“I don't get it... wasn't that—?” Eine began.
“The Duchess. Totally.” Kera nodded as the two were escorted by Soul Sentries through the winding hallways of the High Council Building. “She and Floydien have to be somewhere else.”
“Like where?”
“If you ask me...” Kera gestured for Eine to step onto a balcony within the main chamber. “...they're preparing to lay the hammer down.”
“If you say so...” Prince Eine winced as he stepped out onto the balcony seat. Kera and several soul sentries stood behind him.
Nodeer seemed to notice the little fawn and tattooed filly. Everyone was too busy shouting, arguing, and clamoring passionately. Meanwhile, Chancellor Fishberry loomed from her seat high above and across the way. As she continued to speak, the irascible crowd rambled louder and louder, voicing their combined confusion and disapproval.
“My God...” Prince Eine stammered, gritting his teeth. “It's almost louder in here than it is outside!”
“Uhhh...” Kera stirred, glancing all around as she chewed on her bottom lip. “Something tells me this is just how she wants it.”
“How could you say that?! Look at my poor subjects!” Eine's yellow eyes burned with a flash of anger. “She's driving them mad with her speech!”
“Don't you get it? That's the whole point!” Kera exclaimed. “Chrysalis doesn't want control! She wants chaos! And misery!”
“And now she's using Fishberry to do it,” Eine said, shuddering. He glanced aside at the filly. “And the goblins—?”
“They won't reach this place if the Jurists have anything to do with it.”
Eine panted, his brow forming sweat bulbs. “I... I must do something!” He gulped hard. “If I could just get the Council to notice my presence—”
“It's not our move to make, dude.”
“But—”
“Just wait for our backup!” Kera exclaimed. “Rainbow Dash has a plan in motion! She's awesome, and we should trust her!”
Eine looked over Kera's flank.
Kera turned to glance as well. The Soul Sentries had retreated. The two watched as the last of the reindeer guard marched away.
“Where are they going?” Eine exclaimed.
Kera took a breath. “Where they will be far away from this crowd.” She looked forward as the chamber grew louder and louder. “Something tells me, soon enough, we won't be able to trust them.”
POW! Flak exploded in the desert air, sending steaming shrapnel in every direction.
The Noble Jury bobbed and weaved, barely dodging the explosive bursts.
POW! P-POW!
Zaid gnashed his teeth, pulling hard to the right and bringing the ship into a sharp spiral. “It's no use!” he shouted over his shoulder as more thunderous bursts echoed all around. “They have too many cannons between the two of them! No amount of fast flying is going to stop the two of you from becoming pincushions!”
“Nnngh!” Pilate clung to the port-side cannon as a close blast sent a heat wave rippling past his twitching ears. “And if we abandon our posts, we've got nothing to hit them with!”
“Like balls, we don't!” Zaid shouted, pointing past the cockpit windows. “We've got these two rockets! Let's charge them head-on and give their battleships a C-Section courtesy of Roarke Most Rawr!”
POW! Chunks of goblin metal scraped against the skystone overhead.
“Ungh!” Belle jolted, clinging to her rocket. “Not an option! If we charge them straightaway, we'll be right in their line of sight! We'll be dead before we get them in our sights!”
“Our only advantage seems to be maneuverability, for what it's worth!” Pilate shouted. “If only we could get the Jury to spin harder!”
Belle gasped. She craned her neck to look at the bow. “...that's it!” She hollered at the cockpit. “Zaid! On my mark, fire the starboard-side rocket!”
“You mean the one on the right... right?!”
“Yes! For Spark's sake, yes!”
“Just what the Hell are we targeting?!”
“Nothing!”
Zaid spun to look over his shoulder. “Excuse me?!”
Belle struggled to shout above the rupturing flak in the air. “Patch yourself through to Props in the engine room! I want you to get her to stall the engine for five seconds! Time it for right when you fire the rocket!”
Zaid blinked, then grinned. “Ohhhhhh Cap'n, if you're planning what I think you're planning, this is gonna make it hard for me to sit straight.”
“Just follow my orders!” Bellesmith shouted. “You can make a plaque over them later! Now talk to Props!”
“Boss!” a goblin said, peering through a spyglass. “I've got a fix on their trajectory!”
“And?” Haman grumbled.
The imp turned and pointed off the hulking bow of the Gamma ship. “If we fire seventy degrees eastward, we should be able to get a solid hit!”
“Right, then.” Haman sneered. “Aim all cannons! Prep the ammunition!” He scuttled forward on his mechanical limbs. “Your luck's run out, you squirrely bastards.”
“Prepare to fire!”
“On your mark!”
“Three... two... one... fire!”
“Now, Mr. Zaid!” Belle hollered.
Zaid punched his hoof over the cockpit's intercom. “Flaccid time, blondie!”
“Scrkkk! Stalling!”
Pilate's ears twitched as the skystone engines throughout the ship died. The vessel lurched noticeably, slowing to an icy glide.
Belle's voice cracked. “Fire the starboard side rocket!”
“It's away!” Zaid yanked the appropriate lever.
Pfftchooooom! The mounted rocket fired off with a blast of fiery propulsion. As a direct result, the dormant ship twirled clockwise, pivoting south from where it was at a standstill.
Belle and Pilate clung hard to their cannons, their lower limbs flailing.
Zaid braced himself against the cockpit as the Noble Jury twirled about, facing the two battleships due south. “They're in s-sight!” he sputtered.
“Full speed!” Belle spat.
“You hear that Blondie?!”
“Okie Dokie Lokie!” The skystone shard flared, and suddenly the entire Jury thrusted forward, accelerating like a gigantic missile.
Haman blinked. The goblins around him gawked as their full volley exploded several hundred yards east of the target... the target that was now soaring their way.
“They... they turned about!” An imp spun, staring at his superior with twitching eyes. “Nothing can turn about that fast!”
“Well?!” Haman snarled, pointing a grimy finger. “Blast them out of the sky!”
“Boss, we're...”
“What?!”
“We're still reloading the cannons...”
“... … ...” Haman looked up, his slimy face pale.
Ch-Chtung! Belle cocked and loaded her mana cannon. “Ready, beloved?”
Pilate swiveled his barrel at the ready. “More than I've ever been.”
“Aaaaaaaaand...” Zaid shouted through clenched teeth. “...contact!”
“FIRE!” Belle hollered, firing stream after stream of flaming hot energy onto the westernmost battleship.
Pilate let out a shout for good measure. His helm rattled as he fired as well as he could at the bulkheads of the Gamma ship rippling by underneath the Jury.
Explosions rippled left and right beneath the Noble Jury's gliding hull, as if the ship was surfing a veritable wave of shrapnel and fire.
Because the Noble Jury and the A-Team didn't have enough parallels already.
If Ebon was under Chrysalis' control, this would have been the perfect time to let Fishberry know, after the Soul Sentries had departed. He didn't.
*obligatory George Takei picture*
Ha! Get some, Jury!
No pushups this round, ):(. Kick ass action is it's own reward!
I guarantee you we didn't expend the entire 1980s in that last chapter's comments, so by Luna let's fire off another salvo.
[youtube=wMjrkY31cDE]
Slipsliding away, Id hoped to put a cute picture of how to avoid a hit by shutting the engines off in style, but a combination of events on the network is trashing my happiness.
Intresting how ebon and the General have pulled the Soul Sentries back, leaving Kera and eine all on their own.
Or rather, leaving the high Council, all alone, unprotected, with Kera.
Did Rourke leave anything in the Juries Hanger? I dunno, maybe somethign along the line of, Boss, we cant see them through the steam. Wait, theres something, Ram Them. What you seem to forget, is that we, are trailing mines?
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Alright, plot prediction time: the Jury will be damaged in the fight, but the goblins will be defeated by the timely intervention of the Tarkington and Roarke's Lounge Armada. With her plans crumbling, Chrysalis reveals herself and directly intervenes at the palace, taking control and sealing it off, with everyone inside subject to her wrath. The rest of the book is spent with the Jury and Friends siegeing the palace to rescue those trapped inside, who are fighting for their own survival.
5505048 yussss Queen!
[youtube=4gDch1p4c_M]
Awwwww Yeah! Time for awesome air fights!
And the goblins just learned why you're supposed to fire in volleys instead of just unloading everything at once.
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Now here's a fine scene parallel I somehow almost missed.
[youtube=fg58hVEY5Og]
"Captain! Goblin ships off the starboard bow, standard line. They outnumber us three-to-one!"
"Good," smirks Belle. "Then it is an even fight."
That may not need the lounge armada after all
This is it. The Noble Jury has achieved its most badass form of existence since we first laid eyes upon its glory. All hail the Noble Jury and its streaming red manabeams of death.
Pew pew pew! Nyoom. Noot noot! Kapow!
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the Belles of war!
At*
Well at least something is heading in the right direction.
i.imgur.com/E1xuPAo.jpg
Must have been a scary huge rocket to spin the Jury around like that.
Next chapter: It lands somewhere.
All we need now is some boarding action so Props can use her glue launcher.
Just don't grab the wrong flight stick, Zaid.
5506505 I guess it's too much to hope for that Cheeselegs is holed up (heh, just spotted the pun as i was proof reading my comment) at the point of impact?
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If we're still doing the 80's action music thing:
It's... beautiful...
Zaid pressed R or Z twice.
Belle sure is badflank. Goblins run when a nerdy mare goes to war.
I've been pressing the next chapter button for the last four hours, but apparently I'm all caught up again. Damn it, how do you regulars stay sane with all the suspense?
Inertia not found. This just totally confirms our earlier musings that skystone must nullify the negative momentum of anything it touches because otherwise every person on board would die in the very instant the Jury accelerates at maximum speed.
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Do a Barrel Roll!
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>implying we're sane
5507275 sane?
"You're daft! You both are!" "Daft like Jack."
Pirates of the Carribean
5507275 Sanity is for those who haven't seen the shadows crawling from the corners of their eyes. Remember the last cheesewheel in its valiant and glorious sacrifice!
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Erm... Right. Clearly I need to hang around here more.
5508321
You do. Anyways, congrats on catching up!
at 1:50
Go Jury! That was an amazing manoeuvre.
-Spirit
5505944
Oh you.
I can totally dig this. There is a reason I loved Star Wars and Star Trek as a kid.
5918930 Mmm, This actually kinda reminds me of Picards first Ship battle vs. the borg, Totally outgunned and out done but one hell of a cap'n and crew won the day for them.
Also, I think I figured out who chryssi is. to be honest I think I figured it out back at the Secret meeting just before midnite Jumped dash for the first time, I just didn't want to say anything because my idea seemed so absurd... now? Not so sure. We shall see though.
So the Jury has what looks like a pair of Autocannons, probably 30mm knowing Roarke, and a few rockets. The goblin battleships likely are armed solely with large caliber cannons (200+mm). The Jury could fight such ships if it plays smart, but unless it gets lucky it won't get out alive.
Cry "havoc" and let slip the Noble Jury.
Pretty sure that was the mid-air equivalent of clubhauling.
Woo! Belle sure is one badass captain!
I want to buy a plaque with her orders on it just for decoration. No one would suspect a thing.
Crazy Ivan
There only 4 Jurist in the Noble Jury. And yet, they owned them!
This is INSANE.