//------------------------------// // Chapter Eleven, Blueblood Bandits: Shining Armor vs. Jade. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Arizona- I had a good time and we were starting to pull away from Canterlot, but I had to wonder about the one who planned all this. She was a wily one, what was she up to staying behind like she did? There had to be more to this plan. “You seem rather calm about your special cat friend being left behind.” The broken horned pony didn’t seem too afraid for someone she clearly loved and it was a tad suspicious, she hardly ever lets the cat out of her sight from what I know upon having met them. “Aren’t you worried the royal or night guard will kill her?” “The chances of anyone in the Royal Guard, Wonder Bolts or even the Night Guard of killing anyone, much less killing Jade ‘freaking’ La Perm herself, is really quite miniscule.” That was when Fizzle snorted, likely at her own thoughts, then she turned her eyes from looking back to me. “I would be more worried about assassins like the one that Maries caught, she’s the same one that attacked us in the park. Jade will be just fine and I really want to see what Maries can do with that law degree they earned, she is one third snake after all.” -Prince Blueblood- Ugh I have a wine stain on my coat. At least it didn’t touch my precious pristine white fur and my lovely blonde hair, both of which have been completely impeccable today. This is the only truly horrific spot on an otherwise perfect day spent in the company of so many elites. I wonder if I can rent out The Gilded Buttress tomorrow. -Jade- I stopped playing, turned around and bowed to the crowd. I had decided to stop playing back where I started the parade at. The guards were about to move towards me when I held up my left palm towards them with my fingers splayed. Taking off my mask, I put both it and the ocarina away with my right hand. “I thank all of you music players for joining the parade! To those in the marching band, I already sent recommendations out to several companies. You might get jobs soon for your varying great musical talents. As for you the saxophone mare and the others who joined our parade, thank you for accompanying us on our wondrous journey.” It pays to be polite to all the friends I made here today. “I’m sorry for those of you who didn’t sign up for the parade, I can’t send out recommendations for any of you. Though I will say that you are all also very good musicians in your respective fields. By the way, what’s your name mare with the awesome saxophone playing? I’ll try to remember it, promise!” “I’m Speedy Sax and yes I know how my name sounds, just call me Quick.” The royal guards burst out laughing at the mare’s declaration, she was a cool pegasus pony in my book. She looked kind of average with the brown mane, but the black fur was an odd color I don’t see too often on ponies and she had bright blue colored eyes. I would remember her fondly. “Like Quick Sax is any better.” I stated, which caused the laughter to start up again. “It’s a far sight better than the nickname Prince Blue Balls.” Another round of laughter, this time including most of the guards as well, Speedy bowed to them. “Alright that’s enough, all of you who are not in the royal guard or are equivalent equestrian military personnel should leave… I’m about to get my ass thoroughly kicked for the forced march I put you all through.” I’m surprised they were even letting me talk and haven’t jumped me yet. “The parade I got forced into wasn’t all that bad and I had fun, what’s your name so I can remember you too!” My name wasn’t really a secret Sax. “Jaded La Perm, I prefer Jade. We’re friends now Quick! Now get out of here, go on, shoo.” All the musicians started chatting with each other and then they moved off to the side and sat down. “You’re all going to stay and watch this aren’t you?” “How often does anyone get to see the guard actually do something around here?” Quick asked loudly, a lot of chuckling rippled throughout the many musician ponies. The guard ponies grumbled loudly. “Good point. If all of you are going to stick around, can I at least get some people who know how to riff a guitar and play the drums involved in this? Here Sax, hold my flag.” Handing Sax my flag, I was going to plead with the crowd of musicians. “I’m going to do something very anime and try to fight all these wonderful guards by myself. So please stay out of it if you aren’t going to be playing music to this, do not involve yourself in my fight. This may seem horribly lopsided against me, but I’m pretty tough as you will soon find out and I will absolutely get away with everything I’ve pulled off this evening even if they do catch me. Do not ruin your lives on my account by trying to help, just let me go down with awesome music!” Several guitar wielding ponies and some drum users all moved to set up, while the other musician ponies cheered. “Oh you are so not getting away with this.” Shining stated quite clearly. “We’ll see about that, music!” The cymbals were hit twice and then it began, my fight to see how many guards I can down. I immediately started sustaining my knife, I wasn’t about to use it on ponies. I was going full brawler for this one. -Shining Armor vs. Jade La Perm- Three armored earth ponies charged forward and Jade charged them back. The first pony tried to tackle Jade and she jumped straight up and stomped down on him at an angle that sent him skidding across the ground with her on top. Jade ducked the second pony while body surfing the first one, she reached out and grappled the third lunging armored earth pony and managed bring them into the path of several blast from the various unicorns. Kicking the ground, Jade spun the sparking armored pony she was riding and used the spin to throw the third thoroughly stunned pony into the crowd of militant ponies. The cat leapt back and kicked the now stopped pony she had been body surfing at Shining Armor. Shining lit his horn and the earth pony smashed into the barrier before flopping to the ground unconscious. Shining grit his teeth and fired several bolts from his horn at the cat. Jade dodged to the left and right while continuing to charge only to be cut off by a thestral trying to sideswipe her. Grabbing the outstretched wing of the thestral, Jade spun around with the mare’s momentum and then sent the thestral flying straight into Spitfire’s surprised face, it knocked the Wonder Bolt out of the air. The other unicorns got scared looks on their faces as Jade thumbed her nose and held up her fists bouncing back and forth on her feet, she then started forward. Shining fired started firing shots at Jade, as she continued to weave through the crowd of spell fire. One clipped Jade’s shoulder and another struck her in the thigh, she slowed with each hit and winced slightly. The cat kicked a unicorn up into the air like a hacky sack, spun and kicked them into the path of several stun spells and a thestral pony trying to charge forward. Shining leapt forward and fired several blast from closer range, Jade dropped under them into a back spin and kicking out several times making Shining back away. The other unicorns were more wary of attacking, because they might hit their own people. A pegasus and earth pony guards weren’t so lucky to approach Jade as spun on her back and knocked them down by kicking their hooves out from under them. Their head hit the ground and they were out of the fight with mild concussions. When Jade stopped spinning, Shining tried to jump forward and stomp down on her. Jade rolled and from her supine position, she did a kip-up that ended up putting both her feet into a unicorn guard’s face. Jade kicked off the guards face into a backflip, leaving him getting tackled by a surprised thestral mare who knocked herself out slamming into the poor unicorn. Shining tried to ram the cat and she twirled out the way and leapt backwards over an earth pony diving for her back. Jade went to all fours and growled loudly, quite a few guards backed away from her and she pounced on the earth pony to cover his eyes making him panic. His friends tried to come to his aid and get the crazy cat off his back. The earth pony guard was strong enough to carry Jade’s weight and was wildly bucking around, he accidentally sent a pegasus mare flying when he connected a buck with her helmet. Jade took her right hand off his eyes and rammed her fist into the guard’s throat making him gasp and stagger. She rolled backwards holding onto the earth pony guard and got into a standing position with him held above her head. Jade heaved and sent him flying into several other unicorn, earth and pegasus ponies, thus scattering them all about. “We need a plan!” As Shining said this, he avoided the thrown body and fired several bolts of energy at the cat who dodged them. He recognized that they weren’t very well organized, they were all trying to find a moment of opportunity only to keep getting in each other’s way. “We’re beyond plans now!” Spitfire tried to ram Jade and flapped backwards to avoid the incoming left kick, but didn’t dodge the following straight right to the face knocking her to the ground again. Shining watched as Jade dodged several pegasus pony swoops and earth pony tackle attempts, she was evading almost everything they were throwing at her. Almost being the key word, Jade just took another hit to the right arm and she had to kick a pegasus off her left leg. She was taking hits, but not nearly enough to be debilitating. Shining recognized that this Jade was actually pretty scary cat to fight when she wasn’t running from them, the other guards were quickly losing their morale. Shining leaned back from the sliding kick Jade launched at him and he dragged the tip of his horn across her right thigh causing her to hiss and stumble back. She barely dodged the thestral shrieking at her from directly above. Jade grabbed the armored thestral's rear legs and pulled her upwards out of her controlled drop to slam her belly first against the ground. Shining had dodged being smacked by the night guard and fired his horn at her. The cat then held the thestral up to take several shots from the unicorns that were still standing, she threw stunned thestral bodily at two unicorns taking them down. Spitfire darted in and tried to punch the cat who blocked and tried to hit Spitfire with a left hook, but she flapped backwards out of the way. Spitfire then threw a rough right hoof upper cut that Jade took to the chin making her stumble. Shining fired a shot and Jade fell into a backwards somersault where she stopped in a crouch, then jumped forward and hit Shining across the left eye with a right hook. Shining tried to fire a spell of point blank and managed to connect with Jade’s left shoulder making her yowl and back up quite fast. Spitfire tried to buck Jade in the back, only she missed. Jade rolled to the right and swept the legs at from under a nearby unicorn guard, she grabbed his horn as he fell and swung him around. Jade released the unicorn to smack Spitfire out of the air. The thrown unicorn fired off a blast that missed Jade and accidentally struck a pegasus guard, the unicorn landed roughly on their side breathing heavily. “You know if I could shoot magical energy like that at you by casting the air, I would!” Jade thrust her left hand out and actually tried to cast the air. Imagine Jade’s and everyone else’s surprise when a tennis ball sized oval shaped blast of energy erupted from the cat’s hand. It knocked Spitfire from the air after having just gotten back off the ground. Jade looked a bit drained after firing that blast and moved a bit sluggishly, she took a hit and was sent flying by an Earth Pony bucking her in the stomach. All the remaining ponies that were still standing froze, they all saw a slow smile build up on Jade’s face. “That really hurt, but I just learned how to do a magic missile!” A giggling Jade braced her left forearm with her right hand and she fired an oval into the earth pony knocking her down with a whimper. “So all is forgiven.” There were only a few uninjured ponies still standing, all the other ponies were taking the time to recover from their injuries. Spitfire was up and flying again only her right wing to be hit by sphere of energy fire from Jade that knocked her to the ground where she gasped in pain. She glared at Jade in defiance, but she wasn’t getting up. “I think I really dislike you Jade!” Commented Spitfire out loud. “Sorry for making you feel this way hot stuff!” It even sounded like Jade truly meant that. Shining and three other unicorn ponies started to combine their fire. Jade started to strafe around them and fire back, with each shot she started to stumble and slow down. Aside from the four unicorns, there were a few cowering earth and pegasus ponies taking refuge in the completely undisturbed audience of musician ponies. Jade's shots still hit their marks and it left Shining standing, she went down to one knee and fired a single blast of magic at Shining who just blocked it with a barrier. He then entrapped Jade in a barrier preventing her from doing anything else. -Shining- “Well you were a lot of trouble to take down.” Okay that should not have been nearly that hard, were ponies really that weak? I needed to work out more. “Anything to say for yourself?” “Mission accomplished.” How did Jade accomplish her mission? I was missing something. “What are you talking about?” The cat trapped in my barrier smiled weakly at me. “You never came close to telling Cadence about how I think she’s a lousy O and O player!” The cat lifted her right claw and pointed at me. No, she was pointing at something behind me… I turned around and came face to face with an angry Cadence. “Oh really, anything else I should know Shiny?” Oh Cadence, what a surprise… you heard all that didn’t you? “Why are there so many hurt guards lying around here?” “I hurt them, but they should fine.” You were a very surprising cat Jade, I didn’t think you’d admit it so cleanly. “They are all just a bit bruised. I'm a battered, tired and very sleepy kitty. So if you’ll take my stuff, stuff me in a jail cell and excuse me… I need a cat nap.”