//------------------------------// // Chapter thirty (x2), Circus Irks Us: You 'REALLY' don’t want to know. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Fizzle- I ran to left and was cut off by a beam streaking outwards. Turned to go right and another beam. Snide then swept two beams inward, I leapt straight up and over them while deflecting a sphere of energy he sent sailing towards me. Between batting this sphere back and forth I had to roll under a beam, leap over the next one and keep my sword interposed between me and the sphere. I didn’t necessarily need to swing the sword, but it helped change the direction the energy was moving in and accelerate it. I hit him with the deflected sphere knocking him back and he grunted, but that smile stayed on his face. At least he wasn’t healing from his injuries, dark magic really doesn’t ever do that very well. It did help him ignore the injuries though, but if the amulet were destroyed… well he wouldn’t be able to ignore them for long. “Come on one, and all, to the greatest show you’ll ever see on the face of Equestria~! You know, I’m great, because I am powerful enough to even get the best of Celestia~!” Oh great, Snide was going to sing me to death and the narcissism was completely annoying. After all the fighting we’ve been doing, he chooses now of all times to sing? Jade I could use a little backup right about now, if just to shut him up. He tipped his hat over his glowing eyes, his face darkening while the glow of the amulet became more pronounced. “I’ll, watch you fail~. As I cast a spell~. It will take you down as… with you I am really just only playing around~! As I will slowly come to eventually wear you down~! Come on don’t you dare continue to make that frown, as your loss will be part of my biggest crown~!” “We’ll see about that when we take you down~!” I sang back as I dodged a blast of flames to floor before me and he circled around me creating a wall of flames with a beam of magic. “My dear, you’re the only one of your group that is even… around~.” He started to rain blasts of lightning down on me and I had very little room to dodge, so I blocked with the sword that was becoming increasingly stressed from the repeated lightning strikes. “Do you seriously think you can stand up to me, why that thought it just fills me with quite such a glee~. I can’t even see where you’re getting all this hopeless courage to face me like this when even the sun priestess is bound to flee~!” “Oh you seriously don’t know Jade all that well, she might not be a hero but at least she doesn’t try to fail~!” I had the sword pressed up against the base of my horn beneath my cap, the sword took on the properties of fire and swung it in a wide arc absorbing all the fire around me. I then launched that power directly at his smug grinning face, he was quite surprised to be hit with several bursts of exploding fire that acted like fireworks. I had damaged his mustache and had burnt him somewhat, that showed I got through his barrier a little bit. He sent blasts of lightning from his hooves in several arcs and I ran along the ground as the lightning exploded chunks of it behind me. Eventually he stopped sending lightning after me to start singing again. His flamboyance was through the roof, but I was actually kind of thankful for that as it gave me some time to rest. “So you might, have some bite, but here let’s see how long you can last against my might~.” He started sending a wide cone of energy at me and I blocked it with the sword I heard a cracking noise, the metal of the sword was starting to crack from magical stress. Jade had warned me this might happen eventually, but why did it have to be now?! “It won’t be long before you drown, under the magnificent power that upon you I can easily bring down~!” I continued to hold the sword against the power, it was keeping the worst of it from hitting me and I don’t think the weapon would last that much longer under this kind of strain. It was never meant to be able to block or absorb this much magic. It was just unfortunate that I was right about the sword, it exploded in my hooves and I went down with a scream. When I lifted my head, I looked to my front right leg that bent awkwardly in several places and I was in a lot of pain. The leg was definitely broken, also my hat was blown away by the blast. The sword had been finally totaled, bits of metal thankfully didn’t embed themselves into me and were scattered all over the ground. The hilt was left lying off to the side with a bit of smoke rising off of it. I struggled to pull myself away from Snide on my back. My right hoof dragged on the ground and wasn’t responsive, any attempts to move just increased the unending agony. Top Snide looked confused for a moment, but the fact that his mad sneering grin grew a little bit wider towards me was just a tiny bit unnerving. He gave a demented cheerful hum as he looked at my forehead. “Oh, what’s this I do see, can it really be~? Has it been a broken unicorn that’s been fruitlessly fighting me~?” He zapped me with lighting and I cried out, my whole body and every single bit of my being was in pain. Was this how Jade felt at times she was grievously injured, how did she even get a stupidly high pain tolerance to stuff like this?! The muscle spasms the lightning was causing certainly didn’t help my broken leg or the rest of me one bit. “Do you see now that you’re just a worthless little blight, there’s nothing at all that can stand up to the great Top Snide tonight~! So get ready to say goodbye, sayonara as no one’s going to miss such a broken piece of cannon fodder, as your eyes are about to see their last little bit of light they’ll definitely water~!” He started building up a lot of energy holding his hooves above his head. My vision was blurry and he was right, I was crying. I started to have a horrifying flashback to the Ursa raising its paw up to swipe down at me, to take more than just my horn this time. “I, need help~. I just might not survive, to the very end of this day~. Come on Jade or at least Maries, just please be on the way~.” I was still surprisingly calm, despite all the insanity that’s been happening. Imminent death by insane pony… didn’t think I’d go out like this. At least we saved the hostages from Snide. “Kuril, you are the best mother that I’ve ever had I’ll say, something that needs to be said if that’s the last thing I’ll ever neigh~!” He fired a large blast and I clenched my eyes shut, I felt nothing but the pain of my broken leg. I cracked an eye open and saw Snickers, she gently nuzzled against my face cooing sadly while pointing at my leg. Well that meant only one thing… I was going to be okay. “You better listen here mister malicious, no one threatens to hurt or kill my kittens without retaliation that’s seriously vicious~!” I looked up and mom had the shield with the hoof and single fist imprints on it, the barrier she was forming had caught all the energy and was even holding onto it. She glared at Snide with a hatred I’ve never seen on her face before. Mom usually wore the shield on her right arm, but instead she had it on her left. Most likely because she was right handed and didn’t want a repeat of how she couldn’t cook like last time. When she shoved the shield forward, the cat paw shaped barrier gripping the mass of energy shot forward and slammed it right into the stupefied Snide’s face. Snide let out a scream of pain as he was incased in his own energy that exploded on him, following that he flopped to the ground creating a large dust cloud. Okay that had to have seriously hurt him a lot. Mom stood tall in front of me. Her tail was puffed up and her ears were pointed forward as she held the shield aloft with a floating cat paw in front of her, her pupils were quite thin. That’s when Jade’s group finally arrived. “Way to go mom, oh my goddesses Fizzy!” Jade was at my side in an instant and carefully hugging me as she had noticed my broken leg. I could see tears spilling from her eyes as she kissed me gently on the cheek. The world felt a little bit better, especially when all of Maries joined in by licking me and were quite equally upset. “Everything will be alright Fizzle, you’re going to be okay and I’m going to make Snide pay horribly at the end of all this! He definitely deserves what’s coming to him… Snicker’s be a buddy and keep Fizzle company please? Maries you and Fizzle need to go to Dr. Bones, Fortitude go with them and keep them safe… also could you please carry Fizzle on your shield as a makeshift stretcher?” I was about to argue when I felt Mara take my mane up into her jaw and she started to lift me from the ground, I felt Fortitude’s shield slide under me. They lifted me up, Snickers landed next to my head and gave off a cheerful chirp. I tried to smile at the winged turtle as she started acting adorable towards me. “Stay safe Jade.” I grunted out, Jade picked up my hat and put it on my head before I was carried off. “Trust me, I’m not the one that needs to stay safe!” Jade said she was going all out petty kitty on Top Snide, but she was pretty battered. I think her anger at me being hurt offset the battering she’s taken to quite a good degree. “He’s enraged both mom and I, we have Generic and Flamberge with us. This is going to only end in only one way since we have backup, that’s Snide suffering the worst thing I could ever do to him!” Mom was still waiting for Snide to get up as I was carried towards a bunch of waiting cows that were ready to escort us to Dr. Bones. -Jade- Quick mental recap. Snide, the evil guy that he is, forced us to fight a lot of innocent and possibly innocent ponies. He was going to kill Fizzle, he got most of my friends hurt and he was even bragging about it. He ambushed and captured mom, taunted me with an organization he knows about that hates my very existence. To be quite frank, after all that he was not going to be sane even when we do destroy or get the amulet off of him. Once we got a hold of him after separating him from the amulet, he was going to be quite catatonic when we were done with him! Also I’m absolutely going to destroy that amulet now if I can just get one claw on it. Thankfully we now had Sugar with us to help with that, Snide couldn’t possibly create a barrier that she couldn’t break. I’d have to remember to give something nice to Cadence later for getting our familiars here so fast. I flexed my hands and my claws popped out, I looked to mom as I moved up next to her and she was way ahead of me. She was ready to claw the guys face off as much as I was after all he’s put us and everyone else through. “You okay my little tom cat?” My mother smiled at me and I returned it. “Cat scratch fever mom.” My words made her grin in a feral manner. “Full petty.” “Do you seriously think that was enough to bring me down?” I could see Snide’s grin appearing out of the smoke along with the glowing eyes that have been present throughout all the fighting. “I don’t know how you got free…” “Your ambush on me is the only reason why you could even take me captive in the first place, why don’t you try me while I’m more prepared for you?” Mom held the battle barrier aloft in front of us, while both Flamberge and Generic took to the air. “Better be prepared to move Flamberge, he can actually hurt dragons with the amulets magic.” The response to my statement for once wasn’t loud and possibly with an exclamation point. Flamberge didn’t exclaim anything and he glared grimly at Snide. Generic was someone I didn’t have to worry about, he knew how dangerous things were about to become. “Gladly.” The dust dissipated revealing that Snide’s face and body were covered in burns, not all of those were caused by mom’s attack. You helped shorten that evil mustache of his, good work Fizzy! “Like you’ll be able to take me with the power at my command!” He sent out the blast of dark red magic that cleared the dust from the air and formed a barrier around himself. Mom simply looked to Sugar sitting on her right shoulder. “Sugar… kiss, kiss.” Mom’s familiar just looked to her in confusion, mom rolled her eyes and then said in a much sillier tone. “Would you prefer I say bite, bite?” Sugar was immediately slamming through the barrier horn first shattering it like glass, the barrier even made a glass breaking noise that caused Snide to go wide eye and freeze up. He received a horn through his shoulder doing a lot of damage to him. “Don’t kill him Sugar.” At mom’s words Sugar just lifted an ear in acknowledgement as she started to harshly bite into his right leg and violently pulled at it as she propped her hind legs again his barrel. It took him a moment before he finally reacted to the pain and blasted Sugar off of himself, it didn’t hurt her too badly as Sugar deflected a majority of the magic attack off of her horn after being blown off. Snide didn’t seem to be reacting to the pain correctly, to be fair none of the mind controlled ponies had either when they kept getting up from their numerous bruises or other injuries. “Magic barriers can be made of glass… barriers are made of evil!” He was clearly horrified by the thought more so than he was by having a flesh eating rabbit try to take one of his legs off, he was still wide eyed and trying to come to terms with that idea. It had really taken quite a bit of time to realize he had a badly bleeding hole put through him by Sugar’s horn or that one of his legs was being painfully bit. Sugar growled and went back to crawl up mom’s robe to end up on her shoulder, she continued to chitter aggressively towards Snide and then nuzzled mom’s cheek. “Well I’m not going to stand around and do nothing.” I ran up to claw him in the face. It was at this time that he finally chose to, somewhat, come to his senses and blast a magic wave out at me. I leapt over that and dodged around the following blast of magic he sent at me, he looked at his shoulder and finally realized he had been hurt. I tried to close the gap, but he sent out a wild wavy beam of energy that had me pulling back to avoid it. With a flaming hoof Snide cauterized his wound, why did he… oh right, dark magic doesn’t do healing very well. If dark magic did seem to do healing, it was always at a horrible cost in some significant manner. “Now, let’s see where we were~? Ah yes I was about to start, on a magical sun priestess beating spree~!” He sent a glare at me and started to spray blasts of magic towards me, Sugar leapt onto my shoulder and deflected it with her horn and she chittered angrily as she deflected multiple blasts that would have hit me as I dodged. “The magic barriers are made of glass, so I guess no more shields to protect this gallant still glorious visage that you can see~. I can do fine and I’ll just finish this fight real fast, with all the powers that I can conceive~! There’s no beating the power, of Top Snide at his finest hour~!” With a flick of his hoof a geyser of water shot up and blocked the fireball Flamberge spat at him and then the geyser angled and rammed him straight for the roof of the tent. “I, think your delusional you stupid amulet riddled mental jerk~. Come on guys let’s force him down and make this work~! Get ready to step in to help us, you’ll know when we’ll need the back up without a fuss~.” I was looking to Cadence, she was standing a decent distance away from Snide outside of his sight. “Now here we go, let’s get this show permanently off this road~!” Putting an alicorn versus the amulet, my bet was that the amulet would always lose. I wanted my crack at taking Snide down without endangering the princess first. Mom caught a sphere of energy fired at me and tried to slam it into him with the battle barrier, only to miss and hit the ground when he took to the air. Sugar tried to jump on him and missed as he went a little higher. He started to fire a beam only take swift set of claws to the back thanks to Generic, he turned to fire some lightning after the griffon who amazingly evaded it. ‘Generic the swift reaction’ lives up to his name quite well. Snide couldn’t concentrate his lightning at Generic for too long as he had to turn and block a fireball from Flamberge who looked angry. As he sent up another wall of water to push the dragon away, mom and I fired magic missiles into his side making him gasp out in pain. “He’s got a pain tolerance that can match mine. Getting stabbed and then bitten by an Al-mi’raj should have just about taken the fight out of anyone, much less take them down from the pain alone.” I was pointing out Sugar was below him and jumping up to bite at his rear hooves, he was hovering well out of her reach. Not out of ours though. He turned and then created a hailstorm above us that started dropping large balls of ice all over us. Sugar scampered over to us as I ducked down and mom held the barrier above us to block out the large chunks of hail raining down. The solid impacts to the barrier was making mom grunt as each physical hit translated to the shield and straight into her arm. The hailstorm didn’t last long when Generic started to scatter the clouds. Flamberge fired another blast of fire forcing Snide to defend with another wall of water, that’s when I took out the juggler’s knife and cast with it. Quickly pulling out the one of the caltrops while pointing the resulting energy knife at him, I cast the caltrop on the knife while giving the knife a very large amount of momentum. The knife shaped wad of energy soared straight at him and he tried to block it with a blast of raw energy that I evaded. It went through all the energy and into him, it didn’t do any injury until it exited out his backside in a spray of blood, which made him scream as if he had just been stabbed in the back. You don’t defend against a magical backstab, you evaded it at all costs or else that happens. I was happy to finally get my pound of flesh, but it didn’t feel like enough to me. I had my finishers waiting in my pack, but that was only after we destroyed the amulet. Mom sent a magic missile from her right hand into the amulet and it did very little damage. “We can’t keep hitting him like this, we need to hit that amulet with something solid to do some real damage to it!” We all silently agreed with that, but how were we going to go about doing that mom? While Top Snide was running a flaming hoof down his back to close the bleeding wound I put in it, burning off quite a bit of his fur in the process, Generic came down and slashed his claws across the amulet. Just minimal damage again, now there was some mild bleeding on Snide’s chest at the edges the amulet didn’t protect. Did we really need to call in Cadence for this? I blinked as a silver object slammed into the amulet and caused it to crack slightly and it made Snide lose altitude, the feedback from the amulet getting damaged was causing him pain. Snide hastily sent up a wave of water to hit Flamberge as he opened his mouth to blow another fireball Snide’s way. He tried to fire a lightning bolt at Generic and missed again. He tried to hit us with a massive beam of energy only for it to be blocked, held and returned to him. Snide dropped to the ground and barely evaded the mass of energy mom sent back his way and was soon back up in the air narrowly avoiding Sugar coming for his hind legs. “Why… why am I losing…? I’m all powerful!” No, that’s just a delusion of power brought on by an amulet that can only give you capabilities most normal ponies were never meant to have at the cost of your sanity. You didn’t earn this power Snide, why the unicorn that stole the amulet for you would have earned it more for getting by the museums security. I turned my eyes towards the object on the ground. It was a… spoon? Jacky, of course! I looked to where she sat across the tent, trying to aim something else at Snide. She fired and a teacup almost hit Snide in the back of the head. “We need to move him closer to Jacky mom!” I received a very odd look from mom, I pointed at the spoon, the amulet and then Jacky. She nodded, I was backtracking to plan F as I didn’t want to kill the stallion. No matter how much of my ire he’s earned, I didn’t like the idea of his death being on my paws. Now completely maiming Top Snide to within an inch of his life was an entirely different story, this was the Mystical Maiming Circus after all. “Well you’re not going to beat us if you can’t even handle a shot from my injured and helpless daughter over there!” What were you doing mom? “All powerful? You can’t even get shot by a spoon without losing ground against us, face it you’ve lost even with all your vaunted power!” “You’re right… she is defenseless and helpless isn’t she?” He trailed off looking towards Jacky, his grin grew wide as he shot off towards her. “Mom…” I started off questioningly as we followed after him as quickly as we could run, Generic was frantically trying to knock Snide from the air with various claw swipes before he could reach Jacky and Flamberge was blowing blast after blast of fire at his tail. Flamberge only managed to burn some of Snide’s tail down slightly. “Trust me, because I’m trusting Jacky to do whatever it is you think will happen near her.” Mom doesn’t even know why I wanted him near Jacky, but it looks like he was taking her hostage. That was actually a good thing, exactly what we needed him to do. I’m surprised that Top Snide still hadn’t noticed that his audience was gone and the insides of the tent were pretty cleared out, heck I don’t think Top Snide was even completely aware of his surroundings any more. He hadn’t even notice a surprised Cadence also giving chase to him with a determined look in her eyes. As we made our way towards Jacky chasing after him, I saw Dr. Bones checking over Arizona and Velvet. Hoped those two were alright. If they were complaining about each other, then Arizona and Velvet were both perfectly fine. Fortitude and Maries were watching over them and Fizzle protectively. -Jacky- “Ugh…” I was wrapped in red energy and levitated, Snide quickly swung around to point me towards Jade and the others. I couldn’t try to run, I was too weak to really fend him off when he was coming right for me. I couldn’t do much at this moment. Generic gritted his beak and stopped to hover next to Flamberge, then Jade, mom, Cadence and Sugar stopped just shy of him as well looking at me worriedly. “Sorry about this Jacky!” Mom shouted to me, but it was fine as I had already forgiven her for whatever it was that she was sorry about. Although with my luck, I don’t think I liked being currently held up by a psycho pony like this. “Nock the bow with an arrow my pet and aim it towards the sun priestess.” His voice echoed in my head and my body started to follow his command only to lock up when I resisted it with all my will. “If any of you attack me, then she will surely perish. With as weak as she is now, it would be so easy to break her spine like a nasty bit of glass while she’s in my grip.” “Do it Jacky, go ahead.” Blinking at Jade, I wondered why she would ever want me to shoot a… oh. Top Snide doesn’t exactly have the memo on that does he? “I’m not afraid of taking an arrow to the chest, I already did that once for Fizzy, then I can do it again for you sis.” “So you’re giving up? Just because you want your darling sister to stay alive, how sweet… but insufferable! Nock an arrow and fire it at her heart!” Putting on a good show for Snide who was pointing at a vaguely smirking Jade, I weakly gave a token show of resistance as I started to do as he said and my eyes were starting to fill with a red light. If I’m right, then the last few arrows that I’ve fired in practice would have cycled around to the point that the next arrow I fired would… This at least explains why mom was apologizing to me. They must have suggested something to him in the realm of take me hostage, because I was left alone and out in the open. Snide was now currently dumb enough to fall for that. “Don’t worry I’ll…” Ponyacci came galloping up only for Jade to grab him and shake her head no. “What? But the villain can’t win just because he’s taking control of your… wait a minute, your sisters a parrot? Does she eat all the crackers?” “It’s definitely a war for who gets to them first assuredly, chili night can get quite vicious let me tell you. Of course I always get into the parmesan first, so I can’t really complain about the lack of buttery crackers.” Hearing Jade, I smiled a bit as my head was getting all foggy. I resisted letting the arrow go for as long as I could manage. “Don’t worry Ponyacci, I trust that Jacky won’t fire the arrow at me.” “We’ll see about that… do it, kill your so called sister!” At Snide’s command, I released the arrow and it shot from the bow… completely backwards and arrowhead first into the Alicorn Amulet. I had the tiniest smiles on my beak as the amulet’s effects on me faded away. “Wha… what?! That’s not possible… how did the arrow even… what just happened?!” I dropped the ground groaning in pain as I slumped against the floor, I felt Gene wrapping me up in his wings and began holding me tenderly. The music to my avian sense of hearing was the amulet exploding violently and sending Top Snide violently into the floor where he dug a small trench. “There’s a reason why my sisters main source of ammunition is rocks or random objects instead of arrows.” Jade muttered as she walked up to Top Snide who was groaning on the floor, she stomped down on his belly making him gasp out in pain. She then pulled her pack from her back and started to pull something out. “Say hello to your punishment. If you aren’t messed up after this Snide, then good for you.” Jade was now placing down objects off to the side that, for some odd reason, clearly horrified mom. “Those with weak stomachs may want to look away from what I am about to do to him.” Four perfectly wrapped giant cupcakes were pulled from the pack, I remember reading their magical alchemy effect log on this and it said that I didn’t want to know what they did. When I had asked mom about it once, she said it was one of the most horrific effects that a magical alchemy cast can do to someone even if it is only temporary. Jade lightly slapped her claws across Snide’s face marring it and making him yelp in pain. She then picked up a cupcake and began unwrapping it. “So Snide, now that the effects of the amulet are wearing off… I have a few questions about this organization of yours.” Jade received a glare from Snide, but I didn’t care as I started to snuggle into Gene a bit. “If you answer me I might not use one of the cupcakes, I’m definitely using three of them.” -Jade- “Jade…” Turning to mom, I lift my left brow delicately. “I’m unbanning cupcakes for a time... but I get to use the next one.” I grinned broadly at mom, that was really quite vindictive of her. I now knew where I got it from. “What are you going to do, make me eat it?” You Snide, were a very unpleasant pony who was about to have something equally unpleasant done to you. “I won’t crack. The amulet might have driven me to madness, but I’m not nearly dumb enough to give away our organization no matter what you do to me!” Cast one cupcake, apply in concentrate to evil pony. Create immediate horror show!