//------------------------------// // Chapter thirty (x2), Circus Irks Us: Faithful Plans. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Fizzle- I came up upon Snide, he didn’t look like he was worried about me. Well he should be, I was going to have to get his attention and hold it long enough for Jade’s plan to come to fruition. “A little mouse has made it this far, do you want a piece of cheese little mouse?” He was lazily laying on his side, he barely sat up and grinned at me. “Look behind you and tell me what you see.” “I don’t need to look, my friends are all fighting to put an end to you and all of this.” I reached for the sword at my hip with my right hoof. I had heard from Jacky that one of the rules of being a good pirate captain was that you should always go into a battle well-armed or at least have a good plan if you can’t be. This had better work like you thought it would Jade, because I needed some kind of edge to keep him interested in batting me around like a chew toy until I could get some backup to deal with him once and for all. I tried not to stare at Sugar and Snickers going for mom’s bindings or the shield now on the floor next to the pillar, how did Jade arrange for them to get here so fast? Now I know why she dropped the shield at least, to give mom some protection. “Well I’ll tell you what I see… cowardice, weakness, those who are being beaten down and will easily break apart like the evils of glass!” Snide seemed to be looking at the battlefield from a different perspective than I currently was. I turned and watched as Fortitude left the tent to begin the plan, Jacky was being worked on by Dr. Bones and that everyone else was having trouble in their fights. Jade seemed to be holding up well against three of the jugglers, it was only a matter of time and how well Jade played the fight before she could come to help me. Everyone else only looked to be struggling, even Cheerilee was struggling to pull ponies out of the way and off the field of battle. I turned back to Snide with a lot of determination building in up my heart. I’d show this pony exactly why you don’t mess with our family! “You’re definitely going to lose!” I don’t think I’d ever use an Alicorn Amulet, if it could mess up Snide’s mind like I currently knew it was. I pulled the sword and pointed it at him crackling with lightning energy. “If that’s what you currently think.” “Let’s agree that you don’t know what you’re talking about little filly.” He raised a hoof lazily and sent a sphere of magic slowly coming at me. “Here, have some free pain on me!” When it got close, I swung the sword outwards with my right hoof. The edge of the blade hit the sphere of energy and then, much to my surprise, it went flying straight back into Top Snide’s face at twice the speed it had been coming for me. Snide’s gaudy throne practically imploded when the energy smashed him in the face and exploded, I just stared at the rubble and the crackling blade I held. Wow. Sword with a possible magic repulsion ability? Definite yes, plan B was a go! Jade was strangely correct about things with dark powers being weak to their own attacks. So dangerous energy tennis it was, especially with an overly odd racket! I had better not miss when Snide got up and really started things, because I doubt that one hit would be enough to… The rubble of the throne erupted as Snide sat up to begin glaring at me. His face was slightly marred from the blast, yet that wide toothy grin of his never left it. I got his attention Jade, just like you needed me too. Now to see if I could keep it off his surroundings. “So… you might have a little more power than I previously thought. I wanted to fight the priestess to see what all the hubbub was about, but no matter. You have earned my magnificent ire, for I have fury!” His cape flared outwards as he held his hooves up and several orbs of energy formed above his head as he floated upwards. “For the last act you’ll be facing the ringleader and a most grand magician of the Mystical Maiming Circus. The great and powerful, also more important than anyone else will ever be and the destroyer of a world ruled by glass, me… Top Snide!” Well he’s certainly getting more and more flamboyant, wondered what he’ll be like when the amulet is destroyed. “Stop talking and start attacking me already you big blowhard!” I really need his attention and that would do it. He sneered down at me and started launching his energy orbs for me, yeah this was going to be the most dangerous match of deadly energy tennis ever. Hope I get good at aiming those blasts of energy back at Snide quickly or else this was going to be a somewhat problematic fight. I got up on my hind hooves and getting some balance, I took a step forward and started swinging the sword. I needed to deflect every attack back at this smiling monster in pony form. -Trixie- Hmm… great and powerful… Trixie… yes, Trixie likes that. Yes, I’ll become great and powerful like that someday! Provided that I can ever get out of the stands of course, this captive audience is a bit too captive to Trixie’s taste. Mostly because Trixie is one of those captives! -Fortitude- I have to go send the signal, the time is now! Hope brothers can protect injured companion until I can get back and lend my mighty yak strength once more. Pushing through a crowd of clown ponies with my shield acting as a battering ram, I exited the tent and went beyond the red barrier. How did Jade say to do it? Ah, yes, my yak lungs were quite big and strong enough to do it, I will bellow that it is time! Hopefully the amulet wearing pony doesn’t hear this and start attacking hostages. That was something of moderate worry that all of us had going into this. “WAAAGH!” I let out as loudly as I could. It seems my signal was heard, as I could feel the thundering of hooves coming. I turned and ran back inside the tent to assist my brothers in arms and life. Attacking clown ponies were no longer my problem, but the armored pony going after injured pirate parrot that likes griffin brother is! I charged forward and as she lunged for the doctor. I rammed into the armored pony, sending them rolling away at an incredible pace. Holding my shield high to protect good doctors back, I caught the bat winged pony swinging his bat for her. The metal bat cracked upon hitting my shield, my faithful piece of equipment can survive such a weak blow easily. Time to protect friends with yak strength and girth, reinforcements can handle clown ponies. “I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant and I am back with friends of yak’s friends!” I charged the bat wielding bat pony shield first and bowled him over. Seconds later a stampede of cows started dealing with our evil clown problem. -Daisy Jo- “Come on girls, let’s moo-ve it!” All the girls and I went charging straight through the barrier into the tent, we were all Jade’s friends and she needed our help with this. The royal guards following us would get the kidnapped hostages out, though they were begrudgingly willing to be Jade’s friends too to save lives. We had two jobs, help any hostages we could reach and or deal with any small problems by throwing our weight around. We cows were stampeding together over a floor covered in disgusting looking pie filling. No doubt the evil looking red eyed clown ponies were responsible for all this, we could deal with them as they didn’t look so tough! “Do not ingest any of the pies if they have any left to throw at you, they very dangerous!” How nice of the teenage looking dragon to warn us as he chased some flying clowns through the air. “Knock the clowns out and drag them out of here, don’t hurt them too badly as they too are victims of this whole mess!” As we started tackling and pinning down the clowns, I saw Arizona in the distance and she was holding onto an elephant’s trunk and pulling on it. Did she seriously think she could…?! I was one of the many witnesses to Arizona heaving the entire beast into the air with an impossible show of strength for someone of her somewhat small size. She then turned and slammed the elephant down onto its back and it let out a sad sounding wailing noise as the glowing red in its eyes disappeared. The elephant groaned in pain and rolled onto its side, it didn’t look like it was going to get up or was even able to after being by tossed by its trunk like that. It seems like we cows had another legend to talk about aside from bounty hunter Minnesota, we’ll call it the legend of Arizona and the embattled elephant! She didn’t look too hot afterward, but Arizona was still able to walk towards her reindeer friend putting up a fight with that frighteningly large manticore. We weren’t too keen on snakes or other poisonous things like manticores, Arizona was a much stronger and braver bovine than we were to even approach such a large beast in her state. Still we could deal with all the clowns easily enough, some cows even tried for the stands to help the captive audience with the chains or whatever else was keeping them there. I targeted the nearest clown pony and lightly tackled them to the ground. We didn’t want to hurt these poor ponies too badly by dropping our entire weight on them, we had a lot of throwing around to do. -Arizona- “Finally, ugh, all my muscles are screaming me at me to…” My whole body felt like it was on fire, every movement was agony. I wanted to lay down and rest, I even started to do so. Only, I stopped when I saw that Velvet was still fighting the manticore and stayed standing instead. If I just beat an elephant with raw muscle, then why can’t I go taunt Velvet about it and not being able to deal with what was an overgrown cat! “No! I’m not stopping, I have to go give fluff butt a pep talk…” I started to limp towards her fight. Sure everything hurt from slamming an elephant, but what would hurt worse is seeing Velvet being incapable of dealing with her opponent. She was my rival and my girlfriend, the very best of both worlds and I couldn’t love anyone more than I do her! “Velvet, I dealt with the elephant and your still fighting the manticore? Who’s carrying whom now?” I stated in a tone that I just knew would get her angry, the manticore was stuck in place with its tail frozen to the floor and she still hadn’t knocked it out despite the numerous hit and run attacks she kept using against it. Her rapid flurry of hoof strikes was doing some damage, but it wasn’t dealing with the problem at large, and it was kind of admittedly large. “Is that really the best you got fluff butt? You’re not the rowdy ravishing reindeer I thought you were if it’s taking you this long to deal with the problem!” “Well excuse me for not being able to flip an entire elephant onto its back, you do realize I lack your freakish strength you beautiful battered beast you!” Velvet turned and kicked up her rear legs sending a spray of icy air straight into the manticore’s face. She stomped up to me ignoring the monster as it angrily clawed at the ice on its flash frozen face, she glared into my eyes. She hugged loudly, then twirled on the spot facing towards the manticore. “You make me so angry sometimes Arizona that… that I could just…!” Velvet unleashed a deafening long angry scream of rage. I watched as a cloud formed in the air and then it solidified into a cube, one that started growing bigger and bigger. Okay… Velvet was outdoing herself with the size of that hovering ice block she was making, that and she really had a set of lungs on her. The manticore freed its face of ice and then tried to free its tail, once it freed its tail it turned to lunge at Velvet. She stopped exhaling and gave me an elegant smile that warmed my heart. I didn’t care that manticore was surging forward for her, I had made her angry enough that she didn’t need my help. The huge block of ice dropped onto the large beast’s skull knocking it right out just before it reached us, said ice block split entirely in half upon impact with its thick skull. Good job Velvet, now that’s the reindeer that I know and love! “The cow-valry is here, we need to assist Maries and then move forward to help Jade or back to help the medic team with keeping Jacky alive.” I looked over to Jade, she seems to be taking a beating and just almost took a knife to the tail, but she looks like she can last a little bit longer. Jade’s fight looked frantic… and really fun. It’s sad that I didn’t feel up to it. I tried to step towards the orthros and Whip Slash combo and grunted, I almost fell down as my legs went slightly limp. “Arizona!” I felt Velvet’s catching me and she started holding me up, I felt my sore burning muscles cool down at her slightly roaming touches. “Your body is positively wrecked! How are you even still standing like this? You need to go to Dr. Bones immediately!” “I would, but Dr. Bones is kind of under attack by those two that Jacky took on. No wait… it looks like Generic and Fortitude have it.” I turned to look in Maries’ direction. “Maries are the ones that really needs our help, let’s go Velvet!” “What am I going to do with a stubborn idiot like you? Read these lovely lips that you have kissed multiple times in recent history, you need medical attention!” That’s when velvet had a coughing fit and pressed into my side trying to prop herself up. The coughing became even more violent seconds later, I could even feel her body was a lot warmer than usual. “You’re looking a little far too hot there yourself Velvet.” I leaned against her with a small smile on my face as I let her direct us towards Dr. Bones. “I think I strained my magic too much back there and it’s finally catching up with me now…” Gee, you think Velvet? I’ve never felt you this warm before, you’re practically burning up comparatively to anyone else. We started to stumble back towards rear, we both needed help and rest. Sorry Maries, we’ll send help your way! “Hey, Flamberge, you need to go help Maries!” The dragon was just about done with clearing the airspace in the tent, as he was grabbing the last flying clown. He just threw it to the cows to deal with and nodded to us before setting off. -Generic- We had almost finished clearing the airspace in the tent and what an ordeal that has been. I looked about as Flamberge grappled with the last pegasus clown and started dropping towards the ground towards the numerous cows pinning down and knocking out the various clown ponies. As soon as he left that clown to a cow, he took off for Maries fighting Whip Slash. I looked to the rear of the tent and saw Fizzle deflecting blasts of magic with that pirate sword she trained her magic with, she dodged any beams that Snide sent after her. She looked to be doing okay, but she was being pressed hard. She thankfully had Snide’s full attention on her, so he hadn’t noticed the shift in the battle yet and wouldn’t be able to threaten any of the hostages by the time he realizes what’s going on. Mayor Kuril was almost free and she looked really quite angry, what was it Traveler Neko said about queens and their kittens adopted or otherwise? Ah yes, never do anything to separate them from one another, ever! The end results wouldn’t be pretty, the only time it was okay is if the Abyssinian female in question had a mental illness and was deemed too dangerous for the kitten or child to be near. I turned to see how Dr. Bones was doing, Jacky was sitting up next to her and her beak was clamped tight as her side was being sewn shut. Whatever surgery Dr. Bones had done on her, it had been successful and Jacky almost looked ready to get back into the action. If the doctor had any sense she’d tell Blackcap to stay put. Fortitude looked to be having trouble with those two that Jacky had been fighting. I felt something stir within me, it seems my griffon heritage wants to talk with both Acro Bat and Cannonade for hurting the pirate parrot. Jade and Maries were doing a bit poorly, Maries more so because they were getting hit with multiple whip strikes and I could see Flamberge going to assist our chimera friend. Both Arizona and Velvet were retreating, they looked to both be doing badly as they were propping one another up. The many networking cows we called in to help were actively clearing a path for them to move through. I turned and dove for Cannonade, let’s continue making the number of problems decline sharply. I grabbed Cannonade mid leap as she went for Fortitude’s side as he held Acro Bat’s metal bat at bay, I lifted high up into the air with a flailing cannonade and wrapped my rear legs around her armored back. Proceeding to slash at her with my claws in a precise manner as she struggled, she soon got free and fell to the ground and tried to curl up. Only she slammed into the floor on her bare back. She groaned having uncurled and as she sat up she realized what the problem was. So she hadn’t noticed that I specifically clawed up all the straps to her impressive looking cannonball armor. Too bad for her. I came down on her in a dive angling to put my fist into the side of her unarmored head, I’d knock her out easily at this speed. -Jacky- “I don’t care doc, help me stand and get back at them.” I then saw a tumbling form without the armadillo armor come to a rest with a bruised face. Cannonade was down, I looked up and saw Generic grin at me before he angled for the grounded Acro Bat trying to bash his way through the wooden shield held by Fortitude. I seriously doubt Acro Bat knew the forces of ignorance he was dealing with here, especially when it came to Fortitude doing a literal form of stonewalling. “You just had an appendectomy, heck here’s your appendix in a jar! You need more time to rest. If you want to go pushing your feet into a grave deep enough to hold up the flowers, then I’ll not be a part of it you used to be bleeding idiot!” Dr. Bones, had finished sewing me up and she was glaring at me as she roughly started to wrap bandages around my waist. Afterwards her paws pushed me back down onto my back in a resting position. “You need a day or two to rest at least before doing anything, two weeks before anything strenuous, doctors orders!” “I’m not going to do anything strenuous, I’ll just fire my bow at any more problems from here!” I sat up again and unshouldered my bow, took aim and fired a small and round dry sponge. It struck Acro Bat in the making him screech and rub at it, having been properly blinded he missed Gene coming at him with a two clawed hammer blow to the skull that put him down. “Whit’s fur ye’ll no go past ye!” Dr. Bones threw up her paws in resentment of my stubbornness, she’s said that several times in reference to me being unlucky. Dr. Bones saw both Arizona and Velvet approaching, she then cursed under her breath and lumbered towards them. “Come on deputy nurse, Cheerilee. More of our wee ones need a kip and some dressings!” Dr. Bones was off with Cheerilee carrying the medical kits behind her, leaving me lying there. I tried to get standing when the diamond dog shouted back at me. “Don’t you dare go on a walkabout Ms. Chickadee La Perm or so help me I won’t help you with whatever happens to you next you accursed injury magnet of a being!” I quickly put my butt back on the floor facing Fizzle’s fight, she was performing an amazing leap through two separate beams. She was in what looked like a deadly form of tennis match with a sphere of energy that she managed to strike back multiple times while dodging beams until it was moving too fast for Snide to block or dodge. Snide was taking some minor injury from his attacks. Plan B is working pretty well, as was the main plan. He hasn’t noticed the arrival of Shining and a few royal guards that managed to get by the barrier and were getting the audience out of here. He didn’t even notice our secret backup weapon that was now approaching me. “Are you okay?” I looked up at the worried alicorn who trotted up to me and I smiled at Jade’s friend. “I’m fine Cadence, just found out I had a sudden bad case of appendicitis that needed to be immediately taken care of… that and this gaping hole in my side needed to be patched up. I now envy the people who don’t have to go through surgery while awake like I just did in the middle of a battlefield.” I looked at the jar with my inflamed appendix floating in slightly bloodied chemicals that Dr. Bones left next to me, then the bandages that were wrapped around my waist. “Our doctor just ordered me to stay here, but can you get in there and give that Top Snide guy a good hit for me?” “I’ll see what I can do about that when I get around to it. I hope you get better soon.” She leaned down and nuzzled me gently, she was in no hurry as she wasn’t needed to be in the fight at the moment. She started to whisper into my ear. “By the way, your griffon friend that can keep a clear head despite you being in pain… he’s a keeper and he really likes you. I just wanted you to know that he’s very upset that you got hurt.” “I already know that, it’s hard for other people tell when he doesn’t express himself very well or vocally. Just about the only thing about him that’s griffin like, Jade keeps calling him Generic and he’s anything but.” I held up my bow and reached back for my tail pouch. Long range support was going to be a bit difficult at this distance, but I’d manage somehow. Let’s see what I have on me, spoon, knife, teacup, saucer for the tea cup… -Maries- “Looks like the cow-valry is finally dealing with the clowns, so I can finally stop ramming my head into them!” Marie complained. “It’s been seriously making me dizzy acting as a living whip.” A good number of cows had managed to sneak up on the clowns helping the orthros riding Whip Slash and were dealing with them readily. “Well that’s the good news, but we still have Whip Slash as a problem and I’m not letting any cows get hurt by her because of us!” Mara was being fiercely protective, then again she had made several acquaintances among the cows like Jade did. Maria deflected another whip strike off her horns. Our sides were aching and bleeding badly from multiple whip blows that managed to get by Mara and Maria. We were battered, but we were still going strong and the orthros hadn’t even managed to get its teeth in us once! Whip Slash was about to take another swing at us, that’s when Flamberge decided to show up and bodily knock Whip Slash from Rip and Tear’s back. The two headed wolf was confused for just long enough for us to ram them both in the chest with Maria’s horns. That sent them tumbling away, we turned to Whip Slash as being the real danger. Whip Slash was currently up and striking out at Flamberge’s scales several times, only the whip couldn’t do any damage to his protective hide. Flamberge just stood there looking bored as he protected his eyes with his arms. “Why… won’t… you… go down?!” I’m sure that if Whip Slash weren’t under Snide’s control, she’d probably realize that she’s trying to whip a dragon. “Because it tickles, this is not really that threatening to me!” Flamberge then spat several fireballs at her, Whip Slash then started to do what she does whenever she’s in trouble and has been annoyingly doing it for this whole battle. Whip Slash coiled up her whip and darted around to avoid the fireballs, she was once again running away from the confrontation. This was when one of said errant fireballs she dodged was about to hit us, only something really odd happened. Maria went to scream and the fireball entered her mouth, she quickly closed it and swallowed before blinking confusedly. We weren’t in any pain which was weird, shouldn’t we all be feeling Maria’s throat being scarred or scorched by the flames she just swallowed? “Maria, Are you okay?” Mara said worriedly looking to the goat head next to her. Marie then stated in a worried tone. “Speak to us Maria!” “Well…!” That was all Maria could get out before she belched out a large stream of flames from her mouth. She quickly closed her mouth and the flames stopped, blinking a bit Maria started to blow lightly and a jet of fire came out of her head. “Holy carp, you can breathe fire!” We were going to remember you said that the next time we went fishing Marie. “It’s about damn time we were capable of it, I just about thought that we’d never be able to do it!” Mara then tried to blow flames and nothing. “Could it have been a fluke?” “No, I don’t think it is…” Inhaling Maria let out a blast of fire against the ground. “Oh our alpha of alphas, I’m awesome now!” “I’m actually moderately jealous of Maria now.” Mara, then thought about our new ability to fight at range and simply accepted it. “We need to get back in the fight!” As soon as she said that, we were beset by the two headed wolf, only for it whine and get scared away when Maria bellowed out a wall of flames that lit it on fire. The red left both of the wolf head’s eyes and it started to run around confused and was panicking blindly. “Hey, Whip, you’re running out of room to run!” Maria called out as Mara moved us towards her agreeing with Marie’s sudden plan of action. We were Maries’ and now one of our heads could finally breathe fire! We should celebrate some time later when Fizzle and Jade weren’t in danger. “Yeah, but at least I can take some of you with me.” Whip Slash unfurled her whip, swung it around and then at us. Only for Maria to blast it to cinders with a pure beam of flames coming from her throat, leaving Whip Slash holding a handle that used to have a whip attached to it. “Uh…. uh oh…” Flamberge getting tired of Whip dodging him, because she was pretty damn agile, he pounced on her and started to ram her face into the ground multiple times until she was out of it. Whip Slash simply couldn’t get Flamberge off of her and that was that. We turned a glare to the wolf headed orthros and they whined putting their tail between their legs, they had quite lot of the fight taken out of them. They bared their necks to us and we nodded in acceptance. “You stay right where you are do you understand me?” As Maria said that and received a pair of rapid frightened nods, Mara and Marie noticed that the audience was currently being rescued from the stands. They turned to look towards Snide, he hadn’t noticed his increasing lack of hostages yet. The plan was working. If Top Snide thought we were a serious threat he could have used the hostages as leverage, but now? He’s ours to take down and we all would make sure that happened. Kuril was also free and she was rubbing at her wrists looking quite angrily at Snide’s back as she picked up the shield that Jade dropped earlier for Sugar to drag over to her. She crouched down and patted Sugar on the head then said something to her, Sugar turned and started growling at Snide’s back. The killer rabbit looked ready to maim someone as she hopped onto the matriarchs shoulder. “Come on, let’s go help Jade!” Marie shouted and Mara agreed as she was moving us towards Jade’s hectic fight with the three juggling ponies constantly throwing weapons at her. One of the weapons thrown at Jade was caught by Generic who swiftly caught another weapon as he swooped by knocking over one of the three ponies with a wing to the head. As we charged forward to join the fight on the front line, Flamberge joined us and it wasn’t long before Fortitude caught up and brought up the rear. -Jade- The hostages were almost out, it looks like we were down two heavy hitters and Maries was moderately injured. Knife came at me and I quickly pulled the gunbai to make the knife in his grip twist throwing his attempted stab entirely off, then I slammed my right elbow into his face as hard as I could. Knife finally crumpled leaving only Ball and Torch. Behind me Flamberge bowled over Torch, any attempt to hurt a dragon with fire would be laughable unless it was another dragon. Ball then went down to Maries ramming her as she got up from Generic's hit.