Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter fifty nine, Times will change: Back to the future.

-Canterlot, short time after Storm King’s defeat, secluded alleyway, Jaded La Perm-

“Really harmony?” I was both annoyed and dissatisfied with magical customer services rendered. “Having Fluttershy sing for mom and Fizzle was your answer to me being stuck like this?”

“Just you wait and give me some time, until then you can find the rhythm sublime~.” Harmony could be doing a better job, she has been the only one I’ve been able to talk to for all these years. “It won’t take too long, so maybe if you’d like another song~?

Apparently Harmony could harmonize with different wavelengths of reality, the unfortunate thing was that she couldn’t do anything to directly help me and was the only being that could interact with me. Discord sure as Tartarus wasn’t going to see me, I’ve tried to get him to notice me on one of the few times I left Fizzle alone.

“I know you’re setting up for something big, but seriously, Fizzle doesn’t have forever and I’m not going to get any time with her at this rate. Also there’s the fact that she’ll have to move on from me eventually, I’m surprised she’s has held on for this long and hasn’t tried to find anyone else. After hearing what happened to Maries that’s more likely to happen now Harmony!” I rubbed my incorporeal forehead in consternation. “Look… at least tell me that you can do something about Maries’ situation!”

“That’s already in the works my wondrous friend~! Don’t you dare worry, there won’t be a bitter end~!” Apparently harmony was growing stronger and was going to pull a few stunts that will eventually set me loose upon the world once more. Couldn’t happen soon enough I’d say. “I will be there for you when the mending of hearts will happen once more, after you tell of grand tales of harmony from ages of distant yore~.”

“Do you ever stop singing?!” I growled grumpily while crossing my arms.

“Rarely, so I’ll have to say no~!” Harmony you’re a gleeful nuisance to my very existence, but being friends with you made this far less lonely than it had been. “Keep up, be ready to go~!”

“Can we just play twenty questions instead?” While I might have some distaste with how Harmony is handling this, I knew I needed this entities help. Was it my fault that I could only get help from one of the most annoyingly musical beings alive? “Having to sing ‘A thousand bags of mice shaped catnip on the wall’ gets quite tiresome after a while.”

All Fizzle, Fluttershy, mom or anyone from Airship Mauled really needed to do was find the guiding light inside themselves. That or look at the one thing no one has bothered to pursue relentlessly to the end because of the over the top convoluted goose chase involved therein.

There was one thing that could fix all of this, it was someone actually finding out where exactly in the world ‘The End of Immortality’ was truly located. At least Daring Do was still working on it… hopefully. Otherwise I was going to be stuck following Fizzle around like this until I couldn’t anymore.

It was a good thing I couldn’t die like this, because using my fire that one time for Jacky several years back had taken quite a while to fully recover from.

-Canterlot, Friendship Festival, sometime after noon during, Tempest Shadow AKA Fizzlepop Berrytwist-

“So do you think you can deliver my nuts in time?” Fluttershy asked of Madame Nutcase as I was sitting with mom and eating lunch, friendship festival in full swing and the Storm Creatures were trying to be quite apologetic.

“The Squirrels will be delighted to assist you in this endeavor Fluttershy.” Madame Nutcase was brokering a deal with the element of Kindness and I was wondering if what they were talking about would be entirely legal. “Macadamia’s are really hard to move in this day and age, please be assured that both quality and low cost nuts will make it to your home promptly.”

“Are you sure that it won’t be too much trouble?” Looking a bit worried as she sat up, Fluttershy looked about with a slight amount of paranoia.

“What are they going to do, arrest an innocent looking squirrel? There’s a reason our operations can’t be stopped and we’re completely legal as far as things are concerned, the nobles would have to gather together to create a completely ludicrous set of law and have it passed to actually do anything about us.” Madame Nutcase stood up and shook her head while giggling. “We’re professionals, you’ll personally see that soon enough Ms. Shy. You’ll receive your ‘packages; and will be added to our mailing list. Nice to meet a nature enthusiast that I can talk nuts with. Fizzle, you’re still okay in our books and thanks for introducing me to this lovely mare here.”

With that Madame Nutcase trotted off looking quite innocent for all the world, I hoped that the fact that I introduced Fluttershy to her would not come back to by me in the flank.

“You do realize she’s part of an underworld organization here in Canterlot right?” My aside glance at Fluttershy was met with a bright and friendly smile.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, she just knows a really nice squirrel and asked me for tips on how to take care of him better.” Yeah, Fluttershy just flatly lied to my face. I can absolutely see why she wasn’t the ‘Element of Honesty’.

“If Applejack heard you say that?” I asked blankly, having been introduced to the mare earlier this morning after the Storm King was shattered.

“Why would she ever have a reason to ask about my personal life or squirrels in particular? Well unless they were causing problems in her orchard, but that would be just oh so mean of them.” I might have forgotten that Fluttershy was far smarter than she looked at times, the innocent and quiet ones were always the ones you had to look out for. “So do you want to talk about how you’re feeling Fizzle?”

“Yes, please do, I’m curious as to how my little Fizzy feels after killing someone who threatened the whole world.” Kuril, or mom as she still wants me to call her, was looking in my direction with those blindfolded eyes and was eating her meal easily enough.

“I still feel bad about it, but it couldn’t have happened to a worse guy.” I’m guilty of being responsible for someone dying and receiving a pardon from the princesses didn’t seem right to me. I was going to go along with it, I pushed the Storm King over the balcony and he is no long among the living.

It happened and I should quickly get over it, mostly because not many ponies or Storm Creatures were going to mourn the guy.

If I were to be taken to court over it, I’m pretty sure it would be considered regicide. It doesn’t help that since I was the Storm King’s first in command I am now the Storm Queen with the intention of passing things over to Grubber, so by equestrian law I might have diplomatic immunity for the Storm King’s death.

It was utterly ridiculous that I could get away with it so easily without some form of punishment!

“It’ll be okay Fizzle.” Fluttershy stated reassuringly as she put a wing on my back and started to rub it up and down gently. “I’m used to things dying all the time... I never tell my friends about that part of my job though. I’m… sometimes a gravedigger and I know it must feel horrible to be responsible for taking someone’s life. Just know that I’m here for you if you need to talk about it.”

I felt Mom’s right paw grasp my left hoof gently and I looked to her. She gave it a gentle squeeze and then let it go and returned to her meal, that I was paying for. Turning back to Fluttershy, I had something to say about it.

“Let me guess, they don’t think you’d take things well… I heard about what happened with Philomena and I doubt that no one hasn’t heard about that debacle yet.” That was a slow news day.

Said headline went like this, Celestia’s phoenix goes through rebirth while the princess is having snack time at Sugar Cube Corner. Phoenix makes ‘Element of Kindness’ cry.

Celestia visited a lot of places within the domain of Equestria, every year the summer sun celebration is held somewhere new or she visits a place to make sure things are running smoothly. She’s a hooves on kind of ruler and needs to be, she doesn’t trust reports from various far off towns unless she knows the pony in question wouldn’t hide things from her.

Thinking of Celestia, I had to also think of Luna… I almost accidentally killed her avatar on this world and I wouldn’t be surprised if Celestia is having a discussion with her about it at this time. I didn’t have any obsidian spheres on hoof if the princess of the night decided that she wants to show her wrath.

The only thing they wanted from me at the moment was to not leave Canterlot until the Friendship Festival being run by Twilight was over. That purple mare put a lot of time and effort into the previous one, only for us to destroy it all.

The Storm Creatures helped put up all the decorations and the progressing festivities didn’t seem to be going poorly, now if only the Storm Creatures weren’t going to give so many ponies and other species nightmares for Luna to deal with. I’d absolutely deserve ‘those’ nightmares I was going to be having for some time to come.

“I kind of wished that I remembered Airship Mauled at the time, Kuril and the people there know quite a lot about Phoenixes.” Fluttershy sat down with us and giggled into a hoof. “It was so silly that Twilight didn’t know a single thing about Philomena despite being Celestia’s student for so long. I really shouldn’t be laughing at her for it, but it seemed to me that she should have known a thing or two personally about such a majestic bird given she’s known Celestia for far longer than I have. It’s understandable that I didn’t know how to care for Philomena, because I didn’t know the first thing about phoenixes. It kind of leaves me wondering about how much Twilight actually knows about Celestia at times.”

As far as familiar bonds go, I wondered what exactly Philomena and Celestia got from the bond. Animals in general get extended life spans, but they were both immortal so that wasn’t it. It was kind of hard to tell which of the two had the better sense of humor or who got what from the other from their bond.

They’ve lived for so long that it probably hasn’t come up much what even happens with the familiar bond when Philomena goes through death and rebirth. Does she just bond to Celestia again or does the bond continue through the rebirth cycle?

“Speaking of animals, how long do you suppose Angel will live for?” I’m kind of jealous of people who have familiars really, probably would never get one of my own. I should really ask mom about how Snickers was doing, I really haven’t thought of Jade’s little lovable buddy in so long. “You know, being your familiar and all.”

“With our kind of familiar bond? The area around Ponyville might become a little bit… overpopulated… with so many loveable fluffy bunnies. Angel is very… er… open with female rabbits and he has quite a long life ahead of him.” Open is the nice word for it Fluttershy, considering how bad rabbits could get when it came to multiplying. I kind of wished I hadn’t asked as I now had an image of thousands of Angels with the personality to match running around, also Fluttershy would basically be their godmother. “I’m actually beginning to see why Rose, Daisy and Lilly were so worried about all the baby bunnies and their increasing population without the predators around Ponyville keeping their numbers down.”

“Can we change subjects?” I muttered before taking a bite out of my double fish patty hayburger with cheese. Yes, even Canterlot has a Hayburger on Restaurant Row. The nobles couldn’t really stop it from existing and spent millions trying to actually prevent it from being built. It was in a nice place with a good view and had some decent outdoor seating. It was barely ritzier than other hayburgers though and the prices were exactly what I remembered them being. The ‘From Tartarus with love’ was still a popular challenge among fillies, colts and teenagers to eat. “Before that, can I ask how Snickers is doing?”

“Snickers is doing relatively well for being a chronically depressed winged turtle that hasn’t flown once since my kitten was taken away from us. She’s been like that since ‘that day’, on the other side of things Sugar is doing well and is getting bigger. Far bigger, as in she’s going to get bear sized soon enough to match the general size of the local dangerous fauna in Barely Bearable Woods. Al-mi’raj are said to be dangerous and Sugar is proving that to be true by becoming the town’s mascot that absolutely nobody wants to mess with.” Mom didn’t seem upset that the Storm King was dead, it was like she expected him to die at some point and still accepted me afterward. “I do believe I need to ask about something my little Fizzle. What was up with that staff during the whole fight with the Storm King?”

“That… is a bit of a story. Ever heard of a GODLESS agent named Teatime Clockwork? Yeah, he was after the Staff of Sacanas, also known as ‘the staff of suck-on-this’ given the things it can do.” The staff of Sacanas… I should warn the princesses about how dangerous it was and tell Celestia that GODLESS really wanted it for the same reason that the Storm King used it for. “I met a few GODLESS agents hunting that thing down and the biggest problem I met was Teatime. We had a big fight over it, the guy had tons of mechanical golem monsters at his disposal. Almost a near endless amount, unfortunately they don’t quite match up to an army of halfway competent Storm Creatures. The fact that staff has restoration abilities is good because otherwise Canterlot would have taken longer to fix. If it could have restored my horn, then it would have done so when Twilight used it to fix most of Canterlot. So that’s another big ‘no’ on an ever increasing list of things I’ve looked into.”

Fluttershy winced and then took some hay fries from the waitress that sat them down in front of her.

It was just so frustrating being me sometimes, my life right now feels like constantly rolling a one in Ogres and Oubliettes. Something that only Jacky could feasibly do, then she’d roll a six when she absolutely needed a one. At least I’d get lucky every once in a while.

“It’s okay Fizzle, you’re fine just the way you are my little filly.” Mom started to stroke my mane and I leaned into it.

It’s been too long since I’ve last felt this loving caress.

Author's Note:

Warning: Long author's note.

There are things I want to note about how it is stated that no one can handle all of Discord's chaotic power in Season 9. Tirek drained Discord of all his magic earlier in season 4 and didn't go all crazy like the other characters did, the examples are Pinkie and Cozy.

Enough about that, can I honestly say that Fizzle got away with murder? Well yes, it was all in the defense of others though. Fizzle did not perform her actions in self defense, it would have absolutely been a mutual takedown without Twilight saving Fizzle's life.

Arimaspi and King Sombra are the other two normal fatalities in the series.

King Sombra has died approximately three times, two if you don't think his defeat by Celestia and Luna counts. Celestia and Luna's defeat of Sombra might have made him cease to be a physical pony and a being more akin to a revenant powered by darkness itself.

The abnormal fatalities would be Nightmare Moon and Tantabus, both of which were two different manifestations caused by Luna. Also several other abnormal fatalities include Plunder Vines created by Discord, some frogs taken to Froggy Bottom Bog by Fluttershy and Flutterbat.

As for how Feast Week went?

Well here are the things that died to make sure we kept on living... and we're thankful for that!

Five turkeys gobbled.
Three trays of Broccoli Casserole.
Two pots of potatoes. (Second one was specially spiced, it was well received experimental cooking.)
Three trays of macaroni and cheese. (Someone got around to it finally.)
One small bowl of delicious pasta salad. (Sad that there wasn't more)
Half the cookies are gone from the previously mentioned variety pack.
A number of mints were consumed. (Still have half a bag load left... I think they multiplied when I wasn't looking.)
Four lemon pies squeezed out of existence. (Tangy, totally tasty.)
Three thick, rich and creamy Peanut Butter pies. (Probably should have taken up that offer on the whipped cream in bulk.)
Five pecan pies. (3 Standard, 2 store bought)
Pecan Cheesecake Pie. (This years best experimental baked good.)
Experimental teleported thermal bread rolls. (Wasn't too bad, just don't leave them in there for more then seventy two hours. They were a bit tough to chew through after the first thirty minutes.)
Veg-all casserole. (Saved portions experimented on and then quickly devoured before it gained too much sentience.)
Vat of Creamed Corn. (Didn't eat any personally, but there was a lot of it.)
Chicken and Dumplings pot. (Not exactly traditional, but it was there and the dumplings were a little bit off. As far as the experimental cooking thing went, it worked okay.)
Half a box of beef and broccoli. (Glad to have finished that off. Again, don't ask.)
Five pounds of turkey stuffing. (All made on the side and not actually put in the turkey, but was eaten with the gobblers all the same. More akin to vegetable filled cornbread really.)
Generic Cornbread. (Absolutely Generic)
Two gallons of gravy. (The turkey was moist, juicy and flavorful enough, but a little flavor didn't hurt.)
A single Apple Pie. (No peach pie sadly.)
Three pumpkin pies pumped. (If you don't get the general gist by now, we have a thing about excessive pie consumption.)
Pot of green beans.
Green Bean casserole.
Cranberry jello mold salad. (As far as experiments go, this was the tamest. Salad got a little stuck in the mold and didn't wobble too much afterwards, but the slime went places.)
A pot of jambalaya. (It's become a Feast Week tradition all its own.)
Pot Pie. (At least I think there was one in all the mess from that day... wouldn't be surprised.)
Almost the entirety of a make your own taco bar, one that lacks lettuce due to issues during procurement. (Something weird to serve on the day of.)
Something with carrots in it. (Yeah it was definitely something.)
One maximum sized meat pizza. (Devastated almost instantaneously... by two people. Eaten alongside the make your own taco bar.)
Three large jars of coleslaw. (Yes, coleslaw in jars. It makes mixing things in easier.)
Goodie Bag Bonanza. (If your the one that ended up with the pickled fruit, then it sucks to be you right now and you know you have to eat it.)
Random assorted roasted vegetables. (Alternative if you didn't want stuffing.)
Not everything could be listed, because that would take forever.

Honey glazed ham procurement was held back for later holiday feasting... honestly there was enough food going into this already as it was when the week started. Most of our food could be measured in pies made.

Current personal leftovers... Full Pumpkin Pie, 1/3 Creamy Peanut Butter pie, half bag of mints that will take a while to run out of, one backup package of thickly sliced turkey meat and a take away box of assorted Feast Week goodies.

The food listed above was eaten on three different days, whatever leftovers we had we spent eating on the next day. Jambalaya, Chicken and Dumplings and turkey were the 'main day' foods, the third feasting day or Thanksgiving as it is more commonly known.

I'm surprised I'm still alive, after consuming a moderate amount of all the food that went into this week. Slept off the weight for twelve hours after each feasting day was over going into one small leftover day meal in the next evening.

I will now get back to working on this story, it will definitely be finished next year.

Thank you for your patience!

Comments

[Shadowshame]

Honestly I'm glad we don't have Thanksgiving or half the holidays that america has down here in Australia

[Herald of Opera]

I’m used to things dying all the time...

This makes sense every time it shows up, and we might very well have Estee to thank. At the very least, several other users have cited her as the inspiration for this particular headcanon.