!” Velvet turned and kicked up her rear legs sending a spray of icy air straight into the manticore’s face. She stomped up to me ignoring the monster as it angrily clawed at the ice on its flash frozen face, she glared into my eyes. She hugged loudly, then twirled on the spot facing towards the manticore. “You make me so angry sometimes Arizona that… that I could just…!”

Velvet unleashed a deafening long angry scream of rage. I watched as a cloud formed in the air and then it solidified into a cube, one that started growing bigger and bigger. Okay… Velvet was outdoing herself with the size of that hovering ice block she was making, that and she really had a set of lungs on her.

The manticore freed its face of ice and then tried to free its tail, once it freed its tail it turned to lunge at Velvet. She stopped exhaling and gave me an elegant smile that warmed my heart.

I didn’t care that manticore was surging forward for her, I had made her angry enough that she didn’t need my help.

The huge block of ice dropped onto the large beast’s skull knocking it right out just before it reached us, said ice block split entirely in half upon impact with its thick skull.

Good job Velvet, now that’s the reindeer that I know and love!

“The cow-valry is here, we need to assist Maries and then move forward to help Jade or back to help the medic team with keeping Jacky alive.” I looked over to Jade, she seems to be taking a beating and just almost took a knife to the tail, but she looks like she can last a little bit longer.

Jade’s fight looked frantic… and really fun. It’s sad that I didn’t feel up to it. I tried to step towards the orthros and Whip Slash combo and grunted, I almost fell down as my legs went slightly limp.

“Arizona!” I felt Velvet’s catching me and she started holding me up, I felt my sore burning muscles cool down at her slightly roaming touches. “Your body is positively wrecked! How are you even still standing like this? You need to go to Dr. Bones immediately!”

“I would, but Dr. Bones is kind of under attack by those two that Jacky took on. No wait… it looks like Generic and Fortitude have it.” I turned to look in Maries’ direction. “Maries are the ones that really needs our help, let’s go Velvet!”

“What am I going to do with a stubborn idiot like you? Read these lovely lips that you have kissed multiple times in recent history, you need medical attention!” That’s when velvet had a coughing fit and pressed into my side trying to prop herself up. The coughing became even more violent seconds later, I could even feel her body was a lot warmer than usual.

“You’re looking a little far too hot there yourself Velvet.” I leaned against her with a small smile on my face as I let her direct us towards Dr. Bones.

“I think I strained my magic too much back there and it’s finally catching up with me now…” Gee, you think Velvet? I’ve never felt you this warm before, you’re practically burning up comparatively to anyone else. We started to stumble back towards rear, we both needed help and rest.

Sorry Maries, we’ll send help your way!

“Hey, Flamberge, you need to go help Maries!” The dragon was just about done with clearing the airspace in the tent, as he was grabbing the last flying clown. He just threw it to the cows to deal with and nodded to us before setting off.

-Generic-

We had almost finished clearing the airspace in the tent and what an ordeal that has been.

I looked about as Flamberge grappled with the last pegasus clown and started dropping towards the ground towards the numerous cows pinning down and knocking out the various clown ponies. As soon as he left that clown to a cow, he took off for Maries fighting Whip Slash.

I looked to the rear of the tent and saw Fizzle deflecting blasts of magic with that pirate sword she trained her magic with, she dodged any beams that Snide sent after her. She looked to be doing okay, but she was being pressed hard.

She thankfully had Snide’s full attention on her, so he hadn’t noticed the shift in the battle yet and wouldn’t be able to threaten any of the hostages by the time he realizes what’s going on.

Mayor Kuril was almost free and she looked really quite angry, what was it Traveler Neko said about queens and their kittens adopted or otherwise?

Ah yes, never do anything to separate them from one another, ever! The end results wouldn’t be pretty, the only time it was okay is if the Abyssinian female in question had a mental illness and was deemed too dangerous for the kitten or child to be near.

I turned to see how Dr. Bones was doing, Jacky was sitting up next to her and her beak was clamped tight as her side was being sewn shut.

Whatever surgery Dr. Bones had done on her, it had been successful and Jacky almost looked ready to get back into the action. If the doctor had any sense she’d tell Blackcap to stay put.

Fortitude looked to be having trouble with those two that Jacky had been fighting. I felt something stir within me, it seems my griffon heritage wants to talk with both Acro Bat and Cannonade for hurting the pirate parrot.

Jade and Maries were doing a bit poorly, Maries more so because they were getting hit with multiple whip strikes and I could see Flamberge going to assist our chimera friend.

Both Arizona and Velvet were retreating, they looked to both be doing badly as they were propping one another up. The many networking cows we called in to help were actively clearing a path for them to move through.

I turned and dove for Cannonade, let’s continue making the number of problems decline sharply.

I grabbed Cannonade mid leap as she went for Fortitude’s side as he held Acro Bat’s metal bat at bay, I lifted high up into the air with a flailing cannonade and wrapped my rear legs around her armored back.

Proceeding to slash at her with my claws in a precise manner as she struggled, she soon got free and fell to the ground and tried to curl up. Only she slammed into the floor on her bare back.

She groaned having uncurled and as she sat up she realized what the problem was.

So she hadn’t noticed that I specifically clawed up all the straps to her impressive looking cannonball armor. Too bad for her.

I came down on her in a dive angling to put my fist into the side of her unarmored head, I’d knock her out easily at this speed.

-Jacky-

“I don’t care doc, help me stand and get back at them.” I then saw a tumbling form without the armadillo armor come to a rest with a bruised face. Cannonade was down, I looked up and saw Generic grin at me before he angled for the grounded Acro Bat trying to bash his way through the wooden shield held by Fortitude.

I seriously doubt Acro Bat knew the forces of ignorance he was dealing with here, especially when it came to Fortitude doing a literal form of stonewalling.

“You just had an appendectomy, heck here’s your appendix in a jar! You need more time to rest. If you want to go pushing your feet into a grave deep enough to hold up the flowers, then I’ll not be a part of it you used to be bleeding idiot!” Dr. Bones, had finished sewing me up and she was glaring at me as she roughly started to wrap bandages around my waist. Afterwards her paws pushed me back down onto my back in a resting position. “You need a day or two to rest at least before doing anything, two weeks before anything strenuous, doctors orders!”

“I’m not going to do anything strenuous, I’ll just fire my bow at any more problems from here!” I sat up again and unshouldered my bow, took aim and fired a small and round dry sponge. It struck Acro Bat in the making him screech and rub at it, having been properly blinded he missed Gene coming at him with a two clawed hammer blow to the skull that put him down.

“Whit’s fur ye’ll no go past ye!” Dr. Bones threw up her paws in resentment of my stubbornness, she’s said that several times in reference to me being unlucky.

Dr. Bones saw both Arizona and Velvet approaching, she then cursed under her breath and lumbered towards them.

“Come on deputy nurse, Cheerilee. More of our wee ones need a kip and some dressings!” Dr. Bones was off with Cheerilee carrying the medical kits behind her, leaving me lying there. I tried to get standing when the diamond dog shouted back at me. “Don’t you dare go on a walkabout Ms. Chickadee La Perm or so help me I won’t help you with whatever happens to you next you accursed injury magnet of a being!”

I quickly put my butt back on the floor facing Fizzle’s fight, she was performing an amazing leap through two separate beams. She was in what looked like a deadly form of tennis match with a sphere of energy that she managed to strike back multiple times while dodging beams until it was moving too fast for Snide to block or dodge.

Snide was taking some minor injury from his attacks. Plan B is working pretty well, as was the main plan.

He hasn’t noticed the arrival of Shining and a few royal guards that managed to get by the barrier and were getting the audience out of here. He didn’t even notice our secret backup weapon that was now approaching me.

“Are you okay?” I looked up at the worried alicorn who trotted up to me and I smiled at Jade’s friend.

“I’m fine Cadence, just found out I had a sudden bad case of appendicitis that needed to be immediately taken care of… that and this gaping hole in my side needed to be patched up. I now envy the people who don’t have to go through surgery while awake like I just did in the middle of a battlefield.” I looked at the jar with my inflamed appendix floating in slightly bloodied chemicals that Dr. Bones left next to me, then the bandages that were wrapped around my waist. “Our doctor just ordered me to stay here, but can you get in there and give that Top Snide guy a good hit for me?”

“I’ll see what I can do about that when I get around to it. I hope you get better soon.” She leaned down and nuzzled me gently, she was in no hurry as she wasn’t needed to be in the fight at the moment. She started to whisper into my ear. “By the way, your griffon friend that can keep a clear head despite you being in pain… he’s a keeper and he really likes you. I just wanted you to know that he’s very upset that you got hurt.”

“I already know that, it’s hard for other people tell when he doesn’t express himself very well or vocally. Just about the only thing about him that’s griffin like, Jade keeps calling him Generic and he’s anything but.” I held up my bow and reached back for my tail pouch. Long range support was going to be a bit difficult at this distance, but I’d manage somehow.

Let’s see what I have on me, spoon, knife, teacup, saucer for the tea cup…

-Maries-

“Looks like the cow-valry is finally dealing with the clowns, so I can finally stop ramming my head into them!” Marie complained. “It’s been seriously making me dizzy acting as a living whip.”

A good number of cows had managed to sneak up on the clowns helping the orthros riding Whip Slash and were dealing with them readily.

“Well that’s the good news, but we still have Whip Slash as a problem and I’m not letting any cows get hurt by her because of us!” Mara was being fiercely protective, then again she had made several acquaintances among the cows like Jade did. Maria deflected another whip strike off her horns.

Our sides were aching and bleeding badly from multiple whip blows that managed to get by Mara and Maria. We were battered, but we were still going strong and the orthros hadn’t even managed to get its teeth in us once!

Whip Slash was about to take another swing at us, that’s when Flamberge decided to show up and bodily knock Whip Slash from Rip and Tear’s back.

The two headed wolf was confused for just long enough for us to ram them both in the chest with Maria’s horns. That sent them tumbling away, we turned to Whip Slash as being the real danger.

Whip Slash was currently up and striking out at Flamberge’s scales several times, only the whip couldn’t do any damage to his protective hide. Flamberge just stood there looking bored as he protected his eyes with his arms.

“Why… won’t… you… go down?!” I’m sure that if Whip Slash weren’t under Snide’s control, she’d probably realize that she’s trying to whip a dragon.

“Because it tickles, this is not really that threatening to me!” Flamberge then spat several fireballs at her, Whip Slash then started to do what she does whenever she’s in trouble and has been annoyingly doing it for this whole battle.

Whip Slash coiled up her whip and darted around to avoid the fireballs, she was once again running away from the confrontation. This was when one of said errant fireballs she dodged was about to hit us, only something really odd happened.

Maria went to scream and the fireball entered her mouth, she quickly closed it and swallowed before blinking confusedly. We weren’t in any pain which was weird, shouldn’t we all be feeling Maria’s throat being scarred or scorched by the flames she just swallowed?

“Maria, Are you okay?” Mara said worriedly looking to the goat head next to her. Marie then stated in a worried tone. “Speak to us Maria!”

“Well…!” That was all Maria could get out before she belched out a large stream of flames from her mouth. She quickly closed her mouth and the flames stopped, blinking a bit Maria started to blow lightly and a jet of fire came out of her head.

“Holy carp, you can breathe fire!” We were going to remember you said that the next time we went fishing Marie.

“It’s about damn time we were capable of it, I just about thought that we’d never be able to do it!” Mara then tried to blow flames and nothing. “Could it have been a fluke?”

“No, I don’t think it is…” Inhaling Maria let out a blast of fire against the ground. “Oh our alpha of alphas, I’m awesome now!”

“I’m actually moderately jealous of Maria now.” Mara, then thought about our new ability to fight at range and simply accepted it. “We need to get back in the fight!”

As soon as she said that, we were beset by the two headed wolf, only for it whine and get scared away when Maria bellowed out a wall of flames that lit it on fire. The red left both of the wolf head’s eyes and it started to run around confused and was panicking blindly.

“Hey, Whip, you’re running out of room to run!” Maria called out as Mara moved us towards her agreeing with Marie’s sudden plan of action.

We were Maries’ and now one of our heads could finally breathe fire! We should celebrate some time later when Fizzle and Jade weren’t in danger.

“Yeah, but at least I can take some of you with me.” Whip Slash unfurled her whip, swung it around and then at us. Only for Maria to blast it to cinders with a pure beam of flames coming from her throat, leaving Whip Slash holding a handle that used to have a whip attached to it. “Uh…. uh oh…”

Flamberge getting tired of Whip dodging him, because she was pretty damn agile, he pounced on her and started to ram her face into the ground multiple times until she was out of it. Whip Slash simply couldn’t get Flamberge off of her and that was that.

We turned a glare to the wolf headed orthros and they whined putting their tail between their legs, they had quite lot of the fight taken out of them. They bared their necks to us and we nodded in acceptance.

“You stay right where you are do you understand me?” As Maria said that and received a pair of rapid frightened nods, Mara and Marie noticed that the audience was currently being rescued from the stands.

They turned to look towards Snide, he hadn’t noticed his increasing lack of hostages yet. The plan was working. If Top Snide thought we were a serious threat he could have used the hostages as leverage, but now? He’s ours to take down and we all would make sure that happened.

Kuril was also free and she was rubbing at her wrists looking quite angrily at Snide’s back as she picked up the shield that Jade dropped earlier for Sugar to drag over to her. She crouched down and patted Sugar on the head then said something to her, Sugar turned and started growling at Snide’s back.

The killer rabbit looked ready to maim someone as she hopped onto the matriarchs shoulder.

“Come on, let’s go help Jade!” Marie shouted and Mara agreed as she was moving us towards Jade’s hectic fight with the three juggling ponies constantly throwing weapons at her.

One of the weapons thrown at Jade was caught by Generic who swiftly caught another weapon as he swooped by knocking over one of the three ponies with a wing to the head.

As we charged forward to join the fight on the front line, Flamberge joined us and it wasn’t long before Fortitude caught up and brought up the rear.

-Jade-

The hostages were almost out, it looks like we were down two heavy hitters and Maries was moderately injured.

Knife came at me and I quickly pulled the gunbai to make the knife in his grip twist throwing his attempted stab entirely off, then I slammed my right elbow into his face as hard as I could.

Knife finally crumpled leaving only Ball and Torch.

Behind me Flamberge bowled over Torch, any attempt to hurt a dragon with fire would be laughable unless it was another dragon.

Ball then went down to Maries ramming her as she got up from Generic's hit.

Chapter thirty (x2), Circus Irks Us: You 'REALLY' don’t want to know.

-Fizzle-

I ran to left and was cut off by a beam streaking outwards. Turned to go right and another beam. Snide then swept two beams inward, I leapt straight up and over them while deflecting a sphere of energy he sent sailing towards me.

Between batting this sphere back and forth I had to roll under a beam, leap over the next one and keep my sword interposed between me and the sphere. I didn’t necessarily need to swing the sword, but it helped change the direction the energy was moving in and accelerate it.

I hit him with the deflected sphere knocking him back and he grunted, but that smile stayed on his face. At least he wasn’t healing from his injuries, dark magic really doesn’t ever do that very well. It did help him ignore the injuries though, but if the amulet were destroyed… well he wouldn’t be able to ignore them for long.

“Come on one, and all, to the greatest show you’ll ever see on the face of Equestria~! You know, I’m great, because I am powerful enough to even get the best of Celestia~!” Oh great, Snide was going to sing me to death and the narcissism was completely annoying. After all the fighting we’ve been doing, he chooses now of all times to sing? Jade I could use a little backup right about now, if just to shut him up. He tipped his hat over his glowing eyes, his face darkening while the glow of the amulet became more pronounced. “I’ll, watch you fail~. As I cast a spell~. It will take you down as… with you I am really just only playing around~! As I will slowly come to eventually wear you down~! Come on don’t you dare continue to make that frown, as your loss will be part of my biggest crown~!”

“We’ll see about that when we take you down~!” I sang back as I dodged a blast of flames to floor before me and he circled around me creating a wall of flames with a beam of magic.

“My dear, you’re the only one of your group that is even… around~.” He started to rain blasts of lightning down on me and I had very little room to dodge, so I blocked with the sword that was becoming increasingly stressed from the repeated lightning strikes. “Do you seriously think you can stand up to me, why that thought it just fills me with quite such a glee~. I can’t even see where you’re getting all this hopeless courage to face me like this when even the sun priestess is bound to flee~!”

“Oh you seriously don’t know Jade all that well, she might not be a hero but at least she doesn’t try to fail~!” I had the sword pressed up against the base of my horn beneath my cap, the sword took on the properties of fire and swung it in a wide arc absorbing all the fire around me.

I then launched that power directly at his smug grinning face, he was quite surprised to be hit with several bursts of exploding fire that acted like fireworks. I had damaged his mustache and had burnt him somewhat, that showed I got through his barrier a little bit.

He sent blasts of lightning from his hooves in several arcs and I ran along the ground as the lightning exploded chunks of it behind me. Eventually he stopped sending lightning after me to start singing again. His flamboyance was through the roof, but I was actually kind of thankful for that as it gave me some time to rest.

“So you might, have some bite, but here let’s see how long you can last against my might~.” He started sending a wide cone of energy at me and I blocked it with the sword I heard a cracking noise, the metal of the sword was starting to crack from magical stress. Jade had warned me this might happen eventually, but why did it have to be now?! “It won’t be long before you drown, under the magnificent power that upon you I can easily bring down~!”

I continued to hold the sword against the power, it was keeping the worst of it from hitting me and I don’t think the weapon would last that much longer under this kind of strain. It was never meant to be able to block or absorb this much magic.

It was just unfortunate that I was right about the sword, it exploded in my hooves and I went down with a scream. When I lifted my head, I looked to my front right leg that bent awkwardly in several places and I was in a lot of pain. The leg was definitely broken, also my hat was blown away by the blast.

The sword had been finally totaled, bits of metal thankfully didn’t embed themselves into me and were scattered all over the ground. The hilt was left lying off to the side with a bit of smoke rising off of it.

I struggled to pull myself away from Snide on my back. My right hoof dragged on the ground and wasn’t responsive, any attempts to move just increased the unending agony.

Top Snide looked confused for a moment, but the fact that his mad sneering grin grew a little bit wider towards me was just a tiny bit unnerving. He gave a demented cheerful hum as he looked at my forehead.

“Oh, what’s this I do see, can it really be~? Has it been a broken unicorn that’s been fruitlessly fighting me~?” He zapped me with lighting and I cried out, my whole body and every single bit of my being was in pain. Was this how Jade felt at times she was grievously injured, how did she even get a stupidly high pain tolerance to stuff like this?! The muscle spasms the lightning was causing certainly didn’t help my broken leg or the rest of me one bit. “Do you see now that you’re just a worthless little blight, there’s nothing at all that can stand up to the great Top Snide tonight~! So get ready to say goodbye, sayonara as no one’s going to miss such a broken piece of cannon fodder, as your eyes are about to see their last little bit of light they’ll definitely water~!”

He started building up a lot of energy holding his hooves above his head. My vision was blurry and he was right, I was crying. I started to have a horrifying flashback to the Ursa raising its paw up to swipe down at me, to take more than just my horn this time.

“I, need help~. I just might not survive, to the very end of this day~. Come on Jade or at least Maries, just please be on the way~.” I was still surprisingly calm, despite all the insanity that’s been happening. Imminent death by insane pony… didn’t think I’d go out like this. At least we saved the hostages from Snide. “Kuril, you are the best mother that I’ve ever had I’ll say, something that needs to be said if that’s the last thing I’ll ever neigh~!”

He fired a large blast and I clenched my eyes shut, I felt nothing but the pain of my broken leg. I cracked an eye open and saw Snickers, she gently nuzzled against my face cooing sadly while pointing at my leg. Well that meant only one thing… I was going to be okay.

“You better listen here mister malicious, no one threatens to hurt or kill my kittens without retaliation that’s seriously vicious~!” I looked up and mom had the shield with the hoof and single fist imprints on it, the barrier she was forming had caught all the energy and was even holding onto it. She glared at Snide with a hatred I’ve never seen on her face before.

Mom usually wore the shield on her right arm, but instead she had it on her left. Most likely because she was right handed and didn’t want a repeat of how she couldn’t cook like last time. When she shoved the shield forward, the cat paw shaped barrier gripping the mass of energy shot forward and slammed it right into the stupefied Snide’s face.

Snide let out a scream of pain as he was incased in his own energy that exploded on him, following that he flopped to the ground creating a large dust cloud. Okay that had to have seriously hurt him a lot.

Mom stood tall in front of me. Her tail was puffed up and her ears were pointed forward as she held the shield aloft with a floating cat paw in front of her, her pupils were quite thin.

That’s when Jade’s group finally arrived.

“Way to go mom, oh my goddesses Fizzy!” Jade was at my side in an instant and carefully hugging me as she had noticed my broken leg. I could see tears spilling from her eyes as she kissed me gently on the cheek. The world felt a little bit better, especially when all of Maries joined in by licking me and were quite equally upset. “Everything will be alright Fizzle, you’re going to be okay and I’m going to make Snide pay horribly at the end of all this! He definitely deserves what’s coming to him… Snicker’s be a buddy and keep Fizzle company please? Maries you and Fizzle need to go to Dr. Bones, Fortitude go with them and keep them safe… also could you please carry Fizzle on your shield as a makeshift stretcher?”

I was about to argue when I felt Mara take my mane up into her jaw and she started to lift me from the ground, I felt Fortitude’s shield slide under me. They lifted me up, Snickers landed next to my head and gave off a cheerful chirp. I tried to smile at the winged turtle as she started acting adorable towards me.

“Stay safe Jade.” I grunted out, Jade picked up my hat and put it on my head before I was carried off.

“Trust me, I’m not the one that needs to stay safe!” Jade said she was going all out petty kitty on Top Snide, but she was pretty battered. I think her anger at me being hurt offset the battering she’s taken to quite a good degree. “He’s enraged both mom and I, we have Generic and Flamberge with us. This is going to only end in only one way since we have backup, that’s Snide suffering the worst thing I could ever do to him!”

Mom was still waiting for Snide to get up as I was carried towards a bunch of waiting cows that were ready to escort us to Dr. Bones.

-Jade-

Quick mental recap. Snide, the evil guy that he is, forced us to fight a lot of innocent and possibly innocent ponies. He was going to kill Fizzle, he got most of my friends hurt and he was even bragging about it. He ambushed and captured mom, taunted me with an organization he knows about that hates my very existence.

To be quite frank, after all that he was not going to be sane even when we do destroy or get the amulet off of him. Once we got a hold of him after separating him from the amulet, he was going to be quite catatonic when we were done with him!

Also I’m absolutely going to destroy that amulet now if I can just get one claw on it.

Thankfully we now had Sugar with us to help with that, Snide couldn’t possibly create a barrier that she couldn’t break. I’d have to remember to give something nice to Cadence later for getting our familiars here so fast.

I flexed my hands and my claws popped out, I looked to mom as I moved up next to her and she was way ahead of me. She was ready to claw the guys face off as much as I was after all he’s put us and everyone else through.

“You okay my little tom cat?” My mother smiled at me and I returned it.

“Cat scratch fever mom.” My words made her grin in a feral manner. “Full petty.”

“Do you seriously think that was enough to bring me down?” I could see Snide’s grin appearing out of the smoke along with the glowing eyes that have been present throughout all the fighting. “I don’t know how you got free…”

“Your ambush on me is the only reason why you could even take me captive in the first place, why don’t you try me while I’m more prepared for you?” Mom held the battle barrier aloft in front of us, while both Flamberge and Generic took to the air.

“Better be prepared to move Flamberge, he can actually hurt dragons with the amulets magic.” The response to my statement for once wasn’t loud and possibly with an exclamation point. Flamberge didn’t exclaim anything and he glared grimly at Snide.

Generic was someone I didn’t have to worry about, he knew how dangerous things were about to become.

“Gladly.” The dust dissipated revealing that Snide’s face and body were covered in burns, not all of those were caused by mom’s attack. You helped shorten that evil mustache of his, good work Fizzy! “Like you’ll be able to take me with the power at my command!”

He sent out the blast of dark red magic that cleared the dust from the air and formed a barrier around himself. Mom simply looked to Sugar sitting on her right shoulder.

“Sugar… kiss, kiss.” Mom’s familiar just looked to her in confusion, mom rolled her eyes and then said in a much sillier tone. “Would you prefer I say bite, bite?”

Sugar was immediately slamming through the barrier horn first shattering it like glass, the barrier even made a glass breaking noise that caused Snide to go wide eye and freeze up. He received a horn through his shoulder doing a lot of damage to him.

“Don’t kill him Sugar.” At mom’s words Sugar just lifted an ear in acknowledgement as she started to harshly bite into his right leg and violently pulled at it as she propped her hind legs again his barrel.

It took him a moment before he finally reacted to the pain and blasted Sugar off of himself, it didn’t hurt her too badly as Sugar deflected a majority of the magic attack off of her horn after being blown off.

Snide didn’t seem to be reacting to the pain correctly, to be fair none of the mind controlled ponies had either when they kept getting up from their numerous bruises or other injuries.

“Magic barriers can be made of glass… barriers are made of evil!” He was clearly horrified by the thought more so than he was by having a flesh eating rabbit try to take one of his legs off, he was still wide eyed and trying to come to terms with that idea.

It had really taken quite a bit of time to realize he had a badly bleeding hole put through him by Sugar’s horn or that one of his legs was being painfully bit. Sugar growled and went back to crawl up mom’s robe to end up on her shoulder, she continued to chitter aggressively towards Snide and then nuzzled mom’s cheek.

“Well I’m not going to stand around and do nothing.” I ran up to claw him in the face.

It was at this time that he finally chose to, somewhat, come to his senses and blast a magic wave out at me. I leapt over that and dodged around the following blast of magic he sent at me, he looked at his shoulder and finally realized he had been hurt.

I tried to close the gap, but he sent out a wild wavy beam of energy that had me pulling back to avoid it.

With a flaming hoof Snide cauterized his wound, why did he… oh right, dark magic doesn’t do healing very well. If dark magic did seem to do healing, it was always at a horrible cost in some significant manner.

“Now, let’s see where we were~? Ah yes I was about to start, on a magical sun priestess beating spree~!” He sent a glare at me and started to spray blasts of magic towards me, Sugar leapt onto my shoulder and deflected it with her horn and she chittered angrily as she deflected multiple blasts that would have hit me as I dodged. “The magic barriers are made of glass, so I guess no more shields to protect this gallant still glorious visage that you can see~. I can do fine and I’ll just finish this fight real fast, with all the powers that I can conceive~! There’s no beating the power, of Top Snide at his finest hour~!”

With a flick of his hoof a geyser of water shot up and blocked the fireball Flamberge spat at him and then the geyser angled and rammed him straight for the roof of the tent.

“I, think your delusional you stupid amulet riddled mental jerk~. Come on guys let’s force him down and make this work~! Get ready to step in to help us, you’ll know when we’ll need the back up without a fuss~.” I was looking to Cadence, she was standing a decent distance away from Snide outside of his sight. “Now here we go, let’s get this show permanently off this road~!”

Putting an alicorn versus the amulet, my bet was that the amulet would always lose. I wanted my crack at taking Snide down without endangering the princess first.

Mom caught a sphere of energy fired at me and tried to slam it into him with the battle barrier, only to miss and hit the ground when he took to the air. Sugar tried to jump on him and missed as he went a little higher.

He started to fire a beam only take swift set of claws to the back thanks to Generic, he turned to fire some lightning after the griffon who amazingly evaded it. ‘Generic the swift reaction’ lives up to his name quite well.

Snide couldn’t concentrate his lightning at Generic for too long as he had to turn and block a fireball from Flamberge who looked angry. As he sent up another wall of water to push the dragon away, mom and I fired magic missiles into his side making him gasp out in pain.

“He’s got a pain tolerance that can match mine. Getting stabbed and then bitten by an Al-mi’raj should have just about taken the fight out of anyone, much less take them down from the pain alone.” I was pointing out Sugar was below him and jumping up to bite at his rear hooves, he was hovering well out of her reach. Not out of ours though.

He turned and then created a hailstorm above us that started dropping large balls of ice all over us. Sugar scampered over to us as I ducked down and mom held the barrier above us to block out the large chunks of hail raining down.

The solid impacts to the barrier was making mom grunt as each physical hit translated to the shield and straight into her arm.

The hailstorm didn’t last long when Generic started to scatter the clouds. Flamberge fired another blast of fire forcing Snide to defend with another wall of water, that’s when I took out the juggler’s knife and cast with it.

Quickly pulling out the one of the caltrops while pointing the resulting energy knife at him, I cast the caltrop on the knife while giving the knife a very large amount of momentum.

The knife shaped wad of energy soared straight at him and he tried to block it with a blast of raw energy that I evaded. It went through all the energy and into him, it didn’t do any injury until it exited out his backside in a spray of blood, which made him scream as if he had just been stabbed in the back.

You don’t defend against a magical backstab, you evaded it at all costs or else that happens. I was happy to finally get my pound of flesh, but it didn’t feel like enough to me. I had my finishers waiting in my pack, but that was only after we destroyed the amulet.

Mom sent a magic missile from her right hand into the amulet and it did very little damage.

“We can’t keep hitting him like this, we need to hit that amulet with something solid to do some real damage to it!” We all silently agreed with that, but how were we going to go about doing that mom?

While Top Snide was running a flaming hoof down his back to close the bleeding wound I put in it, burning off quite a bit of his fur in the process, Generic came down and slashed his claws across the amulet. Just minimal damage again, now there was some mild bleeding on Snide’s chest at the edges the amulet didn’t protect.

Did we really need to call in Cadence for this?

I blinked as a silver object slammed into the amulet and caused it to crack slightly and it made Snide lose altitude, the feedback from the amulet getting damaged was causing him pain.

Snide hastily sent up a wave of water to hit Flamberge as he opened his mouth to blow another fireball Snide’s way. He tried to fire a lightning bolt at Generic and missed again. He tried to hit us with a massive beam of energy only for it to be blocked, held and returned to him.

Snide dropped to the ground and barely evaded the mass of energy mom sent back his way and was soon back up in the air narrowly avoiding Sugar coming for his hind legs.

“Why… why am I losing…? I’m all powerful!” No, that’s just a delusion of power brought on by an amulet that can only give you capabilities most normal ponies were never meant to have at the cost of your sanity.

You didn’t earn this power Snide, why the unicorn that stole the amulet for you would have earned it more for getting by the museums security.

I turned my eyes towards the object on the ground. It was a… spoon? Jacky, of course! I looked to where she sat across the tent, trying to aim something else at Snide. She fired and a teacup almost hit Snide in the back of the head.

“We need to move him closer to Jacky mom!” I received a very odd look from mom, I pointed at the spoon, the amulet and then Jacky. She nodded, I was backtracking to plan F as I didn’t want to kill the stallion.

No matter how much of my ire he’s earned, I didn’t like the idea of his death being on my paws. Now completely maiming Top Snide to within an inch of his life was an entirely different story, this was the Mystical Maiming Circus after all.

“Well you’re not going to beat us if you can’t even handle a shot from my injured and helpless daughter over there!” What were you doing mom? “All powerful? You can’t even get shot by a spoon without losing ground against us, face it you’ve lost even with all your vaunted power!”

“You’re right… she is defenseless and helpless isn’t she?” He trailed off looking towards Jacky, his grin grew wide as he shot off towards her.

“Mom…” I started off questioningly as we followed after him as quickly as we could run, Generic was frantically trying to knock Snide from the air with various claw swipes before he could reach Jacky and Flamberge was blowing blast after blast of fire at his tail. Flamberge only managed to burn some of Snide’s tail down slightly.

“Trust me, because I’m trusting Jacky to do whatever it is you think will happen near her.” Mom doesn’t even know why I wanted him near Jacky, but it looks like he was taking her hostage. That was actually a good thing, exactly what we needed him to do.

I’m surprised that Top Snide still hadn’t noticed that his audience was gone and the insides of the tent were pretty cleared out, heck I don’t think Top Snide was even completely aware of his surroundings any more. He hadn’t even notice a surprised Cadence also giving chase to him with a determined look in her eyes.

As we made our way towards Jacky chasing after him, I saw Dr. Bones checking over Arizona and Velvet. Hoped those two were alright. If they were complaining about each other, then Arizona and Velvet were both perfectly fine. Fortitude and Maries were watching over them and Fizzle protectively.

-Jacky-

“Ugh…” I was wrapped in red energy and levitated, Snide quickly swung around to point me towards Jade and the others. I couldn’t try to run, I was too weak to really fend him off when he was coming right for me. I couldn’t do much at this moment.

Generic gritted his beak and stopped to hover next to Flamberge, then Jade, mom, Cadence and Sugar stopped just shy of him as well looking at me worriedly.

“Sorry about this Jacky!” Mom shouted to me, but it was fine as I had already forgiven her for whatever it was that she was sorry about. Although with my luck, I don’t think I liked being currently held up by a psycho pony like this.

“Nock the bow with an arrow my pet and aim it towards the sun priestess.” His voice echoed in my head and my body started to follow his command only to lock up when I resisted it with all my will. “If any of you attack me, then she will surely perish. With as weak as she is now, it would be so easy to break her spine like a nasty bit of glass while she’s in my grip.”

“Do it Jacky, go ahead.” Blinking at Jade, I wondered why she would ever want me to shoot a… oh. Top Snide doesn’t exactly have the memo on that does he? “I’m not afraid of taking an arrow to the chest, I already did that once for Fizzy, then I can do it again for you sis.”

“So you’re giving up? Just because you want your darling sister to stay alive, how sweet… but insufferable! Nock an arrow and fire it at her heart!” Putting on a good show for Snide who was pointing at a vaguely smirking Jade, I weakly gave a token show of resistance as I started to do as he said and my eyes were starting to fill with a red light.

If I’m right, then the last few arrows that I’ve fired in practice would have cycled around to the point that the next arrow I fired would…

This at least explains why mom was apologizing to me. They must have suggested something to him in the realm of take me hostage, because I was left alone and out in the open. Snide was now currently dumb enough to fall for that.

“Don’t worry I’ll…” Ponyacci came galloping up only for Jade to grab him and shake her head no. “What? But the villain can’t win just because he’s taking control of your… wait a minute, your sisters a parrot? Does she eat all the crackers?”

“It’s definitely a war for who gets to them first assuredly, chili night can get quite vicious let me tell you. Of course I always get into the parmesan first, so I can’t really complain about the lack of buttery crackers.” Hearing Jade, I smiled a bit as my head was getting all foggy. I resisted letting the arrow go for as long as I could manage. “Don’t worry Ponyacci, I trust that Jacky won’t fire the arrow at me.”

“We’ll see about that… do it, kill your so called sister!” At Snide’s command, I released the arrow and it shot from the bow… completely backwards and arrowhead first into the Alicorn Amulet. I had the tiniest smiles on my beak as the amulet’s effects on me faded away. “Wha… what?! That’s not possible… how did the arrow even… what just happened?!”

I dropped the ground groaning in pain as I slumped against the floor, I felt Gene wrapping me up in his wings and began holding me tenderly.

The music to my avian sense of hearing was the amulet exploding violently and sending Top Snide violently into the floor where he dug a small trench.

“There’s a reason why my sisters main source of ammunition is rocks or random objects instead of arrows.” Jade muttered as she walked up to Top Snide who was groaning on the floor, she stomped down on his belly making him gasp out in pain. She then pulled her pack from her back and started to pull something out.

“Say hello to your punishment. If you aren’t messed up after this Snide, then good for you.” Jade was now placing down objects off to the side that, for some odd reason, clearly horrified mom. “Those with weak stomachs may want to look away from what I am about to do to him.”

Four perfectly wrapped giant cupcakes were pulled from the pack, I remember reading their magical alchemy effect log on this and it said that I didn’t want to know what they did. When I had asked mom about it once, she said it was one of the most horrific effects that a magical alchemy cast can do to someone even if it is only temporary.

Jade lightly slapped her claws across Snide’s face marring it and making him yelp in pain. She then picked up a cupcake and began unwrapping it.

“So Snide, now that the effects of the amulet are wearing off… I have a few questions about this organization of yours.” Jade received a glare from Snide, but I didn’t care as I started to snuggle into Gene a bit. “If you answer me I might not use one of the cupcakes, I’m definitely using three of them.”

-Jade-

“Jade…” Turning to mom, I lift my left brow delicately. “I’m unbanning cupcakes for a time... but I get to use the next one.”

I grinned broadly at mom, that was really quite vindictive of her. I now knew where I got it from.

“What are you going to do, make me eat it?” You Snide, were a very unpleasant pony who was about to have something equally unpleasant done to you. “I won’t crack. The amulet might have driven me to madness, but I’m not nearly dumb enough to give away our organization no matter what you do to me!”

Cast one cupcake, apply in concentrate to evil pony. Create immediate horror show!

Chapter thirty one, All Good Things: Patience.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter thirty one, All Good Things: Caring.

-Jade-

Well I now knew about the organization that was after me, they were called GODLESS.

Not very inventive, but it at least told everyone in the know what their goals were about.

I don’t mind that they were atheistic, but did they really have to actively go after the gods? What did a god do to the mysterious leader to want them all destroyed? Was it a dark god that did something horrible? Did this organization really need to target all gods?

Not all of the gods were bad, plus they really couldn’t target mortals unless they somehow actively involved themselves with said gods in the first place.

My best bet was that someone got burned backing the wrong god and then wanted disproportionate revenge on all of them. Either that or a god couldn’t do something for a worshipper and they were now seeking obscene amounts of revenge after having been loyal to that god for so long. Some gods did have limitations on what they could do for mortals without becoming avatars.

If GODLESS somehow successfully went after Perun, then I might look the other way as I liked Veles more. Veles may be an annoying confusion god, a god capable of resurrecting if killed thanks to how his pantheon worked, but he was a god of the people and would actually prevent a war from happening if it would hurt too many merchants or the lower class.

If a choice between saving Discord of Chaos or Veles of Confusion popped up, then I’d choose Veles paws down simply because he annoys Sekhet and doesn’t, and wouldn’t, use his powers to hurt the little people. Discord was neutral chaotic, at least Veles was somewhat chaotic lawful.

There was a lot I couldn’t find out about GODLESS, mostly because Top Snide was now spewing colorful bubbles from his mouth after barfing up rainbows for the fourth time and his mind was a complete mess by the time I was done with him.

Shining Amor would be tearing apart Snide’s personal crime syndicate now thanks to the information I pulled from the guy, just like he and the royal guard tore up Billion Karats version in Canterlot.

The royal guard had only taken out the visible portions of the organization so far, which they were only capable of doing thanks to my actions. Thankless job being a hero, but I wasn’t exactly one of those now was I? No… but did want to be a hero somewhat.

I never even got the leaders name, but at least I got what Top Snide does in Manehattan and his section of GODLESS was going to be gone when Shining was done. The poor guy does a lot work, between dealing with my annoying habits and trying to get some dates with Cadence off the ground without work interfering. Shining Armor certainly had his plate full of adventure as a guardian to ponies everywhere.

I probably would have run afoul of Snide anyway, had me and mom came here like we originally planned. I might have even gone Power Ponies on this city had we ended up here first. Just think, me running around as a costumed maniac taking the law into my own claws and in general making everything worse for myself and everyone else around me.

That might not have ended as well as what was currently going on in my life, for one I would have never met my little buddy Snickers, my girlfriends Maries and Fizzy or wouldn’t have gone on some amazing adventures.

I would have also avoided all the serious injuries on said adventures as well, but not all things could be perfect in life and it was impossible for them to be. It didn’t mean I couldn’t be happy or content with life as it was right now.

One would think I cared what GODLESS was doing, mostly because it seemed like they were trying to involve themselves in my life. I would have gone on entirely clueless to their existence and probably wouldn’t have interfered in any of their plans, had they just left me entirely alone.

No seriously, they were actively trying to make me come after them and be their problem. It’s seem really highly stupid to antagonize someone you don’t want to interfere in your plans or that you think would interfere if they knew about them.

At best it would have been better if they ignored me and now I destroyed two, to possibly three thanks to Billion and Top being connected, large portions of their organization. All of that done mostly by accident and because they couldn’t leave well enough alone when it came to me!

Also I now knew that there was absoultuely more than one Alicorn Amulet drifting around out there, because the one we destroyed was definitely mostly blown to tiny little pieces that lacked any magic in them.

That was a horrifying thought, there being more than one of those things that could make a pony 'insanely' powerful. Thankfully Sugar breaking the barrier, and making that glass shattering noise when she did, made things a lot easier for us in taking down Top Snide.

Apparently GODLESS’s leader couldn’t ignore me because I was a sun priest, one that hasn’t done anything even remotely actively related to a job that a priestess would do.

I really seriously wanted nothing to do with them or GODLESS. This was despite the assassins, attempted manipulation of my trial to get a worse result for me and now this Manehattan menace that had come out of nowhere to ruin my…

That’s right, its Mom’s birthday! It had passed midnight some time ago, not like we could have a birthday party thanks to all the injuries.

I could still give mom her present though… switching to happy mother loving little kitten mode! I was about to make my way out of the circus tent when Traveling Neko stepped into my path with a smile.

“Good job kid, you saved your mother and all those poor ponies.” Wondered what Traveling Neko wanted, he was nice when gave me a large discount on those cupcakes. “Heard it’s your queen’s birthday, sorry to hear it started off on a sour note. Loved my queen too, mom didn’t care if I was a runt or short. Knowing a queens love is one of the greatest thing a kitten can ever have. I’m still short to this day, but that doesn’t matter much to me given my success and being a legendary merchant among our people. My mom is undoubtedly proud of me, as I’m sure yours is of you! Also I run a lucrative enough business that I can help out a few fellow felines and their families without losing much.”

Four bits for each large cupcake, when normally they’d cost fifty apiece because they were specially made and hard to acquire thanks to the recipe being very unique. It explains why the effects of the cupcakes were even nastier than that time I used one during the Ponyville pukwudgie invasion, that or we had concentrated the effects of the cupcakes all onto one target instead of spreading it out and diluting it over multiple targets.

“So what did you need Neko… oh and thanks for the help!” I was quite polite with him, also quite surprised he didn’t jack up the prices on me because I was walking straight into danger. He was said to be worse than a griffon while remaining completely amiable to talk to.

“You’re welcome! Though next time, you get the full Traveler Neko experience where my prices are concerned.” The purple furred feline was a friendly, if completely ruthless, merchant. I could definitely see it in his eyes now. “Just came to say that I heard about your plans and that double stack large cheesecake you ordered will be delivered here soon.”

“Really, you have that kind of pull here?” I was a little surprised that he would even use some strings for me or that he even had strings in Manehattan at all. Neko was pretty cool and I wanted to idolize him somewhat for his help.

“Hey, don’t underestimate the infamous Traveling Neko kid! Your mother’s magical dumplings are absolutely delicious. I’m sure she could make them without those nifty magical side effects, but where would the fun be in that? Life’s no fun without a little surprise every now and then.” With that he readjusted his huge sack of stuff up on his back and the dwarf Abyssinian smiled at me before walking off. “Enjoy your queen’s birthday and take care!”

“I will, thanks again Mr. Neko!” I waved as he walked off with a friendly smile on his face.

I soon made my way straight into the medical tent to see what my friends were going through.

Upon walking into the tent I noticed another doctor and he seemed to be cowed by something Dr. Bones did. I walked up to Cadence.

“Hey Cadence, sorry you had to see that.” My ears were wilting as I addressed her.

“No, you warned everyone fair and square. I actually thought I could handle… yeah... that...” The love princess was turning a little green just thinking about it. “I don’t think I can touch a cupcake for years without thinking about it.”

“Again I’m quite sorry about that. So how is everyone doing?” I asked, knowing Cadence had turned to assisting Zen because she couldn’t stomach what mom and I had done to Snide… multiple times.

“Well most of your friends are fine. The reindeer and cow, not so much.” She pointed to Dr. Bones turning to check over Arizona with the other doctor following her with a look of wonder in his eyes. “Your sister is okay for the most part.”

She smiled at me as she turned me towards Jacky who was awake and was staring at her removed appendix in a jar. As I approached, she turned to me and the corners of her beak turned upwards.

“Hey sis, how are you feeling?” We were sisters, though I didn’t act as such as much as I should have.

“I’m alright Captain, just didn’t think this would be the first part of me I’d lose.” She poked at the jar with the floating removed appendix in it. “Now I really don’t want to lose any of my limbs, not when it feels this bad to see a part of me that’s now separate from me.”

“Hey, an appendix is vestigial at the best of times.” After a moment of silence I decided to ask. “So… are you keeping it?”

“Of course I am Captain, it’s kind of awesome to look at!” Jacky proceeded to chuckle then grunt while gently putting her talons over her bandages. “I probably shouldn’t laugh.”

“Yeah, anyway, we got incoming cheesecake for mom’s birthday. Most of my plans are down the drain, but we can still celebrate.” I received a smile from Jacky. “Speaking of, I need to go to the hotel room Fizzy, Maries and I were occupying to pick up mom’s present. Do you want me to grab anything for you while I’m there Jacky?”

“Yeah, can you grab my birthday present for mom?” Leaning forward and raising an ear to her beak, she whispered into it. After a moment I nodded.

“Okay, got it! Now I just need to ask Fizzy if she had anything planned.” I looked over to Fizzle and saw that her leg was currently splinted. She looked like she needed a cast, but a splint would do in a pinch for broken limbs.

Maries was still waiting to have their wounds attended to, but they didn’t look to be poor off in comparison to Arizona or Velvet. I made my way over to Fizzy. I ignored Cadence following me with a smile or the love blooming in my heart as I approached one of my girlfriends.

“Hey Fizzy, feeling okay?” I nuzzled my face against her neck, she giggled and whined bit.

“Ow, watch it with those whiskers Jade, they tickle. I’m still feeling sore.” I purred as she lifted her good hoof to start petting me. “You’re always the weird one and that’s while we’re dating a chimera.”

“I know, right? Anyway I’m picking up Jacky and my birthday presents for mom, did you get her anything?” I glanced over to mom who was listening to Dr. Bones about something with a frown as the good doctor pointed to a pained looking Arizona. “Oh and Neko took care of the birthday cheesecake order, he redirected it here.”

“So the merchant has a bit of gold in there after all. I did get one… if you could grab it for me that would be helpful.” I moved my ear close and grinned as I flicked it against her nostril making her sneeze, I giggled until she grabbed my ear in her teeth began gnawing lightly on it. She eventually let go with a small smile as my face was feeling rather hot. “Very cute Jade, now here’s where my present is…”

One more whispered round of locations to look for birthday presents, I dragged my tongue against Fizzy’s cheek affectionately and then set off.

-Cadence-

“Despite your injuries I can feel the love practically flooding off all of you, not just between you, Jade and the chimera. Every single being here is connected by a powerful bond of friendship.” I must have had a wondrous look on my face, because the one Jade calls Fizzy smiled at me.

“You have no idea.” Fizzle looked content, even with her broken leg.

“I just wish Twilight could feel this.” I sighed as I thought about Celestia taking Twilight on as a personal student. “My little lady bug, Shining’s younger sister, she’s just so shut in sometimes. I wish she can have friends like you guys.”

“Oh no you don’t, we’re constantly getting into trouble!” She assured me with a bright smile, her eyes were quite beautiful and I could see why Jade was quite smitten with this pony. “You’re better off if that pony doesn’t have friends as insane as the ones I currently have, we get into all kinds of crazy and problematic situations. It’s even safe to say weird things happen to us every other week.”

“Even so, you all lead some very interesting and charmed lives.” I turned and walked towards the entrance of the tent and looked to the moon in the night sky.

The moon was in decline and I could see the mare in it like usual. I looked to one of the stars in the sky, a particularly bright sparkling one that reminded me of Twilight’s cutie mark.

“I wish Twilight had friends like these.” The star then shot off and disappeared, I blinked in confusion. Did my wish just get granted?

If it did, I didn’t seriously think it would ever come true any time soon, mostly because Twilight only had a few friends right now. Spike the little dragon was one of them and beginning to grow up, he was a very talkative little guy when you listened.

It was unfortunate that I didn’t know just what exactly I had asked for when I wanted Twilight to have friends like the ones Jade has.

It was an eventuality that Twilight would become friends with all of them. The magic wish was cast and it was too late to save the Twilight of the far flung future.

Author's Note

Jade could care less about GODLESS, their goals just don't sound very feasible.

She cares more about her mother alongside her friends, family and loves ones in the here and now.

Just deal with things one day at a time.

Chapter thirty one, All Good Things: Home.

-Jade-

“Glad you like your new robes mom.” Having gotten mom an entire set of new robes and a witch hat that perfectly sat on her head, ears and all, she smiled at me and gave me a strong hug.

She must have liked her knew hat and robes a little too much, the hug was threatening to choke the life out of me.

“Mom, I think you’re choking her.” Jacky intoned blandly and then mom let go of me.

“I can breathe again, I’ve survive my mom’s snuggle of death!” I gasped out.

“Stop being overdramatic my little tom cat.” Still mom nuzzled her face against mine and I smiled.

“…” Cadence just watched us like an outsider, as we sat down to eat cheesecake. I looked to her and tilted my head and looked to the cheesecake and then back to her. Eventually she joined us in getting a slice of her own.

Jacky was fine, Fizzle would be fine and I was okay myself, we all wanted mom to smile and seeing her so cheerful on her birthday this morning was nice.

Velvet wouldn’t be able to have any cheesecake, but she was awake even with her fever being as high as it was. She was at least smiling at the small celebration we were trying to have. She needed fluids, nutrients and plenty of rest to start cooling down.

Arizona wasn’t in any better condition, she’s torn every muscle in her body between her head and tail, what she didn’t tear she had pulled quite badly. Surprisingly her heart was one of the few muscles unaffected by the damage throughout her body.

The comment the cow made was that if Velvet couldn’t break her heart while trying, then nothing would. All the muscles in her head were also fine, I didn’t think she’d ever fight an elephant again for a while though. Unlike Velvet, she could actually enjoy some cheesecake and would require a little help to eat it.

Having been up all night we were going to sleep today and catch the evening train back to Ponyville. Moving Velvet and Arizona back to Airship Mauled in their conditions would be a bit tricky, but we’d either manage it with Fortitude or we’d fly the Ardent Survivor to Ponyville and would pick them up.

We really needed to get the train station in Airship Mauled up and running.

Until then we were going to sleep through this morning after throwing a small birthday party for mom.

“It’s a good thing we’ll never have to go through that again.” Turning to Fizzle, I couldn’t hold back the statement playing upon my tongue.

“There’s actually a possibility of it…” Everyone froze and turned to stare at me. “There’s more than one Alicorn Amulet in existence. Don’t ask how I know, I just do.”

There was a long silence when I said that.

“At least there’s one less amulet like that in existence though!” Flamberge had managed to brighten the mood as he took to his apple cider heartily.

“Yeah, I don’t think there’s that many of them around or else you would constantly hear about a lot of incidents with red eyed mentally messed up super ponies running around everywhere.” Please only let there be two alicorn amulets, I silently begged. Hopefully there would be no more than three, I didn’t think we were that lucky though. “We took care of it, end of story. Let’s celebrate my mother’s birthday and forget that I mentioned it!”

We were all at home and at heart with one another, though we weren’t home where we physically belonged.

-???-

“It’s so good that we can procure your services once more Mr. Obelus.” I stated with a sense of finality, it took us quite a bit of time to get him out without anyone noticing that he was missing. “Succeed, you get double the offer. Fail and whatever happens to you, well… we’ll find a way to make it that much worse.”

The Sun Priestess was not long for this world if I had any say in it and money was quite a good motivator. I had plenty to throw at the problem, especially a massive thorn in the side of my organizations earnings.

“I’m not coming back until I succeed this time.” He said with an air of swagger, he knew what he was dealing with now.

“See that you don’t, setting up this meeting without getting noticed has been… problematic.” The royal guard were on high alert, I take it something big had happened in Manehattan and that the Sun Priest attending the cultural festival led to something strange happening.

Had Top Snide actually acquired the amulet?

If so, then I dearly hoped that he didn’t use it as that would be a folly of the highest sorts. One of the likes that our organization couldn’t feasibly recover from easily.

If he were smart, he’d study such a horribly cursed object thoroughly before putting it on. The power to match the strength of a goddess might have been too tantalizing to him.

I’d soon hear news about what went down. If I don’t, then I’ll soon know what happened either way. Sometimes receiving no news was just as telling as getting all the information in the world, it’s sometimes the stuff you don’t hear that is the most important.

Knowledge was power, power was pain. If you had to ask, then I would certainly win this game. For when I find 'the end of immortality’, this world will change for the better!

-Sekhet, Airship Mauled-

“A chill wind blows, telling all of a future that scares me so… but to whom does it go?” I asked curiously as I left my lovely pyramid, shrunk down and headed for Kurilian’s establishment.

Various beings were sitting and talking amongst themselves while Blade and Fresh were taking care of them, I waited to be seated.

“Hello~.” The greeting was long and drawn out in a familiar chirpy tone of voice and I looked at the pony that no other being was paying attention to in the room. He was odd in that he had a ghostly set of wings and horn on his dark yellow earth pony body. His mane and tail were a kaleidoscope of random colors, I knew it could only be one being.

“Veles.” I blandly stated.

“Well don’t look so excited to see me!” He said while turning one of his legs into a snake as he stretched it for me to attempt to wrap it around my back, only he stopped when I snapped my teeth at the offending limb. He swiftly pulled it back and it turned back into hoof. “I was invited to come visit after all.”

“I didn’t think you’d be coming so soon.” Again, my tone as bland and dry as a desert. “Also I don’t like you, I may even eventually come to harbor an intense hatred for you.”

“Why that sounds quite nice of you, but I think you’re only doing it just because I want the Sun Priestess for myself.” I glared at Veles and he just smiled, I sighed and sat down with him. “You should hate me for me, not because of outside influences!”

“Hey Sekhet, hey god I don’t know the name of, will you be having anything?” Fresh Start was always so chipper. It was quite refreshing to see her take on every day by starting with a smile.

“Wait… you can see my godhood?” Veles looked at the mare with confusion.

“All who live here are ‘technically’ under my protection since I have built a residence nearby, said protection includes from crazy gods like you.” If my voice could get any dryer, then this room would turn into a volcano. “Don’t make a scene and none of the visitors will notice.”

“He’s not actually a pony is he? The way his mane and tail shift colors is kind of distracting and a little bit sickening to look at to be honest.” To think Fresh Start used to be so easy to get riled up with all the craziness, now she just took everything with a kind of grace that some gods wished they had.

“No I am not a pony, but I can take on the form of one. I came here wondering if I can get the gods version of an Airship Mauled tour so to speak.” He smiled at me cheerfully. Sure I could stand to get him crushed by some random errant crashing airship, it’s how we get most of our visitors anyway. Every airship that crashes either becomes housing if it can’t be fixed or it is repaired. The airships that can be fixed usually had a well fed and rested crew by the time they were ready to move on. “Also I was wondering if that nice air headed cow in the inn is seeing anyone, I want to kidnap her and was wondering if anyone would notice if she was gone.”

“Touch Grace and you’ll be hurting a lot of commoners, which wouldn’t be like you at all.” Watching the other god grimace, I smirked. “She’s basically the communities rock to lean on, one that can’t be washed away no matter how long a river flows over her. She may be air headed in nature, but she’s not dumb and everyone knows what to expect of her when they talk to her.”

“So much for taking that cow and getting some milk from her.” He flicked his hoof and it made a snapping sound of disappointment. I also now knew what chartreuse tastes like, but that’s a really common harmless side effect of spending time around chaos gods.

“You know you could ask her for milk, she always gives it away freely to anyone who wants some.” When I looked at Grace, I saw a mortal who was always polite and helpful. An optimistic peacemaker that happened to be tone deaf to a degree that her singing can actually stop heart songs, one of the reasons Jade really likes having her around when she’s about to start singing uncontrollably.

“Did you say someone wants my milk, how much do they need Sekhet?” Grace, Arizona’s caretaker, sat down with us and asked innocently.

“That wouldn’t be any fun though!” One could see that Veles was upset at the prospect of getting milk from a cow so easily, which just made me smile at him for being so upset. “Look, do you know a tougher cow to kidnap and deal with?”

“You could always try and find Maggie… I really don’t know where she is, but there’s always her daughter Arizona. Poor dear misses her mother and I don’t know what happened to Maggie after she went after some world snake thing for one of the keys to close off that realm of predatory shadow monsters from getting into this one. Come to think of it, it’s kind of like what Daring Do does.” Here Grace sighs audibly. “I just really don’t know if I’m doing a good job with Arizona sometimes. She seems a lot like her mother, so I must be doing something right. It’s just that she's just a little too excitable at times.”

“Excitable, that’s your word for it?” One could hear my tone dripping with disbelief if they looked hard enough.

Arizona is without a doubt one of the most aggressive and violent mortals I’ve ever seen, despite that she was courageous and relatively good natured. I’d even say that Arizona had the heart of a true hero, she just needed to be tempered by life and experiences to become someone worthy of legend like Somnambula was.

“My dear, I think you are a fine specimen of living bovine artistry and that you are in fact taking good care of Arizona. Unfortunately Arizona needs to be a bit bigger in the udder department, she looks more like a horned dog than a cow and kidnapping her would just hurt my pride… so tiny...” Which was Veles’s way of saying he liked Grace in general. “It’s just unfortunate for me that I’d also feel bad for kidnapping you, you’d be absolutely way too nice about it. So I’m just going to pass on taking you from here.”

“Well thank you! You know, you are a lot nicer than those cow traffickers that tried to traffic me and my friends into slavery. Those guys didn’t seem very kind at all like you are.” Grace said airily with a smile making Veles’s pony form blush. “Hey Fresh, I’m a bit hungry and feel like eating something extravagant today. Can I get some fresh chopped vegetables please? Like usual, I want it thoroughly washed, very little boiling and surprise me with the vegetables I’ll be getting.”

“Of course Grace, one Fresh Garden order coming up. Do you two want anything Sekhet… and company?” Thinking about Fresh’s offer I eventually nodded.

“Yeah, coffee, as roasted as you can get it without having a dragon to do it.” Nodding at me, Fresh Start turned to the visiting nuisance.

“Simply a glass of room temperature water for me. Now back to the subject, what cow traffickers and where are they?” Veles’s eyes narrowed. He might kidnap cows, but he didn’t hurt them or do anything bad to them… aside from stealing their milk.

“Oh don’t worry about it, Maggie and our other friend had a really friendly talk with them.” Like usual, Grace lived in her own little world. “They were all so loud and a bit rambunctious, but I think everything worked out.”

“Still… where was this taking place?” Veles obviously was going to go after anyone that was still trying to traffic cows.

“Well… those places don’t exactly exist anymore.” Looking at the table, Grace seemed a little upset. She eventually looked up faintly returning to her usual demeanor. “Maggie got a little… expressive… with the number of explosives she used to take down those buildings. Thankfully no one was hurt in the explosions, they were really loud. I still think things turned out for the best afterwards.”

“Not the buildings it was taking place in, I just want the location said place was. You know, for a… field trip… if you will.” Reading between the lines, Veles was going to find a reason to interfere in mortal lives by finding at least a single mortal to give him the ability to act openly.

Veles could do whatever he wanted in the chaos dimension, but here, he followed the rules just like every other god. Ignore those rules and bad things will happen to the perpetrator that broke them, Discord learned that the hard way when he started taking things way too far. He had an entire playground in the chaos dimension, but the mortals here were apparently better.

“Oh, well… it was happening in Moss Cow.” The second she finished saying that Veles disappeared. I rolled my eyes as Grace turned to me. “Where do you suppose he went in such a hurry?”

I slapped my face with a paw and slowly dragged it downwards. Only you could miss something so obvious Grace, he was likely in Moss Cow this very second.

“Sorry I left so abruptly." It certainly didn’t take Veles long, either that or he was doing the whole 'in two places at once' bit that some gods are so very fond of. "I just had to see to a few things.”

“That's alright.” Grace said cheerfully.

Author's Note

Grace is very easy going.

Chapter thirty one, All Good Things: Love.

-Fizzle, four days later, Airship Mauled-

Well my leg was in a cast and I was bored out of my mind in the recently built hospital, at least the cruise liner made for some very nice rooms to relax in when they were converted for hospital use. I was currently sharing this one with Arizona and Velvet.

I could hear Arizona constantly complaining about her muscles and as for Velvet she was whining about Arizona’s complaining, this led to Arizona arguing about Velvet’s whining. It was on loop for anyone who was willing to stick around long enough to listen to the two go on griping like they were.

I looked left and right when I heard a noise and just saw a cardboard box sitting nearby.

Nothing out of the ordinary, no wait… something is out of the ordinary! Where was Jade, she usually brought my homework from Cheerilee about this time. Watching the clock or reading a book was about all I had to do right now, aside from doing some homework Cheerilee assigned.

Speaking of the homework, I was trying to get my levitation down. I was almost capable of doing some fine levitation without the quill exploding in my magic. I could still write with my left hoof, don’t exactly feel like writing with my mouth when Jade and Kuril also did the same with their paws.

The cardboard box was a little closer than it previously was and on my left, I thought nothing of it. So Cardboard boxes could move when you weren’t looking at them in this world, it was none of my business that it might have been part of Jade’s cardboard box fort she kept clean and tidy.

I sighed, Jade and Maries had been pretty attentive of me while I was in bed for medical reasons. Almost as much as when Jade was in traction the last few times, at least this time she wasn’t in a minor coma. I felt something warm press up against my side and I felt slightly sharp teeth nibbling at my neck gently.

My eyes widened and I blushed when I felt a tongue brush over the fur currently in someone’s mouth, specifically someone I loved. I looked to see that the cardboard box was flipped over and Jade was snuggling up against me and purring, her tail flicking back and forth as she pressed up against me.

“Darn it Jade, that cardboard box thing really messes with people’s minds!” It wasn’t until after the effect was lost that I could remember that Jade did this several times before just to get up close to me and give me an overly affectionate hickey.

“Oh I know, but it’s kind of hard to not want to do that, it’s so funny when you finally realize that I’m right there next to you within seconds.” Sighing as Jade continued press her face against my neck and nose it into my mane, one of the things I really liked was having my mane teased and my neck tickled by her hot breath. “Besides, you know doctor bones wouldn’t let me get away with this if I didn’t do it this way.”

“I most certainly wouldn’t now either, off the patient’s bed with you!” At the sound of Dr. Bones slightly angry voice, Jade’s fur and tail sprang out in a fluffy manner. She instantly released me, got up and then scampered away as if her tail was on fire while carrying her cardboard box with her. Jade did leave a pile of homework next to my bedside and I smiled a little. “If it isn’t her, it’s always that crazy chimera of yours. Nurse Escargot, attend to Arizona’s daily treatment please!”

Zen Bones was not one to let her familiar sit idly by or around looking cute, she put him to work and he accepted his lot in life because he really liked helping people. It was just hard for him to help people when he was a sea monster with tentacles. He tends to scare ponies and the like, though I sarcastically couldn’t understand why that is.

Imagine everyone’s surprise that Escargot managed to follow us all home without anyone noticing the fairly large kraken, even Jade was a bit flummoxed for explanations on how he did it. I know Dr. Bones asked her for help with that, but she had forgotten about it. Escargot didn’t apparently need Jade’s help to catch a ride on the train.

Said kraken clacked its beak loudly in affirmation and slithered on his tentacles over to Arizona’s bed and a sighing noise from the cow soon began as he started performing his muscle relaxing work. Arizona didn’t seem to mind Escargot nearly as much as Velvet did. It was also a little strange that Arizona’s skeletal structure was completely fine with no cracks in it at all after the whole elephant tossing thing.

The reindeer shivered at Escargot’s alien appearance, well to her he was alien as she’s never actually been near the ocean all her life until that trip to Manehattan. It was nice that we’d have an old friend sticking around and he would be busy learning to become a full time nurse. It was still weird, as weird as a recue kraken from the supposed Sea Pony SOS emergency response team could be.

Jade left me something interesting to do aside from read novels written by a real life explorer. Said novels had major bits of editing to make them more colt and filly friendly than what Daring Do likely actually goes through on a regular basis. I’m quite sure some of the things weren’t actually dumbed down.

“Can you really blame them?” I asked, wondering why Maries and Jade thought I was worth this much of a surreptitious effort to keep me happy.

“Yes, if they end up making my patient worse in any given way or form. Just a reminder to you that this is a hospital now!” Yes and it was your hospital Zen. We get it, you run a tight… yes I was completely going there… ship. At least she was getting better with her speech, even if her accent was still quite present. “I’m a doctor, not a chaperone to ye’ crazy hormonal wee ones! You’ll be good enough to get around on three legs soon enough, maybe with a crutch, but it’ll be another week or two before the cast can be removed. Speaking of hormonal crazies, I need to go check on the reindeer and see how her fever is doing. It seems to be thankfully going down, but it still requires monitoring even now.”

It was a surprise that Maries could even sneak by Dr. Bones, they’ve done it once with a cloak, once with a cardboard box and once without either with a fair amount of success. Kind of like how Jade just did it the last three times, it was interesting how they were stealth training against a diamond dog that can practically hear heartbeat irregularities and smell if someone was sick or not.

It’s how Dr. Bones caught Jacky’s appendicitis, her nose was powerful enough to smell the bacteria of the inflamed appendix thanks to all the bleeding Jacky was doing after she took that nasty wound in her side.

There are a lot of jokes about Diamond Dogs and lacking brains, but I would never say any of them about Dr. Zen Bones who worked hard to make something of herself. Once she was done checking on Velvet, Dr. Bones looked over her notes and then left the room.

Not long after, Jade had managed to sneak back into the room and Escargot mostly just ignored her presence. When she waved to him, he waved back and continued to help ease all of Arizona’s damaged muscles with a gentle massage.

“So… my witch mother told me to give you some magic words.” Okay what were they Jade… not that I was asking how you got back in the room without Dr. Bones noticing. “It goes like this… I love, I love you, almost more than anything in the world right now, that it’s true~.”

“Really?” I stated as if I didn’t know this already, but then some music started playing and Jade started dancing to it. Was this going to be something highly embarrassing, yet Jade was doing it anyway to give me some entertainment?

“Doo, doo, doo doo doo~.” Jade sang with a smile, she was doing something I think was called the monkey. Rapidly waving her arms up and down while leaning side to side, yeah that looked like how a monkey would dance.

“Jade you really don’t need to…” I tried and she cut me off.

“Doo doo doo doo, I told my witch mother that I am in love with you~! I told my witch mother that I certainly loved you true~.” Oh great Jade actually felt like going into a musical number right now. So this was a heart song just for me. “Then my witch mother told me to come and sing this right out to you~! So I’m going sing that… I love, I love you~! You know, it’s nothing but quite true~! So I love, I love you, and we both know that it’s really quite true~!”

“We love, we love you, you should know it’s nothing but quite true~!” That’s when Maries popped up almost surprising the life out of me. “We love, we love the both of you, it’s not like it’s anything but really quite true~!”

Then another pony popped up, one that was highly familiar to me that happens to be playing a saxophone. Speedy Sax, always showing up at weird times when a saxophone was needed. She started playing an awesome upbeat solo following the music that Jade and Maries were swinging and dancing to together in beat.

“Doo~.” Mara.

“Doo~.” Maria.

“Doo~.” Marie.

“Doo~.” Jade finished following up the quick succession, this song was really silly and it was making me smile.

“We told the witch mother you were feeling quite down and blue~.” Maries and Jade sang together as they quirkily danced with Speedy shaking her hips off to the side and smiling. “We told the witch mother that you didn’t feel very nice~. Of course the wonderful witch mother, she soon gave us some really good advice~!”

“Oh please, stop.” Despite my complaints, I was giggling quite loudly at their zany performance.

“Get better, get well soon, or else our love will start to fill this room~.” Jade started off lazily.

“Ex-plosion~!” Belted our Mara.

“Ka-ha-boom~!” Maria enunciated afterward letting loosed a small blast of fire.

“You better heal real fast and quite soon~!” Marie pecked me on the nose making me smile brightly.

“Since we love, we love you, and all our love just can’t be contained to just this one room~!” They sang together. “We love, we love you, and that’s not changing anytime soon~!"

Even Speedy couldn’t hold back singing along with them and then she was back on her saxophone bouncing around and playing along to the beat they all danced for me.

“You can keep your love from us, though that doesn’t make you seem much wiser~.” Jade twirled and pulled out a bouquet of my favorite flowers out of the top hat she pulled from her pack. “We did it so we could learn how to break right into your heart~!”

“La-la-la~.” Intoned Speed as a background singer.

“So we went to talk to the witch mother, a lady that’s so much wiser~.” This was a really nice heart song and Maries knew how to harmonize. “Now we will always be within your heart~!”

“Doo~.” Jade started this time.

“Doo~.” Marie.

“Doo~.” Maria.

“Doo~.” Mara finished this time with a bright smile as the chimera’s body started doing the worm.

“We love, we love you~.” They all sang while Speedy continued to be their backup singer. “We love, we love you~.”

“We love, we love you.” Jade then slid onto her knee’s spreading her arms out wide, I wanted to hug her so badly right now. Stupid broken leg. “We love you, and there’s certainly nothing about it that you can do~!”

They all started dancing again as Speedy went back to blasting her saxophone to the tune. The dancing and music went on for a bit, even Escargot was bouncing to it having recently finished giving Arizona some massage therapy.

“Okay, that’s enough, out of all of you!” The music stopped abruptly as Dr. Zen Bones slammed the door to the room opened and glared at Jade, Maries and Speedy. “While this was a cute adventure in cheering up your lovely lass, out all of you! Except you Escargot, keep up the good work and make sure the patients get their rest.”

Escargot saluted Dr. Bones with a tentacle and made some friendly beak clacking noises. They all quickly vacated the room after that, all of them were laughing as they went.

“Let me guess, you’re going to say that Jade and Maries are daft idiots.” Yeah, I was much happier and more willing to do my school work now than I was before. Nothing like receiving a song to lighten the mood, with a bunch of silly dancing.

“Don’t need to, you said it for me.” The Diamond Dog simply crossed her arms and smiled at me, I think Zen actually found it funny that they broke into my room to cheer me up. “Though I must admit a positive mood is quite good for healing quicker. Some doctors are still sitting on the fence about it, but I think it’s a good thing that you have that many loved ones looking out for you. Speaking of, you have a visitor that’s not part of that bunch of sneaky little wee ones. Come on in Mayor Kuril!”

In walked mom and she sat down in a chair at my bed side on my left with a broad smile on her face. She reached over and grabbed my good hoof in her paw and pressed her face against it affectionately.

“You sent them after me didn’t you?” As blunt as I needed to be, even if I was receiving affection from mom.

“Yep. You’re a hard pony to keep happy, but when you’re happy you make them happy.” She pulled back and then picked up the homework papers Jade brought in. “Let me help you with your homework, there’s no helping Jade in math with her tendency to create world ending equations. I want at least two of my daughters to graduate in high honors.”

“Hey, Jade’s not that... bad…” I knew it was Cheerilee’s last year with us as our teacher. She was a good one.

Graduation came at sixteen for most ponies in schools, unless you’re in the school for gifted unicorns where learning could become a lifetime thing you do as a vocation. There’s also college and that’s only for ponies who wanted to advance the use of their cutie marks.

At this point in ponies lives they already knew what they were talented at and would only need to learn how to apply that talent in the area of their expertise. If you were talented at menial labor or cooking, then you had the whole world in your hoof as the rest of your life would be fulfilled monetarily.

I wanted to show the world what I was capable of, but I would finish school first.

Author's Note

Chapter thirty one, All Good Things: Experiences.

-Many months later, Jade?-

Fluttershy hasn’t been around, she was probably way too busy with her own life. At least she took Angel bunny and Jackass the jackalope with her when she went to set up her new home, I might barely even actually miss the jackalope. I had so much fun chasing him around for some painful, trap laden, violent fun.

Sugar was much nicer to spend time around, when I wasn’t hanging out with my little buddy Snickers.

Fizzle had her cast removed after a week or two and by now our injuries were much better.

Things in Airship Mauled have been pretty quiet for a while.

I mean aside from the random highland pukwudgie attacks.

There was also that weird sand shark invasion, one that didn’t last long as the sand sharks had trouble swimming through stuff that wasn’t sand. We dealt with them easily.

Fortitude and Flamberge actually got seriously injured for once by a highly confused, out of place and possibly time, magical triceratops. I noted it as endangered species and we had to let it get away.

Accidentally incurring the wrath of and getting hunted by giant stymphalian birds while on a date with Maries.

Found a nest of Myrmekes while exploring with Fizzle and Sugar in Barely Bearable Woods. Thus proving that nobody would want to go in there for too long or else you might get a bear sized ant to the face, if the Drop Bears didn’t get you first. The place was aptly named for its numerous bear sized problems.

There must have been a rich source of gold nearby or the Myrmekes wouldn’t even be present around here, Myrmeke nests are always built around areas rich with gold. It was a good thing Myrmekes had a limit to where they could thrive or otherwise this world would be covered in them, Maulwurfs also helped keep Myrmeke populations down.

Maulwurf, giant mole with highly armored skin and fur. Said armored skin is resilient to both magic and physical damage to be about on par with a dragon's scales. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to attract one with the kinds of plants or bugs they are known to eat, since they were usually much bigger than bears.

We currently had nothing aside from Sugar that could even hurt a Maulwurf enough to make it leave us alone, which is if one were to actually attack us.

Yep things were really quite quiet… even the temporary and completely unwarranted Taraxippus haunting, which scared all the local ponies by just existing. It only had an effect on ponies or horse like beings. It learned that it couldn’t scare me and had certainly earned my ire by being more annoying than I was.

I had to protect my job security as one of the most annoying things around Airship Mauled, as such the Taraxippus should have learned ahead of time that it was in for an awful beating.

Might have even seen a rather beautiful golden Teumessian, otherwise known as a Canis Minor or Cadmean Vixen, in the area. Basically it was giant, usually female, fox. One that, thanks to its abilities, could never be caught by any means whatsoever. Well it is better to say that you couldn’t ever trap one permanently and you could still certainly hurt them or knock them around, but you’d never actually contain them.

Even Shining armor couldn’t just put a barrier around a Teumessian without it warping space around itself to easily escape.

Jacky still hadn’t found out what you called a ten foot pole eating monster. No surprise there, but I was still afraid to pull out my collapsible ten foot pole out of paranoia that it would get eaten.

I even found out last week that Parasprites tasted pretty good when skewered and roasted rotisserie style. The bugs had a lot of meaty flavor for being rapidly reproducing famine causers and didn’t even have any crunch to them at all.

Okay… in general it was really quiet for our usual weirdness and troubles. Haven’t exactly heard of anything about GODLESS, but Shining was looking into it and was trying to take care of it without needing my... ‘civilian’.. interference.

School was going well and the town was flourishing even more after that airship crash a many months back that gave us a small apartment complex. Not that we would ever thank Veles for giving his spine to the cause, especially after he had resurrected nearby to complain about how it wasn’t nearly as painful as it should have been.

To put it in perspective Veles had the entire front end of a pretty large airship slam its fully focused weight down on top of him. He thankfully didn’t stick around for more than two days or bother to kidnap Grace.

Celestia finally introduced me to a moon priest and she was uptight as all get out, her name was Bracing Knight and had dark brown fur, leaf green hair and orange eyes. She was pretty good at hiding in forests with her coloration.

Thankfully nobody warned her about my ability to temporarily clone myself, so I could still get away from her when I needed to. I would have honestly preferred Blade to be my protector.

At least Blade didn’t bother me nearly as much as Bracing did. If I were to look, I’d see Bracing waiting in the shadows of the trees outside right this instant.

I was told by the Celestia that the recently discovered GODLESS wasn’t the only organization that would wanted my hide on a pike, but I have yet to actually meet or see any other ‘major’ threat to my life these past few months.

Apparently I’ve been lucky so far to not meet any other faction that wanted me out of the way badly enough to hunt me down.

So the times marched on and no one could guess how interesting they were about to become.

-Jade-

We were all currently in a game of Ogres and Oubliettes, one of the biggest we’ve had yet. This campaign has been going on for several days. We had lost a number of characters to the Blanks, but Fizzle’s character was in a prime position to end it all. My character was running interference and was slowly being mashed into a fine paste.

“I roll to cast my armored sword spell and, because I have enough initiative points for this, I then swing it for the nondescript pony statue.” Fizzle was on a roll today with her spell sword character. She tossed some dice and everyone cheered when the roll came up good.

“Well Fizzle, your Spell Sword's armor breaks apart and reconstitutes itself around the sword and then you stab the sword into what will now be revealed to be the Blank’s horde sculpture, their source of power. It is destroyed and all the Blanks around everyone screech and start fading away into oblivion.” Mom was running this campaign and she effortlessly led us through a whole slew of troublesome things to reach this point, even throughout it all she had trouble stopping my room stabber rogue from going through everything like a hot knife through already melted butter. The Blanks were notably dangerous because they were immune to stealth attacks. “Congratulations Fizzle, you’ve helped to save the day from Dark Omen and the horde of Blanks. All your defeated party members are revived at your location and you find a chest with special lower goddess tier gear.”

“I’ll take the comically cursed items!” Joke items were a favorite of my character and there’s a backstory behind it.

The cursed spring boots that both can’t be worn without them constantly activating my favorite one, it was a big boost to evasion on my character and I had to constantly roll saving throws whenever I took an action or whenever an action was taken against me.

“Of course you would, let’s hold this thought. It’s getting late everyone, time to prepare for bed all of you! Of course I also mean separate beds for Fizzle, Maries and Jade.” We just whined loudly at mom for cruelly separating us like that. “You’ve been getting a little too physical in your affection lately, so I’m putting my paw down before you go a little too far. You’re still a bit young to be doing anything too physical anyway, not to mention you have graduation exams soon. So you need to get up early and start studying over the weekend.”

“Fine.” Grumbled Fizzle, she was the initiator of the most sleep related snuggles.

“I know it seems cruel, but I hope you know that I care about all of you and would even be willing to act as a second mother to Maries.” Mom wasn’t kidding, she would likely adopt every one of my friends as her own children if she could. Having Kuril for a mother was an experience.

“She’s right. Velvet, Arizona, it’s time to start preparing for bed.” It wasn’t hard for Grace to take cues from mom, she was technically their caretaker. Nobody saw any problem with this as long as her nature didn’t get in the way of taking care of both of them, especially after they got done ‘playing’ with one another. ‘Playing’ was Grace’s term for their arguments and constant violent fighting. “If you want to maintain those healthy bodies and minds of yours, then getting in a proper amount of sleep will help.”

The Vibrant Vikings were capable of taking care of themselves, it kind of came with the nature of Viking culture.

“Jade, stay, we need to talk about your scholastic issues.” Turning to Cheerilee I gave her my rather attentive ears.

“Yes?” I sat back down. When Maries and Fizzle looked to me, I motioned for them to go.

“It’s sadly very easy for me to say this Jade, but you’re not going to pass in math. Though you can still certainly graduate if you do something for me.” Yeah that figures Cheerilee, everyone was well aware I was failing in that. “I’ve actually decided that I will give you a pass in math, but only if you score high in everything else. It’s something I know you can do, so please don’t disappoint me by writing another frog potion apocalypse equation.”

“Wait, what!? Do you still have it?” Nope, mom still hadn’t managed to turn a single thing into a frog. Mom even tried whittling a frog out of wood and instead somehow ended up making a whale, I think frogs weren’t ever going to be in her future as a witch.

“Knowing what the equation would do and the interest you would have in it, I burned it in Jade’s fire when Jade was making her…” Cheerilee shivered, looked a little grossed out and even gagged slightly. “Parasprite kabobs.”

“I still think they tasted good.” I muttered, the fact that they tasted like chicken when cooked was wonderful. Maybe I should get mom to make some dipping sauce for them when I next get an urge to snack on parasprites.

“I would have eventually found the cure for a worldwide frog plague!” Mom whined while slapping her paws over her face and made a keening sound of disappointment. “Why can’t I ever get a single frog?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt this… whatever it is, but I was wondering if I could talk to Jade for a minute.” It seems Daring Do making a stop in our town again, wonder what she wanted me for.

“Who are you, what are you doing here, why are you trying to get close to the sun priestess?” Lazily glancing at Bracing, I stood up and moved over to Daring and took a sniff of the air around her.

Nope, not a changeling, they have a rather distinct smell when they were trying to impersonate ponies. I’m surprised we haven’t been invaded by changelings, Kevin must have really not said anything about this place to Chrysalis.

I’m also a little surprised that ponies couldn’t smell when changelings were around, they didn’t tend to bathe between transformations and sometimes had a sitting in the hot sun brimstone or limestone smell to them sometimes.

“Sure, I got some time before I prepare for bed, also she’s a friend. Seriously Bracing, I’ve gone the last few years without you around to protect me and I’ve only been grievously injured about four times, most which were my fault.” I gestured at myself. “I’m not completely defenseless you know, and I can absolutely take care of myself just fine. Besides, she’s an artifact hunter that’s keeping the world safe from destruction.”

“You’re letting one of your assassins live here.” Yeah, Bracing was always so suspicious of Blade.

I think Blade has long since earned our trust.

“So she’s an expert in using sharp objects and once tried to kill me. There’s nothing suspicious about her being around me nowadays.” After saying this I watched as Blade approached me to pat me on the head and then continue on back into the kitchen to clean things up for the day.

Bracing narrowed her eyes at the other thestral and was currently focusing on her way too much.

“Come on Daring, tell me what you need while she’s distracted with the thoughts that Blade might stab me in the back at an inopportune time.” I started to drag the adventurous pony away from my bodyguard.

I didn’t know about much about Bracing, but Celestia had vetted her personally as being a safe option after finally getting the moon priests to lend someone for my protection.

Like I needed protection.

If Bracing actually brought up me getting swallowed by a Tatzlwurm five minutes after seeing me for the first time, then I would have to point out that it was a fluke and that I wasn’t even hurt on that occasion. Another thing I would point out is that Bracing let that happen to me in the first place as she was technically on the job at that point.

The Tatzlwurm eventually coughed me up, after having spent about an hour with me lodged in its throat with its many horrible waggling tongues.

Upon walking outside and close to the eternal fire that I had going at the center of our town, Daring and I sat down next to each other.

“You know when you offered to destroy some really dangerous artifacts a some years back? Well I’ve come across quite a lot of them while hunting down this ‘End of Immortality’ thing.” She started labeling locations where she found the objects, how dangerous they were, what they did and why they absolutely needed to be destroyed. I told her about GODLESS and what they wanted the ‘End of Immortality’ thing to do. It was as their organizations name suggested. "It’s beginning to look like I’m going to be running into a series of increasingly dangerous things then, at least the royalties on my books will keep me fed until I’m old and gray. Can you really actually destroy these artifacts?”

“I can do it, but you do realize that all that energy has to go somewhere right?” I made that clear when it comes to casting. To destroy an object entirely you have to use up all the energy, magical or otherwise, contained within said object in some given way.

“Which is why we’ll move a safe distance outside of town when I bring them here, duh!” Daring smirked and it was settled.

Author's Note

Note: This was a huge time skip while glossing over all the crazy things that have happened.

After another minor time skip in the next 'page', things will turn rather... grim.

I hope that anyone who likes this story will be willing to continue reading after that point.

I've been warning and or hinting that this was going to happen for a long time now, all I need to do is make it happen.

Hopefully I can do this without completely ruining the comedy tag entirely.

Chapter thirty one, All Good Things: Come to an abrupt end.

-Jade, Witch’s Fare, weeks later-

Frolicking through a field full of fireflies with Fizzle last night was fun, over the last few weeks I’ve been helping Daring Do destroy various dangerous magical artifacts.

All of those magical things Daring dug up on her excursions had some particularly nasty casts. Which is why, with a few stamina potions stolen from mom, I always left town to go a mile or two away with Daring to destroy each object in a specific spot.

Said spot was what I was calling the Glassing Grove. The destructive energies didn’t destroy the plants in the area, but it did crystalize them due the massive amounts of magic released within said general area. They became impossible sturdy to said massive amounts of energy released.

I had graduated with a pony educational level of competence, though high end math would always certainly elude me. I felt bad about it when even Flamberge could do better than me.

Now I had to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, well aside from throwing Cheerilee’s going away party today.

I was currently waiting at the bottom of the stairs for my sister and first rate pirate parrot, Jacky, to come tumbling down. My left ear flicked, my right ear flicked and then they both flicked as I listened for the sounds of a falling Ornithian.

I heard the telltale sound of Jacky tumbling down the stairs and got ready to catch her. Only when Jacky came tumbling my way, she went tumbling across the ceiling over me before falling to the floor.

“Darn, and here I thought I could catch you this time before the sudden painful stop, how do you do those things Jacky?” Flopping against the ceiling multiple times like that was something I thought of as being impossible. It was still pretty impressive to witness.

“No clue Captain…. ow…” Jacky quickly pushed herself up into a standing position where she started to rub at her beak with her talons and the digits they were attached to. She soon dusted off her vest and pants, before taking a seat at our usual morning table.

“Give it up Jade, our beloved sister Blackcap will always have a rough morning.” Fizzy was probably right, I sighed while throwing up my hands in defeat.

“Anyone else feeling sad that teach is leaving today?” That was my opener to the conversation. Logically I knew we couldn’t keep Cheerilee here, but we at least hoped that she wouldn’t leave on a sour note.

“We all feel it Jade, we’ll wish Cheerilee luck with teaching a class of younger ponies. All while we, the diverse and more mature beings she taught, go on to live good lives.” Nice optimism Velvet, you came in late and still passed with a pony level of qualification for being knowledgeable enough to graduate. “I might not have known her long, but I have enjoyed her teaching skills and candor.”

“Yeah, she’s really good about being brutally honest when you need help about something and I’m not just talking about Jade’s math skills being lethal to the whole world.” Gee, thanks Arizona, beat that dead horse a few more times while you’re at it. Everyone else does that already. “We all know that you were quite horrible at history Velvet.”

“Pony history really just doesn’t affect me much, but you’re the one to talk when your artwork consists entirely of stick figures.” After a moment of silence, Velvet started glaring at Arizona and the glare was returned with a feral grin.

“Like art matters, when history has actually happened!” Arizona scraped one hoof against ground and they started getting ready to ‘dance’ again.

I would give them a minute of arguing about nothing before they came to blows, there was no stopping them once they got started.

Cheerilee was leaving on the morning train, we finally had a working train station and she’d be one of the first passengers on it out of town.

It took them while to install the split off for our town, but at least we didn’t have to walk through wilderness or take the Ardent Survivor back and forth between locations anymore. Airships were still a fast and relatively safe mode of transportation, but one wouldn’t catch a train going at full speed.

-Cheerilee, one hour later-

I felt the strong hug of my student Jaded La Perm, I was going to miss her. What I wasn’t going to miss was her zany antics or the crazy situations she got into.

The going away party for me was a small affair, but really quite wonderful as Kuril had baked a magic cake for me, one that made you feel warm and fuzzy inside when you ate it.

The cake was simply vanilla icing, strawberries and that precious hint of loving magic that turned it into something every one of my students could enjoy.

“We’ll miss you.” Kuril told me with a sad smile.

“I know.” I simply returned the hug she was giving me, she looked somewhat hopeful that I might be moving on to greener pastures.

I wished for the best future for all of my students as I hugged each one of them, I told them all exactly how proud I was of them. Before I knew it, I was hopping on the train and leaving them behind. It felt like a piece of my heart stayed with them and this place.

Later the next evening I felt really awful for some reason, I chalked it up to missing all the familiar faces and being in a new place as I started setting up for school in Ponyville.

-The next day, Jade-

“I’ve never heard of a sun priest being quite like you.” Bracing was still following me around and she was annoying.

“I’ve never met another sun priest period, I’m just doing what I feel like.” All while praising the sun for its warmth and light, yep that certainly made me a good priest. I was alone with Bracing at the moment and this day was feeling a bit slow after I just finished helping mom, Blade and Fresh set up in the kitchen. “You know, because I’m a rogue sun priest Ms. Knight.”

Being a waitress wasn’t all I would be doing with my future, but it was something that I didn’t mind doing for the time being. The pony education system relies on ponies getting their cutie marks and I understood that.

Ponies that didn’t get their cutie marks got help going into adulthood in looking for their special talents. After earning said cutie marks, it was practically smooth sailing for any pony to find a job that befit their nature.

What it didn’t help was an Equestrian citizen who was not a pony, like Dr. Zen Bones for instance.

“A rogue sun priest? I still can’t wrap my head around you at all.” Well get used to it Bracing, because you have no idea what I could get into over the next two weeks. Who knows what odd things I could have you doing in that amount of time? “The order of moon priests would never have let one of their own be or act so sporadic.”

“Get used to it, I’m not a moon priest.” Because I wasn’t ever going to be normal, not with my record for being unusual. I stretched out slowly as I walked away from home. “I just do my own thing.”

I was going to hang around Airship Mauled today and talk to everyone.

I visited Grace and saw Velvet cleaning the floor and her surroundings, it was good to know that she wasn’t freeloading and that she was actually helping the Helping Hoof out while she was a resident there.

After spending some time talking to Grace about life in general, I made my way over to the fruit orchards. Mr. Refreshment said we had some giant juicy strawberries today and I wanted to get into them.

After having a snack, I argued with Wary Berry over the goodness of fruit and then talked science with Mr. Permanganate. Bracing Knight seemed interested Mr. Permanganate’s knowledge and experimentation.

Afterwards, I just relaxed in a tree until having a fried fish lunch with my family closest of family and Maries.

What I did next was made my way over to the empty schoolhouse, I just stared at it fondly.

Fizzle eventually came up and nuzzled up against me. She was always quite needy, but I was always willing to provide my affection to someone as beautiful as she was with a kiss or two.

After having quietly spent time with Fizzle, I eventually found Maries and gave them just as much affection and followed that up by playing happily with Snickers well into the evening.

Dinner was a simple affair of various soups and homemade breads, all of it was delicious and tomorrow would be a potato stew day.

Life had seemed to have slowed down a lot, but I had one thing to do this evening. Ditching my bodyguard would require some relatively easy subterfuge.

To this end, I had used the hydra scale to clone myself when I went to the bathroom. Then I had my clone eat a few extra helpings of soup, to build up energy and to prevent me from losing mine as quickly.

Sekhet seemed a little suspicious that I could eat so much, but she has seen how much of my mom’s cooking I could consume. I even had my clone discuss a few things with her about her pantheon, in particular the god and hippo queen Taweret.

After brushing her teeth my clone went up to bed with Bracing trailing after her, Bracing eventually stopped outside the door to Fizzle’s room as Fizzle and my clone laid down together to snuggle.

Meanwhile, I was actually setting off on a rendezvous with Daring Do to deal with more magical artifacts safely. I couldn’t use any other sustains while I was doing this, but I made good time and avoided an encounter with a strange Black Dog.

It had given a ceaseless chase to me and tried to attack me even when I had done absolutely nothing to it, but I managed to eventually lose it as I continued on to the Glassing Grove.

I should have remembered the significance of seeing a black dog and why it tried so hard to get at me, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what exactly it was.

The strange encounter with the large unusual dog nagged at the back of my mind as I met up with Daring Do.

-Fizzle, late into the night-

All was quiet as I snuggled up against Jade. I was starting to drift off to a peaceful rest.

I could feel the heartbeat of the one who loved me right up next to me. We were missing Maries' heartbeat though, as she wasn’t currently here snuggling up with us. I still sometimes had problems sleeping without nightmares of an Ursa coming at me, Top Snide had only made those worse.

I would have gone fully to sleep, only I heard a sharp gasp of pain and felt Jade pulling away from me. I was immediately up and at attention looking to her to see what the problem was.

There was no way that Jade should have made a noise like that without something being wrong, I was proven right seconds later as what I was seeing came into focus for my tired eyes.

Jade was clutching at her chest where a large scarlet streak could be seen soaking her chest and going down. Jade was gritting her teeth and her eyes were closed in pain.

I knew what I was seeing, but I couldn’t comprehend how it might have happened.

Jade was bleeding, but there was nothing present that could have caused that to be happening.

“Jade what’s happening!” when I asked this of her, Jade gave me a weak smile and grunted as another slash opened in her side.

“I’m sorry Fizzle, I’m the clone Jade.” Her words made my eyes widen with horror.

“Where are you, the real you, what’s happening Jade?!” I needed to save her right now.

“You’re not going to be able to make in time Fiz…” A light gash appeared across her throat and she clutched at it. I could see the clone giving me a sad frown as she started choking.

“Ob…el…us.” Was that a name Jade, Obelus? What did it mean? “Dar… ing…”

Wait Daring Do was there too? What was she doing there and why wasn’t she helping you wherever you were!

What happened next would forever be etched into my memory, it would be nothing I could ever forget.

This was the moment that opened up my eyes to the cruelty of the world.

Jade clutching at her throat and chest, she seemed to be in extreme amounts of pain as she tried to gurgle something out and that’s when the clone’s body doubled over.

She looked up at me with worry for me, why was she worried about me when she should be worried about herself?! What happened next was that she seemed to start evaporating into nothing.

No, it wasn’t evaporating, the clone was compressing down into a single mote of bright light.

The light sat there for a moment, I didn’t know what I was even looking at. Was it Jade’s soul, or something else?

The light intensified and my world was pain a second later, the last I thing I could see before my eyes closed was my hoof lifting up towards a burning inferno that used to be where Jade’s clone was.

“Jade…”

-Obelus, Glassing Grove-

After having darted the adventurer with a paralytic poison from a distance, I decided to not leave things up to chance this time.

The cat was doing something with a weird object and a vortex formed in the area. She almost didn’t notice my approach.

The so called sun priest tried to defend herself with a knife and she was quite a vicious in her defense.

There was no one out here to help her, even told her my name and why I was angry at her as I slashed her across the chest.

Each hit she got on me, I returned in favor.

She scored a harsh slash across my right eye, I’ve never had so much trouble with a mark before!

The vortex certainly looked lethal enough, so I aggresively pushed her towards it.

I kept pushing her back and managed to score a hit across her throat leaving her gagging.

She wasn’t escaping this time!

I ran forward, turned around and bucked her in the belly sending her right into the vortex.

If her injuries didn’t kill her, that vortex surely would.

-Jade-

My throat, he didn’t get it too deeply as to prevent me from breathing, but I was in dire trouble.

That’s when his two rear hooves connected with me, sending me towards the vortex.

I now realized what that large black dog exactly was, it was a friendly Hellhound.

The very herald of my doom had tried to save me from this.

Falling into the vortex, I could see a bright light at the end of a tunnel.

I didn’t want to leave this world!

Not like this... not yet... please!

[The future refused to change.]

-Obelus-

Mission accomplished.

I would leave the adventurer to the animals.

Author's Note

Obelus overwhelmed Jade by constantly getting closer and attacking her, it was safe to say he didn't let up for a second as soon as he got Jade off guard.

He wasn't about to give Jade the time to do anything aside from pull her knife.

Now for something you should probably know and one of the big hints I dropped long ago that this would happen. It was in the definition of what an 'obelus' was.

An obelus is basically a division symbol, in other uses it is a symbol resembling a small dagger and or is an indication of the deceased. Something like a grave marker if you will.

So Obelus was an aptly named assassin and with a bit of dark humor, math literally got the best of Jade and divided her from everything she loved.

Also, yes, Jade is now definitively gone.

Please do not become upset, this story is far from being finished.

This is the story of 'AIRSHIP MAULED' after all, but now things are going to take a pretty sharp dive into the grim for a bit.

I can promise it'll get better, but it'll be an uphill climb for everyone else.

Chapter thirty two, The Grand Dissolution: The goddess’s supposition.

-Fizzle-

“Jade!” My eyes snap open to the white ceiling and I realized I was in Gentle Cruise Hospital. In my panicked state, I had hoped that what had happened was just a nightmare.

It sure didn’t seem like it with the burns in my fur, I reached up and felt some bandages wrapped around my head. I might have had a concussion, had it actually happened?

The last sight I remember was… I gripped my head in pain.

The room was on fire and the speck of light that had been Jade’s magical alchemy clone had exploded.

I immediately got up out of the bed, rushing to leave the hospital. My movements were ungainly, I was trying to gallop.

“Wait, stop, you need to…” I shoved Dr. Bones out of the way as she tried to stop me, instead of giving chase she just stood there and looked at the floor.

Soon I was outside and making my way for the center of town, that’s where I’d find my answer.

I eventually came upon Sekhet’s back, her size blocking my view of what I wanted to see.

Steeling my nerves, I stumbled forward hoping that I would see something instead of nothing.

-Sekhet-

A part of me had been ripped up that night, it was an unimaginable pain that I’ve barely recalled feeling before. The pain was not to be physically measured, but it surged through me all the same as if something was horribly wrong with the world.

Since that night, I’ve been sitting here staring at the spot contemplating the truth of what might have happened. It had rained and the world seemed that much bleaker, but I protected this spot with my power and continued to stare at it trying to comprehend something.

The rain didn’t bother me or my accoutrements, as I sat here staring.

I felt Fizzle approach me.

Once she came around me and saw that the fire was no longer there, she moved forward sat down and stared at the spot too.

“She’s…” Fizzle started, one could almost hear her heart shattering from this range.

“Not dead.” I answered hastily, much to her surprise as much my own that I could say that with at least some certainty.

I received a questioning look of hope. I would loathe to dash said hope, but I had to do it quickly before it grew to be too much for her.

“Wouldn’t her fire go out if she died?” She stared at the pile of unburnt wood, she seemed numb at the moment and it was only a matter of time before that dam breaks. “It’s… just not there anymore.”

“I’ve been contemplating something for a while Fizzlepop. Considering you look like you just rushed from the hospital, I have to tell you that you’ve been out for more than a day.” I turned to Fizzlepop Berrytwist, It would be hard to tell her my summation of this situation. “Blade has sought out and found Jade’s knife in a grove of magically crystalized plants where excessive amounts of magical energy has been unleashed upon that one spot. She also found Pegasus feathers and animal scratches at the scene. Dr. Bones said the blood on the knife smells of donkey and eye gouging and I concur with that assessment. That is what we know to be Jade’s last known location and she had been fighting quite viciously before she disappeared.”

“Do you think Jade is alive?” There’s that hope again Fizzle, I’m sorry I implied as such.

“I don’t, not exactly, even I’m not sure what happened to her and I’m a goddess. The other mortals are waiting on you to tell them what happened in your room, but that is not as important as the two things I’ve discovered that seem odd and or contradictory.” There was a silence as I waited for her to ask, instead tears started to spill from her eyes. I sighed loudly. “Do not cry or let your spirit break, please take your time to ask me what you want to hear. I do have something of an idea as to what happened to her.”

I wiped her tears with the tips of the feathers from my left wing, they gently caressed her face and the scar over her right eye.

“You’re kinder than you should be, what are the two things?” She finally asked hiccupping, sniffling and making noises so distraught that I wanted to rip apart the one who did this.

Laws of mortal interference could be damned for all I care at this rate, but I held myself in check.

“It’s kind of a riddle I’ve been contemplating, we have two pieces of evidence that tell very different stories about Jade’s fate.” I started, before I was interrupted by something fruitlessly ramming into me.

“Then tell us!” Arizona seemed particularly stressed today.

“Arizona, I don’t think getting mad will help.” Velvet was the more solemn of the two. “Well this time at least.”

Arizona seemed not only angry at everything, but also quite helpless to do anything. A feeling I’m sure she despised nearly as much as I did.

“If you would cease your interruptions, then I’ll tell everyone who will listen. The first piece of evidence points to Jade as being dead from whatever happened to her.” I lifted my eyes from the empty space the ever burning fire used to occupy and turned to look at one of the many miserable Airship Mauled residents. A very particularly one.

The sun… Jaded La Perm had created a hole that couldn’t be filled by anyone else.

Those who were sitting around the spot bereft of the fire staring aimlessly at it, they suddenly looked towards what I currently had my eyes on.

It was Snickers the sea turtle dove. The little guardian was chronically depressed and unable to smile, her wings losing their feathers and skin turning a sickly pale white, it was heartbreaking even for me to look at her now.

It was safe to say Snickers wasn’t taking this too well.

“Her familiar bond was broken and that’s not an easy thing to do, the fact that it is torn apart should means that Jade is likely dead. Distance doesn’t matter for the bond that formed between them. If she exists in the here and now, then Snickers would know how to find her.” That news sent the depression I was feeling around me spiraling a bit out of control. “Though… there is a contradictory bit of imperceptible evidence on Snickers that she’s alive.”

“What is it Sek?” Turning to Kuril who joined in, she stood there with her head down. The brim of the witch hat was covering her face. She sat down, but didn’t look up into anyone’s eyes as she pulled Fizzle to herself and started to tease her mane. “What’s the good news?”

“The way Snickers familiar bond broke didn’t leave Snickers with everything she would have gained from Jade’s death. The bond was not broken by Jade’s death, but something else. I believe that the high amounts of magic had to do with the bond breaking in an unnatural manner.” It matched my supposition that Jade hasn’t died per say, but it did look pretty bad. “It had to be powerful magic to break a strong bong as those two shared, on par with a god even. In this case Jade might be alive, but completely impossible to reach or find easily.”

“What’s the other piece of evidence?” Many were surprised that Wary Berry was as upset as she was, the way her voice wavered sent a new amount of emotional pain through everyone’s bodies.

“The way her fire disappeared. If she had died it would have left ashes behind, instead it left nothing behind which is the most disconcerting thing I’ve been trying to figure out. If she were alive then the fire would still be here.” That was a riddle as well, the sun given power could never falter if Jade continued to exist and if Jade died then there should have been something to show her passing on. “I now wish to hear what Fizzle saw.”

So we heard with sordid detail that Jade took a damaging injuries to the chest, her side and then throat, among the other minor injuries.

The despair I felt worsened, but I did not let despair keep its hold on me.

“Could she still breathe, was the wound too deep?” A neck wound was a tricky thing to survive for mortals, a single strike to the throat would kill in a number of ways. It would be minutes to seconds if an artery was hit.

“She could still breathe, but I don’t think she could talk. The strange thing is, she looked worried for me and not herself.” A curious insight you have provided there Fizzle. When one is grievously injured, they’d worry more about themselves and survival than someone who was perfectly safe. Jade must have been severely worried about her lovers. “She did say Daring Do was there, as well as the word ‘Obelus’. I believe that to be a name and not a division symbol.”

“The donkey she slashed up most likely. The feathers match Ms. Do’s smell and profile, did a checkup on her as she visited fairly often enough recently to require my services with some rather nasty injuries. Most of said injuries involved having broken wings, that poor pony is not very lucky about that.” Dr. Bones finally arrived and pulled out a flashlight, she shined it into Fizzle’s eyes as she began to check her over. “Go on and tell us what you think happened to the poor lass you great big fur ball.”

I would not let indignation enter my voice, I could see how this mortal dealt with pain both emotional and physical. Zen either laughs it off or insults everyone around her until she feels better.

“She’s either lost somewhere on this world, she’s in another dimension or the mostly likeliest thing that happened…” I began wondering how Celestia would react to this once she found out. “She was erased from existence entirely.”

“I think I like the one that sounds the least distressing.” No one would counter that Grace, even you could read the atmosphere around here and didn’t try to cheer anyone up. “Now if only I knew which one that was. If not that then the one that was the least painful for her. I personally believe that she’s alive, it’s almost like Maggie dropping off the face of the world all of the sudden while leaving Arizona to me.”

Arizona was mute and didn’t comment, instead she walked up to Grace to silently press her face into the larger cow’s chest. Grace pulled her into a hug and carefully started to pat her back, she then held out a hoof and brought Velvet into it to comfort her too.

“Erased from existence?” Jacky murmured, her purple eyes searching mine. “Is it possible to have multiple afterlife god’s check for her?”

“Ratatoskr!” I called out immediately, we had need of his services. The messenger god leapt into action, he immediately had a notepad and a pencil to write down what I needed of him.

Ratatoskr would check the several pantheons Jade has some connection with, he’d even do this for free.

Yakhalla, Elysium, The Heavens, Cloud Nine, The Collective Mind, The Realm of Spirits, The Realm of the Dead, The Cycle, The Gates Beyond and even Tartarus was not being left out of consideration here.

I even tasked Ratatoskr with looking into my own pantheon’s cycle as much as his.

-Evening, Airship Mauled-

“Ratatoskr has checked just about every afterlife we know that she had some vague connection to, Jade was in none of them. Which means that while not dead, erasure is still highly probable.” Airship Mauled had an air of depression around it, one so thick it was that it was affecting even me to a great degree. “To bring someone back from erasure… it’s about as hard as bringing a unicorn’s horn back. Not impossible, but there’s apparently an infinitesimally small chance for it to occur.”

“A chance she would take for me.” Fizzle stated while continuing to sit by my side unmoving.

They all needed to eat and get back to their lives. If Jade were dead, she wouldn’t want them living like this.

“Could she have… reincarnated?” Kuril seemed to be considering something.

“Not likely at all, one cannot reincarnate without at least ending up in a realm of death and her soul, as sacred as any other, seems to have disappeared entirely. Plus one cannot reincarnate immediately, unless under special circumstances and I doubt Jade met those circumstances.” For some reason I could feel something off about the way Kuril asked that, only now she seemed even more depressed than ever and I didn’t feel like pressing her about it. “The best we can do is wait. Provided that she is somewhere on this world, she’d do anything to find her way back to us.”

“So that’s it then, we just wait to see if my sister comes back?” We were all upset Jacky, even Ratatoskr looked to have faded or lost two million years of his lifespan from this one occurrence alone. “What if she is in another dimension? What if she died there, alone and afraid?”

“Then she might come back to this world someday, but if she didn’t go somewhere else… it’s going to take a miracle to pull her back from erasure.” The depression is really getting to me, I could feel tears filling my eyes for a mortal. Other war gods would be enraged, I however just cried. I sometimes felt like I wasn’t a war god at all. “A miracle that even most gods and goddesses can’t perform.”

“What if she traveled through time?” Maries, nor Fizzle, were willing to give up.

“If she traveled to the future, at least within a thousand year time span, then Snickers could find her for me to send her back to her proper time. Provided she doesn’t appear in the middle of a volcano, at bottom of the ocean or somewhere else where she’ll immediately perish.” I turned to cut Kuril off before she could say anything. “Yes, she can breathe underwater, but she can’t handle that much water pressure suddenly with the injuries she has. Not to mention the horrible infections she’ll get if she doesn’t get them treated quickly. If she appeared in the past, then she would or wouldn’t have changed anything depending on circumstances.”

“Can we figure out what happened to her exactly if we went to the location she disappeared at and scanned around?” The one thing that we haven’t done yet Marie the snake, one of three.

“With so much wild magic in the area, you’d need to be absolutely focused to find out what happened to Jade through the magic that’s still ambient in the surroundings.” They all looked somewhat hopeful. “I can put up a denial effect around the area to prevent any magical tampering and can look into it personally, but it would take years to find the right bit of magic that took Jade. Even a chaos god wouldn’t be able to do it in a timely manner without making it much worse first.”

“Then do so and tell us any discoveries.” Somberly, Kurilian slowly walked towards the restaurant. “My kitten is now a Humdinger’s Cat Paradox.”

Author's Note

Now comes the point where the heroes of Airship Mauled start splitting apart, each for their own reasons and with their own goals and stories to tell.

Now the question is, who goes first?

Chapter thirty two, The Grand Dissolution: The Unstoppable Disaster!

-???-

“When the guiding light ceases to shine, sealing all to an uncertain fate.”

A vision of Jade being ripped apart by the vortex.

“A broken heart will be blind, to be filled with sadness or hate.”

A vision of Fizzle breaking down unable to stop the flood of tears as she curled up on her bed, eventually she is comforted by a chimera.

The scene flickers and Fizzle is seen wearing armor as the commander of an army of large creatures, with a mostly expressionless face she faces down four pony princesses with a growing demented smile.

“No matter what the power must be sought, the seekers will ultimately find it long after creating from the shattered a grand dissolution.”

Billion Karats, Top Snide and several other shadows of GODLESS appeared over a map of the world, large arrows of darkness expanded from a central point on the map.

Each dark arrow was hoping to find the ‘end of immortality’, something that could possibly destroy the gods of this world. Two of the arrows were already gone as single randomly moving bit of light consumed them before petering out.

The next scene showed several weaker arrows of light spreading out from a small speck called Airship Mauled.

They crossed into the paths of the arrows of darkness and areas of gray started filling up the map.

The map soon faded into nothingness and in the dark, a pair of glowing eyes opened.

“Those in the darkness should be wary of the time they have bought, as there is no fighting against the lamenting queen or their false conclusion.”

The eyes belonged to the one known as Kurilian La Perm, her eyes were narrowed at the world.

The world currently held in Kuril’s paw, like a ball of yarn. She lifted up her other hand and placed it onto the orb.

She was about ready to crush the world and then she stopped upon seeing something.

A sad smile tugged at her lips when she saw something change upon the world she was looking down upon it.

A few tears streaked down her eyes. Instead of crushing the world, she held it to her chest trying to fill it with all her love.

-Fizzle, three months AJ, After Jade-

One would have thought I would be the first to leave Airship Mauled.

I wasn’t the first to leave, much to everyone else’s surprise except for one.

I didn’t want to leave, Maries and I… we tried to hold each other together. We were doing moderately well in that respect.

It was very apparent to us that Jade wasn’t coming back, but we still held out hope for some way of bringing her back and even discussed looking for a way to do it.

Out of all of us, the one I least expected to leave finally decided to do so and she had some reasons for why she did.

The only happiness in the Witch’s Fare was those of the customers that had visited from abroad.

The food tasted the same, it had the same magical nutrition and yet… the love put into every bit of food was missing. I don’t think mom could find the heart put her love into it anymore.

“I’m leaving.” Those words, once spoken out loud, were a complete cannon shot to the already broken and bleeding fragments of the many hearts that tried to keep us all together.

The community here was our family, just like the place I grew up in when I was a little filly.

Mom, Kuril, reacted in an odd manner to this statement. She had been going through the motions of keeping us fed, but again the happiness was right out. She still loved us all and I knew she did, it was just muted by quite a bit.

We turned to the least likely member of Airship Mauled to leave first, Jacky ‘Blackcap’ Chickadee La Perm.

We were stunned by what she said and how she declared it with such… finality.

Nobody tried to ask her what she thought she was thinking of doing, but she would tell us anyway.

“I once thought that I would be stuck in one place for the rest of my life, if I had to do that then I would love to be stuck here surrounded by family and friend who love me even if I’m horribly disaster prone.” Taking a step forward Jacky received a loose floorboard to the beak, mom was instantly there to catch her and check her over with worry. I knew Jacky was talking about how she met Jade in Turtle Toga. “I learned that sometimes when things seemed to be their bleakest, you had to press forward no matter what obstacle is placed before you!”

Jacky slammed her closed fists into the table, one of which hit a thankfully empty plate. The plate, having been slapped upon the edge, seemingly leapt up to break itself on her face. We stayed silent wondering where she was going with this.

Behind Jacky, Blade could be see carrying a hammer and a cup of nails. She was getting started on taking care of the loose floorboard.

“I thought it was impossible for me to get off of Turtle Toga. Now I do the impossible all the time, usually before breakfast and that’s not always a good thing considering how painful my mornings usually are! I even gained two sister and a wonderful mother who’s hurting right now. I know this may not seem like the greatest time to do this, but now I can do what I’ve always dreamed of doing,” Jacky looked quite ready to throw down a gauntlet against the whole world. “I was stunned by the fact that there were no boundaries for me anymore after the first week of freedom from Turtle Toga. Now it feels like there are boundaries trying to keep me here, similar to the ones that prevented me from doing what I wanted to do in the first place when I lived in Turtle Toga.”

“You wanted to explore, to think my kitten always led you to such wonderful adventures.” Mom moved to give Jacky a tight squeeze. Mommy Kuril hardly showed her face to us anymore as she kept it hidden behind the witch hat, but we could still see the tears spilling out from under it. She still ran the town and the local restaurant quite efficiently as its mayor. “She brought me another daughter, one that I wished I had met sooner.”

“Mom…” Jacky seemed less brave for a moment as Kuril just held her tenderly and nuzzled against her neck.

“I’m listening Jacky, so what is my little chick going to do now?” Mom wasn’t mad, she actually seemed okay with Jacky leaving. Her voice might have been trembling, but she had still asked it. “I know you don’t want to stay here my little roaming disaster, so tell me exactly what you are going to do. I want to hear you say it before I will let you go.”

“I’m going to do what I’ve always wanted to do mom, I’m going to travel the world.” She turned and pulled mom tightly against herself. “It’s just that now I have bigger reason for it, Jade’s not going to come back by herself. I’m going to seek out every cursed or dark artifact I can find, anything that might help bring Jade back while I explore the world!”

“Can’t you look for things that are a little bit… safer?” The stress in mom’s tone was very easy to hear. She was okay with Jacky leaving, what she wasn’t okay with was Jacky being in immense danger.

“I’m pretty sure I’ll have an easier time of getting near artifacts that want me dead than the artifacts that don’t, most likely because I’ll end up destroying the helpful artifacts that don’t out of bad luck.” That sounded like a fair assessment of your luck Jacky.

“Look, just be careful Jacky, I kind of want to hear the stories about what you get up to and for none of them to contain news I’d rather not hear. Like missing limbs, permanent injuries… scars are a given with you though.” At a guess, mom would be working on a lot of fish jerky for Jacky soon. She kissed Jacky on the forehead and then released her. “Oh, we’re going to need to prepare plenty of supplies for you! How does several pounds of fish jerky sound to you?”

“Eh… I can work with that.” The fish jerky wasn’t that bad Jacky, even I eat it. It’s just that it’s not fun to eat all the time. “Also whatever else you can think of to give me to take along would be helpful mom. I’m going to be taking the ardent survivor with me when I leave, I’m the only true airship engineer around here that can keep it in good repair anyway.”

“You mean whatever else ‘WE’ can think to give you sister.” I moved over to my sister and wrapped my hooves tightly around her.

I was okay with this. I was okay with Jacky leaving. I was completely… okay… I’m not okay with it! It felt too soon even if three months had passed.

It almost felt like Jacky was abandoning us, but that’s not what our hug felt like when she started returning it.

“I’m sorry Fizzle, but I have to do something.” Jacky whispered to me. “I can’t just stay here any longer.”

“I understand.” I kind of did, but I didn’t like it one bit.

“Well anyone else want to help me prepare?” Jacky didn’t sound as brave as she did a second ago, she must have heard the hesitation in my voice.

“She needs someone to look out for her, I’ll go with her.” We turned to Gene, his voice was gentle and quite firm.

I expected Flamberge and Fortitude to jump in that they’d go with him, surprisingly they didn’t say anything and looked a little sullen.

They weren’t following their brother? The amazing Vibrant Viking’s, the trio that can fight large battles by themselves? Were they actually splitting up?

More importantly could I trust Gene to be alone with my parrot sister? Yes, I trusted him to not do anything horrible with Jacky and he was a gentle griffon that knew how to fight. He could keep her safe and Jacky really liked him, he also really liked her.

I had no problems there, I wonder if mom felt the same way.

“You two don’t get too close to another until Jacky is eighteen Gene.” Mom’s voice became rather threatening. “That’s two years from now, I do not want to hear my daughter had an unfaithful griffon as her special someone.”

Mom then grabbed Gene roughly by the feathers on his chest and pulled his face up to hers, she actually showed her face and her eyes were practically glowing with malicious intent.

“Do you understand me? You do not touch my daughter inappropriately until the day after she turns eighteen!” The look in mom’s eyes was actually quite scary in the way they went feral, I even heard Gene gulp and he’s usually not frightened by much.

“I understand ma’am, Jade made that quite clear when she was still around to threaten using a cupcake on me, which would be followed by ripping every feather off of my wings and then using a bunch of live pukwudgies as a flail to beat me within an inch of my life. After seeing the effects a cupcake had on a pony personally, I would certainly be remiss if I did anything of the sort and wouldn’t want to find out what that would do to a griffon.” He actually looked worried about the glare mom was sending into his eyes, he wasn’t getting aggressive at all like a normal griffon would when challenged. In fact he was kowtowing to her quite hard, but I didn’t feel like laughing despite how amusing it was. “I would not relish how much worse a wonderful witch, such as yourself, can do to me should I break that particular rule and then stupidly attempt to run from my responsibility. Being turned into a newt or anything else that is relatively small wouldn’t be pleasant, but I would take whatever judgement befalls me that you decide is necessary. That is, if I do anything or let anything happen to your thrice damned disaster attracting daughter.”

“Okay, that’s fair. I’ll just let Sugar use you as a chew toy instead of using several creatures as a living flail on you personally.” Some would say that was even worse, mostly because Sugar could bite through and ingest forged steel.

-Jacky, a while later-

It was kind of embarrassing, but mom organized plenty of food and supplies. I was expecting something small, but Kuril was kind of insatiable with the stuff I would need to start my journey.

She was actually counting on me to lose half of it by the time I reached whatever place I was going to first.

I was going to head to Turtle Toga, I was going to stay there for a week and then I was going to leave no matter how bad things got.

“Goodbye my little chick… I love you. Please come back to visit me sometime, especially if you happen to be carrying grand kittens for me.” Mom’s implications just made my face heat up, I was setting out with only Gene and was a little curious as to why his brothers were staying behind. “Most importantly, try not to let your luck get you down.”

“I won’t mom.” We cried as we hugged one another, then I was climbing onto the ship.

I sighed as Gene Eric joined me on the ship and made my way to the steering wheel to start things up.

I would build a crew, a crew of two wasn’t going to keep this ship together forever. Another thing I would do is proudly tell people about my home of Airship Mauled, though I wouldn’t give away its location as I was sure to make a lot of enemies.

The Ardent Survivor would be my vessel from here to the foreseeable future. A future where I would try to learn why the ship kept surviving all the insane stuff I started putting it through, it couldn’t just be because of the name right?

Ardent Survivor, carry me to a future where I might return home with my head held high and with my feline sister and Captain in tow!

-Fizzle-

The airship just rose from the ground and it turned for the horizon, then it was soon out of our sight.

I felt Maries wrap a comforting paw around me and pulled me close, I leaned into their embrace.

I would hear tales of Jacky’s misadventures hunting dark and dangerous artifacts that no sane being would ever even want to go after.

Jacky would become a legendary figure in her own right, for she would become known as ‘The Unstoppable Disaster’!

The last I would ever hear of my sister is when the Storm King tried to start his sacking of Abyssinia, said attack would start with the lovely coastal town of Palicoast.

Unfortunately for the Storm King, his forces would be delayed for exactly one day by a single parrot and her crew. Just long enough for the Abyssinians of Palicoast to shelter themselves safely.

Author's Note

Jacky and Gene are the first to leave.

Chapter thirty two, The Grand Dissolution: The Shadow Fighters!

Author's Note

I would like to apologize for this chapter being sloppily written... I've recently come across a random copy of Kingdom Hearts 3 in the wild.

I want to see how the final act to a long winding, twisted story of gray, black and white morality ends. This story in particular is not even close to the final act.

I hope you understand that I need a sudden week off from writing, the power outages certainly don't help with writing or playing games.

If it's not my most recent computer exploding, it's a nearby transformer getting struck by lighting, exploding due to overload or just in general fluctuating badly enough to cause a short power outage.

Chapter thirty two, The Grand Dissolution: The Shadow Fighters!

-Fizzle-

After Jacky left, the next to leave were Arizona and Velvet.

This upset me, because I was used to hearing their bickering and bashing each other around Airship Mauled in the morning.

Though with Jade gone, their fighting had become much quieter and yet it was still quite prevalent.

I swear if those two didn’t get married, then the world was going to be destroyed by their utter stubbornness.

They clearly knew they were attracted to one another like the world’s most powerful magnets going full blast in opposite polarities.

I had other problems to really worry about than the Dueling Duo, like a chronically depressed flying turtle that could no longer fly.

“How are you feeling Snickers?” I gently ran my hoof over the turtles head, she let out a soft hissing noise. “Come on you have to eat something, what would Jade say if she saw you wasting away like this?”

Snickers eyes met mine and I could see nothing but suffering in them.

After some time she finally let out a faint groan, then she sat up to lazily nibble at the salad I put in front of her.

It was something at least.

Sugar seemed angry at the world, as if her mood matched moms. There would be no noise from Barely Bearable Woods in the coming days.

Sugar hadn’t done the temporary rapid growth thing once since that whole thing with the cult on Seared Seer Mountain, could she even do the growing thing anymore or did Kuril hold her back against Top Snide? Admittedly, that would have been overkill.

-Arizona-

After Jacky left yesterday, I’ve been feeling a bit… odd. I had finished pony schooling a while ago, fat lot of help that did when the next course of action would be to have a cutie mark and go into a vocation fitting my special talent.

Just a reminder, I’m a cow, not a pony! What was I supposed to do now?

The fact that Jade got taken out made me realize how short life could be.

It had me worried about Velvet’s safety, which is why I tried to hit her harder whenever we started fighting with one another. I wanted her to realize that going on like we were could get us seriously hurt. To my surprise Velvet would hit me just as hard right on back with her magic.

That crazy reindeer would stubbornly match me blow for blow. If I slowed down, then she’d slow down. If I sped up, she’d keep up with me. If I tried to knock some sense into her, she’d do the same to me.

Suffice it to say we were perfect for one another, given how often we fight like an old married couple.

Giving it some thought, Jade wasn’t the only one I wanted to bring back. I wanted to find my mother and possibly earn her approval… that is… if she is even still alive.

Our recent sparring match at an end, I got up and made my way for the Helping Hoof. Thinking of a decision I had to make.

“Thank you for staying, have a wonderful time in Las Pegasus!” Grace cheerfully stated to two ponies who were leaving the comfy little inn with smiles, she waved goodbye to them and turned to me with a gentle smile. “Hello Arizona, do you need something?”

Grace had found herself a place where she could live well. My aunt was respected despite her less than stellar mental acuity, not to say she couldn’t do smart things.

I just had to ask her.

“Where did you say you last saw mom again?” The fourth year of Airship Mauled being here was starting soon, it was hard to believe we’ve been here for two years.

This place really grew on us.

“Hunting the world snake in the grassy plains to somewhere far west of Appleoosa, it was the last I heard of her after she passed you off to me and told me to take care of you.” Which you have done quite well Grace. “She wanted to see you grow big and strong and I’m sure when she gets back from being lost, she’ll be so proud of you! Provided the world is not covered in evil shadow monsters bent on consuming us all, but I’d like to think Maggie is still dealing with it to this day.”

Grace we’ve been together for years since I was little, I’m pretty sure my mom would have solved it by now and would have tracked us down if she were still around. Which is why I’m going to go and do the opposite, I wanted to track down what happened to my mother!

“Grace… I’m leaving to find my mother.” The friendly smile or demeanor at my words did not leave Grace’s face. “I’m also going to try and find way to bring the darn crazy cat back.

“Well… be sure to take Velvet along with you then. I really doubt she’d let you go out into the world by yourself anyway. Just remember to not get lost and to come back here eventually, I’m going to stay here so you’ll know where to find me and I’ll be waiting for that day. I like helping people around here and running an inn, it’s a really quite quaint occupation.” Here Grace sighed while staring off into space. “It’ll be just like Maggie, Cally and I all over again… only there isn’t a third cow and one of the cows is a reindeer which is kind of really different overall. Also the two traveling out on a grand adventure in question are gay unlike our bounty hunting group was, you see we were all more like platonic lovers, but I’m sure it’ll be quite the adventure and it’ll work out in the end! Just like it did… for us… or at least it did for me so far.”

Grace looked a little down, I reached up and put my right hoof over one of hers.

“Grace… don’t ever change. You’ve been a wonderful aunt to me.” I received a bright smile and then felt myself get pulled up against Grace into a tight snuggle. She was still pretty strong for someone who’s a technical pacifist and relaxed throughout most of every day.

“You’ve been like a daughter to me Arizona, I should really thank Maggie for giving me the opportunity to raise you when I see her again.” Grace eventually let me go and rubbed the top of my head affectionately. “Whether it be in this life or the next, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be this life. I have a… let’s say… an intuition about your mother Arizona. She’s alive out there somewhere and I doubt that she’d be beaten by adversity so easily, she just might be a little… stuck.”

“If she’s just stuck, then I’ll find her!” I declared loudly, finding out what happened to my mother was one of the biggest things on my mind. “If I just so happen to find a way to bring Jade back along the way, then all the better.”

“That’s the spirit my little wonder cow!” Grace nuzzled my neck and I blushed brightly. “Things are always at their darkest before the dawn.”

“Wonder cow?” Oh no, please don’t answer Velvet’s curiosity Aunt Grace, look at my pleading eyes here!

“Oh Arizona was so rambunctious when she was little, always running around with a towel wrapped around her neck proclaiming she’d become the world’s strongest cow. Her mother kind of holds that title at the moment.” Grace ducked behind the counted and brought up a photo album and showed Velvet the picture of me with a towel around my neck. That reminded me of when times were better and much simpler, when I couldn’t understand why my mother left me in Grace’s care. “I think she’s come a long way to meeting that goal, though I don’t think she’ll be larger than life like Maggie is. Few things hardly are, but I know Arizona will make up for it her own way.”

Velvet giggled slightly, a little mote of happiness in the bleakness that was Airship Mauled right now.

I didn’t get upset because I wanted her to keep that smile on her face… maybe me getting upset about it would make her smile more? I didn’t know what to do, but I still had to say it.

“I’m leaving to go hunt down my mother, do you want to come with me Velvet?” There was a pause before the reindeer answer me.

“Are you crazy? Of course I’m coming with you, you brainless buffoon!” Velvet took on one of her more dazzling poses she’s done to date while putting a hoof to her chest. “Why you’d be quite lost without me and my magnificent beauty to keep you alive.”

“You’re certainly are a magnificent ‘something’ fluff butt, but I’m sure Grace wouldn’t appreciate me using that kind of language in front of her.” I smirk slightly. “So I’ll just tell you later.”

“Why I never…” Velvet huffed loudly while putting her nose high in the air, but she was sending me a bright smile. “Could love anyone more.”

“Please remember to invite me to the wedding when it eventually happens.” Why did Grace have to be so embarrassing at times? “It’s not a matter of ‘if’ with you two, it’s more a matter of ‘when’ and I would like to give you away to Velvet if Maggie can’t Arizona.”

“Me, marry this thing?!” Velvet shouted pointing at me.

“Me, marry that thing?!” I intoned almost at the same time as her.

We paused for a second, Grace just smiled gently at the both of us pointing hooves at one another.

“Okay, I can kind of see where Grace is coming from here, especially with all the stuff we do together.” Again we said two things at the same time, I was first to voice it barely a millisecond ahead of Velvet.

“Yeah, we do kind of get along like oil, fire and even more fire don’t we Ms. Grace?” That’s what Velvet said before she looked at me staring at her flatly.

“Don’t forget to write back when you two can, especially when you two are really into your journey!” Grace said cheerfully. “Like Kuril did with Gene, I think I should say that it would be nice if you two could stay separated until you’re absolutely sure you’re ready to… nope… I can’t really think of a nice way to put ‘start having intercourse like happy bunnies in the Spring’ really. I guess I should educate you on the birds and the bees... so a hummingbird flies into a bee hive…”

We were both so embarrassed by Grace by the end of that discussion. This was once in a lifetime fluke that Grace couldn’t possibly repeat right?

It sounded like Grace was innocent the entire time, yet I still couldn’t help but think that Grace couldn’t be doing it all on purpose though.

At least this discussion was cheering me up somehow, which was really weird to think about.

It was some time later that I realized that I forgot to ask who Cally was.

-Some, time later Velvet-

Grace was rather… gracefully informative about reproduction.

In any case, I went up to my room to grab my things. My bags, a tent and some supplies we’ll need for traveling. I had several canteens, I needed to stay hydrated and cool to keep my magic in top form.

We were heading somewhere a bit dusty and dry, which would be bad for me. So I had to carry a lot more water than what Arizona would be using.

I still had a few things to do, like talk to Kuril for one. I found her sitting with Snickers holding a bottle of mulched vegetables to her mouth. The poor dears, they were quite hurt by their bonds being broken.

Snickers familiar bond was more obvious than the queen bond that Kuril had with her kitten. Aside from Arizona, Jade led me to some of the best friends that I’ve ever had.

We’d be competing with Jacky in solving the issue of bringing Jaded back, but it didn’t matter who won as long as someone eventually did.

I approached Kurilian tentatively.

“Kurilian.” I said quietly, not to disturb her caring for Snickers too much.

“Yes Velvet?” The depression around here felt like a chronic plague, but she still tried to keep her tone upbeat. She was failing horribly at it.

“We’re going to be leaving soon, Arizona and I. We’re going to be searching for knowledge about Arizona’s mother, but we’ll also be attempting to find a way to bring Jaded back. Someone has to succeed eventually right?” I moved up to her. “She was everything to you wasn’t she?”

“More than most can ever know, I just wanted her to live a full and fulfilling life.” Here Kuril caressed Snickers lovingly and the flightless turtle responded weakly by wrapping her flippers around the cats hand to nuzzle it. “If someone does succeed, then I’d like to be the first to hear about it.”

I brought both of them into a hug.

“I just want you to know that you are a better parent than both of mine ever were. They really don’t appreciate a gay reindeer for a daughter and you were so open and warm to your daughter coming out like she did… at one of the weirdest times might I add.” I placed my face into her neck and a let a few tears flow. “I’m going to start calling you mom too as it seems like you need something to look forward to, I doubt my real mother cares as much about me as you do.”

“…” Kuril just held me and Snickers close to her for a minute before I released her. “Thank you… my little doe.”

“I promise, we’ll be back some day mom.” Making good on the promise was something I intended to do, even Jacky didn’t do that for her. “If nothing can stop Arizona, then nothing is ever going to stop me!”

Arizona being a bit rougher with me lately didn’t matter, I would not let her push me away.

A love like ours was bound to become legendary… mostly for all the wrong reasons.

-Fizzle-

Those two took a train towards Appleoosa. We saw them off at the train station, mom seemed a bit closer to Velvet and I heard Velvet call her ‘mom’ before she set off.

It seems like Velvet was another sister I would be missing from my life.

We wouldn’t hear much about what became of those two, though there is one thing I certainly heard.

It was a pony telling a story about an entire army of world eating shadows and the six individuals with a small contingent of weird and random canines.

They stood tall against what sounded like a ceaseless tide of death coming right for them.

Three of those individuals happened to be a cow, a reindeer and a certain perky alpaca who would face the army of living shadows that threatened to consume this world.

I knew three of them by name, Arizona, Velvet and Paprika. Their group was called ‘The Shadow Fighters’.

I never heard how their story ended. Whether they were dead or alive, they obviously succeeded in their goal somehow.

Thanks to all their rumored efforts, the world continued turning.

Chapter thirty two, The Grand Dissolution: The Stars Seeker!

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter thirty two, The Grand Dissolution: The Lost Vikings!

-Fizzle-

Blade Bright left last night and I read her message. It was weird that she wanted to fulfill the prophecy by becoming a star in the sky to aid in Princess Luna’s escape. Was that even an achievable feat?

At least I understood her wanting to go after members of GODLESS, felt like doing that myself personally, but I didn’t understand her wanting to become a star.

I guess I wouldn’t be seeing her or Sekhet this morning at breakfast.

When I got around to sitting down for said morning gathering, I took in all those who were still here.

Mom was more depressed today, Snickers kind of looked like she was dying, Bracing was still moping around and Maries was as upset as the rest of us as they were friends with Blade as well.

Even Fresh couldn’t bring out her usual morning cheer as the mare she had worked alongside left to go on what we all think is a wild goose chase.

We ate breakfast in silence. The only one among us that was satisfied was Sugar, but then again she’s always happy after eating mom’s magical cooking.

“We have decided to do what we could never have fathomed doing before!” Flamberge burst into the restaurant looking particularly excited. “It will be the most amazing thing we’ve ever accomplished, even without our brother around to guide us with his eagle eyes and great intellect!”

“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant!” After clearing his throat, Fortitude continued. “I concur with my brother Flamberge, we will attempt to do something that is beyond even our understanding.”

I looked to everyone else and they seemed disinterested, at least Snickers was actually eating the food that was placed before her. The turtle needed to keep her strength up, I had hope that she’d tough things out and pull through whatever was wrong with her.

Snickers needed to get better, because I didn’t think I could personally.

“Okay, I’ll bite. What is it that you two are going to do that is so amazing?” My tone was as bland and horrid as I felt, but I was somewhat interested.

“We are going to get horribly lost!” Why did Flamberge sound so happy about it?

This makes me want to put my hoof in the dragon’s face. Sure a dragon’s scales could protect them from all kinds of things, but blunt force trauma definitely wasn’t one of them. Pony hooves could hurt dragons if you hit them hard enough.

“Any yak would agree with me that the plan needs work, but we aren’t going to sit still and pine away until the Valkyries come.” Even Fortitude seemed cheerful, so what am I missing here? “Plan could eventually succeed though.”

I wouldn’t even try to hit Fortitude, he was practically impervious if he had his shield between him and any attack. If it hadn’t been for that magical triceratops, then I wouldn’t have thought that he could even actually bleed at all.

I was at least going to mark this up to two more famous Airship Mauled citizens being gone soon.

“Really, what’s so great about getting lost?” I just had to ask, hopefully I didn’t regret doing so.

Flamberge’s current cheery mood was going to make me hurt him, so he better have a good explanation.

“Well, if we get lost enough, then we’ll eventually be wherever we really want to go! Also while we’re traveling we can send people this way to help build Airship Mauled up and start up more businesses!” Okay the first thing was exceedingly stupid, even Flamberge had to hear how stupid it sounded when he said it. The second thing actually sounded like a surprisingly good idea. “I know what you are thinking, that this sounds really stupid! Look at it this way, we can’t let Airship Mauled go into decline like this as it would be stomping all over everything Mayor Kuril has been working so hard for with this town!”

“We like it here, we want others to like it too and for there to be a better home for the others to come back to.” That was something I could respect Fortitude. “We do not want to come back to a lonely ghost town, not when said town has world’s greatest witch! One that makes great food.”

A smile tugged at Kuril’s lips, but it just didn’t quite become one.

“How do you two plan to get lost exactly?” My lack of excitement didn’t seem to deter them in the slightest, like nothing could deter Fortitude’s particular fragrance.

Mom seemed to have some interest in our conversation now, but she went back to eating silently.

“I am knowing ancient legend we might be able to use to find Jade.” Okay Fortitude, my interest just shot up a couple of notches. “If she is not among the living when we find her, then yak will carry her body back to hold a great feast and honorable burial for the departed. Hopefully spirit can pass on, given that it hasn’t already is troubling when she is welcome in Yakhalla and many other realms of the dead.”

“Tell me more information about this legend.” My attention was piqued by quite a bit.

“There is a powerful Viking artifact that can take up to five beings to anywhere that exists.” What was the drawback to that Fortitude, I may just come along with you two just for that feature alone.

My more cynical side reared up as I thought of something.

“Well then, what’s the catch?” Something like this always had one and I wasn’t willing to go if the catch was bad enough. “You would have mentioned this much sooner if there weren’t any.”

“There are actually several of those!” Flamberge blurted out.

I glared at him, causing him shy away from me.

“First, one must act as needed at the location wherever you appear at, otherwise artifact will likely never take you anywhere else.” Act as needed? What did that mean Fortitude?

“Like I could end up right next to Jade, but I would be tasked with killing her or something?” I wouldn’t like using any cursed artifacts that had an effect like that.

“Nothing so bad, the artifact is not evil. It does require you to go on quests wherever you end up though, you’ll usually know what it is shortly after arrival. Sometimes quest is short, sometimes it is a really big important thing that must be done.” That was a little more understandable Fortitude. “At least artifact works very fast, can go anywhere from here to other side of planet in five seconds.”

“Flamberge said there were multiple drawbacks, so I guess being forced into quests like a nonstop marathon of Ogres and Oubliettes games isn’t the only thing it does.” That could get annoying real fast, but it seems like something that would be within the wheelhouse of these two.

“Yes, I did say that! Another drawback is one must have good heart, clear mind or at least above decent morals… or else artifact attempts to end you by taking you to places so dangerous you would not survive a single minute!” Thanks for putting the image of the Sieve Precarious in my head Flamberge, like I needed to remember that that had happened. “Basically you need to have a positive heroic outlook on life to even use it!”

“It’s not the Sieve Precarious is it?” Asking just for clarification. If it was, then I knew they’d have to get some aqua lung powers from Kuril. She wasn’t likely in the mood to give them the ability of permanent water breathing right now, given she just lost one of her employees.

“No, Viking artifact is very different. Biggest problem of artifact is getting to where you want to go.” Didn’t you just say it could get you anywhere that exists Fortitude?

“So there’s a steering issue?” I tilted my head while questioning this and quirking an eye.

“Not so much, the artifact steers itself just fine.” One of the few times Flamberge wasn’t loud, then again he hasn’t talked much over the last three months. The one positive thing to come from of all this. “It’s just that it doesn’t take you where you want to go, it only takes you where you need to be! Ties into the whole quest thing really.”

“Is it random in what it chooses when it considers where you need to be?” It sounded to me like something Jade would have loved to use at least once or twice.

“It depends on those who are using it. If you are needed, it will take you and any companions to where you all are needing to be the most.” Thank you Fortitude, I certainly wasn’t going to go with you two after all. “Did I stutter when I said it is not of evil? It tends to lead to good outcomes for others and sometimes even the users… like fabled Good Fortune Garnet. Only the luck from it requires one to do what is right, many yaks knows that is not always being easy!”

I think this was the most I’ve ever talked to Fortitude or Flamberge.

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound very ideal or even appealing to me, but if you can make it work...” I trailed off and looked to them. “Just… don’t get in over your heads. Generic would be sad if something happened to you two. If he and Jacky can make their relationship, then that means you’ll unfortunately be brothers to me as well.”

“You need not worry about Fortitude.” He thumped his chest with a loud smack. “For I am a mighty yak!”

“And I am a powerful dragon!” Flamberge followed up by doing the same action, which somehow incidentally set him on fire when his fist created some sparks from hitting his chest.

“Take it outside Flamberge.” Mom said in a tired tone. “Fresh, be a dear and get the door for him before he lights up the entire restaurant. I’ve already lost enough as it is this week and I don’t want to lose my home on top of everything else.”

Our friends and family left to do a number of things mom, even I too might soon leave.

I would at least ask Maries to stay here with you, my mother. I had a lot of soul searching to do because I haven’t been feeling special at all lately and it was hard to not feel an icy cold empty pit in my chest where my heart should be.

We both watched as the blazing inferno got up and walked out the door, being entirely careful as to not set anything on fire.

Fresh closed the door behind Flamberge and went to sit down.

“We will be trying hard to help those in need, until Jade or her body needs us more than anyone else!” At least Fortitude and Flamberge were optimistic about leaving to go on endless adventures to possibly several lifetimes. “With us spreading word of Airship Mauled. Those who are needing a home, might find it here. May our town eventually be filled with joy once more!”

“I think I’ll actually miss you Fortitude, what I won’t miss is your smell though.” I would at least attempt to give them both a friendly hug before they set out.

“Of course, for I am ‘Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant’ after all!” The large guy then got up and made his way out the door. A guy whose smell could even permeate through tomato sauce, even skunks couldn’t match the strength of that kind of stench that corrupted soap the second it touched him.

“Where’s the assassin?” Bracing finally noticed someone missing, she obviously hadn’t noticed mom’s even more depressed state today.

“She left to go do something very important.” Mom stated flatly as she glanced at Bracing.

“Important… her! I think you’d be much safer without her around.” That was the wrong thing to say, because mom instantly chucked a vial at her forehead. Mom looked quite angry with bracing when she did this.

The shattering of glass and magic reacting to said vial busting rang loudly throughout the restaurant.

Within a second… Bracing had croaked.

A second later she croaked loudly again.

I just stared at the brown frog that looked as horribly surprised as the rest of us that mom finally managed to finally turn something into a frog.

“I now know what I was missing… I wish I didn’t.” Mom’s ears were wilting and a few tears dropped onto the table. “It’s kind of sad what it takes for a witch to turn someone into a frog. This is definitely one of the things that Jaded couldn’t have possibly already known about. I guess I’m a true witch now…”

Already known about? Well I guess it was common knowledge that witches could turn other beings into frogs or at least that’s what happens in stories.

“What does it take Kuril?” Why did you ask that Fresh Start?! Mom really doesn’t look to happy at the moment, especially when we both know she’s hurting.

“Constant depression, sadness and plenty of ugly emotions I wished I didn’t currently have at this very moment. Good witches aren’t very common it seems and I’m very sorry I did that Ms. Knight, it’ll wear off eventually… hopefully. Excuse me everyone.” Quietly, mom stood up and walked towards the stairs.

Catching up to her, Sugar chittered sadly and rubbed up against her robes gently. Mom crouched and rubbed Sugar’s head gently before continuing on up the stairs.

Maries came over to me, they cuddled up against me and pulled me into a tight hug. I hadn’t even notice when I started crying or even became slightly afraid of mom.

-Fresh Start-

Being a maid, waitress and assistant to the mayor of Airship Mauled was getting harder.

It wasn’t long before Fortitude and Flamberge left, it was before the sun came up the next day.

Eventually we’d start getting customers from many strange places and walks of life.

Even a few wild animals came in and paid for a meal, who was I to turn them away? They were paying customers all the same.

So many strangers started coming here to Airship Mauled with news of Flamberge and Fortitude’s adventures.

Some of the tales I heard seemed so tall, others sounded so simple, but one thing was common among them all.

The two Viking were quite lost, directionless in knowing where to go in life now. Despite that, they were regaled as heroes who tirelessly traveled around the world searching for what they wanted to do the most… bring a kitten back home to her mother in any capacity.

The one thing that was a common consensus among those who came to Airship Mauled was this, they weren’t ever going to find what they wanted to achieve the most. That they were always going to be what everyone else needed more.

Every situation that they faced that needed their skills, we’d soon hear about it here by travelers that would come all the way from around the planet just to tell us how they were doing.

There was a particularly handsome male Longma that had caught my fancy. I heard news of a cow and reindeer tearing up a city fighting one another and a highly vaunted Longma warrior, somehow Jacky became involved there too.

It was hard to keep the adventures of 'The Lost Vikings' in chronological order.

Author's Note

Chapter thirty two, The Grand Dissolution: The shadows of Tempest!

-Kuril-

The day after the remaining two Vibrant Vikings left, I would be waiting for Fizzle to tell me she was going to leave next.

I could feel it coming, since it just had to happen. I dreaded hearing that my little filly would go out into the world knowing what I do about where she’ll end up.

Getting out of bed, I quickly bathed myself and put on my robes while thinking about the future.

When I eventually went to pick up the hat, I faltered and stared at it.

It was a pointy hat, made for a witch and the last birthday present from my kitten.

I wanted to be a friendly and good witch, but after I turned Bracing into a frog… I didn’t feel too great about living the dream right now.

If things happened like Jaded said they would, Fluttershy and Pinkie would become elements of harmony while defeating Nightmare Moon within the next two years.

For that to happen, Nightmare Moon would have to be released from her prison.

This would only happen if Blade succeeded in becoming part of the stars that aided in her escape, either that or someone else succeeded in aiding in Princess Luna’s escape from the moon where she is sealed.

Princess Luna, the alicorn of the moon who used to usher in the night. Blade hoped that she would bring some light back into the world once she was purified of the nightmare that currently controlled her.

I didn’t know whether I wanted Blade to succeed or not, couldn’t someone else do it? Did she really have to leave me with a regret of not noticing her feelings sooner? She stayed with us and by my side loyally ever since we became good friends.

I honestly didn’t know how Blade felt about me until that kiss, it made my heart flutter and remember my other lover.

I dreamed a short lived dream of moving on and being open to a tender form of love like that again, that was quickly dashed by the fact that Blade was doing something that might end her life.

The kiss also made me feel like I had failed the one that had given me Jade and that they were turning in their grave, that returning Blade’s affection was a slap in the face to them. I knew they would have wanted me to be happy, but happiness was currently being rationed as much as it could be.

“At least once my little Fizzlepop leaves… I’ll be able to watch over them all.” Knowing she had to leave eventually still didn’t make my heart ache any less.

I sat down on my bed and stared at the floor. I heard a chittering and something putting itself under my resting right paw.

Sugar, my wonderful killer rabbit familiar, she was always so sweet to me and I couldn’t see her as dangerous. Despite having seen the full range of her capabilities, she would always just be a little magical bunny to me.

The bond between Sugar and me let me know that she was trying her best to comfort me. I was silently letting her know that it was helping a little, but it couldn’t fill the void left by those who were gone from my life.

“Please, I know you can understand me Sugar, so I must ask something of you.” It was strange that I could have her full attention with only a few words. Sugar’s eyes looked at me attentively and she waited to adhere to any request, no matter what I asked of her. “No matter how bad I get, I want you to try and always care for Snickers in my stead if I ever stop doing so personally. I want you to try to keep her together, that’s all I’m asking.”

Sugar sat up and chittered as she placed a paw on my arm, through our bond I could feel she wasn’t just going to try.

She likely took it as an order to prop up both me and Snickers up to the best of her abilities, to become an emotional rock for us as the flood waters of time surrounded us on all sides and threatened to wash us away. At least that’s the impression I was getting by her sudden look of determination to do just that.

I sighed and patted her on the head, she made some cute noises and laid across my lap while exposing her neck and belly to me. A small smile graced my lips as I started to rub her belly affectionately.

Even then, with the happy Al-mi’raj under my fingers, I thought about the tough choice I had to make.

Could I really let Fizzle go, knowing what I do?

If she stayed here, Fizzle might never lose herself to become Tempest Shadow. I could stop her, she’d be loved and cared for here. She could become happy with just staying here with Maries… but that would be horribly selfish of me and the world might change for the worse.

The big problem is, she would go on to do some things that only she would be in a position for. She’d actually be in a position to save lives while appearing to completely ruin them. She’d earn the hatred of many, but I would know the truth of her actions at least.

I trusted my daughter to not outright kill the alicorn princesses, I didn’t trust anyone else not to do the same. A member of GODLESS could even end up with Fizzle’s eventual position… that was something that would end much worse if I kept Fizzle here.

If I let her go now… then she would eventually become angry and bitter at the world. Even then, she’d still have a strong moral compass buried underneath all her grief and she would still be my little filly even after she becomes a villainous mess of emotions.

I closed my eyes and made a decision. No matter how much it hurts me to do it, Fizzle had to leave and I had to see her off.

I couldn’t try to protect her from the world at large as I didn’t want to coddle her. She needed to become strong by herself, learn to stand on her four legs away from me. Jacky was already out doing that and I hoped that she lived with her luck long enough to give me grand kittens.

It was all for the best possible outcome, one that only led to the death of an idiot king while my filly was in charge of his army. For only an idiot would shatter the Misfortune Malachite without a method to send all the negative energies involved elsewhere.

I believed that misfortune, and not my little filly, would swiftly strike the Storm King down at a moment when it was most pertinent. Though my filly would be the one to eventually deliver the Misfortune Malachite into his very hands ultimately sealing his fate, his future definitely wasn’t going to change after he destroyed the Misfortune Malachite. It was only a matter of time from that point forward.

Wouldn’t it be just the worst possible luck imaginable if you were on top of the world and just became all powerful from a long drawn out campaign of terror, only to quickly lose absolutely everything in a matter of minutes?

After so many years of hard work being an absolute tyrant, he gets taken out at his finest hour… how misfortunate.

I would absolutely be in Canterlot to watch it happen, I had an ‘in’ with The Squirrels thanks to Ratatoskr. They’d help smuggle me into Canterlot while it was on lockdown so I could get a front row seat to the end of it all.

In fact… I could stay in touch with all of them using the messenger god, though Rata was a bit expensive to use in that particular fashion.

-Fizzle-

Maries let me get out of bed and I set about to start looking for the things I’d need. They knew what I was going to do and I had already asked them to stay with mom.

Maries would be commuting between here and Canterlot frequently, they had jobs as lawyers and would likely work many cases in the future. They didn’t want to fall out of practice as being a lawyer gave them good leadership skills and they actually liked being a licensed practitioner of the law, at least Marie the snake seemed really into it.

I only needed a few items, a canteen filled with water, a cloak that wasn’t the one that still had Jade’s particular scent on it and finally a picture of better times. I gave a short laugh at the smiles Maries and Jade had when we were at the convention.

I would be leaving the electrum locket behind with mom, I had hardly ever let it out of my sight and only now would I let go of it.

Silently, I thanked Jade, Sekhet and Maries for putting me through survival training. I was going to be leaving with a light load and very little to my name.

Upon going downstairs for breakfast, mom was already waiting for me and already had my plate filled with food. As I ate I could feel her staring at me, as if she were expecting me to eventually ask what I was going to.

She had to know, because there was no other reason for her to be staring at me specifically like that.

Upon finishing my meal, I placed the locket on the table and pushed it towards her. I met her eyes and opened my mouth.

“Okay.” She just said it so simply, it shocked me that she said it before I could even ask. “You’re not leaving here without a few pounds of fish jerky though my little filly.”

“I…” Wanting to explain myself, I tried to get the words out. They wouldn’t come.

Mom got up, walked around the table and then sat down next to me to bring me into a tight hug. I felt a bit of wetness strike my face and my eyes saw tears spilling from mom’s face.

“Whatever happens to you my little filly, I promise that you will always be my daughter.” She ran her digits through my hair and I leaned into the feeling. “Never doubt that you’re a La Perm, the adoption papers certainly has your full name on them.”

I couldn’t say anything, but I still stood up and made my way towards the exit with a full stomach. Eventually I got up my nerve to finally say something.

“Mom, I’m going to find a way to restore my horn or get enough magical power together so that I can bring her back if the others can’t.” I waited for Maries to come up to me and they all got a kiss from me, some tongue included from each of them.

After I finished walking around with mom, Maries and eventually Grace, Wary, Potassium and Mango, looking around at what was built here… I eventually picked a direction to start walking.

I guess it was time to say it now.

“Goodbye, mother… everyone.” It was hard to leave Airship Mauled, but it was just as hard to stay here. My eyes became filled with tears as I started to walk away into the light of day, casting a shadow behind me as I left.

“Farewell, my beautiful growing mare.” It felt like an icy dagger, made to exact specifications by Velvet, rammed itself into my chest when mom said that. I noted that mom was wearing the locket, which was a good thing.

I was going to have trouble sleeping tonight without Maries there to comfort me.

I was the last of those who would be leaving.

-Kuril-

All of them were brave in walking away from their home, I had better make sure they had a home to return to. All of them would find Airship Mauled still here if I had anything to say about it.

That was hard… I don’t think I had a heart in my chest anymore. Fizzle kind of carved the last bit of it out.

I went to my private room, what used to be the captain’s cabin on the crashed airship.

I sat down and unrolled a map of the world onto the desk, I pulled out a corked vial with a glowing fluid inside of it.

Gripping the cork with my teeth I pulled it free of the vial and then carefully pulled out the loose hair I got from Fizzle’s hairbrush and dropped it into the vial.

I added a bit of basil afterwards and forced the cork back in, I put my all into shaking the vial violently until the colors inside changed. I smiled faintly… it was actually going to work!

I knew I could delay the full magical reaction using monkshood, it was a rather interesting use for wolfs bane really.

I once again tugged the cork free and looked at the map of the world and tilted the vial over it.

The liquid poured from the vial and hit the parchment and started to puddle, after a moment it started to spread and become a thin film that slowly absorbed into the map.

I stared at it for a moment… nothing happened. I sighed, maybe I wasn’t currently cut out to currently be doing…

Several small marble sized spheres of lights faded into existence above the map. Two dots heading west from Appleoosa, two dots over the ocean, two heading in the direction of yak territories, one sitting still a few miles away, one somewhere close to Canterlot and the last lonely dot was slowly leaving the spot Airship Mauled was marked on the map.

Never mind… it had worked.

If something happened to them, I would at least know about it. I guess I still had a bit of my heart left in me to still do some alchemy, I had even made my first enchanted item… a map of the world that shows where everyone was.

I looked to Jacky’s appendix, one of Gene’s feathers, Blade’s hair, some of Velvet and Arizona’s loose fur from their constant fighting, Sekhet’s nail clippings, a jar of Fortitude’s stench so easily collected, a shed scale from Flamberge and finally the hairbrush that Fizzle used this morning.

Seeing these lights would put me at ease or make me worry more.

-Jacky-

“We’re heading toward Turtle Toga, the place I grew up at.” I chose to believe things would work out.

-Arizona-

“I’m sure that we’ll eventually find someone that lives out here to give us directions fluff butt.” I enjoyed the feeling of dirt under my hooves.

-Blade-

The moon priests looked wary, the request that I had would make them even more so.

-Flamberge-

“Soon we will find the 'Mists of Travel On', endless adventure awaits us brother!” We were going to find a tomb full of deadly Draugr protecting our sought after mode of transportation.

-Tempest-

Rain fell around me in buckets as I trotted, it felt like the darkness of the world was swallowing me up.

I eventually took shelter under a tree in the storm, I dreamed of a place where I was happy with Jade and Maries.

Jerking awake, I found myself aboard an Airship.

It took a moment to remember that I had captured the Princess of Friendship.

Author's Note

The music is the inspiration of this chapter.

So who's story do you think you'd hear first?

Jacky- Laughter, loyalty.

Gene- Loyalty, honesty.

Arizona- Honesty, generosity.

Velvet- Generosity, honesty.

Blade- Loyalty, kindness.

Sekhet- Magic.

Flamberge- Kindness, laughter.

Fortitude- Repetition, running joke.

Fizzle- Magic.

"And now for something completely different!"

Chapter thirty three, Unfamiliar Faces: Meeting Fauna.

-The future that refused to change, Fluttershy-

Twilight trying to steal the transformation pearl from the sea ponies was a very wrong and bad thing to do!

I know Twilight did it out of desperation and felt a strong need to help Cadence, Celestia and Luna, but she had been really quite rude to Queen Nova with what she did.

Twilight had only temporarily lost sight of who she was as the princess of friendship and a regular pony, she’d come to her senses and think of a better way. Twilight was a good mare and was just trying to do her best.

That didn’t mean that Twilight was immediately sorry about what she did, given we left her alone to think about things. She was captured as soon as she was away from us.

We were now currently on our way to save her from Fizzle. Someone who I could remember in fond light, something really bad must have happened for her to be like she is.

Fizzle also seemed kind of sad… only it’s hidden under that stoic demeanor of hers. I think she could use a friend right about now, some kindness to help her with whatever was wrong with her.

We could have befriended and would have eventually talked all the sea ponies into helping us.

Well, provided that they didn’t keep on insisting we stay where it’s safe and never leave safety, thus leaving the world to its inevitable doom.

Twilight forcing their hooves almost felt like the right action in that respect, as turtling up in their home really wasn’t helping anyone.

I kind of felt like a hypocrite about feeling that what Twilight did was somehow close to necessary, considering I was an accomplice to the golden ship theft that Jade pulled off several years before I started to live in Ponyville.

The only difference between the two thefts is that Jade did it for a very justified reason, I knew for certain that Jade hadn’t done it out of malice.

Twilight tried to steal the pearl because it might have the ability to help us fight the Storm King, I didn’t think violence was the real answer to all this. I wasn’t a fighter, I was a lover and I was quite proud of being kind through it all.

I loved all my little animals, I loved my friends and yes I was still attracted to Gilda who herself was still very much attracted to a rather dense Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow and Gilda even made up as friends during a trip to Griffonstone, with a little help from Pinkie. I heard things were even going much better over there now, they were likely next on the Storm King’s to do list if we didn’t stop him.

It was frustrating, but I was quite a patient mare and already had too much in life to really pursue a relationship like Rarity keeps bugging me about.

Not that I wouldn’t dreaming about cuddling up to griffons in my sleep, maybe a nice parrot like Captain Celaeno?

I think I might actually have a thing for beaks and it was so embarrassing to think about.

The dates I went on with Pinkie were nice, but I didn’t feel a strong spark even though I did like her. I’m not even sure Rarity knows that I’m a bit attracted to her, but the time we spend together on spa dates was always memorable.

I guess I had a lot to think about.

I think Pinkie was still in denial about Fizzle, saying that Tempest Shadow was a completely different pony from the one I remember. She was kind of right.

I tried to remember when I started to forget about Airship Mauled, something bad happened and now an old friend was coming back as one of our worst enemies.

Kind of like what Twilight told us about Moon Dancer, only in this case I didn’t ignore the pony who so badly wanted my attention.

This situation with the Storm King all felt so very wrong, I also didn’t like our visit to Klugetown very much. It was as bad as Jade and Kuril had said it was.

Where did I start forgetting? I certainly remember the wonderful taste of Kuril's food.

“Stop fretting so much Fluttershy. We’ll save Twilight from that mean old Storm King and then everything will be all sunshine and Rainbow Dash, you’ll see!” Pinkie was still very much affectionate with me, I leaned into her hug. Sometimes she was a little too much to deal with, she was at least apologetic about that when she went too far and was told she did so. “We’ve definitely got this.”

Thinking on it, maybe it was the first day I moved into Ponyville. Right when I was starting my new life on the ground.

I met the wonderful Cure-all Fauna that day, she was quite the veteran veterinarian and we quickly became friends. It’s also the day I met Rupert the gentle snake and Mr. Hummingway who was really good at singing tunes.

-Fluttershy, Ponyville, present time-

“Oh Angel, isn’t it so wonderful!” My home was in a slightly precarious position being near the Ever Free, but it was a cozy little place and I was going to be quite happy with living here. I was assured that it wasn’t overly dangerous.

All I needed to do was plant a flower garden, build some homes for my animal friends, maybe get a hen house and meet all the animals around here. If I didn’t know their language, then I would just have to learn it!

Angel didn’t look impressed and crossed his paws, but he still huffed out a sigh and rubbed up against me affectionately while nodding. I couldn’t wait to move into my new home… there was just the problem of getting my dream job.

I already applied for animal control and caretaker. I was also going to work towards my dream of running an animal sanctuary.

The money I made to buy this place had taken a bit of time to make, but at least my parents were proud of me being so self-sufficient and brave enough to move out. I didn’t feel brave, I always had a problem with talking to new ponies and there were the constant nightmares of bullying.

I never told them where half of the money I used to buy this place came from. It was from my share of the gold ship heist, Sekhet and Celestia insisted I take some and deserved it for helping put a very bad pony behind bars. I would like to think I was putting it all to a good cause.

After checking out my home with Angel, who stayed inside and decided to be lazy. I exited my new home and looked towards Ponyville.

I wanted to make some new friends.

I at least knew Pinkie would be welcoming and that was one pony I couldn’t be too shy around, I at least wouldn’t be here by myself without knowing any pony.

I started to nervously make my way towards Ponyville and on my way I heard a loud chirping noise of fear. It sounded like a bird, judging by the tone and call, it was a hummingbird.

I moved off the path leading into Ponyville towards the poor bird that was being frightened by something. Arriving on the scene I noticed quite a few things.

A hummingbird with a broken wing, it was chirping frantically and trying to pull away from a snake. The snake, to me, didn’t seem very aggressive or like it was even going to eat the bird at all. I wanted to interfere, but I watched as the snake helped the bird on its back and then started to look around.

The bird for the most part was horribly confused, as was I when I watched the snake look around for something. Eventually he spotted me and I blinked as he started to slither up to me, he started to hiss something out and pointed to the hummingbird with his tail.

“I’m still not entirely good at speaking snake, but…” I hissed several things out and he smiled. “Did I say that right? I don't exactly get the inflection right in snake sometimes.”

He nodded and introduced himself, his name and everything about wanting to help the hummingbird. The little hummingbird was kind of surprised by this and he chirped out questioningly.

I whistled a short burst of bird like notes, he started trying to relax a bit.

“I’ll help you, don’t worry. Also Mr. Snake your name is really hard to pronounce, so I’ll just call you Rupert. That’s close enough right?” The snake was okay with this and I started making my way into town with them following me. “I’m sorry about not having any supplies in my home to care for you at the moment… I’m going to call you Hummingway. Please don’t try to move your wing too much and we’ll get you fixed up as soon as we can.”

The hummingbird chirped several positive notes that made me smiled at him, he was quite the little vocalist.

As we approached Ponyville, I got a little nervous.

I looked around for some pony to talk to about getting some help and tried to speak up, but my voice kept getting caught in my throat. I really didn’t know how Pinkie could do it so easily.

“Seriously Bon-Bon, you’ve been acting weird for the last three months are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” A mint colored unicorn and an earth pony with a blue and pink mane were walking along and would go on right by me any second now. “You’re acting really paranoid about something.”

“Look Lyra, it’s nothing important. It’s just… something happened to… family… that bothers me greatly.” The mare that was named Bon-Bon seemed to be looking around in a really paranoid fashion as if she was expecting a Roc to drop out of the sky and eat her.

It’s happened before, but I heard the tale of a brave cow that shoved herself down the Roc’s throat to get the poor filly out of its stomach. The cow even did it without hurting the Roc too much, but what was her name again?

I’m sure I’d remember eventually and you were as likely to be eaten by a hydra around here.

“Um… excuse me.” The unicorn practically leapt out of her fur and the earth pony leapt in front of her protectively while looking at Rupert. He just gave her a curious glance.

“Don’t sneak up on ponies like that!” Shying away from this Lyra, I cowered a bit at the volume of her voice.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” It’s not like I had snuck up on them on purpose, they just didn’t notice me. My shyness did not override my need to help Mr. Hummingway. “I was just looking for someone to help out Mr. Hummingway, he needs his wing fixed and I’m technically new in town. I’ve been here a few times before, but I’ve never been anywhere else except maybe Sugar Cube Corner or the Hayburger. If you could just point me in the right direction of someone who could help…”

My voice was doing that thing where I got really squeaky and hard to understand.

“Wow, you are really quiet. I’ll lead you there and give you the old Lyra five bit tour… for free!” These two would become well known to me as the most interesting couple in town, mostly because Lyra was a really strange unicorn and Bon-Bon was kind of ridiculously protective of Lyra.

“That’s Pinkie’s job Lyra and it sounds like she already knows her, if she's visited Sugar Cube Corner often enough. Hard to miss the queen of all sugar highs.” Bon-Bon muttered that last bit out as they led me to a place. “This is the place, the ponies name is Doctor Cure-all Fauna. Maybe we’ll see you around town.”

I was left alone with Rupert and Hummingway and went to knock on the door gently, the pony's name sounded kind of like Kuril the Abyssinian witch.

Eventually it opened and that was when I saw a slightly older mare with blue hair pulled back into a ponytail and yellow fur.

“Yes, can I… oh my goodness what happened to that poor hummingbird’s wing? Quick, bring the patient inside so I can get an assessment!” We came inside to Doctor Fauna’s office, she seemed like a friendly mare and was already carefully picking Hummingway up off of Rupert’s back. “What did he do to his wing, did he fly into a beehive wrong? No… if that had happened the queen bee would have probably forced him to work for her, but I would be seeing a lot of bees in here again if that were the case.”

“Um… what?” That’s when Doctor Fauna remember that I was present, it was kind of awkward.

“Sorry, I’m Doctor Fauna, pleased to make your acquaintance miss.” She carefully pulled at Hummingway’s wing trying not to hurt the poor dear. Hummingway started to make a fuss and she carefully calmed him down. “There, there, don’t make a fuss, show me that wing and I’ll promise you’ll be better in no time.”

Fauna was so nice with Mr. Hummingway and so very gentle… I think I just met someone who would become a lifelong role model to me.

“I’m Fluttershy, I’m hoping to be an animal caretaker and maybe run an animal shelter.” The mare hummed slightly, then she turned to me. “I haven’t exactly settled in yet and I didn’t have anything to help Mr. Hummingway with.”

“Then it sounds like you came to the right place Fluttershy, we’ll get Mr. Hummingway flying in no time.” Doctor Fauna sounded like a very kind mare and I’d think we’d be good friends in the foreseeable future. “I’ll even give the snake a check-up while I’m at it to make sure nothing is wrong with him. You wouldn’t happen to need a mentor would you?”

“I would like that, thank you. I would also really like to know where I can get some supplies right now.” I poked my hooves together shyly. “My stuff is kind of still in Cloudsdale.”

“I’ll let my supplier know to give you a mail order list. Unfortunately they won’t be able to supply medication to you until you are qualified to hoof it out to animals, otherwise animal first aid kits are okay to purchase and practice with.” Here Doctor Fauna started to carefully work on Hummingway’s wing. She placed two sticks against it while it was folded correctly and then started to wrap it. “Things are bit more lenient in animal care than with pony medical aid, I recommend you learn how to use a pony first aid kit even if you aren’t going into pony medical practices and will be sticking primarily with animals. As for this little guy, we’ll keep his wing splint and wait on it a few days, then you can bring him back to me and we’ll see if it needs to be worked on further.”

-The future that refused to change, Fluttershy-

No that wasn’t it, I had thought of Kuril so I hadn’t forgotten Airship Mauled at that point.

I tried to think of who else I met in Ponyville and at what point I exactly began forgetting my other friends.

Author's Note

Fluttershy is going to walk down memory lane.

Is it filler or is there something to it?

Chapter thirty three, Unfamiliar Faces: Meeting Applejack.

-The future that refused to change, Fluttershy-

“Pinkie… why did we ever stop going to Airship Mauled?” I was sitting off to the side with Pinkie Pie wondering when we stopped thinking about it.

“You mean, why did you stop going? I tried to keep going back, but things didn’t quite work out like I thought they would. Not after Kuril told me that all our friends there went out into the world to do some important things and that parties aren’t being held around there much anymore.” Here Pinkie wilted, not holding any celebrations was one of the things that can hurt her more than anything. We all remembered the Pinkie birthday incident. “Kuril actually didn’t want any parties and she seemed really sad the last few times I tried to throw her a birthday party. Airship Mauled is still around and doing fine, the recent years haven’t apparently been good for Kuril though. She hardly celebrates Hearths Warming anymore Fluttershy, Hearths Warming! Do you know how big a deal something is when I can’t solve it with a party? Also if I remember right, you were really wary of Flamberge. So maybe that’s why you stopped, but he isn’t there anymore now that I think of it. I’m a powerful party pony, but Airship Mauled needs something that I just don’t have.”

“Well that gives the theory that something really bad happened to Jade some credence, I’m going to ask Fizzle about it when I can get a chance to talk to her alone.” The only reason why I feared Flamberge is because he kept catching himself on fire sporadically, that’s not very safe and is a very scary prospect if all dragons were like that.

He was less scary than the bigger dragons, haven’t heard from him in years. Spike and Ember have kind of eased me into thinking dragons can be good friends, I wonder if Flamberge is still Ember’s size?

“Can I come when you go to look for her, I want to know what happened to Jady too! Kuril always got quiet when I tried to ask and she won’t celebrate anything every time I visit, her food is still good though. The Witch of Good Taste we know and like is certainly still plying her trade quite well, it’s just missing the love that she used to put into it. Kind of tastes like sad and I didn’t even know that was a real flavor before Kuril made it one.” Pinkie had probably missed some hints of what was wrong, she usually does when something was off with someone. She had a tendency to ignore bad situations, but that doesn’t mean she was stupid. “I just need to find out what made her so sad, but she won’t talk to me and I’m usually too busy to bother her for more than a week straight.”

It was probably something neither you nor I wanted to actually hear Pinkie, though bothering her for a week straight absolutely sounds like something where you would learn at least something of note.

Life… could be a bit cruel at times and maybe Kuril was sad and Fizzle was more upset than she currently looked. I remembered how much time Jade and Fizzle spent around one another with Maries in their own little happy herd, I haven’t seen a single sign of Maries or Jade since Fizzle attacked Canterlot.

Were both of them… gone? It might explain why Fizzle was being so horrible. If I had lost those I loved and cared about, then I too might go off the deep end. I had too many animals to care for, that they all cared for me right back would really help prevent me from going through whatever Fizzle currently is.

Angel wouldn’t die of old age thanks to our familiar bond, so at least I’d always have him if things came to their worst. I hope he’s taking care of all the animals back home without me.

Maybe Twilight can talk Fizzle down while she’s captured? Would Fizzle even listen to her?

I looked to Applejack sitting nearby, she was always a good hearted and honest pony. She was one of the first ponies I met in Ponyville.

“Everything okay there Sugar Cube?” Applejack must have noticed my staring and I looked away with a slightly nervous heat in my cheeks, she came over to me and put a hoof around my shoulder to hug me. “I’m sure Twilight will be just fine, once we rescue her that is.”

“Yeah, we’ll kick some flank when we get to Canterlot!” Rainbow Dash joined in a second later hovering nearby. She moved to Ponyville a year or so after I did, Pinkie’s one year anniversary birthday party for Rainbow Dash had been quite explosive. “You can just sit by to cheer us on Fluttershy, just stay behind me and I’ll protect you from those storm monsters!”

I smiled a little, Rainbow Dash always was rather protective me. If I didn’t notice her taking a passing interest in a few stallions, I’d swear she was suspiciously too sweet on me. She was just dense, because otherwise she would have noticed Gilda’s real feelings for her.

I didn’t think those Storm Creatures were actually evil, just the Storm King himself. Maybe Jade would have known something about them?

The Storm King was just a big meanie, most likely by bullying all those poor Storm Creatures and Fizzle into bullying others.

Maybe Jade tried to fight the Storm King and got hurt? Is he holding her hostage? Is that why Fizzle is doing all this? I wonder if Jacky was stuck in a similar situation to Captain Celaeno, I haven’t exactly seen the Ardent Survivor in a long time.

Out of everything I did know, there was a lot that I still didn’t.

We were almost to Canterlot and could see it on the horizon, we would soon start planning on how to help Twilight.

Back to remembering where I started forgetting Airship Mauled, I place I haven’t been to in so many years. I considered that it may have been when I first met and introduced myself to Applejack.

-Present day, Fluttershy’s cabin-

I’ve been approved for animal caretaker and control, I also now worked for the animal shelter and will eventually work towards a veterinarian license.

I really didn’t want to put Doctor Fauna out of a job, but I would help any animal in need in any way I can. I would make sure to take any animal medical business to her when warranted.

Jack and Angel were playing nicely together this morning and my home doesn’t quite feel lived in yet. I just hoped they didn’t get too rough with each other, I did tell them no biting and that Jack shouldn’t use his horns on Angel. Otherwise, I would just let them tucker each other out.

Rupert was curled up in a corner and Mr. Hummingway would go in for a check-up on his wing tomorrow.

I rested on the couch waiting for some tea to come to a boil while thinking about all the bird houses I can put up around my cabin.

Hearing a knocking on the door, I got up.

“Oh my, who could that be?” I trotted over to it and opened it to see Mayor Mare, though I don’t think that was her actual name.

“Well now, there’s a familiar face. It’s been a while since the chimera incident hasn’t it? I’m dropping in to let you know that you have a situation to take care of as an animal caretaker.” Well it was still nice of you to come by Mayor Mare. “Welcome to Ponyville Fluttershy.”

The whistling of the tea kettle could be heard as the water has come to a boil.

“Would you like to come in for tea?” I could always enjoy a nice relaxing cup, though it reminded me that I could hardly drink tea at Airship Mauled without feeling like a heel while drinking it around Kuril and Jade.

Never being able to eat chocolate or drink tea… I don’t think I could imagine living without that. I knew for certain that Pinkie wouldn’t be able to live without the existence of chocolate.

“I would be delighted to, thank you.” Mayor Mare was the one that got help for Jade after being clawed up by Maries a bit, I knew she was a good trustworthy pony to let into my home.

I went to get the tea while she sat down on my couch and looked at Rupert, Hummingway, Angel and Jack. She was smiling at all of them.

Having comeback with the tea on a serving tray, I placed it down and turned to mayor.

“Do you want cream, sugar, honey or milk?” Some liked their tea a little sweeter, I certainly did.

“One cube of sugar please.” Once I gave the cup to Mayor Mare, I got my own and sat down.

“Speaking of the chimera that attacked us, my friend Jade became special friends with her and another pony.” I saw some surprise on the mayor’s face.

“Really, that’s quite interesting, you’d think she’d be scarred by the encounter and yet she falls in love with the chimera that previously hurt her? That sounds romantically progressive at the very least… like Bright Mac and Pear Butter…” She seemed interested in the topic, she must have had some free time today to come talk to me personally. “Tell me, do you know about the rumors I heard about a chimera working at the local Hayburger some time ago?”

“Yes, Jade got her a part time job there. Maries, the chimera, got involved in that incident involving the ‘Hard’ family.” Taking a sip of tea, I then added. “What was is it that you needed me to do Mayor?”

“Ah yes, I remember that. My office became filled with panicked ponies that day, I’m quite glad things worked out. Mr. Rich shouldn’t have worked his employees so hard… poor Sell Hard is still going through therapy.” The Mayor cleared her throat. “As for what I need you to do, I want you to head over to Sweet Apple Acres. They are currently having problems with a bear ruining their crops, they don’t want to hurt it and they don’t want to be hurt by it.”

“Oh dear, that’s sounds like a big problem. I’ll get right on it Mayor… as soon as we’re done having tea.” While we were doing that, I would also get more information about what the bear was exactly doing and the complaints filed by the Apple family. Also how to find Sweet Apple Acres.

-Sweet Apple Acres-

Wow, that’s a lot of apples, the mayor wasn’t kidding when she said the orchard was large and important to Ponyville’s food production ever since the ‘Pear’ family moved to a different town and took all the pear trees with them.

I walked up the path and heard a loud noise and the sound of trees shaking, this made me yelp loudly and cower against the ground with my hooves over my head.

“Hey, who’s out there? If your that no good varmint messing up our trees again I’ll… huh?” The orange furred mare with the blonde mane came up to my cowering form, her green eyes looked upon my in a gentler manner. “Why hello there and welcome to Sweet Apple Acres, I’m Applejack. Who are you?”

I squeaked out my name in an inaudible manner to the pretty and finely muscled mare before me, she was also quite… rustic is the word I want to use. Mostly because of that hat and the accent she had.

“What was that? I can’t hear you, you have to speak up now if I’m to ever learn your name Sugar Cube.” Was that a term of endearment already or did this Applejack like to call any mare Sugar Cube?

“I’m Flutter…” I went all squeaky again while staying in my position on the ground.

“I can’t wait all day for you, you might want raise your voice a little more unless you want your name to be Sugar Cube.” Applejack lifted me up and started to dust me off. “At least tell me what you want, we’re all friendly here on the farm and we have the sweetest apples you’ll ever taste.”

“I’m Fluttershy.” My voice was still soft, but I could at least hear myself this time.

“Well howdy there Fluttershy, what can I do for you?” Applejack held out her hoof and I weakly grasped it. When she started to shake our hooves, she lifted me bodily into the air several times. “Whoops sorry about that Fluttershy, you’re really light and I guess I don’t know my own strength sometimes. I’m getting it down to a science though, good old Earth Pony agricultural science of course!”

“I’m here about your bear problem.” Why was I being stared at blankly like that?

“Uh, are you serious about that?” Applejack looked me over, I felt uncomfortable about the scrutinizing and hid my face in my long mane. “You look kind of… skittish.”

“Yes, I’m really good with animals. So where is the bear right now?” I was quickly led to the bear in question, he had been bothering Applejack’s trees a little too much. This is what I was called in for.

“Well there you are.” Applejack pointed to the bear and looked at me questioningly.

I approached the bear and cleared my throat getting the bears attention.

“Excuse me Mr. Bear, but could you please stop causing problems for Applejack… in fact would you like to come over and stay at my place? I’m sure we could have lots of fun together and that we will be the best of friends.” Yes, that was my plan and I was sticking to it. I didn’t care if Applejack was looking at me funny for asking a bear if he could stay over at my place. “I promise to feed you to the best of my abilities once or twice a week.”

The bear took one long glance at me.

-Fluttershy’s cabin-

“I can’t believe that actually worked! I guess we’re like neighbors what with you being so close by and all.” Applejack was smiling as Harry made himself at home in my house. Speaking bear wasn’t too hard and he was a good listener, though I needed to learn how to make bear grunts correctly now. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get something for your troubles Fluttershy.”

“Oh you don’t have to do that…” I tried to deny.

“I insist, you haven’t even tasted one of our famous apple pies yet!” About ten minutes later Applejack came back with a warm apple pie that she shared with both me and the bear. It was freshly baked.

At the first bite, I couldn’t hold back my statement.

“This is the best apple pie I’ve ever tasted!” I could tell that Applejack and I were going to be good friends.

“Keep helping us with varmint trouble and I’ll be happy to invite you over for more anytime Fluttershy.” Applejack chuckled and got a slice for herself. “If you ever need anything, just ask for me or Big Mac.”

-The future that refused to change, Fluttershy-

That was one of the best apple pies I've ever had and we're still good friends.

That wasn’t it either, I still recalled my friends at Airship Mauled.

Author's Note

Some Celestia next chapter, more Fluttershy memory lanes and it all comes to single point.

Chapter thirty three, Unfamiliar Faces: Meeting Rarity.

Author's Note

It's easy to guess who's next, it ties into the Celestia part of this chapter.
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Will season 9, 10 or another movie feature Fizzlepop Berrytwist wielding Sombra's horn?

The writers for the show kind of have a good set up for it, also Cozy Glow was immediately pegged as a villain by anyone who has ever seen Cat's Don't Dance. It's fairly obvious that I have.

At least there was a villainous pony that wasn't a unicorn, which seems to be the go to for Villains R' Us. I expect an Earth Pony with a king or queen piece on their flank, because a rook doesn't exactly seem like the strongest piece for Cozy Glow's aspiration.

Why doesn't she have a queen chess piece for a cutie mark?

Chapter thirty three, Unfamiliar Faces: Meeting Rarity.

-Present day, Celestia-

“Are you okay Princess Celestia, you seem… tired?” At the question my star pupil, quite literally with that cutie mark, made me shake my head sending my mane whipping about.

“I’m sorry Twilight, I just haven’t been getting enough sleep lately.” I wasn’t about to tell my student that I was having horrible nightmares about what happened to Jaded La Perm. “Caring for both the sun and moon is a very tiring thing to do day in and out, it’s something I’ve been doing for almost a thousand years. Don’t tell anyone, but I could probably use more naps.”

“I won’t tell anyone princess!” Twilight nuzzled up against me and I nuzzled her back, her love for me was always so pure. It made me wonder where I went wrong with all the other unicorns that I have had as students previously.

My friendship with Twilight was strong beyond words. She was always so eager to make me happy, unfortunately I don’t think she could do so at the moment unless she can somehow bring Jade back.

I only had one idea for how to do that.

The ‘wish’ spell could do it… but if Jade was actually dead, then it would be at too heavy a cost for me. I would be gone for more than five thousand years at least without the ability to interact with this realm, I’d also be completely incapable of traveling back in time up to the point I came back at.

I was too important to the running of Equestria to do that to my ponies.

I was never going to teach Twilight the wish spell. It was too dangerous a spell that can only be done once by any unicorn to achieve almost anything they could imagine within reason. A unicorn for instance could not make themselves more powerful magically, they could not force love to happen and they could not use the spell to kill, erase and or destroy anything considered living.

Anything else beyond that was quite possible though, basically the same rules that the genies of myth followed with their three wishes.

Depending on what the unicorn in question does with the spell, they could lose all their magic forever if the cost was too high to do what they wanted the spell to achieve. If the spell didn’t cost them their magic entirely, then they would always only be capable of functioning at anywhere from a half all the way to below a quarter of what magic they used to be capable of, never to recover.

It was a spell best used when all hope is lost and losing one’s magic entirely wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to you.

Just thinking of that horrid spell reminded me of all the nightmares of something horrible happening to Sunset Shimmer, my night terrors were only getting worse the closer to Luna’s return.

I could almost feel Nightmare Moon wiggling around in her seal on the moon, she was probably taking great pleasure in my failures as a leader. She was haunting my dreams with my sister’s body as a hostage that I could never free from her grasp myself, some of those dreams could even be prophetic.

I could see the future in snatches, but it was hard to tell the difference between a vision and what happens to be just a nightmare about the world ending.

I even had nightmares where two stallions polluted our world horribly, where changelings disguised themselves as ponies and turned the world into a jungle of distrust and survival where they would eventually starve themselves to death eating all the love they could find and then there was an endless war with Sombra and his mind controlled minions of the crystal empire where mares had to give up their beauty to go to war and had to fight alongside stallions to the death to keep the world free.

There was also a world where Nightmare Moon was victorious and as the world slowly froze, where Timber Wolves constantly hunted those who survived the cold.

Finally the worst nightmare I could ever have came to pass recently… it was a world of complete and total desolation where even the gods could barely survive.

I didn’t seriously think any of those would ever come to pass… I would definitely fight that last vision to my dying breath!

If I was to succeed, I had keep any pony from noticing how tired I was. Constant fake smiling all day, forced as it was, with very few real ones for the moments where I can truly find pockets of joy to breath in as the world tried to drown me in sorrow.

While trying not to show weakness, I was feeling the stress of what I may eventually ask Twilight to do. For it was her cutie mark and not Sunset Shimmer’s on the tree of harmony.

I had to hold myself together, many ponies depended on me every day to make good and just decisions.

Being a benevolent ruler wasn’t easy. I was looking towards one of the many threats to my ponies, one of which was GODLESS.

I already had the moon priests searching for them now. S.M.I.L.E was also operating in secret to root GODLESS out. After the Alicorn Amulet incident in Manehatten, I didn’t want to leave things to chance unless I absolutely had to.

Jade was a friend, not a good one, not the best one, but one that had been loveable in the chicanery she got away with.

She will be missed greatly and her loss will be devastating in these coming years.

-The future that refused to change, Fluttershy-

The fighting started as our friends burst from the cake. I tried to stay out of the way and completely out of trouble while everyone else fought, only to run into a Storm Creature slamming his spear down in front of me.

“You seem tense, do you want to talk about it?” Giving him my brightest smile and a look of innocence, because I really was innocent and I didn’t want to fight him.

There was a pause and the large Storm Creature tilted his head ever so slightly while making a slightly confused noise. He reminded me of Harry.

“Can I tell you about how I met my friend Rarity?” Before I knew it we were both sitting off to the side and I was telling him about the time I first met Rarity, completely ignoring all the fighting going on around us for a moment of peaceful recollection.

I knew these Storm Creatures weren’t bad beings, it was just bad circumstances that led them to this.

-Present day, Fluttershy-

I was establishing myself pretty well, my home was kind of like an animal daycare service and it was so fun meeting so many pets of the various ponies that lived here in Ponyville.

I just had a slight problem today, one that left me covered in various bumps, scrapes and bruises. Even my mane was a mess, I might have some minor claw marks on my body and I felt dead on my hooves.

It was hard work caring for all the animals at the shelter, they were all so very playful and energetic. I was just one mare and I was already running out of energy even after I just ate lunch.

I was definitely happy with my job though, it was safe to say that animals would always be a part of my life.

Huffing and puffing, I felt like I needed to pace myself better next time. I laid down in the grass in the park nearby and rested, I would need some time before I could return to playing with all those animals.

“Oh my goodness you poor dear, what happened to you?!” Cowering away from the voice and looking up at the white furred mare with the purple hair addressing me, I curled up. She seemed to be somewhat excitable over my current state of appearance. I certainly didn’t look my best right now. “I’m sorry to say this, but you look like an absolute mess darling. Your mane is filthy, you’re covered in bruises and you honestly look like you could use some help.”

I tried to squeak out a reply. My shyness really came out on this one, especially because this mare was really quite beautiful and she seemed to have an upper crust lilt to her voice. I might even be a bit attracted to her. It was not because of all the stuff she does to look pretty, but because she had eyes like gems.

Her eyes kind of reminded me somewhat of Fizzle’s eyes. Except they didn’t glow, but they certainly gleamed like gems.

“I won’t take no for an answer… or whatever it was that you were doing there! I have to fix this degradation of beauty, no… I must simply fix this travesty!” This mare seemed a little flamboyant. “Come with me and I’ll help you get fixed right up! No mare as pretty as you look, even at your current worst, should stay like this any longer than you absolutely have to.”

She thought I was pretty! My cheeks swelled with heat until my entire face was encompassed, I could see the redness of my nose. She helped me up and she started to drag me somewhere.

“Um… excuse…” I started to mumble as I was being tugged along by this mare, she could have just left well enough alone. Also I could still walk as I wasn’t exactly an invalid, though my shyness was sometimes quite crippling.

“Hmm… oh right, I forgot to introduce myself, where are my manners. I’m the fabulous Rarity!” Well at least I knew who she was now. “I know just the place that will help you get back into looking your best, it has a really nice seaweed wrap option and they’ll help clean you up right quick dear.”

“Um… what?” Seaweed wrap? What in the world was she talking about? Who would clean me up? I’m a little confused about where this was all going.

“Why I’m taking you to the Ponyville’s Spa of course! Its run by Aloe, Vera and Lotus, the Blossom triplets and they are all quite great at what they do. I’m going to pay for this treat you truly deserve, if you work about as hard as that farm pony Applejack. She’s always so unclean! My reward for helping you will simply be your currently hidden beauty being returned to its best shining state!” It sounded like Rarity had some distaste for Applejack, maybe I could get them to be friends if I played mediator? Also this conversation was really kind of one sided and she was being really kind of pushy, but maybe I could use some time at the spa. I opened my mouth to tell her she didn’t have to pay for me, only for her hoof to gently stop me and she batted her eyes while looking into mine. “Don’t worry about a thing darling… what was your name, I don’t think I ever quite got it.”

“Fluttershy… look you really don’t have to…” I started to say, only for her to interrupt me.

“But I insist, you look like you could love some good TLC, Tender, Love and Care! Now let’s go in.” She tugged me through the front door of the Ponyville Spa.

“Hello miss Rarity, it is so nice to see you again and your patronage is always welcome!” The pony behind the counter stated, she looked quite squeaky clean.

“Why thank you, but this is a bit of a spa emergency. I need two regulars Aloe!” Rarity then pointed out my rather disheveled form. “I’m paying for this mare here. I want to get her back to looking like she should, like the beautiful and exquisite mare that I know she can be!”

“You’re always so generous Rarity.” The pony said, before placing some towels and robes on the counter. “Go on back, Lotus and Vera will see to you instantly.”

The next few hours left me feeling a bit embarrassed about the moaning I did from the cleaning, brushing and the massage… oh the massage was definitely a memorable one.

The smirk the massaging mare was sending me after she gave me a quick cuddle wasn’t any less embarrassing, though I was no longer sore afterwards. I quickly got up and made my way to the hot tub where Rarity waited for me.

I would eventually need to learn how to give massages like that, because maybe Gilda would be less grouchy if I could give her a massage as good as that one felt. I’d work her wings over, nuzzle into her neck and then she’d use her beak to…

“Fluttershy!” Squeaking as Rarity called out to me, I ducked into the hot tub slightly.

“Did you want something Rarity?” I whispered out quietly as I came back up.

“Just to know who you’re paramour is, you had such a lovely look in your eyes and you are absolutely precious now that you’re all cleaned up. Whoever you were thinking about is really quite lucky to have someone like you thinking of them!” Rarity put a hoof to her chest while raising her nose to the ceiling. “Aside from that, I can already tell that you and I will be the greatest of friends!”

“I was just um… daydreaming?” I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t come up with anything without telling her that I was gay. I really wasn’t sure how she would take it, though I’m sure many ponies saw me dating Pinkie previously and didn’t think much of it.

“Oh I know what that’s like, it’s about ‘HIM’ isn’t it? That special some pony with the way he smiles, the way he charms you with but a single glance and he’ll take care of you until you both perish together in a romantic manner when the both of you are old and grey surrounded by your many grand foals!” She stopped when she noticed I was giving her a completely flat look. “Too much?”

“Just a bit, though I agree that I would like to be friends with you Rarity.” Oh I liked Rarity, but she was really very much wrong about my romantic leanings.

I liked stallions well enough and would even give them stuff on hearts and hooves day out of friendship, but I was definitely attracted to mares or females of other species. Mostly ones with beaks for some reason.

-The Future that refused to change, Fluttershy-

“So when I was run ragged, somebody friendly came along to help pick me right back up.” I turned to the Storm Creature I was befriending. “So tell me about yourself and how you came to be part of that mean old Storm King’s army?”

He did and I could surprisingly understand him, he was a pretty nice big guy all things considered. He even started crying about how his lot in life was quite horrible, being forced to hurt others had never felt right to him.

“Let it all out.” I put my hoof on his leg gently.

“Fluttershy!” Several voice called out to me.

“Oh, sorry, our time is up. Bye-bye!” I leapt off to go follow my friends as he said goodbye to me as well.

I guess I had started forgetting around that time, I had still remembered Fizzle.

Chapter thirty three, Unfamiliar Faces: Meeting Twilight.

Celestia, Ponyville, a week prior to the Nightmare Moon’s escape, two years after Jade-

My dreams were haunted with visions of my sister, I was second guessing myself constantly and I was quite afraid of what was coming.

I would not fight my sister when she comes for me, but I hope my capture will spur Twilight on to find the Elements of Harmony and get them working again.

I looked about trying think of something that would help Twilight, then I spotted some of Jade’s old friends. Fluttershy and Pinkie with three other mares, they looked like they were having a get together.

They looked like they could use a new friend. One that would be awkward and a little brainy, but I’m sure they could iron out her kinks. All I would need to do is put Twilight into their paths and hope that my precious little shut-in opened her eyes and looked away from all those dusty old books to the world around her.

Hmmm… dusty old books… knock a book from the shelf that Twilight hasn’t read before and she’d jump on reading it in a flash if it caught her interest well enough. Leave an Elements of Harmony reference guide in the local library in Ponyville and… yes… this could work!

-Canterlot a day or so later-

My second guessing and waffling had become that much worse, I had the whole thing planned. Applejack was tasked with the catering. Fluttershy was getting together a bird choir. Rainbow Dash probably wouldn’t have a job if I didn’t help fudge her paperwork a bit, she wasn’t exactly that bright. Rarity would be nice on the decorations as she seems fashion minded.

As for Pinkie? Well Twilight needed someone who doesn’t care about personal space and could break straight through her shell, send Pinkie a message to go to a certain spot near where Twilight will be landing and she’ll hit my purple pony pupil with a surprise party.

Twilight will land where I’ll tell her to, of that I have no doubt. My student tries too hard to make me happy sometimes and telling her where to land exactly would make her do just that.

I know I am relying on so much to happen, but please... let Twilight be capable of returning my sister to me! What if she can’t though!

I was pacing about and the two guards with me lazily watched me panic, why can’t they do something useful and try to calm my worries down? Oh right, the royal guard tend to be more ceremonial than actually combat hardened ponies, I was even beginning to realize that my ponies survived on good will.

Maybe I was doubting the royal guard because I was panicking, was I panicking? Was I doing so too much? Oh my goodness the future relies on me to make a decision to send my precious student away, so of course I’m panicking!

Breathe, calm down, now think about how I can do this and believe that things will turn out for the better.

It’s not like the future of everything relied on Twilight making friends, because she’s ignored the friendships she currently could be having.

Goodness knows that Moon Dancer was infatuated with her and even Spike noticed that and he’s a baby dragon!

My little Twilight was so shut-in that she shut out the possibilities of having a perfectly good friend that could share in her passion.

Moon Dancer could even possibly be in love with Twilight and Twilight’s ignorance was breaking her heart completely! I doubt Moon Dancer would take this well and Twilight would have ruined her life by not trying to connect to others.

Oh my poor little ponies are so doomed!

No, this will work, it has to work!

“Are you okay princess?” One of the guards finally asked, goodness bless him I needed to hear that!

“I’ll be just fine my little pony.” I calmed down and reoriented myself while giving him a small warm smile. Yes, Twilight going to Ponyville was the best idea I had.

-The future that refused to change, Fluttershy-

I knew I should be concentrating on holding onto my friends for dear life as the wind whipped us around, but I couldn’t help but think of the fact that it was around the time that I met Rarity that I started to forget Airship Mauled.

I completely forgot about it when Twilight came to town sometime after Celestia visited, the princess definitely chose Ponyville for the reasons I thought she did. Mostly because Celestia’s sister was returning on that day and to closest location to where she was sealed, which was Ponyville.

Celestia may have planned our friendship, but she didn’t help us get to know Twilight or even force it like Twilight tried with Starlight Glimmer.

Canterlot was encased in a roiling storm and things with the Storm King were not going quite to plan or so well right now.

I know I didn’t want to get sucked into the sky with winds this turbulent. Rainbow would certainly thrive in these stormy conditions, but I was still quite a weak flyer and always would be.

I preferred my hooves on the ground anyway. Right now I was quite scared one of us was going to get pulled away and hurt by all this flailing about we were doing.

My first official meeting with Twilight was a little awkward, but Celestia wanted her to befriend us so who were we to argue with the princess that moved the sun?

Twilight met us on her own merits and we got to know a little about her, we had time to learn a lot more about her after Luna was free of The Nightmare’s influence and she decided to stay in Ponyville with us.

I think I had ultimately forgotten about Airship Mauled as soon as I met Twilight, at the time it had been about two years since I last saw that town and more than a year since I last thought of visiting.

I had settled into my life in Ponyville and was comfy with all the creatures that I was tasked to care for, I was always so busy. The times I were free was spent with Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity and eventually Rainbow Dash when she moved into town.

Rainbow Dash was always looking out for me and I appreciated that, even then she was working towards the goal of being a Wonder Bolt.

Thinking of it, I remembered how I had been tasked with the bird choir that day.

-Fluttershy, Summer Sun Celebration and day of Nightmare Moon’s escape-

This was really tough, each bird was of a different species and all of them had a different tone of voice and getting them all to sing with a decent amount of harmony took quite an effort.

I was managing to make it work and the birds actually wanted to do this, much to my surprise.

I wasn’t about to deny them their show, though I did tell them they’d have to stay up later than usual to do this. Birds tended to go to bed early, but they were surprisingly okay with this and if they were okay with it, then so was I.

They were doing so well in practicing together, but I heard one of the birds being a little bit off. I decided to stop them.

“Excuse me sir, I mean no offense, but your rhythm is just a teeny tiny bit off.” The Blue Jay seemed to take my criticism pretty well. I moved back to continue conducting them. “Now, follow me please. A one, a two. A one, two, three…”

“Hello!” That’s when I first heard Twilight and she scared off all my singers. I landed and things quickly became awkward between me and this Twilight who just introduced herself.

Eventually I tried to tell her my name, but I went all squeaky again. This happened a lot, but only with meeting new ponies. I didn’t have any problems with any other beings except possibly adult dragons which were big and scary.

“Okay, well that was easy.” She turned around and I saw a little dragon approach her, he must have been a baby.

I got a little too excited and rammed head first into Twilight, knocking her out of the way. I didn’t really think about what I just did, I was more interested in talking to the dragon that introduced himself as Spike.

“Hi Spike.” Wow a talking baby dragon, though I couldn’t understand why something felt off about this situation. I couldn’t help but feel something niggling at the back of my mind.

I spent quite a bit of time talking to him, then Twilight bucked him off her back and made up some story about him being sleepy.

I just played along with it and wanted to go inside, because I knew Pinkie had that party waiting for her.

Only Twilight left me outside… I’d just wait for Pinkie to notice I was still out here. It wasn’t long before the door would be open for me, so I just started counting down from sixty.

“Three… two… one.” The door flew open and Pinkie popped out, I sighed and smiled at her while chuckling. She was quite unpredictable a lot of the time, but sometimes she could be timed so easily.

“Hey Fluttershy, I think the party is going great. Come on in!” I went in and decided to get a cupcake for myself, then I would have to get back to practicing with the birds.

“So how is Twilight taking the party Pinkie?” Every new pony that came to Ponyville got one, it didn’t matter if they were staying or not. Pinkie was the Ponyville Party Pony and she greeted everyone with the same enthusiasm.

“I think she’s taking it just… er… well…” Pinkie started to look around, once she noticed the pony she was throwing this party for wasn’t here.

“Don’t worry about Twilight, she just went upstairs to rest for this evening.” Spike tried to reassure us, but Pinkie looked mildly upset that Twilight didn’t stick around longer with the party getting into full swing.

“Pinkie, there will be other parties for Twilight to enjoy.” I put a hoof around her back and pulled her into a hug and nuzzled her neck a bit, she cheered up immediately.

“Of course there will be other parties with her, she’s invited to all of them after all!” With that Pinkie pulled away from me and I smiled after her, it seemed Spike was enjoying the party at least.

After eating my cupcake and avoiding most of the ponies in the room, including Rarity.

I was about to head out when Rarity stopped me.

“Always the shy one, where are you going darling?” I turned to Rarity, it was sweet she was worried about me.

“Yeah Fluttershy, the party is right here!” Rainbow exclaimed vibrantly as she pointed at all the others ponies in the library.

“I have to finish helping the birds, Twilight kind of sidetracked me and we were interrupted by her in the middle of practice.” I was going to be busy right up until Celestia’s appearance tonight, it would be so good to see her again.

“Right, we’ll tell Pinkie you were too busy to stay for long, but you seriously need to mingle more dear.” After Rarity said that I was off to get back to my bird choir.

The bird choir managed to do some warm ups without me around, all this effort was worth it to put a real smile on Celestia’s face.

I heard rumor there was hardly much of a real one on her face these days while in public.

-The future that refused to change, Fizzlepop ‘Tempest Shadow’ Berrytwist La Perm-

Twilight was hugging all her friends and I didn’t feel like interfering with that, though I wished that could be me with two of my friends.

Twilight didn’t need to save me from falling off the balcony, but she had anyway. I closed my eyes for a bit and then turned away to let them have their moment.

I have caused a lot of damage here, I wasn’t exactly proud of myself for what has happened.

It was just like when she… when Jade jumped in the way of the arrow and took it in the chest for me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that made my blood freeze a bit. The Storm King looked ready to turn them all to stone.

It was about time that I let him truly know about my displeasure of having to work for him, he wasn’t going to hurt Fluttershy, Pinkie or even Twilight while I was here.

This Satyr bastard was going to get what was coming to him… ME!

I charged forward ignoring how defensive the ponies got around Twilight and leapt over them to take the hit in the chest for them and then I forced the magic back towards him. Just like Jade would have done for me.

I then took a second leap forward to force us both off the same balcony I would have fallen off earlier to my doom, only this time I was taking the Storm King with me!

My eyes glaring straight into his fearlessly as my flesh and blood hooves connected with him just before they completely turned to stone.

His look of shock as he too started turning to stone was a wonderful sight. Unfortunately I was going to perish right alongside him when we fell.

My last thoughts before the stone encompassed me where to say goodbye to the cruel world and that I might be seeing Jade again real soon.

Heh, I managed to fight the magical power of four alicorns in the 'Staff of Sacanas' when it was used against me all at once several times with my broken stump. That would be one of my greatest accomplishments, my magical output would be legendary!

The last thing I saw was bits of sunlight, then things went black for me.

Before I knew it, I was breathing again and looking to the balcony to my right, then to Twilight and her friends on my left.

Twilight had likely just used the staff to save me. Looking to Fluttershy, she seemed to be giving me a worried look.

Apparently I had survived the Storm King turning me to stone... I sighed.

It looks like death wasn’t meant for me this day.

-Fluttershy-

“Now what?” I asked as I looked to Rarity, who turned to another one of our friends.

“Now…” Fizzle started off with a smile as she came towards us. “We fix everything… at least what can be fixed anyway.”

I heard that last part as she started to make her way towards where the stone princesses were.

Twilight soon fixed all the damage that had been done by the Storm King’s invasion as she slammed the staff down and started returning all the magic in it to where it rightfully belonged. The magic started spreading outward and things were being fixed everywhere.

“Wherever you happen to be now... I’m sorry Jade.” Fizzle quietly mumbled, soon Celestia, Luna and Cadence were no longer stone statues. “If you knew of everything that I’ve done... would you have still wanted to be with me?”

The only thing that wasn’t magically fixed was the broken remains of the Storm King’s statue.

Chapter thirty three, Unfamiliar Faces: Meeting Harmony.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter thirty three, Unfamiliar Faces: The Fallen Stars.

-The future that might change, Fizzle-

One of my guys noticed that Kuril got by them, they turned and were about ready to toss my mother out of the alleyway only for me to get between them.

“You are not going to hurt my mother!” They both became somewhat stunned by my declaration.

Though Niche idly commented that this would explain why I was so angry about Abyssinia being sacked prior to my becoming commander, now leader, of the whole army with the Storm King gone.

“No, still don’t quite see my child, if she were here she’d be spreading her hooves wide open for a hug and would call me ‘mommy’ being my sweet little filly.” I turned to Kuril giving her a disbelieving glance. “I mean, it has been about six years since she’s seen her dear old mother. You would expect a little bit of excitement right, or am I being silly?”

One of the Storm Creatures made an affirmative noised behind me and I growled, the two Storm Creatures were immediately back at the entrance of the alleyway making whistling noises. Good, they at least knew who the boss was here.

I looked to mom and sighed, I spread my hooves open for a hug and did as she asked.

“Mommy!” I even tried to do it in a cute voice. I didn’t need to do this, I just felt like it!

“Now there’s my sweet little filly, the cute commander of her own little army really.” Mom came forward and wrapped me up tightly into a hug and I heard Fluttershy cooing loudly with a smile, I glared at her over mom’s back as I held her tight.

“You say a word about this Fluttershy and I will end you, I have an army and I know how to use it!” Yeah, I was the de facto leader now and could change my mind about helping Canterlot.

“I think you’re too kind for that Fizzle.” Darn it, mom was right. “My grown mare knows how to make things fit into place as if using a chisel. She never unnecessarily hurt any pony and she kept everyone healthy, for in her heart my little Fizzle is quite emotionally wealthy.”

“Are you going to rhyme the entire time you’re here?” Pulling back from the hug and looking to me to address my question, she nodded.

“Just like you took Canterlot by storm I have some room for surprise, like the fact that I haven’t exactly been using my eyes.” With that mom reached up and pulled down the hood revealing a cloth tightly wrapped around her head covering both her eyes. I gave her a shocked look. “Do not be worried or look afraid, I can see just fine with a sustain effect and it’s not exactly a bad price that I paid. For I can still see with my eyes, but I’d rather keep them covered so I won’t see any lies.”

“Mom, what…” I started to ask, when she kissed me on the forehead and ran her fingers over my mane. I leaned into her touch.

“Always my little filly you will be, I’m at least trying to stay happier than those who came before me.” Mom replied, I tilted my head at her questioningly. “Of good witches there are not many to be found, and there being one like me is nice to have around.”

“Excuse me, but I really needed to talk with Fizzle. If that’s okay with you Ms. La Perm?” Nearly forgot that Fluttershy was here, given that mom showed up out of nowhere.

“Oh it is certainly okay, for a mare that is still quite lovely and gay.” Mom’s words made Fluttershy blush.

“I have to know, what happened to Jade that led you to all this Fizzle.” That was a question I’ve been wanting answered for a while Fluttershy.

“I can answer that question, though you might not like the news.” Wait, mom could answer it. “It’s a matter of what you want to hear, if you so choose.”

“Sekhet finally came out of the barrier?” I asked feeling a little hopeful.

“Given that Fluttershy is involved, I’ll say that at least one mystery has been solved.” Mom, Fluttershy is stronger than you think she is. I thought Fluttershy could handle the news and didn’t needed to be treated like glass.

“Somebody attempted to kill Jade, whether they were successful or not is in the air unless…” I turned to mom so that I didn’t have to see Fluttershy’s face after she heard what I said.

“No, it’s still there and that’s our best guess.” Even after six years mom? I don’t think Jade has any chance to come back from wherever she ended up.

Wait a minute… did mom just rhyme off of me?

“What happened to her Kuril, is she… does she need help?” It’s saying something when even Fluttershy won’t say the word dead.

“Into a dimensional vortex she was fed, to a place where no other mortal or god can tread.” Yeah, that definitely sounds like some place that is very conducive to Jade living a long and fulfilling life mom. “With some luck Jade might not actually be dead, though what she’s eating there really cannot be said.”

“Yeah, because we can’t go there to see for ourselves. Did Sekhet have any other information and has anyone else been back to Airship Mauled?” I didn’t feel like letting this go. Sure Jade ended up in a place that no one else can go and it’s been six years since she went there, but I didn’t know why no one else can go there. “Also why can’t anyone else get into that place?”

“That has been some cause for a bit of contention, because she may be frozen in time in that dimension.” Is mom seriously telling me that it’s possible that Jade could still be alive because her injuries can’t make her bleed out? What’s the catch here, aside from her being younger than me now? “We don’t know if that is the case, though Sekhet said it was possible, likely as a way to save face. As for the others that’s really bad news, I’ve lost sight of them all, which left the world looking less colorful in hues.”

“What do you mean you lost sight of them?” In answer to my question mom reached into her pack and pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment.

“There was an enchantment that I did make, so I could track those I cared about with something shed that I did take.” Kuril sat on the cobblestone ground and unrolled the map. “A map for seeing where you all are. Only now all are gone, each fallen like a star.”

“Is there any chance the enchantments could wear out?” I could see two specks of light with differing colors. One was clearly Sekhet at Airship Mauled and the other was me, here in Canterlot. “Also could you drop the whole witch rhyming thing?”

“Okay fine, my own daughter just won’t let me have any fun in this slightly dark world. Let me be clear on this my little Fizzle, I put everyone that left on this map. I even put Maries on here when she was commuting between Canterlot and Airship Mauled.” At her words both Fluttershy and I looked at the map again.

“What happened to Maries, where was she last seen?” I asked instantly with worry.

“Somewhere between Canterlot and Airship Mauled, she was on her way back from another case as a lawyer and now she’s gone. I even hiked out to the location she disappeared at and found signs of unicorns having been in the area. She was going to visit her family in Flame Geyser swamp before coming back.” Mom looked a little disturbed as she pointed out a red spot on the map colored in with a crayon. “Someone had ambushed her here, they likely somehow felt my scrying enchantment and disconnected it before carting her off somewhere. It must have taken quite a concerted effort to bring her down considering the damage to the area when I arrived, I quickly left as I didn’t want to find out if anyone was still around. The area was dead silent and that clearly wasn’t normal. One could not even hear the flame geysers going off, it was just that disturbing to me.”

“What happened to the others?” Though looking at the various spots on the map I could see several red markings. Two of which were over the ocean close to Abyssinia, representing Jacky and Gene’s stand against the Storm King’s attack on Abyssinia. That would be the first place I was going to next. One red marking was by itself in the middle of nowhere which had my interest. “Who was that one?”

“That was the odd one out of all of them, it happened on the night of Nightmare Moon’s return. The summer sun celebration, four years back.” So judging by mom’s words, this would place it as the place that Blade disappeared. “Instead of the light fading away from the map, it flew straight off the map and through the ceiling.”

-Summer Sun Celebration, Airship Mauled, Kuril-

So this was the night that Nightmare Moon was supposed to return, if Jade had been right about everything then I would see something strange happen to Blade if she were to succeed. The light seemed to have stopped in one spot in the middle of nowhere.

Suddenly the light pulled away from the map and started rising towards the ceiling, I blinked in confusion and then made my way outside and looked to the moon in the evening sky.

There I could see four stars moving in conjunction with one another towards the moon ever so slowly.

“Star light Blade Bright, Are you one of the brightest stars that I see tonight? I wish you may, with all your might, return to me some time after this long night.” I watched three stars disappear on the moon and the fourth final one appeared in a flash at the neck of the ‘Mare in the Moon’, slowly the visage of the mare disappeared.

I supposed that fourth star was Blade, she certainly had a sense of humor if she went for the throat of the seal. Like a knife aiming for the Nightmare, I doubt she would actually want to hurt Luna.

Funny, the first thing she ever successfully assassinated was a seal to free someone. Was I crying? Yes, I think I was. I was going to go to sleep, hopefully when I woke up I would feel the sun upon my fur.

-The future that might change, Fizzle-

“Soon after, Princess Luna returned to this world as Nightmare Moon. From there six special ponies freed her from a corruptive influence, two of them were friends of my kitten.” Mom sounded really sad. “At the same time I lost someone else that loved me. She was the first to disappear, one by one each of my little stars on this map disappeared and fell from my sight, Jacky and Gene, Arizona and Velvet, Fortitude and Flamberge. The only ones that are left are you Fizzle, which I’ve been direly worried about, and Sekhet who is quite functionally immortal. Maries could be alive, but I wouldn’t know in what condition or where though.”

Fluttershy fluttered into the air and over to mom, she wrapped her hooves around my blinded mother and tugged her into a tight hug. I followed that up with a hug of my own, I never knew Blade loved mom.

I wasn’t against it, but Blade left my mother alone and I would not forgive her for that if she ever came back.

“It’ll be okay, even if it isn’t, then we’ll make it okay!” Fluttershy pressed herself against us further, this was a quiet minute for us and it was beginning to get late in the evening. Once we separated, I turned to mom.

“Are you… staying for the Friendship Festival mom?” She was about to answer when she looked away from me and towards the sky beyond the dead end of the alley, she quickly stood up and we could all see a shooting star that was angled sharply downwards.

Mom, clasped her paws together while putting them to her chest.

I blinked as I felt like my eyes were deceiving me when a saw a light split off from the star and saw it heading towards…

I looked down at the map as that small speck of light I thought I saw landed exactly where the red dot was on the map.

Fluttershy and I just stared at the spot, there was as smile on Fluttershy’s face and I can slowly feel one building onto mine.

“I’m not sticking… around…?” Mom turned and somehow saw the third light on the map laying upon the ground, she swiftly picked it up and looked upon it thoroughly in surprise. Well as much surprise as could be seen when her eyes were still covered. After that the cloth around her eyes became soaked with fat tears of relief and a smile I hadn’t seen on my mother’s face since she first removed her hood. She still hadn’t removed the cloth wrapped around her eyes and she only had two words to say. “Welcome back.”

“Maybe the others can come back too?” That was a little too hopeful Fluttershy. “I do want to see them all again.”

“You know, I wanted to destroy this map in a fit of rage.” Mom stated with a bit of whimsy in her voice. “Watching it day by day I felt like I had the world in my paws, that I could tear it all apart by ripping up this map.”

“What stopped you?” Here mom turned a smile to me and sat a paw on my head to started rubbing my ears affectionately.

“This little light of mine, she was the one that always shined.” That didn’t answer my… oh wait, she was talking about me. I felt my cheeks heat up, why do female Abyssinians always make me blush?! “I thought I had lost you too when I looked at the map. Only to find out my thumb slightly covered your position while I was looking over the map in a panic and I saw your light moving for Canterlot. So I quickly came here as fast as I could.”

“How did you get in or by all the Storm Creatures?” I smacked my forehead with a hoof for asking that dumb question. “No, wait, let me guess. Illusion powder, shadow swimming with the cloak or knowing all the secret passages throughout the city thanks to The Squirrels?”

“All of the above, the illusion powder I make has become quite potent, it was not difficult to get into the city in the last few hours. I had to tell The Squirrels that they were wrong about you being a bad pony and to look at things more closely.” Mom giggled a bit. “They went absolutely nuts when I told them all of the things you were doing on the side that the Storm King wouldn’t have likely approved of.”

“Of course they did, they’re The Squirrels mom!” With my exclamation, both Fluttershy and mom burst out with laughter.

“I want to meet them.” Who was going to tell Fluttershy that it was a gang run by a squirrel?

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredient!)

Mirror.

Now I'll get to the travelers, starting with Arizona and Velvet.

Anyone has any complaints? Because Arizona and Velvet's story hopefully won't take all year given everywhere where it goes.

Chapter thirty four, Alpaca My Bags: Dusty Trails.

-Arizona, train to Appleoosa, three months, one week and several days after Jade-

I was suddenly woken up by a hardy kick to the face and I reflexively slapped a hoof out roughly against something soft and squishy making it yelp loudly.

“Did you just slap my teats?” Velvet asked as she sat up groggily.

“Did you just kick my face?” I asked rhetorically, I knew she did.

“Of course not, why would ever do that? At least by accident, when I could be doing it on purpose.” Upon giving Velvet a scathing glare, she only blushed a bit. “Sorry, what am I thinking, I should have slapped you across the face for getting fresh with me. That’s how most ladies do it.”

“Says my dear deer who’s certainly lacking in the lady department.” This was going to be a long journey, I could already tell. Life would mean nothing if I wasn’t at Velvet’s throat as much as she was at mine, we had a clear understanding between us. We despise and loved each other in equal measure. “You kicked me in the face and retaliation was warranted, I couldn’t slap you in the face so I chose the next best target within reach and you just woke me up.”

“You are very dirty minded cow then.” Instead of responding verbally to Velvet’s statement, I just grinned. “You’re not going to deny it?”

“Why would I with someone as beautiful as you always on my mind?” Double blush, I charmed her well.

“You’re infuriating.” Velvet groaned out as she shoved me out of the seat while taking up the entire space.

“And you’re comfortable.” I said as got back on the seat by laying myself over her body, this annoyed her to no end as I wasn’t about to let her get out from being under me.

I snuggled against her and all Velvet did was huff loudly and look away, I knew she liked this. If she didn’t, then she’d be immediately trying to throw me off.

“Last stop, Appleoosa!” A conductor said as he trotted in, he stopped to stare at us. “If you’re going to make a mess, please put down something to soak it up.”

“No, we’re cool, just snuggling.” I wasn’t about to push anything with Velvet, but teasing her was too fun. Like say sticking my nose in her ear and flicking my tongue into it.

I heard Velvet gasp and she gave off a tiny squeaking sound, afterwards she just looked at me with a small smile.

“Whatever, just don’t make a mess until you’re off the train and maybe bring a thick blanket next time?” The conductor grumbled, he continued on while complaining about something we were both embarrassed about for a few seconds. “It’s always so hard to clean up after young lovers these days!”

-Appleoosa, burgeoning town-

We just got off the train and we were greeted by a friendly, read desperate, looking young pony that was almost still a colt. His green eyes spoke of excitement and wanting to do something big.

“Welcome to Appleoosa!” Pale yellow fur with oranges streaks in his hair, he seemed to be the town greeter. All pony towns seemed to have one, Manehattan didn’t some to have one and I thought that was only because it was a city. “I’m Braeburn and… hey where are you going?!”

The two of us just walked on past him.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t try to run the spiel through us about finding a good home here, we already have one and we’re just passing through and heading on out on a journey.” I of course was the coarse one, but Velvet at least tried to address him in a manner that was a little less callous than mine.

We were going to find out what happened to my mother, I’ve been with Grace for a long time.

“We could stop for some food and water before we head out Zone, we’ve been on that train for a while and I’m a bit parched.” Okay, so Velvet had a decent excuse and complaint for us stopping here. She leaned in towards me and followed up. “Besides, we can always ask for information here.”

“We stop for snacks, but we’re not asking for directions.” Why did I receive such a loud huff of derision? “All we need to do is head west until we hit some plains.”

“Of course you’d be like that in this relationship, typical.” I had no idea what Velvet was talking about.

“I’m sure that we’ll eventually find someone that lives out here to give us directions fluff butt.” I enjoyed the feeling of dirt under my hooves. The train ride wasn’t all too great for me, I liked flying or hoofing it better. “We only need said directions when we don’t know where to go from when we get there, because I doubt anyone here in this relatively new town would know anything.”

“I could still give you the tour of our humble...” This Braeburn tried, he really did, we both just glared at him and he backed off. “Know anything about what?”

“Do you know anything about a world snake or a large cow named Minnesota?” when I asked this, Braeburn just gave us this rather blank look and the shook his head no sadly. I turned to Velvet. “See he doesn’t know a single thing about where we’re going. Snacks, drink and then we’re getting out of here.”

We both went past him into town and then he quickly followed us.

“Hey, wait up, I know a place where you can get some vittles for your journey at least!” Well we didn’t know Appleoosa too well, maybe we could give him a shot.

I looked to Velvet and she looked to me. My tail flicked about, her ears wiggled a bit and we stared into one another’s eyes for a second.

“Okay.” I finally said after a minute of silent contemplation.

“Yes, you won’t regret getting help from me!” He then led us to the town’s saloon, salt lick, drinks and snacks all were available or so he advertised. Being too young for a salt lick personally, I wondered why he advertised it.

“If they have sea-salt ice cream, I’m going for it.” Yeah, Velvet was an ice cream addict. It surprisingly didn’t impact her figure whatsoever. All our fighting certainly kept my reindeer fit.

“This backwater place? Not likely to have any ice cream at all, but I will pay if they do.” I muttered back, buying Velvet ice cream always made her happy.

I walked up to the bartender and sat down on a stool and Velvet sat down on my right.

“So is it too soon to ask or do you have the rules set up yet.” He gave me a narrowed eyed look and then looked to Braeburn before returning a questioning gaze to mine. “Not him, but I do feel like throwing a chair to throw down with my girlfriend here.”

The bartender nodded as he cleaned his glass and gave of noise of acknowledgement.

“You are of course right he’s a bit too young for it, not nearly as spry as you two seem. Hearty Stock, so are you sticking around or are you travelers?” Hearty asked as we started shooting each other glances of determination.

“Travelers, special companions even, and we’re going to be heading out west towards the plains and grasslands.” I didn’t know where we were going once we got there, but it was sure to be interesting.

“Heading towards the lambkin settlement? Not much else out there, aside from that giant snake skeleton being a tourist attraction.” A snake skeleton was informative at least, mom must have taken it down. “Don’t rightly know why it is there or how something that big could be taken down by anything unless it starved to death, but with all Tatzlwurms in the area that’s kind of unlikely. They say its bones will never crumble, I think that’s a load of hooey though.”

“I guess it was a good thing we stopped.” I muttered to Velvet who just smiled at me. “Water and whatever fruit snacks you feel are good.”

Once we ate and also paid for Braeburn's snack, I got off my stool, lifted it up and looked to the bartender. This place had some pretty good apple pie and the water didn’t taste funny so this place had something going for it.

“What are the rules?” I asked of Hearty.

“No breaking things, so please don’t break the chair when you throw it, no below the belt hits, if your opponent gives up you stop immediately, no weapons allowed, no death and since this saloon is relatively fresh no wrecking it by tossing each other into things.” Huh, that was a challenging bunch of rules to follow for a saloon brawl. “Anyone throws up all fighting and fun stops immediately, our local clinic is not up to snuff with supplies to handle anyone being sick.”

“Okay then, let’s fight Velvet!” I tossed the stool to the side and it clattered to the floor, several ponies were now watching. “We’ve had our fill, now let’s put on a show!”

“Just remember that I won’t be able to use any magic for this, but if I must fight with my hooves alone… I can do it.” She pushed her stool gently into place as she stood up and then she lowered herself down, I followed her actions in mirror.

We then launched towards each other with our front right hooves pulled back for a brawl of the likes these ponies have never seen before.

-Thirty minutes later, Velvet-

“Okay that was a fun warm up, but we need to save our energy for the road.” I stretched out my spine with a pop, Arizona was really brutal with that strength of hers. “I need something to drink or cool me down, you wouldn’t happen to have ice cream would you?”

“Velvet, you might want to admit that you have a problem.” Arizona sat right down next to me. “But, yeah, you’re right about us needing to save energy for the road.”

"I admit nothing." I stated loudly.

Everyone in the room were staring at us, like regular deer with a flashlight shined into their eyes. I would have a different reaction to that being a reindeer. Throw out a wall of ice and hope that the light didn’t pierce through it if it is anything like a unicorn spell.

“You two are more seasoned than I thought, you fight like pro’s and I don’t think that was even the best you could do with my restrictions was it? Also no, no ice cream, but we have cold cider alcoholic and not.” We had more snacks and drinks, while Braeburn went on about what he saw.

“That was completely amazing you two, you were like kapow and she was like rapid fire with her hooves and then…” It sounded like he would go on forever, I just had to interrupt him.

“Yes, yes, Arizona and I are quite fantastic when it comes to us fighting one another, Arizona was pulling her blows because I couldn’t use my ice magic.” Bar fighting was not beneath me, as long as Arizona was there to put up a good challenge. “She’s strong enough to flip an elephant… probably stronger since her muscles healed from that. Dr. Bones said that you shouldn’t overdo it on the super strength you have Arizona.”

Arizona’s response was to hold up a hoof and flex her leg, her toned muscles bulged upwards and she gave me a smirk. I blushed and looked away, my heart aflutter.

“Thanks for the snacks and drinks, how much for the second round?” Letting Arizona pay for this second round of food and drink would be a faux pas on my part, I could use my own money too. I wouldn’t ever deny her paying for ice cream though.

I was about to open my mouth to speak when the Mr. Stock spoke up.

“Well shoot, you don’t need to pay for this second round. Watching you two go at it was payment enough, though I don’t think we got the full show.” He chuckled amiably. “Wouldn’t want one, you two could destroy this whole town on your own.”

We didn’t answer that statement, for he was correct, we were actually that strong.

“Well let’s go Velvet, we have to get a move on…” Arizona was about to step outside, when she backed up and pulled out a map. “Where is this lambkin settlement located?”

“You’re actually asking for directions?” I was a little surprised, she had previously wanted to wing it and now she’s asking for directions?

“Eh, maybe these lambkin he mentioned have seen something.” She took up the map once the bartender marked it down and we bade the town of Appleoosa farewell. We made our way along the dusty trail badlands to the west with our loaded packs full of dried fruit snacks à la Kuril on our backs.

-Several days later-

Okay I was getting quite tired of the dusty landscape, I really needed a bath and I could see the green hills on the horizon.

We were almost to the plains. I’m surprised that we didn’t run into any trouble.

We’ve been traveling west for several days and if it hadn’t been for the passing buffalo tribe, I might have been low on drinking water.

“Finally, we must be leaving the desert and badlands.” I might have complained a little about it all.

“Yeah, you can finally stop complaining about how dirty you are, personally I’m enjoying this!” You would my dirty, dirty cow.

“One to talk when said cow wants all of this to be at her finest.” I stopped to motion at my whole body.

“I’ll take a quite a big slice of that at the very least.” Arizona commented with a hint of humor in her voice.

We both giggled and I sighed upon first touching the grassy hill of the plains before us.

“Happy to be back on firm grass huh? It probably tastes as good as it looks.” Only cows would comment on how green the grass is, unless you’re a pony that is a naturalist or too poor to pay for more nutritional food.

I think we may have taken a good fifty feet worth of steps into the plains before we ran into our first sign of trouble. After nothing had happened in the badlands, aside from our constant fighting and bickering as per usual, it was about this time that something interesting happened.

For upon cresting the first hill near a river in this flower heavy meadow looking place, I saw something that filled me with horror, dread and existential fear.

“No, it can’t be, this is the worst possible thing ever!” I received a curious look from Arizona. “Don’t you see Arizona it’s that darned evil eldritch abomination of a fluffmancer!”

In our path sat Paprika Paca, who was rolling around in the grass and innocently chasing butterflies. Her nose twitched and she sneezed sending dandelions seeds floating into the air.

She was pure unadulterated evil for someone so cute!

Her nose sniffed again, her ears perked up and her purple eyes landed on me in an instant.

When her pupils changed into hearts, I ducked behind Arizona.

“An alpaca. That’s what you’re afraid of?” Arizona, you fool! “She doesn’t look dangerous."

Author's Note

I feel sorry for Arizona when Velvet inevitably uses her as a shield.

Chapter thirty four, Alpaca My Bags: Embattled Trails.

Author's Note

I think I might have missed something in editing here...

Chapter thirty four, Alpaca My Bags: Embattled Trails.

-Arizona-

“Just be careful Arizona, you do not take her lightly in a fight!” Velvet had started moving for the stream while giving the alpaca a wide birth. I’ll be done with this alpaca in no time and will join her in getting water.

Paprika charged towards me and I charged her as well, I threw my right hoof forward first and her head on that long neck swayed out of the way.

I quickly threw my left hoof for her head and she just swayed away and caught my leg to start snuggling it against her chest while nuzzling me affectionately.

I kicked off the ground with my rear legs while gripping some of her fur with my right hoof, I was going to kick her with both my rear legs. Only I was blasted backwards when her fur suddenly fluffed up and outwards.

The sudden blow sent me sprawling, before I knew it the alpaca pounced on me and was cuddling me against her tightly. I felt my bones creak under the pressure of her hug. At least I had felt them creaking until I felt myself launch upwards out of her confused hooves.

I flipped uncontrollably once in the air and before I could hit the ground I saw her face coming at mine while I was upside down. She kissed me on the nose while sliding her entire body underneath me.

I was launched again by her four hooves hitting me from below. I had managed to control my fall from the arc she had launched me in with a well-timed aerial somersault.

Hitting the ground hooves first and skidding a few feet, I was about to regain my balance when the alpaca was already upon me.

Her hooves grabbed my shoulders and she planted a huge kiss on me, shoving her large tongue deeply into my mouth. I pulled my face away from her sharply and stumbled backwards and away from her feeling a bit dazedly cross eyed.

She was pretty good at kissing, but darn it if it wasn’t embarrassing to be losing to her like this!

She was smiling at me as she bounced in place waiting for me to come at her, she then did something that made my blood boil.

She closed her eyes and started trotting in place while titling her face to the left and right slightly, she was taunting me!

I moved forward, only for her neck to shoot out stretching and twisting impossibly to hit me in the chest as she kissed me on the chin before retreating. This made me grunt as she had knocked the air out of my lungs while pushing me back.

Okay, I think I have a good read of her fighting style, entirely about keeping her opponent entirely off balance. Velvet’s fighting style was all about moving and striking swiftly, while also using her magic to supplement her movements to do some damage.

Kicking off the ground, I leaped high over Paprika’s back and came down towards her in an attempt to stomp down on her. Only I received a face full of her fluff spiking upwards into me, which launched me backwards.

I swore I could see her skin underneath all that fluff after it moved. When her fluff retracted the small cloth she wore over her back throughout all this was miraculously back in place.

She simply smiled happily at me, almost like she was smirking at me in a silent challenging with her happiness.

Getting up from being sprawled out on my back, I glared at Paprika. She stood in place with that bouncy enthusiasm of hers while continuing to give me that affectionate altruistic grin.

I charged forwards and then dropped into a slide as the alpaca tried to hip check me in an affectionate manner, she had missed my form going underneath her.

Paprika looked for me in the direction she intended to hit me and then looked between her legs questioningly.

Having gotten on the other side of her, coming out of my slide I put my all into hitting her with my right hoof as I kicked off the ground towards her.

She lifted her face from looking underneath herself to suddenly take my first real solid hit in this fight, I sent her sprawling and flopping away from me. Her eyes were still spinning in their sockets from the blow as she quickly got up.

Stumbling about a bit, within a second or two the alpaca was back to being all better and had her equilibrium again.

Her pupils turned into hearts once again as soon as she was able to focus on me and she was grinning up a storm as she moved towards me, what was up with her?

I moved in and threw a hoof strike forward and she neatly leaned out of the way and caught my leg to hold it in place over her left shoulder. I threw my right hoof forward and she caught that as well to hold on her other shoulder. She then tried to go for another kiss while she pinned my front legs.

I ducked my head under the attempt, confusing her when she missed catching my lips again.

I smirked as I rammed my horns up under the fur on her chest and then heaved her harshly into the air, she bounced and rolled several times before fluffing up to stop her tumbling.

She got back into a standing position and then came bounding towards me in several leaps, on the last leap she spun and her fur whipped around and off of her body leaving most of her hairless during the attack.

I avoided the several swings of the thick mass of fur that she could seemingly attach and detach from herself at will, until her aerial spin ended and she came down landing on all four hooves with her fur fully back in place.

I reached under my bandana and then tossed a rope around her neck, she smiled for some reason and waited calmly. Maybe she liked the rope?

The annoying alpaca, for whatever reason, squealed with glee as I pulled her towards me and attempted to lay into her with several blows.

I started by striking her across the left side of her face with my right hoof, both dazing her and sending her fluff flying from the right side of her face.

A left hoof straight to the chest blew off a large amount of fluff from her back as the shockwave of my blow went straight through her.

Paprika grunted in pain slightly, she seemed to have actually felt that one. I wasn’t holding back on her anymore, she was likely too insane to fight with anything less! I can now see why she scares Velvet as badly as she does, she was quite hard to hurt or fend off.

Trying to shoulder tackle her next, my blow landed solidly. Only I didn’t feel like I did anything with this one.

Paprika wavered and wobbled backwards with my blow in a rubbery manner, she then snapped forward with impressive force sending me tumbling a good forty or so feet back towards Velvet.

Each bounce along the ground caused me bruises and scrapes a plenty, I eventually came to a stop on my belly with my legs splayed out. I’m quite thankful we were fighting on grassy plains or else skidding along the ground on my stomach would have been more painful.

Did she just seriously hit me with the force of my own shoulder tackle like a bounce back punching bag?

No time to think, she was coming at me again and she looked… slightly worried for me? I wasn’t weak, this alpaca had no reason to be worried about me at all!

I growled as I got up and lunged towards her leading with my left hoof this time, she came to a stop and sat down.

I sent a flurry of blows at her and she matched my blows with her own thin hooves slapping against my larger ones with equal force. How in world is she matching me and is she… she is, she’s playing patty cake with my attempts to hit her!

Every three of my hoof strikes or so, Paprika would clap her hooves together childishly while smiling and continuing to block my storm of ferocious blows with her own hoof strikes.

I stopped throwing attacks and she planted her front hooves on the ground and swung her rear half around to sideways buck me in the face knocking me onto my back.

“You know, I’m almost somewhat happy about my fear of Paprika being vindicated like this. Given she’s almost as strong as you are even without all her fluffmancer abilities being taken into account.” Velvet idly commented from off to the side. “That patty cake session actually did hurt her somewhat. Her front legs look quite numb, are you sure you can take her down?”

“I said I will and I can, get off my back about this fluff butt!” It’s just that I’ve never faced an opponent that was so unpredictable before, needless to say I think I may even be slightly attracted to her. “I reckon she’s in for a wrecking!”

I charged forward and stopped abruptly as the alpaca lowered her head and tried to swing it upwards at me. Upon missing me, I grabbed her shoulders and decided to give her a taste of her own medicine.

I kissed her like she did me, making her stumble back looking horribly confused and even a bit mystified as I felt about all of this. After a moment she seemed to become rather ecstatic that I had even kissed her back, I silently admitted that I actually kind of liked this nuisance’s fighting style.

I then tried to slug her across the face only she ducked down and her head shot forward to roughly kiss my other leg forcefully making me fall into her swinging something up towards my face.

Getting struck in the chin knocked my head up a bit, I was allowed to come back down into a normal standing position. I blinked confusedly as she was now holding a bouquet of flowers out towards me.

I gave her a confused look and she slowly started to stick out her tongue. The flowers were forced into my hooves as she looked away from me shyly.

Eventually she turned back to me flicking her tongue in and out multiple times making a fluting noise.

“Meep-meep!” She cried out cheerily before backing up slowly with one eye closed and the other giving me a spine chilling seductive look.

She scrunched up and then suddenly lunged forward with her hooves wide open to give me a big hug and my reaction, given my current circumstances, was less than stellar.

I slapped her across the face with the flowers she just gave me and then threw an uppercut to her jaw that flipped her backwards to land on her butt.

While she was shaking off her failed attempt to wrap me in a big loving hug, I chose this moment to try and knock her out.

I slammed my hooves against the ground, causing it to rupture beneath me. Bunching my up all muscles, I launched head first into her with a mighty blow.

Having knocked Paprika into the air, my momentum carried me far past her where I skidded against the ground and kicked off back towards her coming towards me. Jumping, I slammed all four of my hooves against her as hard as I could.

Paprika plowed into the ground and created a decent sized trench, I sniffed loudly as I stared at her injured form laid out before me and Velvet in the grassy hills full of flowers.

“I knew you weren’t up to… what?” I watched as Paprika put a hoof against the ground and struggled to stand.

Despite how painful that last attack must have been from the sudden whiplash I just gave her, she stood up and kept grinning. Said grin looked slightly dimmer now, she reached into her fur and pulled out a… flower pot?

“Arizona, you have to move before she..!” Velvet had tried to warn me, only I received a flower pot to the face.

I couldn’t react to what happened next, it was all a blur. As Paprika was all over me with aggressive kisses, hugs, nuzzles and sensually debilitating strikes to rather sensitive spots that left me blushing. The blows were coming at me from all directions, how fast was this blond furred love freak of an alpaca?!

After weathering the storm of hyperactive affection, I groggily stood still and blinked while looking around for more incoming strikes of passion. I felt like I was just put through a blender of affection… I oddly kind of liked it.

Looking around I didn’t see a single sign of Paprika, but I did see a picnic basket beneath me. What was Velvet covering her head and cowering on the ground for?

A second later I found out when Paprika exploded from a picnic basket, that was logically too small for her to have fit inside of, and food went flying everywhere as I was knocked high into the air. I was struck by several pieces of picnic fixings before I started to come down.

I was too tired to break my fall this time. Flailing as I came down, I was going to hit the ground roughly and… landed on something really soft.

I felt the soft stuff slowly pull out from underneath me carefully, leaving me sitting on a picnic blanket. Did Paprika just catch me with her fur?

The blanket I was on came from the small cloth that had been on Paprika’s back. It had been stretched to the point that there was enough room for me and Velvet to sit on it comfortable. The food on the blanket looked pretty good.

Moderately battered, Paprika then turned a cheerful eyes to Velvet, I was pretty wiped by that affectionate assault and I didn’t feel like I could continue taking her on. I simply picked up a fresh looking apple on the blanket and bit into it.

-Velvet-

“I’m going to be honest with you Paprika. I’m completely terrified of you, you horrify me and you ruined my life!” My screaming at Paprika made her do something I hadn’t seen her do before, I didn’t want to fight her after she had completely tired Arizona out. “I might even be able to say that I hate you for everything that you’ve done to me!”

A second before she looked happy as she approached me to unload her loving affection all over me, only she stopped and wilted at my scathing words.

She now approached me much more slowly, but the ever present smile was not as grand on her face.

“What, do you want to ruin my relationship with Arizona as well with your enthusiasm you horrid monster?” Much to my surprise she shook her head no.

She gently grabbed my right hoof and tugged me towards the picnic blanket, I didn’t think she could frown and her current level of smile was what would pass for frowning for her.

Upon sitting down together, she gently put her hooves on me and placed her forehead against mine to look me in the eyes.

Her pupils shifted into sad looking hearts.

I think I’ve misjudged her greatly.

Chapter thirty four, Alpaca My Bags: Cold Trails.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter thirty four, Alpaca My Bags: Canine Trails.

-Velvet, southeast of lambkin village-

After a nice breakfast at the sunny village of Lambert, we headed southeast for a time.

“So, why are we doing this again?” We had entered a small valley like area between two large almost mountainous hills, I looked at the large white marble pillars covered in plant debris arching overhead. They were about ten feet thick in diameter each, which was quite artistically hard to pull off given the location they were planted. “Also did someone build a temple out here or something?”

Paprika was carrying the food meant for the bravest sheep of the village, the one who lived out here. Maybe that sheep was the one that built these large marble pillars that made such a sophisticated archway covered in plants.

Arizona stopped and she took one long look at our surroundings, she then gasped loudly and seemed to stare off into space.

“Is everything okay Arizona?” I must admit that spending most of this morning keeping Paprika in line cut into my combat exercise time with my favorite cow. This left me feeling something akin to a large itch to fight Arizona.

My mood towards Paprika was still quite sour and all she did was annoy me even more this morning.

“My mom actually managed to take on something of that size?” She was rather quiet, but we had both heard her.

Paprika was more curious than anything about what Arizona meant, even I had my attention squarely on her.

“What do you mean of that size? I don’t see anything too grand out here aside from the unique ancient archways made of marble.” Though setting up archways that big must have taken quite some effort.

“Those aren’t crafted archways Velvet.” Why did Arizona seem so sure of that? I looked up at the archways and how they came together in a unique fashion and hooked to the next archway by a large piece of… oh… oh my goodness. “They’re bones.”

“I knew that some big snake was involved in what your mother dealt with in the story… I just didn’t think it was ‘that’ big!” Said bones belonged to a dead snake that was positively humongous and we were just walking under a portion of them, I just looked at the skeletal structure arching overhead in awe. “I was actually thinking of something akin to a basilisk in size and danger, I mean a king of snakes or serpents would be quite hard to surpass.”

“If a basilisk is king, then this must have been a mortal god of snakes.” Arizona moved over to one of the bone pillars off the trail we were following into them. “Immortal in the sense of being ageless, but can still die in a particularly permanent fashion.”

The vertebrae I was walking under was more than three times my size alone. Why the snake must have been gigantic for us to be walking under its skeletal structure like we were! Arizona’s mother was said to have dealt with this thing?

How?! How does a cow, no matter how tough, survive or even deal with something this large!

Paprika didn’t seem scared or perturbed of the bones we were walking under, she just continued to hop along with us and be annoyingly perky. She eventually came to a stop and stared at something, I stopped too.

Paprika noticed something and I couldn’t dismiss the idea that someone was here. Arizona noticed too and we were both looking for what Paprika was staring at.

I could hear the sound of movement and we both went still, but Paprika continued to bouncily stand in place and stare at something, her rump started to wiggle and her tail started rapidly wagging until it turned into a blur.

Whatever was about to attack us was in for a huge surprise, knowing Paprika like I do.

Paprika definitely had a much faster reaction time than either Arizona or I. The only reason why Paprika hadn’t made a move yet, is because whatever she was looking at wasn’t close enough to hug violently.

The creature peeled away from the plants growing on the bone pillars and it was targeting me as it leapt, I didn’t react and just stood perfectly still with a flat lazy look on my face.

Arizona looked eager to smack this creature around and was ready for a fight, but I already knew the truth of the matter. It was already too late for the poor dumb creature.

In fact, I was more terrified for what was about to happen to it, as it almost didn’t deserve the incoming Paprika assault. It had a rather good taste in targets though, but I was quite prepared for it if Paprika had missed.

A foot away from reaching me with its claws, a blur of fluff passed me and slammed into it.

Once I could make out what Paprika was snuggling against after their violent tumble that entirely favored the fluffy alpaca, I was less than worried.

A single timber wolf? Oh please, we deal with those all the time up north. Less than a trifle really.

It didn’t seem to be an ever green timber wolf either, the sad creature was panicking and scrabbling to escape Paprika’s hooves as she nuzzled and cuddled it tightly. It would be quite understandable if the predator learned to avoid her after this.

“That was kind of anticlimactic.” Of course it was Arizona, what did you expect?

“I prevented Paprika from getting her affection out this morning, she must be quite pent up and needed to get all that love out of her system.” I knew Paprika better than Arizona did, the alpaca was a fighter that fought like a lover, with hugs and kisses.

Several softer growls were heard, several small black and white puppies came out from around the bone pillars and started barking at us.

There were four of them and they were all just plain adorable, I even patted one on the head and it stopped barking to nuzzle against me affectionately.

That’s when a large black and white dog leapt out and came towards us, she was as large as a bear and was growling at us fiercely.

There was also a dire wolf, an orthros, a Cerberus breathing flames out of its three heads, a coyote and there was even a bright white fox with two green tipped tails that seemed to be glowing.

They were all encircling us growling and looked ready to attack. We might actually have to prepare for a real fight, I don’t think I had the heart to harm the charming little puppies though.

They charged for us and I stood on my hind legs taking a dancing pose. I was preparing to launch various shards of ice at all the numerous aggressive creatures.

All of them were quite different and they all seemed to be working together which was rather… odd, now that I thought of it. This many diverging species working as one is not something you’d expect in nature really.

Arizona pulled out some rope and started to twirl it prepared to throw it, only for someone to voice their concern for how this situation was going.

“All of you stop that right now!” The various animals sat down and looked towards the one who shouted at them. Hearing the tingling of a bell, we turned to a gangly looking sheep that came running onto the scene. She looked at them and us timidly and then muttered. “Thank you for actually listening to me this time. I’m so sorry about all this, they are really quite protective of me. I sometimes wish they really weren’t, hello my name is Pom and I’m quite sorry about my aggressive friends.”

This pom had white fur with a tinge of pink to it, her skin underneath her wool was a dark lavender color. She was wearing a purple choker with a bell attached to it.

She looked rather upset with the recent situation, though I’m quite sure we could have handled it without her assistance.

“Excuse me for asking this, but why did the… one, two… why did the three of you come here? There’s nothing out here for anyone… aside from me and my general lot in life.” The timid sheep muttered sadly, this was the brave sheep that Puff mentioned? She didn’t look it, but she had stopped these… I just noticed that all of them were canines. She was kind of surrounded by beings that would rip her to shreds if they got hungry enough. “Unless you wanted to look at the bones. Well you’ve seen them, they are right there, so you can go now… please?”

“How rude.” I stated clearly, turning my nose up at her. This sheep obviously must be quite lonely for intelligent companionship given all the company she currently kept.

Maybe she had a good reason for being this rude, but I wasn’t inclined to care with the way she was acting.

“No, I actually wanted to know more about what happened here.” Arizona was motioning to the area around us with a hoof, before motioning to the canines surrounding us and moving into more relaxed lazy positions. “I also want to know what all… this… is about.”

“Of course you do, these guys… are a very long story.” The sheep sighed out loud and flopped to the ground looking tired as she scrubbed her forehead with her hooves. “I have a strong bond with every single one of them. Also could you tell your friend to stop cuddling Mr. Birch? I would say he’s dangerous, but he’s currently more scared of your friend than she is of him. To think he’s one of the bravest ones out of my lot.”

“Paprika I know you like the living wooden wolf, but please control yourself and stop snuggling him.” After I watched Paprika reluctantly release the poor cowering animal that scrabbled to get away from her, I turned to the sheep. “Excuse me, Ms. Pom was it? We’re here to deliver some food on the behalf of a Ram named Puff and I’m sorry if we are trespassing into your territory.”

“Well at least some sheep still care about me out here, might as well be my grandpa. Even named one of the pups after him.” This Pom groaned out as she stood up and turned around. “Right, come on then, follow me. My homes not too far away from here, might as well tell you about myself while I’m at it.”

The sheep turned and started to walk, all the canines got up and started to follow her. She seemed kind of depressed despite looking like she was the absolute leader of their pack, this made me wonder what was wrong with Pom.

We followed along behind her and Paprika kept playfully trying to hug the strange fox as we walked.

“It all started quite benign, befriended a predator that should have ripped me up to eat me. That would be Big Mama the Canis Major. Showed up in my life with her four Canis Minor pups Woof, Ruff, Tuft and the one named after my grandpa Puff.” Pom pointed out the large bear sized black and white dog in the pack following her, then to each of the little yapping puppies that playfully ran around with one another. “The protective dogs weren’t so bad and in general things were okay up to a point, but then the dire wolf showed up and things kind of snowballed badly for me from there. I’ve been a bit unlucky in getting them all to leave me alone. I thought Grimm had left for good, but he eventually came back. Don’t honestly know why he ran off in the first place, but he came back smelling vaguely of cat.”

The solid black dog lifted his head as we approached a cave with camping supplies, he grunted and then laid his head down.

“Whatever the sheep told you in the village, it’s all a huge farce. I know exactly why I’m out here all alone, I’m a magnet for dangerous canines.” She turned and held up a hoof, then pointed it at the dark green furred dog the size of a large bull that I had previously that to be a large mass of moss on the walls of the cave. “Please mind Soul Ripper’s braided tail, Cu Sith aren’t exactly known for having jolly personalities despite being green. Otherwise he’s a quiet one and if you don’t bother him he might even help carry your soul to the afterlife when you die. I’m horrified at the idea, but I believe that he might be waiting on mine. If he starts barking, you should find shelter quickly or else something bad will happen. Aside from that warning… welcome to Little Canine Valley, this is home for me and my many companions. Now, where are the supplies that grandpa sent my way?”

“Paprika, be a dear and stop hugging that poor coyote and give this sheep the food that we came here to deliver.” The coyote whined pitiably in Paprika’s hooves and was quite happy to be let go. Paprika pulled out the supplies and started to unload them for Pom.

“Thank you kindly for taking the time to come out here to deliver this stuff to me, haven’t really been surviving too well out here.” This Pom looked quite frail and yet all these canines would actively protect her from anything? That was a little weird. “Never have to worry about predators though, since I’m generally constantly surrounded by them for whatever reason they want to be around me... I feel cursed sometimes.”

“How strong a bond would you say you have with them all?” As Arizona asked this, Paprika started to run around playing with the puppies while Big Mama watched on with her eyes narrowed on the alpaca.

“Ridiculously strong, it’s very absurd what I’m going through really.” Pom looked at the ground sadly and one of the pups ran up to her to start whining, she gently ran a hoof over his head. “I feel a strong connection to all of these canines, despite that I’m always afraid they’d turn on me one of these days.”

“I remember Jade’s lectures about familiars, but this kind of takes several cakes on just the number of them attached to her alone.” Blinking at Arizona’s words, I looked at all the surrounded canines and then nodded.

Yeah, this was pretty ridiculous if all of them were familiars, shouldn’t she have just one and not more than ten like this?

This kind of reminded me that I never got my familiar.

Most reindeer tended to get a very unique familiar called an ice elf or sprite. I never received one personally or at least one never approached me to form a bond, maybe it was because I was a bit too high maintenance?

-Little Canine Valley, Pom-

So many strangers today. I was a sheep with one too many problems, they called me brave back in the village.

Bravery had nothing to do with me having a lot of animal friends with really sharp teeth and being forcibly set up out here where no sheep could be bothered to visit, because they were too scared of and for me.

I was timid and found it a bit hard to speak up, but I really needed someone to talk to.

Maybe I could finally air out my grievances?

Author's Note

After next post, I'm taking a small break and then might continue Velvet and Arizona's tale or hit up some of the others stories.

To the conclusion of this story or do I jump ship to another one?

Chapter thirty four, Alpaca My Bags: Pom the Canine Queen.

Author's Note

Hopefully the irony of a sheep herding a flock of canines is not lost on anyone.

Taking a few days to rest now.

I would continue into Jacky and Gene's or even Fortitude and Flamberge's story, but finishing the Shadow Fighter's storyline first sounds like a good idea. The problem is that it will intersect with the other two storylines eventually at a point before diverging once more.

Blade's storyline will be saved for last for a few unique reasons.

Chapter thirty four, Alpaca My Bags: Pom the Canine Queen.

-Little Canine Valley, Arizona-

I watched as Pom ate some of the food we brought for her and she looked a bit ravenous for someone’s whose legs likely consisted of half her full body weight. Even Velvet weighed more than that.

“Thanks again for bringing me a package from my grandpa.” Pom mumbled through the food she was consuming, I turned to see if Velvet had anything to say about her bad manners.

“Seriously fluff butt?” Excuse my confusion, but Pom was talking with her mouth full and Velvet didn’t draw any attention to it. “I thought you would call her out on it!”

“She’s obviously been out here for quite a while without good food Arizona, so a little loss of decorum can be excused here.” That Velvet, is why I so dearly wanted to put my hoof to your wonderful face multiple times.

Turning to see what Paprika was doing as we didn’t want to lose track of her, most of the canines feared her now. The two tailed white fox was Paprika’s current victim and was yipping for help as the alpaca squeezed the poor thing.

Velvet hadn’t been kidding when she said that Paprika was nearly insatiable in doling out her affection.

“Right… so the cow, how did they beat something that large?” I looked away from the cave where Pom lived to the skeletal structure of the snake. Said cave was in the small valley between two of the ribs of the long dead snake.

It almost couldn’t be called a valley really, like the cave couldn’t be called a full out and out home.

“Oh right, that. I was very tiny back then, but the story is kind of telling when you come here to see it for yourself.” Pom wiped away some the fruit juices covering her face with the napkin Velvet offered her. “The cow got the attention of the snake somehow and led it away from my home village many years ago, she somehow managed to get it stuck here in this general area and then… well, the cow intelligently managed to get the snake to impale itself on a large rock formation. Said formation is still going through the eyehole in the skull to this very day, you’d have to see the head of the skeleton to confirm it. That’s about as much as I know about it. So aside from doing a favor for my grandpa and by extension me, what are you doing out here?”

“I’m just trying to track down whether or not my mother is still alive and maybe a way to help a friend that we lost on the side. Apparently the key to one of those objective is finding at least one of the keys to seal that so called Shadow Horde away.” I turned to Velvet and Paprika. Paprika was continuing to be a nuisance and I thought that was hilarious, I really liked her. Kind of felt bad for the Cerberus though. Velvet was petting one of the puppies that came to her for affection, my reindeer girlfriend was sweet when she wanted to be. “Oh right, we forgot to introduce ourselves didn’t we? I’m Arizona, that’s Velvet and the alpaca currently terrorizing all of your canine companions is Paprika.”

“Could you get her to stop?” If we could do that Pom, we would have done so a while ago. “I don’t think my beasties appreciate her cuddling them.”

We really needed to get something like a leash for Paprika, she was now latched onto the Orthros and the two heads couldn’t bite through her fur to get her off of them.

“We haven’t exactly figure out how to do that yet, I recently learned that she’s good as a sleeping aid though. I certainly didn’t have to count… er… right, forget that I was about to say that.” It took a moment for me to realize where I was about to go with that.

It took Pom a little bit longer to realize it too, she glared at me once she realized what I was about to say.

“Counting sheep, really, that’s where you were about to go to? Why do people always think that sheep are always lazy or tired!? Does no one realize how much work I put into making sure all my beasties are fit and well! It’s about the only thing that keeps me busy and sane aside from reading.” She may look fragile and timid, but that glare was downright frosty. So frosty in fact that even Velvet couldn’t possibly pull off one better. After a moment Pom sighed and relaxed. “So you’re after the keys to strengthen the Shadow Horde’s seal, yeah that’s probably a good idea given how weak the seal must be getting by now. Only a few years before that breaks and unleashes worldwide destruction upon us all or so the legend says. It has to be real or else that cow wouldn’t have shown up looking for the key the lambkin held.”

“Yeah, which is why we’re heading to Velvet’s place of origin to find a key there.” As soon as I mentioned it Velvet paled and looked a bit sick at the idea of going back to her original home. “Are you alright Fluff Butt?”

“I’m… fine…” Velvet’s lie was so obvious that I, or even Paprika, couldn’t have possibly missed it.

“We shouldn’t have any problems getting in and out, you’re an ice shaper reindeer Velvet and Paprika is a fluffmancer however strong that makes her.” My idea of what a fluffmancer could do was still very limited, but it must have been impressive to keep Velvet scared of Paprika for so long. I had only scratched the surface and should challenge Paprika to a few more fights to see her full capacity. “If anyone gives you trouble, then we can just hoof their flanks to them if they comes at us in force!”

“I still don’t want to go.” Some reticence was understandable on Velvet’s part, especially concerning her parents.

“Well we have to…” I started only to be cut off.

“Excuse me for interrupting, but if she’s an ice shaper and she’s a fluffmancer… what does that make you Arizona?” Didn’t know what to tell you Pom, I wasn’t exactly gifted in the magical department like my two friends. “I mean you’re the daughter of that cow from the legend right, wouldn’t that mean your something special too?”

“Oh she’s an earth shaker!” What did you just say Velvet, I didn’t agree to be called that! “Her physical strength can out strip any earth pony and her muscles are as compact as she is. Don’t underestimate her adorable size, she could easily take on your Canis Major and then some. Her strength is as great as her heart, which I know to be golden.”

“There’s no need to talk me up Velvet, I’m not as magical as you or Paprika.” My girlfriend came over and put a hoof around me.

“Says you. If you don’t do it for yourself, then I will!" Velvet pulled me into a loving hug, I even started to hug her back. "You are my equal in combat and just happen to be my beloved girlfriend.”

We both soon found the life being squeezed out of us by a warm and fluffy Paprika, she obviously didn’t want to be left out of sharing a cuddle.

Feeling Paprika’s love could seriously hurt if we weren’t as durable as we were. The lazy dogs seemed happier that it was us that Paprika was now focused on, the only canines that seemed to really like Paprika were the puppies.

Paprika had more energy than all of the puppies combined and said puppies were all too tuckered out at the moment to keep her busy.

“You three are very nice, if you could listen to me go on a rant that would make me feel better about how my life is going.” Pom tapped her front hooves together, she seemed quite awkward. She wasn’t bad company even if she was surrounded by a pack of curious canines. “You don’t have to, but I would really appreciate it.”

“Oh please do dear, we’re kind of being held up at the moment.” Velvet managed to choke out, we were both being literally held off the ground by Paprika and we could almost feel the love flowing off of her. “I don’t think Paprika is going to let us go anytime soon.”

Paprika’s smile only widened as she sat down and continued to hold us to her, she even affectionately nuzzled both of us. I just relaxed into her grip as Velvet tensed up, Paprika was alright to me and I just couldn’t see why Velvet wouldn’t return her constant affection a little.

“Right, well… I told you about Big Mama and her pups coming upon our settlement and taking a liking to me? Well we sheep aren’t exactly of the bravest sort, you could even call us cowards and we would never deny that. So when Mr. Birch comes along and took a liking to me, it really started setting a trend of fear throughout all the sheep about me in my village.” From where I’m sitting Pom, you didn’t seem so afraid of all these large canine surrounding you. “They were just the start of the flood gates that led to me being called Pom the Canine Queen. It doesn’t help that this Canis Major made me the godmother to her four wee pups either, as sweet as they are. I honestly don’t think I deserve such a lofty sounding title that sounds that grand, even when I’m surrounding by all these toothy monsters that could easily make a snack of me. The other sheep even started calling me brave, then they go and shove me out of my home and all the way out here to make sure the canine’s don’t cause trouble in their quiet little lives. My grandpa Puff and my brother Wuffles still visit me from time to time, when they can work up the courage to do so. It's kind of lonely being me.”

I felt my butt flop against the ground and saw Paprika leaping towards a suddenly frantic looking Pom, guess Pom needed alpaca snuggles more than we did.

It was telling that none of the canines moved to protect Pom as our alpaca started to hug her tiny frame, Paprika managed to gain control of herself before she incidentally crushed the sheep.

When the crushing pressure eased up on her, Pom sighed loudly and continued on.

“As you can probably tell my interaction with other people is sorely lacking, not for the lack of trying mind you. I just can’t go into town without all my beasties following me there, they tend to cause an uproar even if I know they mean no harm.” Yeah Pom, that definitely sounded quite lonely to me. “Is it any wonder that I wish I knew what to do with myself? At least my brother Wuffles gave me some academic books to read, not much else to do except read out here and keep all my friendly beasties healthy.”

At least I had always had Grace to talk to even if she was airheaded. The sheep just abandoned Pom with these canines and they only checked up on her to make sure she’s still keeping them away from their village.

“Have you ever thought about traveling? You could come with us if you wanted to.” I tried, she really looked like she could use some more talkative friends.

“Oh no, I couldn’t, I’m as very much as cowardly as the other sheep no matter what they say about my bravery… pack of powerful protectors notwithstanding.” Several of the surrounding canines seemed to bark in agreement to Pom’s words. “Besides it’s quite safe out here and I really wouldn’t want to drag all these beasties into something dangerous. As much as I dislike the situation they’ve all put me into here, I care about them too much to want them to fight on my behalf if I get into danger by traveling to places that are less safe than here. I know here, here is perfectly fine and there’s no danger!”

The canines all whined, they were all quite willing and able to go anywhere Pom wanted to.

“I don’t want hear any of that whining now!” It sounded like Pom’s companions wanted her to get our more. “If I could get a cutie mark, it would probably be a crown over a paw.”

-Velvet-

This poor sheep, Pom was so alone out here, even taking all of her canines into account. Paprika eventually let her be and came back to sit with us with her ever cheerful bouncy demeanor.

“You can’t be serious, you obviously can’t keep living like this with only your various familiars to keep you company!” I just had to point it out, you weren’t living very well when even Paprika started giving you highly concerned looks. “It’s not healthy to you physically or mentally at the very least, you can’t possibly want live the rest of your life like this.”

I knew Paprika and Arizona would agree with me there.

“What else am I supposed to do?” Pom just ran a gentle hoof over one of the whining slumbering puppies that were sleeping against her resting form, it immediately calmed down at her touch. “I suggest that you don’t become too attached to me and should go on about your business. It sounds like you have as grand a tale ahead of you like the cow that faced the monstrosity whose bones I currently live among.”

“We could come to visit you every now and then…” I didn’t want Pom to be so bitter like she sounded about being able to spend quality time with others, like her family for instance. They obviously still cared about her if they were brave enough to come out this far for her.

I would have continued, but Pom had cut me off with a flat stare from her eyes.

“You don’t have to do that… not for me anyway... I’ll be fine.” Pom looked away sadly and rested her head on one of the puppies and she curled up with her back to us. “Now leave me alone and just… just go! Thanks for letting me vent... I feel a lot better about now.”

“Come on Velvet, we have to get a move on anyway. You too Paprika!” Arizona, you couldn’t possibly condone all the other sheep doing this to her out of fear! Even Paprika seemed less affectionate now and was shooting the lone sheep 'almost' sad looks. “If you need any friends Canine Queen, then you can always come looking for us Pom. We’re willing and, in Paprika’s case, eager to be there for you whenever you’re ready to have friends. Mark my words, you’ll eventually want to start living Pom.”

As we left, I looked back at the sheep that lifted her head and looked at us as we set down the trail.

There were tears filling her eyes as she watched us move onwards.

-Pom-

A sheep will always be a sheep Pom.

I’m just like all the other lambkin, too afraid to move at any sign of danger.

Arizona knew that my fears where what binds me here.

-A day or so later-

“Hello there.” I looked up at the beautiful dark unicorn mare approaching me.

Chapter thirty five, Far North of Normal: Un-usual thoughts.

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Chapter thirty five, Far North of Normal: Un-usual affection.

Author's Note

The theme of this post.

Chapter thirty five, Far North of Normal: Un-usual affection.

-Paprika, frozen highlands-

Are we lost? I’m usually lost all the time and I can do pretty well by myself, but loves of eyes aren’t going to last long like this with food being limited.

Wait… I think I know this area.

Oh… maybe… help, shelter and supplies all in one!

First, I stop to refresh rope, then sniff area to see if they are here.

-Arizona-

So here we were just riding through a somewhat thick snowfall, it was almost a blizzard and hard to see where we were going.

“Arizona, something is up with this weather. It feels a bit… unnatural.” Really Velvet? I didn’t feel anything, then again I wasn’t one of the two magical savants of the group. Though it didn’t look like Paprika could feel whatever Velvet currently did.

Paprika suddenly came to a stop and poked at the rope around her neck while looking to me, I guess I needed to shake it out again. Once Paprika pulled the rope off, I reeled it in and started to shake it until most of the frost fell off of it and then tossed it back around her neck.

“Paprika doesn’t seem to notice a problem.” I commented idly and thinking of all this snow I added. “Hearth’s Warming this year is going to be quite bad for me.”

“What makes you say that?” Our lovely companion Velvet, sitting next to me on the blanket on the intricately made lightweight ice sleigh, asked. “Also Paprika hardly notices when she hurts people by being too affectionate with them.”

The sleigh wasn’t too hard for Paprika to pull and she started to do so again, this was much better than the hastily made sled. Also Paprika has been going for hours and didn’t even look to be flagging one bit.

“Well I certainly won’t be celebrating with my Aunt Grace this year or any of our other friends and people we could consider family.” It may be a pony made holiday, but I still liked to think that it was for everyone and not just ponies.

“I’ve never really celebrated Hearth’s Warming at all.” There were a few things wrong with that statement Velvet and not celebrating a good holiday was one of them. “I don’t know why, but we reindeer are always pretty weird about holidays with a commercialism focus to them.”

“Hearth’s Warming doesn’t have a commercialism focus… well it didn’t start out that way anyway.” I had to admit that Hearth’s Warming was more about buying or making gifts to give to others, commercialism was kind of a given when you bought materials to make a gift or bought a gift premade. “Do you think we’ll get out of this blizzard soon?”

As I asked my question, the world suddenly jerked to the left and our one alpaca sleigh started picking up speed. It wasn’t long before we saw what Paprika was pulling us towards and blinked, a cave? Well it would certainly get us out of this blizzard.

In fact Paprika seemed rather excited about it… why wasn’t she slowing down?

“Uh… Paprika?” I called out only to receive a warm smile from the alpaca for a few seconds and she pulled us into the cave.

We were engulfed by the darkness for a bit and all we could hear was the sound of Paprika’s hoof beats as we continued onwards. She wasn’t stopping? We could have set up camp in the cave.

“Why do you suppose she’s still going?” There was a slight quiver in Velvet’s voice. “Do you thinks she knows where we are and that’s why she seems excited about something?”

Eventually we could see a light at the end of the tunnel Paprika was pulling us through and then Paprika’s form slowed down and fluffed up in front of us. She slowed us down and we stopped before the end of the tunnel.

Paprika motioned for us to get off the sleigh and follow her, we did so and walked forward looking at each other uncomfortably.

The first step we took out of the tunnel was onto green grass and a sunny grassy hill and we both stared at our surroundings in awe. This was a warm sunny place, and it was beautiful.

Paprika bounded ahead and squealed, we looked at the alpaca she just nuzzled… alpaca… alpacas! There were so many of them around, all so colorful and…. oh for the love of, Paprika just jumped off of a cliff!

We both ran forward with worry and saw a huge splash of water as our alpaca landed a powerful cannonball. Paprika popped out of the water tackling the closest alpaca and started to snuggle them and she was snuggled back and soon the alpacas started to gather together to welcome her.

A bunch of adorable little cria surrounded Paprika and started climbing all over her. Soon she was playfully bounding through the grassy knoll with all the other friendly looking alpacas.

I looked to Velvet and she looked like someone had shined a flashlight in her eyes.

Velvet’s right eye twitched.

-Alpaca Accretion, Velvet-

So… we ended up in a place where Paprika’s entire family currently happens to be, I could feel the horror creeping up my spine at the thought.

“Come on Velvet, stop looking so horrified.” Can’t there be a little time to panic about this Arizona, you do realize that all of these alpacas can possibly hug as strongly as Paprika could? “Let’s go greet the locals and maybe even meet Paprika’s parents!”

Arizona hefted her pack and set off, I blinked and quickly caught up with the cow. Did she not realized we were surrounded by numerous alpacas?! One’s that were all now giving us curious looks. Some of them were even starting to follow us from a distance.

If one were to ask if I was nervous, well they certainly weren’t currently paying attention to my shivering at the number of alpacas currently around me.

We were on approach for a very large tepee styled tent, which was where our Paprika was currently parked in front of with a lot of other alpaca.

We eventually came upon Paprika looking happy and joyous as she leaped before a large female alpaca twisting and turning, was that her mother? Certainly looked large, the thick curly raven fur and gentle blue eyed alpaca watched as Paprika excitedly bounced around before her.

Eventually the large alpaca gave off a soft smile and held out a hoof, she somehow caught the wildly bouncing Paprika and then pressed downwards slightly to make Paprika stand still on the ground.

Eventually the alpaca moved forward and engulfed the smaller in a tight hug that seemed to start crushing Paprika. Despite this, Paprika was still quite happy to be hugged by the larger alpaca and tried to wrap her hooves around her.

At least we know where her crushing hugs come from now. If that is her mother, then those hugs were of a dangerous crushing force just by size alone.

A male alpaca sighed and shook his head as he moved forward, he seemed tiny compared to the larger alpaca. With smiling lips and amused pink colored eyes barely seen hidden under his dull brown fur, he made a noise and the female alpaca cuddling Paprika calmly moved back. The male alpaca moved forward to start nuzzling the peppy Paprika who returned the affection with fervor.

“Do you suppose these are Paprika’s folks?” Jumping at Arizona’s sudden voice, I turned to her with a glare and she chuckled. “You seem jumpy, I don’t think all the other alpaca are nearly as crazy as Paprika is. They seem lazy and calm to me.”

Paprika then turned and pointed towards the entry way we came out of and then tried to make her way back that way, until she spotted us and then changed course becoming a blur. She stopped before us and motioned at us excitedly to come over to meet the two elder alpaca and the gathering of many other younger alpaca coming together.

From what I understood of alpaca breeding, they only get together intimately for about one month out of a whole year. If an alpaca got pregnant, then they wouldn’t be able to get intimate from then until giving birth.

“Now hold on Paprika, don’t go getting your fluff all twisted up now.” At least Arizona tried, I certainly knew that it wasn’t going to work at all.

Still, we made our way up to the group with a sedate pace and we looked at all the alpacas and they all looked back at us as we made our approach. They all seemed curious and a little more than interested, but they weren’t nearly as excited as Paprika was.

Paprika pointed Arizona and then to the male alpaca, Arizona gave me a shrug and moved forward. Paprika then motioned me to meet the large alpaca that looked kind of like Paprika given their similar fur style.

I moved up to and looked up at the large alpaca, we looked into each other’s eyes and she eventually placed her forehead against mine while giving me a gentle smile as the look went a bit deeper.

“Are you Paprika’s mother?” Seeing the smile widen by quite a bit, I soon found the large alpaca nuzzling me gently before pulling me closely into her tender embrace. “I’ll take that as a yes. Hello, I’m Velvet and that’s Arizona. Am I to know the name of my friend’s mother?”

Looking to Paprika who seemed to be glancing at me with those heart shaped pupils again, the large alpaca turned back to me and started snickering into one of her hooves loudly. I couldn’t fathom why she would be laughing, she shook her head after a moment and then threw a hoof around me and pointed us towards the tepee nearby.

Her coat was radiating so much warmth it was hard not to snuggle into it. I liked being cold and usually didn’t like too much warmth, only this warmth felt very different though. It almost felt like the warmth Paprika radiated constantly, but not quite the same. It was so inviting that I followed Paprika’s mother to the tent to where I could see some steam rising from it.

I looked back to see Arizona having a staring contest with the male alpaca and shrugged a bit as I was led to the wonderful smell of boiling vegetables in a very wide and large pot. I was feeling kind of hungry.

The motherly alpaca held up a hoof for me to wait as she set off and came back with a bowl. She scooped up a large portion of the soup and offered it to me.

“Why thank you.” I answered gratefully as I took the soup and took a sip, my eyes widened. It was a bit spicy, but it was delicious and even savory. In fact there was something about it that made me blush.

The large alpaca giggled at me before grabbing another large bowl and motioned for me to move off to the side.

Upon sitting down, I consumed more of this vegetable soup and watched as the alpaca passed out food among many of what I assumed to be Paprika’s extended family. I counted out seven younger sisters, nine younger brothers and one that seemed older.

Said older brother came to sit down next to me quietly, he smiled towards Paprika and then looked to me tilting his head questioningly.

“Paprika is a work in progress I think.” I had only assumed what he was asking of me with his silent glance and friendly demeanor. He nodded solemnly as Paprika played with all the cria running around. “Are all of you her brothers and sisters?”

The light brown furred brotherly alpaca with the green eyes nodded, before pointing towards the large alpaca and the one Arizona was still having a staring contest with.

“Your parents?” Again he nodded at my assumptions and I decided to ask a pertaining question after a sip of the warm and fulfilling, if a bit spicy, vegetable soup. “So… has Paprika always been that…”

I rotated my hoof out towards Paprika trying to find the word for it. He just put my hoof back on my bowl and grunted audibly while sighing, then he nodded after a bit.

After a moment he smiled faintly in Paprika’s direction as she came over to us and gave her brother a bone crushing hug, the hug ended quickly as he gave as good as he got from his little sister. They were some of the first born by the looks of it.

Paprika ran off to her mother and then, much to my surprise, she patiently waited for her mother to scoop her out some soup as well.

“Do you all have names or just Paprika?” Again her brother nodded and started to trail his hoof into the dirt. I read the two names out loud. “Kayamba or Rattle? Either of those sounds like a nice name. I’m sorry, but I think I’m more than a little bit curious about your parent’s names Mr. Rattle.”

He waved off my concern and then pointed at me with a raised brow.

“My name is Velvet, the cow over there near your father is Arizona.” He nodded and then wrote down two names for me and pointed to both the female and male alpacas that were his and Paprika’s parents. “Pepper and Tamale? Well that’s nice to know.”

He nodded and politely went back to his soup and I did the same while watching all the alpacas interact with one another.

Watching them be playful, watching them be affectionate and most of all just watching how they interacted. I witnessed two alpaca seemingly carry out a whole conversation with just their expressions and looking into each other’s eyes.

It made me realize that every single alpaca could communicate at a glance what they were feeling and what they wanted to say, they didn’t need to talk as that looked far too slow for them.

My alpaca gazing was cut short when something created a trench before us sending dirt and rock flying up into the air.

Arizona sat up from the trench, her hoof slapped against the ground creating cracks where it landed and she cracked her neck before she went charging back towards a waiting Tamale who had a faint smile on his face.

“You're on, let’s do this thing!” It seemed Arizona would be busy for the foreseeable future.

Quite a few alpacas were making a space for the two and I watched the ensuing fight with awe.

The fight started when Tamale kicking off the ground with his rear legs and his brown fluff, acting like springs, struck out at the ground launching him high into the air.

Tamale fought almost like Paprika did, except his moves were less affectionate and more on the aggressive side. From what I was seeing Tamale wasn’t nearly as gifted or even powerful as Paprika was physically, but I could tell he taught Paprika everything he knew in his movements.

Tamale was relying entirely on experience to keep up with Arizona’s overly aggressive fighting style.

Upon waking up the next day, after staying the night with Paprika’s overly affectionate family, we would learn that the nomadic alpacas were having problems with something dangerous. Until then we would thoroughly soak up some alpaca culture well into this lovely evening.

Chapter thirty five, Far North of Normal: Un-usual problems.

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Chapter thirty five, Far North of Normal: Un-usual keys.

-Arizona-

“So let me get this straight, you didn’t start the blizzards up until after taking a year and a half of building a castle made out of buckets of ice.” I was curious as to what Snow had to say about this as we started our way back towards Alpaca Accretion. “In all that time this organization called GODLESS never sent a single operative to talk to you or even check on your progress once, not even just to see if you were still alive?”

“No, and before you ask what I’ve been eating, I’ve come to appreciate the taste of fish with my lowborn winged pony heritage.” The emperor penguin quacked out. “Putting that into perspective, I’m now realizing that I’ve been abandoned out here. Still, if I had succeeded, then my kingdom would have been absolutely glorious!”

“None of you would mind if I were to take Snow Bank down the fast way by myself right?” The looks I received were questioning ones from the alpacas. The alpaca siblings eventually shrugged, but Velvet continued giving me a concerned look.

“Are you going to do what I think you’re going to do Arizona?” Giving Velvet one of my best grins, she rolled her eyes and then gave me a flat stare. “Fine, but be careful near the bottom. We’ll be following you down shortly and we’ll be doing it in a much safer fashion than you will. Honestly you are insane Arizona, but I know you’ll survive it.”

“Wait, what are you doing?!” Pulling Snow Bank from Rattle’s back and then quickly untying him, I started pulling him towards the edge of the mountain. He started struggling, but he couldn’t get out of the iron grip of my hooves. “Oh no… are you insane!”

“Yes, I thought we just established that about her a second ago!” Velvet answered his rhetorical question bluntly.

-A minute later-

Life was just awesome and incredible.

The wind was in my hair, there was a rush of adrenaline as the snow fountained off to both sides of me and I was laughing joyously as the world passed me by at incredible speeds.

Riding a somewhat evil penguin, which used to be a pony, down the mountain was fun. Now if only he’d stop screaming his lungs out.

“This is the most humiliating day of my regal life!” Cried out the upset penguin.

It couldn’t be a perfect ride, but it was pretty darn good from where I was standing on Snow Bank’s back. His penguin body was a really effective snowboard.

-Alpaca Accretion-

We hit the ground sharply and went skidding towards some water at a high speed. When we hit the small lake, we created a huge explosive blast of water that drenched many of the surrounding alpacas.

We probably had a few alpacas gawking in our direction and were expecting Paprika to have caused a ruckus, I’d be sorry to disappoint them. Paprika’s family loved her, but the other alpaca weren’t as warm to our excitable hug happy girl.

Once I got control of my faculties from crashing into the small lake, I grabbed the limp and heavily battered emperor penguin to swim for the shore of the lake. Erupting from the water, I dragged our prisoner along with me onto dry land.

“Hey everyone, we found the problem and he’s penguin shaped!” The alpacas all gave me a curious glance for my announcement as I held up the penguin for everyone to see. “The others should be down soon enough. He’s the cause of all the rampant magical blizzards in the area, it also caused any compasses in the affected area to malfunction. I could use a holding cell or a place to incarcerate him before he wakes up, so where should I put him?”

The alpacas were nice enough to show me a place where I could stow Snow Bank safely away, they even set up some guards for him to make sure he wouldn’t cause any more problems.

-An hour later, Velvet-

“Thank you again for the hospitality Mrs. Paca.” I liked Paprika’s mother, she wasn’t nearly as bad as her daughter when it came to giving out affection in a painful manner.

Pepper nodded gently and smiled at us, she was happy to see that we were back and had solved the problem swiftly.

Speaking of Paprika, she was sitting between me and Arizona with her tail wagging to the point it would almost catch fire. If it did light aflame again, that would be the fourth time it’s happened since we sat down for snacks and drinks.

I was getting tired of putting out Paprika’s tail and it amused Pepper Paca to no end for some reason whenever I did so.

“So I guess we’ll be heading for Rein soon?” My village was not a place I wished to go, but it seems like our detour was over with after we were done here with the alpacas.

“Yeah, but before that I need to ask about something and we’ll even spend a day or two here with Paprika’s family relaxing. Snow Bank, the penguin, mentioned that you had one of the keys we’re going to be looking for?” Not very subtle Arizona, though Tamale did seem to perk up at the mention of the word key. “He said he was going to snow you guys out and make the key easy pickings. The reason why we were heading to Rein in the first place was to look for one of the keys to seal the Shadow Horde that’s said to be held by Velvet’s people, we’re tracking them down because it might lead me to finding my mother.”

Pepper immediately stood up and was at Arizona’s side to begin snuggling her deeply and even kissed her on the forehead. Arizona seemed to accept the motherly attention and nuzzled against Pepper’s rather tantalizing fluff.

Tamale simply smiled a bit at his wife gently, he shook his head and stood up to go somewhere.

This reminded me of the things Kuril or Grace would do for us, Paprika had good parents even if they necessarily didn’t have the time to focus entirely on her with all her brothers and sisters to take care of. I think Paprika turned out well enough given the circumstances, since she became old enough to survive on her own.

While Pepper was giving Arizona comfort, Tamale had disappeared and the cria all around us seemed to be looking in the direction of the tepee.

I just bit into an apple and chewed a bit as I continued to watch Pepper and Paprika comfort Arizona… when did Paprika join the cow snuggling?

A familiar wad of fluff lashed out at me and I was dragged into the cuddle mass by Paprika who placed her head over mine and tightly snuggled me.

Was it too late to escape the two alpaca? Make that three… it’s four now… oh this was about to go critical wasn’t it?

All the cria were started to come together into the hug and feeling the warmth among them all I felt at peace with my inevitable destruction by alpaca hugging. We all started to be squished together tightly in a collective embrace.

I just happen to be unfortunate enough to be Paprika’s main target in this affectionate assault, I think I could hear my bones creaking a little under the strain. Arizona was taking this all pretty well and at least she wasn’t having the life crushed out of her… lucky.

“Ahem.” All the cuddling alpaca lifted their ears and as one they turned towards Tamale who stepped forward and held something up.

All the alpaca separated like the sea. Tamale moved forward and gave Paprika a stern look, she loosened her loving grip on me with a sheepish smile.

Tamale nodded to Paprika and then turned to Arizona who was being held off the ground by Pepper, he grunted loudly and Pepper looked to him with a raised brow. Tamale stared back sternly.

Pepper Paca eventually rolled her eyes and sighed before gently placing Arizona on the ground.

“What do you need Tamale?” The T shaped object was held out to Arizona and she looked at it curiously. Tamale tilted his head at the object in his hoof and then nodded towards her. “You want me to take this… wait… is this one of those keys?”

Tamale nodded, making Arizona take the key from him and she looked it over. I shook off Paprika and made my way over to give it a glance as well.

It looked like quite intricate for a key, it had an image of an alpaca on the clockwork like T portion and the end of the key’s shaft had a swirly fluffy looking bit of metal that looked like you had to insert it into a lock of some kind.

“Doesn’t look like much, don’t know how my mother honestly started looking for these things.” Arizona studied the shiny silver key.

Moving forward, Paprika swiped the key from Arizona’s hoof to look at it too. She looked curiously to her parents as she held the key.

It seems like they were about start a silent conversation when the key began to glow slightly, Paprika froze up and looked at the key in her hoof. She seemed a bit mystified by the glow and began smiling brightly at it while making a cooing noise of excitement.

So we just had one of the magical keys now and it was connected to Paprika in some way?

Pepper moved up to Paprika and nuzzled her daughter, then she reached into a pack and pulled out a sturdy looking cord. She looked at Paprika fondly and Paprika soon held out the key to her mother.

Pepper threaded the cord, that looked to be made of her fleece, through the key and she put it around Paprika’s neck.

Placing her forehead against Paprika’s, the motherly alpaca stared deeply into her daughters eyes for a bit. After a long silent stare, Paprika started blinking and then she pushed the key underneath her fluff for safe keeping.

Paprika wrapped her hooves around her mother and hugged her tight while her tail wagged at an excessive speed… and there it goes again catching fire. Sighing, I moved over and exhaled a cloud of ice over Paprika’s burning fur.

Paprika gave me a happy smile and kissed me on the nose for taking care of her once more, I sighed grumpily and gave her a halfhearted glare as she snuggled into her mother.

“So what’s the full story behind these keys anyway?” My mouth moved, I heard the words coming out of it and I was surprised that I broached the topic. Puff hadn’t been too great on the details behind these keys. “I mean we heard that it was used to seal away deadly shadows that would consume the world, but not who made them or who used them.”

-Pepper Paca-

Story time! I called for my cria to gather with a simple sweeping look. Paprika was always wanting to hear good stories, my first daughter was strong and swift in her love and affection. To think she would be one of the key keepers.

Also that poor reindeer didn’t understand that eventually she, the cow and Paprika were all going to be more than friends. My eyes never lied, my daughters can’t either.

I started out by looking for a large patch of dirt on the ground to start etching the story into the dirt for my children and our guests to peruse. There was a good one near the tent and all my little cria were eager and waiting to hear the story.

I put my hoof to the dirt and started to draw the pictures in their perspective.

-Legend-

Long ago, a moon princess was enshrouded by a dark shadow and turned on her sister the sun princess in jealousy and anger, fueled by the shadow as it took control of her. In their anger, before they were defeated, the nightmare of the moon launched a final spell into the distance before the moon princess and the nightmare were both sealed away together.

After their battle, the sun princess was too tired to notice what she had missed and would soon pull herself together to start uniting the ponies. However, she didn’t ignore the problem once it came to her notice, monstrous shadows given teeth and ravenous hunger attacking the five tribes.

The sun princess eventually got a group of unicorns together to go fight the shadows that were, unknown to her, unleashed upon the world by her sister. The forces that were sent by the sun princess gave the five embattled tribes powerful backup that would inevitably help force back the world eating shadows.

The sun princess was too busy building a power base and organizing her ponies to do much more, she was also too upset and downtrodden to lend the tribes any further aid.

The unicorns of light, along with the five tribes, came together after being beleaguered by the hungry shadows they fought for a time.

During this fighting, six heroes rose to face the shadows.

There was a male longma warrior whose blazing wings and ferocity scorched the numerous shadow monsters. He would protect those who were injured until they could stand again, his blazing form held the shadows at bay.

Though fierce, he always showed kindness in how he protected the injured and weakened, he was always gentle with those he cared about.

One was a female alpaca fluffmancer whose love knew no boundaries, though some wished that she had them. Her love turned the shadows against themselves, her fluff protected her from their sharp claws and rending teeth as she continued to face the shadows with the light of her heart.

This was our champion who was generous beyond compare.

Surprisingly only a single ram from the sheep came to the other tribe’s aid, his courage was said to be endless to the point he would hold his ground even when all hope seemed lost.

He quivered and cowered, but the ram's loyalty could never be question as he fought side by side with every other tribe making up for the lack of numbers from his tribe on his own.

The ice shapers, reindeer with powerful ice magic, had a lovely doe champion whose prowess and beauty could match that of the warrior longma. She would never lie and was always honest about her feelings, no matter how often it irked the other champions.

With time, they could see that the reindeer champion’s honesty in pointing out all their faults had actually helped the tribes to become more cohesive as they all learned to make up for their weaknesses.

The cattle had a seemingly foolhardy cow, who feared no danger and her steps were said to have shaken the world.

She brought laughter to the battlefield, boosting the morale of all those around her even as she actively acted like a complete fool.

The unicorn stallion, sent by the sun princess, gave us a light to fight the shadows.

His magic prevented the fighting from being a lost cause. Not only was he a beloved fighter, he was also a great friend to all.

Using the power of their friendships, the champions gathered together to create the seal and six magical keys.

They sealed the Shadow Horde away in a mountain, like the missing heroic pony pillars would have.

Author's Note

With Starswirl's group gone around that time, someone had to pick up the hexinity slack.

The Shadow Horde is not a thousand years thing though, it's more a two to three hundred years thing that is repeatedly applied.

Chapter thirty five, Far North of Normal: Un-usual familiarity.

-Alpaca Accretion, a day or two later, Arizona-

“So in the north we have the reindeer, to the west the sheep, to the east the cattle who eventually joined with Equestria under Celestia and finally to the south near the dragon lands the longma. The alpaca traveled between all four other tribes and stopped off at points nearby to settle down for a while and do some trading with these tribes.” I was just summarizing everything I’ve heard so far. “Then there’s the unicorns of light who settled down in a forest between all five tribes where you changed you’re routing to meet with them between every other tribe?”

Pepper Paca nodded, she put her forehead against mine and looked into my eyes gently. Eventually she placed a hoof on my chest while smiling, Pepper then proceeded to do the same with Velvet and Paprika. The only thing she did different was that she caressed Paprika with a hoof and her daughter nuzzled into the touch, a quick cuddle and the two alpaca became all smiles afterwards.

Pepper was basically saying goodbye to us before we set out for the reindeer village of Rein, we tried to leave only to get swarmed by the cria that were Paprika’s younger siblings. Pepper let out a bark of laughter and Tamale joined her a second after.

The cria looked like they didn’t want their big sister, or even us by association, to leave. Pepper eventually got them all under control and off of us, Paprika’s entire family waved us off as we set out.

We were restocked on supplies. With food, water and the damaged tents repaired, we set off from the nomadic alpaca tribe. I was thankful that we didn’t have to set up and sleep in igloos anymore.

Ratatoskr visited us as soon as we were out of sight of the alpacas and we sent him back to Kuril to tell her that we were doing fine, we also stated she eventually could lend Celestia some aid with something when a prisoner named Snow Bank was placed into her hooves. The alpacas would eventually give the emperor penguin over to Celestia for detainment.

“So Paprika… your people protected the lambkin since they were in the west when the shadows started attacking everyone at night right?” Velvet asked as we relaxed on a sleigh of ice being pulled by Paprika.

“Mm-hmm!” Paprika cheerfully intoned as she pulled us along, she was in good cheer and had been very happy to spend time with her family.

“The lambkin must have been quite lucky the alpacas were there or else they might have been wiped out in the initial attacks.” Now that you said it Velvet, the alpaca did protect the sheep pretty well from what Pepper told us of the shadow war. To think it happened a little under one thousand years ago. “I know I’m being silly, but you don’t suppose that my parents could be the holders of the reindeer key? If my noble blood came about just because of a key that my family owned, then I just might destroy Rein in a fit of rage.”

“Oh don’t be so dramatic Fluff Butt.” Though I did take the idea that her parents might have the key seriously, if they did then things might be only slightly complicated. I don’t think Velvet would mind me beating them up though. “So what are your parent’s names? Just so I know who to aim my hooves at when we get there.”

“Please don’t start a fight with anyone else when we get to Rein, it’s only my parents that I have issues with and I’d rather not tell you until we arrive. While I do not exactly have any friends in Rein, I don’t have any enemies either unless they hate me for my fam… I can’t even call them that with a straight face. Let’s just say there might be some distaste for my nobility as a whole.” Oh right, Velvet was a noble by birth or at least that’s what she says. When I think of what her parents could be like, I started imagining very large sticks with nowhere to be shoved given how cagey Velvet acted about being gay. “So… because cattle kind is involved, does that mean your mother possibly has two of the keys?”

Velvet was still a little dodgy about heading towards Rein, but we would eventually have to talk about it. For now, I was currently thinking of what my mother could possibly be doing right this instant.

“Don’t know, we have to go to where the cattle kind settlement is. We can talk to someone there about where the key is and who currently has it. It’s guaranteed to be our next stop .” Trying to imagine what my girlfriend’s biological parents could possibly be like again, my mind came to the only logical conclusion. They were two big sticks with two smaller sticks shoved into them in as inappropriate a manner that the smaller two sticks can possibly be shoved into said bigger sticks. “If it’s with my mother, then we won’t exactly have to worry about that key. If it’s still there, then we find out what we have to do to acquire it for ourselves and possibly ask around if my mother has been around.”

“Sounds like a plan… as much as one you could possibly think up anyway.” Velvet crossed her hooves over her chest and hugged herself while looking off to the side, she didn’t look so haughty about calling me out on my intelligence. I couldn’t feel insulted when she was so afraid of going to Rein like this. “Not that I have any better ideas personally.”

Admitting that she doesn’t have a plan either? It must be serious if she’s not trying to antagonize me into a fight. The reasons why she came with me to help me look for what happened to my mother, is because she loved me and she had no idea what to do with herself otherwise. I’m glad to have both her and Paprika around.

“It’ll be okay Velvet, you’ll see.” I put a hoof around her and managed to see a smile tug at her lips, that smile was taken away when Velvet’s ear flicked and she turned her head looking in a direction.

I heard something too, sounded like something crying out for help.

“Paprika stop the sleigh!” At Velvet’s command, Paprika puffed her fluff up and the sleigh started to slow down immensely upon making contact with her body.

Once the sleigh was nearly completely stopped, Velvet hopped out and ran in direction of that noise.

“Stay with our supplies and the sleigh Paprika.” I followed Velvet leaving our supplies to Paprika.

Once I caught up with Velvet, it seems we both happened upon an unusual sight.

A small creature being assaulted by an owl, the little creature was cowering against the trunk of the tree as the snowy owl swooped about and turned around to aim at the quivering form with their talons.

The owl started to swoop down for it, only for an icicle to shoot past it making it squawk loudly in fright.

“Go on, shoo, go away!” The owl was properly spooked into flying away by Velvet threatening it with several more shards of ice fired in its general direction. Once the owl was gone, she then proceeded to approach the tiny frightened critter.

“Are you alright? It’s okay, everything will be fine.” Velvet spoke softly to the shivering little creature as she came up next to it. “Come on now, show me where it hurts. I promise I can help you, a friend of mine named Cheerilee taught me some first aid.”

The light icy blue skinned creature was small, by my estimates almost the size of a Breezy only a little bit larger. At Velvet’s voice it uncurled and pulled its tiny little limbs away from its face and opened its big silver colored eyes to look at her. It had a large gash in its chest from where some of the owl’s claws struck it and it was shivering badly.

“Oh you poor thing… just hold on and we’ll disinfect and bandage this up right quick.” Velvet quickly got the supplies from her bag. Starting off, Velvet soaked a cotton swab with medical alcohol. “I’m sorry, but this may sting a bit.”

She gently swabbed the wounds to make sure the thing didn’t get an infection and she wrapped it’s torso with a bandage to staunch the bleeding. The creature had hissed in pain for a bit, but eventually it started to smile and look on at Velvet with clear awe.

“What is it?” I’ve never seen something that looked so tiny and frail, aside from a Breezy of course.

Nothing could be as frail and helpless as a fairy pony, it’s been a long time since I last saw one. Grace took me to watch one of their pollen gathering groups heading home, good times.

“It’s an ice sprite, they have a tendency to bond with reindeer as our most commonly occurring familiars.” The little ice sprite, as Velvet called it, wrapped its tiny limbs around her leg and cuddled against it. “For some reason these darling little creatures just love being near reindeer and doing small things for us even if they don’t form a familiar bond, mostly to the point of absurdity and absolute worship.”

The ice sprite started bowing to Velvet and started making prayer gestures towards her. That was pretty fast to start worshipping someone like Velvet, it was ridiculous even. If I were the ice sprite, it looks male, if I were him I would at least get to know Velvet before going into full immediate worship like that.

“Well that’s quite apparent by the way he’s latched on to you fluff butt… say there little fella, do you have any family?” The ice sprite nodded at me and then pointed straight up at Velvet. “Yeah, that figures. I meant do you have anyone else to be with or go to?”

The ice sprite held its right limb to its mouth looking thoughtful. After a moment he shook his head no and continued to clutch to Velvet’s leg with a happy smile.

“I think he’s forming a familiar bond with me. It’s about time I got a familiar and one with such beautiful eyes.” Sweet as honey those words were Velvet, you were making the little guy blush something fierce.

We heard a squeal and turned to Paprika lunging for the little sprite, he squeaked loudly in fear and covered his small face with his tiny limbs.

“Time out, time out!” The alpaca froze in mid-air and gave Velvet a questioning look. “Paprika… I know you want to hug the new cute and cuddly friend I just made, but he’s been recently injured and just went through a very traumatizing situation already. Will you give me time to hoof off... I want to say Tinsel… does that work as a name for you dear?”

The little sprite gave an affirmative and saluted with a tiny limb and went back to worshipping the ground Velvet stood on, I guess his name was Tinsel now.

“Right, anyway, let me hoof Tinsel off to Arizona and then you can hug, kiss and be affectionate with me as much as you want. All I want from you in return is to give Tinsel the time to recover and to not traumatize him even worse like you were about to do.” With her bargain made, Velvet watched as the floating Paprika moved her front limbs to take on a thinking pose.

“Also how are you floating in mid-air like that?” I quietly took Tinsel off of Velvet’s hooves as Paprika absently tapped her chin with a hoof.

Paprika eventually nodded at the bargain, shrugged at me in cluelessness and then her momentum started right back up making her slam right into Velvet where she started to kiss, cuddle and nuzzle her affectionately.

Velvet wouldn’t be able to move for the next thirty minutes as she was peppered by Paprika’s lips.

-Thirty minutes later-

“Oh don’t mind Paprika dear Tinsel, she means well most of the time.” The slightly mussed up Velvet stated with a wide eyed haunted look.

Paprika just wanted to show her some love and she finally did, it’s just unfortunate for our alpaca friend that Velvet isn’t taking it too well.

The little ice sprite had been glaring at the alpaca for her excessive show of love for Velvet. One might even say Tinsel was jealous of Paprika, but he eventually nodded in respect that Paprika clearly had a great taste in reindeer.

“So are you coming with us?” Hey, I thought it would be impolite to just drag Tinsel along with us without asking.

Tinsel, the ice sprite, nodded cheerfully to me as he clung to Velvet.

“Guess its official then, it’s a good thing ice sprites don’t eat much.” Velvet rubbed Tinsel’s chin gently and he made a cheerful appreciative noise for her, she then teased his pointed ears and he blushed vibrantly.

“Why exactly are they called ice sprites anyway, does he have any special abilities that we should be wary of?” It would be a concern for me if I had to watch out for him whenever I got into a fight.

“Well they can do minimal bits of ice magic personally, however they can also amplify any ice magic performed by a reindeer.” Picking up the gleefully giggling sprite, she brought him over to the sleigh and we sat back down. “Wait… where’s Paprika?”

I blinked and heard the sound of an animal screaming, then we both watched as a bear ran around whining with a smiling Paprika clinging to them.

“Paprika that’s not a teddy bear, let that poor bear go this instant!” Velvet set off after Paprika to prevent her from hugging the wildlife into extinction.

I just sat down next to the ice sprite and he looked to me.

“I’m Arizona, nice to meet you Tinsel.” I offered the tip of my hoof to the tiny being and it reached out with his little limb to shake it, I smiled at him and he smiled back.

“No Paprika, alpacas aren’t supposed to fly like that!” What in the world made Velvet yell that and how could it ever be put into an explainable context with the bear?

Tinsel glanced at me with worry and I shrugged.

“I’m sure Velvet will be fine and doesn’t need my help.” I just leaned back and waited for them to get back.

-A few hours later, Velvet-

Paprika was still a nightmare to me. Even if I knew Paprika loved both Arizona and me, it just made things worse as it was hard to stay angry with her when she was so sugary sweet to us all the time. We still couldn’t control her at all, then again who could feasibly stop Paprika from hugging everything at least once?

Arizona just laughed at my predicament with Paprika and then kissed my cheek, before saying something I wanted to hear.

“We don’t have to get to Rein in a hurry Velvet.” I nuzzled against Arizona for that. “You seem tense Velvet, are you okay? Even Paprika thinks you needed more attention.”

“I’m fine.” I felt Tinsel hug my belly and I smiled down at him, he was such a darling little sprite.

Author's Note

Tinsel the ice sprite or elf, reindeer's little mascot. (+1000 blind worship points to Velvet, +10 boost to Velvet's ice magic when sprite boost action is available to aid in combat.)

Chapter thirty five, Far North of Normal: Living in interesting Times.

-Wilderness, Velvet-

I grit my teeth as I struggled to keep my balance, my hooves were currently digging a furrow through the dirt and snow.

Arizona wasn’t pulling her hits today and this last one had stung, but I managed to stay on my hooves despite that. I could even hear Tinsel cheering me on in an cute manner.

Tinsel’s worship of me was a little disturbing, but I’ve been around Ice Sprites long enough to know that there was no deterring them.

I had woken up today with my floof expertly cared for already. Thanking Tinsel for that, I then let him know that if he were to ever damage my floof he was going to be punted over the horizon.

He agreed with me readily that he’d deserve as such or even worse punishment if he were to ever defile me in such a manner.

It’s a good thing we understood one another.

“Can you keep going or is that all you have today Velvet?” That attitude of yours needed a slight adjustment Arizona and I was just the one to do it. “You still fretting about the fact that we’re only a few days away from Rein, if Paprika is right in what she showed me.”

Paprika nodded while bouncing in place happily, she looked like she wanted to get in a round or two of play with either of us. We knew what her form of playing was.

“Don’t remind me, but yes let’s continue wailing on each other as we are want to do!” I charge forward and sent out a flurry of hoof swings which Arizona blocked and then she tried to spin into my guard to throw a straight right hoof using her spin. I managed to back off and slapped her several times across the face, not that I could damage her rock hard face with anything more than a prolonged concentrated effort. “Seriously my buffoonish bovine, why do you keep trying to do that same move over and over again?”

“Well you and Paprika have your magic, so I want to be able to do something like the 'Little Mach righter' with either of my hooves!” A what, what was Arizona on about? “I do need to keep up with you and Paprika in my own way after all, it'll give me something of a projectile attack to match your ice shards and Paprika’s absurd amount of flower pots.”

“What is this ‘Little Mach righter’ exactly?” I was curious as to why Arizona would want to do what sounded like a special technique that I could vaguely recall Jade doing.

“Well it’s this hoof technique that was created by an earth pony that…” Arizona was interrupted by a roar and a charging Salamander that was too big for Paprika to hug into submission, she happened to be the closest one to it and she charged it back. “Excuse me, I was trying to tell my girlfriend about one of the greatest pony boxers in recent history!”

Arizona ducked the fire the Salamander breathed at her while spinning counter clockwise twice and after dragging her hoof along the ground, it began to glow brightly. She launched said hoof up into the tip of the salamander’s nose with full force, I could even swear I saw her hoof catch fire before it hit.

The blow sent a ripple throughout the salamander's red flesh all the way from its nose to its tail, then it seemed to rocket off into the distance at insane speeds through multiple trees where a loud crash and a roar of agony was heard.

The salamander we saw after Arizona's hit connected, it had simply been a delayed after-image that followed what had actually happened to the salamander.

“Wow… I finally did it!” Arizona’s thrust her hooves into the air, only to grunt and started to stomp out her burning hoof into the snow. It actually did catch fire… huh. “Ow, ow, ow… darn it all this hurts!”

Paprika hopped up to Arizona wearing a nurse’s hat and carrying a medical kit, I just gave her a flat stare when she winked at me in saucy manner. I better do something about Arizona’s hoof, I didn’t trust Paprika to solve medical issues by just kissing them away.

-Some time later, Arizona-

I looked at my bandage hoof with pride and Tinsel now seemed amazed with my raw strength.

Now I was watching Velvet take Tinsel off to the side to train with him. Paprika snuggled up against me and I smiled faintly, she was so soft and fluffy. Velvet should really lighten up and give the alpaca some love.

“Okay, what’s the best you can do Tinsel?” Hopefully Velvet didn’t expect too much from the sprite, because I certainly couldn’t. Considering the tiny guy couldn’t even defend himself against an owl, I just couldn’t think of him as threatening.

Holding his tiny little limbs above his head, the Tinsel concentrated and squeaked loudly as he formed a snowball in an instant. To Tinsel, the meager snowball was like a mighty boulder.

“Very good, now throw it at Paprika!” Don’t know why Velvet was encouraging him, there was no way he could possibly throw it with any strength to…

The snowball slammed solidly into Paprika’s face knocking her away from me and sent her tumbling a good ten feet, I just blinked in confusion. What just happened, did the little guy just seriously do that?

He might be small, but that was some really good throwing power for something of Tinsel’s size.

“Ice Sprites are notorious for being very helpful in snowball fights. Who’s a good familiar, you’re a good familiar, yes you are!” Velvet just started to tickle the sprite and had him giggling within seconds. “Now let us see if you can boost my ice magic. I only want you to assist me with my magic when I either signal you or tell you to help me, do you understand Tinsel? I don’t want you to amplify my magic without my input, right now you can do so freely while I shape a statue out of ice. I want you to assist me in making whatever it is you feel we should make.”

The little sprite nodded and bowed to Velvet, she had him wrapped around her hoof quite literally with the hug he was giving her. They were about to start when Velvet turned in my direction, but she wasn’t looking at me.

“Paprika, you let that mountain lion go this instant!” Velvet yelled at her, the alpaca was currently cuddling a very frightened and confused mountain lion. Paprika pouted a little, but still let the mountain lion go, it ran for the hills as soon as she did. “Honestly, can’t look away from her for a second or else she starts doing things like snuggling dangerous carnivores behind our backs. Now where were we? Ah yes, forming a statue with the help of Tinsel.”

I watched them work together to start sculpting an ice statue.

With the ice sprite assisting her, the statue came out really fast. Velvet made a statue of herself and I think Tinsel made a few interesting additions to it, given I doubted that Velvet had angel wings and a halo.

“Oh how adorable of you!" Velvet looked embarrassed about it. "Seeing me as an angel.”

“I certainly see you as something alright, but it would be with horns and a spade tipped tail.” I grinned at the look Velvet sent me, she turned back to Tinsel.

“Your ability to assist me is really quite good Tinsel. Now I want you to help me with forming an attack.” Velvets words made the sprite excitedly jump up and down. “Now follow my lead, a one and two and shoot!”

Both Velvet and Tinsel seemed to move in concert with one another and a shard of ice, about twenty percent larger than what Velvet usually does, launched off into the air and struck a stealthy griffon that had been diving straight for us. It carried the hostile bird off into the distance.

“What was a griffon was doing way out here in the middle of nowhere?” Several things dropped to the ground before me and I picked up a knife. “It must have been a bandit, eh no big loss.”

-Bandit-

“… ow…” I whined quietly in pain as I looked at the large chunk of ice between my legs that had plowed me into the snow.

-Velvet-

“Well if the griffon was a bandit they got what they deserved… Arizona maybe you should start watching Paprika carefully.” Looking around because Velvet mentioned it, I didn’t see Paprika anywhere.

-Bandit-

I eventually got the large chunk of ice off of me and upon standing up I came face to face with a smiling… alpaca?

What… no… please… anything but that!

-Arizona-

We turned to the sound of a blood curdling scream.

“Paprika must have went after him, I kind of feel sorry for the guy now. I don’t think he deserves what’s happening to him.” Shaking my head I looked to Velvet. “Well what are you waiting for Velvet? Continue with what you were doing with Tensil, Paprika will come back as soon as she’s done breaking that poor griffon.”

-Bandit-

If I ever get out of this hug alive, I’m turning over a new leaf... ribs failing, air lacking, and current ability to manage existence called greatly into question!

Help… mommy... so… fluffy...

-Some time later, Paprika-

Griffon was a bit grime covered, so I washed us off in a nearby streamed and came back to true loves.

Little ice maker was very snuggly looking, but Velvet didn’t want me to snuggle him as it could hurt him… more reindeer snuggles for me then!

I wiggled my rump and pounced on Velvet and dragged my tongue along her face to let her know I loved her and then I did the same to Arizona. We’re a happy family!

Except Velvet didn’t seem happy to be going to her home in Rein.

I understand, her home wasn’t very nice to her and they really didn’t seem to like me for some reason.

I couldn’t fathom why, I had only destroyed one house in Rein forty seven times because it was close to where Velvet lived. That and on top of randomly starting three village wide destructive fires, I don’t understand why they disliked me. Did I make that fountain implode that one time?

It could have been the thing with the pumpernickel bread and all the cheese and butter I ate. That was a tasty adventure, though emptying the cupboard into my stomach without asking if I could was probably a bad thing.

Maybe it was that I wasn’t loving all the reindeer hard enough. Reindeer needed more love and needed to be less nose in the air about everything around them.

With Tinsel around, maybe the other ice sprites won’t completely avoid me this time?

We were so close to Rein now, I’d get to see all the reindeer again and would maybe hug a few for old time’s sake.

I thought of how my mom was proud of me and is happy that I’m happy. I don’t understand why so many looked at all the reasons to be sad or angry, when there was so much more to be happy about in this world full of wondrous things!

-Just shy of Rein, Arizona-

My right hoof was still a bit burnt, but it was healing fast with the last day or so being entirely boring. I still wondered what it was that let me pull a Little Mach. Was it dragging my hoof against the ground or was it the extra spin I put into it?

My ability to hit hard was just as good as Paprika being super cuddly and Velvet having icy farts. I guess my rope was something magical, but how often would I really use that? Fairly often.

Still, being the brawn of this group was feeling mighty fine from where I was sitting, right next to Velvet with Paprika snuggling against our backs affectionately.

“Paprika…” I started slowly.

“Hm?” Paprika answered with a hum as she nuzzled her face against my neck.

“If you, Velvet or I aren’t pulling the sleigh then who is?” We all looked to the tiny being struggling to pull the weight of the sleigh, Tinsel wasn’t very successful at moving us. Still that he managed any movement at all was surprising, we had maybe moved a millimeter since he started attempting to pull the sleigh.

“Paprika, get back to moving the sleigh or so help me!” The alpaca quickly heeded Velvet’s words after kissing her on the cheek, Velvet turned her sour look from Paprika and gave a bright smile to Tinsel. “Tinsel, be a dear and come back here to sit with me.”

The sprite did so eagerly and it looked tired from trying to move us, soon we were back up to speed and in the distance we could see our first glimpse of Rein. I’d never been here before, but Paprika and Velvet have a history with this place. Most of it bad from the way Velvet tells it.

“You know, we’ve been making Paprika pull the sleigh an awful lot, how about letting me pull you guys along for a change?” Adjusting the alpaca hat and scarf I was wearing, we waited on Paprika’s response.

Within seconds I was spitting into my hooves and had wrapped the roped around my waist, I started us moving forward with a powerful forward heaving motion. I heard Velvet, Tinsel and Paprika screaming as I ran forward, but the screaming wasn’t coming from behind me.

If it wasn’t coming from behind me then… I looked up as I felt a small tug on the rope around my waist and was quickly pulled into the air after the sleigh.

Maybe I had pulled it a little too hard at the start there.

After a few miles or so, I eventually swapped out with Velvet.

-Outside of Rein, Velvet-

I adjusted the rope harness a bit as I pulled us closer to town. It might have chafed a little, but this was excellent exercise for me and pulling a sleigh felt entirely natural somehow.

If you wanted something done well, then you had to do it yourself. I was not sleeping outside in a tent again!

Why we were so close to my cabin, I could practically… oh there it is.

Beyond the rather derelict cabin belonging to me was the village of Rein, home of the ice shaping reindeers of the north. Some buildings were brick, others were wood and rarely were some made out of straw.

I was home again, I felt a sense of dread as much as a sense of longing to spend some time among these streets, maybe see if the lake is frozen over enough to take my girls skating or we could visit the Spritely Spa if it is open.

Wait… did I just seriously think of them as my girls, I didn’t like Paprika like that… did I? Oh no, I’m actually beginning to feel attached to Paprika! Then again, maybe I had always been attached to that nuisance.

It’s like how longma made a killing on heating services around here for those that lived here who weren’t reindeer. Like them, Paprika lovingly became so innately ingrained into being a part of my life.

Author's Note

I got nothing, am I doing anything wrong aside from the length of this story?

Chapter thirty six, Let the good times Rein: Old home.

-Rein, Velvet’s Cabin, Velvet-

The door creaked open and I looked on inside and expected dust on all surfaces of my cabin. I was about to step in when Tinsel grabbed my leg and I looked down at him, he motioned me off to the side and wandered in. He started to slowly use a minor amount of magic to blow some dust out the front door with small gusts of cold air.

This was going to take a while if he planned to dust the whole cabin for me.

“Excuse me Tinsel, but allow me to do the cleaning, just clear a path to the center of the room and I’ll take care of the rest.” The curious look I received Tinsel made me smile, he wanted to clean for me and make sure I didn’t dirty myself. Such a sweetie my little ice sprite. “I’ll take care of the room and you can take care of me afterwards, because I’m sure that I’ll be covered in dust after this. Paprika, Arizona, get clear of the doorway please. This may cause a mess.”

“You going to do that snow-nado thing?” Nodding to Arizona, I wanted her to get to the point as I walked into my slightly derelict cabin. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask about that. Do you always use a backwind to launch it?”

“It’s a condition!” I shouted at her smug smiling face.

“Whatever you say icy farts.” Grumbling angrily at Arizona and her pointing out my condition again.

Once Tinsel was finished, I made my way to the center of the room carefully got balanced on my hind legs. I started to twirl, whipping up a tornado of icy wind and the suction of the localized tornado started to suck all the dust in the cabin towards me.

Once I’ve collected enough of the dust I planted my front hooves and kicked out with one leg, posing with my nose in the air as the dust blasted out the door explosively away from my back.

I was a bit dusty afterwards, but little Tinsel started to comb through my fur immediately. Such a darling little companion he is and will always be, I shall never mistreat his apparent love and devotion for me.

“So you see Paprika, Velvet’s farts are really quite powerful!” Ugh, what was Arizona telling Paprika now? It’s so embarrassing that she knows the secret to one of my greatest attacks. Paprika made several strange gestures to Arizona and my cowgirl answered. “She never uses water magic, but she’s definitely has gotten wind and ice down. Speaking of, why don’t you use water magic? Ice magic is just a combination of wind, water and magic right? Have you been holding out on me Velvet?”

“No of course not, I would never hold back against a bovine brute like you! It’s just that… well…” I mumbled out an answer to Arizona and Paprika, I think Tinsel could at least could hear me as he was blasting small amounts of dust off of my body.

Paprika moved forward and lifted a hoof to her ears while leaning close to me.

“I’m not good with water magic...” It was one of the things that I wasn’t good at, I always used wind magic to fudge things a bit so I could do ice magic. Wind gathers the moisture and freezes it, instead of magically gathering the moisture then using the wind to freeze it.

“Really? Could have fooled me, with how good you are forming ice within a seconds notice and dissipating it just as quickly.” At Arizona’s questioning look, I flicked my head while holding up a hoof and threw the conjured snowballs into Paprika’s face as she was starting to slowly encroach on my personal space.

“Yes, well… come on in and make yourselves at home, I’d rather we stay here than in the mansion…” It was hard to believe that I even came back here, I didn’t want to and I left a place I could call home behind to do so. I seriously missed Airship Mauled, the weather was pretty temperate there and it wasn’t harsh for me.

Paprika bounced happily into the cabin and started to look all over the place, it has been a while since she’s been here. Going into Rein proper they’d probably kick her out on the principle of the trouble she’s caused every time she was around.

Arizona would be allowed to walk around freely without much notice, though some reindeer would see her as beneath them thanks to their magical abilities.

When an ice shaper reindeer could balance water and wind perfectly, they were really quite powerful and able to switch what to focus on at a moment’s notice to do what they needed.

If you focused on wind you were often quicker with attacks and had better control, it offered flexibility but doesn’t have much in the way of defense or stopping power unless you want to get up close and personal with your opponent like I tended to do with Arizona.

When you focused on water you got more powerful offensive and defensive abilities, but it was always predictable what the form of said attacks and defenses would always take. Those who worked with water were less about shape and more solid force of will.

The only reason why I had been a champion guardian of the village is because I worked hard to get my magic to a finely honed edge with my heavy wind focus. I could beat any reindeer with a heavy water focus, but those with a balanced focus could beat me if I wasn’t paying well enough attention to them.

I sat down on nearby chair with Tinsel continuing to attend to me and Paprika pounced into the chair with me to start snuggling me, I sighed and just let her. Paprika stopped snuggling me, to give me a confused smile.

“Oh no, please do keep going Paprika.” It didn’t take much from me to get her to do so.

“Mansion?” Arizona finally said from the couch nearby with her head resting on the leg rest.

“My parent’s own one of course, being nobles and all.” I might have unintentionally started nuzzling Paprika back, because she made an exceedingly happy noise and tightened her grip on me.

“Didn’t you say you were going to tell us their names?” Arizona asked and Tinsel perked up.

“Paprika already knows their names and she’s met them once or twice, it’s kind of hard to remember how many times Paprika has been frozen solid and it’s been done at least once by just about every adult reindeer in town… it all kind of started to blur together after a while.” Sighing, I put a dainty hoof to my head to rub away the oncoming migraine. This did nothing to stop Paprika from dragging her large tongue across my cheek and face affectionately, I let Paprika get away with this without a single word of anger about it. “To start things off. Tinsel, I don’t like my progenitors and I just want you to be aware of that.”

The ice sprite nodded in understanding, Arizona had heard a few things about my parents and didn’t know the full scope of things. I was far more willing to take Kuril as a mother over my actual biological mother. If that wasn’t quite telling, then I don’t know what was.

“Okay then, my parents go by the name of Clause and Prancer. They are well known around here and not everyone likes them, you’ll see why when we meet them.” There was no ‘if’ to be had there, when we were going to be asking everyone about the key and if they’ve seen a large cow going by Minnesota or Maggie. “It won’t take my biological progenitors even a second to start insulting you Arizona, of that I can be sure. I’ll give you an idea of what they’ll likely say about you, mostly so you don’t react to them later when you meet them.”

“All right, I’ll bite, hit me with your worst shot Velvet!” My lovely cow girlfriend might be in for a shock, because I was going to drop into full noble for this. I was still quite hesitant to call Paprika a girlfriend, but I completely understood the fact that she just wanted me to smile more and be happier.

It’s just that Paprika antics had been a major pain in my flanks previously before I left the village with Snickers. I’m a little horrified that I see something in Paprika that I can’t help but love, but that was quite deep down inside of me thanks to the years of being tormented by her constant, never wavering, affectionate attitude towards me.

“Oh a cow? What is a grass muncher like you doing here? You belong back in those unsightly mud lands you ugly misbegotten beast.” That was something I hoped would make Arizona sit up and take notice, because that would be something my father could say. “Is that your face or did a wolf maul you? I doubt the beast would have touched you with that horrid stench of yours, did the milk spoil inside your udders? Why don’t you go back to being the useless livestock that you are?”

Arizona just sat still for a moment, Paprika just gave us both a confused look. After a moment Arizona’s muzzle crinkled and she put both her hooves over her mouth and then, not being able to hold it in any longer, she burst out laughing.

“Oh wow, I’m so going to take apart whichever of your… what did you call them, progenitors? Well I’m going to take them down a few pegs when I meet them!” Continuing to laugh, Arizona rolled onto her back on the couch and then a few second later to the side and off the couch. “There’s no way that’s real Velvet, it’s too silly!”

“Oh it’s very much real, you should hear what the reindeer say about Paprika.” I had an inkling that Arizona didn’t appreciate anyone badmouthing Paprika, because she immediately sat up and took notice.

“What do they say about her?” Arizona climbed back onto the couch looking more focused. “Also can we get a fire going in here?”

“You sure you want me to tell you Arizona?” I was up and getting a log to start a fire. The very moment I lit the fireplace, it would be the first sign that I’ve returned to Rein.

Someone would inevitably come to talk to me about being back in a permanent fashion, but I wasn’t going to stay here. While I did love Rein and it was a beautiful place, I left my real mother figure back in Airship Mauled who didn’t care if I was gay. With Grace being a close second option to being someone I respected a lot, mostly for having raised someone as rambunctious as Arizona.

Nobody came to clean my cabin while I was gone, obviously I was hardly cared about here.

Well I wouldn’t say hardly, Arizona and Paprika cared about me. I started work the wood over and eventually it lit ablaze and I backed up, fire and heat were not things reindeers liked. Arizona and Paprika were all guests here and it’s the only reason why fireplaces existed in Rein.

“You might as well tell me a few of the more pertinent bits of information.” Arizona stretched out and I watched as her muscles flexed and tightened. Yes, I was very much attracted to that action and I wasn’t the only one staring. Paprika was also staring and she seemed enamored with the sight, then again it was hard to find a time when she wasn’t enamored with something or other. “This is a nice place you got here Velvet, it’s rather cozy.”

“Thank you, I took part in the construction myself.” I cleared my throat as Paprika pounced on Arizona who just smiled, better her than me. She insane enough to actually like Paprika’s back breaking hugs. “As for the pertinent information about Paprika. Well they says she’s completely braindead, a walking natural disaster that may eventually kill us all. That she’s too stupid to get the message the first time and just won’t stay away no matter how much they despise her existence. There are quite a few reindeer that are logically afraid of her as freezing her solid doesn’t work very well.”

Paprika smiled to me and stuck out her tongue in a goofy manner. She went back to resting her head on Arizona’s. I just decided to join them on the couch, by sitting down in front of Paprika’s hind legs.

“So about Rein, any customs we should know about? Paprika’s nomadic tribe didn’t have any problems with us.” Before Arizona could receive my answer, she held up a hoof to stall me and turned her eyes to Paprika. “Now that I think about it, what did your brother end up doing with that blizzard crown thing?”

Paprika gained a thoughtful look and I just leaned back into her fluff, Tinsel crawled up and curled against my side.

We were like a cozy, loving family already.

-Alpaca Accretion, Rattle-

Yes, the power was mine and mine alone now that I had the crown!

I would use this power to finally achieve my goals, the grandness of my efforts would soon be realized by everyone around me!

Picking up a piece of wood and placing it down in front of where I was, I waited for my plans to come to fruition as I started to lazily play my instrument.

A bunch of cria ran up to me looking excited and I smiled gently as a small cloud started snowing from above my recently built snow cone stand. I thought it was pretty cool at least, I think snow cones would sell pretty well when we got around to visiting the cows.

Not only would I play my musical instrument softly for the cria, but I would also simply become the snow cone king of the alpaca tribe. My snow cones would only use the freshest of snow, fallen directly into the cone from small magically formed snow clouds.

Smash some select fruit, pour the juice into the cones and the cria would be eating it up for free, they only get one freebie a day though and the adults would still have to pay for them. This may be undercutting the reindeer on their frozen delights, but I wasn’t about to use this crown for anything else.

I wasn’t that ambitious and this thing was going to be used to wipe out our tribe, so why shouldn’t I use it for something entirely mundane?

-Rein, Velvet’s cabin, Arizona-

I could feel Paprika shrugging as if she didn’t know what her brother could possibly be doing with it, hopefully he wasn’t going mad with power.

I don’t think any of the alpaca could do full on evil really, they were all highly affectionate families that loved one another implicitly.

“To start off there are a few customs you should be aware of. First off, never raise a hoof to the wild ice sprites living around here." Well that was a given Velvet, I would never want to hurt one of those cute critters. "If they do something you don’t like, then tell them what’s wrong clearly and or get a friendly reindeer involved to help settle them down.”

Chapter thirty six, Let the good times Rein: Old fashioned.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter thirty six, Let the good times Rein: Old news.

-Rein, Velvet-

“So… outsider’s rules are meant to be incentives for outsiders to take part in the tourneys?” That was about the size of it Arizona.

“Yes, reindeers don’t get the same chances at prizes, though we can still win money. What we get is prestige, acknowledgement and can reach champion status depending on how well we do." I was still technically a champion even if I was kind of retired from it, I would still defend the village in its time of need. Otherwise I was going to stay retired from being a champion. "Provided that you actually want champion status anyway.”

“Why don’t you enter with Paprika and me when we go sign up for this tourney?” Tucking into the food before her, Arizona gave off an appreciative hum of approval for the taste. Did she have to eat so messily? She thankfully swallowed her food before continuing, at least she was learning. “Well I have to run it by Paps first, but I know she’d want to be in on this.”

“Even if I were to win I wouldn’t be able to ask after the key, I’d just win money.” Not that I had much of that at the moment, but we collectively weren’t poor. We still had plenty of Equestrian bits to buy supplies with.

“Why would that stop you from having fun? Things never stopped you before.” She had a good point, what was stopping me from wanting to enter the competition? “Besides I thought you would have jumped at the chance to beat me in a tournament for the bragging rights alone.”

“I might just enter to get the smug smirk off your face.” I smiled at Arizona, she was really cheering me up and our date was going pretty well, though I was having a hard time ignoring all the reindeer that were sending me curious glances. “Then again there is Paprika and we know how she’ll be throughout the whole tournament. I feel sorry for whoever gets paired up with her in their first match.”

Our ice skating escapades had left Arizona particularly sore. She was neither elegant nor graceful, but darn it she was quite determined to make me happy and is succeeding.

“Still worried about whatever these reindeer think of you that has you so down my pompous princess?” Arizona was grinning brightly at me.

“Like I care what others think of our relationship now, you bullish brute!” I grinned right on back as I ate.

Tinsel squeaked something joyful sounding and then bit into the top of a grape, he was eating from a small bowl of grapes and blueberries.

“You know these little guys almost seem too intelligent to become familiars.” Arizona scrutinized our ice sprite wearing the tiny alpaca hat and shirt Paprika made for him.

“Thanks for reminding me Arizona, I have to make sure your wounds didn’t reopen after all that tussling around you did with those other sprites Tinsel.” I received a nod from him and watched as Tinsel winced and clutched at his body. I would have to remember to check on Tinsel’s injuries to make sure they healing well, maybe wrap a fresh bandage over them and add some more disinfectant. Tinsel was my responsibility, I should pay more attention to his health to make sure nothing untoward happens to him on my watch. “As for the intelligence of ice sprites, they built half of this town on their own to attract reindeers. So yes, they are fairly close to being beyond capable of making a familiar bond.”

“Wait… what?!” Arizona was cute when she looked so clueless. “Are you telling me these little guys built half of this town by themselves?”

“Oh my yes, you know how I said they tend to worship reindeers? Well they built half of this town with the expectancy of attracting reindeers to live here, though they didn’t build Rein without help mind you. I think they chose a good locations at the very least, as Rein has been here for a long time.” I patted Tinsel on the head and he squeaked happily. “These darling little creatures weren’t exactly the greatest of carpenters at the time, they only knew how to make simple lean-tos you see. Our ancient ancestors came along and started living near them in the shelters they made, these little guys also knew how to find food in even the coldest of months. This led to both our races coming together tightly. Eventually the reindeer started building better homes and the ice sprites learned from there how to do that themselves, they aren’t actually creative as they could only mimic homes that have already been built. Still, what they lacked in creativity in building homes, they made up for in being quite good at decorating things as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“Explains why a lot of the buildings in town look so similar, I guess if it weren’t for all the cutesy decorations I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the differences between houses around here.” Ah so Arizona did notice that, well that was the most of it. “Did the ice sprites do anything else of note like that?”

“They started caring for our fawns and even like to make or repair toys if you show them how, though the wild ones aren’t geniuses by any stretch of the imagination. The ice sprites that are familiars are a lot smarter thanks to the shared bond.” I stopped to take a bite of food as I thought of my connection with Tinsel, it felt like we shared a two way bond of mutual friendship and respect. “I think there is only one good reason as to why they are just shy of being incapable of forming familiar bonds with. It’s because they always have a childlike whimsy alongside their mentality that never seems to grow out of said state, it doesn’t help that they all always look so tiny and frail.”

“Do you suppose they ever see you as pets and are there reindeer that think of them as pets?” Arizona didn’t know that asking that would have made most reindeer upset with her, but I understood her ignorance.

“It is a completely insanely strong symbiotic based bond, we protect them and they make sure to help and take care of us to the best of their abilities.” There were some no nonsense laws about how we treated ice sprites around here and I for one followed them to the letter. “To imply otherwise is to tarnish the nature of the history between the reindeer and ice sprites. So please don’t imply slavery, servitude, ownership or otherwise, we have that custom about not abusing ice sprites in any way for a reason.”

We continued eating for a bit and a gangly looking reindeer eventually came running on over to our table, the reindeer at the restaurants reception didn’t look too happy that he had run right past them.

“So it is true.” This reindeer buck that I knew particularly well stated while looking at me, he was an old nuisance that I knew of.

“Yes, I’m back.” I waited for him to start hitting on me despite the fact that I was otherwise clearly on a date with Arizona. What would follow is Arizona beating the snot out of him for harassing me like he usually does. “So go ahead and just get it out of your system Branches, tell me what I’m not going to listen to.”

“There’s no reason to be so mean Velvet. I just… I came to apologize about all the um… trouble I’ve caused you in the past.” He seemed somewhat honest in his apology and now I find myself clearly surprised.

“What’s this guy apologizing about?” That is a very good question Arizona.

“Arizona say hello to Branches Brick’Load of the Brick’Load Brick Layers clan, his clan is full of lumberjacks and wood workers. Branches this is my traveling companion Arizona.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I too want to know, what exactly are you apologizing for specifically Branches? Is it all the harassment or was it those ice sprites you almost got hurt that one time?”

He winced quite audibly. He wasn’t a very handsome buck, but at least he tried to be nice. He had tried a little too hard to be sweet with me really, especially when I made it absolutely clear that I didn’t like him.

Even when I looked at what the other does think are handsome bucks around here, I felt nothing for any of them and I even held contempt for Branches here because he was so annoying about taking ‘no’ for an answer.

“Did the room temperature just drop twenty degrees in this general area?” Of course it did Arizona, sometimes a reindeer could make the temperature turn cold just by mood alone. Cold fury can be quite literal here after all.

“Yeah, that sounds about right Ms. Arizona. That ice sprite thing most certainly didn’t go as I intended and now I know it wouldn’t have worked even if it did go correctly. I’m thankful that you didn’t report that Velvet…” Branches rubbed at his face looking sheepish, his voice was rather nasally and was one of reasons I didn’t like him among other things. His horns were relatively large for his frame and, contrary to his name, his horns were almost one solid mass with barely any splits in them. I would even say he looked more like a moose to me sometimes. “I’m sorry about harassing you so much.”

“Why are you apologizing now of all times?” It was hard to keep my contempt for him out of my voice.

“Well... I was hoping we could at least be friends. I’m really sorry about all those attempts to woo you and doing it all while in public, private and otherwise.” Say what I will about Branches, he was actually a nice guy even if he wasn’t all too bright. He did have something of a chivalrous nature to him, but I didn’t need his protection.

If anything, Branches needed protection from me after the last time we faced off in a Tundra Tourney. I remember how I got close enough to slam a pillar of ice up between his legs in a manner most foul and left him quite blue in more ways than one. What a good memory that was!

“What, pray tell, brought on this apology? For I’m not about to take it at face value if you have some ulterior reasons for it.” I asked clearly. He never gave up so easily previously, so why was he doing so now? I took a sip of my fruit juice as I glared at him, he looked away rubbing the back of his neck.

“I’ve actually come to learn to respect your feelings on the matter of you not liking me, very understandable really. Also I didn’t know what grandma meant when she said you were likely a carpet muncher and that she wasn’t talking about you being a naturalist that likes to eat fresh grass.” Branches stopped to blush here, he tapped his hooves together. “I apologize for what my grandma said, I didn’t know you were attracted to does… or… maybe this cow?”

“I’d like to say that I’m fairly attracted to her Branches.” Said the cow to the now slightly smiling reindeer.

“… how long and does everyone know that I’m gay?” My tone was flat as can be.

“About a day or so after you announced that you were going to disappear with that magical flying turtle and its old news by now. So I guess everyone knows now, your parents are in denial and are trying to set up an arranged marriage.” Branches wilted a bit. “I doubt that’ll work and your parents are absolutely going to fail. In your own way you tried to tell me, but I didn’t listen when you told me you just weren’t interested in a relationship.”

“Apology accepted, but explain to me how everyone found out that I was gay and what was the general reaction to it?” Nobody had treated me all too differently, but I guess I hadn’t really talked to anyone to find out either.

“Well… the alpaca that terrorizes us kind of went nuts when she heard you were gone. We kind of figured that she was looking for you after she turned the entire town on its head almost literally. I did not need to know she can flip an entire house upside without disrupting any of the objects inside said house in way that makes everything inside defy the of the laws of gravity without even being nailed down.” He paused for a bit and looked at the ice sprite eating with us blankly as if he had just noticed Tinsel, he shook his head and got back on track. “That and she kept doing that silent alpaca communication thing, that I think is kind of creepy, to ask where you went. I told her you were last seen heading towards some mountains and then she started running straight south much to everyone’s confusion. It was then that it started to come out that you had a wandering eye for does and things kind of went from there with everyone kind of guessing that you punted for the fairer team. Who’s this little guy?”

“My familiar Tinsel, rescued him from a snow owl with sharp talons recently. Wave to the friendly buck Tinsel.” The ice sprite did as I asked and started to gnaw at a blueberry. “Towns reactions… now! I haven’t been around long enough to hear the hearsay yet or get blindsided by anyone.”

“Right, well… surprisingly a lot of reindeer who thought ill of you for your family flipped gears entirely once they found out. They see you in a better light now, while your parents are still bottoming out in the popularity polls with middle to lower class reindeer.” Branches let out a sigh. “Some would say that they can now see why you acted like you did and getting away from them could have only made your disposition better.”

“Can I ask a question, are you all seriously that frightened of Paprika Paca?” Arizona received a quizzical confused look from Branches. “You know, the alpaca that you just said terrorizes you.”

“That horrible thing pretending to be an alpaca actually has name!” Due in part to Branches reaction, I realized that I have never exactly told anyone Paprika’s name and no one had bothered ask.

In fact, I felt a little touched that I was the only one that Paprika gave her name to. To think that I alone was the only one that needed to know.

“She does and she’s standing right behind you.” Arizona was chuckling as she said that.

Branches froze, he went wide eyed and slowly turned his head to see the bouncy alpaca. All the other reindeers in the restaurant cowering were beneath their tables.

Paprika moved forward and grabbed Branches gently, she lifted him up and moved him off to the side. She then went back to standing where she had been and then she lunged for me.

My world was fluff, I was blinded by it and... why was I currently enjoying it?!

After a moment she settled down next to me and looked to my food.

“You can have some Paprika.” I couldn’t believe the surprisingly good table manners Paprika showed.

Author's Note

The next chapter, is basically DBZ sign up preliminaries.

Chapter thirty six, Let the good times Rein: Old hat.

-Rein the next day, Paprika-

Tundra Tourney?

Sounds fun!

Love of eyes wanted me to join and try to win so I can ask about the reindeer key.

I can easily do that, I would easily do a lot for them and nothing will catch on fire… like it did yesterday.

I felt my hoof hit something and watched as a piece of wood spun over my head into a lamp. Oil became splattered all across the wall of the entirely brick house, then the wood struck the ground to let out a teeny tiny spark.

The entire brick house promptly caught fire. The entire house just lit ablaze in seconds filling the entire area with heat, brick was not naturally this flammable and it still confused me somewhat.

At least it was pretty when it caught fire, but I’m sure the reindeer won’t appreciate this happening more than two days in a row.

I went to go find Arizona and Velvet and tried to ignore my big oops, the reindeer could handle the fire right?

-Tundra Tourney Signup, Arizona-

Paprika seems interested in joining the competition, mostly because we just asked her to. She was always fun for a dustup, but I don’t think she ever was aggressive on purpose.

Branches was following along after we all walked into town, but he was keeping his distance from Paprika when she suddenly showed up and started giving us affection.

“Are you sure she’s safe?” Branches, like just about any reindeer, was completely terrified of Paprika even if she was humming happily while rubbing up against Velvet and me sporadically.

I think Paps was trying to split her attention between us evenly. I returned some of these gestures, but Velvet was still somewhat frigid to Paprika. Though I did see Velvet give Paprika a tiny nuzzle that made the alpaca even more exuberant.

“As safe as she’ll ever get.” Velvet commented dryly as she looked over her shoulder into the distance at the smoke rising into the sky and what was a barely visible fire having seemingly been caused mysteriously.

We approached the signup desk and preliminary testing building, it was fairly large like a stadium. The reindeer sitting at the desk just beyond the entrance looked a little bored.

“Is this the signup for the Tundra Tourney?” I wondered if the bored looking reindeer would give me the time of day.

“Yes… the signup sheets are… oh holiest of carp!” The reindeer had only glanced up for a second, but then quickly fell backwards out of her seat and had her back pressed up against the wall while adjusting her glasses while staring at Paprika. Her other hoof was clutched to her chest.

“Well at least it isn’t the anointed mackerel again.” Chuckling at this was wrong of me, but I couldn’t help myself.

Paprika smiled and moved up to the desk to take a signup sheet and she started writing stuff down on it. Carefully the reindeer moved forward, feeling a bit cautious of the alpaca and she looked at the sheet.

“Well that’s a lot tamer than I would have…” The reindeer had spoken too soon about Paprika’s tamely written name.

Paprika pulled out a bottle unscrewed the cap and swiped the brush attached to the cap across the paper several times. After stowing the bottle away she pulled out a shaker and shook some glitter onto the paper and then, carefully picking the paper up, she angled it away from everyone and blew on it.

She placed it before the reindeer, showing that her name was now covered in glitter on her quickly filled out form.

“You’re going to eventually kill us all aren’t you?” The reindeer was a shivering wreck, but she still took the form. “Right, go on back for preliminary testing Ms. Paprika Paca.”

Paprika pointed to us.

“You can wait for them back there and do the preliminary testing together.” The reindeer seemed a little bit braver as she spoke softly, Paprika nodded and hopped on through. She let out a sigh of relief. “That about gave me a heart…”

Paprika rushed back and gave her a big hug and then ran off again.

“Ow.” The reindeer wheezed out.

I rolled my eyes, took up a form and looked it over before taking up the pencil in hoof and wrote down half my name before it snapped. Ten pencils later and I managed to finish my form, why were pencils so fragile in this day and age?

I went on back and found Paprika hugging a horrified buck praying for his life, she stopped hugging him and came up to me with a cheerful look on her face. Velvet eventually came through.

“Preliminary testing, this sure does bring back memories.” Velvet looked wistful, we still hadn’t seen Prancer or Clause which was probably better for her mood from what I heard from Branches. Speaking of, Branches came on back too.

“You entering as well?” The guy looked scrawny and kind of moose like for a reindeer, but I was sure he could handle himself somewhat. Nowhere near as well as Velvet could.

“Yeah, I’m still working on being a champion myself. Velvet is someone to look up to because she did it at a young age.” It seemed that while Branches wasn’t enamored with Velvet anymore, he still look at her in high regard.

-Rein, Velvet, distant past-

“Okay hit the target as hard as you can using ice magic or physical strength, physical is better as it shows that you are healthy enough to take part in these fights even as young as you are.” The reindeer looked worried for me, he probably shouldn’t have.

For I was going to be a champion of peerless might and my ice magic would reach mastery levels in no time!

My parents would have to be proud of me and they would say there goes our little Champion Velvet with complete awe!

-Rein present-

“Only it never happened…” I stated quietly as we made our way over to the strength testers. I did eventually become a champion much to my detractors shock and was quite renowned for it, but I never achieved ice magic mastery.

Nothing I ever did would make my biological progenitors proud, they always wanted more and there was a limit on what I could willingly give. Now I didn’t care about their opinion, for I had Arizona… and Paprika I guess. They didn’t care about any grandstanding, Arizona was about the thrill of the fight and Paprika didn’t care if I couldn’t make her proud as she loved me unconditionally.

I’ve grown a lot since then and was far stronger thanks to my sparring sessions with Arizona, my girlfriend hits like a fully loaded donkey cart.

“You okay Velvet?” Looking to Arizona, I shook my head to clear the cobwebs of the distant past away.

“I’ll be just fine Arizona, it’s been a while since I went through preliminary health testing.” I wasn’t that bright eyed little leaguer anymore, Tinsel looked at me questioningly from my forehead. “It’s to make sure you’re ready for the rigors of combat. The first test is to test your strength, then they test our speed and finally they test our endurance. I’m not letting Tinsel take part due to his injuries and after the main testing we will have to be tested for drugs.”

“Good to see there is a champion with this group, she’ll show you how it’s done.” The reindeer in the cap holding a clipboard nodded to me and stood off to the side while pointed to the strength tester. “You can use magic or physical strength, physical strength is better because it lets us know just how healthy you are. If you have a frail body, but good magical strength, then we will send in the medics earlier to take care of you if you get heavily injured by at least three solid hits.”

-Arizona-

It was like those things you’d see at a carnival that you smashed with a hammer, only using a bulky looking punching bag that you had to hit hard to make the slider rise.

Velvet calmly walked up to it and looked it over in contemplation, she lifted her right hoof and lightly tapped it. The bell immediately rang, the slider looked to have teleported to the top.

Well that didn’t bode well for any of the reindeer we were going to face. My training with Velvet took her from being something exceptional into something beyond extraordinary, she still didn’t beat me in raw muscle though and Paprika was close in that area.

“Maybe it isn’t calibrated correctly...” The reindeer tested it himself with a half effort hoof slam and the thing jumped up to seventy percent along the bar.

“Oh it’s working correctly, I just happened to gain a pretty good training regimen from a war god and my training partner is stronger than an elephant.” Velvet looked to me with a smirk and I smirked back.

“You just tapped it though!” The reindeer who came to give us the strength testing was horribly perplexed, I don’t think he’s noticed Paprika yet or even knows of her. He wasn’t running for the hills like the other reindeer when presented with the alpaca.

“Exactly, I’m just that strong.” Velvet lifted her head up and smirked to the reindeer.

“Okay then tap me and let me see for myself.” I don’t think you understood what you were exactly asking for buster. As demure and svelte as Velvet looked, she could hit pretty hard and made up for her lack of strength with how many times she could lash out in a few seconds.

Velvet rolled her eyes, sauntered up to him, all the other reindeer going through testing stopped to watch her. She studied the buck for a second lifted her left hoof, then threw a light jab into his chest.

He went careening into the wall five feet away, it cratered upon impact and now had our tester partially embedded in it.

A lot of the reindeer were now staring at Velvet and she just sent them side glance making them back away from her in fright.

“Okay… you’re healthy enough… think you broke a rib…” Poor guy, he could barely talk.

Eventually we got a replacement and she looked nervous given that we were letting Paprika be tested next.

“Okay… go ahead…” The small reindeer cowered at the sight of Paprika, but she still managed to brave the alpaca’s presence.

Paprika squealed and latched onto the hit target to start nuzzling it, the reindeer that were terrified of her were confused when the slider didn’t move for the bell.

Paprika gave them a bright smile and squeezed slightly.

The following crash had all the reindeer looking up at the ceiling to see a decent size hole in it and they also watched as the two halves of the shattered bell fell to the floor.

“She’s going to kill us all!” A reindeer ran from the room screaming.

We needed a new testing machine for me and the shaking reindeer marked Paprika down as a ‘yes’, instead of her just being healthy. The tester was just that frightened.

“How can you look so calm standing next to the hug monster?” The shaking reindeer tester asked me as I approached the replacement machine that wasn’t under the hole in the ceiling.

I raised a hoof and hit the thing with half of my full strength, I wanted to see a lot of the reindeer’s reactions to my strength. That and I wanted to take some of that fear off of Paprika and move it to me.

-Outside-

Vixen, once again having felt violated by the snuggling menace, was relaxing with a lovely fluffy cheese pastry when the roof of the preliminary health testing site for the Tundra Tourney exploded and peeled outward.

She watched as something arced her way and two fused molten bits of metal slammed to the ground next to her. It was a slider melted into the bell, both of which were on fire.

Who the buck could have possible done that?!

-Arizona-

“So… did I pass?” Not only did I personally destroy half the roof, I also almost took down an entire wall leading to something that looked like a locker room as well.

Paprika was now going to be small potatoes to worry about in their minds, I was hoping someone could give me a good challenge. I didn’t want to rely Paprika and Velvet for goods fights alone.

A few of the reindeer eventually fainted.

“I’ve seen a demon… and its name is cow.” The reindeer tester looked catatonic, she still marked me down as physically healthy.

“Okay Velvet, what’s next?” I looked to our tester and gestured to her with my head. “She’s going to take a while to come to grips with her destroyed world view.”

Branches physical strength testing was probably going to be a big letdown to whoever stuck around to watch it.

“Speed track my dear Arizona.” Velvet stated calmly as she sauntered on by the reindeer tester and used her rear hoof to kick their slightly unhinged jaw back into position noisily.

-Indoor speed testing track, Velvet-

“So who’s going to… oh gods and goddesses it’s her!” The deep voiced muscular coach like male reindeer cowered away from Paprika, she just smiled at him while gently wagging her tail.

“What’s so scary about an alpaca? Anyway I just finished my run in ten seconds flat, nobody is going to beat that record here!” We turned to see a pegasus with spiky bright yellow hair and blue fur, he had lightning bolts for a cutie mark and a braided tail that made it look like a monkeys. He seemed quite full of himself. “The names Shocking Awe, there’s no beating the lightning lord! Call me Shock for short.”

“Get… get on the… starting line.” The coach reindeer was terrified of Paprika. Paprika has certainly terrorized a lot of reindeer and I understood how he felt. I too once feared the alapaca, now I was beginning to like her back and that was more horrific to me than all the hugs and cuddles Paprika doled out. “Run around the track once, when I say go.”

Paprika did as he asked and crouched down to start running along the track, her butt raised high into the air and wiggled.

“Go!” The resulting dust cloud circled the entire arena and Paprika materialized at the finished line seconds later. The coach reindeer looked at the stopwatch, having clicked it as soon as he saw a grinning Paprika at the finish line. “Five seconds… she ran the whole track in… five seconds. N-next...”

That made sense, Paprika was the fastest out of the three of us at a dead sprint. She was far slower when actually fighting in combat though.

Arizona was going to go next and then I would be last.

-Shocking Awe-

I backed away a fair distance and blinked once, then twice… there was no way. That just wasn’t… I don’t even… what just happened? I can’t have just lost my newly minted record to a dirt walker just like that!

“By Celestia… no wait… can’t do that.” I couldn’t exactly swear by a goddess, GODLESS was all about getting rid of gods.

Asking around, entering the tourney was one of the ways to get the key I’m after.

I apparently had some stiff competition… awesome!

Author's Note

A challenger arrives...

Yes, I planned for a Pegasus to show up.

Chapter thirty six, Let the good times Rein: New emotional baggage.

-Rein, Tundra Tourney Signup Center, Paprika-

“What are you talking about I was faster than you!” Arizona had her head pressed against Velvet in anger, but I knew they liked to be angry with each other.

“You’re blind, I was clearly point zero one seconds faster than you!” Velvet growled back into Arizona’s face as she pressed her head back against Arizona’s.

They were learning deep alpaca communication, they should look more deeply into the others eyes though. I don’t think they were getting it quite right by only staring into only one eye like that.

The reindeer tester wasn’t paying any attention to them and was paying more attention to the sound of me munching popcorn and watching these two go at it. They looked like they were going to play violently, they really liked doing that for some reason.

“Where did you even get that popcorn?” My answer to the coach stuff reindeer tester guy was to shrug.

-An hour later-

“I’m quite certain that the cow has to be on something, there’s no way she could have put one of the machines through a wall in a way that destroyed most of the wall while leaving most of the machine intact.” The reindeer doctor guys really didn’t seem to believe Arizona was actually that strong.

Velvet told Arizona flipped an elephant and I believed her implicitly, cows are really strong.

“We’ve run multiple tests on her, her muscles are freakishly corded.” I looked to the other professional talking to the first one. “It’s amazing she can even walk given her small size, her muscles are so tight she should be paralyzed! If she were bigger then that wouldn’t look like so much of a problem.”

“Don’t even get me started on Champion Velvet, how in the world did she gain so much compacted muscle in such a short amount of time away from Rein?” I liked hearing people say nice things about loves of eyes. “I mean it doesn’t even look like she's changed much at all, but beneath the surface is a different story entirely.”

“Their red cells show nothing unusual, they had to have been really eating their grains.” I liked cereal, but what did that have to do with red cells? Why would someone paint cells red anyway? People in cells always needed big hugs!

“Don’t even get me started on how fast that alpaca can run, all three of them are quite beyond average. That’s with me taking that crazy fluffmancer and Velvet being in peak conditions into account here.” The reindeer looked over the charts again. “It’s the cow that’s bizarre beyond anything normal, what did she do to herself? Did she tear all her muscles at once and then survived long enough to heal them back stronger than ever? Do you think she might have earth pony heritage?”

“No, I don’t think earth pony heritage works quite like this. Whoever her parents were, that cow has her genetics working for her aside from her size that is. Notable small stature and stunted udder growth are the only issues with her, but are not life threatening issues.” The reindeer doctor guy sighed. “Nothing for it, we have to pass her. She’s healthier than an ox twice her size.”

I should go snuggle Arizona and Velvet to give them the good news!

“Shocking Awe, seems to be just as tough as them and a few other entrants. I wonder if Velvet knows Clause and Prancer are entered into this month’s competition.” I heard as I wandered back to my two favorite beings in the world. “This is going to be one interesting Tundra Tourney, we rarely get any equestrians aside from the unicorns of light.”

-Some time later Rein, Arizona-

“So that went well.” It was all a little too easy, five minutes hanging onto a bar suspended above the ground or twenty pull ups and lasting a solid minute afterwards? That was calves play for Velvet, Paprika and me.

“Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve done that, it was also nice of the doctor to check on Tinsel for me.” Velvet was obviously proud of herself for beating her old statistics by a mile. It was also a good thing that Tinsel got checked out, nothing was seriously wrong with the little guy except he was in constant minor pain while he was still healing. He was definitely not competition safe. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to set my hoof down on this Tinsel, you need your rest and I won’t have you endangering your health by entering fights with me sweetie. I can handle myself.”

The little ice sprite whined sadly, but accepted that he needed to rest and gave Velvet’s neck a hug from where he was sitting.

“Hello… daughter.” We stopped in the street and Paprika bumped into my backside as we looked to a tall old looking reindeer sporting a beard and had funky looking eyebrows. Not only that, his antlers look like they were bladed.

“From where I’m standing Clause, you don’t have a daughter and are talking to a random reindeer on the street that just happens to have a working relationship with a cow.” Velvet snorted and turned her nose up at him. “Go ahead, disown me, I don’t care.”

“I might take you up on that as you are a big disappointment to us daughter, but I would prefer you be married off to a suitor of our choice.” I didn’t like this Clause guy, he clearly wasn’t friendly even if he was Velvet’s father. “Instead of hanging around with this aimless lazy barnyard grass muncher and that ugly bog dwelling mutant of an alpaca that you’ve befriended.”

“I don’t play in the political reindeer games Clause, I don’t even need to guess that you’ll be in this month’s Tundra Tourney.” I could tell Velvet was dead serious, as her eyes were focused sharply on the older reindeer. “I doubt there is anything you could do that won’t make me destroy you and Prancer should you try to force my hoof into doing something I absolutely don’t want to. Just try it and you’ll know my wrath.”

“We’ll see about that in the Tundra Tourney daughter. After all we’ve done for you, the most you could do is be of at least a little use to us.” He started to trot on by us. “We’ll change your mind one way or another. You’ll see that it’s pointless to defy us for these lowborn useless dregs. You were born for greatness, you’ll eventually want to be in the lap of luxury again and I’ll enjoy watching you crawl right on back to us. We made you what you are and we can just as easily bring you down. I doubt you will even last long enough to fight us in the coming tourney. I’ll give you one chance to submit, I will send Prancer to meet with you later to broker a deal on it.”

Clause’s tone of voice had him sound like he was wallowing in his own superiority complex, he’s going to lose if I ever meet him in a fight. Guy sounded like he needs to be knocked down a peg or two.

I looked to Paprika and saw something unusual in her eyes that I would have never thought I could see in them… raw hatred. What would make Paprika give Clause that kind of look? I didn’t even think Paprika could do anger.

Even Tinsel, who normally revered almost any reindeer he came across with Velvet as his top priority for worship, didn’t like that Clause guy at all.

“Velvet, I think this may come as a surprise, but I think Paprika hates your biological progenitors.” Looking from me to Paprika and then back to me, Velvet nodded. “At least one of them anyway, won’t know about the other until Paprika meets them.”

“I can understand that, I hate them both too. Can’t help how I was raised or who I was born to, but now I have some really good incentives to get deeper into the tournament.” Yeah, because you wanted to kick your progenitors asses. “I used to love my mother… now all those good memories are tainted.”

Paprika gently pulled Velvet into a hug and glared in the direction Clause trotted off in and I quickly joined in on giving Velvet some love. That dark furred deer wasn’t going to touch Velvet on our watch and I’m sure Tinsel would help us there.

If Velvet’s biological mother was anything like her father, then she was doomed for a hoof sandwich as hard as I can give it!

“We’re with you Velvet, whatever you want us to do.” I whispered to my girlfriend and she looked at me with a gentle smile.

“Come along then, let’s head back to my cabin... you can let go of me now Paprika.” We all followed Velvet quietly, with not much else to do in Rein we would wait a few days for the Tundra Tourney to begin.

-Next day, Velvet-

Both Arizona and Paprika were quite supportive of me and I needed them more than ever. Even Tinsel wanted me to worry more about myself than him, it was as if he was saying his owl related injuries and physical scarring didn’t compare to the emotional garbage filling my mind.

They were all so sweet to me and much closer than friends.

At the end of this journey I want to be able to look Kuril in the eyes and call her mom again, even if we are never able to find Arizona’s mother or a way to save Jaded.

“Arizona…” We had been quietly resting in today and didn’t feel like doing anything in particular. I just had to ask, now that I thought of it. “I know we’re looking for your mother, but who was your father?”

"He was a longhorn, big guy named Texas… he’s not around anymore and I can barely remember his face. I can remember that he was always so protective of me, being so small for my size I must have looked so tiny to his large girth. He would always stand over me and scare away anything that so much as frightened me." Arizona looked away sadly. "From what I can remember, he died protecting me from a large monster... and he took it with him too! I can’t even remember what the monster was, I think it traumatized me.”

Arizona clutched at her head with a grunt. I just stared at her with worry, it was as if she was blocking something out of her memory. I knew how that felt, I was trying to actively forget my parents and here she was trying to remember both of hers.

“That’s why my mom ultimately gave me to Aunt Grace, she went off to try and make the world safer for me to live in. It says a lot that I can barely remember dad and mom's loving faces. I would like to believe Texas would be as good a father as Tamale is to Paprika’s whole family, were he still alive.” Shuffling her fringe out of her face, Arizona gave off a small smile to us. “I think he was called The Taurus, a title befitting the strongest and most bull headed bull around. My headstrong mother basically kicked his ass and then married him, Grace paraphrased it as them just ‘playfully’ wrestling for a few hours.”

Paprika moved over to Arizona, the cow nodded and Paprika plied her skills as a lovable cuddle toy that likes to make the hurt go away.

Lunch was a quiet affair today. After taking a bite into a sandwich Arizona swallowed and looked up to us.

“My name is Arizona Arid.” Arizona suddenly speaking up made me jump and stare at her. “It’s just occurred to me that I’ve never exactly told anyone my full name since I started living at Airship Mauled.”

“Well that name sounds better than Iceberg Deer.” I put my hoof over hers and she twisted it around to grasp mine, we smiled to each other and let go while leaning back. There was a knock at the door. “That has got to be the other one, don’t let her demeanor fool you.”

Opening the door to see Prancer, thick curly fluff around her chest and neck. She was quite an elegant looking reindeer, to think that I wanted to be like her.

“Hello there my…” Prancer started to say in an innocent tone of voice as she stepped forward.

“No solicitors.” I slammed the door in her face and I felt really good about doing that, but I didn’t think it’d deter her. “Give her five seconds before she knocks again.”

“Twenty second easy, she’s probably too shocked by you slamming the door in her face.” After Arizona made her throw, Paprika motioned it would be something more along the lines of a minute.

Tinsel didn’t want to give his own estimates and was rather impartial, he didn’t know my biological mother so he couldn’t make an honest opinion of her.

Paprika won out, it took a full minute for Prancer to come to terms with what happened. That and I had smashed the door onto her nose, I got her pretty good there.

“Yes?” I said as I opened the door.

“Okay, so the innocent routine isn’t going to work anymore is it?” Prancer received the driest stare I could possibly give her. “I thought not. Look why don’t you give up this silly idea that you are gay and come on back home?”

“Because I actually happen to like being gay? That and I have a butch girlfriend and an alpaca that likes to terrorize reindeer when she feels like it.” I looked to Arizona who came up to me and put a hoof over my back.

“Close enough, but I am not butch Velvet. I prefer the term masculine.” Arizona kissed me on the cheek and I smiled. Prancer snorted scathingly at the sight. “If I’m butch, then Paprika’s a girly girl.”

Paprika made a cooing noise as she hugged and nuzzled us, she then sent a smiling death glare to Prancer as if daring her to step over an invisible line. Paprika was quite protective of me wasn’t she? Well Paprika has been in pursuit of me for a long time and only wants my happiness above anything.

I can't believe I’m thinking it, but if Arizona wasn’t in the picture I’d prefer having Paprika around over my progenitors.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take the deal we have set up for you?” Prancer wasn’t able to play a good negotiator since I threw her off with a door to the face, her once pristine face was even bleeding a bit. “Hunk Wilder is a nice looking buck, I’m sure you’d like him.”

“No thanks, I already have a family.” I leaned back into Paprika’s fluff and titled my head to nuzzle Arizona. “I don’t know what you have, it sounds empty if you’re trying to get me back into your life in the worst way possible. You can’t fill that void where your heart might have been Prancer.”

“You will listen to the proposition young lady, I’m your mother!” Prancer shouted, before a snowball smashed into her face. She looked shell-shocked that Tinsel was glaring at her vehemently. She turned to leave. “I just... see you at the tourney.”

Author's Note

Found it, it has some nice background music at 1:20.

Chapter thirty seven, Tundra Tourney Tussle: Round one.

-Days later, Tundra Tourney gathering Day 1, Arizona-

Reindeer, Longma, Alpaca and even that Pegasus, they were all gathered here today to fight for various reasons. I was going to try to win it, but if I couldn’t for whatever reason… then Paprika had to.

Velvet could still try to ask about the key if she won, but that was simply a backup plan.

I was the only cow here, felt kind of like a minority… well that was nothing new to me.

Paprika, Velvet and I were in three different battle groups. I was in group B, Paprika was in A and Velvet was in C. Each battle group would be running at least five fights at the same time.

All the battles would be close to one another as to give the medic teams the chance to get in and help anyone that became badly injured.

“Excuse me… Ms. Cow?” Hearing Prancer’s voice I turned to her.

For a reindeer that Velvet called heartless, she was quite pretty and looked to have worked on her looks to sculpt her appearance into what it was. I can definitely see where Velvet gets her persnickety attitude about her appearance from.

“My name is Arizona, what do you want?” My words made Prancer recoil a bit from me, being slightly abrasive to her was a bit warranted.

“I just want to say something. I don’t like my daughter being in a relationship with you, I don’t understand it or why she happens likes you in that way. In fact, such a relationship is quite repulsive to me.” You weren’t making it easy to like you Prancer, not that I liked you before. Though, looking her in the eyes, I saw something that I’ve seen in myself a few times. “Even then, I want to do your best to take care of my daughter and try to make her happy in whatever way you can.”

“What…” I just stared at her wide eyed.

“You heard me.” Prancer turned and started to trot away from me, I stared after her. “I’ve said what I wanted to say to you, we’re enemies if we have to fight each other in the competition. I will attempt to rip you apart if we’re matched up. Don’t hold back, because I won’t to anyone who takes my daughter’s heart.”

I blinked and stared after Prancer in wonder.

I shook my head and waited to be called, we had several matches to get through today and I was ready to start smashing through opponents.

-Prancer-

Letting go was harder than I thought. I may not like it or understand it, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want my daughter to be happy.

Velvet was not going to stay in Rein, I know that she might never come back to Rein once she leaves.

It took that Ice Sprite hitting me with the snowball to open my eyes to something I hadn’t seen before.

I had never seen an Ice Sprite so angry at a reindeer before. Sure it was Velvet’s familiar, but even then ice sprites were quite docile and loving creatures, that kind of behavior was unheard of.

Those silver eyes had been judging me, they didn’t judge or care about Velvet’s relationships. The Ice Sprite just wanted Velvet to be happy and loved, and I had been making her quite unhappy at the time.

I wanted what I thought would be best for Velvet, now I just wanted her to be happy and if it is those ‘close’ friends of hers who could do that… I think I didn’t need to understand. Now it felt like Clause and I haven’t been the best parents we could be for her.

Arizona, you’re obviously special to my daughter, so do me a favor and become the one to take me down. I want to see and understand why my daughter cares about you.

Why did the void that Velvet mentioned seem to fill up a little bit? Maybe it was my acceptance for the way things were between us, we’re the ones that pushed Velvet away in the first place.

-Paprika-

“Matchup, Vixen ‘Snow Wave’ Valentine versus Paprika ‘The Demon’ Paca!” I made my way through the crowd happily wanting to see Vixen again, I thought we were good friends and this would be so exciting!

“Demon? Who would enter the contest with a title like that?” Vixen was as curious as I was, I didn’t know how I got that title either. It sure did sound neat though. “Whoever this demon is, I’ll be sure to take them down in a matter of… no… it can’t be…”

I approached the caller for our match and smiled at Vixen, we were going to have so much fun!

“Can I get a different an opponent?!” Why, didn’t she want to play with me?

“No.” The match caller stated while shaking his head. “I do feel sorry for you though.”

“I forfeit!” Aw… but I wanted to snuggle Vixen!

“No, it’s too late for you, you’re already on the field of battle.” Mister match call reindeer answered. “You know the rules Vixen, but just to refresh your memory, forfeits can only happen two minutes after the fight starts. Otherwise we’d be wasting my and everyone else’s time, the only way to have avoided this was to not show up at all. Now you need to get knocked unconscious or you get seriously injured before the two minutes are up.”

Yay, my first match was with a friend. This was my first time so I should be gentle… by hugging her with the power of friendship, for it compels me!

“Ready…” The match calling reindeer started.

“Why me?!” Vixen whined pitiably, she must really need a hug! “Please don’t do this to me, I beg of you! Don’t make me fight ‘her’ of all beings...”

“Sorry about this… fight!” As soon as the reindeer said to start without remorse, I immediately moved forward to hug me a friend who seemed upset for some reason.

The reindeer reacted immediately and launched a six foot high wave of snow at me, I kicked off the ground and sprung high into the air using my fur. Dad could do it, so why couldn’t I?

I came down to Vixen, who looked quite sad, at an angle.

I spread my hooves wide open and gave her my brightest smile.

-Velvet-

A blood curdling scream sounded out and everyone turned in the direction it was heard.

“Ooh… Vixen got Paprika in the starting round.” I didn’t even need to be there to see the fight to know what was happening.

“That sounded pretty bad… do you think Paprika spared her?” I glanced at Branches and sighed.

“Paprika is never half-hearted in her hugs, the next two minutes are going to be pure torture for Vixen until she can forfeit.” I sighed, Paprika was going to win her first match easily enough. “Unless Paprika seriously injures her, which I doubt will happen.”

“Matchup, Velvet ‘Frost Dancer’ Deer versus Cracks ‘Chip Damage’ Splinterhorn.” I was standing in the field of battle as soon as the caller stated my name, across from me stood a reindeer. My first opponent looked a bit green, but he had a title given to him so I couldn’t drop my guard here.

“Let’s have a good match eh?” Ah he’s a hockey enthusiast, an average looking reindeer with short horns with many small branches.

“Agreed.” I nodded to him politely, personally I preferred figure skating.

“Ready… go!” Caller gave use the signal to fight and I moved backwards cautiously, I wondered what Cracks was good at?

He created a bunch of snowflakes and sent them flying at me edges first. I narrowed my eyes and clapped my hooves together creating a snowflake barrier, the snowflakes struck my barrier solidly and shattered explosively.

Okay I think I can tell where he got the title 'Chip Damage' from. This wouldn’t be too hard, but I shouldn’t let him dictate the playing field.

His tactics seem to be attack with snowflake shuriken that had intentional flaws in their structures. They would splinter violently upon contact with anything and then let the resulting tougher parts of the shards the snowflakes make inhibit movement by littering the ground.

He knew I liked to get in close and probably saw my strength testing, good tactics.

Unfortunately for him, I had a pretty good hard counter for this.

-Arizona-

“Come on, when am I going to be called for a match?” I was getting quite impatient.

“Matchup, Shocking Awe versus Lie ‘Blazing Rage’ Huo.” Apparently that Shocking Awe guy didn’t have a title yet, must be his first time and I did hear it was rare for Equestrians to take part in these fights.

I guess I could watch another match until I was called.

“May we have an honorable battle.” Lie the dragon pony hybrid stated out loud while clapping his front two hooves together and bowing.

“Honorable? I just want to feel alive!” Shocking Awe’s eyes went wide and I could see a mad glint in those blood red orbs.

“Ready… start!” The match caller moved back and Shocking Awe immediately put his hooves together.

“Shocking... lightning... spear thrust-hahhhhh!” Shocking’s hooves shifted around a bit and an orb of lighting could be see building up between them. He thrusted both of his hooves forward, sending a hug bolt of lightning towards his opponent.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy did you?” Lie Huo ignited his entire body, he was literally on fire and I thought that was kind of cool. The lightning splash harmlessly around his body. “For I’m hot enough to scatter lightning bolts, come at me!”

“To think my first fight is already going to be a challenge, please get my blood pumping!” Shock smiled broadly and he shot forward smashing his hooves together to charge them with lightning, I watched at as two flames erupted from Lie Huo’s back and he charged Shock in the same way only his hooves were covered in flames.

They collided and started to lay into each other with a flurry of blows, lighting and fire blasting off of each strike they sent out at blazing speeds.

“Matchup, Holly ‘The Jolly’ Prongs versus Arizona ‘Earth Shaker’ Arid!” My ears twitched at the announcement from a match caller, I stopped watching this fight and turned to go to my own.

I approached a perky looking reindeer with long horns that acted almost like a more verbose version of Paprika in her excitement.

“Oh my goodness this is going to be so amazing, there are so many strong competitors!” I can understand that excitement Holly, but I wasn’t going to be regulated to the losers block anytime soon.

“I got a lot of reasons to win this thing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friendly about it.” I titled my head to her. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same to you too, I hope we have a good fight!” The reindeer seemed a bit chunky, probably should lay off the sweets.

I would have the speed advantage, but I know that all reindeer had the home field advantage in this tourney thanks to what Velvet told me. I should expect ice attacks of all kinds.

I dragged my right hoof against the ground and stared her down with a smirk, she smiled back at me and took a stance showing she was ready to fight.

“Ready… fight!” I lunged forward and threw my left hoof towards Holly, she hastily put up and ice wall.

I just plowed straight through it, though my momentum had been slowed down immensely so all my blow did was send her rolling a few feet.

“Wow, you’re really strong!” Tell everyone something that wasn’t known Holly. I watched her get up and she thrusted her hoof forward sending an ice spike rising for my chest.

I leapt out of the way to the right and grabbed the relatively large shard of ice that she sent my way out of the air. I spun around and threw it right back at her at three times the speed, she barely managed to deflect it with another large shard of ice.

By Velvet’s estimates of ability, she seemed to be more water focus ice magic user given the shards she’s firing are dull and have more mass to them than the ones Velvet uses.

“Oh this is going to be so fun!” Holly squealed happily as she smashed her rear legs into the ground behind her and launched a volley of hailstones at me.

Much different from Velvet’s fighting style, but none the less effective at range. This reindeer obviously wasn’t a close up fighter.

-Paprika-

“I forfeit!” Vixen screamed as I continued to nuzzle her affectionately.

“You still have five more… four… three… two… one…” The match caller counted down.

“Forfeit… forfeit… forfeit…” She cried out as I tightened my hug on her.

“Winner by forfeit, Paprika ‘The Demon’ Paca!” He looked to me and to the reindeer I had a strong grasp on. “You can let go of her now.”

I whined, but I still did so. Vixen flopped on the ground taking in a few big gasps of air, the air was really fresh around Rein and I liked the taste. It just didn’t feel like a permanent home though, not that many places did when you were nomadic for a good portion of your life.

I should really ask Velvet and Arizona what Airship Mauled was like, it sounded like a nice place!

-Velvet-

I slid to Cracks' side and swiped my hoof out to freeze his legs to the ground, he hadn’t expected that.

I got up, and before he could free himself or do much else to stop me, I angled my hind legs for him and bucked out to smash him in the head harshly. The ice around his hooves shattered from the force of the blow and he flopped to the ground onto his side.

“We had a good match Velvet, medic… eh…” Cracks fell unconscious within seconds, a blow to the forehead like that needed to be checked out immediately.

The medic team quickly got him off the field and I thought about our fight in the meantime. It had been pretty good, but nothing like what I tended to have with Arizona or Paprika.

“Winner by knockout, Velvet ‘Frost Dancer’ Deer!” I heard some cheering for me, not from just the reindeer, but also from my own little crowd of Ice Sprites with Tinsel cheerleading.

-Arizona-

“I can still win this!” Holly was a bit of a mess, she was not good at fighting close up. She wasn’t a bad fight, but she hadn’t gotten any good hits in.

Holly fired some balls of ice at me.

“Sure you can!” I came in low ducking the ice and then hit her with a powerful spinning uppercut that launched us both upwards.

The first blow was to the chin and my hoof collided with her back for a second blow as her entire body flipped upwards, this launched her even higher while I dropped to the ground.

I landed on the ground and it cracked under my hooves and Holly landed roughly on her belly groaning.

“I give... I forfeit.” Holly smiled weakly. “Thank you for the fight, it was fun while it lasted.”

“Winner by forfeit, Arizona ‘Earth Shaker’ Arid!” The match caller roared out.

Chapter thirty seven, Tundra Tourney Tussle: Stage two.

-Tundra Tourney Day one, match caller-

“Winner by grievous injury, Shocking Awe!” I watched as Lie Huo was carried away on a stretcher, he put up a good fight.

That pegasus was quite insane… quite literally given the creepy spine chilling laugh I was hearing.

-Tundra Tourney Day two, Clause-

“It seems my granddaughter is still in it, I think she’s at the top of her game.” As if I needed your opinion father. “The way you and Prancer are treating her just isn’t right.”

“I do not need the opinion of a reindeer as sentimental as you Santa.” I snorted loudly and turned away from the reindeer with the big bushy white beard and rotund appearance. “Besides it’s for the best.”

“I sometimes wonder where I went wrong with you, but I think you turned out alright even if you’re bogging yourself down in politics instead of enjoying the smaller things in life.” My father started chuckling. “Ho-ho-ho my granddaughter Velvet is at least turning out a lot better than you did, so I must have done something right even if you’ve become quite bitter with life. I used to remember a time when you were happy, when we used to frolic together. I don’t think I ever saw you frolic with your daughter even once, at least Prancer made the time to do it. It might not have been much, but it was something that she even did it once.”

“Quiet you old fool.” I sent a hailstone at him with a sweep of my hoof. He let it hit him without defending himself, it bounced off his flabby form.

“You won’t even put your full heart into it when it comes to attacking me?” Glaring at Santa, I turned my back on him. “I guess there’s still some of my son in you yet.”

“Matchup, Clause ‘Deep Freeze’ Deer versus Jovial ‘Igloo Barricade’ Prongs.” That was my next match, I’ll leave this old fool to do whatever he wishes.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about father.” As I left him behind, I could almost feel him smiling at my back.

“Who were you talking to?” A familiar reindeer asked of me, I quickly remembered that her name was Donner.

Donner was giving me a curious look. We used to be good friends, there was no lost love between us and at least we weren’t enemies.

I looked behind me and saw no tracks leading up to the hailstone sitting in the snow.

“No one.” I stated calmly as I moved forward.

-Donner-

I moved over to where Clause had been muttering and saw four hoof imprints in the snow that weren’t his, yet there were no tracks leading up to or away from them.

-Arizona-

“Well this is going to get heated.” It was an understatement given who my opponent was.

“I am ready.” A longma was my next opponent, apparently his name was Huojing and he had no title.

“Okay, dance!” The match caller shouted.

He started balancing on one leg while holding the other three aloft, but he didn’t ignite himself. He didn’t move forward at all or do anything for the next thirty seconds, I narrowed my eyes.

“Your entire fighting style consists of counters and throw doesn’t it?” At my innocuous question his eyes widened and he started sweating. “Let me guess, you don’t have the same fire that the others do either.”

“Well yes, quite perceptive! You are too strong for me to confront head on… so basically you are correct in your assumptions.” Huojing was a young longma, approaching him could be difficult. “My only hope to win is to redirect your monstrous strength, you won’t be able to approach me and I’m no good on the offensive. So we are at an impasse.”

I could always do it the easy way and take him out with the easy maneuver for dealing with annoying opponents.

“Do you want me to do this the fast and relatively painless way or the slow and moderately agonizing way?” My question made him blink curiously at me.

“Have you a method to beat me without me countering you?” Nodding to Huojing, I just stared at him looking for an answer. “I doubt you can make this quick, I’d like to see you try though. There’s no possible way you can approach me without grk…”

I pulled a lasso from under my bandana and tossed it around his neck choking his words off, I gave a solid hard yank on the rope causing him to launch towards me.

“Get over here!” I clotheslined him with my leg. While his body was swinging upwards on my leg, I fell forward and forced my hoof downwards towards the ground. “Rope a dope slam!”

A humongous cloud of dust and snow erupted into the air around us, once it cleared Huojing could be seen groaning weakly. I was standing over his body, having forced it into the ground.

“I had no chance of victory, I am sorry for not being of any challenge worthy of your stature oh mighty Earth Shaker…” His eyes closed and he was soon pried out of the hole and dragged off the field.

“Victory by knockout, Arizona ‘Earth Shaker’ Arid.” I was about to walk off and wait, only I was called over by the match caller.

“You’re done for the day miss, you automatically move onto the next round due to the number of competitors being drastically reduced from the previous day. You can watch others fight from any group or just go relax.” I nodded to the match caller and made my way to see how Velvet was doing, I didn’t have to worry about Paprika given she had garnered the title ‘The Demon’.

On my way to look into Velvet’s block to see how she was doing, I stopped and saw Prancer fighting her opponent. She threw up a wall of ice and her opponent’s ice attacks slammed into it, Prancer just slapped a hoof against the ice wall and sent the icicles flying back at her opponent at twice their size.

The reindeer, that was Prancer’s opponent, was peppered by several jagged pieces of ice and they took one in the leg knocking them down. They tried to stand on the leg with the ice chunk sticking out of it.

“Forfeit or injury, there is no shame in losing to one as graceful as me.” Prancer spoke in a detached manner.

“I can still…” The reindeer tried to stand only to be surrounded by several spikes of ice all pointed towards her body. She looked into Prancer’s cold ice blue eyes, they were far colder than Velvet’s ever were. “… I forfeit.”

“Winner by forfeit, Prancer ‘Flowering Cold’ Deer.” The match caller stated, I had wanted to know what her title was and now I knew. Prancer looked to be quite dangerous, but at least she didn’t seem like she would actually unnecessarily hurt someone without a good reason to.

I made my way over to Velvet’s group and came upon the sight of her finishing off an opponent.

Velvet crouched down and thrust her hoof upwards in an arc causing ice to rise from the ground into the shape of a buff, if feminine, reindeer that seemed to flex its elbow roughly into her opponents chest.

The sand colored alpaca staggered backwards from the blow and tried to gain his balance, only for Velvet to strike a standing pose thrusting her hoof into the air and a pillar of ice to pop the alpaca into the air.

Velvet leapt up angled her hoof to fire several shards of ice at the alpaca in a volley as he fell. The alpaca was pinned to the ground by his fluff and when he tried to free himself, Velvet landed on the ground with a stomp that threw up a wave of snow over him in a blast of air. She left head exposed as she started swiping her hooves at the air with her horns glowing.

The snow hardened quickly and turned into a compacted tiny igloo that completely pinned the alpaca down. The alpaca wilted and looked to the match caller.

Paprika would have been able to get out of that, but this wasn’t Paprika though. I wondered how you could tell a fluffmancer apart from a normal alpaca, how does one learn if they are capable of manipulating their fluff like Paprika does? I’ve never given it much thought, but it wasn’t as if it was very important though.

“Winner by incapacitation, Velvet ‘Frost Dancer’ Deer!” The caller shouted out.

Velvet stomped the ground and the igloo broke outwards launching the alpaca up and onto his feet, he blinked and smiled as Velvet held out her hoof. He took her hoof and shook it.

“Good match, you’re really quite strong to have made it this far.” Velvet smiled and he smiled back. “It was nice meeting you Turmeric.”

A crowd of reindeer and ice sprites cheered for Velvet, they really seemed to be fans and I was one too.

Velvet was about to walk back into the crowd when she spotted me. She immediately came over to me looking happy to see me as she sat down to rest after her previous match, she had a nasty bruise on her cheek and she didn’t seem to care about it.

“Arizona, did you get an early jump to the next round?” I nodded to her as she leaned against me. “Tell me, how do I look after that last match?”

Would she take honesty or a lie? Honesty, I don’t think I could lie to her.

“You have a large bruise on your face Fluff Butt and you still look good to me, not sure if you’re up to your own standards though.” The look I received was scathing, but the smile beneath it was warm. “You’re always going to be beautiful to me Velvet, you could be covered in thorns, sticky substances and all manner of injuries. At the end of the day I will still think you’re beautiful no matter how you look on the outside, when you’re always beautiful at heart on the inside.”

“Oh you… trying to be all charming for me. Still, thank you for the confidence boost Arizona.” Velvet cuddled up against my smaller form, her long slender legs encircling me. “That alpaca might not have had fluffmancer abilities, but he certainly knew martial arts and could jump fairly well. Surprised me with a few of his lunges and got a few good hits in on me in spite of my ice magic, I’d say he was fairly talented to make it through six opponents before me.”

“Sounds like it, so tomorrow there’s going to be down to less than thirty opponents and they’ll stop for the top ten remaining for the fourth day?” I had an idea as to why they did that.

“Yes, that’s correct, some of the fighter’s need some time to rest, so the third day is going to be a short one with some of the tougher fighters.” We stayed together in comfortable embrace for a bit and then we found ourselves squeezed into a wall of blonde fluff, Paprika apparently felt like she was missing out on something.

“You won your matches already?” Velvet seemed surprised, I however wasn’t when Paprika gave off a joyful sound and kissed us both on our cheeks. Paprika’s tail was waggling happily, only Paprika looked at it scrutinizing it closely. She made sure to slow down the wagging speed a bit so it wouldn’t catch fire, she actually learned how to not light her tail on fire with air friction. “What happened to get you through your matches so quickly?”

Paprika started making gestures and we eventually deciphered what she was telling us, they decided to just make her fight several times in a row. I think they were hoping to both tire her down and get her out of the competition or at least quickly out of the way so she’d stop terrorizing her opponents psychologically.

Velvet still had several matches to go through and we’d be here to actually watch her. We clumped together as a group again.

“Say Velvet, if weapons are allowed in these tourneys… why aren’t they more prominent?” In fact I didn’t seen anyone armed with anything more than their hooves or magic.

“Metal weapons are kind of useless here, any reindeer worth their salt can easily freeze such a weapon solid and easily shatter it.” Well that makes sense. “Wooden weapons would last slightly longer. At most you’d use weapons against opponents that aren’t reindeer, unless you planned to wield a crossbow or some other form of long range weapon. Even then, ranged weapons aren’t exactly great against reindeer who can block or even easily blow projectiles off course entirely.”

“I guess that’s why I’m allowed to use my rope then.” As we waited for Velvet’s next match we huddled together warmly, Paprika was very warm in this chilly weather.

-Clause-

The way those three snuggled together was… I turned to a nearby idle match caller.

“What would it take to get me in a fight with my daughter?” There were many things I could do to grease some hooves.

“Nothing, provided you and she win all your fights today, she’d be your first opponent tomorrow.” Excellent, I wouldn’t have to pay for anything.

“What about my wife Prancer, will she face that cow?” I still loved her and she still loved me, but we were adversarial when it came to fighting in a tourney.

“She’s slated to face the Earth Shaker as a second match tomorrow, that’ll be quite entertaining.” I nodded to him and started to walk away. “You could stand to care about your daughter more son.”

My eyes widened and I turned back to the match caller that was no longer there.

“Ho-ho-ho…” I snorted in anger, annoyed at the sound my father’s laughter.

-Shocking Awe-

I swooped about and dodged the various sharp bits of ice being fired wildly at me into the air. The reindeer had created a cold front, but that didn’t bother a pegasus of my caliber.

Clapping my hooves together as I dove for her, spiraling deftly through the sharp bits of ice she was trying to impale me with. I passed her and pulled a quick loop and came down on her with all four of my hooves.

The screaming reindeer doe under my hooves convulsed as lightning coursed over her body violently, with a grab and twist of my hoof I snapped their front right leg like a twig.

Were Reindeer actually supposed to have an advantage here? A bunch of nonsense that was.

“Call it.” I stated calmly as the reindeer beneath me continued screaming out in pain, I just kept my hoof pressed into their back.

“Winner by grievous injury, Shocking Awe!” Yeah, that’s what I liked to hear.

Mother didn’t raise no wimp. Speaking of, I smashed the reindeer's head and knocked her out to receive several dirty looks for it.

“What? She can no longer feel the pain she’s in, I did her a favor.” I walked away from the reindeer feeling quite proud of myself, I just taught them a valuable lesson about strength and knowing how to tell if someone has it. I certainly had it in spades.

Now to scope out the competition and see what else I’m up against. Not that I’m worried.

Chapter thirty seven, Tundra Tourney Tussle: Level three.

-Tundra Tourney day three, Velvet-

The groups were compressed down to the remaining fighters, Paprika, Arizona and I were still among the rankings. I, however, was about to be knocked out of the competition. I would still give it my all though, just to get in a few hits on Clause.

“Matchup, Velvet ‘Frost Dancer’ Deer versus Clause ‘Deep Freeze’ Deer.” The match caller called us up and it was time for me to face down a reindeer I didn’t like, I guess this was it then.

“Clause.” I stated sourly as I stood across from him.

“Velvet.” He stated back just as sourly.

“Ready… let it rip!” The match caller quickly backed up as he could see the looks in our eyes.

Clause inhaled and then upon exhaling a localized blizzard started building up around us. I can say whatever negative thing I want about Clause, his ice magic abilities were definitely mastery level.

The drop in temperature wasn’t a problem, it’s that he was going to block everyone’s visibility of what we were going to be doing to each other. I wasn’t walking away from this one without injury.

I started by charging straight for him launching shards of ice at him, he kicked up a huge wave of snow toward me blocking my projectiles and intending to cover me in snow.

I wrapped myself in ice as I threw my body to the ground before the snow hit.

“Come now, that couldn’t have possibly been enough to… what!” Clause didn’t have time to react to me as I leapt out of the snow at him from his left, instead of where he thought I previously was and struck him several times rapidly with my hooves.

He weathered my stunning blows pretty well and eventually gained a moment between my furious blows to move his left hoof, I ducked backwards as he swung it upwards and out in an arc towards me. He had specifically been aiming for my neck.

Clause’s leg was encased in a sharp blade made of ice that extended a foot from his hoof, the blade quickly disappeared and he had to throw up a quick snowflake barrier as I formed multiple hailstones and rained them down on him.

While he was busy deflecting that, I stomped the snow under hoof and turned it into a fifty foot wide area of ice to change the playing field to my advantage.

“Paltry efforts at best.” He raised his right hoof back and then thrusted it forward extending a spear of ice towards me and I swept under it skating towards him. I had to skid under the spear a second time as said spear changed into a long blade that went swinging at me to the side.

Upon reaching him I stood up on my hind hooves and twirled, kicking and hitting him several times with three of my hooves before he caught my leg. He spun me around and slammed me back first against the ice.

He snorted at me derisively and held his front hooves out to swing them inwards while creating two sharp blades of ice.

I slammed my hooves down on the ice when the blades were just about to hit me, his legs froze in place as some ice jumped up and fused to his blades. While he was held in place I bucked him in the chest making him flip backwards.

He landed on his four hooves gracefully, he didn’t look very hurt at all. Clause was one of the toughest reindeer in the village, if not the absolute toughest outright.

“Come now, you must know that I’m toying with you.” Of course you were Clause, you were a mastery level ice magic user and you were only using melee attacks so far to humor me, while keeping a localized blizzard going at the same time. “Though I have to admit you have surprised me once or twice.”

“Oh I know, but that doesn’t mean I can’t put up a good fight.” I looked him in the eyes coolly. “I’m not exactly here to win. The only reason I came back to Rein, was for my girlfriend who needed something from here.”

“Let me guess, she has to win the tournament to get it? She’s not likely to get by me then.” He leapt and fired a wide spray of sharp icicles and I rolled away and narrowly avoided taking some in the legs and body. “You’re hits are strong, but you must remember that the cold hardens our bodies and makes us quite resilient. Even more so when you have time and experience like I do. All I will ask of you now is this… survive!”

He rammed me with his hooves in lunge. He sent me skidding across the ice to the far side, clutching at my chest. My floof had taken the brunt of that blow, but that had still hurt a lot. I might have even heard my bones creak a bit under the pressure of the blow.

I quickly got up as he came at me, several waves of snow splashed outwards as he hopped forwards. He was covering the ice I had made and the battlefield was back in his favor so easily.

Well, I should not play him at his own game in any case. He was going to win regardless of what I can do and I shouldn’t make it that easy for him. He lowered his sharpened horns and charged me head first, a wolf would have been stupid to get in the way of them. I wasn’t a wolf, but that’s exactly what I did.

I charged for him head first as well and if I missed my opportunity, this was going to hurt me a lot. I had to time this well. Once he was close enough, given that he was running at me full tilt on the snow he generated to cover the ice, I would act.

We were a few feet from one another when I skidded to stop, raised my front hooves up and wrapped them around his the bladed horns. I fell backwards with his forward momentum and did two things.

The first of which was slap my right hind leg into the snow to clear a patch of snow covered ice behind me, the second was that my left rear leg shot up into his gut as I pulled on his horns and promptly somersaulted backwards slamming him back first into the solid ice behind me.

“Agh…” I heard a slight bone crunching noise as his spine impacted the ice. Didn’t break it, but that has got to hurt and I was now on top of him and started to lay into his face with my bloodied hooves.

His bladed horns had cut into my legs and hooves when I had grabbed him. Once he came to his senses he glared up at me, I splattered the blood leaking from both my legs across his eyes in two swipes blinding him.

“Grr… rah!” He roared out and I was blown off him by a blast of cold air and several blunt and sharp jagged pillars of ice slamming into me all at once.

I was sent me tumbling across the ground and came to a stop on my side, bleeding profusely from a cut across my chest. The side of my neck was also bleeding and it had taken a painful deep hit to my left flank, he stood up wiped at his face.

Clause was having a hard time getting my blood off his face. My poor floof was going to be so hard to clean after this and I must look like a wreck.

“Well now, I think it’s time to end…” He started, but I just smiled tiredly at him. “What is it, what are you smiling about?”

“I’m going to do something that you’ll likely hate more than anything coming from me, something you’d never expect I would do. I never came into this wanting to win Clause…” I slowly tried to stand up and Grinned at him, but instead I stay seated as I felt something wrong with two of my legs. The blunt force trauma might have broken something, but it was so cold my ability to feel pain was numbed except where I was bleeding. I couldn’t stand or move. “I wonder if you have any honor left in you Clause. I forfeit!”

“What you can’t do that… you can’t!” His eyes widened and he looked like I kicked him in the gut again. “You just can’t dismiss me like this!”

“I just did.” He started to charge me with a wild look in his eyes and I sat there smiling the entire time. I had nothing to prove to him and that made him angriest I’ve seen him, it was cathartic in a way.

He now knew I no longer cared about his opinion, no longer cared to try and please him or his absurd standards that no other deer can possibly meet. I had just spit in the eye of everything he wanted from me.

So the worst thing I could imagine doing to him… is giving him a completely hollow victory where I didn’t fight to my last. I might have lost the fight, but I didn’t lose where it counted the most.

“Winner by forfeit, Clause ‘Deep Freeze’ Deer!” The winds had died down at my announcement and as soon as the match caller shouted that out, Clause came to a dead stop with the tips of his antlers centimeter from piercing my belly.

He would have gored me in his anger, I just looked him in the eyes calmly.

“It was a good match.” Adding insult to injury, isn’t that what you taught me Clause?

Clause jerked his head to side and one of his horns slashed me deeply across the face causing me to scream out in pain, he turned his back and left me laying there as the medics came to help me.

I stared dispassionately at his back with one eye as he walked away, everything felt so cold and yet my injuries felt so warm.

-Clause-

“You know Clause, I didn’t think you had it in you. To do something like to your own daughter no less, and in such a dishonorable fashion after the battle was already called.” I ignored my father’s words sounding off in my ears as I set off to get some medical attention, I think Velvet might have actually cracked a large portion of my spine.

“Leave me be old fool.” I didn’t want to hear his words anymore.

“Says one fool to another, I think my granddaughter had the right idea. You’re in a Ho-ho-whole lot of trouble mister and you need me now more than ever.” His voice hadn’t faded from my mind as I stumbled away from the battle, I didn’t look back. “Now the other reindeers will not see her as part of your family, but as someone that can stand on her own four legs and be looked up to as a separate entity from you. You did her a dark kindness… and I’m disappointed in you.”

“I know… I disappoint myself as well.” I sat down and brought my hooves up to my head and rubbed it in the hopes that my father Santa would go away. I did not need or want his conscience in my ear.

“I think my granddaughter’s friends intend to win the ultimate prize with the outsider’s rules, there could only be one thing they’re after Clause...” An old fool Santa may be, but I realized the truth of his words. “For why else would Velvet ever come back to this place?”

“The key.” They would have to beat me to get it.

They will fail.

-Arizona-

The ice spiked upwards and seemed to spawn smaller spikes of ice aiming in my direction, I can see now where Prancer got the name ‘Flowering Cold’. Given how many times she sprouted ice from already existing ice.

“Why won’t you go down?!” Prancer shouted at me, the ice spikes she made to pierce my thick hide tickled.

I, surrounded by flowers made of sharp bits of ice, jumped straight up and slammed the ground with all four of my hooves. This caused the ice to shatter and blow away from me in powerful shockwave.

“You didn’t think this would be easy did you?” I asked with a smirk as I charge towards her. I had forced my way through every one of her ice attacks, all of them sprouting from the ground.

Prancer’s magic might have been good, but it wasn’t very damaging to someone as tough as me. My body might be also be cold, but my blood was still pumping with adrenaline.

“I honestly thought it would be a little easier!” Prancer charged toward me as well and tried to strike me with her left hoof, I just grabbed it in my right and then Prancer realized her mistake in trying to attack me close up almost immediately.

She had been keeping me at bay and now she would realize how strong I was physically.

I pulled her towards me and smashed my left hoof into the side of her head with a nasty hook, badly dazing her and sending her stumbling about. Keeping my hold on her as she stumbled, I stood up on my hind hooves and thrusted two more strikes straight into her face.

I pulled on her left hoof and released it while I rammed my left hoof upwards into her chest lifting her bodily off the ground with a powerful blow.

“It seems Velvet chose someone strong to stand by her side...” She inhaled and tried to blast me with her freezing breath, I’ve seen Velvet do it enough times to know what to look for and how to counter it.

I hopped to the side and then smiled as I stomped both my front hooves into the ground and then hauled myself forward. I rammed the tired Prancer into the air and passed by her on the ground.

“Here comes the rodeo roundabout!” I kicked off the ground and leapt up towards her and kicked out with all four hooves, only to whiff as Prancer rolled in the air to dodge the whiplash portion of my attack. “Darn it!”

I landed and kicked off again just as Prancer landed and tried to get her balance. I rammed my head into her side, knocking her over and smashing her face against the icy ground.

I stood there waiting for Prancer to get up, she looked up at me weakly and apparently had taken enough blows to the head to be down for the count.

“So… strong… make her happy, where we couldn’t…” Prancer closed her eyes, she had passed out.

“I will try my best, can’t make any promises I don’t know whether or not I can keep.” I would still at least make a concerted effort with Paprika to make sure Velvet was happy, buying her ice cream always helped with that.

“Winner by knockout, Arizona ‘Earth Shaker’ Arid!” I heard a crowd cheer for me and I was surprised to get any. “You move on to the next round and are done for the day.”

I sighed in relief and started to move away, only for Paprika to show up whining at me. She pulled hurriedly at my hoof, something bad happened to Velvet.

Author's Note

Almost done with Arizona and Velvet's journey.

We'll be moving on to Jacky and Gene's story. Why? Because if I go to far I might ruin all the other stories with spoilers when they intersect once.

600K words hit, a new record for one story for me. I plan to keep going.

Chapter thirty seven, Tundra Tourney Tussle: Act four.

-Tundra Tourney day four, medical tent, Velvet-

“Mm…” I opened my… eye. I couldn’t move, but I was still breathing at the least. I heard a squeak and Tinsel popped into my sight with a worried look on his face. I looked to him and he hugged up against the right side of my muzzle.

“Water.” I spoke softly, but Tinsel immediately set off squeaking loudly.

Looking to my right after him, I saw Paprika snoozing with her head on the bed and the rest of her fur fluffed up to ridiculous levels to match the height of my bed. She hadn’t slept uncomfortably because of me, but she had still slept at my side.

Eventually Tinsel came back with Arizona carrying a glass of water, Arizona came over to the bed and looked at me.

“You look like a hot mess Velvet.” How charming Arizona, love you too. She lifted the glass of water and I opened my mouth to carefully sip from the glass until I was done with it. “You’ve been out… eh cold… since yesterday and the semi-final matches are starting soon.”

“Certainly feel like one right now.” I felt something gently press up against my face. I could see Paprika’s fluff had crunched back down to normal levels and she had just nuzzled me tenderly. “Tinsel be a dear and keep tending to me to the best of your abilities.”

Tinsel made a noise that sounded like a promise.

“How did Clause take you down so easily?” Saw that question coming from a mile away Arizona, I even had a good answer for it. “I’ve seen how you fight, you could take on just about any reindeer and then some. Yet the way the match caller tells it, you mostly used physical attacks against him.”

“Clause used a special form of ice magic at the start of the fight called ‘Black Blizzard’, he can take down most reindeer using it thanks to the side effects of casting it. It halves a reindeer’s full magic capacity every time it’s used for thirty six hours, I can’t do it personally so he knew I couldn’t have possibly countered it. That’s the main downside, plus the halving of magic can be cumulative per use.” I had been well aware of what I had been doing that fight. Stalling for two minutes so I could call that forfeit to his face was wonderful as he wasted a lot of his magic and effort on me. “The positives are that it creates a blizzard that lets the user use ice magic at half the effort while it’s ongoing, but if another reindeer were in the same blizzard... the cost of using ice magic effectively triples due to the pressure of the ‘Black Blizzard’ user’s magic flooding the entire area. Unless you can use that spell at the same time or before your opponent does, then it becomes quite hard for any other reindeer to do anything. Using the spell at the same time basically neutralizes the effects and only those with a mastery in ice magic can do it.”

That last hit on me had felt devastating and apparently it’s marred my beautiful face. Thankfully, Arizona likely liked scars and Paprika wasn’t one to stop loving me over something as small as my appearance being tarnished.

“So you could barely do anything to him… aside from getting in a few good hits from what I saw.” Arizona smiled a little as she took my good hoof into her larger hooves. “That reindeer buck may be tough, but you still gave him quite a few bruises and there’s a large black and blue knot on his back that is easily visible through his fur.”

“At least it was something, it’s like a black eye for him. He’s called ‘Deep Freeze’ for a reason, they don’t hoof those titles out without putting some thought into them. Aside from the fact that I openly dropped someone your title Arizona.” I said quietly, Paprika nuzzled me again and I smiled at her. “Thank you, for staying by me Paprika.”

Paprika looked almost insulted, as if she would ever think of doing anything else than be by our sides! She looked contemplative for a moment, as if thinking about the exception of being on a hugging spree. Our alpaca shook her head and focused on me with a warm smile. No, even then she’d stay by us if we were hurting or needed her.

“That Clause guy is really going to get it from one of us, all we have to do is last long enough to face him!” Arizona was serious, but then again she had a resilience on par with Paprika and they didn’t use ice magic. If they faced Clause early today, then he’d be working at half his magical strength for most of today.

-Approximately ten minutes later, Arizona-

“Matchup, Arizona ‘Earth Shaker’ Arid versus Shocking ‘Vicious Volts’ Awe.” The match caller looked between the two of us to see if we had any banter.

“You look tough, this is going to be a good one!” Shocking Awe looked like one of those types who got off on fights, I could relate. I like a good fight, but he seemed too much like a loose cannon to me. “Say, how about after I kick your ass you join in the organization I’m part of, it’s called GODLESS and they could use a cow with your kind of muscle.”

I wasn’t about to talk about the key in front of him, it wasn’t hard to guess why he was in the competition. He shouldn’t be able to toss around recruitment pitches so easily like that, unless he was strong enough to back up his words.

“No thanks, that organization sent assassins after my friend and now they are somewhere between being tentatively alive and very much dead at the moment.” I lowered my head and glared at him while dragging a hoof against the ground. “So you can say that I don’t appreciate anyone from GODLESS in the slightest.”

“Oh… too bad you feel that way.” Shocking had a sickly sweet grin. “How about I make you join that friend of yours in being close to death to even things up, what do you say gal pal?”

“Start the match.” Shying away from the coldness of my words the match caller gave me a look, but eventually he smirked a bit and winked at me.

I gave him glance and he tilted his head to my opponent and then lightly clapped his hooves together, I nodded. I’m quite sure a few other reindeer saw this, but they didn’t look like they were going to say anything about it.

Shocking had been mauling a lot of reindeer in this tournament, must have hurt this match caller’s family for the guy to set Shocking up like this.

“Oh you’re going to be…” Shocking Awe started to say, but the match caller seemed to have something of a grievance against him.

“Match start.” The match caller said quickly, in as unassuming a plain tone as he could possibly keep with that grin on his face.

It only took the momentary confusion Shocking Awe had as he was interrupted mid-sentence, I rammed my hoof into his face as hard as I could.

I watched as he sailed away from me with a dislocated jaw and bodily went through a small tree.

The match caller backed up while silently grinning at me and gave me a nod of appreciation, I gave him a nod and a friendly smirk.

I saw movement beyond the toppled tree. Shocking, that tough winged pony, stood up and pushed his dislocated jaw back into place with both hooves and he did not look happy.

He tilted his head to the left and to the right with a sharp crack for each movement. With a sudden flaring of his wings, arcs of lightning began to dance between his feathers.

“Bring it on porcupine head!” I taunted him.

“Gladly!” He shot toward me while clapping his hooves together, they didn’t spark up. I ducked his swing and rammed my horns up into his belly launching him upwards. He spread his wings and caught himself and shot back towards me.

He threw his right hoof at me and I blocked it, like I blocked his next few hooks with my front legs and the blows he was landing actually stung quite a bit. This guy could actually hit hard and fast. He’s certainly more of what I would expect a flunky of GODLESS to be.

Unlike that weirdo Snow Bank, this guy was a literal lighting bruiser!

I waited until his next blow landed before I struck upward at him with a nasty right hoof catching him in the chin, he flipped backwards and his rear hooves slammed me in my chin. I grunted and staggered a bit, but I kept my balance on my hind legs and waited for him to come at me again.

I wasn’t going to win this by fighting offensively.

He narrowed his eyes and dove for me while clapping his hooves together, I saw them sparking this time and his body seemed to be glowing with flowing lightning that left a trail of energy in his wake.

I went to block and then instead ducked his left hoof swing, I threw up a quick rope to wrap around his rear left hoof as he passed and then yanked him roughly out of the air and down into the ground.

With a quick tug, my rope was back under the bandana around my neck.

Slamming against the ground had dissipated the lightning charge crawling over his body explosively, bouncing him back up from the release and he was coming at me again.

I blocked his right hook weaved around his left straight and then threw a right hook into his temple knocking him back, but I didn’t chase him and held my defensive boxer’s stance.

I was only taking hits when I knew I could handle them, I did not want to be hit while he was lit up with lightning.

He came at me and rapidly attacked me with his hooves, my legs were taking a beating and I could feel the bruises beginning to form as I traded blows with him.

I hit him in the barrel and hind legs several times and once in the cheek. I took several hits to the face, body and my front legs, but I weathered his numerous blows until he tried for a kick.

I caught his kick, spun and slammed him face first to the ground and swung him around to launch him at a tree back first in a well-executed hammer throw. He grunted as his wings took some damage, but he still got back up and flew out of range of the lasso I threw at him in an attempt to ‘rope a dope’ him.

“Well this melee offensive isn’t working… guess I better start using my special moves. Shocking… lightning…” Having seen this before, Shocking was about to launch a blast of lightning at me and was gathering a large amount of lightning between his hooves. “Spear thrust-hahhhh!”

I rolled to the right and the beam of lightning passed by me like… well lightning. It’s what he did next that surprised me.

“Hahhhh!” He screamed again and I barely avoided the second beam of energy ripping through the space my body used to occupy. I did not know that he could pulse out a second blast of lightning from that attack. “Hahhhh!”

Oh cud!

The third beam clipped my left hind leg and it became numb making me almost fall to the ground, I stomped it against the ground several times to get the feeling back into it and to rebalance myself.

I saw the remaining tiny orb of energy Shocking was holding become crushed between his hooves and lit them up with sparks again.

He came at me with a swipe I didn’t block him this time, I moved to leap to the right and then rolled to the left. He was in the middle of attacking to left from my feint, when I rammed him out of the air putting my horns into his gut and sending him sprawling.

He quickly was up and high in the air before I could snag him with my rope. Against a flying opponent with long range attacks, I was clearly at a disadvantage.

“Okay that’s it, I’ve had enough of playing around with you! Lightning… orb… building… charging… building… charging~!” I saw Shocking hovering high in the air out of what he thought was the range of my rope, as long as I had the strength to throw the rope he wasn’t ever out of range as long as I could see him. He held his hooves above his head and a large orb of raw energy was forming above them, it was getting bigger by the second. “Super… lightning orb… wave bomb!”

I threw my rope high up there and managed to catch his right rear leg this time, I pulled as hard as I could while the massive orb of lightning came down at me slowly with a downward swing of Shocking's hooves.

Slowly for a mass of lightning that is.

The energy in that thing was going to smart if I wasn’t prepared for it by the time it hits me. I ignored Shocking slamming roughly into the ground and prepared for the attack, I didn’t think I could outrun this.

I quickly forced each of my legs, one at a time, into the ground and that’s when the orb landed on me.

I thankfully had my eyes close as the explosion of lightning was so bright and powerful that I could see the light through my eyelids and a lot of that energy was currently ramming into my body.

-Shocking Awe-

The cow managed to get in one last rope around my leg, how long was that freaking thing? There’s no way she could be carrying that much rope on her small form!

I turned to the match caller looking away from the area that I had devastated with pure awesome that vaporized or scorched everything within fifty feet of the impact zone.

“Okay my opponent couldn’t have possibly survived that, so…” I rock slammed into the side of my face cutting it open and I glared at the jerk who the gall to… she was still alive!

“You think I’m... that easy to... take down?” The cow was alive after all that?! It didn’t look like she could move very well though.

“Actually yeah, I was kind of expecting my opponent to meet that friend she talked about and got to say hello to Death's doorstep.” I clapped my hooves together and they lit up again, she didn’t look very mobile at the moment and I was definitely abusing the buck out of that!

I moved forward and rapidly struck her multiple times.

She blocked my attacks only to throw a straight left into my nose breaking it in a fountain of blood and then… she just froze up.

The match caller came over to look her over, I sat back grinning at the glare she was giving me.

I couldn’t break her bones, but I still won this fight.

“Winner by incapacitation, Shocking ‘Vicious Volts’ Awe!” The caller stated clearly.

I paralyzed that scorched cow's muscles with plenty of energy.

Author's Note

Arizona's down for the count and paralyzed, can Paprika still pull off a victory?

Also, to anyone who knows the Dragon Ball series.

The Spirit Bomb looks like am impressive ultimate technique, but it has a completely lousy record of actually outright killing anything at all and it's build up time limits it by a fair amount.

Chapter thirty seven, Tundra Tourney Tussle: Step five.

-Tundra Tourney day four, Paprika-

“Help… me…” Branches whined in my hooves, but I thought I was helping him.

I mean, who didn’t want to be helped to a big hug? Plus I wanted to win the tournament for Arizona and Velvet, I was so angry at Mr. Deer that I needed to get my frustration out with love.

Not too long after Arizona became paralyzed and that was a bad thing, also apparently the mean pony who paralyzed her was part of an organization that hurt my loves friend. I don’t think I like this GODLESS organization very much, their name alone sounded pretty mean.

“Okay two minutes have passed.” The match caller stated.

“I… for… feit…” Branches got out while stuck in my snuggling grip, with his legs flailing. He was so scrawny, but somewhat cuddly.

I’m surprised he made it this far. Oh well, guess he was out of the tournament now, but loves wanted me to win it and I would absolutely try my best.

-Match caller-

“Winner by forfeit, again… Paprika ‘The Demon’ Paca!” I blinked and saw the reindeer was now on the ground gasping and taking in huge gulps of air, I looked at the path in the snow leading towards the medical tents.

Specifically the one Arizona Arid and Velvet Deer were sharing, hopefully they’d survive her.

I shook my head and had to call the next matchup as soon as it was hoofed over to me.

“Matchup, Shocking ‘Vicious Volts’ Awe versus Clause ‘Deep Freeze’ Deer.” This was going to be an interesting one, I can already tell.

-Medical tent, Paprika-

I popped up with a little white hat with a red cross on it and looked to Tinsel who has been helping Velvet with a book.

I hopped up to the two beds and looked to Arizona who was still in the same frozen state she had been in at the end of her fight, her eyes could still move and she was breathing at least.

I’m sure they’d be okay, I came back as quickly as I could to watch over them. Velvet eventually looked up from the book and noticed me.

“Oh Paprika, have you finished your fights for the day?” Nodding to Velvet excitedly, I was proud of my efforts to hug things today and Velvet was actually smiling in my direction for once!

It was a bit sad that I wouldn’t get to fight either Arizona or Velvet in the competition, but I could fight them anytime I wanted when they were better. My loves were always fun to play with and they even liked my existence, which was a bonus in my eyes.

I still wondered why dad suggested that I eventually learn to wrestle with both of them in bed together, that would just hurt them to do right now.

Sometimes I don’t think I would ever understand my father, but he was generally quite wise at times even if mommy chastised him for telling me to do something so weird. Silly papa, beds weren’t for wrestling in even if it sounded like fun, they’re made for sleeping!

“That’s good… could you do me a small favor that Tinsel can’t take care of for me?” Moving over to Velvet, I leaned in close and flicked an ear. Her wish was my mission… or was it command? Whatever, I’d do it for Velvet! “Can you go get us some food? Soup for Arizona at least, she can’t open her mouth wide enough to bite anything. You might even have to rub her neck to get her to swallow.”

I can do that!

I looked to Tinsel and he continued to help with the book and caring for Velvet’s damaged floof. Tinsel had managed to get all the blood stains out of Velvet’s fur. The little miracle worker, he was taking good care of her!

Tinsel looked up at me and motioned for me to go ahead and that he was watching my family for me. He shouldn’t discount himself, because he was family too!

Looking to Arizona, her fur slightly blackened a bit from when she was struck with a massive amount of lightning, she just rolled her eyes at me and gave me the barest of nods.

All her muscles were so locked up that she couldn’t hardly even nod at me. Maybe I should learn massage or get some ice sprites that know… oh, I can get some ice sprite masseuses from the Spritely Spa. Velvet really loves those reindeer pampering guys!

I ran out to go find some stuff to make soup… a nice gazpacho soup for Velvet, a warm hearty vegetable soup for Arizona and some hot grilled cheese sandwiches for all sounds really good for today’s dinner.

I hope the Spritely Spa sprites don’t run from me, I could use their help… maybe…

I turned around and ran back into the tent and motioned several things at Tinsel, he looked at me curiously as I had left only a few seconds ago.

Tinsel nodded, clapped his limbs together and hit my face with a slightly chilly breeze, then made a go on motion. I wonder what he just did and would it make the ice sprites come help Arizona?

Well okay, I was on my way to bring back food and help for cow love.

I had to be a breadwinner today and not forget how to get back to the medical tent!

Wait… where do reindeer sell bread around here? Oh well, I’ll figure something out.

-Velvet-

“I hope she doesn’t cause problems going out to get food for us.” In answer to my statement, all Arizona could do was vaguely nod imperceptibly. If you weren’t looking for it, you almost wouldn’t see the movements and it was hard when you only had the use of your right eye and Arizona was directly to my left. “I mean she is going to simply ask one of the medical professionals to send someone out for food right?”

Oh my left eye was perfectly fine, it’s just that the bandages had to cover a portion of my face and required wrapping over my left eye to do so.

Arizona seemed to shrug with her eyes and then looked to the ceiling of the tent.

-Reindeer bakery, Rein, Soufflé-

Something came up to the counter at a blazing speed and once I saw who it was, I ducked under the counter cowering.

As any reindeer knows, everyone learns to avoid the alpaca with the purple eyes, brightly colored blonde fur and that creepy overly cheerful disposition. Everyone except for the fawns that is, they loved her for some weird reason.

I am Soufflé and seeing the demon alpaca in the bakery was making me a bit hysterical. She looked over the counter at me with her long neck and tilted her head curiously.

“What do you want?” I tried not to make any sudden movements, apparently that’s a signal for her to hug you into submission. Running only made things worse and even then she might hug you anyway if you were sitting still.

Having bravely asked my question, all while sobbing and being a cowering wreck of a young reindeer doe. She calmly sat a picnic basket with a pink heart on the counter.

She pointed at a loaf of bread, some cheese and the cinnamon rolls, then pulled out a piece of paper.

I was a bit curious as why she wasn’t terrorizing anyone or going on one of her hug rampages, I got up and carefully approached the piece of paper. I kept my eyes on the smiling creature on the other side of the counter.

I looked the paper over. She was grocery shopping, this was almost too… I want to say normal and absolutely tame for her. Still, I rung up the food items she wanted, she paid for it and gave me a quick near rib breaking squeeze and then pointed at the vegetables on her list.

“Down the street to the left… can’t miss it...” I groaned out audibly as she shot out of the shop in a flash, taking the picnic basket with her.

I was surprised I came out of that alright and it hadn’t been all too bad actually.

“Agh… my cabbages!” The traveling cabbage selling pony down the street next to the grocers didn’t sound so lucky though.

What was his name again? I think it was Cabbage Patching.

-Spritely Spa, Paprika-

I ran into the spa and smiled as all the sprites just froze and I made several gestures to them, I wanted their help to fix cow love’s muscles.

Waiting patiently for them to huddle together to talk to each other, I was a little worried they wouldn’t help me. One of the ice sprites came over to me and sniffed at me and then squeaked something to the other sprites.

It wasn’t long before they gathered and I now had a lot of ice sprites riding on my back!

-Medical tent a short time later -

I had gotten everything I needed to make a good meal… now if only I could cook good food like mommy did. I could get close enough and wasn’t too bad at least, I don’t think either of my loves know how to make food and I could do that for them!

Let’s start with the soups, they’re easy and then go for the grilled cheeses last so that they are still warm when we’re ready to eat.

-Velvet-

It appears Paprika has decided to cook for us again, hopefully she wasn’t about to do something dangerous. I actually trusted her to be safe with cooking.

Thankfully among the three of us she actually had some cooking skills as part of her survival skillset as a nomadic alpaca and she wasn’t exactly entirely bad at it. She was just above completely mediocre, if I were to compare her skills to Kuril… yeah, there was actually no accurate comparison for Kuril’s cooking.

Paprika could have gotten someone to help her with this though. I swear, she wants to do everything for us by herself and while it was sweet, it could lead to disaster if Paprika didn’t pace herself.

I looked over to Arizona who seemed to be sighing audibly and happily as a number of ice sprites crawled on top of her and were trying to loosen up her muscles.

Paprika had the brilliant idea to hire the Spritely Spa ice sprites to help her with her locked up muscles and they were slowly working movement back into the front half of Arizona’s body. Their work was progressing at a snail’s pace and if they could at least get Arizona’s jaw working, then that was one less problem for us to worry about.

I just rested, with Tinsel accommodating my needs by turning the pages in the book I was reading, as the wonderful smells of vegetable soup filled the small tent.

“Excuse me, but what do you think you’re doing in… here… I’ll come back later.” The reindeer doctor abandoned the tent as soon as he saw Paprika chopping up vegetables and was cooking something.

-Match caller-

“Winner by multiple grievous injuries, Clause ‘Deep Freeze’ Deer.” I watched as Clause denied the medics help and he limped away from that fight leaving his opponent worse off than he currently was.

Shocking Awe had two broken wings, three broken legs, the rear half of his body had been frozen solid and he looked to have a concussion. Even then, that maniac was still grinning up a storm and looked to be enjoying the pain he was in.

Arizona Arid had weakened Shocking down by quite a bit and then Clause had swooped in to finish him off.

Clause hadn’t finished that fight without taking some nasty hits himself, as was evident by his limping. I think he’d be at a slight disadvantage tomorrow.

“That was the last match for the day, come back tomorrow for the final match folks!” The entire area where they fought was wrecked with scorch marks and ice sticking up all over the place, those two had really gone at it out here.

-Paprika-

“I feel a lot better even if I can only currently move my jaw, you guys do good work.” The sprites blushed at Arizona’s praise and looked bashful. “Might even be able to walk again soon with some more help. I think that’s going to take a lot of work though, given how much effort it took to even loosen up the muscles in my jaw.”

I was about ready to serve dinner, the vegetable soup for Arizona needed to simmer. The gazpacho pot was out in the snow chilling down for Velvet and I was going to start making homemade grilled cheese sandwiches.

“Ahem…” It was Clause. I turned to glare at him and moved in front of Velvet while fluffing up like pufferfish, I was warning him off to keep him from hurting my loves. “Cute... so you are to be my opponent tomorrow. You don’t look like much, but I could be wrong. You look like a master fluffmancer and yet you won all your matches by cuddling your opponents into submission. Just so you know, that will not work with me!”

He turned and left. I quickly deflated down and went to move the soup off the heat, then I started making the grilled sandwiches and piling them all on a plate to be carried to my healing loves.

-Clause-

“Ho-ho-ho… I don’t think you’re going to win tomorrow son, not this one.” I grunted at the sound of his voice.

“I don’t need your opinion father, by tomorrow I will be ready to fight her and will ultimately squander my daughter’s chances at getting the key.” I made my way to get some medical help, I would even ask politely for it and would pay respect to whatever advice they had to give me when it came to my health. I was still going to fight tomorrow. “In fact, my daughter will not get a hold of the key while I can still stand strong.”

“You know... you just don’t like the idea that she may be the key keeper for the reindeer.” The ghost of my past stated.

I didn’t have a response to that.

-Tundra Tourney day five, medical tent, Velvet-

The angry look on Paprika’s face didn’t suit her in the slightest and she’d be facing Clause in the final fight. I had to change that look back to the smile I know and… fine… I loved Paprika! You can give me a break about it now, okay conscience?

“Paprika…” No matter how quiet I said that, Paprika’s ears immediately perked up and I saw those heart shaped pupils in her eyes as she turned to me with a smile. “Come over here please.”

She did so.

“Get your face closer.” Having listened to me again, I sat up and carefully put my forehead against hers and stared my one eye into hers. “Paprika, I want to apologize to you. You’ve given me nothing but love and I’ve thrown that in your face numerous times. Please don’t go into this fight angry, he doesn’t deserve it. I'll give you some real incentive to win… I love you Paprika.”

I turned my head, planted my lips upon hers and thrust my tongue into Paprika's mouth, it was already opening from the shock of my declaration.

Author's Note

Next up, Paprika does some things.

Step five: Acceptance.

Chapter thirty seven, Tundra Tourney Tussle: Paprika’s heart attack!

Author's Note

Had this playing on loop while writing this.

Chapter thirty seven, Tundra Tourney Tussle: Paprika’s heart attack!

-Arizona-

Paprika slowly pulled away from Velvet’s kiss.

I watched as the bottom of the hearts in Paprika’s purple pupils started changing color. No… they were filling up with the color pink.

Once they were fully pink, her heart shaped pupils grew to twice their normal size and Paprika’s right eye twitched once.

She then turned to slowly walk out of the tent with a calm smile on her face.

-Tundra tourney, final bout, Paprika-

My heart was going a million miles a second, I feel lighter than air. Is this how mom feels with daddy all the time? Was this feeling why I had so many brothers and sisters? Was it… is this… Velvet’s love for me?

“Fight.” At the match caller’s words I focused my attention on Clause as he came at me, he was a very sad reindeer.

I should show him some love, even if he was about to slowly lodge that ice lance in my chest.

Was the world slowing down or was it just me speeding up? My heart was pounding in my chest really fast, so I was probably just slightly faster.

-Clause-

I jabbed at her with my right leg sending ice lance through her. She just vanished and, without a scratch, appeared slightly to the left of my lance looking at it in confusion.

I thrust my left leg forward and she just seemed to sway around it, while glancing to it as well.

With a blink she was suddenly in front of me with a warm smile, she grabbed me and planted a kiss on my nose.

“What the… how the heck did you…” I stumbled backwards in shock dropping my ice lances, I created new ones that were shorter and started to attack her.

I started to rapidly jab the ice lances at her with both hooves and she started to seemingly dance in place to some unknown beat. It was as if she were taunting me with the way she closed her eyes and still had that cheerful smile on her face.

She was shifting her head and body to the left and right as she trotted in place. I tried to hit her and yet each movement she did made her avoid my stabs with such unbelievable ease.

I swapped the lances into blades and started to swing rapidly at her. I swung both high and low, as fast as I could move my legs. She opened her eyes and just ducked my first swing, cartwheeled over my next attack and then she even had the gall to start giggling merrily.

She started hopping over and rolling under my swings… sometimes multiple times in a blur for each swing, was she leaving after images? Sometimes she seemed to even physically go both under and over a swing at the same time.

I even tried an overhead swing and she seemed to split off in two directions, before becoming one cohesive being on the right. I tried to swing for her again.

She suddenly lunged at me mid swing and… gave me a hug?

I grunted and unleashed a point blank small blast of frosty air that sent her flipping backwards away from me.

She landed on her hooves skidding backwards slightly and she continued to smile at me brightly… since when were her eyes pink? I thought they were purple! Also she wasn’t covered in any frost and she didn’t look to be even the slightest bit cold from that point blank attack.

With a sweep of my hoof, I started firing a massive amount of ice shards at her and she expanded her fluff to catch them all in front of her. Stopping to look at her for a moment, I just stared at all those ice shards collected by the wall of fluff.

Her fluff seemed to flex and with that one action, she just sent all the ice shards lodged in the fluff flying back at me all at once at insane speeds.

I closed my eyes while forming a wall of ice in front of me expecting some hits to get through given the speed they were moving at. When I didn’t hear anything except a series of soft thudding noises, I opened my eyes and blinked in confusion after I lowered the wall. Looking down and around me, I was a little surprised.

I moved slightly over the shards that had impacted the ground in front of me and turned around. I stared at the heart shaped pattern the shards of ice had made. I glared at her and she gave me a bright and eager looking toothy grin.

The shards would have had to swerve around my wall and body midflight to even create that pattern. Otherwise there’s no other way she could have possibly created that pattern without the ice shards actually going through the ice wall or me. It had to have been a fluke that they even took the shape of a heart!

I glared at her and inhaled, I blasted a furious gust of icy breath in an attempt to at least blind her so I could prepare another attack. Freezing a fluffmancer solid was hard to do unless you put enough power behind it and I wasn’t about to waste my energy trying that.

Suddenly, in my eyes, she seemed to take on the appearance of Velvet by standing on her hind legs holding her hooves above her head. Before the icy fog could reach her, she started to twirl elegantly and rapidly.

The icy air reached her and then started to swirl around her and it built up into a tornado. When she stopped, she threw her hooves out in jubilation towards me while jumping into the air. That last enthusiastic gesture caused the large tornado of snow she just created to start to coming at me.

I had to block that attack. I swung my antlers to the left harshly and created a tornado of snow to counter it. When my tornado hit hers, they exploded into a shower of pink colored heart shaped snowflakes that eventually turned into colorless ice upon contact with the ground.

“What is going on?!” All I got was a friendly smile as an answer from her.

I lowered my antlers in preparation for a charge, only I didn’t get a chance to start charging forward as she launched a rope like wad of fluff forward from her left hoof.

It wrapped around my neck and she tugged me towards her with a solid yank. How strong was this alpaca that she could lift me off my hooves like that with one pull?!

She held out her left hoof as if she were going to clothesline me, why did I get the sudden impression of that cow standing right in her place? When I reached her she wrapped me tightly in both her hooves and pressed me to the ground and yet there was no pain… only the warmth of her fluff pinning me into the cold snow.

Why did the snow actually feel cold compared to her warmth? I was an ice shaping reindeer, I shouldn’t even feel cold! I got my hind legs under her and kicked her off me and swiftly got back into a standing position.

The alpaca bounced once, did a hoof spring and then landed on all her hooves. With the barest of movement upon landing, she shot towards me as an indistinct blur. I couldn’t even react before she was already pressing her head up under my chest with impressive force.

I was launched up into the air in the direction she was running and she passed by me for a short distance. She slid to a stop and then leapt at me, to grapple onto my back with all four hooves changing my momentum immediately.

She nuzzled my neck as we fell softly against the ground and slid a few feet. She was underneath me and holding onto me tightly. I was having problems breaking this hold and struggled to break free of her grip.

“So… it wasn’t my imagination, you mimicked them!” Yet she wasn’t doing those moves right, she wasn’t even using them to hurt me. I roared at her in anger as I tried to forcefully break her grasp. “This is supposed to be a fight, not one of your alpaca feel good festivals!”

I spiked ice outwards beneath me from my back and disconnected the spikes as I rolled away to look at the alpaca. I blinked when I just saw a pile of fluff shaped like her without a face and it silently pulled away from the impaling ice to stand up on its own.

Feeling something tap me on my shoulder, I turned my face right into an ambush.

“Mwah!” She smiled cheerfully at me after giving me a kiss on the cheek.

I stumbled and started backing away from the alpaca rapidly.

I watched as her fur jumped forward once, then leapt onto her and seamlessly combined with her body as she walked towards me with a happy smile.

Something in me snapped once she got close, I started to thrust my hooves at her rapidly. She simply sat down and started to hit my hooves with the exact amount of force I was going to hit her with them.

The alpaca simply blocked each hit and she clapped her hooves between some of my attempted strikes. Was she… she was! She’s playing patty cake with me!

I slammed my left hoof to the ground creating a large wave of snow and slush to push her away and blinked when I saw an impossibly persistent alpaca shaped hole in the wave of snow going beyond where the alpaca had been.

I looked a little closer to me to see she was sitting next to me with that ever patient smile on her face. I looked back to watch the snow wave end and the same alpaca shaped indent was still there where the snow wave stopped.

Her fur hadn’t even gotten wet. Was she one of those alpaca that learned how to generate hydrofuge hairs? The water focus element of ice magic wasn’t going to work at all against her.

I leapt back and slashed my hoof, sending a flying crescent blade of sharp ice at her. It struck her fur, just stopped right there and fell to the ground. I created that ice so thin and sharp that it should have just cut straight through her, the very least it should have done was injure her somewhat!

I kicked at the ground causing a line of icy spikes to rise up in her direction, the alpaca simply hopped up at the ice that spiked up at her body. She landed on the spike with all four of her hooves gathered on the fine point of that spike of ice.

She hopped across the tips of the ice spikes and then leapt at me with her legs held wide open.

I threw up a massive wall of ice and after she struck it, I tried to topple it right onto her. She rolled backwards and her fur just fluffed up into a spherical shape.

The falling ice wall basically rotated into a standing position behind the alpaca after having pivoted it over herself to leave it standing practically upside down.

“What… what are you, does anything work against you?!” My words made her look confused and she tilted her head at me innocently, as if she didn’t understand why I was now suddenly scared of her.

Wait… I was scared of her? I’m strong, I’m powerful and I’m… being hugged again!

“Stop that, let me go!” I managed to get out of her grip before she could tighten it and I backed away from her quickly wide eyed, I didn’t stop backing away from those gentle eyes.

I started launching acutely angled blunt pillars of ice at her, she leapt on top of them to start skating for me by hopping between them and was getting closer to me by the second.

I clapped my hooves together and two blunt pillars of ice slammed together on both sides of her. I think I finally… wait… there’s no blood between the pillars… and there wasn’t an alpaca there either.

I felt something gently wrap me in a hug and I felt her nose pressing softly into the right side of my neck. How did she… when did she? I tried to move, I tried to shake her off and she just held me tighter. She squeezed me without hurting me and just cooed at me softly.

Could I use a Black Blizzard? No that wouldn’t stop her fluffmancer abilities and it would just weaken me further. Could I hit her with my horns? Her fluff would make my horns do negligible damage.

I tried to fight it, I felt so tired, I wanted to win, but… something in me just…

I collapsed in her hooves and she just held me. I sat there for a long minute doing nothing with an alpaca pressing herself against me.

“I forfeit!” I almost didn’t believe I was actually saying those words as they left my mouth, even though I had clearly shouted them loudly.

The alpaca just continued to hold me tenderly.

“Winner of the tournament by forfeit, Paprika ‘The Demon’ Paca!” The match caller stated. “She’s certainly lives up to her title folks, as per outsider’s rules she’s won herself a top rank prize for placing first. Now let us all just pray for our lives if she comes for us next!”

-Three minutes later, medical tent, Arizona-

Upon her return, I noticed that Paprika’s eyes had returned back to being their normal purple color. Yet they flickered slightly pink as she looked to me and Velvet.

Some beings say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, Paprika’s eyes were just more obvious and quite expressive about it than most. All alpacas seemed to mostly talk with their eyes and body gestures anyway.

It looked like Paprika had had quite a battle on her hooves. She had come back to the tent looking completely fine, if terribly exhausted. She still had a loving smile on her face meant just for us.

Paprika went over to peck Velvet on the cheek sweetly and came to do the same to me. She then dragged my bed next to Velvet’s and after pushing them together, she crawled up onto our combined beds between us and laid her head down to rest.

-A new day-

“What are you doing here?” I asked of Clause, I wished I could move right now so I could put my hoof to his face.

I was unfortunately still paralyzed from the neck down. Velvet and I were still going to be bedridden for quite a while.

Paprika sat up and looked at him curiously, but she wasn’t angry and hadn’t been since Velvet kissed her.

“I just came here to deliver the prize you all sought after, nothing more.” Clause slowly walked up to Velvet’s bedside and pushed something into her hoof. The object started glowing slightly. “You should protect everything you have with your best effort.”

With that, Clause turned and left silently without another word. He didn’t look back.

I looked over to see Velvet holding up the key, the end of it looked to be like reindeer antlers. Like Paprika’s key looked like it ended in alpaca fluff.

Chapter thirty eight, Shadows on The Range: The Tower.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter thirty eight, Shadows on The Range: The Hierophant.

-The Range, Velvet-

“I think we should be far enough away, enough so that I can slow down a little to keep my strength. It’s been a while since I’ve put in this much effort into moving about.” She sounded like quite the gentle and prim cow. Of course she was running around with dynamite strapped to her, so I was still a little wary of her. “Keep your guard up, there may be more scouting shadows out here.”

“Those were just scouts?” That was a lot of shadows for being just scouts and I couldn’t keep the wavering out of my voice. If that was a scouting party, what was a hunting party like?

“I think we still could have taken them!” On that, there was some room for doubt Arizona.

“Oh I have no doubt of your groups combat prowess if you have both a fluffmancer and an assisted ice shaper, but would you have rather be injured and incapable of making it to safety by taking down just the one group? They tend to gather like a storm and if you aren’t in fortified location, then they will gather in droves quickly to overwhelm the unwary.” The cow said clearly as her head darted left and right as we moved along The Range under the moonlight. She was likely looking out for more shadow monsters. “I can assure you that there are more out here than the ones you saw Arizona.”

“Wait a moment, I never told you my name!” That you didn’t Arizona, you only mentioned your nickname for Paprika when this cow showed up.

“Of course you didn’t little Arid, you were so tiny when you were born. It put a lot of doctors into quite the tizzy as they were worried you were far too small and wouldn’t survive a year, but you proved to be a strong little calf despite that. Also you’re mother kind of harangued the doctors into giving her a second opinion a year later when you were still around and quite healthy despite your size.” This cow knew Arizona’s mother personally, this might be a good chance meeting for Arizona then. “Your mother was always attentive and if she wasn’t, then your father was always so very protective of you. Nothing could touch you while the both of them were around.”

“Until that monster came?” Yes, that was what you told us about your father Arizona and you looked to be in pain.

Repressing those memories can’t be healthy of you Arizona, but I’m going to hold my tongue on that as I was repressing the idea that my parents might not be as bad as I think they were.

“Yes, that was a sad day indeed and that monster still couldn’t touch you, I’m surprised that you can remember that and am sorry that you do. If you don’t remember, your father was a major part of law enforcement for the place we’re heading to Arizona.” The cow seemed to sigh audibly. “He was beloved by the community and you’re going to meet three strong adoptive uncles who carried on with strength, justice and keeping the peace in his late absence. Tell me, what are all of you exactly doing out here? These days on The Range have been quite harrowing with these monsters appearing at night. They’ve been getting stronger up to this night, which seems to be going on forever.”

“We’re looking for the cow settlement, we’ve been wandering around for a year since we couldn’t find it no matter how often we were assured it’s out here.” Might as well get in a few words myself. “We made a few stops in nearby places to resupply or survived off the rather icky land as needed. We’ve been to Las Pegasus a while ago and that was particularly fun… for a given definition of it. At least they had baths, when Arizona starts smelling it gets bad enough to a point that even our lovely Paprika here won’t even hug her. We were somewhat helped out of a jam by this group called the Gold Horseshoe Gals, they were a very nice bunch of old ponies. Don’t know about the high-strung mare they had with them though, she could learn a thing or two from her elders about how to relax.”

“Well you’re in luck then, that’s where we’re headed. We’ll be in the moving town of Haven’s Patch soon enough.” Did the cow just say what I thought she said?

“So it’s like Turtle Toga?” What was Arizona talking about? Oh wait… if I remember right, that’s where Jacky ‘Blackcap’ Chickadee La Perm came from isn’t it?

The island that is almost impossible to find unless you’ve been there once before or happened to be born from there like Jacky apparently was. Almost impossible, because if the island was uninhabited previously, then how did someone eventually find it to settle a town there?

Now that I thought of it, I should have wrote down Velvet Icerberg La Perm down on my entry form for the Tundra Tourney… old habits die hard I guess.

“Exactly, Turtle Toga was one adventure I would rather not relive. Though the mechanics seem similar, they are completely different as Turtle Toga is slow moving. Haven’s Patch mostly just jumps a large distance in the blink of an eye once a week at random and without warning. If you are within the borders of the effect, you get moved with the whole town. It hasn’t bothered us cows for the most part except for one distinct sad occasion I’ll get back to in a minute, it certainly does give travelers conniptions when they try to find it when in dire need of supplies or… something else in your case.” The cow shook her head and shivered as she kept pulling us towards Haven’s Patch, which I believe to be town we can see in the distance. “There were so many crude ruffians in Turtle Toga, I can honestly say that your mother fit in rather well there Arizona. The pirates all even started treating Grace with respect when she accidentally knocked out those five pirate captains in a bar fight, many pirates even started calling her the pirate queen. Thankfully we figured out how to let Grace retire both gracefully and quickly before we started dragging pirates around everywhere we went.”

“Aunt Grace never told me about that one, it sounds awesome! You’re Callie aren’t you, what happened between you, mom and Grace?” Now Arizona was sitting up and taking more of an interest in this… Callie.

“Yes and while your mother was Maggie to Grace, I always called your mother Margaret personally. Minnesota Magnolia Arid was one cow that was hard to follow around, but Grace and I were particularly good at keeping up with her. Oh all those insane adventures we went on… the mysteries we’ve solved… the heights we climbed to… the many dangers we overcame…” The cow became somewhat silent after sounding so wistful. “At least until we had a bit of a falling out, it happened not too long after Texas died and I won’t going into great details as it was a private affair. Grace was probably unhappy with what happened to our friendship, but Maggie couldn’t stop trying to help make the world be a better place for you to live in Arizona. Still, you’re mother obviously made the right choice in giving you to Grace for safekeeping. You look strong and sound quite healthy for having almost been assaulted by shadow monsters, you’re also about as headstrong as Margaret ever was or possibly still is. Haven’t seen her since she set out to find that humongous snake and Grace went to find a nice place to settle down away from the moving town with you.”

“So you haven’t seen mom?” Arizona wilted and I leaned over to nuzzle her gently, my poor cow just heard the news that sounded like her mother hasn’t been seen by this Callie in years.

“Not a hint of her since the day she disappeared after telling Grace to go find a safer place to raise you, she obviously succeeded despite my misgivings and I owe Grace a deep apology now.” Callie continued looking ahead, we could see a well-lit town in the distance and looking up at the moon and looking back down at the town, it seems they were keeping the town as brightly lit as if it were daytime. “It was on one of the days that the town was going to teleport that you and your father got separated by it disappearing suddenly, then that the monster attack happened. I remember that we set out immediately and found you curled up against Texas ‘The Taurus’ Arid, the one time that the town’s most unusual feature of teleporting around The Range proved quite fatal for one of us. It’s become a cautionary tale, but know that it wasn’t your fault Arizona and your father loved you deeply. Enough talk about that sad day, I assume Grace found a more stable place for you to be?”

Arizona seemed to be trying to cope with the memories of witnessing her father’s death given the pained look on her face as she clutched at her head. Eventually the look eased thanks to Paprika cuddling up against her, Arizona would likely try to focus on something else. She eventually nodded to Callie.

“We moved around a lot, at least up until a few years ago where we found this nice little place in the middle of nowhere called Airship Mauled. I’m educated… by pony standards at least.” Arizona looked a little distant as if still reliving a nightmare, but she was still in the here and now. “It’s a common occurrence for airships to crash in that area, Grace is now running the Helping Hoof Inn there made out of a crashed airship. Tell me something, was Grace always…”

She lifted a hoof and titled it side to side in reference to Grace, Callie stopped to see the gesture and chuckled a bit.

“Yes, she’s always been a bit airheaded like that. We even grew up together in fairly good and loving network of cattle. It’s your mother that was the odd one out. She wasn’t born in Haven’s Patch and was an outsider with a rather crude attitude and then there’s the whole bounty hunter thing, which I’m quite sure you’ve heard about relentlessly.” We were almost to the town thanks to Callie and saw several cattle, both cows and bulls, standing in the light looking outwards in all directions with worry. One bull saw our approach and ran off to likely talk to someone. “Maggie, Grace and I spent more than ten years traveling together before we came back to Haven’s Patch, then your mother fell in love and had you. I even met a fine bull myself, but Grace… she was always a little different.”

Callie looked back, saw us nuzzling against Arizona and smiled faintly. She turned back to the sound of hooves approaching us.

“Misses Calloway are you okay?” The large blue bull asked, he was massive and muscular. Arizona seemed to gaze at him until I elbowed her making her focus on us as we came to a stop.

“I’m perfectly fine Dakota, I can certainly handle myself and going out like that was just like old times. Though I certainly miss the banter of my friends by my side as we got into trouble.” Callie, or Calloway as Dakota called her, shucked the rope around her neck and moved forward to greet the large bull with a hug. “Ran into shadow monsters scouting around The Range for victims and all the animals in the surrounding areas have safely gone to ground. I suggest we prepare for a siege, because I think we have a lot of incoming. I want you to tell Montana and Colorado to prepare our defenses.”

“Who are they ma’am?” He nodded to us getting off of the jagged ice sleigh.

“One of them is Arizona Arid, yes… that Arid. The other two are… well I haven’t been introduced to them properly yet.” She turned around and smiled at us. “Welcome to Haven’s Patch, I’m Mayor Calloway and you are?”

“I’m Velvet Iceberg La Perm, it’s a pleasure to meet you properly Calloway.” I was going to change my name anyway. I motioned to Tinsel on my back and then to Paprika. “This little cutie is my familiar Tinsel, that there is a nuisance to anything that she can feasibly get her hooves around. Her name is Paprika Paca and she’s special to Arizona and me, she’s also almost obsessed with hugging just about everything around her… like she’s doing right now.”

Dakota looked a little uncomfortable with Paprika clinging to the side of his large form and hugging him, she looked up to us with hearts in her eyes at being talked about and then turned back to Dakota with her pupils returning to normal ovals.

“Let me guess, it was love at first sight for you two right? It happens and you’re never going to be free of her, not that it’s a bad thing as she’ll do anything for you. Come along then, you shall be much safer in town. So long as we can keep a ring of light going around the town, we should be fine for the time being… unless the stronger shadows show up.” Calloway noticed the stares we were giving her as we moved forward while carrying our supplies. “Yes, they can get stronger and eventually become strong enough to a point where sunlight won’t outright destroy them anymore… at that point things will start getting really bad.”

“Paprika, stop bothering the nice bull and follow us!” My harsh screaming made Paprika release the bull and she immediately came over to us. We made our way into town following Calloway and walked up to a bar and inn, it was more of a saloon really. The bartender didn’t seem to pay much attention to us, she was a bit busy at the moment.

“You can rest here at Lily Bovine’s for the moment, then we can move on to my home.” Calloway turned a curious eye and a hint of a smirk to Arizona. “Unless you want to help in the defense of the town?”

“Of course we want to help, right girls!” We nodded along with Arizona and then ordered some drinks, we had to translate Paprika's order.

We spent the next few minutes relaxing, at least until I realized a question of ours wasn’t answered.

“Paprika… I know you've avoided the question earlier and with a decent excuse… so what exactly did you do that you are so afraid of us knowing about?” I narrowed my eyes at Paprika as she started sweating a bit and pulled at her fur.

“Okay Paprika, what did you do?" Arizona pressed after I did. "It’s going to be easier to tell us now then later.”

Paprika gulped audibly and looked between us while grinning sheepishly, she reached into her fur and pulled out two envelopes. We each took them and pulled out the contents.

“We’re what!!” My voice went quite shrill as I turned a glare to Paprika.

-Arizona-

“How the hay did you get the three of us married?!” It didn’t take long for me to figure it out. "It happened back in Las Pegasus… of course it did."

Author's Note

Some retreaded lore, I hope you don't mind. The shadows will become more of a problem next page... once they finally catch up that is.

Also Arizona and Velvet will need now marriage counseling.

Next up, 'The Chariot' or should it be 'Strength' with what Paprika managed to pull under Arizona and Velvet's noses?

Chariot is more fitting, so let's go with that.

Chapter thirty eight, Shadows on The Range: The Chariot.

-Haven’s Patch, Arizona-

Okay, so we were married in a three way herd… but just for clarification.

“Is it legal?” I asked before Velvet could take a stool to Paprika’s cowering head. “In any case I don’t mind the whole marriage thing. I like you both well enough that I’m fine with this, we could always get it annulled or divorce if it’s legit and we don’t think it’ll work out.”

“Well I do mind.” Does Velvet realize that taking it out on Paprika won’t help change things if it wasn’t a legitimate marriage? It wasn’t a big deal really even if we could confirm it was legitimate. “I may love the both of you, but I wanted dates, ice cream, romance, flowers, ice cream, tender caresses, some chocolate, to be treated like a queen of the realm for the most part of one day, to at least be proposed to properly so that I can agree to it and most importantly ice cream!”

“You kind of have a one track mind there about the ice cream, Velvet.” I really shouldn’t have gotten her hooked on the stuff.

“Well whose fault is that?” Velvet said staring pointedly at me.

“I believe I can assist you in settling this matter, as mayor I’ve become quite good at telling forgeries from real documents. If you could present them to me?” Turning to Calloway, we watched as Paprika reach under her blanket and pulled out a folder full of papers. “Give me some time to look these marriage papers over.”

Paprika shyly came over to Velvet and held out a bouquet of flowers and a box of imported reindeer chocolate.

“That’s a start for getting back into my good graces I suppose.” Having accepted the apology items, Velvet tried not to be too sour to Paprika.

-Ten silent minutes later-

“Well it certainly seem everything is in order, the signed papers has magical marriage protections on it and one cannot be coerced into signing these under duress or by someone they don’t trust. There are four signatures from each of you, one of which is covered in glitter…” It took a moment for Mayor Calloway’s words to sink in. “The marriage papers are in fact real, whether or not you were paying attention to the fact that you agreed to marry each other and Mrs. Paca doesn’t matter as it’s all been legally done. Also your familiar Tinsel can also now be treated as your adoptive son or familiar selectively… that’s a strange looking loophole in the laws.”

Velvet turned a glare to Tinsel who froze in the middle of biting an olive, he bit into it anyway and then tried to grin innocently. Of course the little guy would sign something to be that much closer to Velvet.

“I guess there’s no point in getting angry then.” Velvet flopped her chin onto the bar.

I just took up my drink and splashed the sweet tangy lemonade from a clean mug down my throat.

Apparently this bar requires that you have to ask for dirty mugs if you absolutely wanted to drink from one. There was an absolutely clear agreement that the bar was not liable for what was previously in said mug or what happens to you if should you decide to drink from one. This place had some interesting policies, like the bar fight rules being posted right over the bar so you didn’t have to ask for them.

“Mayor Calloway, you were right, we have incoming from the south!” The gold furred bull that entered certainly looked handsome and I noticed the bartender giving him some appreciative looks too. “They are mostly lesser shadows, but there are a few bigger ones in there that we need to take them down if we’re to survive the night. Colorado and Dakota are keeping a lookout in the other directions to make sure we aren’t blindsided.”

“Say, how long is it until the town does that teleportation thing you spoke of?” Taking a dainty sip from her drink, Velvet looked to the bull that came in with curiosity.

“Thank you for informing me of this Mr. Montana, I will be there soon to assist in keeping our town safe. In answer to your question ‘Mrs. Arid’, three days, at a random time throughout the twenty four hours on the third day and there is no rhyme or reason to when it happens on the same day every week. It could happen anywhere from the very second the day starts to the last second before the day ends.” So no one knows why the town does it Calloway? I guess we can’t rely on that to delay the incoming fight then. “It is suspected that there may be a pattern to the locations that the town appears in. Nothing conclusive has come up in the investigations, aside from the fact that it’s always within an area encompassing The Range. Now finish your drinks girls… and ice sprite, we have a town to secure so that no cow, bull or calf gets seriously hurt on my watch.”

“You’re a lot better than our previous mayor Mrs. Calloway, even willing to put yourself in the way of danger to keep the people safe. Give me a quick one Lily.” The bartender slapped a mug on the counter and the bull took it up to start guzzling it down. “It’s a good thing we exiled the previous mayor, never met a slimier guy than that.”

“I would like to say it’s all me, but it’s mostly just from my time having traveled around as a bounty hunter.” That and you were carrying explosives and jars full of cool alchemical stuff Calloway.

My mother’s friends are so cool.

-Outside minutes later-

“That’s… a lot of eyes.” There was a veritable sea of red dots getting closer by the second. When they were called the Shadow Horde, I didn’t think it was understated quite like this. If this was just them leaking into the world, then what were they were like when they were absolutely flooding it?”

“I can see why they’re called the Shadow Horde.” Velvet said, while about as wide eyed as I happened to currently be.

Paprika was playfully juggling three glowing jars, while still somehow managing to look determined. After getting glared at by several cattle for goofing around with something that might save our lives, she put them away for safe keeping.

Calloway moved in front of a gathering of cattle, they gathered pretty quickly and I had to say I was impressed by how well-oiled they were when it came to their networking.

“Remember everyone, we need to break down the bigger ones so that they become vulnerable to the phosphorous flare bombs. The more mass you destroy with physical blows, explosives or what have you, the easier it becomes to take them down. Hit them with all that you have and protect those at your sides, but do not go wasting anything carelessly and aim to do the most damage you can! We do not want anyone to be taken by these monsters, Colorado and Dakota are watching the other two thirds of the town and are making sure that none of them will try to come at us from a different direction.” Calloway seemed to be ready to overcome that mass of horrors that begged for us to become their food with all their eyes, she definitely had the confidence and drive to see us through this and I could see why she’s the mayor. “Let’s circle the wagons everyone and show them that we’re not going quietly into this night and we will hold our ground against the tide! We will do so for as long as we have to until the sun rises once more on this, the longest of nights! So let us all pray to Celestia that she isn’t too late.”

The moon became covered in a glowing darkness and the light around the town shrunk down to a solid circle of slowly burning exceedingly bright candles the cattle had set up in defense of the town.

“It’s happening again…” Velvet muttered as she looked up to the moon while shivering.

“How strong would you say Arizona is?” Calloway suddenly asked us as she came over from her speech.

“She flipped a pretty large elephant over herself.” Velvet said it without a hint of humor in her voice. “I’m one of many character witnesses to her being ridiculously strong, in fact we had a whole group of networking cows from Ponyville who saw the whole thing that can vouch for her later if you want.”

“That’s good enough I suppose. Nothing quite like head bashing a dragon three times your size, though that is still quite impressive by my standards. I hope you four can handle yourselves.” She dropped several of those phosphorus flare jars in front of us, both Velvet and I took up the jars and stowed them away in our travel bags. “Use them in an emergency. You can defeat shadow monsters without a light source, but it is much tougher. Go to wherever you think you’re needed most at any given time, be safe and good luck.”

“Right, so we stick together.” I smirked at Velvet. “Wouldn’t want my beautiful wives to get eaten alive out here.”

Paprika made an appreciative noise and rubbed her face up against mine while giving me a lick and a quick loving snuggle.

“Paprika… we will have much to discuss after this is over with. Until then, I have a different target for all my ire.” Velvet moved forward a short distance from the candles. “I shall start this battle off in our favor at the very least, I’m going to be so exhausted after all the fighting. Tinsel be a dear and help me as much as you can.”

Tinsel chirped loudly and readied himself. Velvet thrust her right hoof forward and started firing tons of enlarged ice shards into the oncoming shadow horde as quickly as she could.

While I couldn’t see what she was hitting out there, I could still see a number of red dots winking out in the darkness. It wasn’t going to be nearly enough, she was destroying tens where there were hundreds.

“Paprika, you’re protecting Velvet! Hug or hit them with everything you have and don’t let one by you to get at her.” I received a salute from Paprika while I thought of how I could help.

While Calloway trusted us with light jars, she didn’t trust us to use the dynamite responsibly.

I moved forward and closer to the candles as Paprika took up position behind me, the lesser shadows were stopped at the edge of the candle’s light. I waited for a bit for something to happen, I saw movement and something large leapt through the light.

I didn’t hesitate as I leapt and smashed the wolf like thing to a pulp with my right hoof. The resulting mashed mass plowed through several shadow monsters as it rammed its way back through the horde.

Looking to my left and right, I could see the other cattle performing similar actions to keep the larger shadows outside the barrier by hitting them with their heads, horns, hooves and whatever else they could hit with, like their hips.

Bulls started to throw sticks of lit dynamite over the walls of light made by the candles as far as they could get them. They exploded in the darkness revealing flashes of the various forms that the shadow monsters took on. Snakes, wolves, bears and so many other forms I couldn’t begin to count, I thought I even saw a panther in there.

Those explosions took out large swaths of the shadows, but there were still more behind them coming at us. I didn’t know how outnumbered we were, but a thousand per defender sounded about right.

The spray of ice shards suddenly stopped and then a localized hailstorm with hailstones the size of baseballs started raining down on those coming at our section of the candle barrier.

Seeing some movement, I darted to the left and rammed my horn up into the chest of a surprised looking manticore shaped shadow that was ripped entirely in half by me. The light of the candles quickly vaporize the remains.

I lunged to the right and slapped gaunt looking wingless griffon shaped shadow back into the horde of writhing shadows with a harsh left back hoof.

“Everyone, throw some jars right now!” I quickly reached to my side and threw a jar as hard as I could. Whatever the reason Calloway called for it, it had to have been a very good one to tell everyone to chuck jars.

It was a second later, before the cacophony of shattering glass that was surely to follow Calloway’s demand to throw jars, I noticed the shadows had almost creeped up on the candles and were about to snuff them out until various blasts of light wiped out all the lesser shadows pressuring the barrier of lit candles around us.

The entire area was lit up as if the sun itself had rose up in the east and a lot of us had been blinded, but the shadows had been pushed back massively and they couldn’t possibly take advantage of the temporary blindness. All the light from multiple jars shattering in close proximity to one another had practically made all the lesser shadows in the vicinity evaporate.

When the light dimmed down enough, I concentrated and saw that there was still an impossible number of shadows trying to pressure the light back down. If this was just a leak, then just how many of these things were there?

A few larger shadows charged forward through the light unaffected by how bright it was, like some of the shadows that tried to get by me earlier. The ones coming at me in particular were a giant spider, a scorpion and something that resembled a really fast moving octopus.

Going after the scorpion as it charged through the field of light towards me, I dodged the tail’s stab to leap onto things back. Reared up I brought my hooves down on it and, much to my surprise, I went straight through it as it splattered all over the place and it’s bits evaporated in the nearby light before they could touch the ground.

Turning to look towards Paprika, she leapt up to hug the octopus into a fine paste with a cheerful squeal and then launched her fur to drag a lesser shadow to their doom into the light.

Paprika looked a little sad that she didn’t get the chance to hug it and tried for another one, I just rolled my eyes at that.

“Oh it’s so hideous and gross, kill it, kill it, kill it!” Note to self, Velvet really hates spiders given how many times she perforated the spider shadow in just a few seconds there, with at least a hundred other shadows behind it per ice shard. She followed up putting multiple holes in the shadow by slamming a large block of ice down on it several times, using a powerful swirling wind, in rapid succession. “It needed to die in a fire like yesterday!”

I turned too looked around for anyone who needed help. We were holding up pretty well so far...

A shadow started being cast along the ground as something rose up.

Four tentacles erupted from the large tatzelwurm shadow.

Chapter thirty eight, Shadows on The Range: The Moon.

-Outside Haven’s Patch, Arizona-

“Uh… Calloway… did you have plans for something like that?!” I pointed a hoof at the monster as it opened its mouth and six bladed tongues popped out as it roared, that along with the four tentacles extending from its neck made for a horrifying monster.

The cattle around us started backing up in fear of the barely visible beast. The alien roar didn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before, I’ve heard a hydra before and that didn’t send chills down back. There was something just so unnatural about it.

The large worm monster was barely visible in the light and the shadow it was casting was almost enough to overpower the candle barrier on its own, its two large malevolent red eyes glared at the center of our defensive line. I kind of wished I couldn’t see it and the fear I was feeling was starting to get to me.

I swept my eyes around to make sure a shadow wasn’t leaping at me as I backed up towards Paprika and Velvet.

I felt safer being nearer to them.

-Calloway-

“Oh my… that’s… that’s pretty big.” I so wished Maggie were here, she’d have taken it head on and it would be me and Grace supporting her to make sure she didn’t bite off more cud than she could possibly chew.

Lesser shadows and shadows strong enough to survive the candles were easy enough to keep out of town, but that? That thing could certainly devastate Haven’s Patch all by itself. That is if it were a real tatzelwurm and could burrow, then we wouldn’t be able to keep it from going under us.

The monster then did some rather queer to me, it dug its head into the shadow horde and took a number of them into its mouth, what could it be… oh no!

“Montana go tell Colorado to send some cows to set up fireworks aimed in this direction, they are to immediately start firing them nonstop!” I had a hunch as to what that greater shadow was about to do with all the lesser shadows it just took into itself. “They should know what their target is.”

“I’ll go get right on it ma’am, but what is it doing?” Montana stopped to ask and I might as well tell him quickly to make him move faster.

“It’s going to start spitting lesser shadows over the candles and into the town, have all our noncombatants gather at the center of town in a more defensible position!” I barely finished my sentence when he ran off into town like his butt was on fire. The dark moon shining over this town was as foreboding as the large snake like monster inhaled. “Velvet stop it from exhaling! We need more flare candles! I know it may be dangerous, but we need to start putting them everywhere in the streets!”

Some of our defenders broke off to go do that while others held the line at the barrier keeping the lesser shadows out. We will quickly run out of jars to throw at this rate.

-Velvet-

How was I going to… oh right! I immediately lifted the large ice block that was used as a wall against the spider shadow in my magic and, with Tinsel’s assistance, I launched it spinning at the monsters chin as it was about to exhale.

Its mouth was forcefully closed as soon as it started exhaling shadows into the air and we could all hear it loudly groaning as it started spilling tons of shadows onto the ground. It had still managed to spit a few shadows beyond the front line, only for a few cattle to smash some jars near where they landed before they could get into town.

“I don’t know how many times we can do that! Also we’re leaving a lot of busted glass on the ground, that can’t be very safe at all.” I think Tinsel was becoming tired as I continued to take aim and fire shard after ice shard. My magic was being taxed by quite a bit and I was making sure to slow down so I didn’t burn myself out like I did during the whole circus escapade. I did not want to go through another painful burning fever. “Take a break Tinsel, I can keep us safe for the time being.”

Tinsel squeaked in disapproval, but sat down at the back of my neck and hugged tightly against me.

“We can clean up the glass later, keep fighting!” There was a few questions Calloway could answer for me, so I fell back and launched another flurry of hailstones into the Shadow Horde. She was busy tackling five shadows on her own and I iced them by sending a row of spikes up through them.

“Why isn’t that large scary one coming through the barrier?” I extended a blade of ice from my hoof and slashed three shadows apart with several quick swings. I separated the blade from my hoof, grabbed it and threw it like a javelin into the heart of a charging tiger shadow. “I don’t think the candles, would do a thing to stop it and it must be aware of that.”

“If these things are intelligent, then it’s possibly waiting for us to use up our supplies and for all the other shadows to soften us up before it makes its move. It’s taking up lesser shadows again!” I turned back to look and in the dim light I could see an army of red eyes get swept up by the large monstrous shadow that was barely visible in the darkness swarming around the town. “We need to stop it!”

Were we all yelling just because of all the dynamite going off? The explosives were very effective weapons in this situation, but oh my precious ears were never going to stop ringing for a solid week after this. I had no doubt that we would all survive this, but in what state has yet to be decided.

“I’m not going to be able to stop it this time, I need time to create a large enough ice wall by myself to throw at it. I’m not a water focused ice magic user! Also Tinsel is not an ice sprite that is trained for extensive combat, he needs to rest before he can start assisting me again.” I knew ice sprites were not meant for prolonged combat assistance, though I couldn’t say Tinsel hadn’t tried his best to keep aiding me.

“Well someone has to do something, we cannot let them get a large enough number of shadows into the town to weaken the candles from this side of them or else they’ll swarm us!” Which was going to be hard Calloway, as I wasn’t going to be given enough time to prepare a wall with multiple shadows coming at me personally and Tinsel needing to rest. The little darling was brave and willing in wanting to continue, but I wasn’t going to let him burn himself out like that.

The only reason why the shadow monsters that could survive the light weren’t taking out the candles is because they had better targets to take care of, the defenders of Haven’s Patch that had an absurd amount of dynamite and jars to throw. The lesser shadows could slowly inch their way forward and slowly snuff out the candles on their own.

The shadows that could get through were going to prevent me from hitting the large worm shadow with anything to stop it from spewing shadows all over the town.

Paprika and Arizona were doing their best, but there were still so many of them still coming.

“I got this, cover me Velvet!” Turning to Arizona to see what she was doing, she was twirling a lasso over her head. Did she really think she could hit it from this distance or stop that shadow from spewing more over the town?

Paprika was flailing her fur in every direction to sweep them away from Arizona and I quickly joined in with swift hoof strikes and fired several icicles into as many of the approaching threats that I could manage.

“I don’t mean to demean you on this Arizona, but do you seriously think you can actually nail it from this distance?” I stared at the jar in the rope as Arizona swung it in a wide arc over her head, the rope was beginning to pick up speed and it wouldn’t be long before she got it going really fast.

“I can try, I don’t necessarily need to get this in its mouth for this to work.” Arizona was waiting for the proper moment to launch the phosphorus flare bomb. “I just need to hit whatever starts coming out of it!”

“That’s an idea worthy of Maggie herself, I wholeheartedly approve if it works!” Calloway stated as she calmly thrust her hoof through and out the back of a crocodile shaped shadow leaping for her with its mouth wide open. She thrust her other hoof into it and ripped it in half.

The shadow dissolved before it could close its mouth around her head, she snorted and shook her head while smiling and then adjusted her hat.

“It’ll work… you can do this Arizona. You’ve got more muscles than just the ones in your limbs, now use them!” Listening to Arizona working herself up, I fought back a large shadow mantis. It’s bladed arms deflected my ice shards and I had to block it and hold it off with a lance of ice, I couldn’t help but think if Arizona misses then things were going to get rather hectic in Haven’s Patch. “Open up and take your medicine!”

Arizona loosed the jar and a few shadows tried to jump for it, but it was flying far too fast for them to stop it as it shot towards the large worm shadow opening its mouth.

The large shadow monster just looked like it got a mouthful of light as the jar smashed against the fourteenth or thirtieth shadow to come out of its mouth.

The shadows that had passed by the jar were immediately eliminated and the worm was just left harmlessly spewing gaseous darkness into the air, as all the lesser shadows died upon coming out of its mouth as the bright sphere of light fell towards the ground.

“Nice shot Arizona, but I really did not need to see what the large shadow fully looks like.” In the light from the jar Arizona hit it with, we could all fully see it now. It was less terrifying in the light for something that was pitch black, shaped like a tatzelwurm and had two large red eyes. It was fairly hideous and less frightening than it was a second ago.

It quickly went back to being barely visible and it covered the mote of light near it with its body, snuffing it out immediately. The fear and terror came back almost immediately as if it was just forcefully rammed into me, it made me realize these feelings of fear weren’t quite mine.

“Do you have anything to block out magical effects?” I turned to Calloway who was tossing another dynamite stick into the horde that was surrounding the town. “I think that large one is somehow causing us to fear it when we can’t see it.”

All the lesser shadows were doing now was blocking sight of the regular ones before they passed beyond the candles, they weren’t nearly as effective at anything else until they could swarm us after wearing the light out on the candles and they were close to doing that until the cattle started putting up new candles behind the old ones.

“Well that explains why some of my people are becoming so scared, even while they are mostly safe in the light.” She saw my look and she put a hoof to her chest, given there was a lull in the fighting near us it was safe to talk. Looking around there were multiple cattle with moderate to severe injuries depending on the shadow monsters they had to face, a lot of the bulls were barely standing and had taken some serious injuries. “I’m used to the idea of fear and danger, things like this monster can’t scare me that easily! In fact, I’ve seen scarier and have been in far more dangerous situations than this! Good shot Arizona, we need to keep hitting them!”

“I’m more surprised none of the cattle have broken rank and run off thanks to the fear effect.” I could see that every cow and bull still fighting back efficiently even if they were frightened. I idly slapped a wolf shadow away from myself and watched as it was trampled by bull.

“That’s one of the reasons why I’m the mayor of Haven’s Patch, our bonds are too strong to let a little thing like fear scare us off from supporting each other! They see my leadership skills as strong, fair and supportive. I show no fear in the face of these monsters and like one massive herd, they follow my example and this is the strength of the cows!” She lit a stick of dynamite and hurled it into the shadows. “That and I’m willing to be on the front lines beside them instead of behind all of them. Know that leading from the front is quite dangerous, especially if the leader is taken out early. They will not allow me or each other to fall, we always stand united!”

“Yeah I can see that, but that large shadow doesn’t need to lead from the front.” I bashed a shadow with a buff ice statue of myself rising up from the ground sending the inky blackness splattering everywhere before it dissolved. “What’s it doing now?”

“It’s taking up some of the larger shadows, we can’t use a jar to stop those!” Calloway was keeping her cool pretty well despite the next volley of shadow based artillery couldn’t be stopped with a longshot jar fling this time. “Let me think of something…”

In the middle of gathering some large shadows a loud whistling noise pierced the air and a colorful explosion ripped apart a mass of lesser shadows. I looked up and saw various fireworks being launched into the horde surrounding the town, but most of them were aimed at the large shadow peppering it with small explosions making small bits of darkness rise off it with each hit.

“Never mind, it looks like Colorado came through for us.” Calloway smiled as Montana and Dakota came rushing forward.

“Ma’am the sun is finally rising!” Montana yelled in excitement as he charged forward with the larger quiet blue bull at his side.

Looking up at the moon, the glowing darkness was gone. As soon as the sunlight filtered across the town and the army of shadows, most of the shadows evaporated leaving only one large shadow a few hundred moderately big ones.

“Right, the situation has changed drastically in our favor.” The rockets weren’t randomly firing anymore they were all aimed at the remaining shadows and stopped aiming at the large monster, the fireworks hadn’t done much damage to it anyway. “Montana gather all able bodied cattle. We must launch a counter attack, we cannot let any shadows escape to anywhere else! I need someone to go out and keep their attention!”

“We’ll do it, let’s do this thing!” Arizona started charging forward. We followed.

Chapter thirty eight, Shadows on The Range: The Sun.

Author's Note

Meh. Could be doing better lately, but I'm so tired. One more page and I'm taking a break.

Chapter thirty eight, Shadows on The Range: The Sun.

-The Range, Arizona-

A good ninety or more percent of the Shadow Horde were lesser shadows, so as soon as the sun came up they had all perished immediately upon contact with sunlight.

Thus charging the numerous remaining shadows still standing was a totally practical thing to do, with just an alpaca and a reindeer for backup.

I grabbed a charging bear shadow by its swinging paw. I swung it around using its own momentum and chucked it at the large retreating worm with quite a bit of my strength put behind it.

Paprika leapt onto a shadow to my left and hugged it to the ground, I heard a soft popping noise and a disappointed alpaca sigh.

The shadows were apparently too frail for Paprika to hug, that didn’t mean she would stop trying as she leapt for the next one that started immediately showing fear at the alpacas happy countenance.

I should really get her a plush toy after all this. Also, only someone like Paprika could make fearless shadow monsters fear her.

To my right, Velvet was firing several shards of ice that ripped through several of the remaining shadows that could survive in sunlight. They couldn’t stay cohesive for very long under such an onslaught.

The bear I had thrown smashed into the worm and splattered into bits of evaporating shadow monster, which certainly earned its attention and ire as it turned its gaze to me.

It glared at me with malevolent eyes and I glared right back into them, I wasn’t afraid of it!

A hurled stick of dynamite passed by us and destroyed a shadow salamander coming right for me.

“Like I was going to let the daughter of one of my dearest friends go out to face this monster without some help!” Calloway shouted as she caught up with us. She was running out of dynamite and the jars she had were rendered practically useless now given the sun could do the job for us, but she was one tough lady and looked ready to get into a fight.

The worm shadow roared and swung one of its four tentacles for me, I leapt over one as it tried to wrap around me and had to roll away as another slammed down on my position.

The two other tentacles were being kept busy by Paprika when she suddenly jumped up onto them to distract it from attacking me a third time. She was hugging one and then leapt off onto the other when it threatened to smash her to a pulp.

“Velvet, could you make a sharp weapon and throw it toward me when I need you to?!” I ducked under the next swing of a tentacle when the monster could focus on me. I started rapidly hopping backwards as several bladed tongues struck out at me, only to hit the ground and kick up some dust.

“Yes, just tell me when and where you need it, Tinsel should be rested enough to do that much!” Velvet sliced a panther shaped shadow in half with a blade of ice. Swinging around in a corkscrew fashion, Velvet let the blade go and sent it flying through an anaconda sized shadow, cleaving a large portion of it in half vertically.

“Give it to me when I’m high above the worm shadow!” I struck at the tentacle slapping at me with my hooves knocking it back and the force of the deflection sent me rolling backwards. My hooves hurt a bit after that, so I was not doing that again, evasion was the way to go with this thing. As I came to a stop, I could see that Paprika was still being a nuisance for it and she was actually in a good position for my plan. “Paprika I need you to slingshot me high up into the air!”

Paprika turned to me with a curious look as she leapt out of the way of the maw of the tatzelwurm shadow, making it bite itself. It let out an unappreciative scream and Paprika was now on its top left tentacle.

Paprika thrust her hoof out towards me sending a long wad of fur out while the monster was distracted. I leapt up to grab it with my hooves, only to find the wad of fur wrapping around them.

My eyes widened as Paprika heaved me upwards towards her, as I reached her the wad of fluff released me sending me spinning high into the air.

-Velvet-

“Tinsel!” At my call, Tinsel squeaked as he gathered moisture to form a blade. I shaped it and compacted it down to be strong enough to handle a few rough impacts, as an afterthought I actually put a handle on it since it wasn’t going to be me using it.

I wrapped the blade in a tight band of frosty winds and waited for Arizona to hit her apex, I sent the blade flying at her and hoped my aim wasn’t off.

Tinsel squeaked loudly in warning and, looking behind me, I was about to be bitten in the hind legs by a shadow monster. I leapt forward and bucked out backwards taking the chasing monster’s head off and it faded from existence as its body fell over.

I turned to see the ice blade nearly hit Arizona, she barely avoided getting skewered and managed to partially grab the blade. As she fell she fumbled with the blade for a bit, it was made of solid ice after all, she still managed to get a good grip on it with her hooves and fell right towards the monsters open mouth.

She narrowly avoided taking a bladed tongue through her torso and skidded down the top of that tongue on two legs. She started to run down it while swinging the blade to slicing off a quarter of one of its tongues and, while the large shadow monster was cringing in pain, she sliced another bladed tongue down to half its length.

Arizona crouched down and kicked off while pulling the ice blade high over her head in both her hooves and when she swung downwards she turned into a living saw blade. She came down on the beast’s top right tentacle and after several revolutions, she cleaved straight through it down onto the next one which was also swiftly sliced away.

Both tentacles and cut tongues bled darkness after being cut away and the cut away bits eventually evaporated, the stumps that were left behind eventually sealed themselves off and stopped spewing darkness into the air.

Tinsel cried out another warning and I ducked, and thrust my right hoof above me driving a spike of ice into the belly of a shadow monster. With a grunt I made the ice flower outwards and the shadow exploded violently.

This reminded me that Prancer’s techniques were quite lethal if you ever got impaled on her ice.

I turned back to the worm and saw darkness bleeding off its belly, Arizona on the ground next to it clutching at her right shoulder. The ice blade must have finally broke when she ripped it through the worms belly and one of those bladed tongues must have clipped her.

All the tongues went down to strike down Arizona, I tried to move forward and was cut off by another shadow monster. Paprika had at some point leapt off the monster to go hug the shadows coming to help out the larger problem we were focusing on.

-Calloway-

“Arizona!” The tongue’s struck out, only for a rope to wrap around all the tongues, damaged or not, then pulled them entirely off course. The worm tried to pull them back, but the rope held fast.

“No need to fear Mrs. C, Colorado Kid is here to save my adoptive niece and the day! All with a song in my heart, my wonderful guitar playing... and an infinite amount of rope at my beck and call.” That young Holstein bull friend of Montana and Dakota, bless his soul, had arrived in the nick of time to save Arizona and was keeping the tongues pinned as their blades had all gotten caught up on his rope.

“You better keep those tongues pinned Colorado, no horsing around!” I ran over to the shadows trying to get at Colorado and trampled my through three of them, then I ripped another one to shreds with a devastating sweep of my horns.

I’ve still got it after all this time, makes me feel young again.

“Ma’am these monsters tried to wreck our town, so you better believe I’m not going to screw around on something as important as this-ngghh...” Colorado dug in his hooves and held tightly to the rope and kept pulling as the worm bucked trying to lift the small bull into the air.

The worm was either trying to free itself or kill Arizona, because it raised its two remaining left tentacles and lashed out for Arizona as she was getting up and seemed to be recovering from the shock of her injury.

Only those blows couldn’t land either as the blue and ever so large bull that was Dakota charged on to the scene to catch and take a hold of both the tentacles with barely a grunt of effort to show for it. He started pulling them in the opposite direction that Colorado was pulling the bladed tongues.

The large worm started to struggled and thrash and Colorado almost lost his grip on the rope several times.

A number of bulls suddenly stampeded in and started attacking the other shadows, I saw Velvet managed to get to the left side of the beast and was shouting something to the reinforcements.

They started to cover her as she started producing something made of ice. Mrs. Paca picked up Arizona and gleefully bounced away as the worm surged forward and tried to crush the cow with its chin.

The worm tried to pull back now and continued its violent thrashing, it was trying to break free of Dakota and Colorado’s grip on it.

Dakota wasn’t having problems holding the tentacles against his body, but Colorado was started to falter fiercely. I lunged forward and grabbed onto the rope and added my weight onto it, the shadow worm thrashed and tried to pull us into the air.

“Calloway, do you have any dynamite, we need to stun it and pull its tentacles and tongues into line with Velvet’s next attack.” Nodding as Arizona came up next to me, she grabbed the rope and pulled. “Well get to it then, I’ve got this! Thanks for the help dude.”

“No problem, but I’m Colorado Kid not dude, Dakota’s last name is Dude though!” He grinned at Arizona, she rolled her eyes at him.

I moved towards the creatures open mouth and pulled out one of my last three sticks of dynamite. It tried to bring its tail around to sweep away the cattle pinning it down. A rope caught its tail and pulled it back the other way, I could faintly see the gold glimmer of Montana’s fur and his hat.

“Let’s finish this rodeo!” Montana shouted out loudly, for we would be gladly doing that soon enough.

It seems all three of the boys were here and they were managing to keep this monstrosity pinned as it thrashed about.

I lit a stick of dynamite and threw it into the wailing open mouth as the beast thrashed, it didn’t get down the throat before it explode and a portion of its face ripped apart.

Lighting another stick as Colorado, Arizona and Dakota made some head way into pulling its tongues and tentacles back. I threw the explosive at the throat again and hit a jackpot as the explosion ripped a hole into the back of its neck.

Darkness started leaking out of the wound in massive amounts.

“Why isn’t it dead yet!” Arizona screamed.

Even I was surprised to see it still active, despite having a large hole spewing disappearing black smoke out of it.

-Paprika-

I was helping Mr. Blue Bull, I was pulling my fluff tightly around the tentacles. I could see Arizona across from me doing the same thing with the tongues.

To my right I saw Velvet floating a large double bladed axe head in the air and was spinning it really, really fast.

“I’ve just about had it with this worm monster on this dry plain and my floof is positively crying out for me to cleanse it!” Velvet let loose a rage filled shout and the sharp axe of ice flashed through the tentacles the tongues and off into the distance through several shadow monsters without stopping. “Arizona, Paprika, form up in front of the worm, let’s show this monster that it should absolutely be the one fearing us! All shadow monsters shall know our names, Velvet, Arizona and Paprika!”

I pulled my fluff back from the melting tentacles and hopped my way over to the front of the worm, hugging the very few shadows that were left to a pulp as I did so.

Arizona was smashing her way through the shadows and Velvet was galloping to meet up with us in the center in front of the crying shadow monster that was spewing out more darkness than ever.

“Arizona grab Paprika by the hind legs and lift her above you, Paprika form as long a sword as you can out of you fur and I’ll coat it with my ice to create a sharp enough blade to fell this thing once and for all!” Considering what Velvet was asking us to do, I nodded and lifted my rear legs to Arizona who stood up on her hind legs and lifted me up.

I concentrated and massed my fur above my head as Arizona started leaning back… I was a sword handle now? Neat!

As Arizona leaned my whole body back, Velvet started coating my sword shaped fur in ice and the blade started taking shape.

“It’s getting whatever senses it has back. So hurry up your slowpoke, cute little fluffy butt, Velvet!” The worm shook its head it’s one good red eye narrowed as the other one just took a dynamite stick to it thanks to Calloway.

“Well now Arizona… you should know that you just can’t rush perfection… by the way, it’s ready!” At Velvet’s words Arizona’s muscles bulged.

All my fur felt pretty weird being frozen like this, the scary shadow monster worm lunged forward turning its head sideways to bite down on us.

I felt my whole body get swung forward and... pain!

-Calloway-

I watched as the three combined their talents and the blade came down as the monster was closing its mouth on the four of them.

An explosion of dust erupted high into the air.

Once it cleared, the monster was no longer moving as its two halves began quickly dissolving. Revealing both Arizona and Velvet kneeling over Paprika.

I looked to the other bulls to see them being led by Sheriff Montana, he started to cleanup all of the remaining shadow monsters.

-Arizona-

“Paprika!” I held the alpaca in my hooves and Velvet defrosted her fur, so we could wrap it around her wound.

Had I been a second later with swinging her, Paprika could have died.

Instead she was bleeding out on the ground and unconscious.

“Is this what we’re going up against Velvet?” My voice wavered a bit.

“She’ll be fine Arizona." Velvet still looked worried for her. "Paprika has survived worse.”

Chapter thirty eight, Shadows on The Range: The Shadow Fighters rise.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter thirty nine, a pirate’s strife for me: Well.

-Gallant’s Tavern, Jacky-

“So I need to set up a recruiting station here, buy a few maps to cursed treasures and then set off on an adventure that will hopefully end with me getting my sister back.” I took a sip of my grape juice from the cold mug. My beak was a bit discolored, so I licked the juice off it. “It’s better than sitting around on my ass and waiting for her to find a way back… which may be impossible on her end of things.”

Eir turned to Gallant and gave him some large puppy dog eyes.

“Really Eir?” The yellow hippogriff grumbled as he crossed his legs on the counter “Fine… she can… agh!”

“Great husband being very loving and Eir is approving of this action!” Of course Eir is also choking the life out of Gallant Bluster, but what Misses Bluster does is none of my business. Eventually she settled down and turned to me. “I am still working on the thing Jade is asking for before leaving!”

“What would that be?” I tried to remember what Jade could have possibly asked Eir to do for her.

“A way to fix broken off horn of unicorn, is very sad thing to be hearing of!” Eir whined as she cuddled a struggling Gallant against her chest. “It is being very hard to fix broken magical protrusion problem, especially when the injury is old and mystically scarring! Eir still be trying to find information on how to help, while also working on way to fix horn personally. I am not having much success so far and I’m quite medically inclined.”

“Oh right… that.” Not that I thought Fizzle really needed to have it fixed, she was doing pretty well with it even if it was broken. Fizzle was a strong unicorn regardless of lacking control thanks to missing the point of her horn. “Would you like to help me set up a recruiting station?”

“Eir would be loving to!” Eir released Gallant and he took in a large breathe of air and went from turning blue back to yellow in a few seconds. She turned and bustled away to go get stuff to set up a recruitment area.

“Do you know that she’s a…” I started only for Gallant to cut me off with a raised claw.

“She hasn’t told me, but I’m aware that she’s a Valkyrie. An immortal yak of legend who specializes in medicine on top of being a war goddess, wasn’t hard to figure out after she helped bring that Abyssinian back from the brink of a blood loss related death. She’s worried that I’ll stop loving her when I start getting old, but I’m not going to.” Gallant leaned against the counter sighing audibly. “She doesn’t exactly hide her divinity well and even with her being an immortal being, our love is still quite true. If it wasn’t she would have ripped me to shreds by now for not being able to perform well enough as her husband. I’m a lucky hippogriff to have her, one would think I wasn’t worth her time and yet she keeps making me smile.”

“She also chokes you halfway to death with hugs.” The dry commentary from me was not exclusive to how everyone else felt about their relationship. “So how’s life as a bartender Mister Bluster and how have things been around here without me?”

It’s been a while and I figured I could get a lay of the land, I learned a lot about bars from Kuril and Jade’s antics.

“About the same as usual, except less noisy and destructive. You’re not the only blackcap in the area you know, though others hardly compare.” So what Gallant was telling me was that no one missed me all too much, or were entirely surprised that I even came back. “They have more specific problems, like having to eat a certain amount of coconut a day or else all their fur and hair falls out, but you? You’re a walking a disaster zone and your form of blackcap curse is quite notorious for not being incredibly specific.”

“Wasn’t that Saline Gloss… don’t you think her curse is a bit ironic?” I wasn’t the only blackcap, but I was definitely the most notable and notoriously known one.

Having sunk as many ships as I’ve had trying to leave the island, I was one of the worst cursed individuals of Turtle Toga. My title of 'The Blackcap' was at least mine and nobody could take that from me, mostly because the competitors didn’t have it nearly as bad as I did.

One would think my curse might be specific to boats, until they saw that my bad luck also happens on land as well and could even have an effect on people that happen to be near me.

“Given that she’s a mare with a beautician cutie mark that’s highly allergic to coconuts... yes.” Stated Gallant in an amused tone. “She became a bit more prominent since you left, she’s still trying to working out how to ingest coconut without her allergies acting up. She’s been mixing it with allergy medicine and that almost seems to do the trick.”

We were ignoring the sound of a table being dragged to a corner near the door by Eir and the sounds of hammers and saws working.

“Any new blackcaps or am I still known as the major blackcap to end all blackcaps?” Well I literally had 'Blackcap' for a name, but I always wondered about the other blackcaps that live around here.

“You’re still known as the top tier doomed one, but I think you’re asking if there are any blackcaps that would be crazy enough to join someone who is actually named Blackcap.” Mulling over Gallant’s words, I eventually nodded. “Well there’s a blackcap who only smells good when wearing at least some form of garbage.”

“No… I’m going to be running a clean ship and before you ask, yes my ship has survived me working on it for more than a year.” Well I didn’t need to see that particular look from Gallant, one of complete surprise. “Yes, I can maintain an airship without it crashing and burning into the ground! I’m unlucky, but that doesn’t say anything about my engineering skills.”

“How about a blackcap that can only say ‘I am Flute’ with different inflections that take a while to figure out?” One would think Gallant knew all of them, well he certainly knew me. I caught a lit candle that came flying from the direction that Eir was working in before it could hit the counter and quickly passed it off to Gallant who placed it on a nearby plate. “Watch your luck lass, I’m trying to be cordial even if I know you can’t exactly control it… thanks for saving me from having to buy a new bar by the way.”

“No problem, also I don’t think I’m interested in this Flute person.” I sipped some more grape juice from the mug. “Oh right, did I tell you I have a Viking for a friend? His name is Gene, he’s a griffon and he’s currently watching our ship.”

“Well that knocks out the earth pony who is forced to sing operatically every time they see someone with Viking blood in them. Every time he sees Eir is annoying.” Was Gallant serious about that? I just stared at him blinking. “Well it’s no worse than the griffon who has a compulsion to count everything slowly and methodically or else she’ll quickly fall asleep, the curse made her a pretty good accountant and actuary for the local bank so there’s no chance she’d join you. Still, I did not need her following me around all day to count out every individual feather on my body.”

“Yeah, that would get annoying very quickly.” Everyone would agree with that sentiment and I wasn’t speaking lightly. “How about someone who wouldn’t mind joining a crew that’s not going to be the worst of the worst scum?”’

“Going for blue pirate?” Gallant asked.

“Yes.” I answered succinctly.

“It makes sense I guess. You aren’t exactly the most violent person in port, even if your luck more than makes up for that.” None of that’s exactly my fault Gallant! “Give me a moment to think of something… how about a hippogriff who has to physically hold a pickaxe for three straight hours a day or else something horrible happens to them?”

“Can you think of someone with a curse that will not mingle with my own in a completely disastrous manner, at least someone that doesn't always require something so easily breakable?” There were some things I wasn’t going to deal with on top of my luck. “My bad luck could possibly cause problems by destroying pickaxes until we find one that’s practically indestructible.”

“I am being finished friend Blackcap!” We turned to Eir and saw the booth for recruiting pirates, it looked pretty good. “You are not being the only one that is requesting use of a recruitment area friend Blackcap, but I am making one for everyone to use. You get to be the first to use it, I am making sure it is quite sturdy!”

“Well I better get started unless you have any other blackcap’s who wouldn’t mind working with me?” I received a thoughtful look.

“Well there is one guy… he’s a bit of an unusual sight around here given his species and particular quirk. As far as strange goes, he’s pretty tame and he’s been looking for adventure. I’ll direct him towards you if he comes around.” Nodding to Gallant I went over to the booth.

It took a minute or two to set up a sign that declared I was looking for crew members. Specifically people who would be insane enough to sign up with ‘The Blackcap’, I’m sure people around here still remember the multiple incidents that are related to my very existence.

I knew it wouldn’t get me many takers, but it would get me some people that were insane enough to follow me around.

-Two hours later-

Not a single taker, I would have to go back to the ship eventually. I couldn’t spend all day here on this.

I wanted to go to the, 'discount maps to cursed artifacts', shop sometime today.

“Yeah, she’s over there and she’ll be a 'decent' pirate to join.” At Gallant’s voice, I lifted my head from lazily resting it against my talons. I didn’t see anyone approaching, so I just rested my head back on my palm.

I’m pretty sure this booth was protected from my cursed luck thanks to Eir’s godly powers, but nobody wanted to chance going anywhere with ‘Black Jack the cursed ship sinker’.

So I may have been the result of at least more than a hundred crews losing ships, at least they survived didn’t they? They were mostly horrible people and pirates, so it wasn’t like anyone cared that they lost ships.

“Excuse me ma’am, I want to join you!” Jerking into an upright position, I looked around for someone and eventually my eyes settled on a small black furred cat, one with a single tail that split into three and that wasn’t the odd part. He had some strange blue petals sticking out of his neck in all directions like a lion’s mane. He waved a paw at me frantically. “I’m Nefer and I want to join your crew!”

“You do realize I’m ‘The Blackcap’ right?” The little black cat just tilted his head at me and kept a friendly smile on his face and his trident shaped tail wagged.

“I have no idea what that means!” He said jovially, he sounded somewhat adult and yet he seemed so childish for a talking cat with a tail that split into three separate ends.

“A blackcap is a cursed individual with a pirate heritage, in particular I’m the most memorable one in recent history of Port Turtle Toga.” I was kind of worried about this kid, so I had to spell it out for him. “My name is even Jacky Blackcap Chickadee La Perm. I’m sure you’ve heard some people talk about the cursed 'Black Jack' being in the area in the last two hours.”

“So you’re a famous pirate? That’s so cool, Chickadee La Perm is a very pretty sounding name!" One would think Nefer was glossing over the fact that I was bad luck or cursed. "It sounds cat though, but you’re a bird.”

His bright green eyes shined with cheerful exuberance, was this how Jade felt when I met her for the first time? Like a creepy mirror.

“Look if you want to join the crew, then you need to be interviewed by me.” I said slowly. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Nefer said playfully. “I’ll answer every question you put to me to the best of my abilities!”

“Full name?” Just to start things off.

“Nefer Tem.” He said brightly.

“Okay Nefer Tem, can I call you Nefer, what are you?” Just for clarifications sake, I knew he wasn’t a normal cat.

For one, normal cats don’t talk. Another, they didn’t have soft looking blue petals growing out from around their neck.

“Oh… uh… I remember this one!” Okay, Nefer was bubbly, cheerful and not exactly all too bright. “I’m an Anugyptian Feline... mostly anyway.”

“In continuation of that thought, what’s with the petals?” I pointed to the blue ring around his neck.

“That’s why I’m mostly Anugyptian, I’m also part plant!” He grinned brightly and I gave him a flat look, my look didn’t seem to put a damper on his bright mood. “You won’t even have to feed me at all… though you’ll maybe have to water me every now and then. I also don’t take up much space if that’s what you’re worried about!”

“Do you have any skills conducive to working on a pirate ship?” I wasn’t about to ask how old he was, not that it mattered.

“I’m really good at swimming, I basically can’t drown because I’m part plant!” Nefer’s cheerful demeanor had me curious.

“Anything else?” I saw his look of consternation. “Swimming is a good skill, but can you act as a flotation device?”

“Um… I’m sure I can act ‘like’ a flotation device." Nefer still seemed quite eager. "As for other skills… couldn't I learn them on the job?”

“Why exactly do you want to be a part of a pirate crew, even one that’s not going to be doing too many things that actual pirates would?” I was being stared at as if the question was impossible to understand. “Why should I let you join with my crew specifically?”

“Huh… I guess I didn’t think this through all the way… you seem like a really nice person and I’m sure you’ll let me join, because I know I can be helpful! Give me a minute to think about the how.” He gave me a weak toothy smile, his bright eyes reminding me of someone else. Well if I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel, I might eventually say yes anyway. “Oh I know! I can read all forms of ancient dead languages and I can really help you if you go into some dangerous ruins by reading stuff and setting off dangerous traps.”

“Okay… that may just be enough of a reason to hire you.” That sounded somewhat useful. “You’ll have to prove that you can do it though.”

“No problem!” Nefer stated proudly.

Author's Note

Nefer Tem the mysterious Anugypt plant cat with the trident tail and blue petals growing out of his neck.

As any RPG will show you, a small mascot character that actively joins the party are usually of some importance.

Chapter thirty nine, a pirate’s strife for me: That.

-Turtle Toga ruins, Jacky-

To prove himself to me, Nefer has dragged me up to the ruins on Turtle Toga.

Nobody has been able to figure out how to get into them, but Nefer says he’s found a thing with writing that can tell us how to.

I was curious enough to follow Nefer here, not without a few complications.

“Wow, where did that pinecone come from? I’ve only been on this island for a year and a half and I’ve never seen a pinecone in all that time.” Nefer had forgotten the words that were written out here, but he’d know them when he saw them. “Just a lot of fruit.”

“This has happened to me a few times, I’m a cursed individual after all. Unlucky things happening is what is normal for me.” I tossed the pinecone, which had struck me in the head, over my shoulder. “It’s sometimes followed by a tree crushing me.”

“Oh you mean like that one.” Nefer pointed a paw straight above me and I immediately dove to the side and away from him as a tree slammed into the ground where I had been standing. The tinkling noise and the shattering of glass was not something I thought a tree would make. “Ooh… that tree is covered in pretty, colorful things!”

I just stared blankly at the slightly burnt hearths warming tree. I eventually got up to go inspect it, where I learned something important.

“If found return to the Sparkle family in Canterlot… yada, yada, yada… okay yeah.” I nodded to myself in understanding as I read the date on it. “Some unicorn apparently launched it into orbit during hearths warming last year. It’s finally decided to come down… almost right on top of me.”

“What’s hearths warming?” Nefer was the size of cat and it was relatively hard to take him seriously because of that, since I was a slightly more than four feet tall wingless avian. “It sounds colorful.”

“Don’t worry about it… now where are those words you mentioned you could read?” If he could actually read them, then he could be a worthwhile addition to the crew.

“Oh right, that thing I can do!” Nefer perked up even more, which was hard to tell when he was always rather perpetually perky already. “It’s around here somewhere.”

I’ve been all over Turtle Toga. The only place I could never get into was the mysterious ruins of Turtle Toga, so this was actually kind of exciting.

“Oh there, come on!” I was led to an archway with upside down turtle statues that would never open no matter what anyone has tried, no pirate has been able to get into the place. “There, you see, writing!”

Nefer was pointing to the writing on the wall next to the rather obvious entrance, but nobody could read it.

“So… what do you think it says?” I crossed my arms and waited for Nefer to look over the strange scrawling on the wall.

“It says ‘to enter the great and dangerous flipping turtle shrine, you need to sing the song of Sea Ponies that tells them to come save you in time’.” Did Nefer just say what I thought he said?

“Really?” I must have made Nefer misunderstand my look of disbelief as he looked upset for once.

“I’m telling the truth, I can actually…” I cut Nefer off.

“No… I’m actually quite sure that you can read it, but could it really be that simple?” I tried to remember what those words Jade has sung several times were, I knew she liked to hum them and she told us if we were ever stuck in the middle of deep water and needed help. We should sing… “Shoo-be-doo shoo-shoo-be-doo~!”

“That was nice sounding, but why did you sing that?” Nefer was answered when a clunking noise sounded out and the door dropped down into the ground leaving an open corridor behind it.

“I did that because it’s how you open the door.” I moved forward and took up an ancient torch and scraped it against the wall to light it up. “Also I completely believe you now, how do you know how to read ancient unknown languages anyway?”

“Wow you know a lot things, but are we really going in there?” Nefer seems to be a bit worried. “It looks dark and scary. I don’t know how I know how to read this stuff, it just comes to me. It’s my really cool ability.”

“Well you said you wanted to be useful, no better time than now if you want to set off traps for me or at least stop me from walking into them by reading the stuff on the walls.” I was much braver than he was, he pressed up against me with his petals shivering a bit. “Don’t worry, I’m sure with my luck we’ll die quickly and painlessly.”

“That doesn’t sound very comforting.” That’s the idea Nefer.

“I’m more dangerous than most pirates to be around because I’m a blackcap Nefer, you’ll learn to understand that that is not a good thing.” I stopped to look at the writing on the wall beyond the stairs we just walked down, further along was a corridor full of randomly colored tiles on the floor. “You really shouldn’t be around me if you wanted to stay safe, as I’m always unsafe to be near. Now what does this say?”

“Step on the red squares only, unless you want to leave all your loved ones lonely.” Nefer read out and then turned to me. “What does that mean?”

I inched a toe forward and tapped a black squared on the tiled floor. Hundreds of zipping noises could be heard coming from the holes in front of us and going into other holes for a few seconds.

I held the torch aloft to the other wall and didn’t see the hundreds of darts stuck in the wall, I only saw more holes. Only all the holes on the left had fired. I carefully tapped the tile again and all the darts fired from the right this time.

“That Nefer, that’s what it means… perforating poison dart trap.” I looked to the left and the right, then held my torch up high to look at the ceiling and saw even more holes up there. No more whooshing sounds, so that means the darts had stopped firing. “One that can reset itself with whatever misses the first time, quite a few of these darts on some pretty genius trajectories. Get on my shoulders and don’t move too much.”

I crouched down and Nefer carefully clambered up onto me.

“Um… this doesn’t seem very safe.” Ignoring all of Nefer’s worries, I calmly walked forward while holding the torch low down in front of me and started to slowly step across the red tiles through the hallway. I stopped when I saw two tiles, one was pink and the other was white with a pink tint. “The left one.”

I followed Nefer’s advice and continued on stepping on tiles that were closer to red or were loosely related to red until we passed all the entire trap. One of the necessary tiles to step on had been purple. I came to another staircase leading up into a wide open area full of tall walls and three entrances.

“A maze full of traps, this could take a while.” I still had to go map shopping and recruit more crew, but I was way too curious to turn back now.

“Unless we follow the left wall.” Turning to see Nefer reading off the wall again, I blinked and raised the torch in my left hand so he could look at it better. “Also it says we are here!”

He pointed at the map like structure designed into the wall and I scrutinized it for a bit.

“Well okay then, let’s find out what’s all the way inside of this place.” I wondered how Gene was doing back with the boat, he had plenty of food.

This adventure shouldn’t take too long right?

-Three hours later-

I was nearly sliced in half by a well-oiled swinging axe and Nefer pushed me out of the way in time with his tiny body, I was still in one piece and finally remembered that I had had my magical alchemy bow on me all this time. I could have used it three traps ago… I think we were almost at the end.

I lifted the torch to some writing on the wall and Nefer climbed up to my right shoulder to read it.

“If you made it this far, congratulations, for the way out is soon, but there is also a cursed treasure of the flipping turtles that can bring fortune or ruin in the next room. Leave the cursed artifact in place, for if you take it you must make for the open exit with haste.” I lowered the torch to writing below that. We weren’t going to miss any writing this time, that’s what almost got me cleaved in half by a quick swinging axe. “The boulder of increasing danger, will follow whoever takes the treasure that is a stranger. To survive its wrath, jump in the ocean and… take a bath? That’s rather oddly specific, don’t you think so Ms. La Perm?”

“Please, call me Captain Blackcap or just Jacky, you’ve earned it five traps ago.” The polite little cat was helpful in getting through this place, though I still nearly got squished by smashing wall traps and had been battered by the swinging levitating brick blocks trap. “Ms. La Perm is my mother.”

“Yippee, I’m going to be a pirate with an amazing captain!” Not having the heart to tell Nefer I wasn’t exactly a captain yet, we just continued on up the spiraling stairs until we came to a room… with someone else already here. “Hey, who are you, we worked hard to get up here to the treasure!”

“Why I’m Teatime Clockwork my strange lad, I’m an inventor, explorer and mystical artifact hunter extraordinaire!” The brown haired white furred unicorn tipped his pith hat to us as he was sitting next to a pedestal with a single object on it, a coin. He adjusted his explorer’s jacket and monocle to take a better look at us. “Wait a moment… by crumpets, you two came in through one of the other entrances? Are you quite daft? How did you even make it here alive?! It took me hours of preparation just to get through the exit door being as thick and heavy as it was!”

We went through all of that… for a coin… and it might be taken by this pony. Okay, where’s the traumatizing bad luck on this one?

Teatime wasn’t the only one here, there were also two pony shaped golems full of clockwork gears looking at us with their mouths wide open with what looked to be small cannons in them.

“Yes we did… what exactly is so important here that you had to cut your way through the exit door?” I tapped my toes idly and silently noted that the two golems were aiming at us. I could possibly take one of them, but both of them? They looked really dangerous and I had my doubts I can dodge small fast flying cannonballs, even in a room this spacious.

“I thought there would be mounds of treasure in here being a pirate island, only to find this! A single coin, beyond all the doors I have been vexed by! I seriously doubt GODLESS, my wonderful backers you see, could make any use of this paltry pointless coin.” Okay, Mr. Clockwork just immediately set me on edge as his purple eyes glanced at the coin in disdain. He was part of the same crazy nut-job loaded organization that sent those assassins after Jade. “I’m contemplating whether I should take it or not for myself, I’m quite certain that it is highly booby trapped though. Why would a single worthless coin like this be worth so much effort to be kept hidden here? Well you’ll never find out unless...”

He hit the coin’s edge flipping it into the air and he caught it, he looked at it and then to me. I saw a faint purple glint surround he coin and it glowed for a second, what did it just do? It’s a cursed artifact right?

Also from what Nefer read not too long ago, it brings fortune or ruin… so judging by the purple glow… ruin?

“Hmm… tails, oh well, too bad. Musket Mouths, shoot them.” In response to Teatime’s words the two clockwork golems immediately made some clacking noises and two tiny explosions erupted in their mouths firing towards us.

It was then that something miraculous happened, the two sphere’s collided in the air in front of us and then started to ricochet all over the room.

The two fast moving solid iron spheres eventually struck the two golems in very odd places, gumming up their inner workings and within seconds they both exploded sending Teatime hurtling backwards violently into a wall.

Upon hitting the wall the coin went flying out of his grasp and flipping towards me, I almost caught it and fumbled with it a bit and accidentally sent it spinning upwards.

It landed in my palm showing the image of a smiling turtle holding a scepter on a regal throne. A gold glowing glint surrounded the coin and it started glowing that color for a few seconds, was this the fortune side?

I turned the coin over and saw that tails was a turtle with the front half of its body buried in the sand upside down with its poor belly exposed and about to be devoured by a bird. Graphic imagery that.

“A coin that can grant someone good or bad luck by how it lands after someone sends it flipping into the air?” Yeah, that was… bad… I want to go with bad. Even if it just gave me good luck, I’m sure that wouldn’t last very long.

I don’t think I’d ever use this cursed coin very much, but if something ever came up to a coin toss I’d always make someone else use it and would always declare heads no matter what. If it landed tails then whoever tossed it was going to have a lot of bad luck afterwards.

If it was cursed like I think it was, then it was predisposed to landing tails side up. Thus giving you bad luck and would rarely, if ever, give you good luck. I just received good luck because Teatime just got bad luck, this was going to be a rare opportunity for me to enjoy my cursed luck becoming at least neutral.

“Yeah, that’s awesome captain, but... maybe we should go before the guy that tried to kill us over nothing wakes up!” Nefer brought me back to the present as he pointed in a given direction while tugging at my pants leg, I looked down a long tunnel he was pointing out to see a light at the end of it.

We both heard a loud crashing noise, ever so slowly we looked behind us. We saw a boulder sitting there behind the pedestal the coin had been sitting on, said pedestal slowly lowered into the floor.

I believe that that was the boulder we were warned about, the only thing currently holding it back was the pedestal it was pressing against urgently.

"Run."

Chapter thirty nine, a pirate’s strife for me: Ends.

Author's Note

Presenting... the life and death of a boulder in it's finest hour!

Yes, I've listened to the full eight hours...

Chapter thirty nine, a pirate’s strife for me: Ends.

-Outside Turtle Toga ruins, Jacky-

I ran forward and tossed Nefer off to the side as I exited into the blinding sunlight and stopped when I felt some wood under my talons.

I blinked the blindness out of my eyes as I heard that rock coming down the hallway behind me and looked below me.

Currently, I was standing on the bowsprit of a ship and below said bowsprit was a large cannon like device. Likely what Teatime Clockwork used to drill his way through the ruins exit.

I looked back to the hillside and saw Nefer sitting in the grass staring at me wide eyed. Also there was the oncoming boulder, couldn’t forget that.

This is obviously Teatime’s airship, given all the clockwork cannon mouths suddenly taking aim at me.

Okay, given Clockwork’s current level of luck… I would think this ship was about to be…

The boulder rammed into bow of the ship and straight through the lower sections and out the stern of it, the bowsprit broke and slammed into the ground and multiple metal balls passed overhead missing me.

I was sent tumbling to onto the hillside, where I sat and watched as the airship before me went up in a massive explosion that sent many clockwork golem pony parts flying everywhere.

Tea-totaled!

I stared at the boulder beyond the airship as it came to stop covered in hundreds of jagged little bits of pointy metal sticking out of it, none of said bits looked dull in the slightest.

It then, much to my surprise and chagrin, started to roll back up hill at me. Up the hill, not down the hill as gravity would have it.

“Meet me back in town Nefer, I’m going to try and ditch the killer boulder!” I yelled as I got up and started running as fast as my chicken legs could carry me, Sekhet always said calisthenics were important.

The direction I was running in was not the same direction as the town, instead I was running to rock farm quarry on Turtle Toga. Earth Pony run, but it also had workers from various species. Maybe the dynamite there could blow the boulder up?

The boulder curved and followed me as I charged down the hill as fast as I could run with adrenaline pumping through my entire body. It couldn’t change direction very fast, but it could roll in a straight line faster than I could run.

I reached the edge of the large rock farm hole and turned on a dime to start running along the edge of the ridge. When the boulder tried to turn, it fell off the ridge. I stopped and saw the boulder hit the ground below.

“Hah, what are you going to do now you raging piled of clumped dirt?” To the kids who might hear this story later in my life should I survive today, don’t do what I’m doing right now. You should never insult a killer magical boulder, especially not a highly vindictive one! “I doubt you can roll up a rock face this steep!”

The boulder seemed to sit still for a moment and then rolled over to smash a shack in the rock farm, said action caused a pile of dynamite to spill out of it.

What was it doing? Well, it was starting to roll over the dynamite until it encased itself in all the explosives it could gather.

It then rolled rapidly toward me and a lit stick of dynamite then flew up off it towards me. I started running to my left and towards town as the section of the ridge I used to be on went up in an explosion, sending an entire portion of said ridge crumbling down behind me.

I think anyone can understand what, “The Boulder of ‘INCREASING DANGER’”, means now. Given it is now capable of throwing dynamite at me. Boulders are not supposed to be intelligent like this!

As I ran past the ramp leading out of the rock farm another stick of dynamite arced overhead and landed in front of me, I skidded to a stop and was blown onto my back by the shockwave of the blast. I slowly got up coughing and groaning, feeling the ground under me rumbling I could feel it getting closer.

Looking behind me the boulder rapidly rolling up the ramp out of the rock farm hole. It was also lightning several more sticks of dynamite which arced off of its rapid rolling form and towards me.

I stumbled into a standing position and was blasted forward by the next explosion, I rolled with it and then pulled out of my roll running on my two feet as fast as they could take me.

The boulder reached the top of the ramp sending more lit sticks of dynamite arcing for me and I ran, ducked, jumped and dodged like my life depended on it. It certainly seemed like it currently did.

I saw a hippogriff with a pickaxe whistling on the road and he stopped to stare at the spectacle that was my life currently.

“Out the way, killer magical boulder on the loose!” I jumped over the next explosion, the poor guy dove off to the side clutching tightly to his pickaxe, as lit sticks of dynamite continued to haphazardly fly in my general direction.

I dodged left around an explosion, managed to get past the next stick of dynamite that exploded behind me and then I turned and started to climb a tree making the next few sticks of dynamite miss. The boulder sent one that landed at the base of the tree as I was climbing.

Thank you sharp pointy climbing talons on my hand and feet! I reached the top and heard the dynamite at the base of the tree go off and it started to fall, I leapt to the next tree and dynamite landed at the base of that one too.

I immediately leapt for the next tree and almost fell short. Managing to grab one of the leaves, my downward force and weight managed to bend the whole tree downwards and looking beneath me I saw the boulder waiting eagerly with a slow burning stick of dynamite standing on top of its sharp pointy metal covered surface.

“Look, I sincerely apologize for taunting such an exquisite magical death boulder of great killing power such as yourself, so can we talk about this killing me thing?” I tried, then watched with slight horror as the boulder shifted left and right in a jerky manner, as if answering my question with a stern ‘NO’. It did so while managing to keep that standing stick of dynamite perfectly balanced on top of itself.

The fuse almost sunk into the stick… then the tree decided to snap back into a standing position and I reflexively let go and was sent flailing through the air towards Port Turtle Toga.

I heard an explosion and saw several sticks of exploding dynamite that were trying and failing to catch up with my flailing form.

-Killer Magical Bolder-

Covered in light scorch mark.

Blast missed bird.

Roll in tight circle in complete anger.

Go rolling rapidly after flailing airborne flightless bird.

Exterminate!

-Jacky-

My launch arc was finally descended into the trees near the edge of Port Turtle Toga, I bounced painfully off the top of a banana tree and took several branches to the body from some of the other trees and then bodily ripped an entire banana bushel from one tree and impacted the ground.

Those poor smashed bananas splattered everywhere and cushioned my fall… also my body was now severely bruise and I couldn’t stand up at the moment. I couldn’t just stay lying down like this either or else the boulder would get me.

I was just on the edge of town too… so tired after all that trap filled ruins exploring and it was getting into the evening.

I sat up groaning, think I needed at least twenty seconds to catch my breath and the boulder was going to let me go that easily. Wait… bananas… one of my old time favorite things to annoy people with!

Only my horrible luck was currently neutralized at the moment, could it still work and or would it work better?

Peeling a banana I started to eat it quickly as I needed to get some energy back, I had almost finished the banana when I heard the rumbling of the boulder coming at me.

I took the last bite in my mouth and threw the banana peel at the boulder as it turned a corner around some trees to start rumbling towards me. The banana peel landed in front of its right side.

I stood up and glared the boulder down, it hit the banana and it seemed the forces of nature still appreciated an exceptionally good banana peel joke. For the still spinning boulder zipped off to the side out of control upon contact with the banana.

It still managed to get one of its remaining dynamite sticks off at me, but I simply pulled my bow out and grabbed the lit stick of dynamite out of the air and immediately fired it in the direction of the boulder.

There was a series of loud explosions and all was silent…

The boulder then launched itself off a hill and tried to crush me. I had already turned and started running into town when it crashed into the ground behind me.

“I would like to apologize in advance to everyone living in Turtle Toga at this time!” Our chase was going to cause a mess. “Gangway, coming through, deadly mystical boulder that absolutely hates my guts and wants me dead!”

Quite a few people were getting out of the way of my shouting and the boulder following behind me.

I skidded on my left foot talons as I turned right and started down a street, the boulder slammed through the wall of a building causing screams. I didn’t pay it any mind as I ran up a plank balanced over a barrel as a makeshift seesaw.

Once I lowered the other end close to a pile of relatively heavy looking barrels, I huffed and grunted as I heaved one those barrels over my shoulder at the other end of the seesaw. My muscles were screaming at me for that, especially after all the running I’ve been doing.

I crouched down and jumped with the board’s upward momentum, narrowly avoiding the boulder smashing through what could only be a bunch of fully loaded of rum barrels.

“The rums all gone, why is it all gone!” I ignored that shout of horror as I ran across a roof.

The boulder somehow how launched itself up here with me and started to roll along the roof behind me tearing it up. The roof started to sink and sag from its weight.

I really had to get this thing off my tail feathers, which would require I get down to the port. I had a bath to take.

I threw my bow up and over a clothesline and slid down it and dropped to the ground running as the boulder smashed through somebody’s front door having sunk into the house behind me.

I turned the corner and started making my way down towards the port… only I didn’t hear the sound of the boulder chasing me.

“...?” I slowed down as I turned the next corner back onto the previous street and saw the boulder smashing a cabbage oil stand, and started to roll itself around in the cabbage oil smothering itself completely.

“My cabbages… in a highly marketable cooking and lamp oil form!” It was that pony again, never could remember his name.

“Okay, I give… why did you destroy that stand?” Really didn’t know why I was asking the boulder when I should be running for the sea right now.

The boulder placed a single bit of metal on the ground and then performed a quick three hundred and sixty degree spin that lit it entirely on fire from the sparks.

“Goodness gracious, a great ball of fire… seriously though?” I lamented blandly, the boulder rolled forwards and backwards a bit as if to say both ‘yes’ and ‘die’ at the same time. For such a deadly boulder, it really knew how to emote its point across quite clearly. “Yeah okay… I’m going to run screaming for the port now with you literally hot on my tail.”

Seconds later that became a thing. Me running and screaming shrilly at the top of my lungs, with heat washing up my backside as I was chased by a flaming boulder towards the docks. Nobody would be stupid enough to try and help me now.

The hot flaming boulder changed course and launched itself off a slanted wagon and overhead to land on the docks. Docks that were made of wood... and I think it was trying to prevent me from jumping in the water.

I ran to my right down the docks and the boulder moved to the pier and started to bounce along each and every ship in the harbor. I looked to my right as I ran when I saw a familiar face.

“Nefer, get me a bucket of water, I don’t care if it’s clean or not!” I screamed at the trident tailed cat as I passed by him coming out from the Gallant’s Tavern.

The boulder was hopping from ship to ship lighting them all ablaze… and my ship was at the end of the dock! I stopped running once I realized that, it set the ship before mine on fire and then rolled onto the dock while burning away the bowsprit of the ship that was next to ours.

The boulder sat menacingly before me and the entire port was basically on fire. I turned around and ran back the way I came and boulder start to roll towards me at dangerous speeds, apparently the heat had smoothed the sharp point metal bit on it and made the flaming thing capable of rolling faster.

“Here!” Nefer quickly got out of the way after dragging a bucket into my path. I swept it up and turned straight for the fire.

I dumped the water over my head and leapt through the fire for the sea, I felt the boulder launch right after me as I fell into the water.

-Nefer-

I watched as brave Captain Blackcap, the friendly cursed pirate, fell into the water and a huge blast of water went into the air.

“Captain Blackcap?” Sitting down I just watched as the docks burned quietly.

-nine minutes, fifty nine point nine seconds later, Gene-

Jacky burst from the water coughing, sputtering and burnt somewhat. Thankfully the section of dock we parked next to hadn’t been repaired from earlier, so the fire hadn’t spread to the ship and I didn’t need to take action.

“Are you okay Jacky?” She didn’t look so good, I flew over to her and helped pull her from the water.

“Happy… to be alive… also happy that I can hold my breath… for ten minutes… while pinned by a boulder that absolutely wanted me to drown. My lungs really hurt though…” Jacky was still coughing up water. “Help me get to that three tailed cat over there, then help me to the tavern.”

I lifted Jacky up and did as she ask.

“Hey Nefer, come on!” Jacky's words made the cat perk up.

Chapter thirty nine, a pirate’s strife for me: Swell.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter thirty nine, a pirate’s strife for me: Starting somewhere.

-A day later, The Ardent Survivor, Gene-

I was being eyed up and down by the sea pony that can’t swim and Nefer was an interesting trident tailed cat plant.

“So what exactly will we be doing?” Flotsam De Brie was interesting for being a partial whitecap, though activating that whitecap ability seemed troubling. She didn’t exactly have an infinite amount of stomach for eating fruit rinds and it has got to be pretty hard on her teeth, especially if she ever had to eat anything as crazy as a pineapple rind.

“At the moment nothing. In the long run we’ll be getting into treasure hunting, exploring places we’ve never been before and possibly dealing with other pirates in an over the top volatile manner. That’s on top of dealing with any enemies we make and Jacky’s bad luck during our journeys.” I was trying for friendly, but my tone and voice sounded neutral, I sometimes disparaged my own nature. Neither of them had any skills for working on a ship, much less one that can fly, but that was actually a good thing. Jacky had a lot of skills required to be a pirate and good captain at that, she could easily teach these two what to do as there was nothing for them to unlearn. “I hope we can be friends and possibly family, some pirates see their crew as family. Jacky already calls her sister captain and is a bit wary of being called captain herself, so go easy on her for all the weird things that’ll happen around us alright? Her sister was prone to dragging others into bizarre situations and I have no doubt that we’ll end up following that trend with Jacky.”

“I’m okay with learning to be friends, but give me a rain check on family and I’ll reserve judgment about whether or not I’ll ever be willing to call Jacky a captain based on her actions.” Sammy seemed a little distant, she was on a slave trading ship not too long ago and almost drowned because she can’t swim. It was understandable that she had no idea what to do with herself, almost like Jacky.

“Fair enough.” I offered blandly. “She’s going to be captain and I think she can really handle the position. Jacky is a rather strong person.”

At least Jacky decided to do something even if it is a bit of a pipe dream to get Jade back through some random cursed objects. Jacky’s reasoning being that cursed objects were always more powerful than regular magical relics, while true, it wasn’t likely we’ll ever find anything that could do exactly what she wanted and she had to know that.

“So we’re family? Can I call you my big pretty sister Flotsam?” Nefer hopped in front of the sea pony with his trident tail waggling and he rubbed up against Sam’s belly. Sam looked a little unsure about what to say. “Jacky has a sister she mentions a lot and now I get one too!”

“How soon do you suppose Jacky will find one more crew member and will be getting back with all those maps she’s looking into?” Flotsam was trying to divert attention off of herself not knowing how to deal with Nefer’s positive energy.

“Depends, her neutral luck ran out days ago, all the pirates in port will eventually remember that this is the ship she got off of when we arrived and who knows what else will happen on her way back from getting maps.” Giving it some thought and doing some calculating, I wasn’t exactly dumb enough to think that we would be able to leave unmolested without something going wrong. Jacky’s modus operandi was constantly surviving and thriving on horrible situations, so what was the likeliest course of action to prepare for the inevitable? “I should teach you both how to inflate the balloon and we should have it fully inflated before she gets back. Also... we should be ready for lift off out of the water as soon as she’s back on the ship.”

I should also get the ship pointed out to sea while I’m at it, aim the cannons inwards towards the port...

-Ruined airship camp, Teatime Clockwork-

“Even with my Musket Mouths have been scattered about to the four winds with my ship utterly destroyed. That pirate and strange cat have no idea who they are messing with, even if they had gotten seriously lucky in dealing with me!” I had spent the last day or so reconstructing some of my golems from spare parts, the bits that hadn’t obviously been destroyed by some kind of large boulder. “Put me in a sticky wicket will they? Well I’ll put them in even stickier wickets with the golems I’ve managed to fix! Thankfully my designs make it easy to cannibalize the more horribly broken ones to fix some of the others.”

I ordered the clockwork ponies to follow me to Port Turtle Toga, there was only one place that pirate could have gone. Like any braggart, she was probably imbibing some nasty substances and telling a glorious tale of my defeat. Tea was the superior drink and my skills with building clockwork soldiers were superb, I’ve just had a minor setback is all.

I had managed to get ten Musket Mouths available and fully functional… that should be enough to win a battle with that scoundrel. I could come back for my tents and supplies once I have secured a way off this blasted island.

So I have lost most of my clockwork golems… and my ship… and quite a number of my supplies, but nothing would stop me. For I am Teatime Clockwork, I will be getting my justified revenge on those who have humiliated me!

-Discount Map Shop, Jacky-

There were so many discount maps here, I looked at the pony lazily sitting at the counter. I believe the winged pony was called Cloudy Vision, special talent for supposedly divining maps to horrible places to go to. Her sky blue eyes made her look blind and she clearly wasn’t, she also had pink hair in a bun and burnt orange fur.

“Got any maps to dimensional traveling cursed objects?” First order of business ask for something specific.

“Well there is this one object that Celestia's royal guard apparently dumped in one of the deepest trenches in the ocean completely encased in a cement and all kinds of powerful magical protections.” That was quite familiar. In fact, I knew what she was talking about.

“Not what I’m looking for, I already know what that is and my sister had issues with its existence and that’s how it ended up in the trench under such protections in the first place. I am not touching the Sieve Precarious!” I crossed my arms to stare at the pegasus who was giving me a wide eyed look. She blinked once or twice and then smiled and placed a map on the counter.

“If you can name the object I’m talking about, then you get a free map. Choice nonnegotiable it’s to something that might be of interest or not, but that’s for you to find out.” If this pony was giving them away, I will gladly take them. Free was good sometimes. “How about a map to the secret of the Turtle Ruins, apparently there’s a password written down on it and I hear there’s something in there that might…”

“Flipping Turtle Coin, eighty percent chance of bad luck. Even if I get a good luck flip, I’m pretty sure it’s a once a day thing and it barely neutralizes my bad luck for a time.” I pulled out the coin and showed it to her in my bandaged talons. “Got it from the ruins and that’s how most of the port went up in flames except for that one ship, try another one.”

The pony put another map on the counter. That was two… I was beginning to have a sinking suspicion something was up with her.

“Okay how about a weapon then? I heard recent tales of a strange mystical bow that can’t fire arrows straight to save anyone’s life, but it can fire anything else under the sun.” I stopped her by holding up my talons, unshouldered my bow, put an arrow to it and aimed it directly for her and pulled it back. “Uh… have I upset you in some...?!”

I released the arrow and she cringed. After a moment and a loud noise of the arrow impacting something, she opened one eye and then blinked in disbelief. The arrow was buried at an angle in the ceiling, behind me and pointed in the same direction I had been aiming.

“That… doesn’t make sense… you were aiming directly at me with it and now it’s in the ceiling!” The mare just stared at the arrow and then turned her gaze down to me.

“And where, pray tell, does the map for the bow that my sister made for me with her own two paws lead?” I asked congenially while I loaded the string with several sharpened pointy forks. “Things that are not arrows work pretty well as I’m sure you very well know. If I release these forks, aimed as they are, they will do more than just hurt you mildly.”

She gulped and started sweating while placing a third random map on the counter, she then turned around and eventually turned back to me to spread out a map on the counter next to my three free maps. I stared at her with a hint of suspicion.

“It’s here in the middle of nowhere.” There was an 'X' where Airship Mauled would be.

“Okay… how did you come about this information?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Quite frankly no one that lives in the town there is particularly talkative about the magic of my bow Cloudy.”

“There’s a town there? Okay, I guess I should come clean as to why my shop sells discount maps to strange or cursed artifacts…” Please do Cloudy, I gestured my bow at her. “First off, all my maps lead to things that are actually there, have been there or were at the locations at some point for a long enough amount of time for me to have had a vision about a specific treasure with some idea of what it does. I’m a whitecap, but my ability is spotty at best. There’s no curse in the maps I make and they always lead people to at least something interesting or useful. I get a location, the basics of an object and what it does, plus the general danger level of said location with each vision. That bows danger level was pretty high, what you find when you end up at these locations might not always be what you wanted though.”

“How do you profit from this when your prices are so cheap without someone coming back to maul you?” The small smile I was receiving was rather telling.

“Sometimes some pirates have nothing to lose or better to do… other’s absolutely have a death wish and buy the maps with higher lethality levels regardless of the dangers presented.” Cloudy shrugged looking a bit apologetic. “If they survive they might become legends or have some interesting stories to tell.”

“What about the free maps you’re giving me?” I asked, reminding her that I was aiming this bow at her lethally.

“Moderately dangerous as any other place in the world, the locations aren’t too bad. If you can give me a specific idea of what you want, then I’ll give you a fresh vision map for twenty bits.” Considering Cloudy’s offer, as I took up the three free maps she put on the counter and pocketed them, I eventually reached into my side pouch and put twenty bits on the counter.

“The most ‘explosively dangerous’ cursed artifact you can find.” After she took my money, she performed a ritualistic vision that involved shocking herself into unconsciousness with a bolt of lightning from a cloud she placed above herself. When she got up fifteen minutes later, she drew out a map and hoofed it over to me.

“Pleasure doing business with you Black Jack, remember to come back anytime and please be less threatening next time.” Cloudy Vision would get some consideration from me if these maps were any good. “Hope you find some good things out there and happy treasure hunting, though the things you find might not always be a treasure you should take!”

-Thirty minutes later, Ardent Survivor, Gene-

“That’s how you properly load a cannon. Pull cord cannons are faster, fuse cannons gives you time to aim before a shot fires.” We had three loaded cannons pointing in the direction of the docks and I had absolutely good reasons for this.

“Gene pick me up and let’s get out of here!” I saw a freshly injured Jacky coming up to the ship and I helped her aboard by airlifting her onto the fully prepared airship. Her left shoulder looked bad.

“So Jacky… what’s the rush and are we going to get a fifth crew member?” I would be correct in thinking that Jacky looked a little lightheaded.

“No time, that Teatime guy has his clockwork ponies out and gunning for us! Also there’s this large angry pirate mob, so I’ll just get us moving...” She paused when she realized the ship had been turned, the balloon was filled and the cannons were loaded. “Good job on being preemptive ‘First Mate’ Generic!”

I smiled calmly at her, I knew she’d appreciate some positive initiative.

Flotsam pulled a cord on one of the cannons, making it blast the not so burnt down portion of the docks. A few seconds later a pony shaped mechanical head full of gears smacked Jacky in the back of the head as she was taking up the wheel, making her face bounce off it in painfully awkward manner.

Jacky gritted her beak and hit the throttle, the remaining portion of the balloon filled and we were soon lifting off and moving forward. She looked over her wounded shoulder, that we will bandage up soon enough. Medical supplies were going to be needed in an abundance on this crew, mostly for my girlfriend Captain Blackcap.

“This will not be the last you see of me, I will find you or my name isn’t Teatime Clockwork!” That pony in the strange explorer garb yelled as the clockwork pony golems fired on the wood of our ship from below and the metal spheres just bounced off the wood despite flying at the speeds of deadly grape shot.

That’s when an unruly mob of pirates arrived with pitchforks and torches, Teatime turned his attention to them instead of us and must have said something they didn’t like because he was swamped by them seconds later.

Thankfully our balloon wasn’t hit by the clockwork golems that turned to deal with the problem and we put some distance from port.

“Captain… do you suppose Jade…” I started to say.

“Undoubtedly... every single piece of wood on this ship.” Jacky answered with a fond, if pained, smile tugging at her beak.

“Let me patch you up, looks like you took a nasty hit to the shoulder.” I turned to our cabin boy. “Fetch us some medical supplies!”

I turned back to see Jacky staring at the lifeless clockwork pony head with interest.

-Eir-

Sad boulder is watching friend's airship leave... I make pet!

Author's Note

And Jacky's crew is off... into the wild blue yonder!

What kind of weird adventures are they going to get up to?

Also knew episode in a few hours... Sombra the shade monster comes back like a more intelligent lich. Ten internet cookies says he destroys the old tree of harmony and doesn't do a thing about the 'less obvious' new one.

Chapter forty, it’s a big world: Vaguely curious.

-One week later, The Ardent Survivor, Jacky-

“Okay so if Nefer is a cabin boy, you’re the captain and that griffon Gene is the first mate… then what am I in this gaggle of weirdoes?” Sammy asked as she performed a fake form of slithering to come up me. I turned to her from tinkering with the clockwork pony head, one of which I was slowly prying apart to find out what went into it. “I would also like to know where we are even currently going right now, how are you keeping our supplies so fresh and what is up with all the fish jerky?”

“Well you did place a good shot on the mechanical menaces that chased me to the docks… I could try to teach you how to properly maintain a cannon if you want me to. You can even practice with this one.” I pulled my modified Party cannon out from behind me back. “As for…”

“Where did you pull that from, it’s too big to have been behind you all this time!” Oh right, Flotsam did kind of have a point that I never told Nefer or her about this.

It was always so simple that I could just pull my cannon out at any time or that I even had a special cannon always at the ready. I couldn’t do it with a normal cannon, only the party cannon had that kind of functionality.

“It’s a party cannon, one that I’ve modified to be more viable in a fight.” I received an incredulous glance from the sea pony, it wasn’t powerful and I didn’t exactly keep it loaded. It wouldn’t have destroyed the killer boulder, one that had survived several point blank dynamite explosions without so much as a single chip coming off of it. “Pulling one out of nowhere is really quite easy, though the mechanics to explain how it works always escape me and anyone else who uses one of these things.”

“Okay, ignoring the fact that you’ve always somehow have a cannon on you at all times that’s apparently not taking up space and is also weightless until pulled out... I might take you up on the offer of learning to be a gunner. Though I would like to know any other open positions and why this ship would need five crew members when four seems to be working well enough.” Sammy was rubbing her forehead with a flipper hoof looking mildly aggravated with the idea that I could pull my party cannon out of nowhere and that it was always on me. “First, I want to know about my other questions.”

“In order, we’re heading towards some place that is just labeled ‘The Garden’. We’re looking for the object the map says is there. As for how we’re keeping our supplies fresh and the fish jerky? A simple answer would be my mother Kuril La Perm is responsible for both of those things.” I still had that large sack from when we used to dump all that illusion dust over Canterlot during the gold ship caper, it is quite useful for storing perishables. Most bags, pouches and containers have the same or similar effect when sustained by magical alchemy, the self-sustaining effect meant that nothing could go bad in storage. “Our storage methods are capable of keeping most food from perishing indefinitely thanks to some preservative magic that my mom worked. She’s an Abyssinian witch that knows how cook and make strange potions. Speaking of, do you know how to cook?”

“No, but I understand the various methods of how to make potable water.” Eh, good enough for me Sammy. “Now what positions, aside from cabin boy, first mate and your given captaincy, are available that would be sorely needed?”

“Well I’m good at repairs, gunning, navigating, to be fair I know a little bit to cover all the positions on this ship personally. The problem is that I can’t be in more than one place at a time, someone who can cook might be eventually needed as I should never be allowed to do anything even remotely related to cooking. The galley is going entirely unused and we’re kind of coasting on the edible supplies that will never go bad, so that’s not much to worry about. More importantly we’re all also going to need to know first-aid if our fifth crew member isn’t a doctor.” Which reminds me that I shoulder offer her a pack to keep fruit rinds in. “I should give you a spare pack so you can load it with banana peels and other fruit rinds like apples. Same preservative effect on it or any other bag in the ship.”

“I actually like apple rinds, unless it’s one of those apple rinds with that horrible waxy taste.” You weren’t the only one Sam, even I gagged at waxy tasting apples. At least Sweet Apple Acres apples didn’t have that problem. “I’ll certainly take that pack you’re offering though.”

“Well you can wait here and let me get it for you.” I stopped tinkering around with the clockwork pony head and quickly put the various parts back in place. “I hope you can learn to open up to the idea that we can be friends eventually or at the very least learn that we can work together in an amiable manner unless you want us to drop you off somewhere?”

“No, for better or worse… I don’t really have any better places to be.” Sam ran her right hoof through her long fin styled hair looking dour and moody as she turned away from me. “Not many people want a useless sea pony that can’t even swim and my whitecap ability isn’t all that great either.”

“Eh, it could be worse, you could have been born a mer-mare and you could have given up on life by now before meeting me. That would have deprived me of getting to know someone incredibly like you.” The difference being, she wouldn’t have hooves to manipulate things with and mer-mare fins were much shorter. Mer-mares and sea ponies were incredibly similar with the minor differences, the easiest way to tell them apart was to see if they had hooves or not. “I’m going to say this right now, I don’t believe you are useless and you remind me of my sister Fizzle. She’s a unicorn with a badly broken horn and has problems controlling her magic, but she persevered and eventually started learning to do magic even when it hurts her at times. You’re just as unique and interesting despite your slightly bitter attitude at life constantly kicking you in the teeth. My sister Fizzle and I both know that feeling that you’re experiencing, like nothing can get any better. So never forget this, every person is special in their own way and that I want you to live!”

“What?” Flotsam didn’t seem to understand what I was telling her or she couldn’t grasp that I saw something special about her.

“I repeat that you, specifically, are not useless!” I yelled in her face while clenching my beak as I stared her straight in the eyes. “Nefer wants his big pretty sister, I want a friend who understands how miserable it is to be a blackcap that I can share that burden with and even Gene cares when he doesn’t look or act like it. Gene is just that ridiculously calm all the time.”

I stood up and grabbed the clockwork pony head to go put it up, I wanted to get Flotsam her pack and then I had some navigating to do. The first step I took on the stairs down to the deck, I tripped and fell painfully down them. I got up and smiled back at Flotsam, she looked a little concerned. Good, I wanted her to be concerned!

“Are you okay?” Flotsam asked dully, she’s seen me get hurt numerous times as I did so much work around the ship. She already knew the answer and was just asking to be polite.

“There’s a thing about me that you should learn how to do for yourself Sammy.” I might be covered in bandages and a walking pile of sores, might have even opened some of my wounds again in that fall and my shoulder was certainly bleeding again, but I wanted to inspire her to see how great she could be. Maybe she could learn how to sing, it sounded like she had a good voice for it. “You really need to learn how to always get back up and try not to let life get you down Sammy. Stick around long enough and you might even find yourself wanting to be a family with us.”

-Flotsam De Brie-

A family? I don’t exactly see it happening.

-A day later, Gene-

“Captain I don’t see any islands below and probably wouldn’t be able to in that storm. In fact, I doubt anything would survive under this kind of storm for long.” I turned to Jacky who was consulting the map with quite a bit of scrutiny as we stayed in place. “It doesn’t even seem to be moving.”

“We’re almost at the right coordinates and the storm we’re looking at does seems quite unnatural.” It was odd, overly so to the point that Jacky even noticed.

We had been sitting here for an hour and the localized storm in front of us hadn’t moved an inch. The coordinates for what was ahead of us were quite daunting, then I noticed Jacky beak turning into a smile and she turned to me.

“Gene, I need you to fly above the storm, do some scouting up there and tell me if you see anything interesting.” Throwing Jacky a salute, I spread my wings and launched myself from the deck to fly high above the storm.

I ascended until I saw a waterfall and a rainbow coming from the storm… that was even stranger than constantly going storm sitting in one place. The waterfall definitely was not part of the storm.

Flying higher still, I was expecting to see a place like Cloudsdale. Upon seeing what Jacky might have been thinking of, I blinked and then blinked again. I turned to fly back towards The Ardent Survivor and landed upon the deck to report my findings to Jacky.

Both Nefer and Flotsam were relaxing on deck staring at the terrible storm of destructive winds and lightning sitting a mile from us. When they saw me coming back, they got up and came over to us with curious glances.

“Captain Blackcap… if it was your intuition that we needed to go higher, then you are completely right!” I watched quietly as Jacky got behind the wheel and the airship started raising us up above the thick wall of clouds and the storm.

I turned around and everyone else got a look at what I saw as we passed by the rainbow and the waterfall.

“Whoa, that’s… amazing!” Nefer was spellbound as he looked at the large floating continent, at least I thought it was a continent. It was too big to simply be called an island.

“Do you suppose that the land stays afloat because of the storm going on beneath it?” Flotsam has been a bit less reclusive lately, I wonder what Jacky had said to Flotsam to make her slightly more talkative. She was almost always silent since we left Port Turtle Toga, now she was fascinated by what was in front of us. “I seriously doubt that even an entire city of pegasi could float a whole solid continent like this, it’s easier for them to build a city out of clouds.”

“I think that’s, ‘The Garden’, we’re currently looking for… looks more like a jungle to me.” It was in fact a jungle Jacky, and yet something looked off about it to me. “I’m going to fly us closer to look for a clearing to land in and maybe see what’s up with those funky trees.”

“Everyone prepare for landfall and we’ll all disembark to get a look around, we are to always stay in sight of one another and to not get separated. Do not get off the ship or wander off on your own, especially you Nefer!” That sounded like a good call Jacky, we didn’t know much about this place. “For now Nefer will check our supplies and see if we need to pick up any food or water while we’re here. Gene, you need to prepare the balloon for deflation. Flotsam watch the sky and ground for any signs of danger, I’m not lucky enough to believe our landing will go unnoticed or smoothly if anything intelligent lives here.”

“Will do, captain.” I went to go do as Jacky ordered as we came down towards the continent slowly.

-Flotsam-

I was staring at the strange plants and something seemed oddly familiar about them as we got closer.

Once we were near the clearing Jacky wanted to land in, I finally realized what I was looking at. I decided to speak up about what I was seeing.

“Jacky…” I was still a little pensive about drawing attention to myself, even if they were giving me full run of the ship and would have happily dropped me off anywhere I wanted to go or be.

“Yes, Flotsam, is there something we should know about?” She was actually paying attention to me and I carefully slithered along the deck towards her.

“You know those large tree like plants we’re seeing in the jungle?” Glancing beyond me, Jacky blinked several times. “It’s not a jungle, they’re flowers.”

Her eyes widened as the ship slowly lowered to the peaceful looking grassy knoll.

“Giant flowers?” Jacky finally stated as the ship came to rest on the ground. “What next, giant bees?”

A bee larger than a Manticore flew by and the noise of its wings tearing through the air could definitely be heard at this distance from anywhere on the ship. At least it could be heard until it landed on one of the large flowers. Looking around I spotted a giant orange mound with a beanstalk shaped green protrusion poking out of the top of it.

“Jacky… I think I know why the map calls this place ‘The Garden’. Port side giant carrot!” I pointed out as Jacky came down the stairs carefully. She stood next to me as she looked off to left side of the ship at what I was staring at.

“That… is a huge carrot.” Jacky muttered as she stared at it.

Looking slightly to the left I saw a large ant walk up to the carrot and started to pull a large boulder sized chunk off the giant vegetable and then carried it away.

“I heard about how Tatzlwurms can be found near giant flowers like this around Equestria…” It would only make sense, we were in a place that was like a garden of giants. Giant insects at the very least. “Do you suppose this is where all those huge flowers in Equestria come from?”

“Possibly.” Jacky stated as she looked around the ship and even below it. “Seems calm enough for now.”

“So what are we looking for here?” I’ve been meaning to ask about that, now that we were in a really dangerous place full of giant and scary bug monsters.

“A cursed object called ‘The Cape Of Ill Winds’, when activated it creates strong winds pointing towards the nearest threat.” Well that didn’t sound pleasant.

Author's Note

Chapter forty, it’s a big world: Mildly curious.

-Floating Continent, Jacky-

“So aside from the cursed cape, do you suppose there’s any treasure?” Looking to Flotsam, I tried to give her a reassuring smile.

“There might be. This is our first adventure as a crew and I think things are going pretty well.” This place was really beautiful, I can see why it’s called ‘The Garden’. Not that the giant vegetables, flowers and insects were the main reason for the name.

“You were almost crushed by a large beetle five minutes ago.” Flotsam muttered out loud as she continued to slowly slither after us, slithering was the best approximation for what she was doing and her tail loudly slapped against the ground with almost every forward motion made. “Also should we really be leaving the ship behind by itself?”

“It’ll be fine, that ship continues to survive me and that’s honestly the most impressive thing that it does.” I wasn’t worried about parking The Ardent Survivor where it was currently and leaving it unattended. “Just remember that we parked somewhere along the western side of the island.”

-Approximately five minutes after leaving, The Ardent Survivor-

All was quiet. The daylight shone down on the humble airship that sat in the grass.

An ant crawled up to the ship and stopped to stare at it. Eventually, the curious ant ran its feelers over the ship and thought that the ship might have somehow insulted its horribly fat mother.

The large ant pulled its feelers back and clacked its mandibles angrily at the ships side, then it leapt at the side of the ship flattening itself painfully against the wood. It then fell on its back and also chipped off a bit of one of its mandibles in the altercation.

The ant wailed as it flailed its legs helplessly at the sky, for its completely immobile opponent was far too powerful!

Apparently The Ardent Survivor was a merciful thing and didn’t take the ant in its clearly weakened state. When the ant recovered enough to stand up, it stared at the ship in awe.

The ant then ran its feelers over the ships side again, it felt that the immobile object had a point… its mother was in fact horribly fat.

Eventually the ant wandered off… only to come back with multiple ants several hours later.

Once the ants surrounded the ship, they all started bowing to it and clacking their mandibles in praise of the most powerful unmoving object in existence!

They didn’t seem to care that it talked about their mothers eating problems a lot whenever they studied it with their antenna.

-Nefer-

“Everyone stop for a second… I smell something yummy!” Everyone turned to look at me as I charged forward towards a mound of fertile dark brown soil, I scooped up some in my paw and threw it in my mouth. The taste of this soil was heavenly! “This is the best tasting soil ever!”

“Should we really be letting him eat dirt?” Sammy asked of Captain Blackcap.

“Nefer is part plant, we all know he can survive on water and sunlight alone.” Yep, Jacky knew all my best skills inside and out! “Eating apparently good soil wouldn’t actually be all that strange for him and it’s not like it’ll hurt him. That and he really seems to like it. Do you want us to scoop up some for later Nefer?”

“Would you really do that for me?!” I was excited, I’d have some of the best tasting soil around. I bet all the other plant cats, if they actually existed, would be incredibly jealous that I got to taste floating continent soil right at the source! “Oh, can I get a nice pot too?”

“Seems like Nefer likes the idea.” As he spoke, Mr. Eric moved over to scoop up some dirt into a pocket on the pack he was carrying. I mewled happily while rubbing up against him. “Okay Nefer, that’s enough of that. I get it, you’re happy. Which direction does the map say we need to go in?”

I pulled away from Mr. Eric and waited for Captain Blackcap to lead us to the treasure, she was brave and adventurous! Even when she was about to be hit by that large butterfly.

“Oof… can someone please get this oversized butterfly off me?” The butterfly seemed to really like Captain Blackcap for some reason, it was running its proboscis all over her. “It’s not hurting me, but it still weighs quite a bit and its affection is kind of freaking me out!”

“Shoo, go away, get off of her.” Mr. Eric barely raised his voice, but it was loud and stern enough enough to get the butterfly to crawl off of Jacky and fly off.

We soon continued on our way towards where that cape of windy farts could be. I wondered how useful it was, it sounded weird.

-Flotsam-

“Don’t look now Jacky, but your abhorrent admirer is following us.” I turned around to see the butterfly duck behind a large flowers stalk and peeked its big bug eyes out slightly. When it noticed us watching it, it went back into hiding and wiggled it’s antenna in our direction.

“Ignore it, I’d be wary of the more dangerous giant bugs around here following us.” Jacky looked around at the large plant stalks we were walking among and then back down at her map and compass held in her right talons.

“So a cape that is always blasting wind at you in the direction of the nearest threat, how useful could that be?” I wouldn’t mind some actual treasure, but Jacky did get her maps from the discount map shop. Still, the map lead to a really interesting place at least.

“Depends, does it insistently push you towards the biggest local threat in a way that you can’t handle? The cape must not have been very great, given its probably just sitting out in the open on this island somewhere.” After sending me a somewhat somber look, Jacky added. “If it’s a cursed artifact like I think it is, there’s bound to be something very lethal or highly wrong with it. It could still be useful if given the right leverage. Although I don’t think Cloudy Vision’s maps always lead to cursed artifacts…. because my bow certainly isn’t cursed and it is something my sister made incredibly special just for me.”

I would have to ask what Jacky meant later when in reference to the bow she always had on her, she clung onto that thing with an absurdly passionate manner. Given it was made by her sister, it was clearly very important to her.

Blinking when I saw a patch of regular trees move slightly, I knew there was a problem with that. Said problem with that, was that it seems there weren’t any normal trees around here at all.

Giant vegetables, giant insects and oddly average sized somewhat short grass, but actual normal trees? Nope, that wasn’t a thing here.

“Jacky what do you call a small moving copse of trees?” I tried to think of what the creature or creatures could be.

“I don’t know, I’m still trying to work out the name of what a ten foot pole eating blob monster is.” What was Jacky talking about?

“You’re still on that?” Gene muttered audibly as he looked to where I was keeping my eyes on. “Also those are not a trees, it is simply a bunch of tree sized walking stick bugs.”

“Yes, I am, now that you mention it! I can’t help it if no one will tell me the name of the thing that looks like a gelatin dessert made from stuff you’d find in a swamp.” Jacky continued looking at her compass as we passed through a field of small green leafy mountains, they looked like cabbages. “It’s rare enough that I only saw it once and that’s about as many times anyone ever sees it without having a viable ten foot pole apparently. If that’s the only thing it’ll eat, then I have to wonder how they are still around in this day and age.”

“Wait, the blob monster you described survives on ingesting only ten foot poles? Weird.” All things considered, despite how horribly sore my tail was getting from wiggling the rear half of my body, this was kind of a nice and peaceful place.

Very scenic were the view around here up on a hill, the air was fresh and I didn’t see any danger around us. The only thing that was paying us any attention is the large butterfly with the bright green and yellow colors. I had no idea why it was still following us around and pretending to hide where it thought we couldn’t see it when we looked back for it.

“How are you feeling Flotsam, are you getting tired? We can stop for a rest.” I know Jacky was asking in concern, but I felt like it was an insult. I was about to bite into her and then thought better of it.

“I’m fine.” I might not be able to move like an actual snake, but I was doing well enough that I didn’t need to stop.

“Okay then.” It almost seemed like Jacky didn’t believe me, but we continued on to an open field where we saw two large horned bugs fighting each other.

One was a rhinoceros beetle was ramming its face against a unicorn beetle, we decided to not go anywhere near the two while they were fighting each other so viciously like that. The rhino beetle had a tough horn and its mass was working for it, but the unicorn beetle defended itself with fiery explosions of light from a magical horn.

-Jacky-

The slowest among us was Flotsam, but she had a logical reason for being as slow as she was. Her body wasn’t made for moving around on land and she was forcing herself to do so.

At least Sammy seemed to like the bright colorful surroundings, this led me to wonder what a giant fruit from here would taste like. There were giant vegetables here and I’m quite sure there were likely fruit as well even without seeing any fruit trees yet.

Nefer was happy to have a pocket full of that rich looking soil, I’m sure we could always grab more for him on the way out and maybe grow some small fruit trees on our ship using some of that soil. If it was good enough for the giant vegetables, it would probably be good enough for regular plants.

This place is supposed to be moderately dangerous, but I wasn’t seeing it. Aside from the giant insects that seemed to ignore us as long as we continued to ignore them.

Gene had been quiet and particularly alert to our surroundings, he wasn’t letting his guard down. I was grateful that at least one of us could clearly stay concentrated and on the lookout for anything amiss.

I felt something pounce on me, sending my face straight into some mud. The thing started to tickle me, I yelped and giggling until the ticklish sensation went away when Gene body checked that crazy butterfly off of me and glared at it. The butterfly was properly spooked by Gene’s glare. It flew back into hiding and stalking us.

“Why do you suppose that butterfly likes Jacky so much?” Good question Sammy, I was beginning to fear hearing the flap of a butterflies… wait a moment...

“Quick question, do you know that age old story of a butterfly flapping its wings?” Not that I wasn’t curious about the storm going on underneath the continent, but that butterfly seemed a little too attracted to me. After wiping the mud off of my face, we continued onwards while avoiding a large white web by a good distance. “How much worse would it be if a butterfly that large flapped its wings around me?”

“If it could cause a hurricane up here… then it would get as bad as the constant storm that seems to keep this continent aloft.” Gene looked rather uneasy when he said that. “Whatever we do, we do not want this continent falling out of the sky.”

“I know for certain I wouldn’t want that to happen!” I clutched at myself and shivered violently. “Can you imagine how many places around the world would be devastated by a landmass this large hitting the ocean? Tidal waves would wipe out a lot of coastal towns, including the friendly little place where my sister was raised.”

“Where was your sister raised?” Huh… I didn’t think Flotsam would show any interest in us.

“Palicoast, which I think was shortened from Pal Calico Coast. Abyssinian town, nice place where the cats are friendly if not exactly entirely exciting in their daily lives.” I missed my sister and going on adventures without her felt like a hole was missing in our party that was going through a jungle of giant flowers and vegetables. “It’s a good place to relax, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I can see why my sister wanted to move to Equestria, she didn’t have much of a life brewing there. She couldn’t take the boring lifestyle of being a simple fisher cat or a sea side cook, though her wanting to become a charming rogue is still a little odd to me.”

“Will we meet your sister someday?” Yes, when we could find a way to bring her back to our sides Nefer. I’d love to introduce someone like you to her. I wondered how she’d act upon meeting a trident tailed plant cat like Nefer for the first time.

“Sure thing!” We were cresting a hill when I saw something quite odd, given it was at our size and not supersized like the general flora and fauna around us. “It seems we might be needing your ability to read things rather soon Nefer.”

The flying insects, bees, ladybugs, wasps, blow flies, moths and others like that which generally stayed high in the air weren’t a problem. The more dangerous ground based insects we avoided fairly well as we got closer to the grooved columns leading up to a temple like structure in the distance.

“Think this is the place 'The Cape Of Ill Winds' is at?” Flotsam looked up at the pillars and the path leading up to the temple.

There was a wide open area in front of the temple with a ton of pillars spread out all over the place, some of them were even broken and toppled and others were covered with large vines that had equally large grape bunches.

I consulted my map… distance, direction, yeah this seems like a good place to start looking. I mean when you have ‘us’ sized ruins sitting around, then it was obvious that something interesting could be found here.

“Possibly.” I answered evenly as we made our way forward. Only to have that darned butterfly jump out from behind the pillar in front of me and frantically whined as it bodily pressed me into another pillar. “Get off already! Ugh, what is with you?!”

We marched into the wide open space full of pillars set a good distance apart from each other as if on a grid system.

Halfway into the pillars, a loud roar sounded out and something leapt off the top of the temple. It slammed into the ground and the shockwave it made sent us scattering.

We were facing...

The Bombardier Beetle!

Author's Note

Bombardier Beetles are dangerous, especially when they are the size of party tanks.

Chapter forty, it’s a big world: Less curious.

-Floating Continent Temple Courtyard, Jacky-

If I remember right from my biology lessons, these guys are carnivorous. So a giant version is definitely not something we should be around when it was lunch time, like right now for instance.

The bug eyed bombardier beetle looked between us and then turned to me and opened its mouth, it then spat a stream of pale greenish yellow fluid.

I rolled behind a column and heard a sizzling noise as the chemicals it spat at me covered the pillar.

It spits acid… because of course it does!

“Nefer stay out of danger, you too Flotsam, unless either of you think you can help with this thing!” At least Gene currently held the spear and he would be quite helpful in fending off this monster. “I don’t think it needs to be said, but take cover and stay in it!”

It reared up and its butt loosed an insanely fast fireball on my position and once the fire made contact with the acid… it exploded.

The sudden shockwave went through the pillar and sent me flying back first from that pillar into another one. This did not help my healing injuries from the boulder incident and the new pain to my spine was quite excruciating.

So it also sprayed high speed fireballs from its butt, said fireballs made the acid it spits from its mouth explode violently. Said explosion also toppled the pillar I had been behind off to the side.

When did the things I have to deal with start including fire and explosives? I hoped this wasn’t a common trend for the rest of my life. The acid was new at least, which also just as lethal by the way it eroded the ground. The pillars could hold up to the acid at least, but not the explosions.

Were we seriously going to fight this six legged menace? Yes… it didn’t look like it was going to let us leave as it quickly moved over to me on its six legs.

Oh sure, it was the size of a small party tank and incredibly lethal, but that’s not all folks! It was also ridiculously fast on its six legs and it was about to spray me with acid. Said acid would probably break my body down to easily chewable protein rich bits for this thing.

It went to exhale and its head was knocked to the side and a spray of hemolymph came out of the gouge Gene had dug out of its face with the spear before pulling back. This had also sent the acid spraying off to my left as I slowly got up.

I starting running to the right for a few pillars as it started spraying fast flying fireballs into the air at Gene, he was having problems avoiding them as they came flying out of the beetles rear at high speeds.

Once I took cover I got my bow out and turned back to the problem.

I pulled the string while holding my bow in the sunlight and took aim, I let fly a blast of light directly into the side of its right eye as it turned about to keep track of Gene swiftly changing directions in the air.

My shot caused the beetle to lose its ability to aim, Gene avoided the next lethal salvo while it was disoriented and quickly got out of sight.

The beetle, regaining its senses in seconds, turned and leaped on to the pillars and started to walk across the top of them.

Upon reaching me, it looked down and reared up its abdomen. I ran for it as it sent out a waves of flames against the ground to encompass the area it was standing over.

I ducked behind a pillar as a spray of acid followed my egress. Again the pillars held up pretty well, but if they were hit with fire…

Gene rammed the spear into its abdomen creating a small rent there and a splash of hemolymph.

He got it to turn around by ripping the spear out and flying behind it.

It spat a wad of acid into the air, but it was not aiming directly at Gene which confused both him and me, then it fired a high speed fireball right into the acid.

The explosion hit Gene sending his smoking form spiraling into the ground where he rolled with the impact and slammed into a pillar.

“Generic!” Okay I think Jade’s nickname for him definitely fit, but that wasn’t important right now.

I stepped out and started rapidly firing blasts of light into its rear end as it went for the downed Gene. That wasn’t doing much damage and I wasn’t annoying it enough to get its attention back on me.

So aside from hitting the eyes, the oversized bombardier beetle was probably heat and light resistant.

“Come on, there has to be something in my tail quiver…” I had to have at least had something to hurt this monster enough to divert its attention.

Sharpened fork? No, not strong enough. Baseball? No, blunt force isn’t useful for its armored hide. Golf ball? Pretty rainbows, but no. A labeled vial of delayed instant… why do I even have this?!

The monster was about to spray Gene, who was trying to get up.

Never mind that it was the only one in my quiver, I was using it!

I put the vial to my bow string and launched it for a spot between Gene and the monster.

The vial shattered on the ground spreading the liquid everywhere in front of the monster.

The monster stopped inhaling to spray Gene down with deadly acid for second, just to stare at the fluids on the ground.

It then went to spray acid all over Gene, only for a one foot thick five by five stone wall to immediately pop up right into its face. This forced its head upwards and made it splatter its own head and body in acid.

The ever infamous potion of ‘Delayed Instant Wall’, brought to you by Kuril La Perm using classic zebra liquid magic.

I will never doubt the usefulness of such a thing ever again. I had before, when I thought you could have said thing made without the whole delayed reaction part. It seemed somewhat useless for something that was supposed to be instantaneous.

The bombardier beetle roared in pain. While the inside of its mouth may have been protected, its body thankfully wasn’t immune to its own acid and it stumbled back trying to shake off the acid burning through its exoskeletal hide.

Unfortunately the acid didn’t get in its eyes, because that would have made things easier for us wouldn’t it? At least its attention was now directly back on me and it looked quite angry.

Its smoking form turned to me and roared, it then open its abdomen and two wings slowly slid out and spread open.

Ah yes, I had almost forgotten that beetles can fly and that was clearly bad.

Once its wings were deployed, it took to the air slowly with its wings flapping rapidly. Okay, because of its size maybe it wasn’t capable of flying very…

It’s butt ignited and it rocketed high up into the sky and then curved around coming right for me. So it can not only shoot fire from its butt, but it also acts like propulsion speeding up its flying?

“You are without a doubt an evolutionary marvel that I wish I had never met!” As it strafed the ground with acid and fire from its rear creating. I was already running two columns over to my right as an entire line of explosions wreaked havoc where I was previously.

“Yeah, I’m not even going to try and fight that in the air.” Generic muttered as he landed next to me and the beetle monster curved around for another pass.

“Are you okay?” I asked looking at his scorched body.

“Could be better. Almost burnt out some primaries on my right wing, that hurt a lot. Thanks for the save Jacky.” Gene coughed out a bit of smoke. “Now think of a way to take it down quickly, before it decides to get even… worse!”

Gene grabbed me and flapped backwards several times as the pillar we were taking cover behind went up in several explosions back to back. The beetle had stopped blasting fire out of its butt and decided to slow down and actually aim both its mouth and tail at the same target.

It hovered menacingly over us as it prepared to fire another combined blast.

-Flotsam-

If I was going to be part of this crew, I might as well make myself useful and try to keep the whole misfit group alive.

I gagged as I finally swallowed the banana peel, the taste was always so horrible. At least the peels were somewhat nutritious if absolutely horrible tasting to me.

Pressing my left hoof ending in a useless floppy flipper against the end of the downed pillar, I imagined a bubble elongating and wrapping itself around it. I lifted my hoof slowly until I had the pillar lifted up and started pointing it towards that oversized bug.

Jacky said I wasn’t useless, I had better prove her right before she was rendered a pile of mushy bug food.

-Jacky-

Gene and I got separated by another explosion, the monster was choosing to come down on me thankfully. Gene looked a little more burnt than last time and didn’t look like he was going to get up in time to save me.

Didn’t know what Nefer or Flotsam were doing, but I could use someone’s help right about now.

The beetle inhale and reared its tail back while pointing towards me and then it let loose, only for the world to blur around me for second as I felt air beneath my body.

I blinked as I fell towards the ground slowly being held aloft by the annoying giant butterfly that was struggling to carry my weight and had used its momentum to sweep me out of the way of the blast.

As soon as my feet hit the ground, the butterfly quickly folded up its wings and whined as it pressed into my side insistently when the beetle turned towards us and away from its conflagration that created a large hole in the ground.

The bombardier was about bombard us again.

“Go over to him and help him up!” I pointed to Gene a distance away slowly propping himself up, the butterfly looked at me like I was crazy. “Don’t fight me on this, because we will be caught in the next explosion if we do!”

The butterfly kept its wings folded up tightly close to its back and ran over to the where Gene was on its legs.

Meanwhile, I avoided the next explosive acid bomb and several hundred fireballs spraying after me.

-Flotsam-

I didn’t exactly know how this works, just that it did. With both my hooves on the end of the pillar. I wasn’t exactly gripping with my frogs, but with the ability itself that had a short time limit.

Holding the pillar horizontally should have split it in half, something about my ability was holding it together when it should have snapped.

I now imagined launching the bubble wrapped around the pillar away from me as fast as I could make it go, then I mentally slapped the entire pillar into motion.

Something kicked me back and I felt a blast of invisible energy, as if something popped right in my face.

A second later, I felt the back of my head ram into something as my body rocketed backwards by the sudden force of whatever it was I had done. It wasn’t like I had researched my ability to lift heavy things all too well and this was the first time I actually tried something new.

Blinking through my currently blurry vision, possibly related to my current head injury, I could see that my hooves were empty.

The beetle was now missing its right wing and a section of its abdomen shell as something, most likely the pillar, kept going for a bit before nosing into the ground and sliding a good distance.

The beetles remaining wing couldn’t hold up its weight and it slammed into a pillar destroying the other wing as well and making it screech out in horrible amounts of pain.

Funny, I should have blacked…

-Jacky-

Holy Anointed Sardines, which absolutely no one ever talks about, did Flotsam just seriously do that?

I certainly doubted Nefer could throw something that big and at that speed. Looking over to Gene he was out of it and the butterfly was trying to help him stand.

I shook my head and got it back into the game… the Bombardier Beetle was standing up and I needed something to deal with it in a more permanent manner.

“What could I possibly do to… oh… wow… I’m so stupid!” I smacked my forehead with my left talons and then reached into the quiver at the base of my tail with my right talons.

I simply pulled out a matchstick. A cannon lighter wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

The beetle roared and looked towards Gene.

“Oh no you don’t. Hey, over here, ten points if you can spray me with acid!” Pocketing the match in the left side of my cloth pants, I pulled a fork and fired it right into the bombardier beetle’s antenna causing it more pain. “Come and get me you load of hot gas and air!”

The beetle turned towards me and moved forward inhaling, I pulled the match from my pocket and struck it against the ground. It didn’t light… why didn’t it light?! I struck it against the stone again receiving some sparks.

“Oh come on! I know you’re not a dud, come on, come on… yes!” Striking the matchstick several times, it finally lit brightly ablaze.

I, carefully, nocked it to the string of the bow I still had a strong death grip on and fired it straight at the beetle and not a second too soon.

It opened its mouth to spit a stream of acid and guess what this acid does when you introduce fire to it?

So I might have wasted that vial of delayed instant wall and should have thought of this sooner, but it wasn’t like I was in the right frame of mind to kill this thing when I was too busy surviving it.

The match went down its throat, it suddenly gagged and choked for a second looking quite perplexed.

A few seconds later the front half of its body started to glow brightly and started expanding in an ugly lumpy manner.

“Everyone cover your ear holes and hit the deck, it’s going to blow!” I threw myself behind a nearby pillar and curled up as tightly as I could while clamping my talons over my head.

The multiple explosions were loud enough to be deafening, violent and horrific sound with all the squelching noises involved therein.

With one last blast I could see the abdomen without the front half of the body flying off for a good distance where it eventually hit the ground and went up in a pillar of roaring flames.

“I think that went rather well…” I quickly stepped out of the path of a heavily damaged pillar toppling towards me. “Relatively speaking of course.”

Author's Note

So Grogar is a thing. The demon goat looks bigger than his previous incarnation... but is he just as evil as when he was ruling Tambelon? With Chrysalis and Tirek being shipped by Cozy Glow, I can't help but think shenanigans are going to happen with villains switching sides at some point.

I need an opinion on something, does the information below look correct? I want to know if I can follow the written rules below without a problem.

Flotsam's Whitecap Power- Temporary Tactile Telekinesis.

Requirement for activation- Eating nasty or bitter tasting fruit rinds or skin.

Time Limit: Five to Ten minutes, additive per required amount for activation consumed. The more consumed the more time acquired. I. E. consuming a whole Kiwi rind is about two minutes.

Major limitations- Stomach size, horrible requirements, ability to actually digest said requirements, time limit and physics.

Major strengths- Can throw or kick large objects beyond normal physical strength, can swing around heavy objects in melee range and can possibly fire smaller objects like bullets.

Flotsam can pick up any one or two objects under a certain mass using one or both hooves as long as she can visualize encasing it in a mental bubble. (May change if she becomes another species where applicable. Said species change might include hippogriff, shadow copy, ninja log, changeling, sentient blob of tooth paste, siren, sea-horse pony, a normal pony with the bends, Death Scythe Gundam and 'a' leviathan but not 'the' leviathan.)

There is a mass limitation to how much she can lift, it is partly tied to whether or not she can see most of the object in question.

Telekinetic kicks immediately pops visualizing mental bubble surrounding an object, otherwise it is easier to bubble a previously touched tactile telekinetic object. I.E. table demonstration a few pages back.

There is no recoil compensation if she telekinetically kicks something, depending on the strength of the kick she will take recoil damage. I.E. launching cannonballs will knock her over unless she's strong enough to compensate for the recoil. (Given she's a lithe sea pony, she can't truly compensate for much unless she builds up muscle.)

She can still physically give something momentum and release it without telekinetically kicking it, but it will not have the same strength or speed as a fully telekinetically kicked object. This method is safer as it creates no recoil from launching an object.

Point blank range is needed to interact telekinetically with objects, she has to physically feel the object.

This ability does not create a protective barrier nor can she protect against fast moving objects, she has to be solidly and 'actively' touching an object before she can manipulate it.

She can not telekinetically manipulate massive amounts of air touching her body to fly, at best she can create small breezes from the miniscule amount of air molecules touching her.

If an object is viable tactile telekinetic target and if it is larger than her, she can use said object to launch herself into the air on a mostly vertical arc provided she kicks the object in a downwards direction at the ground. I.E. If she were to sit on a boulder and then kick it with full force downward, she'd launch herself upwards from the recoil. (She obviously does not know she can do this yet and it won't take her long to figure out given what happens this chapter.)

Chapter forty, it’s a big world: Moderately curious.

Author's Note

Chapter forty, it’s a big world: Moderately curious.

-???, Flotsam-

“Mnnn… where?” I opened my eyes and saw a weakly grinning Nefer in my face, my head and body hurts. I also felt really weak at the moment. “Nefer, what’s going on and why does everything feel wet?”

Looking around I saw that we were treading water with Nefer clamping onto me and his blue leaves were all spread flatly against the surface of the water.

Wait… we were in water… deep water… we were in deep water! I felt my breathing start to quicken, I was going to drown! I don’t want to drown! Sea ponies are not meant to drown! I’d even be the first one to do so and it’d be nowhere near where someone could record it for posterity! I am very much hydrophobic right now!

I heard a shifting noise from above. It was a slowly lowering ceiling, which we also seemed to be moving up closer towards and then some spikes popped out.

“Uh… you’re having a really bad nightmare?” It wasn’t a statement, it was more like a question and Nefer seemed to be trying to convince me that this situation wasn’t as bad as it looked. “It’s nice to see that you’re at least alright big sis… well at least for the next minute or so anyway. Boy do those spikes look really sharp despite being rusty! I’m sure Captain Blackcap will get us out of this, it’s not as bad as it looks… really!”

We were in a room filling with water and lowering ceiling spikes… how is this not as bad as it… so weak… my last sight was my eyes rolling up into the back of my head and the spikes getting closer.

“Big sis? Flotsam? Sammy!”

-Some time later-

“Uhn… what?” I slowly sat up and saw both Jacky and Gene standing at a doorway leading to a wide open U shaped hallway full of boulders rolling back and forth.

“So that’s why I’m awesome as a flotation… oh sisters awake again! Hey there… how are you feeling big sis?” One would think you’d know better than I would Nefer. He licked my cheek affectionately.

“Look… I know your wings are burnt pretty badly, but we need you to fly over it and find a way to disable it Gene.” Jacky turned back to me when she noticed that I was awake and looking at her. “We’ll all be safe right where we are and I promise not to accidentally let my bad luck make me stumble into another death trap like the last one.”

Gene sent Jacky a searching look and then he sighed.

“Fine… just don’t die… you scare me sometimes Jacky.” I watched as Gene nuzzled his beak into Jacky’s neck and stroked her head feathers.

“It’ll take more than what life can throw at me to bring me down Gene. I’ve lived this long, a few minutes to disable the boulder trap won’t be that bad.” As Jacky hugged Gene tenderly, my eyes slid closed. “Also I might have garnered a slight phobia of large rocks after what happened in Turtle Toga.”

-Some time later again-

“Errg… why is everything spinning?” I opened my eyes and blinked as I saw black tail feathers and I felt my body pressing into Jacky’s shoulder.

“Oh good, you’re awake again Sammy. Quick question… how close is the horsefly right now?” The horse what? What was Jacky talking about?

I turned to look at her face as she turned her head to me… no she wasn’t looking at me… she was looking at something… oh my goodness! What was that horrible, horrendous and most hideous thing I’ve ever seen in existence that was currently chasing us?!

It had large fangs and solid red bug eyes, its head looked like a highly deformed ponies... I think I was going to be sick.

“Almost on top of us.” I weakly told her. Jacky ran slightly to the left and closer to the wall of corridor and that horsefly thing followed her movements. It slammed its head into the wall, both dazing it and slowing it down.

“Thank goodness that blood sucking monster is really stupid.” Jacky sent me a glance as she kept running. “Oh… looks like you’re blacking out again.”

I was doing what… again…

-Some more time later-

“Oh not now of all times!” Jacky sounded very distressed about something as I groaned out, my left leg felt like it was in a vice. “This has to be one of the absolute worst times for you to be waking up!”

“Ugh… my head is killing me….” I felt something gripping me tightly when I tried to move.

“Look… whatever you do… do not look up and try to move around as much as you can!” I blinked and looked up at Jacky clutching tightly to my left hoof with her right talons. Her left hand was currently occupied with holding the edge of something above us that looked like a walkway and all I saw was a stone ceiling full of bricks.

“Uh… why shouldn’t I look up?” I asked dazedly. “I don’t see anything up there. Also why would I want to move around a lot?”

“It’s so you wouldn’t look around in any other direction.” Jacky stated in a rather sincere tone. “You tell someone to not do something and they will immediately do the opposite out of habit. So I instead, I told you to do exactly the opposite of what I wanted you to.”

“That’s kind of leading isn’t it, I mean what if I took your order to move around more seriously?” I asked still feeling a little out of it.

“You didn’t though, it was a better idea than telling you to not look around at what is currently going on around us.” Jacky looked at me with slightly weak grin. “That would lead to you completely freaking out and falling to your death because you would make me lose my grip on you. Now that I brought your attention to it, please do go ahead and do that.”

My eyes widened as I finally came to my senses, I kept staring at the ceiling and tried not to look away from Jacky holding onto my leg above me in a death grip. I could hear lightning, rain, thunder, howling winds and a screeching noise.

My gaze slightly drifted from Jacky and I saw another walkway and storm clouds were vaguely just outside my vision… said clouds were below me.

Don’t think about it too hard… don’t look down De’ Brie… everything will be okay.

On the other walkway Gene was riding that large annoying butterfly that had taken a shine to Jacky and he was angling that spear for that vaguely familiar horrific looking monster. Said monster had Nefer on its head trying to gnaw through one of its antenna, for all the good his little cat teeth were doing to it.

My gaze slowly started to drift downwards.

“Don’t…” Jacky said sternly, I looked down anyway and saw myself dangling over a void of dark clouds full of arcing bits of lightning. I swallowed and tried to keep as still as I could as my hoof turned and gripped onto Jacky’s talons tightly. “Good… keep panicking calmly like that.”

“You know, you could let me fall and…” I was about to suggest sacrificing myself for Jacky when she glared down at me.

“Nope, we’re not doing that whole sacrificial act shtick!” Jacky looked weary and tired, but she was still keeping a tight hold on me… how long had we been hanging like this? In fact, I think she was drawing blood with how tight her grip just got. “I’m not letting you go, you’re a part of this crew and you will continue to be important to us damn it!”

“C-c-captain?” She couldn’t be serious right? She should just save herself the trouble of having to keep me around.

We heard a roar of pain and we both turned to see the horsefly thing falling towards the clouds. Multiple arcs of lightning leapt up at it before it could even touch them. We watched as its body was completely vaporized in a bright flashy manner.

“So… death would be relatively fast and painless at least.” Jacky said in a humorous tone. “I’ve had worse days.”

“Worse than being at the bottom of a floating continent above a storm of imminent death?!” I yelled over the roaring winds coming from below. My mane started blocking my view of the terrifying abyss that was below me.

“Yes actually… this has actually been one of my better days.” How can Jacky sound so conversationally bland in this situation?! We’re both about to die! “Not even in the top ten worst situations I’ve ever been in come to think of it. Well it would be the top if we fell, but it wouldn’t be that big a problem anymore at that point.”

“How are you not freaking out about all this?!” She looked down at me with a smile as that giant butterfly and Gene grabbed her arm and quickly heaved us both up onto the walkway.

I felt my belly slam into the surprisingly solid and sturdy stone. I took in a breath of relief and Nefer was soon upon me nuzzling his face against my neck. He was muttering ‘big sister’ over and over again with worry. I lifted my head and saw Jacky bending down, looking towards me with a smile on her beak.

“Because it all worked out in the… and… there she goes again.” What was Jacky talking…? “We’ll have… long… her… later… “

-A short while later-

I gasp and jerked upwards only to be forced back down by a surprising amount of soft burnt feathers.

“She’s awake again Jacky.” Gene muttered, I was apparently being carried by him now and we were in a corridor again.

“Eh… if she stays awake this time, then that’ll be a miracle. Now how do we get by this one?” Ahead of us, Jacky was rubbing her chin with her right talon and looking down a normal looking stone hallway. “Eh, nothing for it. Let’s stop to eat something to get some strength back.”

I actually managed to stay awake long enough to eat something, then promptly passed out again.

-A bit later than last time-

When I woke up, I blinked and sat up groggily. When looked around I saw a room full of gold, jewels and treasure. There was also a really big blue crystal jutting from the ceiling, I flicked an ear at hearing Nefer’s voice.

“It also says do not remove crystal under any circumstances on threat of world ending consequences… big sis is awake again!” Seeing Nefer’s ear twitch as I sat up, I looked at the large room beyond the group. “Are you okay how many parts of my tail am I holding up?”

“Two?” I said groggily rubbing my head with my right hoof and staring at my bandaged left, trying to recall why my left hoof might have been bleeding. It didn’t take me long to remember hanging over volatile storm of death and I wished I couldn’t remember it.

“No, that’s not… oh hey my tail is prehensile, I didn’t know that!” He looked back at his tail to see one part of the trident curled up behind him. “Do you think my tail is strong enough to carry or drag stuff with big sis?”

“Get back on track Nefer, is there anything else pertinent to this room that we should know about right away?” At Jacky’s command, Nefer went back to reading the wall.

“Nothing except don’t do anything to that large crystal, all this treasure here is kind of a bribe for whoever makes it this far. So long as we don’t touch the crystal we should be able to take whatever else we want.” Nefer looking over the strange symbols and squiggles on the wall. “Apparently it is one of four keeping this continent afloat and if even one of these crystals is removed, the entire continent could crash into the sea.”

“Right, it’s as we thought… we need to find a way to seal the entrance to the temple and this room altogether in case someone else comes along with the idea to mess with this powerful crystal.” Jacky waved her arm to encompass the whole room. “I’ll try to see if that, ‘Cape Of Ill Wind’, is here. Also nobody is to go anywhere near that crystal, do you hear me! Otherwise pick up and find whatever treasure you want while we’re here, because we’re certainly not coming back to this place once we leave. Otherwise, let’s do some treasure shopping and if you see the cape call for me about it!”

-Minutes later-

There was some pretty neat stuff here, I just raked some random gems and jewels into my pack and picked up a gaudy looking scepter. We’d be flush with funds for a while from this adventure, I even picked up this green tapestry with gold trim that looked like a…

“I think I found it!” Coming over to me took it to look it over, Jacky looked over it and the map.

“That’s it we found it!” She took up the cape and held it aloft. “Our first successful treasure hunt. Wonder how you activate this… whoa! Deactivate, deactivate!”

Jacky almost slammed bodily into the large crystal, when the cape jerked and started dragging her through the air towards the thing. She narrowly avoided hitting it.

“We definitely got what we were looking for, because the most dangerous thing in the room is hitting that crystal.” Jacky stood up and wiped the sweat from her head as she stowed the cape away in her pack and continued looting the treasure for two swords and a few other odds and end. “If everyone’s about done filling their packs, then come on and let’s get out of here before we do something stupid like I almost did!”

“Oh great, I’ll actually get to see every trap we passed on the way in.” I commented dryly. Sure I was only awake for a small portion of it, but something made me think that was better than having been awake for the whole thing.

I did get to see them all, the fire traps, rolling boulder traps and even the water and ceiling spike room. It was all a pretty straightforward jaunt back to the entrance of the temple with the large butterfly carrying some stuff for Jacky. If it was going to be following us around until we left, it might as well be put to work.

“How are we going to seal it off?” Nefer asked as he had dragged a large metal pot all the way back to the entrance with his tail. I think he was going to plant something in that pot… possibly himself.

Eventually, Gene thought up a good idea which required my help and one of the fallen pillars from the destroyed field of them from the whole giant exploding beetle monster thing.

I broke the walkways and the support structures in the hallways, all while backing towards the entrance and then collapsed that using my abilities.

I really did not like having to eat three banana peels to do it though and that made me a bit nauseous.

-Jacky-

“Okay, let's get back…” A giant bee swooped down and grabbed me. “Why is it always me-he-he-eeee?!”

Chapter forty, it’s a big world: Extremely curious.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter forty, it’s a big world: Bee-lieve it or not!

-Floating Continent, Nefer-

Flying is so fun!

No Nefer, concentrate, saving the captain now and fun later!

Wow, this butterfly can fly really high.

Those ants didn’t like The Ardent Survivor taking off from the ground. They weren’t really aggressive about it, just sad to see the airship go.

I still think they were all after my petals… now where’s that beehive? I mean there weren’t actually any trees big enough to house them here right? Just lots of flowers and giant vegetables. So where would… the mountains in the distance, of course!

“Butterfly, the mountains over there!” I pointed with a paw and the butterfly glanced up at me for a bit and then started flying in that direction.

It took thirty minutes, but I think I finally spotted it built into the base of the mountain. I had to go tell Mr. Eric!

“Let’s get going!” The butterfly made a cute noise and then we turned around.

-One hour later, Floating Continent Beehive, Gene-

“It’s still early enough that the majority of the bees haven’t come back from scouting out fresh flowers.” Parking on top of the beehive might have been a bit dangerous, but it was the best place to take off from.

“What if there’s more than one beehive and this is the wrong one?” Good question Flotsam, that’s why I already had an idea.

“Nefer is going to scout for us again, he should be small enough that they won’t register him as threatening.” This was me carefully planning a way to bring our captain back to the ship, none of this was safe given this was giant bees we were messing with. “Maybe they won’t attack him?”

“Right, anything to help Captain Blackcap!” Nefer was sadly the healthiest crew member we had for this, I seriously didn’t want to put the little guy in danger. “Wait, don’t I look a lot like a flower? Wouldn’t that mean that they would want to… what’s the word for it again? Oh right, wouldn’t they want to pollinate me? I don’t think I’ve ever been pollinated before, but I know it’s been mentioned around me a lot in reference to bugs that like to do that.”

I cringed. That thought had not entirely occurred to me and it kind of horrified me as to the things that could happen to Nefer because he was part plant. It was at that moment that I remembered that I sent Nefer off with the giant butterfly, which could have ended poorly given butterflies like to pollinate things too.

Maybe the bees would ignore him because he looked like a flower? Hopefully one that didn’t need to be pollinated. Given that Nefer was part plant, this was a likelihood I didn’t want to think of if it happened.

“Uh… the butterfly didn’t touch you inappropriately did it?” I asked carefully, while sending a side glance to the large butterfly who tilted its head in my direction curiously.

“No… why do you ask? I don’t think the butterfly would do something mean to me, it’s our friend!” The poor innocent Nefer thankfully didn’t realize all the trouble he could be in here. Hopefully he wouldn’t be in any trouble if I sent him into the hive.

“I know that Nefer, now go see if Jacky is in there.” Nefer went off, using the giant butterfly to get to the hives entrance.

Meanwhile, I turned to look at Flotsam whose eyes were a bit twitchy and wide looking. In fact, I think she just came to same realization I just did.

“And… you still sent him in there.” Sammy said after a minute of having a look of absolute terror on her face. I winced audibly as her gaze suddenly sharpened on me and she started throttle me with a surprising amount of strength I had never seen from her before. “You sent my little brother in there, if we weren’t friends I would end you!”

She choked the very life out of me for a few more seconds before she released me.

“Well look at it this way, since when do bee’s hurt plants or flowers? In fact some plants are bad for bees, maybe he’s one of those plants bees avoid?” I was horrified at what I just told Nefer to do, but it was hard to hear in my voice. “Just to clarify, I’m scared for him too.”

“He better come back with his innocence intact.” Note to self, make Flotsam care about more things as that can only improve on her need to live.

-Nefer-

“Hey captain!” I think I got Jacky’s attention, considering I was standing right next to her and even rubbed up against her affectionately. “What’s going on, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Could you go tell the others to on come in and to not antagonize any of the giant bees? They don’t mind visitors as long as they keep to themselves.” Jacky looked perfectly fine, but she was glancing around warily. “They’re not going to let me leave the beehive until we’ve settled the reason why I was taken in the first place. Get my pack outside to the butterfly so it can be unloaded. I don’t want to be carrying it on me if we have to make a hasty exit.”

“Why did the bee take you captain?” I asked Captain Blackcap.

“Well the reason is completely ridiculous, but I assure you it’s apparently a thing with these bees….” She trailed off as a bee looked at her curiously, it’s gaze narrowed on her slightly. She took off her pack and pushed it towards me, then she quickly backed away. She still had those two swords she picked up at her hips. “I’m not trying to escape, honest! Look just bring Gene and Flotsam in, I can at least promise you that they won’t attack. I’ll need them for a quick escape if I insult these bees badly enough with what they want me to do.”

I grabbed Jacky’s bag with my tail and started to drag it away, the bees didn’t do anything and let me leave.

“Butterfly, we need to get this back to the ship!” The butterfly swooped down and helped me get the bag onto its back.

-Ten minutes later, Gene-

The butterfly came in for a landing and Nefer hopped off, Flotsam was on top of him within seconds and hugging him tightly.

“Report… after you’re done cuddling with your big sister.” At least I knew Jacky was in the hive, I was fairly worried about her as I gently pulled her pack off the butterflies back.

“Jacky’s fine, but she wants you to offload her stuff and come inside… she also said to be prepared to run if she accidentally insults the bees too much.” Nefer was talking but I didn’t understand what he was saying, what exactly did he mean by Insult the bees? “Also if we keep to ourselves the bees shouldn’t attack us.”

In any case we’ll find out what’s going on soon enough, once we go into the hive.

-Inside the hive five minutes later-

“Okay, what’s going on Jacky?” I was wary of all the bees staring at us, but they weren’t acting aggressively.

“Well… how do I put this?” Jacky tapped her two pointer talons together and looked rather adorable doing so. “I’ve been kidnapped to be forced to take part in a dance competition meant entirely for bees.”

“What.” I don’t even… I can’t even comprehend how dumb that... to think a giant bee chose Jacky for this.

-Flotsam-

“What.” Our captain was going to be in a dancing competition for giant bees?

That… I don’t even... the words for it...

It’s utterly ridiculous!

-Nefer-

“That sounds awesome!” I hopped around Jacky looking excited, but then I realized something about our captain. “Do you even know how to dance Captain Blackcap?”

-Jacky-

“Aside from ballroom dancing, no.” Why was I receiving surprised looks? It’s not that absurd to think that pirates would… Oh right, they never went to pirate school. “Look, pirates kind of have a history of wooing rich men and women using ballroom dancing skills and etiquette when necessary. Its right up there with tactical social engineering, a subject most blackcaps barely pass given our curses tend to cause us to be social outcasts. It’s one of the things that is taught in pirate school.”

“When were you ever going to need ballroom dancing? I mean aside from something like what’s going on today that is.” Flotsam didn’t know me or the crazy pirate school very well did she? It’s just too bad that pirate school stops teaching as soon as you become a teenager.

“Ballroom dancing really helps with learning how to fight with swords.” I pulled out the sword at my left hip and swung the ancient weapon through the air several times in a pattern as I kept my footwork in mind moving with my swings. “Balance, precision, how to not fall over while dealing out a swift and powerful blow!”

After a minute of moving about and shadow fighting an invisible opponent, I stopped moving the sword with one last sweeping arc and stab as I bounded backwards. Sheathing the faintly off balance ancient blade I picked up from the treasure we looted, I turned to a few bees that stood up and started clapping their legs together in applause.

“In answer Flotsam, it lends itself to being good at sword fighting and apparently I have a few fans in the hive. Maybe this won’t ‘bee’ so bad!” My friend all groaned at me. “Oh come on! I know it’s a ‘buzz’ word around here, but you guys should be like ‘honey’. I know all of you can be both sweet and caring, Flotsam will need a little more work though.”

“Jacky, you’re a horrible person and we hate you now.” Flotsam moved over to me and put a hoof on my shoulder while looking me in the eyes. “Just go do your competition thing so we can quickly get out of here when you’re done. We do not want to be around these giant bees any longer than we have to be.”

“What are you talking about big sis, I still like the captain… even if her puns were horrible enough for you to say that and halfway mean it!” Everyone’s a critic, even Nefer it seems.

“When was the last time your luck shot you in the foot Jacky?” Odd question to ask, but I had an answer Gene.

“Well…” I started raising a talon, I couldn’t remember when my luck was last bad since I’ve been stuck here. Being surrounded by giant bees that you can easily make aggressive and being forced into a dance competition would be bad enough I guess. “The bees are enough I guess?”

“Let’s hope you’re right and that nothing is worse than watching a bee-bopping competition.” Gene slapped himself in the face with his claws after he said that.

-Hours later-

“I was right about nothing being worse than watching this competition.” Gene gagged at what we were watching. “A little too right, maybe even horribly so.”

“Who knew all the bees in this colony had five left legs and one barely good right leg.” Flotsam almost shouted in horror. “Their dancing skills are so horrible, it’s sickening to watch.”

“They are that bad.” Even Nefer couldn’t help but agree with his big sister. “Captain has it in the bag!”

“Let’s just hope they aren’t sore losers then Nefer.” A bee came over to us and nudged me forward, the last competitor sprained four legs and couldn’t even finish his dance.

The whole competition was a train wreck, I guess the reason a bee grabbed me is to at least have something more interesting than the horror show that’s going on here. So far I had garnered nothing but applause for my performances… and was almost the only one to actually finish said performances without halfway killing myself.

I took a step forward and put my hand on the blade in the right sheath. I hadn’t done any blade dancing, but this was the last round, at least it looked like it with more than eighty percent of the bee dancers having incapacitated themselves, so I saved the best for last.

I swung the sword from the sheath sharply and held it out for a second, then I pulled the other one and started to move. I hoped I was putting on a good show, the bees seemed entranced by my dancing at the very least.

Eventually coming to the end of my routine, I jumped into the air spinning with my swords flashing out and then landed with them held crossed in front of me and bowing before the queen.

I then stood up and sheathed my blades and held out my talons to the sudden buzzing noise of approvable going up all around the hive.

“So… do I win?” I asked the queen, the largest bee here. She nodded at me, then patted me softly on the head with a leg far bigger than my head. “Okay, so do we get some kind of prize? Like a container of honey and a trophy to take with us. Also you might want to find dancing schools that will be willing to teach giant scary bees, such as yourselves, your highness. I learned how to dance in Turtle Toga, a large island shaped like a turtles shell. Maybe you can eventually find someone to help your hive out?”

The queen held a leg up to her chin looking thoughtful, she was pretty friendly for someone so dangerous.

-Some time and a distance away from the floating continent later-

We had said goodbye to the giant butterfly and were on our way.

“That turned out surprisingly well, but where’s the bad luck in winning a dancing competition though?” I asked rhetorically, steering the ship and checking the next treasure map over for our next destination. I looked behind me at the floating continent in the distance. “Something would have usually gone wrong by…”

-Gene-

I blinked as a giant pinecone slammed into Jacky crushing her against the deck, but there were no giant pinecone trees on the floating continent. There weren’t even any giant trees there as far as we could tell from flying all over it.

Sighing, I moved over to roll it off of her and saw our large butterfly friend looking confused as it clung to the side of the huge pinecone.

Don’t question it Gene, just nod and move on with your life and accept that the butterfly was now going to be on the ship with us after we tried to leave it behind.

-Two days later, Jacky-

“Okay after a minor setback with an impossibly sized pinecone related injury to the body, it’s time we set course for our next destination... Saddle Arabia, we’re looking for a genies lamp!” Maybe I could wish my sister back? “Also, does anyone have any ideas on how we can lose the giant butterfly?”

-Port Turtle Toga, a few weeks later, Eir-

“Why is Eir seeing horde of giant friendly looking bees?” I asked loving husband as the sky was blackened by a number of giant insects.

A good number of the ships accidentally destroyed by them would be blamed on friend Blackcap, but she was nowhere near here.

It is quickly being learned that they are all wanting dancing lessons.

Author's Note

A magic lamp? That adventure will certainly take up the next twelve pages.

Also it couldn't be that easy... could it though?

Yeah, this chapter was planned to bee like this.

Thoughts on today's MLP episode:

The tree of harmony becoming a second tree castle/house. That was pretty much what I expected to happen or close enough to it anyway when I saw the episode was titled 'uprooted'.

Twilight's castle is already a giant 'tree of friendship'. So harmony changing appearance isn't hard to swallow after all the other stuff that's happened.

Chapter forty one, Sandy Situations: Stopping Power.

-Two weeks after leaving the Floating Continent, Palicoast, Jacky-

Our airship was parked outside of the city and Gene was already off doing things, while I addressed the rest of the crew.

“I can already tell we’re going to have a lot of problems in Saddle Arabia. So first off we’re going to pick up water before we head into those sandy territories, which is why we’re stopping here.” It was so nice to be back in the sunny coastal city of Palicoast. “Among the problems are going to be you Flotsam, and I guess the crews new pet Belfry. The heat is going to be horrible for the both of you, so we’re going to stock up on enough supplies so you can stay with the ship for quite a while.”

“What about my little brother Nefer, wouldn’t he wilt in the heat?” Flotsam looked particularly concerned… and somewhat confused? “You know, since it’s kind of hard to figure out how his bizarre biology will react to anything.”

“I like deserts, they are warm and the sun always fills me with a lot of energy and I can talk some cactuses into lending me a little water if I get thirsty! The ocean might be slightly better if only for all the water, even if it is a little salty.” We’ll just chalk that up to another oddity of Nefer. He’s got a lot of them, so talking to cactuses is not the weirdest thing we’ve heard from him. “The entire desert is also like one giant litterbox!”

“Apparently he likes surf and sand, Flotsam.” I commented idly while rubbing Nefer’s ears. He mewled and rolled over onto his back, exposing his belly entirely to me while giggling. “Belfry and you can watch the ship to make sure it doesn’t get taken. Gene and I can easily scout around for information. The map is pretty unclear on this one aside from the words, ‘within Saddle Arabian territory’ and a dot pointing to the general area. This one might take a while, and we will really want to get this one.”

“For the three wishes or is it just the one wish?” It seems Flotsam was already read up on the history on magical genies, they come in multiple flavors.

If this genie we’re after in particular happens to be cursed, I could care less about what happens to me if I survived making the wish in question. Provided that I can even make the wish to begin with.

“I’ll only ever need the one. If there’s three per person, then we had better make them all count. Maybe we can remove our blackcap curses? I doubt it would be as easy as wishing them away, they are kind of intrinsic to our natures.” Anything else other than the one wish might be far too much for the genie to accomplish and it would be somewhat greedy of me to expect more than my heart’s desire, I at least knew Jade would love to spend some time in the seedier places of Saddle Arabia with all the thieves and rogues. In fact Saddle Arabia kind of has a history about them. “We’ll be leaving Nefer on the ship while we do information gathering in Saddle Arabia, we do not want him wandering around to be kidnapped. Now let’s get into what we’re doing here at Palicoast. Everyone can wander for a few hours, but when it gets late everyone is to come back here okay? I mean it Nefer, if the sun is going down then your butt better be headed straight back for the ship! I’ll be busy talking for the latest news and doing some shopping in town. If you want something unusual or specific beyond your current funds, then come find me and we’ll hash out whether the extra expenditure is worthwhile. Gene is already out on supply runs for us and he’s sticking to his budget, whatever money you have is yours to work with and you are to use it responsibly.”

“Okay Captain Blackcap!” Nefer got up and ran off with a pouch of gold at his left hip on a belt.

“What are the chances that it’s a wish twisting genie, mom?” Flotsam added sarcastically as soon as Nefer was gone. It was only her, me and the Belfry the butterfly. The highly annoying Belfry would be watching the ship while we were busy. “One that makes wishes into curses?”

“Extremely high and almost certain with a one percent chance of error.” With my luck, it was a guaranteed fact. This genie we were going to find wouldn’t likely do anything positive for us even if we did become their ‘master’, for a given definition of it. I sometimes just wish my curse would let up on me and give my various injuries some time to heal, my body was still reeling from everything that happened on ‘The Garden’. Even my shoulder was still twinging with quite a bit of pain where I took that tiny cannonball from one of those clockwork golems on my way out of Port Turtle Toga. “I can imagine you wishing that you can breathe underwater and then you choking to death because you can no longer breathe air.”

“Yes, that sounds exactly like what a jerk genie would do to me.” It almost sounded like Flotsam had gotten her hopes up and I could hear them actively deflating with her voice. “He or she would completely misinterpret our wishes and twist them around on us to our detriments. How would a genie misinterpret, I wish I could swim?”

“They give you an easily destroyed inflatable pool toy to help you stay above the water, if they’re feeling generous it would be magically reinforced to be slightly harder to destroy than something store bought.” That was way too easy for me to figure out how to twist, when you make a wish with a cursed genie you had to be incredibly specific about your wish. “Do whatever you feel like Flotsam, just remember that we’d be sad if something bad happens to you. Also, please try to make a new friend here!”

We heard a chittering noise and turned to the one making it.

“Is that a squirrel?” Yes, but not just any squirrel Flotsam.

“Hello Rata, do you have a message for me?” The messenger god held out a letter to me.

Instead of taking the offered letter, I cuddled him against my chest for being the cuddliest god ever!

Rata didn’t fight it and nuzzled right into me affectionately, he was happy to see me too. Gene had better be on his guard or else this little rascal might steal my heart from him.

I did write back to mom and tried not to get homesick. I guess I was the captain of my own crew now and it was only just sinking in how important everyone was to me.

-An hour or so later, Chausie’s Cheeses, Jacky-

“It was nice to see you again Jacky and thank you for the purchasing of one of our finest cheese wheels.” Old man Chausie was a cat who seemed to fancy his cheese and crackers a lot more than most cats.

“Don’t mention it Chausie, my mom made some really good chowder with the cheese she bought from here last time… who is that cat talking with my crew mate?” Looking outside the window to the shop I saw Flotsam chatting with a tiger striped cat. “She looks familiar.”

“It’s Savannah, she’s going through another one of her phases. Nobody knows if she’ll ever settle down with a couple of nice toms.” Chausie chuckled audibly. “Who knows, maybe she prefers queens?”

It was none of my business if Flotsam was becoming friends with Jade’s old kitten sitter, she needed to socialize on her own… big flipper… and could take care of herself. Even if she was being led to the nearest tavern, likely to be pulled into a playful bar brawl.

-Palicoast Tavern, Flotsam-

“Well I don’t think it needs to be said, but most people can’t hit you below the belt.” The bar owner chuckled audibly as I glared at him. “Just try to keep it clean miss. You look like you could use a good, rough time.”

“You’re not at all surprised that I’m a sea pony?” I’ve been asking that a lot since I got here, most of the Abyssinians seemed to roll with my presence and thought nothing of it.

“If I’m less than surprised about what you are, then you should be too!” Savannah hugged me from the side and laughed brightly. I don’t know why she started clinging to me as soon as she saw me, but her exuberance more than made up for my trepidation of talking with her.

“Eh, you’re not the weirdest thing to come into Palicoast, this city is a place for all to rest for a while.” The bartender leaned towards me to give a stare. “So long as you don’t intend on hurting anyone too seriously outside of bar brawls, then we’re all friendly cats here.”

“Yeah let me show you how to get into a bar fight, it’s really fun and I’ve been practicing!” Savannah grabbed me by the right hoof and dragged me over to a battered looking stool. “No below the belt blows once things get started and back off if the bartender calls out when someone gets too injured. This right here, it’s the most sacred tradition of all bar fights… the throwing seat.”

I just stared at the Abyssinian with the black stripes and midnight blue dyed fur with sparkly spots in it. As soon as she set a claw on the seat, everyone in the bar stopped talking and turned to stare at us.

“Okay, listen up everyone! No claws, no attacking my friend here who’s not as maneuverable as we are and no attacks on us without challenging first. Said challenge actually needs to be accepted by the one being challenged!” Savannah had absolutely everyone’s attention, even the bartender who was gazing at us lazily. “I’m trying to teach this girl how to survive a fight, she can learn a bit just by watching all of you fish for brains and I want to show her how to put her weight into throwing a good hoof even if she only has two of them. She’s part of a pirate crew and she needs to learn some martial prowess, does everyone understand?”

Every other Abyssinian in the establishment nodded and narrowed their eyes while looking towards one another.

“Okay, with that established… let the chair be thrown exactly one foot.” She then tossed the chair more than two hooves away, in fact I don’t think the one foot thing was meant to be literal.

I didn’t know what to expect, but within seconds arguments started up about how far the chair was thrown and then the first blow was thrown.

“Okay see that guy over there, he’s keeping his balance using his tail and is staying too rigid which is a bad idea because…” A second later the one Savannah pointed out went down like a brick wall hit by a cannonball with a solid strike to the jaw. “Being rigid tends to hurt if you get knocked over. You paying attention? You’ll learn a lot from just watching us fight over nothing here, I’d like to think that some of us are much better than the capital guards in Panthera. Goodness knows we need better fighters in Abyssinia, being merchant based society doesn’t help if we get robbed constantly and are unable to defend ourselves.”

I would learn much over the next few hours, while also receiving two black eyes, a sore pummeled chest and I would be covered slightly in someone else’s blood.

In the end… it was actually really fun hanging out with ‘The Wild Savannah’. She was fairly attractive, blue eyed, took good care of herself and her tail was exceptionally fluffy.

-Much later, The Ardent Survivor-

“What happened to you Jacky?” I stared at a grisly, mangled looking Jacky.

“Lost a fight to a mouse, but at least it didn’t get away with my cheese wheel.” She groaned out and patted the perfectly fine cheese wheel.

“Yeah, we don’t talk about Jerry. We try to keep him appeased and out of our foodstuffs.” Savannah stated as she sat on the railing. “That little guy has been living in Palicoast for years and no cat has been able to oust him yet. We think he has a magically extended life… either that or Jerry’s descendants all have a stupidly strong family resemblance.”

“Savannah, you were my sister’s kitten sitter right?” Jacky seemed to give Savannah something approaching a fond look. “Why are you on our ship? We’re about to settle in for the night and we’ll be heading towards what will be a highly dangerous adventure when we wake up.”

“I’m here for an interview of course, your ship seems to be lacking the most important crew member you could ever have... a morale booster than can dance and sing!” Savannah grinned brightly as Jacky sent her a sharp look. “Also I’m fairly good with giving medical aid, as long as I don’t have to do more ‘invasive’ forms of surgery. I’m good in a fight with my bare claws and I can even cook a little bit.”

“Full name?” Jacky asked after a moment.

“The Wild.” Savannah state cheekily, before flicking her ears in an innocent manner. “Savannah. The patent on the first part of my name is still pending in Panthera’s court systems. They don’t want me to get any recognition for it or to let it go to my head, but they’re already too late for that!”

“Why should I let you join this crew?” Jacky watched as Savannah placed a pack full of goods down and leaned against it. That looked like a promise that we weren’t going to leave without her even if Jacky says no. “You act like Jade got to you more than a few times.”

“Now that’s just uncalled for… even though it’s completely true! Loved the green haired kitten like she was a little sister.” Savannah looked falsely insulted as she put her claws to her chest, she idly ruffled her red vest and red cloth pants afterwards. “Catfish was a breath of fresh water around here, even if she’s a whale shark magnet. I should join, just because I’ve always wanted to visit Saddle Arabia! Heard it from your strange flower cat and then met this lovely, interesting sea pony. You guys sound like a lot of fun and I’m not taking no for an answer!”

Belfry chose to come up on deck, then Savannah and our butterfly stared at one another for a second. They practically leapt at each other and started hugging one another.

“I’m going to completely regret this…” Groused out Jacky as she threw her still bandaged talons to the sky. “It’s unfortunate that we really need someone that can cook and perform medical aid.”

“Oh don’t be such a sour puss… we have enough of those around Palicoast as it is sometimes!” Savannah giggled as Belfry’s proboscis stroked her face affectionately. “Goodness knows the vineyards need some sweeter tasting grapes.”

“I should tell you what happened to Jade…” Jacky stated grumpily. “That would bring your mood down significantly.”

“Try me.” Savannah challenged while leaning forward and staring into Jacky’s eyes.

Author's Note

Omake… it means 'bonus' or 'extra'!

A wild 'Savannah' appears.

Jacky sends out giant butterfly Belfry to fight!

Belfry uses HUG... it's about as effective as you think it is.

Jacky laments that she should have hired a diamond dog onto the crew.

Chapter forty-one, Sandy Situations: Common Power.

-A day later, The Ardent Survivor, Captain’s Room, Gene-

“We now have the cat that was crazy enough to kitten sit Jade when she was younger.” It seemed my thoughts were mirrored in Jacky’s expression. “Well, I just hope she doesn’t cause too many problems.”

“If Savannah somehow survived Jade as a kitten, I’m sure she can survive us and take care of herself. She's a top twenty bar brawler for Palicoast. Kuril was top five and Jade was working her way up into the top hundred.” Here Jacky sighs audibly. “She’s also handy with medical issues and can cook a little bit, don’t expect five star meals like what mom does.”

“Well we can’t honestly expect anyone to be that good, with some exceptions being cutie marks and or other magical cooks.” Honestly there were a lot of good chefs in the world, but I doubt anyone has tasted a witch’s brew that was meant to be eaten. ‘Witch’s brew’ tends to have negative connotations, unless it was Kuril you were talking about.

“Savannah certainly has personal space issues too, in the fact that she doesn’t seem to know what personal space is.” What Jacky wasn’t saying was that Savannah was easily keeping Nefer, Flotsam and Belfry in line. Kitten sitting certainly gave Savannah an almost preternatural sense for when someone was getting into or causing trouble. “So how do you feel about her going into the field with us while we leave a butterfly, a sea pony and a plant cat all alone for who knows how long?”

“We’ll try to keep it short to twelve hour scouting intervals, besides we’ll be parking in a major Saddle Arabian city. All the wood on this ship is reinforced, so it’ll be pretty hard for someone to attack without us noticing or getting our three crew members off it first.” I was actually including Nefer in that. Nefer was cheerful and small, but you should never underestimate his possible ingenuity or intelligence. “Belfry would make an excellent guard actually, now that I think of it.”

“Really, why? Also I’ve been quiet about it, but what gender is that butterfly exactly?” Jacky was talking, but I was getting a bit lost in her eyes. Her feathers were also quite clean today, she preens fairly well for not having wings to dig her beak into. “Well?”

“Oh… um… in general female butterflies are typically larger, known to have rounder wings and er… butts. The takeaway is that he’s male and he likes you for some reason.” I coughed into my left claw trying to not think about it. “Anyway, you remember how I told you that Belfry secreted a scent strong enough to confuse giant ants, that’s also something males are more known for. Thinking on that further, if we take it to the logical conclusion we might be able to teach Belfry to spray our enemies with horrible scents to act as a warning. After the warning, he can spray something that is effectively disabling and more toxic. We’d have to train him to do that and he seems like a smart bug, so I’m sure he’ll pick up on what I’m trying to get him to do.”

“You have my go ahead to train him to do that Gene.” Crossing her arms and leaning back in her hammock, Jacky was still clearly against Belfry being on the ship. “Just remember that I don’t like him nearly as much as everyone else, even if he has saved me a couple of times.”

“Are you still mad about that giant pinecone?” Why did I ask that, I know how she’s going to react to such a question.

“Where did he even find that giant thing and how did it gain the safe velocity it had to only smash me into the deck?!” Yep, that got Jacky started. She was ridiculously sturdy and had about as much a high tolerance for pain as Jade. The fact that she can even walk around and rant about it meant that she’d be fine, even after her recent run in with a demented sounding mouse from the way Savannah explains it. “I know my curse was involved, but seriously? Why is it always pinecones, poisonous horse chestnuts, all the nonnative trees to the given area falling out of the sky on me, getting bombarded by moderate sized olive branches dropped by a pack of overly aggressive ducks and there was even an excessively thorny rose bush from Fillydelphia that somehow ended up smashing into me when I was five! I was on an island hundreds of miles away from the place, the only reason I knew it was from Fillydelphia was because of the tag still attached to the bush in question!”

Note to self, when romancing Jacky further, don’t buy her any roses.

“Calm down Jacky everything will be fine.” She needed a hug to cool down and I was the griffon to give it to her. Pretty parrot aside, this was always comfortable. She probably needed some crackers to chew on… or would that be stereotypical and stereotyping? She started to relax and hug me back. “Quick question, do you like crackers?”

“Most parrots do, but not all, I enjoy flavored crackers and anything without an additive zing to it tends to be just horribly bland.” Noting that down too, Jacky was becoming a lady I’d follow into the depths of an endless abyss. I would do so not because she’s strong, not because she’s beautiful, not because she’s intelligent, but because she’s always got heart under all kinds of duress and suffering. “Wait… why do you ask Generic? No, never mind, let’s just go get me a snack. It’ll be a few days before we arrive in Saddle Arabia.”

-One week five days later, Saddle Arabia, Neighgrabah, Jacky-

Several delays include buzzing buzzard attacks, literally raining live cats and dogs, being attacked by a hungry Roc that apparently just ate an elephant and we probably had angered a Sylph along the way somehow as we kept getting blown off course.

Generic had been particularly attentive of my needs lately, even when he was busy teaching our guard butterfly. Yeah, there was no way for that to sound very threatening, unless you saw for yourself what that butterfly could do to someone.

In any case, Belfry was definitely capable of generating slightly hallucinogenic chemicals to spray at targets. That led to me spending a few hours thinking I was a gerbil. However he did it, Gene’s training certainly went by pretty quickly. Not surprising given the butterfly was moderately intelligent while still being animalistic, kind of like those bees I met.

Gene had flown ahead when we arrived and talked to a few Saddle Arabian ponies about airship parking. We had arrived at the walled in city of Neighgrabah with the assumption that airspace around here is to be respected. We’d be correct about that.

We just landed The Ardent Survivor outside the city, because parking is free outside the city. Inside the city walls is different story and particularly expensive.

Saving on cost was a good thing and we parked close to the city wall. The ship couldn’t be easily approached from the side the wall is on and all other sides could be protected easily, however, we also parked far enough from the wall so that nobody could jump onto it.

Our current objective was to discretely find information on our target. If it was known we were looking for a genie, we’d have people coming out of from all over to try and take it for themselves or the information we have on one being present. I’m sure people would even kill to find information on this, even if the genie only grants twisted, faulty wishes.

“You sure you guys will be okay?” I turned back to Flotsam who nodded as I made my way down the ramp, I tripped to get a face full of sand. “I’m okay... the sand broke my fall, with most of my face and beak.”

“We’ll be perfectly fine Jacky and the ship will be intact when you get back, can you grab me something to read while you’re out?” Flotsam looked over to Nefer who was playing around with potted dirt, if I remember right he bought some fruit back in Palicoast to grow small fruit trees. Thanks to some encouragement, they were actually growing. “I’ll make sure Nefer and Belfry don’t get into trouble.”

“I’ve heard that before!” Giggled a bright and cheerful Savannah as she walked down the gangplank. “Wow is it hot out here? Nope, that’s just me being beautiful!”

Savannah strutted forward, slowly shifting her hips side to side while coming up to me. She was wearing a Saddle Arabian cowl that covered her eyes in the bright morning sun and had on a red silk shirt that didn’t cover her belly and loose fitting pants. Light durable clothing made for the desert, she was certainly prepared.

I had on my black skullcap, my feathers were pulled back into a single large braid instead of my normal braids and I was wearing a bright purple vest and cloth pants.

Gene just had a grey scarf wrapped around his head to keep the sun out of his eyes and that was about it for him.

We walked along the wall towards the city gates.

First order of business, get into the city and slowly look around for the bizarre… good place to hear information and we’d be doing so quietly without asking questions to start off. Someone else could drop something we needed to hear if there were rumors going on around here.

“Halt… ah, the griffon asking about parking.” One of the four gate guards moved forward, two outside and two on the inside of the gates. Good system, but Jade would climb over or go through the high walls. “State your purpose here.”

“Business.” Both Gene and I were completely in sync with another, even in bland tones.

“Pleasure…” Savannah purred as she sauntered forward past the guard while sliding her tail up under the pony guard’s chin. She flicked him with the tip of it when his nostrils flared, the guard blushed and rubbed his nose while backing off. “I’ll be doing some business with my associates. We’re looking to enjoy the market place and a few bars, but I also wanted to have some fun. Tell me, do they do belly dancing classes where you can earn money while taking them?”

“O-of course beautiful, I mean ma’am… I’m sorry that was clearly unprofessional of someone in my station.” The guard was having a hard time looking at Savannah’s feral grin as she stretched out her arms upwards. “We need to check you for contraband before you can go in, we will also be checking you on the way out.”

“Go ahead, I’ve nothing to hide handsome.” She fawned over the guard who was starting to cower at having earned her attention.

“I believe that will be my job ma’am.” The female guard next to the male one stated with a no nonsense attitude. “Name? We need to write it down.”

“The wild… Savannah!” Savannah threw her arms up theatrically into the air as she moved over to the mare and rubbed up against her sensually. “You’re certainly an adorable mare, do you want to search me… somewhere more private maybe?”

The mares face exploded with a darker red, we had thought that to be impossible given her fur was already bright red to begin with.

“M-m-ma’am… I would respectfully ask you to control yourself.” The female guard wasn’t having any luck with Savannah’s attention either. Savannah started scratching the poor mare gently behind an ear making her groan out somewhat. “Please stop... you can go on through already!”

“Aw… but I thought you wanted to get your hooves all over my body!” Here Savannah gave the poor guard a sad eyed look.

“Just go, you’re clothes are too thin to be concealing much of anything anyway!” The mare guard was turning even redder, something I thought was impossible, while clenching her eyes shut as Savannah sauntered off with her paws on her hips and humming to herself. The guard turned to us. “Is her name really…”

“Unfortunately, yes, that is her name. Apparently she’s trying to get a patent on it and the court systems are dragging their heels on it.” I stated dryly, like the atmosphere around here. It was hot, oppressive and I wanted to get into the shade of the city to start doing some information searching. “Even when I told Savannah some rather bad news, her personality is just too strong to let it get to her. As a travel companion... she likes to invade personal spaces.”

“That... was hot.” The male guard stated.

“Shut up you!” The mare pointed at him. “Ahem, right... name?”

“Blackcap.” My answer startled the mare for a moment and she gave me a long curious stare.

“Is that part of your actual name?” Nodding to the guard, I waited for her to check me over. “You wouldn’t happen to have a…”

A knife fell out of the sky interrupting the guard, said knife embedded itself in my thigh from behind me.

I just looked at it and shrugged, the only sign of pain I showed was a small hiss.

“Curse…” The female guard stated as she looked beyond, trying to see where that knife came from. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Yes, but can we hurry this along please?” I stated in a completely conversational tone. “By the way I do have a curse. I happen to attract bad luck, lots of it. So I apologize in advance for anything that explodes, is set on fire, or does both and then turns into a tornado.”

The mare checked me over, then got me a medical expert to have the knife removed. I was of course going to keep said knife as it had embedded itself into my leg after all, might as well make the most of it.

“Well there’s nothing of great concern here… pirate… so against my better judgement you may go through.” The guard gave me a sharp searching look, I think I might have passed some sort of test when I didn’t react. “Watch yourself on the streets here Blackcap, there are plenty of reasons that we will let some weapons by us. Thieves roam these streets and if your business is with them, then you better not be caught stealing... even if from them.”

“Don’t plan to stir up trouble, but be prepared to duck and cover when it eventually finds me.” I sauntered on in and Gene finished talking to his guard almost when I did mine.

We moved forward into the bazaar to look around a bit before trying to find a tavern or bar to hear some local rumors.

-Savannah-

A small mare suddenly bumped into me and then ran off, I smiled after the hungry waif and waited.

Eventually the cloaked street mouse came back to me glaring, she held up the decoy pouch she got off me. I held up a pouch full of money that I pilfered off of her.

“Nice try, I used to know a little rogue that tried to steal my money all the time.” I snickered as I crouched down and hugged the child. She squirmed a bit upon contact. “Let me buy you some food sweetie, then I’ll let you go...”

Chapter forty-one, Sandy Situations: Knowledgable Power.

-Neighgrabah Bazaar, Jacky-

Thinking on what Flotsam’s request and because I wanted to be a good captain for boring her with Belfry and Nefer, I stopped at a book stall to make a purchase.

“What do you have that’s long and would take forever to read?” The stall owner gave me a friendly smile.

“Ah, something that would take a long time to read? I have just the book, one thousand and one Saddle Arabian tales. Some of them are even said to be true or as close to the truth as one can get.” This modestly plump pony behind the counter was trying to stoke my curiosity. “Genies, magic, mystery and monstrosities, some history even, all can be found in this book of ancient tales. Why I think I even saw an interesting Abyssinian not too long ago. Whether she be a merchant or an entertainer, she reminds me of one particular Abyssinian in the history of Neighgrabah. Do you wish to hear a small sample, maybe it will make you keener to make a purchase, yes?”

“It’s like your trying to sell me something, I just know it.” My reply made him blink. It wasn’t like there were a lot of customers lining up for this book stall, he apparently had several copies of old Saddle Arabian lore and they looked pretty beefy reads. “Sure, go ahead, I’ve got plenty of time. I’m in no rush and might be here for weeks.”

I sat down and tried to ignore the din going on around me as various species haggled and focused more on the pony before me.

“Good, good, my dear customer, settle in for a tale of Mirage the elusive and vile sorceress.” The pony cleared his throat. As long as my curse didn’t act up I was interested to hear what this story was about, I had an interest in Abyssinians. “Back in ancient times Abyssinians were a rarer sight than they are nowadays, this one in particular was an ancient evil awoken from her slumber by some stupid thief.”

“Yeah, that tends to go around a lot in Equestria apparently.” My comment made the stall owner twitch.

“Be that as it may, this story is considered to be very much true!” The stall owner chastised me and I was going to take all this with a grain of salt anyway. “In ancient times there was an Abyssinian who was separated from all she loved, in turn she started to hate the concept of love itself and she gathered dark magic to become a feared and destructive sorceress. She was sealed away to one day be woken up by the thief I talked about. One of the many things she did in the name of evil was try to disrupt the courtship of a street rat turned prince named Ballad Din and the noble princess, Jasmine.”

“I’ve heard of something like that a few times.” Being a pirate I grew up on fantastical tales, mostly pirate related stories.

“Yes, but I assure you that you haven’t heard this particular tale! For you see Mirage poisoned Jasmine with a powerful mixture that turned her into a lamia, a snake pony that had sharp poisonous barbs all over her body.” He looked a bit grim for a second. “Thanks to that, she could no longer touch the one she loved without the danger of her poisonous barbs harming him and she saw herself as a monster that couldn’t be loved.”

“I can already tell where this is going.” I received an intrigued look.

“Oh?” The shopkeeper asked.

“I’m assuming that having barely survived the poison of his lover’s changed form, for how else would they figure out that Jasmine had poisonous barbs to begin with, Ballad Din did the only thing that would make sense to do at the time if he was truly in love with Jasmine.” I figured it was something that Jade would absolutely do for Maries and Fizzle, she’d make almost any sacrifice to stay with them if such a situation occurred. “He truly loved Jasmine, so he decided to make a sacrifice to be with her… he turned himself into a lamia pony too using the original mixture that changed Jasmine in the first place. Thus he would be immune to his lovers poison by becoming the same poisonous monster. So was their love proven true?”

“Ah… so you do! Now for the rest of the tale. The two lovers embraced, trapped forever in their monstrous forms for the rest of time… until a pony that believed love can conquer all more than anything else came along and returned them to their normal forms.” The shop keeper eyed me expecting me to know this, I didn’t. “His name was Far Seer a powerful mystical cyclops pony who wore bandages over his eye to hide his true nature, he was often seen in the form of a beggar or old stallion and was always mysterious in his ways. Unfortunately, I heard tale that he died of a broken heart when the one he truly loved was finally struck down for her evils. If you want to know more stories…”

“I buy the book. Right, how much?” It better not be too much.

“Ten bits.” He grinned at my sudden disbelief. “There are many books of these stories, they are relatively inexpensive.”

I paid for the book, Nefer and Flotsam might get some good bonding moments out of it if anything.

I continued to look around the bazaar and listen in for gossip of the surrounding people as I randomly browsed.

-Savannah-

I’m not much of a thief, I just know how to catch one off guard.

Seeing a little mare so hungry was disheartening, but that’s sometimes life here I guess. This city was built entirely on commerce in imports, exports and rare finds. The place was beautiful at least, so many short stone buildings sprawling across the city barely three stories in height each.

“Do you want some more?” I asked the cloaked filly, she nodded and I bought her some more food. “I don’t care what you do with it, just make sure it doesn’t go to waste. Now run along and stay safe, I have some dancing to go do. Also don’t always rely on strangers like me too often, but don’t deny help if you think you can trust someone. No one deserves to be alone in this world.”

I stood up and walked away from the restaurant my money a little bit lighter than when I entered. The little pony might be watching me leave with something approaching curiosity. I didn’t care, I did my good deed for the day.

Walking along the street, I started humming a tune to myself until I saw a shop being run by a familiar face. The famous Traveling Neko, the shortest Abyssinian curio and sundries seller ever.

“Hello… what are you doing here?” I asked as I came up on him, he sent me a broad smile.

“As I always do when I travel around, I’m following my nose for profit pretty kitty!” Neko said with a wink up at me. “If you need something rare, then I might have it on paw. The weather is just purr-fect for some desert trading today.”

“Can I ask for some information for free Neko or are you going to charge me?” The fact that my question was being considered was telling, he’d absolutely sell the information if he thought it was worth his time earning money from it.

“If it’s important information, then yes, I will have to charge you for it. If it’s directions to the nearest place in the general area… well I’m not a tour guide, but I’ve been all over this city well enough to know where everything is at.” That’s Traveling Neko for you. He might work a hard bargain for something you may need, but he was always congenial about it. “A fine feline queen such as yourself might need to know a thing or two on good will. I’ll never know when you might become a lucrative paying customer, so helping you now may lead to a much more profitable encounter later on.”

“That and you will charge me a lot for whatever I could buy from you next time we meet, provided I seriously needed something right that instant. The only exception I’ve heard about you, is if you were directly put in danger and needed saving.” I ignored his smug little smile, he was always in the right place to help a hero or traveler when they were down on their luck. Advice was free, but outright getting help from him was a premium. Whatever he currently had on him was to be of decent quality as he never sold anything that wasn’t worth the slightly exorbitant costs. “That said… give me advice on where not to go, on where I can get some information cheaply and tell me a little of Neighgrabah. I always wanted to visit Saddle Arabia and now I’m getting my chance to do so.”

“If it’s just advice and a general lay of the land, that’s free.” He cleared his throat and resettled the sack he carried on his back. “In that direction is the section of the city known as the Thieves’ Quarters, don’t go there unless you have something you need to steal or buy black market style. Guards don’t patrol around there much, mostly because they don’t want any daggers to the back. I suggest staying out of that area completely unless you have good reason to go there, you’ll know when you’re in the Thieves’ Quarters when you see the symbol of an eye with a coin drawn inside the pupil.”

I nodded, I would avoid that area unless I had to go there.

“The bazaar is always near the entrance and the market place district is mostly central leading up to the palace and some of it is in the opposite direction of the Thieves' Quarters leading into the Merchant’s Quarters.” Okay from the entrance and to the left are merchant’s, to the right thieves and down the central road is the marketplace, part of which leads to the Merchant’s quarters. “The entertainment district is in the corner next to the Merchant’s Quarters, thieves only show up there if they have money to spend. To the right is the fountain and Main Square of the city for the steps leading up to the palace. To the immediate right going towards the palace is the Noble’s Quarters, the most heavily guarded place considering the Thieves' Quarters nearby.”

Thieves’ Quarters is next to merchant and nobles… which makes a lot sense, like how entertainment is between nobles and merchants. As for housing, it was clearly all over the place in every section of the city.

“Thanks for the information, do you know a place where I can learn some dancing and earn some money at the same time?” Apparently that was the right question for me to ask, Neko gave me a broad creepy smile.

“I know just the place in the entertainment district, I take it your only doing this for the culture?” Nodding to him, he smiled at me and motioned for me to follow him. “Well come on then, I might actually get some money from this referral. I can even get you a good deal on a bag of dates, a local delicacy they are!”

-Gene-

I last saw Jacky talking to a book seller in the bazaar and who knows where Savannah got off to. I probably didn’t want to know what Savannah was doing. Me, I was currently looking into the most notorious section of the city, known as the Thieves’ Quarters.

I looked at the symbol of an eye with a coin in it, beyond this point is rumored where thieves are said to roam in high numbers. I didn’t have anything on me worth stealing aside from the protective scarf wrapped around my head, that and I was a griffon. Messing with a griffon was a bad idea, especially when that griffon had Vikings in his blood.

Entering this section of the city, I eventually found a seedy little place and saw something of grave interest. There was an old friend of Jade’s sneaking into the establishment, in fact she was there when Jade was taken from us.

What was the familiar face of Daring Do doing here of all places?

Moving across the street to lean up against the wall and idly gazing into the den of thieves, I saw another pony I didn’t have the pleasure of digging my claws painfully into yet. After he had tried to kill Jacky, I wouldn’t be able to trust him being here for anything other than nefarious purposes. Teatime Clockwork, with two clockwork pony golems protecting him.

There was also a large blue, long faced monster with a tail that ended in four digits with a bunch of dangerous looking felines who seemed to take interest in Clockwork's golems, anyone who’s interested in befriending an agent of GODLESS was not a good thing.

Having read some of Daring Do’s less than fictional, but still embellished, novels, I could also see Doctor Caballeron and his cabal of several pony goons were also here. This gathering looked dangerous and I should try to listen in on what was going on here.

How to approach the thieves den though… maybe I could find one of the stronger looking guys and knock them out? I’d have to be entirely nonchalant about it though.

I moved to the doorway and looked inside, those three were currently enjoying themselves and the felines were keeping mostly to themselves as long as no thief approached their table to try and listen in on their conversation.

I picked a target close enough to their table and walked up to a dark furred stallion.

“May I steal your money?” I asked politely

“What are you a…” He was about to say ‘amateur’, but my curled right fist slammed across his temple dazing him. I dug my claws into his mane and bounced his head off the table. He fell out of his seat and I proceeded to loot him.

All the thieves stared at me in disbelief and then started ignoring me after a solid minute, must have hit a high profile target… darn it. Having stole the guy’s belt and money, I sat down.

“I need a bottle of any beverage that is of a questionable quality, any will do as this guy got a little too drunk and is paying.” I pointed out the unconscious pony, quite a few thieves were gawking at my audacity. No one, thankfully enough, was willing to call me on it though.

Eventually I received my bottle from a frightened thief, I grinned at him innocently as I paid him lucratively and sat back to listen up for what was going on with the trio.

“Ignore the strange thief, I have information that may be mutually beneficial to us.” Caballeron started as I looked the bottle over and leaned back. “You Ahuizotl are looking for one of the wayward ‘Rings of Scorchero’ to complete the dark tower, I’m looking for the next clue to the ‘End of Immortality’ and Teatime, my acquaintance, is here to looking for the same place we both are. The Caves of Intrigue... of which you can only find if you have the three keys to it.”

Chapter forty-one, Sandy Situations: Numbers Power.

-Neighgrabah, evening, Jacky-

I just looked towards the towering flaming twister in the distance and turned to the mare guard at the gate.

“That wasn’t my fault, I swear!” Though I may have incidentally sent an hourglass with the wooden portion of it burning rolling in that direction, I was not going to tell these guards that.

“I believe you, but I have to ask if this is a common occurrence around you?” The red furred mare guard was staring at me with narrowed eyes.

“Kind of, yeah, but I was already on my way to the gate from the… Merchant’s Quarters I believe? I know some people can vouch that they never saw me anywhere near the Noble’s Quarters!” I think this particular mare had it in for me with the way she was sending me a suspicious glance.

“Go on through, but don’t come back into the city until tomorrow morning and I’ll decide whether or not to put you on the banned list.” Nodding and acquiescing to her demand that my curse stop destroying the city, I walk away from the gate along the wall towards the corner.

Turning said corner to head towards my ship, I found five cloaked guys in the way facing towards me and they were holding daggers, knives and a blade threateningly at me.

“I take it the city guard tells you about the people who don’t pay the stupidly exorbitant prices to park safely within the city limits?” There was the conspiracy theory I had burgeoning in my head about the thieves and the guards having something of a complicit business contract to not interfere with each other’s businesses outside the city walls. Being outside said walls, the guard didn’t care about the lawless accosting someone who wasn’t paying a hefty fee every day to do trade in Neighgrabah.

The five pony thieves didn’t look particularly threatening, even though Saddle Arabian ponies were always far larger than regular Equestrian ponies.

“Even if that were true, it wouldn’t matter in this instance.” The leader of these five these held his saber aloft at me. His cloak and coverings hid his features, all of them were either earth pony Saddle Arabians or pegasus Saddle Arabians with concealed wings. “Your money or your life!”

“Heh… you know it’s kind of funny, but do I look like a rich merchant to you? I’m a pirate, which is way different than trying to mug a regular merchant.” The four behind the leader looked at each other and then back to me as I pulled one of my two swords out. I held the sword up high and turned it slightly to bounce the evening sunlight off its slightly polished surface in a given direction. “You obviously don’t know who you’re messing with here.”

“Oh? I know of no famous foreigner pirate that has your particular description.” Okay that had me stabbing my sword into the sand and crossing my arms.

“That’s because I’m rather infamous in Port Turtle Toga, mostly for sinking almost every ship I’ve ever been on or near. Being a Blackcap doesn’t help my reputation in the slightest.” They tensed when I mentioned that I was a cursed pirate, they should be worried about that. “You make a move for me and my crew fires a cannonball with incredible accuracy at me.”

I was bluffing, mostly about the accuracy, but Flotsam did hit a bunch of Clockwork’s golems once upon a time.

“I’ll take my chances that they wouldn’t dare fire when one of their crewmates…” At the thief’s words, I simply held up my left thumb claw as I took my sword up in my right hand and then covered my eyes with my forearm.

“They don’t care that I’m the captain, they’ll fire anyway.” All their eyes went wide when the sound of a loud explosion was heard coming from our airship.

The cannonball was actually coming right for me, I could hear the whistling noise of it clawing at the air to get at me. I sighed and waited for it to get close enough before I reacted to the inevitable impact.

A few seconds after the cannonball impacted the ground, I got up bruised and with sand in places I currently wished wasn’t there. I shook a lot of said sand out of my pants legs.

Having been at ground zero for multiple cannonball impacts, I knew exactly when to jump and ride the shockwave from the cannonball landing. It had still hurt plenty enough, but I’d be fine after a good night’s rest.

The thieves were not so lucky and were laid out on the ground groaning, I walked over to the impact site and calmly rolled the cannonball out of the divot in the sand. I slowly proceeded to rob the thieves of their weapons and money.

“My name is Captain Blackcap… you better remember this moment!” I told the leader of the thieves that tried to rob me, suddenly kicking him in the face and breaking his nose was entirely warranted. Picking up the cannonball to carry back towards the ship under my left arm, I noted it was still in fairly good condition and could be fired again. Upon reaching the ship, I only had one thing to say as I dropped the cannonball off next to the cannon. “Nice shot, I got you that book you wanted Flotsam.”

Aside from me, Flotsam was definitely going to be a gunner and needed some training in the subject.

“Are you sure you’re not supernaturally lucky? Being that close to a cannonball’s impact should have you on the ground in pain like those five are.” Immediately denying Flotsam with a shake of my head, I passed the book to her and turned towards Belfry.

“Belfry, insult to their injuries.” The giant butterfly, at my command, spread its wings and flew off towards the downed thieves. He seemed particularly eager to attack them for accosting me and was only waiting to do so on my orders. “No, I’m quite unlucky, given where a lot of that sand ended up… also avoiding the worst of the cannonball’s impact was entirely skill based. I still want to get rid of Belfry, but I think he might actually growing on me.”

I opened the door to go below deck and then fell down two flights of stairs… it has been a mostly normal day for me.

Thankfully, I wasn’t falling up the stairs this time.

-Neighgrabah, Teatime-

“So you propose we each work on retrieving a key and we’ll all get what we want, I find that plan most agreeable. I’ll go to the palace and get the key up there. I’ll use my many connections and it’ll be quite simple to get in, I can work my skills in being charming to get an idea of where the key might be.” We would make excellent companions, it’s just too bad that my machines can’t dig their way into something that is protected by a magical dimensional pocket. “I assume that you will be wanting an equally large portion of the treasure as well Caballeron? I haven’t the foggiest if you will want any of it aside from that mystical dark magic ring you’re after Ahuizotl.”

“The two of you can have all the treasures you can carry, I care not as long as I can come closer to my goals. Be warned though, I know that Daring Do will try and stop us.” The weird headed fellow with the long face seemed particularly worried about a sassy sounding adventurer, one of which Caballeron knew as well judging by the looks on his face. I was still worried about a parrot pirate that left me high and dry to be lynched by the pirates of Turtle Toga. “She always shows up at the worst times.”

“Daring Do wouldn’t happen to be a strange parrot with an odd looking cat with a mane of petals?” Said parrot destroyed my ship, blew up every other ship in the harbor making it hard to get off the island and even had the gall to destroy most of my remaining golems on her way out as well.

“No, she’s an annoying pegasus that likes to get in the way of… business.” Ah that was easy to understand Caballeron, you’re quite the mercenary my dear chap and I’m glad my sponsors are paying you quite a sum to get a job done. GODLESS pays you and I get to tap you as a fairly useful resource by being related to them, his work was exemplary among the black market community.

“Do we have an agreement my fine fellows, one where we will work together to uncover the secret to getting into the Caves of Intrigue?” I knew GODLESS likely wouldn’t care about you earning some money on the side from a joint venture like what we’re about to embark upon Caballeron. It should be enough incentive for you to side with me if Ahuizotl proves less than trustworthy. “There is a strength in numbers, I doubt any of the thieves here would want to mess with us. Whether we act individually or together given the imposing forces we can bring about.”

I eyed that griffon that seemed to curiously sniffing the random alcohol he received, if I were him I’d be wary of it as well. Tea is still the better beverage after all! Boiled flavorful leaves in water and clockwork constructions are my two favorite things in life, next to being rich of course.

“I am willing to agree to work with the both of you, but remember that the ‘Ring of Scorchero’ in there is mine.” Ahuizotl growled out as he stared Caballeron and me down. We were clearly unimpressed by his dangerous demeanor.

Ahuizotl was a beastly person, but he at least knew what he wanted and how to go about getting it. He was even willing to try different methods to come to reach that conclusion. He was the most muscular of the three of us, even if his intelligence left a little something to be desired.

“As long as I can get a decent payout from this, I have no complaints about working with you two.” Caballeron might be rough around the edges, but he paid his goons well enough for them to stick with him despite the dangerous places he drags them into.

Caballeron is somewhat honorable at least, though only to those who didn’t deny him what they owed. Otherwise I knew he could be quite ruthless, both in negotiations and combat. He also had a silver tongue and was quite charismatic, but not nearly as much as I was.

With my clockwork golems, Ahuizotl’s beastly menagerie of trained felonious felines and Caballeron’s crew full of dapper blokes, we were sure to win any volatile encounter provided we could work together.

I’ll prepare something special in case they try to throw me to some wolves. Our working together is only a verbal agreement at best and at worst it’s an open agreement to stab one another when it becomes convenient for us.

“Then we have an accord, the other two keys I will simply leave to you two to work out. We shall meet up again in a week or so to get a measure of each other’s progress, we will either do it here or in the bazaar near the entrance. Maybe the main square? We have plenty of options.” I stood up and gave them one last look. “I have business to attend to and some strings to pull for my visit to the palace, ta-ta for now.”

I got up and left the run down, broken, filthy, rogue filled establishment with my head held high and was assured that if they tried anything against me… well, I would simply make them pay dearly that’s for sure. It’s only fair when I absolutely knew they’d do the same to me.

They would leave soon after I did to go plot the theft of the other keys.

-Gene-

Griffons thankfully didn’t have ears that moved when listening in on conversations, I kept my body language as still and uninteresting as possible.

I should warn Jacky and the others about this, but I couldn’t get up yet and had to eventually leave for a good and logical reason. I’m sure the thieves knew I was listening for something, possibly marks and I wanted to keep them guessing by not leaving early.

“The fire tornado is coming this way!” A thief yelled before running off.

“Wouldn’t it have been safer in here or any other building for that matter?” I questioned audibly.

“Yes.” A lot of the other thieves answered, then one added onto the statement. “Provided that it’s not strong enough to cook us while inside these buildings like an oven, we should be safe here.”

I simply shrugged and sniffed the fumes of the alcohol again trying to identify what was in the bottle, Ahuizotl and Caballeron had already left. I had my guesses as to what was in the bottle and corked the bottle back up again. It smelled nice at the very least, it was probably watered down wine.

If it wasn’t watered down, then somebody really disliked the guy sleeping on the floor. He was still breathing so he was still alive and it seemed nobody was going to bother to wake him.

I got up and went over to the bar, poured a drink for a random thief and then walked out into the evening to head back to the ship. I could hear the thief raising his glass to me, he then drank it and would probably quickly forget who I was now. A few minutes of waiting outside, I didn’t hear him drop dead and it sounded like the wine was quite delectable.

I’m bagging this bottle of alcohol in The Ardent Survivor for later, I’ve discerned that it was mostly safe to drink. I’ll use Belfry as a second opinion, Butterflies eat toxic things all the time and I’m sure a drunk butterfly wouldn’t cause too many problems.

-Savannah-

“This has been a lot of fun!” I shouted to the mare that joined me for some enticing dancing, I hugged her and ran my claws through her wonderfully silky purple mane. These dancing girls knew how to be exciting.

“Well you’re quite the exotic sight here and dancing to attract the eyes seems to be within you.” The mare nuzzled me.

We’ve been sending each other signals like this for a while now and I’ve earned some money.

“How about we do something private together?” I ran a claw along her pink furred back, looking into her wonderful blue eyes. “I propositioned the guards, but they wouldn’t take… apparently I’m too much for them. Bunch of stiffs, even that mare guarding the gate.”

“Yes, they can be a bit uptight Savannah.” She said sweetly as she pressed her lips against my cheek.

“Hey now, don’t become too attached! I’m aware I’m beautiful, but this is friends with benefits. Can’t be, ‘The Wild’, if I go and get married now can I?” After a moment I decided to ask a question. “What’s your name?”

“I am Amira.” She became rather nervous about something as she looked to me. “You- don’t know who I am?”

“Am I supposed to?” I waited for Amira’s response.

“I think… I will actually be taking you up on your proposition.” We left the establishment smiling.

Author's Note

Given the T rating, we will not be establishing what happens between the delegate Amira and Savannah. Yes, the same Saddle Arabian delegate that later visits Ponyville, you can guess where this might lead to.

Also Neighgrabah will have it's name changed in the next chapter with a suitable explanation behind it. The actually name of the city will be returned to it's rightful place.

Chapter forty-one, Sandy Situations: Social Power.

-The Ardent Survivor, Gene-

“Flotsam… is Jacky here?” I saw her laying on the deck, her flipper flopping against the wood every now and then as she read a book with a sleeping Nefer cuddled up next to her for warmth.

“Yes, but she went to sleep off the bruises she got from me nearly killing her with a cannon and then taking a trip down the stairs into the hold.” What Flotsam described was an average day for Jacky, she probably rode the blast from the impact.

“I guess I can talk to her in the morning.” The only time Jacky’s curse didn’t seem as active is when she was asleep, she needed her rest. “What are you reading?”

“About this interesting place called Nagrahbah, sounds exactly like Neighgrabah only more magical.” Yeah, Neighgrabah didn’t sound or feel as magical, it was fairly average. Not much magic flying around in the streets, aside from the thieves there wasn’t much danger here. “Do you know what is with those five ponies wandering around and barking like dogs over there?”

“Belfry.” Ah, that certainly explained a lot.

“Have you seen Savannah?” I had felt a little responsible for the Abyssinian. It was my job as first mate to ease some of the burden off of Jacky’s back, I don’t feel like I’ve been doing my job well enough both as her boyfriend and as her structural support.

“She never came back, from what you guys have said she can take care of herself.” Sam continued to read that book.

“What’s so interesting in the book that’s keeping you up?” I asked as I looked over her shoulder.

“It’s full of poetry, stories, culture and small illustrations. I’m reading a story in particular about Nagrabah and how Ballad Din freed the genie he befriended, got betrothed to a princess and continued to work on earning the title of prince. A thousand and one Saddle Arabian tales is quite the page turner.” She seemed quite hooked, but it wasn’t like we were giving her much to do here. She couldn’t practice with the cannon near the city, especially not while Jacky was in the city itself. That way lay untold destruction. “Could it be the same genie we’re after?”

“Who knows, don’t stay up too late Flotsam… make sure Nefer gets a proper place to sleep tonight.” I yawned and set off to get some sleep myself, we had time to discuss the problem in the morning.

-The next morning, Jacky-

“Well that’s bad, Ahuizotl, Dr. Caballeron and Teatime?” I shook a fist to the clear sky. “Why not throw in an army of completely obstructive bureaucrats at me while you’re at it!? In other news, did Savannah...”

“Hey guys, I didn’t want to impose on Amira, so could you let me on the airship so I can get something to eat! I’ll make everyone breakfast.” Savannah offered, making me wonder who Amira was. The name sounded very familiar to me. “If you’re going to ask about last night, I’d say it went quite well for me.”

I looked over the side of the ship and saw Savannah looking quite disheveled and her fur was in quite a disarray. She was quite lucky that she didn’t have a mane like Jade did, I think it would have been tangled badly after whatever happened to her the other night.

“Her fur looks all funny.” Nefer mentioned curiously.

Speaking of appearances, Savannah looked like she was absolutely glowing. Judging by the smile on her face, there had been quite a bit of aggressive snuggling involved.

-Breakfast-

As I ate my food, I suddenly realized why Amira’s name sounded familiar and choked a bit on my food.

Gene, who had his right wing wrapped around me, noticed my distress and slapped me on the back to get me to swallow.

“You slept with one of the Saddle Arabian delegates!?” I watched as Savannah tilted her head in confusion.

“Amira is a politician?” Savannah asked confusedly. “She certainly didn’t feel like one to me, she was way too nice… in so many ways.”

“Yeah, she kindly let you sleep in bed with her!” That was a loaded statement Nefer. “Big sis is so stingy and won’t let me sleep with her.”

Sometime we wondered about Nefer’s innocence, but I’m quite sure that he meant that in a less explicit manner than what Savannah did.

“Yeah… that’s never going to happen in the special context that the others understand Nefer.” At least Flotsam was mentally agile enough this morning to understand what the rest of us were possibly thinking, she looked like she didn’t get much sleep last night. Nefer went to say something when Flotsam cut him off. “Don’t worry about it little brother, there are just some things you were just not meant to know yet.”

“Okay, with this recent news from Gene, we have a change of plans. We are no longer searching for a genie’s lamp discreetly.” So three keys, one in the palace. How were we going to get in? It’s not like the palace had tour groups and it had armed guards round the clock. We had next to nothing on the other two locations, there was one thing I needed to know about. “We are going to try and stop whatever those guys are up to. We know where Teatime is going to go at least. You said Daring Do was also in the city?”

“Yes, but I didn’t see much of her or what she was doing other than trailing Ahuizotl and his band of ferocious felines.” That was about as much as I expected Gene.

“We’ll have to rely on her to handle Caballeron and or Ahuizotl, hopefully she won’t try to take them both on at the same time.” I shook my head and went to go comb out my feathers, all while feeling like I had a long day ahead of me.

-Neighgrabah Gate-

“Halt, we would like to inform you of a recent change to the city and hopefully you can spread it around for us once you finally leave the area.” I had never asked for the mare’s name, but she certainly had a presence at the gate.

“Okay, what did you need to tell us?” We were going into the city to stakeout the palace and listen around for the movements of Ahuizotl, Teatime, Caballeron and Daring.

“Due in part to an as of yet unexplained flaming tornado hitting the Noble’s Quarters.” She stared at me while she said this, as if she suspected me of doing it on purpose. “Quite a number of documents were burned and lost, one such document was a document that explained why the city was renamed Neighrabah. It was to the point that everyone’s forgotten what was written on it. With that said the council have decided to return the city to its original name starting instantly, welcome to Nagrahbah.”

-One second later, Nagrabah Gate-

“Wait Nagrabah and Neighgrabah are the same city?” Why was Flotsam here?

“Yes… ma’am, do you know that you are very far from the ocean?” It was like the guard has never seen a sea pony before, especially not one this far into the desert.

“I’m well aware... I’m with my friends and I’m eager to see the city for myself after having read about it a bit.” It seemed like Flotsam wanted to visit the city and she turned to me with a pleading look. “Please Captain Blackcap, can I go into the city? I’m sure our cabin boy won’t cause too much trouble by himself with our guard butterfly.”

“Sure, but you’re sticking with one of us Sammy and your responsible for whatever Nefer does while we’re gone.” I found myself being hugged Flotsam, who was rapidly exclaiming her thanks for bringing her along. “I don’t quite trust you being alone in this city, so you need to stay with one of us at all times.”

“Guard butterfly?” The guard turned that query to me.

“It’s a really big butterfly that can do nasty things to people, especially those who don’t take the hint to leave our ship alone. Like those five thieves I was accosted by the other day, our guard butterfly got to them.” It was hard for me to express how dangerous Belfry could be. Saying he’s dangerous and seeing him be dangerous are two completely different things. “I don’t think I could do our guard butterfly justice.”

“I was wondering what had them all so spooked after we took them to the dungeons… probably should make a few more thieves I want caught go after them.” She muttered barely loud enough for me to hear.

I guess I was right about snubbing the parking fees leading to me being attacked by thieves. Sure we had plenty of treasure, but we didn’t know when we’d be getting more.

The mare and the other guards checked us over, I only had one sword and a knife on me today. The saber the lead thief had wielded against me was of quite a nice quality, at least compared to the two ancient swords.

“Go on through.” Before I went in on the guard’s command, I just had to ask.

“I never got your name.” I honestly wanted to know it now.

“Scarlet Sunburn, now go on in before I decide to put you on the banned list anyway.” Well Scarlet was rather grouchy today.

-Hours later, Nagrahbah Main Square, Savannah-

“This place is so amazing, but it dries me out so fast.” I felt bad for Flotsam, she wanted to explore the city. She had to keep stopping to drink some water. I wanted to get her back to the ship, but she insisted on seeing some of the odder parts of the city.

“I don’t know how Ahuizotl’s getting in or out, but it’s fairly obvious that there’s a hole in the Thieves’ Quarters walls to sneak into the city with.” Jacky stated as she and Gene joined us. “Any luck?”

“No, haven’t seen any sign of regular Equestrian ponies, just Saddle Arabian ponies.” We had been watching for Caballeron’s goons, I just hoped my good memories of Amira weren’t ever sullied by seeing her acting as a politician.

“How are you holding up Flotsam?” Even Captain Blackcap noticed Flotsam wasn’t doing too well in this heat. “You’re not exactly built for the desert Sammy.”

“To be fair Captain Blackcap, I’m not really built for anywhere, land or sea. Don’t worry I’m not as depressed anymore, I have you guys!” That was a rather quick dismissal Flotsam, her curse was a really nasty piece of work and she obviously craved interacting with everyone on the airship. “Just… don’t leave me alone for too long. Aside from that we haven’t seen any sign of the three we’re looking for.”

“Savannah!” I turned into a large mare pulling me into a loving hug, I gave her an affectionate hug back. “I heard you were idling around the main square.”

“Hello Amira, how are you feeling today?” She still looked beautiful..

“Quite well my… dear… friend.” She coughed into a hoof while blushing. She changed the word she was about to say when she saw my friends. “Who are these strangers? Also is that a… do you know that you are currently…”

“Far from the sea, yes I know.” Responded Flotsam tersely. “How could I not? Also this dry, arid air and sand don’t agree with me. It’s nothing like a beach and there’s a reason why you won’t ever find me swimming around in the sea.”

“I am sorry, it is just that I never thought I would see such a beautiful being like you away from your home.” Stopping Amira with a held up left hoof, Flotsam waited until she had Amira’s full attention.

“You really think… that I look nice?” Did Flotsam have no self-esteem in her appearance? She looked absolutely adorable while blushing and rubbing her left leg with her right.

“Okay enough of the back and forth!” I cut in as I put a paw on the sea ponies back. “Yes, Flotsam you’re really quite pretty. Amira these are my friends. The bruised black feathered bird is Captain Blackcap, also known as Jacky Blackcap Chickadee La Perm. Gene Eric or Generic is the griffon. The sea pony is Ms. Flotsam De’ Brie. They’re nice people for a bunch of pirates.”

“Pirates?” Amira said worriedly, I think she was worried about me being on their crew.

“Blue pirates at best, we haven’t exactly raided, pillaged and or attacked any other airships yet.” Jacky stepped forward and held out a hand, Amira gave her a hoof and they shook. “We’re more like treasure hunters at the moment really. We’ll inform you if we plan to do anything like actual pirates, like right now for instance. We’re trying to figure out a way into the palace to find one of three keys that some villains are after.”

“Villains? What are their names?” She gave me a wary glance and I offered her a friendly smile as I moved over to her and itched her behind a specific spot on her ear, she calmed down immensely.

“Have you heard rumors of a blue, long faced monster named Ahuizotl, an Equestrian earth pony named Dr. Caballeron or a noble sounding unicorn called Teatime Clockwork?” As Jacky questioned Amira, I rubbed my face affectionately against her neck, she seemed a little stiff from finding out who my friends were. “They are after some keys and one of them can be found in the palace.”

“I know of two of those, I have heard rumors of Caballeron and how destruction follows him and another mare around. I have not seen a long faced creature, but I have heard of something fitting that description in the Daring Do books we import.” She seemed unsure as to whether we could be trusted or not. She eventually settled on something, because what she said next was worrisome. “I do know of Teatime Clockwork and I agree that he, at the very least, is up to something. We will be holding a ball tomorrow evening and many nobles, along with those invited to the party, will be celebrating the return of Nagrahbah’s true name. Clockwork’s name is on the list.”

“Can we can get an invite?” I asked sweetly, running my claws through her glorious mane. She sighed happily at my touch. “Also, you never told me you were a Saddle Arabian delegate.”

“To be fair, you never told me you were with a group of pirates. Admittedly, I’ve never heard of your friends before... I will be giving you an invitation, but do not break my trust dear friend.” Amira sent right on back to me, but she didn’t seem angry or as upset as she was a second ago. “What are these mentioned keys that they are after?”

“The keys to, ‘The Caves of Intrigue’, at least that’s what I heard from them.” Generic had a bigger effect than the news of my friends possibly becoming true pirates later on. We did just mention that we were still privateers or treasure hunters right?

“Oh no… are any of you aware of Ballad Din’s tales?” Looking among us, Amira saw that Flotsam had her right hoof raised and was waggling her flipper. “When the Wondrous Cave was opened, it brought many a danger to Nagrahbah. ‘The Caves of Intrigue’ are said to be even worse!”

Author's Note

Next up, Jacky in a ballroom. Like a minotaur in a easily breakable fine chineigh shop.

Chapter forty-one, Sandy Situations: Ballroom Beasts.

-Next day, before noon, Nagrahbah Palace, Jacky-

“Why are all of you here early?” Amira asked as she looked between us. “The party isn’t until this evening, though I don’t mind Savannah being here.”

Savannah smiled brightly at the Saddle Arabian delegate.

“There was an incident involving someone testing the alcohol tolerance of a giant butterfly.” I cringed in memory of it and then sent a glare to Gene. “It… did not end well.”

Gene put his tail between his legs, bared his neck towards me and laid down on the floor. This was the instinctive sign for complete surrender in most animals.

-Earlier that morning-

“Oh goddesses he’s starting to spray his chemicals everywhere, everyone evacuate the ship!” I ran as the butterfly drunkenly stumbled about after us while spraying misty chemicals, scales and other things wildly all over the place.

We all quickly jumped off the side of the ship and I landed on my face, which was unpleasant given how much sand I got in my eyes.

Once off the ship we turned around to see a heavy fog to start to cover and even seem to cling to the ship. Nefer walked out the fog looking a little dizzy, but completely okay.

“The ship smells weird now and it’s covered in lots of pretty looking glitter.” It didn’t seem to have as much an effect on Nefer, he had to have some limited resilience to it.

-Back to before noon-

“Gene, you are to never give Belfry alcohol ever again!” It would be a while before that heavy fog surrounding their ship cleared up, also Nefer was the only one resilient enough to the stuff to even start cleaning it out of the ship.

“Aye-aye captain, I understand and apologize profusely for our ship being disabled by our currently drunk butterfly guard.” Gene would have to be properly punished later for this incident. “How was I to know that Belfry had a very low tolerance for wine? The ship is currently in an untenable living situation.”

-Gene-

Said wine was currently in a pack until I needed it later, to think all it took was a single cup.

I was not about to bring up the fact that we left Nefer all alone on the ship to clean the mess up with the drunken butterfly still rampaging around it, it would make us look irresponsible for his safety…

I’m sure he’ll be fine.

-Jacky-

“How much damage can a butterfly cause?” We all looked to Amira slowly, that sweet summer mare.

“Let’s just leave it at a lot and hope we don’t have to repair anything when we get back to our ship once the chemical fog has cleared up.” Though I dreaded to learn of the damage that Belfry would cause in our absence, it would be worse if he came into the city. Hopefully Nefer would… we left Nefer alone with the drunken butterfly didn’t we? “In effort to give you an idea as to the size of said butterfly, somewhere between a large dog and a small manticore.”

Amira stared flatly at us and then turned to Savannah.

“Belfry is really that big.” Savannah confirmed.

“Right… well… how about I help you all prepare for the evening.” Offered Amira sweetly while her eyes followed Savannah’s shifting fluffy tail as it wagged. “Is Flotsam joining the party as well?”

We turned to the sea pony and saw that she was once again engrossed in the book of one thousand and one Saddle Arabian tales.

I think she appreciated the purchase and ever since she found out that Neighgrabah and Nagrahbah were the same place, she’s hardly put the book down.

“Probably not.” I answered for her.

-Hours later, palace suite-

“Remember Gene, just because you’re my date tonight and are handsome…” I trailed off glaring into his eyes as he stared at me in wonder. “It does not mean that you are free from punishment!”

“You’re beautiful.” Didn’t feel like it Gene, I’m a girl covered in bruises and scars… maybe that’s actually a turn on for Vikings or just him specifically.

“Thank you, but I’m still angry with you for endangering the ship!” It’s not often that I wore a dress, but I could certainly clean up well. I curled and styled my feathers a bit and left them hanging unbound, then put on a nice sleeveless purple dress.

Gene was looking at me as if I were capable of passing for a fashion model. Sighing, I slapped him harshly and he blinked out of his stupor.

“Captain.” Gene stated as he stood up straighter and at attention.

“Remember we’re expecting trouble tonight Gene, get that feathered head of yours out of the gutter even if it’s flattering!” While I was saying this I was strapping my knife at my left hip and then, without thinking, put the saber and sheath away behind me.

“Jacky… where did the saber go and how did you do that?” What was he talking about? The sword was right… looking over my shoulder, the saber wasn’t there.

“I have no idea… maybe it’s a party cannon thing?” Don’t think about, do not think about, don’t question it and everything would be just peachy keen. “Now remember to be ready for a fight.”

-Ballroom-

“Lady La Perm and Mr. Eric…. ma’am are you going to wear that all night?” If the guy announcing us was referring to the fact that I was now wearing a slightly transparent purple silk skullcap, then yes.

I nodded at the butler guy and just moved on with my life.

Amira looked quite nice in Saddle Arabian ball gown. Savannah basically looked the same in a dress and her fur was brushed out.

“You’re makeup looks nice Jacky.” Why was Amira complimenting me? “Where ever did you get it?”

“What makeup?” I was clearly confused, I wasn’t wearing any makeup at all.

“Your eyeshadow of course.” What was Amira talking… oh?

“Yes, my bruised eyes really do look nice for my complexion don’t they?” I was fairly certain that Amira didn’t know how to respond to that.

“It makes you look both tough and nice at the same time Jacky.” It would be a while before you got back in my good graces for getting a crew member, even one I dislike, completely drunk with one glass of wine Gene.

“Thank you for noticing Amira.” I guess people can make injuries look good sometimes.

“I… uh… okay?” Poor Amira was so confused, she shook her head and she sharpened her gaze upon us. “I’ve had some ponies search around discreetly for a key at the palace. They didn’t find anything, but I still increased security around here.”

“What if the key isn’t key shaped?” There was a long pause following Savannah’s question.

“That hadn’t occurred to me and could be a problem.” It looked like Amira was trying to think of something. “We do not know what the keys look like, so they could be anything.”

“Well look alive and keep an eye out, Clockwork just entered the ballroom.” My eyes were firmly planted on the smug unicorn as took a few steps into the ballroom and immediately noticed me.

“Well if it isn’t my rival.” Started Clockwork. “The nameless parrot.”

“Rival? I don’t see it. You just tried to kill me for apparently no reason.” As I recall, he just told his machines to shoot us and that’s about as much interaction with the GODLESS agent that we’ve had when we first met him.

“Yes, you are my rival, you ruined my opportunity to tell a grand story of my adventure to retrieve that coin!” Wanting to know what Teatime was talking about I had to ask.

“What adventure?” I tapped my right foot, while Gene looked ready to jump the pony and claw his face off. “You simply sawed your way through the exit and didn’t actually go through all the stuff that I did.”

“Yes and nobody would know that I was lying about my grand adventure if it wasn’t for you and your companion playing witness to my bypassing all the dangers!” Did he just seriously say that out loud? “There’s no way I can make up a tale of a grand adventure if someone witnessed the truth, you would have told everyone that I never went on it.”

“You just said that out loud.” I pointed out.

“Yes… er… well!” At a guess, he was just going to start blustering pointlessly now. “Anyway, I don’t know what a strumpet like you are doing here in this fine establishment of class, let it be known I will have my revenge against you.”

“Hey, I’m the only one that’s actually somewhat qualified to be a strumpet around here!” Everyone just turned to stare at Savannah. “You do realize he just called you a prostitute right?”

It didn’t take a split second for my talons to rake up the right side of Teatime’s face lightly. Savannah might not mind being called that, but I sure did!

“Guards, this crazy parrot just assaulted my pristine face!” None of the guards moved or reacted to Teatime’s attempt to incite them to attack me.

“You kind of deserved that and even practically asked for it.” Scarlet stated out loud. She was currently on the job and I was surprised to hear her siding with me. Her dark orange eyes were sending a look of amusement my way.

“People letting mares into the policing forces, what has this world come to?” Teatime Clockwork stalked away.

-A few hours later-

The Nagrabah Ball was in full swing and we each took turns keeping an eye on Teatime Clockwork.

As I danced with Gene, I informed him that I still hadn’t forgotten about Belfry and hoped that Nefer was mentally sound when we got back to him.

It was around this time that a gruesome four legged lumpy looking beast with three toed claws crashed into the ballroom, its fanged maw howling as turned to lunge at the nearest person. That person was me.

I had wondered why my luck hadn’t tried dropping one of the chandeliers full of sharp gem shards on my head and I had only stumbled a few times while leading Gene through our dancing.

I quickly reached behind me and tried pulled out my cannon. Instead I pulled out the sheathed saber and blocked its claws with the sheath. It knocked me onto my back attempting to bite my face off, it’s wild white glowing eyes advanced for my beak or neck with each rabid drool filled snap.

The grey skinned stub tailed beast was soon tackled away by Gene who slammed into it with his body full force sending it tumbling away from me.

It slowly rolled to its feet. Looking at it, it resembled nothing I’ve ever seen before… well aside from a very ugly looking monstrous dog with webbed ears. The monster tried to charge at me only to be leapt upon by Scarlet Sunburn who lost her helmet and her short blonde hair flung about as she tried to pin it down.

The other guards were busy leading all the guests away from the danger and out of the room.

Another crash and an identical looking beast charge at me from behind, I dodged around its attempt to claw me and drew the saber to slash at it. I did some damage to the skin on its shoulder, yet it didn’t bleed and only seemed to split a small rent in it a little.

That’s when a third one charged at me after breaking through a wall and Gene tackled it to the ground to wrestle with it, while I deflected the jaws of the one still on me by holding the sharp side of the saber in its mouth cutting into the sides of its lips. There was a strange red fluid gushing from this one as it tried to bite through the sword and claw me.

It seemed like they were all after… wait, what was Clockwork doing during all this? The crowd had scattered and were screaming, but I didn’t see Clockwork anywhere. I couldn’t focus on that right now as I had these beasts to fight.

A fourth one crashed through a window and leapt for me, while the shards of glass rained around me.

I was beginning to see a pattern here.

It was knocked away from lunging at me by a circular shield to the belly. Looking to where the shield came from, I could see Savannah pumping her fist before that monster tried for me again. I was still busy still fending off the second one with the saber’s blade forced into its gnashing maw to keep it from biting down onto me as I held it off.

I backed up and nearly took another claw swipe to the face, the creature seemed insistent on hitting the right side of my face for some reason.

Savannah ran forward and engaged the beast as it got back up from being hit by the shield. It lunged for her and she stepped backwards and launched a swift right kick up into its chin causing it to go up onto its rear legs and then she slugged it in the face twice before trying to ram her fist into its belly.

“Ow what are these things made of, metal?!” Savannah shook out her left paw in pain as stepped out of the way of several claw swipes in an agile manner.

I turned back to my opponent that seemed to be continuing to fruitlessly claw at me and press against the sword I held in its jaw. I narrowed my eyes at it and looked around the room for something to deal with them all… I looked up. I reached down and got my hidden knife to stab it in the neck… to no effect.

“Gene, get above me and be prepare to drop the chandelier. Let it go!” They were all after me for a good reason. “Savannah get out of its way, Scarlet let yours go too!”

They all sent me strange looks, but did as I said and all three beasts were charging towards me unobstructed as Gene flew up for the chandelier.

"Drop it immediately!" All three of the beasts jumped for me, the chandelier fell and… this might sting.

-Gene-

A dust cloud erupted below me, it eventually revealed four skewered beasts and Jacky with sharp pointy bits millimeters away from her neck, eyes, kidneys and heart. The slightest movement would skewer her.

The most surprising thing about this was that the four dead beasts were holding the chandelier an inch from killing her, they were bleeding red fluids all over the floor and the lights in their eyes died quite literally.

“They’re clockwork golems…” Jacky muttered, she was trying not to move and in her position I could understand. I don’t honestly know how we were going to get her out from under there without hurting her. “The red stuff is oil… and it’s getting in my feathers. That's going to be so hard to clean out afterwards!”

“The black gem from the sultan’s turban display has been stolen!” And while we were busy with four dangerous looking clockwork golems disguised as monsters, something was stolen.

Yep, we were batting a thousand and Clockwork actively tried to kill Jacky this time and almost succeeded… I want to say I’m feeling quite angry about all of this.

Author's Note

That happened.

Chapter forty-two, Situations Sandy: Smart.

-Nagrahbah Palace, Jacky-

“Thanks for helping me get all that oil out of my feathers Amira.” Honestly would have been a lot harder if I had to do that myself, I walked back into the ballroom as I was asked to do. “I would like to thank the guards for getting me out from under that chandelier without nearly dropping it on me or tilting it into me ever so slightly to hurt me. Can I also request that you stop hanging such large and extravagant pieces of architectural death above people’s heads? While beautiful, I was nervous about it the entire time I was dancing and expected exactly what happened with it. So I’m quite vindicated in my paranoia about having heavy objects, precisely like the one that almost fell on me, hanging above my head on a singular chain.”

“You are quite welcome my friend, your feathers are quite luxuriant and nice even if your body has been weathered against many things.” Amira was still pleasant and friendly despite the theft. The thing going on between her and Savannah didn’t seem to change much, even with the news that Amira was a well-known and beloved delegate. As for the Saddle Arabian guard named Scarlet? Yeah, not nearly as pleasant as she could be for someone who clearly had job security and plenty of it. “Even with the increased security, we have various injured guards that were attacked by at least three other mystifying meticulously made mechanical monsters. There have, thankfully, been no reports of severe casualty.”

“About as much good news as we’re getting from this whole debacle Amira.” She turned a look towards me. “What I want to know is… who let this pirate through with both a knife and sword?!”

“To be fair to us ma’am, we actually knew about the knife even if we didn’t know about the sword.” The Saddle Arabian guard looked to me curiously. “Don’t honestly see how we could have known about that, where were you even keeping it?”

“Better question, why didn’t you confiscate the knife when you knew she had one on her?” It sounded like Scarlet was a very angry mare, judging by how her tone shifted. “If you don’t have a good excuse, then I will find a way to make the coming days quite miserable for you.”

“Ma’am, every mare that entered the ballroom was armed with a knife, I’m sure they could have all defended themselves properly if they had to. Also there are rules that every mare and or female of any species is allowed a small concealed weapon of some kind in the palace, but they can’t try to get anything bigger in and nobody except for her has done so. Only knife sized weapons are allowed, projectile weapons and larger blades are illegal.” The guard was receiving a completely flat look from Scarlet. “Had those machines went after anyone else other than the parrot, they would then be well within their rights to have said weapons if the guards could not protect them from getting hurt.”

“Did you at least magically check to see if the any of the knives in question were poisoned?” Once the guard nodded to Scarlet’s question, she then made a statement. “At least I know for certain that Princess Amira is probably one of the few that didn’t enter the ballroom armed.”

“Well… actually…” Reaching under her dress, Amira pulled out a kris. Savannah cooed as she moved over to her and looked over the gleaming wavy blade. “I knew there would be trouble and even informed you as such by increasing security, so I brought Mister Stabby McKillington just in case I needed it. I never get to use this for anything other than self-defense training that all delegates know, it tends to make most people back off at the sight of it.”

“Wait a moment… did she just say you were a princess?” Savannah questioned while wrapping her right arm around Amira’s neck and was tousling her mane.

“Low end, not really nearly as important as my diplomatic job as a trusted Saddle Arabian delegate.” Amira nuzzled her face into Savannah’s side making her giggle.

“Well that’s flabbergasting on a number of levels...” Scarlet turned her stony gaze back on me. “Can we get back to how you hid the sword from us? That seems like something that’s quite illegal.”

“I did something like this.” I picked up my saber from where I dropped it when the chandelier crashed to the floor. The sheath was slightly damaged, but the blade was perfectly fine for use.

I sheathed the sword immediately after picking the sheath up. I made the motion in putting it behind my back and letting it go. When I did, the sword fell to the ground and clattered slightly before coming to a rest.

“Um… hold on… something’s not right here.” I tried several more times to put it behind my back and it didn’t work.

“Maybe you should show them your party cannon?” At Gene’s suggestion I nodded.

I reached to my left and then wheeled my cannon out from behind me, making all the guards and Scarlet jump back, freeze up and then stare at it with fear.

“What in the… where were you keeping that?!” Scarlet seemed shocked that I had a party cannon and was pointing at it with her armored hoof with fear. The cannon was not actually currently loaded with anything other than instant streamers ammunition, it was to either tangle up or capture Teatime Clockwork when needed. “Before you say anything, yes, I know what I just saw you do. I just don’t think my mind could actually fully comprehend what that was.”

I put the party cannon back where I pulled it from, wherever that was. That action received even more shocked looks. I then tried to do the same with my sword and failed again.

“Why isn’t it working?” I muttered as I looked at the saber.

“Remember when we thought it might be a party cannon thing?” Gene made me raise my brow delicately at him in a questioning gaze. “Jacky, which way is the opening to the cannon currently pointing? This might literally be a party cannon doing its thing.”

I blinked, it just couldn’t be that simple… could it? I picked up the sheathed saber in my left talons and then put it behind my back to the left instead of the right and let go, it disappeared and I didn’t hear it clattering to the ground.

“Huh… neat.” I muttered as I started to repeatedly pull the sheathed sword from out of nowhere and put it back there. “I have got to remember that that’s a thing so I don’t forget that I have that capability.”

“Well that’s fairly concerning for many reasons, especially where security is involved.” Stated Scarlet while putting her hoof to her head and looking a bit queasy. “Please, could you stop doing that? It’s giving me a migraine trying to figure it out.”

“Sorry.” I didn’t pull the sword back out, but now I understood that putting the cannon away worked on other objects provided I put them in the general direction of the cannon’s barrel behind me.

“Okay I’m going to have to arrest you for bringing a weapon illegally into the ballroom.” Scarlet finally said after taking a long draw out deep breath.

“What weapon did I bring in illegally?” A smile crossed my beak as I realized the loophole in the law immediately, Jade would be proud. “The guards already searched me and knew about my knife.”

I actually still had plausible deniability, this is despite showing them that I could hide something on myself. Even if they were to strip all my clothing off, I’d still have complete access to my weapons.

My weapons were concealed in such a way that nobody else could grab or even find them on my person. They couldn’t actually force me to produce the weapon for them and they couldn’t make me show a weapon that I didn’t have as it could have only been in their imaginations. They can't even successfully plant a weapon on me.

“Oh… so we are going to go there are we?” Scarlet muttered angrily.

-Fifteen minutes later-

“Produce the weapon damn it, we know you have it and it is illegal!” Scarlet screamed at me completely red faced with anger.

“Say Amira, can I sue this guard for racial profiling if she keeps this up?” I asked sweetly, Amira had garnered a bright grin on her face. The guards around Scarlet started to snicker audibly when they realized that they couldn’t force me produce the saber and it was the hard evidence they absolutely needed. “I’m clearly innocent of any crime and there’s no evidence that I ever committed one is there?”

“You better not answer that Princess Amira!” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her anger was answer enough, I didn’t want to make her any angrier than she already was.

I’m sure Scarlet would figure it out eventually though.

-The Ardent Survivor, Gene-

“That went surprisingly well.” At least I thought so, Scarlet couldn’t detain Jacky for any reason unless she could actually find a way to produce the illegal evidence in question. Said evidence couldn’t be touched. “Do you think Nefer is okay? We did kind of leave him alone with a drunk Belfry for a while.”

If Jacky took her saber out now. They couldn’t say for sure that she had it in the ballroom as that would set a bad precedent for law and order around here. They have to catch her with it in the ballroom, the fact that they didn’t think to take it from her before she could conceal it was just too bad for them.

“He better be.” Flotsam muttered as she slowly followed us with her book bookmarked and dragging one of the machines monsters with her. Flotsam popped another slice of banana peel in her mouth, chewed and swallowed while turning a bit green. “I hope that’s the last one… please get me onto the ship before I have to eat another one, I beg of you!”

Flotsam had the right to whine as she had agreed to drag the golem back to our ship. Jacky wanted one to study for a bit, she’s actually pretty curious about Clockwork’s creations despite the fact that they were sent after her with lethal intent.

“Well I had a lot of fun during my sleepover with Amira.” Savannah certainly deserved our slightly dubious looks. “So the ship at least looks clear of that chemical fog, but I don’t see the butterfly.”

“I’ll get the gangplank.” I flew up and lowed it for the rest of our crew, Flotsam quickly carried the one beast machine Jacky wanted quickly into storage before her ability ran out.

While Flotsam was doing that, I eyed the trees that were a lot bigger and more fruit bearing than I last remembered them being, I shook my head and turned back to Jacky and Savannah. After I checked out the two fairly small trees, then looked to Nefer lying between them with his back to us.

Looking at him closer, he seemed perfectly fine under the hot sun. He was sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t want to disturb him.

“Well he looks okay to me, where’s Belfry though?” Yeah, that was actually something to be clearly worried about Jacky.

“I’m sure our giant butterfly is somewhere on the ship, hopefully he’s actually sober by now.” I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that, because Jacky was now glaring at me.

“Yes, he should be. I’m still trying to figure out your punishment Gene.” Jacky wouldn’t do anything too horrible to punish me would she?

I mean I shouldn’t have given Belfry that cup of wine, but the experiment just had to be done to find out if I can drink the wine with Jacky safely later on. I did not know giant butterflies were lightweights and now we do know. We would never know when we’d have to force a giant butterfly to drink alcohol and now we knew for certain what would happen if we did need to do so.

My life has become so strange when I was trying to justify getting a butterfly drunk in my head, not that I’m unhappy about how life is going so far.

“Aside from that… what do we do now Jacky?” I had to ask, since we knew that Teatime had one of the keys now. Apparently said key was a dark jewel on an ancient sultan’s turban in a display at the palace.

I didn’t think Daring could stop both Ahuizotl and Dr. Caballeron if they were working in two places at the same time. Jacky was also reluctant to talk to or even make contact with Daring given she was the last one who was with Jade, there was obviously a bit of a grudge against the pegasus.

So what were we going to do now? The big question here.

We could go back to looking for the lamp with the genie. I don’t think that was happening when Teatime tried to kill or maul Jacky, plus there was the fact that he was with GODLESS. This set our captain on a course to spite him out of a burning need for some revenge. It really didn’t help that he targeted her outright as some kind of rival, I’m not even sure Teatime actually knew Jacky’s name.

“Surveillance, we have a griffon mask or two onboard that we can use to spy on the city for any suspicious activity from a good distance in the air, I don’t think Teatime or the others have left yet.” Thanks to Jacky’s luck, we probably wouldn’t be able to do this any other way than keeping a sharp eye out from a distance. “At least I haven’t seen any airships flying out of Nagrabah recently and I know Teatime can pilot airships given I accidentally destroyed one.”

“Sounds about as good as doing anything else right now; we don’t exactly have any leads on the lamp we're after.” I considered something for a moment. “The lamp we’re looking for wouldn’t be found in the Wondrous Cave, Ballad Din already got to the genie there and eventually set it free.”

I did some light reading from Flotsam’s book, if everything in the book had a hint of truth then all the tales were likely factual in some given way. ‘The Caves of Intrigue’ were mentioned in there and from what Amira told us, they would unleash ‘interesting times’ upon the city. The lamp might unfortunately be in those caves.

“Huh… oh hey... Captain! I found out that Belfry can make some really good fertilizer.” Nefer woke up slowly and looked quite playful, his split tail was immediately pointing at his fruit trees that were quite bountiful by appearance. “Do you want some fruit Captain Blackcap?”

“No, but you’re doing a good job Nefer, keep it up.” Jacky bent down and rubbed Nefer's ears, she might actually be really good with children if it weren’t for her curse. “Now where did you put all those chemicals, scales and other stuff?”

“In a spare storage bag that had nothing in it Captain!” Nefer was soon purring happily when Flotsam came up to give him a cuddle. "Hey big sis, how was the palace?"

"It was nice, Nefer." Answered Flotsam.

Author's Note

Life Update: Some things in it suck, news at eleven.

Truth is I just need some, slightly costly, dental work done in the next few weeks and I'm kind of bemoaning that right now in a rather depressive state considering the word 'grafting' is involved.

Otherwise I'm fine.

Jacky storing the sword away in the barrel of the party cannon, wherever it goes to when not in use, is 'practically' a useful canon feature of a party cannon. How else does Pinkie fit as many pastries as she does in hers?

42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything.

'Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy' knew to much, so it had to be silenced for the good of the world... so... 'Don't Panic'.

Chapter forty-two, Situations Sandy: Clever.

-A week later, the Ardent Survivor, Jacky-

The more I took apart the mechanical beast, the more intrigued I was by its inner workings.

Say whatever I will about Clockwork being part of a clearly evil organization, he obviously knew how to build complicated machinery.

I so far had studied the front legs and head of the beastly machine after peeling away some of its rubbery outer layer, having poured out whatever oil was left in it into a jar to study later. Quite a bit of the oil had drained out onto the floor of the ballroom and most of the rest of it had been taken by the Nagrabah guards. The oil I got was what I managed squeeze out of several small pockets of it.

Taking the golem apart and trying to work out how it worked was somewhat enticing for me. It had a magical crystal for a control node, similar to the one I pulled out the clockwork pony head I had disassembled.

The crystals didn’t lend these machines anything resembling great intelligence, but this did mean that they could possibly only be directed by their creator and were well constructed to be impossible to tamper with. That fact would continue to be true unless I could find a unicorn, one who had at least something approaching an equivalent knowledge and skills in golem creation to help me.

Clockwork’s golem control crystals were, without a doubt, entirely and completely useless to me.

Surprisingly little magic went into the golems other parts, most of the magic needed was in the crystal that animated and operated the rest of the structure.

The mechanics behind everything else in the golem, aside from the crystals, was actually quite sound and could be used in other more imaginative ways so long as I’m not trying to build a working golem.

I liked caring for ‘The Ardent Survivor’ and working on a party tank that one time was a novel, if incredible, experience. So what was it that had me so interested in this mechanical beast that wasn’t a vehicle that I could fix or pilot? Well it had some imaginary gears in my head turning ever so slightly and I could feel an idea coming to the forefront of my mind.

I wanted to build something, but I couldn’t quite figure out how I would go about doing it quite yet. The clockwork beast’s joints and inner workings were giving me quite a few ideas, but I’d need something powerful to make the most important part of the general idea come to life.

My tinkering was a hobby and I didn’t think it would bear any fruit, because I wasn’t exactly good at creating new things. My expertise lay in repair of preexisting constructions, ones that I have a manual for how the things worked within them. There was also the fact that I had a habit of wrecking things with my very proximity.

I still wanted to draw up a design concept for what I had in mind at least. It’s not like I really had much else to do at the moment, we were waiting on Ahuizotl, Dr. Caballeron and Teatime to make their move for the ‘Caves of Intrigue’. We did not want to cause a fracas in the city and we needed to eventually come up with plans to deal with each of the villainous guys.

I was working another gear and shaft out of the machine, when something slipped and a spring sent a gear bouncing off my skull at high speeds.

I was knocked onto my back and left groaning in pain on the floor, clutching at my now bruised head. There was nowhere that was absolutely safe from my luck for too long. I was thankful with the knowledge that my airship was never going to fall apart while I was on it, magical alchemy may or may not be a large factor in that.

“Are you okay Captain?” Nefer, bless his innocent sounding soul, came into the room looking at the mess strewn about.

“Just fine, minor concussion aside that is.” I sat up still clutching at my head as our resident green skullcap and pawed Nefer started to pad around and look at all the stuff I had been messing with for the last few days. “Anything to report Nefer?”

“Nothing so far Captain. Belfry, Gene, Savannah and Flotsam haven’t seen anything noticeable all week. Those bad guys still must be working on acquiring the three other keys.” Nefer scrunched up his face in concentration as he looked me in the eyes. “Why aren’t we going after the other two keys?”

“We don’t know what the keys look like, we don’t know where they are and information on them is incredibly sparse as all get out. That said, it’d be easier to stop them from getting out of the caves with what they’re after than trying to do so when they are flying under the radar in the city where my luck could cause a huge mess.” I had us way up high in the sky idly circling the city like a vulture and Gene was the one currently using a griffon mask to stay on the lookout for any sign of our quarries. Spying on the comings and goings of an entire city wasn’t easy, but we were managing the rotation of our watchers just fine. “Was there anything that you needed Nefer?”

“Yeah, I think I know how we can deal with Ahuizotl! He’s the guy that you said has some really ferocious felines.” Motioning to Nefer to get to the point with my talons, the cat smiled and asked a question. “Why can’t we just use Belfry? Most cats have a strong sense of smell, he made the whole ship smell really odd for a while when he loosed all those chemicals all over the place. Please don’t do whatever made him do that again, it took me a whole day to clean up that mess!”

“Yes and you did a good job in finding a use for all that stuff.” Fertilizer that can make the young trees bear fruit ridiculously fast, that was quite useful if you asked me. “As for your idea… I suddenly have a need to talk to Savannah.”

-Savannah’s room-

I found Savannah eating dates and sighing to herself as she looked over a picture of Amira. It’s too bad she wouldn’t tie herself down to the nice pony, because they really had some good chemistry together.

Savannah looked up at me as I entered the room and tossed a date into her mouth.

“Savannah, I know this is going to sound pretty odd… but where’s the catnip that you likely smuggled onboard my ship?” I stared at Savannah with narrowed eyes.

“Catnip? There’s no catnip on this ship, I’ll have you know that I’m a clean and upstanding…” As Savannah spoke in a calm and completely airy tone that sounded far too innocent for her. I walked over to the chest loaded with her personal belongings and opened it and looked inside. “There’s none in there I assure you, and while I may like you this is a clearly invasion of my…”

The inner roof the chest looked odd and sliding my talons along it, I eventually found a hidden pouch of herbs that looked suspiciously like what I’m after in small compartment. I held the pouch up with the opening pointed towards Savannah for her to clearly see the herbs sitting within it, exactly what I came asking about.

I stared at her for a solid minute, she just stared back at me.

“… I have absolutely no idea who that belongs to.” Savannah tried while clearly seeing my disbelieving face. She cracked a second later. “Okay, I might have picked up some in the bazaar near the entrance to Nagrabah, but can you really blame me for wanting some? Abyssinia has catnip flavored food and incense, but we never get the ‘real’ stuff because of how weird we get around it. Its use as an old time classic Abyssinian aphrodisiac is only a part of the equation… a part of which is no longer used in Abyssinia.”

“No and I’m not really judging either as long as nobody gets hurt… though I’m quite sure I don’t want to know what you and Amira were doing with this stuff.” Instead of being sheepish towards me as one would expect, Savannah instead gained a fairly large grin on her face. “I just need to borrow some of it for a bit.”

“For a certain cat bird of yours right?” Savannah coyly pried.

I didn’t want to know how catnip effects griffons and had never considered it before. That thought, I didn’t want to have this stuff go anywhere near Gene.

“No I’m going to give some of it to Belfry...” The idea I got from Nefer was simple, hallucinogen spraying butterfly with catnip equaled the ability to take out Ahuizotl’s felines out of the equation in an instant. The dubious side effects of doing such a thing will be considered at a later date when it actually became a reality.

“What for?” Savannah tilted her head at me as she followed me out the door.

“Well we’re going to have a run in with someone who has a number of large attack cats and we have a butterfly that can spray chemicals all over the place.” After that, I think Savannah understood where it was going and we wouldn’t have much to worry about from Ahuizotl if we went up against him.

-Ten minutes later-

“So be a good butterfly and remember to never create those smells around the ship.” Nothing annoyed me more than having Belfry cuddle up to me, he was always aggressively affectionate with me.

Three of our crew members were close enough to cats for it to be a big problem if Belfry started spraying the newly acquired scent around. Nefer just happened to be someone who, hopefully enough, could feasibly have a good reason to be completely immune to catnip. He could also bb in the one third percentage of cats that can ignore catnip.

I pushed Belfry off of me and then sat down to think, Belfry was good to go if Ahuizotl ever attacked us.

Now I had to consider Dr. Caballeron and his goons.

We had more than enough combat capable beings on this ship so the goons wouldn’t be much trouble, even I could kick around Caballeron’s minions without a weapon. Not that I’d ever be unarmed anymore… I had my bow behind my back in the cannon alongside the saber and a knife.

I wanted to at least prevent Caballeron from discovering anything else about ‘The End of Immortality’. We had to find a way to put him in jail so he couldn’t continue helping GODLESS any further.

The real problem was that jerk Teatime, his clockwork golems were going to be difficult to take down even if they weren’t as independent as the other minions were with the other two guys. In fact… the clockwork golems were all highly dependent on Clockwork weren’t they? We would just have to prioritize targeting the monocle menace.

“Can I have my catnip back now Captain Blackcap?” Savannah asked sweetly while giving me a pouty look and Belfry just added to that look standing right next to her.

“Fine…” I gave her the pouch back and she ran off excited to get it back from me. “Just don’t force any of that stuff on Nefer or Gene!”

“Hey, I’m old enough to be clearly responsible for my actions!” She was the older than everyone else, but responsibility didn’t exactly seem like her thing at all.

Why do most of the Abyssinians that I know feel like mental asylum patients at times? There’s also the fact that they can be rather shameless at times.

-Three days later, outside Nagrabah’s wall around Thieves Quarters, Teatime-

I looked at the quirky jewel in my hoof and then looked to my two compatriot’s odd keys. One looked like a segmented doughnut and the other looked like an angular boomerang, these three jewels were all the same color and questionably shaped.

“So… how do these keys open the ‘Caves of Intrigue’?” I just held the oval shaped jewel that had been in the sultan’s turban display up at the palace, aside from the triangular indent used to keep it in the turban I pried it from. If we couldn’t figure out how the keys work, then at least I’d have a nifty souvenir of my genius theft.

“I haven’t a clue, but I know Daring Do is around… I found one of these lying on the ground.” The long faced brute held up a solitary feather that was relatively fresh as if recently molted. “She is likely to interfere when we figure out how to get into the caves.”

“Yes, that is one of her feathers and its fresh. She will be trouble.” Caballeron rubbed his chin looking at the boomerang shaped jewel, he looked between our keys and his own. “Daring is most likely waiting for us to open the caves so she can stop us one at a time while we’re in there. As for the keys, they are supposed to show us the way once they are brought together and we learn their secret.”

“Maybe we break them?” Ahuizotl tried to pull his key apart.

The doughnut pulled apart, but it didn’t break. It was more accurate to say that the secret to his portion of the key helped us discover that his segmented doughnut was actually a scorpion’s tail, one that once unrolled had a hole at the base large enough to fit the thinner portion of the jewel I had.

“I think I have figured out something of great importance my incredible comrades… but I must admit that I will give some credit to Ahuizotl and his brutish mannerisms. May I have the scorpion’s tail?” Ahuizotl handed me the tail and I forced the small part of my oval shaped jewel into the end of it and heard a click. I turned to Caballeron. “They aren’t three keys… they are three parts of one key!”

I passed the tail and body to Caballeron and he put the boomerang part into the triangular indent, once the boomerang was inserted the pointed ends of the jewel split open into two pointy ends revealing that they were the claws of the scorpion key.

The tail started to move, he quickly dropped the key on the ground and backed up.

Instead of doing anything threatening the tail turns and send a short beam of white light in a given direction.

“I believe we have found out how to find the ‘Caves of Intrigue’, Ahuizotl will of course ride with me and you can get your airship moving to follow Caballeron.” They didn’t say anything against this, since my airship was parked next to Caballeron’s after all.

-An hour later, Daring Do-

I had seen them assemble the key under the moonlight and that it pointed towards a specific destination.

I watched as the two airships took off and I carefully followed them while hiding in a cloud.

Hopefully they wouldn’t notice this odd cloud as being the only one in the sky that followed them all the way to where they're currently going.

They already know I’m going to show up, so things were going to get tricky.

Author's Note

Nothingness... the author's note.

Chapter forty-two, Situations Sandy: Intelligent.

-The Ardent survivor, Jacky-

“Gene, are we still following them?” My first mate nodded while wearing a griffon mask over his face. “I’ll take up the wheel, we should be a few hours from wherever they’re going now. Go get an hour or two of rest while you still can, we’ll wake you when we arrive at the ‘Caves of Intrigue’.”

“Of course Jacky.” He waited until I got the spare griffon mask on my face and found the two airships we were trailing on the horizon, there was also Daring Do in a highly noticeable cloud. I took the controls and Gene went off to get some much needed rest.

I would easily keep my focus having gotten plenty of sleep. After taking a calm drink from a canteen of water I brought with me, I started steering the ship after our quarries. The morning sun was rising and I could already feel the heat filtering away the cold night air.

I wondered if we were ready for the coming fight. I couldn’t leave anyone alone on the ship, we needed absolutely everyone for this.

No point in getting cold feet now, we were going to do this thing and try to interfere with the plans of those guys. First order of business would be to deal with the two airships, while parking our own in an out of the way place.

Clockwork’s airship was fairly big and Caballeron’s airship was a relatively small one, we could easily disable both. We’d have to wait until they were actually in the caves before doing that, so we’d have to give them a small head before attacking the ships.

We’d drop down on the airships we’ll ransack and then Gene will land the airship a good distance away after we’re done looting them quietly, we did not want anyone stealing our ship.

Daring Do was probably close enough for them to have noticed her and would likely set up an ambush, but they wouldn’t see us coming by a mile.

-Three hours and several course corrections later-

Having slowed the ship down, I kept my masked face watching the two ships land in the sand and could see numerous ant sized figures disembark. We were barely beyond the horizon from them, they couldn’t have possibly spotted us.

Daring was likely not as lucky, as the cloud she was inside of was ridiculously visible and suspicious. In fact it was close enough for them to have spotted as it slowly drifted over their heads, she should be cautious and wait a bit before going in after Caballeron, Teatime and Ahuizotl.

We were still somewhere in the Saddle Arabian the dessert, didn’t know where this location would be on a map though. All I knew was that there were some mountainous rocks out here and not much else aside from that.

It was getting hot and I was beginning to hate the feeling of sand in my clothing, everything was just plain uncomfortable in the desert like that. The air being hot enough to pop popcorn was certainly the worst part of this, at least I was not stuck walking on the sands.

As we encroached slowly, I decided to go get the crew up and we would prepare our assault. It didn’t take me long to get Nefer, Flotsam, Belfry and Gene up on deck. Gene however was still a bit groggy from not getting much sleep, but I think he’d be okay.

While we continued our approach, I moved to the bow with Gene as he placed a griffon mask on his face. Flotsam took the steering and was keeping us on a steady course, she needed to learn how to pilot the ship somewhat anyway. Nefer was too small to effectively pilot the ship and Belfry wasn’t smart enough to do it, both of them working together might be able to successfully pilot the ship in an emergency.

I could see Caballeron holding the scorpion shaped key becoming clearer as we got closer. He approached a cylindrical pedestal just sitting out here in the middle of nowhere. There was something possibly sticking out of the pedestal, but I couldn’t see what it was at this distance.

-Caballeron-

Looking at the six curved spokes sticking up out of the stone, I could already tell what they were for. I sat the scorpion down on the pedestal on the spokes that would represent the scorpion’s legs and took a few steps back.

There was a click and the tail rose up and the light on it intensified. It fired a powerful blast of magic into the sand and then the ground started to rumble impressively. We backed up towards the ships and looked in front of us as several massive statues rose from the ground.

There were six humongous pony shaped limbs curving up and out of the sand, the entire area shook as the sand bulged up and started to slide away from the massive structures rising up.

There were three large pony heads and the front halves of three humongous stone ponies poking out of the ground. All three of their stone jaws started to lower and the sound of stone grinding against stone sounded out through the area to reveal that their mouths were staircases leading downwards.

We had three entrances to choose from and there would be a lot of treasure here that has been untouched for who knows how long, I couldn’t wait to get my hooves on it.

“Be cautious those of you who have opened this place, for much trouble you will have caused just by this one act of grace. For any magic unleashed here will be difficult to put back where it is found, so beware the things that you find below the ground.” That voice sounded deep and particularly masculine, but it didn’t seem threatening in the slightest. “Now travel inside and take what you will, provided that you can avoid whatever you unleash while getting your fill. Be careful of fatigue, as you enter the ‘Caves of Intrigue’.”

“Well now… that wasn’t particularly ominous at all.” It sounds like our compatriot Teatime has seen the likes of this before if he was so willing to be sarcastic about it.

“I can agree with that sentiment at least, it is a fairly common sign of danger to hear a magical voices speaking warnings. Sometimes they don’t mean nearly as much as they try to portend, though we should heed the warning all the same and trot cautiously.” I turned to my stallions to start ordering them down into one of three pony statues mouths.

We needed to set up a trap for Daring Do. Did she really think I wouldn’t notice the cloud that’s followed us all the way from Nagrahbah? There weren’t any other clouds in the sky this morning and this paltry attempt at stealth was laughable.

Whatever incredible deathtrap I could find to throw Daring into, I can only hope it will finally deal with that nuisance permanently this time. I would walk away from this with my payday in hoof while leaving Daring to her untimely doom, I so do enjoy giving her a challenge.

-Thirty minutes later, The Ardent Survivor, Jacky-

We were floating over the ships and the clockwork golems were not looking up. I didn’t think they were given orders to attack anything outside their given fields of view which was decidedly horizontal.

“Okay guys, get ready, they left behind some trouble. Two goons for Caballeron and a good number of clockwork ponies from Teatime. Ahuizotl went in without leaving any guards at his back and took his whole menagerie of large cats with him.” I was addressing my crew, but there was one thing I had wondered about and wanted to get out of the way first. “Doesn’t it bother anyone else that one of the cats Ahuizotl has at his beck and call is an ordinary house cat? I mean it’s kind of absurd that long face is open to a minion that doesn’t seem as vicious, big or even threatening like that.”

“Now that you mention it… yeah, that is a little weird. I mean why does Ahuizotl bother with the average house cat?” It would seem Flotsam was a little curious too, even Savannah looked a little interested in the subject. I didn’t think house cats would actually be good as minions. “I can understand the tiger, cheetah, panther and even the lynx given they are all pretty big cats, but the house cat is the really odd one of the bunch once someone points it out.”

“Nefer, Belfry, whenever you’re ready to attack Caballeron’s watchers. We’ll make our move after you start.” I received a quick salute from Nefer and Belfry before turning to the others. “Everyone else call a target before you jump so we don’t land on each other, we’re looting these ships like the pirates we are. Take most of the water and anything that isn’t nailed down that we can carry or fit into our ship, I’m taking the lone golem at bow.”

“I’m eying the one at mid-ship, starboard side.” Flotsam called as she took in a small portion of banana peel and started chewing.

“The one between what Jacky and Flotsam called.” Savannah looked ready to pounce onto it.

“Aft, port side.” Gene made his call and then we waited for Nefer to go in with Belfry.

“Let’s go Belfry!” When Nefer was taken over the side by Belfry to deal with the two goons, I pulled the saber out of from behind me and raised it high above my head in a reversed grip as I jumped.

As I dropped it looked like I was going come down on top of the golem and skewer it with the saber… instead I rammed a hole through the deck one foot to its left. My aim might have been slightly off because of The Ardent Survivor drifting away a bit and I didn’t adjust before jumping.

I groaned audibly as the golem came over to the hole and looked down at me, laying on the floor below the deck.

I slowly stood up and tried to pry the saber out of the circle of jagged wood I put through the deck, only to find it was pretty much stuck where it was. I looked up at the golem and gave the soulless eyes a flat stare.

“You’re going to shoot me aren’t you?” The response to my question was fairly obvious, several clacking noises and an opening jaw preparing to fire a miniature cannonball at me.

-Gene-

A perfectly executed prey attacking dive to drive the spear I wielded straight through a golem’s head. Having destroyed the crystal of that one, I immediately moved for the next one while ripping the spear free.

I couldn’t let them get any successful shots off on me or the others and downed another one with a burst from my wings pushing me forward.

-Savannah-

“Oh yeah, show me what you got pony bot!” This thing started bucking wildly as soon as I landed on it, I should probably join a rodeo sometime. That would be pretty fun, like this currently is. “This is fun, you guys have got to try this!”

I titled my head back as something zipped by my face and the golem I was riding on just lost its left ear from another golem shooting at me, it took a sea pony to the body a second later.

I grabbed my ride’s head and jerked it to the side and it shot a hole in another golem’s head when I pulled on its remaining ear.

“Come on, just try and get me off of you!” The golem turned its head one hundred and eighty degrees to point at me with an open mouth clacking. “Uh oh!”

A spear rammed through its head before it could fire in my face and it was ripped clean off with a swift jerk from Gene.

“Be a bit more careful with what you say Savannah, especially with Jacky being in the area.” Gene flew up looking for more golems to destroy. As I started to moving towards the door leading into the ship.

-Flotsam-

I smashed apart the golem I belly flopped onto and saw that Jacky was in trouble, I ignored that Savannah was riding one in a wild manner and tried to focus on what to do next.

I swallowed the banana peel chunk in my mouth, pushed myself backwards off the destroyed golem’s body, lifted it up and swung it around to fling it at the other golem aiming down into the hole Jacky made in the ship.

The golem was bowled over before it could fire its shot, one that just went off harmlessly into the sky. I dragged, flopped and slithered my way across the deck to look down at Jacky trying to free her sword from some wood.

“You okay down there Captain?” There was just something that made me grin about Captain Blackcap’s luck.

“Could be better… might eventually be feeling even worse later today. I can’t actually complain about things really, that just tends to make everything worse!” Jacky grumbled out as she pulled at the sword with both talons and started leveraging her entire body against the chunk of wood it was stuck in. That looked like it would take a while. “Go help Savannah and Gene by making sure all threats out here are neutralized, if there isn’t any more trouble start gathering up stuff to take!”

-Nefer-

“What the…” The first of the two ponies were too busy watching the attack on the other airship. Belfry smacked the pony across the back of the head with his front legs and started spraying that strange smelling mist everywhere. “Ugh… what is that...? Grandma my socks are full of pigs again, can I get a canister of tennis pears?”

“We’re under…!" The other pony began coughing as he inhaled large amount of the mist and didn’t get to say much when Belfry rammed into him and made his head bounce off of the railing. "Everything turning orange…”

Something whizzed by my head making me lose my balance and fall off of Belfry, I looked in that direction to see Gene ripping the head off a golem ponies head with that spear and then he flew up to the airship before it could drift too far away.

“So cool…” It was awesome to see everyone working together so well! I wasn’t nearly as strong as they were, but Belfry more than made up for that for me.

-Ten minutes after the attack, Jacky-

“Okay we’ve tied up the two thugs, dismantled most of the golems and stole most of the stuff... go park the airship somewhere safe Gene!” Things went pretty well, aside from my body going through the deck of a ship being the only minor hiccup. “The rest of you will follow me in, Gene will catch up to us.”

I turned to one of the three large pony statues that led down into the ‘Caves of Intrigue’, I walked through that entrance with my friends following me down the staircase lined with magic lights straight into the depths.

The Wondrous Cave was supposedly a singular place and easily navigable. The 'Caves of Intrigue' had numerous directions to go in at the bottom of the steps.

Our first major problem was the possibility of getting absolutely lost.

Author's Note

This one took a bit and I'm half asleep when I posted this particular page.

Chapter forty-two, Situations Sandy: Brilliant.

-Caves of Intrigue, Jacky-

They say the first step is often the hardest, well I took one step and nothing happened aside from the cave being lit up with more magical lights. Still, I was curious as to what was in these caves that made them so intriguing. We had entered through the unicorn headed statue, the three entrances were somewhat close together, but I think they all likely came out at different places in these caves.

“Nefer, Belfry, come with me. The rest of you go wait for the Gene at the top of the stair then come back down, we’re just going to check the right most tunnel.” I motioned to said tunnel. “We’re not going to go far and we’ll be right back.”

Nothing could possibly go wrong. Oh who am I kidding? We’re going to get lost in here.

Nefer and Belfry were behind me a respectable distance as we exited the far right tunnel into the most bizarre looking room ever. It kind of looked like a chapel that you’d see in a church.

We approached the thing standing at the altar wearing a nun’s habit.

“Captain what is all this?” Nefer mewled curiously.

“I think we just found religion.” Muttering that with a hint of humor in my voice, I looked at the large green creature behind the altar. “At least we don’t have to follow it if we don’t want to.”

Belfry took Nefer off of himself and set him off to the side, then he moved up to the nun at the altar and put his front to legs up in prayer. The nun patted gently him on the head with a scythe like limb and he came back to us chittering somewhat merrily.

This dead end wasn’t really that interesting, but it was intriguing nonetheless. I mean, what wasn’t interesting about the nun being a really large praying mantis. I had thought the Floating Continent was the only place that had giant bugs and then I had to remember that large things like a hydra did exist off of it.

“Quick question if I may?” I started out politely and the female mantis creature nodded to me. “I know that your species tend to eat to your mates. Since you’re a nun, does that mean you’ll never have a mate to consume?”

The mantis shakes her head sadly and then made several gestures that I barely understood, but I got the gist well enough.

“Yeah, I’m sorry that I asked about something so controversial for you.” The mantis just made a gentle shooing motion and probably said that it was okay that I had asked, we turned to go back down the tunnel we came from. “She seemed kind of nice about things and us just barging into her room.”

Belfry made a few happy sounding squealing noises, the more things I learned about giant bugs the more weirded out I felt about it.

Exiting the tunnel we came back to an open space that was far different than we had left it, considering we saw Gene, Savannah and Flotsam all above us… on the floor. We came out of the tunnel we explored on the ceiling.

“I can already tell that the ‘Caves of Intrigue’ are going to live up their name.” I stated blandly as I looked up at them and they did the same for us. I had to say something sarcastically here. “Hey guys, guess what? The caves are apparently magical!”

“Yeah, we kind of figured that out when we saw you on the ceiling. So what was in that direction?” Gene asked.

I knew there were the threats of Caballeron, Teatime and Ahuizotl around, but I was less worried about them and more worried about what the word ‘Intrigue’ meant at the moment.

“A really friendly giant praying mantis nun, I’m talking bigger than Belfry sized here. Go halfway down that tunnel and come on back.” We walked along the ceiling until we were at the center of the room. The three on the floor shrugged and did as I asked, seconds later they came back on the ceiling as well.

“That’s disorienting, we didn’t even move to the left or right and now we’re on the ceiling too!” Flotsam said rubbing a hoof against her head as she came slithering out with the others on the ceiling with us.

“It’s important that we stick together guys, we do not want to get separated or stuck down here.” I randomly chose a tunnel to go into.

We came out on stone bridge crossing over a bottomless void above and below. It even still felt like we were still upside down. We could cross the stone bridge across the void to another tunnel or turn back. “I feel like I’m actively playing a game of Ogre’s and Oubliettes right now.”

“Yeah, I’m getting those vibes as well Jacky.” Gene flew down… up? Well he flew up in our current orientation into one void and came up from below blinking confusedly at us on the right. Then we saw another Gene that had inverse colors to him on the other side as he also few up coming from below on the left.

“Excuse me, but you wouldn’t have happened to see someone that looks like that female parrot there would you? Except she haves white feathers and black around her eyes. We call her Captain Whitecap and she accidentally fell off one of these bridges.” I shook my head no to the inverse colored Gene. “Would it help if I said we’re from dimension forty three B?”

“No, not really, that’d probably just make things even more confusing. Given I’m from dimension twenty six Z.” The one that looked like our Gene stated and then a third Gene flew down which had to be ours. “This doesn’t look like my captain either, for one she’s much smaller and cuter looking.”

“Captain there’s nothing up there except another empty stone bri… er… why are there two more of me?” I sighed and slapped my face as Gene, our Gene, was the one that came back down from above.

Ten minutes later, we were leaving the two confused Gene’s from different possible realities behind, the third Gene that looked similar to ours had a major difference from ours that we hadn’t initially noticed. He was about two inches smaller all around than our Gene was.

We were quickly on our way before things got even more complicated and our last look at the void room had multiple Generic’s flying out of the void and talking to one another. I shivered at the thought of there being so many Gene’s, one bland soft spoken Viking griffon with muscles was more than enough for me thank you!

I even saw a pink and blue Belfry before we turned the corner of the tunnel ahead of us, another giant butterfly was more than enough for me to get moving faster.

“So everything in here is intriguing in its own given way?” Gene muttered as he tried not to look back towards the stone bridge we crossed, he was a little bit freaked out to see more than two of himself.

“That one is going to give me some nightmares, can you imagine there being more than one of me?” Savannah looked really shaken by the idea that she might not be original in her wild behavior. “If I’m not ‘The Wild Savannah’, then who am I?”

“Don’t worry or think too much about it Savannah.” I hoped she heeded my words. We came out of the tunnel we were currently in into another cave full of different paths, to be exact we exited the third from the left of another staircase. This cave was full of strange plants. “Don’t touch any of those plants, you don’t know what they’ll do.”

One quick trip up the staircase revealed that we were at the earth pony statue entrance, the two ponies were still tied up and the ships were still in the same disabled state as we left them in. I went back down.

“Okay, so we’re at the earth pony statue entrance… someone else pick a tunnel this time and hopefully we’ll find Ahuizotl, Teatime, Caballeron or even possibly Daring somewhere in here.” Because I wanted something to make some sense about all this. We didn’t necessarily move in the right direction to have been at the earth pony statue’s steps.

You know, I would have thought we’d have at least walked into a trap made by one of the three guys we followed into this, but nothing has occurred yet.

“How about that one.” Flotsam pointed to a tunnel that was second from the right. We immediately set out for that tunnel.

At the end of the tunnel we came out on the ceiling far above a situation already in progress below us in another system of caves, only there was no staircase leading out of this series of tunnels. The room was large enough that there were two separate tunnel systems in it. There were the ones where we could walk into the tunnels and the ones down, or up, where Daring Do currently was

Daring was flying above a cheetah and a panther just out of the reach of their swiping claws, didn’t honestly know why she was taunting them while letting them get that close to getting a debilitating injury on her. Ahuizotl didn’t seem too happy about the current situation either as he charged out of a tunnel towards her.

Unless we could fly, we weren’t going to be able to do anything about it from here and I wanted us all to stick together. Even Belfry was not to go off on his own.

“You’re just as lost as I am Ahuizotl, but you better believe I’ll get out of here with that Ring of Scorchero before you can find it!” It sounded like Daring’s bravado was not dented by what happened to Jade at least, she quickly flew off into another tunnel.

“Get back here!” Ahuizotl chased after her with the panther and cheetah. What we didn’t see were the lynx, house cat and tiger. Must have gotten lost somewhere in the random magical tunnels.

“Belfry, you choose next.” At my command Belfry did so and we ended up coming out into a room with four entrances and a pyramid as the center piece that had a glowing lamp sitting all the way at the top of it.

We all just came to a stop and simply stared at it.

“Really?!” I couldn’t believe it was just sitting right there, just ripe for the taking and all I had to do was run up a flight of stairs. “No seriously, that looks exactly like the one we’re looking for!”

I pulled out the map to the genie lamp, the one that said it was generally in Saddle Arabia and looked at the drawing. Yep it was same angular design, but what was the catch here? I continued to look between the two for a minute before putting it away.

“Jacky are you feeling alright, I thought you’d be running for it immediately if it was the item we’re looking and why we came to Saddle Arabia in the first place.” Gene pointed out.

“I don’t know, it just seems almost too good to be true...” Even as I said this, I started up the stairs with everyone following me. My climbing must have started to look quite frantic, but I really wanted that lamp! “Hopefully it isn’t!”

I looked back and noted Flotsam was having a slight issue with the stairs. There was an understandable reason that Flotsam hated stairs, it was always rough going up or down them on her tail fin

I tripped several times climbing the steps and even tumbled up five of them, I still didn’t know how I did that sometimes. I could care less about my stair problems in this instance, since I was getting closer to the lamp at the top.

My eyes filled with trepidation once I reached the flat topped portion of the pyramid and took several uneasy steps towards the lamp while slowly reaching out for it. Just when I was about to grab the green glowing lamp, a white furred hoof swiped it away from me by the handle before my eyes, I blinked and stared at Teatime in utter disbelief.

“Well now, if it isn’t my rival… you can just simply just look at this beautiful lamp I just acquired.” The smug Teatime couldn’t help but grin at my hardening glare.

“You don’t even know my name Tee-a-shirt-timmy-yeah, how can we be rivals!” I screeched in his face, he gave me a perplexed look.

“Well isn’t it obvious, we were destined to be at each other’s throats from the moment our eyes met!” He stated as if it were meant to be. “Quite frankly I don’t need to know your name when I can just remember your face, I’m definitely going to remember the look on it when I get away with this...”

I leapt for the lamp and he quickly started backpedaled towards the stairs, my second lunge actually caused me to bodily slam into him sending us tumbling down the stairs.

I was trying to strangle the annoying stallion, just like he was trying to keep the lamp from being damaged and away from me as he slapped at my face with a single hoof.

“My name…” I started as his back slammed against the stairs, with my grasp tightening around his neck. “Is…”

My back slammed into the steps next.

“Jacky Blackcap…” Another bounce occurred and we both went flipping into the air after he took a particularly brutal hit to the spine. “Chickadee La Perm!”

I slammed him into the stairs again, a bit more harshly this time, then we landed at the bottom of the steps with him on top of me. My talons were still digging into his throat, until one of his rear legs hit me in the chin making me let him go.

He quickly staggered off and away from me quickly, but it looked like he was still going to stop to gloat at me.

“Well now, it seems like I have the upper hoof here.” He held up the lamp and smiled grimly, his two arriving golems approached us. “Let me see if this is what I think it is so I can be rid of you, golems shoot her if she approaches us.”

I glared at Teatime as he held the lamp up in his right hoof and rubbed his left one greedily against the lamp.

The resultant action of this was not what either of us expected… because what happened is exactly nothing.

“Is it a dud?” Muttered Teatime and he tossed the glowing lamp off to the side. “What good is a magic lamp that only glows in the dark? Magic nightlights have been around for centuries and I wouldn’t get any money for this useless thing!”

He just carelessly tossed the glowing angular lamp to the side without a second thought, but I still believed it held a genie.

If the genie of that lamp wasn’t activated by rubbing the object it was in, but by something else, then I would definitely still want it.

“I guess I’ll have to deal with you in a more mundane manner.” Teatime was obviously about to order his golems to attack me.

Author's Note

A magic lamp that you don't rub, but glows in the dark?

Make a paperweight of it!

Chapter forty-two, Situations Sandy: Genius.

-Caves of Intrigue, Gene-

“Look, there’s something you got to know before telling them to shoot me.” Jacky said as I pulled the spear from my back and dove down the steps. Aiming the spear I threw it to the left slightly and then crashed into the golem pony on the right to twist and rip its head off. Throwing the head off to the side I approached Teatime with a glare. “My boyfriend is still pretty angry that you targeted me with those mechanical beasts.”

“That’s impossible! Why the strength alone needed to rip off the head off one of my golem ponies would require that he be strong enough to… oh dear.” Teatime took off his monocle and pulled out a wipe cloth, he wiped it down while sweating a lot and put it back in place. He then started galloping for the nearest exit. “Well cheerio, no sense in sticking around here when there’s treasure to get away with!”

I went to go after him, but Jacky halted me and went to pick up the lamp. She held the glow lamp and looked at it and shrugged before stashing it away in her pack.

“We stick together Generic, I don’t want anyone getting lost in here.” Listening to Jacky, I stayed at her side despite wanting to pummel that pony into next week. Apparently he’s not very brave or capable without his mechanical golems.

“Captain we have a problem!” We turned to Nefer, who was trying to get our attention as Belfry came down for a landing next to us.

“What is it Nefer?” Jacky looked to the panicked trident tail.

“There were some warning inscriptions in the floor around the lamp, we have an hour to get out of the caves when the pyramid sinks!” Nefer was a little panicked and Flotsam huffed loudly as she finally got down all the stairs. “The old Saddle Arabian inscription said that will only happen if the lamp is moved.”

“Maybe the mechanism isn’t working and it’s rusted up?” Well Jacky had a positive attitude, but…

A loud clicking noise could be heard throughout the room and then the Caves of Intrigue began to rumble.

We all turned to the pyramid and saw it slowly sinking into the ground.

“Maybe it’s not too hard to get back to the stairs?” It was kind of hard to hear Jacky over the rumbling. Sand started pouring down into this cave from above. “Gene how do you feel about carrying Flotsam around?”

“I can do it, but it’ll tire me out quickly." I turned to Flotsam sitting next to the sinking pyramid. "How do you feel about me carrying you Flotsam?”

“That’s a trick question right? Of course I’ll let you carry me!” Flotsam would be a bit slow otherwise. I ripped the spear from the golem and placed it on my back. Taking flight I wrapped my claws around her waist and started to flap my wings as hard as I could to get her in the air, then I was assisted by Belfry. “Hope you know that this is making me feel like dead weight again.”

“Hey, you took out two golems and saved me from getting shot earlier this morning, so that’s something pretty good going for you.” Jacky managed to cheer Flotsam up somewhat and she smiled a little. “Now let’s find Daring and get out of here while we still can. I may have a slight grudge against her, but I’m not going to leave her behind.”

We made for one the other exits to this room and came to a left or right junction.

“Gene?” Jacky looked to me.

“We head left.” I remember hearing something about always sticking to the left or right wall to find the exit, here it might not be applicable given the magic going on in this place.

We ended up going through a hallway filled with strangely colorful bubbles, upon touching one of them Jacky found out the hovering bubble was actually made of mineral crystals. Blue bubbles were, for instance, made of sapphire.

The bubbles were filled with some strange gaseous substance that’s light enough to hold the heavy crystals in the air, I know this because Jacky accident caused a bubble to break and the gas immediately slammed into the ceiling causing a few rocks to fall down.

We exited that into a cave full of cube shaped snow. The snow wasn’t in mounds, it was in cubes, rectangles and even rhombuses. We had three directions to go.

“Look at all this white puffy cold stuff…!” It seemed Nefer has never seen snow before.

“It’s called snow Nefer, but we don’t have the time to play with it.” I turned to Savannah who whined and dropped the snowball she scooped up and she kicked it off to the side, the ball of snow immediately turned into a cube shape after it finished tumbling. “Your turn Savannah, make a quick choice!”

“I would never want to go just straight, so how about going right?” Savannah seemed a little unsure about this. It’s not like we had any idea where we were going, so we were just taking turns making wild guesses.

We went along a warped twisted rectangular hallway and our bodies turned with the twist of the floor, we made one full rotation before we came out the other side and into an open cavern full of mirrors.

They were spaced apart from one another pretty well and we just slowly walked through looking at our reflections change and shift like fun house mirrors. Only the reflections seemed to be wearing different clothing, were missing limbs, seemed to be moving in directions we weren’t, some had monstrous glowing red eyed versions of us in them and others had us with little rings of light floating above our heads.

“A room of magic mirrors, how novel. If we find a staircase before we find Daring, we’re taking it.” Everyone was behind you with that Jacky. “I might not like the idea of leaving Daring behind, but we will since I’ve got you guys to think about.”

“If only someone could tell us where she is.” I looked at the mirrors around Nefer and he didn’t seem to have a reflection at all… in fact none of the mirrors were reflecting him and were only reflecting Belfry.

“Oh I know where she is, take that tunnel!” We all turned towards a mirror to see a mirror copy of Daring Do wearing a sailor outfit and pointing off towards the tunnel forward and slightly to the right of the one we all had been facing coming in. “Some guy named Caballeron caught her after he looted the golden animal crackers room… don’t eat them, gold is not exactly healthy for your appetite and the only thing you’ll crack is your teeth! He tossed her into the room with the gem encrusted pillows thinking it was full of monsters or something.”

“Uh… thanks?” Jacky just went with it, so we might as well too.

“Don’t mention it, since my reflection really needs the help!” We were almost out of earshot of the mirror Daring Do as we continued on into the suggested tunnel.

Things quickly became dark in the tunnel and it seemed as if the tunnel were filled with malicious looking red eyes ahead of us.

“I could use some help right about now, when did Caballeron teach his goons to tie knots like that?” That sounded like Daring ahead of us. “I’d even take some of Ahuizotl’s ferocious felines!”

There was no noise coming from the malevolent looking red eyes. They didn’t blink, make noise or anything. Moving forward we came out of whatever was causing the unnatural darkness into a room full of ruby encrusted pillows, all of said rubies looked like eyes. A lot of the rooms in this place were lit up with magic orbs of light, the light from the orbs didn’t reach into the darkness behind us which seemed to stretch on forever.

“Would you accept help from an old friend?” Walking forward Jacky looked at the mare who was tightly bound, she had only managed to get the gag off of herself to even talk.

“What are you doing here?” Daring sat up and stared at Jacky with trepidation.

“My crew and I are here looking for a magic lamp, we found it and it glows in the dark.” Jacky seemed to be tipping between congenial and hostile. “So, do you want our help or not?”

“I work alone for a good reason now, but in this instance I’m willing to make an exception.” Did Daring really have to bring Jade up? It just made Jacky less likely to help her. “It’s not you working with me, it’s me working for you.”

“Don’t squirm too much; we need to leave real fast!” Before Jacky could be questioned by what she meant, Daring’s eyes widened when Jacky pulled the saber out from behind her and even being behind her I didn’t know where she pulled it from, even though the logical answer is 'party cannon'. She slashed the saber downwards cutting the rope. “Apparently taking the lamp from its pedestal causes this whole place to go into shut down mode in an hour and it’s been about twenty minutes since that happened.”

“It happens a lot in my line of work, deadlines becoming a literal dead line.” Daring grunted and stretched out, I took this opportunity to get some rest and Belfry let go of Flotsam as soon as I did. “I’ll give you a minute to rest, but we really need to get moving if we’re on time crunch.”

Jacky, Savannah and I picked some jewels out of the nearby pillows, I even kept one of the pillows for later. Once we were ready to go I lifted Flotsam into the air with Belfry’s help and we were on our way following Daring’s lead.

-Savannah-

“Do you even know where you’re going?” These caves were neat and I was having plenty of fun seeing what would come up next. There was walking on walls, everything turning several shades of yellow, a room that smells like your favorite food constantly and the room where anyone can fly would have been more fun if we weren’t currently under time constraints.

I felt like we were lost and that wasn’t good when we had less than thirty minutes to get out of these caves.

“All we need to do is find some stairs right? Well there’s some right now!” We went up the stairs following Daring and didn’t end up outside, instead we ended up in dead end with a sign. “Sorry, alicorn statue has yet to be implemented into the ‘Caves of Intrigue’, please return to one of the other statue entrances to get out? Why do alicorns always come up more often than they should in these kinds of places with detrimental connotations?!”

Turning around we saw said horned and winged pony statue we came out of. It was not one of the three ponies you could enter the caves through. We went back down the stairs we came up.

We then went through a room full of silver peanuts, moderately interesting but we couldn’t stop to find out what was in the silver colored shells.

There was a room full of totem pole statues with strange eyes that follow you… it was exceedingly creepy.

The room where there was absolutely no sound whatsoever, no matter what you did it was dead silent.

The following room was worse after the previous two rooms, since this room had you paranoid that something was just right behind you and you never saw it when you looked back.

We were about down to five minutes as we entered a cavernous room filled to the brim with empty glass bottles. Who actually designed this crazy place?

Exiting that room on the ceiling into the next, Jacky and I suddenly fell to the floor. Thankfully my fall was cushioned by Jacky’s body.

From here we could see Ahuizotl and his cats heading for some stairs leading up and outside.

“It seems you’ve failed to stop me from achieving my goal Daring Do.” Ahuizotl gloated as he held up a solid golden ring, he blew a whistle his tail hand was holding and his five cat minions gathered. “Attack!”

“Belfry remember those plants you ate earlier…” Jacky stated blithely and our giant butterfly leapt forward spray of chemicals all over the charging cats.

The four large cats and the average looking house cat started to stagger around dizzily. They then blushed, turned around and started to physically assault Ahuizotl.

“Stop! What are you doing? Attack them, not me!” The cats all started to assault Ahuizotl affectionately as he turned away to run up the stairs. His five cats became rather clingy and were chasing him.

“Come on, after him!” We followed Daring Do up the stairs.

All things said this whole trip went pretty well and I even got a souvenir bejeweled pillow!

-Daring-

We were just about to exit the 'Caves of Intrigue' and it seemed to be a little after noon judging by the position of the sun. We had to quickly back down the steps when a wave of fire blasted the entrance.

“You’re not getting away that easily, my associates really don’t like you Daring Do and I’m getting a share of the profits even if I didn’t find much in the way of riches on my own.” That Clockwork guy had a flamethrower trained on our ticket out of here and we didn’t have much time left. “I also don’t want my rival getting out and I see her behind you… what was your name again? Oh right, it doesn’t matter if you get stuck in the ‘Caves of Intrigue’ and die of hunger, thirst or old age!”

The stairs leading out started to rumble and the magical lights along the staircase started winking out one after another starting from the bottom heading to the top.

“Flotsam, eat a banana peel!” I wondered why anyone would want to eat a banana peel at a time like this. I turned to see the sea pony start consuming said peel. After some vigorous chewing Flotsam swallowed it, Jade’s sister then said something that made my blood freeze. “Grab Daring and kick her through the entrance as hard as you can.”

“Wha…” I tried to ask what was going to happen, only to find myself lifted off the ground by a single hoof on my butt. I tried to fly away and or fall from the iron grip the sea pony had on me, she simply just placed her other hoof on the other cheek of my rear end.

“What about us Captain?” The one called Flotsam asked as she focused on the entrance.

“We’ll just have to find another way out, now get her out of here!” What did she mean by…? I suddenly rocketed forward at an incredible speed and blurred through the entrance.

Catching myself with my wings, I turned around to see the top of the winged statue pony’s head clamp shut. The other two pony statues soon followed.

The three pieces of the scorpion key exploded away from the pedestal into the distance in three different directions.

“No…” They had all been sealed inside.

“Ha, let’s see Daring Do get out of that one!” That’s the sad thing Caballeron, I already did.

Author's Note

Blah blah blah... let's keep this rolling...

Chapter forty-three, Wishing Wisely: Jumping out.

-Scorpio’s Lair, Jacky-

“If you’re here Captain… Jade… thank you for letting me know you’re here for me sister.” Am I feeling blue? Aren’t these tears in my eyes telling everyone I’m happy? The only way Jade’s fire could exist is if she were still alive!

Wait… if she was alive then why couldn’t the genie bring her here fully? What was currently going on that made him incapable of fully fulfilling my wish? What kind of state of existence is Jade experiencing where I can’t see her, but she could still find the time to help us?

Maybe she’s not dead, but she’s not alive either? She’s still technically qualifying as a Humdinger’s Cat Paradox even now, but she has at least proved somewhat without a shadow of a doubt that she still existed in some form.

I don’t care, I’ll continue to believe my sister was still alive and needed help in some way!

“Captain, I solemnly promise you this, I will not stop living until I can bring you back home to mom someday!” Just wait for me and everyone else to figure out how to help you Jade… it might take a while if even this genie can’t help you. “Or at least I’ll try to bring mom to you once I figure out how.”

-Scorpio’s Lair, J…A…D…E…?-

That would have been a really nice sentiment Jacky. If I wasn’t currently in unenvious amounts of pain, screaming my head off and my soul felt like it was being shredded to pieces.

Sure, you can thank me for telling you I was still around my loveable disaster of a sister.

I was quite hopeful everything eventually falls into place and Harmony would actually provide the right set of circumstances to actually help me out of this.

There would come a day when I could slap Jacky, and I will do so while telling her exactly what she put me through here for her sake. Oh I didn’t regret saving my sister, but this is not an experience I ever wished to go through more than once.

I was not going through this again, nope, nobody could pay me anything to ignite my soul like this ever again! The only way I would ever want to do this again is if either Fizzle or Maries were in danger… or mom for that matter.

Okay Family and friends is where I draw the line, not doing this again for complete strangers!

My slightly battered and damaged soul was spent and fell into the sand smoking and unmoving, it was just a good thing that my tolerance for pain somehow managed to transfer over to my soul. If I had a body right now, I’d probably have been catatonic for the rest of my life from the nerve damage that would have incurred from this.

You know, I was actually kind of thankful that I currently didn’t have a physical existence at the moment or that my physical existence never had to go through something like this.

I think either my willpower or the magic of friendship and love was what has been holding me together for so long, but I wouldn’t mind a roll of duct tape right about now.

My soul felt like it was in tatters and a single roll of duct tape would certainly go a long way to answering many of my current problems.

The current state of my existence was really messed up to say the least, but at least my sun given power provided Jacky the time to think about her and her friend’s wishes. They had better not waste any of those wishes on me!

They had five, make that six if you included the giant butterfly, people to make wishes with and three wishes per person is… darn you math! Even like this, you still taunt me!

The situation was at least tenable and there was a way to get me back sooner rather than later, if only Harmony would hurry up with nudging all those things into position!

I was basically the best spy in the world, the undetectable kind, but I couldn’t use what I knew. It was so aggravatingly frustrating when you knew a lot about what was going on and what will happen, yet could do absolutely nothing about it.

-Airship Mauled, Snickers-

“Coo?” Felt something. Great bond? Still broken, but something was there for a second.

Cuddly fanged bunny friend nudged me to eat, says I need strength.

Bond might not be gone forever, need to be stronger for lost great bond partner. May bond again!

“You’re looking a little more colorful today Snickers.” Fresh Start is smart pony. “I don’t know how Kuril gets out of bed these mornings and keeps going, I’d have shut down by now if it was my entire family running off into danger.”

-Scorpio’s Lair, Jacky-

Three tails slammed into the barrier as harshly as they could, but the fire did not weaken and it stayed strong under the onslaught. Scorpio managed to break all the tips of its stingers, I’m sure they would grow back with time as the monster continued to hammer at the barrier with its claws.

“I always thought being on fire would be more painful.” Nefer kept poking the fire with a paw and I still continued to stare at it. We were standing here with a giant scorpion wailing away at us and I couldn’t do anything more than stare and cry.

“Jacky, please snap out of it.” Gene started to roughly shake me, bringing my attention to him and away from the fire that could have only been made by one person. “I know that’s her fire, but we’re still kind of in a situation here and can talk about it later.”

“Yes, please do, I would like to know how you created this everlasting fire on the sand without a fuel source, one that also generates such a powerful barrier.” Evoker stated calmly, so we had at least fourteen jerk genie wishes between us. “So do you have an actual wish to use or can I go back into the lamp now?”

It would be fifteen, if I weren’t wishing us safely out of here. Since Belfry can’t talk and wishes had to be understood… make that seventeen wishes given that the genie probably knows all languages. I’m sure he could understand the intent of a large bug quite clearly.

“I wish that, with the exception of Scorpio, all of us will ‘safely’ appear next to where the airship we know as The Ardent Survivor happens to be in this current second of time.” We immediately appeared right next to the airship with the fire in tow.

I snorted about the fire actually coming with us, but I wasn’t about to leave Jade behind to be stuck in that realm.

-Jade-

“At least she made a decent wish so I wouldn’t be stuck in that scorpion’s realm.” I’m heading back to where Fizzle is, hopefully she’ll still be there when I arrived.

I’m just going to leave my fire here and start crawling...

-The Ardent Survivor, Jacky-

“You know, you are the most annoying master that I have ever had, who taught you how to make wishes that specific? Wish granted by the way, but seriously you’re batting a thousand with your first wish master!” Evoker seemed upset that we had brains in our skulls. “If you hadn’t excluded Scorpio, said the word ‘safely’ or said ‘this current second’, I could have done any number of horrible things to you like time travel. Still though, it’s nice to know you’re taking my power seriously at least.”

“Okay guys, we have a jerk genie and he’s actively taunting us with the fact that he’ll twist whatever we ask for. Let’s write down a list of things we could wish for and go over it, carefully!” Since wishing for my sister wouldn’t obviously work at this rate, this gave me a reason to continue searching for powerful artifacts at the very least. One of them might even be capable of helping Jade. “I know what my remaining two wishes are going to be like and why. Each of you think of a wish for someone else, for yourself and something that could help the ship. We’ll write them all down and then discuss it and vote on them, then we’ll get the wording down… until then nobody is allowed to even say the word ‘wish’ while in possession of the lamp. I already made my wish for everyone else to get us there.”

“Oh great… even smarter than I previously thought you were, couldn’t someone more greedy have found me? I love getting those types into all kinds of trouble.” We were going to have to deal with Evoker’s griping the entire time weren’t we? “Can we just burn through all the wishes in one go and put me back in the Caves of Intrigue? If you need wealth, power or fame, all you need to do is take the lamp and ask me.”

“Nobody listen to any of his suggestions either without thinking really hard about it.” Everyone agreed with that, nobody even had a hint of greed in their eyes. “If he starts trying to pit us against each other, remember that that is basically his job in a nutshell as a jerk genie.”

We calmly entered the ship and I wrote down my next three wishes, two of them were dependent on how my second wish went. My friends were a little surprised, but they agreed I would be making those wishes last.

First to make three wishes was Belfry, he was going to test if he could even make a wish. He was going to selflessly give up his wishes for me and all I had to do is tell him what to say in as specific a manner as I can.

We were most certainly not going for extravagant world changing wishes, we’re not stupid and I already know the problems with wishing for the things that first jumped to mind as being a bad idea.

“The butterfly, are you absolutely kidding me!?” Evoker snorted at the idea that the one that would be making the next few wishes would be Belfry.

In the meantime, we were already getting up in the air and I was plotting our next course. I looked over the side of the ship at the fire we were leaving behind, Belfry liked me more than that fire and I would like to say that was flattering in some ways.

We’ll succeed someday Jade. Don’t worry, not even my bad luck would stop me forever.

The next treasure to look for was an ancient magical book in an ancient library in the middle of a jungle. We could just wish the book into our grasps, but where would the fun be in that? I also didn’t trust Evoker to have our best interests at heart and would rather adventure without any shortcuts. We were only going to be asking for small things with our wishes.

Belfry currently had control of the lamp and he would certainly at least make his first wish on my behalf.

We were all watching Belfry as he cleared what passed for his vocal chords and started to chirp something out, he seemed to go into great detail about what his wish entailed.

“What… really? Are you serious? Fine… your wish is granted, though I think you could be doing so much better than that!” Evoker really didn’t like us and he did understand what Belfry was asking for. “Just for the record, giant butterflies like you shouldn’t be so aggressively smart like this!”

The first wish Belfry made was surprisingly not turning me into a giant butterfly like him. That would have wasted someone else’s wish to change me back, color me impressed that the wish only entailed something simple and yet profound. While Belfry and the others wouldn’t tell me the wish, I would certainly know of its effects.

Belfry’s first wish was basically this, ‘I wish that Gene could fully express all his feelings to Jacky for the next five minutes’. He kept it simple and put a time limit on it as to not change Gene forever.

It was quite the wish, because Gene came over to me and his beak was immediately in my face. We were soon passionately kissing and snuggling up against one another. He whispered such sweet words into my ears and I listened to every single one of them.

There were some things he didn’t like about me, there were even some trivial things he worried about that he would have never stated otherwise, but most of all what he said last before the time ran out was most pertinent.

“Just remember that I love you Jacky, even if I don’t show it very well!” After Gene said that in a heartfelt tone instead of his normal blandness, the five minutes were up and he went back to normal.

I turned to Belfry and just looked at him, he tilted his head at me curiously. I moved over to him and patted him on the head gently with my left hand.

“Good butterfly.” The giant butterfly squealed with happiness and rubbed up against me, I was going to give up on trying to get rid of him after that. “I trust you to make a personal wish without causing too many problems.”

Belfry turned to the genie and looked thoughtful.

“I still think you wasted that wish.” Evoker stated grumpily to Belfry, but our pet butterfly thought it was a worthwhile wish. “Anything else?”

Belfry made his second wish, this one we went over with fine toothed comb with him. Once he was ready to make it, he went on for a solid minute chittering about what he wanted. It was an exceedingly specific desire that could not be twisted in any given way.

“Complicated and yet so simple… also very well defined parameters. Wish granted!” He zapped the space before Belfry and a mug sized barrel appeared, our butterfly opened the top and dipped his proboscis into the fluids inside it and started to cheerfully drink it. “Where in the world did you find a creature this smart, but is still below the line enough to possibly be a familiar?”

“Does it matter?” That made me receive a loathing look from Evoker.

“Yes, because it won’t make a selfish wish, even its second wish is more so to the point that you have to spend less resources on taking care of him and he can even share it!” Evoker seemed rather stressed out. “What is wrong with you people, you should be selfishly fighting over the lamp!”

“Say Belfry, was that second wish more for you or for the ship?” Turning to me, Belfry lifted a leg and pointed downwards. “Okay, can we work on your final wish then?”

Once we did eventually figure out what his last wish was, I denied it and tried to have it vetoed. He wanted a familiar bond with one of us, me specifically. He really liked me that much and we didn’t actually have that kind of bond yet despite his many attempts to make one.

“I have no idea what you see in me, but I think that is a bad idea.” I think I might have hurt Belfry’s feelings by denying him. “That said, I might have a better one.”

Chapter forty-three, Wishing Wisely: Jumping in.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter forty-three, Wishing Wisely: Jumping away.

Author's Note

This could be 'somebody's' theme music. Piranha Creeper Creek sounds like something you'd hear in a swamp.

Chapter forty-three, Wishing Wisely: Jumping away.

-A week later Zebrican Jungle, Savannah-

“Okay, here we go~!” I sang out as I took our first step out of sight of The Ardent Survivor.

We were scouting the general area of the jungle and staying away from any big animals, the flora smelled nice and the fauna wasn’t always so unpleasant. Unless you were Jacky.

Nefer, Gene and Belfry were staying with the ship while we got some girl time in, Flotsam needed it and Jacky suggested it.

Now if only Jacky could remember that she’s been hit by a least three trees in the past five days or is attracting more danger than her curse normally does.

“Here we go~. Wandering the jungle we don’t know~.” I started to sing as I kept my pace slow as I walked along with Flotsam alongside me. “You can relax, we’re as safe as can be you know~.”

“Are you sure about that~? Do you even know where Captain Jacky is at~?” Flotsam ducked under a leaf and as we trudge through the jungle. “I think she might be under attack~.”

The sound of several trees being smashed and the sound of Jacky running for life could be heard and she shot past them and started climbing up a tree with, only for a rhino to ram into it.

“Oh goddesses help me~! This rhino is chasing me up a tree~!” The rhino was actually managing to climb the tree after Jacky, it really seemed determined to rip her apart with its horn. “This is an emergency here~!”

“Are we singing in verse~? Is this a jungle curse~?!” Flotsam had a nice singing voice, she could give a siren a run for their money. “Why in Tartarus is all of this so queer~?”

We continued along at an even pace and watched as Jacky got in some calisthenics, she was really quick on her feet. She had to be to keep outrunning a rhino like that, then again I heard she had outran a boulder that kept increasing in lethality and could even roll up a hill.

Don’t honestly know how Jacky aggravated it, but it really wanted to maul her quite badly despite the fact that she was able turn faster than it could when it started building up speed to use lethal force.

What we were feeling was the jungle beat.

“Flotsam, it’s just a heart song~.” A bird with a red tipped bill flew down and start to peck at my fur, probably taking care of the annoying insects that landed on me. The bird started to chirrup making happy fluting noises and another landed on Flotsam to sing along with it.

“Out of my way~!” Jacky ran past in front of us with not only a rhino chasing her, but also a lioness and a jaguar. Our parrot friend was not having a good day.

“This is going to be one long day~.” Flotsam groaned out, but still patted the bird on her head softly and it continued to sing for us alternatingly with its friend on my head while picking at bugs that came near us.

“Jacky jump~!” I yelled out, she managed to avoid bowling over an okapi by leaping over it, I yawned and stretched. I patted my own little friendly bird and watched the spectacle, the okapi simply cowered away from the beasts chasing after Jacky. “Don’t become their prey~!”

“You join this fray~!” It seemed like Jacky wasn’t going to get any time to pull something from behind her back to deal with all the trouble. At least the okapi noticed us and came over to tilt his head curiously at us.

“I’m sorry, is friend being okay~?” We nodded to the okapi, he shrugged and just went on his merry way.

“Stop ignoring my plight and help me out~!” Jacky screeched as she ducked under the lions lunge, kicked the jaguar in the face and then rolled out of the way. The jaguar was soon rammed painfully by the rhino into a nearby tree.

We just continued walking and tail wiggling our way up stream looking around at the beautiful trees, vines and wonderful flowers with sweet little birds on our heads.

Jacky meanwhile somehow got a pack of monkeys on her, they were throwing stuff at her from the trees. She was using a large pangolin as a shield, that poor pangolin didn’t look happy about it. This was all occurring while she was trying to outrun a honey badger that somehow got involved the second she reappeared from going behind a tree.

The jaguar and the rhino were busy with each other and the lioness was stalking through the grass waiting to pounce on her.

“Wild and free, this jungle is so me~.” I picked up the curious fox with bat ears that came up to me and cuddled it to my chest, it wagged its tail happily in response. I still had a bird on my head preening my fur. “Why look at this little cutie~!”

A penguin popped out of the river and waddled up to Flotsam to look at her curiously, she bent down to take a look at the small waddling bird. The bird on her head quickly evacuated its perch as the penguin leapt up and slapped her in the face and then brayed like a donkey before running off for the river. The bird with the red tipped beak returned to its perch.

“What was that~? Why did the penguin just attack~?” Flotsam turned to me looking upset. “Was there something wrong with me~?”

“Do not worry~.” I was enjoying our nature walk, Jacky wasn’t having as much luck. Speaking of, there she goes swinging by on vine with the lioness and the honey badger doing the same thing still chasing her. Those were some smart animals. “It was just a jackass penguin~. That is to be taken quite literally~.”

“The musical noise, of this canopied jungle~. It makes such a wonderful cacophony~!” Flotsam sang and the bird on her head chirped at her singing appreciatively, she was doing pretty well with moving through the foliage. For a sea pony, she was doing pretty with for someone that didn’t have more than two legs to stand on.

The air was fresh, the flowers were pretty, plants with large leaves and bushes to push out of our path. All the colors blended to make for a pretty picture. I wish I had a camera right now, but I don’t think the picture would do everything I saw justice like seeing it in person would.

“I think I love all this nature~!” I sang out while putting the fox down and shooing it away. The birds started to make flute like noises in harmony now, we watched a few bugs flitter about and a few animals meandering around drinking water from the nearby river. “It’s quite grand~.”

“It is more than I can stand~!” Jacky was wrestling with the honey badger and punching its face vigorously as hard as she could. That was only making it angrier and she was getting cut up pretty badly by its claws.

“That’s enough~!” I growled at the honey badger and it ran away from me and left Jacky bleeding on the ground. “Come on, hey, don’t you pout~!”

“That’s just your luck~.” Flotsam stated seeing the badger run away from my growling, only for a series of mangoes fall on Jacky’s head and we weren’t even next to any mango trees. Her luck must be really making up for the lost time it took us to get to Zebrica. “I’ll just get the medical kit out~.”

“Please do, I’m bleeding all over and about~!” Jacky whined on the ground.

-One quick patch job to Jacky’s injuries later, Flotsam-

I just looked at Jacky’s bandaged arms and legs. We shouldn’t have just kept following the flow of the song and actually listened to Jacky’s cries for help. I didn’t know Heart Songs could actively be malicious like that… never actually took part in one either.

Jacky’s luck was really going at her today, at least she didn’t run into a bee or wasp hive.

Not much to sing about when life had been cruel to you growing up. I was still nervous about my upcoming wishes. Today the lamp was in Nefer’s possession and I worried the genie was going to take him for a ride.

If he hurt my little brother, then my first wish was going to be a fate worse than death for him, even if he twisted the wish it would still go badly for him! I have an idea or two for a no winning move wish to use against him.

In any case I never thought about it before, but my curse isn’t as horrible as Jacky’s is in comparison. I can actively avoid water, she can’t go anywhere without her curse cropping up. I didn’t want to stop being a sea pony, but there was a large urge to make the wish to be an Earth Pony, Pegasus Pony or even a Unicorn Pony.

Becoming a unicorn would pretty much make my whitecap ability a moot point, highly tempting just for the magical horn alone. Being a winged pony would let me fly, something that I could get endless amounts of joy out of. If I were an Earth Pony, I’d be able to be that much closer to my little brother, maybe I would also gain prehensile hair and greater cooking skills.

Speaking of lamp… I looked to Savannah and the amulet she wore around her neck. It held a metal ring with a horizontal rectangular sapphire that sat at her chest.

“Okay, what were your first and third wishes? I already know about her second wish, she made her third one before we left the airship today and I didn’t hear it.” That and I was asking because I was still nervous about the wishes I could be making.

“I’ll tell you my first wish, but my third wish will come to pass when you get the lamp. I hope you appreciate it Sammy!” Seeing Savannah’s tail flicking about, I was now worried about what her last wish entailed. “I asked Jacky if my wish was a good idea and she agreed that the wish was a really the best one I could have ever given you.”

“Savannah is the first one to make a selfish wish, with the exception that she can actually let us use the amulet from time to time. I know I want to try it once.” The smile on Jacky’s beak as she turned to me was quite bright. “You’ll find your wishes to be much easier to come up with, trust us on that. Savannah wanted to do something nice for you, you two could spend more time together… and no I don’t mean in that way Savannah.”

“Anyway, my first wish was for the crew. More specifically, while it was mostly for everyone, the wish is mostly centered on you and Jacky.” The Abyssinian gained a sheepish look. “Did you ever plan on having children? Well good news! They’ll absolutely be curse free and in Jacky’s case her children will be protected from the more volatile consequences of her curse during pregnancy. My wish works even if I were to suddenly contract a curse similar to Jacky or yours Flotsam. The wish also works for the guys as well, mostly Gene. Don’t know about Nefer as I don’t think there are many anugyptian felines around and Belfry would have to go to The Garden or join a butterfly migration.”

I released a sigh, I did kind of want to have children one day. It was nice to know that Savannah was thinking ahead and considering the rest of us with that wish.

“As for my third wish, that’s going to be a surprise… so what are we going to do now and have you finally caught your breathe Jacky?” It wasn’t just Savannah that was worried about our blood soaked bandage covered friend. Jacky’s health always seemed like it was in a constant state of flux, by the time she got done healing from one injury, she’d have two more minutes later.

“Yeah, I should be good to go guys.” Standing up and straightening out her tail, Jacky started walking the same direction we had been going along the river. “Let’s keep exploring up river for an hour, then we’ll head on back to see what the guys are getting up to.”

-The Ardent Survivor, Gene-

I was relaxing and getting in some quality guy time with Nefer and Belfry, with our special guest Evoker the grumpy genie. It must be hard for Evoker to be stuck with us and granting constant decently made wishes.

Evoker had recently granted Nefer’s first wish, he got a magical scratching post primarily for Savannah. The scratching post would also be useful for the maybe Jacky and himself as well. I myself wouldn’t mind having access to using it, it looked like a good claw care device.

“I have an idea for my second wish already!” Nefer seemed to concentrate on what he really wanted. “I..”

“Don’t strain yourself thinking too hard. Not that you do a lot of thinking from what I’ve seen.” Evoker prodded and I glared at the genies back. “Can we get the ten remaining wishes out of the way sometime this year?”

“I wish some really good lawyers would come here temporarily to help me with some documentation to legally make Flotsam De Brie my big sister, after they’re done they’ll safely go back to where they were last before being brought here.” Nefer’s wish was received with an odd look, eventually Evoker held out his right hand and snapped his digits.

“Well now… that’s… actually the most interesting result from a twisting I’ve ever seen.” Evoker stated with disbelief. “You asked for lawyers plural, you got a single three headed creature.”

“A genie?” One voice said.

“Hey look, it’s Gene!” Another said.

“Okay, why were we brought here Gene and what’s going on?” The tiger head of the three headed creature stated.

“Hey Maries, this is Nefer, he wished for really good lawyers so he can legally call his adoptive big sister his actual big sister. Could you help us out with a few other things too?” I gestured my talons to Evoker. “I could use a lawyers help to make some of my wishes go through without a problem. So how about using your skills to help us make some wishes? Also, before you ask, he couldn’t bring Jade back.”

“Damn it!” All three heads shouted as one, then Maria blasted fire into the air angrily.

“Our sentiments exactly, especially when we heard he couldn’t take away the curses that Jacky and another crew member of ours has.” Magic couldn’t solve every problem in life, sometimes the only way to do something was the hard way. Actually, getting to the genie’s lamp was pretty hard to do, so I guess that even the hard way sometimes doesn’t work. “What are you’re going rates?”

“What was the wording of the wish that brought us here and if we can… can we get three wishes as payment before fulfilling the wish that brought us here?” Their grins were feral, given that they were lawyers they were well within their rights to grin.

“A chimera lawyer?” Nefer finally reacted. “That’s incredible!”

“More wishes?” Grumped out Evoker. “I despise lawyers now!”

Chapter forty-three, Wishing Wisely: Jumping over.

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Chapter forty-three, Wishing Wisely: Jumping high.

-The next day, Zebrica Jungle, Flotsam-

A little knowledge can do a lot, I never imagined my movements being as fluid as this.

The two wing fins on my back are vestigial at the best of times and walking like a snake or a snail had always felt so forced, mostly because it kind of was before Nefer’s wish.

All he wished for was for me to have the knowledge of how I could move around better on land, without changing anything about me. I had become a lot faster with slithering about after some practice and I did need to practice with this new knowledge.

Any wish I could make to change myself now would be making that wish seem unimportant, not to mention it would gravely hurt Nefer’s feelings. The little guy looked up to me a lot, I could hardly understand why aside from the fact that he thought I was pretty. My little split tail brother was a sweetheart.

Despite the temptation to be something different, Jacky had told me to not let the world break me and be an inspiration. She was pretty inspirational herself, but I didn’t see myself being an inspiration to anyone… aside from Nefer.

The time I spend with Nefer is always worthwhile. He was so adorable and innocent at times, I was quite willing to be his big sister and read him a bedtime story or two from the one thousand and one Saddle Arabian tales. He was only onboard with Jacky for the adventure and I was right there with him enjoying them.

That reminds me, I’ll have to sign that last spot on the document to be his big sister once I got back and then Maries would get back to her job as a lawyer in Canterlot. I was still confused about how a chimera could gain such a job so easily.

I was heading down the river away from The Ardent Survivor slowly while making sure that I was doing my movements right. We didn’t find what we were looking for scouting up the river, just a lot of trouble.

It was safe to say that treasure hunting around here was fairly dangerous and I was thankful that I vaguely looked like a big snake, which made most predators wary of me.

I recalled all the good times I had with Savannah and Jacky the other day as I held the lamp in my right hoof, glancing at it every now and then as I moved alongside the river. I was a bit wary of falling in without someone around to help save me from drowning, not to mention the cragadiles were rather prominent in Zebrica.

It was nice to have friends like them, one who wouldn’t look at me as if I were weird since they were weirder by comparison and the other can actively sympathize with me fairly well.

Changing track, Maries were interesting, they were always of three opinions yet I could tell that they never bothered to voice all of them. You just had to pay attention to them to notice that they wanted to say something, but didn’t.

To think they could have gained eight more wishes… instead the last thing they wished for was that the genie would attempt to make a friend, then they had all glanced at me. They didn’t give in to that temptation to have more wishes, they only used what Nefer bought their services with.

Today I’m off on my own to think about what happened when Maries gave me the lamp this morning and had a knowing look in their eyes.

Apparently they knew I’d be heading out to scout around for our current treasure hunt and given what their last wish was, I think they expected me to try and get to know Evoker. I was a bit nervous about that.

Everyone on the crew were always so nice to me. I was kind of touched about what Savannah wished for me, it was the knowledge, wisdom and understanding to make my three wishes without regrets and a sound mind.

What could I possibly want that Evoker can grant me? For being a powerful genie he seemed fairly limited in what he could do, especially if someone can block his ability to get the knowledge Maries initially wanted. As best I could guess, the leader of that GODLESS organization had to be a powerful unicorn.

I can’t wish for love. I was already getting plenty of that from my new family, we’re mostly explorers and haven’t done anything that normal pirates would do yet. Well there was Jacky stealing from those thieves in Saddle Arabia, she liked the saber that one guy had and I’ve seen her practicing with it every now and then since.

I hoped to find romantic love someday, something like what Gene and Jacky had. They understood one another and even if Gene is a little tight in the beak when it came to expressing himself or even being emotional, Belfry’s wish kind of opened them up to one another. Despite the wish fading away after five minutes, they were still openly communicating with one another.

“Okay, I think I’m far enough away.” I stopped and looked around, birds making noise, insects flittering near the water, a wildebeest getting a drink and the copious amount of vine covered trees that blotted out the sun.

I reached into the pack on my back and pulled out a pack of what Jacky called ‘cannon lighters’, they were simply matches and they could be used to light cannons as one of the things they did. Being both protected from wind and water, they were useful on the ocean, high in the air or just about anywhere you needed to light a cannon fuse really. Supposedly they worked underwater as well and I didn’t see a point to that.

I struck it and looked at the flame I held in my hoof, I tilted the lamp and saw the oil pooling at the tip of the spout. I wondered if we’d have a lamp of infinite oil if Evoker stopped living in it.

Shaking that thought from my mind, I dropped the matchstick into the spout and eventually the yellow smoke poured out to reveal Evoker with his arms crossed. If one thousand and one Saddle Arabian tales is to be believe, the silver bracers he was hiding by crossing his arms were a sign of his captivity to the lamp.

“Ah, the fair sea pony maiden, what can I do for you master?” Centaurs were interesting beings, I don’t think I knew much about them other than what I’ve read about Tirek in the history books. That centaur would have destroyed this world by sucking it dry of magic and I think Tirek was too dumb to realize that it would have inevitably killed him to keep doing so. No one being aside from gods were meant to handle so much power. “All alone out here with me? Going to wish you were a different being, going to wish you were less depressive or are you simply going to…”

“I wish to know how you became a genie by you telling me a story and what your opinion on being one is like after the fact.” There was something subtle in the way he seemed to pause, he was just staring at me for a long time. I continued moving down the side of the river while looking around for some ruins or something out of place in this jungle.

Like that panther about to attack me. It was preparing to lunge for me from a tree from in front of me and to my right.

I reacted immediately to the creature looking to make a fish snack out of me. I pushed my hooves against the ground to jump up in combination with pushing off with my tail end.

Managing to get myself off the ground high enough, I snapped my tail forward from underneath me. It went right up into the panthers chin with a sickening crack that had to have dislocated its jaw and I sent it rolling on to its side.

I landed on my back, only to quickly roll onto my belly and raised my tail up in a threatening manner while planting my hooves on the ground.

Staring the panther down as it got up, I waited for what it would do next. It eyed me for a moment while groaning in pain and then stalked off, it was going to look for far easier prey.

“Well you’re attitude sure has changed recently, that was a rather impressive blow there.” Evoker didn’t say anything about my wish and didn’t seem to want to as he floated over to me after my short altercation with the wildlife around here.

“Are you going to grant the wish or not?” I asked tersely as I began moving forward again.

“Wish… granted.” Evoker looked away and his jaw was clenching a bit, he floated alongside me as I continued to look about to make sure nothing else was going to pop out at me. “There once was a centaur who sought to become powerful. In blindly chasing this power, the centaur should have worried about the strings that were attached to said power. A king, having heard the centaur was looking for power, bade him come to his kingdom through a messenger.”

“I can kind of see where this is going.” I figured he goes to king and then becomes a genie.

“Anyone can really. So the centaur arrives in the king’s kingdom and is immediately captured to be forcefully brought before the king who had a ‘something’ that could grant someone other than the wielder almost limitless power. The caveat is that the person it’s used on has to ultimately want that power and for there to be a nearby object that has some space inside of it, the centaur foolishly wanted that power and had even craved it.” Evoker snorted loudly in anger and then gained a look of regret on his face. “The king had already done this to several others before by this point, but had wasted his many wishes on frivolous things that he could have just asked for otherwise from his servants normally. He enjoyed giving other beings this power, because they always quickly become a slave to his every whim even after using up all their wishes. The king guarded the secret of the genies he created zealously. Nobody knew how the king had acquired so many powerful servants, but the king made some pretty big mistakes in his hubris.”

“He made a really stupid wish I take it?” The smile I saw on Evoker’s face was chilling.

“That he did, he wished for the freshly created genie to kill someone who threatened his rule. He was once a good person, but had become a known tyrant thanks to all the power the genies gave him. This wish obviously didn’t work as one of the limitations is that a genie can’t kill anyone, at least not personally. That’s when the king found out about that particular rule.” Evoker chuckled a bit and I finally saw something a little away from the river on the opposite side. There were some ruins, they were not really great or large. I turned around and started on my way back towards The Ardent Survivor. I’d come back with the others and we’d do some looking around in that area. “As you can imagine the king was displeased to hear that his whims couldn’t be adhered to. He absolutely thought himself a god thanks to being protected by many powerful magical servants and thought that nothing could stop his rule. The fact that someone unknown was trying to was what made him speak his own doom. In his hubris he said this, ‘I wish that nobody in my lifetime could be higher in the world than me’.”

“What happened?” Though I was afraid to find out, I just had to know for curiosities sake.

“He shot straight up into the sky and didn’t come down until he died from a lack of food and the injuries he got from smashing through the opulent ceiling of the palace, this incidentally destroyed the ‘something’ that made the genies in the first place. Nobody could go or fly nearly as high as he did to save him until he ultimately perished looking down on the world. He couldn’t even make any wishes to save himself even if he were conscious, since he was too far away to hear at that point. That’s not the end of the story though.” One would think not Evoker, but the king incidentally killing himself through a poorly thought out wish was rather dark. “After the new genies master was killed, the genies that had been under his command were suddenly pulled into the objects that they were tied to and scattered to places too difficult to reach without determination. From there the centaur genie spent years of his life being found and lost in a constant loop, having passed through many ownerships to eventually be put into a magical cave and be sealed away to never see the light of day for thousands of years.”

“The ‘Caves of Intrigue’.” My second wish was going to be for Gene, I thought he deserved it. “For my second wish… I wish that Gene Eric, the first mate griffon on The Ardent Survivor, had…”

-The Ardent Survivor, Gene-

A present box appeared on the deck near me and I blinked at it, I picked up the card and read what was on it.

“I think Sammy’s going to be just fine Nefer.” I opened the box and smiled a bit at what I saw inside, I certainly owed her now.

“Yay!” Nefer crowed out and hopped around in circles, happily dancing on his paws.

-Thirty minutes later, Evoker-

“So as you can imagine being a genie isn’t fun and the likelihood of being free is slim to none, because everyone always wants something from me even if I can’t grant it to them.” I was making that honest attempt to befriend the girl. “I like smart people, but you guys haven’t made a single destructive wish yet. I’ve been angry because, for once in my life, I can honestly say I’ve met a group of decent people!”

She whined a lot about her life and didn’t take steps to… actually...now that I look, she was taking those steps right now. Even if she wasn’t walking in a normal sense.

She was a far sight better than that old pony king and she was a decent conversationalist.

Darn that wish for me to make a friend! It’s making me feel like actually being nice to her.

“Still those who became genies got exactly what they wanted, they became powerful under the king your story talked about.” True, I cannot deny that fact Master De Brie.

“Do you have a third wish now Flotsam?” Why did I say it like that, my tone was supposed to be more demeaning than that!

“Yes, I do.” Closing her eyes the sea pony continued to slither forward and then she opened them. “I wish… that all the genies in the world may eventually be given a chance at redemption and then freedom, provided that they will 'mostly' be held 'accountable' for their 'magic' after freedom.”

My eyes widened at the implications.

Author's Note

?

Oh right, author's note. What did I need to tell anyone who's still reading this mess again?

I had a good Cinco De Mayo!

There was so much food, a little too much and my stomach is a bit cramped still even into this day.

I should go easier on the celebrations... given I have to get my first grafting done soon. It'll happen in about a week now. Hopefully it's not too painful and the three days of recovery will go just fine, I don't think I'll get any writing done though and I'm getting closer to the one million mark.

Any complaints about the story so far? Because the next chapter is going to have Gene get his wishes, then Jacky makes the final two, one of which will be pretty obvious.

Chapter forty-three, Wishing Wisely: A Griffon’s Revenge.

-The Ardent Survivor, Gene’s room, Gene-

Flotsam had returned and gave me the lamp, I had my idea for three wishes and I looked at Evoker who seemed to stare after Flotsam.

“So… I know one of the wishes she made, what were the other two?” I leaned against the railing and looked at the jungle below, Jacky was flying us south to get a closer look at the ruins Flotsam saw.

“To know a story about a king who rose above it all, much to his detriment really.” Evoker had a small knowing smile on his face. “The other was the chance for all genies to be free of captivity with the caveat that we’ll be held accountable for how we use any magic from then on. Quite prudent considering that our magic can get almost close to being as chaotic as Discord has been known to be.”

“You’re being surprisingly friendly now, especially considering you were rather grumpy with Savannah sitting on her wished for a while and quite impatient with the rest of us after.” I scrutinized his smile slightly. “What changed?”

“I’ve finally figured out that I’ve been a bit rash and would like us to be… friends.” He rubbed at his right elbow while looking to the deck, it sounded like it was hard for him to admit that he wanted friends. Maries really got to him, having a single friend can change anyone’s worldview. “I would like to formally apologize for my attitude.”

“Look, your attitude might have been lousy, but we’re not going to hold that against you if you’re being sincere here and it’s kind of understandable that you’d be sour about how your life is going. That said, I would like to make my wishes now please.” I figured I could be polite to him, he is after all going to be doing me some huge favors. “I’ll make it quick and then I’ll give you over to Jacky for her last two wishes, but I would also like to call you my friend since your already Flotsam’s friend. Let me formally introduce myself, I’m Gene Eric.”

“Hello Gene, your ability to express your emotions is always a bit, shall we say, lacking?” He gave me a curious look. “I don’t think you’re going to make a wish to change that, so what will you actually wish for?”

“Many would say that I’m not much of a griffon because I’m not greedy and or full of myself with pride, griffons don’t actually have a lot to be really prideful about actually. Those that do miss the points where I am truly a griffon at heart, they should be quite wary of me.” I started off, a small grin came to my beak. One of the few times I’ve ever really showed an emotion. “As such, I am not above revenge and or getting back at those who hurt my friends or loved ones for very little reason. Twist the wishes coming to you as you will, because if you can suggest worse I’m willing to hear it. Which is why I’m asking for your given expertise in this.”

“You have my attention, go on.” He raised a brow at me in clear curiosity, I pulled out a sheet of paper and he looked over my first two wishes. “I believe we may be able to come to something of an accord here.”

“Got any suggestions?” The grin and chuckle I received was telling.

“I’m glad you asked.” He conjured a pair of glasses out of nothing put them to his face as he looked over my first wish. “Your first wish is a bit juvenile, but it is completely sound. I would add to it by stating that the targets see nothing as wrong with what is happening to them and add a description to the wish to watch it as it happens. Will it be a temporary thing or is it going to be permanent.”

“I don’t want to kill the guy with concussions, so let’s go with temporary.” Killing was not something I would ever do lightly, I had a sense of morality and would never want to go overboard or that far. That and there were far worse things than death. “That said, I wish that Teatime Clockwork…”

-Mare-akkech, Teatime Clockwork-

I was sitting down to have a spot of tea with one of my associates in a building, a bright grey furred and dark haired earth pony with steely green eyes named Iron Glee.

This was a nice place to get some supplies from and Iron Glee knew how to forge the parts that I needed for my biggest project yet.

After taking a sip of my tea, I had this most oddest of urges.

I held my left hoof up and curled it, then I thrust it straight at my face with a vigorous enthusiasm. Admittedly it was a little odd for me to do this, but I couldn’t think of a reason why I shouldn’t.

“Now why did you go and do that?” Getting confused at what Iron Glee meant, I just had to ask.

“Do what?” I queried confused. Sure my cheek was a little bruised, but I was okay with that.

“This.” He stood up and sent his right hoof colliding with the left side of my face, my world exploded in quite a bit of pain. I eventually found myself sprawled out on the floor, but I was otherwise alright with having my face used as a cleaning towel for his hoof.

“That’s not what I did, I did this but with my left hoof.” I curled my right hoof and smashed it against my face making myself quite dizzy and I believe my nose was dripping blood, this was quite painful and I was only going to explain this to him once. “This is what you did.”

I grabbed his left hoof and forced my face into it. The pain was quite excruciating, but my actions made clear sense as I had to explain to him the difference

“I made you smash your face on my left hoof?” Iron Glee sounded confused.

“No you smashed my face with your right hoof. I just happened to smash my face into the left as a demonstration, but with more momentum on your part.” I likely now had the imprint of a hoof on my forehead, but it was worth it to teach this individual what was what here. “I say, the room is spinning quite thoroughly. Do you think it’s the multiple bruises or the blood loss?”

“Maybe a bit of both and the head injuries.” He giggled out a bit.

My word, getting hit in the head hurt quite a bit.

“Quite, what were we doing again?” We sat down for tea, we were about to discuss his services and then I just felt like putting my hoof to my face. Like right now for instance.

“Discussing why you did this.” He clobbered me with a good right hook, which sent me flailing to the floor and spilling piping hot teat all over my unmentionables. I was in so much pain right now, but I had to persevere as I had asked him.

“No what I did was this.” I thrust my own hoof towards my forehead with all of my strength.

-Later at a hospital-

“Excuse me nurse, but could you beat me within an inch of my life?” The nurse rolled her eyes at me.

“Sure, but it’ll cost you extra.” I gave it a lot of thought, did I want to be pummeled unceremoniously by a nurse.

“Yes, please do, at your earliest convenience even!” She leapt upon me and started pummeling my face black and blue, she stopped when the doctor arrived.

“Stop, stop that right this instant!” The nurse pause and looked to the doctor that rushed in. “Did he actually ask for the masochist package? Also does he have insurance?”

“Yes.” The nurse pony said calmly. “To both of those.”

“Well then, you may carry on, but I can’t let you keep bashing him in the skull like that. As a doctor, I would like to say that this is quite unhealthy for him.” The doctor looked particularly proud of himself. “No more head injuries nurse, the poor guy can’t take much more of those. Start hitting his chest and barrel instead. No broken bones though, they changed the policy on that recently and we can only do heavy bruising and minor bleeding now. When you think he’s just about had it, we will knock him out with a right painful smash to his sheathe and I’ll even hold his legs open for you. Most of these kinds of stallions enjoy that for some weird reason, what strange ponies these masochists are.”

“I miss being able to wear the maid outfits.” The nurse whined.

“Yes, yes, I too miss the ability to wear my sailor’s outfit, but rules are rules you know! No more casual dress during work hours.” The doctor stated while waving a hoof in the air. “We must have at least some sense of decorum and we must be properly clothed for our work, we are medical professionals after all.”

The nurse went back to beating me black and blue, but she avoided hitting me in the head at least. These people were really quite nice about everything and I hadn’t the heart to tell them I wasn’t a masochist.

I had actually asked for this, so I can’t really say I blame them for thinking that.

-The Ardent Survivor, Gene-

“Okay what do you think for my second wish?” I asked after seeing Teatime knock himself out while with his friend.

“Good, but if you want karmic retribution, then may I tell you a few of my ideas?” It looked like Evoker and I would be good friends.

“Sure, I really want to get the most out of this one.” My second wish was going to be for the assassin that went after Jade.

-Horsolulu beach front, Obelus-

Ah, this was the life! Sipping mango juice and just relaxing on a sandy beach in warm weather,

It felt like my vacation could go on forever with all the money I had made. Suddenly something placed a shadow over me. I opened my eye, the other one had an eyepatch ever since my altercation with that Abyssinian, and looked to see if it was some idiot that thought they could take me.

All I saw was a single cloud hovering above me.

Today was supposed to be a completely clear sky and there weren’t supposed to be any…

The cloud discharged lightning into me and it barely gave me any time to recover from that, because it soon started firing pointy shards of hail in my direction seconds later that shredded my beach blanket.

I tried to run from the odd weather phenomenon, but it was actively giving chase to me!

I’m starting to think I really shouldn’t have hit on that one Pegasus stallion’s sister.

-The Ardent Survivor, Gene-

“Yeah, that should do it.” I nodded to Evoker and he smiled back at me fondly.

You never know when someone will get a genie, so never be cruel to anyone in life or else they may just get revenge in the most horrible way possible if they ever get one good wish off on you.

“I think I actually enjoyed granting that one.” Evoker state cheerfully. “What’s your final wish Gene?”

“Please, call me Generic. As for my final wish…” I had to think on this one, I could feel the ship settling against the ground. Looks like Jacky found a good landing spot near the ruins Flotsam spotted. I think I had a good wish. “I wish that we can eventually make modifications to The Ardent Survivor successfully without ruining any of the woods current durability or the ship current ability to function as a whole.”

“That seems fair for a final wish and I’ll surely grant it, but what kind of modifications do you plan on making?” All Evoker would receive from me is a faint smile, he raised a hand and the magic filtered into the ship. “You can now make changes to the ship without ruining its structural integrity, you’ll know how to do so once you figure out what it is you want to change about the ship.”

“Eh, Jacky has been studying some golems and she’s been getting ideas about making something, so I figured that she might want to change some things about the ship.” She’d now be capable of doing that without ruining the ship. I got up and left my room to go give the lamp to Jacky to finish off our remaining wishes.

As we got onto the deck, Flotsam came over to us while closing her book.

“Hey Evoker, getting those final two wishes out? Jacky says she already knows the wishes she wants to make.” Flotsam said cheerfully as Jacky came over after having deflated the balloon, I could look off the side of the ship and see the ruins that Flotsam spotted.

“Yes, I am Flotsam.” Evoker looked around at all of us as I gave the lamp over to Jacky’s talons. “I would like to apologize for my behavior towards all of you and thank you for being so friendly. I would also like to thank you for that wish Maries.”

“You’re welcome.” They all stated in unison.

“My second wish is this, I wish to know exactly what you will eventually do if I wished for your freedom.” Jacky looked into Evoker’s eyes and he simply held up his left hand and snapped his fingers, no smile or frown present on his face. Jacky stared off into the distance for a few seconds before gaining a small smile. “Well now… that’s interesting…”

“What’s interesting?” Flotsam asked as she looked to Jacky with some worry. “He’s not going to go on rampage is he?”

“Evoker, I can’t make my last wish yet.” Okay, what did Jacky know that we didn’t that cause her to have that reaction? “Maries, Flotsam needs to finish signing that document before I can make my final wish or else she could get stuck with us.”

“Of course, we have the paperwork right here.” Mara produced the paperwork in her paw, had Flotsam sign the last bit of it and then they suddenly disappeared.

They probably went back to Canterlot to file the paperwork and make it official.

“Okay, now I can make my final wish. Evoker, I wish that you were free of that which binds you.” The manacles on Evoker’s arms shattered into bits of light and a magical torrent surrounded Evoker until he stopped having a ghostly tail. He certainly looked like a centaur now.

“Thank you, it’s been so long since I’ve felt my four hooves. I’ve got some things to go see and do with my newly found freedom, I hope you understand.” The centaur held up a hand. “I can't thank you enough for that wish Captain Blackcap.”

“Goodbye Evoker.” Flotsam calmly stated.

“Goodbye Flotsam, Generic, I hope we shall meet again and that I get the chance to actually know all of you properly when we do.” With a snap, Evoker also disappeared.

“Okay, let’s go hunt for this ‘book of curses’ in those ruins!” Jacky was already at the gangplank.

It seemed everyone was eager for trouble, as we all followed after our captain.

Author's Note

Just going to keep going here, but I think Jacky forgot to tell Maries something.

What could it be?

Chapter forty-four, Lacking Overly Violent Enmity: Balloon.

-Canterlot Castle, Maries-

“It is urgent that we speak with Princess Celestia.” The stallion in the armor before us was being horribly obstructive, most likely because of our species.

“Sure, that’s what most ponies believe.” The stallion rolled his eyes.

“We’re not ponies though, we’re lawyers and representatives happen to be on a time sensitive case so, if you could please move out the way sir.” Marie tried sweetly.

“Like a creature like you could legally become a lawyer in civilized society.” We glared at him and Mara started to growl slightly.

“Is something the matter here Maries?” We all smiled at hearing the voice of Princess Cadence, we turned to her with a calmer demeanor.

At least we could understand in some part why one of our beloved prospective mates had a fascination with toying with the Royal Guard.

“Yes, we have a manner most urgent and there are no other ponies in line, yet this stallion will not less us through.” Maria stated blithely and the guard looked between us and Cadence.

“Uh, you know this horrible beast Princess Cadence?” The stallion in question asked.

“What you may see as a horrid beast, I see as a friend being held up for no apparent reason whatsoever. I know that Aunt Celestia would certainly like to hear about this.” Cadence lit her horn lifted the guard and walked into the throne room with him. “So if you’ll excuse us, I believe me and my friends have business to attend to.”

“We thank you for the assistance Princess Cadence.” We said in unison and with respect clearly earned.

“You’re welcome, ponies aren’t the only beings that require some love and friendship.” Cadence led us up to a bored looking Celestia, she sat up and smiled at the sight of a panicking and flailing guard held in her niece’s magic.

-One week later in Zebrica, Zebra Village, Jacky-

The quest to the find the book was… underwhelming. We found it in an alcove in the ruins and we discovered the book that was cursed with awesome.

The book wasn’t exactly cursed to do anything negative to whoever wielded it. It was the book itself that had a curse, the irony of which is that the curse made the book entirely illegible.

It’s a good thing we eventually figured out what the book did, given the only clue we had to go on was that the map called it the ‘Animating Album’.

It would become quite useful with the modifications I wanted to make to this ship, said modifications were going to require supplies and that’s what Gene was out buying. For once I was stuck on the ship while Savannah and Flotsam were out having fun, with the exception of Nefer who was playing with the Animating Album.

“Nefer, get down from there!” Our little errand runner was currently using the black inky tentacles coming out of the book to carry him around the underside of the balloon. I could see that two of the tentacles were wrapped around his barrel and four others were safely sticking to the balloon without going into it. It made Nefer look like a demented spider on top of being an anugyptian feline plant hybrid.

The imagery of Nefer having spider legs growing out of his back made me shudder silently in horror.

“In a minute Captain, didn’t you say we needed to check the balloon for leaks?” Nefer was right, I did say that we needed to do that. If we didn’t have a balloon then the airship wouldn’t fly, we didn’t exactly have much in the way of an emergency mast and I’m surprised we haven’t had balloon trouble yet.

I’m chalking that up to the ships name that it has handled my luck so far, what with the buffeting winds, icicle hailstorms, flaming clouds and average weather with birds trying to ram their beaks into the balloon constantly. It was definitely not for the lack of trying on my lucks part, what with its attempts to take this airship down.

If anyone had to bother to ask how a cloud could be lit on fire, then they didn’t know me very well enough to know that physics takes a lunch break where I’m involved.

“Fine, finish up and get down here, your sister wouldn’t like it if you fell and hurt yourself!” The little guy looked sheepish for a moment and then nodded to me. “I would also like to say nice initiative, we can’t be careful enough!”

“Thanks captain!” We really couldn’t could we? Speaking of which, I hoped Flotsam got that life vest she had been wanting for a while. Nefer and the rest of us couldn’t always be there to keep Flotsam afloat, so a life vest was warranted as the one time she nearly drowned was one time too many.

I continued to carefully watch as Nefer used the book to climb around the balloon. I would actually rather have Belfry do this, but he was going to help Gene carry those supplies back to the ship.

“Any hissing noises?” We were keeping the balloon partially inflated for a few reasons, one of which was testing structural integrity of the thing that kept us flying.

“Aside from the one coming from down there, no I don’t hear anything.” What did Nefer mean by hissing noise coming from down here?

There was nothing on the ship that will hiss like that, unless it was the quiet engine sputtering out. I didn’t think it was anywhere close to having problems the last time I checked it.

I slowly turned my gaze to see a humongous snake staring at me, it flicked its tongue in my direction and then smiled slightly. It was long and big enough to lift its head up onto the deck, so one can imagine how big this thing is.

“The flora of Zebrica is quite beautiful, except for that one occasion, but all its animals are really quite lousy.” That and I was about to be attacked by a giant anaconda that apparently had a taste for parrot judging by the way it smiled after smelling me with its tongue. “Nefer when you’re done with that, come on down and wait for me to come back from this!”

Nefer looked down at me quizzically until he saw the anaconda lunge for me and I jumped off the side of the ship as it gave chase.

Just another day of being constantly harassed by my luck. The local zebra population gave me a wide berth as I led the snake away from their village.

They had better be grateful for this, because I certainly wasn’t doing this for charity!

-Two hours later, Nefer-

“Are you okay captain?” I was worried about Captain Blackcap when that giant snake chased after her, but I knew she could run pretty fast. The anaconda almost caught her several times before she ran out of sight and it was only now that she was walking up to me covered in mud scratches and slightly singed feathers.

“Had to warn it off with a point blank powder blast from my party cannon and found out that I had to remove my weapons from the cannon before I used it.” I lowered a rope ladder for her to use and she started to climb up with a faint smile. “Thanks Nefer. Using my cannon was quite cumbersome to say the least, but I’ll be okay. Though having to crawl into the snake’s mouth to pull my weapons out of it is something I’d never want to do again. Next time I’ll just use some ipecac, I’m pretty sure the zebras import or possibly even export the stuff if they started growing it locally here.”

“What’s ipecac?” I was curious, because she said growing. Growing meant it was some kind of plant.

“It’s a shrub that can be used to make a medical syrup that causes vomiting when swallowed or introduced to the body.” That sounded rather nasty, but I can kind of understand why the captain would want that. A lot of the larger creatures here wanted to swallow her alive for some reasons, there were much easier things to prey on than Captain Blackcap.

“That sounds gross, do you think it works on Giant Venus Meat Eaters?” I had to ask because she was swallowed by one of those not too long ago. I didn’t like that big toothy plant at all, it was really mean spirited.

“Probably not Nefer, ipecac is supposed to work on biological creatures and not botanical ones.” Okay, it was time to check on my trees growing at the rear of the ship. I believe it’s called the stern, nautical terms weren’t entirely useful in the air when you wanted to call something out from below. “Hey Nefer, can you leave the Animating Album with me please?”

Huh? Oh right, I was holding it in my tail!

I dropped it in front of Jacky and then went to go check on my trees, I really liked them. I paused for second and turned back to Captain Blackcap.

“Captain, what do you call if you see something below the ship while in the air?” I can understand port and starboard perfectly fine, but airships also have an up and down.

“You say hold side for down and sky side for up. If you need to say something is left and down, you’d say it like port and hold side.” Captain rubbed me on the head affectionately. “From there I’m sure you can figure it out. If you need to be more direct about whether something is more to the forward or back, then stern or bow can also be added to the statement of directions to be more specific.”

I nodded and went to check on my trees, nobody can get scurvy while I’m around!

-Jacky-

Smiling in Nefer’s direction as I picked up the Animating Album and just looked at it. It was a simple brown covered book with two symbols on the cover and not much else.

One of the two symbols was an ankh representing ‘life’. Sekhet taught us that and repeatedly mentioned that souls were sacred. I don’t think this book had a soul, but the book could mimic it using magic.

The second one was a little harder to figure out, it was a triskelion. The symbol that represented ‘motion’ or that things came in the number three, both of which were accurate to the album’s abilities.

It was the most useful object we’ve found on our treasure hunts so far, yet the danger we went through to retrieve was highly disappointing.

No traps involving intelligent boulders, no fireball spewing sconces, no giant ice monster, all it was doing was just sitting there waiting among the ruins to simply be picked up. The only real danger was that it was in the middle of a jungle in Zebrica.

The ‘Cape of Ill Winds’ and the ‘Luck Flipping Turtle Coin’ were not very useful. Well the cape might actually be useful if I wanted to charge at the most dangerous thing around, I wasn’t much of a cape person despite being the captain of this ship. I was also quite sure that Flotsam should never use the cape, as it would likely immediately drag her into the nearest body of water.

The Animating Album didn’t curse the user, you could use it as much as you want and it had a particular trait I wanted to test out.

I opened the book pointed towards the deck and the inky tentacles shot out of it to pull itself to the deck and it disappeared into the wood, seemingly melding with it fluidly. The entire airship shuddered as if it took a large breathe of air, it now felt like the entire ship was alive.

After a few seconds of that I put my talons to the deck and then pulled it back with the cover of the book attached to my palm, I close the book and the tentacles pulled back into the album’s cover. The ship suddenly stopped feeling like it was a breathing being and alive.

The last one to touch the book has control of it, nice to know. If it was animating something it couldn’t be taken by anyone else. If the Animating Album was animating itself it could be used as a defensive and offensive weapon with the tentacles of ink made from the illegible script found in the book, in fact the script itself being animated may be the reason why the writing in the album is as warped as it is.

As for why it’s an album? Well the things it is used on appear in the book as pictures, such as The Ardent Survivor taking up the entirety of page two. Page one had a picture of the book itself and my party cannon due in part to a small incident.

The Animating Album had about twenty or so pages covered in strange writing, two of those pages were taken up by the three images. The larger the object, the more space it takes up in the album.

Why didn’t I see more pages filled in in this thing? It had to have been used by someone else at some point and thus there should be more pictures in the album… darn it I just remembered something that I forgot to tell Maries!

I didn’t tell her that I saw Jade’s fire or that Jade was still around… in a sense. I was just happy to see her and catch up on our lives that I forgot about it, in fact she could have delivered that information to mom! I guess I had to wait for Ratatoskr then.

In any case it was kind of obvious that the book animates itself, but it only had a limited number of objects it could animate unless we could figure out what erased all the other objects in the book. Once we eventually figured that out, the one object that we likely wouldn’t be able to erase without destroying the album’s special properties was the album itself pictured on the first page.

The album only did three things. It attached to something, animated it provided that it wasn’t alive previously and then it could be detached from an object to end the effect. It wouldn’t animate the dead or already living, it would animate constructs created from the dead such as wood being from chopped down trees.

“Did all the wood on the ship just seem alive to you too captain?” Nefer plodded on over to me and titled his head curiously as he rubbed at the green skullcap on his head.

“Yes, I was just testing something with the Animating Album.” So I wasn’t the only one who felt the ship becoming animate. I guess a side effect of animating an object was that it became a lot more noticeable to someone’s instincts. “So… how are your trees?”

“They’re doing really well captain! All the good soil samples I’ve gotten is making them bear some really tasty fruit!” He pulled a lemon out of a pouch and held it up to me. “Can you help me make some lemonade?”

“Of course, Nefer.” I started moving for the door to below deck. “I could use a nice drink after my run-in with that anaconda, I'm thankfully not its main squeeze!”

Nefer giggled brightly and followed me into the galley.

Author's Note

A little fluffy friendship for Jacky and Nefer.

What Nefer? No Nefer. Well hardly Nefer.

Chapter forty-four, Lacking Overly Violent Enmity: Dirigible.

Author's Note

Chapter forty-four, Lacking Overly Violent Enmity: Dirigible.

-Zebrica a day later, The Savannah, Jacky-

“You know, this isn’t quite what I expected. Still it’s a far sight better than some badlands or the deserts near Abyssinia.” Savannah stated as we walked into the plains. “It seems so vast and open… just like me!”

I just sighed as she preened. She’s a bit more spacy than Jade is and I did not want to know what she got up to when she was frisky. That said, I should really thank her for letting me use the amulet.

“Thanks for letting me use your amulet yesterday.” Sure it doesn’t heal wounds, but it was a useful effect to wish for on a ship where bathing is kind of rare. Everyone except Nefer wanted to use it, it was just that useful.

“You’re welcome to use it anytime Captain Blackcap, considering how your life tends to go you’ll end up getting more use out of it than I will!” Savannah was wearing shorts and a shirt today, she smacked her right fist into her left palm. “So what are we doing out here in the middle of nowhere Jacky? I know it wasn’t to thank me for helping you get all that mud out of your feathers.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about something...” I started off slowly while looking around to make sure nothing would interfere in our talk.

“Is it about how to lead a happy sex life… it’s about how to lead a happy sex life isn’t it?” Savannah was a bit too perky and happy about the subject.

“No!” Though she could probably see my cheeks heating up, even if my fluff covered cheeks were darkly colored.

“Well, even if you don’t want to hear it, I’ll tell you anyway!” Why did I think asking Savannah out to the savannah for some quality friendship time would be a good idea again? “Make sure you’re up to date on your own medical history, you know all your partners medicals histories, you should focus on making sure your partner or partners are happy and if they are any good then they’ll return the favor for you, plus having an open mind can lead to a plenty of happiness all around!”

“Er… what?” I was a bit confused.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what they all say when I tell anyone about having my medical records on paw at all times, I even get a doctor’s opinion locally before I do anything too outrageous. I’m fairly open to any relationship as long as it’s not bound by strings, I’m not stupid you know.” Didn’t think I implied that you were Savannah. “I always practice safely with anyone that catches my fancy. I may be wild, but I’m not dumb as to do something that would hurt anyone.”

“Look, that’s not why I asked you to come out here with me!” She leaned back at the force of my confused anger, because I was definitely discombobulated here. Savannah went to open her mouth, only for me to stop her by stating something. “Also, I’m quite sure that I’m straight before you ask if this about me testing my orientation.”

“Well aren’t you close minded, you’re a ‘yes’ by the way. I think your curse would just make things more interesting.” She tittered gaily into her paws while he tail whipped around excitedly. “Then again, you do have the world’s most polite Viking for a boyfriend.”

“You do realize that Jade identified as gay right?” That made her reel back in shock, I blinked in confusion. Why was that such a surprise to her? “I’m not a bigot if I’m okay with my sister dating a chimera and a unicorn. You remember Maries? That’s one of Jade’s girlfriends, not to mention that Jade’s an Abyssinian too.”

“I never implied you were bigoted, just close minded on the fun you could be having. Still, little Jaded is gay? Huh… well it makes sense why she would never looked at a Tom twice when she was so much busier eyeing Queens. I’ve certainly known a good Queen or two in my time.” Crossing her arms and looking to the sky, Savannah tilted head back and forth in thought. She eventually turned her gaze back down to me while nodding. “Yep, that definitely makes sense.”

“You seem utterly surprised by the revelation.” If I kept speaking in bland tones I might eventually turn into Fizzle, I wondered how she was doing.

“You’ve probably heard the whole song and dance about Abyssinian promiscuity, so why don’t I cut out the middle mutt and skip to the reason we’re out here.” Her tail flicked back and forth as she directed a sultry gaze my way. “I really have to ask, is my magical fur dye wearing off?”

“Not that I can tell, what is your natural fur color anyway?” I gestured at her as I elaborated on my thoughts. “Midnight Blue never seemed right to me, but it works on you pretty well.”

“Why thank you! Brown with black stripes, a unique coloration, but a bit boring in a way. Jade probably only saw me while I was neon orange or white, both with black stripes.” She looked a bit defensive about something. “Magical fur dye isn’t exactly cheap you know, the midnight blue color is really rare to get since Princess Celestia regulates this one color pattern like nothing else.”

“It might have to do with Princess Luna, Celestia’s long lost sister.” I sighed and looked at the ground solemnly. “Missing my own sister, I can absolutely see where she’s coming from now. I don’t have a thousand years’ worth of lifespan to wait for her to come back though; I think Luna is coming back in the next Summer Sun Celebration.”

“Hey don’t look so glum, Jade’s a resourceful little minx and we saw her fire right? I’m sure that if we can’t figure out something, then maybe she will? I mean, we know she’s around at least in some respect.” This just reminded me how much Savannah knew about Jade before I ever met her, Jade had to have used that fire in front of her at some point. “So what are we doing out here?”

“I wanted to learn how to fist fight better, we’re going to be stuck here in Zebrica for a while as I make some changes to The Ardent Survivor. I’ve had some training with Jade, but she was always far more squirrelly than I can ever hope to be with my brand of luck.” Never taking hits and always doing what she can to avoid them, that doesn’t always work from my experience. When Jade did take hits, they were always somewhat nasty injuries. “I’ve picked up a few things from mom or Kuril if you will, but it’s not exactly up to my armed combat skills. I can’t just walk into a bar and do crazy things while getting away unscathed.”

“Yeah, Jaded hardly ever stood still in a fight. She’s got the stamina to be a great evasion tank, but she couldn’t take too many heavy hits.” Blinking at Savannah, I titled my head curiously at her and hoped she understood my current confusion. “Ever heard of Ogre’s and Oubliettes? I play a mean monk class, bare fisted or claws all the way! The mental exercise goes a long way to helping with the actual physical stuff, though I doubt I’d be able to punch pressure waves of raw energy out of my fists. As long as you know the difference between reality and fantasy, you can do some pretty weird things where they meet.”

Savannah could punch pressure waves if she knew magical alchemy, I mean Jade didn’t always necessarily need to fire magic missiles from her palms.

“Like actually seeing a ten foot pole eating monster?” The squealing noise stunned me and Savannah was suddenly in my face.

“It’s real, oh my goodness that’s so amazing! Do you suppose there’s one around here, I need to go get out my collapsible… trouble.” She was excited for one second and then she just stopped flat to narrow her eyes, said eyes looked almost feral as she backed up towards me clenching her jaw. “Get ready for a fight.”

“I don’t see anything though.” Nothing around, but grassy plains and large diamond dog like… the holes? I was immediately on guard, I reached behind my back for my weapons only to be stopped by Savannah. She shook her head at me while smiling.

“Nothing teaches like experience, don’t punch anything heavier than you, kicks work better in those instances and can be used to push yourself away from whatever’s attacking you. It helps if you know how to roll with a kick off. Always be wary of your surroundings when you are unarmed.” She pointed herself towards a nearby hole and held up her fists, her ears flicked once or twice as she settled into a stance. “This should be fun, I wonder what they are and what they want with us.”

A somewhat tall figure erupted from the ground with a spear, painted in tribal colors. It looked like a giant and far more intelligent meerkat than the regular ones that I saw around here.

Several more popped up around us out of the ground, they were pretty fast with their digging. Comparable to diamond dogs considering we were completely surrounded. This might get a little rough.

“Oh yeah, this is looking like a brawl already!” Growled out Savannah. “Bring out your A game captain, these guys look aggressive!”

Savannah dodged around a spear thrust and pulled the weapon’s shaft up under her left armpit, then she sharply twisted back and to the left. This pulled her opponent towards her, where she then kicked the meerkat harshly in the chest with her right leg.

The meerkat looked befuddled as it was sent rolling across the ground and he was groaning when he came to a stop on his belly.

“Trust me, I’m more than you can handle on a good day!” Savannah tossed the spear away and held up her fists while bouncing back and forth, actively looking for another meerkat to try their luck with her. She then turned to me. “Watch your back captain!”

I turned at the sudden movement near me and ducked an axe swinging for my head. I shifted my right foot out, grappled my opponents left leg with my clawed toes and pulled my leg back to throw him off balance.

The meerkat looked a little shocked when I threw a straight right into his face knocking him down and out. I caught the falling axe by the handle and held it threateningly at the other meerkats around us.

“Nice one, now get ready it seems there’s more of them!” Savannah called out while putting her back to me.

“Well, at least they aren’t highland pukwudgies.” I muttered loudly to myself, an arrow hit the ground between us and I heard the sound of drums, not the normal kind of war drums that the highland pukwudgies were known for either.

We and the still arriving meerkats turned to the approaching horde of pukwudgies, one particular one had a blade strapped to his back and was wearing a smiling demon mask and armored slats.

Said pukwudgie was riding on a lizard and pointed towards us in dramatic fashion. Behind him I could see a small tower with proportionally sized neighpon taiko drums on it.

The mounted pukwudgies behind that one pulled out tiny bows and started to nock their quills as makeshift arrows. The demon masked pukwudgie leader rode in front of the archers saying ‘gabba’ a whole bunch and then he draws his small blade, which was long for him, and pointed it towards us.

“Samurai pukwudgies?!” I said in disbelief before Savannah and I, along with the meerkats that were about to start attacking us in greater numbers, scattered to dodge the first volley of well-aimed quills coming at us.

That was when a wave of tiny spear wielding pukwudgies charged us in a formation.

-Three hours later-

“Hold still captain, just one more.” Says Savannah, who I noted didn’t take several quills to her butt like I did. “I’d say you did very well out there! Except that part where you accidentally caused a few explosions and then we got assaulted by small fire breathing ants, but overall it went pretty well.”

“Thank you for not making this awkward for me Savannah.” I felt her quickly squeeze my butt and I yelped out, I glared at her innocent face. “Hey, don’t do that!”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist!” She said grinning at me in a silly manner. “You’re rather beautiful, even covered in scars and injuries as you are, most of them aren’t even visible underneath all your down.”

“Yeah, my feathers tend to hide the worst bruises, except around my eyes.” Which is covered in white down, makes it easier to know when I had black eyes.

“So that didn’t quite go how you thought it would, but you still held up pretty well out there.” She started bandaging my left shoulder. “Are you sure you need my help with fighting?”

“I needed my weapons to survive, so yes.” Mostly where injury was entirely unavoidable. “Thank you for coming out here with me Savannah, but I think I’m going to spend the rest of the week working on the ship.”

“That sounds fair, after the fight we just had.” She then finished tying off my bandage and went over to start patching up the meerkats, she started with a female meerkat nearest to us. “Do you think these large meerkats would mind if I tested the waters?”

“Yes, so don’t do anything crazy Savannah!” I received a bright grin. “No, you are not doing anything with those tribal meerkats, even if they did help us against the pukwudgies.”

“Aye Captain Blackcap, no meerkat nooky for me, I understand completely!” She rolled her eyes and started helping the meerkats.

Everyone on my crew always had a medical kit on them, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about that. The medical kits were entirely necessary and the medical skills of my crew were getting slightly absurd, it also helped that we had ‘First-aid for Dummies’ to read as a pastime.

Mom thought I’d need that book more than she would, what with her having Dr. Bones on call. She was completely correct, it’s been quite helpful for all the injuries so far.

-Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Fresh Start-

“She’s able to cook that, she just doesn't want to make potato stew. I think it’s connected with what happened to her daughter, so nobody is allowed to order it.” I told our most recent customer. “Please don’t ask about it either, it’s quite upsetting.”

A group of rowdy griffons stalked into the restaurant, they looked like trouble.

“Excuse me, but I have something to take care of… Sugar front and center!” The little pink horned rabbit got up and ran over to me looking about for trouble. “Sir’s I would suggest that you don’t get too rowdy around here.”

“What are you going to do to stop us if we are pony?” Looking to the leader of the griffons, I simply pointed to Sugar. “That’s your plan to get us to leave? Guys… let’s wreck the place!”

Sugar grew to the size of a bear and not too long after Maries helped with their clean up.

Chapter forty-four, Lacking Overly Violent Enmity: Zeppelin.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter forty-four, Lacking Overly Violent Enmity: Blimp.

-A month or two later, The Ardent Survivor, Jacky-

“So yeah, things have been pretty awkward between us, but at least Flotsam is trying more now to improve on things to make my job as captain easier. I’m not about to tell her I’m thankful for that.” I’ve been so busy making the changes to The Ardent Survivor, but you’d never know by looking at its outside. “So what have you been working on while Savannah, Flotsam and I make changes to the ship?”

The outside of the airship looked exactly the same as it always did, but the changes I made to the inside will give the ship something new that it can do if it’s ever shot out of the sky. I had almost had the finishing touches in place even, it was only a matter of time.

“I’ve been teaching Belfry to read and write.” Gene says it so blandly that I just had to look in his direction. “He wants to write an apology message for the whole watering hole thing, but he wants to do it himself.”

“I’ll accept it when he’s done writing it, then maybe I’ll go out on a walk with him again.” Not that I cherished the idea, but I was willing to try as I had promised Belfry that I would. The butterfly had to meet me halfway on this. “You do realize that butterflies tend to represent chaos right?”

“Of course I do, but what would Fluttershy say if she saw you refusing to be friends with Belfry over a simple mistake of being overly excited to be at your side?” Gene was now staring at me curiously, if I was hearing this right and the barest of tonal shifts. Gene was probably interested to hear what I had to say about him being at my side in comparison.

“Yes, but I want that apology first, I’m still willing to make an effort to like him.” I was not about to force it though, I’m sure that Belfry understood that right? “I haven’t kicked him off the ship so he should know that I still want him around at least right?”

“Well yes, I think he realizes that he’s still part of our crew and he’s been trying to get to know the others in the meantime.” Giving Gene a curious look and sitting up from my reclined position on the deck. I gave him my full attention. “Flotsam is alright, but she’s a little nervous around him. Nefer and Belfry are best buddies and as for Savannah, well Belfry only approaches her when he needs to relax.”

“What about you?” I was correct in knowing that he could have started with his relationship first.

“Well as for me, I’m kind of like his big brother and he wants you to be happy more than anything so… he wants our relationship to work more than anything.” Well you couldn’t get us closer to one another unless you glued us together. Snorting at Gene’s words, I started to giggle.

“Like he could get us any closer without gluing us together and sticking us in a room to talk about things for a night.” I guess today was a day I’d be spending time with Gene, he’s been taking care of the smaller things for me and I should really show him he’s appreciated. “So how about a date?”

“I’m okay with that.” His beak pressed some of my feathers out of the way of my neck and he gave me an affectionate nibble. “Do you think the zebra have any good restaurants?”

“Does it really matter if they did?” I smiled at him and wrapped my right arm around him and pulled him close. “We just need to spend some quality time with one another without our crew members getting in the way.”

I heard a cheerful squeak, I turned to Belfry as he approached us quickly. He skidded to a stop in front of us and gave us two a highly affectionate look.

“You’re going to keep the others away from us aren’t you?” My question was met with Belfry nodding and holding up a piece of folded paper. I took the paper from him and unfolded it. “I’m sorry I got you trampled by wildebeest… eh, that’s good enough for an apology from you Belfry. Though if you can keep the rest of the crew out of our business while we go on a date, I’ll spend the whole day with you tomorrow.”

Belfry’s eyes got all watery and happy, he nuzzled up against my chest affectionately and then pulled back while saluting me with one of his six legs.

“So you think you can keep Nefer, Savannah and Flotsam under control? Hah, you’re going to have your legs full just keeping Savannah away from trying to give us tips.” I then leaned in to say something that would sound conspiratorial if anyone other than Gene hear. “Aim Savannah at Flotsam, they should take each other out and keep Nefer under control by keeping him entertained, you can do that right?”

Belfry took on a serious look, about as serious as a giant butterfly could manage anyway.

“Right then, let’s ask the locals if there’s any place that’s special around here to eat.” I turned to Gene and clapped my talons together while smiling cheerfully at him. He tilted his head and raised a brow. “Look I’m sure the ship won’t be on fire when we get back.”

“That’s happened five times already, in the last seven days.” He stated blandly.

“Yeah, but we stopped all of them before they cause too much damage!” He put his claws on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes.

“Jacky, can you honestly tell me you can stop worrying about The Ardent Survivor long enough to relax and have dinner with me?” Staring Gene in the eyes I didn’t know how to answer him, so I had to go with honesty. Savannah knew it was the best policy in any relationship to be honest with your feelings.

“Yes, I can do that.” I was being honest and I was going to be entirely honest. “So long as nothing life threatening happens and our friends survive it, I won’t care if the ship goes up in a fiery explosion. Just so we can get one night together, but we both know my curse won’t allow it.”

“Jacky, please, we can do this. I promise you tonight will go well and that nothing horrible will happen to the ship. Now let’s go talk to a zebra about where we can get some food around here… that or we can just ask Savannah.” He paused and looked to me. “I agree that you’re curse will be a problem, so we can’t actually do anything overly fancy.”

“We’re asking a zebra, I don’t want to hear anything Savannah has to say at the moment.” With that we were disembarking on a date come hellfire, I wasn’t about to wish high water as Flotsam is reasonably hydrophobic. We didn’t expect there to be any fancy places in Zebrica, but the first zebra we saw actually seemed cordial to us. “Hello, you wouldn’t happen to know a place we can eat together as a couple?”

“Oh my yes, you have been quite pleasant guests.” The zebra mare said with alacrity, it was one of those shaman types judging from the attempt at rhyming. “Thanks to you being yourself, the village has never been more peaceful like the good luck totem sitting upon my shelf. Though a meal with a special someone that won’t cause an issue. Yeah that’s not going to happen, it is sad to say, from all the crying and laughter I’ll need a tissue.”

“Recommendations please, and not the story of my life?” I tapped my foot claws against the ground impatiently and leaned over the zebra.

“Of course friend, we all know you are cursed to the very end. It is part of who you are, for facing it so bravely you are quite a rising star.” She bowed to me. “So to a legend like you in the making I suggest mister Cassava Nova’s food for your lovely date, I would also suggest you order some takeout for being a known chew toy of fate. We all are who we choose to be, but you are an inspiration to many as from your fate you refuse to flee. Strong are you in spirit and body, survive you will to have further good times and party. We know you are nice, we’re sorry that your curse is making you pay a constant price.”

“Thanks, we’ll take that takeout suggestion under advisement!” So the zebra around here knew I was cursed and actually liked me because I kept attracting all the dangerous stuff to us instead of them? Well I guess I was correct to send Gene and Belfry for the supplies we needed.

Cassava Nova’s sounds likes a lovely place to go to for a meal… we’re doing takeout as suggested. Zebra shaman says to do it, you listen up and you would be smart to heed such advice give clearly and succinctly as that.

“Takeout?” Gene asked as we went into the village.

“Do you want to sit down for a meal or do you want to find a nice quite spot before my curse kicks in?” I tripped over a wooden box and ended up with a big chunk of wood in my beak. Spitting said offending wood off to the side I held out my tongue and the large splinter in. “Ow…”

“Hold still Jacky, I’ll get it.” He deftly plucked the splinter from my tongue. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, let’s do this quickly before anything else happens!” I started off in a run and Gene followed after me.

-Later into the evening-

Cassava Nova’s was a nice restaurant, local Zebrican foods were interesting and I couldn’t wait to taste my order. They accepted pirate treasure well enough, they also accepted the average Equestrian Bit and we were going to sit down to eat our food. Too bad we couldn’t stay or the entire restaurant my dissolve around me.

Even as we left, we were quite wary of our surroundings and made for the savannah to sit in the middle of nowhere. We weren’t even anywhere near where the giant tribal meerkat warrens this time.

“I’m kind of surprised that they have so many starchy foods.” I took out the stuffed chili peppers I ordered as an appetizer, Gene pulled out some dough and dipping sauce from his sack as his opener. Popping the chili in my mouth and crunched it, I felt the heat immediately start burning its way through my beak. “Spicy… but oddly satisfying. The locusts they stuffed these pepper with make it quite flavorful.”

“I think this dipping sauce and dough is neat… you know, every day is an adventure with you Jacky. Heh, I don’t know when the next tree will fall out of the sky.” We heard cannon fire and something exploded high above us. A whistling noise was soon heard and an anvil slammed into the ground twenty feet to our left. Gene gulped, while I just continued eating. “… Right, no talking about that, just enjoying each other’s company.”

A wagon hit the ground fifteen feet to Gene’s right, I just popped another chili pepper in my mouth and had a disinterested look on my face in what I knew was coming. Some Pegasus delivery company is obviously involved and I could hope that this wouldn’t ruin my food.

“Um… are we going to…?” Gene started to ask.

“Just keep eating gene, don’t worry about it and let’s enjoy the evening sky while we still can.” I sighed as a crate full of gooey tar hit the ground ten feet to my left and spilled everywhere. It’s a good thing we were sitting on rocks for our meal, said rocks were now surrounded by a bunch of icky black muck. “It’s a beautiful night.”

“I’m with someone just as or even more beautiful.” Despite the bland tone, it warmed my heart because I knew that Gene absolutely meant it. “The stars are kind of nice, if you can look around the large cloud of falling objects.”

“I’m so sorry about the cannonball!” I could hear Flotsam screech and I heard fighting going on, we even heard several explosions and we tried to ignore it. “It was an accident I swear!”

We continued eating even as Savannah flopped into sight, somewhat boneless on the ground nearby, and groaned audibly. Belfry quickly scooped her up and dragged her out of our sight while shooting us constant worried looks.

“Do you seriously think we can really make this work Gene?” I said through a mouthful of my appetizer.

“Getting your sister back or our relationship. If so, then yes to both.” He says it so plainly, he put his left wing around me and held me close. “Want to try some of my food?”

“Sure.” I took a chunk of dough and started to dip it into the sauce, while I ignored anything that may or may not be happening behind us at the moment. “Mmm… good, I might have to order some to go before we leave soon, I can finish the modifications off tomorrow and then I’ll spend the day with Belfry even if the rest of this evening turns out horribly.”

A barrel smashed into the ground five feet to our right and nearly splashed us with the substances within. Said substances started mingling with the tar surrounding the large rocks, it smelled like alcohol. Why would a moving company have alcohol? Eh, not my problem, snuggling with Gene. Yep nothing to see going on around us.

“Help me, they have an evil monkey!” Nefer screamed and even then I was going to entirely ignore it because I was comfortable. “No, my tail tips are not food!”

“We’re not moving from the spot are we?” Gene finally asked as I put my head against his chest and popped another locust filled chili pepper in my mouth and chewed.

“Nope… not even for that crashing airship.” Said airship missed our spot by the barest of a foot and lit the tar and alcohol on fire, but the rocks stayed cool to the touch. “Let’s just let the world burn around us for a bit… okay Gene?”

“Sure thing Jacky.” He pecked me on the cheek and gave me a tiny smile. So he could emote on his own, it was just hard for him to do that for anyone other than me. I felt special at this moment as we huddled together in the middle of a disaster zone looking up at the bright stars. “We’re going to have to move eventually though.”

“Let’s finish our food first, then we save everyone’s butts and our own while we’re at it.” We continued on into our main course ignoring all the horrors going on around us. I started to laugh. “This is all going to end so poorly, but I really just want to drag my feet on this one.”

“You’re comfortable, I’m comfortable, and it’s understandable that we worry about eating our food first before it gets destroyed by what’s happening around us.” Gene held me closer and we started sharing our food with one another. “I’ll always want to protect my greatest treasure, that being a lovely pirate parrot.”

Author's Note

The world burns... for it is mother's day!

Also Della Duck is home and Yona was adorable.

Chapter forty-four, Lacking Overly Violent Enmity: Airship.

-Airship Mauled, Bracing Knight-

“So you want me to go get some recruits and train them to defend the town from the next ‘Puk’ attack?” Well I guess I couldn’t be miserable for the rest of my life and I have been defending the town mostly on my own, but I couldn’t be everywhere. The town was actually beginning to grow with several families moving in to the airship houses that were built out of what crashed here. “Okay, I’ll see if I can get some recruits for a militia to protect Airship Mauled. See if you can talk to Mayor La Perm into getting a barracks built around here.”

“I’m still sending a message to Celestia for some help though.” It seemed Wary didn’t like leaving things to chance, I appreciated that idea.

I wasn’t there to stop those griffons from trying something, thankfully Sugar and Maries took care of it while I was busy checking the drop bear territories. I was supposed to be a guardian, but I couldn’t do it all alone.

-The next day, The Ardent Survivor, Jacky-

“Okay tighten up all around.” The ship followed my command and seemed to become air tight, just like I needed it to be. Aside from the a few odd pipes sticking out of the ship, it was finished and didn’t look all too different. I reached down and removed the Animating Album from the ship and sighed to myself while wiping my forehead. “Okay, that should do it. Nefer you can have the album, but don’t do anything too odd with it and use it responsibly! Now go play.”

“Okay Captain Blackcap!” Nefer ran off with the Animating Album, his trident tail wrapped in bandages.

“Savannah I need to you do me a favor.” I moved closer to our Abyssinian crew member and whispered into her ear, it flicked once or twice as I spoke into it. Her arms and legs were tightly wrapped with bandages, it gave her an authentic battle monk look.

A moment after I pulled away, she looked at me with a slightly sad expression.

“Right… I’ll get on it and will get back to you about it later.” Savannah was willing to assist me with finding the location we needed to go to.

“Gene… make sure the ship is running smoothly, we’re leaving tomorrow.” He nodded to me and just relaxed after all the trouble we had last night.

I approached the nearby railing and looked at the field of craters a short distance away from the ship. There was quite a bit of scorched ground and groaning bodies still around. I slept soundly last night, because I didn’t care about any of the other people that were involved in that noisy calamity last night.

“Belfry…” The butterfly perked up and looked at me, he was absolutely waiting to hear what I had to say. “You did a good job last night and as promised... we can spend the day doing whatever you want together.”

Belfry slowly walked up to me and cuddled up to me gently, I think he finally realized that tackling me can hurt and that I was always in a near constantly bruised state. He was fairly intelligent for something with the IQ just above being a common dog and I should give him more credit than I do.

“Okay I can see you understand, so what do you want do buddy?” At my question, the giant butterfly tilted his head ever so slowly as he stared at me.

-Ten minutes later-

“So you do realize that something horrible will happen eventually right?” My luck has been fairly aggressive since we came to Zebrica and I was certain that Belfry had to know.

Belfry nodded solemnly, then he perked up and wagged his abdomen cheerfully. He was just happy to be spending the day with me and all we were doing at the moment was playing a simple quiet game of fetch. No danger, no problems, no disasters like what happened last night while Gene and I ate our food.

Just some quiet time with a friendly giant bug that we trained to be our ship's main guard.

“Fetch!” I swung my arm forward and hurled the stick.

Belfry tried to snap his proboscis out to grab it, but missed it by the barest of an inch and quickly chased it down. It was adorable and this was actually kind of fun.

I still had no idea why we still had that giant pinecone in the hold that Belfry came with or even how Gene got it down there in the first place.

We really needed to find a use for that thing, maybe there’s a collector that likes giant objects?

I’ve heard of and seen weirder things, like that praying mantis nun in the Caves of Intrigue. Makes one wonder what happened to her when the caves disappeared. She certainly didn’t end up in Scorpio’s lair like we did, could that be what was a part of why she was so intriguing to meet?

Belfry came back up to me with his proboscis wrapped around the stick and he placed it before me looking excited. I rubbed the top of his head and took the stick into my grasp again.

“Good butterfly!” He squealed happily, but then went to staring at the stick expectantly. “Okay, a few more times, but if a disaster happens the both of us will have to drop everything and deal with it first. Last night was pretty rough on everyone and Flotsam is not going to be able to move much after getting her tail badly burned.”

Belfry nodded in understanding and waited patiently for me, he was the only one that hadn’t been injured last night and had been quite crucial for helping put out all of the fires.

“Here you go!” I spun around and sent the stick flying, Belfry jumped for it and caught it with a whip cracking noise of his proboscis. The stick cracked, but it didn’t split in half and he looked at it curiously.

Belfry still brought the stick back. I was actually smiling at him as I took up the stick again and prepared to throw it. I saw something in the edge of my vision, it made me quickly change my throw to hit the oncoming cheetah in a leg to stop it from attacking Belfry.

The cheetah tripped and flipped onto its back and Belfry blasted it in the face with a cloud of chemicals. It soon got up and stumbled away dizzily, with Belfry watching it while halfway raising his wings defensively.

Grabbing the stick, Belfry came over to me and looked around for a bit before giving it to me. He rubbed his proboscis against my face affectionately.

“Hey, stop that! I just saved one of my crew members from being attacked is all.” I gave him a grinning beak as he pulled back and scrutinized me before he wrapped for of his legs around me and hugged me. “Yeah, yeah, we’re friends Belfry. Is there anything other than fetch that you really wanted to do today?”

He looked at me and got a thoughtful look in his eyes.

-One snack break later-

Belfry really loved that nectar mug of his. Once he was done drinking from it, our next activity had us walking around through a fields of flowers. His instincts were to play with the flowers and spread the pollen around. It was a bit messy because Belfry was too big for these particular flowers.

At least he wasn’t crushing them all and quickly realized the size disparity between him and all the flowers.

Aside from sneezing a lot, nothing was going wrong. Belfry had fun and I just sat in the flowers nearby watching him.

Belfry was so simple minded at times and at others he could cotton on pretty well to what was going on around him. Having a larger brain made him smarter than the average butterfly.

These flowers smelled pretty good and I made sure they were safe, most of these flowers were only reactionary when mixed with certain chemicals. I had talked with a local zebra about this, because goodness knows I don’t want something like a poison joke incident to happen on my watch.

Something caught my attention, but at least this time it wasn’t a cheetah rushing towards the back of my buddy for the day.

It was just a gathering of many butterflies staying near Belfry, he was quite swamped with them and was being very careful not to crush any of his tinier cousins fluttering about his larger form and the flowers nearby.

I giggled at a bit at the sight of a giant butterfly being covered in more normal sized ones. I wondered what kind of tornado all these butterflies were causing miles away from here. Butterflies were the ones that created chaos just by existing or so it has been claimed, but here everything seemed so calm here.

I decided to stay vigilant and keep a watch out for any more trouble. Still, the smell here was quite relaxing and I eased into laying back to watch a butterfly land on the tip of my beak and look at me curiously.

After a moment it took off for the congregation around Belfry and just fluttered around.

Clear sky, no danger, just a relaxing atmosphere, then why couldn’t I relax? I feel like something should have happened by now.

I spent the next five minutes waiting for something that never came, over the next thirty minutes I started to nod off while trying to look out for anything causing my day to go south.

Eventually I woke up from my nap to find Belfry snuggling up to me and napping as well, it was some time in the afternoon and I was a little hungry.

“Belfry, get up, nap times over.” The butterfly pulled away and stretched out all his legs, he perked up and rubbed up against me and then stared expectantly. “Well you played in flowers with a lot of other butterflies, you drank some nectar and we played fetch, is there really anything else you want from this day?”

Belfry seemed particularly happy with how it’s gone so far. There was only one incident and we took care of that quickly enough. So why did I keep feeling a sense of dread and that something really bad was supposed to happen? It must be my nerves from all the stuff that has happened and today just seems… abnormally calm.

It was too calm! It was just so abnormal for me, what was supposed to go wrong today and why hadn’t it done so yet?!

I’m somewhat freaked out about this now.

“Scree?” Belfry patted me on the back gently and gave me a curious glance that seemed to be worried for me.

“I’m fine, just a bit high strung.” A bit? It was not just a bit, what was going on that I should feel this worried?

Gene was taking care of the ship, Savannah was going to spend the day talking with Flotsam about some things, Nefer had his hobbies and I was hanging out with Belfry.

Was there anything wrong with that picture aside from me playing with our pet butterfly today? If not… then why was I expecting something bad to happen so badly? There’s an itching at the back of my mind that says things shouldn’t be this calm.

Belfry bumped up against me and I smiled, I guess I should stop worrying. If it wasn’t going to happen, then the dread I was feeling was worthless.

-Saddle Arabia, Amira-

Ever since the Caves of Intrigue were opened, magic started running rampant around various parts of Saddle Arabia.

Flying carpets were becoming a thing, strange magical creatures of darkness tried to kidnap children, mechanical monstrosities causing havoc and tons of weird or strange magical items just started popping up everywhere.

The most recent disaster currently in progress spoke of someone who wasn’t even anywhere near here.

I would know they weren’t here, I saw them off personally after they stopped in to get some medical assistance after what happened to Mr. Eric in the Caves of Intrigue. Their airship wasn’t anywhere near this city or even on the horizon.

I and just about anyone who met Captain Blackcap were entirely suspicious of the fact that she was likely related to the fire tornado incident a while ago. There was no way that this incident could have possibly been her fault, but it still seemed like the kind of thing she could attract given what Savannah told me about her being horribly unlucky.

The current incident involved an ice tornado, a fire tornado and even a lightning spewing tornado currently wreaking havoc on the city. Mind you I wasn’t in Nagrabah at the moment, so to see such a similar incident happening again in a completely different place was mind boggling.

Oh and now they were combining into one super destructive tornado... just great.

It wasn’t as if there weren’t enough problems with someone finding out how to create an ancient petrification potion. At least the cure was simple, even if the ingredients for it were a bit difficult to obtain.

The petrification thankfully wasn’t full body, it was only encasing and could be broken with a hard enough force. The cure helped to remove the stone without actually hurting the victim.

“I should probably figure something out to stop things from getting worse.” I wasn’t exactly the well versed in magical objects, but maybe there was one nearby that can stop elemental tornadoes of doom.

A giant monster made of clouds started to slowly rise up into the air, spreading its large muscular arms made of smoke.

-Zebrica, Jacky-

A few more rounds of fetch, washing off all the pollen from Belfry’s body and then giving him an affectionate hug. Things between us couldn’t be going better.

“Let’s head back to the ship, I’m still feeling suspicious that something must be up about today.” It seemed Belfry agreed with me as he started to lead me back to the ship and seemed to be on the lookout for trouble too. “Hopefully nothing too bad happened while we were gone.”

Within minutes we approached the ship and boarded.

“Hey Jacky, Savannah is almost done cooking some food… did things go well?” Gene looked at both of us in curiosity.

“A little too well for my tastes, we’re getting out of Zebrica immediately tomorrow morning.” I crossed my arms and looked about. “What happened here and what did Savannah make?”

“Nothing and she’s made grilled fish and vegetables for skewers.” Gene looked particularly calm, but even his eyes started darting about. “We’re supposed to skewer what we want, she also set out salt, pepper, paprika and hot sauce. Now that you mention it, things have been too quiet today. What was your worst recent incident? I mean today and not last night.”

“Cheetah attack, went for Belfry, happened hours ago.” Then I spent a lot of time around a ton of butterflies in flowers. “I tripped it up with a stick and Belfry gassed it to make it leave us alone.”

“And nothing has happened since then?” Despite his calm tone, Gene actually sat up and his wings tightened rigidly against his back. “Everyone, let’s stay on high alert for the next few hours and hope that nothing like last night happens.”

Chapter forty-four, Lacking Overly Violent Enmity: It’s in the air.

-Some time later, The Ardent Survivor, Jacky-

It took longer than I thought to get the ship going, but things went pretty well.

“So where are we going this time captain?” Well this might go poorly, but I wasn’t about to lie to Flotsam about where we were going. “If it’s an undersea palace, then I want to respectfully stay out of it and with the ship.”

“No we’re heading for a coastal town called Saddle Sore Shores.” What I had stated made Flotsam freeze up. “Yeah, didn’t think you’d be happy to hear that. After a quick stop there we’ll be heading for a place called ‘The Volcano’, I wanted to stop somewhere quiet before we go to a place with a name like that. You know, since we’re going to a volcano… highly dangerous knowing my luck. We have several other short stops before we arrive in Saddle Sore Shores, so please get your head on straight before then Sammy.”

“You told her?” Crossing her hooves Flotsam glared at a smugly smiling Savannah waiting on the deck below.

“Nope, I made a promise and I kept it.” Yes, but what Savannah wasn’t saying was that she circumvented the promise she made entirely.

“You said you wouldn’t tell anyone!” She didn’t Flotsam, but I’ll let her explain herself as you looked angry.

“I didn’t tell anyone, in fact I never said a single thing to Jacky, Gene, Belfry or even Nefer.” The grin on Savannah’s face widened. “Not a single word went past my lips and still hasn’t.”

“Then how did you… what promise did I have you make precisely again?” Quite sure that Flotsam knew the promise, I turned to Savannah.

“I can’t talk about it without breaking the promise…. and I keep my promises fairly well.” Putting both her arms behind her head, Savannah continued cat smiling and wagging her tail.

“Then how did Captain Blackcap find out about it?” Flotsam pointed to me with a hoof.

“You said I couldn’t talk about it, so I won’t.” There was something that Savannah had to teach to Flotsam about Abyssinians. “You never said anything about not writing it down and leaving the knowledge where it can easily be found though. It’s not my fault Jacky and Gene have eyes, also you left me with plenty of loopholes and openings. Still, I kept my word, but it was you who had to define how I kept my silence. You only asked me to never talk about it and I haven’t.”

“I think I’m mad at you now.” Flotsam grumbled.

“You’ll forgive me eventually Sammy!” Savannah stated loudly as she came up and hugged the sea pony. “Just you wait and see… pony. Get it… sea pony?”

“You’re all horrible people.” Flotsam muttered flatly while putting her finned hooves to her face. “Unfortunately you’re my horrible friends.”

She learned that just about any Abyssinian can be clever.

-Some time later-

We’ve made two stops on our way to Saddle Sore Shores, ended up fighting a pirate crew and faced off against several flying monsters and had to make an emergency landing or two. We bought two spare balloons, they would only be useful if we crashed into the ocean or if the ship doesn’t break the keel slamming into solid ground.

My usual level of luck was running smoothly and it’s taking us a while to get to where we were going. In fact, I think the summer sun celebration was some time tonight.

Flotsam was still a little upset, but she didn’t stay mad at us, she was mostly just nervous about going back to her old stomping grounds. Well more like the grounds that stomped on her, we were her friends and we’d side with her on anything. If she wanted to leave and quickly at that, we’d do so.

Flotsam had a past that we, mostly I, wondered about. I wanted to know more about where she came from and how she ended up being taken by slave traders, it was a given that her town was likely raided. I at least wanted her to have some form of closure if it was completely destroyed.

There was also the curiosity that was Nefer’s past, but Nefer didn’t seem to have much of an idea about his past and I’d look deeper into that later. I didn’t think Nefer had anything dangerous hiding behind his past, but I could be wrong.

I was in the middle of piloting the ship and making sure we were on course. Today was going to be one of the more boring days, at least until Gene came up to me to remind me about something.

“Hey…” I looked to him and he seemed a little… skittish. “So… it was your birthday a while ago, I’m not sure if you forgot and I’m sure everyone else did. I’m having Savannah bake a cake, what would you like it to be?”

“Strawberry cake if you can, vanilla if you can’t and chocolate is last resort after anything else.” One would think I would also ask for something else, so I might as well. I placed a hand on my hip and looked at him with a coy grin. “There is one dessert that I really want. Its name is Generic, it’s a special kind of dessert and I’m sure you can only find it in one place.”

“Well glad to know you think I’m tasty… so I’ll go tell her and get back to you with some things I wanted to talk about.” Nodding to my favorite griffin, I went back to staring at the skies, the sea and everything in between.

The balloon was good, the ropes were tied tight and triple checked and we haven’t been attacked in the last hour by any airborne creatures. So today was looking pretty good with clear skies and a sturdy, moderately modified ship.

“Captain Blackcap, why didn’t you tell us your birthday passed us by?” I turned to Nefer who came up to me looking slightly upset.

“I didn’t want to make a big thing of it Nefer, that and I already have almost everything I could possibly want.” Rolling my eyes and looking off to the side. “Like I need much more, still have plenty of treasure from that last pirate fight and our supplies are actually decent.”

“So I can’t give you a present?” Nefer asked curiously tilting his head.

“Do you have a present to give?” He stared blankly at me. “Didn’t think so.”

“I could always make one!” Nefer said after a moment.

“Look, Nefer, it’s not that important. It’s not like I see your bugging your sister about her birthday.” I watched as he froze up and then went charging off, presumably to find out what day his sister’s birthday was on. That is what ponies call ‘passing the buck’, fairly useful for my needs.

“I told Savannah, though I’m not sure about the quality we’ll be getting.” Gene, I really didn’t care about the quality of the cake or the food, just that there would be enough of it and that I’d be sharing it all with my crew. “We happen to have some fresh strawberries and she can get the cake finished easily enough.”

“Well hopefully it’ll be big enough for everyone. Since we’re digging into Flotsam’s past… can I dig into yours a little more?” It was just fair, I wanted to know more about everyone I had on my ship. I’d eventually get around to asking Nefer if he even remembered where he came from, hopefully he was not an escaped unicorn experiment. “You already know most of mine. Born on Turtle Toga, parents absent for most of it and grew up in with pirate school before getting some Equestrian schooling afterwards. Jade helped me escaped my island life and I’ve wrecked just about any other ship I’ve touched that didn’t have a name that specifically makes it survive bad luck.”

“Well, what can I say about Soar Way? There’s nice brisk air year round, plenty of icy mountainous areas and things were somewhat eventful given Sky Vikings are a thing around there. I was raised alongside my two brothers who were sometimes termed as dim and dimmer. I don’t think my brothers were stupid at all, just lacking more sense than most. Not that Vikings were great on education, but some of us have a lot more common sense than others. That’s where I consider myself lucky in that respect.” He sat down next to me as he talked and wrapped his left wing around me. I liked it when he did that. “Until we ended up at Airship Mauled we grew up trying to find our places in combat, engineering, fishing or growing food. It’s just about all we Vikings tend to do, Flamberge and Fortitude were only good at combat. I was not exactly a strong fighter, but I eventually did make a mark for myself in combat by being able to counter or evade most projectile attacks launched at me. Me and my brother’s earned our titles with our actions, Fortitude was just unfortunate that his title has nothing to do with his endurance and bulky profile.”

“You say you have good common sense, but then you’re dating me.” A fact I was quite happy about, I’m still surprised it was even happening at all. “Not exactly the most sensible choice you could make for a girlfriend. I don’t consider myself to be sensible or actually suitable for a relationship like ours.”

“No you’re quite sensible Jacky, I’m not scared that the world is actually out to get you. Your steadfast spirit is really admirable.” He nuzzled up against me affectionately. “That and you’re really beautiful for someone who gets knocked around so much.”

“You flatterer, buttering up your captain like that?” I planted my beak against his cheek before continuing to scan the horizon. “What ever could you possibly want?”

“To know when you’re ready and only when you’re ready, I am at your command Jacky and I will not overstep my boundaries in any way shape or form.” He was clearly quite honest about that, never was he pushy about anything. “If you want me to marry you, then you’re going to have to tell me when… because I’m not exactly going to know when to pop the question given how often disasters just happen around you.”

“You need to take some charge in this two way street too you know, but I can kind of see where you’re coming from.” I glanced at him curiously. “You’re really quite honorable and nice. So what’s the story behind that?”

“Most Vikings typically are honorable for a given definition of it, but that’s also kind of why we’re considered violent barbarians at times. I think it’s the education system seriously needs to upgrade and it currently leaves something to be desired.” Gene sighed and shook his head. “I was told by a great warrior among the people I grew up with that most Vikings tended to follow a particular honor code that has a high tendency towards vengeance against those who wrong us. It was these words he said to me, ‘I will always speak clearly, keep my vows and will seek revenge for any wrong done to my family or those of my allies unjustly’. Our tribe respects both genders as long as they had the spirit to keep pushing themselves towards some cause no matter what. To pursue at least something, even if they could never be good at it or ever actually achieve it, is considered highly respectable. A spirit like yours would earn you more respect than however strong, swift or able bodied you happen to be.”

“Determination is pretty helpful even if it is grim in form.” My curiosity would definitely not be deterred now. “Was it always pleasant growing up or were there problems?”

“No, it was kind of dreadfully cold year round really, but at least our tribe didn’t have the most injuries out all of the other surrounding tribes. Yaks smash a lot, dragons breathe fire and are aggressive, and griffons can be greedy or bloodthirsty, but our home was much friendlier than all of those stereotypes that many others portray.” That was something Gene could tell me more about, even when stereotypes were hard to shake he and his brothers didn’t exactly follow any of them. “I vaguely miss it all, but I and my brothers decided to go our own ways at Airship Mauled and we now do our own things to pursue new avenues in life. Other tribes wouldn’t have been nearly as lenient about us leaving as ours was. It helps spread the teachings and culture around to let some youths go after other pursuits, I know I’m currently pursuing a pretty pirate parrot.”

“So if I wanted to do something with you tonight… would you be willing to?” I felt him rub his wing across my back and tighten around me to keep me warm as a chill wind blew across the ship.

“I’d always say yes Ms. Chickadee La Perm, of that you will find no doubts from me.” He place his head against my neck. “I’m loyal to a fault for my brothers, for Airship Mauled, for our friends and this crew, but most importantly I’m choosing to be loyal to you above all else.”

“Well you're being quite romantic at the moment, even your body language is saying more than that.” My cheeks felt hot, as I looked at his right wing.

-That night-

That round of cake wasn’t too bad and we were outside near the bow together.

“There’s something in the air tonight, the mood even seems right somehow.” I looked up at the moon. “The moon seems a bit fuller than usual.”

“Maybe because that mare is no longer there?” He patted a spot next to him near the bow and held open the blanket he had with him for me. I joined him and got cozy under the blanket.

“Yeah, I think that’s the whole Nightmare Moon thing….” I took Gene’s left claw into my right hand as we huddled together under the blanket. “Gene… can we… do you want to…”

“If you’re trying to ask what I think you’re asking, then I’m nervous too.” We turned to look each other in the eyes. “I’ll follow your lead if you follow mine. If you are sure, then we should take this inside.”

-Savannah-

I was at the wheel watching the two love birds snuggle together and then they got up to go inside. I think Gene and Jacky were about to do some interesting things together.

“Flotsam, make sure Nefer gets to bed and keep Belfry away from Jacky’s room.” I sighed as I leaned against the steering. “It seems that love is in the air.”

“What is it with you and bad puns lately?” Well aren’t you grumpy Sammy.

“I can’t exactly help it if I’m feeling catty.” She gave me a disapproving look.

“Can you please stop?” She groaned out. “You’re making me sick just listening to them.”

“Oh really, but I’m feline fine though!” My smile only got broader as she grunted loudly.

“Right, I’m doing what you said to do.” She slithered off in a mood. “I’m also washing my hooves of this conversation!”

“Don’t forget the wash the rest of the conversation off of you while you’re at it!” I should probably stop… nope.

“Ugh!”

Chapter forty-five, Crypt-ick: Unilatterally.

-Three weeks after leaving Airship Mauled, Soar Way mountainside, Flamberge-

The opening was before us, it lead into a dark tunnel descending into the mountain. I turned to my brother who was already holding his shield at the ready, I pulled out my sword and… it was sleeping again.

“Wake up, I need your light!” The sword didn’t say anything as I waved it wildly through the air. It was a sword, a mighty sword that was always on fire when awakened, but a sword nonetheless. As such it could not talk, but if it could I bet it would tell many a story. “Brother, a little help here!?”

“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” My brother yelled at the sword and it jerked a bit in my grip before lighting up with flames.

I nodded to him in thanks and held it aloft as we walk into the shadowed halls beyond the archway and down the stairs.

“Soon we will find the 'Mists of Travel On', endless adventure awaits us brother!” We were going to find a tomb full of deadly Draugr protecting our sought after mode of transportation.

I figured this place couldn’t be too heavily guarded, right?

We descended further into the depths while being wary of any noise coming from the shadows. I was ready as I would ever be and would be the main offensive force. Fortitude… he could handle just about anything really, offense, defense, blocking a tunnel with his girth if needed and in general enhancing my fireballs whenever I fired them near his ozone layer.

He may smell bad enough to wake and then kill the dead again, but he was still my brother.

-???-

A pair of glowing red eyes opened in the dark as it hears the sound of claws and cloven hooves clacking against the cold hard stone floor.

These eyes saw the two figures pass it by and it watched them go on, the two were heading into the catacombs where the deadly Draugr waited to slaughter the fools.

Whether they survived or not depended on how attentive and strong they were.

Dropping to the floor after their light dimmed out of sight, the being hefted a large object glinting in the dark and started to follow the intruders at a distance.

It made no noise and was light as a feather. The only things visible were the two blood red orbs and the faintest hint of silver wisps that could be seen flowing behind the red eyes even in the dark.

It moved after the two intruders, watching and waiting for them to drop their guard.

The moment they dropped their guard, that’s when they were doomed.

-Fortitude-

It is like Ogres and Oubliettes… many coffins, most of them empty of the desecrated dead. Quite a few scratching noises, but we were not seeing anything. Smell is horrible, like decay and strange unappetizing chemicals.

Something very wrong happened in these twisting, winding halls. It was just a strong feeling that some of the warriors here likely do not sleep or weren’t allowed their rightful rests.

Something moved in the shadows outside the light of Flamberge’s sword… something was watching us.

I am ready to defend my brother’s back from any attack, for I am a mighty yak defender!

“Brother… there is danger nearby and do you see that?” I pointed my right hoof at something on the floor to our left as we entered a wide open space full of pillars, dust and destroyed coffins pulled from their holes in the wall.

There were long since desiccated bodies strewn about, they didn’t look like they got up or moved around from whence they fell when their coffins were tampered with.

“Where?” He came over and held the light of his sword out over a dried out husk that looked to have been cleaved in half at the barrel. The earth pony in the armor hadn’t been alive in a long time and yet their body has recently been moving. “This was recent, the damage is quite fresh and if this body was moving… it was likely to have been a Draugr. What could have been strong enough to deal with it like this though and why?”

Draugr, undead warriors powered by the darkest of magic that were never allowed to rest or reach the afterlife. It is a horrible fate to befall anyone. To become trapped in decayed forms, with both souls and knowledge powering the horrid husks.

They didn’t go out in the light of day as the sun's power would quickly dispel the dark magic and set the souls free, but at night they would leave their dark dwellings to kidnap or attack brave young warriors to add to their gruesome ranks.

These creatures could only be found in caves, crypts or dark places like this one. They are spoken of in Viking legends fairly often as being dangerous in groups or even alone. Among the weaknesses they had, one was fire and the other was silver.

We had plenty of fire, Flamberge couldn’t run out of that, but we distinctly lacked silver weapons though. Still, even without silver weapons, a sufficient enough force would suffice in destroying a Draugr if you could take off the head or damage the body badly enough to make holes for the soul to escape imprisonment.

The soul that used to occupy the husk before us was thankfully free of its imprisonment. There was definitely dark magic here. Even as strong and brave as I was… this place sent shivers down my spine by just being here.

A screech sounded out and Flamberge turned his sword to catch the husk of a griffon swinging forward from around a nearby pillar, it was bearing down on him with a claymore. My brother blocked the blow and was knocked back a few feet for his effort.

The griffon, flightless due to its bony wings, stared at us with sickly green eyes as it charged forward and swung for us again for a horizontal blow.

Stepping forward, I proudly held my shield aloft and steadied myself for the blow. The sword wielded within the two scrawny limbs stopped immediately before the might of my shield.

I was shaken slightly from the mighty impact and the weight put behind that blow stunned me somewhat.

Even so, I proudly held my ground even if this creature’s strength was unnatural enough that it could almost make me falter by itself. Pushing back at it, I knocked it off balance.

Flamberge quickly regained his sense, surged forward and slashed for the monsters neck as it tried to raise its weapon for another attack. It was too late to defend itself.

The undead griffon’s head flew off and became engulfed in flame to thankfully dissolve away into nothing. The body was also engulfed and burned away, leaving behind a pile of scorched armor and a sword clattering harmlessly against the cold stone floor.

One other thing was left behind by the monster’s destruction, it was the spirit of the trapped griffon Viking. She looked both sorrowful and even a little bit hopeful.

“Be wary, you need to look out for the guardian who can’t destroy the source of all our woes.” The ghost warned us, it started to slowly fade away and floated up through the ceiling with a small smile on her beak. Valkyries bring her to where she belongs, she fought her own eternal rest long enough to give us warning and a clue. “Thank… you…”

“The guardian who can’t destroy the source… what do you suppose that ‘source’ part meant?” At brother’s question and head scratching, I just merely shrugged. I am not knowing what we have stumbled upon, but we did expect the legendary Draugr at least.

“I am not knowing, but Draugr was almost strong enough to knock me off guard.” My brother looked upon me with shock and his draconic wings flared out in surprise. “I am completely fine brother, there is no need to worry about yak health!”

“That’s not what I’m staring at, look at your shield!” Blinking at my brother’s distress, I turned the shield so that I could see it in the light of his sword’s flames.

Not once in my life, since it was excellently forged, had my shield been damaged by anything. At least it hadn’t been damaged until now that is. There’s now a large horizontal scar across my shield that was caused by the claymore that now lay upon the floor. The damage was really quite impressive for one blow, considering all the things my shield has been through previously.

“I am sure the griffon warrior would not mind if I take up her weapon to seek vengeance for the fallen.” I took up the claymore in my left hoof to slide it under the strap of my shield. “It is only honorable that we make things right for those who came here before us, we will free them all!”

“Are you sure about taking up that weapon brother?” Looking to Flamberge, I nodded softly. He accepted my choice gracefully. “Right, let’s move, we cannot let this darkness continue on beyond this point!”

“The weapon is quite sturdy and grim work needs to be done brother, my shield will not be enough for this task alone.” I joined him as we started to slowly move forward, more cautious than ever before. Our goal was set and we were of one mind, heart and spirit. “We will fight for victory against this darkness or free as many as we can! Only in victory can we truly go after the ‘Mists of Travel On’ with clear minds.”

-???-

These two were a curiosity.

They defeated a Draugr, but how would they do against more than one?

I would wait and see what they could do before I decide to make my approach.

The last few adventurers didn’t make it too much farther in. The traps here were not meant to keep robbers out… they were made to keep something in.

It was not my time to test their mettle yet, I would wait to see what they could accomplish before I stood in their way.

They would die to possibly become part of this cursed crypt or they would succeed in their endeavors.

I care not which of those two things happened, but I would surely try to be the one that killed them.

-Flamberge-

My brother took up a weapon. It was surprising, but it made sense given the circumstances when even his shield wasn’t sufficient for the danger we were approaching. What was more surprising was that his shield was actually damaged, I had never seen it tarnished before.

We’d find the ‘Mists of Travel On’ after we were done here. We would not leave a single soul trapped in this Hel, the horrid underworld that it is! From what that spirit said, there is a source to this problem and a guardian we should be wary of.

If we had Gene’s wits, then we wouldn’t have any problems. It was just the two of us and we did not ask for help from our tribe before coming here, we were solidly on our own for this.

We came here on our quest. We made a silent promise to see our brother again and to send aid towards Airship Mauled, we were keeping those promises and will still be alive to talk about it!

I heard a scratching noise, the twisting of bone against bone creaking in the darkness around us as we walked into a wide open circular space and then…. complete unnatural silence.

Another flame was lit and I turned to see Fortitude tying a torch to one of his horns, I think that was just in case he can’t see by the light of my sword. We should have considered doing that sooner, but I’m reminded that we weren’t very bright.

Stepping forward, we both heard a clicking noise and I readied my sword.

Something swiftly moved towards us and Fortitude caught it on his shield, it was an enormous swinging axe coming from the ceiling. A trap perhaps? I am glad that my brother caught it so easily, though it seems to be straining him to hold it like that.

While my brother was preoccupied with the pendulum axe, three Draugr charged in at us. Two of them came from behind and one came from the path we were following.

Two winged ponies with spears and a big bony looking yak with a large war hammer.

I took out the pony charging us from the way we were facing by spitting a fireball at it. It immediately caught fire and fell over shrieking. It quickly dissolved and the green light disappeared from its eyes.

I turned to deflect the other pony’s spear away from me and into the ground where it created a crater from the force of the stab and got stuck.

After staring at the bowl shaped concave for a second, I swiftly slashed its head away from its torso. I doubt that I could take a hit like that from a Draugr, even my scales weren’t that tough. I wasn’t taking any chances here and would always take them seriously by putting them down as quickly as I could.

I hadn’t been paying well enough attention, as the last Draugr was in the midst of swinging the war hammer to take my head off.

If both pony and griffon Draugr were significantly stronger than normal…

Before the hammer could connect with me, the pendulum axe ripped its way into the yak’s chest making it drop its hammer. It was summarily slammed it into a wall to where it became pinned.

It struggled to free itself and it snarled quite loudly, but it couldn’t find any leverage on the axe taking up half its torso. If having half its torso taken up by a large axe blade didn’t put a Draugr down, I hoped we didn’t meet more than three at a time.

Fortitude, looking particularly angry to see a Yak Draugr, he roared as he swung the torch tied to his horn into the trapped monster’s body.

The shrieking of the creature as it caught fire would be stuck in my memories for a while. I watched as the flames tore through the undead yak swiftly, leaving nothing left.

“Yak soul be free!” Fortitude shouted. “As my patron goddess Sekhet is fond of saying, all souls are sacred!”

“Are you okay brother?” My question was received with a grunt and he turned to continue along our path.

“I am being fine, let us continue forward and down. We find this Draugr source, then yak smash!” I worried about the big lug, seeing that a yak fell to these Draugr must not have been a very pleasant experience for him. “I am also very scared... almost lose brother if not for quick thinking!”

“Be fair, we’re facing a fairy tale monsters that we’ve only heard about in stories.” At least we had a fairly good advantage against them, I could breathe fire and Fortitude was strong enough to tear them down quickly. "So I'm scared too."

We exited into the long winding hallways and went past several more disturbed coffins and down some stairs.

-???-

Three more Draugr felled, maybe they actually had a chance to survive long enough for me to kill them.

There was some mild hope that it wouldn't ever have to come to that.

Author's Note

Now we're getting into Flamberge and Fortitude's journey.

Chapter forty-five, Crypt-ick: Noble.

-Catacombs, Flamberge-

We entered an area that seemed like a clan hall at the bottom of the stairs, there were upper floors to our left or right that led nowhere except to wrap around to the other side of this room at the exit.

There were two stone staircases that lead up to these floors and a dilapidated bridge connecting them, there were likely staircases down on the other side near the exit on the opposite side of the straight away.

“Something stinks…” My brother glared at me as we moved forward down the center of the room ignoring the staircases and upper areas. “Not you brother, those pits.”

“Cesspits?” He guessed. Not much here but rotted wood that used to be furniture and rusted circular metal gratings over dug out well like pits that were within four alcoves in the walls ahead of us.

Said pits were nasty for several reason, one of which was they were old, another was that they were ancient toilets and the last thing was something I would rather not think about as it is actually barbaric to do in this day and age.

“Sounds about right for everything going on in these catacombs, someone used to live here to look out for the dead.” I didn’t drop my suspicions of what was going on around me, something had cleaved that first Draugr in half before we got there. That thing was freshly destroyed and the other Draugr we ran across wasn’t the one to do it, not with a claymore at least. The damage was different from what the claymore would have done. “No guesses as to what happened to them.”

“Brother…” He pointed to the upper floors while raising his shield. I thought he might have been pointing out the rusted chandeliers, but that wasn’t the case.

I quickly hopped backwards and rolled behind the wall next to the left staircase as an arrow impaled the floor where I had been standing.

The other arrow that was fired impaled its tip into Fortitude’s shield as he ran to the right, hiding behind the wall on the right side next to that staircase.

We had company, but I had to wonder how being a Draugr made an arrow impact with a strength beyond normal. If I were to fire an arrow from one of their bows with the same kind of draw, the arrow wouldn’t have nearly as much force or speed as the one that impaled the floor and my brother’s shield.

I’ll chalk it up to dark magic, because otherwise I’ll be thinking too hard about it. I wasn’t an archer and I didn’t care much for physics aside from knowing that Draugr always hit harder no matter what they did.

“More Draugr, can you get them with your fire brother?” Fortitude asked as I leaned out and pulled back quickly as an arrow occupied the space a second later.

“Yes, but if we had a distraction… I really wish Gene were here for this.” How do you distract tireless dark magic fueled warriors of doom? I would say big target, but I wasn’t about to suggest…

Fortitude surged out shield held up and it took two arrows, then four and following within a second of that six. The Draugr griffons had an insane fire rate, but at least Fortitude was keeping their attention on him as arrows dug into his shield one after another.

Slowly my brother strafed towards me to his left catching every arrow fired on his shield. Taking the opportunity of his distraction, I leaned out and aimed at the one on the right upper floor and spat a fireball. Yonder wondrous Hayburger had trained my accuracy quite a lot.

The Draugr, being too busy firing another arrow to dodge the fireball, took it to its now evaporating head. The body fell to the floor from the corner of the bridge above burning and lifeless.

The other screeched and aimed for me, only the arrow was blocked by a shield and Fortitude was right by my side as we held our position at the wall next to the left staircase.

“The other one shouldn’t be too hard to…” It seems I was speaking too soon as we heard two different terrifying creatures sound off. One bellowed loudly in guttural manner and the other roared in a manner so alien that put quite some fear into us.

Leaning out to the right to look down the center of the room to the opposite side where our exit would be to go deeper into this place, we saw two figures emergency from the archway. One of which absolutely terrified us.

One was a minotaur with skin turned to hardened leather from becoming a Draugr and it was holding a long axe with a large head, it stomped its way into the room continuing its throaty bellowing in challenge. Its muscles still rippled with incredible strength despite its decrepit and horrendous state, it looked both quite powerful and deadly.

That wasn’t what scared us.

What followed the minotaur with the green glowing eyes was a nightmare unto itself, given a dragon had been felled by these Draugr that was an accurate description.

The blackened twisted scales on the monster that started claw its way out of the staircase downwards were not a sight I wished to see. That it was far larger than I was, was far more disheartening as to our chances here.

The near skeletal beasts claws ripped through stone as it forced its body through the archway and into the room, a sickly purple fog poured from its mouth with each ragged breathe that most certainly did not bring it life. As it widened the entrance with laughable ease, its green eyes focused on us as Fortitude idly blocked the seventh arrow fired at us since we watched those two arrived.

The only thing that likely held ‘that’ back from terrorizing the outside world was that it was too large to exit the catacombs without collapsing them on itself. Ducking back behind the wall, I turned to my brother.

“That thing… is an unholy abomination of the greatest sort!” If it was immune to fire, then it was a Draugr I couldn’t just breathe away. The noxious looking gas didn’t look too pleasant either and neither did the needle like foot long claws it used to drag itself forward.

There was a little bit of luck on our side as we glanced out at the dragon, it seemed to be missing its hind legs and wings as something had viciously amputated them prior to this encounter. Not that that would make a dragon Draugr any less deadly.

We still had an archer and the minotaur to deal with on top of it, despite these horrors we held firm in our resolve to not back down to them.

The purple fog started to filter across the floor as if clinging to it and we pulled away from it slightly as we didn’t know what it would do.

“We’ll take the archer on the left. I’ll then try to deal with the minotaur afterwards, while you try to figure out how to take out the dragon.” My brother gave me a disturbed look that I was leaving the dragon to him. “I’m going with the assumption that it’s still immune to fire.”

“This is bad plan.” Fortitude muttered before he moved to the left and up the staircase to avoid the incoming nasty looking fog, I followed closely behind the cover of his shield. The archer was already waiting for us and started firing immediately.

The arrows sliced through the air at impossible speeds before hitting Fortitude’s shield, but they did not pierce it and only knocked a few of the previous solid metal arrows loose. I don’t know what magic made the arrows faster or stronger, but I think I seriously despised it.

I leaned out from behind Fortitude’s shield to the left and then quickly jerked to the right of it. Having baited an arrow to fly by on our left, I was able to let loose a blast of flames from my mouth to engulf the other griffon archer at the top of the stairs unopposed.

It was sickening to watch the griffon’s remains melt under my flames to free their soul in cleansing fire as they fell backwards, but it needed to be done. That was one less thing to worry about as we moved to the top of the stairs to avoid the purple fog slowly filling the lower floor behind us.

We now had to deal with the charging minotaur coming up the stairs from the other side of the room and towards us with the axed raised high for a downwards swing.

I leapt to the left into the upper left floor’s room and Fortitude went right while holding his shield towards the minotaur as it brought the long axe down. Didn’t know what the dragon was doing since I couldn’t see it from my position, but I wish it wasn’t doing anything.

The long axe struck the ground with a thunderous crash, stone and chips went flying in all directions as if a hammer had been used to strike the floor with the force of a god. My scales protected me from the bits of stone that slammed into me and my brother’s shield became peppered by the rocks as he backed away onto the bridge.

-???-

I waded through the fog, I cared not for its effects. I watched the two brave, or was it foolish, warriors move forward even with the danger being presented to them.

They had the tenacity, but could they survive these Draugr? These two were some of the strongest in these catacombs sent by the source, their master, to turn the warriors to his whims.

I watched the two meet dangerous foes and they would soon begin to struggle, I waited in anticipation. Would I have to kill them or would they press forward and push beyond this trial?

-Fortitude-

Shield would not survive that… shield would definitely not survive that!

The minotaur turned to me, hefting its axe and took a step while raising it only to get blast of fire across its right shoulder.

“You’re fight is with me!” The monster immediately turned around and moved towards my brother, it was swift for such a large being. My brother held his sword in a two clawed grip and took an evasive stance, he ducked under a horizontal swing that still sent him flailing backwards from the pressure of the air displaced by the swing.

I heard a gurgling growl sound out from the ever increasing fog below and looking over the side of the bridge to my right, I saw a pair of large green glowing eyes looking at me. Oh right… I need to figure out how to slay a dragon, this would not be an easy feat to accomplish.

A claw rose up as the monster leapt for the bridge, I backpedaled into the right side upper floor’s room as the claw tore through the bridge like it was butter. I was now separated from my brother, except he could still get to me.

“Brother, do not forget that you can fly!” As I shouted this several claws dug into broken railing and edge of the floor and the Draugr dragon started to pull itself up to face me.

“Thanks for reminding me!” Flamberge was not bright, but I am here to remind him where Gene could not.

The Draugr dragon was busy lifting itself into the room I was occupying and I backed further into it as it pulled half its body up onto the upper floor.

I took to my hind legs and pulled the claymore out to hold it at the ready.

“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” I screamed as I charged the monster, it got its right limb up and swiped at me.

I forced its claws up and nearly took a hit to my face, I ducked back and then thrust the claymore right into where the beast’s heart would be.

I am now realizing that there were several problems with this, were it alive this might have worked provided the blade I wielded could actually cut through dragon scale.

One, my weapon was not made of silver and or metal capable of such damage. Two, my claymore only punctured a part of its hide that had been punctured before.

The thing that killed this dragon previously was that it had been slashed in the heart before being brought back as a Draugr, the warped tattered cavity in its chest told me as such.

The claymore I wielded did little to aid me in this situation, I was never good with weapons and I am now sorely reminded why I hardly ever take up more than my mighty yak shield. Said shield was damaged, but still fairly functional.

Given how tough dragon scales were, especially that of an undead dragon, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing by trying to attack the beast when nothing I had could damage it.

Stalling for time was all I could really do… I didn’t have the power to destroy this creature or free its soul. Even Flamberge couldn’t destroy this thing as we had no silver weapons.

The blade I quickly pulled free of the dragon was of steel in make and I dodged it snapping its bony jaws of sickly flesh at me.

The dragon started rearing its head to let loose a stream of that purple fog as I backed away in fear, I felt like death was rushing towards me when it exhaled.

I held my shield aloft and bravely stood tall as I was engulfed in a stream of the purple fog that battered against my shield relentlessly and surrounded me.

-???-

I rushed towards the yak, intending to end his life before the Draugr could. Only to see something that absolutely surprised me. Changing targets, I leapt for the dragons back and brought my weapon forth.

A flash of silver sang through the air and the dragon Draugr snapped in half under the weight of the blow I dealt it, its spine having been severed cleanly in half.

Its body having finally been dealt enough damage, its soul finally escaped to the afterlife.

I quickly hid my presence and watched as that lucky soul fled this foul place.

-Fortitude-

“I am being alive?” The fog, for whatever reason could not touch me… did my smell protect me? Brothers always joke about smell being thick as an ozone layer of its own accord. I am quite glad to be proving them right. “Hmmm… I am fantastically fragrant after all…”

I turned my gaze to the Draugr dragon and I moved to the side to see its severed spine, it was now lifeless. I saw a glint of silver moving in the fog below.

The upper torso of the dragon tilted and started to slide back until it fell into the slowly dissipating purple fog below.

Was it the guardian that is saving me? The guardian was coming for me first, I felt it. It was going to kill me… but it had changed its mind.

Why? Was it because I wouldn’t die to the dragon's breath? Would I have become a Draugr had I fallen to the dragon’s fog?

I shall see this guardian as an honorable and noble being.

Author's Note

Fortitude's stench is a plot device, make of that what you will.

Chapter forty-five, Crypt-ick: Equine.

-Catacombs, spike corridor, Fortitude-

So, she is being a skeleton… but she is definitely no Draugr at least.

The skeletal earth pony charged forward and brought her axe down towards me, I took up my shield in my right hoof and blocked it. The force of the blow sent a small chunk of my shield shooting past my head as the axe dug into it.

The guardian was quite powerful for a skeletal earth pony that was smaller than me. I pulled the claymore out from my shield, it was swinging for my opponent as I drew it.

The skeleton jumped back to be hit head on with a fireball that exploded on contact.

Once the smoke cleared the skeleton was perfectly fine, even her silver hair wasn’t scratched. The blunt side of her axe took the brunt of my brother’s fireball without damage.

“Why didn’t that work?” Turning to Flamberge behind me while still trusting the guardian to not attack me during a moment of inattention, I had to tell my brother something important.

“She is no Draugr brother, she may even be the only thing keeping them mostly in the catacombs and I doubt she has their weaknesses.” I don’t think the guardian would let me get away with distractions too much after this. “I believe she is testing our resolve to deal with the problem, even in the face of death… which she has faced already and is still going long beyond her time.”

The skeleton nodded while staring at us, she was now standing on her hind legs and balancing her axe across her shoulders with her right hoof. Her left hoof gestured for us to come at her with all we got and her skeletal tail, also still bearing her silver hair, shifted a bit to help her keep her balance.

“We should introduce ourselves if we’re going to fight. I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” I held the claymore high up, showing my strength since I was wielding a weapon meant for two hooves with one. “I must say that even as a skeleton, you are is still quite beautiful.”

The skeleton looked a bit shy and rubbed the back of her head with her left hoof, but afterwards she took up a defensive stance.

“I am Flamberge, the fiercely flammable! Though I sometimes also go by Flamberge, the obnoxiously loud!” My brother joined in shouting out his title. “Our third brother is Gene Eric, the swift reaction! He’s doing other things who knows where with a fair maiden that caught his eye, but we know he would absolutely be with us in spirit in this moment!”

That said I charged forward and brought the claymore around with a sweeping strike from left to right moving upwards, my blow was deflected when she slammed her axe’s blade down against the claymore.

I was pushed back and she leapt forward and twirled her axe to slice it upwards through one of the nearby spikes.

The long needle of metal came away from the random array of spikes lining the walls. After flipping through the air for a second, the spike was deftly caught in her left hoof by the hacked off portion and then she blocked Flamberge’s incoming diving strike with it.

She swung her axe upward and Flamberge flapped backwards and out of range of the attack, narrowly avoiding an axe to the chin.

Flamberge landed on the ground grunting. I take it his wings were still sore and since fire wasn’t a weakness for the guardian, this wasn’t going to be an easy fight.

The guardian twirled the spike in her left hoof, then held it aloft and forward as if it were a rapier. She held her axe off to the side and would likely use it to counter while she riposte and deflected with the spike. She was quite skilled with improvised weapons judging by the way she held herself.

Looking to my brother, he nodded. I was taking the lead, he still needed time to recovery and couldn’t afford any serious injuries if we have to fight more battles. We were both quite sturdy, but we weren’t dumb enough to think ourselves invincible.

I took a cautious step forward, then suddenly lunged forward thrusting the claymore at her.

She went to block with the spike, only my thrust fell short and she was thrown off balance by overextending. I pivoted to thrust my ignored shield roughly into her body.

She barely interposed her axed in front of her and was knocked onto her back by the blow, she quickly rolled to avoid my brother bringing his sword down on her with a leaping downward thrust. Flames burst out from the impact zone, but the skeleton had already cleared it.

Having got his sword stuck in the floor and needing time to pull it free, I charged forward and blocked the spike stabbing for Flamberge with my shield. I held the subsequent axe swing off with the flat of the claymore.

The middle of the claymore cracked slightly under the pressure of the axe hitting it and it sent a powerful shock up my leg making me almost drop the weapon. She pushed with her other weapon and forced it slightly further through my ever weakening shield.

Pulling my head back, I slammed my right horn forward and down into the top of her skull. She dizzily stumbled backwards, pulling the makeshift weapon from my shield as she did. I didn’t know skeletons could be staggered like that or that they could even feel pain.

She quickly shook her head and took up her defensive stance again, her glowing red orbs seemed to intensify as they focused on me. She took two steps forward then stopped and the two floating red orbs went to the right side of their sockets.

Pointing it backwards as she tossed the spike up, she hit the end of it roughly with the flat of her axe that started glowing brightly. She then spun towards the wall to my right and slashed another spike from the wall to turn that against us.

The spike she launched behind her, taking on the same glow as the axe, rammed its way through the neck of a griffon Draugr that had been charging up the stairs. The spike decapitated it completely in an instant and impaled the roof of the staircase going downwards with ease.

The glowing eyes in the griffon’s head immediately went out as it rolled on the floor slightly, the Draugr’s body collapsed at the top of the stairs. It was around this time that Flamberge finally wrenched his sword from the floor.

“Why isn’t she doing those kinds of things with us?!” Flamberge tried to whisper, he was not good at it. He might need remedial lessons later on what whispering means…. again… maybe a dictionary might help? “I mean if the axe is magic, why not use that against us?!”

“We are not Draugr, that and she fights with honor.” Speaking of the aggressive skeleton, I watched as she waved the spike at us impatiently to continue our fight. “A battle of honor does not appreciate interruptions. She is knowing this, as do we brother. Let us continue!”

I charged and thrust the sword at her and tried to slash at her after she ducked under my thrust. She moved away lashing out with the spike and I caught it on my shield.

Flamberge swept in with his flaming sword angled to slash at her ribcage, she blocked with her axe and I slashed the claymore for the left side of her head.

The skeleton pulled back and my swing missed, only to collide with Flamberge’s sword and she dragged the end of the spike sharply across my right side as she pulled back. I grunted as I felt myself bleeding and saw the old spike covered in blood.

“Fortitude!” Holding up the claymore to Flamberge, I signaled that I was fine by shaking it at him in a specific manner.

“It is only being a scratch brother.” I blocked the incoming axe swing with my shield as she wasn’t going to let us talk without taking action. “Long and painful, but nothing life threatening!”

The axe burrowed through my shield a bit and created a visible hole in the left side where the axe was penetrating through it. She then tried to stab me in the chest with the bloodied spike while maneuvering my shield up and out the way using the axe still embedded in the shield.

Flamberge rammed into her, getting her off of me before she could follow through with her stab.

We both watched as she got stuck on the spiked wall for a second before she pulled herself free, she was probably thankful that she wasn’t alive or that would have been a mortal blow.

The skeleton shivered a bit after looking at the wall, she was then focused on us again and she leapt forward with an overhead swing of her axe for Flamberge who blocked her with his sword.

His sword didn’t crack like the claymore had when it was struck, it just caused a burst of flames to wildly spray into the air.

I swung for her with the claymore and she dropped the spike to catch the blade with her bare hoof, she did it expertly without injuring herself and she held it firmly in her grip.

She then kicked the falling spike with her left rear leg and it rammed through the webbing of Flamberge’s right wing making him scream and back away.

I brought the edge if my shield around and slammed it into the side of her skull sending it spinning, after a moment of dizzy stumbling she stomped her rear right hoof to regain her focus and was soon standing proudly once more.

“How do we defeat her?! She’s good enough to handle both of us at the same time!” Flamberge had a point as he removed the spike from his wing, the guardian has probably lived long enough and stayed in practice by fighting Draugr by whatever was generating them.

The question was, why were there Draugr still around if the guardian was this strong and capable of dealing with them quickly? A thought for another time as she was coming right at me!

“We are to disable her, we have no need to destroy her!” My voice might have come off as harsh, but I liked the guardian whether she had flesh or no flesh at all.

I blocked her axe and lost the top portion of my shield as she pulled it away and tried to slash me with the spike.

She was managing to push us both back on her own, as she slashed, deflected and swung her weapons at us and slowly pushed forward.

It took several stumbling steps back and Flamberge tried to slash at her and she deflected with the spike while spinning away from the both of us and continued to block our path forward.

We only had to figure out how to achieve such a victory, otherwise we had a tireless skeleton that could wear us and our very spirits down. We were resolved to push forward and she was standing in our way.

She was looking between the two of us and then glance at both spiked walls, likely pushed apart by the dragon Draugr. A strange glint entered her glowing orbs as she looked at both of us, what was she planning?

She tossed the spike was holding up and launched it at me with the flat of her axe’s blade, she then cartwheels towards the wall on the right and cut another spike away to immediately launch it at Flamberge.

I blocked the spike with my shield and almost lost my right eye to the penetrating spike, Flamberge managed to deflect his into the ground. Only that wasn’t the end of it as several more spikes hurtled towards us in a barrage.

My shield barely took the next three hits and was almost no longer useable, then Flamberge interposed himself between me and the spikes hurtling for us.

Flamberge held his left arm over the closed wound in his side, his other arm went over his face and he turn his sword the he held in his right claw so that it was covered his body. He took several spikes coming at him pretty well.

Cartwheeling to the opposite wall the guardian tore several more spikes from it with her axe and launched them at us.

Flamberge continued to stay in front of me and took several hits that pushed him back into me and he kept get peppered by the spikes. After this barrage ended, Flamberge was quite battered and bruised, but the spikes did not pierce his scales.

Looking at my brother groaning and battered form as he kneeled on the floor, he propped himself up on his flaming sword and looked to me.

“We will not be stopped here, we have the resolve to keep fighting!” I firmed my resolve and dropped the remains of what used to be my shield and surged forward towards the guardian placing both my hooves on the claymore.

I swung the claymore down with all my might and she brought the axe up to defend against the incoming blow.

We clashed and the claymore shattered, but not before sending the axe flying from her hoof to where it embedded the floor a few feet away. The metal shards from upper half of the claymore impacted with my body, aside from a few of the shards digging into my flesh I was fine.

I tossed aside the broken blade and before the skeleton could get up I grabbed her by the spine where her neck would be and lifted her from the floor. She bashed at my right leg with her hooves as I held her off the floor where she could find no leverage, she was really quite lightweight and right now she was struggling to get me to let her go.

I had the upper hoof… but how do I finish this battle in a way that she would accept without me destroying her? She is being a great warrior… one that held her own pretty well for being a skeleton.

I looked along the walls and at the spikes lining them. That could work…

As Flamberge rested on the floor looking at both ends of the corridor for Draugr, I Carried her to a nearby wall to my left.

She looked over her shoulder at the spiked wall as I reared back to thrust her forward and her glowing orbs seemed to dim. The reality is that they were turning black as if she were closing eyelids that weren’t there, she expected me to destroy her.

I wedged her into the wall and held her there, using my other hoof I bent one of the spikes so that it passed through her ribcage without hurting her. Her eyes lit up and she looked down at the spike that was pinning to her the wall.

“We are the winners, do you yield!” After a moment of looking at me in either disbelief or something close to it, she finally bowed her head and nodded. “Good… now we are needing your help, join us!”

“Are you serious?!” Asked an angry Flamberge.

“Yes.” I let her go. She would join us in traveling further down into the catacombs.

Author's Note

Earned: Skeleton Companion (???), 300 EXP, damaged claymore, broken shield, numerous injuries and bruises, wall spike, mystical silver axe and 1 Gil.

The skeleton does have a name, but I'm wondering what you'll think of it when you hear it.

I've been busy these last few days... also I've been playing Dragon Quest 11 for the first time.

Chapter forty-five, Crypt-ick: Accepts.

-Deeper Catacombs a few hours later, Flamberge-

I watched as a Draugr evaporated under the strike of my sword, the fire of my blade was exceptionally effective against them as much as the even hotter fire I could breathe out.

Turning my head, I watched as our new… companion… slice a pony Draugr in half from head to tail in a single leaping swing of that axe. Fortitude trusted her with our backs. Even if he does so, I was still quite wary of her and a little more than curious how she ended up as a skeleton.

We were easily ripping our way through the twenty or so remaining Draugr, what was left of them after Fortitude rammed his way through a horde of them without stopping.

My brother might not be as well armed as he was when we fought the skeleton, but at least he wasn’t going into this entirely unarmed. He was wearing two torches on his horns and anything he didn’t get with his horns, he could smash with his hooves or throw a lit torch at.

There was plenty of material to make torches out of around here, Fortitude was not going to run out with at least twenty makeshift torches to throw.

That thought, my brother Fortitude had a lot to get out of his system. There was the grief about the loss of his shield that he’s had for many years that had served him faithfully until this day and his anger towards the source of this problem.

You haven’t exactly seen a true yak until you’ve watched one as they decimate half a room on their own in under ten seconds. It didn’t matter whether that happened on purpose, an accident or in a fit of rage. Yaks were scary and my brother was no exception to the destructive potential his bulk lent him.

Fortitude took out most of the Draugr on his own with only torches as weapons, he was still amazingly effective in a fight and only archers could make him pause in his rampage.

So far, Fortitude hadn’t taken any wounds since the skeletal pony joined us in our merry berserker assault towards the main problem behind all this. Said assault was sending bits of Draugr flying everywhere as we shredded our way through them.

Seriously, I’ve lost count after taking down fifty Draugr and I was running out of breathe and could use a bit of time to stop for a moment to catch it. We had managed to push quite far into the catacombs, if there were Draugr to be fought then my brother and I were eager for combat.

“Yak stomp!” I came to a stop to witness Fortitude smashing in the head of another yak Draugr, he sat down and started to actually take a break. “How many more of the fallen do we have to see?”

The skeletal comrade came up and seemed to make several gestures with her left hoof. Her other hoof was occupied with balancing the mystical axe across her spinal column, it looked completely pristine despite all the Draugr she had eviscerated with it.

“Can you be a bit clearer?!” Hoping for a good answer, I looked to her and her red floating orbs became slanted hemispheres that looked vaguely angry. She pointed to the throat that didn’t exist and stared back at me. “Are there more or less than what we fought here at least?!”

I pointed up or down, as emphasis. The silver haired skeleton pointed downwards insistently.

“Well that’s good, looks like we’re finally wearing this ‘source’ down and running them dry of Draugr at least.” Though I wished the pony skeleton could tell us why they’ve never cleared them all out before, but I realize that her bones can still be incinerated. Explains why she took down the dragon Draugr when the opportunity presented itself, she must have destroyed its wings and rear legs in an earlier fight before we ever met her. “Hear that brother, we might be getting closer to the source of this mess and we can finally rid ourselves of it for good.”

That and with the Draugr as strong as they are, she could have been destroyed by them if she hadn’t been as careful as she was in her attacks to keep them suppressed. Didn’t explain why there were so many Draugr or why they didn’t destroy her earlier if she was such a big problem for them.

“That does sound like good news brother, we will rest for a few more minutes then we will continue forward.” I set down and rested my back against my brother’s side and the skeleton just sat down against a distant wall and started looking left and right.

She was a tireless sentry, one that had been stuck in this state for who knows how long. I actually began to feel sorry for the pony stuck in those bones, even if I still distrusted her somewhat.

Knowing she was honorable didn’t stem the tide of mild suspicions and concerns that I had about her.

-???-

Maybe… maybe they could end this.

Could I finally know rest?

I would be by their sides whether in victory or defeat, hopefully I would fall and be welcome to the afterlife I deserved… it has been so long.

Would any of them still be waiting for me there or did they move on knowing that my day would eventually come?

-Fortitude-

We passed through several chambers, a chill in my spine grew as they were silent and empty of anything and were nothing more than halls filled with shadows. The shadows that we destroyed with the lights we carried with us.

The temperature was dropping steadily as we got closer with the skeleton maiden leading the way, we turned the corner and saw the guardian facing us and she point behind her.

A door, massive in size and made of metals in a vaguely gold color, some of the surrounding walls were also made of the material that was starting to seem familiar to me. I could even hear the faint sound of flowing water coming from beyond it.

“Beyond this door?” Our friend just nodded and readied her axe.

I would like to think of her as my friend at least, my brother was less welcoming and he had the right to be distrustful after the kind of fight we had with the guardian. He was walking off the heavy bruising caused by those spikes, like any reasonably tough dragon or Viking would do.

I nodded to Flamberge and the guardian to stand back, I untied the torches from my horns and passed them off to them and took several steps away from the door.

“Have you tried to get through the door previously?” Clarification helps with knowing how hard I had to go, the guardian showed me her answer.

The guardian swung her axe with full force and it bounced off the metal of the door which glowed brightly the second the axe hit it, the door was completely undamaged. Her axe’s mystical might couldn’t damage it and I’ve seen it cut through metal and break what it could cut through with raw force.

“Right, then I know how hard to hit the door!” With everything I had. I scraped my left hoof against the floor and snorted loudly, my rage was still frothing. The source of the Draugr would not last long under some well controlled yak fury, Sekhet is always teaching good lessons about keeping control while not losing one’s emotions. “Stand aside brother and friend… because Yak Smash!”

I charged toward the door lowering my head, my hooves thundered heavily against the floor and the entire hallway leading up to the door shook at my approach. My friend standing on either side of the door watched as I loosed my full strength upon the door that thought it could stop me.

Hitting the door with all my might, I didn’t knock it off its hinges. Instead I knocked the door and the surrounding walls outwards upon impact and created a line of destruction before me.

The room beyond became visible to me as I lifted my head up and looked at the raw destruction I had unleashed with a grim smile, nothing could smash like a yak.

It was an old aqueduct of some kind, I heard screaming before me and I saw a sickly hoof sticking out from under the rubble and a slightly damaged posing statue.

To my right was a waterway with a Viking boat sitting in it at the bottom of some wooden steps, what caught my attention was that the boat looked freshly made compared to everything else down here. To my left were decrepit shelves with rotted dusty books, broken science stuff and not a Draugr in sight.

Well there were no actively dangerous Draugr in sight, besides what had been waiting behind the door for an ambush. I smashed them all with said door and the walls surrounding it.

“You idiot, do you know how long it is going to take me to capture enough lost souls to build more Draugr from scratch!” The statue seemed to yell despite not moving its lips, a neat parlor trick at best. “It took me ages to construct a working Draugr from all those old body parts the last time this happened, I reinforced that door for just this reason!”

“You are the source of the Draugr?” My confusion was warranted, it was a pony statue… in a golden color.

The Guardian surged forward and swung her axe, it simply bounced off the statue. She had been aiming to take its horn off first, good idea when it became available to do so.

“It seems the thorn in my side for thousands of years is here too… joy… couldn’t you have just destroyed her and saved me all the trouble of having to do it myself?” The unicorn statue seemed rather condescending, it was only making me angrier and he would not like angry yak. “Really shouldn’t have tried to do something different with her, came back to bite me pretty badly when she still had free will after what I did to her. Anyway I’m…”

“Smashed!” I rammed into the statue head first, only to become dizzy when the statue held against my weight. It didn’t fall over or even move an inch despite me hitting it to the best of my current abilities, the statue was assuredly protected by magic.

“Do you really think you can destroy me, my statue is impervious?! Well mostly anyway, given that you somehow managed to damage it. An impressive feat I must say, you’d really make a good Draugr.” The unicorn statue with the cape and the smug smile was only making me angrier by the second. “That skeleton right there, I only regret that I failed to make her correctly to be my perfect general. At least I got one thing right with her, she can’t harm anything inanimate holding my magic. She’s be making a mess of my Draugr for thousands of years with that loophole, the crafty little wench.”

The skeleton glared at the statue with seething anger and then stalked over towards my brother. I turned back to the statue.

“I doubt you can do any better than she has thus far, aside from that one small fluke that chipped me somewhat. Unless you can destroy magically charged white gold, one of the toughest materials in this world, then you’ll never be able to beat me.” He likes hearing himself talk too much. “It will only be a matter of time before I can capture more lost souls and discarded body parts to rebuild my Draugr army back from this! So, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me… I’m one of the most intelligent unicorns in the field of life and death. I’d say I’m the master of it and my name is…”

A loud crunching noise was heard, I turned to Flamberge eating a large red gem and next to him was the guardian with her skeletal grin seeming that much wider.

“What? All that fighting made me hungry!” Flamberge then bit into and ripped out another piece of the large red gem with his teeth. He chomped that down to a fine powder and swallowed. “This is tastes delicious by the way!”

“What?! No, you fool, that’s the only thing that’s been keeping my statue charged with… er… ignore what I just about to...!” Throwing my right hoof into the statues horn, it broke away cleanly and all I heard afterwards was blood curdling screaming coming from the statue.

“Pony statue is being louder than you, that being new record!” Before I could continue to smash the statue, I let the guardian break it apart into small bits and pieces. I can tell she has been waiting to do that for a long time given her fierceness in the statue’s destruction. Without the horn or the gem, the statue was now vulnerable to her. “Keep eating your meal brother, while we smash!”

The guardian, receiving catharsis upon destroying the statue, seemed much happier now.

“As if that would really get rid of me permanently!” The spirt of the unicorn floated up above the remains of the destroyed statue. “All I need to do now is steal one of your bodies and I can start my research anew in this day and age... I choose the dragon since he ruined my setup!”

The ghostly visage shot for Flamberge, he readied his sword and kept eating the large gem with his other hand.

Before the monstrous unicorn could reach or get close to my brother, a glowing ghostly spear pierced his back. He was stuck with a look of agony on his face as he was pinned to the floor.

A most beauteous sight descended upon us on large wings with an equally large body… it was a Valkyrie.

“I was spending special time with great husband... you are also being very evil for not letting warriors souls find rest!” The large female yak with the vibrant feathered wings grabbed the unicorn’s spirit and started to drag it towards a howling vortex of souls that opened up in the floor. “Eir is unhappy. No mercy, I smite!”

With that the unicorn’s spirit was forcefully thrust into the vortex, then the yak turned to the skeleton looking upset.

“I am sorry, but I cannot help you.” At the Valkyrie’s words, the skeleton pony bowed her head while looking quite forlorn. “I look for solution to still living soul trapped in bones! In the meantime find something to do, this might take a while. Now back to great husband! Wait...what should Eir be saying to make up for disappearing all of the sudden?!”

“Uh… maybe you went to the bathroom?” The Valkyrie rushed over to me and gave me a big bone crushing hug, she is stronger than any yak and is almost choking the very life from my bones. She is not one I would ever wish to fight in any circumstance.

“You are now a good friend of Eir, thank you for wonderful idea!” With that the winged yak flew off through the ceiling.

“What just happened?” Flamberge was confused.

“Worry not! Now we need to find The Mists of… Travel... On…” I looked at the pristine boat floating in the waterway next to the slightly rotted docks. “Hey, we found it!”

Author's Note

The catacombs are not quite done yet, one last thing needs to be addressed before the Vikings can set off on their adventures.

Chapter forty-five, Crypt-ick: Defeat the villains?

-Soar Way, Catacombs Aqueduct, Flamberge-

“Well… that was anticlimactic!” I rubbed at my head, feeling vaguely upset that the fight with the undead statue pony wasn’t as epic as it should have been, our skeletal earth pony friend had been far more dangerous than that. “I was expecting something a little bit harder, but I can understand your frustration with being unable to deal with this problem our skeleton friend! So… what are you going to do now?! I mean that Valkyrie did state that she couldn’t help you… she also said you had a living soul despite being undead, which is a bit strange don’t you think?!”

Our bony pony friend just froze up, she was helping us prepare the ‘Mists of Travel On’ for our journey. Not that there was much to prepare, the magical Viking gondola was already loaded with all our stuff. We were just making sure that the room was thoroughly destroyed, burning any chemical and or books that might have survived our entrance.

“She can come with us brother, there is nothing more for her here!” Which could take years and Fortitude didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone like that, I unfortunately didn’t like that idea either. “Unless she is wishing to guard the catacombs until the Valkyrie can get back to her, who knows how long that will take. She is obviously being very busy.”

-Port Turtle Toga, Gallant Bluster’s Tavern, Eir –

I am glad to be taking care of cruel soul preventing warriors from getting their eternal rest. I am also happy to be freeing those souls and saving the still living the trouble of fighting that cruel soul.

Will be remembering dragon, yak and skeleton pony’s faces, for they are being great heroes!

Unfortunately now there is another problem in Eir’s life. Seeing living soul in skeleton… that is going to be as tough as fixing broken unicorn horn and…

“Eir honey, if you can hear me, I think you’re pet rock is going on the floor downstairs!” I am rushing downstairs noisily to alert my husband that I am back, to see puddle forming underneath the boulder. “It’s your pet, so you have to clean it up before you can get back to me! I’ll be waiting, don’t leave me cold all night honey.”

“No… bad boulder!” I am rushing to find towels and a mop. “No dooming Eir and great husband’s home with increasingly destructive abilities as Eir’s pet!”

I am still needing to potty train large rock of increasing danger, it is not going very well in the slightest at all.

I make priority… after time with great husband tonight!

-Soar Way, Catacombs Aqueduct, Flamberge-

“I actually agree with that!” This skeleton was practically a hero of our people given how long she’s been holding the Draugr off, to let her fall into madness alone would be bad. That and I will begrudgingly admit that we are friends.

The skeleton did point out a nice gem for me to eat, which seems to have been the lynchpin in why she couldn’t destroy the statue and that statue pony had reinforced the door with that same white gold stuff he had been made of… wait a minute…

“That is a surprise brother.” Of course it was Fortitude, I didn’t think I’d ever say those words. “You are not very keen on her being around us.”

“Speaking of surprises, didn’t Sekhet mention something about her nemes being made of gold?!” The skeleton glared at me. “Sorry, I’m naturally this loud all the time!”

The skeleton rolled her eyes derisively, there was something I was missing here about that. There was just something I couldn’t quite put my claws on as being different about her, it wasn’t her silver mane or her skeletal visage.

“Yes, my brother has little volume control, please be excusing him.” Fortitude noticed that I was staring at him. “Oh right, her nemes is being made of electrum, which is magically charged gold! It is explaining why our friend is having trouble with evil pony dragged to Hel by Valkyrie… maybe without gem the Valkyrie could finally see his evil undead soul and take him away?”

“About the same as what I was thinking Fortitude!” I turned to our skeletal friend as did Fortitude. “So… up for a little adventure? We could use another companion!”

The skeleton pony seemed to mull it over judging by the way a bony hoof went up to her chin and her orbs looked to the ceiling, I finally noticed the one small difference about her.

Her eyes were no longer glowing red in color, they were now green. Not the same sickly glowing green that the Draugr had going for them, it was more of a bright and friendly looking emerald color. They hadn’t been red since that unicorn pony’s soul down was taken down by the Valkyrie.

“Halt vile villains!” All three of us turned to the bulky armored form that charged into the room. “I’ve come to end your reign of terror for I am Dispel Grace!”

“What makes you think we’re villains?” I questioned the pony whose entire body was covered in the worst looking angular armor I’ve ever seen, it looked like it was made of entirely of gold and not the electrum kind.

The only defining thing about the armor, other than being gaudy and god awful looking, is that it had a decent looking blue cape and an insignia on the chest plate. The insignia looked like a hexagon with round red colored crystals halfway between each of the six points and at the center.

“It’s fairly obvious… you are conspiring with one of the undead monsters that are plaguing this land! Well not so much plaguing as there haven’t been that many reports of them… but it is still my holy mission to destroy their kind!” He pulled a large object from his back and stumbled a bit, it was a really big sword even for a stallion as large as he was and he eventually got a good grip on it with both his hooves to point it at our skeleton friend. “That I have to slay a dragon and slaughter a yak that are helping build an undead army, it would only add to my heroic deeds!”

“She is not a monster, she is a friend.” Taking offense to this guy that just arrived, Fortitude put himself in front of our skeleton friend and glared at the armored pony. “Also how do you propose to destroy her?”

“I will rend her soul to nonexistence with my holy powers of course, for something so vile and not living should not deserve an afterlife!” The pony held the sword pointing towards the ceiling. “I’ll eventually work my way up to slaying all the gods in existence for GODLESS!”

“But doesn’t holy power sometimes come from gods?” Mostly gods of light or justice for instance, also did he just say GODLESS. That same organization full of nutcases that caused Jade to go away? I remember the revenge she got against me that one time, never will I ever make her go petty kitty on me ever again.

If I ever got another chance to have an accident around Jade, I’d plead on my knees and apologize for any transgressions I may have made against her as Jade was scary when given the time to plot things out. Well he’s definitely an enemy of ours and the entire no afterlife thing for our friend made of bones would be a certain cruelty of the greatest sorts, any god who gives this guy holy powers would have to be completely raving mad.

That skeleton has been a stalwart guardian of these catacombs, she stopped all those Draugr from getting out and has been doing that for long before I was ever hatched. I came years before my brothers and my slow aging has helped me meet them, I hoped to be a grandpa to their possible families in the future.

“I am not caring if I have to slay my own god eventually!” Oh great, we got a chaotic evil paladin guy here. “I will be holier than them after all, and then all the holy powers will be mine! Except… you know… I’m going to avoid becoming a god myself, because then I’d have to slay myself in the name of the great organization GODLESS!”

“I am thinking we are finally meeting someone dumber than us brother.” Fortitude whispered to me, I nodded in response. “Excuse me, but wouldn’t your god stop supporting you for speaking up against them?”

“No… Perun is mighty, loves nobles like me, likes violent tributes and welcomes good fights. If I can give him a fight to end all fights, given that he is a war god, he will welcome my eventual betrayal for what it is. Apparently his enemy Veles is messing with him by protecting cows everywhere from danger for some odd reason… I always thought that that vexing fiend Veles was in the business of kidnapping them.” He pointed the large sword towards the skeleton. “No matter, today I shall end your dark powers and reign of tyranny in this region foul monster.”

“She is not a monster and she is not tyrannical in any way!” Fortitude said in a calm, but extremely tight, voice.

“Oh… can you tell me a time whenever you’ve met a friendly skeleton with a demonic visage such as that?!” His sword start glowing yellow ominously as he pulled it back while his helmet pointed towards our skeletal friend. “Let the light of my blade strike true, may her cursed soul never recover to walk this or any other world again when my holy light slays her dark heart!”

The skeleton tightened her grip on the axe she had draped over her spine, Fortitude tightened his jaw and I looked down at my flaming sword and to Dispel's weapon. Yeah, there are things to be said about overcompensating for something, I’m glad I wasn’t the one that was currently doing so.

He swung it forward and unleashed a crescent wave of light and with Fortitude already in front of her, I place myself in front of him and swung my sword downwards.

The flames from my sword slice the slow moving crescent wave of energy in half, the impact still sent me stumbling forcefully into Fortitude and the flames on my sword puttered out seconds afterwards. That has… never actually happened before, now that I think of it. The split blast of energy cut furrows into the floor where they struck and that probably wouldn’t have been pleasant to be hit by.

Whatever that light did to my sword had knocked it out or stopped its power temporarily, this probably meant I wouldn’t be able to block another beam of energy like that again. Still I held my position in front of Fortitude and our new friend, she hasn’t planted an axe in my back and proved herself a strong warrior in battle and worthy of my friendship.

The skeleton ran around us and was raising her axe for a fight, but Fortitude wrapped his left leg around her waist and lifted her off the ground. I was picked up by his right leg and I looked up at him as I sheathed my sword.

“Brother what are you…” I tried to ask before he bellowed out.

“I am Fortitude the fantastically fragrant, you shall not harm my friends!” He was being rather protective of us in this moment. “We are not wanting to fight you, we were just leaving…. also I do not wish him to destroy your sword in an effort to protect us brother.”

The skeleton wanted to get from Fortitude’s grasp to attack the guy before us, but she stopped to look at him questioningly and lowered her axe. Fortitude started backing away towards the waterway where the Viking gondola sat.

“Like I’ll let you leave while that unholy pony is in your grasp!” Smacking his large sword against the ground, Dispel Grace’s large great sword started to light up once again only it was slow to do so. The sword probably took a lot of magic from its user and he seemed quite tired after having used it only once. “My sword will cleave your souls from this world.”

He swung his sword again in a high arc, this sent another crescent of light flying towards us and Fortitude pushed off and backwards with his hind legs. The crescent beam narrowly missed us as we fell into the gondola, it took out a huge chunk of the wall behind us though and sent a large amount of debris raining into the water.

“Cut the rope, we have no need to fight him.” Fortitude ordered and given that she was the closest one to it, the skeleton’s axe swiftly went through it and that set the ‘Mists of Travel On’ adrift. “I am sorry, but we will be leaving now!”

“You cannot escape the holy powers of a pony who seeks to become the holiest above all else!” The armored earth pony started dragging his sword in our direction, scraping against the stone loudly as he made his approach towards the stairs. “There is no dark place or corner you can run into to hide from my mighty mission to end that darkness you are clinging to, I will snuff out all of the darkness that those of your ilk represent!”

His sword started to charge up again, but even more slowly than before.

“How do you make this boat do its thing?” My brother let me go and I took a seat.

“I am not knowing, but I am hoping it does its thing on its own.” Fortitude still had his eyes on the pony wielding that massive sword, I had my eyes on the skeleton pony eyeing the oar with curiosity as she sat her axe down in the boat. “We are not being in any condition to fight that pony and I do not want our new companion to be felled by him if it means her soul does not get a justly deserved rest.”

The skeleton looked at us fondly, before turning a glare to the guy raising that oversized sword above his head for a downward swing. We all felt the boat hit the wall and looked at the small opening that filtered water out of the catacombs, we weren’t going to squeeze through that.

“Know that you will be the first on my road to greatness and I will tell stories of how I defeated the three of you villainous curs, be happy for you are about to be felled by the might of Dispel Grace!” He started to bring his sword down.

The skeleton pony finally grabbed the oar and swung it into the water and started to wag it back and forth rapidly, this kicked up a lot of water and caused a mist to build up.

The beam of vertical light surged towards us threatening to slice us all apart, until a thickening mist blinded our sights

We heard a scream of rage that became increasingly faint and distant.

When the mists died down, we found ourselves in a lake.

A pegasus flew down looking around in confusion.

“Excuse me, but why do you have two lit torches tied to your horns like that?” Looking away from the boat, I saw that we were in… Ponyville?

Author's Note

Instantaneous travel... with absolutely no control over your destination.

Wonder why they ended up in Ponyville first?

Chapter forty-six, Wheel of life and death: Youth.

-???, Skelly-

Being a little older than last time, I was no longer in that strange place with the device that made odd noises.

I was sitting at a stump and watching as the stallion set a block of wood down, he then split it in twain with a single swing of the axe without damaging the stump.

He looked up at me afterwards and smiled. The pony planted the thing I now recognized as the silver axe in the ground off to the side of the stump and trotted away from it to a storage area.

He came back and presented to me an axe… a small one that could work for someone of my size.

Why didn’t I remember using this axe?

My vision glances around as if I were looking for the pony that would wield it, I saw a countryside of snow and a home made entirely of sturdy wood. In the distance were the other homes, we lived closer to the woods.

The dark grey coated pony with sharp green eyes and bright blonde mane waited patiently. The symbol on his flank was an axe embedded in some wood, it was what he was good at.

There was no other pony here at the moment, the stallion approached me and shook his head while smiling. He took up my right hoof with his left and slid the handle of the small axe into it with his right.

I curled my hoof around the tool and looked at it closely, his axe was an actual weapon… the very same one I still held and wielded to this day. At least I can remember why it was so important to me, I got it from this stallion.

What happened to the tool I held now though? By now the handle has rotted away and the small metal blade is but a lump of what it once was and is a part of the land once more.

Am I remembering what happened to me?

The stallion cleared his throat, gaining my past self’s complete attention. He placed a bit of wood on the stump and then split in half. He then place another bit of wood, but closer to me on my side of the stump.

I looked at the wood and he came over to me and showed me how to wield the tool, he moved away when his silent instruction was proving itself well enough.

I pulled back the axe and swung it like I was shown, I split the wood and got the axe stuck in the stump.

I looked to him with a smile and he simply frowned, he pulled the axe from the stump and put it off to the side.

I stopped smiling and tilted my head questioningly, had I missed something? What had I done wrong?

He came over to me and grabbed my braid of silvery hair and tugged it gently so my eyes were looking at the damage I had dealt to the stump. I had split the top of the stump slightly, he on the other hoof had never cut the stump with his axe even once.

I frowned at him and gave my… father… a look of understanding.

The lesson learned here was that I needed to control my swings, I recall that wasting energy pulling the axe out of the stump every swing was a problem. My father was a smarter wood working pony than any other pony of the soil around.

Bowing my head in shame and wilting my ears, I sniffled a bit. I felt his gentle hoof guide my chin upwards. Looking me in the eyes, he wiped away the tears and then walked off.

He came back with two bits of wood and then placed the tool back in my hoof, I questioned him with my look of confusion.

He sat the wood on the left side of the stump and then one on the right, he pointed a hoof to his eye and the wood on the right as he took up position for a swing. He then pointed to me and then other piece of wood.

I can remember the smile on my face here, a small failure shouldn’t stop me from learning.

He lifted up his axe and then brought it down, neatly splitting the wood in two. He turned to glance at me expectantly.

I took up position opposite of him. My axe, being the tool that it was, was good enough to do what his weapon for war could... I inhaled and steadied my nerves.

I raised the tool above my head in my right hoof and brought it down with precision on the wood before me.

The world turned white and I blinked.

-Ponyville, Fortitude-

“Skelly, are you being alright?” I was worried about new friend, she shook her head and looked about. We hadn’t gone far from the hospital before she started to look lost.

“Something has been a little off about her… other than the fact that she doesn’t technically have much of a life!” My brother Flamberge was less wary of Skelly and more curious now. “Hopefully that condition of hers isn’t contagious!”

My brother and I stopped at the top of hill and waited for her to come back to her senses. She shook her head and looked to me before nodding, she poked at her head with her left hoof and smiled somewhat.

What Skelly did next was interesting, she looked at the axe she held as if in a new light.

The axe was far more important than my shield had been to me, my shield was made to take a beating and to eventually be destroyed. That axe seemed far closer and more important to her somehow, as if the weapon were a priceless treasure.

“Oh my goodness… how can she honestly say she’s alright when she looks so drab? Also a little laziness never hurt every now and then, and I don’t think it’s contagious at all! Honestly now.” We turned to a white furred unicorn with royal purple hair, her crystal blue eyes looked at us with a slight amount of contempt. “I’m sorry for interrupting your conversation gentle stallions, but this mare could use a splash of color to go with her lovely silver hair and white coat.”

Skelly tilted her head at the unicorn curiously, she was more than likely staring at her horn. Skelly then looked to the sky and stared at the pegasus ponies flying about and then to the ground to see earth pony’s getting along with ponies of other races.

“Don’t mind her inability to talk, she’s mute and we’re her friends!” Flamberge was drawing the unicorn’s concerned look away from our curious and slightly confused friend. “Her name is Skeletal Noria, but we call her Skelly! This is her first time coming to Ponyville and we’re showing her around!”

“Sounds foreign, I want to… no… I must make her an article of clothing! I’m thinking maybe some boots, but they wouldn’t do well when it comes to holding that… axe. If she’s anything like Applejack, then I’m quite sure she wouldn’t know how to appreciate a good dress… even if I have a few that would look nice on her.” The pony looked the axe up and down with curiosity as Skelly rested it across her back. “Where are my manners, I’m Rarity. I’m quite sure that Pinkie already has a party in the works, I swear that young mare doesn’t know how to slow down at all since she came to Ponyville! Well… I might as well give you something as a present for your first visit to Ponyville Ms. Noria. I insist on it even, now come along!”

With that Rarity went behind Skelly and started pushing our confused friend towards the nearby home.

Did Skelly exist before or after the tale of hearths warming? If before, then she is not used to being around other pony species. If she had been paying attention and wasn’t so distracted with her thoughts earlier, she would have noticed all the winged and horned ponies we’ve met.

She does not seem like one who has a heart full of hate or disparages other ponies for their differences, for I know she is being good pony at heart.

“Hey Fortitude, why do you suppose the Mists of Travel On brought us here of all places?” Turning from looking over the town to Flamberge with a curiosity filling my own head, I thought about his question.

The Mists of Travel On only take you where you are most needed, that was no lie and the main truth of its legend that we wished to pursue in full.

We were currently right were we needed to be, I at least tried to think of why we were brought to Ponyville first and came up with a quick answer.

“We are most needed here and are exactly where we should be brother. If not for us to resupply and prepare for our future endeavors at the behest of ‘Travel On’ taking us where we are needed most, then Skelly needs to see how the world has changed for the better or the worst.” We entered the building and saw Skelly standing on a platform looking nervous as the unicorn ran around looking for stuff in the organized mess. This Rarity obviously had a system as a weaver. “We are being in a nice, quiet and friendly place where Skelly can relax for the first time in a long, long time.”

She’s kind of had a bad history with unicorns now that I think of it, one had been troubling Soar Way for many years with Draugr and she had been a constant hero for so long without rest. Not that a skeleton needed to sleep and being completely restless helps when fighting Draugr with constant vigilance.

“Don’t be so nervous darling, a small scarf in a cherry red would do wonders for your appearance.” At Ms. Rarity’s words, Skelly frowned quite profusely.

“I am thinking that she is not liking that idea and red is not her color.” Not after many years of having glowing red eyes, I too would dislike that color after being stuck with it for that long.

“Not red? Then…. medium blue perhaps? That works fairly well with her lovely silver mane! If you need something to hold that axe with darling, I can certainly make you something really quick to go along with the scarf.” With that Rarity trotted off and Skelly gave me a pleading look.

I’m am rather surprised that this Rarity is nonplussed about the axe, maybe she thinks Skelly is a lumber pony? It would make sense, with Skelly’s cutie mark I would think that she works or lives around a mill. I would not disabuse the unicorn of that notion unless asked directly about it.

“Do not be fearing, she is not trying to be harmful.” I patted friend on back, I would think about the possible Aegisjalmr in her cutie mark later as now was a time for relaxing. “Unicorns here are actually safe to be around.”

Skelly is giving me a weak smile, I am calming her nerves excellently!

-Skelly-

He is nice, but Fortitude was not very convincing.

I was still quite nervous and wary that this was a dream, but I was beginning to temper my emotions fairly well and this would be a nice dream if it weren’t real. I knew the reality of what I was looking at, I haven’t slept or rested in a long time.

I’ve barely had reason to feel anything emotionally in a long time, but now I feel at least happy to be done with that Draugr making monster after so long of fighting him in a stalemate.

The world was so very different from how I remember, it seemed brighter though for all the togetherness I can feel around here. It was… harmonious… in how the ponies here from various races worked and lived together. Back before I became what I am now, we ponies used to keep to our tribes unless we needed to trade for goods.

Things had changed drastically and I feel calmer than I have ever had, I had made this all possible and the undead don’t roam the world like a plague. Like the calming weight of the wood in my right hoof, I felt as if an endless burden had been lifted from my back.

Wait… I could actually feel something physically?

I tightened my right hoof around the wood of the axe, I could feel the smoothness of the well carved wood. Sensations I had long since thought dead or were simply just forgotten or ignored, they were all coming back to me now.

How long had I gone without feeling anything? For how long have I been so numb to feeling alive? What have I forgotten and what will I remember next?

How long had I been stuck in that war with the Draugr and their horrid master? The world had continued turning while we had fought endlessly and it will continue to do so for as long as I could protect it with whatever I had left to give. That will never change as long as my spirit continues to wander the soil of the living!

I felt something slip around my neck and I blinked to look down at small patch of blue cloth.

“There you go darling and might I say it looks wonderful on you!” This Rarity smiled at me and gave me a hug, warmth blossomed in my chest and I felt a single powerful thudding pulse within it.

Was that my heart?

“I’m agreeing with her, scarf is looking quite nice on Skelly.” With Fortitude saying nice things about me too, I couldn’t help but enjoy the sensations of heat rushing to my cheeks.

Even with that one heartbeat the blood in my body still seemed too eerily still… what was I now? I no longer had a duty or a place to guard.

I also really didn’t know how to react to this attention either, so here I sit dumfounded.

“She is liking it!” Stated Fortitude with a great amount of certainty.

“Are you sure? She doesn’t look like she’s reacting to it at all.” Queried the unicorn named Rarity, she was curiously observing me.

“Give her time, she has been through some very bad times and is receiving good news recently.” That was an understatement my yak friend, considering that the Draugr Maker was dragged to Hel by a real Valkyrie! Something like that would bolster anyone’s belief in the gods.

I raised my left hoof and started to run it over this small… scarf… wrapped around my neck, it was nice looking and soft. I sighed and closed my eyes, I hugged the scarf to my chest and felt that momentous sensation of living once again.

I didn’t know what I was going to do now, but I owed both Fortitude and Flamberge a great debt that I might never be able to repay. If I were to die of old age right this instant, I would mostly be at peace.

Smiling, I nodded to Rarity.

“See… Skelly is just taking her time. What do we owe you?” Fortitude, through thick or thin, I will stick by you to any end!

“Nothing, it is a gift.” Rarity, life is the greatest gift ever given.

Author's Note

Okay, so a report on something about current happenings...

Some heavy rains flooded the place where I write this stuff... that wasn't too bad.

Then we later find out why the floor isn't drying up, apparently an outside faucet was broken and leaking through the walls. I've had to live with listening to the innocuous hum of a dehumidifier going on in the background for the most part of a week or so.

Also having to vacuum up all the water from the floor is equally problematic.

Life, it is great, but it will kick your butt like nothing else will.

Never let the small things you ignore grow into bigger problems.

Chapter forty-six, Wheel of life and death: Adolescence.

-Ponyville, Fortitude-

“That Rarity was being quite nice.” We all walked out of the clothiers, I think Skelly appreciated the sling to hold her axe and the new scarf around her neck. She is nodding with a bright smile on her face. “We are still needing to buy some supplies before day is out.”

“How about some food first? Sure there’s going to be plenty at Pinkie’s party, but it’s going to be mostly sugary and I want something a bit more solid than that in my stomach!” Flamberge spread his wings a bit and looked to be trying to ignoring the twinge in his side or the bandages wrapped around some of the damage his wings took. “Hey… I know… let’s go by the Hayburger!”

“Food there is being quite substantial, but it is not necessarily entirely healthy. Also there is being one big problem…” I held up a hoof so he knew how important this was. “We are not having money.”

“Yeah, that would be a major problem and we like everyone here too much to pillage them!” We were still walking in the direction of Hayburger anyway, maybe we can be doing some work for food? “Also I don’t care if the food is a bit unhealthy for other people, but for dragons it helps that there’s a lot of calories in fried foods. We tend to burn through all that really quickly.”

“I do eat a lot too, maybe we can help some pony on the way for money?” There was something to be remembered here, but I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it. I looked at Skelly and then I am remembering how old she is, she is good looking for very old pony. “Oh… when was the last time you ate something Skelly?”

Skelly looked normal, but she is not having eaten anything for many, many years. Rubbing the side of head with her right hoof, Skelly shrugged at us.

“Better question, can she even eat anymore or does she even needs to!” Brother brings up interesting point, can she still enjoy the consumption that living beings do?

She is technically dead or very close to it that it’s hard to tell the difference between the two, unless she returned to being a walking skeleton again.

We were walking through town many ponies gave us a wide berth, mostly because we were traveling strangers.

“Just why, why did this happen to me?” We are stopping at the sound of despair, turning I walked over to a pony bawling his eyes out next to pink painted house.

“What is being the matter?” I asked the brown pony with a cross between a musical note and a wrench on his flank, my brother and Skelly were curious as well.

“I’m Brown Note, Ponyville plumber, I left my home in charge of Ditzy Doo… I knew I should have just asked Derpy Hooves to watch my house or at least Dinky. Even a foal couldn’t have caused a mess this bad. Ditzy painted my house pink inside and out and I don’t think anyone told her to do that, she just painted it all!” The pony whined pitiably. “It’s going to take hours of hard work just to get all of this off of everything, where in the hay did Ditzy even get thirty cans of neon pink paint in less than three days!”

“What if we could do the job in under an hour, would you pay us thirty bits?” Flamberge asked with a bright smile.

“I’d pay just to see how you’d do that, all the paint is already dry!” The poor pony with the green hair and the indigo eyes moaned. “Why does this world always strike me in the butt like this? Is it because I’m a perfectionist when it comes to fixing plumbing installments?”

He is sounded like Jacky, only less upbeat in personality. We would gladly help him!

“Thirty bits for seeing how we’ll do it and thirty bits upon completion eh… okay!” Flamberge turned a smile to me while clapping his claws together and Skelly looked from him to me and back to him.

-Approximately forty nine minutes later-

The last bit of paint peeled away revealing the garish yellow colors of the house, the ponies jaw just dropped.

“How horrible does your friend smell that he can just walk into the room and peel all the paint off with whatever that green ozone he creates is?” Brown looked horrified by my smell. “I don’t even know your names.”

“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” One of my favorite things to do is introduce myself.

“I am Flamberge, the fiercely flammable!” My brother threw his left claw to the sky, he knew better than to pull out the flame sword at least.

“And this is our friend, she is Skelly, the superbly spirited!” We both then introduced our friend. Skelly seemed to be surprised we introduced her too.

“Okay, here’s the other thirty bits and thanks guys.” Brown turned to go to his house.

“Okay, let’s get out of here, quickly!” My brother started walking away at a brisk pace with a bit of panic in his voice.

“Why brother, what is the matter?” There was a sheepish grin on my brother’s face, it had me worried.

“What do you suppose his reaction will be when he eventually figures out that his house now smells a lot like a particularly ‘fragrant’ yak that peeled off all the pink paint on and in his house?” After brother said that, I too picked up the pace and so did Skelly. “Looks like we have enough money for a quick trip by the Hayburger… I wonder if previous employees still get discounts.”

“Agh now my house smells like…!” We were not going to stick around to hear the rest of Brown Note’s tirade, we helped him and we did a good job of sweeping up the peeled paint.

We are being paid, end of that story!

-???, Skelly-

In front of me was the door to the place I used to call home, opening it I walked inside with a bag slung across my back.

I was in the business of helping ponies and my father with all kinds of things. I had a talent for working with limited resources, I can make the most of any situation with very little to work with.

The white braided hair of an evenly parted mane, that calm humming as a pot of soup was stirred and the scent of vegetables boiling into a fine meal at the end of a long day.

The mare with the sky blue fur turned to me, I was quite sure that this was my mother… and I remembered another reason why we lived away from others when I saw what I was looking at.

The sweat dripped from my brow, my body was aching after a long hard day of working with my father. We come home to supper and my mother was waiting... she was a rather beautiful pegasus. She had hidden her wings fairly well when others were around as far as I can remember, but she loved my father and me enough to stay grounded.

She turned her bright pink eyes to me and her smile brightened as she saw her most favorite ponies in the world, she laid the wood ladle off to the side and came to give me a hug with both hooves and wings. As always, she would nuzzle me tenderly and look upon me with love.

It was sad to say that I always had more in common with colts, but I did take great care of my mane and tail. I knew my mother cherished the few feminine traits that I showed and was proud of me even if I came home sweating and or smelling worse than my father did sometimes.

I might not have had my mother’s dainty side, but she still loved me all the same. My parents were loving and kind, even if one of them hid the fact that they had wings and would have been lynched for it.

We soon sat down to a wonderful meal, I could almost remember the taste and smell of warmly cooked food.

The two of them were curious about whether or not I had my eyes on any of the local colts, me being attracted to a stallion wasn’t likely to ever happen then… and it was even less likely to happen now.

I could never be a good wife and I would never bear children…. who would ever love the skeletal monster that I’ve become?

-Flamberge-

“Okay, got the food and I even said hello to a friend!” My words and the slap of the tray against the table made Skelly jolt and fall out of her chair to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Skelly had been zoning out a lot since we defeated that unicorn statue spirit guy thing… Still, I should at least make that offer before diving into the food. I just had to remember that trays are not meant to be eaten this time. “Would you like some food?”

Skelly looked at the tray, the multiple Hayburgers and the fries, she even took a look at the sweet smelling apple turnovers. Methinks she was a little unsure about whether or not she should bother trying to eat.

“Go ahead and try one of the ‘From Tartarus, with love’ hayburgers, I bet you’ll actually taste it even in your state of existence!” I saw that it became a special menu item after Jade named it and I had three of them, two would be enough for me. My brother had two triple hayburgers with cheese and Fry Hard gave us a mountain of potato fries to work through. “Here, let me show you how eating a hayburger is done!”

I unwrapped my hayburger and held it by the wrapper, I bit into it and tore out a hunk with pleasure and started to chew through my mouthful. I slide one of my hayburgers over to her as I thoroughly worked the food over in my mouth, the bean patty inside was charred to perfection.

Oh yeah… the stuff of legends!

-Skelly-

What a strange food, nothing like the soups or salads of days long past, modifiable in the extreme using bread as a serving conduit. Things have advanced greatly since those days of old when villages and communities can grow to such a size as Ponyville.

I saw Fortitude eating his food the same way that Flamberge was and it had different stuff on it.

I wasn’t sure if eating the one Hayburger offered to me was a good idea, but I might as well try.

“You know… it’ll be interesting!” Quirking a white furred ear at the loud dragon, I gave him a curious glance. “If you do eat that and turn back into a skeleton, what do you think will happen to it?! Does it immediately convert into energy or does it fall onto the ground?! Wait, can you even turn back into a skeleton?”

I nodded yes at that last question before picking up and unwrapping the thick mountainous thing before me. It looked so very odd… yet I was willing to try it. If I could feel my heart beat at least once in the past hour or so, then I could at least try to taste something and hope that it didn’t turn to tasteless ashes in my mouth.

I held it up before mouth, closed my eyes and then took a bite… I froze.

“You can’t taste it can you?” I couldn’t answer Flamberge… I was too busy with the cornucopia of flavors spilling into my mouth as if from a mighty waterfall, I could even hear Valkyries singing!

Did the world just get bright or is my mouth full of happy between two slices of bread? I guess that in this state my tongue works somewhat, the flavors were all sharply piercing into my skull and I tried not to let it overwhelm me and then I did something foolish.

I actually chewed the first bite.

As you can imagine the bite was full of flavors, chewing it didn’t make it any better and I was able to taste things. I didn’t know if it would actually do anything for me if I swallowed it.

I guess the only thing that doesn’t work is my sense of smell, which is the one and only thing that was completely dead to me. Flamberge would likely consider me lucky, I couldn’t smell how bad Fortitude was and he changed walls by standing next to them with his smell alone.

“It is being long time since she has had eaten anything. Like with nice pony Rarity and the lovely little blue scarf, you should be giving her time to...” The yak would never finish that sentence as I started chewing vigorously, I swallowed and then took another bite… and another… The Hayburger was quickly disappearing into me and yet I could not feel the weight of it in my stomach. “I am guessing she likes it.”

I glared at him and continued eating it in a ravenous manner. I didn’t care if it didn’t fulfill a need for me, I wanted to eat this! Any taste at all was better than nothingness, I at least wanted to know what it was like to feel alive again and this day was getting pretty good about that!

“Excuse me for a second.” Flamberge got up and went to the counter and started to talk to the pony.

My ravenous devouring of the Hayburger had ceased, mostly because there was no long a hayburger to eat. I started to scrape the wrappings for the flavor of it with the spiritual existence of my tongue, I would not take food from the mouths of my Viking companions or anyone else unless offered.

It didn’t feel filling, but it sure tasted divine at the very least. I’ve missed the idea of eating more than I can ever realize.

“Here you go, I got an extra apple turnover just for you!” Thank you Flamberge. If there was one thing most ponies liked, it was fruit. “Eat it slowly and by that I mean nibble at it, because you’re only getting the one! We’re not made of money you know!”

I nibbled at the thing, it was a decadent dessert and I felt something forming at the corners of my eyes.

“Is she… crying tears of pure magic?” Blinking at Flamberge’s words, I wiped away a bit of blue energy leaking from my eyes and it quickly dissipated into the air. “That’s kind of weird.”

“She is already crying all her tears out, it is making sense as she is not drinking anything for a long time either.” This time Fortitude got up to go get something and he came back with a cup of water. “I think she is crying with her soul… I’d rather she didn’t cry her soul out. Here, drink this Skelly!”

I slowly sipped it down, as if to slake my nonexistent thirst. I didn’t hunger, I didn’t need to breathe and I didn’t need to drink the waters of life.

“Well… all that stuff seems to be going somewhere, let’s hope it’s doing something wherever it ends up!” Flamberge was sweet, as was Fortitude.

They are good friends to meet at the end of a long arduous path.

Author's Note

Yep some parts of the wall are being torn up thanks to all the water damage and I'm still finding time in my life to write this story...

Who am I kidding? I'm having a lousy day and the sounds of hammers and axes on wood is going to be continuous for the next few hours or so while things are getting fixed.

Life might be miserable, but I'm looking forward to a better tomorrow..

Chapter forty-six, Wheel of life and death: Adult.

-Ponyville, Skelly-

“So where are you wanting to go Skelly?” Fortitude asked kindly as we walked out of the place the makes wondrous foods at incredible speeds. How in the world do they stay stocked if they are that busy all day?

I would answer verbally if I could, but I lacked the vocal chords necessary to do so, there were so many interesting places in this town they call Ponyville. I could still point a direction to head in, but I instead shrugged and would just follow their lead.

“How is she to know of any place that is interesting brother?! We still got plenty of time until the party is ready and we need something to do until then!” Still wasn’t sure about this party thing Flamberge. A gathering would be nice, but I didn’t want to scare all the ponies when my skeletal visage eventually returns.

“Good point brother, but I am having an idea… since you chose for us to go to Hayburger, I choose that we go visit Ms. Cheerilee!” Tilting my head at Fortitude, I wondered who Cheerilee was. It was a pony obviously, this town didn’t seem to have any yaks or dragons. “She can give us an idea as to where we can get a book to help our friend learn how to read and write in current times.”

I glared at Fortitude, I knew how to write just fine thank you! Maybe others just need to learn to read and write our language!

“Sound plan… but where would we find yonder teacher of many things?!” Judging by what Flamberge says, this Cheerilee must be quite the learned elder.

“The school house in the distance, if she is not there then we can ask around for her home.” It sounds like something you can easily do Fortitude.

I moved in front of them and nodded at this course of action, then started making my way towards this school house place. I wondered what this Cheerilee was like.

A few ponies looked at us curiously. I had thought it would be me that they were looking at, but apparently I was the normal one around here compared to Flamberge and Fortitude. At least while I look like this I can walk around as normal and even feel it, maybe even enjoy the world a bit before I had to hide away when they could see what I really was.

Fortitude and Flamberge wouldn’t look at me with horror, I’m actually welcoming their companionship and knowledge of the world as it was now.

I could just destroy myself and save them the trouble of having me follow them around, but I was far too stubborn for that now.

“Skelly stop being so worried, we will not let anyone hurt you and you do not need to think such dark thoughts.” Okay that was rather perceptive of Fortitude, he is sharp where it counts and is only seemingly dull at times. “We are being friends no matter what, cheer up!”

I huffed silently and gave him a small smile, I just shook my head at his continued attempts to build his bridge of friendship between us. I am not supposed to be happy like this, any purpose I had was now gone and… that wasn’t exactly a bad thing.

I would continue living like this for however long I could make it last. At least the world isn’t like how it felt before, there was a steady warmth where previously there was nothing but the coldness.

We approached the building and saw a mare sweeping away some grime, she looked up at our approach.

“Oh… Fortitude, Flamberge, it’s been a while since I last saw you two!” This Cheerilee perked up upon seeing them. “You here for a visit to see your old teacher or did you want something?”

“Can’t it be both?” It seemed like Flamberge could lower his maximum volume levels occasionally. I’m thankful that my sense of hearing can’t be damaged.

“We are needing book on writing and reading language for our friend Ms. Cheerilee.” Fortitude held out a hoof toward me. “This is being Skeletal Noria, we call her Skelly and she is being ancient pony from long time ago that is living to this very day because of a dark magic problem. Said problem is reason she cannot talk.”

“How long ago?” Was this Cheerilee really taking that explanation at face value?

“Well her name was translated from ‘bare bones water wheel’ to what it is now, so how long ago in Soar Way did water wheels become a thing of prominence?” Did Flamberge or the others really expect that I wanted to actually hear how long this took?

“That would put it quite well before Hearths Warming, in fact the first water wheels started appearing in the given area of Soar Way a little over one thousand six hundred years ago. They were used to scoop buckets of water from the rivers while providing ways to mash wheat, corn or anything else you wanted pulped into a meal inside a mill.” Tapping her chin with a hoof, Cheerilee looked to be thinking on it. “Before water wheels were used to mash wheat, grains and the like, they were mashed by saddle querns. Did you ever use rocks to mash wheat for your bread?”

I shook my head no, I was born in a time when water wheels weren’t a new thing, just somewhat complicated. I looked at the ground, I have been gone long enough to be forgotten by anyone who might have had an inkling that I existed.

“With that tidbit of information you just shared, I can guess that bread making was a thing where you come from and the tribes were still at each other’s throats. A time before ponies eventually uprooted themselves from those given areas and came here as in the hearths warming story that is still told to this day, if you want to hear it I’ll tell you later, some of the ponies from it stayed behind.” We followed Cheerilee into the classroom and she pulled out a map to show us Soar Way and then Equestria, which is where we were right now. “They were too stubborn to be taken out by the wendigo’s or the harsh cold they brought. Surprisingly the ponies that stayed behind were somewhat better off than the ones who left, the wendigoes followed the majority of the ponies who made the journey to what is now Equestria. The larger portion of the three pony tribes that came here were the ones causing most of the problem with all the fighting and pointless anger. The ponies that stayed behind befriended everyone else that also stayed behind and were safe once the unnatural winter quickly cleared up.”

If Cheerilee is implying what I thought she was, then I might have kin in this day and age that came here. I had quite a few cousins… I never met my mother’s side of the family given they were winged ponies and that my parent’s love was highly forbidden back then. It probably wasn’t forbidden nowadays.

Father had introduced me to quite a few cousins and I could still have some ancestors in this day and age, but I wouldn’t be able to connect with them all too well even if I could even find them.

“While that is very informative Teach, can we get back to the recommendation of a book for our friend? She’ll need to know how to read eventually in this time period!” Remembering the past is important Flamberge! I don’t understand how a dragon can be so impatient, then again he’ll outlive his blood brother by miles so there is some reason for that impatience to exist if he wants to make the most of his time with his brother.

If I had ever befriended a dragon before this, I would have been able to meet them today as they wouldn’t have died of old age by now. Kind of sad that I didn’t know any back then, bet they would have been a lot bigger now. Would have been nice to see a familiar face.

“Oh right, sorry… I have just the book, here let me get it for you. A good education is important for everyone, even mares thousands of years old like Celestia!” Now that I look at her, Cheerilee is fairly young and yet she is able to teach? She must be as wise as an elder from my old home… maybe even wiser given how things might have changed between then and now.

“You believe us when we tell you she’s really old?” Now I glared at Flamberge and reached for my axe, he backed away from me tentatively. “Hey, no offense meant Skelly, but you are older than I am!”

“And still quite pretty too!” I like it that Fortitude can say that and actually mean it, I smiled honestly in his direction. “Even as dusty pile of bones.”

I might put my axe in his back later for that, call me dusty will he! I would like to see him try to stay clean while living in Draugr infested catacombs, with no sleep for thousands of years and a tireless job of making sure the dead stayed dead.

“I had Jade as a student, a student who wrote world ending equations trying to solve normal everyday math problems that most foals can do.” As they started a discussion on my so far ageless existence, I tuned them out and found some new memories coming to the forefront of my mind. “This mare being older than Celestia isn’t as hard to believe, there are many ways to live for a really long time.”

-???, Skelly-

I was fully grown mare now, I could strike it out on my own or find my own place here. I had little idea as to what I was going to do, but my parents were supportive of me and mom was intent on getting grandchildren to dote on at this point.

Helping ponies, protecting my village from wild monsters and working with very little to do a whole lot. I was living up to my talent, for when one finds their talent they are given a reminder by whatever gods makes said reminder appear on our flanks.

I was an adult and I was bartering for a better axe at the moment from a blacksmith. My small axe was becoming badly worn from stripping bark from trees, cuttings logs for fire and in general being use for numerous things.

The bartering did not go well, but I still looked for a place to build myself a home. Until then I wasn’t self-sufficient and was staying with my parents. I might as well try to find a sturdy and strong stallion too while I was at it, but I would have preferred someone more kind and gentle.

Most stallions around here were a bit too rough, my parents were egging me on to find a companion in life.

I never could, no one was a fit for me here.

Still I was a young mare trying to find my place. Aside from fighting off small monsters and making sure the mill keeps running with whatever was made available to me, my life wasn’t going poorly. I had food, shelter and I knew plenty of the people here, I might eventually find a companion outside our little spot in this wide world.

I would never find a companion there.

Maybe I could eventually go traveling the world? I might just do that someday, but until then I was right at home here.

That’s right, I wanted to broaden my horizons as a young mare. Why do I feel dread… I think I know what I’m going to see next and I’m not going to like it.

I climbed up to sit on the roof of the mill, I watched as the sun set in a valley. I had been contemplating the many paths opening up to me and all the things I could eventually do in the future. I had my whole life ahead of me.

Only… I never got to live it.

Things were going to get dark and there are some memories that I don’t want back, but I’ll still face them head on.

I can still remember them as painful, so much so that I mostly blocked them out to leave a lingering hint of mortal dread in my soul.

-Ponyville, sunset, Skelly-

“Is she alright?” Back in the here and now, I turned my head to Cheerilee to nod, but then she got spooked by something.

She took a few steps away from me and her ears wilted backwards in fright. The sun was setting and the moment the light of the sun ended and the moon began rising, my flesh started dissolving into nothingness to reveal what I was in the dark.

I finally nodded my skeletal head in her direction, hoping that she didn’t scream in horror or yell at me.

“Oh you poor thing… I can see what they meant by dark magic now!” Cheerilee came up to me and gently wrapped her hooves around me… wait… what just happened? It felt nice, but why wasn’t she afraid of me. “You are a friend of these two, I trust them to not call someone a friend so callously. So… she’s a living skeleton at night?”

“As about as far as we can tell from what we just witnessed, yes.” This was bluntly stated by a reclining a Flamberge, his feet kicked up on a desk and leaning the chair he sat in backwards. “That can only be the dark magic we told you about.”

“Do you suppose Pinkie Pie would still be willing to welcome her to Ponyville?” Well Fortitude, if the public was anything like Dispel Grace, then they’d want me destroyed body and soul from the moment they saw me.

“You’re kidding right? This is Pinkie ‘always a reason to party’ Pie we’re talking about here! Of course she’d welcome a living skeleton, she’s recently thrown a town wide party for a family of mice that Fluttershy introduced to Ponyville.” Cheerilee seemed confident I couldn’t scare an entire room of ponies with my current looks alone. At least my scarf still looked nice even on my skeletal frame from what I could see in a reflection nearby. “So we’ll just proclaim the more believable thing and state that Skelly is working on a very realistic and elaborate Nightmare Night costume. Flamberge what are you looking at?”

I turned to see Flamberge crouching down next to me and staring at the spot beyond my rib cage.

“When she became a skeleton, the food she ate recently didn’t just fall to the ground.” Oh is that all Flamberge? I didn’t like him getting so close like this. “So I’m just curious as to where it went exactly.”

I raised my right hoof and slapped him across the face. I don’t think I hurt him through his scales, but I did make him yelp loudly when my hoof collided with his nose.

“Mind your manners around the living impaired Flamberge!” Scolded Cheerilee.

“Yes Ms. Cheerilee.” Whimpered Flamberge as the teacher’s glare dug into him.

“Good, now I believe we have a party to get to?” Hopefully Cheerilee wouldn’t be able to read my mood or nervousness. “Don’t worry, I’ll go ahead to explain some pertinent things to Pinkie.”

Author's Note

Living with six giant humidifiers running constantly and there being a possible sewer leak when any water is used is a huge problem.

I now hear the humming of machines and the blowing of wind all day even when I'm not near them... at least it makes for some good white noise to sleep to.

So I believe everyone else is not living in as stressful a situation anywhere similar to mine? I apologize for the lateness of this story otherwise, the talk of me 'possibly' needing minor surgery is still ongoing.

Chapter forty-six, Wheel of life and death: Elder.

-???, Skelly-

I walked through the woods towards home and the smell of something hit my nostrils… the last thing I could ever remember smelling really. In the distance I saw pyres of smoke twisting, curling and rising into the sky slowly in the distance.

Something was terribly wrong and it didn’t take me much to guess that my home was set aflame. I had to hurry up and find out who was attacking our home. Could it have been the winged ponies coming for my mother, could it be another tribe coming after us for some minor slight?

These memories weren’t going to end well, I just knew it. I wouldn’t remember this day in such a poor light if something horrible hadn’t happened.

I looked about and then started making my way for the village with haste while carrying a heavy load of wood on my back. My worn, but still viable, tool was at my side. The trees rushed by, the light of day was falling and when I arrived I saw what our people were fighting against.

They were horrors of rotted flesh, monsters that unfortunately had new life pushed into them… they were Draugr.

The town had been lit on fire to help fight them off. Even at the detriment to our homes, the fires were taking down a good number of the offending horde of undead monstrosities that the many earth ponies were currently fighting.

Dropping the wood on my back, I grabbed up a single piece and lit it on fire. I started running straight for home. The home I was born in, where I grew up, where I was raised and spent my youth with my loving parents at the edge of the village in the forest.

I was accosted by several Draugr on my way there, but the fire I tagged them with eventually burnt them away to nothingness with a single hit. Still, it took them a minute or two to succumb to the flames and until, then they were still dangerous and had to be evaded.

The village had its defenders, all armed with swords, axes and spears. Even bows were firing and they were slowly tearing down the small army that invaded our home and started dragging the bodies of freshly slain ponies away for who knows what purpose.

The memories of thinking that maybe my parents hadn’t been attacked yet grew firm in my mind.

Only when I arrived, I saw a several Draugr unmoving on the ground and already slain. Beyond that the bodies of my parents were being dragged away by a lone Draugr.

Seeing red and charging it, I took my tool in hoof and leapt to plant it into its inattentive spine and felled the Draugr with that a single blow. Said blow sent bits of metal and wood flying everywhere as my tool shattered against its neck in the effort.

Afterwards I took up a vigilance against any other Draugr that may come by, but none did.

I had already set fire to the Draugr that invaded my home, especially the one that tried to take my parent’s cold bodies.

Eventually the fires stopped in the distance and then they started up again for an entirely different reason. It was then that I started to mourn as those fires weren’t for defense, but for the dead.

I placed both my parents’ bodies together on a prepared funeral pyre, I put some of their stuff with them and watched as it all burned away. The wood I had gathered that could have been used to boil food for a hearty stew tonight, was instead used to send my parents off.

I had thought about throwing my father’s axe into the fire with my parents, but I kept it and held it close.

There I sat, at their funeral pyre for hours until it was nothing except ashes, well beyond the point that I could not cry and grieve anymore.

Taking up the silver axe with the magic runes implemented into it, I started to track down where those monsters came from.

I absolutely had an axe to grind with whatever was behind this, it was all I had left to do.

-Ponyville, Skelly-

Grind it I did, I made sure that another tragedy like that one could not be fully repeated upon anyone else. Though I suppose there might be one memory left… how I became what I am now. I had forgotten the most traumatizing moment that led me to being skeleton, but what remained was a pure hatred for Draugr and the unicorn behind them.

I shook my head and continued to follow Fortitude and Flamberge to this party Pinkie Pie is throwing in my honor for just visiting this large village. I didn’t feel like I was worthy of the effort that was going into it, I would just make the best of my situation as it is and go along with it.

I no longer had that writhing and squirming fuel of endless anger to keep me going, but I was still here.

“You okay, you zoned out again Skelly!” I was still slightly upset at Flamberge, but I eventually conceded that, yes, I was okay with a gentle nod.

Well at least I was okay physically, didn’t know about emotionally. I was once mortal and was never meant to live like this.

We were starting on route to the party, having spent some time relaxing in the park we’re leaving behind, Cheerilee had already gone ahead to talk to Pinkie about some things concerning me.

It didn’t take long before we were sidetracked slightly.

“Whoa, would you look at that, that’s amazing!” We were halted by a pair of stallions that approached us, they were looking at me with curiosity more than wariness or fear. “Excuse me, miss!”

There weren’t many ponies out this late in the evening, much less interested in a skeleton pony like me. In fact any pony that saw me was a little wary, even if my shape was familiar to them. I’d be wary of me too, if I was someone else that saw that I had a real weapon strapped across my back.

“Okay, what do you want and why are you looking at Skelly like that?” The stallion was about to get cross with Fortitude, but he cut the pony off before an argument could start. “She is mute and cannot answer you.”

“Well I’m Mister Fairytale Climax and this is my associate Mister Logic Sheet, we’re here in Ponyville looking around for monster related incidents to get some ideas from. I must say your friend there has a really awesome costume.” Yes, let’s go with that Fairytale. “I was just wondering if we could use that skeletal visage, with a few alterations of course so that it’s not exactly the same as your friend here, for Ogre’s and Oubliettes.”

“You guys look like you appreciate live action role playing and we could use some of that to help us with some new ideas for villains to fight.” The one introduced as Logic Sheet stated as he nodded along. “We’re kind of having gamers block and need to come up with some new ideas for more sets.”

“Wait, you’re that Mr. Fairy Climax!” What was Ogre’s and Oubliettes and why was Flamberge so excited about it all of the sudden?

“Yes and we’ll definitely compensate her for the partial use of her image.” Fairytale pointed at me when he said this. “Just name your price, we have quite a budget to work with here since Ogre’s and Oubliettes is a rather popular game I’ll have you know!”

“We know, we’ve played it with our friends!” Judging by Fortitude’s excitement it seem that it was a game of some great popularity.

“Ah we have some fans, especially one with a good eye for Nightmare Night costumes!” Nightmare what, Fairy? I wasn’t exactly following this and my confusion must have shown through. “Don’t worry we’ll try to push for the popularity of the design we make from you’re appearance, how would you like your character to work for the Squizard miss…? Wait… what’s her name?”

“She is being Skeletal Noria, the superbly spirited. I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant. That is my brother Flamberge the fiercely flammable, or loudly obnoxious to some.” The two stallions looked at each other, then they turned back to us.

“Yep, definitely fans of ours it seems. So what will it take for you to help us make history in the world of gaming together?” Fairy looked quite hopeful.

“Well…” Fortitude was going to do the talking, but I would have to interject silently when I heard something I didn’t like.

-Thirty minutes later-

I signed the contract we wrote up, Fortitude and Flamberge got some autographs and would be mailing some extra ones home.

If it helped that Airship Mauled place that Flamberge and Fortitude think is so important, then I would gladly let my character be a villain working for a squid wizard.

The absurdities of this day and age had to be explained to me by Flamberge, but I understood it well enough as a make believe game that can be played with friends and he would introduce me to it at a later date.

“So we’re going to call this bone warrior we’re making Skellinore. She’ll be a skeleton pony in places with ore, because she’ll be working with a bony crew of skeletons in some mines or various other locations… we could make her a recurring warrior the Squizard sends out on quests for nefarious purposes!” Tuning out Fairy’s excitement as he turned to Logic Sheet, I waited for him and my friends to be finished with hashing out some details.

“This might actually create our biggest hit yet, thank you three for helping us with our creative block.” Mr. Sheet was a nice stallion, as was Mr. Climax. “We’ll get to working on our next Ogre’s and Oubliettes set this instant! Oh and we’ll send some people, along with a few free copies to Airship Mauled when we’re done.”

With that they were off and we continued on our way towards this Sugar Cube Corner place.

“Do you think we did the right thing selling our images to them?!” Flamberge questioned lightly.

“I am thinking things will work out.” Fortitude sound quite sure of it and I believed him. “Let us now get to Pinkie’s party!”

We arrived at the place. It looked colorful at least, wished I knew what it smelled like and we saw Cheerilee waiting outside for us. I’m never going to remember the smell of fresh baked bread again.

“Hello boys, and Skelly, Pinkie’s ready and wants you to go right on in!” She was smiling, why was she smiling like that? “Oh and don’t go for your axe Skelly, nobody is going to hurt you here in Ponyville and honestly…. no one here is a fighter unless my sister is visiting.”

What did that mean? I nodded and thought about how Cheerilee’s sister must have been some warrior to match Cheerilee’s great knowledge.

We opened the doors and stepped into a darkened room that suddenly lit up and… there were lots of ponies here. Maybe half the village was here, all this for me?

“Surprise!” The many ponies shouted out happily and I didn’t reach for my axe, but then they all froze and stared at me.

They all screamed in a panic and scattered when they saw me and here I stood with a flat look on my strange magical eyes.

Pinkie just started giggling as she fell to the floor.

“Oh my goodness, I got you all so good! I hope everyone here was as surprised as our guest of honor is.” Pinkie apparently hadn’t warn any of her friends about my appearance. “Uh… Fluttershy? Are you okay? She’s not that scary looking is she… oh great, I think we just traumatized one of my best friends for life to not like Nightmare Night!”

I really didn’t know what Nightmare Night was, but it kept getting mentioned within my general presence. Pinkie dragged the pony named Fluttershy over to a bench and gently laid her on it before coming back to me.

“You don’t know what Nightmare… er… hey Skelly, let me talk to you off to the side. You know like good friends wanting some privacy!” Blinking, I followed Pinkie’s stare to a bunch of ponies that started to look a little sheepish. I was led over to a table covered small things that looked vaguely like food. The brothers followed us smiling, they took up one of the things and then started to eat them. “Don’t worry everyone, she just really likes wearing realistic Nightmare Night costumes!”

“So… I think that went quite well.” I just gave Fortitude a look. “It is true! See for yourself, all ponies are coming away from their fear quite quickly and are laughing about it!”

Quite a few ponies started to laugh about how silly it had been that they were surprised by me, I didn’t see what was so silly though. I actually was a living skeleton wearing a nifty blue scarf.

“Yep, but you’re not a ghost I can laugh at, Granny Pie never told me how to handle this kind of situation though. What happens when your friend is a creepy and ghostly thing… or is somewhat like one anyway?” There was some confusion on Pinkie’s face as she put her left hoof to her chin and looked to be thinking of something really odd. “Eh, I’ll just be you’re good friend Pinkie and we’ll leave it at that!”

Well okay then.

“Oh my goodness, I almost didn’t recognize you… why the work on that costume is positively exquisite!” That’s when Rarity approached us and then her nose crinkled up a bit. “What is that familiar, yet completely repugnant smell? I thought it was Sweetie Belle trying to care for a skunk as a pet again, but now I know otherwise!”

“That would be me. For I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” Fortitude’s smell made Rarity’s face turned a bit green. It was a few seconds later that her face returned to normal. “Sorry I am needing to control my smell better.”

“Yeah, I’m still not sure how you learned to control it recently, but I’m not going to ask too many questions if you can keep it from my nostrils brother!” It seemed like Flamberge didn’t care that his brother smelled horrible.

My nose doesn’t work, so I'm good.

“Huh, no wonder you haven’t gone for a freshly baked cupcake yet… also no, I can’t read minds.” If she can’t read minds, then how did Pinkie know what I was thinking well enough to answer it? “Oh, I just have my ways… it’s not like I can read the text or anything.”

What?

“Here have a cupcake!” Pinkie grabbed one of the things and it had a smiling skull on it resembling my appearance.

I took the cupcake into my bony right hoof and looked at it, It was not like I could be poisoned. Hoped I didn’t splatter this cupcake everywhere eating it.

I opened my jawbone and took a single bite.

I began chewing... this thing was like Elysium itself!

“That’s a pretty strange special effect for a costume.” Rarity commented idly as the bits of cupcake stayed within the bounds of where my cheeks were supposed to be.

Author's Note

On today's menu nothing, water is still leaking in and the giant, completely in the way, humidifiers were removed.

I just hope things are fixed soon.

Chapter forty-six, Wheel of life and death: Rising Revenant’s Rebirth.

-Ponyville, Sugar Cube Corner, Flamberge-

“I’m surprised this party is going so well, but where are we staying tonight?!” Not that I didn’t trust my brother, but I don’t think Fortitude thought that far ahead.

Skelly at least seems to be okay for the moment and Rarity seems to be avoiding my brother entirely, which was very understandable.

“We are not worrying about that now, we are having many friends that can put us up before we have to leave in the morning.” So Fortitude had the idea that we weren’t going to be here much longer than we had to be, I could agree with that since we need to get our adventures started.

Still, he didn’t have a shield and we needed to find one for him. My brother wasn’t great with weapons, he was good at wielding shields, but he tended to break every weapon he’s ever wielded with relative ease.

Skelly eventually finished having fun with one of Pinkie’s latest games and came over to us, she seemed to be a little bit brighter at the moment. We knew that eventually she would… yep there she goes. She just sat down and her eyes went blank.

I wonder what she’s thinking when she zones out.

I think we should cover for her while she was like this, we’ll just use the explanation that she was tired and needed some rest. After thousands of years without sleep, she probably needed it.

-???, Skelly-

The Draugr were stronger, a lot stronger than those they came from had been in life.

I narrowly brought the one before me down by forcing it towards the wall with as hove where spikes sprung out to skewer it destructively.

It was in a bunch of pieces now.

I continued further down into the depths until I came to that room and witnessed the source of my home’s woes.

A unicorn, one that was using dark magic.

I surged forward… only to have several Draugr jump on top of me at his command. He gave me an insufferable grin as his minions grabbed me using their unnatural strength.

Even as I struggled against them I knew I couldn’t break free, but I’d die trying anyway.

There were far too many of them.

They pinned me down and I was incapable of bringing my axe to bear against them, they quickly wrenched it from my grasp and redoubled in my efforts to throw them off until I took a blow to the head.

I had blacked out.

Upon waking I found myself strapped to a table hanging from the ceiling, pulled at the metal around my hooves and struggled. My body was splayed out in front of the unicorn who looked me over with glee.

He didn’t say anything, but the way he leered at me was sickening given how exposed to him I was. I glared at him and he just smirked at me.

His horn was lit and his magic kept working on a strange circle below me, he was writing something with chunks of white stone held in his glow.

The circle I was within was quite foreboding, I could recognize him writing the runes for life, death and control.

Why was I still alive? What was he planning to do with me? He didn’t need the other ponies still breathing to make his Draugr.

He obviously had something different in mind for me, I just glared at him and he chuckled at my nasty look.

He would not take my spirit without a fight!

I struggled, tried to think of a way out of this, I forced myself against my bonds until I bled. It was for naught as the unicorn took several steps back and he had a large toothy grin on his face as his horn starting lighting up with a sickly grin color, the glow was becoming stronger by the second.

He closed his eyes and the glow started becoming far more intense, the Draugr around the room silently waited and stared at me. I didn’t want to become like them or something worse, with what the unicorn had in mind I could kind of guess it was worse.

I looked to the floor and saw something that the unicorn hadn’t thought of… he hadn’t bound my tail. He had bound my neck and all four of my hooves, but the one thing he didn’t do was bind my tail.

I would make him pay for that mistake and his hubris!

I flicked the long silvery tail hair forward and started to swipe at the circle, my long tail hair was enough to reach the circle and it managed to muddy the runes on it.

I had aimed for control and wiped it away completely, I didn’t have much more time and tried to destroy the circle entirely by swinging my tail at the circle several more times.

My sweeping tail didn’t destroy the runes for life or death, it instead swirled them around each other as my tail became dirtied with white dust. I could also see my tail swipe through something that I could barely recall represented the sensations of life.

That was about as far as I got before pain unending flooded throughout my body and every inch of my flesh screamed.

I know what happened next… I remembered it all now.

My memories had been shattered and I opened my eye while slowly getting up. I didn’t know where I was, who I was or what I was doing… but my first sight of my boney hoof made me reel in shock and fall onto my pelvic bone.

Something had been horribly wrong, but as I looked around my eyes flashed with red and started to glow.

I started to feel it… there was a bottomless hatred within me. It was seething at me to destroy everything here, I felt a raw fury that I didn’t understand at the time and there was only one piece of love in the room.

The need to destroy grew with every second, but the need for the axe that one of the green eyed monstrosities was holding was far greater that I could feel pain at not wielding.

I lunged forward and tore the head from the Draugr with my bare hooves, at the time I didn’t understand why I was so strong and I blindly took up the silver axe and swung it around to decapitate another monster.

The one being in the room that had my ire more than anything was a unicorn that soon stood up and laid his smiling eyes upon me. He grinned and then said something, I ignored it and started to walk toward him bringing the axe with me.

He tried to command me again, but my hatred was almost entirely centered on this one being. I swung my axe through an array of chemicals and destroyed the table, he ordered me to stop and I didn’t.

He was the one that did this to me, I knew that from the beginning without having a single memory.

The only thing in the room that could have done it was trying to command me!

I swung my axe for him and he lit his horn, in his panic he fired his magic into a gem nearby and my axe connected with his body that suddenly turned into a golden statue. I swung the axe again, it did no damage and my fury was ever growing.

Attacking the gem, I did no damage to it either. His magic was the only thing keeping him from my wrath and he was protected from me through some trickery.

One of the Draugr attacked me, I idly swung my axe recklessly at it and watched as it was cleaved in two.

I didn’t expect that my axe would work on them, but it did. My eyes narrowed on all the other monsters in the room suddenly coming towards me.

While the unicorn was trapped in the form of a statue, I unleashed my fury on the minions of this defiler of the dead. He made a mistake with me and I would never let him live it down, I would find a way to destroy him someday!

That was a vow I kept, even if it required relying on two of bravest beings I’ve ever seen to end the cycle and my torment. A dragon and yak that were brothers in blood, family even if they were not born from the same mother and they even had a third brother abroad.

The dragon had been suspicious of me at first, but he eventually started to befriend me the same way that the yak had.

There was no hostility after our fight and I was forced to join them, I had thought I would watch them fall.

I was quite surprised to see a Valkyrie, in the end of my tormentor went straight to Hel.

-Ponyville-

I blinked and I felt something soft wipe at my face, Fortitude was holding a cloth that was now wet.

“Skelly, are you going to tell us why you are crying?” Smiling at Fortitude I just shook my head, nothing was wrong and everything was almost right. I got up and hugged him and pressed my face against him.

“I don’t mean to intrude, but how is she doing that without dying from the smell?” I pulled back and looked to Rarity who had a clothespin over her nose.

“She lost her sense of smell a long time ago!” Flamberge proclaimed while raising a claw.

“Well that would explain why she isn’t currently gagging and dying off like any of the flies that went near him.” For one Rarity, I didn’t care about your commentary. And another I was being hugged back by Fortitude who ran a cloven hoof gently up and down my spinal column.

I nuzzled into Fortitude like my… did I have life? I could taste, I could touch, I could hear, I could see… and I looked normal half the time and had been in a cycle of being a normal pony and a skeleton for thousands of years.

“It is being okay, would you like another cupcake Skelly?” At fortitude’s question I curled up against him and nodded. “Flamberge, go ask Pinkie if she has another cupcake for Skelly.”

“Poor dear, she looks like she had a nightmare.” Don’t worry Rarity, that nightmare was over with and I’m still somewhat a living version of one. “Maybe I can make those boots for you after all, would that cheer you up?”

I shook my head with a vehement no. I would not separate my hooves from being able to feel the land, I waved Rarity off.

“Well okay then, if you need anything from me like another Nightmare Night costume… one that’s less realistic looking… then I’m open for making you one.” With that Rarity went over to the yellow coated winged pony who was cowered at the sight of me. “Are you alright Fluttershy, do you need me to walk you home?”

“Yes… there’s just something about Ms. Noria that I really don’t like, even if she is Pinkie’s friend.” The pony shivered and Rarity threw a hoof over her back and held her.

“It’s just a Nightmare Night costume Fluttershy. I’m not sure who the designer is, but I’m sure I could make one just as good as that one is!” Having stated that out loud, multiple ponies started to gather around Rarity asking her for Nightmare Night costumes. “Hold on… everyone calm down… one at time please!”

Fluttershy whimpered and tried to get away from the gathering crowd as they swamped Rarity with orders.

“Hey, Skelly, from here on things are only going to get better for you… you’ll see!” The pink blur herself held out a cupcake for me and I greedily took the offered treat from Pinkie’s hoof and nibbled at it. “It’s kind of nifty how you can see the mushed cupcake going down her invisible throat like that. Excuse me while I go settle things down and start closing the party up. You can use the bathroom upstairs to prepare for a sleepover tonight, I’m sure the cakes won’t mind my friends staying over. I’ll get out the sleeping mat for you after I’m done here!”

With that the amazing pink one zipped off and started to talk to party goers about Rarity’s business and them leaving for the night as it was getting quite late.

“Yes, her eating is really interesting and all, but I’m still wondering where it’s all going.” Muttered Flamberge, but I didn’t care where it was going as long as it tasted this good. I glared at him for staring the empty space occupying my midsection. “Sorry, but you have to admit that the food disappearing as soon as it hits your ribcage is more than a little weird.”

I rolled my spectral eyes and Fortitude started carrying me up the stairs, I wasn’t tired at all.

Could I even sleep or dream? If I could do everything else, then I would certainly try to find out if I could.

I watched as they prepared for bed, they even helped me get bits of the Hayburger I consumed out of my teeth. Apparently mint flavored string was what kept teeth healthy today, back then we had to use reeds or grass.

Soon we entered Pinkie’s room and the pink blur herself shot by saying something too fast for any of us to really catch. There were now several soft cushions and the large floor covering to rest upon, she had set it all up in an instant.

I was both perplexed and amazed by Fortitude and Flamberge’s friend, I guess Pinkie was now my friend too.

“Well of course I’m your friend silly!” Pinkie had only stopped for a second to say that and was faster than a hawk could fly. Also… she could read minds and I was horrified by that fact. Seconds later her voice rose up from below. “I told you I can’t read minds, you’re just being crazy!”

Who was the crazy one here?

“I’m perfectly sane thank you very much!” Pinkie retorted without being in the room with us.

I looked to Flamberge and Fortitude and they shrugged before settling down.

Fortitude patted a spot between him and Flamberge, I was a little pensive as I set my axe off to the side next to Flamberge’s sword. I approached them and laid down between them, I place my head upon the pillow and closed my eyes.

I felt Flamberge and Fortitude cuddle up to me, not long after listening to the sounds of their heartbeats slowing down things slowly fell into blackness.

-???, Skelly-

I was lost somewhere up in the clouds and I eventually saw my parents.

They were smiling at me sadly as they approached me.

My mother nuzzled me gently and my father patted me on the head, then we all came together as one.

“You still have plenty of time.” One said. “Find happiness wherever you can!”

“We will always be waiting for you.” The other intoned. “Do not destroy yourself, your legend still has room to grow our little hero!”

-Morning, Ponyville, Fortitude-

Skelly was squirming between us and she had tears in her eyes, she was back to looking like a normal pony again.

She smiled brightly as she sat up and yawned. She apparently had a very nice, if sad, dream.

Author's Note

Finally some good news, after all the stuff I've had to deal with lately!

Chapter forty-seven, Neighpon Nitwits: Ichi.

-Ponyville Lake, Fortitude-

“We will not be taking up your hospitality much longer Pinkie, we need to be going!” To where I did know, we were attempting to get thoroughly lost here. The ‘Mists of Travel On’ could get us across and around the world in a heartbeat. “We are having much to do.”

“Thanks for visiting and I just want to say that you’re really cool Skelly!” Pinkie Pie enthusiastically hugged Skelly who returned the hug. “You’re the one ghostly pony I won’t want to go away with a laugh!”

Skelly rubbed the back of her head and smiled, she then got in the boat.

“Are we forgetting anything?!” With what little money we had left, Flamberge bought a meager amount of supplies. We should be fine for a while and Travel On would not try to kill us by putting us in a dangerous place, unless we are somehow angering magical boat.

“Not that I can be thinking of… Skelly is going to be the one rowing oar yes?” Turning to our friend, I waited for her to commence with transporting us to where we were needed most.

Skelly started to work the oar and mist started building up around the Viking gondola.

“Goodbye guys, come visit Ponyville again sometime real soon!” Pinkie’s voice drifted off as we disappeared into the mists that were transporting us somewhere new.

It didn’t take long, barely a second, before the mists receded and we found ourselves in a very odd predicament.

“We’re in the clouds!” Yes Flamberge, I can see that, I am not being blind.

“Only Flamberge is capable of flight, why would Travel On bring us here?” We heard a yawning noise and we looked down at the floor of the boat, I became a bit shocked when I saw a familiar pegasus sitting up among us. She scratched lazily at her sides and looked around. “Oh right, we are not coming back to relieve Pegasus of watching boat.”

“Where are we?” The pony stated with sleepy eyes blinking themselves into awareness. “How long have I been asleep for?”

“It is being the next day and I believe we are in Cloudsdale.” That would explain the cloud buildings and the architecture, along with winged ponies and a few griffons flying around.

“Oh good, I guess I won’t have to worry about being late.” The mare ran a hoof through her blue mane and stretched out her wings, she hopped out of the boat and started walking. She stopped and turned back to us. “Thanks for the lift… however you got a wooden boat up here to sit in the clouds like this. It is something that I’m not about to question the logistics of, if you can’t recall who I am, I’m Sunshower. If you ever need anything related to precipitation or cloud moving, then ask around for me!”

Sunshower lazily trotted along the clouds for a bit and then flapped her wings and took off towards the cloud city.

Skelly rolled her eyes and started to work the oar again, obviously that was all that was needed of us here as the boats mists started surrounding us once more.

The swirling soon died out and we found ourselves gently drifting through the water in an ornate city with trees full of pink petals. We passed under a bridge with sculptures of long snake like dragons and was red in color.

“Where do you suppose we are now?!” Flamberge was lost, I was lost and I doubt Skelly has been outside of Soar Way before meeting us. She’s only been to Ponyville and Cloudsdale, even now she looked at the many things with wonder.

“I am not knowing, but we will face whatever quest that Travel On seeks to give us.” We drifted up to a simple looking dock and then the boat stopped right next to it. Its magic anchored it to this very spot, so I am thinking we need to get out here. “We are needed here, so we must find what we need to do. I will look into asking a blacksmith if they can make a shield for me and will keep an ear out for trouble.”

“I guess I can scout around the city and try not to stir up trouble!” Flamberge turned to Skelly afterwards. “Who are you going with Skelly?”

Skelly tilted her head and looked between us, she pointed to me and I nodded to her.

“We should ask where we are and gather information first brother, then we can find out why we’re here!” Acknowledging Flamberge’s words, we got out of the boat and went our separate ways.

Flamberge took to the air to look around, Skelly and I walked into the busy streets with many beings crowding the area. Ponies, Griffons, Diamond Dogs and so many other beings, the odd ones were the pony like dragons with long necks.

There were food stands all over the places with small bits of white smoke rising up from them, tall buildings had lots of ropes hanging between them and we were coming from a quiet place at the edge of the city.

“So how are we going to find out where we are? I am not willing to accost someone against their will Skelly.” I received a flat look from Skelly, so I explained myself. “I would prefer to be polite in a new land, I am not wanting to cause trouble here.”

Skelly just gave off a motion of an insufferable sigh, but she nodded and accepted my explanation even if she didn’t look happy about it.

“Things seem peaceful…” I started to walk along the river looking around at all the beings moving about, the river was quiet and we made our way down it until we came to another bridge.

I went up onto the bridge and sat down in the middle to look at the water, Skelly sat next to me still looking around. We wanted to get lost, but now that we were, I had no idea what we were doing.

We were needed here obviously, that is what Travel On does!

It is being a very slow adventure so far…

Something slammed into the bridge behind us and rolled, we both looked to see a familiar thestral. Well at least she was familiar to me.

“Blade?” I received a strange look from Skelly for knowing the thestral, I was more concerned about why she was here. “She is being old friend from Airship Mauled.”

Was that what Travel On brought us here for, to aid an old friend who once worked for the good witch Kuril before disappearing into the unknown? Well it is more known now that I can see where she is… in front of me of course!

She was slowly getting up and had a hoof on her head, she looked hurt and I looked in the directions she had come from.

“Look out!” I bellowed to Blade, she shook her head and her eyes widened as a pegasus wearing dark blue clothing that covered their entire body swooped down to stab at Blade with a short, straight blade.

I moved, but I would not be in time. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for the pony wearing clothing that hid their appearance, Skelly pushed Blade out of the way and was stabbed through the chest.

Gasping, I grew angry, but then I grew calm as I took in the situation more clearly. The stallion, as I doubt that was the shape of a mare’s body, looked shocked to have stabbed Skelly clean through.

What was really surprising was that not a drop of blood was spilled, despite Skelly having a sword through her chest and out her back.

She is still apparently a skeleton despite looking like a normal pony, otherwise the sword intersecting where her heart and one of her lungs happened to be would have been far more fatal than it is.

Skelly inhaled and narrowed her eyes at the stallion who visibly flinched, Skelly brought her axe down and broken the blade an inch from the hilt.

While this was happening Blade got up from being shoved aside by Skelly and looked quite surprised to see someone else take a sword for her. To see that Skelly was still moving and broke the sword made her turn to me with a look of confusion.

The pony wearing the dark blue garb backed up holding the broken hilt, staring at the large amount of metal still piercing cleanly through Skelly with shock. He tossed the broken hilt aside, reached into his clothing and quickly launched a very straight knife into the other side of Skelly’s chest.

Skelly gave him a silent glare and pointed her axe at him, she was fairly intimidating with a knife three fourths of the way through her chest and the broken off sword bit piercing clean through her normal looking pony form without a drop of blood.

“Oni… ONI!” The stallion screamed while pointing a hoof at Skelly, he quickly turned tail and started running away from us as fast as he could.

“I am thinking that we need to figure out what Oni means and quickly or this may become a problem Skelly.” My skeletal pony friend nodded as she placed the axe across her spine and looked at the weapons imbedded in her. “Are you needing help with that Skelly?”

Skelly reached up with a hoof and tried to pull the knife from her chest, it seemed to be stuck. She then tried the blade and wrenched it free from her body leaving no blemishes behind in her pristine white fur, Skelly would be really hard to hurt without a blunt weapon to crush and destroy her bones.

Blade came over and ran a hoof over where Skelly had been stabbed and blinked in confusion, I know I would be confused if I saw Skelly get stabbed lethally if I was not knowing the truth behind her existence.

Blade turned to me and seemed a bit surprised to see me, she pointed at the knife. Skelly looked a little confused.

“Blade is being mute, her vocal chords are being too strong and destructive. Blade Bright this is Skeletal Noria, she is good friend and mute because her vocal chords don’t exist anymore. Skeletal Noria, this is our friend Blade Bright.” As I looked at the two of them, they stared blankly at each other with curiosity. “We call her Skelly, if we are being around long enough you will see why being stabbed is not hurting her. Now hold still Skelly and I will get knife out!”

I reached for the knife and grasped it, Skelly turned her sight away from Blade and nodded to me. I tugged roughly and the knife came free of Skelly’s ribcage, she wasn’t hurt nor did she feel any pain.

Skelly could feel pleasure, but not pain? Pain lets you know that you are alive, in Skelly’s case she is half alive and I'm somewhat glad that pain is not what she can feel.

“Is there an Oni here, I can only smell one faintly, just a smidge I sense.” We all turned to see fox with golden fur and six blue tipped tails. “No not Oni I smell. Hello good mistress Blade Bright. Are you well today?”

Blade nodded as she took the knife from my hoof and looked it over.

“Why are you talking funny?” I knew the fox was a great spirit of some kind, she seemed to know Blade.

“I speak in haiku, I am now a friend of you, who here smells of bones?” Not knowing the strange fox and was wary of her narrowing eyes, I was hesitant to give away Skelly’s secret. Skelly bravely raised her left hoof attracting the fox’s attention. “You are a pony. Strange that bewildering scent. Life and death twisted.”

“Who are you?” Turning towards me and away from sniffing Skelly, the fox smiled impishly.

“I’m the lovely fox. Mystic Sweetcakes Crumble Tail. I assist you now!” The fox smiled brightly, was her name really Sweetcakes Crumble Tail, it was very odd.

“How do you know Blade?” I looked to Blade, she was rubbing her head as if she had a migraine.

“Traveler searches, finding all the wondrous stars, the moon beckons her.” The six tailed Sweetcakes seemed to smile sadly. “To free the nightmare, destroy it out of prison, the six will gather.”

“Can you please be a bit clearer?” At my annoyance the fox chuckled audibly.

“The four stars open, she is one of the sky bound, become prisoner.” She pointed to Blade who narrowed her eyes and firmed her jaw. “To be free of jail, Blade will give up precious thing, it is not her wings.”

Blade seemed to be more curious about that last statement and looked a bit scared.

“Where are we currently?” I pointed to myself and a calm looking Skelly. “We got transported here by magic on a thing that takes us where we need to be.”

“Welcome to Neighpon friend! You have good need to be here. Please, enjoy your stay.” So we were in a place called Neighpon according to Miss Sweetcakes. “There is danger here, you should be wary of, happy to guide you!”

The fox bowed to me, Skelly and a groaning Blade who started to cry. It seemed like Blade has been having a lot of problems with this fox, still I watched as Blade stuck the knife up under her left wing for safe keeping. It was strange that she didn’t have a weapon on hoof before now.

“I do not annoy, I am quite cheerfully sweet. Come, a meal, my treat!” Sweetcakes the bright blue eyed fox turned and started walking into the city.

Blade sighed and started to follow her with me and Skelly trailing behind. I started to inform Skelly about Blade and how I know of her.

-Neighpon Training Grounds, Flamberge-

I was in a place with many neat weapons and ponies practicing with them. I landed and watched as a pony stood on his hind legs and his left hoof grasped the hilt of his weapon, with a flash he shot forward and back barely visible.

The straw dummy cleaved in half vertically and horizontally into eight disparate parts.

“That’s rad!” I wanted to be able to do something like that. The pony with the straw hat must have heard me as he turned his head slightly.

By instinct I quickly drew my sword and a clang range throughout the yard below making many ponies stop in their training to look at us with awe.

He was suddenly right next to me on the fence that I stopped to rest on, this place was so huge… how was I ever going to find my brother and Skelly in all this again? Well I could find them at night, Skelly would definitely attract attention.

“Very good… for a foreigner with such a powerful weapon. Does she listen to you… or do you listen to her dragon?” The pony muttered as our swords were pressing roughly against one another, his average blade was resisting the heat of my sword quite well. My weapon heated up in the area the swords were pressed together and the pony quickly pulled his blade back. “She is quite a fiery weapon, yet she sleeps so soundly despite not being used enough...”

“We are good friends.” I saw the pony nod slightly.

Author's Note

Neighpon a nice cultural place to go to... if you want haiku speaking kitsunes, ninja and samurai.

Chapter forty-seven, Neighpon Nitwits: Ni.

-Neighpon Noodles, Fortitude-

The food here is nice, I showed that I liked it by slurping up the noodles with rich flavor from their broth.

Across from me sat Blade eating slowly and to my left Skelly was eating her own with some amount of enjoyment showing on her face.

“Is it to your taste? Our noodle soup is served hot! Enjoyment is found here.” Sweetcakes knew the restaurant owners, mostly because she worked here. There were more of these multiple tailed foxes, but they didn’t speak in haiku’s quite like Sweetcakes did, in fact they didn’t say much at all. “A nice dessert waits. Sweet bean buns are quite tasty. I make them quite well.”

I am learning a lot from being here, Blade is searching for the three other stars and is one. They are beings around the world that will fulfill a prophecy, we arrived just in time to save Blade and help her with her current quest to find one of the stars she needs.

Apparently Blade has run afoul of someone who knows exactly who one of the stars is and doesn’t want them to take part in a prophecy. Said someone has a lot of backing and ninja ponies and tried to eliminate Blade so the prophecy would not come to pass, they are either protecting the star here or they are trying to destroy the prophecy.

At least we now had our purpose and apparently Travel On wanted us to aid Blade… that or find out what was the right thing to do in this situation.

As we were close to finishing our meal Sweetcakes Crumble Tail stood up and went to go grab something, she eventually came back with a platter loaded with round fluffy white buns balanced on two of her tails.

“With bean paste we fill, these buns are certainly rare, served by kitsune waiter.” Sweetcakes smiled broadly as she place a platter down and took up one of the buns and bit into it deeply. “Make sure they are good! I always get the first taste. They won’t go to waste.”

Blade sighed and took up a bean bun and bit into it, she perked up a bit and chewed while humming in approval of the taste.

“Lucky customer, finding one with fruit that fizzes, cheer up her journey.” We continue to enjoy our food and even Skelly got one, the fox watched as Skelly consumed the bean bun with curiosity. She turned to some of the other foxes walking around serving guest, one in particular was staring curiously at Skelly. “There is no evil. She is quite clean like a saint. Pure sweet buns cleanse taint.”

The three tailed orange fox nodded, but continued to scrutinize Skelly for a bit. The fox soon huffed and went off to serve some other guests in the restaurant.

“So how are you going to find this pony of the stars?” I am willing to aid Blade if she needs my help in locating the pony she needs to convince to join her in her quest.

“That task is easy. Blade already knows them well. Finding help troubling.” Sweetcakes frowned as she put another sweet bun in her mouth and chewed. “They have wings to fly. Highly placed on a ladder. Royalty to flatter.”

Blade just let her head fall to the table, if she is knowing then there must be a lot of trouble between her and the one she needs to convince to join her. It is not easy to convince someone to do something when you are mute, so Travel On brought us to be loud and noisy… we can do that easily!

“Worry not my friend, we can assist you in your endeavors… I just need to find my brother first.” Leaning of to slap my hoof on her back, she went straight into the floor. I realize then that I hadn’t introduced myself to Sweetcakes. “I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant and this is Skeletal Noria the superbly spirited!”

Skelly just idly waved to the six tailed fox, who moved closer to me and sniffed me. Blade got back into her seat giving me a dirty look.

“Fragrant is fairly right. Your smell has powerful might. You control it well.” Sweetcakes didn’t cringe, back off or look like her nose was about to fall off and grow legs… that is only happening to me once and I am never living it down. She turned to Skelly. “Spirited he says. Not far from the truth of it. Superbly odd you are.”

“You are one to talk.” At my bland statement she just nodded and continued to smile cheerfully. “What are the problems we’re facing exactly and how do we get them out of the way to meet this pony?”

“Pony is not correct, you are seeking a stallion longma, criminal royalty.” Taking a breath Sweetcakes continued. “He is quite friendly, his family is not nice, take care approaching.”

Blade sent Sweetcakes a glare and the fox just continued to be falsely innocent, I am thinking Blade is ending up in trouble because of her.

“Criminal royalty?” I can understand Blade getting a headache, but I had to ask. “Is he cruel and nasty, is Blade having anything to fear from him?”

“He is quite friendly, kindest in the mafia by far, golden heart and mind.” Sweetcakes narrowed her eyes at me and her voice became slightly grim. “Do not anger him, his strength outstrips yours greatly, he fights very well!”

Not knowing what to say to the sudden change in tone, I just nodded. Sweetcakes returns to smiling brightly.

“You need understand, he has an unbreakable spirit, don’t start anything.” Rolling her eyes at Sweetcakes warning, Blade just tapped the table twice. “You don’t pay for this, I did say it is my treat, need my help you do.”

Blade groaned out loud, she really didn’t like Sweetcakes.

“We need to find my brother first and then we’ll see about finding… you didn’t give me a name, why not?” My question made Sweetcakes happy, her tails waggled with mischievous enthusiasm.

“Ryu the blazing hoof, always question everything, shows you are smart.” Sweetcakes grin was rather annoying. “About your brother, does he look a lot like you, a smelly sumo yak?”

“No he is being red dragon, he went to scout around and learn about our surroundings.” My brother Flamberge better not be lighting himself on fire again, we also do not need an angry mob incident.

Skelly waved a hoof and opened her mouth, nodding to her Sweetcakes got up and came back with a few more bean buns. Skelly smiled to her and started eating more bean buns, several foxes with multiple tails were now staring at her in disbelief for some reason.

“A dragon you say? He sounds rather attractive. He available?” All of Sweetcakes tails were now pointing straight up and fanning out, I think I understood her body language on this one.

“You’d have to ask him, I don’t know what he finds attractive.” I was not going to set him up with the large lithe fox. If she want to, she can chase after him all she wants and if she can make my brother happy then I would be okay with that.

-Blade-

The fox was right, I should have asked her more questions. I ran into trouble because I didn’t get the kitsune to clarify anything and the main reason why I even rushed things is because she is annoying with all the nonstop haikus!

I miss Kuril greatly, but I had a job to do and a little help from two of the Vibrant Vikings and their new member would be nice. Skelly was definitely no normal pony and could prove invaluable to this situation.

I was not able to talk, but I could get my point across fairly well when it came to beating up some of the punks around here. The yakuza were a big problem standing in the way of my mission, Sweetcakes said they were mafia and that was accurate enough that I didn’t see the point in trying to correct her for Fortitude’s sake.

Ryu, the spirit dragon of Neighpon, he’s a hard guy to approach when there are always various agents watching out for him. The guy attracted a lot of the wrong kind of attention, ninja, yakuza and even the local police would attack anyone for some information on how to get a meeting with him.

Heck people just attack me to see if I even have any money. Taking a page from Jade’s book, I’ve been robbing anyone who dares attack me outright and apparently no one bats an eye at theft around here.

Broke every darn knife I had on me, I did not like how just about everyone was armed with a melee weapon of some kind. Still don’t know how that guy kept a metal bat hidden where it was and Tonfa have been the absolute bane of my existence since I arrived.

Jade would have loved it here, being able to brawl and steal to your hearts content with the only repercussions coming from losing a fight.

…

Fortitude left Flamberge alone… Flamberge… the same guy who forgot he was a dragon after being set on fire.

I sat up and looked to Fortitude, we had to go find Flamberge this instant, who knows what kind of idiot thing he’s gotten up to since they arrived!

Skelly seemed to notice my panic and sat up. I could work with someone as silent as me, but I wasn’t quite yet willing to trust my back to someone who can get run through with a sword and walk away without a single scratch.

There is something very disturbing going on with that mare and Sweetcakes confirmed it several times.

Still we waited for Skelly to finish her bean bun snacks and then the four of us rushed out to look for the wayward dragon.

-Neighpon Training Grounds, Flamberge-

With a mighty clang the two swords met and rebounded off another sending me into a crouch, but I wasn’t the only one that was crouching from that last blow.

I wiped the sweat from my head and stared at the old pony, he hid a smile beneath his hat and blue robe as I sheathed my sword. His pale orange fur and black mane barely visible in his clothing, he chuckled.

“That sword is perfect for you, treasure it always.” The sword wielding pony sheathed his own sword.

“I am Flamberge, the fiercely flammable! Who are you stranger?!” After asking my question, the pony looked up a bit revealing a single brown eye.

“Blur Step, my special talent is Iaijutsu or quick draw techniques.” He bowed to me with a calm smile. “I think you’ve learned a thing or two today… as have I. The sword can choose its wielder and the wielder can choose their sword. If they both are lucky enough to choose each other, then greatness unfolds unto the world.”

“You are a really strong and honorable warrior, I’m glad I got to meet you!” I bowed back to him.

“Now, now, no bowing to me, the pleasure was all mine from the start.” He waved a hoof at me. “What brings you to Neighpon friend?”

“Is that where we are?! My brother, a friend and I were on a magical boat that takes you to where you absolutely need to be! Its magic leads to endless adventures, we are quite lost now because of it and that’s our plan!” I got a hoof on my shoulder and a friendly smile, Blur patted it twice and then motioned for me to follow him.

“Follow me wanderer Flamberge the fiercely flammable, you seem hungry and I know a place that is quite filling and has plenty of foxy ladies.” The pony set off and I followed him. “Being able to fight you is worth a good meal on me.”

-Neighpon Noodles-

“Table for two, I’ve met someone who can keep up with me in a spar.” As Blur spoke to the fox, I looked around and just shrugged. He was right there were a lot of foxy ladies here, all of them foxes with multiple tails… they looked cute at least. “I’m paying for this.”

I wasn’t one of those macho dragons, I could understand beauty as I define it and they were somewhat attractive. Mostly because I had acquire a taste for fluffy looking girls.

“The peachy keen sword stallion returns to my establishment once again and with a friend no less, I’ll set up a table and will get you your usual drink order prepared.” The masculine red fox with nine tails started to walk off and then he stopped, he turned his gaze to the vixens about the room giving me hungry looks. “None of you better even think about it, no girl of mine is falling for a gaijin dragon!”

His tails whipped around angrily, but they didn’t hit anything and we were swiftly seated.

Minutes later after being seated, the fox came back with a bottle and a small cup. Blur poured some and I could smell the scent of something alcoholic coming from it as he swiftly swallowed his first pour.

“Is something the matter old friend?” Blur asked of the fox after licking his lips.

“I saw a strange being in my restaurant recently, it has me agitated that they could eat our sweet bean buns without perishing. They were not yokai, oni or any monster of the likes I’ve ever seen before and they must be powerful to survive the purifying effects our food has. My daughter says they are not dark or evil, but I have my misgivings about the smell of death and life permeating them.” The fox shook his head and continued to address Blur personably. “That anomaly left with a group and one of my daughters, they are likely going pursue Ryu.”

“Are you worried the Yakuza will hurt your daughter?” Blur asked, I stayed silent and listened to them. I’m told I don’t do that often enough. “Also I want the pasta salad soup.”

“No I am not worried that they will hurt her, I’m worried Sweetcakes will cause a large mess… again. My wonderful daughters are always such a headache to deal with, I wash my paws of that situation and my curiosity about the being that visited us will not be sated anytime soon.” The fox turned to me. “What will my honorable customer and friend of my friend be having?”

“Large shrimp and fish noodle bowl, if you have any hard minerals that would be to my taste as well!” The large fox nodded and set off with our orders.

“He has me intrigued now, a strange creature that is of a powerful undying spirit, what do you make of it?” Blur was asking me? Well I had an idea as to who it could be.

“It might have been my friend Skelly along with my brother Fortitude!" Should I explain it to him? It couldn’t hurt, Fortitude still needed a new shield and I doubt this guy could seriously injure Skelly. “Skeletal Noria, or Skelly as we call her, has a bit of a problem! She ran afoul of a unicorn that used dark magic a long time ago! We took care of the unicorn, but Skelly is stuck as a skeleton!”

"We live in interesting times." Blur took another drink.

Chapter forty-seven, Neighpon Nitwits: San.

-Neighpon Streets, Blade Bright-

Where was he? I did not want Flamberge to be wandering around on his own!

Scanning the skies and the streets I did not see a sign of him anywhere, but I was also keeping an eye out for Ryu. I only glimpsed him once, but I knew who I was looking for and that he was here somewhere in this city.

“You are being quite paranoid about brother? He’ll be fine, he is strong and has a sword that’s always on fire… except when it sleeps.” Yes I know that Fortitude, but do you seriously not see the kind of trouble Flamberge could get into around here? “He may get into trouble, but he can just as easily get out of it.”

There were a lot of places here in neighpon that he could absolutely get into a dangerous situation. So long as you didn’t attract attention to yourself like a verbally loud dragon, you’d be fine by staying out of the alleyways for the most part.

There were random thugs, the Yakuza and even the police were a bit rough or sketchy at times in Neighpon. The average pony was wary of who they talk to and in what tone around, mostly because on some level all of them worked together in some capacity.

The police did their job, but there were some things they were willing to overlook. The only thing they could really frown upon is anything beyond too much brutality.

Who knows what danger Flamberge could have gotten himself into?

-Neighpon Noodles, Flamberge-

“The only reason you’re not dead, is because you’re a friend of Blur’s and you’re not doing this on purpose.” Never got the name of the red fox guy, but he was sure intimidating when he grew to twice his size. He growled at the various vixens sniffing at me or were playfully touching me with their tails. “Girls, he’s an honored customer, get off of him and get back to work!”

The various vixens whined and their tails went limp and they all pouted at their father, but they eventually went back to doing their jobs of running the restaurant and left me alone.

“Thank you, maybe now I can eat in peace!” Really don’t know what all the kitsune vixens saw in me, but it was obviously something all of them really liked.

“No, thank you for not taking an interest in my daughters… all sixteen of them minus the one playing tour guide.” He narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth at me and here I sat just staring at him blandly. “If you come across a golden furred kitsune with blue tipped tails, you are not to give her the time of day dragon!”

“Look, I get it, but what I want to know is why they all find me so interesting!” Not that I had anything against kitsune, but I was curious as to why me of all dragons. I was the most fascinating thing in the room for them.

“Oh it’s some tale spoken of by word of mouth that is going around among the vixen in these lands, apparently dragons have impressive stamina and potential when it comes mating. They all like the idea of long lasting virility and given how long a kitsune can live for... you’re kind of attractive as an ideal mate in that respect. That and you’ll eventually grow to a large size.” The fox smiled as I felt my face flushing. “Well it wasn’t like you could get any more red, though turning pink is an interesting trick honored customer.”

“I am Blur… of this round sphere… multiple ponies personally I hate…” A few drinks in him and the sword stallion wasn’t exactly coherent, but he was still mentally stable enough to eat his food. I should probably go back to the boat and make sure nobody has bothered it after I’m done here. “So… lazy…”

-Streets, Skelly-

Blade was apparently extremely paranoid about Flamberge being all on his own.

I couldn’t see why she was so worried about him, Flamberge was a young and fairly strong dragon that had a good weapon on him. Anything that he couldn’t get himself out of with a sufficient enough force would spell trouble for all of us.

As we searched the streets I saw an altercation about to begin down a side street, I grabbed one of Blade’s wings and she flinched. She looked to me and I pointed down the street.

There were nine ponies and they were showing aggression towards a quiet looking blue scaled pony with a short black mane his calm orange eyes looked at the three ponies in front of him. He was wearing a golden chain and a strange clothing.

They seemed to be talking about something, I turned to Blade who was staring at the scaled pony. Why did she look so surprised? She started to slowly edge into the street the confrontation was taking place on.

“Ryu the blazing hoof, he’s dangerous as aloof, watch out for fire spouts.” Oh… well Sweetcakes just explained it entirely.

So that’s what a longma looks like, I’ve never met one before. They didn’t exist near where I lived, but it’s fairly obvious to me that dragons and ponies could make hybrids.

“So you’re Ryu, you don’t look so tough.” The speaker was an earth pony. That guy didn’t look so tough with two other earth ponies, three pegasus ponies and three unicorns all coming together against one longma. In fact things seemed to be a bit lopsided, I took in Fortitude’s grim frown, Blade’s narrowed eyes and Sweetcakes insufferable grin about something.

Blade was about to approach when a golden tail moved into her path and pushed her back.

“Don’t interfere with this. He will be completely fine. They will not win this.” It’s nine against one, so that’s some confidence in the guy Sweetcakes. Considering we need to talk with him.

“You are making a mistake with accosting me, are you sure you don’t have somewhere else to be? Fair warning, you won’t be able to walk this altercation off if you’re trying to kill me.” This Ryu had a heavy timbered voice, but it was gentle. I think I saw that warning meant that he could take them all by himself. “If you’re trying to scrounge up money, I suggest you go elsewhere and leave me alone.”

“Like you could really take us all on!” The earth pony was either brave because of the numbers or really foolish, he raised his left hoof and charged forward to swing it for Ryu’s head. I’d find out if the pony was foolish or not in a minute.

Ryu smoothly ducked to the right and walked few steps forward before turning around to face the stumbling hooligan that tried to attack him, he had dodged that attack with relative ease. He tilted his head making a sharp crack and then he rotated it and, after a little hop, he stomped down all four of his hooves and an orange haze built up around him.

I could feel a lot of heat wafting down the street and it buffeted us, it was pleasantly warm and it looked like Ryu was on fire.

I’m going to go with foolish, numbers didn’t exactly mean instant victory and I had a hunch Ryu was walking away from this without a scratch. One of the unicorns launched a spell and Ryu seemed to blur out of the way and towards the unicorn in a single motion, he brought his left hoof down on the unicorn’s skull and dazed the poor girl.

He grabbed the unicorn’s horn with his right hoof and she froze up. With an amazing show of strength Ryu lifted her off the ground by her horn and then spun around in a circle, he used her body as a bludgeoning instrument on the other earth and unicorn ponies. The rear legs of the unicorn sent all the others on the ground sprawling,

The last thing he did to the unfortunate unicorn was release her, he sent her flying into one of the winged ponies smashing them against the nearby building’s brick wall in a painful manner. The back of the unicorns head hit the wall hard enough to make it start bleeding and the pegasus took a nasty blow from the impact.

In those few actions alone, he had bloodied seven of his nine opponents and the unicorn flail wasn’t going to get up from that and the pegasus he hit with a unicorn body wasn’t fairing any better. The pegasus tried to stand up and Ryu just slammed his left rear leg into the ponies face knocking him out with the blow and now had his back to the wall. Seven on one.

The earth pony that started the altercation ran forward and tried hit him, the blow never connecting and his hoof never even came close to hitting Ryu who had already planted his right hoof into the poor ponies face.

The next blow went to the pony’s chin forcing him to rear up and then Ryu backed his rear up under him and wrapped his hooves around the pony’s barrel to lift him off the ground above his head. With a leap Ryu raised the dazed earth pony up with his forelegs and drove his face down into the pavement with a sickening crunch resulting in a broken nose and a street covered in red.

Ryu then moved toward the remaining four ground bound ponies his eyes darting upwards, he was certainly keeping the pegasus ponies in mind. I noted that while he did seriously injure three ponies, they were still alive and in no condition to fight whatsoever.

The two unicorns started to fire magic bolt after magic bolt and Ryu just swiftly leapt forward to the left and right until he grappled both the two unicorns’ horns and then crossed his legs smashing their skulls together.

The graphic display of both a female and a male unicorn having their faces bashed together wasn’t enough, as Ryu raised both his hooves and slammed them down on the two hapless unicorns. A burst of flames shot off of his hooves as they connected and the two painfully singed unicorns went down, they were knocked out cold and their skulls were slightly burning.

“What is this guy?” One of the pegasus ponies stated with horror.

“Someone you shouldn’t be messing with.” Ryu stated coldly. The two earth ponies tried their luck by coming at Ryu from both his left and right. “You should have just let me be.”

“That doesn’t, matter get him!” The earth pony was a complete package of the idiot variety.

Ryu dodged the earth pony on his right and moved to his left side, he grabbed the stallion and then pulled him into the other earth pony’s attack. While the other earth pony was giving the one Ryu moved a black eye, Ryu slammed his left hoof into that ponies chest and the sound of a rib breaking could be heard as the pony staggered away.

Ryu bucked out and caught the earth pony with a fresh black eye in the throat and the pony went tumbling to the ground choking for air before finally falling unconscious. Ryu then grabbed a derelict rusty bicycle and slammed it across the broken ribbed earth pony’s face knocking them to the ground, he then brought the bicycle down on the brute and jumped to stomp down on it with all four hooves.

The bicycle broke apart and the earth pony underneath wasn’t going to get up, Ryu at least used the bicycle to blunt the force of that traumatic blow. Ryu’s head snapped the side his eye focused on something and he ducked as a metal pipe swung through the space his head used to occupy.

His right hoof rose up taking the pegasus in the belly, winding them and knocked them to the ground. That fiery aura was both off-putting and frightening, the other pegasus had fled and this one chose to attack him anyway?

I knew some ancient Viking words to describe the winged pony’s bravery, they would be something along the lines of ‘crossing the river and having the boat sink when you get to the other side, only to be faced with an entire army’.

Ryu’s orange haze turned blue as he stalked over to the pegasus clutching his belly, he grabbed the pegasus by the mane with his right hoof and dragged him over to the nearby brick wall. He slammed the pony’s face into the wall three times in a display of brutality and then let them fall to the ground groaning.

He grabbed the pony’s left wing, then stood up on his rear hooves and kicked with his left leg. Having a firm grip on the pony’s wing, the body flew outwards and then stopped suddenly with a painful snapping noise. Ryu let the wing go and the pony laid on the ground with his mouth wide open and his pupils shrunk down to pinpricks.

“Don’t challenge the blazing hoof of Neighpon unless you have a good reason to.” Turning his back to the carnage, he looked like he was about to go on his way. We started to move towards him as Sweetcakes moved her tail out of the way. “You’ll get burned.”

As we got closer to him, I looked up and saw the final pegasus return. He pulled a long sword from a sheath and held it in such a way that he planned to ram it through Ryu’s back. The cowardly attack from high above struck a nerve in me.

I charged forward and jumped into the sword’s path and found myself rammed to the ground with the blade sticking out of my chest through my ribs. Ryu had moved backwards when he noticed me coming at him and was surprised to see me pinned to the ground.

“Nani?!” Ryu stated as he realized that what happened to me could have been him, only Ryu would have been grievously injured.

I was just mildly inconvenienced by having a sword rammed straight through me.

I reached up to my back with my right hoof while the confused pony with silver hair and red eyes looked at me with shock.

Grabbing my axe, I brought it around and met his skull with the flat side of my weapons blade.

The pony went sprawling from my blow, but that wasn't the end of it.

Ryu apparently didn’t like that I’ve been run through with a sword, given he grabbed one of the pony’s rear legs and heaved him up into the air to slam his entire body down behind him. Swinging the pony around, Ryu sent him flying belly first into a wall five feet away.

The limp form fell to the ground without a whimper.

“Separate Cloth… I should have known. I’ll tell my boys to send a strong message to their group.” He turned to me. “Miss are you alright?”

I rolled my eyes as I put my axe back on my back and pointed at the ground below me.

“Nani?! You do not bleed?” Ryu seemed surprised by that. “Are you Oni?”

“She is not an oni. I am not sure what she is. Still, she saved your life.” Sweetcakes walked up to me and one of her tails yanked the sword out.

I felt an immeasurable amount of pain.

Author's Note

Wait... Skelly can actually feel pain?

All the plumbing has be retooled slightly... also new toilets have been installed for reasons I won't explain. Oh and the hot water heater recently broke slightly, it's a good thing it was going to be replaced anyway.

I'm noticing a trend here... all my problems right now are water related. Hopefully the conga line of problems ends after this.

Chapter forty-seven, Neighpon Nitwits: Shi.

-Neighpon River Dock, Flamberge-

The boats fine, but I wonder what my brother got up to.

This place was so boring, hope Fortitude’s having fun at least.

I mean the training field full of those guys is cool, but they weren’t exactly that great in a fight compared to Blur. He was insanely good with a sword and is ridiculously fast, but he’s drunk right now and I don’t want to be around a crazy pony while their drunk.

I just hope Fortitude doesn’t expect me to get into trouble, I mean I’m not that horrible am I?

“Excuse me…” Sitting up in the boat and taking a glance at the mare wearing a conical shaped hat and a pink robe, there was no one other than me around so she had to be addressing me. “You seem like a strong young lad with nothing to do, I’ll give you a bucket and a fishing rod if you help me fill at least two buckets with fish.”

I quirked my head at her, she had two fishing rods and five buckets she had balance on a pole across her back.

“Why do you need fish?!” I sat up and got out of the boat as the pony with the blonde hair took up a seat next to the river and started preparing her fishing pole. Her brown fur seemed rather plain for what I was about to suggest. “Do you have pegasus ancestry?!”

“No my absurdly loud acquaintance, but there are various reasons one would want a fish. You can use a fish to grow crops, you can feed a cat or a dog, there’s catch and release for fun or research, you can fish up things that aren’t fish and you can even offer a fish up to a spirit that likes them as a means of friendship. Who actually knows what I’m going to do with them, there’s so many reasons for me to fish. All I want to know is, will you keep me company while I fish?” The mare chuckled as she patted a spot next to where she was setting up. “Word of warning, watch out for the Kappa, green turtle duck creatures with dishes that hold water on their heads. You should never ever let one come up from behind you, it will never end well. If a Kappa manages to reach under your tail, fart fire, clench as hard as you can or knock them over to spill their water quickly. Otherwise, I’m offering because you look bored, that part is not so mysterious.”

“Sure, I’ll join you, but do you know of the rock circle method of fishing?!” That was a mistake I made the second I mentioned it, I felt horrible about not knowing what to do to help Jade.

“Why yes I do… but why did you regret mentioning it almost immediately?” The mare was getting to the root of the problem immediately.

“Well… a friend from the town my brothers and I came to love kind of got displaced! We’re not exactly sure how, but quite frankly it’s generally believed that she’s still alive.” Even I would refuse to believe such a daunting figure as Jade would go down so easily, but there lies the rub. It’s constantly at the back of my mind and I don’t feel like anyone will be doing enough to bring her back to her mother. “The plan one of my brothers and I are following is getting lost in the places we need to be until we come up with a solution!”

“So you got lost and ended up in Neighpon? I guess we were destined to meet then, but I am not using the circle of rocks fishing method.” The mare was pretty contradictory. She wanted to fill her buckets, but she didn’t want to do it the quick way? “I would rather lay back and relax, sometimes it’s better to take your time than to rush things. I am not needing to rush into getting fish today.”

“I guess I could use some time to relax!” I sat down next to the mare and took up a fishing rod, I pulled it back and then cast it forward into the river. “So do we talk about anything interesting while we wait?!”

“What kind of town did you and your brothers find that you loved?” Well at first Airship Mauled was just an oddity to us, but the mare needed to hear what we saw in the town. “Tell me about it.”

“Well you could say things started when several Viking airships crash landed on the local goddess and a visiting god... there god that was on one of our ships that fell off under the ships as they crashed. So our three airships kind of crushed every higher being present. We’d learned that it was a fairly common occurrence around Airship Mauled.” I might not know the end result of this meeting, but I knew I’d feel better afterwards. “Said goddess eventually became a patron goddess of my brother. The god that was with us is now the post master for the town and the other god eventually went home after being harassed by Vikings for a few days. I don’t think anyone was truly apologetic about it.”

“Let me guess, the god was snake like and benevolent?” The mare giggled a bit. “Otherwise you’d be completely destroyed by it and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Oh they’d still have fought or teased the god anyway, Vikings were never said to have a good sense of self-preservation!” I smiled as the mare started laughing and I shared in that mirth as we waited for a fish to bite. “I’ve got a few stories for you if you want to listen!”

“Let me tell you a few anecdotes about Neighpon personally in return.” Even if I didn’t know her name, this mare was a nice pony. “Oh and tail fishing around here is a bad idea thanks to the kappa in the waters. Never have your backside pointing towards a river in Neighpon for too long!”

-Neighpon Streets, Fortitude-

I am never seeing Skelly in pain before, but it was fairly obvious that she was hurting.

“Skelly, what is wrong!” I ran up to her and held hoof as she started crying while her other hoof clutched at her ribs. She was not bleeding, but she was in deep pain.

“Is she hurt? I do not see any bleeding, but if she needs a hospital...” Ryu offered with a steely looking gaze, he was being quite nice for a crime family prince.

“A hospital cannot help what is wrong with her state of existence, but I wish to know what is causing her pain now when before she wasn’t hurt by being pierced by the sword.” My answer came when the shadows of the sun setting, I looked at Skelly’s ribs when they became visible and saw a cut in her bones.

We had arrived at Neighpon in the early evening and skipped breakfast in Ponyville to get our supplies ready. So it was inevitable that the truth got out.

“Nani?!” Ryu backed up with fright and an open mouth.

Blade was also looking quite shocked to see Skelly’s appearance as well.

Sweetcake’s reaction was the calmest one, she just simply stared and then moved closer.

“You are damaging her bones when removing the sword, it is why she’s feeling immense pain!” I believe Skelly would be whimpering right now if she could.

“Very strange this sight. I am sorry I hurt her. May I heal her bones?” The fox looked quite apologetic as she came over to us. I looked to Skelly who nodded frantically while clutching at her ribcage. “I made a mistake, a debt needs to be repaid, heal your wounds I will.”

A tail glowed softly and reached up under Skelly’s ribcage and rubbed over the injuries from the sword, Skelly shivered and started to smile and her jaw clattered. I think she was laughing. The bones grew back together and were fixed and Skelly stopped looking so pained.

“I did what I could. I mended her sundered bones. She will be fine now.” Turning to Sweetcakes I offered her a smile.

“Thank you for helping Skelly the Superbly Spirited!” I had to say it because Skelly couldn’t, Skelly gave as friendly a smile as her skeletal face could manage.

“I did her a wrong, in taking the sword with haste, my new was friend was hurt.” The six tailed vixen bowed her head shamefully.

“All is forgiven, I’m sure Skelly doesn’t hold a grudge against you.” Hugging the skeletal mare to myself, I was both glad and horrified to find out that she could feel pain.

“I have a lot of questions, who are you people?” We turned to the Ryu whose eyes glowed slightly with suspicion as he looked upon us.

“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant! This is Skelly the Superbly Spirited! These are Blade Bright and…” Before I could continue Ryu cut me off.

“I know of the vixen, she is a renowned trouble maker around these parts despite how sweet she is.” At Ryu’s word, the vixen blushed and pawed at her head. “What is the story behind this Skelly, did she run afoul of Neighpon’s spirits?”

Spirits around here must be far more active than ancestral Viking spirits, said spirits were always half drunk and fought in an endless battles for fun in the afterlife.

“No, she ran afoul of unicorn doing horrible things with the souls of warriors, we are fixing that problem not too long ago and she is my trusted traveling companion. Skelly has been like this for a long time before I am meeting her and sending the cruel unicorn’s spirit away.” My hoof pointed to Blade. “Blade Bright is a friend of mine and she has only been recently introduced to Skelly, so I am not surprised she is shocked to see Skelly’s appearance at night. She is wanting to do business with you!”

“I am only vaguely disturbed by the skeleton at best, where do the green orbs that look like eyes come from?” Ryu at least seemed willing to listen to Blade, He even seemed barely put off by what Skelly was.

-Blade-

I always thought that made up skeleton character Jade kept trying to shoehorn into our Ogres and Oubliettes games wasn’t a real thing. Now that I know unicorns can do something like this, I was far more wary of any unicorn that could use dark magic.

Dark is not necessarily evil, but in this situation the evil was real. To think it befell that poor pony of the likes I can’t even fathom. It was nice to know that she could still feel pain, but it would require being able to damage her tough bones and I wasn’t willing to do that.

Mostly because she had been friendly the entire time… wait… where does all the food she eats go to?

-Ryu-

It was turning out to be another average day in the Canter Dojo sector of Neighpon.

There were random thugs to beat the living daylights out of every day, legitimate businesses to run, not so legitimate businesses to run, territories to keep under control, conspiracies to help or foil and just mostly beating up ponies stealing their money for trying to steal mine from me first.

If I was attacked first, I was well within my rights to protect myself however I saw fit. If they were thugs trying to kill me, I considered crippling blows more acceptable. If someone were trying to take money from me, I would be less inclined to try for crippling blow, but I wasn’t going to make it easy on the aggressors.

Suffice it to say I could never go hungry in Canter Dojo with all the hot blooded individuals I beat up on a regular basis. I also did some ‘good’ work by helping stop all forms of slave trafficking, because at least I have more morals than the other yakuza clans.

There was also helping the weak if they were being accosted unjustly and in general making sure that the Canter Dojo sector could not be contested by anyone. I stopped to help people because it was the right thing to do, plus doing the right thing was quite lucrative at times.

I was not an easy mark as many had found out quickly enough. Just because I walked around without back up, it did not mean I was helpless to numbers or those of great strength. In fact I always welcome a challenge to brawl.

I am Ryu the Blazing Hoof, the yakuza prince and Canter Dojo’s Dragon.

As for today? It turned weird quite quickly on me, Separate Cloth was trying to off me again in my territory. Almost got the drop on me if it wasn’t for that stranger, who turned out to be a living skeleton.

Canter Dojo had always been home to spirits, oni and demons, but the one time it isn’t one of those and I didn’t know what to think. Longma fire could deal with most of those monstrous problem and all I needed to do was heat myself up, but the skeleton pony was something else entirely.

She wasn’t a ghost and she clearly wasn’t those other things, she was just a living skeleton. One that could still feel pain after having a sharp blade rip open her bones.

The fact that the yak said this Blade Bright wanted to do business with me had my attention.

“I’m listening.” Placing my attention squarely on the thestral, I waited for a response.

Nothing was forthcoming.

I eventually did have to get back to the orphanage I ran, but I’m sure after this lesson no one would try anything for at least a week. Anybody that so much as touched my kids wouldn’t get away with it without being in traction for months for daring to try.

“Blade is mute because her vocal chords are too strong and could possibly destroy all glass within a mile radius. Skelly is the same way because she obviously no long has vocal chords to speak with.” Judging by Fortitude’s current demeanor, I could already tell it was going to be one of those days.

I let a long drawn out insufferable sigh from my lips. This was probably going to be weirder than any of the previous things I have done. It’ll likely just add on to my legend as the Canter Dojo Dragon, which already has enough weird stuff as it is.

Having a skeleton pony for a friend would be right up there in weirdness department, right next to me accidentally gaining a Jorogumo for a girlfriend. Sure she may have a large spider body for her lower torso, but my girlfriend was really nice and our dates never went sour, plus she made sure no one attacked the orphanage I legitimately ran.

Almost no one was dumb enough to attack a Jorogumo that has had plenty of time to set up in an area.

“Let us find a place where we can write down exactly what Blade-san wants of me, in fact I’ll bring my girlfriend along to show that I’m alright with… Skelly-chan was it?” I grunted with a small smile on my face. “I’m quite fairly tolerable of most strange circumstances, Skelly-chan is not exactly the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Author's Note

So very tired... but I'm still going...

I like the Luna and Celestia episode, makes them normal down to earth ponies for one episode.

Chapter forty-seven, Neighpon Nitwits: Go.

-Canter Dojo, Neighpon Streets, Fortitude-

It had been on the back of my mind since we got here and I figured it needed to be asked.

“Where are all the being that were trying to stop Blade from meeting with Ryu?” We all came to a stop with my question and Ryu looked to me.

“What are you talking about?” Ryu titled his head to give me that stare of steel.

“There are being many ponies preventing Blade from meeting you to talk about something important, I am only seeing one just after Skelly, my brother and I arrived!” With that comment I seemed to have made Blade very paranoid, given she was looking around wildly. She is having a good reasons to be paranoid and now I was paranoid too! “How many times were you stopped from meeting Ryu?”

Blade tapped out at least twenty times with her left hoof, I can see now why she was aggravated with Sweetcakes. The vixen has apparently not been very helpful in her endeavors, because Blade was glaring at Sweetcakes Crumble Tail with displeasure and the fox just smiled back at her.

“I think a combination of Separate Cloth, one my friends and the myrmekes problem.” What myrmeke problem as Ryu talking… oh.

“We are having myrmekes near Airship Mauled, our town, as well. They are kept in check by hungry maulwurf, what is keeping them in check here?” I asked as in front of us were a bunch of desiccated ant husks hanging in white strands of string or was it silk? We started to pass by them without worry, the one noticeable trend among them is that there were two holes in each of their abdomens. At least on the ones where the abdomens were visible. “Where are we going again?”

“We’re going to the orphanage I run, as for what keeps them in check around here… my girlfriend Silk Tapestry. She looks like she’s staying well fed today at the very least, so as not to surprise you when we meet her she’s… well she’s a Jorogumo.” While Ryu had Blade, Skelly and I confused, Sweetcakes seemed to know exactly what a Jorogumo was. “She’s a spider pony.”

“Like from the comic books?” I am liking those comics, with great strength comes even greater accountability!

“That is not quite right. Pony torso spider body. Creature of wonder.” Sweetcakes was not making much sense as we moved forward.

We walked alongside a fence connected to a building when I got my answer as to what Sweetcakes meant by creature of wonder, because I wonder how such a creature ever came to exist. She stood in the evening moonlight holding something.

“Oh yay, my boyfriend is back, hi Ryu-kun!” We looked to the roof of the building and saw a monstrous form, a centaur pony with the body of a spider. The body had six legs ending in hooves and the front half of a pony sticking out of the top of it, said pony had two cute insect fangs sticking out of the sides of her mouth. “How is the crime lord… er… real estate business going?”

“We are knowing he is Yakuza.” I am also knowing that Ryu is very strong. I would not win a fight with him, even if I had a shield.

The large dark purple body leapt from the roof and crashed into the ground with a thunderous impact that wrecked the road. Despite the rough landing, the spider pony wasn’t hurt and she bit into the abdomen of the struggling myrmeke she held and it soon stopped moving.

With a final slurping noise she pulled her two fangs free from the giant ant in a shower of gore and licked her lips. She tossed the body to the side and her large abdomen splattered it with webbing to pin it to the wall, then she looked at the street and noticed the damage she caused. I am noting that she surprisingly had a cutie mark of two needles with bits of white goo that were halfway into making a grand looking white tapestry.

“Whoops… broke the street again. That won’t be a big problem, right Ryu-kun? I mean I did just stop a myrmeke outbreak single hoofed, so that means I should get some kind of reward right?” She stood up on her six hooves of her spider body and smiled at us while bring her two front legs of her pony torso in front of her like a praying mantis. “Hello, who are your friends Ryu-kun and are they delicious?”

“No Silk-chan, you are not eating them and you just ate.” Ryu was speaking in a no nonsense tone and the spider pony, with the long center parted thick dark blue mane that reached to the ground, pouted sadly. “Everyone this is my girlfriend Silk Tapestry, don’t ask about how we even got started when it comes to dating. Just know that we actually work pretty well together and leave it at that. Also she’s never actually killed anyone, not for the lack of trying on her part to get me to let her just nibble some of the more annoying people I deal with on a regular basis mind you.”

“I was just kidding Ryu-kun, I just eat other monsters and myrmekes are delicious this time of year!” Eventually Silk Tapestry smiled brightly and skittered up to Ryu and pulled him into a big hug where she nuzzled him affectionately.

I am not going to judge their relationship, though I will bet it is quite awkward when they go out in public together. Ryu grunted and stared at her with his hard as steel stare.

“I know I’m not supposed to eat thinking intelligent beings silly… but wouldn’t that mean that most of the thugs that try to invade the orphanage I just knock out aren’t really all that intelligent and deserved to be devoured?” The sweet smile on her face was quite disturbingly dissonant with her appearance and her gentle solid yellow eyes. “I mean you are just going to break their bones anyway, having me liquefy their insides a bit before hoof would be cutting out the middle mare.”

“I am sorry that you all have to endure knowing Silk-chan.” Ryu commented dryly. “She is my negotiations partner… the rougher kind of negotiations. She also…”

“Oh come on Ryu-kun… I may be a Jorogumo, but I’m not a bad mare!” How can someone like Silk, who should naturally be horrifying, be so cute? She turned to us and threw out her pony body’s hooves as if to grab our attention. “As Ryu was about to say, I take care of the orphanage here just fine in his absence and I really like having children!”

Even Sweetcakes couldn’t hold back her slight revulsion, as we all gave Silk a highly disturbed look. Ryu was the only exception and just sighed while shaking his head.

“What, why are all you looking at me like that?” Was Silk actually confused about what she just implied?

“You just implied that you eat children.” Ryu stated flatly, he always seemed to be calm and stern. “That or the other way that could have been taken out of context.”

“I did… oh… yeah, I can understand why you all are staring at me like that now.” Silk nodded her head and acknowledged that she had implied it. It was a second later that she finally reacted to the implication with shock and a blush filled her cheeks as she pressed her face into her hooves. “I would never do that! I’m their caretaker and you can’t take care of children by eating them… though they are more likely to eat you. I’m so glad I’m not from a species of a matriphagy spiders. I wouldn’t have been able to introduce my mother to you otherwise Ryu-kun.”

“Before you ask, her mother is an earth pony.” We reeled back in horror for a completely different reason this time, Ryu seemed entirely unflappable about it.

“Okaasan Silk-chan, did you take care of the scary giant ants?” A shy looking pegasus flapped her wings nervously. She had short green hair, orange colored muzzle and legs, brown fur on her chest and was white everywhere else.

The children here actually liked Silk? They were really quite tolerant of her appearance, that and she did look really fluffy.

“Yeah, pretty much, I really need to gather the remainder of all my snacks in the spider cave below the orphanage. Go back inside and play with your friends Ducky, there’s not much time left before everyone has to get ready for bed.” Silk Tapestry tossed several myrmeke shaped cocoons onto her back and started humming a tune, she stopped when she noticed us staring. “You head on inside too Ryu-kun and show some hospitality your new friends, don’t forget to tell the children their Okaasan is going to be busy storing my kind of food for a little bit!”

“Ryu-kun!” The one called Ducky flapped her way shakily over to Ryu and hugged his chest. She let off with one hoof and turned away while holding it to her mouth. “Hey everyone Ryu-kun is not too busy tonight!”

Ryu sighed as an avalanche of children rushed out and assaulted him.

For someone who is reportedly a criminal, he was well loved.

-Blade-

I was going to take this guy away from all this so I can selfishly set an alicorn princess free? Yes… yes I was and I think I was going to hate myself for it all later in the future.

This journey to find the three other stars and getting them all in place in time was already starting out rough, I had almost a year or less according to the moon priest archivers.

Could I actually promise that this wasn’t going to be a one way trip?

I looked up to the moon before walking inside the orphanage.

I will come back to you Kuril, no matter what happens to me.

The city wasn’t on fire, so Flamberge must not be in or is causing too much trouble.

Skelly gave me an odd look as I passed by her.

-Skelly-

I walked outside and looked at the mare on the moon, the living legend that made Nightmare Night a thing.

“I thought a living skeleton would look scarier, you just look adorable with that scarf and I love your hair!” Silk walked past me with her back empty of dead myrmekes to go collect more. She stopped and gave me a small smile. “It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one that has to wrestle with appearances, what I look like does not match with who I am and I believe you’re the same. You look scary, but I’m sure you’re a good pony just like me. I’m just lucky that Ryu-kun is even willing to date me, do you realize how hard it is to find someone who would want to date something like me?”

While her appearance was slightly disconcerting, she was a very nice mare.

I sat down in the dirt and looked at the stars in the sky as Silk skittered off to continue picking up cocooned ants.

I can consider myself happy that there are some beings who can look at me and think of me as being normal.

It’s nice to meet new friends and know that there are some people out who will readily accept you no matter what, even when you look like a monster.

-Neighpon Riverbank, Flamberge-

I looked at all the weakened kappa, knocking them over and spilling their water really made them rather pathetic.

My fishing friend had left as soon as the sun started setting, the fishing around here was really good and I had a bucket full of fish to myself.

It was when I started cooking the fish over a fire that the kappa showed up to cause problems for me.

The turtle ducks were weird and they weren’t hard to fight off once they lost their water. I can certainly understand the repeated warnings of never turning your back on the river anywhere within five feet of it now.

“Seriously, next time, just ask me for some food instead of attacking me. I could have cooked some cucumbers for you while I was at it!” Despite all the kappa being weakened they perked up at the mention of cucumbers. “Aren’t Kappa like you guys supposed to be obsessed with being polite!”

“Sorry they’re young!” An older looking kappa stated as he poked his head out of the water, I sent him a scathing look. He squeaked and dove back down into the water.

“I’ll put you back in the water when I’m done eating, then I’m going to get some sleep and if any of you so much as disturbs me… well you’ll figure out why they say to leave sleeping dragons alone.”

-Dispel Grace-

“I hear tell there are unholy monsters here in Neighpon, but not where would I find them so that I may smite them with my holy might!” My mission to wipe out all that was unholy brought me here and I had found an informant that could tell me where a monster was.

“Sure, sure, whatever you say.” The pegasus stallion grinned. “The monster can be found at the orphanage, she has a lot of a children under her control.”

The fiend, to attack an orphanage and hold it in their vile claws!

I would not let this injustice stand.

-Later that night, Sweetcakes-

“You’ve shown hospitality. This was nicer than you know. Now I need to go.” I bowed to Ryu-kun and Silk-chan, then I turned to leave.

Father and mother waited for me at home in Neighpon Noodles, they wouldn’t worry too much as I could take care of myself.

What they’d be more worried about is if I got into mischief and got caught doing so. I may have teased Blade Bright too much, but these last few days were fun.

Fortitude, Skelly and Blade were staying the night and still had to discuss things with Ryu after he was done telling the children a bedtime story. Silk still had Myrmekes to store away for later consumption, but she would still stop to tuck the little ones in.

I walked away from the orphanage taking in the sweet night air as I approached the river and walked alongside it.

In fact there was something else that was sweet to my nose and it smelled hauntingly good.

My attention was drawn to a campsite and what looked like kappa tracks, there were also a dragon curled up on a pile of gold.

Now what kind of fun could I have with this situation?

I approached him cautiously and sniffed in his direction.

The dragon looked had some firm muscles on him and he looked quite warm, then again most dragons were hot blooded so warm was objective with them.

The Ryo coins he was curled up on must have been given to him by the kappa as far as I can judge by the smell. Fish and cucumbers were cooked here over a campfire, the kappa attacked him and he won that fight by knocking them over.

The dragon’s natural musk attracted me to do something that would see him causing a quite a fuss come morning upon waking.

I curled up around him, laid my head upon his and slept with him.

Author's Note

Flamberge is going to have an odd wake up call.

The armored earth pony Dispel Grace managed to get from Soar Way to Neighpon pretty fast.

There's also Blade's turmoil over whether or not to ask the longma Ryu to act as one of the stars 'to aid in her escape'.

Chapter forty-seven, Neighpon Nitwits: Cuddly Kitsune.

-Neighpon late night, Canter Dojo, Moonlight Orphanage, Ryu-

I looked over Blade’s written words and had to think about them, her reasoning for wanting to do this was bizarre. Her reasons for coming to ask me to aid in this endeavor were weak. She was not offering much except the fact that I may become a literal star in the sky to aid in the escape of a trapped princess. There wasn’t even a promise I’d ever come back from this either.

“I will think on this.” The only thing that made me not deny this was simple, the sheer curiosity of it all.

“Ryu-kun?” Silk looked at me with a bit of worry, I walked over to her and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I did love Silk Tapestry, but I was usually too busy busting heads to really stop and appreciate her presence.

It kind of puts a few things into perspective for me, but who would be insane enough to do something like this with no hope for a reward afterwards?

Maybe I might be one of these three stars that Blade needs to break the prison, but would I do this and would it really help the world as a whole?

If the world stopped existing because of one mare not being let free from her prison… well I know the importance of individuals as much as looking at the full picture. I did own most of the property in the Canter Dojo sector and was a rather important stallion, but the work I did on a daily basis was negligible compared to all the delegation that is keeping things together.

The threat of my existence is what kept the peace here, what would happen if I were to wander away for too long without leaving someone to watch things in my stead?

What… what would happen to Silk if I never came back? She’s lovely, but she tends to freak out just about anyone who doesn’t know her. She also gives people with arachnophobia heart attacks on sight alone. Still… Silk’s very tough and would probably do her best even if she no longer had my or the organization's support.

“I do not know why you are so worried Blade, my brother can take care of himself and he will be completely fine for the night. We can ask around for him tomorrow, he is not very subtle and quiet.” The yak has a brother? I wonder if he’s anything like the kind of brother I have.

-Neighpon Noodles, Morning-

An armored figured with a large sword on their back noisily made their way into Neighpon Noodles and the vixen on staff just gave him a slightly flat look.

“Would you like a table sir?” The orange furred three tailed vixen in question was courteous to all visitors, even the strangely gaudily armored one.

“No, I am in great need of directions to an orphanage to slay a vile being!” The armored ponies words just made the vixen roll her eyes.

“Father, we have one those types and Sweetcakes still hasn’t come back!” The vixen yelled and the red nine tailed fox stalked over. “Now please move out of the way and stop holding up the line.”

The armored figure did go off to the side and was met with the nine tailed proprietor.

“Yes, can I help you sir?” The red fox knew what his daughter meant the second he saw the large armored form.

“I need the directions to the orphanage where there is said to be a monstrous spider creature, I intend to end its life and any of the unholy ilk it might have.” The armored form just received a calculating look.

“Sure, I know exactly what you’re talking about.” The fox nodded after a moment. “So exit the restaurant turn right go straight until you see a large building…”

Three minutes later…

“So how long do you suppose it will take before he figures out that you’ve duped him father?” The vixen that greeted the incoming customers asked after coming back to her post from finding an available table.

“Hopefully not before he makes an ass of himself, I don’t like mercenaries targeting Ryu or Silk Tapestry.” The restaurant was one Ryu frequented enough that the runner of the establishment was generally good friends with Ryu. “It’s bad for business, the kids they take care of are sweet and Ryu doesn’t invest in idiots. He’s the Blazing Hoof and is the dragon of Canter Dojo, whom of which I am glad to be good friends with.”

“So where did you send him exactly?” The vixen watched as a grin started to expand across her father’s face.

“Don’t worry about that… but if he happens to comes back then deal with him as we would anyone else who is looking to upset a good number of people.” The vixen nodded as the red fox turned away and stalked for the door with his nine tails shifting in an agitated manner. “Now excuse me, I have a wayward daughter to find and a Separate Cloth to maul. That armored mercenary had Separate’s smell on him and I don’t like it that the scum even thought of targeting children.”

“Good hunting father.” The vixen said with a bow, then she turned a foxy smile to a well-dressed Diamond Dog that approached her. She knew this customer very well and it looked like he was hungry for some warm buns, hopefully hers as her younger sister Sweetcakes wasn’t around to make some.

If anything actually happened to Ryu, then the Mad Mutt of Neighpon would rise up and tear apart whoever took Ryu down.

Dodgy Gruff the Mad Mutt didn’t want anyone else to take Ryu down and wanted to win a fight against him, surprisingly Ryu and Mad Mutt were really good friends despite the intention of wanting to beat and or kill Ryu personally.

The vixen sighed audibly as he was quite handsome for a Diamond Dog, he was generally polite, quite strong and had the curious ability to pull a baseball bat from out of nowhere without warning. He also had the tendency to do weird or crazy things.

-Morning, Neighpon River, Flamberge-

I opened my mouth and let out a yawn and then tried to get up.

There were a few problems with this, I also felt a strange fluffy weight around my back and wings.

Did someone cover me with a blanket while I slept?

At least the kappa learned their lesson and really liked properly roasted cucumbers. The things I learned at The Hayburger are still endlessly useful and I had a nice pile of gold to sleep on.

They said they wouldn’t bother me unless they wanted something finely roasted and they’d pay for my services in that regard, because I was really good at roasting and frying foods.

So who would place a heavy blanket on top of me and didn’t see fit to slide a pillow under my head? My brother maybe, but I think he found some other place to stay last night and Skelly was with him so he’d be fine without his shield.

I felt the blanket move on top of me, this kind of clued me into the fact that it wasn’t a blanket.

Turning my head slightly I saw the softly snoozing face of a fox… specifically of a vixen variety like the ones me and Blur Step saw at Neighpon Noodles.

“Hey, who are you and why are you sleeping me and my small pile of money!” The vixen snorted awake and her sleepy eyes barely opened.

“My husband you are, you were very drunk last night, we had a good time.” I just gave the vixen a flat stare.

“You saw me sleeping and decided to fall asleep on top of me didn’t you?!” I was not buying what this mischievous minx was selling.

She frowned at me and then didn’t say anything at all.

Yes, Flamberge three and the world five hundred and seventy six!

Also, now that I look at her, her appearance was vaguely like what...

“What are you doing with my daughter?!” Like what the now screaming red nine tailed fox told me one of his daughters looked like. I really couldn’t have avoided her as she came to me.

“Hey, this is not what it looks like, she’s the one who decided to sleep with me!” The vixen nuzzled me affectionately after I said that and even licked my cheek, then I realized my mistake. “In the most innocent manner possible mind you!”

“Sweet he is father. Can I please keep this nice guy? Many kits we’ll have.” She licked my cheeks again and wrapped her tails around me protectively.

“You’re attempt at subterfuge is largely going to be ignored my little Sweetcakes.” The vixen pouted at large male fox. “Also I’m choosing to interpret his words correctly and not out of context because I don’t think it would seriously be that easy.”

“How hurtful father, I actually slept with him, shouldn’t you be angry?” I just noticed that this vixen speaks oddly, I gave her father a helpless look.

“I’d be angry if he actually did anything to you, your attempts to trick me are laughable and I’m ashamed that you can’t do any better than that Sweetcakes!” Oh thank goodness the guy wasn’t angry that I phrased things wrong, this thankfully wasn’t going to lead to one of those zany misunderstandings you hear about in romance novels. “I have a nose daughter, I would smell if something more intimate had happened between you two.”

The vixen wrapped herself tighter around me and whined pitiably.

“I wish to date him. He smells quite attractively nice. I would pay a price.” She smiled and cuddled up to me.

“Do I get a say in this or is this me being railroaded?!” Foxes in general are cute creatures, but this was a bit much for me.

“If she is willing to chase you, then you better get equal say or else that would be slavery on my daughter’s part. Relationships cannot be built on one way streets.” The fox glared at the smaller vixen and she hid her face behind my neck and her whiskers tickled my scales somewhat. “I’d disown her for forcing love, anybody who is a part of my family will not force entrapment on anyone.”

“I would be quite fair, if he brushed my lovely fur, cherish him I would.” I could feel her grin digging into my neck.

“Why does she talk like that?” My question as met with a grin.

“This is my daughter Sweetcakes Crumble Tail, she speaks in haiku and she does it so well.” He chuckled. “As to why? Well she loves haiku and it’s kind of ingrained into her now. There are a few times where she fudges it, but she hardly ever breaks the five seven five rule unless the situation direly warrants it. I will allow my daughter to date you, but she has to get you to agree to it first. Also she offered a price and I already know what she’ll pay for this, she should be glad she said ‘a’ price instead of ‘any’ price.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked clearly confused and was wondering why this guy would allow his daughter to date me when he seemed pretty much against the idea previously.

“A price means there is haggling involved, any price would mean that I can set the terms as I high as I want them to be thereby making it impossible for her to pay it as she'd give me all the cards to play with.” The fox turned to the vixen. “My child is as bright as she is mischievous, she’s beautiful like her mother and I would protect the world from her.”

“Don’t you mean you’d protect her from the world?!” For some reason I believed that the Neighpon Noodles proprietor had misspoken.

“No, no, I am definitely protecting the world from her by not letting her out of my sight for too long!” The father insisted and the vixen cuddling me tightened her grip and growled slightly. “What do you offer daughter of mine? The one thing already on the table is that you won’t be causing trouble if you’re busy trying to win him over, he doesn’t seem too interested at this moment.”

“I can hear you and I’m right here you know!” The large nine tailed fox ignored me completely as he stared at his daughter. “Can you at least make her let me go? While it would normally feel nice to be cuddled like this, this is getting rather uncomfortable for me and she’s started to latch her claws into my scales. Sure it doesn’t hurt, but I would like to get up and do things today.”

“Daughter…” The red fox narrowed his eyes.

The vixen eventually whined and finally released me, but one of her tails caressed my back before moving away.

“My offer is this, I can’t receive any help, until marital bliss.” She said with a straight face.

“You’ve given yourself quite the challenge there, but you still need to put one more thing on offer.” The fox muttered dryly. “Come Sweetcakes, make this much more interesting. Are you devious or not?”

“I have an idea, half my power in an orb, to be held by you.” What Sweetcakes just said made no sense to me, but the large red fox reeled back in shock. He eventually calmed down and smiled.

“That would do it, but are you sure you want to do that?” He asked and I felt a little out of the loop here about what was going on.

She just nodded and smirked.

“Well if you survive long enough to grow three more tails, you’ll become a nine tails like your dear old dad in full.” What did he mean by that and what was going on? I was a bit confused here.

Focusing all six of her tails together, three of this Sweetcakes' tails started dissolving into energy and swirled into the shaped of a bright pearl. Said pearl fell into the older fox’s paw.

“You kept fire, very traditional for a kitsune and makes complete sense with a dragon. Also your healing aspect will help with survival.” He muttered as he looked the orb and the now three tailed kitsune over. “Shape changing, that’s always a keeper. Have fun trying to get yourself a mate, you can still come back when you give up. To lose, all you have to do is ask for your power back before you are married.”

“The dice has been cast, whether or not feelings last, family always.” She bowed her head and turned a feral grin to me, I should probably ditch the pile of coins and go find my brother. I should also be running, but some dragon instincts told me to protect the money I’ve earned.

I didn’t know what to do here.

-Dispel Grace-

I busted down the door with a mighty crescent of holy power and charged in.

“I will smite all you unholy monsters and your leader!” The various giants in the room just gave me a bored look and one brought a huge club with thick spikes that were twice the size of my body down on me.

These ogres would be tough, but I would be victorious or I wasn’t Dispel Grace!

Author's Note

I am really tired and I just woke up from a good ten hours of sleep to finish this page.

Chapter forty-eight, Necessary Notification: Roku.

-Outside a den of ogres-

“I have won a great moral victory today!” Shouted the stumbling crumpled tin can that was known as Dispel Grace. His armor had seen better days, but he was still alive. “I did not run in the face of mortal terror and I fought valiantly… and even managed to seriously inconvenience one of them. That papercut will last weeks! Now I need to find out where that spider monster is, she was not at her base full of demons far tougher than even my holy powers can deal with!”

Despite his highly battered gaudily made armor needing to absolutely be fixed, his large two hoofed sword was still in a pristine and completely undamaged state as he stumbled away.

-Riverside Flamberge-

“Okay so… what are you going to do and do you know where I can find a blacksmith that can create a shield?” I looked at Sweetcakes who was looking at her three tails and then she turned back to me.

“Weapons and armor, I know how to get easy, not so much for shields.” Well Sweetcakes just told me a lot in as few words as possible. “As for you my friend, you’re stuck with me to an end, either yours or mine.”

“I’m horrified and yet pleasantly surprised that you can be so foreboding with so few words, how long have you exactly kept this up for?” How long did kitsune live for and how far was she going to take this?

“Since I was a kit, all over this place I’ve been, I never stopped once.” Yep that was going to get old fast given that Sweetcakes seemed to love the way she talked, I had absolutely nothing against the poetry of it though. “We will start as friends, hello my name is Sweetcakes, nice to meet you Flame.”

If it was the only way she spoke, then it was going to be like listening to Zecora for the rest of my life and it would be impossible to interrupt her by asking her to rhyme with impossible words. Maybe I can convince her that we can just stay friends?

Looking at the way she was smiling at me, she was going to take everything as far as she could get away with.

“I guess it’s nice to meet you too Sweetcakes.” I’m being somewhat sincere and I hope she doesn’t go overboard with trying to win me over, because that wasn’t going to work.

“I have an idea, of where to get a good shield, black market import.” Why did I not like the sound of that coming from Sweetcakes mouth? Why did she even know where and how to find the black market in the first place?

-Canter Dojo Orphanage, Skelly-

The children didn’t seem to mind me last night and were more curious to see me with fur covering my bones this morning, also eyes actually occupying my sockets.

They were so used to having Silk Tapestry as their protector to the point that if I was welcome, then I was nothing to be feared by them. They trusted in Silk that much.

The children were outside playing and we were sitting with Ryu and Silk, Silk looked slightly upset at whatever she talked to Ryu about this morning.

“I’ll do it.” I just stared at Ryu with disbelief, Blade comes along and asks him to become a star and he’s just going to go along with it? “There are things I have to do first before I can leave though.”

“You have no idea how much Ryu does around here, Canter Dojo wouldn’t be the same unless he put someone else in charge that could cover for even a fraction of his importance.” The way Silk’s ears wilted and how she looked at Ryu told me that she would be the one who would miss him the most. “I’ll be watching the moon every night once he leaves.”

“To that end I will need to talk to Dodgy Gruff the Mad Mutt.” Curiously enough as soon as Ryu had finished that statement Silk grimaced visibly and didn’t even try to hide her feelings on the matter.

“Is there a problem with that?” Yes Fortitude, there obviously was.

“How good is Blade in a fight? Dodgy Gruff won’t let me leave unless I give him a good and thorough beating, then three hours after that he’ll want to fight Blade-san as well.” It seemed like Ryu believed Dodgy Gruff would still be able to fight after going through a battle with him, kind of wish we had his kind of brutal battle prowess around for the Draugr. He wouldn’t have to be so gentle with them and hold back like he did on those ponies. “Do you specialize in hoof to paw combat?”

I could tell that Ryu always left every being alive after a rough fight, but he still broke them pretty badly when he fought them.

Blade’s answer was to flick her right wing and a knife flew out of it spiraling into the air to be caught deftly with her left hoof, she promptly stabbed the knife into a bread roll and began eating off it. After she finished the roll she pointed the knife to Fortitude.

“She is being good at making sushi and is an expert in wielding bladed weaponry.” Fortitude new enough of her skills to expound upon them, but Blade was not going to wield my axe for that fight. I was not letting my axe go out of sight or too far from my very being.

“At least it’ll be on or somewhat near even ground then, flying doesn’t exactly give Blade an advantage. Dodgy Gruff is good with both weapons and his paws, there’s a reason his title is Mad Mutt to my Blazing Hoof.” Ryu stated somberly. “I am one of the few he’s lost some serious fights to.”

“Yeah and Dodgy really wants to maul you within an inch of your life or maybe even a little beyond that if he’s feeling really vindictive.” Silk tapped her hooves together looking unsure of how that will all go.

If Blade is as good as Fortitude thinks she is, then she’ll survive the fight like a warrior. Is she a warrior though? I moved to tap Fortitude roughly to get his attention.

“What is it Skelly?” How to go about asking Fortitude about this?

Ah, I got it! I unslung my axe and held it and myself proudly standing tall, then I pointed to Blade.

“Is Blade a warrior?” Pointing to Fortitude, I nodded vigorously. “No, but she is being failed assassin.”

“Failed assassin?” Ryu asked curiously while raising a brow to Blade, she covered her face with a hoof at Fortitudes candor.

“She was more of a thug, I heard from Kuril that she has never really killed anyone.” The knife flashed by Fortitude’s cheek and stuck halfway into the wooden frame of the door outside. “Not that she doesn’t have the ability to cause serious injuries.”

Blade nodded and went to retrieve the knife we got from the pony that threw it into my ribcage.

“I know the type just from the description, I would like to say that Blade cannot rely on her special talents too heavily.” Tilting her head at Ryu, Blade shifted her ears in a sign that she was paying attention to him quite well at this moment as she took a seat again. “Dodgy can beat special talents through sheer determination. He’s good with knives, spears, clubs, swords, just about any weapon you can name and his paws alone are dangerous. He will match you blow for blow and will surpass you with willpower and grit. He’ll take injuries if he can deal much worse ones to you, he doesn’t go down and he fights as well as I do. I’m not upset that I wasn’t told about Blade’s past, Dodgy is a failed assassin too. He refuses to harm women and children.”

“Blade is being an actual sushi chef thanks to the great witch Kuril La Perm who runs a restaurant in Airship Mauled, never met a witch nicer that can cook food as good as her.” Hm, Fortitude knows a friendly witch? I’d trust the witch if he said she was alright, maybe she could get some blood back in me or at least make my life seem more realistic beyond my fur and bones routine. “Unfortunately the great witch has fallen on hard times and is quite sad because of what happened to her daughter…. I think she also misses Blade greatly.”

I watched as Blade looked at the table and saw the hint of tears at the corners of her eyes, Ryu stared at her for a moment and then nodded about something. I think I just missed something there, but what it was I couldn’t say.

“This witch sounds like someone special.” Ryu muttered, he always seemed or sounded so serious despite him being decent with handling children.

“Maybe she’s the witch’s special some pony.” The filly called Ducky squeaked out as she came up to the table. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a good witch in the world!”

“Kuril is one of the few good ones, she is currently a very sad one though. My brother and I hope to change that, maybe with Skelly’s help!” It was so nice to be included in things Fortitude, I responded with a nod.

“Odd-chan, did you need something?” Silk was immediately acting as a guardian and mother for the duck colored filly as soon as she showed her face.

“Yes Okaasan Silk-chan, but I liked to be called Ducky!” The filly flapped her wings happily. “Odd Duck may be my name, but you know I prefer Ducky! If you have to, call me Ducky-chan.”

“Oh how silly of me to forget Ducky-chan.” The spider pony moved over to crouch down next to Ducky. “Now what did you need of me?”

“We’re thirsty… it’s going to be a really warm day today Okaasan!” Ducky nuzzled against the fur of the large spider ponies belly. Silk just patted the fillies head and then started to go about getting some chilled juice boxes out.

“She’s always been good with children once they get over her appearance.” Ryu said tonelessly, he looked at Blade and then at Silk. Was he drawing a comparison of his own life from her?

“We can see that.” Fortitude stated as he watched the spider poked several straws into various juice boxes and Ducky was happily sipping away at one already.

Silk stopped and placed a juice box before Blade with an amused smile as the mare licked at her fangs and took to the juice box with fervor. I noted Blade had eaten a lot of food last night, she didn’t seem to be eating too well before that.

Silk carried the rest of the juice boxes outside and the second they saw her with a tray of juice boxes, the little fillies and colts all started to gather around her and waited patiently for their drinks as she hoofed them out.

After she was done, Silk came back and sat down next to the table.

“I do good work here, but it can be so tiring with so many energetic and rambunctious little imps.” Having said that Silk received a surprise when Ducky popped up on her back.

“We’re not imps, we’re ponies and your pretty no matter what anyone says Okaasan!” Picking up Ducky, Silk held the filly close as she sucked at the straw of her juice box. Silk tickled Ducky’s tummy and she giggled before asking a question. “What were all of you grown-ups talking about?”

“Mr. Gruff might be visiting more often.” Silk stated calmly.

“Mr. Ryu is going away for a while again isn’t he?” Ducky looked up at Silk who shifted a bit and tried to look the child in the eyes. “He got really hurt the last time he did this… but you helped him Okaasan!”

“Yes, but I have good reason to and if I can come back… then I will.” That was a bit blunt for a child, but at least Ryu wasn’t sugar coating it.

“You better come back and make Okaasan happy Otousan!” Ducky waved a curled hoof at Ryu and he chuckled dryly while shaking his head.

“I don’t think I would do anything else but that when I come back.” He set his gaze on Blade and she stared into his eyes with the same kind of steel he had going for him. “It might take a while, but I will come back one way or another.”

“Yeah, Ryu-kun will be fine… run along now.” Silk placed Ducky on the floor and shooed her out the door to play with the other foals. “Ducky reminded me of patching you up after that particularly bad fight. Thirty armed beings, all carrying crossbows, you beat every single one of them to a delicious looking bloody pulp and I had to nurse you back to health since you have problems with going to the hospital. At least my webs work really well as bandages…”

“This might not be lethal, only time consuming.” Ryu stared into Silk’s eyes. “It will be the time that we could have spent together in each other’s comfort Silk-chan, maybe years.”

“You’d actually take comfort in me for years?” In answer to Silk’s question, Ryu stood up and made his way over to her to wrap his scaled hooves tightly around her.

“Yes. The other things I need to do are simple enough. I need to contact the yakuza and set things up to protect Silk-chan and the orphanage. I have to make sure Canter Dojo will remain uncontested once I leave the area and I have much to prepare in that general vein.” Pulling away from the spider pony, Ryu turned to us with a grim look on his face. “Do you have any idea of how to get me out of Neighpon safely? That knife is of ninja make, he or she will want it back soon enough. If the tengu mafia along with the other spirits and crime families are going to be involved, then we need a fast and easy way to get out without being assaulted. They will try to keep me locked within my territory and won’t let me leave.”

Blade wilted, she didn’t have a clue about how to do that. I poked Fortitude and made a bowl shaped gesture with my hooves and made several rowing movements.

“I am knowing that we arrived here with magical Viking gondola Skelly, why are you… oh. We already have an idea on how you are getting out of Neighpon, we can use the Mists of Travel On.” At Fortitude mentioning our magical mode of transportation, Blade perked up immeasurably. “It is taking you instantly to where you are needing to be the most depending on its passengers! If we are needed elsewhere more than Neighpon, it will get Ryu out without a problem.”

“Then it is settled. I will start contacting the organization, get in touch with Dodgy Gruff, maybe contact the local government to warn them of… issues… and I’ll have my lawyers ready to block any insurgent efforts.” Standing up Ryu made his way for the door. “Silk-chan… do you wish to assist me with my endeavors to get ready?”

“Of course Ryu-kun!” Silk followed after Ryu.

Author's Note

This won't end in disaster.

Chapter forty-eight, Necessary Notification: Shichi.

-Neighpon, Backstreets of Canter Dojo, Flamberge-

So here I was being led by a kitsune to find a sturdy shield for my brother while carrying a sack load of kappa coins over my shoulder.

“Dragons are really quite lazy, we’re quite dumb and I don’t see why you would be interested in anyone like me!” I was trying to warn Sweetcakes off pursuing me, you can guess how well that was going by what she said next.

“Laziness I don’t mind, you don’t seem that dumb to me, love you already.” She rubbed up against me like a cat and then Sweetcakes led me down an alleyway, I moved away from her slightly and was worried about the sanctity of my body with the affectionate gestures her three tails kept giving me. “You want me to stop, propose an unwinnable challenge, otherwise I won’t.”

“Okay I propose a word challenge, if you lose you won’t be able to talk for three hours!” I had an idea and it was cruel to use that word, mostly cruel to me because it was hard to say and it was one of the things Cheerilee praised me on looking up and remembering. It was a word that would be Sweetcakes bane for the next three hours. “If I can say a word that you can’t possible speak then I win!”

“That sounds too easy. Where is the challenge I seek? I accept your terms.” Sweetcakes would come to regret that, we stopped for a moment as she raised a brow to me and I cleared my throat with a grin.

“The word that you can’t say is this, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia!” My toothy grin was in full force. Cheerilee was correct in saying that a good education is very important, and to think I had doubted her somewhat. “Would you like to know what it means?! It’s an actual word!”

The vixens jaw just dropped and her tails slapped against the ground with a thunderous force that left three foot wide craters were they landed. She just stood there wide eyed like a reindeer with a flashlight shined in their face on dark evening. Eventually her ears wilted too and I let off a small chuckle.

Sweetcakes went to open her mouth and then quickly shut it with a look of understanding on her face, she nodded at me. Three hours starting from now she couldn’t say a single word.

“You look so surprised that I know a word with more than seven syllables!” I couldn’t help smiling as I said this, she glared at me and held her tongue. She was taking the bet seriously, at the very least she was an honorable vixen and that was a good trait to have. “It’s an ironic word that means fear of long words!”

Sweetcakes gave me a flat look for a second before slamming all three of her tails and both her front paws to her face.

“Right, now back to showing me where this black market place we’re going to is?!” Right now I could care less that I upset her, she had been so haughty about the challenge that I knocked her straight through an entire ladder and not just a few pegs.

Makes me wonder if Skelly would have lost her bottom jaw… how do her bones stay in order anyway? Skelly was just plain weird and I wasn’t going to think too hard about it.

Sweetcakes motioned with her tail at me and I followed her down the alleyway and through narrow twisting and turning streets, we soon came to a stop at a place that looked like a restaurant.

Sweetcakes opened the door and stood in the doorway, I just followed closely behind her and looked inside.

“Hello and welcome to ‘The Maneki-Neko’, how can we help you today sir and ma’am?” It looked like a small restaurant establishment with very few seats and it even smelled like a restaurant… could Sweetcakes have just led me here for a date? No… she was pretty adamant about this being a place to get black market stuff before I turned her all quiet.

“Do you have any special inventory?!” Looking about, I saw that there was only a pegasus mare and an abyssinian here. “I’m looking for something unusual and I’ve been informed by my acquaintance that you might be the ones to talk to about acquiring odd things.”

“We might have just the thing sir. I am Bengal and that is my partner Hawker, she’s the one you’ll want to talk to about our ‘special’ inventory.” The abyssinian was male, orange and black spots and looked like a chef, the way he clasped his paws together and smiled sent a shiver down my spine. His eyes were barely open and I couldn’t see what color they were, but I knew they were looking at me. “Given the fat sack of loot over your shoulder, you must be here for our Cat and Hawk services.”

“We’re as much an ‘antique’ store as we are a restaurant.” The pegasus mare looked more like a business specialist than a cook, she had her red hair done up in a bun, her yellow fur was almost glowing pristinely and her sharp cold ice blue eyes tried to stare me down. She was also wearing one of those neat robes that both men and women wore around Neighpon. “What exactly are you in the business of buying? I can see that you have an idea of what kind of pay to give us up front, we do work a lot faster for some solid cash up front and our services are exquisite.”

The mare eyed my sack of coins still slung over my shoulder as I and Sweetcakes finally entered the establishment and took a seat.

“What’s the sturdiest shield you can get on short notice that is big and can survive a lot of punishment?!” After posing the question, I watched as the mare leaned back and crossed her hooves. She tilted her head left and right. “It doesn’t matter how heavy it is, my brother can almost match a sumo wrestler in stature and smell! I’m just doing a little shopping!”

“Now there’s a good stumper my obscenely loud friend, it’s not often we get requests for shields. Neighpon warriors prefer asking for rare armor and weapons from other countries or somewhere within this one, but shields are quite a rarity around here because they aren’t in high demand. At least that means it’ll be within your budget, goodness knows we should be giving you something extra if you’re just going to dump all this money on us.” Bengal seemed to notice and then stare at the blade at my hip with curiosity. “While Hawker’s busy thinking, would you like some food on the house? Afterwards I want a spar with you to see what you’re weapon is like.”

“Sure, a spar sounds nice, Neighpon has some really interesting warriors like that Blur Step guy!" I took notice when Bengal sat up a little straighter. "I want to see how you compare to him!”

“You know Blur?” After nodding to Bengal, he hummed. “What’s your name stranger?”

“I am Flamberge the fiercely flammable! It is also joked that I'm Flamberge the obnoxiously loud because I can only control the volume of my voice sometimes.” Looking to my side, Bengal pointed to the silent kitsune sitting next to me. “She’s Sweetcakes Crumble Tail, she’s being quiet because she lost a bet to me!”

“She did? It is not often that someone is able to outfox a kitsune, especially not one of the Tail’s brood and the Troublemaker of Neighpon at that!” He let out a laugh and Sweetcakes made a pouting face directed at the cat, he then started working on some food for us. “Take a seat, it’ll be a while before I finish cooking and Hawker has an idea of what to give you. I like you, so she won’t skimp on the quality if we have anything worthy of purchase... and we usually do.”

“I need to send some messages.” Hawker huffed loudly and flew into the back room.

“Oh don’t mind her, business has been a bit slow and she actually loves making a sale.” As Bengal continued to work, we sat there and watched as he worked. “We make quite a tidy profit on what we do here. So how did you meet Blur?”

“Well I arrived in Neighpon not too long ago, went to these training grounds and he just attacked me from out of nowhere after I watched him slice a straw dummy into eight pieces!” The guy was fast, faster than any pony I’ve ever seen and the way he draws his weapon was almost impossible to follow. “I blocked his first strike and we went from there to sparring, having lunch and then him getting drunk.”

“You actually blocked him?!” Bengal seemed utterly surprised, it wasn’t like it was that hard to do right? “That, my good sir, is one of the most impressive things you can do to earn some attention around here. No wonder Blur sang your praises. You reacted preemptively to his infamous split second attack, emphasis on the split if he wants to cleave you in two. I can tell already that our spar is going to be far more interesting than I first thought when I asked.”

-Canter Dojo Orphanage, Fortitude-

So Silk and Ryu just left three strangers with all their orphanage children… should we stay and watch the foals or do we play tourists? We also needed to find Flamberge, even I was beginning to worry about him… he has yet to even set anything on fire since we got here.

I am not exactly being child safe due to my size. Skelly is possibly more child friendly and Blade… she looked rather grumpy and sad. I am thinking that Blade shouldn’t be left alone with the children at this moment in time.

“Are we watching the children?” I got a look from both Skelly and Blade, I don’t think they knew the first thing about children.

Skelly looked to Blade and held up a hoof, then shrugged it. Blade’s response was to shake a hoof lazily at her and then they turned back to me and nodded. They are both getting very good at holding silent conversations with one another, I didn’t understand any of that.

I stood up and went outside to watch the children play, nothing would happen to them on our watch. Skelly and Blade came out with me and sat next to each other seeming to have entered a conversation with various hoof gestures being made.

Maybe now would be a good time to teach Skelly how to read a little?

-Neighpon Streets, Ryu-

“Didn’t we just leave them alone with our little terrors?” Grunting at Silk’s question, I’m sure our new friends could take care of themselves.

I turned the corner and rolled my eyes at what I saw.

“There he is, let’s get him!” Three griffons approaching me for a fight, didn’t I once break all the legs on one of them? They were about five feet away when their wings suddenly stopped working, they skidded to a complete stop.

They were looking wide eyed at who was behind me, Silk just turned the corner and smiled at them.

“Right sorry to bother you, we’ll just be going the other way… um… can you stop her?” The griffon turned his eyes from looking off to the side to me and gave me a pleading look, I saw that one of the griffons was slowly being cocooned by Silk.

“Silk-chan, I think they get the point.” It paid a lot for me to be stern with her, she just smiled cutely as she held the struggling griffon. “We have to meet with my contacts and then find out where Dodgy is at this time, we have no time for you to play with them.”

“Fine… no traumatizing some punks into submission.” Silk tossed the griffon over her shoulder and onto the street.

We passed by the other two griffons who went to help the third out and just walked onwards ignoring their presence. We were at the west side entertainment district of Canter Dojo and we’d soon meet our contact, I spotted said pony swiftly.

“Well if it isn’t Ryu, out doing some wandering around and having fun with your giant spider friend?” Staring the pony down, I leaned forward and he leaned back.

“Business, I’m leaving Canter Dojo for an indeterminate amount of time and I need to set up things for my absence. I’m going to talk to my lawyers later today and you better tell everyone to be ready for a riot.” Lifting the pony up by his throat, I glared into his eyes. “Now repeat to me, what did I just tell you to do?”

“Gather the boys, keep the peace and make sure that word doesn’t spread about you flying for a long time and stop any possible coup that might get started.” He looked to Silk who crossed her upper torso's limbs and cleared her throat. “Also we’ll be protecting yours while you’re gone boss.”

“Good, I’ll be talking to the government later to given them an early warning, after that I’m going over what I want to happen with my lawyers. If I come back to a mess and you didn’t spread the word to hold up Canter Dojo while I’m gone, a lot of people are going to be in traction for years when I get back.” I dropped the stallion, he quivered and nodded. I don’t make threats, just promises. “Now where’s Dodgy?”

“Dodgy Gruff? The nut is looking into some crazy armored guy called Dispel, the guy wields a large sword and got the ogres riled up. The news is that the guy was tough enough to survive giving one of the ogres a paper cut and the horrible beating he got from several kanabo afterwards.” The stallion leaned closer to me. “Heard the guy walked away from that encounter spouting off about destroying all that is unholy, he works for some nutcase organization that’s out to slay all the gods and he’s seeking to slay things he considers unholy abominations. The Tail clan head said that one of said things he is currently sniffing around after is our lovely Silk-chan here. Dodgy is following him and looking to put the armored idiot out of everyone’s misery, I think Mad Mutt was last seen in the south side shopping and pachinko district of Canter Dojo boss.”

“I’ll deal with this Dispel personally before I leave Silk-chan. No one goes after those I care about without severe repercussions.” This was one of my better guys and he knew his stuff, I trusted him implicitly because we both joined the Yakuza at the same time. “Anything of note on the monetary front brother?”

“All things are running properly when it comes to money boss, we’re also still making it entirely unhealthy to run a slave market anywhere near Canter Dojo or most of Neighpon for that matter.” The pony smiled brightly and nodded to me. “Still some try herds out there, but they are absolutely steering clear of our turf bro.”

“They better continue with that trend or else they will be getting a visit from me.” My pony brother nodded and I turned to head towards the south side to find Dodgy.

Chapter forty-eight, Necessary Notification: Hachi.

-Neighpon, Canter Dojo South Shopping District, Ryu-

It didn’t take us long to find my old friend Dodgy Gruff… he just also happens to be a constant on and off again enemy for me. Either he wants to kill me or he just can’t actually commit to that idea of me being dead and wants me to stick around as one of the Yakuza’s most infamous beings in recent history.

It seems like the latter most of the time, because he would have otherwise killed me by now if he was serious about wanting me to die. He’s almost managed to succeed on at least seven different occasions and got it into his head that his paws were the only thing I should die to.

Currently we were witnessing a common sight in Canter Dojo, a diamond dog with wolf like features and a suit delivering a beating to someone that only looks tougher.

The scruffy gray furred guy that wears an eye patch over his right eye was definitely Dodgy Gruff. The minotaur he was fighting seemed to charge forward a lot, but he wasn’t hitting anything thanks to Dodgy slipping around his bull rushing attacks smoothly as if he was made of greased lightning.

The minotaur kept receiving a flurry of paw strikes to his kidneys and spine after each charge and Dodgy was delivering these blows while looking entirely bored with the situation and as if the minotaur wasn’t worth half the effort he was putting into this scuffle.

“Hey Mad Mutt, we need to talk!” At my shout, Dodgy looked away from his opponent and ducked under the fist coming for his head without even seeing it coming.

He then launched a lazy looking right backhanded uppercut into the minotaur’s jaw staggering him and even knocked a few teeth loose, even as he did this he was still focused on me and not his opponent.

“Is it really time again for a real fight?!” Dodgy asked excitedly as his tail swished back and forth, one should never underestimate him because he’s a diamond dog. He’s likely the smartest male diamond dog on the planet, didn’t know anyone else who could fight or run cabaret clubs like him. “Or is this just one of your boring business calls? If so we can discuss things later, I’m kind of busy at the moment!”

Dodgy ducked under the double fisted hammer blow coming for the back of his skull and swung his limbs out and backwards to lodge both his elbows into the minotaur’s kidneys. This made the dumb animal back off from him while wincing.

A minotaur who don’t notice that they are fighting someone well above their level in the great scheme of things has to be as dumb as can be. If they happened to be drunk, then it was close to earning them an award in idiocy for picking a fight with the Mad Mutt of Canter Dojo.

Dodgy was reading the minotaur movements perfectly and he had a wiry build for a diamond dog, but that only tended to fool most people from outside of Neighpon. The people who lived here however? I looked to all the average citizens standing around watching the fight in progress and they were cheering on Mad Mutt.

“You’re going to get a fight out of me one way or another Dodgy, does it really matter if its business or not?” I asked solidly.

“Kick his ass Doggy-kun!” Giving Silk-chan a flat look, I sighed and turned back to him as the minotaur repositioned himself roared and charged towards his side horns first.

Dodgy just grunted at Silk-chan calling him Doggy again, then rolled sideways through the minotaur’s legs and the minotaur, who didn’t immediately arrest his momentum, turned his head after Dodgy.

The minotaur’s right horn slammed into a brick wall, soon to be followed by the rest of his body in a painful looking display that cracked the guy’s horn. Falling onto his back, the minotaur groaned and slowly tried to get up.

Dodgy performed a windmill, did a quick twirl on his head, leapt up onto his feet and wagged his rear end at the minotaur who dazedly grunted angrily at him.

“Look, just finish him off and stop playing with him Dodgy!” I thought the display Dodgy was putting on was just plain rude, of course what I just said was going to turn the slow pummeling in progress immediately into rather a brutal takedown.

“He’s not playing with me, all I need to do is get one good hit in!” I’m sure you do, if you weren’t all talk and just stopped getting up off the ground to address me. It was too late for the minotaur anyway.

“Thanks for the distraction, how many baseball bats do you see? Well you’ll be seeing ‘four’!” Turning to the sound of Dodgy’s voice, the minotaur received a vicious golf swing to the face.

The baseball bat that Dodgy pulled from out of nowhere wreaked havoc with that one blow that splattered blood everywhere. Broken nose, busted lips, both eyes blackened, likely a cracked skull and yet the bloodied minotaur was still weakly holding on to consciousness and reached upwards towards Dodgy with his left arm.

His staying awake was all for nothing, the minotaur should have just let things go and stayed down. He should have also held very still until Dodgy left the general area.

Dodgy took up the bat in his right paw and stepped onto the minotaur’s chest with his left foot while idly swinging the bat downwards towards a very vulnerable spot.

The minotaur’s mouth opened and attempted to let out a scream of pain, but none came before the bipedal bull passed out with a tiny squeak exiting his lips.

Dodgy just stepped off of the minotaur with his right foot and smiled as he continued to walk towards me with the blood covered bat over his shoulder.

“What you got this time Ryu-kun, another rickshaw chase through the streets? One of our buildings being threatened to be blown up by complete idiots? Someone not paying their debts and need to be roughed up a bit by some professional collection agents? Need to walk into another ambush? Whatever it is, provided that it’s deadly, I want in!” Dodgy was also in the running for the most well-spoken and polite male diamond dog, if he didn’t have a wild look in his eye and his spiked tail was wagging for some excitement. “Talk to me here, you wouldn’t seek me out unless it was very important.”

Getting into a row with a minotaur clearly wasn’t doing it for him and I usually dragged him into the best and deadliest situations one could think of for a professional thug like him.

Knife, sword, tonfa, baseball bat, you name it and he’s probably used it in a fight. If he hasn’t, expect him to show up to the next fight in a tutu after having gone through three ballet lessons, he’ll kick your ass with those lessons too.

I watched as the bat disappeared behind Dodgy’s back and didn’t question where he kept it, I just knew that he could deflect multiple crossbow bolts with a single flourish of it while being within ten feet of each crossbow from its current place.

If he entered a dangerous situation, he was always willing to bloody any male in the way of what he wanted. He never hurt women or children though and even had a soft spot for them.

“I’m leaving Neighpon for a while, don’t know how long until I get back… you’ll be in charge of everything.” I watched as his excitement died and he snorted in anger.

“Okay who talked you into whatever it is you’re going to do this time?” He wanted to get into a fight with Blade already and he didn’t even know she existed yet. “Also what is so important that Silk-chan looks almost sad? Is this going to be another box car derby episode?”

“Let’s tell you on the way to the orphanage, I left some… friends… in charge of it in the meantime.” I started to walk away, but out of the corner of my eye I could see Dodgy narrowing his own on me.

“You left some patsies alone with those little monsters so you could spend some quality time with Silk-chan didn’t you? Well we’re in the shopping district, so buy me some booze and food while we’re here, then you’ll absolutely give me a worthy fight and maybe then I’ll even begin considering looking after things while you’re gone.” Dodgy clenched a paw at me. “You run the freaking circus that is Canter Dojo, so I also get a chance to maul the person that talked you into leaving me high and dry for who knows how long with it!”

“Exactly what I thought you’d want, except for the alcohol.” I swear this guy was always a problem to deal with when he was calm, he was worse when he was angry and bizarre when he was drunk.

“Yeah, well, I’m in the mood to drink my face red with this kind of news and I know for a fact that you don’t want me drinking around the children or Silk-chan and I will respect that. In that vein, I’m going to get my drinking in now before you cut me off with business.” Dodgy obviously knew what I wanted of him, there were very few people quite like him that I would trust my backside to. “I don’t know how good I will be watching out for an orphanage, but I guess with her eight legs that Silk-chan will be doing all the real legwork there and can depend on me for help whenever she needs it.”

“Thank you Doggy-kun!” At Silk’s words he crossed his paws and growled. “Oh come on, the children like their uncle Doggy-kun.”

“Stop calling me that!” He was angry, but he never struck woman unless they could fight and were willing to do so, he’d definitely fight Blade to his fullest. Here he was just more bark than bite, mostly because Silk-chan would never outright attack him. “You going to warn the local government about a likely shift in power.”

“Yes.” There were a few times when I wouldn’t, but this was one of those times it was more prudent to warn the government of problems. “I’ll also be conversing with my lawyers, already told the yakuza that I’m going to be leaving Neighpon.”

“Those sharks? Yeah I can see why you would need to chat with them, let me join you when you do.” Dodgy was smart to be there when I eventually told them what I wanted done. He’ll enforce exactly what I wanted to happen and they won’t be able to tell him what I might have said for him or anyone else to do. “I’ll straighten them out if they get too big for their stations.”

My lawyers weren’t turncoats or idiots, but they would try to slip something by me every now and then. It was all part of the organized crime going on around here, things seemed so peaceful since I was walking down this street. One could be the next street over and would be currently getting mugged right about now.

I’ve stopped plenty from picking on the weak and downtrodden around here and yet it still happens, there were some things in the world that would be constants. However there were also some things that needed to be done and this Princess Luna couldn’t leave the moon without the stars that will aid in her escape.

Blade and I would have to convince two others to upend their lives and join us in helping her escape.

I would have said no, but there was something very compelling about helping an actual princess. Probably wouldn’t even meet her face to face, she wouldn’t even likely know what we’d do for her or what we gave up to do it.

When I come back, I’ll be able to tell the children a good bedtime story about this and would continue to keep the darker side of my life out of theirs to the best of my ability.

I bought Dodgy a bottle of whiskey, Silk-chan and I had some snacks while he ate an entire three course meal of sushi and then we set off towards the offices. We told him about running into a few strangers the other day in the meantime.

“So Separate Cloth sent a bunch of poor pony thugs after you and then tried to shank you in the back from above… I’d rather do it in the chest and look you in the eyes when I get around to it.” At least Dodgy was honest about that, no sneak attacks from him. “Then you met a skeleton that somehow hides her appearance during the day that took the blow for you, a yak that smells so horrible he could peel paint and can even control that smell to a certain degree, then there’s this thestral that’s been looking for you but has been getting blocked by just about everyone and their obachan.”

“I haven’t tried to block anyone recently sonny!” A mare with a conical hat crowed out, she was playing shogi and waved a fishing rod in Dodgy’s direction. “Even went fishing with a dragon the other day.”

“Sorry lady.” Dodgy muttered to the mare.

“It is okay, Ryu-kun, Silk-chan and you are all good for this province, especially you when you deal with those punks! It doesn’t matter that your Yakuza, you’re actually doing your job!” The mare chuckled and went back to her game. “Hey, stop cheating!”

“Yes, that about sums it up, I’m intrigued about why some people don’t want me to leave though. I know why a lot of good people like Silk-chan here wouldn’t want me to leave, but some of the bad ones have been intercepting that thestral for quite a while until their friends arrived to save them from nearly being taken out by a hit ninja.” That’s one of the reasons I want to go. “It’s disturbing how much effort was put into stopping the thestral trying to find me. Given that they are mute, it’s surprising how fast word spread about what they are here for and the reaction to it.”

I did want to find out why they were trying to intercept Blade-san and keep her away from me. From the way she wrote down the description of every being in each interception, the Tengu mafia, several ninja clans, other yakuza, random yokai, my own yakuza and quite a few miscellaneous are quite dead set on me not going with her to fulfill this destiny thing.

If they had simply let her come to me, then I might have immediately said no. That they went to so much effort to try and actually kill her… that’s why I agreed. There was something fishy going on around Canter Dojo and I’m going to have Dodgy look into it, he’s survived worse than the possible coming storm that me leaving will cause.

“Be on the lookout for suspicious activity Dodgy, there are some strange movements around Canter Dojo lately and when I leave you’re going to need to be quite sharp.” I wanted him to know this as a fact.

He nodded with a frown on his face and Silk gently cuddled into me.

Author's Note

Let's see fourth of July party that made me sleep for an entire day, there's a party tomorrow that may mess my body up even worse...

So I'm going to say sorry I've been too busy to write much as of late.

Tomorrow is going to be a mountain of fun for me... especially when I'll end up sleeping another day away after that.

Chapter forty-eight, Necessary Notification: Kyuu.

-Canter Dojo Orphanage, Blade-

I threw myself at Silk’s many hooves and begged for her to go back to what she does best with my eyes.

I looked like a complete mess and the children took no prisoners when it came to hoof painting.

Silk patted me on the head with a hoof as she cantered by me on her six legs with an insufferable grin threatening to split her face in half.

“Let me guess, she’s the one that talked you into leaving? Well I don’t know how much of a fight she could put up given it looks like she lost a coloring book war to the little rascals, but I’ve been surprised before.” Turning a glare to the diamond dog, I flicked the knife out and took it into my left hoof. “That shows skill at least, very in tune with her special talent. Not that that will help much if she’s entirely reliant on it. So now that we dropped off Silk-chan, let’s get to what I’m really here for.”

“Hey, it’s Uncle Doggy-kun!” The diamond dog groaned out angrily and just slapped a paw to his head, he then leaned down and glared at the ring leader of the orphanage children Odd Duck, better known as the ever affectionate Ducky.

That Ducky so easily called him ‘Doggy’ meant that she was unafraid of any repercussions involving what is obviously a hated nickname. The diamond dog didn’t look particularly aggressive towards Ducky, I just put the throwing knife away.

“How many times do I have to say it… its Dodgy!” This dodgy guy seemed to be an angry person, yet Ducky just hugged him, gave him a kiss on the nose and then ran off. “Dumb kids… why don’t you teach them to dislike me like any sane person would?”

“Who said I was sane?” Ryu muttered back with a slight smile on his lips.

“Oh right, we’re living the dream… and that dream is a bit too violent for most children. Children which you’ve somehow managed to protect from everything ever aimed at them thus far.” The diamond dog narrowed his eyes on Ryu. “Speaking of violence… I need my fix Ryu, especially if you’re going to be aiming me at said things.”

“We’ll get to that in a moment Dodgy, let me introduce you to the people we left running our orphanage temporarily.” He pointed to me first, because I was certainly present and not dealing with those little monsters. “This is Blade Bright the thestral, or bat pony if you will, that came to ask me for help and I’m going to do it for various reasons. Blade this is Dodgy Gruff the Mad Mutt of the Canter Dojo sector.”

“Don’t honestly know why you’re willing to help her given all the trouble you get into when it comes to helping a pretty face.” Dodgy just glared at me and I glared right back while standing up. “In this case it’s a pretty scarred face, but at least she has spunk.”

“She’s functionally mute, so is Skeletal Noria or Skelly as they call her over there.” Ryu pointed to Skelly placing some snacks before several hungry mouths and this Dodgy guy sniffed the air.

“She smells nice, like a pile of bones. I wonder if she’s available…” The diamond dog seemed to have more of a pleasant attitude towards Skelly. Given that Skelly is a skeleton, this was totally understandable.

I doubt Skelly would like him nearly as much given that she really wouldn’t like him gnawing on her. I got Dodgy’s attention and shook my head no.

“Pity.” Dodgy grunted as he looked to Ryu. “Well?”

“There is one last person here, but there is also another one off wandering somewhere in Canter Dojo.” We followed Ryu until we saw Fortitude playing tug of war with the children, he was standing still and holding the rope and every child was trying to pull him over. “That over there is Fortitude.”

“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” Fortitude stated proudly, I don’t think he was ever going to get tired of saying that.

“Can someone find my nose, I can’t feel it anymore?! I think something just crawled up it and died in there. Normally I’d like a smell like that, but that… that was so indescribably horrible enough to make anyone sober in seconds.” He only took one sniff and that was all the warning Dodgy needed to never take another in Fortitude’s general direction. “I’m not kidding, he should bottle that up and sell it as smelling salts… or a cure for insomnia as it’ll knock you out as much as wake you up!”

“I am only being accurate to my name.” Fortitude said pleasantly as he gave a small tug on the rope and all the children in front of him went flying into the mud puddle with a large splash.

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as being too accurate.” Dodgy turned away with a paw rubbing his nose. “So last guy, what and where are they?”

“His name is Flamberge the fiercely flammable, a red dragon. He is somewhere in Canter Dojo just wandering around and we may need to locate him before I can leave.” Ryu watched as Dodgy snorted loudly and just made a motion towards himself. “Yes, we’ll fight, but can my new friends watch us? They need to know what our kind of fighting is like.”

“You just don’t want me to have an unfair advantage against the bat pony.” The way Dodgy spat the word ‘bat’ out made me bristle at him in resentment with my wings spread out. “Hey don’t get mad at me, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into here. Give me some time to rest after my fight with Ryu, win or lose, then we’ll see if you can actually give me a halfway decent fight afterwards. You don’t even look like you play baseball.”

I nodded at him.

If he wants a fight, he’ll get one!

-The Maneki-Neko, Flamberge-

“You’re in luck, we just happen to have found an item available that’ll suit your needs of durability and effectiveness… it’ll just take a bit to get here. It’s a high quality shield with special properties and your payment is quite sound for what you’re getting.” Hawker said as she flew in to see me slurping noodles next to Sweetcakes who was also slurping up noodles and humming in appreciation. “It seems Bengal has been keeping you entertained in my absence.”

“You call food entertainment? We haven’t even gotten to the sparring yet!” The mare glared at Bengal. “Oh come Hawker, let me have a little fun. I can swing a sword just as well as sell them you know! Cat and Hawk is getting some good money today, that and the silent vixen is willing to give us one of Separate Cloth’s swords for something of decent value.”

“Just about the only thing that Separate Cloth has that is of quality and I don’t mind dealing in stolen equipment, but you didn’t tell me what she wants in return for it...” Hawker was a keen looking pegasus mare, not at all what I come to expect from what most consider the flightiest ponies.

“To see me use it.” Bengal almost sounded comical talking about it, Hawker flew up to him and seemed completely unimpressed with him. “That and she wanted us to open business contacts with her father, plus one of the many spare Tengu fans we just happen to have lying around. Not like we can use them all personally and I’m guessing a bit of Tengu wind power would bolster her kitsune flames.”

Sweetcakes nodded.

“Fine, we’ll see about contracting with your father, no guarantees on that though. I’ll get your Tengu fan, we always have a few high quality fans in stock.” Hawker shot off once more.

I wondered what Fortitude’s new shield would look like, I wanted to know what the mentioned special properties were and would ask about it later.

All I knew was that Sweetcakes seemed to think highly of these two and I could kind of trust Sweetcakes to have my best interest in mind.

“Okay lets you and me duel!” The Abyssinian’s smiled and I did too as we both stepped outside. I didn’t mind that Sweetcakes finished off my food as I was about to get into a good sword fight.

-Streets outside the orphanage, Blade-

Ryu did a small hop and slapped all four of his hooves to the ground and rolled his head as a haze of orange built up around him.

“Always starting with the beast inside eh Ryu.” Dodgy stretched out and then put up his paws to swaying a bit to the left and right, why was he was faking being drunk? “Anything lying around is fair game Ryu.”

“Right.” Ryu narrowed his eyes as Dodgy darted forward, reaching back with his left hoof he picked up a thick plastic bin meant for carrying heavy loads of milk cartons and brought it around to narrowly miss Dodgy who leaned back slightly.

Dodgy pulled back his right paw and threw a wild hay maker, Ryu blocked with the plastic bin and then slammed it harshly across Dodgy’s face. Despite the sudden heavy blow, Dodgy only stumbled back a single step and wiped the blood off his nose, he then gained a feral smile.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about, make me feel pain Ryu!” It seemed to be what Dodgy was expecting as Ryu brought the heavy plastic bin around, he ducked under it stepped forward and bashed Ryu in the jaw with his left paw making him drop the bin. “I want to feel the burn of the Dragon of Canter Dojo!”

What followed the blow to Ryu’s jaw was a quick one two straight to the chest with Dodgy’s right and left paw and then he kicked upwards.

Ryu rolled backwards out of the way of the kick and came back with his right hoof blazing.

Dodgy caught the blow on his left arm. Despite the burning fur and the intense flames bursting from the hit, Dodgy didn’t retreat and tried to hit Ryu in the side of his neck with the heft of his right paw.

Ryu pressed forward and under the sideways chop to grab Dodgy by the midsection and Dodgy’s eye widened comically as Ryu lifted him to toss him backwards over his head.

Dodgy fell onto street on his back roughly, that throw looked quite painful given the way Dodgy grunted.

Ryu, having fallen onto his own back to perform the throw, rolled to his hooves and ignited his front two hooves. He quickly leapt for Dodgy’s prone form to try and bring them down on the Diamond Dog.

Dodgy quickly moved into a hoof or paw stand and spread his rear legs out wide to perform a counterclockwise spin that kicked both of Ryu’s incoming hooves off to the side.

When said hooves struck the ground they created craters and an impressive amount of fire flared outwards from the impact zone.

Ryu, having been knocked off balance by Dodgy’s upside down defensive spin, didn’t have the wherewithal to defend himself from Dodgy’s next move.

Dodgy pressed his left and right paws against the ground and immediately reversed his spin which slid him towards Ryu spinning clockwise. His rear paws slammed Ryu in the face two times and then on the third hit both his feet gripped Ryu’s face and bounced it off the pavement.

Having thrust Ryu’s face into the ground with his rear legs, which allowed him to get into a standing position quickly in the same motion, he swung around to his left swinging his right paw for Ryu.

Ryu was up and caught the paw with his left hoof, took one step forward and rammed his right hoof into Dodgy’s kidney making him bark out in pain and stumble back coughing.

“Still as strong as ever, eh Ryu.” Dodgy commented before he took on his drunk boxing pose again.

“You’re break dance fighting is most impressive.” After wiping at his bleeding nose, Ryu hopped and stomped his four hooves. His orange burning haze turned a wild blue.

Dodgy just took a solid hit to the kidney and he was still standing and was ready for more, what was he made of?! I can kind of understand Ryu being sturdy given he was half dragon and likely half earth pony, but Diamond Dogs in general weren’t nearly as tough as this Dodgy was.

“Just keep building that heat Ryu, I like a challenge!” Dodgy darted forward, seemed to trip, but went into a roll and launched both his rear legs towards Ryu who darted to the side and then concussed Dodgy with a flaming left hoof to the skull.

Dodgy turned his head with the blow and grinned, he had something in his left paw from his roll.

Ryu’s blow was quickly countered with a nearly empty beer bottle that instantly broke upon hitting Ryu’s face. Ryu’s eyes were splatted with the minute amount of alcohol that made him grunt in pain, it also made his blue haze become stronger.

Wiping his eyes for second as he dodged several rabid broken bottle swipes, I could see a different look in his eyes. They seemed to be a bit more reptilian than the soft and pony appearance they had a second ago.

Ryu stomped the ground and the broom next to him leapt up into the air into his waiting hooves as he went onto his hind legs, he caught the broken bottle on the shaft of the broom and then twisted it out of Dodgy’s grip.

Ryu brought the solid end of the broom across Dodgy’s chin and twirled it into the flames that burst out of his back to bring the now flaming bristles across Dodgy’s chest. This not only knocked Dodgy back, it lit him on fire.

Dodgy rolled across the ground twice and stood up slightly burnt, but he had a wild smile on his face as he pulled out a metal baseball bat from out of nowhere.

“You can only really wield wooden weapons when you’re calm!” Bringing the bat to his left side Dodgy charged forward. “Otherwise…”

Dodgy swung the bat and Ryu blocked with the now smoldering wooden shaft that broke in half upon impact.

It seemed Ryu was expecting the broom to break in half, he caught the next swing on the flaming bristled portion of the broom held in his right hoof.

Ryu jabbed Dodgy in the right shoulder, ribs and then delivered a low blow that made Dodgy yelp with the bit of broom held in his left hoof.

Dodgy growled and grunted as struggled to get back up from being knocked down.

“Kali sticks… you’ve been practicing some odd things Ryu.” Grunting, Dodgy took several steps back and took the bat into his left paw and pointed it at Ryu.

“I could say the same to you.” Ryu held the two burning halves of the broom at the ready.

Jaded might have had an absurd pain tolerance, but these guys were both godly with theirs.

I watched as they charge one another, the fight wasn’t over yet.

“It’s a good thing Ryu-kun talked with his lawyers about health insurance.” Silk smiled as she sat down and watched the diamond dog and longma lunge forward to violently rip into each other.

Author's Note

Aside from my upcoming date of birth, nothing of import is happening around here.

Though I still think a few light plumbing issues should have been fixed... I'm not going to be upset about it as long as I have a working toilet to use without half the house exploding in a fountain of water.

Chapter forty-eight, Necessary Notification: Jyuu.

-Destroyed street, two and a half hours later, Blade-

Before me stood Dodgy Gruff the Mad Mutt of Canter Dojo.

I could have sworn that Ryu had broken the bones in both his arms in three different places each, dislocated one of his legs and cut him up badly with a piece of sheet metal during their fight. Ryu even hit him with a sink and performed a back breaker wrestling move, and here he was ready to fight me not too long afterwards.

Said sheet metal was reduced to shreds and I could see bits of metal spiking up from the ground down the street behind me, the shredded metal was next to a large mass of broken porcelain chunks.

While Dodgy didn’t exactly win that fight, he didn’t lose it either. He did just as much damage to Ryu as Ryu had done to him and now… he was standing before me looking perfectly fine as if that fight hadn’t taken place and destroyed most of this street.

I looked down the street behind Dodgy and saw pockmarks along the stone walls and holes in the ground, a bathroom that had been ripped open and gutted for whatever was in there that could be used as a weapon after Ryu was put through a wall.

The least innocuous thing left of the fight was that there was an intact bicycle that was sticking halfway out of a wall. I had no idea how Dodgy managed to do this, but it was horrifying as it was intriguing that he managed to pierce a wall with a bicycle like it was a spear without damaging the bicycle at all.

I had an idea of what to expect from Ryu in a fight, all longma had a tendency to lean towards some form of martial arts the involved using their ability to light themselves ablaze and even fly on wings made purely of fire. They weren’t dragons though, a longma’s scales were a lot easier to damage.

I wasn’t facing a longma though.

I remember seeing Dodgy hit Ryu with his baseball bat at least three solid times, once including a full heavy swing to the skull while Ryu was dazed. There was also the use of a toilet, a folding chair, a table covered in fine china, a machete and a ping pong paddle with requisite ball.

No idea what Dodgy thought the paddle and ball would do aside from annoy Ryu greatly.

Miraculously the fine china wasn’t broken in the scuffle, even if the heavy metal table was broken in half over Ryu’s spine and weighed, by my estimates, at least one hundred pounds or more.

Dodgy was unpredictable maelstrom of destruction and looking to Ryu, who was mostly healed from their altercation, I could guess he could destroy all of Canter Dojo as a one stallion army by comparison.

Ryu was sitting calmly off to the side with Silk tending to his vaguely battered body with her gentle hooves rubbing up and down his back in small circles.

Ryu was giving me a grim look, Fortitude was frowning and Skelly seemed to have a blasé attitude about this coming fight.

I had seen what the so called Mad Mutt was capable of, thankfully I was fighting him in a place that no longer had weapons to randomly pick up and use against me aside from his baseball bat which survived the confrontation without a scratch on it.

Ryu didn’t look like any of those injuries had ever happened to him after a good meal and an hour or so to rest. The only reason I could think of that Ryu could consistently defeat Dodgy like he does is because he was stupidly resilient, he also healed incredibly fast from any injury after simply eating something.

Dodgy apparently had the same ability to recover, heck it might be even better than Ryu’s recovery rate. The only thing that seemed permanent was an excessive amount of damage to a single spot, such as his eye for instance.

I brought my attention back to Dodgy since he noisily cleared his throat, the wolf faced dog was smiling.

“I want you to show me your resolve to carry out this cockamamie plan of yours to become a star and then I’ll let you and Ryu go do your thing.” Dodgy was being quite straightforward with me after that display he and Ryu just put on for my benefit to see what I was getting myself into. “You’re not leaving Canter Dojo otherwise, because Ryu is stirring up a hornets nest and they are going to soon act against him leaving. So let’s get to it then shall we?”

I nodded as Dodgy took up a stance holding his curled up paws in front of him as he started to sway left and right. I flicked out the knife I hid away in my wing and took it up in my left hoof in a reversed grip and flared my wings.

He had an exceedingly eccentric and eclectic fighting style and with my meager fighting abilities… I was about to be mauled. I’d rather be crushed by an airship like Sekhet than fight a guy who smashed a toilet against his friends flank while giggling like a school girl.

I waited for him to attack me.

“I’m a gentle dog, for the most part, ladies first.” He offered while holding out his right paw towards me and gesturing to himself. He wasn’t even wincing in pain from his prior fight or all his freshly earned scars.

I charged forward with the kunai, the gardening tool turned ninja weapon, and then ducked back as he nearly hit me with hay maker coming from my right.

I leapt for his face to swing my blade, only for his right paw to wrap tightly around my leg and twisted it to his left in an attempt to get me to let go of my weapon. I kicked off the ground and twisted with his paw and launched my rears hooves into his crotch and landed the blow solidly.

Dodgy grunted and smirked at me, I stared at him wide eyed.

“Yeah, I recently finished a bottle of whisky that Ryu bought me earlier today because I’m a special delicate flower.” Dodgy snorted out and tightened his grip on my left leg and the right side of my face was bludgeoned with his left paw, that one blow alone dazed me, bloodied my nose and my right eye started to swell up.

I gritted my teeth and stayed conscious to spite him, my legs limply fell away from his body and he was holding me up by my left leg. He pulled back his left paw and thrust it into my forehead as he let go of my leg.

The blow sent my world spinning and lost grip on the kunai, reality and my sense of orientation. I might have even bounced off the street once in my tumble. I came to a stop after skidding on my belly and got a nasty street burn.

“Get up, we’re not done yet and I know for certain that you aren’t.” I struggled to my hooves rubbing at my chest and belly with my right hoof and I had claw marks in my left leg.

How was he still this strong? He wasn’t exactly bulky and his wiry frame certainly didn’t show it, I’m still quite sure he had broken bones not too long ago.

I looked around for the kunai as Dodgy started towards me with a lumbering gait right shoulder leading the way and picking up speed for a shoulder tackle.

Spotting the knife I rolled towards it, grabbed it and then jump and kicked off the wall into a backflip with a flap of my wings.

Dodgy busted the wall down and turned on a dime and pulled his bat out to swing it at me with his right paw.

I narrowly twisted out of the path of that blunt instrument of destruction using a second flap of my wings, I felt a breeze coming off the bat as it passed by my face and fumbled a bit before landing on my hooves breathing heavily.

I looked at the destroyed wall with wide eyes and then my gaze slowly slid to Dodgy as he quirked his eye at me.

“I didn’t get this strong by being lazy or letting people walk all over me, that’s for other diamond dogs that aren’t alpha material.” Seeing Dodgy throw Ryu through a wall and him busting down a wall personally under his own power were two different things. “I never cared about being the alpha of a pack, being an elite member of the yakuza is much better. More fighting.”

I dove forward as he took a step towards me and lazily swung his bat at me, his other paw went high as if he expected me to fly up.

Instead I knocked his legs out from under him by sliding into him and then I was up and bucking him in the backside with both legs sending him rolling forward.

He came to a stop on his feet and turned towards me.

“So you do have some fight in you.” He chuckled before surging forward with incredible speed and swiped at me with his left paw.

I rolled under it raising my knife to stab at his limb, only it got deflected by the bat. I backed off when he tried to grab me.

I did something he wasn’t expecting. Leaping backwards, I flipped the knife back towards my right wing, this odd maneuver made him pause in confusion.

My right wing snapped forward and I twisted my body counter clockwise, using the force of my spin I launched the knife from my wing right into his left hip.

“Yeah, that’s going to sting a bit later, but death by kunai is unlikely.” Dodgy was not hobbled by a knife a quarter of the way into his hip, given his approach was quite fast. “It wasn’t even poisoned, I’m kind of disappointed about that. I give you a C plus for effort, you did surprise me somewhat with the fact that you can throw knives with your wings, but an injury like this doesn’t even register in my top one hundred most painful things to ever happen to me.”

I crouched down and swept my wings back and curled them up oddly. Keeping my gaze planted on him as he approached quickly.

Dodgy leapt forward raising his bat above his head to bring it down on me. I didn’t meet his leap I slung my wings forward and buffeted him with sharp bits of shredded metal.

He just noted that I was good at throwing knives with my wings, shredded pointy bits of metal was a close approximation and I did it without hurting the membrane of my wings.

He landed roughly and I got in close to rip the knife from his leg with my right hoof while he was still trying to regain his balance, I swiftly slashed him lightly across the chest and moved into his grab while tossing the knife at his right foot.

His foot moved out the way and his grab missed me, I had scrunched down and contorted my body tightly in front of him. I unwound right into him like a spiraling spring with my wings slashing into his fur and ramming into his chest to knock him down.

Having gotten on top of him I gripped his throat with my right hoof and started hammering his face with my left hoof. I was stopped when he caught one of my blows with his right paw, grabbed me by the throat with his left paw and then bodily lifted me off of him as he got onto his feet.

He punched me in the gut and I coughed out in agony, I leaned my head to the side slightly avoiding a straight and he tightened his vice like grip on my throat.

I kicked at his arm, with my rear hooves, that wasn’t working. My vision was beginning to fill with spots. I tried flapping my wings to pull out of his grip and throw him off balance.

He just grabbed my left wing and jerked it out of its socket with a single pull, tears streamed through my eyes and yet I refused to make a sound.

My scream was a devastating thing and I was trying to avoid hurting Fortitude, Ryu and Silk, I didn’t know if I could actually hurt Skelly’s hearing with my voice. It would also be a cheap way to attain victory against a diamond dog.

I just bit the wrist of his paw and grappled onto it with my front legs. Using the leverage I now had to swing my rear half around, I bashed him in the side of the head harshly making him release my throat.

I kicked off of him and got a good distance away before taking in several gulps of fresh air as I stared him down, he placed his bat across his shoulders and stared at me with a grin.

“Almost good enough… almost…” Dodgy took a step forward, but then he stopped and hummed. “Ryu… when did you say you were going to leave? For your information I’m calling this a tie that was entirely in my favor Blade-san, I’m calling this fight due to inbound trouble.”

I’ve seen what he could do and he wasn’t even going all out against me, he was warming up to it though and I really did not need to know what kind of breakdance moves he could use to rearrange my various body parts, there was also an obvious emphasis on the ‘break’ in breakdance.

“This evening at the soonest, but right now might be more prudent.” Ryu’s serious gaze trailed the rooftops around us. “Tengu mafia and mercenary ninjas on the nearby roofs, hired thugs and other yakuza coming at us ground level.”

“Oh Ryu-kun, you always bring me to the nicest parties… bet I can crack more heads than you can!” Dodgy looked excited for more fighting, was he always insatiable like this?! I pitied Ryu somewhat now. “So which way are you going and how quickly of a pace should we set? A running multi-faction fight with many opponents sounds just like old times.”

“Breakneck, towards the river and if you see a red dragon on the way, he’s an ally.” Ryu turned to Fortitude. “Get ready to defend yourself while on the move.”

Fortitude nodded seriously and Skelly took a hold of her axe as her eyes darted around. The yakuza and thugs coming at us in the street were coming from opposite directions.

While I had the chance, I put the kunai in my mouth and bit down. Taking my left wing in both my hooves, I jerked it back into place with a sickening cracking noise. After a few seconds of white hot inferno pouring through my body, the pain began ebbing away slowly.

Tengu were beings that are a cross between a griffon and a parrot, the winged flying parrots sometimes get confused with harpies by their general appearance alone. On the nearby rooftops these black feathered beings took to the air and then came flying down to us.

The distant ninja ponies just sat there silently watching and were sending the incoming tengu, thugs and yakuza very curious looks.

Author's Note

777,100...

I did not plan that.

Chapter forty-eight, Necessary Notification: Neighpon’s Star.

-Neighpon, Canter Dojo, destroyed street, Fortitude-

“You’re all in my territory… leave.” Ryu stated flatly, he didn’t seem particularly worried.

The large group of armed yakuza, the smaller group of unarmed thugs and the thirty or so large black feathered crow like visages that vaguely resembled parrots with wings didn’t seem all too worried about us either.

“What are you going to do if we don’t? We of the tengu mafia think it’s time for us to rise up.” The leader of this group seemed quite sure that he had the upper hoof or claw in this scenario. “First order of business is to destroy that unsightly orphanage, then we’ll place our headquarters right in that spot. So what are you going to do about it?”

“Dodgy, take care of the yakuza before they become a problem, they came here to mess with me and as such they are free game.” Ryu kept his eyes on the things known as tengu which were three feet larger than parrots were on average, he probably didn’t need to look back to see Dodgy’s feral grin. “Silk, you go with Blade, Fortitude and Skelly, all of you are to cut a path through the thugs and head towards the river. Don’t worry, I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”

“Just so you know, you just seriously pissed off Ryu.” Dodgy chuckled as he walked towards the slightly unnerved yakuza while waving back to the tengu with his right paw. “Good luck with hitting his berserker button and I’ll see you after the plastic surgery to tell you how stupid it was, even I’m not that crazy! So which Yakuza clan are you guys from and who should I send a message to about having so many idiots under their employ?”

Ryu hopped and stomped all four of his hooves against the street, a blue glow started up around him… which was unusual. Didn’t he always start out with an orange glow and then move to blue?

It was five seconds later that I found out why it was unusual, when Ryu fully ignited into a glowing white form with big wings of pure white flames. The heat he was giving off was starting to singe my fur, it was even powerful enough to begin melting the streets and the walls around him.

I don’t think Blade would have much trouble with helping him become a star, he already was one in a fairly literal manner. No Yak would be stupid enough to think they were strong enough to take ‘that’ on!

“You made a grave mistake threatening what is mine… you won’t be making another after today.” Ryu calmly stated, his form was covered in solid bright white flames with specks of blue flames where his eyes used to be, it hurt to even look at him.

I turned away and towards the thugs who all had their tails between their legs and were slowly backing away, old instincts I didn’t know I had kicked into high gear. Apparently I wasn’t the only one having an instinctive reaction, given Skelly, Blade and Silk also trampled the thugs in our efforts to escape Ryu.

“So beautiful….” Silk was looking back, her eyes were most likely watering from how painfully bright Ryu currently was. “Also more terrifying than I could ever be, I didn’t even know he could be that angry.”

“One day I’ll figure out how to fight him while he’s like that and it will be a glorious battle!” We turned to Dodgy who had two ponies pinned to the wall with his paws, while a third one wailed on him fruitlessly with a pair of tonfa. Dodgy kicked the guy in the face. “Stop that, it tickles! You guys go on ahead, you don’t need to see what is about to happen here.”

“My brother might be watching our boat, but if he isn’t then we might have problems with leaving in a timely manner.” I started to run in the direction of the river as the world exploded behind me, we slowed down and looked back to see one of the bipedal crow monsters beaks practically explode under the impact of hoof striking it.

One tengu swung his fan in Ryu’s directions and he went from a horrifying dragon shaped ball of bright fire, into an even larger dragon shaped ball of white fire.

The flying beings of the tengu mafia surrounding Ryu in the air just froze, whatever that one tengu just did with his fan made what was coming that much worse for them.

“Tengu are powerful beings, they control the skies and the air currents in a given region where they reside and their abilities are boosted by their fans. A pegasus would be hard pressed to beat them in a fight… as for Ryu-kun though…” Silk trailed off as we started hearing screams that abruptly cut off before they could get started as we left the area behind. As to whether it was coming from the ones dealing with Dodgy or Ryu, we couldn’t tell without being in Ryu’s currently terrifying presence. “I don’t think they have quite a good enough education to realize what using their powers over the wind on a being of fire would do, at least my children aren’t dumb enough to play with fire. Getting burned is not the worst that’ll happen to them by the time Ryu-kun is done, Dodgy was not… how do you say it… waxing poetic about them needing plastic surgery. Ryu-kun is quite kind and a fate worse than death, since he won’t kill them.”

Seeing Skelly and Blade look between one another, I think the sentiment was implicit in their gazes. Whoever Ryu attacks was going to wish they had perished. If someone hurt my brothers or someone I cared greatly about, I would do something quite similar.

“Have you seen this before?” I asked as we ran down a different street and ignored the large explosion in the sky, some beings stopped to stare at the sight whatever it was.

“No, but Dodgy described it to me once and that it was really hard to get him this mad, Ryu is such a gentle soul for someone who’s part of a crime syndicate. He’s never killed anyone, but he’s come pretty close quite a few times.” Silk was seeing it for the first time and didn’t seem to be scared of Ryu despite what was currently going on, she must truly love him. “Here I always thought I was the scary one in our relationship, because I have the kind of notoriety that comes with being a Jorogumo. I am now quite humbled by the reason why my boyfriend had little reason to fear me when we first met, I wasn’t exactly in a good place at the time…”

We were close to the bridge and I could see the boat from here, but my brother Flamberge was nowhere to be seen. We were about to cross the bridge when a familiar figure stopped us.

“Halt vile fiends, I just knew if I waited near the boat long enough that you’d appear before me and you bring the hideous spider monster too!” It was Dispel Grace the armored earth pony whose face we’ve never seen, but his gaudy armor and sword of overcompensation were quite familiar. “I see you are in league with a monstrous bat pony and… who is that vision of beauty? No matter she is obviously a part of your dark coven!”

Was he talking about Skelly? He obviously didn’t know who she really was and it wasn’t quite time for the sun to set.

Blade grabbed my attention with a waving hoof and gave me a curious look as she gestured to the armored figure in our way.

Skelly just glared at him, he did try to slay her soul out of existence and she obviously didn’t want to be slayed. Maybe she would want to be slain eventually in a manner that didn’t completely destroy her soul, but that was her choice and as her friend I would respect it whenever she decided to make it.

“He is with GODLESS despite having a god.” The armored stallion scoffed at my words and Blade immediately had a look of anger on her face. “We should not take him lightly, he is quite dangerous even if he isn’t too bright.”

“I said I’d get to that eventually by being holier than my god you heathen of a coven most dark as to conspire with skeletons and demonic hybrid ponies’ like that horrid spidery visage behind you!” He swung his sword outward and to the side with his right hoof. He clearly intended to block our path. “In any case I will be the holiest of holy ponies to help destroy all unsightly monsters like that one, along with every god in the world! GODLESS is the gathering ground for the power to do just that.”

After acquiring my attention again, Blade gave me a few gestures.

“Yes, he is very much a bigoted earth pony, he is also wanting to outright destroy Skelly’s soul.” I turned and moved forward in front of the girls. “I won’t let you do that to Skelly, because as the great goddess Sekhet has said many times, souls are sacred!”

“Not that of the monster behind you or any monster for that matter, they are a blight upon this world and I will cleanse them from it!” He raised his sword with both hooves and a light started building up the blade. “Not all souls deserve to continue on this mortal coil... and you are far too gone to convince otherwise. Have at thee!”

“Everyone move!” I lumbered to the left and rolled out of the way of the crescent of golden energy as it shot by me, everyone else easily avoided it and it sliced through three buildings before stopping.

“Don’t you realize that you could have hurt countless innocent people by doing that?!” Silk was shivering as she watched the buildings started to slowly fall inward and implode. “It’s a good thing it’s midday and the red light district doesn’t open until later this evening.”

“What cares a hollow hearted harlot like you?” Dispel was already charging up another attack, he has gotten a little faster since the last time I saw him. He was already in the midst of swinging it horizontally and aiming it for Silk on my right. Both Blade and Skelly had taken to the left side of the bridge. “Be gone from this world as I rend your soul to nothingness!”

Blade threw the knife in an effort to distract him, but it did nothing after bouncing off his armor. I didn’t have a way to do much to him and Skelly didn’t want to be too close to him with him giving off a golden glow like he currently was. He had become much more powerful over the last few days or so since I last saw him.

“No!” It was already too late for me to intercept him as the crescent beam flashed by me faster than before and straight towards Silk.

Five feet before it could hit Silk, a white corona blurred into existence and in the indistinct mass of white energy two hooves emerged to press against the deadly crescent. It was Ryu and his eyes were narrowed as he held his ground to protect Silk, he let out a scream and energy exploded from him in the direction of the bridge.

Dispel Grace almost didn’t avoid the beam of raw fire that ripped past him, turning back to Ryu I could see his fire dying down and he was gasping. He flopped to the ground and propped himself up on one shaky hoof.

“Ryu-kun!” Silk pulled Ryu into her embrace.

“I’m fine, just slightly drained… I don’t care who this guy is, he’s made an enemy of me and mine.” Ryu allowed himself to be held by Silk. “He will pay for attacking you Silk-chan!”

“Not if I destroy the both of you first!” Dispel was already building up to another beam. “Anybody who would protect a monster such as her will perish!”

“Silk-chan is not a monster, she is a person, one that I love very much.” Ryu was standing and he stood defiantly in front of Silk, I moved over to his side and stood with him as did both Skelly and Blade.

“Monster lovers the lot of you!” He swung the sword down for a vertical blast, only his sword stopped and the beam harmlessly fired straight up. “What the devilry?”

“Sorry honorable knight-san… it seems my fishing hook got caught up on your sword as I was casting my fishing line.” The pony behind Dispel had a quaint smile on her face, her pink robe and conical hat seemed fairly normal for a local. “Would you mind unhooking it please, so I can go about my business and you can go about yours?”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that the fishing pole wielding mare did that on purpose. Dispel unhooked the hook from the edge of his sword.

“Thank you kindly dear stranger for your forgiveness.” The mare nodded to him and trotted off.

“Of course ma’am, it was only an accident.” Maybe that’s what it was supposed to look like. Dispel was already charging up again and we still had little in the way of dealing with the issue that he was blocking our path and he would stay near the boat making it impossible for us to leave.

“What happened to the tengu, the thugs and the yakuza?” I asked because we were not about to get by Dispel so easily and could avoid his attacks endlessly… but that would destroy a lot of Canter Dojo’s buildings.

“They won’t be able to eat food in any other way than through a straw.” Ryu still looked weak, but he had in fact blocked that attack with his raw fury and fire. Even though he was quite sapped he still had a burning desire to fight to protect us and Silk. “Dodgy is now hunting ninja with pompoms and a bright orange sweater… don’t ask...”

“If there aren’t any more interruptions…” Dispel actually looked behind himself to make sure the mare really wandered off. “Take this!”

Dispel swung his sword roughly, the next crescent beam came for us. We were going to dodge, but then something got in the way of it that made us freeze up.

“Incoming!” Flamberge shouted as he dropped down from the air in front of us barely lifting a large black oval shield with a completely smooth rounded surface, he planted it in the ground and braced himself behind it.

The crescent beam struck the shield and it didn’t look like any pressure was placed on Flamberge before the crescent reversed its direction and went flying back the way it came at twice the speed.

Dispel’s own attack struck him with a thunderous force and he was launched for the horizon.

“I will not rest until I destroy…!” Dispel screamed as he flew away into the clouds.

“Huh… neat.” Flamberge muttered. “Here’s your new shield, now let’s go!”

“What’s the hurry?” I picked up the shield and we followed my brother to the boat and those leaving boarded it quickly.

Casting off, we started to disappear when a grumpy looking golden three tailed fox leapt into the boat with us.

Author's Note

If anyone hasn't noticed I've slowed down a lot, my recent birthday was great and I unfortunately became addicted to Dragon Quest Builders 2.

I also now have 'Bloodstained: ritual of the night' to contend with as well.

Rare Item Acquired via Cat and Hawk: Anti-magic shield, made of the same rare materials that the Storm Creatures have been seen using during their eventual attack on Canterlot.

Traveling Companion: Sweetcakes Crumble Tail of the Tail clan, annoyingly speaks in haiku and likes to make delicious neighpon sweets.

All this said... I'm going on hiatus for a while and I might not actually be able to finish the story within this year. I apologize for this interruption in a long winded story that does have an ending planned, getting to it will still be the problem.

Chapter forty-nine, Mountain and Molehills: Sand.

-???, Fortitude-

“Where are we now?” I asked curiously.

The mist took a few seconds to disappear and in that time some words were said by the three tailed fox glaring at my brother.

“You will not lose me. We will become friends in time. I am quite upset.” The fox definitely looked upset even as she relaxed with us. She also looked a lot like Sweetcakes, except she had three tails instead of six. “Magical this boat, strange wondrous powers it has, now we’re somewhere else.”

“Can you blame me for trying to ditch you?!” Flamberge seemed put off by the fact that the fox was traveling with us.

The fox in response just shook her head no, so she couldn’t actually blame my brother for trying to… why was my brother trying to ditch her in the first place?

“What happened to you Sweetcakes?” After Ryu said that I blinked at the fox.

“I found a passion, chasing a handsome dragon, with willful rationale.” Sweetcakes wagged her tails as she looked at my brother with hunger.

I think she is being quite crazy to go after Flamberge, my brother wasn’t exactly the most attractive dragon in the world.

“She gave up half her power to pursue your brother? Odd, but the significance is not lost on me that she is outside of Neighpon for the first time… I expect the world to be destroyed within a week.” Ryu’s dry commentary was followed by several noisy stomps.

We turned to the two silent mares as they pointed forward as the boat slid onto a beach with a mountain looming ominously over us.

We were surrounded by jagged rocks and it was quiet, Skelly was once more in her skeletal visage as we sat there. I looked at the large mountain wall before us, there was some signs of civilization thanks to the carved wing like motif and large spire the mountain had on it.

“Are we bedding down for the night? We have had a long day… doesn’t help that our sleeping hours are going to be messed up by all this traveling.” It was of some vague concern to me, all good Yaks needed sleep to keep up their strengths. With good sleep came good strength, plus I had a shiny new shield to wave around and practice holding and thrusting. “We can find out where we are tomorrow, Skelly can take up watch for a few hours as she doesn’t need sleep.”

They all agreed with that as we stepped out of the boat onto the beach.

Skelly grabbed my attention and made a few motions that I interpreted to mean that while she didn’t need to sleep she did actually like to do so given how long she went without it. She then took up her axe and looked about.

Ryu looked a little lost, he had not been very far from Canter Dojo before and he looked a little sad after he was seen off by his girlfriend Silk Tapestry.

Blade pulled a map from her near empty saddlebags to scrutinize it, she had picked up some supplies for herself at the orphanage.

Sweetcakes kept staring at my brother until her longing gaze eventually slid to the ocean, she stared out at the water as if she had never seen so much of it before.

Skelly stopped looking around curiously and then started helping me with the setup of our camp.

Flamberge picked up a fishing pole and started to fish, I am not liking meat too much and would prefer something more to my taste. I went into our supplies to get something to eat, everyone else had some roasted fish thanks to my brother.

I spent the rest of the night weighing my shield with my left and right hooves, it was a well-made and balanced defensive item with incredible might. A bit larger and heavier than I was used to, but I would make it work for me.

Ryu is knowing Cat and Hawk when Flamberge mentioned them, they do good work as a married couple.

For some reason the knowledge that they were married surprised my brother, it didn’t surprise Sweetcakes though.

The kitsune just rolled her eyes at Flamberge’s surprise, before pushing him over with her tails and then settled down on top of him comfortably despite his protests.

-The next day-

I had my new magic reflecting shield upon my back and looked about in the morning mists of the mountain’s beach we settled at last night. I turned to the groggy looking Blade.

“Are you having any idea where we are?” I knew Blade had been looking at a map with markings on it last, said markings had three locations and I had an idea as to what those were.

Blade nodded and pulled out her map, I looked at the location that was marked down on it. We were currently at Mount Aris? I looked up at the spire at the top of the mountain and looked back at Blade.

“It doesn’t look like the map.” My comment made Blade pointed at the map and made a circle motion. “Oh… we’re at the back of Mount Aris.”

Blade pointed at me and nodded, apparently we were somewhere she really needed to be.

“I am glad that we were capable of helping you get here.” We obviously saved her a great deal of time having to travel here. “It is fortuitous that Travel On thinks we need to be here the most at the moment, otherwise you would have had to travel quite a distance.”

She gave me a weak smile, I hoped friend Blade knew what she was getting herself into.

Looking away from Blade, and leaving her to her thoughts, I moved over to where Skelly and Sweetcakes were bouncing a colorful beach ball back and forth between themselves.

“Where did you find a beach ball?” I ignored the fact that my brother was fishing again and passed by Ryu silently contemplating the horizon like Sweetcakes had done last night.

“Lonely inflatable, it sat there whimsically, with fun to be had.” Sweetcakes hit the ball over to Skelly with a tail, she lazily bounced it right back and looked to be simply having fun.

“Um, excuse me… but that’s the beach ball me and my big sister play with, we leave it down here so my sister and I won’t lose it.” We all jerked and looked up at the little hippogriff that hovered overhead. He had greenish blue colored feathers from his head and tail. He rubbed nervously at his white fur with his claws. “Anyway… um… I’m Terramar, I don’t mind you playing with our ball as long as you leave it here. Who are all of you anyway?”

“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant! That is my brother Flamberge the Fiercely Flammable and our good friend Skelly the Superbly Spirited. We have another brother, but he is off doing something else.” I pointed out our three person Viking team first in turn, then I pointed out the others. “That is Ryu of Canter Dojo, Blade Bright of Airship Mauled and Sweetcakes is also from Canter Dojo, they are some good friends of ours.”

“Hey brother, ready for some… ooh are you making some new friends?” We turned to the water as a pony with a blue mane and pink fur popped up, she had strange looking ears. She seemed to be sporting fins as they stuck up out of the water behind her. “Hold on a second, I see something shiny!”

She immediately dove down in the direction my brother was fishing with her dolphin tail flopping down into the sea. I had quickly realized what she had seen, the elder of the two siblings seemed to be one of those repeatedly mentioned sea ponies that Jaded went on about.

“Flamberge reel in your pole!” I yelled at Flamberge, he did so quickly and his hook left the water before the sea pony could accidentally hurt herself on it. The sea pony just flopped onto the beach chasing after the fishing hook and seemed to be smiling at it.

“What’s that? It’s pretty!” This sea pony probably shouldn’t be left alone near sharp objects.

“It’s a fishing hook and it’s not a good idea for you to be near it.” Flamberge didn’t want to hurt the sea pony and kept the fishing pole well away from her.

“That’s my big sister Silver Stream, she’s a bit bubbly and that runs in the family on my mother’s side to a large degree.” Terramar sighed before he flew over and gave the sea pony a big hug, the sea pony welcomed this and nuzzled her little brother. “So see any sirens or mer-ponies lately sis?”

“Nope, and even if I did I’m not supposed to go near strangers because they could be dangerous... like sharks!” She released her brother and propped her finned hooves under her chin and smiled at us. “I still think sharks have pretty teeth though, but I probably shouldn’t let them be near my face… or my body for that matter. It’s a really bad idea to be near them if you have a cut or a small scrape. What’s it like to live on land, my brother has tried to explain it all to me and I still don’t understand most of it!”

“It’s nice at times and bad at others.” I can be assured in this knowledge, because it was the same as anywhere else.

“Huh… usually it’s nice around here and nothing bad happens to anyone. The hippogriffs are especially nice… my father is one and even gave birth to me on this beach!” Silver Stream confused me somewhat, didn’t she mean her mother gave birth to her on this beach?

“I wish I didn’t know that mom gave birth to me underwater...” Terramar muttered loudly and shivered.

“Yeah that was honest mistake, our mommy wanted to try what daddy had to go through with me and nobody could have expected him to be a hippogriff!” From the way Silver Stream acted with how she held onto her brother, it sounded like Terramar had a rather problematic birth. “Thank goodness Aunt Novo was there or I wouldn’t have a little brother to hug and love!”

“Um… what?!” Very eloquent Flamberge, though I wouldn’t have been that much better.

“I wonder what Dodgy is doing.” Ryu grumbled while crossing his hooves in front of himself.

-Neighpon Noodles, ???-

“Hello…” I looked upon the nine tailed red fox with a faint smile from beneath my conical straw hat. “Inari, running around as a pony today?”

“As any other day, this is who I am as a mortal.” I spoke verbatim and calmly. “Though I’m surprise that no one questions a fishing hook not being cut upon a blade of holy power without some… divine intervention.”

“Cute… any news today Inari-sama?” Good old Red, always straight to the point.

“Yes, actually. It seems the ninjas are being thrown at the Tengu Mafia today, they really shouldn’t have made a move on Ryu-kun’s territory before he left. If they were smart they would have waited until after he was gone, but they would have been less honorable to do so.” I chuckled dryly, the Tengu were always batting a thousand on the poor plans department. It wasn’t a sanctioned attack either, but the reprisal was going to be a lot worse than that failure of an attempt to muscle into Ryu’s territory. “Table for one please…”

“Of course, so who’s paying the ninja to attack the tengu mafia?” Red asked curiously.

“Did I stutter old friend? They are literally being thrown at the Tengu Mafia, Dodgy Gruff isn’t exactly being subtle with that cart load of tied up ninjas he’s dragging around.” We both started laughing as my dear friend sat down across from me. “He’s always such a card since that stick was removed from his backside and he was unleashed upon the poor, poor factions of Canter Dojo. Without Ryu to keep him entertained, he is quite frankly going to go nuts. I favor him just for the humor he brings into the lives of those around him.”

-Tengu Mafia Headquarters, Oi’baka Sector-

“So a bunch of our men went to try and take on 'The Dragon of Canter Dojo' and failed horribly… not only that but our territory has shrunk by half in the last few hours.” The tengu boss fanned himself with his war fan and glared at the broken cast covered tengu before him. He slapped his left claw against the desk, becoming angrier by the second. “Can someone please explain to me why our territory is currently being taken over… by one… single… mutt! He is just one Diamond Dog, how can you be losing to him so badly as to have half our territory pronounced as his?!”

“He’s really strong sir, I don’t know what to tell you otherwise aside from the fact that he’s throwing ninjas at us and they are taking us out of the air.” The generally seven foot tengu told the eight foot tengu with white and dark grey feathers.

“Are the ninja running guerilla tactics against us?” The boss asked. “If not, then how are we losing against them?”

“No the ninja aren’t attacking us, the Diamond Dog is literally just throwing them at…” A pony shaped body smashed through the nearby wall and collided with the reporting tengu’s skull knocking him down and out.

“We’re under…” The mafia boss tried to cry out before receiving two hooves in his beak by a bound and tied up kunoichi pony.

What followed was a ninja pony hitting him headfirst in the chest staggering him and then he was knocked down by a third pony body slamming into him sideways at his belly.

The mafia boss slowly rolled onto his chest and tried to push himself up, he was then hit with a sumo wrestling sized pony dressed in a ninja outfit. The mafia boss felt his spine crack under the pressure of the heavyset pony now on his back.

He just gave up on trying to get back up and stopped trying to make any sudden movements.

“I honestly don’t know how that one qualifies as a ninja, but I can work with it!” Dodgy shouted up to the mafia boss on the fifth floor from the street, hundreds of feet away from the building standing next to a wagon load of bound and gagged ninja ponies as the people of O’baka stared on in horror as Dodgy continued his one person assault against the entirety of the tengu mafia. “Paybacks is a wonderful cutie to me and I like to pay it with interest, especially with these government paid mercenaries! Say while you’re up there, do you suppose you could do me a favor get some dirt on him?”

The stallion now being held up in Dodgy’s grip whimpered, nodded and soiled himself, the order in which he did these things really didn’t matter as he soon to be sailing through air with loosened bindings.

“Good, I won’t beat you up as much the next time you cause me to chase you halfway across Canter Dojo.” Dodgy tossed the stallion up and then slammed the baseball bat into him to send him rocketing for the pagoda housing the tengu mafia. “I should bat ponies around like this more often, I might even actually work up a little sweat.”

Author's Note

Okay back to it... off hiatus.

Also I've almost finished Dragon Quest Builders 2, Bloodstained, Fire Emblem Warriors and a few other games. I could marathon a game finishing day at this point.

Chapter forty-nine, Mountain and Molehills: Dirt.

-Mount Aris, Flamberge-

The two siblings were a bit young to be alone out here like this, we were here to make sure they weren’t getting into any trouble. Even if they didn’t have a problems previously, today was another day for something to go wrong.

To that end Skelly and Sweetcakes were keeping them entertained with the beach ball. Sweetcakes had even turned all blue, scaly and her tails fused into a single large fin. She took to the water to make things even and to not leave Silver Stream alone in the surf.

Ryu was going over something with Blade, she was making various gestures to communicate with him about something before pointing up at the back of the mountain. Ryu nodded and asked her something, but I quickly lost interest in what they were doing.

Turning to my brother, I approached him to see him wielding his new shield and seemed to be getting fairly used to it. I’m glad I managed to put a smile on Fortitude’s face and didn’t honestly know why dragons needed to hoard gold as it was useless compared to the gems and jewels we can eat.

I spent all that money I earned off the kappa without a second thought, but it was worth the effort for what was a ridiculously durable shield that reflected magic in an awesome manner. Now Fortitude had something to compare to my mighty sword that’s always on fire… when it wasn’t sleeping of course.

Thinking on it, I considered how Skelly had an axe that was possibly magical as well. My thoughts then went from that to the erstwhile brother of our trio, Gene.

Gene didn’t care for any weapon in particular, but I still wanted to find something nice for him to use. It would be a goal to work towards while we wandered around getting lost, otherwise I’d just be going through the motions of life.

Now what would Gene like? He was decent with swords, spears, throwing axes… okay it was safe to say Gene was well rounded in many skills related to being a Viking and quite average at all of them, he’s not particularly fond of armor because of the weight so that’s out.

Giving it some more thought, I eventually gave up thinking of what to get Gene for now. I’m sure I’d pick up something or would at least figure something out by the time our paths crossed once more.

“So brother, how long are we going to be here?! It does not seem like we are actually needed here at all!” Mount Aris wasn’t exactly quiet, there were signs of hippogriffs flying around so this place wasn’t empty, kind of made me wonder what the front side of the mountain looked like. What it was, was peaceful.

“I am not knowing for how long, but we could at least visit the hippogriff settlement in the mountain for a day before we leave. The sea ponies are not as easily visited as we are not capable of breathing underwater.” Fortitude rubbed his chin looking a bit thoughtful. “We should have asked the great witch Kuril for help with that, we are definitely not here for sea ponies and Blade is here to find a hippogriff. It would suggest that we are not staying here for very long and Blade doesn’t need our help very much given hippogriffs are usually friendly and are about as aggressive as our brother Generic unless pushed.”

Hippogriffs were said to be born of pure love, don’t honestly know what the Kirin were said to be born of and I could only kind of guess with Longma from what I saw of Ryu.

“Well the one thing we’re good at is fighting and hippogriffs can match griffons in battle prowess, so we’re really just here because Blade needed to be here more than anything else!” It kind felt a little upsetting to know that we personally weren’t absolutely needed for anything more important, but I thought we could at least try to find something interesting to do here. “Still, it couldn’t hurt to ask if anyone has anything we could look into!”

“Sounds like an idea brother, not that we have many of those at the moment.” At least we’re going around and doing something to keep busy Fortitude, which reminded me of something.

“Say… do you remember how Jade said to summon sea ponies, what were those words she used again?!” I wanted to sing them and see if Silver Stream recognized them or at least see if another sea pony popped up from doing so.

“I think it was something like… rope-a-dope, rope-rope-a-dope!” Fortitude belted out and a dust cloud came around the bend of the mountain and it stopped in front of us.

Once the kicked up sand cleared up slightly, we saw a cow with a rope in her mouth which she soon took into one of her hooves. She reminded me of Arizona and even looked like her, but the coloration was off given that she was entirely brightly colored and she didn’t look nearly as muscular or volatile. Also she had udders, a very distinct difference there.

“Did someone call for a roping cow? Well Nevada is here to help you!” The young cow stated. “You wouldn’t believe half the other roping cows I had to outrun just to get here first, so who or what do you need tied up? We barely get called into action at all. I mean it’s like once a year, and twice if we’re lucky, that we ever hear anyone call for us specifically.”

“We were actually trying to remember how to summon sea ponies.” My brother stated congenially, the cow threw her hooves up in the air and let out a long suffering groan.

“Darn it all, another false alarm! Okay guys pack it up, they don’t need a roping cow much less all of us to tie down some ornery monster.” We were wondering who she was talking to, when we saw the other various cows holding bundles of rope as the sand cloud cleared away further revealing twenty or more cows standing around looking upset. The young Nevada turned to us. “I’ll have you know this happens fairly often, we’re usually called to rope big beasties causing town destroying problems and we hardly ever get to have any fun since the monsters learned to stop wandering aimlessly into towns. You know what, in this case we’ll make a beach day of it ladies and the one obligatory female minotaur of our SOS group that gives us that vague hint of diversity!”

The female minotaur in question waved and smiled at being acknowledged as she shouldered her rope. The other cows perked up at the idea of spending time on the beach and started to relax and take up various activities without further prompting.

“That’s fine and all, but what was the sea pony emergency summoning song since we forgot it?!” I think this Nevada obviously knew what it was given she talked about it.

“Oh that, it’s shoo-be-doo shoo-shoo-be-doo!” Nevada sang out and a female sea pony immediately popped out of the water. “There you go, please don’t forget it and if you ever have a problem with giant monsters we, the cows of the EUP, will assist you if you are within Equestria or allied territories. Times may vary depending on the distance it takes for us to get to where you are, we also provide other rescue services and are fairly active in helping people out of tight jams. Wished they had called us in for that bug bear incident… that was an udder mess after the owl bear got involved.”

“Oh, hey mom!” Silver Stream and Terramar waved to the sea pony with the pink fin mane and yellow body who waved back.

“Silver Stream, are you having a good time with your little brother?” The sea pony asked.

“Yep! We’re making a lot of new friends too… though I don’t know how often I’ll see them, they live on land like daddy!” Silver Stream seemed a little sad about that, but she eventually went back to playing with the beach ball she held and sent it towards her little brother.

“My name is Ocean Flow, did you need anything?” This Ocean Flow addressed that to Nevada and looked around curiously. “There doesn’t seem to be an emergency, though the beach is nicely crowded this time of day.”

“Not really, it’s just that these two yahoos forgot how to do the sea pony SOS, apparently they are friends with someone who knows about it.” Nevada motioned to us. “We think you sea ponies should really make it easier to remember.”

“Sorry about that, I’m Flamberge the fiercely flammable and this is my brother Fortitude the fantastically fragrant! We have a friend that said that if you need a sea pony ‘simply signal SOS’ by singing that specific tune!” At my words the sea pony giggled joyfully.

“Let me guess, you incidentally sang the rope-a-dope cow summon instead? I don’t know how anyone could possibly get those two confused… it’s like singing ‘fly-the-sky, fly-fly-the-sky’ without knowing what it…” A pack of armored hippogriffs, three griffons and two pegasus ponies showed up.

“Hello beautiful.” The blue hippogriff in the golden looking armor with the grey and white feathery mane stated as he came in for a landing. “Calling for air support or are you just wanting to see me?”

Ocean brightened up at the hippogriff’s words and the two started smiling at one another brightly.

“Eh false alarm, let’s go guys, the hops is on me!” The pony that spoke flew off with the other pegasi and griffons, but the hippogriffs stayed behind and started greeting the cows.

“Okay… just exactly how many SOS summoning rituals are there that use that specific tune?!” I exclaimed in disbelief as the hippogriff and the sea pony were getting quite snug together.

“At least twenty, the EUP kind of caused it to become a thing and we created the first one… ahem… anyway I’m always happy to see my handsome hippogriff.” Ocean Flow was practically pulling herself out of the water for him, I would say it was fairly obvious that they hadn’t seen each other in a while. “My loving sky dancer.”

“My flowing beauty.” The two caressed one another as they took to laying in the sand together. “I still think it’s worth the effort of having to get all the sand out of my feathers later if I can be with you like this.”

“Well I’m working on making the relations better between our races and its going quite smoothly as I’m sure you know.” The two looked inseparable and quite close despite living separate lives, I noted Sweetcakes turning back into her normal three tailed fox form and she silently formed a heart with two of her tails. “Maybe I can even eventually convince my sister to let you and Terramar become sea ponies for a while.”

“My place is in the sky, but I would be delighted to visit dear.” One thing was for certain, Sky’s long distance relationship with his wife seemed to be going rather well. “Oh, apologies, I am Sky Beak.”

“It’s nice that you two are together and all, but is there anything for a pack of adventurers to do around here?!” I caused the pair to sit up and take notice of everyone around them and even their children stopped to watch their affectionate gestures. “Also what’s the news around here?!”

“Well aside from working on a way to talk with my lovely Ocean in a more private setting then on the beach like this, which might be useful as an emergency escape route come to think of it once we can figure out a way to dig it out… Anyway we do have a few odd jobs you could do around here if you’re willing for some soul crushing drudgery work.” He looked me up and down for a moment. “I know this seems a bit presumptuous of me, but do you have any skills in fry cooking?”

“I worked at a Hay Burger for a time and one my friends is technically a fry cook!” How I was given a job without an application, I didn’t even do a job interview and yet it somehow happened.

“Were they related to sponges by any chance?” Ocean asked in a bubbly tone.

“No.” Something tells me I don’t want to pursue a line of questioning related to whatever caused the current frown on Ocean’s face. That way lied madness somehow, I just instinctively knew it.

“How good are you?” Sky Beak asked me.

“Make an order and I can assure you that I know the call for it, also I’m friends with the creator of the ‘From Tartarus, with love’ Hay Burger.” The hippogriff gave me a very bright cheerful grin and made a squealing noise. “Surprisingly enough, they are putting the royalties for it towards our home of Airship Mauled. If anyone ever needs a place to go with good food, you’ll be welcomed there.”

“It’s too bad Hay Burgers don’t taste good with salt water. I want to know what Sky see’s in the place personally, it's boggling he’s managed to import enough of the food that they finally decided to build a place out here for one of their number one customers.” Running a flipper gently up and down the hippogriff’s back, Ocean Flow smiled. “Still, I sometimes just come here to share some salmon juice with my love, which is kind of my guilty pleasure.”

“I believe we have a need of adventurers of your specific ‘caliber’, provided that you don’t mind showing a hippogriff or two how it’s done!” Frowning Sky looked at the sand. “We didn’t exactly have anyone to train our guys for the branch they opened out here... though they are shipping us the supplies for the Mount Aris branch the employees here are all green recruits.”

“You’re in luck, you have two previous employees present and one of us is particularly good in any restaurant.” I pointed out Blade who twitched an ear, turned to us and shot a curious glance about at the hippogriffs now staring at her. “It’s Blade over there that you really want to teach your guys, she slings some really good Hay Burgers. Either way I’m in, for at least six hours provided I get paid a percentage of what we make.”

Blade gave me a curious smile that was thanking me for something. Oh right, I just got her an in to Mount Aris without having to do a lot of suspicious snooping and running around or getting stopped at the front door.

Huh… Travel On doesn’t kid around with these things does it?

“I’d like to be a taste tester.” We turned to Ryu who looked eager to eat something.

“It’s agreed!” Sky threw his right claw up in the air, pointing at the sky with clear enthusiasm. He soon shot Ocean Flow an embarrassed look.

“Go on and enjoy some Hay Burgers, I’ll just stick with the children for a while Beak. I hardly ever get any time with my darling little Terramar!” Ocean held hear flippers up to her heart while looking in the direction of her children.

“Right… you wouldn’t happen to know any contractors who can dig a secret tunnel leading into the ocean would you?” Sky queried curiously.

Author's Note

I'm just going to drop this now, but I'm quite sure that even if she was a sea pony and has always been one since birth... Silver Stream witnessed the attack on Mount Aris in some part.

At least the Storm King landing at Mount Aris was witnessed by Silver Stream, otherwise she wouldn't know how to identify his shadows appearance later on.

Chapter forty-nine, Mountain and Molehills: Pebbles.

-Mount Aris Beach, Ocean Flow-

“I hope Sky Beak isn’t ruining those nice and smooth child bearing hips of his…” I muttered with a sigh at seeing my land bound hippogriff flying off again, he had a really nice butt.

“What was that mommy?” Quickly turning to Silver Stream, I smiled and thought of something to say quickly that wouldn’t traumatize my poor dear daughter and son.

Sure there may differences in values between hippogriffs, sea ponies and various other races, but the one thing that was constant was making sure young ears didn’t hear things they weren’t ready for yet.

“Oh it’s nothing my little stream, mommy is just thinking about how much she loves your father. Now have you two thought of a game we could play with the beach ball together?” I held my flippers together while smiling at my children and the strange mare named ‘Skelly’.

Skelly stayed behind to watch after their boat while Mr. Fortitude and Mr. Flamberge were up Mount Aris with the hippogriffs.

Blade and Ryu were here on business and while they were all friends, they were going to likely go their separate ways as soon as they are done here.

Didn’t know a single thing about the multiple tailed talking fox that spoke oddly though.

-Six and a half hours later, Mount Aris, Hippogriffia, Flamberge-

Blade would be busy for a little while longer and then she would search for that hippogriff scholar she’s looking for, Astral something or other. Hippogriffs were friendly and welcoming, but there were some of them watching us like hawks as we were outsiders.

They kept themselves well contained and didn’t often let people in, Blade would have been hard pressed to get by the guards and Ryu seemed to prefer the less violent approach as he didn’t want to wreck their whole military force by himself.

Fortitude said that Ryu could do it and I believed him after he took one of Dispel Grace’s attacks with his bare hooves, that’s notable when Dispel Grace has gotten stronger with using said attack.

Hopefully we would not be graced with Dispel’s presence again anytime soon after he got hit by his own deflected attack. Got my moneys worth when it came to Fortitude’s shield and then some, a worthwhile investment that my brother was happy with.

That the materials the shield was made of happened to be actually illegal in some places didn’t seem to bother Fortitude. Even figuring out how to mold such stuff into a shield was an impressive work of blacksmithing from wherever it came from, I wasn’t asking for the origin and I didn’t care at this point.

“I think I might have a knack for making money!” Well at least I had a knack for making a lot of money that fit into a single carrying sack, at least I had the funds for buying something for Gene now.

“Well that is better than being known for being lit on fire, lighting other things on fire or just being loudly obnoxious, should we change your title?” The grin on Fortitude’s face made me glare at him. “I am just jesting brother.”

I snorted at him and just shook my head.

“I’ll just get this back to the boat and then we’ll go grab some food…. that’s not from the local Hay Burger!” The hippogriffs weren’t exactly great at cooking Hay Burgers. “The guys here aren’t quite there yet with being ready for actual customers. So how are you getting along with the locals?!”

“I am getting along with them fairly well.” Fortitude followed behind me. “Can I help you with the sack brother, you spent the last six hours working and it looks heavy.”

“No, I’m definitely carrying it and don’t need your help at the moment!” I’m tired, not frail or invalid at the moment. The hippogriffs are hungry today and they needed a lot of personal attention, so I’m doing just fine with the heavy sack slung over my shoulder. Also I think I needed to stab my instincts in the gut a few times, I did not distrust my brother in any given way and he was definitely not trying to steal from me. “You can follow me if you want to though!”

As we made our way for the entrances of the two hippogriff statues facing each other, we passed by Sky Beak in the middle of a conversation with a large female hippogriff.

Said female hippogriff had colorful bright pink to purple plumage with indigo splotches in the shape of water droplets inside, she also had three blue feathers at the crest of her head with white four pointed star shapes in them.

“The only way I’ll turn anyone into a sea pony is if we’re all forced out of our homes here in Hippogriffia.” The female hippogriff stated. “Still, I’ll consider it Sky Beak. If I make one hippogriff a sea pony on request, then all the hippogriffs will want to become sea ponies at one point or another and I’m not dealing with the mess of them all coming to me to be turned into various things. Someone might even want to be a chinchilla… a chinchilla Sky Beak!”

“Oh are you taking transformation requests, can I be a chinchilla?” A hippogriff asked and perked up.

“No!” Novo yelled at the hippogriff.

“Aw… I would have been so cute and fluffy too…” The hippogriff went off looking down. “Chinchilla’s are awesome…"

“You see what I have to deal with here Sky Beak?” Grunted the female hippogriff. “In the terms of strengthening the relations between our races, I find it rather annoying that I’m the elected queen of the hippogriffs and the born leader of the sea ponies. That I have to hold negotiations with myself to benefit both races is just exasperating! The hours of sitting in one place and talking to myself in front of a live audience is by far the silliest thing I do… still it is pretty fun to have a captive audience for some rousing performances in acting and singing.”

“Thank you for your consideration Queen Novo and you really do deserve the leadership role, but didn’t you do the transformation thing once already when that tsunami ravaged what is now our coastline and made Hippogriffia unlivable for a while? It didn’t always use to be this tropical as you very well know.” As Sky Beak talked I just shook my head and continued forward, I was being rude by eavesdropping on their private conversation. “That’s why Seaquestria was… and the sea ponies… it could very well happen again. At least talk with your sister Ocean Flow about it. Your daughter Skystar wants to hear more…”

“Of course you’d mention my sister again with that loving tone! That you should even bring my daughter into this... I should have turned you into an Axolotl at the first opportunity I could! I will admit that it could happen again and I said I would think about…” The last words I heard from Queen Novo as I walked out of hearing range were somewhat foreboding and I was halfway listening to their words at this point. “Something was awfully odd about that sudden storm, because the potency was…”

-A few hours later, Hippogriffia outdoor bar-

There I sat under the veranda on a stool with various other hippogriffs listening to my strange tales, some were of Airship Mauled or Jaded’s sillier exploits.

“So that’s how she escaped Canterlot on a unicycle!” A round of cheers and laughter rose up around me as I chugged some salmon juice.

“Good, you’re still here and Novo hasn’t run you out yet! She’s not exactly keen on outsiders being here or happy that I hired some outside help for work, goodness knows she despises the Hay Burger even if outsiders are not going to be working there. I need your groups help with something dangerous as you seem able bodied and talented… also you might be dim enough to not be scared by the prospect of possible imminent death.” Perking up and quirking an eye at Sky Beak, I was wondering what he could use our help with. “Remember when you suggested we outsource Diamond Dogs to dig that cavern to the sea? It didn’t take us long to find some that are willing to work for us, in fact they arrived twenty minutes after you started teaching our hippogriffs how to work a Hay Burger. Said hippogriffs are still progressing at an even pace, as for the workers we called in… there’s been a bit of a snag.”

“Are the Diamond Dogs revolting?” Itching for a fight and to use a few things I learned from Bengal and Blur Step, Sky Beak had my full attention.

“To be honest, when are Diamond Dogs anything but revolting in most cases?” He chuckled and shook his head and gestured at me. “No, they aren’t the problem. We’re paying them well and they’re doing good and quick work, though their hygiene still leaves something to be desired. The problem is that they’ve just about hit the water and found out that there’s a dangerous monster that we absolutely want out of the way and its cavern is parked in the middle of where they’re digging. We do not want it coming out anywhere near our aeries and we have no idea what it’s doing there or how it’s managed to survive for so long in a sealed off cavern.”

“Okay and… you hippogriffs are built tough and already know how to fight, why would you need me or my friends to help?” If the hippogriffs are having problems with something, then it sounded interesting to at least look into and or fight before we leave. “What exactly is this creature that you’re having problems with and is it hard to fight?”

“Well… we definitely want the monster relocated, but I don’t think killing it will be all too easy a prospect to achieve.” Sky Beak seemed to be dodging the one important fact. “To that end we’re having problems even working up the nerve to face it or approach it with something that feels like a plan or concerted effort to deal with the issue.”

“Again, what is it?” There was a sinking feeling that I was about to drag my brother and possibly Sweetcakes or Skelly into danger. “I’m not taking on anything that I don’t know the name of.”

Someone had to watch the boat and it would likely be Sweetcakes, because keeping away from that kitsune was really hard to do when she could change her shape so readily. At least Sweetcakes was always recognizable by her size, that never changes between whatever form she happens to be in at the time. Better yet… leaving Skelly behind would make it less likely that anyone here finds out her slightly horrific secret.

“It might be a buggane… we’re not entirely sure about that.” Did Sky Beak just say buggane? What in the world is a buggane? It sounded rather dangerous at the very least. “It’s a big mole like beast with a terrifying visage.”

Did I just say my thoughts out loud?

“Could it be a maulwurf?” I’ve seen one of those things at least.

A maulwurf was mostly harmless if it had a steady supply of food. If that were the case, it had no reason to attack anyone. Here however… there weren’t any myrmekes. There might be plants that a maulwurf likes, though I doubted that was it as they weren’t exactly beasts known for living in tropical regions.

“Oh no, it is most definitely not a maulwurf and it gives off a deadly aura that the Diamond Dog Diggers Clan won’t go anywhere near to finish digging out the pathway to the sea.” Well Sky Beak seemed honestly and earnestly worried about this, I was already going to agree to lend my sword to the cause. “We’re all too terrified to be in the monsters presence for too long, it’s also far too small to be maulwurf and it has orange glowing eyes. The eyes are why we think it’s a buggane we’re dealing with here.”

“What do you know about bugganes exactly?” Not going into this blind if this head hippogriff is this spooked, well I think he’s a leader of some quality or sort.

“It is what is termed as the large mole version of a honey badger, it is a known fact that they are really quite intelligent and happen to be very sore losers in a fight.” Shivering, Sky Beak hugged himself. “If they catch you, they don’t go for the kill until you can’t feel pain anymore and they are considered evil creatures for that reason alone.”

“We’re willing to take it on!” With that prideful statement, Fortitude thrust his new shield towards the sky.

“Of course we are!” I pulled my sword and raised its flaming visage to the sky as well, at least it wasn’t asleep this time. “Though I wouldn’t mind asking for Ryu’s assistance in this first!”

“Agreed, we are not knowing how strong this creature actually is and any help is quite warranted when dealing with the unknown.” Fortitude grumbled out as he lowered his shield to the ground.

“I would ask Queen Novo for help, but she’s already busy enough as it is and this isn’t that big a problem considering it’s not coming up from the depths after us.” So Sky Beak is sending us down there to root it out since everyone else is too busy? “Still, we’re too busy looking for problems coming in from outside of Mount Aris to bother with problems inside it already at the moment. I’m actively part of our grand navy and military structure around here. So if you need any extra supplies, hippogriff power or anything else, then you’re welcome to request any resources for routing the monster from us. We already have a cage ready for you to drag it off and away from us to release it into the wild.”

“I want to get a gauge of the creature before I bother you for resources, but we’ll keep that in mind in case it’s too much of a problem Sky Beak.” I turned to Fortitude who nodded and we set off to find out what Ryu was doing around here. “Also is the cage sitting near the entrance?”

“Yes, it’s there right now, so whenever you’re ready to deal with it, get someone to find me and let me know.” Sky beak took off to patrol the region.

-Mount Aris Peak-

Apparently Ryu was communing with nature, he was just sitting there in the glade that seemed to sing next to a small stream. There was also Sweetcakes lying beneath a tree sleeping peacefully.

“Hey Ryu, do you feel up for a scrap with something dangerous?” I said as I approached him. “They think it’s a buggane and we’re being asked to see if we can deal with it before the hippogriffs give it a real try.”

“Buggane? The name of the creature sounds interesting at least. So I take it you are not leaving soon, Blade-san is still working on locating the scholar to even open up a dialogue with him.” It seems Ryu wasn’t actively helping Blade on this thing. “I may have to be her mouthpiece depending on whether or not you’re still around."

Ryu always seemed to be a bit emotionally stiff to me.

Author's Note

Novo obviously found the transformation pearl early in life and became a hippogriff and helped Hippogriffia somewhat. Later Seaquestria was founded or made larger by the influx of hippogriff refugees after Fizzle eventually attacks the place in an effort to steal the transformation pearl.

The transformation pearl, as it's name would suggest, started out underwater and eventually became imbued with the magical ability to give beings the ability to transform. Pearls are made by oysters and this one was made by a giant oysters.

The transformation pearl can feasibly transform someone from stone back to normal, thus the transformation pearl would have been useful in saving Celestia, Luna and Cadence. There are also a lot of other ways it could have been useful such as making one a powerful beast or monster.

Chapter forty-nine, Mountain and Molehills: Rocks.

-Mount Aris, Hippogriffia, buggane den, Fortitude-

We were let through the stone door which was being guarded by a large number of hippogriffs, the cage was ready and we were ready to go in and assess the danger.

There were five Diamond Dogs led by a female wearing a mining cap and holding a shovel standing off to the side and drinking water from a cup while leaning on said digging implement. She watched as we entered the mountain with what looked like a frown.

Flamberge pulled his sword out and lit our way as we walked down the steps, Ryu and Sweetcakes were behind me taking up the rear.

“Dangerous this air, something deadly is ahead, I am quite unnerved.” Aside from being able to create gills for herself, Sweetcakes couldn’t actually take on the properties of whatever her form was shaped to look like.

Currently Sweetcakes was trying for an attractive looking yellow dragoness, my brother just simply scoffed at her attempts to beguile him.

Sweetcakes had the ability to mimic fire breath with her fire magic, but it would never match up to a real dragon’s fire under scrutiny. She also didn’t have the same protective scales that a real dragon does and any attack would definitely pierce her soft hide. The wings she made might work as something to glide with, otherwise they were vestigial and her dragon appearance was easy to recognize as being fake given enough time. All that and she certainly didn’t smell like a dragon.

Still, she was making an honest attempt to get my brothers attention and wasn’t forcing the issue. Plus she could be a help with her abilities, hopefully Skelly didn’t mind staying behind and missing the action. Flamberge offered the use of his fishing pole to her, but told her to not to let any little sea ponies go near the fishing hook.

Here we were, delving into dark depths once more, two brave Vikings, a Neighpon fighter and a kitsune in the shape of a dragon that’s shorter than my brother. There weren’t numerous monsters this time… just the one and it had a chilling effect on the surroundings the closer we got to it.

Soon the steps ended and then it became rough terrain, this is where the Diamond Dogs stopped working and the chill in the air was worsening by the second.

Not too far from this point we saw our quarry come into view, its gaze was already upon us as soon as we were in sight of it. Its orange lamp like eyes narrowed and stared at us with a calculating gaze, I’m quite sure that we could all tell this was no rabid beast.

The intelligence in its eyes was far too telling, we were certainly in for a bad time if this thing was as smart as the hippogriffs thought it was.

“So we passed by the area they are going to set up the fountain in, they want to fill this whole area with water so that sea ponies can come and go at will! We’re right where they want to place that emergency flushing system would be aren’t we?!” Flamberge didn’t take his eyes off the monster once and neither did the rest of us. “What are the chances that this creature can swim and even if we did try to flood it out, it’d attack the hippogriffs to spite them?”

“Pretty good.” Ryu stated calmly as he stared into those watching eyes without fear, the closer we got the more defined the creature became.

It was large, estimate to be about ten to twelve feet tall, standing on its hind legs and seemed quite capable of bipedal motion. It flexed the four long blades that were its claws on its left limb and waited patiently for us to do something as the chill in the air got worse.

Flamberge was the first of us to make a move, he inhaled and spat a fireball at the creature. This Buggane thing didn’t move and the fireball quickly dissipated before it could even reach its target. While the fireball didn’t do much it provided us with a few new bits of information.

It had tusks in various angles sticking out of its mouth to gore and rip things apart with. Its nose was stubbed and looked to have been covered in long since dried flaking blood above its massive teeth incisors, its thick black coarse mane shimmered in the light of the dying fireball. The rumpled skin looked to be as thick and hardy as one would see on an elephant.

The cold sense of dread continued to permeate the air, one that was actually physically there considering it just snuffed out the fireball Flamberge spat at it. The creature was inherently unsettling in how still it stood.

Aside from unnerving us greatly, I’m sure we’d find out what it could truly do soon enough.

I lifted my shield in front of me and held myself firm, even as I did this I didn’t think we were ready for this creature despite the time we had to prepare for the coming fight as it studied us.

I was a proud yak shield bearer and with Sekhet as my possible witness, I would protect my friends and family while driving the darkness from this very deep hole they were going to fill with water afterwards.

-Glassing Grove, Sekhet-

I stopped my studying of the area for a moment and looked to the sky. I had been quite busy untangling the various magic Jaded left here that warped the area. The area wouldn’t change, but I would eventually get the magic flowing freely around here. It was disturbing how many dark artifacts were destroyed in this one spot and yet none of it could corrupt the Sun Priestess Jaded in the slightest.

“Fortitude, you are a loyal and true friend. You are also as strong as you smell, in heart, body and mind.” That he even asked me to be his patron goddess was a bit out there, but I could feel him offering me a prayer. I held it close to my chest, he was keeping me humble just by remembering my motto. “I don’t think you really need my help mortal, of the fantastically fragrant variety, but you should always remember one thing if I’m to continue being your patron.”

-Mount Aris, Hippogriffia, buggane den, Fortitude-

Souls are sacred, even the bad ones. The destruction or tearing of one’s soul is a horrible thing.

A bad soul just needed a little bit of cleaning like the one in front of me obviously did, to be fair even good souls get cleaned too. I wonder if I’m still allowed into Yakhalla despite following a goddess outside my culture.

The creature obviously didn’t bathe and it was competing with me in the smell department. There was the horrid stench of evil upon it, it was not comparable to my smells of justice!

“Are you going in Flamberge?” My brother nodded and took one step forward. Immediately his flaming sword started to flicker weakly, this wasn’t exactly a good sign to see.

“I’ll be going next.” Ryu whispered.

Sweetcakes would be bringing up the rear, even if she didn’t seem like she was going to be helpful in a fight. She had healing powers, whereas I’m thinking her fire and shapeshifting abilities weren’t quite as helpful.

My brother started to move forward and picked up speed in his approach to the monster while taking a strong grip on his sword, it looked like he was going to try some kind of new technique.

I turned to Ryu with an important question.

“Can you even do that glow thing you do before a fight right now?” If I was correct we were going to have problems because three of us were primarily fire focused entities.

“Hmm… I understand and will see to your concerns.” Hopping and stomping his hooves, Ryu started to glow orange and then the glow faded out within seconds. “This… is very bad.”

“What’s bad?” We heard a crashing noised and various chunks of large rock fell from the ceiling.

Looking back towards where my brother was, I could see the sparking sword of fire trying to stay strong under this unseen building pressure. The arm holding the sword in a death grip dangled from where my brother was painfully embedded into the ceiling.

The mole monster, this buggane, wasn’t scratched in the slightest. It was even grinning at my brother’s current discomfort, it was enjoying his suffering. Like any yak, I got angry at the creature for taking enjoyment in its actions and the suffering of others.

“I can’t heat up or ignite.” Ryu glared at the monster. “The aura that creature puts off is strong enough to stop me from heating up, but it doesn’t deny me my natural strength… though my blows will suffer somewhat without the boost heating up gives me.”

“Sweetcakes can you help get my brother out of the ceiling?” The fake yellow dragon nodded to me and then started to claw her way up the wall towards the hole Flamberge was embedded in.

Ryu started forward to face the buggane in the dim flickering light from above and I followed closely behind him. He wasn’t going to fight it bare hoofed and at a disadvantage, at least not alone and without me supporting him.

The buggane waited for the longma to make his first move, Ryu did so by pickup up small rock and then he chucked it into one of the monsters eyes. The most the rock did was made it wince as its right eye was hit, otherwise it didn’t even blink as it continued to stare as Ryu charged for it and launched a flying kick with his rear hooves.

After Ryu bounced off the beast’s chest doing some minor damage and causing it to waver backwards slightly, it then tried to slam all its sword like claws down right on top of Ryu.

I immediately lunged forward and took the blow to my new shield to be pushed back a bit. It raise its right claw and I moved back into position and planted the shield, even Ryu getting to his feet to help me brace for it did not stop the impact from knocking us back.

This thing surpassed a Draugr in raw strength, I didn’t think something like that was possible. The shield was at least proving its durability as it took the blows quite easily, I however was shaken.

Its eyes narrowed on me and Ryu, it turned its head slightly to Sweetcakes busy prying Flamberge out of the ceiling.

It turned back to us and tried to prepare a swipe only for Ryu to land a flurry of blows on the monster, the damage was minimal and it didn’t stop the monster from performing his swipe.

I tried to block it, only it stopped mid swipe. With impressive agility for a evil mole that moved in a mostly bipedal fashion, it jumped to the side and stabbed its claws into my shoulder before I could reposition the shield.

My new shield was good, but it was a bit heavy and I had yet to get used to it in an actual combat situation. There was also the fact that this was a deceptively fast beast and it swung its other claws for my side and created a shallow gash as I staggered away from it.

I turned to it and then kicked off the ground with my shield held out for it, I caught it in the chin and knocked it onto its back.

I tried to bash it again, only for it to roll over and dig into the ground faster than a diamond dog could and disappeared.

Within a second it shot up out of the ground spiraling towards Ryu. He rolled out of the way and only for Flamberge and Sweetcakes to fall on top of him. Ryu was accidentally knocked senseless.

“I suggest we make a tactical retreat!” Flamberge groaned out, he had a large bruise on his head and chin. He was shivering with unnatural fright, Sweetcakes looked like she would bolt any second and would take Flamberge with her.

“Agreed, I’ll bring up the rear.” I blocked the lunging left claw coming at me and then his right angled around the shield to stab my face. Pushing the shield upwards knocked it off balance and then I rammed its belly harshly sending it backwards.

Even Ryu broke out in a cold sweat as he stumbled up toward the entrance of the place.

I started backing away and back up the stairs. This first encounter had not gone well and something was very wrong with us retreating from it.

It launched constant attacks against me as I continued to back away.

Once we got close to the entrance, the creature stopped its assault and went back to waiting for someone else to approach it. It was eyeing us as we backed out of the gate.

It wasn’t until this point that I realized that an unnatural fear took a hold of me as well as it had everyone else. Ryu was the least effected, but he still chose to flee.

-Hippogriffa Outdoor Bar, Sweetcakes-

“A weird fear took hold, we were not exactly bold, what will stop that cold?” I had never felt a fear of dread like that before. Kitsune were powerful… I am now unnerved by a number of things outside of Neighpon and the world at large. Still… I didn’t let my fear make me abandon Flamberge or the others.

“Good question Sweets, that creature sucked all the warmth from the air and gives off this large sense of dread!” Flamberge shivered. “Not only that, it’s physically strong enough to possibly match an Ursa Minor. It blocked my sword with its claws and slammed into the ceiling before I even knew what was happening to me!”

“My fan may help us, the magical wind is strong, need help to prepare.” With a twist of my body, I went from a dragon to my normal self with one of my tails holding the Tengu Fan coyly in front of my face. I hadn’t needed to use it since I acquired it from the Cat and Hawk. “Get me close to it, the wind magic takes some time, I won’t last alone.”

“It’s a sound idea as any, we will try tomorrow” Agreeing with Fortitude, the fear was making me feel like I wouldn’t be able to go in there again with that maiming monster.

“That effect persists?! We need to learn to resist. Cowardice controls us!” I shivered even now and Ryu started to pet me with a warm burning hoof, it made the fear go away and my courage return.

“Hmm… hopefully the tengu fan will at least weaken that powerful aura somewhat.” Ryu didn’t show fear, but the fact that he even sweated at all would probably have Dodgy laughing at him.

While Ryu and Blade would stay in a residence in Hippogriffia this relatively fine evening, we went down to the beach to see a giant sand castle and a curled up skeleton in it sleep peacefully.

The boat was within the sand castles walls and the skeletal pony looked kind of adorable with the way one of her legs kicked and she hugged her scarf in her sleep.

We didn’t disturb her slumber.

Author's Note

-Aura of dread-

-20 willpower initial effect and -1 willpower for every minute spent in the presence of the aura, high chance of fire and light element nullifying closer to the source.

Wielder +20 initiative, bonus to all darkness elemental stats.

Chapter forty-nine, Mountain and Molehills: Stones.

-Mount Aris, backside beach, Skelly-

I watched the others go off to fight the mole monster thing again. I could help, but they wanted me to watch the boat and I guess they wanted to not trouble me.

If they don’t need my help or won’t ask for it, then I was completely okay with that. I’m actually having lots of fun on this beach, aside from the sand sticking to my bones. I’m sure they can handle the monster, they were strong and brave warriors.

Left to my own thoughts I wondered something idly.

If I eventually reach the afterlife, will it have beach as nice as this one is?

-Mount Aris, Hippogriffia, Fortitude-

“Well we’ve been digging around our archives and we found out that bugganes hate positive religious architecture.” Sky Beak waited for a moment before frowning. “I’m sorry, that’s not very helpful information is it?”

“Don’t worry, we’ve got this!” Flamberge turned us to walk by the diamond dogs again who were lazing about waiting for the mole to stop being a problem. As we passed by, one of them spoke up.

“You are crazy to go in there a second time, it’s far smarter than you think it is.” The diamond dog then went back to relaxing with her four waiting friends. “Even we know better than to fight something that’s far smarter than we are.”

I agree, it is a bad idea to fight an opponent without any kind of plan, our plan seemed sound this time though. Last time we were getting an estimate of our opponent, this time we had sweetcakes ready to blow away that disturbing aura with the magical fan and we should be able to fight it far more effectively.

-Buggane den, take two, Flamberge-

With a gust of wind the aura causing my sword to flicker and spark was blown away and the flames of my sword increased to full strength.

However we didn’t see our quarry, I was floating the air expecting the monster to pop out of the ground from below.

Ryu ignited to blue, but didn’t form his flaming wings yet. He would look for opportunities to hit the mole to the best of his abilities.

Fortitude stood protectively in front of Sweetcakes, he could take as many hits as he needed to with that shield.

Sweetcakes would be our healer who just expended quite a bit of energy to use the fan to blow away the aura. I’m just surprised that the buggane even let Sweetcakes set up to blow the aura away.

We were ready for it now.

I’d eat my own thoughts a minute later.

-Buggane den, malicious buggane-

Waiting for moment. Hot lizard pony fall in pit was signal, pit filled with dirt putting out his hot.

I drop out of ceiling onto dragon clawing at his wings viciously and then I bash skull into ground with both paws.

Lots of pain is caused, it’s delicious!

Attack strange wind blowing creature next!

-Minutes later, Flamberge-

“That monster is definitely something else and nothing that I’ve ever encountered the likes of before!” It was quite painful and not only that, but Ryu almost suffocated when he was buried alive after the ground fell out from under him and a large amount of the ceiling collapsed into the hole. “Given its strong enough to even shred the membrane of my wings!”

Ryu’s body was mostly fine if not for the oxygen deprivation making him pass out.

We had not been prepared for how smart the buggane actually was, the thing had actually managed to ambush us almost perfectly and if it wasn’t for Fortitude getting us out of there I’m sure it would have slowly tortured us.

The thing actually thrived on causing misery, I could tell when it shredded my wings and while it was bashing my skull into the floor. I was a little intimidated by it now and with good reason to be scared of it.

Sweetcakes was deeply injured as well when the buggane targeted her before Fortitude could intercept.

The buggane picked soft targets after taking out our offensive with a perfectly executed surprise attack.

That the monster somehow dug the hole for Ryu to fall into was frightening considering the buggane couldn’t have known Ryu would be in front of Fortitude. In fact I think the hole was meant for my brother to disable his defensive qualities.

“Are you sure all of you are okay?” Sky Beak looked worried for our injuries and Sweetcakes was still healing my wings with gentle slow strokes of her tails. She looked quite tired from the effort and I’m actually kind of glad she’s here, otherwise it would have taken a while for my wings to heal from this.

“I can heal quite well. Injuries are not that bad. Friends okay, I’m glad.” Yes, but you were flagging after everything and taking two nasty slashes to your side and back Sweetcakes.

Healing herself was likely less energy intensive than healing a dragon, which I would certainly think is much more complicated for her.

“Even so, it’s becoming fairly obvious you need all the help you can get to take the buggane down, what can we do to help?” Sky Beak and several other hippogriffs looked to us, we didn’t exactly have an answer.

“We wait until Sweetcakes is ready to go again of course!” I considered something for a moment, then added as an afterthought. “We’ll also need Blade’s help this time!”

A curious look passed among the hippogriffs, Blade was an unusual stranger and they looked like they were wondering why I wanted Blade’s help.

She could echolocate the monster before it could surprise attack us when we went in to fight it again.

-Mount Aris, backside beach, Skelly-

I wonder if my bones will bleach in the sun… not that that would be a bad thing, at least my bones aren’t crawling with wisps of darkness and evil scrawl. Wouldn’t know how to live with myself if my other appearance actually looked demonic and not just like a pile of animate bones.

I wondered what my friends were getting up to. It’s so peaceful here, I doubt anyone would actually try to steal the boat. The hippogriffs and sea ponies were all friendly and nice, though I’m not exactly sure how true that would be if they saw the other side of me.

Also I had a lot of sand on my bones and it was annoying to clean it off and every time I went into the ocean I could taste the salt water even with my mouth closed.

Aside from these few issues, I was having a nice time.

-Mount Aris, buggane den, take three, Blade-

I didn’t need Flamberge and Fortitude’s help, but apparently they needed mine now and I did owe them for helping me in Neighpon.

Knowing that they’ve lost to this thing twice already was a bit hard to swallow, but I accepted that this thing was exceedingly dangerous and asked for a few supplies from the hippogriffs before I would even consider stepping in.

I got some halfway decent knives to wield in this fight and a little bit of lightweight armor that is puncture and cut resistant, not that it'd help much if the mole monster could hurt a strong and sturdy dragon like Flamberge.

Flying in here was also a no go for me after hearing about what had happened to Flamberge, I like my wings on my back and undamaged thank you very much! Well… at least I wouldn’t be flying until I knew where the monster was.

We were near the den and I had my ears flicking about as I listened for any movement whatsoever. It would not do for us to be ambushed because I was inattentive. I flicked my left ear, my right ear and then both of them.

Nothing yet, but I wasn’t going to drop my guard at all here.

Sensing a vibration I looked at the nearby wall, so did Flamberge, Fortitude, Ryu and Sweetcakes. We all slowly backed away from the wall, most them were following my lead.

“Do you suppose…” Fortitude started only to immediately bring up his shield when the horrible mole monster burst out of the wall showering us with stones.

The buggane brought both its claws together in an attempt to eviscerate Sweetcakes, said kitsune was busy trying to charge up the fan with magic to blow away that aura causing the sense of dread in all of us.

Fortitude quickly imposed himself and took both the claws on the shield and I backed up and took to the air. Flamberge and Ryu came at the mole from both sides.

It deftly hopped backwards and swung for Ryu. Ryu was knocked backwards and the buggane dodged the subsequent sword swing from Flamberge.

While Flamberge had its attention Sweetcakes voiced something that was somewhat concerning.

“Spikes on the ceiling, an unusual new feature, made by that creature.” So the stalactites aren’t normal and weren’t here the last time they attacked the buggane?

I think Sweetcakes realized the same thing that I did, the buggane was not attacking with its full ferocity and was in fact slowly retreating back and away from us with what looked to almost be a grin.

It was actively luring Ryu and Flamberge into a trap as they assaulted it.

“Fortitude look out, the monster made a new trap, pull them both back here!” Sweetcakes words got a good reaction out of Fortitude as the grinning buggane leapt back and slapped the floor with its claws.

The entire area shook as if there was an earthquake happening.

Fortitude, after wrapping his hooves around Ryu and Flamberge, immediately started backpedaling with his rear hooves trying to avoid the many falling manufactured stalactites that were now attempting to puncture and pierce them.

“Almost got it now, I need a little more time, stall that beastly mole.” Not once has Sweetcakes dropped her haiku speech. She was just about done charging up the fan when she had to hop backwards as another stalactite would have went through her spine if she hadn’t.

The mole smiled and started to furiously claw at the ground and disappeared into it leaving behind a large molehill of rock. I kept my sense open for its movements, where was it going and just exactly how smart was this thing if it could make stalactites?

“Where is it going Blade?!” If you’d just give me a moment, then I’d find out for you Flamberge!

He looked in the direction I was looking. The creature was digging fast, but the filling in hollow spots it was traveling through was quite clear to my ears. It was below me right now…

It stopped at this point and then stayed in that one spot doing something, the entire place started to shake. What was it… a spike erupted from beneath me almost impaling me where I was hovering. I tried to contain my surprise and flew higher.

The mole then turned and erupted out of the ground just as Sweetcakes was about to blow away its aura. It went to swing for her and she panicked unleashing the magic from the fan knocking it back.

That aura weakened slightly, but it didn’t stop entirely like the last time they attacked the buggane. I think the buggane knew what Sweetcakes was doing as it disrupted her using the fan and made her misfire it, it then went to attack her with its claws again.

Fortitude got into position and caught its left claw on the shield and avoided the second swing to get its right claws around the shield by backing up.

Instead of pressing its attack it spun around and caught Flamberge’s blade on its right claw, then rammed its left claw right into his belly sending him tumbling to slam into a wall in a painful manner.

Ryu leapt onto and quickly climbed on the bugganes head to start stomping and hitting it with his hooves, the monster mole wasn’t taking this lying down and started to shake around trying to throw him off. It eventually managed to do so with a heavy swing of its head. Ryu bounced off the floor twice and that’s where I came in.

I pulled out one of the knives I retrieved from the hippogriffs and then darted in to attack it. When I managed to scratch the thick skin on its shoulder, not drawing blood, it swung outwards and I barely flapped out of the way of the attack.

I struck it several more times, with the knife barely doing much to it. It then clapped its claws together in an attempt to shred me with them.

It missed, but the air pressure still knocked me to the floor. The buggane launched itself for me, its entire body threatening to crush me before Flamberge shoved me out of the way and got smashed into the ground by the buggane landing on him in a painful looking belly flop.

Flamberge was tough, but he was taking some pretty nasty hits here. Fortitude in a fit of anger rammed the buggane off of the dragon.

The buggane rolled onto its chest while swiping out at Ryu who chose to move in to attack, then it stomped the ground again and more stalactites started falling all around us.

“Retreat!” Fortitude called out as he grabbed his brother and started to drag him away.

Distracting the buggane while the others retreat by flying around and slashing its thick skin with the knife several times, I eventually retreated and was the last one out.

That thing was ridiculously tough, scarily so.

-Mount Aris, Hippogriffia, Evening, Ryu-

We failed again, bruised, battered, but at least we weren’t skewered or hurt even worse.

“We are needing Skelly’s help next time.” Looking to Fortitude I concurred with that thought, but we needed to hit that monster harder and faster next time. We weren’t going to give it time to do much of anything.

“I have an idea.” I looked over to the tired Sweetcakes. “But I suggest we sit on it until tomorrow, I’m sure the buggane will be waiting for us with new traps by then.”

“Any idea is better than trying to face it in direct combat a fourth time.” A wise statement Fortitude. “We are needing a good plan.”

-Mount Aris, backside beach, night, Skelly-

“How strong is your axe?” Ryu asked me and I held it aloft with pride, my axe was strong and magically gifted in cutting through most materials. Why was he asking me this though? What happened to Flamberge and Fortitude? “We’ll need your help tomorrow and a contingent of hippogriffs will be our backup plan if we can’t make this work. Wait until morning when your appearance is fleshy once more, then come up to help us defeat the buggane.”

I made a series of gesture to him asking about the others and he understood what I was asking.

“Sweetcakes tired herself out using the fan twice and healing our wounds from both attacks, she wasn’t even able to heal all the wounds fully. Thankfully, none of the injuries were debilitating.” He rubbed his chin and flicked his tongue out while looking to the stars, he then sent me a smile. “That buggane is a wily creature, I thank you for making me consider something I might have missed otherwise... I’ll add it to the plan.”

Author's Note

Fourth times the charm right?

Chapter fifty, all around the world: Here.

-Some time later, ???, Fortitude-

“Where are we now?” The mist disappeared and we found ourselves at the edge of a lake, curiously enough there were giant flowers, vegetables and insects. One in particular seemed to look upset and it was sitting on a giant pinecone.

Looking at my brother we agreed that the upset looking insect was obviously the closest thing to worry about.

Sweetcakes and Skelly looked around at all the splendor that was the nature here, but they stayed in the boat as me and Flamberge got closer to the upset looking butterfly.

Wait… I am realizing something. Where did the pinecone come from? There weren’t any giant trees of Yggdrasil’s make around here!

“What’s the matter big guy, you look depressed?!” Flamberge asked the whining butterfly, it just looked at us with puppy dog eyes and then went back to sulking.

Upon further inspection, the giant pine cone was attached to a fairly large tree that looked to be bent and under a high amount of tension thanks to the unnaturally heavy and large pinecone it grew. The tree was not nearly as big as the surrounding humongous garden plants and the top of it seemed to be a bit stuck against the ground.

“Do you suppose the problem is the top of the tree being stuck in the ground?” I could see the butterfly seemed fairly intelligent, it didn’t exactly seem to care much about my question involving the tree. “I am Fortitude the fantastically fragrant and this is my brother Flamberge the fiercely flammable, is there anything we can help you with?”

The butterfly made a soft depressing negative sounding noise.

“Eh, well if you ever wanted to get this tree to stand back up maybe you should cut away the pinecone or the tree top!” Flamberge pulled out his sword and the butterfly clutched onto the looking slightly frightened at the flames the sword was emitting. “Reducing the weight either way should help, just like this!”

Flamberge slashed the tree’s top stuck in the ground and the trees bent form bobbed up and down slightly at its removal, the butterfly blinked in confusion as the tree hadn’t caught fire from my brothers well practiced swing.

My brother can set things on fire whenever he chooses to, it was not always incidental or even accidental.

It was a second later that the tree immediate stood upright with an impressive show of force, it wobbled in place afterwards until it eventually came to a stop in a full standing upright position.

The pinecone, due to the force of the tree moving into a completely upright position with a startling suddenness, disconnected from the tree and went sailing off into the distance with the butterfly clutching to it and squealing in fear.

“Err… whoops!” Flamberge quickly sheathed his sword and turned to the rest of us with a shrug. “Well… out of sight out of mind right?!”

A number of giant insects turned to stare at us after the incident with Flamberge launching the pinecone. The stares were starting to get a bit unnerving after a solid minute of it.

“I am thinking that we shouldn’t stay here.” I quickly and quietly got back into the boat and Flamberge followed looking incredibly sheepish about the incident. “Will the boat take us somewhere else Skelly?”

Skelly threw a lazy salute and then started working the oar, the mists started up around us immediately much to the confusion of Sweetcakes and the rest of us.

“Okay, I’m concerned, why was it so important that I launched a butterfly on a pinecone off into the distance like that?!” Yes, that was a very strange thing to do indeed Flamberge, but it was what Travel On apparently wanted us to do.

“I do not know, but we are being wherever we were for a very short time. Whatever the reason, the impact we have wherever we end up must not always be that important to us specifically. It is just important that we were there to do whatever we did.” Shrugging at my brother, like him I didn’t have a clue as to what that recent event was about. Still, Travel On wanted us there for the time it took Flamberge to do something strange and then we could leave just like that. “It is best that we do not think about it too hard, it was probably not important for us to know the why of it. I am just glad that we were not assaulted by giant insects after that.”

“I am glad as well, though it was quite beautiful, danger of big bugs.” Sweetcakes shuddered and curled up in the boat next to Flamberge.

-???, Flamberge-

So we were arriving at another place and time, I wondered where we were this time. If it had not caused an incident I probably would have liked to explore our previous location a little bit more, but I didn’t like the stares of the giant insects.

“Well this place seems quiet!” I tried to ignore Sweetcakes pressing into my side affectionately.

I was starting to wonder if we should have waited for Blade and Ryu to be done with finding that hippogriff instead of running off like we did. I don’t think Travel On was a taxi service on purpose, but it was close enough with the way it always got us to where we needed to be.

Looking around we were in a small lake, one that was in the middle of a large forest area. The entire place was a bit frozen over, but this didn’t seem like Soar Way to me.

It was safe to say that while Sweetcakes may have seen snow before, she has probably never seen so much of it. She was seeing so many knew sights, but Skelly lived in snowy climates so this was just like home for her and the rest of us.

“Yes, if we are to know where we are maybe we should ask that deer?” Fortitude pointed to a deer curled up on a bench and shivering as he got out of the boat. “Excuse me, I am Fortitude the fantastically fragrant! I would like to know, where are we?”

“Huh… oh… er… you’re in Rein, welcome to Rein however you got here. Home of the reindeer… yes… reindeer… not alpacas… nope, no alpacas here! I’m not paranoid, you’re the paranoid ones, haven’t seen the alpaca in a long time… maybe she’s gone for good? I’m not the one seeing walls of fluff everywhere, you’re the one seeing walls of fluff everywhere!” There was something off about this reindeer and she was quite twitchy, a few small blue creatures started to rub at her back soothingly and seemed to be trying to calm her down. They were probably her tiny therapists given how quickly she did calm down. “Enjoy your visit and the adorable welcoming committee of ice sprites will soon be around to follow you with musical instruments. Don’t mind them, they enjoy being overly cheerful.”

“Thank you, we will be staying for a while.” At least until we figured out why we were here in the first place Fortitude.

“She seems quite disturbed. Hopefully she gets better. Do the good times reign?” Sweetcakes snuggled up against me and smiled at her pun, I just gently pushed her away and looked around.

“They likely do around here given the cheerful atmosphere and that music!” We all looked behind us and saw a bunch of those tiny ice sprites as they started playing music. “Okay, so what are we going to find to do around here, also should Skelly be wandering around?”

Skelly looked curious about that thought too, she tried to stay out of sight when it was dark at Mount Aris and she succeeded in keeping her more skeletal appearance hidden. Here that was going to be a bit of a problem, it certainly was a festive place and I didn’t want her to be left out of the ‘fun’ we could find here.

Why couldn’t I think of the word ‘fun’ without it sounding sarcastic?

Anyway we all made our way into town and something drew Skelly’s attention away from us.

“The waterwheel is frozen over again.” That reindeer had Skelly’s full attention, but why would she… oh right, her cutie mark. She kind of has a special talent in solving problems with very few resources and it all started with waterwheels somehow. “If only I knew a way to keep it from freezing up, then we wouldn’t be having these issues every few days.”

It took me a moment to realize it, but when Skelly started to drag Fortitude over in that direction they had left me alone with Sweetcakes. She immediately wrapped fake dragon claws around my right bicep as she took on that yellow dragon form again and smiled brightly at me.

“No… wait… don’t leave me with… ugh… why do I bother trying to avoid you!” I slapped my left claws over my face and shook my head while Sweetcakes giggled at me.

“We’ll find things to do, I will do them all with you, friendship grows stronger!” I didn’t look into the eyes of madness that was Sweetcakes Crumble Tail.

“You know you’re not a real dragon right?” I told Sweetcakes who looked at me innocently with the face of a yellow dragon that had too many of her teeth showing. “Fine, let’s go see what we can find to do, the waterwheel thing might take a while if everything Skelly wants to talk about needs to be translated through Fortitude.”

I silently noted dragons and innocent looks do not go too well together. No wonder I couldn’t get away with anything related to the cookie jar when I was still a little whelp. While I could quickly deal with the frozen over waterwheel, it wouldn’t have been a permanent solution to the problem given that this place was cold enough to freeze one up again after I was done thawing it out.

That was a problem for Skelly to figure out at the nearby mill or whatever it was that used waterwheels around here. Also I should probably warn Sweetcakes about showing teeth when we were actually around other dragons. It’s kind of a threatening display thing and would be taken as a… better yet, I should actually stay quiet on that and let her find out for herself.

Kitsune are supposed to be smart right?

“So what exactly do you expect us to be doing Sweetcakes?” My being blunt with Sweetcakes here and now with her would help in the long run. “I don’t exactly like you like you want me too and any attempt at coercion is not going to work at this rate. Plus you’re being a bit naïve about how quickly things will go or even begin to form. We’re basically still at the acquaintance phase here and you’re expecting a little bit much from me if you think it’ll ever go beyond us being friends.”

“How about we eat, a meal with a tasty treat, tell you about me.” Sweetcakes looked at me with a grin and seemed to take my denial of a relationship forming as a reason to continue her efforts. “I know you quite well, a brave dragon of great strength, loves his family. You are quite giving, greed will never find purchase, with the gold hearted.”

“Fine, we’ll go somewhere to eat while Fortitude helps Skelly with whatever waterwheel problem is going on nearby. It can’t take all day right?” Because when night fell a bunch of reindeer were going to have problems with a skeleton and probably sing songs about ‘what’s that’. We’d hopefully find a restaurant fast, but I’d have to ask a nearby reindeer. That one should do. “Excuse me, but do you know where we can find a restaurant? One that doesn’t mind serving fish.”

“Sure thing eh, it’s the next street over and take a right. You’ll just aboot run into it without a problem, very noticeable, the grub ain’t too bad either eh.” This male reindeer seemed really cool. “If you’re interested you can watch a hockey match later, it’s kind of a blood sport for some around here and we always make a good show of it eh. You look like someone who’d be interested in it, have a nice date with your lady friend and my name is Cracks if you need a free in to the match dude. In fact, bring your all your friends too, the nachos have gotten really good thanks to the efforts of the local cows eh!”

We set out to find the restaurant, but not before I filled a pouch with some money. Equestrian currency was good in most places, even if some places had their own.

The reindeer trotted off with a positive mood and I considered actually watching the hockey match, it’s just too bad Soar Way didn’t have an international team. You’d think we would have one with how cold the weather generally is around there. If I see Ratatoskr anytime soon, then I’m sending a message to Soar Way about getting one started.

Now that I thought about it… did we need travel visas and passports? It’s never really come up, did we technically count as Equestrian citizens, Soar Way citizens or was it a dual thing like what Jade and Kuril had?

In my deliberations we had almost walked past the restaurant, much to my embarrassment.

“Lucky you are cute, thinking is not your strong suit, feed me I’m hungry.” I just gave her a flat glare.

-Hours later, hockey rink-

“Ooh… that has to hurt.” The four of us sat among the crowd watching a vicious hockey match as the announcer gave a really colorful commentary. Violence was not considered acceptable in the sport, but it wasn’t denied as to be an existing thing. The fact that the does also watch the sport and were even playing it was not lost on me. These reindeer were rather inclusive about who could play, but they had to sign waivers about injuries obtained while playing. “Number nine, Rude Dolph scores another goal and let’s hear it from the crowd, because you know you love Rudy and his bright red nostrils!”

Now there was a reindeer who knew how to play hockey, I was cheering quite loudly with my friends. That little guy was an acrobat on the ice and he could give as much as he took from the other larger reindeer. I even watched as Cracks and Rude high hoofed as they passed one another.

So I learned a bit about Sweetcakes.

I already knew she had multiple sisters, but now I knew more about them.

She had a big sweet tooth.

Her father was overbearing and apparently was kept up to date about things going on around Neighpon by the fishing goddess Inari who sounded vaguely familiar to me.

Sweetcakes loved flute music and disco dancing.

The horrible things she causes to happen were entirely incidental according to her, I didn’t believe her of course, and I jsut learned that she liked nachos a little too much given her seventh round cheese eating grin right now.

Despite Skelly currently being a skeleton and sitting among a number of reindeer, most of them were hopped up on maple malts and the rest thought they were simply hallucinating when Skelly’s fur and skin seemed to disappear as soon as it got dark.

Author's Note

Mind you with how fast Travel On gets them around, they can appear in a number of places within seconds anywhere on the planet of Equus depending on how fast they can figure out why they ended up there in the first place.

Chapter fifty, all around the world: There.

-???, Flamberge-

We arrived at our new destination. Thjs time we didn’t have to ask where we were, it was fairly obvious with Travel On parked in the middle of a fountain surrounded by minotaur.

“What are the chances we’re in Minos?!” I asked Fortitude.

“I am thinking it is highly likely.” My brother responded as he pointed to the large minotaur in front of our boat making a speech of some kind. For the most part we were ignored by the many minotaurs around here.

It didn’t really seem like we did anything important in Rein.

Skelly somehow fixed the freezing waterwheel problem without the need of excessive fire.

I might have accidentally spilled oil all over a house, but at least it hadn’t caught fire and it’d be fine in this weather.

We made some friends with the local hockey league and spread the word about Airship Mauled.

I also learned a few odd things about Sweetcakes.

The overnight stay in Rein was pretty good and the inn was very nice, but the places cheerful atmosphere and lack of problems to solve made it really boring. Even Skelly being a skeleton didn’t raise an eyebrow or make a scene.

Overall? It felt like we did nothing important in Rein requiring us to be there.

Travel On then just brought us to what was likely Minos, now this was a place where I could expect some action.

I think Minos was the minotaur capital, it’s not like I ever thought I’d be surrounded by people that have about as many muscles in their heads as I do. The amount that those said muscles are actually used is always in question where these literal bullheaded people were concerned. They preferred to use the muscles in the rest of their body as aggressively as possible.

“For I am Bloodhoof Soulrender, just to reiterate I will be killing Princess Celestia of Equestria and there will be no negotiations! Just absolute soul rending viciousness and…!” That’s when Bloodhoof took the full blunt force of a shield to the back of his skull. The bottom edge of said extended shield was held by Fortitude. “Okay mommy, I’m going to be the best sugar plum fairy ever!”

The dizzy minotaur pranced forward like a ballerina, did a twirl and then fell flat on his face. All the minotaur turned to us and finally noticed our presence. There was a lot of staring and a single minotaur in the crowd coughed into his fist, but didn’t do much afterwards.

I think Fortitude just ruined that whole guys career with that one blow, I know I wouldn’t follow Bloodhoof after a goofy twinkle hooves display like that.

“Very awkward this is, fortitude struck his head hard, may have caused issues.” Yes, Sweetcakes, we’re all well aware of what just happened.

“I am Fortitude the fantastically fragrant!” The silence at Fortitude’s declaration was quite palpable. “Is this Minos? I did not appreciate a minotaur talking about hurting yak friend so openly.”

Minotaurs started approaching us and I readied myself for a fight, these were a people known for violence or being rough around the edges.

Skelly and Sweetcakes readied themselves for what would be a confrontation like no other…

-One week later, Minos, Celestia-

Cadence was not ready or old enough for a trip to Minos, my entourage of royal guards and some negotiators to help me with whoever was the current leader of Minos however were. Arriving at the city and being let in, something was very wrong with this picture as the guards at the gate didn’t take forever to let us through.

I would wait until we met with the king before I could put my hoof on what was wrong, hopefully they were in a good enough mood to meet with me.

We eventually arrived at the palace and there were the many broken bodies of the various minotaur that I expected to be, but that was normal. What wasn’t normal was all the other stuff I was noticing going on, all the stuff I saw on the way here was eye opening.

“Equestrian delegation here for the current king of Minos? Hello there my name is Tourmaline. As I’m sure you’ve notice, there’s been a few changes to Minos since you’re last visit and I’m happy to make your acquaintance.” Huh, since when did the minotaurs start hiring perky females of their species, her blue hair was quite nice and the loincloth looked particularly fashionable… more so than should be possible given how often Minos goes through leaders like a mouse goes for my cheesecake. I didn’t appreciate mice being near my cheesecake. “If you’ll come this way princess, I’m sure he’ll see you right now. Would you like anything to drink? I don’t think our new king is in the habit of poisoning people. In fact he’s been the best king that we’ve ever had, because I can honestly say that Minos has never been more prosperous!”

“Is this king named Bloodhoof Soulrender by any chance?” I’ve heard rumors that he wanted to do what so many minotaurs have failed to do previously, I trotted forward down the hallway towards the kings chamber like I’ve done numerous times before expecting to be somehow drawn into a round of combat with a musclebound idiot with very little between his horns.

“Oh no, our new king is probably one of the greatest we’ve ever had!” Tourmaline sighed loftily, she was apparently quite taken with this new king of theirs. That wasn’t a good sign, anyone that can unify the minotaur easily was something to look into. “His charisma knows no bounds, his strength is immeasurable and he has given our people some integrity! It’s quite frankly why we’re doing so much better now.”

“What has he actually done?” I didn’t expect an answer, usually it’s a lot of hearsay and tales of unending grandeur that is usually just boasting.

“That’s just the thing, he’s done what no other leader before him has done… absolutely nothing!” Um… what? Did I just hear Ms. Tourmaline correctly? Are my ears actually working? Don’t minotaur leaders usually go full on jock the second they take command?

“Um… what?” I wasn’t the only one shocked, my entourage was equally confused. Usually I would have had to shield us from a double bladed axe at this point, but nothing of the sort ever came.

“Yeah, that’s what I first thought too when our king announced that he would do nothing, well aside from accept the free room, food and all the perks of the job. I mean his stories are really neat, but he’s really not doing anything our previous kings have done and is in fact not actually acting like a king or even a leader.” Tourmaline stopped and turned to us with a bright smile on her face and in her big green cow eyes. “I’m surprised he really hasn’t taken advantage of any of this, it’s been really great and he’s been the best leader we’ve had in the last one hundred and fifty years. I believe you can remember Bean Horror the flatulent?”

Yes, that was one of the nicer minotaurs I’ve ever met, he just loved beans way too much and even swore by them. He could clear a room in less than a minute if he farted loudly enough.

“How is this king the best leader you’ve ever had when you say he isn’t doing anything?” Two voices spoke up, mine and the negotiator for our continued treaties.

“Well by doing absolutely nothing, that muscular hunk has somehow decreased crime in this city alone by ninety nine percent and the whole region by eighty. Thanks to that our whole economy has entirely quintupled in less than a week, so we’re actually open to the idea of some hefty trade deals. Male minotaurs that like macramé, crochet, sewing and knitting are not being looked down upon, so our fashion industry is actually now kind of surpassing Equestrias.” That certainly explained the more flamboyant looking minotaurs on the way in. Is it strange that I find all of this news horrifying? We stopped at the door.

“Surely the king must be doing something, I mean I saw all those minotaur bodies piled up on the way in.” Whoever this new king was, he was quite fairly strong and apparently had the heart of the minotaurs as a leader when he wasn’t even trying. It made me wonder how dangerous this new king actually was when he actually and inevitably started trying. I didn’t like unknowns, he could possibly be preparing for war and would be the most dangerous being to my ponies in recent history.

I thought most dangerous being in recent history would become my sister soon enough, I let out a shaky breathe and tried not to think about it too hard.

“Let me check my list for who they are… let’s see… Kick Mckick-me-face, Punchy Punchington, Brass Spheres, Throat Puncher the throat puncher, Vile Cleaver the gentle friend of all beavers, Toad Squeaker the lackluster, Duke Put-em-up, Duchess Dirk-in-chest, Sally Salt-in-wounds and Commander Chicken Thighs the ineptly named.” Of those names Tourmaline spoke, I at least recognized Commander Chicken Thighs. I’ve been paranoid about chickens ever since meeting him and would rather deal with a cockatrice if I had to choose between the two. “Yeah, the king had nothing to do with them taking each other out, they did that to themselves on their own before they could even get into the throne room proper. We just put them out there because they were kind of in the way.”

“So who is this king that brings this much prosperity to Minos and the surrounding lands of the proud and mighty minotaurs?” Whoever they are, they were incredibly dangerous and I would really like to see them get quickly deposed somehow.

I didn’t like the idea of a smart minotaur that could bide their time so well and have it effect the entire region to almost becoming a utopia in less than a week, especially without being seen as weak for not having seemingly done anything.

Whoever they were they had to be the greatest of masterminds to even do all this and make it turn the entire minotaur race around, the streets around here were so clean now that you could practically eat off of them!

“Sire, the Equestrian delegation is here, may I introduce Princess Celestia to his highness of Minos, King Fortitude the fantastically fragrant!” I took three steps into the throne room at Tourmaline’s introduction and froze up at seeing the familiar, if entirely friendly, yak sitting on the throne.

“Hello Celestia!” Fortitude said in a friendly jovial manner as he waved a hoof at me, I had no words for this situation. There is one thing I was grateful for here, any formalities I might have needed to go through were not very important in the slightest now. “I am the current king of Minos, it is being a very easy job!”

The statue of Fortitude holding the edge of a shield in both hooves standing over a cowardly looking tiny Bloodhoof Soulrender wearing a tutu was quite telling, given it was large and towered behind the throne.

The minotaurs must really like a yak that does nothing as a leader, a yak that I just happened to be familiar with and was now completely scared of because he said the job was easy.

I could tell they liked Fortitude, because there was no way the minotaurs would ever build a statue that large or even as fast as within the last few days. Considering how polished it looked, they didn’t even skimp on the details at all like they had with some of their previous leaders.

They had actually gone all out for King Fortitude and the tiny crown he wore wasn’t nearly as ostentatious as the other crowns the previous minotaur kings have worn. It didn’t even have any jewels in it, just a simple… gold… crown.

…

How in the world does a yak turn Minos around in less than a week by not actively ruling the country?! Just how?! Does nobody realize how hard it is to keep ponies from destroying themselves, I have to micromanage them and keep them from doing so many idiotic things to end the world and here was Fortitude of the Vibrant Vikings doing a job without actually doing it!

Minotaurs aren’t that different from ponies! They are bullheaded, they are easy to rouse to anger and their violence knows no bounds! How did he cut the crime rate by ninety percent and quintuple the economy by doing nothing?! I’ve spent over a thousand years making sure ponies don’t do anything stupid and Minotaurs are even worse than that!

SO HOW?! HOW?!!! HOW DID HE MANAGE A MAD HOUSE LIKE THIS WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING AT ALL!?

-Flamberge-

“Is she supposed to be on her back and foaming at the mouth like that?!” I queried to my brother and our friends.

“She needs aid quickly, I will do my best to help, need a professional!” Blinking at Sweetcakes words, it sunk in that Celestia didn’t look to good.

“Hey we need all the doctors we can get here!” At my call the unicorns that came with Celestia moved forward and medical assistance was quickly found by the people of Minos.

Apparently hygiene and health practices went through the roof since Fortitude took over, don’t honestly know what the correlation was between the two facts. I barely even understood the word ‘correlation’. At least the hospitals around here went from poor to excellent in record time, which was definitely good for Celestia.

Minotaurs were all friendly and were close enough to Vikings to enjoy a good story, they even had some of the best tasting root beer I’ve ever come across. Still the past week wasn’t nearly as exciting as I wanted it to be, at least General Skelly let me train with the troops so I wasn’t too bored. I was not about to let Sweetcakes keep pestering me to do more things with her even if it would solve most of my boredom woes.

-Two hours later, medical room, Celestia-

I was lying in a bed staring at the ceiling wide eyed, my right eye twitching every now and then.

“I am sorry you are having a stroke Celestia or was it an aneurysm?” Fortitude was as friendly as he ever was, yet I could still feel my brain trying to destroy itself. “At least the medical help was quickly administered.”

“Actually it was both your highness, but the aneurysm somehow helped keep the blood flowing through her brain when the stroke threatened to cut off all the blood flow. It wasn’t hard to heal, mostly since Celestia always bring highly trained medical professionals with her whenever she comes to do business with the king of Minos.” After a pause Tourmaline seemed to consider something. “You know, this is the first time Celestia has ever been defeated by the king of Minos. We’re going to add this to our tales of grandness, I doubt we will ever forget that ‘Great King Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant’ defeated Celestia by just greeting her! No other minotaur king could possibly replicate such a feat like that!”

Well this was horribly embarrassing.

I had no idea what I was going to tell Cadence, I may have had to fudge things a tiny bit.

Author's Note

Don't worry folks, the tales of Travel On will continue after Celestia gets some help for her stress problem.

Sometimes it's better to not do anything, than to try and do everything.

Chapter fifty, all around the world: Somewhere.

Author's Note

This chapter might be a tiny bit upsetting, just a little fair warning at a hinted subject matter and a character going through depression.

The character involved does get a happy ending after a few years of soul crushing loneliness, so there is that.

Also don't add: 'Over the rainbow' after 'Somewhere' in the title of this particular page.

Chapter fifty, all around the world: Somewhere.

-Some months later,???, Fortitude-

Celestia was not exactly a great negotiator, but I attribute that to the stroke and aneurysm.

“I wonder if the minotaurs are doing okay without my leadership.” They seemed fine when we left.

“Fortitude, if they fall apart as soon as you leave then you really weren’t leadership material!” Flamberge has a point, a leader should be able to trust in his people.

Technically my people were yaks, Vikings, family, friends and any combination of the four. I was choosing to believe that the minotaurs will be okay on their own without their mighty king.

“I’d be more worried about how Blade is doing.” That was another fine point from my brother Flamberge. “Did finally she convince that third guy and is moving onto the fourth star thing she’s going for or has she gotten hung up somewhere like we did with Minos?”

We had been in Minos for a long time doing nothing except having fun and we just left that nice place behind. The reason for leaving Minos behind was that I kind of missed traveling, also I wanted to go back to being lost and we had abused the minotaurs hospitality too far. If we get back to Airship Mauled we may actually see minotaurs there.

Looking to Skelly, she looked upset and seemed to be whining with her eyes. She really liked being a well-respected general of Minos. Though the reactions to her being a skeleton were just shrugs and curious glances.

I am wondering what is wrong with people when living skeletons are actually considered cute like Skelly is, I expected more to be somewhat disturbed by her appearance and was greatly surprised. Instead, minotaurs started getting into rock music because of General Skelly’s usual appearance at night. They are being very loud with the several new Heavy Metal bands using Skelly as inspiration.

“I ask where we are. See the close trees around us? I smell burning wood!” Whatever Sweetcakes was smelling, we had better check it out once we landed Travel On the shore of the rather small river we appeared in.

It didn’t take much for me to drag the boat out of the water with Flamberge’s help, we were going to be traveling lightly in case it was a forest fire.

“Say, do you suppose Gene will appreciate the spear I acquired for him in Minos from some of their premiere blacksmiths?” Flamberge lifted the spear and began to inspect it, Minos was well known for their blacksmiths and now they are going to also be known for their arts and crafts.

The spear in question had a duel pronged bladed head and was made of some of the sturdiest materials that Minos had to offer. It was made specifically for a griffin to use whether for fishing or fighting. I’m sure Gene would like it and Flamberge should stop worrying about it.

Skelly rolled her eyes and took off the blue helmet with the yellow stripe down the middle and the two metal horns on it, she was going to leave it with the boat. She really liked her Minos general helmet, it is now being a good souvenir for her to remember the people of Minos by.

“We are going to seek out the fire, it is obviously of some concern in a densely forested area. Sweetcakes, lead us towards it!” I was not going to let some poor animals lose their homes, to that end Sweetcakes was a good choice to be in front.

Sweetcakes could absorb the fire or at least put it out, letting Flamberge try to put out a fire would only make the fire worse. In an emergency and provided that Skelly bones weren’t charred by the flames, she could begin rescue efforts.

We went into the forest following the smell of smoke, but there was surprisingly very little fire despite the strong presence of smoke.

We were cautious and yet the animals didn’t seem to be running or fleeing the general area, it was rather curious to see squirrels not fleeing the scent of smoke. Were they used to it or did they know what was causing it?

What we came upon was an unusual sight, it was like a longma that lit themselves on fire… only darker and less controlled.

Also unlike a longma, this thing actually had a horn like a unicorn that split into two prongs. The beings body looked to have been blackened with soot. The hooves of this being were covered in red flames. Its tail, lion mane and even the eyebrows were wreathed in wildly flowing blue, red and pink flames. The odd thing is that its back was covered in darkened grey scales. The burning creature’s eyes were glowing white.

Its sharp fangs were gritted and it was growling loudly while standing in a circle of stones bashing away at a boulder with its glowing white hot horn aggressively.

“Given its similarities to a longma, I think that might be a Kirin.” ‘Might’ being the keyword, I don’t think Kirin were supposed to be monstrous looking like this. “Something is very wrong with it.”

We didn’t approach any closer and the supposed Kirin didn’t seem to notice us. It eventually slapped its head roughly enough against the boulder that it actually split in half from the force of the blow, the Kirin then fell onto their side and surprisingly transformed.

The new form of the Kirin groaned out weakly and went still. I looked the freshly changed body over.

It seemed a little odd, but I was quite sure this Kirin was female. The scales on her back had turned green. The flames had turned into an orange mane and tail with some curls that wrapped its way around her head and neck. As for the black as soot covered body, it had switched to a nice shade of off white fur. The horn that had once been burning white hot was now a dark crimson color, it reminded me of a burnt out torch from what was once a blazing spring of heat.

We moved closer and saw some blood leaking from her forehead. We all turned to Sweetcakes who was moving forward cautiously with her glowing tails, prepared to heal the poor thing that just knocked herself unconscious.

“Go ahead and tend to her wounds Sweetcakes, we will try to talk to her when she wakes.” We should at least find out what was wrong with her, something made her look like a monster before she reverted back to looking more innocent due to injuring herself.

“We should be wary of that state we saw her in when we arrived… regrettably that means I and Sweetcakes will have to be close to her while you and Skelly sit a bit further away!” There was an obvious amount of reticence in Flamberge’s voice, with good reason given that Sweetcakes will use this as another opportunity to get closer to my brother. “The two of us will need to be in a position to restrain her if she becomes violent or starts hurting herself again upon waking up.”

-Some hours later, Kirin Campsite, Flamberge-

Sweetcakes had been nothing but affectionate towards me and that was highly annoying, I ignored her continued attempts to squeeze water out of a stone. A task that wasn’t impossible, but it nearly was.

The Kirin was coming to and we all tensed as she sat up groaning, she put a hoof to her head and then said something peculiar.

“My life needs a lot more cheese, enough for at least sweet mouthful if you please~.” She half mumbled out in a sing song manner. “Because there’s no other way to light up my life or the sky, these lands will silently burn as our emotions have well enough ran dry~.”

She was singing?

“My village is full of silence, because all of their voices they spurned~. Just what kind of life do we lead without being able to sing or speak, just because we caused so many things to get burned~? There’s no point in trying to talk, when will I ever learn~? My life would be at its best right now, if I were to put it right into an urn~. So why can’t I falter in the face of my depressive state~? Why were we all so full of… hate~.” The song was rather sorrowful from the way she was singing and there were tears in her eyes, I think we might have a serious situation on our claws, paws and hooves. I cleared my throat and her ears shot up. When her golden eyes finally noticed us, we all froze and stared at one another. “Er… can I talk? I mean of course I can talk, but can I talk in a manner that leads to a conversation… I mean I want to talk with you! Ugh, it’s been too long since I’m starting to lose it, I’m imagining having people to talk to. I must have concussion! Why did I have to wake up again? Wait if I have a concussion, why doesn’t it hurt more?”

I may not be a shrink, but even I could tell there were a lot of big red flags here. They were going on sale at a ninety percent discount, it was that obvious that this Kirin needed help like nothing else. Travel On definitely brought us here to save her, this was rather highly obvious by how low the Kirin looked to be right now.

“We are not figments, we are really here for you, quite literally.” Not only did Sweetcakes say it, but the three of us also nodded. “I heal the body, what I can’t heal is the mind, mentally not sound.”

Sweetcakes pointed a tail at the Kirin in emphasis on the mentally sound part. We needed to stabilize her, but we couldn’t stay here and support her forever. We needed to prop her up a bit and let her keep herself strong, she was not in a good place right now.

“We are hugging her now!” Fortitude moved forward slowly and brought the Kirin up into his chest gently and her face turned a little green.

“Okay, now I know you’re really here, there’s no way I can imagine a smell this horrid!” Now her eyes were filled with tears for a different reason. Either the happiness of seeing us or it was Fortitude’s short range highly controlled stench.

Fortitude let her go and then the rest of us moved upon her to hold her gently in a group hug, she started hugging back and sobbing. She really needed this, eventually she pushed us away and wiped her large teary eyes.

“Thank you, it’s been a few months since I’ve balked… walked… talked to anyone!” The Kirin looked to the circle of stones she was sitting in, there was a small smile on her face. “I guess you saw me bashing my skull against that boulder, I’m so frown in the clumps… I mean, I’m down at the dumps! It’s hard for me to smile about anything these days, I’ve gotten so bad that I’ve name my shadow. It’s called Silhouette Gloom of the Sundown Lands.”

“Yeah, that gives us a decent idea as to your mental state!” Causing a cringe with my loud exclamation, I shook my head. “Sorry, my name is Flamberge the fiercely flammable, that’s my brother Fortitude the fantastically fragrant…”

“I’ll say, he smells like the living dead left out in the sun for a few weeks.” The Kirin suddenly had Skelly in her face shaking her head ‘no’.

“Yeah, that’s not an entirely inaccurate description… but I’ve heard better and our friend Skelly the Superbly Spirited kind of takes offense to that statement! Mostly because she smells better than Fortitude does and another equally good reason!” I liked how Skelly always had a nice pine scented smell to her. “Also if she doesn’t respond to you, don’t take offense because she’s mute.”

“She didn’t drink the water around here did she?!” The Kirin seemed a little too panicked about the water around here.

“No, there’s a different reason as to why she’s mute. Why do you ask?” Not that Skelly really needed water, food or much of anything really. Our talkative new friend seemed to calm down greatly upon hearing that Skelly hadn’t consumed any water.

“There’s a stream around here called the ‘Stream of Silence’ and it has a rather nasty effect on those who bathe in or actively drink it. Basically it causes you to become mute and it suppresses your emotions greatly, I know for a fact that it’s not a good thing.” She seemed to know what she was talking about. “Plebs to make you a flank tense, I’m Autumn Blaze! I mean, pleased to make your aqua fence… ugh… it’s nice to meet all of you!”

“Nice to meet you too Autumn! To get the last of our introductions out the way, that’s Sweetcakes!” I pointed out the fox and she waved her tails to Autumn. “She speaks primarily in haikus, I’ve only heard her flub once and that was an emergency and by one syllable! She can actually speak normally, she just really likes her form of poetry! She fixed that wound on your head.”

“I would like to say thank you, but you kind of have an idea as to what I was doing if you were watching me bash my skull into the boulder.” We all gathered around Autumn and held her. “Okay, I get it, some random strangers from out of nowhere care! Also your friend Skelly does smell nice, but I don’t see how saying that someone smelling like the living dead left in the sun for a few weeks would make her…”

That’s when the sun finished setting and night fell, Autumn paused and stared at the blue scarf wearing skeleton pony who just gave her flat stare. After a moment Skelly rolled her glowing green orbs before looking to Fortitude.

“Our friend Skelly is very special.” Fortitude piped up as Autumn continued to stare blankly at Skelly.

“Yes… I can see that and it would certainly explain things quite clearly. I’m sorry for staring like this… but wow… I don’t even want to know what water you drank to end up like that! I heard rumors of the water in Mexicolt from a mail order delivery pegasi that drops by our mailing office every once in a while, let me tell you that we Kirin are really secluded out here, but darn if that wasn’t horrifying!” It seemed Autumn just made Skelly wave at her in a slightly angry manner. “Sorry, Skelly was it, I guess I’m being a bit insensitive to your… given situation. Not like I’ve had much to be sensitive to since I got my voice back, also what’s it like being dead?”

Skelly just quirked an eyehole at Autumn, at least until Autumn realized she had asked a mute skeleton a seriously awkward and insensitive question after making a weak apology. Autumn slapped a hoof over her face and began groaning loudly.

“What exactly do you mean by got your voice back? Did you drink the water and lose your voice?” We were soon regaled with the story of the Kirin.

Autumn Blaze was just lucky enough to come across a cure, some really rare flowers called ‘Foal’s Breathe’ that took years and some incredibly specific conditions to grow.

Chapter fifty, all around the world: Everywhere.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter fifty, all around the world: Nowhere.

-months later, early morning, ???, Flamberge-

I had been a long time since we left Autumn Breeze behind, I seriously hoped she didn’t go back to hurting herself.

We had been on a hundred or so small misadventures, sometimes twice a day if we did some things fast enough.

We were currently in the travel stream, the mists were flowing around the boat like usual and then the boat hit something in the misty traveling stream.

A surprised looking strange white fox yelped as it flew overhead and then the boat came to an abrupt and highly volatile stop that threw us all out of it.

I picked myself up and was slightly dazed.

“Is everyone okay?! Aside from that, do I even need to ask where we are anymore?! We’re always lost and we always appear in a place we’ve never been to before!” My tirade was about our current location, we were in the middle of a badlands kind of region and didn’t seem to be anything around for a vast distance. “Also what did we hit and how did we even get hit it in the middle of the mists?! I seriously doubt that was an ordinary fox that I saw!”

Travel On was currently sitting in the middle of a large mud puddle. So the thing about us always parking on, in or near water was debunked, at least we were not being actively hunted by Breezies anymore. Long story that, at least it was better than what happened at the library in Sire’s Hollow.

Looking around I didn’t see hide nor hair of said white fox that we had somehow hit in transit, didn’t even know Travel On could hit anything but a destination.

Fortitude pulled his face out of the meager mud puddle around us.

Skelly was on her back nearby with her eyes wildly spiraling in their sockets.

Sweetcakes… I hope she was okay, she was definitely unconscious from her tumble with the ground.

“I am thinking that that was a Teumessian, we are now even more lost thanks to the collision with an infamous blink fox… oh….” Fortitude looked off into the distance. “So that is where we are being. We are in the middle of nowhere, this is about as lost as we can get!”

“Yes, but where in the middle of nowhere are we?!” We were definitely lost again, I calmly watched as Skelly rolled onto her hooves and stumbled around a bit.

Skelly eventually slapped her head to make her eyes immediately stop spinning. After looking around for a bit, she blinked confusedly at something turned to me and to sign something.

“Yes I know we’re in the middle of nowhere, but where do you suppose we ended up?! This doesn’t look like the equestrian badlands… and there doesn’t seem to be much out here for miles!” At my question, Skelly just ran a hoof through her mane while looking exasperated with me.

Skelly noticed Sweetcakes was unconscious and looked to me. Skelly flicked her head at Sweetcakes while giving me a concerned look.

I sighed and carried Sweetcakes over to the boat and gently put her in, I even dusted off some bits of her admittedly soft golden fur. After I was done dusting off our traveling companion, Skelly came over to me and gripped my head with both her hooves and turned it to a sign that I had yet to notice.

The sign was a large arrow point at the ground and the writing on it declared ‘The exact middle of nowhere’, on the ground there was a large black dot that the sign was pointing at. There was nothing else the downwards pointing arrow could possibly be focusing on.

“Are we here because of a species of fox that nobody can ever truly capture or are we here because Travel On wants us to be?!” We actually got lost right next to the exact middle of nowhere, I had no idea how to feel about this and previously didn’t think it was an actual location in the world.

I mean who thought that such a place like this actually existed or that someone would even be able to place a sign pointing at the exact spot where the middle of nowhere was.

“There is one way to find out brother, we try to use Travel On!” Fortitude was kind of our leader on this one. He, Skelly and I got into the boat and Skelly worked the oar into the mud, nothing happened. “We are being quite stuck out here.”

“Yes, but where are we going and do we drag Travel On along with us?! Getting back here might be impossible if we go too far from the boat, so do we just wait here for something to happen?! What exactly are we going to do?!” After posing the question I just sat next to Sweetcakes. “We have supplies, but they are not going to last forever! Skelly won’t have much of a problem, but the rest of us however… I could fly up and scout the area I guess!”

Skelly just shrugged, at our plight and looked around. She went to look at the backside of the neary sign and blinked, she then waved to us excitedly. We looked at her curiously when she got our attention before I could take off to do some scouting.

Fortitude and I made our way over to her, we looked at the backside the sign and saw a message scrawled on it.

“Well it’s as good a direction as any to go!” According to what I and the others saw, there was a town nearby called ‘Anywhere But Here’. “I think we’ll be taking Travel On with us this time. Fortitude get ready to push!”

-One hour later-

“I am not liking this adventure.” Well it wasn’t like I could push your weight around Fortitude, also Skelly was at least helping you to pull the boat.

“Look, it could be worse Fortitude, we could be running from highland pukwudgies!” My eyes widened, why did I just say that? Wait… maybe… just maybe it doesn’t work out here in the middle of… a rapidly flipping axe abruptly struck the ground a foot just behind Fortitude and we could hear war drums. Looking behind the boat we could see a large army of pukwudgies gathering. “Okay, before you can get mad at me Fortitude, I swear that I didn’t think it would work out here in the middle of nowhere!”

“Also those are not being highland pukwudgies, I am thinking they are viking pukwudgies.” You know brother, that’s a horrifying thing to hear. “Yes brother, I too am terrified.”

“Gaga-Fragah!” Returning my attention to the pukwudgies, I could see them dragging several pukwudgie sized viking ships up behind us. Hey, at least they had some sense of fair play. Those boats would slow them down to drag or push behind us, now if only those boats weren’t loaded with well manned axe launchers.

The lead pukwudgie had a comically large braided beard and mustache, it wore a slightly ridiculously oversized for it viking helmet. The fork it held was being waved wildly around as a weapon and it even had a tiny shield.

“Skelly… I know you have no clue as to what’s about to happen, but I’m just going to preemptively apologize for it!” I shouted to the skeleton who tilted her head and looked at the army of aggressive mutant hedgehogs that showed up for a fight when you talked about them.

Soon axes started falling around us in waves. I quickly took to the air and started spitting fireballs at them to slow them down.

-After evading the Viking Pukwudgies-

Fortitude’s smell was getting worse the more he sweated and he has already gone through his canteen. My brother might start getting heat stroke out here and I was worried about his health, but then I saw the town of ‘Anywhere But Here’. At least that’s what the dilapidated sign halfway rotted and partially lying on the ground said.

It was built around a nice looking large oasis, seems kind of like one of those dusty western ghost towns that you’d find in the middle of… ah… I get it. I will now swear up and down that Travel On is a sapient boat and has a thing for jokes.

Sweetcakes was at least awake and she seemed okay, considering she cuddled up to me like usual. Skelly gave me a curious glance and looked to Sweetcakes and then to me, she then got out of the boat as Fortitude flopped to the ground completely tired.

Skelly got up under his left leg and lifted a part of Fortitude up, then began dragging him to a nearby building.

“You go with them Sweetcakes, I’m going to set the boat off to the side.” I think we were going to find out what was going on in this town, because there was obviously something wrong with it that we may have need to fix. Why else would we end up here?

Also I took note that despite the oasis being here, Travel On didn’t drop us directly into the middle of the town. I carefully dragged the boat behind a building, I wasn’t going to put it in the water due to some suspicions about this location.

I then made my way towards the water slowly while staying off the street leading towards it. After hearing about the cursed water in the valley that Autumn Blaze lived in, I was a little more than wary of water based curses.

-Cistern Saloon, Skelly-

The name of this place was not very promising for its cleanliness or good service, like how some breezies were not very peaceful or as innocent as they looked for their statures.

“Well now, we don’t see strangers around these parts very often.” The earth pony purveyor of inhibition breaking substances eyed us curiously. He pale brown fur, short burnt orange hair and silver eyes. “Names Rinse Swill, ‘need’ anything? I can ‘help’.”

“I am being tired from the journey, but I feel too wary of this place to order water. So what is wrong with this town?” So Fortitude was also getting the same vibe I was, this town stunk of trouble. “I am quite sure there is a problem with this town.”

“That obvious huh? Saw the ‘sign’ laying halfway on the ground rotting away did you?” Rinse chuckled, it seemed really forced. “Yeah this town has ‘many problems’, but most of them are really simple. You have very ‘good instincts’ sir.”

The emphasis he place on the words ‘sign’, ‘good instincts’ and ‘many problems’ earned my attention slightly.

“Something is very off here.” What with everything we’ve been through Fortitude, and given who I am, I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that there is nothing that we can imagine as being impossible. “So tell us what plagues this town.”

“Well you’ll find out soon enough, but ‘it’s’ not ‘a major problem’.” Rinse looked beyond the bar's doors warily. “In any case, 'the reason for the towns name is’ not ‘important’. Everyone here knows what to look out for and how to ‘stay safe’. As the town’s name implies, some who live here would rather ‘be Anywhere But Here’. Otherwise ‘those who live here have a very good reason’ for doing so, like if you fell in love with a local mare, it’s ‘totally safe to love’. ‘I want to warn you travelers’, we don’t have any inns.”

There’s that strange emphasizing again, it’s like he’s trying to tell us something. He says ‘totally safe to love’ as if everything else here… wasn’t… safe… hm.

“Warn travelers how? You are being rather vague. What is going on?” Sweetcakes asked with narrowed eyes. If our lovely three tailed friend was on edge, then so too should the rest of us be.

“We ‘can only give hints’ about the sights around here, we ‘can’t tell you exactly’ about it because there’s not much that ‘needs to be seen’ to be believed around here!” There’s that emphasis from Rinse again, what exactly needs to be seen? “Also ‘don’t travel’ around alone ‘at night’ and ‘stick together’ to stay warm, I 'don't want you to be lost' or cold.”

Stick together at night? We can split up if needed, he didn’t push the emphasis there, so travel in pairs?

“Okay, is there a particularly good reason that the oasis is full of a very caustic acid that looks like normal water?!” Flamberge walked in holding a stick with the end still dissolving.

“Ah, that is nothing to ‘worry about’. You seem smart, that’s always a good thing to be. Since you all know somewhat, I will simply say that ‘the water’ is not always acid.” Rinse was giving us another warning, basically don’t touch any fluids around here that you can’t implicitly trust.

“If we were to ask you for a drink, would you be poisoning us?” That was a rather blunt question Fortitude and you actually picked up on what we were all hearing.

“Well of course, I am a bartender after all!” There was a strange look in the bartender’s eyes that seemed upset. “All bartenders ‘deal in poisons that mess up the body and mind’ slightly. It’s not ‘dangerous to drink’ unless in excess.”

I had an idea as to what might be wrong, I made some noise and signed something out to Fortitude once he gave me some attention.

“Our friend Skelly tells me to ask you this, is there poison that is not normally safe in your drinks here?” For some reason, at Fortitude’s query, the bartender gave a loud sigh with relief.

“Good, you’re learning already. To confirm your suspicions, yes, I would have actually tried to lethally poison you if you hadn’t questioned me on it.” He shook his head and looked so tired, his gaze was planted on Flamberge. “Thank goodness one of you understood my ‘warning, it’s’ understandable that said poisons I have in stock in the bar are ‘strong enough to kill even a dragon’. Even a fully grown adult dragon in their prime if they drink too much.”

Warning it’s strong enough to kill even a dragon? It definitely wasn’t the poison he was talking about there. I started combining it all together.

“Why would you try to poison strangers?!” Flamberge was immediately on edge, but I was more curious as to why the pony was slightly more honest about it after the right question was asked. “Wouldn’t that be where you get most of your business from here?!”

“It would have to be an accident, honest, don’t ‘be paranoid’. ‘Thankfully nobody has died’ from these little incidents ‘yet’. It’s not like anyone needs to ‘pay attention to everything’ as it’s really quite peaceful here, just drink responsibly.” The bartender sat the glass on the counter and looked about shiftily. “The folks around here are truly friendly, but sometimes they can't contain their own actions.”

“Is something compelling you to try and poison us if we were ignorant enough to order without asking?” Fortitude asked calmly.

“Yes, which is about ‘as much as I can say’ on the subject.” The bartender shivered uncomfortably.

It was dangerous here, especially at night. Be suspicious of all the locals actions as, even if they were innocent, something could force them to attack us. There might be a powerful monster here. Be careful around all offered food and drink.

Author's Note

I hope I did this right...

Chapter fifty, all around the world: But here we are.

-Nowhere, Anywhere But Here, midday, Fortitude-

“Excuse me sir, would you or any of your friends like a pie?” The mare before me in the bonnet asked as she held up the pie. Skelly is already warning me that while the townsfolk are friendly, they will attempt to kill us against their will. “You ‘don’t’ have to ‘eat it’ right away, I just thought it would be nice to give one to travelers such as yourself. We hardly get any around here… thank goodness for that…”

“What flavor is it?!” Questions Flamberge, the red headed mare looked a bit wary.

“It’s rhubarb I will have ‘you’ know! It tastes great, ‘will’ you give it a chance? It has been said that it is good enough to ‘die’ for. ‘If you’ won’t ‘eat it’, then I’ll just have to find someone else to give this pie to.” The mare was quite good at warning us, a lot better than the bartender, rhubarb leaves were only mildly poisonous and I don’t think that’s what was put in the pie as it did smell good. The poison had to be something more potent than rhubarb leaf extract. “If pie isn’t your thing, then I’m perfectly okay with…”

“Okay, we’ll take it!” Taking the pie from the shocked mare, Flamberge passed it off to Skelly. “Our friend Skelly likes eating food and since your offering, I don’t think she’s ever had rhubarb before!”

“Doesn’t she need to watch her girlish figure? I mean she’s already quite good looking, oh… have you had lunch yet? Maybe you should eat a big lunch before you…” The mare’s eyes widened as Skelly dove into the pie face first and started to eat it. The mare looked quite horrified, so it was definitively involuntary and they were quite aware of what they were doing. That kind of reaction couldn’t be faked. “’I hope she’ doesn’t get a tummy ache from eating it. ‘Will’ you ‘accept my apology’ if the pie doesn’t taste good? ‘I’m sorry’ if I didn’t make it right, rhubarb is a bit difficult to deal with.”

Skelly just waved her off and kept eating the pie, she apparently liked the taste and would be perfectly fine. The mare watched as Skelly finished the whole pie and then stood there staring at the mare who started sweating a bit. Once it was clear that Skelly was not going to keel over from a pie that reminded me of our battle with Top Snide, the mare turned to me.

“Um… is your friend going to be alright?” The mare asked. “I mean she looks a little pale, maybe you should get a doctor to check her out?”

Skelly grinned, she motioned for us to get what we can from the mare. Skelly was always a pale beauty, even when she was just an animate pile of bones. I’m unsure how she could get any paler than possibly being related to one of the ponies of the apocalypse.

“Don’t worry, we know.” Even at my reassurance, the mare didn’t look relieved. “Our friend will be fine, she won’t even need medical help for it.”

“How can you be so sure?” The mare didn’t take her eyes off of Skelly.

“There is actually a poison powerful enough to kill our friend!” Exclaimed Flamberge as Skelly took on a proud stance. “So what are the problems that comes out at night?!”

“I would tell you if I could, just know that physical force won’t even touch what’s behind most of our current woes.” That was rather upfront. “I can only tell you what you can’t do.”

“Is this thing annoying?” As I asked this I noticed she was the only pony on the street at the moment.

“Yes.” The mare continued to look at Skelly and the mare was still looking rather surprised. “Maybe you can help with the smaller problems, but I can’t tell you what I need your help with.”

“Could you maybe write it down instead?” There was a long pause and I was wondering what the mares reaction would be.

Eventually the mare smashed herself in the face with one of her hooves.

“Oh my goodness, everyone in this town is an idiot!” It seems like she just realized something. “Hold on, I’ll give you exactly the information you need to solve at least one of our many problems.”

She left and eventually came back with a note, upon reading the note I nodded to her.

“I know we can take on one of those!” My brother stated fiercely as he looked at the note in my hoof.

-Night-

That mare wrote plenty down for us. A number of ponies that lived here had somehow gotten it into their minds that they needed to speak with emphasis and stressing to actually say what they wanted to know.

We are solving that one problem real fast when it was incidentally pointed out that they didn’t need to actually talk to tell us anything. They can’t tell us verbally, but there was more than one way to communicate. Whatever it was that stilled their tongues was now in trouble from the people of Anywhere But Here. Even when their minds weren’t exactly sound, I could see quite clearly that their writing skills weren’t affected in the slightest.

It was a dark and foggy night, exactly like it had been every night since the various things that happened started to happen to ‘Anywhere But Here’. The fog clung to the ground thickly, but it still let you clearly see the sky.

We had a list of those things that were problematic now, one of those was a being that caused a few problems around here. It was a ghostly minotaur that is said to be powerful enough to end us all quite easily.

We were waiting for the moon to rise and once it started its way into the sky, we saw four stars moving up to meet the moon. It appears that Blade has succeeded in becoming a star. I am thinking that many things are as possible even when they seem to be absolutely impossible. If nothing were possible, then nothing there would be.

“Hope to see you again someday Blade!” Turning to me, Flamberge gave me a small grin. “Now how are we going to deal with this specter?! It may not cure the town of their other problems, but at least they’ll have one less thing to worry about by the end of tonight!”

“I can agree with that.” This was going to be dangerous though, we were going to deal with this threat now. We left our tent that encompassed Travel On and proceeded towards where this menacing minotaur manifested.

It didn’t take long for us to find him near the oasis lake, it was a ghastly slightly dilapidated looking bulky bull that was floating in the air and was wrapped in bandages that glowed like he did. His red eyes settled upon us.

“So there seems to be bravery in this era after all...” He spoke slowly and his voice wavered about in pitch. “Do you wish to fight me? Just know that it is quite fruitless to do so, none can defeat me for I am…”

“King Ram Bees, the mino-taur, the mino-taur~!” He started singing with a rather flamboyant music that started playing from out of nowhere. “With me there’s no escaped clause~!”

“The mino-taur, the mino-taur~!” I did not know where those voices were coming from, but they were singing backup quite loudly.

“For I am King Ram Bees, the mino-taur, the mino-taur~!” The minotaur wasn’t doing much more than just singing at a much faster pace than he could talk and I found this ridiculous.

“Prepare the gauze, prepare the gauze~!” The backup voices sang.

“I’m King Ram Bees, the mino-taur, the mino-taur~!” The minotaur wasn’t wearing a crown as far as I could see. “All other beings are flawed~!

“Demand applause, demand applause~!” The backup voices came in again.

“I am a king with no earthly flaws~!” Once he finished his eyes became serious, a large dome of energy rose up around all of us. “There’s no escaping me once you’ve heard my song mortals and there is no battle that I cannot win!”

“Can we each ask you a question before we fight?” The minotaur considered my question for a moment.

“Of course, you are going to perish to my ghost bees anyway even if you don’t fight me personally.” As soon as Ram Bees finished saying that, he unleashed a swarm of small ghostly bees that hovered around him angrily.

My brother reacted like how I felt.

“Ugh, ghost bees on top of that over the top horrible singing… this guy is pretty weird on a number of levels!” My brother Flamberge turned away from me to King Ram Bees. “Okay, let’s get my question out of the way, what are you currently made of exactly?”

“Magic and my own mighty spirit as being the greatest king of the minotaurs to ever bring them to faster ruin than any other leader has before me, next!” The minotaur crossed his arms and stared us down, well I already knew I had won this fight just by what he just said.

I was the best king that the minotaurs have ever had and this pale blue bull was just a loud boastful jerk.

“I have to wonder, what are you doing out here, nowhere near your home?” It seem that Sweetcakes didn’t see the minotaur as threatening at all.

“This place, in the badlands of Nowhere, attracts all manner of strange phenomena and I am one of those things that came here willingly!” Well that answered that question and the entire list of oddities that were written down about the problems going on in this place.

“Do we get a choice in what our battle will be like?” That was my question.

“Since I am challenging you, you get to choose how we fight. Whether it be battles of the mind or battles of the body.” Okay good, I am already having good idea of what to do already, now I can stack things better in my favor. It is good to always take a pragmatic approach to things when the lives of your friends and family are threatened. “If I were compare us, I am worth more in five seconds of speech than the lot of you have been your whole lives. Also there is nothing that you can’t accomplish with the application of enough bees!”

“Skelly, do you have any questions?” Watching the mare sign something out to me, I just smiled and turned towards the ghostly minotaur. “Skelly wants to know something unusual. If someone defeated one of your descendants, then does that mean that they have defeated you as well by proxy?”

“None of my blood would be defeated so easily, if that were to happen then I would gladly be felled by a worthier king than I. Such a thing as a king greater than I is clearly impossible, for I have both muscles and bees… of the ghostly variety!” Ram Bees is having very poor chances if his family line was the one that I moved off the throne by smashing them in the back of the head with my shield. “I even left the strongest, most callous, idiotic minotaur that I could possibly sire to carry my family legacy on to horrible glory over the last few hundred years! Are you ready to tell me what our most glorious battle will be?”

If I am remembering right, the last hundred years have had only bad rulers… and I knocked out the most recent one… Yep, I’m quite safe to win this battle quite easily for I have no reason not to.

“I am accepting of your challenge, I challenge you to have at one point in life defeated Princess Celestia in any way shape or form.” I watch as the minotaur blinked and stared at me with his swarming ghost bees angrily buzzing around him.

“That is clearly impossible, no minotaur or king has ever defeated her! Not even someone of my perfect mass!” The minotaur ghost flexed and posed then slowly he started to disappear. His cloud of ghost bees having quickly ceased to exist a moment prior. “What?! Why am I fading away?!”

“I am a minotaur king who defeated Celestia, so it is not being impossible task and that is why you are disappearing.” The ghostly face, as that’s what I could still see, dropped its jaw before its disappearing neck reached up to its head. “You lose.”

“Truly…. there was one greater than…” He never got to finish as he hopefully moved on to the afterlife to whatever end he deserved.

“Seriously, that’s all it took?!” Flamberge exclaimed in a slightly angry tony. “I thought there was something dangerous enough to kill a dragon here! That didn’t seem very dangerous at…”

A loud rumbling interrupted my brother. Slowly a large tentacle with a spherical tip rose out of the acid water of the oasis and then the end of the tentacles split open revealing a large oval shaped eye with a slit pupil, in the light of the moon we could see several more tentacles slowly snaking out of the water.

On second look, the acid water was actually turning into the tentacles, the tentacles were not coming out of the acid. Well, that would certainly explain what the bartender meant by the water not always being acid.

Skelly took up her axe, Sweetcakes lit two of her tails on fire and brought out the tengu fan to enhance her fire making abilities, Flamberge pulled out his flaming sword and I wielded my anti-magic shield bravely in the face of such a horror.

“I am thinking that it is being a horrifying eldritch abomination made of tentacles!” One that cause me to shiver violently just seeing as more and more of the acid water turned into tentacles by the second.

“I’m sure we can take it!” Flamberge shouted bravely as he pointed his flaming sword at it. “There’s nothing that we can’t beat with the application of enough fire!”

Five minutes later, Flamberge-

“Oh come on!” We lit the thing on fire, but that just made it more dangerous and I now stabbed at the tentacle threatening to squeeze the life out of me multiple times.

Not that Sweetcakes, Skelly or Fortitude were fairing any better.

As far as I’m concerned, this night was going to suck. It would be quite a long night if the flaming tentacle demon, the one that currently had us all in its powerful grasp, had anything to say about it.

-Some weeks later, volcanic region, Shocking Awe-

I looked at my two associates.

Teatime Clockwork was just plain disgusting, he used machines instead of working up the strength of his own body! The machines of his were weak and I question his intelligence every chance I got.

Dispel Grace’s body was much better and it looked like he put the effort into being strong, but his holier than everyone attitude rankled me a bit.

“My associate, Doctor Caballeron, has informed me that our next clue is in the hooves of the longma at a place called ‘The Volcano’.” Te-agh-time unfurled a map and pointed out the location near the dragon lands.

I wonder what wonderful body breaking fights we would find here? I wanted to join the Fiery Fights!

Author's Note

Now they come together for a short while... then I time skip to show what happens to each team that traveled out from Airship Mauled.

Chapter fifty one, Welcome to The Volcano: Cold.

-Near volcanic region, Velvet-

I slammed into the small mountain and burrowed straight through it back first from the sheer force imparted upon my body. Upon popping out on the other side and within seconds of seeing light, I regained enough of my senses to flip and land on my hooves.

Skidding to a stop, I prepared to go after my opponent. It seems I didn’t have to, my opponent was already coming to me by forcefully punching a hole through the small mountain.

The second hole was created next to the one I left behind, that’s when Arizona shot right at me rearing back her right hoof. I leapt forward while forming a blade of ice on my right hoof to meet hers.

“Meep.” We both froze in mid-air before we could meet and continue our fight. We both turned our heads to look at Paprika sitting on a blanket off to the side with her legs crossed and her eyes closed.

She silently sipped some fruit juice from a cup, then she opened her eyes and we could see the bright hearts in them simply asking us to take a break and eat some food.

Arizona and I finally let gravity have its way with us and we dropped to the ground. Tossing my blade of ice off to the side, I proceeded to stretch out my spine. Arizona also took a moment to pop a few muscles on her legs, before she made her way for the blanket to join our alpaca.

Looking back at the mountain, that I was forcibly smashed through and that Arizona quickly ripped through on her own rather impressive strength, we could see our two holes and three new holes above that in the shape of hearts. How Paprika made the three holes we’ll never know, all we knew was that she did it somehow within the same timeframe it took me to land and for Arizona to burst out after me.

“I guess it’s time for lunch, we can continue fighting each other afterwards Arizona... also I’ve worked up quite a sweat.” It made sense that things were going to get hot, we were heading towards a volcano or was it properly called ‘The Volcano’? Either way, we would soon bring the letter we got from Montana to the princess of the longma. “Is it me or have things gotten a bit hotter?”

“Oh how will I ever last through the amount of time I’m not fighting you fluff butt?” Arizona pretended to swoon and she was mocking our need to constantly beat on each other almost without pause.

“To think you call me a drama queen.” Really now, I was the one true ice queen of our herd. I heard a squeaking noise and looked down to see Tinsel tugging at me hoof and pointing towards the food.

“You are a drama queen Velvet!” Growled out Arizona as she took her spot on the blanket and started taking up most of the mustard potato salad.

I on the other hoof daintily took up the cucumber watercress sandwiches that Paprika so thoughtfully provided for us. After eating the sandwiches and wiping my mouth slightly, I patiently waited for my family to finish eating.

“You really should eat more Velvet, you’re going to need your energy for where we’re going.” Of course Arizona would just decide to suddenly start riding me on my dietary habits. It hasn’t exactly been a problem before and I’ve been doing just fine so far. “Also we exercise so much that you could eat twice the amount of food that I do and still look like your same beautiful self, so for the sake of all our minds you need to eat more!”

I was about to respond to that negatively, when Paprika suddenly popped up in front of me and glared into my eyes. Sure her eyes were still heart shaped, but the happy go lucky alpaca glaring at me like that was a bit scary. She pointedly placed more food before me while keeping her eyes locked on mine and pointed at it sternly.

Paprika prided herself on keeping us both fit and healthy, as such she apparently wholeheartedly agreed with Arizona’s assessment that I needed to eat a lot more food.

Even our tiny Tinsel was staring me down and daring me to push away the food that Paprika had so painstakingly prepared for me specifically.

When even my own ice sprite familiar was staring at me like that, it was time to drop any argument I might have tried to start and I was actually really hungry anyway.

I continued eating, I was going to burn most of the weight off in an effort to keep the heat from affecting me and I was a growing deer.

-Several hours later, The Volcano’s base, Arizona-

Thankfully Velvet wasn’t stubborn about having to eat more.

Climbing up the side of a volcano with our bare hooves wasn’t exactly easy, especially when we didn’t have the gear necessary for it.

Oh sure we could just have Paprika drag us all the way to the top using her ability to walk up walls, we could have just taken the trail and maybe we shouldn’t have skipped the elevator, but we were determined to climb The Volcano all the way up to the city built into the side of it.

Hoof over hoof, we climbed our way up while Paprika just cantered along behind us, bringing up the rear to catch us if we fall for any reason. Any time we came across the trail in our climb we ignored it and continued to cherish the exercise of doing things the hard way.

I was more worried about Velvet because the heat was sapping her strength and wearing on her pretty badly, even I was beginning to feel the burn. We weren’t that far from the city and we eventually reached the entrance to the multi-tiered metropolis.

There was a female longma and a male kirin at the gate that had been talking, they stopped to just blinked at me confusedly as I pulled myself up over the edge.

“You actually climbed all the way up to The Volcano? I must commend you for your stamina and strength.” After he said that, Velvet also pulled herself up over the edge breathing somewhat heavily.

“All this heat is really beginning to ruin my wondrous floof!” They both looked surprised to see Velvet climb up over the edge and she was soon followed by a smiling Paprika who just walked up with Tinsel hovering next to her head.

“It’s her… the one who could face our mightiest warriors without fear or hesitation!” The Kirin immediately pressed his back against the wall in fear, yeah Paprika has probably been here before and terrorized everyone like she did in Rein.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s the alpaca again. So, why is she here and why is her horrible second coming being brought about by you guys? A lot of longma and the few kirin that live here were hugged beyond all reason the last time she was here. She even fought Tianhuo, our greatest warrior and captain of the Huoshan Guard, as an equal for three days straight.” The longma was a little bit more relaxed, but I still noticed her warily glancing at the broadly grinning Paprika whose cheerful disposition wasn’t ruined by the heat. “Also if you’re interested in fighting, given that you obviously just performed a training regimen that involves climbing up to The Volcano, would you be interested in the Fiery Fights tournament?”

“I might look into this Fiery Fights thing, but we’re here on business and while we’re here we’ll try to keep Paprika contained.” As I finished my statement, the Kirin whimpered.

“That thing actually has a name?!” The kirin shivered and curled up into a protective ball.

“Yes, and that ‘thing’ is our wife.” I was pounced upon by Paprika and she snuggled against me, then she whipped out a tentacle of fur and dragged Velvet into the snuggling. Tinsel joined in snuggling us on his own volition.

“I feel so sorry for you.” The female longma stated calmly, then looked at Paprika more closely. “Heart shaped eyes… did she trick you into a marriage with her?”

“Yes, but we decided that we’d rather give it a fair shot and our marriage is working out splendidly thank you very much.” Velvet answered while nuzzling into Paprika. “She certainly knows how to help me stay cool.”

I couldn’t feel any heat from the hugging snuggle Paprika was giving us, she was probably absorbing most of the heat out of our general surroundings to keep us cool.

“So what business did you have… aside from telling us that the demonic hug vampire is once again on our doorstep?” The longma seemed a little less worried than a second ago. “I find myself not entirely surprised that she needs two wives to keep her… ‘enthusiasm’… at least somewhat contained.”

“Honestly, she isn’t that bad and we actually do love her even if she is a bit annoying.” Clearing my throat, I continued right on back into business. “Anyway we have a letter for the princess of the longma and we want to spend some time in town relaxing and maybe looking up clues about some of the things we’re looking for.”

I pulled out the letter and passed it to the longma, she looked at the script on it and passed it to the shivering Kirin.

“Take this to the princess immediately and return swiftly!” At the female longma’s orders being barked out, the kirin was up and off into the city in a flash after receiving the letter. Paprika whined audibly because she obviously had wanted to hug him, Velvet was otherwise keeping her occupied. Turning to me the longma gaze went to Paprika. “Provided that you can keep your wife under control, this Paprika you call her, you will be allowed into The Volcano which is also known as Huoshan. I welcome you guests to our humble home.”

With a bow she let us pass her, Paprika started to run ahead.

“Tinsel, be a dear a make sure that Paprika doesn’t terrorize the populace!” Velvet stopped to ask something. “What does Huoshan mean?”

“Simply ‘fire mountain’, that’s why our home is called ‘The Volcano’. Be sure to stay hydrated and keep your energy up deer.” She nodded to Velvet in acknowledgement. “As it is hard for us longma in the tundra territories, so too is it harsh for a reindeer in the volcanic territories. Many an unprepared reindeer has suffered heatstroke and worse around here. I will say you are quite tough to climb up here like you did.”

“Of course I’m tough, one of my wives is a brute and the other can hug the life out of you.” Velvet threw her nose up in the air. “I wouldn’t survive either of them otherwise, come along Arizona. There’s something I have been meaning to say to you off to the side while Tinsel keeps Paprika distracted.”

What did Velvet want? I was really quite curious, after entering the tiered city proper we moved off to the side. The city consisted of three tiers, we were at the bottom one. There was a middle tier, an upper tier and finally the palace was made up at the top of the city itself.

The longma liked their Chineigh asthetics when it came to their buildings. Their buildings had layers and looked like wider versions of pagodas all packed tightly together and the streets were full of various species wandering and talking to one another. Even saw a few parrots, but none of them looked incident prone.

Tinsel was in fact playing with Paprika to keep her from causing trouble, a lot of the longma that saw here were quite wary of their presence and there were whispers of fear running around. The other visitors and guests to The Volcano didn’t seem to know anything of Paprika’s notoriety.

“Okay what did you want to say to me death sneezer?” I called Velvet that because she once unleashed a sneeze that nearly skewered me with icicles made of snot and I never let her forget about it.

Velvet took a deep breath and sighed.

“It was brought up that Paprika is our wife.” Yes, and she was a very loving and beautiful one that cared about us Velvet. Now get to the point! My face matched my thoughts. “Have you ever thought it was little odd that Paprika likely doesn’t understand the meaning of consummating a marriage when it coincides with our current relationship? Did anyone even bother to tell her what consummating is? As frisky as she is, it’s unbelievable that she might not even know about the hummingbirds and the bees. There’s also the fact that she may want a lot of children like her mother and we might not exactly be able to give her children she may want. That and I really don’t know how to express the hummingbirds and the bees to our wife in a way that’s not embarrassing and full of euphemisms.”

“That’s…” I took a moment to gather my thoughts and held up a hoof, this was a complete yikes of a conversation topic for me as it came out of nowhere. I decided to put my hoof down and ask a question. “What brought this on?”

“That was a dodge and you know it Arid!” Well of course it was a dodge Velvet! This topic was a hard topic to think about and you just dropped it on my head like a mountain. “Have you ever considered having children yourself? I know I wanted at least one a year or two ago… admitting to myself that I’m gay kind of lowered the likelihood that I will ever have a child. Also the fact that I’m dating entirely outside my species also lowers it further, we’re not ponies with their many hybrid and offshoot species.”

“Never really considered having children, but I wouldn’t mind it happening eventually. I’m sure there’s some ancient artifact out there for that, if not a god or goddess.” Giving it some further thought, I decided to go a bit further. “We could always adopt, also isn’t Tinsel technically our son thanks to alpaca shenanigans?”

“Well I… don’t actually consider Tinsel my son, he’s kind of stuck in my mind as my beloved familiar which is as close to being my son as one can be given how we already treat each other.” Velvet released a sigh. “A familiar that loves us all unconditionally and is already family anyway. As for adopting… I would be relatively open to the idea if we can’t have children between us through magical means.”

“Maybe someday Velvet, someday...” I muttered as I leaned against her. “Until we’re both absolutely ready, and after that fancy ceremony that you so direly want that’s likely to cost us a few legs to give us something we already have, we will never mention the word consummate in front of Paprika or even hint at the idea of there being such a thing. We do not want to open that can of worms yet! When we eventually do open it, we will need to express to Paprika quite clearly that she is to not do those things with anyone other than with who she’s married to, meaning us.”

“I agree.” Velvet muttered back to me sweetly.

Author's Note

The stars have aligned, this will get silly real fast.

Chapter fifty one, Welcome to The Volcano: Temperate.

-Ardent Survivor, Jacky-

“So what are we looking for this time…. love.” The flat delivery of the word did not make me love Gene any less, I knew that it was just his personality that made him sound so bored. “Would you prefer Captain?”

“Either Gene, but that’s not exactly important right now! We’re after the ‘Dragon Burst Gem’ this time, it’s a ‘technically’ cursed item. It’s a jewel that basically acts as a magical flamethrower.” I unrolled the map to this one and we were heading towards ‘The Volcano’ this very moment, Saddle Sore Shores had turned out well enough I think. “The supposedly cursed side of it is that it has a tendency to explode randomly in the middle of using its power, so it’s not entirely controllable and is said to have grievously harmed just about everyone who has used it. Also those explosions can hurt anything biological, this includes things that are naturally heat proof like dragons.”

“I’m never going to live what happened down…” Poor Sammy, a lot of embarrassing thing happened to her in her home town. To be fair, a lot of embarrassing things happened to me too!

“Look at it this way big sis, you’re parents really like me!” Nefer, our naïve cabin boy, was understating the facts. Flotsams parents really liked his adorable nature and welcomed him into the family pretty easily, also her mother was a completely awesome sea pony pirate.

“I don’t know what you’re griping about Flotsam your mother and father were really nice.” Savannah grinned brightly as she filed her claws.

“You tried to sleep with my parents Savannah!” Yep, Sammy was still angry with our resident Abyssinian.

“Hey, they had up to date medical files and they are both adults that could consent to such actions!” Not helping yourself on the issue there Savannah. I even bet she was about to dig herself deeper. “It’s not like it would have made me your aunt.”

“Can I say how cool your mother is again Flotsam?” I just caused Flotsam to groan loudly from the deck in front of me and slap a finned hoof over her face.

“Just kill me now… also can we never talk about my parents ever again?” Flotsam slightly lifted her finned hoof off her face. “Speaking of, never talk to or ever go near my parents again Savannah!”

“No promises, but I will try to contain myself. You see its things like being a prude that hurts the happiness we can all spread to each other… so long as we have been medically checked for just about anything under the sun before anything can happen.” Admittedly Savannah’s proclivities could be a little bit worrying at time, just like Nefer can fall into situations where his innocence could possibly be ruined in an instance.

It’s still quite staggering that that has yet to happen to Nefer despite leaving him in a number of deadly and safety compromising situations. We really shouldn’t keep leaving him to his own devices like that.

“Okay everyone, we’re coming in for a landing in the middle tier city dock. Hopefully they’ll let us disembark and won’t worry about the fact that we’ll honestly tell them we’re pirates.” We’ve done a few truly pirate things, but nobody really had a bounty on us… at least not yet anyway. “Don’t do anything to attract attention to yourselves, like I’ll be doing constantly. Watch out for any signs of GODLESS activity like what we stopped in Saddle Sore Shores and try to listen around for information on where the temple we’re looking for is. Also you each have your fair share of cash on hoof, hand, claw, talon or whatever you call your manipulating limbs at any given moment.”

“My tail is an awesome manipulating limb!” Said Nefer cheerfully. I walked over to him a rubbed his head making the trident tailed cat purr and mewl happily. “Stop that captain, its ruining my pirate image.”

There was little image to keep hold of for Nefer as he enjoyed the attention no matter how much he tries to deny it. The only pirate thing about him was that he was wearing a green skull cap with his signature of a cat scratching a tree on it, along with my jolly roger as a background.

My crew bought themselves some personalized skull caps while we were having so much ‘fun’ in Saddle Sore Shores.

Wearing a nice purple cap with a banana shaped cannon on it donating her increasing ability with long range projectiles was Flotsam, she kind of surpassed me on that last outing. Even her mother was shocked that she had such impressive aim and made a trick shot with a cannon that even I couldn’t do.

I chalked it up to Flotsam always straddling the cannons when she aims them, it lead to some incredibly accurate shots.

Flotsam would eventually forgive us for numerous troubles we caused in Saddle Sore Shores. Most of them could be attributed to my existence, but not all of them and she knew it. I did offer Sammy the opening to leave the ship with Nefer, she chose to stay onboard with us and we’re still friends even if she isn’t currently happy with Savannah.

Savannah had a skull cap with a big pink heart on it, she was giving me a bright cheery grin. Yeah, not touching that, but she does make herself useful on a number of occasions just with her quick wits and agility alone. I already had a decent idea as to what she would be getting up to while we were here, I would rather not know.

Gene, my sweet, beloved first mate, he wore a brown skull cap with a classic Viking helmet imprinted on it. Viking helmets don’t normally have horns unless you add them as an aesthetic choice. He took charge whenever I was indisposed by the many ‘accidents’ that may occur around me and was always dependable.

“So do whatever shopping you feel like and excuse me while I go cause problems for everyone else with my natural bad luck.” It wasn’t long after I said that that I landed the ship, took exactly three steps away from it and was blindsided by longma slamming into me in an out of control manner that sent us both falling and flailing like crazy towards the lower tier of the massive city.

I estimated that I had a thirty seconds to figure out how to survive a sudden drop and somehow keep the longma from getting hurt in the process.

I could let the longma get hurt, it was… her… she was female… it was her fault that she flew into me. Maybe the fault of my luck that something might have gone wrong with her flaming wings in my general vicinity. Like usual, it was always a complete toss-up as to whether it was my luck or an outside context problem that caused this incident.

“Hey, names Jacky, sorry we had to meet like this and you’re about to have a really horrible day knowing my luck.” I looked over my shoulder at the ground slowly rushing up to meet us as the longma tried to keep us aloft. “I apologize in advance for all the strange happenings that will soon befall you.”

“I am Tianhuo, charmed, now if you will stop struggling and let me free my wings of fire from our entangled state, then I can save us both from injury.” You could try Tianhuo, many greater people than you have tried to prevent me from getting hurt and they have all failed eventually. “I apologize for hitting you honored guest to our city, but I have heard word that an incredibly dangerous nuisance has returned to bother the citizens I am sworn to protect as the head of the Huoshan Guard.”

We were almost righted and instead of slamming into the harsh ground we instead hit something fluffy. Bouncing off said fluffy thing, we then split apart on two different arcs leading to what I would assume to be demeaning and painful situations for the both of us.

Tianhuo tried to stop, but she slammed through the window of a nearby fireworks shop. That was bad when your wings, mane and tail were comprised of both heat and fire.

I on the other claw ended slamming into a… cabbage cart.

“My cousins said it would happen someday, but I didn’t believe them.” The pony running the stand said blandly. “Well it’s a tradition of the family to say it when it happens, so… my cabbages.”

“That was the dullest reaction to something ‘accidentally’ breaking and ruining an entire cart load of painstakingly grown produce that I’ve ever heard!” I shouted as I sat up and pointed at the pony.

“Yeah, but I didn’t grow those cabbages though. If my cabbage cart over there were destroyed, then I’d actually have something to be more worried about. The ones you just took out were imported by others of my family. It was no big loss really and some of them even seem salvageable, this happens a lot so we’ve learned how to salvage cabbages fairly easily.” Suddenly the sounds of fireworks could be heard going off down the street where I saw a confused looking alpaca smile brightly at all the pretty explosions, floating next her head was an adorable creature with shiny eyes. Several of the larger rockets that flew out of the fireworks shop actually all slammed down on and blew up the cabbage cart the pony had indicated to me, his eyes flew wide open as every cabbage from that cart was now on fire. “Oh no, MY ACTUAL CABBAGES!”

I decided to make a hasty retreat before I got accused of causing this mess, also to avoid the wild rockets that seemed to be blowing up at my heels and randomly steering themselves towards me.

-Gene-

I pulled the griffon mask away from my eyes and shrugged, just the usual stuff that happens to Jacky on a general basis. Though being randomly assaulted by fireworks was a new one, I’m adding it to the list of things Jacky has run afoul of.

Also I’m marking that down as another two cabbage carts as part of my ongoing conspiracy theory about situations being geared towards destroying cabbages specifically.

“Eh, Jacky will be fine.” Though I was quite worried about her, she’s had worse days and would be fine on her own. I loved that parrot more than I can usually express with my gentle touches. She’s been feeling a bit under the weather lately, but she looked mostly okay to me. Maybe I was worrying too much. “You heard her, we can go about doing whatever we want while Belfry watches the ship. I’ll be looking up information in the nearest bar, might even start something La Perm style.”

A huge explosion and wall of what looked like baking soda shoots high up into the air, enough so to be visible from the third tier of the city. Okay, maybe I wasn’t exactly worrying about Jacky nearly enough.

“I’ll chaperone Nefer, but if it gets too hot we’re going to return to the ship early. I can already feel my fluffy scales dehydrating as we speak.” With that Flotsam disembarked with her little brother Nefer to do who knows what, they’ll likely find some fun things to do.

“You know me Gene, if I can find people that are willing to go through a quick medical checkup and are entirely willing to…” Giving Savannah a flat look, I just shook my head and motioned for her to get a move on. “Okay, I promise I won’t actively cause problems! It’s all in good fun really, I’ll even keep an eye out for Flotsam and Nefer while I’m out and about. If you need any help with gathering information, I’ll gladly collaborate with you what I find out on my own. The Wild Savannah is going to peace out for a while and I’ll eat some scenery while I’m at it!”

“You’re an adult, it should be implicitly implied that you won’t cause issues.” I just received a broad grin from ‘Savannah, The Wild’ as she sauntered off, all while waving back at me lazily and sashaying away. She never made promises unless she intended to keep them, so that was a little less worrying.

I can now see where Jacky is coming from when she said Jaded and Kuril really spoiled us on Abyssinians, there were the exception and not entirely the norm. Not like you could judge an entire race by the actions of a few of its weirder members.

“Belfry, I leave the Ardent Survivor to you.” The giant butterfly saluted me with a leg and made some squealing noises. He was wearing an orange skull cap with yellow flowers with a cute looking butterfly imprinted on it. Despite the silly cap with our captain’s logo on it, he could still be quite intimidating once he got going.

I walked down the gangway and then hung up a sign that simply said ‘Beware of giant butterfly, we’re absolutely serious about this and you have been warned of the consequences if this sign is unheeded’.

Nobody could ever take such a sign seriously unless they met Belfry personally, but it still couldn’t hurt to put it up.

I spread my wings and took off. I needed to find where the nearest bar was so I could get a general feel of this city.

-Paprika-

What just happened? I thought I saw someone familiar! Upon approaching the blackened and burnt store front with Tinsel making curious noises from my head, I could see the green scaled sooty friend that once wanted to play with me nonstop!

I liked Tianhuo, given she’s been one of the best friends that I’ve ever had. I knew she lived here, but I didn’t think I’d be seeing her this soon and we just arrived not too long ago.

“You…” Tianhuo said as she took a step before falling down on her face, I calmly trotted up to her and gave her a nice friendly hug and nuzzled her neck affectionately. She really looked like she needed it after all those explosions. “Why…. did you… come back here?”

“Paprika Paca La Perm, what did you do!” Hearing Velvet’s angry tone, I meekly grinned and held out my friend to introduce her to my wives. I gestured out at the flaming snake pony as being my friend.

“I will be honest, she didn’t cause this mess… but I still wish to know what she is doing here!” It seems like Tianhuo was getting back her strength quickly and she seemed slightly angry.

Maybe Tianhuo could play together with Arizona for a bit to calm down? I’m sure they’d be really great friends once they got started! I also thought Tianhuo needed a better hug and cuddled her some more.

“Yeah, don’t worry about her, we’ll keep Paprika contained and she won’t cause problems.” Arizona came over and looked at the longma I was holding. “She's our wife and is affectionate like that... does this count for a honeymoon?”

“Not on your life Arizona!” Velvet yelled at her and then she calmly turned to the longma I held. “Paprika, be a dear and let the poor longma go. I’m Velvet, this is Arizona and we’re the Paca La Perm herd. How much trouble did Paprika cause you previously?”

Author's Note

The rolling stone gathers no moss... which is probably why its so hard to roll uphill.

Chapter fifty one, Welcome to The Volcano: Tepid.

-The Volcano (AKA Huoshan), Lower Tier, Streets, Velvet-

I personally thought the number of guards that came here in response to Paprika being in the city to be positively ridiculous. Some of them were shivering in horror with every single small movement she made and I don’t think Tinsel was even noticed by any of them despite being clearly visible right on top of her head.

Our loving wife ignored the trouble that she could cause just by sneezing right this instant and came over to nuzzle me affectionately. She of course avoided mussing up my wondrously soft and meticulously cared for floof, it was so hard to keep it looking presentable in all the heat around here. At least the city was much cooler and more bearable then being outside of it.

I returned the affectionate gesture and was still quite jealous that Paprika was fluffier than I was, but she was a fluffmancer and there was no beating cuddly of that magnitude. Not that I would ever present myself as cuddly, I prefer to be the more sophisticated one.

I think all these guards would overreact with extreme measures even if Paprika didn’t sneeze, they were just waiting for a single sudden movement.

Not that they’d be able to stop our alpaca from cuddling all of them, but it was the thought of numbers bringing safety that brought them all here in such a large unruly clump to aim weapons at us.

All of this made me wonder if they understood discipline, the reindeer were much better about reacting to Paprika than these longma were. Aside from freezing Paprika solid and alive.

Paprika then moved onto Arizona who looked ready to fight every longma in our vicinity should anyone make a move against us. I hoped that diplomacy wasn’t dead, because if we had to fight the entirety of the Huoshan Guards… well that would be a few hours of fun at least.

I can honestly tell you right now that we were not going to be on the losing end of things if a fight did break out.

“I must ask, is all of this fuss over our wife absolutely necessary?” I tilted my head at Tianhuo, while indicating the absurdity of being surrounded by a large amount of longma guards with my right hoof.

“No, but the guard still remembers what happened the last time she was here and wasn’t watched like a hawk.” This Tianhuo, who had been recently let free of Paprika, came over to Arizona and I. “The precautions are a bit extreme, but I can understand where they are coming from. I would also like to exclaim something important here… all you idiots left your other posts undefended, we need to heighten security immediately! Move it, I can take it from here and this recent incident was actually my fault! I apologize profusely for causing such a ruckus and the owner of the fireworks and cabbage carts will be compensated for their losses.”

The longma gathered around us a bit tighter, but a glare from Tianhuo got most of them moving and a few looked entirely unsure if they should leave her.

“Ugh, I can handle the alpaca!” Tianhuo’s mane, tail and back flared with flames as she grew angry. “I know all of you want to prove yourselves, but you could do that better by not leaving our streets entirely defenseless, now move it!”

The final few guards then split off while sending Tianhuo worried looks. After they were gone, she turned to us.

“I’m sorry about all this, but I will have to make sure your wife doesn’t get into any trouble while she’s here… but first I have to fix the damage that I’ve caused.” She turned to the exploded fireworks shop and stopped from talking to the owner for a second to address us. “The three of you better not leave my sight, I’m going to be your minder while you’re here!”

“Oh joy…” Arizona stated sarcastically. “We’re getting a foal sitter.”

“Shush Arizona, think of it getting a free guided tour of the city, she may even show us the arena where the Fiery Fights take place. Paprika stay with one of us and don’t wander off!” I caught Paprika slowly meandering towards the pony crying over a burnt out husk of a cabbage cart, she froze and gave me a sad eyed look. “Fine, but just give them a quick hug and come right back, do you understand me? You’re already attracting enough trouble as it is Paprika!”

Paprika nodded with a bright grin, she then crouched down and pounced on the pony to bring him into a big hug. Tianhuo was too busy talking with the fireworks shop owner to notice Paprika snuggling someone into submission.

Paprika eventually came back looking satisfied with herself that she had managed to raise that poor pony’s mood slightly. This was one of the few times she was successful at cheering someone up without freaking them out.

We all decided to ignore the tower of white powder blasting itself into the sky nearby. The incident did seem to breed familiarity somehow, but Tianhuo was too busy here and the other city guards could take care of it.

-The Volcano, Upper Tier, Cool Spot Spa, Flotsam-

“Hey… big sis… why didn’t anyone bother us when we all got off the ship? You’d think they’d have their airship docks more heavily guarded than that. You know, since we’re really awesome pirates!” I turned a lazy eye to my left to see my little brother relaxing in a hot spring, I was reclining in a cold mud bath that had me feeling wonderful. It was a little too warm around here for me to be bathing in hot water and I didn’t want to be broiled alive. “Well I mean aside from that one guard that slammed into Captain Blackcap, but that was kind of a quick reaction to her being in the city.”

“I honestly don’t know Nefer, but maybe they have bigger fish to fry than a pirate ship full of half-baked marauders like us. Also I think the guard hitting Jacky was an accident… like most of the things that happen around her.” I heard him mewl slightly and turned to him. “We’ve honestly been more focused on treasure hunting than actual pirating and you can’t say that we’re exactly the greatest at it.”

“I don’t mind, we’ve been to so many interesting places and on so many adventures!” Nefer was right about that, the places we had been too had been wonderful. Now if living with Jacky wasn’t a constant health hazard. Still, we were all good friends and companions. “We’ve seen so much cool stuff big sis, I’ve eaten so much tasty soil and there’s also all those various nutrient rich fluids I’ve gotten into. Even this hot mineral water is delicious, but I don’t think it’s for most plants...”

“Nefer, little brother, stop drinking from the hot spring, I don’t think anyone will appreciate you doing that!” Despite his whining, I could see Nefer did indeed stop drinking from the steaming spring. “Just relax and be thankful that we can get away from all the craziness for a while.”

I could almost hear an explosion going off in the distance. It sounded like Jacky’s day was going through its usual routine, just another conga line of traumatic events that the Captain will simply walk off.

“If you wanted us to be safe and didn’t want us to be surrounded by crazy, then why didn’t you take Jacky’s offer to leave the ship and make a life somewhere else?” There were occasions, not that it happened often enough, that Nefer threw me for a loop.

“Despite my complaints and how annoying the crew is… they’re our family and not being with them would have driven me to tears.” He smiled at me and put his paws up on the edge of the hot spring while waggling his trident tail happily. “I still need a break from all that every now and then Nefer, at least we don’t have anything crazy happening around us at the moment.”

Nefer was about to say something when a thick mist appeared between our respective spa treatments, then what I could only describe as a Viking Gondola popped out and hit the floor between us roughly.

“Ask where we are now, I would not tell you a lie, we’re lost as ever.” The odd golden yellow dragon with the blue tipped tail stated oddly while looking about. There was something very off about her…

“At least we seem to be somewhere safe this time!” The loud red dragon yelled, making Nefer flinch and cover his ears.

The yak with them hopped out of the boat and looked about, apparently seeing no better options he eventually came over to me.

“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant!” I took one whiff and I’m quite sure my face turned green, he took one step back and the air seemed to clear immediately. I took a few deep gasping breathes as I gave the shield holding yak a look of horror “I am sorry, I will control my smell better. Do you know where we currently are?”

“You’re in Huoshan, otherwise more colloquially known as The Volcano by just about everyone except the longma that live here. From what I’ve read up about this place, it’s a one city empire with various small villages in the region.” I really didn’t expect anything weird to happen around us without Jacky being present. “The longma that live here are subordinates to the dragon lands despite owning this small amount of territory, Dragon Lord Torch doesn’t interfere with the people here as long as they can keep the dragon lands from being invaded and or can police the region effectively. I suppose this region would be a fiefdom in that regard.”

“Yep, that’s my big sis, she’s really smart!” Darn it Nefer, stop making me blush in front of these strangers. Speaking of, a mare with a large axe hopped out and came over to me to look at my hooves, she pointed at them while giving me a curious look.

“Oh, right, I’m a sea pony. I can get around better than any other sea pony on land, but I have the unfortunate problem of being incapable of surviving underwater… as in I will drown because I can’t swim or live underwater.” Now that I considered it, the name Fortitude sounded familiar to me.

“I’m Flamberge the Fiercely Flammable and that’s Skelly the Superbly Spirited, don’t know what to call Sweetcakes though. She doesn’t actually have Viking heritage.” Wait, this Flamberge and the other two were Vikings… yeah I could see that. “Well this adventure is already starting off oddly enough, so are you a pirate?”

“Yep, big sis Flotsam and I are pirates aboard Captain Blackcap’s ship!” As soon as Nefer announced that both Flamberge and Fortitude froze up a bit.

“Let me guess, your captain is a horribly unlucky parrot and she has a griffon as a friend?!” Apparently the dragon knew about our captain, I couldn’t help but wonder what Jacky did to them.

“Yep, first mate Gene is awesome!” Nefer declared, making Fortitude and Flamberge chuckle.

“Finally, we’ll get to see our brother again!” Flamberge belted out as he went to pick up a spear two blades in the shape of a V at the tip of it. “I’ve been wanting to give this to him for a while now.”

Yeah the other spear has seen better days and Gene could use a new, more solid, weapon.

“You guys are his brothers, that’s so awesome!” As Nefer held up his paws in excitement, something caught my attention from the corner of my eye and I saw something flopped out of the gondola.

“What… is that?” Everyone turned to what I was pointing at, it looked like a conical writhing mass slowly trying to drag itself away.

“Darn it, I thought we got rid of all of the tentacles of that eldritch horror!” I didn’t know what to be more horrified by. That eldritch horrors existed and we have yet to run into one with Jacky’s luck, or that Gene’s brothers apparently managed to take one on to some level of success.

What followed was a chaotic fight involving a tiny portion of raw terror that wouldn’t stop moving no matter how many time it was crushed by a shield, splattered with an axe or lit ablaze by a flaming sword.

It would eventually be killed when a bottle of milk was accidentally spilled on it, apparently the milk was part of the spa service that we paid for. Only we didn’t get our milk and the spa was going to make it up to use for that.

-Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Kuril-

Ratatoskr hasn’t been back in a while… what was taking him so long to get back to us? I unrolled the map and saw that almost everyone was in the same place, I was relieved that they were still there.

Aside from crying myself to sleep after Blade freed Luna and hadn’t come back, the nightmare parasite controlling the princess was quickly defeated by Fluttershy, Pinkie and their friends.

I wanted to hear from the others, but I wasn’t. What had happened to Ratatoskr? The only explanation I could think of was that something had happened to our high speed mail delivery squirrel.

-The life and times of Ratatoskr, messenger god-

Finding Arizona and Velvet. That had been easy and child’s play, especially given that they were mostly traveling on hoof.

Finding Jacky and Gene, that had been a little bit harder, but I had managed to do the improbable without Jacky’s curse getting the better of me.

As for Fortitude and Flamberge? They were absolutely impossible to find!

After tracing their tracks through Soar Way, I found out that they went to Ponyville.

My urge to kill the whole world was rising… I arrived in Ponyville only for them to be in Cloudsdale.

Go to Cloudsdale, they were now quarter of the way around the world! At this point I’ve already handled the other two letters.

Sometime later I almost caught up to them in a distant land, they disappeared into the mists before I could reached them at the river.

Again I got delayed by customs and I think a few gods of fortune were screwing me over.

As a messenger god, everyone like me would know my frustration when I couldn’t find my targets. It was just one letter, ONE, why was it so hard to get into Minos?!? Hermes, the smug guy, was probably drinking ambrosia this very second.

I almost caught up to them in Kirin Valley, ‘almost’ is the keyword.

I had been delayed by a number of factors. The biggest problem were other gods, messenger or otherwise, and local bureaucracy, but I had yet to fail my duties to deliver and darn it all I was going to deliver this!

By the time I did reach them in Kirin Valley, a Kirin was waving them off and they disappeared into some mist.

As you can imagine… I wasn’t happy with this.

Then… oh then… let me tell you this next location is one I hated with every fiber of my very godlike being… Nowhere.

They ended up in Nowhere, the place better known as Messenger’s Bane!

Long story shortened, I hate bureaucracy!

Author's Note

Bureaucracy is made to be complicated on purpose.

Poot Ratatoskr...

Chapter fifty one, Welcome to The Volcano: Warm.

-The Volcano, Lower Tier, Arizona-

So the Huoshan Guard were a bit high strung about Paprika, sure they might have had a few reasons for it the last time she was here. She was a bit of a loose cannon, even now given how she was currently running around and hugging people behind Tianhuo’s back.

Every time Tianhuo turned around to look our way, Paprika would always be standing calmly right between Velvet and me with a simple smile. The second she looked away, Paprika would already be snuggling against someone else.

I snorted audibly with a hint of a chuckle lodged in my throat. Velvet just rolled her eyes and shook her head at Paprika.

Paprika was just being friendly, I don’t see any problems with her just being the happy hug monster that she is. Though I can kind of get why she was considered such a terror to some.

“Would you stop doing that… please?” Tianhuo turned around and finally caught Paprika in the act. Paprika whined, but she still let go of the poor blushing longma that she had grappled onto like a leech. “So as I was saying, since I’m giving you a tour of our orderly…”

Something exploded in a volatile manner in the distance that looked like it involved tomato sauce and pasta.

After seeing that column of white powder go high up into the air, I had some suspicions as to who might be around and this new incident was making said suspicions that much stronger. I could be wrong, but the random disasters occurring nearby were usually strong signs of Jacky being in the area.

If Jacky was here, her luck definitely hasn’t gotten any better.

“Is today not a good day to say that we’re a quiet and peaceful people?” Tianhuo muttered with her eyes close. “I assure you that the Huoshan Guard will take care of whatever the problem happens to be.”

“Looks like a giant flying spaghetti monster.” That’s what I was seeing in the distance at least. The thing didn’t look like it had very much physical strength, but it was making a huge mess everywhere.

How can something so interesting be so boring to look at? It probably wouldn’t be a good fight.

“I’m going to ignore it.” Tianhuo stated calmly, but her left eye was twitching violently. “It’s just a distraction from keeping ‘her’ under… control?”

“Hi there, your friend here is really cuddly!” We all turned to see an Abyssinian wearing a skull cap that had a pink heart on it. I wondered why I was suddenly filled with a sense of mortal dread to see her hugging a slightly happy looking Paprika. “Say… are her medical records up to date?”

That sense of dread just worsened for some reason, also despite liking the hug Paprika started squirm a bit in the Abyssinian’s grasp. For some reason Paprika wanted out of the cats grip despite liking the affectionate snuggle she was caught in. I think she knew something was instinctively wrong here.

“You know Velvet, it’s not often that I see someone actively hugging Paprika.” The chill going down my spine, I didn’t understand it. “Besides us.”

“Yes, well, it does seem our loving wife is receiving some friendly cuddles from a stranger.” Velvet held a hoof up to her chin. “Though I can’t help but feel a sudden sense of horror… do you feel it too?”

“This adorable alpaca is your wife? Are you guys open to the idea of sharing?” The Abyssinian grinned and Paprika looked slightly confused about… did she just say sharing? “Well I mean you will need to show me some medical history, but you all look pretty spry and healthy to me. Tell me, are you active in your relationship as a herd?”

“We’re not exactly active ‘like that’ and we’re going to wait on it.” My sense of dread was rising and this character didn’t even seem like a fighter on our level. “At least until we’re ready.”

“Hmm… really… but…? Oh I get it! You don’t know how to perform as a herd do you? I’ll break out the sock puppets and teach you some things! You don’t have to worry about me interrupting your dynamic as I will take 'no' for an answer if you’re not willing to share. I still think you’ll need to learn the finer points of how to please one another!” As soon as the Abyssinian said that, Velvet’s pupils shrunk to dots and she had a horrified look on her face. She shot me a look that gave me a command that I agreed with as the Abyssinian closed her eyes. “Hello I’m The Wild Savannah and I’ll be your instructor in… hey wait! Where are you going? I just want to help you three strengthen your relationships with one another!”

“Oh goddesses… she’s chasing us!” Velvet shouted as I ran with a thoroughly confused Paprika held up above my head. Tinsel just hovered after us with a bored look on his face.

“Hey stop, I can’t let those three out of my sight, who knows what that alpaca will get into or destroy this time if I do!” Tianhuo started following us as well. “Don’t make me lock the lot of you up together!”

“Wow this could get kinky real fast!” The one named Savannah yelled as she ran after us with a crazy giggle.

We picked up our pace significantly and made sure Paprika wouldn’t understand what was going on, as we would protect her innocence from the crazy Abyssinian.

Even if Paprika already knew how to kiss and snuggle in a saucy manner, we did not need Paprika to getting any hints that there was something beyond that.

-Upper Tier, Huoshan Spa, Flamberge-

“So she might have been on the verge of mentally collapsing when we got there, but we saved Autumn from hurting herself further and helped her to survive better in the wilderness! Where once was a ragged, tired and depressing Kirin, there is now a slightly more upbeat positive kirin who is far less depressing!” I can see that Nefer liked some of our tales of friendship. “I honestly don’t know if she’ll ever find a cure for her people though, I hope that poor mare is doing fine all on her own! Okay Sweetcakes you can stop… er… she’s not rubbing up against me?!”

“She is leaving with Skelly, I am wondering what kind of problems they’ll get into. I am expecting something bad to happen when it becomes night.” My brother Fortitude answered. “I am also wondering why you didn’t notice that Sweetcakes wasn’t bothering you.”

“You guys are really nice like Gene… and this massage…” Nefer purred out as his body figuratively melted from the pair of blue hooves calmly pressing into his back. The longma here at the spa looked to be quite good at their jobs.

“Why, what happens at night?” Flotsam asked as she was getting a back massage by pair of pink hooves. “You just got here and there’s no one who could possibly have a problem with you. Aside from the spa, given you teleported into the place. Your boat is going to be a problem to get out...”

Somewhere, Dispel Grace was probably sneezing up a storm.

“Don’t worry, we’ll teleport Travel On out of here once we’re done with our quest here.” I didn’t offer up more explanation than that and I wanted to go find Gene.

“Skelly gains the appearance of a skeleton at night, she is being very friendly despite that appearance. She is also still having pretty hair even after her change.” Fortitude might have something of a slight attraction for Skelly, I could see it when it came to her daytime form. The nighttime skeletal form was a bit iffier. “The change is not being painful, it is just how she is. She scares people less during the day when she looks like an average pony.”

I would like to believe that Skelly and Sweetcakes couldn’t get into too much trouble, mostly because Sweetcakes hasn’t shown any destructive or mischievous tendencies that she’s been hinted at having and Skelly has a good skull on her neck.

Of course if Sweetcakes tendencies weren’t showing because she was mostly focusing her efforts on me instead of her surroundings, then things might be a little worse than a skeleton simply just appearing in the middle of a slightly militaristic city full of longma. Flotsam really liked her cultural research and had told us a few things about The Volcano.

If it came down to a problem with Travel On being parked here, we’d use diplomatic ties as an excuse to not bother our boat before we leave the spa. Fortitude was still technically the king of Minos, unless they found someone else since we left.

“So when you’re done here, do you two want to walk around the city with us?” I offered because we’d likely find our brother faster that way.

“Sure, I bet Gene is going to be so happy to see both of you!” Nefer was an excitable little guy.

-Middle Tier, Huoshan Bar and Grill, Sweetcakes-

We both entered the bar out of curiosity, I have decided to take a break from my passionate dragon hunting to find a place with good sweets. From the rumors I heard on the street, this bar had some famous bean buns and I was looking to trade recipes.

Skelly was gawking at the sights and I kind of felt a familiarity with the surrounding architecture, we were basically tourists until we found out why we were here. We already knew why Fortitude and Flamberge were here, it was so they could meet their brother and possibly catch up with him.

Why were we here personally though? I don’t mean that in a philosophical sense, why were Skelly and I important to this general location? Even with those questions in mind, I have enjoyed our many adventures… except for the ones where those things called ‘Eldritch Abominations’ popped up.

I idly knocked over a salt shaker of a nearby table with my fake dragon tail as I turned to the bar, I was good at making it look entirely accidental.

The shaker spilled a single spherical grain of salt onto the floor while I moved up to take a seat in front of the bartender. I opened my mouth to give him my request to trade recipes when he surprised me thoroughly.

“True form please.” The bartender called me out immediately with but a single glance from the glass he was cleaning. I was a little shocked and I was about to say something when he interrupted me again. “We don’t like changelings skulking around here, unless you happen to be part of a particular colorful mariachi band with a dancing shrew. In that case you’d be alright if you were a changeling, but I know you’re not one so you should be good. You’re transformation is decent to the unobservant, but you don’t give off the same air as an actual dragon. Nice try though, so again, true form please.”

With a twitch of my magic my yellow dragon form quickly shifted into my real self, a smiling three tailed fox.

“A kitsune? I thought you might have been Celestia wandering around again. Don’t see your kind outside of Neighpon very often.” So the bartender has apparently met Celestia before, I have as well. The ruler of the equestrian territories was really nice for someone with the kind of stress her job piles up on top of her on a daily basis. “She does that from time to time, heard her sister came back recently.”

I can see why Celestia has been said to have been through so many protégés, she really needed someone to take up the slack for the work load she was forced to live with as a princess of her people.

Fortitude apparently didn’t have nearly as many problems with Minos, but he really didn’t even try. I personally attributed the turn around to Flamberge bringing up the economy by buying that spear for his brother Gene, Skelly being a good general by keeping an open mind and I personally made baked goods and somehow started a nationwide bake sale.

Our trip to Minos was really odd.

“Recipe exchange, would you be willing to do, between me and you?” As I asked this a unicorn with a pith helmet and a monocle marched in… only to promptly slip on a single well placed particle of salt.

The pony, upon losing his balance, hit a chair. He flipped over said chair and his rear hooves struck the edge of a table. The table flipped and slammed down on top of him, but not before hitting him with multiple bottles that shattered and covered him in various fluids along with what looked to be a full jar of marmalade.

“Sure thing, also nice trick.” Blinking at the longma bartender, I couldn’t believe he actually caught me out on that. “It was still that ponies fault for falling into my stuff, so it’s not on you. Let me start by asking you, which recipe do you want and what recipe can you exchange for it? I might already have yours.”

-Gene-

Those were some pretty unique monkey shines close to what Jacky could pull off with a banana. Here I was just enjoying some steamed buns, a local delicacy with several unique flavors and I still haven’t found anything on the temple that Jacky was looking for information on,

Now Teatime was here, so that's trouble. There was also two other ponies with him.

“Hah, wimp! See Dispel, that’s what you get for relying too much on technology, no sturdy hoofing and you can’t walk straight at all.” Okay that pegasus pony with the wild hair looked like he took too many lightning bolts to the head, he was talking to an armored pony with a large sword. “Unicorns don’t rely on their bodies well enough!”

I popped a bun into my beak and watched as they picked up Teatime and carry him over to a booth.

“Yes, it is rather amusing that our comrade has three left hooves Shock, but he is not always this incompetent or else he wouldn’t be in the organization. He’s seen far more success recently than we have.” The armored earth pony grunted out sourly. “I do not see why GODLESS is still paying that mercenary Caballeron, especially not when we are the ones that were sent here to deal with the next clue on what seems to be a rather elaborate goose chase in his stead.”

“Don’t care, as long as I can find some good fights around here.” Even as the one that was called Shock spoke, I noticed that the three tailed fox and her pony reacted to hearing the word ‘GODLESS’.

Jacky’s volcanic temple treasure had to wait.

I stood up and carefully made my way over to the two sitting at the bar while trying not to stare at the three GODLESS agents that were here. Teatime didn’t have the greatest of memory outside his narcissism, so maybe he hopefully forgot who I was.

“Hey I have too many of these to eat by myself, would you two ladies want some?” I asked politely and the silver haired one with the blue scarf and axe smiled.

She took up my offer and I quickly made some new friends.

Author's Note

The temperature is slowly rising... are you baking at four hundred degrees?

Chapter fifty one, Welcome to The Volcano: Hot.

-The Volcano, Lower Tier Streets, Jacky-

Every time I sliced at a noodle appendage with my blades as I twisted and turned, it temporarily spewed forth a mass of pasta sauce from its wounds.

It could use some diced basil, chopped oregano and at least some kind of powdered cheese for a little flavoring, otherwise the floating spaghetti monster tasted horrible and wasn’t very threatening.

I’d say the monster was more annoying than anything, at least the local guards were showing themselves to be far more competent than the ones in Canterlot by keeping it contained to this one area. I was helping out with the containment, mostly because it probably my fault it either appeared here or was created nearby.

This monster didn’t even have enough strength to choke people with its appendages or even hurt anyone as it whipped at us ineffectually, I could even rip its noodles off with my bare talons. Now if only the monster would stop regenerating it’s squishy boiled noodle limbs that were getting everywhere!

This monster was a level 0 threat and the only real problem it presents, besides being a mild inconvenience to the surrounding longma forcing it to stay in place, is in figuring out how to destroy it.

This animate noodle monster certainly didn’t have a brain, it was a guaranteed fact. As far as noodle incidents go, this was both tame and lame.

“Light is not always good, dark is not always bad.” Hearing a voice, I turned my head to see a unicorn with her eyes closed and a darkly glowing book hovering before her. The pages in the book seemed to infinitely turn for the mare with bright grey fur. Her long dark raven mane and tail that had reddish purple tips fluttered in an invisible breeze. “There is always some grey between the two.”

The mare lacking a cutie mark was busy with whatever it was she was doing that made her eyelids shine. Judging by the dark glowing powers and the evil looking book, I probably didn’t want to be in front of her like I was at the moment.

I backed away as the noodle appendage tried to wrap around me. Even if it did grab me it wouldn’t be capable of lifting me off the ground, the spaghetti monster was basically a useless blimp full of steam that at best could suffocate you with pasta noodles if given enough time.

The monster was just so underwhelming, that I couldn’t stop thinking about how underwhelming it was.

“I will show that darkness can be heroic, that it can shine from its own depths to save this world… Dark Spark!” The mare’s blue eyes, lacking pupils, flew open and a white glow over took them. She stared at the spaghetti monster and a faint second set of smaller eyes could almost be seen above them. The beam she fired made of dark energy with multiple colorful streaks in it made the spaghetti monster explode into a few hundred chunks and sent bits of it raining down everywhere. “Well that spaghetti monster might not have been a big issue, but I still got rid of it and that proves that I can be a hero with the power of darkness!”

“Ollie, I’m just going to say this again, you’re really scary at times.” Stated a lambkin holding an umbrella surrounded by a variety of odd canines. The umbrella was keeping the splattered pasta monster off her and the dogs around her didn’t seem to care about the mess as they started picking at it. “That was also kind of… a little bit too much…”

If I were to think of who I would pay more attention to, it would be the lambkin.

“Oh my dear Ollie is not scary enough, SHE COULD BE MUCH SCARRIER!” The voice coming from the book had sounded soft at first, then it screamed out in an obvious demonic voice about its owner’s image like that. I think the book was far scarier than the pony wielding it. “So now that we’re done with our heroics for the day, CAN WE GO FIND THOSE FOOLISH ENOUGH TO FACE OUR MIGHT SO THAT WE MAY FEAST UPON THEM FOR DARING TO FACE US WITHOUT KNOWING THE CONSEQUENCES!”

I stand corrected, I would definitely pay more attention to the lambkin if it were not for the evil sounding book the unicorn wielded.

“Fred, stop freaking out everyone around us!” The unicorn presumably named Ollie stated as she blushed a little and shook the book violently. “I’m not entirely sure that we can take the Huoshan Guard, so keep your teasing to a minimal please!”

“Fine, I guess people are too easy to rile up these days, it’s like they’ve never heard of a talking demonic book before.” The one called Fred grumbled in a gentle stallion’s tone. Though that lead to the question, was it even anywhere close to being equine in nature? “Now that I’m not concentrating on making everyone in the given region wet themselves and flee from my mighty sounding voice, I sense a strange disturbance around here Ollie.”

“Can you pinpoint this strange disturbance Fred?” Ollie stated.

“Yes, it’s that parrot over there. There is something really odd about the world warping around her that I wish to know more about.” Sighing at the Fred’s words, I made my way over to them. The second I got close enough the book reeled back from me in the air. “HEAVENLY HOOF BOMBS, SHE’S CURSED! I, in my many years of existences before I was found and bound by the unicorns of light, DO NOT KNOW OF ANY BEING THAT CAN ACCOMPLISH CREATING THE HORRID KIND OF LUCK THAT BIRD HAS! IT’S MORE UNNATURAL THAN I AM, it’s kind of uncanny really.”

“You mean there’s someone that’s less fortunate than I am to have an entire pack of random familiars following me everywhere?” The lambkin was nuzzled and licked by the scarily large Canis Major, a faint smile could be seen on her face as she patted the dog’s nose. “I find that hard to believe Fred, also I’m kind of hungry Ollie.”

“Oh shush dear Pom, we’ll visit a restaurant soon enough. People are paying more attention to Fred and me, so stop worrying so much about you’re lovely group of mongrels and I mean that in the nicest of manners. So how is this parrot cursed Fred?” The mare asked of the dark angular looking red and black book, one that I now noted had half of a four eyed demon goat’s skull on it. “I need something to go off of here.”

“You know you could just ask me, I am standing right here and would likely know more about it than he does apparently.” Since I’ve lived with it all my life. “I’m a blackcap, but I’m also known as THE BLACKCAP. As far as curses go, I kind of like mine. Sure horrible luck is bad, but it’s always interesting to see what I’ll run into in the next five minutes and I do mean five minutes. At least it leaves me alone when I go to sleep.”

“Huh, your positively inspirational with how you don’t let adversity get to you! I am Oleander, but I like Ollie just the same.” The unicorn with the sharp pointy horn that was a bit paler than the rest of her turned to point to her friends. “That’s my best friend Fred, the guardian of dark knowledge. This right here is my good friend Pom and her menagerie of familiars.”

“Hello, I’m Captain Jacky Blackcap Chickadee La Perm, the unstoppable disaster… how exactly are you connected to Fred?” Depending on the answer I just may run in the opposite direction of the book. “By that I mean what exactly did you give up to keep him? I know things like him have a cost.”

“My hooves might be more goat like, my tail might have extended slightly and I will never get a cutie mark, but he has to be my special friend for the rest of his life and I get to look quite beautiful throughout that.” For the rest of his… well this unicorn was going to be around for a long time unless something destroys him. “Oh and don’t worry about Fred, he’s such a big softy.”

“Yep… Ollie got the better deal out of this and we’re actually really quite good friends, I SHOULD HAVE READ THE FINE PRINT!” After saying that the book went silent and bobbed in the air for a bit. “IT DOESN’T HELP THAT MANY THINK I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONE TO ISSUE SUCH SHENANIGANS INTO OUR PACT! She’s actually more evil than most of the guys I can think of and she’s so damn cute about it.”

Ollie smiled brightly at the book.

“Say, you wouldn’t happen to have seen a cow or a reindeer around here would you?” Ollie asked me after giving Fred a friendly affectionate smile, after which she hugged the book to her chest tightly.

“I know of a Cow and Reindeer, don’t honestly know where they are now.” I looked between the three more intelligent beings as the many canine individuals continued to walk around licking tomato sauce off the ground.

“Are their names Arizona and Velvet by any chance?” Pom asked looking at me pleadingly with big eyes. “We’ve been following the trail of destruction they leave behind. Still don’t honestly know how they are strong enough to punch holes into that mountain in the shape of hearts. You would be a blessed help if you have any information on my friend’s whereabouts… well technically friends... I’m just a big coward.”

Ollie leaned over and nuzzled the lambkin, Pom’s face immediately turned red.

-Lower Tier, opposite side of the city, in a park, Savannah-

“You guys are a bunch of prudes!” I stated flatly while crossing my arms.

“Well excuse us for having a handle on our relationship Miss ‘The Wild’, but we do not seek or want assistance of any kind.” This Velvet really didn’t want me to use the sock puppets. I didn’t understand why, sock puppets were always fun learning aids! I never get to use them except when Nefer asks me to teach him some things, most of those said things were innocent in nature and not based around what I wanted to teach him. Flotsam would kill me if I taught Nefer anything lewd, as would Belfry, Gene and Jacky. “We’re taking things at our own pace and we like it that way!”

“Yeah, Velvet and I like our domestic abuse squabbles.” Okay so Arizona and Velvet had one of ‘those’ relationships. I never understood hate or angry ‘bedding’, but those two would likely become pros at it eventually. “Paprika even makes sure we don’t hurt each other too much and she’s going to stay innocent a little while longer if we have anything to say about it!”

Paprika seemed a little confused, but she just continued to snuggle against her wives and nodded along with their words.

“Fine, fine, but still… do you know anyone in the city looking for some ‘hot’ action like me Tianhuo?” There was a smirk on my face as Tianhuo groaned and rubbed at her head with her hooves, it told me a lot.

“No, and don’t you dare proposition a Huoshan Guard or else!” Tianhuo’s flaming mane, tail and wings were burning angrily. At least I had someone to tease for a while, which would be just as entertaining. “Now to continue the tour… and yes, I’ll get to the arena later so stop asking Arizona! This is a statue of our founding empress, she fell in love with a pony and gave her throne it up to another far weaker dragon on purpose. It shares some resemblance with some ‘Feast of Fire’ stories you hear from the dragons in the Dragon Lands. I have to ask, has Velvet recently increased her intake of food… she is looking a little ill from the heat and she needs the energy to keep her core body temperature lowered.”

“I’m fine, my wives and familiar forced me to eat more before we climbed the mountain by hoof.” Velvet was honestly friendly and Arizona challenged her often enough that they would never be bored with one another, but with Paprika they can actually relax and know when they are pushing each other too hard. They were a well-rounded herd.

I think they’d be fine, but they would need lessons eventually and I would be there!

-An hour or two later, Middle Tier, Huoshan Grill and Bar, Gene-

“Monster Dispel Grace, tries to kill my friends in haste, wastes holy powers.” Nodding to the fox, she then pointed to her friend with a tail. She was doing something else with her other two tails and I did not like the mischievous smile on her face. “Skeleton friend nice, she turns into bones at night, protect her I will.”

The average looking mare nodded then signed several things out to me as I kept the three chatting GODLESS agents in the corner of my right eye. After having been friends with Blade, I understood that this mare was named Skelly, that my brothers were around and that Dispel Grace guy was trying to destroy her soul outright.

“Isn’t it close to night?” My question made Skelly freeze, she looked panicked. Sweetcakes managed to calm her with a tail rubbing up and down her back. “Let’s just get up and go slowly, don’t look panicked and maybe I can get you to our ship so you can stay out trouble.”

Skelly nodded in acceptance, I paid the bartender for the regular drinks and we stood up to leave. I took a minor glance back at the three discussing their plans. I didn’t catch much of their conversation, but from what I did catch it sounded like Teatime had restocked on his mechanical pony golems and had some new tricks up his sleeves from last time.

Best to get my brother’s friend to the Ardent Survivor and do some scouting on the far side air docks to see what kind of ship they had parked there.

After we left and by the time Skelly and I arrived at The Ardent Survivor, Sweetcakes had wandered off before we noticed. As soon as night fell a minute or so later, Skelly turned into a relatively cute skeleton.

“Eh… you’re not as weird as some of the situations I’ve seen Jacky gets into, like Belfry here for instance.” Who knew a skeletal face can make such a nice and warm smile like that?

Belfry even accepted Skelly’s presence and let the skeleton pet him, he was fairly nonchalant about the living impaired thing when I thought most animals would be treating Skelly with wariness. His sense of normalcy must be broken, like everyone else in Jacky’s crew… which includes me as well.

A huge explosion happened at the bar in the distance, something tells me that I shouldn’t have let Sweetcakes out of my sight.

-Middle Tier, Huoshan Bar and Grill, Sweetcakes-

Let’s see, two bottles of alcohol, oil soaked rags, a hovering flame of kitsune-bi, a trip wire and I was prepared with my tengu fan.

As soon as the first GODLESS agent had stepped out, the area outside the bar was lit ablaze and I followed up by swinging the tengu fan with all I had!

Author's Note

Sweetcakes really is more destructive when no one is watching her...

I wonder if Astral Chain is any good?

Chapter fifty one, Welcome to The Volcano: The Boiling Point.

Author's Note

I've always liked to think Teatime Clockwork had a rather specific theme.

Teatime Clockworks theme is 'Dirty Tricks' or more commonly known as 'Weasleby's theme' from "Henry Hatsworth and the puzzling adventure".

Chapter fifty one, Welcome to The Volcano: The Boiling Point.

-The Volcano, Middle Tier, streets, Teatime-

I was considered a cowardly stallion at times, I’d personally like to think of myself as being more of a genius than my compatriots. I was quite prepared for many eventualities and was quite paranoid about someone being out to get me.

Usually there were people out to get me, the local government of wherever I was for the most part and they had good reasons for that.

This time my paranoia paid off quite well. It may have caused an argument, but I still managed to get Dispel Grace to exit the establishment first and I had Shocking Awe in front of me exiting the place, one that causes poor mental states depending on what you drink.

Given that I was to exit the place last, I saw everything that occurred as we left and thus had enough time to use Shocking as a living shield. When you’re in my line of work, you always have an exit strategy!

I seldom cared if my exit strategy is usually at the expense of others.

A fire immediately started up, an incendiary trap had been placed at the entrance. That didn’t seem well enough, but then the air started to compress the fire and accelerant to a single spot from all sides. Dispel Grace was at the center of what would be the ensuing explosion.

I would have survived such an explosion personally, but I would have used far more energy in doing so instead of just using the brutes known as Dispel Grace and Shocking Awe to take the full brunt of it for me. They made fun of me, but I was far more efficient than they at taking a sudden attack.

The buildings of The Volcano, also known as Huoshan or Fire Mountain, are all lava proof. As such they are also, by extension, fire proof and highly explosion resistant.

“Agh, my eyes!” That was all Dispel had to complain about once the deafening noise of the explosion had passed.

Despite Dispel’s armor turned pitch black, even then his sword was still quite pristine. Shocking had been mildly scorched. I was completely fine.

I had protected myself quite well and had come out of this attack completely unscathed by lifting Shocking in front of me and covering the spaces around his body with a magical barrier.

The effort I expended in my personal defense was minimal, I just had to protect my ears from being blown out. Due to being point blank, Dispel likely avoided the shockwaves blowing out his ears.

Walking out into the streets I glared at our attacker as I tossed Shocking off to the side. It was a three tailed fox. A mischievous creature going for lethality? I must have annoyed them greatly somehow, I tend to do that just by existing.

“Ow… that stings and my ears hurt… I want to do it again!” Giving Shocking a disdainful glance, I turned to our enemy with a flat look.

“I’ll take care of this, you two go back to my ship and clean yourselves up. I’ll deal with this ruffian personally.” I turned to the fox who took a stance and lit up two of her tails, with a fan held by her third.

“You?! Hah, what can you do aside from get mauled by that fox?!” Let’s find out shall we Shocking, also just because you were deaf now does not mean you had to yell! Still, it didn’t help that I was surrounded by idiots.

“I don’t know who you are, I could care less like I do for the seasons~.” Ah yes, the classic heart song with a mechanical lilt. It seems my magic will be boosted for a time, I shall take full advantage of it! “I get attacked all the time, especially for many various and quite valid reasons~.”

I took a few steps forward, I leapt into the air and with a majestic flare of my horn I started summoning the pieces of my most fantastical machine. It’s a large mechanical pony made of reinforced metal, built to be tough and take incredible impacts. It could survive ‘The Volcano’ erupting.

“So let me start off by saying, ‘Bad Show’, you’re a poor sport~!” The front two legs and chest of my machine assembled and I landed in the seat in the chest with windows to my front, left and right, the barrel and rear legs started to connect next and it would soon be followed by the head and tail in rapid succession. My ‘Clockwork Special’ was going to be let loose upon the world! “For it is pure danger, a brilliant brain, that you did court~!”

The fox launched the two enhanced fireballs struck and the completed machine didn’t even rock back from the impact or the increased wind from the fan. I started to march the machine forward.

“My machine, it ticks, it tocks, it even walks~! A greater thing has never been seen, why it’s guaranteed to knock you out of your socks~!” I slammed down the left hoof of my giant golem that I controlled from the inside. The fox went flying from the force of the impact, I didn’t even need to hit her directly to hurt her. “Tick, tock, the time for your end is quite near~! What did you think your fire was going to do to this lovely machine my dear~?”

I thrust the right hoof forward and activated the piston punch and a yak interfered in the blow, with a shield of all things, the extended hoof pulled back and the fox was perfectly fine. The yak however went flying over the surprised fox’s head, the fox watched as he flopped onto his face a good six hundred feet away. I calculated that he’d be a problem again in another minute.

“It’s armored, it’s great, there is so much more that my magnificent machine can take~!” I chuckled audibly as a dragon came at me with a flaming sword. I blocked it with right hoof and then swung that hoof outwards to embed the dragon into the nearby wall with a sickening crunch much to the fox’s apparent distress. The dragon was of some importance to her, I laughed in her face. “Did you seriously think that I was someone, with only a simple trap, that you could actually break~?”

The fox started backing away from me, with all her tails between her legs. She might finally be realizing just how much trouble she’s actually in. I was the one that was going to win!

“My compatriots think I’m weak, or maybe even somewhat meek, but let me tell you that’s simply just not true~!” The machine marched forward and a griffon bounced off the machine, I ignored that and kept marching on the fox that thought she could take out an elite such as myself with such a paltry attempt. “You know I’m glad, I’m angry and even a little bit mad, so be prepared for me to turn you into a binding icky glue~!”

The end of the machine’s left hoof opened up and a rapidly spinning drill popped out, I then launched it at the wide-eyed multiple tailed fox. She leapt to the side narrowly avoiding it as it dug a furrow through the street.

The shield bearing yak did the same thing a few seconds later as the drill popped out of the ground and exploded violently in the air. The yak blocked all the shrapnel with that shield of his, a pity that.

“It’s dark, it’s late, it might even be fate~! Is there something my magnificent marching machine cannot take~?” I laughed uproariously. “My machine, it gives a tick, it gives a tock, it may someday even talk~!”

The griffon rammed the machine, the left hoof grabbed him by the throat. I slammed him into the ground off to the side harshly and back first. The nose of my clockwork golem let out a blast of steam from the nose and its glowing yellow eyes lit up the street as it marched forward. The yak tried to ram me with his shield and just simply tossed him away with the right hoof to the lower tier of the city.

“I’m a genius, an inventor, why I never even needed a mentor~!” I slammed the ground with both the front hooves and the shockwave knocked over the retreating vixen that thought they could take me on. “There’s no one that can match my wit, some may try, but they soon learn that they only need to quit~!”

I marched forward and was about to stomp down on the fox when a… is that a sea pony?! The sea pony slid by like a snake and took up the fox before I could crush her. That sea pony, she seemed highly familiar to me. The cat with the splitting tail that was with her was also vaguely familiar and I just couldn’t put a hoof on why.

“You won’t escape me, no not my wrath, you’ve certainly earned my ire so be prepared to soon expire~!” My machine stomped forward spewing more steam from the nose, unimpeded by anything as it followed after the cat and the sea pony trying to help the fox. I made the eyes of my machine spray a wall of fire in their general direction that they barely evaded, I still scorched all three of them. “Soon you won’t be, there is no path, you won’t escape me and to some horrible afterlife you’ll retire~!”

“Excuse me, but I believe you’re attacking my crew~.” It was that parrot, what was her name again? No matter, I remember her face and she was my eternal rival. “I hope you know, Teatime, that I seriously really dislike you~.”

“Oh it’s you, the strange one with quite the beak, is it trouble with me that you do seek~?” If a yak, a dragon and a griffon couldn’t stop my machine, then what does this little slip of a parrot think she can do to stop me? “I’ll have you know that my machine has no weaknesses in its build, I’m sure you know I’m quite enthused or maybe even thrilled~?”

“You think it has no weaknesses, well I’d like to say that’s where you’re wrong~!” The parrot pulled a bow from her back, did she seriously think arrows would be able to deal with my machine? “I’ll ruin both it and you, then I’ll even finish out your own damn heart song~!”

“My machine, it ticks, it tocks, it even walks~! It’s armored from here to there, there’s nothing with which to it that anyone could ever compare~. What do you think you can do when others with their strength couldn’t, as you know if you get hurt… then I simply won’t care~!” I grinned down at the black feathered bird and she scratched her side lazily and completely unafraid of me and my mighty contraption as it encroached upon her. She started to move backwards and she pulled out a stick of gum and started chewing it. Gum at a time like this? Her priorities were entirely off. “Why you seem rather aloof and even bored, why such an attitude is leaving me quite floored~. What do you seriously think you can do with that dinky thing, especially with the trouble I’m about to bring~? You can’t touch me or my machine, making clockwork constructions it is my special talent and I’m the best there’s ever been. Don’t you see you stupid bint, there is simply just no way that you can win~!”

To prove my point the head opened up revealing its cannon. Sure it might not get many shots, but the shots it does fire are devastating.

I fired three shots in rapid succession and much to my surprised she dodges each one, but the large bouncing cannonballs hurt her friends when their impacts hit the ground and sent them sprawling. I’m kind of sad that they didn’t get directly hit by them, what’s the point of going bigger if you don’t hit anything other than buildings?

“You think that you’re the only one who’s an engineer with all your fancy toys~? I can just as easily break your things just like any of my friends that are boys~.” She took another stick of gum into her mouth without spitting out the previous wad and continued to chew as she backed up and I continued to march towards her. More steam poured from the nose of my machine as I waited for her to get to the point. “The big flaw in your machine shows up every time it lets off a hiss, why as an engineer myself if I didn’t show you the problem then I’d be quite remiss~.”

What was she talking about? What problem, my machine was perfect!

“Now watch as I engineer you’re defeat with some gum, a bow and with what I know~.” She spat a large wad of gum into her right talon as she held up the bow with her left and placed the gum against the string. “All it takes is a hum, only a single seed of preparation I will show and you’re machine is soon going to blow~!”

She fired the wad of gum at the face of my machine, I blinked. That’s it, that’s all she was going to do?

“As a stallion of such mechanical prowess let me know right here, what will happen if that steam vent of yours wasn’t nearly as clear~?” Considering the parrots words for a moment my eyes widened, no… that… could it… it would… oh no… “When the pressure backs up it’ll build to overload, which is why I’m not sorry, Teatime, that your machine is about to violently explode~!”

I sat there for a moment as I tried to mentally deny her words and what just happened.

“Your machine, it ticks, it tocks, it even walks, but isn’t all this just deliciously quite grand~?” The parrot cross her arms and sung smugly. “That thing, it’s big, it’s strong, even built to last, but this birds name who you ignore took it down quickly and just as planned~.”

The smug smile on that beak… I would remember this moment as my entire machine started to shudder.

“No… no, no, no… noooooo, this can’t be happening!” The steam tried to release. The gum stuck in the nostrils of my ‘Clockwork Special’, which I could see from my seat, didn’t even bulge or budge.

The head started expanding and with the building pressure going throughout the neck to the rest of the machine… I didn’t even get to use the tail combat options!

I quickly wrapped myself in a barrier of magic, my world was chaos for a few seconds and my shield spell failed almost near instantly.

My world was pain and I growled as I sat up, burnt, beaten and battered by the explosion of my grand machine.

Looking behind me I saw four smoldering metal pillars and a mass of scattered parts, I turned back to see the parrot coming towards me. I will not be captured so easily!

“You may have defeated my machine, but I’ll be back with worse!” I always saved enough magic for one teleport spell, always have an exit plan I say!

I cast my spell and disappeared before she could even reach me, I think I heard her shout in frustration as I deftly evaded capture again.

Chapter fifty two, All in All: Fighters.

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Chapter fifty two, All in All: Pirates.

-The next day, early morning, Temple of Dark Flames, Entrance, Jacky-

Arizona, her wives and three acquaintances were going to save the world while apparently searching for clues about what happened to Arizona’s mother. If they asked for help, then I would certainly be willing to lend them a lift.

I’m sure Fortitude and Flamberge’s new friends would help with that too if asked, they seemed to be doing well for themselves with getting lost in strange places where they were most needed.

Honestly Skelly was both weird and adorable at the same time, her disposition was pretty good for her living conditions. I wouldn’t be able to fathom having to live like she does.

Sweetcakes was more of the odd one out of the Viking’s group and she didn’t exactly hide the fact that she was interested in Flamberge. I at least thought Sweetcakes proactive stance against those GODLESS agents was somewhat nice, even if it did lead to huge problems and tons of property damage.

On the other talon, that fox should never be left to her own devices! Her little fire bomb tactic did very little damage overall to the surrounding area and was at least a decently planned ambush. The only thing we learned from it is that GODLESS agents are both highly resilient and resourceful, which was something that we kind of already knew.

I am so glad that we all weren’t paying for the damage that Teatime had caused, I was going to be more wary of that stallion the next time we saw each other. Like I wasn’t already wary of him after the whole Saddle Arabia ballroom beast blitz thing.

We were doing something else today other than worrying about what GODLESS was doing here, it would be in the interest of helping Arizona’s group. I have Flamberge looking into Clockwork’s airship, Tianhuo also had a few Huoshan Guards watching it carefully as well. Not that it would help when we knew Teatime could teleport past the guards and Flamberge.

My crew and I were going be performing our favorite and most dangerous pirate past time, treasure hunting. I really wanted that Dragon Burst Gem, I absolutely knew what I’d use that cursed thing for. I also wouldn’t be leaving The Volcano without giving the key of the longma over to Arizona, Velvet and their fluffy snuggle obsessed wife Paprika.

I still thought Arizona and Velvet being happily married was a bit odd and tried to get it out of my head.

So the crew and I were between the palace and the upper tier on a small out of the way path that you have to absolutely be looking for to find. The entrance wasn’t exactly extravagant for a large indent in the volcanic mountains side, but it was carved out of solid stone. There were some carefully preserved scribbles around the walls next to the staircase leading down into the depths.

There weren’t any people here and Tianhuo stopped us at the entrance once we got there.

“This is the temple you’re looking for, but it’s not going to be easy to get inside, groups have tried before and they always came back with various serious injuries.” Tianhuo stood next to the entrance. “Even worse, nobody could get to the key of our people or even explain coherently what went on in there. It was originally placed in here to protect it from theft… it worked a little too well and we can’t get at it ourselves. Digging into The Volcano from any other angle to get at what is inside isn’t a good idea as we don’t want to accidentally destroy the things in there.”

“Why didn’t they just follow the instructions?” We turned to Nefer who was looking at the weird scrawling on the walls.

“Because nobody can remember how to… wait… are you seriously telling me that he can actually read that?” Had to give Tianhuo credit, she didn’t raise her voice at all. She was still surprised to hear that Nefer could read it.

“Nefer, aside from being a really good horticulturist for fairly obvious reasons, is also innately good at cryptography and can possibly read any language ever written.” Turning to our cabin cat, I had to give him the go ahead. “Okay Nefer, what are the instructions? Oh and don’t read us the whole history of the place, paraphrase where needed and skip everything that sounds boring or unimportant.”

“Okay, but there’s not really history on this one! Enter the temple without any light… reflect on what you see when it comes into sight… into the heart of darkness you will fall, if you don’t know what is going on at all.” It was always interesting to watch Nefer do this. “To take from this temple those entering must first be warriors by taking part in a fiery fight, one that doesn’t matter whether you win or lose as long as you are completely honorable with how you use your own might. Remember this one thing, if what you seek is indeed here. No matter how dangerous things get, you are your own worst enemy in what you fear. So what are your thoughts Captain Blackcap?”

“Let’s try going in, we might have to come back later though.” I had my suspicions as to what some of that meant, but the most important takeaway here is that Tianhuo couldn’t enter unless she could put out her mane and tail. “Tianhuo will have to wait here.”

“I do not like this, but I will wait for you to back come out.” Tianhuo took up a place next to the staircase as my crew went past her and started down them. “If you can come out without injury, then that would be better than most. Someone had to be dragged out with a broken spine... by someone else who was a gibbering emotional wreck because of whatever happened in there. Both ‘were’ fairly brave individuals.”

That was something ominous to hear.

“Hold up, grab a limb and hold on to one another as we make our way down.” I took a grip of Gene’s left claw, Flotsam’s left hoof grabbed his tail and her right hoof gripped Nefer’s front left paw.

We proceeded down the staircase into the darkness together and left the light from the entrance behind, I wonder what made this place so dangerous? I had a lot of bad luck this morning and I’ve been slightly ill lately, but I think I’m good enough for a little adventure to see what we’re dealing with here.

We continued deeper and deeper, the staircase didn’t seem to end. So when will we come to the part where we’ll reflect on what we see, it is way too dark in…

I blinked the spots out of my eyes as a blinding light died down and we were in a room with three mirrors and four doors. Looking behind me, I didn’t see a staircase. There was just an archway filled with solid stone. The four doors were simple in their construction given that they were all wooden plank doors, the most basic of nailed together bits of wood.

What just happened to us? All I know was that I was standing in the middle of this room all of the sudden.

“Nobody move!” I snapped my order out immediately. “Flotsam do you remember when we let go of each other? Gene do you remember hitting the floor and taking several steps away to end up where you are? Nefer anything you can read around here?”

“No Jacky, I don’t remember stepping onto the floor… where is the light for this room coming from exactly?” Good question Gene, the room is lit and yet there is no light source. He was off to the left and a bit forward of me.

“I would never let go of Nefer’s paw on purpose, but something has obviously separated us without us knowing how it did so Jacky.” Flotsam was on my right and the same distance forward that Gene was. She looked as confused as I felt right now, she shivered and wrapped her hooves around her shoulders. “I’m a little freaked out that I can’t remember how I ended up here.”

“I don’t see anything that could be a legible form of writing captain!” Nefer reported from directly behind me between me and that sealed off archway, he was looking at the walls and all the strange markings on them. “There’s no language to them as far as I can tell, if there was it would complete gibberish.”

I had to keep in mind what Nefer read before we entered. So we should reflect on what we see? Was that figurative, metaphorical or philosophical? The room was simple, it had three tall mirrors that one could see their entire bodies in.

I looked behind me at the archway, but didn’t move from my position.

There was a mirror above the archway… curious. The three doors were equal distances apart as were the doors between each one. The archway we ‘presumably’ came through, was the only doorway without a wooden door, but had a mirror above it. So that was where a fourth tall mirror should be.

“Something about this isn’t right.” We’ll fall to darkness, if we don’t figure out what is going on or how we ended up standing apart from one another like this. I’m taking that literally, figure it out or at least figure something out about all this and you’ll be allowed to escape.

“Is it a hunch?” Gene asked calmly. I can tell from the way his wings were shifting, he was actually getting quite antsy. He was good at reacting swiftly, but he had no idea what he was going to react to and he reached for his new spear that his brother got for him.

“No, but I may be forming one soon enough. Okay, everyone choose a door, but don’t go towards it just yet.” I pointed to the door to my front and left. “I’m choose the one nearest to Gene.”

“The door to the left of that.” Gene called, we turned to Flotsam and Nefer.

“Door closest to me.” Flotsam announced which was the door to the forward and right.

“I guess I get the last one.” Nefer looked to his door curiously.

“Okay everyone, approach you’re door slowly. We’re opening them all at the same time.” I turned slightly to the left, Gene turned around, Flotsam turned to the right and Nefer, like Gene, turned around to point towards his door.

We all moved to our respective doors and I held up a talon.

“Open them and look inside quickly, then close them!” I opened my door and looked inside… okay I can see where fear came into play.

Inside my door I saw the Ardent Survivor split in half and a pile of familiar looking unmoving bodies. I slammed the door shut and started to hyperventilate a bit.

“I saw our ship split in half, what did everyone else see?” I had to ask to be sure of my suspicions. One suspicion confirmed was that any longma with a flaming mane and tail would not be able to get at the treasure inside this temple.

“A forest… and a few other things I don’t want to talk about Captain Blackcap.” Nefer looked shaken up and possibly traumatized. “Let’s say it involves fire… a lot of fire…”

“Sirens and the ocean creating hands to try and drag me into it, all of them beckoning for me to come for a swim…” Okay, that seemed pretty good so far Flotsam and exactly what I was beginning to suspect about this place.

“… I’m not going to tell you what I saw, but if it ever happens I will avenge you to the best of my abilities.” Gene must have seen something that was just that bad. “Do your suspicions about this place have something to do with a rather specific nightmarish Ogre’s and Oubliettes scenario Jaded came up with?”

“If what I think is true about this place, then yes, I believe we are in a My Little Enemies type situation.” My words made Gene visibly flinch as he knew exactly what I meant. “My sister wasn’t clearly imaginative enough to fully flesh out the horror of this kind of situation, I just didn’t think we’d ever actually experience or be caught in one.”

“Caught in what?” Flotsam started to move closer to the center of the room while staring at the door she opened, Nefer joined her and pressed himself into her while shivering.

“As disturbing as the thought may seem, this place isn’t real and we’re all still on the stairs.” Gene explained in a much friendlier manner than I would have put it, places like this were made of pure nightmare fuel. Scary campfire stories couldn’t even begin to match the levels of horror that these places could unleash on the unsuspecting. “How do we get out of this captain?”

“We’re going to go back the way we came of course and we’ll leave this place in peace! If it’s intelligent enough to know that we’re aware of it and want to go back, then it should let us. Gather up like we did going down the stairs, close your eyes and I’ll get us out of this.” We all gathered together in the same manner we had been going down the stairs. I slowly started to lead us back the way we came with my eyes closed, eventually I blinked my eyes open and saw the light at the top of the stairs. One we were at the top I finally let out a breath of relief. “It… let us go.”

“What let you go, you’ve only been in there for about three minutes.” Tianhuo said as we came out of the entrance. “I’m surprised to see you are all okay though, considering how many people spent hours in there.”

“How do we know we’re not still inside it Jacky?” Gene hissed at me.

“By not letting paranoia of its existence get to us.” I whispered back to him.

“What was ‘it’ exactly? Because whatever it is, it scared Nefer pretty badly.” Grunted Sammy as she pulled a cowering Nefer close to her chest, the cat hugged her for all he was worth. “This My Little Enemy situation thing, explain it better!”

“This place, the temple, it is a living magical lotus eater. A place that warps reality around itself with illusions and I’m surprised that it let us go so easily.” Because intelligent magical lotus eaters were not something I wanted to mess with, my luck was bad enough as is and I wasn’t nearly that stupid. “The best description of how dangerous the temple is, is to think of a place that can kill you with but a thought if it really wanted to and it can mess with your perception regardless of how aware you are. Even a god could be fooled by a place like this if it was given a decent chance.”

“So now what?” Tianhuo looked a little shaken at the idea of what we just walked into and then out of in short order.

“How soon are the Fiery Fights going to take place?” It was important that I enter that competition.

Win or lose I would fight, because The Volcano might actually be intelligent and I felt like it was watching us even now.

Author's Note

All in All is basically a setup chapter.

Chapter fifty two, All in All: Vikings.

-A day later, The Volcano, Upper Tier, Coliseum, Jacky-

“So where have you been Savannah?” Why did I ask that when I actually didn’t want to know?

“Out.” Savannah simply said with a smile.

I noticed a small blur pass by us and it looked vaguely squirrel shaped. I think that might have been Ratatoskr judging by the speed, he seemed to be heading in the direction of Fortitude’s group. Gene was getting in practice using his new spear with them at the moment.

“Who did you spend the night with and is it going to come back and bite us?” I just had to ask, couldn’t I just not care about what Savannah got up to as long as she wasn’t hurt and was alive? No, I was far too curious for my own good and I was her captain.

“It won’t, I promise. I just hope that the princess delivers my message to Amira the next time they meet.” Giving Savannah a flat look, I clearly had the question on the tip of my tongue and she must know that. I fought against actually asking that question as hard as I could, she told me anyway. “It’s actually kind of flattering that she came onto me first, she even had her medical records ready when I asked about them. Apparently I’m not the only one that carries a documented history of my personal health around.”

“I don’t need to hear anything else Savvy, we’re not here to talk about… that.” If I was going to be fighting, then I needed Savannah to help me train for the eventuality that I was disarmed. I still fought like a wet noodle without a weapon in my talons. “I asked Flotsam to send you here to spar with me.”

“Sure thing Captain! I even did as Tianhuo asked, I didn’t touch the Huoshan Guards at all.” Savannah stated cheerily while clapping her claws together while giving me a broad grin with her eyes closed. “So is this about needing to enter the Fiery Fights?”

“Yeah, and I want to at least win one match. If I’m immediately put up against Arizona, Velvet or Paprika, then I already know exactly what I’m in for.” Yeah, those three would absolutely shred me. Paprika was probably the least painful one to face and she would still hug the snot, and just about any other bodily fluids, out of me if she got a little too affectionate. “I still have to give it an honest try to be considered a warrior by the mountain’s standards. Also I just want to state that you’re a menace to anything that moves.”

“Yeah, I heard something on that from Gene.” Savannah looked thoughtful. “Do you actually think ‘The Volcano’ is alive?”

“Yes, that would be a thing wouldn’t it!” Flamberge stated as he sauntered past and towards the area where the Vikings were setting up for their form of volatile sparring. “If the mountain were alive, then it might be an ancient ancestor of mine. I can appreciate the idea that he or she is watching over a city of our cousins!”

What Flamberge was talking about was simple, it was part of the numerous legends about how dragons die naturally.

The legend I knew was that dragons die faster when they get to a certain size, given they needed more resources to live. Otherwise they could continue on for thousands of years at the age Flamberge was at and could theoretically stay that age, so long as they kept themselves in check by never growing farther.

Dragons could be functionally immortal if they chose to be.

At some point a dragon can go into an eternal sleep where they eventually die, but their body doesn’t rot away and decay in a normal manner. Instead of normal decay, a dragon’s scales, flesh and bones all calcify into various forms of stone and ore depending on what that dragon ate in life.

Dragons become mountains, a part of the landscape of this world. If the dragon’s blood becomes lava and fills said mountain with heat, then they instead become volcanoes.

Said volcanoes always tended to be useful for other dragons to use as nesting grounds or vacation spots, which could explain dragon migration patterns throughout Equestria and why the dragon lands were a highly volcanic region.

I believed that ‘The Volcano’ was one such dragon that died to become the home of the longma, leading me to this this creepy feeling that I’m being constantly watched by the spirit of it.

I think I was putting too much thought into legends and hearsay, but there’s always some kernel of truth to them.

-Flamberge-

“Okay so who am I sparring with first?!” I watched as Fortitude passed a letter back to a tired looking Ratatoskr and he smiled somewhat, he looked triumphant about something while being completely haggard and exhausted.

I wonder what happened to the little guy? I watched as Rata just slowly crawled off to the side and curled up against a wall to cry himself to sleep. Eh, he’ll be a fine.

“You and Gene, it has been a while since Gene has fought you and you can show him those techniques you learned in Neighpon.” Nodding to Fortitude, I moved to stand in front of Gene who held the spear I got him at the ready.

I spread my legs out, crouched down and grabbed the hilt at my hip. Skelly, Fortitude and Sweetcakes sat off to the side watching.

I closed my eyes, inhaled and then… a clang sounded and a blast of wind blew away from our weapons as they hit one another.

“You’ve gotten a lot faster.” Gene commented idly as he strained against the sword that started to light on fire. His spear practically interposed itself in the way of my weapon before it ever got anywhere close to hitting him. “I’m fairly impressed with how fast you pulled it.”

Gene’s reaction speed is still insane when it comes to him being personally in danger. I believe Blur would have found my brothers reaction speed to threats impossible.

“You can sleep, I’m just exercising with my brother.” The flames of my sword died down as the sword went back to sleep. “Let’s do this then!”

“If I’m going to enter the Fiery Fights, then you shouldn’t go easy on me.” There was a frown on my brother’s beak. “Do you feel a little bit ashamed that we were taken down by that machine?”

“Yes, but just because we lose the fight doesn’t mean we can’t win a war or the next battle!” I had more than enough emotions for the both of us brother and I was excited to fight you again.

“Well spoken.” With that Gene twisted the spear and spun with it, throwing my sword off to the side and me off balance with it. The shaft of the spear soon bashed into my skull harshly and I was left stumbling about dizzily. The world wobbled until it came back into focus and Gene held the spear at the ready, he was currently working on defense then. “Let us continue, but when it comes to Teatime… next time let’s not all rush in to test how well armored his machine is without a plan first. I don’t get injured often, and when I do, I tend to learn a lesson from it. For instance, it’s a good thing you have a healer for a friend or else my spinal injury could have been much worse.”

Sweetcakes smiled slightly, but then a large frown crossed her face. She did save my brother and I from having to be in pain for a long time, she was quite drained afterwards though. I still refused to show her affection, but I could at least acknowledge that she was a good friend to have when she wasn’t doing something explosively stupid.

Now that I thought of it, Sweetcakes was the reason for our injuries in the first place and now the GODLESS agents know we’re here and can expect some form of resistance to whatever their efforts are. We had lost the anonymity and stealth that could have given us a small advantage over them, because now they were expecting us to be watching out.

“I will agree with that brother!” We both turned to Fortitude who was practicing with Skelly, the mare was so lightweight that she could acrobatically spin and flip through the air using the weight of her axe to perform some really magnificent flourishes.

As fast and as aggressive as skelly was, Fortitude just kept actively blocking her attacks with his shield and occasionally struck out at her with his hoof.

Fortitude was a pretty tough nut to crack and his shield held up to Skelly’s magical axe without a scratch. The axe itself never dented, blunted or got scratched, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Skelly even sharpen it once.

Turning back to Gene, I raised my sword ready to continue. He nodded and took a stance, waiting for me to come at him.

I spun forward and brought down my sword in a high left to right slice with it held in my right claw and he twirled the spear to knock it off course.

I was expecting that and lunged forward to throw my left fist at his face as I continued my spin.

My brother lived up to his title by tossing the spear straight up, he then caught my fist and fell backwards while pulling me along with him. Once on his rear paws were propped up against my belly, he forcefully launched me off of himself.

I landed on my back roughly and with the forward momentum he gained from kicking me away, Gene rolled until he was standing and caught his falling spear to hold at the ready. The problem is, he was now standing over my sword.

He gave me a slightly warm smile, well as warm as his usual emotional range could allow.

“You need to work on your martial prowess as well Flamberge.” He stated, I noted that he didn’t move to simply give me my sword back. “See, even Jacky is learning how to fight without a weapon!”

I turned to see what he was pointed at and heard a shriek of pain as Jacky’s Abyssinian friend, I think her name was Savvy, threw her to the ground in a really a painful looking manner.

“To some limited success…” Muttered a slightly agitated Gene.

“I’m okay.” Groaned Jacky, that was before a blooming cherry blossom tree fell out of sky right on top of her. “I'm a little less okay!”

“What is it with her and tree related objects falling at her from the sky?” Gene grumbled, he turned back to me and waited.

I looked at my sword and then at my brother, I charged forward bouncing left and right and then when I got close enough I hopped backwards and blasted the ground with a burst of fire from my throat to create a blinding flash of heat and light.

I immediately dove forwards afterwards and… I found a spear in my face. It was being held back by my sword that I had interposed between us to the best of my ability. I had successfully made it to the other side of Gene with my sword in claw.

“I see you’re still as scarily talented as ever.” I received a soft snort of amusement from Gene, to anyone else it wouldn’t sound like amusement and more condescending.

“Nice job, but we’re still going to work on our martial talent afterwards.” Nodding to Gene, we pressed against each other and hopped backwards.

He held his spear ready for a thrust and I held my sword to do the same, we charged towards one another at the same time.

-Canter Dojo, three hours prior, Eir-

“No, bad boulder, Ragna come back to Eir now!” I was trying to stop pet boulder of ever increasing doom from causing problems. He recently just launched a cherry blossom tree into the distance, I just hope it didn’t hurt anyone.

As a Valkyrie I should not be directly responsible for someone’s death!

“That’s possibly the weirdest thing I’ve seen all day and we live here in the weirdness capital of Neighpon.” A well-dressed Diamond Dog stated as I ran by him and he was standing next to what looked like a dryder, he didn’t seem particularly worried about it as it just nodded along with his words. “To think I thought seeing Hachiko away from his usual spot was odd. Well I’m going to go dress ninjas up in bathing suits and then force them to perform ‘Hinny of the Hills’… in semaphore while riding ostriches.”

“You are cruelty personified Dodgy.” The spider pony stated, looking to the sky. “At least you’re doing a good job while Ryu is gone.”

Ah, they are being friends, no need to think too hard about it. Wait… why did I stop to listen to them?! I am needing to stop my cheeky pet Ragna from dooming Neighpon! I am also needing to collect wayward souls of Vikings while here.

Eir’s job is always so frustrating! Hopefully pet will calm down eventually and become affectionate once more.

Eir is loving Ragna, but it is quite tiring to take care of while on business. Still, Ragna loved to be rolled and I have been keeping him all cooped up in the bar.

-The Volcano, Coliseum, Fortitude-

“Okay, I am needing break.” With me calling our practice off, Skelly pulled her axe back from the middle of another swing.

Skelly was tireless, she was strong and she was also an inspiration as she didn’t let her experiences make her bitter to the world. She was a true Viking hero and a beautiful one at that… I may like Skelly as more than a friend.

I am not sure how to broach that topic, especially with the awkwardness of Skelly being living impaired being a big issue. Instead I just hug Skelly and would think about my feelings more, she hugged me back affectionately.

I already knew she made for a great general, also an excellent friend and companion, but does she ever miss the idea of having a close relationship with her given status?

Skelly’s fur felt real enough to me and she smiled so extravagantly, maybe I can be as brave as her someday and until then I would try to fill the abyss within her with good memories.

-Flamberge-

“Sounds good to me, I could use a few gems to chew over.” I was a bit famished, Gene really put me through a wringer and he was knocking off his own rust at the same time while doing it.

Fortitude was looking a bit sweaty and that would just make his smell worse.

My brother’s spirits be ever stalwart, for we are Vikings with strong heart.

I turned to Sweetcakes and saw that she wasn’t just watching me, but all of us… she actually seemed to be still upset about the trouble she caused. It was indirectly pointed out that she caused our injuries in the first place.

I sighed and considered what to say, why not meet her halfway and speak her language.

“Despite the trouble you cause, you will always help us mend.” I took up a single paw, earning her immediate attention. “Even with fearsome claws, you’re still our fluffy friend.”

Author's Note

Yes, the boulder of ever increasing doom is now named 'Ragna' and it's a horrible pun.

Chapter fifty two, All in All: Villains.

-The Volcano, Middle Tier, Airship Dock, The Grand Time, Teatime-

I took a sip of tea as I sat there pondering one of the most troubling things I’ve ever come across, a treasure who’s trap I couldn’t honestly bypass. Well ‘honest’ was such a strong word for what I did, I would like think it’s mostly just cutting the knot of having to do something so outrageously dangerous as to put myself in the path of imminent death.

In this case… I couldn’t just send golems in, something happened to their crystal matrixes when I tried.

The follow up golems I sent to retrieve the lost golems barely made it out with a quarter of their power remaining. I had quite a dilemma on my hooves here.

I couldn’t just dig into the volcano, I didn’t exactly have anything that was strong enough to survive lava or magma. I could just send autonomous equipment to drain the lava, but there was no guarantee I’d be able to get the treasure without destroying it in the process.

While I could just send those two Neanderthals who joined GODLESS for inane reasons, it would hurt my current position and I wanted to remain near the top of the slowly dwindling organization.

Plus, despite my constant complaints, they were very useful rooks. They could take a beating and I was not about to throw them away on anything less than something that was completely unavoidable.

I’d loathe to say that we were friends though, we had little in common.

Celestia has been catching a lot of the other agents over the last year. With the so called ‘Princess Luna’ returning, it heralded a death knell for a majority of the organization as thestrals were becoming more active with the night princess back in the fold of things.

With the organization slowly being whittled away, I had to stay on top of things to keep my money, accrued power and most importantly my infamy as one of the most brilliant engineers in the world.

Thinking of engineers made me wonder how Flim and Flam were doing, I appreciated giving those two shysters a decent start even if I already knew they would never amount to much.

I wanted to be remembered and I was going to do that by doing as many horrible things as I could without crossing a specific line, nobody would be able to forget my downfall when someone eventually defeats me in a permanent fashion.

I was not one to go down quietly after all, a villain was far more memorable depending on how much of an impression they left on the world with what they did at their last stand.

Of course most heroes could just move on with their lives and forget the villain once they achieve a lasting victory, but I wanted to be remembered long after I was dealt with and I knew I would eventually get that comeuppance someday. There was always someone better, faster or stronger, being smarter was not a necessarily needed part of the equation as far as heroes are concerned.

I was well enough aware that while the royal guard was a humorous attempt at policing idiocy, they still had at least some competent members in their number or else they wouldn’t exist with the EUP providing far more capable ponies.

Back to here and now. My rival, whatever that parrot’s name was, was interested in the treasure of the Dark Flame Temple and I wanted to know why. She was even going to take part in the next Fiery Fights the longma run like the reindeer do their Tundra Tournaments.

It wasn’t just curiosities sake that I was looking into this, no, it was the idea that I can get one over on that vexing bipedal bird. Whatever it was she was after, I wanted it for myself. Nothing was a greater challenge than getting a treasure out from under someone else’s nose before they could reach it.

That parrot was quite an intellectual match for me and I made a good call back in the day that she would be my eternal rival, even when she was working right next to Daring Do herself!

Daring Do had Dr. Caballeron, Ahuizotl and plenty of other rivals to deal with already, I was just a dangerous periphery for her and didn’t want to be focused on by a mare whose luck always seems to exceed her brains.

Though there was some skill there, I did not want to lose a fight as pitifully as to tripping over her helmet or her suddenly having a lucky coincidence to save her flank from some danger that should be impossible to escape. Most importantly, I did not want to be defeated by the walking embodiment of a living fairy tale character that was Daring Do!

Given she’s a storybook character that’s an actual pony. I’m sure that Daring just sends the stories of her adventures to her writer and that just makes it all the more obvious that AK Yearling knows exactly what Daring Do is actually getting up to.

Daring must not get paid well as an archaeologists if she has to resort to selling books to get by, I’m so glad I went the black market route with my own thirst for adventure.

I find Daring’s altruism as a bit sickening, she hardly gets paid enough money for the stuff that her job puts her through and she needs someone to give her the royalties on a bunch of storybooks to even get by. Though admittedly Daring Do has actually managed to immortalize herself, I can’t exactly do the same without a number of places coming down on me for my more notable actions.

I still had plenty of funds due to the illicit and legal means in which I made them, most of them had yet to be stopped because I can take care of the tracks my hooves leave. Also my earnings could not be directly tied to GODLESS.

Celestia or Luna would have a problem finding a way to shut me down or take me out personally, given that if they do then they’d be disturbing all of Equestria’s economy greatly. I’ve made myself indispensable by clearly becoming too important to the stability of things, it’ll become one of the most remembered things about my eventual glorious downfall.

Unless they had Daring Do focus all her efforts on me, and I seriously doubt they would, I have never done anything absolutely illegal in front of anyone important. Though I have clearly stretched the law to the brink sometimes, there has never been any clear evidence for someone to charge me with.

Does Daring actually enjoy the rush of putting herself constantly in danger? She obviously loves putting herself into traumatic situations that would leave plenty of other ponies with a post-traumatic stress disorder a mile wide. She wasn’t a professional escape artist and yet she could give Hoofdini a run for his money with all the traps she is said to have narrowly escaped.

That parrot in comparison is a bit of an unknown to me, but there is one thing I know about her… she’s quite unlucky. I don’t feel threatened enough that she could suddenly get these random acts of incredible serendipity from some unnamed god that wants her to succeed at life and all she has to do is put in some modicum of effort into things like Daring does.

The parrot’s struggles were actually fairly realistic compared to Daring’s random bouts of extreme luck that solves the situation for her. Despite the fact that I can’t, for the life of me, remember her name, the parrot was a far sight more impressive.

I will silently admit this one thing, the parrot is a surprisingly sturdy and makes a much better hero than Daring Do to thwart or surpass. She’s an underdog and she hardly cares about recognition, put something dangerous in front of her and she’ll think her way around it. Her successes don’t come from luck, but from a respectable amount of hard work and I had to appreciate that much about the pirate wench.

That parrot obviously knows there is no god or goddess out there to help her and yet she continues to live a carefree life with the world actually out to get her. She was probably one of the few females that I can see as an actual challenge, Daring Do wasn’t a challenge so much as she was an effort in frustration that inevitably leads to failure for those who try to beat her thanks to those so called ‘coincidences’ she enjoyed.

Speaking of increasingly frustrating problems with no solution, one was my attempts to try and investigate this Dark Flame Temple of the longma. Apparently the magic of the place made golems impossible to use and apparently there was a precedent for something biological having to walk into an obvious and highly dangerous trap themselves to get at the treasure.

From what I predict, any amount of digging would make the treasure room in the mountain break off and be filled with lava. It was ingenious way to prevent the treasure from being stolen really and it was fairly obvious that the dragons who made this treasure room had some form of magical help.

I was the reason why Caballeron actually had a decent victory under his belt during the ‘Caves of Intrigue’ escapade, the payoff from that was exemplary. The parrot still managed to survive the whole cave collapsing in on her and that was after she managed to get Daring out.

Before that I don’t think Daring has ever suffered an incredibly significant loss as the parrot and her whole crew almost dying. If something as simple as that almost broke her spirit… then Daring wasn’t as great as her stories depict her as and were obviously highly embellished.

It took months for Daring Do to actually get back into the spirit of things from what my sources tell me. She almost failed to stop Caballeron the next few times she met him, still didn’t stop Caballeron from finding more clues to that whole ‘End of Immortality’ nonsense that the leader of GODLESS wanted to find. It’s a wild geese chase, as the clues kept bouncing the seekers all over the place trying to find the actual location of the thing in question. I think the treasures near where you could find said clues were more worthwhile than the clues themselves.

I really needed to stop losing my train of thought, I had to focus on Huoshan. Whatever was protecting this temple, my golems were useless and I’ve heard the rumors that living beings get driven insane by going in there.

So what to do? Thinking of it, I was curious as to what both Shocking and Dispel were getting up to. Those two were getting along rather well, it would boost their productivity at the very least. Dispel’s eyesight had taken a day to clear up and the burns Shocking had taken in the fire blast didn’t last half that time.

Getting up from my seat, I planned to give my compatriots some orders.

Entering them in the Fiery Fights was my best course of action now, given my parrot nemesis was going to enter herself. While they distracted the many problems in the area, I’ll set up some surveillance, place my golems in many key positions around the city and I will lay in wait to begin my burgeoning plan.

I was outside of Equestria’s jurisdiction, therefore starting a small war was not out of the question for me. That I could cause pressure between our races was a bonus, there would certainly be a lot of diplomatic headaches from this and that wasn’t my problem.

The real reason I wanted to do this? I wanted to test out my Airship’s special functions in combat with the parrot’s friends and the forces of Huoshan. I also haven’t gotten the chance to test my newer toys yet and I considered the testing grounds here to be a worthwhile endeavor.

Many birds and a stone as they say.

-Shocking-

I wondered what the brains of our three pony group was doing, he has actually impressed me a little.

Teatime may be a weakling, but he more than made up for that with that machine he made. Too bad it was blown up by several sticks of gum and beanpole parrot, but it had been awesome watching it wreck face before it was blown up.

Unlike Dispel, I hadn’t lost my eyesight and took the time to watch the destruction Teatime caused. It was an art form all its own and Teatime even got out of that mess without needing help.

Aside from sipping tea, it seems Teatime had been thinking a lot stuff through, which was entirely too boring for me to do and I was just relaxing until my next dust up. I had a feeling that Teatime was planning just that.

I was open for whatever kind of situation Teatime wanted to stuff me into though. I’ll show him that I’d excel at whatever he gave me to do, for I was Shocking Awe and I wouldn’t back down from a challenge!

I may not be the brightest stallion around, seriously wanted to punch my flighty pegasus nature itself sometimes for that, but I was still smarter than Dispel Grace was!

I sat up from my positon on the floor and actually gave Teatime my undivided attention when he came up to us.

“Excuse me my fine gentle stallions, but I have need of you.” Oh, what could Teatime possible want from us… also would it be exceedingly dangerous? Give me a challenge here, I’m practically dying for one Teatime and you were smart enough to know some of the better places to find one!

“Okay, I’m listening Clock, don’t know about holier than thou Mr. Tin Can here though.” I guess I surprised brain boy, he didn’t think I could talk to him without insulting him.

Eh, I’m just giving him the credit where it is belongs, he could put up a fight against several warriors and sent a number of longma running. He’s earned some credit with me.

-Dispel Grace-

I was truly the only real zealot among this number that actually wanted to tear down the gods, but these stallions were honorable… to a certain extent and definition of it.

They would probably believe me nothing but dead weight in the mental department, I shall just prove myself to them that I wasn’t a one trick pony!

We might not all be working towards the same goals, but we were united under the same banner at the very least.

“What is it you need of us comrade Clockwork?” I noted Shocking had been impressed by Teatime, I might as well make a token effort to show that I myself saw him worthy of the leadership role. Teatime was like a king in his own right at least, a king of a lifeless army with a wherewithal and knowhow to use it. “I will see to your task personally, just give the orders.”

“You two are entering the Fiery Fights, you need to keep certain people distracted from my efforts around Huoshan.” He took a seat, sipped some tea, then he glared at us. “Don't do anything illegal, you won’t know of my plan until after the competition is over.”

Author's Note

Could Clockwork really have the capacity to start a small war?

Yes.

Could he actually tank the economy of Equestria if taken down in the wrong manner?

No.

This is not as easily achievable, but Clockwork might have something that could still do some damage to plenty of infrastructure in a way that nobles will wish that they had thought of.

See 'Vetinari, Discworld', for a magnificently indispensable person. Clockwork is not 'Thrawn' though.

Chapter fifty two, All in All: Heroes.

-Airship Mauled, CL hospital, Kuril-

I gasped and woke up in a sweat, I felt myself sustaining something. Why was I in the hospital?

“Ah you’re awake, how are you feeling Kuril?” I looked to Dr. Bones, she was giving me a worried look. “You gave us quite a scare there, you did.”

“What happened?” For some reason the doctor looked surprised as I took up the glass of water she placed at my bedside and drank from it.

“You tell me, your eyes must be hurting something smart right about now or at least your head.” Looking at her, yeah my eyes did sting quite a bit and my head was throbbing in pain. “Also you haven’t been taking care of yourself as well as you could have. You need to eat more and stop working yourself into the ground Kuril, it’s unhealthy. I can understand why you’re like this, but I’m not about to let you continue on with this path of self-destructive behavior without an intervention. I am responsible for your health after all you ninny!”

“I’m fine Dr. Bones.” I tried to reassure her.

“Oh really, then why do you not realize that your eyes are currently bandaged?” What did she just say?! I reached with my right hand quickly, only to be stopped by Dr. Bones when she grabbed my right wrist. “You can feel them, just don’t remove them and tell me the last thing you remember.”

She let go of my wrist and I ran my hand over where my eyes were and felt the bandages, there were actually bandages wrapped around my head.

“I… was testing a magical alchemy sustain and… it’s still running.” I took a mirror out of my robes and dropped the sustain, my vision immediately dropped into darkness. “There, now I can’t see anything.”

“Whatever that sustain does, it overloaded your head with far too much information. Your eyes are fine, aside from some magical backlash related pain, but I’d personally give it a fair shake before you try taking those bandages off.” I heard her moving around and then I felt her squeeze my right hand with a paw. “You gave us all quite a fright there, your live-in friend Fresh was quite inconsolable. Fresh had Mango and Mr. Permanganate carry you in, didn’t rightly know what was wrong with you aside from not eating enough… at least until I saw your eyes glowing when I checked them.”

“They were glowing?” I asked tentatively.

“Ay, that they were, but now I can easily assume that they are not.” She tightened and changed her grip to my wrist. “Imagine my surprise when you come in showing signs of sensory overload similar to what happens when a unicorn misuses a spell that affects eyesight. Not only can it cause eye strain, it will also cause your incident where you are given too much information to deal with all at once. The next time you use that bit of magical alchemy, make sure your eyes are covered! Apparently you can handle the strain if you are looking through something that’s blocking your vision instead of seeing things with your bare eyes.”

I felt Dr. Bones’s breath on my nose as she leaned forward.

“Note, I am ordering you to not leave your eyes exposed while doing that again, your head just cannot handle the strain and this could have been far worse!” She growled out in my face. “Do you understand me Kuril? You have people that love and care about you here!”

I hurriedly nodded, mostly because I didn’t feel like verbalizing anything at the moment, she then slowly released my wrist and patted my hand.

“Good, I’ll have to notify Fresh that... what the… what are you doing here in my hospital rodent, I am clearly busy with a patient at the moment!” Aside from Zen’s aggressive stance, I heard the chattering of a squirrel. That sounded like Ratatoskr, where has he been for so long? “So you finally got a message from those Vikings that keep sending us people from all over the dang place… about time! What took you so long?”

I could hear Ratatoskr explaining himself. It sounded like he’s been all over the place trying to find them.

Yeah, Airship Mauled had quite a few people that came here from far and wide to join the town. We had some hippogriff families come in recently and a few of them even joined Bracing Knight’s militia.

We even got a few families from some weird place named ‘Anywhere But Here’, literally those three words were the name of a town. I thought Airship Mauled was quirky when my… kitten… wanted...

I sniffled and felt my cheeks become wet.

“Oh great she’s spewing fats from her eyeholes now!” Zen’s words almost made me giggle… almost. “Give me the letter and go on, I’ll make sure she reads it or at least hears its contents!”

I hear some chittering and shaking of an envelope or was that Dr. Bones just grabbing it.

“Excuse me, but I have a patient to calm down now.” Zen stated as she turned back towards me. “Shoo, off you go you wee little high speed rat you!”

I heard some worried sounding squirrel noises and then the sound of Ratatoskr running out of the room.

“Nurse Escargot, we need a nice relaxing massage for the patient.” I’m glad we had a good doctor like Zen to look out for all of us, I’m a little less sure about the Kraken for a nurse. “Go easy on her you hear me, I’ll be busy get her some much needed food!”

Dr. Bones was a miracle worker and would get me back on my feet soon, I was glad to have her around. She could identify problems that were mundane, mental and magical so easily. She couldn’t exactly cure or heal all those problems personally, but she could identify them and would even recommend someone that could.

Zen was right, I had been burying myself in work and sorely needed to relax. To think I just wanted to test what a mirror would do and it put me in the hospital, the effects are still quite interesting though. I wonder what casting it will do…

What exactly did I see with my bare eyes that hurt my head this much? I could feel an iron spike slowly burying itself in my skull.

The pain started to die away when I felt at least three tentacles flip me over and began to soothingly work my back.

-The Witch’s Fare, Fresh Start-

“I’ll be right with you in a minute sir!” I turned to Wary Berry. “Thanks again for helping me out Wary, you’re my hero!”

“Just don’t make me carry too many plates with fruit on them and things will be just fine, just as I know Kuril will be fine.” She put a hoof on my left shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Our town is still growing and we need to help it all we can, especially when the mayor is currently not up to the task. We’re not going to fail our favorite witch now are we?”

“Coo…” I turned to look at Snickers, the poor sea turtle dove was still dilapidated looking, but she was stable. Sugar chittered at me and looked rather worried.

“Kuril will be fine, Dr. Bones is a professional Sugar.” I turned back to Wary Berry. “She’s the only witch we know Wary.”

“Do you need more help to wait the tables?” I turned to see Mr. Permanganate entering the establishment. “I heard about what happened to Kuril and I don’t want to see her business suffer by the lack of able workers now.”

“The fruit plantation doesn’t need me watching it twenty four seven, throw me in too.” Came Mango’s voice as he entered the restaurant following Potassium.

“Excuse me, but does this establishment… need any help?” I looked over to see an entirely pale pink male hippogriff come in, he was a bit shy looking and he tapped his talons together while looking away from me. He was a scrawny looking guy. “I heard a lot of great things about this place… and I wanted to…”

He’s squeakier than Fluttershy is, so adorable! If I could put him to work, I’d pay him based on how well he does.

“Sure, do you know how to cook? If not, then be prepared to write down orders while I do all the cooking!” It always surprises me how Airship Mauled, despite its many problems, has so many people coming out of nowhere that were willing to help.

The hippogriff shook his head that he didn’t know how to cook, I tossed a notepad to the hippogriff and he freaked out for a few seconds before catching it.

I was going to be Kuril’s hero today even if it killed me, to think I started out as a lowly mild mannered maid. I was still practically a lowly mild mannered maid… one that was willing, but unable to run a restaurant all by myself on top of my cleaning duties and caring for Kuril.

I missed all the traveling kids just as badly as Kuril did.

Going back into the kitchen, I quickly finished up the next order. The fact that Kuril could keep going for so long was amazing, I was sad that I didn’t notice exactly how stressed she was.

She had been doing so much paperwork lately, whether it was for a resident looking for housing, someone wanting her to officiate a marriage, keeping tabs on her restaurant’s income and so much more.

I wondered when she found the time to actually cook the food she’s known for when she was always so busy. She did so much, even when she was hurting. To find her laying on the floor like that almost made my heart stop completely.

“Thank you for helping me out guys.” I said weakly to my friends and the purple eyed newcomer who offered his assistance as I placed a plate before him. “Order Up! Take this plate of strawberry waffles and doughnuts, filled with blackberry filling, to table ten over there!”

The hippogriff cowered slightly and then carefully did as I asked.

“It is no problem Fresh. I could be working on a formula on my health products, I could be helping Mango with the fruit fields or I could even be teaching some wonderful science lessons to anyone who would listen.” He closed his eyes and chuckled before he looked to me. “Though I currently find myself with a lot of free time and this restaurant is quite important to not only our mayor, but to the many wonderful visitors that come through here now. That fire may have been the heart of our town, but it wasn’t the heart of the people like our Mayor Kuril!”

Quite a few of our customers cheered in agreement, though that ever burning fire was still sorely missed. The signs Kuril placed around the circle, to prevent anyone from bothering that particular spot outside, were fairly effective. Those that came to live here learned the story and wouldn’t dare light a fire there.

Only Jaded was allowed to do that and we supported Kuril in making sure nobody else tried. I sent Potassium to place an order at table seven.

“I agree with Potassium, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing right now than helping out here Ms. Start.” Mango came back into the kitchen with me. “What do you need me to do? You know I’m good with drinks.”

“Get me some peach flavored coffee, three sugars.” As I worked, Mr. Liquid Refreshment immediately got to work on making me my requested coffee. “I’m really going to need it today.”

“That was a long trip…” A roughed up Bracing Knight stumbled in looking quite battered.

“Are you okay Bracing?” Bracing took up a seat and slapped her head to the nearby counter, her ears flicked toward me telling me that I still had her attention. “You look a little roughed up, why your mane and tail are practically all over the place!”

“You should see the other guys…” The mare mumbled into the wood. “We made sure no giant monsters are going to bother us anytime soon. We routed some myrmekes, then bear ants, the owl bears afterwards were just horrific and the Ursa Minor didn’t help us at all while we were fighting back to back against the owl bears! Not only that, there were also bashing bull bears and of course the most famous creatures of all in those woods… THOSE… DARN… DROP BEARS! It is quite sufficient to say I hate the Barely Bearable Woods with the passion of a thousand moons, blessed be Luna! Anyway the mutant hogs are still plain unstoppable and vicious little beasts, there’s nothing we can do about them aside from not talking about them. I want…”

“You can’t say those woods don’t live up to their name though. Another coffee, as strong as you can make it… double…” I interrupted. Looking at Bracing, I could see the cracked veins in her eyes. “Triple… no… quadruple shot it Mango, she’s had a really rough time and deserves a decent boost!”

“On it!” Mango set about the kitchen to get that coffee for our slightly mangled militia mare of the moon priests that swore to protect our town.

“Thank… you…” Bracing, after a moment of calm, eventually sat up quickly. She looked highly alert about something. “Where’s Kuril?!”

“She’s fine, but she needs a relaxing stay at the hospital, Dr. Bones is already on it and her staff will likely be on top of all the other patients coming in.” I turned to the new help. “Fried eggs, large hash brown and a side of ketchup table three!”

The hippogriff was immediately off with the order and serving it to our customers. I notice them giving the guy a few bits.

“You can keep the tips if you get any!” I seemed to have surprised the hippogriff, he smiled faintly and nodded to me with his beak pressed into his chest.

-Helping Hoof, Grace-

“Hello Grace, can I bother you for another bottle of milk?” I looked up at Mr. Veles, he wasn’t really a bad guy despite wanting to kidnap cows and steal their milk. I certainly didn’t mind giving him my milk freely. “Yours is probably the sweetest by far.”

“Why thank you! I’ll give you some more, please remember to return the bottle Mr. Veles. I am not made of glass you know!” I said pleasantly and a bit sternly. “Why are you disguised as a scaled pony with fire for a mane and tail, but the mane is where the tail is and vice versa, also are your eyes fused together? That’s a rather unique look.”

“Why indeed… you’re also not made of money grace, but I still appreciate you. Let’s just say I’ve just been watching your niece. I might even help push her in the right direction when she needs a clue and she’s actually becoming a real super cow… one with the power of invisible udders! So… very… miniscule…” He shudders a bit while sticking out his tongue, then smiles at me in a friendly manner. “Unfortunately for her, Perun has someone under his patronage running around that given area. I’m staying well enough away for now, oh and thanks for noticing my glitching pony look!”

Author's Note

Heroes are everyday people.

Chapter fifty two, All in All: Time trickles forward.

-Ponyville, Fluttershy-

“Pinkie, you knew Zecora was friendly all along, why did you spread those rumors and make me sing that song?” As far as evil enchantresses go, I was a more likely culprit with how often I enchant animals.

“Mostly because it was fun, like a ghost story and nobody got hurt Fluttershy!” I sighed as Pinkie gave me a hug and then ran off, likely straight to Sugar Cube Corner.

If it wasn’t the dragon snoring smoke everywhere and threatening to blot out the sun, everyone ignored me when I tried to tell them about that, then it was superstitions about Zecora being evil or getting yelled at by Gilda.

-Canterlot, Celestia-

As time marches forward I was just happy to have my sister back, but I still had much to do and make up for.

I even had hope that Twilight was ready for the future.

-The Volcano, Ardent Survivor, Arizona-

“So why haven’t you gone after Teatime yet, didn’t he like… destroy the street and cause havoc?” It seemed like the guards here were sleeping on the job. Jacky says they’re supposedly more competent than the ones in Canterlot and Jade ran laps around those guys.

“Do you even know what the laws here are like?” It was Jacky that answered me and not Tianhuo, her crew didn’t seem too worried or focused on this. In fact, they were all lazing about the deck, even that weird dog like giant butterfly they had to guard the ship when they were away.

Velvet and Paprika were out shopping or something and I was on my own here, so… I guess I was bored and talking can be somewhat fun. To me, nothing beats a excellent fight.

Sure I could talk to Pom or Ollie, but they weren’t exactly masters of taking hits. Ollie had a knowledge demon or something to protect her and Pom is a lambkin, an awesome lambkin, but one that really needed to toughen up some.

Pom might have had Fluttershy’s shy disposition, but I was fairly sure she could be great in a fight if she actually worked on it. There’s was a lot of anger, resentment, sadness, fear and dare I think it, an incredible hidden potential to be something great. All of that was within a cowardly, frail looking lambkin and it was kind of driving me nuts to see something like that.

Pom really needed to let go of some of that stuff, I wanted to see exactly what she could do. Sure she might never have the same absurd levels of durability that my lovely family or most of our friends had, but she could still at least get out of her comfort zone and show the world that she was something special herself.

She didn’t need to be special because she had more familiars than any other being in the world, she had the potential to be special on her own merits.

Speaking of, Tinsel was playing with Big Mama’s puppies. The puppies that could fly by twirling their tails and give chase to the poor ice sprite. Pom led a ridiculously awesome life when she had helicopter puppies, yet she refused to stop sweating over every little small thing or think about all the cool stuff she could be doing instead!

Tianhuo seemed to be more my speed, she knew how to fight and take a hit. She was also one of the best guards in the city and she knew how to fight. Did I think she knew how to fight well enough already? Okay, so I really wanted to fight her. I just hoped that didn’t make Velvet jealous… better yet, I hope it actually does!

“No, but I’m getting the feeling that the guards here should be doing more.” My response was about as much thought as I had for the given subject. “Also do you even know the laws yourself?”

“Actually, yes, I do. I’m the captain of my own crew, reading up on local laws is fairly important so I can tell my crew what not to do while we’re here. That and Flotsam likes learning about different cultures.” Jacky had a smile on her beak. Flotsam just lazily waved to me from where she was laid out on the deck and went back to reading her book. “Do you want me to explain it or do you want Tianhuo to explain it? I have a better question than what Arizona asked, aren’t you leaving Paprika unwatched?”

“No, I’m thankfully off shift with watching that monstrosity. I can’t be expected to keep up with her twenty four seven, I’ve already done that for three days straight and I’m never doing that again!” Tianhuo was just about as stoic as any other longma I’ve seen, but leave her alone with Pom for a few seconds and you would always get some really cute interactions with Tianhuo trying to talk her up. She looked me in the eyes with something approaching pity. “Thank goodness for that, I don’t understand how you can be married to her when she’s sporadically somewhere between barely calm and always affectionately hugging everything into submission.”

“Eh, so Paprika comes on a bit strong when she’s trying to be really sweet and friendly. She knows how put up a good fight if you can get her going and that’s definitely one of the things I love about her.” I watched as Tianhuo rolled her eyes at me. “She also takes care of me and Velvet after we rough each other up as violently as we can, we’ve become really good at recovering from our injuries and Pap helps us get better faster. She knew to increase Velvet’s intake of food and even insisted on it before we got here, she treats Velvet and me fairly well even after we both go through a few rounds of over the top domestic abuse.”

“That’s what you call it? Huh.” Well don’t look so surprised Gene… wait is he even surprised? I can’t exactly tell. “Domestic abuse normally wouldn’t be a good thing, but I think in your case it actually works for you.”

Maybe I should practice a few rope tricks if I’m not going to be getting a fight in anytime soon, but first I still wanted to know why Tianhuo was sitting on her flanks… oh right, I never answered.

“I want Jacky to answer my question.” I pointed at her with my hoof. “Why aren’t the local guards doing anything more than watching that Clockwork guy’s ship?”

“I too want to know, why clockwork is allowed free, it is strange to me.” Sweetcakes came up to us looking fairly curious as well and she sat down on the deck to wait for an answer.

“It’s like this, who was the one that attacked first?” Those present all turned from Jacky and directed all their attentions to Sweetcakes. “Sweetcakes here launched a premeditated assault against the GODLESS agents, so technically… she should be the one who gets arrested for disturbing the peace and starting the fight. Teatime is not at fault for defending himself against being attacked first, what he is liable for is the damage he caused to the surrounding area. The reason why he is getting off so easily is because he never directly targeted a longma in his rampage. Had he done so, then they’d be treating him far differently than they currently are.”

“What about the damage he caused?" Every step that thing took definitely did damage to the streets and it wasn’t like anyone could clearly miss that. "Jacky just said he's responsible for it.”

“It’s already paid for by Teatime.” Tianhuo told us blandly and I stared at her with disbelief, she sighed and looked to me. “The metal from his machine, the high quality metals used in its construction was worth more than the damage he dealt and as such we are allowed to confiscate the scrap from him to make up the costs in what he damaged in the fight. Teatime didn’t ask for his machine’s parts back and left it to us and is not pressing charges against Sweetcakes. I even know why he won’t press charges, it’s because it might give us an opening to do some things he likely wouldn’t want us to do. Like a deeper investigation into his personal belongings...”

“So what you’re saying is… we can’t do anything about Teatime until he or those other guys do something so incredibly overt that it will make him a public enemy of The Volcano.” I was more than a little angry hearing this and I’m sure everyone could hear the tone in my voice. “So the reason you can’t do anything now, is because everything Teatime did previously was considered to be in the line of self-defense. So we can’t stop him until he actually enacts something big and by then it would already be too late when he does.”

“Exactly, I think Teatime is the most dangerous pony of the three GODLESS agents and he’s smart enough to avoid getting caught actually doing something illegal in front of the local authorities.” That sends a chill down my spine Jacky, it seriously does. “If you think you’re angry about that… anyway, we should be glad that Sweetcakes did so little damage with that fire bomb of hers, the damage was negligible enough that Teatime’s payment for the damage he caused personally covered it.”

“At least that’s how I swung it, if I hadn’t stepped in then Sweetcakes would still be in trouble. Also you taking some of the scrap was part of my reparations towards almost killing you. It’s like how I personally paid for the destruction of that fireworks shop and the two cabbage carts from my own salary for this month.” Tianhuo stated while grumpily looking away from Sweetcakes, I take it the three tailed fox owed Tianhuo a debt and yet she wasn’t asking for one. “As for Gene, Fortitude and Flamberge, they were coming to the defense of their friend and were injured. So they can’t actually be blamed for self-defense and defense of others against someone who is going a little over the top on their personal self-defense or avenging the minor injuries his friends gained. Sweetcakes, or the rest of you guys, should not take any more actions unless this Teatime outright starts something.”

“So… that’s it then, we can’t have his ship searched for weapons or anything?” Okay, I understood how things worked around here now. Everyone here is to be blamed for their own actions in any confrontation and must make up for them one way or another. So I probably shouldn’t destroy any buildings using Velvet as an icy war hammer… no matter how radical that would be.

Teatime’s actions were notable, that he already payed for them with the left behind property means that the longma could immediately seize your stuff as payment for causing enough trouble. Sweetcakes can even still be blamed for starting the fight, but that won’t happen as Teatime doesn’t want any more scrutiny in his given direction according to Jacky.

“No, but I can have the city on high alert and I believe you about him being dangerous, he’s already showed us that much and I can assure you that we’re all wary of him now. We’re also wary of your three groups... I’m in one them thanks to the orders I’ve been given.” Tianhuo frowned after making that comment. “A majority of the Huoshan Guard are going to be needed for policing the tournament, but I think it would be best to have eyes all over the city watching for strange activity. I’m still in charge while I'm here, but once I leave I’m duty bound to help the key bearers seal away the shadow horde.”

“Speaking of the tournament, where do we sign up for it!” Now that Flamberge asked that, I realized that we weren’t in the tournament yet.

“It’s simply found by turning left on the upper tier. The sign ups aren’t yet over and you still have a day or two before that closes up.” With that a pair of flaming wings flared out from Tianhuo’s back and she lifted off. “I will go ahead and wait for everyone that wants to sign up. Look for me on the streets there, you already know where the coliseum is.”

“Excuse me, but I have to go find Velvet and Paprika to make sure we don’t miss entering!” I set off to find my wives, both Paprika and Velvet definitely wanted in on this.

-Two hours later, upper tier, Jacky-

“There we go, Jacky ‘The Blackcap’ Chickadee La Perm?" The brown longma didn’t seem all too impressed. "That doesn’t sound like that great a title.”

“Trust me, it has more meaning among pirates and it’s very fitting.” I ducked a fireball and glared at a longma.

“I am sorry, my flames seemed to have gotten slightly out of my control.” The longma bowed slightly. “I apologize greatly.”

“That’s okay, because I was expecting that to happen at least once while I’m here.” Now that it did… I dove to the side out of instinct and a wyvern narrowly missed snatching me in its claws. It was soon chased off by a number of flying flame winged longma. “That too… wait, where’s Flamberge? Oh right, dragons hate wyverns with a passion…”

The wyvern hit the ground with Flamberge beating it’s skull in viciously, the longma were having quite a hard time getting him off the poor thing.

Then I was struck in the shoulder by a piece of glass from a mirror that was accidentally dropped at least fifteen feet away, I didn’t try to avoid this one. It was pretty painful all the same.

“Blackcaps are quite unlucky and I’m ‘The Blackcap’, so I think the title is pretty accurate as you can imagine.” I leaned back while crossing my arms and a kitchen knife shot by my beak where my head used to be. I didn’t flinch, the counter longma sure did. “Sorry about that, didn’t expect the kitchen knife from the street vendor.”

“Yet you expected everything else?” The longma behind the desk asked, looking both confused and relatively shocked.

“A little bit yes, but there is no preparing for everything.” I smiled and turned to Gene. “Let’s go get this out of my shoulder Gene, don’t want to get an infection. Fortitude can take care of Flamberge.”

-A minute later, Arizona-

“As usual that’s Jacky’s luck batting a thousand.” I finished my form and handed it over to the longma.

“Arizona ‘Earth Shaker’ Arid Paca La Perm? Yeah, I can see that, cows stampeding and all.” That was when the longma took the next form from Velvet. “Velvet ‘Frost Dancer’ Paca La Perm… wait, are you two actually related?”

“Married actually.” Velvet said while smiling in my direction. “Happily... and otherwise… if I fight Arizona be ready for a spectacle like you’ve never seen before.”

Then Paprika approached and the longma shivered as he took the form from her, it was covered in glitter.

“She’s going to kill us all isn’t she?” Funny… that’s exactly what a reindeer back in Rein said. “So she does have a name… Paprika ‘The Demon’ Paca La Perm. Why am I not surprised that the one who tired Tianhuo out is called that? So you guys are the Paca La Perm herd, well I hope you enjoy the competition.”

Author's Note

Yep the second tournament arc begins, followed by more tournament and then whatever Teatime is planning.

After the aftermath, time skip to how each group disappears from the map.

Next time on Airship Mauled: A fight with an unusual opponent that no one can possibly see coming!

Chapter fifty three, Fiery Fights: Jacky Vs. a fruit.

-Some days later, The Volcano, Upper Tier, Coliseum, Jacky-

I took my seat in the stands, the stands we sat in were close to the stairs down into the arena itself. I take it these stands were made for the fighters and their friends, considering this area wasn’t very crowded I’d say that was a good bet.

I wondered who would be in the first fight.

“Calling our first fighter for the first match of the Fiery Fights, Vixen ‘Snow Wave’ Valentine!” At the longma announcer’s voice, a relatively nice looking reindeer trotted out looking ready for a fight.

“I’m ready to face anything, bring on my opponent!” That sounded like tempting fate to me.

“Ten bits says her opponent is Paprika.” What did Arizona know that I didn’t? She was fairly cozy with Velvet at the moment and was even holding her hoof.

“A sucker’s bet if I ever heard one.” Velvet stated as she snuggled Arizona back and had a broad smile on her face, she was even snickering a bit. “Vixen is not nearly lucky enough to avoid it and she did just tempt fate by saying ‘anything’ and Paprika would be one of ‘those’ opponents for her.”

“With a one in a however many fighters there are in this tournament as a chance for Paprika to be in on the first fight you mean? I think it’s a guarantee.” Arizona started to chuckle. “Yeah, she’s about to get snuggled. I almost feel sorry for your old friend fluff butt.”

There were a lot of fighters in the tournament, I didn’t see Paprika being in the first fight as the odds were a bit too long for that.

“Our second fighter is, Paprika ‘The Demon’ Paca La Perm!” They were right, how were they right?! That was at least a one in a hundred chance, if not a thousand.

Paprika jumped down and pranced out into the arena looking quite cheerful, she seemed happy to be fighting this Vixen Valentine. She smiled and waved at her opponent.

Vixen, upon seeing Paprika strike the ground from jumping down, went wide eyed and froze up completely.

I wondered what she was seeing that scared her so much, Paprika didn’t look that horrifying even if her hugs were dangerous.

-Vixen-

A fluffy monster with big red horns smiled with adorable looking fanged teeth as she came into my vision, her fluff was encompassing the entire arena blocking off all the exits. Her face was supposedly friendly, but I knew the truth… it was ‘The Demon’ in the form of an alpaca.

“You can’t escape me, you can’t escape me~!” The horrifying visage sang softly in a sing song tone, then she started whispering in my ears as if she were standing next to me. “You will soon be snuggled. Make your prayers now, for you will now be pulled back into the fluff dimension with me. We will be the best of friends once again Vixen. Come… enjoy the softness… belong to it... it won’t hurt you… all this fluff is safe, I promise… everything will be fine… come forward and let me hug you… you look like you really need one.”

A pair of large fluffy demonic wings grew out of the back of ‘The Demon’ as it came forward to embrace me.

The horror...

-Jacky-

“Are you ready to fight?” The referee asked and Paprika nodded excessively.

The referee turning to Vixen who was just standing still and her pupils were slowly shrinking their way down to two tiny dots.

The way her ears wilted seemed to be a bit concerning, that and her tail dove between her hind legs and disappeared out of sight so hard that I think someone was going to need the 'jaws of life' to get it back out.

“Well your opponent seems ready, get ready and… fight!” The longma took to the air on flaming wings and, within a fraction of a second of slamming his hoof into the ground, Paprika was already latched onto the reindeer who just looked catatonic.

The reindeer’s face was just unceremoniously rammed into Paprika’s fluffy chest and she didn’t do anything to avoid it. She just took the hug and didn’t even put up a fight, she wasn’t even struggling and the only movement I could see was that her mouth was now wide open in a silent scream.

“Wow, that’s so high pitched that I’m barely able to hear it, at least a diamond dog would probably have the ears for it.” What’s so high pitched Arizona?

“That’s actually a new record for Vixen, I didn’t think her pitch could reach such extreme heights like that.” Okay I think I’m missing some context here, but Valentine looked absolutely terrified as she was being held tightly by Paprika. “Actually… maybe that’s not her screaming, what we might be hearing is her soul crying itself into a corner. I think Paprika may have gotten her one too many times. Also, is it just me or does she looks like she’s stopped breathing?”

-Airship Mauled, CL hospital, Dr. Bones-

“What is making that racket?” I stuff a digit in my ear and checked it for ear wax. Nope, I’m clean and I’m going to stay that way. I was a professional and I ran a literal clean ship here.

Wherever that high pitched sound was coming from, it had better stop soon.

I still had patients from the militia with many bear related wounds to take care of, at least nothing was a permanent injury. Thank goodness for that and the fact that the town wasn’t expecting another ‘Puk’ invasion for a few weeks.

Unless someone’s tongue were to slip, then I’d put that person in the hospital myself! They would, of course, end up in the psychiatric ward to be checked for stupidity.

I was working on making stupidity a legal medical condition and Maries said it would be hard to do, but not entirely impossible. That sounded more promising than anything really.

In Equestria stupidity was a fairly common commodity, as was love, friendship and tolerance. Tolerance being a most needed commodity of them all, mostly since stupidity was never in short supply no matter how much I wished it could be.

-The Volcano Coliseum, Jacky-

“Next fight, Jacky ‘The Blackcap’ Chickadee La Perm!” Hearing the announcer, I got up and made my way down to the arena until I was standing in front of the referee. “Are you related?”

“I have a few in-laws in the tournament, quite a few of us were adopted by an Abyssinian witch and others are married into the family.” I answered as I waited for my opponent to arrive or be called.

Paprika’s fight, if it could be called that, didn’t last very long and it was very sad affair. It was sad because Vixen apparently suffered from a heart attack no too long after being grappled and Paprika gave her mouth to mouth resuscitation once she noticed the reindeer wasn’t breathing.

That led into a second heart attack when Vixen came to her senses and saw Paprika five inches from her face. Velvet assured me that Vixen would be fine, but I didn’t quite feel the same way.

Vixen was apparently highly traumatized by something, but I wouldn’t know what that was. Paprika didn’t seem to do much other than latch onto her like a leech, what scared me somewhat was how fast the alpaca did so.

I wonder what Paprika looked like in actual fight and not just hugging her opponent into submission, because I didn’t learn anything from watching that fight except that she’ll hug and snuggle me against my will.

I was still waiting for my opponent two minutes later when two longma brought an ostentatious looking palanquin into the arena. They set it down in front of me and one of the longma went to talk to the referee.

Was my opponent going to do the whole dramatic entrance thing? I waited while the two longma whispered to one another. The referee eventually nodded to him.

“At least you got her opponent here on time.” The referee said and nodded to the palanquin. The longma returned to the palanquin and I wondered what kind of gilded rich guy’s butt I would have to kick.

“You got this Jacky.” That’s about as loud as Gene could get, but it was still heartwarming.

“Introducing your opponent…” The referee pointed to the palanquin, the two longma pulled apart the curtains and reached into it to pull out a large spiky fruit that came up to my waist. They placed it on the ground and then picked up the palanquin and were off. “A durian!”

“Uh… what? You can’t be serious…” I’m supposed to fight a durian? “Please tell me you’re kidding!”

“Nope, this is no joke, I’m quite sorry that you have to face such a dangerous and worthy opponent the likes that have never graced this arena before.” The referee was stating that as if he were being serious. “May your battle be honorable and may you find victory today, for you face one of the mightiest fruit in existence.”

“What’s so dangerous about a durian?” I was supposed to fight a large round spike covered fruit that came up to my waist in size. It was probably one of the biggest durians I’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t dangerous at all. It was an inanimate freshly picked fruit that sat before me in all its… glory. Let’s call it glory instead of what I really think about this. “Also how does one, and I can’t believe I’m asking this, fight a fruit honorably?”

I didn’t think I would succeed at getting in an honorable fight to actually get further into the Temple of Dark Flames as needed, especially if my luck wasn’t going to let me have an actual opponent.

“To the best of your ability of course, also it is said that the stink of a durian can knock out their opponents with relative ease. I wouldn’t want to be the one that has to attack such a wily thing!” The referee cowered slightly at the fruit. It was just a fruit, one that might start stinking badly once I hit it. “Also it is covered in spikes so it has quite a lot of defensive strength to it too.”

I just gave the referee a flat, incredibly deadpan, look. In fact, the look I forced on my face was so deadpan, I expected the universe to rip itself in half from it.

“Would blowing it up with a cannon be too much?” I asked the referee, just for the sake of clarity of course. If I could bring my cannon and blast it, then that would get this out of the way quickly.

“If you can actually get a cannon on such short notice, then yes. It would be a bit much and quite unfair to your opponent, especially if it’s a preloaded cannon.” The referee told me in a no nonsense tone. “Do you have any more questions or can I start the fight?”

Wasn’t it already unfair to my opponent that I could move, had limbs, swords, the ability to think and wasn’t a plant? This was completely ridiculous, so of course I had a question or two about this.

“How did a durian even get signed up for this tournament in the first place?” That was the thing I was the most confused about.

“Apparently it was accidentally put into a cabbage cart that was hit with a bunch of fireworks a few days ago and the exploding cabbages launched it high in the sky all the way up to the sign up booth on the upper tier.” If it was the same incident that I was thinking of, then I was horrible confused about how a durian could be launched high enough to surpass the middle tier of the city. The Volcano wasn’t a small city and it was full of longma and a few varying species that were the minority that came to live here. “That’s where it accidentally spilled an inkwell that spelled out ‘durian’ multiple times on the entry form by accident, there was nothing in our rules against a fruit becoming a competitor in the Fiery Fights tournament. As such, we honor the durians will to participate.”

“You go fruit, you look all cool and spiny!” A young longma child was shouting positive things at my opponent, an opponent that was sitting there and would probably rot eventually if it wasn’t eaten.

“Yeah, durian, you’re awesome!” Another longma shouted.

“Can I at least cover my nose when I cut it open?” It took a moment for my question to be answered as the referee was taking it into deep consideration.

“Sure, that’s allowable, is that everything you wanted to ask?” The black and grey scaled referee asked me as he looked between us.

“Yeah, let’s get this over with... I’ll fight the fruit.” This was going to be one short fight.

Unless, you know, my luck interfered greatly. It had already made sure that my opponent would be this durian as it had set this up days ago. Oh… crap…

“Are you ready?” Nodding to the referee tentatively, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of nausea come over me.

I did throw up in the toilet a few hours back when I woke up this morning, I really hoped I wasn’t coming down with something.

“You’re other opponent looks ready.” How can you tell, it doesn’t have vocal chords, eyes or the ability of speech. It couldn’t communicate anything!

I seriously doubted this oversized durian was psychic and unless I had Nefer talk to it, then we’d never know for sure if in fact fruit could even talk. Anyone could talk to a tree, Nefer might be one of the few beings that might actually hear something like a verbal response from one.

“Ready, fight!” The stomp of a hoof signaled the beginning of a long arduous battle, a battle that started with the both of us doing nothing.

I just looked around at all the people in the stands and I heard someone cough.

“This is seriously silly, but in an effort to take this seriously I guess I’ll attack!” I pulled the saber from my hip and charged forward to slash the durian.

This was something I shouldn’t have done.

The durian shot away from me, bounced off the ground once, hit a pillar and ricocheted back into my face knocking me down in a painful display.

“You go durian woo!” A longma shouted and the crowd cheered… for the durian. Of course they did.

“Don’t let it psyche you out Captain Blackcap!” At least Nefer was cheering me on.

“If you lose to a fruit, it’ll be the biggest embarrassment we’ve ever faced as pirates Jacky!” Flotsam yelled from next to Nefer. “Though knowing your luck...”

Why am I not surprised by this? I sighed audibly, sat up and glared at the durian just lying there.

Standing up, I approached the fruit far more cautiously than I previously did.

I lunged forward to stab it with my sword and…

-Shower room, a few minutes later, Skelly-

That fight had made me realize the dangers of fighting a durian, it tasted pretty good and the thoroughly bruised and scratched up Jacky would be moving on to her next fight.

I was helping her clean the pulp out of her feathers.

Author's Note

Ever play a game known as Super Mario Sunshine? I certainly have!

Chapter fifty three, Fiery Fights: Savannah Vs. The Wall.

Chapter fifty three, Fiery Fights: Savannah Vs. The Wall.

-Same day, the volcano, Coliseum, Arizona-

I watched as Gene caught the blade of the scythe with his spear and twisted it so that both the sword like prongs held the scythe’s blade.

With a heave, and a sharp twisting motion, the scythe went spinning out of his opponent’s grip. Gene followed that up by continuing the twisting motion to slam the butt end of the spear across the longma’s face before twirling the spear into an upwards slash that cut into the longma’s chest and sent him both flying and screaming in a spray of blood.

Gene approached the downed longma and pointed the spear's prongs at his throat.

“Yield, you’re bleeding out pretty badly from where I hit you.” There was a long moment when the longma sighed. “I apologize for that, but there is more to learn in defeat than there is in victory.”

“I yield.” The longma stated while nodding to Gene. “I thank you for this lesson.”

“Winner, Gene ‘Swift Reaction’ Eric.” After the announcer called it, Gene helped the longma out of the arena and to the awaiting medics. Gene even stopped to pick up the scythe for his opponent.

Said scythe was still a gardening tool, but it had been neat to see it being used effectively in combat.

“That guy was pretty good with a farming implement.” Just making conversation, wondering when my turn was coming so I could show everyone my special talent for busting heads with my bare hooves.

“Yes, but he couldn’t match our friend Gene in skill with his weapon.” It wasn’t all that special Velvet, Gene was trained in various weapons and was decent at martial arts. From the way Jacky tells it, Gene started leaning towards spears after joining her crew. That and it was one of the spare weapons she had on talon until Flamberge gave him a better spear.

“Next up ‘Savannah, the wild’!” The announcer just made Jacky flinch and she watched as Savannah sauntered on down to the arena. “Her opponent will take some time to get into the arena.”

“Really who’s my opponent and are they hot?” Savannah’s tail flicked back and forth as she waited for her opponent and even I was curious.

The last time this happened, Jacky ended up bruised and slightly bloodied with pulp. The fight was both silly and a bit messed up with how poorly it went for Jacky, I could never look at a durian the same way again. Not that I have ever considered durians as anything dangerous before seeing Jacky’s curse full tilt her with what should have been a simple fight.

It wasn’t like I was going to ever fight a durian or go out of my way to do so in the same way Jacky did personally, I learned a lot from watching her flounder and flail about. The pulp that got all over Jacky's feathers was cleaned out with Skelly’s help and the smell was still bad even after all the remaining bits of it were thoroughly scrubbed away.

Eventually we saw Savannahs opponent, it had to be flown in and I think this competition might have been slightly skewed because of Jacky’s participation. Why else would Savannah have to fight that?

“You’re opponent, is this section of brick wall… yes, we’re being quite serious about this.” It’s hard to believe the referee was just going along with this, he even sounded a little hard pressed to talk about the virtues of a brick wall like he did with the durian.

The durian was okay and it proved to be entertaining, but it had a signed form and everything. Now that the durian was gone and mostly eaten by a skeleton that currently had her daytime disguise on, well the seeds were going to be grown into more proud battle durians by a longma that wouldn’t mind the smell.

Which led to the question, how in the hay did a brick wall sign a signature multiple times? Why was it even this brick wall specifically? What section of the city did it come from and why did it end up in this competition?

“I’m blaming you for this Captain!” Savannah shouted at the parrot sitting alone in the stands, mostly because said parrot smelled like durian now.

Jacky can’t control her smell, Fortitude could actually contain and shape his smell to his whims by pure willpower. This explains why were weren’t all gagging at sitting near Fortitude at the moment.

“Fair enough!” Jacky shouted right on back.

“So how will we know if I’ve beaten the wall?” The underwhelming nature of this next fight was quite noted by anyone, but it mostly came out in Savannah’s tone. “It’s… a section of brick wall.”

“Knock it down and don’t let it get up?” Even the referee seemed a little confused about how this was going to work.

“This is the oddest fighting competition I’ve ever been a part of.” I received noises of agreement from both Velvet and Paprika. Even Paprika took fighting seriously in her own way, despite fighting primarily with love and smiles.

-Savannah-

“Ready… fight!” The referee announced. I just looked at him and then back to the brick wall.

I took on a thinking pose while I looked at the wall. It was a brick wall, seven feet wide at least five feet tall and a few inches thick. There was no way I was punching this problem away, I’d hurt my fists just trying.

Thinking about it, I decided to try ramming the wall with my shoulder first. This was not like a bar brawl or a normal martial arts fight that requires agility, poise and a strong fist or nicely manicured claws. This was me fighting a brick wall.

Like Jacky had said, this was utterly ridiculous, but I had to do it if I wanted to move on to the next round.

Backing up, I properly brought my shoulder forward and looked at the wall. I lacked the weight to actually topple it, but maybe I could get it moving?

I charged forward into the wall and… fell to the ground after bouncing off it. I was not super strong like Arizona, I wasn’t able to have a cannon on me at all times like Captain Jacky and I wasn’t lucky enough to have the incredible martial prowess that could allow me to punch through bricks without feeling pain.

I may be beautiful and can attract plenty a look in my direction, but that wouldn’t last forever. Beauty was fleeting and not something I was intent on pursuing to the end of my days, I do want to be known for other things after all.

This… was going to be a problem.

Getting up I studied the brick wall, I decided to change tactics as ramming it shoulder first was going to leave me hurting if I kept doing it. I backed up once again and ran forward to jump and kick at it.

I pushed off the wall when both my feet collided with it and did a hand spring into a standing position where I ran towards the wall to jump and kick at it again. It wobbled and a few chips of stone came out of it, but it was staying sturdy.

I was able to take the impact to the bottom of my feet much better than the hits to my shoulder, so I should be able to keep this up for a few minutes.

-Sweetcakes-

In Huoshan, one could be blamed for their actions and the results of them. On the other side of things, you could also be praised for positive actions and helping others. I was taking this opportunity to help out the medics on standby for injured fighters.

I had finished sealing up the longma’s spear related injury, without the need for stitches, and was given the go ahead to see to Jacky. Jacky’s scratches and bruises weren’t immediately fatal, so other than the smell she didn’t need nearly as much help as the other fighters did, but I was open to give her help now.

There were no rules about how fighters recovered between fights, though I had just been healing only the losers so far. Both Shocking Awe and Dispel Grace really tore up their first round competition, at least they weren’t killing anyone. Dispel had at least some wonky sense of honor and wouldn’t hurt a downed and completely helpless opponent, compared to Shocking rubbing in his victories as much as he could before the match was called.

There was also the fact that Tianhuo was doing something on the job in the city and told me to keep the fighters that lose in good condition. She had a feeling we’d be needing them some time shortly after the competition was over with.

I certainly wasn’t going to heal Dispel Grace or Shocking Awe, but I wasn’t worried about those two… I was worried about Teatime Clockwork and what he could be doing. I didn’t know of his danger until he called it in right on top of me.

In an effort to help Jacky, I needed to talk to the scariest being currently here… Paprika.

“Hello I need help, do you have a smell stopper, I need to heal her.” I pointed to Jacky, Paprika nodded and held out a wooden pin. I reached for it, only she pulled it out of the way of my paw.

I gave her a curious look, she held out her hooves and waited for me. Ah, she wanted to embrace me in exchange for goods and services. I sighed and moved into range, she grabbed me and nuzzled me affectionately. It was a little bit tight and a bit painful, but after a minute she let me go and placed the thing on my nose while smiling.

Having acquired the necessary equipment I made my way over to Jacky and gave her a look.

“Yeah, okay, I get it.” Grumbled Jacky. “I washed it all off, but it still smells horrible and the stench could light up the stands if I go anywhere near Flamberge. Fair warning, I’m a constant walking bruise, so you may tire yourself out trying to fully heal me. Just get me in a good enough condition.”

Gene was Flamberge’s brother and Jacky was Gene’s Captain and ‘Special Someone; if Flamberge ever started loving me back, I would be family with her. Not that that was the only reason why I was healing her, I did want to actually be friends with all of their friends on my own merit.

Building bonds and connecting was always nice, especially with interesting people.

Ryu and Dodgy were interesting people in Neighpon, they may have saved my butt once or twice when I knocked down a building, got kidnapped or accidentally caused a few gang wars. I kind of miss those days, but all this travel and adventure were just as, if not more, exciting.

“You’re sweating an awful lot, you look like you need to take a break and cool down.” Yes, The Volcano was exceptionally warm and I was tiring a lot, but I could stand to give a little more.

Starting to the feel an immense strain on my strength, I’m taking Jacky’s advice and will not try to heal her fully. She was like a healing magic sponge, how many injuries does this parrot walk around and live with?! I just decided to stop right then and there.

“Thanks, you shouldn’t push yourself so hard or try so hard where Flamberge is concerned. Just let it happen if it does and continue to be a good friend like this.” That… was actually good advice and I nodded to Jacky with a smile. “Hey, Tinsel, a hot and bothered friend over here needs to cool down a little!”

Tinsel, the adorable little familiar of Velvet with the thin ‘I heart Paprika’ shirt, floated over to us holding a tiny flag that was praising Arizona. He put the flag down and looked me over, eventually he thrusted a tiny limb forward and a cooling wind rushed gently through my fur.

I smiled and relaxed, then I thought of something. I pulled out the tengu fan and held it out to him, he looked at it curiously and he took the thing into it his tiny limbs and dropped a bit from the weight that he struggled with for a minute.

Looking about the arena, Tinsel smiled and swung the fan and the stands started filling with a gentle cooling breeze. He then dropped the fan in front of me and smiled tiredly at me. That was quite an impressive amount of effort for one so small. He slowly hovered his way back over to Velvet and the snuggling family.

“Well that was a cute interaction, also it seems Savannah is slowly losing this fight.” To see what Jacky was talking about, I looked into the arena and saw Savannah sitting on the ground wheezing a bit. “She’s been kicking off that wall constantly for the last few minutes, at least she’s shown stamina and how brave she is in the face of the clearly immovable opponent.”

I agree, such a show of heart should be praised and the longma seemed to agree with her.

-Savannah-

Okay, kicking off the wall did minimal damage, said minimal damage was a number of cracks from every spot I hit on the wall with the full weight of my body.

I needed a new tactic… once I catch my breath. At least I didn’t have to worry about my opponent attacking me back. I moved over to the side of the wall and gripped both sides of it, then I started to climb until I was on top of the wall.

“Okay, I’ve pinned him, does that count?” I asked after sitting on the wall for ten seconds.

“No, your opponent is still standing, though I have to admit that I’m impressed with your resolve to win this fight.” The referee stated and I sighed audibly as I laid down on top of the wall.

What to do? Well… I could start trying to rock the wall from up here. With the difference in the center of gravity… I might be able to topple it just need to a few more minutes to give myself some time to build up the energy to do that.

When I was ready I gripped the top of the wall and started rocking it back and forth, eventually the wall started to lean with my movement and with a hard jerk the wall tilted to my right almost like it was going to fall over.

The wall quickly slammed to the left and I was flung off the wall to the ground. The wall rocked back and forth twice before it came crashing down entirely on top me.

-Arizona-

Savannah yowled in pain as she was crushed under the wall and several people went to her immediate aid, I was one of them that helped lift the wall off of the poor Abyssinian. She had been squashed by it and likely had some broken bones if she was still alive.

“Winner by knockout, the… The ‘ton of bricks’ Wall!” The referee shouted in disbelief as Savannah was carried to the medics by her crew.

-Thirty minutes later-

“Next fighter, Pom ‘The Canine Queen’ Lambchop.” Well that was a surprise. “Her opponent, 'Flying Puppy' Ruff!”

I think corrected.

Author's Note

The next page title less than obvious.

Chapter fifty three, Fiery Fights: Pom Vs. Ruff.

-The Volcano, Upper Tier, Coliseum, Jacky-

I climbed my way back up into the stands and sat down all alone, I didn’t want to subject my friends to the still present smell.

“Okay, while Savannah is kind of critical and has a lot of broken bones, after taking an entire brick wall to the body without having Arizona’s insane level of durability, she’s at least stable.” That and it was just a little reminder that my curse tends to not just affect me, but the people around me by proximity. “Sweetcakes is too tired to heal her and she is going to be in a lot of pain when she wakes up, I feel kind of responsible for it…”

Sweetcakes expended a lot of her energy on my many numerous pervasive injuries. I hugged my legs up against myself feeling bad about Savannah not immediately getting the help she needed.

“Don’t be sad Jacky, even if you’re luck may have led up to it somehow.” Gene leaned against me and wrapped his left wing around me in a gentle hug, while his left claw took up my right hand. “It’ll be okay Jacky, Abyssinians like her are rather sturdy from what I know.”

Gene is the one griffon I can count on to try and cheer me up, even if he is courting my kind of danger by being right next to me like this. I noted that the breathing holes in his beak were plugged with tissues.

Even the stench of durian couldn’t keep him away, then again… he did have Fortitude for a brother and arguably smelled far worse than I currently did. The difference here is that my smell can’t be contained or ordered around by pure willpower.

“So who’s in this match and why is one of Pom’s puppies down there?” I had some idle thoughts about Pom, she reminded me of Fluttershy only far more skittish, scrawnier and looked like a large dog toy. The kind of dog toy that gets chewed on or shaken about wildly in a playful manner until it is torn apart and spilling stuffing everywhere. “That little guy is liable to get himself hurt.”

Before Gene could answer me, I sat up and watched as Pom walked out into the arena, possibly to retrieve the wayward puppy. Gene cuddled up to me and didn’t say anything, probably because the question was going to answer itself soon enough.

I haven’t known Pom for long, then again I haven’t known any of our many new friends for long. Kind of a bit curious about Oleander, what kind of crazy pony forever gives up their chance earn a cutie mark? Apparently Ollie did in the name of the strange friendship she had going with a demon book she curiously calls Fred.

Oleander was surprisingly perky, despite the whole I have a book of darkness and it possibly has a corruptive influence that I will use frequently without any regret.

“Go on, you can do it!” Ollie was cheering for Pom to do what? She was propped up on the railing and waving a hoof at the lambkin as she cheered, said lambkin looked unsure of the situation she was in as she approached the referee. “You show that highly adorable little puppy who the queen of your pack is Pom!”

“Yes, go do show that puppy that he’s in trouble, BECAUSE THE OTHER COMPETITORS WON’T GO AS EASILY ON HIM AS YOU WILL!” Okay Fred just surprised me there, it even surprised Ollie. “What? I really like puppies too, DON’T YOU DARE JUDGE ME OLLIE!

“Oh my poor demon, he’s such a huge softy.” The unicorn just shook her head sadly while making disapproving noises to the glowing book hovering next to her head.

So apparently Pom signed up for the competition… likely against her will because I didn’t see her doing this on a whim or even of her own volition at all. It appeared one of her familiars also signed up for the competition and likely did so on purpose.

I wondered how Pom could stand to feed so many familiars like that all the time… it had to be expensive unless she has them foraging for their own meals constantly.

-Pom-

Looking up into the stands, I can see my beasties watching me and snacking on food that an Earth Pony gave to them. Big Mama was thankfully keeping my slightly rowdy pack in line with a few loud growls when they started making a nuisance of themselves. I rely on and trust that Canis Major more than anything, but I sadly can’t rely on her for this.

Ruff, one of my own familiars and beasties, was my first opponent. My first opponent was a puppy, one of the beloved puppies that I happen to be the godmother of and even helped raise.

I really didn’t like where this was all going. If I lost to Ruff, then he could seriously get hurt like that Abyssinian. If I won, then I would be the one that could get myself seriously hurt in the next fight.

Now I have to choose who I am more scared for, him or myself.

My mind didn’t even take a second to process the thought after asking the question, as I was more scared for Ruff than my own wellbeing. I loved all my familiars way too much, even if they were the cause of most of my problems in life.

“Aren’t there any rules about me fighting my own familiar? I mean isn’t this cheating, can we both be disqualified for that please?” The referee just gave me a flat look. “You know I could just command him to give up, that has to count as cheating right?”

“No, you are both signed up separately. Even if that puppy is your familiar, you still have to fight him.” The referee nodded to Ruff who barked out twice and started growling at me, he sounded a little too eager to me. I’m like a second mother to him, how could he do this to me? “If you can convince him to give up then that would be fair, but you really can’t force a familiar to do what you want if it doesn’t want to. Given your title, he more than likely wants to prove himself to you.”

Like I could have ever controlled my pack of beasties at all before this… they get extended life spans and I got what from all this? Well a family of highly protective and toothy beasties sure, but they weren’t exactly the brightest of creatures to deal with and Ollie was strange enough to draw attention off of me.

“That’s exactly what I was afraid of hearing.” I cowered as my little pup, Ruff, started spinning his tail rapidly until he was hovering at eye level with me. He glared slightly while releasing a growl and some short barks. “No, I don’t think I will be forfeiting Ruff, not when it would be putting you in danger.”

Ruff dropped to the ground and barked happily before growling at me.

“Can we not and say we did Ruff?” This was the puppy I raised from when it was so tiny? Ruff growled at me in several different tones. “Okay, we’ll fight, but I can’t promise it’ll be a good one.”

“Just remember that familiar bonds are two way streets.” The refereed told me. “You get just as much as your partner does from you.”

“Oh very funny… tell that to all my beasties in the stands.” I pointed to my menagerie of familiars sitting there about to watch me get my backside handed to me by one of the pups. “What am I getting from all of them exactly?”

“Wait… all of them are your familiars?” The referee stated in disbelief looking at my beasties. “That’s… rather impressive. That you have so many of them I mean. I can see why you’re called The Canine Queen now, you must be quite lucky.”

“I’m not the one who wrote the ‘The Canine Queen’ on my form, but it kind of fits I guess.” No, that could be blamed on Oleander and Tianhuo, couldn’t they have just let me watch the competition in peace? I’m not a fighter, I’m a scrawny and cowardly lambkin with a small body and gangly legs! If anything my beasties are the real fighters here. “Also, I don't feel lucky.”

“I think you might actually need this fight.” The referee stated as he took a few steps back. “Ready…”

“Um… no, I’m not. Can we just wait a few more days on this?” I didn’t think the referee was listening to me and Ruff was giving me a look that spoke volumes.

Ruff barked twice and lowered himself in a manner that stated he was going to pounce at me as soon as the referee told us to start.

“Fight!” I dove to the side immediately. I barely avoided the rocket that was Ruff as he used his tail to propel himself forward at an incredible speed.

He tried to stop himself and did so by reversing the spin of his tail to start hovering. Dropping onto the ground, he turned toward me while growling.

I sometimes wondered why the puppies learned to fly with their tails, their mother certainly didn’t have that ability or was too old and large to do that anymore. I really didn’t bother thinking about the how of it, it’s obvious that they could and that was all that mattered.

Ruff launched himself for my left leg and snapped at it with his jaws. I backed up out of his bite range, turned around and bolted with him barking on the heels of my hooves.

Running for one of the pillars that lined the large circle of the arena, I turned my head to see him starting his tail up again.

Jumping for the stone pillar, I kicked off of it and didn’t care which way I was going. Once I did launch myself away, Ruff rammed into it bodily and yelped. Said yelp was drowned out by the crash of something breaking against the ground.

After landing, I turned back to see Ruff had a bump on his head and was whining. That and half the pillar was destroyed in the impact.

I think I’ve really underestimated how strong the Canis Minor puppies are, then again I’ve always fussed over them and likely overlooked the fact that the puppies were this strong with all my coddling.

“Are you okay Ruff?” Despite whining from hurting himself, I received a sharp look from Ruff.

Ruff got up and launched himself for me, I squeaked and ducked.

After he flew straight over my head, I looked behind me to watch Ruff hit the ground roughly on his face and flip onto his back. He quickly rolled to his paws and shook his head, Ruff barked at me in challenge and wagged his tail while smiling.

At least Ruff was having fun, even if it was at my expense and he was accidentally hurting himself trying to attack me.

-Arizona-

“That’s one strong puppy.” I kind of felt sorry for Pom having to deal with her familiars on a regular basis if the puppies alone were that powerful. “Also the arena is going to need some repairs by the time we’re all done with it. We both know what will happen if you and me are paired up for a fight fluff butt.”

“I have little doubt that the arena will be totaled by someone, so it may very well be us.” Velvet stated dryly.

-Pom-

I jumped over Ruff as he went for my legs and as he turned around, I quickly placed my right hoof on top of his head and pressed down on him.

He tried to turn his head to bite my leg, but he was running into a problem. He could turn his head well enough to bite my hoof or get out from under it. I blinked as he tried, but any movement other than pulling back would keep him from actually harming me.

My legs being long and awkward actually helped in this situation.

“Who’s a good puppy?” I tried innocently, but Ruff barked at me about how I wasn’t being fair by pinning him down like this. A smirk graced my lips. “This is not me pinning you down, 'this' is me pinning you down.”

I put my other hoof on his back and pressed down on him, he squeaked and tried to get out from under my hooves. He was making it hard for me to keep him safe if he was going to keep struggling like this.

Eventually, he figured things out and backed away from me getting his head out from under my right hoof and then he lunged forward out from under my left hoof.

I smiled and stepped to the side, then playfully scratched Ruff behind the ear after he flopped onto his belly. He let off a happy sounding groan, it was only seconds later that he growled out for me to fight him and pulled away from my tender touch.

He was still one of the little puppies I took care of, he was just being cranky because I wouldn’t play with him in the way he wanted me to.

“I am fighting you, I’m just doing it in my own way.” I’m going to take a page from Paprika’s book, love and cuddles will win this day! I couldn’t attack a puppy without feeling bad about it and I was already feeling pretty bad about Ruff hurting himself.

Ruff leapt for me with his little mouth wide open and his tail spinning wildly. This time, instead of dodging him, I actively tackled his midsection and was bowled over. He had the better momentum. I’m thankful my fluff took most of the impact for me.

I quickly wrapped my left hoof around Ruff’s neck and forced him against the ground on his side beneath me. I then poked him in the belly, Ruff squirmed and whined, he really liked it when I prodded his belly like that.

“What do you mean Ruff, I’m not doing anything illegal. This is a fight after all and I’m just doing what you want me to.” I poked Ruff again as I snuggled him. He tried to throw me off of him and he growled grumpily. “I love you too much to let you keep hurting yourself Ruff. Now let your Baa Baa check your head my little beastie, you took some painful blows there.”

I slowly put my right hoof to his head where the two bumps were to check them, he flinched and whimpered something to me.

“There, there, it’ll be okay Ruff.” I started to rub his belly and he whined and tried to struggle out of my grip, but I was slowly putting him to sleep. The little puppy needed his nap. “Hush now, quiet now, it’s time to rest your sleep head~. hush now, quiet now, let's get you in a bed~. Upon waking my sweet little puppy will be... fed~.”

Ruff let out a sad growl and then turned his head to lick me in the face before he fell asleep in my hooves. He just called me a dirty cheater and declared me the winner.

“Winner by knockout, Pom!” The referee called out as I stood up holding a sleeping pup in my hooves.

Author's Note

No commentary. I've been a but sleepier as of late and a bit busy.

Chapter fifty three, Fiery Fights: Velvet Vs. Sushi.

-The Volcano, lower Tier, alleyway, Tianhuo-

“Well we at least know who to prepare for… somewhat. Hardly anything good comes from a unicorn that knows how to inscribe magic symbols, not ones with a reported history of suspected theft and could be known for violence that wasn’t in self-defense.” I studied the area that Teatime was seen in recently and had moved a trash can out of the way to reveal a moderately big problem. “Now all we need to know is the matter of when something will occur and what will happen when the occurrence comes to past. I need guards near these marks wherever you can find them, Fuego Squad spread out and tell the guards to be on the lookout for any strange symbols like this one!”

“Do you need anything else Captain?” One of the guards asked, he was from a different squad and wanted to know if I had any orders for him. “If not, then we’re scheduled to get back on patrol soon.”

“Yes, go to the coliseum and find an odd looking unicorn mare with a floating book, she answers to Oleander.” I was looking at him, so he has already volunteered himself. “I need you to ask for her assistance in this matter, use my name and bring her back here if she agrees to lend us her aid. If she doesn’t, then do not hassle her further and find me for further instructions.”

“Right away ma’am!” The guard threw me a salute, then flew off on a pair of flaming wings to carry out my orders.

“You two, stay here with me and watch the area and my back. You, go inform the palace of a possible demented unicorn situation!” I turned away from the longma leaving for the palace to stare at the symbol.

We didn’t exactly have a method for removing any of these symbols, yet, but finding them might stop a demented unicorn related plot in progress.

The last time something like this happened, a portion of a building got turned into peanut butter… it was the bottom portion of course. At least the peanut butter transformation magic hadn’t, thankfully enough, affected anything living. A lot of people were still severely injured thanks to several buildings toppling and there was quite a mess to clean up from that disaster.

I had to wonder why it was unicorns that went bad more often out of the various species that could all be put under the colloquial term of ‘pony’, was it the power that they have with those horns of theirs? All I know is that unicorns needed more discipline than any of the other pony races, for they had a higher potential to easily destroy everything depending on how far they pushed whatever talent they had.

What was the special talent of that one unicorn that had caused that huge disaster again? Oh right, I remember now, their special talent was making sandwiches. It was a unicorn that went terrorist because someone made a better sandwich than her, once, just the one time and that unicorn simply went insane.

The unicorn didn’t try to better herself, she didn’t try to beat the person who made that sandwich by figuring out how to make a better one, no, she just proceeded straight to wrecking half our city on a grudge with someone who doesn’t even live here! She tried to do it a second time a week later, a big mistake on her part because we thankfully caught her before she could cause any more damage.

What were the words that unicorn said in a sanity challenged manner when we caught her? Oh yes, she declared that she would make the whole world a sandwich, then we would all see her talent for what it was. At least it explained why the buildings fell the way they did, the unicorn was pushing her talent to an insane degree to make destruction sandwiches… with pickles. A grain silo worth of pickles in fact, which had created a foul smell for weeks in the rubble we were busy cleaning up.

Unicorns were hard to prepare for and the talent of this Teatime was making mechanical golems according to that disaster magnet of a pirate captain. A fairly honest pirate captain with little in the way of deceit and I’m frankly willing to trust her and her odd friends entirely, with the one exception being that kitsune Sweetcakes Crumble Tail. I believe Sweetcakes has volunteered for the medic team at the arena and would eventually redeem herself in my eyes.

It was odd to confirm that three of the key bearers were here with a message about the seal weakening. We should also be absolutely preparing for shadow monster incursions as much as anything else that a unicorn can bring about.

Both threats to the city were highly dangerous. One was far likelier to end our world and all the life on it, the other was of a more immediate concern and a big unknown that could cause us a lot of problems.

-Upper Tier, Coliseum, Velvet-

“Next fight, Velvet ‘Frost Dancer’ Paca La Perm, she's apparently not using 'Iceberg' since her herd's name is already a mouthful.” I pulled myself out of Paprika’s grasp and started heading for the staircase. I passed by a longma just coming in for landing, angling himself towards Oleander. “Anyway, her opponent, Sushi!”

Wasn’t that the raw fish rolls that Kuril and Blade made? Maybe it’s not nearly as literal as Jacky and Savannah’s fight. When I got to the arena I saw my opponent approaching from the opposite side of the referee. At least my opponent had a rather fitting look for her name.

I was facing a Kirin, didn’t see many of those around here. She had a glossy white mane and tail, her fur was a bright orange and the soft green eyes all together evoked a resemblance to most forms of sushi. I can certainly see why she would have a name like Sushi.

“Ready?” The referee asked and I nodded. He turned to Sushi and she too nodded, but she looked entirely nervous about this. I considered Sushi for a few seconds and quickly figured out what I should do at the start of this battle. “Fight!”

The Kirin just closed her eyes and waited for a high speed blow that never came.

“So your name is Sushi? Hello, I am Velvet.” I immediately sat down and introduced myself as soon as the fight started.

“Yes, I am Sushi and I am a sushi chef.” She too sat down and looked a bit relieved that my first action wasn’t to blast her with ice. I can already tell that she wasn’t a fighter.

“Really now, how did that happen?” I asked conversationally. “I’d think you wouldn’t want anything to do with sushi with a name like that.”

I looked to the stands to see Arizona didn’t seem upset and was just as curious as I was about this. Paprika was blowing me a kiss and Tinsel was playing with one of Pom’s flying puppies.

“It’s a long story, but you’d be surprised how good I am at making sushi because of how often I was taunted for my name. May I make this a fight of a different sort?” Nodding to Sushi in acceptance, I waited for her to continue and motioned at her with my left hoof. “I wish to prepare some sushi for you, if the referee is willing to let me get my supplies…”

“Yes, I wouldn’t mind having some sushi, but only if the referee allows it and provided that it’s not blowfish.” I watched as Sushi shuddered, so she doesn’t do blowfish I take it?

“I would never have an ingredient with the slightest hint of a chance of poisoning a potential customer! I try to stay away from the more problematic forms of fish that could hurt someone. Fish is not necessarily required for sushi as I’m quite good at vegetable sushi.” Despite her form igniting for a second or two, Sushi quickly calmed down and bowed her head to me in apology. “I kind of accidentally entered myself into this competition. I at least hope for some recognition for my skills at the very least.”

“I’ll allow it, but I will want to see an end to this match eventually.” Nodding to the referee, Sushi ran off and eventually came back with several supplies for making sushi rolls.

Sushi’s supplies included a knife, a table, two seats for me and her to sit in, various vegetables, seaweed, vinegar, olive oil, fermented rice, mushrooms and even a few slabs of freshly thawing fish.

“You know, I already know someone who makes some incredible sushi.” I was thinking of Blade. If there was the one dish that she had been busy trying to perfect, then it would have be something that Kuril would love to eat at any time. Aside from having some problems with getting the rice right, Blade was fairly good at making sushi.

“You do? Please tell me about them while I work.” Sushi got to work on preparing her stuff and I decided to go into a tale about Blade Bright. Even as I spoke the Kirin worked at impressive speed to prepare something for us.

-An hour or so later-

“So, that's how Blade started making some really good sushi, because she trained under Kurillian in learning how to cook.” This was a fairly pleasant conversation and I was enjoying the nice chat we had going. Kuril would accept just about anyone, I hope she was okay...

“I might look into Airship Mauled. Here’s some soy sauce, a few pieces of vegetable sushi and would you eat sushi with actual fish in it?” At least Sushi asked and didn’t just assume. “I ask because some people prefer tofu or faux fish.”

“Yes, I don’t mind the taste of actual fish if it’s well prepared, Kuril and Blade certainly made a thing of it.” I miss Kuril's food and I wanted Paprika to learn how to learn how to cook like that.

Sushi placed a few of the fish rolls on a plate and slid it over to me with the dipping sauce.

I took up the chopsticks in my right hoof and reached for my first bit of sushi, no one has any idea just how hard it is to wield chopsticks with hooves until they try it for themselves. I lightly dipped the roll with soy sauce and popped it into my mouth and began to chew, Sushi looked surprised that I went for a fish roll first.

Just because reindeer were mostly herbivorous, it does not mean that we didn’t or couldn’t eat meat. I found the taste of this sushi roll to be… I swallowed and wiped my lips daintily.

“It is quite exemplary Sushi and well prepared, now to try your vegetable rolls.” I took up another roll and even the referee came over to look at the sushi, he must be tired and hungry after standing out in the sun for most of the day. After I finished the vegetable roll, I had more to say. “It’s quite flavorful, I’m quite sure you’ll go far with a talent like this Sushi.”

“I agree, this is a wonderful snack and I’ve been kind of needing this.” I turned my head to see that the referee had his own plate and was enjoying the food too. “What? It’s been a long day for me!”

“So are you of noble birth?” Sushi received a flat look from me, she flinched slightly. “Sorry, it’s just that your diction and the way you hold yourself, you come off as a noble of Rein and yet are far nicer than they are.”

“Yes, but I rejected my noble status or any chance of an inheritance for various reasons. My biological family, they were… particularly unpleasant.” I never felt as appreciated as I do with Arizona and Paprika. “I do not wish to talk of them. Excuse me for asking this, but do you have any tea?”

At least my old mother cared in her own way, it’s just that we just didn’t see eye to eye on a few particular things about my life. Clause scarred my beautiful face, so I could care less about him being my sire. At least Arizona and Paprika don’t care about appearances. Sure the scar is nearly impossible to see these days, but it’s the principle of the matter and I still like to put some time into making my appearance as appealing as possible. Paprika appreciates my effort, while Arizona… she would punch my face with a hoof, then bluntly say I’m trying too hard and look just fine the way I am.

“Huh, oh, yes, I do, I forgot to brew it though! Give me a minute.” Watching as Sushi bowed to me and then run off. I continued to slowly savor the sushi until she came back with a pot of tea, she poured me a cup and sat down.

“Thank you.” I said politely before I blew on the tea, I cooled it down drastically and then took a sip of it. Let’s see, I think I had the flavor of the tea down correctly. “Is this green tea, hint of honey and a bit of lemon?”

“You are right, would you like some too?” Sushi asked, she then poured some for the nodding referee.

“So tell me, what would have happened if the durian and the wall had to fight each other?” It was a bit curious after the things I’ve seen in the competition, like us eating sushi right now. “I ask because the ruling would have taken a while to get around to if you were waiting for an actual fight to happen.”

“It would always been in favor of the wall due to longevity, we would have just expedited the process and stopped the match after a minute of staring at a wall and a durian.” The referee seemed fair enough with that ruling. “The wall can stand the test of time where the fruit can’t.”

“Yes, I can see that." I stated as I looked between Sushi and the referee. "So what should the ruling of this match be?”

“The referee will announce you the winner.” Sushi said with a bow towards me. “I appreciate your manners, candor and time Velvet. I will not try to fight you, I saw what your wife did to that Ornithian and believe you are far above anything I could try to do if you are just as strong.”

The referee looked about ready to declare it, but I stopped him.

“Lets us finish our snack first, then Sushi can pack it up.” We did just that at my behest.

Eventually the referee made the call.

“Winner by friendship, Velvet.” The referee pointed to me.

“Thank you for the meal and the many wonderful flavors your sushi imparts.” I bowed to Sushi.

“Thank you for not ripping me apart with your bare hooves or squeezing me to near death like your wives.” She bowed right back to me.

“I believe we will be friends in the future, for now we’re good acquaintances.” I stood up.

Sushi packed up her sushi making supplies.

“I would like that Velvet.” With that said by Sushi, I went back up the stairs thinking that things went quite amicably between the two of us.

Author's Note

Unicorns do tend to have absurd amounts of power and go mad at the drop of a hat.

Don't tell me that they don't.

Sorry I've been so tired lately.

Chapter fifty three, Fiery Fights: Bad days ahead.

-The next day, The Volcano, Upper Tier, Coliseum, medical area, Shocking-

I looked down on the badly beaten muscled oaf, muscles weren’t everything when talent could get you just as far. I could disable this heavily muscled punks like this guy for breakfast, but I needed someone to experiment on and he would do just nicely if he even had a hint of griffon or pegasus in his bloodline like I thought he did.

“Hey there, you look like you could use a job as a minion!” I said with the maximum amount subtlety I’m known for.

“Why should I… join you, this hawk… just needs to rock out more… and ugh…” Jock Hawk was pretty poor off if he was this heavily bandaged.

This was a good opportunity and I was taking it even if this amounted to nothing. You can’t expect to start with the cream of the crop minions, it’s better to take someone who is weak and mold them into the position of being a decent lackey. Doing that ensures loyalty and eventually a strong minion that can take care of themselves enough to hold their own.

I still had to stay stronger than him to keep him under my hoof and that gave me the motivation to get better as well, a win-win if I ever heard one

That cow did a number on him when she drove him into the solid stone flooring of the arena. That reversal attested to how talented the cow was at fighting, given that she didn’t outright kill him doing it. I don’t think many other fighters would have been capable of pulling that off, it just means my rival has gotten stronger and I welcomed the challenge.

“I possibly have a method that can make you stronger, but it’s going to hurt quite badly and we’ll have to do it when you’re in better health.” Yeah, an untested method to increase his strength that could kill him, better him than me and if I can perfect my idea then I can use it for myself. “If that’s not enough for you, you get someone who beat that cow once as a trainer. If you love to fight, then I can readily oblige you personally! I love to pound my opponents into the floor, but she took it quite literally with you and a little revenge wouldn’t be out of the question after something like that.”

“Humph...” Jock didn’t look ready to accept, but he looked like he was contemplating my words at least.

I needed something to clinch him, I wanted him to agree to this. Now if I were an egomaniac, judging by his entrance and how he destroyed the stands coming in, then how would I get him to work for me? Oh wait a moment… I am an egomaniac! Hehehe… I know exactly what to say, for I am one of the best!

“What, are you seriously going to say no to my offer, especially after you were upstaged by a cow with udders so petite that she resembles a dog? Where’s your pride? Did it get buried and left in the ground in that hole they pulled you out and then filled back up?” That got his attention, now I had to just reel him in to the idea of working with me. “You didn’t even land a solid blow on that cow the whole fight and she blocked your attacks without bruising or even getting a tiny scuff mark to show for it. You are weak is what you are, I don’t know why I’m even bothering to make an offer to take in a coward like you if you’re going to give up after a one-sided smack down like what happened to you. You just got matched up with a really bad opponent for you, one I had believed a second ago that you could possibly personally beat eventually. I guess I was wrong about you…”

I turned to leave and took five steps towards the exit, then looked back at him slightly disappointed, I really thought he was going to call out to me and accept my deal. I took one step out the entrance and wouldn’t have looked back if it were not for one thing.

“Wait… how would you make me stronger?” That sounded like the sweet music of an agreement coming to pass, I just had to seal the deal.

I’m getting myself a thug and will have actually have hired someone for once. Jock would of course be working for me and not GODLESS, but it was basically the same thing until it wasn’t.

If we get matched up Arizona, I promise our fight will be legendary! Until then, I needed to make an acquisition here and now.

-Coliseum Stands, Arizona-

“Winner, The ‘ton of bricks’ Wall!” When the referee announced that I could help but think that was a little bit incredulous. The wall made it past the second round by falling on its opponent… again!

“I can’t believe that stupid wall is making it into the finals!” I grumbled.

“The longma are not too happy about it either.” Velvet grunted as she we watch the longma struggle to move the wall out of the arena again.

“Next, Jacky ‘The Blackcap’ Chickadee La Perm.” The referee was calling out the next fighters. I wonder who she’s fighting. “Her opponent, Dispel ‘The Holy’ Grace!”

-Fortitude-

This… this was going to end poorly. Yak friend Jacky is not winning this one. Even if she had good strength of character, she does not have good strength of body to match Dispel.

“You can do it captain!” Nefer is being very innocent for this world, I like him a lot.

-Five minutes later, Jacky-

I didn’t pull any weapons out, mostly because I didn’t want them to be destroyed, I saw what Dispel did to that last guy. I was hiding behind one of the toppled pillars and I had yet to be hit by Dispel’s cataclysmic holy energy blasts with that big two handed sword of his.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t injured from shrapnel of exploding stone, getting hurt by the terrain of the mildly broken arena or tripping a lot on top of getting knocked around by all the near misses. I couldn’t tell what parts of me weren’t bleeding or bruised at the moment.

Dispel didn’t care about any kind of collateral damage, he was wearing armor for a reason and it was doing a good job of preventing injury from his own blasts of power. I had to aim him away from the audience in case he over did it with those holy blade beams of his, even then I knew he wasn’t using his full power.

Also I was going to have to move eventually because I could hear… I jumped onto the fallen pillar and jumped off it as a wave of horizontal holy energy hit it. The pillar evaporated beneath me in a rather explosive manner. After I landed, I ran towards him and Dispel swung his large sword around to bring it into position for a downwards vertical swing.

Hitting this guy with a cannonball wouldn’t be honorable and facing him like this was about as dumb as could be, but I would be showing my bravery at the very least. I wanted to hit him once and deal some kind of injury to him, but what to hit him with.

As I closed the gap between us, his armored hooves started to swing the sword downwards. I had a decent idea of how to deal some damage to him, but I wasn’t going to be able to beat him at this rate.

The sword came down and I side stepped the blast of energy as it ripped across the ground by me, pelting me with chunks of stone that ripped into my feathers and down. Once I got close enough I pulled out a sledgehammer and twirled around to bring it around into his chest plate with a full swing.

I actually knocked him into the air and dented it with my blow and continued to charge him, he had expended a lot of energy and I wasn’t going to let him get another chance to get another blast like that off. I swung for his head with the sledgehammer using a golf swing and felt my arms shake with the ringing of his helmet as my blow landed.

“Have at thee giant purple carrot shaped like a pear on a bean pole!” Despite clearly disorienting him, Dispel still brought around his sword. My last sight was thankfully seeing the flat side of his blade as it impacted with my skull and I heard one line as everything faded out of existence. “Monsters like you don’t belong in this world!”

-Gene-

“Jacky.” I wondered where she got the sledgehammer, but that wasn’t important at the moment. What was important was that she was hurt.

Dispel moved over to the fallen form of Jacky with jerky and uneven movements. He slowly raised his sword, the Referee thankfully quickly called it before he could bring it down. I might not have intercepted with my spear in time.

“Winner, Dispel Grace!” The referee called and I quickly arrived to cradled Jacky’s head, her head was swollen and she was knocked out and barely breathing. I started to check her injuries as I pulled her away from Dispel.

I calmly put the sledgehammer back behind her back, that strange slurping noise could be heard and the sledgehammer disappeared into nothingness. I didn’t think about it too hard.

I reverently carried her to the medical professionals and sadly handed her over to them without a hint of emotion on my face. I followed after them once they put Jacky on a stretcher.

“Next, Pom ‘The Canine Queen’ Lambchop.” The voice faded out as the medics started checking Jacky over. “Versus her opponent… ugh… Glop-Glop the alien flying electric blue boogaloo squid of rectitude.”

-Ten minutes later-

Jacky would be okay, she will be fine. We would be getting that cursed artifact and then we’d continue our adventures. We also needed to deal with Teatime and his ilk, but we would have to do it legally or we’d face an armies worth of longma. I should focus on getting through my next match.

“Winner, Pom!” I exited the medical area and witnessed the end or at least the aftermath to Pom’s match.

The sight I saw in the arena as I stopped at the stairs leading up to the stands was a longma dressed in a strange electric blue squid costume who looked to have been wielding a saxophone as a weapon. The red colored longma with orange eyes was poking halfway out of his costume and looked as confused as Pom probably felt, given that her opponent was currently tied up in the costume’s tentacles and Pom likely didn’t do anything for him to end up like that.

She won her match at least, though why it took so long against that oddly dressed longma I’ll never know. That the longma even won his first round meant that he had to have at least some skill in combat.

“Next Gene ‘Swift Reaction’ Eric.” I stopped from going up the stairs and turned around to walk into the arena proper. “His opponent, Shocking ‘Vicious Volts’ Awe!”

The minute Shocking Awe was announced, he slammed into the ground in front of me.

“You look like a good fight, I hope you don’t disappoint my expectations of you!” Shocking seemed like a fairly aggressive individual, also a physical step above most pegasus ponies. I was going to have problems focusing on him, what with Jacky being on the back of my mind.

“I don’t like you GODLESS guys.” I told him honestly and flatly.

“So… doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun right? Well come on and start the fight ref, I’m going kick his griffon ass!” Narrowing my eyes at Shocking, I spread my wings and held my spear at the ready. “Make me feel alive if you can!”

The battle crazy pony spread his wings, soon sparks of lightning started jumping around randomly in the air around his form. This was not going to be an easy one to win.

-One hour later, Skelly-

I watched as Gene, the brother of Fortitude and Flamberge prove himself to be a mighty warrior, also the smartest out of the three brothers. The griffon paced himself expertly and despite being at a handicap because his opponent could throw lighting and he was basically carrying a lightning attracting weapon, he was actually making a good showing in this fight.

I watched as Gene rapidly twirled the spear and caught a lightning bolt on the tip of it and, with a quick thrust, he fired the lightning straight back at Shock. Despite Shock being good at controlling lightning, it didn’t mean he was perfectly immune to it and griffons were just as good at weather manipulation.

Both the griffon and the pegasus were still going strong, until they shot by each other at high speeds. They then both started falling out of the sky.

The two hit the ground and Gene quickly propped himself up on his spear, he pushed off the ground using it.

Despite him not roaring personally, Gene's spirit sang as he shot forward. The pegasus, whose wings were shredded by the last attack just as much as Gene’s were broken by his hooves upon passing one another, dodged under the shaft of the spear and grabbed the middle of the shaft with his left hoof.

Using his grip on the spear, Shocking leveraged himself forward and his right hoof quickly became surrounded by a mass of gathering lightning.

Gene had reacted too many things quickly, but he couldn’t keep it up forever. Shocking rammed his hoof into Gene’s chest and poured thousands of tiny bolts into it to send Gene sprawling.

Gene didn’t get up, the scorch mark on his chest was a grievous wound.

“Winner, Shocking Awe!” The referee quickly called out.

The medics quickly ran out to gather up Gene, Fortitude collected Gene's spear and followed after them.

Gene had fought with honor and is a true Viking, even when his mind was elsewhere.

“Now that was a fight!” Shocking bellowed out and then let out a gasp of pain, trying to spread his wings probably just made the injuries on them worse. “That guy was actually tough, not a single scream out of his beak despite all the pain he must have been in. Also he could have showed a little more emotion.”

-medical area, Fortitude-

I am seeing my brother lying there, laid low by Shocking Awe. Things are not looking good for him.

A bright light filled the room for a second and I blinked the spots out of my eyes to see the Valkyrie who took that evil unicorn's spirit.

“Is my brother… is he…” I could not get the question out of my throat, Eir turned to me and smiled.

“It is close, but he is not yet ready for Yakhalla… he will live. His willpower is keeping him here, even when he is not conscious.” A boulder rolled into the room and then rubbed up against Eir. “I’ll get to you in a moment Ragna. He is a Viking who knows to fight even when he’s not aware that he needs to.”

I sighed with relief.

Author's Note

Jacky and Gene are down.

Next up... an unusual battle... like we haven't had enough of those.

Chapter fifty four, Furious Fights: Wife-fu.

Author's Note

This page brought you by Ralf Jones, a guy from King of Fighters known for his high speed punching.

Music- Super Mario Kart (SNES) Battle Mode.

Chapter fifty four, Furious Fights: Wife-fu.

-A day later, The Volcano, Upper Tier, Coliseum-

“Fight!” The referee called as the two beings stared each other down.

-Paprika vs. Velvet-

Paprika surged forward towards a smiling Velvet with bright heart shaped pupils and tried to grab her with a flying hug.

Velvet just smiled and tilted to the left, kicked out at the ground with her rear right hoof and slid out of the way at an insane speed. With all four hooves planted on the arena floor she spun a few times and came to a stop facing Paprika.

Paprika’s head followed Velvet in slow motion before it slammed against the ground, cracking the arena floor with her face. Rolling with the impact, Paprika kicked off the ground once she got her hooves under her and shot towards Velvet.

Velvet smiled and with another kick she strafed around to Paprika’s right as the alpaca flopped onto the ground, the alpaca had been aiming to grab Velvet’s legs with a diving tackle.

The failed tackle attempt unfortunately left Paprika open for retaliation.

Velvet raised her right leg as she was still swinging around at Paprika’s right side, she reared it back and swung it forward with all her might as she slid into position behind the alpaca.

A loud smacking sound could be heard throughout the arena and everyone was now staring at Velvet wide eyed. A cow could be heard laughing loudly from the fighter’s stands seconds later.

Paprika’s ears and tail went straight up as she stood there with her butt wobbling slightly, her face became bright red and she let out a loud keening whine. She turned around to look at where Velvet was and blinked in confusion as the reindeer was no longer there.

Feeling something tapping her left shoulder, Paprika turned her face into her a powerful left hoof strike to the face that knocked her onto her back.

Paprika rolled out of the way as Velvet tried to jump on top of her with a flying hug of her own.

Velvet caught herself on her hooves and then kicked out with her rear right leg again to avoid Paprika grasping hooves when the alpaca lunged for her.

After she slid away while spinning, Velvet came to a stop facing away from Paprika. Looking over her left shoulder, Velvet flicked her ears, wagged her tail a bit and then wiggled her butt at Paprika.

The alpaca looked from the wiggling butt to Velvet’s cheeky eyes and then back, Paprika narrowed her eyes at the reindeer and slung her right hoof forward launching a large tentacle of fluff shooting straight for Velvet.

Velvet stood up on her hind legs and twirled to slightly left and out of the way of the stream fur, then Paprika launched her left hoof forward in as the fur from her right leg circled around in an attempt to wrap around the rapidly spinning Velvet’s barrel.

When it looked like the fur would encircle her entirely Velvet performed a well-choreographed grand jeté, her leap narrowly allowing to clear Paprika’s fur as the alpaca reeled it back in towards herself.

Landing with grace, Velvet started to saucily strut forward and eyed Paprika like a piece of meat with a firm smile on her muzzle.

“Ha!” Velvet belted out as she lifted her right leg and took on a charming pose.

Paprika charged towards at the taunt and launched another tentacle of fur from her left hoof straight to her left and then swept it forward. She then launched her right hoof forward sending the fur from her right hoof directly into the air above Velvet.

Velvet jumped over the swing and had a shocked look as the second tendril of fur was within a second of reaching her. She immediately did something that seemed odd to everyone watching the fight, she bent her legs and then kicked out.

Surprisingly, despite being in the air, Velvet shot upwards and out of the path of the tendril of fur that tried to follow her.

Paprika changed her concentration to something else and made the fur from her right hoof continue forward to grab a pillar, the end of the fur stretching out from her left suddenly rammed itself into the floor of the arena.

Paprika pulled herself into the air and release her hold of the floor and one of the few pillars in the arena that was still standing. The loving alpaca went spinning high into the air upside down, maneuvering herself to be above a still airborne Velvet.

The alpaca spread her hooves out to make large, flat, butterfly wing like wads of fluff that expanded outwards in four directions. Paprika brought them all together towards Velvet beneath her like a giant flying Venus Fly Trap.

Seeing the incoming walls of fluff, Velvet rammed her legs roughly against the air and went into a spiraling twirl between two of the fluffy flaps before they could enclose on her.

Velvet hit the ground on her front hooves and performed a hoof spring backflip to avoid a fluffy whip coming from Paprika’s tail.

Paprika landed on the ground softly on a mound of fluff while facing down Velvet, she quickly retracted the fluff around herself until she looked as she normally did.

Paprika tilted her head while looking at Velvet curiously and the reindeer continued to smile in her direction. Velvet held out a hoof and motioned at herself tauntingly, it was an invitation for Paprika to come and get her.

The cheerful countenance on Paprika’s face dropped, yet the smile never exactly left her face even when it became far more serious and her eyes narrowed. The reindeer gave Paprika an equally serious look.

Shifting her hooves so that they were spread out, Paprika lowered herself ready to charge Velvet again.

Velvet crouched down and prepared to charge Paprika as well.

They burst towards one another kicking up massive amounts of dust in their wakes as they came upon each other.

Velvet spread her hooves out and was low enough to the ground that her belly could touch it and with a kick of her left hind leg she started to spin on her hooves rapidly. It was an attempt to knock Paprika’s hooves out from under her.

Paprika launched herself into the air using her fur to boost her jump well over Velvet’s rapidly spinning form as it slides forward. Twisting herself in the air, Paprika landed facing Velvet and charged her.

Velvet changed from spinning on her four hooves, to spinning on her hind legs with her front hooves held above her head as a method of readying herself for Paprika’s approach.

When Paprika tried to thrust her right hoof at Velvet, it was deflected by Velvet’s left hoof and she received right hoof across the face, a left elbow to her throat stunning her and then a high right hind hoof kick to the chin.

Velvet had stopped her spin with the flexible high kick, a kick that lifted Paprika a foot off the ground with the blow. The reindeer followed that up by pulling back both her front legs and then started to thrust the upwards rapidly.

Flashes of blue erupted from each blow that was landed upon Paprika’s body, soon Velvet had Paprika flipping end over end in the air and Velvet was keeping her up there by the sheer ferocity of her high speed precise blows.

Eventually Velvet pulled back and stopped attacking Paprika when she could no longer keep up the momentum of her attacks.

As soon as the attacks ceased Paprika flipped landed on her hooves and immediately caught Velvet in the face with a painful looking right hook.

While Velvet was staggered and stumbling from the blow, Paparika swung her backside around and into Velvet’s chest sending the reindeer sprawling.

Paprika didn’t let up as Velvet floundered backwards, the alpaca darted forward and her left hoof jabbed its way home into one of Velvet’s kidneys making her gasp out in pain.

With Velvet properly disabled, Paprika got both her hooves under Velvet’s armpits and lifted her up, Paprika smiled and started to pull Velvet closer while increasing the strength of the building hug.

Paprika puckered up and was so close to kissing Velvet back for that wonderful kiss back in Rein, then she heard a very strange loud squeaking sound that confused her.

Blinking at her legs suddenly pressing up against her chest without a reindeer snuggled into them, not to mention that her lips missed Velvet’s face or body entirely, Paprika looked around herself for Velvet in confusion.

Velvet came down from above with both her hooves tightly pressed together and she landed a well-timed two hoofed hammer blow to Paprika’s skull.

The alpaca head was sent straight into the stone flooring of the arena and her body soon followed when Velvet flipped forward from the hammer blow and forcefully kicked off of Paprika’s back with all four hooves.

A large crater had formed around Paprika’s body when Velvet stomped on her, yet Paprika still got up and stumbled about a bit as she pulled herself from it. Shaking her head Paprika had her focused entirely on Velvet who was waiting for her.

The audience by this point was feeling sorry for the arena.

Paprika leapt from the crater and thrust her left hoof forward. Velvet deflected with her left and slapped Paprika across the face with the back of her right hoof, only for Paprika to catch it with her still outstretched hoof.

Having gotten a good grip on Velvet’s hoof, Paprika pulled and swung Velvet around to release her towards a pillar. Velvet hit the pillar belly first with a thunderous crash that sent up a massive amount of dust as the pillar collapsed.

It was barely three seconds later that Velvet came charging out of the dust cloud to ram Paprika in the chest with her horns.

Paprika just wavered backwards with the impact and then she snapped forward bringing her chin down on top of Velvet’s face dazing the deer. She followed up by slapping Velvet’s face with a left and a right, making a dazed Velvet stumble back with each blow and unable to concentrate on defending herself.

Leaping up, Paprika went for a full body slam, only to miss as Velvet halfway rolled out the way to the right to end up on her left side.

Paprika hopped up and went to attack Velvet, by that point Velvet had already regained her senses and rolled entirely onto her back and kicked with both her hind legs.

Velvet slid on her back across the stone flooring until she ended up underneath Paprika while priming all four of her legs.

Paprika looked underneath herself in confusion, but couldn’t move out of the way in time as Velvet’s four legged buck lashed upwards into Paprika’s barrel launching her upwards.

The alpaca landed on her head a few feet away and then flopped onto her back with a grunt.

Velvet shakily got up onto her hooves, even Paprika wasn’t nearly as quick to get up this time.

Something caught Velvet’s eye as she looked at her nose. Rubbing her right leg across her nose, it came away from it covered in a streak of blood and snot. Instead of panicking about that, the pain or the various injuries she and Paprika dealt to one another, Velvet just smiled brightly as she looked to Paprika.

Paprika looked to Velvet with worry, but Velvet looked to her slightly stained floof and then nodded to Paprika with an ever present creepy smile on her face. Paprika reluctantly nodded back as if expecting something from the manic gleam in Velvet’s eye.

Velvet came at Paprika hard and fast with two thrusts to the chest, both of which connected and then Paprika blocked the Velvet’s right leg with her left and a wad of fluff rammed upwards into Velvet knocking her into the air.

Velvet flipped in the air so that she was almost vertical, kicked off of the air and went zooming straight back for an unprepared Paprika who was moving forward to attack Velvet when she landed.

Velvet’s front hooves smashed into Paprika’s forehead and she shot off to the Paprika’s left and kicked off the air to slam her right shoulder into Paprika’s side knocking her over.

Paprika, having her head slammed into the stone flooring again, grunted and got up. Only she figuratively froze as she saw Velvet’s legs moving in a four step rhythm as she bounced in place in the air.

Velvet thrust her two front legs behind her, the reaction to that was her suddenly shooting forward like a rocket and she slammed into Paprika with thunderous force.

Paprika suddenly found herself pressed up against a pillar as Velvet ferociously pounded away at her with a flurry of pointy jabs, rough hooks and dizzying slaps.

Fluff went flying in every direction with each of Velvet’s vicious blows that seemed to become streaked with blue every other impact, the pillar behind Paprika was cracking violently from the force of these attacks.

Velvet thrust both her hooves forward into Paprika’s chest and the pillar exploded from the shock of the attack going through both her fur and her body.

Paprika hadn’t moved an inch from her spot even as the pillar seceded from existence. She thrusted a hoof at Velvet who, despite blocking with her hooves, was launched backwards a few feet towards the center of the arena.

The reindeer still kept her balance and landed well enough, the manic smile on her face still didn’t leave at Paprika’s approach.

Paprika was about three feet from Velvet when she stumbled and fell to the ground, her bruises and the battering she took from Velvet finally added up even with the defensive power of her fluffmancer abilities.

The alpaca weakly struggled to stand up, as Velvet approached her while limping slightly. Paprika’s last blow had injured one of Velvet’s legs badly enough that she could hardly walk on it.

Velvet sat down in front of Paprika and waited.

Paprika didn’t have much energy left, but there was one things she still wanted to do. She lashed out with a tentacle of fur from her right leg. Velvet ducked the attempt to grab her and moved a little bit closer Paprika after the fur reeled in.

Paprika weakly looked at Velvet with a pout as the reindeer sat down in front of her. Velvet placed a hoof on Paprika’s shoulder, tilted her head and opened her mouth, just waiting for Paprika to initiate a kiss.

Taking the invitation, Paprika slowly brought her face to Velvet’s and started to tenderly kiss the reindeer.

After a minute long kiss, an exhausted Paprika fell backwards and sighed with a happy smile.

“Meep.” Paprika muttered happily as her eyes closed.

The referee looked to Velvet who simply raised her right hoof high, while she gently planted her left on Paprika’s chest.

-Referee-

“Winner, Velvet!” I announced and shivered in fright.

These two were married?

How in the world could they attack each other like that and still love one another at the end of that fight?!

-Velvet-

Paprika is really hard to take down, especially when it's so hot out here.

After gathering all the fur I had knocked off her, I lifted Paprika up to slowly carry her towards the stands.

The crowd couldn't believe that I still had enough strength left in me to carry my wife up the stairs.

Chapter fifty four, Furious Fights: Kung-Pow Cow!

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter fifty four, Furious Fights: Fleet Cunning Doe.

-The Volcano, Upper Tier, Coliseum, stands, Pom-

I just stared at the devastation and saw the medics carrying away that scary Pegasus, he was strong enough to injure Arizona and he kept getting up despite how many blows Arizona dealt to him.

I’m actually kind of scared of Arizona now to be honest, I wouldn’t want any of my beasties to mess with her even on her worst day ever.

Arizona might be walking away with a few injuries, but everyone clearly saw what happened to the other guy and I know for a fact that she didn’t like him. Also that pegasus had to be clinically insane to keep getting up and attacking Arizona, his wings didn’t look too good after that last attack.

“…Canine queen’ Lambchop, but before that we will be taking a short break.” I turned back to the announcer, had I been announced for a fight? Oh dear.

“Looks like you get to fight Dispel Grace, Pom!” Flamberge shouted to me.

I got spooked and fell onto my back while making wild sheep noises and flailing my legs at the air, it was a second later that I understood what he had said. I had to fight the armored pony with the big glowing sword?!

The same one that wanted to outright destroy Skelly’s soul? Skelly might be a little bit scary at night, but she doesn’t deserve that!

“Do you think they will let me forfeit early if I ask nicely Ollie… Ollie?” I cowered, where was Ollie and Fred? Why are all of my beasties growling happily about my upcoming fight? They really didn’t expect me to put up a fight did they? I really didn’t want to fight or possibly have my soul destroyed, my last few fights had been flukes more than anything else!

Was I hyperventilating? I was hyperventilating! Breath in and out, nope, can’t slow down my breathing. I’m going to die… before the match even started too!

“Would you be wanting some advice Pom?” My ears perked up and I looked to Fortitude. I nodded rapidly at the big yak. “You should fight with honor and pride, you are a strong individual even if you cower quite often. For you are braver than you think!”

“That advice wasn’t very helpful at all!” I shouted at him, then immediately curled up into fetal position.

Fortitude smiled and patted me on the head. Why weren’t my beasties warning him off? Why wasn’t I running out of this stadium screaming my head off like any other intelligent and sane lambkin would actually do in this situation when faced with a deadly opponent like Dispel Grace?! Was I too paralyzed to run for my life? I was…

“I think you’d be pretty good at ‘Fleet Cunning Doe’ style of fighting, it was made by Spruce Lea.” Jumping high up into the air and flailing my hooves away from Velvet, I eventually came down on my face clutching my hooves to my chest feeling like my heart was going to explode. Why is everyone sneaking up on me when they all know I’m easy to freak out?! “Well, it’s more of a philosophy, but I’m sure it’ll help you Pom. Do you want to know about it while you have some time before your match?”

I saw Arizona resting her head on a sleeping Paprika’s back and nodding off, Velvet was looking to me with a friendly smile so I was definitely the one she was talking to. Said Reindeer beat one of her wives into the ground and was really strong.

“I… yes…” I caved in immediately, I needed all the help I can get after that saxophone wielding longma came at me in the squid costume.

It was only luck that I made it this far and I definitely didn’t have any more with the armored knight that took down Jacky.

“Okay, even if your fluff will never be quite as magnificent as mine or Paprika’s, this is what you need to know...” Velvet started off.

-Fifteen minutes later, Pom vs. Dispel-

Dispel’s armor didn’t have a single dent in it from when Jacky hit it with a sledgehammer, he stood proud and tall with his sword planted in the ground in front of him.

Pom, on the other hoof, was a cowering nervous wreck that didn’t look like she wanted to be out there at all. Not when she was against such a dangerous armored opponent with a powerful sharp pointy sword that fired blast of channeled holy energy, she was a small and quite pathetic looking thing next to him.

Pom closed her eyes steeled herself and looked at her opponent, then went right back to cowering a bit. She tried to stay strong in the face of the insurmountable obstacle that was an earth pony with impressive amounts of strength and holy powers, alongside the knowledge how to use both with lethal intent. How else would a pony swing around a sword of that size if they didn’t have the physical might to do so?

The fight was started by the announcer and Dispel swung his sword for Pom.

The lambkin leapt backwards and didn’t approach or even try anything aggressive, it looked more like she was trying to psyche herself up to actually just stay in the arena at his point.

“This will be a poor fight.” Commented Dispel dryly as he pointed the tip of his large blade at Pom. “I would rather fight one of those monsters you call familiars, at least slaying one of them would be worth more of my time than you. That or the strange pole thing that attacked me during the fight with that parrot. Don’t honestly know why the referee didn’t call the match when a monster wandered onto the field.”

“Le…m… sties…lone.” Pom mumbled as she cowered a little less.

“Stop mumbling you yourself and let’s get this farce of a fight over with quickly shall we?” Dispel raised his sword in both his forelegs as he to standing on his hind, he leapt forward and brought it down on Pom’s position.

The sword landed and blasted out a pressure wave. Even when it wasn’t charged with holy energy the blade generated a powerful shockwave just from Dispel’s strength alone.

Instead of taking the blow while cowering. The whimpering Pom dodged the strike well enough that she was only just launched a good ten feet up into the air by the shockwave and right over Dispel’s body, that was just how lightweight Pom’s currently flailing body was.

Pom floated down to the ground and almost landed upright on her hooves, instead she went into a roll to bleed off momentum.

“Did I disintegrate her, is that my victory?” In answer to Dispel’s question, the referee pointed at Pom standing behind him. “Ah, you are quite swift to get behind me, I should take you more seriously!”

Pom sent as nasty a glare as she could manage towards the referee, coming from her it wasn’t very scary or intimidating at all. The referee still looked a bit sheepish about giving away her position and giving her opponent the advantage of knowing she still breathed.

“Can we just pretend to fight or just stop fighting to talk this over, please?” Not listening to Pom or her pleas for a peaceful solution, Dispel charged his blade up with a mass of energy and brought his sword into a horizontal swing sending out a wave of death towards her. “I’m willing to for… EEP!”

Pom leapt above the crescent wave of energy and as it passed below her, she shot higher into the air and her fur started to sparkle a bit.

“Neigh, I say! I will not let you speak or plan a way to defeat me while my guard is down you sneaky lambkin!” Dispel swung the sword upwards launching a second wave of energy for Pom.

Pom waggled her legs as hard as she could, mostly out of desperation and fear and altered her trajectory so the wave of holy energy passed by her.

The energy, for some reason despite not being anywhere close to hitting her directly, sent Pom spiraling away and slightly higher, until she once more found herself rolling on the ground and came to a stop. Her fur started to glitter slightly more afterwards, but she didn’t have time to really think about it as Dispel was already coming at her with thrust of his sword.

Dispel’s thrust went over Pom’s form sending a spear tipped beam of energy out as she squashed herself to the ground and tumbled forward underneath Dispel.

Dispel looked around in confusion and Pom took note of one thing about Dispel that may keep her alive, she carefully crept out from under him. The referee thankfully didn’t acknowledge her position this time when Dispel looked to him for guidance.

Crawling shyly away from Dispel, who was charging his sword again, Pom tried to quickly get the referee’s attention.

“There you are!” Hearing Dispel’s voice, Pom’s eyes widened in horror and she leapt forward narrowly avoiding losing half of all her legs. Dispel hadn’t release a holy wave of power that time, which confused Pom, because his sword was definitely charged. The armored pony leapt into the air and yelled something as he brought the tip of his sword towards the ground, Pom was already moving out the way with a leap. “Rising Light!”

A huge blast of holy energy ripped its way upwards towards the sky starting from where Dispel struck the ground. The pillar of light spread outwards and upwards, expanding fiercely in a destructive force of holy energy that shook the whole arena.

Instead of being killed by the attack, as it erupted from the floor of the arena towards Pom who was in the air. The energy instead launched her higher into the air before it could actually hit her directly.

The many beings watching were unsure if Pom could survive a drop from at least two hundred feet up in the air where she found herself falling away from the quickly waning pillar of light. The lambkin herself wondering why she wasn’t dead yet and why her fur sparkling even worse now.

Dispel raised his sword to the sky and charged it up as Pom started falling.

“Bright stabs!” He thrust his sword towards Pom and she seemingly dodged it in mid-air by rolling at out the way. Five more thrusts and the results were the same, before the attacks could land Pom always seemed to float out of the path of danger before it struck her.

Pom was being involuntarily thrown around in the air, but there wasn’t much she could do about it or her opponent that really seemed intent on hurting her. She was just happy with still being relatively uninjured and only dizzy from the way the blasts of light pushed her around.

“She’s quite the wily opponent!” Dispel charged up again and quickly slashed his sword twice skywards, then stabbed it at the center of where his two swings intersected. “Holy Cross!”

Pom gave a cry of alarm as the large X shaped wad of energy nearly struck her and sent her flipping sideways fifty feet from the arena’s floor. She fell twenty feet before another crescent wave of energy juggled her two feet up and in the opposite direction as it passed under her. Her white puffy fur started to glow a bit oddly and gave off a strange crackling noise as she landed on top of one of the last standing pillars in the arena.

Pom crouched down on the pillar in the center of it and whimpered as Dispel looked to be readying another beam, blast or what-have-you of holy energy. At this point Pom could care less as Dispel Grace seemed really intent on ending her.

Dispel approached the stone pillar at a two legged gallop and swung his blade at it taking out a large chunk of it.

The entire pillar shook and Pom almost fell off, she got one hoof up onto the edge and held onto it as if her life depended on it and it started to topple in Dispel’s direction.

Dispel looked like he was about to swing his sword upwards to cut the pillar in half, only for Pom to leap away causing him to focus on her instead of the pillar. Said pillar proceeded to fall on top of him.

Pom looked back to see Dispel’s armored legs poking out from under the stone pillar and then they started to move. With one quick blast of holy energy, the stone rolled off of the badly dented and battered armor and the pony that was possibly beneath it.

“I will destroy you monstrous blank with... the long legs!” The earth pony stood up and started to stumble about looking delirious, he shook his head and focused on Pom and started to approach her. He didn’t charge his sword up and seemed to be struggling with its weight now.

He swung it for Pom’s tiny form with his right hoof. Pom ducked under the blade and barely avoided his left hoof coming for her face. Pom then tried to grab Dispel’s left hoof to try and keep him from swinging his sword at her again.

Upon touch the metal of the armor a huge blast of energy erupted from Pom making Dispel fly across the arena. Pom stood twitching a bit, as her body discharged something close to lightning and a few small rays of light.

Dispel got up once against and his armor looked rumpled all over, but there weren’t any holes in it, he came at her again brought his sword down in an overhead swing.

The confused Pom rolled to the side and performed her first attack the entire battle, she thrusted her right hoof at his side while closing her eyes and frowned when something gave from her sloppily thrown attack.

“Argh!” Upon hearing Dispel, gasp out in pain, Pom opened her eyes and watched as he stumbled away from her with a sharp dent in the side of this armor.

Dispel wildly swung his sword low and Pom leapt up and flailed her legs at his head and chest rapidly, when she landed there were several dents in his helmet and armor the size of limes and he had dropped his sword.

Dispel seemed to be swaying on his feet and Pom looked at him questioningly with worry, she then turned around and brought her rear legs up and roughly bucked his helmet. Dispel toppled onto his side with two large dents where his forehead should be.

“Winner, Pom!” The referee announced.

Pom looked shell-shocked.

-Pom-

I… I won?

Did... did that just happen?!

That static magic explosion thing really helped, no idea how that happened. I also didn't think I really did that much to hurt him

I should thank Velvet.

-Hours later, The Grand Time, Dispel-

“So you lost… to a lambkin. How droll… some holy knight you are! You need to remember that you are most certainly not invincible, I told the officials I’d see to your needs.” Teatime, it seems I owed you for keeping my secret once more. “I'm already quite busy as you know! I will get to your armor later, be glad that I quickly fixed your helmet."

I silently watched as he went to work, my gaze turned to the floor from the shelf I sat upon.

Author's Note

Today brought to you by 'Jeet Kune Do', a philosophy martial arts that is basically 'as long as it works'.

Dispel is a flesh and blood earth pony before you jump to any 'wild conclusions'. So jump to some normal sounding ones first before going wild.

Pom Learned: Combat Lv. -0.1 (401 EXP needed to get Combat Level 0), Magical Static Fleece, Fleet Cunning Doe philosphy, simple hoof strike and untrained buck attack.

Enough of the silly notes for now, I hope the month of monsters is fairing better for everyone else than it is for me so far. These last few days have been horrible.

The examples include having to get a cavity drilled and filled, a transformer exploded nearby and knocked out power in the general area and a power strip had to be replaced and for some reason the surge protectors didn't work.

Story of my life when the last three computers I've used exploded... violently. At least that didn't happen this time, I don't exactly have a spare computer if this one goes up in flame too.

Life moves ever forward!

Chapter fifty four, Furious Fights: Hop-kido.

Author's Note

Title brought you by Hapkido.

Chapter fifty four, Furious Fights: Hop-kido.

Chapter fifty four, Furious Fights: Hop-kido.

-Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Fresh-

This was just another day in the life of Fresh Start, because today… the town actually got some entertainment that was going to stick around.

Not that we didn’t like the weirdly plucky mariachi Changelings that visited every now and then. With the stigma that the rest of their race was known for sucking the love out of things, this was one of the few places that their band could visit freely without repercussions. As long as they were the colorful version of their race, or Kevin, Changelings were okay.

Kevin was a really cool guy even when he came by while starving for love. Even when Kevin refused to become a colorful, as we’ve been calling them, to fill that void in his body. At least he was entirely honest about his intentions and didn’t disguise himself no matter where he went. He even warned us that changelings that looked more like him were less safe to be around numerous times.

I wouldn’t know about those other changelings, as I’ve never seen any and we had a doctor that new what Changelings in general smelled like. We were one hundred percent certified infiltrator free, Changelings couldn’t infiltrate effectively with diamond dogs around and we had a few on the local construction crew that were interested in Dr. Bones. They’d never be out of a job as long as we kept getting attacked by pukwudgies, also they were good for making Changelings highly wary of trying infiltration apparently.

Kevin preferred to live in strife with the rest of his entire hive, at least until they could change their ways to be more like our favorite mariachi band that he was friends with. He considered himself an odd double agent for us and would warn us if we had an incoming problem. Otherwise he rarely came around more than once a month and only for a few hours.

Thinking of, I still hadn’t see much of Kevin recently and he said his queen was working on something disastrous for his people. He said he’d drop on by for a visit in the aftermath as it’ll probably be a large waste of their resources, I told him he’d still be welcome provided that he didn’t hurt anyone personally and he readily agreed to at least avoid assaulting someone.

The entertainment that moved in wasn’t as strange as the mariachi Changelings, it was three thestrals that were moving in and wanted to settle down to build a family. They had a thing for musical beats when they weren’t telling me about the kinds of day jobs they had previously before coming here.

“For I’m Macaroni, yeah~!” Apparently Macaroni’s herd met Kuril a while ago and they liked the idea of getting away from the cultist built city that housed a large section of the bat pony population in Equestria after Luna was sealed away.

It was a surprise to meet Luna for the week that Celestia dropped her here while she prepped some things in Canterlot. Luna was old fashioned and growing back into her stature and power from being reduced to a filly, she was also very out of touch with everything as it was nowadays and it showed while she was here.

Back to the three thestrals, apparently they were here because something about a Hollow Heart finally being done for and pushed into the darkest recesses that the world had. That left Macaroni and her family a lot of free time from being part of a rebellion. I didn’t follow their story too closely, they were just as weird as whoever Flamberge and Fortitude ran into next that came here to drop in for a visit or even decided to stay.

I was getting quite used to making food for a variety of beings.

Macaroni was quite peppy for and brightly colored for a thestral, she could even make some really delicious macaroni and other noodle based dishes. I might dare say her macaroni is better than what Kuril can make, but our mayor hasn’t exactly been at her best for a while. The chunks of onion really do add some kick to the macaroni that Macaroni cooked.

Drip, aside from doing entertaining Capella with Macaroni, was a much needed stallion who could do plumbing. My goddesses did we ever need him and I begged him to fix the various problems we had! He said he’d get on it later in the evening. I had to remind myself that he was nocturnal.

Lingo, who also did Capella with Macaroni, I directed him to the school as we needed a language teacher that could teach reading and writing. Our school hasn’t exactly been up to snuff, but at least Mr. Permanganate was doing his best and his science class was definitely better than the other things he tried to teach.

Nobody was ever bored of Mr. Permanganate when he taught science, I liked the goofy stallion and I wondered if Wary was interested in Mr. Refreshment. It probably wouldn’t work out because Wary hated fruit with a passion, but she still seemed to like him well enough aside from his passion for fruit drinks.

I was too busy to lead a life of my own while propping up Kuril, her business, the familiars and just about everything else. How did Kuril do all this for so long? Was it the love of her kitten? Why did Kuril spend so much time in her room these days?

I’m too much of a good friend to stop helping Kuril now, that and I still liked cleaning things. It helps that I like to get up early in the morning, especially to help someone with constant need of my services.

-The next day, The Volcano, Upper Tier, Coliseum, medical area, Sweetcakes-

I was so tired! Jacky was the least injured and she was used to it and would be unconscious for a little while longer, so I spent most of my energy on helping Gene and Savannah. Mostly Savannah, since a strange purple longma in exquisite robes wouldn’t stop glaring at me until I did so. Apparently she was fond of the Savannah and I didn’t get her name, but she seemed important around here given she had some guards following her around.

I wasn’t made of infinite power, but I was trying to do my best to act like I was. I don’t think I had much energy left in me, but I’m sure Nefer and Flotsam would be relieved as half their family was out of commission. Like me, they met a bunch of weirdoes and got drawn into the life of these so called Airship Maulers.

I actually wanted to see this Airship Mauled and the witch that cooked food that most would travel from miles around just to taste even the simplest of her dishes. I wonder how the food compare to my homes cooking, but for now I’m a healer helping injured fighters. We were going to need them some time after the competition, for something big was going to go down soon and all I knew was that Teatime was involved, so we needed all the help we could get for whatever was coming.

The threat to the city wasn’t a known quantity, but all the Huoshan Guards were being quite twitchy about it and were more active and aware of their surroundings. According to Flamberge, the Canterlot Guard couldn’t match this kind of alertness. Fortitude didn’t say anything against that, so it must be true.

-Coliseum stands, Velvet-

“Don’t look so mortified Pom, I think you did very well out there!” For some reason my praise was met with a shaky cringe, I was not trying to come off as cold and was certainly being friendly.

Why didn’t Pom cringe when Oleander talked with her? Maybe I sounded a little too stuck up? No, that couldn’t be the issue, at least Arizona never complains about my tone of voice. Maybe I should ask Paprika about it… she’s more likely to get a better read then even if I do appreciate Arizona’s simpler demeanor and outlook about things.

“Thank you, for your help…” Pom actually spoke up. She was about to say more, but she was literally dogpiled by all her familiars. Including the Cerberus, how many times has this happened to Pom? Did she not realize her own strength? Hooves strong enough to dent metal that looked like gold, a pack of wild ruffians that will protect her to their last as a small army and yet she still cowers? Honestly…

I’m kind of surprised Arizona and Paprika slept through it all, starting from Pom’s rather unique fight to her dogs being a noisy affectionate mess all over the poor lambkin trying to shove them off of herself.

There were no longer any longma in the competition, yet the longma still watched it with great interest. There was just me, Pom, The Wall and Arizona. At this rate Arizona and I were destined to battle, The Wall wasn’t competition and Pom… eh I’m sure she’ll be okay because Arizona or I will know how hard to actually hit her if we face her.

Arizona didn’t seem too happy about beating Shocking within an inch of his life, she was likely thinking about the shadow horde or her mother again. Paprika has long since been informed of everything going on, but we never actually got an opinion from her and she hasn’t changed her loving actions towards us in the slightest.

As a working herd I think we melded together very well, despite not having jobs or a constant source of income. I could survive without the fineries of life… to a certain extent. We kind of needed Paprika to keep the balance between Arizona and me, becoming a happy family was hard work and we were doing alright in that respect as long as we got some good fights out of one another.

“Velvet ‘Frost Dancer’ Paca La Perm.” I sat up and looked into the arena to see my opponent already being put into place. “Her opponent, The ‘tons of bricks’ Wall.”

Oh great I was fighting a wall, there was no way I would lose to it. Of the three matches today one of them is going to be with Arizona. After what happened to Shocking, Pom didn’t look like she wanted to fight Arizona even if she could put up a good showing.

“Um… good luck…” Pom you were sweet, but I wasn’t going to need luck on this one and I really don’t want Jacky’s luck for anything.

“Why thank you Pom!” I said cheerfully as I set off for the stairs. "Though with my Hop-kick-doe fighting style, I won't need it."

-Coliseum, near medical area, Skelly-

“I am sorry, I am still being incapable of helping you. I assure you that I am looking into it and have several beings working on it alongside me.” At Eir’s words I smiled, shouldn’t I be frowning? I felt relief for some reason.

I looked to Ragna and he rolled back and forth noisily. Hearing the prophecies about the destruction that would befall Yakhalla sounded mystical and then actually seeing what would cause said destruction was a bit of underwhelming to actually see in person.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t going to be there when it eventually happened, I’d rather stay in the land of the living then go through Yakhalla’s reformation where the souls would be cycled back into Equestria through a highly volatile manner by means of that boulder.

I wished I could laugh, I really did. At best I could clack my jaw loudly in a jovial manner.

“Yes, what is it Ragna?” Eir turned to the boulder that hopped twice and then rolled a small circle. “Your hive mind cousins are in the arena and you are wanting to watch the fight? Hmm… okay, but we must be getting back to great husband soon, I am quite done with the picking up of all the lost souls here.”

-Minutes later, Velvet vs. The Wall-

“Quick question before we start, did anyone repair the wall between now and its first fight?” What Velvet is drawing attention to, was that the wall lacked cracks in it back from when Savannah fought it.

“No… and we’ve had it under heavy guard the entire time. That is kind of unusual.” The referee looked at both sides of the wall. “Ah well, fight!”

Velvet leapt towards the wall and hit it with a sideways flying buck. After launching off the wall from that, she kicked off the air to ram into it. Bouncing off the wall after she rammed it, she spun in air and kicked off it into buck that made the wall wobble almost falling entirely over away from her. Each hit cracked the wall pretty badly.

Velvet landed and as the wall seem to move well over forty degrees into leaning in the opposite direction, there was no possible way it could feasibly fall on her. Yet Velvet narrowed her eyes and then leapt back as the wall tried to slam down on top of her.

“I knew it, like I was going to fall for that! Does that mean I win?” Velvet asked the referee, he was about to talk when everyone’s attentions was drawn back to the wall after hearing an odd noise. It was sitting in an upright position as if it had never fallen over, in the exact same spot and the spooky thing was that nobody had seen it move. It was like the wall had reset its position entirely within the blink of everyone’s collective eyes. “Nope, not going to happen, I’m going to nip this one in the bud right here and now. I am not losing to a wall whose only aptitude for combat is simply falling on people!”

Velvet raised her front hooves and swept them forward, a huge pillar of ice erupted from the ground and launched The Wall off into the distance.

“I win, end the fight!” Velvet shouted at the referee who cowered and nodded at the crazy reindeer. “Thank you for agreeing with me.”

“Winner…” The referee paused and looked about in case the wall suddenly came right back into the arena all of the sudden. “Velvet!”

Quite a few longma were cheering for the reindeer finally dealing with the most ridiculous fighter in the arena. After swinging a hoof and causing the large angled pillar of ice to collapse into a pile of quickly melting snow, Velvet calmly walked back up the stairs.

-Arizona-

“Wasn’t that a little bit overkill, even if that wall did try get a cheap shot in?” Velvet was definitely angry, I was a little jealous of The Wall and I felt a bit silly about that. How can I be jealous of a pile of bricks and mortar?

“We are going to fight each other, but first… Pom, Arizona will try to go easy on you, but she doesn’t have a habit of pulling her blows.” At Velvet’s words, the lambkin gulped took a few steps away from me and cowered.

“Are you going to fight now or in ten minutes?” The referee said coming up to us.

“Now is as good a time as any.” I stretched out and gave a slowly waking Paprika a hug and then hugged Velvet.

Time to teach a lambkin how to dance.

Chapter fifty four, Furious Fights: Core Ply.

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Chapter fifty five, Recovery: Grab.

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Chapter fifty five, Recovery: Take.

Author's Note

Having seen the series ending, it was a good note to go out on like multiple cartoons did before it... at the start of a new cycle of life.

Stone spells are quite common in Equestria, as are mind control and power trips. The new thousand year problem is Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy Glow... or are they?

I noted that the giant rainbow beam was created by past, present and future friendships. Pillars of the past, the present mane six and the future kid six. Nice touch there.

With vague answers of what happened over that time skip before Luster Dawn and Spike mentioning the Diamond Dogs (seen in one episode) and Abyssinians (Seen in the movie and background character for several episodes)... well none of that really bothers my story in the slightest.

I haven't gotten to a point in the story where it might have been a small problem, I will make a minor adjustment when I get there however. You won't notice it at all, promise!

Also they managed to fit every friendly character in the finale including Capper, Fizzle and Little Strongheart. It's no Simpsons, but after ten years you would want to move on to other things after a certain point concerning the production team.

Also with a heavy heart, I say goodbye to the Muffin Queen... her bright cheerful smile will be in my black monstrous heart forever and her muffins will always be grand.

So I'm a muffin cultist, baked goods warm the heart and can be made for anyone. Lactose intolerance is not an issue and I know someone that can't have milk, but that doesn't stop them from enjoying life or an alternative baked good.

I will continue writing my epic and I will hopefully hit the one million mark before this website dies. Also if someone doesn't transcribe or copy my entire story, then it will disappear one day.

Nothing lasts forever, but anything is possible! Nothing is impossible and if nothing were possible, then nothing there would be.

TL; DR. Blah blah blah, finale was good in my books and they just abuse the rainbow thing to a ridiculous extreme. They don't even use those one time rainbow transformations ever again either and there are still loose ends like Spike's parents. We can ignore that and anything else we might have missed because the series is over with.

On with the story.

Page: Take (things as they come).

Chapter fifty five, Recovery: Take.

-The Volcano, Middle Tier, Huoshan Hospital, Arizona-

“You might never walk again.” As soon as the doctor finished saying that out loud, I burst out laughing. “I’m serious, you might never fight again.”

That second part is what got Velvet and Paprika started, we were all in tears because it was hilarious that he thought ripping up the muscles in my forelegs would really stop me. Didn’t stop me when I messed up my whole body previously in the same manner.

“Do you remember when I did the first mach attack fluff butt?” I asked Velvet with a smile. “My hoof ignited at the end of the attack when I hit that large Salamander in the face.”

“Only this time you ignited it at the start of your attack and you punched straight through my snowflake barrier. I barely got up my igloo barrier in time.” Velvet was trying to calm down, but she couldn’t stop the fit of giggling fits we were all currently experiencing as she turned to the doctor. “If you don’t think Arizona will ever fight again after a ‘minor’ injury like this, then you really don’t know us very well at all.”

“She tore apart all the muscles throughout her forelegs, are you sure you’re married?” The doctor was completely skeptical, he had little reason to be. Velvet and I fought like a married couple, Paprika preferred openly affectionate gestures. “I thought that as her wives that you would be more worried about her health and would take this information seriously. It’s amazing that she could even hug you as hard as she has managed.”

“Oh we’re taking it seriously alright, with exactly a single grain of salt. Sweetcakes will know what to do with that.” Velvet stated merrily. “Paprika, be a dear and check over Arizona to see if you need to rub her muscles back into order. Our wife has an impressive natural regenerative quirk that makes her quite hard to keep down.”

Paprika ducked down out of sight and came back up at the side of the bed wearing a white hat with a red cross and fake antlers on it. I rolled my eyes as Paprika started to rub at my legs gently, then she began poking and prodding them oddly.

“I didn’t mean dear as in D E E R, I meant D E A R love.” Even as she said it Velvet was giggling a bit, even as she held an ice pack to her head. “Honestly, you’re so silly…”

“Meep?” Queried Paprika flicking her ears in my direction.

“Nah, still numb.” I answered.

“That’s also another thing I’m going take issues with.” The doctor seemed a little high strung, he should relax like what Paprika is doing to my left leg as she gently ran her hooves over it and prodded it a few times until I could start actually feeling it. It was painful, but not ‘Jaded’ levels of ridiculously painful that you’ll just have to tolerate beyond all reason. “All she says is ‘meep’, that is not even a language! It is a single noise, she doesn’t even add variance to how she says it and it is always the same every time! How can you decipher anything from your wife when that is the only thing she does aside from hugging and snuggling everything that moves?!”

“Oh come now, Paprika does not cuddle everything that moves… though she will eventually get around to doing that eventually. She has yet to actually achieve the feat in question and it would be an exaggeration to say that she has and it is the only things she’ll cuddle, she’ll also cuddle things that don’t move and might have seemingly moved at some point. Though hugging a cherufe still covered in lava was not one of her best moments, she still did it and recovered from the incident.” It was things like this that made Velvet worth being married to. “Besides, just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean you have to be afraid of it. That said… meep.”

Paprika threw a salute as she poked my leg and I jolted and started to move around my left foreleg and even flexed my hoof. She ran off to carry out Velvet’s rather precise orders.

“Okay my left foreleg is working and I can walk out on this.” I said waving said leg at the longma doctor who just stared at it with disbelief. “I can feel it and everything, like a mild case of hypothermia or backlash from my own attacks were going to stop me! Sure it currently feels like its being dipped in boiling water, but that’ll go away in a few days at best.”

“How did she do that?! There is no possible way she could have gotten you’re nervous system back in working order just by prodding your leg!” Almost didn’t have the heart to tell him that Paprika knew what she was doing with us when it came to our health, I think Paprika could even teach Pom a few things and that might go far better than forcing her through combat exercises.

I slowly faded the doctor’s rant out of my mind, he wasn’t saying anything important and Velvet would get my attention if he did.

Our cute wife needs to do something as personal time instead of focusing all her efforts on us. She’s sweet and all, but I fear Paprika will run herself into the ground eventually. That’s even if doing stuff for us makes her inexorably happy, we should start doing more nice things for her instead of taking too much advantage of her love for us.

Paprika was technically certified as a nursemaid given how many little brothers and sisters she has, that and she knew a few really good shiatsu techniques. Explains why she knew exactly where to hit Velvet in the kidney to do the least amount of damage while stunning her. Paprika was quite talented and special, perhaps a little ‘too’ special sometimes.

Paprika’s parents might only get a week to themselves once a year, but they certainly always made the most of it. Alpacas naturally don’t do the thing while a hembra is pregnant, makes me wonder if Paprika would be less affectionate if we ever find a way to put a cria or two in her.

Judging how Pepper Paca treated her husband and how many children they have, I don’t think we could stop Paprika from loving us any less than she does and giving her children would give her other things to focus on. Otherwise Paprika was going to be insatiable in her absolute need to give us affectionate gestures.

We had some good in-laws that knew how to love, I can accept Kuril if Velvet will accept Grace and I don’t see why she wouldn’t. As for Paprika’s father Tamale, that guy was a legendary Macho. I kind of thought it was cool that the male term for an alpaca was the word macho.

Maybe Ollie and Fred take requests? I didn’t know how she fights, yet, but being one of the key bearers meant Ollie was pretty much guaranteed to be incredibly tough on some scale.

Paprika eventually popped up with two plastics sacks in her mouth and she had three large spoons and one tiny one for Tinsel. Tinsel took his spoon and seemed to vibrate in place as he waited for what was coming.

Like Velvet, Tinsel might incidentally be picking up her well known addiction to certain types of food.

“Really Velvet?” I stated as I watched Paprika produce two tubs of ice cream, one was strawberry cheesecake and the other was rocky road. Velvet immediately had the rocky road in her hooves and started going to town for vacation and an extended stay.

“Well excuse me if I’m running a mild fever after using up so much ice, my body temperature is high and I need to cool it down somehow!” By ingesting massive amounts of ice cream, did Velvet ever stop to consider why I considered fluff butt to be an applicable insult for her? “These ice packs are only working externally, I need to cool down my insides as well!”

“I would say no to this, but you’ve already consumed a quarter of the ice cream.” Yeah, the doctor wasn’t happy about how fast Velvet was going through the ice cream as soon as it was within her hooves.

“Slow down Velvet!” So much for me getting any rocky road with her hogging it all, I liked the strawberry cheesecake flavor anyway. “I know ice cream is one of your vices, basically your major one, but you could at least savor it!”

Only Tinsel had a chance of getting some rocky road at this point, because only he could be adorable enough to get some off of Velvet.

I dug into the ice cream tub that didn’t occupy Velvet’s attention as I waited for Paprika to get the feeling back in my right foreleg. That was going to take a bit of doing for Paprika considering I used my right foreleg far harder than when I did it with my left.

Sure ropes may help prevent me from burning my hooves due to the friction backlash, but it doesn’t help my muscles when I actually hit something or throw out my hoof at thin air hard enough to sprain something.

I could almost practice mach attacks all I like as long as I don’t hit anything, it’s just too bad I can’t shoot fireballs out of my hooves doing this like Tianhuo probably could with half the effort. The pressure waves I fire would have to be powerful enough on their own.

-Different room, Jacky-

“There we go, now can we leave?” I wanted to get into the temple of dark flames as soon as possible, I would certainly need Gene for it. He could be my eyes if I didn’t qualify as an honorable enough fighter in the eyes of the mountain.

“You might want to have Sweetcakes finish healing his chest, but Gene should be good to go otherwise.” The female longma suggested and I knew where our next stop would be.

Sweetcakes was healing most of the fighters and the longma were hiring them for a disaster that’s likely not related to me. Whatever Teatime was going to do, he was going to have problems with all the supplementary elements in the city being hired by the Huoshan Guard.

Of the fighters hired, Jock Hawk wasn’t one as he was on the watch list for his interactions with Shocking Awe and he disappeared as soon as he could walk. That guy is joining those GODLESS agents, of that I have no doubt. Jock obviously has a big grudge against Arizona and something to prove, not a good combinations for a friendly rivalry.

“Right, come on Gene, let’s get you up and moving.” I put his left foreleg around my left shoulder and lifted him off the bed. I almost dropped him and his weight slammed down on top of me. “Ow…”

“Give me a moment Captain.” I could hear the loving tone in his voice where no one else would be able to.

“Come on Gene, I’ll be your crutch as long as you’ll be mine.” The tiny smile on his beak made me smile as well.

“We’re more than crutches for one another Jacky.” He said softly. “Now we have to get back to the treasure hunting.”

“Music to my hearing holes.” I said as I helped him out of the room.

-Lower Tier, Tavern, Flotsam-

“I… am so… sorry!” After the tavern brawl, I was a little surprised how well I held myself. Not having rear legs was an advantage even if I couldn’t buck people in the face.

I didn’t think this place was enough of a bar that incidentally knocking over a chair would cause such a large fight. At least Tianhuo protected Pom quite viciously, so there was some success there.

As for the friend of Gene’s brothers… Skelly was sitting on a pile of groaning bodies drinking from a bottle of alcohol to no ill effect at all. Given her state of existence, of which I would never wish to experience personally, she was unlikely to be affected by a large number of things.

“I accept your apology fully knowing what I do, now if only I wasn’t so disturbed by the act of a spirit drinking spirits.” You know Tianhuo, I don’t think Skelly could actually get drunk and is probably enjoying the alcohol for the flavor. The bottle was labeled pure honey mead and Vikings in general had a thing for the stuff. “Are you okay Pom?”

If I ever stopped being a pirate, I wanted to be a history teacher. I enjoyed learning all about various cultures and the histories behind their legends.

Skelly’s cutie mark was still working no matter her given appearance, which is strange considering the magical talent had to be tied to her spirit and not her body. The meaning behind her cutie mark was something that I had looked up.

The library… of course! A nice quiet place where Tianhuo and Pom can have a little bit of peace to bond. It was also a place where Tianhuo might not be interrupted by the guards or any local crime.

“I-I-I’m fine…” The cowering Pom squeaked out, she had five knocked out beings around her. One of them was a minotaur. I didn’t see what happened, but I’m beginning to believe that Arizona and Velvet might have a point about her not fully living up to her capabilities. “I’m more worried about my beasties though…”

Pom’s whole slew of familiars were out and about with the Huoshan Guard, they’d be getting treats for doing good work. Big Mama’s puppies were all being watched by Belfry.

I bet it has been a long time since Pom has been on her own like this and we were going to make this evening… evening… oh no!

I turned to Skelly and watched as the sun stopped filtering into the room and Skelly’s flesh disappeared much to the shock of the various patrons who stayed out of the fight. Said patrons were likely betting on the fight and a few of them were Huoshan Guards.

“Nobody panic!” Everyone froze at Tianhuo’s shout when someone was about to scream. “Skelly, as an honored general and guest from Minos, If you would calmly sit down at the table I will gladly take care of this mess before it gets started.”

Hearing Tianhuo’s stressed words, the guards in the room nodded and immediately relaxed while eyeing the other patrons.

Skelly just shrugged, paid for the bottle she was drinking from and then sat down at a table next to Pom.

“I’m sorry about all this Pom, but I have a few things I need to deal with first. Please sit down and enjoy the hospitality of our wondrous home.” Tianhuo was sorrier that she couldn’t spend time with Pom, I could tell, but she was quite thoroughly chained to her duty. At least she had admirable traits for Pom to appreciate.

“I don’t think this is going so well big sis.” Nefer stated from my back, I turned and patted my brother on the head with my right hoof.

“It’ll be okay Nefer, I think things will work out.” We sat down with our new friends and started to eat slightly cooled dumplings.

Chapter fifty five, Recovery: Grasp.

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Chapter fifty five, Recovery: Clutch.

-The Volcano, Next Morning, Middle Tier, The Ardent Survivor, Gene-

I woke up this morning feeling okay, if a little bit hot. I was still in a bit of pain, but all things were good when Jacky was by my… huh. So that’s why I was feeling hot.

I slowly and carefully let go of Jacky and cleared my throat.

“Jacky.” I stated loudly and shook her shoulder roughly, she jerked awake.

“Huh, what, what is it Gene?” She said blearily.

“You’re on fire.” Not the first time it’s happened, but waking up in bed with Jacky on fire scared me the last few times it’s happened. I just couldn’t emote how terrified I was to see Jacky burning alive, at least I knew why she always put on an ample amount of fire repellant before sleeping.

Sure Jacky’s curse is largely inactive when she sleeps, but that doesn’t mean it stops entirely.

“Oh… I’ll go get the fire extinguisher then, also is your brother contagious or was it always you lighting him on fire? Waking up on fire rarely happens to me more than once a year, so as you can imagine this year is pretty odd for me and I really don’t want to be suspicious of my favorite griffin here Gene.” Jacky stated as she calmly took two steps to one of the fifty fire extinguishers throughout the ship and quickly sprayed herself down as soon as she could comprehend how to use one. She was just waking up and it was best to let her take care of herself, she then sprayed down the burning sheets and sighed loudly. “Well my morning is starting off poorly, thankfully the fire extinguishers are using a modified formula to give me the equivalent of a full shower. Too bad it’s too expensive to use constantly for anything other than putting out fires or else the stallion that supplies them would have made a mint selling these. When they can be made cheaper, the guy will actually see some profit from someone other than me.”

Sure fifty fire extinguishers of varying types was several times the necessary requirement on a small ship like ours, but it was definitely a worthwhile, if expensive, investment on our part.

All the fire extinguishers on the Ardent Survivor could cleanse anyone of just about anything, they were powerful enough to destroy bubblegum and wouldn’t destroy hair or feathers. They weren’t as needed to cleanse things with Savannah’s amulet, but the amulet didn’t apparently doesn’t work on fire.

“No, I can honestly say that Flamberge has lit himself on fire with his sword more than a few thousand times. With varying incidents not being related to his sword or anyone else at all.” I just sat there staring at Jacky dripping with foam and the edges of her beak curved upwards. “It really helped him learn how to use his sword correctly.”

“Like what you see?” Jacky asked. I was enjoying the show at least, even if some parts of her were slightly burnt. She flicked her tail sending some of the foam flying off it. “I’ll go grab a towel, fire extinguishers are always so darn annoying to use as a substitute bathing implement in the morning.”

“You’re always smoking hot Jacky, even when you aren’t on fire.” I loved my disaster magnet all the same no matter how she looked, which was usually bedraggled and her feathers needing to be straightened out.

On worse occasions she was usually covered in cooking oil, pine needles, nacho cheese, tree sap, A1 salmon sauce and etcetera, sometimes in combination or all at once. She always finds a way to make it work somehow.

-An hour later, breakfast, Sweetcakes-

“What are we doing, where do we need to be at, how will we win this?” My questions were recognize by all and Jacky looked like she was going to answer them momentarily. As soon as she was done with chewing her pancakes.

“Tianhuo is already preparing evacuation plans to get all civilians and anyone that can’t fight up to the palace. Unlike the palace in Saddle Arabia, this one is completely armored and meant to take heavy hits from supernatural forces. The longma don’t kid around with their security measures.” Jacky started off looking very much like the leader among us. “It is apparently a fact that it can handle a large scale shadow horde siege as a last line of defense. Don’t know about the shadow horde personally, but they are what Arizona’s group is going to be dealing with eventually.”

“Yeah and I’m being dragged into it kicking and screaming.” Pom the lambkin sounded rather defeated about that, shouldn’t she see her possible or eventual position as a chosen world class savior as an honor? “Nothing for it though, if the shadows get free then nowhere would be safe. Cowering and running away would be entirely pointless with an existential threat like the shadow monsters. I haven’t seen any yet, but I really don’t want to meet any considering the horror stories behind them.”

“We’re not going to plan anything big, but Clockwork is either going to make his move while Gene and I are still inside the temple, before is not as likely as afterwards is.” Jacky pulled out a roll of parchment and spread it out on the table. “We need at least one person on each tier capable of taking care of an emergency situation, whether it is dealing with GODLESS agents or destroying whatever Clockwork is going to use to launch a city wide attack. If that is indeed what he will be going for, then we have absolutely no idea what his manufacturing capability is or how much stuff he has managed to produce over this past week.”

“To that end, I think I can definitely take Dispel out and I can maybe stop Shocking cold. As for Teatime, it depends on how good he is at magic and if he can account for my dark magic.” Oleander announced, I eyed the book floating next to her with contempt. That book was quite foul to all my senses and I wasn’t even touching it, yet I could feel it as if I were. “I will be watching the stairs leading into the palace with Fred, I can coordinate everyone’s efforts from there with magical signals or at least provide long range bombardment.”

“Ollie has good aim, AND SO DO I HEHEHEHE.” Fred’s demented chuckling made my spine crawl, why were we allied with these two again? Ollie I could understand, she was friendly, the book not so much. “We alone can protect the palace easily enough and Ollie can let me out of the book if needed to provide her close up protection. ANYONE WHO WOULD BE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FACE MY MIGHTY FORM UP CLOSE IS IN FOR A WORLD OF HURT, mostly because they threaten my dear lovely Ollie and doing so is grounds for a mauling that even a flying snuggle badger can’t match.”

A few of those here shuddered as if remembering something awful, I looked towards them and flicked an ear.

“Hayburger…” Arizona muttered and Velvet nodded while cringing.

“You do tend to devastate a lot of things when I let you out Fred, stick to destroying our enemies and leave the poor surroundings alone this time.” Oleander stated flatly while giving the book a stern look. “Anyway we have to warn you about the runes, the Huoshan Guard has already been informed about this and now you are being told too. Throughout the city Teatime has placed a number of runes, we’ve only found five so far and we can’t erase them unless we find a majority or the master rune before they are activated. They are inscribed to be impossible to remove due to passive magic at the moment, but once the grid of runes becomes active they’ll actually be impossible to remove until they are used up.”

“Got any clue on what they are going to do?” Fortitude put a hoof over Skelly’s, the currently normal looking pony looked at us all with a frown. She was obviously a victim of runes and she didn’t like hearing this in the slightest. “Magical runes are not a very good things to hear about, especially when used for ill intentions.”

“Oh we certainly do, none of it is good news though and it’s going to be quite bad.” If the dark magic user says it would be bad, then Ollie was likely understating the problem. “Even knowing only five of the runes being used, thanks to the efforts of the Huoshan Guards to locate them, we know what formulas Teatime could activate and in what given range of any of the runes.”

“How bad are we talking here? I know we reindeer don’t use runes very much, but the number of devastating things one can do with them even at an intermediate level is mind boggling.” Velvet was right to be concerned, magical symbols were known in various places around the world for horrible things. It led to many trying to stamp out the many practices of their use.

“Explosions, one way teleportation and fire nullification fields. All of those would be devastating for various reasons, but every single rune he has placed down can possibly do all three. So long as the explosion portion is used last.” Ollie started off gesturing at the five points marked on the map. “Only one affect can be ongoing at any of the given locations these runes can be found within a certain distance. Once active, using them for explosions will immediately destroy the rune at a given location. Otherwise they can be used to teleport someone or something to that given area or can deny longma the use of their strongest abilities. Unless I can locate every last rune before they are used, I can’t disable them. Be thankful that the explosions won’t be big enough to destroy the whole city as they have a limited area of effect, but they can still do a lot of harm and even knock down a few buildings by just destroying their structural integrity. The runes could even be set up to cause a nasty series of domino effects.”

“How many of these runes would you say there are?” Arizona looked at the map carefully.

“At a minimal estimate sixty seven in all, up to a maximum estimate one hundred and three in the given time frame with one master rune binding them all together. Destroy the master rune and the whole grid falls apart.” Ollie shook her head sadly. “If Teatime is as smart as Jacky says he is, then he likely has the master rune inscribed into something solid and unmoving on his airship. Once activated it doesn’t matter if a rune is used in an explosion, at that point every rune can do the spells I already stated at will and it doesn’t matter if the grid is no longer complete. The master rune itself can do these spells even if all other runes are destroyed, but he can't make more runes until the master is either disabled or destroyed. I’m almost kind of impressed by the forethought he put into all this, but then again this guy does make mechanical golems.”

“Can he hold the whole city hostage?” Asked Nefer who looked fairly worried as he tore into his fried fish.

I was partaking in my own fried fish, the frying batter was just as good as it was back home.

“That should be his opening move, otherwise he’s a complete maniac and we will have to deal with the damage as it comes in hard and fast throughout the city.” You’re not giving us a lot of confidence here Ollie. “It’s kind of scary to think that he’s managed to set all this up almost without being seen, but there is some good news.”

“What would that be?” Gene stopped nibbling at a biscuit with his beak.

“I can use runes too, with Fred’s help I can possibly cancel out one of the three spells, but I won’t be able to stop them all. I… need some advice on what to focus on the most.” Ollie already told us the three options to choose from and she could only hamper one of them. “I’ll get on it immediately after our meeting here is done.”

“You definitely need to try and cancel the fire nullification fields.” Jacky answered immediately. “The longma need the ability to light up and fly, they are more effective in the air than when grounded. Teleportation could only move so much mass at a time, it can drain unicorns quickly. You said the explosions will be of a limited range, the longma need their ability to fight and defend their home to their fullest.”

“Is everyone in agreement with that?” Ollie asked tentatively.

“No, preventing the explosions might give us time to evacuate more people without injuries getting in the way.” It seems Arizona was of a differing opinion. “I know the longma can fight without their fire, at least I know Tianhuo can to great effect.”

“I believe that teleportation is important!” Fortitude was going to put in his own thoughts. “Teatime will have a harder time attacking us from everywhere at once. We do not want him teleporting the other GODLESS agents where we are not ready to defend ourselves.”

“Let’s just call this what it is, a massive headache!” Jacky stated. “It is better that things don’t start with the longma on the back hoof, if they can fight at full strength and fly then they can deal with problems far faster than we can. If they are stuck on the ground they’ll be incapable of getting to places fast enough to save people.”

“Okay, the fire nullification is definitely sounding much better to deal with.” Arizona then nodded. “I side with Jacky.”

“I still say teleportation can be very bad if stronger explosives get teleported in, but we are needing all the warriors we can get and Jacky is right. If the longma are mobile, then they can better aid in protecting their home.” Fortitude also agreed. “I am guessing that dealing with the fire nullification is the best option, is it the easiest to counter?”

“Yes, it is. We already checked the central staircase, it is rune free and guards have been watching it fervently. Fortitude and Arizona will be in the upper tier of the city, Jacky and Gene will need their strength close by if Teatime targets them coming out of the temple. Paprika and Velvet will be in the lower tier, middle tier will be mostly watched by hired fighters and Skelly. Sweetcakes and Pom will be at the hospital to assist the medics in moving people should the need arise. Tianhuo will be busy commanding the Huoshan Guard.” Ollie gave my orders and I nodded to them, I would be willing to defend the hospital. “Flotsam, as soon as she is done getting supplies, will take the Ardent Survivor and have it high in the air out of danger as Gene and Jacky are entering the temple.”

-Nefer-

“What will I be doing?” I wanted to know why Captain Jacky ordered me to stay on the ship this morning.

“You'll be with us.” Jacky came over and rubbed my head affectionately. “You’ll be hiding at the entrance of the temple and will be there to give us an early warning."

Author's Note

This... simply took a lot of thought.

A Mass Effect has happened here and some dice throwing may have been involved.

Chapter fifty five, Recovery: Clasp.

-The Volcano, Midday, Outside Temple of Dark Flames, Jacky-

“Here we are again, once more unto the breach…” Even as I said this, I wasn’t moving forward.

One does not willingly enter a magical lotus eater without being slightly insane. What did it say about me that I took my first step towards the stairs intending to do so? Possibly that I’m a true La Perm in spirit, my tolerance for pain was getting pretty ludicrous.

I was shivering until a wing came up around my back and curled around my left shoulder affectionately, I looked down to Gene as he looked up at me. Gene turned to Nefer.

“Come inside a ways, but don’t follow us down Nefer. Stay within view of the entrance.” The cat threw us a salute and his leaves rustled slightly. “Stay safe and don’t do anything to endanger yourself. I know this might get boring for you, so soak up some sunlight while you can.”

“You be careful, you’re my family!” Our favorite plant cat followed us in, but stopped after following us far enough inside.

I took up Gene’s tail in my right hand and we walked down together, into the depths where the darkness of the magical lotus eater swallowed us alive.

-Nefer-

I watched as Captain and Gene disappeared from sight, I strained my ears until I couldn’t hear the sound of the captain’s feet, the clack of Gene’s talons or the soft thuds of his rear paws against the stairs.

Turning back to the entrance, I soaked up what little light I could get down here. It took me a while to notice something off about the entrance, mostly because we couldn’t have seen it coming in.

It was already too late for me to go after Jacky and Gene, I’ll have to wait for them to come back and then I would tell them about it.

Well at least I hope they’ll come back.

-Jacky-

“You know, I’ve been thinking about something.” It was something of a curiosity that had been niggling at the back of my head since we came here.

“What is it?” Gene asked as we both somehow ended up in the room from before. Three mirrors, four doors to our worst nightmares and we were suddenly standing a distance from one another. At least this was consistent.

“Aside from the key of the longma or the gem we’re after, why did the GODLESS agent originally come here? It makes little sense that Teatime would go to so much effort to prepare an attack on the entire city. To what end would he need this much preparation? We’re missing something here.” I knew we were inside it now and that you couldn’t trust any of your senses at all in the dream like quality that places like this had. I was still going to discuss this with Gene and act like I had little to no paranoia about what was going on around me. “Why go to all this trouble? What we’re after here is not actually worth all the effort and resources that Teatime seems to be putting into this, we even know he can’t bypass the magical lotus eater here. What is Clockwork, or the other agents with him, really after aside from possible riches and or ancient artifacts? He only took interest in the temple after we investigated it according to Tianhuo’s guards.”

The mountain was definitely watching us right now, I could almost feel it.

“Those are all good questions Jacky. I have some of my own, was Dispel in the Fiery Fights just to aid in distracting us? Shocking apparently is an adrenaline junkie, I got a good read on him and he’s only in it for the fighting and the viciousness involved therein. So his participation wasn’t suspicious in the slightest, being with GODLESS makes him a lot of enemies and Shocking enjoys all the fighting that will come his way from that.” Gene looked around at the all the doors and then looked behind me. “Dispel doesn’t seem the type and Arizona noted he seemed bored with the competition until Pom proved problematic by happenstance or luck. I trust Arizona to have at least some accurate idea of Dispel’s character from basic observations. Also something is different here, have you noticed?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of obvious. So I was honorable enough to just see… us… what are we supposed to do here?” I turned around and looked at the only mirror that currently showed a reflection, it was us standing together with me still holding Gene’s tail and we had dead looks in our glowing eyes. We looked like zombies and given that Skelly existed… I’d rather not go there or think about Blanks, the pony O and O equivalent, possibly existing either. “That is a bit unsettling. Anyway, I don’t know much about Dispel, as far as Fortitude knows he wants to destroy everything he considers a blight, evil or unholy by his personal definition. Skelly is considered one or more of those things and she’s the nicest skeleton I’ve ever seen. Mind you that pirate skeletons are likely to get up and stab you when you turn your back on them, because Pirate’s do occasionally get curses that vaguely work like that without actually dying.”

“Good thing Skelly is a Viking then. Just know that everything will be okay Jacky, as I’m here with you.” Gene came over and comforted me with a hug and I snuggled him up against myself. “We can do this… now if only we knew what we were doing. We fought honorably in the Fiery Fights so that explains the minor change in the room, but what else did we hear about this place again? What does the new mirror change about all this?”

“The only thing I can think of is, reflect on what you see when it comes into… sight… we first appeared in this room not facing that location specifically and it’s happened again.” I looked at the reflection of us in the one mirror where the stone arch used to be. Taking part in those fights led to this oddity of the fourth mirror. “Gene, come on, I think I have a hunch about what to do! Get to the left of me and let me grab your tail.”

“Wait… if we’re going to reflect one another, then shouldn’t I be on the…” Gene’s eyes widen fractionally and he took up positon so that we were opposite of our counterparts. “Oh… I see it now.”

“Start walking forward.” We did so at even pace, our reflections eventually copied our movements when we got closer.

Once we walked into the mirror meeting our copies, I felt the oddity of my beak going through that of my mirror image. Everything became blurry, it was as if we were surround by walls of glass in a world of light for a few seconds. It was so bright and hard to see anything.

Then everything flashed a painful red color that blinded me, I released Gene’s tail as I stumbled and fell forward in shock. I felt my talons gripping something with the consistency of powder as I caught myself and stopped my beak from hitting the floor.

I’m surprised my beak wasn’t blunter after everything that’s happened to me throughout my life.

“I think we’re somewhere else, and I don’t think this is part of an illusion.” Gene grabbed at his head and looked about while wincing as I blinked my eyes.

Picking myself up, I looked around with caution. The floor in our immediate surroundings was covered in a thick greyish volcanic ash, the area we were in was round and lit with an orange glow that seemed to be moving.

Behind us was a wall of solid black stone, was it obsidian? As for ahead of us… I could tell we were in The Volcano itself and yet some form of magic was definitely preventing convection from ruining our day. The rocky obsidian walls were filled with veins of bright liquid rock, lining the hallway before us that led into a larger room.

The hallway itself was semispherical, the veins of magma we were seeing were being held back by glass. At least it looked like glass from my perspective or was a clear glass like substance enough to be called as such. I could see spots where there were holes for magma to spill into the tunnel that weren’t covered in partially solidified rock.

Those softly glowing orange circles, beyond the decidedly not glass, were lighting up the hallway from above. Said hallway was set up to kill anything that came through here, though dragons and longmas might be an exception to that.

If whatever the glass stuff was that is keeping the magma at bay were to suddenly disappear… then the magma would spew forth quickly from those given areas. We wouldn’t even have an opportunity to scream as the heat would kill us long before the magma or toxic fumes could actually touch us.

“I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this, but the only option is to move forward so…” Gene started forward and I followed him closely looking through the glass tunnel at the molten thousand degree lights that shined on us softly from above.

I turned my gaze to the shifting floor below us through the flat fake glass flooring we walked along.

Once we reached the end of the hallway, we came upon a large room. Said room was filled with what is clearly a long lived dragon’s hoard worth of stuff and at the top of said room was a bubble dome of more of that strange glass and an unnerving amount of softly glowing magma hanging openly above our heads.

We were clearly not safe or in charge of this situation.

I cleared my throat and went to say something, while hoping to not get a response.

“You, who now comes into my domain, I know why you are here.” A deep rumbling, yet vaguely feminine, voice cut me off before I could and I swallowed loudly.

“Are you… The Volcano?” I asked quietly.

“Yes… I am he who became one with the land, I wonder how little Scales fared? The dragon lord with the name of Torch is in command of the dragons now and has been since carrying himself quite well when he last visited my body… so I think Scales didn’t do too well or lasted very long at all. Leadership is not just for the strong, but also for the wise, as I’m sure Scales has learned when things tipped the balance too far out of favor for them. You already know me, but let me introduce myself properly, I am the spirit of Huoshan.” The voiced let out a hissing bit of laughter and the room rumbled. It was both calm and ancient sounding, that and the massive amount of magma alone made us quite sure that we should be on our best behaviors. “It is by my will that you are not dead. I can kill you in an instant, so do not test my patience.”

Gene and I were slightly worried about that as we came closer together.

“Though you need not worry too much, I have gained a lot of patience to test since I entered my death sleep. You are here for the cursed Dragon Burst Gem, the gem that ultimately comes from my own blood in my efforts to create a new dragon bloodstone.” Huoshan gave us a more humorless sounding laugh. “I succeeded, much to my horror, but the power of infinite explosive fire created from magic and concentrated dragon blood is not so easily controlled and it has sadly harmed my children numerous times before. That is why it has been left to my domain ever since and is to be considered cursed despite having aided my children in duress. Even the bloodstone scepter of the dragon lords would be hard pressed to contain its power, that was made cheaply by the first dragon lord for the express purpose of guiding our race towards a better tomorrow. My tomorrows have personally ended.”

I tried to say something, but he continued.

“Making a dragon bloodstone as pure as possible was not one of my better ideas and the dragon bloodstone scepter cannot be replicated or used by anyone other than dragons. My personal gem is a different case as it can be used by anyone, definitely to their own detriment.” That’s nice to know Huoshan. “You also seek the key of the longma… something that will always belong in the hooves of my beloved children.”

“Well at least we now know for sure that you weren’t imagining things.” Gene stated plainly as he turned towards me.

“Yes, I’ve been watching for quite a while. My blood is both in and on this mountain, for the longma have been watching you just as closely as I. I also watch over Torch’s little spark; she’s quite adorable, it is so nice to have a guest like Ember. A dragoness that’s interested in learning to use her brain alongside her natural brawn, the future is far brighter for it as Torch learned has the lesson I taught long ago.” Okay, I was seeing a pattern in his speech here and I just had to call him out on it. “I may have an answer to your conundrum as to what GODLESS is doing here, nothing escapes my sight so long as it is close to me.”

“Before you get to that. Torch carrying himself, balance being tipped on a dragon named Scales, Ember being a little spark, dragon burst gem with an explosive power… like a volcano." I put my fists on my hips and glared at the… wait, where was I supposed to glare?! "You have a serious thing for puns don’t you?”

“I have to get some entertainment in retirement somehow… so don’t make me out to be a molehill.” Huoshan replied. “I hear that it is quite hard to do when I’m as large as a mountain.”

“Ugh…” I grunted at how horrible he was, then I realized something. “Uh, would Ember happen to be a princess?”

“Yes, of the current dragon lord. Though her title may change greatly with the next ‘Gauntlet of Fire’, I expect many great things from her.” Hearing a loud hum from Huoshan, we waited for him to finish thinking. “Ah yes, you are worried about your crew member… that sprawling Savannah. I think the grass is quite a bit brighter there. No, they have not met… yet.”

“Okay, getting back on track, what are those GODLESS guys up to really?” Help me out here, because Gene and I certainly didn’t know.

“Aside from wanting my treasures and what rightfully belongs to me and my children? They want to cause chaos, to sow dissent, they will try to turn the dragons against the pony princesses. To that end I ask that you help protect young Ember or my children might suffer.” Well that wasn’t very foreboding at all. “Now I shall ask of you this, do you wish to take the longma key that could save the world or do you want the Dragon Burst Gem you have sought?”

“A test of character then, that should be an obvious choice, right Jacky?” Gene actually gave me a worried look as I stayed silent and didn't look his way. ”Jacky?”

Author's Note

The spirit of Huoshan is at the heart of The Volcano, but the heart of Huoshan is in the Longma themselves.

A coin flip and a few dice rolls later... okay, got it!

Chapter fifty five, Recovery: Giving it your all.

-The Volcano, evening, Temple of Dark Flames staircase, Jacky-

We both silently walked up the staircase, Gene and I.

A decision was made and now I was contemplating if it was a good idea.

I had made that decision and as soon as we saw light going up the stairs, I thought about the things we learned from Huoshan.

Huoshan told us the GODLESS agents would either seek to capture Ember or go after the longma royal family, not to mention Teatime was going to be gunning for me.

Honestly, I was a bit terrified to see what Teatime would send after me this time. He was only at the bar to scout things out before Sweetcakes attacked him and his... acquaintances that tolerated each other’s presence at the very least.

Teatime’s airship wasn’t in the air dock where it had been sitting before we came in here, which sent up plenty of red flags for me. Probably should have asked Ollie or, if I could stomach listening to his accent, Fred for more information on how to identify where runes could be. The fact that runes could blend into a given area when not in use made them hard to spot, but not invisible.

“Hey, Captain, Mr. Eric, what happened in there?” Little Tem, bless his sweet heart and bright eyes, he came up to us looking a little worried. “Did you find the treasure?”

“We found what we were looking for.” I answered and started to make my way towards the entrance. “Now let’s get out of…”

“Wait, don’t go up!” I paused at Nefer’s panicked tone and Gene focused his attention on our favorite quadrupedal feline crew member. “Look at the ceiling at the entrance.”

Looking up, I saw something that chilled my blood. Teatime had laid a trap at the entrance for us. The rune looked rather innocuous, given its location it was no wonder that we missed it coming in. I reached into my ammo pouch and took out a rock.

Instead of pulling out my bow out from my cannon was, wherever it went when it was tucked away, I chucked the rock so that it landed beneath the glowing rune. Darn, I had hoped that would have set the rune off.

“What are the chances that it’s set to perform a single one way teleportation and the first person that enters the field of influence gets teleported straight into a cell? Well it might take more than one person if we’re standing close enough to one another.” There were some things I should consider about Teatime, like exactly how far up I needed to push his threat rating. He was definitely the brains over Dispel and Shocking. “How are we going to trip it? It certainly looks active.”

“I’ll…” Gene sounded like he was about to volunteer, I didn’t like that or how quiet we were acting towards one another.

“If I get us all captured, then I’m very sorry Captain!” Yelled Nefer as he charged forward up the steps.

“Get back here!” I tried to stop him with a lunge and collided with Gene as the cat dodged our attempts to grab him. I yelled after our favorite plant cat that ate soil and was so adorably innocent a lot of the time. “Nefer!”

As soon as Nefer was under the rune, a sphere of magic swallowed him up. He was just gone, I rushed up the stairs and looked up at the rune. I stopped just short of the circular scorch mark that was its field of effect.

I spent the next thirty or so seconds of just standing there staring at it, it started to blink ominously and then it started shining and was getting brighter by the second. Gene roughly grabbed me by the shoulders digging his claws into me straight through my down and pushed with all his might to launch us through the entrance before an explosion collapsed it behind us.

-One minute earlier, The Grand Time, Current Location:???, Nefer-

Landing on metal face first hurt, but I quickly got up on my paws and looked around. I saw Captain’s rock, bars and lots of pipes. The room seem empty otherwise, except for the cage I was currently in.

I pressed my face against the bars and my whiskers let me know that the gap was wide enough for me to squeeze through. I think this cage was meant more for Jacky or Gene.

I forced my face and head between bars, then twisted the right half of my body slightly to get my front right forepaw through the gap, then I started pulling rest of myself through the bars once I got my other foreleg through.

With one hard pull against the bars with my forelegs, and a sharp push of my hind legs as well, I shot forward with a small popping noise and rolled into the wall with a solid thud. Everything was upside down now… I think I’m sitting on my head.

Mewling in pain and flicking my trident tail out of my face, I rolled away from the wall and got up on my paws looking towards the entrance in a panic.

I hope nobody heard that!

My left ear flicked as I heard someone coming beyond the closed door. I looked around for somewhere to hide… not much in this metal room. So behind the door or one of the random pipes? The pipes were too high up for me to reach and I don’t think Teatime is going to be nice to me if he catches me here.

Behind the door it is!

The door slapped open squishing my body into the corner painfully, I quickly covered my mouth with my paws and tried not to scream as one of my three tail tips was crushed into the corner painfully. My eyes watered, but I stayed brave and strong like a pirate!

Teatime trotted into the room with his head held high and his eyes closed. He opened his eyes after he said a few words.

“It seems to me that I’ve caught… a rock! I go to all that trouble to set up a trap and they beat it with a rock?! Maybe I should actually consider learning that parrot’s name…” Teatime seemed quite upset to see only a rock in the cage, I thought about how upset he’ll be when he sees me and the fact that I got free so fast. “That rune was set to only activate when something living passes under it! Blast it all, I could have gotten a bargaining chip from this, how did they fool the rune? I guess I’ll have to take whatever treasures that parrot found from her during my assault. First things first, I’ll detonate the rune there since it’s compromised.”

While he’s busy focusing on the Captain’s rock and making his horn glow, I carefully shifted the door slightly so it wasn’t hurting my tail. I grabbed the end of the door and clambered up it as silently as I could. I jumped off the top of the door and squeezed myself into a small spot above the pipes.

I did not want to run out into the hallway and have to fight those dangerous mechanical ponies by myself. I need to figure out what to do next, I’m not much of a fighter and my only weapon is still in the cage. I’m sure the Captain will want her rock back at least.

“It is unfortunate that Dispel is the only one capable of fighting at the moment, fixing his armor is always quite tedious and cuts into my genius planning!” Teatime turned around and walked towards the door while grabbing it with his magic. “We could have used Shocking and his new minion on this, at least they’ll put up a good defense in case we’re boarded. Otherwise they are not ready to do any active fighting.”

The guy sure likes to hear the sound of his own voice. He shut the door behind himself as he left.

I stayed up in my spot and counted up to sixty.

Wait… if I was waiting a full minute, shouldn’t I count down from sixty?

So counted down too just to be sure I was doing things right.

Not hearing or seeing any sign that someone was going to open the door or was coming in, I carefully hopped down to floor trying to create as little noise as possible and made a thudding sound.

I froze as I heard the sound of hooves hitting the floor out in the hallway and they made metallic sounds. They got louder and then they started getting softer.

Okay, so mechanical ponies don’t investigate sounds, that’s a good thing. I guess airships make a lot of creaking or groaning sounds so I guess it made sense that they wouldn’t investigate every little sound, so I was probably safe for the moment.

I wouldn’t be able to climb up to the crawl space above the pipes without opening the door though, that was… bad. I want to go with bad.

The golem ponies might actually investigate open doors, the top of the cage was clearly visible upon entrance and I couldn’t get up to the pipes from there.

What would Captain Blackcap do? Well she’d be in the cage to start off with and her curse would probably start destroying the ship just by her being on it and a whole lot of weird and amazing stuff would happen. My family is so awesome!

While I’m thinking of it…

I approached the cage and turned so that I could thrust my split tail through the bars, then I focused enough to get one of my three tail tips wrapped around the rock. I moved away from the cage with a weapon to use on something, but the metal ponies weren’t exactly fragile.

What could I do with this rock? Do I smash it against things or do I throw it? A rock is one of the most ancient tools in the world that anyone can use, but what to use it on? Oh I know!

The master rune is supposed to be on this ship, I can find it and destroy it!

No… wait… Shocking and that Jock guy are on the ship, if they don’t catch me then there’s a big chance that Teatime or the clockwork ponies will get me before I can do anything to the master rune.

Teatime is a unicorn, who would just lift into the air where I’d be helpless. Shocking would cruelly beat me up. Don’t know about Jock personally, but that guy wasn’t very friendly at all. Also if I get caught then I’d be a hostage… so I just won’t get caught. I already knew this would not be easy.

I have to be smart about this and think carefully, I don’t want to disappoint my family or big sis.

-The Volcano, Mountainside, Gene-

The entrance to the temple was sealed off… that wasn’t too horrible. Though I wonder if it felt like an itch to Huoshan, apparently he let us bypass a majority of the temple by teleporting us directly to his chamber in the middle of himself. Said teleportation was limited to anywhere inside of himself.

We spent a few minutes catching our breaths.

“Gene, go tell Flotsam that Nefer might be captured and on Teatime’s ship.” ‘Might’ was an iffy word to use here Jacky. Nefer was definitely trapped, we just didn’t know to what extent.

Various explosions happened in the distance, throughout the city we could hear the sounds of battle starting and saw something that made Jacky whimper both in fear and awe.

The front gates were blown away, destroyed by the biggest machine Teatime has ever made stomping through the rubble. I hurried to go meet up with Flotsam, Jacky could take care of herself from here.

-Jacky-

I stood there staring dumbly as Teatime made his thrust into the city, it seemed he was also teleporting various clockwork pony golems throughout various parts of the city.

“His entire airship…. is a freaking golem.” Yes, a giant six legged metal monstrosity with two large segmented tentacles that swatted the attacking longma away.

There were at least forty or so mechanical ponies rushing forward to attack after dropping out of the bottom of the slowly walking airship. The longma guards were reacting to the strangely forward offensive fairly well, I could see ice flying and a spot of yellow smashing her backside into the machines.

I pulled out my griffon mask and got a closer look, Velvet yelled something at Paprika and she nodded. Paprika broke off from attacking the machines and started to aid the Huoshan Guards in defending and moving the civilians up the central staircase towards the middle tier and a number of hired fighters starting to dig in there.

There were likely many situations across the entire city with Clockwork’s golem’s teleporting in. That wasn’t the worst of it, as large wyvern like machines came flying through the air on what looked to be powerful fans built into what looked like rotatable stiff metal wings. They were attacking the left and right arms of each tier of the city, counting ten for each arm at each tier. Their feet, long whip like metal tails and crushing mechanical jaws tore at their surroundings.

Then I spotted something that made things much worse, the golems Velvet was quickly defeating? Their destroyed parts were disappearing and within seconds a fresh golem dropped out of the airship. When Velvet turned her sights on the walking Airship, a crescent beam lashed out at her making her leap away and then skip off the air to avoid another beam that shredded its way through a building.

I could see Dispel Grace already leading a contingent of golem ponies out into the city to track down Ember. If Ember was as stubborn as I thought she was, she wouldn’t sit in the palace while all this action was going on and would want to get involved in the fighting.

“Hello Huoshan, prepare yourselves for a grand… old… time!” Teatime’s voice carried throughout the city as he stopped his airship momentarily to deliver those words. A large black bolt of energy hit The Grand Time rocking it back a bit, but did no damage. “You might have a powerful unicorn on your side, but can they keep it up long enough to actually do any damage?”

I didn’t know what to help with first and was terrified of that airship, that thing was built better than Hollow Heart’s Battle Tank and it can repair many clockwork golems in seconds.

I made my way along the ridge towards the central staircase where Oleander was already busy reading Fred to build up her power. Several Huoshan Guards were already assaulting the wyvern that was flying up here to deal with Ollie, and were taking serious injuries for her.

These wired wyverns were tough and fire resistant, it didn’t take a genius to guess that Teatime made all his golems like that on top of those partially disabled runes for city wide anti-fire fields.

“Okay, we can handle this...” Something shifted and the air felt... heavier.

I looked to the sky and saw the moon turning red.

“Horde leak, horde leak!” A soldier screamed while pointing to the base of the mountain where a rip in the air started forming. “We need firewalls!”

Author's Note

I know the previous page was uninteresting, but I'm almost done with arc two. This story is going to go a little bit into the next year. Might end at an estimate of seventy chapters.

Next: Huoshan Hellfire.

Teatime Clockwork's List of Machines.

Clockwork Golem(Pony variant): Machines that are shaped like ponies with cannons in their mouths, can do a variety of actions and or things.

Clockwork Golem(Beast variant): Four legged, fangs that bite and claws that catch, ghoulish and doglike these things are primarily melee focused and better armored than the pony variant. Made specifically to hunt down Jacky 'The Blackcap' Chickadee La Perm in Saddle Arabia and make it look like an act of nature.

Wired Wyvern Golem: Body shaped like a wyverns, wings like Mecha Ghidorah and a VTOL aircrafts proprotor fuse together. Relatively fast aerial attack units built to be tough, but they are much faster and more dangerous while on the ground. Weapons include prehensile bladed tail, building breaking jaws with working cannons, fans can blast bursts of heavy impact air while grounded and have bladed feet.

Huoshan Wired Wyvern variant made specifically heat resistant in case runes failed to stop Huoshan Guard from utilizing fire, their proprotors would have been easier to burn out otherwise.

The Grand Time: The previous airship having been destroyed in a freak, and completely unforeseeable, boulder accident. Teatime built his knew airship to be a giant mobile golem that works land, sea or air, even possibly underwater well enough to pass for a whale. Weapons include two high speed segmented combat tentacles, various cannons that can be manually controlled or worked by Clockwork golem and ????.

Golem quick repair factory feature only available while grounded or docked. Special tea nook has fancy teas from various parts of the world.

Chapter fifty six, Huoshan Hellfire: Sparkler.

Author's Note

Tianhuo faces the shadow horde.

Music- Let It Die, Yokozuna Kokina Boss Theme.

Chapter fifty six, Huoshan Hellfire: Sparkler.

-The Volcano, Front Gate-

A flood of shadows started spill out of the rip in the air near the base of the volcano. They spread out like a tidal wave and started to flow towards the nearest source of life, the city on the mountainside.

Teatime Clockwork was being stalled by Velvet spiking large pillars of ice at his walking airship, attempting to slow it down or pierce it. The two large tentacles swiped away the ice and the large airship slowly started pushing the reindeer back as she frantically dodged the cannon fire coming from it.

The civilians were in a state of panic, especially those that couldn’t fly and were being attacked by the wired wyverns.

Tianhuo delivered orders to several groups of longma that split off from her and Tianhuo came down for a landing outside the city and where the gate used to be.

She inhaled and took to standing up her right hind leg, her left hind leg propping up against it and her forelegs came together. Closing her eyes she calmly stood there and centered herself until the shadows climbed up over the edge.

The first shadow to see her was a snake with viscous looking fangs and a flared it’s hood.

The snake lunged forward with its mouth wide open and Tianhuo’s eyes snapped open and turned from orange to blood red, with a flash of her left hoof swing inwards the snakes head separated from its neck as it passed her oddly twisting body.

Tianhuo reoriented herself so she was standing upright and thrust her left hind leg at the ground. Only was it then that she ignited, her body becoming a burning conflagration as a wall of fire spread out behind her to cover the gap where the gate used to be.

Taking to standing on her left hind leg and holding her other limbs at the ready to block or attack, Tianhuo narrowed her eyes at the incoming shadows. Her hooves, tail, mane and the wings spreading out from her back all flared in a challenging gesture. Her entire being was fire and she hopped once or twice as she waited for the first attack.

Several more shadows jumped at Tianhuo, she didn’t move, the lesser shadows evaporated within a few feet of her smoldering form.

Tianhuo gestured at the few larger shadows that could withstand her light to come for her, they came at her fast.

She twisted under the mantis shadows left arm and cut it off with an upward swipe of her right hoof, she caught the bladed limb and with a quick spin she beheaded the beast using it.

Quickly throwing the dissipating limb into a shadow jaguar’s face, said limb pierced the shadows right eye and tore out a chunk of its head.

Tianhuo hopped over an owl bears swipe coming at her from the left and swung her solidified right wing of fire through its torso, bisecting the creature completely.

Landing and leaping up into a twirl Tianhuo kicked the leaping fanged frog like monster over the side of the cliff before it could hop over her firewall, she landed in a crouched and thrust her two hooves outwards. Her flaming hooves sent out blistering blasts of fire that ripped through the shadow horde monsters closing in on her in two wide cones of destruction that gave her some breathing room.

The shadows so far were only coming at Tianhuo from a semicircle in front of her and would soon start attacking her from all sides. The lesser shadows were started to edge around her and were trying to climb the walls.

Several monkey like shadows came at Tianhuo, she thrust her left hoof forward, swung her right around and then launched a kick into the head of the third. Each blow was met with a shadow dissolving, but Tianhuo didn’t stop moving.

Tianhuo brought both her hooves together and clubbed a lion shadow in the jaw, it went up in an explosive blast bursting from her hooves upon impact. She ducked under the lunge of a tiger shadow and kicked out to destroy its rear two legs where the fire burned at it until it evaporated.

Ten larger shadows arrived rushed in at Tianhuo and were filling the empty gaps in their offensive, each one she took down with rapid steady blows. Only for five more take the place for each one that she felled in rapid succession.

Tianhuo quickly inhaled to let loose a powerful stream of flames, giving herself some more time by creating another large wall of fire in front of herself. She stood tall and unafraid as she looked over the cliff’s edge at the writhing sea of darkness slowly climbing the mountain with only specks of glowing eyes to be seen in the mass of monstrosities.

She turned to look over her shoulder to glance at an embattled Huoshan, buildings were falling, people were screaming, mechanical monsters were running amok in the streets and her home was in grave danger.

However, the Huoshan Guards were doing their jobs, they interposed themselves in the way of danger and took injuries for the citizens and guests that were under attack. They fought and bled for their home with every ounce of fire they could muster and they kept getting up when they were knocked down.

The sky was alight with multiple longma flying about at high speeds using their flames as thrusters, this created the effect of fireflies dancing on this dark night. Balls of fire flew through the sky, some distracting wired wyverns and others hit the shadow horde.

Turning back towards the shadow horde Tianhuo took a stance. It was not one of grim doubt, but of certainty that she was right where she was needed by her people. She trusted those she trained and her new friends to see this day through.

The wall of flames Tianhuo made suddenly flickered out as a mass of shadows surged towards her from over the cliffs edge in front of her, they also came along the flat carved rock paths from her right and her left.

Lashing out with blazing wings, flaming hooves and even her tail, Tianhuo held her ground against an uncountable number of opponents. Lesser shadows didn’t register as dangerous to her as they surrounded her and tried to weaken the light her form gave off.

Leaping up and kicked forward at a horrid visage that vaguely resembled a large partially melted wolf, its neck made a strange snapping sound as it fell away from her dissolving.

Landing Tianhuo swung her tail about along the ground in a sharp circle, creating a small wave of flames to erupt around her that decimated the lesser shadows trying to slowly encroach upon the firewall at her back.

As she spun, she dodged around a sharp pointy tail to thrust her right hoof through the eye of a shadow that looked like a scorpion that soon exploded violently sent bits of fire everywhere. Said bits of fell into the mass of shadows surrounding her.

A shadowy spider slammed into Tianhuo’s back driving her to the ground, it managed to slash across her right foreleg with one of its bladed limbs before she ignited her mane to burn it off of her. The next things she did was quickly roll away as a number of large shadows tried to swarm her.

Concentrating a stream of fire into a blade on her left hoof, Tianhuo swept it outwards at the shadows that tried to pin her down taking out a large swath of them as they continued to charge towards her.

Tianhuo was no longer holding the tide back very well, the lesser shadows were nothing and now the larger shadows were starting to arrive in numbers she would be hard pressed to handle.

A claw struck Tianhuo’s left shoulder ripping up her lovely light green scales and making her bleed more, another nick happened at the right said of her neck. Tianhuo’s pose and grace as she fought was starting to falter as she was being pressed from all sides.

A slash across the back drove Tianhuo mad with rage. Roaring like a dragon, Tianhuo spread her wings and a wave of fire exploded outwards from her decimating the shadows in a large sphere around her.

A lightly winded Tianhuo took a quick glance over her shoulder and saw her wall of fire was quickly failing, as it was barely large enough to cover the gap of the broken gates. Also Clockwork’s machines had made it to the staircase leading up to the middle tier down the central street, he was still apparently pushing forward and hadn’t noticed the bigger issue yet.

What gave Tianhuo hope was seeing a huge wall of fire surged up to surround the entire Volcano and it stopped at the middle tier of the city, yet the walls themselves within the city had yet to be lit aflame.

The evacuation of the lower tier must still be ongoing, she could see that even the civilian longma were starting to aid in the efforts to airlift other beings out of the way of harm with Huoshan Guards covering them. All longma had some level of combat training, but not all of them were cut out for the Huoshan Guard.

When the civilians were actually needed to do the fighting for the city, only then was it getting seriously bad. They might lose the lower tier, but all the shadows would get were buildings at this rate.

Turning back at all the shadows claws, mouths and eyes clawing for her life hungrily. Tianhuo flapped her wings and scorched the ground around her. She couldn’t keep focusing on her own firewall forever, there were just too many shadows to deal with and she was pushing things holding the gates entirely by herself.

The tide slammed forward and forced her to back up while lashing out with rapid strikes of intense heat and ferocity, with the barest of glances she could see that the shadows were already piling up against the walls and were starting to climb them. Flinging her right hoof in their direction a fireball struck the building mass before it could surpass the top of the wall.

A pair of claws raked across the chest, a blunt force to the right side of the head and a stabbing spear to the belly. Tianhuo staggered with each hit and took it all to stay standing.

In retaliation she and bucked the badger shadow into oblivion, she fricasseed the large dodo shaped shadow with a flaming twisting uppercut and she destroyed the manticore shadow with a powerful fire erupting from the same wound it gave her.

Leaping back into her firewall Tianhuo forced the wall forward in large wave that scorched through hundreds of shadows before they started surging back towards her

“Help her get her out of there before I start!” Not looking at who shouted that, Tianhuo continued to burn, blast and bash any shadow that came at her. “This hot zone is about to cool down, incoming avalanche!”

A Huoshan Guard strafed the shadows while creating a temporary firewall and he gesture towards Tianhuo to follow him.

When she jumped into the air, a large stream of shadow monsters started climbing on top of one another forming a large spindly tower over the quickly disappearing firewall that angled at her. All of them were scrabbling with their claws and snapping with their jaws at Tianhuo’s rear legs in an attempt to drag her into the mass below here.

A fireball from the Huoshan Guard blasted the tower of shadows down before they could reach could reach Tianhuo. What followed was a sudden constant mass of white falling from the sky and flooding the front gate and ridge area, the shadows were pushed back towards the base of the mountain by several large unceasing waves of snow for the next thirty seconds that flowed down the mountainside.

Tianhuo and the guard just stared at the raw power of such an attack as to create an avalanche on an active volcano of all things.

“A little help here, I’m tapped out!” They turned to the reindeer that had lost the first round of the Fiery Fights, then again she had lost to Paprika so it wasn’t as if the reindeer was weak. She was laying on her side and breathing heavily at the top of the wall. “Everything is… so hot…”

“Yo-Shi, report quickly, then pick that reindeer up as she’s going to have a nasty fever after exerting herself that badly!” Tianhuo shouted as she turned to the guard.

“We’re going to try and get the shadows to attack the machinist’s machine for us, all available fighters will hold the walking airship at the top of the stairs. We’re taking on a lot of heavy injuries, thanks to those machines being darn near fire proof. Most of Sky Flame Squad is down and Mujin’s squad is completely out, all of Fuego Squad were pulled into maintaining the firewalls and are unable to fight while they do so alongside the other squads that cover them. All other squads are still capable as they can get given the situation.” The named Yo-Shi dove down and wrapped his hooves around the barrel of the reindeer and lifted off with her, as he did so, he informed Tianhuo of what they were supposed to do. “Our orders from on high are to fall back to the hospital and get your wounds tended to quickly, the lambkin’s unit there isn’t holding that position all too well what with three of those metal wyverns and the increasing number of golems attacking that given area. Fuego Squad will throw up the rest of firewalls when the shadows get closer. Lower tier is almost done evacuating entirely.”

Shooting off towards the hospital, Tianhuo wasn’t worried about her injuries as much as she was worried about Pom being involved in the fighting.

Yo-Shi followed after her and was surprised to see how fast Tianhuo was moving despite several nasty looking injuries.

-The Volcano, Middle Tier, Outside Huoshan Hospital, Pom-

Not only were we dealing with Teatime, but now there was news of the shadow horde flooding up this way. I really didn’t want to look, but I had climbed up a water spout and saw them for myself.

I really wished I hadn’t looked at the abyss. My heart was still gripped with terror even as I defended the hospital from things that weren’t nearly as scary as a sea of living shadows.

“Sic them lads!” Well that is to say my beasties protected the hospital and I was carefully directing them. I pointed where I wanted them to go and rang my cowbell, the four puppies rocketed forward and ripped apart several golems.

All the puppies quickly came running back to me and I cuddled them against myself protectively as a small cannonball shot overhead. That golem was soon ripped apart by Mr. Grim for threatening us.

Apparently Big Mama told the puppies to stay near me for the entire duration of this fracas, she was currently busy dealing with one of those mechanical wyverns all by herself. It wouldn’t help much as several more are flying up from the lower tier.

In the middle of all of this, a thought crossed my mind.

Why was Teatime even assaulting The Volcano from the ground? I guessed that he couldn’t make an indestructible balloon.

Chapter fifty six, Huoshan Hellfire: Lighter.

-The Volcano, wall between lower and middle tier, Paprika-

I grappled a family of flightless longma and hauled them up to the middle tier and dropped them off gently… after getting in a small hug of course!

I really needed a hug right now and my wives were a bit too busy fighting, and not with each other this time. So I took them where I could get them. I didn’t like the shadow horde at all, they didn’t hug very well or seem to understand the conceptual joy therein.

Hugs were for everyone, kisses are for my wives… they insisted on that thoroughly.

Right now, I couldn’t do much of either and needed to concentrate on helping people. I could do so by stopping the mean metal wyvern coming right for me after I dropped off that family.

I jumped away from the wall before its claws could grab me and held out my right hoof and curled it against my leg to fire out a thick strand of fur that connected to a nearby building. I quickly swung away before the metal thing could hug me with its feet.

It still followed after me as I swung downwards, I pulled with my hoof as I reached the bottom of my swing and gained enough momentum to launch upwards as I released my furs grip on the building and flipped through the air.

With a twist, I reoriented myself to face towards it.

I put both my hooves together and took aim to fire some ‘impact fur’ right into one of its big fans.

The end result of my wad of fur getting sucked into the fan was quite impressive, given that my fur expanded upon impact and the machine was quickly torn in half by the very pretty explosion that followed.

Launching a wad of fur towards the nearby building with my left hoof I swung back towards the lower half of the falling machine and fired a wad from my right leg to catch it and swung upwards. I also got back my wad of now slightly blown up fur from the wreckage, my impact wad survived the explosion pretty well.

Heaving with my right leg forward, I gave momentum to the large chunk of metal and sent it sailing right at another one of these metal dragon things. The tail from my chunk of metal destroyed it when it got caught in that one’s fan, but the body stayed mostly intact.

Once it started falling I passed by it, spun around and grappled it with fur from my left hoof while swinging towards the stairs leading up to the middle tier of the city with my right. I launched the metal mass into the side of Mr. Clockwork’s ship and it destroyed one of those cannons shooting at my floofy wife.

Releasing my furs grip on the building it was attached to this time, I launched myself into a high arc over Velvet’s head and waved to her, then I performed a flip before launching a strand randomly at the tall buildings to continue swinging.

I needed to go make sure I didn’t miss helping anyone before I moved on to helping the hospital, they looked like they were getting attacked a lot.

Also yay, I’m the Snuggly Spider Paca! With great fluff, comes great hugging ability!

I’m going need a bright grey and blue uniform, not necessarily spandex, with a spider alpaca symbol and everything else before I can call myself that. I think I’m mild mannered enough to pass as Sweetie Snarker. It’ll be a little difficult to quip with just saying ‘meep’, but I think I can do it.

I wonder if my wives would be willing to dress up as Mistress Mare-velous and Radiance.

-Staircase to Middle Tier, Velvet-

I seriously have no idea what goes on in Paprika’s head sometimes, but I really needed the help and I wasn’t looking that gifted Paca in the mouth. Though I might kiss it later for that.

Everyone else was too busy with everything else that was going on the city, on top of the huge wave of shadows that just resumed climbing up the base of the mountain after Vixen’s avalanche.

I iced the stairs as I backed up them and continued to put up snowflake barriers to block the cannon fire, there was one less cannon focused on me thanks to Paprika. One of the large pony like legs from the airship suddenly extended spikes from its hoof and stomped down on the frozen steps.

Okay, Teatime was getting quite annoying, he couldn’t possibly have an answer for absolutely everything I could think of to use against him!

I’ve already tried freezing the turret cannons, only to learn that they had flamethrowers built in and that I shouldn’t stand so close to the large airship sized golem. I’ve tried hitting the ship with ice pillars and did some minimal damage there, he’s built the whole cylindrical thing out of relatively tough materials and ice is not exactly the strongest material unless compacted thoroughly into something like Pykrete.

I was not good at mass form of ice magic, so my pillars of ice were relatively hollow if given a lot of force when I make them. Puncturing the armor on a walking party tank was not something I’m good at, I could really use a longma for some hot and cold action.

If that doesn’t work, and provided that the longma in question isn’t swatted out of the air by those two tentacles, then I might have a plan of action. The entire airship seems designed with melee fighters in mind, longma were notoriously known for being dangerous when it came to fighting them up close combat.

If I could get some time to build up for it, like what Arizona afforded me during our fight in the coliseum, then I might be able to form my ice statue of beauty, grace and gorgeousness. It would look like me after all, so of course it would be all those things.

The only flaw is that it wasn’t me and it was quite slow to move, but it could do damage and had quite a bit of mass despite being hollow everywhere except the heart.

I would have to be relatively close when forming it to get in a few good damaging hits before I tire of holding it. I may have pushed myself well beyond my previous limit with Arizona, I should be running a terrible fever right now after that fight. Instead, I’m still fighting fit and pacing myself, because I couldn’t afford to waste more of my magic on anything but defense and a good damaging attack when the opportunity presents itself.

A bolt of black slammed into the airship and sent it sliding backwards down the stairs fifty or so feet. It seems Oleander found some time to charge up another attack.

I swung my hoof and a snowflake barrier deflected a cannon ball into the air. When the cannonball came down I stomped the ground and a pillar of ice launched the cannonball forward at the barrel of one of the five remaining cannons. The barrel was dented badly by the impact of the cannonball and it soon exploded the next time the front leftmost cannon fired.

I almost cheered, almost, the broken cannon shot a blast of barely evaded fire towards me. Apparently it can still double as a flamethrower. From my position I could see the shadows starting to flood the lower tier of the city from the gates.

I deflected several more cannonballs, when a smaller one came at me from my right that I almost didn’t see coming.

Only it was deflected by Skelly’s axe as she arrived to help me. Her adorable skeletal visage was a sight for sore eyes.

The clockwork golem on the nearby building that fire upon my person was soon ripped apart by a thin beam of dark magic, Oleander certainly has impeccable timing and could have done that sooner.

Skelly turned her head towards me and pointed towards the top of the stairs and idly deflected a cannonball without looking in the direction of the cannon that fired it.

I nodded and started to retreat much faster while firing several shards of ice to cover Skelly as she charged forward, dodging the cannon fire and leapt onto the front left leg of the airship golem.

Skelly started to do a one legged climb, all while avoiding or knocking back the two large metal tentacles as they swept around and tried to get her off of the leg she was climbing deftly. She’d soon be on the airship itself.

I have an idea as to what she was doing, but it was going to be quite difficult to get inside without a fight and if she could do so then more power to her. I turned around and darted up the stairs. I was getting quite exhausted, a break would be helpful so I can recover a little before getting back into the thick of it.

At the top of the stairs there were ongoing skirmishes with various clockwork golems being teleported in to assault everyone. I ducked a small cannonball and lunged forward to thrust my hoof straight into the offending golems head and then I turned and side bucked it in the neck taking its head off, it’s body stumble about randomly afterwards.

I noted that aside from their mouth cannons, their hooves were now armed with retractable shovel like blades in all their legs. They weren’t very effective with them, but they were still causing injuries for the unwary. After taking down the blade flailing headless golem, I heard someone call my name.

“Velvet, did Skelly make it onboard?” A curious question to ask when we were under attack Gene.

I turned to him as his spear tore through a golem with two twirls and then he rolled to the side as one of those metal wyverns tried to come down on top of him.

“Yes, but there are a lot of clockwork golems that will prevent her entry. The entrance is clearly sealed and I can see why we would want to get someone inside.” We all heard a noise and turned to the airship and saw that one of its rear legs was flailing sporadically. “What do you suppose is going on there?”

I ducked at a clockwork golem and formed an edge of ice along my left leg and slashed it upwards sharply through the golem, a second later it split into two halves vertically. Gene twirled his spear deflecting a small cannonball and then lunged forward to thrust it straight through the golem.

The golem tried to stab at Gene with both its forelegs, only to be ripped apart pulling his spear free as he leapt backwards towards me. The golems destroyed parts soon teleported away to be fixed like all the other golems we’ve been dealing with.

“Nefer tripped a teleportation trap for me and Jacky, apparently he wasn’t captured and is in there causing trouble judging by the fact that both the rear legs on that thing are malfunctioning.” The metal wyvern swooped down and we both focused on it as it tried snap at my head with its jaws and then it had the gall to try and blast me with a powerful burst of air. “Skelly is going in to try and find the master rune or get Nefer out there before the shadow horde hits the airship. The longma are planning to hold the shadows monsters at the middle tier wall and the top of these steps, they are going to let the shadows swarm Clockwork’s machine. Can you put more pressure on it?”

I stole the wind attack and twisted it back around while adding a bit of moisture to it to produce a long spike of ice that was immediately flung back into one of the wyverns fans damaging it moderately. Not nearly enough to leave it inoperable, I must be losing my touch with how tired I am. I could use some tough cow love and encouragement right about now.

I rolled out of the way of the wyvern’s claws as it leapt forward and tried to smear me into the pavement, I fire another shard of ice at the wyvern’s other fan. It proved to be much tougher than the cheap golems that can almost be rebuilt in less than a minute’s time.

As it swept its bladed metal tail around to impale me I leapt up and hit the tail with a small chunk of ice to lower it and then I froze it to the ground where its momentum stopped entirely. Gene took advantage of the situation and flashed by it ripped half the tail off with a broad swing.

Clockwork couldn’t have more one or two hundred pony golems running around at once, it was just that they kept getting teleported back into the fight constantly that they were any problem at all. These wired wyverns and the airship itself were bigger problems. Biggest was the shadow horde hooves down.

“No, I’m running ragged here, I need a break to prevent a fever. Can someone else do it?” I asked before a large mass of dark energy sailed overhead and knocked Clockwork’s large golem backwards again. A series of cannonballs from above followed, striking the front end of Clockwork’s ship doing quite a bit of damage to it and front right cannon.

“Head for the hospital, it’s becoming a rallying point to get some rest and we’re going to soon move all the injured to the upper tier.” Gene then leapt up and with a flap of his wings he twisted around and knocked the metal menaces head to the side.

Following that, the bizarre squid costume wearing longma came in on flaming wings to smash its head completely off with his saxophone. The Saxophone didn’t even get a dent from that, what was that thing made of?

The longma quickly darted to the side to avoid the headless body’s metal talons and he started to play the saxophone while shifting his hips. He twisted around another attempt by the other set of talons to rip him to shreds to end up breaking the joints on that leg.

“Oh just die already!” I shouted.

Despite all the damage, the machine was still putting up a struggle by hopping around wildly on one leg and flailing the broken one around. Until I finished it off with a veritable hailstorm of small ice shards through its back and legs.

“Go on Velvet, I’ll try to stall The Grand Time myself.” Gene swept towards a strong monstrous looking dog and tore through it to reveal that it was another kind of Teatime’s golems. “Hurry up and get back on your hooves, those shadow monsters have already flooded half the lower tier and they’ll be on us all soon. I don’t think Clockwork has even noticed them.”

Gene performed a barrel roll through a series of cannonballs and flew off towards the menacing machine still climbing the stairs on its other four legs as the rear two seem completely inoperable.

I took off towards the hospital at a quick pace, while dodging around groups of fighters and longma dealing with a sudden surge of what could only be clockwork dogs.

This tier's walls quickly became engulfed in flames as if covered with oil.

Chapter fifty six, Huoshan Hellfire: Candle.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter fifty six, Huoshan Hellfire: Torch.

-The Volcano, Upper Tier, Arizona-

“Arizona, what… is that?” Turning my head to Fortitude as he smashed one of those beast golems to pieces against a wall with that cool shield.

“Hold on a second!” After I finished pounding a metal wyvern into a vaguely ball shaped mass of lumpy metal, I just grabbed the untouched tail and looked about. Now I just needed a target for my makeshift flail. “Okay, what did you want me to…? Yeah… that’s… that’s definitely bad. Maybe worse than the giant worm shadow we fought at Haven’s Patch. That’s a greater shadow monster if I ever saw one!”

Rising up in the distance, barely within the light being given off by all the longma darting around and flinging fireballs into the shadow horde, I could see a fairly large shadow monster that looked like a large dragon dripping with lesser shadows. With each breathe it seemed that the light of this night immediately died around its head for a few seconds.

Other longma were resorting to physically ramming themselves into the metal wyverns as fire did nothing to them, they were not fighting said wyverns over the lower tier of the city which has now become infested by shadow monsters.

“Don’t let that thing get over the second tier!” I called out to a nearby longma while pointing to the dragon, he looked in the direction of the large dragon shadow as he kicked the head off a pony golem with a one legged buck. “Spread the word, any shadow that can fly is a major problem and its worse when it can spill those lesser shadows everywhere. You’re walls of fire mean absolute squat to that thing!”

The Huoshan Guard turned back to me, nodded and then took off towards the middle tier with flames jetting out his back, tail and hooves.

I looked to the shadow dragon and looked down at the segment metal tail that I still held in my hooves, said tail was connected to a large mass.

“Clear some space out for me Fortitude, I’ve got a special deliver for that thing!” He did as I asked by running an outwards spiraling circle around me pushing away any golems that were close by.

Once he was done, I began heaving the mass of metal to drag it along the ground as I started my spin.

-Middle Tier, Huoshan Hospital, Tianhuo-

“Hurry up!” I groused angrily at the kitsune tending my wounds. I would normally be calm and rational, but my city was under attack and I had a strong need to get back out there.

“There is quite some waste, when you ask me to make haste, they are injuries.” Sweetcakes was correct, she couldn’t rush job this and the speed of her healing required time and effort on her part. “You hurt yourself well, smashing a metal monster, time can heal most wounds.”

She was understating it, I ripping a hole clean through it when I plowed my body through the torso a metal wyvern. It was inoperable and I might have gotten badly cut up by going straight through its innards like I did. It was all for a good cause though, that thing was attacking Pom after all.

Sweetcakes took a step away from me, nodded and bowed her head. I darted towards the entrance of the hospital as the next injured longma went in looking after me with awe. Yes, I was quite brave to rush straight back into battle despite coming in with some nasty injuries, said bad injuries were all my fault. I shall endeavor to do better, hopefully until the morning sun comes.

I stopped near the entrance when I saw Velvet drinking a pitcher of water with ice in it and her ice sprite was helping her cool down.

Ignoring that, I approached the entrance and saw that Paprika was outside aiding Pom’s canines, which was much to my relief that the hospital had more coverage. Pom was staying back with her cute little puppy guards, they were looking about eagerly for targets to rip apart at the lambkins next command.

The Huoshan Guard had the hospital better covered now that the lower tier no longer needed anyone to defend it. Speaking of, a longma was standing next to the entrance of the hospital with his spear at the ready. He was watching the sky and his surroundings for any golems that would dare to try and get by him. I approached him and quickly recognized him while doing so.

“Situation report, now Yang, abbreviate it if you have to!” The guard turned to me and immediately does so.

“The walking airship is turning around, Teatime has likely noticed the shadow horde coming up behind him and that thing has flamethrowers. Useless against us, but he’s planned for several eventualities like adding spiked cleats to the six hooves of his airship. We’re still under attack by golems and the shadows are just about done flooding the lower tier. Firewalls are up and fully operational. I think things are going well enough for the situation ma’am.” He pointed to the sky and at the large dragon made of shadows flying forward, which was dripping with other smaller shadows. It looked to be a personification of darkness and a physical nightmare unleashed onto this world. “Also there’s that!”

“Where’s your brother’s squad right now and what are they currently doing?” I knew that squad wasn’t currently on the upkeep of the firewalls.

“They’re hitting the shadow horde with heavy sustained long range bombardments, though I think I can see him from here. Yeah, he’s pulling his squad back to over to the middle tier of the city.” Looking at where Yang was, I nodded as I spotted them retreating overhead while raining fireballs constantly into the lower tier. That was a good call, didn’t want anyone falling into the shadow horde if they get knocked out, stunned or suddenly become incapable of flight at an inopportune moment. We didn’t want any lethal burn outs during all this. “It looks like they’re going to continue bombardment of the shadow horde from a much safer position.”

“Fine, leave them to it, where do you think we’re needed most aside from here. This area is well defended now.” We could focus our efforts on Teatime’s airship and destroy it, but then the shadow horde might take advantage of us doing so. “Do we take on the large shadow dragon or those golems still running rampant? We’re going to leave Teatime's airship alone.”

“I think…” A large lumpy ball of warped metal smashed the dragon in the face knocking it out of the air and back towards the base of the volcano, Yang turned to me looking stunned with whoever did that. “As long as the firewalls are up, we need to deal with all the golems running around unless that dragon comes close to flying right over them. It’s going to be a problem though, it’s been noted that the pony golems are being repeatedly repaired and we can’t do anything about it. Don’t know about the beast or wyvern golems, they don’t seem to be capable of being quickly repaired.”

“I’m more worried about Nefer being inside Teatime’s airship. Skelly is already mounting a rescue and possible sabotage of the insides of his airship. I only hope that she’s able to get away before Teatime’s ship eventually runs out of fuel for those flamethrowers.” Turning to see Gene come in for a landing. He looked a little tired, but otherwise was uninjured. I took to the air to see Clockwork’s ship firing flames down the staircase at the shadow monsters coming up it, also the front end of the ship started to open outwards ominously. “We should keep dealing with the wyvern golems, things will become a lot easier once they are all gone.”

The shadow dragon roared and floated to being above the lower tier of the city and started to pick up speed. It wasn’t damaged in the slightest and it still looked powerful.

At least it had looked powerful until it took a large beam of dark energy with colorful streams in it, said beam plowed into the shadow dragon and forced it roughly back into the ground at the base of the volcano, again.

It didn’t take a minute for the shadow dragon to get back up and start moving forward, it would take Oleander some time build up for another one of those and we didn’t have anything else to hit the dragon with.

“Oleander is doing a good job, we should find a way to repay her for all the help.” I commented idly as I bucked a leaping beast golem higher up into the air. Yang pierced it with his spear several rapid stabs before pulling backwards and letting Gene finished it off with swing that sliced it apart chest to hip.

They both turned to me.

“Right, let’s keep focusing on the wyverns and hope that…” A wyvern was slammed into the ground by Paprika nearby. “We survive this night to see the sun again. Don't we have anything else we can hit that dragon with to keep stalling it?”

When the machine started glowing brightly, Paprika proceeded to wrap it’s torso in her fur and then, with a single heave, she launched it towards the lower tier where it exploded taking out a massive patch of shadows.

The empty space on the ground below was soon filled with shadows once more within seconds. Things were getting darker and much harder to see down there, if not for the number of fireballs being flung at the shadow horde from above.

Those not occupied with fighting metal wyverns were hitting the shadow dragon with a massive number of fireballs, didn’t seem to be slowing it down or even doing any damage at all.

“Okay, that confirms it. That shadow dragon needs to die, but it’s immune to fire like a real dragon.” I could see why a shadow monster like that would be attacking Huoshan. We, the longma, would not become the hoof-hold for the shadow horde to destroy this world from!

-Stairs between upper tier and palace, Arizona-

“What do you mean you can’t do that again? Those longma aren’t doing a thing to it!” We’ve managed to knock it back twice, but it wasn’t going to stay down and it doesn’t help that it was practically immune to fire. Not a good thing when a majority of your side has fire as a primary form of attack.

“I told you, Fred and I need the time to build up enough energy to do that!” Ollie had told me that she couldn’t fire another shot that powerful for another minute or so, it was not something I wanted to hear. “I also need to concentrate and it’s hard to do that with you yelling at me to hurry up!”

“Yeah, please give Ollie some space, BECAUSE SHE ABOSLUTELY NEEDS IT!” Backing away from the open Fred being read quickly by Ollie, I turned to Jacky to see if she had anything.

Jacky was looking at the shadow dragon in the distance and then she turned her gaze to the sky.

“Do you really expect us to get help from above?” I asked.

The sounds of several cannons firing was heard and several spherical shapes slammed home into the dragon’s head, throat, chest, pelvis and lower belly region twice. The dragon was knocked down and onto its back near the lower tier gates by the force of multiple exploding cannonballs striking it.

“Yes, because the Ardent Survivor is still up there and there is likely a butterfly at the helm.” Jacky took her bow out and pulled out a golf ball. A golf ball, against that thing, really? She put it to the string and took aim. “I have no idea who taught him how to fly the ship though. It’s a tossup between Gene, Flotsam and Savannah.”

The roar from the shadow dragon could be heard from here, it was quite angry after being hit with multiple cannonballs.

“Did somebody call my name?” Savannah came running down the stairs, she was wearing fighter wraps around her paws, arms and legs.

“Did you teach Belfry how to fly the Ardent Survivor?” Jacky turned a threatening gaze to her, 'somewhat promiscuous', Abyssinian crew mate as she drew the string back with the golf ball.

“Who me, do you seriously think I would I do that Captain Blackcap?" Despite Savannah’s words, Jacky still had her gaze firmly locked on Savannah as she released the golf ball. "I wouldn’t trust a butterfly with high altitude steering in the slightest.”

A rainbow arced away into the city showing everyone the exact flight path of where that golf ball was going.

The shadow dragon was looking up into the air and leapt up to get airborne, only for it to suddenly be hit by the tip of the rainbow mid leap in the chin. The golf ball, having thrown it off balance despite its large size, made it flip backwards and land on its head and flop onto its belly.

“That was an impressive shot Jacky!” Savannah clapped her paws together while smiling cheerful.

“Answer the question Savannah…” Jacky narrowed her eyes at the cat who continued to smile.

“Maybe a little…” Savannah held up a clawed thumb and finger close together. “But Flotsam and Gene helped!”

“Quick question, who in their right mind would leave a dog brained giant butterfly in charge of piloting an airship?” The flat no nonsense tone Jacky spoke in made me shiver. I know I’m stronger than her, but that was about as frosty as Velvet can get.

“Well look at it this way Jacky… it hasn’t crashed yet!” Behind Savannah, we all watched as The Ardent Survivor fell a few hundred feet and then reoriented itself before it rammed into the reinforced palace at the top of the stairs. Savannah turned to the airship and then back to us. “At least Flotsam trusted that he could pilot it for a short amount of time…”

“Long enough for her to… pull it back up before it hurt someone?!” Jacky as she rolled out of the path of a stray fireball. She turned to yell at the longma that nearly hit her. “Hey, watch it, you almost caused a friendly fire incident!”

“To be fair, fire is neither friendly nor evil! It equally consumes many things without a single thought of its own.” The cross eyed looking yellow longma yelled back as he flew several odd loops around the wired wyvern trying to hit him with its claws and tail. “While it could become capable of conscious thought with magic, it would still be fire and decidedly only friendly to those who could properly help it contain itself!”

Said longma proceeded to fire a fireball that went wide… by about forty feet… in the opposite direction of the wired wyvern… even when it should be well known by now that fire wasn’t working on them. I turned to look down at the lower tier and saw the shadow dragon was getting up again.

“Shadow dragon is up again, does anyone have any good ideas as to what else we can hit it with?” A second later I watched a humongous fireball strike it from above. Fire couldn't hurt it, but the raw force of that attack certainly did.

A humongous dragon slowly descended from the clouds.

Author's Note

Flamberge left Huoshan several pages back with a Huoshan Guard, no guessing as to what he was sent off to do.

Chapter fifty six, Huoshan Hellfire: The Enter-ruption.

-The Volcano, The Grand Time, Teatime-

“I was going to use this to break the armored palace open, but now is a good a time as any to see if my project works. Main special cannon firing in three, two…” I activated the ‘Acceptable material eraser of ridiculously intensive cost arcane cannon’ pointing at the mass of living shadows and the night lit up with it’s the raw power. I called it The America for short.

Hundreds of small streams of magic erupted from the front of The Grand Time, it all look like a single mass until it connected with the massive number of shadows climbing the stairs and rushing into the flamethrowers of my ship that direly needed to be refueled.

I hoped that my project did something grand and it did not disappoint.

Each small stream that hit a shadow immediately turned to hit another and continued onwards until the streams ran out of power, this obliterated most of the staircase and quite a large area beyond that. A lot of things were cleared out in seconds and the streams continued piercing through thousands upon thousands of shadows.

It was a thing of beauty to watch the beam fan out and spread destruction… then the cannon exploded destroying the front portion of my airship. That… wasn’t as nice. It seems that the strain of firing it had been too much. Now would be a good time to refuel my flamethrower and cannon hybrid turrets.

The America cannon worked as I thought it would, though it’s supposed to be completely useless against living things. It certainly worked on the many surrounding building near the staircase, as they toppled and made my weapon look far more impressive than it actually was.

I’ll take that as a perk. Now if only it hadn’t exploded, it could have been far more useful as a tool of intimidation.

The main purpose of my cannon was to destroy materials such as the metal in armor or weapons, it could disarm entire armies of physical weapons. Apparently the shadows either didn’t count as living things or the light in the magic from all those beams destroyed them, I’m leaning more the latter than the former.

Some might not even believe me if I were to tell them this after that display, but I’m not seeking to become a murderer. Sure I can maul and leave someone to die from their wounds and have no qualms about leaving someone in a trap they tripped themselves, those would be completely different circumstances and I would assuredly never kill anyone directly personally.

I’d sooner think Shocking would kill someone on purpose while in the heat of the moment and he has yet to ever come close to doing that even with him being as violent a pony as one can be.

With my repair room destroyed, I hoped that Dispel had captured the dragon princess. We may need her to bargain our way out of this.

-Upper Tier, Tianhuo-

I finished ripping a pony golem in half with my bare hooves and then looked in the direction of that airship, which now looked rather odd with the front end of it blasted off. We were all grateful that the weapon exploded, I wouldn’t have wanted that aimed at the palace should Teatime have made it past the middle tier.

“Ma’am, the golem’s numbers are dropping!” A Huoshan Guard had called out in report as he took down a beast golem with ruthless efficiency using several three spear thrusts.

A loud rumbling sounded throughout The Volcano, every longma that wasn’t current occupied with combat turned to see a moderate amount of smoke spilling out of our home. Huoshan, it seemed, was going to aid us even from beyond his life’s end.

The volcano erupted, but the eruption was small and rather meticulously controlled in such a way that it sent blobs of magma flying through the air towards the base of itself on all sides. None would come close to hitting the city itself. Some went through the rip in the air the shadow horde was leaking through and a few seconds later it closed violently in a powerful explosion.

It seems Huoshan was tired of the shadow monsters climbing all over him, as the shadow monsters being held back at the middle tier firewalls outside the city were suddenly hit with wide spraying jets of lava.

These pyroclastic blasts went spewing forth from various holes all around the whole mountain, the exception being anything between the palace and middle tier was left entirely untouched.

Pools of lava were forming from all the balls of magma continuing to rain around the shadows surrounding the base of the mountain. This was preventing them from escaping into the wilderness or towards our farmlands on the far side of our home and a fair distance away.

Holes even opened up at the bottom of the middle tier firewalls in the city and started flooding the lower tier with slow flowing lava that tore through the shadows by the heat of Huoshan’s fury alone. The lower tier of the city also caught fire and the buildings started to melt, not that anyone was going down there anyway.

In the air Dragon Lord Torch was dealing with the shadow dragon fairly well and it was nothing to worry about, we all believed Torch would be successful in vanquishing his foe.

The shadow horde was being decimated and dealt with, but we could not rely on Huoshan to do this again the next time a leak happened. My home had better be ready for an onslaught the next time one came, one that may be even worse than this was. We had a natural advantage against the shadow horde, but that didn’t mean we could fight it forever.

“Huoshan has spoken of his desire to see these retched monsters and golems out of our home and he has bided his time up until now to give us this opportunity with what little strength he has in him. Let us counter attack!” Every longma started to shout out agreements my words and the ranks of the Huoshan Guard started to become bolstered by the shouts I threw out next. “For our home, for Huoshan!”

The sun would soon rise, and so would the Huoshan Guard, we would definitely prove ourselves better than the Canterlot Royal Guard beyond a shadow of any doubt. I think that at least the Wonder Bolts could become on par with us, they just needed to put more effort into training for combat than their wondrous shows.

-Middle tier, Velvet-

“My word, the longma sure have been stirred into a tizzy. I will be needing my beauty rest after all is said and done.” I idly sent an icicle through a nearby golems head as I watched the longma surge despite being tired after a long night of fighting, they continued to put pressure on their enemies and we were actually on the offensive now.

“Meep!” It seems that darling Paprika agreed with me.

“Hey Velvet, could you do me aghh… put me out, put me out!” I turned to see Jacky’s elegance, her tail, was on fire and burning. Paprika immediately leapt forward and smothered the flames with a hug, because of course she would instead of doing something a little more prudent. That saved a good chunk of Jacky’s plumage at least. Once Paprika removed herself from smothering our friend, she fired a spoon from her prone position on the ground and it decimated a metal wyvern. “Before anything else happens to me, I need a favor Velvet!”

“What is it, we’ve all been kind of busy if you haven’t noticed!” I turned and swung my left leg to cave in the skull of a pony golem, it swiftly disappeared and their numbers were notably decreasing by the second. Not a single increase in the last few minutes. “Also please tell me that you aren’t using spoons as effective archery weapons.”

“I want you to freeze a pony golem solid or at least well enough that it can’t move, can you do that without destroying or damaging one too much!” A challenge to be sure, but why did Jacky want a frozen pony golem? She was dodging around a few clockwork ponies at the moment and Paprika wasn’t being too helpful since she started snuggling one of the beastlier golems. “Also spoons are perfectly good weapons!”

I raised my right brow delicately at her.

“When you’ve sharpened them up enough like I have.” Jacky brought out a teacup, a fork and a butter knife to her bow, was she intending to eventually be capable of firing an entire kitchen worth of stuff? I watched as she took down three beast golems with a single release of the string, I did not know ceramics could be that tough.

I really wanted to ask Jacky where she bought her stuff, it was basically of excellent quality merchandise with disaster proofing. Given who Jacky is, they were probably necessary purchases. I certainly wouldn’t mind teacups that didn’t chip when Arizona got a hold of them, they’d make a good gift for Paprika.

“Tell me where you buy your silverware and tea sets afterwards, because I am quite willing to do this just for that information alone!” Finding an acceptable target that hasn’t been trashed by a longma yet, I quickly did as she asked and told a longma guard to look after it for us. “Why do you need it?”

“I’ll tell you why I need it later!” Hope that you do Jacky, I was quite curious about your interest in having one of them.

There were very few of those wyverns left to go after and, given twenty more minutes, we could wipe them all out. The longma were physically ripping them apart with their bare hooves and full bodied high speed tackles, yet they were still ever so careful about not hitting their fans.

-Dawn, The Grand Time, airspace above, Gene-

I had been waiting nearby for a while for Skelly to emerge from the airship. Skelly eventually came tumbling through the entrance she made into the ship, clutching at her belly and axe protectively as Jock stomped his way after her and then jumped into the air while spreading his arms wide.

I quickly swooped down and picked up the currently fleshy mare and made off with her, this led to Jock belly flopping beak first into the metal of the airship after having been distracted by my sudden appearance.

“Skelly, good to see you’re okay… where’s Nefer?” I asked her as I placed her down beyond the middle tier firewalls.

Skelly looked a bit sheepish and pulled her hoof away from her bulging belly while motioning to it with her axe, she made several gestures to try and explained what happened. I’m glad that I’m emotionally flat, because goodness knows what Flotsam’s reaction to this will be or how we were going to get him out of Skelly in a timely manner.

“Well… that… is quite awkward.” When the sun rose Skelly reverted to her flesh and fur looks with Nefer inside of her, which is where he was now currently stuck. “Is Nefer okay in there at least?”

Skelly motioned for me to put my head to her belly, I did so and heard Nefer softly breathing inside of her. Good, he wasn’t suffocating inside of Skelly’s living form. It apparently had some physicality to it, so this may require doing something uncomfortable to Skelly later.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine. Go to the hospital Skelly, a lot people are going to think you’re a pregnant mare because of this.” The furious blush I had caused made me blush as well. “We’ll get this sorted out later.”

She nodded and some longma started to protectively fly near her, likely thinking exactly what I just told her things would look like to them.

I went back into the fray with my bladed spear held aloft.

-Thirty minutes later, air above the middle tier stairs, Dragon Lord Torch-

I bit into the neck of the shadow dragon and ripped it off and its shadowy fluid spilled into the flowing lava that destroyed its head. Its body tried to regrow a new head, but I forced it down into the lava and started to rip into its body with my claws until it could no longer sustain itself.

Flying over to the airship at the top of the middle tiers steps where I saw a commotion going on, one that was not a celebration of a hard fought battle.

I was about to ask what was going on, then I saw my tied up daughter with a glowing sword held at her throat.

A circle of longma stood glaring at the armored pony and their flaming forms were quite agitated.

“What is the meaning of this?” I bellowed and my daughter looked up at me sadly, she didn’t want to be seen as weak like this and that she was being laid low by an earth pony no less. If that sword was powered by what I thought it was, then my daughter was truly in danger and is lucky she hasn’t been struck by its edge yet.

“This sir… is negotiations.” The unicorn standing on the six legged airship said in a smug tone. “You see me and my compatriots might have made a slight error in attacking this fine city… I assure you that we’re quite sorry about that.”

“Spit it out, what do you want?” I crossed my claws over my chest, he was not going to take my daughter from me. He wouldn’t survive it.

“I’m quite sure that if we were to harm Princess Ember here, we’d all be dead before we could move oh… I’d say about one hundred feet as a rough estimate without teleportation.” Like I’d let him get that far if that armored pony hurts her. “I would like to propose a fair trade, I ask that we be allowed to leave the city without pursuit and with the treasure of Huoshan procured by a parrot that has recently visited the Temple of Dark Flames. In return, alongside you’re daughter going free, I will give up the master rune and will not destroy several portions of this city.”

“We should trust your word why?” I boomed for clarification.

“I, Teatime, am a brazen coward. I’m not nearly stupid enough to try anything smart near you.” This Teatime was honest at least.

“Who has the treasure of Huoshan?!” A parrot was brought forth by a female longma with the red eyes of her dragon heritage singing loudly.

The trade was made and the parrot reluctantly gave up a familiar looking bloodstone to the unicorn. That cursed bloodstone of Huoshan... this was a fair trade.

My daughter was shoved forwards still bound by rope as Teatime took the stone. He then gave up a metal slab with a rune on it, that was soon confirmed by the unicorn with the floating demon book to be the master rune.

“If you keep your word, then it is was pleasure doing business.” Tipping his helmet at all of us, he took the armored pony and left. We watched the airship take off and fly into the distance.

“Tianhuo… this belongs to you.” I watched as the parrot produced the key of the longma and put it in this Tianhuo’s hooves.

It began glowing immediately.

Author's Note

After all the trouble they caused, they escaped just like that? Well no... but much of the next chapter will be a lot of talking and discussions about what everyone is going to do next.

Well the month of monsters is over with and I have a lightly sprained ankle and lost a bit of carrot cake in the fall... I'll be fine. Though walking up and down stairs hurts... a lot. Like usual there's a metric ton of candy for me to chew through.

I can't wait for feast week, all that food will make me feel better. Last page I officially passed 900,000 mark for words written.

I hope to get this story to the ending by cutting out a majority of travel time.

Chapter fifty seven, Where we’re going: To the volcano.

-The Volcano, Upper Tier Square, Jacky-

I took the key of the longma, even if I really wanted that cursed Dragon Burst Gem of Huoshan. I couldn’t endanger the world for my greed. The only reason I had it in the first place to give it away, was because Gene wanted that to be what he took. Huoshan laughed and said he’s seen weirder couples than us. That bloodstone was presented to me as a marriage proposal and then it gets taken by Teatime.

Gene promised me that we would get it back, it was the principle of the matter when one stole from pirates, more importantly that he would see to it that it gets back in my talons personally. We may have to do some pirating, but I was okay with it as the target was definitely acceptable.

We were all milling about in the upper tier’s square while Dragon Lord Torch talked with his daughter, he was a fretting parent and a mountain sized one at that. One did not interrupt a dragon that large.

I had to give it to Dispel, Shocking and Teatime, they all had varying levels of competence and two of them succeeded in getting what they wanted. Shocking might have succeeded with what he wanted anyway with all the fighting he got to do in the coliseum. Said place was going to be rebuilt last and as a sign that Huoshan’s lower tier was restored to its former, not highly melted and burned down by lava, glory.

“I still can’t believe we let that jerk get away without at least some comeuppance.” Arizona grunted out and I just smiled.

“Say Tianhuo, could you get the longma to bring me the golem I had Velvet freeze solid? Also I’m going to need the same kind of oil you used on the middle tier walls to hold off the shadow horde.” I was getting a lot of curious looks. “In the current absence of my Captain and given that I am coming into my own as a captain personally, I would like to say that we are all undoubtedly owed a petty kitty response. Teatime should be far enough away now that he can’t blame us for what happens when we so graciously return one of his golems to him right? Oh and Ollie, be prepared to levitate the golem into the air and do what I tell you.”

“Jacky what are you planning?” Gene asked while tilting his head in a lazy emotionless manner.

“I know what I’m planning, but you need to plan a pirate raid on a particular airship later… provided that we can find it and its head start is suddenly massively delayed due to technical problems.” The golem was brought to me and Velvet came along with it, which was perfect. “Tell me Oleander, is the golem still connected to the parts retrieval system thing of Teatime’s airship?”

“Yes… it’s not part of the rune structure that was used on the city and I’ve recently finished safely disabling all of said runes with Fred’s help.” What Ollie wasn’t saying is that she was keeping the slab that the master rune was still inscribed upon, not that many things other than a unicorn would be able to utilize it for something else anyway. “I can already tell where this is going and I approve wholeheartedly.”

“Yes, it is quite dastardly idea of the lovely parrot here, BUT SHE DOES HAPPEN TO BE A PIRATE SO IT’S A MOOT POINT TO DISCUSS THE MORALITY OF SUCH AN ACTION.” When Fred was onboard with something, you knew it was a mean thing to do.

We were still going to do it though, I had figured something like Teatime escaping would happen and had planned for this accordingly. After the Caves of Intrigue, he needed a bit of disproportionate karmic retribution.

-The Grand Time, Teatime-

“All I got out of this adventure is bloodstone, but it is still quite a valid treasure.” I placed the bloodstone on a velvet pillow, yes everything went splendidly considering.

I got to test my machines, I got some treasure and the repairs to my airship would be relatively fast once I fixed a few of my clockwork pony golems from all the parts currently flooding the entirety of the automated repair bay.

Most of all, the best thing about all this, I got one over on that parrot once more. We were destined to be rivals and she was always going to be one step behind my villainous ways, oh I’m sure she’ll remember and rue the day she ever crossed my path.

Sure the plot failed as soon as Lord Torch came to the city, but my airship came out of this perfectly fine and only in need of a moderate amount of repairs for things that weren’t integral to its operations. It held off all those longma quite admirably and my wired wyverns were exceptionally resilient to damage.

The set up and coordination for all my wyvern golems to go off at the same time took me so long to figure out, a wonderful puzzle that was to set them all up to activate at a given time.

Still, none of this was of any negative consequence to me and I got away without injury.

-The Volcano, Upper Tier Square, Jacky-

“Break it in half.” I watched as Arizona grinned maliciously as she snapped the golem’s spine with her bare hooves, a surrounding number of longma and Tianhuo were also smiling when the golem dissappeared.

Let’s see, a golem full of cannon powder, Huoshan highly flammable sticky oil, a very unique local brand of highly explosive firecracker tempura flakes and a few preparations for a time delayed detonation. We might even be able to see the results of it below the horizon from here.

A small mushroom cloud could vaguely be seen in the distance, it brought a few tears of happiness to my eyes. Then a brick wall hit the ground behind me and slowly toppled on top of me, actually bringing real tears to my eyes.

“Premeditated assault, all of you saw that!” Velvet immediately called out as she pointed at The Wall now smashing me into the stone street.

The Wall quickly leaped up and fell in the opposite direction, then it did so again and then continued to do that as quickly as it could away from me. It soon became apparent that the wall might not have meant to fall on me, but how was it going to say otherwise when it didn’t have a mouth, eyes or anything a normal living being would require? Also it was doing its form of running from the scene of the crime and that implicitly made it guilty of at least something.

The longma still fit for duty should be able to easily catch a brick wall after all they’ve been through.

I needed Sweetcakes help to be able to stand up again.

-A forest to the far northeast of Huoshan-

The large metal oval suddenly exploded in the middle and split entirely in half and the two halves fell into the forest when the balloon eventually popped after catching fire from the explosion.

It would take Teatime a while to fix the damage done to his airship, it wouldn’t help that the piles of pony golem parts had been scattered over a wide area in the explosion.

-The Volcano, Paprika-

I watched as pretty foxy with the several tails helped Jacky get back up in a timely manner, said fox was giving Jacky a slightly dirty look.

“Look there’s no fixing what isn’t broke, just fix what is.” She told the fox, said fox sighed audibly with despair and continued to work over Jacky’s injuries. “I can handle the rest.”

I turned to Arizona and Velvet and gave them pleading eyes.

“Paprika wants to snuggle us Velvet, she’s actually asking for permission this time as this might muss up your floof.” Yep, Arizona was correct, I did want to hug them.

I was happy they were alright despite the shadow horde leak being worse than the one at Haven’s Patch, things didn’t turn out so badly because of the location the leak happened at. The longma were really brightly lit and the shadows couldn’t have chosen a worst place to invade aside from the unicorns of light.

I didn’t mind hugging shadows monsters, but they couldn’t seem to understand love or friendship.

“Fine… I’ll take some sugar.” I grappled both Arizona and Velvet to myself and started to kiss and cuddle them into the ground.

-Flotsam-

The La Perm's are a strange family, speaking of…

“Where’s Nefer, did Skelly get my little brother out of Teatime’s Airship?” That thing had been pretty well armored, my shots were spot on and I had barely damaged the armor.

Gene looked away and seemed to be a little shy about it.

“Is my brother okay or not?!” I was concerned about our favorite plant cat.

“He’s… okay… enough.” That was rather dodgy Gene, look me in the eyes and tell me to my face. Did my brother lose one of his tail splits?

“This concerns me as well, what happened Gene?” As Jacky grew slightly more aggressive by the second at Gene’s silence, she eventually barked out an order that Gene was unlikely to ignore. Jacky was after all his girlfriend and could make his life pretty horrible if he didn’t answer. “Out with it!”

Gene made his way over to Jacky and whispered at the side of her head, his beak tickling her down.

“He’s where?! That’s… ew… okay, you seriously don’t want to know Flotsam, but according to Gene he’ll be fine. He isn’t hurt, but he is at the hospital with Skelly.” Okay, now Jacky was being cagey about Nefer. Why would he be in the hospital if he’s perfectly fine?

I narrowed my eyes at the two and slapped my tail against the stone pavement.

“Look it’s going to be bit of a thing, so we’re going to get it taken care of swiftly and you’re better off not knowing.” Yeah, Jacky wouldn’t lie to me without a good reason, so she’s telling the truth. Nefer has likely gotten himself into an awkward situation again, as if the thing with the prostitutes at Saddle Sore Shores wasn’t weird or awkward enough. What could be worse than that? “Look, if you really want to know, then ask Nefer about it afterwards.”

Oh, I’m going to, if my brother has been traumatized by his time on Teatime’s ship then I’m joining the boarding party when we go after this Dragon Burst Gem of Huoshan.

“So where are you going to next, aside from going after Teatime’s airship, brother!?” Flamberge was loud and obnoxious, but I could see why he was called fiercely flammable. After coming back with Dragon Lord Torch, and my goodness that guy was huge, he set himself on fire at least five or more times throughout the fighting to the end.

“We might head back to Turtle Toga to pick up some maps to random cursed treasures that might be fun to collect.” It wasn’t wrong of Gene to think we’d continue treasure hunting. It was fun visiting so many strange and wonderful places, now if only The Volcano hadn’t been so hot. “Where do you think you’ll end up?”

“Don’t know, we’re definitely sure to be somewhere where we’re needed!” Oh right, Flamberge’s group has the magic boat that takes them constantly on adventures to wherever they need to be at a given time. That it appeared in the spa before all this says they needed to be here for the whole mess we just went through.

“Well we have no idea where we’re going to go either, my mother was the one who has or had the key of the lambkin. Don’t honestly know where she went and we don’t have any clues, but we absolutely need it.” Arizona turned to Pom and her menagerie of many mutts that were snuggled up against her. “Also don’t know how we’re going to support these guys while we’re traveling around, goodness knows Paprika will try to keep us all fed and happy.”

Paprika nodded as she pressed her face into Velvet’s so called ‘floof’. From the way Arizona tells it, you mess with Velvet’s ‘floof’ at your own peril and it seems Paprika didn’t care what the peril was when she loves her 'notably' violent wives.

“If you can think of where you’re going from here, then we can give you a ride.” Offered Jacky, if she were a jerk of a pirate then she would be asking for money to ferry her friends around. “So long as Pom can keeping her canine companions under control, this offer is only good for a one-way trip to wherever.”

“If we just had a clue as to where Minnesota Magnolia Arid went.” Velvet slapped Paprika across the face and the alpaca just smiled at her.

“Did someone say clue, I believe I can help with that!” With a blast of smoke… nothing appeared, then a weird brown pony with his butt where his head should be and his head where his tail should be ran up to us. It was a hard to look at.

“Ah, confusion god Veles, STILL AS CONFUSED AS EVER I SEE.” Fred caused a number of reactions.

Ollie just glanced at Fred, Arizona and Velvet just let out groans of frustration and both Jacky and Gene just sighed audibly.

“I’m not the one that is confused, everyone else is confused and just doesn’t know it yet! Also nice job with the golem, you really knocked the wind out the Timework’s sails. Also is there a cow around here?” Everyone pointed at Arizona. “Preferably one that doesn’t have udders so tiny that you’d need a microscope to find them, I’m talking about good clean dairy producing products here!”

“I’m… not going to take offense to that.” Funny, I thought Arizona would blow up in anger at that. I think I can understand why this Veles guy is called a confusion god, because I’m certainly confused.

“See, the land bound sea pony that can drown in a bathtub gets it!” He pointed to me with one of his rear legs while speaking still out of the flapping butt cheeks at the top of his neck. “Anyway my riddle is this, a rolling rock may gather no moss, but here cows do.”

“Moss Cow.” Arizona stated flatly.

“No, no, no, that’s not how you do this at all, you were supposed to ask for more clues and I’d lead you on a merry Snipe hunt until you find out that you need to speak to a pony named Sunburst there.” His right rear leg thrust papers into Arizona’s hooves. “You’re ruining my script, here see for yourself!”

“It says you are likely to be hit by a meteorite over and over again.” Arizona stated dully. “No… wait… this one part says you’ll be playing a kazoo while drinking vodka and slumming it with Quetzalcoatl. Also I don’t think a Snipe would appreciate us hunting it.”

“Fine, see if I hate you for this!” The flapping butt cheeks with the tail hanging between them stated. “Can I at least get a hug for… AGHH… she’s getting too strong, why are the gods of love and death are letting her live?!”

That poor god, Paprika was upon him in seconds.

Author's Note

Yep, Veles is talking out of it literally.

Chapter fifty seven, Where we’re going: To the mountain.

-The Volcano, Middle Tier, outside the hospital, Fortitude-

“That… was very awkward. Are you okay Skelly?” I received a nod from her, she was looking quite shy about all this. I would choose to believe in Skelly saying she was alright.

“Does this mean that Skelly is my mom now?” Nefer asked in a half innocent manner.

“No Nefer, Skelly isn’t your mom now.” Many would agree with Flotsam on this, because I certainly did too.

-Corner of the square, Savannah-

“So, that situation taken care of… what were the casualties before I head off to bed on The Ardent Survivor?” I didn’t do nearly as much fighting, because I was helping out at the palace and keeping people calm. I still took down a few golem ponies personally.

I turned away from the awkwardness that was currently surrounding Skelly the living skeleton pony, the air was so thick with embarrassment that you could cut it with a knife. Usually I’m the one embarrassing people or giving vague commentary about what I’ve been up to, as far as interesting goes my life is perfectly fine.

“I’m surprised someone from your three groups finally asked, to think that it was you of all people.” Knowing Tianhuo didn’t like me, I held my tongue and just gave her a weak smile. “If you must know Huoshan might become a dormant volcano, maybe even permanently to just become another mountain. The biggest casualty in all this is losing the heat of our home. No citizens were reported missing, many of the Huoshan Guard a severely injured after pushing their bodies roughly all night and I’m being sent away instead of helping in the rebuilding because of this. We don’t know about the number of guests we had when the attack started, but we’re quite sure we got everyone out of the lower tier before it was completely decimated. The infrastructure of the entire city is a total mess though and it’s going to take a lot of time for the homeless to get rooves over their heads. There’s not much to celebrate.”

Tianhuo held up the scaly looking key with two flaming wings at the handle and three scales as teeth at the other end, it was an intricate piece of art that’s for sure. That it could save the world left me somewhat skeptical, but Jacky believed it could and she was right about The Volcano being a somewhat living entity.

“Well…” I was quickly cut off before I got started.

“It doesn’t help that the hospital is entirely flooded with our defenders and there will soon be one less longma to patrol the streets… also I don’t think Dragon Lord Torch is happy that we let his daughter be captured and threatened. He’s currently talking with our emperor and empress and I don’t know what he’ll do, we are under the dragons rule and we can’t turn to Celestia for help unless we want equestrian citizenship and ponies have a mild case of racism to everything that’s not part of their perfect little world.” Yikes, Tianhuo was taking being ordered to help Arizona’s group pretty hard and that was reinforced when Jacky slapped the key into her hoof. “It’s funny that one of my cousins is a Wonder Bolt and it’s hard to tell that she even has a hint of dragon in her. Her hairstyle is a pretty big giveaway as to her heritage even if she can’t ignite being a pegasus, apparently her lineage can be traced back to when the story of Flash Magnus was said to have occurred more than a thousand years ago. My home is a mess and so am I, I can feel the pain in the air.”

“You almost got yourself killed at the gates.” I stated bluntly and she cringed. “You held that position long enough for the lower tier to be evacuated almost all by yourself. For a local hero, you sure are being a big downer here. I think someone of your caliber would at least suck it up… and tell Pom that you at least like her.”

After suck it up, I started talking faster, her response should be…

“I don’t feel like sucking it up, because I’m leaving behind everything that I’ve worked hard… wait, what?!” I’ve confused her good, now to keep her off balance.

“You should really think about who are you going to leave in charge while you’re gone, they have to be at least as strong if not stronger than you. I thought you longma were all about discipline given combat training is something all longma go through, though it kind of drops off with civilian life you guys never lose your fighting spirit because even the civilians were out and about aiding the guard with the evacuation.” I was watching the evacuation at the palace, as a last line of defense and everything. Would have likely gotten chewed up by the metal dog-goyles that attacked us back in Saddle Arabia if the situation hadn’t turned around like it did. “That aside, what is your interest in Pom? Come on, sit and talk with me, maybe it’ll help you sort your head out. You really need to take a deep breath and move forward my friend.”

Tianhuo shivered as if she had heard the words about taking a deep breath before. She just looked at me blinking with wide unseeing frightened eyes, between a blink they turned red and then back to orange. I flipped her mind and it was so easy to do so, hopefully she’ll get herself back into gear soon and talk to me.

“I… didn’t use to be a very good person.” Tianhuo sat down next to me after I patted a spot on the ground. We were in a corner, it was quiet and nobody else was listening. Everyone else was too busy to stop and listen to a tired and bedraggled hero that needed sleep after a long night. I was basically the shrink for our little crew and a number of people that I’ve spent some wonderful nights with. This would be a good talk for Tianhuo. “I was always angry that I couldn’t even ignite a single flicker of flame, suffice it to say I didn’t quite get the spirit of my people at the time and things were … rough. I eventually learned a lesson about being responsible for my actions and not that of others. Now I’ve become one of many responsible for protecting Huoshan.”

“There! You said one of many, so you aren’t alone in that and you had a longma and reindeer come rescue you at the gates while you were quickly faltering. You are not an island Tianhuo and you’ve obviously made a lot of friends in the guard given that one went to the effort of rescuing you when you were imperiled and burning out. Though I can see that you try not to impose on anyone too much thanks to your past trauma.” I steeple my claws and leaned closer to her. “Now explain to me what has you so attentive of Pom. You seem attracted to her like she was the flame and you’re the moth. I’d hate to tell you this honey, but shouldn’t you be the flame?”

“This is a pep talk isn’t it? Fine, Pom not only reminds me of myself, but she comes off as lonely despite having many around her that want to be friends with her… they all want her to be strong. I think I’m the only one that wants to let her be weak as she wants to be. It remains to be seen whether that’s a bad thing.” Nobody could be strong forever Tianhuo and you clearly gazed into my eyes knowing that fact. “She’s soft, cute, sweet and cuddly. A lambkin is not exactly made for combat and if she is the key bearer for the lambkin, then it’s a pretty bad sign that she might not survive the sealing of the shadow horde. Female lambkin are not supposed to be as strong as she is naturally without any training, I think she’s also supernaturally tough from having so many familiars bonded to her. If someone were to rip those familiars bonds from her whether by taking her or her familiars out well… I don’t want her to get hurt. It doesn’t help that she looks so innocent.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you made a promise to yourself to protect the weak and Pom is both weak and strong at the same time. As confusing as that is for you, you like Pom because she can stand to keep going every day despite all her protests with saying that she’d rather be leading a nice, quiet and ultimately comfortable life. That she would be doing anything other than fighting, yet she has shown that she’s far more courageous than anyone is likely giving her credit for.” I shook my head and smiled at the thought. “She’s not subtle about it, but she likes having friends and she absolutely loves what she calls her beasties. That dog sheep might not have a quiet and comfortable life like she wants, but she’d do anything to help her friends even if it is dangerous. She’s quite far outside her comfort zone and away from her quite idyllic grassy homeland. She takes comfort where she can get it as she’s a square peg hoping that a round hole will eventually widen large enough for her to go through it and find herself.”

“Yes, I can see that much.” Tianhuo mumbled. “Any other words of wisdom oh wise one?”

The sounds of crying and despair were there, but everyone was quickly finding their feet or hooves on the unsteady ground as kind words were given and the people of this city started coming together like Palicoast came together for Kuril.

They were all actually going to do something about what happened to their home and hopefully no one would go hungry tonight, a few were attempting to roughly lighten the mood and there certainly wasn’t enough Paprika to go around here at the moment.

Goodness knows that affectionate alpaca was trying though, she had a smile on her face and a hug in her heart for everyone. Now if only Velvet and Arizona would let me teach her the ropes, both literal and figurative. Time to drop something I’ve recently figured out on Tianhuo.

“So are you ever going to tell Pom you were a bully?” There was a dead silence and we could hear the meandering of the local citizenry being fed by quickly made soup kitchens for those that are now homeless in the distance. “If you talk with Pom, the first thing you should tell her is your story. Maybe it’ll be an inspiration to her, maybe she’ll tell you hers and you’ll find some common ground. You could probably get Pom some medical books and teach her how to become a combat medic, get her interested in helping and healing more than her beasties whenever they get hurt or scratched up. Look over there and tell me she wouldn’t be a good nurse.”

I pointed a claw and Tianhuo turned to look at Pom discussing something with Sweetcakes and pointing to her menagerie, the fox passed her a medical kit and keeled over from being near a literal form of dead tired. She had expended a massive amounts of energy and couldn’t heal anything.

Pom then went about cleaning, bandaging and helping the wounds of her many canine companions that got injured protecting her, the city and the four puppies she had gotten through the mess without many injuries to speak of. She got the Canis Major she called Big Mama to lift a paw and she tended to it so calmly, she looked quite happy to see that all of her beasties were alright as she wrapped the injured leg with a bandage.

She kept sending glances at Mr. Birch as if expecting him to explode into a conflagration. Given that he was a wolf made of wood, it was quite a surprise to see that he hadn’t burnt up from the heat yet. His leaves were wilted and his many branches didn’t look so good, but he seemed to be staying strong just for the lambkin’s sake, he probably needed water.

Nefer went over to Mr. Birch with a bucket of water and presented it to him, the wolf licked Nefer’s face and then ducked its entire face in the bucket to absorb the water out of it.

“I think I will go over there and assist Pom and maybe open up a little.” Tianhuo bowed deeply to me. “Savannah… I thank you for your time.”

She then slowly walked over to the lambkin currently tending to her flock.

I decided to go pick up some extra supplies for The Ardent Survivor, couldn’t have nearly enough with Jacky’s luck and we were heading out for Moss Cow soon. First we had to quickly pillage Teatime’s ship and then come back here to pick up Tianhuo once we were done.

-Middle tier, destroyed airship docks, Gene-

“Jacky, how long do you think we’ve delayed him for?” I wanted to get my proposal back into Jacky’s talons after all.

“Long enough, depending on how the ship destroyer part of my luck went.” She was leaning against some railing as she looked at the massive piles of rubble that was the lower tier.

Then the railing decided to break off, but I was expecting that and pulled Jacky against my beating heart.

“Saw that coming did you? Even I could have.” Yet Jacky still did it, I wondered if she wanted me to pull her close like this. “We’ll take a few hours to nap and then we’ll set out. If we do this fast enough we can get Arizona’s group to Moss Cow and be in Turtle Toga before it moves too far away from the position it’ll be in over the course of this next week.”

-Airship Mauled, Kuril-

“I wonder if Fortitude and Flamberge made more friends, those boys are always doing good work out there. I know we’re going to hear an interesting story from this one.” I hadn’t unwrapped my eyes, but I was saving doing that for one special occasion I only glimpsed in the myriad of things I saw within the painful looking glass. “My heart is still heavy, but the people here need me… and my food, can’t come here without me giving a grand meal as that would be rude. It will all come from this lovely witch, I have enough in me to smile today with the barest twitch.”

“Fresh Start, leave the kitchen to me today for I’m not sleeping, I’m actually in the mood to cook and I tire of weeping.” I couldn’t let myself get rusty, plus I needed to keep up with my paperwork. I wasn’t about to let it pile up, our town was still growing.

“Of course Kuril!” I could tell she was smiling in my direction.

I tried to perk up and be hopeful, there was still chance of a bright future.

It wouldn't be long after this day that some of the dots started to travel together in a big clump, they eventually ended up in Moss Cow. From there they fully split.

I could only imagine the amazing adventures they were having.

Author's Note

Next few pages are one-offs before the chapter where the predestined fate befalls each group.

Chapter fifty seven, Where we’re going: To the tundra.

-Moss Cow, Arcanum Archives Association Branch, Sunburst-

I woke up to another cold morning in Moss Cow, not many ponies here. My mother didn’t like cold places and that was one of the very reasons why I came here. I would have preferred somewhere closer in Equestria, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Sighing out, I thought about the area as I looked out the window seeing snow again. The cattle here were stocky and built tough to survive this cold climate. The place was like a frozen wasteland, the majority of the meals here were potatoes and cheese, aside from several untoward things happening among their own people the cattle weren’t doing anything much of interest besides beating each other black and blue.

This place was basically the dairy treat capital of the world, but that wasn’t exactly why I was here.

Turning away from the window I went to go take care of the things I had to do this morning, bathroom and hygiene first. I looked at myself in the mirror and cleaned my glasses with some magic. I checked my red hair and beard, followed by checking my tail and considered whether a shower was worth the money it'd cost to take one.

Hot water was a commodity around here.

I sighed and used some magic to warm the cold water before it hit me, you learn all kinds of spells in unique places such as this. My magic wasn’t exactly the strongest, but I was good enough to get by as an archivist here and my horn was at least rated for most minor cantrips and some moderate level spells.

Still didn’t have the heart to tell my mother I had dropped out of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, I really didn’t know what I was doing with my life aside from archiving knowledge and learning interesting easy to use spells. My job out here was basically to be a minor troubleshooter for the archives, I really wished a transfer to Canterlot or somewhere else would come in.

Getting out the shower and taking minimal care of my scraggly red mane, beard and tail, I threw my enchanted cloak of warmth around my neck.

I looked into the mirror at my tired blue eyes, I really didn’t get much sleep last night. My orange fur, white tipped hooves and a white streak on my nose made me a little more unique than an average pony, but at most I thought I looked like an orange cream dessert with cherry sauce for hair and blueberry sauce for a cloak.

This was just another day to sit down and read many interesting stories, local culture and of course expand my knowledge of many things. I wanted to tell someone something important that happened to me a while ago, it’s been more than a year at least and it was still quite fresh in my mind.

I had thought about sending Starlight Glimmer a letter once more, but I was too much of a coward to tell her of my failures and I still am. Plus, I didn’t really know where Starlight was anymore, because I seriously doubt that she’d stay in Sire’s Hollow with her overbearing father for too long.

Sire’s Hollow seemed a bit too quiet for her and I never exactly wanted to go back there either with my busybody mother trying to run my life for me, I wondered where Starlight was now. I haven’t really thought about her in years.

Oh well, on to business and ignoring the strangling guilt, because I’ve told absolutely nobody about what happened.

I sat down and had my nose in a book, I was trying to ignore that gnawing dread and the thing that was still sitting in my room given to me by the Arcanum Archivist Association for my stay here.

After a few hours of good reading, something interrupted my day completely and it all started with a single word. I didn’t know it yet, but this day was going to go south. Anywhere south of Moss Cow was far warmer at least, even if I was getting starting to get used to the bone chilling cold.

“Meep.” Blinking and looking up with a startled yelp, I fell backwards and tumbled painfully to the floor.

The thing that startled me was a brightly smiling alpaca face and large friendly purple eyes that were asking me a question I’m not sure I wanted to answer. She was covered in a thick amount of blonde or yellow fluff.

There was something about that smile that made my instincts scream to run, mostly before she did whatever it was she was asking me with her eyes. The other part of my instincts were telling me to paradoxically stand still, since running might set her off and standing still might be safer than getting run down by her. There was something about this alpaca that screamed pure evil despite how friendly she appeared, as if the gods themselves were trying to warn me about her.

“Can I… help you?” The alpaca nodded at me and then opened her mouth to speak.

“Meep?” She asked proudly in question with her head held high and putting a hoof to her chest.

“Your name is Paprika and you want to hug me? Wait… how did you even fit an entire sentence and all those hyperactive emotions into a single word?!” Run, stay still, curl up in a corner and cry, my instincts were all over the place.

It was a good thing I was able to rely on my ability to think clearly, instead of my incredibly ridiculous instinctual reaction to fear this cuddly looking being.

“Meep.” I understood that bizarrely enough, that was several sentences instead of just the one this time and she didn’t even change the inflection at all I’ve just noticed… well aside from the previous noise being more questioning than it.

“Uh… I don’t know why you want to hug me, we’re meeting for the first time after all. If I said yes, what would you…” My world was pain, she was squeezing the life out me and I was choking for air.

My instincts said I should have chosen the run option, but then it turned around and told itself that running might have made her even more aggressive. Eventually the iron hard pressure eased up on my entire body and… I felt oddly fine about everything that’s happened to me in life.

Did she just hug all those depressing thoughts out me?

-Love god corner of the universe-

“Oh other gods and goddesses, she’s starting to gain enough power to come close to ascending just by existing!” The goddess Aphrodite started to curl up in a corner and cry into her hooves. Various other male and female gods of love gathered around and comforted her.

Nothing would stop Paprika from possibly becoming a love god, should she hug enough people, monsters and or things with pure unconditional love to the point that it will inevitably happen. There was nothing they could actually do about it. Unless they could find her a different position other than love goddess, they were absolutely screwed… and not in the good way that usually comes with the position.

“Could she become a different kind of goddess?” Eros suggested, he was as horrified as all the others by the power that Paprika just showed. She was able to defeat angst by simply hugging it out of people now. “I mean there are many aspects that other gods won’t touch with a ten foot pole, maybe we can foist her off on one of those titles as to not be near us or hope she somehow gets lost before she can ascend to meet us?”

“Not likely Eros, Anteros says that she’s becoming quite unstoppable. The best we can do is pray to a higher power… well higher than us that is. We’re not even sure there is one, because Paprika would be the cruelest joke it could play on us.” Parvati stated while shivering. “For if she becomes a goddess then she might rule over us soon enough. Can you imagine the horror of being under her commanding hooves… the horror… that is so much more horrifying than my mother becoming a part of Pinkie Pie!”

“Get a hold of yourself and think Parvati!” Serpent Goddess Xochiquetzal slapped the goddess with a wing as hard as she could. “We do not need her becoming a goddess of love above us all or even dare I say it…. the goddess of hugging! She would hug us and everything for an eternity all at once! Eros’s idea has some merit to it, think of something for the love of all that is love in the universe!”

“I’ve got it!” The longma goddess of love, Jiutian, suddenly shouted and lit up with pink flames. “However… I won’t tell you how to avoid such a horrible fate, unless you all help me with my project.”

“You mean that weird pet project of yours where keep you trying to get a lambkin and a longma to breed to make fluffy longma?” Oshun, the goddess of love for sea ponies, didn’t seem too excited about that idea. “Yeah, because that’s going so~ well. Newsflash, your current targets are both female! You’ve tried this over fifty thousand times since the longma were first created by Huoshan and you were born not too long after. It’s never going to happen at this rate even if it would be highly adorable!”

“It’s nothing a little… ‘safe’… dark magic accident can’t eventually cure.” Jiutian grinned at all the other gods looking towards her. “Help me and I help you, we all know the rules here… we love to love... except where Paprika is concerned. I’m willing to accept Paprika as our lord love god just to spite you all, even if I’m fated to be her first target!”

The other gods were silent and pondered on whether making a deal with Jiutian was a good idea. If she could solve their little problem with her idea, then it would be worth the cost of doing business.

A god of love looked to the sign that said the goddess of love for the lambkins was still out to pasture, probably still avoiding Jiutian’s aggressive affectionate tendencies.

-Moss Cow, AAA Branch, Sunburst-

“Uh… thank you?” Nodding to me, Paprika pointed at me and intoned one thing.

“Meep?” Well she had hugged me before I even introduced myself.

“My name is Sunburst and…” I started out.

“Meep!” She exclaimed loudly with excitement and came at me, I cringed and waited for another near bone breaking hug.

It never came, I opened one eye and saw that she was plastered against a pillar of ice with her legs splayed out.

Some rather powerful magic went into that pillar, I turned to see a reindeer that looked to be of noble birth and a rather scruffy and small looking cow… in more ways than one given her udders weren’t visible. The cow was the only one wearing a sweater and hat, they seemed to be made of alpaca fleece.

“Sorry about our wife, she’s a bit… excitable… so you're Sunburst. We need to ask you a few things and I am hoping you could answer several questions for our family.” Standing next to the reindeer was a cow who was giving me a thousand yard hard stare, I shivered. “I’m Velvet by the way.”

“I’ll answer whatever you want, just don’t let her hug me again!” I had no idea why I was so terrified of her. Sure the hug hurt a bit, but I had felt much better afterwards. “I have no idea why I’m afraid of her, all I know is that I just am!”

“Eh, that’s usually the response Paprika gets from everyone, but we stayed married to her anyway.” The cow said in a lazy tone. “Still don’t understand how anyone can fear her, she’s just a little hug happy.”

She and Velvet seemed less threatening for some reason and they looked like they were more violent than the alpaca considering the number of fresh and highly visible bruises they were both covered in.

“I’m still rather disturbed by her, it’s like a gut instinct is telling me to avoid her.” I sighed as the alpaca pouted slightly and wiggled her butt aimlessly. “... I’m Sunburst, what did you need to know?”

“Do you know a cow by the name of Minnesota Magnolia Arid?” Velvet asked. There were a lot of cows in Moss Cow, I couldn’t remember every name I’ve ever heard and wasn’t a networking master like cows tended to be.

Why were they coming to me about this? Shouldn’t they ask the local police about missing person cases?

“No, can’t say that I have.” I answered honestly.

“Do you know a cow named 'Maggie' that came to you about a key?” After the cow said that, my eyes widened. Now that was a name I recognized immediately.

“Yes, and I still have the key from that particular… incident.” The small cow narrowed her eyes at me and all her muscles flexed, something tells me I did not want to be hit by her.

The nearby thermostat told me the rooms temperature dropped thirty degrees. With a scan of my horn, said temperature drop centered on the cow and not the reindeer. That was scary.

“What happened to her?” The cow seemed quite intent on finding out about what happened, given she was now holding me up to a bookcase by the throat. “What happened to my mother?!”

“Arizona.” The reindeer intoned calmly.

Her… her mother? I sighed, I didn’t know whether Maggie was alive or not, but she certainly seemed like too much of a wild cow to simply perish.

This cow, Arizona, slowly let me down. Her eyes continued to gaze into mine fiercely, she was certainly distraught and as strong as a ten foot tall gorilla. That was not a good combination in this situation.

“Your mother, Maggie, she came to Moss Cow looking to find a unicorn willing to do something for her. I, unfortunately, volunteered to aid her. Don’t honestly know why she didn’t try Canterlot or somewhere else, she probably didn’t want to lose the key and thus came somewhere more discreet. I didn’t think much of it at the time as this wasn’t illegal up to a certain point, but well… your mother was rather insistent… on top of being crass, belching a lot and making rude jokes.” I coughed into my hoof when the cow glared at me harder. “She wanted me to research the key to see how it worked, so I did that. I’m not very good with magic, but I did learn some things…”

“Get to the point!” Velvet grew quite stern as she place herself in Arizona’s path. “That and you have the key of the lambkin, which we’re going to need to save the world.”

“She's stuck in another dimension and I can't open another portal to wherever she went because the key is used up!” The shockwave that ripped through the room, knocked me and everything away. Only one hoof struck the floor, Arizona slowly approached me. “Please... I know what it’s like to be missing a parent!”

I closed my eyes sobbing, and then... I heard her sobbing.

I opened my eyes and saw that Paprika was holding a crying Arizona’s face against her shoulder.

Author's Note

This one-off gives very little hint about why Minnesota wanted the key, but what happened to her might be all the explanation needed.

The six keys are used to seal a portal to the shadow horde every time it threatens to break. It's not much of a stretch to say that they can do otherwise, but only once per sealing.

So the key of the lambkin can't exactly be used twice to go to where Minnesota Magnolia Arid ended up until after dealing with the Shadow Horde. The breaking Shadow Horde portal is Arizona's last hope.

Also Sunburst notably doesn't have a father, his mother tries to be a good parent by trying to give him direction in trying to make up for her missing partner. She obviously went too far.

Starlight doesn't have a mother, her father tried to be more emotionally open with her to make up for missing the love of his life. Unfortunately Starlight didn't take kindly to being babied or mothered by a stallion.

Chapter fifty seven, Where we’re going: To the sky.

-Ardent Survivor, on the way to Turtle Toga, Jacky-

“Captain, pirate ship coming up on our stern, they don’t look like they are going to use their cannons though. Either they don’t have them or they prefer boarding actions.” Looking over my shoulder at Gene wielding a griffon mask as a telescope, I turned back and saw it approaching quickly. “Gene have Flotsam stow the cannons and seal of most of the rooms, Tell Nefer he will be a wandering distraction, I want everyone to knock them out without injuring them too much, tell Savannah to put a hold on lunch and to get up here, Belfry will cover the doors to below deck and will make sure nothing is stolen. I’ll of course deal with the captain.”

Gene didn’t say anything and was off to carry out every single one of my orders as I locked steering and stepped away from it.

As Savannah came up onto the deck with me, I readied myself for a fight by placing my talons over the saber I had at my hip.

It didn’t take long for them swing over on ropes, I pulled my sword and then waited for us to get down to business.

“Well if it isn’t the Ardent Survivor and The Wild Savannah!” The female parrot stated and raised a sword ready to fight Savannah who was going to stick primarily to using her fists.

I blinked.

“Uh, I’m the captain.” I pointed out.

“Seriously?” The female parrot muttered.

“Yes, she’s our wonderful Captain Blackcap.” Nefer said as he came up to us as we started forming a line to face the other pirates.

“Really now?” The parrot said again as if still disbelieving this fact and scratching at the side of her head in confusion.

“She’s the only one who can actually captain this ship effectively, because I certainly don’t want the job and neither does anyone else in this crew.” Way to give me a vote of confidence Flotsam. She flopped up to me and bit off a chunk of an unpeeled banana ad began chewing.

“So the most promiscuous and notorious member of your crew isn’t the captain?” I still think the parrot looked familiar, it had been probably a few years so something important could have changed about them.

“You know, I’m kind of insulted, I’m ‘The Blackcap’ and my crew has had some really ridiculous adventures thanks to my horrible luck.” Though I pointed my sword at her, I quickly lowered it and asked a question quite plainly. “Okay, I really need to know this, how in the world is Savannah more prominent than me?”

“Well word gets around that’s she’s good at what she does, mostly she listens to people and helps them if they have minor hang ups in life and need to relax. That you need your medical documents to be perfectly up to date to get anywhere with her physically is also a commonly known thing and that it’s absolutely going to be a just friends situation. Quite frankly she’s the reason why medical checkups are becoming more common worldwide, especially among pirates… will she be available later after this?” That didn’t answer my question… wait, Celaeno? Huh, she’s missing a leg and replaced it with a large chunk of crystal. That’s both cool and stylish. Savannah made a gesture to Celaeno and she nodded. “Anyway, she’s not notorious because she’s evil or anything, but she has been said to be good at close combat with her bare claws and is good for a bar fight. The real reason why everyone knows about her? Well she’s been with Saddle Arabian delegate Amira, the kindest warlord of Zebrica and his mixed harem, she slept with one of Blue Beret’s more high profile crew members in Saddle Sore Shores and I heard rumors that she slept with both empress and princess of the longma at the same time. So yeah, word gets around that she really is wild and untamed, but not in a bad way.”

“No I slept with them on two completely different occasions.” Did Savannah really need to confirm that? “Of course when I was with the empress, the emperor was there too. I’m something akin to a cuddle toy when not doing business and making fun connections for Jacky to exploit.”

“Your reputation definitely precedes you and is quite impressive , the crew you’re with… not so much.” Ouch, that really hurts my little pirate heart Celaeno.

“At least she didn’t sleep with ‘my’ mother and father…” Flotsam mumbled through the mouthful of banana she was still chewing as Gene took up a position in our line up with his spear. Belfry was already guarding the door and staunchly on the lookout.

“Enough talk about the news or about the famous Queen in your crew, I am in the middle of raiding this ship you know!” She swung her sword for me and I deflected it away from my face, the fight was on as our respective crews started moving.

I can tell that Celaeno was far better with a sword than ever. As we traded blows I decided to go for the old time pirate classic of insult fighting.

“How did you lose the leg, did you trip on an ant and break it beyond recognition Celaeno?” I asked as I parried and thrust my sword forward, this made her jump back.

“I don’t like to talk about it, but you have to admit that the crystal peg leg is pretty nice looking right? Also it’s nice to see you too Jacky, Captain of your own crew huh… so many other pirates are going to owe me so much money for winning the pot on the bet about your survival! Also I see you are taking good care of this ship, I’m quite surprised it hasn’t been destroyed in an accident brought about by your curse like the many other ships you’ve been on.” Celaeno answered. We traded blows, deflected them and ultimately avoided getting an injury in because we were both quite skilled. She soon decided to throw her own insult, as she slashed at my waist. “Where did you learn to fight, from a whacky waving inflatable flailing leg tube pony?”

“Wow that was a mouthful, I’m surprised you can speak half as well as you can fight.” I kicked her in the privates and she stumbled back grunting in pain.

“Okay, that was low blow there…” Celaeno gasped out.

“Still a Pirate, even if a blue one.” I stated calmly flicking my sword at her. “Also those ballroom dancing classes helps with kicking strength and I dance with my griffon regularly to keep in shape. That and you made an offer to one of my crew members. It's the principle of the matter, so I get a free shot.”

“Right!” She charged and clashed the sword against mine harshly.

I threw a punch, she stepped to the side and smashed me across the temple with a nasty hook that had me stumbling back. She took a step forward to attack me, but yelped and tripped as Nefer got under foot.

I smiled as the best looking pirate in her crew tripped over Celaeno.

“You have your own partner to dance with I see.” Both parrots blushed and quickly separated, Celaeno seemed to be taking me more seriously now.

That pirate was slapped in the face by Nefer whipping him with his three tail tips and then he hopped off the guys shoulder. That pirate, once again, was angrily chasing as our cabin cat. Nefer ran around our other crew members in various states of battle.

“Tree!” Gene shouted in the midst of fighting as he spied one coming at us.

I rolled to my left and Celaeno rolled to her right following my movements exactly, it was a good thing she did that. A full pine tree soon struck the deck where we were and performed a rolling bounce that nearly clobbered me with all its spinning roots and almost took out one of Celaeno’s crew members. The tree went sailing overboard between both of our ships.

“You’re luck still hasn’t exactly gotten any better has it?” Celaeno commented idly as she tried to get me with her sword while I was distracted.

“Not in the slightest, those pine needles are going to take forever to clean up!" I deflected and tried to scratch her face, I only lightly hit one of her longer green feathers as she ducked back. "When my first mate and fiancé Gene calls ‘tree’, everyone should pay attention.”

“Hey, watch the feathers, it’s hard to keep them looking this good when my crew is mostly made of males!” Giving Celaeno a long eye roll, we got back into making our blades dance. “Nice to hear you met someone that’s special who doesn’t mind your bad luck. Hope the marriage lasts, he looks like a keeper.”

We circled about striking out at each other and for the most part taking a few moments to gaze at our surroundings to make sure no one was getting seriously hurt.

“Some would say my luck is better than yours given I still have all my limbs, but we both know better than that.” I needed to give her an insult back or I might never live it down. “Wow your hat sure is fancy, what trash bin did you get it out of?”

She came at me with a strong blow. She must really like that hat, given she staggered me and nearly slashed my arm. I quickly twisted my sword, caught hers and deflected it at the deck. I flourished my sword outwards with a complex and confusing series of twirls to send a cut across her vest, mildly scratching her.

“The same one where you got your talent apparently, my wound should be three times as worse! So yeah, there’s more of you to hurt when your body is entirely intact… also, why don’t you have a fancy hat? I’m guessing you can’t afford one with how poor your crew is because of all the repairs they need to make with keeping you around.” Celaeno was practically goading me to tell her about how much cash we had on talons, I didn’t rise to that obvious bait. “Your lot must be sucking down bird seed gruel like no tomorrow.”

Later during the storm king’s rise, but before his fated fall-

“I really shouldn’t have opened my beak to the luck challenged parrot several years back…” Celaeno muttered, the irony was not lost on her as she shoved some gruel into her beak.

Her crew was being forced to work for the Storm King and all they had to eat was bland bird seed gruel.

At least they were alive.

-Back to the story in progress-

What Celaeno didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, we were still pretty flush with funds and the longma paid us for services rendered for the various ways we aided them with Teatime and the Shadow Horde. Having food that never perishes while in the sacks in storage really helped ration our money too, we could buy whatever perishables we wanted without regret.

“I simply prefer my skull cap, besides it fits that a blackcap has a black cap. My crew has their own little caps too if you haven’t noticed.” Now that we have been fighting for a bit, I decided to bluntly broach the topic. “Why are we fighting if you think we have absolutely nothing of value onboard? Also, did it hurt?”

“It was one of the more painful moments in my life to be sure, but I think I’m still able to live fairly well. At least it was only a leg and not my arms.” As soon as Celaeno said that, we distanced ourselves from one another clanging our swords together with a few sparks. “Also we’re fighting because it’s rumored you have a red gem I might be looking for.”

“What’s it called?” Holding out a talon for her to tell me what she’s looking for.

“It wouldn’t happen to be the Good Fortune Garnet would it?” Celaeno asked hopefully, I shook my head no.

“What I have is a Bloodstone called the Dragon Burst Gem of Huoshan.” Thank goodness for my ship breaking tendencies, otherwise it would have been much harder to get the Dragon Burst Gem back. “It’s a cursed gem and I’ll have you know I’m a cursed artifact hunter. It spews flames in a controlled direction and randomly explodes fire that will either kill or severely injure the user.”

“Hmm… okay guys I’m calling it, stop fighting!” Everyone immediately stopped, we both looked around saw the kind of states everyone was in.

Nefer was standing on two unconscious parrots licking himself. Flotsam was in the middle of smashing a guy against the ground by his leg repeatedly with her banana peel given powers. Gene just disarmed and was holding one at spear point. There were also several of Celaeno’s crew members wandering around in a daze near Belfry.

“I’m a pretty pink ballerina!” That one fell over and even started puking his guts out. I swear our giant butterfly was a chemical warfare problem waiting to happen.

“… I… have no words...” Celaeno stated while putting her talons to her head, she rubbed at it vigorously while groaning in dismay.

“My small eclectic crew is surprisingly competent at many things. They have to be, I taught them after all.” I offered that as the explanation as to why most of her crew members were out of action. “When your luck is as bad as mine is, you’d make sure every crew member works on their skills to survive it and if they can survive being near me for as long as they have…”

“They’ll survive just about anything.” Celaeno followed up. “Since you’re the worst they’ll ever have to deal with on a daily basis.”

“Exactly, so… lunch?” I grinned at Celaeno and she just gave me a dirty look.

“My ship better not crash by the end of it.” Celaeno warned.

-Celaeno’s ship, some hours later, Celaeno-

Savannah was better than rumored.

“Thanks for meal Celaeno!” I watched as Jacky got off my ship without it going up in flames.

So Jacky's curse could be courteous at times, now if only it hadn’t caused Jacky to find so many loose planks on my deck to raise up and smack her in the beak or butt. We had to nail those down extra hard now to make sure The Blackcap’s curse didn’t effect anything permanently.

Thus our search continues. I also noted that her ship has lasted against her luck for quite a long time, she must love that airship more than anything and I know the feeling.

I loved my airship and my crew more than anything too, I’m not about to break up another family like ours just trying to steal from them. Jacky is doing pretty good for herself, though I noted that the Abyssinian she was with the last time we met wasn’t present. I was not going to pry about it.

It looks like she was heading towards Turtle Toga, she’s likely to pick up more discount treasure maps after showing me the ones she’s already used.

“Lix set a course…” I then order my crew to a new adventure. We’d still be looking for clues to the Good fortune Garnet, but my men wanted a more completable adventure.

Author's Note

N/A

Chapter fifty seven, Where we’re going: To the sea.

-Somewhere on the ocean, Flamberge-

We had said farewell to friends old and new and then set out, after a few adventures we ended up in the middle of the ocean. If I had known we’d be out here, I would have taken up that stallion’s offer for that bag of goods back in Fillydelphia.

I have no idea what we’re supposed to do here, but Travel-On had stopped in the ocean and things were quite still. The moonlight shined down on all of us and nothing was occurring. There weren’t any clouds in the sky and things were quiet, far too quiet as we were not even hearing the shifting of the sea itself.

“Is this another one of those ominous locations we should be worried about?!” I asked out loud as I looked over the side of the boat into the water, my voice might have been one of the few rare things that broke the staunch silence of our surroundings.

After I stopped talking, dead silence followed. We’ve already been here for longer than five minutes, we were quite sure we had to do something in this exact location.

“Danger is about, I do not know in what form, water is not safe.” Sweetcakes's tails swished back and forth as she looked over the side of the boat, but didn’t lower her head towards the water.

The only thing displacing the water around here was our boat, there weren’t any waves which was one of the truly odd things about this location. No matter where you were on the ocean there were at least some waves, this location was obviously different. Different meant possible danger for us.

“Maybe we are to enter the water to find out why we are here?” Well that would require a volunteer do something idiotically dangerous Fortitude, which is something we’re all really good at doing by now.

We’ve volunteered for many a strange quest and have survived them all with mostly common sense. When dealing with eldritch abominations, we’ve learned that relying exclusively on nonsense was a far better idea. Trying to adhere to common sense with something that is completely nonsensical, and usually deadly, might get you killed.

If it were me, I would think of something better to do first before jumping into an ocean that was as unnaturally still as this place specifically was.

Dragons were only decent at swimming unless they were of the much more capable aquatic varieties.

My brother would be buoyant as long as he has air in his lungs and would sink like a rock otherwise.

Skelly could go down there, but I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to her if she were to go alone.

Sweetcakes might be able to create a bubbles of air for our heads with the tengu fan, but otherwise shouldn’t go alone either. She would have to go down there to keep said magical bubbles going if she can make them.

“Well, we can’t sit here forever!” I turned to our kitsune companion. “Sweetcakes can you provide magical air bubbles?!”

“I can do a lot, bubbles of air not easy, I am capable.” Sweetcakes nodded to me and smiled sweetly with that vulpine grace of hers. At least she wasn’t being as pushy with her affection now, there was also the fact that our friendship was still wobbly after what she pulled at The Volcano.

“We need someone to stay up here, it’ll either be me or Fortitude that goes down! We’ll need some rope to tie to one of us, ‘if’, we’re going to go diving!” I didn’t like the idea of it being me down there, but I would be open for it if they wanted me to do it. “Sweetcakes needs to be down there to keep up the bubbles. Skelly doesn’t have to worry about oxygen, pressure or much of anything else and could get us to safety if something went wrong! Though she might have a problem with her inability to use her axe underwater and we would definitely need a rope around her as she’ll sink while she is all bones.”

Fortitude frowned when I pointed out that Skelly would sink, because bones do not float. Skelly’s daytime form ‘might’ be capable of floating or swimming normally.

“Then you should go with Sweetcakes. I can get in the water, but we should keep Skelly dry as it would be hard to get her out if she sinks to the bottom. If something goes wrong, then we can pull the two of you up on the rope quickly.” Fortitude makes a good point. I nodded and accepted my position of having to face the still sea and I would be relying on Sweetcakes, but otherwise we weren’t immediately jumping in and it was just the plan right now. “Before we are doing that, we should be calling the Sea Pony SOS for help if there is any around here!”

“Noticed that I’m not quite willing to take the dive?” I said in a completely normal tone of voice, though I couldn’t help but smile in my brother’s direction. Knowing that I had volume control problems did not make said problems go away, that and Fortitude grinned at my reference to Sweetcakes.

“It is fairly obvious brother, even I would not be in a hurry to jump in.” Taking in a lungful of air to bellow out the infamous chorus, Fortitude probably should not be the one doing this. “Shoo-be-doo Shoo-shoo-be-doo~!”

That… was not as bad as I thought his singing would be, sounded like opera. We would wait for a minute and then begin preparations, it took a little more than half that time for something to respond.

The boat shook and we all tensed and prepared ourselves for a monster, only to spot a light brown hoof gripping the edge of the boat.

What came up out of the water looked like a normal earth pony mare, she quickly pulled herself into our boat. We took in her light brown coat, shaggy black mane and tail speckled with grey dots in various shades, she also had these oddly bright yellow eyes.

She looked normal, but there were no signs of boats for miles around. She spent the last five minutes underwater, only to come up without gasping for air. This told us there was something highly abnormal about her and we were quite used to dealing with the unknown.

She was not something eldritch at least, but I knew for sure this wasn’t a pony. I pulled my sword and held it towards her, Skelly held her axe at the ready, Fortitude lifted his shield in preparation for a bash and Sweetcakes raised the tengu fan while creating two orbs of fire.

The earth pony shook her head and collected herself, she quickly noticed our aggressive stances towards her.

“Uh… nice weapons? Sorry for spooking you, the name’s Briny Depths!” She greeted us cheerfully, we just kept staring at her. “Whoa, tough crowd… look I know you were the ones calling for help, but I could really use some myself!”

“What would a…!” I motioned at her with my flaming sword. “’You’, need our help for?!”

“Isn’t it obvious that I’m a pony?” She looked around at all of us and then blinked when we didn’t ease up on our caution.

“No, you are definitely not a pony!” I didn’t have to explain how we knew, but I might as well throw something out there. “Also, why aren’t you reacting to Skelly being a skeleton?”

“You mean t-t-that’s not a r-r-really well made nightmare night costume?!” Briny moved over to skelly and started to poke her hooves through our friend’s ribcage. She quickly backed away looking frightened, she was cowering well enough that she was truly afraid of Skelly. “Uh, I don’t think I can help with that and can I ask why you called for help with something like this!”

“Skelly is not why we called for help, we wanted to know where we are or information about why everything around his is so… abnormal… that’s including you!” Being as loud as I was, Briny flinched slightly and looked away rubbing at her left leg in a defensive manner.

“Welcome to The Eerie Eel Eye, this is a spot on the sea that has giant voracious eels constantly circling it and makes the water as calm as it looks.” We apparently appeared in the middle of this place or at least within the safe bounds of this so called eye according to Briny here. “Wait, how did you get by them without them attacking you? You should have met them coming in with a boat like this!”

“Not important, let’s just say that we bypassed them without knowing they were there and can get out of here just as easily!” I pointedly noticed that she made no comment about what she was or why she was still here in the middle of this mess. “What are you and how did you end up here?!”

“Okay, it’s like this, some pirates found something highly important to me and took 'it'! They thankfully were doing things old school instead of using an airship, so it wasn’t too hard to follow them.” She grimaced as if she didn’t want to tell us what she was, she was very shifty with her subject change. “They entered The Eerie Eel Eye and well… they managed to escape their sinking ship after the eel’s attacked it. I on the other… what were these things again, hooves, yes that… I on the other hoof have been stuck here surviving off what I could. The 'thing' they took is still in their wreckage below and it is quite important that I stay here until I can get my... ‘it’ back. The eels don’t come this far into the circle, but I’ve had problems with retrieving my ‘thing’. Even if I did retrieve 'it' I would still be stuck here, but I would at least be feeling far better about my situation. I might even be able to escape this place on my own afterwards.”

“So you need our help to get whatever it is you’re talking about with great risk to ourselves?” I noted that Briny didn’t say anything in her somewhat squeaky high pitched voice, she eventually nodded. “Are there any eels near it?”

“No, it should be safe. I’ve been stuck here for a year, please at least help me get my… ‘thing’… back from the sunken ship.” Should we help Briny? Was that what Travel On wanted us to do?

“Brother?!” I turned to Fortitude to see what he thought.

“We should help her.” I trusted Fortitude’s in-stinks for this.

I watched as Briny oddly sniffed Skelly, then Sweetcakes with an approving grunt, she gagged slightly at my sulfur smell and she then followed that up by sniffing my brother. She was never going to smell my brother again after this.

“Ugh, what crawled into your fur and died! I hope nothing did that to… er… never mind. When you’re ready, I’ll dive in and you can follow me down to the wreckage.” Briny looked entirely too hopeful to be getting our help, also I noted that she cut herself off before she was about to say anything that might be related to what she was.

With a rope tied to our waists and bubbles of air wrapped around our heads, which would drain breathable air form the surrounding waters, we dove in and swam down to see a pirate ship wreckage on a reef in the moonlight. Since the surface wasn’t as choppy as it could be, we could see far more clearly down here.

We followed Briny, who was looking around cautiously as we approached the ship. We got onto it without problems, but ran into the big problem that was bothering Briny in getting her ‘thing’ back. A doorknob, she pointed at it insistently.

It was apparent that she didn’t know how to open doors. Trying the knob, she looked mystified when I rammed the door wide opened. The thing wasn’t even locked and why would it be? The pirates obviously fled the boat in a panic and the only thing holding it shut was pressure. The large holes in the side of this ship told us just how big the eels around here were, hopefully her ‘thing’ was in the captain’s cabin.

Sweetcakes and I swam in after her and watched as she turned the room over with reckless abandon. She wasn’t very smart, given she didn’t seem to care that much about the treasure chest. This was adding more oddities to this supposed ‘pony’s’ nature.

Sweetcakes swam over to her and tapped her with a tail and pointed to the chest, she seemed confused until I tried to move the heavy thing. She got the idea after that that we wanted to move this thing. It took the three of us moving it, but we eventually got it out onto the deck of the ship and tied the ropes to it.

Tugging on the ropes, we took to sitting upon the chest to ride it up to the surface while watching our surroundings. Fortitude helped pull it and us out of the cold waters. Sweetcakes wiped the waters from our body with the winds of the tengu fan, then quickly cured us of a sickness known as 'the bends'.

Briny eventually crawled onto the ship after us still sopping wet, she was perfectly fine and didn’t get the bends at all.

“Wow… so why did we take this chest?” Another oddity of Briny, she didn’t seem to understand the importance. “All pirates ever put in these things is weird shiny stuff!”

I glanced at her and then pulled my flaming sword to break the lock. Given that it was made of gold that wasn’t electrum, this was a relatively easy task. I quickly opened the chest and dumped the contents out into the boat.

“Oh my goodness, there it is, my skin! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank all of you so much!” That would have been really weird if Briny were not crying and hugging a pile of rubbery substance while rubbing her face against it. She eventually stuffed her hind legs into what looked like very weird onesie and when she snapped the hood into place, she revealed her true nature to us.

“’bwark, bwark, bwark’~!’ The grey and brown spotted seal sang happily, we apparently just helped a Selkie get her skin back. The seal peeled her head back revealing the pony head underneath. “Sorry, I’m just so happy to have my skin back! Could you do me one more little favor… could you help me get out of here? I don’t think I can outswim the eels without a huge distraction like last time.”

“Sure, if you don’t care where we’ll end up.” Fortitude answered. “We can get you out of here if you stay in the boat for a bit.”

“Anything that gets me out of here, I don’t care!” Briny hugged her seal flippers against herself and shivered.

“You heard her Skelly, get to rowing and get us out of here!” I shouted and Skelly started rowing.

The mists quickly surrounded the boat, proving that we just did the right thing. We had now had one highly curious passenger that we’ll hopefully drop off at our soonest convenience.

“Whoa… this is so weird… it’s making me feel dizzy.” Briny whined.

Author's Note

Selkie's are strange and wondrous creatures.

They look like normal seals, but can remove their skin to provide any number of female species of land based animals. In most cases a selkie can shed their skin to also be only one of the following: Zebra, Earth pony, Pegasus pony(Likely to only fly over water), Unicorn Pony(Capable of levitation only), Thestral pony(Increased night vision), Kirin (Exceedingly rare, capable of levitation only and can't go Nirik) , Longma (Also exceedingly rare, able to mimic pistol shrimp and otherwise can't create much fire), Siren (Without the singing powers), Sea Pony (Causes a lot of species confusion), Mer-pony (fin only pony species, also causes species confusion) and River pony (Cute frog like ponies that are the more fresh water equivalent of a sea pony).

Chapter fifty seven, Where we’re going: we might never come back.

-Date:???, Manehatten, Shocking-

After Teatime got his comeuppance via a teleporting pony golem, we went our separate ways.

I of course had Jock Hawk with me and I was getting into boxing and wrestling until I was needed again. Our business wasn’t going too badly, provided that we played nice with the rules. Not everyone appreciates a good blood sport, but there were still quite a few pegasi that did.

Dispel Grace went off to do whatever it is he would with those so called holy powers, the last I saw him he was spouting nonsense about how powerful he’ll be when he was next needed. He was still a one trick pony and without that sword, or possibly the armor, he wasn’t as capable in a fight. I’d like to see if he was able to pull it off.

As for Teatime I had no clue where he was going, but he did say he was going to build up resources. One thing was for certain, he was apparently going to help find that ‘End of Immortality’ thing and assist Caballeron’s efforts. Aside from that Teatime would do his own treasure hunting thing and seek out that pirate parrot for revenge, because how dare she steal back that jewel she rightfully earned in the first place?

I say if the parrot was strong enough to do it, then she should get away with it. Teatime really shouldn’t focus any of his efforts on her, she just might make him look stupid again.

As for news of what GODLESS was doing, the entire network was broken to pieces. Many of our members were taken down and imprisoned, quite frankly Celestia was kind of on a warpath with anyone that does anything too openly.

It was a good time to lay low after what we did at The Volcano and it was why we would be doing mostly legit stuff, despite how much it rankles me.

“So boss, what are we going to do today?” Jock crossed his arms and grinned.

“Put on an entertaining show of course, all the safeties are for the sissies of course.” If GODLESS needed me, then they knew where to find me and what my going rates were.

“Victorious Volt and Ripping Rocker, wrestling team extraordinaire!” My companion pulled out a guitar and tried to play a riff on it.

“You’re really bad Jock.” He really needed lessons, because it sounded like a cat being beaten half to death with a trash can.

“The baddest!” He agreed jovially and I just rolled my eyes.

“No, I mean it, you’re horrible.” I stated flatly.

“Yep, horribly great!” Why did I take this perky punchy parrot for a minion again? Oh right, because it’s cool to have buff minions that can be a competent enforcer.

Some side jobs as bouncers paid well and we could intimidate as many ponies as we wanted if they looked like they’d cause too much trouble.

-A few weeks after Huoshan, grassy hill overlooking plains, Arizona-

“Well that’s not ominous at all.” Swirling clouds, lightning, mountain shrouded in darkness and in the distance was a strange figure that looked like a thestral. I think the seal might break before we could reach it, but we still had some time before that happened and we would make it. We had to.

It took us a while to find a way out of Moss Cow with Pom’s menagerie, then we dropped by the unicorns of light to ask for assistance if we fail. From what Ollie has said, they were going to be quite useless and I agreed with her on that. Failure was definitely not an option here.

“I’ve seen that thestral before… Hollow Heart?!” Velvet seemed surprised and tossed away the ice telescope that was quickly evaporated by the hovering Tinsel next to her head. “I saw him in action previously at Seared Seer Mountain, he’s far more dangerous than he looks and has likely become more powerful since then. You remember that coma that Jade was put into Arizona? He caused that and he isn’t a pushover in a fight, if he is enshrouded in darkness he is almost impervious to injury and he heals stupidly fast. As in faster than you do and you’re ridiculous enough already! He was leader of the cultist for nightmares and or darkness in general, it seems he’s joining this battle with the shadow monsters.”

“So that’s who that speck is out there? I’m sure you’re just overestimating how strong he is Velvet. Though I seriously hope the unicorns of light will actually get off their butts and actually do something if there is a chance of us failing here.” So we had to go through a really strong thestral pony to get to the seal, didn’t sound so difficult. A rip formed in the air above the caves entrance leading into the mountain. “Oh you have got to be bucking kidding me!”

“It seems the shadows are intent on flooding into Equestria and if they can slow us down long enough…” Tianhuo drifted off and took a few steps forward, her entire body ignited as she spread two flaming wings from her back. “Well now… I say we shall give them quite a warm welcome!”

“Meep!” Paprika playfully hopped forward while taking on a stern stance and wiggling her hips, I stared at her butt and so did Velvet. Wouldn’t get much chance to stare at that when all the fighting started and Paprika didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

“Yes, well, we just have to fight through a shadow horde leak and a nightmarish cultist. Said figure of whom all the shadow monsters seem oddly docile towards. We have thankfully evacuated the last pony out of the area, because if this Hollow Heart can guide those shadow monsters…” Ollie took several steps forward while reading through Fred’s pages. “We’re the closest signs of life for them to go after and we're about to have our hooves full just surviving the onslaught much less pressing through a mass of shadow monsters with just the five of us and Fred. Do I even need to say how much worse it can get if that thestral can act as a driving intelligence for all the monsters pouring out of that leak?”

“Um… I haven’t exactly run away yet Ollie…” Pom said from behind us, she was cowering behind Big Mama. The large dog rolled her eyes and gave off a loud huff. The puppies growled and barked at the ominous mountain across the grassy plains, while standing protectively around the lambkin.

“As I said, the five of us and Fred are going to have problems pushing forward.” That was kind of cruel Ollie. “If Pom and her menagerie can bring up the rear and give use a minute or two of rest every once in a while after we get stuck in the thick of it, then we should be able to keep pushing with her ample support. Though I think things would go much smoother if we had seven active combatants on the field, along with the canine menagerie being the defensive support for when we need to fall back and tend to our injuries. I should note that we can close that leak, but you’ll need to get us close to it.”

“I’m going to do my best... to not be a burden to all of you.” Pom muttered as she climbed up on to Big Mama’s back while twiddling her hooves. “We’ll be able to... keep up.”

Under the dark clouds the shadow monsters started to spill forth and came right at us while we stood in the sunlit half of the grassy plains.

“I think we should battle in the shade, THEN WE’LL SEE IF THEY ARE READY FOR FREDDY!” The knowledge demon shouted with glee as Ollie prepared to let him loose as we all started down the hill toward the large army of shadow monsters barreling towards us.

Letting Fred out of the book for a short while would be a good boost to our offensive might, hopefully he didn’t attack any of us and Ollie chose a good time to do so. We were trusting our backs to him and Oleander.

Tianhuo would sweep through the front as needed and will stay mobile.

I would be going directly through the center of them.

Velvet would take the left side and Paprika was on the right.

Ollie is going to be behind me with Fred, until she unleashes him for a short amount of time.

Pom is going to be bringing up the rear.

Getting Ollie close enough to that leak on the mountain is a priority, we’d have to give her the time she needs to close it once we got her close enough.

-Approximately a year later, location unknown, daytime, Fortitude-

“Something is being very wrong.” I am not feeling the same as I was a second ago.

“Gee, you think?!” Turning to Flamberge, I saw that he was no longer a dragon… he was a large red dog though.

Looking to Sweetcakes, she seemed upset to no longer having golden fur or her blue tipped tails. She was now a red furred fox with a single white tipped tail.

Hearing a clacking noise I turned to Skelly and saw her looking very different from being a pony, she looked more a like an ape now. I looked down at my limbs and considered them for a moment. Was I like a minotaur now? Well I was not going to pass for an Abyssinian, I lifted my right limb and wiggled the digits on them.

“We are going to be needing a lot of help with this one.” I said flatly as the boat beached itself next to a sign that proclaimed ‘Welcome to Manehattan City’, but it was not a city full of ponies. It was full of more things like what Skelly and I currently looked like.

“I’m a dog, so yes, I’m guessing this is going to require a lot of time to get used to… because I don’t think we’re in Equestria anymore!” My brother was used to walking on two legs, I in turn was used to walking on four. We would need my brother’s instruction to make this work quickly, we would also need to find out why we were needed here more than anywhere else.

“That’s some really cool cosplay stuff, also nice pet fox!” Another being that looked like us said while giving us a digit pointing upwards, he was clearly male and carrying a surfboard.

“Uh, thank you?” The person nodded to me and walked off into the surf and started paddling out to sea. We would need to understand this world and our surroundings quickly so as to not be caught off guard. “He is friendly, but I do not think we should rely on him for help.”

We sat there for the next few minutes perplexed trying to think of what to do or why Travel On wanted us here and in these new forms.

-Years down the line, Palicoast, Inn, Jacky-

I gained consciousness, but I didn’t open my eyes. I squeezed the feathery being next to me tightly and received a cuddle back. After spending five minutes like this, I finally decided to get up.

Carefully working myself out from Gene’s grasp and finally managing to do so, I tried to sit up. I ended up falling out of the bed and banging my head against the wood flooring. Yep, wrong side of the bed, I would think this was just another day if I didn’t know exactly what was coming.

I hissed at the pain, but eventually got up and rubbing at the back of my head. I walked out onto the balcony and watched the rising sun.

I ran my talons through my long, slightly crooked, near waist length black feathers and smiled at the wonderful morning.

It’s too bad things here wouldn’t be peaceful for long, there were preparations to be made and people to talk to. The other pirates wouldn’t help stop the Storm King and I was the only one that was willing to put myself in said maniac’s path. He had an army and we had… a portion of my crew, for whatever value we could bring to the table.

We were leaving Savannah behind and hoped that she got to Airship Mauled okay without us, but until we had to say goodbye we would spend this morning together trying to live in the time we had as a family.

A good breakfast would be a nice start to a horrible day, for it was a terrible day to run into an unstoppable disaster.

It would be just me, Gene, Belfry, Nefer and Flotsam heading out and what we would be doing was considered lethally stupid. The Storm King had an army and his sights were currently set on wrecking Abyssinia, if nobody stalled him he would hit the capital of Panthera before this day was out.

He’s already hit a few small kingdoms and was finding various magical artifacts, he was after the enchanted and magical stuff in Panthera’s vault. The guy was a tyrant king that sacked and burned everything in his wake, I just happened to be in the right place to slow him down.

I had no illusions that we could actually stop him when it was one hundred ships to one odds, but if I took out the Storm King himself I would definitely be remembered as a hero.

The best we could hope for was that the people of Palicoast would bunker down in the shelters and stay hidden. They would go unnoticed and once the danger this ‘Storm King’ presented has gone by them, they would proceed to aid in helping Abyssinia recover.

There was no time to get any messengers to Panthera and it would take days to get a delivery there without a pegasus available and we were the only airship around.

Quite rotten luck this scenario.

“Good morning Jacky…” I heard Gene shifting behind me. His tone may be flat, but I still felt the warmth of his voice at my back. Without me in bed he had no real reason to be lazy.

“Morning…” I turned to Gene and heard something shift beneath my feet, I was prepared for what was going to happen next. The balcony was crumbling out from under me. “See you at breakfast honey!”

The balcony and I fell towards the ground. I kicked off the stone under my feet while leading with my right shoulder, I went into a tumble to bleed off the momentum as the balcony crashed down behind me noisily.

A piece of stone went through my feathers to lodge itself into my lower back, it really was just another day for me. I looked over my shoulder at the stone spike sticking out of my back and groaned.

“Generic, get Savannah to come out here and tell her to have the pliers ready!” The day just got started and I already had a noteworthy injury, I really hated my life sometimes. Only sometimes, as I loved and was loved in return.

It could have been worse though, it could have been one of my butt cheeks and then what would Gene grab? I was fairly certain I would prefer my current injury to that.

I looked towards the coming storm at the edge of the horizon.

Author's Note

The next chapter, to no one's surprise, is called 'Off The Map'.

Chapter fifty eight, Off The Map: Brightest day.

-The plains, Arizona-

We stopped at the edge of the darkness and took in some air before we took the plunge. The shadows started coming out at us into the sunlight and we wouldn’t simply stand still for them.

We would make our way towards that mountain and we would reach the Shadow Horde Seal before it completely broke.

I was the first to charge them and meet them head on, I’d certainly remember my first attack this day as it was the beginning of a very long battle.

I whipped out a rope that ripped through the neck of the shadow snake that tried to leap at me. It seemed like an auspicious start to a very long battle to have a shadow snake’s head and body fly by you in two quickly dissolving pieces.

I grabbed a second rope from under my bandana with my other hoof and started to whip them around horizontally and through the mass of the oncoming horde. There were just so many of them that they threatened to overwhelm us even as we were just entering the shade of the clouds swirling around the mountain the seal was being kept in.

That’s when Tianhuo swept down and started to light the grass on fire to our far right, that would take a load of the fighting off of Paprika and make it easier for her.

I couldn’t focus on that at the moment as I had to keep pressing forward and swinging the ropes in wide sweeping arcs to clear the way.

-Velvet-

I followed Arizona on the left and into the shade, the first thing I did was create a single shard of ice and then I started rapidly firing icicles from it.

I was weighing the cost of magic versus the amount of damage I can do with said magic. I was going to pace myself here, because to do otherwise would be a very bad idea even with Tinsel supporting my efforts.

Every icicle fired from the one levitated shard pierced at least fifty to seventy shadows deep into the oncoming horde. I could fire hundreds of piercing shots like this in seconds and would be able to successfully hold my side of the battlefield.

I just hoped Arizona didn’t push too far forward too fast. We needed to stay in formation and watch each other’s backs. I will have to make a second shard to fire from eventually just to cover everything coming at us, Tinsel and I could only cover so much area around us by ourselves after all.

At least Tianhuo was lighting the surrounding grass on fire and that was giving us a good amount of breathing room moving forward.

A large dark beam of energy arc overhead and blasted a large hole in the shadow horde in the area that Arizona was pushing towards, surprisingly the grass was untouched by the blast of dark energy and it allowed my cow to press forward swinging her ropes with wild reckless abandon.

Arizona had not taken the news about her mother being dimensionally displaced very well and was using that fury for a good cause. It was probably cathartic for her. I was quite worried about my favorite punching bag as she never wanted to discuss her feeling with Paprika or me.

Oleander wasn’t much of a physical fighter close up and would rather whack someone with Fred’s near indestructible book body, but her long range support was quite exquisitely powerful. I wondered what Fred will look like or do when released from the book.

I certainly had my doubts about relying on a self-professed demon to aid us, among a few other things on top of that.

Tianhuo created another line of burning grass that quickly made a corridor for us to travel down. The plains were ablaze as those fires spread outwards, they were dealing with the majority of our enemy for the moment.

The second the shadows put out the fires or managed to drain the light from them was the second we would start getting swarmed from all side. As long as Tianhuo kept up the pressure, then we wouldn’t have to worry about the lesser shadows being big problems.

Just because we were going to have an easier time pressing forward, it did not mean we should drop our guard. They could eventually move around the fires to come up behind us instead of coming at us from the front.

I aimed my ice shots more towards the front given Tianhuo was sweeping the shadow monsters off of our sides. She was ripping through a massive number of shadows just by being a living fireball and ramming herself through them physically at high speeds.

I took a moment to look back to see if Pom was alright. I saw a shadow wolf going for her neck as she was on her back up on Big Mama’s back, she lashed out in a panicked manner with one her rear legs and drove it straight through the monsters neck and made it burst into motes of shadow.

I was scared to learn that there were some already getting behind us, some of those shadows were definitely faster than others as I could see several more shadow wolves being shredded by the teeth and claws of Pom’s beloved beasties.

I turned back to the front and took a calming breath, Ollie was the center of our moving formation and she was needed to close the leak off. After that we could fight the remaining shadows and eventually reach the seal to do what we came here to do.

Tinsel was watching our surroundings and would alert me if something seriously needed my attention.

-Paprika-

Arizona and Velvet were doing good jobs and so was I, there weren’t many problems coming my way that I couldn’t knock back or take out simply thanks to Tianhuo making a lot of fire. Then a shadow wolf leapt towards me.

The emaciated shadow wolf looked like it needed love. Shadows monsters weren’t nice, but I’m sure if I gave it some love, then they’d help us out!

Launching my fluff out at the wolf I wrapped it up and dragged into my loving embrace and gave it a big hug! I did so without destroying it and I slowly felt something starting to shift in the struggling shadow wolf in my grip.

I pecked its forehead with a kiss and it started turning bright pink. Once it completely turned pink, it licked my face with a glowing tongue of pure light and then I released it while grinning. It no longer looked emaciated and started attacking the other shadow wolves with affectionate gestures and every friendly gesture started causing them to start turning pink too.

That was really weird, but the pink shadow wolves were at least pretty. I wondered if I could do that with the bigger shadow monsters…

-Oleander-

“Fred, please tell me that you just saw that!” I just saw Paprika turn one of the shadow monsters into… something else… something that horrified the very world itself.

It wasn’t quite a shadow anymore and the sight of it was very disturbing. What had Paprika done to that shadow monster and why did it look so bright and cheerful when she let it go? Well whatever Paprika did, it was apparently highly infectious as other nearby monsters slowly started turning pink as well.

The shadow monsters quickly seemed to be quite intent on trying to stop the, for lack of better words, corrupted affection monsters from spreading. They seemed so intent on that more so than the one who corrupted them in the first place, said alpaca continued on fighting the shadow monsters that weren’t busy trying to stop what looked like a creepy growing plague of overly friendly shadow monsters.

Paprika started hugging and kissing more of the shadow monsters, only they didn’t turn. Either they had some level of ability to resist whatever it was Paprika was doing to them, or she was limited in how often she could perform that action. Paprika eventually just went back to beating them up.

I was broken out of my distraction by Fred answering me.

“Did you say something Ollie? WE’RE KIND OF IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING IF YOU HADN’T NOTICED!” While Fred was right, I was close to being quite hysterical that nobody else saw what Paprika had just done.

I mean, seriously?!

“How close are we Fred?” I returned my focus to Fred extending a large claw from the book and smashing it down on a number of shadows trying to get through between Arizona and Velvet. I went back to reading and flipping through several more pages inside Fred, I was almost ready to free Fred for some fun. I glanced behind me and saw Pom’s group was doing splendidly, well splendidly for a disorganized mess going on back there. “I need an estimate here!”

“We’re getting close enough Ollie, BUT THEIR NUMBERS ARE INCREASING BY THE SECOND!” As Fred spoke, I picked up my pace to keep up with Arizona, Velvet and Paprika’s forward momentum. Every once in a while Fred would lash out with a mass of darkness. “WE NEED TIME FOR SETUP, they are most certainly not going to give that to us on a silver platter.”

Those three were scarily effective at fighting armies alone for varying reasons, a few more pages and… yes I was ready to let Fred out for some ‘fun’. I fired off a few ‘fel sparks’ from my horn to push back any shadows that got by my friends and then, given enough room, I let Fred out to play.

“No, but you might, Liber… Libertas… Daemonium!” I felt the dark magic spill through my body, but the corruptive influence was negligible as it really couldn’t touch me with enjoyment from the rush of power that came with it.

Out of the book exploded raw power, that raw power took a form of a giant white skull like the one adorning the book. Its four eyes flared with red energy and the center of its forehead was a gem shaped hole with the ominous color of purple inside, the underside of the four horned skull was supported by a mass of writhing black tendrils and the skull grinned slightly.

“No hurting our friends! Also please clear a path Fred.” It paid to be polite and I lost nothing by doing so with Fred.

“With pleasure Ollie, please follow me and prepare the necessary spell.” The fact that he didn’t need to use the demonic tone spoke much about how terrifying he was to everything else around him just by being present, he was mostly like a big eldritch teddy bear for me.

Said best friend, my demonic plush toy, surged forward and carve a humongous swath through the shadow monsters within seconds.

“Ollie, is that a permanent thing?” Arizona decided to ask in a vaguely frightened tone, given the suddenly large lull in the action thanks to my rampaging companion.

“No, he can only be out for a short amount of time, we have thirty minutes at best and five or less minutes at the worst!” I could clearly see that Fred wasn’t wasting the limited time he had, both Velvet and Tianhuo flinched at his sudden decimation of the shadow horde in front of us. Nobody here was even close to being within his range of power, even as limited as it was, he was all the evils of Tartarus personified and unleashed upon the planet of Equus. “After a certain amount of time for the book to cool down, I’ll need time to build up to unleash him upon the world like this again. Let’s stop talking and start moving forward while Fred is giving us the opportunity to do so!”

I started galloping forward in the big open field left behind in Fred’s wake of ripping and tearing tentacles going every which way. He was worse than a force of nature and he was reveling in taking apart our enemies.

The only one seemingly unaffected by Fred’s powerful visage was… Paprika. Even Arizona seemed wary of Fred’s fully freed form. There might be some truth to Paprika’s title being ‘The Demon’ as a fighter.

I didn’t see any pink shadow monsters so I put that out of my mind, because that wasn’t the thing I had to focus on right now. I needed to get into position to seal off that leak so we can even get into the mountain to seal ‘the seal’ on the Shadow Horde.

-Ten minutes later, Pom-

My heart was thundering, I was so scared. I didn’t think I could run away now without dying. The only way was forward, fighting for my life and a better tomorrow.

Fred was probably one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever witnessed next to Skelly, I was mostly glad he was on our, or at least Ollie’s, side.

Paprika seemed perfectly happy to keep hugging, cuddling and smacking shadow monsters around. Aside from Ollie, Paprika was the only one that didn’t seem bothered by Fred’s full presence.

I was knocked from Big Mama’s back and found my windpipe constricted, my four puppies quickly came to my aid immediately tearing apart the shadow octopus that tried to strangle me.

One of my puppies nuzzled against me whining, I gently patted his head and slowly got up to keep moving forward. I said we would keep up and I meant it, my beasties were likely to get seriously hurt if I didn’t. They were all pushing their limits and not just for me, but for all my friends as well.

Big Mama slowed down as did all my beasties.

I started to charge forward, weakly at first, and then tempered my nerves to release a bark like that of an angry puppy. Sure it was weak and could barely be heard over the din of destruction that was the Fred-pocalypse going on in front of us, but it was still a challenge to the Shadow Horde all the same.

Apparently my beasties approved of my stupidity in the face of overwhelming odds as they started to become fiercer and rallied around me far more tightly.

As far as being a lambkin goes, my species would consider this outright challenging of the present danger as horrendously, lethally and utterly stupid. According to my friends who told me of some of their stranger adventures, this was just a Tuesday and you shouldn’t be thinking about what happened on Monday.

I was just here for my friends, they are the ones that would do all the save the world stuff. I’d prefer it if the spotlight was never on me at all during all this. I eventually had to draw a line somewhere on my cowardice and this would be where I was doing that... making one humongous line to cross.

Bravest or dumbest lambkin to ever exist, I don’t care!

-Hollow Heart-

“Hmph… the longma might be a challenge, the lambkin however… pathetic.” I started to move forward. “Everyone else… they might be... 'fun'.”

That demon could only be free for so long. To think that something of such dark power would fight for ‘the light’, it was completely disgusting.

I spread my wings and took off to face these wretches that thought they could surpass the darkness and stop the oncoming tide.

I’d show them all how wrong they were.

Author's Note

Paprika breaks the world... slightly... again...

Chapter fifty eight, Off The Map: Blackest night.

Author's Note

Wrote this chapter while listening to Burly Brawl for inspiration.

Don't honestly know what to think about the announced 'Pony Life' or Pinkie suddenly being an alchemist or buying crazy potions from Zecora.

It's not going to be canon as far as I'm concerned and it looks like a Teen Titans Go style rip off. I already dislike Teen Titans Go, this just makes it worse.

-Embeds don't last, so aforementioned Burly Brawl -Juno Reactor- Don Davis-

Chapter fifty eight, Off The Map: Blackest night.

-The Plains, Oleander-

“We’re more than close enough Ollie, ALSO I’M TAPPED OUT!” Those were not the words I wanted to hear as Fred’s skull and body was sucked entirely back into the book.

“Everyone cover me, I need all of my concentration to do this!” Having called that out, I started to read Fred’s pages to build up power and prepared to cast the spell while facing the seal in the distance.

I idly noticed Tianhuo setting more of the plains on fire by creating a large burning ring of fire around us all to hold the shadow horde back.

I’d be quite drained after doing this. I hoped Fred and the others could keep me safe when this inevitably knocks me out.

-Shadow Fighters versus Hollow Heart-

Tianhuo watched as the shadow monsters still within the circle were quickly taken out through various means and then she narrowed her eyes at something that was coming down at her from the sky. She flapped backwards and avoided a left wing slicing through the air where she had been.

Within seconds Tianhuo was deflecting multiple blows from four hooves moving almost faster than she could follow. She barely managed to knock the thestral back with a hard left in the exchange, she only took a second to glance into his blood red eyes and the horrible darkness surrounding him.

They shot towards each other and their four limbs flew at one another at blazing speeds. They clashed pushing away from one another several times and then flew back at each other again, time after time until Hallow went for a high kick.

Each blow Tianhuo landed up to the point had burned Hollow slightly, but a few seconds enshrouded in darkness away from the light of her fire healed him almost immediately. Tianhuo, having deflected the kick aimed for her head, threw a harsh right hoof straight into his left shoulder.

Upon taking the blow, Hollow spun with it and swirled around to build momentum and slammed both his forelegs down between her neck and left shoulder. With a loud cracking noise, Tianhuo went spiraling towards the ground.

Tianhuo bounced once and flipped to land on her back, a diving Hollow Heart spread his right wing as he aimed for her neck.

As Hollow got closer to taking out one of the most dangerous of the six fighters with a malicious smile on his face, he was blindsided by an left hoof uppercut to the chin coming from his right that flipped him and forced him to land on his hind legs.

Hollow quickly started deflecting the absurdly strong blows coming from Arizona, while Pom moved forward to drag Tianhuo back and away from him.

Arizona’s blows were actually injuring Hollow as their raw ferocity pierced through the darkness protecting Hollow Heart.

The wild bashing match between them continued on for a short moment as they hit each other with thunderous force, the cow matching the vile thestral blow for blow. The blows they were trading seemed to even be in Arizona’s favor for each hit she landed and blocked.

Hollow looked to be on the losing end, even if his injuries were fading away in seconds. Things changed when he swept his right wing forward.

Having forgotten that he had more limbs to fight with than just his hooves, it surprised Arizona and she was launched away from him to tumble across the ground with a large bleeding gash across her chest.

Taking flight towards the book reading unicorn, Hollow didn’t get very far when he was grounded once more by two shards of ice flew that flew forward and started to circle around him while firing icicles at intense speeds.

Hollow started to quickly, and even successfully, evade the rapid fire onslaught.

Velvet charged the icicle evading Hollow and stabbed at him with a spear of ice created along her right leg, he leaned to the side and grabbed her right leg with her left hoof and thrust his right hoof into her face dazing her.

The floating ice shards ceased firing, but moved to point at Hollow Heart’s back.

The dizzy looking Velvet stomped her left hind leg before Hollow could capitalize on her dazed form. He took a quickly formed reindeer shaped ice statue to stomach that launched him upwards.

Several icicles rained down on Hollow’s spine and wings, peppering his back and impaling him with multiple chunks of ice. One even exploded out through his chest in a shower of gore.

This barely seemed to slow Hollow Heart down at all as he landed, and despite the continually firing icicles quickly turning him into a pincushion, simply grunted and exploded all the ice out of his body in a shower of darkness that destroyed the hovering shards of ice.

Hollow then charged Velvet, who deflected his flurry of attacks and tried to put some distance between the thestral and herself. Hollow missed an upwards swing for Velvet’s floof and received several high speed slaps across the face.

Velvet soon took several painful blows to the chest and face when Hollow blocked and rushed her with bone crunching force, but she was at least far more wary of his wings after what happened to Arizona and managed to avoid having her belly sliced open while leaping backwards.

Hollow chased her down and he rammed his right hoof into Velvet’s nose, breaking it. He launched another powerful blow at her, but Tinsel quickly interposed himself in front of the incoming hoof and generated a snowflake barrier.

Tinsel and Velvet were still sent rolling backwards towards Oleander in a shower of shattered ice bits. Velvet wasn’t too terribly injured by that last blow, but Tinsel was otherwise both badly hurt and seriously exhausted due to the sudden huge magical expenditure on his part to generate a full snowflake barrier by himself.

Velvet struggled to stand up, tears were in her eyes as she looked down at a weakly smiling Tinsel that slowly closed his eyes. Both her nose and floof were a mess, but she was more worried about her familiar.

“Do you seriously think you can stop the endless tide? The darkness will consume you all.” Hollow stalked forward his eyes filling with glee as he came towards her. “I recognize you. The Order of Dark Dreams may have been destroyed, but I will get my final victory with the destruction of this world!”

Hollow lunged forward and missed hitting Velvet when a mass of fur gently shifted her and Tinsel out of the way. He took two rapid painful hits to the face from a blur that staggered him. He lashed out at said fluffy blur, only to be confused when both his hooves and wings met air.

The thestral took four hooves to the back of the head, knocking his face straight into the dirt. He got up and turned to the weakly smiling alpaca that had kicked off of him.

He lunged for her and swung both his wings forward, but his eyes slowly tracked Paprika as she leapt into a ridiculous aerial cartwheel over his head and then bounced off of him with her rear legs stomping his darkness covered backside into the ground.

He rolled and tried to sweep her legs out from under her, she hopped back and he quickly lunged upwards leading with his left hoof.

His left hoof was deflected and his following right hoof grazed Paprika’s neck. She kicked him in the throat with her left hind leg and then turned to harshly slam the right side of her butt into his face while he was gagging and sent him spinning away.

While he was on the ground, Pom’s puppies pounced on him. This was a bad idea for them as Hollow quickly shrugged them off by spreading his wings and slinging his hooves forward, he sent all of them flying and yelping.

He charged forward and started to throw feinting attack to trying and confuse Paprika who frantically defended herself, he eventually scored a direct hit on her chest. Only Paprika wavered backwards and then slammed her chin forward and down into the top of his skull dazing him with a vicious counter.

Paprika frowned at him and launched two large tendrils of fur from her forelegs to try and grapple the thestral, only for him gain his senses and miss being entrapped as he ducked forward to strike her roughly in the belly.

When Paprika was doubled over, he hopped up and performed a forward buck right into her exposed face sending her flopping backwards just to the left of a still concentrating Ollie.

Oleander was still flipping pages and quietly mumbling to herself.

This is when Pom’s four puppies started harassing Hollow Heart with fervor. They bit, barked and nipped at him whenever they could and they didn’t stay still or on him long enough for him to actively hit them with a solid attack.

One of the puppies came down from above to bite his neck, he swatted at the puppy only for it to spin its tail and kick off and hitting his right eye. Another went or his right rear leg, he simply kicked it off only for it to spin its tail and to stop its momentum and come back at him with twice the speed. A third puppy rammed him in the stomach from below and another slammed into his left side going full speed.

The staggered Hollow eventually growled and exploded with darkness freezing all the puppies with fright, he lashed out first knocking the two puppies in the air away from himself and then he kicked the other two sending them sprawling.

All the yelping and whimpering puppies were knocked past Pom who was busy bandaging a distraught Velvet’s nose. The lambkin gave Hollow a furious glare, but she continued to patch up her friend.

Big Mama and the other canines, who had been busy covering for Pom, immediately started moving the four puppies closer to the Ollie and relative safety. They were all scared, but still quite willing to fight to defend the unicorn as it was what Pom needed them to do.

Arizona, with a now bandaged chest, was still catching her breath as she looked at their surroundings with fear. Hollow Heart started stalking toward them as the ring of fire protecting them suddenly snuffed out and the world started turning black.

“Say you’re prayers, for you will soon be consumed by the darkness.” As Hollow said this, the shadows started to surge towards them from all sides.

The only light in the area was that given off by a groaning Tianhuo whose left foreleg was completely limp and in a sling, she was trying to stand up to get back into the fight with various bruises, on top of a broken collar and shoulder from the vicious blow she took.

Pom’s tenko familiar, who had yet to actually do anything productive throughout all this, seemingly did as Hollow asked. The fox moved behind Oleander and put its paws up in prayer and started chanting.

“Kyuu, kyuu, kyuu…” The results of the little two tailed fox sudden chanting were staggering when a pillar of light erupted outwards from it and surrounded the heroes, the pillar held back all the lesser shadows and even some of the larger ones flooding towards them were stopped or slowed down.

“No, I will not lose to some paltry tricks of the light like this again!” The darkness around Hollow evaporated inside the pillar of light. He looked exceptionally stark raving mad about it as he started to march towards Olleander with his sharp wings spread wide open.

It didn’t stop all the shadow monsters though. For instance, a large shadow bear was quickly pushing its way into pillar of light surrounding the fighters.

The fighters all looked at the small two tailed fox with clear surprise and then formed an outward facing circle around Ollie.

The Cerberus among Pom’s menagerie inhaled and let loose three jets of flames at the shadow to their rear. The orthrus and coyote started to fend off shadows from the left. The timber and dire wolves went protected the right side of the barrier. The Cu Sith, Grimm and Canis Major stayed next to Ollie, the puppies and Tinsel.

“We need to give Ollie more time!” Arizona shouted as she started towards Hollow, only to be blindsided as the bear finally forcing its way through the light barrier the little tenko was making.

It forced Arizona to the ground start trying to tear at her with its large claws.

“Almost there…” Ollie muttered not looking up from the book even for a second. Her horn started glowing brightly, looking to hurt and even burn her with the force of the spell she was building up to completion.

Tianhuo surged on to her two rear hooves and used her wings to balance as she attacked Hollow who shot towards the unicorn. She only managed to slow him down for a second, before she spun away from one of his attacks to send out a wave of fire from her right hoof to Ollie’s left to push the shadows back and to help the beleaguered canines.

Hollow tried to go forward now that the longma was otherwise occupied, but was soon met with a twirling bandaged reindeer that was launching a tornado at him. He quickly managed to surpass it, but the aiding shadows behind him weren’t so lucky.

Velvet avoided his next hoof, looked to Oleander’s left and then started to focus on a surge of shadows slowly taking down Pom’s dogs on their right. Pom was actively protecting their rear personally and Arizona was still preoccupied with the large shadow bear. Even all the capable canines were occupied with shadow monsters to some degree.

In the center of it all was Oleander reading the book line by line, flipping the pages as soon as she could comprehend the dark power flowing through the text.

Taking to the air, Hollow performed a shuttle loop and then swept forward towards Ollie at high speeds. There was nothing that could stop him now…

Hollow thrusted both his hooves forward. He suddenly came to a sudden dead stop five feet from his target, as Paprika had popped up in front of him and grappled both of his hooves with her own. He flapped his wings pressuring the alpaca and sliding her back two feet as she dug in her rear hooves and stood her ground.

Where the thestral expected to see some delicious anger or hatred, all he saw was a frown and the alpaca’s pitying eyes.

“I don’t like you.” Paprika stated quite clearly, she lifted her rear right leg back and then brought it forward harshly into Hollow Heart’s chest and punted him up into the air towards the leak.

Hollow caught himself with his wings and was going to attack Paprika to get her out of the way.

Unfortunately for him, he was suddenly hit by the massive beam of energy erupting from Oleander’s horn and that forced him straight into the Shadow Horde’s leak that quickly became sealed off.

-Oleander-

“Ollie… get up… PLEASE!” Fred?

My head hurts… I… when had I fallen over?

My vision was blurry.

I could see something huge coming.

Someone landed in front of me.... was that Pom? She looked at me with worry, then leapt forward at the shadow monster while pulling back her left hoof.

Chapter fifty eight, Off The Map: They do survive this… right?

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter fifty eight, Off The Map: No losing our sight.

-Nearing the future that will be, Palicoast, Inn, Jacky-

The bloody balcony spike having been removed from my back via pliers and bandaged up with Savannah’s help, I made my way to the door. Everyone on my crew was virtually a certified doctor at this point, in pirate legalese they all definitively qualified as doctors.

Do not rely on anyone in my crew to actually have a medical license though, because that would be silly.

Entering the inn, followed by a grimacing Savannah holding the spike aloft in the pliers, I quickly sat down at a breakfast table and made an order. I would then proceed to hold completely still as if expecting any sudden movement to cause my chair to break out from under me. It’s happened before, it’s like the thing where trees come flying at me out of nowhere at random.

I should really be more paranoid than I was. Probably hearing my thoughts, a wonderful wing full of feathers spread out and wrapped around me from my left affectionately.

“Okay, that was quite painful, not that my luck was ever going to be helpful with what we have to do later on anyway.” I was older, my feathers grown out and my luck was still at negative three on my Ogres and Oubliettes character. Weird thing too, my bad luck actually translated into my made up character in full.

If my character was a real living being in some alternate reality, I would probably want them to suffer far less than what I currently am. Skelly was a prominent figure in the Squizzards army in the game, like she was still an actual general for Minos as nobody had bothered to actually remove her from that position.

I haven’t seen Skelly, Flamberge, Fortitude or Sweetcakes since Huoshan, but it was nice to have friends who were famous. More famous than I was anyway. I didn’t truly care much for fame, but a little recognition wouldn’t hurt now… would it? Knowing my luck, my bestest friend ever, it probably would.

I’m happy to have friends and family that cared about me, even if I wasn’t exactly the best pirate in the world.

Gambling was not something I would ever do without a good reason, given that lady luck has wanted me dead on numerous occasions for some odd reason. In fact, I was about to gamble all the lives of everyone riding out on the Ardent Survivor an hour from now on a fool’s errand that is entirely likely to end with us dead.

Business as usual, I have the cursed artifact collection to prove it.

I’m sure actuaries would love to explain to us in great detail why we should have been long since dead already, you know, given our exceedingly deadly choices in treasure hunting targets. Let’s just say I hated traps and will leave it at that.

I still haven’t gotten my sister and captain back. I felt like a complete failure a lot of the time, mostly for not knowing how to help her after so long. Her fire was still burning away in the Saddle Arabian desert, so that meant we could do something to help Jade and hadn’t the foggiest of what. We sorely needed a clue, otherwise I was stuck with piracy and random treasure hunts to keep the boredom at bay.

My curse does not count as a boredom alleviator.

We came to Palicoast after hearing on the grape vine, basically Eir and Gallant Bluster, some guy simply called the Storm King was going to attack Abyssinia. I would apologize for causing a mess, but they were quite used to it whenever I visited.

That Eir had that specific boulder as a pet horrified me on a number of levels given it definitely remembered me, but Eir apparently had Ragna under control. At least some form of control.

It was concerning that she mentioned something in passing about Ragna not being welcome in Yakhalla and some guy named Loki being a large butt the last time we were in Turtle Toga.

Life was about to quickly become quite disheartening around here. That was why we came to Palicoast, because if I couldn’t help Jade personally then I can at least try to help her homeland. I really should have gone to visit mom over the years, but I didn’t want to go back home without Jade.

Also my wanderlust was quite fairly horrible.

Sure, Abyssinians were generally good for fist fights, but what happens when it came to matching them up against opponents twice their size, weight and generally strength? Yeah, the Storm King’s army of Storm Creatures was definitely going to wreck Panthera, we weren’t stopping that entirely. It was only a matter of when and how much time it took for them to get there.

I was going to personally stall that entire invasion fleet of airships for as long as possible, crew or no crew. Sad thing is, every intelligent member of my crew wanted to do this and I wasn’t even ordering them to. We were going to at least give Pal Calico Coast some time to bunker down before their coastal city was burned down.

The other pirate’s weren’t going to help us stop them, mostly because it was risky fighting an army of large hairy beings with ridiculously protective anti-magic armor and decent weapons for very little 'incentivizing' personal profit in it. They probably hadn’t thought about how broken up the shipping lanes would quickly become without the Abyssinian merchants being able to travel the world to peddle their goods.

This affected them as well, whether they liked it or not. If they weren’t going to help stop the Storm King, then whatever resulted from the raiding king being left unchecked was going to come back to haunt them.

I felt a beak peck my cheek and the edges of my beak curved upwards. I loved my husband and didn’t want him to actually come with me on this, but we were in this together and he wasn’t about to let me out of his sight. My left talons eventually found his right claws and grasped them tightly. I got a reassuring squeeze back.

As we waited for breakfast, I decided to discuss our strategies for the upcoming fight. First topic was going to be a sad one.

“So… Savannah… you can’t come with us.” She looked affronted by the idea that we’d be leaving her behind and she immediately opened her mouth to shout at me, her fur color today was burgundy with white stripes. Amulet of Savannah had some useful features that saved Savannah a lot on magical fur dye. I personally liked the rainbow polka dots on yellow fur she kept for a solid week, but that was unimportant compared to what I was about to say. “You know why you can’t come with us Savvy, why I want you to stay behind. I think I’m being both reasonable and logical here.”

Savannah's ears wilted and she looked away to start rubbing at her left arm, after a few seconds and turned back to me with a huff. I could see the hurt in her eyes.

“Can’t we just…” Tightening a gaze on Savannah, I watched as she gulped and looked to her lap.

“You know why you can’t come with us Savannah, you have a far more important job to do here.” Telling her this and seeing her expression drop hurt me just as much as it did her.

“I… aye captain…” The defeated tone and look in her eyes was a stab to the heart.

“You’re the only one we can trust with this Savannah.” I wanted to reach over and hold her. I know it hurt her feelings, considering we were still bringing Nefer along.

Nefer hasn’t grown that much bigger, but we unfortunately couldn’t afford to leave him behind and even Flotsam had a grim look on her face. We weren’t exactly planning to come back from this, it was an all or nothing thing.

Sighing, I calmly took up the glass of wine the waitress put down and sipped it.

“My job is simple, I’m going after the head of the main problem… the Storm King himself.” I felt Gene clutching my talons in a painful manner, I glanced at him and he frowned. He actually frowned. His blank face rarely showed how he felt, I could read him without seeing the frown. “I will be leading a solo assault and will draw their attention away from the ship while I hunt down the capital ship.”

“So you’re going to use ‘that’, did you at least work out all the kinks this time Captain?” Flotsam spoke up from next to Nefer who was silent as the grave and didn’t look the slightest bit happy. One of my favorite crew members was already depressed, ouch.

Flotsam was growing into being a fairly beautiful sea pony, one that couldn’t find a boyfriend. That was mostly because of the whole sea pony biology thing ruining her efforts. Every port we visited she’d find someone nice, then would lose them just as quickly when she was upfront about her biology. The one that didn’t immediately book it for the hills would become close to being a keeper for her.

Hadn’t found a single male that was willing to stick around, not ones that I would be willing to take on and I would agree with Nefer on whatever he thought on top of my own opinions. If I didn’t like them and if Nefer didn’t like them, then Flotsam probably wouldn’t like them for that much longer either.

“Yes… mostly… it’ll work!” My tone was certainly not as reassuring as it could have sounded and my crew was staring at me with flat looks. The kind of problems you get with everyone knowing you so well. “Seriously, it will!”

Even Gene was giving me a look, his wing rubbed my shoulder slightly in a comforting and clearly condescending manner.

I glared at him.

Gene sighed, but he didn’t remove his wing. He’d support my plan come Tartarus or high water, but he didn’t have to like it.

“Anyway… next we’ll have Nefer on Belfry silently planting bombs on the balloons of various ships, the Ardent Survivor is to remain silent until those all go off.” I didn’t trust Belfry to fly the ship or set the bombs we had himself. “The army will, hopefully enough, be too distracted by my… entrance… to notice Belfry’s profile as he flies through the air.”

Belfry was a fairly intelligent giant butterfly, but he was still a dog brained one that liked to waggle his abdomen as he rubbed up against me and make affectionate sounds.

“You hesitated Jacky.” Stated Gene forlornly.

I winced, but gave him a pleading look to not pressure me. He relented slightly by glancing away as the waitress started to put down our food, but it is mostly because we both knew that he didn’t have any better ideas.

“Yes… because things could go wrong at any time, it’s kind of my thing… as wrecking airships is." Which I would soon be doing a lot of, I was a pro at dismantling them at this point just by being within a mile of one

Give me a stick of dynamite and I can sink an airship with a single toss… without the stick being lit prior to my throwing it. I’m just that good at it and sometimes wished I wasn’t.

“I won’t let you down Captain Blackcap!” Nefer was proud to be a part of the crew and he saluted me with a weak cheerful disposition, even he could see the writing on the wall.

“Once you have the bombs planted Nefer, you are to retreat back to the Ardent Survivor and to help your sister with loading the cannons and Belfry will take care of boarders. Note that I did not say that you could fire the cannons Nefer.” I turned from Nefer to Flotsam, there were a few stories about why Nefer should never be a gunner and what tales those were. “Once he gets back, you will have free reign to shoot wherever you want with the cannons Flotsam, at that point they’ll have likely noticed the Ardent Survivor or even Nefer. I even give you permission to shoot me if you feel it to be necessary.”

I didn’t say shoot ‘at’ me, I mean literally hit me with a cannonball if she thought it would help with the situation. Flotsam gulped and nodded, she took that order seriously.

“Jacky…” Gene muttered.

“Gene, you’ll be at the helm, stay high up and don’t get too close to their ships unless you have to. News says they use shock troopers with gliders and I will be drawing most of those to myself.” That would be my problem and they would all be chasing me, his wing shifted slightly in a sign of despair. “I’ll need you to circle around the fleet once the chaos is sown to pick me up at the capital ship, I’m giving myself a time limit for how long I can fight the guy before we cut and run. We all know the plan so let’s dig in.”

This place had the best damned strawberry waffles I’d find anywhere, too bad this might be the last time I’d get to taste them and the blueberry pancakes in the double up breakfast special. This establishment might not be here tomorrow.

So I ate myself hearty large meal and told the nearby Abyssinians that the food was excellent and that I’m sorry if their inn gets burned down in the coming storm.

“We are a community that survives together or dies together… thank you for what you are doing.” The male Abyssinian that runs this place put a comforting paw on my shoulder.

“No thanks necessary, this is where my sister was born.” We all got up and set out for the ship. “Please rebuild this place if it gets destroyed, you really know how to run an inn.”

The one thing that didn’t need to be said was what Savannah would be doing during all of this, she was going to help with the efforts to stockpile supplies and she would do her job.

-One hour later, over the ocean, Ardent Survivor, Gene-

We were taking the ship as high as it could go, the modifications Jacky made to it made it one of the harder airships to catch while in retreat.

I looked over my shoulder at the coastal town barely visible on the horizon, looking forward I saw at least a hundred airships.

I watched as my wife walked circles on the deck and she was complaining and checking things multiple times.

We were not ready for this, not in the slightest.

“Gene… I’m going now!” Jacky walked onto the plank and faced the horizon, I silently watched. “Nefer, Belfry, you two wait until the ship is closer before you disembark.”

She took in a deep breath. After exhaling loudly, Jacky pulled her goggles down and leapt backwards into the open air. I watched as her beautiful long black feathers fanned outwards.

She fell twenty or so feet and my heart leapt into my throat, I resisted every urge in my body to catch my wife before she fell into the ocean.

Soon a loud explosive whine sounded out and a stream of fire shot towards our enemies.

Author's Note

Guess what Jacky used the Dragon Burst Gem for once she got it back from Teatime?

Also I've been a bit ill lately, right before feast week too... I better be capable of ingesting turkeys whole when the time comes. My family might worry if I don't have that capability.

Chapter fifty eight, Off The Map: Fighting for what’s right.

Author's Note

Music - Storm Eagle, New Type Airport, Megaman Maverick Hunter X.

Chapter fifty eight, Off The Map: Fighting for what’s right.

-Storm King Fleet, Storm King-

Something exploded and not in the nice way, because we weren’t anywhere near our next loot and shoot location. I heard of a peppy nice little coastal town, it was going to burn to the ground after we were done taking everything and then we’d continue on our merry way.

I got up and threw my night cap aside and started to don my armor. Somebody was going to pay for interrupting my sleep.

Stalking out onto the deck, I saw one of the airships in the distance was blowing up and it was quickly being abandoned by the Storm Creatures as quickly as they feasibly could using their gliders.

Near the airship wreckage, a large bird shaped silhouette soared away on a stream of fire. It had caught his interest immediately.

-Storm King Fleet versus Blackcap Pirates-

Jacky was already her burning towards the next airship with the two moderate sized connected yellow cylinders on her back spewing massive flames that accelerated her to absurd levels. It almost made her black out a few times and turning was rough on her body, but she had learned to fly using it well before this day came.

She pulled out a stick of dynamite put it behind her for a few second and once the fuse lit in the flames pouring out of her jetpack, she simply let it go as she passed between the balloon and the ship connected to it.

Jacky looked behind herself at the explosion cracked the ship and it soon started splitting entirely in half, lengthwise. She started to slowly turn and angle herself for the next airship that was higher than the last one.

Above the deck of the next ship she flipped into a vertical hover where she pulled out another dynamite stick and began to fumble with it for a bit as her hovering wasn’t quite as steady as she wanted it to be.

All the airships started becoming quite alert. Search lights were beginning to scan the dark cloudy skies that threatened rain and lightning, but so far it hadn’t started storming... yet. The Storm King was becoming well known for causing storms wherever his airships went and was one reason why he was given that title.

It wasn’t long before quite a few Storm Creatures spotted Jacky hovering above the deck, a spotlight shined on her making her drop the stick of dynamite she had been fumbling with and she quickly flew away before they could shoot anything at her.

The spot lights wouldn’t be able to keep up with the speeds she could move at and they would soon be too busy watching what happened to the ship she just left behind.

Within seconds the deck exploded and the ship split entirely in half at the center, the confusing thing about this was that the stick of dynamite hadn’t even been lit when she dropped it and it had a long fuse.

Jacky nervously bombed the next three ships hitting balloons, engines and propulsions respectively, while being extra careful with the dynamite and all without slowing down. Said ships were now slowly falling towards the ocean on fire.

It was on the approach to the fourth ship that the flames from the magical jetpack started sputtering.

“Oh no… no, no, no, no… not now!” Being who she is, Jacky’s curse decided to strike as she was approaching the fourth ship in her bombing raids.

The jetpack went out and her momentum was enough to thankfully put her over the deck of the ship, the speed she was moving at had her ramming head first into a Storm Creature’s armored gut, bowling it and its many companions over.

Jacky, bouncing off the creature and denting the chest plate with her thick forehead, performed several somersaults before landing on her toes which scraped harshly against the deck as she skidded to a stop and ducked the thrust of a spear coming for her.

Ducking down under the spear while rubbing at her bruised skull, Jacky quickly pulled out a saber and deflected the spear off to the side. Following the deflection she slashed up at the exposed portion of its left arm making it drop the spear and then slashed at its chest. Only for the sword to bounce off the armor and send a tremor up her right arm, the blunt force still staggered the Storm Creature.

Jacky gritted her beak and held her sword at the ready as several storm creatures charged for her from all sides.

While Jacky was dealing with an unfortunate impromptu boarding situation. Various ships in the background started turning towards where the disturbance was currently. Many Storm Creatures were focused on the single odd parrot successfully fighting off several of their own with a ferocity like nothing they had ever seen before.

They were quite distracted and missed a large butterfly and an anugyptian cat moving into position to start placing the first of their time delayed bombs that would go off after a set period of time.

The shadow of a butterfly swept away from the balloon and moved onto the next ship carefully avoiding all the lights and eyes searching the sky, their captain was unlucky enough to have every single Storm Creature in the fleet of ships almost entirely focused squarely on her floundering form as she fought off several of their number. They were bigger and stronger than her, but she was fully using her wits and agility to avoid getting pinned down.

Jacky was in the midst of sticking her sword between the prongs of the spear to hold it in a lock and looked behind her as she was slowly being pressed backwards by the strength of the being pressing down on her. She saw one coming at her back unimpeded and she really didn’t want him, her or it to damage her jetpack.

These guy’s heads weren’t well protected from blunt force trauma, but it took a lot of force to knock them down and about three times as much to even knock them out.

Trying to think of something quick, Jacky heard her jetpack giving off a whining noise and a smile crossed her beak.

“About damn time…” Muttered Jacky before she leapt backwards and then rocketed into the Storm Creature behind her pack first, the force of her jetpack slamming into its skull made it slump slightly.

Jacky quickly reoriented herself and placed her clawed toes against the Storm Creature’s chest plate and pulled her sword behind herself.

Kicking off the unconscious storm creature with thunderous blast of flames, she shot forward and thrust her red hot saber straight into and through the anti-magic armor of the one in front of her. Much to its surprise and horror as it didn’t think the armor could be punctured like that.

This made the Storm Creatures coming at her from the sides falter, they all backed up and started trying to deal with the flames that were now spreading across the deck due the badly burnt Storm Creature Jacky left behind in her wake.

When Jacky pulled her sword free covered in the creature’s blood it, it gasped in pain and knelt down low enough for her to spin and slam the flat of her red hot glowing blade home into the side of its face marring it pretty badly as it went down.

The available Storm Creature’s, the ones not dealing with the spreading fire problem, swarmed forward and then started to suddenly run when more fire was added to the ship by Jacky kicking off and shooting towards another airship.

Jacky thrust her saber upwards as she hit the balloon, went into it, then came out the other side slightly singed being chased by the explosion.

Stopping to hover in the air for a moment, Jacky put her saber away and took out another stick of dynamite while she watched Nefer and Belfry work in the shadows of several airship. Taking note of the airships they were working around, she quickly blasted sideways out of the way of a pair of arms that tried to grapple her.

The storm creatures and their gliders really didn’t have the ability to keep up with Jacky who was actually flying and not relying on air currents to stay airborne. They still tried to chase her as she hit the side of an airship feet first and ran along it for a few seconds before kicking off it without actually doing anything to it.

Seconds later it exploded violently sending the parrot spiraling through the air. This caused Jacky to look back at it in confusion as she hadn’t actually attacked that ship and none of her crew members had been responsible for that one. She had barely even touched it while busy avoiding the gliders that were trying to grab her with sudden quick dives.

Turning forward Jacky just tried to ignore the fact that a ship exploded from her just touching it with her feet.

Deciding to get inventive with the next ship, Jacky rammed her way into the cabin and slammed the Storm Creature in the face with the full weight of her body feet first, she quickly took the up wheel.

“Activate, deactivate…” Jacky muttered quickly and felt a very strong tug towards the most dangerous thing in the area, she quickly turned the ship in that direction and titled it harshly.

The Storm Creatures were quickly finding out that their ship had just been shanghaied, they were too busy clinging to the badly tilted ship as it soared at another one. Jacky pushed the ship into full throttle at the last second and the ship jetted forward to collide with another causing a massive amount of destruction to both of them.

Before the collision Jacky was already jetting away as the two ships started to spiral towards the ocean. Heavy rains started spilling from the sky and it became a little harder to see, except for the flashes of lightning that threatening to strike Jacky. She could barely hear anything over the storm, but it at least made it far easier for Jacky to hide among the darkened sky.

She saw the shadows of Nefer and Belfry being chased by some Storm Creatures, the nasty wind, rain and lightning wasn’t doing Belfry any favors in staying aloft. High altitude flying was not Belfry’s forte and they were retreating from the area barely faster than the gliders chasing them.

Thankfully the Storm King’s army had yet to actually spot the Ardent Survivor, but Nefer couldn’t directly retreat back that way. They needed a distraction and Flotsam was likely to provide one in a matter of…

One of the ships exploded and caught fire, Jacky glanced at it and watched as the search lights faded out of existence. She was fairly sure that was a cannonball shot that hit something explosive.

Losing sight of Belfry and Nefer, Jacky wished them well as she made her way towards the Storm King’s ship. She angled for the closest ship as she felt her jetpack sputtering again, she had to survive another round of facing Storm Creatures.

She heard several loud blasts in the vicinity and the bombs that Nefer and Belfry managed to plant were starting to go off. Even if they didn’t succeed in stopping the Storm King here, they had at least crippled quite a large portion of his fleet in a ridiculously quick manner.

Hearing several more ships going down, Jacky was beyond impressed that Flotsam was still making accurate shots in this kind of weather.

They were hitting as many ships as they could safely manage given the horrible weather situation. As far as pirate names go, ‘The Unstoppable Disaster’ kind of stuck with her as much as ‘The Blackcap Pirates’ did for her whole crew. They would definitely be remembered for this day.

Jacky silently wished she had more notoriety than Savannah did, as she came down on a bowsprit running forward and pulling her other saber out, given the other one was still cooling off.

She met the first spear with her blade and twisted around it to thrust her clenched talons into the side of the Storm Creatures head dazing it slightly. Lashing out at one the guy’s legs with one of her feet and grasping it with her claws, Jacky then heaved herself backwards with her other leg.

The Storm Creature lost his balanced and flailed. Jacky shoulder checked him, causing him to topple over and slam the back of his skull against the deck. He went limp almost immediately, Jacky put a clawed foot on his chest and pointed her sword at the other Storm Creatures.

The other Storm Creatures surged forward only to suddenly be cowed when lighting flashed through the airspace behind Jacky. The lightning had been close enough to almost touching her in a loud, noisy and painful manner.

They noted that the parrot didn’t even flinch, instead the rain soaked Jacky screamed at them.

“Who else of you bilge swallowing, cackle fruit laying, pineapple faced, yellow bellied, rat tailed, flea ridden, death fearing, bullying sheep bastards wants some of this?!” The Storm Creatures cowered at Jacky’s harsh voice and aggressive demeanor and the look in her eyes promising them pain. “Leave me be and I won’t do a thing to the rest of you gutless cowards!”

She might have been one being compared to their many numbers, but they had seen her take out entire ships by herself with little effort. There was also the fact that the Storm Creatures all remembered how strong the Storm King himself was and he was smaller than all of them too, they were all too scared to actually engage Jacky in a fight as she stood there waiting on them to make a sudden move.

They would stay on the defensive and didn’t approach the glaring Jacky or her threatening stance at all.

“That’s what I thought!” This worked out in Jacky’s favor as eventually a whine started building up from her jetpack. “Activate, deactivate…”

Feeling a strong jerk towards the ship she was heading for, Jacky nodded to the Storm Creatures that gave her plenty of breathing room and then shot off towards the Storm King’s ship passing by another one on the way. The parrot idly tossed a dynamite stick at the balloon of that ship.

The dynamite stick hit the balloon, bounced off, then fell towards the sea, twenty second later the balloon popped explosively in a shower of flames and the ship started to quickly fall out the sky. The flames traveled down the ropes towards the ship, clearly in spite of the rain, the ship started burning as it fell.

The Storm Creatures of the untouched ship shivered at the sight and were glad that they hadn’t attack Jacky. They really didn’t like fire and every last one of their species had intense pyrophobia after attacking the dragon lands.

It was fairly obvious that she was aiming to fight the Storm King, they actually wished her luck.

They would injure themselves just to make sure the Storm King didn’t ask too many complicated questions afterwards if that highly destructive parrot lost the fight to him.

-The Stormageddon, Jacky-

I landed.

“So you’re the one attacking my ships… how about a deal?” My answer to the smiling Storm King was to pull my sword and hold it towards him. “Don’t say that I didn’t try to be nice!”

Chapter fifty eight, Off The Map: The Ardent Survivor loses flight!

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter fifty nine, Times will change: Back to the future.

-Canterlot, short time after Storm King’s defeat, secluded alleyway, Jaded La Perm-

“Really harmony?” I was both annoyed and dissatisfied with magical customer services rendered. “Having Fluttershy sing for mom and Fizzle was your answer to me being stuck like this?”

“Just you wait and give me some time, until then you can find the rhythm sublime~.” Harmony could be doing a better job, she has been the only one I’ve been able to talk to for all these years. “It won’t take too long, so maybe if you’d like another song~?

Apparently Harmony could harmonize with different wavelengths of reality, the unfortunate thing was that she couldn’t do anything to directly help me and was the only being that could interact with me. Discord sure as Tartarus wasn’t going to see me, I’ve tried to get him to notice me on one of the few times I left Fizzle alone.

“I know you’re setting up for something big, but seriously, Fizzle doesn’t have forever and I’m not going to get any time with her at this rate. Also there’s the fact that she’ll have to move on from me eventually, I’m surprised she’s has held on for this long and hasn’t tried to find anyone else. After hearing what happened to Maries that’s more likely to happen now Harmony!” I rubbed my incorporeal forehead in consternation. “Look… at least tell me that you can do something about Maries’ situation!”

“That’s already in the works my wondrous friend~! Don’t you dare worry, there won’t be a bitter end~!” Apparently harmony was growing stronger and was going to pull a few stunts that will eventually set me loose upon the world once more. Couldn’t happen soon enough I’d say. “I will be there for you when the mending of hearts will happen once more, after you tell of grand tales of harmony from ages of distant yore~.”

“Do you ever stop singing?!” I growled grumpily while crossing my arms.

“Rarely, so I’ll have to say no~!” Harmony you’re a gleeful nuisance to my very existence, but being friends with you made this far less lonely than it had been. “Keep up, be ready to go~!”

“Can we just play twenty questions instead?” While I might have some distaste with how Harmony is handling this, I knew I needed this entities help. Was it my fault that I could only get help from one of the most annoyingly musical beings alive? “Having to sing ‘A thousand bags of mice shaped catnip on the wall’ gets quite tiresome after a while.”

All Fizzle, Fluttershy, mom or anyone from Airship Mauled really needed to do was find the guiding light inside themselves. That or look at the one thing no one has bothered to pursue relentlessly to the end because of the over the top convoluted goose chase involved therein.

There was one thing that could fix all of this, it was someone actually finding out where exactly in the world ‘The End of Immortality’ was truly located. At least Daring Do was still working on it… hopefully. Otherwise I was going to be stuck following Fizzle around like this until I couldn’t anymore.

It was a good thing I couldn’t die like this, because using my fire that one time for Jacky several years back had taken quite a while to fully recover from.

-Canterlot, Friendship Festival, sometime after noon during, Tempest Shadow AKA Fizzlepop Berrytwist-

“So do you think you can deliver my nuts in time?” Fluttershy asked of Madame Nutcase as I was sitting with mom and eating lunch, friendship festival in full swing and the Storm Creatures were trying to be quite apologetic.

“The Squirrels will be delighted to assist you in this endeavor Fluttershy.” Madame Nutcase was brokering a deal with the element of Kindness and I was wondering if what they were talking about would be entirely legal. “Macadamia’s are really hard to move in this day and age, please be assured that both quality and low cost nuts will make it to your home promptly.”

“Are you sure that it won’t be too much trouble?” Looking a bit worried as she sat up, Fluttershy looked about with a slight amount of paranoia.

“What are they going to do, arrest an innocent looking squirrel? There’s a reason our operations can’t be stopped and we’re completely legal as far as things are concerned, the nobles would have to gather together to create a completely ludicrous set of law and have it passed to actually do anything about us.” Madame Nutcase stood up and shook her head while giggling. “We’re professionals, you’ll personally see that soon enough Ms. Shy. You’ll receive your ‘packages; and will be added to our mailing list. Nice to meet a nature enthusiast that I can talk nuts with. Fizzle, you’re still okay in our books and thanks for introducing me to this lovely mare here.”

With that Madame Nutcase trotted off looking quite innocent for all the world, I hoped that the fact that I introduced Fluttershy to her would not come back to by me in the flank.

“You do realize she’s part of an underworld organization here in Canterlot right?” My aside glance at Fluttershy was met with a bright and friendly smile.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, she just knows a really nice squirrel and asked me for tips on how to take care of him better.” Yeah, Fluttershy just flatly lied to my face. I can absolutely see why she wasn’t the ‘Element of Honesty’.

“If Applejack heard you say that?” I asked blankly, having been introduced to the mare earlier this morning after the Storm King was shattered.

“Why would she ever have a reason to ask about my personal life or squirrels in particular? Well unless they were causing problems in her orchard, but that would be just oh so mean of them.” I might have forgotten that Fluttershy was far smarter than she looked at times, the innocent and quiet ones were always the ones you had to look out for. “So do you want to talk about how you’re feeling Fizzle?”

“Yes, please do, I’m curious as to how my little Fizzy feels after killing someone who threatened the whole world.” Kuril, or mom as she still wants me to call her, was looking in my direction with those blindfolded eyes and was eating her meal easily enough.

“I still feel bad about it, but it couldn’t have happened to a worse guy.” I’m guilty of being responsible for someone dying and receiving a pardon from the princesses didn’t seem right to me. I was going to go along with it, I pushed the Storm King over the balcony and he is no long among the living.

It happened and I should quickly get over it, mostly because not many ponies or Storm Creatures were going to mourn the guy.

If I were to be taken to court over it, I’m pretty sure it would be considered regicide. It doesn’t help that since I was the Storm King’s first in command I am now the Storm Queen with the intention of passing things over to Grubber, so by equestrian law I might have diplomatic immunity for the Storm King’s death.

It was utterly ridiculous that I could get away with it so easily without some form of punishment!

“It’ll be okay Fizzle.” Fluttershy stated reassuringly as she put a wing on my back and started to rub it up and down gently. “I’m used to things dying all the time... I never tell my friends about that part of my job though. I’m… sometimes a gravedigger and I know it must feel horrible to be responsible for taking someone’s life. Just know that I’m here for you if you need to talk about it.”

I felt Mom’s right paw grasp my left hoof gently and I looked to her. She gave it a gentle squeeze and then let it go and returned to her meal, that I was paying for. Turning back to Fluttershy, I had something to say about it.

“Let me guess, they don’t think you’d take things well… I heard about what happened with Philomena and I doubt that no one hasn’t heard about that debacle yet.” That was a slow news day.

Said headline went like this, Celestia’s phoenix goes through rebirth while the princess is having snack time at Sugar Cube Corner. Phoenix makes ‘Element of Kindness’ cry.

Celestia visited a lot of places within the domain of Equestria, every year the summer sun celebration is held somewhere new or she visits a place to make sure things are running smoothly. She’s a hooves on kind of ruler and needs to be, she doesn’t trust reports from various far off towns unless she knows the pony in question wouldn’t hide things from her.

Thinking of Celestia, I had to also think of Luna… I almost accidentally killed her avatar on this world and I wouldn’t be surprised if Celestia is having a discussion with her about it at this time. I didn’t have any obsidian spheres on hoof if the princess of the night decided that she wants to show her wrath.

The only thing they wanted from me at the moment was to not leave Canterlot until the Friendship Festival being run by Twilight was over. That purple mare put a lot of time and effort into the previous one, only for us to destroy it all.

The Storm Creatures helped put up all the decorations and the progressing festivities didn’t seem to be going poorly, now if only the Storm Creatures weren’t going to give so many ponies and other species nightmares for Luna to deal with. I’d absolutely deserve ‘those’ nightmares I was going to be having for some time to come.

“I kind of wished that I remembered Airship Mauled at the time, Kuril and the people there know quite a lot about Phoenixes.” Fluttershy sat down with us and giggled into a hoof. “It was so silly that Twilight didn’t know a single thing about Philomena despite being Celestia’s student for so long. I really shouldn’t be laughing at her for it, but it seemed to me that she should have known a thing or two personally about such a majestic bird given she’s known Celestia for far longer than I have. It’s understandable that I didn’t know how to care for Philomena, because I didn’t know the first thing about phoenixes. It kind of leaves me wondering about how much Twilight actually knows about Celestia at times.”

As far as familiar bonds go, I wondered what exactly Philomena and Celestia got from the bond. Animals in general get extended life spans, but they were both immortal so that wasn’t it. It was kind of hard to tell which of the two had the better sense of humor or who got what from the other from their bond.

They’ve lived for so long that it probably hasn’t come up much what even happens with the familiar bond when Philomena goes through death and rebirth. Does she just bond to Celestia again or does the bond continue through the rebirth cycle?

“Speaking of animals, how long do you suppose Angel will live for?” I’m kind of jealous of people who have familiars really, probably would never get one of my own. I should really ask mom about how Snickers was doing, I really haven’t thought of Jade’s little lovable buddy in so long. “You know, being your familiar and all.”

“With our kind of familiar bond? The area around Ponyville might become a little bit… overpopulated… with so many loveable fluffy bunnies. Angel is very… er… open with female rabbits and he has quite a long life ahead of him.” Open is the nice word for it Fluttershy, considering how bad rabbits could get when it came to multiplying. I kind of wished I hadn’t asked as I now had an image of thousands of Angels with the personality to match running around, also Fluttershy would basically be their godmother. “I’m actually beginning to see why Rose, Daisy and Lilly were so worried about all the baby bunnies and their increasing population without the predators around Ponyville keeping their numbers down.”

“Can we change subjects?” I muttered before taking a bite out of my double fish patty hayburger with cheese. Yes, even Canterlot has a Hayburger on Restaurant Row. The nobles couldn’t really stop it from existing and spent millions trying to actually prevent it from being built. It was in a nice place with a good view and had some decent outdoor seating. It was barely ritzier than other hayburgers though and the prices were exactly what I remembered them being. The ‘From Tartarus with love’ was still a popular challenge among fillies, colts and teenagers to eat. “Before that, can I ask how Snickers is doing?”

“Snickers is doing relatively well for being a chronically depressed winged turtle that hasn’t flown once since my kitten was taken away from us. She’s been like that since ‘that day’, on the other side of things Sugar is doing well and is getting bigger. Far bigger, as in she’s going to get bear sized soon enough to match the general size of the local dangerous fauna in Barely Bearable Woods. Al-mi’raj are said to be dangerous and Sugar is proving that to be true by becoming the town’s mascot that absolutely nobody wants to mess with.” Mom didn’t seem upset that the Storm King was dead, it was like she expected him to die at some point and still accepted me afterward. “I do believe I need to ask about something my little Fizzle. What was up with that staff during the whole fight with the Storm King?”

“That… is a bit of a story. Ever heard of a GODLESS agent named Teatime Clockwork? Yeah, he was after the Staff of Sacanas, also known as ‘the staff of suck-on-this’ given the things it can do.” The staff of Sacanas… I should warn the princesses about how dangerous it was and tell Celestia that GODLESS really wanted it for the same reason that the Storm King used it for. “I met a few GODLESS agents hunting that thing down and the biggest problem I met was Teatime. We had a big fight over it, the guy had tons of mechanical golem monsters at his disposal. Almost a near endless amount, unfortunately they don’t quite match up to an army of halfway competent Storm Creatures. The fact that staff has restoration abilities is good because otherwise Canterlot would have taken longer to fix. If it could have restored my horn, then it would have done so when Twilight used it to fix most of Canterlot. So that’s another big ‘no’ on an ever increasing list of things I’ve looked into.”

Fluttershy winced and then took some hay fries from the waitress that sat them down in front of her.

It was just so frustrating being me sometimes, my life right now feels like constantly rolling a one in Ogres and Oubliettes. Something that only Jacky could feasibly do, then she’d roll a six when she absolutely needed a one. At least I’d get lucky every once in a while.

“It’s okay Fizzle, you’re fine just the way you are my little filly.” Mom started to stroke my mane and I leaned into it.

It’s been too long since I’ve last felt this loving caress.

Author's Note

Warning: Long author's note.

There are things I want to note about how it is stated that no one can handle all of Discord's chaotic power in Season 9. Tirek drained Discord of all his magic earlier in season 4 and didn't go all crazy like the other characters did, the examples are Pinkie and Cozy.

Enough about that, can I honestly say that Fizzle got away with murder? Well yes, it was all in the defense of others though. Fizzle did not perform her actions in self defense, it would have absolutely been a mutual takedown without Twilight saving Fizzle's life.

Arimaspi and King Sombra are the other two normal fatalities in the series.

King Sombra has died approximately three times, two if you don't think his defeat by Celestia and Luna counts. Celestia and Luna's defeat of Sombra might have made him cease to be a physical pony and a being more akin to a revenant powered by darkness itself.

The abnormal fatalities would be Nightmare Moon and Tantabus, both of which were two different manifestations caused by Luna. Also several other abnormal fatalities include Plunder Vines created by Discord, some frogs taken to Froggy Bottom Bog by Fluttershy and Flutterbat.

As for how Feast Week went?

Well here are the things that died to make sure we kept on living... and we're thankful for that!

Five turkeys gobbled.
Three trays of Broccoli Casserole.
Two pots of potatoes. (Second one was specially spiced, it was well received experimental cooking.)
Three trays of macaroni and cheese. (Someone got around to it finally.)
One small bowl of delicious pasta salad. (Sad that there wasn't more)
Half the cookies are gone from the previously mentioned variety pack.
A number of mints were consumed. (Still have half a bag load left... I think they multiplied when I wasn't looking.)
Four lemon pies squeezed out of existence. (Tangy, totally tasty.)
Three thick, rich and creamy Peanut Butter pies. (Probably should have taken up that offer on the whipped cream in bulk.)
Five pecan pies. (3 Standard, 2 store bought)
Pecan Cheesecake Pie. (This years best experimental baked good.)
Experimental teleported thermal bread rolls. (Wasn't too bad, just don't leave them in there for more then seventy two hours. They were a bit tough to chew through after the first thirty minutes.)
Veg-all casserole. (Saved portions experimented on and then quickly devoured before it gained too much sentience.)
Vat of Creamed Corn. (Didn't eat any personally, but there was a lot of it.)
Chicken and Dumplings pot. (Not exactly traditional, but it was there and the dumplings were a little bit off. As far as the experimental cooking thing went, it worked okay.)
Half a box of beef and broccoli. (Glad to have finished that off. Again, don't ask.)
Five pounds of turkey stuffing. (All made on the side and not actually put in the turkey, but was eaten with the gobblers all the same. More akin to vegetable filled cornbread really.)
Generic Cornbread. (Absolutely Generic)
Two gallons of gravy. (The turkey was moist, juicy and flavorful enough, but a little flavor didn't hurt.)
A single Apple Pie. (No peach pie sadly.)
Three pumpkin pies pumped. (If you don't get the general gist by now, we have a thing about excessive pie consumption.)
Pot of green beans.
Green Bean casserole.
Cranberry jello mold salad. (As far as experiments go, this was the tamest. Salad got a little stuck in the mold and didn't wobble too much afterwards, but the slime went places.)
A pot of jambalaya. (It's become a Feast Week tradition all its own.)
Pot Pie. (At least I think there was one in all the mess from that day... wouldn't be surprised.)
Almost the entirety of a make your own taco bar, one that lacks lettuce due to issues during procurement. (Something weird to serve on the day of.)
Something with carrots in it. (Yeah it was definitely something.)
One maximum sized meat pizza. (Devastated almost instantaneously... by two people. Eaten alongside the make your own taco bar.)
Three large jars of coleslaw. (Yes, coleslaw in jars. It makes mixing things in easier.)
Goodie Bag Bonanza. (If your the one that ended up with the pickled fruit, then it sucks to be you right now and you know you have to eat it.)
Random assorted roasted vegetables. (Alternative if you didn't want stuffing.)
Not everything could be listed, because that would take forever.

Honey glazed ham procurement was held back for later holiday feasting... honestly there was enough food going into this already as it was when the week started. Most of our food could be measured in pies made.

Current personal leftovers... Full Pumpkin Pie, 1/3 Creamy Peanut Butter pie, half bag of mints that will take a while to run out of, one backup package of thickly sliced turkey meat and a take away box of assorted Feast Week goodies.

The food listed above was eaten on three different days, whatever leftovers we had we spent eating on the next day. Jambalaya, Chicken and Dumplings and turkey were the 'main day' foods, the third feasting day or Thanksgiving as it is more commonly known.

I'm surprised I'm still alive, after consuming a moderate amount of all the food that went into this week. Slept off the weight for twelve hours after each feasting day was over going into one small leftover day meal in the next evening.

I will now get back to working on this story, it will definitely be finished next year.

Thank you for your patience!

Chapter fifty nine, Times will change: Back to the past.

-Canterlot, Hayburger outdoor seating, Fluttershy-

I really wanted to celebrate with the other girls, but I was particularly worried about Fizzle. She wasn’t happy about how she was possibly, maybe… completely responsible for what happened to the Storm King.

It was at least nice to see Ms. Kurilian La Perm again.

“I know this is going to sound odd mom, but what happened around Airship Mauled during Tirek, Discord and Chrysalis running amok? Honestly, I think Discord still is…” Well Fizzle wasn’t wrong, but Discord wasn’t exactly evil. He was more… chaotic neutral to coin an alignment from Ogres and Oubliettes. “Heard Sombra didn’t even get out of the Crystal Empire to do any real damage, you hear lots of things when you're a wanderer. Stayed in a town for a while doing research and found out there was nothing I could do about my horn from that. I’m just going to accept that it’s busted and be who I am.”

Yes, Discord was running around and yes he was still causing messes, but I think he, she or even at times 'it', was actually learning to clean up their messes. I really liked Discord, technically he didn’t have a set gender and could do feathered wings like a griffon…

I didn’t say anything as I wanted to hear about what happened at Airship Mauled during those times too.

“I will always accept you Fizzle, never doubt that for a moment. I’d have to be struck deaf and idiotic to turn one of my daughters away… even Jade if she does come back.” Clearing her throat Kuril pulled a pouch out from under her cloak and robes, she also pulled out a pointy hat and placed it on her head with a jaunty angle. “As for what happened with those three, well illusion powder would help with the visuals.”

I saw the barest glimpse of the large number of pockets that were lining the inside of her robe, probably lined with numerous vials of strange stuff. I remember that she had short range teleportation potions and potions of delayed instant wall… which is an oxymoron, but still applicable to what it does. What else could she have made in the time that I’ve missed?

“Always making catty remarks mom.” Fizzle said with a small smile.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s start with order of intrigue… first up Discord.” Kuril poured a little powder into the center of the table and it coalesced into Discord and Kuril facing one another. “That day things were weird in many place, yet Airship Mauled seemed to be completely untouched like a bubble. He still visited our fair town and I met him personally.”

“What did he do?” I was almost afraid to hear what Discord had done to Kuril and the others that lived there. Discord did respond to being male more often than not, he’d also accept being called an anything and declined being called a 'nothing'.

“That’s just it, I asked him why he was there and he just looked at his surroundings and muttered something about things being chaotic enough already. He just left afterwards.” Did Kuril just say that Discord left, without causing chaos? That doesn’t sound like him at all. I watched as Discord turn from the image of Kuril and turned into a cloud of dust. “It was rather curious how he acted, because he didn’t do a single thing to us when he could have. He was causing problems as far and wide as Appleloosa and Manehattan. Ponyville was the center of the main chaotic mess until certain ponies turned him back to stone. Nowadays he is curiously keeping to himself and doing a bunch of small things on the side according to Veles.”

“That’s actually really odd and I’d like to think that I know him pretty well by now.” I’ve gotten to know Discord very well and back then… he wouldn’t have just ignored one place for being too chaotic. He would have made things even more chaotic.

I flapped my wings nervously as the two of them and the two Storm Creatures now standing behind Fizzle’s seat stared at me.

“Who are those two fellows with you Fizzle and why aren’t they sitting with us to share in the meal? Come, sit with us you two!” It’s a little surprising that anyone could warm up to them, but Kuril making the offer seemed to surprise the two Storm Creatures. “You haven’t introduced them to me yet! I hope you’ve been taking good care of my daughter while she’s been gallivanting around as the most recent evil to plague Equestria, I hear it’s all the rage these days to go evil and then get friendship out of the whole deal. I’m kind of upset that my daughter didn’t get hit with a pure rainbow enema of friendship, I kind of want a refund for that as my daughter didn’t get the full experience from the exchange.”

I started giggling about it into my hooves. One of the Storm Creatures made several noises and chuckled, the other one slapped him in the back of the head. My face was a little red from what he said.

“These two fluffy guys are Pique and Niche, they are my personal bodyguards now I guess and… friends. They were the main two Storm Creatures of my personal unit.” The two regarding Fizzle for a bit and then nodded to her while grunting excitedly as they sat with us. “I have a lot of friends among the Storm Creatures, but these two would have to be the closest to me the entire time I was under the Storm King’s claws. They were also the least likely to kill me on the Storm King’s orders.”

One of the Storm Creatures held up a single digit in a jovial and quite friendly manner. The other nodded and bowed his head towards Fizzle and said something that sounded like he would do anything for Fizzle after she saved his life.

“They are fairly competent and I can say that they are also a little silly. Now that I think about it, I think I surrounded myself with imbeciles on purpose… but, darn it, I loved having them around for the journey to this day! It reminded me so much of home and the idiots that I used to know who set out into the world.” Fizzle actually smiled at them. The smile on her face looked pained, but it was there at least. “My goodness have I missed smiling for reasons other than pain and suffering. So what happened with the other two mom and can we get another two orders of hays fries and two mega sized ‘From Tartartus with Love’ specials here? I think these two would appreciate a taste of crazy.”

-Waitress-

I carefully nodded and was a little uneasy around the two Storm Creatures with dyed hair and tails, but money was money. The invasion was over with and the sweet looking Pegasus and kindly feeling Abyssinian seemed okay with them.

If an Abyssinian was okay with them after what happened to Abyssinia and the capital of Panthera, then I could certainly think they were okay too and get some food for them.

A little kindness here wouldn’t hurt.

-Fluttershy-

“Back to our topic of discussion. What happened with Tirek was just as interesting given Discord was leading him around, but I think you’d rather want me to focus on Chrysalis.” A pinch of illusion powder and we saw a regular loveless changeling with holes and a group of colorful changelings with various mariachi instruments. “Chrysalis has never bothered us, however one of her drones named Kevin did drop by frequently. After the Canterlot Invasion he did so literally. He fell out of the air looking quite mangled and asked for some medical help, he knew things would go poorly and he still went along with it. He’s one of the few changelings that isn’t a colorful that we accepted in town, mostly because he could go colorful anytime he wants to. He was just being too stubborn about sticking with the hive, even after what Chrysalis pulled. Also our old friends, The Shapeshifting Siesta, paid a visit to him after they showed up worried about how we felt about Canterlot being invaded. We told them not to worry and that they were still welcome in Airship Mauled, no one we cared about was hurt aside from Kevin and a few others. They soon visited the hospital to cheer Kevin up.”

On the table there were five changelings playing noiseless mariachi instruments, with them was a shrew wearing a dancer’s uniform and playing a tambourine. It took me a moment to remember her name, but it seemed that Merriami was still with the group and she was standing next to her lover as she shook her hips in rhythm with the music.

I’ve only seen her once, but she looked to be quite happy from Kuril’s recollections.

“I’ve heard that Changelings have become far more colorful recently, I bet even Kevin gave in immediately when the entire hive swapped over to being friendly changelings. If not, then I bet he at least got the process started.” As Kuril spoke the image changed to Kevin covering his head with a pillow while snuggled up in a hospital bed. Soon a familiar Diamond Dog came into the room and started ushering the noisy looking changelings, and shrew, out in a grumpy manner. “Got to love Kevin, he’s a good changeling and nobody has ever said anything bad about him. His business acumen when it came to acquiring love legally was spot on. He’s probably out of a job now, I wonder what he’s been up to these days?”

I don’t remember her very well, but Dr. Zen Bones looked to be doing good if that’s Kuril’s recent memories of her.

“So that’s all that came of Chrysalis’s Canterlot invasion, but I heard Tirek got every pony in Equestria.” Turning to Fizzle as she gave her mother a questioning gaze, I too was curious to hear how they dealt with Discord teleporting Tirek around before Tirek drained him.

“That… was about as eventful as the first time Discord visited us, only far tenser than you’d think it would be. We actually got prior warning as to where he would exactly be appearing from and at what time in a letter, which most likely came from Discord himself given how crazily written it was.” Wait did Kuril just say they were warned, why would Discord warn them of Tirek ahead of time? I mean, he didn’t even warn me ahead of time about his betrayal. “It was like Discord was protecting us from Tirek specifically, I’d almost say he was afraid of something. So Tirek did get the magic of almost every pony in equestria, with exceptions like the ones living in Airship Mauled.”

I’ve forgiven Discord for that, but I certainly haven’t forgotten what he did. The illusion dust showed Kuril walking to the edge of a forest and two Thestral ponies flew overhead and dropped a large amounts of what could only be illusion dust. It was a minute later that Discord and Tirek appeared, Discord started acting silly and Tirek looked around before shouting at Discord about something.

“So we avoided trouble that day… except for the 'Puks'.” The scene rotated until everything disappeared and then the scene rotated back into view, the wall of illusion dust made Kuril and everything behind it invisible. The fact that the illusion dust could create the effect of a one way mirror and could even rotate the image it produced was amazing. “We’ve outlawed saying their names on threat of fines and we’re going to just simply call them 'Puks'. The extra law on top of that is that nobody is to mention any kind of historical style of 'Puks' that there might be either. No one appreciated the cave versions one bit.”

“Wait, there are cave versions of Pukwu…” A sharp look towards Fizzle from Kuril makes her freeze up and finish with just one word. “Puks?”

“Puks.” Nodded Kuril sagely and with a near frown on her face.

“Pukw… 'puks' aren’t that bad.” I tried at least, but then Kuril and Fizzle stared at me for a long moment. I now remembered how often Airship Mauled got attacked by them. I also remembered the entire Sugar Cube Corner incident. “Okay, so maybe they are a little… aggressive.”

“Excuse me, but what are two ladies like you doing here, especially with a lady as nice and beautiful as you?” Turning to see Capper. The male Abyssinian was approaching our table with wariness, considering he just ran a paw over the tuft of thick fur on his head. “I mean having lunch with miss dark, evil and broody seems a little unusual don’t you think?”

“Did you ever stop to think that I might have a good reason for being the way I am?” One could see Fizzle was slightly upset. Both Pique and Niche seemed ready to punch Capper if she commanded it. I don’t think she will, but the intent was there. “It’s like how you’re a conman and a thief and I’m calling you out for it, especially when you told me to go the wrong way. I knew where they were going already.”

“Wait, if you knew… but why…” Capper looked a little shocked when Fizzle smiled at him without showing teeth. “You stalled on purpose!”

“Yes.” Fizzle just continued to eat her food while Kuril petted her. “I had to at least give them enough time to make contact with the sea ponies, I only specifically captured Princess Twilight Sparkle there.”

Fizzle would know about sea ponies, yet she never used the sea pony SOS song that Jade taught us. If I had remembered it, I might have sung it before we got flushed into the sea.

“Young man, don’t pretend to know any of my daughter's motivations! Also I’m quite sorry, but you’re far too young for me, though I appreciate the compliments to my appearance as a queen slowly becoming an elder.” Kuril giggled and pulled a vial out of her robe and tossed it between his feet, where it shattered harmlessly on the ground. “Let that be a warning to you, I don’t want you upsetting or harassing my daughter! You will swiftly apologize for being rude.”

“Wait… you’re what?!” Capper seemed little surprised to hear that Fizzle was Kuril’s daughter, I simply nodded when he looked in my direction.

“I was never a part of the Abyssinian invasion force, I joined his forces a while after that and as the Storm Creatures will tell you…” Stopping to take a mouthful of food, Fizzle chewed slowly and swallowed. She stared Capper down while glancing at the fluids between his feet begin to bubble every now and then. “I was definitely not happy about what happened at all. I will admit that I was actually responsible for the sacking of Mount Aris. Unlike what happened to Abyssinia, I let people escape from that assault and fought only those who fought back.”

Capper looked at the fluids on the ground because Fizzle was staring at them, then turned to Kuril.

“Uh, what’s with the liquid?” As curiosity was a thing for Abyssinians, Capper just had to ask.

A small wall sprang up between his legs, but it stopped before actually hitting him.

“I apologize.” Squeaked Capper immediately.

Author's Note

Mysteries abound as far as Discord is concerned. Next page, Lunch ends with both Fizzle and Kuril having things to do.

Kuril has to go find Blade Bright to see what state she's in and Fizzle has to settle things in Canterlot. Fizzle will then go about her business helping make up for everything the Storm King ever did even if she wasn't at fault for some of them.

Chapter fifty nine, Times will change: Back to the present.

-Canterlot, upper square, Fizzle-

The night was going pretty well so far, launched off some magical fireworks from my busted horn and told Twilight I just wanted to show ponies what I was capable of. That wasn’t a lie, what I didn’t tell her was that there were further goals behind my efforts.

I prodded the armor at my sides, I was still wearing it out of paranoia more than any loyalty to my former employer. All ponies have varying levels of insanity, unicorns are more likely to go insane and attack me while I’m here. I wasn’t taking off the anti-magic armor until I’ve started going around fixing things and can feel safe enough to take it off.

Reaching under the armor at my neck, I pulled out a locket and flipped it open for a few seconds. A few tears sprang from my eyes, but I quickly blinked them away and then put the locket back.

Mom left for Airship Mauled, but she didn’t go alone. I told her to take Pique and Niche with her after lunch was over with, they could use a place where everyone is given a fair shot to be a part of the town. I wanted them to look after mom or do whatever else she might need of them.

I told mom to take them with her when she sets out to get Blade, it has been several hours and the thestral hasn’t moved from the general area she had come back at. Mom was worried about her possible mare friend.

Knowing the world like I do, I definitely think something was wrong and Blade needed help. That she was even on the map was telling us where she was and that she was alive, but not in what state.

Capper became slightly more amiable to get along with after talking with my mother. He was a rogue that I could compare to Jade, only he was more of a fast talker and less paws-on than Jade was. I felt nothing for him aside from honest friendship as we became more acquainted.

I learned why Capper was going to sell out the six ponies, my new friends, he lost his ability to trust anyone after his best friend Chummer left him in Klugetown.

He told his story, then I told mine. Every bit of trauma I’ve had to go through.

Ursa minor to major inflicted injuries, nearly killed by another ursa, various dangerous adventures with Jade, my heart being broken when Jade got taken from us, recently finding out someone took down Maries from mom a while ago and we don’t even know if they are still alive. On top of all that, every single thing I looked into about getting my horn back ends with failure.

Fluttershy and Capper had been more than comforting. Capper talked about Celaeno not letting life get her down despite losing a half a leg. He talked about how he was willing to give friendship a try and was willing to open himself up to trusting others again, but this time he would at least verify that he can trust someone. He did so by saying he could trust me.

Fluttershy and Pinkie’s friends made a lot of friends during their recent travels. A group of pirates, a crazy charming cat and eventually a bunch of weirdoes under the sea. Now they can add a unicorn with scars on her heart and soul.

I was formally introduced to Rarity and Applejack. Rainbow was shocked that I was the same Fizzle she knew back then, she had honestly thought I was earth pony that kept to myself.

I swear that all these friendships almost mirrored those that I had with Jade.

-Cadance-

I really haven’t thought about it, but I guess my wish came true.

Twilight certainly made a lot of unique friends and was put through a lot of trauma recently.

I’m glad she was able to connect with Fizzle and convince her to make a horseshoe turn in the right direction. I feel kind of bad for the unicorn, hearing both Maries and Jade weren’t around to give her the love she needs hurts me in the heart.

I wish there was something I can do for her… maybe try to reconnect Fizzle with old friends?

I’d find out a few days later how far back I had to go to find someone who hasn’t disappeared off the face of Equestria.

-Fizzle-

The party was in full swing, to a point that even the Hippo Queen herself showed up. The goddess Taweret was a little weird to look at, but she was the life of the party and then some.

The best description for her was this, large purple hippo in robes that happened to be wearing a crown and had a particularly jolly nature. You’ll know for sure when she’s around given all alcohol was suddenly just flavor without the mental inhibition destroying applications.

Celestia didn’t even know there was such a thing as the hippo queen, mostly since the hippo queen was a rather lazy and low key goddess.

The only given reason she even showed up is because there was a city wide party going on, a party that was large enough to attract her from sleeping in a river in what used to be Anugypt.

For the title of ‘she who is great’, I think it didn’t mean in deeds or friendliness. I think it was talking about Taweret’s general bulk and the roundness therein. She and Pinkie became fast friends upon seeing each other.

That and the title ‘mistress of pure water’ meant that no matter what you drink within a given distance of her, you would not get drunk or be harmed by poisonous substances. A few ponies were griping about this given that all alcohol was completely neutralized in her presence. I could probably drink paint thinner and survive, but I wasn’t willing to push my luck. Though you could make a request for her to tone it down on the purity of water aspect and she would, for that one person.

It was basically her domain to prevent people from getting poisoned, whether it be on purpose or incidental. So you actually had to ask for permission to get drunk while she was around, she’ll consider it if you weren’t a mean, angry or destructive drunk.

How would I know? I tried to drown my sorrows and frankly Taweret being here prevented me from making a mistake of getting drunk while depressed. At least Grubber and the Storm Creatures were getting along with everyone else. I stood at a balcony alone and away from the party.

“Fizzle.” I shivered at the sound of Fluttershy’s voice.

Letting out a sigh, I turned to her.

“Yes, did you need something Fluttershy?” The moon was lovely tonight, I was going to have an important talk with Celestia and Luna about something soon.

“I don’t need anything, I just don’t want you to be alone with your thoughts.” She came up to me and I could clearly see the worried look in her eyes. I wasn’t that bad… was I? Well I had plenty of reasons to feel the way I do. “Capper might have been rude about it, but he had a point about you having a tendency to brood.”

“Fluttershy… I don’t have a job and I don’t want to be the Storm Queen for too long after this day, I don’t know what ultimately became of Jade, Maries or the rest of the friends we used to have. You, Pinkie, Twilight and the others are just about all I have left aside from Grubber, Mom and the two Storm Creatures I sent with her.” I rested my forehead on the railing and didn’t look at Fluttershy. “I know I’m going to start spreading the word of friendship, the Storm King’s defeat and will start fixing things, but it won’t make me a living to survive off of. I have no idea where I’m going, what I’m going to be doing and frankly I don’t feel like I belong in the one place I still want to call home more than anything. Kuril makes me feel special, but what I want are the ones that made life feel special to me. What I’m saying is, the most important thing out of all that… is that I’m scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared Fizzle, I think your far braver than I am… well most ponies generally are. Just know that you have friends that will be behind you through thick and thin.” Snorting at Fluttershy’s self-deprecation, I didn’t lift my head from where it rested. She came up next to me propped herself up on the railing. “I don’t think Rainbow is too happy about hearing who you really are, but I talked her down from bothering you. You need space, but not too much. That’s why I’m here, I want to help you Fizzle.”

“To think you say you aren’t brave, but you always know when to stand up and confront someone when you know something is wrong.” I wasn’t going to look at her, her doe like eyes were lethal weapons. “My life has had one really nice up and a lot of following downs, I’m tired of life kicking me around Fluttershy.”

“Twilight wants you to come to Ponyville, you know, to see its many wonders.” Thanks Fluttershy, but I’ve already been there. It wouldn’t be the same. Sure it would be exciting given the crazy stuff that happens there, but I wouldn’t appreciate being there. “She… doesn’t exactly know that you’ve been there before.”

“Yes, I’ll let Twilight down gently after staying a night or two to get on my hooves, I am going to need to get supplies for the road after all. Pinkie will definitely chip in for that if I ask nicely enough, I’m pretty sure she’d help even if I was as rude as I could possibly be to her.” Knowing what I do, Pinkie would probably say something like, ‘It’s dangerously lonely to go, take this’, then she would hold a cupcake out to me. “At least mom is on the road to finding happiness again, don’t honestly know how I’m going to find mine.”

I felt something shift next to me and I lifted my head to spy a paper sack loaded with cupcakes sitting next to me. Pinkie’s got a hair trigger on her ability to sense sad sacks, which would explain why the bag had a frowny face on it.

“We’ll help you figure something out Fizzle, we’ll do whatever we can to help you!” Fluttershy put her left hoof on my right and held it. “Just don’t push away any help freely offered. Pinkie really wants you to be a part of the party and to smile more, but she’s actually trying to be subtle and not pushy. Those are things she usually isn’t good at, but she did okay this time.”

Inhaling through my nose, I exhaled slowly, then I turned to look at her while taking up a cupcake in my left hoof.

“Would you like a cupcake?” We would spend the next minute or so silently sharing cupcakes out of the sad sack, the frown on the sack turned into a smile at some point.

Not questioning it and moving on with my life.

“If we find anything having to do with Maries or Jade, we’ll inform you immediately.” That was a nice of you Fluttershy, if you could actually find either of them. “I think Spike is capable of aiming where the letters he burns go to.”

“Don’t go spending any sleepless nights over me Fluttershy, I have some princesses to go chat with about some pertinent things.” I turned away from Fluttershy and towards the party. “We’ll probably hop on the next train to Ponyville together, I’ll pretend to be absolutely surprised by all the stuff Twilight is probably going to inevitably drag me to.”

“At least it’ll be from her perspective, you’ve spent the last few days showing her your perspective about how dreary the world can be.” Trotting away from Fluttershy, I was heading towards Celestia. “You should let Twilight show you how bright and cheerful it can be as well.”

“I certainly need a refresher, especially without the ones who used make it that way for me to do it.” I sent Fluttershy a smile and then turned into a stick and a blindfold being held up in front of me.

“I heard Piñatas are a good way to relieve stress.” Pinkie waggled her brows at me with a smile, I did feel like I needed to hit something.

Fluttershy was most certainly not a viable target for my problems, neither was anyone else here really.

“Thanks Pinkie.” I took up the stick and didn’t take the blindfold. “I’d rather not play it in the traditional way if that’s okay with you.”

“Sure thing! I have a lot of spares if you need more to smash while you’re considering what to do with yourself, beyond the goals you set for yourself out of remorse and guilt.” Yep, Pinkie wasn’t subtle and she had pretty good read of my current mood.

-Thirty minutes later, Luna-

“So that’s why you need to be extra careful with the Staff of Sacanas.” Tempest was reporting to the both of us, but we weren’t exactly her princesses… were we? Was she still technically an Equestrian citizen? I was usually outside the splatter zone of most of the incidents Twilight became involved in, said splatter zone now encompassed all of Equestria. “GODLESS may not be as active in Equestria as you say, but they certainly are elsewhere or else I wouldn’t have run into them in big enough numbers to be a problem while getting that staff.”

“Thank you for informing us about this.” Honestly, I wanted to throttle this mare, but Celestia has explained to me much of what she went through. Not only did she lose one lover, but four, one of them being a chimera. My sister felt partly responsible for this and didn’t think Tempest would do what she did when she came in with an army of airships. “I accept your apology, now if only apologies would help me with the nightmares I’m going to be vanquishing in the coming days.”

“Yes, there is much to do, so much to prepare for… I think it’s about time we begin making plans for retirement.” Stated Celestia calmly. I was shocked to hear this and Tempest was as well, we both shared a look. “I have led Equestria as well as I could, but I think it’s time someone else took the reins… and no, I don’t mean the kinky bridles kind Luna.”

I felt heat in my cheeks as I looked away from my sister. Was Celestia ever going to let that go!

“Were there any other matters of which we needed to discuss?” While I would like to say no personally, I did want to at least buck that mare in the face at least once. That would be too cruel to actually do, we were basically kindred spirits.

“Yes, I do have some news that might interest you, Sekhet has returned to Airship Mauled and will be returning to her secretarial work for my mother and teaching physical education locally like before.” Was Tempest talking of the annoying sphinx that supposedly hounded sister over stolen cakes?

Author's Note

Somber chapters about Fizzle.

When Fizzle says she's scared, she's afraid of moving forward and things not getting any better among a number of things like people attacking her for things the Storm King did.

Chapter fifty nine, Times will change: Back to the heart.

-Many days later, Jungle, Kuril-

Equestria had forests, swamps and jungles, a madhouse if there ever was one. I loved living in the pony lands though.

This given area was like the Tenochtitlan Basin, which was actually nearby now that I thought of it. I recognized that place because Daring Do built a reclusive home near the place.

My expedition team consisted of Pique, Niche and Sugar. I’m sure Sekhet could handle Airship Mauled while I was gone, the goddess couldn’t mess up administration that much in the few days we’ll be gone.

Still worried about that though, since Sekhet had a lot of paperwork to catch up on after being gone for so long.

We weren’t going to get lost out here at all as I put a location marker on the maps own location, so the yellow dot was the map itself and we were moving ever closer to where Blade Bright was.

She had been stuck up there for so long, it made me wonder what had happened to her. What was happening to me currently wasn’t as interesting as finding out what happened after Nightmare Moon was let loose and then Luna was purified.

“Oh look, a Timber King.” I spoke lazily as the overgrown mass of moss, wood and leaves with glowing green eyes growled at us. It has a threat level that was barely two out of ten, it could be stopped with a large enough rock to the throat or loud noises. “How scary and frightening.”

I couldn’t keep the boredom out of my tone, the Timber King looked at me in confusion over the sarcasm.

While I could have ordered Sugar to attack it, Pique had preempted my request and pushed a nearby large tree over.

Said tree toppled directly onto the Timber King and it was now stuck under the bulk of it scrabbling at the dirt.

“What was today again? I know it’s not Tuesday or Monday…” No, only something as weak as the Timber King stated that this was a Thursday. The day after hump day was always boring.

Niche growled out an answer at me as she stalked forward past me. Pique was male, I was surprised to learn that Niche was female. Storm Creatures were really quite hard to tell apart at times, their genders were even harder to tell and Niche was vaguely more feminine than Pique was.

“Thank you Niche for confirming that today is Thursday.” I knew it, you ‘can’ always judge what day it is by the monsters you get attacked by while out in the wilder parts of the world. I turned to my large horned rabbit of imminent death for the unwary, not an inch of her had grown bigger than any other part of her. “Sugar leave the poor thing alone, the King’s suffering enough now that it or he has a girlfriend crushing on him.”

Sugar’s current size made it a bit harder to fool predators into attacking her, given how much dirt she tends to displace with every single movement. She at least gets enough nutrition from my food and a happily fed Mirage Rabbit was highly a protective one.

Sugar was also getting better at illusions and was hopefully a fully grown Al-mi’raj now, one with the potential to do that limited super growth thing to even bigger sizes than what I had seen previously. She could definitely grow beyond the size of a terra tortoise.

Sugar just chittered at me sadly that she didn’t get to at least gnaw on the Timber King.

We were getting ever closer to Blade Bright, or at least that’s what the map was telling me. Niche was busy clearing a path in the direction we were headed and eventually she made a loud grunting sound of awe.

I continued a few steps forward, before I decided to look up from my map. Pique stepped up next to Niche and looked on in awe as well.

“Huh, now that’s… rather unusual.” Hearing an agreeing grunt to my statement, I turned to Pique. “Well my enchanted map says she should here, so this must be a shrine of the stars or something given the décor.”

The symbol on the nearby maze like ruins wall had a four pointed star, at each point was a being.

The right pointed had what I believe to be a longma, I had done some research on them after seeing everyone at The Volcano on the map. Though why this one counted as east, I couldn’t even begin to describe given ‘The Volcano’ was within the realm of the dragon lands.

The left point was a Pegasus, which if it was representing the cardinal point of west, then that would be the general direction you’d find Cloudsdale from Ponyville as it floated lazy circles in the sky. It could represent something else though given the longma’s position.

The bottom point was that of a hippogriff, which originate from Mount Aris in the south. I wondered if Fizzle would ever be forgiven for that destructive raid on their home.

To the north was the one that I was after and what I was here for. The very depiction of a thestral.

Each depiction had something different to it. The Longma was shown to be a powerful leader. The Hippogriff was a bright, if cowardly, scholar. The Pegasus was a proud warrior. As for The Thestral...

Well it took me a moment to figure it out what that represented, the depiction looked sorrowful.

If the proud pegasus was a warrior and the cowardly looking hippogriff was a gifted scholar, then they seemed to all be playing off of one another. So if the longma was a great and mighty leader of many, then the thestral before it on a clockwise rotation would represent either a reluctant assassin or… a destitute lonely pauper or maybe even a forlorn hero. There were numerous interpretations for it.

I felt my heart clench in my chest and tears sprang to my eyes. Blade, you wouldn’t be alone for much longer.

As we entered the ruins I turned to Sugar.

“Sugar, sniff around!” Sugar chittered and started to snuffle at the ground. It didn’t take her long to pick up a scent of some kind, we followed her slowly as she set the pace for us.

We were coming at this place from the east, so I shouldn’t be surprised when we eventually encountered a longma among the ruins who dropped before us. His wings blazed outwards in a protective manner.

Sugar growled and pawed the ground, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice and she would not be losing this fight.

“Sugar, no… something is not quite right with him.” He didn’t look like a longma from The Volcano. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, he looked like he was from… Neighpon? From the distant east, or west, depending on how far you were willing to go in either direction.

Sugar stopped growling and backed down, but didn’t drop her defensive posture. I looked into the longma’s eyes and saw something strange.

He seemed, for lack of a better word, feral. He instinctively stood at ease as soon as Sugar stopped being threatening, but he was ready to fight if pressed.

The leader, knows when to fight and wisely knew when to not to do so at all.

“Please… if you can understand me, lead me to the others.” Waiting for my response, the longma with the slicked back mane tilted his head curiously as we looked into each other’s eyes.

His wild eyes softened a bit, he tentatively trusted his back to us and started walking away. Seeing that we were not following, he looked back at us and grunted while making a gesture for us to follow him with his head.

His flaming wings soon dissipated and I looked to Pique, Niche and Sugar. I started moving forward and they fell into step behind me.

The hallways of the ruins were a bit confusing and yet the longma seemed to know where he was going by instinct, we eventually got to a room where we found a hippogriff crafting bedding and blankets out of makeshift materials of woven grass, leaves, clumping mud for binding and sticks.

Not the cleanest method of staying warm, but it worked. The nights around here tended to get quite chilly when we had to set up camp.

The scholar, always knows how to make what is needed.

Upon hearing us coming, the yellow female hippogriff cowered. At least she did until she noted that the longma was leading us. She calmed down rather fast, the longma had her full trust at least.

It had been several days since Blade reappeared on the map. So if she were rendered feral like these two… then she wouldn’t recognize me as soon as we saw one another.

A male pegasus and the thestral we were here for soon came in for a landing through a hole in the roof of the ruins on this sunny day.

The thestral I recognized immediately despite her looking older. Her golden eyes and white mane couldn’t be mistaken.

Blade looked relatively healthy and had some makeshift baskets loaded heavily with fruits, nuts, freshly dug up vegetables and berries. The pegasus seemed to have been battered pretty badly recently in some kind of fight.

The warrior was likely ordered to protect the last of the lot… Blade, who I now took to be the gatherer.

The warrior, would always protect those who were important to survival.

The gatherer, who is good at finding food and materials for the scholar to work with.

These four were representing what was needed for a stable kingdom to thrive. The Heart, Mind, Body and Soul of it all.

I looked to the longma and he looked to me, I was asking to help with my eyes and he nodded in understanding even if he had lost the capacity for speech at this moment in time.

“Pique, Niche, stay back and set up our camping supplies.” I pulled out the medical kit and made my way towards the wary pegasus, he seemed defensive until the longma barked at him in an angry manner and then he relented and let me tend to him. “Sugar, don’t harm any of them and protect them like you would me.”

It wouldn’t take long for everyone to notice that I was shooting the thestral glances almost constantly as she shared the fruit she had gathered with the others. The thestral also seemed curious with me as well, but she didn’t recognize me at all as she sucked the juices from a fruit.

That would tear my heart in two, but I had expected this after seeing the state the longma and hippogriff were in.

I sighed, but I was still going to bring Blade home no matter what or how long it took. First, I had to do something that might make them all like me. None of them looked like they’ve had a decently cooked meal in these past few days.

I moved over to the longma and looked him in the eyes, silently asking for some of their food. His gaze was questioning, curious and reluctant to part with the feast their gatherer provided. Eventually he nodded to me. The pegasus was slightly upset with this, but was more curious than angry.

“Pique, fill the pot with water please. Niche, build a fire with whatever wood we have left. We’re having vegetable soup tonight!” The appreciative sounds from, Pique, Niche and Sugar made the four feral being curious as to what I had just offered. “Sugar, go have fun and please gather some wood on your way back.”

Sugar was off and out of the ruins before the longma or the pegasus could even react.

It was time to work my magic, food that was both excellent and filling should bring these four back into the fold. It would be my way of convincing them all to follow me home.

I may have come for Blade personally, but I would be taking all four of them with me when I leave. I pulled out a knife and Blade’s interest in me shot up a couple of notches. Her special talent was still present at the very least, given her gaze was squarely on the cutting knife I held.

I sat down with my legs crossed, with my cutting board in my lap and a container off to the side to scrape the food into while Pique busy filling the pot for the fire. I took up a few vegetables and began to chop them, Blade sat down in front of me and watched as I worked.

She might not remember who I was, but she at least looked like she remembered something. I was using one of the knives I used to teach her how to chop things with.

-The next day, Blade-

Something… something wasn’t right.

Food maker was familiar. So very familiar that my head hurts to look at her and I didn’t have a voice with which to tell her how familiar she was.

All that came from my mouth were painful screeches.

I needed to follow food maker, I didn’t want her out of my sight. The other three important ones that were with me couldn’t talk either, it was one of the things we were all missing.

We had understood food maker’s words at least and started to follow her and the two strange beings, with an equally familiar dangerous beast that heeded the food maker’s words.

She, the food maker, was leading us somewhere and excitement was bursting from within my chest whenever I looked at her. The rapid thuds were telling me something that seemed odd, why would I want her presence more than anything when she was not another of my kind?

I have forgotten something very important, but food maker’s presence is making everything better somehow.

Deciding to take a chance, I moved closer to the food maker and put my right hoof against her left paw and curled it around the paw.

That felt… good.

Something within me is telling me that I should do more of this.

-Kuril-

I jolted when I felt something grab my left paw on our way out of the jungle, and then I felt a weight press into my side.

I looked down at Blade and she looked up to me with a smile. Still feral, but there was some recognition in there. Blade was still in there somewhere even though she came back to me missing large pieces of herself, but I could tell she was still Blade Bright.

I let go of her hoof to resettle my heavy backpack loaded with gear, then held out my paw. She eagerly grappled onto it with her hoof like she was in a desert while dying of thirst.

Maybe she could learn to assist me in the kitchen again by the time we got back to Airship Mauled.

-Ryu-

The food maker knew the gatherer.

At least the gatherer had been found by someone that knew her.

It was just her the food maker came for, but she wanted to help us all.

As we traveled, I dreamed of being close to a being with eight legs and a large butt.

There was a place I belonged and it's location was lost by me.

What was all that was taken from us?

Author's Note

Kuril's journey was short and it ended with finding four beings with no memory of what happened to them.

Next page: More Fizzle and several other things of note.

Chapter fifty nine, Times will change: By marching ever forward.

-Airship Mauled, Sekhet-

“Help… me…” I rasped out and tried to poke a paw out of the pile of paperwork crushing me.

“Well, where did you expect all your paperwork to go when you were gone for the last few years?” Fresh stated blandly.

“I think... it all might be sucking the... immortality out of me.” I waggled my left paw helplessly from underneath the weight of a thousand papers.

“Look, you’re the secretary to mayor Kuril, you need to do your backlog of paperwork and I’m not doing it for you. Stop being lazy.” Fresh was definitely a treasonous mare, how dare she call someone of my gloriousness lazy? “Also you’ve been crushed by heavier things Sekhet.”

“Oh what a world, when even the lovely maid won’t lift a hoof to save the beautiful secretary!” She rolled her eyes and walked away from me.

-Three hours later-

Okay, I finished a quarter of the paperwork and was taking an hour break to see if anyone needed anything from me. So far nothing was more urgent than the paperwork and I was beginning to get paranoid that Celestia’s revenge against me was sending a painful amount of bureaucracy my way.

I went to lay on my side outside in the sun to snooze, when I woke up I would be back at it or doing a physical educations class. I would rather be teaching physical education, it is less mind destroying than paperwork was and was actually fun to see mortals grow stronger under my tutelage.

Once my eyes slid close, they’d open to a strikingly familiar voice minutes later.

“Whatever you are doing sphinx, I will make sure that you bother these nice folks no longer!” Wondering if Somnambula and the prince actually had children and I was now being bothered by her ancestor, I slid one eye open to see a familiar face.

She looked good for a thousand year old pony.

“Oh… you… thank you for helping me out all those years ago.” I plainly stated to Somnambula’s face and she blinked in confusion. “You’re a wonderful mortal.”

No clue what she was doing here in Airship Mauled, but Somnambula apparently thought ill of me after our last encounter. I could understand why she might think me horrible, I was actively starving the ponies out until I was freed up from the territory to go do whatever I wanted.

“Wait… why are you thanking me?” Since nobody apparently saw fit to give Somnambula the memo, I might tell her for old time’s sake. “I’m confused.”

“Do you remember the first time we met?” I sat up and looked at her. She still had those dusky grayish blue, almost purple, eyes with the nice eyeliner and her mane was still short and bluntly cut turquoise hair. I kind of wanted to bat the ends of her mane around with one of my paws, at a smaller size of course.

The mare looked good for her age, provided she lived the last thousand years like Celestia has.

“Yes, you kidnapped the prince, asked me a riddle and I answered it correctly.” Somnambula apparently remembered it clearly as if it was yesterday. “Then you disabled my ability to fly and made me keep a blindfold on while I went to rescue him!”

“Yeah and I bet the prince is no longer alive for you to make affectionate gestures toward.” Well I just seemed to upset her on a number of levels with just saying that. “Quick question, how are you still alive mortal?”

“I was taken outside of time and have returned to hear that one of my old foes was bothering this town!” Okay, judging by what Somnambula said, that only meant one thing.

“Celestia put you up to this didn’t she?” It could be the only reason for Somnambula to show up when I was trying to get a nap in.

“Yes, she told me of your cruelty in ingesting a whole towns worth of food!” Okay, that wasn’t a lie, it was just that Somnambula wasn’t told I consumed Celestia’s entire stock of cakes from her cake vault. Which was actually enough cake to feed a whole town and me.

“Yep, all that food came from Celestia’s cake vault, even shared it with the other people that live here.” I didn’t feel like acting threatening at the moment, so I just continued to be lazy in front of Somnambula.

“Oh right, I forgot to thank you for all those cake the other day. Thank you oh might goddess of physical education!” One of the hippogriffs that recently moved in stated with a happy tone, he came to this place after Mount Aris fell.

Flamberge had some good words for our fair town a few years back and the hippogriff remembered them well enough to come here.

“Aren’t you the same goddess of war that consumes the people’s food and ask for tithes in ever increasing amounts until no one could possibly pay them?” Somnambula asked a little confused about a random hippogriff being friendly with me over Cake-A-Palooza celebrations.

“Hey, I can be a teacher too! Also don’t bother with asking for the highest authority in town to boot me out, you’re currently looking at her.” I rolled on to my back and started to ignore her until she planted herself on my nose and glared me in the eyes.

I rolled my eyes at the slightly aggressive mare. I just lifted a paw, gently plucked her headdress off her head and set it to the side. I begin to pet her affectionately, enjoying the feeling of her silky hair beneath my paw as it stroked her.

“Stop… stop that…” She was already blushing as I continued to softly stroke her head, she was an adorable little mortal.

“How about no… your too cute and being falsely aggressive with. That would take too much effort this time.” My words had the poor mare looking confused, but she didn’t bat away my paw gently stroking her head. I soon started going from her head down to her back and tail with each long stroke and the gasps she let out were sweet sounding. “You see, all those years ago there were some things you didn’t know about me personally. I have a very good reason to say thank you and if you wish to know, all you have to is ask about what you missed during our little episode together.”

“What did I… can you please stop that…” Somnambula shivered and whined as I ran a digit in a tight little circle on her back. “I want to know why someone I defeated is thanking me!”

“Do you want me to stop petting you? You’re protesting a little too weakly to be outright saying no to this.” Giggling at the mare’s misfortune to meet me when I’m not under any constraints, I tried to ease off on petting her. “The reason I wanted to thank you is because I owe you for freeing me from being the guardian of that temple.”

“What?” Somnambula said flatly and in confusion.

“It was ever so boring to be cooped up in there, also you wouldn’t have died if you fell into the slime. Sure you’d be humiliated and would have had to answer another riddle, but the bubbling slime pit was mostly for show and not truly lethal. There was no heat in it, just air blowers in the slime to make bubbles.” I was receiving a fairly disturbed stare, which soon became worse because of what I said next. “I took a few baths in it because the slime was actually quite cleansing. I want you to recall something, did you notice the statues in the temple?”

“Yes, what of them?” Somnambula managed ask while panting slightly and my continued gentle ministrations to her tiny squeaking body.

If she didn’t want me to tease her, then she should have left the nice sphinx alone.

“Did you notice anything odd about the statues while I was talking to you?” I was wondering if she had noticed.

“Aside from that fact that their eyes were… you were being watched?” Somnambula seemed mystified as she finally realized that we were performing in front of a live audience at the time.

“They were there to make sure I was fulfilling my duty to the temple, also you ponies settled on the lands close to where I lived and I was there first. At most I thought you’d save me from boredom, the best thing you ever did was free me from the service to that temple.” Seeing the curious gaze, I expanded on what I just said. “You see I was the last standing member of the civilization that owned that temple, you ask me to leave the realm as it was and to never return. Since said realm would no longer exist without me in it and I counted as a member of it…”

“You could have come back at any given time to terrorize us with impunity…” I poked her serious wide eyed form in the belly and it made her giggle. She started swatting at me with a hoof after several more pokes leading to her laughing hysterically on her back, I eventually relented.

“Says a lot about me that I didn’t do that though, I wasn’t exactly attached to my job as gaurdian of the temple. Doing something drastic like kidnapping the prince finally got someone to do something about my captivity.” I stretched out and put my paws behind my head, Somnambula even looked a little sad when I stopped caressing her. “You set me free from my obligations when you legally defeated me in the eyes of my watchers, of course I made things a bit easy for you. I could have put you on a winding pathway, instead I gave you a task where you had to walk a straight line while blindfolded and the princes wasn’t exactly gagged now was he?”

“You failed… on purpose...” Somnambula seemed to be looking at me in a new light now.

“Oh no, I didn’t do it on purpose, the riddle was very real and so was the challenge afterwards. I just did enough to not acquire the ire of my watchers for failing to give out a decent enough challenge, they made sure I did my job properly and everything.” Hey, I wasn’t called on it and history says I was a vile and vicious food grubbing monster, so I just let people believe what they want. I’m not evil, just quirky. “Hope is what set me free that day, the hope that someone like you would come along.”

“I… I have no words… I apologize for my assumptions noble sphinx.” She bowed to me and I just sighed audibly.

“Please, call me Sekhet.” I picked her up and placed her off to the side. After I magically cleaned her headdress, I placed it back on her head. “I don’t mind having more mortal friends.”

“Sekky, if you’re awake, then you’re capable of working on your paperwork!” Fresh announced to me loudly.

“You’re off my friend list for forcing me to do paperwork!” The mare just stared at me harder for saying that, I rolled to my paws and set off to go back to working on it. “See you around Somnambula, I have work to do.”

“You think you know someone, then they turn out to be friendlier than you remember them being after a thousand years have passed.” Turning a smile back at Somnambula for saying that, I waggled my rear end at her and set off for my pyramid leaving a blushing mare behind. “The things in this day and age continue to surprise me…”

Somnambula might have ruined my nap, but it was nice seeing her.

My revenge for a missed nap would be swift Celestia, and in triplicate!

-Some time later, Palicoast, Fizzle-

I stepped off the ship took in a breath of fresh air and looked at the slightly rebuilt town.

“The Storm King is dead!” That caused some relief for quite a few of the wary Abyssinians who saw a single foreboding airship land at their town. “I am here to make amends and wish to help whoever has need of it, I promise you I will leave if asked to. I just want to make up for the things that that tyrant did and the Storm Creatures are no longer a threat or your enemy!”

“Can you give me a lift to Equestria for free?” I looked to see an Abyssinian holding a little white griffon cub, her fur was dark blue with a starry pattern of white dots that shifted with each movement. She was fairly nice looking and was wearing a magical amulet. “Also if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, how did the Storm King meet his end?”

“Sure thing, free food too, no expenses necessary.” I looked at the few Abyssinians gathering, most of them were busy working on the new buildings. “The Storm King was brought low by a spell that turned those struck by it into stone, obsidian stone to be specific. I was the one that did it, I took a hit meant for a group and managed to get him with his own spell to push him over a balcony while we were turning to stone. He shattered against the ground and I… I was saved by Princess Twilight of Ponyville.”

“Well Gavin, it looks like we've got a ride to Equestria!” One good deed down for this Abyssinian, a few hundred more to go. “I’m ‘Savannah, the Wild’. If you could drop me off at Airship Mauled, I would be quite thankful for that and will spread the word of the Storm King’s defeat. Can I know your name?”

“I’m… Fizzlepop Berrytwist, but just call me Fizzle. If you know of anyone I can help while we’re here, just point me in the right direction.” I bowed low to her. “Airship Mauled is a nice place to live, I’m sure you and… Gavin was it? You'll love it there, we’ll leave in a day or so.”

I had trotted off the ship without the anti-magic armor on and was just wearing the simplistic cloak and scarf I got from Rarity. I never knew when I might need the armor next, but I was definitely removing the Storm King's symbols from it before I would ever put it back on.

Savannah’s name sounded familiar somehow, but I don’t think I’ve ever met her before.

-A few months later, Crystal Empire, Fizzle-

Strange things were happening in the world, things like Twilight starting a school of friendship. I had come to the Crystal Empire to see Jade’s old friend Cadence, who had lured me into a post-traumatic stress disorder ursa situation.

At least I made up with an old friend named Glitter Drops, not that anything would come of it. While I was willing to forgive my past grievances, I was not going to forget or fall in love with the mare as it has been many years since I was filly and I’ve mostly moved on.

Still, it was nice to see her and I’ve been feeling a bit drained lately. In fact, the magic all around Equestria was seemingly more muted than ever.

I would eventually learn of a rather major situation that involved someone I cared about, I would have to seriously thank the elements of harmony for it.

Author's Note

The disproportionate retribution related goddess wars continue... in the background.

Fizzle hasn't met Savannah before, she's heard of her in passing back during a Palicoast visit when Jade and Kuril mentioned her in passing as likely to never be married.

I liked Stay Tuned... as an old dated movie... for the next chapter is 'Separation Anxiety'.''

Things might go to a hundred chapters... still need to deal with the leader of GODLESS.

Chapter Sixty, Separation Anxiety: Split.

-Jade-

“That’s your plan, really Harmony?” I just slapped my left paw into my face and grumbled loudly. “That’s going to seriously mess them up!”

“If they are as strong as you say they are, then they will inevitably come back together in the end.” Harmony answered in a sing song tone of voice. “Friendship is a powerful force in this world, but so is sisterhood and love, I think those three will do just fine.”

“Like those six kids were fine after you forced them to face their own fears and showed them that friendship can be in anyone’s nature?” I grumbled with my arms crossed. “You almost crushed the griffon alive and gave a known villain access to the root system under the school of friendship.”

“Oh those six will turn out great Jaded La Perm, and things will be okay.” Harmony wasn’t exactly the best judge of ‘greatness’.

The world needed evil as much as it needed good and Harmony obviously knew that. She was the balancing act of everything, the more good there was in the world the better the chances for stronger evil to rear up and vice versa. Her actions were fairly limited overall, but exceedingly powerful when she did get the chance to act.

I was a terribly unbalanced negative space wedgie in the world. As such, Harmony set things in motion to get me back to where I should be at the right time, but who knows how long that will take. I’m patient, but all this waiting was agonizing.

At least Harmony wasn’t leaving me to be all alone and completely miserable, I’ll give her that much credit.

Goodness knows what Discord would do if he found out that Harmony was using him to balance the whole world. He might actually have a heart attack, wouldn’t that be something for an immortal being?

-Some time later, Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Kuril-

The restaurant has become a lot livelier, especially with my grandson running around to the best of his ability.

I’m surprised that I’m a grandmother, now if only Jacky were still around to dote on as well.

Blade was still not the same, but at least she was almost acting as if she remembered the night she left me behind. The other three that I brought home were settled in and were trying to find themselves again like Blade was starting to do when she began to instinctively chop vegetables for me.

Savannah brought me stories of fantastical and weird places that Jacky had been to and seen before she decided to throw herself and her ship at the Storm King’s army.

Being the hero that she was, Jacky delayed them the entirety of the Storm King’s forces for twenty four hours and saved many lives by dropping a number of the Storm King’s airships into the sea.

The Storm King was said to have supply issues thanks to this, given that he had to actually stop and get a large portion of his army out of sea and force them into cramped conditions on the ships that could still fly.

Most of said airships couldn’t be repaired after Jacky was done with them. So the number of invading airships was cut down drastically before hitting the capital of Panthera, but it didn’t stop the end results of the invasion.

Jacky was an unexpected force of nature all her own and the Storm King’s raiding fleets second major loss after his forces failed to get anything from the dragon lands.

One ship, with a small crew of pirates caused the Storm King to suffer a major loss. I was proud that Jacky gave the shattered bits of obsidian that used to be a tyrant king more than a simple black eye before she disappeared from the map.

“Ganma, foo!” Smiling at the delightful little fluffy ball of feathers named Gavin that was greedy for a taste of whatever I was making now, I just continued to stir what was currently in the frying pan and hummed a small tune.

Gavin was quite interested in my cooking and I had to keep a careful eye on him to make sure he didn’t hurt himself in the kitchen.

I looked down at the hot metal of the pan in my hand. Frying pans had nice sustain effects, but the magical alchemy cast was both horrifying and disgusting. I smiled at my excited little griffon grandson, the food was almost done and he was a hungry and eager beak to feed.

“Hold on little Gavin, I’m just about done!” I had some fish soup for him that was almost done and would see how he liked it. I was also making pan fried cinnamon apples as it was quickly becoming his favorite food. To no one’s surprise, Gavin liked a lot of the things that I made for him. “Here you go Savannah, get this to the table and get ready to feed our hungry little griffon cub. We’ll make sure he gets big and strong by being well fed.”

It was so nice of Fizzle to drop by with these two, now if only she had stuck around long enough to hear that she’s Gavin’s aunt. I understand why Fizzle wouldn’t stay the night or stick around for too long, it actually didn’t hurt my feelings that she left so quickly. She had things to do, but I knew she’d be back one day when she ran out of important things to do.

“Sure thing Kuril!” Savannah stated as she took up the bowl of pan fried cinnamon apples. Gavin was soon following her, and the smell, to a table. The cute little guy was barely able to walk on his own, but my food was definitely all the motivation he needed to learn how to.

The cheerful atmosphere around here was pretty good for Savannah after going through such a devastating loss, something we shared considering Jacky was my cute adoptive daughter that left a grandchild for me to care for.

I wasn’t too sure that Jacky was actually dead. After all, Blade left the map and eventually came back to me, if in a slightly mentally broken state. The map I made wasn’t infallible, my unluckiest daughter could very well come back as well. I missed both Jade and Jacky, but at least I knew Fizzle was going to be alright and she was giving me some hopes for the bright future I’ve heard about.

I finished making the fish soup and made my way over to the table to ruffle Gavin’s head feathers. He chirped up at me happily as I put down the soup for Savannah to feed to him. I hoped Gavin liked it, he was such a little sweetheart and he was even waiting patiently for Savannah to start feeding him.

That little griffon had us wrapped around his tiny talons, thankfully he didn’t understand how to abuse that yet.

There were a few things that would make life better than it currently was, but what were the chances that they’d all come back? Long shot odds says that it could happen, rare or strange occurrences were known to be the norm here in Equestria.

I glanced at a unicorn and saw them rubbing at their horn, the unicorns around here certainly seemed badly drained as of late. I’m sure I’d hear about some news related to that and Ponyville soon enough.

-Tartarus, Mara of Maries-

“How long have we been in here again?” Muttered Marie quietly from behind us, our tail was depressing as was our given situation.

Some of the other creatures here might actually belong here, but we certainly didn’t and we had already cottoned on to why the other creatures were put here.

All the other wild animals in cages were put in here to hide us being smuggled into Tartarus, this cave like place was a depressing pit of literal despair. Hopefully someone found our case file in our office up in Canterlot and solved things for the given case we were on.

“Quite a while, it’s too bad we can’t warn anyone about Tirek’s plan.” Maria whined, she let out a huff of flames next to my head.

Maria has already tried melting the bars, we apparently rated a dragon proof cage. Those mercenaries were really quite well prepared for us.

“I’m still thinking about how we could have handled the fight that put us here better.” I didn’t see how we could have done any better against them, we were here because we failed to escape an ambush set up by some highly talented unicorns.

It was quite telling that some nobles, or at least some close enough Canterlot Elite, were behind our illegal incarceration in Tartarus. I was going over it in my section of our three minds constantly, there were just too many of them. They were very well paid for the job to silence us as lawyers, especially without asking too many questions.

That pie we got from Applejack in the days before this was entirely worth the effort. Applejack certainly knew how to deal with us fairly and spooking her sister wasn’t too hard.

My part of the act to intentionally bite down on a folding chair went particularly well and Marie getting her neck stuck between a branching tree was a phenomenal bit of acting on her part.

Said act is that Applejack asked us to do something for her as her sister, a filly named Applebloom, was getting too ahead herself when it came to growing up. She certainly remembered us working at Hayburger and we weren’t too hard to find or get into contact with.

We were asked to scare Applebloom and then Applejack would come in and seem to save the day. Everything went well and we got a nice tasty apple pie out of the deal.

I’m pretty sure Applebloom should have noticed the cottage cheese thing was very unusual to the situation of being attacked by an intelligent predator like us. Maria just had to get in her cottage cheese every chance she can and she almost ruined the whole evil act we had going by getting tossed a mouthful, especially after telling Applebloom we didn’t care about foods other than wanting to eat her specifically.

We eventually passed through that area again several days later looking to visit our old clan. That’s when the trap snapped around us, then we woke up here in Tartarus after a short lived violent struggle.

The only thing we could do here was listen to the drips of water from the ceiling, some nearby caged creatures growling and grumbling or Tirek ranting about his plans with some pony named Cozy Glow out loud.

We think that Tirek liked to talk to himself a lot, because we were the only other intelligent beings here that the centaur could possibly converse with. ‘The Cerberus’ wasn’t exactly eloquent or helpful for a three headed mutt whose job was to keep us here in Tartarus, not exactly hard to do when you have nearly indestructible cages.

What was keeping us alive was the limited amount of magic that was sustaining everything currently here in Tartarus. Of course when Tirek’s pen pal drains all the magic out of the world… we would start suffering immensely given our metabolism.

I’m personally certain that Tirek doesn’t understand the concept that we’ll all start to starve if all the magic in Equestria is drained out of this given place. This would include him starving as well if the world wasn’t outright destroyed by all that stolen magic being gathered in one spot.

Thank goodness we currently weren’t starving to death in here yet.

Tartarus should be checked more often for illegal incarcerations. We’ll write up an informative document to that effect for Celestia to look over, if she ever finds out about this and provided that the world isn’t destroyed by Cozy Glow.

We heard the doors to Tartarus grind open and we could have warned the six ponies coming in what was about to happen, but it was far too late as the doors swiftly slammed shut behind them. Here come some colorful ponies including Applejack, Pinkie and Fluttershy.

We didn’t know the other three on a more personal level and they were likely here for Tirek, thus they fell for the trap set up by a filly.

They probably should have done some critical thinking before coming into Tartarus, because if what we knew to be true…then the doors were locked shut permanently thanks to all the magic being drained from the world.

The six looked around at all the cages here. Eventually Pinkie came over to us and held up a marshmallow on a stick to Maria while smiling.

“Seriously Pinkie?” Maria grumbled.

“If you want it, I would be open to sharing. I have a bag full of marshmallows.” Pinkie immediately offered, but then turned away to say something to her friends.

Maria blasted the marshmallow with fire and quickly ate it and the wooden stick it was on. The stick tasted horrible in our shared perspectives, but the flavor of marshmallow was a godsend of fats and sugar to us.

While the other ponies wandered forward Fluttershy approached the cage and we gave her a look.

“Maries… what are you doing in here?!” We looked at Fluttershy sadly. “Fizzle is so worried about you!”

“While that’s nice to hear, what do you think we’re doing in here Fluttershy? Take a look around at all the other creatures here, I’m pretty sure you’d recognize some of them.” I muttered sadly as I lifted my head from the floor of the cage. “We were smuggled in illegally and labeled as a wild animal. Now you’re trapped in here too…”

“What do you mean?” It didn’t take long for Fluttershy and the other ponies to figure out what was going on, because Tirek told them everything. The centaur had practiced his gloating speech for quite a while.

The doors of Tartarus couldn’t be open without a large amount of magic and they currently didn’t have the magic necessary to leave now. Also all those present were going to start starving in a little while if things didn’t change soon.

-Minutes later-

“I don’t know, Tartarus isn’t so bad. I can hang out here for a while!” As Pinkie said that, Maria was angling to spit fire at the marshmallow on a new stick. After a quick blasts of flames, Maria snapped out and grabbed another mouthful. We didn’t care if we were digesting two sticks, oh glorious sweet tasting sustenance that was roasted marshmallows! “Eh, maybe not forever though.”

While the six ponies did their thing, we were soon let out of the cage by Fluttershy and told the plan. The magic that binds and makes up our very being was going to be used to open those doors.

“Is this going to hurt?” I asked warily and looked to my sisters.

“Don’t worry Maries, I’m sure Twilight will make this entirely painless… I hope.” Fluttershy, you weren’t exactly selling us on this.

“If it gets us out of here!” Maria told me.

“This might not go as well as you think it will.” What did Marie mean exactly?

“Well… let’s do this.” I muttered as we reared up and closed our eyes, we felt a mass of magic flow out of us.

When I opened my eyes, I was completely separated from my sisters.

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredient!)

Frying Pan.

Chapter Sixty, Separation Anxiety: Divide.

Author's Note

Well this page is all about the psychological horror involved when a chimera is split into disparate parts.

Mara, Maria and Marie have never been quite like this before. (Understatement of the year award still probably goes to someone else.)

Chapter Sixty, Separation Anxiety: Divide.

-Tartarus, Maria-

Do you ever get one of those days where you have a splitting headache? Well take that literally as Fluttershy said something about getting us back to normal, but I was too dazed to actually pay attention at the time.

I blinked and before I knew it the six ponies and small dragon, some of which were our friends, were out the door before it swiftly shut.

“What….” I started, everything felt so slow for some reason. “Just…”

“Maria, is that you?” My gaze slowly listed to Mara and she was much farther away than should be possible, my neck doesn’t stretch nearly that far.

“Something feels… entirely off Mara, our heads must be feeling… all funny.” What I said made her grimace for some reason, it was when she moved in front of me and held up our two massive paws and waved them in front of my face that I started to notice that something was horribly, HORRIBLY, wrong here.

“Can you do this Maria?” She waved her paws at me while sitting up and after a moment I sluggishly returned the gesture and blinked to look at the hooves that entered my view.

Those weren’t our paws, it sufficient to say they that they weren’t even Mara’s paws and I was moving them. I was personally… moving these hooves… everything was slowly fading.

“Mara…. I don’t… feel so…” Why did everything seem so fuzzy? My head felt like there was a strange vice on it crushing my will to live and everything was starting to fade out of existence.

“Don’t panic, but um… Marie… Marie you can…! Oh no, I think I know what happened when we were separated now.” We were what Mara? Is everything supposed to feel this sluggish? My thought processes couldn’t keep up with this conversation, is she implying that we were… separate beings? That’s… that is… nothing was right… something was very wrong with us. “Maria, I need you to listen to me sis, do not do make any sudden movements and concentrate on my voice. You need to focus on yourself, I need you here with me Maria!”

“I wha… need to do… what? Things… feel like they’re… slipping…” I felt a large paw slap me across the face. It hurt, but that seriously knocked something back into alignment for my brain. “Mara, what’s wrong with... me… us? What’s wrong with us?”

“I think I understand what Marie meant before we gave up the magic that bound us together, I really wish I didn’t know this. I think Marie offloaded all of her intelligence into us before we split up!” She did… what… am… I float…. PAIN… the pain brought me back. Oh goddesses, we’re two… three… three separate entities now and in a cave with several other separated creatures. The only difference between us is that we were actually still intelligent, besides Marie who supposedly offloaded everything into us to keep us smart so that we could deal with this ensuing situation. “Focus, I can’t lose you too Maria! Marie already gave up most of her intelligence to us, mostly me to keep me from killing all of us. She saw this coming before it happened, which is why I have… her memories… they’re all in my head!”

While Mara was clutching at her head with her paws and having a serious looking migraine, I saw something slinking up Mara’s back leg and then it wrapped around her tail slowly. When the headaches my sister was going through eased up enough, Mara turned her head to look at Marie the mindless snake wrapped around her tail in a less than threatening manner.

The snake’s own tail continued to wrap around Mara until it was snuggly squeezing her waist.

“I may well have most of the intelligence between us, but at least she still knows where to be instinctively.” The only response Mara received from Marie was a blank flicking of her tongue and to hiss at the stumbling scorpion that tried to come near us.

To be honest, Marie looked weird wrapped around Mara’s tail. Weird in that my brain tried to separate it three ways. One way Mara and Marie should be two completely defined entities, another was that the snake should be the tail and lastly, the snake should also be my tail. Only one of those was currently true and… it was… wrong… my head was starting to feel all… sliding… again.

The scorpion clacked its claws, but then backed off and went to stand next to the lion that use to be… use to be… a… things were slowing… down…. manti… core…

Another slap to the face cleared my head.

“Ow, would you quit doing that? You might be giving me brain damage Mara!” Mara glared me in the eyes and I froze. I felt like I was being hunted by a predator, but that wasn’t right as Mara was my sister. She wouldn’t eat me… wait, why did I just become paranoid about someone who’s been connected to me almost all my… oh… I needed… to be… “Slap me… again… please…”

Mara swiftly responded and I blinked as my head straightened out, I think… I think I was getting used to being a separate entity all on my own now. Well enough that I could focus on myself at least, I don’t think I liked my current position in life.

My sister was big, mean and had claws. There were plenty of logical reasons to fear her, but they were illogical because I know Mara would never harm me. My head was sending me more mixed signals and the input from all this information was causing my mind to burn out, I was at least smart enough to recognize the problem and try to work my head around it.

Mara hadn’t used her claws on my head, that would have done some serious damage and I knew Mara was my big protective, loving, sister. She is my sister! Pain was good, pain focused the brain, kept it sharp. Goats were intelligent beings in Equestria… somewhat intelligent beings.

I would be considered a step up from them with the level of… intelligence… urgh… with the extra level of intelligence Marie managed to give me before we split apart.

Mara wouldn’t hurt me without reason, she wouldn’t, those instincts are wrong… we were once the same entity damn it! Stop telling me to flee, to run from my sister.

No, think positive, what’s the upside to this situation? I had my own legs, tail and everything that a goat was supposed to have… except fire breath. The fire breath was a part of the magic that was sucked out of us, I could still eat anything I wanted too. That’s because a goat’s stomach didn’t need magic to work.

We did however need magic to keep our minds completely intact and Marie did us a solid while hurting herself entirely in the process. We owed Marie everything for this sacrifice made on our be-halves. I giggled a bit, because that was a seriously bad pun to think for this situation.

Marie, she was always looking out for us and she didn’t fail to do so this time either. Not that it helps that I’m now completely a goat and my instincts are screaming at me to run from my sister, especially when I was far safer next to her at this moment. I logically knew this, but my head was blaring quite painfully that everything was wrong with us being this close together.

I controlled those instincts and stomped them into the mud and kept pounding them, I was not a wild animal! I was not a being that let my instincts control me! I was Maria Bloody for crying out loud, one of the three heads of Bloody Maries! My instincts could not tell me what to do, I was not afraid of Mara and I was not afraid of the blanked out Marie on her tail!

I was not going to let this fear control me, you hear me world! I may be my own being now, but you were not going to separate me from my sisters symbolically because of species differences! We are spiritually one and the same, we were connected by birth! I was not going to let you make me something I’m not!

Suddenly the pressure on my skull eased up a bit… I was Maria. I was a goat. I had been a chimera and would like to be one again. Until then, I would be the goat with a tiger and a snake for sisters with their own separate bodies, one third of a completely broken chimera.

I would be okay with this fact, because darn it my instincts weren’t going to tell me otherwise when I was intelligent enough to bash them down by raw force of my very will!

“I think… I think I’ve got it now Mara. Thank you for the previous hits sis, they… they helped, like a lot. Just don’t have your claws out if you ever have to do that again unless I ask you to. I’m fighting instincts I didn’t know I had to worry about until now, and they are telling me to get as far away from you and every other dangerous thing here in Tartarus as possible.” I know we’ve kind of lost Marie, but she had a good reason to focus on making the possibly most volatile of us the most intelligent. She kept the instinctual need to be on Mara’s tail and thankfully she wasn’t biting at her or me. “This… this is all really hard to take in, I don’t think my mind was meant handle this alone!”

“Look it’s okay Maria, I’m here, we’re still sisters. I will protect you, you can trust me. We’re just having a very bad day right now, it’ll get better soon… I hope.” She wrapped her large body around me protectively and looked at the other wild creatures that were staying near one another, but were otherwise giving into their baser instincts except when it came to the familiar part of their composite selves. The cobra and the chicken were definitely the odd pair. I started crying and, against my screaming instincts, I snuggled up against Mara gently. “Just stay calm and try to keep your focus Maria, stay with me. I… I don’t want to be alone right now and I don’t want to lose you too, Marie obviously couldn’t send enough intelligence your way and it’s causing you extreme cognitive dissonance. You know, I’m now quite thankful that our sister is a huge bibliophile.”

“Everything is screaming at me to run away from you Mara… you have no idea how horrible a feeling that is!” When you’re an intelligent being with a three way mental system and then to suddenly have that lovely system horribly disrupted or corrupted like this, things were definitely not going to end well if we couldn’t keep it together and keep our two heads straight. “Cognitive dissonance doesn’t even begin to describe what we’re all likely going through! Maybe Marie has it the easiest, she doesn’t currently have enough intelligence in her head to feel the trauma that we’re currently experiencing!”

Well, it felt like I just lost two heads and that the world was now out to get me. As a chimera, we could have compensated and or coped with the possible loss of a head as long as the rest of the body was intact. If we were lucky the head might have dumped the third mind into the rest of the body and we’d have an extra mind for two heads.

This… this was actually so much worse.

“Just… just stay with me Maria, please don’t go anywhere. I’m here, I love you sis. I know that you still love me and that we both love Marie, we will take care of her until this is fixed or things become easier.” This… this was most certainly not something a chimera was meant to go through Mara, I was being hugged by a fluffy saber toothed tiger. The strongest portion of what used to our body, us. I should feel warm and fuzzy, the only thing I felt was pure horror. “We’ll deal with things as they come Maria.”

“How long do you think it’ll take them to solve this Mara?” I asked quietly.

“As long as it’ll take, we’ll get through this together Maria, I promise! Though being shunted most of our sister’s intelligence is not something I relish, I would never recommend having this much information stuffed into your head.” Mara’s right paw went to her head and she grunted and pulled me close with her left paw. Marie just circled around use and flicked an aimless tongue into the air. “My skull is on fire, but at least it’s helping me focus on the here and now.”

Marie was lifeless and acting blankly on instinct, Mara was literally too ‘painfully’ smart for her own good and my own mind was an utter sink of connectivity issues and completely garbage instincts from out of nowhere.

If one of us was messed up, then we were all messed up. We were still together, I don’t think I even know how to walk like this. I’ve never had hooves in front before, Mara never had paws in the back either and the less said about tails without cheerful talkative mouths the better.

“We’ve never had tails before, I mean aside from Marie…” I looked back at my tail and then looked at her tail being painfully squeezed by Marie. “Does that hurt?”

“Yeah, it’s weird and she’s squeezing my body hard enough to be quite painful. It’s like she’s actively trying to fuse back into me, but can’t. I don’t mind as long as she’s where she needs to be.” Yeah wrapped around our sister’s tiger tail and torso.

Mara wasn't looking too hot with all the grimacing she was doing.

I glanced around the area. Tirek was still going on about his possible petty victory, the other less intelligent animals were more dazed than we were and we were currently being left to ourselves were we sat.

Aside from the scorpion coming near us, nothing bad was happening. Nothing bad was happening yet. I’d rather nothing happened and we get ourselves back together soon. Trying to hold myself together without Mara and Marie was taking its toll on me mentally, I also miss having fire breath.

Fire breath is both fun and cool, fire breathing was plain awesome. I am not afraid of my bigger, far more predatory looking, sister.

We would be fine, I would be fine, I am completely fine.

It was as if the animals that were split up like we were could hardly function sufficiently without their other halves or magic, so it wasn’t just us experiencing this disconnect from the world around us. Only for us it was far worse, likely because we were more aware of what was happening.

We're thankful the other animals weren’t being aggressive or trying to attack us, goodness knows what would have happened if Marie hadn’t shunted intelligence into Mara and she went feral with me right next to her.

Marie was not very lethal compared to what Mara could do. It was kind of hard to look at Marie and see those cold, blank, snake eyes that didn’t understand the world around her.

Chapter Sixty, Separation Anxiety: Partition.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty, Separation Anxiety: Segregation.

-Ponyville Hospital three days later, Fluttershy-

Okay, the story was this, when the magic came back the Bug Bear, Manticore and other creatures started a ruckus that unintentionally freed a lot of the caged up mystical creatures. Given how closely clumped together the cage were, that was a given.

Mara, Maria and Marie had fused back together like all the other mystical creatures did, only it lasted for about ten to twenty seconds before they fell apart again.

Mara started off protecting Maria and Marie, Marie and Maria got involved in holding off the various freed mystical creatures at various points until Cerberus started to actively help and protect them.

Mara was seriously injured and was said to have chronic migraines whenever she was awake or lucid enough to be considered as such with her injuries. She’s been in and out of consciousness and Dr. Bones is making sure the blood transfusion Maria gave worked for both of her sisters.

Right now Mara wasn’t looking too pretty given she had been clawed up pretty badly by at least ten other creatures, but I think the chupacabra that went after Maria was the one that made some of the worst injuries on her.

Marie was mildly injured and, despite reacting to things instinctively, she never hurt her sisters on purpose aside from the point where she was incidentally squeezing the blood out of Mara’s wounds. She was the one that took out the cockatrice early on by poisoning it, thankfully long before it could turn any creature to stone and it would make a full recovery.

I and a lot of other people also learned something strange from this, snakes were either partially or complete immune to the stone gaze of a cockatrice. Testing the theory actively would be quite unethical, but a study would be done to see if that was true in the wild where snakes and cockatrice’s were prominent.

I seriously didn’t want to be a part of the group that did that, not after the trouble I’ve had with one before. Silver Stream was fairly interested in cockatrices and would probably get into researching them more.

Maria came out of the whole thing with the least injuries and to help her with her mental problem she was currently on prescribed medication to prevent herself from shutting down completely. Being her friend, I visited her frequently to make sure she knew I was here for her and her sisters.

Being separate from Mara must be quite a trying experience, like being a goat stuck in a place with an active chupacabra with nowhere to go or run to was. That definitely made for a harrowing experience and would be quite traumatic, I prayed that Maria didn’t get post-traumatic stress disorder from that as she was having enough problems as it is already with wanting to stay close to Mara.

The chupacabra had severe burns, seventy claws wounds and half of them were Mara’s, severe muscle damage, at least five poisonous snake bites and had more than seventy percent blood loss at the time of detainment. That it was still alive and somewhat healthy was both scary and relieving.

Scary that it was still considered to have seventy percent of its capabilities for running down a goat despite being mauled by more than twenty different creatures, relieving that it couldn’t do so and would make a perfect recovery. It was properly detained at this moment and no one would be stupid enough to leave it near Maria or within sight, sound or smelling distance of a goat.

There was a number of injured mystical creatures under quarantine that were separated from every other creature that got caught up in that fracas for their own safeties. Dr. Fauna was taking care of and rehabilitating most of them, along with the help of a pair of professional exotic animal detainment experts named Mane Allgood and Snap Shutter that quickly came in to assist with the mess.

Mara, Maria and Marie were also separated for study, until the doctors could figure out why they didn’t stay together the same way all the other animals had when the magic came back. They had fused back into being one being, there was ongoing research as to why that didn’t stick.

Thankfully The Cerberus healed fast, because he was fine by the time Luna was done personally escorting Cozy Glow to Tartarus on Celestia’s orders. He was perfectly okay, if a little bored. Cerberus apparently had a lot of fun stopping the riot, he still did his job despite how sad it was that he was the permanent guard at the gates of Tartarus with no one keeping him company.

Some pony should really do more for Cerby or at least keep him company every once in a while, he was a very good boy and I told him as much as we were getting all the badly injured mystical creatures sorted out.

I was waiting on Dr. Bones report to discuss this matter. She would tell me what’s wrong and what we could possibly do to help Maries, I don’t think Fizzle would like hearing about this before the situation was resolved.

Last I heard, Fizzle was in the Crystal Empire fixing a few small problems and had become a wandering hero for hire.

On the side of things that that wasn’t related to animals, which was absolutely my favorite subject in life, was all the devastation caused by Cozy Glow. Rescue workers and infrastructure specialists were all over the place trying to fix practically everything.

The EUP was frankly busy coming up with new emergency protocols in case all the magic in the world was drained from it again, you think they would have reacted sooner when Tirek did practically the same thing.

Cloudsdale was currently requiring almost every pegasus to work in a concerted effort to fix the damage done to it. That’s where Rainbow Dash currently was at the moment, she was with the Wonder Bolts doing a lot of rescue and emergency service work.

The good news was that the foals, fillies and other winged ponies that couldn’t fly or glide very well were put on the ground once it was found out that magic was disappearing from all over. Until Cloudsdale was fixed, Rainbow Falls would be currently hosting an excessive number of pegasi.

Various hospitals throughout Equestria had a lot of issues with keeping patients healthy during the magic blackout and they didn’t necessarily succeed in preventing fatalities for those that had required immediate magical assistance. It was worse at hospitals that were primarily unicorn run that didn’t have staff that could improvise well enough to stabilize critical patients.

Speaking of unicorns, various other places had tons of problem without magic and it was mind boggling to even look at the list of issues that came up.

Surprisingly, out of all the problems caused by the temporary loss of magic throughout Equestria, the earth ponies had the least amount of damage done to their infrastructure. Food wasn’t going to be a problem this winter and nature mostly took care of itself without them micromanaging the crops.

The earth ponies’ infrastructure was fine, but the earth ponies themselves weren’t. A large number of earth ponies didn’t have the strength to do things without magic to empower their muscles and give them resilience, also the hospitals were now incidentally filled with earth ponies whose immune systems that hadn’t been working as well as they should have.

I’ve been running myself ragged with taking care of ponies’ pets, familiars and other assorted animals that came out of the woodwork while also doing shifts at the hospital here. I’m really quite tired and this was the first time in the last few days that I’ve been able to take a break this long without someone asking for help.

At least Pinkie was keeping up morale around here, she was always around to ask if I was okay and if I was pushing myself too hard.

“Hello, excuse me, are you listening?” Oh no… what was it this time?

I’m a veterinarian, my nurse credentials weren’t meant for much more than the volunteer stuff I was already doing.

I was given limited access to work on ponies based on my expertise of medical knowledge in an emergency and while a crisis was still ongoing, like right now. I don’t think I should handle some pony entirely on my own.

I was basically a volunteer with no personal authority in medicine, except when in my personal field of animals, that has to defer to more talented or appropriate individuals in the field of medicine who were actual doctors or full time nurses

I turned my tired and ragged form to gaze up at who was going to ask me for help. I froze when I saw a very familiar pair of kind eyes holding a cute little griffon cub. The robes and the witch hat screamed friendly to me and I knew who this was, it was Kurilian La Perm

“You look like you’ve been through a lot these past few days Fluttershy, do you want to talk about it?” Kuril sat down next to me and held out the smiling griffon cub to me, I took him and he started to curiously look me over.

He looked at Kuril curiously, then chirped merrily as he snuggled against me happily flapping his tiny wings. He was so adorable.

“Kuril, it’s been a while…” I said trying to keep the despair out of my voice as I nuzzled the little griffon.

“Yeah, it really has been.” Kuril patted my back with her left paw. “I want to introduce you to my grandson Gavin, he’s such a well behaved cutie. So I take it these last few days have been quite awful?”

“You can say that...” I’ve been through several days of nonstop constant work. “I guess you’re here about Maries.”

Ponyville has been trying to get a better emergency services budget and that’s been an uphill battle for our beloved mayor. Unlike the actual doctors and nurses, who could hardly catch a break, I actually got to go home and sleep, even if I worked just as hard to help those affected by the magical blackout Cozy Glow had caused. The emergency service ponies around here, who are working for less than they actually deserve when a disaster happens, are complete saints.

“Well not just Maries, but I would seriously like to know what is happening to them unless it is a private matter. I’m actually here to see how Dr. Bones is doing.” Listening to Kuril explaining her presence, I rubbed the griffon cub on the belly and he started giggling happily while batting at my hoof with his talons while lying on his back on my right leg.

“I’m doing fine Kuril, I know when to stop and sleep. This hospital is a bloody mess! Even when one of the things I can’t have is coffee, these yahoo’s don’t know how to work or function properly without it!” The red furred diamond dog in a doctor’s coat approached us. “Been getting all these ninny headed idiots to get their stuff in gear and to get on top of things before they worsen. I’ve been successful when I’ve pointed out that my hospital was one of the few that wasn’t experiencing an emergency.”

“Well you do run a tight ship Zen.” As soon as Kuril finished saying that we heard two notes played on a drum and then a symbol clanging. We all turned to Pinkie sitting in a drum set and then went back to our conversation, ignoring her presence.

“My hospital is a cruise liner, so I have a right to run it tightly because it actually is a ship!” She sat down with us and the little griffin cub sat up and looked at Dr. Bones innocently.

“Ven-ven!” The griffon cub shouted with glee and wiggled his rump.

“Oh no, not you again you wee little monster, couldn’t you have left Savannah to watch him?” The griffon cub happily pounced on and started to snuggle against Dr. Bones right arm, she sighed heavily and started to check his little fluffy down. The little griffon looked so happy and was giggling up a storm as Zen checked him over. “Still as healthy and happy as the last time I saw the bugger, you’re food is doing wonders for him Kuril.”

“Aw, but Gavin really likes you Zen, also it was either me or leave Gavin with Sekhet and she’s kind of in the middle of a war of bureaucracy with Celestia. Savannah is currently watching my restaurant and I wasn’t about to leave my grandson unattended.” Kuril seemed oddly reluctant to leave Gavin under the protection of a goddess, I wondered why. “I don’t want to leave Gavin alone with Sekhet, especially not when she might be going into a one sphinx war with the current goddess of the sun. They are currently on cease fire until the current crisis has been averted, which should last another two days. ”

“Well enough gabbing about! Get up and come with me, I’ve something to show you two.” As Zen stood up, she tried to pry Gavin off of herself. “Could someone take this little nuisance?”

“I’ll do it, here Gavin, let uh… auntie Fluttershy hold you!” Gavin looked from Zen to me and he seemed torn about snuggling against the doctor and coming to my welcoming, smiling face and open hooves. He looked towards Kuril, she nodded and he happily started clinging to me. I had to hover to follow the two as we were led to the ward where Maries’ three separate parts were kept. “How are Mara, Maria and Marie doing?”

“See for yourself, this room has a terrarium containing Marie. She reacts to stimulus, but she’s not all quite there if you catch my drift.” We nodded, because we did catch Zen’s drift. “I’m going in to feed her now.”

We watched as Zen went into the enclosure and held a cooked piece of fish over the terrarium attracting Marie’s attention, she sniffed out the fish and opened her mouth. Zen dropped the fish into her mouth and she immediately swallowed. Zen then closed up the enclosure securely.

“Why does she keep staring at the wall like that?” After she swallowed the fish, I noticed that Marie went back to staring at the wall she had been before Zen entered the room.

“Next room over is your answer.” Being led to the next room over by Dr. Bones, we saw an unconscious Mara. She had some parts of herself in a cast, there were many bandages wrapping her form and she had two different IV drips, one of which had her sister Maria’s freely given blood in it. “We don’t know how Marie knows, but she instinctively seems to know where Mara is at all times and we put them closer together. It makes Marie less agitating to deal with the closer they are. We’re keeping those two separated until Mara is well enough to handle having Marie wrapped around her. Now onto Maria.”

“She doesn’t look happy.” My words were met with something like agreement, as Gavin whined sadly at the figure sitting at the back wall of the room facing the corner with her head down.

“They’ll be back together soon.” Zen seemed sure of it, she turned to me. “I’ll be needing your friends help though.”

Author's Note

A little more world building and Fluttershy is getting some much needed spotlight.

Chapter Sixty, Separation Anxiety: Mitosis.

-Ponyville Hospital, Maria-

Goats should never travel to Mexicolt without ample protection, Chupacabras are really scary and monstrously resilient to permanent injury of any kind. My dreams could be haunted by those eyes, teeth and claws for the rest of my life.

Getting that thought off my mind, I glanced around the room.

I was sitting in a room with several other people, including princess Celestia, Luna, Fluttershy, Kuril, her grandson and our possible nephew Gavin, Zecora, Twilight Sparkle and various doctors including our very own Dr. Bones.

Gavin had little clue what was going on, but he was certainly a bundle of energy that Celestia was currently keeping busy by playing with him. Gavin’s been recently fed and has been taken to the bathroom by Kuril, so he shouldn’t cause any problems or a fuss during this meeting.

“Okay, to start things off, does anyone have any questions about the information I’ve given out about the three subjects in question?” Dr. Bones asked, I personally looked over the document myself and looked over the section about the mental trauma we were going through. It was a lot of dry reading, but it spoke of our situation and I needed to know what was going on with my sisters to make any possible decisions for all of us. “Also, have you been taking your medication Maria?”

“Yes ma’am, just as you prescribed to me.” It’s been working so far and I had no complaints about taking more if needed, I was only taking the recommended dosage and everything. Both my sisters needed me to be in good health, mentally and physically.

Dr. Bones eyed me for a minute, then nodded to me and went back to looking to the rest of the crowd that seemed to be silently contemplating the information they have on our situation. Everyone, aside from Celestia, was paging through the documents and didn’t have any questions yet.

I was currently on anti-depressants and they seemed to be working quite well for the situation my sisters and I were in. If the side effect was me being able to keep a positive mood, then I wasn’t complaining one bit and Dr. Bones said she had an idea or two to force us back together.

“Yes, I would like to go over what makes Maria, Mara and Marie different from all the other animals that have already fused back together without problem.” Pegasus doctor Falls Positive, a doctor with the special talent for recognizing when any test results were off on a document. He’s saved quite a number of lives by catching things that other doctors might have missed.

“Okay Dr. Positive, for that I’ll just start off with the most common thing among them all. Each animal that fused back together without a problem had simply had their erstwhile traits displaced and given form, they only split into two animals with little in their minds at best. The split off traits didn’t have much of a mind of their own to begin with and the animals were all left in a daze with very little movement from within a given range, aside from the reported anomalous movements of the scorpion. Mara and Maria both confirm this to be the case.” Yes, that is what we saw Dr. Bones and it’s been really weird having my own body. It was really quite lonely in my own head, I miss the commentary of my sisters. “The only two beings there that were split into three were The Cerberus and Maries.”

“Then shouldn’t Maries have returned to normal like The Cerberus?” Falls Positive didn’t know how sorely I wished that to be the case. “They share quite a few similarities.”

I was in good enough condition to be acting as a lawyer and our health insurance was still active so fixing our separation was a medical expense that we could easily pay. We weren’t really using that money for much and had been storing it away in Sekhet’s treasury. No thief could take what wasn’t theirs to begin with from Sekhet’s home, not without serious repercussions. Having a goddess protecting your money really makes for a secure bank.

“You would think so, but no. There are some major difference between The Cerberus of Tartarus and Maries of Airship Mauled.” Dr. Bones looked to Twilight. “Do you want a crack at what those differences are Princess Twilight? You are certainly looking eager with the way you are waving your hoof around.”

Twilight blushed and lowered her hoof, she then calmly cleared her throat.

“Is it because The Cerberus became three dogs, all of which are of the same species and have similar enough mindsets to not be a problem, whereas Maries are three completely different species and are of three completely different minds?” Yeah, that sounded like a problem to me, give the friendship princess a cookie. “I’m actually fairly interested about our capacity to handle medical emergencies at the school of friendship. While it hasn’t come up yet, do we have doctors here that can actually handle the special needs of the various students that are coming to my school from abroad? I had problems with finding medical help for Spike previously and… might have taken him to a veterinarian trying to get any kind of help for him. That whole 'greed growth' thing wasn’t pleasant, but I’m thankful we managed to sort that out without Spike getting seriously hurt. While it might not happen to others, there is the distinct possibility that we are not ready for any serious medical problems that might befall my more unique students.”

“You taught a bright one Celestia, she’ll be a good leader even if that isn’t the entire answer to the problem.” Dr. Bones bowed her head to the sun princess and turned to Twilight. “Close, but not the whole story lass. The three different minds and species are definitely big problems for the three of them, but the biggest problem is that you actually gave them complete bodies to move around in. Three dogs fusing together isn’t a problem, the lost traits of the other mystical animals didn’t have any problems fusing back together either. Maries was three intelligent, almost thrown together, beings working in harmony that you magically broke apart and when it came time for them to fuse back together…”

“Oh… they couldn’t because their magic rejected the fusing process after a short amount of time as they now have perfectly working bodies that they’ve never had before. Two with mostly working minds to fill them, given the third traded her mind to keep the other two safe.” Twilight’s ears wilted as she realized what she had done. “We didn’t exactly do much once we left Tartarus. If we hadn’t left, then Maries would still be a chimera. I am so very sorry about all this Maria.”

“It’s okay, as long as my sisters are still alive and can live well enough. We could sue you for this, but it wouldn’t fix the problem and would just make a further mess of things.” I reached up with my right hoof to scratch at the base of my horns. “Hopefully Dr. Bones will tell us how she’s getting us back to being one being.”

“If you want to hear the most unethical options I came up with first, I’m willing to get started on telling them to you. Quite frankly, as your doctor, I suggest that you say no to absolutely every single one of them.” Dr. Bones hopefully had some ethical options to get us back together. Now everyone in the room was looking to me and I was a bit self-conscious. I didn’t have my sisters here to support me mentally and therefore I had to be the one to be our voice here. “So what say you?”

Fluttershy placed her right wing on my back, she was sitting right next to me and her kindness felt wonderful.

“I wouldn’t mind hearing them, but if they are as unethical as you say… I will definitely say no to all of them and trust that you have my best interests at heart.” I was not exactly the bravest sounding individual at the moment, because I was not supposed to be a single individual like this! I was the fight or flight response of Maries, I couldn’t run from myself nor could I fight anything to solve this. I feel rather helpless. “If you have some ethical options for me afterwards, then I would be far gladder to hear those.”

“That I do. First the most unethical option here is to surgically chop up the three of you and sew the correct parts of you back together while using magic to keep you alive until we can use magic to fuse you all back into one coherent being. This would have a ninety five percent fatality rate even with all the best magic users’ alive working on it.” Yeah, no, we’re so not doing that Dr. Bones. Everyone in the room was clearly horrified with the idea, even Princess Luna was looking green in the face. “The next unethical option is to get Tirek’s help, as he was a part of the magic used to separate you in the first place. That is not a great idea.”

“Hopefully you’re leading up to some really great ideas here doc, my sisters wouldn’t like the idea of trusting Tirek with anything. Much less waking up to someone yelling ‘it’s alive’ at the top of their lungs.” I was kind of worried that she didn’t have any good options. “Your kind of scaring me with the idea that you don’t have any ethical options.”

“My next unethical option would be to get Discord’s help.” Everyone in the room winced at once as soon as Dr. Bones said that, even Fluttershy.

“Why I never! Well mostly because I can’t, and I’m fairly sorry for it, but there are reasons as to why I cannot fix the chaotic wonder that is that lovely three piece chimera set. Collect them all for a limited time only! I do hope you can get them back together again as it would be quite sad to keep them apart for as long as ‘they’ have been. ” Discord popped out of Celestia’s mane and spooked both her and Gavin for a second, his last statement was aimed at a random wall for some reason. The griffon cub looked up curiously at the amalgamated chaos god. He chirped and swatted playfully at Discord’s beard a few times. “Don’t worry about a thing Celestia. I’ll get out of your hair soon enough, even if it is quite comfy in here. I’m sad to state that I can’t do anything here, I’m under some rather specific rules and I really can’t do anything to help with this one specific thing no matter how much you have the beautiful Fluttershy beg me. So good bye! Oh, by the way, your grandson is adorable ma’am.”

“Why thank you!” Kuril said pleasantly as a smiling Discord’s body disappeared back into a wide eyed Celestia’s mane.

That draconequus was a strange and frightening being.

Celestia’s right eye twitched slightly, she didn’t say anything for a few moments and then just silently went back to focusing on keeping Gavin entertained.

“So... Discord can’t help us.” Fluttershy rubbed her left hoof against her chin while looking towards the ceiling. “He’ll probably explain to me later why he couldn’t help.”

“Getting three differing minds and differing bodies back together into one wonderfully discordant mystical creature seems like something he’d be capable of doing.” Right there with you Dr. Bones, that was very strange. “Well those were the entirely unethical options. Now let’s move on to the less disgusting options that will take some consideration.”

“Agreed.” Luna stated quickly looking a bit pale.

“First up, we leave you separated to live your lives as is.” Dr. Bones didn’t bat an eye as I let loose an angry blast of fire from my mouth into the air, no guesses what I thought about that. “I understand that you’re angry, but the three of you can survive this way. All we would need to do is fix your minds and the options to do that are fairly easy to accomplish. Just know that if we fix you’re minds from being as they are, you might never be able to return to being a chimera.”

“That’s an option…. maybe.” While I could become okay with the idea of being my own personal being, I would always miss having a head next to mine in the morning. “Keep going Dr. Bones, I’d take the more than likely options if you will.”

“We use the staff of Sacanas on you. It might not be able to heal wounds like in Fizzlepop’s case where it couldn’t fix her horn, but it can fix things that have already been done by magic. We’ll try this option first to try and fuse you back together.” That sounded okay, it didn’t sound nearly as bad as the previous ones Dr. Bones. “If that doesn’t work, Celestia, Luna and Twilight will try to reverse the process of what Twilight did to you in the first place by forcefully fusing you three together. It may cause you some pain or permanent magical harm if they do that.”

“Have any more than that?” She nodded to my question, I then asked Dr. Bones. “What exactly is the best case scenario here?”

“Fluttershy, Rainbow, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie and Twilight use the powers of harmony on you and hope that it doesn’t make things worse.” Dr. Bones turned an eye to Twilight, the princess wilted. “As far as I know they can’t exactly do that on command.”

“We can’t, it’s only in certain circumstances that we can pull that out, usually when the fate of the entire world is threatened.” Twilight looked away from my gaze directed at her. “It’s sad to say that you’re problem isn’t big enough for it, I really want to help you three.”

“Why?” That actually made her turn towards me. “You don’t know a thing about us.”

“Because you’re the friend of some of my friends and they care about you.” Twilight looked to Fluttershy, who has been comforting me this entire time.

“We do have other options than the best ones, we could always use Zebra alchemy. I could also try and use a phoenix feather on you to see if that will undo whatever magical problem is going on with you.” Great leader Kuril offered, we could trust zebra alchemy if it came from Zecora and or her magical alchemy personally.

“I might have something for that, it probably won’t leave you... too fat.” Zecora muttered over the file she was looking over.

“I would like to try all the ‘good’ options we can feasibly do.” It’s what Mara, Marie and I would want.

“Whit’s fur ye’ll no go past ye’.” Dr. Bones stated while nodding. “If nothing works, then we’ll just keep trying until something does. Fixing your minds will be the last thing we do, but at least we can stabilize the three of you so that you can at least live your lives to the fullest.”

“How soon can we try these methods of getting the patient back together?” Falls Positive asked.

“We can start tomorrow morning.” What Dr. Bones said next made me gulp. “With the shifts I’ve worked, we’ll have plenty of people on standby if something goes completely wrong.”

Author's Note

Maria has heard some options, will humpty dumpty be put back together again?

Well all the Princesses horses and all of their men, might have some problems doing it more than once or again.

Chapter Sixty, Separation Anxiety: Warm Fizzy Feelings.

-The next day, Ponyville Hospital-

Patient: Maries, chimera of clan Bloody (Clan is notably friendlier than it sounds). Maries consist of Mara the saber tiger, Maria the fire breathing goat and Marie the poisonous snake.

Species: Chimera.

Problem: Patient was magically split into its three differing bodies based on their species when combined together as a chimera. This has cause many and numerous health issues, to make matters worse the three of them were all assaulted by wild animals.

Mara Bloody is suffering from chronic migraines. Medication has been relatively inefficient to ease her suffering, the patient is actively trying to remain docile despite the constant aggravation. Has been kept unconscious most of the time up until today while injuries heal. See addendum for more information behind separation of the patient and injuries involved.

Current condition: Mostly stable. Still healing from various claw and bite injuries suffered in the defense of her sisters, mildly fractured bones were magically healed, had manticore poisoning and is still suffering chronic head pain. Was suffering blood loss, but thanks to her prior chimeric nature the patient was able to receive blood transfusion from her sister Maria Bloody.

Maria Bloody is suffering from cognitive issues. Current medication is effective for the time being, has allowed the patient to rest and regain some lost strength from time spent in Tartarus as well as giving blood to help her sisters. May have gained PTSD from surviving a chupacabra assault, anything that looks like a chupacabra may set her off now. See addendum for more information behind separation of the patient and injuries involved.

Current condition: Stable, physically health, unsure mentally, medication methods efficiency might not last forever if goat biology starts adapting to dosages. Under careful watch to make sure mental deterioration does not occur and for possible signs of PTSD involving the encounter with the chupacabra.

Marie Bloody is suffering major loss of intelligence and memories. Said memories currently reside in Mara’s head for safe keeping according to Mara. Marie ultimately saved her sisters at a great personal cost and is now rendered relying on instincts and lacking her prior notified sapience.

She is still able to eat when presented food, is not in danger or in constant pain, but has lost all higher brain functions reducing her to being almost a normal snake. Genetic tests confirm that she is still a chimera and related to Mara and Maria, needed a minor blood transfusion from Maria.

Nurse Fluttershy has been responsible for Marie’s continued good health and is to remain on site as Marie’s personal caretaker until chimera separation issue is solved. See addendum for more information behind separation of patient and injuries involved.

Current condition: Balloon Animal, otherwise tentatively stable and physically healthy. Injuries have healed far faster than normal thanks to Nurse Fluttershy’s insight into snake biology. Inquiring into having Fluttershy’s assistance with tiger biology with Mara may soon have positive results.

The okay has been given and signed off by both Mara and Maria for today’s attempts to return them to being a chimera.

-First cure attempt-

First cure attempt: Zecora, zebra alchemist specialist, sympathetic potion used on Marie. No resistance from Marie noted while potion was poured down her throat by Fluttershy, who rubbed her throat gently to get her to swallow.

“Was it supposed to do that?” Mara asked as she stared at a happy looking Marie, the balloon snake bouncing around the ceiling. Fluttershy was chasing the snake around trying to catch her and stop her from bouncing around so much. “She looks so happy and yet I feel so sorry for her. She can’t safely wrap herself around me while I’m still injured like this.”

“If we are to be quite fair, she does look rather happy up there. I am not sorry for the bliss, but I am certainly feeling sorry for this.” Stated Zecora who watched as the bloated snake bounced around aimlessly on the ceiling, she was feeling an unnatural amount of sympathy for Marie at the moment. “The potion was meant to create a sympathetic magical reaction, it did as advertised in creating sympathy and I hope that these end results gets a… redaction.”

“I’m certainly feeling a bit sympathetic for my sister right now, even if she seems to be having fun…” After a moment Maria turned to Zecora. “Can I try some of that stuff? I feel like I could use some sympathy right about now.”

End Results: Failure, the potion at least did what it was supposed to do and caused those who drank it to acquire sympathy from others for as long as the odd effects lasted.

The original purpose of the potion was to stimulate sympathetic magic to draw all three disparate parts of Maries back together into one being.

-Second cure attempt, one hour after the first-

Second cure attempt: Kuril, beloved mayor and witch of extraordinarily tasty food, magical alchemy used with phoenix feathers.

Kuril launched the magic at Maria and it just rebounded and the magic returned to being a phoenix feather, the Abyssinian then proceeds to pull out two more feathers and cast them all at the three at the same time. Same result, three feathers returning to normal after rendered into magical energy.

“I’m sorry girls, it doesn’t seem like I can help here. At least we know that what ails you isn’t curable by phoenix feathers” Kuril hugs Maria tightly, then hugs Mara tenderly to avoid aggravating her injuries.

“It is okay matriarch Kuril, you thought it would work and trying wouldn’t hurt us in the slightest.” Stated Mara calmly as she released the motherly witch.

Kuril then spends the next five minutes petting a docile Marie, who was thankfully no longer inflated, up until her grandson Gavin wanted her complete attention.

End Results: Failure, to cure the main patients at least. The feathers are said to cure all forms of magical or foreign bodily ailments. While this does not heal damage, it can stop further damage from occurring and cure many odd things.

Three stoned ponies were cured, five ponies with nasty magical viral infections are now able to leave quarantine thanks to also being cured. Kuril is currently being begged to stay on staff in the hospitals cafeteria, both by the patients and the staff.

Kuril’s magical cooking has unprecedented health increasing abilities, ponies with cutie marks specialties in preparing food are now being sought out by local Ponyville Hospital staff due to Kuril declining offers of a job. Said job would have involved immediate life long tenure and unrealistic excessive amounts of money that could have Kuril just buying all of the properties in Ponyville itself.

Kuril declined based on inability to watch more than one town and will stick to being Airship Mauled’s mayor and local restaurant owner.

Incidentally, vacation days are now being set aside by most hospital personnel in a few weeks to go visit Airship Mauled for a few days. Reasons for said visits may include ‘The Witch’s Fare’ restaurant which is run by Kuril.

-Intermission-

Patient file hoofed over for second opinion.

Patient: Blade Bright.

Species: Thestral.

Problem: Heavy, possibly magically induced, amnesia. Small magical signature found on patient is unknown and not actually connected to anything on the planet when trace was applied.

Continued research of minute magical signature found on patient is thought to be not of this world and beyond current understanding, some lost memories may be retrievable given patients actions around Kurilian La Perm.

Current Condition: Stable, physically healthy. Blade and three other similarly effected are reintegrating back into society effectively thanks to Kurilian La Perm.

-Third cure attempt, ten minutes after previous attempt-

Third cure attempt: Twilight Sparkle of clan Sparkle, Princess, Magister, former Ponyville Librarian, founder and principal of the School of Friendship, ruler of Castle Friendship, attempt using the Staff of Sacanas.

“Are you girls ready?” Twilight asked the two attentive parts of the chimera.

“We’ve been ready.” Mara groused out while rubbing her head with her right paw. Marie was snuggly wrapped around Maria’s torso instead of hers and was acting like Maria’s tail.

“Okay, I have little idea to how this will turn out, I don’t know what I’m trying here.” The staff of sacanas glows as Twilight held it up in her magic and she closed her eyes to start concentrating. “At best, I’m going to try and reorient your magic so that you come together!”

A bright glow started to surround the three subjects and the glow started to intensify.

Seconds after the glow disappeared Mara, Maria and Marie were still separated and Twilight looked visibly upset.

“Well… that felt weird.” A shivering Maria stated. “It’s like you were trying to socket us all back together and for some reason everything felt disjointed.”

“It’s more like we were magnets polarized to repel each other.” Whined Mara as she clutched her skull.

End results: Failure. Oddly magnetic resistance to being forced back together noted by Princess Twilight and doctors on standby for emergency reasons.

-Fourth Cure attempt, two hours after last attempt-

Fourth cure attempt: Princesses Celestia, Luna and Twilight working together. Three princesses of Equestria, what did this chimera do to rate this much attention?

“Doctor, you have no idea. I owe them for some past failures, I hope to repay some of that today.” Celestia turned away from looking over what the doctor had written down and turned to Luna and Twilight, she nodded to each in turn and lit up her horn. “Let’s see if we can brute force this.”

Each princess grabbed a part of Maries and then started to use their magic to forcefully start fusing them together, Maries started to form as the three princesses poured their magic into her. They soon grew tired and as soon as they stopped the chimera pulled apart.

End results: Failure. Almost looked like it was working too, princesses suffering from mild magical exhaustion.

“I guess that’s it then…” Maria stated sadly as she huddled up against Mara.

The tiger carefully wrapped the small goat in her paws.

-Hours later, evening, Fizzle-

I walked into the room followed by Princess Cadence, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. At least not at first, but it quickly dawned on me who those three were. I was only told that Maries was found and to report to Ponyville Hospital quickly, I had almost been worried sick to hear that they were hospitalized.

We both trotted into the room to see Maria as more than a head and rear legs, Mara as more than a torso and Marie as a full length snake.

I didn’t care that they were separated from one another, I was just happy to see them all alive at all!

I moved over to the terrarium Maria sat at and she looked up at me from being occupied with Marie as I approached them, she had a slightly frightened look.

“Who told…” Maria started, she was cut off by Marie suddenly turning towards me and lifted her head in my direction. She lifted her head out of the terrarium and moved her head closer to mine, I lowered mine to look at her. She flicked her tongue affectionately at my cheek making me giggle. “What the… Mara did you see that?”

“I was sent a letter by Fluttershy.” I was a little unnerved by Maries being three separated beings, but I was happy that they were here and alive. “She knew how to get into contact with me, but she didn’t tell me what the situation was… believe me, I got here as soon as I could.”

-Marie-

…

Fizz… Fizzy… Love… Fizzy.

Want… happy…

Things... not… right.

Need… better…

Pony… better…

We… fractured…

MAKE US WHOLE…

-Mara-

“Yes, I’m surprised that she even recognizes you in her state.” I got up from the bed to make my way over to them while looking at Fizzle, she was quite beautiful and it has been so long since we last saw her.

She was a taller and her eyes were entrancing, it looks like she’s been keeping up with Sekhet’s training regimen for her.

I wondered what she thought of us being separated like we were. The look in her eyes, they held back tears. Those wonderful eyes were sad a few seconds ago, now they were just so warm and inviting.

Once I was standing next to the Terrarium, I watched as Marie slither out of the terrarium and up my back. She didn’t assume the tail position, she instead nuzzled her face against Fizzle and then silently rested her head on Fizzle’s neck.

My head was aching and my heart was yearning to do the same thing Marie was, so I didn’t hold back and brought our unicorn in for a snuggle.

-Maria-

Oh my goodness, why was Fizzle here? Fizzle’s here… why did Fluttershy tell her about us?! Why did Fluttershy tell Fizzle that they had found us? She shouldn’t see us like this! Am I panicking? I’m panicking!

I start to hyperventilate and then I slowly watched as Mara pulled Fizzle into a hug with her paws, her chin rested on our mare's head. Marie’s head rested on the right side of her neck and now there was just this wide open spot.

Fizzle had her hooves wrapped around Marie and Mara, she turned her head slightly and pulled her left leg out Mara’s paws and held her hoof out in an inviting manner for me to join them.

I stood up and slowly moved towards her shyly. She still loved us? Even as we were now?

I loved her too… so what was I doing standing here by my lonesome?

-Fizzle-

“I’m happy you three are alive, I’ve missed you…” It wasn’t long before I was wrapping my left hoof around Maria and she dug her face into the left side of my neck and I held them all tightly. “I still miss everyone, all of our missing old friends and I miss what we had. Just know that I still love you… all of you.”

With my eyes closed I felt a spark of magic shoot at us from off to the side and slowly the four limbs holding me slowly became two, the weight then became focused in front of me. I felt them, two faces rubbing against me… wait… where’s Marie?!

I pulled my head back and blinked when I saw Maries back to their normal selves and not three separate beings.

“Ugh… my head… who put it in a blender?” I looked at Marie now returned to being Maria and Mara’s tail, I just pulled my hug on the chimera tighter and smiled. “Where… where am I?”

End Results: Success.

-Dr. Bones-

I blew into a tissue and wiped my nose, I turned to Cadence.

“Thank you kindly for the bond strengthening spell there.” I turned to the other doctors who were wide eyed with shock as I tossed the tissue into a nearby receptacle. “If ye’ like the nut, then ye’ll find the way to crack it open!”

“I’m thirsty, could someone please get me some water?” When Fizzle asked that, she was likely expecting one of us to do it.

“Sure thing.” Maria seamlessly split off from Maries to get some water. She soon put a cup in Fizzle’s hoof and then fused back together with her two shocked sisters without a second thought.

I immediately wrote down the words, ‘Needs to be held for further study for unusual side effects’.

Author's Note

Next chapter: ???.

Chapter Sixty One, Grubber, Gallus, Lack of Malice: Stranger.

-Ponyville Hospital, Dr. Bones-

“Any questions?” I asked of the combined chimera.

“Yes, why do my eyes change drastically when I separate from Mara or Maria?” Sending Marie a flat stare, I eventually rolled my eyes.

“You’re a bloody idiot.” She couldn’t be that dense could she?

“No I’m not, the Idiot clan hasn’t actually ever mixed or mingled with the Bloody clan all that much and we always have issues with the assumptions that we’re even related to them! Though we haven’t been home in a while, I’m still pretty sure that we have absolutely nothing to do with them.” What Marie said somehow made a little piece of me die on the inside, I slowly slapped my left paw to my face and groaned.

“No, I’m saying that you’re being stupid.” Knowing fair and well, as I do, that she was actually fairly intelligent and had a high IQ that saved Maries from experiencing complete and total memory loss. She was still busy receiving most of the missing memories of the time she almost acted like a normal snake and was obviously fairly embarrassed about the whole thing. “When connected to Mara or Maria you become warm blooded, alone you’re cold blooded!”

“No I’m not, I don’t think I could harm a regular animal in cold blood these days!” Marie looked thoughtful for a moment. “Aside from fish or rats I mean, those are tasty. Give them a nice lemon glaze and I could sing praises of that kind of fine cooking for days.”

“Would one of you two smack Marie for me?” Understanding the stupidity going on here and what I was requesting, Mara rolled onto her back and swatted her sister lightly on the nose.

“Ow, okay, okay, I’ll stop acting dumb!” Ah, she admitted to it, it was too late to say otherwise now. “I swear, a warm blooded reptile mammal just can’t have any fun these days.”

“Just for the sake of curiosity, does the Idiot clan she spoke of actually exist?” I felt like an Abyssinian with my curiosity, I would probably receive a laugh or be tormented by the following conversation.

“Yeah, they exist, a pony once wrote a book on wilderness survival and based an entire book of what not to do on them.” It was a little hard to believe Maria. “I mean that literally, go to wherever the library is around here and look up ‘Camping with Idiots’. Also, no, I don’t mean ‘Camping for Idiots’, that’s a different book entirely. We did our research for nature walks with Fizzle, very informative and would have saved our gatherers a lot of effort back in the chimera clans. If they would ever bother with learning how to read that is.”

“Oh that was a good one! It’s both funny and informative about how to safely camp.” Princess Twilight said as she passed by the doorway. “Though I do kind of feel sorry for all the chimera harmed in the making of that book.”

I’m going with tormented if I ask any more about them, why I might even visit those chimera myself to beat some common sense into them if what I hear is bad enough.

“Ugh, tell me more.” I can’t believe I was this curious about it.

-Edge of Ponyville, Grubber-

I am Grubber the magnificent, a hedgehog of peerless might… even if I was a little short in stature than everyone on this ship. I had to be mighty while leading the Storm Creatures while Tempest or as she is known now, Fizzle, is gallivanting all over the place righting wrongs.

I honestly had no idea Tempest’s mother was an Abyssinian, I think she joined the Storm King to put a stop to him. Still don’t know what that guy’s actual name was, but the Storm Creatures didn’t mind that he was gone. They were much happier nowadays and running around in less threatening looking armor, they certainly couldn’t ditch the Storm King’s motif fast enough.

I’ve been spreading the word as well over these last few months, Storm King shattered and Storm Creatures open to negotiations and had already made a lot of reparations to Abyssinia. Friendship isn’t half bad and Pinkie has half the army of Storm Creatures as friends, she even has access to messaging spells to take orders for pickup.

How does Pinkie still make swift deliveries halfway across the planet? Well, we’ll never begin to understand or know how she does it.

“Do you think the boss lady is going to tell us what she used the emergency call for?” I asked the Storm Creature next to me, I think her name was Gretel. Hard to tell any of them apart aside from Pique and Niche. I received a short garbled response. “Yeah, she did need to get here really fast and we needed to take the Princess of Love with us… do you think the boss might have a colt friend? I mean we heard that she was here because a close friend of hers was in the hospital. So maybe it’s a special pony friend, huh, huh, do you think we’ll be seeing cute little Storm Queens in the future?”

-Twilight’s School of Friendship, Main Hall, Silver Stream-

Breathe in and out, in and out… into a brown paper bag, because that might help with my hyperventilating!

The intention of the paper bag would be me huffing my own carbon dioxide to get it back into my blood stream, but in general it doesn’t seem to work very well or very quickly at all. While doing this does reduce hyperventilating somewhat and could possibly cure hiccups, there might be something akin to a placebo effect involved with this. Also there is the danger involved in rapidly breathing into a paper sack if you have asthma or happen to be having a heart attack, thus it can turn out to be deadly to be doing what I’m currently doing right now.

Hopefully I am not having a heart attack, because that would be bad and I know that I don’t have asthma. Unless I count the times I sleep as a sea pony and forget to wet myself before snoozing away in the tub. Wow, my minds phrasing could use a little work… um… water myself, I need to water myself if I’m going to sleep as a sea pony. There, got it in one try!

I might want to be a school nurse when I grow up or working at this school in general, I liked being on land and the people that live here. Also there’s stairs and lots of them, to think all of them so very huggable!

“Is something the matter Stream?” My eyes darted to the blue feathers of a griffon who was one of my best friends in the whole world, Gallus. He was someone I could tell about this and he looked worried about me! “You seem a little panicked, did you forget a playdate with Ocellus or something?”

“Yes, I was flying around… and then… there was… the ship and… I… so many…” I inhaled and curled up into a ball on the floor whimpering. Storm Creatures were here in Ponyville! I wanted to scream that at the top of my lungs, but I couldn’t get the words out. “So scary… can hardly talk about it.”

“Hey, calm down, you look like you’re having a panic attack over nothing.” He came over to me and pulled me into a hug and started to rub his talons along my back. This did actually feel rather nice and I was started to feel better and calmer already. “Now if it’ll make you feel safer, I’ll call one of our friends over and we can listen to what you have to say. Ignoring a friends problem is what caused the ‘want-it, need-it’ incident our teachers talked about and I’m not looking to repeat that lesson in person. I’m sure if it’s a school problems, the teachers will be cool about whatever is wrong. They tend to destroy more of the school than we or even Yona does on a biweekly basis.”

“That and Ponyville’s emergency repair funds take up the largest portion of the town’s budget every year, most of said emergencies are not even caused by creatures coming out of the Ever Free Forest. It’s a really fascinating read.” Looking over to the friendly face and large adorable solid eyes of Ocellus as she came over to us, I started to calm down. Changelings were colorful and literal minded creatures, they were so much like ponies and sometimes they weren’t. Smolder wasn’t the only one that thought she was cute, her calming shades of blue was nice to look at like Gallus’s blue was. I liked the color blue, like my plumage or was it a mane… a combination of the two? “What seems to be the problem Gallus?”

“Wish I knew, Stream saw something that has her completely freaked out and here I am trying to calm her down.” Gallus looked to the ceiling for a moment and then turned his attention to Ocellus. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to stop a panic attack would you?”

“Oh, I know that! Take a breath deep, focus on an object you love and focus on a place that makes you happy!” Ocellus closed her eyes and did as she said and smiled, her sweetness made me smile and close my eyes. “What makes me happy is hearing what my Uncle Clypeus is welcome back to the hive, he started a mariachi band after getting kicked out of the hive with several of his friends by Chrysalis. Come to think of it, they are some of the first colorful changelings I’ve ever heard of. I remember how Big Mclarge Huge went away with him, he was always very nice and friendly despite his size… it was little wonder that he left with my uncle.”

“Wait, there’s a changeling actually named Big Mclarge Huge?” That’s not important right now Gallus, what’s important is what I saw! Though it was pretty funny and you’re laughter is rather contagious… I started giggling about that changeling’s name. “Are there changelings simply named things like Small O’tiny Miniscule?”

“Oh Mini is one of my cousins, she’s a quarter the size of a pony. I swear, he could do a good imitation of a Breezy pretty well if she wasn’t so great at imitating foals and fillies!” Ocellus seemed cheerful and plucky as ever. It was actually beginning to make me forget… no, wait... I shouldn’t forget what I was panicking about! Even if and when my friends were so nice and comforting. “Wait, how did you know her name when you’ve never met? Oh dear, I hope Mini didn’t do anything to annoy you in Griffonstone in the past, changelings were never meant to go that far abroad at the time! You see, she has this habit of getting around like you wouldn’t believe and…”

“Not important, Storm King, Storm Creatures, Ponyville, here, now!” I hope my wild gesticulating could be understood, I mean who doesn’t like to read books about how to do rapid fire semaphore? I would do it slower for them to understand the severity of the situation, but I was still kind of panicking.

“Didn’t Yona hear that Storm King was turned to black stone and then he got shattered by a brave and strong pony that smashed him like Yak?” Yona came thundering up to us, oh goodness I was panicking hard enough to attract our yak friend’s attention! “Also you are being very good at rapid fire semaphore, but yak is still best at learning esoteric things and I am wanting to get into cheerleading!”

“Wait… what semaphore?” Gallus asked while rubbing at the side of his head. “It just looked like a lot of wild flailing to me.”

“Not important, Storm Creatures, Airship, in Ponyville!” Clutching at my head in distress as I went back to hyperventilating, at least I’m fairly sure now that I wasn’t having a heart attack and as such the paper sack should be safe to use. I took it up and went back to breathing into it.

“Huh, neat, do you think there will be fighting?” Smolder, the adorable orange dragon that she was, flew in and landed among us while being all really cool and stuff.

She could have taken my wild panicking a little more seriously!

“Did someone say fighting?” That was sandbar our earth pony friend, his sea green fur always looked so nice with that teal hair and green eyes. I think he has a really big crush on Yona, but I’m not sure about that yet. He was a really nice guy, the steadiest and most easy going of our group. He liked turtles a lot, especially when it came to hearing legends surrounding turtle doves. “Whatever you’re all fighting about, I’m sure we can solve the problem by simply talking it all out.”

“We’re not fighting, it was just Stream was panicking over something about Storm Creatures on an Airship?” Looking a little lost in the conversation, Smolder poked a claw at her chin and turned to me with a shrug.

“Look, just follow me!” I spread my wings and flew in the direction of the airship.

-Ponyville outskirts, Grubber-

“So I’m going to be in Ponyville a while until my… friend… is allowed to leave the hospital.” That confirms it, Tempest was in love with someone here. I knew her fairly well and she would be hard pressed to hide something from me, I wondered what his name was and when Fizzle met him?

“No problems boss, we can stick around for as long as you need and I’m getting an order delivered by Pinkie anyway… I’m not moving until I get my triple deluxe cheesecake with extra strawberry syrup.” I leaned closer to Tempest and spoke quietly. “I don’t know about you, but I think she might have a party planned for us… with a lot of delicious stuff being made just for me…”

“Gee, I wonder what ever gave you that idea.” Tempest turned to look at the pony sky writing the information for everyone to read about the time and place the party was being held, not only that but there were several ponies delivering cards to those who were invited to the party. I felt some heat rushing to my cheeks. “Oh wait, Pinkie holds a party for every new visitor to Ponyville and is the only pony that the welcoming committee needs. All you have to do is step one hoof in the town and she sixth senses you from miles away.”

“See, I told you there were Storm Creatures!” Oh great, a panicking hippogriff, how was I going to diffuse this situation? Maybe Fizzle could do it for us? Hippogriffs still got rather angry at the sight of us.

“Please don’t let it become a Ponyville thing… I’d rather take an attacking pack of Puks.” An attacking pack of what? What was Tempest talking about?

“Uh, boss…” I started slowly.

“Don’t worry Grubber, I’ll stop things before they get too bad.” Oh thank goodness, I thought I would have to… “You’re doing all the talking though, because I think you need more leadership skills.”

Boss, I love you, but you are horribly cruel. Still far nicer than the other guy and, yeah, I can see where it would be my problem to diffuse things.

Author's Note

Quirky friendship story go.

Chapter Sixty One, Grubber, Gallus, Lack of Malice: Acquaintance.

-Outskirts of Ponyville, Gallus-

“So… what are you doing out here, aside from playing shuffleboard I mean?” I rubbed my head watching the several big muscled creatures seem to argue over who scored a recent point.

“What do you mean what are they doing out here?!” Stream really needed to chill out, it wasn’t like they were hurting anyone. “It’s obvious that they plan to…”

“Eat the baked goods we ordered from Pinkie Pie.” The hedgehog said out loud immediately with a smug smile.

“Eat the bake goods that they ordered from… wait… don’t put words in my mouth, only I’m supposed to do that!” Yep, Stream was definitely a little out to pasture, I wonder if a cow would smack me across the face for thinking that. “See those Storm Creatures, they are evil!”

One Storm Creature just shrugged at the accusation and they went back to playing shuffleboard on the deck of the airship.

“I think you’re overreacting a bit here Stream.” The six of us were having a nice day so far, Silver Stream’s over the top panicking aside. “I mean, if Pinkie thinks they’re okay, then they are probably okay.”

“It’s only a likely story that Pinkie…” A loud explosion and several firework sized blasts of confetti sounded off interrupting Stream’s growing tirade.

“Did somebody order a few hundred tons of tasty delights?!” The device was huge and looked like it should be used for war or something like that, if it wasn’t painted bright neon pink with a yellow five pointed star on the side. It was dragging several large loads of baked goods behind it on pallets. “Don’t eat it all in one place or you’ll get a tummy ache guys, general Pinkie’s orders!”

“Pinkie, what… is that?” Also where has it been all my life and did it come in slate grey? “Also you’re not a general.”

“I am of parties! Also it’s a party tank silly, I had to rent one to get this order out here. Oh and you’re all welcome and invited to join the party I’m throwing for Grubber and his friends!” Pinkie started hoofing out invitations with rapid speed, I didn’t even know how my invitation appeared in my talons as she never even came within twenty feet of me. She was the strangest of all our teachers, but also the friendliest, the odd thing is she came to an abrupt stop before she gave the invitation to Silver Stream. “If you take this invitation, then you better have no hard feelings and are willing to enjoy the party as it is. Grubber and those guys aren’t bad people, they just had a really big stinker of a leader.”

“I don’t like this… but… I’m not going to miss a party over it.” Silver Stream liked Pinkie’s parties way too much to give up on them.

“If their previous leader was so bad, then who’s leading them now?” That’s what I wanted to know Smolder, the answer was swift and a bit surprising.

Every single Storm Creature, whether they were coming off the ship to pick up some of the loaded pallets of baked goods or not, stopped in unison and pointed in a single direction.

“The unicorn with the broken horn, really?” I hovered there watching as she was just sat there lazily watching this with her head propped up on the railing as if Silver Stream’s panicking was the same as watching grass grow.

She did seem to have an edge about her, but she didn’t seem to be willing to say much and she looked kind of cool really. That scar was so awesome, I wonder how she got it?

“Hey Pinkie, thanks for the delivery. I’m sorry we’re a bit far away, but I didn’t think parking in town would have been a good idea, what with the tensions still going on between us and all. The names Grubber, what’s yours?” He turned and introduced himself to me amiably as he held a cupcake loaded with cherries that he swiftly started to devour. “We’re having a hard time making friends as it is and you seem like a cool guy.”

“Thanks, I’m Gallus.” I shook his paw and we were on our way to being friends already, Silver Stream’s beak just dropped as if I had kicked a puppy.

“Pinkie why are you friends with them, they destroyed Mount Aris?!” Wow, I knew Stream didn’t like Storm Creatures, but she’s acting like she actually took part in fighting them.

I guess Silver Stream was in the waters with the other sea ponies while the hippogriff navy got sunk by the assault. Didn’t hear much about how things turned out so poorly for the hippogriffs, the lack of casualties from the fighting there was rather dubious.

“Yeah, but they never hurt anybody too badly and frankly you should ask Fizzle there for more details on that. I certainly did given she was the leader of that attack.” She pointed at the lazy looking unicorn with the stub and then turned the tank around, it was empty of all the pallets that were loaded with sugary goods. Silver Stream looked both willing and unwilling to talk with the mare that apparently destroyed Mount Aris. “Thank you for doing business with Sugar Cube Corner Grubber, I hope to see you at your party!”

“Sure thing Pink, but I still need someone to watch the ship while I’m gone…” He turned to the unicorn that was still relaxing and waved his… when did Pinkie give him an invitation?! I had been staring at him the entire time! He was giving that pony a big eyed begging look. “Hey Boss, do you think you can…”

“Go ahead Grubber, I’m not going to stop you from having fun, but watching the ship is at least a two person job. I’m going to need someone with me.” The mare said as she turned to Pinkie Pie in the large vehicle. “Sorry, I won’t be able to make it Pinkie!”

“That’s okay, I still have the other half of Ponyville to ask and need to talk with the mayor to sign off on using the square for a block party that will last all night!” The large vehicle slowly turned around and slowly thundered its way back towards town.

“There’s a place that rents out those tank things?” That thing was so cool, I wanted to pilot one. I grumbled and crossed my limbs as I realized that I wasn’t likely old enough to do so. “Why have I never heard of it?”

“Eh, I guess you have to know the right ponies to get access to them or something.” Grubber mumbled through a mouthful of cupcake. He was an alright dude in my book.

“You, you’re the reason Mount Aris was destroyed!” Stream screamed in the lazy mares face with her claws balled up, the mare sat up and then swiftly pulled her into a hug.

“I’m sorry.” Was all the mare said, then she released Silver Stream who looked entirely conflicted or confused about continuing to yell at the mare. “I was Tempest Shadow at the time, my name is Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Just call me Fizzle, doubt Grubber is ever going to stop calling me boss or Tempest though.”

“You got that right, you’re the best boss I’ve ever had out of the two of them!” Cheerfully stated grubber as he was handed something by a Storm Creature.

“Fizzle, we have some things to talk about!” We all turned to an Abyssinian making her way onto the ship, she was unafraid of the surrounding Storm Creatures and her get up was rather out of this world. The pointy hat just made her look as silly as her smile.

“Uh, you’re not afraid of these guys?” The Abyssinian flicked her ears and then turned in my direction, because I had asked that question.

“Of course not, and I hope you are not bullying my daughter over her choices in life!” She put her fist on her hips and her tail was… wait her daughter?! Fizzle was the glaring cat’s daughter? How could we bully her, she’s surrounded by Storm Creatures that pointed her out exclusively as their current leader. “If you’re wondering, I hitched a ride here with Pinkie. Such a sweet pony that one.”

Also didn’t this cat hear about what happened to Abyssinia? Even the lazy people in Griffonstone heard about it, we get our catnip from them after all… that actually might explain why griffons are always so zoned out around there all the time. I’ve never thought that griffons had a problem that was nearly that bad, but I’ve always been on the outside of things looking inwards and never really considered things from a different perspective.

That’s what living here was giving me, perspective on life and I really loved it here.

“I’m the Witch of Good Taste, Kurilian La Perm. Pleasure to meet you, for my greetings are something from which you should not squirm!” Was the rhyme or the flamboyant bowing while sweeping the hat from her head really necessary? “I make tasty foods and wildly weird potions. My most recent successful potion leaves you floating helplessly in the air for a few minutes, even if you have wings with which to fly, if you have any angry or aggressive notions. So please don’t start anything or else I’m hitting everyone with one and I’m not quite sure I have perfected it yet, so the side effects might be terrible is relatively temporary.”

“Kuril… please tell me this isn’t from the series of ‘that’ kind of potion.” Kuril looked away from Fizzle, but there was a tiny mischievous smile on her face. Yeah, that wasn’t foreboding at all, I was considering getting away from here before the witch did something we’d all regret later.

I’ve read about what poison joke did to twilight and her friends, who knows what this witch could do if she had something with similar effects but is harder to cure. It certainly sounded like she was friends with Zecora even if she didn’t rhyme all the time.

“Do you know what she’s done?!” Silver was still on that? These guys were chill and Pinkie pretty much confirmed it.

“Yes, she killed the Storm King and quite frankly there are still a lot of traumatizing things still going on for her, I’m quite sure my little Fizzle needs more hugs than anyone.” The cat said flatly, making Silver freeze up in midair to the point she fell to the ground on her butt with a shocked look on her face. Kuril hugged Fizzle tightly against her and she aimlessly nuzzled her face against the cats chin. “I think she’s the only one that’s upset that he’s gone, not many people really care that he broke against the ground into so many pieces that it’s impossible to put him back together… considering I took a few of them to make sure it was impossible.”

“She… she did what… and you…” Turning away from Silver Stream and that conversation, I turned to Grubber who was eating what looked like a chimichanga with red and white gooey stuff in it.

“What’s that?” I asked, I wasn’t willing to deal with all of Stream’s continuing drama today. I prefer having her around when she was in perky or bubblier mood.

“Chimi-cherry-cheesecake-changa, these things are really good. Pinkie has been trying to get the idea right for the last few weeks and she definitely hit the mark with this one, I’m the taste tester for some of her newer products made right in Sugar Cube Corner.” He chuckled audible as he threw the last bit in his mouth and continue talking as he chewed. “She sends baked good packages that you can reheat to me all the time and the Storm Guys are getting good at heating them up correctly that I don’t have to watch them anymore to make sure they are doing it right, I’m working on becoming a patisserie chef personally as we’re still slowly getting out of this whole evil army for a tyrant business. I heard of Pinkie’s chimi-cherry-changas, then decided to work out the mechanics for fitting cheesecake into…. ulp… help me…”

“Yona love chimi-cherry-cheescake-changas!” Yona was hugging the poor guy, being hugged by a yak that doesn’t know her own strength was quite painful.

“Yona, I know you’re enthusiastic about this, but you’re crushing him alive.” Thankfully I got Yona to release him just in time, it looked like he was about to pop like a grape given the purple color he had been turning.

“Thanks dude…” Grubber muttered as he gasped for air.

“Name’s Gallus, I’ve got your back guy.” He smiled at me held up a fist, I bumped my curled talons against his. “That’s Smolder, Sandbar, you’ve met Yona, that’s Ocellus and our currently high-strung friend over there is Silver Stream. She’s usually a lot friendlier than this.”

“It’s okay, I can totally understand the resentment even if I didn’t do much harm personally… I didn’t exactly do much to stop things either. I was actually there with Tempest when we attacked Mount Aris. I’ve been with the Storm King for far longer than the boss lady has and let me tell you, things definitely turned out for the best given the Storm King was planning to wipe us all out once he no longer needed an army to get him what he wanted.” So Grubber has worked for the Storm King longer than the mare now running things has, I wondered if he had any good stories from it. “During the Mount Aris thing we told the guys to not attack females and children, they were to only attack those that could actually defend themselves. It’s like how we took over Canterlot and made sure the local hospital kept running, we even brought the ponies that we injured in to get them help if we hurt them too much. Tempest has a one hundred percent approval rating among the Storm Creatures for that, they are actually not as mean as they look and are actually all big softies at heart.”

“Say guys, how about we leave Silver Stream here to work out things while we do something else?” I turned to see Silver Stream sitting at a table with tea and cakes that wasn’t there a seconds ago with Fizzle and Kuril.

“You have no idea how hard it was to get the instant tea set potion to work with fruit juice given that tea is quite bad for me, before this it had a tendency to create living blobs of tree sap that always set out to ruin someone’s day.” Someone should probably tell Kuril about the Cutie Mark Crusaders, it wasn’t going to be me though. No action was happening, so I’m out, nothing was happening here. “I still wonder where they all got off to… ah well, the ones we managed to catch were tasty if entirely harmless. Made for some really good pancakes at my restaurant, you wouldn’t happen to know some of the hippogriff refugees we took in would you?”

“They’re going to be a while, let’s go!” I flapped my wings and set off for Ponyville, Yona was carrying Grubber with her as we left Silver Stream by herself to talk things out.

-Ten minutes later, a Ponyville café-

“What the… what’s a chimera doing here?!” Said chimera's heads looked towards me and I froze up.

Author's Note

What did Kuril want to ask Fizzle? Is it important, has this story finally ground to an absolute halt? What about Jade being an outside context problem?

All in good time.

I'm almost to a million, also I'm not counting the appendix chapter in that just so everyone's aware.

I've been recently given a copy of Shovel Knight... with every DLC included and it was extremely cheap. Never played it before, but I absolutely love the soundtrack.

I know Fizzle solving the chimera crisis chapter wasn't great, but this is the slow chapter before things pick up again.

Where we are in the timelines is before Sombra uproots the tree of 'Harmony' and a short time after Cozy Glow ends up in Tartarus.

Happy whatever holidays you happen to celebrate, we celebrate the 'burning eye of Sauron' that brings the cold of winter. Almost like a wickerman style festival with excessive fantasy themes. It's far cheaper than making a full wickerman and we have the marshmallows to burn. (We were going to use the marshmallows for a feast week casserole, but things didn't pan out. Melty sugar cracker treats are go!)

Chapter Sixty One, Grubber, Gallus, Lack of Malice: Pal.

-Outskirts of Ponyville, Silver Stream-

“Now that that’s taken care of…” Kuril seemed nice, but she just turned one of the Storm Creatures they had in the hold from being turned to stone back to being a flesh and blood being. There was a lot of grunting involved afterwards that made me rather nervous. “Fizzle will you be home for Hearths Warming this year?”

“I don’t know mom, I have a lot to make up for.” Fizzle, or Tempest, answered with a serious resolute look on her face.

“His crimes are not yours you know.” Kuril sat back down and poured herself a cup of fruit juice and turned to me. “Also are you feeling better Ms. Stream?”

“Not really, I’m still nervous about being here…” I looked around and noticed that my friends had left at some point, I think they took that hedgehog with them. “Alone… with all these Storm Creatures. How are you not afraid of all those Storm Creatures?!”

“That’s because I’m far more dangerous than they are.” That was not the response I was expecting from Kuril. “I know how to cook and if they ever want a taste of my food, then they know better than to try and hurt me.”

“Mom, you’re delicious cooking isn’t the only thing that’s dangerous about you.” Fizzle, I think I’m going with Fizzle for her, looked slightly flustered as Kuril snuggled up against her.

“Sure, if I wanted to get violent, even without asking Sugar to rip them a new one I could take this entire ship load of Storm Creatures on all on by myself.” Wondering if Kuril was talking about a person, I took a moment to decide on what exactly to ask her.

“Who or what is Sugar?” I was curious to hear about this and was most certainly not trying to focus on the various Storm Creatures idling about or playing shuffleboard. Did the world seem smaller or was I back in that cave system under the school?

“Sugar is my familiar, which just happens to be an al-mi’raj.” Every Storm Creature slowly backed away from Kuril slightly as if she was suddenly on fire or maybe even made of it. “Witches are said to be able to keep them docile or attract them. My cute and floppy eared lovable Sugar is the sweetest little thing ever. She’s always so protective of me and Airship Mauled, it’s the town I’m the mayor of Ms. Stream.”

“Didn’t you say Sugar was now the size of a bear and still has a tendency to consume things three times her size despite not actually having the stomach space for it?” With the way Fizzle described it, the creature sounded horribly scary and I didn’t even know what it looked like. “What part of that is little?”

“What does an Al-mi’raj look like?” Please tell me for clarification, so I’ll know what to be afraid of.

“Basically they are rabbits with magical horns like a unicorn that can deflect or puncture through most forms of magic. They can also create illusions depending on their level of intelligence and increase their size to an extreme degree for a limited amount of time as a defense mechanism for when their horns are not enough to maul a threat.” Fizzle shivered, but continue onwards with tell me about them. “They can grow to be about the size of bears naturally and are omnivorous leaning carnivorous. As many creatures can attest to, you absolutely do not want to mess with the ones that are fully grown like Sugar is.”

“Also when they get to being full grown bear size and do the growth thing, they tend to become visible from quite a few miles away.” Kuril tapped her chin with a claw and smiled after a moment. “I believe the Neighpon term ‘kaiju’ was used in reference to how humongous Sugar’s species can get. So she could probably destroy most of a city by herself with little to stop her, the amount of time she would have to do it in would be about five minutes at full size. Most Al-mi’raj can’t ever get bear sized without a decent food source and a lot of nutrients, otherwise they usually look slightly larger than normal rabbits.”

“Yet you have something that dangerous as a familiar?” It’s like those scary stories of Leviathan, the ocean is a nice place to live until you run into giant toothy maws the size of a whales body alone that created whirlpools when it opens.

I’ve only heard stories of it and was glad most of the areas close to home were kept quite safe with Auntie Novo in charge, that such creatures of that size can also appear on land almost makes me feel that nowhere is completely safe in the world.

“Yep, Sugar is such a grand familiar and I’d like to think that I’m just as dangerous as she is.” Kuril smiled cheerfully. I don’t think she could be as terrifying as a leviathan unless she could defeat one. “Unfortunately, Sugar thinks puks are beneath her notice and won’t attack them.”

“Puks?” I queried.

“Don’t get me started on them…” Kuril groaned and rubbed at her forehead she turned to her daughter. “Fizzle, I will continue to beg you to come to Airship Mauled. Maybe you can even bring a Hearth’s Warming gift for your nephew.”

“I can probably send you a… wait… what?!” Fizzle looked rather perplexed and wide eyed.

“His name is Gavin.” Well that was like a stick of dynamite to the conversation from Kuril, given Fizzle was now paying far more attention to her. “Congratulations on becoming an aunt, I want you to be involved in his life and to meet him personally, I think he’s with Dr. Bones at the moment. I’m surprised you missed me tending to him while you were at the hospital.”

“To be fair, I was a bit distracted by Maries needing me to be there for them.” Fizzle looked a little uneasy. “What does this Gavin like exactly?”

Eventually I would learn all I could about Fizzle, Kuril and…. even the Storm Creatures. The more I knew, then the less reason I would have to fear them and maybe we could even be… well maybe not friends, but I would certainly like it if we weren’t enemies.

-Ponyville café, Maries-

“What do you think we’re doing here?” Mara said for us, while Maria finished by speaking up next. “Same as you, we’re just trying to get through the day and live our lives.”

“Are you thinking about going to the school of friendship?” Is the griffon seriously that intimidated by our presence? The changeling being fearful we can understand, changelings can’t do chimera transformations as they can’t replicate the three minds required for it.

“No, we’re already well versed on how to make and be friends.” Marie stated, we all nodded in unison and then we all started talking at the same time. “Also we’re too scary for the school given that we’re lawyers.”

-Gallus-

“Do you do that speaking in unison thing often? It’s honestly kind of creepy.” I asked as my feathers shifted slightly. Question was answered by someone else.

“Yes, that is something they do. Considering their minds are all connected together as one when they want them to be.” The diamond dog wearing a white coat was currently fumbling with a griffon cub playfully crawling all over her. “I’m Dr. Bones, they are my patients and I have them out of the hospital temporarily to get some fresh air and some food. Then it’s back in to run some more tests on them to make sure they have it all together upstairs and magically.”

“We should be fine.” The chimera spoke again with three voices acting as one. “We’re all basically alright now.”

“Mind your doctor, because if I say you need to work out some kinks, then you’d better very well work them out while under my care when you have the chance.” Who let this diamond dog be a doctor? Then again, with the recent crisis afflicting various hospitals, I shouldn’t be surprised. Not that diamond dogs were idiots or anything, she seemed fairly intelligent for her species. “Because, so help me, you won’t have a personal doctor who knows which way is up for you and your blasted baffling bonkers biology! I was the one that determined Maria was capable of giving a blood transfusion and signed off on it, so I’ve already saved two thirds of your lives. Do you lot seriously have any reasons to complain about a little time to make sure that you’re not going to have any issues?”

“Okay…” The tiger stated, then the goat started talking. “Noted and no, we definitely don’t have any reasons to complain as unicorn doctors would have probably kept poking and prodding us. Not to mention doing a ton of unnecessary experimental stuff that could hurt us badly. We’d prefer someone who would actually know what they are doing when it comes to us and are sorry we’re being a bit annoying about wanting to be free from Ponyville’s hospital.”

“I brought you outside and to a café didn’t I?” Dr. Bones seemed to have the chimera completely cowed with that statement.

“Excuse me, since you were in the hospital, can you tell me if you saw a mare with a broken horn meeting someone important to her there?” Grubber pretty intent on hearing about why his boss, the Storm Queen, came here so fast. “She’s my boss lady and I wanted to know who was so special to her that she’d rush here so fast for, I think she has a special someone and I was wondering if you know who they are.”

I looked around. Ocellus was hiding behind Yona and seemed to be slowly easing out from behind her. Sandbar seemed to have wandered off at some point or didn’t want to be near the chimera. Smolder seemed to be a bit bored and was sitting at the table to order something from the waiter.

“That’d be us, we’re her special friends. Call us Maries collective or separately… Mara, Maria and Marie.” It took a moment for Maries’ words to register and each head had a different name. “We’re Maries of the Bloody clan, usually referred to as Bloody Maries by other chimera.”

“Doesn’t it get confusing that one of you is named Marie?” Curiosity couldn’t hurt, they seemed friendly enough to me. Grubber seemed to be off in his own world thinking about things.

“While it has come up a few times, it doesn’t really happen often enough to be a problem.” Marie answered before her sisters could say anything. It was around this time that Grubber came to his sense.

“So… you’re the bosses special… huh… wow… I knew something about Tempest was a little unusual, but that kind of sells it for me. Heh heh the boss lady is awesome!” Grubber didn’t seem phased to hear his boss, Tempest, was dating a chimera. If I were him I would be freaking out about it right about now. “So I can expect to see you around her more often?”

“Oh definitely, once we’re cleared from the hospital that is… thankfully our medical coverage is actually being paid by the crown due to damage done to us by the recent events.” Mara was the one speaking now, do they always switch off so often? The other two heads eyed their surroundings and that seemed to spook a few ponies. “Does the name Cozy Glow ring a bell?”

“Yeah, we beat her and saved the world… apparently saving the world with friendship isn’t enough to graduate from the school of friendship.” When had I sat down at the table with them and why was I getting a serving of lasagna with extra cottage cheese? In fact, it seems like the only cheese used in the lasagna was all cottage cheese.

“It was really scary, but I wouldn’t let my friends face it all alone.” Ocellus joined us at the table, as did Yona and Smolder.

“Yeah, we were so cool!” Smolder intoned as she received a salad with emerald chunks.

“We were in Tartarus when Fluttershy and the others arrived, I wouldn’t recommend being imprisoned there. It’s not a nice place at all.” Maria gained a wide eyed look. “Claws, teeth and wanting my demise above anything else…”

“Yona wants to know what happened!” Yona was getting a large bowl of boiled and heavily seasoned cabbage sprouts.

“We were imprisoned alongside a number of monstrous creatures, we’re pretty sure one of them was even from the chaos dimension.” Marie started to explain as she looked to Maria’s shivering head. “Among the caged creatures and us, having been captured by being ambushed by unicorn mercenaries on our way back home, was a chupacabra. Said chupacabra got out of its cage while Maria, Mara and I were separated. We weren’t a chimera at the time and you can do the math about why it’ll haunt Maria for the rest of her life.”

“Oh my, that must have been horrible! I know how to transform into a chupacrabra, but I don’t think I’ll ever use that transformation. Changelings are taught very early on in life to never go for an unassuming goat transformation.” Well that was news to me, I watched as Ocellus shivered violently. “The horror stories I’ve heard about it, they are said to have an endless undying enmity towards goats.”

“I can confirm it completely.” Maria intoned with a blank stare going off into the distance.

“Oh, I want to hear those stories, well if you’re open to telling them that is!” At this rate Smolder might be the more awkward one in the relationship between her and Ocellus.

It’s a wonder that Ocellus doesn’t keep getting mixed signals from Smolder… or does she? I would have to ask her about it later in depth, my lasagna was getting cold and it wasn’t often one could get a free meal by making commentary at an oddly out of place chimera in the middle of a town full of ponies.

-Two hours later, Castle of Friendship, Foyer, Grubber-

“You’re friends seem quite nice.” I think Gallus was a cool guy, mostly since he wasn’t making a big fuss about the Storm Creatures or me being here.

“Yeah, but they can be a real pain to be around sometimes. We all have our annoying habits.” Listening to Gallus, I rolled my eyes and leaned back in the chair completely ready to listen to what he had to say.

“Go on.” I inclined my head to him. He chuckled and went ahead with what he thought about them.

“Silver Stream is easily distracted despite how smart she is, she’s apparently been traumatized by the Storm King badly enough for it to be her worst fear when there are worst things out there that are not currently a pile statue pieces. Yona is about as delicate as a short fused minotaur that runs a porcelain shop.” Not surprising Gallus, she’s a yak and they tended to be a little stereotypical. “Smolder is almost entirely bipolar about liking frilly stuff and wanting to look strong. Sandbar has an exceedingly dry personality and life before meeting us. Ocellus has a tendency to mimic the personalities of those around her randomly. Also I’m an aggravating loner with almost no family, I’m glad that I have so many friends.”

Author's Note

Burning Eye went pretty well, the cheese and bean dip for the turkey tomato sandwiches were pretty good. Marshmallows were roast near a giant burning eye shaped effigy.

It was a small affair compared to what happened during feast week.

Now all that's left for me this year is New Years Eve.

Chapter Sixty One, Grubber, Gallus, Lack of Malice: Buddy.

-An hour before Pinkie’s party, Castle Friendship, Grubber-

“And that’s what it was like to work for him.” I stated proudly. “He was a huge jerk and Tempest is a lot friendlier by comparison. I guess she became a hard ass because she misses her girlfriends.”

“Yikes, and I thought I had it bad.” Gallus muttered under his breath.

“Yeah his chronic backstabbing tendencies is why he never had a commander for very long and when he made me commander for a short time, I seriously thought he was going to be out to get me.” At the thought of what came next, I sighed. “That’s when I met Tempest and she was offered the position while I was demoted back down, she kind of saved my hide with that. So if you think your life was horrible, then try living mine and being as short as I am. At least some griffons vaguely cared that you were alive.”

“Yeah, at least I had that much even if I was on the street most of the time.” Patting Gallus’s left shoulder, I gave him a friendly smile.

“So are you guys ready for Pinkie’s party?” Spike asked as he got up from his seat.

“Wouldn’t miss it, since she probably has a few things for me to taste test.” Rubbing my hands together gleefully, I set off towards the party with my new bros following behind me. “Just remember that someone might be having a worse day than you when things are going horribly Gallus.”

“Yeah, yeah, I just didn’t think it was actually possible for someone to have had worst days than me.” It seemed like Gallus had it as nearly as bad as I did. Not having parents to look out for you sucks. “Learning how to forage from a book wasn’t exactly easy with the state our library was in, because I had to actually forage for the book to find it. Doesn’t it bother you in the slightest that Tempest, or Fizzle, is dating a chimera?”

“No, I just think it’s cool she’s open minded to befriending other species, she certainly gets along well with all the Storm Creatures after beating up at least half of them physically without needing her horn.” Stretching out, I turned to the one who had parents growing up. “So what was it like for you Spike?”

“It wasn’t nearly as bad as what you two went through, though I still think of Twilight as my mother… she thinks of me more as a little brother and I’m certainly okay with that. Doesn’t really bother me all too much, because Twilight is always assigning me chores, making sure I eat and everything like a mother real would do.” Spike seemed like a happy dragon, but then he started into a story that kind of said that all was not happy in paradise. “I actually once ran away from home, which wasn’t always the castle here, it was in the library that was in a tree and Twilight had recently got an owl for a pet.”

“Pet and not familiar?” There was a pause when Gallus asked that.

“You know, I’ve never actually been too sure, Owlowiscious acts a lot like a familiar and tends to stay away when he knows danger is about to happen.” Spike turned his face towards the ground and rubbed at it. “He at least got out of the line of fire quickly enough when Tirek was attacking Ponyville.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a familiar, is he far smarter than a normal owl?” My boss often talked about finding a familiar that could survive the insanity that was her life, but she hadn’t gone looking after one for one reason. She might have lost it like she had lost a lot of other things, I saw the hurt there and I really hadn’t done much to help her with it. “Tempest was able to talk about them in length given she knew some people who have them.”

“Yeah, that… okay, Owlowiscious is definitely a familiar. One that’s smarter than normal owls… and I was very jealous of how much he was helping Twilight.” Answered Spike. We were on our way to the party and Pinkie had told ponies ahead of time that the party was going to have us in attendance, I didn’t expect many ponies to want to join the party with us there. “So I ran away and Twilight actually came after me because she was highly worried about me, that and Owlowiscious was showing her the direction I went. I ended up making a full grown dragon mad, but we got away from him.”

“I sometimes wish I had what you have, a roof over your head, someone that will come looking if you aren’t back in the evening and an ever growing family.” Seeing where Gallus was coming from, I decided to add my own two cents to it.

“You’ve got that with all the friends your making, plus I’m sure you have more people that care about you than you think around here.” Not that I had much going for me aside my dreams of becoming a patisserie chef. At the moment we were trying to hire ourselves out as cargo haulers with good protection services built in. “I’ve got the Storm Creatures and Tempest, but I really don’t have much more than that aside from Pinkie as a contact and it’s not exactly a stable life with all the traveling we’re doing. I do want to settle down somewhere someday and having a lot of people that hate us is not going to make that easy.”

“Speaking of contacts, would you mind coming to Airship Mauled for Hearth’s Warming Gallus?” We all jumped and were spooked when an Abyssinian snuck up into the middle of our group without a sound. “You can make a few more friends abroad and I’ll promise to have some presents set aside for you. I do have this strange tendency of adopting loveable strays.”

“Someone should put a bell on you!” My statement was just met with the Abyssinian witch just giggling into her left paw as we moved. “You almost gave me a heart attack lady!”

“Doubt it would help all too much. Abyssinian stealth and short range teleportation potions would still make that a completely moot point, sneaking up on people isn’t really that hard. Anyway my little Fizzle and Silver Stream are already at the party, you might want to talk to Silver Stream about a few things Gallus. She’s a nice girl, but she’s a bit stressed out after learning about my familiar. Oh and please keep her from making a scene with all the Storm Creatures around. They could use some good publicity now that they are trying to turn themselves about and Airship Mauled is open to them visiting.” The blindfolded Kuril chuckled; she seemed quite consistently perky. “Come along now, we have a party to attend to. Maries might even be allowed to attend if Dr. Bones isn’t too busy with her.”

“Wait, I… don’t exactly know if I want to go anywhere for Hearth’s Warming. Why would you invite me?” Look at it this way Gallus, if I were you I would take her up on the option of free food and a nice place to stay for a few days of celebration. “You don’t really know me to well.”

“Maybe so, but I think everyone should have a nice holiday and my last few have been pretty abysmal thanks to my downer attitude. Hearing that the holiday might go the same way for you, I’ve decided to extend an offer to someone in need of a good day.” She took a proud stance and smiled. “I’m the mayor of Airship Mauled and I intend to brighten things up a bit this year! After all, I’m making a town wide feast and it’s a meal you really shouldn’t miss. There’s going to be fish in it for you, no needing to rely on Pegasus for meat products. Got a nice warm room and some welcoming hooves, claws and what have you that’ll welcome you openly, our town has to be the warmest next to Ponyville… aside from the constant Puk attacks of course.”

“The offer of fish… actually sounds like a good way to get me to come.” Gallus seemed a little reluctant.

“It’s not often that you get to eat fish around here, it’s a staple food for most griffons from what I know and even hippogriffs have their steins of salmon juice. It’s like me and eating gems too!” Given that Spike lived with ponies for most of his life. Yeah, I can see where fish wasn’t a major constant around here. “You should take her up on it, I remember hearing about how down you felt about not wanting to go to Griffonstone for Hearth’s Warming and here you have someone offering you an alternative.”

“All expenses paid no less, I’m Kurilian La Perm the Witch of good taste and you must be Twilight’s little helper Spike 'the Great' who also has some notable cooking talent under his belt. Please, call me Kuril.” She bowed to Spike while sweeping her hat from her head, the boss lady’s mother sounded quite loving and sweet. I had some questions for her, but now didn’t seem like the time for them. “Well met growing dragon of some renown. Now as to my offer, there are a few things I have to tell you. The first is that I can give you some money for the train and you’ll be given free room and board as a visitor. Just be aware that there are other beings living there and don’t make too much noise at night, aside from that you’re open to do whatever you want there as long as you don’t make a mess. Oh and don’t bother my assistant, she’s the local goddess. so it would be good if you don’t get on her nerves.”

“Wait, how did you make the local goddess your assistant?” Gallus seemed about as dumbfounded as I did.

“She asked for the position and then filled out the paperwork for it, she also had to prove that she could do it and she did so. She’s also our physical educations teacher for the school.” Before we knew it, the three of us were led into Pinkie’s Party and Kuril smiled at us. “Well, enjoy the party and think about my offer Gallus.”

“Hey, wait up, I need to ask you a few questions!” I quickly caught up to the Abyssinian as she looked down at me with her eyes behind that ever present blindfold, I swear she could actually see me.

“Yes?” Kuril asked.

“How did the boss lady end up traveling alone?” Motioning to some nearby seats while Spike and Gallus were off getting snacks and drink for themselves, I followed the cat and sat down next to her.

“It’s a sordid tale really, you see Maries wasn’t the only other being Fizzle was in love with. Fizzle set out to work on her magic and to grow stronger by herself, not once did she return home because it was a reminder of what she lost… my flesh and blood daughter that was the other being who loved her.” I felt her reach around my back and drag me into a hug. “We’ve lost so many beings that joined Airship Mauled early in its creation, all of them were Fizzle’s friends that fell off the map to who knows where after my flesh and blood daughter did. Her name was Jaded La Perm and I hope that she’ll come back some day, somehow, some way. I know for a fact that Fizzle can’t be happy with just Maries. Thanks for looking out for my daughter Grubber, she has a nephew now you know… how do you feel about being an uncle?”

“I… don’t honestly know what to say?” I started a bit slowly trying to wrap my head around her sudden offer. “I mean what you’re offering is…”

“To be in Airship Mauled for Hearths Warming as a part of our family, I think you’ve more than earned it after watching out for my Fizzle. Oh and bring whatever Storm Creatures you want with you.” She held me close and smiled as she looked in Fizzle’s direction as she was talking with Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. Those three were getting along so well, Fizzle did say that she knew them before she joined the Storm King. I guess their friendships didn’t die just because she went and invaded Canterlot while defeating the four princesses. “I promise that not a single visitor will go hungry that night, nobody ever does on my watch even when I’m being a sad sack. No one, no matter what or who they are, should go hungry on Hearths Warming night as long as I can help it.”

Pinkie was suddenly right next to us with a frowning sack and held it up to Kuril.

“I don’t think I need it Pinkie, but thanks for the offer anyway.” Smiling brightly at Kuril, Pinkie then angled the sack more towards me and it seemed to be smiling as I took it for the goodies inside. “So just think about dropping by. I’m sure if you wear a red and white trimmed suit while passing out gifts, it’ll make my grandson’s day all the more special.”

“Where is your grandson right now?” I took a cupcake from the sack and bit into it, a nice slightly sour flavor with hints of sweetness as an aftertaste.

“Please take this little rascal off my paws Kuril, I beg of you, I honestly have work to do and can’t get Maries cleared if I have him crawling everywhere all the time!” We turned to a diamond dog with a playful little griffon hugging the top of her head. “He’s being quite the little nuisance.”

“Doggy!” The white griffon with black rings around his eyes reminded me of a stormy night where I saw white ringed eyes and long black feathers of a female parrot pirate facing down the Storm King without fear.

I shook the visage of that parrot out of my head and watched as Kuril smiled brightly at the little griffon wagging his tail, happy to see her.

“That’s right, she is a doggy Gavin. Now come here Gavin, come to grandma!” The white griffon whined, but he still jumped off and into Kuril’s arms to get snuggle and cuddled. The little griffon laughed happily as Kuril nuzzled her nose into his belly and blew on it. “Do me a favor and send Fizzle over here to meet her nephew… she’s going to get him a present.”

She whispered that last part to me and I got up to head into the party in progress to talk to the boss, I was glancing around to make sure the Storm Creatures were being extra careful and friendly. No weapons and barely any armor to speak of. The white wooly Storm Creatures were far less threatening without their armor on.

“Hey boss, your mother wants you to meet someone!” Tempest gave me the oddest of looks and then looked over to where Kuril was sitting, patiently toying with the little griffon.

“Thanks Grubber, we’ll talk about this later Fluttershy.” My boss nervously made her way over to her mother and then got a face full of a very affectionate griffon.

Author's Note

(Bored tone) Oh no... Fizzle has been face hugged by a griffon cub. What ever shall we do?

Chapter Sixty One, Grubber, Gallus, Lack of Malice: Friend.

-Ponyville Square, Gallus-

“Well the party is in full swing, how you feeling around all the storm creatures Silver Stream?” She looked rather nervous to me so I was trying to be comforting, well about as comforting as I could be.

A few pats on the withers was how you do it right?

“Not particularly safe.” Silver Stream’s voice went a bit shrill, mind you that without their armor the storm creatures kind of looked like fluffy bipedal lions. The resemblance to lions was there, but their attitudes were decidedly friendlier than actual lions.

“Yona think this is like Yona’s fear of spiders. Yona became friends with Spindle, then things were not so bad afterwards… as long as spiders are not poisonous or aggressive.” Common sense was kind of a thing with us and Yona often brings up something when danger is a concern, as does everyone else in our group of six. Ocellus does so more often than the others. “Yona still dislikes flyders.”

To be fair, not many people did when they tended to get into your food and webbed up the general surrounding area.

“There’s something I need to ask about that Yona, whatever happened to the little guy?” Keeping in contact with friends was one of the lessons I was taking to heart, because not much else was going for me aside from my friends really.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my future or life, but living near Ponyville or my friends was a good start to figuring things out. I couldn’t keep coasting forever.

“Oh, that is easy, Spindle is living with Yona and is surprisingly very tough.” Yona stomped the ground creating minor tremor while raising her right leg in the air. “Spindle is best spider!”

A few nearby ponies were unprepared and fell over, the nearby Storm Creatures just shrugged it off.

“So, you can understand this Spindle?” I jumped when I saw Kuril standing among us, as did Silver Stream who was already quite jumpy to begin with.

I looked the direction Kuril came from. I saw her reported daughter Fizzlepop Berrytwist La Perm, her name was a mouthful, tickling the little griffon cub with a hoof.

Pinkie soon bounced on over to them and held out a cupcake to the cub. He took it questioningly and watched as Pinkie bit into a cupcake just like it, the little guy quickly imitated the act and his beak became covered in frosting that was soon wiped away.

I wish I had this many supportive people and family when I was younger.

“Yes, Yona is understanding Spindle very well.” Yona nodded happily her braided hair loops swaying as she did so, I almost think I can understand why Sandbar likes her.

“Well there you have it, he or she must be your familiar. I can understand mine implicitly, mostly because all she ever tends to ask for is food, love and a nice warm place to be lazy.” Kuril chuckled warmly. “When you have a familiar, it doesn’t matter when it comes to size, shape or any other differences between you, they will always make for strong companions in life one way or another. If that bond breaks for whatever reason however… both sides will feel a heavy loss. I personally believe the benefits will always outweigh that.”

“Yona is getting benefits from Spindle?” After listening to this I was going to go over to the little griffon and see if I can get him to flex his wings more. He needed to know how to move them around.

“Yes, Spindle might be getting enhanced durability and an extended life span from being your familiar, but you in turn are getting things from them like perspective or the ability to understand spiders better.” So what Kuril was saying was that Yona made Spindle harder to hurt and will live longer, but in turn Yona didn’t seem to get much aside from understanding and perspective? “I find that when you first bond with a familiar, it’s usually both sides giving the other something they don’t have. For the familiar it’s often time they usually wouldn’t have to enjoy life and maybe a decent intelligence boost.”

“That’s bogus, Spindle gets to live longer, is smarter and gains durability and all Yona gets is the ability to talk to spiders?” The way Kuril turned her head to me sharply made me shiver.

“Trust me when I say this, Yona is getting just as much out of the relationship as Spindle is. Take Gummy and Pinkie for example, what do you think Pinkie gets from Gummy?” That was a bit hard to tell Kuril, because I don’t understand why Pinkie would be getting anything from the little alligator.

“Um… Pinkie is getting something from Gummy?” Right there with you Silver Stream, because I have no idea if she is.

“It might not be something grand as increased longevity that Fluttershy’s familiar is enjoying quite enthusiastically, given the rising bunny population that threatens to overload the local fauna of the surrounding area and is slowly throwing nature entirely out of balance in a chaotic manner. I don’t think Pinkie is getting what usually comes from a familiar bond, it might be something as simple as enjoying the simpler things in life or having someone who can keep up with her incredible amount of energy. Gummy is far smarter than he looks.” Kuril looked towards Pinkie darting about making sure that everyone was accommodated and that the Storm Creatures were also having fun. At least the Storm Creatures weren’t awkwardly standing around and off to the side, they actually mingled. “Also I’m curious as to what species Gummy is, he is not a normal alligator as they don’t have forked tongues. A very curious thing really.”

“Okay now you’ve got me curious about what Gummy is at least.” Now that I thought of it, an alligator with a long snout and a long forked tongue was rather odd.

“Oh I know what Gummy is, he’s my familiar!” Pinkie shouted as she pranced by us again with Gummy attached to her mane.

“Yeah, you can continue on with the lesson about familiars. I’m going to try to teach that griffon how to move his wings better.” I gave Kuril a flat look as she was sending me the warmest of smiles.

“Why thank you Gallus, just don’t upset my grandson too much or you’ll become a newt for approximately twenty minutes.” What was it with witches and newts? Well at least I’d get better given there was a time limit to it, but still.

“Yeah, yeah… get back to your familiar lessons.” I waved Kuril back to talking with my friends and wandered my way over to the mare that had a griffon cub on her back. “Having trouble with him?”

“Not really, he’s… cute. He doesn’t seem to be as fussy as I thought a child should be.” Fizzle managed to grab the kid from her back and cradled him in her hooves, he seemed so happy even when I noted that he was being tended to everything aside from a griffon. Who was there to teach him how to use his wings or fly? “I’m kind of surprised that my sister Jacky had a child. Gavin here doesn’t seem to have her mother’s horrendous luck, it’s mostly because of her that I know for a fact that bad luck does in fact exist. For example, no one can fall up two flights of stairs by complete accident.”

“I’m not even going to ask how that’s possible, given our teachers at the school of friendship have done some outright weird things that need to be seen to be believed. Can I show the kid how to move his wings? They seem a bit stiff and I think he needs to learn sooner rather than later or else it could become a problem.” Taking my offer into consideration, Fizzle eventually nodded and put Gavin down in front of me. I looked down at the cub and he looked up to me. “Hey kid, can you do this?”

I fanned my wings out wide and swept them forward and back. Tilting his head, Gavin tried to make the same movements with his downy white bits of fluff while chirping in concentration.

“Good, now watch me closely here.” I hopped up and started to flap my wings to hover, griffon cubs and chicks were always so rambunctious when they learned to fly. I was probably the same way, if I could remember that far back. “Can you do this?”

Gavin watched me with wonder for a few seconds, he looked at his own tiny wings and looked up to me with a spark of recognition of what I was doing. He started to flap them and barely managed a flutter, he whined when he flopped on the ground because he couldn’t reach me or get into the air.

“Hey little guy, don’t worry about it, you’ll get up in the air someday… how about you try this instead?” I flew a little higher and then spread my wings out to slowly glide down to the ground. The kid needed to learn the basics of how to glide first and foremost. Learning how to fall was always one of the first things you learn before you can fly higher up in the air. “Just hold you’re wings out like this and let your feathers catch the air.”

Looking about, Gavin eventually settled his eyes on Fizzle. She simply quirked her left brow at him. Gavin quickly clambered up her right rear leg despite her protests, up onto her back and then up her neck to jump off her head to tentatively float to the ground.

He looked up at me with a bright smile on his beak while flapping his tiny wings and he waited…

“Good job kid.” The praise I just gave him, and some pats on the head, made him chirp at me happily. He was so happy to learn how to glide somewhat. I wondered if I would be a good father someday. I started putting him through several wing exercises and he followed them pretty well. “Work on these first and you might be able to fly someday.”

Why was I getting hero worship from the kid? I was just doing something that his… oh… my heart almost fell out my chest for the poor guy. I shot a concerned look to Fizzle.

“What happened to them?” Both his parents were notably absent and I’m quite sure that Fizzle would know. I continued to flick my wings every which way to stretch them out and Gavin followed them with his own little wings, I was showing him the right method to stretch them out and he was a good learner on that front.

“I have an idea as to what happened to them, given I was there that night when it happened.” I turned to Grubber and stared at him blankly, he didn’t look too happy and was quite upset.

“I had a feeling you would know, but I’ve never wanted to ask you about the pirate that stalled out the Storm King long enough for at least Palicoast to take shelter.” Fizzle picked the cub up after I folded my wings and he did the same thing. She carried him over to Kuril and passed him off before coming back over to me. “They certainly didn’t give the Storm King any supplies on his way towards the capital of Panthera. I actually want to know, how did it end for my sister? Pirate parrot, black feathers, white down around her eyes and a spirit that her cursed luck could never crack.”

“Well your sister was really something else, she was shooting through the sky by herself on a ball of fire erupting from her back and she forced all of the Storm King’s airships into the stormy weather following them. That caused a whole slew of problems all its own.” Grubber started, leaving me wondering if I should really be here to hear this. “She personally knocked quite a number of ships out of the air, managed to fight off a few Storm Creatures with her first landing, scared them all into inaction with on her second or third by yelling at them and the last was when she challenged the Storm King himself.”

“Let me guess, something odd happened to her.” Odd how, it sounded like Fizzle expected something to have happened to her sister before the fight even started. “If you’re wondering Gallus, I came to be the Storm King’s commander a short time after the invasion of Abyssinia.”

“She was struck directly by lightning. It was strangest thing too, she still went on to challenge and even fight the Storm King himself. It was as if the lightning bolt hadn’t been painful enough and it looked like she even tasted it given how she moved her beak afterwards.” Even if Grubber was correct and that parrot had some form of weather resilience, a parrot’s resilience would be nowhere close the level of what a pegasus or griffon could take and she was in the sky at the time and far closer to the source of energy. “She had a bleeding wound in her side too, it wasn’t caused by the storm creatures or the Storm King give it was soaking through her clothing before she landed. She hadn’t been hurt too much before that point.”

“I take it that this is the point where she gets run through?” Was Fizzle always such a downer?

“No, she actually fights the Storm King on even ground. Say what you will about him, but the Storm King was quite unnaturally strong.” Grubber shuddered and started to rub the back of his head. “So the fight goes on and eventually the Storm King starts throwing obsidian orbs at her, the first few missed and it was shortly after that point that the parrot turned away from the Storm King to see that the balloon of her ship was harpooned by three ships and our guys were closing in. That’s when the Storm King finally got her, she almost managed to dodge out of the way and the tips of a foot got caught up in the magic of the obsidian orb. You’ve experienced what it does to people boss.”

“Yeah, I’m an outsider on this, what do these obsidian orbs do exactly? I’ve only heard rumors about this.” I received two glances and then Grubber made a gesture to Fizzle.

“It will painfully turn someone into obsidian glass quickly and entirely.” Fizzle shivered and wrapped her hooves around herself.

“Yeah, but it’s not always quick… that parrot only got a small portion of the magic and was likely in excessive amounts of pain given how slowly her body was turning. She even seemed to be resisting it, barely.” Here Grubber looked to the ground and Pinkie swiftly put a frowning sack in his waiting hands and he reached for a snack. “Last I saw of her, she made it back to her airship and her crew that were busy fending off many other ships. Someone actually blew the balloon and the airship fell straight into the raging sea below. If the shock of ship hitting the water while turning into obsidian didn’t immediately shatter her, then she’d have to be the luckiest thing alive to even have the barest chance of surviving that.”

Author's Note

Grubber's view on Jacky's survival odds.

Next page: I'll be home on Hearth's Warming.

Chapter Sixty One, Grubber, Gallus, Lack of Malice: I’ll be home on Hearth’s Warming.

-Neighpon, Ryu-

I had been wandering for a few hours when I heard a painstakingly familiar voice.

“Ryu-kun?!” A giant half pony, half spider being with long hair approached me with haste and I felt something stir within me as I started running towards her as well.

I owed Kuril a big favor for getting me a ride to Neighpon. My memories had not returned, but I knew well enough to know that I had once loved this being before me.

So I did what I felt was right, I kissed her in the falling snow while making sure to avoid those sharp dangerous fangs.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember you very well, but I know that I’m sorry I left you behind and all alone.” She hugged me up against her upper torso and started crying into my shoulder, I just held her and hoped that I would eventually learn who I used to be. “I still know that you are very important to me, maybe the most important thing to me next to a duck...”

Apparently my name was Ryu and I would go about rebuilding my life one day at a time.

-Airship Mauled, Train Station, Gallus-

I stepped out tentatively into the winter wonderland and saw all the housing around here was made to look like they were all airships. That was actually kind of cool, though I don’t see why it’s called Airship Mauled.

After a deep breath I took to the air and looked around for the restaurant that Kuril owned, following me were Silver Stream and Ocellus. Silver came to pick up the amnesiac hippogriff and take her to the rebuilt Mount Aris to find her past. Ocellus was here because it was on the way to the badlands.

“Hey, you three, get out of the way of that crashing airship!” We looked down at the yelling sphinx and then looked up at an airship coming down screaming at her. We all swiftly flew out of the way and witnessed something odd.

The sphinx threw her paws out wide and smile brightly, just before she was crushed under the weight of an airship. Despite this, there was no splash of gore and just a lot happy groaning coming from beneath the ship.

“Oh my goodness, what did we hit?!” A griffon shouted in horror. The ship slowly shifted, lifted up and was soon pushed off the smiling sphinx.

“Don’t worry, I’m okay, I’m usually the only one that gets hit by airships around here unless your name is Veles and you happen to be visiting a cow named Grace.” With that the Sphinx stretched out and we could hear some loud popping noises and purring. “That was great, now as customary of those who crash land in Airship Mauled I am now going to ask you a question.”

“Oh no, the masochistic Sphinx is going to riddle us!” The griffon shouted in horror.

“Actually, I wanted to know if you wanted your ship repaired or if you would let it become housing like every other ship that never leaves the ground again. We use a lot of repurposed airships around here and the locals don’t mind living in repurposed airships if you’re willing to sell.” Okay, I can guess why it’s called Airship Mauled now. The place didn’t seem very grim despite the fact that airships dropped out of the sky around here fairly often given the housing situation. “If you want me to ask riddles… I can always oblige with no penalty if you fail to answer it. Your airship felt good crushing me today, so I’m also feeling particularly jolly with the season.”

“No thanks!” The griffon screamed with ever increasing horror despite how chill the sphinx was acting.

“You wouldn’t happen to be the goddess we were told about would you?” Why was I asking this, it was fairly obvious she was a goddess given she survived being mauled by an airship! The griffons on the airship turned to us as did the Sphinx.

“Yes, I’ll get to you in a moment and will show you around town on Mayor Kuril’s orders. First I need to know if their ship is damaged and in need of repairs, our diamond dog builders are quickly becoming masters at getting airships back up in the air. They are becoming quite competitive with the Ponyville construction crew.” The sphinx cleared her throat. “Incidentally, we tend to honestly low-ball the price on repairs since it might be our fault that airships crash around here so often. The diamond dogs get training in repair and building skills thanks to their local construction company being started in a near similar manner to the one in Ponyville’s was. Let me just say, welcome to Airship Mauled if this is your first time here.”

“We’ll want the repairs… also is this the same place that has The Witch’s Fare and is the witch currently in?” That sounds like a question that was asked quite often given the way the sphinx nodded.

“Good, I’ll have them come out to get an estimate on the time it’ll take to repair this trifling amount of damage.” The sphinx called most of the hull of the ship having holes in it trifling?! Even the griffons seemed surprised to hear it. “Trust me, they do good work and yes, the witch is in. So… any of you three want to play a game of riddles? Try and stump me, I enjoy it!”

The sphinx turned to us and asked pleasantly with her paws clapped together next to her head. Ocellus took on the challenge of the sphinx with a pleasant demeanor.

-Several hours, one tour and fifty or so answered riddles later-

We entered The Witch’s Fare, all three of us inhaled strongly through our noses at the rich scent in the air that attracted customers like flies. We also saw Somnambula here eating at a table.

“What are you doing here Somnambula?” I was curious as Somnambula was one of the pillars from the stories of the past that our teachers brought back to the present.

“I’m here visiting for Hearth’s Warming in the coming days, my old enemy Sekhet couldn’t honestly lie about the food here. It’s quite delicious even when the witch isn’t in!” Wait, the sphinx was Somnambula’s old enemy in those stories? I should brush up on my lessons about making friends in bizarre places. “We’re friends nowadays, ever been to the town named after me? It is quite the place and my new home!”

“Ga-russ!” Being hit in the chest by a charging missile, I found myself being snuggled by Gavin. I rubbed the kids head. He smiled up at me, then went over to the tree to pluck a candy cane off it, he came back over to me and held it out to me.

“Thank you little guy.” I genuinely smiled as I took it, I looked up and saw Maries looking over some paperwork with another pony.

“Hey Maries!” I called out.

“Hey Gallus!” Maries answered as her two sisters were busy in a discussion with the pony across from them that looked to be a friend of theirs. “So you came for Hearth’s Warming, hope you enjoy the feast Kuril has planned on that day! Sorry we can’t chat more, but we need to finish going over some cases with Pace Set here. Ugh, no Mara, it has to be an error with the grandfather clock! It’s so obvious that’s how it happened, were there any reports of it being sent in for repairs?”

The atmosphere in the restaurant was definitely set to Hearth’s Warming Eve, every creature you could imagine was mingling and having fun. Dragons and zebra were cuddling drunkenly, a changeling and a shrew were kissing passionately, there was a thestral child and a diamond dog playfully bounced a ball back and forth between themselves.

Looking around, there was this giant, horned, long eared bear just resting off to the side of the door. This place was the kind of thing our teachers were quite close to creating, it was whimsical to walk into all of this from outside.

“Before you say anything Silver Stream, that’s my familiar Sugar!” Kuril called out as she carried a tray to a table. “Can’t stop to talk, we’re so busy today that I’m both in the kitchen and waiting tables personally! Thank you for coming Gallus, stick around as you have a room and free meals here, I’m glad that you came and so is little Gavin! Take a seat, I’ll personally get you a free meal on me!”

“Here I am just bussing them as quickly as I can, there’s just so many people here!” A slightly scared sounding female hippogriff shouted. “How are you even doing all this completely blindfolded Ms. La Perm?!”

“That’s the mirage rabbit, its huge!?” The giant rabbit lifted its head and stared at Silver Stream, it huffed and simply went back to cuddling a turtle shell with something inside it. I heard a faintest hint of a cooing noise coming from the shell that sounded faintly cheerful.

I think I might actually like visiting here for a while.

-Some days later, Hearths Warming, Gallus-

Ocellus was likely home with her family, so was Silver Stream having taken the amnesiac hippogriff waitress with her, I didn’t mind as Airship Mauled was friendly and the atmosphere around here was great.

Everyone around Airship Mauled had been quite busy with so many things that it made my head spin, I started asking if I could help them and found myself run ragged by throughout the last few days. Yet, I didn’t feel the least bit bitter about it, they paid me well for my time even when I wasn’t expecting them to.

I yawned and lazily started my way downstairs, I felt something climb onto my back and yawn like I did. It was just Gavin, I continued down the stairs with him on my back and I blinked when I saw three reindeer in the dining area talking with Grubber.

“Grubber what are you doing here and who are these reindeer?” They came in the flavors of old, adult and child. They all turned to me with a grin.

“Oh we’re just here for the food, help us get our magic back up to full strength and everything. We were quite busy dealing with a magical pudding incident the other day and several other things at the same time.” The adult reindeer said cheerfully with a friendly smile.

“You have a sad past.” The youngest reindeer stated with a sad smile. “You’re bound to get a lot of presents today, don’t dismiss them as they’re all coming from the heart! Not even that candy cane that Gavin gave you should be dismissed so easily.”

“You have a bright future ahead of you young griffon.” The oldest one said with a smile.

“Well we’re not exactly just here to eat, we do want to give Grubber here a present even if he hasn’t exactly been a good being all year.” The adult stated, before pushing a large box over the table towards Grubber who gave them a perplexed look. The reindeer nodded and he took the package in a reverent manner. “Please go on and make something yourself. Sorry, let us introduce ourselves. We’re…”

“Aurora…” The old one stated.

“Bori….” The adult enunciated.

“And Alice!” The youngest reindeer said loudly and enthusiastically, she then proceeded to giggle loudly into her hooves. “Oh, it’s about to happen… I can’t wait!”

“Shh, no spoilers Alice!” The adult one, Bori, growled to her… I want to say daughter.

“What’s about to…” I asked when Kuril came down. Shortly after Kuril unlocked the front door, a smiling Fizzle burst into the restaurant.

“Guess who decided to come home, Merry Hearth’s Warming mom!” She was hauling a large sack on her back. Maries looked fairly interested to see what was in it. “I got presents for everyone, even Gallus here.”

Wait… what, but she didn’t have to… but she wanted to. Kind of like how I got presents for some people too. I just went with it and decided to just spread the good cheer around because I think I was paid way too much for all the help I gave the people around here.

“My presents are already under the tree, one for you too dude. I’m just happy that we’re friends after what I’ve told you.” Grubber said pleasantly and I nodded to him, it wasn’t like he actually did any fighting and or hurt Gavin’s mother personally.

They never found the ship and only some small bits of debris and a barrel of apples.

“No problem, I don’t hold grudges for what someone did in the past and you’re just trying to get your life back under your feet.” I was wondering what Kuril was going to do for breakfast. “I’m still wondering what I’m going to do with mine personally.”

“Friends?” Grubber asked as he opened the box the reindeers brought for him. Inside the box was a baking primer and a notebook, well he did say he wanted to be a baker.

“Of course we are.” I stated pleasantly as I took the gift he pointed out to me, I quickly opened it up and looked inside.

-Present opening in progress, Fizzle-

I watched as Gavin hugged the fluffy red dog plush toy I got him with such a big smile on his beak. My nephew was going to need all the love and happiness he can get.

He had family and we weren’t about to let him forget it anytime soon, Kuril was taking pictures of the event as someone had gotten her a photo album as one of the first things she opened.

“Here Fizzle, open this one!” Mara called out, it was nice that they were cleared to come home. Maria finished as they pawed over a small box to me. “It’s from us.”

“Come on Fizzle, don’t be shy, open the present your girlfriends you got you.” Mom was actually able to smile, I’m surprised that I could do the same. I unwrapped the box and peaked inside, I quickly shut it and looked towards Maries. “Let me guess, I’m carrying the fifth one?”

“Until we see her again in this or another lifetime…” Marie stated sadly. Marie had to stay connected to Mara or Maria to stay warm blooded. The three of them could separate into their own separate entities now, they didn’t do that too often though.

“I was never going to say no to you, so yes!” I closed the box and moved over to Maries, crying as I pulled them into a hug.

They wrapped themselves around me tightly. They were a lot bigger than they used to be, but I was pretty big for a unicorn myself.

-Kuril-

Though she didn’t let anyone see what was in the box, I had a good guess that it was a promise. A lover’s gift for Hearth’s Warming, how adorable!

I heard a knocking on the door and moved to open it, I looked up at the centaur with a bit of trepidation.

“Excuse me, I am Evoker. I came here to drop off a gift you’ll need to give to someone a few months from now, when they aren’t busy.” The centaur dropped a gift box into my waiting paws. The tag read, For: Daring Do. “Just marginally repaying a debt.”

Author's Note

Evoker? Wait... wait for it... it should quickly occur to you...

Chapter Sixty Two, The Hail Maries: Pass.

-School of Friendship, head mare’s office, Gallus-

“Hey Gallus, how did your holiday trip go?” Looking towards the principal, with the emphasis on pal, I had one answer.

“They were a bunch of weirdoes, but it was nice given they reminded me a lot of Ponyville and why I like it here. Also Grubber seems to be doing very well and I met a bunch of really weird reindeer that actually kind of fit in there.” Even that local head of the guard, Bracing Knight, talked with me about possibly getting into guard work and said it wasn’t as boring as the royal guard made it look. Also the royal guard seriously needed more competent people, because they could barely handle a parasprite swarm and her guys could take on Myrmekes without problems. I saw one of the myrmekes they captured and was a little surprised at how big it was, they were trying to figure out how to make them docile enough to ride. “I got a box load of random comic books from Grubber. There was a plush toy of myself to give to someone special to me from Mayor Kuril, I think it actually might be a voodoo doll with an alarming amount of ever increasing certainty. I got a hundred bits in a really nice holiday themed bag from Fizzle, or Tempest if you still prefer that alias, money is always a nice present to get for a griffon. Got a paw written book of exercise tips from the physical education master of the school there, she said the regimen could improve my strength and flying speed almost two fold if I keep to it. I think the best present that I got throughout all of it… was a candy cane.”

“A candy cane?” Twilight seemed a little perplexed.

“Yeah, because I’d never met a generous griffon in Griffonstone. At least until Gilda or Gabby started trying to change things. A little griffon cub gave me that candy cane and it was the sweetest most touching thing I’ve ever gotten for Hearth’s Warming. Pretty good for my first actual one huh?” I shook my head with what was probably a silly smile on my beak. “Griffonstone made me wonder if love was a business transaction at times, glad to see the griffons there are the odd ones that are missing out.”

“I think I’ve learned all I wanted to hear.” Twilight smiled at me brightly. “I’m glad that you had an absolutely great time Gallus.”

-Some time later,???, Jade-

“So… you’re avatar is a treehouse now… way to go Harmony.” I clapped blankly and felt the entity just smile at me. “Don’t see how that’s going to help. Also Discord’s plan is likely going to blow up in his face in such a spectacular fashion that only a chaos lord could manage.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ve already set things up and they’ll come to ‘pass’ very soon~.” Harmony sang sweetly to me. “You won’t be unbalanced forever Jaded, as you’ll finally get your long awaited boon~.”

“Wait, how did you even know about that?!” I was shocked that she knew about it. “I never told you or ever hinted at it.”

“How indeed… be patient and just watch things unfold~.” Harmony’s words were ominous. “For the end of all this is 'might' go splendidly as foretold~.”

“You do realize how long I’ve actually been like this watching life pass me by?” I groused out while grumpily crossing my arms. “Do I need to remind you that I’m older than you are and the reason why my patience is always at an all-time low here?”

“Of course not grandmother.” I just glared in the direction of the voice.

-Several months later, Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Maries-

“Still can’t find the mercenaries who got us, but we at least nailed that pony that put us in Tartarus. It was a noble, our friend Pace Set helped us get her for a misuse of funds and incorrectly declaring us as a dangerous animal. Sued the bits out of her for various other infractions that are still being discovered and that’s why our bank account has jumped quite a bit recently. We still suspect indirect GODLESS connections, even if Celestia has a list.” Maria explained to Kuril as Mara calmly dug into the baked and seasoned fish before us. Marie spoke airily. “I wonder when Fizzle will come around again? She’s been doing it fairly often despite how tired it makes her to always get around without Grubber’s help while he’s too busy, at least she’s in Equestria and can walk back to us. Just so long as she doesn’t cut through Barely Bearable Woods coming back, then we have nothing to worry about.”

“Did you hear about Daring Do?” We all turned to Savannah who came in and spoke to us, she was wearing a waitress’s outfit.

The outfit definitely left much to the imagination given how much more revealing it was compared to Fresh Start’s maid uniform, apparently Savannah’s fur color today was zebra stripes. We’re beginning to think the dark blue and white spots was her default or at least favorite fur coloration with the Amulet of Savannah.

Kuril perked up in interest, we did too as we’re reminded that our matriarch was holding a gift for Daring Do and it’s been sitting in storage for quite a while now.

“No, but I am interested to hear what she’s been up to.” Kuril had been trying to get into contact with Daring Do, but she was really busy. Like nonstop temple diving and or AK Yearling needing to stay out of the spotlight busy.

Thus far too busy to invite her to come and visit us really, but we’ve been a bit busy ourselves trying to play catch up with our own personal law firm and Kuril has both a town and a restaurant to run even if Sekhet could do an excellent job otherwise.

Blade came over to our table and perked her ears up in interest. Still didn’t have much of her past, but her skills were still definitely there.

That brings up the amnesiac Pegasus, he had apparently been from the northwestern coast of Equestria, his named was Shell Hunker and he was recently sent back to be with his family again. He was a coast guard that took a few weeks leave for a time before Nightmare Moon emerged.

Thankfully all the amnesiacs were now dealt with at least, even if we didn’t know what happened to them aside from becoming stars that aided in Luna’s escape.

“Apparently, Ahuizotl was a temple guardian just trying to do his job.” Savannah stated blandly and a little bit flatly as if she didn’t like the excuse at all. Considering all the stuff he put Daring Do through without talking to her about it… yeah Ahuizotl had little room to make excuses for some of his worst actions.

“Yeah, but that still doesn’t excuse the Rings of Scorchero thing that would have had heat sweltering in the region for eight hundred years and possibly harming the entire world’s ecosystem.” Kuril groused out, she knew magical artifacts were dangerous and that some of them should absolutely be destroyed. It almost seemed liked Ahuizotl was in the same predicament that Sekhet got out of. Except with the amount of freedom he had, it didn’t excuse any of his actions in the slightest the way he tried recovering some of the artifacts in question. “Seriously, is everyone going to forget that and all the death traps and the over the top attempts to kill Daring Do or anyone remotely near her by proximity? People that didn’t even have anything to do with Daring in the first place?”

“Ponies might, they can be a bit dumb about literally forgiving and forgetting.” Mara stopped eating for us to talk. “I can easily forgive, but forgetting is one of the things you should never do. As a temple guardian he's acted like a complete lunatic at times, also wasn’t it outside his jurisdiction to guard temples that he was not originally stationed at? He’s only one guy, so the gods behind him aren’t exactly blameless in this either. Why does he care for his job so much when it’s that stressful? We would quit the first chance we got and do what Sekhet did, find something better to do.”

Astral the hippogriff and Ryu-kun the longma were doing well too, we all knew how Blade was doing given the silent mare was happily spending every moment she could with Kuril as an assistant chef.

Grace was being courted by Veles, don’t honestly want to know what’s going on there as it was confusing enough as it is when Veles was always different every single time he showed up. Once he was a pony with eight legs, didn’t honestly want to know or care about why he was concerned about being in the wrong pantheon at the time.

Grace seemed to be taking the confusing things that Veles was doing fairly well, while sorely missing Arizona. While Grace still had us to talk to, our town was still missing a lot of people that once set out into the wild world and hadn’t come back.

Airship Mauled was still getting visitors from Flamberge and Fortitude’s adventures. Including a friendly Selkie that confused us at first, because we didn’t understand why a normal seal would be visiting the restaurant.

“I heard Fluttershy was with… Caballeron... on this recent adventure.” Fizzle looked tired as she stumbled in and came over to lick our cheeks, a traditional chimera greeting today. We appreciated Fizzle’s efforts. “Heard Daring Do has been trying to… do right by a lot of people, I asked around for you mom. She’s still trying to… do right by us by getting The End of Immortality before… GODLESS does.”

We’ve recently learned that the chimera with at least one pony in their make were more welcome outside of Flame Geyser Swamp, nobody bothers to ask how we have a few chimera with pony mixed in. We don’t actually hunt ponies or intelligent creatures often unless desperation is setting in, we preferred far dumber targets for predation.

“Yeah, I had some books brought in about that.” Savannah was sweet, but we were never going to touch her no matter how much she tries to entice us. It was just unfortunate that she knows our medical records were quite clean despite being born and raised in a swamp. “Caballeron is still a greedy and somewhat mean git, but he’s apparently trying to work on turning things around thanks to meeting Fluttershy. Sweet girl, she could charm the pants off of just about anyone just be being friendly. She could also have a stronger taste for cats, because she is beautiful like Me-ow!”

Caballeron was obviously greedy, the guy could be nicer in those books he wrote and not so obviously outright malicious given the stuff we’ve heard he’s done. We at least know Dr. Caballeron was hired by GODLESS to find ‘The End of Immortality’ and Daring was also on the hunt as well, we didn’t know what their current statuses were with this recent bit of news. Were they working together or what?

Kuril was still searching for any hints about a certain parrot pirate’s whereabouts when the Abyssinians started up their trade industry once more. The Abyssinians have finally made a full recovery thanks in part to Palicoast sending supplies and aid towards the destroyed capital once they themselves got back on their paws.

“What are the chances that Daring doesn’t have an adventure lined up right now?” Kuril asked all of the sudden, things had been quiet.

“Pretty good, considering… the latest news on the whole amulet of truth speaking… thing… coming from Fluttershy’s… mouth…” Fizzle yawned loudly and her head flopped into Maria’s fluff, we soon heard snoring and she was out like a light. We just held her and looked to Kuril.

“Ratatoskr?” Maria asked.

“Rata.” Kuril confirmed. “RATA, today is the day, literal gods speed needed!”

Rata came in at a breakneck pace and stopped, Kuril slapped the letter into his paws and he saluted. The squirrel was suddenly off to find Daring Do, hopefully before she could get sucked into another adventure.

We were all kinds of curious about the present that the centaur named Evoker left behind, if Daring Do didn’t have an adventure lined up then we’d soon find out what was in that box just to sate all our curiosities.

“With that done, Maries, please get Fizzle up to bed and stay with her.” Oh you don’t need to teach us how to cuddle our love matriarch Kuril, we would have done that anyway. “She still has some problems sleeping without a cuddle toy.”

-Kuril-

Maries carried my sleeping daughter upstairs and I sat down and turned to Fresh Start who was smiling at me.

“We’re doing pretty slow today huh?” Well we weren’t technically open, I had been busy cleaning the kitchen after the cheese chowder incident the other day. The chowder was still extremely good at least and has been quite popular lately, the only problem is that the recipe requires pressure cooking.

There was Monterey Jack all over the place, some of which required to me to chip it off the walls and the kitchen somewhat resembled a dale made of cheese. If only I had a better gadget for cleaning the mess, at least the zipper locked garbage bags were helpful.

“You’ve been a lot happier lately Kuril… also have you heard? Mango and Wary are actually interested in dating each other.” Flicking an ear towards Fresh to go on, it sounded like she had some interesting gossip to tell. “You’d think they wouldn’t be with Wary’s absolute hatred of fruit, but it seems to be working out for them. To be fair, Dr. Permanganate has really been kind of sweet on me too. I wonder if our Hearts and Hooves attempts will go better this year.”

“Do you ever miss working for Celestia?” I don’t know why I suddenly blurted that out.

“Nope, still believe I’m right where I need to be Kuril and I think I’m living the life I’m supposed to.” Fresh Start snuggled into my side and hugged me, I smiled at her until Blade got a little jealous. “Sorry, I’m just being friendly. I’m interested in stallions and you have nothing to worry about there. Mayor Kuril is definitely all yours!”

Blade still sat down and snuggled into my side and hugged me tightly, she was jealous I was hugging a friend and now she wanted a hug too. She really shouldn’t be jealous, given that she knew I loved her.

“All we can do now is wait for Rata to get back with a response.” I know Daring has dealt with various gods before, so Rata shouldn’t be that much of a big deal for her. “Anything else of interest anyone? I mean aside from me needing to restock my foxglove.”

“Well if no one else has anything, then does someone want to listen to some epic saxophone played by yours truly?” Speedy Sax was a beloved musician of the community, now if only she’d stop playing yak-chasing-kitty sax whenever there was a chase going on.

It got tiresome after the first fifty times, but it was funny again when she actually brought Ponyacci in to be chased around by a yak.

Author's Note

Hail Mary- a plan or project with little chance of success.

How meta.

Chapter Sixty Two, The Hail Maries: Toss.

-Manehatten, Rata-

“I doubt anyone would ever trust you with an adventure again, what’s your next 'supposedly' great adventure going to be?” Some pony was smack talking Daring Do, but that wasn’t why I was here and it was none of my business. I really like being a postal squirrel, it wasn’t like it was that much different from what I was doing previously and I got more challenging jobs than running up and down a really big tree.

“I always find an adventure, give me ten seconds and…” I made my way closer at a walking pace holding the letter. Daring saw me, but the other pony didn’t. I tilted my head at the pony in question while flicking the letter in her direction.

“And what… you expect some kind of god to just walk up and offer you an adventure?” Well that was ironic, I’m not sure the earth pony was going to be happy that I arrived just in time to prove them wrong. “Sure you might go on adventures a lot, but who would trust you after this whole debacle with Ahuizotl?”

“Sure, I’ve made some mistakes, but I don’t cower away when I’m wrong.” Daring put a hoof to her chest and glared at the pony. “I always try to make things right, but that doesn’t mean that Ahuizotl was entirely innocent with all the things he pulled either.”

“So what if Ahuizotl might have caused a large ecological disaster unknown proportions, I seriously doubt you have any more adventures ahead of you and I hope you go broke you spreader of lies! I doubt you’ve ever actually met a god before.” Really? The nerve of some entitled ponies. I walked up to Daring Do and held up the letter for her. “What the… why is a squirrel delivering a letter to you?”

“This is the messenger god Ratatoskr, he’s apparently delivering a letter to me personally from an old friend.” Daring quickly opened the letter and looked inside. “Hmm… alright, I’ll be there right away! I always like a good mystery, but do you have anything to write on so that I can tell them I’m coming?”

I pulled out a sheet of paper, a pen, an envelope and a stamp, also a card about the cost of providing stationary written in several languages so there is no misunderstanding as to what I’m asking for here. All of this was for a return message at a moderate cost.

“Okay, hold on.” Daring do took out a bag of bits and dropped five coins down in front of me. I checked them with my teeth, nodded and then gave her what she asked for once I was sure they were not counterfeit bits.

You’d surprised how often someone tries to get one by mail delivering paragons such as myself… they get to see my more mischievous side and they wouldn’t be happy when they meet that side of me.

“Do you seriously expect me to believe that this squirrel is a god?” I looked more closely at the mare in question. She had pink fur, purple hair and seemed a bit stuck up. Good, nobody important would care about her with what I’m going to do. I grabbed her front left hoof and lifted her above my head and then ran towards the waterfront a mile or two away in under ten seconds. “What the, where are you taking me? Stop this at once and put me down!”

I did as she asked and put her down, into the sea. I grabbed the end of her tail as she went flailing face first into the water. After a moment I gave a sharp tug on her tail, she emerged and flopped onto the dock sputtering and coughing up water from within a large fish enveloping her head. Whoever this mare with three buttons on her flank was, she likely needed a little attitude adjustment like this.

I dusted my paws off and left the mare behind to run back to where Daring Do was still writing out the letter with a hoof.

“Thanks for taking care of that nuisance, I had no polite way of ending that confrontation without kicking her butt up and down the street. I hope you didn’t do too much to her even if that mare is a real piece of work.” I nodded to Daring and once she sealed and stamped the envelope, I took it and ran off for Airship Mauled.

-Airship Mauled a day later, Train Station, Daring Do (AKA AK YEARLING)-

Stepping out into a town I haven’t been too much since… the incident… I took in a bit of the fresh air around here. It didn’t take long before I spotted the local favored goddess waiting for me. She was holding up a sign that reads, AK YEARLING.

I trudged over to her and looked up at her and she looked down at me with a quirked eye.

“So, how have you been?” I asked in my general disguised demeanor, she gave me a flippant look and I returned it with one of my own. “Was the sign really necessary? I know you by sight alone.”

“Things could be better or worse, I’m currently in the middle of a bureaucratic war with Celestia. Since war is my primary domain…” She trailed off with an insufferable smile that had chills running down my back. What could she possibly be doing with bureaucracy and why does the sudden void in my thoughts horrify me so much? “Let’s just say that Celestia shouldn’t play with fire even if she can handle the sun.”

“Okay, what’s the story behind this Hearth’s Warming present and why is it here of all places?” This place was peaceful and too serene at the moment, it was honestly a little off putting.

I saw a thestral that was walking around looking a little too paranoid like I was feeling, looked to be the local guard judging by her armor and was that a giant ant following her around like a puppy? This place was still as weird as I remembered it being.

“A centaur dropped off this present on Hearth’s Warming and asked us to contact you when you had absolutely nothing better to do at the time. That time is now apparently.” Okay Sekhet, but I get the feeling that there was more to this. “What makes the situation intriguing about the centaur was that he was a free genie, a very interesting oddity as the centaur likely still has some of those nearly phenomenal cosmic powers he got from servitude.”

“Did he say anything else?” I’ve had a few run-ins with supernatural wishing chicanery creatures, I wondered if any of them might be related to this and was surprised the world still made sense for the moment. I did not want to deal with another golden monkey’s paw situation for as long as I lived in this frame of existence.

“His name was Evoker and he told Kuril he was marginally making up for a debt he owes someone, we’ve all been quite curious about the present ever since. It does have your name on it after all.” Okay, so according to Sekhet, some random mystical being that used to grant wishes has a present for me and left it here on Hearth’s Warming. No, certainly not completely suspicious at all. “We wondered what’s in the box, when it tempts even someone of my stature to open it. Whatever it is, it is clearly important to those who live here as much as it is to you.”

It’s been a while since then and I currently wasn’t too busy to be contacted. Considering I was about to get into a row with some random mare until Rata cooled her head in a most literal fashion, I really didn’t have much going on. I’m quite sure I would have found another adventure soon enough even if this one hadn’t fallen into my lap. I just had to stay out of Tenochtitlan Basin and related areas for a while, I seriously didn’t want Ahuizotl’s ire for a while.

I don’t know this Evoker at all and his name isn’t ringing any bells, he was a genie set free of imprisonment and once the genie was let out of the bottle… well they weren’t as dangerous as they could be while they were imprisoned. The perks were almost worth being a genie, long lifespan and magical powers out the wazoo. While imprisoned, they are far more powerful and able to do far worse by twisting any wish in extremely unique ways.

This should be raising a few warning flags with me, but somehow it oddly doesn’t and I’m getting more paranoid by the second as to what kind of adventure was coming my way.

I entered the local favorite restaurant built out of a crashed airship. The surrounding area has changed a lot, but the core places were still here. Kuril, a witch whose daughter I couldn’t protect, sat this supposed present on a table and looked towards me with her blindfolded eyes. She was looking exactly at me, so she wasn’t blind and was probably using some kind of mystical sight or seer ability.

I looked at the present, Hearth’s Warming themed and nothing especially odd about it. Everyone in the room was fairly silent.

There was a diamond dog with a medical kit and a kraken wearing a nurse’s hat off to the side.

Oh thank goodness, they had a doctor on standby. A qualified doctor of any species was a good enough doctor in my book, considering how many times my life has been saved by various random doctors of varying species around the world.

There was the unicorn with the broken horn that I’m having problems remembering the name of. The mirage rabbit is apparently naturally the size of a bear now.

There was a chimera in the room, if I remembered correctly they became a lawyer. I could use one of those right now because of Dr. Caballeron’s slanderous book.

There were also two mares and two stallions staring intently at the box from a nearby table, I remember them being friendly locals.

Three thestrals with one of the mare being oddly colorful were at another table, those guys were definitely familiar and reminded me of that time at the grotto city.

The saxophone player was playing some daunting music, I think I’ve heard it on a quiz show.

“Seriously?” I asked looking at all the people watching the box with unrestrained curiosity, even Sekhet was looking at it from over my shoulder having shrunk down to about a fully grown alicorn’s size.

“Well… we’ve all been rather curious as to what’s in the box.” Kuril ran her digits through the long mane of the thestral that walked up to nuzzle into her side, Blade’s hair was a lot longer from when I last saw her. “I’m quite surprised that we’re restrained enough to not open it. On another note, you’re looking fairly healthy Daring Do.”

“Yeah, don’t know for how long that’ll last though.” Being one of the few that I couldn’t actually help, the problem was just too big and Kuril should be the one that hates me the most out of anyone I’ve caused problems. “You… don’t hate me?”

“I’m not a witch of hate, I’m all about good taste and you are a good mare that was in a bad situation. If anything I’d love to slug the assassin in the face with a vial of instant wall.” Well it was nice to know that Kuril didn’t hat me. “Just open the box and sate all of our curiosities so Speedy Sax can stop playing that ponderous thinking music.”

The mare didn’t stop playing the saxophone for a second, but she did smile. I trotted up to the box and carefully pulled at the red bow, it untied and I lifted the cover off the box with everyone leaning forward to watch me do this.

I looked into the box and blinked once or twice and took out a piece of old parchment. I unrolled it carefully and despite it being ancient it likely had some preservation magic on it to look as good as it did. I looked over the ancient text and read it out.

“To those who seek The End of Immortality, these three last clues will combine to tell you where it is precisely located without a doubt.” I stopped and blinked, after all the crap I’ve been through and that centaur guy delivers me the last few clue I needed with a present? “What… the…”

“Daring, there’s a child here.” Kuril said hastily as a little griffon cub hopped upon the table and looked at me curiously before turning to her and holding out his talons. Kuril picked him up and he curled up in her arms for a nap. “One that likes your books.”

“Fudge brownies with hot maple syrup, covered in ice cream dipped in liquid chocolate, covered in walnuts along with sprinkles and whipped cream!” I immediately said, do they even realize how long I’ve been on this one mystery? They were all staring at me with blushes and I blushed myself.

I’ve been through Ornithia, Minos, Zebrica, Abbysia, Saddle Arabia and almost all of Equestria looking for this one thing, it was like a worldwide conspiracy. To think it is only now of all times that I get something leading to the final clues?

I don’t believe this was a coincidence, because I and Caballeron were both puzzled when all we found was disturbed dust for the last clue that leads to The End of Immortality. At least we had hoped it was the last clue, the wild goose chase was daunting and I was willing to see it through because it led me to so many interesting places and discoveries.

“Well, go on.” Kuril motioned as she kept the sleepy cub’s head supported with her shoulder.

“Eye at the center of the eels, circle of the ancient alpacas and… the leg of the true bakers?” A whole lot of nonsense, that’s what it was.

I couldn’t even begin to fit together how any of these things were relevant together or where I should go first, because these clues were as vague as the last and this parchment hadn’t been altered in the slightest.

“Eye at the center of the eels? Sounds the like Eerie Eel Eye, I never wanted to hear about that place again!” Everyone turned to the… ducking sheepish looking seal?

“You don’t have to go, but could you maybe give Daring the location Briny?” Kuril said to the talking seal, only the mouth of the seal opened and I was spooked to see a pony’s head inside it.

“Well… I guess I am living in your lake next to Mr. Escargot over there.” Selkies are seldom seen, but this one was living here? The sea kraken waved a tentacle at her in a friendly manner and she waved a flipper back. “I’ll generally tell her where it is, but it’s a really horrible place to go to though.”

“If I make you food, would you consider giving her as much information about the area as you can?” At Kuril’s words the selkie’s face lit up brightly.

“Of course, baked fish is yummy!” Selkies are apparently easily bribed.

“We’re going with Daring.” Fizzle anounced calmly as Maries moved up to her side.

Author's Note

N/A, nothing of note. Just the end of this years is coming fast.

Chapter Sixty Two, The Hail Maries: Throw.

-Eerie Eel Eye, Fizzle-

A large creature roared and snapped at the airship as we flew higher into the air, that massive eel had almost snatched us out of the sky. With an airship this small, we were not going to escape it if it had actually caught us. I watched the huge eel fall back into the sea with a hint of trepidation.

“Well, we’re in the right place.” I stated bluntly. “So… how many airships did you total in your line of work again Daring?”

“Can we not discuss this right now, that thing was pretty close to being a problem for you guys.” Daring was underestimating me. I could have probably taken on the sea monster, despite me being morsel sized compared to it. “I can just fly away, while you can’t and I’m not risking your lives in the waters near here with monsters that big.”

“At least mom made me incapable of drowning before we left, now if only she could have made me giant eel proof.” I muttered loudly and felt Mara placing her head on mine. “Also you’re unfortunately not part sea snake and we didn’t exactly want to risk any more magical shenanigans with any part of you Maries. I remember Dr. Bones distinctly telling me that all of you are already mystically unstable enough as it is with the whole fire breathing goat thing, we don’t need to go making things worse with mom’s magical alchemy.”

“That’s why we’ll be waiting for you up here while you go dive into the place that Briny Depths apparently lived for a while.” Maria looked over the side of the railing at the many giant snake like shadows shifting through the water below. “A very dangerous place at that, judging by all the movement down there.”

“The first clue said ‘eye at the center of the eels’. After seeing just one of them near the edges of the given territory, being this low in the air seems to be quite lethally stupid. I think Fortitude and Flamberge were simply born under a lucky sign to have avoided being attacked. Briny Depths said that things were quiet in the middle of the eye, so we should be able to let you off to start searching for whatever it is we’re here to find.” Well at least Marie seemed confident in my abilities. “If only we knew exactly what we were looking for here, we have no idea what we need to take with us or what we’re going to find down there when we do know what it is.”

“Can I just say that I don’t like the idea of our Fizzle going down there alone?” Growled out Mara, Maries have been quite protective of me since they got themselves back together. I could say I was equally protective towards them, because let’s face it I’m probably the most dangerous of the four us.

Sure they could viciously bite, claw, poison and enflame, but my magic could do just as much if not more damage in seconds.

“I have some diving equipment I can use, so she won’t be down there by herself. I really hate getting ‘the bends’ and being underwater really isn’t my thing. Any further than three hundred meters down will start causing me some problems.” Having read Daring’s somewhat exaggerated stories, she really didn’t enjoy being waterlogged on any adventure that requires her going into a highly flooded place. “If this is a sunken city I’m letting Fizzle handle it, because I really hate underwater adventures. They always end in big things with large teeth trying rip me to shreds and given that we’ve already seen one big thing that fits the description… Anyway, I’m betting we’re looking for a glowing eye shaped jewel.”

“I’m quite sure that we can handle anything down there with little trouble.” Mostly because I had enough magical output in my horn to deflect the magic from the Staff of Sacanas, while it was powered by the stolen magical strength of four princesses no less. Didn’t necessarily point that out to anyone and I didn’t want to sound egotistical about how much magic I could unload in seconds.

“If it looks like we’re about to be chomped down on, and provided we can be swallowed whole by whatever is doing the chomping, it’s probably a better idea to swim down that things throat before the teeth get you.” We all became silent as Daring started steering the airship, likely on loan given Daring’s history, higher and closer to the area that we would be searching in. As we did so, I considered how far I’ve come with my magic.

I had no problems with getting power out of my horn, it’s always been an issue control and recently the capacity of magic that I had to use. I’ve only recently gotten the hang of levitation, one of the simplest things any unicorn could do with magic. It was like running a marathon for me, but it was good stamina training.

I could levitate large objects easily, things like a five hundred pound ball of steel or anything larger wasn’t a problem for me. Anything smaller was a lot harder to lift without immediate issues.

For example, what would happen if I were to try and levitate a simple orange? Well it became freshly squeezed in seconds, usually all over the room I was training in and I was drained afterwards because my horn tended to bleed magic really fast. Thanks to my magic bleed, my reserves were enormous enough to match four alicorns.

I seriously scared myself sometimes while training to get my magic down to attempting to lift a grape, with little success to show for it. I was good for using my magic in powerful short bursts, but any sustained spell like levitation was hard to keep going and exceptionally hard to not overpower. At least I knew I wouldn’t kill a pony by accident and I might give up on drinking grape juice.

-Several hours later, Above Eerie Eel's Eye, Daring-

I really hated underwater missions. Fizzle was lucky her mother could give her the ability to never have to deal with ‘the bends’, though I don’t envy her having to cough up all that ocean water even if she couldn’t be drowned by it. We probably should have asked a sea pony for their help with this.

We had stopped for lunch and to discuss how we were going to approach the area that the pirate ship was in. Fizzle was still going to wear a wetsuit and flippers, we were doing things properly even if she could breathe underwater.

This place was eerie and not just because of the name either, an entire ring of deadly monstrous eels with glowing bits and this large area in the middle of all of them was nearly empty of them. At least it was empty enough of the large toothy water monsters that they might not bother us, but I was curious as to why that was. There was just something that was very off about this place that I couldn’t put my hoof on.

I shrugged and hefted the oxygen tank onto my back and checked my wetsuit once more to make sure everything was fitting correctly. I did not want any incidents like the last few times I’ve had to do dangerous dives, sometimes with very little of oxygen left.

“Are you sure you can watch the ship?” Just asking for clarification from Maries, I had nothing against them aside from being from a relatively backwater society. Beyond that, I had nothing against them personally and they were pretty cool for lawyers.

“We can handle things up here; besides, with the anchor down the airship isn’t going to move around all too much and we hopefully won’t have to do anything at all.” Nodding to Marie, I unfurled a rope ladder until it was well and into the sea.

The last few times that the rope ladder just wasn’t quite long enough, I always ended up in horrible situations. I’d prefer a rope ladder be too long that you could cut off, to a rope ladder that’s too short and exceedingly hard to grab onto.

“We’ll make sure to keep the balloon filled and the airship ready to go for your return.” Sounded like Maria was on top of things.

“You better not let anything happen to Fizzle down there!” Yeah, yeah, Mara, I’m well aware of what you could do to me if I don’t. I wasn’t about to fail another person that was helping me.

I leaned back and flipped my way into the water with a splash, a second splash joined me seconds later and we were submerged. We both turned on the dive light helmets and looked to each other and proceeded to check the other’s helmets. Fizzle was not a professional diver, but I could handle my helmet if something went horribly wrong.

We were good to go and I kept sending glances to Fizzle and she seemed entirely fine with being underwater without an oxygen tank as we dove deeper into the water.

It was fairly obvious as we swam down deeper she wasn’t going to drown and because she could have all that water in her body without drowning, her body wouldn’t get the bends because of decompression problems.

She was quite the lucky mare, all she had to do was cough up all that salt water and I might get the bends if I go up too fast. That usually happens when I’m being chased.

The entire area was dark until we came close to the sea floor about two hundred meters down, look around we didn’t see much of interest aside from a mass amount of red coral stuff and disturbing lack of life in the area otherwise.

I was busy looking for something that my light could rebound off of, I was absolutely looking for a jewel.

Fizzle was just slowly sweeping and looking for anything, after a time Fizzle motioned to me to swim back up and I agreed. Upon hitting the surface at the rope ladder I learned something disturbing, after Fizzle coughed up several lungs worth of water that is.

“This place is literally in the eye of a humongous dead eel, Briny was living in...” I held up a hoof to stop her.

“I thought something was odd about the reef around here, there were no fish at all in the coral.” Eerie defined this place perfectly, that it was actually in the cavity of an eel’s eye and this large… that spooked me.

I would definitely be adding this part to my latest story, also Fizzle would be stated as having been equipped with scuba equipment too. It wasn’t a lie, as she was wearing some equipment.

“Is everything okay?” We heard the three voices and looked up at the two heads poking over the side of the ship to look down at us.

“We’re good, but we might need the tow ropes lines.” Because I didn’t want to get lost going too far from our parking spot. It didn’t take us long before we were beneath the waves once more and tugging ropes along with us to help us find our way back to the ship.

It took about thirty minutes of searching for us to realize that we were halfway into the eye cavity and that this area was 'monstrously' large. I wasn’t about to rip up the veiny coral or do anything to disturb the unnatural silence of the place as we dragged our ropes along through the dark water, the sun hadn’t even set yet and we were about two hundred and fifty meters deep.

The only movements around here were me or Fizzle, any other movement was a reason for immediate alarm. We eventually found the pirate wreck and hauled up some things that Fortitude and Flamberge hadn’t found when they were previously here according to Briny Depths.

A little payday for us at least.

-A day or two later, Fizzle-

I saw something glinting off of the dive light, I made some rapid motions to attract Daring’s attention and I pointed in the direction of what I thought I saw. We were far deeper than we previously were and it was much harder for Daring to move around with the crushing weight of the ocean all around her, I was having similar problems even if I wouldn’t need to decompress.

We both investigated what I saw and blinked at the metallic bone white staff like object that looked to be out of place and I made questioning gestures to Daring. She made a grabbing motion and backed up a bit while sweeping her light around to keep watch of our surroundings as I swam forward.

Getting close, I looked at the object and gripped it in my hooves. As soon as I was almost done pulling it free, I looked up when I felt the movement of something large and then saw a long line of bioluminescence light up, it led to a pair of massive eyes.

How had something that large managed to sneak up on us? It's coloration might have helped at these depths.

Daring’s quivering light was on it behind me, telling me she hadn’t spotted it until now either.

I quickly wrenched the staff like object free and fired an underwater ball of lightning into the creatures face from my horn making it let out a terrible wail that could possibly be heard for miles underwater.

I immediately turned and started swimming for it while the large eel was distracted. Sure it wasn’t as massive as the eel’s eye cavity we were diving in, but it was still a big threat. Daring was swimming ahead of me and kept glancing back as we rapidly swam towards the surface.

Daring barely avoided the snapping teeth of the giant eel that brought around these strange facial claws to try and grapple onto her, I fired a spark of magic at it. Each time the zigzagging spark of magic stopped, it unleashed a powerful concussive explosion. This happening underwater, the explosions acted like depth charges and stunned the monster for a bit.

we started to swim for the surface faster.

We breached the surface and I tried to yell something with my lungs still full of water, Daring thankfully managed to get the word out as she spat the rebreather from her mouth.

“Pull us up, now!” Daring shrilly yelled as we grabbed onto the ropes.

-Daring Do-

The ropes yanked us upwards as the massive eel snapped its teeth close beneath us, snapping the ropes just below our tails. Maries was hauling our flanks out of the water at a breakneck speed with her paws and a minute later the bends hit me quite hard.

Fizzle struck the beast in the eye with a blast of fire and the circling creature wailed before diving back into the water.

Darn it, teeth and the bends, teeth and the bends, it never fails with me!

Thank goodness Fizzle was here, because I did not relish the idea of being swallowed alive with a limited oxygen supply again.

-Days later, Airship Mauled, Kuril-

“I’m going on your next adventure regardless.” I stated as I looked over the strange staff like object, I was really quite worried for my daughter’s life. “How do we find this circle of the ancient alpacas?”

Author's Note

The new year is coming, it'll be the year this story finishes and I'll probably break one million the first or second day.

I've been really tired as of late.

Chapter Sixty Two, The Hail Maries: Pitch.

Author's Note

It is to no one's surprise as to where 'THEY' ended up at the end of this page.

This is an alpaca packed page.

New years eve dentist appointment... yay... hopefully things are not worse than they previously were.

Chapter Sixty Two, The Hail Maries: Pitch.

-Approaching Buffalo Trading Site, Kuril-

“What are the alpacas we’re meeting like?” At least I knew we weren’t that far from home. We took the train from Airship Mauled to Appleloosa, made our way northwest from there to a large campsite full of trading booths.

Like the Rainbow Falls Trader’s Exchange, several groups gathered here together in buffalo territory to trade for goods.

It was mostly the alpaca tribe who were stopping in to share many things with the buffalo tribe that they picked up in their travels, ponies were recently added to the trading meet going on here.

Our guide, whose name was Little Strongheart, was happy to lead us here. In particular she was looking forward to seeing a rather peppy stallion named Braeburn.

“Well, all alpacas are exceptionally friendly, with very few exceptions. Their fluffmancers are rather dangerous to make angry, but they will start off with completely nonlethal actions until you start pushing things a bit too far.” The buffalo girl looked to be a sweet, if strong, buffalo that was quite knowledgeable about the region and the nomadic alpacas we were attempting to get into contact with. “If what you’re looking for is either odd, unique or homemade, then you’ll likely find it here. Just know that the alpaca tend to not speak up much unless it is absolutely important or the situation requires them to. If their pupils turn into hearts, then you are doomed to be followed by an alpaca for the rest of your natural life.”

“Why?” Asked a curious Daring.

Daring had gotten back on her hooves in record time. Dr. Bones gave Daring Do a prescription of pills to take if she ever went or was coerced into deep water diving again.

“Mostly since they have the ability to tell when they are looking at someone they can form a strong love with. An alpaca almost never goes wrong when it comes to finding love. It’s actually the other things that are the real problem, some alpacas have quite a personality to them.” It was a little odd that Little Strongheart hadn’t even batted an eye at Maries once and yet she shivers about an alpaca following her around for life. Given Maries came with us and tended to snuggle up to Fizzle a lot, it seemed she certainly didn’t have a problem with interspecies relationships. “We’re here.”

Ahead of us were a ton of alpacas, with cute little fluffy cria that were running to and fro playfully with both buffalo calves and pony foals. They were so adorable.

The older alpacas were silently bartering with the buffalo who were also, respectfully enough, silently conversing with them through various gestures. The only ones being verbal were the ponies that were included in this gathering as trade deals were being made.

“So any suggestions on who we should talk to about some information?” Fizzle looked at the several cria that came over to us, mostly to curiously gaze at Maries. They eventually started nuzzling up against them affectionately. “To be honest, my first impressions of the cria is that they aren’t exactly the brightest beings around.”

“Eh, they are safe enough here, somebody would have to be quite desperate to start something. If it’s legends you’re looking for, then you might want to try the Paca family. I think I see them setting up over there.” After pointing out the direction the family vaguely was in, Little Strongheart was distracted by something or should I say someone. “Excuse me, I’ve got something to do. I’m sure you guys can take things from here anyway, hey Braeburn!”

The guy looked like a nice enough stallion and Little Strongheart was as far from shy as possible given her manner of directly approaching the guy with no hint of fear or hesitation.

We instead chose to head towards the indicated booth that was being run by a pair of adult alpacas, next to their booth was a number of cria plying an older alpaca for snow cones with freshly pulped fruit juice.

“Excused me.” I said, trying to get the attention of the alpaca pair looking into each other’s eyes lovingly. “We have a few questions we would like ask.”

The female nodded jovially, but she held out her legs in then gestured at us with her head to come get a hug. Apparently they were willing to trade in snuggles and I had nothing against that, given I was already getting drawn into a powerful hug with my daughter.

“This is my daughter Fizzle, my name is Kuril La Perm and might I say you are really nice to hug.” The motherly alpaca giggled and eventually released us. “This is Fizzle’s partner Maries, Mara, Maria and Marie. This is a friend of ours named Daring Do that we’re helping.”

The male alpaca made a gesture asking about what we needed.

“Does ‘circle of the ancient alpacas’ mean anything?” There was a pause as the two alpacas looked at each other, then they made several quick hard to follow gestures. The female eventually snorted and flicked an ear, the male nodded.

The female alpaca proceeded to draw a staff shape that tapered off to a point on the ground. I nodded to her given the shape was quite familiar. A rounded knob top that spiraled outwards and then inwards in a small spiral that went into a being a straight pole that tapered off to a point.

“Yes, we have that right here.” I reached over my shoulder and pulled the strange metallic thing out from under my robe and off of my back. “We brought it because it might be important, we don’t exactly know what this is.”

The female alpaca gestured to the male in a shooing motion and he went off, then she held her hoof out in a patient waiting manner. I placed the staff thing into her waiting hoof and she gripped it, turned it vertical and planted it in the ground to wait.

Eventually, an old smiling gray furred alpaca with thick eyebrows that hid his eyes and a goat like beard slowly came over to us being led by the younger male.

The old alpaca was wearing a cloak with a fancy looking clasp and he inspected the staff object with his small spectacles for a bit, he looked to all of us and seemed to silently judge us for a few moment.

When the female alpaca wiggled her rump excitedly, the elder nodded and made a sharp downward motion to stomp the ground lightly with his right hoof.

The female alpaca raised the metallic staff, then brought it down to smash the top of it against the ground. Bits of the staff like object shattered and scattered across the ground, these sharp bits were quickly swept up in the male alpaca’s extending fur that gathered every single bit of it in an instant.

So that’s what a fluffmancer in action looks like.

“What the… why did you…” Fizzle was cut off when she saw something among the shards on the ground.

There was a strange glittering long crystal that had four branching spikes sticking out of it, the old one picked it up and passed it off to the male alpaca. The next thing the elder alpaca did was remover the clasp and pass it to the female, his fur shifted and now his cloak was held by two braids of grey fur tied in a cute bow.

“Let us guess, circle of the ancient alpacas?” The elder nodded to Maries question and took both the crystal and the ring like clasp, he put the crystal into the ring like clasp and twisted it ever so slightly with careful grace.

There was a click and his circular clasp now held the elongated crystal, he held it out to us and I looked at the staff like thing that had been eel like or was it eye like? Well it had look vaguely eye like before it was smashed and the crystal was at the center of it.

“I kind of wanted to keep the staff thing… I kind of liked it…” I tapped my index claws together looking a bit sheepish as I stood there with my tail and ears wilted.

My chin was lifted up by the elder’s left hoof as he stood on stilts of fur and he then patted me on the cheek softly.

The elder quickly turned to the male and female alpacas, who were definitely a very loving couple given all the cria around us. He pointed to the less than magical staff and the pieces of the broken top being held by the fatherly alpaca. He motioned to me and made several gestures, the motherly alpaca passed the staff to the adult male and off he went with it.

The elder alpaca turned back to me with a bright smile and waved a hoof, he motioned to the nearby pot and smiled towards me with an unspoken challenge on his lips. The mother alpaca brought her hooves together and held them at the side of her head while making a few humming noises of appreciation.

“I make enough food that everyone can enjoy and I earn the staff?” At my question, the elder nodded succinctly. I was used to Blade’s inability to talk, so I was quickly picking up their cues and gestures quite quickly. “What about the crystal thing?”

He held it out to us and tilted his head, he nodded to us with a warm smile.

“We just take it, no jumping through crazy hoops or anything for it?” It seemed a little odd to Fizzle and the rest of us that he was just giving us his clasp and the crystal found in the odd staff thing. The elderly alpaca just simply nodded and pushed it into her hooves. “Are we seriously staying for dinner mom?”

“I suppose.” I answered.

-Caper Spinosa the Elderly-

I have seen much in life, my body has become quite frail with time and my fur is what keeps me supported these days. Finally the circle has been given to some worthy seekers.

I can tell they have been quite far and wide, the Pegasus most of all as she is the most traveled of this bunch. A unicorn with a broken horn and a loving chimera that sends her affectionate gestures with each individual head every now and then, it’s nice to see young love is still as weird as it ever is.

Still not nearly as weird as our Paprika finding a reindeer and cow as soul mates, she was quite happy to have two to dote on as her love for the world was quite vast and nearly endless.

It seems, we were going to have a good meal this day. We have heard much of this ‘witch of good taste’ from Paprika Paca’s loves as they visited our place in the north several years back. The rumors we’ve continued to hear about her had better live up to our expectations and we expected much.

This witch seems like such a nice Abyssinian, tonight Pepper Paca will be able to relax and rest for a while and I will share in a meal with their family. We shall see what she does with our tongues.

Unfortunately for these poor folks, we tend to get a bit cuddlier given that we are having some rather nice guests to sup with. Given that Pepper’s cria have gathered to see what was going on… heh, heh…

Our tribe would continue to flourish with the friends and massive families we make along the way.

-Kuril-

The female alpaca lunged and gathered Maries up in a cuddle and the gathering of cria started to snuggle us into submission, Fizzle couldn’t fight them as they were quite capable of swamping us with affection.

Even Daring was a little caught off guard, but she wasn’t about to get rough with a bunch of cria for being overly affectionate.

I got swiftly dragged into this cuddles swiftly by the smugly smiling male alpaca, the cria were just too adorable to not hug back.

-Hours later-

They emptied the cauldron and all the sides I made for them, how much food does this one family of alpacas go through in a week?! Did cria from other families eat with them? It’s little wonder that they traveled around far and wide, they probably wouldn’t have been able to ship in enough food by sitting in one place and I’m now quite certain that they taught the cria how to forage for food in the wild.

Dessert was apparently, and thankfully at that, made by the older son of the two adults we were having an excellent dinner with. He made an entire vat of fruit flavored frozen custard. He apparently had a knack for frozen desserts, that and a magical crown that can create cold temperatures in a localized area. It was quite warm this evening and the cria were starting to huddle up into large balls of fluff to sleep.

Every alpaca in this one family was satisfied, including the elderly one that wasn’t part of this family. In fact the elderly alpaca, whose name I learned is Caper, seemed quite pleased with the exceedingly thick stew I made.

I still didn’t have the heart to make potato stew, Caper immediately picked up on the fact that I didn’t use any potatoes and gave me a gentle hug.

We were all family now, regardless of blood, species or gender. That and they made several gestures to me possibly doing this again… oh my aching paws. How did the cria even have so much room for dessert?! I’ve never fed so many hungry little monsters like this before, Pepper Paca obviously had the patience of every saint in existence.

I could only hope a third of them were Pepper’s cria and not all of them, because I’ll darned if she wasn’t mother of the year every year after having her first cria.

-Next morning, Maries-

We felt a little uncomfortable under the blanket of cria, but at least Fizzle wasn’t cold. We slowly pried the snuggly cria off of ourselves and exited the tent to enter another with more cria and the parents.

“Excuse us for asking, but you wouldn’t happen to know anything about something called ‘The leg of true bakers’?” Marie questioned of a happily yawning Pepper who was covered in Cria, she shook her head no. Maria spoke next. “Didn’t think so, thanks anyway. We were wondering why you aren’t scared of us.”

Pepper just stuck out her tongue and closed one eye at us, but she kept the gesture friendly enough that we just smiled.

-A place called Fœnum-

She stared down her greatest enemy in the world, she would not lose and she wouldn’t let them take her wives without a vicious fight to end all fights.

This would be a harrowing fight, the importance of it would be remember in the annals of time in the history of Fœnum forever.

The world would be shook to its very core. The fight would be brutal and violent beyond reason and in the end there could only be one left standing!

For standing across from Paprika… was another Paprika.

The two glared at one another and leapt forward, hooves raised. Only one of them had angry hearts in her pupils.

Nobody could simply love Paprika's wives more than she could, not even herself!

Chapter Sixty Two, The Hail Maries: Hurl.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Gather.

Author's Note

If you answered C and B, you are now confused by the fact that that wasn't what you were expecting.

Still a few hundred words short of a true million... but I'm just going to call it here.

Victory Music!

Edit: Never mind, the thing didn't update the numbers until I posted the start of this chapter. It's over one million words now.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Gather.

-Airship Mauled, Kuril-

“You might need a better map to get a more accurate lock on that location.” I said as I made my way past them carrying a platter, the scepter was supposedly going to lead them to The End of Immortality and it had just activated. “It seems the scepter shows you the location on any map or object showing that area of the world. It doesn’t look too accurate at the moment.”

It had only just worked, given I had heard Daring’s exclamation of shock. She had been incidentally waving it over the map while tapping the thing against the side of her head when the scepter lit up a large area on the map.

“I know of a map that will give us a very accurate idea of where we need to be.” Propping her hooves up on the table to look at a large portion of the map being lit up, Fizzle looked to me as I placed some food down before Sekhet. “We’re heading to Ponyville!”

That the Sekhet wasn’t immediately eating made me pause and look to the sphinx.

“Well come back here afterwards once you have the exact location of where we’ll be going, I have a feeling I will want to be a part of this.” Sekhet surprised us when she said that, she was obviously quite interested in the relative location we got from my map. “I will prepare to set out… after I’m done eating. Since Celestia is stepping down, I’m going to stop all my bureaucratic attacks. Wouldn’t want to make the new princess mad or give her too much trouble once she’s instated.”

“Do you need Rata to deliver a message to Grubber to bring an airship here? I’m interested in joining this expedition as well.” I stated as Fresh Start brought out a plate of food for Fizzle.

“Yes, but I need Rata to deliver two messages, one to Princess Twilight Sparkle and one to Grubber. I’ll have Grubber come here and we can catch a train to Ponyville and back.” Fizzle immediately dug into her food, I smiled as I watched my filly eat a healthy breakfast as I grabbed some more food.

“We’re in this too.” Maries proclaimed as I brought out their food. Marie had something to add before she started eating. “It’s been quite a trip getting this far, we think we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

“I agree.” Fizzle looked at the map, she rolled it up and hoofed to me as I passed by heading towards the door.

“Rata, we need you’re services!” Like a flash our squirrel god was in the room chewing on a nut. “Specifically Fizzle needs your services, I’m heading out to the train station to meet with Ms. Springer and I’ll get some tickets for Fizzle and Daring going to Ponyville while I’m at it. Fresh Start, do your thing!”

“Of course Kuril, you know I love the breakfast rush!” Fresh smiled as she walked back into the kitchen, Blade poked her head out and gestured several things to me.

“Of course you can come with us Blade! If this really is where the End of Immortality is, then we’ll need quite a group to go after this thing.” As I set out the door, I passed by Bracing, Pique and Niche. Both Pique and Niche were part of the local guard now and they were happy to be here. “Hey Bracing, Fresh Start is going to be left in charge of the town for a while. I’m just giving you an early heads up to be ready for whatever trouble will happen while I’m gone.”

“Thanks, so where are you headed?” Bracing had taken her job as guardian of the town quite well.

“Well currently I’m off to pick up a diamond dog named Ms. Springer from the station. Maybe show her around Airship Mauled for a bit and give her the grand tour of it all, then I need to prepare to head halfway across the world.” I picked up my new staff, which was freshly refurbished by the alpacas and now featured a smiling cat face wearing a pointy witch’s hat at the top and could possibly double as a spear, then headed out for the train station to meet with Brenda.

Airship Mauled was coming along just fine, children were playing and the town guard were relaxed despite being relatively alert for any signs of Puks attacking in mass congregations. Otherwise, they wouldn’t worry about three or less Puks doing their own thing by harassing our quiet town, children usually tend to deal with those anyway.

Just so long as no one chased the Puks, they wouldn’t be led into ambushes and traps. As it has often been stated numerous times around here, Puks were far more dangerous when they were running away from you.

In a flash I quickly brought my staff around into a golf swing and sent a Puk flying away from me screeching insults. Yes, I actually understood their language now or at the very least I had a decent idea of what was being said.

“Gu-ga-gi-gribbah gleeglub!” I shouted at the annoying little nuisance that tried to stab me with a tiny spear. We’ve been attacked by them often enough that I was an intermediate in their language, so I knew a few really good insults.

“Gleeglub? Gleeglub! Goo-gaga-bannah!” The Puk shouted an insult back as I continued on my way to the train station and it went on its way back into the forest.

Once at the train station, I stopped at the ticket booth.

“Two tickets to Ponyville, on the next train to come in please.” The unicorn nodded as I paid and received the two tickets. “Thank you, Pleasant Stop.”

“So what are you here for ma’am? If you don’t mind me asking.” Pleasant asked as he saw me waiting for the train to let some people off, Pleasant joined our town a while back and he obviously liked this place. Aside from the Puks, our town was quite cozy for him, as was his new job as our train station manager.

“I’m here for a diamond dog today, she should be quite easy to pick out of the crowd. She likes dresses and is apparently stunningly beautiful by Fizzle’s estimates.” It wasn’t long before I spotted Brenda, I had to say that I had never seen a diamond dog that looks that good.

“A stunning diamond dog… well it seems your daughter had it right. Never seen one that nice looking before, I think being a poodle just adds onto what’s already there.” After hearing the nice words from Pleasant, I decided to approach her.

Brenda was wearing a nice pink blouse with a red skirt. After she stepped off the train, I walked up next to her as she was picking up her luggage.

“Hello and welcome to Airship Mauled!” She turned around, yipped loudly and fell on her butt. “I’m mayor Kuril La Perm, I’m Fizzle’s mother and she told me you’d be coming. Thank you for giving us access to your ancestor’s peg leg.”

“Oh… no problem. You surprised me, I mean Abyssinians and Diamond Dogs don’t exactly get along very well. To hear you talk to me in such a friendly manner, it makes me feel like I made a good choice.” Holding out a paw and helping Brenda up, I started to show her around town once she dusted off.

She was a friendly sweetheart that just wanted to get away from all the other diamond dogs at Leg Ate Hollow.

-Hours later, Ponyville, Crystal Castle of Friendship, Fizzle-

“Thank you for agreeing to let us use the map Twilight, what’s it called again?” She was a genuinely nice mare and she was going to be the ruler of Equestria soon. “I know you showed it to me, but…”

“I know, I never exactly told you what to call it. We call it the cutie map because…” Twilight led us to the six chairs gathered around the map. As soon as I entered the room, I felt something vibrating on my flank. “What the… you're being called?!”

I looked to see that my butt was glowing through the cloak I wore, then looked to the map. My cutie mark was hovering over a very specific point insistently. Daring waved the scepter and the spot my cutie mark was hanging over lit up like a Christmas tree.

“What does this thing do again exactly?” I asked out of curiosity as I watched Fluttershy’s cutie mark pop up. What followed was a cat head with a witch’s hat, three smiling animal heads fused together, Blade Bright’s mark, Daring Do was on there as well and I’m pretty sure I could guess who the golden ankh was. They were all hovering around my mark on that specific location.

“It leads a pony or ponies to a large friendship problem that they absolutely need to solve. It led Spike to solving a problem he was actively creating himself once, but this is really odd. I’ve never seen some of these symbols before.” Twilight said as she looked at the location as Daring wrote down the exact coordinates and the town closest to the location where we would be disembarking from Grubber’s airship at and what given direction we would be going in from there. We were getting plenty of information here and I suspected the act of a powerful god in the works here, as there was no way we wouldn’t be able to find that exact location now. “Why would you be needed to solve a friendship problem in northern Zebrica? The Storm King never went anywhere near there. The location looks like where the southern portion of the lost civilization of Ancient Anugypt used to be, at least according to Fluttershy from that one trip she took with Discord.”

“Well… I know all those symbols and I’m sure they’re all likely getting the same message that I am.” I had a few ideas, but the fact that I was absolutely needed there probably meant something highly important was going down. “What exactly are the chances that we have to solve a friendship problem in the exact location that we were going to head to anyway?”

“Pretty much one in a million, this is no coincidence whatever it is.” Twilight stated without pause as she stared at the spot with a mystified look in her eyes. “Just when I thought that the cutie map couldn’t surprise me anymore… oh and Fluttershy should be here soon. The Cutie Map always calls us to look at the location if we’re not already presently there or don’t already know where to go.”

-Still out of phase with reality, Jade-

“You’ve been waiting for this moment haven’t you Harmony?” I asked Harmony flatly as I stayed at Fizzle’s side.

“Yes-~.” Harmony basically just guaranteed Fizzle and other interested parties were going to show up exactly where they were needed to be. “It seems my daughter Providence was so nice to help us out with this, now you just have to follow them on their journey and see it to the end. Also don’t let GODLESS get a hold of The End of Immortality Jaded! Even if it won’t do them much good, they could still do a lot of damage with it. Thank goodness they can’t get a hold of the Staff of Sacanas anymore, as that would have ended horribly for all involved.”

I glared at the empty space around me while grumpily crossing my arms. I wanted to get back in the game like yesterday!

“Don’t look so upset, don’t be so blue~. I’m just simply reminding you that you have an important job to do~.” My gaze softened at the empty space that Harmony could possibly be in. I closed my eyes and sighed while rubbing my face with a paw. “My friend what would Bennu say to you, if she saw you wander away from being true~?”

“I know, don’t know how you knew about Benny though, but I also know that you’re range for interacting with me is going to be cut off again soon. Because as soon as we leave Equestrian territories…” I was a little uncomfortable with being all alone again the last few times Fizzle left Equestria on her travels to aid those harmed by the Stork King, it hasn’t exactly happened much otherwise since Jacky called me to Saddle Arabia with a genie. “It’s been so long… I can’t wait to eat, sleep, feel, hear and be able to do things again.”

“Laughing loud and spirited like the sun, quiet contemplation and insight of the moon at night~.” Harmony was singing out in prayer for me and I actually gave her a tiny smile and felt a smile in return. “Let this wonderful wandering soul be returned to the harmony of the undying light~!”

The undying light, the spark of unquenchable need for life to exist in the eternal darkness of any given universe. Harmony just said a prayer of luck for me that things went well and I was happy about it.

Even if I were to never wake again, I would be okay with that as at least Fizzle had Maries and you couldn’t access The End of Immortality without going through me to get it.

I wanted to taste the dusty air with my body once more. If and when they found me, I was going to be really quite stiff after all this time. I just had to plan my entrance and everything, all they had to do was figure things out quickly enough.

The set up for a very long and horribly convoluted plan was about to come to fruition thanks to Harmony helping me out. Now all the pieces were practically on the board, there was only one piece that wasn’t in play at the moment… the leader behind GODLESS.

If I was set free when mom and the others got there, then the leader wouldn’t know what was going to hit them later on. It was practically preordained to happen the second I’m brought back.

I knew who they were after all...

-A day later, Airship Mauled, Sekhet-

I was sitting in my pyramid after a warm and tasty breakfast, thinking about the oddity of the location of where this vaunted ‘The End of Immortality’ is said to be.

It was in southern Anugypt, the old stomping grounds of my sister Bastet. She was pretty well known when she was running around with mortals as Baast, the average looking anugyptian feline revolutionary that was in love with Chaos or, as he is more commonly known nowadays, Discord.

I’ve never exactly told anyone, but my sister and I actually swapped our positions. Baast was supposed to be the runner of northern Anugypt and I the southern one.

I may have hinted at the problem once as to why I couldn’t help when the whole war between the jackals of Anubis and the felines of Baast broke out, my paws had already been tied by then.

I was wondering if this is where my sister is still working at her job. I wondered if this was actually related to my sister, it certainly seemed that way given the location. I wanted to see how Baast was doing.

It would be nice to catch up with each other after the eons since we've last talked.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Assemble.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Muster.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Muster.

-On the way to Cow-ro, Kuril-

“Remind me again why we’re going to Cow-ro and not Somnambula?” I asked my approaching daughter as I watched the clouds pass by through my blindfold.

“Sekhet would cause a ruckus. She doesn’t actually want to stir things up by telling the story from her side of things and cause Somnambula problems. Trying to explain why the story of the sphinx wasn’t as black and white as ponies think it is would go interestingly if we tried to paint Sekhet in a friendlier light.” Thank you my little mare, this was rather informative. Now to give my little mare a hug. I wrapped my paws around Fizzle’s neck and brought her head over my shoulder and snuggled her. “Mom…”

“You’re one of my adorable children Fizzle, the only one that’s currently present and I’ll always want to hug my children.” I put my head on top of her neck. “Now what do you want my little Fizzle? You didn’t come over here to tell me about skipping Somnambula.”

“I’m not exactly little anymore mom, but I did want to talk about something.” I pulled away from her and watched as she pulled out the locket and flipped it open to show Jade, Maries and her smiling together. I saw the two strings with two different rings hanging from her neck for a few seconds. “Maries and I are snuggling and love each other quite well, but we haven’t gone much further physically. We’re certainly emotionally invested enough.”

“You have nothing to worry about, those three are simply waiting on you.” I rubbed her back affectionately.

“I’ll probably keep them waiting forever.” She muttered morosely.

“If they love you, like I know they do, they could wait an eternity.” Something I said made Fizzle look at me with curiosity. “I think it’s nice that they are treating you so well.”

“Like Jade said once, they would wait an entire eternity for me.” She smiled a bit.

“So how does Maries get your tail in the air? I’ve never really quite pried into this, considering at first you wanted them to stay away from Jaded and then you’re relationships started to get weird when Jaded started actively dating the both of you.” If I remembered right, Maries had a hard time coming up with dates that weren’t nature walks or camping. Fizzle blushed and looked away. “Maries had such a hard time with going out on dates with you when she couldn’t do so in places that tended to be called civilization because of some fairly realistic, if unfounded, fears.”

“I think it was their efforts and that Jade wanted us to like one another, those nature walks with Maries were always nice because no predator would come near us and they are really naturally beautiful to me. I also knew they wouldn’t hurt me after the first date and was a little surprised they were so open to the idea of us being a herd, I especially appreciated their protective streak.” Fizzle snorted loudly and leaned against the railing. “That and Maries was as awkward as I was when it came to dating. Jade seemed to know what to do on a date, but she also had this awkwardness to her as well. I guess when it came to our feelings, we were all sweet on one another and actively tried to make it work. The sad thing is… things did work out between us.”

“I think awkward and sweet defines it. So when we get to Cow-ro and have to stay for the day, are you going to go looking around at things with Maries?” I received a nod that she’d be spending some quality time with Maries. “I ask because Daring told me that we’re likely to be there for the night before we start heading south on the River of Denial. I wanted to walk around with the both of you while visiting the market there.”

“Sure, the more the merrier, but we didn’t exactly bring too many bits with us. We’re here to find some artifact that might be a huge threat, not shop and do girly things.” Fizzle pulled me into a tight hug with her hooves and nuzzled my chest before releasing me. “I’m going to talk to Maries about it and see what she thinks about us sticking together when we get there.”

-Hours later, Cow-ro, Jock Hawk-

There I stood wearing a keffiyeh. The thing was just a scarf, so why not just call it a scarf and why do people have to make things so complicated? My beak was poking out from under it as I looked about.

I was just minding my own business near the airship port, because there was no back breaking labor for me to do at the moment. Finally, I saw some distant trouble incoming.

“A storm king airship… better go tell Shock about this. It seems we’re going to be having company here quite soon.” I turned and made my way towards the bar where Shocking should be at the moment, I shoved a cow out of my way as I walked. I think I preferred Manehatten to this place. My feathers were always covered in sweat out here, but the workouts I can do around here were phenomenal at least. “Out of the way or you’re going to get rocked-, yeah!”

“Rude, you do realize that there are…” The chocolate furred cow grumbled as I stomped off, I flexed a muscle back at her and she stayed quiet. Yeah, you certainly don’t want to mess with raw muscle of this magnitude lady!

I continued down the streets, many ponies, cows and even a minotaur were staying well out of my way. Sure, I’m a jerk, but I’m big on taking down those who thought they could simply out muscle me.

No regular parrot was going to take this on, even some of the minotaurs I passed by were going to avoid a confrontation with me.

I didn’t mind being Shocking’s minion as what we had worked out for the both of us. Business was booming and we were being paid to be on the lookout for anyone that would bother our operations.

Only one such thing just came up and now I might actually get to use my muscles to do some heavy lifting. The highly violent kind of lifting.

I turned into the bar where I saw a bored Shocking seated at a table.

“Jock, there is only one reason that I could think of as to why you’re here. It’s because you’ve absolutely found a fight for us, so tell me the kind of challenge that we might soon be facing!” Shocking grinned maliciously as I joined him with a smirk on my beak.

I told Shock that Teatime likely has trouble heading towards him down south.

“I’ll go back and watch who’s getting off the ship and then we’ll attack them tomorrow.” I knew Tempest was one of Teatime’s enemies, so we finally had a target to deal with.

“Let’s hope that someone puts up a somewhat semi-decent fight.” Shock was much more than my boss, we were like brothers when it came to fighting. “I’m sure you’ll want to go first to rock their world.”

“You know it!” I couldn’t keep the smile off my beak, Shocking would go report in to Teatime and be back in time for a nice ruckus.

-Short time later-

Daring Do was said to be tougher than her size would suggest and would be a decent challenge to take down according to all the trouble she usually causes upstanding citizens like ourselves.

Tempest Shadow took down the storm king at the height of his power, so she was definitely a large threat despite the broken horn.

The blind Abyssinian that looks to be a witch didn’t seem like much to me and I could probably snap that lady like a twig.

The meek looking, pink haired, yellow pegasus looked like too much of a wuss to put up much of a real fight. I bet that the Abyssinian puts up more of a struggle than her.

I think the real jewel of the disembarking group so far was a fairly large chimera. I bet the chimera would even be a decent fight all their own.

That was before I saw a sphinx. She looked small, but everyone knew how dangerous those things were and she looked at everything like it was almost beneath her. The most important thing here is that thing on her head… it was a… what did they call it? A nemesis? A nemes? Nemes sounds right, she was either someone of royal blood or a goddess judging by her current mood.

It seemed we had our targets as no one else disembarked from the ship load of Storm Creatures and the pudgy little hedgehog seeing them off with a wave and a smile.

-Marketplace, Sekhet-

“I can see much hasn’t changed since I left. There are still market places, there are still people proffering sweetened dates in the streets and not much have changed on that front.” Though I pondered on the many things that have changed, the many modern conveniences that places like Cow-ro now enjoy.

I’m pretty sure my sister would be proud to know that things have progressed quite well since I took the mantle of the north where she took the south.

I even saw a few anugyptian felines and jackals talking amiably to one another, even a few Abyssinian jackal hybrids. There were also plenty of ponies of varying species and a lot of cows.

“Sekhet, well now aren’t you a sight, it’s been a while since you’ve been around here!” I turned and saw an annoying party goddess, it was Taweret. The hippo was hard to not notice as she took up a large portion of the street and that’s while she was standing up. “I felt you around Canterlot when there was a nice friendship festival there, but you weren’t present…”

“I was just watching over some friends of mine Taw, my ears were burning because some of them mentioning me a few times.” She looked quite surprised at my words and then gained a huge grin on her face as she drew me into a hug that choked me.

“Oh my goodness!” She exclaimed with a ridiculous amount of happiness. “You’re actually friends with mortals, that’s so nice of you! Also, I heard what happened a thousand years back and have been meaning to look you up to catch you up on what’s been going on in the region, but first… apparently you have a new domain that you earned in Equestria.”

I pushed myself out of her hug, but she didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t willing to return it.

“Stop hugging me you water borne nuisance! Apparently being a war goddess lends me an excellent talent for bringing out the talent of others through Physical Education, I’m a PE goddess now and teach classes to mortals who want a good regimen for keeping healthy. Also I’m the secretary for the mayor of the same town I personally built a pyramid at.” I looked over Taweret and noted the glamour she had going. “Really Taw? An average looking chocolate cow?”

“Hey at least it lets me experience mortals without them being completely awed by my very presence!” The hippo said with a pose. “I’m actually considering smiting this one annoying parrot with some big handsome muscles, but I got over him being rude quite quickly. Otherwise he’d be curse to never taste alcohol for the rest of his life or should I have considered cursing him tasting nothing but alcohol for the rest of his life considering the guy doesn’t look like he even touches the stuff?”

“There’s certainly something to be in awe about when it comes to you being present.” I commented blandly as I looked at her bulk.

“I know, right?” She grinned as she brought her stubby limbs together. “So what brings you back to our neighborhood, thought you’d never come back after you got out thanks to that mortal… what was her name? I believe it was Insomnia or something like that, heard she came back to life or was just stuck outside of time for a while, it’s been known to happen to some unlucky mortals. Really didn’t focus on which, also I met this really nice pony named Pinkie Pie…”

“Look, I’ve met Pinkie, we’re… acquainted. Taw, are you going to keep going on about what you want to talk about or are you going to let me have some conversation topics by telling me how Wadjet is doing?” Watching as she put a hoof like toe to her chin, she actually looked fairly thoughtful about my question. This would have been the first time Taw didn’t go on and on about something.

“Oh Wad is doing pretty well, she’s been trying to get out more and she’s pen pals with this nice god named Quetzalcoatl… apparently you’ve met? Wad said you have an addiction to being crashed on by airships according to what she’s been hearing from him.” Nodding to Taw’s question, I had something to tell her as it would be rude to have ignore the other question.

“Nice to hear, that lovely serpent needs more friends. As to why I’m here, I believe that the mortals I’m traveling with are going to be visiting my sister’s current location and I wanted to drop in on her.” I raised a paw and gestured at Taw in a friendly manner. “I'm here with some of my favorite mortals, since I wanted to be there to talk with Bastet if our paths crossed. That and I’ve apparently been 'fated' to be here, because of some magical table map saying I have to be.”

“That’s nice, so how much time do you have on your paws here in Cow-ro? I feel like clubbing with an old gal pal and we can have a nice party by the River of Denial!” Backing away from Taw as she was going to go for another aggressive cuddle, I had only a few words for her.

“I’m only staying here overnight, tomorrow the mortals and I are setting out down the river to the south as there is a pyramid or temple nearby the wide load of the Denial we’ll be heading to. They might incidentally free my sister up from her duties, so expect something chaotic to happen soon.” From the way I saw Taw smiling at me, she was likely expecting it to be a sure thing.

“That means I can spend a lot of time with you tonight and on the way, I’ll even make sure nothing bothers your mortals in my waters!” Taw clapped her limbs together. “You can even introduce them to me, why they must be something special if the great Sekhmet loves them!”

She brought me into a bone crushing hug, it felt nice and I actually returned the hug. It’s been a long while since I’ve actually seen the other gods and goddesses in my pantheon personally.

“Okay you can let go now… don’t make me breath out an entire desert again... it’d take the jungle we’re heading to forever to recover from that!” Taw finally let me go, but she was hopping on her feet with excitement.

“Oh we’re going to have so much fun!” Taw stated with excitement.

I regret everything.

Author's Note

Mind you that we don't have Arizona, Jacky or Flamberge's groups to deal with the deadly duo.

Sekhet won't lift a paw to help and would likely let the mortals deal with things themselves, unless the two were foolish enough to attack her.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Convene.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Convene.

-The next day, Cow-ro Marketplace, Kuril-

I followed Maries and my daughter around the marketplace for the last few hours looking at various things and picking up a few spices for cooking and maybe some zebra based alchemy. We were having a great time even if we weren’t going to be buying much, just spending time with them and watching them be together made me happy.

Despite how things were going right now, I couldn’t help this antsy feeling I’ve been getting. Something was making my fur stand on end and I didn’t know why.

Fluttershy was renting out a boat to head down the River of Denial with Sekhet and Taweret, Daring was exploring the marketplace elsewhere for any loose dangerous artifacts that she might want to pick off while we were here. So what could I be missing?

I immediately jumped into the air when a shadow came at me from above and sustained a griffon feather, this made me blind for a few seconds as I kicked off the air again. I vaguely felt myself landing on the awning of a stand and quickly swapped back to sustaining the mirror to see what created that sudden shockwave.

Standing in a crater was a yellow parrot that looked at Fizzle who was up and pawing at the street with a hoof, behind him Maries were growling.

“I will rock you!” The muscular parrot shouted as he started towards Fizzle with a raised fist, she fired a blast of lightning at him from her horn. That didn’t slow him down at all and Fizzle backed away from almost taking his right fist to her face. Maries leapt onto his back. While Mara and Maria bit into his shoulders, Marie went for one of his legs. “Hah, this is going to be fun!”

Swinging his right arm wide, he managed to daze Mara by smashing her in the face with his elbow. He crouched, jumped into the air with Maries’ full weight and he landed on his back on top of them slamming all their heads into the street. He rolled away from them and blocked a fireball from Fizzle with an arm.

“Is this seriously the power of the one who defeated the Storm King?!” As he shouted that he charged shoulder first towards Fizzle who attempted to roll out of the way. Only to be surprised when he suddenly stopped, stepped to the side with her roll and slammed his left fist into the right side of her face sending her flying through a stand and into a wall.

“Who… the…” Fizzle wobbled back onto her hooves with a large swelling bruise on her face.

“Doesn’t matter, the Jock is on the clock and he likes to rock!” As he said this, I lowered myself down from my position and ran to stand in front of my daughter. “Move out the way lady, I’ll deal with you after I’m done with the bigger threats. The rest of you will fold easily if this is the best you’ve got.”

I pulled a vial from my robes and frowned at him.

“You’re not going to get away with hurting my family so dear, because revenge will be swift as I’ll take you down right here!” The parrot just laughed as if I told the funniest joke in the world, you don’t hurt a queen’s kittens much less a witch’s kittens.

“Hah you… think you can take all of this? Please, I can wreck you with both arms tied behind my back!” I threw my potion vial at him and it smashed against his chest. “What was that supposed to do? That didn’t hurt a… *rib-bit*!”

The frog look shocked as I ran forward and stomped down on his buff, overly muscled, spine. It made a very odd ‘splut’ sound for my troubles.

“Do not hurt my family in front of me, or else a witch’s brew is a certainty!” I turned to Maries getting up and shaking their heads, I made my way towards Fizzle who was grimacing in pain as she sat in the debris of the stall she was put through. I pulled a potion and tossed it towards her, she caught it with a hoof. “Maries come get Fizzle and…”

I jumped back as a bolt of lightning struck the ground, the day was quite clear and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I looked to the pegasus that just tried to fry me.

“Idiot, you don’t underestimate someone just because they look like they are blind, some of the best fighters in the world are those who can react to things without seeing them coming!” The pegasus shouted at the frog that was already turning back to being a muscular parrot. I guess he had some way of resisting my transformation potion, or maybe it was because I actually injured him while transformed that it was wearing off that fast. “Let’s give the people here a show of Shock and Jock! At least the Shock until the Jock can get back up.”

I had stomped on the parrot’s spine, I doubt he’d be able to get up that easily. I watched as the slowly transforming frog pushed himself up and his spine popped back out as if it I hadn’t broken it with my foot.

The tough parrot could be back in the fight sooner than I thought. On top of that we had a lightning generating pegasus attacking us as well.

I had some guesses as to what was happening here.

“Shock as in Shocking Awe? He was on the list as working with GODLESS!” Maries was certainly angry. I wouldn’t begrudge them that anger, because we were under attack and we were well aware that they were after ‘The End of Immortality’ as well.

We just didn’t expect them to launch a surprise attack on us, or even be here for that matter.

“Yep, we’re going to mess you up!” Shocking was rubbing his hooves together to build up a lightning bolt. Jock was still slowly reverting back to being a parrot.

“Well now…” I said as I pulled my cat headed staff from my back. I quickly jammed the staff into the ground and faintly let go of it. As long as my hand was near it this would work, but I wouldn’t be able to see anything. I could feel the next lightning bolt veer away from my daughter as my staff acted like a lightning rod by absorbing the energy, my fur stiffened at the energy in the air around my staff. “Do you really want to mess with a witch?”

“If it can get me a good fight, then yes!” I could hear him launching another bolt of lightning and same result, my fur standing on end and none of my family getting harmed.

“Well you’re not going to be able to do anything unless you come down here.” I stated bravely, while internally I was quite afraid of what was going on here.

“I’m not nearly stupid enough to go near you after what you did to Jock!” He sounded like he was grinning. “Besides I won’t have to.”

I flicked an ear and felt something behind me. I heard a blast of fire and the grunting sound the parrot made from right next to me, then he was body checked by what sounded like several hundred pounds of chimera.

Another lightning bolt hit the staff in my inattention.

“Yeah, I really don’t need to be focused on you to stop you’re attacks so…” Hopefully my bland tone was clearly understood, at least I didn’t think fear was entering into my voice.

I was rattled we were being attacked, I thought today was going so well and we’d be taking a nice boat ride down the River of Denial without too many problems until we actually got to the pyramid.

Seriously couldn’t take a vacation to some ancient place without something trying to hurt me or my family. I flicked my ears and moved my left hand to the mirror under my robes and ceased my ongoing sustain on the staff.

I blinked and saw the stallion hovering there trying to figure out how to deal with me considering the last few lightning bolts he threw, Maries was wrestling and clawing the muscular parrot up pretty badly and yet his injuries didn’t seem to last long, at least until Maria started cauterizing them.

So the parrot could regenerate from injuries and poison pretty quickly, was immune to lightning based attacks and had enough physical strength to knock Fizzle through the air with the raw strength of one of his arms. Could take a lot of punishment.

The pegasus could stay away and launch lightning at us near infinitely until he was too tired to manipulate said energy. If he was anything like the parrot, then he probably hits hard and fast judging by the muscles he had. Wings are still relatively weak compared to the rest of him.

Strike team or assassins, at this point I didn’t care.

I noted Fizzle had drunk the healing potion and she licked her lips, she was in better health as she looked to Maries, me and then to the pegasus named Shock.

Her eyes narrowed as Shock launched a bolt of lightning at the parrot and his muscles bulged, his flesh started mending itself faster and the lightning canceled out the fire breath Maria was using against him.

I caught Fizzle’s eyes and she nodded to me, they currently weren’t paying any attention to her.

The parrot was miraculously able to fight against Maries on more even ground all of the sudden as he stood up while grappling with Maries’ paws. I turned back to the pegasus and held up my left hand and took aim, I cast the air in his general direction and he avoided my shot.

“Heh, really? Jock, stop playing around and…” Shock seemed to think my attempt to hit him was funny, only he didn’t see the levitating broken stand that blindsided him a second later that smashed him into a wall with the full force of Fizzle’s magic.

We both had seen how lightning was able to strengthen the parrot and we had an idea that the pegasus could do that to himself, using excessive force in this case was warranted.

I quickly turned and fired another magic missile at the back of Jock’s head, earning his attention long enough for Marie to sweep around his legs and pull them out from under him.

“Fizzle, Maries, start heading to the boat, I’ll catch up!” I shouted as I pulled out the vial filled with preserved cupcake chunks that I was now pouring into my hand, with a flash I was holding a roiling mass of wild sparking colors in my hand and I quickly threw it at the downed parrot. They shot me a look as they started to run. “I’ve got back up, don’t worry!”

I did not watch the horror I had just unleashed, I just knew the parrot wasn’t going to be getting up for a while after that.

Instead, I focused my attention on the eruption of the Pegasus named Shock breaking free of the stand and the wall. He was now coming at me quite quickly.

I pulled and tossed down a vial at the ground in front of me and a wall immediately popped up in front of his speeding form.

The wall shattered, despite him hitting it head on. The worst it did to Shock was daze him, he flapped his wings to rocket towards me again. Instant wall wasn’t going to work, I held my staff at the ready as the pegasus started to charge his body with lighting for direct strikes.

“We’re not that easy to take down with cheap parlor…agh!” A knife suddenly found itself wedged in the joint of his right wing sending him spiraling away from me and discharging that lightning harmlessly into the air, I looked up at the nearby roofs and saw a smiling Blade as she ducked back into the shadows.

I had asked her to not bother me while I was spending quality time with both Fizzle and Maries. I promised her some quality time afterwards and I was going to make good on it during the boat ride.

I started to run in the direction of the river. The local people had taken cover due to the danger and I was clear to get out of the area with Blade covering me. I was nowhere near as quick as Maries or Fizzle, but I’m not out of shape thanks to Sekhet.

“Darn it, none of you are getting away that easily without at least some injury!” I looked back and saw him on his hooves and ripping the knife from his wing as he came charging towards me again.

He was still able to somewhat fly on that injury and Blade leapt out to catch the bloodied knife and swooped in behind him trying chase him down before could catch up to me.

Just when he was about hit me, I turned and blasted him in the face with a solid mass of water that slowed him down long enough for a whip to strike out his other wing grounding him.

“Buck!” The pegasus shouted as he sent two wild small orbs of lightning at the two the swept around him and caught up to me.

“Grab a shoulder, help me airlift her out of here!” Arriving with a satchel full of things, Daring looked panicked. She and Blade both grabbed me and lifted me into the air. I wasn’t exactly happy with this, but the alternatives would have been worse. “Saw a GODLESS agent, a unicorn mare calling herself a knight of the Perun Paladins. Frankly they know we’re here and there are several of them in the city all advancing on us and the boat. Don’t honestly know why a bunch of god worshiping gaudily armored ponies are helping GODLESS, but we need to get out of here!”

As she said that there was explosion in the streets below us, I looked down and saw Fizzle’s firing a beam of magic against another unicorn in armor with curly dark purple hair sticking out of the back of her helmet.

Fizzle won the beam battle and scorched the unicorns horn making her flop limply on the ground and Maries was busy slamming a fully feminine armored earth pony into a wall with Maria’s horns making them drop a glowing mace that Marie grabbed with her mouth.

“Fizzle, Maries, keep moving! Don’t fight, just go!” We flew past them and they heard me shouting, they nodded to each other and followed after us.

“All that we do not find right with the world, we will destroy.” The unicorn knight shouted from the ground while weakly lifting her hoof. “That includes that ugly beast you love!”

-River of Denial, Fluttershy-

“Oh dear, what do you think is happening Sekhet?” Sekhet introduced me to an old friend of hers, but I mentioned that I saw her in Canterlot at the friendship festival… only she looked more like a cow at the time and not a fairly large hippo cow hybrid.

“Trouble, get this thing moving!” Kuril said as soon as she was dropped onto the boat, while Fizzle and Maries leapt onboard.

Taweret moved to quickly start the boat and we were on our way down the river.

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredient!)

Perun's Paladin Ponies: Immune to lightning (God related), equipped with holy weapons (half god related), gaudy armor with decent strength (Not god related, but technically the usual uniform of the Perun Paladins are like this), resilience to sickness, poison or dark magic (Blessing's given upon reaching higher statures under Perun's order).

They all have a vicious streak against most things they consider unnatural by an ever changing definition. While they can be heroic, they are chaotic neutral at the best of times and chaotic evil at the worst. They are all also of noble blood in some given way, even if noble blood is use in a extremely loose definition.

They will absolutely destroy any seen evil, but anything considered unnatural will also be expunged by the order of knights known as the Perun Paladins even if said thing is proven to be entirely good, friendly, beneficial or even completely heroic as a fact.

Unusual animals have a tendency to stay away from them and nature gods will actively protect any beings of nature that would be targeted by the Perun Paladins.

No guesses as to who is behind the Perun Paladins.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Convoke.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Convoke.

-Queen of Denial, Kuril-

The Queen of Denial was the boat we were on and it was moving slowly down the river, chugging ever forward towards our destination.

I ran my claws over the back of Blade’s ears as she splayed herself out over my lap and she was like a limp pile of mush doing it, I promised her quality time and I’m keeping it even when I knew there danger was near.

Our boat was said to be safe as long as we were on it thanks to the Goddess of Pure Water, Taweret the hippo queen. I had learned she had stopped Fizzle from imbibing a dangerous amount of alcohol.

I profusely thanked the goddess for making sure my daughter didn’t garner a problem and she just told me I was welcome, she even told me I was a pleasant person and a good mother for worrying about it so much.

Taw would happily party with me any day, within reason of course.

“Would you mind if I braided your mane and tail?” If I was going to be sitting there with Blade in my lap and her hair was completely open for me to do anything with, I might as well take the opportunity to play with it while I could.

Blade looked at me with a relaxed and dazed expression. She didn’t mind in the slightest, so I broke out a comb and a brush to start relaxing her even further. I eventually got around to braiding the entirety of her mane and she closed her eyes with a smile on her face as she fell asleep on me as I was braiding her tail.

“So is Perun an evil…” Daring started off as she was watching me playfully rub a sleepy Blade’s belly, we were about an hour or two away from our stopping point where we’d have to hoof it to the west a bit.

“No.” Both Taweret and Sekhet stated at the same time surprising me. Perun sounded pretty insane or evil for a holy god.

“He’s not outright evil, he’s more of a large grey area and is definitely a large jerk as far as the nicer holy gods are concerned. You can readily tell, he’s not one of the nicer gods when it comes to his version of order and harmony.” Muttered a lazy looking Sekhet as she lay out in the sun on the deck with an expression of peace on her face. “Most of the dark gods are even friendlier than him and more so than they sound, that is despite hearing their job descriptions.

“Like poor dear sweet Anubis, the god king of the jackals and usually flat neutral death god.” The large hippo frowned and shook her head. “Never knew why he went insane, but Baast mostly had the right idea and he’s been much nicer since the war of the flail tails and jackals a few hundred thousand years back.”

“Speaking of my sister… are we heading to where she currently resides and still works?” Sekhet seemed fairly interested in hearing that information.

“Yes, she should be at the location you’re going to… probably hasn’t seen the sun in thousands of years. She’s such a darling, you could have probably lent her some help Sekhet.” That sounded like an accusation from Taweret and Sekhet just gave her a blank look.

“No, don’t see a reason to when she ended up like I did. Unfortunately my area was visited by ponies unlike hers, so she’s probably still in the jungle that sprouted out from the sands of time.” From the way Sekhet tells it, it wasn’t always a jungle environment before this. “Besides, we’re going there now. So I might as well see what my mortals can do or get up to too help her out now, while we’re in the area and everything.”

“Gee, don’t we feel used.” Growled Fizzle who was being cuddled by Maries, she looked fairly comfortable between Maria and Mara’s heads.

“Oh I’m sure she doesn’t mean to use us, I just think she’s being quite shy in how much she likes us.” Fluttershy, ever the optimist, was looking around cautiously. She was a bit afraid of us coming under attack at the moment despite Taw’s assurance that we’d be fine while on the river. “It’s so nice that you believe in us Sekhet.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s see what kind of state my sister is in before we decide to do anything.” Sekhet flicked a paw in Fluttershy’s direction as she rolled onto her back and spread out her wings. “I’m sure she’s been perfectly fine these last few hundred thousand years. She’s always been a bit wild and I’m fairly sure that hasn’t changed at all. However… if she’s wearing a nun’s habit and talking about our lord and savior ‘intercourse’, then I’m definitely walking away from that.”

“Wild enough to date Discord you mean, I remember a time when he was still going by Chaos.” As Taweret said that, I pulled dozing Blade against my chest and nibbled at her left ear. Blade’s face started going red and I smiled. “Bastet was always more geared towards life than most goddesses, being a goddess of felines, fertility and family will do that. I remembered when she used to sit by the river waiting for the sun to rise, she was always happy to see the sun in the morning. She eventually became known for music and dancing too, heard a mortal really got to her on that front and annoyed her to no end about it.”

“Yeah, my sister has a love of mortals a mile long, it would certainly take a lot to annoy her or at least one being geared towards specifically annoying her. Given She was in love with the most annoying being in the world and she was the one that got under ‘his’ skin, it would certainly take someone special to make my patient sister completely mad.” Getting up and stretching out, Sekhet looked at vast sea of dunes from beyond the boat. “Don’t honestly know what my sister saw in Discord, aside from him helping her with advice on how to start the rebellion against Anubis when he went nuts and everything.”

“Discord is not actually that bad, he’s… quirky.” Those listening rolled our eyes at Fluttershy. “Also I’ve met Baast, she seemed really nice even if she didn’t seem to like me very much. Discord took me on a field trip throughout time, I even got to see giant butterflies and moths!”

“It’s because you probably represented competition to Baast, were a mortal and she pretty much learned that she wasn’t in Discord’s life after a certain point knowing that Discord has a tendency to play with time as much as he does space. He brought you back into the past and she found out about it, so of course she would be upset.” Here Sekhet looked a little angry. “I should probably a plow a field with Discord’s face for hurting my sister’s feelings. She probably wasn’t very happy about you or the fact that Discord likes you a lot.”

“Um…” Fluttershy held up a hoof and looked like she was about to deny it. “We’re just good friends, but I will admit to knowing he likes me a lot.”

“Yes, but my sister has spent the last few hundred thousand years stuck in one location knowing that Discord would eventually befriend a mortal he’s become really quite sweet on. If said mortal was responsible for helping her become free of her obligations… she might become a bit resentful.” Lowering herself to stare Fluttershy in the eyes, Sekhet continued. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s quite upset to see you again, she won’t do anything aside from try to scratch to you lightly. My sister isn’t a really aggressive goddess unless absolutely pushed, when she’s pushed she can and will take down a war gods of even my mighty stature. She’s taken on five war gods and goddesses all at once before, and won. To give you a small reminder, my sister is not primarily a goddess of war.”

“To be fair, I didn’t know Baast was a goddess when we first met. She looked like all the other anugyptian felines that helped us get away from Anubis and his jackals.” Fluttershy poked her hooves together looking a little down. “Do you think we could be friends?”

“Feasible, but don’t count on it happening without an extreme amount of effort on your part.” It looked like she was ready to give that effort Sekhet.

“Change of topic, who wants to drink some magically enhanced water from the River of Denial?” For a hippo goddess, Taw was bizarrely perky, energetic and quite quick for her size.

“What does it do?” I asked trying not to jostle Blade as she curled up on my lap and snoozing happily.

“Well it’ll make you at admit something that you’re heavily in denial about, people tend to make a drinking game of it when I give some out.” So Taweret was feeling generous today. “It’ll make you feel better afterwards after your done talking about what you’re in denial about.”

Okay, I’ll bite.

“I’ll take some.” As soon as I said that Fizzle, Maries, Sekhet, Daring and Taweret had their attention on me. Taw passed me a small clay cup filled with fresh water, I looked at it for a second shrugged and drank it.

“Huh… I guess I am still in denial about never telling anyone about Jade’s father being for the best. He was a unicorn stallion named ‘Long Odds’ that had a terminal illness and he was happy that he’d leave at least one last mark on the world when he got me pregnant with a spell he made that worked across species, it was only meant for the rare occasions that ponies were not compatible with the person they fell in love with and ponies are already compatible with a lot of races. Abyssinians are unfortunately not one of those races that should be compatible… so my Jaded is actually half pony. He wasn’t a rich stallion, but he was a wonderful and sweet pony. The last thing he said to me was that he wished me the best with… raising our child… I had to watch the light leave his eyes.” Okay, I’m sad now and I held Blade tenderly against myself. I was choking up quite a bit and trying to hold my tears in. “I feel like I’m throwing our love in his face by falling in love with Blade here. Though I finally feel like I can finally confront my Jaded with this if I ever see her again. That was rough for me, excuse me if I’m quiet for the next hour or so...”

“Yikes… I want to try some of that.” We all turned to Fizzle, she took a cup and drank it down hastily. “Huh… I’m still denying a few things that I have a few issues with in how my life has gone, like my actions leading to the death of the Storm King and how satisfying it felt to learn he shattered on the ground. I’m denying the fact that I actually enjoyed him being brought down, that I hate myself for it and I have some nasty survivor’s guilt. I’m also still highly terrified of bears of any kind and still have many hang ups from my time as Commander Tempest despite my best efforts.”

“There, there…” I heard Fluttershy moving over to Fizzle, she then eventually announced. “I’ll drink some of it next.”

After hearing a gulping sound, Fluttershy gasped.

“Oh… oh my… I’m in denial about my feelings for Rarity, Discord and jealousy that Rainbow Dash was friends with Gilda... I’m only slightly in denial about my fetish for griffons and the fact that it’s a fairly open secret that everyone knows about. I might actually be bisexual even if my leanings are primarily towards mares.” Fluttershy blushed vibrantly. “Also I’m constantly in denial about how strong I am and how far I’ve come since I first met Twilight and all of my other friends. I love to sing out loud in front of a crowd, but mostly animals as I don’t think I like attention from ponies all that much. I just cannot revel attention like Rainbow does…. It does feel nice to get all of that out of the way, thank you Taweret!”

“You’re welcome.” Stated Taw pleasantly.

“I’ll try some… bet it’s going to be a Pinkie Pie doozy.” Looking to Daring as she took up a cup of water from Taw, I watched as she drank it down. “Is there a thing called instant regret? That’s what the water tasted like. I’m in denial about who I am because people might get hurt if I didn’t have a disguise, that my disguise as AK Yearling probably no longer actually works at all and I have problems believing that I’ve done any amount of good in the world despite all the dangerous artifacts I’ve stopped from being used for nefarious purposes. At best, I at least made things even for all the destructive tendencies and trouble I’ve caused others throughout the years. I sometimes try to deny how smart I am, because I don’t think using my intelligence will be as cool as winging things is.”

“You’re still books inspire thousands of little fillies and colts Daring, though they might not be entirely as accurate as you tend to portray yourself.” Fluttershy started to comfort her now.

“We’ll try it.” All three of Maries heads looked between each other, Taweret produced three cups and they all tried it.

“I’m in denial that I actually like being able to be a separate entity from my sisters whenever I want to be now.” Maria looked visibly upset to admit that. “Also I’m fairly terrified of chupacrabras and that’s the main reason why I’m still with Mara and Marie… aside from them being my sisters that I love dearly.”

“I’m in denial that I’m horribly codependent, despite being a well read and intelligent individual part of this body.” Marie was frowning. “I absolutely hate the idea of being able to split up like we can and have a hard time admitting that becoming cold blooded when we do feels horrifyingly bad on a multitude of levels.”

“I’m in denial that I’m upset that both my sisters are far more talented than me and all I bring to the body is size, strength, intimidation and an acumen for athletics.” Both of Mara’s sisters stared at her. “I’m upset that combat seems to be my only purpose in life, but I would defend my sisters and those we love to the death. While I like being a lawyer, my sisters tend to do most of the work and I’m just there to pick up on the things they miss.”

“Mara, you need a hobby.” Fizzle stated as she kissed the tiger on the cheek.

“I’ll try some.” Sekhet stated serenely.

-Three hours later, deep jungle-

“Give up?” When I thought we’d make it to our destination without being waylaid, we were surrounded by pony golems, Perun's Paladins, their apparent leader Dispel Grace and the duo that assaulted us in Cow-ro. Addressing us through a golem was mechanical mastermind, Teatime Clockwork. “There's nothing you can do, we have you surrounded!”

A rip suddenly opened in the air showing stars… also an alpaca.

Author's Note

Well things are about to go down, because storm is about to hit and I'm getting this page in before the power gets knocked out... possibly for a few days.

Hopefully that doesn't happen.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Almost Altogether.

Author's Note

If Tubing fails then the music is this -> Cool Edge (Day) - Sonic Unleashed

I think it is a nice tune.

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Almost Altogether.

-Spatial distortion, Arizona-

We got stuck in Fœnum for a while, but now we were almost home.

Today was just going to be one of ‘those’ days wasn’t it? On the other side of the distortion that Paprika was looking through, while waggling her tail in an adorable manner, I could see Fizzle, Blade, Kuril and a few others.

They were surrounded by golems and armored ponies. Dispel, Jock and Shock were there, plus I could vaguely hear Teatime’s voice.

“We need a…” I heard a sickening throat clearing noise.

“Say, are the ones surrounding them the bad guys?” I heard a slightly muffled voice ask from off to the side. “That’s usually the gist of this cliché.”

“Meep.” Paprika answered.

What happened next was a ball of green goo being ejected noisily from a throat through the spatial rip and it melted through a golem pony’s head in seconds.

“Good enough for me, let’s do this thing!" A large speeding form shot by and leapt through the rip before anyone could say anything. "MOOYEAH!”

“Plan.” I finished lamely. “Let’s get after her, Velvet you’re on defense!”

“For once you were going to do the sensible thing and someone still takes things into their own hooves!” Velvet said with a flat tone as she thrust her hooves into her face. “We have a large problem doing anything without it involving fighting don’t we? That's fine, let’s go do a thing!”

-Jungle clearing-

“What… the…” Teatime slowly said as his golem ponies look towards the golem pony with the melted head and then a large cow destroyed several golems by barging into the place out of thin air. At least a rip in space would be considered thin right?

One of Perun’s Paladins tried to hit her with a mace, the cow just grabbed the handle twisted the weapon out of the pony’s grip and then smashed their helmet off with their own weapon. The pony was knocked unconscious with a single blow.

“Thanks for the weapon, can’t say that you were good at using it personally!” The large cow called out as she hip checked a leaping pony out of the air making them drop their glowing axe. “Woah, watch me jump back and kiss myself!”

The cow proceeded to kiss her flexed bicep and then grin cheekily at the confused audience.

“Hear that Buck Wildly, now that’s how you make an entrance!” She stated before she deflected an extended blade from one of the golems with her bare hoof and then caved its head in with her own thick skull coming down on top of it. “I’m an acidic cud spewing, bounty hunting and butt whooping badass named Minnesota Magnolia Arid! You can just call me Maggie, it’s nice to be home. So… anyone have any explosives? I’ve been kind of dry since I went into some salt mines.”

“What are you waiting for? Attack!” At Dispel’s command the various ponies with glowing weapons fired blasts of energy straight toward the surrounded group, a circular wall of ice rose up and caught the various amounts of holy energy. Said wall then reflected the energy back into the various armored ponies and golems knocking them away.

“Excuse me, but I don’t think this is a fair fight… you’ll need to triple your forces if you actually want to make this a fair fight.” Velvet landed among the group that had been under pressure. Tinsel hovered next to her head waving two paper fans around making cheerful noises.

“Well you better… ugh!” Before Shocking Awe could get too far Arizona smashed her hoof into his face at high speeds and they both went tumbling into the overgrowth.

“Don’t give my mother any explosi… agh!” Shouted Arizona before she was cut off by being hit.

“Velvet, Arizona, where have you guys been?!” It was a little shocking for Fizzle and their group to suddenly get help out of a rip in the air, she watched as several more figures poured through.

“Holy magic being used for ill purposes? If holy powers can be used for bad things, then my dark magic is about to be used for very good reasons!” Hearing Oleander say that, the Perun Paladins started to focus entirely on her. “Fred… its show time, Fel Spark!”

One of the Perun Paladins was blasted through one of the nearby trees.

“A purveyor of darkness, get her!” Dispel Grace was the first to charge Oleander and he swung a crescent blast of holy energy at her from his overcompensating sword.

“That’s a paltry efforts at best, SHOW THEM WHAT WE GOT OLLIE!” The dark magic unicorn opened Fred up and he let loose a crescent wave of dark energy that dropped several splotches of shadow on the ground in its wake, the beam of holy energy was easily canceled out. “I can handle a few of these holy hoofed haters, but someone’s going to have to have my back.”

Dispel ran over one of the splotches and was sent flying when the shadows erupted with a large blast of dark magic knocking him away and into the air.

“Already way ahead of you Ollie!” Maggie shouted as she smashed two weakly flailing Perun Paladin’s helmets together and dropped their limp forms on the ground.

“Wait, don’t focus on the…” Teatime tried, but the main pony golem he was talking through jumped back and actually blocked Tianhuo’s hoof and knocked the flaming longma back with a blow to the jaw. “Darn it, I’m retreating my prototype leader unit back to the base camp. You try to deal with them, I’m sending in all the beast and wyvern units, plus an excavating crab tank!”

The prototype golem started running and leapt to the side, moving almost like an actual pony as it avoided Tianhuo destroying several golem ponies behind it, several clockwork beasts lunged out of the brush and forced Tianhuo into the jungle.

“Tianhuo!” Pom shouted as she was the last one to erupt from the rip with her Canis group, it swiftly closed behind her. She dodged a stabbing spear from behind, stood up on her hind legs as she spun around and slammed her left hoof into a Perun Paladin that sent them flying into the jungle and knocked their helmet clean off their head. Pom started shaking the bell on her neck and yelled. “Sick them lads!”

Her four puppies started tearing through the surrounding golems that were actually moving at speeds comparable to average ponies. Big Mama barked, as she stood protectively over the lambkin and took several cannonball shots for her with little injury to show for it.

“Meep!” Paprika said as she grappled onto a distracted Jock from behind and squeezed him with a bone breaking force, then kicked off of him with excessive force that sent the parrot rolling and bouncing away.

“What?” While Kuril asked this in confusion she held back a golem pony’s blade with her staff, the alpaca smiled in her direction.

Paprika slung a wad of fur to pull the golem off of Kuril and proceeded to whip it into a nearby tree.

Blade threw a knife into the skull of a charging golem pony causing it to explode, she was at Kuril’s side in instant and her eyes were searching for any more aggressive movements towards the Abyssinian with rapidly flicking ears. She tossed a knife to assist the cow and the unicorn with the talkative book.

“Thanks for the assistance, I can tell we’re going to be good friends!” Oleander called out to Blade.

“As our wife just said. Where do you need to go? She’ll clear a path for you and we’ll catch up with you later.” Velvet shouted as she spun around and generated a blade of ice along her leg to deflect a pony with a glowing sword, pushed them off and then lashed out at them. The armored pony leapt back. “Tinsel, please be a dear and watch mommy’s back, these guys of Dispel are far smarter than the pony golems.”

“Which way do we need to go? Well that way!” As Kuril pointed in the direction towards the temple and the same direction the most agile golem pony retreated. “Girls, get ready to move. Wait a minute… you’re married? Well I can’t complain given that Jacky gave me a grandchild already.”

“We’re quite busy mom, we do have a noncombatant in the field!” Fizzle blasted a number of golems away from Fluttershy with a chain of colorful explosions, said shy pony was quivering behind her. “Fluttershy, stay next to me and be ready to use the medical kits, because injuries are likely unavoidable now!”

“Alright.” A whimpering Fluttershy covered her head as golem parts flew in various directions throughout the small clearing.

“We’ll move when the openings made.” Maries was whipping Marie around to smash the armored ponies away. Spewing flames came from Maria to slightly burn the Perun Paladins in their armor. Mara was just slapping armored ponies into trees, bouncing them off boulders, slamming them into the ground and was knocking them every which way imaginable while focusing on avoiding the blasts of scorching light firing every which way.

Lashing her whip around several times in quick succession, Daring was easily dealing with the pony golems. She stayed away from most of the Perun Paladins and only targeted the small number of pegasus and thestral paladins that were attacking them in the air.

“Hurry up Paprika, my mother needs you to move your cute butt!” Screamed Velvet as she continued to redirect the blasts of holy energy, mostly away from Maries and Oleander with several floating snowflakes. The blasts instead went to targets the attacks weren’t intended for.

Paprika put her hooves together and launched a large wad of fluff forward, then it split into two as it swept outwards in both directions. Maggie leapt over the sweeping fur and Ollie teleported around the attack and no one else that was important was in the way. Having cleared an open path, the alpaca turned to Kuril and waved.

“Meep!” The alpaca said cheerfully as she hopped in place.

Kuril nodded and started to move forward and out of the sudden chaotic mess that was caused by Arizona and Velvet appearing out of nowhere with a number of interesting fighters. Kuril was followed closely by Paprika, Daring, Blade, Fluttershy and Fizzle. Behind them all was Maries bringing up the rear with Mara ripping the head off of a golem as she moved into position.

“So you’re married to Velvet?” It wasn’t exactly the time for it, but Kuril still had to ask about the friendly looking alpaca.

“Meep.” Nodded Paprika, who suddenly gained a surprised look and pushed Kuril to the side.

A pair of mechanical claws crashed through the area the Abyssinian used to occupy. Paprika rolled and fired a wad of fur, she then pulled herself up onto the mechanical wyvern as it flew off.

Something slammed into the ground with a mechanical whirring filling the air, Kuril turned towards the sound and her ears drooped.

“Is that a giant four legged mechanical crab?” After asking that, Kuril twirled her staff and flipped a beast golem onto its back. It was swiftly levitated and then bashed into another beast golem with excessive force.

Kuril jumped back as the giant crab machine brought its left claw down at her and grabbed a large scoop of the dirt, rocks, soil and plants. It quickly flicked its claw outwards while opening it widely, it flung out the debris it had just scooped up in a thick mass that slammed into Kuril and sent her rolling across the ground while yowling in pain.

Fluttershy quickly made her way over to the Kuril to check on her. Fizzle sent burst after burst of magic into the armored machine’s body, doing some damage with each blast despite its thick armor. Maries was busy keeping the beast golems off of them with Daring and Blade.

“Darn it, we’re not going to be able to move forward at this rate!” Fizzle grunted as she lobbed another large amount of explosive magical force from her horn at the crab machine that blocked it entirely with its two large scoop shaped claws. “We need to disable this thing!”

A cloud of mist appeared above them and out of it shot a boat that landed directly on top of the machine, said crab machine paused in its forward advance seemingly in confusion at the sudden extra weight on its legs.

Four figures hopped out of Viking gondola that started to slide off the crabs back, a shield, an axe, a brightly glowing fan and a bright flaming sword slashed through the metal crab’s legs close to its main body. Said body dropped to the ground with a huge crash.

The machine just lost its ability to walk since all four of its legs just fell away from it, but it could still move around a little using its claws.

“Is that Fizzle I am seeing?” Fortitude turned and blocked the crab claw full of detritus flung at him. “It seems we are once again dealing with Clockwork, yak proudly smash!”

“Got it, Sweetcakes stop that incoming wyvern!” Flamberge yelled as he flickered and deflected the left crab claw upwards in an instant, he put fairly large rent in its left arm.

The nine tailed fox flicked her fan holding tail and it sent a concentrated tornado of power ripping through the air at the wyvern that damaged on of its tiltrotor wings. The fox then proceeded to wave the fan in front of her face with a coy grin as the wyvern dropped into the trees a bit away from them damaging itself further. She didn’t need to exert any more energy on it.

Skelly, looking like a normal pony at the moment, rolled her eyes then held up the Sieve Precarious and opened a portal beneath the crab and sealed it shut immediately once the malignant machine fell through it, leaving its legs behind. She smirked at Flamberge.

“You do realize how dangerous that thing is to use right?!” Having been a part of what happened with it previously, Flamberge had a right to be upset. Skelly made several gestures at him. “Well if you’re sure Skelly… what do you need of the Vibrant Viking at the moment Fizzle?! These are Skelly and Sweetcakes!”

“Could you start by taking care of those beast golems coming our way?” Sweeping a hoof to show that at least ten beast golems were barreling down on them from various directions, Fizzle looked to see Fluttershy helping Kuril drink a healing potion. “We need a few moment to get mom up and moving.”

“We’ve got you covered, right brother?” Flamberge spun and slashed the head off a beast golem’s head.

“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” Fortitude shield bashed an oncoming golem and it crumpled upon impact with the shield.

Skelly spun around and brought her axe through a beast golem’s midsection, cleanly bisecting it in two and rendering it inoperable.

A few seconds later, Kuril was helped up onto her feet and the group continued moving forward with Sweetcakes joining them.

A slightly singed Paprika fell from the sky and started swing through the canopy of trees above them.

They all eventually came to a large clearing and stopped.

“Yeah... I think they’re ready for us.” Fizzle looked at the base built between them and the pyramid on the other side of it.

Chapter Sixty Four, Bad Bastion Battle: Burg.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty Four, Bad Bastion Battle: Fort.

-Behind the instant walls, Maries-

“Okay, slam them together to go boom, got it!” There were a few concerns to be had about Maggie, but we would bring them up at a later time. “Now I just have to wait for an opening in the cannon fire to get out there and cause some havoc. I’m tough, but I’m not invincible and don’t think I can take more than one or two direct cannon shots. If anything grazes me, I’ll be fine as long as it’s not one of my legs.”

Kuril certainly seemed reluctant to give her the potions, the cow still took them and shoved them into her empty and suspiciously badly burnt or soot covered satchel.

“Incoming dodo!” Marie reported from behind us, everyone turned to see Jock slam into the ground and did what we suppose he thought a dramatic pose was supposed to look like. “Do you think we could take him?”

The parrot was a resilient guy, especially after that Paprika crunched a lot of his bones with that literal bone breaking hug that should have left the guy in a body cast.

Marie bit him several times and her poison didn’t seem to have much of an effect aside from slowing him down slightly.

Mara clawed him quite a few time and his claws marks had long faded into his down and feathers.

That’s not even as surprising as knowing that Maria’s burn wounds eventually healed too.

Jock’s feather looked patchy, but they were growing back just about as fast as he healed.

“There’s no stopping the rock, not while it’s rolling down the hill!” Jock was going to be a lot of trouble, he flexed with a big grin on his beak.

“Well someone has to!” Growled Mara as she turned us towards him.

“I’m going in to deal with the crabs, you guys stay here and deal with the simpler stuff!” A cheerful Maggie called out as she ducked around the wall as the cannon fire let up.

She thought Jock was simple, did she not know how much damage we did to him previously only for him to get up from that and keep going?

We charged straight for him.

-Behind the middle instant wall, Kuril-

Blade tugged at my robe and gestured at one of her knives.

“Can someone grab a sword or something equally long or sharp? Blade is running out of knives!” It wasn’t that she wasn’t retrieving them at every opportunity, it was that they were blunting and dulling badly from overuse on targets that were mostly armored. She was throwing them hard and I was fairly impressed that she punctured as much armor as she did with them.

Still, Blade was doing a good amount of damage to the golem pony population with some well-aimed throws. These golems might have been cheaply made, they were obviously made in bulk, but were still fairly competent when it came to fighting. They’d certainly beat the Celestia's guard for effectiveness.

The Perun Paladins weren’t exactly in great numbers and the ones in the base were staying there in formation while the machines ran forward. I’d say at maximum there were at least a hundred in total and we’ve knocked that number down to forty or so in the jungle, I only saw about twenty one of them on the ground and the others were manning the cannons on the bases buildings.

Now if only Arizona, Velvet and most of their friends hadn’t gotten separated or lost all over the jungle as soon as they arrived from wherever that rip in space led to.

I tossed down a few more instant wall potions and they fused into the instant walls that were already placed down, it made one solid wall in front of us that I could easily look over. I’m the one of us that had to crouch given it was a short, but sturdy wall.

I looked over the wall to see Maggie about to engage one of the large mechanical crabs.

-Middle of the open field of battle, Maggie-

It was good to be back in Equestria and I wondered what the bounty on these guys would be worth, it must be something else if they are this dangerous. I wondered how Calloway and Grace are doing, I wondered what they’d say if they saw me again.

Calloway would probably say, 'of course I ended up in another world and had to have my daughter come rescue me'. That or something along the lines of knowing that I’d get myself in over my head without her keeping me grounded. She wouldn’t be wrong in any case.

Grace would just ask me how my interdimensional trip was and if I got her a souvenir. I would say yes, because a reindeer named Cashmere had some hats that would look good on Grace.

I know both of them probably miss me something fierce from what Arizona says, Calloway should probably be the grumpy sourpuss she always is and Grace was always going to be a lovable peacemaker.

Frankly, I think Calloway should be thanking me for learning all the survival skills she did when it came to surviving my cockamamie plans, we 'were' a decent bounty hunting team.

“Wide load, coming through!” I slid my several hundred pounds worth of body under a mass of turf the leading crab machine chunked at me. This reminds me of that time Minos, Blood Freezer the accountant was a nasty piece of work and he knew how to throw a boulder. “Come on, you can do better than that you Rusty Crab!”

The large mechanical crab raised its claws and tried to bring them down on me, I was already rolling underneath it and pulled out two vials from my satchel. As I laid there on my back, I quickly made sure one vial had bar on it and the other had a plus symbol, so they were the right ones and I held them above my head in both hooves.

“Hahaha… I love doing things like this!” I brought the two vials together with an excessive amount force underneath the belly of the crab machine.

-Behind the defensive wall, Kuril-

A massive explosion ripped upwards and outwards toppling two of the crabs and completely destroying the one that had been at the center of that explosion.

“How in the world did she do that?!” I stated in disbelief.

“What, you told her how to set off the safe explosion potions.” In the middle of being upright and snapping a beast golem’s neck, Fizzle suddenly yelped when a spray of blood erupted from her left shoulder. She let out a scream and clenched her teeth. “Something hit me!”

I stared at the jagged piece of metal sticking out of Fizzle, it was probably from the crab that was just exploded.

“Fluttershy, pliers and disinfectant!” While I knew shouting at Fluttershy was never a good thing to do, it was warranted. Parts of the exploded crab machine were raining everywhere and the area of damage was phenomenal.

Having not done much, aside from cower in the middle of our group protectively, Fluttershy was immediately at Fizzle’s side with the medical kit.

“How did she get that much explosive yield out my potions?” Being hoofed the pliers, I immediately worked on extracting the bit of metal from Fizzle’s shoulder. My daughter was already scarred enough as it was, she didn’t need any more! “An explosion of that size shouldn’t have been possible, that was three times above what my two part safe explosion potions should even be capable of!”

“Don’t know what to tell you mom, but she did guarantee increased efficiency!” My poor baby yelped when I yanked the jagged bit of metal out of her and Fluttershy swiftly poured disinfectant into the wound that made her hiss and groan in pain. I then gave her one of my healing potions. “Sorry, about using up your healing potions like this mom. They taste pretty good though.”

“They’re meant to be used Fizzle, but yes, there is probably not enough for everyone at this rate.” I stated calmly. Fizzle wasn’t the only one that was injured, she was just the most notable one and she was actively getting into the thick of things. The other injuries were bad bruising and cuts so far, the pony golems had actually managed to nick Blade and the wind blowing Sweetcakes once or twice when they missed one approaching them. “Also, you wouldn’t want a head injury before going into a fight.”

“Oh dear.” Fluttershy sounded upset about something, I looked around for what that could be.

I saw Maries getting slammed into the ground by Jock, I should really throw another transformation potion his way.

Daring and Paprika were fending off and attracting the mechanical wyverns as several others dove into various points in the jungle beyond our current position.

We didn’t know the state of the rest of Fortitude’s or Arizona’s groups, but they were fairly good fighters the last I saw of them.

We ducked down as another barrage of cannonballs struck the potion constructed wall, said wall was beginning to crack badly and there were a few places where it was crumbling under the fusillade. We were all trying to stay down due to this.

“Out there!” Fluttershy pointed more insistently as she poked her head up over the wall after the cannon fire died down.

I was in the middle of swinging my staff around and smashing it through the chest of a pony golem that sent it flopping away. I quickly made sure it wasn’t going to get up again by smashing its head with an overhead swing.

Once I wasn’t otherwise busy, I looked over the wall. I blinked at what I saw. Maggie was perfectly fine, the safe part of the explosion obviously worked and she was running around closer to the mechanical crabs, mostly since the cannons wouldn’t aim at them directly.

Of the six remaining crab machines, two were moderately damaged. It was what the crab machines were doing that had attracted Fluttershy’s attention and mine soon afterwards.

One of the machines planted its claws in the ground and raised its body and four legs up into the air, it then slotted into the crab that moved behind it and did the same thing to the crab behind it. Soon there was a large funky looking centipede that walked on the digging crab claws and their legs were now flush with each crab’s body that made up a segment of the monstrosity that just formed.

To make things worse it started glowing blue just before a second point blank explosion happened underneath it, we found out the glowing was a powerful magical barrier.

“That thing has a powerful magical shield!” Whined Fizzle as her flesh and fur knit itself back together. “How are we supposed to deal with something like that?!”

Feeling a tug on my robe, I turned to look at Blade who was covered in bleeding cuts and wounds throughout her torso and she was asking for a healing potion with her eyes.

The nine tailed fox was thankfully holding our line behind the wall.

Daring was getting roughed up in the air.

Paprika seemed perfectly fine when she dropped to the ground and bounded over to us on three legs to lift her hoof and show us she had a metal splinter in it.

Maries fight with Jock wasn’t going very well.

“Fluttershy, deal with the splinter, I’ll take care of Blade’s wounds.” I am beginning to wish that we had brought Doctor Bones.

-Out in the field, Maggie-

“Well now, this is clearly going to be a problem…” The centipede monstrosity made of crab machines reared up and clacked two large crab claws at me. Its shields took that ‘safe’ explosion fairly well. “Bigger things than you have tried to take me down, I am going to show you that my weight and girth is definitely not to my detriment here!”

If a world snake couldn’t devour all of this, then a mechanical centipede made of crabs with some absurd magical shielding wasn’t going to scare me!

I might be a bit mangled afterwards though.

-Lost in the jungle, Arizona-

Okay, use your head, you have muscles upstairs as much as you do in your body, Shocking was putting out a lot of power and I was meeting him blow for blow. My body was a cavalcade of bruises and my bloody nose was telling me that Shocking had definitely stepped up his game since the years we’ve been gone.

I wasn’t the only one that was black and blue though.

“This has probably been one of the best fights I’ve ever had… I just need to ask, why aren't your muscles locking up? You haven’t tried to defend against my lightning attacks with those rubber ropes at all!” He growled at me. “You’re holding back!”

“Of course I am, you’re not worth my full effort.” That sent him into a blind frothing rage and he came at me with his hooves blistering and crackling with lightning. “That and I learned a method to deal with muscle paralysis from a good friend in a different place entirely.”

Let’s just say that Fœnum Tianhuo knew how to stay limber even when she got hit with paralyzing attacks and she taught me some tricks.

Glad I decided to not watch the Paprika duel of the century, it had been pretty awesome at first and then it just degraded to being horribly boring when they found themselves too evenly match in physical resilience. Still didn’t understand how they did the raining frog’s thing though.

-A small distance away, Oleander-

“Come on Pom, keep up the pace now!” I swung Fred around and deflect the holy energy up into the air, then smashed the pony in the face with a quick right hoof knocking them down.

“I’m trying! Why can’t we all just get along?” Pom whined as she ducked under a swing and then launched her favored double hoofed uppercut attack, then leapt up and proceeded to spike the armored pony into a golem destroying it. “I’m also worried about Tianhuo.”

“She’ll be fine, she’s a warrior. I’m sure she’s just as embattled as we are.” Calmly blocking a weapon with Fred’s spine, I swept him around me in a circle knocking back several aggressors.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better!” Pom shouted as her puppies battered several of the paladins away from her, Big Mama was making sure nobody came at her from behind and was blocking numerous pony golem cannon ball shots with relative ease.

“Honestly, I don’t think it was supposed to.” Fred stated as a grin formed on his visage.

“Can I just say that you guys are definitely not ready for Freddy?” Between attacks I had been building up power to release Fred for a bit and I grinned. “Come on out and show them our power Fred!”

“GLADLY OLLIE!” A mass of dark tentacles erupted throughout the area. Only to be forced back by a powerful light being emitted from that Dispel Grace guy, they balanced out and Fred unfortunately couldn’t use some of his more powerful abilities.

“Know your vile darkness will not win this day, for the light of Perun shall prevail!” Even if that holy jerk was holding back most of Fred's abilities, I don’t think Dispel knew what was about to happen here.

Author's Note

I hope I'm getting the chaotic battle down correctly and didn't forget anything.

Chapter Sixty Four, Bad Bastion Battle: Keep.

Author's Note

Read this page to discover the less than exciting secret of Dispel Grace.

Chapter Sixty Four, Bad Bastion Battle: Keep.

-In the Jungle, Oleander-

“Okay… admittedly… maybe Dispel was ready for you Fred.” I’m a bit shocked, at least Pom was keeping them off of me, but Fred was back in the book having done very little damage to Dispel Grace personally.

Dispel’s tenacity was to be commended, he was certainly competent at handling someone with at least a college level degree in dark magic such as myself. That he could stand up to Fred was fairly frightening.

“I’M AS SHOCKED AS YOU ARE, he’s surprisingly competent and managed to hold me off pretty well.” Fred’s book reflected his battered form given it now had two bandages with evil grinning faces printed on them on his cover. I thought they were cute. “At least I knocked out a good number of his minions while I was out and about, BUT HOW ARE WE GOING TO DEAL WITH HIM NOW? It’ll take quite a while to charge me up again Ollie and you know the limitations I have.”

“Like your dark magic would win against me and my unfathomable holy powers, I’d say your companion is far more capable than you are when dealing with my might!” Well now, Dispel didn’t have to go for such a low blow. Although Pom was holding her own admirably with help from her puppies and the ever lovable Major Mother.

“I don’t honestly know how to feel about that compliment….” You know Pom, you’re quite capable if you stopped and looked at your actions. “Also Ollie is a good pony and what you consider bad is not entirely right! Though sometimes you might actually have a point about something… right or wrong, I’m sticking by Ollie’s side as her friend!”

Pom managed to keep a number of thirty or so reviving pummeled Perun Paladins off my back with just herself and five canines. I think that deserves at least some form of acknowledgment considering four of those canines are still barely puppies. Not to mention she and her pack destroyed a number of Teatime’s golems that still littered the general surroundings as well.

Does Pom honestly not realize how amazing she actually is? Since Maggie and Velvet ran off to help the others, I would have been at a large disadvantage had she not stayed to watch my back. She is braver then she might currently think she is, if she is willing to go this far for a friend like me.

I don’t even consider myself entirely great at the whole friendship thing sometimes, but Pom makes me feel like I am with the support she’s giving me.

“While your prowess is commendable, you will die by your friend!” Dispel started charging his sword up, but something howled distracting all of us.

The pupils of Pom’s eyes shrunk and she reached up to her chest with her right hoof.

“Another familiar, really? Like I didn’t have enough of them before I left Equestria!” What came out of the jungle was something large and covered in a mass of vines, it soon shook them off and revealed itself to be something far smaller than it was previously thought to be.

It was a very odd and definitely not natural. In fact, Dispel looked like he hated it on the principle that it seemed to like Pom the second it was near her.

It was a three dimensional mass of pink shaped like a wolf with dark pink eyes. It seemed to look around and then bounded over to Pom to stick out what looked like a tentacle where its tongue should be, then it slapped that across Pom’s confused face.

“I have no idea what this thing is, but it’s definitely a beastie of mine now…. why me?” Pom whined with a solemn downtrodden mood, she gave a weak smile as tears filled her eyes. “Also, I can feel all my beasties again too. They’ve been doing okay for the most part, but I can feel their longing for me. I’ll have to go searching for them once we’re done here, can’t have them wandering into the jungle to be attacked by wild animals.”

A crescent beam of energy flew towards us while I was distracted and the pink wolf blob thing leapt in the way of the holy energy for me. It didn’t take damage from the crescent beam and even seemed to just absorb it.

“I find myself at a loss, an unholy abomination suddenly joins with you and it can take holy energies!?” The pink wolf shape mass made something that sounded like a growling noise at Dispel Grace, it was comparable to a squeaky toy being chewed on by a normal dog. “No matter, I will deal with this thing later. You will not win this day dark one!”

The thing was kind of cute, now if only the glowing mass of pink shaped like a wolf wasn’t so vaguely familiar to me for some reason. I know I’ve seen this thing somewhere before, I feel a sense of dread just by looking at it.

“Ollie, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you exactly what it is I think we’re seeing here.” Fred seemed certain about that and I trusted him on that. He bumped me out of the way of a vertical beam of holy energy. “Whatever created that thing has to be absurdly powerful as to be unstoppable, NOW LET’S JUST GET BACK TO FIGHTING THE PONY THAT JUST ATTACKED YOU TWICE WHILE WE WERE DISTRACTED!”

-Inside the jungle base, Daring-

“Me…” I heard the yelp and turned to see that the alpaca was in trouble.

She was finally knocked out by three of the Perun Paladins working together in a concerted effort to deal with her hug happy assaults and they were all wielding heavy blunt weapons, it took quite a few blows and at least three direct cannonballs to the head to finally knock her out of action.

What was she exactly made of that her injuries were still so light?

I swooped down and grabbed her by one of her front hooves to drag her away from them before they could injure her any further, avoiding several cannon shots from the nearby airship. The only operational cannons after our dragon and longma dealt with the Perun Paladins manning the ones on the buildings.

The reindeer statue obviously wasn’t too pleased about the alpaca being down, as it sent a block of ice at the paladins a second later. I looked back and grimaced at the sight of them being sent flying in an explosion filled with pointy bits of ice.

I turned back to see the reindeer statue being clamped onto by the centipede of metal crabs and was now in trouble.

I had to get the alpaca to safety first, then I’d get back into the thick of it. It was nice to have so many competent allies on this one, otherwise I would have to sneak into the pyramid by myself and possibly deal with all these guys on the way out.

-Jungle, Pom-

I ducked under the glaive swinging for me and stepped forwards once while launching my left hoof forward in a jab, my reach was fairly good considering the length of my legs and my hoof connected with the armored pony’s chest sending them sliding back.

Two of my puppies chose that moment to ram the pony in the chest and then dive bomb their head from above after hovering up high into the air with their tail. I saw a surge of light heading for me and I cowered while covering the two puppies at my side.

“Eep…” My new beastie, of which I didn’t have a name for, just saved me from being hit by the wave energy by jumping in front of me and my puppies.

“Some knight you are, targeting my friends back when she isn’t your opponent.” Ollie seemed angry, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her really angry though. With her dark magic, I would think I’d be able to tell when she’s really angry, especially if she does the four glowing eyed thing when she fires off a spell or is building up dark magic.

Ollie went to move forward, only for Arizona to come crashing onto the scene and into Dispel back first with an impressive amount of force. She looked pretty bloodied and bruised, I was kind of worried about her if I didn’t know she’d just tough it out.

“Okay, so I might have to actually take you seriously, how shocking.” Arizona rolled onto her hooves immediately and wiped her nose and rotated her head. Several cracking noises could be heard as she shifted her body, Shocking Awe flew down from the trees glaring at her. “Uh… what did I hit?”

“You hit Dispel, but I think there’s something wrong with that.” Ollie pointed to the pile of armor that was empty and the helmet that was separated from it, there wasn’t a pony inside the completely empty armor at all.

Shocking landed and looked in the direction of Dispel’s armor with a curious tilt of his head. Suddenly the helmet started to shift and slowly something small pulled itself out of the helmet and tumbled onto its back. It was an earth pony, one that was the size of a breezy.

“This… actually explains very little… what the buck dude?! Were you always like this, I expected you to be jacked and buff, maybe somewhat handsome and sweat stained, with how much you ran around in that armor.” Shocking started receiving a glare from the tiny pony with a neon pink mane and tail, said tiny pony dusted off his dark blue coat. “I thought you’d be bigger under that bulky, gaudy armor of yours, but you’re really freaking tiny!”

“My mother was a breezy… don’t you dare start looking down on me for finding out about my horrible secret!” Shouldn’t someone point out to Dispel the impossibility of a female breezy and a normal sized… no, I don’t think any of us wanted to seriously think about the logistics of it too hard.

“It’d kind of hard not to.” Shocking stated with a smirk. “To think I thought the amazing amoeba udders here was small.”

“Out of curiosity, how did you move that armor around?” Is everyone really just going to stop fighting to hear the answer to Arizona’s question? I’m certainly okay with that, but this was seriously weird.

“Like this.” Raising both his front hooves to the sky, Dispel glowed and a mass of energy pulsed out of his form as he rose up in the air. The golden mass of pulsing energy started to solidify and take the shape of a pony with glaring blue orbs.

“That’s kind of…” Shocking started to say, before Arizona turned and sucker punched him in the skull with explosive force that sent flames blasting off her hoof.

I thought Shocking did kind of have that coming, especially after he insensitively called attention to Arizona’s udders… or lack thereof. Shocking bounced limply off a tree and was incapable of fighting.

Arizona was hit by a crescent wave of energy seconds later that cut a large gash in her side. It was launched from Dispel’s swiping hoof. When Dispel launched that wave of energy, his form shrunk a bit.

Arizona started clutching at her wound and grit her teeth as she laid on her side and I immediately moved forward to protect her from the Perun Paladins trying to take advantage while she was down.

As I waded into the paladins with my puppies and two larger canines, I noted that none of the paladins seemed particularly surprised to see that Dispel was an earth pony that was only slightly larger than a grape.

Just as I was finished smacking a paladin away from Arizona, Oleander blocked of a wave of light from Dispel by unleashing a counter wave of darkness from Fred. She turned to me sharply.

“Pom… please get Arizona out of here and help her find medical aid.” Not wanting to complain to Ollie that I was leaving her open to being surrounded with only Fred to aid her, I grabbed Arizona and did as she asked by jumping onto Big Mama.

“Are you okay Arizona?” I looked down at her as we rode away.

“I’m just peachy, not that the huge gash in my side is painful in any given way, shape or form.” She grunted and just held her side. “That Dispel guy is far more dangerous than Shocking is, my hide is tough and that attack cut right into me.”

-Oleander-

I opened the book and Fred sent a shadowy claw straight for Dispel Grace who batted it away with his bare hoof of raw holy energy, he rolled to the side and picked up his overcompensating sword to start charging it with energy.

As he did so I simply battered the last two Perun Paladins that were still capable of fighting by swinging Fred around in a wide arc at them. Once stunned, I unleashed small bolts of darkness at them that sent them sprawling.

“You are brimming with power, I can also see why you wear the armor now… you can’t keep it all from bleeding off or under control without the armor can you?” He was losing quite a lot of energy trying to hold that shape, but he was still charging quite a lot of power to his sword.

“What I have should be enough for you, I will use all of it!” Dispel shouted as his glowing form started to shrink as his sword grew brighter.

“Let us trade attacks then! How about a spell I hold close to my heart?” I started to flip Fred to the correct page and read the lines I haven’t use in a while, a barrier wasn’t going to stop his next attack and I wasn’t going to need one. “Though I know I should be fairly wary, I still hold onto a power that is fairly scary, this spell cast from the shadows I let loose… dark recluse, dark recluse, DARK RECLUSE!”

-Clearing-

The clash of like and dark happened as it has done many times across the ages of many a history, in a brilliant display that could be seen from miles on end.

The light and darkness spiraled destructively into the sky and then... petered out.

There was no sign of either Oleander or Dispel Grace after the clash, only the unconscious numerous Perun Paladins and Shocking Awe.

-At the edge of the base, behind another instant wall, Kuril-

"They're, thankfully, almost out of paladins!" I knew the golems were still causing numerous issues. For instance, Velvet was still trying to deal with the combined mechanical menace with the magical barrier.

Teatime’s airship was our biggest problem and the injuries were mounting on everyone, except Fluttershy.

In that vein, Fluttershy and I were taking care of Paprika now after one too many cannonballs to the head.

Paprika was a tough alpaca, considering the cannonballs took more damage than she did from the collisions. She was quite addled once we managed to rouse her, she thought she was a clown that was also somehow a popular country singer that only played the banjo.

Don’t know where the Paprika got the banjo from or learned how to play it. We learned from a fairly injured Arizona that, to her knowledge, Paprika only knew how to effectively play a pan flute.

Chapter Sixty Four, Bad Bastion Battle: Tower.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: Honesty.

Author's Note

Hopefully I fixed most of the problems with the previous page.

Read, previous page and tell me if it reads better now.

I was in an excruciating amount of pain for a day or two, so my concentration was relatively shot. I couldn't climb stairs or walk without being in complete agony. Something in my lower right side was seriously messed up.

I'm definitely better now after sleeping it off and use of errant back massager that was going to waste otherwise, pain relievers didn't work to stop the pain at all. I can almost imagine what platypus venom is like now.

Don't know honestly what was wrong with me, air pressure, weather or rolling out of bed too hard. It was an experience I do not want to go through again anytime soon.

Speaking of which, I'm going to bed now to sleep for twelve hours. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: Honesty.

-Destroyed Base, Fizzle-

The Ardent Survivor looked almost the same as it previously did… but now it had treads, tailpipes and a large, exceedingly hard to miss, drill on the front. Those were the major changes, the minor ones didn’t seem worth mentioning like the lights.

“All limbs on deck!” All limbs? Well I guess it made sense, Jacky probably had a unique crew. Everyone else was busy picking themselves, Teatime just seemed to be sitting there with a blank look on his face. “We need to find out if we’re somewhere in Zebrica, let’s hope we didn’t take a wrong turn at Albeit-Quirky and that we’re not attacked by a rogue tree as soon as we go up!”

I was proven right a few seconds later, I could see that Gene was healthy. I also saw a slithering sea pony, an anugyptian feline, a giant butterfly and… what in the world?

“We went through an airship… judging by all the golem parts, a lot of old friends and the destruction in the general area… Hey Gene, we made it to the fight!” What was Jacky talking about and how was she even talking in the first place when she… “It’s so good to be back on the surface again and I can’t wait to see our little Gavin again! Is that? It is! Hey mom, I hope Gavin reached you okay!”

“He did! He’s such a sweet and cuddly little griffon that loves his grandma, Savannah is currently watching him!” Then mom’s happy tone changed to something more irate. “You couldn’t have told your poor old mother that you had a child or at least visit?!”

“To be fair, I haven’t exactly told anyone that Jade is alive and that she’s likely to be around here somewhere.” Wait… what? Did Jacky just seriously... “She could probably summon her fire and give us a sign she’s present. She did it in Saddle Arabia, she could probably do it again.”

“What…” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, my horn lit up. There were tears in my eyes.

“Did…” Mara growled and pawed the ground with her claws. She was also crying.

“You…” Maria was now trying to glare holes into the obsidian glass form of Jacky Blackcap Chickadee La Perm. Flames were pouring out of her mouth and they were started to melt the ground and melting dirt was no easy feat.

“Say, does this mean you knew about this when we were summoned to southern Zebrica to make that family contract for Flotsam and Nefer?” Marie should be getting as angry as we were currently getting, she just seemed more curious than anything. “Does that mean she could have been following us around this entire time and we didn’t know about it?”

“Just for the sake of clarity, how long have you been sitting on this information and how screwed do you think you’re going to be in the next few minutes?” Arizona asked with a slight gleam in her eyes.

“I too would like to know this!” Flamberge’s flaming sword was ejecting flames at twice the length of the sword.

-Still off kilter from reality, Jaded ‘Freaking’ La Perm-

Face, I would like you to meet mister palm, he is ever so eager to become your acquaintance.

I wonder how long it will take for Mrs. Foot to go for Jacky’s beak. I give it five seconds.

-Destroyed Base, five seconds later, Fizzle-

“Uh… some time before we all last gathered together in Huoshan, I guess we forgot to tell anyone that Jade summoned her campfire in Saddle Arabia as a sign that she was still around. We’ve all been kind of busy if you hadn’t notice!” Jacky gestures to the drill. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get pure adamantite into the shape of a drill? Also everything has been quite stressful for me, especially with my husband constantly treating me like I’m made of glass!”

So Jacky was a statue, a living statue, how did that happen? Everyone else that was glassed became immobile. AI was quite seething mad, but I was keeping it contained as I didn’t want Jacky to shatter like the Storm King did. This was someone I liked, even if I'm angry at her. It would take a while for her to make up for forgetting to mention that important detail to anyone, who could have in turn come and told me about it!

“Jacky, you currently are and still happen to be made of Obsidian Glass.” Hearing Gene Eric speak in a dead emotionless tone, I never knew how much I missed him as a friend until this moment. He would have been nice to have around while I was slumming it with the Storm Army. “I’m obligated to treat you as such and covet you to the point that you don’t incidentally shatter on anything, also I had a heck of a time getting the Dragon Burst Gem out of the jetpack currently fused to your body without damaging any part of you. I would like to add that none of us are blameless, except for Belfry.”

He pointed out the giant butterfly now being happily cuddled and babied by Fluttershy, when had she moved over there? It was like she teleported.

“Jade, if you can hear me, I’m not going to kill her. Also we’re going to need to have a long talk about those nights I uh… we’ll talk and get everything sorted out once we figure out how to help you!” I wiped the tears from my eyes with a hoof and I can tell that my face was turning a bright cherry red. “Also there are plenty of survivable things that I can possibly do to our sister!”

“Agreed.” Maries answered as one, Marie taking on a more humor filled in this compared to Mara and Maria’s serious fury.

“You can’t do anything to me while I’m a statue, one that is mostly being held together by magic mind you.” Jacky smirked at us, she had the gall to smirk!

When she was cured of being a living obsidian statue, I’d show her how bad her luck could really get! Cold, raw, petty pony time! I’d give her to Maries first and ask that she leave Jacky in at least one vaguely recognizable piece.

Maries are lawyers, everyone here could claim they attacked Jacky in self-defense. With so many witnesses attesting, nobody would be able to say otherwise… we might need to ensure the silence of the lambs in our group first. Anyone with a strong sense of righteousness would be forced to look the other way for a little while.

“While this has been fairly entertaining, I’ll be taking my leave now!” We all turned to where Teatime had been and looked to where his pilotable pony shaped machine was now. It was currently floating away in the moonlight. “So long and may we meet again under better circumstances… for me that is!”

The machine was high in the air with a balloon sprouting out of its back, there were ten golem pony’s clutching to its neck and legs. Each one of said golems had large box like attachments on their backs that were possibly loaded with supplies. The tail of the machine lifted up and then, in a burst of flames coming from its backside, it started to quickly flee for the horizon.

“Prrrrrtttt.” The noise it made sounded like a fart as it flew away.

Everyone was busy questioning why Teatime added the farting sound as an aesthetic choice, didn’t really seem to add to the speed of his escape. We turned back to Jacky trying to sneak back onto the ship.

She was soon hit by a glowing mass of white burning energy that came from Kuril’s paw, mom looked angry and was palming a potion with a viscous substance in it.

Something book shaped popped out of Jacky’s chest, said thing dropped into the flowery looking anugyptian’s paws.

Jacky stumbled and caught herself as she fell forward, now flesh and blood once more.

“I’m cured? Oh yeah, phoenix feather magical alchemy, like duh! At the least fresh air tastes great now that I’m biological again… my body is horribly stiff though. To be expected when you spent quite a few months underground as a living statue.” Jacky gulped and turned to us with her talons behind her back. “Off I go after the fleeing Teatime… Gene… why isn’t the jetpack working?”

“Do you remember what we were using to power the drill Captain?” The blue sea pony chuckled while covering her face with her flipper hooves. “It’s still there.”

Jacky never looked more like Velvet, when bright lights are shined in her eyes, than in this moment.

“Oh… right… forgot to put that back in after we reached the surface… heh. Silly me, it looks like Teatime is going to get away again. Bastard always has an escape plan, and I could use one of those right about now…” Jacky turned back to us with a stressed smile on her beak. “Well then… it’s been a long time since I’ve been flesh and blood. I would like to get in a meal and a drink. You know, before you all keelhaul me.”

“Say mom, do you know anything about physical therapy?” Arizona asked in a blatantly threatening tone. “I mean it has been a long time since she has exercised her muscles and she did say she was stiff.”

“Sounds fun Zone, sign me up!” Maggie said cheerfully and she tussled her smiling daughter’s hair.

-Pyramid entrance, Sekhet-

“Eh, they’ll get to us tomorrow… also isn’t that…” I squinted at the anugyptian feline with petals wreathed around his neck in the shape of a mane.

“Why I do believe it is Sekhet, it’s been a while… he looks cute as a pirate. Last time he visited, he was a sales clerk.” Baast put her paws on her cheeks and squealed in an annoying manner. “So roguish and handsome, it’s seems my constantly reincarnating little demi-god is at it again! Once I’m free of my obligations I’ll be able to spend quality time with him and his… sister I believe? Also we’ll figure out how to get that Celestia to date you without all the vitriol getting in the way!”

“That’s apparently what the sea pony is reading as to me, the family dynamic just keeps getting worse doesn’t it?” Still it was nice to know we had a mortal in the family, because it opened up a lot of interesting opportunities. Family first of course, any plotting is secondary to that and we were not going to Zeus things up. That way lies madness. “Again, leave my personal life alone sister!”

I slashed my claws across my sister’s face and she went flying back through the entrance of the pyramid.

“The nerve of that nosy nagger.” I laid my chin on my paws and started to fall asleep until morning came.

-The next day, Morning Came, Daring-

“Look I know you guys have a lot to catch up on, but I want to get into the pyramid early today!” I was walking up the steps towards the entrance, with Kuril, Blade, Fluttershy, Maries, and Fizzle. We also had with us a badly battered and bruised Jacky, along with what I will assume to be her anugyptian interpreter Nefer. All the others were a bit busy making sure our loose ends stayed tied up.

Arizona gave out plenty of rope to tie up a lot of armored ponies, we had only managed to capture half of the Perun Paladins. The other half quickly scattered away from us into the surrounding jungle and would probably form up somewhere else. Dispel, Shock and Jock were also missing. Someone really needed to capture those guys and put a serious bind on them.

When we reached the top of the pyramid, we saw an interesting sight.

“Oh, that’s adorable!” Intoned Fluttershy, probably being more adorable than the two goddesses snuggled together and innocently sleeping there.

“Hey, wake up!” Both the goddesses stirred, the pink one was apparently the one we needed to talk to in order to get in. Teatime obviously tried to bypassing her completely and failed spectacularly before we arrived. “Give me the first task or whatever.”

“Okay, let’s start things off easy with a riddle.” Clearing her throat the pink sphinx that wasn’t out goddess. “First, introductions, I am Bastet. That’s all you need to know and yes I am a goddess, and since you know my sister you should know the rules. Now for my riddles, you need to answer two of three to pass. What is it that given one, you’ll have either two or none?”

“Jade would probably hate that one.” Fizzle smiled whimsically, looked around and then frowned.

“That is a pretty devious opener sister.” Sekhet commented idly as she shrunk down and joined us. “You’re just going to come out swinging aren’t you?”

“Nefer what’s wrong?” I turned to the sound of Jacky nudging the anugyptian and he was staring at the pink sphinx.

“You’re a pretty lady.” Nefer continued to stare that goddess. “You seem familiar to me too.”

“That’s because I’m your mother.” Okay, that was news to me and it explains the oddities of the anugyptian. The goddess shrunk down and transformed into an anugyptian herself and started to nuzzle the tom affectionately. “Even when you forget me, you always show up somehow.”

“The answer is… ‘choice’. There’s always a third option. If the two given don’t suit your needs.” Maries answered in order with three smiles.

“Correct. Call me Baast while I’m like this.” Baast then sauntered back to being in front of us. “I am something people love or hate. I change people’s appearances and thoughts. If you take care of yourself I will go up even higher. To some people I will fool them. To others I am a mystery. Some people might want to try and hide me, but I will still show eventually. No matter how hard people try, I will never go down. Now answer me this, what am I?”

“Yep, definitely swinging.” Sekhet muttered.

We sat there for an hour pondering her words and the day was still young.

“Wow, it’s been an age since I’ve had to answer one of… the answer is ‘age’!” Jacky suddenly piped up.

“Correct, you may enter, but stay together in a group and follow me.” Stretching out and stepping away from cuddling Nefer as she addressed us, she then tilted her head. “Want to hear my last riddle anyway?”

“Sure.” The pleasant mood had us all smiling.

“You can see me in water, but I never get wet. What am I?” She smiled at us.

“The answer is, a reflection.” Said Fluttershy cheerfully, Baast only gave her an odd glare.

“Correct, so how’s Discord been doing since you went back to the future?” Baast did not seem to like Fluttershy very much.

“Oh he’s been doing perfectly fine Baast, he’s actually making friends now… though he’s still a little bit… wild.” When Fluttershy said that Baast brightened up.

“Yes, Discord never could stay committed to a relationship, because chaos.” Baast stated flatly. She swirled her right paw as we walked through the entrance and various torches lit up leading the way. “I still do love him so… I can accept friendship is chaotic enough for him and hopefully we will have benefits in the future.”

Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: Laughter.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: Kindness.

Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: Kindness.

-Inside the pyramid, Jacky-

“Can I please get the recipe for this?” It seemed Fluttershy was as sweet and gentle as ever, she pulled some paper and a pencil out of her saddlebags. “My friend Pinkie Pie would love this!”

“Sure thing, papyrus certainly has gotten fancy in this day and age.” Cheerful quickly started rattling off a recipe for Fluttershy, who dutifully took it down despite how fast she was babbling it out.

I turned to Baast and away from the ghostly pink cat teaching Fluttershy a recipe for these nifty sugar cane cakes and the recipe for how to get various shades of food coloring using fruit in various difficult sounding icing mixes.

“Do these trials get any more dangerous than this? I’m asking because my luck quota is going to eventually need to assert itself in a horrible manner.” A bit of rock fell from the ceiling to smack me in the head. I rubbed at the pain coming from my skull. “Like that, only three times worse.”

“Well if you mistreated me or gravely insulted the first two trial givers, then the next one would have certainly stopped any further attempt inwards cold.” Did Baast really believe the next one was that dangerous? “If you finished your cakes, then we can move on to the next trial.”

“Wait, can I ask you something first Baasty?” Now that Cheerful had our attention she clapped her paws together in a manner of prayer. “If these guys can free you of your obligations, can I be the one to run the pyramid in your stead, please?”

“I’m only going to say no, because I know what you want to do with this pyramid. Besides, you’re not supposed to haunt the place forever. Anubis would be quite cross if his services were abused too much.” The pink cat pouted at Baast and crossed her paws. “If you truly wish to do so, then take it up with Anubis yourself. Just know that I, sadly enough, will not be able to aid you.”

“Righty O’, you have your rules and stuff… most of them are not very fun, but I can understand.” Cheerful grinned brightly. “I’ll definitely do that, you’ll see!”

“I should be more concerned than I currently am about this, but I’m sure you’ll be just fine Cheerful.” Baast simply shrugged and turned to us. “Let’s continue on then, follow me. The next trial will prove to be the stopping point for most invaders anyway.”

“As if Grassy and Cheerful were going to stop anyone.” Daring was being a little bit too critical of them. “Pyramids like this are supposed to be filled with death defying booby traps around every corner!”

“Oh you’d be surprised with how well Grassy and Cheerful can actually stop people, some people would never admit to a truth they’d rather not speak and others have mocked Cheerful to their own detriment. Don’t underestimate them just because they went easy on you. Cheerful could have made you do a trial based on art.” Baast started forward down the set of stairs beyond the cake empty platters. “As it is right now, you’d be right from your own personal perspective. I will add that they are being more like tests of character for this next trial. I will also state that this place doesn’t really need traps and that they have a good opinion of all of you so far.”

“Oh and thanks for stopping by again Nefer, Baast gets really lonely being cooped up in the pyramid all the time and you’ve likely made her day just by showing up!” Cheerful yelled from behind us as we started down the stairs exiting the room that was larger than the one Grassy Snack had.

“Well she seemed really nice to me.” Nefer stated jovially. “Seems like she’d let everyone go by her.”

“Trust me, Cheerful is far more trouble than she seems.” We were descending deeper into the pyramid following Baast, the sconces on the walls were now glowing a shade of yellow light. Previously they had been green and then pink.

“Jacky, what happened when you faced off with the Storm King?” Mom looked in my direction and asked out of the blue. “More specifically, what happened to you afterwards?”

“Is the Storm King still running around?” I really need to catch up on some things.

“Nope, I had a hoof in taking him down personally.” Then why didn’t Fizzle sound happy? She answered it with her next few words that left me reeling. “I don’t like the blood on my hooves from when I was working for him as his commander. The guy was an utter nut job, on that everyone can agree.”

Oh… she actually worked with that lunatic?!

She also put him in Davy Jones locker, this made me curious as to the other things I’ve missed over the last few months.

I quietly adjusted my jetpack and stayed quiet for a bit, after a minute of silence I decided to answer mom’s query.

“So the Storm King winged me with a petrifying orb, I flew back to the Ardent Survivor and our one ship assault on their fleet was fairly devastating up until they caught our ship’s balloon with several harpoons.” I recalled that stormy weather, the chill in my blood as I painfully and slowly turned to obsidian glass while working on a time limit. “I told Flotsam to blow the balloon and ordered my crew to do several things in quick succession. The slow transformation and my cursed luck made it one of the most painful experiences in my life. Didn’t hold a candle in my heart to blowing the balloon and making the Ardent Survivor fall out of the sky on purpose. Nefer if you would continue from here.”

“Captain Blackcap had a plan, she asked me to get the Animating Album and said I would know what to do with it soon enough. I figured she wanted me to get it to her before she fully turned into a statue and she shoved it into the portion of herself that was already turned to obsidian stone. That was more than half her body…” Nefer’s ears wilted as he remembered what happened next. “We did everything she asked and the ship sunk to the bottom of the sea, the unfortunate problem is that we weren’t able to come back up.”

“The Animating Album, as we have come to discover sometime after acquiring it, destroyed an entire civilization and is considered cursed for the wrong reasons. It makes inanimate objects have a life of their own as commanded by the one who last wielded it.” I shuddered when we found out why the ruins were so simple to access and the album was just sitting there untouched. “It’s not so much as cursed as the creator of it was an architect that built a city using it, the album can only work on things below a certain size. However if the album is still attached to something and that thing increased in size through construction or other methods, it is able to surpass the limitation on the size of the things it can be attached to that way. The Architect was not given credit or accolades for his work and was a person of lower class standing. Some high class girl took all the credit for his work when she didn’t do a single thing to build the city that the album was still attached to. The Architect decided to erase the city and the pages in the album by having it attack itself. The last thing he ordered the album to do was to only work for those who would not abuse it too much, anyone that tries will quickly find out why it could be called a cursed object. That was the thing that came out of me when mom hit me with the phoenix feather.”

“How did you survive the impact if you were turned to obsidian glass? I’m sure you were likely an animate statue at that point, but you should have shattered with the forces enacted on you.” Fizzle quivered slightly and then said. “That’s how the Storm King went out, I almost died that way too...”

“That nearly gave me a heart attack.” Mom stated with shiver as she hugged herself.

“I was incidentally encased in a sold mass of Abyssinian Catsup that Savannah bought while we were in Palicoast, several barrels of the stuff broke open. When the ship hit the water, I was encased in it to the point it cushioned me from the shockwave. When I woke up I was afraid I had landed on Gene and killed him, given he was near me before the impact.” I sighed with relief that hadn’t happened, I couldn’t see anything until some had lit a lantern. “Apparently my crew suffered the smell for weeks after that, then things kept getting more and more complicated. We got stuck at the bottom of the sea, was moved by some enormous sea monster that we never saw and ended up in a cave system inhabited by hyper intelligent killer goldfish. If you’re going to ask, they were the size of regular goldfish and they were exceedingly dangerous despite that fact. Also there was this short red sorcerer Abyssinian with a watch that kept trying to kill me because of something about ‘swatting cats’ and my descendants causing him nothing but constant grief. I really wasn’t listening because he kept summoning carnivorous dinosaurs to attack us, by that point we had treads on the Ardent Survivor. It’s a fairly long and involved story….”

“Those goldfish were scary, I feel bad that we ended up rendering their entire civilization stupid.” We stopped at a pair of ornate doors with strange long necked beings on the handles as Nefer finished that statement.

“Yeah, that was not one of our prouder moments, but they were all trying to kill us at the time Nefer.” I remembered what we did to topple their advanced civilization and felt that it was for the best. They threatened to kill all beings bigger than them on the ‘surface world’ to prove their superiority. “We went down a lot of tubes while we were down there.”

“Word of warning before we enter.” Baast stopped in front of the door and turned to us. “No sudden movements or acts of aggression, do you understand me? Do not harm any of the being in this next room.”

“Is this going to be what I think it is?” Did Sekhet actually look giddy as she said that?

“Yep.” Baast stood up on her hind legs and pushed both fifteen foot tall doors with an impressive show of force. We just stared at what was in the room beyond and froze, there were a lot of them whatever they were.

-Fluttershy-

“Hello… I’m Quiet Voice, please… enter.” In front of us was a yellow furred cat with pink lining the inside of her ears, she was highly familiar to me and I didn’t understand why. Her eyes reminded me of something I think I once saw in a mirror. She also only seemed to speak at a whisper. “Do not worry, the serpopards will not attack… unless you actively seek to upset them. My trial is simple and hopefully profound… I want all of you commune with any being in this room. Only the chimera gets a pass, they are already communing with themselves and are basically part serpopard already.”

“You seem familiar.” I couldn’t stop myself from saying this.

“I should be… I’m quite proud to meet and know you. You are a wonderful being.” Looking beyond her with a blush my face at the compliment. Throughout the large room there were varying kinds of long necked large cats, when I saw one open its mouth it had snake fangs and I blinked. “Now what do you think of them?”

“They… are… so…” I slowly started. “Adorable!”

“You even have a group of golden furred ones, how long did that take to happen? Giant chicken breeders have an easier time getting golden feathered chickens than that. You told me about this and I finally get to see them!” Sekhet was as excited as I was and she was even bouncing a bit on her paws. That was a little strange…. but cute large animals! “Ooh there’s a black one with green spots!”

Sekhet made her way over to the one she pointed out and started affectionate pet its elongated neck making it purr.

“We’ve lost both Fluttershy and Sekhet… this might not end well.” Oh what did Fizzle know?

I immediately went to cuddle one!

-Kuril-

I calmly walked up to Quiet and looked at her.

“Your Fluttershy’s past life.” I said bluntly as I sat before her.

“Very astute, would you commune with me?” I nodded to her.

“My name is Kuril La Perm, witch of good taste.” I introduced myself while patting my lap, Quiet came over to me completely silent and crawled into my lap at the offer I was making. I rubbed her behind the ears and she purred.

“Well met Kuril La Perm, you have been feeling much happier lately and you’ve heard some good news recently. That’s nice.” I blinked at the ghostly anugyptian in my lap as she smiled up at me. “In life I helped the moods of those who were angry or sorrowful, I was always a listening ear and a soft whisper for those who needed someone to be there for them.

Blade moved up next to me and glared at her.

“She’s already a ghost Blade, find a serpopard to commune with. It’s apparently her trial and her rules… or… she did say you could commune with anything in the room. How about you commune with me?” I smirked as Blade blinked and leaned back in shock with a blush on her face.

She started to tap her front hooves together while looking away from me shyly.

“She loves you very much and wished she could tell you so many things, she is also sad that she can’t remember the warmth you two shared previously.” Looking at Quiet, Blade blinked and smiled a little as she sat down with us.

-Daring-

That Nefer ran off to play with the little serpopards and Jacky turned to start communing with Baast, possibly out of self-preservation on her part. As unlucky as she was, Jacky really didn’t want to be in a room with several hundred deadly creatures.

“So… commune with a deadly poisonous creature or each other.” Turning to see if anyone wanted to commune with me, I found myself standing alone. I really needed a partner in life. It wasn’t going to be Ahuizotl or Caballeron, that’s for sure. I looked for one of the most dangerous and meanest looking serpopards. I proceeded to move over to the one that fit my criteria and sat down in front of it to look it in the eyes. It stared back in challenge. “So… how’s life around the pyramid?”

It made some growling noises.

“Yeah, I can see that you can’t complain.” I probably actually understood most of that, been around Ahuizotl’s cats too much not too. “This trip is so boring now, especially after fighting on our way to get in here. Say, would you be interested in a quick dust up?”

The serpopard stood up and made some challenging noises, which sounded good to me.

Author's Note

Yep, covered in catsup. The off brand version of ketchup and some say its the original.

As a statue Jacky can't taste, feel or smell anything. She could see and hear though.

Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: Loyalty.

Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: Loyalty.

-Outside the pyramid at the ruined base, Arizona-

“Well at least Paprika is back to normal.” I almost said that with a straight face too.

“You call her being black and white normal?” Velvet growled angrily at me. “She’s a creepy, sad mime now!”

“Eh, it’s mostly normal except for the whole sad tone thing.” I’m sure Paprika would come back to being her colorful fluffy self eventually… I was starting to miss her bone grinding hugs.

Paprika just mimed the word ‘meep’ in a sad tone, neither Velvet nor I would question how we knew the tone of her miming.

“Well, I will say that the beret on her is quite fetching at least.” Velvet spotted Pom coming up to us with her new Pink mass of something vaguely shaped like a wolf. “Maybe I can convince her to acquire mofd clothing from Prance when she eventually snaps out being crazy. How are the prisoners Pom?”

“Fed, watered, the bathroom used and no escape attempts yet. I’m surprised that the toilets are the only things that your mother didn’t destroy around here.” I could see Pom was a bit frightened, even I was scared of my mother when she had explosives on hoof or at least stashed nearby.

“My mom might be an explosive nutcase in the most literal sense, but she’s not evil.” That was because she was totally awesome. I’m glad we rescued her from Fœnum, which was quite a trip.

I turned to look over to Sweetcakes and Flamberge talking quietly to one another as they sat guarding the prisoners, several tails rubbed against the dragon and he didn’t seem to mind the affectionate closeness. The speaking in haiku thing was completely annoying, it’s something that I’d half expect Tianhuo to start doing with her honorable warrior stuff.

Still wondered where Ollie went off to with Fred. Last I heard, Pom saw her facing down ‘Disgrace’ in battle. Ollie was definitely a challenging opponent, even Fœnum Oleander was a hard fight. I’m kind of scared that they had shared notes on what they had learned from their Fred’s.

“Hopefully Kuril will be back before this evening, because her food is likely the reason the Perun Paladins we’re holding captive are staying quiet.” I tapped a hoof to my chin as Paprika mimed something about going to hug Skelly. Idly nodding to her, I brought something up that was on my mind with Velvet. “You know, I’m surprised Kuril doesn’t have a cult worshipping her name because of the food she makes.”

“Why that would be just plain absurd Arizona! A cult centered on Kuril?" Why did Velvet sound off when she said that and what was up with the fake laugh following that? "Honestly now, that's totally ridiculous!”

Was there something about Velvet that I didn’t know already after being married to her for more than a year?

-Airship Mauled, secret underground room near The Witch’s Fare, Fresh Start-

“We praise she, who is the witch of flavors that are many!” Various people who lived in Airship Mauled were wearing their cloaks and I had a smile on my face, our cult to the La Perm matriarch Kuril was coming along nicely.

We even managed to say our lines in unison this time, we’ve been working on that since forever. Soon the world will know the name of quality food is Airship Mauled and the world will be a better place for it!

The statue of Kuril at the back of the room was finally fixed thanks to Marble Pie’s efforts after it was accidentally broken the last time we convened. It was a good thing we knew an expert in stonework that has good rates.

It was always so hard to find a time for these meetings with everyone always being so busy with their lives. Getting the community together to discuss how things have been going lately felt good, things have been on a pretty good upturn since Kuril found out she had a grandson. We all agreed that Gavin was cute, besides being the nicest thing to happen to Airship Mauled in recent history.

“Uh, is this going to be one of those crazy cults or one of the more innocent yet vaguely shady ones?” Asked one of our cloaked companions, she who is of great cheese and noodles, Macaroni.

“We are benign in our quest to bring food both healthy and unhealthy into the world, as long as they do not abuse artificial ingredients too much. Next, we need someone who is good at baking muffins for our cult to grow stronger…” In an instant the door slammed opened and all the cultists screamed as the light hurt our eyes.

“Oops… sorry… but someone said ‘muffins’ and ‘cult’ in the same sentence around here and I was in the area to see how Mr. Rata was doing.” We turned to the blonde haired pegasus. Her grey fur was well groomed and her wonky eyes were both inviting and friendly. She also wore a cloak covered in images of various kinds of muffins. “So I wanted to know if you were another the muffin cult!”

“Maybe we can make an arrangement.” I said while bringing my hooves together. “How would you like to join forces with our foodie cult?”

“Ooh… a foodie cult! My cult would definitely be open to sharing notes and being friends with you guys.” The mare seemed agreeable, we might soon be sharing some members in the future.

When and if sister Velvet returns, we will have the market cornered on frozen treats here in Airship Mauled again, especially with the aid of sister Grace who is the master of dairy and naturalist tastes.

-In the Anugyptian pyramid, in a room full of serpopards, Jacky-

“So, how many of them are there?” There were so many large cats with snake fangs and long necks, I didn’t want to risk being near a single one of them given my luck. Mom didn’t have infinite phoenix feathers, so I chose the safe option by staying next to Baast.

“In this room, throughout the whole pyramid or in the given surrounding area? I try to make sure to keep their population in check, but there is certainly a lot more of them than what you are seeing here.” There was something about what Baast said that filled me with a sense of dread. “I’ve been letting them out into the jungle to roam free from the back entrances since those other mortals set up their place outside the pyramid, I would have had to deal with them eventually. I thank you and your friends for coming along so all of my little kitties didn’t need to get hurt!”

“Little, some of them are bigger than I am! Also um… all of the above?” I answered in an unsure tone.

“Three hundred plus in this room alone, not counting the little ones, more than a few thousand within the general area of the pyramid give or take a few miles.” That was a lot of serpent leopards, it was to the point that I hardly noticed the ferns, beams of sunlight and shifting sand pits in this large room.

This room had every single creature comfort a cat could want and mom seemed fairly happy near the ferns.

“When I asked you to commune with them, this is not quite exactly what I meant.” Quiet earned our attention because she wasn’t exactly whispering at the moment, we turned to see Daring and several roughed up serpopards.

“Hey, I communed with them, in a way that we all agreed upon! Right fellas?” At the bruised Daring’s behest, the battered and bruised serpopards nodded their heads towards Quiet. “I’d say we certainly communed alright.”

Daring probably had a problem with fighting giant cats, it’s that she wouldn’t stop doing it. She must really miss punching out Ahuizotl’s cats.

“Even if it was not what I was expecting, I guess you were all having fun.” Quiet sighed audibly, I take it she was the one of empathy. “It was nice to meet all of you, especially you Fluttershy. You are an exceptional wonderful pony with a heart of true kindness and love.”

“Why thank you Quiet!” The sea of serpopards soon parted and Fluttershy seemed reluctant to move forwards.

Nefer soon got out from a pile of serpopard kittens and gave me some big eyes.

“No Nefer… we cannot keep any serpopards on the ship.” More like I didn’t want to deal with any more pets that would be worse than Belfry, I continued on past him muttering loudly. “Goodness knows how we’re going to get the ship out of here without a working balloon, we barely have room for our friends along with the captives.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ve been holding a communication potion for our exit strategy. I can call in some air support to bring you a balloon if it isn’t coming already.” Fizzle came up to me with Maries, she carefully removed a serpopard kitten from her head and patted it on the butt to get it to head back to its family. “I’m pretty sure anyone could have seen the beam Fortitude deflected. If that didn’t get Grubber’s attention yesterday, then I’ll have to open communications with him to find out what’s he’s currently busy doing that he ignored something like that.”

“Come along everyone, playtime with the kitties is over.” Baast said pleasantly as she opened the door leading to another corridor filled with branching pathways. “You too Sekhmet!”

“Darn it, I’m jealous of your serpopards sister!” Despite this, Sekhet finally put down the green spotted serpopard that whined sadly at her. “Sorry, but my sister makes the rules here as it is her pyramid. You’re a very good serpopard though.”

Some minutes later, after leaving Quiet Voice alone with all those ‘deadly’ serpopards, we were led to a huge room with a large circular track of made entirely of sand.

We had to be nearing the bottom of the pyramid now given the size of this room and the few stairs we took to get here. Also I’m quite sure we’d be let out the back exit once we’re done here. I don’t want to walk back up any more stairs than I had to.

“Hello, I’m Brash Clash!” The blue cat didn’t take any time to make her introductions as she came running up to us with an exited look on her face. She looked rather masculine for a female anugyptian feline, compared to the graceful looks of the previous three we’ve met. “I was a brave and noble protector of anugyptian lives, even those that were my enemies. I spent most of my time steering monsters away from my friends and family, without hurting them too much. Also Quiet can really nag like you wouldn’t believe!”

“The poster child for one of Rainbow Dash’s previous lives.” Fizzle whispered to mom and she nodded back with grin. She turned back to the bouncy blue cat whose split tails waggled back and forth randomly in anticipation. “The serpopards would have been lethally dangerous if we were unwelcome intruders, so what’s the challenge we need to do this time and is it even dangerous?”

“Being one of the few and proud anugyptian desert warriors, my challenge is one of physical capabilities and quick wits. You can even take my challenge as many times as you want, because I won’t tire of wanting to do the one thing I’ve always been good at.” You won’t tire at all being a spirit Brash, you also seemed to be fairly prideful that you couldn’t lose before you’ve even done anything. “We’ll be racing around the shifting sands track! It is full of tricky terrain and a bunch of completely nonlethal, but possibly mildly debilitating, traps. You might have to climbs over walls, crawl through small spaces, jump over slowing sands and keep up with someone who became the best leader of, The Sand Sprinters! All you have to do… is eventually beat me in one lap on an ever changing obstacle course. So, who wants to go first?”

“I…” I was cut off by Daring, I actually wanted to try racing the cat with my jetpack.

“After the warm up with those serpopards, count me in for being first!” Daring stretched her hooves and grinned.

“Someone who likes action, yes! I can tell the course is going to be good this time.” The way Brash pumped a paw was cute, she turned to us and waved us off. “The rest of you take a seat off to the side of the starting line, this shouldn’t take too long.”

We all sat off to the side and watched as the two lined up on the white line of the large circular track in the sand.

“All opponents start off first whenever you feel ready!" So the challenger always got the head start. This sounded fair enough."No matter how fast you’re going, I’ll try to match and eventually surpass you."

Daring got her legs limbered up and then, she darted forward over the line, we found ourselves in seats of sand molded to fit our various forms as we watched the entire circular track immediately morph before our very eyes.

“Huh… this is nice… I wonder where we can get a soft sand cushions like this one. It’s good and warm on the belly.” Maria seemed happy as she curved around to watch alongside her sisters as Daring ran through various dangerous looking obstacles.

Everything was actually made of sand. The obstacle course Daring and Brash were racing through was one of various jumps from platform to platform, rolling under raising and lowering ceiling bound pillars, sand creating hands that grabbed at both Daring and Brash as they darted through them.

Halfway through the course Brash took the lead and never lost it, she was a blue blur on four paws straight through the last quarter of the track. It required one to bouncing off of walls to avoid falling in a deep pit with flowing sand that looked like it was water.

By the time Brash finished, Daring finally reached the wall jumping portion and got through it alright. Despite making it to the finish line, she didn’t win.

“Didn’t beat me, but you at least you had the gumption to finish. I appreciate that!” She turned to use and away from the wheezing Daring. “Who wants to go next?”

I was about to say something when Fizzle stalked forward.

“I will.” She turned to the starting line and looked to Brash, who readied herself and they waited for Daring to take a seat in the stands.

What came next was an obstacle course with two walls that you needed to jump between to gain height, a zip line, a section where you had to climb sideways along a rock wall and one section that looked non-Euclidean with random moving circular vortexes of sand that teleported you backwards upon any contact.

In the end Brash was at the finish line, Fizzle faired a little bit better by half the distance that Daring did and still lost.

“Before you ask, no, I do not know what the tracks will be like.” Brash was quite fast in picking up on what to do for the obstacles. “Making excellent training courses for a Sand Sprinter!”

Courage is facing the unknown and thinking quickly on your feet, what would my luck do to the track?

Author's Note

Despite not being able to fly, Brash was probably one of the fastest anugyptians alive.

Been catching up on sleep.

Also this month has been slightly bad.

Near constant 30-50 degree weather for two weeks.

Several power outages, none of which were even related to the weather that normally causes them.

Extreme amounts of bodily pain for a few days, that I slept off eventually.

Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: Magic.

-Shifting Sands Track, Kuril-

“Okay, that’s a new level of absurd.” Having watched the first two races, the next one was just as weird. The racetrack had shifted into multiple paths, each one being fit for Maries all together and if they decided to split up and go separately.

Despite how fast Maries were, they were having issues with keeping Brash the Sand Sprinter behind them. She was using the goat portion of the course whereas Maries was using the more open full chimera portion for their bulk running along the twisting shifting paths.

They dodged rolling boulders of sand, ran along a pathway that rotated upside down and sideways using their momentum to barely stay on the track and sand pillars spiked up, down and sideways into their paths randomly. There were even streams of sand arcing sweeping towards them every now and then like water hoses going full blast.

Brash even visibly hit one of the pillars and got dazed at one point, Maries ability to leap and their athletic form was what was keeping them barely ahead of Brash. They pulled ahead in the last quarter of the track, only for Brash to really start picking up the speed and she managed to pass the finish line thirty feet ahead of Maries.

“She’s… really… fast.” Maria was huffing and puffing along with her sisters.

“You were really great out there, now take a breather.” Brash was still ready and raring to go. “Also that was one of the wildest tracks I’ve even been through and it was great! Who wants to try me next? I could almost take you guys with my paws tied behind my back.”

Blade took a few steps forward, only to be pushed out of the way by Jacky who vocally shouted.

“I’m next!” Jacky quickly made her way over to the line while pulling on some goggles as Maries flopped into a comfortable sand cushion next to Fizzle.

I was fairly curious as to what was going to happen, Jacky hasn’t exactly had much bad luck since she fell down one of the flights of stairs.

Blade came back to sit next to me and I rubbed one of her ears. She smiled and leaned into the touch as we watched Jacky stand at the starting line looking at the far wall with a small frown on her beak.

“You did your best Maries.” Fizzle wrapped her hooves around Mara’s head and hugged her tenderly. “She may be a little full of herself, but Brash definitely backs up her boasting. Why didn’t you fly Daring?”

“You’re about to find out, because it looks like Jacky is going to try it.” A whining noise started up as Daring stated that, I turned back and saw Jacky’s long feathers spreading out slightly as she crouched down with flames building up at her back.

“Uh… what is…?” Brash seemed confused about what Jacky was doing.

I hadn’t seen it in action, but apparently the cursed artifact made from dragon blood was powerful enough to power a small airship sized tank. So I could only imagine what it did for Jacky’s flying…

Jacky blasted over the starting line, the sand she kicked up in her wake knocked Brash backwards off the final quarter of the course as she flew forward at a high speed.

There were rubber ducks that quacked a lot, pine trees with an alarming amount of velocity, swordfish spearing up out of the ground and going back into it, hundreds of walls, swords, shields and an instantaneous worsening sandstorm from nowhere that all created a chaotic mass of movement.

Every single thing was made of sand and was currently aimed at not only Jacky, who was kicking off a forming shield to change directions to get into the second half of the track, but this stuff was also aimed at Brash in the name of fairness.

It was a good thing Brash was already a ghost, being hit by a ton of sand trees might have hurt otherwise. Once her head popped out of the sand the sand duckies started to peck at her head and a sword fish launched her back towards the starting line where she rolled and then started to evade all the stuff coming at her like her afterlife depended on it.

It seems Jacky’s luck was way too much for Brash to handle, as she couldn’t even get started with the chaos that the entire track became as soon as Jacky got over the starting line. This was about as much as I saw before the sandstorm completely blinded us to what was happening in the race.

Five minutes later, the sands died down and we were witness to the victor. Jacky was coughing up sand and shaking it out of her clothing and feathers, I had no idea how she finished the second half of the track and I really doubt that even the goddesses did as they had astonished expressions on their faces.

I took some time to help Blade get some sand out of her ears, I now understood why I never saw any thestrals in Cow-ro.

Jacky looked to have been roughed up, but Brash couldn’t even get into the first quarter of the track and everything just stopped the instant Jacky won.

“Ugh, does anyone realize how hard it is to get sand out of long feathers like this?!” Jacky complained as I saw some red dripping from her body and was horrified to see something glinting in the light of this magically lit room. “Darn it, I made some glass in the sandstorm.”

Only some glass? I guess my daughter probably hasn’t realized that she had at least fifteen large shards of glass sticking out of her sides close to her pack. There were at least seven in her chest and stomach, one in her shoulder and we needed to clean those wounds out like yesterday.

“Jacky don’t move too much, Fluttershy!” I called out, she was up and ready with the medical kit.

Fluttershy was apparently ready for this.

-After Jacky is treated for sand and glass wounds, Blade-

“Okay, so that hurricane of sand should have been impossible to race in and she got seriously injured actually managing to do it… that definitely warrants a pass. Well it would be a serious injury thousands of years ago before medicinal practices obviously picked up the slack in this day and age.” Brash looked fairly upset and she should be, she got one of Kuril’s daughters injured! Sure the healing potion fixed the damage after her wounds were completely cleaned of sand and glass, but she had been quite traumatized throughout the whole process and couldn’t take a healing potion until it was finished. “I was going to pass you guys anyway for having courage to keep trying eventually, but I was having too much fun. I don’t know what the tracks problem with beak face was, but I can honestly say that’s never happened before. Okay, you can all go on to the next trial now.”

“I’ll carry Jacky, she’s going to be a bit light headed for a while after that.” It was nice of Sekhet to make that offer, for a war god she was quite considerate. I was still learning to be friends with her all over again. “Add this to the things that your healing potions can’t immediately deal with Kuril.”

I probably wouldn’t want my open wounds healing over a painful amount of sand. So the rules were setting bones first and we’re adding cleaning the wounds of detritus before use of said potions. Kuril is going to have a small side business selling them.

“Right then, we’ll take a break so she can recover and then we’ll move on.” Baast nodded serenely, both she and her sister didn’t seem like they were affected by the sandstorm at all.

I looked to Kuril and made a gesture or two, I’m sure she’d know what I was talking about. She always seemed to know.

“Yes, I’m fairly concerned when the shifting sands track turned nearly lethal for Jacky too.” After sighing audibly, Kuril rubbed at her forehead with both her paws. “It’s a good thing Fluttershy had the chemicals for treating wounds with sand in them and that I could see every speck of sand.”

“I just thought it was best to be prepared for the eventuality even if we weren’t going to be in the desert much.” When Fluttershy was hugged by Kuril, I didn’t feel any sense of jealousy.

“Thank you for being so thoughtful Fluttershy.” Kuril was happy her luck challenged daughter was going to be okay, after she got some rest of course.

Once more we traveled down some stairs, ever deeper into the pyramid. We walked through a labyrinth style amount of construction following Baast, most of the labyrinth we ignored and eventually came into a room full of scrolls and the stone shelves containing them.

“Oh, is it time already? I’m so sorry that I’m not fully prepared, hello I’m Bright Beam.” The translucent purple cat announced this, she rolled up a scroll and put it away. She hopped down from the many rows of stone shelves. “I’m a keeper of history and a teacher of accumulated knowledge, anything learned from me should never be forgotten! Even knowledge dryer than the desert we used to live in could one day save the world. I was just making sure my scrolls were all correct and that nothing is being left out, I just got finished checking all five hundred and seventy three thousand scrolls.”

“Hello Bright, it’s been a long time since I’ve left you to your devices.” Baast strode forward with a smile.

“Oh no, how long has it been this time?” Bright seemed worried and had a paw on her face.

“A few thousand years, you could stand to spend more time with your friends and loved ones, you are all in the same pyramid after all.” Baast giggled at the purple cats face as it fell into a look of horror. “I don’t think she’ll hold it against you, she knows that you loved your job in life and beyond.”

“Oh my goodness, Princess Clarity is going to be so mad at me… I’m likely at least fifty years late! Some priestess of wisdom I am, I should have been the priestess of lost time!” Bright was soon drawn from being upset by Baast clearing her throat. “Huh, oh… living people, right the challenge, a task, the trial, of course! Oh no, oh no, oh no, I’m still not ready! I need to go find the scroll, be right back… it should be in section… let’s see gamma… no… zeta… that’s it!”

“I’m sorry… Bright was always a little late on things.” After Baast’s comment, we waited for ten minutes. In which Cheerful came up to Baast with a scroll and present it to her.

“Can you sign this please, Nubi said I needed your signature on this that you’re willing to let me run the pyramid in the case that you leave.” Looking at Cheerful with a surprised glance, Baast read the thing over.

“Okay… this seems fair, though you do realize you could be stuck to the pyramid forever right?” Baast received a grin.

“That’s what the special clause is for silly!” Cheerful giggled as Maries read the clause in question over Baast’s shoulder. “I’m surprised Nubi allowed me to get away with it.”

“You should have been a lawyer Cheerful Dye.” Maria proclaimed immediately.

“Really?! Wait, what’s a lawyer?” Cheerful seemed confused, she was from a time when lawyers didn’t exist. Baast signed the scroll and passed it back to the pink ghost. “Really, yippee, this is going to be so good! Now to get the other girls to sign it, hey Bright sign this and don’t think about it!”

“You always read something before signing it, especially when it comes to gods!” Placing her scroll on the floor and perusing the one given to her, Bright looked it over. “I’m not dumb Cheerful, but apparently you just got one over on Anubis. This is a fairly good deal, I’ll sign. Though asking me to not think about things, it is like asking Princess Clarity to not be overly dramatic about things!”

After Bright signed the scroll, Cheerful quickly ran off shouting with joy. After picking up the scroll she put down, Bright turned to us.

“Okay this task shouldn’t take but a minute, I made sure to make this as short as possible… after which I’m going to be yelled at by Clarity as you know. No… wait… you wouldn’t know who Clarity is. That’s right, they haven’t met her yet because they are doing things in order… ugh get yourself together Bright!” Taking a calming long deep breath, she sighed and turned to us bright eyed and bushy flail tails. “The task is to decipher the meaning of this scroll, only a few understand the wisdom of it and even fewer still take it to heart. So who’s going to take it?”

I moved up to take the scroll, it felt a bit heavy in my hoof and I unrolled it to look at it. I blinked at what I saw, I turned to Kuril’s pony daughter Fizzle and passed the scroll to her.

“A wise decision...” Bright said to me, I was too busy looking at Fizzle’s face as she blinked in confusion and then a look of understanding passed over her face as she passed the scroll off to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy looked it over and blinked, she smiled a little and passed it to Kuril.

Kuril looked it over through her blindfolded eyes and nodded, then she passed it to Daring.

“Huh, but what does this… oh…” Daring paused and her eyes widened as she looked at the scroll for another minute, she soon passed it off to Jacky. “I get it.”

“I may be… a little bit… very lightheaded at the moment, but… even I can understand this easily enough.” The dizzy looking Jacky passed it to Nefer, he looked it over and blinked a few times.

“Woah… that’s… here Maries!” Nefer rolled up the scroll and passed it to Maries. Once they unrolled and looked at it, they each had something to say about it.

“That’s…” Mara started.

“Quite a…” Maria continued.

“Thing.” Marie finished, they then pawed it over to Sekhet, and the goddess took a peak.

“Ah, that lesson.” Sekhet then passed the scroll too Baast, Baast didn’t even look at it and passed it back to Bright. “A good choice echo, you are truly a priestess of wisdom.”

“Good, you all understand the lesson… er trial.” Bright beamed at us. “Now, what’s the answer?”

I made several gestures to Bright, she nodded.

“You pass, since I’m coming with you… will you please protect me from Clarity?” Bright turned some watery eyes to Baast and the goddess rolled her eyes.

“You know she’s going to get at you anyway right?” A snickering Baast slinked right on by a blushing purple ghost cat. “Sorry, but I’m not going to get in her way for you Bright. Come along, we’re going to meet the anugyptian princess that backed me when I started the 'War of Anubis' with Discord’s help.”

“How did that war end exactly?” Why did that concern Fluttershy?

“In a very fairly unusual manner.” Baast eyed us all curiously. "You will learn about it soon enough."

Author's Note

Here it comes... the moment some have been waiting for.

Also colonoscopy can be a bit scary when a family member had to have three polyps removed. The first month of this year really took a baseball bat to whole a lot of things, hopefully things are uphill from here.

Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: The mystique of a legend.

-Somewhere near the bottom of the Pyramid, Fizzle-

“This is a really nice pyramid and all, but can we hurry this along?” I wouldn’t mind just grabbing this ‘End of Immortality’ thing and quickly getting out of here. We’ve been having quite the time doing this one thing. “Even if we have all day to call my guys in to assist us with getting out of the jungle after we’re done here.”

“Be patient, this is the last room we really need to pass through and there really aren’t any more trials beyond the one that will give you access to the guardian of the artifact you’re here for.” Baast was being fairly coy as she looked to me. “Don’t you just want to relax and… help me get my sister to do lewd things with a carrot and what could possibly be a significant other for her? Come now, matchmaking is fun!”

“No… I can honestly say I really don’t want to do anything involving matchmaking right now.” I couldn’t make my voice any dryer.

“Fine, be a spoil sport with helping me with my sister… maybe with radishes as those can be pretty sturdy." The ornate door had a bejeweled white cat image, we could probably profit hugely from just stealing the gaudy looking door and separating its disparaging parts out."Right, opening the door now!”

After Baast opened it, the door led into a room with walls heavily lined with jewels, not to mention the ceiling and floors. Even the path way leading up to a ghost cat laying on her side eating from a bowl of ghostly looking grapes was brightly lit with rubies.

“I so do love the taste of grapes, it doesn’t matter whether they are peeled or not.” I believe the white anugyptian cat is Clarity, she apparently had the luck to have what looked like an infinite bowl of ghostly grapes and a recliner to laze about on. Also the lithe cat was wearing an anugyptian gold necklace and had a tuft her fur in a ponytail. “Bright Beam, front and center, do you realize how long it’s been since I’ve had some companionship!”

“I’m so sorry princess!” Blubbered Bright who was hiding behind Baast.

“If you were really sorry, then you certainly wouldn’t be cowering behind her holiness Baast.” The white cat sat up and stretched out and popped another grape in her mouth. “I’ll get to you in a moment, but first our guests. My name is Princess Clarity, do you have any questions?”

“Yeah, how did you get the recliner and a bowl of grapes to be ghostly like that?” Jacky was recovering fairly fast for having lost a little more than three pints worth of blood. Wait… no… that wasn’t a quick recovery, it was just a moment of coherency before she dizzily laid her head back down on Sekhet’s back.

“Do you know how some say that you can’t take things with you when you go? Do you know how often everyone gets told that?” Clarity laid on her side and propped a paw up under her chin, she gestured to her recliner and bowl of grapes with her other paw in wide sweeping motion. “Well obviously everyone else wasn’t trying nearly hard enough and were quite clearly ‘wrong~’!”

“That… still doesn’t any sense.” Pointed out Mara, while her sisters nodded.

“That’s why I’m the Priestess of Mystique and a princess, I don’t need to make sense! Though I will say that I find that nothing is completely impossible if you truly wish to pursue it beyond all reason.” Clarity chuckled. “I was a capable, beautiful and beloved leader in life, I’ve learned quite a lot from the best and even more so from the worst dregs of our society. Frankly, pink and green were never my colors of choice.”

“Hey, I wasn’t that bad! Also will you sign this please?” We turned to see Cheerful holding up the scroll in front of a slightly spooked Clarity’s face, Clarity raised a single brow and looked the scroll over with slight disdain. Eventually she smiled. “Does this mean you’ll sign it?”

“Yes, this does have some perks I’d be quite interested in. You’re as wonderful as ever Cheerful, though I would like to remind you that I’ve always been partial to the color… purple.” Clarity sent Bright a coy evil grin, Bright ducked behind Baast and blushed. She turned back to us. “So what exactly are you here for? To bask in my humble, yet completely wonderful, presence? I know I’m quite an extravagant beauty, but I’m sadly out of date on my life expectancy... not that that would really stop me from dating someone among the living if I wished too. Though you'd have to bear in mind that I can't have children as I am.”

“The End of Immortality.” As she said this, Daring was staring curiously at the chair and bowl of grapes while caressing her helmet fondly.

“Ah, that… that particular legendary item is a very curious thing to be after. Well come along then!” Clarity hopped off her recliner and made her way towards one of the doors at the back of the room that we could probably break down for millions of bits. “Aside from being a princess, I’m fair paw at storytelling. My stories can sound absurd, but the truth is sometimes stranger than what people can write down since writing was first invented.”

“Isn’t that the truth, I tend to leave the worst or far more boring parts out of my adventures.” The door opened and more stairs, this lead into a crypt with an empty golden coffin that we passed by.

“So the End of Immortality was apparently made and used with a specific purpose in mind, it is sufficient to say that it did what it was supposed to and lived up to it's purpose. It was given to a trustworthy guardian after it was successfully used once to enact what some might see as a tragedy and some others might see it in a brighter light provided they didn't like the goddess it was used on.” At the bottom of the next set of stairs, Clarity made her way up to a shrine with a green colored sphinx statue on a slightly raised floor. “The guardian is the one who you’ll have to deal with if you want to get it. They are said to be one of the most powerful and mystical beings to walk the world and have had many a legend under their name. We simply call her Pharaoh Emerald of the first cake. Now if someone will read the words on the pedestal as to how one can call the guardian forth from her… ‘slumber’… then she can take things from there.”

The way she paused before saying the word 'slumber' earned my attention and I glanced at her, she gave us friendly smile that was hiding something.

“Oh, I can do that!” Nefer gleefully ran up to read the inscription, he apparently knew how to read any language. It was fairly obvious that he would be capable of reading Ancient Anugyptian given his apparent history of constantly reincarnating into himself and traveling the world with open eyes. “To bring out the guardian from this statue, cast upon me a feather from the goddess of Bennu and prepare yourself for an incredible confrontation unlike any other. Well that sounds rather scary.”

“Where are we supposed to get a feather of Bennu?” This adventure was certainly dragging on, but apparently it’s been worse for Daring considering the fact that she’s been all over the world looking for this one thing. We were now on the cusp of getting it and another road block. “Also, can you please tell me that there is one here or at the very least nearby.”

“Sorry dearie, but I don’t believe it would be even possible to get one of Bennu’s feathers.” Inhaling through her nose and then exhaling through her mouth, Clarity moved to sit in front of the statue while addressing us. “It’s a very strange tale. I should start it by saying this, Bennu was a self-made goddess. She was at one point mortal and became impossible to kill or at least that was what many had thought when she became immortal.”

“Okay, what happened and why can’t we get a feather from her now?” Tilting her head at the cat, Daring was looking fairly curious and a little angry.

“She actually died in a rather ‘permanent’ fashion, which should be impossible as she was completely capable of rebirth from almost any form of death. Nothing should have been capable of putting her down forever, it is just unfortunate that apparently someone found a way to do so. That is why we have a guardian here to protect this powerful relic, so admittedly even awakening her can be a challenge of it's own accord.” Clarity held out a paw to the green colored sphinx statue. “The End of Immortality was said to have been used on Bennu and she was swiftly slain, said artifact was then given to a trusted hero of our time and she is now the guardian to the ‘End of Immortality’. It took a while for anyone to find Bennu’s body and that was because nobody heard anything resembling a scuffle from her. It was as if she didn’t fight off her attacker at all! I would like to say that if any other method had been used, then it certainly wouldn’t have been the end of Bennu. Any method of killing the self-made goddess Bennu should have been clearly and completely ineffective, except for this one thing.”

“An artifact that has a legend about it actually being used to slay a goddess?” Shuddering at the thought of what we were after, I continued while thinking about the Staff of Sacanas. “It's always been fairly obvious why GODLESS would want it so badly, but to have it confirmed as actually having killed a god...”

As I drifted off, mother gasped loudly drawing all our attentions to her as she adjusted her robes and hat. There was a bright smile on her face as she looked towards Clarity.

“Was… was Bennu what we would call a ‘phoenix’ nowadays?” It was curious that mom would ask that, she seemed very happy all of the sudden. Her tail was whipping about excitedly and her ears were perked straight up.

I wondered what had mom so happy and even giddy looking, I’ve never seen her smile so brightly in a long time.

“Actually, she was the first phoenix to ever exist. She in fact gave birth to the whole race, as all phoenixes are said to have come from her. Phoenixes were never as intelligent as Bennu was, but they are still fairly bright creatures.” It was Sekhet that answered the question for us. “She used to be a heron and when she perished for good, she was a heron once more and no longer the bird of flame and ash we knew her to be. It was said by Anubis that both her soul and power went missing, apparently she was never actually meant to die and somehow managed to do so despite the fact she was a goddess. Nobody knows what truly became of Bennu's soul, but as you’ve all heard me say multiple times.”

“Souls.” Mara started.

“Are” Marie continued.

“Sacred.” Maria finished. “You don’t need to keep saying it you know, we get it!”

“Exactly.” Sekhet said with a smile. “Nobody knew what became of Bennu’s soul when she perished, as none of the death gods could find her in any of their systems and she was the most likely to end up with Anubis, king of the jackals and god of death. If no one had her, then she possible slipped through the cracks to some greater beyond.”

Mom reverently strode forward and pulled a phoenix feather from one of her pockets, always good for curing foreign bodily or magical ailments. She motioned for Clarity to move out of the way and she did. There was an intense look on mom’s face, even if we couldn’t see her eyes.

“I cast upon you this feather of a descended from Bennu, so something that has been long awaited can be remade anew!” Roiling white flames exploded into existence in mom’s palm, she took aim at the sphinx statue and hit it with the energy.

The energy seeped into the statue and we waited. I was wondering if it would even work on the statue, but then I remembered that mom cured Jacky like this and was curious as to what would come of this. The statue started to glow brightly and we all started to back away as it started shaking violently.

I looked to Sekhet who was staring at it curiously and went wide eyed a second later. Baast just had a friendly, if evil looking, smirk on her face.

“Finally… the time has come!” Baast yelled as the statue exploded into a fountain of green chunks and smoke. “I also incidentally now owe someone fifteen blue diamonds.”

“Mehehe… muwhaha-hahahahaaa! It’s been so many years since I’ve been imprisoned, as a sorceress I’ve done my time... and now it is time for me to live again!” The smoke swirled and was swiftly blown away from the form of an Abyssinian. She was wearing a red top and a long red skirt that hung down to her ankles, said ankles had sandals matching her anugyptian motif. The nemes she wore definitely denoted her as being a pharaoh. “It’s so nice to be a part of the world once more, it’s been so long since I’ve tasted the sweet air of freedom and it seems that the time has indeed come my old friend Baasty.”

Her black hair hung below her shoulders, she had dark brown or greyish fur. Her hands were holding writhing green flames and she looked at us with her slightly pudgy smirking face, her fluffy tail shifted under the skirt she was wearing as she took on an aggressive stance.

We all did the same, the exceptions being Clarity, Jacky, Sekhet, Baast and curiously enough mother, mom didn't seem the least bit impressed with the sorceress.

“Now who would challenge me for… huh?” The Abyssinian stopped when mom marched right up to her and stood in front of her, she was holding… an ace of spades card?

“I’ll give you this, if you shut up and let me hug you. It’s been too long and we’ve had several trying days to get here Jaded.” Did mom just say that was Jaded? “Also, take off the disguise.”

“Really mom… way to ruin my fun!” The Abyssinian groused out, she still swiped the card from mom’s hand then put her hands to her face and lifted it upwards to reveal a clay mask with a smiling face painted on it. As the mask was removed, the form of the Abyssinian shifted and we were soon looking at an older looking Jaded who smiled at us fondly. She was still wearing the same clothes, but her backpack was now clearly visible as was her magical alchemy necklace. “You think that you’ve had it rough? Wait until you hear what I’ve been through!”

“Please Jaded, I need to snuggle my kitten this instant!” As mom said this, she removed the blindfold and they stared at each other for a long moment. None of us saw when the two met and started to cuddle one another. “It’s been practically six years Jaded… do you have any idea how horrible it has been?”

“Love you too mom, and yes I do have a fairly good idea since I’ve seen everything Fizzle’s been up to. I have a lot to tell you and the others as I’ve been up to quite a bit and I know a lot of things that I probably shouldn’t, like who the leader of GODLESS is, my father and Fizzle’s parents, but first things first though…” Jade said as she nuzzled her face into mother’s neck and shoulder, she pulled away and started to stretch out with several cracks and pops. “Those genies had it right, several thousand years like that will leave you with such a crick in the neck! Agh, I really need to stretch myself out!”

After snapping and popping several parts of her body, I noted that Jade was fairly slim. her beige fur shined and her green hair was as vibrant as I remembered it being. Overall she had aged perfectly well and was as beautiful as I remember.

I’ve missed snuggling that… I wanted to snuggle that… I deserved to snuggle that!

“Jade…” I started to move forward slowly, Maries was right behind me and my pace was getting quicker by the second.

“Hey Fizzy… I guess it’s been…” We rammed bodily into Jade knocking her over and my lips fell on hers hungrily, my heart throbbing in my chest.

Once I let her get some air, she only had one comment for us.

“I’ve waited an eternity for the both of you.” Jade stated as she pressed her forehead against mine with her eyes closed.

“Honestly, we did the same.” Mara slapped her tongue across Jade’s face and soon my lips were back on hers.

It would take something far stronger than a god to pry me off of Jade now!

“You know, I thought you’d be more upset with me and would be berating me about putting you through all this.” She said as wrapped my hooves around her. “I mean the years of emotional turmoil and pain couldn’t have been easy for any of you.”

“Jade… don’t ruin the moment… you stupid, lovable, idiot!” That made her smile warmly at me as I cried and laughed into her slightly unkempt fur.

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredient!)

Chapter Sixty Six, How Low Did She Get?: Zero Feet.

-Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Fresh Start-

“Huh…” I noticed some movement from the little open terrarium by the window, we’d never seal Snickers into it.

Snickers was now outside the terrarium again, but nobody got her out this time. Usually Sugar would pull her out and feed her or take care of the poor little thing, but Kuril has been much better lately about caring for Jade’s familiar.

Snickers had her flippers pressed up against a window and she was looking outside. She had never wanted to go outside before and I was a bit surprised that she still ate enough to stay healthy. Something has apparently got her all excited as her shell opened up and her wings popped out of it. It has been a long time since she’s taken to the air with excitement.

“Coo, coo!” Snickers seemed very happy about something and she attracted Gavin’s attention, the little guy made his way over to the turtle and started to hug her.

The turtle dove continued to seem very happy about something.

-Heading towards the Pyramid‘s back door, Jade-

I shivered a bit, did I feel Snickers? My little buddy was okay, for a moment there I was beginning to worry when I couldn’t feel our connection upon being brought back.

“Okay, I know I’m going to regret interrupting this loving reunion with commander queen of her own army here, but what the buck happened to you!” Well Daring, I was currently being pinned to a chimera’s back and am being currently held prisoner by a pony and a chimera’s snake tail. I’m frankly happy that they still love me after all this time, especially after everything they went through in my absence. Fizzle only growled slightly at her snuggle time with me being interrupted even slightly. “You becoming an ancient anugyptian hero is a little weird, on top of being the pharaoh of the first cake. Do you realize how many nightmares I had about you being kicked into that vortex and being left for dead with poison coursing through my veins?”

“Speaking of the assassin, I’m going to need to plan some revenge on…” I was quickly cut off from my plotting by Jacky.

“Don’t worry about it Captain, my first mate and husband already took care of that with a genie wish. Oh I can’t wait to see Gavin again… I’ll even get the chance to introduce him to his other aunt.” Oh right, Jacky had a cute fluffy kid while I was gone. It was so nice to know that the assassin was dealt with properly. Knowing how pragmatic Gene could be, I would think he did a good enough job. “I would get up, hug you and cry all over you too, but I’m still lightheaded from the glass wounds.”

“Yeah, I saw that, you’re jetpack is awesome Jacky! Though it was kind of expected that it would turn some of the sand into glass, your luck is fairly obvious at times with what’s going to happen. Though the squeaking rubber ducks of doom made out of sand was an interesting feature as much as the leaping swordfish, it was rather hilarious to see Brash getting some comeuppance even as she is now.” It was about time for us to get out of here, I didn't want to stick around my tomb. “I’m just going to put it out there, I saved your ass in Saddle Arabia and it took me a while to get back to following Fizzy around. Also summoning my fire while I was out of my body was probably the most painful experiences in my life. Impossibly existentially painful considering I didn’t have pain receptors at the time and it still registered as a twenty out of ten for the number one most excruciating thing to ever happen to me.”

“Sorry about that Captain.” Sighing at Jacky’s apology, I looked over to her and her long feathers possibly tickling the base of Sekhet’s neck and shoulders, her fluffy feathered tail was likely doing the same to her side.

“It’s kind of weird hearing you call someone else that Captain Blackcap.” Never really met Nefer Tem in person, yet I knew of him. Jacky apparently didn’t go wrong with having him on her crew.

“Don’t worry about it Jacky and don’t call me captain anymore, you’re your own captain now. As to Daring’s need for an explanation... I’m going to wait on the explanation until absolutely everyone who needs to know is in one given place. So I don’t have to tell a ratger long winded story more than once!” Since that would take freaking forever. I am not doing the whole tell a part of the story and then have to repeat it for some new guy that arrives and missed portions of the story ad infinitum. If someone leaves when I start the story, I’m not starting it all over again. “Since we’re on our way out, and before I forget to say this entirely… Baast, I free you of your obligations!”

“Yes, thank you! I seriously thought you were going to hold a grudge against me for failing to hold up my end of things.” Baast sighed with relief as we were nearing the backdoor exit to the pyramid. “I can sit by the riverside and see the sun rise once more… now if only it wasn’t the perfect time for being close to a sunset.”

“Why would I ‘ever’ hold a grudge against you ‘Baasty’?” When you can make goddesses shiver in fear with a few words, then you knew you were something special. “I definitely held a grudge against those other guys and we both know how that went.”

“I relish never having to be on your bad side while giving you time to plan things out… it is also nice that I was able to help you reunite with your family and loved ones after so long.” Despite some hitches in the plan and Baast not being able to fully carry it out, things went pretty well. “See, even mortals know how to choose odd partnerships they’re happy with, why can’t you enjoy a banana cream pie for once in your life?”

“Baast, I swear, I will have Jade come up with a plan that leads to your eternal torment!” Rolling her eyes, Sekhet turned a glance to me and away from her visibly paling sister. “It’s nice to have you back Jade. You’ve always been a curiosity to me, I can see that that curiosity is not going to fade anytime within your life span and possibly beyond. Never knew you were the pharaoh of the first cake or Pharaoh Emerald, though this does raise a lot of questions that I’ll want answers to.”

I had to search my memories for a while.

“Yeah, I tried to make sure to do exactly what I was supposed to and never had reason to appear in front of you.” To say I avoided Sekhet was putting it lightly, I treated her like she was a plague. “Things have mostly worked themselves out at this point, so let’s not dwell on the details until story time.”

“Fine, this story will likely be somewhat entertaining knowing you.” Sekhet nosed me and my partners. “Don’t scare me… er… us like this again, until it is time for you to actually go mortal.”

Awe, Sekhet really likes me.

“I’m just happy to have you back. Who cares as to how or why? So long as this isn’t a dream.” Fizzle received several noises of agreement. “This isn’t a dream right? Maries could you maybe… ow… nope, not a dream. You’re actually in my hooves.”

Baast created a glowing ankh in the air and a backdoor exit opened up into sunlight, several serpopards ran in and some others ran out. The number of colorful, long necked, fanged, large cats leaving and going was fairly high. I swear they liked going in and out the entrance and couldn’t make up their minds until Baast gave them a flat look.

“In or out, I’m not holding this door open that much longer and the pyramid might soon be under new management. So make a choice my kitties!” One of the serpopards bowed to Baast and growled angrily at the others, the serpopards eventually got themselves organized and we were soon outside with the pyramid shutting behind us.

“I hope you know that we’re not letting you out of our sight for the next three months.” Oh joy, while it was entirely understandable that Fizzle missed me, this was going to be a great test of my patience. At least it would be with the people I loved and I could understand where they were coming from, I did 'kind of' miss six years of their lives. “No matter where you go… we’ll be on you like peregrine falcons the entire time!”

“Don’t you mean hawks?” Don’t know why I was querying her when I knew the response it might bring.

“We’re not about to dig claws into you like a hawk Jade, we’re just going keep you henpecked for a while like falcons. Even a Chupacabra couldn’t keep me away!” Giggled Maria in a good natured tone. We, Fizzle and I, already had Marie wrapped around our waists to keep us on Maries back, what more could they possibly want from me? Mara eventually told us flat out. “Hopefully your story will explain how you ended up in the pyramid with your body locked in a statue… nice clothes by the way, they look quite nice on you Jade.”

“Thanks Mara, red is not exactly my favorite color though, but I think I make it work.” I exclaimed as everyone was now on a long trek around the pyramid to meet up with the others.

I relaxed to the feeling of Fizzle nodding off against me, her wonderful and ever brilliant eyes sliding closer and closer to being closed with a warm smile on her face.

“Hey everyone, look who we found!” Mom shouted as we made our way around the pyramid.

“Holy… er… Jade!” The minute she was going to say it, Velvet was quieted by Arizona glaring at her as if daring her to finish that statement.

“Meep?” Looks like Paprika was back to normal, for a given definition of it since a part of her left hind leg was still black and white and still doing mime things. I think we can easily ignore that for the time being.

“She’s our friend Paprika, the one we told you went missing… apparently she was here. I wonder what the story behind this one will be.” Arizona looked towards me fondly, she had bright smile on her lips. “She never does normal and whatever she did this time is going to be quite the story.”

“It’s so nice to see you’re alright Jade… can I call you sister?” Velvet asked tentatively as she scuffed the ground with a hoof.

“Sure, my mom adopted you and you’re calling her mother, so it’s going to be a thing.” Then I had to deliver the bad news. “Unfortunately you might be the most high-strung member of the La Perm family to date, don’t worry we’ll have Maries work things out.”

“Given who my wives are, I’ll wear the term high-strung with some pride.” For a second there I thought Velvet was going to snap at me and go on a prissy tirade, it seems Arizona and Paprika had mellowed her out.

“Er… hello I’m Pom, so you’re Jade? I heard a lot of things about you… you don’t look like your clinically insane.” Turning my gaze from Pom and to Arizona, the cow lazily grinned at me.

“You’re just lucky you don’t know how right that is!” Grousing this out, I just received a tight squeeze from a snoozing Fizzle. “Story time is for when we get back to Airship Mauled.”

“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant! It is nice to see that friend Jade is alive and well!” It was nice to hear Fortitude announcing his presence again, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard that. “Oh right, we are needing to get the boat of Travel-On from the jungle! Skelly will help me get it on my back.”

The named mare nodded and they both were off. They passed by Flamberge who looked slightly frightened of me as he was hiding in the kitsune’s tails.

“Why do you cower, my sweet and brave dragon love, the cat seems quite nice.” Haiku, nice, it seems we have a poet joining us at home and a nine tailed fox wouldn’t be too bad to add to the roster of adventurers. Just so long as she doesn’t try to rhyme constantly, I’ll be fine with trying to decipher her haiku if it gets a bit out there.

“I have my reasons, just leave it at that!” It seems Flamberge remembered that I could petty kitty his butt any time I wanted to, I wasn’t going to at this point as it was much more fun seeing him tripping over himself to be wary around me.

This little moment reminded me that I really needed to visit Harmony once we got back to Equestria, I also needed to thank Providence too.

“Someone should probably wake Fizzle, she did say she’s the one with our ride out of here.” I didn’t want to jostle or upset Fizzle, she looked so happy to be sleeping against me. “I’m not going to be the one to do it though, she’s too comfortable right now.”

“I’ll do it, I know how to use a communication potion.” Mom dug a paw into Fizzle’s saddlebag and pulled out a potion from it, she walked off to get in contact with Grubber. “New balloon, need to take on prisoners and pick up right? I’ll get things moving.”

“What about Oleander, we can’t leave without her or Fred!” Pom announced quite loudly for a soft spoken lambkin. “We need to pick up my wayward beasties too… if we’re heading back to Equestria, it would be on the way.”

“She can handle herself, I’m sure she’s fine.” Tianhuo patted Pom’s back gently. “She’s a fighter like we are, even if her combat prowess is mostly magical in nature. She does have Fred with her and I seriously doubt that demon would let her come to harm.”

A pillar of darkness erupted nearby and a dark looking unicorn came trotting out with her head high and a book floating next to her.

“Okay, I’m back!” Stopping to look at everyone, then Oleander asked. “What did I miss, is the fighting over already?”

“Yes, but someone should ask the most pertinent question, why did we leave the pyramid without the 'End of Immortality'?!” Daring finally decided to ask the question that nobody brought up. Everyone was too happy that I was back that they had entirely forgotten why they originally came here.

“Don’t worry, Jade has it.” You just had to say that Baast.

-Several days later, Airship Mauled-

It was a huge gathering and mom had made some potato stew for breakfast. I was a very happy kitty to be back home and I will eventually put in a visit to both Harmony and Providence, but first...

“So here’s where things started… the assassin hit me and I fell straight into the vortex expecting to die of either blood loss or whatever the vortex would do to me.” Thus it begins.

Author's Note

Now comes the tale of what Jaded La Perm was doing and how she ended up in an anugyptian pyramid wearing odd clothing and a nemes headdress of her own.

What horrors did she go through to get back to her family?

Well she obviously survived or else she wouldn't be telling a story about it.

Chapter Sixty Six, How Low Did She Get?: Six Feet.

-???, Jade-

I found myself falling into a pile of purple sand or dust and rolled along it, blood spilling from the gash in my chest side, throat and other minor cuts. I had even lost my knife when the bastard bucked me.

I was clutching at both my chest and neck as I looked around in a panic, I was on the side of a dune of purple sand and there were no stars in the sky much less the moon.

The sky was pitch black and despite the darkness of where I was, I could see the purple silt going off into the horizon in every given direction as if it glowed in the dark. It didn’t, but the fact that there was no light and yet I could see the nose in front of my face was puzzling. That I could still see myself in the middle of all of it made me wonder.

-Break, Airship Mauled-

“So did you end up in Anugypt?” Daring’s question earned my attention. “Also I still want to see this End of Immortality with my own eyes, I really don’t have much else lined up and I can annoy you for a good while before I find something else to do, I’m tenaciously stubborn like that. I was left for dead when he bucked you in the chest, he could have finished me off. He wasn’t being paid to and figured some wild animal would get me.”

“No, it wasn’t Anugypt, but if you’d let me get to it…” I gave Daring a dirty look and Snickers was on my head mimicking my stern gaze. “Also I’m not going to give away what the ‘End of Immortality’ looks like just so you can write about it, that’s just asking for trouble! The best defense it has so far is that absolutely nobody other than Baast or me knows what it really looks like. Nobody can use it unless they know what it is. So I’m not about to let anyone find out, not even Fizzy or Maries!”

“Wait… why didn’t you pick up Jade’s Knife?” Mom asked as she produced an old friend, my old knife. “Blade might not remember this, but she found it at the scene.”

“Well excuse me if I wasn’t fighting off a predator at the time and running for my life while working the poison out of my system.” Well Daring had a good alibi, which she made even better with her next statement. “Besides, the predator was between me and it, I preferred to climb a tree while mostly paralyzed. Having stiffer legs really helped me out there when it came to holding onto the tree. Heck I’m surprised pirate girl and her entire crew were alright and alive after that whole Saddle Arabia debacle. It’s why I’m still wary of letting myself have friends or partners on my adventures. I almost got people hurt numerous times from the crossfire that my enemies didn’t tend to care about!”

“Continue lass, bleeding out on purple sand...” If anyone wanted to know what happened to me medically, it would be Dr. Bones.

“Gentle Cruise Line hospital would have really helped, but you’d be surprised by what I’m about to say next.” I was a little more than surprised that I survived it.

-End Break-

There I lay on the side of a dune with my blood flowing down it, I couldn’t get up and was in too much pain with my life fluids leaking through my hands.

I passed out from the pain clutching at myself, but I would soon learn that this wasn’t how it ended for me.

For the truth of the matter is this… the assassin accidentally saved my life, but he couldn’t have known that he did. Frankly it took me a while to figure out why I wasn’t dead when I bled out more than half my body’s worth of blood after passing out.

-Break, Airship Mauled-

“What?!” Half the people around me shouted, this made me flinch.

“Nobody of your size can bleed out more than three pints worth of blood and survive, much less half the blood in your body!” That’s where Dr. Bones is wrong, because I did survive that. “Hypovolemic shock would have taken you long before you could even wake up again, heck your brain would have any blood flowing into it. How are you even alive?!”

“That’s where you’re wrong Dr. Bones, the place I ended up at had some very unique properties to it.” Which certainly explains my overall survival and why I didn’t die after passing out while bleeding profusely without any medical help on the way. “While I was thankful that those properties allowed me to survive and heal from my wounds, the problem was getting out of that place with at least some of my sanity intact.”

“You’ve obviously been through much kitten.” Mom looked at me a bit sadly. “Please, continue.”

“You don’t know the half of it mom.” Might as well get it out of the way, because quite frankly a psychiatrist wasn’t going to help me and would likely think the story nothing but mental delusions.

Even if I had Baast vouching for me and I could get someone to magically copy my memories for viewing, it wasn’t pretty and I wouldn’t subject my friends or my loved ones to it.

I clasped at the ring hanging on a new necklace I put on, Maries and Fizzle made a promise that I was let in on. They didn’t have to let me back into their lives, but they did it anyway.

I took a deep breath and continued.

-End Break-

When the oddities of my survival continued to stack up, it got to the point that you’d have to be a completely braindead to not recognize them. Even if I can’t do the math, I shouldn’t have woken up to see my blood pooling in a puddle that was at least a few inches deep and several feet wide at the bottom of the dune I was laying upon.

There was no sun, there was no moon and there still weren’t any stars. I laid there for a while, but it felt like hours and probably was. I was in a place where it seemed like time didn’t move and I was apparently the only being that existed there. It felt like there was no air, yet I could still breathe.

My nice shirt was ruined, my yellow shorts were okay and my backpack was mostly untouched. I had quite a few things on me, like fruit and a ragged cloak.

My wounds had apparently healed a little and I took off my shirt, neither feeling colder or warmer for it. Another strange thing, it wasn’t cold or hot, for it felt like there was no temperature variance at all.

After a while I did the one thing I could do to give myself some semblance as to gauge time. I counted and tallied in the purple sand the time. I was not good at math and never would be, but counting has never been a problem for me.

I eventually counted out a full hour in minutes. Every time I got to sixty I put line in the sand with one of my claws. I was still in a relatively large amount of pain, but I was alive. I, however, didn’t get up from my position on the hillside for quite a while. I was still bleeding out, though my bleeding had eventually slowed down to a crawl.

I continued to count until I had three hours and no light from a moon or sun reached me. After a time I felt it had been longer than possibly four or five more hours had passed, slowly I came to recognize the fact that I wasn’t getting hungry, thirsty or dehydrated at all.

Also this is fairly important, my pool of blood was still a pool of blood that hadn’t dried up. The blood on my shirt hadn’t done so either, I sat there while figuratively licking my wounds just wondering where I was.

My wounds were somewhat coagulating or my skin was slowly knitting itself back together, hard to tell which of the two was happening when time didn’t seem to be moving forwards or backwards.

I’m not a biology expert, but I don’t think blood can stay fluid outside the body unless there was no air or oxygen. Yet I still breathed and I actually asked my first question.

“Where am I?” My voice carried and echoed throughout this strange plane of existence, I never received in an answer. Even after a few hours here, I was still in shock and was trying to slowly cope with it.

Gravity existing seemed to be the only thing that was remotely normal about my situation. I slept and woke up a few times, but days seemed to pass to me even if the blood pool was still there and fluid. It was the only landmark I had and it was my blood and I wasn’t going to leave until I figure out what was going on with me.

It eventually clicked for me, since I had nothing much better to do than think and had a hydra scale, I created a clone to bounce my own mind off of with a sustain.

I, myself, was my best friend in that time.

It was a little bit of a stretch, but 'we' eventually agreed as to what was going on. Given that my clone and I were actually one being, it was about as much companionship as I could get.

“So… I’m not in heck… if it really is fire and brimstone or just an ironic punishment in the form of an inescapable lotus eater that slowly changes to keep things painful.” Clone Jade was the one thing I needed more than anything else. “That isn’t quite right as I’m actually healing from my injuries.”

I couldn’t tell you why going into the vortex made my clone before this shrunk into a sphere of light and then spontaneously combusted. The magic tether between me and that clone being cut is definitely what caused it.

“Well this is definitely not Elysium, Heaven, Yakhalla or any other number of places I could think of.” If this place was some form of punishment for me, it wouldn’t have let me have the respite of having a Clone Jade at all. “None of the religions on Equus would account for this.”

All Clone Jade was, logically speaking, was me actively talking to myself in the third person. Anything I see about her, would let me know how I looked at that moment without a mirror. I looked absolutely horrible, rather pale and slightly gaunt from the blood loss.

“What if… what if this is the place people go to when their bodies are about to die? Except… our body is not supposed to be here with our soul?” Sitting up at Clone Jade’s words, we looked at each other with the same expression. “Heh, how low can we apparently go?”

“Well beyond the depths of hellish and heavenly regions apparently.” I closed my eyes and then spoke verbatim what I thought to be true. “Guess I’m in limbo...”

“Yeah, I’m not even sure it’s a good idea to use myself as a form of reassurance here, but… what now?” Clone Jade was thinking with the same brain I had, but this was twice the brain power at work so we could eventually think of something. “We’re obviously going to try and get out of here, alive is definitely happening and the question is how long this will exactly take. If we don’t give up and dying is impossible here, what are our current circumstances me?”

“Suppose if you will a person is lying in a hospital bed and their body flatlines, their soul goes to limbo and awaits their body to either be revived or die. In this case… that’s not going to happen.” It certainly wouldn’t and I was trying to keep myself together, I could cry a river. I might eventually do that, but not at this moment in a timeless place. “My body itself is in limbo, if this is indeed limbo, therefore I can’t actually die here as a representation of death doesn’t exist on this plane of existence. Physical life also doesn’t exist in limbo, so this is already an unusual circumstance. I can’t die and this dimension supports my life.”

“Yeah, no kidding, I’m likely to go around the bend once or twice just talking to myself.” The Clone Jade had our number. “It is sadly something 'we’re' going to need, but I really don’t think we should do the whole split personality thing. That would inevitably go horribly wrong.”

“Right… so what plan of action do we have? Food and water are not an issue here, that’s a godsend as I don’t think I’ll figure a way out of this anytime soon.” Yep, saying ‘we’ was just the start of the madness that was getting to know myself better. “Let’s start with the assumption that this is a soul searching journey, I’m going to bring out every bit of darkness and light on the emotional spectrum that I have in me.”

“So, seek enlightenment to complete absurdity?” Nodding to Clone Jade, I idly leaned back against the dune to stare at the still red puddle with my hands behind my head as I crossed my legs. Clone Jade took up a position next to me sitting with her legs crossed beneath her to differentiate herself from me.

“It’s the best idea I’ve got to occupy my time, like I don’t have enough of that here if 'we'… I… I don’t age… then I’m going to be here for a ‘long’ time.” Understatement of the century. “With only myself as the only form of company I’ll have.”

“That’s a recipe for disaster and I know it.” Clone Jade said flatly.

“Yep, how do I start this off?” Looking to my clone for ideas, one came to mind.

“Let’s start with the best positive emotions and work my way down to the absolutely worst ones I’ve ever felt.” Clone Jade looked at me with worry. “I’ll then go over our memories of everything I’ve ever been through. We’re' going to rend ourselves dry and then move on to using my imagination to keep myself sane.”

“I guess I better get started… love. Maries, the excitement of just figuring out how to make that work.” I sighed and considered myself sitting right next to me without a shirt. “There’s Fizzy, her eyes are brilliant and they draw you into her glowing gaze. The broken horn and scar added character and didn’t take away any of her natural beauty.”

“That’s not the only thing I love, there’s mom, food, my friends…” Clone Jade hugged herself. “If I’m stuck here… how will ‘we’ ever see them again?”

“I’ve gotten out of scrapes before, but none were as nearly as daunting as an entire dimension.” I looked to the starless sky. “Do you suppose my blood has enough nutrients to grow plants. 'We'... I... have a few seeds and could feasibly brighten up this creepy place.”

Discord is a known being of chaos, but he would never know madness quite like I would.

For the slowly encroaching madness of limbo beckoned me forth gently, chipping away at me bit by bit.

Author's Note

This is going to get really weird.

Jade's still going to tell everyone about it.

Chapter Sixty Six, How Low Did She Get?: One-hundred-thousand Feet.

Chapter Sixty Six, How Low Did She Get?: One-hundred-thousand Feet.

-Five minutes later, Airship Mauled, Fluttershy-

“Um... is this limbo the same kind of place that Starswirl and the other pillars of Equestria ended up at?” It sounded to me like Jade could use more hugs after her first few days in that place.

“Were they aware of any time passing?” She asked and I just shook my head no. “Then it wasn’t likely limbo and more like purgatory, if time stopped for all of them and then restarted the second they came out of there.”

“That is the way Somnambula tells it, thousands of years later and missing those of her past and yet happy to meet an old friend.” Sekhet chuckled.

I still don’t think her sister Baast liked me very much, but was at least willing to be cordial. My cutie mark still hasn’t signaled the end of my friendship mission, so I think I needed to have a chat with Baast or give Jade my support.

“Now where was I?” Asked Jade.

“So you were talking about starting to get into the philosophy of tic-tac-toe on the third day and how it might relate to your situation?” Fizzy was listening intently to Jade, it was nice that Jade was back and made her happy. She obviously wasn’t going to miss a single word from someone she missed. “Keep going Jade, I’m interested to hear what happened to you.”

“You and the rest of us Fizzle.” Potassium Permanganate stated, everyone that lived here was taking a day off to listen to Jade’s tale.

-Limbo, possibly third day, Jade-

Over the last few days I watched the peach pit partly buried in the purple sand and was soaking in my blood puddle, I was also trying to enlighten myself on this situation while I was doing this. My clone walked in a single direction for most of that time, leaving behind a solid straight line of paw prints in the sand.

Third day or at least I thought it was. Still no need for food, water, sustenance or feeling the need to use the bathroom. I wasn’t particularly bothered by the lack of needing to use the massive amounts of oddly colorful ‘kitty litter’ around me.

As soon as I woke up for that given definition of a day, I dropped the magical alchemy sustain and immediately started it up again. My clone was back at my side in an instant and from there we started playing tic-tac-toe.

My hydra scale clone apparently has a really good range, when they don’t exhaust your energy for using them for protracted amounts of time. What my clone saw was endless starless sky and nothing purple dunes, no wind or anything to mar all the tracks she left behind.

What? Oh… I wanted to grow more peaches in our fruit grove. Had it on me with a few snacks and some other things. It’s surprising that earth ponies can cut the fruit growing time in half just by living near fruit bearing plants.

Can I just say that the fruit grove is come along surprisingly well Mr. Refreshment? So I guess Wary Berry actually likes… nope you still apparently hate fruit with a passion. That’s why you’re the best quality control we have. We shall continue our mutual disagreement then.

I was stuck with a few things, including my new weapon that would have been more effective than my knife against more problematic targets. Well, I’m mostly afraid to use my collapsible ten foot pole for combat… of course I know how to use it, I just don’t want it to be eaten by a blob monster.

You still haven’t given up on that Jacky, really?! You seriously didn’t let go of that, but you forgot to mention knowing that I was still around to anyone outside your crew? Unbelievable.

Anyway I didn’t have time to pull my new weapon out when the assassin was coming at me agressively, plus there’s a little bit of setup for it. I was practicing with it while helping Daring out with the dark magic artifacts she needed destroyed.

The assassin, Obelus, would have likely knocked it away and then I wouldn’t have had it for later. I had all the time in the world to practice with my weapon now and I would definitely get in that practice.

Now let’s get this back on track, I was in the middle of something like my one hundredth game of tic-tac-toe. I was thinking of my situation given there was nothing for miles in every direction, I know because I eventually checked them all and my clone confirmed it.

This is where I started to philosophize on why tic-tac-toe couldn’t even be called a game to myself.

“It’s not really a game, because it always benefits the person who goes first as they get five moves over the second person’s four by going first. It’s ultimately a time waster and is otherwise impossible to win if both players are too smart, since the game will always end in a draw no matter what.” There I sat with my clone drawing out another tic-tac-toe board in the sand. “The second player can’t win unless the one going first lets them, the first person to go is effectively the only person that can win and basically has the initiative. The game is always entirely on the first person to make a move, they can always decide if the second player wins. It’s the same with chess, the second player will always make less or an equal amount of moves than the one who goes first in a game and will always be reactive to what said person going first does. The only difference between the two is the level of complexity.”

“So it’s a pointless endeavor to play tic-tac-toe unless you intend to waste time and we don’t even have that to waste.” Clone Jade was making a good point here, we didn’t have time to waste in the most literal meaning of it. “By the logic I just posed, if I added a column, row or both, then would the tic-tac-toe game actually be complex enough to be more interesting to play or would the results be the same? At least it would add a little complexity, but I can see your point by mentioning chess… the assassin had the initiative, we got our butts handed to us.”

“In chess, white always moves first. So they are the aggressors in the situation when you compare it to starting an actual war. Plenty of games tend to involve someone moving first and the second trying to react to the first, football comes to mind. The only difference is that tic-tac-toe isn’t complex enough to be called a game. Speaking of complex, what was it that we used to get here in the first place again?” It was at that point that I had a thought in my mind, I snapped my claw. “That hourglass was some bad dark magic, but it didn’t transport us through time.”

“No, it’s more like it transported us outside of time, still don’t honestly know about space or what all this purple sand is about.” Giving it some more thought I eventually came to a conclusion. “So I know how dark magic is said to twist things, what are the chances that a magical artifact made with dark magic twists its purpose?”

“About as good as anything else I have to go off of, but we destroyed that and it’s why we ended up here remember?” My clone shrugs to me and looks about as lost as I do. “I’m still trying to figure out what’s powering us in this place or how we’re staying hydrated, with how long you’ve had me out we should be dying from lack of food, energy or potable water. Also as a thing of vague interest, despite losing a lot of blood for the pool down there… our blood has somehow magically replenished itself.”

“Yeah, those are some pretty strange side effects of physically being here. Any ideas or further thoughts on that.” I watched as Clone Jade just shrugged at me again.

I decided to sing a song to pass the time, since I didn’t know what to do about acknowledging that the hourglass was also a thing that saved my life and involved dark magic.

-Break-

“See, not all dark magic is evil.” Oleander stated proudly.

“It dropped her into a place that likely drove her mad, THAT’S PLENTY EVIL TO ME.” Fred responded.

-End Break-

“Oh here we go… yeah~!”My clone started it off tapping out a rhythm on her thighs.

“Here I am, stuck in a wasteland full of sand~. I can’t get out, I find myself alone again~!” I whined. “What, could I possibly find to do all the way out here~? When I’m so worried about being dimensionally screwed as I fear~!”

“My mind is going to break~! Being alone I cannot shake~. Is this my destiny~? To caterwaul brokenly~! I can handle some physical pain, but being here is a mental strain~!” I screamed and clutched my head. “So what can I do, when I have nothing but sand to work with and~…”

“Maybe we can make a plan, but come my friend let me think again, there’s got to be something I can think to do-do-do~!” We sang at the same time while raising our clenched fists to the sky.

“I can lose my mind~. I only have so much time~. What am I to do, if I can’t keep off all that grime~?” I sat down and stared at my blood pool as my Clone hummed the tune I was thinking of. “I… don’t want to lose being who I am~. Even if I might never come to see my home or family again~!”

“My mind is going to flake~! Being alone I cannot take~. Will this get the best of me~? That I caterwaul on key~. I can handle intense amounts of pain, but this place will drain my brain~!” I rubbed at my head trying to come up with a plan. “Where am I going to go from here, when there’s no place to go but down and…”

“Come on and think of a plan, I know I just have to think again, but I’ve really got nothing boo hoo-hoo-hoo~!” We intoned while crying in stereo.

“So is this it~? Me just throwing a fit~. Can’t believe in myself, I’m feeling like quite a git~!” I propped my head up on hands as I slumped and stared at the pool of red. “What, is there possibly left to explore, when I can’t see the answer to where I’m being stored~?”

“I’m in a big scary box~. Covered with at least several locks~. What was my destiny~? I caterwaul hopelessly~!” My clone sang, but then her tone shifted. “If there was one thing to me, I don’t give up so easily~! Now come on and show me what I’m made of to come and see that~…”

“This is not the end of me, this cannot and will not be, just wait everyone you will all see-see-see~!” Singing in stereo was a little odd, much less using my clone to work myself up when I didn’t have a plan for once.

We move closer to the blood pool and sat down next to each other.

“I’m the cat in the box, I can’t think outside of it because there is nothing but empty space beyond. I’m alive when I should be dead and this dimension is actually running with me in it paradoxically to that fact.” My clone sat down with me and started kicking her feet. “Come on now, I’m Jaded ‘Freaking’ La Perm! What do we know about this place and what can we exploit?”

“That it’s a flat earthers dream and they would love to live in an endless expanse like this?” The response I received from myself a second later was a loud snort of laughter.

-Airship Mauled, Fizzle-

I wasn’t the only that snorted or laughed at that. It was a bit funny and I can see why Jade went there, she had to lighten the mood for herself. I actually had people I could talk to and interact with, she was by herself for who knows how long.

Jade wasn’t laughing though, Maries and I noticed that almost immediately. We looked to one another, nodded and then moved a bit closer to her.

“I descended into madness soon after the first month, but first I had to test the properties of the purple sand with a magical alchemy and learn how to wield my new weapon a little bit better.” So it took a month for Jade to break, especially in a place where there was absolutely nothing to do aside from seek enlightenment apparently. How mentally healthy was Jade exactly at this moment? If it’s anything like me getting desperate to fix my horn… “Since my curiosity couldn’t possibly kill me and death wasn’t a factor or was even there to take me in for doing something idiotic. I got a little creative with things, pain certainly still existed though. Didn’t stop me from doing crazy things.”

“Are you going to explain what that weapon is?” Flamberge asked as he snuggled up against Sweetcakes.

“Only when it becomes pertinent.” Which didn’t seem to be now to Jade. I at least knew she had her gunbai on her, but that wasn’t it. “Now skipping ahead to when I finally decided to test the sand around me, I had spent most of the month training with the weapon and it was a pretty good distraction. I couldn’t keep practicing with it forever though.”

-Approximately a day before spending one entire month in Limbo, Jade-

I had a fist full of sand, it was fine and flowed like water. I cast with it and the sand didn’t react, I sustained and still no reaction. I had finally worked up the courage to find out if the sand was special and nothing happened.

I let the sand flow out of my fingers and onto the ground, I looked over to my clothing and supplies sitting a fair distance from me just in case the sand decided to explode violently. You never know what could happen with magical alchemy, which is why I had nothing on me.

I made my way over to the blood pool and sat next to it to look at the blood soaked peach pit. After a time, I stood up and let out a scream that echoed across the endless sandy sea. Nothing was happening and I was the most interesting thing here, this place was really getting to me.

Seeking enlightenment wasn’t helping much, but I did learn a few things about myself.

I sat down, inhaled and thought about our trip to the chaos realm, this was basically it’s polar opposite. The chaos realm was interesting and very weird, this was boring and lifeless.

I felt like I wanted to snap. I’m not entirely proud of what I did next, but I made sure that my supplies were next to the blood pool, I left them sitting there and then left to go seriously snap mentally.

The very first thing I did in my insanity is reproduce the entirety of ‘Hinny in the Hills’, as told by a series of sand sculptures I made using my spit as a binding agent. That took up five months.

Author's Note

Music- Magnet Man's Theme Mega Man 3.

Chapter Sixty Six, How Low Did She Get?: One-million Feet.

Chapter Sixty Six, How Low Did She Get?: One-million Feet.

-Airship Mauled, Blade-

I clapped my hooves after we got done watching Jade’s rendition of ‘Hinny in the Hills’ done entirely in sand sculptures.

Apparently there was a spell for seeing memories and what we saw was rather beautiful, also somewhat horrifying given Jade did all that with spit and insanity alone. It was also quite sad that Kuril’s daughter went completely nuts, but what she had accomplished was fairly impressive.

The place Jaded had went to was far worse than she had described to us, so why does she have her sanity now?

“How can something made from such derangement be so beautiful?” Tianhuo asked while wiping her eyes.

“I feel conflicted about it, but Jade really did do a good job with getting most of the details right.” Fizzle muttered as she and Maries pinned Jade between themselves with clear looks of worry on their faces.

“That was just as good as the actual show.” Stated Fluttershy with a wide eyed amazement.

“It gets worse from there, or at the very least I get worse.” It sounded like that wasn’t oddest thing Jade did. “Also, it’s just too bad that no one is ever going to… wait… you all just saw it didn’t you? I’m kind of thankful all that effort wasn’t wasted and at least some people got to see it. I’m not exactly the breadwinner of my herd and I would never proclaim myself a hero, that’s for Maries and Fizzy. So again, it gets worse for me and I didn’t use Clone Jade for a while. Say, didn’t you say that you had Dispel Grace trapped in the nether realm Oleander?”

“Yes, I did at that.” Oleander stated as she nodded her head to Jade. “It’s not the same thing as a realm of death, it’s a bit weirder then that and he’s completely contained there.”

“Keep him there, I have a few ideas on how we can use that…” Jade smiled as she said this, it was a relatively creepy grin. That grin eventually turned into a frown as she looked to the two cuddling up to her. “Anyway, continuing on with the story of my time in Limbo.”

-Limbo, approximately seven months, Jade-

Just a reminder, I’m not in my right mind while doing any of this. That I can even remember it at all says something about me. To handle the horrors of being there for longer than a month without snapping would take someone with an insane amount of mental fortitude.

I didn’t have that.

“I am a blue goose, my language is chutney and I know the masters of socks!” Incidentally there are a few things I would want to do with Fizzle that involves socks, but that’s for things better kept private and we will be talking about that later on. “Please tell me where I can derive a cheese grater from a pile of buttered frocks?”

I was wallowing in the sand, I practically bathed in it and there thankfully wasn’t much of a smell to it. At least things didn’t smell horrible there and sand bathing is a somewhat relatively healthy thing to do in the desert, provided that you can shake the sand off. The weird and colorful fine sand was thankfully less irritating than normal sand.

You wonder why I’m bringing this up. Well, it’s been about two months after I finished my production of ‘Hinny in the Hills’ and I had lost all semblance of sanity at that point.

I’m going to say this now, this isn’t the first time I got stuck having to wait a long period time for things to get better.

“Is… that? Yes it is, yonder is my mortal graboid enemy Mr. Wiggler the worthless!” Ah yes, I was pointing at a sculpture of a sand worms head. Inside the sculptures mouth, there was a badly made sand sculpture of Blueblood. “He is so worthless because he won’t eat the capitalist! I shall bravely rescue the capitalist from being rich!”

I destroyed the Blueblood sculpture, by jumping on it like it was a pile of leaves.

“I am now the capitalist, I must destroy myself by feeding my body to Mr. Wiggler the worthless!” Okay, quick question Oleander, can you get memories of hallucinations? I just wanted to know, because I definitely know that I must have imagined Mr. Wiggler talking back to me.

“No I will not eat you, for you are the capitalist now!” The mass of inanimate sand spoke. “You are now too rich for my blood!”

“I refuse your refusal!” I then toss myself into the mouth of the sand worms head and inadvertently collapse a massive amount of sand on top of myself.

It took a few hours to dig out from that and this was just an example of what I did. I’ll just skip ahead to the second year when something important actually happened.

-Break-

“Wait, you were there for more than a year?!” Fizzle was particularly worried about Jade just from hearing this.

“Yes… I spent a few years there being absolutely hamstrung by insanity.” Jade sighed audibly and shivered slightly. “Surprised that I’m so sane right now? Because I certainly am…”

-End Break, Limbo, sometime into the second year, Jade-

I was still mostly out of my mind, but I had managed to remarkably find my way back to the blood pool to find out that, yes, my peach pit had grown into a little tree. I was only a little bit saner in that moment in time when I discovered it.

“The arboreal bug is a moose that goes ding!” I was a little surprised to see it had grown, also the blood pool was a little smaller thanks to the peach tree. “Imma holler you Icky Dress, I will never wear you my youth of a mother!”

I’m pretty sure I slurred the words ‘Icky Dress’, but that wasn’t too important as I had grew a friend. The tree couldn’t die and I wouldn’t either, so it was my new best friend!

Of course it couldn’t grow without nutrients, so I might have started doing some questionable… I cut myself a lot and performed a disturbing amount of bloodletting...

-Break-

“What?!” Jade’s mother Kuril was the loudest among the many friends and loved ones who shouted this, some others gasped and gave her sad looks.

Jade visibly cringed and looked quite meek at that moment, she even started to shyly wring her tail with her hands. She likely knew they’d react like that and she wasn’t about to hide what she did, as she needed to tell them everything about this and get it all off her chest.

This wasn’t exactly something you should drop quickly to try and ease the blow of it.

“Let’s be fair here, the only way the tree was going to grow is if I gave it fluids and I wasn’t exactly in my right mind so I might have… clawed myself a few times and forced myself to bleed to help the tree grow.” Putting her hands to her face Jade started to cry a bit. “I just wanted a friend that wasn’t myself to talk to!”

“Jade if you still feel like hurting yourself like that, we can get you help.” Fizzle nuzzled Jade’s neck gently. “We’re here for you.”

-End Break, Limbo, approximately one and three-fourths of a year, Jade-

“Hey Icky Dress, do you think to be a growth of great renown? Oh right, you can’t understand me… let me teach you an alphabet! Starting with A for Ass of mine… or is ass in nine? Because this place is very much like the word I’ve lost… I really need to find it again.” I looked to the tree I was sitting under. “Do you know where to find abstract letters that create a functional meaning? Because I sure don’t! What B’s are for is hives or things for a name like Blade, she’s a cool bat pony with stingers and makes buzzy noises. She is sweet on my mom like honey!”

At some point I eventually got to M. Also, yes, I was aware that Blade was attracted to mom. She was getting rather affectionate with my mother after she stopped trying to kill me.

You weren’t a very successful assassin Blade and you’ve never killed anyone. What? She needed to know that she’s better at cooking and than fighting.

“M is for mom…. I helped you be Icky Dress, so I’m one!” The tree of course did not respond… things would proceed to get weirder from that prospect eventually. “My blood is like your milk which is also an M, sustenance a mom gives you to grow!”

I really was nuts about Icky Dress, though I do have some idea of what might have become of my tree. Yes, something would happen to it or her, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing if I’m right about where it ended up. That’s for later though and I’ve been given a clue as to its whereabouts.

I got through the entire alphabet and went into a series of impossible to understand gibberish.

“Cup of the door hinge to you Icky, we need an elephant to bed and then we can pack our trunks. Yours is going to be a mammoth by comparison.” I don’t think any of what I said could possibly translated into something close to coherent. “Where is the white whale of my discontent that can make things cube shaped? I’d spear the dog with a fish steak, but it’d consume the heated byproduct of fire!”

My ability to stay a little sane came and went. I hadn’t touched the stuff I took off of me and left it sitting a short distance away from the tree, my hair was getting a bit long and my claws could have used a decent filing. I wasn’t taking care of myself very well, but I really didn’t need to in that place.

“It is vampire time, you are being big sucker for me!” So I popped my jagged claws and slashed my left arm and forced myself to bleed until I passed out. “For I am… the love of… hurt…”

I’m glad that I didn’t scar from that, but what did scar were the wounds that I got before I ended up there. Any wounds after I got there would heal perfectly.

Why yes Maries, I do have a scar on my neck as a reminder at how close the assassin came to killing me. I wasn’t exactly perfect at protecting myself from him. Of course it hurt Mara, a lot worse than when I got clawed when we first met.

Like mom would do anything to keep me safe and happy, I did the same for that tree by going above and beyond to make it grow big and strong. There were quite a few side effects to making the tree drink the fluids from my body, since I wasn’t just giving it my blood. I was also giving it my sweat and tears, mostly in the few moments of sanity I cried and in the others I exercised. I’ll get to that in a moment.

Yes, I literally put my blood, sweat and tears into the tree. I even breathed out on it a lot and it was like talking to flowers to give them carbon dioxide. I gave it practically everything I could since there wasn’t any sunlight for it to take in.

The fact that my muscles couldn’t atrophy was one of the nicer side effects of that place, any muscles torn got better quickly. Whatever was keeping me from getting hungry had a slight net positive on doing any exercise.

“It is criminal really... that barns doors can swing both ways, because no one will ever mention that revolving doors can also swing both ways and all the way around.” What? I wanted to brighten everyone’s mood a little by telling you about this. “In conclusion, this means Mexicolt Whiptails are ridiculously loose when it comes to partners!”

-Break-

“Is that even true?” Pom asked nervously as she petted one of her menagerie of beastly canines.

“Actually, yes. While they don’t need to, in large groups they can get rather…” Everyone turned to Fluttershy and her face turned bright red. She tapped her hooves together and barely whispered out the next word. “Excited.”

“Seriously?” Jade asked in astonishment. “Huh, did not know that, it was my insanity talking at the time. I should bring up the fact that the story Jurassic Bark actually has some realism with the frogs they used to magically resurrect ancient dinosaurs alongside some ancient Diamond Dogs. Kind of explains why the dinosaurs were capable of reproducing really, they shouldn’t have used that particular species of Zebrican frog in the genetics for the dinosaurs they revived.”

“If the world didn’t want same sex relationships, then a race of entirely female only lizards wouldn’t exist.” Marie intoned. “Much less asexual reproductions or the ability of some animals to fully change gender at will for that matter. Most species of fish comes to mind…”

“Before anyone asks, no, Sea Ponies don’t and can’t change genders at the drop of a hat like that!” Flotsam stated with her finned hooves crossed indignantly. “Don’t even suggest the possibility! It’s awkward enough for me to find a boyfriend as it is, especially when it comes to mentioning my biology in any capacity! It tends to drive a lot of nice looking guys away from me! Also I’m staying a sea pony, even if I have been offered an open invitation to become a hippogriff by some of the ones here.”

“Speaking of, don’t snakes have the ability to perform parthenogenesis?” Now Dr. Bones had our attentions as she was eyeing Marie suspiciously. The snake tail looked away from everyone shyly. Some people looked confused, but Jade and Fizzle looked a little wide eyed. “If you don’t know what Parthenogenesis is, it is basically a method of asexual reproduction.”

“I try not to think about that too hard when in relation to us being a chimera…” Marie wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes as everyone stared at her. “Back when Cheerilee was still teaching here, I looked it up during a biology class and… I tried very hard to not to share that information with my sisters. We can actually keep secrets from one another.”

“This has not occurred to us.” Mara and Maria stated at the same time, both looked to be mildly unsettled by the prospect that their biology could make them pregnant without a partner.

“So aside from Zen bringing up that random bombshell. One that means Maries could randomly have a child from out of nowhere should Marie have enough of an effect on their biology for it to occur…” Fizzle stated ever so slowly, while making sure to keep a comforting hoof wrapped around Jade. “Can we drop that line of thought for the moment and continue on with the story?”

-End Break, approximately into the third year in limbo, Jade-

Gladly Fizzy!

As I was saying, giving blood, sweat and tears to the tree had an odd effect on its growth, especially given it grew in a place without sunlight.

I didn’t recognize the truth of it at first, I thought I was hearing a voice in my head.

“Can you say parental feminine unit of authority?” I asked.

“Mom!” I seriously thought I had imagined that.

I didn’t.

Author's Note

Well now, Jade probably needs therapy, psychiatric help or both.

Also since when could trees talk in MLP? Since the Tree of Harmony communicated with the young six through a magical avatar that looked like Twilight Sparkle.

Jade made something come to life in a place that has no life at all.

Chapter Sixty Six, How Low Did She Get?: One-billion Feet.

Chapter Sixty Six, How Low Did She Get?: One-billion Feet.

-Limbo, sometime into the fifth year, Jade-

The first time I heard the tree say ‘mom’ I thought I had imagined it, but now moving into the fifth year is where I started to regain my senses when I finally noticed and acknowledged the very fact that I wasn’t alone.

-Break, Fizzle-

“Wait a minute… stop right there Jade!” I narrowed my eyes at her, she looked like she was trying to dodge something. “You skipped a year. What happened during the fourth year Jade?”

“It’s nothing imp…” Slapping a hoof down on the table, this cut Jade off from dodging the issue.

“Again, what happened. You’ve already told me you started cutting yourself, bled yourself out horribly numerous times, you went raving mad and you were basically mentally mulched!” I was happy to have Jade back, ecstatic even, so why did it feel like she wanted to keep something from us? “I can tell you’re trying to keep something from us.”

We’ve already seen how bad she got when she did that rendition of a play using five hundred or more extremely well crafted sand sculptures. Jade was apparently an idiot savant at making sand structures while she’s insane.

“Can I please skip the fourth year, you really don’t want to know what I did during that time frame. It was about as insane as everything else I did and it’s completely unimportant.” Narrowing my eyes at her further, Jade couldn’t look me in the eyes. “Okay, it’s actually quite horrifying beyond belief, nobody would want to hear about it and I really don’t think it’s all that important.”

“Jade… you’re important. Not only to me, Maries and your mother, but a lot of us felt like we got our collective hearts ripped out when the consideration of your death was on the table!” I raised my voice slightly and she winced. My snuggle cat better come clean or else any marriage we have is going to start off rocky, also I’m planning to take that nice military position Twilight is offering me as I don’t technically have a steady job outside of being the Storm Queen when the Storm Creatures have need of me. “So please, tell me what you did to yourself this time. I promise that I want to help you through the trauma. I can’t promise that I won’t judge you, but any judgement from me will not be nearly as harsh because frankly I’ve done some things I’m not proud of either.”

“Yeah, running the hippogriffs out of their homes was fairly nasty… not nearly as horrible as some of the stuff I got up to, but that comes later.” Jade seemed pensive and fearful. “I’ll only tell what happened in the fourth year if everyone here promises not to panic, overreact and only if there’s a unanimous decision that you absolutely want to know.”

“Jade, I would be delighted to hear everything that you have to say.” I was being honest, she had gotten beautiful with age and I can see some resemblance to mom in her. I wondered if I looked like my biological mother personally, aside from the broken horn and various scars of course. “Maries and I will still love you no matter what you possibly did in the past, it’s the distant past for a reason. I’m worried about the Abyssinian that made it to the here and now, I know that you’re still the same cunning jerk of a brave cat named Jaded that I love. It’s okay, we can take whatever it is you have to tell us and we will support you to the best of our abilities.”

“Everyone, we would like to make a decision as to whether we want to listen to what Jade did in her fourth year of complete lunacy. We, Maries, are of sound mind and want to hear it. What say you?” Began Mara eyeing everyone sternly. Maria followed up. “Does anyone have any objections? Besides the fact that it’s almost lunch time and yes, Matriarch La Perm will be cooking soon.”

Everyone chimed in and agreed that they wanted to hear it.

“Well okay, but don’t say I didn’t try to warn you!” Inhaling through her nose, I watched Jade close her eyes and sigh. “So… around the fourth year, I didn’t pay much attention to the voice that I now know to be Icky Dress. Despite my ignorance of the fact that she was talking to me and my inability to notice it, I continued to teach my tree about life, death, the universe and what real worlds were like outside the realm we were in. Might have told her my dreams of getting back to my loved ones with her in tow, I also continued to exercise and practice in the moments my sanity could almost be considered regained.”

“Let me guess, you disemboweled yourself or something metal like that?” Arizona intoned with a small chuckle on her lips.

“I wish… what I did was far worse!” Jade said seriously.

Whatever it was, I was ready for it. I would try to love and tolerate her no matter what horrible thing she’s done to herself.

-End Break, Limbo, approximately fourth year, Jade-

“Milk or nutrition is not always blood, everyone gets nutrition in different ways. Here in this realm we don’t need nutrition. Outside of here, you’d need soil and sunlight to survive to be a big strong tree and trees are nice because they help beings like me live just by living themselves.” Yep, I started treating the tree as if it could hear me and talk back. I was entirely ignoring the fact that it did and would respond to my inanity. “So as you can imagine, being a mother of life is hard. We are both life, even if we are different. Despite our differences, that doesn’t mean we can’t have love in a familial way. We give affectionate gestures by gentle contact or saying things like I love you Icky Dress.”

As ran my left hand over the trunk of the small tree tenderly, she responded.

“Love mom!” To think that I had outright ignored Icky saying that despite all my attention and love being directed at her for the time being as my only friend and possible child.

I’m just going to state this now. It is quite impossible to replicate the feat of making a sapient magical tree quite like Icky Dress by accident and requires purposefully almost killing oneself several times over to achieve.

For it to work all of the blood, sweat and tears have to from a single individual. A tree will not mutate like this if it is getting nutrients from several sources at once, it requires a constant source from one person that would kill them several times over were they try to do this normally. The easiest method would be to get a unicorn that specializes in preservations spells or at least fill a bag sustained bag or pack from my mother or me with jars of blood over the course of at least thirty five years.

My little Icky Dress grew pretty fast given how well I kept the pool of my fluids filled and how much she drank from it, feeding her once every other day was still rough on me. I believed it to be a worthwhile endeavor.

-Break-

“Actually jade… since you were in limbo. You likely bled enough to kill yourself more than once every other day for the entirety of a few years after the tree sprouted… it would actually require something in the equivalent akin to three hundred years of blood from a single individual to do the same thing safely given the recovery time between each donation of blood is at least six to eight weeks to fully recover.” Staring at Tianhuo with a bit of shock, Jade looked a little horrified. “Most being don’t live that long, don’t have the patience for it if they do or even the life span to achieve it aside from noble beings like the venerated dragons of the dragon lands. Where in the world did you learn how to do math?”

“Aye, that would be mostly accurate, but more like three hundred fifty or four hundred for the lower estimate with how much she lost.” Dr. Bones nodded to Tianhuo. “Putting that much of your life into a tree couldn’t have been healthy anywhere else but there.”

“Well Jade has… a minor… okay it’s a pretty bad problem with Dyscalculia! I can’t even sugar coat how bad Jade is when it comes to math, it actually needs to be seen to be believed!” Fizzle stated loudly and bluntly while trying to not look Jade in the eyes with what she was about to say. “She was completely fine with everything else when it came to learning, but whatever you do, don’t trust anything she calculates even if she is given something to calculate it with. That honestly only makes her math skills far worse. She can count and do simple math… for the most part. Let’s just say that Maries is the one that will be handling our finances when we eventually decide to upgrade our herd status to married, we will never trust Jade with anything more complicated than the simplest stuff.”

“I only made two plus two add up to fifty seven that one time!” A few people just stared at Jade with disbelief. “Why can’t you just let that go? I know it’s four now, my addition isn’t nearly that bad. It’s like how I can multiply just as well, two times two equals eight is my best example.”

“How could you possibly mess up something so…” Maggie was stopped by Velvet putting a hoof on her shoulder, the reindeer slowly shook her head no.

“You never tell Jade the odds and she’ll get away with a lot things.” Velvet clearly conveyed and stated everything with her eyes, it was better to not pursue this train of thought to its logical conclusion. That way lied the madness of trying to teach Jade how to do math correctly, a complete effort in frustration that inevitably ends in failure.

“Ah, one of those types… gotcha.” Maggie nodded to her daughter-in-law in understanding. “Kind of like the odds of me constantly surviving explosions going up despite the numerous times I’ve been caught in concussive blasts that partially ruptured my insides. Some people say you can’t strengthen you’re organs against internal attacks, but I proved them all wrong haha!”

“Maggie really is an expert at explosive situations.” Grace said softly from her seat next to the boisterous bruiser of a cow. “I’m sure everyone was fine after the first hundred or so incidents. I mean Calloway and I were, and we were near Maggie for most of them.”

“Someone remind me to steal my mother’s explosives after this.” Arizona intoned while sending her mother a look. “I want to take a preventative measures to stop any incidents from happening around here.”

“That really doesn’t work, Calloway’s tried to do that many times before.” The soft spoken Grace would always be great friends with Maggie. “Maggie still somehow always finds ways to make things explode even without explosives on hoof, it was sometimes fun trying to guess how she’d do it too.”

“Getting back on track… though you might not like where this is going given the recent subject matter.” Jade still look rather pensive about something. “I’ll just skip teaching a tree how to speak, how to write, how to do science, what history is about and go to the end of our art lessons.”

-End Break-

“That’s why squid’s ink sacks can be used to create art!” Don’t ask for the context of this one. “Though the squid might not appreciate it and do the opposite of what is nice, which is bad. Touch can be soft which feels good, pain is when things hurt and feels bad.”

I taught little Icky Dress about pain and tickles, I did scratch her a tiny bit with my claws so she could understand what pain was and that she should never try to enjoy it. Though I did teach her that pain was something that tells you that you are still alive. I would know, I felt pain every time I feed her and told her as such.

It made Icky a bit sad that I had to be in pain to make her grow, but I taught her the idea of what my sacrifice meant and what the word ‘sacrifice’ itself means. She didn’t like it much from my recollection.

Mind you, all of this is before I recognized the fact that she could talk or even respond to me. Here’s where you’re all going to get angry at me.

“Okay, I know I’m not exactly the best at this, but bear with me on this one Icky Dress… I’m going to teach you how to do math!” I stated.

-Break-

Everyone that knew how bad Jade was screamed in absolute horror, Fizzle tried to keep a calm look on her face and she was failing quite badly to keep it.

“Jade… please tell me that you didn’t just say that you tried to teach a tree how to do math.” Fizzle’s voice strained, her face had slipped slowly into an absolute look of horror. “Please, for the love of the goddesses and our herd, tell me that you didn’t do what you just said you did!”

The ones who didn’t know Jade that well were curious.

“It wasn’t that bad, I actually think things went pretty well with the math lessons.” If things went well then Jade shouldn’t have been so pensive about discussing it. “Though there could have been a little less fire involved...”

-End Break-

“Tell me, do things seem a little warm to you Icky?” Random portions of the dimension were on fire at least thirty minutes into the lesson. At least Icky Dress managed to avoid being lit on fire and this would actually prove to be a fairly good thing later on. “So anyway, plus adds one and minus takes one. One times one is a district all its own and it should equal two because we’re talking about two ones here!”

“Wouldn’t a one multiplied by itself be a one mom?” The glowing tree queried. “Also, doesn’t most of this sound wrong to you somehow?”

For some reason I felt like she was better at math than I was and I was the one teaching the concept to her, I honestly don’t know how that works.

“You’re a one and I’m a one, so we’re a two together!” I told her brightly. Despite the fact that I responded to her, I still wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders or realized that she had actually asked me something. "Do you want me to do the hand puppets Icky?"

"Yay!" Replied Icky.

-Break, Fizzle-

I take it back, I wasn’t ready for this.... not by a longshot.

"Meep!" A horrified Paprika whimpered.

This was actually one of the worst things that Jade has possibly ever done! It tops her making me beat the crap out of her.

“I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream again in complete and utter terror.” I wondered what Jade eventually did to that poor defenseless tree.

“We can do all three at once, we’ll just need to figure out which of us does which.” Said Maries blankly.

Author's Note

Jade trying to teach math is more horrifying than many things.

Chapter Sixty Six, How Low Did She Get?: Welcome to Chineigh.

Chapter Sixty Six, How Low Did She Get?: Welcome to Chineigh.

-Airship Mauled, Jade-

“Look I can do math, eight plus eight is sixteen. Twenty four plus twenty three is forty seven. Simple math isn’t that hard…” See I can admit my faults. “Though I probably shouldn’t have been attempting or teaching math while clinically insane.”

I probably taught my tree my completely questionable math skills with pretend hand puppets and that might not have been the best thing I’ve ever done.

Hey, it got me out of limbo at least.

“There, there, it’s okay Jade, we understand and love you.” Really Fizzle, that’s how you’re going to treat me? The pats on the back were at least rather reassuring, even if they were highly condescending. “Now never try to teach math while completely insane or even while you are functionally sane again. If you can do that, then I’m sure everything will be fine.”

She was treating me like a little child, but at least I could understand where she was coming from. I did make most of the people in the room scream in horror after all.

“Look at it this way, we at least learned that our wife Paprika might have a fear of hoof puppets.” Arizona watched as her fluffy wife ducked under the table whimpering. “Don’t know where she got it from though.”

“It’s okay Paprika, there are no hoof puppets here.” Velvet looked busy trying to coax Paprika out from under the table. “Besides, you know we’d protect you!”

“Meep…” Paprika poked head up from under the table slightly.

“Look, as scary as the prospect of the chica kitty doing math, with the explanations provided in these fairly nice pamphlets that were hoofed out…” Glancing at Lingo, I saw the pamphlet in his hoof and read the title on it.

“Hey, why does that say beginners guide?! Are you guys seriously implying that you made more than one pamphlet about me for this? When did you even start passing them out to begin with and why don’t I have one!” I let out indignantly before I felt something start scratching me behind the ears, thus calming me down immediately. “A little lower… oh that’s the spot…”

“Good Jade, just relax, don’t petty kitty everyone in this room into oblivion… we actually wouldn’t survive that.” You might Fizzy, especially if you kept rubbing my ears like this with your hoof. She looked at everyone. “Never give her time to plan a petty kitty scheme, defuse immediately if angry unless the target isn’t you.”

“I can agree with that!” Flamberge shouted from next to Sweetcakes with an icepack on his head.

“Can we get back to how she got out of there?” Queried Drip as he snuggled against Macaroni with Lingo.

“I was getting to that and it involves the fifth year. The plane of a rather questionable existence being set on fire by my ‘admittedly’ consistent math skills was a good thing…” I glanced around at everyone. There were quite a few disbelieving looks. “Seriously, it was actually a good thing that most of the place caught on fire and turned some of the sand to glass or else I wouldn’t be here telling everyone about this! So at the very least giving my math skills some credit for getting me out of there.”

They were all still blankly staring at me, I sighed and started back into things.

-Limbo, early into approximately the fifth year, Jade-

“Wait a minute, you can talk?!” Seriously guys, you don’t need to face hoof so loudly. It might disrupt the flow of my story.

“Of course I can mommy.” The tree answered in a friendly tone and it glowed slightly with each spoken word. “Mommy is silly.”

“Huh, okay then.” It took a while for me to finally get my mind fully together after figuring that out, but once I did I made a brilliant plan on how to get out. It would involve setting a localized portion of the dimension on fire again, but there were unfortunate side effects of my exit strategy. “Say… could we do a bit of math together?”

-Break-

“Okay, show of hooves or whatever else you have, who would trust Jade with a child?” Fizzle raised her own hoof, as did everyone in the room.

“Aw… you guys!” Jade was awed and touched at the trust they showed in her with being able to take care of a child.

“Now show of limbs, who would trust Jade with math even if she was working in conjunction with someone else?” Everyone immediately lower their limbs with Fizzle’s words and were all looking at everything else in the room.

Nobody could quite meet Jade’s slightly miffed eyes, not a single limb was up in the air.

“Fizzy, my resentment and urge to petty kitty this whole room is rising…” Jade said slowly as her eyes twitched violently, because even Fluttershy and Pom were looking elsewhere. Those two were the nicest people in the room and even they didn’t throw her a pity vote.

Fizzle just started to pet Jade again, she grumbled and eventually started purring. This made Fizzle smile calmly as she stroked the beige furred Abyssinian’s green hair.

-End Break-

Getting back to the story, also you guys are quite mean, it was into the fifth year that Icky slowly drew me back into a form of relative sanity.

I say ‘relative’, because it took me a while and a lot of tender love and care to get me back to completely functional for society as I am now after I left the place.

Now as to how I escaped the place, do I need to clarify that my plan didn’t involve me personally using math all too much or at all?

Why does everyone sound so relieved to hear that?!

In any case, I thought back to the fact that limbo had large chunks of glass all over the place due to my “MATH” lessons. Why does it sound like I’m saying that with air quotes?

It made me consider how an hourglass teeming with dark magic got me into this mess, I didn’t have any dark magic on me. So I figured, in my mildly decent mental state, that a regular hourglass might get me out of this.

So I improvised a method to create hourglasses out of nothing but the purple sand, my insanity driven savant sand sculpturing skills aided in this endeavor greatly. It also required Icky Dress to do my form of complicated math with magic in a localized area.

I just have to ask, was it really a series minor apocalypses if no one is around to be hit with or harmed by it? In any case Icky created enough magical fire, being more capable of using magic than I was as a very magical tree, to quickly heat some very uniquely made sand sculptures.

-Break-

“Couldn’t you have used a salamander scale to make an hourglass and have gotten out sooner?” Kuril received a shaking head from her daughter.

“Wouldn’t have worked, I’d be down a salamander scale and the cast only gives you one defined wall of flames over a given area that likely wouldn’t have melted the sand evenly or the effect wouldn’t have stopped when I needed it to. That would have made a solid block of useless glass.” Jade answered with flat looked even as she smiled at the hooves wrapping her in a hug. “I’m not an expert in glass blowing, but I had an idea as to how difficult it would have been to do it correctly with such an unwieldly cast like that. I’d only have one shot at making an effective hourglass. If I had failed, I’d be out of a salamander scale that I might have needed later for its magical alchemy sustain effect. Icky was actually capable of doing it without me relying on a one-time thing to hopefully achieve a successful result.”

“How many tries until you were successful?” Fizzle place her chin on Jade’s head.

“It took a good fifty or so tries directing Icky to flash melt the sand as quick as she could so. Before you ask, I couldn’t use my infinite campfire ability without the sun being present.” Jade had been fairly correct in the idea that there was no way could have done it on the first try with the one salamander scale she had on her. “Thank goodness for Icky being able to create localized fire, since it was about the fifty third attempt that we succeeded. We only produced two barely viable hourglasses out of the one hundred and seventeen near identical sand sculptures I made that were hit with an explosively powerful blast of flame that time, there was a lot of heat and liquefied molten glass. Fifty three attempts with more than a hundred sand sculptures each… I actually counted to make sure we had at least one hundred chances at success each time.”

-End Break-

After at least seven months of nearly non-stop trying, with very little sleep, I held the fruits of our labor.

I was in awe, as I reverently carried the two fragile looking hourglasses that I and Icky Dress had forged together. The hourglasses were made from simple sculptures of two spheres connected together, one solid and the other hollow. As you can imagine there were plenty of problems making one of the conjoined spheres hollow, but we had eventually managed it.

I didn’t know if this was going to work or not, but I still had to try. I gathered my supplies and a few souvenirs from my first math lesson with Icky Dress.

“Icky… if this doesn’t work… I won’t know what to do with myself.” The wobbly massive of glass with sand in it held in my left hand could only be vaguely called an hourglass, it was spilling sand into the empty portion like it was supposed to. The other one was more accurate shape and I put that in my pack and was going to use it next if this one didn’t pan out.

It likely didn’t matter if the object could do an exact hour accurately, I was hoping it only had to count as being an hourglass in name or spirit to work.

“Do it mom, show me the world beyond this place where you decided to plant me.” Hearing Icky’s encouragement, I held up the hourglass. “Even if… I might not live for very long beyond this realm if things go badly.”

“I’ll try to get your roots into some soil Icky.” My fur was a mess, my claws were jagged and my hair was a long sordid amount of tangles, I looked like anyone’s description of what a stereotypical hermit might look like.

I held the hourglass aloft and closed my eyes to begin the cast.

The fragile wobbly mess of melted sediment actually responded, I opened my eyes and threw the magic at the ground in front of me.

A vortex open in the world before my eyes, I cried fat tears.

I was getting out of there.

This vortex however did not look like the one that I had made with the dark magic hourglass, it also did not absorb any of the surrounding sands. What it did do was rapidly grow to suck in and swallow both Icky and Me.

That’s when we were separated.

-???, Jade-

A crack split the air in this place, this announced my arrival to somewhere else and I slammed into a sand dune among the blistering heat. Given the sand wasn’t purple and I could feel the sun, I was no longer stuck and hopefully there was civilization nearby.

I started walking and looking around for any signs of other being, but I stopped a few feet from where I fell.

“Icky? ICKY? ICKY DRESS!” It didn’t take me long to realize that Icky was no longer with me or anywhere near where I was. I was in another desert, but the sun felt nice on my fur after so long in a twilight realm of nothingness. “Where… no… not again… please… no… no, no, no, NO!”

I fell forward in the blistering heat onto my hands and started to cry. It was fortunate that I had attracted attention to myself, and also highly unfortunate that first signs of life I met out there among the sunlit sands was hostile.

A shadow fell over me and I looked up, my eyes shadowed in the cloak vaguely saw a Jackal standing over me with a steely gaze and eyes glowing like Quetzalcoatl while he was corrupted.

They were like tall muscular Diamond Dogs and… oh, you saw some in Cow-ro on the way here? Huh, I guess they stayed being much nicer since ancient times.

So back to the story, I was swiftly beset upon by Jackals in the times of Ancient Anugypt.

I didn’t defend myself and was swiftly knocked out by a blow to the head, thankfully they wanted to take me alive. Not so thankfully, they were going to torture me and try to get information out of me that I didn’t have.

Let me tell you, Anugyptian prisons back then don’t have good prisoner services. After five years in limbo, I considered it a slight step up in my situation as they gave me barely enough water to not die of dehydration after dragging me bodily through the desert.

I would soon actually be dragged into the war between Baast with the Anugyptian Felines and King Anubis, the god of death and nightmare tainted leader of the Anugyptian Jackals.

-Break for lunch, Airship Mauled, Baast-

“This would be a time after 'future' Discord visited us, he had to leave quickly after we helped him and we soon had heard rumors that they had captured some of my subjects. My contingent and I were on our way to rescue them and that’s where we first met the sun priestess Jaded La Perm.” Never had I met a mortal so driven to survive, after plenty of time with Quiet Voice to help get her mind centered back to what it once was. Jade has been through much, she was quite happy now. “She wasn’t exactly in her right mind at the time, but she definitely didn’t need our help to escape and was already in the midst of a jail break by the time we got to her holding cell.”

“Yeah, future Discord had to leave quickly to not screw up the time stream, I absolutely told him to not mess history up where it involves me or mine.” Jade was now being comforted by Maries and Fizzle was sitting off to the side.

“You met Discord?” Fluttershy looked fairly curious, she was much braver than Quiet Voice.

“Yeah, I met him far later, but for a time he was going by the moniker Chaos, the blue winged Anugyptian Feline with a demented amount of humor. Anugyptian Felines also went by the term ‘flail-tail’ a lot, they actually wore it with pride even when the jackals wouldn’t call them anything else.” After Jade finished speaking, I watched as my son flicked his split tail about as Kuril sat a plate of seasoned fish before him.

“Then Nefer is our favorite flail-tail!” Jacky rubbed Nefer’s head and he mewled a bit angrily.

Even if he pretended to hate the affection, Nefer had a smile on his face the entire time.

My Nefer always finds his way, like Jaded finally found hers.

Author's Note

(New magical alchemy ingredient!)

Next: City of the moon.

Chapter Sixty Seven, City of the moon:J.

-The next day, Airship Mauled, Fluttershy-

Jade looked much healthier this morning, snuggling in bed with Fizzle and Maries really seemed to have improved her mood greatly over the last few days. What also helped her mood is going through a nice round of Ogres and Oubliettes last night, she stopped her story at lunch and enjoyed the rest of the evening saying she’ll start up again the next day.

I’m still quite curious as to what happened to Jade’s tree Icky Dress, there’s also the strange fact that the friendship mission hasn’t been resolved yet. I wasn’t about to leave it unsolved, but I had a few ideas as to what I needed to solve despite things seeming to be okay.

Letting out a soft sigh, I moved over to Baast who was awaiting breakfast this morning. I too was waiting for Kuril and Fresh to get my breakfast out as well.

“Can we talk about things?” She gave me a look that told me she tolerated my existence, which was mostly a good thing.

“What’s there to talk about? Jaded will tell everything that happened, I believe she left off with coming back into the time stream missing her only companion in that twisted place outside of time and space.” Baast didn’t seem particularly willing to talk, but I still wanted to make an effort to befriend her.

“Are you angry that I’m friends with Discord?” Seeing the snort she made, I was wondering if what I said was funny. I knew she was in love with Discord when we met in the distant past, she wasn’t exactly hiding her feelings and Discord seemed very nervous around her.

“Oh I’m not angry, in fact I’ll just be completely honest and upfront with you.” There was a slight glare in Baast’s eyes to go with what she said next. “I’m actually quite jealous that you have such a close friendship with Discord!”

“Oh… do you want to be friends with me too?” Please at least attempt to meet me halfway here Baast.

“Maybe.” Baast seemed a little reluctant to try, but she didn’t say no. I thought we could be great friends and she wasn’t as aggressive as she was the last time we met. Baast did help us out when the jackals captured us when we were doing that field trip with Discord. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe Jade is going to start telling the next part of her story in a few minutes and I wish to talk with her on what she’s going to divulge.”

I watched as Baast walked away feeling a little upset, but the fact that she could tolerate being around me left me fairly hopeful that we could eventually have tea together. I don’t think goddesses like Baast had the same allergies that Abyssinians or Diamond Dogs had to caffeine or theobromine.

“My sister is annoying and also a bit stubborn, she likes causing innocent forms of chaos and loved Discord. She always made Discord quite nervous, but he still got her to take a stand against King Anubis and the chaos from that was impressive… considering that I now know Jade got involved in it.” Sekhet stretched out and made her way over to me. “Given what we saw in Cow-ro with the jackals and flail-tails being good friends, I think my sister made the right decision to kick off the war by stealing the death god’s bone. If Anubis had that bone at the start, then things would have ended a little bit worse than they could have. I think that Jade’s interference played a role as well. I’ve never actually heard the story in full, so this should be fairly entertaining for me. I believe you can be friends with my sister as well, just don’t push her too hard and stick with your soft touch approach.”

I watched as Sekhet turned from me and sat down to her meal as Jade stumbled into the dining area yawning.

It would take about thirty minutes for everyone to gather and Jade would start telling us about the second leg of her journey, starting with being held prisoner in a pyramid.

-Ancient Anugypt, several thousand years in the past, prison pyramid, Jade-

“The heron is calling out to the sun for a friend, she became fire and then her feathers were the stars.” I still wasn’t in my sane mind upon waking up in the cell, but I was speaking like a prophet for a reason.

“Do you suppose she’s a seer?” The male jackal said to the female one staring at me with contempt. “She speaks in strange tongues.”

“The heat may have gotten to her, but it’s been several days and she looks no worse or better than she did previously.” The female jackal walked up to me and jerked my head upwards to stare me in the eyes, the faintly glowing green eyes were signifying some kind of possession. The possession likely wasn’t as powerful as the main host, because these guys still acted like they had their minds for the most part. “Can you speak normally cat?!”

“The echo of being a matter of time, answers to me in a colloquial term that says I cannot answer within the range of a platypus being less than an oddity. Do you believe in beavers? Duck faces you would not conceive.” I was actually being cheeky with this next bit of dialogue. “The verbosity is spilled on ears, as corn they are and like adult mayflies they fell to the soundless locusts.”

“Addled or not, we will get something of interest out you!” She then slapped me across the face with the flail, thankfully the jackal didn’t draw blood or harm me enough to scar my face and left the cell with the male. “Her items are not of great interest, though they do seem to point to her being something akin to a seer. While she has not been very informative about anything, we will eventually get something of importance from her before she perishes.”

At this time Baast was planning to jail break her captured people from this place. The war effort had been going far more evenly on both sides thanks to the Cutie Mark Crusaders telling Baast to get her troops to coordinate better and work on their friendships. Despite the disadvantages of Baast’s army, being made up of mostly flail-tails which are mostly the size of average house cats, they held their own with numbers compared to the jackals being taller, stronger and far better armed overall.

I made my move before Baast made hers to come free the flail-tails trapped with me.

“Hey you, can you hear me?” I looked up and saw a flail tail in the cell across from me. “I don’t know who you are, but hold on just a little bit longer. I heard Baast was coming to our aid and she’ll be here any day now. You just got to stay strong, we need all the help we can get with our war effort… even if you are a bit touched in the head.”

I giggled at the worry, someone was actually concerned about my wellbeing? Well I wasn’t worried, being chained to the wall in a room with no door wasn’t exactly a big problem for me. I had even stolen the short crook off the female jackal that had hit me with that flail using my tail.

I’m surprised that neither guard had noticed the theft or the fact that I now had a weapon.

“Danger is always certain, life is always short on any given day and my sanity can fully come back no matter what occurrence may.” I swung the crook around and caught it in my right hand.

The handheld crook was not a staff, but more of scepter sized handheld defensive tool meant to block and catch weapons. I sustained it and blinked at the sustain effect, that would be useful in helping me get past the guards. I did partial cast to get a read of what that will do when expended and nodded to myself generally understanding the effect it would give me.

Then I cast away the right bracer holding me against the wall, there were no doors into our cells and casting the bracer chaining my right hand freed it up. I returned it to being a bracer without a chain attached to it.

I was keeping it clamped to my arm for defensive purposes, I held no illusions about just walking out of here without a fight.

I soon did the same with my left arm as well and smiled to the flail-tail still chained up across from me as I stood up.

“Albatross’s fly with great wide wings requiring open space, we would learn a lot from them in this instance.” The male flail-tail gaped at me in awe as I walked up to him to free him from the wall, he rubbed his paws once the restraints were off. “I will break the collective, get the raiment and satchel taken from me. I will not fight very well with just a crook by being one.”

“I… right!” The male flail-tail took off quietly to go find my stuff and I made my way into the next several cells over freeing the various felines of both genders from imprisonment.

Eventually I had the seventy or so prisoners free and behind me, when the flail-tail I sent out came back dragging my pack and clothing with him while trying not to make too much noise.

“Thank you.” The foremost sensible thing I have said in a while. I threw on my clothing, cloak, magical alchemy necklace and pack. I also got out my special weapon, the very one I told you about, and attached it to my left hand while I wielded the crook in my right. I tapped the hourglass tied to my waist and sustained it. “Grab needed vitals from here and make marks in the sand, I will take their eyes upon myself.”

“She may be strange, but I think she just said find supplies as needed and run for it.” The blue coated flail-tail followed after me his purple eyes showing hope. “She’ll be keeping them busy.”

I stalked forward and all the flail-tails followed me to the corner, looking around the corner I saw the two jackals talking with one another. Both were armed with flails and only one had a crook.

I leapt out and started charging straight for them, my speed rapidly increased and they were too slow to react to my approach.

Launching my left arm forward, a hand crafted round objected on an extending green string smashed the female jackal in the face. She went down when her head hit the stone wall behind her and she flopped onto her face.

While reeling my left hand weapon back with a simple tug, I continued forward. Sweeping in low with the crook, avoided the flail being swung for my head, I hooked it around the males right ankle and leapt backwards while standing up.

The male jackal toppled to the floor, he was awake until the handle of the crook came down on his skull knocking him out. I looked back and motioned to the flail-tails to start moving.

-Break-

“Wait, your weapon was a… a handcrafted yoyo?” Fizzle seemed fairly disappointed. “Really, that was your weapon Jade?”

“Yep, you’d be surprised how useful it was.” Jade said as she loosed a yoyo towards the floor and it rolled along until a tug brought it back to Jade’s hand. “It was quite effective and sustained wood gains a large increase in toughness.”

“I can vouch for that, The Ardent Survivor held up to quite a lot of punishment and is still going strong.” Holding her happy son in her arms, Jacky was cuddling Gavin to herself and spoon feeding him breakfast. “I really need to thank you for that Jade, because of that I got to come home and see him again. Also thanks for looking out for him Savannah.”

“No problem Captain!” Savannah stated cheerfully in a waitress outfit from next to Brenda wearing the same thing.

-End Break-

After the first two the next few jackals weren’t too much trouble, just as long as I could keep my momentum going when I launched an attack. Doing that I could hit them hard enough to put them down so that the flail-tails could get by them.

“I am evicting myself from your premises without pay, the service was lousy!” I made my way by the entrance and attracted trouble to myself from various jackals that gave chase to me.

I was only going to giving the flail-tailed felines five minutes to grab what they could and then I’d make my way out. I took down about ten or twelve so far and had a good thirty or more chasing me.

Soon, more jackals joined the chase as the ones I had knocked out got back up and came after me as well. I had figured by that point that I gave the anugyptian felines enough time to get out of dodge and made my way for the entrance of the pyramid while dodging around jackals at high speeds while trying to maintain momentum, I was moving fast enough to temporarily run along the stone walls.

The entire time I had been abusing the backup hourglass and hadn’t noticed it cracking at all, since I was fairly busy avoiding being captured again.

The prolonged sustainment of an hourglass will always eventually cause it to break. So while I was actually managing to outpace all the jackals with increased speed without getting tired, it wouldn’t actually last forever.

It certainly hadn’t when I made my effort to head back towards the entrance of the pyramid. I heard a cracking sound and looked to the hourglass at my hip, it was badly cracked and looked about ready to shatter.

I exited the pyramid and got about ten feet from the entrance before the hourglass completely shattered and I went tumbling across the sand.

Slowly picking myself up, I looked up to see the first anugyptian feline I set free. He was standing on a hill watching me with worry as a good number of jackals started to surround me, armed with spears, flails, crooks and whips.

This wasn’t going how I expected and I used up the other successful hourglass that Icky Dress help me make. I wasn’t going to face that many jackals by myself.

-Break-

“Is this where Baast comes in and saves you?” Fizzle asked Jade while tilting her head slightly.

“No, this is the part where Jade does something she says she hates to do.” Baast snickered into a paw. “Though I did arrive around that time to find a number of flail-tails were fleeing the pyramid with stolen supplies, my people were already coming in to assist in their escape. I think Jaded did particularly well by herself, considering she was surrounded and there was no way we could have saved her in time.”

“What did she do?” Daring gave Jade a curious glance.

“Why… she sang of course!” Baast grinned and Jade shot her a dirty look.

“Let me guess, did everyone hear the music and rhythm as well?” Mara asked.

“Yep.” Baast promptly answered. “With surprising results too!”

“I have gotten fairly good at weaponizing heart songs.” Jade stated dully.

Author's Note

Prance Prance Revolution?

Also an example of Jade's words having some semblance of sense to them.

“The echo of being a matter of time, answers to me in a colloquial term that says I cannot answer within the range of a platypus being less than an oddity. Do you believe in beavers? Duck faces you would not conceive.”

Paraphrased correctly translates to...

I could tell you about myself, but you would think it odd and wouldn't believe me no matter what I tell you.

Also before you ask, the crook Jade stole does not count as an alchemy ingredient... yet. It hasn't actually been used.

Chapter Sixty Seven, City of the moon:E.

Author's Note

Song- Magic Dance, David Bowie.

I'm closing in on the end of this story (finally). Seventy five chapters are all that is required at this rate.

One of the things on a hidden list of things I have to insert into the story resulted in this page.

Does it work?

Chapter Sixty Seven, City of the moon:E.

-Ancient Anugypt thousands of years ago, outside the Prison Pyramid, Jade-

“Oh she is so dead!” One of my ears twitched, this would be the first time I heard Baast’s name and I immediately recognized the significance of it. “There’s no way we can take on all those jackals, not with Baast’s people dealing with our injuries. They can’t protect us and save her at the same time.”

A goddess of protection, fertility, felines in general and a minor capability in war with nowhere near the same stopping power that Sekhet had as a War Goddess.

Okay I’m in danger, no way I’m taking these guys in a physical fight and they are about to run me through. I stowed my weapons.

Refuge in audacity time!

I turn to one of the few female jackals, among the many males there, who was glaring at me.

“You remind me of my babes~.” Yep, I was definitely going there.

“What babes?” The jackal asked while threatening me with a spear.

“The babes with the power~.” I answered.

“What power?” The jackals were now alert to the music and rhythm flowing into the air and I was about to pull off a classic.

“The power who do~.” Hey I couldn’t copy the lyrics word for word, but I knew the song I was doing.

“Who do?” The jackal said in confusion.

“You do~!” I grinned.

“Do what?” The confusion was apparent on many of the surrounding jackal’s faces as they said that.

“Remind me of my babes~.” I chuckle as I thought about how Fizzle and Maries, my heart ached and I was a mess. The jackals were angry now.

In my imagination a pony, a chimera and a cat walk into a bar, they walk out a few hundred bits richer and left behind a bunch of battered, baffled and beaten buffoons.

“I know my babes… are crying hard as babes can cry~. What can I do~?” I quickly stepped back from a thrust of a spear and started to stamp out a rhythm and clapped my hands to the beat. “My babes love is gone, and left them all quite blue~. Nobody knew… what kind of magic spell to use~.”

I started swinging my hips to the tune while planting my fist on them. I needed the jackals to get caught in the music to do one of two things. Either I could use the song I’m getting into to escape or I can break their possession through ridiculous over the top theatrics, because fighting them directly or leading them to the guys I just set free was right out.

“What lie are you trying to sell~?” The female jackal sang seeming surprised to hear her own voice enter into song, a grin stretched across my face as her hips started to move too.

“Getting home without fail~!” I sang.

“You’ll quickly be sundered from fighting~.” A male jackal said looking equally surprised, but he took a swing at me and I narrowly avoid losing an eye as the blade of a spear took some fur and scratched my cheek.

“So maybe I’ll say… do my kind of fighting~!” I ducked under a flail and then twirled while tapping into the griffon feather for double jumps. If they stuck with the rhythm like I am going to, then I should be okay. “Dance magic, dance~. Dance magic, dance~! Put that music’s spell on me~!”

I ducked around two flails that got tangled together, leapt up over a low swung spear and leaned back to avoid one going for my scarred neck while rolling my hands over each other. I was still shifting my hips, then I started hopping a bit.

“Jump, magic jump~.” I leapt up twirling into the air and skipped off the air to continue twirling in a different direction while a bunch of jackals slammed into each other where I was going to land. “Jump, magic jump~! Pull this magic junk with me, slap my butt and set me free~!”

I wiggled my butt at the female jackal while eyeing her and she reeled back as if I had slapped her in the face, she ran towards me and took a swing with her flail. Instead of trying to step away, I darted forward grabbed her right wrist. I spun her around and then dipped her while looking her in the eyes longingly.

The other jackals were going to jab their spears at me until I grabbed one of their own, but then I pulled the blue furred female jackal back into a standing positon and let her go. She looked visibly shaken by what I just did.

I backed off in tune with the beat and ducked around a crook aimed to bash me in the head.

“What is she doing out there?” Don’t care, rescued male anugyptian feline number one’s voice. “This no time for her to be singing and dancing!”

I would beg to differ in this situation as I knew what I was doing.

When I inhaled to start singing again the jackals backed off again, a few of them started to shiver. The power of a heart song in progress, I just needed to keep pressing them.

“I know my babes… are trying hard as babes can try~. It’s what I’d do~.” Crooning as I moved airily around the wary jackals that had encircled me, they were aiming their weapons at me even now. I leaned on a spear and smiled a friendly smile at one of the male jackals that suddenly seemed nervous. “My babes didn’t want me gone, this has left us all quite blue~. Nobody knew… what kind of magic spell to use~.”

I swung my hips and stepped away from the spear wielding jackal with a bounce in my step. He didn’t move to run me through, which was a good thing.

“Whatever you’re trying, it’ll fail~!” The female jackal growled.

“Then why are you shaking your tail~?” The cheeky tone I spoke in made them all look to her, her tail was indeed wagging and she grabbed it looking embarrassed.

“No surrender or fighting~?” One of the jackals said shakily.

“Because maybe I said… my kind of fighting~.” Watching the Jackals, I noted that they were completely losing the will to fight me.

“Dance magic, dance~?” The group of jackals around me sang and started to shift their hips unsurely.

“Dance magic, dance~!” I waved my arms around to everyone in a gesture for them all to gather around, I was already taking up a positon as the leader of this musical number.

I took a step forward and clapped my hands twice and the jackals mimicked my moves.

“Dance magic, dance~.” The jackals sang as they followed my hula movements into a twirl that ended with me pointing a finger to the sky. Almost all of them were disarmed now and we all shuffled and shimmied to the left and right.

“Dance magic, dance~!” I turned to the group and hugged the female jackal, this surprised her and her fur felt nice. Too bad that I can’t have a jackal in my herd, dogs and cats don’t mix very well for too long. “Put that musical spell on me~!”

I released the jackal and she looked unsure of herself as the green glow in her eyes flickered.

“Jump magic, jump~.” I heard the echoes of the jackals singing that behind me as I leapt up and then leapt again while spreading out my arms and legs towards the sun. I landed and sang my part again after all the jackals were finished jumping in unison. “Jump magic, jump~! Put that magic junk on me, so that I can slap this lady and make her free~!”

I slapped the female jackal, much to the surprise of the other jackals, she blinked and I could vibrant pink eyes staring back at me in shock.

“Dance magic, dance~.” The jackals sang as all their eyes were starting to flicker like the jackal I just freed from possession by using musical harmony resonance as a weapon.

“Dance magic, dance!” I nodded to them, I could see a few smiles as they all continued to dance in their own way.

“Dance magic, dance~.” One could actually feel the magic in the air actually dancing around the jackals as it surged and they were breaking the chains of what bound them.

“Dance magic, dance~!” I twirled into a crouch and spread my arms out. “Put that musical spell on me~. It’s something frightening to see~.”

“Wait, what are all of you doing! You’re too hurt to go out there with those jackals, get back here this instant!” That voice would become the one I would learn to be acquainted with Baast over the next few years.

That’s when the flail-tails I set free came running and they all started to dance with us, the jackals didn’t attack them as they were too enthralled by the musical number going on.

I had formed an Ancient Anugyptian dance party with jackals and the flail-tails. I didn’t know it until after this, when I talked with Baast, that I was in the distant past.

I grabbed the female jackal and started skipping in a circle with her while holding hands, she started smiling at me in a friendly manner. After looking around at the jackals losing the green glow in their eyes, the jackal turned to me with a smile and hugged me back while shedding a few tears.

She let me go and took a step back when motioned for her to do so.

“You remind me of my babes.” I stated again, twirled and pointed at the female jackal.

“What babes?” She said with a hint of humor in her voice while gesturing back to me in kind.

“The babes with the power~.” I shimmied while holding my hands out.

“What power?” A flail-tail asked in a curious tone.

“The power of who do~.” I said with a silky smooth tone.

“Who do~?” The happy crowd asked.

“You do~.” I pointed at them all with both hands and wink.

“Do what~?” The jackals and flail-tails looked at each other.

“Remind me of the babes~.” There was a soft chuckling going around and our dance party continued.

“Dance magic, dance, ooh oh ooh, dance magic~.” The music became more solemn as I wilted a bit and I had everyone’s attention back on me.

“What kind of magic spell to use…~” I sang faintly. “If flying away fails… or I can’t get home with sails… through many blunders or fighting, I’ll do something frightening~!”

“Dance magic, dance~! Dance magic, dance~!” While shifting and taking several step forward with a waggle in my hips, the entire crowd of jackals and fail-tails followed my movements in a choreographed manner that ponies are usually known for and were also singing in unison with me. “Put that music’s spell on me~!”

“Jump magic, jump~! Jump magic, jump~!” As they sang this I leapt high in the air and shot up even higher before with my second leap and came down twirling, I stopped myself by grabbing on to the familiar female jackal and started to dance with her. The fail-tails were bouncing on their hind legs waving their paws in the air, the jackals all twirled and leapt upwards. “Put that musical junk on me, slap our butts and set us free~!”

Every Jackal slapped themselves in the rear in time with me smacking my own rump, the signs of possession were weakening and just one more should do it.

“Wait, what are you doing, where are all of you… no don’t join them, this is ridiculous!” Baast shouted as more flail-tails came over the dunes and joined our dance party.

“Dance magic, dance~! Dance magic, dance~! Dance magic, dance~! Dance magic, dance~!” They all echoed my singing and we started to form a conga line that started to move in a large circle while hopping to the rhythm. “Jump magic, jump~! …Put that magic junk on me, slap those butts~. Slap those, slap those butts, make us/them free~!”

Every Jackal slapped both their hands to their rears in time with me and they freed themselves of any signs of possession with that last round of meaty thwacks.

“Dance magic, dance…” The power of the song slowly started to fade away as I put my left hand on my hip and waved my right hand over my head leading a crowd of jackals and flail-tails in a strutting circle.

-Five minutes later, under the shade of the prisoner pyramid-

“Can I get your name? I’m Jaded La Perm.” I asked politely of the female Jackal. “I have a few questions for you about what’s going on around here.”

“I am Sand Shroud.” The jackal said while nervously gripping at her skirt, she eventually decided on something and bowed to me. “We haven’t exactly been ourselves in quite a while, I thank you for freeing us from the spell we’ve been under. What little good it will do us since the source is our King Anubis.”

“What happened here Sandy, can I call you sandy?” I sat down on the stone flooring as various flail-tails talked with some the jackals and tried to work out their issues without violence. “I’m kind of lost if you haven’t noticed and I’m nowhere near my loved ones, so please assume that I have no idea what’s going on around this whole general region of the world and start from there.”

I thanked the harmony inducing magical song for the less than angry moods, and my ability to speak normally again.

-Break-

“Did you fall in love with her?” Fizzle had her eyes narrowed on Jade and Jade held up her hands in a warding gesture.

“I liked her sure, she had nice eyes… but they don’t beat yours Fizzy.” Keeping her eyes locked with the slightly angry pony, Jade told her the truth and then angled to tell her other girlfriends the same thing. “Nothing happened and I can say we were good friends. Nothing happened Maries, so please don’t maul me. I think I’d know better than anyone than to play with a chimera’s hearts!”

“Go on.” Maria said with flicker of flames ejecting from her mouth.

-End Break-

“I don’t mind you calling me Sandy… I actually think I like the sound of it.” Sandy would go into a detailed story about Anubis going crazy and no one having any idea what was causing it.

While Anubis was starting to slowly go nuts and harm his subjects, including ancient pony thralls and the flail-tails, his magical bone was quickly and thankfully stolen before he completely lost control of himself to whatever evil bug had crawled far up his backside. Said bug was apparently quite virulent around here.

Sandy told me that if the bone hadn’t been stolen, then all of Anugypt would have been swarming with undead monsters from the underworld that King Anubis was in charge of.

That’s when Baast introduced herself to me eloquently.

“How in the world did you cure these jackals?! Nothing about what you did made any sense to end in… such an amazing victory for our side…” Staring at Baast, who suddenly went wide eyed and started to speak blankly, I raised a delicate brow. “My name is Baast, I believe you’ll be quite helpful in our war efforts. What will it take for you to aid us in these trying times stranger?”

Chapter Sixty Seven, City of the moon:R.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty Seven, City of the moon:I.

-Airship Maule, Jade-

“I started my plan of gathering some unique individuals for some lessons in friendship.” Sure they were basically echoes or ghosts of their future incarnations now, but they were still my friends. “My first target was a very shy cat who, while supportive of the efforts to knock the thing possessing Anubis off its high horse, she didn’t like all the fighting that was going on and was always a nervous wreck in a physical confrontation.”

-Ancient Anugypt, priestess interview somewhere in the desert, Quiet-

“You’ll be a good priestess, also thanks for listening to me about all my current woes!” It was so sad that Jade was separated from her family and lovers. She was quite strange for a priestess and was nothing like a noble or someone you’d expect in such a position. “You should continue to do that! Just listen to someone’s plight and get a feel for what may be wrong with them, then get them to talk about it. I’m sure you’d do wonders with doing the same with animals.”

I did kind of like animals and my friend Mr. Sting was someone that I have actually done wonders with. When I told the priestess of my friend, she smiled brightly.

“You have a scorpion for a familiar… you don’t know what a familiar is do you?” At Jade’s question I shook my head no. “You are to stay near me during skirmishes so I can protect you, all being a priestess entails to me is being yourself and being a good friend. You’re kindness and empathy will get you far in life on its own Quiet. Since you are already well acquainted with both those things, let me teach you a thing or two about familiars…”

I would learn much from her, like how to clean and patch wounds. She was fairly wise about a great many things and her plans were fairly strange, but would prove to be highly effective.

-Priestess interview several days and a few skirmishes later, Brash-

“So I have to get all the stuff in a single day and bring it back to you?” I asked as the strange cat that looked like a feline version of a jackal asked me to get some strange things. “Easy for someone’s whose going to be the greatest Sand Sprinter to ever live!”

“Yes, but can you do it with someone whose pace is not as quick as yours?” She asked wryly, this Jade was capable in a fight unlike my friend Quiet who rarely attacked and her friend Mr. Sting did most of the fighting for her. I didn’t exactly know that the smaller a scorpion was, the more dangerous its poison. Well I didn’t know that until I had met this cat, but it made sense why Mr. Sting’s poison never killed anything… he was fairly big. “Anyway, this is my task for you and Grassy, you are going to be working together and I should note that Grassy goals are slightly different than yours. You need to gather all these things in a single day and get them back to me, she has to be present to make sure of the quality of the things your gathering for me. If you both succeed you are both priestesses. If one of you fails, then you both fail.”

“Oh trust me, I won’t fail!” I would soon find out how hard the task she had given me actually was.

“Just stay courageous in the face of a daunting task. It is not only the strength of one’s body that one can accomplish great feats, but also of one’s mind when clearly focused on what needs to be done.” Jade said with a knowing insufferable smile on her face.

-Priestess interview a minute later, Grassy-

“Are you sticking me with her because she’s not liable to do it correctly the first time?” The grin on the cats face wasn’t exactly making me feel any better if I was right about the task ahead for us.

“The thing about me being a priestess is that I'm just being myself, by being yourself you can aid others with your skills to the best of your abilities. I expect Brash to fail at least twice, but I never said that she couldn’t try infinitely.” That makes sense to me Jade. “Though I will actually need all that stuff before we reach the ‘city of the moon’ so I can make something special for facing down against King Anubis. We can’t actually start preparations for our invasion without my thing being ready before that.”

“So tell me honestly… what’s going to happen when we get there?” There was something that this Jade wasn’t quite telling us about all of this, she was mighty sketchy on the details.

“Something that will take several days to do, a full week at least. I need at least six priestesses to help me do it, also we’ll need a large number of flail-tails and freed up jackals for this thing too.” Jade seemed pretty certain we could take the impenetrable city. “All while keeping the enemy pinned in the city of course.”

“What about the walls though? The city is pretty much impenetrable thanks to them and they have the advantage.” She just smiled at me worried and crouched down to pat me on the head, but I continued on anyway. “It’d be pretty hard to keep us in good supplies or to keep a siege going for long enough to wear them down. If we let up at all, then they’ll just resupply and wait us out. I don’t know if you know this, but we flail-tails are not exactly great at sieges.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Those 'impenetrable' walls won’t be standing once my plan is fully carried out.” Still had some misgivings about this Jade character, but Baast seemed to think she was alright. Any friend of my friend can also be mine as well I guess, it doesn’t hurt that Jade gives good hugs. “Trust me on this. If you and Brash can successfully do this thing for me, then Anubis will be much easier to deal with in the long run. Fighting a death god is going to be terrifying enough as it is, Brash has the courage and you have a decent nose for the truth of things. Use it.”

What did she mean?

-Priestess interview, several days and another skirmish later, Cheerful-

“So this is what you want me to make?” I looked over the simple design, she called it a dog house shaped box or that it could also be bird house shaped if you made it smaller and put a small hole on it for birds to fit into and build nests in. She said we’d absolutely need it for taking down the walls. I believed her immediately, mostly because it was just a hunch on my part that Jade was on to something and she seemed to really know what she was doing. “I can do it, but why do we need the sleeping big nosed dog on the top of it? Also what’s with the wild haired bird?”

“Call it artistic flavoring and paying homage to two gods of comedy that I know of.” Well Jade had my number, I really liked art and the joy such colorful crafts can bring. I like bringing joy in any way I can and paying homage to comedy gods was right up my alley! To think my fur used to be such a dull brown color a year ago, now it’s a permanently peppy bright pink! Art was my life, but I was being asked to do something specific and I’ve never actually brought someone else’s idea of art to life… I would just do my best. “It’s basically a small palanquin. The box itself will contain something of great importance, if Baast will see fit to let me put it in there for when we reach the ‘city of the moon’ to put my plans into motion. It would help greatly if you could seal it off from being opened after the thing is put in there, also make it absolutely hard for anyone else to get into it.”

“Can do, red for the doghouse, gold for the bird and the dog and a small shrine in the interior design to hold something of importance. Anything else?” I was eager to please and then she drew a long pole with a rectangular shape at the top.

“This is a marching banner, a pole with a strip of cloth at the top and I was wondering if you can put the design of a certain goddess on the cloth that we’ll attach to it. I will be carrying this pole during our plans for the ‘city of the moon’ and will be using it to set the pace.” She then drew out some more things. “We’ll also need horns shaped like this for the end of it, can you craft all this despite the fighting going on? Oh and we’ll need some drums on an open palanquin like the dog house to keep tempo with my pace for everyone else to follow, we absolutely need to be marching in unison for what I have planned to work.”

“No problem, I aim to please and it seems like you want everyone to be happy. Music is fun too, but I will always prefer my arts and crafts with colorful dyes!” Oh this was going to be so great, I just know it! “So do you have a name for this box? I mean, most forms of art have a name.”

“We’ll call it… the ark of the testimony.” There was very fun looking evil grin on her face, which had me grinning as well as it was rather infectious. “We’ll have some fun while bringing the joy back to everyone together Cheerful!”

-Priestess interview in the middle of a skirmish, Bright-

“So as you can see Bright, I need a bright mind like yours to organize the arrival of our ever increasing forces and you'll discuss how to do this with the princess later.” Jade said this as she used that unwieldly weapon of hers to knock down several jackals while swinging it wildly over her head. With a tug, the spinning object slammed back home into her palm. It was quite magical to watch in action despite the thing being so hard to control. “I really love going around the world. Sandy be a friend and cover for me for a bit, I need to finish my talk with Bright here and then I can get to talking with Princess Clarity. So, any questions so far?”

Jade ignored Sandy grunting in the background as she struggled with a male jackal as they went rolling about in the sand. She also ignored when Sandy started fighting three or more at a time, when not possessed jackals were for more competent in combat when they could think for themselves.

So Baast's forces were getting a better edge over them with time.

“Yes, while I can understand from a standpoint that it would save us on some supplies, do we really need to do it that way?” I was a little confused by Jade’s reasoning on bringing in our forces in a staggered manner when we reach the ‘city of the moon’. “Why not have our forces come all at once?”

“You’ll see, maybe you can even learn of the reason before I do it? You might even learn enough to know the how of it afterwards.” Jade chuckled vibrantly. I get the feeling that there’s something more to this stuff she’s having some of us chosen ‘priestesses’ randomly do. So far, it doesn’t seem very important to the war effort in the slightest. “The best way to learn is by trying new things. Failure also teaches, though what we’re going to do isn’t going to fail. So… you and Princess Clarity?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about and I don’t like what you are insinuating one bit!” She smiled at me, was I blushing? I certainly felt like I was blushing. “My relationship with Princess Clarity is completely professional!”

“Sure it is, I’m sure one day you’ll be wise enough to act on things.” Blinking after Jade as she rejoined the fight for a bit, I had a lot to consider of the odd sun priestess. She certainly does that 'sun salutation' thing as an exercise often enough to prove that she was a priestess.

“Can I get more help over here?!” Sand Shroud shouted.

“Oh, you’re doing fine Sandy, just duck and swing your right arm outwards right… now!” Jade called out before turning back to me as a jackal flopped onto the ground between us. She was made of sterner stuff than I to ignore the trouble we were currently in. “Just remember, knowledge is nothing without the wisdom to use it correctly and I think you are someone who is wise. Now if you’ll excuse me, Sandy looks like she could use more backup.”

She raised the thing she called a yo-yo in her paw left paw and took off to fight the jackals swarming our group. The army had split off into several groups to go liberate other areas while we kept Anubis’s forces focused on trying to deal with us.

It was hard to imagine all walks of life coming together for the cause of saving Anugypt. Even if history might eventually forget us, I would never forget what we will achieve.

-Priestess interview a day later, Clarity-

“So some things can never be fully explained, like what I’m going to do if you agree to my plan. You’re in a position to be so much weirder than those around you. All beautiful and loving beings such as yourself need some eccentricities right?” On this Jade would receive an agreement from me. “There’s a mystique to taking nonsense and making it work for you. If you can’t make people happy, then bewilder them into not trying to bring you down without making them angrier.”

“Like how you and Baast are both leading us. Things have turned out fairly well thus far, at least we’re not making a bloodbath of this and are actually getting assistance from the jackals we’ve set free of their magically induced slavery.” I was well aware that I wasn’t much of a front line fighter or even much of a warrior, but I was giving it my all to at least be more useful than other princesses that sit on their rumps behind a bunch of armed guards while expecting others to do all the work for them. “So can you assure victory at the ‘city of the moon’?”

“Yes… somewhat.” Stated Jade nervously, Baast acquiring her assistance has vastly helped our war effort. “Anubis himself is going to be a huge pain to take down though, everything else is far simpler than him.”

“Quite.” Leading from the front was not what I was doing, I preferred to lead from the middle. Far enough from being in the front to know when to retreat and enough trusted warriors at my back to protect me from behind if outmaneuvered. “We’ll go ahead with your strange plan.”

I might not be the brightest being in warfare, but I was at least able to spot some minute threads and tug at them to see what others couldn’t.

Author's Note

Next: Jade's plan gets enacted, it's fairly obvious... and is being spelled out no less.

The 'Sonic The Hedgehog' movie is good. A clean, family friendly, movie with lots of easters in it and Jim Carrey doing what Jim Carrey does.

Chapter Sixty Seven, City of the moon:C.

-Airship Mauled, Kuril-

“So, did it actually work?” I queried my daughter with a hint of amusement.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Jaded was smiling wryly.

“Did what work? Jade still hasn’t actually explained what the plan is and…” Fizzle paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. She went wide eye a moment later because she was smart enough to figure out what Jade did. “Did that actually work?!”

“Like, you wouldn’t believe.” Jaded said again nodding.

“Please continue, we want to hear how this went.” It seemed Maria had picked up on it and so had her sisters.

“What are all of you picking up on that we aren’t?” A muffin nibbling Pom quietly mumbled.

“I believe it might involve the cities location my dear friend.” Oleander suddenly stated looking lightly intrigued, she picked up on it too. “While Jade can’t do the math, she can apparently apply science well enough.”

“Give my mare a cookie, I ALSO WOULDN’T MIND A SNACK… so long as it’s from Kuril.” We all rolled our eyes at Fred.

“Mom has now officially corrupted a demon with her cooking. Now we need to be associated with a… no wait, she already got figurative and literal angels too. Not to mention several gods, what hasn’t she gotten at this rate?” Jade snickered and looked to me, I felt my cheeks heating up slightly in embarrassment. “Anyway, we eventually reached the ‘city of the moon’ after some trying times... with everything I asked for present and ready for the big event. It would take seven days to deal with the walls though.”

-Day one, several thousand years ago, a fair distance outside the ‘City of the moon’, Jade-

“Let’s play some Tetris…” I muttered as I looked over the city, and the vast surrounding wall between us and it. I was laying on a dune with a griffon mask looking at the wall.

“What?” Asked Baast curiously.

I got up and moved down the dune to our campsite.

“Nothing… just hoping that the pieces all fall in line. Okay everyone, the plan is simple for the next six days. We’re going to do one thing and one thing only while trying not to draw to much ire from the guards on that wall or in the city proper.” The wall was fairly intimidating and large, it wouldn’t be as intimidating soon enough. I was speaking to a small smattering of flail-tails, jackals and my six chosen priestesses that have assisted me with the set up for this. “We’re going to march around the wall once a day for the next six days.”

I picked up the flag with Bastet’s symbol and visage on it, Baast just quirked an annoyed eye at me.

“I’ll be taking the lead, I’ll set the pace and the rhythm of our march. We need to do this at some time between sunrise and sunset on each day, we are not to attack the walls. We are not to fight back against the possessed jackals. We are just going to march, defend ourselves or avoid whatever thrown at us. If they come out to chase us, we leave. We will have to come back and continue on from the point we left off on, we absolutely need to finish a full lap around the city every day.” I looked over the various anugyptians before me, both male and female, jackal, trident tailed cats, ponies and even cows. “If these next six days seem strange or easy to you, wait until the thing we have to do on the seventh day! If any of you have your misgivings about this, voice them now before I organize our marching column!”

“Lady Jaded, what will this ultimately lead to or accomplish?” The first male anugytian flail-tail I rescued spoke up, his name was Fez and he’s been a good sport about joining us on this merry adventure for the last few months of this jackal jacking journey.

“The walls falling of course. We’re not even going to touch or do anything to them personally, but I assure you this is a very special ritual that requires seven priestesses to do!” Looking about, the anugpytians seemed confused about my plan or how it was going to work. “Each day our numbers will increase until the seventh day, if Bright organized things correctly that is. So on the sixth day I will inform everybody what we’re doing for the seventh after finishing that day. We need to look like we’re increasingly adding pressure.”

“Well of course I organized things correctly, they’ll all even be bringing extra supplies in every day like you…!” Bright seemed hurt by the idea that she didn’t do what I needed until she froze up, I think she just realized something. “Oh… so that’s why our groups are coming in a staggered manner, I think I get it now! We’re going to draw all the attacks with our smaller numbers while the jackals are still brave until they run out of or are low on ammunition to launch at us in these first three or so days aren’t we?”

“Yep, Bright Beam is a smart kitty. Anyone else? No? Good!” Nobody had any more questions, but they seemed wary about my plan. “I’ll in be the front. Baast has agreed to give up a special thing for the ‘ark of the testimony’, after much harassment on my part for which I apologize for the necessity of. The carriers of that will be directly behind me. It must not be damaged at all or at the very least the damage must be kept to a minimum, which is why several jackals with shields will be covering it for us! Baast will be behind and following her will be the chosen priestesses I’ve trained…”

“Uh, you haven’t actually trained us to do anything special!” Brash pointed out with a paw.

“Around the drum that will be playing our beat to march to. Cheerful can play the drum if she wants, but she better keep it in line with a steady beat as needed. I want us all walking unison and the only reason you would break formation is to avoid getting hit by projectiles.” I ignored Brash pointing out the fact that I hadn’t done more than told them to do a few relatively hard tasks for me and with each other. In fact, I have managed to make them good friends with one another with mutual confusion over my seeming lack of training, they all had that in common. “I’m sorry that we don’t have enough shields for everyone, not that flail-tails can carry heavy shields anyway. You guys are able to at least dodge things easily because you are much faster than the jackals are.”

“Not that we really needed the heavy shields much in the first place for anything… well at least until now where they will be quite useful against the stone and bola slingers.” An excited Sandy exclaimed as she came to stand right next to me.

“Since Bright brought it up, we’re going to need some guys to bury rocks and steal the used up bolas in the night. If jackals are sent out to pick them up, we can set up ambushes to prevent them from getting their ammunition back and increase our forces using their numbers by freeing more of the possessed. We’ll need volunteers to deny them their projectiles and for night time captures, said things will get easier as we go along and more reinforcements come in.” They were quite a few smatterings of discussion over who would be doing that. “I trust Baast to oversee that and maybe even a few of the flail-tails can learn to launch bolas using their tails. Now everyone prepare for the first march, we will need to do so in the form on a large line behind my initial stated starting positions. Any other positions in the line doesn’t matter nearly as much, but we still need everyone to march and we will always need carriers for the ark of the testimony if current ones are injured. Our marching column should be kept relatively thin in width.”

Watching as everyone scattered to hash out their positions in the marching line, I eventually looked to Baast when she garnered my attention by tugging at my ragged cloak with her split tails.

“What are we really doing here?” It seems the goddess was a little disbelieving of my methods to bring down the walls.

“Exactly like I said, we’re bringing down the walls without touching them or attacking them personally.” I smiled to Baast. “Have a little faith that things are going to go exactly the way I think they will, provided that we’re all not heavily concussed by the seventh day.”

“Faith… you do realize who you’re saying that to right?” Of course I do Baast, but it’s funny that you’re currently acting like the skeptical one when you’re the goddess among mortals. Not only that, you were quite heroic for helping us mortals as much as you have thus far. It’s kind of sad to learn why Sekhet couldn’t interfere in this for two reasons, knowing I was one of them when it came to avoiding paradoxes. “I’m supposed to place my faith… in your strange plan… that those impassable walls will fall all by themselves?”

“Yep.” As monosyllabic as I could make my response as I slowly lifted up the flag and made my way to the front of the pack.

“I simply cannot wait to see how such a strange mortal as yourself is going to pull this off.” Baast smiled as she followed me to her position. “You’ve done quite well with assisting us thus far, but this seems a little above your capabilities.”

I didn’t respond and started marching us to the left of the gates to the city, we’d move across the gates and then again to complete the singular needed lap. Hopefully the possessed jackals on the wall would be aggressive enough to waste projectiles on us.

-Break-

“It figures you would be the one to make my sister eat her own words.” Sekhet chuckled with amusement.

“Yeah, the first day didn’t go so badly because we weren’t aggressively attacking the walls, but they still launched quite a few stones our way.” Leaning against the center of Maries’ chest, Jade nuzzled her face into Mara’s neck. “How I’ve missed the comfort of a killing machine’s warm body, those cold desert nights while we were traveling happened to be fairly brutal to me.”

“Drastic changes in temperature is quite horrible to those that are not used to it.” Dr. Bones chimed in. “Older people tend to die from such drastic changes, because their bodies can’t cope with it.”

“Meep!” When a slightly upset Paprika said that, we saw her pointing to Velvet.

“She’ll be fine lass, reindeer like her are made of sterner stuff. Though hotter temperatures are definitely not their thing. Don’t let Velvet burn herself out too frequently or get too many fevers, else it is liable become another serious health issue that I’ll have to deal with.” Dr. Bones pointed to a bandage covered Jacky with her arm in a sling, Paprika nodded in understanding. “Like I don’t have enough from having this disaster magnet around!”

“I resemble that remark.” As she said this, Jacky cuddled her son Gavin to her chest. “Also, can I clock in an appointment with Escargot when my arm is better? I can’t even get a break while sitting still, well at least not the kind I’d appreciate anyway, while listening to what my sister has done in the distant past.”

“I was going to do that anyway.” Crossing her arms with a huff, Dr. Bones just shook her head and turned to Jade. “Continue on, I want to hear this is going.”

-End Break. Day six, outside the city of the moon, Baast-

Over the last five days, we’ve taken bolas, spears, rocks and various other things the jackals could literally throw at us. They were running out of weapons to hurl at our ever growing marching line and we just finished our sixth day of marching.

Quite a number of allied jackals, ponies and cows that have come in to aid us were all wrapped in cloth to cover their bruises and cut flesh. We were doing fairly well in supplies, I’d say we even have a decent surplus to last us two weeks.

From what Jade has told me, we wouldn’t need all these supplies for ourselves. We’d need them for the people we were rescuing in the city of the moon. If her word holds true, then tomorrow we’d witness the impossible.

Those walls were fairly sturdy and well structured, with at least three tiers of them. They were more than twice as tall as they were thick… to the average flail-tail they loomed over us all. There was even said to be housing in the walls and those inside were safe from our moderately poor siege.

Even Jade herself has taken an injury or two, but she still insisted we had to do this, I have yet to figure out why she was so insistent on it. At least she hadn’t garnered an injury that prevented her from marching as she said all seven priestesses were needed for the end of this tomorrow.

Even if we do get by the outer wall, then the retaining wall would still be around unless this plan accounts for both walls. Jade knew I was a goddess, yet she didn’t ask me if it would be within my power to assist. My answer would have been, varied depending on what she asked of me.

I was not the only one confused. Every other flail-tail was just as equally confused, but we had been burying the weapons we couldn’t use and captured multiple jackal retrieval teams sneaking out with successful ambushes. Even then they still had the gates to the city too well defended to surpass while open.

The news I was receiving from northern and southern forces in anugypt was promising, given that Anubis was cut off from reinforcement.

King Anubis even once taunted us on the fourth day that we could never make the city fall, as we apparently didn’t have the power to do so. Jade just told him that we’d be coming for him on the seventh day and that he can’t hide in the city forever.

“If I take another rock to the body or shoulder...” I turned to the green haired Abyssinian, she had long since improved her hygiene since meeting me. Trimmed her claws, cut her long green hair to above her shoulders and performed the classic bathing of oneself with her tongue after washing off in a river. Despite that, she was still relatively bland for an exotic looking being to most of our male flail-tails who thought highly of her. “Okay guys, since tomorrow is officially the seventh day of our march, things will be slightly different! First of all, we are not going around the wall once this time. In fact, we are going around it seven times tomorrow and we are going to be creating a marching spiral around the city if we have enough people for it. Upon finishing those laps, the walls will come down!”

Jade cared not one wit about looking beautiful, but even then she was fairly charismatic as the people started cheering and many believed in her.

Author's Note

Imagine a wall four stories high and six feet thick surrounding a fairly large city on slightly hilly badland style terrain.

That's what we're dealing with here.

Chapter Sixty Seven, City of the moon: HO-ly…

Author's Note

Recommended Music.

Tetris 99 main theme.

Let's play some tetris...

Things don't exactly pan out how Jade thought they would...

Chapter Sixty Seven, City of the moon: HO-ly…

-Outside the city of the moon, day seven, Jade-

I moved the flag up and down as I stepped across sand and some patches of dirt as we marched towards the front gate of the city, they were running out of things to throw at us and wouldn’t dare come out with the forces we have gathered now.

They believed we couldn’t do a single thing to the walls, but they were about to find out that we didn’t need to. Since what we were doing was having an entirely unseen effect on them.

The sun was blistering hot this morning and I was glad for having cloak in this heat. The sound of the drum beat at my rear and thousands of paws, hooves and what have you were stepping in time to the rhythm of the beat.

I was so sick and tired of sand, the heat and the freezing cold nights without a warm body cuddling up to mine. Not that Sandy wasn’t willing, she certainly was, but I wasn’t looking for romance for fairly obvious reasons.

My friend Sandy the jackal was still ready to cover me with a shield just in case they had anything left, I did say we needed all the priestesses for the end of this and that included me. Really it was all basically theatrics, smoke and mirrors, hiding what we were really doing.

Nobody here likely understood the importance of the marching trail we created around the city, exactly the same as it has been for the past six days,

Compared to the amount of projectiles Anubis’s forces wasted on us, the damage was minimal and the majority of the various factions of anugypt were gathering for this last day to march around the city seven times to create an ever widening spiral.

Each breath I take sent fire into my lungs, I was taking a step for each beat and I eventually passed the city gate, I was already beginning to sweat and I had to pass the gate six more times and stop in front of it on the seventh lap.

As we made our first turn around the corner of the city, I saw out of the corner of my eye the jackals on the walls silently watching us with glowing green eyes. They stared at us and our march as we stalked around towards the back of the city and back around the side were we saw our incredibly long marching line.

Taking a hand off the flag I took a sip of water from a flask, that stuff was far more precious than gold out here. Quite literally, gold had no purpose other than to be ostentatious or used in electrum based regalia. I was only going to drink water on the last leg before we turned towards the gate.

None of the jackals on the walls watching us made a move to throw anything, they didn’t make a move to stop us by opening the gate to come out to attack. They only sat there and watched us march in time to each of my steps, which echoed was more than one hundred thousand times over as the ground shook.

I couldn’t help but think of the idea that it was like a snake coming upon its own body after wrapping around a tree. The marchers looked to their left and saw me marching toward them and the line shifted outwards by the time I reached the corner and thus the spiral began.

I thought about how I moved all the pieces in the game against King Anubis, Baast was the head of the war and I was the hidden ace in the hole that would end it after months of battles and skirmishes with what seemed like endless numbers of possessed jackals.

We drew most of Anubis’s ire to ourselves, given that Baast had stolen his mystical bone of the undead that was understandable. While many went off to secure other portions of anugypt to drive him further and further north until he could no longer run. The thing possessing Anubis was without a doubt angry that it couldn’t use the powers of the underworld without the literal skeleton key that was a bone.

Said bone was currently sealed in the ark of the testimony, hopefully the angels of death thing wouldn’t happen and that Anubis could disarm the bone after he was brought back to his senses. Otherwise opening it could kill us all if we were to look into the open dog house, the reason why Baast didn’t want anyone seeing the bone is that it would kill mortals for trying to wield it.

I wasn’t trying to wield its power, I just wanted inside the box for the so called ‘ritual’ we were doing. She relented when I said that I nor anyone else needed to touch the bone and the box would be sealed off by Cheerful Dye immediately after it was in place.

None of what was going to happened wouldn’t be possible without the cows and their supply lines giving us plenty of food and water, enough to survive off of if this went horribly wrong. Otherwise it was meant for the jackals that looked like they were getting more emaciated as time and fighting went on.

The parasite controlling Anubis wasn’t a tactical genius, but it still tried to make sure it had living troops to wield since it couldn’t currently use undead ones.

The ponies we had with us were not of the three tribes that would eventually go to where equestria would be settled down and rooted. Most of the ponies in ancient anugypt were earth or unicorn ponies, oddly very little in the way of winged ponies.

Flying ponies might have ended this war far sooner. If I heard about a solitary ring and a volcano, I would do math so hard to end everything!

I wondered if sphinxes gave ponies wings to fly with, pegasus ponies did sometimes have cat like traits… my musings on this would continue as we passed the city gate once more. Ponies were a minority around here.

The second lap went fairly well, the spiral started to become bigger as we started our way into the third lap.

I knew Anubis wasn’t a bad guy, but he was a fairly cold god. Most death gods are like that given what said job entails and Anubis is supposed to be impartial and fair.

I was becoming a bit tired by the fourth lap, we had the city entirely surrounded.

I thought of how the flail-tails were lucky that Baast, on Discords need to amuse himself, pretty much saved Anugypt from being destroyed by an army of the undead. Being chaotic neutral like Discord was, I could see why he wanted life to continue around here.

The undead wouldn’t have been as fun to toy with for Discord, mostly since everything he does is to get an emotional reaction out of someone. Never was there a being that wanted or craved attention more than Discord, he was fairly lonely guy once you thought about it. Fluttershy will be one of the few beings to ever actually give him the kind of attention he wanted without him needing to act up.

I understood chaos better than most, it had an order all of its own. Order is when everything made sense, chaos is when everything made nonsense. I liked nonsense as much as making sense. I can never really see myself as chaotic heroic, possibly chaotic good or chaotic neutral if I was going to think in O&O terms.

We were now into the fifth lap.

I started to think about all the head injuries we gave the jackals, but there was only so many ways we could free the possessed which were usually jackals. There were a few possessed pony thralls and the rare occasional cow, flail-tails were immune and I think Baast at least provided that much defensive ability for us felines.

On a related note, Baast was certainly upset that I couldn’t do heart songs on demand and that the song I sang was kind of a one-time deal that required specific circumstances and for someone to gain a rhythm to work with.

We were slowly moving into our sixth lap.

Those at the front of the line were getting tired, and those at the very distant back of it wouldn’t have to really walk that far. The fact that we were still marching spoke of our endurance, despite being winged by several high speed rocks over the last few days we were still doing mostly fine.

Cheerful was shifting her rump as she raised and lower her left and right paw in a rhythm, she wasn’t the only drum playing in this marching mass. The noise of our marching steps as we surrounded the city was becoming deafening and the ground shook with each move I made.

I just concentrated putting one foot in front of the other, tracing over my steps from the previous lap. It wouldn’t be long before we were into our seventh lap and the bobbing of the flag I held was starting to tilt slightly as I wilted.

This was a lot harder than I thought it would be, but I still kept going into the seventh and final lap. Around me every flail-tail, jackal, cow and pony were becoming quite tense as this lap began.

It wouldn’t be long before those walls collapsed, just a little more walking. I was sweating pretty badly and I took as much water into my mouth as I willing to use. I’m glad I’m not one to do calculations when it comes to creating plans, because I could not have actually foreseen anything happening on this day.

The plan revolved around playing to myths of a past life and I was about to see if I could recreate it. Of the many interesting things to know about history, the geography of the city of the moon was rather important to making this work. At least I hoped it worked because…

“Stop.” I said simply and planted the flag and the wind blew as I turned towards the city gates. Every single being in the marching line continued to march into position at the end of our long spiraling line. I was panting a bit from the heat and sucking in as much air as I could. “I really need to catch my breath, before we get to the next part.”

“So is now when the walls are supposedly going to fall?” Baast asked looking the least tired out of all of us. Divinity still benefited a goddess, even in a mortal shell.

“Please, tell me it’s going to happen soon, my fur is positively a mess with sweat.” Following that soft spoken sentence, Clarity then shouted. “I may be the most active princess of the sands, but I do not appreciate smelling like the backside of a camel!”

“Do you really think you can bring down these walls!?” A voice shouted out to us, we looked up to see a jackal general gazing blankly down at us, glowing eyes like all the other possessed jackals on the wall. “King Anubis will not be stopped here today, you cannot possibly siege us forever!”

I glanced at Sandy with her tongue lolling out of her mouth as she panted, the heat was really getting to all of us. It’s a good thing we didn’t have to move anymore.

“We don’t need to siege you!” I shouted back, I then turned to Sandy. “Get the priestesses together and tell Cheerful to break out the horns I had her make. We have one last pertinent thing to do, oh and start spreading the word that everyone needs to start shouting ‘We Believe’ as loudly as they can when we play those horns. Baast get ready to see a miracle.”

“If you can make one happen, you’re boon is assured. I’ll even make you a pharaoh and work for you if you can end the war this day.” Well, be prepared to be surprised when you have to make good on that Baast. “Can’t say the chaos hasn’t been fun, but…”

I didn’t answer her, but I made my way forward towards the gate as a male flail-tail guard from Clarity’s court came up to me to give me a horn. I took it and nodded to him and motioned for him to back up. Coming up to my left were Clarity, Grassy and Quiet, on my right were Bright, Cheerful and Brash.

I didn’t say a word, I lifted the long carved horn up to my lips and inhaled through my nose. The six with me watched as I did so and mimicked my actions, I blew as hard as I could.

I was tired, sweaty, sand was in awful places, I wanted to hug a fluffy unicorn or chimera that were nowhere near this time or place, but I had done all I could to make this work. The sound of the seven horns made my ears twitch as did the sudden rise of voices building after we lowered the horns.

“We believe!” One anugyptian started, of course it would be Fez that was the one to do it.

From all walks of life, they started shouting it and soon they were all doing it as one. I looked to Baast.

“You too Baast! We believe!” It took a full minute of shouting this shaking the city of the moon, screaming ourselves raw and Baast actually joined in too.

Slowly the noise died down and it all became quiet once everyone was tired of shouting.

“What was that in effort of? Just saying ‘We Believe’ makes no sense whatsoever!” The jackal general on the wall shouted. “Whatever you’ve planned it is obviously not going to…”

The jackal general was cut off as something shook, the sands on the ground shifted and the entire world rumbled slightly.

My eyes went wide.

“Maybe I should have paid homage to the hungry orange cat and dumb dog… everyone move away from the city!” I planted the flag and ran with my horn in hand. “It’s happening!”

-Overhead view of the ‘city of the moon’-

A spiral started to quickly spread outwards away from the city of the moon. The entire world shook, it was as if a localize earthquake rumbled throughout the city. The location the city was built on wasn’t exactly stable ground.

The streets throughout the city started cracking and the streets started to raise and lower, the walls were starting to shift and crumble and, in a suddenly explosive manner, the city was engulfed in a huge dust cloud that swept outwards from the city.

-Jade-

I coughed and hacked as I stood up, the sand and dust was beginning to settle and I moved my away up to Baast who was staring at something with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

“Paying homage to gods of comedy might have been a bit much…” I was staring at the aftermath of it, was it actually my fault or literally the city's? “Not what I expected to happen.”

“No kidding.” Baast said in a blank manner as she continued to stare blankly ahead. “What did you expect to happen?”

“The destruction of the walls.” I stated plainly.

“Well you achieved that…” Baast continued to stare. “And destroyed more than three fourths of the city as well.”

Chapter Sixty Eight, Pharaoh Emerald, of cake: Flour.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty Eight, Pharaoh Emerald, of cake: Vanilla.

-Several thousand years ago, collapsed city of the moon, Sand Shroud-

This once great city was decimated, it’s impenetrable walls ceased to exist and it felt horrible that the home of the jackals needed to be wrecked in such fashion. I wasn’t the only one that felt this way, saddened by the necessity of this turn of events.

Priestess Jade didn’t stick around to give further orders other than to aid my people trapped in the rubble.

Baast however was around and asked me to follow after her with several jackals, following her trail into the city we came across a jackal pup that looked both lost and confused as it sat alone.

I also noticed a nearby crumbled structure that had the pup and the priestesses smell on it, she had taken the time to stop and rescue this pup from imminent danger.

I tasked two of the jackals with me to take care of the pup while I continue on to back up the priestess that will help bring Anubis’s madness to an end.

I eventually came across a groaning jackal in an alleyway, their spear was missing its tip. After picking the jackal up, I told the two jackals with me to get them to safety. They were no longer possessed and I heard them being told by the two jackals to not fight the flail-tails as I moved onwards.

I eventually came upon Jade exiting an alleyway looking to her left and preparing for a fight, I was going to join her when I saw a spear coming for her back.

“Lookout!” I deflected it off my shield and felled the possessed with a swift blow to the head.

Soon, I turned and watched as Jade tripped three more coming at us with that oddly unwieldly weapon that she proclaimed was a weaponized toy meant for children. I had tried to do a simple down and up with that weapon and found it difficult, how she can wield it with such efficiency is beyond me.

I can see what concerned her enough to make her miss the one behind her if she didn’t see the jackal at her back and saw those three to her front. She had looked in that direction though, so the jackal only appeared after she was distracted.

Once they were downed, I knocked out the middle and right one with two swift blows and Jade kicked the last one in the head. Afterwards she checked them over, then nodded to herself and continued to move forward looking towards a building the distance. That is likely where King Anubis is, I feel ominous tidings upon us all with our approach.

“Do you ever wonder if there is a reason why Evil goes for such an obvious presentation?” Jade says this as I slowly followed her, I turned my head to see what she was staring at. The clouds above that structure were swirling in a vortex. I turned my gaze back to Jade. She had the right of it, if that wasn’t an obvious sign that evil was present, then I didn’t know what was. “It’s a little over the top don’t you think? I mean the evil inside your king is definitely overcompensating for something. Why is it always swirling clouds, darkly glowing magic and some kind of aura of dread in the air? It’s always darkness and gloom with these kind of beings.”

“What are our chances of actually liberating Anubis?” I didn’t have an answer for her questions, because I mostly had nothing but questions of my own. “You seem to know much and I would seek your council before we are to fight him.”

“We’re likely to lose this fight… quite badly at that. Not to sugar cane coat this mess, but he’s a death god. The only reason why he didn’t win the war immediately, is because his magic bone of the undead was stolen by Chaos and Baast before the war got kicked off.” That, was rather depressingly correct of priestess Jade, to think I was expecting something more upbeat from her. At least a hopeful word that we could maybe have a shot to defeat the possessing spirit, I obviously viewed her in too heroic a light as to be unstoppable. “Not going to lie to you, we go up to face him and try to stand our ground against whatever he throws at us. Well… we’re going to get slaughtered doing that. So my advice is this when facing Anubis personally, we should stay mobile, don’t get hit by any magic he does as it might kill us immediately and overall try not to die no matter what happens. I intend to stall him and survive as long as I can even if I can’t win. I have a bit of magic that can weaken him greatly, but I certainly can’t actually cure him of the thing possessing him personally or even beat him.”

“Even knowing you might die, you still choose to do this? You are brave beyond words. You shall not die alone, as I will follow you regardless of any predicted outcomes and will fight beside you!” I was willing and able, not infirmed or even vaguely injured. I was a warrior that would at least hope to see the recognition and normalcy in my King’s eyes once again, I’d fight to see my king returned to who he once was. “You said that you can’t cure him, but you implied that you know who can?”

“Sure it may seem like I never taught them anything, but the best lessons are the ones learned personally from just living life.” Watching as Jade tossed the so called toy down and then retrieve if with a simple tug of her left paw, she did this several more times as we approached the building where King Anubis currently was. Even doing such a thing with said toy was complicated for me when I tried, her toy was magically reinforced to be a valid weapon and otherwise was useable by anyone provided they knew how to utilize it correctly. “The world is a very strange place at times and nature teaches us lessons that we are bound to never forget if we’re smart, mostly because they are usually both cruel, harsh and can only be learned once or twice in a lifetime. Take a cat for instance, they can be very petty about things. Playing with a mouse backed into a corner is a bad idea, yet cats are more likely to do this anyway. The cornered mouse, knowing that it has no chance to survive the cat toying with it, will choose to fight to the death and might actually surprise the cat with its sudden ferocity enough to either escape or at least injure it badly so that the next mouse it faces may live. The cat is a fool if it plays with its food while it can still move and quickly learns exactly why it shouldn’t.”

“Are you talking about those flail-tails you call priestesses that you tasked with the many odd things? They don’t seem all that special and you certainly seem quite talented at what you can do. You know, given you brought an entire city…” Quickly cutting off my words while I thought about the wisdom she was sharing with me, it seems Jade was not done.

“I might have paid homage to the wrong comedy gods, comedy and tragedy are as mirrors to each other sometimes. What happened to this city was a tragic, but it’ll be a pretty funny miracle if no one actually died. Said gods don’t particularly like death and nothing beats sadness like a bit laughter, especially when doing it in the face your own mortality.” Well Jade certainly spoke of wisdom I could easily follow, I could see that laughing in the face of danger being foolhardy and yet oddly brave. “Laughter can lighten the mood of sometimes exceedingly dangerous situations and make them much easier and far less deadly than they should be. However, it is always best to never call a comedy gods attention when it isn’t wanted, warranted or needed. The easiest way to garner said attention is to say something is impossible or cannot go wrong. Nothing is ever completely foolproof, since you have yet to actually meet the fool.”

The Priestess was indeed quite brave from what I’ve seen, she certainly cares little for ceremony and pretty much said that unless the ceremony does something magical she could care less about it. The ceremony she performed to bring down the city only took seven days, a lot of marching and a curiously designed box that paid homage to the gods she was speaking of.

“I can see the merit in your words, like I can see the merit in having you for a friend.” I’m beginning to see Jade’s logic in this and I don’t like it. “So tell me, why then do I feel like we’re the mice cornering a cat?”

“Since that’s exactly what we’re doing. We need the figurative cat we’re cornering to play with us and not kill us outright. If we live long enough for the six priestesses to show up, then we can feasibly win this. We’re also relying on them to figure out that they are needed here without having to tell them, that could take a while and they need to find the power in themselves to take care of Anubis’s problem.” Jade stated calmly as we walked up the steps leading into the building, at the top of the stairs the hallway leading up to the current throne of King Anubis was in front of us and lit sconces showed us the path to walk. “Get ready, because this is going to be rough. Are you really willing to hurt Anubis, despite the fact that at best that would only slow him down?”

Between us and the mighty King Anubis were six elite jackals and four unicorns, this would not be an easy fight for just the two of us.

“Yes, if it will bring him to his senses.” I tightened my grip on the baton in my right hand and held my shield aloft, it’s weight felt relatively cumbersome to me now.

-Jade-

Sandy was without a doubt a good, if insane, friend. Glad she was on my side for this, as I needed someone that was clearly mental enough to help me against these odds.

Let’s see, six jackals and four unicorns, all of which will be simpler if the possessed Anubis decides to not aid them in fighting us. As long as the unicorns couldn’t trap me in a barrier or something, I think we could take them. The jackals were relatively easy, the possessed were never capable of fighting to their full capabilities.

Anubis himself… can I just point out something here? He’s big, has six pack abs, burly chested, head or so taller than I was and was really quite muscular. The six or seven foot black furred goliath could rip a flail-tail in half with his bare hands and he could likely do the same to me. He had a full crook held in his right hand unlike the handheld one I had on me and he was glowing with a sickly looking green mist that permeated his form.

His large blue royal nemes wasn’t that interesting aside from the Eye of Horus symbol on it denoting his royal status, but I noted the loincloth had symbols I’d expect of a god of death on it. Scales that spoke of the balance of life and death, good and evil, it was above the moon encircling yet another Eye of Horus.

In all, Anubis, death god and judger of souls, was extremely intimidating from the first second I saw him and I wanted to turn around and run back to hide behind Baast. No time for that sadly, he’s already seen us approaching him.

“You…” He narrowed his eyes at me. “So the strange priestess is more powerful than I previously thought. I expected Baast to come and face me, but if she’s too busy being a coward and only sending you to your doom… so be it! Bring me their heads and I’ll introduce their souls straight to Ammit, the scales have long since become useless to me.”

“You are an impostor that wears his body!” Sandy shouted as the six jackals charged forward with their spears leveled at us. “You are not Anubis, he who is supposed to be an impartial judge!”

“Then I shall judge how quickly you will die.” He said flatly leaning to his left and resting his chin on his clawed fist. “Win and I might entertain the possibility of you being a threat.”

I was already readying to throw my yoyo out as the spears came at us.

-Airship Mauled, Maries-

“I think we’re going to stop it right there and pick up again tomorrow.” Really Jade, especially when you were getting to something exciting? She looked in our direction. “I want to relax after everything I’ve been through, so this story might take a few more days yet.”

“A lot of trouble, danger was always present, yet here you are now.” That Sweetcakes was odd, but the fact that Jade was here pretty much stated that she survived.

“Yep, being here is something I consider very lucky.” Jade stood up and stretched out, her spine made a popping noise. “Yeah, I need to be more active and get in some exercise in today.”

“Let us join you Jade! If you get too tired we can carry you back.” Maria offered for us immediately, Jade nodded and we were off.

-Canterlot, Celestia-

I had been a bit busy for Twilight’s coronation, Luna’s crown and my own were going to be fused together symbolically to give her leadership of Equestria. Aside from the element of magic’s crown, the crowns were generally pointless and usually weighed heavy on the head as they had little magic in them themselves.

Maybe then I can get some rest, because I have felt something oddly familiar lately in the last few days and it’s been coming from that specific direction.

We still haven’t caught the leader of GODLESS. So I can’t tip my hoof too quickly if what I’m feeling was true… that Jade, the lovable rogue sun priestess, was back.

I felt the strong urge to find her for a hug, but I didn’t want to reveal that she was still alive if the leader was keeping tabs on both Luna and me somehow.

I could however send a message to Cadence to go there for me, then have her send a message to me if she finds an old friend there. Since I seriously doubted GODLESS would ever have a presence in the Crystal Empire, it was the best way I could discreetly get information.

A few tears come to my eyes, this was truly a strange age of miracles. I can finally step down after a thousand years of carrying the weight of Equestria on my back for so long, Luna was lucky that she doesn’t have to spend a thousand more years doing it... too...

In fact, Luna is only going to have had spent only a number of years back before retiring and I’m kind of jealous of that fact.

Luna did barely a percentage of what work I've done and she gets full retirement!

Author's Note

Three new magical alchemy entries inserted, with a few amusing notes.

Next page will have Jade and Sand Shroud the jackal beginning to deal with the elite guard and then Anubis himself.

Yeah, I think Luna gets a somewhat unfair early retirement.

After Nightmare Moon she has about four to six years of activity, if she took one year to completely recover and catch up with society after being away for so long, then she goes into retirement with her sister. This is with all the benefits that retirement entails and she did barely a percentage of the work Celestia has done with running the entirety of Equestria.

It's like Luna was dumping her rulership onto Twilight, whereas Celestia actually has a valid reason to step down given she's been at it for such a long time.

Imagine if you will that Luna has never actually aged while sealed away and is now actively retiring at the age of thirty, her sister is retiring at one thousand plus.

Who was the sister that has had it easier now? I'd say Luna, she hardly had to deal with every regime's worst nightmare, the most horrid word in existence... 'politics'. Either that or 'Belgium', but that's more of a hitchhiker thing.

Chapter Sixty Eight, Pharaoh Emerald, of cake: Sugar.

-Ancient Anugypt, collapsed city, throne room corridor, Jade-

Sandy wasn’t exactly an elite jackal and was basically a rookie until she joined the war effort. Not that it was going to help these guys coming at us, being possessed pretty much dropped their skills drastically. They still had muscle, but none of the reflexes or skill they would normally be known for.

With this in mind, Sandy should be fine if I couldn’t watcher her back entirely as I slid under the spears coming at me from the left, right and in front of me. The three spears crossed over my head as I threw my yo-yo straight up in the air.

“Falling moon shot!” The spinning yo-yo’s string pulled taught above me and with a yank the yo-yo came down and smashed the jack between the eyes.

This forced his head downwards and he staggered back a few steps, I moved forward while grabbing my tail to avoid getting it sliced off from the two spears that slammed into the floor behind me.

Using the momentum from the downwards swing I brought my yo-yo back towards myself and swept it upwards behind me an overhand swing that launched it straight forward and caught the jackal in a stomach knocking him over.

I stretched my tail to the right with my right hand, while flexing it to the left as hard as I could as the yo-yo reeled in. I dodged into the stab of the jackal on my right moving too close to hit with the blade.

This meant the jackal would either drop her weapon to attack me with her bare hands or she would try to kick me, I had to remind myself this would only happen if my opponent could use her actual skills. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of the sphere wielding jackal now behind me, I leaned to the right over the spear at my side, avoiding the spear from behind that nicked the right shoulder of the jackal in front of me.

I released my tail and it slapped out and across the right side of the skull to the jackal behind me like a whip. Having knocked that guy down, I used my yo-yo to perform the reverse of my last trick.

“Rising sun shot!” I tossed the yo-yo straight forward into her throat and while she was grasping that in pain and leaning her head forward, I pulled the yo-yo back over my shoulder, then brought it around and up into an uppercut with the yo-yo.

There was a sharp crack followed the sound of the yo-yo smashing her in the chin that laid her completely out, unlike the other two I think she wasn’t getting up again… at least not as a possessed jackal.

Within a second of that happening, I yelped as I dodged a blast of magic that shot by my face. The other two jackals were slowly getting up and the unicorns were reminding me that they were here. I took a quick glance to see how Sandy was doing.

Sandy pushed the jackal in front of her back with her shield which was getting more damaged by the second, I probably should have reinforced the wood. Thinking on it, I should have probably done that to her baton too.

I quickly made my way over to Sand Shroud while dodging the shots from the four unicorns focusing their attentions on me, their aim was about as good as Celestia’s royal guard… which is definitely not a compliment to their current skill level.

They were coming close to hitting me, but they weren’t obviously trained for hitting moving targets.

“Walk the dog…” I tossed the yo-yo out and it came to a stop on the floor near the right most jackal battling with Sandy. “The bite is worse than the bark!”

A tug and the yo-yo stopped kicking up dust on the ground and slammed straight up into the jackal’s loin cloth, he grunted and squatted slightly. A second later he stood up and swung at my chest, I stumbled back looking at him in shock as I retrieved my yo-yo.

“You know, I have to ask, what does that jackal happen to be made of?!” As I queried my Ancient Anugyptian friend, she deflect a spear upwards and landed a blow on her middle jackals left shoulder. She also blocked the spear from the one on her left being swung for her.

“They are elites for a reason Jade!” That didn’t really explain it Sandy, I hit him in a weak point that any female or male would go down to and he staid mostly standing. The pain didn’t even seem to bother his combat ability in the slightest as he twirled the spear at me and tried to slash me from shoulder to hip.

“Cat’s Cradle!” As odd as it was to do a weird move like that, I got the yo-yo hanging in the center of a triangle and the blade struck the yo-yo before hitting the string. The string flexed with no damage at all given most of the force when to the yo-yo, but the spear didn’t do what Jacky’s bow normally does when something was put to the string of it.

I pushed the spears blade back with the string making the jackal stumble, if it was Jacky’s bow this guy would have gone flying.

“Cradled Claw!” The blow to the yo-yo took from the spear sent it out of the cradle in two revolutions around my hands, I fully released it and slowly twisted myself into a clockwise windup for the third swing.

I added a little momentum on the swing putting some muscle into it and then slashed him across the chest with the two edges of the yo-yo. Said edges were spinning fast enough to deal a cutting blow.

The odd thing about my counter attack was that there were three marks across his shoulder, chest and left hip. I wonder where the third phantom claw mark came from?

I noted some blood dripping from the string as I reeled the yo-yo back in, ah the yo-yo and the string… those five years of limbo weren’t wasted when it came to learning how to use a yo-yo as a completely viable weapon.

Not only did I claw the jackal up with a yo-yo I knocked him out cold from the force of the blow knocking him head first into the pillar behind him. I noted Parasite Anubis had a vaguely amused grin on his face.

“I feel humbled by the fact that you dealt with two of our opponents while I still struggle to put down one.” Sandy seemed to be in awe of my yo-yo skills. She moved forward and braced herself for several magic bursts from the four unicorns, then deflected the next two spear swings with a simple flourish of her baton. “Still, I have become fairly talented at defending myself, but my shield and weapon are getting fairly damaged here.”

I noted the position of the jackals was lining up, I took a position behind Sandy and smiled. I wanted to do something flashy and impossible to do on the sand. It would only be possible with a griffon feather sustainment and even if we weren’t going to win the fight with Anubis, I still wanted to show off a little.

“Hold them for a bit and get ready to move when I tell you to, I’m going to need you to leap to the side.” The unicorns had moved closer, but they were still keeping their distance. The jackals were alternating left and right, the four unicorns form a circle behind them, yes… if I could pull this off...

“Right.” Sandy set up more defensively and the jackals were not moving to attack her three on one, which was a good thing as the two approached and attacked her and she stayed on the defensive.

-Sandy-

I had no idea what Jade was doing, but she was great at fighting with her bare paws as well as wielding lightweight weapons. I actually looked up to her because of this.

I could hear her spinning her yo-yo behind me, but I had absolutely no idea what she was doing aside from spinning the yo-yo faster and faster.

She was just doing it up and down, what technique was she going for this time? Every single one so far had made absolutely sense, given that weapon worked on momentum. For something so simple it was really quite hard to wield.

I deflect a stab with my wood baton and moved a little, one of the jackals stepped forward and raised the spear for a downwards swing.

“Now!” I immediately leapt to the side and was witness to something I’d never forget in my life.

The blade of the spear slapped against the floor and Jade took several quick steps forward, she had backed up for what she was about to pull. She tossed the yo-yo forward and it started kicking up dust as it spun against the ground, it moved forward slightly as she charge and then she jumped.

She twisted and inverted her body upside down above the yo-yo and scrunched up and then she seem to explode outwards and spun. The three limbs whipping around were her legs and her tail, notably her tail was curled around the spear blade she had taken from that jackal I saw following after her.

She slammed into the first jackal and he was sent flying with several bleeding cuts. Jade scrunched and exploded forward again spinning all that much faster as she deflected the spear of the next jackal, scrunch and she started to spin even faster as she passed that jackal after launching them away in the same state the first one she passed.

She chews through the third one who tries to defend themselves, only to have the wood of their spear turned into kindling. The fourth one does fare much better after Jade explodes forward from the third, one last scrunch and the spiraling spinning upside down cat shot forward flipped and then lashed out with her yo-yo from the floor towards the four surprised unicorns.

The last thing she did was strike all four of the glowing horns making the unicorns back off in pain and the yo-yo spiraled inwards until it slapped into her palm.

“… that… I… no words…” Jade tried to take a step and started to stumble about as if she had partaken of a powerful nobles drink, her tail dropped the spear blade it held and she soon fell onto her butt. What was wrong with her? I moved forward slightly and saw her eyes spinning. “So dizzy… so much spinning… did I… did I really manage to… do a Gazer Spiral?”

One of the unicorns shook their head and went to attack, I charged forward and clubbed him across the head making him go down. I swiftly took down another with a backswing and blocked the next two magic shots. That attack had obviously taken a lot out of Jade.

-Break-

“What is a Gazer Spiral and why is it so hard to do?” Asked Gene as he held his son Gavin, behind him Jacky was running a fire extinguisher over her body which had caught fire. Whatever was in the odd fire extinguisher, it really smelled quite good.

“Because it requires momentum, at best you can only do one inverted spin before having to stop unless you’re a pegasus or some other form of winged creature that can control the air to perform the trick.” Jade started to explain. “Every time I hit something with my feet or tail I used the griffon feather to keep my spin going while also keeping myself airborne. From what Sandy told me, it looked like I kept spinning in one direction the entire time. That was far from the truth, as I reversed my spin every time I hit something, I was spinning so fast that it only looked like I was spinning one direction. I was quite out of it on the floor after my helicopter kicking ended, but Sandy handled the unicorns fairly well. At least until I could get myself back to my senses.”

“Why is it called Gazer Spiral?!” Several winced at Flamberge’s loud voice, but all Sweetcakes did was snuggle up to him. Some of them couldn’t believe he had a nice looking girlfriend, much less someone that can stand his obnoxiously loud voice.

“It’s because you become like a tornado to everyone looking at you while balancing your spinning flight above a rolling yo-yo. Looking at me from above or below you’d definitely see where the spiral part comes in.” Jade rubbed at her left ear idly. “It was rough on my body and I was going to do that again, but it did put down the four elite possessed jackals with relatively little fuss thanks to the blade I had on my tail. They all survived my attack, but they were too injured to move after getting kicked with my toe claws and slashed multiple times with that spear blade I took.”

Jade took up a glass of apple juice and sipped it, she turned a look over to Fizzle and Maries cuddling one another. The strange herd’s relationship was as physically fluffy as it was emotionally complex.

-End Break-

With downward strike and a forward leap, I put a bit of force behind my blow to fell the last of the unicorns. Around this time Jade started coming to her senses, but she wasn’t standing up.

A clapping noise brought my attention forward as I turned to Anubis and raised my shield. Anubis clapped his clawed digits together several times.

“Well… well… looks like I might have to get up after all.” Even when he was surrounded by Baast and her grand army, most of which was currently digging jackals out of the destroyed city, he didn’t seem troubled. Taking up his royal battle crook, a full length staff with a hook at the end, he stood up and stared me down. “After I deal with you two I can still escape and continue my plans for taking over the world, once I have that bone back the dead shall rise and none will stop my armies!”

“You’re not even hiding it anymore?” I asked hesitantly.

“No, I don’t see the point if everyone knows.” The green miasma around Anubis was scaring me somewhat. He leapt forward spinning to bring the hook down at me, I raised my shield to take the blow.

I suddenly found myself hitting the wall across the room with my shield shattered, I fell to the floor with my grip tightening upon the still intact baton.

“Yeah, that’s about what I expected of his strength honestly. We’re not going to win this unless we can keep him busy!” Despite his godly strength, Jade still manage to work herself into standing position before him. She put her yo-yo away. "Don't worry Anubis... we'll save you.”

-Break-

“I did that because I knew that my yo-yo would have little to no effect whatsoever on Anubis.” Jade showed everyone the slightly blood stained yo-yo, one side had her name intricately carved on it and the other... a cartoony unicorn with a broken horn, a toothy tiger head, a snake head wearing a top hat and a goat head with an earring.

Author's Note

I'm fairly sorry for the slow updates, but I've been getting twelve hours of sleep lately at least once per day.

My health is not bad, but it could be a little better.

Jaded La Perm the Abyssinian and Sand Shroud the Jackal are about to be in a spot of trouble.

Jackal? Jackal! It's a Jackal! Jackal.

Chapter Sixty Eight, Pharaoh Emerald, of cake: Cream.

-Present day, Airship Mauled, Maries-

“Wait a moment… why is there a top hat on my image?” As the snake headed member of our body, I can’t help but think that Jade put a top hat on my image for a reason. The other images looked normal by comparison to the oddity of Marie wearing a top hat. “Why would a snake wear a top hat Jade?”

“Not important, back to the story!” Did Jade just seriously dodge Marie’s question, we are so not forgetting this. Now we absolutely needed to know what a snake with a top hat represented!

We would hound Jade mercilessly… after her story was done of course because we needed to know what our beloved planning cat of pettiness got up to in the annals of history.

-Ancient Anugypt, collapsed city, throne room hallway, Jade-

Life came at me fast and hard, my death was also going to come at me the same way if I couldn’t avoid Anubis’s body doing a sudden lunge. Anubis was without a doubt, a lightning bruiser… there was no glass in that cannon as he swung his full length royal crook for me.

I leapt up and the crook was already coming at me with a back swing. I jumped a second time going into a mid-air cartwheel that surprised Anubis, he probably didn’t know the only reason how I could even pull off the Gazer Spiral in the first place.

Rolling as I finished my mid-air cartwheel I narrowly avoided getting hooked by the two handed crook, only to have it shoved into my chest where it began pressing me into the pillar. He forced it upwards towards my neck and now my hands were gripping the hook of the crook to prevent it from being pushed into my throat too roughly.

I’ll give it to the parasite, he was quite fast with Anubis’s reflexes. I tried to push back and he forced me against the pillar all that much harder trying to cut off my ability to breathe. Luckily I had an ace in the hole for how to get out of this situation, but I was currently busy trying to figure out a counter attack.

I eyed Sandy and shook my head no, she backed off from attacking Anubis from behind, what could I used and what did I have on me? Well for one, I could use the crook… yeah… that should do it!

“You’re going to lose…” Despite growling this he didn’t seem phased by my attempt to push the crook away from my throat.

“Let’s agree to dis…” Anubis started to say when his crook disappeared out of his hand, turned into energy held in my hands and then reformed within a second.

Magical alchemy made me the worst enemy of someone who relied entirely on weapons, provided that I could grab or touch them. Anubis didn’t need a weapon, but while he was distracted by the loss of his I took it upon myself to strike him upside the head with his crook.

I spun around smash the crook into the side of his head and nemes, the hook of the crook snapped apart upon impact. I released the broken shaft of the crook and kicked away while giving Sandy a glance, motioning to it, the spear, the elite jackals and the unicorns with my eyes and glancing towards the entrance.

At best I had staggered Anubis, but I didn’t hurt him as I broke his own weapon against his skull.

Sandy looked about and nodded as she put her baton away and picked up one of the spears and started to gather the others. She then grabbed one of the jackals and started to drag them outside.

I quickly picked up and held the remaining hook portion of the weapon and waited for Anubis to come at me, he seemed a little bit warier than before after I stole the royal crook out of his hands.

“Well I agree wholeheartedly!” I said haughtily, but then leapt to the side as he lunged forward and launched a punch for my face. I landed on three limbs and could throw away the crook to go completely into all fours movement at a moment’s notice.

He missed me, but he blew a hole out of the pillar that had been behind me with raw strength. Did I mention this guy was strong? Yeah, that didn’t even make him flinch or hurt his fist at all. Intimidation was achieved by him and I wasn’t about to let myself get hit by that if I could help it.

“What’s the matter big guy, can’t keep up with the little kitty?” Anugyptian felines were tiny compared to him. I was trying to goad him into keeping his attention on me and not on Sandy. I wanted her to get in a few hits on this parasite, it was basically the same kind of nightmare that took Luna a few hundred thousand years or so from now.

I would ask him to pick on someone his own size… only there was no one around that fit that description or even had the muscles for it. Aside from Sandy I was probably the only one around willing to put myself in the way of such a monster and make that struggle for a better tomorrow.

Speaking of monsters, he charged me and continued to ignore my companion moving the jackals and unicorns away from the fight. I had to keep Anubis’s attention squarely me so he doesn’t take any hostages or notice he was losing those that could be his.

He threw his left fist at me and I hooked his wrist and used his own forward momentum against him to pull him face first to the ground. He reached up and grabbed the crook. I quickly abandoned it and scampered away on all fours around the third pillar on the right entering and turned to watch him as he tossed it off to the side.

I did not want to be in a direct confrontation with the immovable mountain, but I don’t think I could avoid it in this situation. Kick and punch him all I want, I wasn’t going to injure him or knock him down unless I was launched out of a ballista at him and that’d likely break a few of my bones. Not doing something like that when the medical practices were sketchy in this era.

Eight pillars lined this hall, I had been pressed up against the second one on the right and I was now behind the third as he came around the third pillar and lunged for me. I shot forward underneath him and he stopped and turned around almost immediately to almost grab my tail.

I was on edge at the speed that much mass could move at, he was almost on top of me a second later the claws of his digits flashing toward my head with his mouth roaring and wide open. Not being able to help myself, I fired two bursts of water from my ears towards his mouth and blinded him slightly with water in the eyes.

He coughed and sputtered as I moved towards the fourth pillar on the left and he must have seen my tail round the pillar because I heard him coming my way. At least I still had his attention, didn’t want him to pay attention to what Sandy was doing or why she wasn’t helping me at the moment.

I leapt up and jumped a second time before latching onto the pillar with all I was worth, I waited for Anubis to make his next move as he rounded the pillar looking about. I saw Sandy duck behind the entrance having dragged a unicorn out with her.

“Hey, looking for something?!” He looked up at me and attacked the pillar with both his fists, it started to crumble out from beneath me.

I quickly leapt from that pillar towards the third pillar on the left and, after jumping off the air again, clung to it even higher up.

Anubis’s right arm started to glow with magic that shared a similar green fog color of the parasite permeating his form, now he was going to try and yep… he just fire a wad of sickly looking magical energy at me.

I slid down the pillar to the floor as the magic splashed against the pillar and ate through it entirely like acid. Turning around and leaning against the pillar trying to look entirely calm, I idly checked my claws as if I wasn’t terrified of being struck by something that caustic.

“So… magic now? Seems a bit unfair, but I guess I did fire some earwax down your throat. Ugh climbing these pillars is really rough on my…” I rolled to the right underneath a glowing left fist as it ripped through more than half of the pillar without pausing. “Claws. Frankly I probably shouldn’t be climbing on them to avoid…”

He slammed both his fists down, sending out a shockwave of magical energy that ate through a portion of the third pillar a little more and smile. I jumped into the air towards it trying to go over him and he reached up to grab me, I kicked off the air to get even higher above his reach.

My feet made contact with the damaged pillar, which I proceeded to kick off of. I leapt even higher as Anubis jumped and tried to swipe me out of the air with a magical death on his head.”

“You. Sorry I have to ask this, but…” He tried to kick me in the chest I weaved around his leg and nearly got backhanded, I ducked under that and avoided his right fist slamming through the stone flooring in front of me. “Do you realize how terrifying you are with that parasite controlling you Anubis?”

The parasite had good control of his body. Were I not as agile as I was, he would have killed me three times already.

“Stop talking and…” I sidestepped to right a little and the damaged pillar smashed down on his head and broke in half. Anubis despite being struck roughly by a few hundred pounds worth of stone, stayed standing. At most he looked a little dazed and as I back away from him towards the pillars on the right side of the hall, I saw that Sandy was almost done getting the unicorns out of the way.

“Get hit by a large pillar?” I asked while quirking an eye at him, he suddenly moved and I was unprepared for how fast he clamped his left hand on my right wrist. Oh no…

He swung me around, I felt a horrible pain throughout my shoulder and he sent me flying towards the hallways right wall between the second and third pillar.

Oh yeah, this was exceedingly painful and I think he just ripped my right arm out of the socket by bodily pulling me off the ground, he did that one handed no less.

“Do you think you’re tough, do you seriously think you can free Anubis when you’re a pathetic weakling?” He cackled, sadistic glee does not work on Anubis’s face.

“Well…” I couldn’t move my right arm and gripped it with my left hand, with an upwards jerk I forced my right arm back into the socket with a sickening squelching noise. My eyes filled with tears, yet I managed to stay on my feet despite taking a wall to the spine. “I’m tougher than you’d think… I will survive today, then see tomorrow with a smile.”

“Your optimism can only do so much.” He came at me fast and I decided to get in low blow, I crouched under his arms attempt to get me into a bear hug and launched my left foot upwards as hard as I could.

Anubis staggered back and didn’t look to be in too much pain. Seriously, what are the jackals of this era made of when they have thick stones like that? I tried to scamper away on all fours after rolling over to my right, only he grabbed my back right leg and started to drag me back and lift me off the floor.

A thrown bladed spear sank into his left arm and he howled in pain, dropping me. He ripped the spear out and incinerated it with magic and then sent a blast towards the entrance as I tried to get away.

I moved towards his throne, he’d either go after me or Sandy. If he went after Sandy, then that would give me an opening to pull one of two aces out. If he went after me, I was screwed.

I heard his thunderous feet coming up on me and I darted left and right, the parasite chose me as the bigger threat. I would feel more flattered if it wasn’t true, Sandy didn’t exactly have the magic that I do at my disposal.

Pulling out the spear blade, it resembled a knife so I had hoped what I was about to do would work, I cast it and sent it straight at Anubis.

Despite his back exploding a shower of blood, apparently the spears blade counting enough to be the approximation of knife cast, he barreled through that pain and continued to come at me.

He quickly snapped his right hand around my neck and slammed me into the back right wall of hallway. Grinning sadistically as he pressed me against the wall, I tried to get his hand off of my neck.

“So… any last words.” A magical glow started crawling up his arm, but it seemed to be resisting somewhat as it was slowly trying to move backwards.

It seems Anubis was resisting his parasite to save my life, I silently prated and thanked this parasite bound god for that. My prayer probably had an effect considering the magic slid back down the forearm and to the shoulder.

“No matter, if I can’t kill her with magic…” He didn’t finish his statement as he tightened the grip on my neck. “I’ll just kill her with your strength. Any last words before I crush your throat?”

My vision was going black and there was one thing the parasite didn’t know about me.

“I’m… firing…” I tend to fight dirty. My choked out words were followed by a slight inhale after I said the next word. “My…”

I then spat a magic missile from my mouth right into poor Anubis’s right eye, he screamed in agony and stumbled away clutching at his head. This left me gasping for air on the ground, Sandy came over to my side and I looked up to her.

“Are you okay?” Sandy asked me worriedly and I fend off her prodding. “I need to bring you to safety while he’s distracted.”

“No! Help me get something out of my pack, my right arm isn't working too well!” I unslung my pack and she helped me pull out the most glorious thing ever devised by me.

“Thanks, now take cover behind a pillar.” This was the thing that would weaken both Anubis and help with his parasite problem. A full sized ancient anugyptian sun baked cake, with sugar cane icing. I press my hand firmly into the cake and cast the whole shebang.

My left claw, holding roiling hardly contained energy, I charged straight at Anubis with it.

My whole world was encompassed by suffering.

Author's Note

I have a sore throat, but at least I've been getting more sleep lately so there's that.

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredient!)

Full Cake. (Far worse than what cupcakes do.)

Chapter Sixty Eight, Pharaoh Emerald, of cake: Salt.

-Airship Mauled, Fizzle-

“Have you ever heard the phrase, everything the light touches is our kingdom?” Watching Jade convulse as she said this, I shivered. “This is literally what that cast does, everything its light touches gets hit with the effect. It definitely weakened the parasite and Anubis… but I will forever be a casualty of it… I can’t forget everything I felt. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemies and I would use it in anger either. If you don’t fully block it, you still get the full effect. Even a single pinhole of it going through something hits for full effect.”

I hugged Jade, because she looked fairly haunted.

“Everything its light touched, was within its given range, if you weren’t behind something or at an angle from the initial blast…” Jade clammed up and started crying into her hands. “I have nothing with which I could compare to… that… and yet Anubis still got up afterwards, so I too had to do the same despite the horrors I inflicted on myself.”

“So, are you saying it’s impossible for the user to dodge it?” Mom asked of Jade while looking worried at the faraway look in her eyes.

“If you’re point blank or not already around a corner when thrown, yes. It is termed automatic area of effect, only the shade would save you. The darkness is your friend, it is everyone’s friend. Oblivion is very nice and so is limbo… those are preferable.” Shaking Jade lightly, she blinked and pulled me closer. While I liked the closeness, I can already tell Jade has been through a lot with just recalling this as if she tried to erase it from her memory. This cast seemed like the worst thing to ever happen to her. “It’s one of my top ten worst things to ever happen to me, number two at best.”

“What’s number one?” Maries asked.

“A full grown Abyssinian queen can never feel as much pain as when they are separated from their kittens before the both of them are ready.” Kuril stated immediately.

“Correct… it was darn near close, because being separated from Icky Dress is still more painful than that. Even now, what I went through hitting Anubis with a point blank blast of unknown strange cosmic power like that doesn’t compare.” Jade curled up against me, I just gently stroked her and everyone in the room felt sorry for making her recall this moment. “Said horrors would make even the most eldritch beings leave this dimension entirely alone for the fear that someone might wield such a thing against them. I thought the death god might make me feel like dying, instead, I was the one that did that to the both of us. Anubis is a god, can you imagine what dying feels like for someone immortal like him?”

-Ancient Anugypt, throne hallway, Sandy-

I may not have been caught by the effects of it, but everything had been so bright and the aftermath was so horrible… I don’t think I could repeat what had occurred when Jade took the confection and used it to harm Anubis, not to mention herself in the process.

The end results were horrifying, how was one supposed to survive through that without being a god!?

Yet, Jade still breathed and she was spewing rainbows from every part of her body, Anubis was doing the same not too far from her. Soon things stopped and I would never recount what had happened to them, but Anubis seemed to be almost in control of himself as he lifted his head from the floor with rainbows leaking out the corner of his mouth.

“That was… the parasite is still here, but you’ve definitely weakened it.” I could tell from the tone that my lord Anubis was speaking now, his voice was weak and I looked to the wide eyed Jade still bleeding a large assortments of colors everywhere. There were colors that I didn’t even know were possible. “Death, such as me, would have been far kinder.”

Slowly Jade started to force her arm under herself, both Anubis and I stared at her incredulously as she started forcing herself into a standing position.

“How, the pain…” Anubis whispered, even he couldn’t stand up as Jade was doing.

“Nothing, hurts a queen worse, than being separated from their kitten. I’m a queen, my child is a beloved magical tree and we were separated by me ending up here. This… this nearly endless torment I’m feeling from… from what I just did… my godly pain tolerance can handle that.” She looked weak, but she was standing at least. I saw strength coming back to her faster than it was Anubis. “This… what I just did… it is nothing. It can haunt me forever, but, it is nothing compared to losing my kitten. I know exactly the kind of pain my mother is in now being separated from me, because it is still far worse than what just happened to us combined!”

She breathed in and out several times after yelling that and coughed up several splotches of green and the brightest blue I’ve ever seen, she was quite pale and didn’t look very healthy. She needed rest after performing another feat of such powerful magic. Truly the sun priestess was one of the most powerful beings in Anugypt, yet she still couldn’t defeat the parasite inside of Anubis judging by what she said next.

“I know we need to defeat the parasite, but I’m quite spent so… excuse me while I go over there and continue to cry out the remainder of the rainbows still in me.” She calmly and slowly walked her way over to the third pillar on the right side of the room, put her back to it, slid down and promptly closed her eyes. “Wake me up when this is over with, I should have went with the soul rending fire… at least Anubis wouldn’t have been as scarred as badly.”

Jade passed out with fresh streaks of rainbow going down her face, the rainbows coming from her ears and mouth had at least ceased to flow. Also the rainbows from her odd clothing had thankfully stopped as well, the floor was practically a river of rainbows flowing out the entrance thanks to both Lord Anubis and Priestess Jade.

“The parasite is quickly regaining control, you need to free me now if you are to have any chance of stopping it!” Looking to Anubis, I didn’t know how to help him. The priestess that would know how is currently sleeping.

“I am sorry lord Anubis, I do not know how to help you.” I really was quite sorry. Right or wrong, I couldn’t kill my Lord and King of all jackals.

“Maybe we can help perchance, what is all this nasty colorful stuff anyway? It feels like raw suffering whatever this stuff is.” I turned a look towards the entrance and saw Princess Clarity come in with the five other priestesses. “What happened here?”

“Something that I will never dare repeat even on pain of death and beyond that into infinity!” I answered, they came in getting their paws covered in the colorful fluids. The pink one, Cheerful Dye, playfully splashed it everywhere making me feel quite ill. “I will say that Anubis and the thing controlling him are weakened, but Jade… she is completely incapable of telling us what to do next!”

“Well now, that is a problem. We have relied on Jade for too much already, poor dear looks like she could use the rest. I think it’s about time that we take matters into our own paws, this wasn’t her mess to begin with and she put herself constantly in harm’s way for us.” Clarity narrowed her eyes at Anubis. “She tired herself out constantly for us, she helped us all and taught us things about ourselves that we needed to hear. She spent her very being keeping us all safe and now we come to find her injured and unable to act, well it’s about time we finally did something aside from being lazy priestesses! Jade told me the impossible is only as such if you don’t put your mind to it. The mysterious and the impossible, there’s a mystique to doing something that no one being can possibly explain. Not even the gods can explain this mysterious feeling I’m feeling right now… I want to save the world. Also to be seen for more than the extravagant humble lady that I am. We are all going to do the impossible now! For the mystique of life is never ending, not everything needs an answer.”

Clarity started glowing purple, the fluid rainbow around her paws started turning that color as she floated up into the air. A tendril of rainbow colors started to surround her in a bubble.

“Jade needed our help then and she still does now. She always came to me to talk about her feelings, there is great sorrow in her and I tried very hard to help.” Quiet stepped forward. “I can’t help, but feel inadequate as I tried to empathize with her. To know and feel her pain as she does, at best I could only draw some of that pain off of her. Having friends in life, is a power all of its own. I want to help share both the pain and the happiness of our burdens, for sharing what’s in our hearts will make life a little easier!”

A yellow glow in the rainbows and Quiet floated up, another bubble formed.

“Everybody smile, smile, smile! Nothing brings color to the world like spreading some happiness!” Cheerful Dye pranced around in a circle swirling the rainbow of colors around herself. “I like making everything bright and colorful, I even make smiling an art form! Though a drawn smile can never quite match the real thing, the real thing brings life to the eyes of a true, true friend indeed!”

Instead of slowly ascending she just jumped up in the air and a pink bubble formed, I blinked at what was going on here. The three floating bubbles started to float in a circle and rainbow liquid started gather between the three of them.

“You can’t get through life without at least telling the truth once.” Grassy ascended into the air. “A life built on nothing but lies is not really living as far as I can tell.”

“Nothing can be twenty percent hotter than me, because I face danger head on. When things start heating up, I just get hotter!” Brash started to float into the air shakily. “Life’s challenges will never stop me from trying to do what I love! I love the friends I’ve made just as much, if not more than that! For the courageous will always try no matter the odds!”

Brash fully ascended and a bubble formed around her.

“Clarity is right, I do fuss over her a bit and I seek knowledge to my detriment at times, but…” Bright look to all five of her friends floating in circle, the liquids turning into a white spark of light gathering at the center of the five floating cats. “Knowledge is nothing without the wisdom to use it correctly. I have the wisdom to know when my friends need me, because I want to be with them and share some knowledge to aid in their endeavors. Wisdom is knowing when to listen to others or to accept help when you need it the most, through sharing knowledge and understanding when to use it… life can be so much simpler. Friendship… like wisdom… is a magic all its own. This… magic… is not bound by knowledge, time or space, for the mark of one’s destiny singled out alone cannot be fulfilled. A mark of many destinies helping one another… it is fulfilling even if one never fully achieves what one wants out of life. Life is never born into this world alone, life is never boring, life just is… for we are all part of something grand in scope and yet so simple in design, ever changing…”

Bright floated up and then Anubis, likely controlled by the parasite, launched a wave of sickly green at the floating flail-tails in their bubbles. It dissipated before it could even touch them, he launched it at Jade and a bubble sprouted up around her defending her unconscious form.

“What… what is this power?” The parasite in Anubis stated as he turned back to the six floating orbs of light and the glowing eyes of several cats staring at him, before a blinding rainbow of pure power slammed down upon him.

-A few minutes after the rainbow beam-

I saw a bright light shine from Jade’s thighs for a second, I would not think much of it or bother to tell anyone. It was probably a gift from a god or goddess watching over the brave priestess of the sun. Never has a mortal caused such a calamity, fought and helped save a god, worried about a people not her own, she was a heroic stranger in a strange land and we should honor her sacrifices.

Anubis, the God of Death, has been restored and the parasite burned away by the powers of life.

The balance of life and death has returned to the land… harmony has been restored.

-Ancient Anugypt, three days later, Jade-

I woke up with a headache, every orifice on my body felt like fire and clutching at myself, I curled up in pain until I felt the soft touch of a paw.

“It’s okay, everything will be alright.” The quiet voice of Quiet reached my ears, it sounded almost like Fluttershy. Gentle and yet strong. “There, there, things will be okay Jade. Now don’t try to get up too fast. Now slowly open your eyes and uncurl Jade.”

“What… what happened?” I opened my eyes and saw the gentle yellow furred cat look at me with soft eyes and a friendly smile, I tried to sit up and groaned in pain. Quiet pushed me back down.

“A lot has happened, you have been asleep for several nights and are now waking up this morning.” I saw a shaft of light behind Quiet. “I know we never asked you how you would feel about this, but… we know you’re not of royal blood, so… well how do you feel about being a pharaoh of your own demesne?”

“Not too pleasant, as I don’t want to stick around in Anugypt for the rest of my life.” At my words, she winces and her ears flattened against her head.

“Well, Baast said you wouldn’t mind with what she is working on. I guess you need to talk to her about it.” Sighing at Quiet’s nervousness, I reached up and started to rub her behind the ears gently.

“Eh, if she thinks it’ll help, then I’m sure I’ll be happy with what she has planned. She kind of owes me a lot.” I tilted my head as I started rubbing Quiet’s belly when she rolled over and started purring loudly. “Give it to me straight, how many perished in the city’s collapse?”

“No one actually, it’s actually quite miraculous considering the entire city sunk a distance into the ground.” Quiet perked up as she told me this. “There are plenty of injured jackals though.”

I just stared at the ceiling and continued to tickle my friend’s belly, a wary giggle escaped from my lips.

Author's Note

Congested, but at least my throat is feeling better and lot's of sneezing so I'm likely to be healthy again soon.

Chapter Sixty Nine, Wounds and Time: Cut.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty Nine, Wounds and Time: Scratch.

Author's Note

Music- Rat Race Theme (Baha Men)

Jade's back at it again. Only this time she's too fast for them.

Chapter Sixty Nine, Wounds and Time: Scratch.

-Canterlot Castle, the next morning, Celestia-

“So tomorrow will be the day we…” As we approached the balcony something shot by us in a blur, I was spooked for a second and then I saw a familiar Abyssinian smiling back at me as she stuffed some of Luna’s loose feathers and our crowns into a bag.

“What, our crowns, that Abyssinian stole our crowns! We need those to symbolically turn things over to Twilight!” Luna suddenly became quite angry, she’s never met Jade before. “Guards catch that thief!”

“Top of the morning to you!” Jade leapt off the balcony and towards the city, she spun towards me while throwing a smile and a salute. She kicked out with the strange skates on her feet to spin around and land on the ground moving straight for the city.

Roller skates that give off bursts of lightning with each push? It seems that today is a training day for the Royal Guard, they better catch her before she gets out of the city.

I had a goofy grin on my face that my sister just couldn’t quite understand.

-Jade-

I shifted my hips left and right with each push of my feet, while thrusting my arms forward, I left lightning sparks in my wake as each push forward boosted me.

“Well I wake up in the morning each and every day~.” I sang as I skated down the streets slowly, ponies’ ears were suddenly going ramrod straight as they could hear the music I was singing to. “I send a salutation to the sun until I hear my mother say~. Life is nothing, it’s a nothing, life is nothing like a slap to the face~! Life is nothing, it’s like nothing, life is nothing like another crazy cat chase~!”

I checked my green knee pads, elbow pads, helmet and my magnetically driven lightning skates sending sparks out with each push. I should really thank Jacky and Blade for helping me make these.

Seeing my target I pulled out my yo-yo and prepped it to get my favorite pegasus to annoy.

“Why do I have a chill down my spine and hear upbeat music all of the…” My yo-yo met the back of Spitfire’s head and it slammed into a pie that Soarin’ was about to start digging into.

“Every night I have a dream of you wiping pie off your face~.” I skid to a stop next to the table and leaned on it while wagging my tail. “There’s nothing like making you give me another really good chase~.”

“Please tell me that’s not scheming, that I’m dreaming, please someone give me a slap in the face~!” Spitfire said as she pulled her face out the pie and looked towards my canary eating grin. “Please lie like nothing, please tell me nothing, please don’t tell me this isn’t another crazy cat chase~!”

I immediately turned and darted down the street while juking left and right while rhythmically tapping dancing with my skates to the music as I avoided several blasts of magic from the unicorns that finally caught up to me.

I started to head towards the aqueduct as an angry looking stallion started flying behind me.

“Anybody who messes up a pie really doesn’t belong~!” Soarin sang as I turned down and alleyway and started to jump off the walls until I was up on the roof, he came around the corner and didn’t see me I whistled at him.

“So you can’t take a good joke, is it really so wrong~?” I sang as I skated up the roof and then jumped onto the angular portion of the roof with my skates sideways to start grinding the roofs ridge and my speed increased exponentially.

Soarin appeared at the roof and blinked when he looked around for me and saw me launching off to a wire leading to the square and came after me. He was held back by Spitfire.

“You’ll never really catch the cat at this rate~. She’s always enjoys our suffering when it comes to the chase~.” A rainbow pony sped by them. The singing Spitfire didn’t have time to try and warn Rainbow Dash about the bane of the royal guard. “There’s just no point, really, that I can think of going after that crazy felon feline and she seems to have been pumping some weights and can live, she’s going to be beating us to aching throbs so come on let’s just give~.”

I turned back to looking forward and was almost at the aqueduct, now to test out these puppies on something that wasn’t solid ground. With quasi-pegasus magic in use, technically thestral weather control, this should work the way I expected it would.

I ducked, nearly taking a blue hoof to the skull.

“You won’t escaped me you crazy crook, this is just the fastest path to jail you just took~!” Rainbow was definitely faster than every other Royal Guard or Wonder Bolts. Didn’t expect her to be here or get on top of me that fast, but I guess she was working on the show for Twilight’s coronation.

“You know I always enjoy the race, because nothing is like a crazy cat chase~.” I said calmly beginning a skid and Rainbow sped over the aqueduct as I turned and angled so I was skating alongside the river of water to my right. “There’s nothing in life that’s truly a waste, I always make for a fun crazy cat to chase~!”

“You think I’m nothing~?!” Rainbow swung at me and I ducked and she slammed into a blacksmithing sign, a second later she was on me again. “Your worth head-butting~. I’ll give you quite a few slaps to the face~! I’m not nothing, you’ve got nothing, you’re not really too hard TO CHASE~!”

I turned my head and watched an upcoming corner and skidded ready to take it and then I jumped backwards and turned to start skating down the aqueduct while Rainbow turned left and then realized what I just did.

“What it’s like for me, as you can see, I’m enjoying being free… it’s a cat chase, a crazy cat chase~!” I sang as I started skiing over the water and tap dancing on it in a fun manner.

Rainbow flew up behind me, but I jumped and stomped down sending a huge spray into her face and she went spiraling off to the side where she went tumbling across the ground in mass of fluffy cloud.

Air bagged, five points, ten because it was Rainbow Dash! Next time I should bring a spray can and tag at least five royal guard’s with my cutie mark.

I skid to the right and left on the water and leapt off of it over several unicorns that had been firing at me. They turned their heads after me as I shot down the street behind them towards the train station.

Rainbow wasn’t giving up, she came at me trying to tackle me and launched a hurricane of kicks at me with some flashy acrobatics. She definitely earned her black belt, but she had to slow down to attack me and I’m excellent at evasion.

“I think I’ve really got it going on~.” I had checked the train schedule before this and I was clear to get back to Airship Mauled with how I got to Canterlot today. “Since I’m the one who puts this crazy and the cat in this chase~.”

Jumping I rode the nearby wall as a surprised Rainbow passed under me and slammed into a cabbage cart, surprisingly it wasn’t destroyed. Rainbow fell away from the cart leaving it completely intact and undamaged, I was confused.

My confusion would soon be answered by a voice that I’d soon be putting behind me, as I skidded along the wall over him.

“Hahaha, bucking reinforced it this time! You’re not getting one over Cabbage Patch, not again, no sir, not now, never!” The cabbage selling earth pony shouted with glee, as he wasn’t shouting about the destruction of his cabbages in anguish. He was hopping around with pure glee written on his face. “All those extra expenses were completely worth it, to think they called me insane for going overboard with steel armored plating made to look like wood, well whose laughing now! I am, MUAHWHAHAHA!”

I leapt from the wall and aimed for the tracks at the train station and started pushing forward as hard as I could. If I escaped, that would be Jade fifteen and royal guard two, because facing Shining Armor sucks.

I looked over my shoulder and was curious as to why Rainbow wasn’t on me, I looked up to the sky to see a speck diving. I just had to get to the train tracks before she could do it.

Oh dang… I jumped for the tracks and angle my skates just so…

Rainbow came down and created a Sonic Rainboom as she shot towards me, I was already an inch from hitting the train tracks.

“Now come on and hover there while watching as this cat busts out with something~!” Rainbow hooves closed over empty air as my skates hit the tracks first and she went flying from the sudden shockwave that launched her clear across the city as a green streak of lightning shot down the tracks towards the south. “… As a certain dream traveler with wind elemental powers is prone to yelling, WAHOO!”

I was crouched down and smiling as the wind whipped at my face, green goggles over my eyes to protect them from air pressure as the world sped by.

I was grinding along the tracks at an insane speed and I hoped the emergency ‘off’ function slowed me down like Jacky said it would, it activated after hitting a certain threshold and would then eventually limit the skates to a specific speed.

Hopefully the emergency function speeds were much easier to work with by the time I reached Airship Mauled. I sure hoped that Celestia dropped by, because she was going to need these crowns back if she wanted Twilight to run the nation.

I should have thought of asking for these a long time ago when Jacky fixed that party tank for Prime’s group, nothing in Equestria was impossible after all. It would take me twenty minutes to get back to Airship Mauled at the speed I was going, still morning too.

I could do doughnut deliveries from Pony Joes for the food cult that mom doesn’t know about, being a muffin cultist was somewhat difficult to keep hidden.

-Celestia-

“What in the… how did she… she got out of canterlot, she escaped the guard, she even evaded the element of loyalty, one of the purported fastest pegasi in the world!” Luna seemed a little shocked, then again she has never met Jaded ‘Free Queen’ La Perm.

I prefer ‘Free Queen’ to what some other ponies use when in reference to her, I don’t know how or why she’s back. I’m just happy that she’s not holding a grudge against me for my failures. She looks relatively healthy for someone that was assassinated and that escape was definitely her, whether it’s jumping off the side of canterlot, unicycling onto an airship or pole-vaulting into a cabbage cart to quietly leave the city, Jade was quite clever with her escapes.

I’ll mark this one down as escaped on roller skate, goodness knows what she’ll do when she gets around to using a pogo stick.

“Do not worry, I have had previous interactions with her. Given that we’re friends, it’s perfectly fine… because I know where she lives.” That, and I knew that bureaucratic nightmare Sekhet was there too. “We’ll get our crowns back before the ceremony.”

“Then we’ll toss her in a cage in the darkest dungeon within another cage that’s also in a deep dungeon in a cardboard box that we’ll smash with a war hammer?” My sister was oddly livid, I should probably tell her that Jaded means no harm most of the time. Though I can understand the resentment as Jade stole her feathers, like we ever really run out of those.

-In an alternate plane of existence, Maries-

Jade was hugging the root of the biggest tree we have ever seen, the root itself was literally the size of a large mountain. We were at the base of one said mountain of hundreds. Her tail was wagging up a storm as she snuggled against the wood while purring.

Skelly looked up at the tree in awe and then pointed at Jade in apparent disbelief, a living skeleton disbelieved that Jade was responsible for a tree that grew entire worlds and universes?

Yggdrasil was an impossibly enormous, magical, fully ascended goddess tree.

Didn’t take Jade very long to get back from her trip to Canterlot, though she did have a bit of a problem dislodging herself from the rail. Jacky needs to fix a few minor things and then she’ll give the magnetically driven lightning skates back to jade.

Following this there was weird stuff with Jade and flying a giant peach around, with all the craziness that insanity brought, like fighting Captain Gash and his pirates off, eating the peach we were riding around on and etcetera. We’d rather not get into everything that happened, but we were at back in Airship Mauled before dinner.

Jade always brought a special brand of fun insanity into our lives.

-Airship Mauled, that evening, Jade-

“I still thought the pirates could do better than a collection of pink tricornes.” Arizona muttered as she jauntily angled the pirate hat on her head.

“Oh they weren’t pink before we got there, I just got to them first.” I grinned as Arizona dropped a bag of bits into Paprika’s waiting hooves, as did Velvet a second later. “Seriously, you lost the bet to her?”

“Meep.” Said a cheerful Paprika counting her bits, she was far smarter than her wives give her credit for.

“Why would you bet against me?" I let my ears and tail droop as I gave both Velvet and Arizona a sad look. Pom and Tianhuo were long gone for Huoshan, but Oleander and Fred were sticking around. "That makes me a sad kitty.”

I needed their help and they still had Dispel Grace in a jar, with requisite air holes, in the nether realm.

Fizzy was going to the ceremony tomorrow to watch Twilight be crowned leader of Equestria, while Celestia and Luna run off leaving Miss Sparkle holding the bag.

“It’s not that we bet against you... but it’s more the fact that we were betting on what you’d actually do, instead of whether or not you would succeed.” Velvet explained after a moment and I let up on my sad kitty looks. “We’re not that dumb sister… you know, it’s still odd for me to call you that.”

Velvet was my sister as long as she kept giving me free snow cones, I was relatively easy to please when it came to family.

“Excuse me, but what did you need me for Jade?” Celestia tilted her head and quirked a brow at me. “Also, what’s with the twenty gallon keg of… peach juice?”

“Eh, it involved a six hour adventure with a giant peach after what I did this morning, I went to visit my daughter who is quite humongous. My granddaughter Harmony better not drink that much Cosmic Kool-Aid or she might get too big for Equestria.” I answered flatly. “Talking... we need it.”

Chapter Sixty Nine, Wounds and Time: Scrape.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty Nine, Wounds and Time: Abrasion.

-???, ???-

Sleeping in their bed a figure seems to be in a dreamless state, it was likely the dream catcher that prevented Luna’s interference with their mind.

Slowly a figure, one that is not visible to the world, came to a stop above them and stared at them. A figure with cat ears, a slowly shifting tail and a pair of bright slits surrounded by green hovered over this form.

Invisible, intangible, untouchable, the figure that stared at the sleeping form. She was grinning quite maliciously.

“Soon… you’ll learn exactly why no one should give me the time to plan anything. I want you to know personally that you’re not safe and never will be with me around.” The voice of the floating figure went unheard, a giggle escaped her lips as she crossed her arms. “All your protections and you don’t protect against astral projection because most ponies don’t believe in ghosts? Gods and magic exist, so superstitions and myth should never be overlooked. I’m surprised you don’t have defenses for something like what I can do. After that first time I spilled alicorn only potion, it was my first lesson in learning how to astral project. Not quite the same as having my soul projected and visible like the potion did to me, but close enough and fairly useful. At least death gods will know that I’m still alive so… I could visit my granddaughter in my sleep.”

Jade leaned back on the air and floated outside the place and looked to the starry sky.

“Beautiful night tonight. I wonder if everyone thinks Sombra ever had a truly physical body after Celestia and Luna defeated him, then he was defeated by the crystal heart and then the elements of harmony not too long ago… I should really use the End of Immortality on him to prevent Discord or someone else from reviving him again should he make another appearance.” Stretching out the floating Abyssinian started to head towards a different place. “Evil guys like that, the ones who can be brought back from death by numerous means, really need to stay gone. Sleep well oh leader of GODLESS, for you’re not going to get much more now that I’m back.”

-One hour later, treehouse of Harmony, Astral Jade-

“Hey Harmony!” I said pleasantly and the tree glowed slightly.

“Hey grandma!” The magical shapeshifting tree said to me with a happy tone. “Oh wait… are you stuck again~? Please tell me that you’re not my beloved grandmother and friend~!”

“Nope, my body is just sleeping. I still think it’s odd that the pillars found your seed and grew you… from my daughter Icky. Small world that they found a seed from such a legend, which is also my Icky Dress La Perm.” I started the conversation easily enough. “I just came by to see how you were doing, I don’t need my visits to have special reasons for them… and to make sure you weren’t overdoing it on the Cosmic Kool-Aid Harmony.”

“I would never do that~! I don’t want to be as big as mommy got… or as fat~. Even she’s making a bunch of odd error universes, I mean the one where those guys sing the song ‘with cat-like tread’ happened was pretty funny.” Eyes were rolled at Harmony, then I just shook my head. “It reminded me of you~. So did you need anything else of me too~?”

“Again, no, I just came to say hello to my granddaughter. My life is going to be much shorter than yours you know, but I want to at least get in some time with you every now and then.” I had to point this out, I was making sure Harmony remembered me as well as I remembered her, she’s survived an assassination attempt already and she’s only a demi-goddess tree. A powerful one that’s really hard to kill as Sombra found out, but still a tree. “Also that song has the moniker of being and I quote this verbatim, 'The World’s Loudest Sneak Attack… That Actually Works'.”

“Yes, but the memories will be golden and untouchably sweet~. With a wonderful cat like you grandma, you can sweep most beings off their hooves… or feet~. I hope your love lasts forever more~. You’re standing at life’s favorite door~.” The tree started to hum softly. “Living it… and more~. For that’s what’s in store~!”

“It was nice to see you too Harmony, don’t try to take over the world now you hear!” Throwing my best crotchety grandma impersonation on. “At least not while I’m still alive and doing it myself!”

“See you later grandma!” A giggling Harmony stated.

“I sure will, but I’ll try to be here in the flesh to give my granddaughter a hug. Keep Ever Free from getting too big for its britches and branches you hear me?” I started to float away and head for home, I had to rejoin with my sleeping body, finish sleeping and then I’d wake up and catch the train to Canterlot… then well… I would see Twilight become the leader of the nation.

I’m kind of sad that I didn’t even get the chance to screw things up.

The other reason I had to visit Canterlot was that I was still waiting on the ‘Squirrels’ to get my supplies together. It would take a while for them to get them moved to where I would need to pick them up no less, it required help of the ‘Bees’ and the ‘Birds’ too. Didn’t know much about the other two organizations except that maybe humming birds would be involved, but I was an honorary member of the Squirrels at the least.

Not that any of these underground operations that Celestia now knew about were going to be bothered, they weren’t doing too much illegal stuff. Well at least not enough to be noticeable in any way, shape or form.

Good friends of mine in that regard, they knew how to be as subtle as a sudden brick to the face without ever letting someone know who threw it.

-Morning, Ponyville Train to Canterlot, Jade-

“She’s freaking out and sad isn’t she?” I asked as I saw the worried looks on both Fluttershy and Pinkie’s faces.

“Yes, Twilight is a little… upset that she isn’t going to be living in Ponyville anymore.” Even Fluttershy herself looked upset. “We tried to be reassuring as possible, we’ll support her no matter what.”

“We don’t live in the same town and I’ve been gone for six year due to space and time shenanigans, but we’re still friends… right?” Long distance friendships were not impossible for Twilight, they were going to be best friends to the end of their times.

“Of course!” Fluttershy reassured me and gave me a friendly snuggle.

“See, it’s not going to be that big an issue Fluttershy. Unless Twilight starts trying to shut you out.” I hugged the grown mare and she was still as soft and cute as she ever was, while being gloriously beautiful. I have good taste in friends. “You’ll need me to plan some legal throne room invasions in that case. All you have to do is ask for my help and I’ll get right on it. The royal guard hasn’t seen anything yet until they’ve seen me escape them on a giant whelk. While they’re busy with me, getting to Twilight won’t be a problem.”

“Um… thanks… I think?” Fluttershy’s hooves went downwards slightly as she looked up at me.

“Fluttershy, I love you as a friend, but keep your hooves above our cat’s waist please. I’m willing to declare ownership of one Jaded La Perm, mostly because I’m one of the four beings that can get away with it.” Fizzy blandly stated with a dangerous tone, she knows that I really like how cuddly Fluttershy was. I would stay only cuddly friends with Fluttershy, it’s not like I was making any moves on her or anything. “Jade, your fine, just don’t try to add anything odd to our herd without talking with us first.”

Fluttershy blushed and released me, suddenly looking fairly self-conscious. At least she did until the tip of my tail bopped her on the snoot. She giggled into her hooves and quickly calmed down. Pinkie quickly latched onto me like a limpet.

“What if I wanted a magical talking velociraptor?” Why was I receiving narrowed eyes from Fizzy like that? It wouldn’t be that bad… would it?

“Is there literally anything else that you would like other than something like that Jade?” Guess my militaristic mare doesn’t like toothy dangerous lizards. I couldn’t understand why, despite being torn up by a wyvern that one time while I was a griffon.

“A pet Cadmean vixen?” I would have to get angry if Fizzle said anything about Snickers being a pet.

Everyone knows that Snickers is not a pet, just a best little buddy that does her own thing while being my best winged turtle friend. Not all familiars were dumb enough to be treated as pets, Snickers was definitely an adorable and smart turtle.

“Maybe… as long as Maries is alright with it. It better not gain intelligence enough to become a part of our herd though, it’ll strictly be a pet Jade. No shenanigans!” Well isn’t Fizzy being a little harsh, but I guess she does have something of a point. Even if shenanigans are clearly what makes life fun. “Besides how are you going to convince a teleporting fox to be your pet?”

“Well teleporting foxes get lonely don’t they? All I have to do is have no intention of capturing it and it’ll be easy to befriend.” I was still receiving a flat look from Fizzle. “They can probably sense intentions which gives them a sixth sense for teleporting away from all forms of being caught.”

“We’re going to be on this topic of discussion for the rest of the ride aren’t we?” Fizzy stated in a sad manner, before I kissed her on the cheek while chucking Pinkie in Fluttershy’s direction.

-Canterlot, after Twilight’s coronation-

“Well, that was adorkable.” I stated with a hint of laughter.

“Yeah, she’s so beautiful.” That was a lovesick mare named Moon Dancer. We were now acquainted. She was positively smitten with Twilight Sparkle, she might even soon be Twilight’s personal librarian too.

“It was adorkable wasn’t it?” Spitfire said at the table we were sitting at.

“Why didn’t you keep chasing me Spite Fire?” I whined. “I thought we had something special…”

“You’re a massive nuisance and catching you without Shining Armor is like try to squeeze water from a stone.” Aw… Spitfire didn’t like me anymore, my whole world is ending!

“I can do that.” Came a bland voice, Maud walked up to the table and held up a bloated looking Boulder. She squeezed him and water fell out of her pet rock onto the ground. “Boulder has been a bit overly absorbent lately.”

“I hope the poor guy gets better soon Maud.” She nodded to me and walked away holding a slightly smaller Boulder.

“What…. the… buck… did I just witness?” We just saw an earth pony squeeze water out of a pet rock Spitfire, like duh!

“You weren’t paying much attention were you?” I wagged a finger at her. “Shame on you Spitfire.”

“No seriously, how did she do that?” Spitfire asked, still clearly dumbfounded by either the existence of intelligent rocks or the fact that they could be bloated with water as a form of sickness.

Soarin sat down with the apology pie I bought him, using the money I stole off of Spitfire the other day when I stole the princess’s crowns.

“Oh by the way, here’s your bit pouch Spitfire.” I passed her a bit pouch that should look entirely familiar, I had a smile on my face.

Spitfire sighed audibly as if she knew I was the one that had it all along.

“No, I’m not chasing you…” Spitfire muttered out as she took it back and crossed her hooves grumpily. “You insufferable cat.”

“Stop picking on Spitfire and come on Jade, we are going to be the first official audience with Princess Twilight!” Fizzle motioned to Maries and then pointed to me. “Next to her closest friends of course.”

“But she’s refusing to give me the time of day!” I whined as Mara just grabbed the scruff at the back of my neck and yanked me out of my seat. She started to drag me away towards Canterlot Castle. “But… but… it’s Spitfire… I need her to chase me!”

“No you don’t Jade, you just ‘want’ her to chase you. It’s not a ‘need’, stop being an evil kitty!” When did Fizzy get a water bottle to spritz me with?

“Gah, why do you have a water bottle?!” I yelled as I was dragged off by my girlfriends.

“You are so whipped!” Spitfire wins this one.

-Canterlot Castle, a minute later-

“Hey Fizzle, so you’re my first audience… this is actually a nice surprise.” Twilight seem delighted to see Fizzy, but then she noticed me being dragged around in Mara’s mouth and had a question on the tip of her tongue. “Who is this, new friend of yours?”

“I’ve actually known them before the Storm King… only… things happened. It was bad, but things are much better now that you helped me come to my senses and my girlfriends are now around to keep me grounded.” When Fizzle said this, Twilight Sparkle looked at me curiously. “Do you want to introduce yourselves or should I do it for you? I’m asking for some decorum here.”

“Fine.” I rolled my eyes and Mara let go of me, I stood up and dusted myself off. “Hello there, Jaded La Perm at your service Miss Sparkle! Whenever Celestia needed the services of a highly intelligent and overly beautiful Abyssinian courtesan… she’d call someone else.”

“What do you do for a job?” Twilight had been blushing up until the point I said that Celestia would call someone else, the implications eventually settled in and she blushed harder.

“I’m a rogue sun priestess, Celestia didn’t make much use of me and I’m sure you heard of the golden ship incident.” I said pleasantly.

“So you’re… a mercenary?” Twilight queried while looking a bit disturbed.

“She’s a bit more than that, but we’ll get into more detail on that later.” Answered a slightly placating Fizzle.

“Hello, again!” The three heads said in unison before they split up into three separate bodies.

“You met us before…” Mara stated.

“In the hospital after Tartarus.” Marie said before quickly rejoining with Mara.

“Chupacrabras are my phobia… anyway we’re lawyers of the Three Heads Law Firm.” Maria hopped back into being right next to Mara’s head. “We’re better than one!”

“It’s nice to see you again.” It was a genuine sentiment from the princess of friendship, Twilight will always be a sweet mare and she’d look something like Celestia one day. I could see she was already bigger than most of her friends already. “I’m sure you all do your best to make Fizzle inexorably happy, I’ve never seen her smile this brightly before!”

“Yeah, about that. My audience is not to just discuss your job offer.” Closing her eyes and inhaling through her nose, Fizzle shyly continued. “I’m here to ask you to officiate our marriage as a herd... when we get around to having a date.”

“Of course I will, it’ll be my honor Fizzle!” A cheerful hoof clapping Twilight stated.

Author's Note

(Story)

Jade lost a fight with Spitfire... how sad. Next page, there will be a revelation that nobody's will have seen coming.

(RL)

Despite being in the middle of a 'mild' virus hot zone, I should be fine as long as they keep things contained. Fifty or so reported confirmed in my given specified area.

The lack of toilet paper in the area is highly disturbing, you'd think everyone would double down on canned food first. Got plenty to eat and I'm about to heat up some homemade vegetable, and steak, soup.

I know I don't have the virus, but I'm still fighting a head cold. I'm winning with a vat of readily available vitamin C. Downed two bottles of medicine over the last week or so, five gallons of fruit juice and at least fifteen fruit flavored vitamin C gummies morning, noon and night.

I'm fairly healthy, but the economy around here certainly isn't.

Chapter Sixty Nine, Wounds and Time: Bruise.

-Distant Past, River of Denial, Bennu-

I looked into the river and saw bright blue eyes staring back, feathers of brilliant red, orange and yellow filled out my form.

What I saw wasn’t what I used to be.

I was a heron that became the mother of the phoenix species, but I had yet to truly become the goddess that the true gods and goddesses see me as. I had the divinity and the power, but there was one thing that kept me from truly passing the threshold into being a true immortal power.

I would prefer to stay a sham they haven’t seen yet, I knew exactly how close I was to no longer being as such.

I had the power of creation, rebirth, a friendship with the sun and more, but I wanted something that no god or goddess would be willing to give me at this point in my life.

The ability to return to the natural cycle, even if for only a little while.

Some hit a wall when it comes to gaining divinity and can even lose it before they ascend, others could not even reach or get close to the point I am at, but overall? Divinity earned is not so easily avoided once you accept it, I once accepted it without knowing what it was that I was taking on… then I became the first phoenix.

A bright fire, that burns and burns again. With the ash left behind I will rise once more, eternal yet not truly immortal. The gods and goddesses didn’t think of the implications and thought that I was one of them, for all the power that I had… I wasn’t.

This led me to where I am, stuck in a cycle of my own making. Not quite truly immortal, but not capable of ever being able to truly die or change from who I am, to move on and to enjoy that which mortals take for granted.

That ability to become something else, to erase what happened to them in a past life and to experience everything anew for the first time with fresh and wide eyes.

Thus half a time upon her waking, after hearing about this mortal from my friend Baast, I went to meet this young cat.

She was not where she should be, she was also very frustrated with her current circumstances and angry at the world.

I had seen many mortals angry before and I was still technically mortal, but she was going to take things to a new level I feel. Jaded is very much a name befitting her, but she still manages to stay relatively friendly despite where she is and was incapable of being where she wants to be.

Our first conversation was simple and profound, we got to know one another.

“So what’s it like… knowing that you’ll rise up no matter how you die? Infinite lives, every death imaginable and yet death can’t touch you because of it?” Jade’s question was one of curiosity.

“It’s a big nuisance, never seek immortality… that’s a surefire way to never achieve it and it tends to end in tragedy. The gods will never ask why, but I have… let’s say… a different perspective from the rest of them.” Somehow seeing that my word’s had some hidden hint beneath them, she looked at me with a quirked eye and a few wordless flexes of her tongue. There were many questions on its tip. “Only those who don’t go looking for it usually find it far easier, and the most deserving are those who don’t even want it at all. I certainly didn’t go looking for it and I found it all too easily. So… what’s it like, for you, being priestess of the sun?”

“Eh, can’t complain. It’s not nearly as important as being myself.” When Jade said that I winced audibly, she was a fairly perceptive being. She came from another time and place entirely of course, didn’t need to be a goddess to see that. “So what did you need to talk with me about?”

She held a deep sadness, she had those she wished to return to. I had no one to return to, for they were all long dead and have moved on as part of the natural cycle. I too wished I could do the same, my children could still die true deaths despite being able to rebirth numerous times.

My ability for rebirth was far too powerful by comparison to a normal phoenix, just because my divinity was almost too overwhelming.

“I heard from Baast of your plight, I wish to aid you…. if you’ll see fit to aid me in a project.” It was an awful idea, but I had the divinity and power to do it. It would force Baast’s paws to action.

Jade needed to do something horrible… to be cursed into the form of a statue by my friend. This would take a strong betrayal, one that I would force to happen.

Killing a friend would do that and we will inevitably become great friends, but would she do what I know no gods and goddesses would for me? They cherish companionship more than anything, but always hurt themselves as time causes and heals wounds in equal measure.

Time heals wounds for mortals, time causes wounds for immortals…. mental, emotional and some to the point that they even feel it physically. Time itself, with a certain depth, strikes at the heart of an ascended as to leave an ever burning scar as a reminder.

“Can I ask an important question first?” After Jade asked this, I inclined my head for her to go on. “If a unicorn’s horn gets broken… is there ever a chance or way to fix it?”

I knew my answer wouldn’t be what she wanted to hear, given I can feel the importance oozing from the question itself. It was in an effort of to build our friendship; the truth, as much as I could speak it, was going to flow from my beak.

I, however, wasn’t about to tell her I wasn’t fully a goddess yet.

-Two and a half years later-

We met again, as we have done many times before, this moment was different though.

It was time.

I held out the artifact to Jade and bowed my head for her to take it.

“I have completed the End of Immortality, I hope you have set up your method to be revived at the right time and place in the future.” Never have I seen someone so determined to ruin those that earned her ire, it wasn’t like she had much else going for her from what Baast tells me.

All of Saddle Arabia fears what she would do next, but I knew where she would be in a short while if things worked out. They had nothing to fear, but the fear itself would certainly linger.

Jade would be on her way to where she belonged and I… I would be dead.

We would both be making a sacrifice here. I was willing to die a true death so that Jade may live the rest of her life where she belonged.

“Okay, so what was the favor you needed of me and how is this going to aid in me being cursed on purpose? Baast seems to find my evil more amusing than demented.” Whether Jade knew it or not, she was fairly amusing in how most of her evils led to object lessons that many needed to learn; even I learned a few myself.

I learned the lesson from the event where Jade turned the princess of Nagrabah into a lamia and made Ballad Din suffer, but eventually Ballad Din turned himself into a lamia out of love and made a sacrifice so that they could be together.

“As my dear friend… and likely the only one that can do this.” She listened to my words and what I said next made her shake her head in denial. “I want you to use that on me… and then kill me.”

I’d then tell her the truth about my status as a goddess… that I wasn’t one. My divinity had blinded the other gods to the truth and I explained to Jade that it would help her return to where she wanted to be more than anything.

She had a choice to make.

I was glad that she could see it through and I smiled softly as she slew me to be drenched in the vital fluids of another mortal.

She was quite sad to do this to me and saw the life leave my eyes, yet I still smiled despite my world falling away.

-Present day, two hours after Twilight’s first official audience, location:???, Jade-

I was standing on a beach with several powerful beings, Baast, Sekhet, Celestia and Anubis. We were gathered here for a reason and made sure that there was no one else around to hear this exchange as I stared out at the ocean.

What I was about to say would shock them all beyond belief, but it had to be said and if I was right… well I would quickly find out.

“Bennu… if you recognize your name, then are you here?” I asked tentatively, there was a gasp and then we all heard her voice.

“Yes… how very unfortunate that I can remember myself now. I couldn’t escape it, my fate. At least not forever.” Her voice sounded tired and she was very mournful, then we all heard a bit of cheer come back into it. “You however, are where you wished to be and I am glad that I could have assisted you in your endeavors Jade. You are right where you belong.”

“B-b-benny, you’re… I…” Baast didn’t have the words for it, Anubis and Sekhet silently looked between us with hints of confusion. “How… I mean… that… Jade and…”

“I still killed you.” That was something I was still rather upset about, even now.

“Yes, but at least you tried to make it as quick and painless as possible.” Her voice was soft and gentle as she trilled to us. She even let a bark of harsh laughter slip from her mouth. “I went back to the natural cycle. I lost all memory of my time spent there, at least until now… I reveled in it and life without knowing why I cherished it so. Looking back on it… being unable to remember, not being able to rebirth with my mind intact and being able to see so many different perspectives. Jade… it was worth every bit of the price that I paid for it. Do not doubt that!”

“Yet you couldn’t fully escape it could you… you couldn’t get away from ascending?” Sighing this out, I tried not to look towards her or the other gods watching us silently.

“My divinity was far too strong to allow me my freedom forever. You can even say that I’m far too nice for my own good Jade.” Oh Bennu, you had a wish that can never be granted anymore and you tried to get as much time as you could from it. “I was a butterfly once, from the humble beginnings of a caterpillar so small and frail. I was a queen bee, I grew to be so beautiful and I married a charming hummingbird. I was a pufferfish, the ocean seemed so vast and eternal. I was a male Minotaur, one that saw a beauty in nature that my warring kin could not. I was a griffon hen who enjoyed flying more than I loved greed, I lacked aggressiveness that other hens had and it spooked the males to no end. I was a breezy so adventurous and strong at heart despite my small stature. What I’m trying to say is… I was many things. All of them were me, I was all of them, and out of all of it… it was worth every second you bought me Jade.”

“Are you honestly not mad that I’m bringing out the past in you now?” I slowly turned to face her. Once our eyes met, she looked straight into mine with a calm smile.

“Jade… I don’t think I could hate one of my dearest friends, a priestess of the sun, and one of the stranger anomalies to exist in the history of Equestria as it is known now.” She came up to me and spread her wings wide inviting me to come forward.

“Well at least, in the end, things turned out alright for you… Celestia.” I opened my arms and let her wings sweep around me to bring me into a hug and she nuzzled her head into my neck. “You have a sister now, doesn’t that seem like a journey?”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever had a sibling and… I let Nightmare Moon happen. I have plenty to make up for Jade and I want you to know that I’m alright.” Releasing me, Celestia turned to Baast. “Baast… I’m sorry. Truly, you have no idea how sorry I am.”

“It’s alright Bennu, I have come to terms with it.” Baast moved forward and grew to alicorn size and went to hug an old friend. “Though it took the element of kindness to talk me down a bit and get me there.”

“Well this certainly explains your excitement upon first seeing me Celestia, you wouldn’t mind if I called you Benny every once in a while right?” I wanted to cry, but I was a little bit numb to this situation.

“Of course, I will not begrudge you that Jade… or any of my old friends.” Eventually Celestia broke her cuddle with Baast and Sekhet walked straight up to her with a dull and flat look on her face.

“I couldn’t care less even if you were the Queen of Sheep-baa!” Sekhet suddenly yells while raising a paw to the sky, she then lunges forward and thrusts her tongue into Celestia’s wide eyed mouth.

After the deep and thorough kiss ended, Sekhet sauntered away with her tail held high in the air and had an incredibly smug smile on her face.

She left behind a confused Celestia on the ground with what has to be the biggest wing boner in existence. Her Sister Baast was also sporting a wing boner and a look of shock on her face.

“Stupid… sexy… sphinx...” Celestia stated blankly with a bit of drool coming out of her mouth.

“Well… that happened.” I walked over to Anubis, I was feeling a little perky after such an amusing sight. “So… are we moving into our therapy session?”

“Yes. It would certainly be a good thing for more than just the two of us.” Anubis said after a moment of contemplation. “It is strange that her soul was invisible to death gods even when it has wandered so far. I believe it is involved with her wanting to hide away from her own divinity.”

“Eh, I’m not an expert on that stuff, though that sounds fair.” I nodded in agreement.

-Ponyville, Sugar Cube Corner, Fluttershy-

“I’m really going to miss spending time with Twilight… she’s in a better place… or would it be a worst place since it’s full of snobs that don’t know how to party?” Pinkie had been going for a while.

She was just being a good, worrying, friend.

“Does someone need a party pony that travels?!” Cheese Sandwich asked as he made an entrance.

Author's Note

Time moves forward and the shocking reveal leads to many questioning what they once thought they knew.

Bennu is and has always been a past life... of Celestia.

Chapter Sixty Nine, Wounds and Time: Healed (mostly).

-Location: ???, Celestia-

“I consider myself lucky that I can’t be haunted by it forever… that’s kind of sad to for you Anubis and again I’m really sorry.” Jade was truly sorry for casting a full cake, she lived through the experience. “Is it odd to anyone else that we’re holding a therapy session of gods and a single mortal… do I even have divinity?”

It was traumatizing from what Jade described happened to her and Anubis. Unlike what happens with cupcakes, you don’t simply barf rainbows at the end of a horrific set of painful indescribable horrors… you bleed them from every orifice.

“No, but you are touched by the sun. Now please stop apologizing for a necessary action, one that left me with a reminder of something that I will not forget until the heat death of the universe.” If it was as bad as Anubis states, then I should probably tell Twilight to make it illegal for Jade, Kuril or anyone they teach to be magical alchemist to use their magic on a ‘full cake’. “I would wish to talk about something else other than… that.”

“So how are you going to tell your sister Luna about this Benny?” Having asked that Jade, I find myself at a loss of how to even explain it. “Also does this mean Philomena is not only your familiar, but also…”

Jade slowly trails off and I can see where the question was leading.

“I haven’t the foggiest as to how I’m going to tell Luna about this, but I did say that I would tell her everything afterwards...” Sighing loudly, I decided to just push forward. “The one thing I know for certain is that I am not my past, I’m tired after the last thousand years and I want at least one year of freedom to relax without Twilight coming to me for help. Is that so much to ask?”

“With all that stress on your back? It’s not much to ask for some peace and quiet. Besides after a thousand years of shouldering that burden, every pony race owes you this break.” Baast was still as sweet as I remember. “So instead of knowing you as Bennu, I want to get to know you as Celestia now.”

“I find myself open to making new friends, I need to practice what I preached to Twilight and could use a refresher course in having friends.” Rolling my eyes and flipping my mane, I continue. “Friends that aren’t political agenda driven ponies trying to weasel things out of me, get things by me, or trying to usurp me. If I can’t get a break from making sure Equestria doesn’t snap, then I’m going to snap! I really don’t want to see any nobles for a while and I want nothing to do with them, I just want to spend some quality time with Luna.”

“Speaking of sisters, welcome to the sibling club and you can just make sure to make mine very…” A full sized paw smashed Baast into the sand, but Baast continues as if her sister wasn’t trying to bury her in the sand. “Happy! Given how much she likes you and all! It’s not like we Anugyptian goddesses have much going for us at the moment and I’ve technically just been retired from work by my pharaoh.”

“I’m right here you know.” Jade stated blandly, bluntly and banally. She waved at Baast with an annoyed look on her face.

Baast just smiled at Jade in an impish manner. It was smiles like that which made her known as Discord repellant.

“I have a job sister… several actually. I’ve recently proudly added Goddess of Physical Education to my list of titles as a teacher, I’m Kuril’s secretary and I’m in charge of a guild that hasn’t really done much of anything yet.” Stupid sexy sphinx looked to Jade with a smile. “So when can we actually make the guild official? In any case you’re out of a job Baast, I have tenure.”

“We’ll work it out after I’m done dealing with a few loose ends Sekhet.” You, Jade, were a very scary and deranged Abyssinian. “Now can we talk about how squishy I am in comparison to all my friends and loved ones? I sometimes feel inadequate next to someone like Arizona who has her own inadequacy issues.”

I only have an inkling as to what Jade will do, but if it’s anything like the golden ship incident… it’ll be awe inspiring.

“Oh, can I join in on talking about Arizona’s inadequacy issues?!” Veles popped in and he looked like a tree in the shape of a dragon, only the limbs bent the wrong way and his head looked like a melon that was almost fully cut in half and the entire head flaps when he talks. Also his tail was made of Discord’s connected to the base of his tail by their tails, which was probably the most disturbing thing I’ve seen in a while.

“Fine, just don’t cause problems.” Well Jade, I don’t think we have to worry about that as the confusion god was less disruptive than Discord was. “This is a therapy session, I do not want a therapy session for this therapy session.”

“Did someone say they needed a horrible therapy session to have a therapy session about?” Discord popped in while grinning. “Oh, hello there Veles, long time no see.”

“I sense a great incoming headache.” I groaned out.

“You have good senses!” Shouted Veles.

“Think slowly!” Discord throws a jar down into the center of the group.

-The next day, Airship Mauled, Jade-

“So I wanted to get away from Pinkie and the other girls for a while.” Muttered a slightly upset Fluttershy. “We’re always going to be friends, but right now we’re being a little... distant.”

“Twilight might have brought you together, but friendships as strong as yours never dies if you keep working at it.” My friendship with Bennu hasn’t exactly died and I told Fluttershy about Celestia. So I wasn’t surprised by what she brought up next.

“So is group therapy with Mr. Anubis working? Discord mentioned he had fun… knowing him, he probably did a few things.” It seemed as if Fluttershy was still angry with Discord after the whole 'Grogar’s Bell' thing.

“He did, but he at least cleaned up after himself.” Seeing the raised eye, I decided to at least drop a hint of what happened. “We did have a few problems with getting Thing One and Thing Two back into Pandora’s Box. Got a nice hat out of it and he was being about as subtle as a brick to the face that he wants me to ask you if your still annoyed with him.”

“Isn’t Pandora’s Box a jar full of the world’s evils?” Sweet, innocent, Fluttershy... I would rather not tell her about this, but... I am all the world’s evils.

“Eh, Anubis was there, any evil spirits in the jar just sank down to the very bottom of it to avoid his ire and only a few Things got out. Any ‘Thing’ beyond two is far weaker than you would think to deal with, you could have personally glanced those evils back into the jar.” I grinned. “It was actually pretty funny and laughable, Discord tried to help cheer us up in his unique way… even if he doesn’t know the meaning of self-control for obvious reasons. He at least showed me I’m not as squishy as I look, being among several gods during an event where a few of the world’s evils escaped a very magical jar. Though him turning it into an actual box leaves me somewhat worried who he’s going to mess with next.”

“It better not be me, he’s still on thin ice as it is.” Woah, the shy pony had some bite with those words. “So can we discuss how you’re feeling right now?”

“Far better than I have in a while, but I missed watching you grow up into a beautiful mare.” She blushed and pawed at the ground.

“Thanks for the compliment, you’ve grown into a beautiful queen too.” Fluttershy tapped her hooves together. “I feel bad that all that stuff happened to you.”

“Well I’m actually glad.” That a bunch of horrible stuff happened to me.

“Really, why?” She looked worried about me.

“Just imagine what would happen if I wasn’t in the past to help stop Anubis or make all of Saddle Arabia cry in fear?” Methinks that my friend couldn’t imagine it, but I certainly had a very vivid and active imagination.

“Excuse me, but can I borrow this for a while?” I was lifted off the ground by a single hoof on my butt and carried off by Arizona. “Thank you!”

-Center of Airship Mauled-

The eternal fire was roaring in its place at the center of Airship Mauled, I still wondered if it would last beyond my death. I turned to Arizona as she sat down next to me.

“So what do you need Zone of the Enders?” They ended a shadow plague before it could consume the world, so I thought it fit.

“I need advice. You know I’m good at fighting, but I’m having problems coming up with hobbies outside of beating the living daylights out of things and I don’t feel like learning how to wield explosives as recklessly as my mother does.” Arizona had been lazing about lately. “While I know I’m ridiculously strong and could kick flank every day of the week without stopping, I need something else other than beating up my wives to occupy my time. Velvet pushes the limits of her magic, Paprika is learning cooking and I feel a little one note in what I can do.”

“Yet you can do it so well that I technically don’t have a plan on how to defeat you… but I can see why you would come to me. Since I’m the best at distracting people.” I was Arizona’s best friend, outside of her wives. Her whole life was about becoming a strong cow and fighting, also adventuring and having fun. “Have you given any thought to rodeos, beast taming or basket weaving?”

Arizona gave me a flat look at that last one. I’m quite sure she came to me on the basis that I, like Jacky, can give any adrenaline junkie their fix by just living around me long enough.

“Bouncer for a club?” That suggestion had her as interested as the first two options I labeled. “Groupie and bodyguard for some famous person?”

“I’d like to not be tied down to a single location or moving too much without my wives, also Paprika is world famous already and not because of her short lived career as a creepy mime. She’s actually in the world book of records for managing to hug the most people in a year, how one alpaca can hug half a billion people in a year is beyond me.” Don’t know what to tell you Arizona, but I wasn’t about to suggest Bounty Hunting… though anyone who saw you coming would immediately skip town if they knew you.

“Have you ever actually been on a real date with either of your wives in the last few years or have you actually been coasting off of the mutually assured violence between you and Velvet?” It was the first question that came to mind when I thought of the relationship Arizona had with Paprika and Velvet.

The silence was staggering.

“I’m surprised Velvet even wants to go through with a ceremony after all the fighting we do, I can understand Paprika well enough because she loves us no matter how much we fight. She’s supportive of whatever we want to do, we’re her whole life and yet she still has time for hobbies. Like making healthy picnics for sell.” One hopes that Arizona understands that the whole alpaca love sight thing is extremely unnerving from an outsider’s perspective. “You’ve got me thinking of a few things at least… I really should treat my wives to some things, but to do that I need to start earning some bits. Well at least I need them to treat Paprika, Velvet’s actually happy with the love-hate inertia we’ve got going. Is it the weirdest thing ever to be married to someone who you share an alarmingly excessive amount of loathing and love for?”

“I’m in love with a chimera that wanted to end me the first time we met, I have no wherewithal to actually comment on that.” I considered what Sekhet had asked me earlier. “How do you feel about the Guild we’ve never used?”

“As long as we’re not actually called ‘The Airship Maulers’, I’d be happy.” Giving Arizona my flattest look ever, right now. “It sounds like something Jacky does by existing, not something we’d be doing for a living. I wouldn’t mind doing some odd jobs around here, someone would have to have use for a cow that can move furniture.”

“To be fair to our prodigious piratical parrot, The Ardent Survivor is still capable of flight.” Too bad I can’t sustain the balloon to be tougher… it was too big an object for that. “Yeah, odd jobs and learning new things on them sounds good. Get Skelly in on it, she apparently has a past of doing odd jobs… might need a translator though. Fortitude and Flamberge did a lot of odd jobs while they were circumnavigating the entire world, best bet is to get Fortitude involved. Flamberge has been a bit busy with that visiting kitsune, not to mention the most recent crashed airship is opening a noodle store in our humble town. Said noodle shop is also incidentally a front for the Cat and Hawk subsidiary of the black market goods duo that Flamberge met in Neighpon and I approve of that wholeheartedly. Too bad they aren’t open to requests yet, could have really used their services for my plan.”

“How you feeling Jade?” She finally asked.

“Pretty good, the mental scars are going to chafe though.” I felt Arizona wrap a hoof around me. “I’ll feel even better when I know the leader of GODLESS isn’t going to send assassins after me again.”

“I’m here for you when you needs someone’s head bashed in.” Arizona was being fairly comforting right now. “Just don’t ever ask me to milk myself.”

“Completely understandable Zone.” I threw an arm around her as well and we relaxed together by the fire. “It’s good to be back.”

“Not that we needed you, but we missed you all the same. Truthfully, we miss your insanity more than you.” Arizona grinned and we both started laughing. “I don’t think Maries or Fizzle can live happy lives without you in them and doing something to interrupt anything everyone else is doing... I'm calling best stallion at your wedding.”

-Two days later, Manehatten, Extreme Wrestling Federation-

“Your thoughts?” I said while looking at the two before me.

“The offer is sound, in return for giving us Dispel Grace… we’ll stay out of your way and will not interfere in your take down of the leader of GODLESS.” Across from me was Shocking Awe. Standing behind him, with his arms crossed, was a silent Jock Hawk who kept flexing his bulging muscles as a form of intimidation. “That doesn’t mean we’ll stop chomping at the bit for good fights though! We’ll be antagonistic anywhere else other than Manehatten, which is now officially a neutral zone.”

Author's Note

Ewf... how did Jade swing that deal with Shocking Awe? Wait...why did she swing a deal with Shocking?

Chapter Seventy, A "‘Normal’" Day: Monday.

-A week later, Manehatten, one minute before midnight, Snickers-

I lifted the heavy round thing with all my might, I heaved while flapping my wings to get it up on the edge. Once I did, I happily sighed. I now waited like great bond partner told me to.

“Coo.” At exactly midnight, I push the green round thing slightly with my flippers and it started rolling.

I spread my wings and took off after the ball dropped out of sight.

-Big Apple (Manehatten), 3AM, ???-

A loud thud woke me from my sleep, I lit my horn and looked at the alarm clock. I knew I had heard something, but I didn’t know what.

I looked out the window and balcony and glanced in every direction, but I didn’t see anything. I muttered something angrily at the gods, all of them, for bothering me at this ungodly hour. After going to the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror.

Dull black mane, horn poking out of said mane, dull black tail, dark red fur, cutie mark of a circle of black and red checkered patterns. I often had nightmares of becoming an all-powerful alicorn and loud noises had me on edge, especially since I had reasons to be on edge.

Yep, I am still good old Wheel Twist… no wings or being left to a horrible fate for me. Just another day in Manehatten. Nobody was out to get me, I was going to be okay and things were going to be fine.

I just needed a little more sleep. I crawled into bed and looked at my alarm clock and pulled the covers up to my neck.

Before I closed my eyes, I glanced about the room in a paranoid fashion. I thought I saw the shadow of a cats head and shivered.

It was likely just my imagination.

-Across the street, construction site, unfinished building, seventh floor, Fizzle-

I slugged a mare across the face with a double hoofed hammer blow knocking her out.

Looking to see how Jade was doing, she was in the middle of yanking a pegasus out of the air with her yo-yo. She grappled them to the ground and started punching their temple repeatedly.

“Be careful Fizzy, we need to make sure nobody bothers my plans without attracting too much attention!” Well that was pretty hard to do Jade, because we apparently came across a bunch of mob ponies that don’t like us being all up in their business.

Well we were here first, so they were technically all up in our business.

“Why are all of you guys even holding a meeting on the seventh floor of a building that doesn’t have any walls?!” I shouted as slammed a unicorn back first into a girder. “Anything with wings could fly by and see you!”

“Let’s be honest here toots, no pony would expect us to be doing deals at night on a building in the middle of being constructed, you dig?” My left hoof met his face in a fairly bloody display of my militaristic training and toned muscles.

“Don’t call me toots, only those in my herd can do that!” I growled as I hit the fedora wearing stallion again. That knocked him out.

“Fizzy, please try to beat them up a little more quietly!” Jade shouted, not even bothering with being quiet in the slightest herself. “Also, can I get a little help here toots?!”

“Do you seriously want to sleep on a couch without Maries or me for the rest of the year Jaded?!” I rolled my eyes and looked in Jade’s direction as she was struggling with keeping an earth pony in a sleeper hold and was barely fending off two others with her legs. “Also, isn’t it a bit hypocritical when you’re doing a lot of shouting?!”

“Maybe, I think we’re both just being loud out of the audacity of it now!” The earth pony Jade held eventually went limp and she made the winged pony back off with a quick launch of her yo-yo.

I lit my horn and hit a unicorn with a blast of lightning before they could get Jade and leapt forward to help my beloved kitty with three more ponies.

-A few hours later, apartment, Wheel Twist-

I heard the ringing of my alarm clock, I slapped a hoof down on it.

Whoever those noisy jerks were, it didn’t help me get much too more sleep. I grumbled out several choice words about this morning and went to use the bathroom, take a shower and then would start out my day right with a nice quiet breakfast.

The shower went perfectly fine if a little cold. When I opened the fridge, I blinked in confusion at what I saw inside.

“Sorry! We emptied your fridge…” I just stared at the two grey winged ponies in my refrigerator.

One had a red mane, looked to be dyed, and the other hade a blonde one. One was clearly wall eyed and the other was cross eyed. The blonde one had spoken and was in the middle of eating a muffin.

“Beware the signs, for they always hunt in grapes and eat the intellectual risen yeast!” The other one was far less informative and much weirder. She seemed to be slightly unhinged.

I didn’t know who these two were or how they got into my apartment to eat all my food, but I was definitely spooked and my paranoia was ramping up quickly.

Slowly closing the refrigerator door and making no sudden movements, worried the two strangers would attack me, I quickly decided to go out and eat.

I wasn’t about to attack them if they were hired ninjas, I would also need a new apartment if they were out to get me.

-Still at the apartment-

“See, he didn’t mind in the slightest Ditzy! He certainly seemed like a nice guy to me.” Derpy said in a jovial manner. “Now, do you remember what packages we have to deliver today?”

“Left… what was the olive branch being jammed into the kumquat of inadequacy again?” Ditzy asked. “Typing is a negative on the traits alone, if he were a godhood he would be horribly unsuited for the narrative in progress when in terms of a fruit of Saddle Arabian tastes.”

“It’s off the eastern street from the city’s most famous thoroughfare, you can’t possibly miss it! My package is going to be easier since I can just pick it up from the local bakery and deliver it to where it needs to be this evening. Yours is actually time sensitive though.” Derpy responded, then she decided to ask something of her friend Ditzy. “Even if he isn’t your type Ditzy, do you think he’ll be able to avoid the ‘keep left’ signs? It’s almost like someone’s been breeding them for something very nefarious or evil, so long as you don’t damage them and destroy them completely they are relatively harmless if annoyingly persistent in getting you to stay to their left.”

“The keep right ones could be an easier spoken vernacular in terms of infectious problems.” Said a smiling Ditzy.

“Yeah, this city has fallen on hard times when living eldritch directional signs randomly start attacking ponies.” Derpy grumbled. “It’s why I prefer to live in Ponyville. Yes, before you say anything Ditzy, I really do like Time Turner and everyone knows Ponyville is crazy. At least the things that happen there are more fun than dangerous.”

-Streets of Manehatten, Wheel Twist-

It was another day in this dark depressing world, even if the sun was shining and ponies everywhere were bright eyed and bushy tailed.

“I really don’t know what makes me keep wanting to come back here Vinyl, it has none of the respect and class that Canterlot does.” I ignored the two mares walking down the street, the mare with the tinted glasses looked familiar to me.

It’ll probably come to me later.

Now what to eat for breakfast? Hayburger has a decent breakfast menu if anything.

I started to make my way there thinking of what to order when I came across someone who obviously came from Hayburger not to long ago. Only they were in the oddest situation I think I have ever seen in all my life.

“Some pony help me with these nasty things!” It was an earth pony mare with long, hoof length, brown hair and turquoise colored fur, she was also wearing some odd necklace and her grey eyes were glaring fiercely at her aggressors.

It was barely six thirty this morning and I was staring at the things currently attack her and trying to get at the hayburger on rye bread.

She was fighting them off fairly well with her hooves, but the boxes seemed to be taking blunt force pretty well for some odd reason.

Said boxes looked to be animated with rear pony legs sticking out the bottom of them and they were constantly bumping and jumping at the mare viciously. She held her sandwich above her and away from them, the boxes that all had the words ‘stay left’ written on them in big letters.

The mare in question had several bruises on her and I glared at the boxes, just a bunch of a fillies and colts messing with the mare.

I sent a blast of magic at one of the boxes and watched as the top half of the box tore open and several white tentacles burst out. Said tentacles were apparently the same outer material as the rest of the boxy sign, it screeched loudly as it turned towards me.

It was here that I figured out something, mostly that these weren’t fillies and colts running around in boxes with blocky writing on them.

It was apparently some monster in the shape of a box with the words ‘stay left’ written on them and it charged me while the other continued to attack the mare by bumping into her aggressively.

I blasted the box with a ball of fire from my horn. If a unicorn was going to learn offensive magic for self-defense, then hitting something with fire was the way to go… unless it was immune to fire or magic. The exceedingly odd beast exploded into a shower of wood, cardboard and burnt fleshy tentacles.

Ugh, whatever god created these things was going to near or at the top of my list of things I disliked now.

Several quick blasts of fire and the earth pony smashing them, after we were battered and bruised we paused to caught our breaths as we calmly dealt with the last one.

“That… wait where’s my sandwich?” We turned and saw one last evil ‘stay left’ sign box running away with a sandwich slowly sinking into the material on top of it. “Never mind.”

The mare flipped her mane, readjusted her odd necklace and started to walk off with an angry look in her eyes.

“Wait! What’s your name? I’m Wheel Twist.” I could use some help if someone was out to get me today.

“Guess I can tell you, I’m Stochastic Labor.” The mare’s eyes darted about as she started stomping away in anger, she looked about as paranoid as I did. “Now don’t bother me, I’ve got better things to do than talk to another stallion that thinks with his dangly bits.”

-Two minutes later, Hayburger Supreme Manehatten Branch-

My day was starting out badly and I probably should have called the boys in to help me, but I didn’t think I was in serious trouble yet. I walked up to the counter and saw an odd sight in the kitchen.

A kitsune, a dragon and… was that a fire breathing goat?! Who let these guys cook food in a pony establishment? No... It was no business of mine, I looked to the pony at the counter for early morning.

“I would like…” I started, before I rudely was cut off. It was going to be one of those days wasn’t it?

“Wait your turn dude sir.” The register pony stated clearly, I blinked and looked about as there wasn’t even a single pony in front of me at all.

“I don’t see anyone else…” He cut me off once again with a held up hoof and then pointed down at something.

I looked to what his hoof was pointing at. What I had first assumed was some sort of foals meal toy was actually a turtle with a bit bag looking at the menu items.

“Seriously?! You’re serving that!” I received a fairly angry glare from the turtle who waved a flipper at me.

“Coo!” The turtle shouted.

“The little miss is right dude, she is a paying customer sir.” The register pony stated dutifully. “Please, wait for your turn.”

I grumbled to myself quietly and watched as the turtle turn back to the register pony all smiles.

“Coo, hiss, coo hiss, coo!” The turtle finally stated after a bit and the register pony wrote something down.

“Would you like hay fries with that?” The register pony saw the turtle nod eagerly and made several intricate gestures with her flippers. “To go order on the hay fries? We’ll make them after you’re done with your meal so you can carry them to your friends okay?”

I tune them out and when I blinked the turtle was no long there.

“Hey dude, welcome to the Hayburger, home of the hayburger, may I take your order?” Ugh, did the register pony really have to say that? “Yes, it my honor to state that to every pony! Also sorry about reading your mind, it helps me deal with all kinds of foreigners that come through here. I’m Toasty Brain by the way. Making toasted bread is a special talent of mine.”

“Don’t care, I’m hungry.” The register pony was a very odd winged pony with dreadlocks and the brown eyes, but I seriously doubted he could actually read my mind. “I’ll have a Double hayburger meal on rye, extra crispy. Spice on the hay fries.”

“Whatever you choose to believe, that’s on you.” The pony told me with smile. “One number three, smart butt, double up on the sun baking and napalm the potato patch! Your order will be finished soon sir.”

-At this time, Maria-

“Well we don’t know who the target is, but today is looking good as far as fast food is concerned.” I was missing my sisters, but I did want to spend some time as my own being for a while. Mara and Marie would be okay a Sabre Sniger for a while. I loosed a jet of controlled flames from my mouth and made the hay patty a little crispier then normal. “Cooking fast food this way is actually kind of fun. I don’t think any of us will ever beat matriarch Kuril, much less a pony gifted at this kind of thing.”

“Yes, I too find particular enjoyment in working with food!” As usual Flamberge was loud and jolly, he turned his gaze to his kitsune girlfriend to see she was having fun with making the desserts using her magical flames.

“Restaurant is fun, though fast food is quite common, do not eat often.” Sweetcakes fanned her flames and watched as the small apple pies she had folded over with her plastic covered paws started to bulge slightly and emit a wondrously delicious smell.

“So we’re just supposed to work efficiently?” I wondered, how exactly did we currently factor into Jade’s unexplained plan?

Author's Note

Yep... it'll be a completely 'normal' day.

Chapter Seventy, A “‘Normal’” Day: Tuesday.

-Hayburger Supreme, 7:29 AM, Toasty-

“Hey, can someone watch the register, I need to tinkle like really bad here!” I receive an immediate reply from Maria.

“Sure thing Toasty!” My goodness was Maria adorable as her own separate being.

I went to the employee’s bathroom as Maria took up my station. Once I had the door closed behind me firmly, I knocked on the locked stall among the few open ones there.

If anyone else came in here in the last thirty minutes, they would be smelling fresh toast and butter.

“Hey Toasty, I’m finished here.” I said as my form started to warp and Toasty opened up the door.

He saw me change back into who I really was.

-Jade-

I made sure my friends went to the bathroom earlier and made sure they wouldn’t enter within the last thirty minutes.

“Thanks for letting me take your place for a stick of butter Toasty.” I grinned as he came out of the stall with a toaster while chewing on a bit of buttered toast.

“Don’t mention it dude girl, I’m always willing to help an old part-time employee of Hayburger with anything as long as you are true to the Hayburger name!” The pony said as he nodded to me, the true Toasty Brain. “Your plans are really wicked, but I can see why you’re doing it. Rock on Jaded, oh and thanks for the stick of butter!”

“Coo!” Jumping we turned to Snickers as she had a sack with some shoestring hay fries and horseshoe hay fries with her. She was just agreeing with Toasty who could actually ready minds and it was really hard pretending to be him for the last thirty minutes.

“You knew all along, didn’t you?” Grinning at my little buddy, she nodded back with an equally friendly grin. There was no way she could have ignored or missed the bond between us. The turtle reached into the paper sack she dragged in with her and held up the shoestring fries to me. “For me, oh you shouldn’t have… though I do guess transforming does take some energy and I could use a snack. Thank you Snickers!”

I started munching on the excessive amount of fries in the box, I always did prefer shoestring over horseshoe or curly fries. I wouldn’t even touch curly fries without some kind of sauce, I really loved ribbon fries and those were usually only seen at various fairs.

“Coo.” Snickers stated happily, she took the remaining box of horseshoe fries in the sack and hovered above Toasty. She was likely going to give them to Fizzy, my familiar really does love almost everyone like Paprika does. Don’t know where she gets the money from, I’m not questioning the world’s most intelligent turtle dove.

I moved to the stall Toasty came out of and closed the toilet seat, went back to wash my hands, then I leapt onto the toilet’s seat and clambered up into the ceiling to make a stealthy exit from the establishment.

First clay mask successfully used. Operation ‘Left Behind’ was now done, it was far more ineffective than I thought it would be.

Now to set up operation ‘Anvil Mania’, but first a quick trip to the park to make sure the Cutie Mark Crusaders are doing exactly what I think they will.

Trixie’s show was this evening and I can’t wait to get a front row seat for that bit of madness.

-Random Manehatten Alleyway-

The ‘Stay Left’ monster poked its head out of the alleyway and saw a loaf of rye bread sitting on a plate, it started to make its way forward and missed the flash of glowing eyes coming down on it with an axe.

Skeletal Noria, AKA Skelly, quickly destroyed the quirky looking eldritch monster before it could reach the plate and multiply itself.

Afterwards Skelly went on to become a vigilante for a while, there would be talks of real Power Pony having escaped the comic books.

Her job was to make sure nobody could accidentally trot into Jade’s various plans and to limit the damage said plans would do if things went too far.

-Manehatten Park, Arizona-

I brought the hammer down again gently and wiped the sweat from my forehead. There was sweating because I was trying not to hit this very fragile wood too hard, it turns out I’m so ridiculously strong that I could accidentally break a wooden board by just breathing on it. So this was a little awkward.

“So when you asked Jaded for something you could do to earn money, I didn’t exactly expect carpentry or construction of you.” Well what can Velvet expect of me?

I wasn’t exactly all fight all the time, I also liked being playful with rope and I was now taking an active interest in building things with my hooves. It helped that Velvet’s cabin up in Reign was hoof made by the deer herself, it certainly made these park benches and tables easier to construct with someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

“Yeah, well, we do enough destroying things between us fluff butt. It would actually be nice of us if we could repair the damage we do to our surroundings just by being our natural selves.” I wasn’t looking for a fight at the moment and neither was Velvet, but when we did go looking for one… I would certainly find it within a manner of minutes. It was easy as asking someone I loved if she would like a hoof sandwich for lunch. She hasn’t said no to that yet, and the makeup cuddles afterwards were really worth it. “Also, you and I both know we can’t leave Paprika to be the major money maker in the family. Sure you have your perfect snow cone business, but it’s mostly for earning loose change. We can’t rely on tournaments to keep all three of us fed you know.”

“Why do you suppose Jade needed a wad of Paprika’s fluff?” Couldn’t tell you Velvet, because I wasn’t sure what she was going to do with it either and Paprika’s fluff was rather uniquely specific of her.

“Whatever she has planned, it’s going to be something big or a series of smaller things culminating in something.” I placed the table and noted that there were enough for all of our friends to view Trixie’s show from a distance. “Jade isn’t exactly easy to figure out when she’s got something going on.”

I wonder how Jade convinces so many people to get in on things like this, but then I realize that I was probably better off not knowing given she’s convinced me to do a few weird things before too.

“Oh good, you’re setting up the tables in the right position. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Jade suddenly rushed up to use from out of nowhere holding some chalk and a bag. She looked to the sky while sticking her tongue out of the right corner of her mouth in concentrated thought. “Should be about right…”

She drew a line and then put another line through it marking an X on the ground in the middle of all the tables we were setting up.

“What are you doing?” I was curious.

“Nope, can’t tell you, nobody is ruining this by talking about it!” She pulled out a bunch of caltrops on chunks of wood that looked to be made of paper clips and started to lay them around the chalk markings in a seemingly random way that made them relatively easy to avoid stepping on.

She paused to look at one of the paperclip mousetrap caltrops things, and then she turned it ever so slightly to the left. Whatever her reasoning behind that was, it was a rather exact bit of placement from the looks of it as she scrutinized it for a full minute.

“Nobody is to touch those, they are precisely placed there for a reason!” Jade told us and then turned to watched something, Velvet and I did the same thing. “If anyone is going to disturb those, have Paprika hug them to warn them off… hopefully Paprika is not too far away from you two.”

“She isn’t.” Velvet confirmed.

“Okay, that’s a good thing.” Why was Jade currently watching several fillies and colts with a critical eye? “Tinsel can you keep them away if they wander over here?”

Tinsel popped up from behind Velvet’s head and waved at Jade.

“Thank you, this will all make sense in due time!” Jade said as she took out a clay mask. “I’m going to leave in a bit, but first are the tables you already set up varnished? I need to sustain the wood. I also wanted to see if they will do what I think they will.”

“What are they going to do?” I asked. When Jade once said Ogres and Oubliettes taught things that will be useful in real life, she certainly wasn’t kidding in the slightest. “Wait a minute… isn’t that...”

“Now that’s the question Zone, isn’t it fascinating?” Jade said pleasantly in a different voice. She had disguised her appearance with am alchemy sustain instead of a cast, the clay mask sustain was a bit more limited than its cast that Jade can munchkin like crazy and she now didn’t look like her pack toting self. “Even I don’t know what’s going to happen and hopefully at least one of three things will occur, because I set them up to happen that way.”

“Is it weird that I’m scared of Jade when I’m at least physically stronger than her by at least hundred times or more and can beat her in a straight fight without a problem?” I asked Paprika as she trotted up to me.

“Meep.” Paprika shook her head no, it wasn’t weird in the slightest… she was slightly scared too.

-Wheel Twist-

I finished my food in the park and tossed the trash away in the receptacle, I blinked when I saw a strange Abyssinian talking with a cow. I shivered a bit at the sight of the female queen looking in my direction with amusement.

Decided to stay well away from the tables being set up in an apparently new picnic area, I think I actually have ailurophobia now.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea Scootaloo!” I looked to the side and saw a gaggle of fillies and colts near a tree standing around a stinky, slightly melting, wheel of cheese precariously balanced on the end of a seesaw.

“Oh come on Apple Bloom, just look at it!” The orange filly with a chicken style comb for a mane was pointing at the cheese wheel, she was talking to a filly with a similar cutie mark that sported a red bow. “We usually cause trouble by accident, but this looks like it’s meant for causing trouble on purpose. How often do we do ever things on purpose?”

“I don’t know Scootaloo… the trees here look suspiciously like they are full of sap and if we do it then we’ll get in a lot of trouble.” The unicorn filly among the many fillies and colts seemed like the voice of reason.

“I don’t know about you three, but shouldn’t we Cutie Mark Crusader groups put it to a vote?” The fourth was another filly that had an accent and a pair of scissors on her flank, she was obviously local to Manehatten. “Okay Manehatten Cutie Make Crusaders, what should we do here?”

I looked around and noticed that quite a few ponies stopping to watch the fillies and colts, I wasn’t the only one that sensed something in the air. It was like there was a train wreck in slow motion that hasn’t happened yet and every pony in the vicinity was now staring at all of them.

“Okay, it’s decided, we’re doing this!” Several ponies followed the orange filly with the chicken comb in climbing the nearby tree. Every pony heard creaking noise.

I felt like running, but I couldn’t look or move away from what was happening for some reason.

-8:13 AM, Jade-

“Come on, no whammies, no whammies…” Why was I getting concerned looks from my cousin family? My eyes widened in awe as I watched everything happen in crystal clear clarity.

“Agh!” A colt screamed

“What the...” A certain chicken filly slipped.

“I knew this was a bad idea, why does this stuff keep happening to us?!” Apple Bloom screamed.

“No, no, no, please no sap, not again!” Sweetie Belle’s voice certainly went shrill as the sound of a tree falling could be heard from off screen. A second later there was a high pitched scream. “Why?!”

“No, my mane!” A mare cried out pitifully .

It all happened in quite a beautiful culmination all at once, a shower of chewing gum, then cheese everywhere and just about every pony in the splash zone was now covered in tree sap. The fillies and colts thankfully didn’t get any gum on them, so I didn’t feel too bad about what just happened here.

Having bought out half a gum ball machine, entirely on a whim, was now to be considered a stroke of pure genius on my part.

I burst out laughing, Velvet snickered into a hoof, Arizona was guffawing and Paprika had the brightest smile of the four of us.

“Oh my goodness all three at once, I wish I had a camera to see the look on their…!” There were tears in my eyes as I curled up on the ground busting a gut about what happened. I was stopped by Paprika holding up a camera and smiling to me, I quickly took it and got several pictures of all of this before it was too late. “We are going to sell so many copies of this to the newspapers! Can I keep the camera for a while Paprika?”

“Meep.” Paprika held up a second camera and nodded to me, she took a few extra pictures too. Apparently the wife of my lovely doe sister was a notorious tourist and always brought backup cameras.

“Remind me to ask you about your photo album later.” After the alpaca nodded, I looked at one of the pictures I took and smiled nastily. I nailed the target I was after without being directly responsible for what happened.

It seemed bad luck was out in the streets today and I don’t think Discord was anywhere near this spectacle of a crime scene.

“That… was... amazing!” Arizona continued laugh harshly while trying to catch her breath. “Jade, you are without a doubt one of the best friends that I’ve ever had next to my wives!”

“Now to go set up the anvil to threaten a certain ‘someone’ with after they clean themselves up.” I had finished sustaining the wood of the benches and tables Arizona and Velvet had set up. “I hope you liked the show, see you later this evening for some more fun guys!”

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world sister.” Velvet called out. “We’ll be ready to catch them Jade, just give us the word!”

The leader of GODLESS definitely didn’t escape this day unscathed after that. I rubbed my paws together as I started to walk off.

Now to meet up with Fizzy, as she is likely waiting at the pulley system.

I seriously hadn’t expected this to turn out so well. You’d think with the many protections the leader has, that they would have avoided the Chaos Marked Crusaders.

Author's Note

The plan is moving forward, what Is Operation: 'Anvil Mania'... and how does it relate to Animaniacs?

I'm still healthy, I thank being a recluse for that!

Chapter Seventy, A “‘Normal’” Day: Wednesday.

-Near Manehatten Park, 10:15 AM, Jade-

So I might have spent the last ten or so minutes doing something relatively cruel. I was fairly sneaky about it and I didn’t think I could actually sneak this small thing in, but I was now down to my third clay mask and I had to be careful about when I utilized it. I also told my friends and loved ones to start setting up for operation ‘Anvil Mania’.

Now all I had to do was get there myself to orchestrate the entire event, which ended with a bang and not a clang. Still, it would be magical to watch once in motion.

If I wanted the anvil to ring loud and clear, then I absolutely needed to be there to direct the efforts of Fizzy, Oleander, Fred, Fluttershy and my buddy Snickers since she wanted to be exceptionally helpful today.

After it was done we’d be stopping for lunch, to discuss a few finer points of my plan. I had Paprika preparing a large picnic spread for everyone, to match her wives building and setting up tables and benches. We had enough fish jerky for the various meat eaters with plenty left over to pay off the weasels and raccoons for this part of the plot. So far the majority of my plotting was going quite well.

Only one problem, I couldn’t get to where I needed to be in time to explain what I exactly needed them to do. This situation was exactly what the ballista is for.

I approached the ballista and picked up a hexagonal coffin in my unicorn magic on the way.

Yes, imaginary audience in my head, you heard me right. I currently had unicorn magic thanks to my current clay mask cast form. That and the excessive amount of wood we brought to this was useful for making aforementioned coffin lined with protective stuffing.

I had to wonder what Fizzy would currently think of my looks. Placing the coffin on the ballista, I then got in the coffin myself and turned to the flail-tail cat and sea pony siblings with Jacky’s pet giant butterfly.

“Here, this is how I want you to aim the ballista after I’m shot Ms. De Bris.” I levitated a folded piece of paper to her and she took it in her flipper hoof to scrutinize it thoroughly, she nodded to me and curiously looked at the cutie mark on my flanks.

This just reminded me that we, Fizzle and Maries, haven’t exactly told anyone about my cutie mark or impending cuteceanera. I decided to wait until GODLESS wasn’t a factor in my life anymore, this was also putting a hold on several wedding plans.

“Oh, can I do it big sister!” Nefer asked with a childish glee as he turned away from playing with Belfry the butterfly.

“I don’t know, let me think about this Nefer.” My sister’s crewmate, Flotsam, actually looked to be thinking about this.

“Oh come on, let him enjoy the whimsy of firing an Abyssinian turned Unicorn in a coffin onto the rooftops!” I gave Flotsam my big soulful cat eyes look, despite currently being a unicorn.

“How are you doing that when you’re currently a unicorn?! You know what, no, I’m not going to worry about this too much.” Flotsam rubbed at her head with a loud groan. “Fine, Nefer you can shoot her. Just wait until she closes the coffin entirely first. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.”

“Fire me boy!” I shouted out as I closed the coffin on myself and pressed my four hooves against the insides.

“Yay!” Nefer shouted and I heard him pull the lever. Suddenly I felt the coffin moving and something like my stomach dropping out from under me.

-Rooftops, Fizzy-

Snickers was being cute by fluttering about and acting like she was a bird, she had brought me some horseshoe fries as a snack and then tossed my garbage in a can for me. Our favorite turtle dove most certainly wasn’t as innocent as she acts, especially with someone like Jade as her partner. It was just really hard to catch her in the act of doing anything wrong, there was always this subtle feeling of mischievousness about her.

“We’re not going to get Jade in a dress unless she’s mind controlled. Even then I’d think we’d need staples, chains, glue, handcuffs and tape to even keep it on her. Even when she’s mind controlled, an evil clone or otherwise, I don’t think Jade would ever wear a dress and she’d resist all attempts to put one on her. I don’t think even the gods have the kind of power required to keep a dress on Jade for more than a minute.” Out of our herd, I was likely to be the only one in a dress at any conceivable wedding involving us. I had already made my intentions known in front of Maries and Jade, which they pretty much agreed to. It was pretty much official… I was clearly sanity challenged when it came to love. “Getting a single dress for Maries would also be hard unless they separate and Marie is not going to want to be separate from her sisters to even wear a dress that would fit a snake. Marie gets separation anxiety so easily, it’s really hard to watch her be on her own for more than five minutes.”

“Well at least I’ll have an easier time of it, I know I’ll look good in a tuxedo.” Oleander stated with cheerful grin. “What do you say Fred, do want to wear the dress?”

“Will it be frilly, I LIKE FRILLY!” There were a number of things that seemed wrong with a floating masculine demon book wanting to marry his darkness corrupted unicorn mare while in a dress. I wasn’t capable of judging as I was marrying an evil Abyssinian and the world’s smartest Chimera. “With your pretty hair, you definitely make my world Ollie… rowr… I’M OPEN TO ANY DRESS IDEA YOU CHOOSE!”

Fluttershy flinched and shivered each time Fred’s voice went completely demonic, even Snickers shivered when he did that. I sometimes wondered what Ollie was like before she met Fred.

“When will Jade get here Fizzle?” Honestly, it was surprising that Fluttershy wanted to be involved. The, nowadays not so shy, mare likely had a secret thing for adrenaline rushes. It was the only plausible reason she was okay with assisting us like this. “She said now was about the time we’d need to be here.”

“Well…” I didn’t get to say much when something hit the far side of the roof and tumbled right for us, it skidded to a stop standing upside down and then fell over lid side up. It was a coffin, which was soon opened in a slow creaky manner.

“I want to kiss my love!” A dizzy looking Jade said with a quirky accent as she flopped out of the coffin. I sighed and moved over to kiss the unicorn. Admittedly, she was quite adorable as a pony. “So do I look cute as a unicorn Fizzy? I’ve got about five more minutes on this.”

“You do, but I prefer the cuddly kitty model of Jade.” I answered with a straight face, then pointed to the heavy steel anvil that was sitting nearby. “So… anvil?”

“Right, Fluttershy, go tell Tippy-Toe to get the weasels and raccoons started.” Fluttershy flew off, Jade turned to Snickers and tossed her a thick pouch of illusion dust. “Snickers, spread the illusion dust thickly, there, there and there. Imaginations are about to run wild!”

Snickers saluted with a flipper and flew off, I looked to Jade and she gave us a grin.

“Will we finally know what the leader of GODLESS looks like now?” I asked, she just shook her head no and kept smiling as she turned to Ollie and Fred.

“Get into position Fred and then turn on the wind-up toy train when I have Ollie signal you.” In response to Jade’s orders, the book bobbed once and then levitated off the side of the building into the alleyway. “Fizzle… prepare to drop the anvil and move it as I tell you to. I can’t do it because as a unicorn, I’m not exactly good at anything more than levitation with anything equivalent to ten pounds and I’m only going to be like this for a short while. One last thing to say… let this anvil ring!”

-Manehatten Streets, Wheel Twist-

My day had been particularly weird so far. Fighting easily destructible eldritch monsters that could grow tentacles had a taste for sandwiches, then getting hit with a sudden triple whammy by a bunch of foals taking fascination in a completely unattended horribly stinky cheese wheel left out in the sun.

I sighed and wondered what could possibly happen next to ruin my day. No sooner did I think that thought, did I hear a lot of growling and several nearby ponies ears went straight up.

Scientists say that ponies tend towards hive mind mentality when there is danger around, that is to say we tend to flock together in fear. I think this can be confirmed, because what happened next was definitely a sign that someone was out to get me in particular and they involved several other innocent ponies in the mix as well.

A pack of raccoons, weasels and a single squirrel showed up. They had foaming mouths and caused a group of ponies, a group I now found myself in, to run away. That’s when we heard a telltale whistling noise. An anvil fell from the sky and stopped the rabid animals from getting closer.

I noted that the squirrel wiped the sweet smelling foam from their face, revealing it to be milk foam from an espresso or cappuccino and started to rub their paws together maliciously.

That’s when several more anvils started falling from the sky and that caused us to go into a blind panic, several of the anvils suddenly shot off from the ground where they crashed and came flying at us horizontally. A bit of stone dug itself into one of my legs, I whimpered and coughed out the dust that was being kicked up around us.

This meant the anvils were very much real, also the air was tinged a bit green weirdly enough.

The entire group of ponies was in a blind panic as we avoided the various anvils suddenly coming at us horizontally, only to hear more whistling noises and for several more anvils to come at us from above.

We tried to turn left and cross the street, only to be cut off by more anvils and I was hit by a few more stray bits of street from several thunderous impacts. We tried to go back to moving forward and more anvils fell in front of us.

One mare with a buzzed mane narrowly avoided getting hit with an anvil that sunk half way into the street and took a large chunk of stone to the shoulder.

Above us waves of anvils started falling slowly inwards driving us into the alleyway, they were crisscrossing overhead and there were so many ringing noises my ears were hurting pretty badly by this point.

We turned into the nearby alleyway and halfway into the alleyway the anvils stopped falling.

Only for an Anvil to land next to a mare. She screamed and started running for the other end of the alleyway with every other pony following her.

I quietly noted that after the cacophony of multiple anvils coming at us, something very odd was going on here. Several more anvils fell behind us and I looked to the ground and noted that the ground wasn’t being as damaged as what the last anvil that fell next to the mare did.

An anvil fell and dug a hole in the ground in front of me hitting me with several chips of stone and I turned tail. Too frightened to think about the oddity of this many anvils not doing as much damage as they could be to the ground with the distances they were falling, I joined up with the group to see something odd.

I came up to the group of ponies that stopped cold at the end of the alleyway, because there were a lot of plumbing tubes blocking the way and a small bit of train tracks leading to a fuse. The fuse led to a tube pointing towards us.

I had this sinking suspicion as to what was about to happen.

“What’s blocking our way out?” One of the ponies asked.

“It looks like… a potato cannon?” Another stallion, one with an engineering cutie mark, seemed curious about that. He wasn’t the only one that was curious.

We all heard the sound of a whistle, a train slowly rolled along the tracks with a lit match. Our eyes widened as the lit match soon touched the fuse, instead of slowly burning down… the fuse immediately went up like it was made of flash paper.

The loud whump of the pipe ejecting something at us was heard and then everything was tinted blue, at least I wasn’t directly hit by whatever it was that was shot at us. There were some strange yellow stuff on the ground afterwards, but I was too busy running out of the alleyway with the other ponies to care.

We were covered in a strange blue dust, but it was rather easy to wipe off of ourselves. The streets that were once full of falling anvils, now had none in them.

-Rooftop, Jade-

Yes, score!

The one event I needed to happen, has happened.

Now all I needed to do was add some icing to this cake of a horrible day for one pony in particular, as if it wasn’t bad enough for them that the Cutie Mark Crusaders had succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

Now I set the alarm clock for eight hours from now and will have to carry it with me. Paprika’s wad, plumbing tubes, poison joke and anvil all utilized successfully. Now I had to terrorize a local theatre and to set up a certain pony appearing at Trixie’s show as a consolation, I would now need the string, the candelabra, the bit of slow melting ice… I wanted to hit them with the manure.

“What do we do with the anvil? We can’t just leave the evidence there Jade.” Narrowing her eyes at the ponies below, Fizzy soon turned to me. “Which one of them was the leader of GODLESS? Was that the concentrated poison joke you just used with Paprika’s fluff wad in that potato cannon? What exactly will that do Jade?”

“Answering any of those questions would be telling, wait for this evening Fizzy. It’ll be all worth it... though it’s going to get a bit rough.” Snuggling against Fizzy, I was back to being my good old jerk-ass cat self. “For now we will give the leader two hours of reprieve to catch a break ourselves. Oleander, take the anvil to this theater and set it up where the production ponies tell you to. Get the string, the candelabra, the pepper, find a throwing knife, Blade and finally Velvet to make that melting bit of ice now. This is going to give a certain pony post-traumatic stress disorder and an intrinsic fear of anvils.”

I was quite sure that this was going to eventually break a certain pony completely.

Author's Note

Poison joke potato cannon? Really Jade? What was the point of... no... you wouldn't do that... would you? That is cruelty personified!

You should seriously never give Jade time to plan anything.

Chapter Seventy, A “‘Normal’” Day: Thursday.

-Manehatten Park, lunch time, 12:30 PM, Jade-

“Look, the reason why I had Paprika set this up and not my mother... is because everyone abuses my mom’s kindness too much, give her a break people!” After that I continued to eat the healthy food Paprika so thoughtfully prepared for us, the toasted bread and special coleslaw sandwich was actually really delicious. I think it could use a bit of butter though. “So does anyone have any questions so far?”

“How is the plan going?” Yep, I expected that question from at least Fizzle, but she wasn’t the only one to ask that as everyone else mostly said it in unison.

“Spectacularly.” I wondered if anyone believe me, I was certainly keeping track of the leader of GODLESS quite easily, but then again I knew everything they planned to do today entirely. “Any other questions… also can you give my mother the recipe for this coleslaw Paprika?”

Paprika waved jovially at me and nodded, she really didn’t need to make a peep. She only did that to be seen as minimally speaking to her wives, otherwise she was still the maestro at getting things across without any verbal speech whatsoever.

“Please do, I want to see what mom can add to it.” It looks like Fizzy was hooked on these sandwiches that Paprika had made as well. I knew getting Paprika to do catering was a good idea. “How is this all going to end Jade?”

“I guess I can give you a hint, be prepared for a huge fight and incredible anger driven strength.” I hadn’t managed to fully maximize how bad this day has gotten for my target, after the anvil thing they had to be suspicious of something at least. “We’re still in the middle of ruining someone’s entire day, so you can expect a pretty vicious fight after everything I’ve done.”

“So you’re hitting a theatre next?” Today my sister Jacky was wearing a sleeveless vest and puffy pants, the bandaged bruises and cuts all along her arms were to be expected as she has been through several incidents already. Yet she still somehow managed to maintain her waist length feathers.

“Yep, Blade and Velvet are needed for this. Jacky and Gene can assist us, but it’s not required for them to do so though. I wouldn’t mind a little extra insurance today.” Nobody thankfully asked about the X on the ground or the paperclip mousetrap things I set up on the ground. “Mom will be needed this evening for Trixie’s performance and it will likely be one of Trixie's best ones.”

“So what are the rest of us needing to do friend?” Fortitude knew I needed him to stand somewhere for two hours and it was about time to tell him what I need of him, but not quite yet.

“You can all be lazy around the park, the end game is going to be pretty big and destructive.” I should probably tell them the truth of this statement, but I didn’t want to jinx myself.

“Just don’t do anything too dangerous kitten, I’ve lost you once and I’m not willing to let you go again quite so soon.” Giving mommy Kuril my most cheerful grin, I bit into my next coleslaw sandwich getting Paprika’s special slaw sauce all over my face.

“I’ll always be your kitten mom, even if I am a fully grown queen now.” A queen with a herd that had a chimera named after an alcoholic drink and a beautiful hard flanked unicorn that can beat me senseless, I certainly had almost everything I wanted out of life. I even had a fluffy white feathered nephew to dote on to an excessive degree.

I hoped that ball was still rolling, otherwise I might not survive the end of my own plan.

“Yes, I know you’re a queen now Jade, but I’m still obligated to worry about you nevertheless!” Mom certainly wanted to make up for the years we’ve missed together, was I really ever going to say no to that? “Just know that I will love you my little Jaded, even if you are behind on giving me grandchildren. I don’t care if you adopt or magic them up, I want more. Your sister Jacky has been proactive about it at the very least and she has a excellent husband that I can be proud of.”

“Really mom?” My blunt tone couldn’t be any more derisive, every single one of my friends was currently cracking up quite badly.

Mom was pressed up against me and I appreciated her comforting presence, because today was a day that I was going excessively petty on someone who already didn’t have much going for them. I went through a pretty torturous experience to get back to the right time period, so spending quality time with my mother wasn’t too much to ask of me.

Celestia had disassembled most of the GODLESS organization thanks to some help from a genie Jacky had found. So the leader really is alone and having a hard time getting any resources to rebuild the organization aside from trying to get aid from Dispel and Perun’s Paladins. Said paladins were slightly broken up by Fizzle’s invasion of the area around my pyramid in Southern Anugypt, the paladins hadn’t regrouped or even had time to do so.

Basically the leader hasn’t had a chance to recoup from the various major losses and setbacks within the last month or so and the GODLESS leader was completely open for a nasty finishing strike by me.

The hired minions of Dispel, Shock and Teatime are no longer going to protect the leader from me and I had a suspicion about what they would do when I informed them of this evenings special events. They’d likely stay well out of the way of the fracas, they could also betray me or help me, it was up in the air what they would do as I don’t have a profiling on any of them aside from the hearsay from my friends and family.

Teatime was going to be exceedingly hard to take down, as the guy sounded far smarter than I was. When someone was smarter than you, immediately assume that planning anything around them is almost impossible. He couldn’t build a completely indestructible airship that Jacky couldn’t possibly break by proximity though, but he had escape plans within escape plans that I couldn’t even begin to fathom.

We finished lunch with a delicious dessert brought to us by Derpy Hooves, Queen of Muffins, of whom we all shared the large blueberry muffin cake with. Even gave her some to take home with her for later. Making her smile made my day, even if things don’t go well this evening.

It wasn’t too long afterward that Fluttershy reminded me that I owed Tippy-Toe, the raccoons and the weasels for pulling off their part. Cost most of the fish jerky we had and three raisin macademia cookies.

Fluttershy paid off Tippy-Toe using said cookies, that she knew what Tippy-Toe’s favorite cookies were was a little concerning. I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to know if Fluttershy was part of The Squirrels or not, she was so innocent and friendly… but they do say it’s always the quiet ones.

Eventually, I headed out with my next group towards the theatre to continue completely ruining somebody’s day.

-Manehatten Theatre, 1:53 PM, Wheel Twist-

A lot of weird things were happening today, like somebody throwing water balloons at me after I washed off that blue stuff. Ugh, just so long as there wasn’t any cats nearby, I would be fine. I’ve been having too many prophetic nightmares about a day like this.

A droplet of water hit me on the head and I turned an angry glare behind me and then above me. The ponies on the balcony above me didn’t have any drinks, the ponies behind me didn’t have any visible drinks either.

Where were all those drips of water coming from?! They were annoying, this theatre shouldn’t have a leaky roof. It was a pretty high class ritzy place and I really wanted to watch the show.

“Gah, who’s the idiot that didn’t bother to repair the roof of this place?! The theatre isn’t that poor, the finances of this place should be better than this!” I looked to a nearby seat and saw a vaguely familiar mare with a short, and wet, mane. I think we were kindred spirits today. Despite her grumbling, she seemed to be trying to focus on the show. “Well at least it seems to have finally…”

Several drops of water dripped down, one hit me, one hit that mare and the entire row seemed to have been hit with drops of water all at the same time. The mare screamed angrily while shaking a hoof at the dark ceiling, strange that we couldn’t see where the leak was… also, now that it occurred to me, it was quite suspicious given it wasn’t raining outside.

The crew on the stage ignored the interruption and didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the ceiling dripping water.

-Above that particular row of seats-

A quiet snickering that could be heard coming from Tinsel. The tiny little guy was successfully trying to muffle his own laughter, Velvet was keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn’t reveal himself and he was making sure to be a good familiar for his goddess and her mates.

His reindeer was the very best of all reindeer and she was currently smiling! Making her happy was always his dream come true, keeping his personal reindeer happy was a lifelong goal and he’d follow her everywhere forever.

He saw a motion that was asking him to draw closer towards his magnificent motherly goddess and he did so excitedly with a tiny squeak.

“That’s enough playtime Tinsel, now we just need to leave the ice alone. I’m actually fairly worried about the next anvil thing that’s going to happen.” Looking around a bit, Velvet eventually spotted the anvil and the string leading to it. Tinsel squeaked at her worried visage, she gently ran a hoof over his head to sooth him and make him happy. “I’m sure things will be fine, though I hope nobody gets injured by it and I’m fairly curious about why Celestia is paying for some damages that haven't even occurred. It looks like it is being set up now, I hope you know what you’re doing sister… that is still weird for me to say.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it, the real danger will come this evening and we’re going to be keeping all noncombatants out of that.” Turning to the voice, Velvet saw a griffon with green feathers and beige fur. It had to be Jade. “I’m making sure the anvil isn’t hitting anyone too. Say, how far away can you create a snowflake barrier? Just out of curiosities sake.”

“I’m your plan to stop the anvil from hurting anyone aren’t I?” Stated Velvet while she watched the candelabra be put in place by Gene as he and Jacky took part in being the stage crew. Said lit candelabra started to slowly burn it's way through some string. “Afraid it might miss?”

“Possibly, and that’s what the fail safes are for.” Looking around based on what Jade said, Velvet saw three small, if heavy looking, safes and a full grand piano.

“Jade… I’m scared… of you.” Velvet slowly stated, only for Jade to point out the sixteen ton weight. “Remind me to never get on your bad side or make you my enemy for whatever reason. If I do get on your bad side, you have my open permission to slap sense into me at any time to let me know before you get to this point. Literal fail safes? I can’t even comprehend how you got all those object in here, because you asked absolutely no one else to help you with them.”

“Reused the three pulley systems and had some griffon given strength to get them into position.” The half Abyssinian griffon grinned and rubbed her talons together as she turned to watch the candelabra burn through the string. “Don’t even ask how I got the sixteen ton weight in here. It was the hardest thing to get into position.”

-Theatre incident-

It wasn’t the innocuous actions of a prankster at all, the leader of GODLESS knew that it was a set up.

What they didn’t know, was how someone could have possibly set it up so well as to almost get by their defenses. Someone was out to get them and they had no idea how dangerous the one behind all this was.

Well they had an idea as to how dangerous the pony that was after them was. The water innocently dripping from the ceiling and annoying them was likely just a prelude to the havoc that followed.

An anvil nearly crushed them, then safes took out entire rows coming at them from three different directions, followed by an entire grand piano from a fourth and what seemed like the last piece of an incredible mess, an iceberg practically coming within an inch of crushing them.

The leader of GODLESS wasn’t sure how someone could be targeting them specifically. They had kept a low profile, they had been pretty much a ghost that Celestia couldn’t capture and even Luna couldn’t get into their dreams because a magical dream catcher prevented it.

Yet somehow, someone knew. This shook them to their very core, someone knew who they were and paranoia and fear was beginning to get to them. There didn’t seem to be anyone looking at them specifically, but their eyes did land on a griffon that was looking at the ceiling.

“Why was that griffon… holy-bucking-?!” These were the thoughts of the GODLESS leader before it struck. A sixteen ton weight came down, the leader of GODLESS was actually injured and their defenses were on their last legs after saving them from the catastrophic explosion of ice going everywhere.

They actually got scratched in multiple places by chips of ice zipping past their form and even one embedded itself in their flank. They had to get out of the theatre, they had to go somewhere quiet… they had to get away.

Once they were outside they saw a strangely familiar mare.

-Leader-

“Ephemeral salutations before the emperors new clothes!” Why was this strange mare passing out tickets to a traveling magician’s show to various ponies?

A ticket was thrust into my hoof haphazardly, along with an envelope dated for yesterday.

It definitely has my name on it, I opened the envelope and read the letter.

"See you at the show somewhat fearless leader. Do you like squirrels? Please get ready for the full moose of madness and its special room of nuts.” I read slowly and something froze in my gut. Despite it's nonsensical nature, there was a clear threat there. I saw that strange griffon again, she seemed to be cheerfully flying around. The griffon soon turned and shot me a grin. She winked, then pointed at the note and made a sarcastic kissy face with her beak. She likely thought it was from a lover. I finished reading the note. “Your secret admirer, Queen Petty. P.S. Bet you can't bribe me to stop what's coming, because the gods are laughing.”

That griffon was now gone and I will definitely deal with these laughing gods soon enough.

Author's Note

What will the magician's act entail, will the great and powerful Trixie prevail with taking over this story?

Next time, The Great and Powerful Trixie and her lovely assistants take to the spotlight!

What tricks will amaze you, what magical spectacular will she perform?

Will the glorious leader of the defunct GODLESS actually show up to it with what is a very odd threat aimed at them?

Everything Jade has listed off has mostly been used, what's left? Is it a long range rocket with a hollow and a bag of manure?

What is the end game of all this?

Chapter Seventy, A “‘Normal’” Day: Friday.

-Manehatten, Alleyway, 2:30 PM, Jade-

“So no, the injuries are minimal, the damage was localized to a small area and the leader of GODLESS actually took a few hits.” I finished explaining what happened in the theatre.

“What is the leader going to do next Jade?” It took a moment to answer Celestia, because I had to think about what I was going to tell her.

“Search for help from nearby sources over the next few hours before Trixie’s show, they’ll fail to find any help of course. Nobody wants to mess with Queen Petty when she’s on a rampage, the target of her rampage even less so.” My tail flicked as I leaned against the wall. “They’ll either show up or will try to do a runner. Either way, they cannot escape me Benny.”

“After everything you did to Saddle Arabia, I can believe you when you say they won’t get away with everything they put you through. Last I heard before I stepped down, we’ve been getting better trade deals from them lately. Something to do with wild magic running in the streets and them needing help because of Mirage’s curse coming back to haunt them.” It’s odd that someone I killed was still my friend and held no resentment towards me whatsoever, she was more resentful of the fact that she had finally fully ascended and couldn’t prevent it from happening this time. “What are their defenses like?”

“Do you know the history of the Misfortune Malachite and Good Fortune Garnet?” Asking a question to answer a question, I was getting fairly good at this.

“… okay, let me rephrase the question, how close are you to completely and utterly breaking it or reversing its effects entirely?” Celestia knows her history, as does every Abyssinian in existence since it’s commonly taught in Abyssinia’s schools.

Messing with luck or karma using magic tends to end poorly, I’m currently enacting a proof of concept to that exact effect.

“The leader of GODLESS actually got hit in the theatre. Do the math Benny, because everyone knows that I sure as Tartarus can’t.” Smirking, I added on to my statement to Celestia. “I also know for a fact that you can’t possibly get senile from old age… unlike Star Swirl the Bearded when it came to that scam school. Before you ask, I’ve been astral projecting myself for a long time.”

“So they have abused the artifact in question to the point that it’s about to make their luck go permanently negative already. You’re counting on that and you’ve been really quite busy today.” She gave me such a soft and inviting smile, now if only ponies knew how much Celestia was adrenaline starved for some excitement and had a small thing for pranks too. “Sekhet, Luna, Baast and I will be prepared to evacuate every pony. You said the signal would be colorful and vibrant?”

“Yes, anything else?” Wouldn’t have been able to do all this without the help of several people, couldn’t have possibly set all of this up by myself. Got to remember to thank Scootaloo’s parents for helping me gather those eldritch ‘stay left’ monsters.

“How much damage will be done to the city?” Ah, Celestia always asked some hard questions, she’s one of the kindest beings in existence. If she wasn’t, then Day Breaker would be a reality.

“We’ll try to keep it to a minimum, but I can’t guarantee anything when the leader of GODLESS is finally driven to madness.” It was only a matter of time and the alarm clock I set up would signal the exact moment it should happen.

“We’ll make the preparations Jaded.” Celestia nodded and then exited the alleyway. This left me to think about things. Like the fact that Celestia already had an inkling as to what I was doing, I don’t mean the fishy ambulatory squid kind either.

Was I going too overboard? Admittedly the sixteen ton weight slamming into that much ice might have been a bit much.

My friends made today’s events possible and I wasn’t going to forget that any time soon, hoped they didn’t get hurt too badly by what happens this evening.

-Manehatten Park, 5:56 PM, Fortitude-

“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” My friend Jaded was relying on me for something important and I would not fail her. For I was good at waiting and I have a lot of patience. “So I am needing to stand here for the next two hours starting at six?”

“Yeah, you need to be here until around eight. Anyone that comes at you, get a good hold of them and don’t knock them out with your smell.” Jade turned and started to walk off. She was like the god Loki today, only not as magical and not as unendingly devious. “I need them awake and unharmed.”

I nodded in understanding as I watched her drop off the banana peel her sister touched for five seconds a moderate distance away from me.

-5:58 PM, Wheel Twist-

This show better be good.

-6:00 PM, Trixie-

“Showtime…” I cleared my throat and my stage unfolded, my wagon opened up and I set off the spirals and sparklers. This show needed to razzle and dazzle like nothing else, I was going to work hard to get a job at Twilight’s school after this. I just wanted to spend a lot more time around Starlight. “I welcome every creature, to The Great and Powerful Trixie’s greatest performance! Today I’m joined by my lovely assistant Starlight Glimmer!”

The mare blushed and looked away, she was actually wearing an assistant’s uniform for me. My best friend ever in all of the cosmos that is Trixie!

“We also have our very own special guest star tonight. A particularly friendly Abyssinian known for her tasty food, she will be performing some magic herself tonight…” I paused for dramatic effect. “Eh, I’ll introduce her when she becomes relevant.”

The entire crowd face planted, I snickered into my hoof.

“Trixie…” Out onto the stage walked the grayish and white furred Abyssinian in her purple robes and pointy hat, she seemed slightly annoyed with the greatness that was me. I’m always great by the way. “Come on, introduce me so I can wow the crowd. Like this for instance…”

Kuril took out a box and pulled out a deck of cards to show it to the crowd, it looked like an ordinary deck of cards to me and she launched them one by one into her other hand and started to shuffle them. She held out the cards to me.

I took one and showed it to the crowd, it’s the queen of hearts. I shoved it back into the deck, she moved over to Starlight and she magically shuffled the cards for our guest. Once she was done, Starlight then gave the deck back to Kuril.

Kuril pulled the top card off the deck and showed it to the crowd, a queen of hearts. She proceeded to carelessly flick it away and then pulled the next card which was… also the queen of hearts? She then tossed that one away too.

Picking up the next card before she could, I showed the crowd that it was the queen of spades and gave it back to her with the back of it facing the crowd. Kuril flipped that card around revealing… the queen of hearts!? Even Starlight and I were surprised, I just gave her a queen of spades… didn’t I?

Quite a few ponies started stomping their hooves and Kuril smiled impishly at the crowd, there were one or two ponies that didn’t seem as excited.

I grabbed the entire deck and fanned it out for the crowd, none of the cards I was showing was the queen of hearts I quickly shuffled the remainder of the deck and passed it to Starlight who did the same.

Once she had the cards back, she pulled another queen of hearts from the top of the deck showing it to me and the audience.

“Is this your card?” She said sweetly as she fanned herself with the rest of the cards and then showed them all off to the audience. The fanned out deck was now filled entirely with queens of hearts.

The crowd went wild, I sighed loudly and rolled my eyes. Starlight looked rather impressed and I was impressed as well, but I wasn’t about to show it. Kuril gathered up the cards and put them back in the box.

“Oh fine… introducing the whimsical witch of good taste, Kurilian La Perm!” I held out a hoof as the Abyssinian swept the hat from her head and bowed to the crowd while flicking her ears, she listened to the applause of the ponies as she soon stood up and turned to me with her hat once more proudly adorning her head.

Our show was now moving forward and we had two magicians on stage. With a flick of her hands Kuril was soon wielding a ping pong ball and a paddle, after showing off the ball she started idly bouncing it on the paddle as I performed a knot tying trick on Starlight.

The crowd was distracted by her somewhat, but she wasn’t doing anything as interesting as I… The Great and Powerful Trixie.

Our knot tying trick went off without a hitch and then Kuril walked over to us bouncing the ball on the paddle and tilted it so the ball would fall, only to show it was now dangling by a string when there had been none there before.

The crowd look mystified as Kuril smiled at them and bounced the ball off the paddle once and the ball dropped to the stage without a string. Starlight showed the ball to a filly in the audience and they looked it over to see that there had been no string, when there was obviously one there a second ago.

“It seems that I, Trixie, have a challenger in the ways of prestidigitation folks!” The audience chuckled as I pulled my hat from my head, showed everyone there was nothing in it and then reached into it with a hoof. I quickly pulled a rabbit out of my hat and sat it on the stage.

“A classic, but let me do one that’s even harder!” Holding up her claw to the audience, she showed that there was nothing in her hat and even passed it into the crowd to look it over. After a minute of letting the crowd test the hat, she held out her paw and it was hoofed back to her by an earth pony. “Thank you.”

She forced her entire right arm into the hat, then much to the audience’s surprise she pushed the upper half of her body deeper into the hat and eventually disappeared inside of it. The hat eventually started to jerk about on stage until it flipped upright, then the hat lifted up and a grinning fox crawled out from under that hat and chased the rabbit off.

A minute later, the hat rose straight up with Kuril underneath looking vaguely disappointed.

“Sorry folks, I don’t know where the fox could have possibly gotten to. It would have been a pretty great trick to pull a fox out of a hat.” Kuril shrugged to the audience that was still staring at her with wonder.

A second later the rabbit, riding the fox, went by behind them on the stage and waved at the audience. The fox also stopped and waved, they took a bow, then darted off. Both Starlight and I looked to one another and then to the audience in disbelief.

“On to our next trick, it is the inescapable box of doom! I will now attempt to get rid of the magician that has been attempting to upstage me since she showed up. If any unicorn in the audience would like to come up here to make sure the box doesn’t have any magic on it, you may do so.” Quite a few unicorns took her up on the offer, they wouldn’t find anything though. The box in question was made of solid wood and was sitting on stilts. “Okay, now that the unicorns in the audience confirms that there is no unusual magic going on here, I will now ask that Kuril get into the box.”

“Hum Dinger would like a word with you about this.” It seemed like Kuril wasn’t too worried as to what was about to happen as she hopped into the box.

Closing the top of the box I nailed it down with a hammer, then pointed to my assistant who had a box of swords. She drove one into the box and we both heard a moan as something red dripped from the box.

“Are you okay in there?” I asked loudly.

“I’m fine, but could you make the next one a little higher please?” Kuril’s voice could be heard clearly. Starlight does so and another moan came from the box. More fluids dripped from the box onto the stage. “Oh yeah, that’s the spot… keep going!”

Several swords later, a few spears and one would think we’ve made cheese of the cat.

“Now to set the box on fire!” I did so much to the crowd's shock.

“It’s kind of nice and toasty in here, thanks for the hospitality Trixie!” Kuril said from inside the burning box in a completely lazy conversational tone.

Eventually the box burned away enough the weapons fell out and revealed… that there was nothing left.

A whistling noise was heard and that drew every pony’s attention to a firework exploding outwards into a smiling cat face in a shower of sparkles.

“So… how does the trick end?” Kuril asked from the back of the surprised crowd while idly munching on some popcorn.

-Kuril-

I snuck around the crowd as the fox and left my mirror clone to continue performing on stage, hooked the distracted leader of GODLESS up to the firework and then launched them.

As soon as I spoke up, a black and red pony freaked out and backed away from me.

I’d soon learn he was allergic to cats… including Abyssinians.

-Picnic tables, 7:23 PM Manehatten Park, Jade-

“Three, two… one.” The pony that had been suddenly launched skyward slammed down right on the chalk mark, they were completely covered in manure. “Hello there~.”

The mare sat up groaning in pain, then looked to me.

“You… you’re supposed to be dead!” The mare screamed as she backed away from me.

“The news of my demise was greatly exaggerated.” I had always wanted to say that. “Also, you’re surrounded.”

Her eyes went wide, as Flamberge studied his flaming sword, Velvet idly played with a floating bit of ice and Maries just grinned at her toothily.

She got up and tried to run off and stepped on one of the paperclip traps injuring her frog, I calmly followed after her small trail of blood with my friends.

We all witnessed her step on the banana peel and went skidding directly into Fortitude’s waiting hooves, the necklace she wore proceeded to shatter a second later and I smiled. That would be checkmate and the leader of GODLESS would soon be living her worst nightmare.

“Everything that’s happened to you today has been my fault.” I walked towards the struggling earth pony. “I would like to say that it’s finally nice to meet you face to face, but that would be lying… Miss Stochastic Labor!”

Author's Note

Well that wasn't a Wheel Twist at all...

Still healthy in the middle of a quarantine zone, sorry for taking so long.

Now the leader of GODLESS has been revealed.

Chapter Seventy, A “‘Normal’” Day: Where everything goes wrong...

-Manehatten Park, 7:34 PM, Jade-

The mare wasn’t going to get out of Fortitude’s grip for another twenty minutes or so. So I might as well explain what I’ve done today.

“While mom is busy finishing the show with Trixie, I’ll explain some things. This morning, Fizzle and I started off the day by making a lot of noise and making sure Labor here couldn’t get any sleep, her lucky charm decided to throw mobsters at us. Ms. Labor, deprived of sleep, eventually went to Hayburger to get her common order of a breakfast sandwich on rye.” I started off, the mare froze and stared at me with apprehension. “That’s when I had the ‘stay left’ monsters released, blunt force trauma hardly has any effect on them. So an Earth Pony will logically have problems with them and damaging them slightly is a bad idea, because tentacles. Your lucky charm helped you, but it requires something to work with. You earned a few scuffs and bruises until a unicorn comes along with the ability to handle the monsters, you earned his attention easily enough and he helped you… only for you to lose the remainder of your breakfast to a rye bread loving monster.”

“Then there’s what happened at the park earlier this morning… with all those fillies and colts and that cheese wheel.” Arizona stated with a look of awe in how planned out this was. “She was one of the ponies hit with the gum, cheese and tree sap.”

“Yep, the mare needed a drastic haircut after that… I gladly obliged in giving her a nice military buzz and shortly cut tail to match while disguised as a worker at the salon she frequents. I actually got my damage in before her lucky charm activated to have another unicorn take over cleaning the smell and gunk out of her fur, a high tier professional at that. It didn’t activate much because she wasn’t in any direct danger from being within the Cutie Mark Crusader’s splash zone.” Which explains why the mare’s mane was as shortly cut as her tail was, the thrashing mare growled angrily at me for this and Fortitude kept a strong grip on her. “Following that I launched myself across the city ahead of her and used a bunch of animal friends to force her into a trap where she was the pony we terrorized with a single anvil and a lot of illusion powder duplicates, her lucky charm couldn’t prevent her from getting directly hit with a potato cannon as it did with the anvil as she was at the very front of the group. Train whistles have the unfortunate habit of making her freeze up, due in part to some possible trauma as a filly. What her lucky charm did was bunch up a bunch of ponies to take any of the flak a falling anvil might cause from hitting the pavement and any time the anvil was launched directly at her it would veer off course as much as possible. I made sure to tag every other pony involved with the potato cannon with a water balloon, for reasons I will explain soon enough.”

“Then came the incident at the theatre.” Jacky muttered.

“Yep, our mare here is a noble, has lots of money and likes theatre… she probably hates anvils after what happened. I spent quite some time setting up all that heavy stuff. If the candelabra didn’t burn through the string entirely, then Blade would have had to do it manually with throwing knives. I wasn’t leaving much to chance with the lucky charm preventing that incident from happening to her.” I had Velvet there to make sure no pony got hurt. “I might have gone a little overboard, but I had to make sure her lucky charm was pushed to its limits. If you know your history Jacky, think about the Misfortune Malachite. The anvil hit her seat, she barely got out of the way of that and the three following safes, the piano cut her off and the ice on the ceiling crashed down nearly on top of her. The sixteen ton weight was just icing on the cake, the ice shards that hit her caused minimal injuries as far as the lucky charm would allow. Said lucky charm causes a general amount of constant good fortune throughout the day to keep her anonymous and protected from just about everything, except when it’s pushed hard. It protects its user from actual direct danger better than it does indirect and that wears down its ability to function when it does, thankfully it does not protect the wielder from astral projections or else no one would be able to know she’s the leader of GODLESS.”

“Do you seriously mean to tell me that she continued to use such a dangerous thing despite the dangers involved… and we just witnessed it shattering after she got blown up by a powerful firework while getting covered in manure.” Jacky looked worried for the mare. “Does that mean her luck is as bad is mine now, or is it possibly even worse because of the magical artifact shattering? We all know what happened to the Storm King after he broke the Misfortune Malachite, died at the height of his power thinking nothing could stop him. Only everything came crashing down for him… or I should say he came crashing down.”

“It’s not going to have an immediate effect like what happened to the Storm King, but it will soon have a visible enough effect and that will be completely critical to what’s about to happen here. That’s exactly what I’m counting on too.” I said mysteriously as I pulled my pack from my back and started throwing on some skating pads. My friends looked at me oddly as I pulled out my magnetically driven lightning skates, recently repaired and improved with pegasus magic instead of thestral magic for increased stability. Less chances of injury this time. “We did push her luck into being completely functionally cursed, and for that I’m only halfway feeling sorry for her. She’s getting what’s coming to her. So Miss Labor… why did you have to come after me? I wouldn’t have done what I did today if it wasn’t for you targeting me like crazy. I mean sending more than one assassin after me, it was a little bit much wasn’t it?”

“You’re a sun priestess, the chances of you not getting involved with my plans were low!” Stochastic was a rather caustic sounding earth pony. She probably should have been more worried about the Moon Priestesses that tore up her organization after they got a hold of that list of conspirators.

“So instead of making sure to not get me involved or even attract my attention, you decided to try and kill me immediately once you knew I existed. Right out of the gates no less.” I looked to my friends. “You see, this is not a sane mare and a pretty good reason for what I’m doing. The assassins let us know something was happening and Top Snide confirmed GODLESS existed. She wasn’t even among the ponies that Celestia was initially warning us about being out to get me. Don’t worry about those other ponies, they weren’t part of GODLESS and The Squirrels were looking out for me. Stochastic could have waited for those other ponies that wanted me out of the way, or could have even joined forces with them.”

“As if I would let you walk around for that long, you took out both Karats and Snide!” Stochastic growled at me angrily.

“Karats was accidental, but Snide was completely warranted.” I stated calmly.

“So what’s her story Jade?” Fizzle was watching the mare in Fortitude’s grasp like a griffon that has just had some gold stolen from them. “You obviously know more about this than the rest of us.”

“It all starts with Stochastic Labor, a mare whose special talent is basically to run a talent agency. As you can imagine, she has a really useful special talent for starting a conspiracy. She can pull talent from just about anywhere and understand how to use it effectively, basically she can hire ponies down on their luck to be minions for her organizations and since she’s a noble mare, she has the money to pay them with through a hefty inheritance. An inheritance which is lacking nowadays due to poor management.” I ignored the harsh glare being sent at me by a pair of grey eyes. Stochastic still struggled in Fortitude’s grip. I liked the Labor’s turquoise fur, but that’s about the only things that I did like about the mare. “So imagine a mare with a special talent for finding out how talented others are, she looked upon a goddess and saw something that drove her to becoming the mad mare she is. Basically she saw that gods were people too, that they weren’t perfect, and that they can make mistakes while having the power to be and do so much more.”

“Celestia has so much power, how can she go day to day not using all of that! She could have stopped the changeling invasion cold and yet she didn’t use enough power to save any pony and even let herself be defeated! Celestia could have even stopped her sister when she came back!” Screamed Miss Labor, still trying to shake Fortitude’s grasp or more likely his horrible stench given her violent thrashing. “No, instead we have a country stagnating at the hooves of a mare that’s been in power for the last thousand years and she’s not even using the full scope of her might to protect us! Instead she just keeps throwing us mortals at her problems, when they weren’t even ours to begin with! She and Luna defeated Sombra and then suddenly they won’t lift a hoof to stop him when they could before? Tirek escaped and caused havoc, they weren’t keeping him under constant watch and he’s the most dangerous thing to their rule! How did Tirek even become pen pals with Cozy Glow, who the buck allowed him access to stationary?! Chrysalis was even right under the nose of two goddesses, plus one goddess was foal-napped! The royal guard is an absolute joke and couldn’t protect anyone from danger! While they couldn’t have fought off Chrysalis, they should have at least been able to hold off her army! We lost a fight to a bunch of completely emaciated bugs! We don’t need ineffectual gods and goddesses to rule over us, they make us mortals weak, we don’t need them at all and they need us more than we do them!”

“You incidentally created a goddess… no make that two goddesses that exist in this day and age from just trying to assassinate Jade. I’m sure that Celestia would have happened anyway, if she had managed to convince Baast to help her while she was still Bennu.” Velvet’s commentary aside, she was correct. Stochastic had failed fantastically to do what GODLESS was meant to do and even helped create at least one goddess in the process. “Icky Dress certainly wouldn’t have come into existence without you Jade.”

“Yeah, I guess after tonight, we’ll be even then.” Glancing in the direction of the tables, I knew that the alarm was about to go off. I looked up to the moon high in the sky and sighed loudly, I clapped my hands and looked to my friends. “Well now, I’m going to put on my skates and prepare for the inevitable battle. I hope you guys are ready for it.”

“Ready for what Jade?” A bland voiced Gene asked with the faintest hint of worry, he grabbed at the spear across his back.

“Well I did say I would get back to the potato cannon thing didn’t I? So now is as good a time as any and before I do, let me correct Ms. Labor on a few things first. The stagnation was not caused by Celestia, it was caused by Discord overstepping his boundaries as the one who prevents things from stagnating and having to be punished. If Celestia had used the full scope of her power in a room full of ponies against Chrysalis, then they would have all been completely incinerated. Celestia wasn’t going to risk the lives of those ponies to win a fight using the power of the sun. Though she could have possibly created a secondary barrier to protect ponies from the heat, it isn’t a good idea to split ones focus in a magic fight.” After saying that, I became a bit introspective. “You are right about the royal guards needing to toughen up. Though the changelings had numbers, I bet ten changelings during the invasion could barely match a well-trained unicorn and half the royal guard is primarily made of unicorns from noble births that don’t take the job as seriously as they should. Some master race they are… I also agree that Tirek and Tartarus could have been watched better, because my loves were thrown in there by mercenaries without a trial. Not like Celestia wasn’t super busy reintegrating her sister back into society or keeping idiotic unicorn politics from hurting ponies from all trots of life, give the mare a break because she’s been at this for a long time and that’s the reason why she’s even stepping down now. She can’t handle that constant stress of having to perform up to everyone’s expectations anymore and deserves her break, she’s not some perfect all-knowing being even if she is a goddess. Now where was I?”

“Potato cannon and water balloons Jade.” Loudly muttered Fizzle as I finished strapping my skate’s to my feet.

“Oh right, well the potato cannon was loaded with Paprika’s fluff wad covered in concentrated poison joke. I tagged every pony that was touched by the stuff with water balloons filled with the cure provided by Zecora.” My plan was still going on even now. “I did not hit Stochastic Labor with the cure and she is the only one who hasn’t had the cure applied to her over the last eight or more hours since being infected with poison joke.”

“Meaning.” Maries’ three voices spoke out at once as they nervously glanced at Stochastic and started backing away from Fortitude.

“If you know what Poison Joke does or how long it takes to actively take on a specific effect, then the only thing you need to know right now is one thing.” I looked to Stochastic Labor as she gasped and started twitching slightly in Fortitude’s grip, I heard an alarm clock going off in the distance. “What is the exact worst possible thing that poison joke could to do to someone when provided in a concentrated form? Fortitude, let her go and shield up!”

Various eyes widened and all my friend realized what was about to happen, I got up and quickly skated away.

-Edge of Manehatten Park, 8:01 PM, Stochastic Labor-

I was dropped on the ground.

Why does everything burn so much… my head agh… what… what’s this on my forehead?! What… I also have… wings… growing from my back?!

No… NO… this isn’t happening… please, any pony, make it stop!

Make it...

I screamed and a wave of power erupted off of me, blasting away everything from me in an uncontrolled manner.

My vision tinted as I slowly slid my gaze towards the cat and all I knew now…

WAS RAGE!

Author's Note

Yep, Jade set it up so the leader of GODLESS became an alicorn… on porpoise no less.

Run Jaded, magic cheese!

Chapter Seventy One, GODLESS GODDESS: Escape.

-Edge of Manehatten Park, 8:05 PM, Fizzle-

“Jade, please tell me you didn’t plan to turn her into a real alicorn… on purpose.” Somehow, I should be angrier with Jaded than I am, but it was hard to be angry at the kitty that just gave me a bright smile and an affectionate looking shrug. “Well at least…”

“Hold that thought beautiful, got to go!” Jade sped away on her skates.

The earth pony, that was now an alicorn, continued growing in size and was glowing ominously.

While I was worried about Jade, I had to wonder about some things.

Was all that extra mass coming from magic? If not, where was it all coming from for her to reach Celestia size in a matter of seconds? She even seemed to be growing bigger than Celestia, does a history as a natural born earth pony have something to do with an alicorn’s size? How powerful could she be as a false alicorn?

The mare’s turquoise fur was standing on end and feral her eyes followed after Jade as she darted away.

We didn’t have any time to approach Stochastic Labor, given she leapt after Jade to give chase. She left behind a large crater in the ground just from the force of kicking off of it.

I bet Stochastic didn’t know how to use her horn or wings yet, we’d be fairly lucky if she never figured it out. If that form was fully viable, and given the raw magical power coming off the mare it was likely, then Jade better have a plan for how to…

A bolt of green shot off across the city in a high arc and the alicorn that had given chase roared out loud in raw fury.

I sighed in both relief and frustration. This was all going to end in pain, I just know it.

“Arizona, Velvet, Paprika, go get started on taking the threat down.” My orders came swift and I was taking charge of this situation. As annoying as Jade was with how often she got injured, I wasn’t about to let her get mauled or killed by the monster now on the loose. Not on my watch anyway. “Oleander, you’re their backup. If they get into trouble, pull them out of the way and get them to Dr. Bones at the rally point immediately. Jacky, Gene, try to catch up with Jade. Flamberge, Fortitude, Skelly, you’ll be the next in line to try taking the threat down. Sweetcakes, you will be responsible for pulling them out danger if they get into trouble. Maries, we need to find mom and prepare to face that magical juggernaut head on.”

My kitty better still be in one piece by the end of this night, or else Tempest Shadow was coming out of the closet.

-Jade, seconds prior-

I landed on the ballista, left skate in front of the right and already have my yo-yo palmed in my left hand.

Despite not being able to fly or use magic at the moment, Stochastic certainly had an increase in speed and strength already. That’s just on the basis of how far she could jump.

She was kind of terrifying to witness, but I already planned for this very thing hours in advance.

Hopefully no foals, fillies or colts were watching this, because this was definitely not how someone would safely use a ballista. Not that I had time to think about what I was doing with my life or how dangerous this could be if Flotsam’s aim was even a little bit off.

I launched my yo-yo, it struck the lever and the rope against my right heel thankfully only digs into the very light armored plating of the skate and not straight through it.

Not going to lie to myself, this very could have easily made me lose one or both my ankles and my ability to walk.

What actually happened was the special grind function of my skates activated immediately to accelerate me like I’m being fired from a cannon. Now I’m flying across the sky with lightning trailing behind my magnetically driven skates.

Behind me the ballista was destroyed within a second.

-Arizona-

You were really cutting it close there Jade, that also looked incredibly dangerous. If it worked, it worked.

I kicked forward off the ground, raised my right hoof back and then thrust it forward as I crossed the gap between us to ram it home into the left side of that mare’s face.

The mare only stumbled and flared her massive wings to regain her balance, then she turned her rage filled eyes towards me.

I spun around clockwise and launched a ‘Little Mach Lefter’ directly into her right side, she stumbled again while letting out a pained whinny and I blinked as she managed to stay standing.

The minor injury from the blast wound of my hoof hitting her side was starting to heal immediately.

“Regeneration, are you kidding me?!” Well, if I were to take an earth ponies magic and bump it up a few notches, it stands to reason that she could take a lot of punishment and would heal from whatever we could do to her.

My left hoof was already aching from hitting her with literal explosive force that breaks the sound barrier in a concentrated manner and all that did was stagger her.

This was not going to be an easy fight, especially if this mare was not restricted to earth pony power.

The mare launched towards me while I was distracted with my introspection and I heard a wince as Paprika suddenly appeared to block the attack meant for me and was sent flying into a building. She thankfully fluffed up before she hit the wall and she didn’t damage the building or get hurt too badly.

I ducked under a slow moving hoof, slow for me anyway, and promptly slugged the alicorn across the face with a nasty left hoof. Just staggered her again, she wasn’t quite up to speed yet and she was beginning to move more like Velvet and I did when we started fighting one another.

“Velvet, hit hard and keep hitting her even when she’s down!” This alicorn is just warming up and I didn’t envy what would happen if we couldn’t take her down quickly enough.

I darted forward and tried to hit her in the face with a straight right. She deflected with her left hoof and she grazed me with her right and then tried to stab me with her horn.

Dodging backwards from the pointy horn charged with magic. Feeling a chill, I rolled to the left and a giant hoof made of ice smashed down on the alicorn's horn and body. Said ice hoof had split entirely in half upon striking her.

Velvet then proceed to shoot several icicles into her chest and tried to freeze her to the ground.

Despite the attempts to freeze her solid, the mare just roared and the ice shattered as she loosed a beam of raw magic into the sky. Velvet looked to me in consternation and I nodded.

The damage from the sharp icicles that pierced her chest healed up pretty quickly, especially once there was nothing poking through her ribs and slightly into her heart and lungs.

The mare looked between us and went for me again without a second thought, only to receive a large hoof made of ice to the face. I followed up Velvet’s attack by leaping after and over her as she flew backwards while raising both my hooves above my head.

Bringing my front hooves down on her spine in powerful hammer blow between the wings, my rear legs went upwards to ram into her neck as I violently kicked off of her. The mare’s legs were driven straight into the street and her head snapped backwards, yet she looked completely fine after this.

She only looked slightly disgruntled by this and what should have been an exceedingly painful spinal injury. Both her wings swept forward and blasted both me and Velvet away with compressed air, felt like an entire building just slammed into us.

Both Velvet and I went sailing backwards until we both were stopped by a wall of softness that tenderly put our hooves back on the ground. Stepping forward, Paprika glared at the alicorn.

“…” Paprika waggled her rear end and stared at the alicorn threateningly with an aggressive posture, which was something considering Paprika usually doesn’t do threatening very often.

“Did Paprika just speak in ellipses?” Velvet muttered in disbelief, it was surprising because Paprika didn’t need the ellipses to be understood by us and she still bothered to speak in it.

Our opponent was currently busy ripping her hooves out of the street.

“Yep, she’s taking this one seriously. Just remember that this mare has some ridiculous regeneration going for her.” I tilted my head to the right sharply and after a nice clean snapping noise, I tilted it back up and dragged my right hoof against the ground in a threatening manner. “Let’s go!”

We charged the supposed leader of GODLESS, Jade just had to exacerbate the situation and drive it to madness. I’ve actually missed this kind of insanity dearly, I'm thankful Fizzle got Jade out of her funk somehow.

The alicorn lowered her horn and fired a massive beam, Paprika and I slowed while Velvet took the lead and made a snowflake barrier to deflect all that raw power into the sky.

The alicorn swept her wings forward as we continued our approach and I took the lead, I broke through the compressed air with my body by forcing my way through the blasts horns first.

The mare raised her hooves to attack us and Paprika suddenly took the lead and was hit by both her front hooves that sent shockwaves out upon impact with the fluffy alpaca. Paprika wavered backwards with the blow and then perform her favorite counter by slamming her head down on the alicorn’s skull sharply.

The alicorn was not only staggered by the blow to the skull, she was also too dizzy to do anything to defend herself. I leapt to the left and slammed my left hoof home into her right side again and then started to rapidly pummel her as hard as I could.

I managed a strike or two on her wings, but they seemed to flick out of the way of my blows and I could get off more damage by focusing on her torso. Her rate of healing was insane, the bruises I was causing were healing almost as soon as I made them.

Velvet came at her from the left with ice blade covered hooves and after the initial right hoofed slash, she started to rip into her from the other side. Velvet wasn’t having any more luck dealing damage than I was.

Paprika was not idle and was slapping at the horn and head of alicorn rapidly and randomly, she was trying to keep her completely off balance. She was keeping her confused while we dealt as much damage as we could and it was going fairly well.

The world froze for a second and then the alicorn started to react to all of our attacks, I could hardly follow what happened next.

Her right wing suddenly wound itself around my right hoof stopping me cold, her horn went to the center of Paprika’s face and blasted her backwards. With a flick of her wing, I was suddenly digging a furrow in the street until I slammed into Paprika.

I had enough of my senses together to watch as the alicorn’s left hoof block Velvet’s right leg, then she hopped back and slammed forward into the right side of our reindeer's face. This launched Velvet towards us, she would have shot over our heads if Paprika hadn’t caught her with her fur and prevented any further injury.

The alicorn dazedly started to trot towards us and the pure fury in her eyes was still quite clear, a flickering circle of darkness suddenly erupted from the ground and launched her skyward.

“Magical Fel Spark!” A beam of darkness struck the launched alicorn and blasted her down the street, Oleander came up to us with Fred floating loyally at her side as usual. “Are you alright?”

“We’re fine, but we might need a few seconds. Paprika just took a nasty magical blast to the face.” Grumpily grousing this out, I watched as the alicorn launched herself right at us.

Oleander quickly wrapped her hooves around us and inhaled as the alicorn got closer in slowly motion, I could feel the raw hatred as she was about to strike us all down with a glowing hoof.

“Bamf!” Oleander shouted and a cloud of smoke erupted around us and we were suddenly somewhere else. We fell onto the nearby rooftops and watched as the alicorn struck the ground with impressive force to create a twenty foot wide crater. “My goodness, she is quite powerful.”

“She’s just overcompensating for something Ollie, BUT SHE IS PRETTY POWERFUL!” We rolled our eyes at Fred.

We watched as the ‘alicorn of wrath’ lit her horn and sent out a pulse that seemed to filter throughout the entire city.

“What do you suppose that magical pulse was?” Asked Oleander as the alicorn below us suddenly turned to look in a specific direction.

“If I had to guess, I’d say she was…” Velvet started to say, then the alicorn leapt away across the whole city without even using her wings. “Using a powerful locator spell to track where Jade is right now. Check us in with Dr. Bones, then we can get right back into the thick of it Oleander.”

“Right, hopefully Gene and Jacky can temporarily handle the problem.” As she stated this, Ollie pointed out Flamberge’s group already on the move. “Bamf!”

In another burst of smoke, we appeared next to Dr. Bones and she immediately made her presence known.

“Alright, who’s got the worst of it out of you idiots?” The doctor dog asked.

Paprika spooked us by suddenly screaming.

“…!” Whined out Paprika, as she fell over clutching her head in agony.

Dr. Bones immediately started checking her head.

“I too feel like a donkey cart full of lead hit me dear, don’t worry I’m sure we’re fine.” Velvet stated calmly, we had certainly hit that alicorn hard.

“Your wife is not going back out there… her skull is badly cracked in three places.” That was a scary bit of news, also Dr. Bones was business as usual. “What was the nature of the attack that did this?”

“Uncontrolled magic blast, almost point blank to the face.” Velvet answered as Dr. Bones checked Paprika over. “She also took a blow for Arizona and performed her head smash counter.”

“Definitely not in fighting condition, the mare only hit her two times and she did this much damage?!” There was an incredulous look on Dr. Bone’s face, understandable considering Paprika was ridiculously tough.

Dr. Bones came over to me and checked me over.

“Light bruising, left leg moderately bruised and burnt from throwing an attack at mach speed… also were you hit with an entire building?” No Bones, more like an alicorn with incredible power in her wings.

“Try highly compressed wind, three times worse than the strongest hurricane you can think of.” Yeah, no kidding Fluff Butt.

“Ah.” Was Dr. Bones answer as she quickly checked Velvet. “You two are still good, but be careful.”

Author's Note

It begins.

Since we're on the last few chapters I'm going to try to make them as good as possible, the world is kind of messed up right now.

Still, I hope to finish this story with a month or two.

Chapter Seventy One, GODLESS GODDESS: Backspace.

Author's Note

The fight continues.

[My Hero Academia- Jet, Set, Run!]

Chapter Seventy One, GODLESS GODDESS: Backspace.

-Rally Point, Medical Tent, 8:24 PM, Paprika-

“…” My wives already went back out there, their injuries weren’t pressing enough to keep them here, I still worried.

“If you have to follow them, then stay out of the way of any fighting.” Nodding in understanding to Dr. Bones as I sipped at a healing potion, it was only making me feel better and it wouldn’t actually deal with the fractures in my head. Healing from this was going to actually take some time. I reminded myself of how badly those cannonballs rattled my brain, only this was a serious injury and far worse than that. “Absolutely avoid taking another blow to the head, because it could kill you!”

“…” Despite the pain, I gave her my best determined look.

With the bandages wrapped around my head and two white streams flowing in the wind, I nodded.

-Manehatten Square, Jade-

A wave of magic rippled across my fur harmlessly, I looked in the direction that magic wave had come from.

Did Stochastic just use a spell that can detect me anywhere in the city?

I was in the middle of the empty intersection of Manehatten’s most famous thoroughfare. Looking up at the sky I saw a speck coming in my direction at an insane speed.

Yep, she did.

Even if I was already in motion, I wasn’t going to get out of Stochastic’s way in time. Time slowed down and her hooves were about three feet from impact.

I was hit from behind and suddenly I was a good twenty feet down the street with a pair of arms wrapped around my waist. Needing to keep my balance, I placed my lifted skate on the ground.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw Jacky was pushing me along and the roar of her jetpack sounded pleasing to my ears. Her majestic feathers were spread out wide, she sighed loudly and there was a weak grin on her beak under the goggles over her eyes.

I looked behind us and saw what the impact crater looked like and I didn’t want to be within fifty feet of that mad mare after seeing it. Stochastic, the alicorn of imminent death, flexed her wings and turned towards us.

She leapt into the air and actually started to shakily learn how to fly after us.

“Tell me you have a plan.” Jacky screamed as the alicorn started giving chase and became a bit faster, she was at least keeping us in sight.

“I do, but I need to survive for the next three hours to pull it off and I might have underestimated just how powerful she’d actually get.” Which was going to be hard to do with a murder happy alicorn on my tail the entire time.

Jacky jerked us to the right, I wondered why she did that and then a magical beam of energy shot by us at rail gun speeds.

“Sixth sense for danger, please don’t fail me now.” Jacky muttered with a hint of fear and I was right there with my jinxed sister. Stochastic had definitely learned how to fire raw power from her horn and neither of us wanted to be hit by that. “Keep going Jade, I’ll hold her off!”

“Jacky, wait!” My sister let me go and I kept going forward on inertia while she shot up and spun back to shoot towards the alicorn.

I started skating as if my life depended on it, it probably does and I needed to put some distance between me and that monster.

-Jacky-

I shot towards the alicorn and pulled out the sabre at my right hip and frowned at the alicorn, I slashed her across the right side as I passed by her while avoiding a wind blade fired from her left wing.

The alicorn just let out a howl of rage and continued after Jade, I immediately flipped over and shot by her left side and slashed out her wing.

That forced her to face plant into the ground and I heard my jetpack entering cooldown. Darn it all!

Getting close to the ground, my pack stopped and I dropped into a roll on the street heading towards the alicorn.

I narrowly avoided getting my head taken off by her right hoof. The other hoof came up in a way that I couldn’t possibly avoid, it move towards my head and I could see my life flash before my eyes.

Why was every single horrible thing that has ever happened to me the first things that comes to mind before I die? I would have preferred reliving all my happier memories thank you!

The left hoof was suddenly slammed down into the street by a spear in a splash of blood.

“Jacky, please be more careful.” Gene state calmly as he came down on the spear with full force and firmly pushed it in deeper with his right claw and pinned the murder-corn’s front left leg to the street.

The alicorn roared and swung her right hoof for his head, but my Gene wasn’t called ‘The Swift Reaction’ for nothing.

He ducked under the swing and his left set of talons flashed out and raked harshly across the right side of her face and eye in an exceedingly painful looking manner.

The alicorn let out of howl of pain as she flinched backwards, her left eye focused on Gene as her horn started charging up magic.

Gene kicked off the ground and pulled his spear free and twirled it around to build up momentum and smack the underside of the alicorn’s horn straight up. This sent the powerful blast that Stochastic had been charging harmlessly into the sky.

She tried to move towards him, but I was already in motion and slashing my sword up her right leg. She flinched and tried to back hoof me. I leapt back and stylishly twirled around her left hoof coming for me and slashed up the left side of her neck, then I quickly backed off.

Her wings swung forward and loosed two visible blades of wind at us, I presented a smaller profile and used a rising slash from my right hip going up and to my left shoulder to cut through it safely. Gene to my right did the same with a downward swing.

We weren’t ready for the follow up attack of a massive wall of wind struck both us and sent us flying down the street. I lost sight of Gene as he slapped into a wall, I came to a stop on my back in the street.

The alicorn kicked off the ground coming at me with her wings spread wide her bloodied hooves aiming to smash my skull in. All her injuries were already healing right before my eyes and speaking of eyes, the damage Gene did to her eye was already fading away.

Come on, come on… I really needed my jetpack to be operable right now. I froze as those deadly hooves were within an inch of my eyes.

A loud clang rang out and the alicorn was suddenly knocked onto her back after taking a sudden anvil to the face.

I looked over my shoulder and saw a finned hoof in the distance waving at me from the sky, I smiled slightly and then the jetpack started whining. Flotsam just used as a saving throw… in as literal a sense as one could get when it comes to the saving part.

Good thing too because, Labor was already getting up from the anvil by rolling onto her hooves. I was already on my feet and I pulled out my other sword and held them both at the ready. My right sword held up in front of me defensively and my left one at the ready for an attack.

“Want to dance?” As foolhardy as I was acting, I was scared out of my wits and the first thing I choose to do is challenge a freaking alicorn that just nearly took my head off. It’s all quite clear to me now… I’ve gone insane. “Then let’s dance!”

I was under no illusion as to how strong Stochastic was physically after seeing her wings and horn in action. She wasn’t taking my sister and Captain away from me again!

She came at me and in a blink the jetpack burst me forward and past her, her right hoof was where I was a second ago. Her glowing grey eyes widened, I left a large bloody X in her chest as I passed her by.

She bucked out, two explosive burst later and I shot by her again slashing up her right hip and ducked under horn swinging for me in the middle of my second burst. She swung her wings around to send a volatile mass of building wind at me, only for Gene to suddenly arrive ram his spear into her left hip.

I darted forward and with a clockwise spin I slashed both my swords across her face. While one sword ripped through her right cheek, the other dug into her neck while she was distracted.

Stochastic kicked out with her left hind leg and Gene flapped backwards avoiding the kick, but made a small mistake and couldn’t avoid her left wing launching a vacuum blade into his wings at that range.

He grunted as his wings were shredded by the wind and he lost quite a few feathers as he fell to the ground, he caught himself on his spear and propped himself up to avoid more pain.

While Stochastic’s left wing was doing that, her right wing extended forward sharply and I blocked the spear of air with my right blade.

My sword shattered in my right hand sending bits of it into my arm. The force of the wind spear also sent me flying. With a quick blast of my jetpack and a flip, I managed to right myself and land without much injury after skidding a foot or two.

I tossed away the handle of the broken sword and switched stances to a fencer’s pose, the alicorn swung her right hoof around at Gene.

Gene blocked the attack with his spear’s shaft and launched him into a nearby wall breaking his wings and possibly his back, judging by the way he was struggling to get back up. Stochastic was going to lunge for him while he was down.

Two bursts from my jetpack and I was in front her and shooting forward. I jammed my sabre straight up to the hilt into her chest, right through where I knew her black heart should be.

I quickly let go of my sword and blasted backwards towards the wall above Gene as she tried to smash her left hoof into me me while roaring in pain. A huge section of the street was ripped up by her attack and a portion of the wall to our, Gene and mine’s, left.

I just stared in disbelief that she was still going despite having a sword burrowing through her chest and was likely going past her heart and into her barrel. I landed in front of Gene and looked to him, he gave me a grim frown.

Yeah sword through the chest and she was about to lunge for us again anyway. I wasn’t going to abandon my husband, no matter how much he was telling me to do so with his eyes.

The alicorn surged forward and I was prepared to take the blow, only for Gene to surge in front of me and take a bone crunching blow to the chest that knocked us both back into the wall again.

The alicorn didn’t get off scot free, as Gene had slashed a hole in her throat with his spear. Said hole didn’t seem to bother Stochastic all too much.

Gene coughed up a wad of blood from his beak, I gave him a worried look as I ran my digits over his neck lying in my lap.

The alicorn lunged again…

“Mach-it Launcher!” That was Arizona’s voice. A large comet shaped oval of bright orange burning energy rammed into the alicorn from the right with explosive force and redirected her forward momentum through the wall at our right. I immediately started dragging Gene towards Arizona, as the rest of the building collapsed inwards to implode on top of the alicorn sending dust into the air. “Yes, finally managed a…. dang it my leg!”

I approached Arizona while lifting Gene over my right shoulder, she was gritting her teeth and holding her broken right leg. How hard did Arizona punch the air to do that?! Better question, was Arizona alright? It didn’t look like she could handle the force of that particular technique quite yet.

“I think… I broke a few bones in my leg doing that and my whole body is numb except for my leg.” Tears sprung from Arizona’s closed eyes, she opened them slightly and managed to smile brightly at us. “Still worth it though! You guys doing okay?”

“Thanks Zone… I didn’t exactly want Gavin to become an orphan, can you carry him?” The hurt look I received from Gene was heartbreaking.

“Tch, Gavin wouldn’t become an orphan unless that alicorn managed to somehow kill everyone in Airship Mauled!” Without actually addressing me, she lifted Gene from my shoulder and moved him to be across her back with her left hoof. “I’ve got him and I’ll get him back to the rallying point for medical treatment, Velvet will catch up to lend her support soon. Do you think you can keep that ‘Alicorn of Wrath’ off of Jade by yourself?”

“Yes.” Despite not having a weapon and being woefully outgunned by the raw muscle that the alicorn had, I seriously doubted dropping an entire building on said alicorn would really stop her for long, I was still willing to fight. “I can at least slow her down.”

Arizona started to prepare for a jump.

“Wait… Jac… ky…” Gene croaked out, making Arizona pause. He held out his spear out to me with his left talon, my Viking certainly had quite the death grip on it to still be holding it like that. I nodded and as soon as I took hold of it, he released it into my care.

He looked me in the eyes, telling me to come back alive. I nodded to Arizona and she used her three slightly better hooves to leap away. I turned back to the collapsed rubble that used to be a building holding the spear tightly.

A beam of light ripped its way towards the sky, a large pulse of magic spread outwards, then the alicorn burst out of the rubble and started flying in the direction Jade was likely in.

I launched after her to give chase.

I considered what I had to do to slow the alicorn down. Hole in the neck, sword through the chest and still ridiculously powerful.

Coming to a stop, I hovered in place and put the prongs of Gene’s spear into the jetpack’s flames.

She didn’t see me approaching, I was gripping the spear near the head in my left hand as I jammed into the base of her left wing.

Reaching around to her chest, I grabbed the handle of my sabre.

With a quick burst from my jetpack, I twisted around sharply and swung my sabre upwards.

After amputating her left wing entirely, I followed that up by blasting Stochastic in the face with the flames from my jetpack.

Chapter Seventy One, GODLESS GODDESS: Ctrl.

-Rooftops, 9:13 PM, Jacky-

Looking at my red stained sabre, I sighed, putting the sword away I held Gene’s spear close.

My eyes snapped opened when a wave of magic continually pulsed outwards from within the city.

Right, I temporarily blinded Stochastic. Apparently, despite all the damage I did, she was already on the move again.

I was proven correct a second later when I saw the alicorn leap by my position. From what little I saw in the moonlight, the stump I created wasn’t growing back as quickly as the rest of her.

I’ll be there to help as soon as I can Jade…

The section of roof I was sitting then decided to be a complete butt and collapse me into the middle of a shark tank full of rabid looking sharks, said shark tank was also inside a room that was currently on fire. The alicorn blood on Gene’s spear also wasn’t helping this situation in the slightest.

The aforementioned fire spread to the top of the water as soon as I splashed into the tank, so the fire was likely an oil fire. So breaking the tank might cause the whole building to catch on fire faster.

Oh joy… I probably should have taken mom up on the water breathing. If only I wasn’t so proud of my ability to hold my breath underwater for ten minutes.

Holding Gene’s spear protectively, I silently dared the sharks to come and get me with my gaze.

-Inside Manehatten Coliseum, stands, Jade-

I sat in one of the seats in the stands, I took a gulp of water from my canteen and was currently taking a breather.

Only I wasn’t going to be able to rest much when I heard a noise and flinched.

“Jade, thank goodness we’ve found you in good health friend!” Flamberge, I had never been so happy to get something close to tinnitus from the obnoxiously loud dragon than right now. He, Fortitude and Skelly came up to me, I could also see Sweetcakes skulking around too.

“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant.” Fortitude stated conversationally.

“Define good health Flamberge, I’ve just skated across the entire city and I’m about to be attacked by a murderous alicorn again.” Some would even say I deserved this. I’d agree wholeheartedly, I’m the one that caused this. Learned my lesson, no more ironic punishments that makes a nemesis stupidly powerful. “I need some time to catch my breath and I seriously doubt that...”

The ‘Alicorn of Murder’ came flying through the wall of the stadium, she smashed through quite a few seats before coming to a stop on her hooves. She looked to have been completely messed up by both Jacky, likely working in tandem with her husband Gene.

She had drying blood all over her turquoise colored fur and her head no longer had any hair on it and said hairless skin was an angry red color. I hoped none of that blood was from my sister or any of her family.

“She’d let me rest.” I finished flatly.

Ms. Red Skull sent out another series of magical pulses and she turned her head in my direction.

-Flamberge-

Fortitude took position in front of us as I gripped my sword’s handle, Skelly readied her axe and we faced down the injured and healing alicorn.

We might be able to do enough damage to capture her, though her left wing seemed to be slowly coming back from being cut off entirely.

“Keep her from sending out any more of those pulses, or at the very least keep her attention off of me for a minute so I can get away!” I nodded to Jade as that didn’t sound too difficult to do.

It would prove only easy in thought when the alicorn lunged forward and sent Fortitude flipping backwards over all of us with a blow from her hoof slamming into his readied shield.

Fortitude surprisingly managed to stick the landing and then got in front of Jade. I didn’t think my brother was particularly acrobatic because of his size, but sometimes life surprises you. It certainly surprised our group plenty of times.

Jade immediately scrambled to her feet and started to skate away, when the alicorn leapt for her.

“Will do Jade!” I lunged forward to intercept the alicorn, I pulled my sword out at an incredible speed only to have it deflected by her horn after her ears twitched slightly. I landed and took a few steps back to avoid being skewered when she tried to stab me with it. She had adapted fairly quickly to being blinded. “All those eldritch abominations we’ve fought have prepared us for stuff like this!”

I stepped forward slash from right to left, stopped halfway into my swing and then pulled back and swung upwards through her chest and neck. She was obviously not a combat specialist as she didn’t see my feint coming.

The cauterized scar I left on her started healing over instantly. Fire wouldn’t stop her from healing, though I noticed her left wing’s healing had slowed down immensely.

I narrowed my eyes as she launched her right wing forward and I blocked the spear of wind with my sword’s edge, my scales handled of the rest of the attack as it split off evenly to both sides of me.

A dragon of my caliber wouldn’t be hurt by such attacks.

“Skelly, we need to damage the other wing! Sweetcakes, stay well away from her and assist us where you can! Fortitude, hit her as hard as you can whenever you can!” I stated as I darted forward and she deflected my next three rapid swings, her horn shot forward and scraped across my right shoulder making me bleed slightly. “She’s tough enough to survive the use of excessive force!”

Her left hoof quickly slammed into my chest knocking me out of the stands and into the field. I curled up and rolled until I came to a stop in a crouch, my left claw planted in the grass, my right holding onto my burning sword tightly.

I spread my wings to fly back up, but then paused.

A second later the alicorn herself was hit by Fortitude ramming into her left side with his shield, the alicorn looked to be in a lot of pain from having her wing stump smashed. She bounced several times and eventually came to a stop near me whinnying in pain.

My brother could be stealthy when he wanted to be, in spite of his smell and size being detrimental to that sort of thing.

I lunged forward and brought my sword down in a two handed swing, she flicked her horn upward and deflected it. I struck out two more times from the left and right, my sword wasn’t doing too much damage or getting by her horn.

She followed up the last deflection by trying to push forward and spear me, only she got an axe slashing her across the right hind leg slowing her down and making her stumble.

The alicorn lifted that leg and bucked outwards. Skelly was knocked backward, her axe taking a majority of the blow.

I charged forward and tried to slash at the alicorn and with a short pulse of her horn, she deflected my next blow and slashed me across the chest lightly cutting into my scales.

She went to pulse her horn again, but it seems she was preparing a much larger one. She lost her concentration when Fortitude hit her from behind sending her flying over my head.

I lashed my sword upwards and scored a nasty hit along her spine before she hit the ground with her back burning slightly, Fortitude and Skelly formed up with me.

The alicorn grunted and slowly stood up, her eyes had been shut the entire time and now she was tightening them for something.

I don’t think she was going to be blind for much… she finally blinked and opened her eyes. They were now glowing silver and she could see again, which wasn’t good news.

I held my sword steady and inhaled slowly. I was a bit tired from using my flames so much today, but in this case we absolutely needed the fire power.

We all moved at once.

I swept forward and swung my sword upwards, she blocked it with her horn and I stepped back as she fired a point blank blast that was deflected by Fortitude’s shield that knocked us both backwards.

Skelly managed to scratch the alicorn’s left shoulder and jam her axe halfway into the inside of the alicorn’s right leg, then her entire form became wrapped up in magic.

The axe was ripped out as Skelly was forcefully levitated away and we watched as several of Skelly’s bones become cracked as if she were under a significant amount of pressure.

I moved forward to attack while the alicorn with a blast of flames, I then lashed out with my sword. In response, the alicorn reflexively launched Skelly into a wall while in what looked to be immense amounts of unheard pain.

Skelly wasn’t moving and I had managed to damage the alicorn’s right wing. While I didn’t manage to get it close to the base I did basically almost cut it in half, as the wing was now hanging limply.

The alicorn started to thrust her bleeding right leg at me only to be smashed by an angry Fortitude ramming into her shield first, she went flying across the stadium and was embedded into a wall.

“Our friend is quite hurt, I will mend her injuries, focus on that mare!” Sweetcakes was already pulling Skelly from the wall, half of Skelly’s skull was broken and there was no light in her eyes.

Skelly looked… if Sweetcakes thought she could help Skelly… I’d believe in my kitsune’s ability to help her.

I took my eyes off of our skeletal friend and the beautiful fox, then turned to the alicorn prying herself out of the distant wall.

I looked to Fortitude and he nodded, we charged forward. Fortitude was leading the charge with his shield.

Several blasts of magic hit the shield and bounced off of it, then Fortitude was lifted into the air by her magic. I surged forward and smacked the alicorn’s horn making her drop him, I saw a tiny crack in her horn and went to strike again and she seemed to speed up all of the sudden.

After Stochastic avoided my sword entirely, she became a blur. I felt the blow of her hooves ramming into my face several times and then she hit me in the belly sending me sprawling.

She leapt for me and was met by Fortitude where she was rammed into the wall with brutal force, Fortitude kept pushing her against the wall and was pinning her there with all of his strength.

He was forcefully grinding her thrashing form into the stone wall with his shield, the wall eventually became damaged enough that it gave way and she managed to free herself long enough to knock the shield upwards and landed a blow to my brother’s skull that staggered him.

The alicorn would have hit him again, but didn’t get the chance to when a shard of ice jammed itself into her left side.

Velvet came flying in, quite literally. The reindeer was kicking off of the air at several odd angles while avoiding the several blasts of magic that the alicorn suddenly directed her way. Said alicorn also kept knocking Fortitude back with her hooves.

Dodging another blast Velvet suddenly delivered a flying buck to the right side of the alicorn’s face and leapt away before the alicorn could retaliate.

While the alicorn was dazed and looking slightly confused, Fortitude and I capitalized on this.

Fortitude grabbed the edge of his shield and swung from his right into the left side of the alicorn’s face, she was even more staggered and dazed from that blow.

I slashed her across the left flank and was met with a world of pain as the left hind leg rammed upwards into my face.

Stumbling backwards groaning, I fell onto my back. I think that blow to my head might have been too much, because I was seeing multiple copies of Velvet.

“Brother, are you okay?!” After Fortitude helped me onto my feet, I could see it was not actually my imagination.

“I think so…” I stared at the spectacle going on nearby.

There were several Velvet’s made of ice their hooves ending in icicle blades. They were following Velvet’s movements seconds after she performed them one after the other.

Velvet was staying in the air and hammering the alicorn from all sides with her clones.

The clones did not seem to act by themselves, except for the odd one that looked like it was being controlled by Tinsel. That was likely what was making it seem like they were all smart.

Either time slowed down or the alicorn sped up again, because in the next second Velvet was gripped by magic and slammed back first into the ground with a painful crunching noise.

All the ice copies seized up immediately, except for one that immediately jumped into the path of the alicorn firing a magical blast at Velvet.

That ice clone shattered and I was proven correct as Tinsel went tumbling right into Velvet’s floof, she clutched onto the little guy and curled around him protectively as the alicorn approached.

“Brother!” I only needed a single word, Fortitude immediately charged forward and slammed his shield into the alicorn’s side, yet they stayed standing this time.

Her hooves were strangely wreathed with dirt.

A pillar rock sent my brother upwards, the alicorn then gripped my brother in her magic and swung him around to send him flying into the stands.

She turned back to Velvet, I spat a fireball at her face and she hit me with a blast of magic.

I’ve never felt so much pain in my life before this, I also think one of my legs was broken now and my scales were burning.

My vision was blurry, it cleared somewhat as something soft lifted me into the air. I watched as Velvet fired two ice shards into the alicorn’s chest before she was upon the reindeer.

Velvet took a nasty stomp to the belly and head, afterwards the alicorn's next three attacks were held back by Tinsel creating a snowflake barrier.

A wad fur wrapped tightly around the attacking alicorn’s head, yanked her into the air, and then slammed her into the ground with enough force to shake the entire stadium.

Paprika ran forward to carefully scoop up both Velvet and Tinsel.

She looked in our direction and then towards the alicorn before leaping away, she narrowly avoiding getting a magical beam to the back of her head.

Oleander appeared in the stands to grab my brother.

I was quickly being carried away by Sweetcakes as another magical pulse went throughout the city.

-Rally Point, minutes later, Fizzle-

“If we’re all here…” I trailed off after Paprika reported in to me with Velvet’s unconscious body. “Then… who is protecting Jade right now?!”

-Jade-

Something hit the streets in front of me and knocked me over, I looked up into pair of malicious eyes.

I scrambled backwards as Stochastic stalked towards me, her left hoof came at me with lethal intent.

"How about..." A large metal hoof to the face stopped the alicorn cold. "No."

Chapter Seventy One, GODLESS GODDESS: Alt.

-Manehatten, Shopping District, 10:15 PM, Jade-

“You?!” I couldn’t keep the disbelief out of my voice, the large mechanical pony shaped vehicle now stood over me protectively after knocking Stochastic back from almost plowing her hoof through my skull.

“Why of course, I loathe to have been working below a mare all this time without at least some form of recompense.” Teatime Clockwork was actually helping me? “I had thought a stallion was behind the whole GODLESS thing, but it seems I was sadly wrong. Let us hold her off for the time being, you get rest. I will be a stallion of some worth and note in a world run entirely by mares!”

A malicious treasure hunter that was in it for the recognition was saving me, I had no idea how to feel about this or his motivations for coming to my aid.

Wait, did he say ‘us’ as in…?

“Welcome to the battle for we’ll all be flocking, because nobody gets the drop on you like Jock Hawk when he comes knocking~!” A bulky parrot dropped from the sky to stomp on the alicorn’s spine. He promptly kicked off of her and she stumbled a bit.

What exactly was Stochastic currently made of to still be going with as many injuries as she had?! Did I seriously make her that mad or is this her running on pure spite now?

Stochastic went for the parrot and she was hit by a crescent beam of light, it dug into her chest and sent her skidding down the street with explosive force.

“We shall prove to still be standing after this battle my comrades!” Dispel Grace, in all his gaudily armored glory. I thought he was unlikely to help me considering how much I shook the jar with him in it for the fun of it.

Stochastic growled and charged for him now.

“This might prove to be a good enough fight… for me!” Shocking Awe slammed down onto Stochastic’s flank, he clamped onto her and unleashed a massive amount of lightning from his body. “Here, let me share a billion volt hug with you to get you all warm and fuzzy!”

Stochastic screamed and convulsed, eventually she managed to slap him off of her scorched backside with her half working right wing. Afterwards he body seemed to lock up, Shocking actually managed paralyze her.

“You better make this a fight worth coming to!” Shocking Awe was as described, bloodlust incarnate when it came to finding good fights. He was hovering in the air and his hooves were crackling with lightning.

Teatime’s machine stalked forward while Stochastic was paralyzed and raised back its right hoof, he slammed it forward. It had a built in pile bunker that erupted at the point of impact putting Stochastic through a building in the distance.

“You are not going to defeat my rival’s friends and family, because that’s my job!” Teatime seemed rather indignant about this. Did the unicorn even recognize the fairly large conflict of interest here? “Now if only I could remember her name. Bah, all that matters in the end is that she definitely remembers mine!”

He really couldn’t remember Jacky’s name? I sighed audibly and hugged myself. I’d seriously think he’d be able to remember Jacky by now, I mean my sister split his airship in half with a drill by accident. How in the world was that not memorable enough for him to remember her name!

Still, it felt nice to be saved by a bunch of fellows with questionable ethics or life choices. A pulse flowed through the buildings, but it was coming from my…

I threw myself to the ground and Teatime’s machine went tumbling over me and away with the sound of a hoof smashing into the left side of his machine.

It tore through the front of a familiar looking clothing store where it came to a stop with an imprint of a hoof in it, I was already up and moving away from Stochastic.

While the machine slowly started to roll itself into a standing position, an alicorn with a lit horn was already leaping for me. She was almost ignoring everything else to get at me, almost being the key word here.

I felt a hand wrapped around my right shoulder and toss me away before the alicorn could blast me with her horn. After I rolled I looked back at the damaged street and saw Jock staring at the alicorn with his beak set firmly, his arms were crossed and he was standing at the edge of a crater looking completely unimpressed with her.

Jock started forward and I got up to move behind Dispel who was building up energy in his bulky zweihander.

I watched as Stochastic did something she hadn’t been doing the last few times I saw her, she actually dodged around a sphere of lightning launched from behind at her by Shocking.

She actually dodged, the fact that she might be actually using her brain was concerning. Only Jock caught the ball of lightning and physically slapped it against her head as it turned back towards me.

I hadn’t even seen Dispel move and looked up to see him coming down with his sword in an attempt to cleave Stochastic in half after she was knocked onto her side.

Rolling onto her back the alicorn caught the glowing blade between her hooves. Her left rear hoof smashed upwards into Dispel’s armored barrel, thus launching him onto a nearby building still clinging to his sword.

I took this as my cue to leave.

-Jock-

“She’s running.” I muttered grumpily crossing my arms as the cat skated away, while Shocking took the alicorn on one on one. The boss was awesome in how he struck out at the alicorn fiercely.

“As she should be, let’s give her all the time we can.” Teatime had his machine moving forward, there was no longer an imprint on the side. “She obviously still has some kind of plan in motion and I want to see it fully come to fruition, we’ll vacate the area once we’re done seeing what the cat has in mind to ultimately deal with this problem she dragged us into.”

“Technically, you dragged us into this, we could have sat on the sidelines doing nothing.” My commentary didn’t warrant a response apparently.

I heard Shocking grunt and saw a large cut carve across his left side by the alicorn’s horn, it’s time to help my stallion out. I jumped onto a light pole, pulled myself up on it and then leapt for the alicorn’s back.

I came down on her barrel and wrapped my arms around her, I noticed Dispel was still getting his bearing from being rattled around in his armor on the nearby rooftop. He was almost ready for another go and I had to give Shocking time to back off. You have to give the tiny guy his due, Dispel had guts.

Once I had a good grip on her rear half I held the alicorn in place and nodded to my partner, Shocking broke off to build up some power and I lifted the struggling alicorn bodily into the air.

“Get ready for us all to take a pound, because I’m going to personally take mine by ramming you into the ground~!” Crouching down slightly, I jumped as high I could. We spiraled upwards and flipped to come back down spiraling even harder.

I drove the mare’s horn, skull and the front half of her body straight into the street. Landing next to her rear end, I smirked proudly.

There that should keep her for a… I received a pair of hooves, one to the face and one in my chest.

Might have blacked out there for a minute, because when I opened my eyes again she had already ripped herself out the ground. She was currently attacking Dispel and I watched as he slammed the full weight of his sword into her horn.

Do I have a hoof imprint in my chest? Yeah, that’s going to hurt for a while.

She blasted Dispel point blank and I spied a crack in the horn near the base. Dispel’s armor was intact, but the shockwave from the blast had to hurt as it sent him bouncing up the street. I saw that small crack before so I know Dispel didn’t cause that, though it seemed both of our attacks just made the damage there a bit worse.

The leader of GODLESS was in quite a bit of pain from just using her cracked horn. Speaking of cracked, I rubbed at my poor beak. I pushed myself into a standing position, Teatime was taking the front now.

The back of Teatime’s machine lifted upwards and it fired several small cannonballs. After hitting and sticking to the alicorn, those sphere’s turned out to be several filly sized pony golems, they were stabbing at her and crawling around on her body.

I started to move in as did Teatime while she was busy tearing them off of herself violently with her hooves and her half functional right wing.

Looking to the slightly stormy sky, I could see Shocking was halfway finished into building up a massive orb of lightning, he was going for his ultimate attack. I was ready to assist him in making sure the alicorn got hit.

Teatime’s machine didn’t have speed, but it had durability as it got in front of the alicorn and then put up its hooves to start taking a pounding from the angry alicorn. Carefully watching for a moment to intervene as I moved off to the right a bit, I decided to rush in and punch at one of her kidneys.

Something happened, it was like she sped up or something, or were we all slowing down? She wrapped her hoof around my wrist and imbedded me back first into the street, she followed that up by dodging a pile bunker blow from Teatime’s machine aimed for her burned head.

She moved forward and thrust her right hoof against the extended weapon, which went back into the machines with destructive force. Something was smoking afterwards and it didn’t look good for Teatime. He immediately went back on the defensive as she pummeled her hooves against the metal of his machine and left deepening dents with every hit.

“I can’t use the hoof weapons anymore she’s damaged the legs too much and I only have three support type golems left. Note to self, work on support golem storage…” Speaking of golems, Teatime fired one onto the mare’s back and it started hacking away at her right wing taking her attention of his machine. The little golem was destroyed a second later when she got her left hoof on it and ripped off her back and crushed it under that hoof. “Make that two more, we can’t hold out much longer. I might need to prepare one of my exit strategies early, if I have to fire my special weapon then I will have to sadly tap out.”

“You leave us behind and we’ll be quite pissed about it Teatime!” I turned my sight to the sky and saw that Shocking was almost done. Of course I had to get up and keep going, why wouldn’t I? I pushed myself into a sitting position and then quickly laid back down as a crescent beam ripped off the rest of her mangled right wing and ripped into her withers.

The mangled alicorn immediately turned around and used the back of her left hoof to knock the sword out of the way of hitting her. She then thrust it forward and destroyed the helmet with a single solid hit, thankfully that’s not where Dispel currently was in the armor.

The armor with the glowing energy in the shape of a pony’s head tried to move only for the alicorn to fire beam through the central torso evaporating it. The alicorn was in agony from this, but Dispel couldn’t take much more armor loss without being found give his energy form was still going he was in one of his armors legs.

She hopped forward and stomped down on the two front remaining bits of armor and then Dispel started to retreat with, she wasn’t going to give him a chance when she suddenly stop and seemed to speed up again.

Her right hoof went up grabbed Teatime’s next golem before it could strike her and threw it back into the head of the golem, then grabbed the machine’s right hoof trying to punch at her without its weapon and flipped the entire thing onto its back. Thankfully I had already exited my crater, before an even bigger crater was formed there and the machine took a massive amount of damage.

“Darn it, I knew it! She has the rare ability of earth pony foresight!” As Teatime was yelling this, I engaged to try and grapple her. I hit her across the face with a mean right hook and then threw an upper cut into her jaw to stagger her slightly. “She’s taking us apart, where’s Shocking with that attack of his?!”

“Clear the area, Jock grab her now!” I followed my boss’s orders and pressed my chest against hers and forced her into a painful bear hug, she flailed her head to smack me in the face several times with her horn.

Shock nearly didn’t throw his orb as he was struck by a powerful beam of magic, the glowing Dispel with his rear hoof bits of armor started heading in the direction of Shocking to go retrieve him leaving me to hold onto the alicorn.

I was too close for her horn to cut me and the sphere of raw energy was about to impact us, he rear legs slammed into my legs and crotch. She was increasing her struggle, then Teatime’s machine hugged the both of us.

“Come on!” Teatime open his window, I released my right talons grip and reached up to grab his hoof. “Activate self-destruct sequence and escape plan Gamma!”

With a blink we were half a mile away as one large explosion went off, then it was followed second later by a massive one of raw energy.

“Do you… do you think that did it?” I asked before my injuries caught up with me and I coughed a wad of blood onto the street. A pulse went throughout the city.

“No… I don’t believe it did…” Were the last words I heard from Teatime as I felt his magic lift me up.

-Near Rally Point, 10:45 PM, Jade-

The pulse sent throughout the city made my pulse quicken, no… please don’t tell me she managed to escape a blast that powerful.

Stochastic appeared in front of me from out of nowhere and before I knew it her magic was wrapped around my throat and choking me, she was squeezing my throat as hard as she could and I could feel the magic working to take my head off.

A powerful blast of magic smashed her in the right side of her head knocking her over and Fizzy trotted forward with an angry look on her face.

“You will keep your magic off of my cat or so help me...” Well Fizzy was radiating anger, I wouldn't point out that we weren't married yet. The other cat was Mara of the Maries Triumvirate, which are not solely feline. “I will be the one to absolutely break you!”

Chapter Seventy One, GODLESS GODDESS: Delete.

-Manehatten, 10:46 PM, near Rally Point, Jade-

I felt vaguely safer as Fizzy’s magic pulled me to her side and she held me close while glaring at Stochastic. We were near the slope that would get me to the bay, which was perfect for my needs.

“Fizzy, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but she has Earth Pony Foresight. When it kicks in you’ll know, because she starts dodging everything for a few seconds.” Then I decided to tell Fizzy the really important bit. “That and I think she just learned how to teleport instinctively.”

“How long do you need Jade?” Fizzy kept her eyes on the devastated alicorn that was slowly approaching us. She let me go, moved forward and widened her stance protectively. “Bring it on… I need my payback for all those sleepless nights!”

“I’ll draw her away when I need to.” There was some concern from me with how strong Stochastic was. “Just do what damage you can.”

“Gladly!” Fizzy stated before she charged forward.

Fizzy went into a slide avoiding the left hoof swing for her head, her left rear leg came up into the alicorn’s jaw and then her right rear leg rammed into her throat.

Stochastic stumbled back a bit, then tried to stomp on the unicorn.

Stochastic missed as Fizzy twisted into a clockwise spinning windmill maneuver slapping the right side of her face twice before stopping her spin to launch a buck to the chest while flipping onto her hooves

Fizzle then hit Stochastic in the barrel while she was airborne with a powerful blast of raw magic that sent her rolling, she disappeared in a flash.

Fizzle turned towards me with a worried look as I heard the telltale pop of a teleport, I immediately dove to the side and Stochastic’s horn scraped across my shoulder. I gasped as a trickle of red seeped through my fingers.

Stochastic turned to follow me, only to receive a knife to the left hock. She grunted and her horn still managed to track me and fire a blast, the rail gun speed at which the blast moved would have been impossible to dodge at this range.

After having reflexively closed my eyes and not experiencing any sudden pain or untimely detachment from my body, I opened them and saw my mom with her staff planted in the ground a fair distance away.

The alicorn fired another blast and it veered off in a sharp angle for mom’s staff which glowed brightly and she leaned away slightly while holding her hand out towards it.

Seeing that magical rail gun to the face wasn’t going to work she tried to jump for my with the intent to either gore me on her horn or break me in half with her bare hooves.

Too bad she took a sabre tiger pounce from the right, Mara’s weight staggered her and the sudden force of two large fangs and various teeth puncturing her spine had to hurt.

Stochastic bashed Mara off with her right hoof, then was hit by a blast of fire to her left flank once Mara was clear of the alicorn.

Adding onto the damage, Maria suddenly slammed her sharp horn into Stochastic’s left side with a powerful lunge.

Maria hopped back and did flipping leap over Stochastic’s left hoof and blasted her in the back and other side with a continuous stream of fire.

Maria quickly backed off before Stochastic could attack with her right hoof, that’s when Fizzle came in and slammed her with a nasty left hoof right into the alicorn’s temple right temple staggering her again.

The alicorn made a surprising recover and was about to hit Fizzle with her horn.

Only to have a pair of lovely venomous fangs sink into the left side of her throat distracting her, my favorite snake followed up with a tail whip her in the right eye making her roar in pain.

Marie quickly unhooked her fangs and flipped away to rejoin with Mara and Maria, she timed her release so well that Stochastic reflexively smashed the left side of her face with her own hoof.

When I said do as much damage as they could, they were taking me seriously. I quickly added to the staggered alicorn’s injuries by launching my yo-yo at her glowing horn. It struck with a painful cracking noise, then she teleported away.

I looked around warily with Fizzle and Maries, but didn’t see her coming at me. Hearing my mother scream, my blood chilled.

Looking down the street, my mother was on her back and her staff was quite a bit away from her.

Mom tried to roll away from Stochastic, she was launched into air when Stochastic struck the ground with her front two hooves to create a massive shockwave.

Several pillars of stone erupted around and over the staff and one popped up beneath my falling mother, the alicorn lit her horn while turning towards the spike.

Mom was knocked away from landing on the jagged bit of street by Blade swooping in, but she still landed with a painful sounding yowl as she rolled across the ground.

Blade swooped down and slashed Stochastic across the muzzle trying to damage her left eye and quickly evaded the several blasts of energy that chased her upwards. The thestral continued to evade several shots with narrow misses sending tufts of fur or hair flying from her.

Stochastic was learning how to rapid fire her horn, not good when each shot was as powerful as the first.

I started moving towards Stochastic to draw attention away from them, with Fizzy and Maries following me.

Blade looked towards us and then towards mom as she ducked into an alleyway while signaling something to the thestral, she then proceeded covered her ears.

I stopped and covered my own when I saw the dodging Blade inhale deeply, I barely noted Fizzy moving in front of Maries in the corner of my vision to create a barrier that didn’t look very solid.

This is the first time I’ve ever heard Blade’s voice, if an angry screech counted. Said screech made the entire area shake and caused windows everywhere to shower either the streets or the insides of the buildings themselves in glass.

I could see blood dribbling from Stochastic’s ears as she stumbled dizzily, there was now a visible crack in her horn. Blade voice was ridiculously powerful if it did that to her horn, I was already in motion for her and I started pushing myself forward.

I leapt up and kicked both my skates at her horn. The horn was knocked upwards and with the horn going between my wheels, it set off the skates grind function and launched me upwards.

I launched my yo-yo upwards, as I dropped back towards Stochastic.

“Orbital Drop!” I swung my left hand downwards and whipped the yo-yo into her horn at the crack with the force of my downwards momentum and that of the yo-yo.

I flipped forward twice striking her two more times with the yo-yo and followed up with a painful axe kick to the same spot. Up to this point I had been playing mostly keep away and staying out of the fighting, but I was feeling fairly vindictive at the moment.

A small chunk of bone actually flew off of her horn when the back of my skates connected and the crack was even worse now. I kicked off and rolled away from her while reeling my yo-yo back towards me.

Looking towards mom, I saw that Blade toss another knife into Stochastic’s front left leg’s knee joint and then proceeded to help mom out of Stochastic’s line of sight.

I skated a small distance away while thinking about how powerful poison joke was when concentrated, Discord certainly put effort into making those flowers.

Despite the various things we just did to Stochastic, she was still standing and she just forcefully bucked a pouncing Maries through a building’s wall a fair distance away. Maybe even put them through the entire building.

Stochastic then proceed to dodge Fizzle’s next several up close blazingly fast and confusing break dancing attacks that I wouldn’t have been able to follow much less dodge.

The messed up alicorn did so with with relative ease despite her balance being completely shot thanks to Blade’s screech and every other persisting injury she currently had.

Fizzle quickly backed away from Stochastic before she could capitalize on her most recent evasion of dodging a twisting right upper hoof going for her jaw. Stochastic charged her horn and fired it almost point blank.

Fizzy stood her ground and her stump flared as a white barrier of magic blocked the beam and it splashed off it harmlessly.

She then narrowed her eyes at something I clearly didn’t see from my position, she tried to get closer to Stochastic who suddenly stomped her hooves.

Several spires of rock erupted from the ground near Stochastic to push Fizzy back, but she disappeared and reappeared within a second to thrust her hooves under Stochastic’s front legs to bring her into a hug.

When Fizzy had a good grip on the alicorn, who seems to have lost her foresight around that time and seemed to be confused about the show of affection, she forced her broken stump against the cracks in Stochastic’s horn.

“Hope this hurts worse than when it happened to me...” Fizzy stated coldly, I could barely hear her say that in a level tone.

What followed was Fizzy’s horn erupting with power, I was blinded for a moment and raised my hands in front of my face.

After blinking the spots out of my eyes, I saw that the two bodies had went flying away from each other.

I looked to Fizzle and saw that her horn was undamaged by whatever magic she had just done, looking towards Stochastic… I blinked.

I could see a bit of Stochastic’s skull under the burnt flesh and there wasn’t much of the horn to left to even be called a stump. The mare laid there with shrunk pupils and a silent scream on her mouth, after a moment she blinked and she tried to stand up.

Fizzy groaned and looked up at Stochastic slowly, but surely enough, was getting up.

“Bucking…” It was one of the words I heard Fizzy mumble to herself as she shakily hoisted herself up onto her hooves. “Put… everything….”

“Is she even conscious?” I muttered as I noticed the shrunken pupils didn’t expand, her body seemed to be moving with a will of its own as it jumped forward and slammed Fizzy in the chest knocking her down.

She moved over to Fizzle and raised her left hoof, Fizzy quickly rolled away and was launched into the air by the force of one hoof striking the ground.

Fizzle slammed back first into a spire of stone and Stochastic was right on top of her, without thinking I raised my right hand and fired a magic missile where the sun shouldn’t shine.

“Hey it’s me you want, leave her alone!” At my words and attack the mare just grunted and turned around to look at me blankly.

Her pupils, instead of expanding, slowly turned into bright glowing silver slits. That was creepy on a number of levels. What came next filled me with a complete sense of horror, As if having a murderous alicorn coming after me wasn’t horrifying enough.

In a shower of blood two bony structures sprouted from the large nubs on her back, with leathery membranes between them as they spread out. I think she just grew thestral wings… why did she grow thestral wings?! She opened her mouth and her teeth went from flat to slowly becoming sharp and pointy. What turquoise fur she had left, turned a much darker color and her exposed skin started to turn an ashy purple color.

“Oh my goddesses… she’s actually going nightmare on my ass…” I started to slowly stumble back and away from the thing that I had so bravely attracted the attention of. At least it wasn’t on the Fizzy, who wouldn’t have been able to defend herself from the next incoming blow.

There was now a very tiny cone poking out of her forehead, at least even she couldn’t grow back her horn. Whatever was left after Fizzle decimated it was what made up the tiny jewel like spot on her head. The injuries were still there, which only added to the suddenly paralyzing visage.

This was the monster I was staring down, she started to slowly trot towards me ignoring Fizzy, who was also paralyzed with fear.

I had to go…

Now…

Come on legs, work damn it!

I managed to tear my gaze away from the nightmarish alicorn and started to stumble into skating towards the nearby slope, I didn’t want to look back.

Definitely knew she was coming for me, my adrenaline was likely why I was picking up speed so quickly.

Soon I was moving as if my life depended on it, because it certainly did and I still needed to lure her towards the location!

-Top of the slope, Rally Point, 11:23 PM, Arizona-

Darn it, I should be out there protecting my friend. I just had to throw my spine out throwing a concussive blast of pure physics with my hoof, didn’t help one bit that I carried Gene back afterwards.

Jade skidded into the intersection below us and then she shot forward down the slope, a large beam of magical energy burned the tip of her tail slightly as she shot down the hill like…

My eyes focused on a dark shape rising up in the night sky, spreading its draconic wings. Storm clouds started gathering and the figure swooped after Jade at an insane speed. My medical bedding was soon moved into the tent as rain started falling.

Holy… bucking… me… is that the same alicorn?!

-Slope, 11:25 PM, Jade-

Tail singed, ouch.

Don’t think, keep going.

I leapt at a cabbage cart as a pair of bladed wings hissed through the space I just occupied, my left shoulder had a cut that wasn’t there a second ago and I grinded along the handles of a cabbage cart and leapt off it with the gained moment to skid along a wall.

Just react, don’t stop for anything.

I need to reach the bay, get to the spot, then get into position and stall.

How am I supposed to stall that?!

I don’t have time to think or plan for this eventuality, need to think on my…!

Dropping onto a rickshaw on the street, I narrowly avoided a tight beam slicing vertically through the building.

I used the edges of the rickshaw’s roof to boost myself forward and dropped back into the center of the street and just moved to the left without thinking.

The tip of a wing passed by the right side of my throat I reached up and felt something wet spill onto my fingers.

Pushing myself that much harder, I veered toward a large building's wall on my left and moved out of the path of a beam sweeping down the street from behind me.

I leapt up on to and rode the relatively smooth wall with the same beam chasing me.

After kicking off it, I instinctively went for my griffon feather and jumped again in the air.

The nightmare alicorn zoomed underneath me as I twirled while kicking out my legs.

Chapter Seventy One, GODLESS GODDESS: At the end of the day...

-Manehatten, Slope to the bay 11:26 PM, Nightmare Rage Vs. Jade-

A flash of lightning struck out towards the sky, rain was falling in a storm and two figures seen in the flash could be seen crossing each other’s paths in the air.

Jade struck the wall of the building on the right side of the street after narrowly avoiding the angry nightmare pony we'll call Nightmare Rage with a dot for a horn and razor sharp bony wings.

Upon reaching the corner of the building she was wall riding, Jade kicked off the wall and went skates first through one of the many windows destroyed by Blade’s screech and into an office building.

Crashing bodily into tje office, Jade bounced off the cushioned chair and smashed the nearby door open with her right shoulder while trying to maintain her forward momentum.

A horizontal beam ripped through the wall behind Jade making her stumble away from the doorway as it started rapidly moving towards her. She pumped as much speed out of her skates as she could.

Looking to her left Jade saw Nightmare Rage was having problems turning her head while she was flying sideways trying to catch Jade in the beam.

Jade jumped up and the beam swept underneath her, then it came back her way and she slid under it. She then started to dart left and right to avoid the rubble from collapsing roof that was threatening to crush her, bits of it struck her head, back and shoulders as she made her way for the holes at the end of the hallway.

Nightmare Rage flew to catch up and began firing rapid fire blasts of energy that trailed after Jade and were getting closer to the cat by the second.

Jade crouched down upon getting close to the end of the hallway and looked towards nightmare. She leapt for the window and towards a first floor girder in a construction site as the roof collapsed inwards on itself behind her.

At the same time a second Jade seemed to have bud off of the first and leapt to the side out a different opening towards a confused Nightmare Rage. She swung her left arm out and slapped Nightmare Rage across the face with a wide swing of her yo-yo.

In response the Nightmare Rage sped up and slashed at Jade with a wing. Only to meet air when the second Jade dispersed into motes of light before Nightmare Rage could hit her.

Jade, having put some distance between them, leapt off the girder having grinded along it to build up speed and landed on back the sloped street. She soon ducked under a girder that rammed into the street at an angle in front of her.

Nightmare Rage flew up and then twisted into a sharp dive. A glow started building up on her head, she got into chasing position where she fired a beam at the street and pulled her head back sharply.

Jade skipped to the left sidewalk to avoid the beam and the flying chunks of the street being ripped up and swiftly took a carrot dog cart to the lower torso that made her yelp loudly in pain.

Flipping her onto her back, Jade went skidding down the center of the rain slicked street on her elbow pads and the heels of her skates. Her tail was barely staying off the street and her elbow pads were quickly wearing away.

Jade rolled to the right and avoided several sharp spikes of earth from where Nightmare Rage nearly smashed her skull in by striking the sidewalk with what looked like the barest of taps. The painful scrapes she took from doing so hurt quite a bit and it wasn’t a second later before the alicorn was on her again.

Jade grit her teeth and then she found herself being pushed up onto her skates by a second Jade kicking her between the shoulder blades.

The second Jade quickly fired a magic missile over her shoulder that did little to slow down the incoming mare.

The first Jade quickly gained her balance and then started pushing herself forward and then she leapt onto the edge of the sidewalk and started to grind along it to pick up speed.

The second Jade spun and was sliding down the slope backwards, she ducked under the left wing swipe of Nightmare Rage. She tossed the yo-yo up and it wrapped around the base of the mare’s right wing.

With a sharp yank Nightmare Rage slammed into the street face first and the second Jade stomped her right skate down on her head.

Any fur Nightmare Rage had on her belly, throat, chin and parts of her legs was quickly disappearing due to road rash from the friction of being forcefully dragged down the slope at high speeds. She slung her right wing forward and the clone Jade immediately dispersed. This allowed Nightmare Rage to kick off the ground and take to the air again, she began to fly after Jade who managed to put some distance between them.

Jade leapt from grinding the sidewalk over the street with a quick twirl and into the port to start moving towards a large number of cargo containers.

Nightmare Rage growled and flickered, but couldn’t manage at teleport thanks to the damage Fizzlepop did to her horn and all the flicker had done was speed her up. She roared in frustration as she caught up to Jade jumping up onto the edge of a smaller cargo container.

A large cargo container immediately levitated and slammed into the one Jade was on and she leapt over and away from it, a second cargo container was slammed down in front of her and she barely veered out of the way.

Looking above her as several shadows sailed overhead, Jade eyes went wide as multiple cargo containers came at her from all sides. She darted to the right as a cargo container came at her from the right, it hit the ground, bounced and then was caught in a magical aura and flew right towards her back.

Jade pushed forward to avoid two dropping on her from above and then veered hard again as another one slammed down in front of her coming from the left. She went into a slide to avoid the one redirected back at her and then she leapt and curled up to go over a contain sliding along the ground at her.

That’s when another a container with both ends open came at Jade.

Unfortunately Jade uncurled at the wrong moment and slammed roughly against the inside wall of the container and was carried with it as it went flipping end over end with her inside. When it came to a stop Jade groaned in pain and tried to pick herself up when she heard an ominous creaking noise.

Clone Jade, with the same grimace on her face that the original currently had, immediately popped into position.

She grabbed Jade’s right hand, pulled her into a standing position and then took a strong grip on her arm with both of her hands as the container began to crumple around them.

Swinging Jade around, the clone released her and sent her sliding out of the container and then dispersed. A pressure wave of the container finally imploding sent Jade sprawling into a roll and she looked back at the container and winced at the sight.

A flick of her ear and Jade was quickly rolling to the left and was launched forward as the cement of the port was shattered by Nightmare Rage slamming into the ground where Jade used to be.

Flipping end over end in the air out of control, Jade righted herself with a mid-air jump before she hit the ground and was skating for the edge of a nearby pier. She leapt onto it and avoided another chasing beam of raw magical force as she grinded along the edge towards the sea.

Jade looked at a large shadow in the distance, wiping at her fur and hair that were wet with the heavy rain. Lightning flashed sporadically and the wind was blowing harshly. Jade's body was not only being battered by Nightmare Rage, but by the storm as well.

The Abyssinian’s night vision was particularly good as she could see the shadow moving through the darkness and the rain coming for her wings spread wide ready to deal a deadly blow from behind. The cats breathing was uneven and one could see the palpable amount of fear on her face as her injuries were mounting up.

Jade shot off of the pier and onto the choppy waves of the sea, she immediately tapped the unused hourglass at her waist and sped up as soon as she hit the water.

Nightmare Rage followed and wasn’t hindered by the weather at all, she was most likely the cause of it. A bolt of lightning nearly struck the Abyssinian making her fur stand on end as her legs rapidly pumped to keep her above the waves that threatened to pull her down.

Jade was having problems with keeping her balance on the water as it was not flowing in any single direction or was calm like a lake, the turbulent seas threatened to swallow her as a wave almost crashed down right on top of her.

The waves became less of a problem as Jade’s acceleration quickly picked up and it kept her ahead of the various crashing waves and more importantly the deadly alicorn aiming another lightning bolt at her backside.

A quick follow up beam of magic glanced off of Jade’s left hip making her hiss as she kept pushing herself through the turbulent rolling waves, all while kicking up sprays of water in her wake.

The cat turned and veered to avoid several powerful blasts of magically aimed lighting from the storm that lit up the entire area and hurt her eyes, she had barely managed to stay on her skates and not fall over into the sea from. There were also blasts of magic that were highly inaccurate and weak beams of energy that swept through the waves trying to knock the cat down.

Nightmare Rage’s eyes narrowed as she backed off and studied the direction Jade was heading with some minor hint of intelligence before she shook it off and went back to mindlessly attacking the cat.

There was a large pony shaped shadow coming up quickly for Jade and she looked behind her, then jumped to the top of a forming wave barrel and started to push along it.

Jade looked a little surprised that her grind function was activate as she kept pushing and she zoomed straight toward the island in the bay well ahead of the Nightmare Rage with a weak grin on her face. Proud that she had made it this far.

Leaping off the rough seas onto land, Jade's hourglass shattered upon impact with the ground getting bits of glass in her right leg as she shot by several bushes heading towards the statue, she grinded on the rail between the steps leading up to the building beneath the statue and came to a stop.

While she caught her breath, she looked above her at the smiling mare holding a giant stone slab in her left hoof and in her right hoof a stone torch. It was the statue of friendship and harmony, Liberty.

A force slammed into the ground behind Jade knocking her off her feet and launching her towards the base of the giant pedestal, she quickly reached into her pack and pulled out the gunbai and pointed it upwards while looking above herself.

Nightmare Rage gave the gunbai a dispassionate look as she stalked forward and was about to take advantage of the cat’s inattentiveness, only for Jade to swing the gunbai downwards and nothing seemed to happen for a moment.

Leaping forward Nightmare Rage covered half the distance she had knocked Jade, when something massive slammed down on her entire body.

Liberty’s slab just flipped itself out of the mare’s left hoof and crushed Nightmare Rage.

Jade exhaled in fright and squeaked slightly as the end of the slab had landed an inch from her face. She slowly stood up and looked at the slab wondering if that stopped Nightmare Rage.

The huge stone slab shook, small cracks spread throughout the center of it and Jade immediately skated around the side of the building.

Another shake and a larger crack formed, a third shake and the entire slab had cracks running throughout it. With one final push Nightmare Rage erupted from the slab decimating it entirely into a pile of pebbles, rock and rubble.

A short magical pulse went out and Nightmare Rage’s head immediately turned to the right to see Jade waiting for her at the corner with her right arm hidden behind the corner. She immediately charged, she fired several blasts of magic which the cat dodged while trying to stay in place.

Nightmare Rage smiled at the fact that Jade was no longer running, she seemed to be in fact waiting for her to get into striking range. She gladly obliged as she drew back her left hoof and swept both her wings back to herself launch forward while preparing to strike with them as well.

As Nightmare Rage’s hoof swung forward, Jade smirked and hopped backwards revealing her right arm stretched a fair distance away. With the snapping sound of a rubber band, Jade shifted her hips about and brought burning fist forward to collide with the left side of Nightmare Rage’s face launching her out to sea.

Afterwards Jade, screamed out in raw agony for next ten seconds and it was hard to tell that she was crying in the dark night and thick rain as she clutched at her right shoulder. Her right arm looked mangled, it was now bent at several unnatural angles.

Like a rubber band, Jade had stretched her arm too far and she was now paying for it.

Stowing her rubber chicken away in her pack with her left hand, Jade moved towards the pedestal's entrance clutching at her right shoulder while gritting her teeth.

Jade looked up at Liberty’s pedestal as she skated towards the entrance facing the sea and jumped onto the rail leading up the stairs. She had a death grip on her right arm as she shot up three sets of hoof rails rapidly in succession until she stopped at a door.

Looking around for something, Jade closed her eyes and kicked out with left foot and wince as the wood cracked, she pulled back her leg and kicked again. The splintered outwards and it's fell most of the way off it's hinge.

Jade skated out of the entrance to the base of the statue’s rear hooves.

Jade reached back into her pack and looked out into the storm for a shadow figure, not seeing anything as she pulled out a book like object.

Then she noticed a loud noise of something that sounded like a mass of rushing water and turned to see a huge tsunami building up and at the top of it was Nightmare Rage acting as a force of nature unto herself, probably using the peak of what Pegasus magic could do.

Pulling back her left arm, Jade heaved the book like object at the left rear hoof of the statue and it sunk into it.

Slowly the massive giant of stone, art and symbolism, shifted and then lowered its body and head to look at Jade judgingly.

“I’m sorry for doing this Liberty, statue of friendship and Harmony, but please… help me protect the city from that tsunami and stall that nightmare for at least a minute or two. I beg of you, I swear I’m sorry about what happened to your slab!” The statue lowered its head to Jade while closing its glowing eyes, it slowly smiled warmly and held out its left hoof and motioned for Jade to get on it. “My sister might be mad at me after this, but it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

Quickly acquiescing to her gentle request and hopping onto the offered hoof, Jade was lifted up and held to the crown on the statue’s head. Once Jade was safely inside the crown, Liberty opened her eyes and turned to glare at the alicorn creating a city destroying tsunami of water.

The wave started to roll forward at the current height of Liberty’s neck, the statue took up a golf swing position with the torch held in her right hoof and she narrowed her eyes at the wave.

When the wave was about to destroy her island, Liberty two rear hooved steps forward off her pedestal and swung her stone torch in an upwards arc with both hooves.

The entire waved dispersed by collapsing in on itself and a figure flew upwards having been hit by the giant stone torch’s upward swing.

Liberty raised the giant torch shaped mace high above her head and brought it vehemently down on Nightmare Rage’s small form, smashing the mare into the ground of her island.

Liberty kept pressing her weight down on the torch to keep Nightmare Rage under it, the torch shuttered violently several times and didn't seem to be taking damage.

A glow started to cover the torch and moved up Liberty’s right hoof, the magic started to wrap around and encase her whole body. The statue took its left hoof off the torch and held it up to the crown with a sense of urgency.

Liberty turned and lowered Jade back to the pedestal before the magic covered her entire form.

What followed was the most disturbing show of strength Jade had ever witnessed, as Nightmare Rage lifted Liberty and proceeded to throw her with the most impressive use of levitation ever displayed. Thankfully Nightmare Rage tossed Liberty out to sea instead of at the city, the sorrowful looking statue’s glowing eyes could be seen as she disappeared over the horizon.

Jade just stood there at the top of the pedestal staring in horror with her ears dropped in shock, she quickly started backing up and fell onto her butt trying to think of what to do next.

That's when Nightmare Rage landed on top of the Liberty's pedestal with her.

Those silver slits were promising to end Jade’s life this night, but the mare was notably missing her horn entirely. There was only bits of bone with skin slowly growing over her bleeding forehead, she didn't seem to be able to use magic anymore. Her draconic wings were also hanging limply at her side and they looked to be a sickly grey color. That meant Nightmare Rage couldn’t fly either, the only way she could have gotten up here is if she jumped.

Nightmare Rage was weakened, but she wasn’t beaten, her muscles flexed and she started to slowly approach Jade with a limp.

Jade pulled out her yo-yo and tossed it down and pulled it back up, it slapped into her left hand. Adding to her show of bravado, she growled at Nightmare Rage and flicked her tail angrily.

Jade wasn’t looking too hot, but neither was Nightmare Rage and they moved to attack one another at the same time.

Jade rolled to the right and slammed the yo-yo up into Rage’s chin, then brought it down on the healing wound on her forehead to make her whinny in agony.

She stumbled dizzily and Jade got in close to start kicking her face as hard as she could, suddenly Rage sped up caught Jade’s left leg in the middle of a kick for her neck and twisted it.

Jade spun to the ground and her face slammed into the cement face first. Blood, snot and tears spilled from her face, the only sound of pain that escaped her lips was weak mewl. She rolled out of the way of a right hoof slamming down to create a crater into the stone flooring sending cracks everywhere, but it didn’t cause a shockwave.

The Abyssinian screamed in agony as she had to roll over her broken arm, through her tears she launched the yo-yo for the mare’s throat.

Rage’s left hoof came up and caught the yo-yo, said yo-yo grinded against her left hoof for a second and then stopped spinning entirely. The mare slammed her right hoof into her left and the yo-yo splintered into broken pieces.

“Do you have any idea…. how long it took me to get Marie and that image of a top hat right?!” Jade ignored the pain she was in as she unhooked the string from her fingers, her eyes flared in anger. She roared and used her right foot, her left leg seems to have become badly sprained, to jump forward and slam a left hook across Nightmare Rage’s face.

Nightmare Rage actually staggered and she tried to retaliate only to get dazed even further by a sharp backhand, Jade popped her claws and swung them downward shredding through Nightmare Rage’s right ear and her face.

“She looks adorable with a top hat!” Jade screamed as her tail wrapped around the mare’s front right leg, Jade kicked her in the chin with her right leg balancing precariously on her pained left.

Nightmare Rage flipped onto her back and Jade proceeded to straddle her and started to rapidly punch and claw her face and front legs with her left arm.

After several nasty blows, Nightmare Rage raised her right hoof blocking Jade’s next attempt to claw her. With a swift thrust of her left hoof to Jade’s chest, Rage sent the now yowling cat bouncing across the empty pedestal.

A whimpering Jade tried to get up, but she was too broken and beaten from that last hit. Being alive was agony at the moment and Jade was just struggling to stay conscious, she could see that Nightmare Rage slowly walking towards her.

“You know… I’m glad I wore protective gear today, saved me at least some agony.” Jade said while gasping and clutching at her chest, she was a mess and Nightmare Rage wasn’t any better. The only difference here is that the mare was still mobile.

Nightmare Rage didn’t respond and kept walking towards Jade.

“Do you think you’ve won? Do you even think anymore? I honestly can’t tell.” Jade coughed and bled on the stone as the rain poured around the two combatants, Jade shifted her neck and fired a tightly compact spray of blood slammed into Nightmare Rage’s left leg.

That had effectively hobbled Nightmare Rage judging by the snapping sound from the impact.

Nightmare Rage, continued to walk with a three hoofed gait.

Jade looked to the sky and saw a single clear patch where the storm currently wasn’t raging, she could see the stars and a sparkle appeared in her eyes. A smile tugged at her lips, she tried to laugh and only coughed up bits of precious life fluid onto the rain soaked stone beneath her.

“I hope… I hope my friends get here before I bleed out, you tagged me… a few times before I could disperse my clone. I’m so tired of running…” Jade smiled. “At least... I got to see the stars one last time if the last part of my plan doesn’t pan out…”

That made Nightmare Rage pause and tilt her head curiously, her silver slits seemed to have some intelligence in them as she looked over her shoulder at the stars too. After a second she ignored the stars and continued moving forward with clear intent.

Not having time to avoid the attack, it came swift and mercilessly out of nowhere, only serendipity led the attack to landing the final blow.

Something green went down, the victor of the battle was finally decided.

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-12:00 PM-

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“One green… five pound… rubber… ball…. travelling at… something like… I don’t know… above mach four maybe?” Jade weakly stated as she laid her head against the stone as the storm slowly started to fade, the vast night sky opened up before her eyes in all its splendor. “I am so… freaking glad… that I used the End of Immortality on you… before I introduced the concentrated Poison Joke. At least I wasn’t stupid enough to let you actually ascend. Checked… all over the… city… to make sure that my unicorn toy didn’t get stuck anywhere… Fizzy will love it…”

Jade turned her sight downwards.

At the edge of a deep crater, was a somewhat scorched rubber green ball dripping water and beyond that was a reverted Stochastic Labor in a pooling water that was currently being stained by her injuries.

“Totally… worth it...” Jade eyes started to slide shut. “I’m just…. just gonna… pass out now…”

-?-

At exactly twenty three hours, fifty nine minutes and fifty nine seconds after it was set in motion, the green ball that has stayed in motion for that amount of time came from the sky from out of nowhere like a comet.

It collided with Nightmare Rage before she could kill Jaded La Perm.

Even then, Jaded La Perm still might bleed out though...

“Bamf!”

Never mind, she’s fine.

Chapter Seventy Two, Swing and a Misses: Certified.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Seventy Two, Swing and a Misses: Validated.

-Hours later, Manehatten Hospital, Arizona-

We were all brought here, because Dr. Bones needed better equipment to take care of all of us than what could fit in a tent. That and having more doctors to take care of us helped.

A loud crack was followed by a heavenly moo noise, which led to my embarrassment as it had come from me.

“Yeah, you’re a really great physical therapist Escargot, there’s no doubt about that!” I was practically melting on the table, the kraken nurse working on me with his tentacles chirped and clacked his beak in a friendly manner. “You’re going to make some she kraken, male kraken or whatever it is you’re into very happy someday.”

Escargot made some noncommittal noises and flicked a tentacle across my vision in several slightly agitated ways.

“I get it, you want your private life to stay just that.” I was ready for beat down again, unfortunately I didn’t have a target. “Which reminds me, since we’re in a hospital and all, do you know anyone who can teach Sex Ed to an overly innocent alpaca without getting too embarrassed about it? I love my fluffy wife and so does frosty farts, but…”

“IT’S A CONDITION!” Was that an angry Velvet that just cut me off? The aggressiveness, the vinegar, the lemon juice and that heavenly salt in her shrill voice shaking the whole hospital… I’m happily married to that.

Escargot was as spooked and shocked as I was. I knew Velvet was fine, I was shocked for a different reason than Escargot.

“Isn’t she halfway across the hospital, in a sound proof room and still unconscious?” Said sound proof room was for resting patients.

If she had yelled that and we find out that she was still unconscious, then she has gained a supernatural sixth sense to know when I’m teasing her… that’s… ridiculously awesome actually!

-Liberty's Island, Celestia-

Luna was looking at a picture sadly, we had taken that together while the statue was still here. I had visited this wonderful landmark with my sister while we were taking a small break and letting Twilight get some practice in with being a ruler.

There were a lot of things I never got to see or do over the last thousand years, now fun was on the menu and I was going to live it up. My sister would prefer to relax and curl up with a book, whereas I would love to do some more exciting things.

Even with Liberty not standing proudly on her damaged pedestal, there was still the smaller version of her at the floating museum for tourists which had survived the storm. It just wouldn’t be the same as seeing Liberty on the island of friendship and harmony personally.

Slowly the water shifted and something large started to rise out of the sea, both Luna and I took on defensive stances. Only we stopped being defensive once we saw who it was, it was Liberty in all her robed glory.

Her crown slowly rose from the sea, followed by her head. Her drenched stone robes started spilling tons of water as she slowly pulled herself out of the sea. There was still some time before the sun rises, she’d make it back on her pedestal, but I noticed two problems.

“Where are her torch and slab?!” Luna pretty much bluntly stated what they were, Liberty looked sad because she was missing her stone torch and her slab of knowledge.

“They probably got destroyed in the fighting.” Looking down on me after I said that, the giant mare statue nodded solemnly with a frown as she lowered her head to look at us. “Hey Liberty, don’t frown, you’re a beautiful pony monument to hope and prosperity!”

Liberty tried to smile, but it looked like the fake one I’ve had plastered on my face for most of my life. I’m so glad I could relax those muscles a little, when they say your face could get stuck that way they weren’t kidding. I’ve personally been to a few doctors about making sure my face didn’t get stuck with a permanent fake smile.

“Liberty, do not try to force it, we will get you a new torch and slab to proudly hold up as a beacon to harmony!” Luna promised and the smile became slightly more real on the giant stone mare’s face, she even seemed to sniffle a little and a bit of sea water spilled out of her right eye. “Know that you are loved and we will try to make sure that even Equestria’s biggest citizen is happy! Though I am curious as to how she came to life.”

“I’m sure Jade or her friends could explain it, but this isn’t the first time she’s been animated and it likely won’t be the last.” Nodding calmly at my assessment, Liberty took several large steps over me and pulled herself back up onto the pedestal, she flexed her front two hooves and seemingly sighed.

She then forced a smile on her face, the grin wasn’t believable and she soon dropped it.

“Wait for our return faithful majestic mare of the coast, for we will promise to deliver unto you knew ones for your valor in protecting Manehatten!” Luna shouted up to the mare and she nodded down at us as she took up her pose without her torch or stone slab.

She wasn’t trying to force a smile now, but she wasn’t frowning at least. There was a neutral look on her face and she retained that stance, her eyes darted towards us for a few seconds and then went back to looking out to sea.

She closed her eyes for a few minutes and then she opened them wide, a smile playing on her lips.

The sun rose up and Liberty’s eyes met it with a passionate look over the horizon, she did not blink as she stared out the sea with a brave face. She still tried to stand proud with her robes drenched with sea water and her front hooves bare of her favorite things to hold. She crooked her left hoof and her right hoof raised high as if they were still there.

I didn’t think she was doing a bad job, but… she needed those things to feel complete. As Luna said, we would see to delivering those things to her personally.

Just when the both of us were going to fly back to the city, there was a powerful glow coming from the statue’s hips.

Curious, I moved over to the statue and looked up beneath her robes. I saw a large cutie mark that had etched itself into the stony hips of the statue, I looked to Luna and she was just as mystified as I was after she came to see what I was staring at.

We weren’t all knowing, but at least we both certainly knew what Liberty stood for in the face of adversity.

Luna and I were quite proud of her resolve.

-Ponyville, Sugar Cube Corner, Pinkie-

“Party… for who? Whoa…” I soon shuddered, shook and jitterbugged. When I finally stopped, my eyes went wide. “Friendship emergency, I have to go to Manehatten ASAP!”

“But Pinkie your flank is not…” Mrs. Cake, bless her heart she tried, but she was stopped when my flank started glowing with the signal to a friendship quest. I’m going to hug Providence after this, she doesn’t get nearly enough love since Twilight moved to Canterlot. “I’ll make arrangements, honestly you and your closest friends get into all sorts of weird situations. A giant crystal tree telling you where you need to be to make the biggest impacts shouldn’t surprise me anymore.”

“Not nearly half as weird or dangerous as what some of my other friends end up doing!” I insisted, but Mrs. Cake didn’t seem to believe me.

Now how was I going to make a giant stone cake a quarter of a mile big? Also who would I invite to a… is it a birthday party or is it… earned a cutie mark… both?! I can do that.

I’d actually need Maud’s help for the cake on this one… I wonder if a date in Manehatten with Mud Briar can be arranged on such short notice.

We’d also need cake for guests that aren’t several hundred tons of friendship infused stone.

-Morning, Manehatten Hospital, Wheel Twist-

I stared at the doors in front of me with a hint of nervousness. I couldn’t be around Abyssinian’s, Anugyptian Felines, Griffons or even regular cats, but for a brief amount of time I had immunity from being allergic to it all.

It was all thanks to that Abyssinian witch that gave me that strangely tasty potion for my allergies. I wanted to thank her for relieving me of my symptoms, at least for a little while. I was actually able to talk to the griffon customers at the place I worked at and managed to explain my allergy issues for once, you know, instead of looking like a puffed up angry pony whenever one of them got near me.

It was the first time I felt free of that particular issue, but it only lasted the night and last night there was a fairly nasty storm.

I looked out towards the harbor and blinked. Even the statue of Friendship and Harmony, Liberty, looked like she was feeling the effects of last night’s storm. Yet there was something about looking at her that filled me with wonder and pride that she was still standing tall.

I hope she got her slab and torch back. Liberty didn’t look entirely right without them, but her pride was still there.

Looking forward, I made my way into the hospital and immediately tripped over someone. I was going to ask around for Kuril La Perm as I heard she had been infirmed in the hospital for a short visit because of the storm last night.

“Ow… sorry I didn’t watch where I was… a sea pony?” I looked up at a blue on blue sea pony, she was wearing a colorful skull cap and she looked upset with me.

“Oh sorry, I should really watch where I put my tail.” She surprisingly wasn’t actually upset at me, but at herself for not watching where her tail was.

“No problem… I guess you were distracted…” I rubbed the back of my head awkwardly.

“Yeah, a fair number of my close and extended family is hospitalized currently.” The sea pony seemed a little shy, it’s like she had problems with stallions. We shared similarities as I had problems with mares.

“Hi… I’m Wheel Twist, my cutie mark is a talent for running a roulette wheel or in general spinning things in circles or spirals. Doesn’t sound like I’m very lucky does it?” The mare I had taken an interest in yesterday had all but disappeared and I sighed, she was way out of my league anyway.

“Try being born from a stallion in Saddle Sore Shores, because my mother was a sea pony.” Born from a… wait did this sea pony just say her father gave birth to her?! “Don’t look so surprised. I could do the whole fix my biology by becoming a hippogriff thing, but I refuse to change who I am just because someone is uncomfortable with the possibility of getting ‘them’ pregnant. I’m Flotsam De Bris, waiting to see my Captain who’s in for shark bites. At least it wasn’t a sharknado this time and she’s actually the least injured from last night’s storm of pain.”

“Sharknado?” My curiosity really set something off in the sea pony, I was more curious than scared of her. She was actually quite beautiful, but it was easy to see that she's been through some things.

“It’s bad enough that I’ll drown in water, but my captain’s luck is so horrendous you don’t even have any idea what it’s like to be near her constantly. I’m the closest friend she’s ever had and it’s annoying that she’s always getting into danger and there’s nothing we can do to really stop her injuries when they happen!” She slapped her tail against the ground with a thunderous force, but I was far more worried about the fact that she said she'll drown in water. What sea pony can’t swim? Well this one obviously, but still... “You think a tornado full of sharks is bad, imagine being randomly battered by big birds or beset by beasts of all kinds. It’s just easier to say my captain is a living jinx… because curses are definitely real! I think that the adventures are always worth it in the end, even if going through them is like pulling teeth! Not that my captain’s sisters are any better when it comes to injuries or odd happenstances, it’s fairly frustrating living with so many insane people! Still, I love them all the same… sorry...”

“No, I think you needed to get that off your chest. You have a lovely voice by the way.” I complimented her.

“Thank you, but if your anything like the stallions I’ve tried to date. They run off at the first sign of me telling them about how sea pony biology works. Cowards, the lot of them!” She rubbed her flipper hooves against her face while groaning. “I swear, I have to live with so much ridiculousness in my life. At least Kuril’s food is worth all the trauma, next to all the ‘fun’ life threatening situations we get drawn into.”

“Did you say Kuril, as in Kuril La Perm?” I asked because that’s was who I came here to look for, I heard from a loose friend of a friend of a friend that the Abyssinian witch was here at the hospital after last night’s storm.

“Yes, I know her personally, good food and apparently willing to adopt any stray into her life as family.” Flotsam seemed fairly abrupt, like she’s had one too many Ponyville incidents. That’s probably why she was giving me a suspicious glance. “She’s a really nice Abyssinian… why do you ask?”

Ponyville was pretty infamous for its incidents at this point, it was almost matched in its weirdness by this little known town called Airship Mauled. Who would actually name a place something so juvenile or possibly bleak like that?

“Well I need her help with something, you see, I’m allergic to cats and she gave me something last night that helped me immensely with my allergies.” I was going to be honest with myself, I wouldn’t be opposed to going on a few dates with Flotsam. Seems like she understands what it’s like to have the short end of the stick smacking her in the head repeatedly. “I was able to make peace with some griffons I couldn’t get within twenty feet of without breaking out in a rash that makes me look angry with them. Say… are you doing anything later?”

“Not… particularly… until my family needs a ride home on the ship.” She was fairly pensive and defensively crossing her legs in front of her chest. “Though you might want to avoid my little brother until you can get more of that stuff from Kuril.”

“Abyssinian?” I queried.

“Anugyptian Feline, Flail-Tail is easier to say.” She uncrossed her hooves and looked me over. “Talk over some juice?”

“Not coffee or tea?” I asked.

“Family food allergies, also cliché.” Flotsam stated dryly.

“Okay, juice it is!” I answered brightly, Flotsam looked fairly shocked.

Author's Note

Does Flotsam have a chance for happiness? Eh... I don't got much left, but I'm still closing in on the ending and I've been flagging quite a bit.

Also Jade is not a hero, she's simply a protagonist among many other protagonists lives. She's certainly living up to being a Petty Kitty.

Chapter Seventy Two, Swing and a Misses: Authorized.

-Manehatten Hospital, Fizzy-

I caught the ball in my hoof as it bounced back to me, it had good bounce and it didn’t weigh too much to play with. This scorched green ball really shouldn’t mean so much to me, but given my foal days... it meant a lot and it was special.

That is aside from having come screaming out of the sky covered in Poison Joke cure to save Jade’s life, it was a different kind of special from that. I sighed and leaned back to stare at it, I was never going to lose this ball.

Jade would be fine, but she was going to be on a drip for a while though. I looked over to Mara and Maria.

Mara’s right side had some damage, which matched the damage on Maria’s left side, they both had back injuries. Maria’s horns were also badly cracked and falling apart, but they’d grow back fully the next time they went through a molt. They’d need Marie to be connected to them as she’s what causes that to happen.

Marie was completely fine, but she wasn’t currently allowed to fuse with her sisters at the moment, even if she wanted to share the pain. She wasn’t leaving her sister’s sides however.

“So… I know we never officially had ‘the scene’ yet, but when do you suppose we should pop that bubble?” That was a good question Marie, it was actually kind of a hard question to ask. We all had the rings for it.

The only thing we hadn’t done was officially ask each other the question of ‘will you marry me’. We were officially ready for when we did say yes to that, not like any of us would ever say no. I wanted both my chimera and kitty to be in an official herd with me, provided that no shenanigans occurred.

“It’s… a pretty big step.” That and I didn’t exactly have a job as Twilight’s royal guard yet, Maries were still lawyers and we were all financially sound thanks to that. At least there would always be enough money so that feeding a chimera wouldn’t be an issue, also living near mom would cut down on the costs with her magical cooking.

I didn’t want to say goodbye to Airship Mauled, but making a commute between Canterlot and there would take some of my time every morning unless I can get a long distance teleport spell down to perfection. I definitely had the magic power for it.

“That and do we want Jade to ask us or do we ask her, do we ask each other?” Marie was asking all the right questions, definitely the smartest snake I’ve ever met. “Our ring were just the opening bit, then there’s the fact that you asked Twilight to officiate for us and now all that’s left is to pop a question and set a date.”

“It’s just a question, why are we waffling on it when we already gave her a ring?” If that didn’t already prove to me what the answer was Mara, then I didn’t know what it would be. “She’s even tied it into her magical alchemy necklace.”

“True… but shouldn’t we try to woo her a little. She spent most of her time on our dates wooing us, and quite successfully too. She spent as much time on that as we spent those wonderful camping trips with one another snuggled together.” Maria grumbled bringing her chin to her chest as she rested on her stomach. “We should make a romantic showing, find a place we can all eat at and then just actually get the proposal out there you know. I like the ring of Misses Bloody Maries Berrytwist La Perm.”

“We’re not going with my family name, also I’m now realizing how provocative Berrytwist sounds when in reference to stallions… though there are a few stallions whose berries I’d like to twist as painfully as possible. I kind of want to drop it for just being La Perm. I have nothing wrong with or against being a Bloody, but I’m trying to stay away from the Storm Queen connotations and don’t want rumors flying around about my name.” I waved a hoof at them trying to gesture that I was still having some issues with it. “You’re keeping the clan name though Maries, don’t change traditions on my account.”

“We would do that for you.” Even when they were all currently separated, Maries could synch up their voices perfectly to act as one.

“You don’t have to and I will never ask you to.” I snorted and smiled at them, those three were one of a kind in a literal sense. “Though Jade might want to be Jaded 'Bloody' La Perm. She can be a pretty big jerk, especially to the royal guard, and she would think having Bloody in her name would be in good humor.”

“Yep, she’s our lovable petty kitty.” The three agreed in unison and we all giggled.

“So Hayburger anywhere, The Witch’s Fare in Airship Mauled or Savoir and Savors in Ponyville? As we all know, Jade doesn’t do fancy.” The three immediately started arguing with one another, all it took was a single question and I couldn’t keep the slightly demented smile off my face. “There’s also The Tasty Treat in Canterlot or we could simply do the infamous ‘Las Pegasus Food Hop’. I’m not exactly picky here, just so long as you don’t expect me to eat too much junk food.”

That only made the arguing worse between the three currently separated sisters.

We had to eventually come up with something meaningful for our adorable nuisance, that would take getting these three to agree on something.

-Elsewhere in the hospital, Skelly-

I opened my eyes weakly and saw the smiling face of Fortitude looking over me. The pain I was in was quite egregious, but at least I knew I was alive… somewhat.

I’m going to bet that I’m still living impaired, also that it was daytime since I could see the fur on my nonexistent nose.

“I am Fortitude the Fantastical Fragrant… and I am glad that you are being alright Skelly.” He took up my right hoof and smiled at me. “You are almost being dead, er… deader… deadest? You are almost going to Yakhalla without us close friend!”

“I can be confirming that, it was being pretty close for Skelly.” Eir the Valkyrie?! What was she doing here? “You are being very strong willed, also very lucky that your companion healed your damaged bones. I would have had to ferry you otherwise.”

“Say Eir, where’s Ragna?” I looked over to see that Flamberge was being tended to by a nurse hat wearing Sweetcakes. “Isn’t your pet always with you?”

The sudden look of horror on Eir’s face was mildly disturbing to us.

“Oh… oh no... oh dear… Eir is maybe having left Ragna in Yakhalla last time Eir visited…” Eir quickly disappeared in a flash, we looked at each other.

“Please don’t end in an eldritch abomination, please for the love of all that is holy don’t let it become an eldritch abomination thing, especially one with acid spewing tentacles!” Flamberge was chanting that like a prayer with his eyes closed.

A portal opened up and Eir backed into the room with a boulder that was somehow expressing immense amounts of guilt, Eir was currently beating back several large black tentacles with sickly yellow undersides with a heavily bladed and spiked mace.

Never actually saw the great Eir wield a weapon before, but she was treating it like an old friend. I would help, but I was still in too much pain to get out from the covers of the bed. Fortitude was also going to be kept busy protecting both me and Sweetcakes.

“Damnation!” Flamberge stated sullenly. Even in his state, he still got up started to wail on the tentacles with his flaming sword and helped the Valkyrie push them back. The tentacles thankfully didn’t spew acid, but they did spew bunches of what looked like sour grapes everywhere when injured.

Once the tentacles were beaten back, Eir swiftly closed the portal after one last swing of her mace.

“Eir hopes no one in Yakhalla realizes that this is Eir’s fault…” Eir said quietly while looking sheepish. “Also Ragna is being a very bad rock of increasing danger! Bad Ragna, very bad Ragna!”

Eir pointed her hoof at the sulking boulder.

I didn’t even know how I knew it was sulking, I just did.

“At least these sour grapes are tasty…” Giving Fortitude a seriously flat stare, he paused in the middle of eating some grapes. “What, why are you looking at me like that close friend?”

I rolled my eyes. Only Fortitude, and possibly Flamberge, would eat grape bunches that came out of an eldritch horror.

“You should not eat those, they might be bad for your health, the grapes of weird wrath.” Sweetcakes knew enough to speak for me and I nodded.

“They taste fine to me.” Fortitude popped another grape in his mouth.

-Hospital Cafeteria, Kuril-

“I’m fine Blade, really. I didn’t get too seriously hurt.” I’m more worried about how all of my kittens are doing, a mother’s work was never done. “If you really want to help me, then cut up some of those onions for me please.”

I really needed to make more potions, I also needed to retrieve my staff. I could have thrown a shape shifting potion at Stochastic, but I doubt it would have worked on her with how powerful she became. I really didn’t expect her to target me, probably should have given I was denying her the use of her horn.

I watched as Blade took up a knife and started to husk and chop up some onions with precision. I didn’t like to be idle, so here I was doing some volunteer work in the hospital. Nobody was going to complain, hospital food in general wasn’t great unless I was involved.

I stirred the soup and figured that soon after I add the onions I would need to let it simmer for a bit, the smell of something cooking was as divine as it always was. Having Blade cooking in the kitchen with me was even better.

Blade soon moved over to hover above the pot and she scraped the onions into my soup, I nodded and put the lid on the pot then pointed to the blenders. Blade gave me a look and then nodded, she started getting out some ice and fruit.

I was getting pretty thirsty working over a hot stove and a nice drink would hit the spot. Blade was one of the few bat pony’s that could control themselves around fruit, occasionally some fruits were just too alluring for her.

I took a small break and saw Flotsam talking to that stallion I met yesterday at one of the tables, they seem to be hitting it off pretty well. Maybe Flotsam had a keeper this time, Jacky told me about how much her crewmate complains about wanting a special romantic somebody and her biology was getting in the way.

“So yeah, it’s almost impossible to prevent Jacky’s injuries.” Flotsam stated as I walked up to the two.

“Having a good time?” I asked as I came up behind them.

“Yes, I am, thank you for asking Kuril. So…” Flotsam paused and then turned back to me, then looked to her partner she was drinking fruit juice with. “Right, you weren't looking for Kuril?”

“Yes, er… ugh…” I could already see Mr. Wheel Twist’s allergies were acting up and pulled out a potion. One chug and his allergic reaction to my very presence cleared up immediately. “Thank you, um… how much do these potions cost to make? I could use a few more of them.”

“Depends, are you supplying the ingredients yourself or do I have to gather them to make the potions?” While busy pondering over my words, I added. “Supplying ingredients is cheaper than making me gather them personally. While I do have a supplier and good friend in a zebra witch doctor, she has her own potions to brew. These first few potions are on me, but you’ll have to pay for the few after this. Think about how you want to buy them and I’ll see to making some more.”

I took out two more potions and sat them on the table.

“Thank you again… you have no idea how much you’ve done for me.” Wheel Twist took up the two potions.

“Just don’t take too much at one time, a few sips should clear anything up for a few hours of protection from your allergies.” I smiled at the two and hugged Flotsam. “Have fun you two and I’m sure Jacky will be ready for visitors soon enough, my poor little chick has one too many teeth in her and none of them are actually hers.”

I started to walk away to let them enjoy their drinks.

“I was actually wanting to talk to you some more, also…” He pulled out a pouch and put some bits on the table. “Whatever that wonderful smell is, we’ll have some!”

“Paying for Flotsam, my how chivalrous of you Mr. Twist. Right, two vegetable specials coming up!” I leaned closer to Flotsam. “My advice is to dig your claws into him and don’t let go, he’s a good one.”

The poor sea pony blushed furiously as I walked away whistling to myself.

-Intensive Care Unit, Celestia-

I just came from Jacky and learned that Liberty was going to be stuck as an animate statue for the foreseeable future until Jade is well enough to personally remove the Animating Album.

I already paid for the various bills for Jade and her friends, I was rich and had plenty of bits to burn on helping her. I didn’t do near well enough to protect her from those who would seek to harm her, so I can make amends in other ways. Thankfully the cost of this was being heavily cut because of Dr. Bones being nice.

Walking into the room I looked down at Jade and the steady beep of her heart rate monitor, she wasn’t doing too badly.

Now looking at Stochastic on the other hoof, she almost looked like a piñata.

Wait a moment, the cast they put on her is a little too colorful…

Looking at it a little more closely, I saw that they actually did put Stochastic into a piñata. That is both embarrassing and quite cruel. I’m surprised Dr. Bones said Stochastic could make a full recovery, and that the good doctor has a mean sense of humor.

“Seeing my friend like this is supposed to be sad, yet it fills my heart with joy to see her on the mend and that her heart is beating steadily.” Sekhet stated from her position next to Jade. “So… how about a riddle?”

“I’m game, my sister is currently helping Baast learn about all the modern conveniences of this era. That and to get Baast away from me since she wouldn’t stop making horrible innuendos and euphemisms.” This could prove fun, so I decided to indulge her. “How many does she exactly have?”

“A lot. Ahem… I can be blind, I can be powerful, I can be difficult, deep, complicated and tender at the same time.” Sekhet smirked at me. “What am I?”

“Lovable.” I giggled, one of Cadence's favorites.

Author's Note

Next page will be skipping to when Jade wakes up.

Chapter Seventy Two, Swing and a Misses: Sanctioned.

-Three days later, Manehatten Hospital, Jade-

“Ugh…” I opened my eyes to see a pair of bright blue orbs. “I can see a gloriously beautiful mare before me, am I in Elysium?”

“No Jade, but thanks for the compliment.” Even if Fizzy managed to keep her voice cool and collected, she was still blushing. “Glad to see your up, at least it was only four days this time. How do you feel?”

“Dead tired and my right arm is stinging quite a fair bit… I really overdid it on that rubber chicken snap attack.” I tried to sit up, only to have a hoof firmly press itself into my chest and for Fizzy to stare at me, it wasn’t a glare or a harsh look. It was just a look to stay put and I was going to be a good kitty because I wasn’t actually at my healthiest at the moment. “How am I doing right now?”

“Well I would like to confirm that you’re currently not on medication, your pain tolerance is absurd and I think I might need to call Dr. Bones in here to check out your sensitivity to injuries. You might have nerve damage, I seriously hope that’s not the case.” Fizzy closed her eyes and gently ran a hoof over my head making me purr slightly, she even nuzzled my face carefully. I could barely move my head to nuzzle her back, it felt like it was in a vice. “That aside, your right arm broken in four places, which is going to take at least a month to heal. You may not know it but you have bandages around your neck and left arm, an artery was hit sometime that night and you suffered major blood loss. We’re lucky Dr. Bones is a miracle worker on that front. You’re left leg is badly sprained and the bones in it are cracked, so you’re not walking anywhere and will need a wheelchair to get out of here.”

“What’s the good news?” I asked wryly as I looked at the drips poking into my body.

“Something funny happened yesterday. Pinkie was apparently holding a birthday party for Liberty, the statue of Friendship and Harmony. Don’t know where she got a giant stone slab and torch as presents.” Fizzy was actually chuckling about something. “You should have been there. I wish you were, because we kind of lost Stochastic for a bit…”

“Wait... is everyone okay? At least Liberty is okay after being thrown into the ocean.” I was a fairly worried about the last thing she stated. “Also, what happened to Stochastic?”

“Nobody died. Skelly was a close thing, but then again she’s always near death so that’s nothing new.” Hearing that from Fizzle, I let out a sigh of relief. “As for Stochastic, I said we only lost her for a bit.”

“So what was the funny thing that happened and why does that make you smile as much as I usually make you do?” Getting my lovely life hardened mare to smile was a somewhat hard thing to do. “Where is Stochastic right now?”

“Well they are both related to each other, Dr. Bones encased Stochastic in a cast that resembled a piñata. Apparently it was still hospital approved even if it didn’t look entirely regulation… and Pinkie Pie mistook her for an actual piñata.” That was when Fizzy started laughing and her laughter was music to my ears. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders became involved, they joined in on Pinkie’s party for Liberty and… well… I’ll show you the pictures that I got later. Stochastic was eventually returned to being on the other side of that curtain to your left, her full body cast had to be fixed after being smacked around by a bunch of fillies and colts for a bit. Thankfully none of the fillies or colts broke that piñata and Pinkie quickly got them one that didn’t have a pony in it when I explained what was wrong.”

“Love you.” I murmured.

“I know.” She stated tenderly. “Now relax and I’ll see about getting Dr. Bones in here to do a checkup… also maybe give you some medication.”

“Jade?” Fluttershy came into the room and smiled at seeing me awake.

“Jade is going to be okay, so long as her pain tolerance hasn’t shut out the ability to feel anything.” Watching as Fizzle idly rubbed at the bandages around her chest as she turned to Fluttershy. I was going to ask about it, but she turned back to me and ran her hoof over my head again. I burbled happily. “She at least still purrs when I pet her.”

“Okay you can stop petting me-rrrowww…” This felt really good, she also didn’t stop. In the midst of all my happy noises as Fluttershy joined in petting me, I managed to ask. “What happened to Jacky?”

“Eh, our sister is fine, she was actually the least injured in all the fighting. Even Though she did get stuck in a burning shark tank, her injuries since then have been pretty much normal for her.” Fizzle rolled her eyes and eventually took her hoof off my head and Fluttershy eventually did the same.

I whined pitiably.

“So what are you planning to do with Stochastic Jade?” Fluttershy asked looking at me while nosing her face into her mane shyly. “I know she was scary, mean and well… really bad for an earth pony. From personal experience it’s usually unicorns or the occasional pegasus that cause most of Equestria’s problems.”

“Yeah, earth ponies don’t go evil very often do they?” Okay now I was actually beginning to feel the pain I was in, my grimace was noted by Fizzle and she quickly headed for the door.

“Stay with Jade for me Fluttershy.” Fizzle was out the door to go get my cranky doctor dog.

“In answer to your question, I’ve had my petty revenge and then some. Now I just want to give her to Twilight ‘befriend-almost-everyone’ Sparkle.” Honestly, that was my plan after that long night. Whether Stochastic remembers getting the five pound ball to the skull would be reliant on whether or not going Nightmare allowed her to remember anything.

“Oh thank goodness…” Fluttershy quietly muttered, she looked a bit scared of and for me. “I thought you would do something worse to her… well worse than she already is at this moment.”

“Nah, I’m good.” Yep, no more revenge needed. I got the ‘full total petty kitty’ out of my system on this one, just so long as Fizzle did as promised and showed me those piñata pictures. “If she remembers this, then she’s never going to forget that I have many friends that are willing to get hurt for my sake. Speaking of, I should probably apologize to everyone for getting most of them hospitalized.”

“Surprisingly they were all okay with that…” Fluttershy looked away as she said this. “Tippy-Toe and her friends wanted me to send their regards. Also wasn’t what you did rather… cruel?”

“About as cruel as anything Discord has done as the one who keeps the world from stagnating, including knowing I was trapped in the past and not helping me out of pure spite.” I sent Fluttershy a slightly miffed look. “After what Stochastic put me through, this is the end result and the least of what I could do. I’m just going to say she started it and Twilight Sparkle will end it, if she hasn’t lost her memory due to an unfortunate rubber ball accident.”

“Didn’t you plan for the rubber ball to hit her?” Fluttershy seemed a little misinformed, I was going to correct that.

“I knew vaguely where it would go and where it could possibly land.” In essence, I had gotten lucky that it didn’t get stuck in any of the places I visited while running from Stochastic. Most of it was actually left to chance, but that last instance was an end goal I couldn’t possibly reproduce no matter how I tried. “Going to be honest Fluttershy, she could have killed me if it weren’t for that ball. I was in no state to move and… well you can already see the clipboard at the end of the bed right?”

“Yes… what can you tell me about her?” Why was Fluttershy so curious about Stochastic?

“You can ask me anything about Stochastic Labor, I learned quite a bit about her. Let me start you off with the fact that she’s one of the few noble earth ponies in existence, mostly because of unicorns monopolizing nobility and having sticks up their flanks… really big ones.” I received a slightly disappointed stare from Fluttershy. I snorted loudly, she does realize I’m not wrong about unicorn nobles always having their noses in the air right? “Fluttershy, they like the smell of their own farts filled with the power of smug that no Pegasus can control. Anyway, Stochastic was born in Canterlot and she earned her cutie mark by seeing natural talent in others. She pointed out what some other ponies were capable of outside their own unique talents and could even organize them for just about any kind of job you can imagine. She also personally has an eclectic number of random skills to her name. Fighting wasn’t one of them, but she sure as Tartarus showed me that it doesn’t mean she couldn’t kick flank. Does that answer everything?”

There’s also the fact that Fancy Pants and Fleur De Lis are just about the only nobles I’d actually trust with my back, unicorns are definitely the most cloak and dagger pony race. Would you trust an entire race that has a history of creating mind manipulating spells? Quite a few unicorns throughout Equestria’s relatively recent history have been capable of learning such spells with an incredibly alarming amount of ease.

The next time I saw Princess Twilight, I was going to bring up that she should ban any and all spells that can mentally manipulate someone if it wasn’t already banned to begin with. If it was banned to begin with, then where would someone like Starlight learn a spell like that? Do unicorns just leave mind control spells lying around? There has to be some limitations on the long term effectiveness of such spells or else this world would have been conquered a long, long time ago.

This doesn’t change my love for Fizzy, mostly because I know she would never use spells like that.

“I want to know why she started GODLESS.” That, Fluttershy, was something that I didn’t know entirely.

“I don’t fully know why she hates gods so badly, but Stochastic would be good at running any talent agency and is fairly talented herself at finding and finishing odd jobs. It is how she set up GODLESS in the first place, not to mention a network of shady businesses that have been since shut down. Her ability to fund anything tanked entirely thanks to the Royal Guard, so I suppose they actually did a… a… I can’t even actually say it! I think it would be giving them too much credit given that Jacky and Celestia gave them an entire list of conspirators to work with.” Nobody would ever think I was all knowing, but my reconnaissance ability with astral projections was quite nice as nobody had any defenses for it. Sure I can also make ridiculous plans work by not thinking about the logistics behind them too hard, but I wasn’t capable of planning for absolutely every single little detail like Stochastic going ‘nightmare’ on me. “Stochastic’s hatred likely stems from her parents possibly being cultists of the Demon Goat Grogar of Tambelon and something really sad happening. Also if Stochastic never targeted me so badly, then I wouldn’t have had reason to go after her like I did. She did send assassins after me for knowing I just existed, she also separated me from my family and loved ones for many years. I would like to say we’re even now, but what I’m really doing is dropping my anger on the whole issue and moving on with my life.”

Fluttershy blinked, and then blinked again.

“I’m glad that you’re not consumed by hatred Jade, but… just how dangerous is the real Grogar?” That’s a rather loaded question Fluttershy. “Since you know about him and Discord never really told me how he knew about Grogar well enough to impersonate him, in fact he dances around the issue a lot when I ask him.”

“I wouldn’t open the portal to Tambelon for even a split second, earning his attention into a possible way to escape a place that’s harder to get out of than Tartarus is an exceptionally bad idea. Even Discord knows better than to allow him access back into Equestria for real. Sure it would certainly be chaotic to do so, but Discord knows better and isn’t a complete idiot… considering Grogar has nearly killed him before.” I raised my left hand and ran it over Fluttershy’s right ear making her blush slightly and squeak, but she didn’t back away. “He’s a world ending threat that the Elements of Harmony themselves can’t actually defeat, is that enough for you?”

“Yes.” Winced Fluttershy.

“Hey kitten… heard you were awake, Dr. Bones should be here soon enough." Mom came in with a bag and pulled a serving tray out of it with a piping hot bowl of soup. "Do you feel alright enough for some food?”

“Let me guess, the hospital wants to hire you because you took over their kitchen.” The response was my mother giving me a cheeky grin and tipping her hat to me in a friendly manner as she pulled up a seat next to me.

“I don’t need to answer what we both already know, so does my little kitten want some food before they try to force that generic hospital stuff on you? ” The wonderfully witchy mother asked sweetly, my response was to open my mouth as wide as I could. “Dr. Bones gave me the go ahead to feed you. So… do I just pour it down your throat or…?”

“Stop being silly, I want off these drips and your food would certainly go a long way to getting me back into good shape mom.” My bandaged and wrapped tail flicked agitatedly as I glared her down, she calmly got a spoonful and held it above the bowl. Fluttershy propped me up and I clamped my mouth on the spoon as soon as it was in range.

Egg, light mixture of soy sauce, fish broth, soaking crunchy noodles, finely diced carrots and rice, this was my mom’s egg flower soup with all my favorite stuff in it.

Over the next twenty minutes, I was happily fed and resting my head when Dr. Bones finally came in.

“Well you’re a sorry looking sight aren’t you, thankfully I've actually let you have a decent meal.” After saying that Dr. Bones turned to Fluttershy and mom. “Now if you two will leave… I need to check over my patient and see if there’s absolutely anything wrong with her currently. She also might need a change of bandages and since she’s active enough to eat, I’ll have Nurse Escargot see her to the bathroom after I’m done.”

“Thanks for the soup mom, thanks for coming Fluttershy.” The two left the room wishing me well as Dr. Bones checked my vitals.

-Fizzle-

We had a restaurant planned, now to set the day.

Author's Note

Jade has been around as an astral projection for a long time, so she probably knows more secrets than most about Equestria.

Now for another time skip to the day Fizzle and Maries are planning for.

And right now you could be reading a better story than this one, self deprecation!

Chapter Seventy Two, Swing and a Misses: Verified.

-A month later, evening, Canterlot, The Tasty Treat, Fizzle-

In the middle of Restaurant Row was The Tasty Treat.

Maries and I were pretending this was in celebration of Jade getting her right arm fully back in order and for finally being well enough out of therapy to walk and snuggle again. Escargot was everyone’s favorite kraken when it came to physical therapy.

We were still taking it easy and we were going to dote on our crazy cat tonight, so we chose a place that was easy to approach without causing too many issues.

I stood outside looking at the décor. Turning my gaze to the side, I saw that Maries were busy keeping Jade propped up against themselves and they were happy to help her get around.

It’s not ostentatiously fancy, it was a small homey place and most importantly it was out of the way off the beaten path. All these things were something Jade would certainly appreciate. The most important part of this place was that it was a quiet venue so that Maries and I could work our charms on Jade. Plus the food was good, affordable and they owners accepted odd beings like Maries coming in for a meal.

I’d say this was the perfect venue for this evening and we, Maries and I, have already worked out some arrangements with Saffron Masala and Coriander Cumin. They were going to make sure nobody bothers us while our date tonight hopefully went as planned.

Restaurant Row currently had all of our friends running around this evening, they were making sure there was absolutely no outside interference for what was supposed to be a perfectly quiet night for the five of us.

The others were all also on dates too, except for Jacky, Gene and their son Gavin. They were having a family night, even then Jacky and Gene came to Canterlot fully armed and ready for a fight. With Jacky’s rather exceedingly notorious luck, they definitely needed their weapons.

Flotsam was on a date with Wheel Twist somewhere around here. She was apparently getting along with the friendly unicorn. Wheel didn’t even mind the biological issues of dating a land bound sea pony, he even got along with Nefer and that wasn’t exactly hard to do.

Arizona, Paprika and Velvet were doing something a little classier than us, I have a going bet that at least Arizona flips out on some pony and destroys the restaurant before the night is out. Maries has bits on the long odds of Paprika flipping out and destroying the restaurant by accident. Jade said Velvet will flip out, but will still tip their waiter regardless of who actually destroys the restaurant and might do it herself.

Fortitude, Skelly, Flamberge and Sweetcakes were going to some traditional Neighpon restaurant. Flamberge and his girlfriend were quite close, they kept their relationship relatively quiet and didn’t express it much in public. Though I did catch Sweetcakes rubbing her tails all over Flamberge once, I ignored their embarrassment and moved on with my life.

Fortitude and Skelly were the oddest couple in existence. Don’t know how Fortitude or Skelly got to that point, don’t want to know, at least they are happy with being close to one another and that’s what mattered. Skelly doesn’t have a sense of smell and Fortitude is definitely not getting any girlfriends that come with that ability within this lifetime.

Skelly was being classified as a friendly yokai for the purposes of this night and her friends were going to vouch for her to that effect.

Of course there was mom the beloved witch Kuril and her companion Blade the bat pony. They were cute together, I wonder if it was what mom was like with Jade’s father before he passed away due to illness. Instead of eating at a restaurant, they were going to have fun by commandeering one with completely playful intentions.

As for us, we were doing nothing dangerous, nothing exciting, nothing crazy, nothing bizarre and not attracting the ever annoying ‘Puks’ by talking about them. We were doing this romantically tonight or we’d die trying to the forces of chaos that even Discord couldn’t possibly control!

Just a quiet meal, some snuggles, a few kisses and something important to tell our cat after dessert, that’s all I’m really asking for here.

Jade wasn’t dressed fancy tonight, she was just wearing her usual things. A shirt orange with black stripes, shorts in a snake green color, her pack and the necklace of magical alchemy ingredients including the ring we gave her tied to it.

We preferred Jade to be as comfortable as possible for what we were going to ask her, so this date was as casual as we could get.

All it would take is about five words, but Maries and I were mildly nervous. I knew I wanted this, Maries knew they wanted this and we knew Jade would say yes no matter how we asked her.

The question was simple and yet it was life changing. We snuggled and cuddled in bed, but this could change the activities we might ultimately be getting up to eventually.

Maries and Jade being attracted to me has always felt a little awkward, since they considered me the most attractive one in the relationship. Comparing Jade against myself, I would say Jade was the one that was attractive with her feline grace and quirky personality.

I was scarred by life, I had opened up my eyes to the cruelties of the world and yet… here I was trying and succeeding in getting back some of that missing innocence where the world was once a much brighter place.

I had finally opened up my eyes to wonders and possibilities of the world now too. I can smile, laugh and even be a little playful now. My friends old and new had led me back to being happy, now to push the envelope with my rather unique herd.

I was probably more dangerous than most things now anyway and I completely decimated an alicorn’s horn without damaging my own in the process, which certainly built some confidence in my magic and the ability to protect my loved ones. Not that they needed much protecting, everyone from Airship Mauled was a veteran of getting into and out of danger by now.

“Come on, let’s go in.” Hopefully there was no one already in the restaurant that would bug us tonight, I even went so far as to make sure the Wonder Bolts wouldn’t be here.

Spitfire would cause too much of a scene given she dislikes Jade for fairly obvious reasons, so I paid off Fleet Foot to keep her away from Restaurant Row tonight.

Whenever things feel normal for too long, something ridiculous always inevitably happens and all the various oddities that happened throughout Jade’s recovery had been recorded for posterity.

We had trouble doing normal things and we were prepared for that this time, Jade wasn’t the only one that could come up with absurd preparations and plans. The only difference is that I can actually do the math required to make sure that nobody interferes, to do so now would mean that I wouldn’t be holding back in using my magic on them.

Absolutely nothing was being left to chance tonight, nothing!

Jade stumbled a bit and I steadied her with a hoof and she slowly walked in, Saffron said hello and we were soon seated in a booth in the back just outside the doors line of sight. Maria had decided to stay separate from her sisters for this night to make it easier to sit down in the booth.

“Welcome to the Tasty Treat, what would you like to drink?” Saffron asked.

“A full pitcher of lemonade please.” Answered Jade with a peppy tone.

Again, it had been quite a task to keep Jade on the mend when she was always wanted to do something fun or interesting while still recovering. It didn’t help that Airship Mauled magnetized weirdness about as badly as Ponyville did.

“Trust us, she’ll definitely finish it.” This was my response to Saffron’s curious stare. “We probably should enter her in a lemonade drinking contest one of these days.”

It’s a good thing Abyssinians are easily distracted by yarn balls, you just had to keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t accidentally choke themselves when they inevitably tied themselves up by clawing playfully at the yarn.

“Mango cranberry pomegranate juice mix.” This was Mara, Maria and Marie’s choice for the night.

“Grape juice.” After getting my drink order, Saffron left us to look at the menus for a bit.

Eventually Saffron came back with our drinks and we all made our orders.

Dumplings, dipping bread and soup, curry, a noodle dish and a few other things soon littered the table as we ate. Our conversation topics weren’t highly enlightening, but the feast was quite nice and Jade was enjoying it well enough.

“Now that GODLESS is no longer a problem and Twilight will be dealing with Stochastic for the foreseeable future… I wonder what our next great adventure will be and who among the nobles will make a move on me next?” Nobody better make a move on you Jade, they will really pay for it if they do. We made sure to make a clear example of ‘Stochastic the piñata’ in the Canterlot newspapers. “I kind of want to travel around with Jacky for a while, take up some random jobs, get into some fun shenanigans with the royal guard and generally just want to wander about Equestria finding intriguing things to look into.”

“I’m planning on being a royal guard for Twilight you know…” I muttered loudly.

“I’ll just have to tease you extra hard then won’t I? You’ll definitely be the best guard ever, or at least the most competent one to ever live! Also, since Maries work in Canterlot as lawyers, it wouldn’t be too hard for you to visit them either.” Okay, Jade just brought up an obvious problem in our group dynamic.

Maries and I could work in Canterlot easily, Jade however liked to move around and wouldn’t like to live, work or be here exclusively. We’d just have to trust Jade could take care of herself, which was hard to do when she was nearly as bad an injury sponge as Jacky was.

It’s actually hard to believe that Jacky and Jade weren’t related by blood or were distant cousins at the least.

“How about I give you a job every once in a while to tortur-er-train the recruits up?” None of us wanted to live here. Well I could live here easily enough with my stoic attitude, but Jade and Maries would suffer if they were to try and do the same. That’s simply something I’m not going to allow.

Airship Mauled was our home and at the end of the day it wasn’t that long a commute every other way than taking a train.

“Did you say I get to tortur-er-train royal guards not just for fun, but also profit too?” Jade sat up and her whip like tail flicked back and forth excitedly in an adorable manner, she put her elbows on the table and her chin her hands as she leaned towards me with a grinning face. “Tell me more my lovely mare.”

Darn it Jade, we’re supposed to be charming you!

“We’ll go over it later my second favorite cuddle cat.” I hugged Jade and went back to my food.

“Second favorite?” Whined Jade pitiably.

“Mara’s bigger.” I commented dryly.

“Ah! Second favorite it is then, because Mara is definitely gives wonderful cuddles and Maria helps in the size department with her fluff. On a cold night Maries is enough of a bed all their own.” As Jade went on Mara blushed and all of Maries looked to me. We were not going to do a very good Job with charming Jade when she keeps doing it to us. “So which of us gets to have Marie wrapped tenderly around them tonight Fizzle? Her scales definitely feels nice on the fur and the way her tongue tickles my neck when she snores always feels wonderful.”

“Change of topic, what do you want for dessert?” Marie asked calmly with a red face. As Saffron approached us again.

“I don’t know, are unicorns and chimeras on the menu? I’m sure those two options would be the tastiest treats here.” Okay, Jade stupidly good at flirting with us, she was cheekily smiling at us while batting her eyes playfully. “I even think we would make a pretty good sandwich. Also I’m fairly sure hot fudge, strawberries and maple syrup couldn’t make you guys any sweeter as you’re all already delicious as is.”

She was making it awfully hard to keep making it about her or how wonderful she was.

“Is this just you, or are all Abyssinians like this in general when it comes to their mates?” My tone was flat, with a mild amount of warmth to it. “Just need some clarification.”

“Eh, it’s a little of both, adult queen Abyssinians are known for being record holders in flirting competitions and we apparently take majors in bedroom politics as college courses.” She tilted her head at us innocently. “Do you… want me to stop?”

“No.” This was unanimous and in stereo, I even managed to match Maries’ voices and almost sounded like I was one of them.

“That was actually pretty impressive Fizzy, especially considering you couldn’t have possibly have practiced that with Maries before now.” Okay how were supposed to defeat a flirtatious Jade?

I can do physical flirting. Aside from Maries, Jade was the only other one I ever did so with, but verbal compliments would be hard to do as constantly as Jade could.

Jade adored us, we just needed to let her know that we could give as much as we seem to take.

“Jade you think we’re beautiful and attractive, but you’re the one that’s completely adorable!” I shouted and she reeled back in shock with a vibrant blush on her face.

“We like how you purr when we caress you.” Maria snuggled up against Jade’s right side and rubbed her belly with a hoof, making her growl cutely.

“You are quite brazen in the affection you dole out upon us.” You are Mara nuzzled her shoulder from the left.

“How about we return the favor Jade?” Marie hissed while flicking her tongue against Jade’s neck making her giggle.

“Aw, come on… I’m not that special.” We glared at her and she shrunk back.

Screw the dessert, doing it now!

I got up.

Maries joined together, then joined me in facing Jade who was sitting there looking puzzled.

“Jade, there is so much we want to say.” I started off as I brought out a box. “We’re insane, because frankly a pony, a chimera and an Abyssinian probably shouldn’t herd together like this. Just answer one question. Jade… will you marry us?”

I opened the box towards Jade.

“Yes!” She said after a moment with tears filling her eyes, she slowly reached into the box and grabbed a restored yoyo.

-A few days later, Canterlot Boutique, Jade-

“There’s no way you’re going to get me to wear a dress.” I don’t honestly know why Sassy Saddles took this as a challenge, she would certainly regret trying to make it one. “I will take a tasteful tuxedo, with a matching skirt.”

Author's Note

Aw... they made a marriage proposal on the basis of giving Jade her yoyo back.

Chapter Seventy Two, Swing and a Misses: Not what they expected.

Author's Note

This page doesn't end the way you think it will.

Chapter Seventy Two, Swing and a Misses: Not what they expected.

-A week or so later, Canterlot Hotel, shower room, Fizzle-

“Why do we have to bathe in the shower?” Jade mumbled sleepily.

I was dragging the naked Abyssinian into the bathroom, I had just woken up and we had a long day ahead of us.

“One, to wake you up. Two, we need to be presentable today.” I tossed her in the tub and she whined. “Three, cleaning yourself with your tongue is not what I consider presentable.”

“Oh, come on, it’s the most feminine thing I do!” Only an Abyssinian like you would consider licking their fur feminine Jade.

“Nope, you’re getting scrubbed whether you like it or not.” I was obviously going to hound her today and she had to know this, at least she wasn’t putting up much of a fight. I stepped into the fairly large tub with her. “I’ll brush and comb your hair after I’m done bathing you, because that’s the most feminine thing ‘I’ ever seem do.”

“Who cares about being feminine when you’re already naturally beautiful and attractive?” Sitting up, Jade immediately wrapped her arms around my neck and then pressed her face into the left side of it. “Can we at least make this fun Fizzy?”

“Maybe a short cuddle wouldn’t…” I let her nuzzle me for a second, but then I felt her snap her mouth over my neck and I could feel her tongue working it over.

My tail flicked a bit reflexively and lifted upwards, I could feel my cheeks heating up as her teeth dug into my fur and flesh. I needed to get control of this situation and show Jade she’s being a really bad kitty this morning. As such, the response Jade was going to receive would be less than stellar on my part.

I leaned my head to the right a bit while rolling my eyes and then turned my head to the left to sit my chin on top of Jade’s head.

I let out a slightly happy sigh, giving Jade a few more seconds of this before I ruined this moment.

I calmly lit my horn, within a second a mass of cold water sprayed all over us. I was used to the shock of cold water in the morning, as for the half awake Jade, not so much the case this day. Jade hit the floor of the bathtub mewling having taken the brunt of the sudden blast of water to the face.

“That’s so cold of you Fizzy… both in temperature and attitude.” My bed warmer whined, then grinned. “I approve of your coldhearted act wholeheartedly, because I know there is a warm gooey muffin based center to you!”

I just gave her a stern look, sighed and turned up the warm water.

“Yes, but we need to get ready.” I had to put my hoof down on the shenanigans, especially today given where we were going to be. “So please Jade, don’t do anything to ruin this.”

“Me, ruin things, whatever gives you the idea that I would do something like that?” She pretended to be insulted, but I knew Jade better than that. “Why I’m completely appalled that you don’t think I can get away with something like that today without having a completely airtight alibi at the ready!”

“Is Jade being a bad kitty?” Asked Marie as slithered into the tub with us and groaned under the steam of the warm water spraying us. “You’re always good with getting the temperature right Fizzy.”

“No, I’m being a naughty kitty… there’s a fine distinction between the two my scaly love.” There was a short pause before Jade noticed something. “Hold on, you’re actually separate from your sisters?”

“Yes, it’s been known to happen.” Intoned Marie sweetly as she started to wind around the both of us.

“Wait, why are you…? Fizzy we’re being…!” Cutting off Jade’s warning, Marie quickly finished coiling around us tightly. She brought Jade and me chest to chest, then flicked both our noses with her tongue.

“Hello… mates~.” Mara said with a grin as she grappled me from behind while pressing her muscular chest into my back.

“This morning feels like it’s full of opportunities.” Maria said as she curled herself around to Jade’s face and shoved her tongue into Jade’s mouth for a quick passionate kiss. “We should seize the day, because our prey certainly are quite vulnerable right now.”

“Ambushed.” Finished a slightly dazed Jade lamely, she proceeded to nuzzle her face into Maria’s fluff. “Love you guys…”

We all barely fit in the hotel’s bathtub, but we still had some room to maneuver, with the exception of Mara given her size.

“I probably worried too much about you Jade, and clearly not enough about them. I forget that Maries can be as predatory as you are Jade.” Muttering this out loud before I felt Mara’s large tongue enter my mouth to play with my own. The tiger had her entire body wrapped around mine in a way that prevented me from getting out of this predicament. “However, I’m still going to blame Jade for this. Even if she is the guiding light of our hearts.”

“Sounds fair.” The three chimeric constituents said as one.

“Can we get this over with? I don’t want to waste all this hot water.” Well Jade broke relatively fast and knew when to cut her losses. “Maria, can you get my back please?”

Maria grabbed the soap and started to do as Jade asked, while Marie released her hold on us.

“I supposed you want to bathe me too Mara?” I felt some shampoo squirt into my mane and a pair of large, yet surprisingly gentle, paws started to knead my mane pleasant. “Yep, good clean fun… what a way to start of the day. At least this will make things quicker and then we can get in breakfast.”

“Just one more reason to do this quickly.” Sighed Jade with a fond smile on her face, her green hair hanging below her should and clinging to her fur as the warm water dripped off of her.

We were all fairly distracted for the next thirty minutes.

-A few hours later, hallway, Jade-

Well this wasn’t nerve wracking at all, because watching Rarity fuss and moan over every little detail like this was her own wedding was getting me a little nervous too. At least her dress was appropriate for today’s events.

“Seriously darling, a dress would really look nice with your figure.” Giving Rarity a scathing glare as she returned her attention from wedding planning to me, I was going to tell her exactly how I felt about her needling me constantly to wear one for this occasion.

“Rarity, let me just be clear here. Discord couldn’t get me in a dress, that’s even with chaos magic. So you’re definitely not going to do much better.” I crossed my arms and looked at my tuxedo and skirt combo. “Besides, what I’m wearing looks perfectly feline to me. Can you honestly say that I don’t pull this off?”

Rarity opened her mouth to tell me I was wrong, but then closed it. She opened it again a minute later, but then snapped it shut and looked me over with a critical eye. I just stayed silent for about two minutes while she hemmed and hawed.

“Okay, admittedly you do pull it off, but have you no shame for not wanting to look exquisite on such and auspicious day as this one or even a little sense of feminine decency?” Finally the bubble keeping Rarity from giving me a response decided to pop.

“Nope.” I even popped the ‘P’ when I said it. “I’m plenty feminine enough already when I bathe my fur with my tongue.”

“Oh right, cultural differences… which doesn’t make sense given that other Abyssinian females wouldn’t mind wearing nice dresses. Ah, I got it!” She raised a hoof with imaginary stars sparkling in her eyes. “Dress is five letter word, do you know what word also has five letters? The word ‘lover’. If you’re a lover than you must to know how sing like a song bird. If you can sing like a songbird, then you need to make yourself seen as much as heard. So in reality you love dresses more than anything in the world and want to wear one!”

“…” I just stare flatly at Rarity, I inhaled and then spoke a rebuttal that took three and a half minutes.

‘Humming Birds’, ‘Rice Pudding’, ‘Spatula’, ‘Hornets’, ‘Honey Syrup’, ‘Paprika’, ‘Puffer Fish’, ‘Fork’, ‘Pinkie Pie’, ‘A Hayburger’, ‘a garden rake’, ‘Celestia’s training toilet is teddy bear themed’ and ‘Sextant’ were the various words I used in my bouncing return argument. Said words were used, in that very given order no less, to turn Rarity’s completely failed attempt at faulty logic entirely back on her with even worse logic.

I had her so confused after I finished saying everything.

-Eight minutes later-

“How did you do that? I look awful wearing two dresses at the same time!” Cried Rarity as she was now wearing two dresses, one on top of the other, in a completely ridiculous manner. One dress was on backwards and the other was put on inside out and upside down. “What happened to the perfect use of my insane logic? How did you even convince me that this was a good idea?!”

I stood off to the side with a smirk on my face still wearing my tuxedo and skirt with my hands in my pockets.

“I’m simply better at crazy logic than you are Rarity.” Proclaiming this proudly, I turned and begin to walk away from Rarity humming to myself with a bright cheeky grin on my face. As I sauntered away with added a sway in my hips and my tail flicked in victory against Miss ‘wear a dress’ herself. “Nice attempt at getting nowhere. Oh and you might want to wear a third dress as a hat.”

“No, I will not stop in my efforts to…” Rarity stumbled back when I suddenly turned and pointed at her.

“Rarity, keep pushing this and I will plan to destroy the world just because you can’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” I stared into her very soul with my eyes. “I absolutely mean it, I can and will destroy the world if you push me to do so.”

“She’s not kidding, she will do it and has the capacity too.” Sekhet said as she sauntered by us wearing a really nice looking Egyptian style regalia for the wedding. “Your mom is coming and it’s about to start Jade.”

Rarity swallowed loudly and opened her mouth to say something, but we were interrupted.

“Jaded it’s time, we need you to be ready and serious!” Smiling at mom, I nodded and continued to sashay away from Rarity with my head high in the air. Walk like an anugyptian, because I was an honorary one once upon a time.

I even tossed my yoyo down once and then brought it back up to look at it, I stared at the images in the wood that were repaired by a lot of magical effort and then pocketed it.

I’m surprised Fizzy and several other unicorns managed to get every single splinter and managed to reform it. I just wanted the image of Marie in a top hat back.

-Wedding Hall-

I entered and walk down the row and stood at the ready, the waiting was making me nervous as I clasped my hands in front of myself.

The room was packed with both friends and family, there was a tension in the air.

Weddings were quite magical in this world, in the most literal sense you can imagine.

The signal was shot to the player and then the ‘Wedding Aisle March’ started playing, which was better known as ‘Here Comes the Bride’.

How earth ponies continue to play pianos successfully, much less any ragtime with hooves, I will never be able to figure out and it’s going to bug me for the rest of my life.

I spotted something beyond the doors before they closed, I turned to Baast and raised my right hand showing her all my fingers. I closed my hand into fist and then extended and swirled my index finger towards the ceiling.

Baast narrowed her eyes and nodded as she turned to address the hall.

“Is there any reason why they shouldn’t be wed!” Baast stated loudly having been given my signal. The friends and family looked a little confused until four stallions burst into the hall.

“I’ll tell you why, for we the Quarrelsome Quartet… wait a tick… this isn’t your wedding is it Jaded?” Teatime looked utterly flummoxed to see Maud and Mud Briar at the altar, I was standing off to the side of Maud. Behind Teatime was a multitude of combat ready clockwork golems.

“Oh come on, you can remember my sisters name, but you can’t remember mine!” Jacky yelled indignantly from her seat next to Gene with Gavin in her lap.

“I want to say your name is… uh… Nemesis?” Teatime received the most scathing glare Jacky could give him. She stood up while growling angrily.

“Sit down.” Maud stated clearly in the same monotone she’s known for, Jacky immediately did so. “Mud Briar, can you give me two hours to settle this issue?”

“Why of course, technically it will only take you an hour, but two hours is really plentiful.” Mud Briar answered without a second thought, Maud then turned to her sister.

“Can you…” Maud started only for Pinkie to get in front of her face.

“Already set the catering back for one hour and thirty minutes, my Pinkie Sense said it was needed.” Pinkie replied amiably to her sister. “Also, I’ll pass out some snacks that aren’t messy while you’re busy with the trouble makers."

“Everyone… excuse me.” Maud started walking back down the aisle in her wonderful wedding dress, all while staring at the four completely dead stallions.

After she pushed them out the way of the doors, she closed them behind her.

-One hour and forty minutes later, outside-

I was witness to it… if there was one thing I shouldn’t have done, it was go outside to see if Maud was alright.

On a distant mountain Teatime’s airship was in five large pieces and tons of smaller ones as well, the streets were strewn with destroyed golem parts and mangled royal guards. Half the city was on fire and I was both horrified and intrigued by what I had just witnessed.

Teatime and his ilk didn’t even touch the royal guards, it was all Maud’s doing. She mangled everything that so much as hinted that it was going to stop her from getting married today.

Maud calmly turned around and walked away from a flagpole towards me, at the top of it was the Quarrelsome Quartet all tied together, beaten, bloodied, bruised and every one of their body parts twisting in weird angles.

I slowly turned my gaze back to Maud who slowly walked down the street as an explosion went off behind her. She held out her right hoof and her familiar, Boulder, fell from the sky to land in it.

Maud’s wedding dress was immaculate, she hadn’t been touched by a single thing the entire time and she didn’t even break a sweat.

“Tell them to start up again.” Maud stated plainly.

I entered the wedding hall.

“Do not… go out there!” I was clearly horrified.

Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Premise.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Agenda.

Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Agenda.

-Hoofington, nighttime, Maries-

“So… seedy a bar?” Well it was what was confirmed by our trustworthy sources Arizona. “The kind of place my mom would go to?”

“Seems like it.” Mara stated for us as we looked to it.

“La Perm style?” Asked Maria with a few flames licking her lips.

“Is there any other way to start a bar fight?” An amused sounding hiss came from Marie. “Let’s make this a night to remember.”

“These guys probably don’t even warrant a warm up for me.” The world’s strongest, yet scrawniest looking, cow stated. “Still, it’s nice to get a few favors from this.”

-Balsamic Brew’s Bar-

“So I took down that chimera all by myself.” A pegasus mare, with a green zebra styled mane and purple fur, was clearly hitting on a local stallion with her proud boast.

This mare was among the thirty or so clearly marked mercenaries in the bar wearing light cloth armor. The mercenaries had crossbows, a few blades and were relatively lightly armed. They had plenty of unicorn ponies, earth ponies and pegasus ponies and a single pudgy thestral.

What they didn’t have was pony paranoid enough to be constantly on the lookout for danger.

“Really, you didn’t need the help of all these other ponies in your company here to deal with such a nasty and vicious sounding chimera?” A voice said from behind her.

“I’m Maven of Maven’s Mercs, of course I can take down a chimera by my…!” The mare paled as she turned look at the speaker who would doubt her prowess in combat. “Y-y-you…”

“Us actually, we’re a plural you know.” She was met with three faces that she recognized speaking in unison and she wasn’t quite sure how they all snuck through the door without the rest of her company noticing them.

Maven went to scream, but two tiger paws slapped both sides of her head and she fell off the stool in a loud clatter.

Every mercenary in the room froze and turned towards the bar to see the chimera that they had ambushed a long time ago was standing among them. Said chimera was lifting a stool with a paw while turning towards them.

Maven, the mercenaries’ leader, was already out on the floor with a single attack.

“As per usual rules and regulations as followed by the family that we’re going to be joining into in matrimony, we will now be starting this fight in a traditional manner. I would like to warn you all that don’t understand this, we are starting a bar fight.” The goat head stated, the shivering bartending stallion slowly shrank down behind the bar. The tiger head continued for the chimera. “However, just to be clear here, this is revenge for a bunch of flank holes throwing us into Tartarus without so much as a how do you do. This led to my sister being permanently traumatized by a Chupacabra, This is clearly our idea of a therapy session for her. If you are going to support these mercenaries I suggest you stay and enjoy the festivities of a brutal one sided fight. As for everyone else... we would like to politely ask you to please exit the bar.”

“We took you down once we can…” Before the unicorn could say much more, a rope wrapped around his glowing horn and he was yanked into a nearby wall. He hit the floor out cold and Arizona slid her rope back under her bandana.

“Yeah… you don’t exactly have the element of surprise this time.” Arizona stated calmly, as a fairly large cow walked in with a stick of dynamite between her teeth. When she saw her bulky mother trot onto the scene like she owned the place, Arizona paled. “Mom… what are you doing here…. AND WHAT COMPLETE IDIOT GAVE YOU DYNAMITE?!”

“Grace, also she’s not an idiot kiddo and don’t disrespect your aunt! I know she raised you far better than that!” Minnesota ‘Maggie’ Magnolia Arid said as she joined Arizona and Maries from out of nowhere, the bachelorette party of beating up a room full of ponies was going to be slightly more exciting. “Did you know these mercenaries have a collective bounty on their butt’s my little Zoney?”

“That’s Interesting to know Maggie… well this will make what we’re doing here easier, legally speaking of course.” Marie turned to the two heads at the front of their body. “Throw the stool a single foot Mara!”

The stool left Maries paw and flew more than a foot, it embedded into the wall with how hard she threw it.

Every pony that wasn’t a mercenary, or a brave and prideful idiot, immediately evacuated past the two cows. Some ponies drunkenly stumbled about having had too much salt lick this night, they were also allowed to vacate the bar.

The mercenaries started to gather, as did a few bar patrons that had stayed for a fight. Only Maggie quickly put a stop to them grouping up. Pony herding instincts, even in a mercenary troupe, were a horrible idea when an explosives wielding nutcase was nearby.

“Light them up baby!” Maggie yelled as she smacked her hooves together and a spark jumped from them to her stick of dynamite. The short fuse lit up and Maggie spat the dynamite into the room.

Maries were already pulling themselves over the bars counter and Arizona quickly wrapped herself in a spiral of two ropes. The center of the room was rocked with an explosion and ponies were knocked all over the place in a painful manner.

Arizona’s rope burned away, but she was fine and she stayed near the entrance, looking a little haunted as her mother was stealing what was supposed to be Maries’ fight.

Maries immediately grabbed a bottle of vinegar on the bar and smashed it roughly against a unicorn’s head, but it only cracked and didn’t break. This was as far as they got into starting the fight before Maggie took over.

“I’m going to knock you out~!” Leaping Maggie performed a painful looking elbow drop on one of the earth ponies, the floor shuddered with the impact as her weight engulfed the poor mercenary. She rolled and kicked upwards into a pegasus’s face. “Do you want to mess with this wild cow~? Someone at least try to give me a bloody lip now~! What do you got to fear, or do you just know that I’m not any average steer~! Stear clear, because when I get near to throw a single hoof to the face and… oh dear~!”

Most of the ponies were too shell shocked by the crazy cow to really stop her from putting her hoof into an earth pony’s face and sending him flying across the room, she followed that up by grabbing and pile driving a unicorn into unconsciousness.

“Down you go, to a single blow, what a wuss, what a puss, got cream that’s sour, since there’s no matching a cow with this kind of raw power~!” Maggie tilted her neck with a sharp crack and pressed her hooves together flexing all the muscles in her body. “I throw my weight around, get paid by the takedown, are you afraid yet or do you need a better break down~?”

“This is our vicious come back, in Tartarus we had some fears, you messed with us three, now we’ll just enjoy your tears~!” Mara and Maria gripped an entire table in both their jaws and swung sending five unicorns slamming roughly into the wall. They spun around and released the table into three pegasi ponies pinning them against the ceiling and embedding them in it. “Did you think a chimera like us would take this sitting down, ambushing us and forcing us to the ground, well let’s return the favor with a smattering of musical flavor~!”

They grabbed a pony and Maria slammed her skull into his making him flop bonelessly out of their paws. Mara slapped outwards with her left paw and the raw strength sent several ponies flailing.

“So we’re going to knock you out, there’s no reason to shout, get ready and don’t you pout, this is just round one and you have another bout~!” Throwing a rope, Arizona yanked a pegaus into a table breaking it. She slung them around bashing several surround ponies with the stallion’s body and then sent him flopping across the ground. “Shout, that you don’t stand a chance! We’ll prance on you, watch us take you down with nothing but a glance~!”

Arizona glared at a unicorn, scaring the mare out of her wits. She turned and summarily slammed her face in the wall and fell onto her back with her legs twitching.

“Rip and tear, until it is done~!” Mara shouted as she bucked two ponies into Arizona’s outstretched hooves clotheslining them. She grabbed the thrown stool from the floor and reared up to bash a pegasus into a wall back first.

“By a metric ton, this sure to be fun~!” Marie stated before she rapidly, and deeply, scratched several ponies with her fangs as she was swung around by her sisters. It would be about thirty seconds before those ponies fell over, their adrenaline spreading Marie’s poison through their bodies at an accelerated rate.

“You should learn to fear us… because we’ve already won~!” Maria hit a unicorn with her flame breath and he started rolling on the floor after being lit up.

“We’re going to knock you out~!” Using her bulk Maggie smashed several ponies against the wall all at once.

“This is no gentle bop to the snout~!” Arizona rammed her hoof into one of the braver bar patrons that actually tried to make a moved, he flipped over backwards from the impact and now had a broken nose.

Arizona tossing out ropes to start tying up the various battered mercenaries who were having problems getting their bearings from the sudden violent assault.

“Do you think that crossbow scares us lout~!” Maries screamed as one at a whimpering, pudgy, thestral stallion mercenary trying to load his crossbow, the poor guy was too shaken up from being near the dynamite explosion to do so. He didn’t stop trying to load it, a paw swiftly slammed into his temple in a karate chop motion that knocked him out.

“Is this a battle~? I call it a rout~!” As a mercenary tried to surge toward Maggie with a sword she caught it between her hooves, she snapped it in half and then lifted the earth pony into the air with her right hoof. Maggie pulled the mare up to her face and gave the poor mare a steely stare. “You should be running, especially with this kind of clout~!”

After punching the mercenary mare in the face with a single left hoof, Maggie dropped her to the floor in a heap.

“So how many of you are really left, do you want to come quietly or do we need a break your cleft~?” Maries said holding up a curled paw to a stallion who whimpered pitifully at the total massacre happening here and curled up on the floor sobbing.

“I’m sorry, please don’t take me in~!” The stallion whimpered, Maries let him be. “I have a family, I accept defeat, you win~!”

They all looked around only to spot one last bit of trouble.

“Nobody move, or I’ll make this stallion pay~! Now give me time to back out, still, all of you better stay~! One wrong move and this won’t be a clean end to this day~.” Maven had gotten back up and grabbed one of her own mercenaries and was aiming a crossbow at their heads, the stallion looked fairly betrayed by the mercenary leader. Mara, Maria, Arizona and Maggie stopped cold. “So you tracked us down, you thought you could catch me~. Well we all know, that it just wasn’t meant to…~”

A smashing sound was heard. It was the breaking of a bottle of vinegar against Maven’s head, the crossbow dropped and subsequently went off. The arrow harmlessly impaled a wall full of decorative knickknacks.

“Be…?” Maven’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she went down again with a painful lump on her skull.

The stallion looked at the broken bottle being held in a snake’s tail at his hooves. Marie held the broken bottle at him threateningly and he held completely still. Nodding to him, Marie simply turned away from him.

“My sisters, always needing someone to watch out for our collective backsides…” Marie threw the broken bottles to the side and then slithered over and rejoined with her sisters. “Arizona finish tying them up. Excuse me sir…”

“Balsamic and you’re going to pay for all the damages to my bar!” The bartender shouted at Maries, there was a slight hint of greed in his eyes. “That’s roughly thousands of bits in damage that you just caused and customers I’ll never get back, if you have money to hire help then you have money to pay me for the damages.”

“We can’t pay you for legal reasons, one is that this building clearly isn’t up to code and hasn’t been for a long while.” Exclaimed Mara lazily, Balsamic paused and looked a little ill.

“Two, there’s an illegal parapsrite spawning operation in the back. Hoofington had a big problem with those and banned any sign of their existence in the area.” Rubbing the back of her hoof against her fluff, Maria was also fairly calm. “The authorities are going to look into your other business as soon as they arrive Mr. Balsamic. We’re going to be here to make sure you don’t hide what Marie saw in your back room while we dove over the counter.”

The stallion paled visibly.

“Three, we had this building condemned before we came in. We had a safety inspector we know personally come in to check it in secrecy and everything. So technically you don’t own the building because you didn’t have rebuilt or refurbished in the last five years you’ve been bribing the safety and health inspectors off.” With Marie’s words, Balsamic the blue stallion with the short rusty colored mane was slowly getting paler and paler by the second. What was said next clearly made it plain he couldn’t do anything. “Thus you have been illegally running this building within that timeframe which thereby strips your ownership of said building according to the will that your late grandpa left behind and we have no need to pay reparations on it for the repairs you should have done a long time ago.”

“Not to mention the fact that you’ve been harboring, aiding and abetting a bunch of criminal fugitives known as Maven’s Marauders.” Inserted Maggie cheerfully as she dared him to try something.

“I…” The stallion looked down. “How?”

“We’re lawyers.” Maries exclaimed.

“Oh buck me… you’re ‘THAT’ good!” Yes, Mr. Balsamic was thoroughly bucked.

“Paper trails Mr. Balsamic, you have them. Be assured that if you win your impending court case, then you ‘might’ be in control of your bar again. You can’t threaten money out of us as you have no legal legs to stand on.” Explained Maria as she exhaled a few flames. “You clearly weren’t doing your job in taking care of this place correctly. Our mates Jade and Fizzy would be proud that we researched everything thoroughly.”

-A minute later, Maggie-

The authorities had it handled and we were exiting the bar when an impressive explosion went off up in Canterlot.

Author's Note

Maries apparently took a page from Fizzy and Jade's books.

Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Lineup.

Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Lineup.

-Manehatten, Wrestling Arena, Fizzle-

“So Arizona honestly loves her mother and isn’t afraid of her personally, but she’s afraid that Maggie might hurt someone every time she has explosives in her hooves and I can see why she would think that. Maggie is somewhat unnerving. You should have seen what happened with Maggie, Pom and the salt mines when we were in the next door world of Fœnum. Pom might forever have post-traumatic stress disorder at the mention of salt, mines and explosives now… that poor lambkin.” Having asked Velvet about her thoughts on Maggie, I got some interesting tidbits about how Maggie loved the snot out Arizona and her wives. She and I were sitting in some front row seats and it would be an hour or so before things got started. My dear deer sister could talk up the storm and I didn’t mind that in the slightest. “One of the most horrifying things about having been to Fœnum is hearing that Maggie taught that particular world how to make dynamite, they are more naturalistic and have less technology than we do. No trains for one, my hooves were hurting having to walk everywhere. At least I got to see how gorgeous I looked outside of a mirror when I met the Fœnum Velvet, why her extravagant floof was a match for my very own! I’m not boring you am I?”

“No I’m actually fairly fascinated about this other world, so… Paprika fought against her Fœnum self and was so evenly matched that they eventually decided to have an etiquette fight?” I was fairly curious about Fœnum, plenty of parallels between our worlds and yet so vastly different. “How would that even work?”

“That was the thing, it didn’t. It was horrible!” Sometimes I felt like Velvet was exaggerating far too much. “So, about tonight’s events, are you sitting out to avoid injury or did you get a costume?”

“Costume, I really need to let my mane down a little and I wouldn’t mind a tag team fight with you as a partner. Even if I get injured, Jade and Maries don’t care if I get married while looking black and blue. Just that I’m alive to be married, which has me worried that Jade went up to Canterlot.” If there was one thing I knew about my kitty, her life was trouble. A little less trouble than Jacky on a good day, but still trouble. Marrying her wasn’t going to slow her down if all the various long stays in a hospital didn’t. She was fierce, adorable, a rogue that could be cheeky, there was also those hips… the way she purrs when she’s happy…

-A few minutes later-

“Hello, Equus to Fizzle, would you possibly respond to Tempest?” Jumping as Velvet was in my face, I blinked and grinned weakly. She sighed as she looked up to the lights in the ceiling. “Smitten, I know the feeling. There’s nothing like Arizona pummeling me into the dirt or Paprika snuggling me with the force of a mountain imploding. Oh and I signed up our tag team with Shock and Jock.”

“I’m not surprised that out of the three of you, two of you are masochists that hate love each other so hard that you can’t stand to be away from one another for too long because you enjoy making yourselves suffer the others company.” Bluntly put, I could clearly see why their relationship worked. Like how all of Maries’ rippling muscles… oh great, I just realized my type is both dangerous and off the wall peculiar. Something I had in common with my entire herd. Wait… doesn’t Twilight Sparkle fit that? Oh goddesses, I might have just started having a ‘friend crush’ on Twilight for it just for thinking it. “Yeah, I’m having trouble concentrating.”

I noted that stands were filled up with various species.

“Let’s stop the conversation and watch what Savannah and Brenda are doing in the ring… did Savannah change her fur color?” Yeah Velvet, she did. Savannah’s special magical trinket had quite a few uses, including camouflage, being able to cleanse the entire body of grime and it could possibly remove poison from the wearer when it cleanses them.

White fur, black stripes, a glossy blue and white skintight bathing suit style tights that left little to the imagination, the remainder of Savannah’s costume was basically a cloth mask with a winking face design on it and her pirate symbol. Next to her was Brenda, the diamond dog was wearing a moderate length skirt with shorts on her ballerina tights outfit and she had a matching face mask that only covered her eyes.

“We’re getting in the show opener and are starting early folks, just for you! She’s wild, she’s cannot be contained, keep your medical records up to date and she will hunt you down! Introducing the sexy, Savvy Sailor!” Announced Jock Hawk in the judges area, Savannah posed for the audience eating up the applause. “Her partner is a beautiful diamond of a poodle, one that just about anyone might want to canoodle. She’s a classy dame, which will put you all to shame. The lovely, Pinup Puppy!”

What followed was a pretty neat match where our friends had to face a griffon hen, Gabby I think, and a female minotaur that seemed like she was making a token appearance for her species. I felt like calling her Minnie in my mind. Minnie knew how to wrestle, but the hen with her seemed liked she was only decent.

The hen and Brenda made a good showing of it, but with all the teasing Brenda did in the arena she eventually managed to pin the thoroughly blushing griffon hen to the mat for ten seconds.

In the end Savannah showed why she was a pirate… because she had no shame, especially not when she had a costume malfunction and still continued on to win the match.

“Oh, a perfectly executed Caterwaul Cleaver, that has ‘GOT’ to hurt! I love the sound of pain in the evening.” Shocking said with glee, he and Jock did legitimate business while being part-time evil guys in the Quarrelsome Quartet as they started calling themselves since that ill-fated interruption at Maud’s wedding. “That was a nasty takedown by Savvy Sailor and her opponent is K-O’d!”

“Come on Fizzle, let’s go, we’re up next!” Velvet was excited tugging at my hoof, I just rolled my eyes sardonically and followed her to the locker room.

-A few more minutes later-

“She’s wrestled a manticore to the ground, she’s got plenty of scars to go around. She’s bringing the pain, like a lightning strike in the rain. Say hello to the... Storm Queen!” I walked out with a steady trot, my costume was dark grey and covered bright blue lightning bolts, my muzzle, mane and tail left exposed. I sighed as I looked towards an entire cheering section filled with Storm Creatures. Pique and Niche had clearly gotten wind of this.

“You go boss!” Of course Grubber was here too, why wouldn’t he be? He was wielding a megaphone. “I’m you’re best hedgehog for the special thing right? I heard that’s coming up!”

I just gave him an even glance, then turned to my partner strutting towards the wrestling ring.

“Her partner will give you a cold shoulder while ignoring any leer, she’s got a frosty disposition whenever mentioning her airy rear…” Jock started as Velvet calmly stepped into the ring, then she snapped at him.

“It’s… a… CONDITION!” Thankfully, knowing Velvet as well as I do, I had managed to cover my ears before she shrilly screamed that. “DO NOT MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE JOCK, I WILL RIP OFF YOUR BEAK AND USE IT AS A TOILET BRUSH! I WILL MAKE YOU BURY YOURSELF ALIVE WITH ONLY A THIMBLE OF HONEY RESIDUE TO BE THE LAST SWEET THING YOU EVER TASTE IN YOUR LIFE! I WILL HIT A CHAIR WITH YOU UNTIL THE NUMBER OF BROKEN PIECES CAN MATCH THE NUMBER OF BONES I BREAK! I WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER YOU PATHETIC PUNY PARROT!”

“To think we say Fred is demonic…” I commented dryly.

The crowd was eating her rage up, if only they knew it was real and that she could actually carry out her threats.

“Eep…” Jock cowered under the table and Shocking just gave him a disappointed look.

“Wimp!” Shock waved a hoof at Velvet’s icy blue spandex that covered everything but her head and tail, on her face was a white snowflake mask. “She’s always twenty percent cooler and tougher than most, she’s a reindeer that doesn’t need to boast. She’s Demolition Doe!”

-Start of the match-

My opponent was a pegasus with a mane that shifted between green and blue colors, her fur was a grayish green and her eyes were turquoise. She came at me as soon as the match started with exceptional speed, I could almost swear I was fighting a wonder bolt right now given her costume design.

She tried to grapple me, I simple rolled and twisted away from the attempt to pop up into a standing position.

I started shift my hooves while staring her down as she came to swoop at me again.

I darted forward slightly, hit the floor with my right hip and went into a windmill spin, I pushed my lower back upwards and lashed out with both my rear hooves.

My rear right hoof came up into the left side of her neck stunning her, my left rear came up a second later to her and she stumbled in the air, this allowed me to tightly wrap my rear legs around her.

Now that I her neck between my thighs and was basically hoof standing. I grunted and, with effort, I slammed her spine first into the mat and then rolled once to do a second slam, I was now on top of her pinning her down with my rear legs.

“It seems that Vanishing Vapor has been caught off guard by the Storm Queen’s windmill scissor grapple that flowed neatly into a double backwards roll and pin for a rear leg head lock.” I tried to drown out Shocking’s voice as Vapor tried to use her wings to smack me off of her. “One… two… three… four… five… six…”

My rear legs were now choking her wind pipe. I tried to keep on the pressure, but she still managed to buck my off of her by doing a ridiculously flexible body curl to put her rear hooves to my face and knock me away with a blow to my face.

While I was dazed from the hit that might have left me with a left black eye, which will certainly hurt a lot more after this. I felt Vapor grapple me as I sat up. The left side of her chest pressed against mine as she gripped me around the barrel hard and her wings grappled at my neck.

“The Storm Queen has been captured in a hoof sleeper hold and wing noose lock.” Announced Jock as I thrashed and tried to get out of the hold while slowly blacking out. “One… two… three…”

Instead of trying to buck the mare off, as it wasn’t working, I kicked at the ground and put both of us in the air. Vapor instinctively flexed her wings outwards, which was a mistake when we hit the ground and I smashed her under my weight.

Not only did she release my wind pipe, if she had let me go before we hit the ground, then I wouldn’t have been able to do… this!

I elbowed her right eye with my right leg and then rolled us into positon so that we were face to face. Both my hooves were wrapped around her front legs and wings, I wrapped my rear legs around hers and then tightened my grip like iron.

My left hoof was crossing over her back and helping my right leg pin her left wing and vice versa with my right hoof and left leg.

“Ooh, an incredible launch reversal, into a dazing elbow with roll into an all hooves full frontal lock! Does Storm Queen have the strength to keep Vanish Vapor down?” You better believe I did Shock, she had size and agility, what she didn’t have was grip strength. I was a unicorn with muscles… also did he have to say it was full frontal? I could hear the sound of the Storm Creatures going wild. “One… two… three… four…”

Vapor was jerking every which way underneath me trying buck me off, she was trying to wiggle at least a wing out of my grasp and she was getting close to doing so.

I decided to see if that myth about husky diamond dogs would works on a pony, I snapped my head forward and sharply bit her left ear without breaking the skin.

Vapor yelped underneath me and whimpered, apparently that small harmless bite took the fight out of her. She was also blushing heavily at my show of dominance and looked up into to my hardened stare meekly.

Note to self, try this on Jade later…

“Five… six… seven… eight… nine… ten… match win, Storm Queen, the Vanishing Vapor is Vanquished!” Jock stated and the Storm Creatures were all cheering for me, as was a number of the crowd after that.

“Um… marry me?” The mare asked quietly.

“Sorry, I’m already taken and I’m in the middle of a bachelorette party that involves wrestling for some reason.” She look horrible disappointed to hear that, I released her got up and made my way over to Velvet who had a water bottle and some soft and chewy cookies waiting for me. I took her offerings. “Thank Velvet.”

“Is it… her?” I turned to give the mare flat look as she came up next to me still looking entirely submissive. “I do have a stallion I like… so I guess I better drop it then?”

“No… it’s not Velvet. She’s my sister, happily adopted into our family of course.” The most I could do was at least tell her what my type was. “I’m into danger attracting, dangerous and eccentric individuals. Even if I wasn’t already engaged, you are definitely not my type. My herd consists of an adorable charismatic headache of an Abyssinian and a fierce chimera lawyer, both fierce in the courtroom, outside of it and when we snuggle. They would all probably tell you that it definitely wouldn’t work out too, so don’t get upset at me for being clear and honest with you upfront.”

She looked at the floor and shyly scuffed a hoof.

“Darn it… can you at least give me advice on how to tell a stallion I really love him? Maybe get him to do that bite thing to me?" Looking from Vapor to Velvet, I quirked my head at her in a questioning manner. "My name is Vapor Trail.”

“We’ll see what we can do, maybe you’d be better off with Savannah or Brenda’s help Ms. Trail.” Answered Velvet politely. "They're shameless flirts."

“Speaking of us, where did you learn a secret Tibitten technique?” Brenda approached us. “That precise bite strength and pressure point was too perfect to have been an accident!”

“Heard rumors traveling around and that actually 'was' an accident.” I noted Brenda's upset look. “If it's secret, then how do you know about it?”

“So that’s what you keep using on me Brenda!” Growled Savannah, she smiled maliciously.

Author's Note

Next we'll see what Jade, Sweetcakes, Paprika and Flotam are doing on... The 'F' Team!

No amount of math homework is going to help them, mostly Jade though.

Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Listing.

-Canterlot, Prance Prance Revolution Nightclub, Jade-

“So really, I want to provide for them in my own way like they are willing to provide for me. Love is considered a two-way street, but when it comes to a herd it’s more like a crossing where everyone can come together at the center for a time to love and be loved. Also it requires patience, which I admittedly test often enough, while treating each other as equals.” The disco beat was nice and the dragon fruit juice was good. The oddest thing about this party club is that it had mares and stallions dancing around poles, sometime two ponies were on one pole at a time. I just didn’t feel like dancing and was chatting with Flotsam at a booth as we watched our companions on the dance floor. “Would you look at those two go? Last five songs and they still can’t determine a winner between them.”

Paprika and Sweetcakes were really challenging each other. It was Paprika’s frenetic and boundless energy versus Sweetcakes grace and flow. It was beautiful to watch the two work the crowd as hardly anyone else was dancing when they were too busy watching the alpaca and the kitsune cut the floor into so many pieces.

“Yeah, it’s like they’re dancing machines.” Agreed Sammy as she sipped her own drink. “So the relationships you have is just that easy for you?”

“Not really, I still have to a put of lot of effort into it. It’s not all cuddles and snuggles, there’s also staying fit and healthy for them, making sure to keep their lives interesting and I want to make them smile. Seeing Fizzy smile and her eyes filled with joy is a breath of fresh air.” Considering our livelihoods, some traveling with Jacky would be fun and profitable. I still wanted to travel the world and Jacky has already seen too many places without me. “It’s hard to not make them sad when I keep getting injured the way I do, but I’m not exactly super cow Arizona with a hide tough enough to bounce swords off of. I’d die for them, I’d rather live for them and I would almost do anything they could ask of me… except put on a dress. They could actually talk me into getting pregnant, but no dress will ever befoul my body!”

“Fresh air is about all I can breathe… my gills are entirely useless, except when someone is trying to choke me by my mouth and nose. I want things to work about between me and Twist, not going to stop being a pirate for anything though. Your sister is amazingly generous with each crews share.” Which would explain why Flotsam was paying for the drinks and snacks, she had plenty of money from the adventures she got into. The fact that Jacky can hold onto any treasure long enough to pay her crew surprises me to no end with how unlucky she was. Not that her crew needed money to stick around, but they did need it to buy food and some materials for new balloons or minor repair work. “So have we worked up enough of an alibi yet?”

“Not yet, let a few more ponies get a bit more salt lick in them.” The plan was relatively simple tonight and I really just wanted to Spitfire to chase me again, but she kept refusing to do so. I am sad kitty about that, but I can at least hope to get Shining Armor chasing me tonight. Twilight was getting support from the Crystal Empire until the Royal Guard could get back into order. So I had a thing for running from angry people, I’d like to see the world try and sue me with Maries around. “Most of them will be too dry to remember when we came in or when we leave, but they’ll remember that we were here.”

“Sounds good enough to me, I personally don’t have an interest in salt lick or alcohol. Though my captain does make drinking tempting...” Flotsam took a sip of her strawberry and kiwi juice. “So how are we doing the heist?”

“We get through the gate, go up to the door and…” Waiting until my companion took a drink, I finished my answer. “We knock on it to ask to be let inside to steal things.”

She spewed her drink, she coughed a lot and sputtered fruit juice everywhere.

“What?! That’s your genius, incredibly convoluted plan to have a fun bachelorette night!” Why do you seem so surprised Flotsam? I grinned at her. “Jacky says you’d make a ridiculous plan. You’re known for not do anything normal and you had me thinking you had something huge planned.”

“It’s clearly not normal though.” The look I was receiving right now was completely deadpan. “I mean, how many people do you suppose do something as honest as asking if you can rob them blind and expect it to possibly succeed?”

“You expect to just waltz up to a door, knock on it and ask the ponies that live there if you can steal from the house?” Nodding to Sammy, that was generally what we were going to do. “Fine, we’ll do it that way, this is your plan for the night after all. Let’s call the girls over to finish this food first though, also can we get some refills?”

A waiter came up to the table and sat down a mass of fries dripping with cheese, four forks were provided for cleaner eating of the mass made from at least three large potatoes. There were also a fish tacos for Sweetcakes and me, while Paprika and Flotsam were having fancy salads. This nightclub was plenty snazzy, but not too overly snazzy or too high class.

This place wasn’t too expensive and it was too low class for nobles, I knew how to pick a good spot to try.

“Of course.” The stallion stated as he turned to walk away.

“Hey Pappy, Sweets, the food has arrived!” The two twirled their way to the table and struck a pose much to the amusement of their audience before they sat down. “Maybe we should do this again when I feel like actually dancing, but I can honestly say that I love the atmosphere of this place.”

Paprika nodded, Flotsam hummed loudly as she chewed through some of the platter of cheesy fries we were sharing and as for Sweetcakes...

“I am honored Jade, that you ask me to join you, the night is still young.” Sweetcakes gave us a cheerful smile as she flicked her tails happily.

“Wait until we really get into the thick of things, we’ll see how honored you are by the end of it.” All the vixen did was quirk an eye at my response.

-Later, noble target’s house-

“Open gate like so.” I just pushed it open and the girls followed up the path to the house. “Walk up to do the door and...”

Paprika took the initiative before I could and knocked on the door with seven familiar notes, five quick notes and then two slow notes.

Soon the door opened and a butler type stallion poked his head out to look at us.

“Yes, may I assist you this evening ladies?” The stallion politely stated.

“My friend, the Abyssinian here, wants to raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer her weasel-y black guts out on this home for whatever reason. She’s a rogue sun priestess, I’m a pirate, that’s a relatively mischievous kitsune and this here is our lovable friend who's a hug monster to everyone.” The stallion just stares at Flotsam for a moment, she decided to add on to the completely nuts statement. “We’re being honest and upfront with our intentions, also it’s the cat’s bachelorette night and we’re indulging her a bit much to ask such a thing of you. May we come in?”

“Very good madam, you can come in and take whatever you feel like. Can I offer you any food or drink while you are at it? Mayhaps a place to rest for an hour or two?” The stallion was pretty easy going as he pulled the door wide opened and stepped aside. “I would ask that you please exit by morning as the stallion of the house will be back by then and it would be terribly dreadful for a bunch of ladies like you to be stuck under the same roof as him.”

“Seriously?!” Flotsam stated in confusion as I sauntered on by her with my nose in the air in a regal manner.

“No, we’ve had plenty to eat and drink already, we’ve just come from the nearby Prance Prance Revolution nightclub to give us an alibi for the night in case anyone asks where we were when it comes to stealing from this place.” I said plainly and upfront, the stallion didn’t even bat an eye about me working on an alibi. “I suppose you’ll stay quiet about this then?”

“Of course I will madam….” He rolled his hoof to me in a friendly manner.

“Jade the bachelorette they are partying with tonight, the one that wants to snuggle you is Paprika, the one that is curious as to why you’re letting us in through the front door is Sweetcakes and the completely flummoxed one is Flotsam.” He nodded to me introducing my friends for the evening and bowed to us while holding a hoof out in an accepting manner. I walked on by into the house. “So where does the stallion keep his bits?”

The stallion butler couldn’t answer as he was being hugged tightly by Paprika in an affectionate manner, while she’d hug everyone in the same manner she previously did… she was saving her more special hugs for Arizona and Velvet. She eventually put him down when he turned a little blue in the face.

“Very good Lady Paprika, you can choke an Ursa Major with that kind of strength. If you see fit to give me another hug, then I would be remiss to deny you.” What a ridiculously polite stallion, must have the patience of a saint given who he works for.

Sweetcakes just wanders on in looking at all the fancy stuff we could steal.

“Wait a minute… what’s the catch to all this?” Of course Flotsam was still sitting outside the door and was completely suspicious of what was happening here. “You’re just letting a bunch of self-admitted ne’er-do-wells into this house!”

“Well, there is one… no matter how much money you steal, you really can’t bankrupt the stallion of the house.” What the stallion said next made my ears shoot straight up in attention. “No matter how much I honestly wished you could. I am contracted to him as long as he can keep paying me… but he just simply never runs out of money.”

“That’s impossible, especially from what I know of the guy…” I took on a thinking pose. “I may not be a math expert, but the guy does not strike me as frugal. He might have some decent diplomacy skills from what I’ve heard though, but not enough to warrant the ability to replace this entire house even if we steal the nails that holds anything down and then everything else.”

“I would have thought so too, but I still work for him to this day.” This butler was a really nice guy, I liked him. “So steal to your hearts content, but he’ll get it back somehow.”

“Wait… are you implying that this has been done before?” Flotsam asked as she slithered into the foyer and allowed the butler to close the door behind her.

“Yes, indeed Lady Flotsam, multiple times in fact.” Okay, suspicion meter is rising and the butler had my interest. “Everything stolen, it is quickly replaced in a manner of days. His funds always seem to be at a steady number.”

“Well this sounds like a good challenge then!” I wanted to ruin this stallion so badly, I just had to find the method to whatever was keeping him in good money. “I’m sure I could figure out how he’s doing this.”

“Many before you have tried, none have been successful Madam Jade. He does nothing illegal and his nose is entirely spotless… in a manner of speaking.” Only spotless unless you consider the fact that nobody has infinite amounts of money and funding to replace everything expensive in this house more than once.

“Hmm… tell me, do his funds ever go below a certain point Mister…” I trailed off and waited for him to give me a name. There was something exceedingly suspicious about what the stallion just told me.

“I am Patient Decorum Madam Jade, it is quite nice to meet you and you can call me Pat.” Pat the blue eyed, pale green furred, butler answered. He bowed his slick backed grey mane towards me. “His funds tend to stay quite steady. They neither increase nor lower by too much in variance, but his spending habits are quite extravagant. It is a rather big mystery is it not?”

“Can you get me a single solitary bit that you know belongs to him personally?” I asked.

“Of course, right away, please take a seat and I will be back with the coin you wish to purloin… though I am quite puzzled as to why you are only asking for one.” Pat sauntered off and went upstairs.

We all took a comfy seat in the foyer.

“I take it you have a hunch?” Glancing at Flotsam, I nodded.

Paprika made several gestures to me and I considered what she was asking.

“Well if I’m right Paprika, then a single bit will be all we’ll need to commit one of the biggest ‘perfect’ heists in the world.” That nearly answered what she had asked, I soon provided something more substantial. “I honestly think everyone has been entirely wrong about the owner of this mansion, everyone thinks he’s an egotistical narcissistic idiot. Egotistical, yes, narcisstic, very, but an idiot? I’d actually be horrified to both find out how wrong everyone has been, because I think... he might have come up with something genius.”

“Who owns this house anyway?” Well now, that’s the question isn’t it Flotsam.

“I’ll tell you if my hunch proves to be as horrifying as I think it is.” There was a hope in my heart, please don’t let that hope in my heart die and my hunch be completely wrong.

“Here you go Madam Jade, a single bit.” Pat said as he place it in my left hand, I studied the bit furiously with my eyes.

By all rights it looked like a normal bit, nothing seemed off with it at all. I then tried to sustain it with my magical alchemy, but nothing happened and it wouldn’t accept my attempt. There was only one reason why that happened.

Oh my freaking goodness… I… I think… I might finally have something on the guy.

The comeuppance was neigh!

“Sweetcakes… magic sight, look at this coin with it and tell me exactly what you see.” If I’m right, then his cutie mark and special talent has everything to do with this.

“There is magic there, subtle and rather unfair, steals back the unearned?” Sweetcakes, was there glee in my eyes? I think there was glee in my eyes.

“We’ll bankrupt him by the end of this night with this one coin!” I stated proudly.

“Please do.” Pat answered dryly.

Author's Note

The next page will feature fighting and what causes the explosion... that'll be a particularly epic and silly moment.

Jade will do something no one has bothered to do before in the annals of all the chases in this fanfiction, maybe a few others.

It'll be the defining moment that proves without a doubt... that my sense of humor has gotten exceedingly boring. This is just the setup, the payoff will be fun to write.

Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Happy and Married.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Seventy Four, Honey Moon’d: Young.

-Six hours later, Las Pegasus, Food Court, Fizzle-

“Jade… shouldn’t we put a stop to this?” This was getting a bit ridiculous and I was wondering why we were not trying to put a stop to all of it. “Things are worse than they were at breakfast.”

Also Luna was interfering with our honeymoon, we were watching what amounts to world’s longest train wreck. Alicorn stamina, plus coffee, espresso and tons of sugar? Not a good combination.

“What are you talking about Fizzy, things are perfectly fine.” Jade took a sip of her milkshake when something else was destroyed, Maries and I followed along with our own milkshakes. My herd and I all cringed and took another sip as something else was destroyed. I sent a flat look to Jade. “Hey, don’t look at me like that! You’re the one who put me on the spot and asked me to think of a plan, do you really think I can come up with a decent plan off the top of my head in under a minute? I know I’m good, but it takes a while to really get a plan cooking and I’m not exactly motivated here. My current plan is going just fine… mostly because I find this hilarious.”

While I loved my kitty dearly, things were definitely out of control. I took a sip of my milkshake as I sat at the table watching what amounted to a destruction derby going on in the food court.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have put that ghost costume on Luna?” A less than amused Mara muttered, mostly because of the two hours of effort it took to even get the costume on Luna.

“She wouldn’t be a ‘mystery’ if she didn’t wear a monster costume and scared some ponies though.” One could obviously see the truth of this situation Maria, because it seemed like Jade pawned the problem off on a bunch of poor saps.

“I’m... brain freeze… can we... stop playing this... drinking game where we... take a sip every single time Luna breaks something?” Whined Marie who didn’t like cold things and was for some reason wearing a top hat. Maries had three milkshakes, mostly because Jade insisted on one for Marie for a reason that was fairly obvious to me. “Also when did you... put this on my head Jade?”

“What makes you think I put that utterly adorable top hat on your head Marie?” Jade, like math, you likely couldn’t save your life with a falsely innocent look like that if you actually tried. While it was cute, Marie wasn’t buying it all. “Darn it, I thought the brain freeze would be enough to not notice it.”

“Jade, is this drinking game seriously a plan to get me to wear a top hat!” Groused out Marie, but I noted that she didn’t try to shake off the hat. Jade gave a small, cheerful, nod. “Can you at least tell me why we’re not trying to contain Luna ourselves?”

“I have several reasons to avoid having us take on Luna personally. Let me start off with talking about Stochastic. Stochastic wasn’t a natural born alicorn, she didn’t know how to control the powers that were forced upon her and she was also mostly fueled by rage and mental breakage. All of which I could plan for and around.” Yes, that was all fairly obviously to us after what you did Jade. What’s the point though? “I know that’s obvious Fizzy. Planning for Luna is completely different, she knows how to use her power, has been an alicorn for a long time and nobody here wants her to backslide Nightmare territory. On top of that, do you currently see how fast she is actually moving?”

Luna blurred by us squealing with pure joy, said squeal sounded like a monstrous banshee had been unleashed amongst the populace of Las Pegasus. Speaking of, a lot of the ponies that were scared of her went back to normal as soon as she went out of sight.

Ponies here were far less skittish than they should be, but I guess the old adage of ‘what happens in Las Pegasus, stays in Las Pegasus’ is true.

“I don’t actually have a feasible plan to deal with this and am relying on the absurdity of getting a ghost costume on her to attract mystery solving teams to detain her by labeling her a ‘mystery’.” It was a completely absurd thing and to my utter shock that Jade actually made ponies show up to do just that. The only problem is they weren’t very effective at the moment. “Well at least one part of it has worked, we got some mystery solving teams that are actively trying to slowing her down… vaguely.”

I just turned my gaze to the incompetent teams of mystery solving ponies Jade was talking about, they all shared a gimmick in having unusual sidekicks.

There was a unicorn mare with glasses, with short auburn mane, decent length tail and orange fur. Next to her was an earth pony stallion with an orange ascot, blond hair and white fur. Next to him was a red headed pegasus mare with a purple fur and a green scarf. The final pair in that particular team were an earth pony stallion with green and red fur with a messy brown mane and tail, next to him was an upset looking large poodle with black fur and brown spots.

“Can we not do this?” For a dog the poodle spoke eloquently and was a bit large for her species size. Note, it wasn’t a Diamond Dog. It was a regular dog that could vocalize speech which was mildly odd for a regular animal, because she certainly shouldn’t have the capacity for that kind of vocal range. “It’s just going to end the same way you know, with all of you ignoring the actual supernatural stuff that happens around us and your more surprised by the completely mundane stuff! Sure we make money off catching criminals, but it’s ridiculous how many times this kind of ploy has happened in an upbeat economy such as ours.”

“Sorry Poofy Skew, but would you be more willing to do this for a Poofy Snack?” The mare with the glasses shook a box in front of Poofy, the poodle did not look amused.

“I swear, it’s always bribing me with Poofy Snacks with you Privacy Eyes!” The poodle muttered.

“I’ll take a Poofy Snack!” The green and ready stallion stated.

“Oh you would Hungry Hushpuppy, I swear you’d eat almost anything… including that mysterious talking sandwich you summoned with your mind and then consumed. You didn’t even seem to care that it was screaming for help as you swallow its olive eyes or the fact that the mustard jar was an accomplice in what was edible murder!” The poodle seems kind of disgruntled with her pony friends. “Nobody ever talks about it or ever brings up the mysterious floating mustard jar… that’s still following us around to this day for crying out loud!”

I looked at the floating mustard jar the dog was pointing to, no unicorn was levitating it and it was just floating there.

“Calm down Poofy! Hungry likes it and if we call too much attention to it, it might go away and never spread its mustard evenly on any of our sandwiches again.” The green scarfed Pegasus mare stated. “We know it’s not supernatural at all, it’s obviously a unicorn using some stealth technology that has been following us around all this time.”

I don’t know what was worse, the implied sapience of the mustard jar had or the ignoring the mystery of its very existence just for the apparently infinite free mustard. That, I don’t think my brain could handle the sheer nonsense of the group that the poodle was clearly putting up with. That wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I was currently witnessing within the area of the food court, but it was up there.

“Don’t tell me to calm down Fashionably Flighty, all of you don’t realize how awful it is that you keep pushing me into doing the finances for all of us! I’m a normal dog that can talk, doesn’t that bother any of you that I never actually learned to talk or read and yet I can do both perfectly? Doesn’t that seem a bit mysterious or worth looking into?!” The poodle seemed fairly irate about this, the group of ponies just shrug at her. “I’m the only one keeping this team, if we can call it that, afloat! How many times have I rescued you from being kidnapped, tied up and then threatened with being tickled to death? Why are there so many freaking Pegasus feather cults in South Western Equestria anyway? Do they always have to have a kidnapped lambkin when we stumble upon them? There’s mysteries here that you are completely ignoring for what amounts to some costumed pony doing idiotically evil stuff in costumes for money, when they could just be earning far more money legitimately with their amazingly ridiculous and varied cutie mark given talents?!”

“Wasn’t the last tickle to death cult building burned down by a Longma because they kidnapped her girlfriend from Huoshan during our ‘Heckling Hermit’ Caper?” Hungry stated while rubbing at the few beard hairs on his chin and his brown eyes looking towards the ceiling. “Also didn’t that lambkin’s last name sound somewhat tasty to anyone or was it just me?”

“I know what we can do to stop the Menacing Mad Mare… let’s make a trap!” The ascot wearing earth pony stated while slapping his right hoof into his left.

“Trap Complex, I swear, that’s all you ever suggest!” The poodle named Poofy looked like she was starting to get into a rant about her group, even as she took the offered Poofy Snack. “You build a trap that’s so complicated, it usually catches a combination of me or everyone else but the problem. It’s bad enough that you trap every single place we visit to the point that even Pinkie Pie couldn’t get through all of them! It’s like any building you enter, you just think… hey, let’s set this place up with traps, some so complicated I have no idea how they are ever supposed to work in the first place, because it might be visited by comically poor villainous idiots that don’t know how to use their talents correctly!”

“I like making traps though…” Trap Complex whined while giving the dog big adorable eyes.

“I love you guys and you are all my friends, but you’re all idiots… except Privacy Eyes. She actually has ‘some’ detective skills, but doesn’t believe magic exists and she’s a, excuse my language here, freaking bucking unicorn that uses magic on a daily basis!” That dog must be an amazing friend, I feel a connection between us like no other. Having to deal with the insanity of loving people who love to cause you misery in quirky ways while being adorable about it. “I mean she believes in hauntings, ghosts, living skeletons and the supernatural, but she prefers to look for inane stuff using her magic by levitating thing all over the place to look for clues!”

“Eh, I don’t know what you are talking about. Unicorns don’t actually levitate things with magic, unicorns can only lift things with strings attached to their horns and an application of simple physics.” Stated Privacy in a matter of fact tone as she closed up a hoagie that had just been slathered with mustard by the haunted mustard pot and levitated said sandwich to her mouth to take a bite out of it. “Most of the glowing horns thing is probably done with incredibly advanced technology and glow sticks. I still have yet to find the technology behind my incredible horn, but I hope to one day find the one who implanted the technology in there.”

The rather irate looking Poofy slowly calmed down somewhat and sighed while rubbing her head with her paws.

“I bet the Trouble Troopers don’t have to deal with this kind of stuff on a daily basis… at least they have a chipmunk named Utensil that can make almost anything and their team has pretty good cohesion.” Muttered Poofy. “I really should have taken Colby Jack’s job offer… but these guys wouldn’t survive a week without me. At least their stupidly lucky antics will make a good book series.”

“Yeah, that group is pretty interesting…” Jade muttered before Luna crashed through them at high speeds sending them scattering about.

“Poofy Skew, where are you?!” Hungry shouted as the bulky poodle the size of a Great Dane was suddenly missing from the group.

I decided to turn my attention away from the fascinating life of that poor poodle who felt like she was a platonic soul mate to me, to the other mystery groups that were in the area.

“Here you go Hammer-maw!” Apparently this group was made of a band of near adult fillies and colts, said band had a pet great white shark that ate hammers of all kinds and they arrived in a submarine that fell from the sky. One of them even looked like Hungry’s cousin. “Now tell us the secret to stopping the Menacing Mad Mare.”

The shark lifted itself up on the edge of the fountain and cleared its throat.

“The one of stars aligned and silver guidance needs a powerful enough tranquilizer dart to stop a super thief elephant. For she has ingested many cubes, creameries and black mashed beans, gluck-gluck-gluck!” The shark finished off by dunking its head into the water to refresh its drying gills.

“I did not understand a word of that.” A sarcastic sounding mare with the long black mane stated.

“I think he says we need to go back to the ocean and to help Queen Novo or is it Nova?” The Hungry lookalike stated while shivering nervously. “Anyway, that we need to help her with the most recent super villain… I believe it was called The Demon Paca? It sounds really scary, like it wants to hug me against my will.”

“That’s not what I said at all… clearly the flowing mane and triumvirate of the late sky needs to be calmed down by method of forced sleep.” Hammer-maw stated flatly.

“We have to leave immediately?” Hungry’s cousin stated. Okay, these mystery teams were highly incompetent. “Why didn’t you say so?!”

I turned my gaze to the last group as I took one long drag on my still cold, somewhat melted, milkshake.

“Can we go fast, want to go fast, fast, be quick, I was built for it!” Was that an animate talking wagon? Also there was another suspiciously familiar resemblance to Hungry.

“Hold on Quick Wagon, I’m still trying to figure out the logistics of how we’re going to catch up with the monster.” The third Hungry family resemblance stated with his own group.

“Jade, I know this might be a horrible idea… but can we call it a day here and just go back to our hotel room?” I received a swift nod in response, we finished our milkshakes then left.

-The next morning-

Cat tongues are wonderful…

“Huzzah, rejoice, for I have successfully celebrated The Honey of Moon!” Luna stated jovially.

“Should we tell her all honeymoons last a week?” I stated jokingly.

“Truly?” Luna shouted gleefully. “Then I shall endeavor to find more espresso and sugar!”

“Fizzy!” My mates shouted harshly.

I winced audibly.

Chapter Seventy Four, Honey Moon’d: Waxing.

-Somewhere undisclosed, Beach Bungalow, Paprika-

I stared at my wives happily as Arizona tried to crush Velvet in her sleep, while Velvet was kicking her with her rear left leg and chewing gently on one of her ears. It was adorable that they were still fighting each other even as they slept.

I looked around the room at all the pajama ponies I had pinned to the walls, ceiling and floor. They shouldn’t be here, this wasn’t their slumber party! Also what was up with all the weapons, one looked like a metal star that zipped right by me and nearly struck a stallion in his sheath.

I’m going to hug every last one of them and tie them up!

Dragging a pajama pony over to me with my fur I got him into a sleeper hold and snuggled him until he fell asleep in my hooves.

The other pajama ponies started struggling pretty badly and staring at me with wide eyes, but they couldn’t escape my smile or my fluff.

I shushed them as they were going to wake up my wives if they didn’t stop making so much noise.

Another tendril of fur reeled in a pajama pony.

I started snuggling him before he could even scream and the most he got out was a whimper.

-Las Pegasus, Poolside, Fizzle-

I sighed loudly, we though that Luna would be destroying the rest of the food court.

“Please tell me she at least took the chlorine out of the pool…” Whined Jade who was sniffling, my ire for Princess Luna was slowly rising as Jade stared at an Olympic sized pool full of grape gelatin. She was wearing a one piece bathing suit and she wanted to swim today.

Yesterday we were going to have fun sampling all the food in the food court, only Luna wrecked the food court.

Maries leaned down to sniff the blubbery mass.

“No, she didn’t.” Mara confirmed and Jade wilted.

“We can confirm with Marie’s sense of smell using her tongue that it’s not safe to eat.” Came Maria who huffed out a puff of fire.

“At least not for anything mortal anyway, but a goddess that can’t be poisoned is more than capable of eating it.” Stated Marie who was looking at the diving board

“Can someone help me, I’m stuck out here and I really need to pee.” A poor colt had half his body sticking out of the wobbling mass of purple.

“That’ll just make it even less edible…” A despondent looking Jade turned around and started to slowly walk away, I looked to Mara, Maria and Marie.

What could we do to cheer Jade up?

“Maries, go after Jade and make sure to get her a ball of yarn or do something to make her happy.” Nodding to me, they immediately set off to try and find a way to make Jade smile.

“Huzzah!” Luna slammed into the gelatin with a massive cannonball and sent the gelatin flying everywhere, along with that poor colt which I quickly grabbed in my magic and put down gently before he got hurt by slamming into a wall or the cement all around the pool. “The divinities of sugar shall make this day most delicious!”

I glared as the moon princess started to eat the gelatin she was churning as she dragged her way through it with her wings. Jade is too upset to petty kitty her, but I’m not above being a petty pony! Also today was clearly my fault and I was going to own up to that fact.

“Look at that Toothy Visage, it’s a purple blob monster with a pony trapped inside!” Sliding a gaze towards the pony that just spoke, next to him was a pony that looked at Luna’s flank. Said flank gazing pony then quickly turned into a small tornado, when said tornado ended he had morphed into a large bipedal wolf style diamond dog thing with sharp claws, muscles and large teeth dripping with drool.

Maybe that pony turned would take care of the situation? The wolf launched himself into the pool and I watched the saddest display of fighting in the history of transforming monsters. Luna was having way too much fun to even notice she was being attacked at all.

I sighed in disbelief, I really shouldn’t have told Luna that Honeymoons lasted a week. Our plans for this day were entirely ruined. Jade obviously didn’t want to swim around in toxic gelatin and I was right there with her.

“That mare is being attacked by a monster and she’s struggling in the gelatin, this looks like a job for… Admiral Puuuuukkkkkk-Maaaaarrrrre!” An earth pony mare with thick shaggy brown coat that hid her cutie mark, mane and tail… Tartarus it was easier to say that thick wild hair covered everything but her eyes and her hooves. She leapt out over the pool with her cheetah colored cape trailing behind her and her club held high.

She missed hitting the pony turned wolf monster entirely and I just slammed my hoof into my face, how did she missed the wolf monster when it was larger than the pony that it used to be?

Things were just kept getting messier as this went along as the gelatin was now flying everywhere because of the mare with the club. She had pegasi with her that were egging her on to beat the monster.

I heard a gasp from next to me and blinked as an unbelievably fluffy pink pony looking creature leapt into the gelatin and licked at it, then it started sinking into it. It soon let out a rather disturbingly shrill screeching scream.

Despite all of this Luna was ignoring it all, likely because she must have found some espresso and coffee again, plus she was on another sugar high. What would make this whole ridiculous scene complete?

“Look, there’s a party in going on in the pool Cozy!” I turned and saw yet another group that likely had some of their number that were related to the three from yesterday. Another Hungry Hushpuppy relative. One looked like one of Trap Complex’s relatives. Someone like that mare from the submarine team, only with skunk colored hair that also seemed to be a relative. It was the Hungry Hushpuppy relative that spoke. “This is our chance to play a gig with all the ponies it’s attracting!”

“Right, come on Cozy and the wussy cats, let’s play a pool side beat!” The somewhat attractive red furred Abyssinian said to a dull-witted looking blonde unicorn and a sassy looking zebra, both in cat costumes.

They quickly set up drums for the dull-witted looking unicorn, the zebra took up a pair of tambourines and Abyssinian pulled out a guitar and started to tune it.

“Cozy and the wussy cats, lovely tails and ears that match, lewd cart and happy flank smacks~.” The one called Cozy started to sing. “Fleet, Heat, a hopping song, you’re welcome, now listen along~!”

“Curry, curry!” Cozy’s two friends sang, as the three in the background ate some curry and advertised the Tasty Treat in Canterlot.

“See you in Persian, or maybe Prance~!” Cozy was pretty neat with the way she shook her hips and the song was decent, but everything going on was just plain ridiculous. “We could be with you, now watch us dance~.”

“See us do a bang flop~! There’s no difference where we do this at, we’re involved with our entire herd as a fact~.” Cozy sent the audience a sultry gaze, if I wasn’t already in a herd that would have been an invitation. “Cozy and her wussy cats, we love pets and tasty snacks~. Don’t flee, when we attack~. That’s when our fun begins, any fun we have with the guys is a win~. Cozy and the wussy cats~! Cozy and her wussy ca-ats wo-ooo~.”

That was a rather nice sounding song about Abyssinian promiscuity and their general openness in relationships. This pretty much confirmed that Savannah The Wild was not an outlier of her species, she was the example and clear stereotype with some minor restrictions of having an up to date medical history. I am so glad Jade is not that much of an open invitation.

“What is my life right now? I’m supposed to be having a good honeymoon with my wives and this is how things turn out?” Slowly closing my eyes, I groaned audibly and so wanted to ruin this insanity that was going on before me.

I have a mare with a pukwudgie style attitude flailing aimlessly around in a pool full of grape gelatin that Luna was working her way through at an insane rate. The pony werewolf thing was trying to attack Luna and was failing horribly because of how much the gelatin slowed them down. The mare that was wildly swinging her large wooden club around was closer to hitting Luna than the wolf monster.

I ignored the pink screaming creature, as she continued to slowly sink into the gelatin like quicksand.

The band with the curry and Abyssinian themed musicians had a skunk for a pet and if I remembered right the wolf monster kind of looked like one of Hungry Hushpuppy’s cousins. How many ponies related to each other were here at Las Pegasus?!

I just turned and trotted away from this mess, I had to find Maries and Jade. Hopefully Maries was successful in getting Jade back in a good mood.

-Ten minutes later-

I came upon the sight of Jade laying on her stomach while Maries gave her a back rub and had her purring happily. Her tail was wagging at least, so Maries was doing something right when it came to kneading our upset kitty’s back.

Mara leaned down and licked Jade’s cheek and she mewled cutely.

“Saw a bunch of mildly interesting things at the poolside, it might keep Luna busy for a while so we can maybe do something else?” The look I received from Jade was sad eyes and her tail going limp, she had her heart dead set on going swimming all day today and it certainly broke my heart. Like yesterday broke all our hearts that Luna destroyed the international food court. I bowed my head to my herd. “I’m sorry about setting of Luna off even more Jade, Maries.”

“It’s okay…” Jade’s hollow voice was really heart wrenching and Maries were giving me big watery eyes now too. Still, they look somewhat hopeful and they were looking to me to give them something fun to do because the thing Jade wanted to do would likely be ruined for the rest of our time here in Las Pegasus. “Please don’t suggest a roller coaster, they shut that down a long while ago.”

“I was actually thinking of using these three tickets to Trapeze Star and Bernard’s magical acrobatics extravaganza... I think you’ll like the earth pony magician’s show.” That had their interest at least and I could only hope that Jade was willing to take a possibly subpar activity.

“With stupidly expensive buttered popcorn too?” As Jade tentatively asked this, I had a slowly growing smile on my face.

“It’s not stupidly expensive, when it’s a steal…” That got my kitty up and excited. “I distract the counter guys and you get the popcorn for five?”

“You know how to speak my language Fizzy!” Jade threw her arms around me and nibbled at my neck happily, I just pulled her into a tight hug.

-Fifteen minutes later-

Enough popcorn to feed a chimera and three large drinks filled to the brim, nobody caught us and nobody could say we stole them. Jade was happy to get her greedy little heart’s desire for mischief today.

Admittedly the show was actually really quite amazing to watch, even to the point that Maries was enthused with it.

“Trapeze is amazing…” Jade said between the crunching noises of popcorn being mulched by her hungry maw.

“No what’s amazing are our mates.” All three heads of Maries stated while snuggling and kissing us.

“Yes, our herd is only just getting started.” I was really quite content as we watched a mare flip through the air with the greatest of ease while performing slight of hoof.

Trapeze did card tricks, she made things appear and disappear, she also got several volunteers to come up and let her perform magic on the stage with her. Her familiar Bernard was quite the talented little rabbit as he expertly helped Trapeze with her stunts and her magic, the fusion of doing both at the same time was rather awe inspiring to watch.

“Can I get another volunteer from the audience?” Trapeze called out. Her yellow fur and her expertly styled blue hair went with her glamorous shiny outfit. She looked about for various ponies and other creatures that came to watch this act that wanted to partake of it.

Jade waggled her brow at me and Maries, then raised her hand and formed a magic missile in it, but didn’t fire it. Once she attracted Trapeze’s attention she snuffed the magic missile before anyone noticed.

“Oh pick me!” Wildly waving her arm, Jade was grinning quite cheerful and I had to wonder what she was going to do on stage.

“Yes, you! The Abyssinian that seemed to shine for a moment, come on up.” At Trapeze’s beckoning, Jade ran up to the stage with a grin on her face as she pulled out a standard magician’s wand. She was definitely plotting something. “Now for my next trick, my assistant from the audience here will magically help me pull flowers out of this top hat.”

The mare went through the steps of showing that the hat was empty, I know Jade doing something with the hat and I was curious as to what.

“Okay now do what I said to do.” Instead of listening to Trapeze, Jade reached under her tail shocking the mare and making her jump away to reveal a bushel of flower. “How did you… wait, where did my hat go? It was in your other paw a second ago…”

“Why it’s on the chimera up there.” After Jade said that, I looked to my right and saw Marie looking up at the top hat on her head. “Specifically the adorable snake tail’s head.”

A spotlight turned to Marie who started blushing up a storm, Maria and Mara were chuckling under their breaths.

“How did you… the flowers… and then you…” Trapeze started to say only to be cut off by Jade.

“A magician never reveals their secrets, you know that Ms. Trapeze Star!” The audience started laughing and applauding as Jade took bow. “Now I believe these flowers I pulled out of you are for my wife next to the rather adorable and lovely chimera.”

Jade grinned and walked back up the aisle, once she reached me she planted a kiss on my lips as she gave me the flowers. She grabbed Trapeze’s hat from Marie and went back down to give it back to her.

“Thank you for your time, you’ve been a wonderful audience!” I just burst out laughing as Jade had just upstaged that amazing acrobat.

-The next morning, Maries-

Fizzy really knows how twist and shout…

“Huzzah, I am going to wipe out the other half of the food court, come join me my friends!” The alarmingly like clockwork Luna shouted in a loud tone as she ran off.

“Shopping?” Fizzy suggested.

“Yeah, let’s go shopping.” Agreed Jade.

Chapter Seventy Four, Honey Moon’d: Full.

-Las Pegasus, Sekhet’s and Baast’s hotel room, Jade-

“Well it's going well for your sisterly bonding, but we need you to keep Luna away from the shopping mall. I don’t care if the rest of the food court goes down, she’s kind of ruining our honeymoon.” Wanting to be quite honest, I was sorely tempted to plot Luna’s downfall to be worse than Nightmare Moon. “We’re too polite, not to mention weak, to confront her about it. Also I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Can you two keep her off of us?”

“Sure thing Jade, but you will owe me a few no punishment riddles.” Huh, that was far nicer than Sekhet usually was.

“You should really bring Celestia here to help!” Going to ignore Baast’s continued attempts to get her sister some tail. “I bet you’d want to empty the folds of her calzone afterwards sister.”

“If you can do something to stop my sister from making lewd food remarks, I’ll actually owe you ten favors.” Sekhet kind of just threw that out there, I actually pondered on it.

“Nah, it’s too funny to see her come up with more.” Surprisingly the only thing I got for saying that was a sigh and halfhearted glare.

“Yeah, why would you want to stop me when you want Celestia to put cheese in your quesadilla?” It seemed like Baast wasn’t ever really going to stop needling her sister endlessly. “Or would you rather be the one to put some condiments in her hayburger?”

“I’m sorry to say this, but I’m glad she’s not my sister Sekky.” The upset sphinx rolled her eyes at me.

“We’ll keep Luna busy.” Grabbing her smaller cat sized sister with an alicorn sized paw, Sekhet left us to go to the half destroyed international food court.

We set out for the shopping mall with hope in our hearts that nothing could ruin our day.

We soon found out that having hope was a bad idea.

-Ten minutes, Shopping Mall, Maries-

“Well…” Started Mara

“We’re…” Marie continued.

“Here.” Maria finished.

A two floor shopping mall with one entrance it was pretty big and had all kinds of things to peruse and buy, not sure what we could possibly want though. We had everything we needed right here with us.

We were cautiously optimistic that things would go well, we could watch Jade and Fizzy shop for clothing or other trinkets and souvenirs. Maybe buy some fun board games or a new version of ‘Ogres and Oubliettes’ with Skelly in it, at least us playing a board game would make sense as we will always have at least three players.

“Okay Luna is, hopefully enough and knock on all the wood in the world, occupied.” Yeah, Jade had a reason to be grouchy after yesterday, she really likes swimming.

“It’s okay Jade, we’ll have some fun shopping and then we’ll try to find something to eat that Luna hasn’t outright destroyed.” Looking about with her eyes narrowed, Fizzy seemed to be quite cautious. “Nothing should go wrong today, thanks in part to divine intervention.”

“I’m so thankful that you used the word ‘should’ instead of saying something worse Fizzy.” The soonest Jade had said that an arrow struck the ground nearby, it was followed by a toothpick sized javelin, an axe, a knife and the sound of war horns. “Oh come on, that shouldn’t have been enough to invoke something like… wow… that’s… that’s a lot of puks...”

We turned our heads in the direction Jade was looking when she froze up. She wilted and we felt like wilting ourselves at the sight. Fizzy trotted up next to us, her face hardened at the sight and she widened her eyes, her mouth became firmly set as she grit her teeth.

There were thousands of pukwudgies and they looked ready for war.

There was the bog standard pukwudgies and the common nuisance of kilted highland pukwudgies that were seen around Airship Mauled.

There were also, armored medieval pukwudgies, blade and bow wielding samurai pukwudgies, Viking pukwudgies with axe launchers on wheeled ships, tribal pukwudgies with toothpick blow dart shooters, steampunk pukwudgies with small clockwork vehicles, flying pixie pukwudgies and pugilist pukwudgies with comically oversized boxing gloves on their arms.

We have never realized how many pukwudgies there were in the world until we saw them all gathered together like this pointed towards the mall.

“Why today of all days?!” We all despaired as one, not only us, but our herd mates as well.

“Jade… plan… make one… quick!” The narrow eyed Fizzy stated as the pukwudgies started to aggressively march on the shopping mall.

“Get into the shopping mall and barricade the doors to buy time?” Quite a few ponies and a few other beings listened to Jade’s suggestion and started hastily flooding into the mall. “Also someone can go for help?”

Quite a few griffons took off and one was shot down, a few ponies grabbed them and started to move them towards the doors. A few pegasus ponies and griffons managed to get out of range.

Those of us that were stuck being on the ground were not as lucky to be able to fly away. Jade still had some time to use some magical alchemy to fly away, she always has at least one flight ability on her, but we seriously doubted that she’d abandon us.

Our herd slowly back up towards the mall.

“Gabbah-Gabbah, Gabbah-Gah!” One Pukwudgie yelled pointing at us with an evil look in its beady little malicious eyes.

We got behind the doors and several unicorns cooperated together to put up heavy magical barriers around them as the pukwudgies reached them and started attacking vicisouly.

It wouldn’t keep them out forever and we turned to Jade who looked like she was trying to think.

We used our body as a seat for her as she continued considering our options of how to deal with several huge contingents of pukwudgies all at once, we didn’t exactly have the numbers or capable fighters to take down nearly that many Pukwudgies.

We personally could probably take… a few hundred of them down before they completely swarmed us.

“Okay, I got it! We need multiple pegasi volunteers that can work with lightning clouds, we also need some that know how to make fog or at least mist. If we don’t have that, then at least find a few unicorn volunteers that can levitate some water. We need lots of water, metal bars like baseball bats, golf clubs and crowbars, mostly long and straight pieces of metal.” As soon as Jade stood up and slapped her right fist into her left palm, everyone scrambled to get the stuff she needed. “We also need a lot of mirrors from the nearest mirror store, also anything plastic or metal that can be used for makeshift armor!”

Jade had a plan, it would be prudent if we all try to implement it as quickly as possible. The unicorns at the doors were slowly draining themselves holding the mass of pukwudgies back from attacking them.

“Will this plan involve us getting seriously injured?” It seemed Fizzy had some reservations after the whole ‘Stochastic’ thing.

“No, nobody will get hurt, though casualties are guaranteed even if things don’t go wrong.” Jade motioned for us to get closer to her and we did so, what brilliant plan does she have this time. “So let me tell you how we’re getting out of this situation…”

-Thirty minutes into the siege of the Las Pegasus Shopping Mall, outside said mall, A Pukwudgie-

We are the many, we are the annoying, we are the spiny and aggressive, we come when talked about…

We… are legion!

I stand among my brothers as they attacked the magical fortification at the gate awaiting for it to fall, it was only a matter of time. Our brethren from all over the world have gathered here as a sort of vacation, the only vacation any of our number could ever need!

We sought the thrill of combat, the taste of treasures, we were not going to be held back by the creatures that never saw us coming.

More axes rained down on the doors from the axe throwers of the Viking Tribe, they are the most resilient of us all aside from the Medieval Tribe’s armor.

The most skilled are the Samurai Tribe with their bows and weapons.

The most mobile the Pixie Tribe, their ability to fly is far better than Breezies. Most creatures are better flyers than those tiny four legged ones. Our Pixie Tribe brethren are only half the size of any other, but they make up for it with their bug like wings and aerial superiority among our kind.

Highland Tribe would never stop coming once they have an enemy to feud with, their generations are venerable for their never ending quest to ruin someone’s days at the merest mention of them.

The Tribal Tribe was waiting in anticipation for the barriers to fall, they were the best tribe at taking down singular large predators. Their weapons and armor came from nature, they were all specialized in making sickness remedies, poisons for their blow gunners and could heal almost any injury a Pukwudgie could have.

Truly, we were almost done breaking the barrier the pesky horned four legged ones have set up, the most powerful of our attacks from the Steaming Metal Tribe launching fireballs from their moving scrap piles.

A few more fireballs hit the barricade and it soon busts wide open.

Our war leaders shouts a battle cry of our various peoples, despite our differences we were all one united together for one purpose…

To be as annoying and evil as possible towards all sentient, sapient or otherwise forms of life as the malevolent aggressive beings we were born to be!

We also like stealing as many sugary goods and resources as we can, especially the sugary goods as we can never have enough of those.

Too bad that the Ocean Tribe couldn’t make it, dry land doesn’t exactly suit them too well… I believe they still tend to get confused with pufferfish fairly often.

From my position at the back as a rear guard, I could see the horned four legged beings fleeing with the help of winged ones and our armies surged forward through the breach in their mighty defenses.

Being at the back was not very fun, but those in the back always get the first crack at resources while the ones on the front lines were usually knocked out.

After more than half our combined armies were through the breach, I was close enough to see that the floor of the fortification was covered in water. I slowed down and slowly considered it.

Usually the four legged ones were panicky, most of them horned ones were weak in a close up fight, the winged ones were hard to fight without ranged weapons and the ones without wings or horns tended to be tougher than they appear in being capable of taking more hits than the other two.

The four legged ones with both wings and horn were seldom seen, but those among us have heard tales that they are powerful rulers. One of our raid teams went after four legged with no wings or horns transporting some sweet delights through the forest to the ancient battle site. They ended up seeing a purple leader with wings and horn, the raid team was soundly defeated by it and its escort.

The four legged beings were to not be underestimated, especially when other beings were around to organize them. I thought I saw a familiar two legged being, the triangular ears and the tail reminded me blasts of water and horrible magic spreading among my kin.

The color of the feline being was fairly familiar too… the floor was covered in water. This is all reminding me of the one who defeated the brave rider of Cluck Cluck, didn’t that being survive drowning after getting shot with a poisoned arrow?

“Gigi, gara, ighigh Gabbah!” In my wariness I called a full stop for my unit and they did so, they were all giving me curious looks.

I was glad I told my number to stop.

In the next few seconds more than half our forces were decimated when a surge of powerful energy came from a broken horned four legged being, the power of storms went through the water. The energy also leapt into the things on the staircases and the energy bounced between the rods sticking of said stairs back and forth weaving through the many bodies of the entirety of the Pixie Tribe.

The few stragglers of the pixie tribe were slowly taken down by bolts of energy fired by the winged four legged ones at a good distance outside of our ranged weapon, those that could have been close enough couldn’t fire due to all the convulsing they were doing.

Several of the Steaming Metal Tribes scrap piles exploded violently and it was there that I knew the truth.

We were in a glorious battle with the dreaded ‘Beast of the Cupcake’ once more and they had planned a trap that knocked out more than half our forces in one attack.

Many would say it would be stupid to continue, the ‘Beast of the Cupcake’ was mighty and could fire surges of water from her ears. I will stay say it though…

“Gabbah Gabbah!” I charged forward over the bodies of our twitching brethren after the arcing energies ceased to bother them and the water dried up from the heat.

I soon came to a stop when I saw several copies of the ‘Beast of the Cupcake’ wearing armor, all of them were throwing two flail weapons, that spins, down from each hand. Behind them were several more ‘Beast of the Cupcake’ riding four legged three headed monsters of greater intelligence, also armed with those weapons. Further behind them were several more copies of the one Storm Horn that had utilized the trap, they each had glowing horns and they were glaring at us with the power of storms crackling from their heads.

We surged forward towards a glorious future, for we would all fill our hearts with battle!

-The next day, Las Pegasus Hotel, Jade-

I could still feel Fizzy’s hoof grabbing my ass…

Yesterday went well, but we never got a chance to go shopping. Every mirror clone had died in the line of duty and pretty much nobody, except the pukwudgies that is, got hurt.

Never had I seen creatures more stupidly aggressive and annoying than they are.

“What are we doing today honey?” After the total mess we made of the shopping mall, I wondered what today would bring.

“I would say breakfast, but there’s nowhere to eat.” Our beloved Fizzy stated dryly as she gave my butt a tender squeeze making me mewl happily at the attention. “At least our nights are going better than our days.”

“At least we know what they mean by what happens in Las Pegasus stays in Las Pegasus.” After stating this, Mara dipped her head down and dragged her tongue sensually across my nose making me nuzzle into her neck happily.

-An hour or so later-

“Seriously?!” Did Fizzy really have to ask?

“Well of course I’m going to buy tacos from Bahamut!” I stated loudly as I made my way up to the taco stand and the dragon that’s several sizes too large for it.

Chapter Seventy Four, Honey Moon’d: Waning.

-Las Pegasus, outdoors at Bahamut’s Taco Stand, Fizzy-

“So how did this happen?” The thing I was asking about was not us buying and eating tacos from Bahamut, Jade still vouches for the guy even after he attacked us on the mountain all those years ago.

“I believe it was Luna trying to hog all the sugar in the general area after somehow managing to tank herself up on espresso… again… and that includes trying to buy out all of Bahamut’s churros. Apparently Bahamut likes sharing and was trying to save enough for everyone.” That was only the beginning of all of this Jade, because it didn’t explain the other gods. “Baast comes in supporting Luna’s supernatural angry hunger. Sekhet probably just wanted an excuse to beat the snot out of her sister so she sided with Bahamut despite the fact that she’s a historically bad glutton. Quetzalcoatl is just an innocent bystander that was drawn into this by accident and is now trying to mediate things to the best of his abilities… it’s not going well. As for Veles, he’s just confused he showed up as an average hearths warming nutcracker the size of a stallion with rakes for legs to be constantly targeted for no other reason than that he’s here. Discord is just here to live action role play as his Ogres and Oubliettes character and is making things worse in general because chaos.”

“Yet, here we sit again watching as Las Pegasus is being slowly being ripped apart by the might of seven gods in a fashion most chaotic.” After saying that Maria used the tiger paw on her side to crunch into a taco. “These are really good tacos though.”

Yep, we were going to just ignore Luna yelling about she just wanted to fulfill the traditions of honey moon, the ankhs of ancient power blasting from both Baast and Sekhet, the screams of a confused confusion god being punted everywhere while somehow collecting tons of leaves with his flailing rake legs despite not being near any trees, the mega flares being launched by the metal dragon king god Bahamut and Quetzalcoatl trying and absolutely failing to mediate all of this as he launched his own attacks

Discord was trying to either win the fight with boxing glove arrows or was just trying make things worse, he was actually the only god that was doing anything remotely successful. He was the one having the most fun here.

“These tacos are really good, but this isn’t fish meat. What do you suppose Bahamut put in them?” Taking a bite out of my doubled up taco, I chewed it over as I awaited a response from my wives.

“You know that thestrals are just as omnivorous as pegasi, so chances are Bahamut supplied his taco meat from those ravenous flesh eating spiders from the ones they use for food up in the grotto on Seared Seer Mountain.” Jade continued eating her fish taco as I looked down at mine and continued chew my food a little bit slower.

I slowly raised my right brow at Jade, who was looking at my food curiously. Eventually I shrugged, swallowed and continued eating my spider meat taco without a second thought. I will admit there was a part of me that probably should find this disgusting, but Bahamut’s tacos were really good.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if eating meat is a thing that I will be doing fairly often.” I did marry two omnivores after all. These last few days have been pretty horrible for doing anything fun, but I think the last few nights more than make up for it. “I’m guessing it’ll mostly be fish though.”

“With as much fish jerky as mom makes, that’s pretty much a given Fizzy.” Groaned out Jade sadly. “So any bets on who’s going to win.”

“Las Pegasus is losing either way.” An amused Mara muttered.

“We’re not going to be capable of doing what we wanted to on our honeymoon are we?” That sounded something like defeat Maria.

Jade grabbed a churro, bit a chunk out of it and then proceed to ram her tongue into Maria’s mouth cheering her up immediately with a sugary sweet kiss.

“While we may not be doing what we wanted, the fact that we could do anything together is good enough for me. That we are still together and haven’t been driven mad by the insanity says much about our relationship.” That our relationship is pretty darn solid, there’s nothing like being sandwiched between my Chimera and Abyssinian at the end of the day. There’s no sleepless nights in my future, I’m happy. “You guys always manage to melt my rough heart into a core of gooey soft cinnamon buns.”

“Aw, you’re smiling, you look beautiful when you do that Fizzy.” It was Marie that said it and it wasn’t like I haven’t heard that enough from Jade personally.

The whole Storm Queen thing was something I was never going to live down, but I wasn’t exactly fighting it too hard these days. Going to make being Twilight’s guard a little awkward, but at least we had tons of backup resources and an army that could help Equestria when needed.

“You know, between the horrible circumstances of Luna being annoying, that massive puk attack that damaged the shopping mall and the current disaster in motion over a taco cart, I think our marriage is currently exactly what I expected it to be.” A three ring circus that is going to be my life for the foreseeable future, but I wouldn’t actually have it any other way. Instead I tried for a few different words that were more tactful and wouldn’t upset my loving herd members. “It’s all fairly exciting really, I thought I had opened up my eyes to a cruel world and yet here we are. Not where I thought I’d be, but I’m far happier for it. The world can be cruel, yes, but there’s always a chance for it to be better too.”

I looked at Jade who was still making out with Maria. Looking to Marie, she shook her head no. I angled my sights on Mara as I bit off a chunk of the same churro that Jade had started playfully kissing Maria with.

Mara nodded and I moved to caress her face with my hooves, our lips met and we shared the sweet taste of honey glazed cinnamon doughnut sticks.

-An hour later, Las Pegasus Games Area-

“Quick question, am I the designated cook? Would that technically make me the housewife of our group?” Jade lined up her throw to start of our game of horseshoes, we decided to ignore the gods and just try to stay out of their way and not do anything overly interesting.

Horseshoes was something we could all do.

“If we have kids then you might be the stay at home mom or the fun mom, unless Maries want to split up the chores on that.” In a literal sense, their magical ability to split up and combine back together was quite useful, though it came at the cost of a lot of mental and physical trauma.

Jade tossed the horseshoe and it tagged the peg and was still touching it, but it didn’t catch. Still it was a good throw that earned Jade two points. Maries moved up and prepared to throw their U-shaped hunk of metal next or at least Mara would, Maria and Marie were bowing out of the game and letting their sister do all the legwork. If they all worked together on this, then that would have been unfair to us as they could throw more accurately with three minds working together.

“Marie wouldn’t like being alone, but we could work something out and we would love to split the chores on any children we have.” Mara commented as she took the horseshoe up in their front left paw and swung the metal back and forth to test its weight. She launched it and it tagged the peg, but didn’t land around it either. “I could stick with Marie while Maria does some law firm stuff if Jade is otherwise busy. Knowing her like we do, she’s always going to be up to something.”

“Gee, you certainly have a lot of faith in me to run around and be a nuisance to everyone.” The blandness in Jade’s tone did not the match the mirth filled smile on her face, we were all smiling at her as well. That’s exactly what we expected of her, she wasn’t ever going to be too lazy on our watch.

“You’ll definitely be the fun mom Jade, though kittens are currently not likely unless Maries gets pregnant from all these ‘physical activities’ we’ve been doing for these last few nights.” I moved forward and took up a horseshoe in my right hoof.

I wasn’t allowed to use my horn, because again that would be cheating and it would be too easy. Jade wasn’t allowed to use Magical Alchemy, because frankly horseshoes do odd things when that particular brand of magic was applied to them.

One self-sustaining trait was one moment of extremely good luck, then the horseshoe would destroy itself to keep the karmic balance or something like that. It was the best idea we had for what was happening to the horseshoes Jade tested out. Jade was wary of luck altering items, because you learn about stuff like that being an Abyssinian. That and our sister Jacky would want one on her at all times and wouldn’t stop coming to Jade for them, I’m pretty sure Jacky would deplete fifty of them less than an hour or possibly even all at once.

I let the horseshoe fly and watched as it sailed, hook the peg and spun around it and then clanged onto the other thrown horseshoes. Hooked and stayed, three points.

“Three points.” I stated blithely with a small smirk on my face, my wives gave me a determined looks and their competitive spirits have been quite stoked.

“Says the one who’s going to be the strict, but protective mom.” Jade retorted.

“With you around Jade, you’re darn right I’m going to be the sensible one in this herd!” I answered right back without a thought. “Do you think I’d actually be a good mother though?”

“Fizzy, we think you’d go above and beyond for any child exactly like Matriarch Kuril does.” Mara nuzzled my neck gently, trying to avoid stabbing me with her sabre fangs, while Marie swung around to kiss me on the cheek from my other side.

“You’d be a good mother Fizzy.” Maria proclaimed loudly.

“Wait… why do we need children when we already have Jade?” I grumbled out loud and my herd started laughing in good humor.

-A few hours later, Casino Area-

We were having fun in the games area of Las Pegasus, nothing had gone wrong… for once. Though you wouldn’t know it watching the gods still going at it.

Discord had switched from boxing glove arrows to a variety of other weird arrows including ones that splatter paint everywhere to arrows that caused you to be chased by a cotton candy cloud that rains chocolate for a minute if struck. The fact that Discord was still staying in character told us how dedicated he was to the game he was playing.

“Royal Flush.” Jade stated as she spread the cards on the table, the dealer looked flummoxed. Whether it was Jade winning a hand, me winning a hoof or Maries counting cards to win a paw, because that’s the only thing Maries could be doing to win so many times, we were outmatching the dealer in wins. “Well this has gotten boring, cash out and go play some Trot Spot Revolution?”

“Sure.” I answered.

-Five minutes later, Las Pegasus Games Area-

I soon found myself tapping on the floor arrows in tune to the beat to match what was being shown at the top of the screen.

“We are what we’re supposed to be, no illusions of our fantasies, all trots of life just singing to say... what we do is what you know we can do~!” Jade was singing with the music, the game would be easier with four legs, but that didn’t mean Jade was losing. Quite the opposite, she was kicking my flank and she was doing it in style. “We’re not only our cutie marks you see, we can do more unbelievable things to be a, change by change, nothings out of range~!”

“Our love can be quite unreasonable, especially when it’s so unpredictable, all hearts in line to seek and say what we want to do is what you’ll wish to do~!” Why was I singing too? “There’s quite a chaos to that this brings, we’ll always end up doing unbelievable things, change by change, we’ll take it to the extreme~.”

“One plus one, we’re making love fun~!” Jade and I sang together.

We even had a crowd of ponies that didn’t seem to mind Maries’ presence as they watched us have fun, we were actually having fun with no interruptions or having to make different plans.

-That evening-

After Maries beat Jade at hoops, more than once no less as Jade was being a sore loser about it, we walked out of the game area of Las Pegasus and stopped to see the mess of the central areas.

I blinked in disbelief at what I saw.

“Now you see, this is how you kick ass!” Sekhet yelled wearing a blood soaked green sweater, wielding a knife and standing on a pile of broken gods bodies buried under a dune of sand, which included her sister. “I’m 'THE' war goddess and being able to spit massive amounts of sand is a useful ability!”

Everyone else groaned underneath her. Even Discord looked like he had the chaos mangled and mashed out of him.

“Say Sekhet, do you know where we can get a meal this evening?” Having gained the goddesses attention, I blinked as Sekhet quickly tore the odd sweater off, used a magical ankh to wipe the blood away from her fur and she met us at alicorn size as if she hadn’t ripped all those poor gods a new one.

“Sure, I know a good place close by that isn’t part of the international food court and hasn’t been destroyed yet.” Sekhet nodded to us and tilted her head for us to follow her. “Don’t mind the mess, they’ll clean themselves up.”

-The next morning, Hotel Room, Maries-

Our mates are wonderful, our lives feel wonderful… we are as happy as we are content with life in this moment.

“So what are we going to do today?” A muffled Jade asked with her face digging into our belly and lapping at our fur with her tongue gently. That was just begging us to continue last night’s activities.

“Stop Luna before she causes us any more problems?” Fizzy stated from our back where she kissed Marie on the nose, she proceeded to nuzzle her face between our heads. “There’s one big thing we really have to do and I don’t want Luna or anyone else to ruin it.”

“Huzzah, we are having a lot of fun and…” All of us, Jade and Fizzy including, glared at her.

“Could you please actually look up the definition of honeymoon and avoid ruining the rest of ours?” Growled out Mara, we’d stay in bed for a few more minutes uncontested.

Chapter Seventy Four, Honey Moon’d: From Dusk to Dawn.

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: Training of the guard.

Author's Note

(Music- Start the Commotion- The Wiseguys.)

I've had that song stuck on loop in my head for a while.

Ending in "Everybody happy, I'll soon change that!" then starting up the song again kind of makes for a perfect loop.

Anyway the first of the last pages begins here, with a simple exercise in frustration.

(New Magical Alchemy Item! Yes... it's a pogo stick.)

Also these last few chapters are going to be under unlimited length, meaning I could go anywhere between 2598 words to 5000 plus.

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: Training of the guard.

-Canterlot, Royal Guard Barracks, Fizzle-

I still wanted to have a foal of my own, but getting the cross species spell and the same gender breeding spell to work at the same time was still going to be functionally impossible. It was the basics of getting two highly disparate spells to work at the same time in the same direction, when both spells don’t have a road map, a compass that will only constantly spin and you’re in a thick continent wide fog with multiple giant flying purple pony eaters hunting you.

The same gender breeding spell wasn’t hard to get when studying the likes of Terramar and Silver Stream changing forms to give us idea of how to make it work. The problem is that same gender breeding spell only effects two beings of the same species.

At least I know there are two happier male hippogriffs in the world to prove the spell was a success, the child would have higher chances of being male and a very minimal chance of ever being female though. I honestly wanted to know how that turns out and Terramar will keep us up to date on the two to make sure things went alright

There was only so much Baast could do to help us in that area, though she did suggest turning one of us temporarily male and then using a cross species spell. Yeah, I wasn’t actually comfortable with that, but we could just do things artificially from what the temporary male produces… provided that the transformation isn’t sterile while the transformation lasts.

I’m sure mom could make a potion to that effect...

I really shouldn’t be focusing on this when I have guards to train, Twilight was wondering if I could get them to be an effective fighting force to solve problems that didn’t require her or her friends to get involved at all.

I’ve trained Storm Creatures, so this shouldn’t be all too hard. It is the Royal Guard though and they have a track record for failure. This is why I was going to use a fresh batch of old boot camp trainees before Luna and Celestia stepped down and I would introduce them to their new form of boot camp.

I was going to run these guys through a bunch of realistic scenarios, which can only improve their work effort given what my incentive for said effort is going to be. It was going to be brutal and harsh, but only those willing to stick with it will be kept around. They are supposed to be the defenders of their country and they are going to act like by the time I’m through with them.

I walked out into the courtyard and the looked the sorry bunch I we were about mess up today. They had no idea what they were in for.

“Okay recruits fall in and look alive, by that I mean don’t look like a bunch of idiots bleeding out on the ground and whining like crybabies that things aren’t going your way when things get disastrous!” I shouted to the twenty or so bright eyed trainees that came running to stand in two lines of ten.

I was authorized to make them suffer, so I would be weeding out any pony who’s not going to give it their all. This meant if a rich snob thought they could get by because of family’s money, then they were sorely mistaken.

Five ponies from each species, including some night guard thestral ponies who were supposedly better than the day guard Celestia had. The night guard and Moon Priestesses were still somewhat beholden to Luna, but they were okay with Twilight Sparkle’s rule so far… aside from the chaos of Twilight Sparkle’s life in general. Surprisingly Twilight’s life was continuing to be crazy and there was no end to the shenanigans that the ‘Princess of Friendship’ would be involved in.

“I’m here to induct you into what you can be expecting to do as a royal guard. I, among many others including every single last one of my friends, finds the royal guard to be a bit… shall we say… lacking is the nice way to put it. You are the last trainees from the old program, a program that has almost all its soldiers fall apart once their leader is captured despite there being a chain of command to prevent such a thing from happening. The Plunder Vines situation comes to mind, which was said to actually be within the royal guard’s ability to handle yet they still failed to assist Ponyville in its time of need with anything approaching even somewhat helpful.” I was marching in front of them all looking each of them over, they were at least standing attention pretty well. I’ll give the royal guard one thing, they know how to teach the guards how to stand around for long hours on end. “There’s also my invasion of Canterlot where every unit of the royal guard and the Wonder Bolts present for the festival failed spectacularly at guarding anyone, evacuating citizens from the combat zone or even a whole slew of other highly concerning problems, the most of which was falling apart like cheaply made wet tissue paper to a minimal force. I didn’t take Canterlot using the Storm King’s full army, so as you can imagine the best defense this nation has is Twilight’s ability to make friends. Which will be a really sad if that ultimately fails and gets Equestria’s current reigning ruler killed, the first effective line of defense a nation should have… should not be the last and only line of defense it has! The royal guard is getting budget cuts until they can prove they can handle disasters, which a small ragtag group can handle better that fifty or so armored ponies can’t.”

“To that end we’re going to put you lot through your paces today.” Spitfire was assisting me with today’s exercises, there was a reason I personally requested her presence today. She moved forward and started hoofing out twenty pouches. One for each pony. “Do not open these pouches, this is a part of the training exercise. If these pouches are opened, we’ll know. If anything goes missing from them, we’ll know. If one of these pouches mysteriously disappears during the training exercise, well you won’t be capable of guarding anything as a member of the EUP now will you!”

“Here’s the thing you need to know about these pouches, each pouch contains twenty bits and there are exactly twenty of them. Your job today is to protect them.” I watched all twenty ponies looked between themselves in concern before I continued with a smile on my face. “You will be in the streets of Canterlot today, the actual royal guard will not be assisting you more than giving you directions the culprit of this exercise is heading. Your job is to capture or stop the culprit, the culprit’s job is to steal all your money. Those twenty bits will belong to you after the exercise is over, provided you can hold on to them and keep them out of the culprit’s paws. I highly doubt that you will…”

“So who’s the culprit, is it one of us ma’am?” An earth pony mare asked, I think her name was Quirky Bayonet.

“Very good question Bayonet, but no. None of you will be the culprit.” They sighed at that and I had an evil smirk on my face, they didn’t know what was about to happen. “The culprit will be stealing and running from you with some stipulations and guidelines they have to follow. Let me introduce you to the bane of the royal guard…. Jaded La Perm!”

“What, you didn’t say anything about her being here!” Spitfire’s panicked words suddenly got them all worried, that worry soon ended when Jade came slowly bouncing into view from around the corner of the barracks on a pink pogo stick.

“Don’t worry Spitfire, you’re going to simply be an observer.” Turning to look at my wife bouncing up and down with a literal simple childlike glee, I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from tugging upwards at the sight. “You will still have to follow Jade though. This is about increasing the standards of the royal guard to actually mean something more than pointless cannon fodder.”

“Let me guess, she put you up to this somehow?” Good guess Spitfire, but no, this was going to be a legitimate exercise from the beginning. “Even when I don’t want to chase after her, you’re going to force my hoof on this!”

“No, this is purely business and yes it is forcing your hoof Spitfire.” It looked like your average run of the mill pogo and Jade was slowly hopping forward until she came to a stop near us and started to bouncing place with a bright grin on her face. She eventually stopped bouncing and waited for me to explain the rules of our little ‘exercise’.

Knowing Jade, like I do as her wife, that pogo stick wouldn’t do normal things while in her hands. I didn’t know what it would do, but I knew it would aid in her legally escaping Canterlot with the money she’s earned. She’s being paid as a security consultant in her professional area of expertise and it is my job to get said security up to snuff and beyond because the current snuff was horrible.

“Says the mare that’s eyeing her herd mate like a piece of meat.” Mumbled a rather irate Spitfire. So what, I can eye Jade as much as I want to!

“At least she knows she wants to chase all of this.” Jade shook her hips in my direction and gave me a sultry look while leaning against the pink pogo, she winked at me. I smiled at her and nodded, then motioned that we could flirt later.

“The rules of this are fairly simple for Jade, she can’t leave her pogo behind and it has to be intact by the time she escapes Canterlot. She also has to be riding it or using it as a weapon while she’s escaping from you.” I saw one of the unicorns laugh at the idea that Jade could escape on the pogo, they weren’t around for her doing it on foot, on a unicycle or on skates. After what I watched Jade do last week, I’ll give them a pass to make complete fools of themselves. “Your job is to make sure she doesn’t escape the city or steal what amounts to an early bonus from all of you, if you fail then you might want to consider another line of work. If you want to stay on after this, then you might eventually have the makings of something worthy of being called a guard that can actually protect others.”

“Seriously, she’s going to be on a pogo the entire time? What threat could she possibly hope to pose us while bouncing around randomly on that toy?” A unicorn mare scoffed, I believe she was called Cover Ducking, she apparently didn’t see Jade as a challenge. That’s the first mistake most would be making in this scenario, underestimating the prime example of ‘Petticus Kittius’. “This’ll be too easy, this is not something that I would consider to be a worthy training exercise in the slightest!”

Seeing Jade give the yellow furred unicorn a look that screamed ‘Petty Kitty Moment’, I sighed. I nodded to Jade when she met my eyes and she nodded back with a wink, Cover had actually asked for it by scoffing at my wife like this.

“I don’t know, Spitfire seems awfully worried, maybe we should actually take this seriously.” At least that pegasus stallion had a good head on his shoulder, I believe his name was High Dive.

“I am in agreement with that sentiment, something sounds vaguely familiar about this.” A fanged, bat winged, stallion named Spot Check was giving Jade wary looks.

Mr. Check was clearly the only other one aside from High Dive that was wary of Jade. Spot Check and High Dive were getting a few bonus points for keeping his guard up around an unknown, who has yet to show what they are capable of.

I think Spot might be related to Bracing Knight back in Airship Mauled or he’s at least heard the rumors of Jaded running multiple laps around the guards of the EUP mostly just for the fun of it.

“It’s a pogo stick, it’s far too unwieldly for her to be…” Cover started to say with her nose in the air.

“Start Jade!” I interrupted Cover from out of nowhere without warning, this gave Jade the opening she needed. “First lesson, life’s never fair!”

(Music start, Start the Commotion, The Wiseguys.), Jaded versus fifteen of twenty poor saps-

Jade suddenly blurred forward and the end of the pogo slammed into Cover’s horn. Cover’s eyes whited out as Jade tilted forward to shoot upwards, knocking her to ground out cold. Jade pulled out and slung a vial downwards, the shattering of glass was met with a large smoke cloud erupting from the site of the impact.

Before Jade fell entirely into the smokescreen while waggling her eyebrows, a second Jade appeared and then there were swift motions in the cloud with the sound of two springs going off ten times each.

The glint of two flashes of pink crisscrossing through the smoke could be seen from above, before coming together into a single entity.

The guards had been caught flat hoofed and it didn’t take Spot Check more than a second to realize that Jade had not only stolen his pouch, but everyone else’s in a matter of seconds. They had been holding them in their hooves or magic while standing on the ground and listening to Fizzy.

Once the cloud of smoke dissipated the guards all turned to the sound of a spring compressing to see Jade grinning as she hopped three feet forward towards the nearby gate with a small sack, likely loaded with the pouches, over her shoulder.

Jade launched six feet upwards and the bottom of pogo hit the top of the gate and she launched herself out into the streets of Canterlot over several civilian ponies’ heads. Said ponies watched in awe as Jade slowly started to bounce down the street in an overly taunting manner half a foot at a time.

The chase had already started and they were already down one unicorn and all the pouches they were meant to protect.

The four remaining unicorns gathered their wits and opened the gate to start giving chase. The pegasi and thestrals took to the air, Spitfire followed them to watch the train wreck in motion and spoke a silent prayer for these poor, sad, deluded ponies that thought they could actually catch the crafty Abyssinian in motion.

The earth ponies turned towards each other and started to talk to one another which intrigued Fizzy, they then turned to ask her a question or two. The five earth ponies were the only ones who didn’t give chase.

Jade bounced high over several stunning shots from the four unicorns as they scrambled out into the street and they accidentally hit one or two bystanders. A pegasus tried to swoop down to catch Jade in the middle of her next jump, only to get a face full of the tip of the pogo with a quick tilt forward from Jade and was summarily launched across the city.

Leaning back quickly, Jade landed easily enough continued bouncing merrily to and fro while avoiding the shots from the unicorns desperately trying to tag her. The wily cat then turned into an alleyway which the pegasi and the thestrals spread out to cover on both ends.

“Unicorns have poor aim and are hitting civilians, the flyers just made a rookie mistake and don’t know their opponent very well.” What Spitfire was commenting on was that no one was covering the alleyway from above.

Spiftfire was evaluating their ability to handle an unknown. Fizzle had plenty of fair points, what were they teaching the guard these day? Spitfire thought the Wonder Bolts at least knew how to deal with a hydra… somewhat.

Spitfire hovered there and watched as Jade pogoed off the two nearby walls of the alley and got onto the rooftops. Yep, they weren’t catching her and she was just actively toying with them by going slowly, if it’s anything like the Zamponi incident last week then this was going to end pitifully.

At least Spot Check had noticed her getting away across the rooftops, the unicorns tried to give chase on the ground and the flyers were closing in on her. Two of the pegasi and two of the thestrals swooped outwards and then inwards.

Jade flipped the entire pogo stick upside down after her next bounce off of an angled roof and when the four flyers got close, the spring miraculously fired off and Jade rocketed downwards towards the ground at an insane speed.

The four ponies she left behind collided in a comical manner when they all tried to follow her rapid descent with wide eyed looks.

Jade managed to reverse the pogo stick so that it was pointed downwards and bounced sharply to her left out into the street. She angled forward and to the right towards the square avoiding several more magical spells chasing after her that harmlessly splashed against the streets where she was a second ago.

Bouncing left and right in a zig zag pattern to avoid several shots, Jade ducked under a magical shot before pulling back on the pogo to go into a short spinning hop. She started to bounce along the edge of the square’s fountain while sashaying her rear end at the chasing guards and avoiding every bolt of magic sent at her.

Jade suddenly clung to her pogo stick horizontally and launched a powerful spinning kick to the skull of a pegasus pony that tried to close in, they went bouncing off the street in a boneless heap. That pony would be fine, but that had to hurt.

The actual royal guards that were on duty just watched in flat silence, a few of them lowered their heads in to respect Jade as the devious opponent that she was.

Jade spun a full rotation every other bounce as she made a full revolution around the edge of the fountain, while performing stylish pole dancing poses on the pogo stick to avoid being hit by the blasts of stunning magic and then bounced off heading in the direction of the main gate or the train station.

A unicorn chose the wrong moment to try and make a dive for Jade and ended up in the fountain with a large splash, she cracked her helmet on the stone of the fountain and was left in a daze with a spray of water going into her face.

Quite a few fillies and colts were applauding as Jade waved to them merrily as she hopped away bouncing off walls, the edges of fruit stands without damaging them and off an awning which an unwary incoming thestral guard became entangled in from trying to grab Jade. It wasn’t like the other flyers were having any luck as Jade avoided them expertly with swift sideways flips or bouncing off various odd things in the environment.

One of the unicorns got the idea to lead their shot, she took aim and fire her horn in the direction Jade was going to bounce, Jade bounce up and towards the shot and the unicorn grinned. Said grin was soon wiped off the mares face entirely and it turned into a flat look of disbelief and shock.

Jade suddenly, defying all laws of physics and momentum entirely, immediately changed direction in the air and out of the way of the magic bolt that instead struck a blonde and grey pegasus mid-flight, this sent the poor civilian crash into a stand full of watermelons that sent them rolling everywhere into the streets.

“Yes, my stand has been blessed this day!” The watermelon seller stated proudly, opposite of him a cabbage stand owner looked sad, at least until Jade slammed down into the center of her stand creating an explosion of cabbages that struck another two pegasi from the air before she launched away.

“My cabbages!” The mare at the cabbage stand said reverently while holding her hooves in prayer towards Jade with a bright smile on her face.

The unicorn guard that had accidentally hit the blond pegasus mare was shocked when Jade suddenly bounced backwards towards her and slammed down in front of her to send her flying roughly into a wall from the shockwave and she landed face first on a hay bale.

The mare lifted her head weakly and froze as Jade glared at her for a second. When the unicorn mare didn’t move out of fright, Jade nodded to her and continued back down the street.

The blond pegasus that had crashed into the stand looked upset, at least up until Jade stopped to hop at a stand for a few seconds much to the chasing guards confusion that she stopped to buy a bag of premium muffins and then bounced over to toss it at the poor mare covered in watermelon chunks.

The local ponies all made a cooing noise at the kindness, then several even went to help the suddenly happy mare up and to clean her off.

The blonde pegasus mare shouted in happiness as Jade hopped down the street waving back at her with the remaining two unicorns, two thestrals and a pegasus still chasing her.

Jade hopped backwards, forwards and started to change direction and confused the poor guards with where she was heading or where she would land as she bounced literal circles around them.

In general Jade was still heading in the direction of the wall while avoiding the shots from two unicorns, all while trying to get them to shoot their fellow guard members.

After avoiding another grab attempt by the thestrals and the lone pegasus that somehow still had the gumption in him to keep up with Jade, the cat on the pogo stick suddenly sharply leaned forward so that she was at a thirty degree angle and shot forward twenty feet and then again outpacing all of them immediately.

It was to their shock that Jade was holding back on them, even Spot Check was flabbergasted at how fast Jade was moving for the wall, the strength of each bounce increasing the speed at which she was moving.

Spot Check, High Dive and their flyers tried to catch up, only to have Jade stop underneath them, then she leapt over them. Something changed in the air, the training exercise guards felt it.

One short hop, a slightly bigger bounce that was triple the height of the previous one and then the pogo came down and both the cat and the pogo seemed to scrunch up and with a blink the cat went somersaulting rapidly for the wall.

As she passed over the wall, Jade sent a tongue back at the guards just staring after her in awe. At least up until the pogo was pulled out from under her by the swift movements of a mare’s left hoof.

“Why Fizzy, WHY!?” Jade screamed as she finished passing over the wall minus her pogo stick, the various guards around could hear the sounds of yowling pain, suffering and the clattering of a trash can lids on the other side of the wall.

The guards that weren’t part of the exercise started snickering slightly and began passing bits amongst themselves.

-End combat of exercise, technical victory Jade!-

Something almost invisible against the blue sky gave out a sharp laugh.

-Top of the wall near the gate into Canterlot, Fizzle-

“Now as you can see, that was pretty funny and why your team is getting top marks Quirky Bayonet.” I stated happily to the five earth ponies next to me, three of which were stallions that managed to keep up with my pace. They were the ones to swallow their pride and ask me if we could set an ambush or do something to earn credit, following me to get ahead of Jade on hoof was how they earned a good score. “She still technically escaped though, because I wasn’t supposed to be a part of this exercise. Eh, someone has to be around to keep her at the top of her game, so it might as well be me. Let’s go gather up the others and then we’ll discuss what everyone did wrong… that includes you Jade!”

“Bite me betrayer!” Shouted a groaning Jade from the base of the outer wall.

“I’ll take that as an invitation for what to do later tonight, unless you want to do the biting!” I stated with a bit of demented laughter escaping my lips, I heard small mewl of protest from her and smiled. Yep, Jade was not going to be allowed to go complete Abyssinian Queen on our herd. Not while I’m around at any rate. “Also stop being a big kitten, you’re perfectly fine even if that does leave some bruises!”

“Is it true what they say… that she managed to escape Canterlot while riding a Zamponi?” Quirky asked me curiously, I threw a calm and friendly hoof around her.

“That was the exercise for the older guards and it happened last week, also yes… she actually succeeded in escaping the city doing that.” What a sad state of affairs that was for the pride of the guards, it was a blow that they weren’t going to ever recover from. Twilight was certainly highly disappointed in the guards that took part in that particular exercise. How do you lose or miss someone like Jade riding around on a slow moving ice resurfacing device?! “To think she was actually going easy on them too when she stole it...”

“Ma’am… permission to be utterly horrified?” Bayonet asked while looked completely wide eyed at the prospect.

“Permission granted, now if you’ll excuse me…” I looked over the edge of the wall and then grabbed Jade in my magic and yanked her up to me. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

“So… shower room shenanigans?” Jade asked hopefully.

“Jade… what do you take me for?!” Stating this harshly while looking into her innocent looking green eyes, I sighed and nuzzled her carefully. She was covered in garbage after all. “Of course there’s going to be shower room shenanigans, like I’d do something like that to you without making up for it in the best way possible!”

I slowly walked back towards the barracks with a grinning Jade levitating in my magic and wagging her tail excitedly, I was followed by five earth pony hopefuls as we started picking up the several downed guards that needed some minor medical attention.

“So Gallus, what do you think? After you’re done with the friendship school, you could maybe add some talent to the guards.” The various guards jumped as I addressed the griffon that I had shadowing the whole mess in slow motion to tell me the truth if Sptifire tried to fudge details.

“That could have gone better, if it wasn’t already a perfect disaster piece for a good movie… you ponies should really do recordings of things like this.” The blue colored griffon landed and started walking next to me. “Also what was that thing she said about a Zamponi?”

“It’s why the EUP needs to change to inclusive other species, especially changelings. I need a few changelings and if you could ask Ocellus if King Thorax might know a changeling or two that wouldn’t mind helping guard.” My glance at him was a bit pleading, because what I had to work with wasn’t exactly all that great to begin with. “That kind of favor would go a long way to helping me out here.”

“Yeah, I can do that for you, so do you want my notes on everything from start to finish?” Gallus held up a note pad and I took and started flipping through it, Jade quietly read over my shoulder where she was floating and still holding her stack of stolen pouches. Spitfire came over to use and hovered nearby as we made our way back towards the barracks.

“He’s actually surprisingly very detail oriented.” Was Jade’s commentary on Gallus’s note taking as I read them over, almost everything was a little bit sarcastic or using varying amounts of sass. They were all valid points though, including Jade’s showboating and ridiculous antics despite the fact that she could have taken the guards after her a bit more seriously. Jade looked over some of the notes about herself and then turned to Gallus. “If I can showboat, then that means that these guards weren’t worth my full effort. I’ll raise you the fact that, as a security consultant, I just easily earned a little under four hundred bits in one session with minimal effort. I did stop to use some of my own bits to buy a bag of muffins for a friend to cheer her up.”

Gallus raised a talon to say something in response, then stroked his chin looking thoughtful and then he shrugged both his talons in acceptance while nodding that Jade had a point.

-Later at the Royal Guard Barracks, after a rather steamy shower, Fizzy-

“Okay, who wants to go first in telling me what all of you did wrong during this exercise?” The various ponies gulped and looked at me, Cover was looking particularly sheepish with a sore horn and head wrapped in bandages.

“I underestimated what is possibly one of the most evil beings in existence that most of the royal guard has a misfortune to know personally?” Cover the unicorn answered weakly.

“A completely fair assessment.” Jade said with a nod, crossed arms and closed eyes. Like her, I couldn’t wait to get home to take care of our daughter’s Silvers. Silver for the pony head, Silvia for the feline head and Silvon for the dragon tail.

Maries and everyone else must be tired from the rambunctious, if lovable, three headed terror running around. It’ll be even worse when they eventually learn how to use those massive wings of theirs to fly.

This first training exercise was going to be considered a success.

I was settling into my new job for Twilight as a hard flank nicely enough and Jade was allowed the freedom to come and go as she pleases, since she still wants to travel with Jacky on occasion and even wants to be lazy around Airship Mauled every now and then.

I could now threaten training exercises like this with Jade to keep these ponies motivated enough to avoid any issues there may be in the future.

My beloved felonious feline would tie them together in camaraderie quite nicely.

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: Paprika and her wives ascended, it didn’t change much.

Author's Note

I still want an ideal character other than Fizzle or Maries for a fourth character sheet.

Any character really, doesn't matter.

This is a long one.

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: Paprika and her wives ascended, it didn’t change much.

-Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Kuril-

I just watched as my kitten took care of her children, it made me sad in a way that she didn’t need my help nearly as much anymore.

Jaded was officially a Queen with her own kittens now, ones that she can actually take care for a lot longer than the time she got with Icky Dress.

Speaking of my granddaughter Icky, she sadly couldn’t visit us due to the possibility of destroying the entirety of the world through exceptionally odd causality loops. It was a little hard for us to visit her too and only a little bit more manageable, at least there was a decent pathway between Yakhalla and Icky on the hard to read road map to our corner of the universe.

Eir the Valkyrie helps in that regard when she visits. She couldn’t fix Fizzle’s broken horn, but my little pony wasn’t as focused on that these days anyway.

At least we could visit Icky’s daughter Harmony and Harmony’s daughter next to the school of friendship in Ponyville far easier, as they were only going to grow so large as to not become a problem to the world. They were all good and lovable transforming magical goddess trees.

Back to my kitten, I was fairly proud of Jaded. Jade held little Silvers in the crook of her right arm and supported their back nicely, in her left hand she held two warmed up bottles of milk to Silver and Silvia’s hungry little mouths. Silvon just nuzzled her head into Jade’s chest fur while rumbling happily in a manner that sounded close to purring.

I wasn’t exactly picky about my grandchildren, trees, a griffon and a chimera. I was quite accepting that my entire family had clearly gone entirely off the rails just like we generally do around here and I loved them all!

Silvers started to squirm and Jade held them up looking a bit worried, she patted them gently on the back while putting the two front heads over her shoulder. Only it was Silvon who proceeded to belch, this led to the dragon head unleashing a huge blast of flames from her little mouth.

A nearby chair got set on fire and Jade had a comically spooked look on her face, within a second Jacky pulled out a fire extinguisher and took care of the problem before things could get any worse.

My little parrot always had an extinguisher on her, she had the right idea to be properly paranoid. Anyone who knew her would never question Jacky’s need to be carrying around a fire extinguisher at all times. Things that shouldn’t naturally catch on fire do so around her with alarming frequency. Jacky’s luck has only gotten vaguely better with time and thankfully little Gavin didn’t inherit her constant lifelong problem.

I watched as Silvers clung to Jade and curled up against the warmth of her body. Everyone could easily trust Jaded with children, but it wouldn’t be too bad to maybe give her a few pointers if she starts having problems with their care.

“Thanks Jacky and thank you for the milk Grace.” Jade quickly calmed down and sighed audibly as she tickled her daughters. “I certainly didn’t expect that... usually when gas comes out of the basement, it’s not nearly quite as explosive as that was.”

“We’re sisters Captain, can’t expect me to forget to account for my family where my curse is concerned. It doesn’t just affect me, just primarily me overall.” Jacky sat down and Gene passed Gavin into her arms. I felt like crying as I saw my girls being motherly, I knew how to set a good example of motherhood at least. “You might want to look into fire extinguishers yourself, you know, because one of your daughter’s heads can already breathe fire. Don’t honestly know what you’re going to do when the unicorn heads magical surges start kicking in.”

Jade paled quite visibly as she looked to Silver’s snoozing head, Silver had Fizzy’s mane and the same silver fur that the rest of Silvers body had. The silver pony fur meshed quite well into the silver Abyssinian fur of Silvia and the fur got wilder around the Silvon’s head.

“Oh, it was no problem at all. I’m always willing to spare some milk… Maggie has milk too, but she’s always rather picky about who she gives it to.” The lovely Grace was the most peaceful being of Airship Mauled, she was currently eating some biscuits made from scratch filled with honey and strawberry jelly. “I for one think you’re doing an excellent job Jaded!”

Even if Grace was dating someone that was highly confusing and was just as confused about life, Grace was always our calming voice of reason and one of our favorite neighbors that lives nearby.

Maggie was practically living at the inn now and was trying to get some correspondence going with Haven’s Patch, the randomly teleporting town of cows, to get in touch with their old friend Calloway. Apparently she was keeping in touch with the Apple family in Ponyville in case they ever needed her help with something.

Speaking of neighbors… I looked to Paprika, what is likely the world’s friendliest alpaca, resting her head on her right hoof and staring at Jade longingly, except she had no hearts in her eyes like she always had while looking at Arizona and Velvet.

It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t Jade she was looking at with a small hint of want, it was Silvers.

It was very apparent that Paprika wanted little cria of her own, her wives would certainly be first in line for a test of my gender potion. I would even fast track it for them if asked, but only once we knew it was safe to use.

I still haven’t gotten the darn potion entirely down yet, Zecora was actually curious and interested in seeing if it could work and was helping out immensely with the ideas for ideal ingredients. One ingredient that we agreed on that was important was a single sea pony scale or at least a scale from a sea pony that has transformed into a hippogriff at least once.

Combine the gender potion with the same cross species spell that led to me having Jade, then anyone could have a family of any composition provided they had a unicorn or god that could do the spell. Any hybrid would definitely be closer to the mother in appearance than the father if Jade was anything to go by, she was barely a pony and yet her cutie mark told us that she got at least something from him.

We still needed test subjects and Baast was willing to help with any fertility issues, but could only provide help to a male and female coupling. This is why we were looking into this particular angle to make a temporary potion for couples.

What was I going to all this trouble for? My real motivation behind all this research is that it could simply get me more grandchildren to dote on.

-Construction site, Arizona-

“Now here we go, put your backs into it with the help you lend, we’ve still got work orders for several things to fix and mend~!”” I sang as I hammered planks into place on the ship shaped home I was helping build, it could even be my own or someone else would take it. “Building, building, building, building, building, we do it all day long~!

“Building, building, building, building, building, it is what keeps us strong~!” The diamond dog construction crew sang back as they moved supplies around the ship shaped building. “Watch the sky and run away, hope that this is not the goddess Sekhet’s day, we welcome all to our home in this exact same way~!”

“We now welcome you to our crash happy homes, isn’t it quite quaint~?” I sang as I hammered some things into place. “There’s always something dangerous around here, so don’t you dare faint~. Now someone get me another plank, maybe afterwards we can share some snow cones or simply something to drink~!”

“This is our home of Airship Mauled, watch out for the sky so it doesn’t fall… stick around long enough and you might see an unusual sight happening quite near~.” The diamond dog construction workers sang leading into the final line of the heart song. “Thanks to the unexpected, we always have so much building left to do here~!”

I continued to work on the building and I wiped the sweat from head, it was a bit hard to keep my strength under control. Didn’t want to break the entire wall of the boat house overdoing it.

“Er… Arizona...” I heard a faint squeaking voice. It sounded like it was trying to shout, but was failing to do so.

I finished hammering down my plank of treated wood and looked down at the ground to see three figures, two of which I was fairly familiar with. There was a drastic change to one, one I’ve only seen once before and the last looked a bit embarrassed to be here holding the hoof of the one that went through a drastic change since I last saw her.

“Huh… Pom is that you?!” I shouted down at the lambkin who squeaked and burrowed her face into a hoof. “What the hay happened to you?”

“Ancient lambkin bonding ritual…” Pom managed to squeak out, I barely heard that as I climbed down a nearby ladder and looked towards the two present longma. Tianhuo and Pom were definitely together by the looks of how embarrassed they were, yet they weren’t jumping away from each other or letting go of the other’s hoof.

It reminded me that Fred and Oleander were off traveling the world together, both of them were absolutely looking for trouble to solve. They at least promised to drop in every now and then to regale us with their adventures.

“Where are all of your beasties?” I asked, taking note of the lack of stupidly protective canines surrounding the sweet and ‘mostly’ innocent Pom.

“I managed to talk them into staying home, it’s getting a bit hard to find transportation for all of them. I have a place in Huoshan now as a canine trainer and I’m actually part of the Huoshan guard now. The canine unit specifically.” Well that was nice to hear Pom, but there was one thing I really wanted to ask about. “Um… do you really have to stare at me like that?”

“It is rather noticeable why you’re wearing a really nice dress.” How could I not stare? Pom was obviously shaved completely hairless, the yellow sundress and hat she wore really didn’t hide the fact that she was missing absolutely every inch of wool on her body. I decided to be blunt about it, no tact whatsoever. “So… did you enjoy every second of that ritual?”

Pom’s face turned bright red and it wasn’t from the sun. Tianhuo stayed silent, but even her head was turning quite red as she looked away.

“That is not what we are here to discuss, these two came to ask for help. I think you may be able to assist us in finding out where the information we seek is.” I looked at the other longma, the way her flaming hair seemed to flow like Celestia’s pretty much meant that she was a goddess. I don’t think we ever got her name or I might have forgotten it. “If you have forgotten me, I’m Jiutian. Longma Goddess of war, longevity… also excessive over the top love and sex. We’ve met briefly.”

“Did I hear someone speaking my language?” Baast asked as she immediately zipped over to us and looked over Jiutian. “Oh, hello beautiful love goddess! How about we get fertile together, maybe you can even plant some corn in me… you’re a solid ten fields worth!”

“Rice to meet you too.” Jiutian muttered audibly while slowly dragging a hoof down her face. “Why am I not surprised that I’d be getting pickup lines this soon?”

The fact that Baast built a pyramid next to her sisters was not lost on any of us who live here, and yes, Baast was frequently hit by airships after officially moving in for those who were keeping count of the number of times... oh dang!

“Incoming, everyone Scatter!” I bellowed while tackling both Pom and Tianhuo out of the path of a sudden shadow coming down.

The diamond dogs followed my command immediately and were out of the path of the incoming crash. Whether they burrowed into the ground, ran in fright while holding onto their hard hats or simply dove out of the way, they all got clear of the most common disaster Airship Mauled faces almost on a weekly basis.

The airship hit not only Baast and Jiutian, but also Sekhet who managed to dive underneath it just in time to be hit by it full force.

Sekhet was still a masochist that clearly enjoys being crushed by airships, but I wouldn’t point that out as I’m the poster cow for domestic abuse when it came to Velvet and wasn’t one to talk about enjoying pain and suffering. I’m married to the example of both of those things.

“Ow.” That was Jiutian’s only reaction to being crushed by an airship. The longma goddess’s visible hooves waggled helplessly from underneath the airship. “This feels oddly pleasing somehow.”

“See, I’m not the only one that thinks so Baast!” Said a happily groaning Sekhet.

“This is not anything like the joy from the pain of a successful childbirth Sekhet!” It seemed Baast was angry that her sister would make something like an insinuation. I heard a crunching sound as the airship dipped slightly and I heard Baast let out a moan. “Okay, maybe there is some merit to this… that kind of felt like a full deep tissue back massage. Sure my spine is now mulch, but this is kind of relaxing.”

I rolled my eyes at the three goddesses under an airship and turned to both Pom and Tian. The boys would ask if the airship crew need medical help and or some repair work on their ship. At least the airship crash didn’t ruin our construction site, it only damaged the scaffolding a little.

“So what brings you two here, it must be something important if Tian is not currently married to her job much less you for that matter Pom.” The two looked rather shy about it as I teased them.

“We heard there was a way for us to have children? I made a prayer to Jiutian and she answered almost immediately, it was almost like she was eagerly waiting for me to ask for help… She didn’t even want an offering and said that helping us would be offering enough.” Tian looked out at the town and smiled. “Aside from our goddess being a horrible voyeur, I would ask why she thought it necessary to bring us here. Apparently there is a rumored method to us having children here?”

“Yeah, Fizzle help reverse engineer a cross species breeding spell from the only previous successful result of it and eventually help to come up with a same gender breeding spell too. They don’t work together though. Same gender requires being of the same species, cross species requires a male and a female to work.” Seeing the disappointed looks, I couldn’t help but want to put some smiles on them. “Which is why they started working out a method to change someone’s gender temporarily, Baast might be able to help with fertility if the changed gender proves to be infertile.”

“It is actually possible?” Tian stated with a hint of hope.

“Yes, but the method is… very much untested and the potion everyone’s favorite local witch is working on isn’t exactly perfected. There’s also some attraction issues going on around here. Velvet doesn’t want to have sex with a male. Paprika thankfully doesn’t care about our genders and just wants children. I’m bisexual so I’m more open to the idea of being with a male, but don’t want to be a male myself as I get enough ‘miniscule’ jokes about my udders as it is. There’s also the fact that Velvet doesn’t want to look anything like her biological father, but we’ve been working to get her to come around to at least trying the potion once.” There was a problem or two with finding willing test subjects and I knew what it was. “Jade and her wives also have Velvet’s problem, they aren’t attracted to men and would have problems doing the full scope of the gender potion testing. Finding volunteers for it has been pretty…”

“I’ll do it!” Everyone reeled back in shock from Pom, it was to the point that the various Diamond Dogs from the local construction crew were now staring at her along with the crew of the recently crashed airship. That’s the loudest I think I’ve ever heard Pom be. Pom clamped her hooves over her mouth, her entire body turned red and she promptly curled up into a tiny yellow ball of cloth. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind being the male… if it’s okay with you Tian.”

“If you want me to, I could…” Tian started to say slowly, calmly and tenderly.

“No, I’m doing it!” Pom said firmly and loudly, the second loudest I’ve ever heard her being while looking Tian in the eyes with a fire I’ve never seen in the usually cowardly or meek lambkin. She knows what she wants at least.

“It is nice to see you being so brave once again.” Tianhuo stated while pressing against Pom’s shivering side.

“Okay… once Kuril has her potion tested and it is considered safe for consumption for other species, I’m sure you could volunteer to be the first one to try it.” The smile I was getting from Pom was brighter than the sun and she seemed both outrageously happy and hopeful. “I’m not in charge of the project though, so you might want to run it by Cadence, Baast, Kuril, Zecora or quite a few of the others that are all working on this. It’s really complicated and well above my ability to fully comprehend what they are talking about half the time, but it’s not nearly as hard as figuring out how to heal the damage to Fizzle’s horn apparently. I’m sure those on the project would really appreciate you helping out. So it’s clearly not impossible considering I’ve seen Kuril turn ponies into mice, birds, rabbits and even a frog once, I’ve also been hearing some interesting things about two gay hippogriffs too if you want to hear about it.”

“Do you know a place where we can stay Arizona? We don’t exactly know this town very well.” Tian asked as she stared at the many various beings wandering around town, Kuril’s restaurant was already starting to get its morning influx of visitors.

It seemed Fresh Start was going to be exceedingly busy with the breakfast rush this morning. Kuril was better at the lunch rush and dinner rushes. Blade was always in a day long support roll. Brenda was picking up things nicely as an attractive diamond dog waitress and when Savanna wasn’t traveling around as a pirate with Jacky, she’d work shifts with what was her cuddly canine companion for life.

“Yeah, the Helping Hoof Inn, I recently expanded its size and added more rooms...” I paused and looked between Pom and Tianhuo. “With requisite sound proofing, I certainly don’t want to hear how loudly Pom bleats at night.”

The two started blushing heavily.

There were also a large number of rooms for family added on, for Grace, Maggie and my wives to stay at in the meantime… including a foal’s room, best to be prepared for the inevitable if we can get Velvet to take the temporary gender potion after it was approved by various sources for use.

-A few days later, Jade-

“This feels kind of odd.” Stated Pom, being a ram lambkin in a dress would do that to you.

“Take it from someone who can transform into a griffon for an hour or has accidentally been hit with a number of random animal based shape shifting potions, it probably could be far worse than it currently feels now.” That time I was a peregrine falcon was awesome though, thankfully I transformed back with my griffon feather or I wouldn’t have survived that fall.

Cadence quickly checked a nervous Pom over and nodded to Tianhuo.

“Now we need you, Tianhuo, to get a sample from him to see if this is working as advertised. We are not using the cross species spell on you yet to prevent any ‘really happy’ accidents from happening.” After she shooed the two lovers out of sight, Cadence turned a stink eye to me. “Why didn’t you get me to officiate your wedding?”

“You’re still on about that Cadence? Twilight needed the confidence boost and what better way than to have someone she doesn’t know very well to put their trust in her to do a good job?” Not going to bat an eye here, but I was sure Cadence would have went overboard if I had asked her to officiate our wedding. I even said as much. “You would have gone far and might have attracted some rather problematic elements, that aren’t the now completely defunct GODLESS, that would have done some things to make sure I didn’t cause any more problems among nobility. With the decoy honeymoon we avoided a large beach ninja ambush, two different dueling guitar ninjas and anything-not-nailed-down-is-a-weapon ninja. There’s still having to deal with Perun’s Paladins too and they are almost entirely made up of nobles or jerks in general. Anyway, out of curiosity and on the subject, heard any news about how Blueblood has been doing recently?”

“I… yes… I can actually see that now. Also Blueblood could be doing better, but at least he’s actually having to make an effort of it now instead of cheating the system entirely.” Cadence smiled and hugged me, said hug tightened to be almost unbearable. “Okay, where’s your kittens? I know you’ve had them with Maries, I can smell them on you! I want to be an aunty to them too!”

Cadence violently shook me, this was making me quite dizzy and I worried for the safety of my kittens. Logically I knew Cadence would never hurt a child, so I eventually caved in.

“Fizzy’s got them today, I swear!” I was quickly released and Cadence was happily bouncing off to see them, Flurry Heart was currently with Shining Armor back in the Crystal Empire and Cadence was apparently having parental withdrawal.

Today was likely a free day from dealing with the stresses of life for the Princess of Love.

-Airship Mauled Market District, Paprika-

They were so adorable and small, it was hard to believe Silvers came out of Maries. At least I now knew why mom was always so big year round and seemed smaller after my newer brothers and sisters appear.

I love all my brothers and sisters, but now I wanted to start a family of my own. I don’t think I would ever be able to support or have as many children as mom though.

Fizzle was less hardened when Silvers, Maries or Jade were around, in fact she was really quite soft and caring when you overlooked her hard and stern exterior at times. She was doing some shopping while making sure Silvers didn’t crawl off or do something bad.

It was around this time that I was perusing for supplies myself that a pink alicorn pounced on Fizzle and the generally quiet day at the market got a bit sillier. I shrugged and tried to think about other things, for a second I thought I saw the pink alicorn look in my direction curiously when Velvet and Arizona came to mind.

My wives were less big on family, Velvet doesn’t love her biological family and prefers her adopted family exclusively. I can clearly understand the reasoning behind that. Arizona loves her mother, but tends to want to keep her at a distance as she was a, somewhat, grown cow. Arizona still looks scrawny and like a calf, but I think that’s due to all her compacted muscles. Not that that’s a bad thing that our Arizona looks cute enough to snuggle until the very heat death of the universe.

I looked over Silvers some more. Their eyes kind of matched their mothers, all of them. Green for the Abyssinian head, bright blue eyed for the unicorn and yellow bar eyes of a goat mixed with the multiple slits of dragons made for a rather fierce look on the tail bound head.

I was actually quite envious. I could play with them, I could take care of them and be their fluffy ‘hug obsessed’ aunt, but it left me longing for having the same thing with my own soul mates.

I think I was being a bit too greedy about all this.

“A bit for your thoughts oh scary one?” The one that drew my attention, Jiutian, came up to me looking a bit pensive. What was so scary about me that made her so wary? I’m really ridiculously fluffy and lovable!

Making several motions with my hooves, I added some facial expressions to my gestures as I asked her why she seemed afraid of me.

“To be fair, all the love gods are afraid of you, mostly because you could put us all out of our jobs by becoming the most powerful one of us. Most of them fled when you appeared in our domain, but thankfully you haven’t actually done ‘that’ yet.” What did Jiutian mean by ‘that’ exactly? I asked her and she sighed. “You have enormous potential and yet you haven’t ever wanted to grasp at power, it’s almost like you ignore it and just go with your heart no matter where it leads you. That has certainly upset all the death gods betting on how you would perish, which might not happen now depending on how things turn out soon enough.”

If I died now, then that would make my soul mates and wives very sad. I gestured that I wasn’t doing that anytime soon.

“Yes, that is fairly apparent, it’ll be even more so when you ascend and drag them with you into being the head goddess of your own little pantheon.” She sat down next to me and waited, I raised a brow at her. Was she expecting me to hug her? She didn’t seem to need one at the moment to me. “Every single bond you have ever truly made is insanely powerful and there was only ever the one being you could never like. Yet you never expressed outright hatred for them, only a mild contempt. You have an instinctive love of almost all life, yet being a love god might not actually be your thing.”

I believed she was talking about Hollow Heart, he wasn’t very nice and didn’t know how to play with others correctly. I feel pity for him and was somewhat sorry for kicking him so hard, but hopefully he likes where he is now. Even shadow monsters needed friends too!

“Your loving heart is a scary thing, you should be a goddess already and yet you continue to stay mortal. It’s probably better that you do stay mortal, otherwise having children might become a bit harder for you. I can definitely see them in your future.” She smiled at me after a moment and my eyes widened at what she just implied, I quickly pulled her into a hug and a few of her bones crunched under the force of my hug. “You have… the strength of a goddess… at least. Even if you might… only ever have a single cria… that should be enough… for you…”

I nodded as I quickly let her go, she fell to the ground shivering. A cria with Velvet would be exceptionally floofy and beautiful, I’d still love them even if they weren’t. I would also want a child with Arizona. Truthfully I wanted a lot of cria, but if I only ever had the one I’d focus my heart on raising them right like my mommy did for me!

Again I was being rather greedy, but I never asked much of my wives before and I’m only doing so now when it was something I really wanted.

I still had a few vegetables to buy, I saw some nice daikon radishes from Neighpon a second ago that would be good for some soup. The Cat and Hawk service were really good at importing foreign vegetables and fruit, they were always really fresh too!

I still don’t honestly know why they called it a black market, it seemed pretty friendly to me. I kind of wanted to buy Arizona a professionally made kanabo, but they were a bit expensive.

-A day later, The Witch’s Fare, Velvet-

Pom was back to normal after experiencing her time as a ram and I was currently buying lunch for her. I of course had ulterior motives and Pom likely knew as such, but I was going to treat her anyway even if I didn’t have motives for us to share a meal.

My job as snow cone maker was going splendidly, especially considering how my snow cones were being used to beat the heat around here. The local Diamond Dogs loved them at least. I also wanted to get into making ice cream… because I most certainly did not have a problem and could watch my figure perfectly well on my own!

Today for lunch, Kuril was making me a nice three cheese spaghetti with a sweet tasting tomato sauce, it was going to be a bit messy and while I hated being messy in general… there were times when I’d overlooked the possibility of being messy entirely. Provided that nothing gets on or damages my glorious floof of course.

I’m still somewhat envious that Paprika can match me for being attractively fluffy despite not putting an ounce of effort into her appearance. I wasn’t going to tell Paprika this, because I absolutely cherished and loved her dearly.

“I still feel sorry for you my dear friend, all of that lovely hair just gone… I can’t imagine losing my floof like that.” I put a hoof to my chest and ruffled my thick fluffy pride, Tinsel squeaked in agreement that it would be an utter tragedy. “So… how did it feel? My wives have been suggesting I go for it personally so I wouldn’t have to… be with a male. Arizona is already more than masculine enough for me, about as close as I ever want to get really.”

“It’ll grow back eventually, besides… I… actually really enjoyed being sheared by Tianhuo. While we Lambkin are not like normal sheep or ewes, we do use being sheared by a significant other as a sign of trust and deep emotional bonds.” Yes, Pom, I could clearly see that much. Pom looked fairly adorable in that yellow sundress, I’m sure she’d still wear it even when her wool grew back. “I’m still working on a scarf for Tianhuo and it’s almost done. Once that’s finished and I give it to her, it actually finishes off the ritual quite nicely.”

“No one can convince me to shear even a speck of hair off of my body unless it absolutely necessary and a last resort, otherwise I’d maim whoever dared try it with me! Still that’s a nice sun hat and a wonderful dress… where did you get them? You look cute in it.” I was actually curious. I’m completely aware that my wives were not made of money and I wasn’t about to drive them into the ground about wanting some of the finer things in life. I for one have come to prefer practical things to the ostentatious, but I still liked to have something fancy or at least nobler looking to wear for a nice outing. I’d think I’d look particularly nice in a silky ice blue dress. “I ask because I’m thinking of getting a nice dress for evenings out with my significant others.”

“I got it through mail order from a unicorn mare named Rarity, she runs a lot of good boutiques throughout Equestria. Kind of reminds me of your hat crazy cousin Cashmere, at least the one in Fœnum that is. I waited until the dress arrive before telling Tianhuo how to perform the Lambkin bonding ritual so I could cover my… erm… yeah.” Sighing while looking at the table, Pom slowly looked me in the eyes. “As for how it felt to be a ram… it was… weird, excessively weird. Not something I’d be willing to do twice unless I direly want children, and I do, but it wasn’t all that bad really.”

I’d hate to tell Pom this, but the Cashmere in this world was a one for one match to the one from Fœnum and her ice sprite was just as equally odd here as it is there. I should probably get my cousin to meet Rarity and we’ll make a day of it.

“Do you think I’d make for a nice stag?” My query must have been fairly obvious as Pom smiled at me shyly. “Just temporarily mind you.”

Paprika didn’t even need to drop hints, I knew she wanted a cria of her own and I was willing to do it. No matter my distaste for the method requiring me to become something I’m not, I’d absolutely do it for her and even Arizona if I could completely get over my revulsion of the idea. I don’t even know if Arizona wanted children honestly, but Paprika certainly did.

“It won’t hurt to try it Velvet, it certainly didn’t hurt me. Tianhuo was very gentle with me.” Shouldn’t you have been the gentle one Pom? No… wait… this ‘is’ Pom we’re talking about here, becoming male apparently didn’t change her endearing personality in the slightest. That… actually makes me feel better about possibly doing it.

“I’ll consider it when I hear that…” I started to say when Dr. Bones came up to us, that diamond dog was always grumpy when something bad happens to us. I know she cares even if she doesn’t show it too well.

Zen in particular hated how physics defying Arizona’s given biology was when compared against her mother’s implausible ability to survive being in the center of powerful and deadly explosions without so much as a scratch. The fact that Grace and Calloway almost vaguely shared similar traits was something of a mild concern, I did not want such a thing as being an ‘explosive nutcase’ to be contagious.

“Pom… you were fertile, exceedingly so. I know there’s some form of divine intervention on the samples I studied.” That was apparently good news from Dr. Bones and Pom hugged her with gangly legged enthusiasm. “I wouldn’t put it past them to do something to help things along, we tend to have a lot of nice gods around here... the injuries from the constant airship crashes sure are annoying though. At least it keeps me in a job.”

I heard someone cough loudly into their hoof for some reason and glanced in that direction.

Wasn’t that Ms. Jiutian that came here with Pom and Tianhuo? Given that she’s a goddess… well of course she was meddling in the affairs of mortals, but it didn’t seem to be for anything too bad if the mortals were actually asking for help in that regard. What was she getting from Pom and Tianhuo for this though? They never made an offering and she was practically jumping at the chance to help them.

It seemed it worked… did that mean I could really do it? Could I swallow my pride, toss my beauty away and give my wives something more precious than words. I felt a tug on my floof and turned my gaze to Tinsel, he hovered in front of me looking at me with a friendly smile filled with both worship and love.

Tinsel spread his arms out and created a hollow heart made of ice. He filled in the heart with snow and then turned it all into a snowball before chucking it at my face in a playful manner.

I smiled after being struck with the snowball, all ice sprites were far smarter than any reindeer would ever give them credit for as our ever loyal familiars.

-A day later, The Witch’s Fare, Tinsel-

She was truly a goddess of hidden warmth, she was now showing her true form and it glowed with raw power!

I was a true servant of the mighty ones we are all beholden too, mine was going to be the greatest of them all!

“Coo!” The little winged guardian agreed.

I will continue to serve you loyally forever mother!

-Jade-

“Now there’s something you don’t see every day.” That attracted attention to what I was looking at.

Not only were Arizona and Velvet glowing, but so was Paprika. Said alpaca was being the most unusual out of the three of them, given Paprika was magically hovering between them and glowing with a large amount of raw power.

“Oh stop showing off already Paprika!” After Arizona said this, the glow down and Paprika returned to looking like a normal alpaca albeit with a faint glow.

“Meep!” Exclaimed Paprika with a cheerful smile.

“Do I want to ask?” Not much really changed about them, though they all seemed a little bit… different.

“Apparently we’re all minor goddesses now or something, I wouldn’t know as I already broken the laws of physics at least three times before whatever this is happened.” I think Arizona was taking this with her usual completely nonchalant approach, it was an agreeable way to take this kind of thing. This was nothing too interesting, especially when they can dial down their divine power to a bare minimum as if they didn’t have it. “What’s going to be different about me making physics cry harder now? Don’t really care about it all that much, but it feels right at least. We’re not going to worry about it too much at the moment.”

“All three of you having divinity actually makes very little sense in the grand scheme of things, considering two of you didn’t show or seem to have any before-hoof!” Jiutian looked at Paprika with twitching eyes and sighed. “Though I am definitely glad that Paprika is not a Goddess of Love, more so the Goddess of Commitment, Snuggles and Fluff. She still terrifies me on a level I cannot even begin to comprehend, but at least she’s not going to bother us in our domain…. too much.”

“Don’t feel any different, more powerful sure, but I’m going to do what Arizona is doing and ignore the elephant in the room and will move on with my life.” Velvet stated as she sat down with Paprika between her and Arizona. Nobody was going to look at the super thief elephant that was actually in the room with us at the moment, even I was trying really hard to ignore its presence or the fact that it managed to escape Canterlot’s dungeon. “Three chimera sized specials please, I feel like we’re going to really need it today… oh and a five pound tub of ice cream, any flavor, please!”

-?-

It wasn’t long after that day that we discovered that despite the fact that Velvet was the one that should have gotten both Arizona and Paprika expectant. The ones who were actually expectant were Paprika as expected and somehow Velvet herself, which made absolutely no sense as to how that was even possible.

As you can imagine this was to everyone’s disbelief, given that Velvet was the male during the given time frame that such a thing could have happened.

That was far more interesting than the fact that all three of them somehow ascended in the process, this world of magic really did work in mysterious and impossible ways. More testing needed to be done on this before Fizzy or Jade would consider children personally.

Paprika, Arizona and Velvet would prove to still be mortal, with all that being mortal entails, probably at least up until they all died. When they died from living their mortal lives, who knew what would actually happen to them then.

Celestia kind of jumpstarted Twilight’s process into being a Goddess of Friendship, which happened when Celestia couldn’t remember her past life as Bennu and was relatively upset with herself for her hoof in it after the fact. It would be at least five or fifteen years until Twilight started going full flowing mane and being a goddess of her aspect.

Arizona’s group refused to get the same kind of jumpstart that happened to Twilight Sparkle once it was explained and Celestia defended their decision knowing personally that it was entirely unavoidable at this point. It was also a little too late for The End of Immortality to actually do anything.

This shouldn’t affect them too much until their mortal lives were over with. At least Arizona, Paprika and Velvet still had their mortal lives left to come to terms with their immortal ones right after it. Twilight wasn’t getting the rest of her mortal life as she was already slipping into immortality while quickly losing her mortal coil.

All in all, the bickering duo and their loving alpaca didn’t change much at all, only Arizona was starting to fret about building a home for all of them. Arizona was also a little more worried about Airships crushing her wives, but apparently whatever made airships target gods around here wasn’t affecting them… at least not yet anyway.

The Arid Paca La Perm herd were choosing to live in the friendly town of Airship Mauled as a home, but their adventures were far from over. They still liked to travel and fight in tournaments, one could never tell who would win whenever they were pitted against one another.

If asked to help with something, then Velvet, Arizona and Paprika made for a wonderful team of friends that could take some serious beatings. In completely unrelated news, three vigilantes that resemble the Power Pony comic book characters could be seen occasionally running around beating the stuffing out of people in costumes.

Tianhuo and Pom eventually gave Jiutian exactly what she had been hoping for and working towards for most of the past few thousand years, bringing adorable fluffy longma children into the world!

The lambkin and the longma pair would live a happy life protecting the streets of Huoshan together, with a hoard of canines that Pom personally trained outside of her numerous familiars. Incidentally Huoshan is now apparently a dog lover’s paradise.

Oleander would continue to be a free agent that travels the world helping people wherever she could with the power of dark magic, she would become a famous wandering hero and even Luna would eventually teach her a few things that Fred himself couldn’t.

Oleander and Fred would eventually become good friends with Twilight Sparkle, who was completely and utterly jealous of Oleander’s close relationship with her beloved demonic book.

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: Found Vikings… what do we do now?

Author's Note

Okay the fourth and last character sheet has been decided. It'll take me a while to fill it out though.

Among the suggestions were these:

Sir-not-appearing-in-this-story. They will still not appear in the story because the randomizer didn't pick them more than once.

Teatime Clockwork, Jock Hawk, Shocking Awe and Dispel Grace. Will not be the last character sheet, though I could have done them easily enough.

Pukwudgies, they didn't make it either.

Velvet (reindeer), Blade, Flamberge, Fortitude, are also none of whom are going to be on the last character sheet.

The offer of the character sheet being me Darkon Arters Shadows... didn't make it either.

The randomizer, when used ten times, came up with one option four times out of ten.

Fortitude came up three times. Velvet, Blade and Sir-not-appearing-in-this-story all did once.

What won... was... much to the humor behind it, the only thing that hasn't been brought up yet.

If I had only gotten all the characters once in the randomizer. I would have done another ten randomized choices and which ever character came up more would win.

The Cabbage Cart, four times, out all the other options in the first ten randomized name choices.

I will now write a character sheet for a cabbage cart.

Do you understand the insanity of the random chance that went into this?! It's ridiculous is what it is.

Also this is not a very interesting eight thousand words of slice-of-life stuff.

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: Found Vikings… what do we do now?

-Early Morning, Airship Mauled, Jade’s room, Kuril-

I looked in on the lovers and smiled at the adorable sight. Mara had her head resting on Fizzle’s flank, Fizzle had hers rested on Jade’s butt with my kittens tail wrapping around her neck gently and Jade had her head on Maries’ left hind leg. Maria had her head off to the side on its own pillow and Marie had her face pressed against Jade’s neck.

With the triangle they formed, Silvers was happily ensconced in the middle of them and curled up against Maries’ Belly. This was a really cute scene and I wasn’t about to disturb them when they were like this.

I went to get a camera and came back to capture this cute scene forever as a moment for the photo album. I’m sure they’d appreciate it.

-A short while later, Train Station, Rockhoof-

I stepped off the train and looked about, this place seems fairly interesting and a bit quiet. Next to me Mage Meadowbrook also got off the train looking around at all of the town. Every house here looks like a boat, in varying designs.

“So where do you suppose we should be starting, heard about a group of heroes that went all over the place putting out fires and then ended up here. Seems like a nice place to rest ones hooves.” I was big burly earth pony stallion with blue fur, my legs were wrapped tightly in cloth, my chest was protected by a round metal plate that hung over my vest and my orange and yellow striped mane and tail were as rugged as one could possibly get.

“If you’re looking for a place to get something to eat, then The Witch’s Fare is definitely the town’s most popular place around and I hear its run by a verified witch.” Looking at the Kirin as she got off the train next to us, she seemed particularly peppy with that tune she was humming. “I’m Autumn Blaze, I’m here to visit some friends of mine. Heard they finally got to where they needed to be. Never met a group that seemed as directionless as them, they even taught me a few things about survival in the wilderness. Kind of helped me with gaining control of my anger and frustration at what was happening to my home.”

“I could go for something to eat.” Meadowbrook had fur as blue as mine and two shades of red for her braided mane and tail, her blue eyes looked at Autumn with some interest. She always wore that green skirt of hers, a hoof bracelet and a matching neck accessory to go with it. “So what does this witch’s place serve exactly?”

“I heard it depends on what ingredients the place has at the time, if the good witch is in or not, also what kind of mood they are in when it comes to making food. Come on, I want to go find out personally!” Autumn pranced ahead of us merrily humming that tune of hers, the girl seemed to be a bit of airy sort. “They say it’s the easiest place to find as nobody could miss the ever burning flames that mark where this town began. Oh… right… manners you two! I introduced myself, so who are the both of you?”

Kirin have been traveling far and wide recently, you don’t just see them around Huoshan or The Peaks of Peril these days. They are no longer acting shy, that’s for sure

“I’m Rockhoof.” I say bravely slapping my shovel against my metal chest plate, which was literally a thing I’ve eaten off of once or twice with the Mighty Helm’s as one of their number. It’s sad that they are no longer around, since time got the best of them. I’m a stallion a thousand years in the future and it was as strange as it was wondrous.

“I was called Miracle Mask, but my name is Mage Meadowbrook, but just call me Meadow.” Meadow was a sweetheart and always looking for the next problem to cure or fix. “Also, please don’t confuse me for a unicorn, a lot of ponies did that a thousand years ago.”

“Now that we introduced ourselves… did you say there was a good witch here?” Nary has there ever been a nice witch I’ve ever met, because I’ve never had the chance to find one. Fought a few bad ones back in the day though.

“Yeah, she’s the mayor of Airship Mauled and the owner of the restaurant that was the first Airship to ever crash here and be converted into a home.” The cheerful lass Autumn was leading us towards a large pyre of burning fire, I immediately noted something was wrong with the wood. The wood wasn’t actually burning in the fire and yet there were marshmallows and fish being roasted over it. I wasn’t big on the fishy smell, but I’ve come to appreciate marshmallows at least. The fire was an intriguing oddity. “She’s a friend of my friends and they’ve been telling everyone they meet about this town. I heard it was a bit hard to find this place at first, but the food here was so amazing that it started attracting people from all over. Woah, look at that fire… I wonder how long it been going?”

“Ever since Mayor Kuril’s daughter, Jaded, came back and put it right back where it rightfully belongs. It’s actually a bit of a long story.” The stallion in the white coat stated warmly as he sat next to the fire, watching as it wiggled about. “Welcome to Airship Mauled, I’m Potassium Permanganate. I specialize in skin and fur care; like any other group, I’m going to assume that you’re here for The Witch’s Fare. Before you ask, yes, everyone’s favorite witch is currently in. Though it’s usually the beautiful and perky in the morning Fresh Start that gets the day running with the restaurant, hard to see her around in the evening as she usually turns in earlier than most.”

“Say, you seem local, do you know where the Vibrant Vikings currently are?” Wait, why did Autumn ask about… Vikings? Color me curious now.

“In the restaurant with everyone else getting in a hearty breakfast. Speaking of...” The stallion got up and walked over to the restaurant. “I’m hungry and it’s time to go see the mare I’m dating. Hey Fresh, we got a couple of incoming newcomers to The Witch’s Fare!”

“What do you want today Potassium?” Fresh was really quite busy as she darting about the room carrying multiple trays and delivering them with precision to various people, she wasn’t the only one doing this. There were also a Diamond Dog and an Abyssinian that seemed to be in tune with one another something fierce with how they moved about the room without colliding. It was like watching the two dance. “Find a seat wherever, if we don’t have room, we’ll find a way to squeeze you in!”

“So you really just wanted to destroy a castle Jacky? So it wasn’t just the largest game of live action O and O?” We walked by a table with an Abyssinian sharing a meal with a parrot and the two seemed friendly enough, but what was this about destroying a castle?

“Always wanted to wreck a castle and smash a few vases, didn’t ask Discord to clean it up afterwards either. He really enjoys a good mess doesn’t he? The Ogres and Oubliettes bit was just a bonus to it all.” The parrot blinked and immediately tossed the griffon child she was holding to the left into a male griffon’s lap. The child didn’t seem to mind being tossed at all, though he did immediately give the parrot a worried look. I immediately almost tripped, my shovel holding hoof flailed and I let go of it at the right time to send it careening into the poor birds skull. “Agh, why?!”

“I’m mighty sorry about that… I tripped over… uh…” I paled as my eyes met a pair of lethal looking peepers and scrambled on my backside away from one of the most monstrous things to ever exist… an Al-Mi’raj. One that was the natural size of a bear even!

I froze and felt my heart quicken, why was there such a dangerous beast in this restaurant?!

“Sugar, did someone trip over your horn again, I swear you could choose better places to lay about!” An Abyssinian approached us wearing robes and a pointy hat. She put her fists on her hips and stared down the bear size rabbit with the magical death horn. It chittered something at her and she then turned her gaze on me. “You, apologize to Sugar for tripping over her. Sugar you don’t have to apologize because someone wasn’t paying well enough attention to where they were going and you are really hard to miss if someone’s paying attention or you were using illusion magic! In any case if it’s too busy in here go up and sleep on deck, there’s a cool breeze out today.”

“Er… I’m quite sorry for my misstep? I truly am at that, I really don’t want to tangle with something as powerful as you!” The rabbit glared me down, huffed and then started away towards the stairs, she ascended them easily enough and they didn’t even creak at all.

There was no way I was going to survive something like a mirage rabbit, not one that was naturally that large anyway. I could only imagine the size it could grow to when threatened, there isn’t a bigger predator around here.

“Hello and welcome to my home; I’m Kuril La Perm, the witch of good taste! If I remember right, Somnambula told me a thing or two about you guys visiting and how to identify you on sight… she wasn’t kidding about some things. Meadowbrook and Rockhoof right?” The lady cat, Kuril, turned to our Kirin companion with grace and a smile that most witches wished they had. “Who are you?”

“I’m Autumn Blaze and I’m here to see the Vibrant Vikings!” Autumn quickly found herself in an affectionate hug and then she turned and started to lead us towards a table.

“Heard about that bit of sordid business, it’s nice to hear things turned out alright for you.” It seemed Kuril knew about something that we didn’t. I hadn’t exactly read the friendship book all the way, but I’m sure Autumn Blaze might have been mentioned in there somewhere.

“Hey, catch!” Turning to the sound of that parrot’s voice, I got beaned in the head by my own shovel and I caught it after it spun upwards into the air. “Keep a better grip on it next time! That could have seriously hurt someone other than me! I’m used to it, but most of those who visit here are not!”

“Well I can see you’re alright Jacky, thankfully nothing got destroyed and you’re only coming out of this with a headache this time.” What did Kuril mean by this time? How often did that parrot take shovels to the head?! The witch pulled out and passed a potion to the parrot once she came over to us, that the parrot quickly downed it without a second thought said a lot about how trusted this Kuril was. Kuril turned to us and motioned for us to follow her. “Well come on! Let’s get you seated with the Vibrant Vikings, minus Gene over there who is also one of them, so you can enjoy your first meal here!”

She indicated the griffon that passing the child back to the parrot rubbing at her head with a small knot on it, I would have thought that my shovel would have left a bigger bump than that. The parrot must have been made of some stern stuff to walk that blow off.

The griffon pecked her on the cheek and the parrot soon lit up the room with her smile. Ah, I can see why he wasn’t with the other Vikings, he had a family. Wish I still had mine…

We were led up to a table containing three very distinct figures and someone I vaguely thought I recognized.

My hometown was near a volcano, but I’ve seen a few peaceful Viking homesteads in a few frosty mountains traveling about the world. This mare was making me recall a few faces that I saw, I believe it was someone who fixed waterwheels and other stuff in Soar Way maybe?

The Mighty Helm guard had a run in with someone who dug up the graves of the deceased and turned them into Draugr by stealing souls from their rightful rest… but the mare couldn’t have possibly lasted that long right? No, must be a descendant of hers. Still haven’t seen hide nor hair of anyone that could be one of mine.

“Okay, this morning we’re specializing in fruit or cheese pancakes and hash rounds. We’ll give you Abyssinian brand ‘cat-sup’ if you ask for it, we’ve got plenty of regular syrup today so you can go completely wild with that. Just don’t make a mess if you don’t intend to clean it up afterwards.” Lady Kuril was speaking my language, which was good food. The Abyssinian waitress dragged over three chairs for us with smile, then she eyed me up and then eyed up Meadowbrook afterwards too. Why did suddenly I fear for our lives? The Mirage Rabbit should have been what caused that feeling! “Flavored syrups are going to cost you extra though, I’d recommend the strawberry syrup in that case or at least blueberry. If you want eggs, we can swing those as well. If you want lunch items, then know that we have plenty of salad options today. Hey guys, do you mind if these three eat with you? Two Equestrian Legends and someone who obviously knows you. Oh and this is you’re waitress Savanna ‘The Wild’, just don’t give her any openings. Also do not tell her about your recent medical history and you’ll be fine. ”

“Oh come on, I’m just looking Kuril.” The named Savanna muttered as she took out a notepad. “He’s a solid eight for muscle, the Kirin I like because she’s fluffy and peppy, then there’s the one with the exotic swamp accent. She’s a yes.”

“Wait… what?” I was distracted as I sat down. “I’m Rockhoof, last of the Mighty Helm guard from a thousand years ago. I’ve got plenty of stories to tell of them though.”

“Thank you for the compliment, but I have other... obligations.” Autumn said in a friendly tone.

“Uh… I need an adult?” Was Meadow’s response.

I noticed that the silent mare of the group at the table was staring at me, but she didn’t say anything.

“Hey guys, remember me!” Autumn Blaze stated cheerful as she approached the group. “Cause rainbows won’t light up the sky, if you don’t let it rain~. You guys helped me out when I was alone and in pain~. So it’s really quite nice to see you all again~!”

“Hello, I’m Mage Meadowbrook, call me Meadow.” Meadowbrook said politely as we sat with the odd group.

A yak, a dragon, both clearly Vikings, the kitsune looked more like what I would expect from Mist Mane’s part of the world. I looked at the last pony, she looked so… unassuming. Yet she was staring right at me, there was something quite unnerving about her and I couldn’t quite put my hoof on what that was.

“I am a sweet fox, my name is equally so, for I am Sweetcakes.” The vixen stated in a stilted manner as she bowed her head to us regally.

“I’m Flamberge the Fiercely Flammable, Sweetcakes obnoxiously loud and loving boyfriend!” The red dragon was as loud as his heart, I liked him. “It is nice to meet you oh ancient heroes of old and our old friend Autumn as well! It was nice to hear that the Kirin are recovering from their silence.”

“I am Fortitude, the Fantastically Fragrant!” Taking a whiff in Fortitude’s direction, I reeled back in horror and covered my nose.

“Did I just die a little inside?” I asked with horror.

“Yeah, Fortitude’s smell kind of does that!” Flamberge answered loudly. “It’ll raise you out of the ground and then put you back in it seconds afterwards!”

The mare at the table just rolled her eyes and sent Flamberge a flat look.

“Who’s the final member of your group?” Hearing Meadowbrook asked this, I noticed that she was looking at the mare who had been staring at me.

“She is Skelly, the Superbly Spirited!” Both Flamberge and Fortitude said together.

“Flamberge, Gene and I are all brothers… we don’t have much family resemblance do we?” Stated Fortitude with a jolly tone. He seems to be well built and he was equipped with an impressive looking shield. His dragon brother had a sword at his hip. I don’t know what the griffon at that other table had, but they were all family if they said they were. “Skelly can’t talk due to an incident that left her mute and incapable of smelling things, but I am sure she welcomes you to our table as well. How are things with you friend Autumn?”

“Well ever since you guys left me after helping me, I was mostly keeping to myself and talking… to myself… a lot. I might have cracked a little bit, but those cracks got paved over and things are good now. So eventually two ponies wandered in and I noticed them stirring things up and they helped out my entire village for the better after I told them what was going on.” This sounded like quite a tale Autumn Blaze was weaving. “So do you guys want to hear the story of ‘The Silencing Water’? I’m writing a book about it and I need to bounce it off of you guys.”

It was a pretty good story.

-Ten minutes later, Skelly-

Rockhoof… he reminded me of some young stallions I knew. The Mighty Helm’s didn’t make it to the attack on my home in a timely manner… they likely showed up in force to help after I had left and became what I am.

I don’t hold it against them and I’m not going try and tell anyone about that, it’s all in the past and I was there to see the birth of the Mighty Helm guard. Rockhoof was the last Mighty Helm guard left… I was never technically one, but my father could have been a retired Mighty Helm. I might even be related to Rockhoof as an ancestor, but I would never act on my suspicions.

Rookhoof took the short way around when it came to coming to this time period. Unlike Jade and me who withstood the horrible tests of time, he should be thankful that he skipped that entirely. He and his friends were luckier than us in that respect, he didn’t have to experience it all like we did.

I just ate my pancakes in silence, they tasted pretty sweet with strawberry syrup. I was happy with my friends that cared about me and pulled me from the darkness.

Until Yakhalla finally calls for me, then here I’ll be.

If not Yakhalla, then maybe Elysium or somewhere as nice at the very least.

Fortitude really cared about me, but I really don’t see what he sees in me… aside from the obvious emptiness between all my bones.

Fortitude wrapped a hoof around me and exclaimed something excitedly, I smiled a little.

I might be a bit messed up, but my heart was still ever present and feels like it was beating in my chest. I never wanted to lose the ability to feel, even if that’s what happened when Stochastic crushed most of my bones to splinters.

I’d take that excruciating pain any day, it reminded me that I’m alive in spite of what my nighttime appearance might suggest to someone.

-Mage Meadowbrook-

There was just something off about Skelly, but no one seemed bothered by the unnatural air around her. It was nice to see someone like Fortitude be so protective of her, he seems to be highly protective of his friends and family in general.

Flamberge was quite boisterous as he told the story of their travels with the mystical artifact known as Travel On, especially the tale of what happened to them in an odd place named ‘Nowhere’.

Sweetcakes apparently joined them when they crossed paths and she apparently took to Flamberge, at first she was just trying to annoy her father. Now the two were actually together and I thought that the love story was sweet, if a little odd.

“How is that going to work though, are dragons and kitsune even compatible?” My question received a snort from the two.

Sweetcakes wrapped her tails around Flamberge’s back and he stretched a wing around her shoulders and she nuzzled into her his neck affectionately.

“Yes, Dragons and Kitsune are actually compatible, you’d be surprise to hear that ponies aren’t the only ones with odd genetic quirks! Even if we weren’t, then there’s plenty of magic research going on around here to make it work unless one of us was completely infertile! I’m open to adoption, because I adopted my brothers well enough!” What Flamberge said had me tilting my head at him curiously. “Gene, Fortitude and I grew up together, we will have each other’s backs to the end! Maybe I’ll even still be around to help their families in the future if their family lines go on for that long.”

“It can happen, my descendent Cattail proves that… unfortunately it seems that he’s the only descendant that I have left. I should probably prod him about finding a special some-pony.” Also it was nice that my descendant kept my old place tidy, even if it’s a bit sad there’s not many ponies living around there anymore. “There’s still a fairly strong family resemblance though and being an ancient aunt doesn’t bother me as much as it should. Oh and then there’s a descendant of a stallion I once loved, but work kind of got in my way and I think I’ve made my peace with things there.”

“It’s fairly lonely being the only one of my family left and the only ones I have left are my friends that came with me to this time. That and my new friends in this day and age.” Poor Rockhoof, at least he was a good storyteller and had many new friends that cared about him.

That yak, Yona I believe, really liked Rockhoof a lot and showed him that he still had a lot to give in this world.

Now if only Rockhoof had table manners when he was eating his stack of hash rounds and a side salad, though admittedly my eating was also quite a sight too. Kuril really does know how to cook some delicious victuals and if she’s this good at cooking, then I have to wonder how good she is at fixing illnesses or making potions? At least nobody around here seemed to be sick at the very least, in fact everyone here was really quite healthy.

I saw a motion and turned to watch as Skelly got up to move over to Rockhoof, she took up one of his hooves in hers and bowed her head onto his hoof. I didn’t understand what that gesture meant, but Rockhoof seemed to.

“Thank you for the kind sentiments lass and that cheers me up somewhat. Silent you may be, but you certainly speak with your heart quite loudly. Did you know I tried to get myself turned to stone since I didn’t feel needed? All those kids from that friendship school in Ponyville came to stop me from being silly. They enjoyed my stories about my time in the Mighty Helm guard and the past my friends and I come from.” Seeing that Rockhoof would be okay, Skelly smiled and moved to be beside Fortitude once more. “I just wish there was a way I could relive my old glory days in more ways than just stories you know?”

“Why not take our magical boat Travel On then? It’s currently stored away and has a sign on it that reads ‘in case of extreme boredom’. If you need an adventure, it’ll be sure to take you where you need to be the most.” Fortitude seemed to smile at the thought. “It always leads to many grand adventures, sometimes people need your help and sometimes you’re the one that needs the help. Travel On always knows exactly where its passengers need to be, even across dimensions, time and space!”

“It didn’t exactly fail us when we used it! Our adventures are going to be more around Equestria than this or other worlds from now on, we’ll be acting as regional adventurers for hire! We’re also fairly tired of dealing with eldritch abominations!” Flamberge proclaimed loudly with a bit of anger in his voice. “We’ve met a ton of interesting people and sent them Kuril’s way, Airship Mauled needed to expand somehow and we’re proud of our accomplishments in helping this one airship place become the town that it is today! It’s even how we met Skelly, Sweetcakes and so many others!”

“Like me!” Chirped Autumn Blaze as she chewed through her crepes with enthusiasm.

“Dreams have drift away? Your nightmares don’t have to stay. Dream anew and see.” Sweetcakes stated pleasantly in a stilted manner.

“Why does she talk like that?” I know I talked strangely, but the kitsune was taking the whole cake and the table it was on.

“Oh she tends try and speak only in haikus! I don’t mind that about her, she always gets right to the point! That’s something I appreciate, as she has a good point this time too!” She does Flamberge? I didn’t quite see it personally. “If you don’t feel like you have anything important to do, then have Travel On take you out on an adventure! If you have no dreams to follow, then it’ll find something for you to do when you’re feeling useless! It certainly helped us out when we lost a good friend for several years and didn’t know how to get her back! We arrived at the right place at the right time to help bring her back, so that’s a victory for us getting horrendously lost using the Mists of Travel On!”

“I… hrm… how soon would you expect it back?” Was Rockhoof actually considering the offer? Well if he wanted adventure, then always being where you were needed most seems like the way to go about it.

“Whenever it feels like coming back, we don’t control the boat aside from some minor steering. I sometimes think Travel On knows exactly where it needs to be too.” It seems like Fortitude and the others didn’t mind if someone else used their magical adventure boat. “You’re welcome to see where it takes you friend.”

“I’ll actually consider it, might even be able to bring some new stories to share at the School of Friendship.” Rockhoof rubbed at his thick beard looking thoughtful. “I wonder if it came from the same place that the Cutie Map does.”

A second later we heard raised voices.

“I’m warning you, don’t push me!” We all turned to the sound of the local witch getting angry, Kuril was interesting to say the least when we first saw her. She was holding a vial in her hand threateningly and glaring down a dragon.

“Or you’ll what, turn me into a newt?” The teenaged looking grey dragon stated, he then laughed at her and pushed her slightly.

“Actually… no.” Before the dragon could say anything, the proprietor and witch of this establishment threw the vial at the dragon. “I’m going to turn you into a chinchilla.”

After a flash of bright light and the sound of shattering glass, I blinked the spots out of my eyes to see the Abyssinian scooping up a fairly frightened looking chinchilla. I looked around for glass shards, but didn’t see any… did she just use all the glass for a chemical magical reaction? I had to know how she even did that!

I definitely wanted to get to know this Kuril La Perm better after seeing something like that.

“Consider yourself lucky that this is only temporary.” Kuril stated coolly as she held the squirming chinchilla by its tail. “Now you’re going to be in the time out corner until this wears off and you have had time to cool your jets. Just because my familiar isn’t currently playing bodyguard in the dining area, it does not mean I’m weak or should be trifled with in my home personally. You don’t seem me coming into your home and pushing you around do you? In fact, my familiar says a lot about my talent as a witch, as does turning a dragon into a chinchilla in the first place.”

Dragons were somewhat resilient to magic and I think I was a bit star struck by how she handled the situation, she placed the chinchilla in a box and looked at him.

“Stay here until you transform back, I expect an apology afterwards or will at the very least see you quietly leaving my establishment.” Kuril adjusted her hat and turned to everyone. “Sorry about that, but I don’t like rowdy customers.”

Kuril received an applause, she blinked a bit in confusion.

“He was a fairly annoying customer Kuril.” The pony waitress said with no hint of malice. “Okay people, shows over, who ordered the hash tots and mustard on the side?”

I got up and proceeded to approach Kuril.

“Excuse me… I’m Mage Meadowbrook and I want to know, where did you learn that thing with the potion?” After I asked this Kuril brightened up.

“Oh that, that’s something I picked up on my own. A zebra named Zecora helped out a bit with some knowledge, but then I added my own twist on things. I’m pretty good at making a number of rather odd potions.” Kuril was a friends with Zecora? Well I can tell that we were already going to be great friends already. “So Meadowbrook, what’s your passion in life?”

“Curing what ails people, I like mixing a good tonic personally.” Thus I started wanting to talk shop with the friendly witch.

“Talk to me while I work?” Nodding to Kuril, I followed her over to the kitchen while getting into an interesting conversation.

The thestral working in the kitchen did give me a bit of a glare, while only looking at Kuril in an affectionate manner.

I had no intention of interfering with the relationship, I just wanted to talk shop and apparently the kitchen assistant picked up on that quickly enough.

-Rockhoof-

Well Meadowbrook looks like she was happy talking with the proprietor.

“Well this was a nice… brunch I think it’s called?” The five nodded to me. “So what’s there to do around here?”

“Well we can summon puks, but that tends to be frowned upon heavily given how often they attack the town!” After Flamberge said this an elephant trumpeted loudly, this drew my attention to the green haired Abyssinian chasing a large elephant holding a pouch of bits in its trunk.

“Get back here you stupid elephant!” Turning away from the screaming Abyssinian I raised an eye at them.

“Don’t ask about the super thief elephant, it’s been annoying this place for as long as we’ve known about it being around.” You know, this place reminds me of something Fortitude. “I think friend Jade will certainly be able to take care of it.”

“We can go look at the trained myrmekes or look up the adventurer’s bulletin board at Sekhet’s pyramid to see if anyone needs help!” It seemed Flamberge was enthusiastic about helping people and dragons aren’t usually as noble sounding as this one is. “First, we need to finish our meals and pay for them, we do not want to run up a tab here. Kuril can get a bit scary at times… also I don’t want to be turned into a chinchilla today.”

“The adventurer’s bulletin board?” Now that had peaked my interest as much as having access to a boat that can take you on amazing adventures where you will always be needed for something.

“Yeah, Sekhet has been working on getting a guild up and running, she’s the secretary of the mayor, the local bank and our favorite local goddess of physical education. She really enjoys teaching, I know that much.” The griffon, Gene, came over to us and gave the yak and dragon a hug. He sounded dull of voice and emotions, but he certainly showed it more than he spoke it. “I’m Gene Eric, The Swift Reaction. I’m free up for the rest of the day, how about we do something together brothers? I’ll go get my spear and meet you at Sekhet’s pyramid.”

With that Gene took off for the door and nodded to a sea pony and a cat with leaves around their head like a mane, both of them were playing with that wee griffon child.

Now I knew what this place reminded me of, this place was just as weird as Ponyville.

“Yes, the Vibrant Vikings are fully together for this day! Now let’s see what kind of trouble we can get into!” Flamberge belted out loudly while raising a flaming sword towards the roof.

“Ahem, I believe you should pay for the meal first Flamberge… before you get ahead of yourself.” Savanna stated plainly as she started taking up dishes, Flamberge blushed and sheathed his flaming sword.

“Right, do you mind if we pay for you?!” It was a nice offer Flamberge and I wasn’t exactly one to pass on a free meal.

-Five minutes later, outside, Fortitude-

“What’s happening over there?” Asked Rockhoof as he turned to see a reindeer beating a certain cow into a crater in the ground.

All friend Arizona did was block the constant attacks with her hooves and not much else.

“That is nothing to be worrying about, it is just Arizona and Velvet. They are well known around here for always bickering or fighting about something. Arizona, the cow, would normally be fighting back, but her wife Velvet is pregnant.” I leaned closer to Rockhoof and he covered his nose. “It’s their wife Paprika that you have to worry about, she has a tendency to hug everyone she meets violently if it’s your first meeting. She’s been getting better about it, but even I am find trouble breathing when hugged by her, she continues to hug good friends the way she does the first time. You’ll know she likes you if you’re out of breath.”

“So where would she be at this… oof… he-lp…” Rockhoof found himself held in the air by a surprisingly fluffy and strong alpaca that was hugging the life out of him, his face was going dark blue and starting to turn purple. Eventually, Paprika dropped him and moved on into The Witch’s Fare. The alpaca has been eating a lot more lately, she does have little ones to nourish after all. Rockhoof coughed a few times before looking to us. “I take it that was their wife Paprika?”

“Oh yes, she is apparently feared by numerous gods and several civilizations for all the hugging she’s done!” Flamberge exclaimed with an infectious cheerfulness. “All of them are happy she’s finally settling down, but I think she still has to hug someone every once in a while or she’d go stir crazy or something!”

“I’d believe it.” That was a sincere sentiment among many who lived here Rockhoof. We led him over to the pyramid where we saw Gene going through some training forms with his spear.

“Sekhet’s not busy with a class today, so we should see what the adventurer’s bulletin board says and then see her about take something on.” Nodding to Gene, I smiled brightly.

Gene was happy and both Flamberge and I were happy that he was. Gene had Jacky, Flamberge had Sweetcakes and I had Skelly. Things weren’t going to be easy for me or Skelly, but I would certainly make the effort to make her as happy as she can possibly get!

We entered the pyramid and saw Sekhet doing some paperwork.

“Oh hey there, what do you need mortals?” She said it in a more pleasant tone than she usually does, must be quite happy today.

“Adventurer’s bulletin board?” Gene queried lightly. Sekhet flicked her paw and it appeared in the glow of an ankh.

“Hello goddess Sekhet, souls are sacred!” I yelled up her, she picked me up and gave me a friendly hug.

“That they are Fortitude. If you guys find something interesting, then bring it to my attention and we’ll see if we can get you started on the job.” Sekhet quickly went back to her paperwork. “There’s always a need for adventurers around here with how dangerous things can be.”

-Flamberge-

I scrutinized the board with a discerning eye and then I saw something that stood out.

“What about this one?!” I picked up a post for a job to scare off a rat.

“Scare off a rat? That doesn’t sound all that dangerous. I’m sure those Abyssinians could do it, why is this even on the board?” Was Rockhoof serious? Did he not understand how big things got around here?!

“I think we should take this job, if just to prove a point about things not appearing as they seem!” It said scare it off, it implied that we couldn’t win and I was willing to believe that if this creature came from Barely Bearable Woods.

“Okay, we’ll scare off the little biter and we’ll then be back in time to do another more worthy adventure.” There was something Rockhoof seriously needed to know about this mission, but I wouldn’t tell him until we actually ran across it.

I’m pretty sure there was a very good reason it was labeled as ‘exceedingly dangerous’. I don’t know what a Sumatran Rat is, but I had a feeling that this was going into eldritch abomination territories. With us, it was pretty much a sure thing at this rate.

“Be honest brother, what’s the expected danger level of this one?” Gene was calm, but alert.

“It says ‘exceedingly dangerous’, this was also posted by Jade of all people and she’s not one to joke about something like this.” I received a long quiet look from Gene.

“Okay, we’ll deal with it.” Gene said calmly.

“It can’t be that hard to deal with a rat, we’ll be done three minutes tops.” Wished we had your confidence about this Rockhoof.

-One hour later, approximately two miles from Airship Mauled, Gene-

I was quiet, my back against a boulder and looking over my shoulder as something moved through the trees at an incredible speed. My brothers said they have had many problems with eldritch entities. I believed them wholeheartedly, especially now.

“What was that unholy thing?!” Rockhoof asked with a look of horror in his eyes.

“A Sumatran Rat, which is apparently an eldritch entity of some sort.” Fortitude muttered as he kept his shield in hoof and at the ready while looking in all directions slowly.

“Our luck hasn’t changed very much at all has it?!” Flamberge yelled while holding his sword aloft and lighting up the surrounding area with its flames. He was looking around with wariness as the foliage hid the sun from us.

I stared at the splotches of black blood as they burned the ground, this thing was quite unnatural. At least my spear was made of sterner stuff than its seemingly acidic blood.

My eyes narrowed, I rolled away and slashed across the belly of the creature as it tried to bear down on me and blinked when I saw that my spear didn’t do much damage, but I did cut a few sharp spikes from its belly.

I quickly deflected the tail as it swung around for me. Fortitude slammed it’s side a second later knocking it over and both Flamberge and Rockhoof started beating back its flailing fur covered tentacles.

It roared to the sky and its blood red glowing eyes seemed quite angry.

“Why is it always tentacles with you things?!” Flamberge screamed back with flames blasting from his mouth as he did so. This made the giant rat flinch, lit it on fire and left it open to a shovel and a spear pincer attack by me and Rockhoof.

My dragon brother was really quite angry and he even started to drive the massive rat back by himself out of the pure ferocity he was putting into his swings. Skelly joined him by attacking its tail with her axe to stop it from whipping around at us.

-Airship Mauled, Fizzy-

“Jade, Sekhet said your post on the adventurer’s bulletin board was answered.” Giving me her complete attention, Jade lifted her head from nuzzling all of Silvers heads affectionately. “What, pray tell, is a Sumatran Rat and why couldn’t you have taken care of it? Don’t Abyssinian’s usually like hunting rats?”

“Not this kind of rat we don’t.” Jade stated flatly and shivered a little. “Hunting and eating rats is something I don’t mind doing, yes. In this case, however, Abyssinians make an exception of never having to go near this monster in question.”

“Why?” Tilting my head at Jade, I couldn’t understand what she was so scared of.

“Imagine, if you will, a rat twice the size of Sugar as she currently is and mind you Sugar is already the size of an average bear. Now imagine said large rat with razor sharp spines for belly fur, various tentacles that grow back quickly coming out of its spine and a hairless tail that can whip about and unleash a relatively potent poison upon impact with its whip-like tip. When you take all that into account, it’s very dangerous and that’s not even getting into how dangerous its front teeth are and its blood being a slow acting acid.”

“Should we be worried about Flamberge, Fortitude, Skelly or Sweetcakes if they were to theoretically go after one?” Like they were currently doing right now.

“I’m sure Sweetcakes can deal with the poison, Skelly can’t get poisoned, Fortitude is incredibly defensive and Flamberge has plenty of firepower. I’m sure they’ll be fine if they fight one.” Well that was a relief to hear Jade.

“What about Rockhoof, he went with them.” Meadowbrook looked a bit worried as she approached us.

“So it’s not theoretical… I’m sure Rockhoof will be fine, he’s with four professional Vikings from Soar Way and Sweetcakes.” Jade passed me Silvers and moved to pat Meadowbrook on the back. “If they can scare or beat the Sumatran Rat up enough to send it into the Barely Bearable Woods or somewhere less troublesome, then it won’t bother trying to come back. So we won’t have to deal with this thing twice, though we might want to tell my mom to work on some healing potions or at least a few poison antidotes just in case.”

-One hour later, ever burning fire, Jade-

“Are you guys alright?” When I spoke up the four Vibrant Vikings, Sweetcakes and Rockhoof flinched.

They all looked ragged, dirty, bloodied and beaten, that was what I could expect from going two rounds with a monstrous Sumatran Rat. Usually only see them in the deserts of Abyssinia though.

“How could you put something like that up on that board?!” Rockhoof exclaimed with downright fury.

“What part of ‘exceedingly dangerous’ did you not understand? The ‘exceedingly’ or the ‘dangerous’ part?” I simply returned. “I was entirely honest about the request to run it off.”

“I… er… huh… the post did say that didn’t it? I didn’t exactly think a rat could be so dangerous.” So you have no legs to stand on here Rockhoof and as soon as you realize that you can apologize in three… two… “I’m sorry, but that monster has left me a bit mental.”

“Yeah, Sumatran Rats do that, did you run it off or did it run you off?” They all stared at me and Rockhoof broached the topic. “Please tell me you were the ones to run it off, things might get worse if you didn’t.”

“What would happen if we were the ones that were run off?” Rockhoof asked tentatively.

“It would learn that we’re not strong enough to fend it off and would try to attack any nearby settlements believing that it could eat whatever it wants. We’re the nearest thing to that monster and it will eventually come for us if that was the case.” I paused a few seconds and they didn’t look too worried. “Otherwise if you were the ones to run it off, it will never bother this area again. Sumatran Rats are thankfully not territorial, they prefer to be more nomadic and safe… which way did it go exactly?”

“We think it went southwest and, yes, we scared it off!” Answered Flamberge with his usual ear grating volume levels.

“Good, it shouldn’t bother anyone out that way unless someone likes to go on scenic explorations.” Now comes the painful part, I have to pay the Vibrant Vikings for their timely assistance in making Airship Mauled slightly safer. “Well come on then, Dr. Bones, Sekhet, Meadow and mom are waiting to help you with medical attention. Did any of you get hit by the tip of the tail?”

“No friend Jade, we did not. We did get flung around by the tentacles though and learned an important lesson to never get underneath it when it jumps in the air. We are mostly okay.” Thank you for the report on your general health Fortitude, but we needed a second opinion.

“Come on, let’s go get you guys patched up.” I shivered at the thought of having to go near that thing again, I was only lucky that it didn’t attack me when I was spending time scouting the surrounding areas with Bracing Knight. “Oh and good job, you saved Airship Mauled from having to deal with one of the nastiest kind of rats to ever exist.”

-?-

Rockhoof eventually took up the offer, Travel On would take him on many wondrous adventures, but he didn’t go them alone. He took one of his six other friends, the pony pillars of Equestria’s past and the stories he told of those times would be legendary.

The adventurer’s bulletin board didn’t always lead to success, but it did so more often than not and a stallion named Linked Heart came to town fairly often to take up anything dangerous.

The Vibrant Vikings would go on to have many more adventures, sometimes with Gene when he wasn’t working with Jacky as her beloved first mate. They were famously known for taking on the most ridiculously dangerous things that somehow tended to sporadically grow tentacles while they were fighting them. This was very much to Flamberge’s immense displeasure.

While Skelly, Flamberge and Fortitude didn’t exactly have a leader, they made up for it with incredible teamwork and their backup support Sweetcakes. They each took the lead depending on when the situation needed them to.

Fortitude would continue to be the King of Minos, not that anyone minded him being the leader of the minotaur race and his approval ratings was oddly at one hundred percent and never dipped whatsoever for as long as he lived. He eventually married General Skelly and an increasing number of oddities came from that marriage, such as children. Nobody wanted to question how that even worked with Skelly, it sounded too complicated to think about the mechanics of how a skeleton could functionally have children.

Flamberge eventually marries Sweetcakes and has a few kitsune with her. Their marriage would practically last eons thanks to both of them having extremely long lifespans. He does eventually grow too big for his sword and eventually gave it to someone he found worthy of it. He only ever had one thing in his hoard, his wife, of whom eventually stopped speaking in haiku after five thousand years of being married.

Sweetcakes would make traditional Neighpon treats, Skelly moonlights as a vigilante, Flamberge could sometimes be seen flipping hayburgers and Fortitude makes a pretty good living as the ultimate paint stripper. All in all, they would all continue to live at Airship Mauled and didn’t feel like getting lost again anytime soon.

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: Just a lazy day, with a side of pie.

-Airship Mauled, in a tree outside of Mango Liquid Refreshment’s home, Jade-

I lazily sat in the tree sipping away at a fruit smoothie produced by Mr. Refreshment, I was trying to relax on my day off from shenanigans. I was being particularly thoughtful about my life up to this point.

I wasn’t a hero, at least not a very good one if I was to be considered as such. I’ve done quite a few bad things and couldn’t fully be called one. I’ve done some heroic things, but I’m a rogue through and through. My antics could be considered playful or downright crazy and sometimes led to good outcomes.

I wasn’t invincible, as all my scars would only prove that my body has been put through the wringer more than once. I was at least mentally strong enough to come back to my loved ones time and again. Where my body might have failed me, my heart would not stop beating for them.

I wasn’t the fastest, I was surely swift footed though and could outmaneuver many. Gene, Rainbow Dash and quite a few others beings can naturally move faster than me. Flying kind of made it easy for them though. I could fly too, but I was better off on foot than magically granted flight, it was fairly obvious that I didn’t want permanent wings sprouting from my back with aspects of the day, night or love involved in their power. Goodness knows what Twilight’s ‘Power of Friendship would do to the wings I could get from one of her feathers.

I wasn’t the strongest, that title should go to Arizona who can rip me and just about anyone in Airship Mauled apart with her bare hooves. Only Velvet and Paprika could be said to match her physical might with their own unique brand of strengths.

I would say that my strength is in being able to take a hit as much avoid one, but even they and Jacky were better at that than even I was.

I wasn’t the most beautiful, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have some looks. I just didn’t see much of it myself or really care all too much, but I did know that I’m fun to snuggle at the very least and make for a decent sleep aid. Beauty was fleeting anyway and in the eye of the beholder, to hold onto it forever seems vain to me unless you were a god or goddess. Maries and Fizzy were definitely attracted to me and that’s all I needed really as far as beauty goes.

I wasn’t the wisest, mom, Fizzy and plenty of others were wiser than I. My tendency to steal things should get me into more trouble than it does honestly, but I don’t steal things that other people would miss so I can at least say…

I’m fairly intelligent. My greatest strength is being able to use my mind to plan to do the impossible and pull it off. Even then there are still plenty that are smarter than I, most of them are gods though and most people can’t follow the angles I see things at.

I’m surprised anyone would ever follow my lead. I would say Teatime was my rival when it comes to intelligence, but I wouldn’t want to poach Jacky’s rival from her. That and Teatime was fairly annoying and I wouldn’t want him as a rival personally, I think I actually preferred Shining Armor as a distant rival. Even if he was a cheat-y-mc-barrier face that can catch me far easier than most beings could.

Instead of thinking of the things I’m not, I should be thinking of the things I am or how I got here. I should be a bit more positive, considering how far I’ve gotten and where I’ve been. To think I still haven’t seen the rest of the world with Jacky yet.

I sat up on the tree branch and looked at the forests surrounding my home.

The town of Airship Mauled was somewhat surrounded by forests and was full of airship shaped homes, a number of them were actual airships and others were airship themed homes. All of them seemed quaint, they even fit the general region and the name of our town.

There was Grace’s Helping Hoof Inn, my fire, the restaurant, Dr. Permanganate’s home, Mr. Refreshments home, Wary Berry’s house and all the other places where all of my friends lived.

This place is a home that started years ago built from the ground up. We were the center of this place, the heart of it maybe, but the heart would continue to survive without us now. The town might even continue to thrive without us, but it wouldn’t exist if we all hadn’t come together here.

I’m a decent friend, at least I tried to be. I mean I tend to annoy everyone else with my antics and I’ve made a few mistakes here and there. Yet they still like me anyway, so I must be doing something right.

I can fight, but without my magical alchemy abilities I’d be dead several times over by now. Without that magic I’m a mostly normal Abyssinian. I’m so happy that I can even do some form of magic that I don’t think about it too hard.

Now if only I had a yellow handbag with crosses and dots marking it… probably wouldn’t be able to use it. That legendary item required that I don’t talk about how to do the magic and just feel it out, it also require that I didn’t use the magic for evil or spite.

I could avoid talking about how the magic worked, nobody could figure out magical alchemy from just watching me and mom do it all the time. It’s the not using the bag for evil or spite that would eventually trip me up, because I define the word ‘petty’ when someone touches my family with ill intent.

I can be helpful, in whatever way I might be needed. Does Arizona need me to hold something in place while she hammers it down? Does Jacky need me to wrap one of her many daily wounds? What if Mom asks me to be a temporary waitress? Does Skelly need a plan for how to keep Minos from going out of control and to stay as a peaceful nation? I can do all those things, except for Minos as Fortitude being alive somehow equated to the minotaurs continuing to be being peaceful.

I couldn’t run the numbers, but I have a pretty good picture that Fortitude’s being king was somehow related to resulting in a perfectly balanced nation being as chaotically boring as possible. I’m at a loss to explain it and Fortitude didn’t care why it works, just that it did and he was happy that they were happy.

I can be stupidly brave, I didn’t see anyone else without wings or a gliding implement jumping off the side of Canterlot. I also put myself in the path of danger numerous times for my friends and family, I ultimately plan things to my detriment as long as it helps the people I care about

I was a priestess of the sun, which was not a very demanding job as the sun just wants me to say hello at least once a week, and I’m also an adorable scamp of a rogue kitty. Being a fun and lovable rogue is what made me happy, but now… what makes me happy… was being a mother.

I was a little afraid of raising a child at first. Mind you, you’d be afraid too if you had to be next to Maries while they were giving birth, but I really did love our little Silvers.

Cute, dangerous and will eventually realize those adorable wings on her back are not just for flapping in excitement, Silvers means the world to our herd. My nephew Gavin means a lot to me too. Honestly I always wanted family and love, but getting it? I had little idea what to do, besides embrace it for all I was worth and never let go.

Even Jackass means a lot to me. Not that I’d ever tell the annoying antlered bunny, that has gotten quite a few things by me, to his face. That little git moved to Ponyville when I was gone and I heard he was sad about me not being around anymore, but he came back to live here just so he can annoy me once again when he found out I was alive.

Never mind the fact that Mr. Jack hugged one of my legs the first time he saw me again while crying, our mutual annoyance of one another almost seemed like a sibling rivalry, almost. His antlers were pretty useful in my mom’s witchery, he freely gives them to us even. All he asks for in return is a good chase, I think I understand him pretty well on that front.

In all… I was just Jaded La Perm.

Sure I wasn’t an average Abyssinian either by any stretch of the imagination with the notable stark raving lunacy I get up to, but otherwise life would be boring if I wasn’t decently crazy in an insane world like this one.

To think I remembered how all of this started perfectly, there I was standing on the deck of the airship we crashed on Sekhet.

Ponies, Abyssinians and a few other flightless species were milling about, none of the beings onboard could fly naturally. I saw the spreading rainbow wave and thought it was beautiful, up until the airship was almost blown entirely out of the sky by it. I manage to cling to the deck while everyone else fell into the sea, mom was on the back end of the boat and thus the raven feather incident and me falling on Fluttershy. To think that had happened so long ago.

Wished we had a few people with wings to perform some rescues, but then I might have never met Fluttershy. The cute little awkwardly long legged filly who grew and went from an adorable cutie to a graceful and loving beauty.

“Hello Jade.” Hearing Fluttershy speak up almost sent me flailing out of the tree, only she righted me and made sure I wouldn’t fall. “Oh I’m sorry, but um…”

“Did you need something Fluttershy?” She didn’t come to find me for no reason after all. I quickly finished off my smoothie before something happened to it.

“I was just wondering if you wanted to help with building an animal sanctuary… here in Airship Mauled that is.” Quirking a look at Fluttershy, she hid her face slightly in her mane. She had come a long way to being assertive, judging by the way she smiled she wasn’t as shy as she was before. “I also wanted to see how my friends abroad were doing. My pony friends and I might not be seeing Twilight as much anymore, but at least we try to stay in contact with her. If I can do that with Twilight, then I should at the very least be able stay in contact with all of my other friends here. Twilight is always so dreadfully busy these days and I don’t want to bother her too much, also did you really need to make Jacky Queen of Equestria? Twilight is still going over every single law Equestria has ever had because of that.”

“Yes.” I stated as bluntly as possible as Fluttershy took a seat next to me. “Mostly because it was funny, and we gave both nations right back at the end of the day Fluttershy!”

“This place sure has grown a lot, I can hardly recognize the newer parts of it.” Fluttershy stared at all the people wandering around our town and the early morning marketplace. “The old parts are still the same, after so many years. Sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

“Yeah, this place is great!” Shouted Pinkie, who popped up out of nowhere.

I yowled, lost my balance and started to fall out of the tree, thankfully before my skull could hit the ground, I was caught in a levitation field and saw Fizzy sighing with relief.

“You okay Jade?” Fizzy asked with a worried look, she came up to nuzzle me in the face.

“I’m fine Fizzy, thanks to you!” Grinning at my favorite mare, I just had to say it. “Nice catch by the way.”

“Hm… this fish doesn’t seem big enough for a meal, maybe I should throw you back…” Teasing me was something Fizzy and only a few others could do without repercussions or a petty kitty cavalcade of pranks or mass destruction.

Mass destruction to be saved only for true enemies and when they really obviously deserved it. I’m not doing a repeat of what I did to Stochastic by making someone have an immense mental breakdown and then making it worse by empowering the person in question. I’m just going to leave out the second part this time no matter how ironic it is to pull it off.

“I’ll grant your wishes if you don’t throw me back.” I gave her a pleading look.

“I don’t think that’s how the magic fish story goes Jade… at least not in the bedtime stories you’ve been reading to Silvers.” She kissed me lightly on the lips, then turned a scowl to Pinkie. “Pinkie, Jade is not Rainbow Dash. I do not want my kitty to getting concussions, do you understand me!”

“Yes, and I’m sorry!” Pinkie only wilted a tiny bit and then popped back up to peppy. “Which is why I had a Pinkie sense to bring apology cookies and or other assorted goodies!”

“What happened to the usual apology cupcakes?” Being sat on the ground upright, I looked up to see Pinkie taking a seat next to Fluttershy.

“Totally out of cupcake mix, even all of my emergency stocks all around Equestria! Twilight likely has an embargo on them after my latest prank to make her job seem less boring than it is...” After shooting me a slight grin, Pinkie motioned to the sack she held and then dropped it down to me. “Here, you go!”

I swiftly caught it and opened it up, I immediately looked up to Pinkie with a grin as I reached into the sack.

“A Pony Joe tiger-tail… apology accepted!” I quickly pulled out a strawberry tiger-tail and started to gnaw at the sugary treat while wagging my tail, Fizzy looked into the bag and levitated out a peanut butter cookie.

“… Fine… I accept it as well.” It took Fizzy time to consider the large soft and chewy looking cookie, before taking a large bite out of it while looking sternly at a smiling Pinkie.

Fizzy looked cute when she was angrily chewing a cookie, but I’m horribly biased in the respect that I always think she’s doing something cute. She’d never admit to that or being beautiful, but she will admit to being fierce.

“So what was that about helping you build a sanctuary here?” I watched as Fluttershy perk up and fluttered to the ground to tell me her idea.

Am I happy here? I’d say so, because personally I don’t see anything wrong with my life at the moment. Well aside from the vast amounts of psychological trauma I’m still dealing with, I do need to schedule a few more appointments with Anubis. Maybe I can even see Sandy again considering she’s still in his employ.

Silvers and my wives certainly helped with my mental state, they were so precious to me. I still needed the therapy no matter how happy they make me, Anubis also needs his therapy session to try and get over his completely understandable fear of cakes.

It didn’t help that after I used that cake against him, cakes became a thing to be celebrated on ones day of birth as a sign of something to possibly stave off death. Also to bring cheerfulness to said person and friends of the person receiving said cake, one of the few things Baast let slide when it came to information embargo of that part of history. It’s frankly why birthday cakes are traditional in Equestria and yet the history on why was lost thanks to Baast.

I felt my empty cup bonk me on the head and I looked up at Pinkie with a glare and an angry hiss escaping my lips.

“Whoops, sorry Jade!” After Pinkie apologized, I sighed and then started to giggle loudly.

-Sekhet’s Pyramid, Sekhet-

Well I’ve actually finished off my paperwork, Twilight wasn’t very good at getting back at me. She had the ‘domain of friendship’, but she didn’t have the ‘domain of war’ to fight paperwork half as well as I could. It’s why I sent her an order for a fresh cheesy quesadilla in response, she’ll know what it means when she gets it and the letter arrives.

I’ve got plenty of free time, mostly because I actually do all my work instead of putting it off like some people, I’m used to doing a lot of unsavory things to prepare for war and paperwork wasn’t any different.

Being a physical education instructor for the local school was fun, being Kuril’s secretary was boring and I didn’t exactly have much else to do at the moment.

I only have one acolyte in Fortitude and I could feasibly talk to him a bit about maybe getting the minotaurs to send some worshippers my way. I was already gaining the interest of the few that came to live here with their king and act as liaisons between here and their home. He’s the friendliest yak that I know about and was quite infinitely patient, he really understood the meaning of ‘souls are sacred’. Even Skeletal Noria’s soul was sacred in my purview, as moderately messed up as it was… hers wasn’t exactly tarnished.

I was a little annoyed that my sister Baast moved in next door with a pyramid of a similar size to mine, but it wasn’t like she had much to do in the given area of Ancient Anugypt aside from talk to echoes of the past. Said echoes now own the pyramid that Jade still had ownership of.

Baast did move some of those serpopards into her home next door here at Airship Mauled, including the one that I liked in particular… so I’ll give her a fair pass on that. She was really quite talented with serpopards

Baast and I have been making up for the distance and gulf between us as sisters, same as what Celestia did with Luna as soon as she stopped being Nightmare Moon. There’s an interesting story and the Nightmares really liked pulling out the dark sides of those of us who weren’t prepared for them, nasty little things that really shouldn’t toy with souls like they do. They kept getting their comeuppance at the very least, friendship, harmony and magic seemed to be their anathema in the extreme.

Still the sisters could learn to live with each other, which they are currently doing, so I figured why can’t I live with my sister who prefers to run around at flail-tail size? Aside from the fact that she’s annoying me to the ends of my sanity to make some passes at Celestia, I could court her at my pace on my own thank you very much!

Now what could we do as a joint project? Idle paws lead to troublesome and overgrown claws.

“Hey Sekhet, do we have room for an animal sanctuary around here?” Huh, how fortuitous of you Jade, you brought me a possibly solution. It’ll at least put a stop my troublesome sister that keeps trying to get me to lay with another. “Also we might need someone to take care of it.”

Speaking of, how has Baast not run out of her blasted twisted euphemisms yet?!

“Yes, actually, though it would be a really bad idea to place it anywhere near Barely Bearable Woods.” That would cause a few incidents and the woods were full of predators that were mostly opportunistic, they would attack a sanctuary if they smelled blood and easy prey.

My presence, along with Baast and that of the illusion rabbit Sugar were keeping quite a number of the smarter predators well away from us. Thankfully things like the Sumatran Rat wouldn’t be a problem, it’s a good thing patrol saw that thing. Someone must have accidentally brought one over from Abyssinia, thankfully it doesn’t seem to have a breeding partner. I would know, I’ve actually checked for the possibility of a blade bellied giant tentacle rat incursion.

“The south eastern side would be better then, that would leave the south western open for an airship crash zone and we might want to expand town a little out the east side. I don’t think we can get too much bigger beyond the tracks though and it will make the town more oval shaped.” What a sharp mind you have Jade, you are a sun priestess worthy of the title as much as being my friend. “What are your thoughts on this?”

“I’m okay as long as we bring it to Kuril’s attention that we are almost running out of places for airships to crash, we should probably set up that designated crash zone where we cannot build anything at all.” I’m surprised that nobody has died in the thousands of airship crashes that happen routinely around here, it kind of boggles the mind really that none of the mortals have had a mortal injury while I have been brutalized completely numerous times. Only a few cases of bad whiplash or a few other minor problems that our local hospital has taken care of readily and easily at that. “Any added territory to Airship Mauled will not be tax free, as previously given to us by Jacky.”

“Yeah, that was just something fun to do after we temporarily conquered Equestria and the Crystal Empire functionally at the same time.” Jade snickered audibly, she was a fairly devious and fun being in that respect. I welcomed the current distraction from what would have been the onset of boredom. “I know Fluttershy can’t run more than one sanctuary personally effectively, it’ll require someone to keep watch of it to make sure the animals don’t get rowdy. Have anyone on the docket that can fill the position? Aside from Snickers, since she applied for the job and here’s her application.

The little guardian wouldn’t be able to keep the peace because of her size, but she certainly had the heart for it. I honestly took the application and gave it a once over, I’ll honestly consider it.

“I’m already holding down three jobs and doing most of Kuril’s paperwork so she won’t have to worry about it, which is why I’m going to suggest we give my sister something to do with her time… instead of annoying me and making continuous attempts at trying my patience. Snickers would be best in an advisory role though.” Just throwing out a feeler to see if Jade thinks it’s plausible that my sister wouldn’t mind running a sanctuary. One that will likely be frequented by serpopards. “Do you suppose Baast would leave me alone if I could somehow get Discord to be consistently present or give her a job of caring for animals?”

“Let’s see secretary, physical education teacher and… oh right you’re also the guild runner which doubles as our local banker.” Jade rubbed at her chin while eyeing me curiously. “You do have a lot to do don’t you?”

“Not at the moment no, I’m actually free for the day.” I stated honestly.

“I’m sure Baast could and would do it, she’s already spending a lot of time helping Paprika, Velvet and a few other local mares through their pregnancies.” Well Jade just made my day, I might need some help to convince Baast to do it. “An animal sanctuary is not beyond her and she might even look forward to helping out with it, makes me wonder why gods don’t get day jobs more often if it helps them understand the plight of mortals better.”

I was about to say something in answer to the rhetorical query when we were all suddenly interrupted by an intrusion into my home.

They were quite underwhelming.

“Stick them up, this is a bank robbery!” Stated one of the three earth ponies that ran in wielding piping hot pies, wearing bandanas and other classical western gear. “You don’t and we’ll ruin your day… also your fur!”

They probably just got off a train from Appleoosa and decided to buy fresh pies to try and rob the local bank with, that being my home.

“That… has got to be the absolute dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in recent history.” Loudly muttered Fluttershy who started to rub at her head with a hoof as she fluttered in. She wasn’t the only one getting a headache from the sheer stupidity of this bank robbery. “That’s even knowing that I’m one of Pinkie Pies best friends.”

“Yeah, I agree and… hey… wait a minute!” Pinkie, who just zipped in, immediately frowned at Fluttershy.

Said buttery pony just rolled her eyes in a cynical manner.

Pinkie sighed and hugged Fluttershy, forgiving her immediately.

The robbers looked confused and Jade just pulled out her yo-yo and started to idly play with it. She glanced at me and titled her head at the most idiotic bank robbers to ever exist, they were trying to rob a goddess with pies after all.

“You do realize you’re trying to rob a bank run by a war goddess right?” Jade stated idly while continuing to toss her yo-yo down, she always brought it back up lazily a few seconds later. “What part of this plan was ever going to work?”

“Well it’s worked before, the mare running the last bank we robbed didn’t want her fur to be messed up.” The one mare in the group stated looking slightly like a deer having a flashlight shined in her eyes.

“I don’t mind getting messy or free pie, what did you spend the last of your money on them or something?” That would have been sad Jade.

The silence for the next minute or so was kind of telling.

“Yes.” The third earth pony admitted. “They are still hot and can burn you a bit at the very least!”

“Not if they have cooled down as much as they seemed to over the last minute or so.” The three dumb robbers looked to the pies in their hooves at Jade’s words. Jade turned to me with a bored look on her face. “Should I deal with them, or do I let Bracing Knight do her job?”

Bracing Knight was standing behind the three earth ponies looking bored with this situation as Jade and I was, considering she had just arrived and was watching this with an utterly flat look on her face.

The three earth ponies soon started to argue among themselves and it just quickly devolved into being something really quite sad that they were fighting over the lack of funds, their lack of a plan for how to deal with a goddess or the lack of any hope of getting any money out of this after spending it on pie.

“Everybody quiet, I’ve got a pie too and I know how to use it!” Pinkie decided to get in on what I assume was starting to become a ‘Mexicolt Standoff’ that started up between the three pie holding robbers. She pulled said pie directly from her mane without getting any of her hair on it or in it, she took aim at one of them with her own pie.

“Well this situation is certainly devolving into pure lunacy.” It seemed Fluttershy was on the same page that I was, bored with situation as much as interested in where this was going.

“Huzzah, it is not true lunacy until I have joined the fray to add my own pie to this situation, its banana cream!” Luna shouted out loud, having arrived from out of nowhere, to interrupt the current pie standoff with another pie brought to the slowly building mess that was about to take place in my pyramid.

“You heathen, custard pies are the standard for this kind of thing as far as I’m concerned!” It seemed Pinkie was of a certain view on pie usage when it came to standoffs.

“Chocolate cream all the way!” One of the male earth pony bandits stated.

“I think mines cherry.” The mare bandit stated.

“Oh come on, if you’re going to throw a pie at someone, then at least make sure it suits everyone’s taste!” The other male bandit turned to his audience. “Show of limbs, how many of you actually like cherry pie!”

None of us raised a limb except Fluttershy.

“See! Now my butterscotch pie on the other hoof is something new and maybe interesting to the kind of situation we’re in.” The male turned to us again. “Show of limbs who hates butterscotch?”

The only one to raise a limb was Bracing Knight, who was calmly feeding sugar cubes to her myrmeke at the entrance to the pyramid. The myrmeke humorously also raised a limb in answer.

“Sorry, but my myrmeke and I don’t like butterscotch.” Bracing stated with a dull tone. “Can you all just pie each other and move this along… please?”

“Neigh, I want to ask how many like chocolate marshmallow fudge pie!” Luna stated while holding up a second pie.

“I can’t do chocolate for obvious reasons!” Stated Jade as she waved to everyone. “Otherwise, I’m fine with any pie as long as it doesn’t have things poisonous to me in them. While I can somewhat handle rhubarb, I don’t like it very much. I prefer fruitier variety of pies, like peach or apple, but I really do like cream pies. Abyssinians are notably big on dairy pies like that and I’m no different.”

“Wait, why did she bring up rhubarb?” The lone mare bandit asked.

“Since I’m joining the fray with my rhubarb pie!” Baast stated as she came in with a pie of her own and threw away the sign telling Jade to make a comment on her rhubarb pie. “I would like to ask my sister if ‘rhu’ would ‘barb’ Celestia!”

“Baast… you are a completely horrible degenerate of a goddess.” My sister truly was horrible, I know for a fact that she joined the standoff just to say that one line. “I’m sad to be your sister or even remotely related to you on any level of existence in this universe.”

“That’s absolutely something I’m proud of sister!” Baast said brightly as she hefted her pie causing the others to tense.

“Can I ask you something Baast, you know, before this situation devolves any further and I get pie crust in my mane?” Fluttershy was pleading my sister with her eyes, she then muttered. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been in the middle of a pie fight thanks to Pinkie.”

“Yes, what is it Fluttershy?” Baast lowered her pie slightly, but she held it at the ready all the same.

“Could you maybe, if you have the time and you really don’t have to say yes, run an animal sanctuary here in Airship Mauled?” Fluttershy had my sister pondering her question for a few minutes.

The supposed bandits to my pyramid were waiting patiently and the pies they held were probably cooled off to the point that nobody would get too badly hurt anymore.

“Sure, I could do that, provided that you let me raise serpopards there.” Watching as Baast smiled brightly. I sighed in relief, this means she would have less time in a given day to annoy me. “They at least kept me from getting bored throughout the centuries of watching over Jade’s statue. Also prevented me from being idle paws and going all crazy claws.”

“Yes, that saying really hasn’t changed much at all in all this time has it sister?” I received a friendly nod.

“Yep, now back to what we’re doing, we have about six pies going here and…” Baast was soon interrupted by another pie joining the standoff that seems to be, ridiculously enough, building up in numbers in front of me.

“Yona is best yak at standoffs!” A female yak burst onto the scene with an orange dragon who was lazily eating her pie with her face. “I have a pear pie!”

“Anyone else that wants to get in on this inane stupidity?” I asked loudly.

“Yes, actually.” The changeling, whose name is Ocellus, came in and held up a very odd looking pie. “I really don’t know how this works, but I read up that things tend to go funny when pie standoffs happen. Does a cheesecake pie technically count?”

“Yes.” Several voices answered, Jade being one of them.

“Just to be sure, we’re not in the middle of a goof off are we?” Ocellus asked while looking into a book she was levitating off to the side.

“No.” The crowd answered again.

“Okay, thanks!” The changeling stated cheerfully as she took up her own prepared throwing position with Yona.

“Hold on, hold on, you can’t properly do this kind of thing without an apple pie!” A pony, vaguely recalled as being named Applejack, also joined in the pie standoff a second later. “There, now we can do this standoff right!”

That… was a silly pony.

“Oh, does this mean we’re being shipped again Applejack?” Pinkie asked loudly.

“We’re not going through that whole consarned thing again Pinkie!” Applejack swept her free hoof outwards at all the pie wielding idiots that were currently in my home. I already had just the cleaning spell ready for this very occasion and I was going to wait until thing finished before using it. “This here is a right big and proper pie standoff. Also let me remind you that I’m dating Rainbow Dash and not you.”

“Oh I know, I just wanted to make things absolutely clear for the audience that we are not doing an Apple and Pie thing.” Pinkie waggled her eyebrows at Applejack and the nearby blank wall, I was confused by that second waggle. “Also doesn’t Rainbow Dash outright hate pies?”

“She doesn’t hate all the other apple related products though and I’ve basically got her under my hoof when it comes to the family apple cider.” As Applejack spoke, I rested my head on my right paw and waited for another to possibly enter with a pie. I was not going to be disappointed at this rate. “If anyone is going to have the pants in our relationship, it’s going to be me and I like to be stubborn as Rainbow very well knows!”

“Is the stand around and hold pies convention?” We all turned to Macaroni, as the brightly colorful thestral wandered in and asked that. She too was holding a pie. “My pie is strawberry kiwi... I would have used mango, but I sucked all mine dry.”

“No, this is a pie standoff started by those three bandits over there that are futilely trying to rob what amounts to a bank run by a goddess… then things likely got out of claw from there as now my friends gotten in on things too.” The dragon stated as she continued to eat her gem encrusted pie. “I’m not joining this dumb standoff as that would be a waste of a good gem encrusted pie. Does anyone have any idea how hard it is for someone to get one of these thing absolutely right like this?! I’m just going to continue eating mine, I’m just here for the show.”

“Yona is wondering if we can throw pies already!” Yona shouted loudly and enthusiastically while waving her pie around.

“May I join in as well?! I too have a pie!” We turn to see Flamberge wielding his pie with bright grin. “Cinnamon cream sugar pie, an exotic taste that I’m sure no one else has brought in before this moment!”

Quite a few nodded at that.

“Well at least I’m not the token dragon in this situation.” The orange dragon stated as she continued to eat her pie lazily.

“Oh, all of you only brought on pie, for shame!” What did Kuril mean and… that’s… that’s a lot of pies. She dragged in two cart loads of various pies. Blade Bright, Fresh Start, Savanna ‘The Wild’ and Brenda ‘The Wild’ Springer all spread out and took up one each as a firing a line. “I brought entire cart loads, so I win! Your arguments, whatever they were, are all invalidated!”

“Wait, we had a valid argument for doing this before, why hadn’t anyone told me before ended up in this situation?” The mare bandit asked confusedly.

“Fine… go ahead and do it Yona. It’s obviously going happen anyway and if we wait any longer it’ll just bring in more people in with pies from out of nowhere, somehow.” The yak was certainly eager to throw it from what I could see, but she didn’t seem as eager to start the mess.

“Yona not start mess, but Yona will definitely be one finishing it.” That was a sad state of affairs Yona, if you didn’t kick things off then who would?

I heard a ding from behind me, finally they’ve all cooled down to the perfect level! Also it was strangely appropriate to the situation at paw...

I got up and everyone watched as I moved behind my throne, I then immediately took cover as I threw a key lime pie at those gather in my home.

I really wanted to eat my key lime pies in peace, but that wasn’t going to happen at this rate and I wanted all these people out of my home. So I used one of my four or so pies that have just finished cooling off in my refrigerator, I might as well be the one to set all the lunatics with pies off.

This was my home after all and if they were going to cause a mess, then I would be the first one to throw a pie!

Once one of the male stallion bandits was struck with my pie, it caused a large chain reaction of pies to start flying all over the place.

I lamented that it wasted one of my key lime pies, but I could still enjoy the others in relative peace as my pyramid was quickly turned into a mess of various flavors as the standoff erupted into a pie flinging massacre.

Everyone was hit at least once, except for me, nobody else was left untouched.

-A few hours later, Jade-

Well that happened, didn’t know how mom knew what was happening or why she brought an entire pie chucking squad, but it was a somewhat tasty outcome. I managed save, read steal, the pumpkin pie before it could be thrown and we all sat around discussing how the sanctuary would work afterwards.

Apparently of the three pony bandits, one of them was an animal specialist that could help run the sanctuary. The stallion in question was happy to have a job, the other two wanted jobs too if we had any available. We had a few things available, such as Macaroni telling us that Drip could use some assistance as a plumber.

Eventually they all filtered out while I stayed behind to eat the pumpkin pie.

“Hey Sek, remember the day we met?” I looked up to Sekhet and she gazed down at me with smile.

“Yes, it was quite intriguing. Pain was something I hadn’t experience in a long, long time. Also my interest in you was what made me stick around, I’m glad that I did.” Sekhet was enjoying some key lime pie, the fact that she was doing so slowly told me how much she loved that particular kind of pie. “I like living here, it is a nice place that came of that first meeting. Though the fact that sanity continues to elude us says something about the magnetic and troublesome qualities the likes of what Ponyville has.”

-Sekhet-

“Do you think I’ll be able to continue to raise Silvers and any other children my herd has right?” Asks the sneaky pie thief and sometimes quirky rogue that Jade was. I didn’t have a right to tell her how to raise her children, though Baast might want to get in a word of advice on that. Baast did give birth to Nefer and he continues to be a constant in this world even now.

“Where is this coming from? You are a proud and thriving Queen of your own right… you’re also still technically a pharaoh too, but that title doesn’t matter as much these days does it? Everyone can trust you with a child Jade, you are a natural mother to your kittens.” Chuckling, I just passed a slice of my pie to Jade who looked a little surprised that I was sharing my treat. “Don’t look so surprised mortal, we’re friends Jade. Friends share things and I have been known to be nice, at least once or twice.”

“Thanks.” Jade passed me some of her pie too. “I worry because I didn’t exactly get a chance to raise Icky Dress before she became all grown up, never imagined that my tree would turn into a magical goddess of world generation. Much less a tree with the largest peaches to ever exist.”

“Silvers is going to be strong, all you need to do is let them choose who they want to be and be supportive.” It reminded me that mortals were kind of my children too, I wasn’t about to proclaim that out loud though. “Just be firm to keep them away from becoming world conquering tyrants and things will be golden. Also note to keep the dragon head from getting greedy, keep the unicorn head from abusing their power and you’ll be just fine. Unless the cat head has your cunning, then we’re all definitely doomed eventually.”

“Yeah, Silvia is the one that I’m the least worried about of my conjoined daughters at the moment, but you just gave me some terrifying thoughts to consider otherwise.” Jade nibbled at her pie slowly and not as cheerfully as she was a second ago. “Do you think Airship Mauled will always be here?”

“Probably not, but while it is, I will love this place and cherish the fond memories of our family.” I answered calmly. “Now was that all that was bothering you?”

“No, because I’m kind of worried about what will happen to you when we’ve all passed away.” Jade looked up to me with a concerned glance as she ate some pie.

“I wouldn’t mind a picture of all the townspeople. Something to remember you by at least, it can be signed by all of you too.” I have forgotten many things over a millennia, but this, this was something I never wanted to forget. “I’m never going to want to forget you, your friends and all the families that currently live here.”

“I’m guessing all the other gods will keep you from being lonely when all your mortal friends have passed away?” Jade smiled as she looked away sadly.

“Yep, there’s also that situation with Paprika and her herd, I’ll be around to help them with that when it inevitably becomes an issue. Until then they are still ‘technically’ mortal.” I gathered my thoughts. “The End of Immortality doesn’t work on them does it?”

-Jade-

I sighed as looked outside to see the daylight I couldn’t be lazing away in after what was a very prominent pie fight in Sekhet’s home. Silvia could become a little terror just as much as her sisters, especially if she was as smart as me or mom.

Oh my goodness, it actually runs in the family, it’s completely plausible!

“No, it can’t work on them, I think they ‘crossed the rubicon’ on that one.” I was still the guardian of it, which made me think about the problems of what to do with it. “What will happen to the End of Immortality when I’m gone, much less the fire at the center of Airship Mauled?”

“I wouldn’t worry about either of them, I can take on the guardianship of the End of Immortality to make sure nobody abuses their mortal souls unless they are meant to become immortal.” The other thing obviously required a bit more thought. “If the sun sees fit to do so, it will leave the fire right where it is. Even if it is currently connected to your soul.”

“I wonder what the future holds.” It was frightening to not have anything lined up for the next few days.

“That’s the greatest riddle of them all, finding out is the fun part.” Sekhet sat next me and I leaned against her fur. “Want to answer a few riddles?”

“Sure, but I have a large game of Ogres and Oubliettes planned this afternoon. So remind me when it’s getting into the evening.” Consider me game for a bit Sekhet, but I had an idea. “Say… Discord can make live action Ogres and Oubliettes a fun and real thing, this leaves me wondering if you could maybe be the Game Master for this upcoming game.”

“Why, is there a particular reason why you or anyone else can’t do it?” Sekhet sounded intrigued at least.

“Yes, we’re going to run a town building simulation in the game called Boat Murdered… your job is to have us constantly under attack by elephants and many other odd things as we try to build the town to stand up to all the problems that come at it.” After a moment I could see that Sekhet understood why I was asking her to take up the Game Master position. She was fairly organized and can keep the going, she’ll even be able to mediate arguments fairly well.

“Ah… I see… well… I’ll gladly do it! Knowing that Baast is going to be involved will be a time to enact some revenge for being so annoying by being annoying myself, at least to her character or characters if she feels like being an entire team unto herself.” Sekhet, you’re a good goddess, but you’re an even better friend. “Riddles come first though! So to begin with… I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?”

Oh that was a good one, let’s see cities without houses, mountains without trees and water without fish… puddles can’t be involved… so…

“Is it a map?” My answer was assured when Sekhet shrunk down to pat me affectionately on the head.

“Yep, it’s always fun to get you to answer some riddles.” Sekhet cleared her throat and smiled. “You see a boat filled with people. It has not sunk, but if you look again you won’t see a single person on the boat. Why?”

That’s a rather devious riddle… so if the boat is filled with people and I look away and then look back and it hasn’t sunk, but there’s not a single person left on… wait… wait a moment… the word ‘single’. Of course, that’s how you answer this!

“The answer is… everyone on the boat was married, so there was not a ‘single’ person left onboard.” What other riddles could Sekhet through my way, it’s been a while since I’ve done this with her.

-That evening, The Witch’s Fare, Jade-

Hanging out with Sekhet would always be fun when she wanted to entertain someone with riddles.

Our game of Ogres and Oubliettes was getting pretty heated and Sekhet was keeping us in the game so to speak, except for me as I was busy trying to get Silvers to say a ‘name’ or at least say mom, mommy, momma or anything related to that.

I had Silvers in my lap while the entire table was going over how to keep Boat Murdered from exploding and somehow a duck has managed to slaughter an ancient demon from hell. No clue how that worked, but the initiative and the roll of twenty kind of made it a moot point. The demon was somehow killed by a duck that Fluttershy had been giving bread crumbs to about ten minutes prior to it showing up. The town that our characters collectively built was holding on pretty well, despite the constant evil elephant swarms and the strange moods some character fell into to end up making sculptures of said evil elephants crushing us violently.

“So can you say Ma or mama?” I urged gently. The innocent Silvers was trying to, but at best I got were a meow, a neigh and a gurgle that sounded close to ‘ga’ from Silvon that might have been a bit of indigestion from when I fed them a moment ago.

I quickly and gently put my hand under Silvon’s little head and aimed it upwards, she burped up a mass of flames towards the ceiling. To think that was the closest one yet, not the fire, but the closest to saying at least something approaching a syllable I wanted to hear desperately.

I sighed, it didn’t matter if they could do it now. Silvers would eventually learn how to call for any of her mothers.

“Jade your character is still trapped with a bit of wood through their lower torso.” Sekhet told me. “Roll for a chance to escape.”

I took up the dice and rolled it, Silvers three heads watched as the dice bounced across the table and quickly lost interest in it. They weren’t exactly working on all cylinders like Maries did when they combined their three minds, but when these three eventually learned to do that… the skies would hardly limit them.

Hopefully Silvers wouldn’t have my ‘Disaster Dyscalculia’ problem, they certainly had our genetics. We weren’t questioning the odd chimera reproduction mechanics behind this, we were happy to have had a child at all without too much magical aid. Well magical aid besides whatever Maries’ magical field did when it sampled us somehow.

“Your character manages to pry themselves out from under the wooden beam without damaging themselves further.” The tone Sekhet spoke in was filled with amusement. I sighed, my character might live for three more turns after this.

I heard three tiny yawns going off at the same time and looked down to see Silvers pressing into me and pawing me slightly.

“Fizzy do you want to put them to bed and tell them a bed time story?” Getting Fizzy to act motherly was hard, but it was adorable to watch in action. She tries hard to hide that burning need to do more things with Silvers.

“Of course.” She levitated Silvers over to herself and held them in her hoof, she then started to make way for the bathroom to clean them up before putting them to bed.

“Well let’s call it a night people!” Everyone agreed with me. “Today was a good day… I love living here.”

“I do too kitten, I’m glad we came to be here.” Mom stated as she ruffled my head. “Do you need a camera to get pictures of Fizzy doing cute things while taking care of Silvers?”

“What do you take me for mom?” I got up to join my mother in teasing Fizzy. “Of course I do!”

-?-

Airship Mauled, it was never a calm place, it was never a perfect place and the 'puk' attacks happened there fairly frequently.

There were times when the people that lived there run afoul of the Quarrelsome Quartet, others they’d have to fight monsters beyond imagination and some not so far beyond it too.

Airships fell and crashed around here with a completely alarming frequency. Who knew what new people they would meet from them, who knew what adventure’s the crashed airships could bring and who knew how many would fall into this one location specifically?

It was a home built next to a dangerous place full of large monsters, it was a home that had one of the best restaurants in the world and it was a home to a community gathered from all walks of life

It was a home where the very first airship crashed.

Even with all the downsides of living here, there were some days where the world was just right. Where it was a place one could relax and play without worry, where the fruit plantations were flourishing and where families came together and grew.

This was Airship Mauled. The story, the place and the home.

“And I don’t regret living here one bit…” I stated somberly as I watched over my mortals as they prepared for bed from the front of my pyramid, with love blooming in my heart for each and every single last one of them. “Where things could possibly be worse... but will always turns out for the better in the end through sheer grit and determination to see things through.”

I absolutely blame that first airship to the skull for making me feel this way about them, I sometimes wished that I could be mortal alongside them too. To never lose that wonder and magic of this small area of the world.

A magic that was brought about and out by all of its quirky people.

I would eventually miss each and every last one of them, I’d even cry and weep for them all when they eventually fell. I had thought that my heart had long abandoned me. Only to find it once again in the unlikeliest of places… following that ever burning, bright, living, amazing, magical… the very guiding light of life itself!

A bright sphere of light flew off into the darkened sky out of the ever burning fire as it suddenly started bursting with incredible strength.

Even I didn’t know whatever the Tartartus that was, but I smiled all the same.

May the mysteries of this odd place never end.

Author's Note

(Music, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Main Theme.)

One last page... won't be nearly as long as this one was.

For 'Thend' is next! This is officially the longest story I will have ever written.

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: And…

Author's Note

Done, final thoughts about this mess called a story?

(Music- New Super Marisa Land- Overworld Theme)

(Magical Alchemy List Modified???)

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: And…

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-Some time into the future, late at night, Jade-

“Is that a new star in the sky?” It seemed very bright up there. “Huh, I wonder where that came from. I guess it’s been a long time since I looked up to the stars and did some star gazing, I guess that one came into existence when I wasn’t looking. Ah well, time for bed!”

-The next morning-

“Mom, Momma, Mommies, get up! Paprika is getting the parade floats together and Speedy is already practicing!” Hearing the rambunctious voices of Silvers, I sat up groaning and saw that Maries was already up. Fizzle was still out of it and carefully cradling our newest foal, a little colt she gave birth to, named Calm Lights La Perm.

Calm Light yawned loudly and opened his eyes, he had his mother’s eyes and fur color, but my hair color for a mane and tail. His ears were also vaguely like a cats and his temperament matches his namesake, he was a good little foal.

Fizzy just basically named him the opposite of Tempest Shadows, I called her out on it and we had a spat. It was still the name of our little colt though.

“Okay, okay, Silvers, they aren’t going to start the parade without us, calm down!” Our little bundle of heck and a half was old enough to talk and they were as smart as Maries was, if not that then smarter. “Go on and get washed up for breakfast little wonders. Paprika and Speedy just want to go over the music we’re going to be playing today during the parade.”

“Are you going to Brush Silver’s mane mom?” Why they always wanted me to do it when Fizzy was better at it, I’ll never know. Silver was giving me pleading eyes with Silvia and I sighed audibly.

“Of course our little wonders, now go!” They were a big momma’s girl, then again they had five mothers so it’s fairly understandable. It was more specific that they liked me because I’m the designated ‘fun’ one.

That and they could fly now, I watched them do so as they zipped out of our room. There was no end to the headaches we got when they learned to do that from watching their cousin Gavin fly around. Silvon giving a shout of joy that overcame her sisters shouts just on the merits of the being the dragon headed tail.

I groaned and dragged my hand over my face, I was still somewhat wiped after defeating a hydra with a fishing pole in the last few days. I felt Fizzy kiss me on the cheek before I could scoot out of bed, she started to feed our hungry foal and smiled at me with adoration.

A smile of which I returned immediately with a kiss to the tip of her nose that made her snort.

-Outside, an hour later, Silvers-

Oh this was going to be so amazing, we’ve seen a parade in Ponyville and now we’re going to have one here!

We were so excited!

We came in for a landing on one of the airship shaped homes to watch as Paprika and Speedy Sax practiced.

Paprika started playing the pan flute and Speedy Sax started playing in tune with her, the pukwudgie on the drums was quite good too. We’re not ever going to make peace with them, but we knew that we could be friends with them on nice occasions.

Today was one of those days that we have an official cease fire from the malicious mutant hedgehogs with no relation to Uncle Grubber whatsoever. Mom did something diplomatic, which somehow involved burning down half a forest. We’re not sure what mom’s real job really was, just that she was really cool.

Paprika danced and pranced around on her hind hooves and spun as she played her upbeat tune merrily. Aunt Paprika was awesome and she always gave great fluffy hugs!

“Meep!” A bright brown furred cria named Pesto Paca called out and waved at us. With her was a cute reindeer that somewhat resembled a cow slightly, minus the udders, named Chiffon.

They were our cousins and Pesto was basically our best friend.

Pesto made several gestures to tell us to watch her cuddle happy mother go to town on that pan flute.

“I can admit that our wild mother has some talent for the pan flute… but enough about that, don’t I look simply sparkling today?” Yes, Chiffon, we know you were always trying to outdo your mothers in the floof care department, but it’s getting kind of ridiculous. “Beauty like this takes time or so mother Velvet tells me.”

Nobody could beat the same magnitude of fluffy that Paprika had, it might have been our imaginations that she was only getting fluffier as the years went by. Also she seemed to be eternally young, as did Arizona and Velvet. There were a lot of weird and odd things going on in Airship Mauled all the time, so it wasn’t anything new.

Chiffon had white fur, short horns that were a mixture of her mothers and an impossibly thick blonde floof on her chest.

Both our cousins had bright purple eyes like their alpaca mother and our awesome aunt, Paprika ‘the demon’ Paca. They still couldn’t do the weird heart thing with their pupils, but it’s said to be a trait specific to alpaca when it comes to finding love.

Don’t honestly know why Paprika is called a demon though, maybe it’s the pan flute playing? She’s really a demon at that so far. Speedy was really good with that saxophone too.

-Parade Time-

“Hey everyone come on now, and here we go~!” Our fun mom sang as she twirled the baton and took a lead of the parade being followed by a restaurant styled float. She was right the parade couldn’t have possibly started without her. “We wander to and fro from all over the place, to here and there we tend to go to see things with a fresh new face, but nothing will ever beat the heartwarming welcome of our cozy little home, oh don’t you know~!”

“I’d really hate to say that your wrong, especially in the quick pace of this starting song~.” Our stern mom joined in, but she still pretty fun when no one was watching. “But I’d rather agree and will just be willing to leave it be, and would really just like to say wait and see~.”

“We are all coming, together, to celebrate this great and grandest of days~.” Our mommies crooned as ones.

“When all our paths crossed, and we met our significant others in very many unique ways~.” Our fun mom sang as she danced and twirled the baton.

“To say that we love you. We all were quite bitten, smitten and ready to start committing, so it’s easy to say~…” Maries followed.

“That today is going to be quite a grand day~. And how~!” All our moms sang together, as they moved closer to each other.

“Oh dang it Arizona, don’t you dare trip now, we’re trying to have a moment you stupid boorish cow~!” Velvet sang out as she marched in step with everyone. Paprika just smiled and continue to play her pan flute.

“Says the reindeer with a stick shove so far up where the sun doesn’t shine, it makes me wonder if you’d like some cheese to go with that horrible whine~!” Arizona sang back with nothing but contempt and love for Velvet, we did not get their relationship in the slightest.

The fighting ring float was appropriate for those two at least.

“Can you two please stop bickering, we’re all trying to have a parade here~!” Our fun mom sang back at them.

The march of everyone continued on in pace, we took to the air to see all the floats beneath us. The next one was the Viking float.

“We wander to and fro from all over the place~!” Flamberge sang from behind us with a quiet kitsune watching proudly raise his sword to the sky, behind them were Fortitude and Skelly. A few of their little kits were playing around on the float.

“To here and there we’ll always like to meet a new face~.” Fortitude sang from where he sat next to Skelly. A normal, completely average looking, filly sat with them with a small Viking helmet on her head. Aside from the dark brown fur, Femur kind of resembled her mother.

“Nothing will ever quite the match that of a port, that we would all like to call a home of a sort~.” Gene sang while holding a grinning Gavin who looked up to us and waved. We waved a paw right back at him.

Jacky was given a fifteen foot clearance zone between that float and the next one, she and everyone else ducked under a tree that was, as usual, not anywhere close to being native to the region that went bouncing off towards Barely Bearable Woods.

“Today is a pretty nice day for me, especially when I can avoid being hit with another literal family tree~!” Jacky sang while looking around warily, Aunt Jacky wasn’t very lucky. “Not like I can actually avoid ‘absolutely’ everything that this day will have in store for me~.”

“I remember, that bar in Abyssinia, on the day that we both lovingly met~.” Grandma sang, she sounded sad. She was likely going to sing about grandpa.

“I’m sure he’d be happy, maybe quite sappy, with how things turned around for you I bet~.” Our fun mom sang as back to our smiling grandma.

“I’m sure your father wishes he could be here too~.” Our grandma sang in a sad tone. “Not like we’ll know for sure, but things will continue to go forward on to just another day anew~.”

“We both miss him, but we are never alone now it’s true~!” They sang together, grandma Blade flew into give grandma a quick snuggle and a simple peck on the cheek with a goofy smile. Blade’s long white hair flowed behind her as she flew off to continue performing low speed aerial tricks for the crowd.

“I don’t know what to say about you, but I would like to get in a kiss with my husband or two~.” Flotsam sang from the next float back where she was snuggled up against Wheel Twist. It was in the shape of a dinghy.

“I can certainly oblige you Sammy, just don’t give me far more pain and another super long term stomach whammy~.” Wheel Twist sang back as he nuzzled his wife and held his sea pony daughter named Jetsam.

Laughter broke out throughout the crowd.

“Would you please stop snickering, we’re all trying to have a parade here~!” Mom yelled loudly, despite being one the ones to be laughing the loudest.

“We wander to and fro from all over the place~.” Looking to the next float we saw Oleander singing on a volcano themed float, we think it was supposed to represent Huoshan.

“TO HERE AND THERE I will never tire of seeing your positively lovely face~.” Fred scared me a lot, did he really have to do the demon voice thing?

“Nothing will quite match the majesty of a good home, especially after you go so far for a roam~!” It seems Pom was braver than usual today as she snuggled up against Tianhuo.

I’d be brave too if I was surrounded by fifty powerful familiars… and still rising… It’s like a she’s a goddess of canines or something.

Silvon mentally brought up the fact that maybe only some of them were Pom’s familiars, it was more likely the rather successful canine unit was here to represent Huoshan.

“I miss Huoshan even now, but I still like to visit my friends one of which is an impossibly strong cow~!” Tianhuo sang pretty well and softly as she leaned against Pom and fire ignited around them in the shape of heart. “Not like we can get better food anywhere else, we’re always welcome in Airship Mauled~. Now I will take my bow~.”

Tianhuo was always so formal, like stern mom.

“With as much love as we have for this one single place~.” Crazy Aunt Savvy sang, she was leaning up against Brenda back to back and clasping one of her paws. The Diamond Dog and Abyssinian duo were both wearing nice dresses.

“Oh wait, don’t tell me, did you’d just be-spell me, with some special lingerie lace~?” Brenda smiled and covered her mouth as she blushed and looked away from Crazy Aunt Savvy.

“Maybe I can remove my clothes to show you~.” Savvy sang as she turned her head to look in Brenda’s eyes. “I know you, there’s just some things you can’t resist and now to show you how much we’ve missed~. Love… let’s just show them how we kiss-~!”

Savanna and Brenda were deep in each other face and I looked away, it was like they were trying to eat each other and were really hungry. Discord popped up and put a circular shower curtain around the two.

“Okay, that’s definitely enough of that, so stop paying attention to the rather infamous local dog and cat~!” Discord sang as he cuddled a smiling Fluttershy against his chest. “There’s nothing to see here, so none of that, it’s almost like we’re trying to keep a somewhat PG rating after the fact~!”

“Welcome to Airship Mauled, we’re all quite insane to live here~!” Our fun mom sang loudly with everyone else at once. It seems that was the ending of the singing as mom continued to march play with her baton.

The mariachi changelings were on the next float with Mrs. Sorex who was our sitter every once in a while. They played at some of our birthday parties, their float was festive and themed to their band.

The next float had Teatime Clockwork on a destroyed airship looking float, he was grumbling a lot and while the rest of the quarrelsome quartet waved to the crowd. They were the friendly enemies of our mothers, apparently mom likes to golf with Clockwork.

Don’t know why mom was so amiable with someone that was trying to kill her or Aunt Jacky, but the words ‘punch-clock’ come up a lot and I don’t think they are referencing Aunt Zone literally ‘making time fly through the nearest wall’ when they talk about that.

We saw Fresh Starts float as she waved to everyone with Dr. Permanganate. Behind them was Wary Berry and Mango Refreshment. The fact that Wary fell in love with a fruit farmer when she hates fruits so much gave us hope for the future, that and Wary was fun mom’s mortal nemesis or something.

Oh Sekhet was looking pretty today with her dress and bright smile, as was her sister Baast, along with Celestia and Luna waving to the crowd as the float that looked like a bunch of clouds slowly passed by.

Apparently Celestia and Luna liked doing small time celebrity deals since they retired from ruling the country, though what were they going to do with all that fish jerky?

“Coo!” The next float had us blinking as Snickers was driving the large contraption while chirping merrily with Sugar sleeping on it along with several other familiars including Angel, Gummy and Philomena.

Should Snickers really be operating that vehicle? Also who did the mole belong to?

The next float had Cadence and a grumpy looking Shining with binoculars focused entirely on our mom as she danced and the lead of the parade with her baton. We looked at Cadence and she shrugged at us with a friendly smile.

The next float was curious, given it had a party theme to it. Briny Depths, Autumn Blaze, Pinkie Pie, Cheese Sandwich and even Ponyacci were goofing around.

What followed was the first interspecies friendship graduates. Ocellus and Smolder were wearing doing synchronized moves in cheerleader outfits. Gallus and Silver Stream were circling around the float. Yona and Sandbar were sitting still, probably didn’t want Yona to smash the float.

There was Mount Aris representation as the hippogriffs float passed by with Queen Nova.

Ponville and Canterlot’s float were both small scale models on the same float.

We think the best float was Linked Hearts float, it looked like a castle and it was covered in shiny red, green and blue jewels. Apparently he was an acolyte of Epona, the Earth Pony goddess of Courage, Companionship and Heroics.

The next float looked like a disaster zone of bicycle parts and looked like a destroyed street, apparently it was Neighpon’s float. Ryu, Ducky and Silk snuggled together while Dodgy was using several ninja as a chair and a table. That Diamond Dog was just made of pure awesome, I wonder how Sweetcakes knows him?

Nobody ever really tells us anything about what Ryu or Dodgy actually do for jobs, but we’re pretty sure it’s something awesome given that they have ninjas with them.

The next float consisted of an angry Spitfire tied up in a barrel with Rainbow Dash driving the float.

After that it was Eir, Ragna and Gallant, altogether on the Turtle Toga float that looked like a giant turtle.

“How many floats are in this parade?” Silvia asked while tilting her head and flicking her ears, she was trying really hard to ignore the Haven’s Patch float because Veles was always a bit hard to look at.

“As many as it needs I guess.” Answered Silver as she flipped her mane, we should probably start putting it up in a ponytail.

Grace, Maggie and Calloway sat together laughing merrily, until Maggie stuck a stick of dynamite in the corner of her mouth and Calloway just groaned loudly.

“There are a lot of good artists around here today.” Silvon would the artsy one out of the three of us. The Apple Family float was generically enough a giant apple. “Then again some of them are a bit… boring.”

“You’re it Silvers!” We were suddenly tagged by Gavin, we decided to immediately give chase.

-Later, The Witch’s Fare, Silvers-

The parade was fun and vibrant, afterwards we played games with a lot of the other children and dinner was grandma’s potato stew.

It was our favorite, I think we got our taste buds from fun mom. Said mom was just about done telling us a story about the strange and dangerous place known as Klugetown.

“So that’s the story of why Mrs. Sorex is married to a changeling and travels with a mariachi band called the Shapeshifting Fiesta.” Mom leaned down and kissed us each on the forehead and we curled up in bed with smiles. “We’ll always make time for you Silvers.”

“We.” Silver said first.

“Love you.” Followed Silvia.

“Mom.” Finished Silvon as she cuddled us.

“I love all of you too, so does Fizzy and Maries, no matter what you may think of us when we’re stern… we will always love you and we have our reasons for it.” Our eyes started to slowly slide shut after such a wonderful day. “We just want you to be safe our little wonders.”

-Ever burning fire, Jade-

I sat down and looked up at the stars in the sky again.

I was soon joined by Fizzy, who had put Calm Lights to bed.

Maries soon followed and came out to sit with us.

“Is that star new or is it just me?” I pointed out the one I saw the other night.

“Huh, I’ve never seen that star before...” Was all Fizzy had to say about it? It’s a little conspicuous really.

“We concur, that’s definitely a star that wasn’t there before in the night sky.” Maries said as they looked at it too.

“We live all in a magical world don’t we?” I asked without thinking.

“We sure do Jade.” Fizzy and Maries started to cuddle up against me.

“So about that list of things I’ve done… the one about me that you put up…” I started to say.

“We’re not taking it down Jade, for everyone’s benefit. It is not a suggestion for fun times and we’re certain that none of those things are ever going to be repeated… ever… UNDERSTAND?” Fizzy growled into my ear. “Don’t make us couch you Jade.”

“Oh certainly.” I gave her my best grin. “No promises if you’re in danger though.”

“That grin is so fake and you know it Jade.” Growled out Mara before she chuckled.

“What is it going to be this time Jade?” As soon as Maria asked that Twilight Sparkle came down to land before us.

“Please tell us you didn’t do anything recently?” Lamented Marie upon seeing Twilight.

“No, she hasn’t done anything and I’m here to personally thank you for saving Luster Dawn from that hydra… though I’m sure you could have used a better method than a fishing pole to take it down.” Twilight had a flowing mane and was a full sized alicorn now.

“If you’re not here because of Jaded’s shenanigans… then what are you here for Twilight?” Tilting her head Fizzy protectively clutched at me. “You’re not taking our annoying kitty from us are you?”

“No, I wouldn’t dream of it.” Twilight smiled brightly at us. “Though there is something I need Jade’s help with…”

“Oh, here we go, what is it this time Twilight?” A snippy Fizzy asked and she pressed her muzzle into my neck.

“It’s nothing too bad, just a little problem…” The stares Twilight received made her wince. “Okay, so the last time I said that Manehatten was attacked by a massive slime monster and we found out Liberty was fully alive. That she didn’t need the Animating Album is still somewhat concerning, but hear me out, it won’t get that bad this time!”

“Twilight, its Jaded ‘freaking’ Bloody Berrytwist La Perm we’re talking about here…” Yeah, Fizzy just had to go and use my full name, because shenanigans were a paw.

“And we’re married to that!” Maries added afterwards while pointing to me.

“Hey-…~” I whined pitiably while folding my ears back.

“Chances are if you’re coming to her, it is going end up being something very noticeable, destructive and loud beyond all reason.” Oh Fizzy, you know me so well.

“Do you remember that thing that happened the last time you were up in Canterlot?” We all groaned as we knew exactly where this was going and what Twilight was going ask.

“I am Fortitude, the Fantastically Fragrant!” Fortitude really spooked us when he popped up out of nowhere to yell that, then he ran off.

“Quick, tell me if it’s midnight!” There was a bit of excitement on Fizzy’s face.

“Not yet.” Grumbled Twilight who reached into her mane and pulled out a bit bag.

“Did you just do a Pinkie?” I asked clearly amazed.

“I’m trying not to think about it too hard Jade.” Stated Twilight in a calm tone.

“I told you he couldn’t go twenty four hours without saying it, pay up!” Fizzy started to laugh maniacally as we silently passed three bit pouches to her.

Twilight didn’t comment on the fact that she paid Fizzy as well.

“So… how do you want us to destroy the entirety of the Equestria Education Association so you can rebuild it from the ground up?” I asked politely. “I mean of all the holdouts, the education department has got to be the dumbest one even if Neighsay did eventually come around and is actively trying to help.”

“’Destroy’ is kind of a strong word for it…” Twilight started tapping her hooves together looking away nervously.

“Well you did come to me, expect at least some destruction and insanity as a bare minimum.” My smile was a few thousand watts bright, I had something to plan for in the morning. “Also stop getting your hopes up that we can actually avoid collateral damage, nobody called out any of the crazy stuff your friends did. I mean, who exactly paid for it when Rainbow destroyed that weather factory that one time?”

“Fine, but please try to at least pretend that you can be gentle.” After she agreed we all gave Twilight Sparkle a hug, because the ruling ‘Princess of Friendship’ always needed reminders that she had friends all over the place.

“No promises.” Fizzy answered before I could say it.

“Darn it Fizzy, I wanted to say that!” I loudly snapped one of my claws because she beat me to it.

“Why do I keep coming to you with my problems again?” Twilight groaned out while double face hoofing.

The list of Jaded La Perm.

A list of things about Jaded La Perm.

Jaded is no longer allowed to lick herself in public while humming a musical tune.

The devastation caused from last time will never be forgotten, especially considering the heart song that caused said devastation.

Jaded can no longer be given yarn to play with, she will always cause problems with it. Even if it is one of Jade’s worst weaknesses.

Jaded is no longer allowed to slap anyone’s butt, except for Fizzlepop Berrytwist’s butt if she's feeling like it.

The exploding airship incident definitely does not need to be repeated and wasn’t actually Jacky’s fault as the ship was determined to be definitively outside the range of Jacky’s supposed ship destroying aura.

Testing new magical alchemy discoveries needs to be done outdoors and with at least twenty feet of clearance in all directions.

We do not need a repeat of the 'sea foam' incident, Flotsam is still going to therapy for it.

Jaded is no longer allowed to try and keep Jacky from getting injured for twenty four hours straight. It really didn’t end well for everyone within in a two mile radius of Jacky, Jade somehow avoided repercussions using her personal set of magnetically driven lightning skates.

No one should let Jaded ever suggest modifications to the magnetically driven lightning skates or anything else that can go beyond the safety parameters that Jacky or anyone equally adept in a given subject has installed initially, especially not for curiosities sake!

That said, did we really need to know how fast that metal ball could go if flicked between the active wheels of the skates? It spooked Twilight in Canterlot when said ball knocked the tiara off her head. Jade was still in Airship Mauled at the time when this happened, that just tells us how dangerous the experiment was. Thankfully Twilight is now immortal and cannot die if Jade accidentally kills her mortal shell.

Jaded is not allowed to declare a headshot if she accidentally blows an alicorn’s head off with a metal ball. It would be in poor taste even if the alicorn in question is going to get back up eventually.

This one does not have any relation to the previous one, this was actually a separate incident entirely. We’re still not sure if Jade was being petty towards Luna or not for the gelatin swimming pool thing in Las Pegasus during her honeymoon.

Jaded is no longer allowed to play with or use metal balls for anything or operate heavy machinery without supervision unless the situation is ultimately dire.

It’s just a hunch to prevent further incidents.

Never allow Jaded to do math, especially math that is vital to any form of continued living. Even if the world is ending, a second apocalypse happening during the first is not a viable way to stop eldritch horrors.

We should have known better after Jaded told us what happened when she taught Icky Dress math, Icky Dress eventually learned how to do math correctly at least.

We absolutely must listen to the eldritch horrors when they tell us to keep Jaded away from them.

Flamberge is somewhat happier around Jade even if he is scared of her, especially after scaring off something called Cthulhu with a madness that even it couldn’t handle.

We had to send a formal apology to said eldritch abomination after what Jaded did.

Jaded is no longer allowed to be left alone to her own devices for more than three days.

We don’t know what SCP’s are, but they stopped coming to Equestria out of fear of having to meet her.

In tune with the previous one, Jaded is no longer allowed to start secret organizations.

It is okay that Jaded is a muffin cultist, who is apparently the liaison to the local Airship Mauled foodie cult for the muffin cult. Since she already lives there and everything.

It is not okay for Jaded to have a secret organization dedicated to getting Spitfire to chase her, Rainbow Dash most certainly did not need to be a higher echelon member of it either.

No matter how odd it sounds, Jaded is no longer allowed to point out how oddly placed cabbage carts or fruit bins are.

The ‘My Cabbages’ Continuum, which does not exist, thank you for ignoring us and our inexistent ways!

Jaded is no longer allowed to poke holes in the Equestrian Law system, even after Twilight thought she had ultimately fixed things after the whole ‘Pirate Queen of Equestria’ incident.

Even better, never leave Jaded alone with a recent law book. She’s a little less dangerous that way.

Jaded is no longer allowed to build picket fences and get random people to paint them odd colors.

Don’t ask about this one, no one actually believes it even if everything was explained.

No matter how much she begs, Jaded is no longer allowed to eat potato stew more than once a week, except for special occasions.

We just don’t want her getting fat and she tends to try and find room for more whenever it is served.

As a known pharaoh, Jaded is no longer allowed to lead current day Anugyptians to destroy Saddle Arabia… for a third time.

Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. We do not want a third time to happen and no sane Saddle Arabian wants the historically accurate ‘Mirage’ to be anywhere near their country. They already know she can take down the whole country by herself and don’t want to try for reprisals for the chances of any kind of dangerous response from Jaded. Not after Jaded has promised that “Oh those, those were just warning shots”.

No one died, but a lot of buildings were rendered uninhabitable at an insane rate. People had to live in tents for a few months each time. They managed to pull through though and are now terrified of even seemingly cunning Abyssinians.

Jaded is no longer allowed to teach the phrase ‘shoo-be-do shoo-shoo-be-do’ to anyone.

The sea ponies are tired of Jade’s antics, but at least all the distress calls that came from it were valid problems according to the sea pony rescue services across the seas of the world.

Jaded is no longer legally allowed to say the words “I’m innocent”, even if she clearly is and her alibi matches up and nobody can prove otherwise.

We know her too well, she gets away with far too much to be innocent of whatever someone could be blaming her for. She could be halfway around the world from the incident and still be held under suspicion by no less than seven people that know 'of her'.

It is now a fashion crime to dump fresh kitty litter all over Rarity’s dresses thanks to Jaded La Perm.

We still don’t honestly know what set her off that time.

Jaded is never allowed to wear a dress and it is illegal to try and force one on her. Rarity’s bounty is not a good enough reason to keep trying and we know that more than the entire world will be destroyed if someone is ever successful.

Icky Dress said that dress plus her mother equal really bad thing and a humongous frowny face, we are inclined to believe her.

Every universe collapsing at the same is definitely a bad thing, so we’ve honestly stopped trying to put her in a dress and warned Rarity to drop the bounty.

Of the plans Jaded makes, she cannot make a plan that eventually forces someone to tell Celestia that her butt looks tiny compared to the size of her head.

This one we managed to defuse before it got that far, but we’re pretty sure that the fallout of it would have been pretty bad… somehow. We think it might have been a cover up for another one of her plans that we missed.

Whatever anyone does, nobody should let Jaded yell the word ‘kumquat’ more than two times.

That last time we did let her yell kumquat more than two times, mind soap was ineffective at removing the trauma stains. Nobody can forget it and it has become something called a memetic hazard, hearing the story of it causes trauma in those who weren’t even present for the incident in question.

Anubis feels a lot better after the incident, because cake is no longer the most traumatizing thing to him.

Jaded is no longer allowed to be good friends with Captain Jaqueline Sparrow.

For the week that they were friends, it was mostly blamed on Discord who was actually entirely innocent of doing whatever it was that those two got up to during the time frame where everything went weird.

They are still friends, but they are being kept separated from one another to prevent any more errors in existence that needed the combined powers of Discord, Twilight, Luna, Celestia, Cadence, Sekhet, Quetzalcoatl, Jiutian, Veles, Baast and about seventeen other known gods to fix.

Whatever good idea Jaded thinks she may have, it seriously needs to be considered as harshly as possible, even if there is nothing wrong with the idea and it seems completely normal to everyone who hears it.

Even if you have to harshly criticize the word ‘THE’ in the plan, and it’s possibly the only thing you can criticize, then do it! You’ll be better off later, trust us.

Never make comments about Jaded being a bad mother in any way, shape or form without a valid argument ready.

She will hunt you down! While Jaded won’t kill you and considering what happened to Stochastic Labor… well… let’s just that say you don’t want to have Jaded thinking up a plan involving you in a negative manner.

There are a lot of things you can survive that Jaded can come up with, furthermore, anything that sets off Jaded’s ‘petty kitty’ mode is a guaranteed one way trip to the hospital for the target and possibly anyone involved.

Do not abuse Jaded’s kindness as a weapon against someone you just dislike mildly for immense personal profit. If she finds out, then she will balance things out, with a complete ‘petty kitty’ prejudice and nothing less.

Jade only does things by half if you’re joking about this. If you’re not joking, then expect to have things blow up in your face in an increasingly exponential manner.

Related to the above, Jaded is no long allowed to torture someone with constant pies to the face until they are a sobbing mess and terrified of baked goods of all kinds.

That’s why you don’t mess with Jaded or aim her at your enemies to profit entirely off the outcome.

Jade: If that pony didn’t want to be hit with pies so much, they should have actually been upfront with things and could have actually paid me for my services rendered.

Never assume that Jade is being lazy… EVER!

If Jade is laying around in the sun and looks like she isn’t doing anything other than napping, then she is likely planning something horrible for someone or is thinking of getting a present for one of her kittens. We really don’t honestly need to know which one is going on at any given moment.

Only her friends and family are allowed to bother her in this state.

Keeping tabs on whatever Jaded happens to be hiding is an effort in futility. That said, it’s always a good idea to ask her if she’s planning something evil. She will almost always have a very noticeable tell for when something is up.

Not only is Jade good at keeping secrets, she good at keeping people from finding out what she’s doing on any given day of the week if she doesn’t want to be found out. The only ones who she seems to be incapable of hiding things from are her family and anyone adopted into it who knows her all too well.

If Jaded wants to play with the royal guards, then you let her. To interfere is to ask for trouble.

Otherwise you’re going to have a really bad time for interfering in the current training session. The guards really need to stallion up, yes, even the mares!

Jaded is no longer allowed to keep all of the Zamponi’s she’s stolen since we started running out places to put them. She’s only allowed to have one Zamponi for which she can maintain and use for whatever reason her ultimately demented little kitty heart wants it for.

How she manages to steal them without being caught is beyond us. If she needs spare parts, she’s just going to steal them for her personal Zamponi. The guards in Canterlot are still having nightmares about Jaded on a zamponi.

“So long and thanks for all the fish!” is not a song anyone wants to hear Jade sing again.

It was disturbing the first three times she did it and tropical penguins somehow showing up to sing the lines that the ponies wouldn’t each time just made things weirder.

Fish jerky is not an effective method of scaring Jaded away.

No matter how much of it Kuril La Perm makes. While tasty and nutritional, the flavor becomes problematic after a while of eating too much of the stuff.

Jaded is no longer allowed to sing ‘With Cat-like Tread’, for some reason it renders her completely invisible to all forms of detection except by sound. Even then, thestrals can’t echolocate her accurately, no matter how horribly off key she is singing.

The entirety of the EUP likes the song, but Jade uses it with insanely scary efficiency and, ‘again’, has caused endless nightmares and therapy sessions over it.

It is quite notable that when she uses it on someone she dislikes. They will never see her coming, but the target will definitely hear her singing it in a creepy whisper.

Jaded is no longer allowed to plan a Nightmare Night haunted house. See number 35 for more information.

Can you imagine, if you will, Jaded singing a song and following behind you, but when you look back she isn’t there. Only to look forward and be scared out of your wits by nothing but a piece of paper hung from the ceiling with the words ‘BOO’ written on it in big, bold, letters.

That’s only a fraction of what Jade is capable of when it comes to making nightmares for Luna to deal with. Even Nightmares have nightmares about Jaded.

Jaded is no longer allowed to proclaim Fluttershy’s body as a nation separate from Equestria.

It was cute while it lasted though, the nation of 'Fluttershy' consisted entirely of animals and General Jackass. It also solved a few problems, but Twilight eventually got around to fixing this problem with extreme amounts of speed to make sure that Pinkie Pie couldn’t declare herself as a nation.

Jaded is no longer allowed to learn about explosives from one Minnesota Magnolia ‘Maggie’ Arid.

When the two found a more efficient ways to make explosives quickly between them, they were hastily separated.

Separate from that, Maggie’s bounty hunting business is booming. Pun definitely intended as much as it is literal.

Jaded is no longer allowed to talk Cadence into doing training exercises with the guards that are supposed to be protecting the Crystal Empire.

Those poor, poor bastards.

Jock Hawk is no longer allowed to teach Jaded ‘FUN’ wrestling techniques.

While we can be amiable towards the Quarrelsome Quartet, we are not exactly friends no matter how much Jade implies that we could be on occasions.

Golfing with Teatime Clockwork should not be considered a contact sport, even if he and Jaded made a complete spectacle of it.

It was still hilarious that Teatime won though.

Ogres and Oubliettes is not a valid excuse for guard training exercises being entirely related to the game, especially not when Jaded is the one doing it with Discord’s help.

Even if the training was efficient and fun for the guards, it was still quite costly to do even once as Discord’s going rates were costly per pony. He still does something similar freely at O&O conventions.

Discord should not make Jaded the heir to his powers, no matter how chaotic it is to live near Jaded normally.

Screw Ball had a few angry words for her daddy, even if she does like the idea of Jaded being a Chaos Empress.

Any talk of making Jaded into a goddess, OF ANY KIND, should be stopped immediately and should not even be allowed to be theoretically possible if brought up.

Infinite petty kitty is a bad idea.

Icky Dress doesn’t mind if her mother dies, as long as she gets to reincarnate her infinitely across multiple dimensions like she’s already doing.

No one needs to know that Jaded La Perm is now a multiverse constant of pain and misery for nobles, guards and most entities that earn her ire even slightly.

In the one dimension where she is unrepentantly evil, she has a one hundred percent political approval rating with everyone despite being obviously out and out evil.

This is mostly because the alternatives are far worse than she is, at least she promises a cheap Hayburger in every city. The very same Hayburgers she used to conquer the world after becoming the CEO of Hayburger Enterprises itself.

Day Breaker and Nightmare Moon have no comment on how they let the world be taken over by a fast food mogul who couldn't do math to save anyone's life.

As horrible as she can be sometimes, Jaded is still not considered to be the most evil thing in existence.

The winner of most evil thing in existence went to a sandwich that Twilight once use her magic on to make it look like it was talking, but has never actually bothered to eat. After having left said sandwich out in the cold at a picnic, it randomly gained sentience. Its ultimate goal is to be eaten by Twilight Sparkle, no matter the cost it would take to achieve said goal.

Said sandwich is now Equestria’s most infamous villain and magical friendship beams don’t stop it, it is said to be where Twilight’s evil side resides and it wants to be one with Twilight once more by being ingested.

Jaded should not have distracted Harmony from completely ingesting the bad magic created by Chrysalis.

The tree of harmony accidentally lost track of an evil clone of Rarity who hates dresses as much as Jaded does. Jaded named her ‘Rapacity’ and managed to help her get married to Spike ‘The Dragon’, who didn’t know it wasn’t Rarity.

Things... got a bit awkward afterwards.

Rapacity has mellowed out quite a lot since she was discovered. While she’s excessively greedy, she’s greedy for attention when it comes to being one of the world’s greatest heroes.

We’re still not entirely sure how Jaded talked her into being hero. Maybe it was the greed of receiving thanks for helping others, said greed that could never be entirely fulfilled and lasted Rapacity’s lifetime.

Rapacity’s family are all technically cousins of Rarity’s family.

Jaded is not allowed to play matchmaker with Cadence.

The madness… the madness…

Pony Joe has to make tiger-tails for Jaded La perm if she has the money to pay for them.

He actually cannot refuse to make them for her, she has too much dirt on him and she's blackmailing him.

Twilight Sparkle should not have tried to do any form of mind magic on Jaded.

Apparently Jaded actually has a hard counter for mind control magic. It's called emotional trauma, with a sprinkle of insanity.

If Jaded has a lot of very good points about keeping some forms of magical information out of the hooves of average unicorns, then you should probably listen.

Twilight Sparkle certainly did, especially when it was pointed out to her.

The average unicorn, when given an unfettered amount of information on dangerous forms of magic and the smallest chip in their withers, will likely go evil or power mad nine times out of ten. Starlight Glimmer is a prime example of this and she even admits to this fact personally.

Twilight’s attempt to reform Discord with a magical spell that would ultimately kill him came up and was proven to be the case as to why Discord ate the page with said spell in question in the first place.

Unicorns need to seek psychological help far more often than they do, magic is definitely not the solution to every problem.

Jaded is no longer allowed to run a pistachio nut stand, at least not by herself.

When calling someone else out on their hypocrisy, Jaded considers it a victory when you don’t call her out on her own. Do so even if doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Jaded is no longer allowed to have diplomatic immunity when visiting Griffonstone.

She can still be a diplomat though, and what a terrifying thought that is!

Smooze should not be made to roll down stairs, alone, or in pairs, or over the neighbor’s frog. Jaded should not be having so much fun with something so brainless.

Do not leave Jaded alone in a room with someone she is annoyed with.

Do not let Jaded talk or somehow manipulate you into leaving someone alone in the room with her, especially if she is annoyed with them.

If you think you are safe from Jaded, then you probably haven’t put at least three dimensions between you and her as a short term buffer.

Everyone should know that Jaded is not an alien or from the planet of Aldebaran that she says is full of sexy felines.

Fizzy: Though it would make for some pretty good comic books...

Jaded should not act out Collateral Cat’astrophe’s main gimmick in our reality.

If Jaded wants to know who’s been into her comic book collection, then you better darn well tell her as to not end up on the list of things to ‘petty kitty’ immediately.

If Jaded says she’s going to get you, then she will do so when it’s convenient, out of nowhere and you have likely forgot you are on the ‘petty kitty’ list. She does this so the target will mostly punish themselves as much as she will eventually.

Flamberge certainly forgot, but Jaded certainly didn’t.

Pick on Jaded at your own risk, you have been thoroughly warned by this point.

Rainbow was almost entirely white for a week, it helped her hide in clouds to get in more naps a lot better and she actually thought the revenge was pretty funny.

If you don’t think Jaded can plan for every possibility, then she actually can just because you believe she can't. The exceptions are for literal ‘divine intervention’ or someone knowing enough of the plan to stop the dominoes from falling.

If Jaded’s plan involves literal dominoes, you have obviously upset her or someone she loves enough to make the reprisal very visual and quite memorable in nature.

Jade: Those kids had it coming for hurting Silvers feelings.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders should never ask Jaded for a plan to give other creatures cutie marks.

Pineapple and Fisherroni is a viable pizza as far as Jaded La Perm is concerned, it's not bad and is an acquired taste for some.

Sekhet is only allowed to ask a set number of riddles in a given day to anyone, including and most importantly Jaded if she’s particularly busy that day. It's so she can't use Sekhet as an excuse to get out of things.

Jaded is not allowed to make lewd comments about Savanna and Brenda being 'Olympic Specialists', that only encourages them.

If a noodle incident has four or more noodle implements and one of them was an actual noodle, then you should not ask about it or want to know how Jaded achieved whatever it is that no one wants to talk about. Though references are still going to be constantly made about said incident regardless.

No seriously, even Discord agrees with us on this one.

If Discord tries to warn you about something Jaded is going to do for any reason at all, then you better take everything he says seriously no matter how stupid it sounds.

Mara: That whole thing with the rubber duck was rather awe inspiring.

While Jaded is actually good at faking being a lawyer, she should not fake being a prosecutor.

Maria: Evil doesn’t even begin to describe what happened there.

Silvers is adorable. If you are going to say otherwise, then at least make sure Jaded, Maries or Fizzlepop are not within earshot.

Silver: Mom is definitely not a useless adult.

Silvia: If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say it where someone can hear you and repeat it verbatim.

Silvon: I really like strict mom personally, she knows how to keep fun mom in line and is a good leader of the herd.

Maries and Fizzlepop are full time ‘Jaded professionals’ and can even be paid as consultants to that effect.

Fizzy: You have to pay us fifty bits by the hour. No ifs ands or buts.

Three quarters of Zebrica are entirely afraid of having Jaded visit, mostly after the ‘Arise Chicken’ shamanistic ritual incident. As such Jaded can no longer mention chickens around Celestia or Linked Hearts.

Jade: Yeah, probably shouldn’t have dare Linked Hearts to get involved with that. Also, how was I supposed to know that Celestia was on vacation there that day and has serious alektorophobia? Incidentally, Linked Hearts also has alektorophobia now too.

If Jaded has a plan and it involves a bunch of weird stuff, it is better to ask for the end result of the plan than to have her try to list out every step of it. This is mostly because her explaining the plan makes it sound completely impossible and even lacking any form of understandable logic whatsoever.

Jaded can’t do normal, so expect something to happen if she tries to hold down a seemingly normal job for more than three hours. An Outside Context Problem, or OCP for short, is guaranteed to get her involved or caught up in it somehow.

Somehow riots broke out and some guy named Rolling Boat, a pony cop who got involved with stopping them, for some reason needed an Abyssinian’s help to bring things to a peaceful resolution.

Jaded was simply working in retail in Manehatten for that day in particular to prove a point, it simply became known as the ‘RoBo cop’ incident.

Jaded is no longer allowed to help plan parties with Pinkie Pie.

You don’t even need a hint to guess as to what happened.

Jaded is actually allowed to test every guards intelligences after performing a theft, so long as she can describe herself in a completely and extremely obtuse manner when asked if she saw the perpetrator to see if anyone is actually sharp enough on the uptake.

Twilight: She’s gotten away with that fifteen times, I’m so glad I let her go after the Equestria Education Association now.

Do not bother Jade while she is interacting with squirrels, not even if she seems to be wearing really obvious espionage gear. All guards are ordered to ignore any instance of this happening for the sake of Equestria's continued security.

If Jaded is being nice, that’s fine. If Jaded is being too nice, then ask what she wants and tell her to be straightforward and upfront about it if she gets a bit dodgy.

Jaded is not allowed to use cardboard boxes to sneak into a clock tower to destroy its metal gears.

If you hire Jaded to do a job, chance are she’s going to be doing something else while doing it. IE case a place out for a robbery or mischief. She at least always correctly finishes the job she’s hired to do.

Jade: I got the references for measuring a window, working at a Hayburger, checking a museums security as a consultant and more! I will help your new trainees figure out what they are doing, because I’ll be learning these things right alongside them!

If Jaded can legally get away with it, then she will definitely abuse that fact.

No matter how much she wants to, Twilight cannot make laws specifically for the sanity challenging things Jaded La Perm does in general.

Fluttershy: Well she can’t use Jade’s name specifically in a law, that’s just leaving it open so that someone else will eventually do it.

Jaded is no longer allow to perform the ‘Solar Flare’ technique, using one of Celestia’s feathers, in a dark cave where thestrals reside.

Jaded can be trusted as a sitter for children, what she cannot be trusted with is what she teaches them while doing said sitting.

Jaded is no longer allowed to mess with time travel to go back to the future multiple times. It seriously annoys her wives to no end and the dung from it smells horrible.

If Bahamut’s taco stand is nearby, then it is a good idea to just let Jaded buy what she wants from him.

If Tiamat’s noodle soup stand is nearby, then everyone will have to watch out for Jaded’s sodium intake.

Upsetting Jaded or any related family may get you banned from The Witch’s Fare. Trying to circumvent this ban by using friends to pick up food for you will possibly result in ending up on Jaded’s ‘petty kitty’ list.

Jaded is not a hero and should not be idolized as such, we don’t need things going to her head.

Jaded should know that the fast ball special is not a valid maneuver to use in combat, especially when it’s Arizona that is the one who is throwing you.

Jaded La Perm is allowed to make cameos or appearances in other fanfiction, as long as ‘Airship Mauled’ is mentioned as a reference point. It is okay if she’s alone or with anyone else, it doesn’t matter if she is not romantically involved with a broken horn unicorn or a quirky courtroom chimera.

Jaded is not allowed anywhere near Velvet’s floof while holding a normal sheet of paper.

Daring Do is no longer allowed to let anything happen to Jaded if her assistance is seriously needed to save the world.

Jaded is not allowed to go ‘native’ when it comes to Paprika’s nomadic alpaca tribe.

It is well documented that Jade has the inability to say the word ‘pulchritudinous’, especially in a way that could possibly save her life.

Do not give Jaded the time to plan your downfall if she is currently doing so!

If you want to survive, then either find a way to distract her by passing the buck to someone else honestly or somehow greatly appease her.

If you attempt to separate Jaded from her kittens for whatever reason… do not try to ransom them back to her if you are even remotely successful. It is just better to give said kittens back in a timely manner, safely and without incurring any physical harm or emotional damage.

Otherwise you’ll lose all your friends, any assets you thought you had will suddenly go missing, your entire family and anyone remotely related to you that can help you will be hospitalized and there’s no number of dimensions that you can put between yourself and Jaded where she will be entirely incapable of reaching you.

Jaded will in fact move heavens and earth to find you, ruin your life, then render you into a gibbering pile of an ailurophobe and might even permanently incapacitate you while she’s at it. Cupcakes and Full Cake will be available for Magical Alchemy usage when she catches up to you, not ‘IF’, it is definitely ‘WHEN’.

If for whatever reason Jaded doesn’t do any of this… then her friends, family or wives most certainly will! This will only occur because Jaded probably doesn’t know it has happened and hasn’t been informed yet. Everyone who even has half a brain would want to prevent her from going off on whatever eventual ‘pile of fertilizer’ thought it was a good idea to separate a loving queen from her kittens.

Full Turbo Ultimate Petty Kitty, is not very nice or even pretty. (Incidentally, Jaded now has the Mama Bear trait, see Kuril’s character sheet for more information.)

Jaded is a friendly, loving individual that is almost a normal Abyssinian in every way.

We however will not proclaim she is a well-adjusted, fully functioning member of society that doesn't cause as many problems as she solves.

Jaded is, thankfully, not invincible or immortal, even then it's not a good idea to try and take her down for any reason.

She does have a daughter that is a magical tree goddess of causality looping and can make you miserable, she learned how to make causality loops from Jade's awful math lessons.

Author's Note

That's all folks, I don't feel much like writing any time soon.

Chapter X, Airship Mauled Magical Alchemy Appendix! (Warning, possible spoilers!)

Author's Note

If you didn't heed the first warning in this chapter's title, you'll lose a sense of discovery if you don't read up to the most recent chapter.

The authors notes will still be used to inform of new alchemy ingredients and knowledge. Said knoweldge is added and will be contributing to the length of this supporting chapter as a reminder as to what everything can do.

Chapter X, Airship Mauled Magical Alchemy Appendix! (Warning, possible spoilers!)

-???-

"Sometimes, we just need a reminder of just how far we've come." The figure opened the book and started looking over the information. "I wonder what people would think of this without the context of the journey behind it all."

Magical Alchemy list.

Table of Contents.

Fish Bones.

Fish Scales.

Raven Feather.

Sunlight.

Knife.

Knife Sheath.

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Phoenix Feather.

Cloaks.

Cupcakes (banned).

Frog Mucus (banned).

Griffon Feather.

Fish Oil.

Candle Wax.

Pepper.

Tricorne.

Wood.

Waffle Mallet.

The Knuckler (Shields).

Chain Link.

Pack.

Griffon Mask.

Ocarina.

Air (It's a thing).

Rubber Chicken (Yes).

Electrum Locket.

(U) Jacky's Arrow Dynamic Bow.

Salamander Scales.

Power Pony Comic.

Hydra Scales.

Caltrop.

Magician's top hat.

Magician's cane.

Skirt.

Cardboard Box (Why does this even work?).

A unicycle (Because why not at this point?).

Gunbai!

Mirror.

Frying Pan.

Metallic Pole (Staff).

Clay mask.

Hourglass.

Crook (Small handheld).

String (Abyssinian hair).

(U) Jade's Roundabout Rebound Yo-yo.

Full Cake. (Quintuple Banned.)

Alicorn Feather (Cadence).

Horseshoe (As expected).

Pogo Stick.

Ever Burning Fire???

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater. Can be used to water proof objects.

Sustain: Water Projection (Continuous offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Sustain 2: Blood Projection (Dangerous offensive ability). Capable of performing a powerful projection, but only from open wounds. As one would imagine blood projection is exceedingly painful, taxing on the body and ultimately dangerous to the user. The intimidation factor might be worth the agony in the right situations, but it will always be a detriment to one’s health.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random (One time air terrain survival buff, possible offensive spell). Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain: Projecting thoughts. Not able to receive thoughts, but you can project them to others. Can project mental images.

Self-sustaining: none.

Sunlight.

Cast: Solar Flare. Creates a blinding light. Can only be used during the day time while standing in sunlight.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Entry Addendum (Added Chapter 21 Cult Evasion, The Reaper): It was discovered by Jade that this cast can be performed if you had something that stores sunlight.

-

Knife.

Cast: Magical backstab (One-use special attack). When used, the resulting energy knife does damage at a point opposite of where the knife's blade initially strikes. This effect can be blocked if one can grab the knife without the blade touching them.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness. Strengthens all mobility based buffs.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight. Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability. The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining. Does not protect the user from gravitational or high speed stress and lack of oxygen at high altitudes like a pegasus would be by their magic.

Sustain: Redirect sunlight (Defensive support buff). Is only useful during the day and allows for blinding opponents or aggressors with light.

Self-sustaining: Minor protection from darkness (Automatic defensive buff while feather is on person). Needs to be charged with sunlight and to have been used as a magical alchemy sustain at least once to work.

Entry Addendum (Added Chapter 21 Cult Evasion, The Reaper): The self sustaining properties can be used by the sustain to direct the stored sunlight from within the feather itself for various purposes. The fact that the feather synergizes with itself in multiple ways is amazing.

Phoenix Feather.

Cast: Cleansing Flames (Support healing spell). Finds and stops negative foreign bodily ailment or ailments that are magical or mundane, does not heal damage. Can possibly stop positive ailments.

Sustain: Protection from the cold (Continuous defensive buff). Immunity to cold, increased defensive ability against ice and relative elemental based magic.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Jade’s Cloak, Cloaks in general.

Cast: Creates a temporary shadow minion that will automatically do things and cannot be commanded. This cannot become permanent.

Sustain: Swimming Shadows (Darkness mobility buff). Able to dive into and swim through shadows as if they were water.

Cannot go through small cracks or into spaces smaller than the user. The user must hold their breath while actively using this ability. The physical motions of swimming have to be performed to move. Any light stronger than moonlight will disable the effect immediately. Moving in shadows can alert an attentive enough pony, but pegasus and thestral ponies are especially sensitive to this.

Self-Sustain: Makes sneaking easier (Moderate stealth buff).

Cupcake (Banned by Kuril).

Cast: You don’t want to know.

Sustain: Likely none.

Self-Sustain: Delicious.

Frog Mucus (Banned by Kuril).

Cast: Magical wide area sticky substance bomb (Hard to get out of clothing).

Sustain: None.

Self-sustain: Useful for witchery.

Griffon Feather.

Cast: Feather Falling (Limited air terrain support buff). Lowers gravity’s effect on an individual for a minute.

Sustain: Double Jump (Continuous Mobility buff). Can jump off the air one extra time after leaving a solid surface and only one time.

Self-sustain: None.

Fish Oil.

Cast: Ignition (Multipurpose offensive and support spell). Ignites itself and anything around it except the user.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Candle Wax.

Cast: Stiffness. Slow down a target, can have a wide area of effect for reduced effectiveness.

Sustain: Heat resistance (Limited continuous defensive buff). Does not stop heat damage entirely and candle takes heat damage in place of the user.

Self-Sustain: None.

Pepper.

Cast: Sneezing cloud (Limited continuous Defensive spell). Wide range spell that doesn’t affect the user, causes continuous sneezing on contact and doesn’t necessarily need to be breathed in to take effect.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: Useful for cooking.

Tricorne.

Cast: Charisma boost (Limited status buff). Gives one the ability to walk around with confidence.

Side-effect: May instill need for showboating in user.

Sustain: Sense unclaimed treasure.

Self-Sustain: Gain the ability to whistle jaunty tunes, even if you can’t naturally whistle. Increases chances of heart songs occurring.

Wood.

Cast: Bark skin (Temporary defensive buff). Make skin and fur tough like tree bark, like most casts can become permanent with multiple consecutive uses. Increases durability of objects when targeted. Causes mildly uncomfortable chafing on a living target.

Sustain: Hair growth in sunlight (Limited utility effect). Only works in direct sunlight.

Self-sustain: Magically enhanced building material.

Waffle Mallet.

Cast: Heaven's Hammer. Hits a large target area with a massive amount of blunt, concussive, force. This cannot kill.

Sustain: Random confusion effect chance (Weapon specific offensive buff). While sustained, the hammer has a low chance to cause confusion and or dizziness upon any impact. Said chance goes up significantly when hitting the head of a target. The strength of the impact doesn't matter, effect can still happen with the barest of taps.

Self-sustain: none.

The Knuckler (A Shield).

Cast: Ailment Barrier. Prevent sickness, magical effect or poison from affecting a target for thirty minutes, afterwards the cast will prevent one of the aforementioned effects one time. (Defensive Buff)

Sustain: Battle Barrier (Armor reliant ability). Creates a malleable and limited field of barrier energy that is very protective against low impact energy, ranged or weak area of effect based attacks.

Point blank the barrier energy can only operate within the radius of a foot from the direction the shield is pointing, at the maximum of ten feet away it can operate within a five foot radius. Field can be used for offensive purposes by generating weapons.

Can grab and move small objects with barrier energy depending on how much weight the arm using the sustain can support.

The weight of the shield itself is a problem. It cannot be used to move the wielder around with the grappling effect. Cannot be used to fly. Can be used for assisted jumping and gliding.

Any sufficient weight or force exerted on the barrier field is sent straight to the user, the chances for arm based injuries is increased by a factor of two while sustain is in effect. The shield itself stays undamaged from barrier attacks.

Self-Sustain: None.

Chain Link.

Cast: Stronger together. Temporary buff to all allies within a given area in all aspects depending on emotional bonds.

Sustain: Red String. Allows one to know where significant others are. Apparently only works if one is legally married.

Self-Sustain: Linked strength (Passive instant buff). While physically touching someone else that is close to the wielder, both wielder and ‘friendly’ target gain a ten percent boost to all stats. Clothing interferes in effect.

Pack.

Cast: Destination Manifestation. Teleports all objects within a given area to where one wants them to go. This is not limited by distance, but is limited by where the user has personally been.

Sustain: Storage capacity of pack magically increases (Continuous equipment specific utility buff). When sustain drops, a number of objects fly out of the pack without destroying it until carrying capacity normalizes. No weight canceling effect.

Self-Sustain: Stasis Storage (Permanent passive equipment upgrade). Anything that goes into the pack does not deteriorate and will always come out in the same state as it was when put in.

Griffon Mask.

Cast: Griffon Morph (Transformation). This cast last’s for about an hour, it transforms the user into what they would look like if they were a naturally born as a griffon with all the griffon related abilities therein. Alters appearance, abilities and all stats. Does not, thankfully, alter personality.

Sustain: Prideful Parading (Continuous utility buff, musical instrument required). While the mask is sustained the user gains the ability to play any wind instrument, but only while they are marching.

When marching, there is an area of effect makes most beings follow along behind the music player. If other beings are using musical instruments when joining the march, the tune of the music may change drastically.

Note: Effects do not work on all creatures, if the user is successfully attacked the effects of this magical sustain are immediately canceled until started again.

Self-sustain: Hawk Eyes (Permanent Passive equipment upgrade). Able to see at greater distances while wearing the griffon mask.

Ocarina.

Cast: Song of Space Time Rewind.

Warning: Can cause groundhog day loops. Refer to the 'back to the future' incident.

Sustain: Gentle Breeze (Continuous Utility Buff). Makes all other sounds gentler within the users given area. The user and the instrument themselves still make the same amount of noise.

Self-sustain: Accompaniment (Passive utility buff). Able to accompany any tune without actually knowing how to play it.

Air (It’s a thing).

Cast: Magic Missile (Offensive Ability). An abnormal cast that uses up bodily energy instead of the object used, creates oval shaped energy blasts. Cast cannot be fired rapidly, cannot increase power or output of cast and each use drains the user’s energy. Pew pew!

Sustain: None.

Self-sustain: Breathable.

Rubber Chicken (Yes).

Cast: Immediate Seriousness. Everyone takes everything far too seriously as if it were a grim situation.

Sustain: Rubber Hose Physics. Increased flexibility, stretchiness, squishiness and resilience to blunt forces.

Sustain Side effect: Less refined bodily control.

Self-Sustain: Can cause comedic pratfalls when thrown and can fit into places it obviously shouldn’t.

Electrum Locket.

Cast: Echo of the Past. Randomly summons an echo of anyone from the past to assist the user for thirty minutes, the user will at least know the person somewhat vaguely even if they are only seen once for a few seconds.

Warning: This can also summon echoes of those who are still living, such as Twilight as a unicorn. It's odd that she was the very first result of this cast.

Sustain: Become capable of reliving memories clearly.

Self-sustain (special): Due to what the locket is made of, it is hard to damage with physical force. Magically draining it will stop the self-sustain effect. Magical attacks can and will still damage the locket.

(Unique) Jacky's Arrow Dynamic Bow.

Cast: ???. (Don't want to find out.)

Sustain: None.

Self-sustain: Bow is capable of firing just about anything as if they are arrows with arrow related physics.

Note: Bow is almost functionally impossible to destroy, no idea why.

-

Salamander Scales.

Cast: Fire Wall. Prevents most monsters from hacking into you.

Sustain: Heat Of Battle. Useful for making ink or paint dry faster, also useful for exhausting or dehydrating opponents. Heat does not effect the wielder.

Self-sustain: Heat vision. Can see through invisibility and most illusionary spells.

Enchanted Power Ponies Comic. (Enchanted Comics or comics in general.)

Cast: Comic Character. Summon one random prominent character from the comic book in question, they will aid you however they see fit.

Warning: This will even summon villains, how they might aid you can lead to problems.

Sustain: Unique Alternate Universe self-insertion, temporary break from reality.

Warning: Once this sustain is started, it can’t be stopped for five minutes! Those involved in the magical alchemy sustain must meet a specific requirements for it to end afterwards.

Self-sustain: Always in mint condition.

Hydra Scale.

Cast: Regeneration. Limited to healing all injuries that happen while this cast is active.

Warning: Increased hunger, tiredness and all the things of healing fast that would be problematic. This does not cause rapid aging thankfully.

Sustain: Forked Road. The hydra scale has the unique property of seemingly making one clone of the wielder. Clone is capable of only using ‘cast’ or self-sustaining based magical alchemy, given it is an effect of sustainment itself. Disappears in a burst of light when sustain drops. Cannot act negatively in any way, shape or form against the wielder.

Warning: Any damage done to the clone translates straight to the wielder and vice versa, if the wielder is injured so is the clone. If the clone dies so too does the wielder. Clone does not transfer memories upon dispersal as clone is already mentally linked to the wielder. Only the original wielder can end the sustain.

Self-sustain: None.

Caltrop.

Cast: Straight Forward (Small area of effect temporary mobility debuff). Makes it impossible for anyone to turn or move in any other direction than the one they are facing when the cast hits. The effected can still stop or control how fast they are moving personally, if the effected is not aware of this they can be potentially led to a point where they will run straight into traps.

Sustain: Spiny Hide (Defensive buff, mobility debuff). While in use, the user gains half their weight added on to their current weight, their body also becomes covered in spikes and thorns that aren’t easily broken. The user’s skin is still normally vulnerable to damage and are left quite susceptible to fire and or other form of ranged attacks due to loss of speed.

Sustain Side Effects: Counts as excellent weight training while in use, exhausts the user if they have to move too far, user is incapable of jumping. Dangerous to hug.

Self-sustain: Animal wariness (Passive buff). For whatever reason, dangerous animals become less likely to approach if this object is being held by anyone after having been sustained once. That doesn’t mean the animal can’t attack or approach, it means that they would be far more unwilling to. Effect possibly increases with more caltrops.

Magician’s top hat.

Cast: A real magician never reveals their secrets.

Sustain: A real magician never reveals their secrets.

Self-sustain: A real magician never reveals their secrets.

Magician’s Cane.

Cast: A real magician never reveals their secrets.

Sustain: A real magician never reveals their secrets.

Self-sustain: You don’t get it yet, do you?

Skirt.

Cast: Pirouette Power. Become capable of spinning at incredible speeds for offensive, defensive and mobility based purposes for about five minutes. Cast cannot be made permanent.

Sustain: Dancing mad (Mobility buff). Makes wielder evade attacks by dancing, also heavily boosts evasive ability.

Self-sustain: Two right feet! While sustained, gives the wearer the ability to teach other’s to dance.

Cardboard Box (Why does this even work?).

Cast: Fortress-fixation. Makes targets fall into a playful mind set, one that makes them build fortresses out of any nearby materials for anywhere between an hour or two. Most common materials used are pillows, blankets, chairs, books and the like. Should the fort be completed, the effect either wears off or the target has some fun with the fort.

This cast cannot be made permanent as it immediately wears off if the target goes to sleep or is knocked out, it also has no effect whatsoever on ponies who have cutie marks in construction.

Sustain: Imagine a place. While inside the sustained cardboard box or boxes, user can lucidly daydream while awake.

Self-sustain: Snake in a box (Impossible stealth buff). Hiding in a cardboard box that has been sustained causes a rather unique effect of making the box the most uninteresting thing around unless it moves or someone needs its contents.

A unicycle (Because why not at this point?).

Cast: Zero Gravity shift. Become able to weigh your full weight down to weighing nothing at all.

Sustain: Inertia is not a cruel mistress (Mobility buff). Can quickly accelerate the unicycle safely to obscene levels and stop it on a dime. Note: Only works while the user themselves is physically pedaling the unicycle. It is technically the magical sustain of a singular unicycle pedal.

Self-sustain: Like a gun… with training wheels on it (Passive permanent utility buff). This self-sustain makes it harder to make the unicycle fall over.

Gunbai! (Fans in general)

Cast: Wind Commander. For a short time change the direction of any flowing air, the user can increase or decrease that flow.

Warning: If there is no wind already present, then this cast doesn't do anything.

Sustain: Axis Alteration (Utility ability). Can flip or rotate the X, Y or Z axis of any ‘one’ object within a three hundred and sixty degree range as long as you can see the object or point at it. Only works on one inanimate target and in general things that aren’t spherical in shape, it also cannot effect an object with active magic.

Self-sustain: Exhaustion Recovery (Permanent passive equipment upgrade). If used as a fan, it cools one down quickly no matter the heat and helps gain back stamina much faster than should normally be possible.

Mirror.

Cast: Copycat (Special cast). Creates a temporary physical clone seemingly made of glass for a short amount of time that can do everything the target could at their peak. The target can be anyone the mirror can be pointed at, said copy is controlled by the users will.

Note: Copycat clone does not translate damage back to the user if damaged, clone however is easily destroyed and breaks exactly like glass before evaporating. It can match physical strength of the target, but it can not match physical or magical resilience therein and will easily take damage no matter what it is hit with.

Sustain: The Looking Glass (Utility Ability). Become able to see things beyond what normal sight can, even some things that were not meant to be seen by anyone.

Warning: Some things seen with naked eyes in combination with this sustain can cause painful backlash.

Self-sustain: Reflector (Permanent equipment upgrade). Can reflect most forms of energy, especially magic that isn't magical alchemy directed at it.

Frying Pan. (Took a while to actually test this one for fear of violence potential -Kuril.)

Cast: Fatten Fending (Body morphing debuff/buff/body horror).

Of all the body modifications casting... ugh…

Okay, so to give it to everyone straight, the cast of the frying pan is horrible. (I lost one pan for this out of curiosity, I am now quite sure that I shouldn’t be too curious unless I have a decent guess as to what the cast will do -Kuril.)

To say it nicely this cast makes you bulkier, but not in a good way and it gets really ugly quite fast. (The acne was the worst part of it all, but at least everything clears up when this cast wears off -Kuril.)

You become rounder, slower and overall you gain a fried food smell. Also if you sweat while turned into a fat giant blob cat, or whatever you happen to be, then you’re sweat turns out to be made of cooking oil. Also this cast lasts approximately three hours, but exercise, activity and or lots of movement shortens the time considerably.

Until the time is up, you are almost entirely impervious to harm from just about everything including most forms of poison and nothing can definitively get a good grip on to you if you’ve been sweating. (Will not use again unless situation is so stupidly dire that survival requires this, such as being tested by Bahamut the seemingly friendly taco dragon –Kuril.)

Suffice it to say, I hate this cast and even then it could still prove useful in the right circumstances –Kuril.

Sustain: Metal heating. The user gains the ability to heat any metal within line of sight and only if you can focus on the metal in question in any given manner. (Helps with cooking meals, sometimes I forget to turn the stove on. There are some upsides to a frying pan's magical alchemy I can get behind –Kuril.)

Self-sustain: Heat immunity. (Only when equipped, you should not be touching anything hot while letting go of the frying pan –Kuril.) As long as you’re holding the frying pan after a sustain effect was used on it, you are immune to heat up to and including beyond that of lava.

It might even be possible to survive being on the sun with this, though I am not currently willing to test or bet my life on it -Kuril.

Note: Does not make you immune to the effects of fire, just the heat from the fire. Compared to heat resistance of Salamander scale, big difference is that the Salamander scale do not make you immune to other sources of heat.

Side effect: Pan can no longer be reforged or melted. Addendum: Magic spell used on pan to remove magical effects can remove instated melt immunity of said frying pan until sustained again.

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Metallic Pole (Staff).

Cast: Orb creation. Creates a orb with a random magical effect, the size of the orb is dependent on the size of the metal staff used.

Note: First example of object becoming another object, once the cast is fully utilized the object cannot be turned back into a metallic staff. The orb created does not longer reacts to magical alchemy, but the holder can do whatever simple effect the orb comes with.

Sustain: Magic Rod. Like a lightning rod, it attracts lightning attacks and magical ones as well, it will both dampen and dissipate the energy into the surroundings.

Note: It does not dissipate the energy in an entirely safe manner, may cause mild burning, electrocution, freezing or other various effects depending on magic used while in effect.

Self Sustain: The ambient magic absorbed by the pole could be used to stir some potions for boosted efficacy.

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Clay Mask.

Cast: Changeling Chicanery. Temporarily become anything known to the user, so long as it is feasible and within certain bounds, for about thirty minutes.

When turning into creatures with any kind of incredible magical power, the user usually gets a baseline ability that is only about a quarter as effective as the real thing with some exceptions. One would not be a match for a regular unicorn in magic, one could not match an earth pony in strength and flight as a Pegasus is dependent on the users knowledge and prior flight experience. So there are less limitations when it comes to learned skills while transformed, compared to having the magical strength that naturally comes with actually being said being.

When in terms of feasibility, one can not turn into a goddess or god using this cast. Alicorns, Draconequus and the like are impossible to transform into using this, this also includes changeling queens. It does not, however, stop one from becoming a changeling and changing to look like a changeling queen, draconequus or alicorn.

The limitations are still being tested, but it apparently always runs at half or even less time than a specific mask like a Griffon Mask would work for.

Sustain: Shaping Illusion. The sustain of a clay mask allows one to change appearance within the limits of the mass of what is being shaped, the knew form will look and feel quite real to anyone who interacts with it. This can be used to hide things on ones person and alter any object in contact with the user to look different.

Self-sustain: Illusion Persistence. More of a side effect on anything that is not alive. When an object is shifted by the Shaping Illusion sustain, it will hold a limited level of permanence for a certain amount of time.

It is fairly useful if you want someone to mistake an item for something else until the effects wear off. Imagine some grabbing for a sword and it's actually a broom that takes a while to tell said person that what they are wielding is in fact a broom.

Jade used the self-sustaining properties to make it look like she can hold or hurl green fireballs which are still the strength of a standard 'air' cast, she just does this because it just looks cooler and has no extra effects otherwise other than being visually stunning.

This certainly sets up an annoying precedent for Jade getting crafty with the self-sustain, while writing this I had my pens, pencils and other writing utensils such as painting brushes turn out to actually be a small ears of baby corn no less than five times.

If my kitten keeps this up, I'm going to absolutely throttle her... with love and kindness of course, since I just found out my last pen was actually a small carrot this time.

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Hourglass.

Cast: The Answer, to Space Time Continuing. If you were ever knocked outside of time and space, use this to return to the time stream.

Warning: Does not necessarily return one to the correct position in the time stream. This cast doesn't work if you are back in the timestream already. Jade attempted to skip forward in time with second hourglass during the Anugyptian War.

Sustain: Momentum Acceleration. Gain the ability to move with ever increasing speed up to a specific maximum limit with barely any downside. This sustain actually prevents exhaustion. Stopping or loss of momentum will reset the users speed back to base and will build up from there again, exceptionally useful for free running.

Warning: Overuse of this sustain eventually makes the hourglass explode, warning signs that this is about to happen is when the hourglass starts cracking. It is best used in small bursts.

Self-sustain: Imminent Death Clock. This self sustain is fairly odd, it determines how soon the wielder will die if you don't eat, drink or sleep and is usually a countdown from at most seven days.

The time on the clock shrinks greatly depending on injury or sickness if left untreated, it is also shorter with older aged beings. The timer increases when the person takes care of themselves. Time reads as infinite when wielded by an immortal, ascended or otherwise powerful figure.

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Crook (Small handheld). Ancient Anugyptian weapon usually used for defense instead of shepherding.

Cast: Exit stage right... or left. Teleports target outside of the visual range of everyone, within at least three miles of the target this is used on. Though it seemed random at first, the target tends to usually appear in the closest 'out of the way' location that no one is looking at.

Sustain: Thieving Crook. When hooked onto something or the edge of the crook makes contact, the object or being becomes magically stuck to the crook. This is useful for theft, defense or grappling weapons out of someone's grip.

Handheld combat crooks are used for defensive purposes already, so this makes it all that much easier to take a weapon from your opponent or pull them off balance. This effect can be toggled on or off easily to throw off an opponents balance.

Self-sustain: Maintained Balance (Defensive Support Buff). If you block something you are more likely to stay standing and even works if you get hit.

Jade Note: This is really useful, having a crook on you will make it harder for you to be knocked down even if you aren't holding it. Fair warning, it is not a force field and it will only try to keep you upright after an impact.

This also incidentally ties back into the sustain making it even more effective as it will be harder for someone to use the sustain against you.

The way this self-sustain works is not always perfect and it is entirely dependent on the weight of the user and whether or not they are standing on solid ground and are braced for an impact. Maximum effect is on any form of solid ground, has a minimum effect while on sand.

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String (Abyssinian Hair). Requires the string to be made of braided, knitted or crocheted thread based material and needs to count as a singular object to be used.

Cast: String Theory. Bizarre effect that makes any targeted weaved object unravel in an instant, could possibly solve a Gordian Knot. The unraveled material is not destroyed by this.

Kuril note: Oddly useful for untangling unruly hair without a hairbrush, like that of my girls. Helps with Jacky's thick head of feathers too!

Sustain: Braid (Ability). Can create or weave other materials quickly in an effective manner, useful if you need a rope or something to tie someone up with. Can also do some neat things with a pony's mane.

Note: Can not use the sustain on the object being sustained.

Self-sustain: Stretchy. String becomes somewhat elastic and slightly tougher after sustainment.

Note: This does not explain the odd effects of Jacky's bow in the slightest when anything is put to the string of it.

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(Unique) Jade's Roundabout Rebound Yo-yo.

Cast: N/A. (Does not count as singular object so likely uses string or wood magical alchemy.)

Sustain: N/A. (Does not count as a singular object so likely uses string or wood magical alchemy.)

Self-sustain: Yo-yo Oddities. Allows the wielder to perform some ridiculous feats that should be completely impossible with a normal yo-yo. Just because it allows these odd things, doesn't mean that said things don't require tons of practice or luck to do.

Fizzle's notes: There's a strange effect that the Yo-yo will always bounce off something at a near perfect forty-five degree angle unless it hits something dead on or there is not enough string for the bounce. The string for some odd reason becomes angular from a forty five degree bounce and it seems the string is not always a constant single normal length. The yo-yo can be veered mid toss to wrap around things if the string is moved to connect with something. The yo-yo will continuously spin if tossed straight down, until returned with a tug or it touches something solid. There's something screwy about the friction of the string in combination with the yo-yo.

Whatever Jade did to make a string and a carved bunch of wood have these strange effects, it is something based in really odd and confusing magical properties. Not that Jade hasn't done weird things before, but she probably shouldn't be allowed to make nunchucks after personally testing some of these strange effects numerous times.

Kuril note: Making things by hand while sustaining each part seems to give a completed object some strange odd magical traits. Jacky's Bow and Jade's Yo-yo are among the few magical alchemy created weapons, Jade's weapon is less effective because it's two objects working as one whereas Jacky's weapon is a singular object entirely... also the bow has been discovered to be functionally unbreakable.

I agree with Fizzle... no nunchucks Jade!

Jade note: Aww... come on, nunchucks are awesome!

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Full Cake. (Quintuple Banned, by everyone with at least any sense of decency whatsoever.)

Warning note: Twilight Sparkle made a law stating that it should only be used in the event of an apocalyptic level monstrosity. Otherwise the legal use varies depending on if it is required to save someone's life. Otherwise it is mostly illegal in all nations, including the Turtle Toga Pirate's Union, for a magical alchemist to use a 'Full Cake' as a weapon. Even using it on Discord is considered highly illegal, because yes, the effects are really that nasty. No one even partially insane wants to go through this twice.

Cast: Feels Like Dying. What a cupcake does, with automatic area of effect that isn't diluted like what happens when a cupcake is used widespread and the effects are about four times worse, maybe more than that.

Jade note: After a moderate length horror show, it still ends in barfing up rainbows for whatever reason. So much rainbow colored fluids... the rainbows coming from my throat... eyes... other orifices I would rather not discuss... they haunt my nightmares... to the point Princess Luna has nightmares about them from trying to help me...

Sustain: None. (It has been found out that food items will rarely, if ever, have sustains. Anything that is prepared with fire or heat basically.)

Self-sustain: Forever Tasty. Cake will not rot after sustainment, it is still digestible though. The part of the cake touched will go to the magical alchemy user who did the sustainment of course.

Kuril Note: At least one positive thing came of this, full cake gains the inability to rot with but a tap or scrape of icing. any added icing after sustainment will still rot.

Alicorn Feather (Cadence),

Cast: Wings of Love. Ability of flight, increased sensitivity, increases existing love bonds by approximately 200% and 'LOVE' is more likely to happen.

Warning: Only use after eating and drinking, may end up losing massive amounts of fluids and energy due to raw passion.

Sustain: Stamina Boost (Continuous Passive Buff). Increases stamina by 50%, increase stamina regeneration by 100%. Increases hunger and thirst a third as much as the cast does.

Self-sustain: Loving you just because you're beautiful is not an option. Can always see beauty beyond outward appearances in those you love.

Warning: Causes hallucinations that may makes partner or partners seem more or less exceedingly attractive, self sustain only effects those already in love.

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Horseshoe (As Expected).

Cast: Unlucky. Whatever the magic hits has a bout of bad luck, approximately the same amount as Jacky Chickadee has, once.

If timed right, this could have epic implications.

Sustain: Iron Hooves. Wielders feet gains incredible kicking power, also the feet are invulnerable to injury including self inflicted, magical or otherwise. The rest of the body is not immune to damage, but the wielders legs noticeably have more resilience and are able to stand their ground better. Possibly a bit of added weight to the user overall without affecting movement.

Possible combo: Crook's self-sustain buff, combined with this, could make it impossible to knock someone over.

Self-sustain: Lucky. One chance to avoid painful injury or have something exceedingly good happens to the holder, however this inevitably destroys the horseshoe as a counterbalance.

Pogo Stick.

Cast: Recoil Counter (One-time defensive buff). Anything the cast is used on will, when struck, return the force dealt by the blow by three hundred percent to the object or part of the body that strikes it.

Warning: It is best to tap something when Recoil Counter is up.

Sustain: Spring Control (Object Based Mobility Buff). Able to control the spring precisely to the point that it can be made to have more or less power than usual.

A pogo stick with this sustain running can easily jump at least a hundred feet straight up. Can be used to launch yourself downwards while in mid-air, but not upwards.

Self-sustain: Aerial Gyroscope (Permanent Object Base Mobility Buff). Can control sideways momentum and rotation of the pogo stick with incredible speed, however one can not change upwards or downwards momentum.

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Ever Burning Fire???

Cast: Create Star?

Sustain: Create protective flames?

Self-sustain: Guiding Light?

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Combinations List.

Combination 1: Candle Wax + Oil (any) + Pepper = Chaos Candle. Candle hollowed out and filled with the other two ingredients mixed together equals devastating results.

Cast: Sneezing flash bomb (Offensive one use spell). Blinding, sinus wrecking and volatile magical cast.

Sustain Cast: Weak jet propulsion device (Limited air terrain support buff), Flamethrower (Limited offensive spell). Doing this will slowly destroy the candle and chemicals used in it. Exhaust fumes has a lesser effect of casting with pepper.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 2: Feather + stick + arrowhead (material any) = Arrow. Arrow + poison = special status ailment added to casting effect based on poison used. Pukwudgie Poison (Paralysis for a few hours).

Cast: Arcing Arrow Beam (Offensive spell). Fires a beam that is effected by gravity as if it were an arrow, it can only damage one target and that’s the first thing it touches. If it grazes a wall and then hits you, it will do nothing to you.

Sustain Cast: Spray of multiple weaker beam shots.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 3: Sustained Fish Scales + ambient ice magic = Ice projection.

Combination requires outside source of ice or freezing magic to wield. This combination has no cast or sustain capability. The wielder of the fish scales can alter projectile size and shape until the ice magic runs out or a sufficient amount of water from the fish scale wielders body is lost.

Combination 4: Knife + Caltrop = Special throwing magical backstab (Can't block).

Cast: Using a caltrop cast on a cast knife results in an interesting mix magical alchemy effects, the resulting energy knife becomes impervious to damage from energy based attacks, it may even deflect or cut through them until it hits something solid. When thrown, it is completely impossible to block. If aimed at you, evasion is recommended.

Warning notes: The knife gains 'instant magical backstab' upon contact with anything after being released, including the user. After adding the caltrop cast to the cast knife, the casts can no longer be separated or reversed to get the objects used back.

Unlike a regular magical backstab, this combination makes it so the energy knife can't be grabbed by anyone else without immediately setting off the knife's 'magical backstab' effect. The caltrop effect of 'Straight Forward' is always active unless the energy knife is sustained. If dropped on the ground, the 'instant backstab' effect might travel to the opposite side of the planet.

Sustain-cast: Suppresses 'Straight Forward' from caltrop portion of combination, can only be used while user is still holding the knife from starting the combination.

Sustain: N/A.

Self-sustain: Instantaneous magical backstab upon contact with anything solid before or after the user 'fully' releases the knife, after the user releases the knife this can even have an effect on the user.

"So many things to be remembered and forgotten in equal parts. I'll have a look at it again later..." The tired figure said before closing the book and putting it away. "There is always more we can learn by looking back."

Character Sheet # 1 Jaded La Perm

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Character Sheet # 2 Jacky 'Blackcap' Chickadee

Name: Jacky ‘The Blackcap’ Chickadee/ Captain Jacky Blackcap Chickadee Eric La Perm.

Race: Ornithian Parrot.

Gender: Female.

Orientation: Barn door opens only for stallions.

Class: Pirate Mechanic/ Blue Pirate*.

Do you like fixing, building or creating things? Then you might be a mechanic.

Do you like flying the sky or sailing the sea, while you are looking for booty~? You are pirate~!

Why not try both?

As a pirate Mechanic you are capable of all the feats of both, but you’re usually more skilled in one than the other.

If you are more skilled in being a pirate, then you can perform all the duties you can imagine would needed to be done on a ship or vehicle of any kind. The mechanic side allows you to craft small tools of the trade and repair almost any damage done to just about anything, provided you have the materials to do so.

If you are more skilled in being a mechanic, then you have incredible crafting skills and can do big things. You also like to lie, cheat and steal to fuel your passion for constructive construction.

Star Class: A blue pirate is one that never goes after civilian targets, at least not without a very good reason to do so and tends to be more in it for the adventures they can get into. They tend to fight other pirates or go after evil organizations or groups, acting more like privateers for hire while still being beholden to none but their ship.

Bio: Jacky was born and grew up as an orphan on the moving island of Turtle Toga, said to be a landmass on the back of a humongous sea turtle that doesn’t want to drown the friendly pirates and even seems to like them.

Throughout her early life Jacky was confined to the island and completely incapable of escaping it, mostly due in part to her cursed luck getting in the way and destroying every method off of the island when she tries to escape. Cursed pirates have the moniker of ‘Blackcap’, Jacky’s curse was bad enough that she was known as ‘The Blackcap’ due to the destructive nature of her curse.

Despite the few hundred thousand setbacks until Jaded La Perm shows up, she tries to keep a positive attitude and outlook on life.

To this end she took every course of Pirate Training available to her, a pirate can even Hold Breath underwater for a staggeringly ridiculous amount of time. She pushed her body hard despite the traumatic life she was living and became Skilled at many things.

The schools on Turtle Toga prove to be actually very good in giving her skills needed to be a pirate. She learned everything from navigation, to fighting and even ballroom dancing.

Jacky has the Devil’s Misfortune that she couldn’t even leave the island as a slave, at least until she met Jaded after making her to slip on a banana peel and did the impossible by landing on her feet.

It was safe to say that before this moment occurred, her curse was slowly trying to wear her down and break her spirit. It broke her body, her bones and ripped her flesh in many numerous painful ways, but never did her spirit for adventure die as she looked towards the horizon to sometimes see continents or other islands and dreamed of the day she could castoff. She had to be a ‘Goddess of Resilience’ to keep living as she does.

Hoping her Curse Influence didn’t effect what she saw as an opportunity, Jacky tried to make herself useful to Jade in the hopes that this could be the Captain she was waiting for. Someone to guide her way from being a pirate tracked sitting on docks watching others coming and going for the rest of her life.

She had found her captain and she knew that her luck couldn’t hold her back forever! Friends, family and love were beyond her horizon and she jumped straight into the maw of the worst storm imaginable with her new crazy cat friend and came out the other side as sisters from adversity.

Through sheer force of will, Jacky’s resilience saw her through what was supposed to be a completely hopeless situation to wash up on Turtle Toga’s shores again. Now she only has to worry about the occasional airborne tree as she is free to explore the world at her leisure.

Meeting Jaded and being adopted by Kuril La Perm was probably one of the luckiest things to ever happen to Jacky Blackcap Chickadee… La Perm.

Appearance: Anthropomorphic Parrot, Black down, white down around purple eyes, black head feathers from mid back all the way down to her waist. She hide her small fluffy ears under her skull cap. She has short tail feathers on a moderate to short length tail. Thin and tall frame, covered in healed over scars. Beak is straighter and more like a griffons than an average ornithian parrot. Capable of bipedal motion. Wears vests, cloth pants and belts, sometimes has undershirts.

Positive Trait/s: Hold Breath, Pirate Training, Skilled*, Goddess of Resilience+*.

Negative Trait/s: Devil’s Misfortune+, Curse Influence.

Racial Trait: Fall Damage Reduction.

Racial Bonus: Parrot Pals. Add points to Charisma.

List of Skills: Pirate Weapon/s Mastery, Brawling, Engineering, Navigation, Commanding Presence*, Sprint.

Special Ability: Banana Peel Gag.

The ability to make anyone slip on something slippery when thrown to a rather painful or highly comedic effect, the higher the targets dexterity the less likely this is to work. Good for running away from danger and is a major distraction action. It has a slight Area of Effect which is bigger the more slippery things or substances added to a given area.

Luck does not affect this special abilities chances to work.

Warning: Can really hurt innocent people or friends by accident.

Magical Talent: Magical Artifacts.

The character can use magical artifacts in unintended ways that others wouldn’t even begin to think of.

Cutie Mark: N/A

Stats: Measuring from 1 to 10, 1 being weakest for given species, 5 being average for given species, 10 is strongest for given species. Anything above 10 for every 2 points has a title that goes from ‘SUPER-natural’ to ‘Demi-god’ to ‘Godlike’ to ‘Minor God’ to ‘Outright God Of This One Thing In Particular’.

Strength: Physical prowess of the character. 6-7*/10.

Jacky is not the strongest being to exist, but she can hit slightly harder than most when pushed. She’s exceptionally good at fighting with a weapon in her talons.

Star Stat: Skilled adds plus one to all stats when using skills or having traits relative to them.

Constitution: Injuries the character can take before death and the amount of stamina they have. 20-21*/10.

Jacky is not actually a goddess or ascending into being one, but with the trait ‘Goddess of Resilience’ she might as well be impossible to kill, especially in a single blow. Deadly status ailments like ‘Petrified’ and multiple damaging blows are required to bring her down.

Star Stat: Skilled adds plus one to all stats when using skills or having traits relative to them.

Dexterity: How fast a character moves or reacts to their surroundings. 9-10*/10.

Jacky is very good at cardiovascular exercises like dancing, sword fighting and running, she even outran a magical boulder of ever increasing danger that was later named ‘Ragna’.

Star Stat: Skilled adds plus one to all stats when using skills or having traits relative to them.

Intelligence: Knowledge and the ability to use it. 9-10*/10.

Jacky’s above average in intelligence, she knows how to build and repair most things broken by her curse. She even repaired a tank once with parts from an even bigger tank.

Star Stat: Skilled adds plus one to all stats when using skills or having traits relative to them.

Wisdom: Common sense, self-restraint. 4-5*/10.

If Jacky had more self-restraint and common sense, she would have given up hope long ago and would still be in Turtle toga.

Sometimes having poor wisdom is a good thing.

Star Stat: Skilled adds plus one to all stats when using skills or having traits relative to them.

Charisma: Leadership, persuade, adorable antics. 8-9*, 4-5*/10

Jacky hardly breaks even in Charisma thanks to the racial bonus, but what she lacks in charisma she makes up for in people who can overlook her curse nature to befriend the real parrot behind it.

Star Stat: Commanding Presence boosts Charisma.

Star Stat: Skilled adds plus one to all stats when using skills or having traits relative to them.

Star stat: Curse Influence lowers Charisma to 1, with racial bonus added afterwards.

Luck: Determines if good or bad things happen. -24*, 1*, -25*/10

The reaper has a few questions for Jacky, one is ‘Why won’t you die?!’

Jacky’s luck is horrendous enough that something bad happens to her at least once a day, sometimes even before she wakes up from sleeping.

There are rare times when Jacky’s luck isn’t in the negatives and is actually somewhat tolerable, only occurs when asleep or badly injured. Being Skilled can only help so much in survival, you best have some constitution or you won’t live long.

Star Stat: Skilled adds plus one to all stats when using skills or having traits relative to them.

Star Stat: Rarely will this stat ever go into the positives, even a luck of 1 is better than nothing.

Start Stat: Devil’s Misfortune+ decreases luck state to negative twenty, dropped a further five points with additive ‘+’ for even worse effects.

Skills: What is the character good at doing?

Pirate Weapon/s Mastery: Your character can use any weapon that a pirate can, this includes swords of any kind, small one handed clubs, all forms of cannons and artillery, most spears that are not of a special classification, wrenches and rarely handheld projectile firing weaponry like crossbows.

Brawling: Learning how to fight with your bare hands/hooves/claws/etc. is a good thing, even without a weapon you are not unarmed until you are literally un-armed.

Engineering: The skill to repair, modify or create objects, this also makes it easier to know how to pilot or work vehicles. This skill depends on the Intelligence and Dexterity stats when creating something new or making something from a blueprint.

Navigation: The skill to know which way your butt is facing and what you’re leaving behind, you’ll even get to where you’re going eventually. Your character can read maps, make maps and even accurately determine location without having maps at all. There’s also compasses, sextants and other things like the character guiding themselves by the stars that boosts this skills effectiveness.

It is impossible for the character to be completely lost.

Commanding Presence*: This skill has been earned by taking charge enough times and taking on a leadership role. Aside from a large Charisma boost, this gives your character the ability to order friends, family or others around when it comes to the subjects your character excels in or if you have an idea of what to do about a given situation.

Sprint: Allows one to run for longer periods of time. The more Constitution the character has, the longer they can keep running at top speed.

Traits: Natural positive, neutral or negative things about the character.

Hold Breath: Whether someone is trying to choke you to death, you’re underwater, in the middle of a gas attack or whatever the situation, your character can safely hold their breath for up to ten solid minutes. Going over ten minutes tends to be immediately lethal.

Pirate Training: Your character knows the ins and outs of being a scallywag, they could even be good enough to be a captain of their own vessel. They learned how to steal, fight, how to work on pirated vehicles and ballroom dancing.

Skilled: Whatever you do, you’re certainly doing it better than you were when you started. You are skilled at learning and doing many things. Anything that relates to what you are good at is always just a little bit easier to do.

Goddess of Resilience+: Nothing can keep you down. Quite literally, a single god powered blow cannot fell your character easily and shock injuries has minimal effect on the characters capacity to do things. Magic attacks hurt, but they are going to do half as much to the character with this trait. The character with this trait is less likely to suffer permanent injury from anything.

This is the upgraded version of ‘Impossible Pain Threshold’, requires surviving constant shock or mortal injuries over a short period of time. The other requirement is that the character has a positive outlook on life despite the thousand plus consistently painful injuries needed to earn this trait, otherwise they end up with ‘Goddess of Sorrow’.

Devil’s Misfortune+: Whether you were cursed by a sea witch, Queen Novo or you just have some really bad pirate heritage juju going on, you really do not want this trait. Something bad always happens to you once every single day, maybe even once an hour or every ten minutes. Your life will not be an easy one and this trait will tend lead to a lifetime of suffering.

Luck, what luck? You barely have a chance at having any with this curse hanging over your head and it’s intrinsic to who your very being. So there’s nothing to cure, there’s only living with it to the best of your abilities.

Lightning seems to strike you twice, trees come flying from out of ether intending to break your body and cannonballs will more likely veer towards you at a ninety degree angle in spite of the laws of physics. Your character can even fall up two flights of stairs despite how ridiculously impossible that sounds.

If you’re not paranoid about absolutely everything, this trait might kill you unless you are resilient enough to survive every horrible incident that occurs. This is bad luck in an advanced state, but you can mitigate this curse with positive stats to some degree. The most important curse mitigation stats are Constitution and Dexterity.

Suffice it to say, your character is thrice cursed living disaster zone. The times this curse are not active is when the character is suffering from severe injury and or is asleep, the curse seems to want the character to die a slow and exceedingly painful death. So it will never try to outright kill the character.

Curse Influence: If your character is cursed, the curse has a random chance to effect those near you. This is includes loved ones, but don’t fret, sometimes those loved ones might have divine protection or are lucky enough to avoid being harmed by the curse’s influence.

This tanks your characters charisma and tends to make them a social pariah. This trait is really bad for making friends, but that doesn’t mean it can stop you from having them. It’s more of a misery loves company thing at that point.

Worships: Sekhet, Pirates in general, Her Captain Jaded La Perm, The Lucky Stars at Night.

Loves: Jacqueline Sparrow, Her Sisters, Kuril La Perm, The Ardent Survivor, Her Crew, Her Husband Gene Eric, Her Adorable Son Gavin, surviving through another day, being able to make people happy or at least help them in some capacity.

Likes: Airships, Boats, Engineering, Flying, Good Food, being ‘relatively’ healthy and her home port of Airship Mauled.

Dislikes: Her Blackcap Curse, anyone who hurts her family and friends, being alone.

Hates: Flying trees.

Allergies: Surprisingly N/A, likely in part to the absurdly high constitution.

Most known for: Outrunning a magical ‘death’ boulder. Almost managed to defeat the Storm King in a one ship pirated raid, while almost wiping out half his fleet either by accident or on purpose. Destroyed over a thousand ships with the ‘Curse Influence’ trait and earned the title ‘Ship Wrecker’.

Managing to become a successful pirate captain despite having the Blackcap Curse trait of ‘Devil’s Misfortune+’.

Inventions: Dragon Burst Gem Jetpack, Magnetically Driven Lightning Skates, The Durable Dinghy, Ardent Survivor Drill Tank Parts.

Author's Note

I hope this doesn't have any errors in it.

Character Sheet # 3 Kurilian La Perm

Name: Kurilian La Perm.

Race: Abyssinian.

Gender: Female.

Orientation: Barn door swings both ways, but only for one at a time.

Class: Good Witch.

Being a witch requires one to know how to brew mysterious concoctions, whether it’s through cooking or creating your own brand of magic through mixing reagents together.

The magical ability of a witch is generally tied to their emotional state for good or ill.

Evil witches have the tendencies towards hating sweet tasting things like ice cream, usually have bad rotting teeth, they curse those who even vaguely earn their ire and create purple smooze. You are not this kind of witch.

Good witches tend to be more towards creating things to help the people around them, are somewhat softer hearted and will do whatever they can to assist others to the best of their abilities.

Note: Rhyming isn’t necessary when performing feats as a witch, but it is certainly fun.

Bio: Born in Abyssinia, Kurilian, or Kuril as she is better known, was raised in the capital of Panthera. Her youth wasn’t of much interest aside from the fact that she had lost both her parents early in life.

Her early interests included wanting to learn how to enchant things or be a witch. After the loss of her parents in an accident, her only family, she set about working in various odd jobs. She was a waitress, a baker and a short order cook, she was also ran parcels across Panthera as a courier.

Despite the loss of her family and her dream of wanting to learn enchanting, which she apparently didn’t have the talent for, she settled into a quiet life while never taking an interest in other Abyssinians.

She takes out the frustrations of losing her family too soon on other Abyssinians in bar fights. She’s a rather talented bar brawler and is well known in some circles for it as both her mother and father were fairly skilled fist and claw fighters as well.

She would continue to settle into a dull life with nothing to look forward to as her dreams slowly faded away, until a quirky unicorn became enamored with the lonely heart that wasn’t as colorful as those around her.

Said unicorn was Long Shot Odds, he wanted to travel the world and didn’t care if he was sickly or that it was terminal.

The one thing that stopped Long Odds travels was meeting Kurilian La Perm after she unleashed her frustrations on a number of poor bar patrons. He hit it off with Kuril and they soon fell into a love that wasn’t going to end well, because Long Odds wasn’t meant to live much longer than thirty days after meeting Kuril.

Long Odds survived longer than he was supposed to, he gave Kuril the last two years of his life and he did one last act of defiance against his sickness. He got Kurilian La Perm pregnant with a kitten with a unique cross species breeding spell a week or two before his death.

It wasn’t long before Kuril found out she was pregnant and was rather jaded about life, she decided to find a nice place away from Panthera where her lover and parents were buried.

She moved to the coastal port city of Pal Calico Coast, more commonly known as Palicoast. She found help among the friendly Abyssinians there, they would help her through her pregnancy and she would cook them food at her own little spot in the port.

Kuril was unsure about her motherhood, but she was going to do her best to raise her child in a friendly environment. She named her child Jaded, based on her feelings about life.

Eventually, after having her daughter, she sought out her dream to become a witch on her own merits upon the urgings of her odd daughter.

She cherishes her kitten and said kitten means the world to her, even if she doesn’t always express it outwardly or correctly at times when acting playful.

She’s has a loving heart and a sweet, if a bit catty, disposition. Her life started as a bunch of stumbles and she had to grow up too fast to bleak prospects where she might have been alone for the rest of her life, now that’s no longer her future as things turn out to be far brighter and more colorful than she could have ever dreamed.

Kuril eventually becomes the self-proclaimed witch she wanted to be with a lot of heart and an adopted family to dote on.

Appearance: Anthropomorphic Feline, white and silver fur, blue eyes, short tail. Wears colorful white, purple or otherwise brightly colored robes and sometimes pointy hats. Underclothing is optional. Can carry a pack or over the shoulder bag, also has pockets inside her robes for carrying various useful potions.

Positive Trait/s: Mama Bear, Big Heart.

Neutral Trait: Whimsical.

Negative Trait/s: Depressive, Curious Kitty.

Racial Trait: Night Vision.

Racial Bonus: Abyssinian Agility. Adds points to Dexterity.

List of Skills: Potion Making Specialist, Magical Cooking, Fist Fighter.

Special Ability: Create “Delayed Instant Wall Potion”.

For whatever reason Kuril will usually have a “Potion of ‘delayed’ instant wall” on her, said potion creates a brick or cement wall that can stand up to the force of repeated cannonball strikes.

Aside from the oxymoron, the wall potion has a tendency towards the comical with its activation time after the potion is used. Kuril can even lend these potions to others for them to use.

Note: Nobody, not even Zecora, fully understands how Kuril makes these potions work the way that they do.

Magical Talent: Magical Alchemy, Witchery*.

The power of destroying objects, imbuing objects or permanently enchanting objects to cause magical effects related to the object used.

Star Talent: The ability to make potions that can transform others, heal, make one fly, can cause safe explosions or a variety of other incredible world altering effects. You can even add special effects to food if you so choose. Sometimes you can make these effects happen even without the necessary ingredients from just pouring your emotions, magic and memory into a potion alone.

Witchery can be tied into any number of class fields such as Witch Doctor or Shaman.

Cutie Mark: N/A

Stats: Measuring from 1 to 10, 1 being weakest for given species, 5 being average for given species, 10 is strongest for given species. Anything above 10 for every 2 points has a title that goes from ‘SUPER-natural’ to ‘Demi-god’ to ‘Godlike’ to ‘Minor God’ to ‘Outright God Of This One Thing In Particular’.

Strength: Physical prowess of the character. 10*, 7/10.

Kuril is moderately strong for an Abyssinian and her right hooks will lay you flat on your back, possibly even knock you out with just a grazing blow.

Star Stat: Mama Bear maxes out all stat potential for its duration.

Constitution: Injuries the character can take before death and the amount of stamina they have. 10*, 2-6*/10.

Star Stat: Mama Bear maxes out all stat potential for its duration.

Star Stat: The ‘Depressive’ trait has a tendency to randomly lower constitution, but is always counteracted by Mama Bear. Can activate even when character is having positive moods or feelings.

Dexterity: How fast a character moves or reacts to their surroundings. 13*, 8/10.

Like all Abyssinian’s Kuril is pretty dexterous, flexible and able to run pretty fast for someone who wears robes all the time.

Star Stat: Mama Bear maxes out all stat potential for its duration.

Intelligence: Knowledge and the ability to use it. 10*, 7/10.

Kuril is fairly intelligent, she excels in the kitchen and is quite knowledgeable on many things in a restaurant and beyond. She’s far better than her daughter is at math at the very least.

Star Stat: Mama Bear maxes out all stat potential for its duration.

Wisdom: Common sense, self-restraint. 15*, 3*, 10/10.

Kuril, after all she has been through, is extremely wise and has plenty of self-restraint that comes with raising a kitten. She is willing to give anyone advice should they need it.

Though at times Kuril will let her curiosity get the best of her.

Star Stat: Due to stat potential already being maxed out, Mama Bear boosts stat potential by fifty percent beyond maximum.

Star Stat: Curious Kitty decreases wisdom by a lot when in effect, but is always counteracted by Mama Bear.

Charisma: Leadership, persuade, adorable antics. 10*, 7/10

Kuril is a queen and like any queen, she knows how to tend to her kittens with love, encouragement and silly heartfelt attention.

Star Stat (Special): Mama Bear maxes out all stat potential for its duration.

In the case of charisma anyone nearby who is neutral or an ally will listen to the Mama Bear trait wielder regardless of what they think they should be doing if Mama Bear is in effect.

Luck: Determines if good or bad things happen. 10*, 5/10

Kuril, while she has the average luck of any other Abyssinian, can actually max out her luck stat while she is angry.

Do not hurt Kuril’s kittens or you will face an Abyssinian whose luck has reached incredible heights. You would not like her luck when she’s angry.

Hidden Abyssinian Trait: Thanks to Abyssinians tampering around with their luck through mystical artifacts like the Misfortune Malachite, Abyssinian luck tends to be stagnant or at the very least barely any Abyssinian is luckier than any other, as such all Abyssinians start with and will almost always have 5 luck no matter what modifiers attempt to add to or subtract from it.

Star Stat: Mama Bear maxes out all stat potential for its duration.

Skills: What is the character good at doing?

Potion Making Specialist: If your character has this, then they have the capacity to make a potion for just about any occasion with temporary or even semi-permanent effects. Even then there will always be a cure to whatever your character makes, so nothing to worry about if everything explodes in your face.

Magical Cooking*: The sweet attractive smell of food well cooked, your character has the ability to create almost any kind of food imaginable as long as they have the ingredients to make it. All food made with this skill will always provide random stat buffs or can have various potion like effects if added during the cooking process.

Star Skill: All food made with this skill is unusually healthy to consume, even when it shouldn’t be. Fried foods will not clog arteries, any food that might have detrimental effects will not, but food that have poisonous substances will still be poisonous to the race that eats it.

Fist Fighter: Never bring a knife to a Fist Fighter fight, even crossbows, horns or other projectile weaponry might not even help you against a character with this skill. If your character has this skill then they are an entire step up from using the ‘Brawling’ skill, the accuracy of your characters attacks is boosted and can become far faster than normal.

Traits: Natural positive, neutral or negative things about the character.

Mama Bear: Your character, no matter the situation, gets angry if children are injured or threatened within their vicinity. This puts the character with this trait in a state of adrenaline that will give them the kind of strength that any good mother is known for having.

All stats are maxed out or boosted and the character may earn the ‘Berserker’ trait at random if they somehow have low wisdom even with Mama Bear in effect.

Unlike Chaotic Planning, Mama Bear does not need time to come up with a plan to rip the cause of its activation apart. Said ripping can be done verbally, emotionally and especially physically depending on the circumstances.

Big Heart: Your character will always seek out sad or despondent characters and try to cheer them up or at the very least make sure they are okay after given a pep talk. This tends to lead the character to adopting others into their lives, even if it is entirely to their own detriment.

The character with this trait wants the people around them to be happy regardless of how they are currently feeling personally.

If the character loses a lover, they can love again a little bit easier. That does not mean they will ever forget their previous lovers. This has a tendency to activate the ‘Depressive’ trait.

A side of effect of Big Heart is that it can turn what could be enemies into lifelong friends. They also have a tendency towards caring more for everyone around them more than themselves. While that is not always a good thing, you will at least always know if this character loves you on some level.

Whimsical: Whether it be for good or ill, the character with this trait tends towards being silly or humorous to brighten the mood. Not that it always help, but being whimsical leads to weird situations that have a positive or negative influence on others around the character.

If a character has had a bad childhood, they will try to cover it up with fits of whimsy to hide their own pain behind a veneer of confident cheerfulness. Sometimes that cheerfulness is real and isn’t a mask to hidden pain. It’s hard to tell at times, but it is always best to hug this character anyway.

Character doesn’t mind theft or shenanigans nearly as much as they should, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone too much.

Depressive: This trait comes about due to emotional trauma, your characters constitution is randomly negatively affected by their emotional state or other environmental stimulus. Even when happy, having the Depressive trait means it could still take effect.

It is somewhat easy to hurt the holder of this trait emotionally. The trait makes the holder more susceptible to physical injury.

Curious Kitty: They say curiosity killed the cat, in this case it might be true with this trait. This trait has a tendency to drop a characters wisdom by a large margin, when this happens there’s a chance of the character doing something incredibly dumb just out of curiosity.

Even if the character is extremely wise, this rarely, if ever, activates. This trait will make sure they still have their moments where they do something absolutely dim for the sake of curiosity.

Worships: The Moon, Yggdrasil, Baast, Sekhet, Celestia, Luna, Quetzalcoatl.

Loves: Blade Bright, Jade’s late father Long Odds, her adopted kittens, her kitten Jaded, her friends, cooking, Airship Mauled, having a big family and loving community above almost everything else.

Likes: Good food, being a witch, being the mayor of Airship Mauled despite the paperwork, being the owner of her own restaurant The Witch’s Fare, children.

Dislikes: Child abuse, sad people, GODLESS, excessive violence, terminal sicknesses or other ailments, feeling bad, attempts at bribery.

Hates: Anyone that would dare harm her kittens, adopted or otherwise.

Allergies: Caffeine, Chocolate, Tea Leaves, Theobromine.

Most known for: Inventing ‘Potions of Delayed Instant Wall’ and her incredible talent for cooking various things.

Character Sheet # 4 "Special"

Author's Note

Well the last two chapters need to be written and finished now, but this is a special fourth character sheet chosen by a randomizer.

Also there is no such thing as 'that' society.

Character Sheet # 4 "Special"

Name: The Cabbage Cart/ Cabbagus Transportus.

Race: Cargo Cart.

Gender: Hermaphrodite.

Orientation: Asexual.

Class: Destructible Object.

If you find yourself being crushed, abused or otherwise destroyed in a funny manner by the hero, villain or otherwise, then you are a reoccurring destructible object.

This class has one unique feature, the ability to be destroyed violently in numerous ways when someone is being chased.

You could be a chair, a table or even everyone’s favorite target in the middle of a chase… a fruit stand! Whatever you are, you’re possibly incapable of feeling pain… unless you’re a poltergeist that has to possess these easily and frequently destroyed objects.

Bio: At the turn of the century the first invention was made… it was a club. The basic broken tree branch to use as a weapon against predators.

Eventually someone would invent wheels and figure out how to effectively use them by attaching them to box like constructs.

Ever since the first cart was created, it was known to transport vegetables or other goods. In the case of a rickshaw, carts were used to transport people.

This cabbage cart was first made a few hundred thousand years ago, when the first cabbage was placed within it and moved a mile by the pony who owned the cart. It proved to be a joyous occasion, it would have been more joyous if the pony in question had bothered to transport more than one head of cabbage at a time.

It took almost three weeks to move the first twenty heads of cabbage. Eventually the pony in question would figure out how inefficient they were being.

The first cabbage cart was eventually destroyed in a meteor related accident and from that moment on the words ‘My Cabbages!’ were first uttered, in whatever odd nascent language that was around at the time, the cart gained several incredible mysterious mystical properties. For one it can exist in multiple places at the same time on all planes of existence in Equestria, another is that anything carting cabbages tends to have a somewhat strong family resemblance with the very first cabbage cart.

Somehow, from the point that particular cabbage cart was destroyed, every race instinctively knew how to build a new instance of the cabbage cart. Every cart used to carry cabbages tends to meet nearly the same fate of untold destruction if left unattended or alone for too long when filled with numerous fresh cabbages.

There has been said to be a curse of Discord on all cabbage carts that have ever existed that eventually gets around to them, but Discord consistently denies that it is his fault and doesn’t understand why things happens to cabbage carts the way they do. If he ever finds out, he’ll be completely honest and will actually tell everyone the truth.

Even Discord doesn’t entirely understand the mysterious power of the cabbage carts as it has been happening for longer than he has been causing trouble as a Lord of Chaos, this phenomenon even predates him coming into existence to keep the world in balance.

No matter how much Discord tells anyone about it, no one ever believes him when he says he’s not the cause of what happens to cabbage carts everywhere. The only exception is a concerned Fluttershy, who either doesn’t understand the importance of cabbage carts or why Discord constantly insists that they are not his fault at random whenever holding a conversation with her.

No matter the era, the lowly cabbage cart would always eventually be reborn or rebuilt in new and interesting ways to carry cabbages again!

There are minor suspicions that the destruction of cabbage carts are a secret plot to discredit Discord or make him seem more clinically insane than he already is. Obviously no one believes anyone would be plotting against Discord or has the wherewithal to do so against someone so powerful using something so mundane.

Appearance: Usually a wooden, two wheeled cart, that is inevitably loaded full of cabbages. Sometimes comes with protective metal plating, others have four wheels and in the distant future it is a container with a science or magic powered hovering ability that still carries cabbages to be sold at the market.

There is no such thing as the secret society of ‘My Cabbages’! If there were, then people would have at least some hint of its existence and anyone who says otherwise is clearly a crazy person you should walk away from slowly.

Positive Trait/s: Carting.

Neutral Trait: Cabbages.

Negative Trait/s: Highly Destructible.

Racial Trait: Repairable.

Able to be repaired from any state or is capable of being fixed if damaged. Even if turned completely into sawdust, it will continue to exist again as another cart somewhere else at some other time and in some other form. So long as someone has a need to move something around, mostly produce of the cabbage variety.

Racial Bonus: Increased Carrying Capacity. Automatically adds points to strength.

List of Skills: Rolling Downhill, Violently Exploding.

Special Ability: My Cabbages!

Everything is alright with the world when this ability is used. The world could be coming to an end, but when this ability happens any apocalypse in progress will immediately be averted by the glory of cabbages exploding and sending bits and pieces of themselves all over the place.

Magical Talent: Carry.

Can carry a volume of almost any substances or objects, so long as it can fit within the body’s empty space.

Cutie Mark: Mushroom Cloud with a cabbage at the top.

Stats: Measuring from 1 to 10, 1 being weakest for given species, 5 being average for given species, 10 is strongest for given species. Anything above 10 for every 2 points has a title that goes from ‘SUPER-natural’ to ‘Demi-god’ to ‘Godlike’ to ‘Minor God’ to ‘Outright God Of This One Thing In Particular’.

Strength: Physical prowess of the character. 10*/10.

The cabbage cart is a beast when it comes to carrying things, especially this cabbage cart

Star Stat: Carting maxes out strength stat, if it hasn’t been already. Does not increase stat beyond 10.

Constitution: Injuries the character can take before death and the amount of stamina they have. 0.5*/10.

Well the cabbage cart has lived a good life, for about the next ten seconds after it’s initially seen in the middle of any kind of chase scene that intersects paths with it.

Star Stat: The ‘Highly Destructible’ trait lowers the constitution stat.

Dexterity: How fast a character moves or reacts to their surroundings. 5/10.

Like any other cart of the same make, it will have a similar speed when rolling down a hill.

Intelligence: Knowledge and the ability to use it. 1*/10.

You probably did not want to know that a wooden cart is actually one of many major focal points for chaos magic as a mobile genius loci. Though the ‘genius’ part of it is up for interpretation and great debate within the same vein as the philosophy of hummingbirds and bees.

Also any assertion that the ‘My Cabbages’ society exists because of the average intelligence of a cabbage carts is to be completely and utterly ignored. It’s just the mad ramblings spouted by a mad god named Discord.

Star Stat: In general cabbage carts and related entities only ever have the one intelligence point.

Wisdom: Common sense, self-restraint. 0/10.

There is no common sense with cabbages or the carts that carry them. Even if the cart had the wherewithal to have common sense, it would not be able to act on it by itself or warn anyone of any impending doom.

Charisma: Leadership, persuade, adorable antics. 6/10

The cart is not elegantly constructed, but those are some good looking cabbages at the very least.

Luck: Determines if good or bad things happen. ?*/10

The luck of a cabbage cart is in its placement and timing, before it pounces like a honey badger into the path of a chaser or it is more sufficient to say it tends to be pulled into a chaser’s path by the one being chased. The luck of anything involving this character is questionable at best.

Star Stat: If bad things happen to the cart, good things inversely happen for the owner of the cart, its luck is therefore questionable at best.

Skills: What is the character good at doing?

Rolling Downhill: If your character is good at this, then they likely have wheels or have a body for handling rolling around at the speed of sound. Going downhill isn’t a problem at all for the character in question.

In any case the character can hit with a large amount of force, like a truck even, but will take always take some recoil damage from whatever is hit. The larger the thing hit, the more recoil damage done.

Violently Exploding: If a twelve to fifteen year old kid pops you out of a ball and immediately yells, “‘Insert name here’, use Explosion!”, would you seriously listen to them and immediately spontaneously combust in an utterly violent manner? Then this might be the skill for you, it ultimately drains all your constitution down to ‘0.01’ percent health. So it’s theoretically survivable!

In any case this skill involves being self-destructing as if someone just pushed the big red button just to see what happens. In the case of this character, ignoring the call to run past them in a chase is a bad idea. It will cause negative chaos particles to build up to a point that the soonest something touches it, it will go up in a completely volatile manner that would make no sense otherwise if chaos magic wasn’t somehow involved.

To this end, your character has to have one point of intelligence. Just enough intelligence to be angry that someone is ignoring the need to run by you, but not nearly anywhere near close enough to being smart enough to understanding that violently exploding is a bad thing.

This is not related to the 'My Cabbages' society in any way, shape or form, because said society does not exist.

Exploding twice doesn’t help make things better either, but has been known to happen infrequently to things in Equestria.

Traits: Natural positive, neutral or negative things about the character.

Carting: This positive trait allows you the strength to carry an excessive amount of weight, in return you tend to lose less health with excessive pressure being placed upon you.

Cabbages: These are your best friends in life, up until they are scattered to the four winds and leave their remains all over the place. They don’t help you in the slightest and they aren’t exactly a hindrance either. They tie into the positive and negative traits Carting and Highly Destructible respectively.

They are sold for monetary value, but also makes for an impressive form of fireworks display that doesn’t necessarily need fireworks. Whether these heads of vegetation actively attract trouble is left up to interpretation.

Highly Destructible: They say pop goes the weasel, but the weasel just really likes popcorn and nobody ever considers the mulberry bushes feeling in all of this.

In this case however, your character is basically made of glass in a Chineigh shop run by minotaurs with extremely short fuses and are exceedingly easy to anger just for saying a single word even if it was to start an entirely normal sentence as a proper customer of said Chineigh shop. Oh and the shop is also full of lit candles and bundles of precariously placed dynamite sticks.

As you can already tell, there’s a reason this is a highly negative trait, this automatically put Constitution at a number lower than one, but higher than zero.

This trait is mandatory of the Destructible Object class.

Worships: Farmers, the ‘My Cabbages’ society which obviously doesn’t exist.

Loves: Cabbages.

Likes: Carting.

Dislikes: Being useless or kept in storage for too long.

Hates: Being ignored or avoided in a chase where it would ultimately be destroyed.

Allergies: Chase scenes.

Most known for: Blowing up Shining Armor with no regrets, of which Shining Armor had many afterwards.

Chapter Three, Parties, Pukwudgies and Pirates: The starting scenario.

-Fizzlepop-

As soon as Celestia left, with a tired look on her face, I turned to the two weirdoes that I was becoming quite attached to. One of them just claimed guardianship over me. I should feel upset that she didn’t ask me, but I can only feel happy about it and I actually wanted to be coddled more. I was just too afraid to ask for more than they’re already giving me, I didn’t want to wear out their hospitality.

“Do you seriously need to have the town be named that of all things?” I asked with some vehemence in my voice.

“Yes, of course we do!” They both said at the same time in unison. Why was I not so surprised about this? I should be more surprised. It actually made me see them as a daughter and mother despite their very visible differences.

“I don’t know why I like you two so much.” The both of them were weird, but they did know a fun game at least.

O and O was an intellectual pastime for them and now I had my own character to join them with. I felt included and welcomed, but most of all they made me feel like I had a home now. It’s something I didn’t know I needed so badly.

“Hey Fizzy, do you want to share a cupcake?” What did she just call me? It sounded much better than Fizzle to me at least or maybe it was the way she said it.

“I think I like being called Fizzy. Also sure, I wouldn’t mind a snack.” The campfire was as inviting as ever, I went to sit down next to Jade. “It’s Celestia’s loss that she wasn’t willing to stick around for lunch, but I guess she’s really busy running a country.”

Jade held her knife out over the fire letting the flames lick the blade. After a moment she pulled it back and waited for it to cool down before wiping it off with a bit of clean cloth, she then opened the wrapped cupcake with the message in it.

“Oh right, I should get started on that right away!” I think we all almost forgot she was here, what was her name again? I believe it was Fresh Start.

“Oh no you don’t, I’m the head chef around here my lovely yet lowly waiter!” I watched as Kuril got up and into Fresh’s face, I’d be upset too if the best cook around wasn’t allowed to make a meal when she wanted to. “You haven’t tasted my food yet and you’ll be our guest for lunch. We’re not letting you cook until you’re ready to live up to the lofty expectations I represent.”

“Waiter? I’m a maid!” You might not be a maid much longer Fresh, I silently thought, not with that attitude anyway. “I’m supposed to be doing the work for you guys!”

“Let, my mom, do the cooking.” That was possibly the flattest most threatening delivery of a sentence I’ve ever heard Jade say, Fresh should probably listen to her after what happened to Sekhet last night. Where was she anyway? Oh look, there she is and she’s back to being much larger than the rest of us. “You won’t be disappointed and I even bet you’ll want her to keep cooking at first bite.”

“Hello there… what’s black and white, while being read all over?” Did Sekhet just ask one of the simplest riddles ever? She must be only slightly annoyed with Fresh.

“A… big… big… C-c-c-…” Oh right, we haven’t exactly introduce Fresh Start to Sekhet have we? She was cowering in fright at the big toothy grin that Sekhet was sporting.

Even a goddess of healing couldn’t fix my horn, though I do guess she’s more about healing herself than others. Healing’s a good talent to have as a war goddess, she’s actually quite amiable to get along with and knows how to be a good cleric as an O and O character.

“Fresh Start, say hello to our resident goddess. The amazing stray cat, Sekhet!” There was mirth on Jade’s face as she smiled towards Fresh. “We fed her and now she won’t leave. Please tell me we can keep her Fresh?”

Sekhet helped me even when she didn’t have to and I was going to respect her for it, except for the fact that she lost to Jade the other night while fighting over food. I was not telling her any of my thoughts on that to her face though.

“I don’t know if we can keep a whole sphinx fresh Jade. It sounds really hard to do.” With Kuril’s words, I think I know where I went wrong in life. It was me meeting Kuril and her daughter Jade. I watched as Kuril poked at one of Sekhet’s legs. “Where would we even start cleaning her?”

“Okay, enough of that you two, I am not a stray animal!” Again I wouldn’t voice it to Sekhet, but she had certainly acted like one last night. Even I could tell she wouldn’t leave because Kuril fed her, to be fair I wouldn’t leave either if I could keep eating good meals like what she makes. Who would want to leave when they had nowhere else to be after getting a hearty meal from Kuril? “Now answer my riddle lowly mortal, you who would dare prevent ‘The Witch of Good Taste’ from plying her most important trade. That being keeping me happy and not violent, so I will tell you the riddle again if you have forgotten already from witnessing my rather majestic presence. What is black and white, while being read all over?”

“Black and white, while red… wait read as in reading… a newspaper?” Fresh watched as Sekhet sat down and smiled.

“Correct, you have avoided my wrath for now. I would have also accepted a skunk covered in red paint or recently eviscerated by a predator and a monochrome picture as seen through red lenses.” Is it me or was Sekhet and everyone else ganging up on the poor earth pony? I had to put a stop to this. “Don’t try to stop Lady Kuril again or else I will riddle harder, don’t think I won’t. This was just a warning riddle.”

“You need to create an O and O character if you’re going to be living with us.” Wait, what was that that just came out of my mouth. Well it’s not like we were actively going hurt Fresh Start and it was all in good… fun. I felt a warmth in my chest at the idea. "If Airship Mauled is going to be a town, then O and O will be it's favorite pastime. We're going to make a thing of it!"

I was receiving some surprised stares from my guardian, my friend and Sekhet.

“What are you… wait, Ogres and Oubliettes? I think Shining and Cadence are going to miss me at the next game, but I already have a character. I just need to get my character sheet out of my saddle bags.” She had come here with a loaded bags full of stuff, she eventually pulled out her character sheet.

Apparently Fresh Start’s character was a spoony bard, the class that sings positive and negative effects while fighting at the same time. Weak offensive attributes, but great defensive and support.

“Hey look, we’ve already corrupted our first pony mom! Fizzy is definitely one of us now. One of us, one of us, octopus, octopus, octo… wait, why am I saying octopus?” I gave Jade a light shove and we started laughing.

When she eventually managed to control her giggling Jade finally offered up the larger half of the cupcake she had sliced with her knife. I took it without question and bit into it, my world exploded as it was quite delicious. Somebody had a special talent for making cupcakes, also I’m quite glad I had the larger half now.

As I was eating that half of the cupcake, Jade was reading the note that came with it.

-Jade-

“Deer Jade, it’s me Pinkie Pie, you’re supposed to start a letter with deer right? You’re not a deer though, if you were a deer then you wouldn’t have claws and I know you’re still a magical cat. You are still a magical cat right? I should put Cat Jade down the next time I write a letter to make sure you’re not a deer when I see you next. I mean you magically grew wings so who’s to say you can’t change into a deer? I hope you liked the cupcake! Oh and you’re invited to a special event, Fluttershy is going to hold her cuteceanera here at Sugar Cube Corner and your invited to the party. My Pinkie Senses told me she was going to have the party here. I’m the planner for it and the Cakes, the nice baker ponies who are letting me live here as a part time baking assistant, are letting me invite all my friends. All two of them! Can you believe it? It’ll be so much fun! I’m going to make friends with the whole town eventually, but I’m still settling in and I have to go to school here for some reason even when I have a job I love. At least it’s not as boring as where I used to live, It’s kind of sad that my sisters won’t be able to come to the party. I’ll just have to party that much harder for all of us! Hope you can come Jade. It’s the beginning of this weekend after school lets out. Also, bring anyone you want with you too, the more the merrier!”

I read the note and rolled my eyes, so she actually does write like she talks. I stretched out and considered how I was going to spend the rest of my day, I looked to Fizzle enjoying the cupcake and figured I might want to get to know her better. I mean everything I know about her right now can’t be all there is to her right? I think I would be sorely disappointed, but I would still get her to try new things.

“Hey Fizzy, want to go to a party?” Something tells me I shouldn’t have asked that, she looked rather pensive about the idea of going near other ponies. She didn’t seem nearly as bad around us… then again most of those who were here weren’t ponies.

“A… party? I don’t think that’s a good idea Jade. I’ll probably cause a scene.” She was talking about her horn and I understood why it would cause a scene.

“You can wear my cloak and keep the hood up the whole time, though I’m sure Pinkie or Fluttershy wouldn’t care.” Carefully I positioned myself so I could run my hand right hand down her mane, she seems to like any kind of attention she can get. “Look if ponies cause a scene, then I’ll do something to draw attention away from you if you want me to.”

“I don’t know…” She didn’t seem to like the idea, but I wanted her to meet Pinkie and to see Fluttershy again in a more talkative capacity. I was going to friend her so hard, she’ll know that she’s loved and is special to us!

“Just think on it Fizzy, I want you to be at the party with me. I also want mom to come with us.” That brought my mother’s attention to us as she was already setting up for lunch, fried vegetables and several kinds of dipping sauce. I didn’t like the spicy sauce, I always went with the sweet sauce.

“Oh, are we going somewhere my little tom cat?” Look mom, you know darn well what we were talking about. “I thought we were staying here at Airship Mauled.”

“It seems Fluttershy is inviting us to her cutie mark party in the afternoon at the start of this weekend. I want you to come with us to it mom.” Yet I still repeated myself anyway. Only you could make me want to face palm mom, never change. “You can get a scope of Ponyville and we can advertise your new restaurant opening here soon in the town of Airship Mauled, provided that Celestia can actually set it up in the next twenty four hours. So what are we calling this one? We can’t exactly be Kuril’s Coastal Canteen if we’re not on a coast.”

“Sounds like a plan for us and I already have a name for the restaurant. What are you doing for the rest of this afternoon though?” Good question mother, I had nothing and I figured I could get away with being lazy for the rest of the day. My shoulder kind of smarts and my injuries still needed to be licked a bit.

“Maybe get a little exercise with my knife’s sustain, test out a few other items and record their sustain effects.” I pretended to have something to do and hope that mom doesn’t question it.

“Sounds fair, just no lazing about. I know you too well and I know that you’re going to try and do nothing for the rest of the day! Fresh Start you can help me prepare the food, but I’ll still do all the cooking.” She made a shooing motion to both of us and I noticed Sekhet approaching mom. “Go have some fun with Fizzle, I’ll call you two when lunch is ready.”

I went to grab some stuff and would be testing what the sustain on several items we’ve yet to test would do, mom called me out on trying to be lazy so I can’t get away with it today. She'd know if I did laze about.

-Sekhet-

“I would like to inform you that you didn’t give birth to a daughter, you gave birth to a demon that disguises itself as your daughter and your food is the only thing that appeases its anger.” Of course I was exaggerating, but Priest Jade was quite vicious last night.

“What can I say, she loves a good potato stew.” Lady Kuril shrugged and got started on the food with the assistance of the serf Fresh Start. “So where were you when Celestia was around?”

I had of course been watching Celestia from a 'safe' distance. We could both feel Jade when she was nearby, but each other? Not so much, it appears a new domain was starting here and I was willing to watch over it.

“I was walking off my injuries from the prior night. I’m fully healed, thanks for asking by the way.” Ah yes the popular past time of immortal beings, sarcasm.

“What’s your take on Celestia, can she actually create a town in less than twenty four hours?” So Lady Kuril knew, well I wouldn’t put it past Priest Jade to know too.

“She certainly has the resources to do it if she isn’t trying to build more than a few small buildings.” In comparison to my resources being a paw full of beings that I'll silently admit are my friends.

-Jade-

I spent the rest of the afternoon showing and explaining our magical alchemy to Fizzle, mostly by testing the magical alchemy sustain of a raven feather, one of the two remaining feathers from Celestia and the cloak I got from Fresh Start in Canterlot. Sustains were always easy to test, but figuring out the effect was another matter.

Author's Note

Time skip to the cuteceanera of Fluttershy

Magical Alchemy list.

(New Magical Alchemy Information!)

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater.

Sustain: Water Projection (Offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random. (One time air terrain survival buff, possible Offensive ability). Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain: (New!) Project thoughts. Not able to receive thoughts, but you can project them to others.

Self-sustaining: (New!) none.

Sunlight.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness. Strengthens all mobility based buffs.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight. Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability. The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining. Does not protect the user from gravitational or high speed stress and lack of oxygen at high altitudes like a pegasus would be by their magic.

Sustain: (New!) Redirect sunlight (Defensive support buff). Is only useful during the day and allows for blinding opponents or aggressors with light.

Self-sustaining: (New!) Minor protection from darkness (Automatic defensive buff while feather is on, worn or wielded by person). Needs to be charged with sunlight and to have been used as a magical alchemy sustain at least once to work.

Phoenix Feather.

Cast: Cleansing Flames (Support healing spell). Finds and stops negative foreign bodily ailment or ailments that are magical or mundane, does not heal damage. Can possibly stop positive ailments.

Sustain: Protection from the cold (Continuous defensive buff). Immunity to cold, increased defensive ability against ice and relative elemental based magic.

Self-Sustaining: None.

(New Alchemy Ingredient!)

Jade’s Cloak.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: ???. (Effect seems to do nothing, need more information.)

Self-Sustain: Makes sneaking easier (Moderate stealth buff).

Chapter Seven, Shrew-d Operators: Meeting plans.

-Kuril-

Fizzle came to sit with us and told us what Jade was up to, I sighed and shook my head. I and Jacky were talking about what we saw, what we heard and what we think is going on in this town.

“Why did the Captain do all of that and how did a fight come out of it?” Anyone could see that Jacky was a bit excited about the bar brawl going on and I had several hunches as to why my little tom cat did that.

“I know why she did it, it’s really quite easy to understand. I think she just helped one of the less visible factions of this city with her actions. The pigs are the largest faction and the bartender is obviously in someone else’s pocket. Jade just helped him out and now they’re trading information with one another.” I could see Jade talking fast and the bartender was talking equally fast while sending glances at the brawlers every now and then, he was looking out for when they eventually stopped. “She’s actually live action roleplaying right now, we’ve had quite a few Ogre’s and Oubliettes games based around a town of thieves’ scenario. How she caused the fight is simple, she got someone to agree with her original assessment. Somebody didn’t like that she changed her mind and someone didn’t like it at all when they agreed with her about it being exactly one foot.”

“What’s rather interesting is that she threw the stool away from herself so that its length is at least within a foot of all their answers.” Don’t look so confused Fizzle, that’s how you start a bar brawl the smart way without having to resort to violence personally. She could have still started a bar brawl by hitting someone with the stool, but my daughter would have been on the wrong end of a thrashing. Jade had backed out correctly.

“She let them all build up to it too, that’s my girl and I wouldn’t exchange her for a pretty princess version of her on any day.” I was quite proud of Jade, she managed to start a bar brawl without investing herself in it personally. She wasn’t being attack by all the pigs currently beating the literal snot out of each other. “She’s much more interesting as she is anyway.”

“I can’t imagine Captain being a pretty princess… eugh…” Jacky looked like she was about to throw up, even I was beginning to see the merits of having a complete tom cat for a daughter. “The thought gives me a shiver in my timbers and that’s not even an actual pirate saying. It could just be the piece of wood digging into my side.”

Jacky picked up a small plank of wood she had found lying around at the shipyard and docks, we needed an airship and there were a few around we might have been window shopping for. This was when Jade took Fizzle sightseeing around the city. I really wanted to see those two go on their first date together, that’ll be so adorable to watch.

It would do as a weapon in a pinch, but I wasn’t going to let Jacky rely on it. I wasn’t about to let any of my girls get hurt by anyone if I was around to do something about it. I had a waffle mallet and I knew what its sustain did. I wonder if my daughter would start using it or if it would be my main weapon, magic users did tend to use magical cudgels as weapons. A hammer was a cudgel right?

Jade suddenly got up and skirted around the fighting with a small smile and made her way over to us, she sat down quietly and rested her chin on the table and her whiskers twitched imperceptibly. She had certainly found out about something interesting.

“Did you find out where Merriami Sorex is Jade?” She lifted her head and nodded to me with a grin on her face.

“I did, apparently Mr. King really doesn’t like the pig crime faction being in his bar. We need to go back to the changelings and have them scout the city patrols from the air tonight. We’ll check and see if Ami is where she is said to be some time tomorrow. The bartender is going to tell his ‘friends’ that a fight took down a number of the pig enforcers. The number of guards will be a bit light tomorrow.” Jade moved closer to Fizzle and wrapped an arm around her. “In other news, thank to my actions, the rats, moles and several other factions are going to be on the move soon. The pigs here were celebrating their boss’s anniversary of taking over Klugetown. The big pig Gonnan has too much of a monopoly on things around here and the crime boss for the shrews wants his daughter free…”

“Now I know why you think it’s important to walk around and listen to the people.” Fizzle nuzzled up against Jade and they looked so cute together, I give it another second before Fizzle catches on to what Jade just said. “Wait… Merriami is part of a crime family here?!”

“Quiet down Fizzy. That’s just the kind of trouble that Tarsus has involved himself with, it’s on him whether he wants to continue pursuing this. Merriami is actually a good girl, in the same sense that our Jacky here is.” My daughter apparently got all that she needed from her quick discussion with the bartender. Jacky is a good girl, but she’s willing to lie, steal and cheat if it means helping us, and she’d do it without regrets. “She’s not exactly into the family business so to speak, but she certainly knows about it and we’ve got a meeting with the boss of the local shrews. Tarsus needs to join us for that tomorrow morning.”

“Well come on then, all we have to do now is exit the bar calmly without drawing attention to ourselves.” I stood up and waited for the others, they followed me past the pile of groaning, pummeled pigs and out of The Whole Hog bar.

We quietly made our way down the street and Jade stopped to look behind use and was acting a bit paranoid. Even I was feeling some paranoia myself, everything in Klugetown has a price and Jade might not have paid enough for the information she received.

“Did you two hear anything about the lizard faction?” Jade asked of us, she was unsure about the bartender then.

“A bit, I heard they were trying to stay neutral.” Well Jacky did leave my sight a few times while we were at the airship docks, so I wasn’t so surprised to hear that she heard something while I was looking into ships we could possibly steal.

My daughter sighed with relief as we exited the town watching our backs.

-Tarsus, campsite-

I was so worried about my belle, Merriami Sorex was a beautiful shrew and I was idly eating a pickle in memory of her. Sharing the love was all well and good, but I wanted to share mine with someone special to me. I was afraid of going into town, but I would still do it if they didn’t return soon.

We heard someone coming and four cloaked figures approached the campsite some way down below Klugetown and hidden among the rocks near the walkway leading into town.

“Did you find her, is she okay?” I was up and running over to them immediately.

“Calm down, we know where she might be.” At Jade’s words I sighed with relief, it seems she was as professional a mercenary as she tried to sell herself as. I don’t know what I can do to pay any of them back. “But there are a few… complications.”

Huh… there’s something wrong with my belle?

“W-what is it?” My friends came over to me when they heard a tremor in my voice, we had all been relaxing and waiting. We had even did an a-cappella or two while we waited.

“First of all, did you know that Merriami Sorex is the daughter to the head of a crime family?” Fizzle seemed more than a bit mad at me.

“No, but I don’t care. I want to help her if she’s in trouble!” Even if she was the daughter of a crime family boss, I couldn’t care less as long as I got to see her again and at least tell her how I felt.

“Which may involve shifting the entire nature of the city to do it. Are you willing to live with the consequences of that?” I didn’t immediately answer Jade, she seemed to be giving me a cool glance while I thought things over.

“Yes, I’m willing to do anything for her.” That was when I was approached by Jade, who kneeled down and patted me on the head.

“Good, because you’ll be meeting her father tomorrow morning and I don’t think he’ll be very happy with seeing you.” She just patted me on the head to be comforting before delivering that news. “We need your friends to do something only they can, we need them to watch and map out the porcine patrols in various parts of the city. You guys are at least good at stealth right?”

“We’re not good at direct confrontation, except maybe for Mr. Huge here, but we are changelings.” Clypeus moved forward putting a hoof to his chest, Mr. Huge and the trumpet twins nodded in agreement. “You won’t find another species more natural at stealth than we are! If it’ll help our buddy out, then we can do that much at least. We didn’t come all this way to sit around and do nothing, just give us some paper, ink and quills. I swear by tomorrow morning, we’ll give you a comprehensive list of their patrols without being caught.”

“We’re not asking you to replace or get anywhere close to them.” I had wondered if Kuril was going to say anything, she was the eldest here. “This is strictly a keep your distance and don’t do anything stupid kind of thing. We already have an idea of what airships we can procure for our escape, but we need to work with the locals if we’re to get anywhere.”

“We’re not that stupid, the town has many magical measures against changeling infiltration. It’s how we were discovered and ran out of town the last time we were here.” I stated sadly. There were some magical artifacts littering the town that could prevent us from shapeshifting entirely, some created a zones where a changeling let loose burst of magic randomly and some artifacts were even contact based. It was a dangerous no bug’s land for my kind. “They’ll keep their distance, trust me on that. They wouldn’t be able to get too close to Ms. Sorex if they tried to sneak in disguised as guards anyway.”

“Well mom, best get started on dinner.” At Jade’s words, Kuril nodded and started getting out our limited supplies. She turned to me. “You’re friends are in for a long night Tarsus and you absolutely need to get some sleep.”

-The next day, Jade-

I woke up, with Fizzle’s head pressed against my neck. She was nuzzling me in her sleep, I enjoyed the affection for a bit before shaking her awake. We had a meeting to get to this morning, once the other changelings got back from their scouting.

-Fizzle-

So it was just the two of us and a cloaked Tarsus who was trying to not to seem skittish about walking around Klugetown. We were almost at the meeting place according to Jade. I was just waiting for something to go horribly wrong and if it did, I had the sword to do magic with on me.

We stopped in an alleyway and looked about, this was the location of the meeting.

“Are you guys the ones that Chlam told us about?” We turned around and saw a tall shrew that had appeared behind us from out of nowhere, he looked rather wiry to me. His clothing looked Saddle Arabian.

“We are. Are you our contact?” Jade stated calmly while her eyes darted about, it seems she was just as tense I was about all this.

“Good, follow me and try to avoid getting spotted by the patrols.” He stated looking out from the alleyway, his dark brown fur made him blend in around here quite well.

We followed the male shrew across the town and avoided several patrols while doing so. We used a lot of back alleys, jumped between buildings and even used some bits of scaffolding while sneaking around. It was a bit rough for me and Tarsus as we had hooves instead of the dexterous fingers the shrew and Jade used to maneuver about.

“Inside, quickly.” The shrew eventually opened up the door to a building on the lower side of town while keeping look out. Once inside we were met with a large number of shrews geared for desert survival.

One of them had been in the middle of saying something. He stopped upon seeing us, stood up and came over to look us over.

“So you’re the ones that Chlam was talking about, you’re a bit young to be mercenaries.” He pulled a scimitar from his side and held his blade pointed towards us. None of the other shrews in the room look worried or even seemed to be anything more than relaxed, this guy was quite capable of taking care of us himself it seemed. “So who are you with and why are you asking questions about my daughter’s captivity? We ‘The Desert Shrews’ would certainly like know that, as I’m their leader Soricini Sorex. Answer quickly and I may have some time for you, the bar fight you started helped us quite a bit last night and you have garnered my attention.”

He didn’t look that old, even with a scar over one eye, underneath the other and two crossing across his snout. His tail was missing a bit at the tip; it whipped back and forth agitatedly as he stared us down. He had some muscle on him and he looked quite tough.

“We’re free agents helping someone that your daughter possibly fell in love with. He returned with us to see about meeting her again. He was run out of town by some thugs the last time he was here and I’m sure they’ve been quite a thorn in your side since then.” What are you doing Jade? Why are you telling him that to start things off with? He probably won’t like hearing his daughter was in any kind of relationship. Kuril taught me how protective parents could be about this sort of thing. “Mr. Tarsus here is absolutely smitten with your daughter’s beauty… and her apparent love of pickles. We wish to help see your daughter safely out of her predicament and very far away from town.”

“What kind of pickles does she like the most?” Soricini said, staring sternly at Tarsus who pulled his hood down and stared back. The muscular shrew didn’t seem too surprised that Tarsus was a colorful changeling.

“That’s a trick question, she likes all kinds of pickled things!” There was a fond smile on Tarsus’s face. "I met her over a jar of pickles with twelves spices and herbs, it's how I got to know her.”

Author's Note

(New alchemy Ingredient!)

Waffle Mallet.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Random confusion effect chance (Weapon specific offensive buff). While sustained, the hammer has a low chance to cause confusion and or dizziness upon any impact. Said chance goes up significantly when hitting the head of a target.

Self-sustain: ???.

Chapter Eight, Caring Cozy Coast: Unexpected Luck Syndrome.

-Final day in Palicoast, Jade-

The flying lessons went pretty well, we avoided causing any incidents while flying around. Fizzle seemed to enjoy piloting the airship and our landings were only slightly rough. Once The Ardent Survivor was airborne it flew pretty well.

Speaking of our newest possible Airship Mauled victim, we were outside it today making some final preparations and we were testing some new magical alchemy.

“Please be careful now girls.” Mom’s words just made me roll my eyes.

“I’m fine mom, I’m not in pain anymore.” I was feeling much better now and I was now testing the magical sustain on the knuckle imprinted shield. “Hit it moderately hard Jacky!”

The shield does what one would expect when using it in a sustain effect, it shielded in the direction it was pointed. Only it projected a decent sized octagonal orange energy barrier that seemed to flow outwards constantly from a central point.

Jacky reared back with the spear and thrusted it forward. Despite the barrier not being connected to the shield, I felt the impact of the spear thrust and I stumbled a bit. The shield was undamaged, but I had still felt the impact of the spear as if Jacky hit the shield I’m holding directly.

So the sustain projects a larger area of protection in a given direction, only the ability to handle the blow was still on the user and if the projection is hit then the shield isn’t damaged. I could still be knocked down and trying to block strong impacts would be a detriment to keeping ones arm in its socket, alongside the chance of possibly breaking bones in said arm.

So even if I had used this against Gonnan, the end result would have been about the same. Only the shield wouldn’t have dented and it would have gone straight into my spine itself, thus taking one of my nine lives. If that was even a thing Abyssinians had.

I tried to expand the area of the projection, nothing happened. I tried to mentally shrink the area and that actually had an effect. So the area of protection had a maximum limit to how far it could stretch or how big the field could get.

I gave it some thought and the flowing octagonal energy transformed into a regular sized orange cat of flowing energy. Okay entirely malleable magical barrier energy that couldn’t go too far from the shield and could take on various shapes, this sustain would be really fun for someone who was looking to be a barrier warrior. This would be more my mom’s speed, it was too heavy for my tastes.

I started to make the barrier cat bounce around and frolic with each movement of the shield and a bit of thought into the given movement. It couldn’t go too far away before it seemed to hit an invisible wall nor could it go outside a widening cone of the shields orientation. I stopped sustaining and the barrier cat disappeared, I tapped the shield a bit. No self-sustaining properties then.

“Okay that… was really adorable Jade. I didn’t even know you had it in you. You know I’m just worried about you, but I guess you’re right. We’ve been here long enough and we need to get a move on.” I was quickly grabbed and brought into a tight hug by mom and she put her head on top of mine. “We do after all have to relieve Cheerilee and Fresh Start from the stress of having to deal with Sekhet all day, every day. And you need to get back to school. I haven’t been able to do this for a while for fear of hurting you Jaded. If you somehow become a mother some day in the future, then you’ll eventually know what I’m feeling right now my kitten.”

“Do you think we should prepare ourselves a proper send off? Maybe make a huge batch of soup for the people around here before we lift off.” I was released and mom looked thoughtful tapping her right hand fingers against her cheek while her other hand held her elbow. “Also would you like to give the shield a try?”

“Sure, to both of those ideas.” Mom seemed to bounce back from her gloomy state pretty fast.

I pulled the shield from my left arm and gave it to her, she put it on her right and started magically sustaining the shield to create the outward flowing octagon of orange energy. I sat down to watch.

She started warping the barrier energy and it turned into a clawed hand holding a shield, soon the shield warped into a sword and swung downwards with mom performing that exact motion to do that. The sword and hand disappeared, mom just gave me a look.

“Hm… this is probably one of the more unique sustain effects we’ve ever found, despite how limited the area and range we have to work with on top of the limited amount of energy we can shape. An inventive person could use this to do a lot.” Mom aimed the shield at a chair and formed claws to pick it up and stumbled bit once she did lift the chair off the ground and quickly put the chair down. “Okay, definitely not the same as unicorn levitation. I’m guessing the barrier is effected by force and weight, if it gets hit with weight or any amount of force, then it hits you personally with it.”

“Yep, you figured that out rather quickly mom. You still have to move the shield to do anything with the magical sustain too, so you can’t forget that being a slight issue as well.” It always helped to know the limitations of our magical alchemy discoveries. “Still, what the shield can do is pretty good, just don’t let the barrier energy be hit too hard and it’ll protect you. Otherwise a large enough blow will hurt you, as such it’s dependent on what the user can stand up to personally.”

An explosion of bright colorful lights appeared in the sky attracting our attention to Fizzle, she was trying not to use too much energy and was alternating between using the sword and her horn to get a feel for the differences between them.

“Well I think I’ve exhausted my magic for the day.” Was it really that tiring for you Fizzle? You only did three fireworks based displays with both your horn and imbuing an object to do the same thing.

“Are you feeling okay Fizzy?” I knew Fizzlepop was becoming more and more prominent in my life. I was okay with that because I loved her and I knew she liked me.

“I’m fine, but it’s really draining to practice my magic.” She gave me a friendly smile, before moving closer to nuzzle my neck and then planted a gentle kiss my on the cheek. She was getting bolder and eventually she might work her way up to asking me out on a date. “Thanks for worrying about me Jade. Did you test the chain yet?”

“Not yet, I’m still watching mom play with the shield.” We both turned to see Jacky holding a stick and with a swing of the shield, mom sent the orange sword she created through the stick cutting it in half.

“That’s a little below the sharpness of a normal sword, but I think the force matched the strength of your arms swing.” Jacky stated while studying the cut part of the stick she was still holding with interest. “It works offensively at least, but the projection seems to only be capable of going about ten feet from the shield, or three meters, before it loses cohesion. It can only go off to the side for about five feet at its farthest and only one foot at its closest. The more shapes used to form a projection, the smaller that projection is. This is all really quite complicated for something as simple as a metal shield.”

“Yeah and if we account for the weight I can lift with one arm including the shields own weight, then I might be able to move some smaller more lightweight things around easily.” Mom looked like she wanted to test how much weight she could put on her arm. “Leverage wouldn’t be a problem, it’s the actual lifting that is problematic.”

To show everyone what she was talking about, mom sent the orange energy out to grab the spear from Jacky. The energy got beneath Blackcap’s fingers and pried the spear loose. With a tug of the shield mom it brought the spear back close to the shield where she took it into her empty left hand.

“Could you use it to grapple onto things and pull yourself towards them?” My question made mom give me a curious look and she moved closer to the ship and made the energy grab onto the railing above, she pulled and didn’t leave the ground. “Well it’s not a complete grappling hook then. Try making a propeller, attach it to the shield directly and get it spinning.”

Mom concentrated until there was an orange propeller shape clutching the shield tightly, it looked kind of like she was wearing a large clock on her arm. She started making circular motions with her right arm until the propeller started spinning rapidly, it produced enough air to blow her onto her back.

After standing up, mom scrutinized the shield. She started making the circular motions again, but then held the shield straight up and went up about twenty feet into the air when the propeller started spinning rapidly. She slowly fell back down, the propeller immediately stopped when she hit the ground.

After a moment of scrutinizing the propeller on the shield, she turned to me.

“I can’t fly with this, it’s not possible. The circular motions needed to do what I just did is like winding a rubber band, the tension will only last so long after it goes off. I need to do this while standing on the ground to build it up, but at least at least I can do assisted jumps with this. I can even make a makeshift parachute using the shield if I’m falling from way too high up… where did you get the idea for this Jade?” Everyone turned to me at mom’s pertinent question.

“Comic books, specifically Power Pony comic books.” Said comic books are sold in Ponyville, too bad the enchanted variety isn’t sold around there too. “Radiance can do something similar to what the shield does, only she’s not as limited to size, distance or range. You should read it mom, you’ll get a lot of ideas out of it. We can also get plenty of ideas of how to use the shield from some imaginative games of O and O. I’ve also figured out that the sustain effect would be really good against energy based attacks that don’t cause much of a physical impact. So who wants to help Kuril cook a moderate lunch for Palicoast? It’ll be first come first serve, while supplies last!”

-One hour of cooking later, Kuril-

A white furred, wild looking, Abyssinian with black spots and stripes sat next to me eating soup. Her longs ears twitched in appreciation and I could see a smile forming on her face.

“Did you hear I was cooking and decided to come running Savannah?” I addressed Jade’s old kitten sitter, she just chuckled.

“No, I just wanted to say goodbye again Kurilian… and eat your food of course.” I didn’t use her services often, but she was still considered a family friend. “Can’t possibly miss the Kurilian special when it’s in such limited supply around here. In any case, I hope you continue having good times in the pony lands mayor Kuril.”

“You’re plan for a town wide bunker is going to be approved Kuril.” I turned away from Savannah and to the approaching blonde furred cat. “I think we’ll eventually need it too.”

-Fizzle, a day later-

It was the moment of truth, we were descending towards the bright spot in the distance, the fire that Jade started and had yet to ever truly cease. Hopefully it never disappeared, if Jade disappears again it’ll let us know she’s alright.

There were a few new things about airship Mauled, but I’m sure we’d get an explanation about it quite soon.

“Come on, we’re almost there.” Jacky was slowly lowering us into place.

We were slowing down immensely and before we knew it, The Ardent Survivor had landed without slamming into Sekhet. Speaking of powerful immortal beings, where was the giant winged cat of riddles?

“See, we can land in Airship Mauled without crushing our favorite local goddess of exercise.” I jokingly said out loud, that got a few giggles all around.

“So… you’re not going to crash land into me on accident or with purpose today?” Sekhet walked up to the airship a glanced at us in interest. “Well that’s a literal load off my mind, also thanks for the new title… now I have to live with that for the rest of my life.”

“Sekhet, our beloved mighty goddess of exercise! Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember us having built a relatively small pyramid here.” After Jade mentioned it, we all turned to the pyramid sitting a distance away from the inn and restaurant.

Yeah it was a small pyramid just sitting on the outskirts of our town’s main building area. It had a large enough entrance for Sekhet and the sphinx did look somewhat particularly proud of it.

“It was taking you guys so long to get back, I decided to do something constructive with my time.” Sekhet gestured to the pyramid with her large paw. “Like build a home that is more befitting my great stature around here, bask in its geometric splendor!”

“Yeah, yeah, interesting and all, now where’s this wagon my guys live in with my sweet little Tarsus?” Merriami had already climbed down the side of the airship and was holding a happy looking changeling against her body.

Tarsus better be happy after all the trouble we went through for him, especially Jade getting hurt. Merriami was the one wearing the pants in their relationship and the changeling didn’t mind that.

“Speaking of our wagon, let us play you some music in thanks for helping out our good friend!” Clypeus was walking back from the wagon wearing his sombrero and he was smiling at us. “Tarsus certainly owes you more than we do friends, we would like to help him make up for all the trouble we put you through.”

“Oh thank goodness you’re back, Celestia and Sekhet wouldn’t stop fighting over cake!” Poor Cheerilee looked a little harried. Wait, Celestia knew Sekhet was living here now? I expected more destruction and to come back to a smoldering hole in the ground.

“It wasn’t that bad Cheerilee, you just have to know how to make the goddesses calm and happy.” Easy for you to say Fresh Start. You were the only one that could cook around here while we were gone and as such you wouldn’t be a designated target for anything that happens between the two goddesses. “Speaking of, I’ll never be able to ever look at them the same way ever again… they fight like little foals. So anything happen on the trip?”

Before I could answer, Maries pounced onto Jade and The Shapeshifting Siesta started playing.

Author's Note

This chapter brought to you by AT fields and AE's Sky Flyer.

Is the story too bizarre?

In any case, whatever a commenter has to say, it's time for a moderately large time skip! Also getting more mileage out of the violence tag. Before comment about the shield, let me just be clear that Radiance is the most broken Power Pony character ever.

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredients!)

The Knuckler (A Shield).

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Battle Barrier (Armor reliant ability). Creates a malleable and limited field of barrier energy that is very protective against low impact energy, ranged or weak area of effect based attacks.

Point blank the barrier energy can only operate within the radius of a foot from the direction the shield is pointing, at the maximum of ten feet away it can operate within a five foot radius. Field can be used for offensive purposes by generating weapons.

Can grab and move small objects with barrier energy depending on how much weight the arm using the sustain can support.

The weight of the shield itself is a problem. It cannot be used to move the wielder around with the grappling effect. Cannot be used to fly. Can be used for assisted jumping and gliding.

Any sufficient weight or force exerted on the barrier field is sent straight to the user, the chances for arm based injuries is increased by a factor of two while sustain is in effect.

Self-Sustain: None.

Chain Link.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: ???. (Effect seems to do nothing, need more information.)

Self-Sustain: Linked strength (Passive instant buff). While physically touching someone else that is close to the wielder, both wielder and ‘friendly’ target gain a ten percent boost to all stats. Clothing interferes in effect, must absolutely be making physical contact with 'friendly' target.

Due to how complicated the Alchemy list is getting, it will only be posted once more and then the magical alchemy used in any chapter will be posted in the authors note. Otherwise the authors note would become longer than the chapters themselves and that would be just plain ridiculous.

Chapter Nine, Exercises In Utility: Zecora's here!

-Fizzle-

I was still afraid of being abandoned, even though I logically knew I was loved.

Though I feared waking up from the dream I was living, I managed to enjoy the party.

My sleep was going to be uneasy dreams… or they could just be of me sitting under a tree in comfort with my friends.

They were all so close to me now, I just needed to get my anxiety under control.

I truly wanted to ask Jade out on a date after she gave me an open invitation to, but I couldn’t do it any time soon if I’m going just to doubt myself among other things. I wanted to be of a completely sound mind when I asked Jade out.

Aside from the anxiety, I think I can get through this evening just fine.

-The next day, Zecora-

I have been traveling for a while, it’s been far more than a single mile.

I really don’t need to think in rhyme, but it helps me gather my thoughts. I shoved a bush out of my way and tried to find the way towards the place of a rumored alchemist or witch. The zebras I spoke to couldn’t agree on what she was talented in, but they said her food was magical at the very least.

Apparently this witch of good taste lived out here in a little know place, it is something I wished to see for myself with the eyes in my face.

Pushing another bush out of my way, I came upon a sight rather queer. It was quite unusual an empty place with signs of a party having been here. There was a large amount of destruction, what had happened?

I stayed in the bush and looked about. Nearby I could see farm lands, two boats turned into buildings and a flying boat that looked alright and untouched.

None of the buildings were damaged, but the ground had the prints of wild elephants around. Also marking of tentacles, humongous feathered wings and several other curious things. Elephants weren’t even native to this region or at least I didn’t think they were, well I did see a giraffe or two. Whatever made those markings on the ground, it was no elephant.

“Something terrible must have happened here! Hello, is any pony near?” I looked through the destroyed party stuff and eventually found something moving under a banner next to the fire.

I quickly hurried over to it to see, if someone was in need of me. Lifting the banner, the reaction wasn’t what I sought, much less the appearance beneath the banner was not someone injured that I thought.

“Excuse me, I’m trying to rest here after a one eyed flying purple pony eater attacked last night.” The pony before me had purple blunt cut hair, judging by her clothing she looked to have been roughed up by something larger than a simple mare. On the whole she looked perfectly healthy. “It tried to eat one of my sisters, one of the friends I made here and a resident at the nearby farm. I was displeased with that state of events.”

“It seems like the creature was truly quite massive, also why do you seem so passive?” Especially after an attack from a creature as large as the one that made the tracks through this area. There were a few other curious things around here and quite amazing to me, because how did I not notice that pyramid until I got this close? Also the fire had a powerful magic surrounding it, more than needed for a camp where marshmallows will toast. I took note of the foot prints and the markings in the ground not moving anywhere close to the fire. “Furthermore tell me about this place I have found, why is there no one around?”

“Well my sisters all went home and are safe, but I stayed here to help clean up the mess I made. I should get on that. Also the creature clearly chose the wrong place to attack, especially when the goddess got involved.” She was really quite bland, especially for a mare of the land. “My name is Maud Pie. This is my pet Boulder. This place is called Airship Mauled. I’m going to start cleaning up now, my sister overdid it on setting up this party and I think all of this might be salvageable.”

“Maud do not make me pout, what was the party about?” It certainly seemed as if she was the only one around and I just stumbled across her sleeping on the ground. Also her pet was a rock, an admittedly old one with about six hundred years of history to it. “Where are the people who live here? What has happened to them, I ask in fear?”

“It was to celebrate the one year anniversary of this hamlet being formed. Everyone who lives here is okay, most of them are just off dealing with a pukwudgie attack. The ponies who live at the farm and the inn keeper are still here.” What pukwudgie attack was Maud talking about? I didn’t see any of those dangerous creatures around, but they are native and could be found everywhere in the nearby forests. “Saying the word ‘highland’ around here is taboo because they keep attacking whenever someone says highland pukwudgie or pukwudgies.”

A single pukwudgie charged out of the bush I had been in, much to my very shock as it was the only bush around there and it was open ground all around. Where had the pukwudgie been hiding? It hadn’t been big enough for the both of us.

Maud didn’t react too much to the creature’s single minded aggressive charge. We just watched as it slammed into an invisible wall of some sort a good distance away to fall onto its back. She calmly walked over to it and turned around once close enough.

With a one hoofed buck, she sent the pukwudgie screaming for the horizon as she picked something up off the ground and moved it over to the building pile of damaged party supplies.

She was so calm, and she hadn’t exactly reacted wrong. At least I knew now not to say highland pukwudgie around here.

“Do you know when they’ll be back, at least a place I can have a snack?” After I asked that an answer was swiftly given for free, Maud just pointed out The Witch’s Fare to me.

“You can wait in there or go talk to the inn keeper.” After she said that she continued to pick up the remains of the surroundings. “I’m going to stay here another day and take soil samples myself, I’ll see you around I guess. My sister could still use all the shredded stuff for Nightmare Night parties.”

“Thank you Maud for your time, hopefully the inn keeper has some thyme.” This is where I proceed for the Helping Hoof Inn, hopefully a bit of thyme tea will slake my thirst.

Upon entering the inn I was met with a counter and yet another strange sight, a turtle with wings carrying little orange ball back to a blonde furred cow.

Said adult cow was sitting cross legged behind a desk, she held out her hoof and the flying turtle dropped the ball into the peaceful looking cows hoof.

“Thank you Snickers, do you want me to throw it again?” She had a rather gentle voice and I cleared my throat to get her attention. “Oh hello there, do you want throw the ball too? You can give it a go if you want, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind chasing after it again.”

The turtle landed on the desk and sent me a questioning gaze, she looked to be an intelligent being that was not easy to phase.

“I am not here for the ball, much less throwing it against the nearest wall.” I figured I was addressing the owner of this inn, I hoped to get a room here. “I am Zecora maiden of a mother’s love, is that creature a turtle dove? I would like a room here if you will, also a snack that can fill.”

“Yes, but don’t get to excited about it. She doesn’t like anyone fawning over her because of what she is. Thank you for noticing that my mother was a lovely person.” After stating that she leaned forward against the counter. “Also my name is not Will, it’s Grace. Would you like some already chewed cud?”

“I would like to decline that offer so kind, do you have anything else in mind?” I did not want to tell her what I really thought, a sickness in my stomach is what that brought. “Something a little more to my taste, I do not want your cud to go into the nearest receptacle of waste.

“Well we do have milk and cookies for paying customers, I even made them myself.” Honestly, was this cow as strange as she sounded? I’m beginning to notice she has an airy way of speaking and as gentle as she is, she doesn’t sound like she has much going on upstairs. “Until Arizona made it a rule to not eat more than three cookies a day.”

“Can you tell me from your seat, are the cookies safe to eat?” My words made her look thoughtful for a moment.

“Well I baked some oatmeal cookies and they are completely safe as far as I know, there are no ingredients in them that a pony wouldn’t use.” That sounded okay enough to me cow named Grace. “You don’t mind organic cookies right?”

“Cookies like those I would certainly take, but tea is something I’d rather make.” I don’t think I’d want to drink her milk.

“Tea? Sure, that’s fine by me, just share some with me and Snickers.” Grace seemed quite pleasant and I wouldn’t mind sharing a cup of tea. “You can use the kitchen. Here, let me sign you in Ms. Zecora!”

I was given the clipboard, there were not many names on the paper. Clypeus, Labrum, Labium, Tarsus, Kevin and… is some pony out there seriously named Big Mclarge Huge? I shook my head and just signed my name.

“I must ask how much do I pay?” I queried quite flatly. “As in how much will it cost to stay?”

“For free, only pay what you feel like if you want to.” Really, that sounds a little too nice, Grace didn’t seem to be hiding any ulterior motives. “It’s not like Arizona and I have that much need of money at the moment, we're a completely friendly operation here at Airship Mauled.”

“I believe together we will drink, while having an intriguing discussion I think.” It’s been a while since I exercised some of my knowledge. There is more than one use for my shamanistic practices and alchemy. “I will fix us a nice herbal brew, then we’ll have tea for more than two.”

It seems Snickers the flying turtle approved of my plan to make tea, it should be quite safe for her to consume.

-Jade-

“Okay Fizzy, now that we’re back after that bit of trauma. I’ve got something to do to stop you from moping about me having to rescue you from the monster last night.” I could hear Fizzle grumbling that she wasn’t moping. We were all covered in scratches and nicks from having to deal with puckwudgies… again. “You’re also moping about the fear that you’re not important to me. Well guess what, I’m not going to stop caring about you Fizzle and you shouldn’t be afraid! In fact, mom… I’m going for a highly volatile friendship moment. Jacky help mom prevent anyone from interfering in our moment. Also stay out this Maries, this is between me and Fizzy!”

Maries had been about to say something before I told her off, she obediently sat down. Cheerilee looked worried, she had held up pretty well for having been dragged into a pukwudgie fight with the rest of us. Even Fresh Start got in a few good hits in that fight. We all walked away with minor injuries to show for it, but all the pukwudgies would hopefully stay in traction for a while.

“Really Jade? Fine, my daughter just can’t do things by half or let you mope in peace Fizzle.” Mom absolutely had Fizzle confused. “Give me your stuff, then do it to get it out of your system my little tom cat.”

I gave my griffon feather, knife, the new sheath for the knife and my fish scale necklace all to mom. I proceeded to walk up to Fizzle with only my clothes, my claws and absolutely no magical alchemy. Unless I wanted to use my clothes and I didn’t.

“Fizzle do you really think you’re not strong enough to be my friend, do you think I’ll stop caring about and for you?” I wouldn’t and never will, but what I was about to do would horrify some of the group that helped us stave off another pukwudgie incursion. “Is your anxiety and the resulting sleeping problems really that bad?”

“Yes, it is that bad.” She stated quite clearly.

“I don’t think it is.” I walked forward crouched down so that my eyes met Fizzle’s and I pulled back my hand and slapped her hard across the face. “Fight me!”

“Wha… what are you…” She was crying and I slapped her again, she quickly grew angry and retaliated with a hoof to my chin. Knocking me onto my back, she looked like she immediately regretted it. “Jade… I…”

“Fizzle, you are going to fight and hurt me.” I pounced for her and she rolled away looking at me with the general wide-eyed deer look. “Whether you like it or not, I will make you kick my ass!”

“Why would I ever want to do that?!” I kicked her chin, flipping her back. I jumped on top of her to start hitting her. She knocked me off with a right hook to the face and she bucked me in the stomach, I grunted as I folded around her hooves. “Please stop Jade, I don’t want to…”

I charged for Fizzle and leapt onto her back and she started bucking wildly as I punched her in the barrel repeatedly. She eventually slammed me into the ground by rolling over on top of me and after pinning me to the ground she gave me a split lip with her next hit.

Fizzle then did something particularly brutal to me, in her anger she grabbed both my arms while I was dazed and pulled. She reeled back her head and butted me hard. She dislocated both my arms in a sickening manner and I almost blacked out from the pain. She hit me one more time and was about to again, only stopping once she realized I was helpless.

“Why Jade?!” She was quite angry with me. So I explained myself quite succinctly.

“You can’t be sad and moody… if you’re angry." I smiled at her horrified face. Forcing my left shoulder back into it's socket, I quickly propped myself up to kiss Fizzle on the lips, I held that kiss for a short while. "You’re a beautiful and strong pony Fizzy, also a rather silly one.”

I lifted my arm and poked her nose gently.

"See, you're stronger than me, if only you could see how I see you." I smiled to her. “Fizzy... I know I could wait an eternity for you.”

Author's Note

I don't know whethter to take this story seriously or not... I'm conflicted about the one eye purple pony eater part and the end of this chapter.

Chapter Twelve, Courtroom Chimera: Objection turnabout.

-Celestia-

Okay we had the owner of that death trap of an airship in the courtroom, the very pony that has also been embezzling funds for repairing an overly expensive airship that takes way too much effort to maintain. It was also a large waste of the everyday normal tax paying ponies’ money.

How was Jade going to get him to… oh… no one has told Mr. Karats about the ‘Circle of the Concise’. How are you going to get him on the stand though?

“How do you plead to the accusation that you took part in the theft of Mr. Billions Karats airship and were part of the conspiracy to commit the theft?” Like I didn’t already know that she was going to plead…

“Completely guilty your honor.” Plainly stated the bored looking Jade, who caused the jury to gasp audibly.

Wait… what! I don’t even… did she just seriously admit that she was actually guilty of the crime? She’s starting to remind me of Discord. I knew she was actually guilty, mostly because she masterminded this whole thing.

From what Maries told me, Jade thought Blueblood owned the airship and wanted to catch him in the act of owning the illegal vessel in question. Obviously Prince Blueblood doesn’t own the vessel, but the pony who did and rented it out to several other nobles was still quite worthy of my ire.

Why was she even pleading guilty to this? There was also that whole thing about the rubber chicken that I still didn’t understand as to why Jade brought it up and then denied having done anything with the rubber chicken. Obviously there was something important about the aforementioned rubber chicken, but Jade said that she specifically did nothing with one.

“I’m still going to claim innocence for my client, as there is no evidence she took part in the theft of the airship personally.” It seemed Maria esquire was going to continue the trial as normal. “I request Billion Karats to take the stand please, so I can ask him a few pertinent questions about the night it was stolen.”

Ah, that’s how they were going to get him on the stand, but how can they ask him a question when they can’t provide the evidence that the airship is not what it seems? They can’t lead the witness and he can refuse to answer any question put to him, Billion Karats stood up and went to sit in the witness stand.

“State your name, occupation and place of birth for the court.” Maria lazily rattled off, the standard questions so the jury knows who they were dealing with.

“My name is Billion Karats, I am of a bloodline most royal and noble.” The circle was green for the first part, but started glowing red when he stated he was of a royal or noble bloodline. Mr. Karats didn’t notice it because had his eyes closed and a hoof pressed against his chest proudly. “I’m in the business of airships and or funding modes of transport for the rich and elite, I am even one of the richest ponies in all of Canterlot!”

Green glow, so he was being truthful about that.

“I was born here and given my noble stature, I quickly rose to power with good investments that made me the stallion I am today.” Judging by the blood red glow, he wasn’t even a noble or born in Canterlot at all and the way he said investments was highly suspect given how red the circle turned.

I’m just going to assume that Jade has caught out one of the worst scam artists to ever live in Canterlot, one that might even be scamming the nobles. If he is scamming the nobles, then I feel slightly conflicted about ousting him.

Only slightly, I hoped we could find out the truth today and get rid of this haughty blemish of a pony.

“Where were you on the night that the airship you supposedly own was stolen?” As Maria asked that, Jade sat up and stared at the stallion with something approaching disapproval.

“I was here in Canterlot visiting some friends of mine at a bar.” Started Billion with a green glow beneath him. “It came to my shock that I heard that there was trouble at the docks. This dust mite must have been the one to steal the airship! I hurried as quickly as I could to the docks, but alas my ship was already missing.”

The circle glowed red, obviously he didn’t know that we all already knew that he was wrong. He also didn’t hurry to the docks. I wondered, what was he really doing if he didn’t head to the docks immediately?

“Actually, she was only seen running by the scene of the crime some time before it happened, the airship was still in the docks and multiple royal guards are witnesses to it as still being there while they were chasing my client under false pretenses. She was never seen on the airship in question and there is no evidence to support that my client has ever even touched the ship.” Mostly because the ship is gone and with the absence of the evidence Maries could easily argue her point. I wondered, why hadn’t they jumped on Billion Karats yet? “Can my client be proven guilty without evidence?”

“Your honor I call Jaded La Perm to the stand so she can give testimony on why she thinks she’s guilty of stealing the airship.” After Pace said that, Billion stepped down and Jade got up on the stand.

Jade motioned for me to lean closer to her and I did so.

“We’re waiting for the right moment to expose him Celestia.” She whispered to me, apparently Jade had it covered. “Just continue the trial.”

-Jade-

Just you wait Billion. You surprised me, you’re not even a Canterlot elite and you are most certainly not a noble of any sort and you knew that for fact well enough for the circle to go disturbingly red. Also when he said he was hurrying from the bar it was a lie, what was he really doing at that night aside from visiting some friends?

“Do you know exactly where the airship called The Gilded Buttress currently is?” At Pace’s question, I considered lying to get a lie response. The truth causing a lie response was much better for me.

“Yes, I know ‘exactly’ where the ship is.” The circle turned red, it would have done that anyway if I had said no. The only reason why it responded that I was lying was that the circle didn’t consider some of the more pertinent facts.

I didn’t know ‘exactly’ where the airship landed or the ‘exact’ location it is at, but I know for certain that the golden airship was somewhere in or near Airship Mauled.

The word ‘exactly’ is what caused it to be a lie. I don’t know what happened to the airship other than where it was generally, but not exactly its location by latitude or longitude. The circle picked up on those exact thoughts and gave a false negative for me. You can easily manipulate it, but it requires a certain amount of specificity to get away with it.

“Yet you claim to have plotted the theft of the ship, did you just commit perjury?” Pace asked calmly, he was quite angry at all the stuff I was going to get away with. Hoofdini has nothing on my current act.

“No, I haven’t perjured myself. I did in fact plan the airship’s theft down to the finest degree.” I was happy to note that the circle glowed green.

“Then how could you have not planned on where it was to be taken?!” Mr. Set slammed his hooves onto the table and Billion Karats looked a little lost, nobody explained to him about the ‘Circle of the Concise’ spell yet. I hoped that we can keep it that way for a bit longer.

“I did plan on where it was taken, I just don’t know if it ever got there or if it is somewhere else. Right now it’s basically Humdinger’s cat in a box paradox.” Green glow again, oh I am ever good at this and Celestia just stared at me wide eyed. I turned a grin her way.

All I needed Pace to do is ask one important question, it was 'why did I steal that ship specifically' or any variation thereof. Billion wasn’t going to like it at all when I actually answered that question.

“Can you tell the court just what a Humdinger’s Cat Paradox is?” It seemed Mr. Set was up-Set, he muttered loudly to the court. “It better not be about a certain annoying intelligence flaunting cat in the courtroom.”

“I am not flaunting my knowledge, I’ve been sitting here quietly while my sister performs our duty as our client’s attorney.” Spoke up Mara, who looked vaguely angry.

“I wasn’t talking about you, though I will begrudgingly admit that you three are actually pretty decent attorneys.” Mr. Set sent a glare my way. Was it just because I was making a mockery of the ‘Circle of the Concise’ by being myself?

Maybe it was my antics with trying to get him focused on the rubber chicken thing. Said rubber chicken was actually currently in the room with us now, despite no one aside from me or Maries knowing where it was. I’m thoroughly surprised that it hasn’t been discovered yet, I would like to post-humorously thank Chancellor Pudding Head for a certain peculiar and still very valid ancient law involving that.

“Okay, Humdinger was an interesting earth pony. He did a thought experiment with a regular cat and not an Abyssinian like me.” That was my opening for this story and I was about to continue, if not for the interruption.

“This is a farce isn’t it? Why is Celestia even your judge! This seems like a conflict of interest and the princess shouldn’t be judging this case.” Okay Billion, I’m curious, how would you know Celestia being the judge is a conflict of interest?

“Quiet, you may speak when Pace and Jade are done. Speak out of turn two more times and I will hold you in contempt of court.” Thanks to Princess Celestia, the stallion clammed up quite fast. “The defendant will continue her story on Humdinger’s cat.”

“Now where was I? Humdinger, with the help of a unicorn, put the cat in a box. He had the unicorn cast an object teleportation spell on whatever was in the box at the time, he surmised that the spell would either ignore the cat or teleport it. It was discussed that until the box is opened, the cat is considered in a state of limbo of being there and not there at the same time, thus was Humdinger’s paradox born.” Letting that sink in, I added onto my statement. “The airship is in the box, but I don’t know if the spell to teleport it truly worked or not. As I have yet to open the box, would you say that the ship reached its destination successfully? You know, since I was captured by the royal guard, I haven’t exactly had the chance to go see for myself.”

“Are you quite done you piece of unwanted lint?” Okay, Billion was working up my distaste meter quite a bit with that snobby tone and the accent didn’t help either. It was so tempting to just do something like a petty kitty right now, but I would withhold myself from acting on the basest of my urges for a better outcome.

“Yes.” I strained out. The circle flicked between red and green, before turning green.

“Okay so you planned the theft of the ship, it was obviously successful.” Rubbing his chin and thinking on it, Pace suddenly asked the question I wanted him to. “Why did you steal that airship specifically and none of the others present in the air docks at the time? It’s had a history of breaking down so much and seems to cost a fortune in upkeep, why would you steal something that would be so costly and hard to get rid of or even keep because of how easily recognizable it is? It doesn’t seem like such a smart move for someone of your interesting intellect to take something worthless.”

“The ship was definitely stolen for a good reason, it’s because I knew the truth about the ship and it is only seemingly worthless.” A green glow came from below me and a slow building look of horror came over Billion Karats face as he realized where I was going with this. I smugly smiled at the unicorn. “For the gilded butt rests secret is...”

“I move to have the current judge removed on the basis that she is biased towards the defendant!” Billion almost shouted in interruption, ‘almost’ being the key word.

“On what grounds could she possibly have a bias towards the defendant?” Asked Pace who noticed that the pony next to him and Shining Armor was looking a little pale in the face and was sweating a bit.

“The defendant is a Sun Priest, so Celestia has to have a bias for her!” As soon as he said that, my eyes widened and then narrowed. The jury started talking and they looked quite confused by this turn of events. “I move that the court immediately instates a new judge of my choosing!”

Celestia kept a pretty tight lid on that information. How could he possibly know that I was a priestess? I knew that gold bar on his flank did not mean he was of great intelligence, he did just oust himself here by knowing about that. He might even possibly be responsible for sending those assassins after me.

“What’s a Sun Priest?” Shining looked a little confused, he’d been pretty quiet up until now. He was probably thinking about his actions.

“Not important, but what is important is how Mr. Karats knows that I’m even a Sun Priest in the first place. I actually happen to be an unacknowledged Sun Priest.” The ground below the stand glowed green, but I ignored it.

“Hold it! My client is not formally recognized or known as an acting or active Sun Priest by Celestia or any one noble.” It seemed Maria cottoned onto something. “By the laws that have yet to be repealed, Celestia cannot have a bias or conflict of interest unless Jade actually becomes fully recognized as a Sun Priest.”

“Then I move to have the stinking flea bag recognized as a Sun Priest, so that we can appoint another judge!” Billion angrily glared at me. I just wondered what he knew about Sun Priests and why he didn’t seem to like me so much.

“Are you really sure you want to do that?” The lackadaisical uppity tone Marie spoke in was just perfect.

“Yes, I want to acknowledge her as a Sun Priest!” Everyone turned from looking at Billion to Celestia.

“I formally acknowledge that she is a Sun Priest.” Stated Celestia, we smiled at one another.

“See, now you have to stop being the judge!” Unfortunately for Billion, he didn’t understand the reason why Celestia agreed with him.

“Nope, the charges against Jaded La Perm were immediately dropped... thanks to your actions Mr. Karats.” Banging her gavel, Celestia smiled at Billion. The gavel dropped again. “Mr. Karats, I'm quite glad to welcome you to your trial!”

Chapter Sixteen, Fishing with Vikings: Fishing ensues.

-Maries-

“This should be a good place to start fishing.” Leading us to a nice spot at the riverside, Jade started by sitting down and patting a spot next to her. We came up to her and sat down with her. “So what do you want to know about fishing Maries? I’ve brought several methods of fishing with me. Which would you like to learn about?”

“What would you recommend we learn?” Mara asked for us intrigued by the stuff Jade brought with her.

“It’s not like we’ve ever had a reason to go fishing before Jade.” As Maria just said, we lacked the need to have gone fishing before now.

“Well I could go over using the fishing rod method, the fishing net method, the tail method could be fun for Marie, there’s the spear fishing method, the fish slap fishing method and my personally favorite the quick and unbelievably smart trap method.” Taking a thoughtful look at the river Jade turned to us. “We’re in a good position to use the smart method here, but the smart method requires that we catch at least one small fish to use.”

“Which would require us to use the other methods first?” Our tail inquired politely.

“Yes, I think the easiest method for you to learn would be tail or fish slap fishing. You’re not exactly built to use a spear, a fishing pole might be easier for you as it requires physical strength and all of you have that in spades.” You flattered us Jade. Were we all blushing or was it just Mara? “Wielding the pole may be a bit of a problem with you. The fishing net wouldn’t be too hard for you to use either, but it requires patience and slower movements.”

She motioned for us to follower her and we did, we quietly moved down the river a bit and she eventually stopped.

“Don’t make any loud noises, we wouldn’t want to scare the fish before we’re ready to grab or slap one.” We crawled up to the edge of the water. “Do you have any bear in your ancestry Maries?”

“No, we do not. Also we don’t think Fizzle would be very welcoming of anything with bear like traits given how her horn was damaged.” Nodding in acceptance at our wise words, Jade moved to the edge of the river.

“I was asking because fish slap fishing is the method bears use to get fish meat. Well, when they’re not consuming honey or berries that is. Watch what I do carefully guys.” Do not worry Jade, we were watching you closely. You shall not come to harm while we are here, you were spirited in unusual ways that attracted our hearts to one such as you.

Jade stood next to the water and moved slightly into it slowly, she then watched the water carefully. I could see a shadow in the water shifting and swimming to Jade’s left.

She approached it carefully and then she raised back her right arm and her claws popped out of her fingers preparing for a swift solid strike. She was acting like we did when we went hunting. Hunting was something that we haven’t done in a while, there wasn’t much need to, but we still remembered how to do it.

We hunted by sneaking up on a target from behind, above or any other direction they are not paying any attention to. Once we were ready, we would then strike when the time is right. That being when the prey is not able to react fast enough to avoid being eviscerated, all one quick fluid motion.

With a swift swing of her right arm, and a shift of her hip to throw weight and momentum behind her swing, Jade sent a silver colored fish flying out of the water with claw marks on its side in a single glorious awe inspiring motion.

We could feel our hearts quicken at the sight of seeing Jade move like a hunter, she was beautiful to watch in motion. There was that fierce side to her, like what we saw on the day we first met her. She may have a nice demeanor, but that didn’t mean she was weak.

The injured fish landed on the bank to begin flopping, but that didn’t last long as Jade quickly pounced on it and swiftly killed it by snapping the fragile bones in its neck with her bare hands. The bones made a rather audibly snapping noise,

“I don’t like to watch the fish suffer, I always try to make the fish’s death as quick as I can.” Picking up the average sized fish, Jade looked it over and nodded. “Okay, help me build a small wall of rocks in the river so I can show you the quick and smart method to fishing.”

A wall of rocks?

-A minute or so later-

I find this intriguing.

You and us both Marie, we are building a small beaver dam. Say, Mara, what do you suppose this is that we’re making?

We will soon find out sisters, be patient. We are learning something very unique here.

“Word of warning, don’t overuse this method. Too much fishing like this and you won’t have any more fish to fish for.” Moving stones according to Jade’s wishes, we had formed an almost full half circle. “Don’t fill in the rest of the circle yet Maries, but be ready to do so with a few big stones to close the doorway into the inner portion of the half circle.”

“This is the quick and easy method?” It seemed rather slow to us.

“Yep, would you like to eat some raw fish now?” She picked up a nearby slab of rock. It looked a bit heavy for her, but she had managed to lay it across her lap. “I’m going to need to fillet the fish we have here for this next part.”

“It did take us a while to walk here, we also had a light breakfast compared to you or the others.” Maria proclaimed.

“It was in anticipation of the fact that we’d be eating fish.” Followed up Mara.

After giving us two fish fillets and letting Marie swallow the fish head and bones, we watched as Jade carried the slab of fish guts over to the almost complete half circle of rocks.

“Get ready to seal off the half circle with some rocks Maries.” Moving to do so at Jade’s request, we waited for her to act.

Jade started chopping up some of the fish guts and then scraped it off of the slab and into the river where the bits of it started attracting the fish from downstream. After cutting up a bit more of the fish guts and tossing it into the water, more and more fish were gathering and starting to swim through the gap in the underwater rock dam.

“Okay, now I just carefully dump the rest of the guts and entrails into the water and once you think enough fish have taken the bait, you seal off the hole in our half circular dam.” Jade started scraping the rest of the remains into the water slowly, it attracted a lot of fish to start eating what Jade was dumping into the water.

We could actually see where this was going. Once quite a few fish had passed through the hole into the trap we and Jade had set up together, we moved some rocks into position successfully trapping at least twenty or more fish in the half circle of rocks.

The fish were too busy eating the chum to really notice that they were trapped.

“This is a good set up for practicing various forms of fishing as I’m sure you’ve already noticed.” Of course Jade, we would be dumb to not notice the situation placed before us.

It wasn’t long before we found ourselves approached by three interlopers into what was supposed to be our private time with Jade. A time we were enjoying up until now.

-Jade-

“See, they are having an adventure out here.” Okay how did Generic make his excited tone sound so unbelievably normal? “A bit low key, but it's still an adventure.”

“I don’t see violent combat or any great adventuring!” Could you maybe do some volume control Flamberge, you might scare off the fish that we don’t already have caught.

“I am ‘Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant’!” Did this Fortitude guy ever get any more elegant than that? “Fortitude is feeling strange and comforting aura around you.”

“What are the three of you doing here, you’re kind of interrupting my date with Maries here.” Tapping my foot impatiently, I was a little more than upset on Maries’ behalf. “Speaking of, try fish slapping a trapped fish onto the bank and get it back into the water.”

Maries tried to fish slap a fish and only missed, then a fish leapt up and slapped both Mara and Maria across their faces. She narrowed her eyes on the offending fish and try to slap it out of containment, only she missed again.

“Well I have heard stories of you from Jacky, she made it sound that you are quite adventurous. That it was a fact that you can’t do normal for long.” Started off Generic, he paused and looked towards Maries trying to get a fish out of the water. He turned to me with an appraising eye. “Are you sure you're dating her?”

“Yes, I am.” They were kind of messing with what was supposed to be Maries first date with me. “We are in the middle of a date right now.”

“Fortitude apologizes, but we thought you would be trying to hunt a happy little narwhal.” The incredulous look Fortitude received from me was quite a strong one. “Yak not see narwhal yet.”

“You do realize that narwhal’s can’t be found in rivers right?” Seriously, where did they get the idea that I could catch a narwhal here of all places? “Narwhals prefer living in colder places. Not only that, I know for a fact that they’re carnivorous and I’d rather not have one try and swallow me whole. Still, fishing a narwhal out of a river like this should be impossible, but you can try to keep me posted on one appearing here. A narwhal coming here is about as likely as my mother getting an Al-Mi‘ Raj as a familiar!”

While I said this, Maries had managed to smack a fish out of the trap and onto the bank. The three of them smiled before they knocked the fish back into the water where it went back to swimming around aimlessly in the fish trap.

“Do that a few more times and you’ll get the hang of fish slapping Maries.” I didn’t think of myself as a good teacher, but obviously Maries picked up some of my technique from just watching me.

-Kuril-

“Why are all of you afraid of her?” In my arms I held a pink bunny with a sharp looking horn, I gently ran my hand over her head. Well she felt like a girl to me. “She’s such a sweetie.”

“That’s an al-mi’raj, they are vicious creatures!” One of the Vikings, a big and strong looking yak, stated while shivering in fear.

“Doesn’t seem so vicious to me.” I rubbed my face against the horned rabbit and it squeaked happily at my affectionate gesture.

“Ma’am, that thing isn’t safe to be near.” What was up with these overly polite Vikings? Was it Sekhet’s presence that was keeping them in line? “Those things are always dangerous to everyone and everything around them.”

“Do they have any weaknesses? I think belly rubs might be one.” The little unicorn rabbit squealed as soon as I started tickling it. Once I stopped I held her high in the air and looked into her bright blue beautiful eyes. “Now what to call you? Oh I know! I’ll call you Sugar. Your fur reminds me of cotton candy.”

Sugar nuzzled her face against me and avoided hitting me with her horn, she must really like me.

“How can you have that monster so calm? Only a witch would be able to calm something like one of those monstrosities down.” One of the griffon Vikings asked looking at me with awe.

“I’m a witch of good taste, does that count?” I received a bunch of blank stares.

“You’re a witch? Why didn’t you ever tell any of us that?” A Viking dragon asked looking upset.

“Why would I have to tell you, I’m the owner of a restaurant called The Witch’s Fare, it should be kind of obvious?” There was a grumbling among the crowd and a griffon strode forward and examined the unicorn horned rabbit getting comfortable in my grip. “I’m also wearing robes and have on a witch’s hat with some pirate mixed in!”

“You seem like an alright mayor to your town to us and have been quite kind Ms. La Perm, I guess you being a witch that knows how to cook would explain everything. I guess that’s alright with us then, a Witch of good taste… who knew such a thing could exist.” The griffon bowed to me and then headed back to his group. “She’s a friendly witch you guys, keep treating her with great respect if you haven’t already!”

“What?! You’re okay with her being a witch, but you’re not okay with me being a flying serpent?” A frazzled Quetzalcoatl yelled.

“Shut it Ourogundjet!” One of the Viking dragons moved to defend me. “You will not fool us with your lies of how your most certainly cross dressing you masculine hussy!”

“One I’m male, two I don’t even wear clothing, three you just mixed up the name of three differing gods together and four my gender should not be that hard to figure out as I have an obviously masculine voice!” Poor Mr. Quetzalcoatl, the Vikings really didn’t seem to like him.

“That’s only a likely story and doesn’t meet with reality as we see it!” A blue dragon Viking shouted.

I sighed and guessed that I would be better off getting back to my place of business and not questioning any of this, I didn't need the headaches like Mr. Quetzalcoatl was getting by having to deal with the Vikings.

-Jade-

"That's it Maries, reel it in and bring it home with a hard yank!" The vibrant Vikings might have been sticking around, but at least they weren't being overly intrusive into our date.

With a sharp pull of the fishing rod, the fish came out of the water and Maries smiled at the moderate sized pike she just caught. At least things were quiet with the Vibrant Vikings, as they called themselves, down the river from us and out of our fur.

"Good job Maries! that's a pretty big fish for your first catch of the day." After praising her she pulled put away the fish and came over to hug me with her tiger paws and then nuzzle me with all three of her heads affectionately.

"We're having fun Jade, aren't you worried about this narwhal thing they spoke of?" Looks like I had to ease Mara, Marie and Maria's minds about this.

"Look Maries, I am quite sure that there can't possibly be a narwhal around here. It would take a horrendous act of ignorance for one to even be..." A shadow rose up and I turned around to see a humongous narwhal. "here."

Chapter Eighteen, Cult-tural: Full Glass.

-Jade-

To start off we were on Daring Do’s small airship, party of six. Jacky, Fizzle, Mom, Sugar, Blade and lastly me.

We were on our way to the top of Seared Seer Mountain. From what Daring tells us, there’s wendigoes, yetis, black dragons and cultists with unknown combat ability.

You know, the usual general adventure stuff you’d find in an inhospitable cold place like that.

Somehow this is all related to the worship of Nightmare the entity that overshadowed Luna, given the presence and mention of wendigoes there’s a lot of anger, hatred and fighting going on somewhere in the vicinity or else the wendigoes would have starved without their main source of food.

“So how did you talk me into bringing all of you again? Let’s start with you specifically Jade.” At Daring’s questioning look I held a hand up to my chest and mocked utter bewilderment at the idea that I had anything to do with us being on this ship. “I need the reminder as to why I’m involving you guys in this. I just dropped by to see how you guys were doing after we dropped you off at that dusty thief riddled town. The answer is pretty well, except for the odd number of crashed airship incidents around your place apparently.”

Knowing we were going to be near Wendigo, I took the precaution to have us dropped off in Canterlot for an hour so I could pick up some spare phoenix feathers yesterday when we decided to have Daring Do stay the night. Salamander scales were a must, but the heat vision from touching them was annoying to deal with. Oh sure it was useful, but still very annoying.

“We don’t make the airships crash in Airship Mauled, they do that on their own and it is an Airship Mauled pastime to watch our favorite local goddess get hit by them. As for me, well I for one am an expert on the dark goddess the cultist slash monks are likely worshipping. Has Celestia told you anything about Nightmare Moon?” At my question Daring, who was watching Jacky steer the ship, slowly rolled her eyes in my direction. “In any case I’m quite knowledgeable on monsters and how to defeat them, whether they be mythological or real. I don’t think this is going to be a boring nightmare night cult.”

“No she hasn’t, but then again how much could there be to know? Dark cultist monastery on top of a mountain, it’s not that hard to figure out really.” Daring didn’t seem to think of me as being worth much on this trip. “Though who knows, a little knowledge in the right place could get us somewhere. What about your mother?”

“She’s a witch, can cook really well and has one of the world’s most dangerous creatures for a familiar.” What I said, for some reason, made Daring laugh.

“The pink rabbit with the horn, you actually think that thing is dangerous?” She was giggling, Daring Do was actually giggling about the monstrous rabbit. “Yeah, right. I could take that rabbit any day.”

“You say that now… just know that horned rabbit is one of the most dangerous monsters I know about.” I shuddered at the thought of meeting an uncontrolled ‘All Mirage’. “We’re all just lucky my mom can keep her under control and that she didn’t kill anyone in town before becoming my mother’s familiar.”

“Okay, say I buy that your mother has something more than cooking.” She pointed a hoof to Jacky who was happy to be piloting the airship. “What about the bird?”

“Expert in airship engineering, quasi-pirate, luck challenged and becoming exceptionally good at firing things that aren’t arrows with extreme accuracy from a bow.” Mostly because I made said bow and had no idea what I had created, it still belonged to Jacky and it was hers to use as she saw fit. “No matter what happens to this airship, if you have enough materials, then she can fix it.”

“Now we’re getting to someone useful, but what do you mean by…” Daring's lucky pith helmet fell off the shelf and bonked her on the head. “Ow… luck challenged?”

“That’s what you pick up on, I thought you’d be more interested in the fact that she’s a quasi-pirate. Anyway she’s a living jinx, but it’s not really too bad. It’s been mostly contained to causing her problems, sometimes things happen to people near her.” I looked at Jacky who looked my way. “What I know for certain is that despite her bad luck, she’s a loyal friend through and through.”

“I can at least use a spear efficiently, I’m really good with cannons and swords preferably. I’m still learning how to use my bow to the best of its abilities.” Speaking of which, Jacky had the spear and bow on her and her tail mounted quiver was loaded with things that weren’t arrows. “Right or wrong, I stand by my Captain and try to help where I can. I at least consider myself lucky where it counts, considering I’m not dead yet.”

“The bird is equal to or greater than the word Blackcap.” I received an odd look from Jacky, after a moment she just shrugged and continued piloting. I turned back to Daring. “Is that all Daring Do?”

“No, what about the mare with the stump? Doesn’t seem like a useful trait for a unicorn to have.” Daring Do received a glare from both me and Fizzle. “Hey, calling it like I see it, you’re the one that convinced me to let you all onboard.”

“She’s intelligent, an extra set of eyes, can think outside the box, can imbue objects to incredible if temporary effects and she can create powerful bursts of magic that can be used to block other sources of magic or cause powerful explosions.” There was a crater just outside of Ponyville that was now a duck pond, I tended to visit with bread crumbs when I and Fluttershy wanted to hang out with Pinkie Pie.

Fluttershy was still learning duck, it was kind of funny to watch her try to speak in quacking sounds.

“I’m also athletic and happen to be learning hoof to hoof breakdance fighting techniques from a goddess of war.” Dryly stated Fizzle who sent Daring Do a chilling stare, she gave me a far warmer look. “The fact that Sekhet even knows how to breakdance fight is pretty weird, but I guess the goddess of war needs to know how to fight a war in any arena.”

“Yeesh, did the temperature just drop forty degrees or are we already there.” We weren’t there Daring Do, but looking off into the distance we could see a mount that was poking through the clouds. The air was going to be quite thin up here and I didn’t know how well I’d do in that situation, thin air doesn’t bother a pegasus like Daring. She might not know why it’ll be a problem for us. “Okay what about miss quiet and unassuming bat pony?”

“Her name is Blade Bright, she’s mute and not for the reasons you’d think. Her voice is way too powerful, so it always hurts her to try and use it.” For once I could see something sympathetic on Daring Do’s face. “Shattering glass isn’t the worst she can do with it. Oh and she’s an assassin that tried to kill me once.”

“You’re not afraid to keep having her around knowing that?” In answer to that Daring Do, I had one thing to say.

“Not really, she hasn’t exactly tried to kill me much recently.” I looked to Blade as she sat off to the side alone with her slightly grown out white hair, her golden eyes sent a glance our way. She was only mildly annoyed that mom wouldn’t let her keep her head shaved and her tail relatively short. “She really knows how to make good sushi rolls, my mom’s been teaching her the finer art of raw fish preparation.”

“Really? It’s been a while since I’ve had fish, seaweed, vegetables and rice all at the same time.” Daring sent Blade a look of interest. “Still, are you sure she’s an assassin?”

With the barest of movements, Blade pulled and threw a knife past Daring cutting her cheek and getting the blade stuck on the wall of the small cabin we were in.

“What do you think? She can do that with her rear hooves while tied up.” At my words I watched as Blade idly preened her left leathery wing for a bit while hiding a small smile. “I should know, we’ve had her captive at Airship Mauled for quite a while. At least long enough for her to pull it off without anyone noticing because she missed the three times she tried to get me with that trick.”

“Okay, is she useful just because she’s an assassin or is it something else?” Asked a now wary and alert Daring Do.

“Oh goodness no, her track record is apparently highly abysmal. That’d explain my continued survival by a wide margin.” Sorry, but I was not going to spare you’re feelings on this Blade. She wilted visibly at my words. “The most she’s done is highly inconvenienced people by halfway killing them or playing enforcer to someone who owes someone else money. Where she can really come in handy here is actually not based in what she can do, it is more so about what she is.”

“How is her being a bat pony really important?” You were about to see Daring, let it be said that I came on this mission with an idea for entry ahead of schedule.

“Given my general knowledge on things we’re likely to run into…” I started off only to be interrupted.

“Of which Jade is hardly ever wrong about in an absurdly well informed manner.” Speaking up was Fizzle, who was just adding those words for emphasis.

“We’re going to be seeing more of Blade’s kin quite soon. Nightmare, Nightmare Moon or any variation of the dark goddess happen to have a partial affinity with bat ponies as you call them.” I turned to Blade. “You don’t mind us calling you bat pony do you? Thestral’s are not exactly well known in the light of day and I’m kind of wondering if this seems insensitive to you.”

Blade mulled it over and just shook her head while rolling her left hoof at me to go on. So I did.

“Anyway, a majority of thestrals are actually friendly and apparently work alongside Celestia. They make up a major part of the night guard in Canterlot, rarely are they ever seen or heard because ponies most sleep at night. The royal guards that get the night shift do work with them fairly often.” I had asked Celestia about this during one of her visits and she acknowledged that there were moon priests. They were kind of like my polar opposite as a sun priest, stalwart guardians of the night. For some reason, I’m not protected by one. One would think Celestia would assign one to me with the threat of assassination hanging over my head, well have I got a bridge for you in Manehatten! “In this case, these Thestrals formed a cult based on the things that happened almost a thousand years ago. Two years and some change is when we can really say it was a thousand years ago. They revere Nightmare Moon, the corrupted goddess of the night. The very mare in the moon that you can see in the night sky every night the moon is visible, as Celestia sealed her away after a rather heated battle a long time ago.”

“But why do they revere her?” That was the question that needed answering Daring.

“She used to be a very important goddess to pony kind. When she was corrupted, so too were some of her closest subjects as well and now they likely seek to bring the world to ruin through the nightmares that they themselves can’t wake up from. It’s either that, or they secluded themselves to wallow in anger and hatred for Celestia partially failing them.” It would be kind of poetic if I was right about Luna’s subjects, the Thestrals, being corrupted to stay away from her and leading her down the road of madness where she was corrupted by Nightmare. “It has probably gotten up to the point that they’ve lived in a mountain so long that the corruption has built up to whatever it has done to them over the last nine hundred and ninety or so years. It’s kind of tragic come to think of it, since they failed the goddess they were meant to protect in the first place and that influence is still controlling them. It’s why the current EUP exists today, to make sure something like that doesn’t happen to Celestia or other ponies as well.”

“We’re nearing the mountain.” Jacky announced us while narrowing her eyes at something on the mountain top we were flying towards, she turned to us with worry. “Uh guys… should monks or cultists know how to use cannons?”

“No… why do you… oh holy fudge!” I saw some kind of cannon with a building blackness in its barrel in the distance, it was broad daylight and the weather was currently clear for the cold snow covered mountain top.

“What, you want me to bake some holy fudge when we get home?” Mom said questioningly as she came up next to me. “I think we can anoint the fudge with holy water, but I’ll need your help with that since you’re the priest here.”

“Maybe later mom, I meant that holy fudge.” I gently grabbed moms head and titled it ever so slightly so that she could see the cannon brimming with even more darkness that was about to fire at us.

“Oh… that kind of holy fudge.” She stated as she got the knuckle dented shield on her right arm. “Okay, but are we still on for making holy brownies?”

“Everyone at Airship Mauled would kill for your brownies.” It’s true, we all would stab someone over them. At least I would if I was promised a share and they got stolen. “Not immediately important mom, shield us now!”

“Alright, but we’re not done talking about this quite yet.” Mom ran out and towards the front of the airship as the large shadowy mass arced its way for us. I followed behind with Daring and Fizzle coming after us. “Let’s hope that it’s not physical or doesn’t have weight or mass to it, because it’ll break my arm otherwise. Kitten, get the bag out of my pack.”

Mom held the shield forward and large circular barrier projected from it, we only had a few seconds before the shadowy mass hit it. I reached into her pack and pulled out a bag. Opening it to confirm what was inside, I turned to Daring.

“Daring, when that shot hits my mother’s barrier, fly up and spread this stuff over the airship!” Taking the bag from me, Daring flew up and waited.

The darkness impacted the barrier, it only put a little pressure on mom’s braced arm. Spreading out, it blocked us from the sight of those who fired at us from below.

When the darkness disappeared, we were gone.

-???-

“It looked like it hit, but something doesn’t seem right.” The thestral commented loudly to his companions. “Where did it go?”

Author's Note

(Updated Salamander Scales in the 'magical alchemy' section.)

Chapter Nineteen, The Whimsical Witch of Even: Majorly dogged too.

-Fizzle-

Three seconds, my reaction time was pretty good if I do say so myself.

It took me my first second to realize we were somewhere else, the second to know there was a guard directly standing behind us and the third to put my rear hooves to his forehead.

The thestral went down instantly when my snap buck connected, I took note of his equipment in a glance. Thestrals were much better than Canterlot Guards, at least according to what Jade tells me about them. These guys were armed with crossbows, wing blades and a few other lethal implements like throwing stars.

“What is going on in… gak!” An ODD thestral guard had been walking in, he looked ready to call out an alarm. Unfortunately for him, something got lodged in his throat that happened to be fired from Jacky’s bow.

Jacky broke away from I and mom to slam her bow across his brow, she then reached down and pulled the object out of his throat. The guy was still thankfully breathing after that, at least Jacky’s luck wasn’t nearly bad enough to incidentally kill someone.

Sure it could cripple, maim, bruise, break and beat someone down, but Jacky’s luck never directly killed anyone as far as we know. Indirectly is a different kettle of fish.

So far so good, I’m guessing that we were already inside and mom got us here with a potion.

“A potion of teleportation I did break, keeping the guards unwary is an opportunity we will take.” Seriously mom? Did you even need to rhyme for that one, it was kind of obvious what the potion did in hindsight. I turned to see what Jacky was holding.

“Really Jacky, a popsicle stick? Dare I ask what flavor it was before it became part of your arsenal?” I asked not even expecting an answer.

“Orange cream pop, but I prefer the banana cream flavor personally.” Well of course you do, you loved bananas as much as Jade loved lemon juice on fish or just fruit in general.

“Girls… quiet.” We turned to mom who slowly poked her head out the door to the large room with bunk beds and other stuff you’d expect a bunch of a barracks. “Let’s move... wait!”

We started to for the door when mom called out for us to wait, we moved by the door as she walked into the room and grabbed the thestral Jacky knocked out and dragged it over to the one I took down.

“Real mature mom, you’re really showing us just how to act your age.” I knew for certain that mom really doesn’t act her age, not when she positioned the two thestrals provocatively like that.

“Well we can’t have people asking questions, if they are caught like this then they’ll think whatever these two have to say is just covering up for their passionate tryst with one another.” Sure, that was the logical explanation, but what was the fun one Kurilian? “Relatively young love, isn’t it grand?”

“I’m with Fizzle on this one, your just doing this to be silly while covering our backs when they wake up.” Note that Jacky’s words were not met with denial, they were met with a demented smile. The same kind of smile Jade is known to get when she starts targeting someone, I think I know where she gets it from now. “Is the coast clear at least?”

“Yes, but I really don’t know where we’re going.” Great, just great mom, this won’t end in disaster with Jacky around. I feel like Jade got off fairly well in this situation. “We’ll just wing it!”

I groaned loudly, this was going to be one of those days huh?

-Jade-

Okay, taking a crossbow bolt through the shoulder was excessively painful, but that didn’t mean I stopped running. These thestrals actually meant business, outrunning the Canterlot Royal Guard was a complete joke compared to these guys.

I ducked a cross bow bolt and rolled into an alleyway, these guys actually had a modicum of good aim. Now if I were a thestral, where would I go to have a crossbow bolt removed?

It’s not like I knew Night Fright Grotto like the back of my paw, or was it Fright Night Grotto? Okay I’m a bit delirious from the pain, but that’s nothing to worry about as long as they didn’t get me in the legs.

Okay, this might hurt quite a bit, but I was going to lead them away with my hydra scale duplicate. The double edged sword here is that I’ll be doubling the pain I’m currently in. Nothing for it, I took my magical sustain off the knife and pushed it to the small bit of hydra scale.

With a glow, my body split off in two directions. My clone didn’t ask questions, she just bolted out of the alleyway and started running for all she was worth. I just sat down to rest.

I hissed out a breath. It was quite painful feeling my injury in stereo, but the chasing thestrals flew by giving chase to my clone and missed seeing the real me here. Once she got them far enough away without taking another injury, my clone dispersed much to their confusion that they lost me.

My clone wasn’t an illusion, so their sonar screeches would see her as real. Thank goodness the pain lessened back to its original strength once my clone was gone, that took a lot out of me. Sugar whined at my injury, she was still too tired to help.

“Coo? Coo!” Huh, is that, I must be seeing things, because… oh goddesses the pain! Why, what exactly was one of the many things that I did to deserve this?

At least I knew it was really Snickers and while I was happy to see her, she was standing on my crossbow bolt while hugging me.

“Snickers, while I’m very exceedingly happy to see you again, you should take into account my current situation buddy.” I let out through my gritted teeth. The turtle blinked once or twice and then noticed the crossbow bolt she was standing on.

The flying snuggle turtle's wings burst out of her shell and started hovering around me in a panic while hissing and cooing up a storm. Yeah, this was really helpful to the given situation Snickers. Like I wanted the attention of the ODD guards that were actively trying to shoot me.

Maybe Bahamut does cut rate medical procedures? I knew he had all kinds of magical power, but I’d just settle for another taco right about now. Using the temporary clone was quite tiring.

“Oh my goodness, are you okay?” The voice made me look up and blink at the shadow casting over me.

“I’d have to ask you the same thing.” Once I took in the disheveled form before me. “What happened to you?”

“Coo!” I turned to my buddy as she pointed out the clearly defined crossbow bolt sticking out of me.

“Yes, I’m very well aware there’s a crossbow bolt in me Snickers and I’m quite sure she’s noticed it too.” I sighed and put my left hand to my head.

“Snickers, is that her name? You know this little troublesome flying turtle?” The figure asked, I nodded that I did in fact know Snickers. “She nearly got me eaten by giant spiders!”

“Sorry about that. She’s smart, but Snickers is not exactly a long term planner by any stretch of the imagination.” I paused and decided to add. “The spiders are a local delicacy of the thestrals. Judging by the look I’m receiving, I think I would currently have arachnophobia if I were to see what you saw.”

“Quite an apt conclusion to put it lightly.” The feminine form before me shuddered.

We both ignored the indignant look Snickers was sending us as she kept pointing a flipper to the crossbow bolt with my life blood flowing out all over it.

“I’m Jaded La Perm, nice to meet you. I believe you’ve already met my familiar and wayward companion Snickers the sea turtle dove.” Introductions were in order since this was someone Snickers befriended.

“I think she’s this way!” A voice shouted off in the distance.

“Excuse me, but I believe we have a taco stand to find!” I got up, despite my protesting shoulder, and grabbed Snickers to start moving in the opposite direction of the guards.

While I was doing this I would fill in Snickers new friend about what was going on around here, I would also ask where my buddy has been for all this time.

-Jacky-

Well we found the R&D room after several near misses and my bad luck causing ample amounts of noise trying to attract a lot of attention to us. The room had a large entrance for the tank to exit out of, it’s just that it only opened from the inside.

We couldn’t have found it from the other side thanks to the camouflaged wall, which wasn’t exactly important anymore. What was important was that the PATTYCAKE Seventy Seven was before us in all its glory, only it was not painted pink like it was supposed to be.

The modifications made to it certainly made it more of a war machine, its original purpose was definitively overshadowed by the new bright neon green armor. The tank probably didn’t need glow moss to be seen around here, it was practically glow in the dark and dark was what thestrals did best.

Looking about we didn’t see any thestrals in here, which was a little odd. You’d think a modified party machine would be guarded more closely, the barracks certainly were until we started moving away from it.

“Jacky check the tank and see what it will take to get it up and running. Fizzle assist Jacky and keep an eye out for anything that she could break by accident, I’ll be on lookout.” Mom received a salute from me and I looked for a tool kit to get to work to see if everything was in order with the tank.

-Approximately one hour later-

“You know chief cook, I can’t help but think something's wrong with all this.” You’d think the thestrals would be keeping this thing well protected. “I’ve fixed the minor problems with the barrel, the engine and checked for all kinds of booby traps. It still seems like there is something we’re missing here.”

The tank would still fire party munitions, but it would be a lot more painful than actually fun. The armor was done correctly, the engine was a small problem and needed a lot of energy to start it up and I had no idea where I was going to get… oh right, Fizzle was here and her horns output was insane.

Everything seemed to be in order except for one problem.

“Do either of you know how to drive this thing? I can work the cannon, but driving the party tank itself is going to be an issue.” Need I remind these two that this was not my area of expertise? I’ve rebuilt airships from the ground up and know how to fix anything short of a broken keel. This was smaller and much more different, but it wasn’t like I couldn’t use my knowledge to get it running.

“Not a clue.” Fizzle reported dryly.

“Nope, I’m a magical witch and not a pirate engineer.” Mom followed up as she watched our surroundings. “Twenty bits says as soon as we get it running, this has all been one big trap for Prime.”

“Not taking that bet, it’s definitely a trap. Which is odd, because they left a semi working vehicle for us to use to escape in.” I’m with Fizzle here, there was something quite off about all this. “Anything wrong with the tank Jacky?”

“Not anymore, at the very least it’ll run a bit slower with all the unnatural armor that’s been added to it.” That was the only thing I could think of that was wrong here. I’ve checked absolutely every portion of this tank and the only thing now was jump starting the magical engine with a power source. “We’ll need Fizzle to get it started though.”

The thing wasn’t very big, it was at least half a little bit larger than a normal carriage on the bottom. The treads were tough looking and I had checked them for structural frailty. On top was the small turret that could turn three hundred and sixty degrees. It could easily fit four to five ponies. It wasn’t exactly roomy for me or Kuril because we were more vertical beings compared to a pony like Fizzle.

“Okay, what do I have to do?” Fizzle seemed raring and ready to go.

“I’ll set something up, you girls get the tank running.” While mom went off to do that, I climbed up onto the tank with Fizzle to get inside.

Once we got down to where the engine was, I pointed out the exact spot to hit.

“Right here, lightning energy, as much as you can safely put into it.” I watched as fizzle concentrated and her broken horn sputtered to life, the output on it should be enough to get us going.

It was minutes later and the tank was operational thanks to Fizzle powering it up, the way out had been rigged to open with whatever concoction mom put at the base of the wall and she was currently reading the manual on how to drive this tank.

“Do me a favor, can you fire this out of the cannon at that other vial?” Nodding to mom, I took the vial and climbed up into the turret. I might be bad luck, but my skills more than made up for it.

Let’s see, range, party cannon powder, vial of dubious substances loaded within the cannon of the party tank and…

“Firing to make a hole!” I shouted.

The vial was on target and hit the other one and they both shattered violently spilling their contents all over the spot, but nothing happened. The tank started rolling backwards.

“Mom what are you…” A massive explosion interrupted me and rocked the tank, but I didn’t hear anything get damaged by it.

“Just getting us out of the blast radius my little chick.” Mom stated cheerily from below.

Looking outside where an entire wall used to be, it was a large hole now.

The tank rolled out of the R&D building and into the streets, only for us to be met with another larger tank.

“Hello, I see you found the tank I set as a trap to lure you Prime.” Unfortunately for Hollow, Primed was busy elsewhere because mom convinced him we’d handle the tank. I guess it was we’d handle the ‘tanks’ now. “I’m surprised you even got it working properly.”

“Oh, I think we’ll be getting this tank back to EVEN.” Mom stated confidently despite the present challenge.

“You will not survive that long, for this is the Mega Galvanizer!” Apparently Hollow Heart’s large dark gray tank was not a normal party tank, given the size of it was at least twice that of the tank we were in. “With this weapon no one will deny my power!”

“Do you think that he just might be overcompensating for something?” A weird question to ask I know, but that tank looked like a real war machine compared to our dinky little, notably barely modified for battle, party tank.

Author's Note

Any comment on the current stories heading? I got an epic multiple chapter tank battle to write.

Chapter twenty four, Guard Goading: Checkmate Knights!

Author's Note

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredient!)

A Unicycle(Because why not at this point?).

Ah, the season of mass turkey eating.

I celebrated Feast Week on Sunday with my family, as is tradition among my kind. We feasted like crazy and... well... my dead relative got brought up again. We're thankful he's no longer in pain, may he rest in peace.

Of course I'm going to celebrate it two more times, once on the day notably called Thanksgiving at someone else's place and a luncheon next week because family out of town missed having us around.

I'm going to be so sick of turkey soon, roasted turkey, barbecued turkey, grilled turkey, baked turkey. I'm up to my giblets in the meat.

Anyway here's the music for this chapter, it's very fitting and ironic. Also I would like to know how this chapter turned out... please?

Chapter twenty four, Guard Goading: Checkmate Knights!

-Jade-

Fizzle was no longer wearing her dress, the tiara being the only thing she was wearing anymore, but I was still in my dapper tuxedo with the skirt.

“Quick, start playing!” I yelled to the nearby Speedy Sax with her mobile orchestra ready to follow us as we landed softly on the unicycle after jumping from the window, feather falling was always useful. “Just try and keep up with us!”

I started wheeling forward across the street towards the wire that was at a thirty degree angle leading up to the rooftops, exactly what I needed. The Squirrels did good work.

For the next thirty seconds or so we’d be light enough to get up the wire, after that we better be on the rooftop or else our weight might snap the wire.

I started rolling the unicycle forward with Fizzle clinging onto my back. I’m so thankful for the training wheels self-sustain effect the unicycle has, you’d have to actually try to fall over.

“There they are, get them!” At the sound of a guard’s rather generic line, I started up the wire as fast as I could peddle with several unicorns firing at us as we made our way up to the rooftops. Here’s hoping that the Wonder Bolts, Shadow Bolts or Pegasus Royal Guards were in position where I needed them to be later.

We managed to get onto the rooftop and just in time too, our weight came back right that second and I had to swerve a bit gain some control as I started rolling across the slanted roof trying not to tip over.

Getting on top of the roofs center, I rolled along as the shots started becoming more numerous in front of and behind us as I pedaled towards an upward curve in the roof. Putting all my weight into it, we jumped from one roof to the next and landed a bit roughly and now we had some forward momentum going here.

We had to do this one more time, despite the fire coming from the unicorns on the ground they weren’t very accurate against a moving target. We hit the next upwards curvature in the roof we were on and I angled to the right jumping the corner to another roof and I rolled along it until I stopped us.

“Jade, why did we… oh.” As you could see Fizzy, I stopped because Spitfire put the trap in exactly the spot I thought she would, the roof was now surrounded by pegasus ponies.

Spitfire was thankfully hovering low enough for me to use the opportunity to do something creative. She opened her mouth to say something, but didn’t get a chance to speak because of what I did next.

I angled us forward and we shot down the angled surface of the roof. We bounced once we hit the edge and launched off towards a surprised looking Spitfire.

Speedy Sax and company passed underneath us still playing the music as we bounced off Spitfire’s skull leaving tire marks on her face and forcing her to slam bodily into the ground below.

We landed on the rooftop across the road from us that would have been too far to reach otherwise and wheeled up the sloped roof and then I let off the pedals once we got over the lip and starting rolling down the other side of the roof.

The pegasus ponies and a few thestral ponies had been caught entirely flat hoofed and were a little too shocked by the maneuver to give chase.

“Fizzy, hold onto me and the unicycle!” Taking my cane into my right hand before we hit the edge of the roof.

We launched off, Fizzy had her front hooves wrapped around my waist and her rear legs tightly around the unicycle.

I swung the cane’s hook in a overhead arc and it hooked around a rope, which we started sliding down at a rapid rate towards the ground and the street where the lower end was. We’d be near the alleyway I needed to stop at now.

I had prepared thoroughly for this escape, because how else was I going to outrun a bunch of ponies on a unicycle with Fizzle’s extra weight slowing us down?

“Keep it beneath us Fizzy!” We were coming close to the ground, I swung us to the right, then sharply to the left and we unhooked from the rope and slapped against the ground.

During this Fizzle climbed back up to hugging my chest, her hind legs wrapped around my waist. Holding onto my hat with my left hand, I kept my feet off the pedals as we were moving at a really insane speed thanks to the momentum from the rope.

This helped us lose them for a bit and gave us some breathing room to perform a trick, once we started slowing down I put my feet on the pedals and started working them rapidly. I then stopped at a rather specific alleyway on the right.

I smiled as I created a clone using the hydra scale, then clone me appeared in front of us. She quickly took up the other waiting unicycle and a body pillow suspiciously shaped like Fizzle and then she wheeled her way out of the alleyway with a bright smile on her face.

We stayed in place as several unicorn guards and flyers ran by chasing my clone. I then wheeled our way into the opposite alley way and on to the end of it and waited at the street looking up the road.

Speedy Sax and her crew stopped right next to us and kept playing the music, though they looked curious as to why we were sitting still. I held up a claw and pointed uphill for them, they saw what was happening and they all grinned a bit.

-Clone Jade-

I wheeled myself into the dead end, my real self was already in position for another miraculous escape. I hit the fuse and turned around. When I saw the guards closing in on me, I raised my claws to pinch myself on the arm and then held my hands up in surrender.

The guards all moved forward as once and went to dogpile me, I of course ceased to exist a second later as I dispersed into motes of light.

“Darn it, how did she do that… also… what’s that hissing sound?” One of the older guards asked after they realized that the cat had escaped them, the guard looked towards the body pillow shaped like Fizzle and saw the fake horn with a fuse inching its way into the head of the snuggle toy. “Darn it all, I was three days from retirement.”

-Fizzle-

A huge explosion and a blue gaseous mushroom cloud went up in the distance. I was wondering why the fake me had what looked like an off color dynamite stick for a horn. The rising mushroom shaped cloud of blue powder rising into the air in the distance showed signs of mom’s involvement in this.

“We’ve got you now!" The pink furred Shining Armor shouted at us with a different squad of unicorns, pegasus and earth ponies. "You didn’t get away last time and you aren’t getting away this time Jaded!”

We had been sitting still in the middle of the road, what exactly was Jade waiting for?

-Jade-

“Shouldn’t you do something about that runaway carriage first?” I pointed behind Shining as I prepared my cane for my next maneuver.

“Yeah right, like we’re going to fall for…” I would like to think Shining was smarter than that.

“Look out!” One of the guards behind Shining stated as they dove out of the way. Not having enough time to create a strong enough barrier, Shining too rolled off to the side as the carriage moving at a breakneck speed went past him and us.

In this moment I held out the cane and having hooked ourselves onto the carriage, I used the momentum to flip us both on top of it.

I tipped my top hat to Shining while holding up my cane in salute to him as I balanced on a unicycle on top of an out of control carriage going downhill, my smile was likely insufferable.

Okay, it was definitely insufferable. I had practiced doing this trick for days and Fizzle’s weight almost threw me off, but I had corrected myself well enough.

The pegasus and thestral ponies started giving chase as they dove downhill after us. Speedy Sax and company had started moving ahead of us when they saw the carriage coming closer.

“Off my back Fizzle, I’ll tell you when to get back on.” Having climbed off of me, I stayed on the unicycle. I wasn’t getting off until the performance was complete. “Don’t use any holds against the ten incoming, we’re fighting them off!”

The first thestral came in low and angled for me, Fizzle slid into position and bucked him in the chin making him backflip in the air and flop to the ground.

A pegasus tried to get Fizzle for that, I rolled forward and brought my cane around in a golf swing that got them in the chin knocking them off to the side and into a tree.

Spitfire, or technically Spite Fire, came screaming in at me. I held up the cane, caught a clothes line on the tip of the hook and then released it once it stretched out enough. I smirked at Spitfire.

“Oh buck yoooooooo….!” Her voice faded out into the distance, where I saw a twinkling star beyond the mountain.

I quickly took out three caltrops from my pack and cast each one. I hit a pegasus and two thestrals with the casts as they turned skywards to avoid hitting the ground. They kept going skywards in an uncontrollable manner, three pegasus ponies broke off to try and find out why the others were ceasing to chase us, they’d find out it was entirely involuntary on their part.

The carriage jolted as it hit the bottom of the hill and started coasting on the straightaway through restaurant row and from there our last stunt would take place.

Standing on her rear hooves Fizzle socked the remaining chasing Wonder Bolt across the face with two quick hooks, a left and a right, then she threw a hard left uppercut that almost stopped the pegasus cold in midair and they fell into a nearby cabbage stand unconscious.

“My cabbages!” I just rolled my eyes at that poor vendors wares being destroyed and fired a magic missile at the remaining thestral pony.

“Not again!” The thestral managed to state before my magic missile blasted her in the face, she spiraled off to the side and managed to catch herself before she hit the ground. She still landed while clutching at her face.

“Back on me Fizzy, now!” I swerved the unicycle around to point forward.

“Jade, this has been one heck of an adrenaline rush.” As Fizzle climbed up onto my back, she saw what was ahead of us.
A bunch of wooden logs in the road, which was to stop the carriage from hurting anyone once it flipped over. The Squirrels had already gotten all the ponies out of our path of egress. “If we die, I blame you.”

“Sounds fair.” I clenched my butt and my flicked my tail, timing was everything!

I started rolling us backwards and then forwards at full speed towards the front of the carriage. That was when it hit the logs causing it to flip.

This launched us forward at incredible speeds towards a large, innocuously placed, metal ramp leading off the side of Canterlot.

I took my feet off the pedals and clasped my feet onto the unicycle before we hit the road, the pedals were a blur and Fizzle clenched her hooves over my feet as we zoomed towards the ramp.

-Fizzle-

I looked over my shoulder at the racket the carriage was causing as it tumbled behind us and eventually landed upside down to start skidding towards us. We were almost to the ramp, please don’t let the carriage catch up to us!

We shot up and off the ramp and went flew up in a lazy arc. Were a pony looking at us with the correct angle, we would have passed in front of the moon making an odd shadow in the moonlight as we passed by.

Our forward momentum was slowing down and we started falling towards a familiar airship, it was the Ardent Survivor! Also Jacky was waiting for us and… uh oh.

We clipped the top of Jacky’s head and she was knocked over, Jade somehow immediately forced the Unicycle to a sudden halt and hopped off to hurry over to Jacky.

“Are you okay Jacky?!” She asked of our luck challenged sister, Jacky held up her left thumb claw from deck of the ship. She slowly got up and stumbled her way to the wheel. “Good, get us out of here full throttle! Fizzle with me, there’s something you have to see! Oh and take a bow.”

Taking her hat from her head, Jade bowed in the direction of Canterlot and I did as well. Jade proceeded to pull out two griffon masks, she pointed out the direction to look.

I used the zoom function on the mask to see Celestia, Madame Nut Case and then Cadence who landed a second later at a table loaded with cake that had been set up next to the carriage occupied ramp.

Celestia took a slow bite of cake and chewed thoroughly before she looked up from that and smiled at us, she picked up something with a hoof and held it up. It was a ten? I looked to Nut Case who was also holding a ten. Cadence was holding up an eight.

“An eight, that fillystine! Anyway, drop that and look to the sky Fizzle.” Doing as Jade asked, I finally saw what the fireworks were for and in three different colors befitting me.

-Spitfire-

“Seriously hate that cat! Come on guys we can still get them, they can’t outpace us in an airship.” I was just at the edge of Canterlot, near a table Celestia was sitting at for some reason. I heard an explosion, turning around I saw two more bright explosions filling the sky.

Following that was several more spelling a word, by the time I turned around the airship was already gone into the darkness.

My face grew red and I inhaled to scream.

-Fizzle-

“I heart you? Yes Jade, I know.” I hugged me some crazy awesome over the top cat. That had to be one of the most incredible things I’ve ever done. “I heart you too.”

I looked through the griffon mask.

“Hey Jade, look at the table again!” Following my advice she looked through the griffon mask and saw that Cadence had changed her score to a ten.

Speedy Sax and her group stopped playing once they reached the table and joined Celestia for some cake.

“I knew it, she needed the extra incentive of a romantic gesture before she’d give me a ten.” Grumbled out Jade who snuggled up against me as several more fireworks went off spelling the word ‘distraction’.

We both heard the scream of a very frustrated winged pony in the distance.

“Do you think I might have gotten Spite Fire’s spleen with that?” That primal scream was soon joined by various other guards.

Chapter twenty seven, Manehattan Menageries: Friendly nonsense.

-Velvet-

Arizona just gave me this long quirked look at what I had just said, I think I can understand why she was staring at me like that.

“I meant fun that doesn’t require violence and beating each other up.” Our fight had been fun and the free food and drink had been great, but I wasn’t willing to go another round. Arizona’s stamina was quite incredible and hard to keep up with.

Thinking of the boorish bovine, she was now giving me an alien look, as if she couldn’t understand the concept of fun where our hooves are not aiming to slam as hard as they can into the others face.

I also wanted to dig into her past to find out why she would have so much trouble with cow culture to show off.

“Something like shopping?” Airzona queried as if she had never done a girly thing in her life, I wouldn’t be very surprised to find out she probably hasn’t. We were on our way out of the bar, back into the streets of Manehatten.

“Well we did win a large bag of bits and your saddlebags look a bit… shall I say… ragged?” They looked like they were held together and were made entirely of patch stitching to me.

“Yeah, I guess I could get them replaced… it’s just that they hold sentimental value for me.” As Arizona spoke, we continued down the street looking at the ponies who stopped and stared at us. There were so many shops, the brightly lit signs, the city was quite alive and I’ve never seen so many people or so many things at once. Arizona must be feeling the same thing as she looked around at everything. “That was a neat fight at the very least, apparently it’s a La Perm family pastime to go to bar to pick fights for money and apparently each bar is different and has different levels of customer brawling. All that lore Jade told me about throwing a seat is true, I also think Cherry Blossom was the top tier brawler for that particular bar. That she happened to be there was awesome!”

“I think that was Ms. Cheerilee’s twin sister.” Now how to broach the topic of… didn’t she just say her saddlebags were sentimental?

“Huh, Cheerilee has a really cool sister.” On that Arizona, I will agree.

“Yes, she does at that. Now… how are your saddlebags sentimental exactly? If it’s not too much to ask.” We continued along the sidewalk watching various carriages taxi ponies around the city, we were about to pass by another alley.

There was just so much stuff in this city, it was hard to wrap my head around why someone would build a place so large like this. It was nothing like Airship Mauled or my hometown.

It took some time, but eventually I was about to receive my answer from Arizona when she went to open her mouth. Only a pony with a cutie mark of a knife popped out of the alley into our path.

“Your money or your life!” We both gave him a flat look, did he just seriously threaten us? Us, out of all the other beings in the city that he could choose to target.

“Excuse me, but has that line ever really worked?” The bland tone was quite appropriate for the situation Arizona, well done. I nodded as if asking that question myself.

“Not yet, but it will eventually.” This poor uninformed brown earth pony with the short black mane didn’t know exactly who he was messing with. Sure we were still sore from fighting, but we weren’t that weak or pathetic. “Like right now for instance, I have the knife here and the deer looks like a rich broad.”

“Oh no, my one true weakness, a knife!” I groveled before him in a mocking manner. “How will we ever survive the power and majesty of such a magnificent blade made of the finest metal?”

“Your mocking me aren’t you?” My answer to his question was my left hoof snapping up to flip the knife out of his right hoof and into my own right hoof, where I proceeded to throttle him against the brick wall with my left.

I held him there for a moment looking into his wide blue frightened eyes, I held the knife up to my mouth and breathed out a small bit of freezing fog on it and then slapped it against the brick wall next to his head making it shatter. The pieces fell to the ground making musical tinkling noises.

Calmly placing the knife handle back into his right hoof in a gentle manner. He gripped it and looked at the lack of a blade, then back to me as I released him and stepped back to take on a rather haughty stance.

“Why yes, I do happen to be mocking you.” I leaned forward and continued to speak, but in a more chipper tone. “Please vacate the area immediately or so help me, what I did to the knife will be the least of your worries. Because if I don’t break you, then my friend certainly will.”

“And have a nice day.” Arizona added with a bright cheerful toothy smile as she hit the wall next to her knocking a brick out of it. She proceeded to snap said brick in half with her bare hooves, showing no effort whatsoever in the act, she then forced the two pieces solidly back into place as if she had never knocked it out.

“…” The pony stood up and calmly walked away from us with his eyes wide in horror.

We’d later find out that he turned himself in for trying to accost us and he made a statement that he was much safer in jail than out here with us.

“Well that was almost unnecessarily brutal… so where were we again?” Asked Arizona as we continued down the sidewalk as if that didn’t happen, we were receiving various looks of surprise.

“The saddlebags and what makes them sentimental?” Not going to get me off the topic Arizona, I wanted to know where you come from. You knew where I came from, I told everyone ‘most’ of my story. Arizona and Grace’s story is still somewhat of a mystery to me.

“Oh right, Grace just kept repairing them for me and they’ve been with me for… all my life really. They…” Thinking about what Arizona just said as she trailed off, I could only assume that Grace was not in fact her mother. Maybe her sister? “Airship Mauled is probably the one place we’d happily spend the rest of our lives at, well maybe Grace could. I feel like I actually need an adventure every now and then or I’d go absolutely stir crazy.”

“So what is Grace to you… is she your… sister?” I was trying not to upset Arizona by treading lightly into the conversation as we walked. I like Grace well enough, she was nice, peaceful and more than a bit weird. Arizona stopped and sighed.

“No… she’s not… not even close. I’m just surprised you’re the one that started asking questions.” Okay, Arizona has never looked so depressed before. She was always rambunctious, brave and aggressive. In fact aggressive might even define her existence. “Jade and the others respected our privacy, but I guess a certain nosy reindeer doesn’t.”

I was about say we can change the conversation or drop it entirely, but she held up a hoof stopping me from saying anything.

“Grace… is… kind of my pacifistic loving aunt. She was one of my mother’s best friends and these saddlebags were the last thing that I have from my mom.” The way Arizona drooped tugged at my heart, but I still wasn’t kissing her, now wasn’t a good time for those thoughts anyway. We stopped and sat down on nearby a bench, must be near the central park. We have been wandering around aimlessly for a while. Thankfully I could still find my way back to the hotel from here, so I wasn’t exactly lost yet. “My mother is kind of a famous cow, the only one I know about that is really.”

“Really, what did your mother do exactly that would make her so famous?” To think I’d be the first to hear this out of all of Airship Mauled, but I really didn’t want to press Airzona too far.

“What didn’t she do is the actual question. Grace told me my mom was a show cow before they met. She was said to be loud, proud and about as outgoing as you could get, she was a wild cow that wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Grace even says I act a lot like her at times.” Here Arizona paused and looked up at me with her green eyes boring their way into my icy blue peepers, then I felt those orbs going down into my heart. “It was after meeting Grace and her good friend that things took a turn for the weird for my mother from the way Grace tells it, because my mother apparently became a bounty hunter not too long afterwards. She was the first cow to do so from what I hear, Grace and their other friend assisted my mother in some really bizarre stuff. If you ask any cow about it, I’m sure they could tell you my mother was a large cow who knew how to throw her weight around quite physically. So whenever you hear the story involving three dairy cows walking into a bar… then it’s likely they were talking about my mother, Grace and their third friend.”

“What was her name?” It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Arizona was upset about when it came to her mother.

“She was called ‘Minnesota’, but Grace always called her Maggie.” So Arizona’s mother was someone of incredible repute in cow society?

I wanted to know more and I’ll just ask Grace when we get back to Airship Mauled, which is feeling more like home to me then my actual home. That’s kind of sad, why didn’t I want to go back to the other reindeer? Was it because there wasn’t much for me there? Or was it the fact that I had leanings that wouldn’t be… appreciated.

Whatever the case, I had to live in the moment and at this moment I decided to comfort Arizona with a hug. She just accepted it, but she didn’t say anything. We sat there for a minute, before I released her.

“So you don’t know about your culture, but you know what your mother got up to?” She nodded, but didn’t say much. “How about we find a cow to talk to while we do some shopping for… uh… what is there to get around here that would be interesting?”

“Not going to talk me into getting better saddlebags?” Don’t sound so dry Arizona.

“Sometimes, you just can’t beat sentimental value Arizona.” She blinked at me and then smiled a little.

We started touring the nearby stores until we came upon one particular one advertising something called Ice Cream.

“What’s ice cream, how does one get cream from ice?” Was it anything like a snow cone? I was a little confused about what was being sold in the store.

“You know what snow cones are, but you’ve never heard of ice cream? It’s one of the many tasty cold treats that cows helped create. I’m not exactly culturally inclined, but I know a thing or two about what comes out of the dairy industry.” Arizona looked at me and frowned a bit. “Why don’t we go in and get you some, you look to be sweating a bit there and could use something to cool off.”

“Sweat? I guess I used too much of my magic at the bar, my normal body temperature shouldn’t allow for sweat.” Ice shaper reindeer don’t sweat unless something is wrong, it was awfully warm out today and I really hadn’t noticed that my fur was dampening with my bodily fluids. “I guess I’ll try some of this ice cream. We don’t eat snow cones too often, we only did so when it was a bit too hot like this.”

Upon entering the store we saw a cow eating some of this ice cream stuff, Arizona shivered and looked a little off about that. I looked to her and silently urged her to go over and talk to the cow while I sought out another snack for myself.

I really shouldn’t eat too much as I wanted to keep my svelte figure and Ms. La Perm’s constant praiseworthy delectable cooking wasn’t really helping in that respect.

-Arizona-

She may be an ice spewing prissy reindeer, but she was my friend. Telling her about my mother helped get some baggage off of my chest. I guess I better go chat with the cow, the only one I’ve seen in a while.

“Uh, hello there.” She was big, not muscular big, but cow big. Her head was covered in a small mop of curly brown hair and she had brown and white fur. She seemed to be enjoying that ice cream, though I found that a little disturbing. “My name is Arizona and I was kind of wondering… do you know anything about cow culture?”

“Well hello there Arizona, here for the cultural festival I take it? I’m Daisy Jo, it sounds like you’ve been lacking a social herd most of your life.” A social what now? Daisy had to have understood whatever expression that appeared on my face. “A social herd for cows is a good number of friends that you can spend all day conversing with, us cows really like to network and herd. I’m here for the cultural festival as well, I and thirty or so other cows are wandering around the city doing who knows what. It’s all very exciting don’t you know!”

“That’s just it, I don’t know!” I was absolutely curious now and Daisy Jo sat up when she noticed how distressed I was. “Also isn’t it a bit odd for a cow to be eating ice cream?”

“Not really, I love oatmeal cookies and milk. I drank my mother’s milk growing up, so I don’t see a problem with continuing to drink milk… well… so long as I know it’s clean and safe. Just popped in here for a treat, but I’ve got plenty of time on my hooves help out a fellow cow.” It sounded like Daisy Jo knew a lot and I just had to ask about it all, there was so much I wanted and needed to know. Apparently Grace wasn’t ‘entirely’ crazy in drinking her own milk, but was it clean though? “So what do you want to know?”

“Well, there’s been a few things I’ve been needing to know about. Like for instance, does the name Minnesota mean anything to you?” There was a spark of recognition, I wanted to know more. Grace never told me what ultimately became of my mother.

"You mean like Menacing Minnesota? Every cow definitely knows the three dairy cows walking into the bar bit, but she's also stuffed herself down a Roc’s throat and knocked out a dragon three times her size with a head to head collision.” Smiling, Daisy Jo sighed airily. “Now there’s a cow who knew how to ‘moo’-ve! Don’t know what became of her, but she is definitely legendary!”

Author's Note

Learning something minimal about Arizona's past.

Change scene to what Fizzle is doing.

Chapter twenty nine, Convention Tension: Unconventional Times.

-Fizzle-

“So… I can’t help but notice you getting into this a little more than Arizona is.” I was standing next to Velvet the flightless Reindeer, not that being flightless made her any less dangerous, curious as to what was going on between her and Arizona.

“Yes, well, I can’t really help it if I was a bit sheltered in my out of the way village. I may seem a little narcissistic about my appearance and I will say that that is fairly true, I’m not so focused on my own little world so much as to not see what’s going on around me.” Velvet looked over to Arizona who was at an ice cream stand buying something, most likely for her ‘deer’ friend. Okay I couldn’t think it without that pun cropping up, still the convention had snack stands for all the comic convention goers. “She’s a brute, she’s aggressive, she can fight harder than any other being I’ve met and yet… she’s cute and has this righteous gold hearted nature about her.”

“And she buys you ice cream.” It was something I found humorous and my smile must have embarrassed her as she turned a bit red.

“I’m not worried about that, I’m watching my figure! Though I must admit the siren call of ice cream has kind of gotten the best of me in these past few days.” Siren call, right Velvet, you were stuttering because that’s what was happening here. I think Velvet and Arizona will still fight in a volatile manner, but it would probably be more of a dance to watch them beat each other senseless now. “Who knew that cows and ice can mix so well?”

“Obviously you do, because you’re now actively dating the cow that you still fight with on a regular basis about the most inane things.” I think Jade was rubbing off on me too much, because I was enjoying teasing Velvet too much. “You do realize Arizona’s being sweet on you, if you don’t then she likes you enough to constantly antagonize you since she thinks your cute when you’re angry. It’s the same principle with me and Jade sometimes.”

“Oh please stop Fizzlpop, you’re getting me all flustered!” She clutched at her face with her hooves and trying to hide the redness.

“Hey Velvet, got you some strawberry ice cream, oh and here’s some for you to Fizzle!” Strawberry must be the flavor of the day for Arizona, because she got some for herself. “Saw you talking to Velvet and thought you could use a snack too!”

“Thanks.” Taking the offered ice cream, since I know Arizona was just being friendly. We sat down together and started eating. “Are you two working out?”

“You better believe we do, Sekhet is probably one of the best coaches a cow like me could ever ask for. If you are asking if our relationship is working, then also yes! ” That was the truth Arizona. No pony, no body and no one, would ever doubt Sekhet’s ability to train us to be at our best. “Though nothing is quite like fighting Velvet my dancing ice queen, fighting her is like hitting a work of art that can hit back, and hard!”

“Ice queen with a melted heart I’ll have you know! It’ll only melt for those who thrust themselves into the icy abyss to see what lays underneath.” Then Velvet leaned over and nuzzled Arizona behind her left ear, I saw a tongue flicking and Arizona blushing. Yeah they were closer than ever. “Like all my friends and my bombastic bovine here.”

“Darn tooting that I’m explosively strong!” Arizona nuzzled into Velvet’s floof. Velvet didn’t bat an eye at it getting mussed up by her as she huddled right up against the cow.

“Just so you know, I’ll mess you up for that later Arizona.” Okay so maybe Velvet did mind a little bit, touching her 'floof' was still a one way train to getting beaten black and blue all over.

If I were to look at this closer, I’d think that Arizona just did it on purpose just for that very reason.

“It’s a date fluff butt.” They both blushed. Who knew that Arizona could successfully be aggressively romantic?

Take Jade and Maries. Our relationships just worked out so well, why didn’t we fight more often? The only time I really fought Jade is when Jade forced it, even Maries was surprisingly less gruff about life than I would have thought she’d have been.

Other than Sekhet’s training exercises, we don’t fight one another and we all tended to gravitate around to just being plain affectionate when we grouped up. I didn’t mind, if what we had was what Kuril defined as 'love'.

We even excused each other for our various annoying or problematic mannerisms, like every time Jade coughed up hairballs and Maries had the whole disturbing shedding their fur, skin and everything else to grow bigger deal. They excused me for moping at times and always made time for me when they saw me doing so.

I didn’t mope too often around Jade though, because that way lies Jade related cockamamie madness that I didn’t want to deal with again. Jade’s attempts to cheer me up will likely give me an aneurysm.

“No chocolate ice cream?” I can honestly say we were all happy together. I found happiness a bit hard to feel, but when I did, it felt like things would never end.

“A show of solidarity for Kuril and Jade who can’t consume chocolate, theobromine or highly caffeinated products.” Yet you could possibly be later caught drinking chocolate milk Arizona, not that I would blame you for enjoying something that Jade and our mom can’t.

“I’ve been wondering, whatever happened to your issues with cows drinking their own milk or consuming dairy products?” I noted that Arizona was also enjoying her own bowl of ice cream.

“I got over it after talking to Daisy Jo for a while, she apparently likes oatmeal cookies and milk like aunt Grace.” There was something Arizona did here that I had finally noticed. “Even explained to me the reasoning behind it, she grew up drinking her mother’s milk so why should she earn a distaste for it when it makes so many tasty products? Kind of an eye opener for me.”

Velvet was given a paper bowl with five scoops of ice cream compared to our smaller two with comparatively smaller sized bowls. Velvet looked to be in dream land as she ate her ice cream, she was really enjoying it more than any Reindeer should have any right to.

“Yes and tasting ice cream for the first time was one for me!” Half of Velvet’s ice cream was gone and her short fluffy tail looked like a blur, I’m sure you could put her in water and she’d motor her way across it without getting her fluff wet.

I think Velvet might even be on a sugar high at the moment, but it was hard to tell when the only other comparison I have to this is Pinkie or…

“Fizzy, I won the quiz and got a signed comic book from Stand Glee!” Jade looked a little overly excited, at least she took off the horrible Collateral Cat’astrophe costume. “Oh you’re eating ice cream!”

To be clear on this, a hyper excited Jade was one of the most annoying things ever. I, however, couldn’t find a good reason to complain when she stole the spoonful of ice cream from my mouth with her tongue. I just sat there staring at her with what was most likely a red face.

At least Jade wasn’t just constantly fearing some amulet’s power. It couldn’t have been that powerful… could it? Jade was exceedingly worried about it and explained how dangerous it was, yet I couldn’t wrap my head around how dangerous it could be.

Was it as dangerous as Hollow Heart obviously was when he was surrounded by the sickly feeling dark miasma? The guy was practically invincible until the sun rose up and his dark powers disappeared, long enough for Prime to come in and take him down letting a bloodied and beaten Jade earn some rest.

I should just consider myself glad to see Jade smiling and happy. She and Maries sat down next to us and talked, though Jade kept eyeing me and my ice cream. She was waiting on me for something and even snuggled up to my side as I ate, it wasn’t long before Maries came and snuggled up against our backs.

We were a quiet little spot in this loud noisy Manehattan comic convention, relaxing with friends. Jade was a happy kitty, if her waggling beige colored appendage and her erect ears were anything to go by.

Glancing at her simplistic clothing, I still didn’t understand why Jade insisted on having an entire collections of the same shirts and shorts, all green, yellow and more recently the same as my personal body colors. Though I suppose it would be hard to match Maries’ blending colors to her clothing. Jade also liked blue, but I only saw one shirt and shorts in that color.

“Okay, just what exactly is Jade waiting on me for?” Asking this as blandly as possible as I took another spoonful of ice cream only to have it stolen by Maria this time, because I knew Jade was wanting to do something with me. “And could you guys please stop stealing the ice cream from my mouth and get your own?”

“She wants us to do one thing together to commemorate our comic convention visit.” Mara started off only for Maria to finish. “Just something to remember all the fun that we’re having today… also the ice cream tastes better when it comes from kissing you!”

Darn it, I’m surrounded by romantic partners that were better at giving affection than I was!

“See, making Fizzy blush is a fun and quite the lucrative pastime!” One of these days Jade, I was going to get you back for that comment by kissing the ice cream out of your mouth! … Why is my mind suddenly going to places I don’t want it to currently go to and why am I enjoying said thoughts so much?

“Are you okay Fizzlepop?” Velvet asked of me as my face grew a lot hotter.

“Now Maries, you can see that when she double blushes like this, it means that Fizzy is absolutely having dirty thoughts about us. Possibly something about being drizzled in blueberry sauce.” Darn it Jade, stop being so darned attractive and adorably annoying! Also, stop giving me ideas! “If she wants me to clean her mouth out again, I can arrange that as my schedule is clearly open. And if she doesn’t want the rest of her ice cream…”

Other Abyssinians obviously don’t know what they are missing by thinking Jade's plain looking aside from the green hair. She sent me a smarmy cat grin and I sighed, this is what I had to deal with every single day!

“Can’t I finish my ice cream in peace?” I really shouldn’t have asked, because Jade rubbed up against me and licked my cheek. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Come on, you know you love us Fizzy!” To be fair, yes Jade, I did love you and Maries. To an insane degree that was beyond all reason, we were an exceedingly odd herd and I kind of liked it that way.

I had to quickly finish my ice cream to make sure that Jade didn’t keep pestering me, then upon throwing away the plastic spoon and paper bowl I turned to her. There was a long silence as she kept smiling at me and staring into my eyes.

“What did you guys want to do?” I wasn’t as in a playful mood as she was when I grunted this out. Blunt was the way to go about it thing. Jade could dance around the issue with word play, she was in the right mood to be absolutely playful like that. “Well, what is it?”

Maries wasn’t any better when they had three opinions on just about everything under the sun, they also seemed to be rather playful at the moment.

“Come on Fizzy, we’ll show you!” Jade got up and grabbed my right hoof to start to drag me away from Velvet and Arizona with Maries following along with smiles on their faces.

-Cadence-

Love, I could feel it in the air, mostly coming off of Jade and her friends. It looks like they were heading towards a photo booth, that’s seems like a good idea. A memory for them to cherish forever!

I giggled into my hoof, today seemed just perfect for them and wished them well in the future.

-Jade-

I looked at the photograph. Marie and I were to the left of Fizzle, Mara and Maria were on her right and Fizzle stayed smiling in the middle with all of us pressing together tightly. We had six copies, one for mom’s scrapbook.

It took a bit of doing to get out of the photo booth, Maries kind of got us stuck, but it was a worthwhile endeavor while Maries was still at a size that could fit inside it. They were getting a bit bigger and soon they’d be large enough for the both of us to ride on everywhere, I would soon no longer have to walk everywhere!

We were on our way back from the comic convention and heading towards the hotel.

I wondered how Jacky’s day with Generic turned out?

We were about two blocks away from our hotel when my fears from this morning became realized, things would turn out to be much worse than I could have ever expected.

An explosion rocked our hotel and a sickly red glow came from it. That could only be one thing…

I started running towards the hotel, because I didn’t want to believe what was happening. Coming to a stop outside the hotel, I saw an Alicorn Amulet wielding pony was hovering there with a creepy smile and red glowing eyes directed towards me.

I would like to say I didn’t freeze up, but I’d be lying when you considered that I was looking into the eyes of pure madness.

Next to him was my mother struggling to escape the magic field she was being held in. The pony had a top hat, with a flowing cape and collar. Said cape was red on the inside and black on the outside.

He was a small, slightly portly looking earth pony stallion with dark greyish green fur. His brown mane was smoothed back and his tail was somewhat short. He had a villainous handlebar mustache, which he stroked his hoof along in a stereotypically evil fashion as he stared down at me from his hovering position.

“Well if it isn’t the sun priestess." He floated downwards, with mom following along. “I don’t see why our ‘glorious’ leader is so scared of, you’re nothing but a gnat compared to me!”

“Let my mother go!” I charged forward and fired a magic missile. Said missile simply bounced off the barrier he formed without so much as a hint of movement.

With a flick of one of his hooves, a ball of energy struck the ground. It created a large shockwave that sent me painfully tumbling backwards.

“How about no?” He twirled an instantly summoned cane. “Top Snide, at your disservice!”

Author's Note

A villain appears? Yes.

Exposition page leading into a special all combat chapter? Yes.

Pony Snidely Whiplash with an Alicorn Amulet? Check.

What more do you want from me at this point? Oh right, an actual plot!

Chapter thirty four, Alpaca My Bags: Happy Trails.

-???-

Paprika Paca was somewhat emotionally smart, she was also a master fluffmancer with only a weakness to the stickiest of substances that would require she ditch some of her magically manipulated fur.

As far as this alpaca’s fighting style went, it consisted of hugs, kisses and hitting someone with her fluff to wear them down.

If one were to watch the path of one Paprika’s travel from Manehatten upon finding out that Velvet was nearby, one wouldn’t believe how she ended up in the path of both Velvet and Arizona in the first place.

To start off upon leaving to find Velvet Iceberg Deer, her first course of actions was to illogically jump into the nearby ocean and start swimming a straight line across the sea.

At some point she ended up meeting sea ponies, because she tuckered herself out with all the swimming.

One would ask how could Paprika survived the fact that she could no longer swim and avoid possibly drowning in the middle of the ocean in her search of Velvet.

The answer was simple, like anything Paprika does. Being a Fluffmancer could answer most problems that nature could possibly throw at Paprika or any fluffmancer worthy of their abilities.

As far as alpaca’s went, Paprika’s home was full of beings lacking most forms of what could be called survival instincts. They made up for lacking survival instincts with knowing how to love and peacefully adapt to outrageously dangerous environments.

In the case of surviving drowning and the incredible pressure at the bottom of the ocean where she started to hug and cuddle her way through thoroughly confused sea ponies she found. Paprika reconfigured her fur to be more compact and the portion wrapping the entirety of her head was turned into hydrofuge hairs.

The end result of this reconfiguration, alongside her body weight, let her stay at the bottom of the ocean. Her fur cushioned her against the incredible pressure placed on her already tough body and this kept her from being pulped. She had a strong bubble of air around her head that the pressure of the surrounding water miraculously couldn’t puncture through because of the thin hydrofuge hairs keeping said bubble from popping and immediately killing her.

It was the most ridiculous thing to think that an alpaca could create a scuba suit with only their fur, this was a capability that all Alpacas from Paprika’s tribe could feasibly have. Her entire tribe were all cuddly, friendly and stupidly gifted in this exact manner like she was.

Paprika was just an outlier of her tribe that decided to look beyond her quiet tribal life when she couldn’t find her one true love inside said tribe. Remarkably, when an alpaca finds their true love, their pupils change to the shape of hearts as they gazed upon those that would become forever close to their hearts.

It was with little imagination that it didn’t take Paprika long to run into Velvet in the reindeer settlement not too far away from her mountainous home. The exact very first reindeer she saw, finding Velvet to be the most huggable being in existence at first sight.

This is due in part to the fact that the reindeer was somewhat chronically depressed, not knowing what to do to fix said hidden depression the empathic Paprika went for the old standard for seeing one’s true love. Give them affection until they give up and let you continue to give them affection until the alpaca in question perishes.

Thus started Paprika’s mission in life to make her true love happy, which is why she periodically appeared in the reindeer village to shower Velvet with constant affection befitting that of a master fluffmancer.

Things didn’t go well the first dozen times, but since Velvet left her home she became open season for Paprika. Despite being frozen solid numerous times by multiple ice shaping reindeer, Paprika was never one to be deterred.

When Paprika heard that a winged turtle had led Velvet away from the town on an adventure, she sought out Velvet to give her constant affection where she believed that no one would interfere. This of course led to a fluffmancer being unleashed on the unwary and unfortunate world to freely give affection and love to everything around her almost without pause.

Getting back to the sea ponies, they eventually somehow managed to lose Paprika, the underwater snuggle assailant, in a volcanic vent. This was after she had already caused a partial collapse of the civilization in that given area entirely by accident.

The legend of the ‘hug monster’ would reach Queen Nova or Novo, whatever she called herself these days.

The volcanic vent should have killed Paprika. Fortunately fluffmancer powers were good at maintaining an average body temperature of the wielder despite being caught on entirely fire, while still completely underwater. Physics, reality and even a few gods cried that day at the impossibility of it all that Paprika managed to avoid absolute certain death out of sheer luck.

There were quite a few death gods whining about false alarms involving one of those danged alpaca’s traveling around dangerous places again.

The vent had a side tunnel that lead Paprika to ending up on a continent where the ponies previously fled the Wendigo’s told of in the tales of heart’s warming eve.

One wendigo tried to approach and freeze Paprika. After that, all the other wendigo’s avoided her like the plague, since she technically was one.

They had good reason to avoid Paprika when she created the exact inverse of a wendigo by force feeding it so much love that it exploded into flames of warmth and love. You know, instead of it dying outright and not causing even more problems like what happened in the hearths warming story ponies tell.

Like a viral infection, all wendigoes slowly fell to the ensuing plague of inverse wendigoes that hugged them into submission. Yes, Paprika had caused a lot of problems on the continent by just doing this alone, but the end results might not have been so bad actually.

At least the inverse wendigoes couldn’t kill anyone, though now the world had to deal with them spreading all over the place on that continent specifically.

The inverse Wendigoes eventually became known as Cupids, the world was eventually doomed to be swamped with them if not for the intervention of the gods.

The gods were allowed to keep them in check as a mortal performed a feat so powerful that it could have destroyed the delicate balance of the world. They were even allowed to use their full power to prevent the Cupids from multiplying out of control and to fix the mess Paprika left in her wake.

The gods prayed that Paprika never met another Wendigo, even the luck and chaos gods were whimpering at the thought that they couldn’t do anything to stop Paprika if she did. The love gods thought it was funny, but also a very much dire situation.

Paprika Continued on her path ignoring the trouble she caused numerous entities beyond her scope of simple understanding. She ended up wandering a few large loops around the continent until she ended up trying and somehow succeeding in swimming across the ocean again to the South Pole, she had actually struggled with this one a bit.

Paprika quickly became bored with an icy region where there wasn’t any food to be found, yet she somehow survived starvation by happenstance of find fruit still stuck inside her fur.

The death gods just threw up their hooves, paws, talons and what have you in consternation as they watched a creature with hardly any survival instincts survive so many situations.

The deaths gods even made a game of this, take a drink every time Paprika survived doing something stupid by the skin of her fleece or she randomly wandered into danger without a second thought.

Five death gods died in the course of the drinking game, over the course of seven days. The death gods who survived laughed at the irony and had to resurrect their fellow death gods.

Having swam her way to a place near the dragon lands and ended up in Longma territory, Paprika would continue to hug, snuggle, kiss and make a nuisance of herself. The poor Longma had no idea how to handle her, trying to burn her alive didn’t seem to be working very well.

Their best fighter Tianhuo managed to eventually miraculously drive the overly affectionate alpaca off, after three days of nonstop fighting. Tianhuo had even starting counting how many times she had been kissed, hugged and or snuggled throughout their mighty battle, she hadn’t even won that fight and figured that the alpaca was just toying with her.

Tianhuo was right, Paprika had enjoyed the playful days of constant wrestling, but Tianhuo was just not her type. Her pupils had only shifted into hearts for Velvet so far. Still, she freely gave her affection to the Longma that seemed to have been aggressively asking for it.

Somehow managing to cut across an entire continent in five hours, a merrily bouncing Paprika hopped her way into a large hive like structure with shifting holes all over it in the Equestrian Badlands.

Yes, she found Queen Chrysalis’s changeling hive.

The death gods prayed that the changelings ended Paprika, they weren’t so lucky and even with all the luck gods having directed her there for that very purpose. The luck gods didn’t care if they were punished for this, the mortal had to be brought down before she could grow too strong!

One might think that Velvet was exaggerating when she thought of Paprika as an eldritch abomination, some of the death gods were even beginning to come to the same conclusion with what happened next.

The changelings were horribly confused when the alpaca came into their hive, at first they thought she was one of them bringing in massive amounts of love.

None of them thought anything was stupid enough to just wander into a place so desolate and love starved as their hive, even animals weren’t that dumb. Paprika wasn’t an animal and alpaca’s ‘could be’ as smart as ponies.

After three days of hugging, cuddling, kissing and loving, they realized that the thing that wasn’t running out of love was not in fact one of their own. This happened when Paprika gave Chrysalis tongue for five minutes, then giggled as she ran off.

The changelings had all previously thought that she was a really good method actor as a changeling infiltrator, upon kissing Queen Chrysalis they quickly realized that she wasn’t one them at all.

The resulting chase throughout the hive had been fun for Paprika and the changelings exhausted eighty percent of the love Paprika had given them freely in said chase. The wasted love was in effort of trying to capture the endless love battery that had slept among them for a number of days without them realizing it.

In the end, Paprika escaped cleanly with a smile on her face while leaving a confused and somewhat happy changeling named Thorax behind her. She gave him an affectionate snuggle, before she started to bounce away from the hive with a happy smile on her face.

Thorax would go on to become a leader of his people, having eventually learned that love shared is better than love taken.

The next adventure saw Paprika crossing paths with a sorrowful Daring Do, sorrow did not compute to Paprika and she thus followed Daring Do around trying to cheer her up. This was despite Daring Do’s insistence that she would rather work alone than endanger someone again, especially after she had been witness to Jade’s certain demise and was almost killed herself by a wild animal.

Daring Do didn’t need to worry, nothing bad would happen to Paprika even after she started cuddling with two of Ahuizotl’s most dangerous cats that were his minions. Nuzzling a tiger and or Panther was not conducive to living for very long, but Paprika made for an excellent distraction to get the next clue to the 'End of Immortality'.

It was not long after that that Daring Do finally realized exactly what she had to do to get rid of the accursed alpaca named Paprika. Daring simply gave Paprika a hug and a real smile, then call her a good friend.

The alpaca figured her business with this traveling pony was done and wandered off, much to Daring Do’s relief.

Paprika then ended up in Appleoosa, after a whole mess of things happened that led to her putting the absolute fear of alpaca’s into all tatzlwurms and their tongues, two minutes after Arizona and Velvet had just left.

Thanks to the previous interaction with said Tatzlwurms, Arizona and Velvet would manage to reach the meadow hills heading towards the lambkin settlement unimpeded.

After getting away with her general shenanigans of affectionately messing with the locals, she set off straight east upon smelling Velvet in the given area of the train station.

In the days it took Velvet and Arizona, to reach said grassy hills, Paprika had circumnavigating the entire planet while heading east the entire time. Paprika was heedless of all the obstacles in her way that she needed to subdue with her boundless love and affection.

Some love gods were just contemplating ascending Paprika to their status at this rate, but they figured it would be an absolutely horrible idea to do so. It would have been impossible to keep Paprika contained.

Paprika swam across the ocean twice more, having figured out the trick to not grow tired while on the water which again involved the use of the ever so useful ability to create hydrofuge hairs on a larger scale than that of insects.

She ran around two different continents and if one were try to map her progress they’d see ‘aca’ and ‘pla’ spelled in large cursive letters with her movements across said continents.

Then she started slow down as she came across the lambkin village. Instead of terrorizing them like she usually would anyone else, she would instead fall asleep for eight hours there. She had spent the most of last few days or so without sleep.

She would leave the lambkin completely unmolested, none of them looked like they needed love or affection and they were all already quite fluffy.

Waking up, Paprika traveled east once more and eventually ended up in the meadow hills, east of the lambkin settlement where she stopped by a stream before the badlands and desert heading back towards Appleoosa.

That’s when Velvet and Arizona came across her playing in the dandelions and chasing butterflies cutely.

-Paprika-

Lick, lick, water tasty and fresh. Flutters are pretty, following the flap flaps! Oh, stop to sniff the flowers!

“Achoo!” Ooh… floaty flowers! Sniff some more maybe?

Wait… smelly smell, Reindeer smell, exactly like Velvet!

Laser guided focus activate!

I turned to where the smell was coming from, see reindeer ducking behind a… behind a… she’s beautiful like reindeer.

My pupils go heart, means those two are both meant for Paprika! I am being lucky to be finding them, I get two different beings to dote on!

I go show appreciation for existence with the actions befitting all alpaca kind.

Love time!

“Whatever you do, don’t underestimate her!” Velvet was telling other love.

“I can take her easily." Says other love. "To get to Velvet you have to go through me first!”

I have to prove strength of love?

Okay!

Author's Note

Arizona Vs. Paprika

What music will I use to represent Paprika? I'm thinking Tekken.

Chapter thirty six, Let the good times Rein: Old acquaintance.

Author's Note

Chapter thirty six, Let the good times Rein: Old acquaintance.

-Rein, Arizona-

The first time I stepped into town I didn’t know what to expect.

There were candy canes decorating a lot of stuff, colorful baubles were hanging around everywhere and even some buildings were covered in Tinsel’s namesake. I could even see two ice sprites kissing under some mistletoe.

It felt like this place had a constant Hearths Warming theme to it and I could definitely get behind that, but I wouldn’t want to live here as they don’t celebrate Hearths Warming. I could kind of see why they’d get weird about Hearths Warming being mentioned around here, if this was how the place looked year round.

Hearths Warming may be a pony made holiday, but I loved it and thought it was a bright and joyous time to spend with the friends and family you loved.

It sure was chilly out today, somehow nobody noticed Velvet’s cabin having visitors.

No one came out to look.

So I was completely alone when I walked into town… well not entirely alone.

There was a large number of reindeer here. Some of them were kind of like the Canterlot unicorns, others were more down to earth and a few of those even greeted me as I passed by them on the street. There was an excessive number of something else and that’s why I wasn’t alone.

“Can’t you go do that somewhere else?” I asked of the band of ice sprites trailing me with tiny musical instruments, they all started giggling and continued to play their music as I walked down the street. “I guess not then.”

“Oh don’t mind them, they’re the Rein welcoming committee and they take their jobs seriously. Ice Sprites are always happy go lucky and jolly year round, they really like to spread their good cheer abound.” The reindeer that approached me was pretty good looking and I can kind of see why Velvet was so protective of her ‘floof’. The green eyed reindeer was a lot bigger than Velvet, she also looked older and even fluffier. “I’m Vixen, so what brings a lone cow all the way up north? Usually you guys group up together and gossip until you all go home for the day, though I have to admit that nobody can network quite as well as cows tend to do.”

“I’m Arizona. An outlier that likes to wander around on my own sometimes, but I do know a bunch of cows. Never been to the cow settlement south by south east though.” She looked a little surprised at that, I had a few things to ask of his local. “I’m not traveling alone though, I have a few friends that came with me to Rein. I was wondering if you’ve seen an abrasive or possibly aggressive cow named Maggie, she sometimes goes by Minnesota.”

“No, can’t say that I have. Someone like that would have been readily noticeable around here though, don’t take this the wrong way but you cattle tend to be somewhat docile. You personally seem to be more of an outgoing type, so I would suggest you don’t let some of the reindeer around here get to you with what they will say.” She tapped a hoof to her chin. “There have been a few odd ponies skulking about, but nothing has been too out of the ordinary around here. So aside from looking for some cow, are you here for the tournament?”

“What tournament?” That caught my interest, my opinion of this place shot up a couple of notches because of that.

“Well there’s the upcoming monthly Tundra Tourney, it’s a battle competition held between the six tribes. Reindeer usually enter to exercise their ice magic, sometimes an alpaca fluffmancer wants to test their fluff and Longma always like to pit themselves against reindeer. The longma even send different envoys this way once a month just to join in on our reindeer games and not just the tournaments, they also run similar tournaments down south.” Vixen seemed to be rather relaxed about it, but I thought it sounded awesome. “As for the lambkin… they rarely make a showing, but we often get surprised when a ram wants to get into a fight. Rarer still are the unicorns that want to show their magic off. It’s always a blast!”

“Sounds like something I’d want to take a part in, just so I can meet some tough customers. I just have a few more questions if you don’t mind me asking them.” Nodding to me to go on, my questions would be quick and hopefully her reaction wouldn’t be too great. I had heard how bad Paprika had been around here, now to find out if it was true. “Have you ever met an alpaca with blonde fur that hugs, kisses and or invades people personal space on a whim?”

I didn’t mind Paprika, but apparently Vixen did as she suddenly became very alert and was looking in every direction and looked a little spooked.

“You’ve seen her, is she here?!” She grabbed me looking rather horrified at the idea that Paprika might be around.

“Uh… yes?” I didn’t feel like lying about this, Paprika was technically in town.

“Why is she back, why?!” In her panic the reindeer started shaking me furiously and I just calmly slapped her across the face. She blinked and released me.

“Maybe she’s not as bad you think she is?” So she was a little overly affectionate, big whoop.

“Not as… do you not know of the calamities that the creature that looks like an alpaca can cause?!” She seemed rather hysterical, I was just given her a flat look.

“I still have a few more questions, besides I think that alpaca just likes to be friendly… a little too much admittedly.” I just received this odd stare and twitching eye. Seriously, Paprika wasn’t that bad.

“Sure go ahead, but if that menace shows up I’m going to be running in the opposite direction before she accidentally lights that one house on fire again and or chooses to target me for one of her hugs and snuggles… those horrid warm and comfortable snuggles…” Vixen tried to look calmer, only to end up looking haunted with tiny pupils staring off into the distance as she started shivering violently. I gave her a disturbed look. “She’s hugged at least every reindeer in our town at least one, she’s insatiable! At least she doesn’t hurt our fawns.”

She was wrong about the insatiable part, Paprika just wanted to be hugged and loved back. Give her some love back and she’ll get off of you quicker. I noted that children tended to like Paprika, while everyone else was either absolutely scared of her, thought she was a nuisance or were just extremely annoyed.

“Do you know of a reindeer named… Velvet Iceberg Deer?” I was a little cagey about asking after Velvet as if I didn’t know her, but I wanted to know what my girlfriend was like before I met her. Vixen’s reaction to hearing the name was cool, but not totally cold. “I heard she was a champion here in Rein.”

“Oh yes, I know of her, she is one of the many champions. To reach champion status you have to place high in a number of Tundra Tourneys and be at least of a mastery level in ice magic.” Okay that was interesting, but didn’t Velvet say she had some problems with the water portion of her ice magic? “Velvet is one of the few champion’s that doesn’t have a mastery, but has beaten at least three that do.”

“What do you think about her personally?” I was curious now, a little too much for my own good really.

“Well she was quite snooty and haughty, kind of like her parents, but unlike her parents I think she actually cared about those around her.” That certainly sounded like my Velvet alright. “Yeah, I can honestly say that she only acted the way she did because her parents expected a lot of her. Don’t think their attitudes rubbed off on her all too well. Velvet never got an ice sprite for herself personally, but I know for a fact that she treated them well whenever they were around her. I guess she wasn’t all that bad really.”

“You actually sound kind of upset about saying that.” Well I certainly heard that Vixen’s tone of voice go a little sour there, as if she was begrudgingly an acquaintance of Velvet’s that didn’t like the idea of saying nice things about her.

“I was one of the three mastery level ice magic users she took down.” Well Vixen, that certainly sounded like a good reason to be sour. I would ask for a rematch. “I even had my ice sprite supporting me at the time.”

“How did you lose the fight then?” Having lost a few scraps with Velvet personally, I had a vested interest to hear what Velvet did to win against someone that sounded like they had all the cards. “I’ve seen what those ice sprites can do.”

“She surprised me, she dodged one of my attacks and used the effect of my own ice sprites assistance against me. She timed it so well that she got the boost from my sprite as well and pretty much flash froze me with a point blank attack. I’m good at distance attacks, but up close and personal? She hit me good and hard after I toyed with her for a while by keeping her at a distance.” Vixen grumbled out. “It only happened because I got a little full of myself and started mocking her family wholesale. Didn’t seem to care much when I mocked her parents, but when I mocked her… yeah I probably deserved what happened to me for using my sprite to boost my attacks in that fight. So was that all you wanted to know, because I really feel like sealing myself in a very small space until I hear the all clear on what is believed to be the alpacas secret weapon of mass snuggles.”

“Actually I do, I heard a thing about a special key to the 'Seal of the Shadow Horde'.” She tilted her head at me curiously, though I could tell she knew what I was talking about. “My friends and I are looking around for those keys since we heard the seal was weakening. We’re also looking for that aggressive cow I mentioned and maybe a way to help a friend that was lost to us, but that’s unimportant as I doubt anyone around here has the power to open holes in time and space.”

“How quaint… yes, I do believe I know the ancient key you’re talking of. We still have it here in town and we haven’t lost it yet.” Yet you were waiting on me to ask about it weren’t you Vixen?

“If I were to ask how I would go about acquiring it, what would you say?” I was guessing or at least picking up on the fact that she wasn’t going to give me a straight answer about it.

“I’ll be seeing you in the next Tundra Tourney then.” That’s when Paprika decided to tackle me affectionately and that sent Vixen running and screaming as if she had seen the scariest thing in existence.

I absently noted that there were no reindeer in the area currently, wimps the lot of them. I even imagined Vixen nailing shut the insides of a closet to keep Paprika out and away from her with that kind of reaction.

“Hey Paprika, got all the stuff I wanted to know from an acquaintance of Velvet’s. So what are you up to?” I hugged her back just as strongly as she was doing to me, this made Paprika happy. She nuzzled me before releasing me and signed out several things she wanted to tell me, afterwards she bounced off to do who knows what. “Meet Fluff Butt at the frozen lake for some ice skating? Eh, why not.”

I adjusted my alpaca hat and scarf and continued on my way to talk with some more townsfolk, I wasn’t going to just take the words of a single reindeer at face value. Might have to rough up a few of them to make sure that information was good, because I was itching for a fight with one of the tougher reindeer so I could compare them to Velvet.

-Vixen-

I was frantically putting every object I owned in the way of the door so she couldn’t get in!

I used a dresser, my bed, five sand bags, an inflatable raft, a plastic tree and then I was hoofed a chair which I used to keep the growing pile of random junk balanced against the door.

“Thanks.” I said to the nightmarish hug monster before I continued to take several items from her and put them in the pile I was making to keep said nightmarish hug monster from getting through the door to get me.

I most certainly didn’t want to be snuggled by that thing!

Wait a minute… I slowly turned to the toothily grinning alpaca, her tail was waggling and she looked quite perky today.

Which means I was doomed unless I destroyed my prize possessions or I put a large hole in my house.

The hole would cost a lot to repair, but I was willing to do it given the desperate situation I now found myself. I grabbed for my magic, but didn’t get time to use it.

I’m sure my screams for help could be heard throughout Rein, given she didn’t let me finish thinking about how to escape.

-Velvet-

“Huh… sounds like Paprika went after Vixen again.” I turned to look at the mansion in the distance, wasn’t touching that place with a ten and a half foot pole. I flicked my ear in the direction of the screaming. “By the sound of it, she forgot that Paprika has a way of catching up to just about anyone and then victimizing them in the way she’s known to do. One does not lock themselves in a room in a panic without expecting Paprika to be in there with them when they do.”

I was seated on a bench next to the frozen lake, it was beautiful this time of year. Just like most of Rein was when it was constantly decorated to be bright and colorful by the ‘sprites for reindeer’ committee.

I heard a noise next to me and saw Tinsel playfully building a snow fort, I left him to it and just sighed to myself.

Why did fate conspire to bring me back here? At least I had a better understanding of Paprika now, well better than all the reindeer she was going to be terrorizing while I try to get in a date with Arizona.

Paprika would be busy for the foreseeable future and I had already described my parents to Tinsel so he could run interference for me if they tried to approach me. Not that an ice sprite would stall them for long, but it would be long enough to evade them completely.

I felt like hyperventilating about being this close to my first home, I was happy that I haven’t run into them yet.

There was no ice cream here to consume as comfort food, if something bad happened on our date then it would be running into them. I absolutely trusted Arizona to stick by my side.

Chapter thirty nine, a pirate’s strife for me: All’s.

-???-

Arizona and Velvet were getting acquainted with the importance of their journey setting out from Appleloosa to eventually meet a portion of the shadow horde and find out that they are married to what is affectionately known as a fluffy hug demon.

Now, Jacky 'Blackcap' Chickadee La Perm set out for the one place she could safely use as a base while she searched the world for a solution to getting her sister back where she belongs.

She’d hunt for the worst of the worst mystical artifacts that nobody in their right mind could possibly want to go after, at least she would be living her dream of traveling the world while doing so.

Jacky’s armaments were a mystical magical alchemy bow gifted to her by her sister Jade, a normal sturdily built spear stolen from Klugetown and a modified fun time party cannon she can pull from out of nowhere bought by Pinkie Pie.

Jacky's exploits would become legendary among many, for all the wrong reasons.

-A few days after leaving Airship Mauled, The Ardent Survivor, Jacky-

“So where are we going exactly? It seems like we’re just wandering aimlessly.” I didn’t begrudge Gene his questions as he went around setting things up, so I could at least focus on making sure we were flying in the right direction. “Also while I like fish jerky, it’s starting to get to me and I can see why Jade preferred dried fruit and lots of variety with her diet.”

Gene Eric wasn’t foreign to the concept of working on airships, but he had only been on Viking airships. The airship we’re using was more for light privateer or commercial uses.

I want to believe that my slightly muscular griffon Viking friend was going to stick by my side through thick and thin, but I had some minor doubts even with mom putting the fear of newts into him.

I took a bite out of some fish jerky and started working it over in my beak. It was delicious to chew on, but Jade was correct in saying that our mother Kuril always made way too much of this stuff.

“We’re heading towards Turtle Toga, the place I grew up at.” I chose to believe that things would work out. I would be lying to myself to say that things would go perfectly upon seeing Eir and Gallant again, but I absolutely needed their help as I didn’t think any other tavern would allow me to set up a tiny recruiting station. “I assure you that we are on the correct course for it. Anyone who was born on Turtle Toga, or finds it for that matter, always knows their way back to it. Provided that they have transportation of course.”

We needed at least two more crew members willing to join 'The Blackcap’ in running around on fool’s errands with a possible death wish, which is most likely what I’ll be doing. Someone in Turtle Toga might actually have a death wish and maybe I can give them some meaning in life.

Eir the Valkyrie of Yakhalla had helped Jade out of the goodness of her heart before. That’s considering the fact that Gallant and I didn’t exactly get along thanks to a habit of wrecking taverns I just happen to walk near, in fact I’m still a walking pile of trouble and I’ve learned how to live with it.

Somehow this airship seemed far safer than any other that I’ve been on previously and has survived me being on it for more than a year. I was not going to lose this airship, it was far more important to me than most things now. It was nowhere near as important as my sister’s life was… my captain.

“Is that it?” Looking over the horizon at the sound of Gene’s voice, I smiled. An island shaped like the back of a giant turtle shell… most likely because the moving island had to have been on the back of a giant turtle.

Nobody knew for certain if the giant turtle thing was true, but I could feel the magic drawing me back towards the familiar port of pirates everywhere and it felt like it was welcoming me home.

The many turtles that live in or around Turtle Toga were generally friendly, they’ve even saved my cursed butt several times. Not that they made for interesting stories, I just happen to know a lot of friendly turtles in the area.

“Yep, that’s where I grew up before Jade found me and turned my boring life into a circus.” I was almost fond of returning, if I didn’t have my doubts about having troubles leaving once we landed. Also it may be the unicycle to the head, but I think I was going to have fun on these coming misadventures. “She came riding into Turtle Toga on the backs of a pair of sea turtles, just like Captain Jaqueline Sparrow was said to have done once before. It was also the same place that we met Snickers together. It’s only been a few years, but I kind of missed the place.”

“Given your luck, I’m sure the place doesn’t miss you nearly as much if you’re feeling nostalgic.” Gene chuckled audibly, actually showing some mirth for my situation and I giggled alongside him. The guy rarely raises his voice or shows emotion, but he was a complete gentle griffon for someone that was raised by Vikings alongside a yak and a dragon. “I wonder how they’ll react to you being back if you’re as unlucky here as anywhere else.”

“We’ll see when I land the Ardent Survivor and step off it, I wonder what kind of bets were made about my survival in my absence.” We would be landing and nothing wrong would happen to my baby, this wonderful ship. Could I even become the acting captain of the Ardent Survivor? “It’ll take an hour or so to get there and find a nice place to land, do you mind watching the ship Gene?”

“Not at all, I did do some time as a night watch for the Viking ships that visited Airship Mauled. I can protect the ship while you do what you need to.” There was no doubt that, Gene ‘The Swift Reaction’ Eric, could protect the ship on his own. After watching him take down numerous opponents in that cultural festival in Manehatten, I knew he could handle himself even without his brothers around to bail him out of trouble.

I was still trying to wrap my head around him being here for me, but I appreciated him being with me and not leaving me to go it on my own like I originally thought I would have to do.

I did worry about Gene’s brothers, he was technically the brains of the three of them. Goodness knows what Flamberge and Fortitude would get up to without him around to make sure they didn’t do anything stupid.

“Well then, we best get prepared for a landing.” Hopefully it wasn’t explosive, over the top violent and then a whale would just jump up out of the water to swallow the ship whole.

That poor slave trading ship… if only they had known why I was trying to go with them willingly.

I shook my head derisively. That was the old Jacky coming into my thoughts.

Old Jacky would still be sitting around on the docks moping and admiring the pirates that could actually get out there and do something with their time.

I wanted to explore the world, and thanks to Jade, I was going to do that with a fearless attitude. Mostly because my luck required me to actively be reckless ninety percent of the time to survive it.

I knew that as soon as we landed things were going to start going wrong the second I stepped onto the docks after lowering the gangplank.

-Turtle Toga, an hour later-

I took one step onto the docks and was hit with a full bushel of bananas falling out of the sky.

“Ow.” Yep… some things just never changed, though many of the younger pirates that were around were surprised to see that I was back and just as unlucky as I ever was.

There was some relative luck to being hit with a bushel of heavy bananas, I just received a lot of free bananas for one and I liked bananas. Though they were pretty much crushing me and would leave a large bruise on my chest.

“You okay Jacky?” Gene questioned evenly, he tilted his head at me as he looked down the gangplank.

I started laughing and he looked a little surprised at the tears in my eyes. I pulled one banana from the bushel, peeled it and then enjoyed the contents.

“Just fine First ‘Mate’ Generic.” I put emphasis on mate for a reason, if he stuck by me for the next two years, we were going to be cuddling under the moon under a blanket and damn the consequence of our actions. I wanted him to warm my bed with me in it.

I would be the hummingbird, because goodness knows I’d make a lousy queen bee. Gene seems more of a queen bee type given he’s quite bright.

“Should I start calling you Captain Jacky or Captain Blackcap?” Gene rest his elbows on the rail as he looked down at me. “You know, if we’re going to go fully pirate while we’re here.”

“Blackcap, but I withhold my right to refuse the fact that I’m actually captain until a much later date when multiple people are calling me as such. I’m not captain when I’m someone else’s first mate, at best I’m only the acting captain in name and not job description.” If I was going to be the most notorious blackcap alive, I might as well own up to it if I eventually did become a captain in my own right. “Also could you get these bananas off me and into storage? They’re quite heavy.”

Ten minutes later, after carefully storing away the bananas I took one step onto the docks and then looked about wildly. I took a few more and stopped when a swordfish’s nose rammed its way up through the docks between the talons on my left foot.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go into town while you watch the ship?” Gene asked innocently and blandly.

“Quite sure, I know my way around here and we’ll be docked here for a few days to look for potential crew members to help us on our adventures.” That and I wished to do this on my own two feet, by myself, to prove to myself that I didn’t need Jade around to hold my talons. I truly wished Jade was around here to give me orders, I still looked up to her even when she wasn’t present. “Plus I really need to go talk to two old friends of mine at the local tavern and I may just end up incidentally causing a bar fight. There’s also the discount map shop to cursed treasures, they will have plenty of cursed treasures for us to look for given their maps always lead to somewhere dangerous.”

“Be careful, I don’t want your mother to skin me alive if something happens to you.” Despite the bland tone, I knew he cared more than he could emote.

“I’ll be fine, if my luck can’t kill me this instant then I’ll live to see another day!” I was receiving a worried look from Gene as I continued on my way down the dock with various pirates stopping to gawk at me.

There was the sound of a cannon firing in the distance, then said cannonball could be seen coming right at me. I sighed and prepared to throw my talons forward.

One explosion of wood later.

“Jacky?” At the sounds of Gene’s wavering voice, I calmly pulled myself back onto the dock and looked at the hole the cannonball had made upon impacting the dock directly between my legs.

“Stop worrying, I’ve had worse days!” Like me falling up two flights of stairs for instance. There were some things that my mind couldn’t comprehend about myself and that incident was one of them.

Ah the memories, I rolled forward as my right foot hit a loose floorboard and narrowly avoided being flung into the water by an entire section of the dock flipping itself into the sea.

“Somebody should fix that...” I mumbled as I sauntered on into town

I calmly walked into Turtle Toga towards Bluster's Bar with various pirate’s staring at me in disbelief. It was like it wasn’t every day you got hit by a full bushel of bananas, nearly skewered by a swordfish even if they weren’t native to these particular waters and then survived a cannonball almost hitting you.

Oh and we can’t forget turning a corner, stubbing one of my clawed toes on a barrel and then go rolling down the street with my body wrapped around it. At least until I reached the tavern and let go, the barrel continued on its merry way and something exploded.

That barrel might have been full of cannon powder... fairly average level of danger so far for me.

I stepped into the tavern and saw Gallant freeze up at the sight of me.

“I thought I heard explosions, wanton destruction and wild whispering that you were back.” Gallant muttered loudly as he cleaned a glass. “So... still alive Black Jack?”

“Friend of husband and Eir, it is nice to be seeing you again!” Eir was as cheerful and large as she ever was. “I am now learning how to sing, it is being much easier than playing piano! How are things being for Blackcap?”

“Not too well, I recently lost a sister and spent the last three months waiting for her to come back. By that I mean my Abyssinian captain, the one who actually helped me leave this place and got me out into the world. Chances are that she’s dead, but also alive at the same time.” I walked forward and sat down on a stool, it collapsed to the floor within a second. “If you can’t tell, yes I’m still quite unlucky. Met a goddess that likes riddles, got some more education in Equestria and got dragged into several problems bigger than me. Even saved the day a few times, I got plenty of stories and I was happy where I was… even with my luck being what it is.”

I got up and took the next stool over and it only creaked slightly. Eir was staring at me sadly and was quite silent about hearing that Jade wasn’t around.

“So… what brings you back here exactly? Not that I thought you were going to die anytime soon.” Gallant tilted his head at me, smiling as he took a bet bag from a patron. “I thought once you were gone, you’d never want to come back to Turtle Toga after all those crazy attempts to leave.”

“I’m going to start searching for cursed objects to find a way to get my sister and captain back, barring that, I’m building a crew and may have some lawless fun.” I pulled out a large sum of bits and put them on the table. “For a new stool and some grape juice.”

“What is happening to Jade?” Eir looked quite upset. “Sun priestess was being quite worthy of Yakhalla!”

Author's Note

So it begins... for Jacky's story at least.

Chapter forty-two, Situations Sandy: Warm and Fuzzy Logic.

Author's Note

Just for your information, there's a reason this page might be interesting concerning what happens in this part of the story.

As you know, this has been going on for a long while, Jacky's tale will end soon and then we'll move on to what Flamberge and Fortitude get up to.

Doing this story is taking a lot of time out of my life, so I'm thinking of skipping the intervening four years after Nightmare Moon and going straight into the endings of each of the split up stories after going over what happens at 'The Volcano'.

Everything in this story is not to be easily forgotten.

If anyone has any concerns on what I'll skip, I'll do some brief flashbacks if you want me to.

So with that typed, I have two more important words to leave this note off with.

'Back', 'somewhat'.

Chapter forty-two, Situations Sandy: Warm and Fuzzy Logic.

-Outside where the Caves of Intrigue were, Daring Do-

The three of them were getting away, but I had to prioritize Ahuizotl as the Rings of Scorchero could do a lot of damage if they were all brought together. Caballeron and Teatime were just getting a tidy profit from all this.

I tried not to think about how I didn’t fail just one person this time… I had failed a whole group of people and now they were entombed.

I didn’t know if I could ever make things right, but I would darn well try to do so for them!

The end of immortality wasn’t going to be a problem to find, I just had to wait for Caballeron to lead me to the next clue.

Until then, I had to work harder to stop them all now.

-???, Flotsam-

As soon as the entrance sealed off and the last lights of the staircase started to fade away, the stairs started tilting upwards becoming vertical.

I scrabbled to find something to hold onto and my ability could only let me cling to something for so long, especially something as the large as the statue's throat we were inside.

I don’t know why Jacky wanted Daring to get out of here while we got stuck.

If Blackcap thought we could find a way out of this, then I was willing to believe in her positive outlook.

I tried to hold onto the stairs, but I started slipping and could hear Jacky and Savannah as they fell into the abyss below. I would be soon following them. Gene and Belfry were lucky enough to have wings to let them fall slowly and Nefer was riding Belfry so at least three of us would be completely okay.

Something had changed as soon as the entrance closed.

I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t like it and we were all about to fall into it.

Once my hooves slipped, I let out a scream as I fell into the darkness and struck something on the way down. Possibly Gene by the softness of the object I bounced off of and may have accidentally hit him with my tail.

Chalk that up to another problem I’ve caused, just by being what I am.

-???, ten minutes later, Jacky-

I groaned and put a claw to my head and opened my eyes… pitch black.

I couldn’t see or hear much of anything. It was dead silent wherever I was. I put my other hand against the ground and felt the coarse sand, it wasn’t only just under my talons it was also in my clothing.

I really despised sand now.

Seeing a small pair of glowing orbs approach me, I blinked a few times.

“Captain Blackcap, you’re alright! Please tell me you have an idea for how to get out of this place, because I don’t think we’re in the Cave of Intrigue any longer.” I felt something press into my chest and nuzzled up into my neck, Nefer was shivering and whining. “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay Nefer.”

I felt around until I got one of Nefer’s ears in my grasp and I started to rub, he mewled affectionately.

“Nefer, let me up. I need to light a match.” After he crawled off of me, I started to fumble around in the dark until I found my cannon lighters.

I struck it against my hip and a tiny light filled the darkness, barely making Nefer visible.

Belfry came over to me and chittered while holding his legs out towards the lit match as if in a trance, until I smacked him with my free hand.

“No, bad butterfly, no lighting yourself on fire with the match!” Properly cowing the large butterfly, I lowered the match to the ground and saw I was sitting on sand.

It wasn’t normal sand either, it was all in a weird greyish color.

“Don’t worry everyone, I’m beautiful!” Savannah came over to be within the small speck of fire that was quickly burning down the matchstick.

“I’m sorry about hitting you on the way down Gene.” I could vaguely hear Flotsam helping Gene slowly stumble over to us.

“Is everyone okay, any injuries to report?” This was my family and we were all friends first and crew second. I was quite worried about everyone.

“I sprained Gene’s wing in the fall and accidentally slapped one of his legs with my tail… I think I might have broken it.” Flotsam reported worriedly as she looked at the speck of fire about to reach my talons, she seemed upset that she hurt Gene and that’s the kind of caring my crew needed.

“Hold on, I have an idea on how to get us some more light.” I had that angular oil lamp, I might as well put it to use. I dropped the match and it snuffed out upon touching the sand and pulled out the glowing lamp, looking around in the glow of the lamp I could see several things were wrong with our location.

For one the sand wasn’t exactly sand, I didn’t know what it was. For another there was nothing in all directions around us except darkness and the glowing lamp we were gather around.

“Now what Jacky?” They all looked to me for leadership and I was having problems coming up with workable ideas.

“I think we might get some more light out of this oil lamp if we lit the spout.” I sat it down on the sand in the middle of us and got another one of my cannon lighting matches out.

“Couldn’t hurt at this rate.” Flotsam was rubbing at her left leg and she looked particularly guilty about the accident and being slow to get around, which forced us to keep to her pace. “We don’t exactly have enough food to survive for long here, wherever we are.”

I always carried portable fire everywhere I went, because you never knew when you might need to light something up. Tilting the lamp so I could see oil pooling in the spout, I struck the match and carefully lowered it into the oil.

It lit ablaze and the area we were in lit up brightly, but that’s not the only thing that happened.

A large cloud of billowing yellow smoke started pouring out of the fire at the spout of the lamp and it coalesced into a stretching figure that looked like the upper half of a Minotaur. He had short horns and coarse, rough looking, yellow fur. His eyes were dark brown and his hair was black as the darkest night.

“A few thousand years in such a cramped space… it’s about time someone figured out how to activate my lamp once more.” The horned figure crossed his arms as his yellow smoke protruded from the fire of the lit lamp. “I am Evoker, the genie of this lamp. The one whosoever lights this lamp gets three wishes minimum. Possibly more depending on special circumstances.”

“Can we wish to know where we are?” I asked.

“Yes, you are stuck in a dimension in between the Caves of Intrigue and the world as you know it. If you fail to escape with the lamp, you will end up here within the lair of the guardian star beast Scorpio. He always puts me right back where I belong, especially after destroying those who fail to figure out how to call me out of the lamp or escape the Caves of Intrigue.” He grinned at us. “Not much of a first wish master, but I think I was quite helpful so on to the next…”

“Hold up, I never actually made it a wish! I only asked if I could make one to that effect. You answering as if I made a wish is on you.” I turned my gaze to Flotsam and she turned to look at me, we both nodded. Jerk genie alert! “So, are you trying to trick me here or what?”

“Of course not master… while I can’t exactly lie, I am supposed to at least try to trick you into making poor wishes which I can twist based on the wording alone. You’re one of the small few who’s surpassed the first hurdle of idiocy by tricking some free information out of me.” The genie wheedled unnecessarily, his grin seemed too wide after he tried to write off one of the wishes he owed me when I asked him a question. “By the way, yes, you can make wishes for knowledge like that. Good show on tricking me before even making your first wish. I like the smart ones, they always make such interesting wishes.”

“What was your previous master like?” Knowing the words ‘I wish’ were not going to pass my beak anytime soon if I could help it, I had to question this Evoker a bit.

“Oh she was quite unusual, she also passed the first wish litmus test to prove she wasn’t an idiot… managed to even get me to make her a bunch of these things called cupcakes for free. I don’t know about you, but that girl was extremely sharp and her last wish is one I’ll never forget.” Evoker rubbed his hands together while leaning closer to me. “So what’ll it be, a wish to change the sea pony’s species? With her curse she could use some extra limbs, a sea pony that can’t swim… how cruel is this world we live in?”

“What was your previous owner’s last wish?” I narrowed my eyes in suspicion as he frowned at me.

“She wished for me to have a happy future. Of course, since I’m a jerk, I immediately twisted that wish against myself and that means that it couldn’t take effect until a long time from then. I’m sure that master survived given she didn’t even move the lamp from the pedestal when she used it. She only wished for small amounts of information… smart move really. Could have made her head explode if she asked for too much.” Evoker smiled impishly at me. “By the way, the flames of my lamp are attracting the guardian Scorpio and he’s coming over here right now. Make a wish quickly, before you surely perish like most of the others did before you.”

“He did mention that this is the Scorpio’s lair not too long ago.” Gene muttered as he looked to the creature in question approaching us, its large glowing white eyes were clearly focused more on us than the lamp.

It looked like a giant scorpion that was made of stars, it was kind of like an Ursa. It had eight spindly legs, three large tails ending in points big enough to stab my body in half, and either of its two pincers could crush my entire body like an iron maiden.

It was quickly approaching us and it was very much a visible outline of glowing stars in the shadows of this place. I would call it somewhat beautiful if it wasn’t likely dead set on killing us.

“What can you not do as a genie?” Aside from twisting wishes like you’ve already said you could do.

“I can’t kill, I can’t force love, I can’t make more wishes, I can’t bring back the dead and if you’re wondering about your curse…” Evoker was talking slowly and continued to stare at the star scorpion as it was getting close. “I can’t take that away as it is intrinsically a part of your nature and while magic can do a lot, it can’t change who a person is deep down and said curse is begrudgingly more powerful than I am.”

“Well I know what my first wish is…” The others were giving me curious glances, Gene was likely wondering what kind of wish I could make if I couldn’t bring back Jade. If Jade was dead, then this wish wouldn’t do anything and therefore it wasn’t a waste. “I wish that my sister Jaded La Perm, a sun priestess, the daughter of Kuril La Perm, who was born within this given century, the Abyssinian that gave me a special bow as a birthday present and who dated both a chimera and a unicorn with a broken horn at the same time, was here!”

I would then at least know my sister Jade was resting in the afterlife or was at least untouchable by genie magic. From there I could then move on by making a second wish to stop the star scorpion.

Speaking of, I can hear Scorpio’s legs thundering as it was only more than a few football fields away now.

“That was a rather highly specific wish, one that’s stupidly hard to twist even for me given how many specific markers you gave me and that one about the chimera was far more than I needed to know. So you wish it, I will grant it!” The magical upper minotaur torso, that was Evoker, waved his hands and magic started flooding out of him. A moment later, a large frown marred his face. “I cannot complete your wish… this quite perplexing really...”

“What does that mean exactly?” I tapped my toes as my friends started moved to the far side of the circle of light being created by the bright light coming from the lamp.

“Well for one, something about the wish worked. The only problem is… it can’t be completed to full fruition.” He sighed while placing both his hands to his horns and tugged at them while groaning as if he didn’t want to tell me something. A grin did start building up on his face though. “Therefore I actually still owe you three wishes, don’t even know what it is my magic just did. Partial wishes don’t count as fully granted wishes and they are freaking annoying for me! Alas… it’s too late for you or your friend’s master. Unless you want to blurt out a final wish before you die?”

“What do you…?” The giant star scorpion roared cutting me off.

I turned to see it raise its left claw high in the air and tried to bring it down on me.

The claw made a whistling noise as it did.

What happened next was that the world exploded into flames and the claw was blown back by a powerful barrier of light. I blinked and stared at the fire that encased us and warmly caressed our bodies gently.

“….. Jade?” I was in shock. I couldn’t see her anywhere, but this was definitely her fire and that meant she was here with us somehow.

-Scorpio’s Lair, one minute prior, J… A… D… E…?-

What the… where in the…?

I was about to sadly watch Fizzle cry herself to sleep again and then I’m just suddenly pulled from her side.

One quick glance around and… a genie, Jacky, Gene and several others I’ve never met before.

Not that a genie would really help me at this point, but I wished I could get a message out. I wasn’t that lucky and apparently neither was Jacky at the moment.

Seeing the scorpion about to kill my sister, I did the only thing that came to mind.

As excruciating as it was, there was nothing else I could actually do to save Jacky in this given situation. I couldn’t physically touch the world, but I could use the one ability that is still tied to me. Even now, I was a sun priestess.

So I agonizingly exploded my existential soul.

Chapter forty-five, Crypt-ick: Deceased.

-Catacombs, Flamberge-

I would one day be bigger than this minotaur Draugr! Sadly this was definitely not that day.

After it turned away from my brother, it charged me and swung. I dropped to the floor on my back while spreading my wings and blasted it with fire again.

The fire burned it for a second, before it started putting it out with a hand and several loud smacks. I rolled back onto my feet, hearing my brother’s words I took to the air and fired several blasts of fire that the minotaur draugr dodged.

It spun around and swung it’s blade at the air and I felt as if my wings were wrenched from their sockets when I was hit with a blasts of concussive that sent my sailing into the wall behind me. This kind of hit would have crippled a pegasus, good thing I’m made of sterner stuff and this was merely an inconvenience at best.

I slid from the wall to flop onto the floor groaning, with little time to think I quickly rolled to the left and the axe buried itself into the floor next to the wall.

I surged to my feet and swung several time, it easily pulled the axe from the floor and dodged my swings. I got in a decent hit on its left arm at the last second burning up a good portion of its left bicep and shoulder.

Its glowing green eyes were staring at me dispassionately as it smacked its right arm over its left to put out the fire. It wasn’t immune to fire, but it was pretty resilient as far as undead bull monsters go.

It raised its axe to swing at me from my right, the speed at which the axe moved was hard for me to comprehend as I tried to back away out of range of the charging monster’s swing.

In the midst of dodging backwards I felt an excruciating pain, no time to worry about that right now as…

The blunt end of the long axe rammed into my skull with a skull rattling force that knocked me off my feet and sent my ever burning sword clattering to the floor away from me.

Landing on my wings didn’t feel too good and neither did my head, Gene always said my head was thick enough to survive a ballista bolt. I felt like I was hit by one from that last blow as I rolled onto my stomach and turned to the Draugr raising its long axe high for a swing as it stepped forward.

As it brought its axe around for a fatal blow, I ran forward on all four limbs to roll under its downward swing. The bottom edge of the axe clipping my right shoulder as I passed beneath the blade. The injury was worth it as I went between the minotaur’s legs and was now behind it.

The less said about seeing what was under the tattered, barely existent, loin cloth was going to be in my nightmares for some time to come.

Sliding up to my sword of endless flames and taking it into my claws, I rose and quickly swung upwards into the minotaur Draugr’s left arm where I had previously burned it.

The arm severed from the Draugr and burned away in seconds, the minotaur suddenly started to struggle to pull the axe free with one arm.

After the axe got stuck in the floor and having managed to get the Draugr’s left arm off, I finally took up my sword in both claws and leapt for its back.

I dug my toes into the rotted leather of its upper back that once had supple flesh. Using my wings to balance myself, I carried my momentum forward and kicked off with my right foot.

With a mighty swing, I separated the Draugr’s thick neck from its body with one solid spinning motion.

My twirl ended, I landed on the floor and felt a twinge of pain shoot up one of my legs from my almost graceful landing. The now burning body was far less graceful than I as it fell over onto the stone floor.

I dealt the Draugr a fatal blow, but only because it refused to let go of the long axe even when it was… heh… disarmed.

A mighty warrior this minotaur must have once been to have been capable of injuring a dragon like me, were he alive I’m pretty sure he could have even killed me if he were as intelligent as this false shadow of him.

His soul finally free from its torturous prison, I wished him well in the afterlife and that he can meet his family with his head held high.

Despite my victory, I was not without my injuries. I had a deep wound in my left side that I clutched at and my right shoulder was bleeding from where that Draugr clipped me, I blew some light flames to cauterize the bleeding wound on my shoulder and then I pressed the flat of the blade in my right hand into my left side.

I hissed as I rolled the flat of my sword and its flames over the wound in my side, I had to carefully cauterize it shut instead of doing a quick flame spit like I did for my shoulder. Deeper wounds were more problematic than a shallow one.

The jagged tear in my scales would heal with time, but the scar would always be a reminder of this battle. The pain was bearable, but I was probably in need of serious medical attention or a healer.

Afterwards I rubbed at my badly bruise face and tried to sooth the pulled muscles in my right leg, I was going to be limping for a while.

“Brother, are you still among the living!” My wings were also aching, so I kept them folded at my back as I resettled my pack. That powerful blast of air from the long axe almost blew out my wings.

I stumbled towards the destroyed bridge and saw the flames of the dying torch still tied to Fortitude’s left horn there wasn’t much left of it. There was still ninety percent of the torch left when I last saw it and now it was barely nothing at all, the torch shouldn’t have burned down that quickly.

“I am fine brother!” He was, but his shield most certainly wasn’t. In the light of the tiny flame I could see wood that looked like it was starting to rot, the small metal bands were rusted beyond their time and the many arrows sticking out of it weren’t helping the damage it went through in this one encounter.

“What happened to the Draugr dragon, your shield looks like it has seen better days!” I think the claymore he held looked fine, hard to tell in this light really.

“The guardian came to my aid, I think they were trying to save me by killing me before the dragon’s eroding fog could!” What, he actually saw the guardian of the catacombs and they tried to kill him?! “Instead they cleaved the Draugr dragon in half, let us meet at the exit downstairs!”

Looking down from the bridge I saw the corpse of the dragon, it had been cut cleanly in half. It is said only a magical silver weapon can cause that kind of damage to a Draugr, such a weapon would work half as well against a living being.

I noted the purple fog was slowly fading away and is likely draining into the cesspits. Making my way to the exit, I saw my brother waiting patiently for me and he looked concerned about my wellbeing.

“How did you survive the dragon’s breathe? Your shield couldn’t have held off that fog alone and its looking a bit eroded there brother!” I asked as I limped over to him.

“You know how you and brother always make light of Fortitude’s fantastic fragrance?” Fortitude smiled a bit. “It is actually really quite fantastic as I am finding out!”

“Seriously, your stench saved your life?!” I just stared at my brother and he grinned back at me. “You know, we always said you had a fog layer unto yourself that could wake and then kill the dead in the same moment!”

“And I am glad to be proving you quite right!” He said as he took up the claymore and used it to swipe the arrows off his badly battered shield. It was still functional and wasn’t beaten yet, but it wouldn’t stay that way for much longer. “Fantastic fragrance is keeping deadly dragon’s breathe at bay, while the force of it was held back by my shield.”

“I am glad you’re alright brother Fortitude.” I patted the big lug’s side and moved for the staircase while raising the flaming sword ahead of me.

He threw his front left leg around my back and hugged me, I held the sword away from him as I didn’t want to die in a fiery explosion should his horrid smell set off a chain reaction. His smell was oddly selective about when it was highly explosive or flammable.

“I am being glad that you are fine as well brother Flamberge, we need to find a spot to rest and consume our provisions! You are not looking to fine… you are cauterizing two bad wounds.” Fortitude was right, I was a bit of a mess and the blood loss from the wound to my side and all the moving around I did afterwards was making me feel dizzy. He helped me stay off my right leg as we moved down the stairs. “Stop, I am needing new torch.”

Tossing the remains of the old one on the floor, Fortitude lit up and tied a new torch to his left horn. We continued down the stairs led by the light of my sword, we would be bringing the source of the Draugr to its end.

-???-

I waited patiently for them to arrive.

A dragon and a yak, both strong and young.

They would show me their resolve or they would go no further beyond this point.

If their resolve proves lacking, then they would not pass me here.

I would fight them to the death.

-Fortitude-

We came to a large open circular room leading into a corridor full of impaled bodies and walls full of spikes. Various Draugr limbs, bodies and even random piles of bones were impaled throughout the hallway walls lined with spikes from what we could see by torch or the flames of my brother’s ever burning sword.

Whatever mechanisms the spike traps ran on, they were most certainly broken by now what with the walls being liberally coated in Draugr bits. Many of the spikes look like they were bent in this direction from the Draugr dragon’s passing, the walls were far enough apart that we could easily walk down this corridor without fear of being impaled.

At the other end of the hallway was too lit torches and a figure standing underneath them, two red glowing orbs staring at us. The figure was unnaturally still and unmoving.

I could not make out what the guardian was at this distance, but I could make out their weapon. A gleaming silver axe, the head was large and the handle was somewhat small.

“I think we should make camp in this room, before we test the corridor and the guardian awaiting us.” I moved off to the side and sat down on the floor and pulled my supplies from my back.

The bag was slightly rotted. Upon looking inside it, the supplies were still good. We ate some of our meager amounts of food and hoped we would not be stuck down here longer than two days, dragons burned through a lot of calories and yaks needed a lot of food to stay strong in these conditions.

“Are we just going to ignore that it, whatever ‘it’ is, is just staring right at us and likely wants us dead?!” My brother is worrying too much and needs rest, I doubt the guardian actually means us ill will.

“Yes, you need rest, I will watch out for you.” Turning to my brother, I raised my brow and looked him in the eyes. “Do you trust me to protect you while you sleep?”

“Yes, what kind of question is that, always!” Even injured his voice is strong and loud, he laid down a curled up to rest his head on his tail. “It’s that thing that I don’t trust!”

Even so Flamberge had set himself up against the wall and laid his sword against it, I turned to look at the red eyes continuing to stare at us with no hint of emotion.

-Thirty minutes later-

I was sure my brother was asleep, I got up and moved towards the hallway lined with spikes and looked at the figure waiting and staring at me.

I took a deep breath and began to approach them, only I stopped to look back. My brother was still safe and sound.

I made my way back and lit up two lights above the entrance we came from, making this room before the treacherous corridor brighter. I could now look back at any time and know that my brother was safe.

Nodding, I walked towards the pair of red orbs staring at me from beneath the two torches. Upon getting closer, the being coalesced into the figure of an earth pony.

Her fur was a pristine white. Her mane and tail were not grey, but a shiny bright silver. Her eyes were unnaturally red and they looked upon me blankly as I approached, yet I did not fear them.

I still looked back to make sure my brother was okay, assured in the fact that the guardian would not strike me down at this moment.

Turning back to her, I moved slightly closer. She looked like a completely normal, average sized, pony.

“Will you protect us both if I get some rest as well?” The mare simply stared at me unblinking, it was quite unnerving and something was very unnatural about her.

I was about to ask again when I saw the faintest of movements, she tilted her head at me and then it was back upright like it had never been tilted.

She calmly nodded.

Lifting her silver axe covered in strange runes, she pointed it at a nearby bisected Draugr.

I did not know what she was other than a guardian, but I trusted that she had our best interests at heart.

Turning around, I went back to rest with my brother.

-???-

Get rest ponderous warrior, I would aid you in your time of recuperation.

After that however…

-Later, Flamberge-

“I can’t believe we’re still alive!” I muttered to fortitude as we approached those red orbs, there were now two Draugr griffons impaled upon the walls by spikes through their eyes beneath the lights.

Between them was that indistinct being still staring at us as if they had never moved, we got closer to this supposed earth pony mare.

Her visage became much clearer to me as we approached, it wasn’t as Fortitude had described her at all.

She was not a beautiful maiden, she was something else entirely.

“Fortitude… that’s not an immortal maiden…” I stared at the fleshless skull with glowing red orbs hovering in the eye sockets. “It’s a skeleton!”

The pony skeleton brandished her axe.

Author's Note

There's the reason why 'The Guardian' was not affected by the Draugr Dragon's rot breathe.

Chapter forty-six, Wheel of life and death: Birth.

-Ponyville, Flamberge-

“Don’t you see anything else that… never mind!” I was about to ask the pegasus if he saw anything else odd besides the torches tied to my brother’s horns, said torches really needed to be snuffed out. “Can we get directions to the hospital and can you make sure that our boat isn’t touched?”

“Sure thing, hey Sunshower can you watch their boat for them!” Another pegasus pony came down at the stallions call and she had blue hair, a butter yellow coat and blue eyes.

“Of course, how long is this going to take?” The mare asked a bit impatiently.

“These guys look like they’ve been taking their live action role playing to some extremes, they’re going to go get some of their injuries checked out.” That’s what the blue stallion with purple hair thought. We haven’t actually been doing live action Ogre’s and Oubliettes, we lived it and dealt with a threat far older than we are in a surprisingly quick manner. “They seem like a bad bruised bunch, so it might take a while. Anyway Ponyville Medical is in that direction, you can’t miss it!”

“So for rest of the day, got it!” Sunshower said with a cheerful disposition as she started to relax on a cloud she had dragged down from the sky.

Looking to our pony companion, the skeleton in the boat with us that was now covered with flesh and fur for some reason. In fact, she looked exactly like how Fortitude described her before it was revealed that she was a skeleton.

The earth pony in the boat with us was currently looking around curiously at all the ponies and the nearby village with a sense of wonder. She hadn’t likely seen the light of day in a long time, it was as if she was seeing color again for the first time in an eternity. I don’t think that would be very far from the actual truth of the matter given her eyes had been glowing red until that unicorn’s soul was put away.

We all got out of the boat and started heading in the direction of the healers. The now living skeleton mare of course kept her axe with her and I kept my sword, but we left the remainder of our meager supplies behind. We soon found out that we weren’t heading to the hospital alone.

“Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, I’m Open Skies!” The stallion stated as he flew by and then off to the sky. “See you at Pinkie’s Party later tonight!”

“Pinkie is holding a party?!” We could use a nice break from out travels and I wouldn’t mind a gem loaded cupcake, it was nice to be somewhere safe after that dangerous run in with that Dispel Grace guy. I had a feeling we’d be seeing him again if he was serious about ending our friends… existence? She didn’t exactly seem full of life a while ago. “I wonder if we’re getting an invite!”

“Of course you’re getting an invite Flamberge, the obnoxiously loud, not inviting you while you were around would be silly of me!” Pinkie Pie just popped out of some bushes walking right next to us as if she had been with our group the entire time, this spooked our silent pony friend and she held her axe defensively against Pinkie. “My Pinkie Sense did say I was going to meet someone spine tingling and spooky… I’m a bit disappointed that it’s just some pony with an axe. I mean sure the axe is scary and all, but the second I think the word lumberjack my sister’s pet rock suddenly comes to mind. He’s definitely not scary at all.”

“Are you going to be following us to the hospital friend Pinkie?” Fortitude didn’t mind and neither did I, Pinkie was a cool pony.

“Yep… are you not going to say it this time?” What was the disappointed pink pony… oh… yeah… that. “I wanted to hear you say it since you always do it all the time Fortitude!”

“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” Fortitude stated proudly, puffing up his chest and pointing his right hoof to the sky as he did so.

“Yeah, that’s what I was waiting for! Can’t get away without hearing that once a chapter during an arc where Viking’s are prominent… well except during the pirate arc because there was no yak in it… or pirate’s for that matter other than a one off mention or two.” We all looked to Pinkie curiously as we approached the hospital. “Quick change of subject, who’s your friend and my target?”

I looked to Fortitude and he looked right back at me, we didn’t exactly have her name yet. The both of us shrugged at Pinkie.

“We are not knowing yet, but we are certainly being friends.” That would be the only answer Fortitude could give, I nodded along with that because I agreed with my brother’s statement.

“Darn… well I’ll just have to keep you company until I find out. Though I’m just going to say it right now, I’m not heavily plot important right now, so don’t expect a shining example of Pinkie Pie saves the day anytime soon.” What was Pinkie going on about and what did she mean by plot important? “I just want to be there when we somehow figure out what her name is… just so I can know what to put on the banner for her party to welcome her to Ponyville for her first visit!”

The white furred, silver haired pony looked a little worried about what Pinkie was talking about.

“Don’t worry, it is a great gathering for merriment and you’ll be welcomed as a guest of honor!” Even when Fortitude tried to soothe her nerves, our companion still looked a little nervous.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be Pinkie?!” As far as I was concerned, we didn’t have day jobs. Pinkie, on the other hoof, worked for a living. I could go back to working at the hayburger and I’m sure they’d welcome me there openly for my burger blasting talents.

“Nope, the Cakes closed up shop today to make a huge delivery and they don’t want me running Sugar Cube Corner by myself just yet.” Pinkie Pie wasn’t always the most responsible of ponies, so that was likely a decision made with good reasoning skills. “Not after the crumbling cookie incident at least…”

Eventually our unnamed companion looked off into the distance and didn’t seem to be there at all anymore as we came up to the hospital.

-???-

I opened my eyes and saw a smiling feminine visage, white hair tickled my nose and I sneezed. The eyes were inviting and the words spoken were honey sweet, but could not be understood. I reached out with tiny limbs to this being and I felt warmth, something rubbed me gently in the tummy and I felt happiness.

Giggling I waggled my little limbs at the large being that nuzzled my swaddled form, they were holding me close and my hooves grasped onto their face. I nuzzled them back

I was eventually sat down and I saw another large colorful being enter my sight, across their shoulders was a shiny object that caught my attention and I waggled my limbs in that direction. The object moved out of sight, but this being patted me on the head. The deep rumble of their voice was soft to my ears.

Were these the memories of me shortly after I was born? One would think after all this time I’ve lived in the darkness that I would have forgotten such a scene, they were my parents long ago and long since passed on.

I started to put one of my hooves in my mouth and started to suck on it… then something interrupted my daydreaming of my foal days I had long since thought forgotten.

-Fortitude-

I am watching as they hooked our mentally wayward pony friend up to heart monitor… it immediately went flat and made a long screeching noise. That is not sounding good, yet friend still seemed to be breathing and started coming out of her own little world. Maybe her current appearance is not as lively as it appears?

Our friend finally blinked out of her stupor and looked at the device and the noise it was making, then turned to the surprised looking doctor ponies with a curious gaze. She sent me a look as if asking what she should do, I made a gesture about staying calm and she nodded.

“Pinkie, I have to ask because I know you all too well, did you mess with anything in the hospital at all today?” Nurse Red Heart is being very strict with Pinkie Pie, but it is a healer’s prerogative to be stern and bossy. Also Pinkie might have done some things to upset Red Heart previously, a noisy pony like Pinkie would be a problem in quiet environment for those who need rest. “It’s not like we haven’t had enough problems with the Apples causing a scare here a year or two ago, it was about ‘apple blight’ of all things if you’d believe it. It only affects trees, but that information Granny Smith gave out somehow ended up in our medical manuals and it annoys me to no end that stuff like that keeps happening around here!”

“Of course not Red, I would never do something that could potentially hurt some pony or make things even worse intentionally!” While Pinkie was busy discussing things with the nurse I turned to the doctor next to me.

It seems the doctor had been trying to get my attention for a while now.

“You’re of decent health, but you need some antibiotics. The wound is infected, but it’s not too bad and we can take care of that this instant.” The doctor then jotted down some things. “The number of scratches need to be treated as well and your bruising should go down after a while, otherwise your fur protected you from most of the injuries you’ve recently received. I’d ask what you were doing to end up with a sharp wound in your side, but I probably don’t want to know and would recommend that you don’t play with rusty metal anymore.”

I am knowing to always listen to a healer when they start advising on one’s personal health. You don’t necessarily need to follow said advice, but you just need to hear it in full and make decisions based on what is heard. To hear that I would be fine made me relax.

“Your brother will be receiving similar antibiotics, but we’re not exactly up to standards on dragon biology as we are on yak biology.” I heard the heart monitor screech again and looked over to see our pony friend staring at it and the several doctors that were there were completely flummoxed by the fact that it didn’t read a heartbeat coming from her. “We’re not going to be able to do much for him, but I’m sure he’ll live. Dragons are fairly tough from what I’ve heard, but the more concerning thing is about your friend over there… she looks fine, but the heart monitor is not detecting any heart beats. Do you have any ideas why that is? We’re sure it’s not a mechanical failure.”

I am getting a stronger feeling that pony friend is still living impaired, but her current appearance is hiding that.

“She has very rare condition that causes such oddities, it is not harmful or contagious.” I am needing to think of a way to not have friend become stuck in hospital endlessly for testing, I also did not want to state that she is living beyond death. “Why not scan her magic, ponies can be doing that right?”

“Oh of course, why didn’t I think of that?” Equestria health care is supposed to be best around, I am more worried about the ponies giving the care than the care itself. “Excuse me gentlemen, we need to give this patient a magical scan to see if she’s doing alright. Apparently our equipment isn’t faulty and it’s just her magical field causing interference.”

-One hour later, Flamberge-

“Then I’ll be fine then, I’ll just have to let it scar. My scales will just grow back over it and everything will be fine.” I wasn’t about to talk about what gave me that wound in the first place, I was trying to forget that we fought our way through a bunch of legendary monsters from old stories. “So what’s going on with her?”

I pointed to our pony friend who looked normal, but that she didn’t register as having a heartbeat was disturbing. It had connotations of the fact that she was still the same skeletal pony underneath her current youthful appearance.

There was a unicorn next to her and he was scanning her with his horn.

“Everything seems to be in order and I found a pulse.” I’m more surprised that the doctor found it than continuing to flounder with the skeleton’s odd biology. “It’s a little odd, but she’s a completely healthy mare and I can’t find nothing wrong with her other than making the heart monitor malfunction. There’s just a small problem with her name… I can’t read this.”

Getting up and moving over to what was written down, I looked over the doctor’s shoulder to see he was looking at ancient Viking scripture.

“It says, bare bones water wheel.” As far as names go, that was a pretty strange one for our friend.

“Is that what it says?” The doctor looked to me raising his brow. “You can actually read this gobbledygook?”

“It’s written in an ancient Viking language, we’re kind of fluent in it.” One that was still used today, but it was almost dead and I didn’t have the heart to tell the doctor that the mare before us was a bit off in terms of knowing things in this day and age. “Our friend at least understands Equestrian, she just can’t read it.”

“Well okay then, but can you compress her name down to something more fitting please? Calling her Bare Bones Water Wheel is a mouthful.” The doctor had that right. “I think everyone one would prefer something easier to say.”

“She is being Skeletal Noria!” That was a little too on the nose Fortitude, but it would make absolute sense if we saw her as a skeleton again.

Her cutie mark, now that I can look at it since she wasn’t currently a skeleton, was of a water wheel with a simple design that suspiciously resembles an Aegishjalmr. The symbol of a protector, a guardian if you will, that was always at the front of an ensuing battlefield that could inspire both awe and terror in equal parts.

Right now she inspired awe with her beauty, but I knew what a terror she could be in a fight.

“Right then, she will be Skeletal Noria… is that okay with you?” The doctor turned to Skeletal Noria and she simply nodded and smiled a bit. “We can’t do anything about you being mute, I’m sorry.”

“Bring Skelly by Sugar Cube Corner this evening for the party, I’ll get ready for it!” Friend Pinkie zipped out of the room with an excited and eager grin on her face upon learning Skelly’s name. I hope that is not causing any issues later. “Oh and give her a tour of Ponyville!”

Author's Note

Skellinore is a cardboard cutout brought to life by Discord.

Skeletal Noria has been alive for thousands of years, fighting an endless battle that just came to an abrupt stop.

Chapter forty-nine, Mountain and Molehills: Mole Mangling!

-Mount Aris, Buggane Den, Skelly-

I stepped onto the floor of this darkened space with my attention on the problem.

The orange lamplight eyes of the mole looked confused as I approached it with an easy going gait.

Whatever aura that had affected the others… it doesn’t affect me in the slightest whatsoever thanks to my condition.

I lifted my axe from my withers and pointed it at the monster, I was giving it a clear challenge to come at me with whatever it had. I stood up on my hind legs and prepped to swing my axe with both hooves.

The buggane seemed entirely wary of me, maybe it knew I wasn’t affected by the aura it gave off? That’s likely the reason why it seemed so disconcerted at the very least when I approached it.

Whatever the case, I had to engage and perform my part of the plan to do something specific before the others came in.

The monster eventually decided that I wasn’t about to become afraid of it and was presenting it with an actual real threat. It cautiously approached me as I approached it.

I wasn’t here to kill it, mostly because I didn’t feel good about taking the life from anyone or anything after becoming what I was. That didn’t mean I couldn’t kill or protect myself as an honorable Viking maiden of the long distant past.

This future was not my time, but I would eventually acclimate to it being my time. The world was so very different now, but there were still monsters to fight and there always would be.

While my bones can still walked this world, I would try to build a future for myself to the best of my capabilities.

The overgrown mole reared back its right claw and brought it around towards me. I charged into its swing and crouched while bringing my axe around in an upward swing.

The buggane roared and backed away as it completely its swing and missed me entirely, it was also missing half the length of two of its smaller nails on its right claw.

The two white blades laying on the ground nearby were the claws that I just cut away, the remaining stumps were much blunter.

If this creature was as smart as everyone thought it was, it would learn quite quickly that it wasn’t going to win this confrontation. The hippogriffs gave out information about creatures like this being sore losers and loved the pain and suffering of others, let’s just see how sore we could make it!

I spun around and tried to chopping into the remaining two claws on its right paw with my axe, my axe struck the ground with a tremendous force.

The buggane had quickly backed up a bit looking to actually be frightened of me. It let out another roar, but for some reason it seemed afraid of me and I could almost see a faint purple glow coming off it.

If it was trying to power its aura up, then it was wasting its energy on me and that was a good thing.

I charged forwards without hesitation and the buggane was now seriously spooked by this, it still tried to claw at me with its left and aborted its attack to barely lose a few inches off one of its nails.

I grinned at the creature as I leapt forward and tried to hit it with my axe directly, it attempted to block only to lose half of another one of its claws to the floor. Its left claws almost matched its right in damage, just a little more and then it might even figure out why I’m here in the first place.

The buggane lunged forward with the awkwardly angled tusk coming from its mouth in an attempt to gore me, I quickly twirled the axe with a flourish as I twisted away from its large mass.

It let out a shriek of pain as a splatter of dark ichor struck the floor along with one of its tusks. The monsters eyes snapped to me and I readied myself for its next attack. Instead of coming at me, it stomped the floor and the room started to shake.

It took a moment, but only a single rock fell to the floor and it didn’t even strike me, the buggane looked to the ceiling confusedly. The diamond dogs did quick work with disabling the ceiling traps by adding more stability to the roof here, they were probably working underneath us right now as well.

Before the buggane could even turn its gaze back to me I was already attack its left paw scoring another hit to one of its sharpened claws, effectively blunting it with my heavy strike.

I quickly backed away from it. That should be enough for what was coming next, this wasn’t too hard at all and was just like using the right amount of force to cut through a log.

Just like my father taught me.

The buggane crouched down and was about to throw its full body at me, if it did then I was prepared to grievously harm it.

It pushed off the ground raising its right paw, only it didn’t get too far in the air as it was suddenly hit by a humongous blast of concentrated wind that slammed it into the wall head and back first.

That’s when Fortitude came in screaming at the top of his lungs to smash the mole monster against the wall with his shield in a brutal display of physical prowess. I started forward when Flamberge came in with his sword fully lit ablaze, I was to continue damaging the bugganes claws while Flamberge dealt damage to the beast directly.

Flamberge slashed at the fur on the bugganes back as Fortitude backed off and it screeched as its fur caught fire. With the aura blown away by Sweetcakes who had spent a minute or so charging it outside, we were quickly making it defenseless and would continue to hit it hard.

While that was happening I took to hitting its claws with several more strong swings while it was distracted with putting the fire out and trying to get Flamberge to back off, I had effectively done what I set out to do.

I had clipped the beast’s nails and it should figure out it was going to have a problem from this point forward.

“Okay asshole, time for a torching!” Hearing Flamberge clearly, I quickly backed away. My bones might be made of stern stuff, but they weren’t immune to possibly being melted.

Flamberge blasted the mole with a gout of powerful flames and the mole quickly started scamper around wildly in a panic as it was lit on fire. It got some distance from us and started to roll around until the flames were snuffed out, the monster was now quite badly burnt and angry.

It looked at us arrayed against it and then tried to do the one thing it was really quite good at, it tried to dig. Tried being the key word here.

Without most of its claws being sharp and having been blunted, it was having problems digging into the ground as fast as it used to. Before it could move enough soil, dirt and rock to even get a hole big enough to fit even the head of its body into the ground, Ryu came down on it with flaming wings and his bright light filled the cavernous space.

“Ora ora ora ora ora…” The first blow knocked the mole away from its attempted hole and the blur of the next fifty or so hoof thrusts battered the badly burnt baleful buggane.

The sound of Ryu shouting ‘Ora’ as he punched the living daylights out of the monster was music to the ears of the others, they really didn’t like this monster.

I couldn’t really count how many thrusts Ryu was putting into it and fifty was a really low estimate, but I kind of felt sorry for the buggane as two of its tusks were broken by the sheer force of the pummeling it was receiving.

The buggane stumbled back and forth dizzily after the beat down it just received and eventually shook its head. It was obviously in a large amount of pain, but it seemed as if it was still willing to fight.

It might be ridiculously resilient, but even it had to know it wasn’t about to win this fight. It stomped it’s left foot forward and roared while holding out its damaged claws. Somehow it had regained its equilibrium from just doing that alone, that didn’t help its injuries and we weren’t trying to kill it.

It charge forward and suddenly it felt onto its chin with a painful cracking sound.

Tilting my head curiously I could see it had a knife dug into its right rear leg up to the handle, looking to the ceiling I could see Blade hanging from one of the manufactured stalactites.

The mole was still trying to stand up, why hadn’t it given up yet?!

“Okay, can someone please knock it out?!” Flamberge shouted as the mole was almost back on its feet and then it charged recklessly at me, only for its face to smash itself against Fortitude’s shield. “I don’t think it’s going to stop getting up until we’ve killed it otherwise.”

Ryu brought down a hammer blow to the moles head and it slapped him out of the air with a backhand from its left paw forcing him into the ground. Ryu was okay, he was already getting up from that.

I moved forward and slashed at its left rear leg and it slapped me across the floor, had I been alive this would have been far more painful. Aside from the pain from my bones scraping against the ground, I was mostly okay.

The mole was still standing despite this, it wasn’t able to break Fortitude’s guard and Flamberge was being more careful with his fireballs in weakening it until we can capture it.

I tried to stand and found myself quickly helped to my hooves by soft and warm tails rubbing away my painful bone scrapes. I sent a grateful smile to Sweetcakes and she returned it, before I went back to focusing on our quarry.

Fortitude was gripping the bottom edge of his oval shield and swung it across the left side of the bugganes face, then the right side and he brought the full might of the shield down on its head.

Despite the groan and the immense amount of pain it must have been in the buggane stayed standing and roared, it was ready to keep going.

“Oh come on, we’ve hit you with everything we have short of actually trying to kill you!” The frustration was not just yours alone Flamberge. The fact that buggane was still going was annoying all of us as well.

The buggane took two steps forward and then a huge boulder dropped onto its skull from out of nowhere and shattered upon impact.

Small bits of rock shot in every direction and chunks of the boulder fell to the ground around the wobbling buggane, it tried to take another step and then it flopped belly first to the ground.

It let out a loud groan and quickly fell unconscious.

Looking up to the hole in the ceiling we saw a diamond dog with a hard hat waving to us.

-Mount Aris, Frontside Beach, three hours later-

The diamond dogs found one of the bugganes traps and decided to use it to assist us and it was a timely assistance, but how were the hippogriffs going to take care of the buggane?

They couldn’t let it go into the wild. The devastation that a dark creature such as this could cause would be rather excessive over a large area.

I signed out something to Fortitude who looked at me as I tried to silently ask him a question, we had the unconscious buggane in a reinforced cage by the shore, but what were we going to do with it?

“Skelly wants to know, what are we going to do with the buggane?” Fortitude asked of Sky Beak in my stead. “I too am quite curious about this.”

“Well we’ve found a way to deal with it in a nice and friendly manner, it was just unfortunate that we couldn’t have dealt with it in the same way before you knocked it out.” Sky Beak whistled and a number of hippogriffs started to tie ropes to the cage and air lifted it off the ground and flew it out to the shallows and lowered it towards the water. “We found out that it doesn’t like water and that prolonged exposure would do something good to it. Even if we could pump enough water up into its lair, that would have taken a long time to accomplish and it would have found a way to avoid its den flooding given how fast it could dig. The retaliation would have been quite bad for us, we can’t exactly take an attack in our home as well as we can on our navy.”

“What’s putting it in water going to do?!” We were all as curious as Flamberge was.

“We’re about to see, if it gets rid of that horrible smell then we’ll call it a day.” Sky grumbled out as he crossed his limbs while hovering next to us.

The cage sunk slightly into the shallows and the creature started letting out a horrific cry, upon second glance it wasn’t the creature letting it out as it was still unconscious and slowly shrinking. A fog of darkness started filling the cage rising up around the body and it dissipated quickly in the sunlight.

After five minutes of the purple fog rising out of the cage and the barely visible shadow of the body shrinking down. The screaming fog eventually stopped flooding out and up into the daylight and the cage was pulled from the water and placed upon the shore.

What we saw inside the middle of cages solid floor was surprising.

It was a tiny quivering heavily soaked mole and it was whimpering as it curled up in the middle of the cage. The little thing was frightened and whining squeakily, quite a few of the hippogriffs looked at it sadly. It didn’t have any of the injuries the buggane had though, so it would be fine.

“Note to self, bugganes are innocent creature infected by dark magic of some kind.” Sky Beak looked at the small thing and was upset.

“Well that takes care of that, we’re done here!” Flamberge said brightly and as he thrust his sword into the sky, I met it with my axe and Fortitude brought in his shield as well. Sweetcakes even added one her tails while chuckling. “Find a nice place for that mole to be released into the wild safely or keep it as a pet!”

-An hour later, backside beach-

Blade came up to us and gave Flamberge a strong hug, then she gave Fortitude a hug while cringing at his smell and then came up to me. I blinked and held my hooves out for her, she immediately brought me into a strong hug as well.

Sweetcakes just held out one of her tails and Blade shook it, she was saying goodbye to us as we got back into the boat for another grand adventure.

Author's Note

Vibrant Vikings Valiantly Viciously Vacate Villainous Vole. (Actually mole, but this is more the alliteration.)

What's next? Meeting Belfry temporarily, ending up in odd places that they have no clue as to where they are and causing adventurous havoc all over the world.

Chapter fifty three, Fiery Fights: Arizona Vs. Jock Hawk.

-The Volcano, Upper Tier, Coliseum, Arizona-

“So… did you see the same things that I did during Pom’s fight?” I was asking Velvet, but Paprika leaned forward and nodded with a serious look on her face. I acknowledged her with my gaze and a nod, she smiled brightly.

I just acknowledged that Paprika could definitely see Pom’s buried talent as easily as Velvet or I can. It was odd, but then again Paprika has managed to copy all the physical aspects of our fighting styles just by watching us go at each other. It was far too easy to underestimate our snuggle monster of a wife because of her lovable happy-go-lucky demeanor.

“Yes, she’s got the same kind of natural talent that we do, but her experience is sorely lacking largely due in part to her cowardice.” What Velvet meant was that Pom had the talent to kick flank, butt and backsides if she really applied herself. “I’m quite certain she didn’t notice how fast she could move, how high she could jump or even her absurd reaction times given how fast and strong that puppy is. After taking care of those beasties of hers for as long as she has, she’s certainly a lot stronger than she looks with her frail appearance.”

“Meep.” Why is it that Paprika sounded more eloquent than Velvet when she was being silly by making that cute noise? I lifted my head up to kiss Pap’s chin, then I turned to Velvet who was also snuggled into Paprika’s comfy grasp.

“Yeah, Paprika has the right of it, it was fairly obvious when Pom tackled the puppy as it was coming at her with the same amount of force that broke one of those stone pillars in half. That she survived the impact by delivering an almost equal amount of force back and even pinned the little guy says a lot. I suggest we just let Pom be who she wants to be, even if she’s anything but frail and could actually put up a serious fight if pushed.” I wasn’t going to force Pom to be brave and I wondered what her next match would bring? If I fought her, then I would hit her with half my strength and then ramp up from there. “She’ll eventually grow into someone far more interesting than a familiar magnet on her own time and in her own way.”

I would encourage the lambkin, but Tianhuo, Ollie and Fred were doing that well enough on their own. With weird friends like Ollie and Fred, people would pay far less attention to Pom or her canines.

I watched the lambkin take a seat among her familiars. I knew Pom would be fine, but she could be so much more if she got over how big and scary the world was. I’m a small cow and yet I was trying to do big things all the time.

-Thirty minutes later-

Flamberge came down before the next match finished, but it was getting close to its conclusion. I had ten bits on the bull, but the longma was roasting him pretty badly.

“How are things going here?!” Flamberge, I sometimes wanted to thrust my hoof down your throat and rip out your vocal chords.

“About as well as you could expect, it’s boring and you’re brother passed his match easily.” The part of our groups that are not participating sometimes swapped out from watching the fights to go wandering the city looking out for signs of strange activity.

Tianhuo was out there trying to keep track of everything that was happening in the city. That butterfly Belfry was watching things around the Ardent Survivor. As of right now it was Flotsam and Skelly walking around the city together. Nefer was still here because he wanted to watch the incredible friends of his captain fight.

“Next up, Arizona ‘Earth Shaker’ Arid Paca La Perm, what a mouthful!” Finally, the referee told me I get to fight and I’ve been waiting for this for a while now! Time to go strut my stuff in front of a crowd and my wives. “Her opponent, Jock ‘The Rock’ Hawk!”

My opponent’s name made him sound like a tool, I was about three steps away from my seat when one of Pom’s animals suddenly got up and let out a sharp bark. Pom’s reaction to the green dogs bark was to suddenly panic.

“Everyone move!” Pom shouted as she heeded her own advice, as did the pack of canines that followed her immediately.

Like anyone who’s lived around Jacky long enough or clearly had the instincts for danger and hears a warning like that, then you were bound to react to it as quickly as you could and faster than everyone else in the general area.

Paprika gabbed the most important people to her, Tinsel, Velvet and me, then leapt away. Oleander, shielded herself with the book and a black barrier rose up in front of her. Gene carried Jacky away, his wing strength was quite good. Flamberge dove over the railing to hover beyond it.

The bleachers, where we all used to be, suddenly exploded sending chips of stone everywhere. When the dust cleared, we were introduced to someone crouching and posing with his right arm in front of his face and his other arm held straight out.

I think I hated this guy already.

“From the sky he falls… Jock~!” The bleachers now had a fairly decent crater and it had been caused by a large six foot tall, moderately muscular, canary yellow Ornithian with an odd accent. “For it’s time to rock, yeah, like a high flying hawk~!”

The parrot seemed strong, he had muscles to cause a lot of damage at least. He was wearing orange shorts and boots, there was also an orange wrestler’s mask on his head with yellow lightning bolts at his cheeks and a long cascade of wild yellow plumage sticking out the back of it.

His screeching was annoying and I didn’t like him, but at least he looked interesting for someone who liked to show off his bare chest. With an entrance like that, he better have some fighting skills!

-Shocking Awe-

“Hmm… I could use a minion as awe inspiring as that. Even if he is a wimp, he makes a good entrance.” I sat back and would see how he did against that cow, I hoped to fight her again and real soon. “I can’t let Teatime have all the fun with his metal morons.”

“I concur, maybe I should find some holy knights of my own to purge the world of all the things I consider unnatural and a waste of existence.” Dispel Grace considered out loud.

-One minute later-

“This… that… what is my opponent?” Jock slapped his talons together and smirked at me while flexing his overcompensating biceps. “Ha, at least this won’t take too long!”

“You’re right about that much at least...” Rolling my eyes in derision, I think this guy seemed all pizzazz and no substance. Sure those muscles were real enough and he did make a crater in the stands, but could he really keep up with me and win? My highly compacted muscles were screaming a big fat no on that, Jock had nothing on me.

He let out a bark of laughter that turn into a shrill shrieking noise that a crow would make, okay this guy was far more annoying than Flamberge. At least Flamberge keeps his decibel levels to something safe.

“Do you seriously think a scrawny little dog like you can take me?!” Jock, you earned yourself a mortal enemy this day. An enemy that can and will pummel you all over the arena’s fighting area.

“I’m a cow.” I answered blandly.

Was it that my udders were so small? It must be because my udders were small and it was fairly irritating to not be recognized as a cow sometimes. Other cows noticed me for what I was, but is it really that much of a difference to not be more pronounced?

“Even better. You should be a dairy farmer, because I bet you fight like one!” No, I’m quite sure that I didn’t Jock, but you were definitely asking for me to snap off the pointy tip of your hooked beak.

“If you knew the kind of cows that I do, then that’s not much of an insult and is actually a pretty decent compliment.” I knew Grace could take this guy if she wasn’t being airheaded and didn’t feel like being peaceful that particular day. My mother and Callie could definitely knock this guy down a whole order of pegs from what I know, he wouldn’t be able to crawl out of the hole they’d put him in. “Also I’m in the business of smashing rocks with my skull.”

“Hmph, whatever, hey let’s get this show on the road!” Jock shouted at the referee and waved a talon at him to hurry things up.

“Ready…” The referee stated and I lowered myself down, I was already predicting what Jock’s first move would be. It wasn’t hard to see it coming, especially with his wrestler motif and the fact that I was smaller and was already presenting a lower profile by crouching. “Fight!”

Jock leapt up and over with his arms wide open, his blazing white eyes and grin on his beak as he came down on me with a flying press said that I made the right call. He could jump pretty high, so he might have thought he had an advantage on me. I’m much faster on the ground than in the air and this was practically slow motion for me, Velvet and Paprika were much faster when they bounded and leaped through the air.

I leapt to the right and then shoulder charged to my left as Jock caught himself before he hit the ground and was already standing up, I rammed straight into him sending him flying into a pillar. He got up from his spine cracking the pillar in half, he just grinned.

“So you know how to break a rock, but can you handle the hawk!” He flexed and then charged for me to tackle me like I had him. I braced for his next move, an obvious haymaker as he brought his right arm back… or was it? I narrowed my eyes on him and watched his movements as he got closer.

My instincts proved correct when he swung his right arm, which by all rights I could already tell was a going to be a feint, for my head. I stepped back three steps as he instead tried to kick out with his left foot to catch me in the chin while I was paying too much attention to his arm.

I thrust both my hooves forward and caught his foot, the shocked look on his face was quite telling and I grinned at him. I jumped back and slammed his back against the ground as I unbalanced and dazed him.

I heaved his dazed form up into the air and spun him around with all my might.

-Velvet-

“A hammer throw, seriously Arizona?” She’s tried to do that to me numerous times, it worked better on Paprika and overrode her defensive fluffmancer abilities with the raw force of Arizona’s muscles. “Our wife is such a brute, a brutal bovine, a bullheaded bash master… and quite beautiful when fighting.”

Such a move could only work on fully dazed opponent and those who don’t have a counter for it, it seems Jock didn’t have said counter and was about to suffer an egregious amount of pain. I would just ice one of my hooves to the ground and either counter throw Arizona with a switch in momentum or I’d stop her with a sharp one legged buck to the face depending on what my condition is at the time.

I believed Arizona learned her lesson after that when it came to trying to hammer throw her most beautiful wife around. Our most loving wife actually loved getting thrown around like that.

“Meep.” Paprika intoned with an excited smile.

“Why yes, I think so too Paprika.” She kissed me on the cheek and went back to watching the tornado that was Arizona slide to the center of the arena.

-Arizona-

And… now! I twisted Jock’s ankle and aimed his face for the first pillar to enter my sight.

He slammed into the pillar with enough force to embed his beak, the pillar itself embedded into the wall behind where it used to be.

I waited for the referee's call or for Jock to pull free. He pulled himself out.

I’ll actually acknowledge the guy was actually pretty tough, but he didn’t look like he had much left in him. He still came at me and we traded a few attacks, his hits were pretty much negligible and then he jumped away from me.

“I guess I should unleash my special move!” Oh, great words, for someone who’s taking a beating Jock.

“I’m going to rock~!” Jumping up high and kicking off an intact stone pillar, he spread his arms out wide and then came down with one foot with a surprising amount of speed.

He struck the arena with a thunderous enough force to launch me a foot or two into the air, then I felt him grappling me by the barrel.

“I’ll do it, just add hawk~!” He pushed us both off the ground and we went spiraling upwards. “One hop and a… Skull Buster Drop~!”

I was turned upside down and we spiraled towards the ground, I looked at the smug smirk on his beak and then gave him one of my own just before we hit the ground.

-Velvet-

The arena filled with dust and I just shook my head, to think you call me a drama queen Arizona.

“Um… aren’t you worried that your wife just got smashed into the ground?” We didn’t know you very well Ollie, but you would learn soon enough how tough the Paca La Perm herd was.

“Winner, Arizona!” The dust started clearing and there was Arizona sitting there looking bored, behind her was a smoking hole in the ground.

“What in the world?!” Yeah, that’s why you never drop your guard around her Ollie, Arizona knows fighting and she’s so stupidly strong that you ignore her impossible strength at your own risk.

“That was most impressive and made for a good show, SHE AWESOMELY RAMMED HIM THROUGH SIX FEET OF SOLID STONE!” The book intoned as everyone stared at a pair of orange boots sticking out of the hole in the floor of the arena.

-Arizona-

“Is he…” The referee started.

“He’ll live, I braced his neck before I did that.” I had a fluffy wife to go cuddle against. This was at most a small warmup. “You’ll have to get someone else to dig him out though. The guy really needs to work on his skills a bit more.”

-Shocking Awe-

“I’ll still take him under my wing, he showed at least some promise. There aren’t too many opponents that would have been worse for him to fight.” I grinned at the carnage the cow left behind, yes it was so beautiful and breathtaking. I wanted to feel something like that personally! “Heh, I can’t wait to fight you again Arizona. I certainly hope you feel the same way towards me, good rivals are really quite hard to find these days.”

Author's Note

Jock becomes a full time minion 'yay' or 'neigh'?

Chapter fifty four, Furious Fights: The Limit Breakers (x3).

Author's Note

Oof... a three times length chapter with a lot to it coming from the aether. I think it explains itself after you read it, but will it be loved. Will the heart and soul poured into it be remember?

I know the music that goes with everything, but does it fit?

Guile's Theme!

Also I'm sad to hear the show is ending on it's final episode. 'Frenemies': Enemies that are just friends you haven't gotten to know yet.

Chapter fifty four, Furious Fights: The Limit Breakers (x3).

-The Volcano, Upper Tier, outside the coliseum, Arizona-

“Why did you push Pom so harshly?” Guessing Ollie apparently caught the end of my training session with Pom where I forced her to dodge and counter for her life. The fact that Pom can block full strength hits from me was telling, much less take several of them when they aren’t even effectively blocked.

“Quick question, were you born and raised by the ‘unicorns of light’?” I stared Ollie down as she stayed silent and looked away slightly rubbing at her left foreleg, the floating book next to her head didn’t comment on the sudden change in her demeanor from perky to pensive. “I’m a lot smarter than I look. So to prove my point that I’m not all brawn, did the key glow when you stole it?”

“Yes…” Ollie answered swiftly, so a unicorn that trained in dark magic was a key bearer that was raised by the unicorns of light.

I knew she stole the key, because they weren’t going to give it to a unicorn who wanted to prove that not all darkness is evil. I haven’t met the unicorns of light yet, but I was quite sure they’d be of a holier than you attitude, a bit snobbish and were completely reactionary to dangers like a shadow leak. The exact kind of thing that drove Ollie to be who she was in taking a proactive approach to dealing with a world ending problem.

She was seeking out the key bearers, well she found Pom first and then the rest of us all in one place.

I think I preferred Ollie as a bearer to any other unicorn in the short time I’ve come to know her, she befriended Pom and got her out of her valley. So that was one of the greatest accomplishments I’ve ever heard of, as talking that lambkin out of her comfort zone must have been quite a challenge.

“Then you should see that of the only two keys left that we need, one is for Tianhuo and the other… it’s going to inevitably belong to Pom. Pom is going to be a key bearer and she needs to be able to defend herself when her beasties can’t. She’ll need the ability to fight alongside them and us, she wouldn’t stand idly by while her familiars are tanking everything for her sake. Need I remind you that some of them are still puppies? They are fairly intelligent puppies, but still little puppies!” I looked around and didn’t see anyone near us, Paprika was probably hugging someone and Velvet was likely trying to keep her under control. “She doesn’t need to be a true warrior or even a fighter, but she still needs to be ready for it. Not many of the previous bearers come back from sealing the shadow horde off alive and the rare survivors usually go into seclusion with what I’m guessing is survivor’s guilt. Only one or two bearers barely survive this whole process of collect the keys and do the sealing, Pom won’t survive being alone for long afterwards if she even survives at all on the backs of our broken bodies keeping her alive.”

“Why her? Can’t another…” Glaring at Ollie, I put a hoof on her withers and stared right into her eyes. “It would be her wouldn’t it… but she’s so innocent though! We can’t possibly drag her into… no… I think see it now… I’m horrified by it, but I do see it. She would be the only lambkin that would be fit to hold that key.”

Ollie started giving me a slightly defeated look.

“I think we’re all being set up to die.” Might as well tell her how I saw things honestly.

It’s why Velvet, Paprika and I were pushing the envelope constantly with one another now. We wanted to live through this when we absolutely knew it was coming, we were preparing for the day where we would have to fight for the fate of the world.

We’ve gotten to the point that Velvet can beat Paprika. Our alpaca is a world class damage sponge that doubles as a lovable and huggable punching bag. Even Paprika knew that we had to break our limitations wide open, she was toughening up alongside us in her own unique way.

Ollie, Oleander, just stared at me. The book was also staring at me too, what an odd feeling that was.

“I think… I think we’d all be suicidal by the time we’d need to deal with the shadow horde if things didn’t turn out the way they currently are. If we had never met…” It was hard for me to actually put into words. “If I didn’t have friends, then I’d be living in the shadows of my mother’s accomplishments once I set out on my own to explore the world and would be recklessly brave to a point that I’d think I could face the shadow horde all by myself. I still want to find my mother or at least find out why she specifically took the key of the lambkin, but I’m not going to live in her shadow because I have incredible accomplishments that are all my own.”

“What about your wives, how would they be suicidal?” Ollie was taking this seriously and Fred was dead silent.

“Paprika and Velvet knew each other long before I came along, Paprika just wanted Velvet to love her and Velvet kept pushing her away because her birth parents don’t approve of her being gay and a few other personal hang-ups. She’d continue to hurt Paprika terribly and would still think she had something to prove to her parents and would have also faced the shadow horde alone.” I didn’t like what I was about to say next. “Paprika, the loveable happy alpaca you’ve been seeing, well she wouldn’t be as loveable if Velvet died fighting the Shadow Horde. If Paprika never met me, while also never receiving love from what is supposed to be her soul mate or at least one of them considering our herd, she would instead be fighting the shadows with the wrath of a broken heart until her possible doom. She’d be crying the entire time, because she would know she’d be losing who she was in the process of giving into an unquenchable fury that would never end. I know Paprika, she’d willingly die with a broken heart and I can imagine the tear streaks in her fur as she’d face the shadow horde down. She might even win, but she would never recover from the loss of her innocence.”

“That explains the three of you, but what of Pom, Tianhuo and me?” Ollie seemed a bit disturbed by my train of thoughts. “This seems rather elaborate and well thought out to be something off the top of your head.”

“Pom would still be stuck in the valley if you hadn’t convinced her to leave after we met her, she’d likely see the place of her birth decimated and then the shadows would corner her in her valley to slowly crush her against a corner she would not escape from and she would go down flailing in fear. Tianhuo would defend her home with loyalty and honor to the very last.” I gave Ollie a pointed stare. “And as for you… you would probably destroy your soul if you thought you could save the world by doing it.”

“You should know that souls are sacred, YOU BETTER NOT DO SOMETHING THAT STUPID OLLIE!” The book glared at the unicorn, it is still an odd feeling to know that the book demon can do that. “I don’t want to go back to being what I was… alone and tucked away doing nothing on a shelf sealed by magic. Put in throwing my own soul into it alongside hers if she actually ever does that. I’d use whatever pieces of myself I don’t destroy to prop up parts of her own in the process, at least some parts of Ollie will live… THE BEST PARTS HOPEFULLY!”

“We’re only talking theoretically here, and that would only be the ultimate last resort Fred. When nothing else would save the world but a sacrifice made from the heart.” Ollie just admitted that she’d actually do it too, I’m actually quite scared for the unicorn as much as I was for Pom being dragged into this. “Of course I would use the wishing spell first… and if that doesn’t help things, then I’d use my soul as fuel as I will have lost any magic to use by that point and would only have my very being to give to the cause.”

Ollie closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, she then turned back to me and the silence stretched for a few seconds.

“So you’ve actually planned for it?” I was a little surprised.

“One doesn’t set out to save the world without looking at all their options, and I mean absolutely every last one.” Ollie’s perky demeanor started to come back. “I’m positive it will never come to me having to destroy myself. There’s always a third or even a fourth option if you look hard enough!”

“That’s why we all need to be strong enough to take on a large army individually, so far my herd has taken on a small one together at Haven’s Patch. I still have oddly specific nightmares about it.” We weren’t ready, not yet at least, but we were getting there. I hoped to be ready enough for us all. “Paprika got seriously injured there, that was even with the sun up and going full blast at the shadows. We weren’t strong enough then and we still aren’t now, Pom needs to step up a little to at least hold her ground even if she can’t push forward alongside those that will be doing all the fighting on the… front lines…”

“So you plugged a leak?” Ollie gave me a tight smile, I must have had a haunted look on my face. The front lines, those nightmares of fighting shadows until I was all torn up husk of my former self fighting to the last against the darkness alone in a wasteland. “Tell me all about these nightmares, maybe it’ll help you feel better to get it out of your system. We might need a therapist by the time we’re done saving the world and I’m thinking about getting into it, even if I’ll never have a special talent for it thanks to Fred.”

After I finished talking to Ollie about my nightmares, Velvet, Paprika and I were going to be relaxing for the rest of this day. Come tomorrow… I’d show everyone who’d watch just what Velvet and I were capable of.

We were wives, we were rivals and we were both key bearers on a quick path to destruction… and we would be ready for it.

If we weren’t ready, then at least I’d go out in a blaze of glory trying. I would at the very least try to make sure that Paprika and Velvet survived. I don’t care how broken I’d be by the end of it, I would not let those nightmares become reality!

-The Future That Never Was, Front Lines, ???-

I had caused all this, well not me personally, but I still technically had a hoof in it.

The barren wastelands around me were silent, it was only a minute ago that the world was saved by the actions of Oleander and Fred. Here I stood at the site of a broken mountain, split in half by the force of those two shredding their very existences from the tapestry of life to save what was left of our world.

Those two were the best of friends, then became something more. Their love and souls powered the end of the shadow horde. I would make sure that Fred and Ollie were remembered, that their sacrifice wasn’t in vain for those of us that still lived, we would never forget this.

I sat there alone, not hearing or seeing a sign of life all around me. I might be the only survivor… someone who wishes they had perished with all their friends, family and comrades.

My name is Starlight Glimmer and I am a unicorn that will begin to record the end results of something that a future version of me had set into motion.

It all started when a future self of me disrupted a simple Pegasus race. That future version of me was a fool of the greatest sorts, given she was the one who destroyed everything! She didn’t understand cause and effect as well as I did, because I just lived through it!

I was not her and I didn’t know entirely why what she did destroyed our world, but that Starlight was definitely behind all this!

I heard a gasping noise, my ears shoot up and I made my way over to a body that hadn’t been devoured by the shadow horde. The likes of Sombra, Tirek, Chrysalis and so many others hadn’t survived them.

What I came upon was a cow… wait, a cow had survived our assault?! What was she made of to survive all that we went through?! As I looked her over, she was in dire straits and eventually managed identify her as Sergeant Arizona. She was missing her tail, one of her eyes looked to have been ripped from the socket, her front right leg was missing to the shoulder, her left hind leg was half gone, her horns were broken down to nubs, her body was a mess of bites and claws marks… yet she was still alive.

“Commander… Starlight… did we… agh… do it?” She looked so young and she just coughed up an ample amount of blood, she was even lying in a puddle of it and bleeding out. Yet she still had the strength to sit up.

Again, I wondered how she was still alive.

“Yes… we saved the world… what’s left of it anyway. Hopefully Luna can fix some of the damage that has be done.” I wasn’t going to sugar coat it, Sergeant Arizona Arid was a mess and a half. Yet she clung to life with a ferocity that I’ve seen a scant few times before. “Thanks to GODLESS locking them out of the world, there are no other gods that can hear us or even save us now.”

“If you have… enough magic… I need you… to do something…” Her talking was wracked with coughs of agony and flecks of blood flying out of her mouth.

“Stop talking and save your strength you idiot!” I put my hoof behind her head as she fell backwards, I could save her… I had to save her! I didn’t want to be the only one to survive this! I don’t even know if Jaded held Manehattan, but I’d get us there and then we could see about getting the world back on its hooves.

“I might live… I might not… but do me a favor and send some of my memories to my past self… at least… an idea…” I had already stemmed the blood flow with coagulation spells and stopped her internal hemorrhaging, she will definitely live a little longer than she thinks she will. “A dream of being a super cow… and some nightmares… of the things that… might…”

I might have used a lot of magic getting Oleander into position, but I still had enough left to save one life as a certified combat medic!

A shadow fell over both of us and I went to protect Arizona as she fell asleep. She wasn’t dead, but she was close to it. I had saved her life and I wasn’t about to let her die out here to… an alpaca?

The alpaca’s fur, what little of it there was, was stained, dirty, unkempt, dilapidated, her ragged body was covered in horrible scars and she had tear streaks that seemed like they could never be cleaned away beneath her closed eyes.

When she opened her eyes, I could see that she was blind. Those glassy pupils started turning into two hearts. She slowly made her way to Arizona, limping towards her with a frown marring her face. She took Arizona up in her hooves gently and then turned to me; she tilted her head as if she could see me with fresh tears spilling from her eyes.

We soon start traveling together towards Manehatten and hoped to find a place of refuge still standing. Jaded may have lost her mother, but she was a strong beacon of hope for everyone to gather around. We needed that guiding light of hers now more than ever before, and for Manehatten to still be there when we arrived.

I would never see the blind alpaca smile, but she would remain forever dutiful to the broken cow. A cow whose request I would eventually manage to carry out. If another version of me could physically travel back in time to ruin everything, then I could easily figure out how send a few memories or at least an idea back for a friend and fellow survivor.

We would never see the results of my magic, but we still hoped everything worked out for the best. As another world out there might be saved before it could get nearly as bad as ours did.

-The Volcano, the next day, Upper Tier, mountainside-

The air was tense and the crowd wasn’t even in the arena for this. Instead, the crowd was sitting on the mountainside a ways above the coliseum. All the injured patients had been moved somewhere safer at Arizona and Velvet’s request.

The two were going to show the world just how strong they were and would do some free demolition so the coliseum can be rebuilt from the ground up while they were at it.

A few longma scoffed at the idea that the fight would really get that bad, they’d soon find out that the precautions were warranted and that the married herd mates didn’t pull their blows in the slightest.

-Arizona vs Velvet-

The second the fight was announced, Arizona was already ramming her rear hooves into Velvet’s face with a forward flying buck. Velvet’s long slender right hoof was also ramming into Arizona’s forehead at speeds indescribable.

The referee was launched away from the two just from the shockwave of them hitting each other, he didn’t think this fight would be as bad as they said it would be. He quickly learned to keep his distance from the two. The animosity in their eyes for each other alone was rather staggering to see for a pair of married lovers.

The two went flying away from each other, they both went tumbling across the arena.

Velvet was the first to get herself into a position to take initiative as she managed to control her tumble to stop on her hooves.

She kicked off with he left hind hoof and started skating across the parts of the stone flooring that were still flat straight for Arizona as if it were made of ice. While she did this she brought her right foreleg across her chest while zigzagging forward.

A blade of ice extended from Velvet’s right hoof and she swung it outward as she slid straight at Arizona. Only she was soon stopped cold when Arizona grabbed the blade of ice and snapped it cleanly off of her hoof and swung it about in an attempt to club Velvet with her own weapon.

Velvet slid backwards by pushing off with her front left hoof and rolled to the side to avoid nearly getting skewered by her own ice blade being thrown at her like a javelin.

Arizona was upon Velvet slamming a right hoof into the left side of her face, Velvet retaliated by stabbing her left hoof into the cows chest multiple times. The minor damage they dealt to each other wasn’t even bruising for how powerful the hits looked to be.

“Do we need to kick this up a notch?” Velvet stated with a smile, the air around her grew colder as she turned to the left slinging her right hind leg into the left side of Arizona’s neck. “I might think this warm up is cooling down far too much.”

“Stop sandbagging Velvet and give me a real fight!” Arizona groused right back at her while grabbing the leg that struck her neck with her left foreleg. The cow got into a standing position, pulled Velvet towards her and kicked her harshly in the belly with her right hind hoof. “I know you’re holding back your best stuff you rowdy reindeer!”

“Of course I am my beautiful bovine!” Velvet, having been flipped entirely on to her back and to the ground. She kicked her left hind leg up into Arizona’s chin, this let her pulled her other leg free from the strong cow’s grip. “I want you to work for the pain you want and deserve. As you very well know, love hurts!”

Velvet rolled backwards several times and away before Arizona’s right hoof could strike her. The ground erupted where Arizona’s hoof struck sending cracks throughout the entire arena that was already pretty badly damaged.

Heaving up a large chunk of stone with one hoof, Arizona got her other hoof on it and then launched it forward at Velvet.

Velvet crossed both her hooves in front of her and a snowflake barrier popped up in time for the stone to shatter upon impact with it. Swiping her left hoof over her head, seven large icicle shards formed. Thrusting her right hoof forward, Velvet sent them flying at a charging Arizona.

Arizona dodged the first three, one sharp pointy bit of ice broke against her left shoulder and her tough hide, she deflected one off of her right horn and then ducked the sixth while reaching into her red bandana scarf at her neck.

As she dodged the last icicle, Arizona swiftly flicked her left hoof and the sound of a whip cracking was heard. With a quick spin, the rope wrapped around the icicle gained momentum. The icicle was spun around while gaining momentum to be unleashed right back at Velvet at three times the speed when Arizona flicked the rope to release it.

Velvet tried to make a strong snowflake barrier and was sent sprawling when her own icicle burst through her barrier, only being blunted by the barrier before it struck her directly. She quickly rolled to the side after coming to a stop to avoid a thunderous left hoof coming down on top of her and into a standing position where she promptly bucked Arizona in the chest, then turned around to glare at her.

Arizona snapped the rope forward and Velvet smiled at her, the cow looked confused for a second before Velvet formed a snowflake barrier formed around the rope whip before it could lash out and hit her.

“Rope-a-dope…” Velvet hopped backwards and sharply pulled the snowflake barrier with her before discarding it into thin air and she held her left leg up as Arizona came sailing towards her.

“Oh, you are so going to pay for…!” Was as far as Arizona got before her neck was clotheslined and Velvet forced Arizona downwards with an impressive show of strength.

“Slam!” The arena shuddered and quaked as one of the walls collapsed when Velvet hopped and threw her entire body into it.

Everyone watching the clearly visible shockwave was stunned beyond belief. The fact that the reindeer could create as large a crater as she did was incredible to most of the watching longma.

When the dust was mostly cleared, they were even more surprised to see Arizona pulling her face away from the stunned reindeer and then bucking Velvet harshly in the face sending her flipping backwards out of the crater with a bleeding and nearly broken nose.

The cow looked only vaguely battered by the attack and most of the arena was destroyed by having her spine shoved into the flooring to create a twenty foot wide crater. She stood up and marched up out of the crater towards the blushing reindeer.

“You just have a very kissable face Velvet, too bad it won’t stay that way at the rate we’re going.” Arizona commented dryly as she threw a left hook and then jabbed with her right and kicked with her left hind leg. “It’s a good thing for you that I’ll still love you, even if I have to beat your beautiful looks ugly.”

“Please… as if your rugged form isn’t quite delectably adorable as well.” Velvet complimented right on back as she blocked the first two attacks and took the kick in the chin while smashing Arizona in the udders with a kick of her own. The cow grunt as she bent over slightly. “Just don’t permanently mar my floof. Paprika sees a lot in us and we see a lot in each other. Can’t we just say we’re a perfectly balanced herd? I’m the beautiful wife, Paprika is the cute wife and you… are just a brute, but those lovely muscles of yours are quite attractive I assure you!”

“I’ll show you brute!” Arizona crouched down pulling her right hoof behind herself hiding what she was doing to it with her left hoof. Said left hoof was soon pressed against her right bicep, she launched forward spinning. “I’ve almost perfected this technique… Little… Mach… Righter!”

In slow motion Arizona’s hoof glided through the air as she spun forward, her hoof lit up with a small flame the first quarter of her spin. The flame increases from red to yellow, then halfway into her spin it turned orange. At three quarters of the way the flames coming off her hoof turned blue, then white before the blow hit the snowflake barrier.

When Arizona’s hoof passed through the snowflake barrier, like it was made entirely of melted butter thanks to all the friction heat being generated, Velvet quickly created another thicker barrier closer to her.

A spark of black came out of the shining white fire of Arizona’s burning hoof when it connected with the second more curved igloo barrier.

A bright light blinded everyone, when they got their vision back and the tornado of dust from the attacked died down they saw that a little more than a quarter of the coliseum was gone. Not the arena, the coliseum as a whole. The ground, where the missing portions of the coliseum used to be, was now partially covered with small streaks of glass and tons of rubble.

Despite the power of the attack, Velvet came out of the attack only slightly burnt much to the disbelief of everyone watching. She was sitting at the back edge of a single unmarked circle of stone, from the looks of it most of the destruction seemed to have flowed entirely around and behind her in a very wide cone.

-Pom-

“I survived… full strength hits… from her?!” I honestly felt far less weak than I previously thought I was.

It was actually kind of a confidence booster to see someone, who’s been said to have hit you with full force several times, pull off an attack so powerful that it destroyed an entire portion of a building just by the force of the attack being redirected into the surroundings.

I thought Velvet was sane, poised and graceful, someone that was easy to talk to. Now I could see that she was just as insanely powerful as Arizona was, if in a completely different way.

The only likely reason why Paprika had lost to Velvet, is that the reindeer had somehow figured out how to attack the alpaca’s large amount of stamina directly. Once Velvet completely drained her, Paprika couldn’t keep fighting despite her incredible defensive abilities as a fluffmancer. I admittedly had some limited capability, but I wouldn’t make a very good fluffmancer.

“Yes, when you have a little confidence Pom, you are quite beau… I mean you can do so much more than when you don’t.” Tianhuo was always so nice to me despite my cowardice, I didn’t mind her coddling me or hugging me like this. “Your familiars and friends all believe in you to be who you want to be. The strength is there, you just need to find it on your own terms and not that of others, even though they are just trying to help you in their own ways. I will support you no matter what you choose to do with yourself, just know that I will personally protect you if you ask me to.”

While I wasn’t feel as weak as I thought I was, I was still quite honestly terrified of Arizona and her raw physical strength. I’m also glad that I was friends with her, Velvet and Paprika.

Ollie had explained a lot of things to me and I was terrified of the prospect and slightly intrigued by the idea of being one of the six key bearers. Arizona didn’t care if I never became a warrior or a fighter, she cared that I could effectively defend myself and those I cared for.

I think I was the only lambkin in this day and age that might even be willing to try being the bearer of the lambkin key.

I wasn’t brave, honestly don’t think I would ever be, but I could be a tiny bit more confident and try to fight for what I wanted to be like Tianhuo suggested… besides a good friend I mean. I didn’t exactly feel like a good friend at the moment since everyone wanted to help me, but I was working on it and would eventually figure out a way to repay their kindness.

I should be able to figure myself out while I watched as the two titans clashing below us. I certainly wasn’t going back to the valley anytime soon, which was the one things I was absolutely certain about.

Big Mama suddenly slapped my face affectionately with her tongue and then did the same to Tianhuo.

-Velvet vs Arizona-

“I can see why you say you almost perfected it…” Velvet said wide eyed as she looked at all the destruction behind her, slowly her eyes slid into a lustful look as she turned back to Arizona. “It’s quite an elegantly practiced attack now, for being all raw power and no finesse at all that is. How’s your hoof Arizona dear? The friction from that attack has to be quite… oh, I see. Clever… no damage to you personally then?”

A smiling Arizona flicked off the bundle of smoldering blackened heat resilient ropes off her right hoof and her right hoof was perfectly fine. The ropes, however, disintegrated entirely into piles of ash the second they hit the last bits of undamaged flooring left in the arena. Said ashes were blown away by a soft wind.

“You lightly burnt some of my floof, so expect retribution to come swiftly and without pause. I think you deserve some pain, but also something sweet now that you’ve got me all hot and bothered.” Velvet sauntered forward and pulled Arizona into a cuddle, she licked the tip of Arizona’s nose making the cow blush. They suddenly were kissing each other fiercely, they didn’t care an iota about their audience watching them do so. They were just fighting one another with their tongues now, one could almost see their indomitable spirits beating the snot out of one another. Eventually Velvet backed off, she looked entirely reluctant to do so. “You know how to make my heart race, so please, keep it up. Now, if you will let me get back into position, I’m bringing out my Hop-kido fighting style. If you can keep this pace up when I go airborne, I have something special that I’ve been saving just for this special occasion and you love.”

Velvet walked away with her tail held up high and her butt waggling for Arizona as she looked over her shoulder and once she turned around, Arizona waited patiently for her to start things back up. It seems Arizona had manners to wait for combat to start back up, she motioned politely to Velvet and the reindeer nodded.

Velvet leapt into the air and with a kick of all four hooves she shot towards Arizona and landed a full four hoof stomp into her blocking legs.

Even blocking the attack, Arizona was sent skidding backwards and off balance, she wasn’t allowed to regain it either. Velvet shot forward following up her attack fiercely with several wide sweeping swings of her legs as she skipped to and fro in the air. Blow after blow landed on the blocking cow who stood her ground and tightened up her defensive stance.

Arizona tried to rope Velvet out of the air, she dodged out of the rope with flamboyant twirl. Arizona tried to whip her out of the air, Velvet deflect with a small snowflake barrier. Arizona tried to countering her with her bare hooves, but Velvet jumped off the air out of her reach and Arizona couldn’t jump high enough to catch her air hopping wife.

Velvet was just bouncing off the air too fast for Arizona to get a decent hit in, the cow wasn’t very good against flying opponents and it showed quite clearly.

Velvet launched one legged bucks, slaps, jabs and each blow was roughing up Arizona as she clenched her muscles to block each blow as the reindeer twisted and turned in the air with an impossible acrobatic grace. Velvet was poetry in motion as she danced circles around the cow in the air without touching the ground for the solid minute that she kept up her assault.

Despite all the blows being landed, Arizona was far more resilient than Velvet and was weathering the attacks from the long limbed reindeer fairly well.

Arizona’s reach and control of the battle wasn’t great at the moment, but seeing a shift in her eyes. It looked like she had an idea and she bided her time. She looked to be waiting for Velvet to perform the right kind of move.

Velvet spun and launched a horizontal twirling axe kick for the back of Arizona’s head, Arizona leaned and took the blow to her neck and then tilted her head to the right catching Velvet’s right hind leg in the crook of her neck before she could kick away.

Velvet’s eyes widened when she flailed at the air unable to get out of the grasp of Arizona’s neck. Arizona quickly released her and then leapt backwards and swinging the back of her skull into the reindeer’s belly to send her rolling across the ground in a painful looking manner.

As soon as Velvet got her hooves under her, she jumped quickly and then again to narrowly avoid Arizona launching a rope whip at her with her left hoof. Velvet didn’t see the second one coming from Arizona’s right before it smashed into her spine with a sharp crack and splash of blood knocked her from the air and through a wall beneath the nearby bleachers.

“Hey, Velvet! You okay?” Arizona called out as a good number of walls and an entire section of empty stone bleachers toppled down on where she had sent her wife sailing. She looked at the small amount of blood on her rope whip and shrugged. “Yeah, she’s fine.”

The rubble of the recently toppled portions of the coliseum shifted, a large spike of ice shoved a few good large chunks of it away. Velvet pulled herself out from under the spike and started marching forward with a slight limp and a determined look on her face.

“It’s time I showed you my trump card, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it Arizona. It’s as much a blunt instrument as you are!” Velvet sat down crossing her rear legs and then she held out both her hooves. “I’m going to show you that I’ve surpassed the need for ice shaper water mastery of ‘mass’, with just my wind mastery of ‘control’ alone. Just be aware that I can’t do this for very long as it’s going to take a lot out of me, especially in this warm environment.”

Arizona wait patiently for something to happen, five seconds later Velvet rose up and was encased in a block of dark colored ice in the shape of a heart. The cow tilted her head, curious as to where her favorite reindeer was going with this.

Lighter colored ice started to sprout from the dark heart shaped ice with a nearly completely frozen solid Velvet in the middle of it. The light colored ice started to take shape of the reindeer’s floof and chest and Arizona looked up at the quickly growing construction with excitement.

It was seamless in shape once formed, with little veins of dark ice spreading from the chest to the head and all the way back to the tip of its tail. It was a giant Icy Velvet with a flesh and blood Velvet for a heart, the ice sculpture shifted and spread its legs out as it looked down at Arizona and flicked its tail.

“Bigger isn’t always better Velvet.” Arizona commented dryly, the statue mouth made motions as if talking. “You do realize that you can’t exactly talk like that right?”

The large ice sculpture slapped its right hoof to its forehead, the meditating Velvet in the chest of the statue frowned slightly. The ice statue pointed to Arizona and made a gesture with its front left hoof for her to come at it with everything she had.

“Gladly!” Arizona screamed as she launched forward avoiding the large sharp edged tip of right icy hoof and launched a power hoof strike to the leg that caused the ice to crack slightly. Seconds later the ice repaired itself. “Okay, so it can repair itself. This might take a bit of doing and you’re probably going to sleep for a week after this is over with Velvet, but I won’t simply lose to you because of this!”

Even as Arizona shouted at Ice Velvet, she avoided getting stomped on by the front right leg and darted toward the other leg to buck it. She cracking the ice on it even worse and it slowly started to repair itself. Icy Velvet slowly turned towards Arizona as she ran from her to do something, the large ice body was not exactly fast, but quite durable and hard to damage.

The reindeer driven ice statue held up its legs and they cracked when a pillar was swung into them, the pillar was pulled back on the rope it was attached to and swung back and around for another blow. Only the statue swung outwards deflecting the pillar and making Arizona’s rope lose its grip on it.

The statue then crouched and swiped outwards at Arizona with its left hoof, the blow connected and sent Arizona smashing through several walls and the emptied medical area of the coliseum which imploded inward on the cow.

Icy Velvet smirked a bit, a few seconds later the chin of the monstrous reindeer statue was hit with a large piece of rubble that made it stumble backwards a bit. The cracks among the ice structure were worsening and another piece of rubble struck the chest causing even more cracks to form, they weren’t repairing as quickly due to the structural damage and Velvet’s quickly weakening magical strength.

The Icy Velvet was starting to chip, but it wouldn’t be enough to bring down the statue quite yet as it moved towards Arizona in long strides. The statue inhaled, after the billowing of oxygen filled its hollow belly it exhaled a storm of cold air at Arizona that froze everything it touched.

“That’s really c-c-cold of you Velvet!” Arizona flexed shattering the ice forming on her body, she reached for her bandana and then slung her left hoof forward to wrap around the mouth of the icy colossus and then pulled it shut.

Arizona pulled on the rope and Icy Velvet started to move forward. The icy Velvet took a step or two forward and the rope slackened, it thrust its left hoof at Arizona.

Arizona leapt onto the hoof to start running up it until the statue flailed it up upward, this sent the cow flying up into the air where she was knocked even higher by the other hoof hitting her smaller form.

The cow landed with a grunt on the highest part of the coliseum still standing. She slowly stood up and glared at the condescending look that the Icy Velvet was giving her with its lifeless round orbs and slapped her front hooves together making a thunderous sound.

Arizona started wrapping some heat resistant rope around her left hoof and started gathering some regular rope with her right as she ducked under a left swing by Icy Velvet and then leapt over the next. Each swing taking a portion of the building beneath Arizona’s hooves.

Twirling a quickly made lasso overhead, Arizona launched it and managed to get it around Icy Velvet’s neck.

“I’ve always wanted to be a super cow you know!” Gripping the rope with both hooves Arizona started pulling, the way Velvet’s head rotated it seemed like she was just rolling her eyes and didn’t expect Arizona to be strong enough to lift the weight of the living ice statue. “Kind of strange that I’m fighting a giant ice statue of one my wives with a dark heart of gold. Makes me feel like I’m living the dream!”

With the strongest yank she could manage, the statue lifted off the ground and looked horribly surprised.

“Flying… Little… Mach… Lefter!” Spinning around to the left, Arizona leapt forward towards the airborne statue coming at her and her tiny hoof connected with its neck. “Rope-a-dope…”

The enter statue suddenly acted like it was clotheslined and the explosion from Arizona’s left hoof hitting it blew apart the entirety of Icy Velvet’s head, that wasn’t the end of Arizona’s attack though.

Arizona jumped off the chest of the headless body of ice, going high up into the air as it fell towards the ground. Doing hundreds of somersaults as she felt towards the heart of the statue, she eventually stopped while bringing her two forelegs high above her head when she came close to the block of ice above the heart.

“Slam!” Hooves coming downwards in a hammer cataclysmic hammer blow, Arizona slammed down her forelegs with her full earth shaking might. The buildings around The Volcano shuddered, the lighter colored ice went everywhere and the dark ice heart split in half and some of the remaining parts of the coliseum still standing collapsed.

Velvet fell to the ground slightly in shock as Arizona landed right next to her.

“You know, I would say sorry for breaking your heart… but I’m just going to lick up this gooey and rather tasty caramel center in the chocolate.” Arizona’s words made Velvet’s face turn completely red with embarrassment. “Can you still fight?”

“With you? Always!” Velvet started coughing and she looked a bit sickly for a moment. “I just don’t think I’m going to be able to use too much more ice though, I’m running close to empty and my body is starting to heat up too much. The heat of The Volcano isn’t exactly good for my health.”

Velvet slapped her left foreleg against the ground and statue of herself formed thrusting a left hoof uppercut into Arizona’s chin knocking her upwards. She sat up and slapped the statues backside and another budded out of the head of the first to punch its right hoof into Arizona’s gut. Velvet brought both her hooves down on top of the butt as she stood up and a third statue budded out of the second, but it was just shaped like Velvet's rear that stomped its hind legs into Arizona’s skull.

Arizona heaved herself up and rammed her slightly rattled skull against Velvet’s floof and sent her rolling away.

Velvet got up and started twirling, but she couldn’t do more than create a tiny dust devil of cold air. She started panicking when Arizona grabbed hold of her.

“To win this, I only need one good hit Velvet .” Arizona stated as slammed a hook across Velvet’s cheek making it immediately bruise, then she took a moment to start gasping. “You’re on your last legs and I’ve taken everything you’ve dished out so far.”

“I could say the same to you!” Velvet slapped Arizona across the face twice and took a blow to the chin that knocked her head back. She took a few steps away rubbing at her aching chin. “You’re not exactly in the best condition yourself, but at least you don’t have to fight with everything getting so… warm.”

“True, but I’m sweating baskets and you must hate the smell by this point.” Arizona rushed Velvet and struck the left side of her face and then her left hoof was blocked from hitting Velvet’s right.

“Au contraire, I love the smell of a well fought battle Arizona!” Velvet launched several thrust into Arizona’s temple, nose and chest with both her forelegs that made the cow back off. “How about a finisher…. I can’t keep this up much longer.”

“On three?” Arizona offer, Velvet only nodded in response. “One.”

“Two.” Velvet spoke as she and Arizona brought their heads back.

“Three!” The two slammed their heads into one another and an explosion of dust kicked up throughout the remains of the coliseum.

Quite a few in the audience were watching and waiting for something.

“Winner…” The referee announced, even as he saw that the two figures standing. One started to fall and the other was wavering on their hooves. “Arizona ‘Earth Shaker’ Arid, of herd Paca La Perm!”

Arizona was badly bruised, her face was bleeding in several spots and she was barely standing, but she was smiling as she raised a shaky hoof.

“You’ve always… had a tough skull... my super cow…” Velvet whispered out after Arizona stumbled her way over to her, Arizona looked to the crowd taking in the cheers and then slowly dropped down onto her side and she laid her head on Velvet’s floof and cuddled up to the reindeer. "My floof... better not be... covered in snot... upon waking...”

"My everything... is so numb... Velvet." Arizona quickly passed out.

Chapter fifty six, Huoshan Hellfire: Campfire.

-The Volcano, airspace above, Dragon Lord Torch-

I am a massive dragon of peerless might!

I am the size of a small mountain, wings the span of hills, breath that can rival a volcano’s heat, claws that can rend entire cities to the ground, a tail that can sweep away entire battalions of smaller beings, a crown of bloodstones made from the blood of our great ancestors, large horns sweeping past my cheeks that could tear a full grown elephant in half with a single swing and spotless armor provided by our cousins of Huoshan that was as strong as my nearly impenetrable scales.

The most damage I’ve taken over the years is to my wings and those meager little rips were nothing to me, for I am Dragon Lord Torch!

For all the prestigious power I presented, I was a wise leader and didn’t care about Celestia sending ponies to evict one of my people from her lands. For I had much bigger things to fry right here!

“So it seems I am needed here after all, I shall take care of this false dragon personally!” I eyed the monster that would dare pretend to be a dragon, it was not a true dragon and that it would harm our cousins made my blood boil. It was a dangerous being to be sure, one that I would need to concentrate my efforts on. I’ve been itching for a halfway decent fight, I was getting old and also needed some entertainment. There were very few things that would challenge our territory so openly. “Longma, hear me now, defend your home! I do not want to have wasted my time having flown all the way here to rescue a burnt out husk of what are supposed to be our strong and noble cousins! You are all beings that are as proud and mighty as true dragons, show me that my trust is not misplaced!”

The longma seemed to have been emboldened by my words and they started to fight harder. I still had it, though I didn’t know how long for sure I would. I was sure to make it all the way up until the day I gave up my position for retirement and maybe even a long while beyond that. I will always be remembered as one of the most intimidating dragons alive, I even reveled in that fact.

A gauntlet of fire would still be needed soon, but I’ve got about a year or two yet to rule and this day may be the most fun I would be getting for the next few hundred years. I will need to discuss my retirement with the other elders during our upcoming migration.

The young will rule, where the old would advise.

I hoped Ember learned something about this place, otherwise I will have failed as a father to give her some brains that our people are sorely lacking at times. If only common sense were as common as it sounded to be, then dragons wouldn’t need lords to bust their heads and keep them in line.

Some dragons complained about pillows and slept on hard rocks or have hoards with many jagged bits in them that get stuck to their scales. If the smaller dragons wanted pillows so badly, then they would either barter or go to the effort of making them for themselves.

At least our cousins were always productive and more integrated with the world at large. Even if other dragons saw them as lesser, the Longma were where a majority of our information comes from.

With each flap of my mighty wings, I stared at the sea of darkness below me and the large smoldering circle from my attack that decimated numerous empty building. It was was slowly filling up with thousands of shadow monsters, the shadow horde definitely needed to be dealt with once more.

The false dragon was sitting in the center of that blazing circle before it started to rise up to meet me, I would not lose such an obvious challenger during my reign. I would not take this threat lightly. These shadow monsters were a threat to everything, even to dragons like me.

When I was done here, my daughter had better be alright by the end of this battle raging within the city.

-Upper tier, Arizona-

“Well, that’s some nice back up to have…” I watched as the shadow dragon and the large dragon met each other in a flurry of claws and teeth.

The shadow dragon was gored by one of that guys horns and didn’t die, when the horn pulled out the large hole sealed itself up. I kind of wanted that dragon to fight me half seriously sometime in the future! Sure one of his claws are bigger than my body, but I think I could take him given enough time and effort.

“Get back to fighting friend, we still have many metal wyverns to deal with!” Fortitude shouted as he held off a pair of claws with his shield.

“Yeah, stop woolgathering and… oh for the love of, someone help me!” Jacky instead of getting whipped in half by the tail of another wyvern, it wrapped around her and got tangled on itself as it flew up into the air with her.

A flash of metal and Flamberge appeared next to me sheathing his sword. The tail fell to the ground and Jacky fell on hers, then the cut off portion of the tail proceeded to slap her in the skull. Jacky was never lucky, but she still got up and shot down another wyvern with a fork to one of those propeller tube things.

“Worry not brother, for I have arrived!” It was so nice of Flamberge to finally join the fray. “Though things seem far worse than I could have guessed, we should have probably petitioned for some extra help from Lord Torch!”

“It’s about time you showed up Flamberge, now focus on the wyverns!” I charged towards one and watched as a beam of magic from Ollie blew another wired wyvern out of the air. I leapt up and launched a forward buck that badly dented the head of the one I was aiming for.

-The Grand Time, Skelly-

“Do you seriously think that you can fight the both of us and protect the cat at the same time?!” Shocking shouted as he trotted down the corridor looking through doorways for us.

He and Jock had lost track of us, being lightweight and unable to feel exhausted had quite a few perks when it came to fighting a running battle. Like being able to move with absolute silence for one.

Nefer insisted we put a stop to the golem making machines he saw and do some damage before we leave, he was currently scouting the corridor next to me and flicking his ears for any signs of the terrible twosome.

While I agreed with the sentiment of taking out Teatime’s constructions, I’d rather get out here before Dispel shows up. I’d also rather not have Flotsam angry with me because I let her little brother get hurt.

I wasn’t worried about myself, I’ve been around long enough that I’d be willing to accept the eventuality that I would pass on. I didn’t want anyone sad because I passed away and today was not the day that that would happen, not for the lack of Shock and Jock trying.

We learned that Jock was immune to lightning now and Shock wasn’t yet back at full strength after what Arizona did to him. That didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous, but after years of practice I was quite good at sneaking around.

“Okay, we can move.” Nefer whispered to me as he looked around the corner, I nodded and put him into my ribcage. “You do realize how disturbing this is for me right?”

I rolled what passed for my eyes and made my way into the corridor, apparently he could guide us to where the golem ponies were coming from and what we needed to deal with to stop them.

Nefer saw them down a few flights of stairs, this airship was really complexly built and that complexity made getting around problematic. The upside was that it was easy to find places to avoid the real danger lurking in the maze like construction of this place.

We eventually found some stairs down and I took down several patrolling pony golems when I found them. It was explained to me that they were kind of like me, except soulless and driven by the magic of their creator.

At least this Teatime wasn’t a necromancer, or else I would stop at nothing to end him. That would always be a chip in my withers.

“Take a left here, I think it’s that way.” Following Nefer’s instructions, we saw a golem open and come out of an opening metal doorway.

I made sure it lost its head and split it in half before it could spot us and looked into the room as the golem disappeared. Its three pieces reappeared inside an object above the cylindrical machines Nefer spoke of.

Its two halves of a head and body eventually fell into one of the empty cylinders and magic started to slowly pull it back together and mend it. I noted that others were taking far longer because they were far more broken than the one I just dealt with.

I don’t think I liked all this mechanical stuff of the future very much, given we just watched as the mechanical pony walk out of the cylinder with its head fully back on its neck.

Given a few seconds, I ripped it apart more thoroughly with my axe and then looked at the thing in the ceiling separating the parts into each particular cylinder. The magic at work was at least making sure that none of the parts were mixed up and given to the wrong mindless minion.

“If you destroy that, it should stop more from coming out. We might want to get out of here real fast once you do though.” Nodding to Nefer, I idly tore another golem apart as it stepped out with ruthless efficiency, only several more golems stepped out. “I’ll keep them distracted you destroy that thing above us!”

Nefer hopped out of my ribcage to the floor and ran forward and darted around the numerous metal pony’s attacking him with shovel shaped blades extending from their hooves. He wasn’t a fighter, but he was swift and didn’t need to be.

I immediately started climbing up onto one of the machines by grabbing onto a round thing sticking out of it. I pulled myself up and watched as Nefer made two of the metal ponies damage each other. Once I was up on top of the cylinder, I leapt up to grab onto the edge of the see through magical storage container’s that was separating the golem chunks.

Upon climbing up onto it, I looked for something important to break. The round glass hollows with water gas looked sufficient enough. I raised my axe and brought it down on the hollow sending a billowing hot spray at my body as it shattered.

“They’re in the repair room, get down there and stop them before they do too much damage!” It seems Teatime was well informed about what goes on in his flying vessel.

I swung my axe at another hollow and another burst happened, the entire container I was standing on was beginning to tilt. I noted that it didn’t have many supports and was mostly held up by the hollows, the foundation of any structure was always its support and this thing would soon fall if I kept hitting them.

I smacked my axe at the metal while looking towards Nefer evading through a gaggle of metal ponies, he looked up at me and I waved to him and pointed below me.

He looked curious and then smiled once he figure out what I had planned, he started my way and the large rectangular container started listing even more as I cut at another hollow and the meager supports that were holding this thing aloft groaned.

Soon Nefer was underneath and various metal ponies were encroaching upon him, I had struck another pipe and another burst of water gas started to flood the upper portions of this room room. I could also see the telltale flicker of the unicorn magic used in this things construction beginning to cascade with sparks of energy.

Unicorn magic always had the ability to create, but more often than not destroyed things just as well. It looked like the magic holding this thing together was starting to go from ‘creation’ straight to ‘destruction’. When unicorn magic starts gearing for destruction, it was never a good thing to be as close to it as we currently were.

“The steam coolant pipes are being damaged, get down there and stop them now!” Teatime wasn’t happy with what I was doing, so I was clearly doing something right.

When the metal ponies were almost gather beneath the container that collected their parts from a distance, I swung my axe and cut one last pipe, the container dropped slightly but did not fall.

“Shock Spear!” At the sound of Shocking’s voice, I leapt off the container and fell to the floor into a tumble. A bolt of lightning pierced through the container and where I had been.

I did not know what the bolt of lightning hit, but the large container started topple onto the gathered golem ponies.

I swept Nefer up into my ribcage and then slid under the biped bird known as Jock. After I got to the other side of him, I was knocked through the air and out of the room through a door by the explosive blast of the container hitting the floor.

I stood up, shaking my rattled skull, and narrowly avoided Jock’s heavily muscled limb ripping into my skull as he stood up. It instead got stuck in the wall next to me.

As I ran from him and took a right, I looked into my ribcage and saw that Nefer was knocked out cold. I had to quickly escape this place now and prevent any further injury to him.

“Blast it all, what did you two buffoons do down there!” That was not a happy unicorn.

“We’re working on dealing with the intruders, but your repair thing is all broken, it’s kind of ironic really!” Jock shouted as he charged after me, we had stayed here for too long and I didn’t want to be here if that sea of shadows ever got into this machine ship.

I got back to the stairs and ran up them, I turned and went up another flight. Jock was pretty fast in a straight away, but he was having problems turning corners.

This looked familiar, I know the way out!

“Get back here so I can break your skull open and use it as a cup, because that would be metal!” Jock’s words were really quite strange, did he say strange things like this all the time? My skull was not made of metal, I would know if it were and only barbarians drank from pony skulls. He should use young hydra skulls instead.

“Do not let them get off the ship, we could use more bargaining chips!” Yeah, not going to happen since I was already back on top of this metal ship.

Author's Note

The conclusion of this will be expectedly quick and not very interesting, unless a beholder eyes it to be so.

This chapter started with a quote I liked to hear a lot, from Tadakatsu 'freaking' Honda.

Because he never stopped saying it, but then again he didn't need to really say much else.

Chapter fifty nine, Times will change: Back to the village.

-Canterlot Castle, Cake Vault, Celestia-

I just had to check, maybe Sekhet hadn’t moved fast enough to… I entered my vault and froze. There was one thing that my vault should never be… in just one word, empty.

Seeing a bit of paper on the floor I trotted over to it and picked it up, maybe it was the kidnappers trying to ransom the cake back to me. It was sad that that has happened to me before.

“Dear Princess Celestia, by now you will have heard about my return from untangling a magical space wedgie. Cave Pukwudgies? What does that even have to do with this atrocity against nature?!” Though that one part confused me, my heart practically dropped out of my chest as I finished reading the letter. “Revenge is best served sweet and my teeth were chomping at the bit for something delicious, so I raided your vault for a snack. Thoroughly antagonistic, Sekky the Secretary of Airship Mauled. N-”

-After one long soul rending scream later that woke up most of Canterlot-

“She stole all my cheesecake stock, the double fudge ripple, the strawberry shortcake, the quadruple M cake… you know what?!” I yelled to Luna while I dragged her into the walk in vault and shook her violently. “It’d be faster to say that she took all of the cakes!”

“And I should care why?” The lackadaisical tone was not one Luna should be having right now, we have a goddess who just declared war by invading my most holy and sacred of territories.

How did Sekhet even find my hidden cake vault that everyone knows about!

“Because she not only stole my cake, but the moon pies that were in the vault too!” Yes, I knew that Luna would likely get angry at Sekhet for stealing her precious snacks as well! I turned away from Luna to give a silent prayer for all the cakes that were lost and not ransomed off like last time.

“What… were my moon pies doing in ‘your’ cake vault dear sister?” The tone Luna spoke in reminded me that I had stolen all her moon pies recently.

In fact, did the room seem darker and about ten times colder all of the sudden?

Turning around, I remembered one of the many reasons Luna turned into Nightmare Moon. There she was standing before me, armored and her horn lit with the rage of a thousand moons.

“Now, Luna, let’s not be too hasty… Sekhet did take the moon pies that I took from you, so shouldn’t you be angry with her? Seriously Luna you’re overreacting and directing your anger at the wrong target, join me in the light side and together we can beat this horrible…” I tried to start off with bringing Luna under my guiding hoof using the blinding power of the light, only for a rock to collide with my head and land on the floor.

I rubbed at the knot now on my forehead and turned in the direction it came from.

“Grabah Grabah!” What looked like a bunch of pony sized demon hedgehogs wielding bulky wooden clubs and pushing stone wheeled vehicles with their feet started invading the vault in droves.

To my horror some of them even had slingshots. They were going to destroy so many stained glass windows with those!

Why that would eat entirely into my cake vault budget!

The horror…

-Sekhet, Airship Mauled-

Celestia had excellent taste in cheesecakes, I might not eat a slice and send it back to her. I’ll just have to make it close to paper thin.

I tossed another slice of cheesecake into my mouth.

-Ponyville, Morning, Twilight Sparkle-

I’ve made a list and checked it thrice, I even marked off the list myself with my magic. I had a lot of free time to give Fizzle a tour of Ponyville, this was going to be so great! Also I was getting quite used to being an Alicorn now.

I can show Tempest how things worked around here and maybe she’ll be far more open to the magic of friendship, it was the perfect plan and nothing could go wrong today! I clapped my hooves together and flapped my wings happily, maybe I could even invite her to live with me. My crystal castle was kind of hollow without friends to fill it with.

“We’re going to have so much fun today Tempest, or Fizzlepop if you prefer your actual name!” She rolled her eyes at me and chuckled dryly. To think, some time ago I was completely terrified of Tempest chasing me.

“Can I do one thing before we do anything else?” That was an odd request from Tempest, but I was open to hearing it as I knew Tempest wasn’t a bad pony. “Also Fizzle is fine, my friends would call me that and ‘Fizzy’ is to be reserved for those I think of as special to me. Tempest is okay and I will probably respond to that as well.”

“Sure, what did you want to do?” I watched as Tempest cleared her throat.

“I want to get something off my chest in song, now if you’ll excuse me...” Inhaling through her nose I can feel the rhythm slowly filtering through the area, this sounds like it was going to be an upbeat one and that was a good thing. She started trotting forward. “You don’t know what it’s like~. I have blood on my hooves and it doesn’t feel nice~. Yet there’s a lovely warm light that shines from you, I hope you never end up like the wreck behind the mask that I still use~!”

“What, how can you be singing an upbeat song with lyrics like that, no heart song is supposed to be upbeat and sad at the same time like that!?” She smiled at my astonishment as she marched into town with purpose.

“I seriously didn’t think I’d win~. I’m so glad that you helped bring my heart back again~.” She strutted through the streets and didn’t care about how any pony was looking at her, I’m kind of surprised by how composed she can be. “I once knew love in a simple way~. And now it’s hurting on this day, but I’ll keep standing strong as the beating in my chest won’t silently fade away~!”

“Well your welcome!” I shouted to her over the music that I felt my butt bouncing to the tune of, why was the music even up upbeat like this?

“And don’t you know that I’m still going, even with this feeling of which I can’t be rid~. I’m feeling like I survived it all, but I don’t think that I ever did~.” We approached Carousel Boutique as Fizzle sang this, she leapt up and spun around a pole and we both went inside to see Rarity. As she sang Fizzle pointed out a cloak and scarf for Rarity to make. “To think I’m still going after all this time, with all the broken pieces of my past being right here on my mind~.”

She looked up at her horn and she rubbed at a spot on her chest, I felt my heart clench slightly. The Staff of Sacanas was powerful enough to restore most of a city… but despite how powerful it was, it couldn’t restore that.

“I’m still going… too, my, woe~!” Fizzle sang as she took the simple cloak and scarf, she paid Rarity the bits and then made her way out of the boutique. Why did it feel like she was leading me around? “I’m still going… too, my, woe~!”

“I would never ever hope to win, not when I’m going back to that long lonely road again~.” It sounded like Fizzle didn’t want to stay in Ponyville, I was still going to make an effort and an offer to her. We were on approach Sugar Cube Corner. I had to divert her into Pinkie Pie, she could possibly stop this sad heart song! “All the threats I made to take you down, if I was actually being serious then you’d have been drowned by now~!”

“Nope, not touching this one Twilight.” Pinkie didn’t even give me a chance to ask, I just opened my mouth for a single second. She simply placed a frowny sack on the counter, Fizzle paid for it and took it. She turned to the exit while smiling slightly at the décor and sending bigger one to Pinkie who waved at her, at least that was something and Fizzle was now bouncing to the rhythm too. “You don’t interrupt heart songs like this, she really needs it!”

My mouth flapped trying to find words to say, but I couldn’t think of anything. A second later Pinkie joined us as did Rarity as we approached the market, maybe Applejack could convince her to stop?

“Don’t you know she’s/I’m still going, with some feelings of which she/I can’t be rid~.” Fizzle, Rarity and Pinkie sang together. They were actually joining her?! Wait, why was I moving closer and was my mouth opening too? “Still/she’s feeling like that little filly, after what that large bear did~.”

“And I’m still seeing how far I’ve got to climb, I can’t see the top while digging upwards and completely covered in grime~.” We stopped at the stand and Fizzle pointed out several sour apples. Applejacks nose crinkled slightly, she force Fizzle to keep her bits and patted her left shoulder. “I’m still going~.”

“See, her, go~.” Pinkie sang as she bounced along in a cheerful manner.

“I’m still going~!” Fizzle stated to Rainbow who came to a stop in front of and they glared at one another.

Rainbow snorted loudly as she hovered with her legs cross. After rolling her eyes derisively, she put a hoof around Fizzle neck and squeezed her in a one hoofed hug. She pointed in the direction of Fluttershy’s cozy cabin and Fizzle nodded while heading in that direction.

“Head, not, low~.” Wait, Rarity was right, despite the sad parts of the song Fizzle was still moving forward with her head held high. That’s… kind of amazing really, I think I might be looking at this the wrong way.

Applejack soon joined us and I saw her waving back at Big Mac as he took to the stand. Fluttershy was playing with her animal friends, she however stopped when she noticed Fizzle approach her. They looked at each other for a moment and then Fizzle pulled Fluttershy into a hug, Fluttershy hugged her back.

Fizzle turned to me and then looked at the Crystal Castle and all of Ponyville in the distance. When she looked back to me, I nodded. We were moving through town towards our final destination as Fizzle sang.

“With more friends like you/us, I’m/we’re not going to kid~.” Fizzle was shaking her tail as the whole town started following the rhythm with us. As we headed towards the castle, she glanced at me. “You’ve/we’ve all made me/her a little stronger, there’s no feelings to be hid~.”

“We’re you’re friends now Fizzle.” I said calmly with a slightly brighter kick in my step.

-Fizzle-

“And I’m still going after all this time, if only they could see me now and the mess that is my mind~!” I thought of Arizona and Velvet always fighting each other despite how close they were. I thought of Fortitude and Flamberge with their big hearts. Jacky and Gene who set out to travel the world to find a solution out there. I wondered what they would all think of me now. “I’m still going~!”

“Go, Go, Go~.” The crowd cheered for me. That’s odd, but I guess heart songs have their own inertia and physics.

“You can’t stop me~!” I said to everyone.

“Oh, no, no~.” They sang back. “She’s still going~!”

“I won’t flee~!” I bowed to everyone and received a lot of stomping hooves.

“Well now…” Rarity stated, she seemed nice and all, but that forced accent is a bit much.

“Well, it’s nice to see you’re looking perky.” Applejack tilted her hat to me, her twang was certainly home grown. “I can’t help but think you’re familiar somehow, before you started chasing us.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it.” She probably saw me at the Hayburger before it got sucked into the chaos dimension that one time. There was also me pummeling a manticore, because that was better than the stark raving madness of the tedium that was working there.

“Um… can we get back to what I had planned for our day?” Twilight poked her hooves together. “Things might have gone a little too fast for us.”

“Sure.” I snorted at her and just shook my head as she levitated a list of things we would be doing together. I was going to pack my stuff and Grubber should be by soon with an airship.

First order of business, also because I’m highly biased, we’re going to Palicoast to deliver the good news. Hopefully they won’t immediately attack us with pitchforks and torches.

Goodness knows how angry mobs get all those things so fast, it’s even more ridiculous if a majority of an angry mob aren’t even farmers.

-Airship Mauled, Sehket’s Pyramid, Kuril-

“Sekhet… why do you have so much cake and when did you start sharing it with all the residents in town?” There was so much cake here that everyone was eating a slice, I don’t think Fresh Start could make this much cake no matter how early she got up in the morning. “It’s practically everywhere.”

“I just won a lottery and recently got a sudden windfall… I just wanted to share it with the town and get back into the swing of things by doing something tasty and somewhat abnormal like buying out a bunch of cake shops.” Why did I get the feeling that Sekhet wasn’t being entirely honest with me? “Don’t you have to go pack supplies to set out and retrieve your wayward lovely cooking assistant?”

Pique queried me and was looking at the cake, Niche rubbed his stomach slightly. I knew Sekhet was hiding something and was deflecting, she was being too nice and supportive right now.

“You guys don’t need to ask for permission, you’re grown adults... you can ask Sekhet if you can have some.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more disturbing than two Storm Creatures giving puppy dog eyes to a goddess.

Even Snickers and Sugar were getting into some cakes, several strawberry cheesecakes by the look of it. It was safe enough for them to eat I guess, and it was cheering Snickers up.

“Have one Kuril.” Sekhet offered sweetly.

“Fine, I’ll have one too, but only because I’m waiting on Pique and Niche’s camping supplies to come in.” I looked at the cakes on display and looked for one that didn’t look dangerous for me to eat.

-Ponyville, Crystal Castle, Nighttime, Fizzle-

I snuggled my pillow and waited for the bad dreams to come, instead I blinked and was sitting in a field of flowers with a three headed being and a lovable snuggle cat next to me and a lot of other beings circling around me in close proximity.

I thought I would be having nightmares, but it seemed that I was resting peacefully.

-Luna-

“Rest easy Tempest, you will not have any nightmares on my watch.” Luna walked up to the dreamer and encompassed her with soft wings.

Celestia could worry about the sphinx problem by herself.

Author's Note

Life is never simple. Friends can make it easier, but they can't solve all your woes all the time. Sometimes you just got to suck it up and keep pushing forward on your own strength, but every little bit still helps.

Fizzle is on the road to recovery, where Kuril is about to be on the road personal reasons.

Chapter Sixty Two, The Hail Maries: Legging it to the homestretch.

Fœnum, E. Velvet-

Half the forest was knocked over, the other half was on fire. Hills were made where there were previously none and where there were hills, there were now just excessively large holes in the ground that didn’t match the mass of the new hills at all. Trees, that were used as oversized javelins, littered the landscape to the point one of them was embedded in a boulder. Garden snakes and owls were in love and dating, it was raining frogs for some reason and fire was probably the new wet at this point.

The whole world had basically gone completely mad, the destruction was quite widespread and we were having a problem following it back to our fluffy and lovely alpaca.

“Do you think our Paprika is okay?” Bearing witness to the destruction we were following, I couldn’t help but worry about our wife fighting her doppelganger.

“I’m sure she’s fine fluff butt.” Our Arizona, ever the tough girl with udders that were tinier than even her counterpart’s udders, just meandered on through the destroyed terrain.

We arrived at the scene to see that the two Paprika’s were still fighting and I gasped in horror at what was going on.

“What? They’re just having tea.” Of course Arizona wouldn’t know the horror that was going on here, it used to be my favorite field of combat before I met her.

“Just having tea?! Don’t you see that their battle is going way too far and it’s tearing them apart?!” I stated with utter dread for what I was seeing. “This is the worst possible thing ever, they’re both fighting a battle of etiquette now!”

Paprika and Paprika were sitting on a blanket with their legs cross, their eyes were narrowed at one another as they carefully picked up their tea cups.

Both Paprika’s took a sip of tea and one accidentally made a slurping noise, the Paprika that slurped froze. The other Paprika calmly put down her tea cup and then pointed at the other one with a shaking hoof and a stony gaze from her raised head that was tilted back ever so slightly. The Paprika that slurped bowed her head in shame.

“That was terribly brutal!” I watched the horror unfold, why would these two suddenly choose to fight in an arena that neither of them were too entirely good at? I couldn’t even tell which one was ours, was it the one that was shamed? It better darn well not be her or I will find a couch for her to sleep on for a few days! She’ll also only get half the cuddles she would normally get if she loses this. “I don’t think I’ve honestly seen anything so horrifying in all my life!”

Arizona looked at the two Paprika’s, turned her gaze to me, then looked behind her at the small landscaping issue we just happened to follow up to this point that paled in comparison to this travesty.

Why the current brutality of their fight in progress was quite disastrous in how it progressed, it knew no true bounds with how far they were willing to go!

Arizona slowly returned her gaze to me and then turned back to look at the two Paprika’s.

“Yeah, I really don’t want to know what you’re currently on right now Velvet.” Arizona said plainly.

“Oh no, now they’re trying to get silverware placements right!” I couldn’t understand why Arizona was so calm. Didn’t she see the devastation that Paprika just unleashed upon the other Paprika by calling her out for bad manners?!

Arizona just watched them pull out silverware, they were just gathering forks, spoons, butter knives and plates, for ten seconds.

Arizona’s gaze was completely and utterly flat as she turned back to me.

“I’m just going to go fight Fœnum Tianhuo.” Arizona you brazen cow-ard! “Tell me when they’re done playing, we’re almost done saving this world so we can get back to ours personally.”

“Playing, you think that’s playing?!” I called out after Arizona who calmly walked away from the most apocalyptic battle of etiquette ever held, it was as if… it was as if etiquette didn’t even matter to her! Why the very idea of it! I remember when she… oh… Arizona really doesn’t care about etiquette unless it’s fighting etiquette. I really needed to teach her how to understand the nuances of the horror show I’m seeing here, it was like a train wreck in slow motion. “Don’t leave me here alone with these two, their battle of etiquette is getting even more twisted by the second!”

“Stop being so high maintenance you deranged deer!” Arizona shouted back as she disappeared into the burning half of the forest.

Both Paprika’s were now calmly eating some food with a knife and fork, one even dabbed her mouth with a napkin as the other made several impossibly classy gestures. After a moment one was giggling and the other was politely laughing to save face, which was probably one of the best polite laughs I had ever heard.

Things were really heating up between the two and I couldn’t take my eyes off of the two identical and nearly equally matched alpacas!

It was a second later that one of the raining frogs fell on me.

“Tinsel, my floof, get it off!” I started running around while the frog gave me a ribbiting I would never forget.

-Leg Ate Hollow, Fizzle-

Pinkie was wrong, the name of the place wasn’t ‘legate’ as in a legionnaire. Most diamond dogs wouldn’t even know what the word legionnaire meant, much less have the capacity to spell it. This place was literally called Leg Ate Hollow, diamond dogs were ones for simplicity and the name stuck because of the story surrounding this place.

The story goes like this, apparently there was a mile long collapse of the infrastructure throughout the tunnels after a long day of hard work by diamond dogs.

For context of when this happened, it was at least a thousand years ago.

One of the workers was Pupper, a diamond dog who was one among many that were thought to be done for by many a diamond dog that didn’t get caught in the incident.

As the story goes… Pupper ate one of his own legs. It was so that he could gain enough strength to save every other diamond dog caught in the collapsed tunnel systems before they could suffocate. As disturbing as it sounded, it was actually a brave thing to do.

Ever since then, bracing for the tunnels has been an important part of diamond dog culture. Pupper eventually went on to be the alpha and had lots of puppies, his descendants still existed to this day and age.

That was Leg Ate Hollow’s legend.

I knew exactly what we were here for not too long after hearing the full story, it’s just convincing the diamond dogs to part with the object in question. That’s the problem.

The hero of the story Pupper was eventually given a mystical peg leg, said peg leg was our next artifact that we had to combine with the crystal and the ring to finish what was obviously going to be a magical scepter of some kind.

It wouldn't be easy getting the peg leg of a popular leader and old folk tale hero for the diamond dogs.

The diamond dogs did mention that the leg was at the end of an era of collapsing tunnels and was supposed to be part of finding the end of something else. We already knew what that other thing was.

The leg wasn’t made by the diamond dogs, Maud told us as much. The peg leg was made of stone and it was possibly made with unicorn magic, which had earned her interest at the very least. Then she went into its composition involving corundum, bauxite, quartzite and some basalt thrown in for good measure.

Maud needed to study the peg leg in hoof to determine if it had any other materials that were not as visible as the ones she described, she even commented that there might have even been feldspar in the leg.

Apparently earth pony magic allowed Maud to get an idea of what minerals were in a given area, on top of her already well known expertise in rocks and rock related sciences.

To this end, we were waiting on Maud to negotiate with the diamond dogs. I’m expecting negotiations to break down and I’m ready to light up a chain lightning spell. Until then, we were spending time getting to know some of the locals like Daft Dim.

Daft Dim was by far the smartest diamond dog here. That is his actual name, but he prefer to be called Dimmer and he was actually a genius.

“So that’s how I got my PHD in physics.” Seriously, with a name like that, you’d expect Dimmer to live up to any of the stereotypes that diamond dogs were idiots. The male beagle was actually pretty darn good at physics and math, it was to a point that many diamond dogs wondered if he was actually a diamond dog at all because he couldn’t be matched to a single stereotype.

“Quite fascinating.” Mud Briar had been listening to the diamond dog more than I had been and Daring was looking a little agitated.

“This… is a really boring adventure.” Not that I had deep issues with Daring, but what did she expect when this was basically where the ambassador of the diamond dogs lived.

The diamond dogs here actually held themselves up to slightly higher standards, which wasn’t saying much when the diamond dogs we have at Airship Mauled basically had the same standards for things.

“Well, it’s not like we’re getting a leg up on this situation by being complete jerks.” Really Maria, did you just actually go there knowing that we were after a peg leg?

“Mara-.” My voice was quite stern as I slowly said her name.

Mara immediately smashed a paw in the Maria’s face knocking her out of their body.

“Okay, I admit that I absolutely deserved that.” Maria shakily stood up and stumbled back into fusing with her sisters.

“So we’re basically waiting on Maud to finagle something for us.” Marie stated as we were currently in an underground bar.

Getting up and walking to the bartender, I just had to ask a question.

“Hey, I was wondering, does throwing the stool thing work here and what are the rules for the bar fights here in Leg Ate Hollow?” I was ready to personally throw a seat. Daring was bored, Maries was bored and I was actually kind of intrigued by diamond dog society outside of Airship Mauled, we couldn't be friends since they generally despised Abyssinians.

“Well of course that works, it always works, everyone is knowing that! As for rules, it is always being good to be asking for them, no biting, clawing and can only be using blunt force trauma!” So that’s a no on weapons from the bartender… I can swing that. “Also do not involve me in the fighting. If that happens, you not able to purchase drinks for a month.”

“Okay, thanks.” I picked up a stool and threw it at the largest nearby diamond dog much to Mud Briar’s confusion.

-Hours later-

“Well that was fun.” I was sporting two black eyes, my leg was in a sling because I sprained it punching out diamond dogs bigger than me and my body was covered in bruises. We were sitting outside the bar with several other roughed up customers milling about.

Maries was supporting me and licking my wounds, I just blushed at the attention.

“Technically… it was.” Mud Briar seemed to have enjoyed himself with standard bar fight traditions. I even told him why I did that and he understood completely, I was an honorary La Perm and we can’t enter a bar just for snacks. We also did it to gather information and to beat the snot out of random people without going to jail for it. “I also found it to be quite painful.”

La Perm's always had to start something and see it through to the end too, also normalcy was overrated.

“Thanks, hadn’t had a bar fight like that in a while.” Daring was currently black and blue, but she had the award for knocking out the most diamond dogs and me. She was a really good pugilist, it helps that she is used to punching out panthers and tigers with her bare hooves.

Daring might be smaller than me, but she hits like a donkey cart loaded with donkey carts.

“No problem Dare.” I calmly smiled, it’s always good to get some stress relief once in a while.

“What happened?” Maud’s bland voice broke through us all relaxing off our aching muscles after a pretty nasty bare bones brawl.

“I was dragged into a bar fight, it was a unique experience.” Mud Briar commented. Like every other earth pony out there, he had a lot of physical strength.

“I got us access to the leg, but I made a deal with the diamond dog that needs a new home to go to as she doesn’t want to live here anymore. I offered her a residence at Airship Mauled.” Okay, so Maud apparently had been busy and had somehow succeeded in negotiating the peg leg for us. “She’s one of Pupper’s descendants and her name is Brenda Springer. Come on out Brenda, they’ll take you back to Airship Mauled. Mud we’re staying here for a while.”

“Hello there, I’m Brenda. Maud told me you needed the leg for something important?” The diamond dog was a really tall poodle wearing a nice blue dress, her hair and ears were a mass of luxuriant looking curls. She was an outrageously beautiful diamond dog and I wouldn’t be surprised if she were harassed by every other diamond dog around her on a daily basis. Her soft voice was also quite easy on the ears, compared to the gruffness of every other diamond dog I have ever heard of. “Well if you can get me out of here, it’s yours to hold onto for a while. When you are done with it, I want it to be returned to Leg Ate Hollow.”

"Wait, why are you staying here Maud?” I watched as Maud looked around at the city dug out of solid stone.

“Just thinking of vacation spots... possibly good for a honeymoon too.” Well it sounded like Maud and Mud were likely getting closer to marriage. “The geological features here are really great, they also have an excellent rock museum.”

-Days later, 'Love' god’s section of the universe, Jiutian-

Every other love god and goddess was now in a corner of the universe that previously didn’t exist until two seconds ago.

The reason was fairly obvious…

“Meep.” Paprika stated with a smile, she had multiple figures with her and her two wives were draped over her back sleeping off various horrible injuries that they had likely inflicted on one another.

“Uh… the left exit at the nebula and it’s the horse head shaped galaxy, you can’t miss it.” I watched as the scary one motioned to her friends to follow her and she started hopping along merrily.

“Meep.” She stated happily as she waved back at me.

The horror.

-Airship Mauled, Fizzle-

“That’s where it is!” Daring looked highly upset once we figured out how to use the scepter.

Author's Note

Now comes the part we've all been waiting for... where is The End of Immortality located and what is it's relation to Jade needing it to be found?

Is it in:

A. Equestria.
B. Saddle Arabia.
C. Zebrica.
D. Floating Continent.
E. (Insert own answer here).

It's related to Jade because:

A. She is The End of Immortality.
B. She has The End of Immortality.
C. She was The End of Immortality.
D. The End of Immortality was never real and is a wild goose chase just leading to Jade.
E. (Insert wildly improbable answer here).

Reminder, the start of the next chapter is the actual one million mark... and this story might be going to one hundred chapters.

It depends on the expediency of the author really... whoever that guy is.

Chapter Sixty Four, Bad Bastion Battle: Citadel.

-The Grand Time, Teatime-

“The barrier function seem to be working effectively enough, it’s just too bad that I can’t fit a magical barrier on anything smaller or bigger than that.” Too small and the golem is drained in seconds, too big and the golem uses an ever increasing exponential amount of energy to even keep the barriers active. Barrier magic on my golems was tricky prospect. “If they think they can chase me down and catch me, then they don’t know the likes of Teatime Clockwork!”

I was working towards compact and efficient hoof held disposable barrier shields for my pony golems. Directly applied barriers were too expensive, time consuming to make and overall highly inefficient. Barriers seemed to be the next logical upgrade to improve the longevity and defensive capacity of my golems, I just didn’t have the inspiration for such a design yet. I already increased my pony golems overall mobility and speed, so they were working fairly well even if they were still somewhat fragile.

At least the barriers on my combined excavators would have quite a few minutes of highly effective combat time, with power increasing to the barriers based on the impacts dealt to them. Until then, while they were combined like that, they were nearly impervious to outside damage.

The combined crab shaped excavators would run out of energy long before they could be destroyed outright, so it’s a fairly decent tradeoff I think for the time and effort I put into them. It’s just too bad that my impressive machines were running their energy down on a fairly oafish and rather aggressive cow of all things.

-Airspace above the jungle, Tianhuo-

I didn’t know how things were going on the ground, I was quite busy enough up here with the mechanical wyverns Teatime used to attack my home.

I flew up high and then came down spiraling and spinning until I drilled my hooves through the chest of a metal wyvern and forced my way out its back in a shower of parts. I watched it fall into the jungle and crumple into a pile of scrap metal.

While they were still fire resilient, they certainly didn’t handle pure brute force very well.

I heard the sound of metal being sundered behind me and turned around to see, what was his name? It has been a few years since he helped with the defense of my home by bringing Lord Torch back with one of Huoshan’s guardians. Oh right, his name was Flamberge!

Flamberge’s burning sword had just sliced a metallic wyvern from hip to shoulder and its two inert halves fell towards the jungle. He pointed toward the open space in the jungle near where a pyramid sat.

“We need to take out those cannons, our friends are being pinned down!” Flamberge yelled as he flew closer to me, he looked back at his wings as if missing an old friend. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to fly, I have also gained a fairly large appreciation for dogs! Friend Tianhuo, how have your travels fared before ending up here?! Our group has faced many an odd and dangerous situations!”

“Ended up in another dimension for a few years where I literally fought myself in honorable combat, my life certainly wasn’t very strange before that.” The other Tianhuo and I tied in our fights.

In fact, every fight between us tended to be a draw even when we weren’t fighting physically. There’s being evenly matched and then there’s being fated to be evenly matched no matter what you do. Our twelve hour game of horseshoes was quite fairly impressive in that regard.

“You’ve been fairly lucky then, we had to fight an eldritch abomination every other week and ended up in various dimensions and not just one! I am fairly tired of fighting eldritch abominations made of tentacles and the physical representation of horror made manifest!” He gestured for me to follow him and I did so, we both flew towards the side of the cannons at the enemy base and prepared to give ‘fire’ support for our friends on the ground. “In fact, I’ve become desensitized to seeing creatures of such a massive number of orifices. It scares me more that I can’t find it in me to be afraid of them. Though that gas demon with the thousand butts was quite comical, lots of kicking did occur there!”

“That’s nothing, I’ve been on my adventure for years trying to find the one thing I’ve been after for quite a while and now we have to deal with all this stuff to get to it!” The adventurous pegasus mare joined us and she was carrying a smiling Paprika with her. Her wings were putting up a lot of effort to keep the alpaca up in the air. “Help me with this alpaca would you, she’s a bit heavy. I want to drop our friend here off in their base where she can cause some havoc!”

“We can certainly do that!” Flamberge helped the mare carry Paprika as we all flew forward, there weren’t many wyverns left in the air and it was a clear shot for the base.

-Behind the potion made wall, Maries-

We grit our teeth as Jock managed to get us into a bear hug and trapped Mara’s paws under his arms, we felt our bones slowly creaking under the strain as his squeeze continued to increase in strength.

Marie noted that Kuril was motioning for us to get out of Jock’s grip as she prepped her staff with a potion from a safe position. Kuril prepared to swing it and was giving us a worried glance.

Fortitude and that mare Skelly finally arrive and started helping out with the numerous mechanical beasts still running around. It was nice to see Fortitude again and he was as big and strong as he ever was, especially with how well he was plowing through various golems.

“We need to get out of his grip…” Maria grunted out, she then sent us the idea she had in mind. Marie would have to temporarily split off too for that, we were surprised when she suddenly agreed to do so when she hated being separated from us. Marie quickly explained herself. “It’ll give her an opening!”

“Oh and just how are you planning to do…” Jock started to say. Maria pushed downwards, Mara pushed upwards and Marie dropped off of us to the side. As each split happened, the maximum size of our bodies shrunk and made room for us to escape. Mara pulled herself over his arms by digging her claws into his shoulders and proceeded to kick off him into a backflip with her hind legs. While he was staggered, Maria ducked out from under his arms and Marie was already moving forward to prep him for the knockdown. “That?!”

In his confusion Maria kicked forward to ram her horns into his stomach, Mara charge forward and slapped his face twice with her paws while he was doubled over and Marie was already in position wrapped around his legs.

Jock Hawk was fairly top heavy and he toppled over backwards with the next blow Mara landed on his face, the three of us quickly pulled away from him and joined back together.

“You can do that?! Oh you are so going down you pip-” Off to the side of Jock, Kuril slung her staff forward and a potion vial smashed against his beak. This sent some broken glass and magical fluids straight down his throat. The transformation was faster than if it had just gotten on his feathers and body. “*Squeaks*!”

The small muscular mouse looked shocked at the sudden change and started coughing up several small bits of cheap glass. We reared back and slapped Jock far off into the jungle with a single powerful, and exceptionally painful looking, claw to the head.

“That was an extra strength transformation potion, should last him at least an hour or more.” Kuril then offered us a potion vial. “Need a healing potion Maries?”

We nodded and took the offered vial into a paw and quickly downed it, it tasted pretty good. We could already feel our cracked bones and badly bruised flesh slowly knitting back together into a healthy state.

We managed to get back behind the badly battered wall before another salvo of cannon fire struck. The wall Kuril made was almost completely destroyed and Fortitude moved in front of it with his shield to block several shots from hitting the central portion of the wall that everyone was taking cover behind.

Seconds later the cannon fire abruptly stopped. Marie looked over the wall cautiously and grinned brightly.

“The cannons are under attack. We can moved forward and assist Maggie!” It seemed we wouldn’t have to do that Marie. Not when a large reindeer shaped ice statue started to slowly stomp towards the small, relative to it, centipede of crab machines.

Two figures were strafing the cannons with fire, while Daring and the alpaca were busy dancing around the tentacles of the airship that started becoming more active in this fight. The Perun Paladins in the area started firing blasts of energy at them in their attempts to fend them off.

-Field of battle, Maggie-

Two claws on the left side dug into the ground and hurled several large chunks of ground at me, I was staying fairly mobile and on the evasive during all this.

I ran around the massive chunks of ground and it reared up to bring the entirety of its mass down on me. I was already moving out the way. Let me tell you, getting this much weight in motion wasn’t easy.

The centipede stomped forward on its crab claw legs, while swinging around its forward torso trying to hit me. I threw myself to the ground and let the scoop pass overhead before I got up.

I was still trying to think of a way to break a barrier that strong when a shadow fell over me. I thought it might have been more trouble, up until a large pointy leg made of ice blocked the other crab claw scoop swinging back around for an attempted clamp on my head.

“I’ve got this, go.” Velvet’s voice spoke in a slow droning tone, but I nodded and ducked around the icy leg to move on, while Velvet’s other leg punched the centipede across what passed for its head.

The barrier flared brightly and the entire thing wobbled wildly to almost fall onto its side, the reindeer statue still managed to cause it some damage just from the raw force of the impact.

Only my Arizona could attract a reindeer that frigid.

Having made it past the centipede, I started running towards the buildings where I saw my daughter’s other lovely wife smashing through those armored nut jobs with the crazy holy powers.

She cartwheeled over a sword and quickly slammed her skull into the helmet of the paladin attacking her, the helmet split in half to fall off a surprised looking stallion’s head.

“Here’s a Minnesota Masher for you!” I met the back of said head with a hoof and forced the stallion face first into the ground while putting my weight into it. It only took one blow to knock him out, what a weak earth pony. “I know a guy named Bright Mac that would have stayed awake through that, then he would have at least put up something approaching a fight!”

“Meep.” Paprika waved to me in a cute manner as she was hugging the armor off of some poor sap with one leg, I continued on my way towards one of the buildings to see what was in them.

I needed to see what I had to work with in blowing this place up, I was hoping to use something other than the three remaining safe explosions I had on hoof.

Rearing back as a cannonball passed in front of my face, I turned a glare towards the airship and vowed to find a bounty on the guy that owned it. If there wasn’t a bounty, then I’d certainly set out to make one!

I had barely moved enough to avoid another cannonball going by my tail as I ran. That had also been a close one.

All the other cannons were being taken out, but that airship was still going to be a problem as the cannons on it weren’t fielded by a crew that could be taken out by our flying friends.

I quickly ducked through the door into what I hoped to be a warehouse. The guys around here had giant crabs that looked like digging machines, so there had to be at least some explosives for possible mining operations right?

Nobody would have a dig site setup like this base does without at least some high end explosives, it just wouldn’t be a proper base otherwise if it couldn’t go up in an instant blaze of glory.

-Entrance of the pyramid, Sekhet-

“It seems that my mortals are doing fairly well and have plenty of friends. Kuril and Fluttershy are tending to their wounds as needed and they apparently don’t need my divine intervention… yet.” I was focused on the curious soul of the mare that was stuck between life and death. “I’m actually quite proud of that.”

“Yes, but what of the mare with the axe? Her soul seems intact… if unfairly twisted.” Bastet was curious, as was I. “Their current lot in life is not something any god of death could possibly miss, unless there was nothing that they could do for the poor dear. She’s technically not dead enough to count as such, and is also technically not alive enough to not be dead.”

We both knew that souls were sacred. That mare’s soul in particular was messed up, but at least it wasn’t torn or tarnished. It was close enough that I wanted the name of the guy that I absolutely needed shred for almost doing such a horrible thing to an innocent soul.

The pony in question was of a heroic spirit at least, she continued to fight despite her given state of existence and the grave chance of those so called holy warriors possibly destroying her soul utterly.

“Being stuck like that must not be very pleasant.” I agreed, Perun is already on my list of enemies. “Not when there are all those Perun Pansies around trying to destroy her soul.”

“Still, the faint taint of that magic seems familiar… I need to check something.” My sister’s eyes glowed for a second, it was a second later that she returned her sight to me. “Interesting news, apparently the Valkyrie known as Eir has already dealt with the necromancer that did this. Also said necromancer is quite familiar to me, it’s apparently Mosey Wrath’s work.”

“Mosey Wrath… wasn’t that a unicorn who was a powerful Saddle Arabian necromancer and sorcerer?” It was nice to know that someone took the bastard down eventually. Necromancers annoyed most gods like no tomorrow, death gods more so than anyone else.

“He was powerful, up until his gauntlet was destroyed. It had most of his magic in it and he was otherwise incapable of doing much afterwards aside from necromancy.” Bastet sighed. “He ran away when the liberation of the Black Sands territory finally happened. Nobody knew where he went until Eir snagged him, he was apparently caught manufacturing draugr with stolen souls.”

Author's Note

Transformers, they explode at least once a month around here.

Don't I wish they were more than meets the eye.

Power outages didn't seem too long this time, but it did disrupt me in the middle of writing.

It wasn't even storming when it happened. Clear weather and I hear 'kaboom' on what started out to be a nice morning and suddenly everything goes dark. Lost a small portion of this page and decided to sleep in to finish it later... which is now.

I'm also watching a fairly long backlog of AGDQ-2020.

Chapter Sixty Four, Bad Bastion Battle: Gravely Under-estimated.

-Entrance at the top of the pyramid, Baast-

“You’re mortal are quite amusing and powerful, too bad they seem to be in a bit of a pickle.” I grinned. “You know could use a pickle for your sandwich, you can even use that pickle to bridge two sandwiches together and try to figure out which sandwich gets more of the pickle.”

“Again, please stop making veiled commentary about my livelihood Bastet.” My sister was being a sour war kitty.

“Shouldn’t you go to help them?” That large device was definitely giving them trouble.

“They’ll be fine, you’ll see soon enough.” Sekhmet seemed so sure of this. “Besides, wasn’t it you who learned from a mortal that it was sometimes okay to just have faith that things could work out?”

“Yes, but to be clear on one point, said mortal was thought to be clearly insane at the time they made such a comment to me and that’s them knowing I was a goddess when they said it.” I received a mirth filled smile from my sister. “You know, you could get some honey from the beehive if you just asked.”

“Faith doesn’t exactly require divinity to work you know.” Sekhet just turned back to watch the fight with this ‘airship’, things were not going well. “I wouldn’t make for a very good beekeeper and bees aren’t that easy sister, just one wrong jolt and you become covered in stingers. Aside from that I still don’t want to incidentally hit one of Perun’s followers and give him a reason to start something with me.”

“Yes, that could go badly.” I silently admitted that Perun was one of the easiest war gods to get into a fight with.

-Destroyed base, Kuril-

“No one is being able to get inside, therefore we are having big problem on hoof.” Fortitude certainly seemed to know a thing or two about this airship. Apparently the last time he saw it, it was causing problems in Huoshan. “If Skelly can’t get inside, then no one can.”

The airship had various lights on it lighting up the area and we were camped out behind another instant wall with Fortitude protecting it.

Arizona was being held off the ground by her hind legs. The tentacle holding her was making sure she absolutely couldn’t find any leverage to attack it. Both Flamberge and Tianhuo were working together to try and get Arizona free while the others attacked the six mammoth size legs that were in continual motion, every time they stomped down they knocked someone away with a blast of air.

I could throw an instant wall potion at one of the airships legs to slow it down, but what good would that do though? The six cannons were still giving us problems and I considered using a banned magical alchemy substance to deal with them.

We were attacking the ship with almost everything we had at our disposal, the most damage we could do was to the tentacles and even then that wasn’t much. There was a suggestion by Skelly who held up the ‘Sieve Precarious’, the same thing that sucked up an entire restaurant into the chaos dimension previously. That was immediately vetoed by almost everyone present.

The alpaca, Paprika, was still out of her mind and Velvet was holding an ice pack to her delirious head.

“Is it seriously so hard to find good minions these days?” Teatime’s commentary was coming out of various loudspeakers along the structure of the mechanical monstrosity. “I swear the Perun Paladins and both Shock and Jock have failed where I’m still proceeding ever forward! Though I will admit they lasted far longer than most of my golems did and can continue to fight once they recover from their injuries, but they’ll never quite compare to my magnificent airship. I have ammunition for days and there’s not much you can do to break into my walking fortress as I’ve sealed off all the entrances. If by some chance you do get in, then you will find out how hard it is to deal with me personally.”

As he was saying this, I watched as one of the tentacle snapped around Flamberge and started waving him around wildly.

“Why is it always being things with tentacles that attack us?” Fortitude muttered under his breath as he block another six rounds with his shield. I stared at the shield for a moment with an idea percolating in my head.

“I don’t know what to tell you Fortitude, just keep the wall covered for a moment.” I turned to Sweetcakes glaring at the machine, Fluttershy was keeping her head down and Blade wasn’t even trying to attack the airship.

Skelly seemed to be making a valiant effort, but the skeletons axe wasn’t cutting through the metal. Apparently she had boarded the airship before and Teatime had prepared for such an eventuality happening again, she was swept off the ship by a tentacle, but she was surprisingly light and the fall didn’t damage her bones.

“Since none of you are going to be able to deal with me, how about I test fire my cannon since I’ve recently fixed it after ‘someone’ split my entire ship in half.” Teatime slowly turned his airship our way and a circular mechanical iris opened up to begin filling with a building mass of energy. “For the life of me I still can’t remember her name despite her being a constant thorn in my side and destroying my airship repeatedly. Unfortunately for you I heard that she went down fighting the Storm King.”

“That thing?!” Tianhuo didn’t look happy with this situation or what Teatime had just announced. “The one thing the shadow monsters were actually good for was making sure he didn’t use that on the imperial family and the fortress palace in Huoshan!”

“I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant, and I can take it!” I actually believe Fortitude, he did stop a Narwhalker’s tooth beam with a less impressive looking shield.

“Sure you can big guy, but let me help you with that when we have to deal with it.” Fizzle had been sending small blasts of energy at the metal.

Didn’t honestly know what my daughter was testing, but the resilience of the metal was quite obvious as her magic wasn’t proving to be very useful here.

“Oh I hope everyone in Ponyville is doing better than we are.” I calmly rubbed the back of Fluttershy’s ears with a paw.

-Ponyville, Rainbow Dash-

“Hey, where’s Fluttershy?” I haven’t seen her in the last day or so, I always make time to see one of my best friends.

“She’s been called away on mission by the cutie map with Tempest Shadow or Fizzlepop Berrytwist depending on what you wish to go by with her. I think she’s turned around a lot, though her friend Glitter Drops wishes she was easier to keep in contact with.” Is it me or did Twilight seem less high-strung than she usually was? She seemed far calmer these days and we haven’t had a Twilight-ing accident in a while, we were quite frankly due for one right about now. “Did you need anything else Rainbow Dash?”

“Yeah, have you been feeling okay lately?” Subtlety was not something I was great at.

“Well I'm certainly feeling fine. I’m more worried that Starlight has been a bit off about becoming the principle of the friendship school, she’s only been looking slightly happier since hiring Sunburst on as staff, I think she’ll do great personally.” A bright light shot into the sky a great distance away. “Huh, I wonder what that was.”

“Eh, it’s probably Daring Do doing something at a temple or some other such thing, that we can even see something happening at this distance is amazing.” I read a lot of Daring Do and I know for a fact that temples always do the bright light to the sky thing fairly often with her, I wondered if it would be in her next book? I couldn’t wait to find out what this ‘End of Immortality’ thing was and I had some sweet bit parts in her books already, so I wondered how she was going to end the series out? She wasn’t running out of adventures as far as I could tell, she was just that awesome at finding them. “I mean she has to be miles away and given the angle of that skyward beam, it’s not even pointed straight up and is in fact angled to at least seventy five degrees for us to be even seeing it at this distance over the horizon.”

“Why can’t you use your brain like that more often?” Rolling my eyes at Twilight, I answered her honestly.

“Because it’s usually busy with other things.” Flight performances, high speed tricks, my friends, Applejack, my rivalry with Applejack, being a Wonder Bolt and getting apple cider from Applejack, plus a lot of other things like my continued distaste for pie… except for maybe the ones Applejack makes. “All those things are totally and completely important!”

I don’t know why Twilight was giving me such a flat look.

-Destroyed base, Fizzle-

“Well he can’t do that again for a while.” I will have to give it to Fortitude, he was fantastic in more ways than just being the worst smelling yak in existence. “The pressure just exerted on Fortitude, even if he had been reflecting that beam of energy completely, would have to have been quite phenomenal.”

I wondered, where did he get a magic reflecting shield like that from? It looks to be made of the same stuff that the Storm Creatures used in their equipment, only it obviously wasn’t made by Storm Creatures. So when could he have gone to a black market to get a deal on something like that? That stuff is kind of rare and costly.

It took me a moment to remember that he and Flamberge had been all over the world and at some point probably ran into some people who could get something like that for him.

They were friends with a skeleton and I wasn’t too worried about the details of that. At this point you’d think I would question things like a living skeleton, but no, I’m just going to ignore it because she was obviously friends with Flamberge and Fortitude.

I think I’ve seen weirder things, but hopefully Blanks wouldn’t be one them as Skelly was close enough as it was.

“This battle hasn’t exactly been going in our favor has it?” I turned to mom and sighed.

“No it hasn’t, it’s just gotten worse too.” Because most of our friends, minus the lambkin and her companions, were now being held by tentacles. We were the last ones left that could do anything and the guy still had at least ten more free flailing metallic airship tentacles that could grab the rest of us.

“Do you give up yet?” Teatime said as he finally showed himself. He was inside a large mechanical pony suit that dropped out of the airship and sauntered forward as if he owned the place, which he probably did given he likely had a hoof in building the totaled base. He was driving that thing from the chest and it did not bode well when Fortitude frowned at it. Sweetcakes, the kitsune who’s been quite supportive up to this point, was clearly angry to see it. “There is little you can do to face my might and you have nothing left, magic will not help you, force will not help you and if you believe in luck, then things are all going my way at the moment.”

“Yeah, but we still have hope.” Mom said with a grin on her face as she looked towards the ground. She was still using the sustained mirror to see and I wondered what she was seeing right now that made her smile like that.

“Hope, what good is hope going to do for you? I have all of your best fighters tangled up in tentacles, I have you on the ropes and you have nothing that can stop me from winning this fight.” Teatime seemed quite certain of that and I was almost willing to believe him, almost.

He was containing Arizona pretty well, Velvet was close to getting a nasty fever and was also in a tentacle. That Paprika was still attempting to sing something that sounded close to being show tunes while hanging from a tentacle and playing the banjo one hoofed upside down while waving a sparkler around in the other one.

The lambkin couldn’t face the machine Teatime was driving personally as it was as armored as his airship was. Their longma was also trapped in a tentacle and I didn’t know where the unicorn with what was obviously a dark magic book was, but she certainly wasn’t here at the moment.

Maggie, the only one to successfully take out seven tentacles permanently and was protectively clutching at a satchel of explosives. As you can guess she was dangling from a tentacle, the ones she blown up with my mother’s two part safe explosions had been quickly replaced.

Arizona’s group was out.

Fortitude wasn’t big on the offensive, he could continue to protect us, but he wasn’t going to be able to deal with that machine Teatime was piloting. Flamberge was caught in a tentacle, enough said there. Skelly was also caught in a tentacle that was going through her in what looks to be an uncomfortable manner. Sweetcakes could use fire and wind, both were not conducive to break heavy metal that is specifically heat resistant.

Fortitude’s group was out.

There’s our group, but my magic wasn’t going to do much here. Mom’s potions weren’t going to do much, but she might be able to cast away Teatime’s machine if she could get a paw on parts of it. Blade wasn’t going to pierce the armor on Teatime’s personal machine as she didn’t have the holy powers that the Perun Paladins did while wielding one of their weapons.

To no one’s surprise, Daring and a separated Maries were trapped.

This left Blade, mom, Fluttershy, Sweetcakes, the lambkin, her companions and me that were free.

We just didn’t have the firepower, so...

“What hope could there possibly be at this juncture?” After Teatime said this, mom just propped her elbows up on the wall and smiled towards him. “There’s nothing coming in the sky, there’s nothing coming from the jungle and you are all out of cards to play! I could even squeeze all your friends to death if I wanted to, what could you possibly have to deal with me?”

There was a loud rumbling noise, as if a localized earth quake was happening in the given region. Within seconds something erupted from the ground underneath the middle of Teatime’s airship.

It was a fairly large green drill, it punctured through the armored underside of the airship like it was made paper. The large object proceeded straight up through it into the air where it eventually tilted forward and landed on its treads.

Teatime’s airship split apart outwards. Everyone captured by the tentacles suddenly fell to the ground in various states of injury.

“I think we might have hit something again captain!” We heard a youngish voice yell.

“Gee, really, I couldn’t tell over the sound of all that metal being grinded up by the drill!” I was quite relieved to hear Jacky’s sarcastic tone.

"That." Mom stated blithely.

Author's Note

Gurren Lagann- Drill to heavens.

You all saw this coming, but not the exact direction.

Jacky has a habit of destroying ships, she just happened to be in the right place to destroy this ship in northern Zebrica how? All will be explained eventually, we'll quickly get into what will happen with the pyramid.

I've been having some really bad back problems lately, but I'm getting better.

Edit: I went back and fixed the narrative a bit, also I was in a bit of agony while writing this page.

Chapter Sixty Eight, Pharaoh Emerald, of cake: Having bird, lacking edibility.

Author's Note

This page is a huge yikes, but it's an opener to the ending.

Chapter Sixty Eight, Pharaoh Emerald, of cake: Having bird, lacking edibility.

-Airship Mauled, Arizona-

“So… you became Pharaoh Emerald, had a pyramid built for you by Baast here and came straight home when we eventually found you inside?” I noticed Jade looks a little upset, like she hasn’t been upset multiple times recounting this entire story.

“No, that didn’t happen… wished it did.” After all the stuff she’s told us so far, how much more could Jade have possibly had to put up with?

“Are you sure you want to tell them about… that?” Baast quietly asked, I looked at the goddess and she seemed to be a bit wary.

“Well we obviously want to know what she went through.” Fizzle and Maries were there for her and they hadn’t let her out of their sight yet. “She said she’d tell us all of it.”

“Yes Baast, it needs to be told. We need to set the stage first.” Jade looked around the room. “After a near constant year of fighting through Anugyptian territories and helping end the war, I spent the next year and a half working on therapy with Anubis. I had traumatized the both of us in aid of defeating the parasite, where the six priestesses came through for us and cleansed the god of death after he nearly killed me multiple times.”

“In between Jade’s sessions with Anubis, she took part in helping to build her own pyramid. A leader must be able to work alongside anyone she told us, even a humble worker. We finished before the third year was out due to everyone’s efforts.” Baast wilted slightly. “Now there’s a bit of magic that can only be used once on any one being and Jade had absolutely earned the right to have it used on her. Jade had to say goodbye to all her friends knowing they were going to perish of old age, while she slept the next few thousand years in her sarcophagus.”

“Hearing that Baast was a goddess, hearing that I had to sleep well beyond their lifespans, it was a rather bitter pill for everyone to swallow. They had to move on with their lives without me. My rule was short lived, but I was well loved universally by everyone. The ones I befriended personally more so than anyone else.” Jade sighed. “I remember getting into the sarcophagus, wearing my ratty cloak, shorts and shirt, all of them having been cleaned and somewhat fixed by both Cheerful and Clarity. They wished me luck on getting back to my life…”

“So Fizzle’s group, following the trail of the End of Immortality, led them to your sarcophagus and…” I was cut off by Fizzle and what she said shook me.

“Only we didn’t find her in the sarcophagus Arizona, we passed by an open one and found her as a statue on a pedestal.” Fizzle sent a look to Baast and Jade, even Paprika didn’t look cheerful about what we were hearing now.

“After everything you went through, it still gets worse?!” Velvet was the one to voice it.

“You’d be correct Velvet Iceberg Arid Paca La Perm.” Jade muttered in a defeated tone.

“Thus started the Saddle Arabia incident.” Baast said calmly drawing our attentions back to her. “Thieves invaded the pyramid and opened her sarcophagus looking for riches, they only found anger, resentment and pettiness on a level unseen in the form of the near destruction of the entire nation of Saddle Arabia. It doesn’t take much to guess who almost did that.”

“I snapped and went evil, no need to hide it Baast. Mostly because even you couldn’t hide all the things I did during that period of time. The Saddle Arabians definitely remembered me nearly brining the entire nation down single handedly. Almost did it entirely by myself, despite the various other wackos chipping in to help or hinder me at random.” Wow, waking Jade up before the right time must have made her go off the deep end, I know I’d be quite mad if that had happened to me. At best I’d destroy an entire mountain, suck it up and then figure out how I was going to get home to Paprika and Velvet. Those two wouldn’t survive without their best wife! “Nagrabah or Neighgrabah was my favorite target in Saddle Arabia. I’m the reason that particular city had a name change. I had managed to figure out how to curse the city’s name quite literally to have magic happen in the streets every hour or so in a routine manner. It took a lot of setting up though.”

“If you’re a prominent historical figure, then why don’t you appear in history books or ‘One Thousand and One Saddle Arabian Tales’?” Flotsam was as just as odd as the rest of Jacky’s crew, she tended to like reading up on history and could become a teacher on the subject with how fascinated she was by it. “I can understand Baast helping the civilization of Ancient Anugypt become lost, I can easily wrap my head around that, but Saddle Arabia is still around and withstood the test of time.”

“I was a prominent historical figure though, history just forgot that I was real and it’s like I became an unforgettable folktale.” Jade stood up and pulled out her clay mask and slid it over her face, her entire body warped until her fur darkened and her appearance changed to a cat wearing a nemes with a little snake on it. “You’re looking at the most evil cat in all of Saddle Arabia, The Great Evil Sorceress Mirage! I figure out how to disguise myself with a clay mask within a few weeks of being unceremoniously woken up by a pony thief named Abyss Maul and his partner How Rude, along with a few other jerks. It was very useful that I could go around peddling things as a merchant outside of my disguise.”

“So, were you responsible for Jafar by selling him the first half of the beetle?” Nodding at Flotsam’s question, Jade had a flat serious look on her face. Flotsam continued asking questions after that. “Were you also responsible for turning Princess Jasmine into a lamia or naga? Did you nearly kill Ballad Din multiple times? How did you get Chaos, or Discord as we know him today, to do your dirty work for you? Why did you even do all of that?”

“Remember how I said that the millennia sleeping spell can only be used on a person once? My one time and I’m woken up a thousand years later long before I needed to be. Angry doesn’t describe the state I was in, but it all had a purpose, aside from thinking lamia are adorable of course. Naga are a bit uglier and don’t have as much intelligence.” Jade looked to her mom. “Is it about lunch time? The reason I tried to do the most heinous things imaginable, it is because if I couldn’t do something heroic enough to survive coming back to the right time period, then I could go for the hard opposite. Doing enough horrible things in Baast’s name that she would curse me badly enough to make me last long enough to get back. It worked.”

“Unfortunately most of the evil Jade did taught valuable lessons in love, commitment, strength and agility.” Baast looked mildly confused. “It was a little strange that of all the evils she committed, they almost always had nearly positive outcomes. She absolutely destroyed the thieves’ guild from what she told me, Ballad Din’s rule after that probably went swimmingly when he became sultan given Jade was no longer active.”

“The magical rainforest bird took a bit of setting up to do.” Jade grumbled. “Made two parrots very happy with my evil ways… ended up they were Jacky’s ancestors, before the magical piracy curse.”

“So what was the straw that completely broke the camel’s back for you Baast?” I asked with a bit of apprehension, I know how to tease both my wives effectively and when to stop doing so. Well at least I learned when to stop teasing Paprika, I never stop when it comes to Velvet.

“I’d like to know as well, because there were many stories that could be attributed to Mirage’s existence.” Flotsam seemed more curious than afraid of Jade, she probably doesn’t know what Jade is capable of. I’m sure I could take Jade any day of the week when it comes to a physical contest, aside from plaid level pain tolerance.

“It took her three and a half years, but she eventually managed to do something so outrageously heinous that even the other gods or I couldn’t have ignored it if we tried. Aside from Jade, I’m the only one that knows the terrible truth.” Baast ears and tail wilted. “Halfway through her first year in Saddle Arabia, the phoenix goddess Bennu came to Jade and they became good friends. They started working together on something. It was to be called The End of Immortality, Jade had planned everything down to the finest detail from that point forward. That includes any and all possible outside interference from over thousands of years’ worth of time it took for her to return to this day and age, the terrifying thing about that is that she accounted for Discord. Discord! It was improbable and yet… Jade did it, she managed to come back to you after she finally succeeded in earning my ire.”

“Bennu was the one that created that artifact with some input from me and she held onto it for the next two and half years while I was terrorizing Saddle Arabia while setting up my own return.” Jade seemed sad, Snickers settled down on top of her head and hugged her hair. “I really miss Benny, she was a good flaming giant bird and had a weird sense of humor. I worked on a return that required the most convoluted worldwide goose chase I could come up with. If anything went wrong with my planning then that was it, at that point there was no coming back to all of you for me. Two and a half years of effort in planning a worldwide conspiracy, thousands of years to gap to the here and now. I succeeded and sometimes feel bad about why I had done so.”

“She caused a lot of chaos in that day an age, it was both sweet and bitter in taste. Like a dark chocolate night, where you can just reach up and grab a piece of the sky to chomp down on it.” It was Discord and Baast immediately started cozying up to him, he currently looked like blue sphinx with wings and a scraggily black beard. “Those days were fun, but looking back on it… I think I have an apology to make Jade.”

“You’re the lord of chaos, no need to do that. You did exactly as you were supposed to, thanks for looking out for Airship Mauled for me.” Jade said softly, Discord nodded as he returned to his draconequus self with Baast clinging to him, he quickly disappeared from her grasp and Baast pouted. “You were always neutral to everyone Discord. As Baast once upon a time stated, you can’t do commitments very well. At least you can’t commit to one thing forever, that wouldn’t be chaotic as is your very nature. You’re still capable of friendship at the very least, because friendship is not a total commitment.”

“Thank you, I have… other things to go check on.” Discord turned slightly blue and gained some goat like horns as he disappeared.

“So how bad did you get Jade?” If Fizzle didn’t ask, then I would have. Jade is nuts, even by our standards. “I’m trying to wrap my head around that fact that my favorite snuggle cat is one of the worst things to ever happen to Saddle Arabia.”

“She’s already clearly paid her sentence at least or else Baast would still be angry with her.” Maria said from next to her.

“Yes, I think Jade paid a fair price to return to those she loved above all else.” Baast didn’t meet Jade’s gaze and even growled a bit aggressively.

“We still haven’t gotten the signal that we can return to our lives, the friendship problem is not between me and you is it Baast?” Fluttershy, I think you hit a nail on the head and hit it really hard considering the two of them winced visibly and glared at each other before looking away. “It’s between you… and Jade.”

“… Yes...” That was what the suddenly reticent Baast had to say on it. “It is a problem that is not easy to resolve, even with all the time I had to come to terms with it. Given I failed Jade and she had to do something horrible because of it, it is my fault as much as it is hers. I believe that’s enough for today.”

“I agree. What I did was terrible and it require a fresh mind to handle the information, we’ll get into that soon enough tomorrow.” Jade and Baast didn’t look at each other, but Jade did hold up a claw towards her mother. “Mom, some paper, an envelope, a pencil and a stamp please, I have a message I need Ratatoskr to deliver to someone important so I can finally get this metaphorical large hole out of my chest.”

Once she took the paper and pencil Jade started to write something down, she folded the paper and put it into the envelope. Rata waited and took the envelope and Jade paid him, whispered something into his ear and he was off in a flash.

-The next morning, Jade-

It was time to come clean, I couldn’t run from this. I still had the End of Immortality, but its uses are fairly limited considering what it does.

I sat down at the table and across from me Baast sat down, soon everyone flooded in to hear what I had done.

“Everything Jade did to Saddle Arabia, to me, was fairly warranted. I could not bring myself to be angry with her over that, it’s what happened after she stopped terrorizing the Saddle Arabians that still bothers me on a number of levels.” Baast turned to me and actually looked me in the eyes, she looked angry. She deserved to be. “No other gods know of this, but I would like to hear it from her mouth personally. Why Jade... why did you kill Bennu…”

“Bennu… wasn’t fully a goddess, not when she came to me and we started building a strong friendship. She showed divinity, but had actually never fully ascended. She managed to halt the process just before becoming something beyond mortality.” I put my head down on my arms. “I have never met a nicer heron shaped phoenix in my life, but what she asked of me was terrible because she was friends with Baast and had talked to Baast about me. The End of Immortality only works on immortals who haven’t fully ascended, Bennu was ever so close when she stopped and stepped back from that precipice. I used the End of Immortality on her… and… I told you afterwards.”

“My reaction was swift, it was only afterwards that I realized that I did exactly what Jade had wanted.” Baast started to cry.

“She was my friend too Baast.” I stated somberly. “She wanted… to be a natural part of the cycle again."

A long silence followed those words.

Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Record.

Author's Note

Music- The Avengers, Target Town, Stage 2, Genesis version.

Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Record.

-Canterlot, outside the mansion, Jade-

“Well that was easy.” I said as I held up the single bit and walked along the street towards the port. I was considering if I should actually do what I was thinking of or not.

Would it actually be going too far? Well it would be helping Patient Decorum at least… not exactly a heroic thing to do though and I’ve never actually claimed to be a hero. In fact it would make me a pretty big jerk, but it would still be funny to do. There’s also the fact that this someone would have to actually work to earn a living, that or sell off a bunch of expensive stuff like the five statues of themselves made of expensive materials.

Was I capable of becoming a Byronic hero at this point? I knew Fizzy already was one, but I tended to be too much of an open book to fit the needed mysterious criteria. Fizzy was less emotionally mysterious these days, since she currently counted as a crazy cat lady. I’m the crazy cat, along with Mara being one third cat.

“What was easy Jade?” Said an angry and highly familiar bro-voice, so it had to be Shining Armor. At least I didn’t have to go looking for him.

“Quick question, would you seriously chase me down if I said I stole a single bit?” I would be happy if he did, because that would be a ‘bit’ insane. “I mean it’s just one bit, no pony is going to miss it.”

“Yes, I would.” He stated clearly while lighting his horn and the crystal guards lined up with him. “So are you going to come quietly or are you going to run and resist arrest again?”

“Are you kidding me Shiny? I always run!” I lowered my hand and pretended to pocket the coin, instead I flicked it back towards Sweetcakes and looked back. It hit a tail and Sweetcakes curled it around the coin. She looked to me and nodded as she narrowed her eyes at the group ahead of us. “Okay, go!”

Paprika wrapped my right shoulder in fur and launched me onto the nearby roof to my right, I grabbed the edge and hauled myself up. Paprika pulled herself up onto the roof on the left with another quick whip of her fur.

Sweetcakes darted into a nearby alleyway and Flotsam was already slithering out of sight down the street having already seen where this was going.

“We’re going after Jade!” Shining shouted behind me as I ran along the rooftop and quickly got out of sight, I threw myself prone against the roof and sent Clone Jade out to slide down a nearby water spout.

I peeked over the edge of the roof and saw Shining Armor chasing after the hydra scale clone. Standing up, I felt a wad of fluff wrap around my waist and I was yanked back over to Paprika. She leapt off her roof as she caught me and she cuddled me while we fell.

-Shining-

“Got you!” I had her levitated and in a barrier, which was rather suspicious as Jade was smiling impishly at me getting her so quickly. “This didn’t take very long, have you lost your touch or is this another plan of yours?”

“Did you really catch me now? Have fun finding me with a head start!” That was when Jade decided to dissipate into a shower of light particles.

“Spread out and spread the word, look for the ones that were with her and capture them!” I ordered. “She’s planning something big, I can already tell.”

“Doesn’t this seem like a bit much?” One of the Crystal Empire guards I personally trained asked. “I mean she said she only stole a single bit, also we don’t know if her friends have done anything wrong.”

“It doesn’t matter, because it’s Jade and I know she’s up to something tonight with how light the patrols are. We still have the wherewithal to detain them for twenty four hours to find evidence of wrongdoing if they are acting suspicious don’t we?” The crystal guards immediately set out upon hearing my reasoning.

Whatever you needed to steal a single bit for Jade, I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough one way or another. You were never quiet about things for long.

Also it’s nice to hear that you’re back in action again, even if you are annoying.

-Sweetcakes-

I stood at the end of the alleyway smiling as the two guards rushed towards me, I just calmly licked the back of my right paw and watched as they passed under a ladder. Seconds before they reached me two flower pots collided with their skulls.

I smiled coyly and sauntered on by their dazed forms to meet up with my friends.

-Flotsam-

I reached into my pouch and tossed a small plantain, peel and all, into my mouth. I chewed it down to being easier to swallow.

The two burly earth ponies tried to tackle me and I simply held them off the ground as soon as they made contact with my hooves, then I swung them around and released them to send them flying over the rooves of nearby buildings.

I’m getting better at using my ability, soon I might not even need the horrible tasting fruit peels to activate it. Well I can only hope my whitecap ability gets stronger.

-Five minutes later, Jade-

“Apparently they aren’t just targeting you!” Exclaimed Flotsam as she and Sweetcakes joined us.

We were all trying to head to the airship port.

Jacky recently made a flying lifeboat for the Ardent Survivor that we used to get up here, its name was The Durable Dinghy. Yes, I was involved in making sure the dinghy’s wood was relatively indestructible with magical alchemy. There were fairly obvious reasons to name it that if Jacky ever needed to use it personally.

We had already regrouped together and were proceeding to sneak around several patrols that now on alert for us, by avoiding alleyways entirely and taking the open streets.

Unfortunately we couldn’t avoid the various guards running around forever and eventually got caught moving about in the open streets. It was almost like we set off a bunch of explosives near a myrmekes nest.

“There they are, get them!” Shouted a night guard that swooped down towards us.

Only he and the other stallion with him seemed to bounce in the air and they then veered a sharp ninety degree angle into the nearest brick wall. It certainly wasn’t of their own volition.

Sweetcakes plus Tengu Fan equals dangerous, all it took was a single sweep of her tail holding the open fan. Tengu were said to control the air, glad to see it was true.

We continued down the street and two Crystal Guards came out of the two alleyways in front of us to intercept, they were really quite shiny.

“We order you to…” The Crystal Empire Guard didn’t get to say much as Flotsam planted her right hoof on the street and then swung the back half of her body around to uppercut the mare’s chin with her tail fin.

The mare flopped onto her back unconscious from the centrifugal force leading into a head jarring slap.

The other guard was grappled by Paprika’s fur. He was summarily dragged over to and cuddled by Paprika quite hard, when she released the poor guy his armor was falling apart and he was sleeping peacefully.

“Nice sleeper hold.” Hearing a horn charging behind us, I spun around to launch my yoyo directly at a royal guard coming up behind us. Once it was wrapped around her horn, I yanked her towards me and clotheslined her with my right arm. I glance to my left. “Sorry for copying one of Arizona’s favorite moves.”

I looked at the mare on the ground glaring up at me dazedly.

“Meep.” It seemed Paprika didn’t care about it as she waved me off with her right hoof for a second, she was in the midst of playing patty cake with an earth pony royal guard who seemed to be quite frustrated by her playfully knocking his hooves away.

With the strength he was attacking her with, you’d think he’d realize that he wasn’t going to be able to do anything to Paprika.

The earth pony guard was fairly surprised when Paprika suddenly delivered two quick jabs to his face and then a nasty rising right hook. The guard spun about on his legs dizzily and then toppled over groaning on top the mare I knocked down, knocking her back over and out as she was trying to sit up.

Sweetcakes swung her fan to stop a pegasus’s forward momentum, completely freezing the stallion in the air. Flotsam came in and flung the crystal guard she knocked out into the pegasus knocking them from the air.

“They’re over this way!” The pegasus managed shout before he slammed into the ground roughly.

“Right, let’s keep moving before more catch up to us, much less Shiny!” I started pelting down the street and they followed my lead.

Well my bachelorette night has certainly gotten quite exciting. We were a few streets away from The Durable Dinghy.

A earth pony lunged from a nearby alleyway for me only to get grappled and tossed away over a roof by Flotsam in one smooth forward motion that caused her to roll on her slithering tail.

“Hold it… oh… it’s you… never mind. Let’s keep flying guys, Shining Armor put out a false alarm.” We watched as Spitfire and her group fly in and then stop, they soon proceeded to fly away from us. “Have a good night, as far away from me as you can get.”

“Oh come on, don’t you want to play?!” I whined at Spitfire’s backside.

“No!” Spitfire yelled back at me as she took her two Wonder Bolt companions with her. “I’m not dealing with you and nobody can ask me to!”

“I’m your favorite nuisance though Spite Fire!” There was a part of me that wanted to follow and annoy her to no end. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?!”

“Leave me out of this chase Jaded!” Well that’s just sad, Spitfire doesn’t want to play with me. I heard Spitfire yell in the distance. “She’s over that way if you want her!”

“Well I’m sad now.” I wasn’t going to cry because she won’t give me the time of day to hound me in an epic chase scene… my sniffling was because there was something in my eye. “Right then, let’s move on!”

“Meep?” Paprika asked tenderly.

“I’ll be fine… really…” We all started making our way to the edge of canterlot, now all we had to do was head down the street to the port and… I saw something that had my attention. “Everyone, STOP!”

I thrust out my arms wide and my companions for the night came to a dead stop looking around in a panic.

“Finally we caught up to…” It seemed Shining caught up to us.

“Hold it, time out, time out, stop the background music if you got it!” I called while making a T shape with my hands held up in a warding gesture.

“There is no…” The unicorn leader of the Crystal Empire tried to continue.

“I said time out Shining, we have a problem, a big one!” I pointed in the direction of what seemed to be my major malfunction at the moment.

“It’s a wooden cabbage cart.” Yes, and that’s why it was so important Shiny!

“Don’t you think that it’s incredible suspicious that there’s a cabbage cart here of all places? I mean we were about to run by it and it was going to likely be destroyed or something.” It wasn’t a moment later when an old stallion wandered over to stand near us and the group of guards with Shining Armor. “It’s a cabbage cart full of cabbages.”

“So?” Quirking his eye at me, Shining Armor obviously didn’t see the oddness in this that I did.

“A wooden cart, full of fresh cabbages, at night… AT NIGHT!” Having reiterated that last bit to make a large point at the oddness of a cabbage cart just being there, in our way, of all places. “How do you not see the oddness of this, are you as blind as you were when Chrysalis was playing magical mind hockey with your head? I mean it’s unattended, sitting in the middle of the street… and it’s nighttime!”

“Yeah, that is kind of oddly out of place.” Shining murmured to himself and his crystal guards nodded along with the sentiment.

“Yes… so you should run right by it.” The old stallion stated loudly. “You know, before those guards try to catch you.”

Shining and I looked to the old stallion smiling at us, after a moment he frowned.

“You do realize that if you don’t do it, then it could lead to something really bad happening. It’s gaining potential energy even as we speak and it would be better if you, the Abyssinian’s group, continue on with haste.” We just stood there staring at the stallion. “Okay, fine, I’ll tell you why I placed the cabbage cart exactly where it is. It’s because getting your vegetables or fruits destroyed in a chase makes for incredibly good karma, you were supposed to destroy it by being chased near it. By not running by it, you’re actually ruining the natural order of things!”

“Even with that odd explanation, I’m not going near or by the cabbage cart.” My statement was met with wide eyes.

“Do you realize what you’re doing?! If you don’t do it, the effect might become highly unstable… it could be happening even now!” The old stallion grabbed me with his hooves and shook my violently. “Please do it soon or else it might be too late! Maybe it already is… I’m… I’m going to go!”

The old cabbage cart stallion turned and ran off.

“Nope, definitely not going near that cabbage cart now, I’m getting this really horrible sense of foreboding about it.” Backing away towards the crystal guards with my ears wilting, my friends look equally worried about the cabbage cart.

Shining Armor, decided to scoff and moved forward towards the cabbage cart.

“It’s just a completely normal wooden cabbage cart, nothing is going to happen… here see!” The second Shining’s hoof touched it is when 'it' happened.

-

I think it might have been a minute or two before I blinked and looked about, did that cabbage cart just seriously go up in a massive explosion?!

I yowled in pain as I slowly sat up covered in soot and bits of shredded cabbage, Sweetcakes limped over to me and started to rub me over with her glowing tails looking shell shocked.

Flotsam looked like her life flashed before her eyes and Paprika had half her fur burned away protecting us from the sudden explosion.

“Don’t… you… believe it...” I said in a haunted, droning, tone.

Sweetcakes nodded and finished dusting me off with her tails before she moved over to Flotsam and Paprika to check on them.

-Five minutes later, The Durable Dinghy-

“Do you… do you think anybody would believe us if we told them?” Even I couldn’t believe it. I steered us away from Canterlot using the propeller rudder. “Wait, do you still have the bit Sweetcakes!”

Sweetcakes showed us the golden bit and I sighed in relief.

Chapter Seventy Four, Honey Moon’d: New.

Author's Note

Jade says the wrong thing...

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredient!)

(Character Sheet # 1 unlocked)

Chapter Seventy Four, Honey Moon’d: New.

-The day after arrival, Las Pegasus, Morning, Hotel Room, Jade-

Something was hitting my eyelids, it felt like sunlight.

“Go away sun, I’m trying to sleep.” The sunlight became brighter in response. “I’ll do sun salutations later... I'm so tired.”

I rolled away from the sunlight and sighed, then sunlight seemed to be hitting my eyelids with an even greater intensity as if it were being bounced off a mirror.

“You do realize that Abyssinians like sleeping in the warmth of your rays, but not when it wakes them up after the night I just had.” The sun neither cared nor listened, it even seemed to be almost fairly insistent that I get up. “Come on, don’t you have any pity in that big burning mass of gas you large sphere stuck in the middle of that big bluish black thing?”

“Jade, I don’t think we can win the battle with the circle of life this day.” Mara growled into my left ear, I felt Maries paw rub my belly making me mewl loudly. “The light is unusually focused on all of us at the moment. All our eyes have sunlight in them even at impossible angles, even with Maria’s face being buried in a pillow. Yes, the sunlight is even in her eyes all the same.”

“I wouldn’t say no to five more minutes, last night wiped us all out.” Maria murmured next. “Jade, can you get up to tell the sun that its priestess is not in working order today?”

“Speaking of moving, Fizzy is already up and out getting us all breakfast in bed.” Intoned Marie who I could feel had her faced buried in my neck. “She seemed particularly cheerful this morning.”

“You do realize I had the power of Cadence’s feather going for me both the cast and the sustain, my natural inborn flexibility and my love for my wives…” I trailed off with my eyes still close as I leaned my head back into Maries’ chest. “Yet Fizzy managed to wipe out all of us. Not only that, she then gets up this morning to get us food. How does she have enough stamina to match you Maries? Also no, I’m keeping my eyes closed for at least two more minutes and the sun can do its worst without killing everything in the world. Might even ask my little Icky for help with blocking it out…”

“Honestly Jade, we haven’t the foggiest idea how she managed to wear all four of us out or how she managed to be more flexible than you are.” Groaned out Maria. “I blame that breakdance fighting style she has personally.”

“Hey girls, I know you’re not exactly up for getting out of bed…” Fizzy started, I sat up and looked to her and the food she brought to us. Her smile, those beautiful eyes, they hid a dangerous mare beneath the happy façade. Not dangerous in the manner of violence, but dangerous in that she’s got more stamina then an alicorn.

“Please give me something to drink, orange juice, grape juice, apple juice, pomegranate juice… I’ll take any of them at the moment.” Seriously, I do love what happened last night, but we’re not the ones moving about in a glowing manner. Fizzy nodded. “Fizzy…”

“Yes, Jade?” If anyone were to doubt that Fizzy was gay, then last night activities certainly blew any chances of that possibility completely away.

She was certainly smiling up a storm this morning and I was happy to see it on her face, but I had some commentary to make.

“If someone were to walk in on us last night, they might say that Maries was a monster.” These were my true thoughts on the matter. “Instead, we all know the truth. It is that you, Fizzy, are the actual monster.”

“Yep, the best kind.” Stated Marie cheerfully.

“The only kind that can be found in a bed.” Really Mara, did you needed to double team that with Marie?

“Did both of you really have to go there?” My comment was met with a audible yawn and a kiss on the cheek from the goat of the chimera.

“Well you can’t say it’s a lie.” The groggy sounding Maria stated as she opened her eyes to look at me. “Our resident monster is really quite incredible.”

“As the resident monster, I am sorry for mauling you with my enthusiasm. So let me give you peace offering in the hopes that you will continue to be my mates.” That smug smile on her face didn’t leave even as Fizzy was blushing up a storm, she started bringing the food in. “I got us covered, every kind of breakfast item I could find.”

“Do you have cinnamon rolls?” I slowly sat up, a glass of orange juice was levitated before my face, I opened my mouth and Fizzy poured it down my throat. The juice simply disappeared into the dry abyss that was my mouth, I drained it all. “Thanks… cinnamon rolls though?”

“Yes, Jade, I have cinnamon rolls.” Huffed the smiling unicorn as she rolled her eyes and levitated a warm cinnamon roll in a napkin into my waiting hand. “Here you go!”

I swiftly devoured it to the last crumb, then licked the napkin to make sure there wasn’t any sugar left on it.

“Did you even chew that?!” Asked Mara as she sat their body up. “It looked like you inhaled it, I mean I blinked and it was gone.”

“I think I was dying of starvation until a second ago… so what are we doing today?” We were going to be on our honeymoon all week, Las Pegasus no longer had a roller coaster and that was kind of sad. The various swimming pools made up for that. “I ask because there are few things I want to discuss before we start having fun.”

“No, you can’t stay in bed all day Jade.” The sweet and forever loving Fizzy proclaimed, much to my sadness. “You can stay throughout breakfast though.”

There are goddesses, and mine are in this very room.

“Not exactly what I wanted to talk about.” Was I ready to do it? Yep, I was broaching that topic after last night. “I wanted to get onto some topics like children, where we are going, where we’ll live, how we’ll support one another as wives or anything we should be concerned about in the future or any loose ends from our pasts.”

“You mean things like Fluttershy singing that odd song about finding the guiding light in ourselves before Providence spell it out for us? There's also that odd prophecy that's complete, most thestrals have migrated back to being under Luna's command and are willing to give Twilight a chance. They will still do anything for Luna though.” After Fizzy levitated a hash brown to her mouth, she rubbed her chin while chewing over her thoughts in what looked like a literal sense. “Is it weird that our family already has children in it and that they are all trees? I mean, they are pretty great trees given what they’ve done. I wouldn’t be opposed to having some flesh and blood children though. Give me some time work out your father’s spell and it won’t be just cross species, it’ll also be able to work with same genders.”

“If you can get it to work that way... my birth was kind of a long shot.” It certainly made for unusual circumstances being half pony without hooves or looking anything like a pony. “He was an amazing unicorn stallion… I know Blade can make my mom just as happy as him.”

“My sisters request you force one of Kuril’s stamina potions down our throats. I seem to be the one with the most energy at the moment, also we’d love to eat some fish jerky too.” There was one good use for fish jerky and Marie just brought it up, it was magically filling despite how little of it you’d likely want to eat. They got their potion. “On the subject of children, we would like some and we know we’re capable of it. We just don’t know how or when it’s going to happen. Last night could possibly be a catalyst for that happening.”

“Wouldn’t it be amazing if you gave birth to something with our features?” I motioned to myself and Fizzy.

“If you two inspired a child in us, then that would good enough for us, even if it didn’t look like either of you.” The happy sigh Mara gave as some refried fish jerky was levitated over to her mouth by Fizzy.

“My wives are hungry and lazy.” It seems Fizzy was overly upbeat this morning.

“Fizzy, you being this perky and smiling this much is beautiful.” The opener, and now for my horseshoe leading into that statement. “But it should also be illegal, like how attractive you are at the moment.”

“Why, because I have pancakes… with strawberry syrup?” The pancakes were standard, but the syrup dispenser she waved around in the air had all our eyes immediately on it.

“Fizzy… I love you, but can you please go a little easy on me at least?” This was my soreness talking.

“You knew what you were getting into when you decided to marry us.” The point being made by Fizzy here was for the most part correct, I just didn’t think she could love us harder than we loved her. We were proven sorely wrong and I even pulled out some tricks to try and keep up with them.

“Fizzy, you are utterly insane, without a doubt. I’m not just saying that because of your current deviancy either.” How did I manage to say this with a straight face? Fizzy took in a mouthful of pancakes and started to slowly pour strawberry syrup on top of them. She would proceed to chew, kiss and force them into Maria’s mouth, she also fed both Mara and Marie like that too. She eventually levitated out a can of whipped cream, shook it in my direction and raised a brow while smirking. “Fine, but the hotel better be insured for this kind of thing.”

-Two hours later-

This hotel was definitely not getting this room back in any sort of order anytime soon, at least until maybe a few weeks after we were done. We just came out of the shower, the room was covered in powdered sugar, whipped cream, brown sugar, strawberry syrup and other sugary substances.

“Breakfast in bed, fun times and clean snuggles with my wives afterwards. How could this possibly go wrong?” Really shouldn’t have opened my mouth, because I knew what saying things like that led to and it was only occurring to me right this instant. “Wait, no…!”

I was cut off when Luna of The Moon, formerly Princess Luna of Equestria, busted into our room. I immediately face palmed.

“HUZZAH, I have heard about this honey and the moon being a great time of merriment!” Was Luna seriously that out of touch, after the last few years to acclimatize? Celestia might have kept her too cooped up. “So I am here to help you celebrate it in whatever capacity you deem fit.”

“Um… what are you doing here?” Why did I ask that knowing the answer already?

“I have come to help you celebrate this honeyed moon as my sister seems quite reluctant to do so!” Didn’t she go to Cranky’s wedding, shouldn’t she know this is a private thing between the married? Why is she interrupting us? No seriously, why was Luna looking so giddy and happy about being here in our room?

“Do you know what a wedding is?” It needed to be asked, as I Just had to know for clarification, I was completely dumbfounded.

“Yes, we as an invited guest we are to bring a present and we did just that at your wedding.” Arching my brow at Luna, she decided to continue on as if she wasn’t receiving a glare from all the honeymooners in the room. “The ones who love each other are to be married by an official, they spend lots of money on catering, a time and place to meet up with the official where they are then recognized as a married couple or in your case, a herd. You of course know all this since you did everything like that!”

“Better question, do you even know what a honeymoon is?” That made Luna pause.

“Does it having something to do with ingesting copious amounts of sugary things like honey until nightfall?” The stare and silence we gave Luna was deafening, slowly I slid my gaze to Fizzy who was looking flatly at me. “Well it seems this celebration has already started! From what I can see smearing sugar all over the walls is part of the tradition, I shall partake in this immediately!”

My urge to go petty kitty on Luna was rising.

“You just had to ruin it didn’t you Jade?” Fizzy said flatly.

“I didn’t ruin it… yet. Though we probably should have told Luna what being on a honeymoon actually meant before she ran off like that.” Though I probably shouldn’t have opened my mouth knowing fate tends to watch all things from almost every angle. “Look, would humoring her really be so bad?”

“Yes.” Bother Maries and Fizzy stated in unison.

“Okay, since it’s clearly unanimous, who’s going to corral an alicorn that’s likely busy eating an unhealthy amount of raw sugar at the moment?” As soon as I said it, we all shuddered violently at the thought. “Well come on then, let’s go stop her before something happens!”

-A few minutes later, Hotel Lobby-

The entire lobby was a mess and it was like a tornado just blew through here.

“What happened here?” At Maria’s question, the stallion behind the counter poked his head up.

“She ate seven bags of sugar and then started eating all the sugary breakfast items we have, then.... then she discovered coffee…” The haunted look on the stallions face would certainly be etched into my memory. “She drank fifty pots of coffee and then started eating the beans because they couldn’t be ground down fast enough… then she went after the espresso maker… the horror…”

Luna misunderstanding what a honeymoon was is slightly bad. Luna hopped up on caffeine and sugar rushing like crazy?

I sighed as this was something we couldn’t very well leave unchecked.

“We’ll have to let her down gently, once we figure out where she ran off to and what she’s currently destroying.” If I were to flick my ears ever so slightly...

“What makes you think she’s destroying…?!” Marie tried to say, but we could already hear some parts of Las Pegasus exploding.

“Jade… why did you open your mouth… just why?” Fizzy pleaded with me.

“I’m sorry, I should have known better than that!” Couldn’t go more than a week or two without havoc, that and normalcy is something I can’t do permanently.

“Well you better be sorry!” Fizzy said suddenly going from pleading to stern in a moment, making me have emotional whiplash. “Come up with a plan to fix this my dear kitty, otherwise we’re couching you for three months.”

My tail went ramrod straight and I paled, my mind rapidly started coming up with insane plans for capturing a wild alicorn.

We’d need a talking dog… no… just proclaim Luna a 'mystery' and some groups will come in to help detain her!

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: The Pirate Queen that conquered Equestria… for about twelve hours.

Author's Note

I'm going to put the last character sheet suggestions through a randomizer, whatever comes up is getting that last character sheet.

So far we have...

Wargame- ‘Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Story’. (He has yet to appear at all, but I'm willing to swing it.)

Shadowshame- ‘Dispel Grace, Teatime Clockwork, Jock Hawk, Shocking Awe’

Theblackwolf- ‘Velvet (I assuming Reindeer and not the Pony), Blade, A Cabbage Cart (Yes I will actually be taking this one seriously as it is a character seen throughout the story).

Anyone else or do I just roll the randomizer now?

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: The Pirate Queen that conquered Equestria… for about twelve hours.

-Airship Mauled, ever burning fire, Jade-

I was currently reading a book and writing several notes on what I was reading off to the side.

Nobody had bothered to ask, but I had been at this for the last three days.

When someone did bother to ask me, I’ll be completely and utterly honest with them.

I don’t see why anyone hasn’t noticed this problem yet and I was being left to my own devices to abuse it entirely. Well I couldn’t do so personally.

Hearing limping footsteps coming my way. I looked up and away from my rather interesting series of discoveries for a plan I was working on. It was my sister Jacky who was covered in pine needles and she looked slightly burnt, the pine needles weren’t burnt at all though. Looks like she just got back from her most recent adventure.

“So did it fall or fly at you?” The simple question was met with a simpler response.

“Fly.” My sister groused out quietly, Jacky really has a distaste for flying trees and that phenomenon was a regular constant to at least once every other week or so with different breeds of trees. Last time it was a spruce.

“You going to be okay?” Given that she was limping and alive, she’d be mostly okay. You know aside from having the full weight of a tree hit her. I was happy that she wasn’t permanently crippled or worse.

“Peachy, I’m going to drink some Icky brand peach juice and then report in to Dr. Bones.” The badly ruffled and slightly burnt pirate parrot stumbled away from me, her black feathers dropping pine needles with every step to head into The Witch’s Fare nearby. She seemed to cheer up immediately when she saw Gavin coming towards her with excitement.

“Sorry if our captain is a bit grumpy today Jade.” Joining me at the campfire, with a bag of manure he was munching on by the paw full, Nefer didn’t look too worried. The half plant, half flail-tail, demi-god wasn’t being a bundle of warmth and sunshine currently, which was a sad indeed. “Can’t say I really blame Captain Blackcap for her mood. Between successfully dodging that large swarm of ravenous mutant parasprites, the numerous cragadiles, several terra tortoises tongues and the rocket propelled fruit that burst open into this really scary and sticky flaming sap launched from the semi-intelligent trees, the flying tree actually getting her despite avoiding all of that upset her quite a lot.”

“That’s an understatement, considering that the tree that hit her was a pine tree and it wasn’t even native to the region we were in… heck, I bet there wasn’t even a pine tree within a hundred miles of us before that moment. Rarely is the tree anywhere close to being native to where we are. Anyone have any marshmallows?” As soon as Flotsam asked, a pack of marshmallows, sweet crackers and chocolate were produced to her within seconds by the nearby Filly Scouts.

“Ask and you shall receive, want some cookies too?” Bracing asked with a hint of amusement, as she adjusted her Filly Scout Leader sash. Bracing Knight was not only the leader of the local militia she was also the local Filly Scout Leader, the moon priestess knew how to teach both defense and survival techniques effectively to just about anyone. She was Sekhet certified when it came to teaching things. “We’re having a sale this week and I heard you just came into a windfall.”

“Depends… what do you have?” Flotsam crossed her finned hooves over her chest and tried to look picky.

Airship Mauled had its own chapter of the Filly Scouts now, only ours were obviously more inclusive to other species. That and the merit badges you earned around here proved that you could survive the dangerous creatures fairly well, at least better than the other Filly Scouts at any rate.

One of said badges to earn in our version of Filly Scouts was ‘Myrmeke Taming’ among the other fun extreme things that one could learn to survive around here. Maulwurfs weren’t particularly hard for fillies to beat up once you knew the trick to tying them up, those giant armored skin moles didn’t come anywhere near us anymore after the last few times a bunch of fillies with dancing ribbons took them down.

Bracing and I were friends now and even I learned a thing or two from her when it came to Myrmekes. Maybe I would even bother to learn how to ride one eventually.

“Thanks, we’ll haggle things out later.” My attention was brought back to Flotsam apparently having taken up a stick to start roasting a marshmallow over my ever burning fire.

“Brenda!” Savanna shouted from nearby, her fur color today appeared to be yellowish with dark green stripes. So she was being a Lambkin Melon today, I’m pretty sure Pom would be able to tell us about those if she weren’t back in Huoshan now. In related news, Ratatoskr has been really quite busy lately.

“Savvy!” Returned Brenda and met with the Abyssinian in an affectionate manner, their hugging was almost bordering on inappropriate to watch given their tendencies to grab each other in naughty places in a teasing manner.

Gene eventually came over to me and sat down with us as well. He must be tired, because keeping his wife alive is a full time job and commitment.

“That trip was interesting. Before you ask The Ardent Survivor is fine and the balloon is being tended to by Belfry.” What haven’t you taught that butterfly to do at this point in time Gene? Sure Belfry was a horrible pilot, but he could do well enough when in a pinch. A high altitude flyer that butterfly was not. “The Durable Dinghy is definitely proving to be an effective transport for when we can’t safely land the ship.”

“Any particular reason why you’re telling me this?” Not that I was complaining mind you, Generic was married to my sister. “You’re being somewhat suspicious for someone who’s supposedly as emotionally dead as Maud or Mud Briar seem to be on the outside. At least enough that I can pick up on it from constant exposure.”

“We got out with plenty of treasure from this hunt, but… we didn’t get the cursed artifact we were after.” Stretching out Gene stared at the fire with something approaching a pleasant mood for him. “We couldn’t exactly have expected Dispel Grace to show up or become such a hassle with the Perun Paladins… though I can guess why he was after the artifact.”

“What was the artifact this time and why would it be so interesting for him to look into?” After giving it some thought, I blinked as I considered the fact that the earth pony was the size of a breezy and used a magical aura to fill out his armor. “You don’t mean that it was…”

“Something that enhances size? Yes.” There was the slightest of a smirk on Gene’s beak. “Didn’t actually read the fine print on that though.”

“Did it do something ridiculous?” The answer to my question was Gene simply reaching into the bag he was carrying on him. He pulled out a picture and I took it from his claws and looked at it with wide eyes. “They say a picture tells a thousand words, this is a full length novel all on its own. Jacky still hasn’t seen this yet, but I’m waiting until she’s less grumpy about the tree thing to show her. Gavin will do a pretty good job of making her happy.”

Not being able to contain the mirth, I burst out laughing. It certainly enhance his size alright, but not in the exactly way he was expecting, it was cruel irony for the tiny guy. The artifact was pretty cursed alright, as was the image I was looking at.

“Well we always did think of him as being mostly an ass…” Couldn’t keep the giggles out of my voice If I tried.

“So what have you been working on lately?” Not only did Gene take an interest, but so too did Nefer and Flotsam as they stared at me. That was a sudden change of subject.

“Oh this, it’s nothing really. Just looking up a few laws and determining every loophole in them, this is all I’ve been doing for the last three days out of morbid interest.” Why was I receiving disgruntled looks from Flotsam and Nefer? Even Gene was staring at me flatly.

“Jade, as a family, we don’t do normal. It’s even becoming our motto to the point that we can’t keep things normal for too long even if we had everyone in Equestria put their full efforts into it.” This was when Gene leaned forward a bit to stare into my eyes in a dull manner. “What is it and how bad can it be?”

“It’s my plan to conquer Equestria.” Okay, so when I said that the Filly Scouts and Bracing seemed to find it funny. As for Flotsam, Nefer and Gene… they immediately took me at my word without batting an eye about it.

“Wow, that’s sounds so cool! No… wait… doesn’t everyone who tries to conquer Equestria get hit with rainbows or is defeated by an incredible amount of bad hindsight and incredible fortuitous serendipity that’s magical or otherwise?” Nefer was not Savvy, but he was genre savvy enough to know that any plan involving the conquering of Equestria would likely fail. I happen to know the exception to this rule though.

“What makes you think you are going to do any better than all those guys that failed horribly?” Spoke a muffled Flotsam through a mouthful of chocolate, sugar crackers and marshmallow.

“Well for one, I know exactly why everyone else’s plans failed to take over Equestria in a permanent fashion.” My explanation was going to be pretty uninteresting, but I might as well tell them. “Everyone who has ever tried to take Equestria has had the same problems, which is mainly their extreme amounts of hubris. There’s the ones who tried for subtlety through manipulation that, when found out, the plans fall apart faster than a box of already wet tissues dissolves when thrown into the ocean. The examples are Chrysalis or Cozy Glow who never have backup plans for anything and always assumed the first plan would work out of the gate. There’s the ones who try to use raw brute force, which is relatively effective until it isn’t when it comes to Tirek or that Storm King guy who were all about raw power and had very little in the way of actual planning skills. The Storm King almost lost a fight to Jacky even with her bad luck running full tilt against her and his goals were straight forward to blandly conquer things through outright brutality and inertia, but he never really fully bothered to take control the territories he sacked. There’s the ones that try to use magic to either mind control, magical corruption, time travel and etcetera which is usually a unicorns doing, since they go evil or do bad things at the drop of hat. No offense meant to my wonderful and loving wife Fizzy of course, but… it’s true if you look at recent history with how many unicorns went nuts over small things and went destroy the world crazy over the simplest things. Eighty percent of the time magic conquering is involved, it’s a unicorn going evil or mad with power. Speaking of power, the most problematic thing in all of this is that the power of friendship always wins as far as Twilight Sparkle is concerned.”

“So you can’t brute force it, you can’t use magic and you can’t use manipulation, Twilight Sparkle will just bring her friends into things to help solve problems that she can’t take care of personally and their friendships will beat practically anything.” Rubbing his chin, Gene was scrutinizing me now. “If that is all true, then how can you possibly think you would ever come close to taking over Equestria?”

“With friendship and the hubris of the Canterlot unicorn nobles of course to not fix old laws that could have a detrimental effect.” I said plainly as I started writing something down. “As such, I’m going to be a friend and give you the plans for how Jacky can take over Equestria, she can then do me a few favors as a ‘good’ and ‘law abiding’ friend. This requires Grace to declare Jacky the pirate queen after a battle of some kind and this list of insane loopholes in Equestrian law that nobody has actually paid attention to since it was unlikely to ever happen, but I found a particular domino chain that I need to run by Maries and Fizzy first so they’ll know when and how to act once it’s implemented. You can take over Canterlot as early as the sun rises tomorrow morning or the day after.”

“Why exactly do you think that this plan you’re making will actually work?” Looking at me Nefer innocently tilted his head.

“Well the plan doesn’t require violence, magic or manipulation by lies… just exploitation of the fact that Equestria’s bureaucracy isn’t interested in protecting Equestria from itself.” Turning to Sekhet when she answered for me, the goddess gave us all a large feral grin. “Do my mortals need help with this plan? I’m freely offering my services to my beloved little nuisances, just because Celestia will nag to me about messing with Twilight. All of this sounds like it’ll be funny and I want in, Mostly since Luna and Celestia can’t actually do anything to run damage control even if Twilight inevitably asks for their help if you’re going to do what I think you are.”

“Ah yes, you’d fit right into it my good friend Sekhet, you’ve become especially talented in red tape and would be quite helpful in looking over what I’ve written down so far with Maries. Also you can swamp Twilight to your hearts content in the stuff.” My grin threatened to split my face in half, I’m pretty sure it was a pure chesire smile. “You know, to make sure it’s all legal and on the up and up. Wouldn’t want to be called liars, wouldn’t want force anything and no high end magic will be used throughout the course of this plan. Just pure knowledge that I’m going to share with all my beloved friends, aren’t I nice?”

“Hey guys, sorry about being so… okay why is Jade grinning like she caught two birds with one well thrown stone?” Jacky looked a little worried and held Gavin a little bit closer to her chest, I don’t know why she would be so worried. I was giving her a completely innocent… “Jade is planning to do something completely evil again isn’t she?”

Friendship was going to rule the day if Jacky agreed to the plan, that and she’d be the ruler of Equestria. It’ll be a fun thought experiment at the very least.

Jacky becoming ruler would, of course, be entirely temporary. The concessions we’d get from this nice and friendship filled plot alone would make it worth doing.

-A day later, Canterlot Castle Throne Room, 5:30 AM, before sunrise, Jacky-

Twilight Sparkle’s right eye twitched.

“That can’t be right!” Twilight suddenly exclaimed with an utter look of horror on her face.

I held out more documents and she took them from me and started to look them over frantically, ten minutes later Twilight was sitting there with a dropped jaw. Her dragon companion, Spike, was just staring at the information he had read from over Twilight’s shoulder, his jaw was equally dropped.

“Twilight… does this mean that pirates rule Canterlot?” As soon as Spike said that with a hint of worry.

“No…” Twilight was quite pale, I took a picture of the look on her face with the camera in my talons.

Spike with relief after hearing that we didn’t rule Canterlot.

“Oh good for a second there I thought…” Spike was stopped when Twilight held up a hoof.

“You don’t understand Spike, she doesn’t just rule Canterlot…. she rules all of Equestria, due to this she owns all the land, any estates built on said land and our entire economy altogether and according to the laws at work here I have to instate her immediately as queen!” Twilight pulled out a paper bag and started to hyperventilate into it.

“Uh… she’s not an Equestrian citizen?” Spike tried as an answer to this situation, I pulled out my adoption papers when Kuril adopted me as an Equestrian citizen after having already gained citizenship and was a dual citizen of Abyssinia and Equestria. I also personally took a citizenship test years ago to make it more official. “Oh, never mind then.”

It was pretty silly, but there were laws that left a wide opening for this to work. You see Princess Platinum was practically the last queen of the unicorns before the reign of Celestia and Luna, there was a declaration that no ‘pony’ could ever be queen of the lands and that princesses were to be instated.

That was part one of the reason why I was now titled ‘Queen of Equestria’ as ridiculous as it may sound for what is likely to be unluckiest being in the world to be ruling over ponies. I was going to have fun for the day and then give things back to Twilight Sparkle, provided that everyone is willing to meet Jade’s and my own bizarre demands.

Grace, by the grace of incidentally being the pirate queen of Turtle Toga, passed her title off to me by way of physical combat. I soundly trounced her in a ballroom dancing battle, everyone agreed that I had the moves and was quite graceful despite the numerous accidents and the broken arm I got from it. I’m just making it easier for mom to perfect her healing potions beyond a shadow of any doubt.

That was part two as to why I was ‘Queen of Equestria’.

I might be a ornithian parrot, may have been born and lived in Turtle Toga for the early years of my life, but I was officially an Equestrian citizen twice over. Once by Kuril’s adoption of me, the other by me actually managing to certify my citizenship as an Equestrian to make it stick.

That was part three as to why I was ‘Queen of Equestria’.

While no pony is allowed to be queen, other beings titled ‘queen’ are still technically above princesses provided the third part of why this was happening is fulfilled. The laws involving said queens were still in effect, but ponies couldn’t be queens anymore so…

Had Queen Chrysalis officially worked to become an Equestrian citizen, she could have usurped both Celestia and Luna at any time she wanted as she was not a ‘pony queen’ as specified by Platinum’s law that no pony may become queen anymore, but it never said that other queens didn’t have power over princesses. As far as anyone can tell, Chrysalis loved subterfuge and espionage way too much to think of doing things in a completely legal way.

-Alternate Timeline, Zecora-

Things went wrong when a unicorn teleported into the past and stopped an event and then talked about unifying everyone together, said unicorn was Starlight Glimmer.

It was due to Startlight Glimmer’s interference that Chrysalis discovered that being a titled queen and becoming an Equestrian citizen means she is within her rights to legally take over Equestria. This was much to the dismay of Celestia who managed to defeat both Sombra and Tirek with the aid of her faithful student Twilight Sparkle and turned her sister Luna back to normal from being Nightmare Moon.

Twilight is missing, but has evaded Chrysalis thus far, but Luna and Celestia are trapped and only allowed to move the sun and moon.

Now I run a rebel outfit against the changelings who have taken over Equestria thanks to the meddling time traveling unicorn. I would free the world from their tyranny and my abilities as a shaman and witch doctor would help hope be reborn.

-Back to the friendly colorful changeling timeline, Jacky-

That was part four as to why I was ‘Queen of Equestria’.

The law that was never repealed is that if ‘a queen’ that is an Equestrian citizen, doesn’t matter as long as it is defined as a title of ‘queen’, asks for the throne, then they can simply take the throne of Equestria from a princess.

They will then own all the last queen’s money had earned. Some numbers were crunched, not by my sister Jaded mind you as that could have ended in an odd apocalypse happening, it was safe to say the last queen was quite generous and had money in absolutely everything. Aside from the Unicorn Pony tribe, both Earth Pony and Pegasus Pony tribes flourished from Platinum’s contributions to them.

Everything today came from Platinum giving money to every single establishment that led to what currently exists today.

So when Platinum died and left no will. All the money that was floating around that went everywhere, if I can’t be paid back the interest accrued from what the last queen’s money has earned or created from being used when asked, that means I technically own all of Equestria since I can bankrupt absolutely everybody.

Basically I just legally stole the economy of an entire country.

That was part five as to why I was ‘Queen of Equestria’.

As soon as I got the economy of the entire country for myself, I will pay my own taxes for my future family the next five thousand years or so. This includes all offshoots of the current La Perm families, and Airship Mauled no longer had to worry about paying taxes period. I did this using the money of the entire nation.

Where did all that tax money go you ask? Why, right back to me of course as I’m technically paying my taxes to myself for my family, which is legal for nobles of Canterlot to do so they can keep themselves entirely tax free despite having the most money out of anyone. Since I now counted as a noble of Equestria, I could technically pay off anyone’s taxes ahead of time, including my own for another five thousand years if I wanted to as a joke.

Is it any wonder that some nobles around here are known as smug jerks with loopholes this stupidly insane? Privileged really describes all the stuff they were getting away with and Jade just broke the entire system completely.

That was part six as to why I was ‘Queen of Equestria’.

The last thing of note, and I can’t believe this in its entirety, but I also technically now owned the small expanse of the Crystal Empire too.

It was related to Celestia adopting Cadence, which makes Cadence an Equestrian citizen and since she took control of the Crystal Empire, it was now a demesne of Equestria and Cadence was now technically my vassal.

That means that I just technically took over two nations with only a handful of documents and that my sister created and pulled off the most lawful evil plan ever devised. One that no one saw coming or could actually do anything about, all their hooves were quite metaphorically tied on this.

Since I’m not a pony, but am an Equestrian citizen, that was made a queen by Grace, Platinum’s money used somewhat illegally by the bank where it would have accrued interest to be used by princess royalty in an emergency, the use of said money also being put into many enterprises that still exist to this day that have yet to pay back dividends made over thousands of years, plus a few other odds and ends all leads to me being the ridiculously rich leader of Equestria.

The other details that allowed me to take control of Equestria, including things like the EUP, EEA and other various organizations were all relatively unimportant at the moment.

So yes, again, I’m currently ‘Queen of Equestria’ and I was freaking out about it. It took King Gene to slap me in the face and to come to my senses.

“Jacky, are you okay?” King Gene looked at me worriedly, I could tell even on his generally blank face that he was worried.

“I think… I think Jade just set a world record for most successful evil plot ever.” Time to abuse the crap out of the system that gave me this much power, my bad luck was not going to ruin this day.

-5:58 AM, balcony, Twilight Sparkle-

“So now, I announce that the ruler of Equestria is Queen Jacky Blackcap Chickadee Eric La Perm!” The laws were fairly clear on this, if I ever gained back control of Equestria, then it would require going over all the loopholes with the chimera known as Maries sealing off every avenue of abuse the nobles left open in the system to actually cause this mess.

It was only by actually looking for information into this that this had even happened and it was all legal.

Apparently only having ponies prevented from becoming queens did not prevent foreign queens from coming in filing citizenship and taking over the country, it’s just that nobody has actually ever bothered to try it until now.

“As my first order of business… all nobles report to the theatre for show tunes! Everyone else can go about your day.” Jacky stated with a jovial lilt in her tone as she bow to everyone still wearing her pirate garb, I was fairly jealous that she wasn’t required to wear a dress for the ceremony and could be as scruffy as she wanted to be. “Oh and the theatre will be giving free admission to everyone for our show! So if you want to watch, then come with us, we’ll have a grand time!”

The balcony collapsed out from beneath her, but the injuries from that didn’t stop Jacky for long. She was apparently used to be abused by bad luck on a daily basis, I didn’t use to believe in things until Pinkie Pie happened and I shivered at how horrible her luck was.

This sure brings back memories that I will be able to laugh about later, memories of being a simple unicorn that will probably keep me humble after this incident.

-Theatre, 7:30 AM, Jacky-

“We are the pirates~!” Me and my crew sang, surprisingly quite a few nobles gave us an applause. “Now for a very fun song.”

I and my crew created a loud noises in any way we could as we started up our next song, I was somewhat good at tap dancing.

“With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal~!” We started off loudly.

-9:00 AM, Flotsam-

This was actually pretty fun, it was practically torture to some of the nobles and others were just highly amused as they sat there with drinks and snacks.

“Oh we’re the girls of chorus, we hope you like our show~!” I sang as I slapped my tail against the stage and twirled my baton in the fancy tuxedo covering my upper body and then slid off the stage following Jacky, Brenda and Savanna while pulling my top hat from my head. “We know you’re rooting for us, but now we have to go~!”

9:45 AM, Jacky-

“Okay who trained Belfry to play this music or taught him how to train chickens to do this?” On the stage Belfry was playing an accordion, drums, a cymbal and something like a sousaphone.

Every time he stopped played, the entire line of dancing chickens joined in.

“Cluck-cluck-cluck!” All the chicken sang in unison and then Belfry continue playing the tune as all the chicken moved in a choreographed manner on the stage.

None of my crew was forthcoming, I would learn after this performance that they didn’t have any ideas where Belfry found trained chickens or learned how to play what is well known as the ‘Chicken Dance’.

-10:30 AM, Gene-

“Gather up all of the crew~. It’s time to bring out fruit juice new~.” I sang, even with my bland voice I was touching the hearts of a few of them right off the bat. “High wind blows~. To where~? Who Knows~? The stars shall be our guide~.”

-11:24 AM, Nefer-

“Sail away where no ball and chain can keep us from the roaring winds, together undivided, but forever we’ll be free~!” I started tap dancing on the stage excitedly and Belfry came out behind me wielding an accordion. “We’ll sail away aboard the rig, the moon is quite full and so are we~. We’re seven silly pirates, we’re the seven heavy winds~!”

-Theatre, 12:00 PM, Jacky-

“Okay everyone, that’s the show!” Quite a few ponies whine audibly. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to legally steal whatever we want from whoever we want. Pirates, you know the drill, you should be at least thankful that we’re not the violent sort.”

-Canterlot Square, 2:15 PM, Fizzle-

I have never seriously fought Jacky before, not with a sword and not in any way that was really true combat. Anytime we interacted previously it was just exercise and sparring, not in a serious fight.

Everyone on Jacky’s crew were somewhat medical experts and their captain could take a metric buck ton of physical trauma, I think far more than even Jade can. It didn’t help that she could move insanely fast with that jetpack of hers, she could even turn on a bit and go in any direction at any time using it.

Jacky’s stamina was actually exhausting all my magical reserves! She could take out winged ponies at incredible speeds and with the kind of acceleration she was putting on her body, you’d think she would black out from the forces being exerted on it, but no, like a pegasus, her resilience kept her awake at those speeds.

Jacky uses her curse as a weapon as much as a sword and it was terrifying to face in battle.

“Now this is how you train the guard’s pirate style, don’t give up men or else I’ll have my sister come in to keelhaul the lot of you!” The guards looked at Jacky confusedly. “My sister is Jaded La Perm, so stand up and fight or face her later! If you please me enough, then I won’t send her after you.”

Every royal guard that was on the ground groaning from pain, had various injuries from all the accidents going on around Jacky and the occasional injury from a banana peel slip here or there, were all immediately on their hooves.

They were taking this far more seriously than I have ever seen the royal guards take absolutely anything else.

They all charged Jacky and her crew with yells that they didn’t want to face Jade, I sighed and joined them. I needed to keep in shape too… it would probably help when I wanted a foal of my own, in maybe a year, right now we were too busy with Silvers because our little chimera was a constant hoof full of trouble. That didn’t even account for Gavin being a little troublesome at times too.

“Ganging up on me eh? It’s cannon time!” Jacky reached behind her back and produced a cannon and fire it, the various ponies close enough to the cannon were caught in a blast of a rather sticky cake batter that disabled them momentarily and slowed them down a lot because of the molasses and syrup in the cake batter. “Let me show you why the Pirate Queen of Equestria needs to train you sorry lot!”

Five mintues later, I was groggily stirring my head and looking up into Jacky’s bright eyes as she held out a talon to grab my hoof and help me up.

I looked around at the carnage. Nefer was sitting on a pile of unconscious bodies licking the back of one of his paws, Gene was practicing forms with his spear, Flotsam was juggling three unconscious ponies, Belfry was sitting around a bunch of dazed royal guards and big pupiled guards and strange smiles, Savanna and Brenda were both tag teaming a poor guards-mare with untoward advances that she might actually be responding to. Maybe I should stop that last one before anything happens...

Out of all of them Jacky took a seat on the edge of the fountain to take a breather. She slipped backwards and three jets of water angled into her face and then half of the fountain fell and broken in half against her skull. Despite the wet feathers and numerous injuries… she was smiling as she sat up.

“That was a pretty good scrap… they deserve a break. Fizzy I order you to not allow Jade near the Royal Guard for a week, they did a quarter way decent job.” Jacky stretched out pulled off her skull cap to squeeze the water out of it, she flicked some water off her two small fluffy feathery ears and shook an amount of excess out her clothes and head feathers. “Well my body is a total mess of sores, bruises and internal bleeding. Nothing new, but… Belfry medical kit stat!”

I think Jacky’s crew is clinically insane for numerous reasons… why did Jade give them control of Equestria again?

Oh right, to teach a lesson about leaving too many old laws with too many loopholes sitting around. I think all those niggling problems were going to be patched after this thanks to Maries.

-3:00 PM, Canterlot Castle Dining Room, Jade-

“This was a pretty good meal, not as good as my mom’s by a long shot, but really good nonetheless.” Jacky even hugged the maid and she smiled. “Thank you for all the work you do here in Canterlot, know that someone really appreciates you. Also Fresh Start says hello. Anyway we’ll have churros, ice cream, soft cookies and several other sweet things for dessert, don’t forget an apple pie for me personally please. Oh and you can sit at the table and join us, working throughout the castle all day must be tiring.”

“So… do you think anyone else can break the world record for longest running villainous victory where they actually conquered all of Equestria and held it?” I turned and asked the pony who was in charge of writing the book of amazing world records right now.

“What do you mean by world record? You’ve set several today alone that nobody else could possibly hope to achieve!” The blonde stallion named Trender Hoof stated with a friendly smile. “The most used loopholes in the legal system by a single group at one time is going to be hard to replicate personally if the loopholes are all sealed up. Technically the Storm King holds the one you talked about. Say, are doing anything later?”

“She’s already married to a wonderful herd.” Fizzle growled out, she was so cute when she was protective of me.

“Excuse me, but… what will it take for me to regain control of Equestria?! I’ll do almost anything!” Twilight pleaded with sad watery eyes. “Celestia and Luna said they couldn’t help me with this and that bureaucracy was one of the things I had to learn to deal with. I’ve spent the last few hours signing the documents Ms. Sekhet sent over in triplicate… please… please, make the paperwork stop…”

“Well that’s a surprise, I never thought anyone could break Twilight with things she usually likes to do.” Spike looked worried for Twilight, especially after Jacky had her tell the librarians to take a half day off today and for Twilight to do all their jobs at once. This was on top of the paperwork Jacky assigned her, just so she’d know how it felt to be the pony doing all the small stuff for her felt. “Also isn’t a bad idea to show desperation in front of the current rulers of the country, especially when they already own everything and you have nothing to really offer them anymore?”

Cruel, but it taught Twilight some valuable life lessons to not let anyone put anymore loopholes in the laws around here. She was going to certainly take politics a bit more seriously.

Twilight’s ability for foreign politics was pretty much perfect.

As for Twilight’s ability for local politics… not so much and we were helping her learn the ins and outs while we ate a luncheon dinner kind of deal.

“A few caveats, first, close up all the laws that favor unicorns and make them more equal for every pony and get psyche evaluations for unicorns or at least therapists that can stop them from going evil more often than any other pony race. Canterlot may primarily be a unicorn made city, but if you want other species to live here, you should make it so the laws can’t favor anyone and are neutral if fair to all.” Jacky was pretty good at pirate politics, which were more action oriented or word play. So being Queen of Equestria for day didn’t bother her in the slightest. “Another thing we want to happen is…”

We continue to happily consume our feast and shared our table with the workers, unlike Twilight the workers all opened up to Jacky’s ideas for better equality.

-4:10 PM, Café, Maries-

Silvers curiously watched from underneath us as the water balloons flew everywhere, the foals and colts were certainly enjoying this day and the fact that pirate’s closed down all the schools in the city for the day.

Jacky and her crew were having fun and Jade was sitting with us quietly gnawing away on a strawberry and vanilla tiger tail doughnut.

“So, this day has been particularly eventful day.” Jade commented idly, she had arrive in Canterlot sometime after the impromptu pirate variety show at the theatre this morning finished up.

“Yeah, but what did you expect, you gave a bunch of pirates a get out of trouble free card and gave them the wherewithal to screw around as much as they wanted.” Maria burped some flames, then went back to drinking her liquefied cottage cheese milkshake.

“I thought it would be fun to run roughshod over everyone for just a short while, also Fizzy is making sure I don’t do anything to the guards.” After leaning back, Jade looked down to see Silvers climbing up into her lap to slowly curl up. They were getting better at moving around. Jade started to pet them gently and cooed softly at our beloved daughters. “Jacky promised them that I wouldn’t do anything for a while and I’ll actually hold up to that. Still, I saw an opportunity and took it for all its worth. No other Equestrian villain can claim to have won and retired from victory without being turned to stone, hit with a rainbow or otherwise getting any comeuppance whatsoever.”

“If Twilight knows what’s good for her, she won’t let this happen again.” Yawned out a top hat wearing Marie as she laid her head across Jade’s lap and curled up around Silvers.

“Jade, I know the end of my reign as Queen of Equestria is coming soon, but there has always been something I wanted to do without repercussions while I’m currently reigning queen.” Jacky was going to tell us what that was, but was then tagged by three water balloons to the head and then a rock. “Okay, who threw the rock?! We’re supposed to be playing nice here, queens orders!”

-5:07 PM, Canterlot Castle Entrance, Jacky-

The one last thing I wanted to do before giving up all this corruptive power and money Jade gave me to do practically anything was simple. So far I have resisted the urge to go out of control with it and I will continue to do so… except for this one thing.

“I’m actually not against this.” Twilight Sparkle told me immediately once she saw what I was up to. “You know, for pirates, I’d have thought you would have done far worse things than you have.”

“We’re blue pirates, meaning closer to privateers and having more of a moral compass than most pirates. I believe you’ve met Captain Celaeno?” Seeing that I got a nod and recognition at the name, I grinned “Yeah she’s somewhat blue pirate, she’s not merciless at the very least. She still attacked me and my crew, she’s a really good fight too. We’re both classically trained and know how to sling an insult, but we’re friends… somewhat. She’s afraid I’m going to destroy her ship anytime I’m around her and she wouldn’t be wrong since I’m a blackcap known for that very thing.”

“So why this of all things?” The princess of friendship was curious as to why I was doing this, really?

“I’m quite sure nostalgia will become a problem for you in the future, mark my words you’re going to want to have fun like this some time again in the future.” Any pony that wanted to join as an enemy or a hero was going to have a lot of fun when we started to live action role play with the entire area of Canterlot Castle. “Okay Discord start the world’s biggest game of live action Ogres and Oubliettes!”

-5:45 PM, Canterlot Castle, Twilight-

That was actually really quite fun.

“So I will be giving up my position as queen and ruler of Equestria soon.” Said Jacky plainly and clearly to the crowd, most of which were entirely upset. Many of the fillies and colts were sad that Jacky was giving up her position as Queen of Equestria. “Now Twilight will read of a list of my demands before I do that.”

“First up, while it’s not required, we are going to implement Tiger-Tail Tuesday, specifically Pony Joe has to make an effort to make them or else. I’m not sure what the ‘or else’ of this is or what it means, but it also says strawberry and raspberry Tiger-Tails please.” This caused an immediate reaction in Pony Joe, who was in the audience.

“Oh my goodness really Jade, you utter degenerate and menace to all things that are good!” Pony Joe really seem to dislike Jade. “I’ll give you this, well played you evil, misbegotten, punk of a cat!

“Can I get some right now please?” Jade was just smiling brightly at him.

“Oh you would like that wouldn’t you, you utterly conniving…” Joe started to go into a rant.

-6:00 PM, Canterlot Castle Garden, Jacky-

“Well that was fun.” I then bit into the Tiger-Tail as did my sister next to me. “Also someone really needs to curb your evil Jade.”

“Oh come on, that’s what Maries, Fizzy and Silvers are for!” We’ve had a pretty busy day all things considered and we’ve had a lot of fun, Jade is the best sister a pirate could ask for. Mostly because she’s one of those guideline types that doesn’t get to fussy with the details.

-?-

Equestria wouldn’t forget that this happen, quite a few laws were revised and any of the ones that were active that led to this incident were repealed with extreme prejudice.

Jacky’s crew would become infamous for not only having stolen two countries, but giving them back in the same day. Jacky would eventually lose the title of Pirate Queen to Celaeno… some said she did so on purpose, others say it was her curse getting the best of her that day.

Whether it was in the skies, on land or rarely in the water, Jacky’s crew were well known pirates to stay away from as they were disastrous to go near as much as fight.

Their adventures would be legendary, as much as their habit of searching for cursed treasure. On some rare occasions they’d find powerful magical artifacts that weren’t cursed, which would be a pleasant find for the unstoppable disaster that is the continuing stories of Captain Blackcap.

Jacky’s home port was always at Airship Mauled. It was where she could relax, for the most part because of her cursed life, from a rather hectic adventure. Her crew were willing to follow her anywhere, the friends that weren’t in her crew were willing to assist in many an odd or dangerous endeavor.

They would be pirates as renowned as Captain Jaqueline Sparrow or Captain Celaeno.

-Airship Mauled, ever burning fire, Jade-

“So what’s up with our favorite reindeer Velvet? She’s been getting really angry and aggressive lately.” Jacky asked as she took a seat next to me with two black eyes and looking like she had been mauled by a drop bear.

“Arizona refuses to fight and or hit her pregnant wife, so she’s basically just taking it. Velvet thinks it’s somehow Arizona’s fault she’s starting to look like a bloated floof balloon.” I was calmly roasting a marshmallow and was slowly melting it onto a bit of skewered fish. The Abyssinian classic of marshmallow fish, an acquired taste if there ever was one. “Paprika is really quite happy, but alpaca have a tendency to refuse sex if they're expectant so that’s annoying both Arizona and Velvet. I feel sorry for Arizona, she’s getting the short end of this.”

“Gene finally showed me the picture, it was actually kind of worth losing the treasure just for that.” Jacky smiled. “I’m kind of surprised that I’m still high in the popularity polls in Canterlot.”

“Eh, you’re probably one of the coolest thing to happen to Canterlot in years.” It was kind of hard to match the oddities of Ponyville, which was only getting odder now that creatures from all over were going to the school of friendship.

Speaking of the friendship school Twilight asked me to go in to teach a class or two about finding friendship in odd places.

Twilight figured out that I was going to be too stir crazy from being incapable of toying with the EUP guards thanks to my sister banning me from helping them train for a week. They still think Jacky was better than having to train with me... the nerve!

Prolonged Prologue: Stuff you don't need to know.

It all started when… well… it started when I was born I guess.

I am a reincarnated being, meaning I have memories of a past life.

Other reincarnated beings might get some small samplings of their past lives, some might not at all and then there were the outliers.

I on the other hand… I remembered every single detail of my past life from birth to friendless, lonely and exceedingly painful death by starvation.

I cried a lot as a baby because of how all the information hurt being squeezed into my tiny little baby skull, said information never went away and it got easier to cope with given time. I managed to hide how intelligent I was well enough, up until my vocal chords developed anyway.

I was born into this world an outlier in every way imaginable, I wasn’t normal for my species and I knew exactly what world I had been born into. All things imagined for entertainment was just a gateway to another world, another time and place where the laws of reality as we know them don’t work the same way we imagine them to. Anything you have ever dreamed of has likely happened in another dimension, even a dimension where spelling errors are actually how you spell a word sometimes.

I was reborn into the world of My Little Pony, on the very planet of Equus the show was aired and the time I was born was approximately eighteen years before the show really got started with the Nightmare Moon event.

Many people would imagine being born as a Pony, usually a Unicorn, a Pegasus or the rare seldom used Earth Pony. If they were used, said Earth Ponies can control their hair, had resilience to sicknesses and were physically stronger than their bodies should allow for. The even rarer chance would be an Earth Pony might have a talent for psychic or reality bending abilities.

I was not any of these, nor was I a Dragon with its mighty halitosis and tough hide, a Yak with dwarf like tendencies which are just less magical versions of Earth Ponies or even a Griffon with their eagle eyes.

No, I wasn’t a Changeling either, though that might have been fun. I wasn’t a Nightmare, one of the storm kings army, a Minotaur, a Centaur, a Hippogriff, a Mer-pony or even a Zebra. Also just for the sake of clarification, I certainly wasn’t a Sea Pony even though I will jokingly say shoo-bee-doo shoo-shoo-bee-doo.

Breathing underwater did later become a permanent talent of mine thanks to the shenanigans of my very existence, you’ll learn about that soon enough.

I was an Abyssinian, a humanoid cat person and an exceptionally unusual one at that. The first twelve years of my new life were spent in a relatively quiet location known as the town of Palicoast, a coastal fishing town part of the trade nation of Abyssinia.

As any… would I really call myself a protagonist? I’m more of a do what feels right person. Where was I?

Anyway, I was born into the town of Palicoast as one of the most interesting sights the sleepy fishing town had seen in years. I was an Abyssinian that actually could grow long hair, I’d eventually have long bushy bright green hair down my back around the time I hit thirteen. Surprisingly I wasn’t called a freak for it, but there were implications that my mother had slept with a pony and aside from that most Abyssinians treated me like just another Abyssinian despite me being slightly unique in appearance.

Aside from the hair, my body was covered completely in beige colored fur, my eyes were green and there was a tail of moderate length popping out my feminine backside. I looked nothing like my strange mother.

I was the basic plot for any starting RPG hero. Except I don’t think running into people’s houses and stealing everything, including the stuff that is also nailed down, would be welcome and would generally aggravate a lot of people.

General RPG protagonists started out a plot as such, they grew up in a sleepy or peaceful place with one notable parent and no other family around in their existence with a simple life style with various minor oddities. Eventually said RPG character would set out on an adventure or stick around in one place long enough to watch their home town get burnt down to the ground by a bunch of assholes that they’ll swear revenge upon and then take years adventuring to culminate their revenge slash justice plot.

At least the town getting burned down never happened, though it might have burned down after me and my 'wonderful' mother left it when I was thirteen. Why am I comparing my life to a role playing game? Well apparently some things in RPGs work in this reality, such as Celestia or the sun being my patron goddess giving me a single really broken and rather ridiculous ability for starters. One of the other things that worked other than my unique goddess given ability was magical alchemy, something of which my mother is slowly becoming far more proficient in to a scary degree despite having no one to teach her how to do it.

The Abyssinian that gave birth to me in this world was Kurilian La Perm, or Kuril as she’s more commonly known. She had beautiful silver and white fur and truly cared for me, even if I was a reincarnated with perfect recall of a past life.

Ever since the age of six when I told her of my past life and my reincarnation, one would expect she was highly skeptical of me. She wasn’t skeptical at all given I was finally talking and with far more intelligence then a kitten my age should be, she actually thought it was interesting and told me to help do the dishes afterwards because I was more intelligent than a child my age should be. If I was going to have an adult mind, which as she pointed out I was still capable of being emotionally fragile despite my intelligence, then she would treat me like an adult with emotional problems.

Kuril, my mother, was the proprietor of Kuril’s Curing Canteen of Port Palicoast, again up until I turned thirteen. She never married though she did take some passing interest in some of our customers. We had a pleasant life even if I didn’t know who my father or possibly other mother was, I wouldn’t put it past the abilities of magic to do anything in this world. My mom was paid in both money and leftovers of whatever she cooked that was brought to her. People brought the food in and paid a small sum for cooking it expertly. They’d leave with happy bellies and we’d have more fish jerky than you can shake your claws at.

My mother was a talented lady, she knew how to make fish eye soup my second favorite meal behind potato stew. Mom made a heavenly tasting potato stew and darn it she only let me have it once a month because she actually cared about my health and the fact that I was continuing my trend of being completely friendless and a bum like I was in my last life.

From the age of seven I and mom started playing Ogres and Oubliettes while discussing the future of what happens in Abyssinia and the world at large, more importantly what would happen in Equestria and the ponies I wanted to meet before they became a tightly knitted group. Kuril wanted me to have friends and I could think of none better than those to attempt to be friends with.

Our various talks over the game of O and O led mom to confiding in me that she always wanted to be a witch. When I had asked why she couldn’t be one, she told me she didn’t have the first idea about how to do magic even if she did magic all the time with various foods. Mom didn’t think cooking magic was quite the same, only we later found out that cooking magic actually existed and was a thing. Kuril’s food was in fact magically enhanced to make eaters healthier than they would be otherwise. A bit of information that made my mother happy to hear, but we didn’t discover that until after we ended up in Equestria and what we discovered before we went there was more important.

It was mom’s wish to be a practicing heroic witch that led to me telling her about a video game based alchemy system of magic. I didn’t quite explain intrinsically that it was from a work of fiction in my previous life and just told her that it used ingredients to do various things. Even things that weren’t very magical at all, when given enough magic, would actually change to be a mystically active thing for use in magical alchemy.

The first bit of magical alchemy Kuril did was with fish bones, we had a ton of bones just sitting around doing nothing until that point. At first she just made them glow in various colors and used them to light up the room when I was eight, as far as decorative magically powered overhead lights went they were well received all Abyssinians and the aroma of fish attracted customers. My mother was on the way to becoming the good witch she’s always wanted to be and it was all thanks to me, what she discovered led to a discovery of my own.

I, jokingly enough, praised the goddess Celestia and the sun a lot, thanks to that I gained the intrinsic knowledge to use a very unique magical ability from my constant worship of either Celestia or the sun. I’m banking on it being the sun that gave me this ability, as it was a ridiculously broken ability and it seemed harmless from an outsider’s point of view. That is, if they didn’t know what the ability actually did like I do and just how much it broke so many laws of physics, especially that of thermodynamics. I could use the ability anywhere and almost at any time, there was some kind of cooldown factor of about two minutes before I could use it again, but I could only have all the permanent results of said ability in one spot at any given time.

It was from that point that I first used the ability for the first time that I knew I could break this world in silly ways that nobody would have ever accounted for, praise the sun for it will give you one uniquely broken magical ability. It made me wonder what would happen if I praised the moon after Luna returned when Nightmare was no longer an issue.

I was living in a fantasy world where the laws of logic from a previous existence ceased to exist and knowing that... I started working towards my chosen class as if I were a literal O and O character. My mother and I kept up to date character sheets of ourselves and our capabilities, my mother would not have her class be anything other than purely witch and I was dual classing as a priest and a rogue. I also did dabbled in some magical alchemy, but my mother was more fervent about using it than I was and was the leading world expert on it.

When I got to the age of thirteen Kuril shut down her canteen, much to the sadness of our many beloved patrons, we then set out for Equestria on an airship. Knowing what I did about this world, I told mom to be prepared for an imminent disaster as soon as we arrive in Equestria. The name of the airship was The Predestined Paradox after all and with a name like that... we were definitely screwed from the outset.

One rainbow colored sonic boom to our the uniquely named airship and all the passengers fell overboard into the sea near some incredibly jagged and rocky shoals in a matter of seconds, with the exception of me and my mother thanks to our claws.

This was where the legend started.

I smugly told my mother I called it while clinging to the completely vertical deck and the remaining working balloon that kept us barely in the air until we were over land. Not that being over land was exactly safer, we were quickly falling towards the ground at an increasingly worsening rate with only one working balloon to hold the whole ship aloft. I wonder if Rainbow Dash had ever realized or was told just how many people she might have just accidentally grievously injured performing that so called ‘cool’ stunt of hers.

Mom would certainly hate her guts and would be having some words with Windy Whistles about it later.

The legend beginning here was about a place called Airship Mauled.

Author's Note

The prologue will keep going up and until Airship Mauled is actually start which will take about ten chapters.

Prolonged Prologue: Stuff you can't need to know.

“Mmm… where… where am I?” You, Fluttershy were at a campsite using a pillow and a blanket scavenged from the wreckage of The Predestined Paradox, the blanket that was keeping you warm slipped off of you. I did my thing as soon as Sekhet left to go get the food, I didn’t want the sphinx to watch me do my thing after all. “What’s going on?”

“Hello there cutie, finally awake I see, sorry about ruining your moment with all those adorable animals.” My first action was to apologize to Fluttershy which made her blush and then I give her the whammy that her friend might have just endangered a lot of lives or ended them by mistake. It was like ripping off a bandage that got stuck in your fur, while painful, it had to be done. Our ship to Manehatten was never going to arrive and I don’t know what was happening with all of the passengers. All I knew was that we were completely safe right where we were. “I accidentally fell on top of you while you were singing after our airship started crashing thanks to an exploding rainbow.”

Fluttershy just silently looked at me and how odd I was, she then turned her head to see the ship I was staring at and whimpered.

“It's okay, I wasn't seriously hurt. I'm very sorry about what my friend did though, she didn’t mean for that... to happen… uh… what are you?” Gosh darn it Fluttershy was adorable as she took in my full stature. “Who are you?”

“Never seen an Abyssinian before huh? Well I’m not exactly the standard for what one looks like, but I’m close enough.” I gave her a friendly cat smile and started rubbing the poor shivering dear behind the ears while pulling the blanket up and around her. “I’m Jade La Perm and that over there is my mother scavenging the remnants of our crashed ship for a pot to boil water in and a goddess is off collecting some fresh food for us. The food on the ship is not very safe for consumption thanks to the crash.”

Kuril was coming back on deck with more stuff in her arms, she had a list of things she was going to scavenge and she started it by getting a blanket and a pillow for Fluttershy. Mom knew this was the pony of kindness I told her about.

“P-p-p-princess Celestia is here?!” The filly seemed worried about that. She should be, because Celestia probably would never be notified about the crashing of a foreign airship, mostly because there was nobody important on board. In fact the ponies in charge of international travel would probably just keep it hidden from her unless we made the journey to bring the crash to light.

“There are more goddesses, and gods, than Celestia or the mare in the moon… they are also not always alicorns my friend.” I said looking up at the visage of Nightmare Moon slowly rising as the evening set in, well she’d be dealt with in five years and it was no skin off my nose whether or not I was around to help with it. If I was going to be there, then I was going to be there. “By the way, be respectful of the goddess Sekhet when she comes back. She seems like a very lonely lady and I can tell we’re the first group she’s had a chance to interact with in a long time. Can you do that for me?”

“Uh… okay.” Said an unsure Fluttershy learning that her friend caused an airship to crash probably wasn’t much to smile about, but I had to get her feeling better as she looked so down about it. I had a soft spot for the filly even if this was going to be vastly different from the show, even if it wasn’t so vastly different too.

“I wouldn’t worry, most of the passenger fell off while we were still over the sea. It’s only me and my mom that ended up over land.” I was not mentioning the jagged rocky shoals or the likelihood of survivors surviving, not to this young filly who’s probably lived a happy life free of consequences up to this point. I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news after all, but my honest words weren’t really helping much here. I wasn’t about to lie to Fluttershy and say that they all had parachutes and will be living in a land of sunshine and rainbows. Technically this was that land, but it wasn’t all sunshine though Celestia could technically do that. “You broke my fall, so you did a good thing and I owe you for that. My mom kind of helped the airship drop on top of the goddess, so the goddess might be a bit cranky. Don’t worry the goddess is actually quite friendly and I’m sure she won’t do anything to you because you had nothing to do with the airship or its many passengers miss…”

I looked at her and waited as she pulled the blanket tight around herself hiding her face in it, she was starting to cry.

“What’s wrong cutie?” Of things I didn’t want to be responsible for, it’s making Fluttershy cry.

“I can’t get home… I’m not a very good flyer and my friend Rainbow Dash… she… she caused this crash.” Yes and I would be blaming Rainbow Dash for that more if it wasn’t for the ships name being The Predestined Paradox. I didn’t think the ships name to be coincidental in the slightest.

“It’s alright, I’m sure someone will come looking for you eventually. Until then you can stick with us, we did kind of have a trip planned for Canterlot to tell Celestia about this if she hasn’t already heard of what happened. While we do that, we can alert a Pegasus or two to your situation.” Giving it some thought I decided to be a bit more soothing. “I’m quite sure that your friend didn’t mean for the airship to crash on purpose and I know for a fact that she wasn’t the reason it landed on a goddess… that one was my mom’s fault. My mother's name is Kurilian La Perm, just call her Kuril. I was falling off the ship and she had to cast a spell on me before doing it to the ship. I’m quite sorry that her spell made me land on you, in fact that’s why the ship landed on the goddess in the first place. For you see the spell lets you land safely, but it also makes you land on someone in the course of landing safely.”

“Who would make a spell like that?” Fluttershy asked a bit more interested now as she sat up and looked down at the pillow leaning against the bench log of the campsite.

“Well the way I and my mother casts our spells is very unique compared to unicorns, so she didn't actually create it. We're still learning how to do magic and I would assume that the spell will always work in that way, if you’re falling that is. If you’re standing on the ground when that spell is cast, we’re assuming it’ll launch whatever we target into the air and it’ll make the target land on someone at random or by choice of the caster.” I had Fluttershy’s attention, I just needed her to tell me her name so I can start using it. “If you ever needed the ability to breathe underwater then just ask for Kuril, she can set you up with that ability innately. I’m completely incapable of drowning thanks to that.”

“That does actually sound useful.” Mumbled Fluttershy who still looked quite down.

“Why are you still so glum, you got your cutie mark today didn’t you?” Well that caused Fluttershy to freeze up and I could only hope that she cheered up a little. “Cheer up a little, today is still a good day for you cutie from what I’ve heard about the importance of those symbols. Even if today was a slightly lousy one for me and my mother.”

Fluttershy quickly threw off the blanket and looked at the three little sweet butterflies on her flank, for a moment she forgot that her friend unintentionally knocked her off a cloud, almost to her doom, and caused an airship to crash, almost to our doom. There was also all the other passengers, but I didn’t know them all well enough to care about what happened to them.

I heard a thundering steps as something heavy came towards us, it had to be Sekhet carrying the food back. Fluttershy cowered next to me bringing the thin blanket back over her head in a frightened manner, despite how safe we were with my ability active. The filly was looking up at the large imposing Sekhet Sphinx who stared at the campsite with a critical eye, but mostly she was looking at the roaring fire keeping us warm from the chilly evening air.

“It seems you are indeed a sun priest, an interesting one at that. Here are bags of fish, fruit and vegetables. I did harm to no one to claim them... if you were worried about that.” After she set the one wet and two dry bags down, she also put a barrel sloshing with fresh water down next to those. Celestia was just the closest representation of a sun controlling god that I knew existed, now it had me wondering who moved the sun on the other side of the planet after Celestia makes it set and if it was related to a being named Ra. “I also brought fresh water for drinking and soup, I hope your mother’s skills are as good as you say they are Priest Jade.”

A roar sounded off in the distance and one of Sekhet’s ears twitched, she turned and started running towards the noise without a word to us about staying here or keeping safe.

“W-w-w-what was that?” Poor Fluttershy, I had almost forgotten that you spent most of your life in the clouds and hardly any of it on the ground, sounded like a bear. A really huge bear… wait… weren’t Ursa Minors and Majors a thing here in Equestria?

“It was just a massive bear, don’t worry about it. The goddess, remember her name is pronounced Sekhet, probably went to see what was causing a disturbance and will make sure it doesn’t disturb us.” Not that anything could get into the campsite with my ability running, praise the sun for it gives protection to a true believer… well technically the protection came as a side effect of the ability I had.

Sekhet obviously wanted a good fight and it was likely to make her less cranky. We still needed to tell her of how we came to be here after all and she’ll be in a much better mood to hear it, though I did feel quite sorry for the Ursa that got her attention.

Mom eventually came to the campfire with the pot and I pointed out the barrel of water and the food so graciously gathered by Sekhet. Which is unusual considering Sekhet spent a lot of her time forcing ponies to give her food and now she was willingly helping us?

I was now almost quite certain that the whole Somnambula thing was a set up to free herself from the temple she was supposed to be guarding. She failed to guard it square and a little too fair in my opinion, plus Somnambula only told her to leave the kingdom and never return. In this day and age it was no longer a kingdom, even then the temple itself counted as a kingdom on it's own while Sekhet was trapped there.

Once Sekhet left the area it was no longer a kingdom as it no longer had any people left in it and she could have freely gone back to kill Somnambula, but why would she when Somnambula did her a big favor by literally ordering her to be free of her job.

It was well within Sekhet’s abilities to have destroyed the ponies settling near the temple as Somnambula never said anything to protect it or the kingdom she was a part of. Somnambula luckily didn't have to.

I was going to bring it up when Sekhet eventually came back to the campfire.

-

She never thought her life would end this way, apparently the thing that gave her this scar and took her horn from her came chasing after her. She thought she could make it on her own to find a way to restore her horn, she was now on her back with a gushing wound in her side. She could still run, but keeping ahead of that beast was going to be quite hard.

Just when the large creature from her nightmares was set to strike her again or continue giving chase, it met a rather unfortunate fate with an exceptionally large cat like creature she had never seen the likes of before. The bloody battle only lasted for about three minutes in total before the nightmare that haunted her died perilously at the jaws of the large cat digging into it’s now lifeless throat. It was then, seconds after her victory and a mild bit of preening, that the clearly intelligent creature turned their slit orange eyes upon her.

“Answer my riddle and I will help you survive the night and you get to eat a wondrous meal, get it wrong and I will leave you to your fate to go to said wondrous meal.” The creature told her, it had her wondering whether or not this being was benevolent. “Whatever that fate may be should you choose to go on your own as injured as you are.”

The cat creature gave her a toothy grin, it was then that she recognized it for what it was. It was a Sphinx, a legendary beast and it didn’t seem to want her dead. For once in her life, she was not going to rely on herself as she seriously needed the help. She could survive the night on her own, but she needed to eat something substantial as it’s been a while since her last meal.

Wait a minute… even if she failed to answer the riddle correctly, she could just follow the great beast that just saved her life to the food anyway. The riddle was just a formality because she was a Sphinx.

“Answering the riddle is pointless isn’t it?” She stated while staring at the beast.

“It’s the difference between you walking there and me carrying you, I would be faster and you’d get help much sooner and you wouldn’t lose nearly as much of your strength.” The Sphinx smiled a bit. “I know a fighter when I see one and you need not fight for your life alone, you earned my attention as much as you did the bears.”

“I’ll take your riddle.” She had little strength to spare following such an incredible being, but she didn’t want to lose that strength and then be eaten by her. She had all to gain and nothing to lose by trying to at least show this being some trust. After having long since lost her childhood innocence, she once again felt something akin to hope.

Author's Note

Magical Alchemy list.

Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used in a sustain effect bones glow softly on their own.

Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater.

Sustain: Water Projection (Offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body quickly with excessive use.

Self-Sustaining: None.

Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or 'possibly' target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random. (One-time air terrain survival buff, possible Offensive ability).

Sustain:???.

Self-sustaining: ???.