-Sekhet-
I took one slow long drag on my coffee, I just sat there as the civilian ponies were evacuated as a swarm of flying badgers came in from the chaos dimension. I was a little concerned that Discord left the key to said dimension out in the open, but he really didn’t need it to get in or out of it.
In fact the reason Discord would leave his key out would be to cause chaos, which was his entire modus operandi as a lord of chaos really. It was just unlucky for him that this chaos didn’t happen in Canterlot. He would have been able to easily free himself if that were the case. Though if my sister were around, he would willingly stay stoned just to avoid her.
I remember the day Discord introduced himself to my sister, he really regretted ever doing that because she was a bit too much for him to handle. She easily saw through his disguise and just played along with him, she really loved Discord even if he was quite a bombastic, manipulative and magnificent jerk.
I sighed as the first of the Sweet Badgers reached a pony guard and was witness to them showing extreme amounts of competence in that moment. That was mostly because Sweet Badgers weren’t very strong or violently aggressive, but they were still dangerous as they had a tendency to hug people to death with their sharp claws.
Provided that you didn’t get hugged, they aren’t that dangerous and are highly susceptible to poison as Maries just found out as a badger immediately fell unconscious the second the poison was injected into it. Despite the high susceptibility, the poison would never kill a Sweet Badger even if they couldn’t resist it.
It’s basically the opposite of being lethal to a honey badger, which could resist it very well long enough to outlast the poisons effects. Chaotic entities from that dimension weren’t all bad, though there was some things that were better left to that dimension and I would make sure nothing too horrible got out.
The ponies around here would be defenseless against some of the things in the chaos realm and I will actively keep them from crossing the border. Can’t do anything about closing the portal, that’s on anyone holding the Sieve Precarious.
That mortal, Sell Hard was it? He was going to be an issue, yet I was not one to interfere in a battle unless it involves me or was interesting enough to be somewhere close to my level. I just sat off to the side and watched as the mortals defended themselves. I was proud to say that my mortals were putting up more of a fight and were hardly being scratched, I was an excellent coach.
The birds Fluttershy set up around the area have fled thanks to the large number of Sweet Badgers now swarming everyone, but they had good excuses to flee.
“Coo?” I looked next to me at Snickers, who was pulling her wings back into her shell, she gave me a curious look and pointed at the cow and deer thrashing a multitude of badgers. “Hiss coo?”
“Yes, I think it’s cute that you’re getting a cow and deer together. Though you’re going to have more problems from the deer than the cow, that deer has deep rooted issues and I’m not about to war with that bit of psychology. I’m not a psychologist for these people Snickers, you can work on that if you want.” The turtle then pointed out the window at all the badgers, while looking at me. “Eh, they can handle it, I will only handle something when it reaches the right level for me to deal with it.”
“Hiss!” The little familiar was a little upset that I wasn’t going out there to have fun with the weak death huggers, but it wouldn’t be my problem until one of them seriously injures one of those under my protection. That’s when the kitten gloves come off.
“They’ve got the situation under control, it’s when they don’t that I will bother to step in. Mortals need their achievements little one, gods like me just can’t step in and do everything for them you know. They’d get too lazy like the ponies tend to do with Celestia around, the EUP has become something of a joke among the gods when its entire goal is to protect a physically immortal being.” Until then I couldn’t do anything. Limiting myself to a mortal shell was beyond the pale for me, even if it would mean I could do more things that won’t end up annihilating the entire town in trying to save it. My fight with Quetzalcoatl was a good taste of battle, but I wasn’t exactly rearing and ready for a war to spring up because of me. “While you are smart, you are still too young to understand some of the finer things of how I interact with the world at large.”
“Coo?” She questioned seeming to not understand me, I was once again reminded she was a very young turtle that chose to bond with a very strange cat.
Until I was needed, I just liked to watch as the world pass me by. Many would think me lazy, but I at least wasn’t like the other war gods who slept until war reared its somewhat ugly head once more to wake me from my slumber. Adrenaline junkies the lot of them.
I on the other paw actually got out once in a while to mingle with people who appreciate my presence, like the people of Airship Mauled… where I built a pyramid and was just happy to be someone’s neighbor.
I still don’t know how Celestia could stand rule over ponies like she does, even if there is some appeal to it. I rather liked being able to watch things move on the sidelines, while of course doing some minor unnoticeable tweaks to help those I liked.
It was once asked if a goddess did something that no one else saw them do, then did that goddess really do anything at all? Well yes, just because you don’t see a goddess doing anything important, doesn’t mean that the goddess doesn’t or isn’t doing anything at all.
I lifted my left paw and nudged the air at a punted badger in the distance just slightly, it went back through the rip in the air and prevented three more badgers from coming through. I leaned back and sipped my coffee again with a smile.
-Jade-
There were so many of them, but they were effectively too easy to kick around. Lightweight badgers that were somewhat easy to beat? They were still dangerous because of how many of them were, but they were so easy to punt back through the open rip in reality.
Flamberge was trying to keep a majority of them away from us with breath and flaming sword, Blade was busy protecting evacuating civilian ponies and the guard were surprisingly holding their own for once. Not that it helped when we were outmatched five badgers to each one of us.
Well they were easy, before I took a badger to left leg and it knocked me over and started digging its claws into my leg while nuzzling me a little too affectionately. I quickly blasted it off with a point blank magic missile and almost took a badger to the face trying to stand up.
Thankfully Fizzle smashed it with a hammer swing of both her hooves colliding with it. Maries rammed a badger that had been going for her back making her turn to our lovely chimera with a smile and I kicked out with might right leg catching another ‘amorous horrendous’ under the chin.
“We can’t keep this up forever and they really hurt when they get a grip on you.” I had a few light cuts in my leg, but I was still good for kicking ass.
“Well then someone had better get the Sieve Precarious away from him!” Fizzle pointed at Sell Hard running around while screaming his head off about something.
“I am you’re master, stop attacking me!” It was kind of obvious that Sell Hard had no control over the badgers and we needed to divest him of that amulet before he did something worse like open up multiple portals to the realm of chaos. Also he should have gotten an instruction manual for the… wait it was likely made by Discord, there wouldn’t be any instructions for it. “Why doesn’t this thing give me control over you?!”
“Who’s going for it?” They both shot me wry looks. “Oh of course, expect the rogue to do all the work!”
“Well if you don’t then who will? The flying badgers may be weak, but they keep getting up after we knock them down for a few seconds except when Marie poisons them.” Mara exclaimed as pulled her head back so that Maria could smash her horns into one of the many badgers swarming around us. “Can you run on that leg?”
“Yeah, the injury isn’t that bad, if it had been on my leg much longer than the cuts would have been pretty debilitating.” I was more horrified by the fact that they were all acting amorous and affectionate, than I was the fact that they were flying badgers. It was a good thing Fluttershy wasn’t anywhere near here at the moment, she’d certainly have a word or two for us about all the animal brutality currently going on. “Velvet, we need to get that amulet away from him so we can close the portal! Can you cover us?”
“I can do that, but I need them kept clear of me.” Velvet was in the middle of blasting a wave of frost from her mouth that frozen several badgers solid and she turned to us huffing and puffing. A badger almost grabbed her, only for a rope to snag the badger away from hugging the deer’s floof and Arizona smashed its head against the ground when it reached her.
“These thing regenerating faster than I can smash their skulls in!” Of the building pile of badger bodies behind Arizona, one with a smashed in skull had its skull seem to pop back into shape and it was up and hug crazy within seconds.
“Just what we needed, flying badgers that are possibly sexually active, give dangerous hugs and can regenerate from any lethal injury barring dismemberment.” What I just said made Maries take attention of me for a second and then she started to hit the badgers that were close to me away and all that much harder than usual.
I turned and slapped a badger or two from the air with my frantic claw swipes. It didn’t matter if I seriously injured them anymore if they could regenerate from having their skulls smashed in, my claws weren’t going to do much worse than Arizona loudly breaking their bodies with her bare hooves and head.
“Okay, go!” Velvet shouted as she came over to us.
Once Fizzle bucked two Badgers out of my way, I took that as my cue and charged forward towards the running Sell Hard. Velvet followed my closely firing shards of ice and throwing up walls for the the Badgers to slam into and hug while we moved.
These things were far more disturbing than honey badgers, at least honey badgers would leave you alone if you left them alone. These things would get up and keep coming after you unless you put them to sleep with some kind of poison, which is what Marie was thankfully producing enough of to keep them down. Marie’s venom gland would run dry eventually and I wouldn’t want to be here when it did.
I jumped over a badger and slid under the next, Maries rammed a few out of my way and I jumped onto her back and pounced on Sell Hard while Velvet encased the chasing badgers in a dome of ice.
We went tumbling and I tried to pry the amulet from him, we struggled over the next few seconds and I managed to grab the amulet long enough close the portal to the chaos realm.
We still had a problem with all those flying badgers still being in this world. Sell Hard wasn’t much of a fighter and I had him pinned down.
Once I had gotten the amulet from him I thought we had won, I was sorely mistaken. An old saying is that a person who flails about is as dangerous as a person who knows how to fight precisely.
Sell Hard managed to get a lucky shot in to my jaw with all his flailing and knocked me away from himself, he quickly grabbed the amulet from me and ran towards the Hayburger.
We all started to follow him and I had a building sense of dread that he was about to do something horrible now. I wouldn’t be getting my paycheck if the building were suddenly destroyed or removed from this world, it didn’t have ancient artifact insurance.
“If I can’t bring any monsters into this world to destroy the Hayburger, then I’ll just take care of the Hayburger by bringing it into the chaos realm!” Once he was close enough to the Hayburger, Sell Hard lifted the amulet aloft and the entire world around the place started warping.
“Everyone get back and out of there!” Shining shouted as he followed us, he still took the opportunity to start pushing all the badgers into towards the spatial warping around the restaurant.
Sekhet immediately got up and started running towards Sell Hard as he started to drag everyone nearby into the realm of chaos. That would be me and my group, Shining, Spitfire, ten royal guards and all the badly battered badgers that were healing and getting up again.
-Fizzle-
“Yes, I’ve done it!” He shouted while holding the amulet aloft high above his head. “Now all I need to do is…”
That’s when a large snake like monster shot by and the amulet ended up in its teeth without touching or even harming Sell Hard, that’s when Sekhet's tackle connected and she looked up at the huge smiling snake with a huge under bite that shot off towards a distant place.
“Have you any idea what you’ve just done?!” Sekhet screamed in his face.
“Yes, I’ve finally gotten rid of the Hayburger that my brother is so enamored with!” He laughed maniacally, but I don’t think he quite understood the situation he got us stuck in.
“You also stranded yourself and us in the chaos dimension and might never see your brother again.” I stated blithely, he stopped laughing and actually looked haunted when that information finally sunk in.
He was quickly detained by unicorn guards that were dragged into this dimension with us. Thankfully we got every last flying badger back into this realm, but… they were all still attacking us with love and affection.
I jumped forward and bucked a badger harshly in its spine as it slammed face first into the ground.
“Everyone into the Hayburger! Say Sekhet can…?” Jade turned to our war goddess and saw the frown on her face.
“No, I can’t just open up a portal back home, we’re stranded here!” Sekhet snapped a claw and suddenly the barrier around the Hayburger came to life and started bouncing the badgers off of itself. “But, I will lend aid warranted.”