//------------------------------// // Chapter twenty, The Whimsical Witch of Even worse: Tanking injury. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Jade- We were near the edge of the city where we finally had eluded our pursuers, the thestrals really knew how to track someone down. “I think we finally lost them.” Yeah that was one weird runabout, I even picked up this nifty gunbai from when I and my new friend ran through an armory so I could steal some nunchucks. Just because mom doesn’t want me to have them, doesn’t mean I’m not going to get them myself. “They are far, far, more competent then the Canterlot Royal Guard than they have any right to be, but then again they do have ninja training. Admittedly Screaming having as a drill instructor probably did them all some favors.” I laid the fan over my left shoulder and leaned against the nearby stone wall carefully to avoid aggravating my two injuries. “Can we take a breather please?” The huffing and puffing four legged form on the ground whined. “You know, I have to wonder what’s keeping you here.” I had to admit that my new friend managed to miraculously keep up with my artful dodging shenanigans without taking a hit. “Also you weren’t the one that was shot twice in the last hour or so.” I was only ever hit twice, the crossbow bolt in the shoulder before I ran into Snickers and the so called ‘Pretty’ as Snickers has been calling her. Snickers was politically correct, she was pretty. That was bandaged up and okay, Bahamut had some spare bandages at his completely out of place taco stand. The other crossbow bolt was currently in an unfortunate position and I didn’t know how I was going to pull that out without it being agonizing, I’d bite that bullet when we eventually find someone with a medical kit. Thankfully Ms. ‘Pretty’ bandaged my shoulder up with what we had available after helping me rip that bolt out. “Coo coo hiss coo hiss hiss coo.” Yes Snickers, you were adorable and you did lead this poor lady all the way up here to her possible doom. She raised her flippers while hovering in front of me with her fluffy wings. “Coo!” “So… Snickers is the one keeping you here? You really don’t have to stick around, but apparently Snickers here wanted you to meet someone and she thought that someone would be nearby.” Sure my buddy might be smarter than the average turtle, but she followed the familiar link to a really dangerous place. “Unfortunately for her, this person she wants to introduce you to is an airship ride to our home. It will require a whole bunch of drama you probably would rather not deal with and I suggest you should leave while you still can. Fair warning, our exit strategy isn’t going to be nearly as pretty as you are.” “Thank you for the compliment, I am quite lovely aren’t I? Anyway I climbed all the way up here because she thought it was important, I only came all this way because of her. Through howling snow storms, giant spiders, an overly affectionate polar bear and a few other things. I think I would like to make the decision for myself if it’s too much trouble for me to keep going with you or not at this juncture.” She was putting on a brave front. What she said next, it was said with absolute gumption and determination. “After sneaking into a guarded monastery with dangerous fanged ponies, finding a hidden city in the mountain lit up by glowing moss, pulling a crossbow bolt out of and patching up what has to be the most annoyingly crazy cat alive, eating at a taco stand apparently run by an exceedingly intimidating dragon god, running through an armory with crossbow bolts constantly being fired at me just for my loose association with said cat as she stole that fan thing and a long highly exhausting chase through the city… do you seriously think that I’d give up at this point?! I should, but I’m not going to! What’s next, what is life seriously going to throw at me now? I’ve never been in so much danger in my life, but at this point I’m all in for whatever this sweet little darling came to me for while shivering up a storm on the doorstep of my nice, safe, warm cottage home in the cold. At this point I should be dedicated to an insane asylum.” “Coo!” Well that made Snickers happy, because a second later she started hissing into my left ear that she thought she might have accidentally caused ‘Pretty’ a metric ton of trouble and that she hated her. I just gave my buddy a flat look, she could be smart at times and at others she was rather oblivious. “Okay let me fill you in on my family, because I’m pretty sure they were the ones driving that bright neon green tank we ran by.” I inhaled and then let it all out slowly and concisely. “My girlfriend, who was adopted by my mom, is a unicorn with a broken horn and is self-conscious about it. Don’t stare at the stump when you meet her or I may get upset on her behalf. My feathered sister is a pirate parrot with a penchant for horrible luck. Standing near her is an occupational hazard, but I do it anyway as I care about her as does the rest of my family. As for my mother, she is a witch of good taste that can cook a meal to fit any palate and she’s recently been getting into slinging vials of magical potions around. If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m the lovable rogue who happens to be a priest. Oh and my other girlfriends are a chimera.” She was about to ask me something and we both heard a loud chittering, I blink and looked to Sugar who gave me a lazy look. It wasn’t her that started acting up, for charging out the darkness at insane speeds was Ratatoskr. “Continuing on, this is a messenger god squirrel we call Rata, but his name is Ratatoskr. He’s the head of our town’s mail department.” I took the offered letter and opened it and looked it over. “Aw, Sekhet is worried about us… also what are you’re going rates for medical kit deliveries? I think Jacky, mom and Fizzle are in danger and might need a divine intervention considering I last saw them being trailed by an even larger tank. In any case, I have a message I want you to take back to Sekhet after you check on the rest of my family and assist them by delivering any stuff they might need to help them if they are injured.” The squirrel reached behind his back and pulled out a notepad and an empty envelope, I took them all and started writing what I wanted to tell Sekhet. After I stuffed the note into the envelope, he sealed it and wrote something down on the notepad and showed it to me. He’d need money to pay for the supplies, but he’d deliver them and check up on my family free of charge. The average going rate for a medical kit was a bit pricy, but I was willing to pay it. I reached into my pack, I was a bit low on money. I just dumped it all out, every last bit, then gave Rata a look of worry. He nodded to me and with a sweep of his paw, all the money swiftly disappeared behind his back. He chittered something and then he shot off down the streets like a rocket was tied to his back with my envelope and money. “So all of that stuff is true on top of a squirrel being in charge of your mail.” It sounded like we lived a life that was completely unbelievable and overly complicated from the way ‘Pretty’ said that. “Well he is a messenger god and he can deliver anywhere, which is provided that you can pay him well enough for his goods and services.” Now what were we going to do now? I hadn’t a clue, I only sent the Rata delivery service on the off chance that mom, Fizzle or Jacky had been seriously hurt in whatever it was they were doing. “He won’t work for just anyone, he’ll raise the cost of his assistance if he doesn’t like you. He’ll make paying him cost things you can’t give up if you’ve upset him greatly and he’s really quite strong for his size, that little guy kicked me across a room a few times. He’s kind of mercenary like that. Oh and one last rule about my family, you’re already considered our friend and don’t die young no matter what happens.” From what little I saw, the tank they were in looked a few steps away from being totaled, while the other one looked completely pristine and only slightly scuffed. “Sound like a good rule.” Mumbled ‘Pretty, I would have to eventually ask her for her actual name. She hadn’t exactly told me yet. -Some time later, Jacky- Okay, I was coming too and I heard a gasp and I felt something crushing my lungs. “Oh, my little baby chick is alright!” Mom was crushing me and I started gagging loudly to get her attention. She let go of me and gave me a sheepish grin. “Sorry sweetie, I got the piece of metal out of your leg, cleaned the wound, sowed it up and then patched it.” “How did you do that? None of us were exactly carrying medical supplies, unless you have the healing potions working correctly this time without those nasty side effects.” My answer was mom simply holding up a medical kit, apparently mom was still working out the bugs on the healing potions and only in an emergency would I dare use once of those potions. “Jade somehow got in contact with Rata and he delivered a medical kit to us along with an instruction manual for idiots who don’t know how to perform emergency medical procedures. It was very informative and really helped out a lot.” Just guessing from mommy Kuril’s words here, but I assumed we were going to put up a hospital in Airship Mauled as soon as we got back. Mostly because of all the dangerous stuff we keep doing. Also Captain and I did tend to get injured a lot. “Fizzle woke up before you did, but she took a pretty bad hit to the head and Blade landed on her wings in a nasty manner. You got a bump, but at least you didn’t bleed like Fizzle did.” “Yet you’re perfectly fine?” I looked at the bandage wrapped tightly around my leg, mom did good work and I’d have to thank Rata later for making the delivery. Sure a peg leg or a hook would be cool, but I wanted to keep all my body parts mostly intact. “What can I say, I landed on my feet and rolled with the sudden stop from the tank hitting the ground.” Why did mom suddenly sound nervous all of the sudden, that aside, Abyssinians were really quite awesome at taking falls. As if the legends surrounding Jade jumping off the side of Canterlot weren’t enough, mom pulled off an impressive maneuver despite the fact that the sudden jarring stop in a falling tank should have injured her as well. “Anyway, do you think you’re healthy enough to find out what’s wrong with the tank? We’re kind of in a pickle right now.” “Why what’s wrong?” There was this undeniable sinking feeling in my gut, I’m pretty sure mom, Fizzle and Blade felt it as well. There was a sense of menace in the air down here where we fell. “Quick question Blackcap, do you have arachnophobia?” Fizzle came up next to me with slightly blood soaked bandages covering the left side of her temple. “We kind of need you’re expertise in an ‘as soon as possible’ manner as you can manage.” I recognized that I was on the floor behind the driver’s seat and spotted Blade climbing down the ladder. Both her wings were splinted, she was looking quite worried and having messed up wings must suck for her. It was as if not being able to talk wasn’t bad enough for her, she recognized my staring and gave me a wan smile before nodding lightly. “Okay how big are the spiders we’re talking about here?” It didn’t take a genius like me to notice that Fizzle, Blade and mom all winced and shivered violently. “That bad huh?” “According to Ms. Bright, we’re kind of in the middle of the spider warrens beneath the city.” Okay mom, I think I can see where this is all going. “The tank might also be a little inoperable thanks to the landing.” “Giant flesh eating spiders?” They all nodded at me. “Yeah, that was a no brainer to guess. So the delicacy of the thestrals is going to eat us if we tried to go it on foot?” “That’s about the size of it.” Groaned out Fizzle while rubbing at her bandages with a hoof, she kept her voice even and quiet. “You’re kind of the most important person in the tank right now, you absolutely need to get this thing running again.” “I’ll see what I can do, but I need to get up so I can see what the problems are. Where’s the light coming from?” Sitting up I could see the pitch black darkness beyond the driver’s seat. “It looks like its pitch black out there.” Blade pulled out a small vial holding a green sludge like substance from her saddle bags, it was most likely glow moss or glow moss spores. She shook it up and the vial started glowing brightly. Yeah, that certainly explained it. “Okay, thestrals are crazy about that glow moss stuff, I get it!” I’m kind of sad that missed seeing Rata, but I was happy that he somehow managed to circumnavigate his way to us to drop off some rather helpful supplies. Once I was up and standing, it was time for me to look into whatever damage was done to this PATTYCAKE. She served us really well up to this point and I think I owed to the tank to get it moving again for helping us survive for this long. If it was even possible to get the tank running again, what direction would we even go in even if we did? I looked out from the driver’s window and saw chunks of street glowing in places all around our immobile little shelter in the distance. -Fizzle- I was getting rather antsy, or was that the headache I currently had? I wasn’t about to channel too much magic in this state. Unicorns should avoid casting magic with head injuries, while tired and or under the effects something equally mentally debilitating . I swayed a bit and suddenly found myself being held steady by a pair of robed arms that calmly started rocking me. It felt nice, it was making me sleepy though. What was that thing about head injuries and sleeping again? I remember reading about it once. “Fizzle, you need rest. Some sleep will help you recover.” Mom’s words were gently whispered into my ears as she carefully rocked me back and forth while holding me tight. "Hush now, quiet now, it's time to rest your sleepy head..."