Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter thirty eight, Shadows on The Range: The Chariot.

-Haven’s Patch, Arizona-

Okay, so we were married in a three way herd… but just for clarification.

“Is it legal?” I asked before Velvet could take a stool to Paprika’s cowering head. “In any case I don’t mind the whole marriage thing. I like you both well enough that I’m fine with this, we could always get it annulled or divorce if it’s legit and we don’t think it’ll work out.”

“Well I do mind.” Does Velvet realize that taking it out on Paprika won’t help change things if it wasn’t a legitimate marriage? It wasn’t a big deal really even if we could confirm it was legitimate. “I may love the both of you, but I wanted dates, ice cream, romance, flowers, ice cream, tender caresses, some chocolate, to be treated like a queen of the realm for the most part of one day, to at least be proposed to properly so that I can agree to it and most importantly ice cream!”

“You kind of have a one track mind there about the ice cream, Velvet.” I really shouldn’t have gotten her hooked on the stuff.

“Well whose fault is that?” Velvet said staring pointedly at me.

“I believe I can assist you in settling this matter, as mayor I’ve become quite good at telling forgeries from real documents. If you could present them to me?” Turning to Calloway, we watched as Paprika reach under her blanket and pulled out a folder full of papers. “Give me some time to look these marriage papers over.”

Paprika shyly came over to Velvet and held out a bouquet of flowers and a box of imported reindeer chocolate.

“That’s a start for getting back into my good graces I suppose.” Having accepted the apology items, Velvet tried not to be too sour to Paprika.

-Ten silent minutes later-

“Well it certainly seem everything is in order, the signed papers has magical marriage protections on it and one cannot be coerced into signing these under duress or by someone they don’t trust. There are four signatures from each of you, one of which is covered in glitter…” It took a moment for Mayor Calloway’s words to sink in. “The marriage papers are in fact real, whether or not you were paying attention to the fact that you agreed to marry each other and Mrs. Paca doesn’t matter as it’s all been legally done. Also your familiar Tinsel can also now be treated as your adoptive son or familiar selectively… that’s a strange looking loophole in the laws.”

Velvet turned a glare to Tinsel who froze in the middle of biting an olive, he bit into it anyway and then tried to grin innocently. Of course the little guy would sign something to be that much closer to Velvet.

“I guess there’s no point in getting angry then.” Velvet flopped her chin onto the bar.

I just took up my drink and splashed the sweet tangy lemonade from a clean mug down my throat.

Apparently this bar requires that you have to ask for dirty mugs if you absolutely wanted to drink from one. There was an absolutely clear agreement that the bar was not liable for what was previously in said mug or what happens to you if should you decide to drink from one. This place had some interesting policies, like the bar fight rules being posted right over the bar so you didn’t have to ask for them.

“Mayor Calloway, you were right, we have incoming from the south!” The gold furred bull that entered certainly looked handsome and I noticed the bartender giving him some appreciative looks too. “They are mostly lesser shadows, but there are a few bigger ones in there that we need to take them down if we’re to survive the night. Colorado and Dakota are keeping a lookout in the other directions to make sure we aren’t blindsided.”

“Say, how long is it until the town does that teleportation thing you spoke of?” Taking a dainty sip from her drink, Velvet looked to the bull that came in with curiosity.

“Thank you for informing me of this Mr. Montana, I will be there soon to assist in keeping our town safe. In answer to your question ‘Mrs. Arid’, three days, at a random time throughout the twenty four hours on the third day and there is no rhyme or reason to when it happens on the same day every week. It could happen anywhere from the very second the day starts to the last second before the day ends.” So no one knows why the town does it Calloway? I guess we can’t rely on that to delay the incoming fight then. “It is suspected that there may be a pattern to the locations that the town appears in. Nothing conclusive has come up in the investigations, aside from the fact that it’s always within an area encompassing The Range. Now finish your drinks girls… and ice sprite, we have a town to secure so that no cow, bull or calf gets seriously hurt on my watch.”

“You’re a lot better than our previous mayor Mrs. Calloway, even willing to put yourself in the way of danger to keep the people safe. Give me a quick one Lily.” The bartender slapped a mug on the counter and the bull took it up to start guzzling it down. “It’s a good thing we exiled the previous mayor, never met a slimier guy than that.”

“I would like to say it’s all me, but it’s mostly just from my time having traveled around as a bounty hunter.” That and you were carrying explosives and jars full of cool alchemical stuff Calloway.

My mother’s friends are so cool.

-Outside minutes later-

“That’s… a lot of eyes.” There was a veritable sea of red dots getting closer by the second. When they were called the Shadow Horde, I didn’t think it was understated quite like this. If this was just them leaking into the world, then what were they were like when they were absolutely flooding it?”

“I can see why they’re called the Shadow Horde.” Velvet said, while about as wide eyed as I happened to currently be.

Paprika was playfully juggling three glowing jars, while still somehow managing to look determined. After getting glared at by several cattle for goofing around with something that might save our lives, she put them away for safe keeping.

Calloway moved in front of a gathering of cattle, they gathered pretty quickly and I had to say I was impressed by how well-oiled they were when it came to their networking.

“Remember everyone, we need to break down the bigger ones so that they become vulnerable to the phosphorous flare bombs. The more mass you destroy with physical blows, explosives or what have you, the easier it becomes to take them down. Hit them with all that you have and protect those at your sides, but do not go wasting anything carelessly and aim to do the most damage you can! We do not want anyone to be taken by these monsters, Colorado and Dakota are watching the other two thirds of the town and are making sure that none of them will try to come at us from a different direction.” Calloway seemed to be ready to overcome that mass of horrors that begged for us to become their food with all their eyes, she definitely had the confidence and drive to see us through this and I could see why she’s the mayor. “Let’s circle the wagons everyone and show them that we’re not going quietly into this night and we will hold our ground against the tide! We will do so for as long as we have to until the sun rises once more on this, the longest of nights! So let us all pray to Celestia that she isn’t too late.”

The moon became covered in a glowing darkness and the light around the town shrunk down to a solid circle of slowly burning exceedingly bright candles the cattle had set up in defense of the town.

“It’s happening again…” Velvet muttered as she looked up to the moon while shivering.

“How strong would you say Arizona is?” Calloway suddenly asked us as she came over from her speech.

“She flipped a pretty large elephant over herself.” Velvet said it without a hint of humor in her voice. “I’m one of many character witnesses to her being ridiculously strong, in fact we had a whole group of networking cows from Ponyville who saw the whole thing that can vouch for her later if you want.”

“That’s good enough I suppose. Nothing quite like head bashing a dragon three times your size, though that is still quite impressive by my standards. I hope you four can handle yourselves.” She dropped several of those phosphorus flare jars in front of us, both Velvet and I took up the jars and stowed them away in our travel bags. “Use them in an emergency. You can defeat shadow monsters without a light source, but it is much tougher. Go to wherever you think you’re needed most at any given time, be safe and good luck.”

“Right, so we stick together.” I smirked at Velvet. “Wouldn’t want my beautiful wives to get eaten alive out here.”

Paprika made an appreciative noise and rubbed her face up against mine while giving me a lick and a quick loving snuggle.

“Paprika… we will have much to discuss after this is over with. Until then, I have a different target for all my ire.” Velvet moved forward a short distance from the candles. “I shall start this battle off in our favor at the very least, I’m going to be so exhausted after all the fighting. Tinsel be a dear and help me as much as you can.”

Tinsel chirped loudly and readied himself. Velvet thrust her right hoof forward and started firing tons of enlarged ice shards into the oncoming shadow horde as quickly as she could.

While I couldn’t see what she was hitting out there, I could still see a number of red dots winking out in the darkness. It wasn’t going to be nearly enough, she was destroying tens where there were hundreds.

“Paprika, you’re protecting Velvet! Hug or hit them with everything you have and don’t let one by you to get at her.” I received a salute from Paprika while I thought of how I could help.

While Calloway trusted us with light jars, she didn’t trust us to use the dynamite responsibly.

I moved forward and closer to the candles as Paprika took up position behind me, the lesser shadows were stopped at the edge of the candle’s light. I waited for a bit for something to happen, I saw movement and something large leapt through the light.

I didn’t hesitate as I leapt and smashed the wolf like thing to a pulp with my right hoof. The resulting mashed mass plowed through several shadow monsters as it rammed its way back through the horde.

Looking to my left and right, I could see the other cattle performing similar actions to keep the larger shadows outside the barrier by hitting them with their heads, horns, hooves and whatever else they could hit with, like their hips.

Bulls started to throw sticks of lit dynamite over the walls of light made by the candles as far as they could get them. They exploded in the darkness revealing flashes of the various forms that the shadow monsters took on. Snakes, wolves, bears and so many other forms I couldn’t begin to count, I thought I even saw a panther in there.

Those explosions took out large swaths of the shadows, but there were still more behind them coming at us. I didn’t know how outnumbered we were, but a thousand per defender sounded about right.

The spray of ice shards suddenly stopped and then a localized hailstorm with hailstones the size of baseballs started raining down on those coming at our section of the candle barrier.

Seeing some movement, I darted to the left and rammed my horn up into the chest of a surprised looking manticore shaped shadow that was ripped entirely in half by me. The light of the candles quickly vaporize the remains.

I lunged to the right and slapped gaunt looking wingless griffon shaped shadow back into the horde of writhing shadows with a harsh left back hoof.

“Everyone, throw some jars right now!” I quickly reached to my side and threw a jar as hard as I could. Whatever the reason Calloway called for it, it had to have been a very good one to tell everyone to chuck jars.

It was a second later, before the cacophony of shattering glass that was surely to follow Calloway’s demand to throw jars, I noticed the shadows had almost creeped up on the candles and were about to snuff them out until various blasts of light wiped out all the lesser shadows pressuring the barrier of lit candles around us.

The entire area was lit up as if the sun itself had rose up in the east and a lot of us had been blinded, but the shadows had been pushed back massively and they couldn’t possibly take advantage of the temporary blindness. All the light from multiple jars shattering in close proximity to one another had practically made all the lesser shadows in the vicinity evaporate.

When the light dimmed down enough, I concentrated and saw that there was still an impossible number of shadows trying to pressure the light back down. If this was just a leak, then just how many of these things were there?

A few larger shadows charged forward through the light unaffected by how bright it was, like some of the shadows that tried to get by me earlier. The ones coming at me in particular were a giant spider, a scorpion and something that resembled a really fast moving octopus.

Going after the scorpion as it charged through the field of light towards me, I dodged the tail’s stab to leap onto things back. Reared up I brought my hooves down on it and, much to my surprise, I went straight through it as it splattered all over the place and it’s bits evaporated in the nearby light before they could touch the ground.

Turning to look towards Paprika, she leapt up to hug the octopus into a fine paste with a cheerful squeal and then launched her fur to drag a lesser shadow to their doom into the light.

Paprika looked a little sad that she didn’t get the chance to hug it and tried for another one, I just rolled my eyes at that.

“Oh it’s so hideous and gross, kill it, kill it, kill it!” Note to self, Velvet really hates spiders given how many times she perforated the spider shadow in just a few seconds there, with at least a hundred other shadows behind it per ice shard. She followed up putting multiple holes in the shadow by slamming a large block of ice down on it several times, using a powerful swirling wind, in rapid succession. “It needed to die in a fire like yesterday!”

I turned too looked around for anyone who needed help. We were holding up pretty well so far...

A shadow started being cast along the ground as something rose up.

Four tentacles erupted from the large tatzelwurm shadow.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Heres,

JEFF.

[WARGAMES]

9518641
Oh and Jonny
Jonny is the plunderseeds shadow

[Fireeaters]

One of those end bits reminded me of that "don't starve" game: when you start to go crazy and have to defend your campfire.

[MadHadder]

“You kind of have a one track mind there about the ice cream Velvet.” I really shouldn’t have gotten her hooked on the stuff.

An ice cream Velvet? Saucy~

I'm just picking on your lack of use of commas before proper names.

[Shadowshame]

The tarot cards...wouldn't they be more of a persona reference as in those games you deal with both shadows and social links are based off of tarot cards

Also how did Paprika get those documents signed when velvet wouldn't have willingly signed them and they are below legal drinking age so they couldn't have been drunk so how?

[talontitanbane]

Four tentacles erupted from the large tatzelwurm shadow.

Graboid! No wait, graboids only have 3 tentacles. False alarm people.