• Published 31st Mar 2018
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Airship Mauled - Darkonshadows



We crash landed on a goddess. Welcome to Airship Mauled, where everything could possibly be worse.

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Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Convene.

-The next day, Cow-ro Marketplace, Kuril-

I followed Maries and my daughter around the marketplace for the last few hours looking at various things and picking up a few spices for cooking and maybe some zebra based alchemy. We were having a great time even if we weren’t going to be buying much, just spending time with them and watching them be together made me happy.

Despite how things were going right now, I couldn’t help this antsy feeling I’ve been getting. Something was making my fur stand on end and I didn’t know why.

Fluttershy was renting out a boat to head down the River of Denial with Sekhet and Taweret, Daring was exploring the marketplace elsewhere for any loose dangerous artifacts that she might want to pick off while we were here. So what could I be missing?

I immediately jumped into the air when a shadow came at me from above and sustained a griffon feather, this made me blind for a few seconds as I kicked off the air again. I vaguely felt myself landing on the awning of a stand and quickly swapped back to sustaining the mirror to see what created that sudden shockwave.

Standing in a crater was a yellow parrot that looked at Fizzle who was up and pawing at the street with a hoof, behind him Maries were growling.

“I will rock you!” The muscular parrot shouted as he started towards Fizzle with a raised fist, she fired a blast of lightning at him from her horn. That didn’t slow him down at all and Fizzle backed away from almost taking his right fist to her face. Maries leapt onto his back. While Mara and Maria bit into his shoulders, Marie went for one of his legs. “Hah, this is going to be fun!”

Swinging his right arm wide, he managed to daze Mara by smashing her in the face with his elbow. He crouched, jumped into the air with Maries’ full weight and he landed on his back on top of them slamming all their heads into the street. He rolled away from them and blocked a fireball from Fizzle with an arm.

“Is this seriously the power of the one who defeated the Storm King?!” As he shouted that he charged shoulder first towards Fizzle who attempted to roll out of the way. Only to be surprised when he suddenly stopped, stepped to the side with her roll and slammed his left fist into the right side of her face sending her flying through a stand and into a wall.

“Who… the…” Fizzle wobbled back onto her hooves with a large swelling bruise on her face.

“Doesn’t matter, the Jock is on the clock and he likes to rock!” As he said this, I lowered myself down from my position and ran to stand in front of my daughter. “Move out the way lady, I’ll deal with you after I’m done with the bigger threats. The rest of you will fold easily if this is the best you’ve got.”

I pulled a vial from my robes and frowned at him.

“You’re not going to get away with hurting my family so dear, because revenge will be swift as I’ll take you down right here!” The parrot just laughed as if I told the funniest joke in the world, you don’t hurt a queen’s kittens much less a witch’s kittens.

“Hah you… think you can take all of this? Please, I can wreck you with both arms tied behind my back!” I threw my potion vial at him and it smashed against his chest. “What was that supposed to do? That didn’t hurt a… *rib-bit*!”

The frog look shocked as I ran forward and stomped down on his buff, overly muscled, spine. It made a very odd ‘splut’ sound for my troubles.

“Do not hurt my family in front of me, or else a witch’s brew is a certainty!” I turned to Maries getting up and shaking their heads, I made my way towards Fizzle who was grimacing in pain as she sat in the debris of the stall she was put through. I pulled a potion and tossed it towards her, she caught it with a hoof. “Maries come get Fizzle and…”

I jumped back as a bolt of lightning struck the ground, the day was quite clear and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I looked to the pegasus that just tried to fry me.

“Idiot, you don’t underestimate someone just because they look like they are blind, some of the best fighters in the world are those who can react to things without seeing them coming!” The pegasus shouted at the frog that was already turning back to being a muscular parrot. I guess he had some way of resisting my transformation potion, or maybe it was because I actually injured him while transformed that it was wearing off that fast. “Let’s give the people here a show of Shock and Jock! At least the Shock until the Jock can get back up.”

I had stomped on the parrot’s spine, I doubt he’d be able to get up that easily. I watched as the slowly transforming frog pushed himself up and his spine popped back out as if it I hadn’t broken it with my foot.

The tough parrot could be back in the fight sooner than I thought. On top of that we had a lightning generating pegasus attacking us as well.

I had some guesses as to what was happening here.

“Shock as in Shocking Awe? He was on the list as working with GODLESS!” Maries was certainly angry. I wouldn’t begrudge them that anger, because we were under attack and we were well aware that they were after ‘The End of Immortality’ as well.

We just didn’t expect them to launch a surprise attack on us, or even be here for that matter.

“Yep, we’re going to mess you up!” Shocking was rubbing his hooves together to build up a lightning bolt. Jock was still slowly reverting back to being a parrot.

“Well now…” I said as I pulled my cat headed staff from my back. I quickly jammed the staff into the ground and faintly let go of it. As long as my hand was near it this would work, but I wouldn’t be able to see anything. I could feel the next lightning bolt veer away from my daughter as my staff acted like a lightning rod by absorbing the energy, my fur stiffened at the energy in the air around my staff. “Do you really want to mess with a witch?”

“If it can get me a good fight, then yes!” I could hear him launching another bolt of lightning and same result, my fur standing on end and none of my family getting harmed.

“Well you’re not going to be able to do anything unless you come down here.” I stated bravely, while internally I was quite afraid of what was going on here.

“I’m not nearly stupid enough to go near you after what you did to Jock!” He sounded like he was grinning. “Besides I won’t have to.”

I flicked an ear and felt something behind me. I heard a blast of fire and the grunting sound the parrot made from right next to me, then he was body checked by what sounded like several hundred pounds of chimera.

Another lightning bolt hit the staff in my inattention.

“Yeah, I really don’t need to be focused on you to stop you’re attacks so…” Hopefully my bland tone was clearly understood, at least I didn’t think fear was entering into my voice.

I was rattled we were being attacked, I thought today was going so well and we’d be taking a nice boat ride down the River of Denial without too many problems until we actually got to the pyramid.

Seriously couldn’t take a vacation to some ancient place without something trying to hurt me or my family. I flicked my ears and moved my left hand to the mirror under my robes and ceased my ongoing sustain on the staff.

I blinked and saw the stallion hovering there trying to figure out how to deal with me considering the last few lightning bolts he threw, Maries was wrestling and clawing the muscular parrot up pretty badly and yet his injuries didn’t seem to last long, at least until Maria started cauterizing them.

So the parrot could regenerate from injuries and poison pretty quickly, was immune to lightning based attacks and had enough physical strength to knock Fizzle through the air with the raw strength of one of his arms. Could take a lot of punishment.

The pegasus could stay away and launch lightning at us near infinitely until he was too tired to manipulate said energy. If he was anything like the parrot, then he probably hits hard and fast judging by the muscles he had. Wings are still relatively weak compared to the rest of him.

Strike team or assassins, at this point I didn’t care.

I noted Fizzle had drunk the healing potion and she licked her lips, she was in better health as she looked to Maries, me and then to the pegasus named Shock.

Her eyes narrowed as Shock launched a bolt of lightning at the parrot and his muscles bulged, his flesh started mending itself faster and the lightning canceled out the fire breath Maria was using against him.

I caught Fizzle’s eyes and she nodded to me, they currently weren’t paying any attention to her.

The parrot was miraculously able to fight against Maries on more even ground all of the sudden as he stood up while grappling with Maries’ paws. I turned back to the pegasus and held up my left hand and took aim, I cast the air in his general direction and he avoided my shot.

“Heh, really? Jock, stop playing around and…” Shock seemed to think my attempt to hit him was funny, only he didn’t see the levitating broken stand that blindsided him a second later that smashed him into a wall with the full force of Fizzle’s magic.

We both had seen how lightning was able to strengthen the parrot and we had an idea that the pegasus could do that to himself, using excessive force in this case was warranted.

I quickly turned and fired another magic missile at the back of Jock’s head, earning his attention long enough for Marie to sweep around his legs and pull them out from under him.

“Fizzle, Maries, start heading to the boat, I’ll catch up!” I shouted as I pulled out the vial filled with preserved cupcake chunks that I was now pouring into my hand, with a flash I was holding a roiling mass of wild sparking colors in my hand and I quickly threw it at the downed parrot. They shot me a look as they started to run. “I’ve got back up, don’t worry!”

I did not watch the horror I had just unleashed, I just knew the parrot wasn’t going to be getting up for a while after that.

Instead, I focused my attention on the eruption of the Pegasus named Shock breaking free of the stand and the wall. He was now coming at me quite quickly.

I pulled and tossed down a vial at the ground in front of me and a wall immediately popped up in front of his speeding form.

The wall shattered, despite him hitting it head on. The worst it did to Shock was daze him, he flapped his wings to rocket towards me again. Instant wall wasn’t going to work, I held my staff at the ready as the pegasus started to charge his body with lighting for direct strikes.

“We’re not that easy to take down with cheap parlor…agh!” A knife suddenly found itself wedged in the joint of his right wing sending him spiraling away from me and discharging that lightning harmlessly into the air, I looked up at the nearby roofs and saw a smiling Blade as she ducked back into the shadows.

I had asked her to not bother me while I was spending quality time with both Fizzle and Maries. I promised her some quality time afterwards and I was going to make good on it during the boat ride.

I started to run in the direction of the river. The local people had taken cover due to the danger and I was clear to get out of the area with Blade covering me. I was nowhere near as quick as Maries or Fizzle, but I’m not out of shape thanks to Sekhet.

“Darn it, none of you are getting away that easily without at least some injury!” I looked back and saw him on his hooves and ripping the knife from his wing as he came charging towards me again.

He was still able to somewhat fly on that injury and Blade leapt out to catch the bloodied knife and swooped in behind him trying chase him down before could catch up to me.

Just when he was about hit me, I turned and blasted him in the face with a solid mass of water that slowed him down long enough for a whip to strike out his other wing grounding him.

“Buck!” The pegasus shouted as he sent two wild small orbs of lightning at the two the swept around him and caught up to me.

“Grab a shoulder, help me airlift her out of here!” Arriving with a satchel full of things, Daring looked panicked. She and Blade both grabbed me and lifted me into the air. I wasn’t exactly happy with this, but the alternatives would have been worse. “Saw a GODLESS agent, a unicorn mare calling herself a knight of the Perun Paladins. Frankly they know we’re here and there are several of them in the city all advancing on us and the boat. Don’t honestly know why a bunch of god worshiping gaudily armored ponies are helping GODLESS, but we need to get out of here!”

As she said that there was explosion in the streets below us, I looked down and saw Fizzle’s firing a beam of magic against another unicorn in armor with curly dark purple hair sticking out of the back of her helmet.

Fizzle won the beam battle and scorched the unicorns horn making her flop limply on the ground and Maries was busy slamming a fully feminine armored earth pony into a wall with Maria’s horns making them drop a glowing mace that Marie grabbed with her mouth.

“Fizzle, Maries, keep moving! Don’t fight, just go!” We flew past them and they heard me shouting, they nodded to each other and followed after us.

“All that we do not find right with the world, we will destroy.” The unicorn knight shouted from the ground while weakly lifting her hoof. “That includes that ugly beast you love!”

-River of Denial, Fluttershy-

“Oh dear, what do you think is happening Sekhet?” Sekhet introduced me to an old friend of hers, but I mentioned that I saw her in Canterlot at the friendship festival… only she looked more like a cow at the time and not a fairly large hippo cow hybrid.

“Trouble, get this thing moving!” Kuril said as soon as she was dropped onto the boat, while Fizzle and Maries leapt onboard.

Taweret moved to quickly start the boat and we were on our way down the river.

Author's Note:

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredient!)

Perun's Paladin Ponies: Immune to lightning (God related), equipped with holy weapons (half god related), gaudy armor with decent strength (Not god related, but technically the usual uniform of the Perun Paladins are like this), resilience to sickness, poison or dark magic (Blessing's given upon reaching higher statures under Perun's order).

They all have a vicious streak against most things they consider unnatural by an ever changing definition. While they can be heroic, they are chaotic neutral at the best of times and chaotic evil at the worst. They are all also of noble blood in some given way, even if noble blood is use in a extremely loose definition.

They will absolutely destroy any seen evil, but anything considered unnatural will also be expunged by the order of knights known as the Perun Paladins even if said thing is proven to be entirely good, friendly, beneficial or even completely heroic as a fact.

Unusual animals have a tendency to stay away from them and nature gods will actively protect any beings of nature that would be targeted by the Perun Paladins.

No guesses as to who is behind the Perun Paladins.

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