//------------------------------// // Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Happy and Married. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Airship Mauled, late, Jade- Don’t know when Fizzy and Maries were going to come back tonight, but The Durable Dinghy would be good for commuting between here and Canterlot at least. It really didn’t take long for me and my group to get back at all. So in effort to help my loves live here in Airship Mauled, I would have to ask Jacky to help me with making another one for their personal use. This means of course that I would owe my sister a few favors, but I was okay with that. As soon as we got The Durable Dinghy back to the Ardent Survivor, my friends disembarked to go relax. Sweetcakes immediately sought out Flamberge, Paprika went to silently talk to Grace and Flotsam just went to be a big sister for her brother Nefer. I still had things to do this evening too, first order of business was visit our local post office. I put a few bits on the counter and Ratatoskr was there immediately. “Paper, pen and a stamp for emergency immediate delivery please.” The high speed squirrel saluted to me and I quickly wrote down my message, put the stamp on the envelope and held it out to Ratatoskr. I soon received a surprise when the squirrel exhaled a burst of blue flames and a shower of sparkles shot out of the mail office. “Huh… neat.” Was my only commentary as I started petting the god that was capable of kicking my rear end all around this room without trouble. He’d let me know when to stop. -Five minutes later- “What is it that you needed me for this urgently Jade?” Celestia made good time in teleporting here. “It’s about something I’m going to do and I want your blessing as to whether or not I should go ahead with it.” I pulled out the bit and held it up to her. “Using this coin, I can possibly bankrupt your distant relative Blueblood in one fell swoop.” “What did he do that you would want to bankrupt him and how can you do it with only a bit?” Celestia tilted her head, it was a little weird to see her without a crown or peytral. “What I if told you that Blueblood is smarter than he looks, but dumber than he knows?” This was a good start to discussing the plan I had in mind. “Yes, he is far smarter than many give him credit for, but he has always been a horrible narcissist. He’s still family regardless of that fact.” Celestia glanced at the bit I held. “So explain the bit.” “On this particular bit is a spell done by Prince Blueblood. Said spell allows anything he put it on to navigate itself back to him or a set location, such as his coffers.” The bit was immediately levitated out of my hand and Celestia was studying it quite sternly while rubbing her chin. “So he could spend as many bits as he wants and then just steal them back slowly when no one is the wiser. In essence he’ll never run out of money and he can take as much as he want from ponies, as long as they’ll accept his bits that is. I think he’s been fairly careful about when he makes a withdrawal with his enchanted money, which is why no one has noticed anything. At least until Patient Decorum told me his money always stayed fairly level and above a certain point.” Celestia finished her inspection of the coin. “Jade… whatever you have planned for Blueblood, I need to hear it.” The gentle smile Celestia sent me was rather chilling. “I want Blueblood to actually work for an honest living if he’s putting this on all his money to cheat the system. It’s actually hard to trace, except by family members or those who can see magic. I’ll commend him for his excellent concealment of this from me, but I think it’s time he learns that he can’t get away with it any longer. So how are you going to do it? Blueblood can complain all he wants, but he can’t actually tell anyone about his money being stolen without someone being suspicious about how it was stolen.” “I’m going have my specialist piggyback the magical signal that will summon all these bits, since they are all likely connected to the same spell.” Honestly, it wasn’t going to be hard to grab all his money if every single bit has this spell on them. “If Blueblood make a stink about this, then he’ll be drawing scrutiny to himself. So… fifty bits says he goes into a blind panic and asks for your or Luna’s help?” “No, that’s a suckers bet Jade, that’s definitely going to happen. He’s even trying to talk me into taking back the throne, because Twilight won’t humor him like I don’t mind doing.” There was a fond smile on Celestia’s face. “He’s saved me a few times from having to listen to other nobles trying to filibuster me, but that’s not nearly enough that I’m going to turn a blind eye to him for doing this. I will set a stipulation now for my blessing, sixty percent of whatever is summoned will immediately be in my name, twenty percent goes to Sekhet, ten percent goes to the Airship Mauled, eight percent goes into a charity of my choice and you only get the remainder.” “Okay, that sounds completely fair.” I really didn’t need much money and this couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. “Time to take this to Sekhet!” -Several minutes later, Sekhet’s Pyramid- “Okay, stand back.” Stated Sekhet, who was told of what we were doing here this night and she took the bit. “Let’s see, copy the magical signature on this bit. Activate the function on every other object that has said signature on it and…” An ankh made of light encased the golden coin, Celestia and I watched as a flash happened and a mountain of treasure quickly appeared, along with statues of Blueblood with finely detailed sculpted undersides that were definitely compensating for something, paintings and various other odds and ends started falling out of thin air. Afterwards the magical ankh encompassed every valuable that had that spell on it and the spell that was used to summon them in the first place was negated. “So it’s true, Blueblood did actually manage to get one by most people… at least until now that is.” The massive mounds of bits was fairly telling, even Celestia couldn’t deny all the Blueblood statues that came with said mound as belonging to her distant relative. She calmly turned to Sekhet. “I would like to open a checking account and would like to make a deposit to your pyramid Sekhet.” “Right, here are the forms, in quadruplicate.” Sekhet brought out a huge stack of paperwork and she grinned at Celestia’s grimacing form. “Sekhet, you’re pure evil!” Giving a crying Celestia a cuddle, I gently patted her on the back and stroked her mane. I instinctively knew she needed kitty cuddles. “Why is doing the right thing always so hard… and so paperwork intensive?!” “It’s okay Benny, just do this thing and you can go back to your long needed vacation with your sister.” I wouldn’t be surprised at the panic this incurs tomorrow if Blueblood put that spell on all of his money. -Late at night- I still couldn’t get to sleep and I was waiting for Maries and Fizzy, they both arrived on the same train and the first question out of Maries’ mouths upon seeing me had me freezing slightly. “Were you near the explosion that was visible from Hoofington Jade?” They all gave me a stern look. I probably shouldn’t have frozen up at the question, because now they were certain I had something to do with a cabbage cart full of ordinary fresh cabbage going up in a volatile explosion usually reserved for stuff like plastic explosives. “Okay, let us rephrase that, what did you do to cause it?” “I didn’t actually cause it… though maybe I might have had something to do with it.” I was being fairly shy at the moment, Fizzle walked up to me and looked me in the eyes. “It’s just a bit... unbelievable...” “You might as well try us Jade, we know you all too well.” Muttered Fizzy as flatly as possible as she looked me in the eyes with a slight glare. “Um, wait… do you have a black eye?” After wrapping a hoof around me, Fizzy kissed me on the cheek tenderly. “No deflecting onto me Jaded, now what happened?” Ouch, Fizzy just used my full name and she was slightly angry. “A wooden cart, full of fresh cabbages, exploded violently after Shining Armor touched it with his hoof… I really don’t know what happened to Shining Armor. I just hope he’s okay after being point blank to a blast like that.” The looks I was receiving was slightly confused, but after Fizzy and Maries looked to one another I added to my recollection of the moment before I blacked out from the pressure wave. “No explosives were actually used in making it spontaneously combust like that either.” “Okay, we believe you, no matter how absurd that sounds. It’s only all too plausible because it’s you.” Is this what it was going to be like when I eventually stood at the altar with them? They actually trusted in me. “We’ll still ask Flotsam, Paprika and Sweetcakes if that’s true, but what else did you do. You said Shining Armor was there, that obviously means you had him chasing you… did you at least get Spitfire involved in it?” I grinned at them faintly and sadly. -Two days later, Ponyville, Sweet Apple Acres Orchard- I grinned at Maries brilliantly as I stood in my feminine tuxedo and skirt combo, Mara and Maria were wearing bowties and Marie had a top hat on. We both turned to see the final member of our herd approaching us. I’m happy that the Apple’s let us use their farm for our wedding, it had a fantastic view and was completely out of the way of anyone trying to cause us trouble. Sugar Belle was a romantic at heart, she thought our herd was ridiculously saccharine and the Apple family didn’t mind. Maggie visiting the Apple family helped out too, she told them some stories about their parents after Pear Butter split away from the Pear family. Speaking of fantastic views, there she was approaching us now. I felt my heart speed up at the sight of Fizzy in a wedding dress. Her hair up in a nice bun, her face covered in a veil and her dress fitting her body and showing off her rather lithe form. She approached us with a bright smile, a slight blush and her head held high. I could hear the tweeting of love birds singing songs for us all, Fluttershy does good work. She and Arizona were there at my side. Fluttershy was to hold onto the rings for Maries, Arizona was holding the one for Fizzy. “You do realize that this is kidnapping right?!” Everyone ignored Spitfire’s interruption, she was thoroughly tied to that chair in the front row. “At least tell me I’m getting some wedding cake out of this!” Fizzy looked to me while snorting and then to Maries as she stood between us, Twilight was waiting on everyone to quiet down. Paprika fired a wad of fur at Spitfire’s mouth to quiet her down to muffled angry noises. Arizona, Velvet and Paprika’s ceremony went quite splendidly, Arizona and Velvet had made vows to Paprika with silent gestures, doing everything in the style of alpaca culture. The cow and reindeer also couldn’t stop making combative gestures towards each other the entire time, but that didn’t bother Paprika at all. Friends and family were gathered around, from all walks of life, in this one spot. Abyssinians, Zebras, Diamond Dogs, Griffons, Hippogriffs, Thestrals, Dragons, Yaks, Storm Creatures, Parrots, Changelings, a female shrew, a living skeleton, a chubby dessert swallowing hedgehog, Alicorns, our familiars and ponies of all the main tribes. Twilight’s dream of bringing the world together through friendship had already started at Airship Mauled, now she was trying to do something similar to what we had to Ponyville. Even Fizzy’s old friend Glitter Drops was here, Maries mother and father showed up for the occasion, some changes were going to happen with the chimera if they want to be a civilized race recognized by the world and I was a catalyst to that by being recognized by Maries as a definite mate. Sure there may be some problems with the chimera, but we’d work it out eventually or at least Twilight would. It’s her job to eventually unite the world, but right now it’s her job to unite us together. “We are gathered together today, to marry this herd in lovely matrimony.” I zoned out Twilight Sparkle, and looked to Fizzy. One of us had to be the feminine one and Fizzy looked beautiful in that dress. My attention was brought back to Twilight when she said the next words. “You may now speak your vows... so who’s going to...” “Maries, Fizzy, I love you. When I first met Maries, we didn’t exactly mesh, but I didn’t want to really hurt them and I’m glad I decided to barter all of my fish jerky away. You really make too much of that stuff mom!” When were we ever going to need five hundred pounds of fish jerky? Not that our community didn’t have omnivores, but we couldn’t eat nearly that much in a single day! Mom just started snickering loudly into her left hand. “Anyway, camping with Maries, nice nights out to dinner with Fizzy, we’ve clicked on so many levels. Maries you’re all strong, protective and very intelligent, but more importantly than that you’re just as beautiful as our blushing bride here is. Fizzy, you didn’t think anyone could love you, would love you or would even want to be with you, but I set out to prove you wrong after meeting you by first being your friend and then becoming something more. That’s when Maries came in and then did the same, they saw in you what I see still to this day. A beautiful pony that needs all the love in the world that she can get. I will try to make the both of you happy to the best of my abilities, but it’s not always going to be easy… I have problems with doing normal things after all.” I could see spots of wetness on the ground under Fizzy, she was crying and I could see that smile on her lips. Maries decided to talk next. “We were just defending our territory. We were just trying to scare anyone off with threats. We should have spent more time talking to the wondrous individual that we met instead of being aggressive.” Maries spoke in turn, my beloved Mara, Maria and Marie. “She became important to us after that, we couldn’t get her out of our minds through many sleepless nights. We were smitten with her and the unicorn she loved. Jade is right, you’re an exceptionally beautiful pony Fizzy! We promise in sickness and health to care for you two as our beautiful and beloved mates.” “Just say ‘we do’ already!” Cried out an impatient Fizzle. “We do.” Our four voices stated in deadpan tones and smiles to an embarrassed Fizzy. “You may kiss the… er… herd?” A puzzled Twilight stated. Six kisses, two for every one of Maries heads. Four for Fizzy and me. This wedding went swimmingly and now we only had our honeymoon in Las Pegasus to worry about. As for Blueblood? Yeah, he was having financial issues at the moment, don't know how that could have possibly happened. Not that it was something that I should be worrying about at the moment, the herd and I had other things to focus on. Each other. "Coo!" Cheered Snickers as she glowed brilliantly and hovered around us happily. I didn't know why my buddy was glowing, but she certainly knew how to spread the cheer around as the sparkles coming off of her seemed to brighten the mood throughout the given region. We partied with Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich giving us their best one yet, they were pretty close to one another and I couldn't help noticing them getting playful. Eventually, near the end of our partying, Fizzy had to throw the bouquet before Sekhet and Baast could teleport us out of here to Las Pegasus. Pinkie tried for it, but nobody could actually match the speed with which Blade Bright leapt for it. It barely even got out of Fizzy's hoof by an inch before the thestral was upon it and then she circled around to mom to hold out the bouquet to her shyly. "Well... this went surprisingly well and it was pretty cheap to hold two ceremonies back to back." Though I wondered how Arizona's honeymoon was going to go given they were going on our decoy reservations. "Far better than my long wrestling night went." Fizzy sighed as she nuzzled into my side. It was sufficient to say that Fizzy got wrecked, she at least got a signed autograph from Cherry Blossom. The bruises from Mystery Mare mangling her hadn't been visible until the next morning, thankfully we had a kitsune with healing powers. "So how great do you think this adventure will be?" Maries asked us collectively. "It'll be one of a lifetime Maries." I cuddled up to Fizzy's right while purring. "Hope this feeling doesn't end any time soon." "I feel the same way." Said a smiling Fizzy that was sandwiched between us lovingly. "Honey, we'll be your shelter." We were then teleported to Las Pegasus.