Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter thirty one, All Good Things: Come to an abrupt end.

-Jade, Witch’s Fare, weeks later-

Frolicking through a field full of fireflies with Fizzle last night was fun, over the last few weeks I’ve been helping Daring Do destroy various dangerous magical artifacts.

All of those magical things Daring dug up on her excursions had some particularly nasty casts. Which is why, with a few stamina potions stolen from mom, I always left town to go a mile or two away with Daring to destroy each object in a specific spot.

Said spot was what I was calling the Glassing Grove. The destructive energies didn’t destroy the plants in the area, but it did crystalize them due the massive amounts of magic released within said general area. They became impossible sturdy to said massive amounts of energy released.

I had graduated with a pony educational level of competence, though high end math would always certainly elude me. I felt bad about it when even Flamberge could do better than me.

Now I had to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, well aside from throwing Cheerilee’s going away party today.

I was currently waiting at the bottom of the stairs for my sister and first rate pirate parrot, Jacky, to come tumbling down. My left ear flicked, my right ear flicked and then they both flicked as I listened for the sounds of a falling Ornithian.

I heard the telltale sound of Jacky tumbling down the stairs and got ready to catch her. Only when Jacky came tumbling my way, she went tumbling across the ceiling over me before falling to the floor.

“Darn, and here I thought I could catch you this time before the sudden painful stop, how do you do those things Jacky?” Flopping against the ceiling multiple times like that was something I thought of as being impossible. It was still pretty impressive to witness.

“No clue Captain…. ow…” Jacky quickly pushed herself up into a standing position where she started to rub at her beak with her talons and the digits they were attached to. She soon dusted off her vest and pants, before taking a seat at our usual morning table.

“Give it up Jade, our beloved sister Blackcap will always have a rough morning.” Fizzy was probably right, I sighed while throwing up my hands in defeat.

“Anyone else feeling sad that teach is leaving today?” That was my opener to the conversation. Logically I knew we couldn’t keep Cheerilee here, but we at least hoped that she wouldn’t leave on a sour note.

“We all feel it Jade, we’ll wish Cheerilee luck with teaching a class of younger ponies. All while we, the diverse and more mature beings she taught, go on to live good lives.” Nice optimism Velvet, you came in late and still passed with a pony level of qualification for being knowledgeable enough to graduate. “I might not have known her long, but I have enjoyed her teaching skills and candor.”

“Yeah, she’s really good about being brutally honest when you need help about something and I’m not just talking about Jade’s math skills being lethal to the whole world.” Gee, thanks Arizona, beat that dead horse a few more times while you’re at it. Everyone else does that already. “We all know that you were quite horrible at history Velvet.”

“Pony history really just doesn’t affect me much, but you’re the one to talk when your artwork consists entirely of stick figures.” After a moment of silence, Velvet started glaring at Arizona and the glare was returned with a feral grin.

“Like art matters, when history has actually happened!” Arizona scraped one hoof against ground and they started getting ready to ‘dance’ again.

I would give them a minute of arguing about nothing before they came to blows, there was no stopping them once they got started.

Cheerilee was leaving on the morning train, we finally had a working train station and she’d be one of the first passengers on it out of town.

It took them while to install the split off for our town, but at least we didn’t have to walk through wilderness or take the Ardent Survivor back and forth between locations anymore. Airships were still a fast and relatively safe mode of transportation, but one wouldn’t catch a train going at full speed.

-Cheerilee, one hour later-

I felt the strong hug of my student Jaded La Perm, I was going to miss her. What I wasn’t going to miss was her zany antics or the crazy situations she got into.

The going away party for me was a small affair, but really quite wonderful as Kuril had baked a magic cake for me, one that made you feel warm and fuzzy inside when you ate it.

The cake was simply vanilla icing, strawberries and that precious hint of loving magic that turned it into something every one of my students could enjoy.

“We’ll miss you.” Kuril told me with a sad smile.

“I know.” I simply returned the hug she was giving me, she looked somewhat hopeful that I might be moving on to greener pastures.

I wished for the best future for all of my students as I hugged each one of them, I told them all exactly how proud I was of them. Before I knew it, I was hopping on the train and leaving them behind. It felt like a piece of my heart stayed with them and this place.

Later the next evening I felt really awful for some reason, I chalked it up to missing all the familiar faces and being in a new place as I started setting up for school in Ponyville.

-The next day, Jade-

“I’ve never heard of a sun priest being quite like you.” Bracing was still following me around and she was annoying.

“I’ve never met another sun priest period, I’m just doing what I feel like.” All while praising the sun for its warmth and light, yep that certainly made me a good priest. I was alone with Bracing at the moment and this day was feeling a bit slow after I just finished helping mom, Blade and Fresh set up in the kitchen. “You know, because I’m a rogue sun priest Ms. Knight.”

Being a waitress wasn’t all I would be doing with my future, but it was something that I didn’t mind doing for the time being. The pony education system relies on ponies getting their cutie marks and I understood that.

Ponies that didn’t get their cutie marks got help going into adulthood in looking for their special talents. After earning said cutie marks, it was practically smooth sailing for any pony to find a job that befit their nature.

What it didn’t help was an Equestrian citizen who was not a pony, like Dr. Zen Bones for instance.

“A rogue sun priest? I still can’t wrap my head around you at all.” Well get used to it Bracing, because you have no idea what I could get into over the next two weeks. Who knows what odd things I could have you doing in that amount of time? “The order of moon priests would never have let one of their own be or act so sporadic.”

“Get used to it, I’m not a moon priest.” Because I wasn’t ever going to be normal, not with my record for being unusual. I stretched out slowly as I walked away from home. “I just do my own thing.”

I was going to hang around Airship Mauled today and talk to everyone.

I visited Grace and saw Velvet cleaning the floor and her surroundings, it was good to know that she wasn’t freeloading and that she was actually helping the Helping Hoof out while she was a resident there.

After spending some time talking to Grace about life in general, I made my way over to the fruit orchards. Mr. Refreshment said we had some giant juicy strawberries today and I wanted to get into them.

After having a snack, I argued with Wary Berry over the goodness of fruit and then talked science with Mr. Permanganate. Bracing Knight seemed interested Mr. Permanganate’s knowledge and experimentation.

Afterwards, I just relaxed in a tree until having a fried fish lunch with my family closest of family and Maries.

What I did next was made my way over to the empty schoolhouse, I just stared at it fondly.

Fizzle eventually came up and nuzzled up against me. She was always quite needy, but I was always willing to provide my affection to someone as beautiful as she was with a kiss or two.

After having quietly spent time with Fizzle, I eventually found Maries and gave them just as much affection and followed that up by playing happily with Snickers well into the evening.

Dinner was a simple affair of various soups and homemade breads, all of it was delicious and tomorrow would be a potato stew day.

Life had seemed to have slowed down a lot, but I had one thing to do this evening. Ditching my bodyguard would require some relatively easy subterfuge.

To this end, I had used the hydra scale to clone myself when I went to the bathroom. Then I had my clone eat a few extra helpings of soup, to build up energy and to prevent me from losing mine as quickly.

Sekhet seemed a little suspicious that I could eat so much, but she has seen how much of my mom’s cooking I could consume. I even had my clone discuss a few things with her about her pantheon, in particular the god and hippo queen Taweret.

After brushing her teeth my clone went up to bed with Bracing trailing after her, Bracing eventually stopped outside the door to Fizzle’s room as Fizzle and my clone laid down together to snuggle.

Meanwhile, I was actually setting off on a rendezvous with Daring Do to deal with more magical artifacts safely. I couldn’t use any other sustains while I was doing this, but I made good time and avoided an encounter with a strange Black Dog.

It had given a ceaseless chase to me and tried to attack me even when I had done absolutely nothing to it, but I managed to eventually lose it as I continued on to the Glassing Grove.

I should have remembered the significance of seeing a black dog and why it tried so hard to get at me, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what exactly it was.

The strange encounter with the large unusual dog nagged at the back of my mind as I met up with Daring Do.

-Fizzle, late into the night-

All was quiet as I snuggled up against Jade. I was starting to drift off to a peaceful rest.

I could feel the heartbeat of the one who loved me right up next to me. We were missing Maries' heartbeat though, as she wasn’t currently here snuggling up with us. I still sometimes had problems sleeping without nightmares of an Ursa coming at me, Top Snide had only made those worse.

I would have gone fully to sleep, only I heard a sharp gasp of pain and felt Jade pulling away from me. I was immediately up and at attention looking to her to see what the problem was.

There was no way that Jade should have made a noise like that without something being wrong, I was proven right seconds later as what I was seeing came into focus for my tired eyes.

Jade was clutching at her chest where a large scarlet streak could be seen soaking her chest and going down. Jade was gritting her teeth and her eyes were closed in pain.

I knew what I was seeing, but I couldn’t comprehend how it might have happened.

Jade was bleeding, but there was nothing present that could have caused that to be happening.

“Jade what’s happening!” when I asked this of her, Jade gave me a weak smile and grunted as another slash opened in her side.

“I’m sorry Fizzle, I’m the clone Jade.” Her words made my eyes widen with horror.

“Where are you, the real you, what’s happening Jade?!” I needed to save her right now.

“You’re not going to be able to make in time Fiz…” A light gash appeared across her throat and she clutched at it. I could see the clone giving me a sad frown as she started choking.

“Ob…el…us.” Was that a name Jade, Obelus? What did it mean? “Dar… ing…”

Wait Daring Do was there too? What was she doing there and why wasn’t she helping you wherever you were!

What happened next would forever be etched into my memory, it would be nothing I could ever forget.

This was the moment that opened up my eyes to the cruelty of the world.

Jade clutching at her throat and chest, she seemed to be in extreme amounts of pain as she tried to gurgle something out and that’s when the clone’s body doubled over.

She looked up at me with worry for me, why was she worried about me when she should be worried about herself?! What happened next was that she seemed to start evaporating into nothing.

No, it wasn’t evaporating, the clone was compressing down into a single mote of bright light.

The light sat there for a moment, I didn’t know what I was even looking at. Was it Jade’s soul, or something else?

The light intensified and my world was pain a second later, the last I thing I could see before my eyes closed was my hoof lifting up towards a burning inferno that used to be where Jade’s clone was.

“Jade…”

-Obelus, Glassing Grove-

After having darted the adventurer with a paralytic poison from a distance, I decided to not leave things up to chance this time.

The cat was doing something with a weird object and a vortex formed in the area. She almost didn’t notice my approach.

The so called sun priest tried to defend herself with a knife and she was quite a vicious in her defense.

There was no one out here to help her, even told her my name and why I was angry at her as I slashed her across the chest.

Each hit she got on me, I returned in favor.

She scored a harsh slash across my right eye, I’ve never had so much trouble with a mark before!

The vortex certainly looked lethal enough, so I aggresively pushed her towards it.

I kept pushing her back and managed to score a hit across her throat leaving her gagging.

She wasn’t escaping this time!

I ran forward, turned around and bucked her in the belly sending her right into the vortex.

If her injuries didn’t kill her, that vortex surely would.

-Jade-

My throat, he didn’t get it too deeply as to prevent me from breathing, but I was in dire trouble.

That’s when his two rear hooves connected with me, sending me towards the vortex.

I now realized what that large black dog exactly was, it was a friendly Hellhound.

The very herald of my doom had tried to save me from this.

Falling into the vortex, I could see a bright light at the end of a tunnel.

I didn’t want to leave this world!

Not like this... not yet... please!

[The future refused to change.]

-Obelus-

Mission accomplished.

I would leave the adventurer to the animals.

Author's Note:

Obelus overwhelmed Jade by constantly getting closer and attacking her, it was safe to say he didn't let up for a second as soon as he got Jade off guard.

He wasn't about to give Jade the time to do anything aside from pull her knife.

Now for something you should probably know and one of the big hints I dropped long ago that this would happen. It was in the definition of what an 'obelus' was.

An obelus is basically a division symbol, in other uses it is a symbol resembling a small dagger and or is an indication of the deceased. Something like a grave marker if you will.

So Obelus was an aptly named assassin and with a bit of dark humor, math literally got the best of Jade and divided her from everything she loved.

Also, yes, Jade is now definitively gone.

Please do not become upset, this story is far from being finished.

This is the story of 'AIRSHIP MAULED' after all, but now things are going to take a pretty sharp dive into the grim for a bit.

I can promise it'll get better, but it'll be an uphill climb for everyone else.

Comments

[Darkonshadows]

9423386

Season 2 is not going to start off pretty.

[Booster Spice]

Ahh.. that was up ther with Redwall, Deptford Mice, and Tales Of Pentecost, and with what is usually used as a get out clause,e ven though you should be able to have a few of them. But, usually have explanations why not.

The town is dead, long live the town.

[Jerico]

Well Jade is gone, but my question is if she will be back.....I hope she will be

[Fancy Fox]

WOW that took a turn REAL quick. Surprise though it was, you hinted at this didn't you? farther back when we saw a flash forward at kludgetown we know jade is missing because fizzle mentions something along those lines... you sly dog you... how long have you been planning this?

[MildlyDepressed]

Jade probably got yote into the future so she could attend twilight's school

[TDR]

That. Is one super dead assasin.

[Elderlichlord]

“Also, yes, Jade is now definitively gone.” “Gone” but not necessarily DEAD, right?

[Heretics Everywhere]

well then, so Ive loved this story so far lest see whats next

[talontitanbane]

Meanwhile, I was actually setting off on a rendezvous with Daring Do to deal with more magical artifacts safely. I couldn’t use any other sustains while I was doing this, but I made good time and avoided an encounter with a strange Black Dog.

Grimm?