//------------------------------// // Chapter Seventy One, GODLESS GODDESS: Backspace. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Rally Point, Medical Tent, 8:24 PM, Paprika- “…” My wives already went back out there, their injuries weren’t pressing enough to keep them here, I still worried. “If you have to follow them, then stay out of the way of any fighting.” Nodding in understanding to Dr. Bones as I sipped at a healing potion, it was only making me feel better and it wouldn’t actually deal with the fractures in my head. Healing from this was going to actually take some time. I reminded myself of how badly those cannonballs rattled my brain, only this was a serious injury and far worse than that. “Absolutely avoid taking another blow to the head, because it could kill you!” “…” Despite the pain, I gave her my best determined look. With the bandages wrapped around my head and two white streams flowing in the wind, I nodded. -Manehatten Square, Jade- A wave of magic rippled across my fur harmlessly, I looked in the direction that magic wave had come from. Did Stochastic just use a spell that can detect me anywhere in the city? I was in the middle of the empty intersection of Manehatten’s most famous thoroughfare. Looking up at the sky I saw a speck coming in my direction at an insane speed. Yep, she did. Even if I was already in motion, I wasn’t going to get out of Stochastic’s way in time. Time slowed down and her hooves were about three feet from impact. I was hit from behind and suddenly I was a good twenty feet down the street with a pair of arms wrapped around my waist. Needing to keep my balance, I placed my lifted skate on the ground. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Jacky was pushing me along and the roar of her jetpack sounded pleasing to my ears. Her majestic feathers were spread out wide, she sighed loudly and there was a weak grin on her beak under the goggles over her eyes. I looked behind us and saw what the impact crater looked like and I didn’t want to be within fifty feet of that mad mare after seeing it. Stochastic, the alicorn of imminent death, flexed her wings and turned towards us. She leapt into the air and actually started to shakily learn how to fly after us. “Tell me you have a plan.” Jacky screamed as the alicorn started giving chase and became a bit faster, she was at least keeping us in sight. “I do, but I need to survive for the next three hours to pull it off and I might have underestimated just how powerful she’d actually get.” Which was going to be hard to do with a murder happy alicorn on my tail the entire time. Jacky jerked us to the right, I wondered why she did that and then a magical beam of energy shot by us at rail gun speeds. “Sixth sense for danger, please don’t fail me now.” Jacky muttered with a hint of fear and I was right there with my jinxed sister. Stochastic had definitely learned how to fire raw power from her horn and neither of us wanted to be hit by that. “Keep going Jade, I’ll hold her off!” “Jacky, wait!” My sister let me go and I kept going forward on inertia while she shot up and spun back to shoot towards the alicorn. I started skating as if my life depended on it, it probably does and I needed to put some distance between me and that monster. -Jacky- I shot towards the alicorn and pulled out the sabre at my right hip and frowned at the alicorn, I slashed her across the right side as I passed by her while avoiding a wind blade fired from her left wing. The alicorn just let out a howl of rage and continued after Jade, I immediately flipped over and shot by her left side and slashed out her wing. That forced her to face plant into the ground and I heard my jetpack entering cooldown. Darn it all! Getting close to the ground, my pack stopped and I dropped into a roll on the street heading towards the alicorn. I narrowly avoided getting my head taken off by her right hoof. The other hoof came up in a way that I couldn’t possibly avoid, it move towards my head and I could see my life flash before my eyes. Why was every single horrible thing that has ever happened to me the first things that comes to mind before I die? I would have preferred reliving all my happier memories thank you! The left hoof was suddenly slammed down into the street by a spear in a splash of blood. “Jacky, please be more careful.” Gene state calmly as he came down on the spear with full force and firmly pushed it in deeper with his right claw and pinned the murder-corn’s front left leg to the street. The alicorn roared and swung her right hoof for his head, but my Gene wasn’t called ‘The Swift Reaction’ for nothing. He ducked under the swing and his left set of talons flashed out and raked harshly across the right side of her face and eye in an exceedingly painful looking manner. The alicorn let out of howl of pain as she flinched backwards, her left eye focused on Gene as her horn started charging up magic. Gene kicked off the ground and pulled his spear free and twirled it around to build up momentum and smack the underside of the alicorn’s horn straight up. This sent the powerful blast that Stochastic had been charging harmlessly into the sky. She tried to move towards him, but I was already in motion and slashing my sword up her right leg. She flinched and tried to back hoof me. I leapt back and stylishly twirled around her left hoof coming for me and slashed up the left side of her neck, then I quickly backed off. Her wings swung forward and loosed two visible blades of wind at us, I presented a smaller profile and used a rising slash from my right hip going up and to my left shoulder to cut through it safely. Gene to my right did the same with a downward swing. We weren’t ready for the follow up attack of a massive wall of wind struck both us and sent us flying down the street. I lost sight of Gene as he slapped into a wall, I came to a stop on my back in the street. The alicorn kicked off the ground coming at me with her wings spread wide her bloodied hooves aiming to smash my skull in. All her injuries were already healing right before my eyes and speaking of eyes, the damage Gene did to her eye was already fading away. Come on, come on… I really needed my jetpack to be operable right now. I froze as those deadly hooves were within an inch of my eyes. A loud clang rang out and the alicorn was suddenly knocked onto her back after taking a sudden anvil to the face. I looked over my shoulder and saw a finned hoof in the distance waving at me from the sky, I smiled slightly and then the jetpack started whining. Flotsam just used as a saving throw… in as literal a sense as one could get when it comes to the saving part. Good thing too because, Labor was already getting up from the anvil by rolling onto her hooves. I was already on my feet and I pulled out my other sword and held them both at the ready. My right sword held up in front of me defensively and my left one at the ready for an attack. “Want to dance?” As foolhardy as I was acting, I was scared out of my wits and the first thing I choose to do is challenge a freaking alicorn that just nearly took my head off. It’s all quite clear to me now… I’ve gone insane. “Then let’s dance!” I was under no illusion as to how strong Stochastic was physically after seeing her wings and horn in action. She wasn’t taking my sister and Captain away from me again! She came at me and in a blink the jetpack burst me forward and past her, her right hoof was where I was a second ago. Her glowing grey eyes widened, I left a large bloody X in her chest as I passed her by. She bucked out, two explosive burst later and I shot by her again slashing up her right hip and ducked under horn swinging for me in the middle of my second burst. She swung her wings around to send a volatile mass of building wind at me, only for Gene to suddenly arrive ram his spear into her left hip. I darted forward and with a clockwise spin I slashed both my swords across her face. While one sword ripped through her right cheek, the other dug into her neck while she was distracted. Stochastic kicked out with her left hind leg and Gene flapped backwards avoiding the kick, but made a small mistake and couldn’t avoid her left wing launching a vacuum blade into his wings at that range. He grunted as his wings were shredded by the wind and he lost quite a few feathers as he fell to the ground, he caught himself on his spear and propped himself up to avoid more pain. While Stochastic’s left wing was doing that, her right wing extended forward sharply and I blocked the spear of air with my right blade. My sword shattered in my right hand sending bits of it into my arm. The force of the wind spear also sent me flying. With a quick blast of my jetpack and a flip, I managed to right myself and land without much injury after skidding a foot or two. I tossed away the handle of the broken sword and switched stances to a fencer’s pose, the alicorn swung her right hoof around at Gene. Gene blocked the attack with his spear’s shaft and launched him into a nearby wall breaking his wings and possibly his back, judging by the way he was struggling to get back up. Stochastic was going to lunge for him while he was down. Two bursts from my jetpack and I was in front her and shooting forward. I jammed my sabre straight up to the hilt into her chest, right through where I knew her black heart should be. I quickly let go of my sword and blasted backwards towards the wall above Gene as she tried to smash her left hoof into me me while roaring in pain. A huge section of the street was ripped up by her attack and a portion of the wall to our, Gene and mine’s, left. I just stared in disbelief that she was still going despite having a sword burrowing through her chest and was likely going past her heart and into her barrel. I landed in front of Gene and looked to him, he gave me a grim frown. Yeah sword through the chest and she was about to lunge for us again anyway. I wasn’t going to abandon my husband, no matter how much he was telling me to do so with his eyes. The alicorn surged forward and I was prepared to take the blow, only for Gene to surge in front of me and take a bone crunching blow to the chest that knocked us both back into the wall again. The alicorn didn’t get off scot free, as Gene had slashed a hole in her throat with his spear. Said hole didn’t seem to bother Stochastic all too much. Gene coughed up a wad of blood from his beak, I gave him a worried look as I ran my digits over his neck lying in my lap. The alicorn lunged again… “Mach-it Launcher!” That was Arizona’s voice. A large comet shaped oval of bright orange burning energy rammed into the alicorn from the right with explosive force and redirected her forward momentum through the wall at our right. I immediately started dragging Gene towards Arizona, as the rest of the building collapsed inwards to implode on top of the alicorn sending dust into the air. “Yes, finally managed a…. dang it my leg!” I approached Arizona while lifting Gene over my right shoulder, she was gritting her teeth and holding her broken right leg. How hard did Arizona punch the air to do that?! Better question, was Arizona alright? It didn’t look like she could handle the force of that particular technique quite yet. “I think… I broke a few bones in my leg doing that and my whole body is numb except for my leg.” Tears sprung from Arizona’s closed eyes, she opened them slightly and managed to smile brightly at us. “Still worth it though! You guys doing okay?” “Thanks Zone… I didn’t exactly want Gavin to become an orphan, can you carry him?” The hurt look I received from Gene was heartbreaking. “Tch, Gavin wouldn’t become an orphan unless that alicorn managed to somehow kill everyone in Airship Mauled!” Without actually addressing me, she lifted Gene from my shoulder and moved him to be across her back with her left hoof. “I’ve got him and I’ll get him back to the rallying point for medical treatment, Velvet will catch up to lend her support soon. Do you think you can keep that ‘Alicorn of Wrath’ off of Jade by yourself?” “Yes.” Despite not having a weapon and being woefully outgunned by the raw muscle that the alicorn had, I seriously doubted dropping an entire building on said alicorn would really stop her for long, I was still willing to fight. “I can at least slow her down.” Arizona started to prepare for a jump. “Wait… Jac… ky…” Gene croaked out, making Arizona pause. He held out his spear out to me with his left talon, my Viking certainly had quite the death grip on it to still be holding it like that. I nodded and as soon as I took hold of it, he released it into my care. He looked me in the eyes, telling me to come back alive. I nodded to Arizona and she used her three slightly better hooves to leap away. I turned back to the collapsed rubble that used to be a building holding the spear tightly. A beam of light ripped its way towards the sky, a large pulse of magic spread outwards, then the alicorn burst out of the rubble and started flying in the direction Jade was likely in. I launched after her to give chase. I considered what I had to do to slow the alicorn down. Hole in the neck, sword through the chest and still ridiculously powerful. Coming to a stop, I hovered in place and put the prongs of Gene’s spear into the jetpack’s flames. She didn’t see me approaching, I was gripping the spear near the head in my left hand as I jammed into the base of her left wing. Reaching around to her chest, I grabbed the handle of my sabre. With a quick burst from my jetpack, I twisted around sharply and swung my sabre upwards. After amputating her left wing entirely, I followed that up by blasting Stochastic in the face with the flames from my jetpack.