Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Sixty Four, Bad Bastion Battle: Fort.

-Behind the instant walls, Maries-

“Okay, slam them together to go boom, got it!” There were a few concerns to be had about Maggie, but we would bring them up at a later time. “Now I just have to wait for an opening in the cannon fire to get out there and cause some havoc. I’m tough, but I’m not invincible and don’t think I can take more than one or two direct cannon shots. If anything grazes me, I’ll be fine as long as it’s not one of my legs.”

Kuril certainly seemed reluctant to give her the potions, the cow still took them and shoved them into her empty and suspiciously badly burnt or soot covered satchel.

“Incoming dodo!” Marie reported from behind us, everyone turned to see Jock slam into the ground and did what we suppose he thought a dramatic pose was supposed to look like. “Do you think we could take him?”

The parrot was a resilient guy, especially after that Paprika crunched a lot of his bones with that literal bone breaking hug that should have left the guy in a body cast.

Marie bit him several times and her poison didn’t seem to have much of an effect aside from slowing him down slightly.

Mara clawed him quite a few time and his claws marks had long faded into his down and feathers.

That’s not even as surprising as knowing that Maria’s burn wounds eventually healed too.

Jock’s feather looked patchy, but they were growing back just about as fast as he healed.

“There’s no stopping the rock, not while it’s rolling down the hill!” Jock was going to be a lot of trouble, he flexed with a big grin on his beak.

“Well someone has to!” Growled Mara as she turned us towards him.

“I’m going in to deal with the crabs, you guys stay here and deal with the simpler stuff!” A cheerful Maggie called out as she ducked around the wall as the cannon fire let up.

She thought Jock was simple, did she not know how much damage we did to him previously only for him to get up from that and keep going?

We charged straight for him.

-Behind the middle instant wall, Kuril-

Blade tugged at my robe and gestured at one of her knives.

“Can someone grab a sword or something equally long or sharp? Blade is running out of knives!” It wasn’t that she wasn’t retrieving them at every opportunity, it was that they were blunting and dulling badly from overuse on targets that were mostly armored. She was throwing them hard and I was fairly impressed that she punctured as much armor as she did with them.

Still, Blade was doing a good amount of damage to the golem pony population with some well-aimed throws. These golems might have been cheaply made, they were obviously made in bulk, but were still fairly competent when it came to fighting. They’d certainly beat the Celestia's guard for effectiveness.

The Perun Paladins weren’t exactly in great numbers and the ones in the base were staying there in formation while the machines ran forward. I’d say at maximum there were at least a hundred in total and we’ve knocked that number down to forty or so in the jungle, I only saw about twenty one of them on the ground and the others were manning the cannons on the bases buildings.

Now if only Arizona, Velvet and most of their friends hadn’t gotten separated or lost all over the jungle as soon as they arrived from wherever that rip in space led to.

I tossed down a few more instant wall potions and they fused into the instant walls that were already placed down, it made one solid wall in front of us that I could easily look over. I’m the one of us that had to crouch given it was a short, but sturdy wall.

I looked over the wall to see Maggie about to engage one of the large mechanical crabs.

-Middle of the open field of battle, Maggie-

It was good to be back in Equestria and I wondered what the bounty on these guys would be worth, it must be something else if they are this dangerous. I wondered how Calloway and Grace are doing, I wondered what they’d say if they saw me again.

Calloway would probably say, 'of course I ended up in another world and had to have my daughter come rescue me'. That or something along the lines of knowing that I’d get myself in over my head without her keeping me grounded. She wouldn’t be wrong in any case.

Grace would just ask me how my interdimensional trip was and if I got her a souvenir. I would say yes, because a reindeer named Cashmere had some hats that would look good on Grace.

I know both of them probably miss me something fierce from what Arizona says, Calloway should probably be the grumpy sourpuss she always is and Grace was always going to be a lovable peacemaker.

Frankly, I think Calloway should be thanking me for learning all the survival skills she did when it came to surviving my cockamamie plans, we 'were' a decent bounty hunting team.

“Wide load, coming through!” I slid my several hundred pounds worth of body under a mass of turf the leading crab machine chunked at me. This reminds me of that time Minos, Blood Freezer the accountant was a nasty piece of work and he knew how to throw a boulder. “Come on, you can do better than that you Rusty Crab!”

The large mechanical crab raised its claws and tried to bring them down on me, I was already rolling underneath it and pulled out two vials from my satchel. As I laid there on my back, I quickly made sure one vial had bar on it and the other had a plus symbol, so they were the right ones and I held them above my head in both hooves.

“Hahaha… I love doing things like this!” I brought the two vials together with an excessive amount force underneath the belly of the crab machine.

-Behind the defensive wall, Kuril-

A massive explosion ripped upwards and outwards toppling two of the crabs and completely destroying the one that had been at the center of that explosion.

“How in the world did she do that?!” I stated in disbelief.

“What, you told her how to set off the safe explosion potions.” In the middle of being upright and snapping a beast golem’s neck, Fizzle suddenly yelped when a spray of blood erupted from her left shoulder. She let out a scream and clenched her teeth. “Something hit me!”

I stared at the jagged piece of metal sticking out of Fizzle, it was probably from the crab that was just exploded.

“Fluttershy, pliers and disinfectant!” While I knew shouting at Fluttershy was never a good thing to do, it was warranted. Parts of the exploded crab machine were raining everywhere and the area of damage was phenomenal.

Having not done much, aside from cower in the middle of our group protectively, Fluttershy was immediately at Fizzle’s side with the medical kit.

“How did she get that much explosive yield out my potions?” Being hoofed the pliers, I immediately worked on extracting the bit of metal from Fizzle’s shoulder. My daughter was already scarred enough as it was, she didn’t need any more! “An explosion of that size shouldn’t have been possible, that was three times above what my two part safe explosion potions should even be capable of!”

“Don’t know what to tell you mom, but she did guarantee increased efficiency!” My poor baby yelped when I yanked the jagged bit of metal out of her and Fluttershy swiftly poured disinfectant into the wound that made her hiss and groan in pain. I then gave her one of my healing potions. “Sorry, about using up your healing potions like this mom. They taste pretty good though.”

“They’re meant to be used Fizzle, but yes, there is probably not enough for everyone at this rate.” I stated calmly. Fizzle wasn’t the only one that was injured, she was just the most notable one and she was actively getting into the thick of things. The other injuries were bad bruising and cuts so far, the pony golems had actually managed to nick Blade and the wind blowing Sweetcakes once or twice when they missed one approaching them. “Also, you wouldn’t want a head injury before going into a fight.”

“Oh dear.” Fluttershy sounded upset about something, I looked around for what that could be.

I saw Maries getting slammed into the ground by Jock, I should really throw another transformation potion his way.

Daring and Paprika were fending off and attracting the mechanical wyverns as several others dove into various points in the jungle beyond our current position.

We didn’t know the state of the rest of Fortitude’s or Arizona’s groups, but they were fairly good fighters the last I saw of them.

We ducked down as another barrage of cannonballs struck the potion constructed wall, said wall was beginning to crack badly and there were a few places where it was crumbling under the fusillade. We were all trying to stay down due to this.

“Out there!” Fluttershy pointed more insistently as she poked her head up over the wall after the cannon fire died down.

I was in the middle of swinging my staff around and smashing it through the chest of a pony golem that sent it flopping away. I quickly made sure it wasn’t going to get up again by smashing its head with an overhead swing.

Once I wasn’t otherwise busy, I looked over the wall. I blinked at what I saw. Maggie was perfectly fine, the safe part of the explosion obviously worked and she was running around closer to the mechanical crabs, mostly since the cannons wouldn’t aim at them directly.

Of the six remaining crab machines, two were moderately damaged. It was what the crab machines were doing that had attracted Fluttershy’s attention and mine soon afterwards.

One of the machines planted its claws in the ground and raised its body and four legs up into the air, it then slotted into the crab that moved behind it and did the same thing to the crab behind it. Soon there was a large funky looking centipede that walked on the digging crab claws and their legs were now flush with each crab’s body that made up a segment of the monstrosity that just formed.

To make things worse it started glowing blue just before a second point blank explosion happened underneath it, we found out the glowing was a powerful magical barrier.

“That thing has a powerful magical shield!” Whined Fizzle as her flesh and fur knit itself back together. “How are we supposed to deal with something like that?!”

Feeling a tug on my robe, I turned to look at Blade who was covered in bleeding cuts and wounds throughout her torso and she was asking for a healing potion with her eyes.

The nine tailed fox was thankfully holding our line behind the wall.

Daring was getting roughed up in the air.

Paprika seemed perfectly fine when she dropped to the ground and bounded over to us on three legs to lift her hoof and show us she had a metal splinter in it.

Maries fight with Jock wasn’t going very well.

“Fluttershy, deal with the splinter, I’ll take care of Blade’s wounds.” I am beginning to wish that we had brought Doctor Bones.

-Out in the field, Maggie-

“Well now, this is clearly going to be a problem…” The centipede monstrosity made of crab machines reared up and clacked two large crab claws at me. Its shields took that ‘safe’ explosion fairly well. “Bigger things than you have tried to take me down, I am going to show you that my weight and girth is definitely not to my detriment here!”

If a world snake couldn’t devour all of this, then a mechanical centipede made of crabs with some absurd magical shielding wasn’t going to scare me!

I might be a bit mangled afterwards though.

-Lost in the jungle, Arizona-

Okay, use your head, you have muscles upstairs as much as you do in your body, Shocking was putting out a lot of power and I was meeting him blow for blow. My body was a cavalcade of bruises and my bloody nose was telling me that Shocking had definitely stepped up his game since the years we’ve been gone.

I wasn’t the only one that was black and blue though.

“This has probably been one of the best fights I’ve ever had… I just need to ask, why aren't your muscles locking up? You haven’t tried to defend against my lightning attacks with those rubber ropes at all!” He growled at me. “You’re holding back!”

“Of course I am, you’re not worth my full effort.” That sent him into a blind frothing rage and he came at me with his hooves blistering and crackling with lightning. “That and I learned a method to deal with muscle paralysis from a good friend in a different place entirely.”

Let’s just say that Fœnum Tianhuo knew how to stay limber even when she got hit with paralyzing attacks and she taught me some tricks.

Glad I decided to not watch the Paprika duel of the century, it had been pretty awesome at first and then it just degraded to being horribly boring when they found themselves too evenly match in physical resilience. Still didn’t understand how they did the raining frog’s thing though.

-A small distance away, Oleander-

“Come on Pom, keep up the pace now!” I swung Fred around and deflect the holy energy up into the air, then smashed the pony in the face with a quick right hoof knocking them down.

“I’m trying! Why can’t we all just get along?” Pom whined as she ducked under a swing and then launched her favored double hoofed uppercut attack, then leapt up and proceeded to spike the armored pony into a golem destroying it. “I’m also worried about Tianhuo.”

“She’ll be fine, she’s a warrior. I’m sure she’s just as embattled as we are.” Calmly blocking a weapon with Fred’s spine, I swept him around me in a circle knocking back several aggressors.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better!” Pom shouted as her puppies battered several of the paladins away from her, Big Mama was making sure nobody came at her from behind and was blocking numerous pony golem cannon ball shots with relative ease.

“Honestly, I don’t think it was supposed to.” Fred stated as a grin formed on his visage.

“Can I just say that you guys are definitely not ready for Freddy?” Between attacks I had been building up power to release Fred for a bit and I grinned. “Come on out and show them our power Fred!”

“GLADLY OLLIE!” A mass of dark tentacles erupted throughout the area. Only to be forced back by a powerful light being emitted from that Dispel Grace guy, they balanced out and Fred unfortunately couldn’t use some of his more powerful abilities.

“Know your vile darkness will not win this day, for the light of Perun shall prevail!” Even if that holy jerk was holding back most of Fred's abilities, I don’t think Dispel knew what was about to happen here.

Author's Note:

I hope I'm getting the chaotic battle down correctly and didn't forget anything.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Pity Jock cant be magically picked up by the body, so theres nothing he can fight against, then used as a shiled against the cannon fire, then a bludgeon against various targets. then again, is Minnnesota strong enough to use that Crabipede as a whip against the base etc?

[jimerjam]

you missed yesterday

[Shadowshame]

10035647
Well there is one quick way of dealing with jock: turn him into a chicken and have Mara bite his head off there would be no way that he could heal from that

[talontitanbane]

Still, Blade was doing a good amount of damage to the golem pony population with some well-aimed throws. These golems might have been cheaply made, they were obviously made in bulk, but were still fairly competent when it came to fighting. They’d certainly beat the Celestia's guard for effectiveness.

Oh great. Now I'm imagining pony versions of the b-1 battle droid.