• Published 31st Mar 2018
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Airship Mauled - Darkonshadows



We crash landed on a goddess. Welcome to Airship Mauled, where everything could possibly be worse.

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Chapter forty-seven, Neighpon Nitwits: Go.

-Canter Dojo, Neighpon Streets, Fortitude-

It had been on the back of my mind since we got here and I figured it needed to be asked.

“Where are all the being that were trying to stop Blade from meeting with Ryu?” We all came to a stop with my question and Ryu looked to me.

“What are you talking about?” Ryu titled his head to give me that stare of steel.

“There are being many ponies preventing Blade from meeting you to talk about something important, I am only seeing one just after Skelly, my brother and I arrived!” With that comment I seemed to have made Blade very paranoid, given she was looking around wildly. She is having a good reasons to be paranoid and now I was paranoid too! “How many times were you stopped from meeting Ryu?”

Blade tapped out at least twenty times with her left hoof, I can see now why she was aggravated with Sweetcakes. The vixen has apparently not been very helpful in her endeavors, because Blade was glaring at Sweetcakes Crumble Tail with displeasure and the fox just smiled back at her.

“I think a combination of Separate Cloth, one my friends and the myrmekes problem.” What myrmeke problem as Ryu talking… oh.

“We are having myrmekes near Airship Mauled, our town, as well. They are kept in check by hungry maulwurf, what is keeping them in check here?” I asked as in front of us were a bunch of desiccated ant husks hanging in white strands of string or was it silk? We started to pass by them without worry, the one noticeable trend among them is that there were two holes in each of their abdomens. At least on the ones where the abdomens were visible. “Where are we going again?”

“We’re going to the orphanage I run, as for what keeps them in check around here… my girlfriend Silk Tapestry. She looks like she’s staying well fed today at the very least, so as not to surprise you when we meet her she’s… well she’s a Jorogumo.” While Ryu had Blade, Skelly and I confused, Sweetcakes seemed to know exactly what a Jorogumo was. “She’s a spider pony.”

“Like from the comic books?” I am liking those comics, with great strength comes even greater accountability!

“That is not quite right. Pony torso spider body. Creature of wonder.” Sweetcakes was not making much sense as we moved forward.

We walked alongside a fence connected to a building when I got my answer as to what Sweetcakes meant by creature of wonder, because I wonder how such a creature ever came to exist. She stood in the evening moonlight holding something.

“Oh yay, my boyfriend is back, hi Ryu-kun!” We looked to the roof of the building and saw a monstrous form, a centaur pony with the body of a spider. The body had six legs ending in hooves and the front half of a pony sticking out of the top of it, said pony had two cute insect fangs sticking out of the sides of her mouth. “How is the crime lord… er… real estate business going?”

“We are knowing he is Yakuza.” I am also knowing that Ryu is very strong. I would not win a fight with him, even if I had a shield.

The large dark purple body leapt from the roof and crashed into the ground with a thunderous impact that wrecked the road. Despite the rough landing, the spider pony wasn’t hurt and she bit into the abdomen of the struggling myrmeke she held and it soon stopped moving.

With a final slurping noise she pulled her two fangs free from the giant ant in a shower of gore and licked her lips. She tossed the body to the side and her large abdomen splattered it with webbing to pin it to the wall, then she looked at the street and noticed the damage she caused. I am noting that she surprisingly had a cutie mark of two needles with bits of white goo that were halfway into making a grand looking white tapestry.

“Whoops… broke the street again. That won’t be a big problem, right Ryu-kun? I mean I did just stop a myrmeke outbreak single hoofed, so that means I should get some kind of reward right?” She stood up on her six hooves of her spider body and smiled at us while bring her two front legs of her pony torso in front of her like a praying mantis. “Hello, who are your friends Ryu-kun and are they delicious?”

“No Silk-chan, you are not eating them and you just ate.” Ryu was speaking in a no nonsense tone and the spider pony, with the long center parted thick dark blue mane that reached to the ground, pouted sadly. “Everyone this is my girlfriend Silk Tapestry, don’t ask about how we even got started when it comes to dating. Just know that we actually work pretty well together and leave it at that. Also she’s never actually killed anyone, not for the lack of trying on her part to get me to let her just nibble some of the more annoying people I deal with on a regular basis mind you.”

“I was just kidding Ryu-kun, I just eat other monsters and myrmekes are delicious this time of year!” Eventually Silk Tapestry smiled brightly and skittered up to Ryu and pulled him into a big hug where she nuzzled him affectionately.

I am not going to judge their relationship, though I will bet it is quite awkward when they go out in public together. Ryu grunted and stared at her with his hard as steel stare.

“I know I’m not supposed to eat thinking intelligent beings silly… but wouldn’t that mean that most of the thugs that try to invade the orphanage I just knock out aren’t really all that intelligent and deserved to be devoured?” The sweet smile on her face was quite disturbingly dissonant with her appearance and her gentle solid yellow eyes. “I mean you are just going to break their bones anyway, having me liquefy their insides a bit before hoof would be cutting out the middle mare.”

“I am sorry that you all have to endure knowing Silk-chan.” Ryu commented dryly. “She is my negotiations partner… the rougher kind of negotiations. She also…”

“Oh come on Ryu-kun… I may be a Jorogumo, but I’m not a bad mare!” How can someone like Silk, who should naturally be horrifying, be so cute? She turned to us and threw out her pony body’s hooves as if to grab our attention. “As Ryu was about to say, I take care of the orphanage here just fine in his absence and I really like having children!”

Even Sweetcakes couldn’t hold back her slight revulsion, as we all gave Silk a highly disturbed look. Ryu was the only exception and just sighed while shaking his head.

“What, why are all you looking at me like that?” Was Silk actually confused about what she just implied?

“You just implied that you eat children.” Ryu stated flatly, he always seemed to be calm and stern. “That or the other way that could have been taken out of context.”

“I did… oh… yeah, I can understand why you all are staring at me like that now.” Silk nodded her head and acknowledged that she had implied it. It was a second later that she finally reacted to the implication with shock and a blush filled her cheeks as she pressed her face into her hooves. “I would never do that! I’m their caretaker and you can’t take care of children by eating them… though they are more likely to eat you. I’m so glad I’m not from a species of a matriphagy spiders. I wouldn’t have been able to introduce my mother to you otherwise Ryu-kun.”

“Before you ask, her mother is an earth pony.” We reeled back in horror for a completely different reason this time, Ryu seemed entirely unflappable about it.

“Okaasan Silk-chan, did you take care of the scary giant ants?” A shy looking pegasus flapped her wings nervously. She had short green hair, orange colored muzzle and legs, brown fur on her chest and was white everywhere else.

The children here actually liked Silk? They were really quite tolerant of her appearance, that and she did look really fluffy.

“Yeah, pretty much, I really need to gather the remainder of all my snacks in the spider cave below the orphanage. Go back inside and play with your friends Ducky, there’s not much time left before everyone has to get ready for bed.” Silk Tapestry tossed several myrmeke shaped cocoons onto her back and started humming a tune, she stopped when she noticed us staring. “You head on inside too Ryu-kun and show some hospitality your new friends, don’t forget to tell the children their Okaasan is going to be busy storing my kind of food for a little bit!”

“Ryu-kun!” The one called Ducky flapped her way shakily over to Ryu and hugged his chest. She let off with one hoof and turned away while holding it to her mouth. “Hey everyone Ryu-kun is not too busy tonight!”

Ryu sighed as an avalanche of children rushed out and assaulted him.

For someone who is reportedly a criminal, he was well loved.

-Blade-

I was going to take this guy away from all this so I can selfishly set an alicorn princess free? Yes… yes I was and I think I was going to hate myself for it all later in the future.

This journey to find the three other stars and getting them all in place in time was already starting out rough, I had almost a year or less according to the moon priest archivers.

Could I actually promise that this wasn’t going to be a one way trip?

I looked up to the moon before walking inside the orphanage.

I will come back to you Kuril, no matter what happens to me.

The city wasn’t on fire, so Flamberge must not be in or is causing too much trouble.

Skelly gave me an odd look as I passed by her.

-Skelly-

I walked outside and looked at the mare on the moon, the living legend that made Nightmare Night a thing.

“I thought a living skeleton would look scarier, you just look adorable with that scarf and I love your hair!” Silk walked past me with her back empty of dead myrmekes to go collect more. She stopped and gave me a small smile. “It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one that has to wrestle with appearances, what I look like does not match with who I am and I believe you’re the same. You look scary, but I’m sure you’re a good pony just like me. I’m just lucky that Ryu-kun is even willing to date me, do you realize how hard it is to find someone who would want to date something like me?”

While her appearance was slightly disconcerting, she was a very nice mare.

I sat down in the dirt and looked at the stars in the sky as Silk skittered off to continue picking up cocooned ants.

I can consider myself happy that there are some beings who can look at me and think of me as being normal.

It’s nice to meet new friends and know that there are some people out who will readily accept you no matter what, even when you look like a monster.

-Neighpon Riverbank, Flamberge-

I looked at all the weakened kappa, knocking them over and spilling their water really made them rather pathetic.

My fishing friend had left as soon as the sun started setting, the fishing around here was really good and I had a bucket full of fish to myself.

It was when I started cooking the fish over a fire that the kappa showed up to cause problems for me.

The turtle ducks were weird and they weren’t hard to fight off once they lost their water. I can certainly understand the repeated warnings of never turning your back on the river anywhere within five feet of it now.

“Seriously, next time, just ask me for some food instead of attacking me. I could have cooked some cucumbers for you while I was at it!” Despite all the kappa being weakened they perked up at the mention of cucumbers. “Aren’t Kappa like you guys supposed to be obsessed with being polite!”

“Sorry they’re young!” An older looking kappa stated as he poked his head out of the water, I sent him a scathing look. He squeaked and dove back down into the water.

“I’ll put you back in the water when I’m done eating, then I’m going to get some sleep and if any of you so much as disturbs me… well you’ll figure out why they say to leave sleeping dragons alone.”

-Dispel Grace-

“I hear tell there are unholy monsters here in Neighpon, but not where would I find them so that I may smite them with my holy might!” My mission to wipe out all that was unholy brought me here and I had found an informant that could tell me where a monster was.

“Sure, sure, whatever you say.” The pegasus stallion grinned. “The monster can be found at the orphanage, she has a lot of a children under her control.”

The fiend, to attack an orphanage and hold it in their vile claws!

I would not let this injustice stand.

-Later that night, Sweetcakes-

“You’ve shown hospitality. This was nicer than you know. Now I need to go.” I bowed to Ryu-kun and Silk-chan, then I turned to leave.

Father and mother waited for me at home in Neighpon Noodles, they wouldn’t worry too much as I could take care of myself.

What they’d be more worried about is if I got into mischief and got caught doing so. I may have teased Blade Bright too much, but these last few days were fun.

Fortitude, Skelly and Blade were staying the night and still had to discuss things with Ryu after he was done telling the children a bedtime story. Silk still had Myrmekes to store away for later consumption, but she would still stop to tuck the little ones in.

I walked away from the orphanage taking in the sweet night air as I approached the river and walked alongside it.

In fact there was something else that was sweet to my nose and it smelled hauntingly good.

My attention was drawn to a campsite and what looked like kappa tracks, there were also a dragon curled up on a pile of gold.

Now what kind of fun could I have with this situation?

I approached him cautiously and sniffed in his direction.

The dragon looked had some firm muscles on him and he looked quite warm, then again most dragons were hot blooded so warm was objective with them.

The Ryo coins he was curled up on must have been given to him by the kappa as far as I can judge by the smell. Fish and cucumbers were cooked here over a campfire, the kappa attacked him and he won that fight by knocking them over.

The dragon’s natural musk attracted me to do something that would see him causing a quite a fuss come morning upon waking.

I curled up around him, laid my head upon his and slept with him.

Author's Note:

Flamberge is going to have an odd wake up call.

The armored earth pony Dispel Grace managed to get from Soar Way to Neighpon pretty fast.

There's also Blade's turmoil over whether or not to ask the longma Ryu to act as one of the stars 'to aid in her escape'.

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