-Spatial distortion, Arizona-
We got stuck in Fœnum for a while, but now we were almost home.
Today was just going to be one of ‘those’ days wasn’t it? On the other side of the distortion that Paprika was looking through, while waggling her tail in an adorable manner, I could see Fizzle, Blade, Kuril and a few others.
They were surrounded by golems and armored ponies. Dispel, Jock and Shock were there, plus I could vaguely hear Teatime’s voice.
“We need a…” I heard a sickening throat clearing noise.
“Say, are the ones surrounding them the bad guys?” I heard a slightly muffled voice ask from off to the side. “That’s usually the gist of this cliché.”
“Meep.” Paprika answered.
What happened next was a ball of green goo being ejected noisily from a throat through the spatial rip and it melted through a golem pony’s head in seconds.
“Good enough for me, let’s do this thing!" A large speeding form shot by and leapt through the rip before anyone could say anything. "MOOYEAH!”
“Plan.” I finished lamely. “Let’s get after her, Velvet you’re on defense!”
“For once you were going to do the sensible thing and someone still takes things into their own hooves!” Velvet said with a flat tone as she thrust her hooves into her face. “We have a large problem doing anything without it involving fighting don’t we? That's fine, let’s go do a thing!”
-Jungle clearing-
“What… the…” Teatime slowly said as his golem ponies look towards the golem pony with the melted head and then a large cow destroyed several golems by barging into the place out of thin air. At least a rip in space would be considered thin right?
One of Perun’s Paladins tried to hit her with a mace, the cow just grabbed the handle twisted the weapon out of the pony’s grip and then smashed their helmet off with their own weapon. The pony was knocked unconscious with a single blow.
“Thanks for the weapon, can’t say that you were good at using it personally!” The large cow called out as she hip checked a leaping pony out of the air making them drop their glowing axe. “Woah, watch me jump back and kiss myself!”
The cow proceeded to kiss her flexed bicep and then grin cheekily at the confused audience.
“Hear that Buck Wildly, now that’s how you make an entrance!” She stated before she deflected an extended blade from one of the golems with her bare hoof and then caved its head in with her own thick skull coming down on top of it. “I’m an acidic cud spewing, bounty hunting and butt whooping badass named Minnesota Magnolia Arid! You can just call me Maggie, it’s nice to be home. So… anyone have any explosives? I’ve been kind of dry since I went into some salt mines.”
“What are you waiting for? Attack!” At Dispel’s command the various ponies with glowing weapons fired blasts of energy straight toward the surrounded group, a circular wall of ice rose up and caught the various amounts of holy energy. Said wall then reflected the energy back into the various armored ponies and golems knocking them away.
“Excuse me, but I don’t think this is a fair fight… you’ll need to triple your forces if you actually want to make this a fair fight.” Velvet landed among the group that had been under pressure. Tinsel hovered next to her head waving two paper fans around making cheerful noises.
“Well you better… ugh!” Before Shocking Awe could get too far Arizona smashed her hoof into his face at high speeds and they both went tumbling into the overgrowth.
“Don’t give my mother any explosi… agh!” Shouted Arizona before she was cut off by being hit.
“Velvet, Arizona, where have you guys been?!” It was a little shocking for Fizzle and their group to suddenly get help out of a rip in the air, she watched as several more figures poured through.
“Holy magic being used for ill purposes? If holy powers can be used for bad things, then my dark magic is about to be used for very good reasons!” Hearing Oleander say that, the Perun Paladins started to focus entirely on her. “Fred… its show time, Fel Spark!”
One of the Perun Paladins was blasted through one of the nearby trees.
“A purveyor of darkness, get her!” Dispel Grace was the first to charge Oleander and he swung a crescent blast of holy energy at her from his overcompensating sword.
“That’s a paltry efforts at best, SHOW THEM WHAT WE GOT OLLIE!” The dark magic unicorn opened Fred up and he let loose a crescent wave of dark energy that dropped several splotches of shadow on the ground in its wake, the beam of holy energy was easily canceled out. “I can handle a few of these holy hoofed haters, but someone’s going to have to have my back.”
Dispel ran over one of the splotches and was sent flying when the shadows erupted with a large blast of dark magic knocking him away and into the air.
“Already way ahead of you Ollie!” Maggie shouted as she smashed two weakly flailing Perun Paladin’s helmets together and dropped their limp forms on the ground.
“Wait, don’t focus on the…” Teatime tried, but the main pony golem he was talking through jumped back and actually blocked Tianhuo’s hoof and knocked the flaming longma back with a blow to the jaw. “Darn it, I’m retreating my prototype leader unit back to the base camp. You try to deal with them, I’m sending in all the beast and wyvern units, plus an excavating crab tank!”
The prototype golem started running and leapt to the side, moving almost like an actual pony as it avoided Tianhuo destroying several golem ponies behind it, several clockwork beasts lunged out of the brush and forced Tianhuo into the jungle.
“Tianhuo!” Pom shouted as she was the last one to erupt from the rip with her Canis group, it swiftly closed behind her. She dodged a stabbing spear from behind, stood up on her hind legs as she spun around and slammed her left hoof into a Perun Paladin that sent them flying into the jungle and knocked their helmet clean off their head. Pom started shaking the bell on her neck and yelled. “Sick them lads!”
Her four puppies started tearing through the surrounding golems that were actually moving at speeds comparable to average ponies. Big Mama barked, as she stood protectively over the lambkin and took several cannonball shots for her with little injury to show for it.
“Meep!” Paprika said as she grappled onto a distracted Jock from behind and squeezed him with a bone breaking force, then kicked off of him with excessive force that sent the parrot rolling and bouncing away.
“What?” While Kuril asked this in confusion she held back a golem pony’s blade with her staff, the alpaca smiled in her direction.
Paprika slung a wad of fur to pull the golem off of Kuril and proceeded to whip it into a nearby tree.
Blade threw a knife into the skull of a charging golem pony causing it to explode, she was at Kuril’s side in instant and her eyes were searching for any more aggressive movements towards the Abyssinian with rapidly flicking ears. She tossed a knife to assist the cow and the unicorn with the talkative book.
“Thanks for the assistance, I can tell we’re going to be good friends!” Oleander called out to Blade.
“As our wife just said. Where do you need to go? She’ll clear a path for you and we’ll catch up with you later.” Velvet shouted as she spun around and generated a blade of ice along her leg to deflect a pony with a glowing sword, pushed them off and then lashed out at them. The armored pony leapt back. “Tinsel, please be a dear and watch mommy’s back, these guys of Dispel are far smarter than the pony golems.”
“Which way do we need to go? Well that way!” As Kuril pointed in the direction towards the temple and the same direction the most agile golem pony retreated. “Girls, get ready to move. Wait a minute… you’re married? Well I can’t complain given that Jacky gave me a grandchild already.”
“We’re quite busy mom, we do have a noncombatant in the field!” Fizzle blasted a number of golems away from Fluttershy with a chain of colorful explosions, said shy pony was quivering behind her. “Fluttershy, stay next to me and be ready to use the medical kits, because injuries are likely unavoidable now!”
“Alright.” A whimpering Fluttershy covered her head as golem parts flew in various directions throughout the small clearing.
“We’ll move when the openings made.” Maries was whipping Marie around to smash the armored ponies away. Spewing flames came from Maria to slightly burn the Perun Paladins in their armor. Mara was just slapping armored ponies into trees, bouncing them off boulders, slamming them into the ground and was knocking them every which way imaginable while focusing on avoiding the blasts of scorching light firing every which way.
Lashing her whip around several times in quick succession, Daring was easily dealing with the pony golems. She stayed away from most of the Perun Paladins and only targeted the small number of pegasus and thestral paladins that were attacking them in the air.
“Hurry up Paprika, my mother needs you to move your cute butt!” Screamed Velvet as she continued to redirect the blasts of holy energy, mostly away from Maries and Oleander with several floating snowflakes. The blasts instead went to targets the attacks weren’t intended for.
Paprika put her hooves together and launched a large wad of fluff forward, then it split into two as it swept outwards in both directions. Maggie leapt over the sweeping fur and Ollie teleported around the attack and no one else that was important was in the way. Having cleared an open path, the alpaca turned to Kuril and waved.
“Meep!” The alpaca said cheerfully as she hopped in place.
Kuril nodded and started to move forward and out of the sudden chaotic mess that was caused by Arizona and Velvet appearing out of nowhere with a number of interesting fighters. Kuril was followed closely by Paprika, Daring, Blade, Fluttershy and Fizzle. Behind them all was Maries bringing up the rear with Mara ripping the head off of a golem as she moved into position.
“So you’re married to Velvet?” It wasn’t exactly the time for it, but Kuril still had to ask about the friendly looking alpaca.
“Meep.” Nodded Paprika, who suddenly gained a surprised look and pushed Kuril to the side.
A pair of mechanical claws crashed through the area the Abyssinian used to occupy. Paprika rolled and fired a wad of fur, she then pulled herself up onto the mechanical wyvern as it flew off.
Something slammed into the ground with a mechanical whirring filling the air, Kuril turned towards the sound and her ears drooped.
“Is that a giant four legged mechanical crab?” After asking that, Kuril twirled her staff and flipped a beast golem onto its back. It was swiftly levitated and then bashed into another beast golem with excessive force.
Kuril jumped back as the giant crab machine brought its left claw down at her and grabbed a large scoop of the dirt, rocks, soil and plants. It quickly flicked its claw outwards while opening it widely, it flung out the debris it had just scooped up in a thick mass that slammed into Kuril and sent her rolling across the ground while yowling in pain.
Fluttershy quickly made her way over to the Kuril to check on her. Fizzle sent burst after burst of magic into the armored machine’s body, doing some damage with each blast despite its thick armor. Maries was busy keeping the beast golems off of them with Daring and Blade.
“Darn it, we’re not going to be able to move forward at this rate!” Fizzle grunted as she lobbed another large amount of explosive magical force from her horn at the crab machine that blocked it entirely with its two large scoop shaped claws. “We need to disable this thing!”
A cloud of mist appeared above them and out of it shot a boat that landed directly on top of the machine, said crab machine paused in its forward advance seemingly in confusion at the sudden extra weight on its legs.
Four figures hopped out of Viking gondola that started to slide off the crabs back, a shield, an axe, a brightly glowing fan and a bright flaming sword slashed through the metal crab’s legs close to its main body. Said body dropped to the ground with a huge crash.
The machine just lost its ability to walk since all four of its legs just fell away from it, but it could still move around a little using its claws.
“Is that Fizzle I am seeing?” Fortitude turned and blocked the crab claw full of detritus flung at him. “It seems we are once again dealing with Clockwork, yak proudly smash!”
“Got it, Sweetcakes stop that incoming wyvern!” Flamberge yelled as he flickered and deflected the left crab claw upwards in an instant, he put fairly large rent in its left arm.
The nine tailed fox flicked her fan holding tail and it sent a concentrated tornado of power ripping through the air at the wyvern that damaged on of its tiltrotor wings. The fox then proceeded to wave the fan in front of her face with a coy grin as the wyvern dropped into the trees a bit away from them damaging itself further. She didn’t need to exert any more energy on it.
Skelly, looking like a normal pony at the moment, rolled her eyes then held up the Sieve Precarious and opened a portal beneath the crab and sealed it shut immediately once the malignant machine fell through it, leaving its legs behind. She smirked at Flamberge.
“You do realize how dangerous that thing is to use right?!” Having been a part of what happened with it previously, Flamberge had a right to be upset. Skelly made several gestures at him. “Well if you’re sure Skelly… what do you need of the Vibrant Viking at the moment Fizzle?! These are Skelly and Sweetcakes!”
“Could you start by taking care of those beast golems coming our way?” Sweeping a hoof to show that at least ten beast golems were barreling down on them from various directions, Fizzle looked to see Fluttershy helping Kuril drink a healing potion. “We need a few moment to get mom up and moving.”
“We’ve got you covered, right brother?” Flamberge spun and slashed the head off a beast golem’s head.
“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” Fortitude shield bashed an oncoming golem and it crumpled upon impact with the shield.
Skelly spun around and brought her axe through a beast golem’s midsection, cleanly bisecting it in two and rendering it inoperable.
A few seconds later, Kuril was helped up onto her feet and the group continued moving forward with Sweetcakes joining them.
A slightly singed Paprika fell from the sky and started swing through the canopy of trees above them.
They all eventually came to a large clearing and stopped.
“Yeah... I think they’re ready for us.” Fizzle looked at the base built between them and the pyramid on the other side of it.