Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter fifty five, Recovery: Clutch.

-The Volcano, Next Morning, Middle Tier, The Ardent Survivor, Gene-

I woke up this morning feeling okay, if a little bit hot. I was still in a bit of pain, but all things were good when Jacky was by my… huh. So that’s why I was feeling hot.

I slowly and carefully let go of Jacky and cleared my throat.

“Jacky.” I stated loudly and shook her shoulder roughly, she jerked awake.

“Huh, what, what is it Gene?” She said blearily.

“You’re on fire.” Not the first time it’s happened, but waking up in bed with Jacky on fire scared me the last few times it’s happened. I just couldn’t emote how terrified I was to see Jacky burning alive, at least I knew why she always put on an ample amount of fire repellant before sleeping.

Sure Jacky’s curse is largely inactive when she sleeps, but that doesn’t mean it stops entirely.

“Oh… I’ll go get the fire extinguisher then, also is your brother contagious or was it always you lighting him on fire? Waking up on fire rarely happens to me more than once a year, so as you can imagine this year is pretty odd for me and I really don’t want to be suspicious of my favorite griffin here Gene.” Jacky stated as she calmly took two steps to one of the fifty fire extinguishers throughout the ship and quickly sprayed herself down as soon as she could comprehend how to use one. She was just waking up and it was best to let her take care of herself, she then sprayed down the burning sheets and sighed loudly. “Well my morning is starting off poorly, thankfully the fire extinguishers are using a modified formula to give me the equivalent of a full shower. Too bad it’s too expensive to use constantly for anything other than putting out fires or else the stallion that supplies them would have made a mint selling these. When they can be made cheaper, the guy will actually see some profit from someone other than me.”

Sure fifty fire extinguishers of varying types was several times the necessary requirement on a small ship like ours, but it was definitely a worthwhile, if expensive, investment on our part.

All the fire extinguishers on the Ardent Survivor could cleanse anyone of just about anything, they were powerful enough to destroy bubblegum and wouldn’t destroy hair or feathers. They weren’t as needed to cleanse things with Savannah’s amulet, but the amulet didn’t apparently doesn’t work on fire.

“No, I can honestly say that Flamberge has lit himself on fire with his sword more than a few thousand times. With varying incidents not being related to his sword or anyone else at all.” I just sat there staring at Jacky dripping with foam and the edges of her beak curved upwards. “It really helped him learn how to use his sword correctly.”

“Like what you see?” Jacky asked. I was enjoying the show at least, even if some parts of her were slightly burnt. She flicked her tail sending some of the foam flying off it. “I’ll go grab a towel, fire extinguishers are always so darn annoying to use as a substitute bathing implement in the morning.”

“You’re always smoking hot Jacky, even when you aren’t on fire.” I loved my disaster magnet all the same no matter how she looked, which was usually bedraggled and her feathers needing to be straightened out.

On worse occasions she was usually covered in cooking oil, pine needles, nacho cheese, tree sap, A1 salmon sauce and etcetera, sometimes in combination or all at once. She always finds a way to make it work somehow.

-An hour later, breakfast, Sweetcakes-

“What are we doing, where do we need to be at, how will we win this?” My questions were recognize by all and Jacky looked like she was going to answer them momentarily. As soon as she was done with chewing her pancakes.

“Tianhuo is already preparing evacuation plans to get all civilians and anyone that can’t fight up to the palace. Unlike the palace in Saddle Arabia, this one is completely armored and meant to take heavy hits from supernatural forces. The longma don’t kid around with their security measures.” Jacky started off looking very much like the leader among us. “It is apparently a fact that it can handle a large scale shadow horde siege as a last line of defense. Don’t know about the shadow horde personally, but they are what Arizona’s group is going to be dealing with eventually.”

“Yeah and I’m being dragged into it kicking and screaming.” Pom the lambkin sounded rather defeated about that, shouldn’t she see her possible or eventual position as a chosen world class savior as an honor? “Nothing for it though, if the shadows get free then nowhere would be safe. Cowering and running away would be entirely pointless with an existential threat like the shadow monsters. I haven’t seen any yet, but I really don’t want to meet any considering the horror stories behind them.”

“We’re not going to plan anything big, but Clockwork is either going to make his move while Gene and I are still inside the temple, before is not as likely as afterwards is.” Jacky pulled out a roll of parchment and spread it out on the table. “We need at least one person on each tier capable of taking care of an emergency situation, whether it is dealing with GODLESS agents or destroying whatever Clockwork is going to use to launch a city wide attack. If that is indeed what he will be going for, then we have absolutely no idea what his manufacturing capability is or how much stuff he has managed to produce over this past week.”

“To that end, I think I can definitely take Dispel out and I can maybe stop Shocking cold. As for Teatime, it depends on how good he is at magic and if he can account for my dark magic.” Oleander announced, I eyed the book floating next to her with contempt. That book was quite foul to all my senses and I wasn’t even touching it, yet I could feel it as if I were. “I will be watching the stairs leading into the palace with Fred, I can coordinate everyone’s efforts from there with magical signals or at least provide long range bombardment.”

“Ollie has good aim, AND SO DO I HEHEHEHE.” Fred’s demented chuckling made my spine crawl, why were we allied with these two again? Ollie I could understand, she was friendly, the book not so much. “We alone can protect the palace easily enough and Ollie can let me out of the book if needed to provide her close up protection. ANYONE WHO WOULD BE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FACE MY MIGHTY FORM UP CLOSE IS IN FOR A WORLD OF HURT, mostly because they threaten my dear lovely Ollie and doing so is grounds for a mauling that even a flying snuggle badger can’t match.”

A few of those here shuddered as if remembering something awful, I looked towards them and flicked an ear.

“Hayburger…” Arizona muttered and Velvet nodded while cringing.

“You do tend to devastate a lot of things when I let you out Fred, stick to destroying our enemies and leave the poor surroundings alone this time.” Oleander stated flatly while giving the book a stern look. “Anyway we have to warn you about the runes, the Huoshan Guard has already been informed about this and now you are being told too. Throughout the city Teatime has placed a number of runes, we’ve only found five so far and we can’t erase them unless we find a majority or the master rune before they are activated. They are inscribed to be impossible to remove due to passive magic at the moment, but once the grid of runes becomes active they’ll actually be impossible to remove until they are used up.”

“Got any clue on what they are going to do?” Fortitude put a hoof over Skelly’s, the currently normal looking pony looked at us all with a frown. She was obviously a victim of runes and she didn’t like hearing this in the slightest. “Magical runes are not a very good things to hear about, especially when used for ill intentions.”

“Oh we certainly do, none of it is good news though and it’s going to be quite bad.” If the dark magic user says it would be bad, then Ollie was likely understating the problem. “Even knowing only five of the runes being used, thanks to the efforts of the Huoshan Guards to locate them, we know what formulas Teatime could activate and in what given range of any of the runes.”

“How bad are we talking here? I know we reindeer don’t use runes very much, but the number of devastating things one can do with them even at an intermediate level is mind boggling.” Velvet was right to be concerned, magical symbols were known in various places around the world for horrible things. It led to many trying to stamp out the many practices of their use.

“Explosions, one way teleportation and fire nullification fields. All of those would be devastating for various reasons, but every single rune he has placed down can possibly do all three. So long as the explosion portion is used last.” Ollie started off gesturing at the five points marked on the map. “Only one affect can be ongoing at any of the given locations these runes can be found within a certain distance. Once active, using them for explosions will immediately destroy the rune at a given location. Otherwise they can be used to teleport someone or something to that given area or can deny longma the use of their strongest abilities. Unless I can locate every last rune before they are used, I can’t disable them. Be thankful that the explosions won’t be big enough to destroy the whole city as they have a limited area of effect, but they can still do a lot of harm and even knock down a few buildings by just destroying their structural integrity. The runes could even be set up to cause a nasty series of domino effects.”

“How many of these runes would you say there are?” Arizona looked at the map carefully.

“At a minimal estimate sixty seven in all, up to a maximum estimate one hundred and three in the given time frame with one master rune binding them all together. Destroy the master rune and the whole grid falls apart.” Ollie shook her head sadly. “If Teatime is as smart as Jacky says he is, then he likely has the master rune inscribed into something solid and unmoving on his airship. Once activated it doesn’t matter if a rune is used in an explosion, at that point every rune can do the spells I already stated at will and it doesn’t matter if the grid is no longer complete. The master rune itself can do these spells even if all other runes are destroyed, but he can't make more runes until the master is either disabled or destroyed. I’m almost kind of impressed by the forethought he put into all this, but then again this guy does make mechanical golems.”

“Can he hold the whole city hostage?” Asked Nefer who looked fairly worried as he tore into his fried fish.

I was partaking in my own fried fish, the frying batter was just as good as it was back home.

“That should be his opening move, otherwise he’s a complete maniac and we will have to deal with the damage as it comes in hard and fast throughout the city.” You’re not giving us a lot of confidence here Ollie. “It’s kind of scary to think that he’s managed to set all this up almost without being seen, but there is some good news.”

“What would that be?” Gene stopped nibbling at a biscuit with his beak.

“I can use runes too, with Fred’s help I can possibly cancel out one of the three spells, but I won’t be able to stop them all. I… need some advice on what to focus on the most.” Ollie already told us the three options to choose from and she could only hamper one of them. “I’ll get on it immediately after our meeting here is done.”

“You definitely need to try and cancel the fire nullification fields.” Jacky answered immediately. “The longma need the ability to light up and fly, they are more effective in the air than when grounded. Teleportation could only move so much mass at a time, it can drain unicorns quickly. You said the explosions will be of a limited range, the longma need their ability to fight and defend their home to their fullest.”

“Is everyone in agreement with that?” Ollie asked tentatively.

“No, preventing the explosions might give us time to evacuate more people without injuries getting in the way.” It seems Arizona was of a differing opinion. “I know the longma can fight without their fire, at least I know Tianhuo can to great effect.”

“I believe that teleportation is important!” Fortitude was going to put in his own thoughts. “Teatime will have a harder time attacking us from everywhere at once. We do not want him teleporting the other GODLESS agents where we are not ready to defend ourselves.”

“Let’s just call this what it is, a massive headache!” Jacky stated. “It is better that things don’t start with the longma on the back hoof, if they can fight at full strength and fly then they can deal with problems far faster than we can. If they are stuck on the ground they’ll be incapable of getting to places fast enough to save people.”

“Okay, the fire nullification is definitely sounding much better to deal with.” Arizona then nodded. “I side with Jacky.”

“I still say teleportation can be very bad if stronger explosives get teleported in, but we are needing all the warriors we can get and Jacky is right. If the longma are mobile, then they can better aid in protecting their home.” Fortitude also agreed. “I am guessing that dealing with the fire nullification is the best option, is it the easiest to counter?”

“Yes, it is. We already checked the central staircase, it is rune free and guards have been watching it fervently. Fortitude and Arizona will be in the upper tier of the city, Jacky and Gene will need their strength close by if Teatime targets them coming out of the temple. Paprika and Velvet will be in the lower tier, middle tier will be mostly watched by hired fighters and Skelly. Sweetcakes and Pom will be at the hospital to assist the medics in moving people should the need arise. Tianhuo will be busy commanding the Huoshan Guard.” Ollie gave my orders and I nodded to them, I would be willing to defend the hospital. “Flotsam, as soon as she is done getting supplies, will take the Ardent Survivor and have it high in the air out of danger as Gene and Jacky are entering the temple.”

-Nefer-

“What will I be doing?” I wanted to know why Captain Jacky ordered me to stay on the ship this morning.

“You'll be with us.” Jacky came over and rubbed my head affectionately. “You’ll be hiding at the entrance of the temple and will be there to give us an early warning."

Author's Note:

This... simply took a lot of thought.

A Mass Effect has happened here and some dice throwing may have been involved.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Multiple multiuse runes spread round a city with a fortress and temple?

I really hope Teatime isnt using his genius to avoid having to get into the Temple by using The Ghost From The Grand Banks.

[Shadowshame]

You know there is a simpler way to deal with the runes: excavate the material around them a relatively small hole in a wall is better than a fallen building

[Herald of Opera]

9892522
I was just about to post this myself, with the addition of throwing all the runes into The Actual Volcano in the hopes that Teatime will use their teleportation function without realizing they'd done that.