//------------------------------// // Chapter twenty four, Guard Goading: Dated concerns. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Jade, Airship Mauled, early morning at The Witch’s Fare- “Jade can I ask…” Jacky’s been calling me that a lot more lately, but I decided to cut her off by telling her exactly the answer to the question she was about to pose. “No, I’m not about to tell you what the answer to the monster thing is, that defeats the purpose of it.” We passed the health inspection yesterday evening at the restaurant, I personally made sure my station was clean. Let me tell you, grease stains are not easy to clean up and the quickest method involved a bottle of vinegar and ten to fifteen minutes. “Before you ask how I knew what you were going to ask, you hardly, if ever, say may name unless you want a little more attention or something.” “What… but that’s not what I wanted to…” Blackcap trailed off when she saw me quirking an eye at her. “Okay, so it’s not the only thing I wanted ask about Captain.” “Look you can talk to him easily enough, all you have to do is show some pirate courage… or maybe you need some form of alcohol. You know, the other form of pirate courage, the liquid kind.” The flat look I received had me grinning at her. “Won’t touch that stuff at all personally, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop you from drinking. If you’re a rowdy drunk, then I don’t think our friendship can last too much longer beyond that.” “Again… not the only thing I wanted to ask about.” Though you were blushing up a storm Jacky. How a blush can be seen through the black and white light amount of down covering your face, I’ll never know. Now that I think of it, how do ponies even blush through their fur? There’s no scientific reasoning behind fur or feathers changing colors based on how embarrassed one was, but it sure did make Fizzy look cute. I can give that a pass for the logical side of my brain, what little of it there happens to be left when in a world of magic. “Okay then, what did you want to ask of your sanity challenged tom cat of a sister?” I asked this amiably as I sliced my fried eggs with a spike sticking out of the back of my hand. My body was currently covered in them. “I was personally wondering if you ever actually saw Jacqueline Sparrow or is she just a well-known myth? It’s something I’ve been meaning to ask for a while. By the way, I’m sorry if I’m making you feel prickly this morning Jacky. I’m also sorry for laughing about you falling up the stairs if that makes you feel any better.” The sustain effect of caltrops is purely defensive in nature. While the caltrops themselves are dangerous to hold onto, it was even more dangerous when you became half again as heavy and covered in pointy colors spikes that match the color of where they stuck out at. This sustain had an interesting looking effect on my hair, as it now looked like I my head was full of thorn covered vines. I seriously doubt wild animals would dare attack me like this on threat of impaling themselves on me. Wouldn’t put it past timber wolves though. My body was a bit hard to move, my flesh was definitely not made of metal and I couldn’t jump, but it was good strength training to just walk around like this. Apparently the sustain effect prevents me from collapsing in on myself from the added weight, which would have been a bad thing of course. “I still don’t understand how I can fall up two full flights of stairs, yet I somehow managed to do so and despite how illogical it is that bad luck can even cause something like that to happen. Also you’re the one to talk about being thorny.” She groused out angrily before digging into her strawberry syrup covered waffles. Being a walking bruise acquiring machine may be her lot in life, but Jacky’s luck sometimes amazed everyone with the weird things it can do to her. Like make her break the laws of physics entirely on occasion. “Or should I say corny with your puns?” Jacky took a bite of the sweet potato grits she was eating on the side this morning, she smiled brightly at the flavor. Mom was always introducing us to new flavors. I wasn’t a fan of sweet potatoes, but grits or creamed corn was something I liked. “In answer to your question Captain, yes, she’s most certainly real. Yes, she does travel around a lot and causes trouble wherever she ends up at. Kind of a role model for me and why I want to go on all of the zany adventures you get up to. I still don’t think we needed to do that whole thing with Macaroni, but the dancing was fun.” No, it actually made complete sense if you thought about it Jacky, the guards were too distracted by the whole song and dance to realize mom’s disappearing trick got you inside. Didn’t stop all those thestrals from coming after me though. “If you ever see a completely scarlet feathered Ornithian with swagger, smugness, incredible luck and cunning that can survive in any situation. Then you’ll have definitively met Captain Jack Sparrow, one of the best pirates of our time. Also maybe the weirdest, but I don’t think she ever rode into port on the backs of two sea turtles or even has a flying turtle for a familiar.” “Coo!” My little buddy spoke up at being mentioned, Snickers was happily enjoying her breakfast next to me. Sugar was eating ravenously next Snickers, she was looking a whole lot healthier thanks to some Fluttershy TLC. She was a healthy and happy Al-mi’raj once more, this put her threat rating back through the roof as she was capable of going full out kaiju for a few minutes again. It’s probably better if she only goes to quarter or half size for a shorter amount of time. “Right, about that question you wanted to ask?” This had me Curious, especially if it wasn’t about her ensuing crush on ‘Generic the swift reaction’ or the name of the ten foot pole eating monster. Said monster was likely related to green or purple Swamp Monster Ooze, AKA Smooze. If it wasn’t those two things, then I really hadn’t the foggiest what she wanted to ask about. “What are you planning on doing for your date in Canterlot with Fizzle? I wanted to know so I can have plausible deniability.” Was that all Jacky? Here I thought you had something more worrying to talk about. “Go on a normal date of course.” My answer was swift and required no thought whatsoever. “Sure you are, a normal date in Canterlot, a place where the Royal Guard and some Wonder Bolts completely hate your butt.” Well when you put it like that Jacky, it seems like a really dumb idea to take Fizzle there on a date. Mostly because I wanted to tease the guards by doing absolutely nothing wrong. “I bet that twenty seconds into arriving at Canterlot you’ll be tailed by every guard and their grandma.” “No, with their incompetence it’ll take a minute at the very least.” This was my apt response to her and I was met with an even stare from the bipedal bird. “I give it two minutes Jade, we’re talking about the Royal Guard here.” Fizzle arrived and sat down next to me. Maries was at the end of the table enjoying three different flavors at once through three different hungry mouths. “So that adventure is the day before we have to go back to working at… Hayburger.” Fizzle shuddered violently before saying Hayburger, this is why I was going to teach her how to work a fryer over the next four days. Then I would be taking the boring register job that would drive me nuts, mostly because I wasn’t good at customer service. Oh I could smile well enough and converse, but I didn’t handle ponies that could set off my pettiness too well. I ran my claws through Fizzle’s recently dried mane and she leaned into my touch and I started to nuzzle her neck. Running my face through her recently soap scented fur. “Jade, eat your food and no canoodling when you’re still eating breakfast!” How does mom always know when I’m doing something? She wasn’t even physically in the room with us to see me nuzzling up against Fizzle. I was about to open my mouth to ask something before I was cut off by mom’s words. “Yes, even if it is very adorable!” “The matriarch has you pegged pretty well Jade.” Mara stated before she went back to eating her fish, with bones and cartilage breaking under the might of her fairly powerful jaws. “That would be my mother wouldn’t it?” We did have to prepare for school with Cheerilee after eating. Over the next four days I’d be teaching Fizzle the art of frying fish or potatoes chunks in a deep fryer. I would also get to see my favorite mare in an apron for bonus points. Fizzle wouldn’t ever be a cooking mare, but she was pretty decent with a fryer and how it fizzles. I don’t see what Fizzle needed to prove to me, but she did a decent job of learning to work a fryer for when we had to go back to Hayburger. The manticore was perfectly fine… if you called having the total snot beaten out of it by a very pretty pony, with some cute scars, fine. -Four days later, Canterlot morning, Shining Armor- Today was a good day for me, Spearhead was covering for my duty while I got a job with watching Cadence as we went around Canterlot. Nothing could possibly ruin… oh my goodness is that who I think it is stepping out of the train station? It’s Jaded Freaking La Perm, because of course it is! What is she going to do this time? Why did I try to think that nothing could make my day go south faster than knowing she’s back in Canterlot and up to nothing good, or at the very least decent? She legally got away with having been part of a plot to steal a lot of gold from an already bad mercantile menace that was slowly tanking our economy on his own. At least the royal guards got a pay raise since all that money was no longer being funneled into one constantly breaking down airship, so I guess she wasn’t all that bad. She was definitely plenty annoying though. “Who are you looking at Shining?” Oh no… I had to keep them away from each other, I didn’t want Cady to continue being friends with that crazy cat! “It’s nothing Cadence, you know I only have eyes for you.” Also eyes on the cat in the corner of my eye, one who was kneeled before a mare who stepped off the train after her. “Just some suspicious… ponies.” The cat in question took the embarrassed looking mare’s left hoof into her left paw and kissed it like a gentle stallion would. Looked like an earth pony, but I wasn’t about to investigate without a good reason. “We’re going to spend today together Cadence and we’re going to start off the day right by going to…” I tried to not pay attention to them so much, this was supposed to be my day with Cadence and I was now concentrating on her and looking her in the eyes. She was the most beautiful mare in the world to me and I wasn’t about to go running off to follow the royal guard's Bogey Cat around. I did not dance to the beat of her drum… despite that parade all of us got stuck in. She was a fear mongering rumor among the royal guard now, mostly as a being that couldn’t be caught or held for more than a week and could hardly, if ever, be brought up on real charges. We had absolutely no reason to chase after her at this point in time, also Celestia even seems to like her for whatever reason. Even Cadence liked her and it was a little mind boggling that my sister hadn’t seen her yet, but I’m assuming that’s because my sister is shut in. I’m a closeted nerd and Cadence already knew about that, but my sister was very well antisocial despite having ponies that still want to be friends with her because of who she is and not because of Celestia. I worried about Twily a little too much at times, I was her best big brother friend forever. At least Spike wasn’t someone I had to worry about, he was cute and a little dangerous because of all the fire he randomly spits. Once I told Cadence where we were going, I stopped for a bit to tell the guard that ‘the cat was out of the bag again’. The guards understood that and would spread the word, those words were a code specifically made with Jaded La Perm in mind. We’d be watching that cat like a hawk. -Fizzle- Jade was acting a little over the top, I could almost feel the love radiating off her. “Jade don’t do anything stupid, the royal guards are probably waiting for you to cause some trouble.” I commented once I saw Shining Armor glance our way. “How long?” Jade asked as she stood up from treating me like her princess, the truth was that neither of us had a very feminine bone in our bodies. She still treated me as if I were the beautiful one here. “Half a second, I think Shining Armor spotted you waltzing off the train.” Honestly, the royal guard should stop catering to Jade’s whims if they didn’t want her to give them the run around. Also shouldn’t ponies be faster than a cat running on two legs? I knew she could run pretty fast on all fours, but she had mostly kept to two legs during the last few incidents she’s had in Canterlot. I can already tell this date was going to be an interesting one. “Well that’s a new record for receiving recognition here in Canterlot.” Which wasn’t an entirely good thing Jade, but you were treating it as if you were a celebrity. One who has both dodged and fought off an entire contingent of royal guards all at once, with some Wonder Bolts and Shadow Bolts thrown in for good measure. “Where to first Jade?” I sighed out loud, we got the day off from school to come here early enough in the morning to eat breakfast, do some sightseeing, then lunch, more sightseeing and fun, then dinner. What would follow would probably be us being run out of Canterlot when Jade says something stupid to the nearest guard and would proceed to make a spectacle of things. Then we’d likely perform an airship escape with Jacky who was supposed to meet us in the evening to bring us home. So I’m calling it already, this will all end with in calisthenics and the artful dodging shenanigans that Jade is quite well known for. Jade didn’t say a word as she caressed my neck and started leading to me our first stop, breakfast at Joes.