//------------------------------// // Chapter Seventy One, GODLESS GODDESS: Delete. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Manehatten, 10:46 PM, near Rally Point, Jade- I felt vaguely safer as Fizzy’s magic pulled me to her side and she held me close while glaring at Stochastic. We were near the slope that would get me to the bay, which was perfect for my needs. “Fizzy, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but she has Earth Pony Foresight. When it kicks in you’ll know, because she starts dodging everything for a few seconds.” Then I decided to tell Fizzy the really important bit. “That and I think she just learned how to teleport instinctively.” “How long do you need Jade?” Fizzy kept her eyes on the devastated alicorn that was slowly approaching us. She let me go, moved forward and widened her stance protectively. “Bring it on… I need my payback for all those sleepless nights!” “I’ll draw her away when I need to.” There was some concern from me with how strong Stochastic was. “Just do what damage you can.” “Gladly!” Fizzy stated before she charged forward. Fizzy went into a slide avoiding the left hoof swing for her head, her left rear leg came up into the alicorn’s jaw and then her right rear leg rammed into her throat. Stochastic stumbled back a bit, then tried to stomp on the unicorn. Stochastic missed as Fizzy twisted into a clockwise spinning windmill maneuver slapping the right side of her face twice before stopping her spin to launch a buck to the chest while flipping onto her hooves Fizzle then hit Stochastic in the barrel while she was airborne with a powerful blast of raw magic that sent her rolling, she disappeared in a flash. Fizzle turned towards me with a worried look as I heard the telltale pop of a teleport, I immediately dove to the side and Stochastic’s horn scraped across my shoulder. I gasped as a trickle of red seeped through my fingers. Stochastic turned to follow me, only to receive a knife to the left hock. She grunted and her horn still managed to track me and fire a blast, the rail gun speed at which the blast moved would have been impossible to dodge at this range. After having reflexively closed my eyes and not experiencing any sudden pain or untimely detachment from my body, I opened them and saw my mom with her staff planted in the ground a fair distance away. The alicorn fired another blast and it veered off in a sharp angle for mom’s staff which glowed brightly and she leaned away slightly while holding her hand out towards it. Seeing that magical rail gun to the face wasn’t going to work she tried to jump for my with the intent to either gore me on her horn or break me in half with her bare hooves. Too bad she took a sabre tiger pounce from the right, Mara’s weight staggered her and the sudden force of two large fangs and various teeth puncturing her spine had to hurt. Stochastic bashed Mara off with her right hoof, then was hit by a blast of fire to her left flank once Mara was clear of the alicorn. Adding onto the damage, Maria suddenly slammed her sharp horn into Stochastic’s left side with a powerful lunge. Maria hopped back and did flipping leap over Stochastic’s left hoof and blasted her in the back and other side with a continuous stream of fire. Maria quickly backed off before Stochastic could attack with her right hoof, that’s when Fizzle came in and slammed her with a nasty left hoof right into the alicorn’s temple right temple staggering her again. The alicorn made a surprising recover and was about to hit Fizzle with her horn. Only to have a pair of lovely venomous fangs sink into the left side of her throat distracting her, my favorite snake followed up with a tail whip her in the right eye making her roar in pain. Marie quickly unhooked her fangs and flipped away to rejoin with Mara and Maria, she timed her release so well that Stochastic reflexively smashed the left side of her face with her own hoof. When I said do as much damage as they could, they were taking me seriously. I quickly added to the staggered alicorn’s injuries by launching my yo-yo at her glowing horn. It struck with a painful cracking noise, then she teleported away. I looked around warily with Fizzle and Maries, but didn’t see her coming at me. Hearing my mother scream, my blood chilled. Looking down the street, my mother was on her back and her staff was quite a bit away from her. Mom tried to roll away from Stochastic, she was launched into air when Stochastic struck the ground with her front two hooves to create a massive shockwave. Several pillars of stone erupted around and over the staff and one popped up beneath my falling mother, the alicorn lit her horn while turning towards the spike. Mom was knocked away from landing on the jagged bit of street by Blade swooping in, but she still landed with a painful sounding yowl as she rolled across the ground. Blade swooped down and slashed Stochastic across the muzzle trying to damage her left eye and quickly evaded the several blasts of energy that chased her upwards. The thestral continued to evade several shots with narrow misses sending tufts of fur or hair flying from her. Stochastic was learning how to rapid fire her horn, not good when each shot was as powerful as the first. I started moving towards Stochastic to draw attention away from them, with Fizzy and Maries following me. Blade looked towards us and then towards mom as she ducked into an alleyway while signaling something to the thestral, she then proceeded covered her ears. I stopped and covered my own when I saw the dodging Blade inhale deeply, I barely noted Fizzy moving in front of Maries in the corner of my vision to create a barrier that didn’t look very solid. This is the first time I’ve ever heard Blade’s voice, if an angry screech counted. Said screech made the entire area shake and caused windows everywhere to shower either the streets or the insides of the buildings themselves in glass. I could see blood dribbling from Stochastic’s ears as she stumbled dizzily, there was now a visible crack in her horn. Blade voice was ridiculously powerful if it did that to her horn, I was already in motion for her and I started pushing myself forward. I leapt up and kicked both my skates at her horn. The horn was knocked upwards and with the horn going between my wheels, it set off the skates grind function and launched me upwards. I launched my yo-yo upwards, as I dropped back towards Stochastic. “Orbital Drop!” I swung my left hand downwards and whipped the yo-yo into her horn at the crack with the force of my downwards momentum and that of the yo-yo. I flipped forward twice striking her two more times with the yo-yo and followed up with a painful axe kick to the same spot. Up to this point I had been playing mostly keep away and staying out of the fighting, but I was feeling fairly vindictive at the moment. A small chunk of bone actually flew off of her horn when the back of my skates connected and the crack was even worse now. I kicked off and rolled away from her while reeling my yo-yo back towards me. Looking towards mom, I saw that Blade toss another knife into Stochastic’s front left leg’s knee joint and then proceeded to help mom out of Stochastic’s line of sight. I skated a small distance away while thinking about how powerful poison joke was when concentrated, Discord certainly put effort into making those flowers. Despite the various things we just did to Stochastic, she was still standing and she just forcefully bucked a pouncing Maries through a building’s wall a fair distance away. Maybe even put them through the entire building. Stochastic then proceed to dodge Fizzle’s next several up close blazingly fast and confusing break dancing attacks that I wouldn’t have been able to follow much less dodge. The messed up alicorn did so with with relative ease despite her balance being completely shot thanks to Blade’s screech and every other persisting injury she currently had. Fizzle quickly backed away from Stochastic before she could capitalize on her most recent evasion of dodging a twisting right upper hoof going for her jaw. Stochastic charged her horn and fired it almost point blank. Fizzy stood her ground and her stump flared as a white barrier of magic blocked the beam and it splashed off it harmlessly. She then narrowed her eyes at something I clearly didn’t see from my position, she tried to get closer to Stochastic who suddenly stomped her hooves. Several spires of rock erupted from the ground near Stochastic to push Fizzy back, but she disappeared and reappeared within a second to thrust her hooves under Stochastic’s front legs to bring her into a hug. When Fizzy had a good grip on the alicorn, who seems to have lost her foresight around that time and seemed to be confused about the show of affection, she forced her broken stump against the cracks in Stochastic’s horn. “Hope this hurts worse than when it happened to me...” Fizzy stated coldly, I could barely hear her say that in a level tone. What followed was Fizzy’s horn erupting with power, I was blinded for a moment and raised my hands in front of my face. After blinking the spots out of my eyes, I saw that the two bodies had went flying away from each other. I looked to Fizzle and saw that her horn was undamaged by whatever magic she had just done, looking towards Stochastic… I blinked. I could see a bit of Stochastic’s skull under the burnt flesh and there wasn’t much of the horn to left to even be called a stump. The mare laid there with shrunk pupils and a silent scream on her mouth, after a moment she blinked and she tried to stand up. Fizzy groaned and looked up at Stochastic slowly, but surely enough, was getting up. “Bucking…” It was one of the words I heard Fizzy mumble to herself as she shakily hoisted herself up onto her hooves. “Put… everything….” “Is she even conscious?” I muttered as I noticed the shrunken pupils didn’t expand, her body seemed to be moving with a will of its own as it jumped forward and slammed Fizzy in the chest knocking her down. She moved over to Fizzle and raised her left hoof, Fizzy quickly rolled away and was launched into the air by the force of one hoof striking the ground. Fizzle slammed back first into a spire of stone and Stochastic was right on top of her, without thinking I raised my right hand and fired a magic missile where the sun shouldn’t shine. “Hey it’s me you want, leave her alone!” At my words and attack the mare just grunted and turned around to look at me blankly. Her pupils, instead of expanding, slowly turned into bright glowing silver slits. That was creepy on a number of levels. What came next filled me with a complete sense of horror, As if having a murderous alicorn coming after me wasn’t horrifying enough. In a shower of blood two bony structures sprouted from the large nubs on her back, with leathery membranes between them as they spread out. I think she just grew thestral wings… why did she grow thestral wings?! She opened her mouth and her teeth went from flat to slowly becoming sharp and pointy. What turquoise fur she had left, turned a much darker color and her exposed skin started to turn an ashy purple color. “Oh my goddesses… she’s actually going nightmare on my ass…” I started to slowly stumble back and away from the thing that I had so bravely attracted the attention of. At least it wasn’t on the Fizzy, who wouldn’t have been able to defend herself from the next incoming blow. There was now a very tiny cone poking out of her forehead, at least even she couldn’t grow back her horn. Whatever was left after Fizzle decimated it was what made up the tiny jewel like spot on her head. The injuries were still there, which only added to the suddenly paralyzing visage. This was the monster I was staring down, she started to slowly trot towards me ignoring Fizzy, who was also paralyzed with fear. I had to go… Now… Come on legs, work damn it! I managed to tear my gaze away from the nightmarish alicorn and started to stumble into skating towards the nearby slope, I didn’t want to look back. Definitely knew she was coming for me, my adrenaline was likely why I was picking up speed so quickly. Soon I was moving as if my life depended on it, because it certainly did and I still needed to lure her towards the location! -Top of the slope, Rally Point, 11:23 PM, Arizona- Darn it, I should be out there protecting my friend. I just had to throw my spine out throwing a concussive blast of pure physics with my hoof, didn’t help one bit that I carried Gene back afterwards. Jade skidded into the intersection below us and then she shot forward down the slope, a large beam of magical energy burned the tip of her tail slightly as she shot down the hill like… My eyes focused on a dark shape rising up in the night sky, spreading its draconic wings. Storm clouds started gathering and the figure swooped after Jade at an insane speed. My medical bedding was soon moved into the tent as rain started falling. Holy… bucking… me… is that the same alicorn?! -Slope, 11:25 PM, Jade- Tail singed, ouch. Don’t think, keep going. I leapt at a cabbage cart as a pair of bladed wings hissed through the space I just occupied, my left shoulder had a cut that wasn’t there a second ago and I grinded along the handles of a cabbage cart and leapt off it with the gained moment to skid along a wall. Just react, don’t stop for anything. I need to reach the bay, get to the spot, then get into position and stall. How am I supposed to stall that?! I don’t have time to think or plan for this eventuality, need to think on my…! Dropping onto a rickshaw on the street, I narrowly avoided a tight beam slicing vertically through the building. I used the edges of the rickshaw’s roof to boost myself forward and dropped back into the center of the street and just moved to the left without thinking. The tip of a wing passed by the right side of my throat I reached up and felt something wet spill onto my fingers. Pushing myself that much harder, I veered toward a large building's wall on my left and moved out of the path of a beam sweeping down the street from behind me. I leapt up on to and rode the relatively smooth wall with the same beam chasing me. After kicking off it, I instinctively went for my griffon feather and jumped again in the air. The nightmare alicorn zoomed underneath me as I twirled while kicking out my legs.