Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter fifty six, Huoshan Hellfire: The Enter-ruption.

-The Volcano, The Grand Time, Teatime-

“I was going to use this to break the armored palace open, but now is a good a time as any to see if my project works. Main special cannon firing in three, two…” I activated the ‘Acceptable material eraser of ridiculously intensive cost arcane cannon’ pointing at the mass of living shadows and the night lit up with it’s the raw power. I called it The America for short.

Hundreds of small streams of magic erupted from the front of The Grand Time, it all look like a single mass until it connected with the massive number of shadows climbing the stairs and rushing into the flamethrowers of my ship that direly needed to be refueled.

I hoped that my project did something grand and it did not disappoint.

Each small stream that hit a shadow immediately turned to hit another and continued onwards until the streams ran out of power, this obliterated most of the staircase and quite a large area beyond that. A lot of things were cleared out in seconds and the streams continued piercing through thousands upon thousands of shadows.

It was a thing of beauty to watch the beam fan out and spread destruction… then the cannon exploded destroying the front portion of my airship. That… wasn’t as nice. It seems that the strain of firing it had been too much. Now would be a good time to refuel my flamethrower and cannon hybrid turrets.

The America cannon worked as I thought it would, though it’s supposed to be completely useless against living things. It certainly worked on the many surrounding building near the staircase, as they toppled and made my weapon look far more impressive than it actually was.

I’ll take that as a perk. Now if only it hadn’t exploded, it could have been far more useful as a tool of intimidation.

The main purpose of my cannon was to destroy materials such as the metal in armor or weapons, it could disarm entire armies of physical weapons. Apparently the shadows either didn’t count as living things or the light in the magic from all those beams destroyed them, I’m leaning more the latter than the former.

Some might not even believe me if I were to tell them this after that display, but I’m not seeking to become a murderer. Sure I can maul and leave someone to die from their wounds and have no qualms about leaving someone in a trap they tripped themselves, those would be completely different circumstances and I would assuredly never kill anyone directly personally.

I’d sooner think Shocking would kill someone on purpose while in the heat of the moment and he has yet to ever come close to doing that even with him being as violent a pony as one can be.

With my repair room destroyed, I hoped that Dispel had captured the dragon princess. We may need her to bargain our way out of this.

-Upper Tier, Tianhuo-

I finished ripping a pony golem in half with my bare hooves and then looked in the direction of that airship, which now looked rather odd with the front end of it blasted off. We were all grateful that the weapon exploded, I wouldn’t have wanted that aimed at the palace should Teatime have made it past the middle tier.

“Ma’am, the golem’s numbers are dropping!” A Huoshan Guard had called out in report as he took down a beast golem with ruthless efficiency using several three spear thrusts.

A loud rumbling sounded throughout The Volcano, every longma that wasn’t current occupied with combat turned to see a moderate amount of smoke spilling out of our home. Huoshan, it seemed, was going to aid us even from beyond his life’s end.

The volcano erupted, but the eruption was small and rather meticulously controlled in such a way that it sent blobs of magma flying through the air towards the base of itself on all sides. None would come close to hitting the city itself. Some went through the rip in the air the shadow horde was leaking through and a few seconds later it closed violently in a powerful explosion.

It seems Huoshan was tired of the shadow monsters climbing all over him, as the shadow monsters being held back at the middle tier firewalls outside the city were suddenly hit with wide spraying jets of lava.

These pyroclastic blasts went spewing forth from various holes all around the whole mountain, the exception being anything between the palace and middle tier was left entirely untouched.

Pools of lava were forming from all the balls of magma continuing to rain around the shadows surrounding the base of the mountain. This was preventing them from escaping into the wilderness or towards our farmlands on the far side of our home and a fair distance away.

Holes even opened up at the bottom of the middle tier firewalls in the city and started flooding the lower tier with slow flowing lava that tore through the shadows by the heat of Huoshan’s fury alone. The lower tier of the city also caught fire and the buildings started to melt, not that anyone was going down there anyway.

In the air Dragon Lord Torch was dealing with the shadow dragon fairly well and it was nothing to worry about, we all believed Torch would be successful in vanquishing his foe.

The shadow horde was being decimated and dealt with, but we could not rely on Huoshan to do this again the next time a leak happened. My home had better be ready for an onslaught the next time one came, one that may be even worse than this was. We had a natural advantage against the shadow horde, but that didn’t mean we could fight it forever.

“Huoshan has spoken of his desire to see these retched monsters and golems out of our home and he has bided his time up until now to give us this opportunity with what little strength he has in him. Let us counter attack!” Every longma started to shout out agreements my words and the ranks of the Huoshan Guard started to become bolstered by the shouts I threw out next. “For our home, for Huoshan!”

The sun would soon rise, and so would the Huoshan Guard, we would definitely prove ourselves better than the Canterlot Royal Guard beyond a shadow of any doubt. I think that at least the Wonder Bolts could become on par with us, they just needed to put more effort into training for combat than their wondrous shows.

-Middle tier, Velvet-

“My word, the longma sure have been stirred into a tizzy. I will be needing my beauty rest after all is said and done.” I idly sent an icicle through a nearby golems head as I watched the longma surge despite being tired after a long night of fighting, they continued to put pressure on their enemies and we were actually on the offensive now.

“Meep!” It seems that darling Paprika agreed with me.

“Hey Velvet, could you do me aghh… put me out, put me out!” I turned to see Jacky’s elegance, her tail, was on fire and burning. Paprika immediately leapt forward and smothered the flames with a hug, because of course she would instead of doing something a little more prudent. That saved a good chunk of Jacky’s plumage at least. Once Paprika removed herself from smothering our friend, she fired a spoon from her prone position on the ground and it decimated a metal wyvern. “Before anything else happens to me, I need a favor Velvet!”

“What is it, we’ve all been kind of busy if you haven’t noticed!” I turned and swung my left leg to cave in the skull of a pony golem, it swiftly disappeared and their numbers were notably decreasing by the second. Not a single increase in the last few minutes. “Also please tell me that you aren’t using spoons as effective archery weapons.”

“I want you to freeze a pony golem solid or at least well enough that it can’t move, can you do that without destroying or damaging one too much!” A challenge to be sure, but why did Jacky want a frozen pony golem? She was dodging around a few clockwork ponies at the moment and Paprika wasn’t being too helpful since she started snuggling one of the beastlier golems. “Also spoons are perfectly good weapons!”

I raised my right brow delicately at her.

“When you’ve sharpened them up enough like I have.” Jacky brought out a teacup, a fork and a butter knife to her bow, was she intending to eventually be capable of firing an entire kitchen worth of stuff? I watched as she took down three beast golems with a single release of the string, I did not know ceramics could be that tough.

I really wanted to ask Jacky where she bought her stuff, it was basically of excellent quality merchandise with disaster proofing. Given who Jacky is, they were probably necessary purchases. I certainly wouldn’t mind teacups that didn’t chip when Arizona got a hold of them, they’d make a good gift for Paprika.

“Tell me where you buy your silverware and tea sets afterwards, because I am quite willing to do this just for that information alone!” Finding an acceptable target that hasn’t been trashed by a longma yet, I quickly did as she asked and told a longma guard to look after it for us. “Why do you need it?”

“I’ll tell you why I need it later!” Hope that you do Jacky, I was quite curious about your interest in having one of them.

There were very few of those wyverns left to go after and, given twenty more minutes, we could wipe them all out. The longma were physically ripping them apart with their bare hooves and full bodied high speed tackles, yet they were still ever so careful about not hitting their fans.

-Dawn, The Grand Time, airspace above, Gene-

I had been waiting nearby for a while for Skelly to emerge from the airship. Skelly eventually came tumbling through the entrance she made into the ship, clutching at her belly and axe protectively as Jock stomped his way after her and then jumped into the air while spreading his arms wide.

I quickly swooped down and picked up the currently fleshy mare and made off with her, this led to Jock belly flopping beak first into the metal of the airship after having been distracted by my sudden appearance.

“Skelly, good to see you’re okay… where’s Nefer?” I asked her as I placed her down beyond the middle tier firewalls.

Skelly looked a bit sheepish and pulled her hoof away from her bulging belly while motioning to it with her axe, she made several gestures to try and explained what happened. I’m glad that I’m emotionally flat, because goodness knows what Flotsam’s reaction to this will be or how we were going to get him out of Skelly in a timely manner.

“Well… that… is quite awkward.” When the sun rose Skelly reverted to her flesh and fur looks with Nefer inside of her, which is where he was now currently stuck. “Is Nefer okay in there at least?”

Skelly motioned for me to put my head to her belly, I did so and heard Nefer softly breathing inside of her. Good, he wasn’t suffocating inside of Skelly’s living form. It apparently had some physicality to it, so this may require doing something uncomfortable to Skelly later.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine. Go to the hospital Skelly, a lot people are going to think you’re a pregnant mare because of this.” The furious blush I had caused made me blush as well. “We’ll get this sorted out later.”

She nodded and some longma started to protectively fly near her, likely thinking exactly what I just told her things would look like to them.

I went back into the fray with my bladed spear held aloft.

-Thirty minutes later, air above the middle tier stairs, Dragon Lord Torch-

I bit into the neck of the shadow dragon and ripped it off and its shadowy fluid spilled into the flowing lava that destroyed its head. Its body tried to regrow a new head, but I forced it down into the lava and started to rip into its body with my claws until it could no longer sustain itself.

Flying over to the airship at the top of the middle tiers steps where I saw a commotion going on, one that was not a celebration of a hard fought battle.

I was about to ask what was going on, then I saw my tied up daughter with a glowing sword held at her throat.

A circle of longma stood glaring at the armored pony and their flaming forms were quite agitated.

“What is the meaning of this?” I bellowed and my daughter looked up at me sadly, she didn’t want to be seen as weak like this and that she was being laid low by an earth pony no less. If that sword was powered by what I thought it was, then my daughter was truly in danger and is lucky she hasn’t been struck by its edge yet.

“This sir… is negotiations.” The unicorn standing on the six legged airship said in a smug tone. “You see me and my compatriots might have made a slight error in attacking this fine city… I assure you that we’re quite sorry about that.”

“Spit it out, what do you want?” I crossed my claws over my chest, he was not going to take my daughter from me. He wouldn’t survive it.

“I’m quite sure that if we were to harm Princess Ember here, we’d all be dead before we could move oh… I’d say about one hundred feet as a rough estimate without teleportation.” Like I’d let him get that far if that armored pony hurts her. “I would like to propose a fair trade, I ask that we be allowed to leave the city without pursuit and with the treasure of Huoshan procured by a parrot that has recently visited the Temple of Dark Flames. In return, alongside you’re daughter going free, I will give up the master rune and will not destroy several portions of this city.”

“We should trust your word why?” I boomed for clarification.

“I, Teatime, am a brazen coward. I’m not nearly stupid enough to try anything smart near you.” This Teatime was honest at least.

“Who has the treasure of Huoshan?!” A parrot was brought forth by a female longma with the red eyes of her dragon heritage singing loudly.

The trade was made and the parrot reluctantly gave up a familiar looking bloodstone to the unicorn. That cursed bloodstone of Huoshan... this was a fair trade.

My daughter was shoved forwards still bound by rope as Teatime took the stone. He then gave up a metal slab with a rune on it, that was soon confirmed by the unicorn with the floating demon book to be the master rune.

“If you keep your word, then it is was pleasure doing business.” Tipping his helmet at all of us, he took the armored pony and left. We watched the airship take off and fly into the distance.

“Tianhuo… this belongs to you.” I watched as the parrot produced the key of the longma and put it in this Tianhuo’s hooves.

It began glowing immediately.

Author's Note:

After all the trouble they caused, they escaped just like that? Well no... but much of the next chapter will be a lot of talking and discussions about what everyone is going to do next.

Well the month of monsters is over with and I have a lightly sprained ankle and lost a bit of carrot cake in the fall... I'll be fine. Though walking up and down stairs hurts... a lot. Like usual there's a metric ton of candy for me to chew through.

I can't wait for feast week, all that food will make me feel better. Last page I officially passed 900,000 mark for words written.

I hope to get this story to the ending by cutting out a majority of travel time.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Jackie needs to aquire a collection of pencils for her bow.

Those things have the possibility of punching through Everything.

I really hope that the item is cursed in just the right way for Teatime to get everything he deserves. Or at least some of it.

Inresting with the shadow portal. Im thinking brick lined Trebuchets and magma bombs. Mainly because though Gems and Tungsten etc can handle the temperature, theyre not exactly insulating so would cool the charge too quickly?

[Herald of Opera]

As I said previously, you can't have a volcano in a story unless it erupts at some point.

[Alchemik]

9920405
Chekhov's Volcano

[talontitanbane]

“I was going to use this to break the armored palace open, but now is a good a time as any to see if my project works. Main special cannon firing in three, two…” I activated the ‘Acceptable material eraser of ridiculously intensive cost arcane cannon’ pointing at the mass of living shadows and the night lit up with it’s the raw power. I called it The America for short.

Merica! Fuck yeah!!!