Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows


Chapter twenty one, Cult Evasion: The Retaliation.

-Jade-

After being put through two different walls, I found myself on my back in a… what the… a bowling alley? Why in the world did the thestrals have a... you know what? Forget it, I’m done trying to make sense of all the weird stuff I’ve seen here this week.

Going with crazy cultists logic on this one, because I seriously doubt thestrals enjoyed bowling all too much to really install a bowling alley like this.

Getting my mind and face backs towards Hollow Heart, he could hit hard and his hits stung. I bounced on my back twice before coming to a rest.

The following blow was quite dazing, as Hollow came down on me to impale my face with both his front hooves and broke the floor with my head.

This should have killed me, given how much force he put into stomping my head. Instead my entire face bent inward, but my skull didn’t break. Thankfully I been ready for Hollow to be quite physically capable, had I not been ready for him I’m quite sure my head would have been cracked like an egg after he stomped it into the floor.

He backed off of me with a smile, that smug grin was soon wiped off his face when he saw that I was still alive. I sat up and gave him a rather bored look as my face popped back out, he was pretty big as far as thestrals go and I really couldn’t take him.

Oh I could survive him just fine, but actively being on the winning side of this fight? Yeah, not going to happen given how much skill he showed in the first ten seconds of combat. I clearly had a pretty good reason for why my current magical alchemy sustain wasn’t my knife and why I had switched it away so quickly.

“Yay, that ouch.” I stated as dryly as possible. He looked at me in confusion and then I slugged him across the face with my right fist, I staggered him at best and that probably wouldn’t even bruise. It got him off of me at the very least.

“So, tougher than you look, you and your friends are being bigger nuisances then I could have ever imagine.” Hollow said staring at me with those cold calculating eyes, as I rolled and stood up looking wobbly. “I wonder, how did you survive those blows? They should have killed you.”

Tightening the musculature in my buttocks to gain some semblance of balance, I probably looked like I had been dazed by the blows from an outsider’s perspective. That wasn’t quite the problem, but my tail helped balance me out and hopefully he didn’t notice anything amiss.

I turned to face him with my right side and slung my left arm back while I raised my shaky right hand palm facing towards him and decided to give him some spiel while I formed a magic missile and held it there.

“Your cult is horrible and I think I dislike everything about you and it in equal measure.” Well if I was going to start talking you to death, then I may as well tell you how I felt. “Also you’re clearly a monster to fight, how you ever formed this failure cult to begin with I’ll never know.”

“It was not by my hoof that the cult came to be, but I was called upon to be its leader and as such they pay tribute to me, Hollow Heart!” He said calmly as he spread his wings, but he didn’t come at me. “All shall fall to the coming darkness and nightmares!”

“Tribute?! Darkness and nightmares are not as strong as you seem to think they are.” I kept myself positioned with my right side facing him, he wasn’t going to notice until it was too late. I took a step toward him and felt a tug on my left arm, but I didn’t change my profile or I’d give up what I was about to do. “I shine light with illumination into the shadows to disperse the darkness to the truth, nightmares are only as strong as our fears and how strongly we cling onto them. Fears are healthy to have, but facing them makes nightmares break upon the dawn and only strengthens the person the nightmares would try to defeat. You’re cult is a weak way to keep the masses enslaved to your whims, I don’t think you even believe in your own doctrine. You’re only in this for the power the position of being Nightmare Moon’s lead cultist provides you.”

“Perhaps the same could be said of all religions. The weak and pathetic gather to chase after power while putting those stronger above them in charge to speak the lies that they’ll gladly listen to. I however have earned my strength and position, I do not falter in the face of failure of the likes you have brought to me.” He grinned showing his terrifyingly sharp looking fangs. “In fact, I can eventually be considered a savior of my kind. My leadership is unquestionable as I have an iron hoof on the people here and we will have night eternal, where all my kind are at our strongest… in the dark light of her moon. Only… there happens to be some minor obstacles in my way. You and Prime are just big thorns in my side. Given the general incompetence of my men surrounding you and Prime in the efforts of your removal, I’ll gladly deal with you both myself in a more… permanent fashion.”

“Words as empty as your heart, the thestrals ill need a savior like you. For what is a stallion like you? A miserable little pile of secrets hiding weakness, but enough talk, have at you!” I fired a magic missile and he easily dodged around it to the right like I knew he would. Incidentally it put him close to my left side.

Hollow came at me quickly and I didn’t move from my spot, only when it was too late did he see something unnatural about my current stance.

It all happened in slow motion as he came for me and saw that my left arm was stretched out beyond the normal length it can naturally go. His eyes slowly went wide and a small smirk started building on my face into a full on feral grin as a look of complete surprise entered his.

Behind me was my left hand grabbing onto a counter a good twenty or more feet away, I had my feet firmly planted to the floor for this. I let go of the counter, balled my fist and threw my hip into it as I heaved my arm forward in what amounted to a rubber band snapping at subsonic to possibly sonic speeds.

As you can imagine the effect was quite amazing as my wobbly looking fist struck Hollow’s face at a rather insane speed and kept going. My arm continued stretching as the momentum kept pushing the thestral on it forward.

He plowed me through two walls and then tried to smash my head in? Well I put him through four laterally at a seventy or so degree angle from where we came in at and just gave him a massive headache as he went through all those walls head first.

The recoil as my extended arm came back on me was quite horrific and sent me flying. It caused me to go bouncing around like an out of control pinball throughout the bowling alley. I think I might have even accidentally hurt an innocent thestral with my whacky waving flailing, possibly inflatable, rubber tube like body.

While my limbs were flailing all over the place, I got at least three strikes before I came to a stop with a bowling pin sticking out of my mouth in the middle of a bowling lane. I spat it out of my mouth and looked at my tangled up body, with a sigh.

After a minute or so of untangling my very hard to manipulate body, I could hear Fizzle shout something going on outside the bowling alley beyond the walls I was put through.

“May the power of the rubber chicken shine its light upon all who saw that and wept bitter tears at the awesome it provided.” I said solemnly stated while hugging my new rubber chicken to myself.

I doubt Hollow Heart would stay down for long, but after hitting him like that he’d at least be out of it for a while. That was hopeful thinking on my part as Prime said he never wanted to face Hollow in direct combat for the very reason that he was tough, prideful and horribly determined to be the leader of a militaristic dictatorship in Nightmare Moon’s name. He even instantly went for the kill on me, which was the kind of serious stuff I’d rather not think about.

Having assasins after me was bad enough, I didn’t need a cult leader on my case as well. So I decided to go all out on him. Unfortunately I couldn’t just slingshot my arm around all wildly like that, I had to actually grab onto something and make sure that my arm stays stretched as I tensed all the muscles in it while I did so.

It just so happens that positioning was in my favor this time. I wobbly walked towards the two walls I was rammed through. To think mom called it a simple defensive sustain that left you incapable of doing anything productive.

Sure it was hard to walk and I was a bit unwieldly using this particular magical alchemy sustain, but with enough practice it was worth using when you can do things like what I just did to Hollow Heart. These floppy rubbery limbs and body just saved my life and were a worthwhile investment to learn how to use.

-Velvet-

I was staying out of the fight with Snickers cuddling my back and Sugar sleeping on top of my head. The fighting had started in earnest and Kuril had very well called it. Despite our best efforts at being stealthy, Hollow still managed to set up an ambush point.

It wasn’t more than a minute or two after watching the rather unusual Jaded get forced through a wall, which looked like it would hurt.

It wasn’t too long after that I watched Hollow Heart burst through four walls and became embedded in the fifth.

I wondered if he was even… he moved and opened his eyes. He slowly and roughly pulled himself from the cratered wall and took a few steps, before grunting as he felt halfway to the ground before catching himself.

He clutched at his head and let out an aggravated sound that was a mix between a screech and an animalistic roar. I was quite horrified by this and started to move towards the action while it looked like he was resting until he could continue pursuing us.

He was still standing after that? Whatever Jaded hit him with, she did a number on him from the onset it would appear. It just apparently hadn’t been enough to knock him out.

Well no time like the present, time to go join in on the fun. So long as nobody damages my perfectly lovely floof, I won’t have to maul half these guys on the principle alone. Does no one understand how hard it is to get my floof just right?

-Jacky-

“Incoming!” I ducked behind the near instantaneous squat wall mom made with a potion and the usual requisite rhyme she spoke when doing magical things. I heard a crossbow bolt shattered against the wall and several throwing stars sunk into it. “Does anyone have a plan? The crossbow guys are worse than the bladed wing guys. Also where’s Screaming Star?”

We really need a way to break through these thestrals and soon if we were to make our escape in a timely fashion. I heard a clang from my immediate right and turned to see Blade struggling with a thestral.

“Do you mind Blade, I’m trying to get a bead on the guys with the crossbows.” I was aiming with a rock held against the string of my bow.

Blade might have grunted at having her splinted wings and back bent over the stone wall, but she still had the time to roll her eyes at me and kick the armored thestral into a nearby wall and charge him.

I took aim and fired the rock, Fizzle jumped as a crossbow bolt fell next to her. I hit the firing mechanism in time.

“Thanks Jacky!” I waved to her as she bucked a thestral in the face with both her rear hooves and the rolled onto her back to start a windmill that send her legs flying into the faces of several thestrals surrounding her several times.

Even without the use of her horn Fizzle was still quite dangerous with her break dance moves, concerning the fact that she just grabbed a thestral and broke his leg with a very unique twisting move.

I turned to mom who was deflecting crossbow bolts and shuriken with her barrier and spiking it out into thestrals, any who got close enough to her was hit several times with the waffle mallet.

It wasn’t long before Velvet charged onto the scene. She said she could fight, but I didn’t expect her to slap her way through several thestrals while stylistically dancing. Not only that, but with the barest movements of her body she could create pillars of ice to smack them around with, she even fired an icicle at one of the thestrals trying to shoot at us with a crossbow.

Then Jade shows up looking almost fine if not for the scuff marks and she immediately starts firing magic missiles into them.

Bumble with a swift action created a path through the thestrals for us by barreling haplessly through them in a volatile manner with his whole body.

“Time to go kids, drop your opponents quickly and let’s get out of here!” In the middle of stating this mom blocked a thestrals wing blades with her shield and then grabbed his right leg with her left hand and swung him around to throw him into several other thestrals. “Daring use the gunbai to give us some breathing room. Blade, RC and Jacky, watch our backs!”

Daring swept the gunbai around in a wide arcing circle and a circular shockwave erupted around her and drove all the nearby flying thestrals to the ground.

I ran forward while firing several deftly aimed rocks into the armored thestrals wings, sending the remaining ones that were still airborne spiraling into the ground.

“We’re kind of awesome aren’t we?” Jade’s wobbling formed stiffened up as she tapped her knife and then proceed to run forward and perform a flying kick on a thestral trying to get Fizzle from behind.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about my little kitten.” Mom said before she pulled a cork out of a vial with her teeth and flicked it outward to splash a mass of black ink into a nearby thestrals face before kicking him in his barrel doubling him over. “Come on everyone, start moving forward! We don’t have all day and I want to be out of here before this gets worse."

We started moving up the path to the monastery.