//------------------------------// // Chapter Sixty Four, Bad Bastion Battle: Citadel. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -The Grand Time, Teatime- “The barrier function seem to be working effectively enough, it’s just too bad that I can’t fit a magical barrier on anything smaller or bigger than that.” Too small and the golem is drained in seconds, too big and the golem uses an ever increasing exponential amount of energy to even keep the barriers active. Barrier magic on my golems was tricky prospect. “If they think they can chase me down and catch me, then they don’t know the likes of Teatime Clockwork!” I was working towards compact and efficient hoof held disposable barrier shields for my pony golems. Directly applied barriers were too expensive, time consuming to make and overall highly inefficient. Barriers seemed to be the next logical upgrade to improve the longevity and defensive capacity of my golems, I just didn’t have the inspiration for such a design yet. I already increased my pony golems overall mobility and speed, so they were working fairly well even if they were still somewhat fragile. At least the barriers on my combined excavators would have quite a few minutes of highly effective combat time, with power increasing to the barriers based on the impacts dealt to them. Until then, while they were combined like that, they were nearly impervious to outside damage. The combined crab shaped excavators would run out of energy long before they could be destroyed outright, so it’s a fairly decent tradeoff I think for the time and effort I put into them. It’s just too bad that my impressive machines were running their energy down on a fairly oafish and rather aggressive cow of all things. -Airspace above the jungle, Tianhuo- I didn’t know how things were going on the ground, I was quite busy enough up here with the mechanical wyverns Teatime used to attack my home. I flew up high and then came down spiraling and spinning until I drilled my hooves through the chest of a metal wyvern and forced my way out its back in a shower of parts. I watched it fall into the jungle and crumple into a pile of scrap metal. While they were still fire resilient, they certainly didn’t handle pure brute force very well. I heard the sound of metal being sundered behind me and turned around to see, what was his name? It has been a few years since he helped with the defense of my home by bringing Lord Torch back with one of Huoshan’s guardians. Oh right, his name was Flamberge! Flamberge’s burning sword had just sliced a metallic wyvern from hip to shoulder and its two inert halves fell towards the jungle. He pointed toward the open space in the jungle near where a pyramid sat. “We need to take out those cannons, our friends are being pinned down!” Flamberge yelled as he flew closer to me, he looked back at his wings as if missing an old friend. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to fly, I have also gained a fairly large appreciation for dogs! Friend Tianhuo, how have your travels fared before ending up here?! Our group has faced many an odd and dangerous situations!” “Ended up in another dimension for a few years where I literally fought myself in honorable combat, my life certainly wasn’t very strange before that.” The other Tianhuo and I tied in our fights. In fact, every fight between us tended to be a draw even when we weren’t fighting physically. There’s being evenly matched and then there’s being fated to be evenly matched no matter what you do. Our twelve hour game of horseshoes was quite fairly impressive in that regard. “You’ve been fairly lucky then, we had to fight an eldritch abomination every other week and ended up in various dimensions and not just one! I am fairly tired of fighting eldritch abominations made of tentacles and the physical representation of horror made manifest!” He gestured for me to follow him and I did so, we both flew towards the side of the cannons at the enemy base and prepared to give ‘fire’ support for our friends on the ground. “In fact, I’ve become desensitized to seeing creatures of such a massive number of orifices. It scares me more that I can’t find it in me to be afraid of them. Though that gas demon with the thousand butts was quite comical, lots of kicking did occur there!” “That’s nothing, I’ve been on my adventure for years trying to find the one thing I’ve been after for quite a while and now we have to deal with all this stuff to get to it!” The adventurous pegasus mare joined us and she was carrying a smiling Paprika with her. Her wings were putting up a lot of effort to keep the alpaca up in the air. “Help me with this alpaca would you, she’s a bit heavy. I want to drop our friend here off in their base where she can cause some havoc!” “We can certainly do that!” Flamberge helped the mare carry Paprika as we all flew forward, there weren’t many wyverns left in the air and it was a clear shot for the base. -Behind the potion made wall, Maries- We grit our teeth as Jock managed to get us into a bear hug and trapped Mara’s paws under his arms, we felt our bones slowly creaking under the strain as his squeeze continued to increase in strength. Marie noted that Kuril was motioning for us to get out of Jock’s grip as she prepped her staff with a potion from a safe position. Kuril prepared to swing it and was giving us a worried glance. Fortitude and that mare Skelly finally arrive and started helping out with the numerous mechanical beasts still running around. It was nice to see Fortitude again and he was as big and strong as he ever was, especially with how well he was plowing through various golems. “We need to get out of his grip…” Maria grunted out, she then sent us the idea she had in mind. Marie would have to temporarily split off too for that, we were surprised when she suddenly agreed to do so when she hated being separated from us. Marie quickly explained herself. “It’ll give her an opening!” “Oh and just how are you planning to do…” Jock started to say. Maria pushed downwards, Mara pushed upwards and Marie dropped off of us to the side. As each split happened, the maximum size of our bodies shrunk and made room for us to escape. Mara pulled herself over his arms by digging her claws into his shoulders and proceeded to kick off him into a backflip with her hind legs. While he was staggered, Maria ducked out from under his arms and Marie was already moving forward to prep him for the knockdown. “That?!” In his confusion Maria kicked forward to ram her horns into his stomach, Mara charge forward and slapped his face twice with her paws while he was doubled over and Marie was already in position wrapped around his legs. Jock Hawk was fairly top heavy and he toppled over backwards with the next blow Mara landed on his face, the three of us quickly pulled away from him and joined back together. “You can do that?! Oh you are so going down you pip-” Off to the side of Jock, Kuril slung her staff forward and a potion vial smashed against his beak. This sent some broken glass and magical fluids straight down his throat. The transformation was faster than if it had just gotten on his feathers and body. “*Squeaks*!” The small muscular mouse looked shocked at the sudden change and started coughing up several small bits of cheap glass. We reared back and slapped Jock far off into the jungle with a single powerful, and exceptionally painful looking, claw to the head. “That was an extra strength transformation potion, should last him at least an hour or more.” Kuril then offered us a potion vial. “Need a healing potion Maries?” We nodded and took the offered vial into a paw and quickly downed it, it tasted pretty good. We could already feel our cracked bones and badly bruised flesh slowly knitting back together into a healthy state. We managed to get back behind the badly battered wall before another salvo of cannon fire struck. The wall Kuril made was almost completely destroyed and Fortitude moved in front of it with his shield to block several shots from hitting the central portion of the wall that everyone was taking cover behind. Seconds later the cannon fire abruptly stopped. Marie looked over the wall cautiously and grinned brightly. “The cannons are under attack. We can moved forward and assist Maggie!” It seemed we wouldn’t have to do that Marie. Not when a large reindeer shaped ice statue started to slowly stomp towards the small, relative to it, centipede of crab machines. Two figures were strafing the cannons with fire, while Daring and the alpaca were busy dancing around the tentacles of the airship that started becoming more active in this fight. The Perun Paladins in the area started firing blasts of energy at them in their attempts to fend them off. -Field of battle, Maggie- Two claws on the left side dug into the ground and hurled several large chunks of ground at me, I was staying fairly mobile and on the evasive during all this. I ran around the massive chunks of ground and it reared up to bring the entirety of its mass down on me. I was already moving out the way. Let me tell you, getting this much weight in motion wasn’t easy. The centipede stomped forward on its crab claw legs, while swinging around its forward torso trying to hit me. I threw myself to the ground and let the scoop pass overhead before I got up. I was still trying to think of a way to break a barrier that strong when a shadow fell over me. I thought it might have been more trouble, up until a large pointy leg made of ice blocked the other crab claw scoop swinging back around for an attempted clamp on my head. “I’ve got this, go.” Velvet’s voice spoke in a slow droning tone, but I nodded and ducked around the icy leg to move on, while Velvet’s other leg punched the centipede across what passed for its head. The barrier flared brightly and the entire thing wobbled wildly to almost fall onto its side, the reindeer statue still managed to cause it some damage just from the raw force of the impact. Only my Arizona could attract a reindeer that frigid. Having made it past the centipede, I started running towards the buildings where I saw my daughter’s other lovely wife smashing through those armored nut jobs with the crazy holy powers. She cartwheeled over a sword and quickly slammed her skull into the helmet of the paladin attacking her, the helmet split in half to fall off a surprised looking stallion’s head. “Here’s a Minnesota Masher for you!” I met the back of said head with a hoof and forced the stallion face first into the ground while putting my weight into it. It only took one blow to knock him out, what a weak earth pony. “I know a guy named Bright Mac that would have stayed awake through that, then he would have at least put up something approaching a fight!” “Meep.” Paprika waved to me in a cute manner as she was hugging the armor off of some poor sap with one leg, I continued on my way towards one of the buildings to see what was in them. I needed to see what I had to work with in blowing this place up, I was hoping to use something other than the three remaining safe explosions I had on hoof. Rearing back as a cannonball passed in front of my face, I turned a glare towards the airship and vowed to find a bounty on the guy that owned it. If there wasn’t a bounty, then I’d certainly set out to make one! I had barely moved enough to avoid another cannonball going by my tail as I ran. That had also been a close one. All the other cannons were being taken out, but that airship was still going to be a problem as the cannons on it weren’t fielded by a crew that could be taken out by our flying friends. I quickly ducked through the door into what I hoped to be a warehouse. The guys around here had giant crabs that looked like digging machines, so there had to be at least some explosives for possible mining operations right? Nobody would have a dig site setup like this base does without at least some high end explosives, it just wouldn’t be a proper base otherwise if it couldn’t go up in an instant blaze of glory. -Entrance of the pyramid, Sekhet- “It seems that my mortals are doing fairly well and have plenty of friends. Kuril and Fluttershy are tending to their wounds as needed and they apparently don’t need my divine intervention… yet.” I was focused on the curious soul of the mare that was stuck between life and death. “I’m actually quite proud of that.” “Yes, but what of the mare with the axe? Her soul seems intact… if unfairly twisted.” Bastet was curious, as was I. “Their current lot in life is not something any god of death could possibly miss, unless there was nothing that they could do for the poor dear. She’s technically not dead enough to count as such, and is also technically not alive enough to not be dead.” We both knew that souls were sacred. That mare’s soul in particular was messed up, but at least it wasn’t torn or tarnished. It was close enough that I wanted the name of the guy that I absolutely needed shred for almost doing such a horrible thing to an innocent soul. The pony in question was of a heroic spirit at least, she continued to fight despite her given state of existence and the grave chance of those so called holy warriors possibly destroying her soul utterly. “Being stuck like that must not be very pleasant.” I agreed, Perun is already on my list of enemies. “Not when there are all those Perun Pansies around trying to destroy her soul.” “Still, the faint taint of that magic seems familiar… I need to check something.” My sister’s eyes glowed for a second, it was a second later that she returned her sight to me. “Interesting news, apparently the Valkyrie known as Eir has already dealt with the necromancer that did this. Also said necromancer is quite familiar to me, it’s apparently Mosey Wrath’s work.” “Mosey Wrath… wasn’t that a unicorn who was a powerful Saddle Arabian necromancer and sorcerer?” It was nice to know that someone took the bastard down eventually. Necromancers annoyed most gods like no tomorrow, death gods more so than anyone else. “He was powerful, up until his gauntlet was destroyed. It had most of his magic in it and he was otherwise incapable of doing much afterwards aside from necromancy.” Bastet sighed. “He ran away when the liberation of the Black Sands territory finally happened. Nobody knew where he went until Eir snagged him, he was apparently caught manufacturing draugr with stolen souls.”