-Kuril-
“Ma’am, I have a question.” I turned to the griffon Viking that approached and I gave him my undivided attention.
“Yes, what is it?” This is the part where a problem pops up on me.
“Do you know where we can get some good fights around here?” He asked me with an innocent look on his face. “That strange flying serpent outside won’t fight us and we’re kind of hungry for battle. So I and the guys were hoping you might have an enemy or two we can deal with.”
“Oh I have the perfect enemy for you, they’re numerous and smart and not to be underestimated no matter what you may think of them initially. Fresh, some paper and ink if you will!” It was a perfectly good idea, so I may as well do it. Fresh Start was on her way to walk by me. When she did get to me, she stopped and held up the items I requested. After taking them from her hoof and letting her walk off. “Thanks Ms. Start, you’re always such a dear friend to me! Now if you will wait patiently sir, I will write these magic words for you…”
The Viking nodded and waited eagerly. I started jotting down the information the Viking needed, writing down only two words and waited for the ink to dry. After the ink was dry, I folded the sheet of paper up twice and then waited on handing it to his talons.
“First off, you should never say these words anywhere around here! That’s very important in making this magic work. I suggest you gather as many Viking as you can gather together and head… I want to say south. Do so for a quarter of a mile.” Any direction would have worked for this really, but I really didn’t want the Vikings to say those words around here. I handed the paper to him as if it were a loaded bomb, it might as well be because of what happens when you say those words. “You will then open this piece of paper and yell the words I have written down for you. Once you do that, you will then be in for a very large fight of the likes that you’ll probably enjoy. Word of warning, expect an attack from any direction.”
“Thank you Ms. Mayor Witch Kurilian La Perm! Hey guys, the witch knows of a fight she wants us to handle!” The griffon nodded and turned to the bunch of Vikings cheering happily at the griffon’s words. “Anyone who wants a good fight, we can set out south immediately to find one!”
Once they were on their way, I walked over to Fizzle who was sitting in a corner of the restaurant and had a cup of iced sweet tea sitting next to her. She was reading a book about drink mixing from what I could see on the cover.
Moving so that I could look over her shoulder, I was glad to find out that it wasn’t alcoholic drink mixing and that it was about stuff like smoothies or milkshakes.
None of my daughters, except for maybe Jacky, are becoming alcoholics on my watch! I wasn’t likely to stop Jacky from drinking grog eventually, but for now she lived under my roof and would follow my rules. Not all alcohol is bad, a little wine never hurts and it’s only if you don’t stop after a certain point that you know you have a bad problem.
“It seems you’re quite comfy.” I commented idly, Fizzle blinked and looked up at me.
“Yeah, I am mom… I’m most certainly not worried about whatever kind of danger Jade is involving herself in this time.” The look on your face said otherwise Fizzle and now I will give you a knowing look. Your reaction was going to be an overly swift denial. “No seriously, I’m not worried that Jade might be in mortal peril right now because she has Maries with her. What kind of creature could Maries not outrun while carrying Jade? I’m sure she’s perfectly fine… yep… not panicking at all… no torn limbs or the possibility of not having a snuggle cat to sleep with for the rest of my life who’s also my best friend…”
I narrowed my eyes as I saw several muscles clench in Fizzle’s body, I knew what was about to happen and I was prepared to tackle Fizzle if she tried to do what I think she was about to do. Fizzle calmly put the book down, but her muscles were still tensed.
“I have to go help her…!” Fizzle started as she leapt up to run past me and I tackled her to the floor and pinned her. “Come on mom, let me go! Jade could be in serious danger! Who knows what’s happening to her right now! She might need me!”
Fizzle struggled in my grasp and I then I did something really quite dirty, I started petting my daughter and cuddling her while keeping her pinned.
“Dirty pool mom, dirty pool…” A slowly weakening Fizzle said under my careful caressing, eventually she gave in and let me affectionately scratch her behind the ears. “You are a very evil cat, and you should feel bad about that. A little more to the right… oh yes~.”
I knew how to stop my daughter from running off to go help Jade, who was likely in no danger at all… who am I kidding, she was likely in great danger! I was just trusting Maries to be able to handle whatever it is. I absolutely trusted my daughter to come back alive, what I didn’t trust was that she wouldn’t get into danger.
“You don’t trust Maries and Jade very well do you Fizzle?” My daughter stiffened up and I continued to play with her ears and mane.
“It’s not them that I don’t trust, it’s whatever Jade has gotten herself into this time that I don’t trust!” That’s well-spoken Fizzle, but I had a question for you.
“They aren’t that far away from Airship Mauled my little Fizzle.” I said calmingly. “Besides, what kind of trouble could Jade possibly get into while fishing?”
“What about the crazy whale shark thing?” Oh yeah, those incidents certainly did happen Fizzle. You were even witness to one personally, but I have a counter.
“They went to a river, nothing really big grows in the fresh water around here Fizzle.” I defended, because let’s face it, how big of a problem could I really expect my kitten to get into? Fizzle just raised her right brow at me in a questioning look. “It’ll be fine Fizzle, you’ll see, I think you’re just a little jealous of Maries date and want to interrupt it at any cost.”
“No, it’s definitely not Mara, Maria and Marie that I’m worried about mom, I’m friends with all of them.” I held her in place as she struggled to get up, she wasn’t going anywhere. “I can almost feel Jade getting into trouble right this second! It’s like a gut instinct I have.”
“They’ll be fine Fizzle, you’ll see.” We’d better see them healthy and fine, fishing was something that Jade excelled at and it wasn’t really dangerous unless you were out at sea.
-Jade-
“Well at least it can’t get onto land and chase us down.” The huge narwhal shifted forward and large leg shaped fin stomped the ground in front of me, I slowly started to back away from it. “It can walk on land… of course it can.”
“Can it use its horn to do magic?” After Mara said that, I had a few words for her.
“Actually that’s a common misconception about narwhals! Notice that the thing you called a horn isn’t centered on its head, but is in fact slightly above its lips and off to either the left or right depending on the narwhal. That’s not a horn, it’s the creature’s oversized tooth that made a hole through its upper lip.” I pointed out the supposed ‘horn’ and continued backing away as another leg fin was put on the ground, the whale sized monster seemed intent on crawling onto land to come get us. What did we ever do to this thing to attract its attention? “As for it being capable of magic, well if that tooth is magical, then we’re in trouble. The one thing we don’t have to worry about is being chewed to death. Aside from usually growing only two teeth, one being vestigial and the other looking like a nose horn, narwhals don’t have any other teeth and tend to swallow their prey whole and alive. Kind of like unicorn whales of the sea and…”
I had trailed off, mostly because the narwhal turned, opened its mouth wide and inhaled a powerful vortex of air that sucked out all the fish in the fish trap. It swallowed them all and it almost pulled me in, but Maria hooked her horns under my armpits and they backpedaled to safety with me. The large narwhal slowly turned to us menacingly.
“Jade we have neither seen a whale or the sea, aside from the trip to Canterlot we really haven’t gone far beyond our home of Flame Geyser Swamp or Airship Mauled.” Maria was just staring at the large narwhal that was now pointed at us. Maries kept backing away and staring at the monster that pulled its third leg out of the water. Tail Marie then spoke up, sounding a bit worried. “The suction on that mouth is quite powerful. How strong do you suppose a narwhals stomach acid is?”
“I’d rather we not find out and I might take you to see the sea one day. We’ll do it on the west coast so we can watch a nice sunset together. The first thing we should do is survive this thing.” I was summarily flipped onto Maries’ back by Maria, where I clung to them and they kept backing away from the fish legged narwhal crawling onto land after us.
It opened its mouth and the vortex of air entering it threatened to pull us in, I clung to Maries and they clung to the ground with their tiger legs claws and dug in their goat hooves.
Dirt, bugs, grass and other various things started flying into the monsters mouth and the ground around us started to come apart at how powerful the suctions force was.
“You’re not making a meal out of us!” I lifted my left hand and fired a magic missile down its throat, aiming for what I hoped was its uvula. I missed and still hit the back of its throat.
The blast of energy made its mouth reflexively shut and it groaned loudly in pain, even though that really didn’t hurt it much at all.
I didn’t know how it managed it, but the narwhal managed to properly project its anger at us quite well in its body language. That’s when its horn like tooth started to light up with magic, said magic started from the base of the tusk and slowly move down towards the tip. Said tip was pointed towards our general direction.
“Maries… run… very fast!” Oh holy freaking crap, it can actually use magic with its tooth! My shout made Maries turn around and they kicked off with their goat legs, we shot forward and I looked over my shoulder at Marie who was watching for something.
“Left!” Marie called and Maries’ body lunged to the left as a thick beam of yellow energy ripped through a swath of trees to our right. “Go right, go right! We can’t let it cage us towards the river, I’m pretty sure it can swim faster than we can and we do not want to be caught by its ability to suck us in!”
The large narwhal was giving chase to us and it wasn’t slow… why wasn’t it slow?! Where was the square cube law when you needed it? I didn’t understand the math, but I understood why it was a thing.
The Narwhal wasn’t in water or space, so wouldn’t it be too big to the point that it collapses in on itself? Oh right, this is a magical world where things like Dragon Lord Torch, hydra and Rocs existed without body size being an issue. All of them mountain or hill sized dangerous creatures, Mr. Vacuum Mouth being among them.
“It seems you’ve run into trouble with a narwhal-ker, quite dangerous that.” Generic was flying next to us, Marie and I looked to him. “We the Vibrant Vikings will assist you in its defeat.”
He couldn’t get excited or sound frightened by the prospect, why am I not surprised at this point? That’s when Flamberge swooped in and we all dodged another large beam of yellow energy trying to intercept Maries running form.
“We shall do battle with yonder beast!” He proudly proclaimed, only for the Narwhal stopped and sucked both him and Generic into itself. Yeah, it seemed like a creature that sucked birds out of the air. I don’t think Pegasi were lucky if they ever flew near this monster.
“I am ‘Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant’!” Yep they were all here, well at least one of them was. The other two just got swallowed alive by the vacuum whale with a magic tooth. He was running alongside us. “We should help friends, but yak not willing to face that. Fortitude is also still comforted by your very presence!”
“Well what do you expect us to do? That thing is ridiculously large and it can use…” Maries leapt to left and I almost fell off, Fortitude whipped his shield off his back with his right leg and blocked the beam of magic.
He blocked a destructive beam of magic, which could cut through trees, with what looked like a wooden shield. Yaks weren’t known for being particularly magical, but that was quite impressive and I would like to know how he did that.
Was he so dumb that he ignored magical physics making it an achievement in ignorance or was he so stupid that it had actually worked on the principle that it clearly shouldn’t have?
“Fortitude spirit be strong, like yak odor!” He may have deflected a magical beam off the shield, which is among a number of impossible things I’ve seen today, but he was still running with us in trying to escape the narwhal. “Yak be thinking of plan. Fortitude no ask for help, but friends can do it for yak!”
“Well there’s not really a better plan... into the forest!” At my words Maries and Fortitude turned right and the narwhal was still giving chase. Now that I looked at it more carefully, it seemed to have a big dopey grin on its face. That was a face that will haunt my nightmares. “If we can’t lose him, then we’re heading for Airship Mauled to get help! Before you ask most male narwhals have teeth or tusks like that, so I’m assuming its male because females rarely get those.”
“Sounds like the only plan to us Jade... everybody duck!” Everyone followed the logical conclusion. Maries threw herself to the ground as I snuggled into their back, while Fortitude moved into position behind us to successfully block the sweeping beam.
We hastily headed towards Airship Mauled.
-Vikings-
“Highland Pukwudgies!” The Vikings were nowhere near Airship Mauled at the moment, they also had both Sekhet and Quetzalcoatl watching them.