Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Sixty Five, Pyramid Power: Loyalty.

-Outside the pyramid at the ruined base, Arizona-

“Well at least Paprika is back to normal.” I almost said that with a straight face too.

“You call her being black and white normal?” Velvet growled angrily at me. “She’s a creepy, sad mime now!”

“Eh, it’s mostly normal except for the whole sad tone thing.” I’m sure Paprika would come back to being her colorful fluffy self eventually… I was starting to miss her bone grinding hugs.

Paprika just mimed the word ‘meep’ in a sad tone, neither Velvet nor I would question how we knew the tone of her miming.

“Well, I will say that the beret on her is quite fetching at least.” Velvet spotted Pom coming up to us with her new Pink mass of something vaguely shaped like a wolf. “Maybe I can convince her to acquire mofd clothing from Prance when she eventually snaps out being crazy. How are the prisoners Pom?”

“Fed, watered, the bathroom used and no escape attempts yet. I’m surprised that the toilets are the only things that your mother didn’t destroy around here.” I could see Pom was a bit frightened, even I was scared of my mother when she had explosives on hoof or at least stashed nearby.

“My mom might be an explosive nutcase in the most literal sense, but she’s not evil.” That was because she was totally awesome. I’m glad we rescued her from Fœnum, which was quite a trip.

I turned to look over to Sweetcakes and Flamberge talking quietly to one another as they sat guarding the prisoners, several tails rubbed against the dragon and he didn’t seem to mind the affectionate closeness. The speaking in haiku thing was completely annoying, it’s something that I’d half expect Tianhuo to start doing with her honorable warrior stuff.

Still wondered where Ollie went off to with Fred. Last I heard, Pom saw her facing down ‘Disgrace’ in battle. Ollie was definitely a challenging opponent, even Fœnum Oleander was a hard fight. I’m kind of scared that they had shared notes on what they had learned from their Fred’s.

“Hopefully Kuril will be back before this evening, because her food is likely the reason the Perun Paladins we’re holding captive are staying quiet.” I tapped a hoof to my chin as Paprika mimed something about going to hug Skelly. Idly nodding to her, I brought something up that was on my mind with Velvet. “You know, I’m surprised Kuril doesn’t have a cult worshipping her name because of the food she makes.”

“Why that would be just plain absurd Arizona! A cult centered on Kuril?" Why did Velvet sound off when she said that and what was up with the fake laugh following that? "Honestly now, that's totally ridiculous!”

Was there something about Velvet that I didn’t know already after being married to her for more than a year?

-Airship Mauled, secret underground room near The Witch’s Fare, Fresh Start-

“We praise she, who is the witch of flavors that are many!” Various people who lived in Airship Mauled were wearing their cloaks and I had a smile on my face, our cult to the La Perm matriarch Kuril was coming along nicely.

We even managed to say our lines in unison this time, we’ve been working on that since forever. Soon the world will know the name of quality food is Airship Mauled and the world will be a better place for it!

The statue of Kuril at the back of the room was finally fixed thanks to Marble Pie’s efforts after it was accidentally broken the last time we convened. It was a good thing we knew an expert in stonework that has good rates.

It was always so hard to find a time for these meetings with everyone always being so busy with their lives. Getting the community together to discuss how things have been going lately felt good, things have been on a pretty good upturn since Kuril found out she had a grandson. We all agreed that Gavin was cute, besides being the nicest thing to happen to Airship Mauled in recent history.

“Uh, is this going to be one of those crazy cults or one of the more innocent yet vaguely shady ones?” Asked one of our cloaked companions, she who is of great cheese and noodles, Macaroni.

“We are benign in our quest to bring food both healthy and unhealthy into the world, as long as they do not abuse artificial ingredients too much. Next, we need someone who is good at baking muffins for our cult to grow stronger…” In an instant the door slammed opened and all the cultists screamed as the light hurt our eyes.

“Oops… sorry… but someone said ‘muffins’ and ‘cult’ in the same sentence around here and I was in the area to see how Mr. Rata was doing.” We turned to the blonde haired pegasus. Her grey fur was well groomed and her wonky eyes were both inviting and friendly. She also wore a cloak covered in images of various kinds of muffins. “So I wanted to know if you were another the muffin cult!”

“Maybe we can make an arrangement.” I said while bringing my hooves together. “How would you like to join forces with our foodie cult?”

“Ooh… a foodie cult! My cult would definitely be open to sharing notes and being friends with you guys.” The mare seemed agreeable, we might soon be sharing some members in the future.

When and if sister Velvet returns, we will have the market cornered on frozen treats here in Airship Mauled again, especially with the aid of sister Grace who is the master of dairy and naturalist tastes.

-In the Anugyptian pyramid, in a room full of serpopards, Jacky-

“So, how many of them are there?” There were so many large cats with snake fangs and long necks, I didn’t want to risk being near a single one of them given my luck. Mom didn’t have infinite phoenix feathers, so I chose the safe option by staying next to Baast.

“In this room, throughout the whole pyramid or in the given surrounding area? I try to make sure to keep their population in check, but there is certainly a lot more of them than what you are seeing here.” There was something about what Baast said that filled me with a sense of dread. “I’ve been letting them out into the jungle to roam free from the back entrances since those other mortals set up their place outside the pyramid, I would have had to deal with them eventually. I thank you and your friends for coming along so all of my little kitties didn’t need to get hurt!”

“Little, some of them are bigger than I am! Also um… all of the above?” I answered in an unsure tone.

“Three hundred plus in this room alone, not counting the little ones, more than a few thousand within the general area of the pyramid give or take a few miles.” That was a lot of serpent leopards, it was to the point that I hardly noticed the ferns, beams of sunlight and shifting sand pits in this large room.

This room had every single creature comfort a cat could want and mom seemed fairly happy near the ferns.

“When I asked you to commune with them, this is not quite exactly what I meant.” Quiet earned our attention because she wasn’t exactly whispering at the moment, we turned to see Daring and several roughed up serpopards.

“Hey, I communed with them, in a way that we all agreed upon! Right fellas?” At the bruised Daring’s behest, the battered and bruised serpopards nodded their heads towards Quiet. “I’d say we certainly communed alright.”

Daring probably had a problem with fighting giant cats, it’s that she wouldn’t stop doing it. She must really miss punching out Ahuizotl’s cats.

“Even if it was not what I was expecting, I guess you were all having fun.” Quiet sighed audibly, I take it she was the one of empathy. “It was nice to meet all of you, especially you Fluttershy. You are an exceptional wonderful pony with a heart of true kindness and love.”

“Why thank you Quiet!” The sea of serpopards soon parted and Fluttershy seemed reluctant to move forwards.

Nefer soon got out from a pile of serpopard kittens and gave me some big eyes.

“No Nefer… we cannot keep any serpopards on the ship.” More like I didn’t want to deal with any more pets that would be worse than Belfry, I continued on past him muttering loudly. “Goodness knows how we’re going to get the ship out of here without a working balloon, we barely have room for our friends along with the captives.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ve been holding a communication potion for our exit strategy. I can call in some air support to bring you a balloon if it isn’t coming already.” Fizzle came up to me with Maries, she carefully removed a serpopard kitten from her head and patted it on the butt to get it to head back to its family. “I’m pretty sure anyone could have seen the beam Fortitude deflected. If that didn’t get Grubber’s attention yesterday, then I’ll have to open communications with him to find out what’s he’s currently busy doing that he ignored something like that.”

“Come along everyone, playtime with the kitties is over.” Baast said pleasantly as she opened the door leading to another corridor filled with branching pathways. “You too Sekhmet!”

“Darn it, I’m jealous of your serpopards sister!” Despite this, Sekhet finally put down the green spotted serpopard that whined sadly at her. “Sorry, but my sister makes the rules here as it is her pyramid. You’re a very good serpopard though.”

Some minutes later, after leaving Quiet Voice alone with all those ‘deadly’ serpopards, we were led to a huge room with a large circular track of made entirely of sand.

We had to be nearing the bottom of the pyramid now given the size of this room and the few stairs we took to get here. Also I’m quite sure we’d be let out the back exit once we’re done here. I don’t want to walk back up any more stairs than I had to.

“Hello, I’m Brash Clash!” The blue cat didn’t take any time to make her introductions as she came running up to us with an exited look on her face. She looked rather masculine for a female anugyptian feline, compared to the graceful looks of the previous three we’ve met. “I was a brave and noble protector of anugyptian lives, even those that were my enemies. I spent most of my time steering monsters away from my friends and family, without hurting them too much. Also Quiet can really nag like you wouldn’t believe!”

“The poster child for one of Rainbow Dash’s previous lives.” Fizzle whispered to mom and she nodded back with grin. She turned back to the bouncy blue cat whose split tails waggled back and forth randomly in anticipation. “The serpopards would have been lethally dangerous if we were unwelcome intruders, so what’s the challenge we need to do this time and is it even dangerous?”

“Being one of the few and proud anugyptian desert warriors, my challenge is one of physical capabilities and quick wits. You can even take my challenge as many times as you want, because I won’t tire of wanting to do the one thing I’ve always been good at.” You won’t tire at all being a spirit Brash, you also seemed to be fairly prideful that you couldn’t lose before you’ve even done anything. “We’ll be racing around the shifting sands track! It is full of tricky terrain and a bunch of completely nonlethal, but possibly mildly debilitating, traps. You might have to climbs over walls, crawl through small spaces, jump over slowing sands and keep up with someone who became the best leader of, The Sand Sprinters! All you have to do… is eventually beat me in one lap on an ever changing obstacle course. So, who wants to go first?”

“I…” I was cut off by Daring, I actually wanted to try racing the cat with my jetpack.

“After the warm up with those serpopards, count me in for being first!” Daring stretched her hooves and grinned.

“Someone who likes action, yes! I can tell the course is going to be good this time.” The way Brash pumped a paw was cute, she turned to us and waved us off. “The rest of you take a seat off to the side of the starting line, this shouldn’t take too long.”

We all sat off to the side and watched as the two lined up on the white line of the large circular track in the sand.

“All opponents start off first whenever you feel ready!" So the challenger always got the head start. This sounded fair enough."No matter how fast you’re going, I’ll try to match and eventually surpass you."

Daring got her legs limbered up and then, she darted forward over the line, we found ourselves in seats of sand molded to fit our various forms as we watched the entire circular track immediately morph before our very eyes.

“Huh… this is nice… I wonder where we can get a soft sand cushions like this one. It’s good and warm on the belly.” Maria seemed happy as she curved around to watch alongside her sisters as Daring ran through various dangerous looking obstacles.

Everything was actually made of sand. The obstacle course Daring and Brash were racing through was one of various jumps from platform to platform, rolling under raising and lowering ceiling bound pillars, sand creating hands that grabbed at both Daring and Brash as they darted through them.

Halfway through the course Brash took the lead and never lost it, she was a blue blur on four paws straight through the last quarter of the track. It required one to bouncing off of walls to avoid falling in a deep pit with flowing sand that looked like it was water.

By the time Brash finished, Daring finally reached the wall jumping portion and got through it alright. Despite making it to the finish line, she didn’t win.

“Didn’t beat me, but you at least you had the gumption to finish. I appreciate that!” She turned to use and away from the wheezing Daring. “Who wants to go next?”

I was about to say something when Fizzle stalked forward.

“I will.” She turned to the starting line and looked to Brash, who readied herself and they waited for Daring to take a seat in the stands.

What came next was an obstacle course with two walls that you needed to jump between to gain height, a zip line, a section where you had to climb sideways along a rock wall and one section that looked non-Euclidean with random moving circular vortexes of sand that teleported you backwards upon any contact.

In the end Brash was at the finish line, Fizzle faired a little bit better by half the distance that Daring did and still lost.

“Before you ask, no, I do not know what the tracks will be like.” Brash was quite fast in picking up on what to do for the obstacles. “Making excellent training courses for a Sand Sprinter!”

Courage is facing the unknown and thinking quickly on your feet, what would my luck do to the track?

Author's Note:

Despite not being able to fly, Brash was probably one of the fastest anugyptians alive.

Been catching up on sleep.

Also this month has been slightly bad.

Near constant 30-50 degree weather for two weeks.

Several power outages, none of which were even related to the weather that normally causes them.

Extreme amounts of bodily pain for a few days, that I slept off eventually.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Sonic spin dash race course?

Or is this going to be the Mario World short cut technicality win?

Or was that Sonic.

Corners.

Why did it have to be corners?