Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Muster.

-On the way to Cow-ro, Kuril-

“Remind me again why we’re going to Cow-ro and not Somnambula?” I asked my approaching daughter as I watched the clouds pass by through my blindfold.

“Sekhet would cause a ruckus. She doesn’t actually want to stir things up by telling the story from her side of things and cause Somnambula problems. Trying to explain why the story of the sphinx wasn’t as black and white as ponies think it is would go interestingly if we tried to paint Sekhet in a friendlier light.” Thank you my little mare, this was rather informative. Now to give my little mare a hug. I wrapped my paws around Fizzle’s neck and brought her head over my shoulder and snuggled her. “Mom…”

“You’re one of my adorable children Fizzle, the only one that’s currently present and I’ll always want to hug my children.” I put my head on top of her neck. “Now what do you want my little Fizzle? You didn’t come over here to tell me about skipping Somnambula.”

“I’m not exactly little anymore mom, but I did want to talk about something.” I pulled away from her and watched as she pulled out the locket and flipped it open to show Jade, Maries and her smiling together. I saw the two strings with two different rings hanging from her neck for a few seconds. “Maries and I are snuggling and love each other quite well, but we haven’t gone much further physically. We’re certainly emotionally invested enough.”

“You have nothing to worry about, those three are simply waiting on you.” I rubbed her back affectionately.

“I’ll probably keep them waiting forever.” She muttered morosely.

“If they love you, like I know they do, they could wait an eternity.” Something I said made Fizzle look at me with curiosity. “I think it’s nice that they are treating you so well.”

“Like Jade said once, they would wait an entire eternity for me.” She smiled a bit.

“So how does Maries get your tail in the air? I’ve never really quite pried into this, considering at first you wanted them to stay away from Jaded and then you’re relationships started to get weird when Jaded started actively dating the both of you.” If I remembered right, Maries had a hard time coming up with dates that weren’t nature walks or camping. Fizzle blushed and looked away. “Maries had such a hard time with going out on dates with you when she couldn’t do so in places that tended to be called civilization because of some fairly realistic, if unfounded, fears.”

“I think it was their efforts and that Jade wanted us to like one another, those nature walks with Maries were always nice because no predator would come near us and they are really naturally beautiful to me. I also knew they wouldn’t hurt me after the first date and was a little surprised they were so open to the idea of us being a herd, I especially appreciated their protective streak.” Fizzle snorted loudly and leaned against the railing. “That and Maries was as awkward as I was when it came to dating. Jade seemed to know what to do on a date, but she also had this awkwardness to her as well. I guess when it came to our feelings, we were all sweet on one another and actively tried to make it work. The sad thing is… things did work out between us.”

“I think awkward and sweet defines it. So when we get to Cow-ro and have to stay for the day, are you going to go looking around at things with Maries?” I received a nod that she’d be spending some quality time with Maries. “I ask because Daring told me that we’re likely to be there for the night before we start heading south on the River of Denial. I wanted to walk around with the both of you while visiting the market there.”

“Sure, the more the merrier, but we didn’t exactly bring too many bits with us. We’re here to find some artifact that might be a huge threat, not shop and do girly things.” Fizzle pulled me into a tight hug with her hooves and nuzzled my chest before releasing me. “I’m going to talk to Maries about it and see what she thinks about us sticking together when we get there.”

-Hours later, Cow-ro, Jock Hawk-

There I stood wearing a keffiyeh. The thing was just a scarf, so why not just call it a scarf and why do people have to make things so complicated? My beak was poking out from under it as I looked about.

I was just minding my own business near the airship port, because there was no back breaking labor for me to do at the moment. Finally, I saw some distant trouble incoming.

“A storm king airship… better go tell Shock about this. It seems we’re going to be having company here quite soon.” I turned and made my way towards the bar where Shocking should be at the moment, I shoved a cow out of my way as I walked. I think I preferred Manehatten to this place. My feathers were always covered in sweat out here, but the workouts I can do around here were phenomenal at least. “Out of the way or you’re going to get rocked-, yeah!”

“Rude, you do realize that there are…” The chocolate furred cow grumbled as I stomped off, I flexed a muscle back at her and she stayed quiet. Yeah, you certainly don’t want to mess with raw muscle of this magnitude lady!

I continued down the streets, many ponies, cows and even a minotaur were staying well out of my way. Sure, I’m a jerk, but I’m big on taking down those who thought they could simply out muscle me.

No regular parrot was going to take this on, even some of the minotaurs I passed by were going to avoid a confrontation with me.

I didn’t mind being Shocking’s minion as what we had worked out for the both of us. Business was booming and we were being paid to be on the lookout for anyone that would bother our operations.

Only one such thing just came up and now I might actually get to use my muscles to do some heavy lifting. The highly violent kind of lifting.

I turned into the bar where I saw a bored Shocking seated at a table.

“Jock, there is only one reason that I could think of as to why you’re here. It’s because you’ve absolutely found a fight for us, so tell me the kind of challenge that we might soon be facing!” Shocking grinned maliciously as I joined him with a smirk on my beak.

I told Shock that Teatime likely has trouble heading towards him down south.

“I’ll go back and watch who’s getting off the ship and then we’ll attack them tomorrow.” I knew Tempest was one of Teatime’s enemies, so we finally had a target to deal with.

“Let’s hope that someone puts up a somewhat semi-decent fight.” Shock was much more than my boss, we were like brothers when it came to fighting. “I’m sure you’ll want to go first to rock their world.”

“You know it!” I couldn’t keep the smile off my beak, Shocking would go report in to Teatime and be back in time for a nice ruckus.

-Short time later-

Daring Do was said to be tougher than her size would suggest and would be a decent challenge to take down according to all the trouble she usually causes upstanding citizens like ourselves.

Tempest Shadow took down the storm king at the height of his power, so she was definitely a large threat despite the broken horn.

The blind Abyssinian that looks to be a witch didn’t seem like much to me and I could probably snap that lady like a twig.

The meek looking, pink haired, yellow pegasus looked like too much of a wuss to put up much of a real fight. I bet that the Abyssinian puts up more of a struggle than her.

I think the real jewel of the disembarking group so far was a fairly large chimera. I bet the chimera would even be a decent fight all their own.

That was before I saw a sphinx. She looked small, but everyone knew how dangerous those things were and she looked at everything like it was almost beneath her. The most important thing here is that thing on her head… it was a… what did they call it? A nemesis? A nemes? Nemes sounds right, she was either someone of royal blood or a goddess judging by her current mood.

It seemed we had our targets as no one else disembarked from the ship load of Storm Creatures and the pudgy little hedgehog seeing them off with a wave and a smile.

-Marketplace, Sekhet-

“I can see much hasn’t changed since I left. There are still market places, there are still people proffering sweetened dates in the streets and not much have changed on that front.” Though I pondered on the many things that have changed, the many modern conveniences that places like Cow-ro now enjoy.

I’m pretty sure my sister would be proud to know that things have progressed quite well since I took the mantle of the north where she took the south.

I even saw a few anugyptian felines and jackals talking amiably to one another, even a few Abyssinian jackal hybrids. There were also plenty of ponies of varying species and a lot of cows.

“Sekhet, well now aren’t you a sight, it’s been a while since you’ve been around here!” I turned and saw an annoying party goddess, it was Taweret. The hippo was hard to not notice as she took up a large portion of the street and that’s while she was standing up. “I felt you around Canterlot when there was a nice friendship festival there, but you weren’t present…”

“I was just watching over some friends of mine Taw, my ears were burning because some of them mentioning me a few times.” She looked quite surprised at my words and then gained a huge grin on her face as she drew me into a hug that choked me.

“Oh my goodness!” She exclaimed with a ridiculous amount of happiness. “You’re actually friends with mortals, that’s so nice of you! Also, I heard what happened a thousand years back and have been meaning to look you up to catch you up on what’s been going on in the region, but first… apparently you have a new domain that you earned in Equestria.”

I pushed myself out of her hug, but she didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t willing to return it.

“Stop hugging me you water borne nuisance! Apparently being a war goddess lends me an excellent talent for bringing out the talent of others through Physical Education, I’m a PE goddess now and teach classes to mortals who want a good regimen for keeping healthy. Also I’m the secretary for the mayor of the same town I personally built a pyramid at.” I looked over Taweret and noted the glamour she had going. “Really Taw? An average looking chocolate cow?”

“Hey at least it lets me experience mortals without them being completely awed by my very presence!” The hippo said with a pose. “I’m actually considering smiting this one annoying parrot with some big handsome muscles, but I got over him being rude quite quickly. Otherwise he’d be curse to never taste alcohol for the rest of his life or should I have considered cursing him tasting nothing but alcohol for the rest of his life considering the guy doesn’t look like he even touches the stuff?”

“There’s certainly something to be in awe about when it comes to you being present.” I commented blandly as I looked at her bulk.

“I know, right?” She grinned as she brought her stubby limbs together. “So what brings you back to our neighborhood, thought you’d never come back after you got out thanks to that mortal… what was her name? I believe it was Insomnia or something like that, heard she came back to life or was just stuck outside of time for a while, it’s been known to happen to some unlucky mortals. Really didn’t focus on which, also I met this really nice pony named Pinkie Pie…”

“Look, I’ve met Pinkie, we’re… acquainted. Taw, are you going to keep going on about what you want to talk about or are you going to let me have some conversation topics by telling me how Wadjet is doing?” Watching as she put a hoof like toe to her chin, she actually looked fairly thoughtful about my question. This would have been the first time Taw didn’t go on and on about something.

“Oh Wad is doing pretty well, she’s been trying to get out more and she’s pen pals with this nice god named Quetzalcoatl… apparently you’ve met? Wad said you have an addiction to being crashed on by airships according to what she’s been hearing from him.” Nodding to Taw’s question, I had something to tell her as it would be rude to have ignore the other question.

“Nice to hear, that lovely serpent needs more friends. As to why I’m here, I believe that the mortals I’m traveling with are going to be visiting my sister’s current location and I wanted to drop in on her.” I raised a paw and gestured at Taw in a friendly manner. “I'm here with some of my favorite mortals, since I wanted to be there to talk with Bastet if our paths crossed. That and I’ve apparently been 'fated' to be here, because of some magical table map saying I have to be.”

“That’s nice, so how much time do you have on your paws here in Cow-ro? I feel like clubbing with an old gal pal and we can have a nice party by the River of Denial!” Backing away from Taw as she was going to go for another aggressive cuddle, I had only a few words for her.

“I’m only staying here overnight, tomorrow the mortals and I are setting out down the river to the south as there is a pyramid or temple nearby the wide load of the Denial we’ll be heading to. They might incidentally free my sister up from her duties, so expect something chaotic to happen soon.” From the way I saw Taw smiling at me, she was likely expecting it to be a sure thing.

“That means I can spend a lot of time with you tonight and on the way, I’ll even make sure nothing bothers your mortals in my waters!” Taw clapped her limbs together. “You can even introduce them to me, why they must be something special if the great Sekhmet loves them!”

She brought me into a bone crushing hug, it felt nice and I actually returned the hug. It’s been a long while since I’ve actually seen the other gods and goddesses in my pantheon personally.

“Okay you can let go now… don’t make me breath out an entire desert again... it’d take the jungle we’re heading to forever to recover from that!” Taw finally let me go, but she was hopping on her feet with excitement.

“Oh we’re going to have so much fun!” Taw stated with excitement.

I regret everything.

Author's Note:

Mind you that we don't have Arizona, Jacky or Flamberge's groups to deal with the deadly duo.

Sekhet won't lift a paw to help and would likely let the mortals deal with things themselves, unless the two were foolish enough to attack her.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Kuril uses Pheonix Down. All of Shock Jocks feathers fall out, and regrow. And fall out.. Permanently?

[Shadowshame]

I feel like jock is going to fall completely flat because of him under estimating Kuril because as we have seen with those monsters and giant spiders in those caves Kuril is a force to be reckoned with when you threaten her family and plus she has that sight thing from the mirror now so it will be even harder to stop her and I'm wondering what happens if Kuril's staff is sustained, one effect I can imagine is being able to use the effects of the potion held in it without using up the potion.

[Herald of Opera]

10025752
He correctly assumed that she isn't an effective physical fighter. He forgot that that doesn't matter because she's a Sekhet-damned witch and will turn him into a newt.