Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter thirty two, The Grand Dissolution: The Unstoppable Disaster!

-???-

“When the guiding light ceases to shine, sealing all to an uncertain fate.”

A vision of Jade being ripped apart by the vortex.

“A broken heart will be blind, to be filled with sadness or hate.”

A vision of Fizzle breaking down unable to stop the flood of tears as she curled up on her bed, eventually she is comforted by a chimera.

The scene flickers and Fizzle is seen wearing armor as the commander of an army of large creatures, with a mostly expressionless face she faces down four pony princesses with a growing demented smile.

“No matter what the power must be sought, the seekers will ultimately find it long after creating from the shattered a grand dissolution.”

Billion Karats, Top Snide and several other shadows of GODLESS appeared over a map of the world, large arrows of darkness expanded from a central point on the map.

Each dark arrow was hoping to find the ‘end of immortality’, something that could possibly destroy the gods of this world. Two of the arrows were already gone as single randomly moving bit of light consumed them before petering out.

The next scene showed several weaker arrows of light spreading out from a small speck called Airship Mauled.

They crossed into the paths of the arrows of darkness and areas of gray started filling up the map.

The map soon faded into nothingness and in the dark, a pair of glowing eyes opened.

“Those in the darkness should be wary of the time they have bought, as there is no fighting against the lamenting queen or their false conclusion.”

The eyes belonged to the one known as Kurilian La Perm, her eyes were narrowed at the world.

The world currently held in Kuril’s paw, like a ball of yarn. She lifted up her other hand and placed it onto the orb.

She was about ready to crush the world and then she stopped upon seeing something.

A sad smile tugged at her lips when she saw something change upon the world she was looking down upon it.

A few tears streaked down her eyes. Instead of crushing the world, she held it to her chest trying to fill it with all her love.

-Fizzle, three months AJ, After Jade-

One would have thought I would be the first to leave Airship Mauled.

I wasn’t the first to leave, much to everyone else’s surprise except for one.

I didn’t want to leave, Maries and I… we tried to hold each other together. We were doing moderately well in that respect.

It was very apparent to us that Jade wasn’t coming back, but we still held out hope for some way of bringing her back and even discussed looking for a way to do it.

Out of all of us, the one I least expected to leave finally decided to do so and she had some reasons for why she did.

The only happiness in the Witch’s Fare was those of the customers that had visited from abroad.

The food tasted the same, it had the same magical nutrition and yet… the love put into every bit of food was missing. I don’t think mom could find the heart put her love into it anymore.

“I’m leaving.” Those words, once spoken out loud, were a complete cannon shot to the already broken and bleeding fragments of the many hearts that tried to keep us all together.

The community here was our family, just like the place I grew up in when I was a little filly.

Mom, Kuril, reacted in an odd manner to this statement. She had been going through the motions of keeping us fed, but again the happiness was right out. She still loved us all and I knew she did, it was just muted by quite a bit.

We turned to the least likely member of Airship Mauled to leave first, Jacky ‘Blackcap’ Chickadee La Perm.

We were stunned by what she said and how she declared it with such… finality.

Nobody tried to ask her what she thought she was thinking of doing, but she would tell us anyway.

“I once thought that I would be stuck in one place for the rest of my life, if I had to do that then I would love to be stuck here surrounded by family and friend who love me even if I’m horribly disaster prone.” Taking a step forward Jacky received a loose floorboard to the beak, mom was instantly there to catch her and check her over with worry. I knew Jacky was talking about how she met Jade in Turtle Toga. “I learned that sometimes when things seemed to be their bleakest, you had to press forward no matter what obstacle is placed before you!”

Jacky slammed her closed fists into the table, one of which hit a thankfully empty plate. The plate, having been slapped upon the edge, seemingly leapt up to break itself on her face. We stayed silent wondering where she was going with this.

Behind Jacky, Blade could be see carrying a hammer and a cup of nails. She was getting started on taking care of the loose floorboard.

“I thought it was impossible for me to get off of Turtle Toga. Now I do the impossible all the time, usually before breakfast and that’s not always a good thing considering how painful my mornings usually are! I even gained two sister and a wonderful mother who’s hurting right now. I know this may not seem like the greatest time to do this, but now I can do what I’ve always dreamed of doing,” Jacky looked quite ready to throw down a gauntlet against the whole world. “I was stunned by the fact that there were no boundaries for me anymore after the first week of freedom from Turtle Toga. Now it feels like there are boundaries trying to keep me here, similar to the ones that prevented me from doing what I wanted to do in the first place when I lived in Turtle Toga.”

“You wanted to explore, to think my kitten always led you to such wonderful adventures.” Mom moved to give Jacky a tight squeeze. Mommy Kuril hardly showed her face to us anymore as she kept it hidden behind the witch hat, but we could still see the tears spilling out from under it. She still ran the town and the local restaurant quite efficiently as its mayor. “She brought me another daughter, one that I wished I had met sooner.”

“Mom…” Jacky seemed less brave for a moment as Kuril just held her tenderly and nuzzled against her neck.

“I’m listening Jacky, so what is my little chick going to do now?” Mom wasn’t mad, she actually seemed okay with Jacky leaving. Her voice might have been trembling, but she had still asked it. “I know you don’t want to stay here my little roaming disaster, so tell me exactly what you are going to do. I want to hear you say it before I will let you go.”

“I’m going to do what I’ve always wanted to do mom, I’m going to travel the world.” She turned and pulled mom tightly against herself. “It’s just that now I have bigger reason for it, Jade’s not going to come back by herself. I’m going to seek out every cursed or dark artifact I can find, anything that might help bring Jade back while I explore the world!”

“Can’t you look for things that are a little bit… safer?” The stress in mom’s tone was very easy to hear. She was okay with Jacky leaving, what she wasn’t okay with was Jacky being in immense danger.

“I’m pretty sure I’ll have an easier time of getting near artifacts that want me dead than the artifacts that don’t, most likely because I’ll end up destroying the helpful artifacts that don’t out of bad luck.” That sounded like a fair assessment of your luck Jacky.

“Look, just be careful Jacky, I kind of want to hear the stories about what you get up to and for none of them to contain news I’d rather not hear. Like missing limbs, permanent injuries… scars are a given with you though.” At a guess, mom would be working on a lot of fish jerky for Jacky soon. She kissed Jacky on the forehead and then released her. “Oh, we’re going to need to prepare plenty of supplies for you! How does several pounds of fish jerky sound to you?”

“Eh… I can work with that.” The fish jerky wasn’t that bad Jacky, even I eat it. It’s just that it’s not fun to eat all the time. “Also whatever else you can think of to give me to take along would be helpful mom. I’m going to be taking the ardent survivor with me when I leave, I’m the only true airship engineer around here that can keep it in good repair anyway.”

“You mean whatever else ‘WE’ can think to give you sister.” I moved over to my sister and wrapped my hooves tightly around her.

I was okay with this. I was okay with Jacky leaving. I was completely… okay… I’m not okay with it! It felt too soon even if three months had passed.

It almost felt like Jacky was abandoning us, but that’s not what our hug felt like when she started returning it.

“I’m sorry Fizzle, but I have to do something.” Jacky whispered to me. “I can’t just stay here any longer.”

“I understand.” I kind of did, but I didn’t like it one bit.

“Well anyone else want to help me prepare?” Jacky didn’t sound as brave as she did a second ago, she must have heard the hesitation in my voice.

“She needs someone to look out for her, I’ll go with her.” We turned to Gene, his voice was gentle and quite firm.

I expected Flamberge and Fortitude to jump in that they’d go with him, surprisingly they didn’t say anything and looked a little sullen.

They weren’t following their brother? The amazing Vibrant Viking’s, the trio that can fight large battles by themselves? Were they actually splitting up?

More importantly could I trust Gene to be alone with my parrot sister? Yes, I trusted him to not do anything horrible with Jacky and he was a gentle griffon that knew how to fight. He could keep her safe and Jacky really liked him, he also really liked her.

I had no problems there, I wonder if mom felt the same way.

“You two don’t get too close to another until Jacky is eighteen Gene.” Mom’s voice became rather threatening. “That’s two years from now, I do not want to hear my daughter had an unfaithful griffon as her special someone.”

Mom then grabbed Gene roughly by the feathers on his chest and pulled his face up to hers, she actually showed her face and her eyes were practically glowing with malicious intent.

“Do you understand me? You do not touch my daughter inappropriately until the day after she turns eighteen!” The look in mom’s eyes was actually quite scary in the way they went feral, I even heard Gene gulp and he’s usually not frightened by much.

“I understand ma’am, Jade made that quite clear when she was still around to threaten using a cupcake on me, which would be followed by ripping every feather off of my wings and then using a bunch of live pukwudgies as a flail to beat me within an inch of my life. After seeing the effects a cupcake had on a pony personally, I would certainly be remiss if I did anything of the sort and wouldn’t want to find out what that would do to a griffon.” He actually looked worried about the glare mom was sending into his eyes, he wasn’t getting aggressive at all like a normal griffon would when challenged. In fact he was kowtowing to her quite hard, but I didn’t feel like laughing despite how amusing it was. “I would not relish how much worse a wonderful witch, such as yourself, can do to me should I break that particular rule and then stupidly attempt to run from my responsibility. Being turned into a newt or anything else that is relatively small wouldn’t be pleasant, but I would take whatever judgement befalls me that you decide is necessary. That is, if I do anything or let anything happen to your thrice damned disaster attracting daughter.”

“Okay, that’s fair. I’ll just let Sugar use you as a chew toy instead of using several creatures as a living flail on you personally.” Some would say that was even worse, mostly because Sugar could bite through and ingest forged steel.

-Jacky, a while later-

It was kind of embarrassing, but mom organized plenty of food and supplies. I was expecting something small, but Kuril was kind of insatiable with the stuff I would need to start my journey.

She was actually counting on me to lose half of it by the time I reached whatever place I was going to first.

I was going to head to Turtle Toga, I was going to stay there for a week and then I was going to leave no matter how bad things got.

“Goodbye my little chick… I love you. Please come back to visit me sometime, especially if you happen to be carrying grand kittens for me.” Mom’s implications just made my face heat up, I was setting out with only Gene and was a little curious as to why his brothers were staying behind. “Most importantly, try not to let your luck get you down.”

“I won’t mom.” We cried as we hugged one another, then I was climbing onto the ship.

I sighed as Gene Eric joined me on the ship and made my way to the steering wheel to start things up.

I would build a crew, a crew of two wasn’t going to keep this ship together forever. Another thing I would do is proudly tell people about my home of Airship Mauled, though I wouldn’t give away its location as I was sure to make a lot of enemies.

The Ardent Survivor would be my vessel from here to the foreseeable future. A future where I would try to learn why the ship kept surviving all the insane stuff I started putting it through, it couldn’t just be because of the name right?

Ardent Survivor, carry me to a future where I might return home with my head held high and with my feline sister and Captain in tow!

-Fizzle-

The airship just rose from the ground and it turned for the horizon, then it was soon out of our sight.

I felt Maries wrap a comforting paw around me and pulled me close, I leaned into their embrace.

I would hear tales of Jacky’s misadventures hunting dark and dangerous artifacts that no sane being would ever even want to go after.

Jacky would become a legendary figure in her own right, for she would become known as ‘The Unstoppable Disaster’!

The last I would ever hear of my sister is when the Storm King tried to start his sacking of Abyssinia, said attack would start with the lovely coastal town of Palicoast.

Unfortunately for the Storm King, his forces would be delayed for exactly one day by a single parrot and her crew. Just long enough for the Abyssinians of Palicoast to shelter themselves safely.

Author's Note:

Jacky and Gene are the first to leave.

Comments

[Jerico]

......

[Booster Spice]

Diaspora loss.

What was the single thing that Kuril saw that stopped her triggering Apocalypse, or even Genesis?

No grandchicks? or will there be enough time for Mosey Mule to deliver their last basket?

With teh rate they can lose occupants, I wonder if teh last one left in town, will be the last Highland Puckwudgie.

The Scots one.

[jimerjam]

I recommend this song for the next few chapters:

[Pensive]

The Ardent Survivor would be my vessel from here to the foreseeable future. A future where I would try to learn why the ship kept surviving all the insane stuff I started putting it through, it couldn’t just be because of the name right?

Well, this is a magical world where anything is possible thanks to the author having the powers to progress this story.