Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Seven, Shrew-d Operators: Scouting plans.

-???-

A figure in a cloak was up on the shaft leading to some windmill blades and another cloaked figure looked up at them from below.

The second figure watched as the first figure was doing something to the shaft the windmill blades were attached to.

“What are you doing Jade?” The cloaked figure turned to the cloaked pony.

-Jade-

We had arrived in Klugetown safely enough. Mom and Jacky were out scouting a portion of the town and so were we. Fizzle didn’t like this place and I don’t blame her, I didn’t like it either.

“If I’m right, then it’ll be something you’ll look back on years from now and you’ll remember me doing this.” I snickered at Fizzle as I checked the base of the windmill blades themselves and smile. “You, are going to be so mad at me for this later.”

“Why would I ever be mad at you Jade?” She gave me a worried look.

“You’ll only be mad, if it actually happens.” I received a confused look, which I just returned with what I hoped was a heartwarming smile at her. “Just remember me if you do come back here and it does in fact happen.”

“What will happen?” Fizzle asked of me looking a little on edge.

“Eh, you’ll know it when you see it Fizzy. It’s not important, or even anything to worry about right now.” Yep, nothing important to worry about at all, just something that might be of interest in the far flung future.

-Tempest Shadow, approximately seven years from now. The future that refused to change.-

“Get her, now!” I felt my eyes light up and my horn sparked, there was something very familiar about this place.

“You going to be scared now ponies!” Grubber the little rotund sugar swallowing hedgehog said from beside me. He was annoying, but despite that I think we’d always be friends. He was quirky like that and he wasn’t even remotely evil in any given way. In fact, he was highly incompetent and I sorely needed that.

Wait, was one of my storm creatures grabbing… windmill blades?! I… I couldn’t say anything about it. I just… I had to keep going. I couldn’t lose composure here.

“Grubber watch the cat for a minute, don’t let him out of your sight.” I went outside and headed towards the nearby rock wall. “I have something important to do.”

I looked over my shoulder to make sure nobody was watching. They were all likely distracted by the windmill blades carrying the six ponies and little dragon away, entirely across town and completely out of our grasps to the docks.

We’d never catch up to them, to think that two of those ponies were my friends. I hoped they were okay.

I slammed my hoof into the rock wall, I even cracked it a bit. Closing my eyes, I clearly felt my tears spilling from them. I… I wasn’t angry… with you… never… actually, I was laughing. Why was I laughing this hard about the Princess of Friendship getting away? Why was this so funny to me? I had to calm down, I… I couldn’t be seen acting hysterical like this.

“It seems you were wrong about this… I didn’t get mad.” Having regained some composure, I had to deal with that blue haired Abyssinian. He wouldn’t tell me the truth about where they were going, I just know it. Still, I was going to ask him anyway and possibly be purposefully led astray.

Darn it Jade, you knew this would happen you… you lovable, beautiful, fluffy, math challenged idiot!

I missed you dearly, I know everyone else does too... so where are you?!

-Fluttershy-

I pulled Pinkie over to the corner of the storage space and looked to her worriedly.

“Pinkie, why do you think Fizzle is really doing all this?” I whispered trying not to be too loud.

“That’s not Fizzle, silly. That mean pony is Tempest Shadow.” She whispered back to me. “They are completely different ponies Fluttershy, shame on you for thinking otherwise.”

Either you were in complete denial Pinkie, or you knew something that I didn’t. Rainbow doesn’t recognize her either. Then again, I don’t think Rainbow has ever actually seen Fizzle’s broken horn before.

It has been a few years since I became the element of kindness, I haven’t exactly visited Airship Mauled in all this time or have really talked to all my other friends there.

Did I and Pinkie… did we forget them? Some friends we are.

-Approximately seven years prior in Klugetown, Fizzle-

Jade just dropped down in front of me and I gave her a sardonic look. I’m going to remember this location why? It’s not like I was ever going to have any reason to come back here to this place.

“Jade, aren’t we supposed to be asking around about Merriami Sorex?” It seemed to me like Jade was putting things off to play tourist. That was the name of the shrew we came here to find on Tarsus’s behalf after all and Jade was goofing off and doing strange things at this pointless windmill. “All we’re doing is goofing off. I don’t mind that we’re spending time together, but aren’t we supposed to be helping someone here?”

“No need to rush things, that’d just be drawing attention to ourselves my dear Fizzy. Besides, I’m smarter than that and we haven’t been goofing off.” She looked at me with a smirk on her face. “We ask questions about Ami directly and you can bet we’ll be in trouble before the day is out, especially with whoever has her. We don’t want people to start following us around or back to our camp to be ambushed. You’re the one that thought to grab a large tent from Ponyville before we left, that was a good call. Now use that wonderful brain of yours here Fizzy.”

“Then why have we been just walking all over the town aimlessly to look at things?” This place was in the middle of an inhospitable desert and was swarming with the most horrible people I think I’ve ever had the misfortune to see.

“It hasn’t been aimless. Unlike you, I’ve actually been listening to the conversations going on around here to get a scope of the land and the people in it.” Wait, was that why Jade stopped at that horn shop and stared at those horns for a while? I shivered in disgust. If it had been for a good reason, then I was willing to swallow my bile and hear Jade out. “Apparently the current local crime boss is apparently a big pig called Gonnan. This is someone I can’t deal with directly who’s got both size, muscle and numbers on us and I already know the name of his mob’s main enforcer Lin. They are not anyone we want to mess with.”

“What does that have to do with why we’re here?” That seemed like really inconsequential information to me.

“I’m getting to that. Have a little patience Fizzy, you’re going to need it eventually. I know the perfect place to get information on Ami. It just happens to be in the middle of the big pig’s territory.” Now Jade was making me a little worried, how would she know what’s the place to get the best information on our goal? “We’re just up here to see how the pigs around here are patrolling the streets, we’re going to need to know this later. Also what times they’ll be patrolling any particular street and how they move when alerted to trouble.”

Jade pointed off into the streets below and I saw two pigs wielding spears, they stopped to talk to one another.

“How do you think Jacky and your mother are doing?” I take it this would eventually lead us to Merriami.

“Pretty well, this isn’t an entirely despotic regime, but the pigs have definitely corner the market on real estate around here.” Jade crossed her arms and leaned against the wall behind her. “So they can talk freely about some things, but I warned them to never mention Merriami out loud anywhere. We’ll meet up with them outside of town at the campsite, after we scout the place I want to go to and we’ll ask the right questions there.”

“What place would that be?” Call me curious, but Jade was being rather cagey about things or what she was doing up on the windmills shaft.

“The only, beyond my very disbelief, truly clean bar in all of Klugetown!” She pointed out a section of the town that looked vaguely nicer than the rest of this dusty dump we found ourselves in. “The pigs apparently like their alcohol. Alcohol creates both problems and loose lips, I hate the stuff personally.”

The way Jade talked about alcohol, it sounded like she had a bad personal experience and Kuril didn’t seem to like the stuff either. So was Jade’s other parent abusive and that’s why they weren’t around? Kuril seemed rather tight lipped about things involving Jade’s father.

“Well come on Fizzy, it’s getting late and we have a bar to go to. I heard someone talking about the guards celebrating something.” Jade started for the stairs and I followed, why did I feel a sense of dread about going to the bar?

We quietly made our way away from the windmill she tampered with, I quickly forgot about it as it seemed unimportant.

-Jade-

It was getting late and we were approaching the outside of the bar, it was called The Whole Hog. Walking inside, I saw that we weren’t the only ones to come here. Sitting in the back corner were Jacky and Mom, they looked to be quietly discussing something.

“There’s mom and Blackcap, go over to them and tell them I’m about to start something that’ll give me a chance to talk to the bartender without any ears listening in on our conversation.” Fizzle looked at me and I made a gesture for her to go. “Don’t worry, I won’t be hurt. Just stay out of the fighting and everything will be okay. I’m not even going to be scratched by any of it.”

“If you’re sure…” Looking away from me, Fizzle made her way over to mom and Jacky in the corner.

I went up to the bar and sat down.

“Hello there, nice establishment you have here.” The lizard behind the bar gave me a flat look.

“What do you want cat?” The lizard looked to be of the frilled variety, said frill was orange, black and a little bit yellow. He looked to be quite clean compared to all the slightly grungy patrons he had in the bar.

“I’m Jade La Perm and I want to ask you about your bar here, it’s… a bit too nice for the area it’s in.” He winced at my words and I knew I was on the right track.

“You could definitely say that, Chlam King. I’m the owner of The Whole Hog.” He nodded to me with a suspicious glance. “Is there something you needed from me specifically Jade? You don’t look old enough to drink and I know Abyssinians.”

“I’m not good sir, thank you for noticing and not offering me a drink. I despise alcohol.” He gave me a curious glance for saying that. “I would like to ask if you would like to dirty up your establishment and are being prevented from doing so.”

“I’m not liable to discuss such a thing.” He said calmly while glancing around the bar at the clean alcohol swilling pigs. Pigs were actually very clean animals, they just needed mud and water to stay cool. The pigs here could actually sweat and were much cleaner.

“So you’ve never had a brawl in your bar before?” He froze up and gave me a sad look. “Not much of a real rough and tumble place Klugetown.”

“You’d be wrong about the rough and tumble part, but the pigs are too well organized even while drunk to start a fight in my establishment.” I could see a gleam in his eyes as he wiped a glass clean.

“Bartender, I need some honey mead over here!” The pig at the end of the bar slammed his empty mug down.

“I’ll be right with you sir!” Chlam turned to me and smiled slightly. “If you could get a bar brawl going in here, I would appreciate it. It’s really quite impossible though, their camaraderie is too strong for that.”

“We’ll see about that… hold his drink back, because challenge accepted! Just give me the information I need when I do get the fight going. I don’t want any ears here to hear what I want to know.” I poked the bartender in the chest while speaking softly as I got up off my stool, I picked up said seat and held it aloft. “Attention everyone! I would like to proclaim that if a chair is thrown in a bar, a fight will inevitably break out regardless if it hits anyone or not as long as it goes more than a foot away from the thrower.”

“Pahaha… you think throwing that stool will really make us all get into a fight, do you know who we are?” The pig at the end of the bar in the tough guy jacket squealed with delight at my proclamation. “This bar has never had any fights, ever! So go ahead and throw that stool and see what happens. If you hit one of us, we’ll all just gang up on you and afterwards we’ll just continue drinking our fill.”

I gently tossed the stool, it didn’t go very far. Now for my horrible math skills to be useful for a change.

“There you have it, I threw the stool exactly one foot away!” I sat on the neighboring stool, put my elbows on the bar and steeple my fingers while giving the bartender an amused look.

“What was that in aid of?” I held up a finger at Chlam in a waiting gesture and resumed the steeple finger position.

“Pahaha… that’s your ploy to get us to fight, the stool didn’t go more than half a foot!” The pig at the end of the bar stated.

“I saw it make three fourths of a foot!” Another pig shouted, and thus the setting up of the dominoes began.

“What are you blind, it only made it a quarter of a foot!” All the pigs were drunk so distance would be hard for any of them to judge as they were.

“If you’re blind, then I’m definitely seeing it as having gone more than a foot and a half!” Several pigs got up and started generally talking about how far I threw the stool, it then started getting heated.

The pig at the end of the bar even got into it and tried to break them up, then I threw the match on the powder keg I just started.

“Seriously guys, it’s exactly one foot three inches.” I said lazily, they glared at me and I leaned back with a warding gesture.

“It is not, it’s exactly one foot!” That’s when the first punch was thrown, then all the pigs in the bar started brawling.

I turned my seat back to the amazed bartender with a calm, canary eating smile. I basked in the chaos going on behind me.

“So, what do you need to know Ms. La Perm?” A happy Chlam King asked me.

Comments

[Vision]

That's so well written!
Also that moment with Tempes is so umph! So good! And sad! Makes me wish for more stories of hie to be like this one!

[Redstargazer]

“Attention everyone! I would like to proclaim that if a chair is thrown in a bar, a fight will inevitably break out regardless if it hits anyone or not as long as it goes more than a foot away from the thrower.”

And Captain La Perm strikes again. Yes. Captain. She can say rogue/sun priest as many times as she want, but I'm with Jacky here. She will always be a Captain! Wonderful as always and look forward to more. That said...

-Tempest Shadow, approximately seven years from now. The future that refused to change.-

Fair warning. Incoming fan rant. Skip if you don't like.

Just, just.....WHYYYYYYY??!! Why would you show our little Fizzle getting a better future with Jade's help only to snatch it awaaaay!?! Have mercy on your readers!! Oh the humanity!!!!

End rant.

..... Okay, I think it's out of my system. Please tell us you will use your writing skills to work this back around.

[Honestblade]

Why exactly did the Bartender want a brawl?

[Darkonshadows]

8923036

Thank you.

8923386

There's a good reason for it, one that is clearly foreshadowed.

You'll eventually forget said foreshadowing too, that's when it'll absolutely come to the forefront again.

8923457

Why wouldn't he want a brawl?

[Lady Lightning Strike]

I turned my seat back to the amazed bartender with a calm, canary eating smile. I basked in the chaos going on behind me.

Jade - Sun priest, rouge, and Starter of Chaos. Discord would be proud!

[Umbra Animo]

8923457
Rep. Bare and tavarns have the rough outlaw/gangster feel but the pigs where way to proper for a good brawl.

[Shadowshame]

I would like to applaud you for this most glameow chapter (wish he had a monocle too)

[Ralanost]

Yeah, can't say I'm a fan of the time skip preview. I see no reason for Fizzle to ever join up with the Storm King against her friends. You also make the mane six out to be shit friends that don't visit for years. And somehow Jade and crew stop going to Ponyville? Destiny refusing to change is bollocks. I think I'm done here. Chapters are just making me angry now.