Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter fifty five, Recovery: Grasp.

-The Volcano, Middle Tier, The Grand Time, Jock-

“Ughhh…” I didn’t feel like I was rocking, did I go on a bender last night? I smelled like I was baked.

“Oh good, you survived. Once you’re feeling better… you ‘should’ be much stronger than before.” Oh right, I took Shocking Awe’s offer. Hopefully the pain and all the fuzziness in my skull would go away and if the results proved to be what he said they would be, then I was sticking around to aid him in whatever he wanted me to. “If everything works out, then you might have a chance of fighting me evenly.”

“Didn’t you lose to the cow?” The answer I received was a loud grunt.

“She’s toughened up considerably since we last met, also I was stuck on the ground. She had the advantage in that fight and she knew it, but she certainly made me feel a rush and it stokes a desire in me to take her down.” He seemed to want another beat down, sounds like the boss was a masochist. “She even countered my lightning attacks before I could paralyze her, I just need to rest and give my wings time to recover from what that spear wielding freak of nature did to them. How can someone fight with no emotion what so ever?! Rage, anger, excitement, even a little passion would have been warranted, but there was nothing there. It was like fighting an empty void, how is there someone like that!”

“I don’t honestly know what to tell you, I just hope to get into as many good fights as you do boss.” I could feel it, we were kindred spirits. Where he was a thrill seeker, I was more of a showman, but we both wanted to prove ourselves strong. I tested the waters by calling him boss for the first time, it didn’t sound too bad to say really. “When can I start my training?”

“Training starts as soon as you can get up, I bet your body must feel like molten lead after what I did to you.” Shocking had a wide grin on his face. I could tell he was crazy, but then so was I for joining him. I was only going to take orders from him. “It doesn’t matter how much pain you’re in, you have a lot to gain from it. Like I’ve gained the knowledge on how painful doing this to myself is could be, I just need to work on a method to make this painless. I’ve already got a few ideas about how to numb the whole process down so it won’t hurt me at all.”

Now all I needed was an electric guitar, a kazoo, three hundred sparklers, a wrestling ring, a small trampoline and a neon sign with our faces on it. If we were on the same wavelength, then Shocking would know exactly what to do with all that.

“I think I hate you already boss.” I grinned at him as I glared. “Too bad you don’t run a wrestling federation, because it would be a good background story.”

“Yep, you’re going to be a good minion, you’re an ambitious one and you’ll keep me on the tips of my hooves.” He affirmed to himself and turned his back on me. “I can’t wait to see what you can do now, so get your lazy backside out of that bed sometime tomorrow!”

He left the room with a hearty, if dark, chuckle spilling from his lips.

When I could move again, the boss and I were going to have so much ‘fun’ together. I still took his offer to sleep off the pain.

I would get stronger and I would become someone that nobody could ever forget!

-Outside Huoshan Hospital, Jacky-

I was as healthy as I was going to get, despite some doctors wanting to hold me until all my injuries cleared up. Most of them didn’t believe in superstitions such as curses, even when I was causing more and more minor injuries to the surrounding patients that were already here by the second through my proximity to them alone.

Said doctors have not been in my presence for more than ten minutes, they didn’t know any better. At least the doctor personally assigned to me agreed that I was too dangerous to stay in the hospital. He was letting me sign out and he was smart enough to understand that my curse was not actually a joke.

Gene’s wings were useable thanks to quickly finding Sweetcakes and getting her assistance. Fortitude, Flamberge and Skelly were quite lucky to have a fox like her around even if she was a bit dangerous when left to her own devices.

Gene was in good enough health to escort me to and possibly through the Temple of Dark Flames. First we had to find Nefer, we needed him as a lookout as he was good at going unnoticed given his general size.

Now if I were a kitty with an unusual habit of getting into odd situations, where would I be? Flotsam probably already fed her little brother. It was late, but not quite time for Nefer to fall asleep. So what would she do for fun around here if she were chaperoning her brother well enough?

Go to a tavern? Well if it’s anything like bars… no, Flotsam wouldn’t put her little brother in danger like that. It had to be the library, Flotsam was probably looking up the culture of Huoshan late into the evening and Nefer might be interested in all the stories this place could tell.

Some stories even came with an idea for where treasure could be found, so Sammy had a useful hobby for a pirate. A literate and well-spoken pirate is better than a brain dead one that can’t think for themselves.

“Library?” I asked Gene as we stood outside the hospital.

“I was going to say Tavern, but if Flotsam already treated her little brother…” He nodded after a moment. “Yep, they’d be at the library unless they stopped at a fireworks shop on the way.”

“They are not as bad as I am Gene, they can actually walk under a ladder without immediate consequences happening to them. Don’t know about cracks and my mother’s back, but spilling salt does actually cause problems if I don’t chuck some over my shoulder in the ten seconds afterwards.” I put a talon to the tip of my beak in thought. “I’d likely end up with a paint bucket on my head and dancing down the street singing folk songs while trailing honey everywhere. Though Nefer does have the whole black cat vibe going for him… it’s obviously superstition where he’s concerned.”

“Nefer is, as Nefer does. We haven’t exactly seen another anugyptian cat since meeting him, it’s kind of sad really. Now if only we knew where the library was.” Upon hearing Gene’s spoken thoughts, we were immediately approached by a Huoshan Guard.

“Lower Tier, left from the entrance to the city, turn right going down the stairs to the lower tier. It is in that section of the city.” Yep the guards around here didn’t stand around doing nothing, they actively assisted the local populace and guests. This means that they were always watching out for trouble before it could start. “If you need anything else honored guest, then we will assist at our swiftest ability to do so.”

These guys actually stopped to help the citizens with minor things if they have nothing better to do without needing to be asked. They’d get along with yaks in that respect, provided that what you are doing isn’t suspicious in the slightest.

“Thank you sir, let’s go Gene!” The city didn’t have slums, but it did have alleyways, but getting between the tiers required going up and down the central staircase. It was hard to do anything illegal in this city without the guards noticing something was up.

The guards were all currently on edge with a threat to city on the horizon and I was apparently the lynchpin in said threat going off.

We walked under the glow of beautifully hung paper lanterns lining the buildings, the smells of food being cooked in this late evening were tempting us to stop for a meal and there were people living in harmony with one another. The longma were the majority and everyone else a minority, but said minority wasn’t unfairly treated or oppressed by the exceedingly friendly and polite imperial regime.

We saw Arizona and Paprika noisily slurping on noodles together while snuggling up against one another, the nights were cold enough for it and it seemed like they were on a date. Velvet was nearby working her way through an entire bucket of ice cream quickly, ice cream had to be a rare commodity around here and it likely required a reindeer to keep the commodity freshly stored.

I heard of how Longma and Reindeer were rivals to one another in combat, culture, food and even in the atmosphere of their homes. While I’ve never been to Rein, the splendor was said to be the same even if both places where diametrically opposed to one another.

It was too bad that whatever Teatime had planned could ruin this wonderful city for the longma and whoever else that happened to live here. It didn’t take us long to walk to the library, which was just as evenly and actively guarded as every other part of the city.

The Volcano was a nice place to visit, but the heat here wasn’t exactly as friendly as its people. Also dragons weren’t nearly as nice and quite frankly didn’t build cities like this one.

To build a working and effective city requires discipline, dragons don’t exactly have that even if they were all effectively under the dragon lord’s command.

I personally thought that the dragons needed a leader that didn’t stick to the status quo so hard.

If a dragon wanted comfort, then the dragon lord would order them to seek out methods for said comfort by their own efforts and leave it at that. They could just buy pillows in bulk instead of sleeping on rocks, dragons were the most economically resource rich civilization in the world and it doesn’t quite show like with their neighbors and cousins the longma.

We passed over the dragon lands on the way here, there wasn’t exactly buildings or anything better than caves to live in. Not that dragons needed much more than a hoard, a cave and something to do for entertainment as the centuries drag-on. Heh.

Hospitality was not a thing that dragons were known for as Dragons thrived off being tough and living tough, but were about as lazy as they were emotionally stunted by needing to constantly appear strong all the time without rest unless they were alone. Again there were some similarities with yaks there.

The longma were definitely far more productive with their time.

As such I believe the current dragon lord was actively keeping the longma and dragons separated for a very good reason. Dragons of the dragon lands weren’t ones to ask for help or handouts unless a food shortage occurs, they also weren’t very bright as they had very little in the ways of an education system.

The current dragon lord might be the only one that’s clued in to the fact that the longma were thriving, whereas they were not exactly seen as more than wild animals at times.

“What are you thinking about?” Gene asked as we entered the library.

“The social connections between dragons, longma, yaks and reindeer, they all don’t seem to mesh very well, or at all, and yet they can be quite similar in so many ways. Given that they all live in remote places with mildly hostile climates.” Despite being an empire all their own, the longma were still technically part of the dragon lands.

Yet you would never hear about the longma or dragons interacting with one another.

If Flamberge was anything to go by, then dragons were always exceptionally good at earning wealth or at least tradeable goods that others might want. It was wealth that dragons hardly ever used, but Flamberge didn’t seem to care about how much money he could throw at a problem when he had it unlike other dragons.

In fact, the last time I saw Flamberge, the longma treated him with more respect than his loud mouth would typically deserve. That or the longma are used to dealing with loud dragons in the same exact way they’ve always had.

“So the dragon lord gave up their position on purpose and came here to build Huoshan… many a dragon thought them foolish for letting someone get close enough to them to steal the scepter, but the end results of what happened were quite clear and known by all the elder dragons to this day and age.” It didn’t take us long to find Flotsam near the entrance, an old grey scaled longma just smiled as she watched Nefer yawn and curl up against the oddity that was a land bound sea pony. “The one who now held the scepter had to deal with the mess left behind by the previous dragon lord who pretended to flee the region in defeat while carrying a small portion of land with her that used to be where the new dragon lord used to live. The previous dragon lord got the last laugh from what has now become a common legend at the feast of fire for dragons. The retelling has yet to be forgotten, but it always ignores what the previous dragon lord does after they let themselves get kicked off the throne by being far too suspiciously nice to another dragon.”

“Huh… you never actually hear about that part of the story in the dragon lands, but I can see why the downturn happened and hit the dragons as hard as it did some time before my father took over. So if anyone were to actually depose her without doing things the proper way by a gauntlet of fire, then they’d have to actually deal with everything that the previous dragon lord left in their wake.” The female blue dragon said as she sat next to Flotsam with curiosity clearly showing on her face. “I guess it doesn’t really help to be just strong, you also need to be smart enough to use that strength too. I can actually see why my father wanted me to get an education here now.”

“Hey Flotsam, can you tell Nefer to stick around the ship tomorrow when he wakes up?” I told her as I walked up to the three, Nefer was just snoozing away at Flotsam’s side in an adorable manner. “I need him for a task.”

“Aye… hahhh… aye Captain Blackcap! All of Nefer’s yawning is got to me.” Flotsam turned to the dragon sitting next to her. “Do you want me to read some more to you Ember?”

“I suddenly find myself more interested in the history of my people, not that I really care all that much about what actually happened to my ancestors or anything.” The way the dragon’s mouth scrunched up was cute, I shrugged and turned to Gene with a grumbling stomach.

“How fast do you think we can buy some food without something going wrong?” I was now currently quite paranoid, we managed to walk all the way here without incidents.

Author's Note:

Ember had to get that armor from somewhere, the dragon lands don't exactly look like they have forges.

Comments

[Herald of Opera]

And another canon character finds herself in a bit part.

[jimerjam]

EMBER HAS JOINED THE PARTY

[Booster Spice]

Looks like Ember has been selected for Jack? or at least part of his education?

Thats an awful lot of bad luck not happening. Its like its being sucked into the future to be collected in a single location and time, sort of like if Teatime had managed to get a hold of, or make one of Quarks Dabo tables with its probability manipulator?