-Maries-
We just wanted to spend a nice day fishing with Jade and to bring back some to fill the larder with, why did this monster have to show up and ruin our fun?
Don’t worry about it Maria, we still learned a lot about fishing. Even though we never got to use the spear or do any tail fishing. Marie any more incoming shots?
No Mara, but the monster is keeping up with us.
Surviving our date is now our top and collective priority, as is protecting our prospective mate Jade from harm! I'm quite sure we all wish to try this form of courting again without interruption.
-Jade-
We were coming up on Airship Mauled fast, Fortitude was pretty good about standing strong in the face of beam attacks.
“How is your shield blocking those beams, is it magical in any way?” Looking in my direction, Fortitude seemed to have a confused look on his face.
“No, Fortitude shield not be having magic, it be made of flexible wood planks and metal!” The fact that it is a normal shield doesn’t make any sense. It was a pretty big and heavy shield, but there was nothing special about it that would actually prevent the narwhal’s beam attacks from going through it. “Fortitude just be blocking with strength of yak!”
“Speaking of yak, I’ve been meaning to mention something to you about one I’ve met.” We continued running from the narwhal behind us as it opened its mouth in an attempt to suck us in, but every time it did that it had to stop moving. I was thankful we were always out of range before it could get us by doing that, in fact we managed to get a decent distance from it. “You said you feel comfortable around me right?”
“Of course, you feel like yak friend already to Fortitude!” Well that’s nice and all Fortitude, but your stink was going to be an issue if we were to actually become friends. I think I’ve had enough time to figure out why you like my presence and it was pretty simple for me to figure out.
“I met Eir the Valkyrie, she said I was welcome in Yakhalla.” Those words had me being looked at in a different light by Fortitude.
“You are friend of great Valkyrie? Fortitude honored to meet and protect you friend Jade!” Shortly after his jovial statement, we had arrived at Airship Mauled.
Only there weren’t any Vikings here and I didn’t see Sekhet favoring or being friendly to the Vikings, nor did I see Quetzalcoatl being annoyed or hassled by them.
“Are there any gods around here?!” I shouted as I hopped off Maries and ran towards The Witch’s Fare, she slowly followed behind me breathing a bit more heavily. Having three heads to catch her breath with really helped Maries recover stamina quickly. I stopped when I heard a squeak, I looked down to see Ratatoskr standing proudly and looking up at me. “Again, are there any gods around here... that can actually do something useful?”
He glared at me angrily and crossed his paws, he started squeaking loudly in a slightly upset tone. I crouched down and looked him in the eyes.
“Look, buddy, if you can take of the creature coming in this direction, then the more power to you for being able to do something to the pertaining situation at hand that we really need help with.” I started off in a placating manner. “You must admit that you’re just not exactly a combat oriented god and we could really use one of those right about now. If we need a message delivered or some back up on a smaller problem, then we’ll certainly call on you. I and Fizzle know for a fact that you are not weak, it’s just that you are not as strong as other gods.”
Ratatoskr went to see what it was in a red blur, the little guy had super speed as he was a messenger god. A minute later he ran back by us into the restaurant, still an indistinguishable little blur; the poor little guy wasn’t a major god and it showed quite noticeably. At least Rata was smart enough to know that being immortal does not mean that he can’t feel pain and knew when to choose his battles, so he was pretty good at threat assessment.
“You and Maries are back a little bit too soon… what happened?” Mom gave me this look that was asking what I did this time.
“Well matriarch Kuril, there was a fish and…” Mara started, only for the monstrous Narwhal to burst in to view by ramming through some trees. Marie finished what Mara was going to say. “It was 'that~' big.”
Mom shivered at the sight of the narwhal slowly working to get the trees it toppled away from itself.
“Okay what has Rata so… whoa. You just can’t do normal now can you Captain?” Despite her joking, Jacky was already preparing her bow for the fight and she even grabbed her spear from behind the door. “That’s the biggest catch I’ve ever seen from a fresh water river!”
That reminded me, I really needed to go back and pick up my fishing equipment once this was all over with.
“They haven’t exactly caught it yet, Blackcap.” Fizzle sauntered out of the restaurant giving the monster a bland look and then she came over to me, she started to affectionately nuzzle me. “Sorry your date with Maries was interrupted, so when’s the next one? I think you owe Maries a completely romantic date, it’s only fair.”
“It was good, until that monster ruined it.” I’m a little surprised that Maria became the aggressive one for a moment. “We were learning so much about fishing from Jade, then it starts chasing us and it ended up swallowing both Generic and Flamberge.”
“Uh guys, I know you’re treating the narwhal as less of a threat than it really is, but that is not a good idea considering what it’s doing now.” At least I wasn’t the only one paying attention, Fortitude stood in front of the monster while hold his shield up defensively and he took a blast of magic from its spiraling tooth.
“It can use magic…” Fizzle’s ears wilted and now she looked properly concerned with our ability to handle this. “That’s a powerful looking horn.”
“It’s not a horn Fizzle, it’s the narwhal’s tooth that has burrowed through its face!” Why were we just standing by and watching as the narwhal tried to stomp down on Fortitude with a big pudgy leg shaped fin that surprisingly didn’t crush the yak. It did break the ground beneath him though. Fizzle and Jacky had disgusted looks on their faces about the information of what a narwhal’s tusk really was. “Why are we just standing here and watching this?”
“Because we’re all a bunch of jerks?” No, if anyone was a jerk around here Jacky, then it would be me! “Fortitude does seems to have it handled. Seriously though, I’m not going near a creature that’s smiling like that.”
Fortitude pushed the leg off of himself and then bashed his shield against the smiling beasts chin making it stumble backwards.
“That happy smile is pretty nightmarish isn’t it?” It wouldn’t be long before the narwhal resorted to trying to swallow us or Fortitude again. I could use a sheath on it, Sekhet had gotten me a new one and had personally asked me not to destroy this one unless necessary. That wouldn’t stop the narwhal for long though, magic missile had a minor effect and that was the only effect it would have. Magic missile was by far the weakest cast I had, but it was always available. I turned to mom. “Did you test the salamander scales mom?”
I hadn’t noticed when mom left, but she was now equipped with the buckler on her right arm and she looked particularly worried about having to fight the narwhal.
“Yes, but they aren’t too useful in this situation. The cast creates a protective wall of fire, sustain makes the user generate heat that only they are safe from and you can still be effected by other sources of heat.” That actually seemed somewhat useful mom. “The self-sustain is exceedingly useful though. It lets you see sources of heat, so invisibility spells and illusions don’t work.”
The narwhal opened its mouth and a vortex started to pull us all towards it, somehow Fortitude was unaffected. I’m beginning to see a recurring trend here when it came to the yak with the giant shield, he just did the impossible without thinking about it.
Maries dug in and Marie wrapped her head around my right wrist, I grabbed Fizzle’s front right hoof with my left hand and she grabbed mom by the leg with her left and she grabbed Jacky by the end of her tail making her squawk loudly in pain.
“Jacky, fire something into its mouth!” It sounded like Fizzle had the right idea, I would have suggested the same thing if fizzle hadn’t just done so.
“If you want me to do that, you’ll need hold me steady then!” She shouted back at us as she wavered in mom’s grip.
“Marie, try to get me close to the ground!” Marie forced her head downwards, when my paws touched the ground I flexed my toes and dug my claws into the ground. I was so glad that the narwhal couldn’t move while doing this.
I lowered Fizzled towards the ground and she dug in her rear hooves and started to pull. Following her lead I started pulling as well. Maria caught on to what we were doing and Maries body started to move forward, we needed to move a bit further away from the powerful vortex and get Jacky’s feet on the ground.
We got a few feet forward, then Fizzle managed to lower mom to the ground where she dug her claws into the ground like I did and tugged hard enough on Jacky’s tail to pull her to the ground, where she dug in her toes.
“Please don’t let go of me!” She carefully pulled her bow from her back and pulled at the string while taking aim horizontally.
“I’d never let go of any of my children in a situation like this! Just know you’ll always be one of my daughters and if you attempt to get married, then I’ll have even worse problems with letting go of you!” Mom, you were one of a kind to be thinking of that in a situation like this. “I don’t want any of you to grow up, but you’re all becoming beautiful, in my kittens case strange, women of your particular species!”
“Can we discuss your midlife crisis later mom, I think we have more pressing issues here!” Fizzle screamed over the roar of the vortex.
-Jacky-
Okay, I needed to sink this shot. With a mouth that big I can’t possibly miss at this range! I released the string and a wave of light slammed into its mouth. I staggered backwards making a coughing noise, then it started lighting it’s… Captain called it a tooth. It was about to fire and… wait what happened to that smelly Fortitude guy!
Oh, there he is… hopping into its still open mouth!?
The narwhal was about to fire and we didn’t have a shield to block it this time, admittedly should blocking a beam of raw magic with a shield be impossible? Was it even raw magic? I would think it would be raw magic.
Fizzle charged forward with her broken stump igniting with a fierce look of determination on her face.
-Fizzle-
Come on… come on… focus, I need to tighten my control! Ugh, my head feels like its splitting apart, but it’s all for a good cause. Counter that monsters magic, that’s all I have to do, counter its magic Fizzle. Counter it!
The narwhal fired and I unleashed a solid explosion of magic from my horn that met the beam and started canceling it out by building up in the spot where the two energies met. That’s when the two energies violently exploded.
The explosion sent me tumbling into a wall of energy generated by Kuril's shield, I was safely cushioned and stopped by it. The invading narwhal’s fleshy soft swirled horn like tooth started to rip up from the explosion, this made the narwhal wail in pain. It tried to charge its horn again only for ten magic missiles hit it at the same time.
I turned to Kuril and Jade as they slumped slightly in exhaustion. Had they just fired those bolts of magic from their ears, mouths and hands? It was effective at least and I felt uncomfortable about the narwhal’s damaged horn like tooth.
Its mouth opened unleashing a groaning noise, its head moved from side to side and yet it continued to have that creepy smile. Now that I thought of it, the smile might be because of the way its tooth was piercing through its own mouth.
Maries darted past us and jumped into its mouth. Wait… what?
“I think the Vibrant Vikings might be…” Jade started to say, when Smoke started pouring out the narwhal’s mouth and it let out a wailing screech. “Alive… Jacky start hitting it and don’t stop!”
“Looks like we’re having narwhal for dinner tonight, I hope Sekhet’s hungry.” Mom, I think Sekhet could eat the whole narwhal by herself. Nobody has ever bothered to ask what she did with the Ursa Medium after she took it down. “Who am I kidding, she’s always hungry!”
Jacky started launching blasts of noon powered sunlight into it, marking it up with each shot. One went into the narwhal’s eye. The smoke in its mouth was getting bad enough that it started coughing violently. It eventually spat up the three Vikings and Maries, who all got some distance from it.
“The sword is certainly on fire now Fizzle.” Yes Jade, I can see that. It’s not my eyes that are damaged.
“I’ll be eating well tonight!” Flamberge shouted as he flew forward and started to slash away at the slowly collapsing beast.
-Jade-
“Mom, I have an idea! Get a salamander scale… Maries is it illegal to eat narwhal?” I turned to the chimera that might become my girlfriend.
“No, narwhal-ker are not protected monsters and are technically classified as fish.” Generic interrupted before Maries could tell me. “Extremely hard to catch fish, because they are more likely to catch you and completely off guard at that.”
“Well everyone, this was a group effort and we all caught a relatively small whale sized fish…. did you happen to see anyone else in there?” I asked of Generic, he simply shook his head that they hadn’t seen anything else inside of the beast. “Then cast a Salamander scale at that narwhal and let’s cook it up for a Viking feast! Just remember that I like my fish steak well done.”
“Pegasus ponies in the past were said to have eaten narwhal-ker in the era of the three tribes when food was scarcer.” That was something that Maries knew that I didn’t.
I loved Fizzle, but I didn’t know if I could love Maries as equally. They certainly deserved a fully undisturbed, and completely honest, date from me. I didn’t know how I’d even juggle between Fizzle and them, but I truly wanted to try.