//------------------------------// // Chapter thirty (x2), Circus Irks Us: Faithful Night. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Jade- “Remember we’re the brute force attention grabbers with me calling tactics, we need to hold Top Snide’s attention entirely on us… which is why Fortitude is our signaler for when my plans start up.” Though it could have been anyone else, I chose the big guy for this. He wouldn’t go down easily and he’d be the quickest to get the signal out as he can actively tank any kind of attack. “I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant, I will do important yak job greatly with Viking pride!” You do you Fortitude, our most stalwart and most physically appropriate meat shield of our friends. It was sad to put you in the back, but entirely necessary in this circumstance. He slapped his shield against his chest loudly. “I promise I shall not fail friends, failing forever is not yak way!” Arizona, Velvet, Maries, Fizzle, the three Vibrant Vikings, Jacky and I would all be putting up quite a fight tonight. We were the first class of Cheerilee and we were all quite mad. A little more than that, we were enraged and filled with cold fury that our beloved sweet witch, my mother, was taken. Bringing up the rear were Cheerilee and Dr. Bones. They’d keep us fighting one way or another while my plan gets set into motion, any serious injuries and they’d move forward to drag us out of combat to patch us up and get us at least standing again. If we’re standing, we can still fight. Before us sat a large red growing tent, one with a creepy smiling anime caricature of Snide’s face over the entrance. We were at one end of the long tent outside the opening, we started walking forward ignoring the swirling clouds overhead. This night was going to be a long one. There was no need to charge forward, he likely knew we were here and was just waiting for us to come in. “This night is going to suck so very hard for everyone involved.” I knew the amulet definitely had its hold on the jerk, why else would he be giving into these ridiculous theatrics? He had managed to keep himself and the organization he was a part of rather quiet, well at least up until now. Now he was being way too loud and there was hardly any of what was likely his previous subtlety here. We marched into the darkened tent beyond the glowing red barrier that let us pass through it, we stopped near the entrance. “We’re here you bastard!” That’s when the entire tent lit up slightly and sitting before us was a single ornate wagon with a spotlight on it. We were also under a spotlight, I glance around taking stock of the situation. The crowd in the stands were squirming, some ponies were crying and others were just basically asking us to help them with their eyes. I even think I spotted Trixie, if she didn’t learn about the amulet by reading about it, then this would certainly let her know what it was and did. They looked like they had been stuck here for hours without the ability to leave, use the bathroom, drink something or even eat. We’d either save them all or end up fighting to our very last. “Welcome one and all to the Mystical Maiming Circus, tonight we’re maiming these heroes that are just here to rescue one lady only. The rest of you are just hoof notes and I don’t feel sorry for any of you in the slightest.” That was definitely Snide’s voice, a lot more bombastic than usual. A spotlight lit up at the far end of the tent opposite of the entrance. I saw mom hanging there looking angrily below her, the light shifted down to Snide laying on a gaudy looking throne similar to the one Trixie will possibly build later on when she has an Alicorn Amulet. I’m sure there was more than one, because why wouldn’t there be? “Isn’t she quite a lovely little doll folks? I’ll play with her when the heroes are begging for their lives, let’s start off this show with something fun… clowns! It is my pleasure as the most impressive ringleader to introduce, the ‘Crazy Clown Clutter’ folks!” The door on the windowless carriage in front of us opened up and a lot of glowing red dots appeared in the shadows of the carriages interior. One hoof stepped out and a creepy clown pony took a step down and out of the carriage. Soon a flood of clown ponies of various races with glowing red eyes started to pour out of it one after another, each with a haunting mad grinning smiles on their white painted faces. They all looked to be dancing as they stumbled out of the carriage and each one held in their hooves a gnarly looking pie with black as night filling. They smelled awful even from this far away, it looks like the fight has just begun. They were all victims of the amulets power, like I said previously… this is going to suck! -Arizona- A pie flew towards Jade and she bounced back out of the path of it and I moved forward to sniff the splattered pie on the ground… and my eyes widened. “Don’t let Jade ingest a single bit of one of those pies, they are full of chocolate, tea leaves, coffee grounds and a lot of other nasty stuff!” My warning got out in time as Jade moved behind fortitude whose large shield was struck by a wave of thrown pies. All while more and more of those creepy smiling clown ponies were coming out of the carriage slowly in droves. “In fact, don’t get hit in the face at all if you can help it, it’s safe to say that they are all probably lethally poisonous!” How many of these ponies did this Snide guy fit in there!? They just kept coming out, one clown after another. Was it larger on the inside or something? I was the first to charge forward, starting this battle by ramming a group of clown ponies to the ground. I couldn’t hurt them too much as they were all victims to this mad ponies ill-gotten power. -Jade- I came out from behind Fortitude and fired a magic missile into the face of a flying clown pony making them drop the pie they were going to throw at me. The pony almost fell face first onto the remains. “Disarm them and make sure they don’t ingest any of these pies either!” I ducked a pie launched by a unicorn. The pie stopped in mid-air, it flipped and came right back for me. Quickly bringing up mom’s twice battered battle shield, I popped an octagonal barrier into existence. The pie splashed harmlessly into. “Target the unicorns first as a priority! Bones, Cheerilee, drag the ones we knock out hard enough away from here and keep them out of the fight!” “Of course we’ll be taking care of these downed soap brained idiots you daft cat!” Dr. Bones blocked a pie with her right arm and charged forward to deliver a punch to the offending ponies jaw, then spun throwing a haymaker to the skull that put the pony down. She then shoulder tackled another pony hard to the ground. “Deputized Nurse Cheerilee, get to work getting these patients out of the line of fire, doctor’s orders!” “R-r-right, this is really scary for me.” Even then, Cheerilee still grabbed the pony Dr. Bones just knocked out and started to carefully drag them back and out of the mess we were causing, she was trying not to drag them through any of the pie filling quickly covering the ground. Maries was trying to disable the ponies with slapping paws and bucks. Marie couldn’t bite any of these ponies safely and was just whipping her head around to slam into them. Maria couldn’t hit them with her sharp bladed horns and Mara couldn’t use her mighty jaws. They were severely downgraded in effectiveness in this battle. They would be moving forward with us when the time came, they aren’t going to be very effective here. Velvet slapped a pony, ducked under a pie and bucked out to knock the clown pony behind her onto their back, they bounced up trying to launch a kick-up for her back. Only the clown was intercepted by Flamberge grabbing the pony’s rear legs and then swung them around to slam their heads against the ground. Velvet turned and exhaled a massive gust of ice at the ground that sent an entire group of clown ponies slipping and sliding while making them flail their pies in every direction in wild and dangerous arcs. Thankfully nobody was hit, but the floor close to the entrance was going to be a complete and utterly dangerous mess by the time we’re done here. Velvet needed to move forward as her ice was a liability to seriously getting someone pied, plus we need her on the front line. I should tell her stop making the terrain so dangerous. “Fortitude, keeping Cheerilee and Dr. Bones is a priority for you until you need to deliver the signal.” I ducked under a pie and turned whipping my tail across the sneaky clown pony’s face. Grabbing their extended hoof with my left hand and I pulled them towards me to brutally launch a right handed palm strike to their left temple. I heard a small cracking noise and hoped I hadn’t hurt them too much as I left them behind me lying limply on the floor. Most of the pies were aiming for me, so I charged forward while removing my purple skirt from my pack and started affixing it around my waist over my shorts. I didn’t stop moving for a second, as a lot of lethal pies were raining down all around me. I immediately sustained the skirt once I had it in place, my sustain lead my to do a majestic leap forward into a ballerina twirl and I dodged an incoming pie while leaning artistically backwards. I dipped and dove into a roll and came up with an uppercut knocking a pony up into the air. I grabbed their tail when it was in front of me and swung them down head first into the ground and then around to send them flying in Cheerilee, Bones and Fortitude’s direction. “Velvet, don’t make the floor icy here, you’re getting pies everywhere and we have to move around too you know!” I said as I passed by the embattle reindeer while launching a flying kick to the skull of a pony moving to attack her from behind. The poor pony’s face was forced into the ground as I kicked off of them. “To be fair Jade, there are pies going absolutely everywhere already!” She almost took a pie to the chest, she managed to stomp her hooves and form an ice wall to block it and several others from hitting us. A pie nearly fell on her from above and I looked up to see Generic had his claws full with taking down the flying clown ponies. Velvet glared upwards for a second and shot an icicle up into the air. A winged pony slammed into the ground a second later with a nasty wing injury. “Velvet keep assisting Generic with the aerial threats.” Backing away from Velvet and after elbowing a clown pony in the face, I nearly got hit by an earth pony clown as they almost came down directly on top of me riding a large bouncy ball with a handle. The pressure from the landing still hit me and knocked me onto my butt. As they bounced up they sent a pie sailing straight at my face. I was tackled from the side by Fizzle who just finished bucking a pony in the head off to the side, we tumbled to a stop avoiding several more pies as we rolled. An icicle struck the ball and it exploded violently sending the pony on it to the ground unconscious, Velvet was just firing shards of ice every which way now with impressive unerring accuracy and concentration. I turned and noticed that some of the clowns weren’t only just armed with deadly pies. They were also using rideable bouncing balls, banana peels and were flopping and flailing around as they struck out at us with their hooves while dancing in a very ominously silly swaying manner. “Be more careful Jade!” Before Fizzle or even I could get up another pie came at my face. Only this one was intercepted by a clown pony, one that didn’t have red glowing eyes. In fact he had orange fur and bright golden amber eyes, his back was covered in pie filling and he stood up looking quite grumpy with all the other clowns. Fizzle seemed a bit confused. “What the… a clown that’s not under Snide’s control?” “Nobody uses pies lethally while Ponyacci is around, it’s just not funny to play with someone’s food allergies like this!” He turned to us as he scraped the gooey pie filling off the back of his clown costume. “It’s just not right I tell you, the calories in these pies alone is way too fattening. These aren’t clowns, they’re innocent ponies turned into monstrous puppets. I’ll show this evil stallion how a real clown clowns around! Oh by the way hello, I’m Ponyacci, glad to meet and save you!” With that he was up and pulling out a long balloon that he started to inflate. “We have extra support on the field of battle, don’t target him!” I shouted, everyone took a single glance at Ponyacci while they were dodging pies, attacking hooves, banana peels and bouncing balls. They were then back in the thick of it taking down the clown ponies. Fizzle was up and charging towards a group of ponies where she rolled onto her back and started to do a break dance windmill maneuver, taking each one down with incredible precision and precisely timed single hoofed bucks as she spun. I was getting a little spellbound by watching her beauty in motion, when I really had to focus on all the pies coming for me! I started to dance. I twirled, plie and lunged my way to safety. The skirt sustain was really useful for me here. How many ponies did Top Snide turn into these red eyed clown pony abominations!? I looked towards the back of the tent where Snide relaxed on his throne while grinning towards me and was he… he was, the smug jerk was eating grapes that were being peeled by a magical red glow. I ducked under a hoof and launched my left fist into the pony’s gut and then slammed them in the face with my other while they were bent over. My plans might be a little trickier to pull off given these numbers, I’m sure we’ll manage somehow. We all were quite imaginative and could get quite innovative mid battle. Speaking of innovative, Jacky in particular was the most amazing sight at the moment. While I was moving and simply plowing my fists through several ponies while using my evasive dancing skills to avoid retaliation, she was like watching a completely volatile work of art in motion. I watched as Jacky was slip sliding around the battlefield using two banana peels as skates and the banana peel chucking clown ponies kept knocking themselves out on the banana peels around her. The clowns slammed into each other as Jacky tripped and fell all over the place, they accidentally attacked one another and sometimes they were just knocking themselves out with their own hooves trying to get the parrot that was careening and flopping all over the place. Throughout all this Jacky looked extremely calm with every single movement she made. I ducked and slammed a pony in the jaw with vicious right hook and grabbed another to ram my head into theirs taking them down painfully. Turning back to Jacky, I saw her get spun by a solid blow to her shoulder and she launched a vicious spinning counter kick to the pony’s head using the momentum from the blow. She even continued to swing around with her momentum to put her tail to good use and slapped two more down with it, it seems she learned some La Perm family bar brawling techniques. That’s my sister! Jacky then tripped over a pony and, somehow, one of her toe talons hit a bouncing ball. The miniscule hole and resulting blast of air sent the poor clown pony flying around and knocking out multiple other clown ponies in a very seemingly choreographed manner when it was just random chaos. Jacky definitely out did herself on jacking up her bad luck. Walking under all those ladders, breaking mirrors, the cracks she’s stepped on, salt shakers spilled and fate oh so thoroughly tempted as if she was waving flashlights wildly around, wearing a jaunty sombrero and festive hoop skirt. She simply stood up and dusted herself off, she dragged a talon across her throat then pointed to Snide across the tent while glaring at him. Snide just seemed to snort audibly as if he found her threat amusing. She simply dove right back into the fighting, even when she was getting swamped with attacks from all sided Jacky was handling most of it all by herself through skill or acts of horrible luck. It was like watching a professional clown fight. Speaking of a professional clown, as I kicked an attacking pony away from me, I turned to see how Ponyacci was doing since he showed up out of nowhere to help us. I was worried that he wouldn’t be capable in a fight. I didn’t need to worry, as I pummeled another clown to the ground with several rapid thrust punches. Ponyacci was wielding a balloon sword and riding a bouncing balloon unicorn to knock some clowns around and was quite effectively deflecting pies while doing it, he was fairly competent at taking out the bouncing ball clowns. He’d be fine despite all the weird crazy stuff he was doing like cracking jokes every minute or so. Ponyacci even rearranged banana peels ever so slightly to great effect with swipes of his balloon sword as he swatted at the other clowns and his unicorn balloon steed was just right up there with the weirdness factor only a clown would dare bring into an odd battle like this. His clowning around was actually helping ease the battle slightly more into our favor, it didn’t help that there were at least a hundred clown ponies attacking us. “Hey, Ponyacci! Keep clowning around here and help the diamond dog, the pink haired pony and the yak!” He threw me a salute as he bounced sideways and then forward into another evil bouncing ball clown with a laugh filled with silliness. He then started bouncing towards our back line to give them his pretty humorous and useful aid. “Jacky switch to aerial support and give Gene some aid, he’s getting swarmed up there!” Jacky spun and ducked under a bouncing ball pony. She pulled her bow off her back, knocked a large rock to it and fired it into the face of a clown pegasus that had managed latched onto Generic’s back. “Flamberge, when you get chance, get airborne and assist your brother!” I started to fall back as the number of clown ponies were starting to build up around me a little too much. I slammed another encroaching clown in the face and went down to all fours to dash away from several pies coming at me. Flamberge understood crowd control from our O&O games, he’d have to stay back with Fortitude to help keep these clowns contained. -Gene- There were just so many of them. I had to take these flying clown ponies without breaking their wings too harshly, it didn’t help that I was alone up here. At least I was getting some support from Velvet. A clown suddenly grappled onto my back and I struggled to try and dislodge them, only for a rock to snap their head back. The clown released me and started falling to the floor, I looked down to Jacky and smiled. There’s a competent girl that I liked and she was unlucky as all get out, but luck be damned if Jacky wasn’t skilled at whatever she does. She worked hard to be able to keep up with everyone else despite the numerous bumps and bruises she’s always getting from her luck related accidents, she was a strong parrot to keep going when life did its absolute best to try and bring her down every day. In the face of constant adversity, she was the very picture of beauty to me in her own very unique way. It kind of made my heart sing to see her fighting. I dove down and slashed my talons through several bouncing balls as I swiftly passed by her and then rose upwards to tackle two of these flying demented clown equines out of the air at full speed. I had my pride as a griffon, though I rarely showed it and I wasn’t about to be beaten by a bunch of ponies that were not in their right minds. Gently as possible, I slashed through the wings of several more airborne targets that were harrying me and trying to take me down. I twirled, swooped and tried to keep my speed up as I was being attacked from all sides. All this while knocking them out of the air, just knocking them out period or helping my friends on the ground. I blocked a hoof with my arm, grabbed the pony and swung them bodily around as a living flail to knock a number of ponies from the air. I wanted to be one of the ones Jade called to move forward, but if she didn’t think that was a good idea then that’d be okay. I was already busy as it is just dealing with these guys. They were all fighting with a certain rhythm as if to music, even the airborne ponies chasing me were dancing in the air and every single last one of the clowns were on the same page in how they moved. It was extremely disconcerting to see all the ponies moving as if to one of their heart songs, except none of them were singing and they all looked like they were trying to resist the spell they were under. I was suddenly surrounded by ten pegasus ponies and they all grappled on to me, I swung up my left rear leg and managed to get it under a pony to kick that one off of me. I brought my front limbs together smashing two of their heads painfully into one another and tried to keep flapping my wings while two ponies were holding onto them tightly. I was struggling to stay airborne and I grunted in exertion, at this rate we were going to be taken down by their numbers alone even if none of them were very physically strong by themselves. Two sharp cracks were heard and then my wings were suddenly free, that was thanks to Jacky’s incredibly aim and two rapid rocks to the wing hugging clowns. It wasn’t long after that three of the remaining five clowns on me were ripped away from me by Flamberge hitting them with small bursts of fire that made them scream out and fall away to the ground. Flamberge then grappled and pulled away the clown pony currently latching onto my face. I took care of the last one on my back by spinning as hard I could. My whipping around threw them off of me and they spiraled into the ground head first. “We need to move forward! We also need two to stay back with Fortitude, Bones and Cheerilee to keep all the clowns busy, I could also use a little help here!” That was Jade, I looked down and saw that she was frantically dodging while surrounded by twenty attacking clown ponies. They've almost managed to corner her completely and even her magically enhanced dancing abilities weren’t going to help her there. I swooped down and grabbed Jade’s shoulders and got her out of the circle as all the ponies dove forward trying to grasp her with their hooves. “Was that a good assist?” Hearing me, Jade looked up and sighed with relief. “Thanks for the save Gene.” She actually said my name right, usually she’d just call me Generic and was done with it. It didn’t feel right, I think I actually preferred being called Generic much to my own surprise. “Don’t mention it and call me Generic, where do you want me to drop you off?” I was looking for a safe spot on the ground to put Jade down that didn’t have swarms of glowing eyed clowns that were slowly being whittled away by us. “Drop me near Arizona!” I turned and looked about and eventually spotted her. Arizona was currently jumping straight up. She pulled on the rope held in her mouth and suddenly had a group of eleven clown ponies that dove at her pulled tightly together by a lasso. She came down on them smashing her hooves into each of their heads. One time for each one of them and they were all soon out cold. Arizona was suddenly very alert about something and rammed her way through a group of bouncers to support Velvet by tying up more of the clowns as the reindeer was having problems freezing the bouncing ball clowns. I swooped down and carefully came to a hover and released Jade nearby, there were quite a few clown ponies tied up and it seemed like Arizona was never at the end of her rope. Quite literally, she kept pulling ropes from out of nowhere to hogtie multiple ponies together. “Thanks, can you stay behind when we start moving forward Generic?” Thinking about Jade’s question, I backhanded a diving flying clown pony into the ground and nodded to her. “Great, keep them from following us as Snide likely has set up more trouble ahead us and I don’t want them to get hurt in the crossfire. Vibrant Vikings, will hold the clowns here and this position! Medic team, stay safe nearby and watch for any injured fighters. Everyone else continue fighting, but be prepared to move forward when I give the word, you do whatever you feel is right Ponyacci!” I turned to the numerous clown ponies we had to deal with there were still more than eighty of them moving and a number of them were still armed with lethal pies. I let out quiet grunt, I was never one to screech angrily like any other griffon. I dove straight towards the swarm of ponies surrounding Fortitude who was keeping them all off of Cheerilee and Dr. Bones, Bones could actually throw a punch and put up some of a fight. It was Ms. Cheerilee who I was worried about, as she continued dragging unconscious ponies away from the fighting. The one called Ponyacci was managing to help out in big ways. “Oh no, I’ve lost my marbles, but at least I’m not like these other guys!” Whether it was spilling marbles on the ground to trip up a number of aggressive dancing clown ponies or his impressive balloon animal riding skills, Ponyacci was proving to be pretty effective for all the joking and clowning around he was doing. The clown on our side stopped to bounce in place on his fragile looking unicorn animal balloon and looked up to me. “Hey birdy, your dragon friend seems to be in trouble, I can help out with your friends here!” I turned and saw Flamberge trying to claw several ponies off of his body, I flew to go assist him like he did for me. We were brothers in arms and we wouldn’t fall to numbers such as these! -Jade- “Arizona how much rope do you have?” I watched as Arizona launched another rope and pulled in several clowns to tie up, she was covering Velvet’s back as she started freezing ponies’ hooves to the ground. “Near as I can tell, way too darn much! Why, do you need some?” Arizona spun around and a hoof slammed into a bouncer clown, knocking the clown off of the hopper that lazily rolled away. “No, but it’s nice to know if we have enough additional resources to work with, like Ponyacci for instance." The fact that he even showed up here was a surprise to me, one of the most famous clown ponies in all of Equestria and he somehow got into the tent without Snide spotting him? We definitely needed all the help we could get! "I did not see him coming, but I’m glad he’s on our side.” “You said it, have you counted how many ponies we’ve taken down?” No, but I’m pretty sure we’re beyond one hundred active Crazy Clutter Clowns. “You’re kidding right?” I ducked and lashed out at the pony clown that had snuck up behind me with a right hook to the skull, that’s the second time that a clown snuck up on me. “Of course I am, this is all is a bit much, even for me!” She rammed into a pony sending them tumbling away, then she bucked out at the one that came at her from behind. Velvet suddenly skids on by launching balls of hail into all the ponies around us clearing out the area. “When are we moving forward Jade? We can’t keep this up forever!” Velvet turned and launched several blunt icicles skyward and took down a few winged ponies that were coming our way. “Soon, we need to batter these clowns badly enough to give the Vibrant Vikings some capacity to hold the line behind us long enough for Fortitude to be able to get the signal off.” Speaking of Fortitude he was wading into the clown ponies and shoving them away from himself with his large banded shield, he wasn’t having any problems keeping the crowd around him controlled. “Okay, I think now is good enough, move forward!” The Vibrant Vikings and ponyacci stayed behind, the rest of us broke off and charged forward. The medic team continued to drag clown ponies away from the fighting and Dr. Bones was busy checking the injured we left behind. “It seems my clowns aren’t doing it for them, then let’s show them the next act!” Snide’s voice rang out as we moved beyond the carriage, a second spotlight shined down upon some bigger problems than the first. “Introducing the beast tamer Whip Slash, on her elephant Light Stepper! With her are the gruesome twosome the Orthros Rip and Tear, along with the manticore we named Goliath!” Whip Slash whipped out at us.