//------------------------------// // Chapter twenty two, While You Were Out: Little Kitty. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Fizzle- I had recently finished hugging Maries and walked into a scene going on around Jade’s never ending fire, several people of Airship Mauled were watching Velvet and Arizona go at each other. It was with a ferocity I would hardly ever see in a pony. I sat down next to Snickers who offered the large marshmallow she was innocently munching on and I shook my head no, then a hoof held a drink out before me. I took it and before I could ask, Mr. Refreshment told me what it was. “Strawberry smoothie.” Mr. Refreshment said as he sat down next to me to watch the action. “You look like you needed it.” The drink stand he had dragged over here was new, he was really good at what he does. Glad he lived here, he made excellent ice cream floats. “Thanks.” I took a sip and watched as Velvet froze Arizona solid, I would have been more worried had Arizona not burst out of the ice a split second later to hit Velvet with a hoof that sent the deer sprawling. “Popcorn?” Pinkie offered as we watched and I didn’t question her sudden appearance, I just took the offered bag and kept watching the battle while crunching the buttered goodness. “Oh d… oh my goodness.” Well it was easy to see that Fluttershy realized the pun she was about to make and decided to change gears. I guess they were visiting today and it appears they trotted in on a volatile showdown between a cow and a deer. “How did this fight start?” “Arizona got marshmallow on our new friend Velvet.” It was obvious, because it was still there and my answer was received with a slight whimper. “Shouldn’t someone be stopping them?” Would anyone really want to get between those two Fluttershy? Logically speaking, it was best to wait for them to tire each other out as they were beating the stuffing out of one another. Velvet and Arizona were a surprisingly even match, they were both really fast and intelligent. It was brawn vs. magic being their major difference here, Arizona’s brawn against Velvet’s magic. There was also the fact that Arizona was the tougher of the two and could take hits, Velvet couldn’t do the same. While Velvet could strike out faster, her physical hits were hardly the same as Arizona’s and it was the assisting ice magic that did the real damage. “Well this might end in another medical emergency.” Dr. Patch said as he sat down with the visitors and townsfolk to watch the fight as well. “Someone should have probably sold tickets, also this is a sign that I might be on retainer for a little bit longer than expected.” “Eh, it’ll be okay doc, once Velvet figures out all this fighting is doing is getting her dirtier.” After saying that I slurped at my smoothie a bit and continued to eat popcorn. “She’ll probably stop and go take a bath, in the same line of thought Arizona could care less about fighting dirty.” “They look like they are really hurting each other.” Stated Fluttershy worriedly. “It’ll end in a lot of bruising maybe, but I doubt they’d seriously hurt one another.” A chunk of sharp icicle rammed itself halfway into the ground in front of me, this made Fluttershy squeak loudly and duck behind Pinkie Pie who was waving a flag with Arizona’s name and an odd ripped paper like shape on it. “Yep, they’re certainly not trying to kill each other.” Another sharp chunk of ice flew at Arizona. She didn’t avoid this one, which barely pierced her side and it broke apart on impact. Stumbling a few steps looking a bit stunned, I noted Arizona was barely even bleeding from that superficial wound. “Well the shows nice and all, but I got a clinic to set up.” We all turned to Sekhet as she walked off towards the fruit orchard and a little to the north into a copse with a bit of a clearing. Curious as to how she was going to do that, I followed her while passing off my popcorn to Fluttershy who fell into step beside me. She likely didn’t want to hang around the two frenzied fighters. “How are you going to do that Sekhet, wood clinics or hospitals do not make very good environments for patients.” In answer to my question and follow up slurp of my smoothie, Sekhet flipped and shrunk down to the size of a small cat. “You know, for a war goddess, you’re often more adorable than the constantly angry and violence prone image most war gods are perceived as having.” “Yes, well, as I have said several times, anger is better when used cold and calculating than when hot and messy. Also being adorable does tend to make everyone underestimate you.” Sekhet held up a paw for us to stay where we were. “As for wooden airship? Yeah, that would make for a pretty poor clinic. I’m kind of the one who causes most of the major housing and developments around here. So I’m going to taunt causality to hit me with a metal airship so we can have decent clinic to work with.” “Are you really sure that’s a good idea?” Fluttershy queried of the currently cat sized goddess. Fluttershy took some popcorn out of the bag and idly munched on it. “Won’t you get hurt?” “Fluttershy, I think I’ve come to appreciate being hit by airships and I’m immortal. What’s a little pain when it comes to helping Airship Mauled grow?” Sekhet cleared her throat, preparing to do what she said and taunt causality, if she hadn’t already by just mentioning it to us out loud. I and Fluttershy moved away from her quite a fair distance back. “Okay world…” That was about as far Sekhet got before a large metal ship the size of an ocean liner landed on her, the shockwave of it crashing sent me and Fluttershy tumbling for a few feet. Thankfully Fluttershy managed to keep the popcorn from spilling everywhere, but the remainder of my strawberry smoothie was a sad casualty. Once we got our bearings we saw that the ship came in upside down and no one was aboard it. It didn’t look like an airship, for one there was no deflated balloon. If it wasn’t an airship, how did it get here? -Five minutes earlier, a being known as Leviathan, Manehattan Port- I was a god who just so happened to be hanging around Manehattan’s port. Being a serpent god of water, currents, sometimes rivers and partially the tides, I was always in or near water. I was kind of helpless in ice, that was another’s domain and I was kind of a lesser god. Poseidon kind of delegates some things to me, like how Apollo delegates a lot to Celestia. I’m so glad that the ship was empty, I should really learn to watch where I’m sneezing. Despite being a lesser god my power was definitely nothing to sneeze at… ohohoho~! I’m so glad that I didn’t owe anyone a boon for what looked like an incidental weather phenomenon of an impossibly powerful waterspout. Wherever that ship landed I hoped it didn’t hit a mortal, because then I’d actually owe that mortal or their family something. Nope… I instinctively knew that I didn’t hit a mortal, but for the life of me I can’t help but feel a sense of dread for whatever it did hit. If it wasn’t a mortal, then it was no problem of mine. No one would be the wiser to good old Steven Magnet’s slip up. I so did like watching ponies go about their day jobs, but maybe I should move up a river somewhere to avoid detection in case unicorns come to investigate the incident. I’ll come back to see the fashion fair a few years from now after I lay low for a while. Now where was a nice quiet dark place… oh the Ever Free Forest, of course! That would be a good spot for an extravagant underwater vacation home. -Fizzle- Upon closer inspection, it was definitely a fairly large cruise ship and not even an airship version of a cruise ship. A sea bound cruise ship just happens to fall out of the sky when we were nowhere near the ocean. How in the world does that even happen? That’s really kind of insane. Was I getting used to the insanity? I mean, a large amount of ship did just crash near us and I’m barely batting an eye at it! Well at least we had plenty of material to make a clinic… or a full blown hospital. I’d need to send Rata to deliver a message to Ponville Construction. I motioned for Fluttershy to follow me and she kept shooting horrified looks at the cruise ship that nearly hit us and had squashed the poor cat sized Sekhet. “That’s Sekhet for you, putting the ‘ship’ in Airborne Ship Mauled. Now we have a good foundation for a full blown hospital.” If it had been a smaller ship it would have been a clinic, which would have certainly been fine by me. A full blown cruise ship however, would definitely make a good hospital. “Hopefully the construction company won’t mind the fact that mom can’t cook for them this time.” We made our way back to the fight to see Velvet in a choke hold and Arizona taking several bowling ball sized chunks of the ice to the head. Most of said ice chunks were deflected by Arizona’s horns. Ignoring the battle and staying relatively clear of it, I walked up to Rata who was sipping at a lemonade smoothie. Mr. Refreshment was selling drinks to random passerby’s who stopped to watch a reindeer and cow tussle. “I need another strawberry smoothie Mango, I lost mine when a cruise liner hit Sekhet.” It was the little stare that I got that let me know I had to elaborate. “It wasn’t an airship this time. It was a ship that happened to be in the air, but it was a cruise ship made entirely for sea travel only.” “Eh, I wondered what that loud noise was. It was still a ship. That was in the air. And it mauled her.” He thrust a drink to me. “This one is also free of charge. Anyway, I think it still counts from a semantic point of view.” “Thanks Mango. Rata mail delivery, I need a notepad, a stamp and a writing utensil.” Blinking, the squirrel flickered from the spot he was sitting to watch the entertainment and appeared right in front of me with the required items. I took the notepad while Fluttershy squealed and hugged Ratatoskr because he was an adorable little god. “Oh you’re so cute, adorable and precious!” One of the gods Fluttershy couldn’t be afraid of, on the other side of things Rata enjoyed being hugged by a beautiful maiden. Turning back to what I needed to do. Let’s see, address to deliver to on the envelope, one of a kind risqué female squirrel stamp unique to Ratatokr’s mailing office and now to write down a message of what we need constructed and the type of ship it was being constructed from. Not all airships that crashed here were the same model and they’ve worked with weirder before. I’m sure they could work with a cruise ship. “Okay Fluttershy, let go of the god.” Despite my need of him, Fluttershy gave me a big eyed adorable quivering lipped look and Rata soon joined in. Rolling my eyes, I shook my head and sighed. “Fine, thirty more seconds of cuddling. I expect a free delivery though!” Rata motioned an agreement and then snuggled up against Fluttershy’s chest, I left the letter there. It wasn’t like Rata couldn’t be in Ponyville in less than five seconds anyway, so the extra snuggle time was worth it for both Fluttershy and Rata. Was there anything else that needed to be taken care of? I looked over to see Velvet using a suplex on Arizona. How she miraculously got into a position to do that I’ll never know. I was actually expecting Arizona to be the one that does something like that to her. Yep, I couldn’t possibly think of anything else… other than visiting Dr. Patch’s injured patients. “Yeah, that’s how you do it Velvet!” Cheerilee cheered exuberantly for the deer she had only met recently. “My sister couldn’t have done it any better!” “Hey, where are my combat tips?! Isn’t this supposed to be a fair fight?” Complained Arizona as she rolled over and wobbled a bit on her legs. Shaking her head to clear the dizziness away, Arizona narrowed her eyes on Velvet and smiled. When Velvet smiled back, they pawed the ground ready to charge one another. “Though I must admit, this is one of the best dustups I’ve ever had in a while!” “Yes and my precious floof shall be avenged!” Velvet struck a pose standing tall, she turned her head and glanced at Arizona coyly. “If you think you’re a good fight, then that is to laugh, ha~!” “I’ll show you a good fight!” And like that Arizona was charging Velvet and they were at it again. The cow grabbed onto Velvet and attempted to force her into a pin. “You know you can just take a bath right, all you’re doing is getting dirtier.” “Coo…” Snickers mewled out as she finished swallowing the last bit of giant marshmallow, she was now sporting a distended turtle tummy and smiling as the combatants continued to beat the snot out of one another. Everyone’s favorite snuggle turtle even started to rub her flippers in a… would I really call it an evil manner? Yeah, not going to touch on that thought any further and what it said about Jade being her familiar bond partner. In Arizona’s case, the snot beating was a bit literal and it grossed Velvet out somewhat. The deer still kept fighting despite that. Turning away from the rather interesting fight and the gathered crowd, I made my way inside. I had to make sure that Jade, mom and Sugar weren’t being disturbed by all the noise and were still resting. They needed their sleep. -Jacky- “This has got to be the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny.” Though the show was enjoyable and I was able to sidle up to a Gene, I wasn’t actually rooting for either one of them. “No it isn’t! There’s no good guys, bad guys or copious amounts of fireworks!” Flamberge the excitable didn’t seem to notice my closeness to Gene. Gene might seem generic to Jade or maybe even Fizzle, but Gene’s mellow attitude was certainly not generic or common among griffons. I had to admit that I may want to ask him something, but I was a bit too shy to do so. It was kind of a strange feeling given I was an outgoing unlucky pirate girl that was cute and knew how to use a cannon like no one’s business. Okay, I seriously wanted to ask him out on a date, but I was having problems getting the words out. Vikings are ridiculously attractive, even if they looked like an everyday average griffon. Vikings were like pirates in so many ways and we had a lot in common. Flippers rubbing Snickers undivided smiling attention was curiously diverted to me and Gene for some reason.