Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter thirty six, Let the good times Rein: Old hat.

-Rein the next day, Paprika-

Tundra Tourney?

Sounds fun!

Love of eyes wanted me to join and try to win so I can ask about the reindeer key.

I can easily do that, I would easily do a lot for them and nothing will catch on fire… like it did yesterday.

I felt my hoof hit something and watched as a piece of wood spun over my head into a lamp. Oil became splattered all across the wall of the entirely brick house, then the wood struck the ground to let out a teeny tiny spark.

The entire brick house promptly caught fire. The entire house just lit ablaze in seconds filling the entire area with heat, brick was not naturally this flammable and it still confused me somewhat.

At least it was pretty when it caught fire, but I’m sure the reindeer won’t appreciate this happening more than two days in a row.

I went to go find Arizona and Velvet and tried to ignore my big oops, the reindeer could handle the fire right?

-Tundra Tourney Signup, Arizona-

Paprika seems interested in joining the competition, mostly because we just asked her to. She was always fun for a dustup, but I don’t think she ever was aggressive on purpose.

Branches was following along after we all walked into town, but he was keeping his distance from Paprika when she suddenly showed up and started giving us affection.

“Are you sure she’s safe?” Branches, like just about any reindeer, was completely terrified of Paprika even if she was humming happily while rubbing up against Velvet and me sporadically.

I think Paps was trying to split her attention between us evenly. I returned some of these gestures, but Velvet was still somewhat frigid to Paprika. Though I did see Velvet give Paprika a tiny nuzzle that made the alpaca even more exuberant.

“As safe as she’ll ever get.” Velvet commented dryly as she looked over her shoulder into the distance at the smoke rising into the sky and what was a barely visible fire having seemingly been caused mysteriously.

We approached the signup desk and preliminary testing building, it was fairly large like a stadium. The reindeer sitting at the desk just beyond the entrance looked a little bored.

“Is this the signup for the Tundra Tourney?” I wondered if the bored looking reindeer would give me the time of day.

“Yes… the signup sheets are… oh holiest of carp!” The reindeer had only glanced up for a second, but then quickly fell backwards out of her seat and had her back pressed up against the wall while adjusting her glasses while staring at Paprika. Her other hoof was clutched to her chest.

“Well at least it isn’t the anointed mackerel again.” Chuckling at this was wrong of me, but I couldn’t help myself.

Paprika smiled and moved up to the desk to take a signup sheet and she started writing stuff down on it. Carefully the reindeer moved forward, feeling a bit cautious of the alpaca and she looked at the sheet.

“Well that’s a lot tamer than I would have…” The reindeer had spoken too soon about Paprika’s tamely written name.

Paprika pulled out a bottle unscrewed the cap and swiped the brush attached to the cap across the paper several times. After stowing the bottle away she pulled out a shaker and shook some glitter onto the paper and then, carefully picking the paper up, she angled it away from everyone and blew on it.

She placed it before the reindeer, showing that her name was now covered in glitter on her quickly filled out form.

“You’re going to eventually kill us all aren’t you?” The reindeer was a shivering wreck, but she still took the form. “Right, go on back for preliminary testing Ms. Paprika Paca.”

Paprika pointed to us.

“You can wait for them back there and do the preliminary testing together.” The reindeer seemed a little bit braver as she spoke softly, Paprika nodded and hopped on through. She let out a sigh of relief. “That about gave me a heart…”

Paprika rushed back and gave her a big hug and then ran off again.

“Ow.” The reindeer wheezed out.

I rolled my eyes, took up a form and looked it over before taking up the pencil in hoof and wrote down half my name before it snapped. Ten pencils later and I managed to finish my form, why were pencils so fragile in this day and age?

I went on back and found Paprika hugging a horrified buck praying for his life, she stopped hugging him and came up to me with a cheerful look on her face. Velvet eventually came through.

“Preliminary testing, this sure does bring back memories.” Velvet looked wistful, we still hadn’t seen Prancer or Clause which was probably better for her mood from what I heard from Branches. Speaking of, Branches came on back too.

“You entering as well?” The guy looked scrawny and kind of moose like for a reindeer, but I was sure he could handle himself somewhat. Nowhere near as well as Velvet could.

“Yeah, I’m still working on being a champion myself. Velvet is someone to look up to because she did it at a young age.” It seemed that while Branches wasn’t enamored with Velvet anymore, he still look at her in high regard.

-Rein, Velvet, distant past-

“Okay hit the target as hard as you can using ice magic or physical strength, physical is better as it shows that you are healthy enough to take part in these fights even as young as you are.” The reindeer looked worried for me, he probably shouldn’t have.

For I was going to be a champion of peerless might and my ice magic would reach mastery levels in no time!

My parents would have to be proud of me and they would say there goes our little Champion Velvet with complete awe!

-Rein present-

“Only it never happened…” I stated quietly as we made our way over to the strength testers. I did eventually become a champion much to my detractors shock and was quite renowned for it, but I never achieved ice magic mastery.

Nothing I ever did would make my biological progenitors proud, they always wanted more and there was a limit on what I could willingly give. Now I didn’t care about their opinion, for I had Arizona… and Paprika I guess. They didn’t care about any grandstanding, Arizona was about the thrill of the fight and Paprika didn’t care if I couldn’t make her proud as she loved me unconditionally.

I’ve grown a lot since then and was far stronger thanks to my sparring sessions with Arizona, my girlfriend hits like a fully loaded donkey cart.

“You okay Velvet?” Looking to Arizona, I shook my head to clear the cobwebs of the distant past away.

“I’ll be just fine Arizona, it’s been a while since I went through preliminary health testing.” I wasn’t that bright eyed little leaguer anymore, Tinsel looked at me questioningly from my forehead. “It’s to make sure you’re ready for the rigors of combat. The first test is to test your strength, then they test our speed and finally they test our endurance. I’m not letting Tinsel take part due to his injuries and after the main testing we will have to be tested for drugs.”

“Good to see there is a champion with this group, she’ll show you how it’s done.” The reindeer in the cap holding a clipboard nodded to me and stood off to the side while pointed to the strength tester. “You can use magic or physical strength, physical strength is better because it lets us know just how healthy you are. If you have a frail body, but good magical strength, then we will send in the medics earlier to take care of you if you get heavily injured by at least three solid hits.”

-Arizona-

It was like those things you’d see at a carnival that you smashed with a hammer, only using a bulky looking punching bag that you had to hit hard to make the slider rise.

Velvet calmly walked up to it and looked it over in contemplation, she lifted her right hoof and lightly tapped it. The bell immediately rang, the slider looked to have teleported to the top.

Well that didn’t bode well for any of the reindeer we were going to face. My training with Velvet took her from being something exceptional into something beyond extraordinary, she still didn’t beat me in raw muscle though and Paprika was close in that area.

“Maybe it isn’t calibrated correctly...” The reindeer tested it himself with a half effort hoof slam and the thing jumped up to seventy percent along the bar.

“Oh it’s working correctly, I just happened to gain a pretty good training regimen from a war god and my training partner is stronger than an elephant.” Velvet looked to me with a smirk and I smirked back.

“You just tapped it though!” The reindeer who came to give us the strength testing was horribly perplexed, I don’t think he’s noticed Paprika yet or even knows of her. He wasn’t running for the hills like the other reindeer when presented with the alpaca.

“Exactly, I’m just that strong.” Velvet lifted her head up and smirked to the reindeer.

“Okay then tap me and let me see for myself.” I don’t think you understood what you were exactly asking for buster. As demure and svelte as Velvet looked, she could hit pretty hard and made up for her lack of strength with how many times she could lash out in a few seconds.

Velvet rolled her eyes, sauntered up to him, all the other reindeer going through testing stopped to watch her. She studied the buck for a second lifted her left hoof, then threw a light jab into his chest.

He went careening into the wall five feet away, it cratered upon impact and now had our tester partially embedded in it.

A lot of the reindeer were now staring at Velvet and she just sent them side glance making them back away from her in fright.

“Okay… you’re healthy enough… think you broke a rib…” Poor guy, he could barely talk.

Eventually we got a replacement and she looked nervous given that we were letting Paprika be tested next.

“Okay… go ahead…” The small reindeer cowered at the sight of Paprika, but she still managed to brave the alpaca’s presence.

Paprika squealed and latched onto the hit target to start nuzzling it, the reindeer that were terrified of her were confused when the slider didn’t move for the bell.

Paprika gave them a bright smile and squeezed slightly.

The following crash had all the reindeer looking up at the ceiling to see a decent size hole in it and they also watched as the two halves of the shattered bell fell to the floor.

“She’s going to kill us all!” A reindeer ran from the room screaming.

We needed a new testing machine for me and the shaking reindeer marked Paprika down as a ‘yes’, instead of her just being healthy. The tester was just that frightened.

“How can you look so calm standing next to the hug monster?” The shaking reindeer tester asked me as I approached the replacement machine that wasn’t under the hole in the ceiling.

I raised a hoof and hit the thing with half of my full strength, I wanted to see a lot of the reindeer’s reactions to my strength. That and I wanted to take some of that fear off of Paprika and move it to me.

-Outside-

Vixen, once again having felt violated by the snuggling menace, was relaxing with a lovely fluffy cheese pastry when the roof of the preliminary health testing site for the Tundra Tourney exploded and peeled outward.

She watched as something arced her way and two fused molten bits of metal slammed to the ground next to her. It was a slider melted into the bell, both of which were on fire.

Who the buck could have possible done that?!

-Arizona-

“So… did I pass?” Not only did I personally destroy half the roof, I also almost took down an entire wall leading to something that looked like a locker room as well.

Paprika was now going to be small potatoes to worry about in their minds, I was hoping someone could give me a good challenge. I didn’t want to rely Paprika and Velvet for goods fights alone.

A few of the reindeer eventually fainted.

“I’ve seen a demon… and its name is cow.” The reindeer tester looked catatonic, she still marked me down as physically healthy.

“Okay Velvet, what’s next?” I looked to our tester and gestured to her with my head. “She’s going to take a while to come to grips with her destroyed world view.”

Branches physical strength testing was probably going to be a big letdown to whoever stuck around to watch it.

“Speed track my dear Arizona.” Velvet stated calmly as she sauntered on by the reindeer tester and used her rear hoof to kick their slightly unhinged jaw back into position noisily.

-Indoor speed testing track, Velvet-

“So who’s going to… oh gods and goddesses it’s her!” The deep voiced muscular coach like male reindeer cowered away from Paprika, she just smiled at him while gently wagging her tail.

“What’s so scary about an alpaca? Anyway I just finished my run in ten seconds flat, nobody is going to beat that record here!” We turned to see a pegasus with spiky bright yellow hair and blue fur, he had lightning bolts for a cutie mark and a braided tail that made it look like a monkeys. He seemed quite full of himself. “The names Shocking Awe, there’s no beating the lightning lord! Call me Shock for short.”

“Get… get on the… starting line.” The coach reindeer was terrified of Paprika. Paprika has certainly terrorized a lot of reindeer and I understood how he felt. I too once feared the alapaca, now I was beginning to like her back and that was more horrific to me than all the hugs and cuddles Paprika doled out. “Run around the track once, when I say go.”

Paprika did as he asked and crouched down to start running along the track, her butt raised high into the air and wiggled.

“Go!” The resulting dust cloud circled the entire arena and Paprika materialized at the finished line seconds later. The coach reindeer looked at the stopwatch, having clicked it as soon as he saw a grinning Paprika at the finish line. “Five seconds… she ran the whole track in… five seconds. N-next...”

That made sense, Paprika was the fastest out of the three of us at a dead sprint. She was far slower when actually fighting in combat though.

Arizona was going to go next and then I would be last.

-Shocking Awe-

I backed away a fair distance and blinked once, then twice… there was no way. That just wasn’t… I don’t even… what just happened? I can’t have just lost my newly minted record to a dirt walker just like that!

“By Celestia… no wait… can’t do that.” I couldn’t exactly swear by a goddess, GODLESS was all about getting rid of gods.

Asking around, entering the tourney was one of the ways to get the key I’m after.

I apparently had some stiff competition… awesome!

Author's Note:

A challenger arrives...

Yes, I planned for a Pegasus to show up.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Poor Shock. He didnt even get to see teh ultra slow motion action replay of Paprikas run, where she acted out, with puppets, the entire Laird of the Bangles unabridged trilogy.

[Fireeaters]

Nice

[Cage_]

9497871
Your a mad one Booster.
I respect that