Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Seventy three, Battling Bachelorettes: Record.

Author's Note:

Music- The Avengers, Target Town, Stage 2, Genesis version.

-Canterlot, outside the mansion, Jade-

“Well that was easy.” I said as I held up the single bit and walked along the street towards the port. I was considering if I should actually do what I was thinking of or not.

Would it actually be going too far? Well it would be helping Patient Decorum at least… not exactly a heroic thing to do though and I’ve never actually claimed to be a hero. In fact it would make me a pretty big jerk, but it would still be funny to do. There’s also the fact that this someone would have to actually work to earn a living, that or sell off a bunch of expensive stuff like the five statues of themselves made of expensive materials.

Was I capable of becoming a Byronic hero at this point? I knew Fizzy already was one, but I tended to be too much of an open book to fit the needed mysterious criteria. Fizzy was less emotionally mysterious these days, since she currently counted as a crazy cat lady. I’m the crazy cat, along with Mara being one third cat.

“What was easy Jade?” Said an angry and highly familiar bro-voice, so it had to be Shining Armor. At least I didn’t have to go looking for him.

“Quick question, would you seriously chase me down if I said I stole a single bit?” I would be happy if he did, because that would be a ‘bit’ insane. “I mean it’s just one bit, no pony is going to miss it.”

“Yes, I would.” He stated clearly while lighting his horn and the crystal guards lined up with him. “So are you going to come quietly or are you going to run and resist arrest again?”

“Are you kidding me Shiny? I always run!” I lowered my hand and pretended to pocket the coin, instead I flicked it back towards Sweetcakes and looked back. It hit a tail and Sweetcakes curled it around the coin. She looked to me and nodded as she narrowed her eyes at the group ahead of us. “Okay, go!”

Paprika wrapped my right shoulder in fur and launched me onto the nearby roof to my right, I grabbed the edge and hauled myself up. Paprika pulled herself up onto the roof on the left with another quick whip of her fur.

Sweetcakes darted into a nearby alleyway and Flotsam was already slithering out of sight down the street having already seen where this was going.

“We’re going after Jade!” Shining shouted behind me as I ran along the rooftop and quickly got out of sight, I threw myself prone against the roof and sent Clone Jade out to slide down a nearby water spout.

I peeked over the edge of the roof and saw Shining Armor chasing after the hydra scale clone. Standing up, I felt a wad of fluff wrap around my waist and I was yanked back over to Paprika. She leapt off her roof as she caught me and she cuddled me while we fell.

-Shining-

“Got you!” I had her levitated and in a barrier, which was rather suspicious as Jade was smiling impishly at me getting her so quickly. “This didn’t take very long, have you lost your touch or is this another plan of yours?”

“Did you really catch me now? Have fun finding me with a head start!” That was when Jade decided to dissipate into a shower of light particles.

“Spread out and spread the word, look for the ones that were with her and capture them!” I ordered. “She’s planning something big, I can already tell.”

“Doesn’t this seem like a bit much?” One of the Crystal Empire guards I personally trained asked. “I mean she said she only stole a single bit, also we don’t know if her friends have done anything wrong.”

“It doesn’t matter, because it’s Jade and I know she’s up to something tonight with how light the patrols are. We still have the wherewithal to detain them for twenty four hours to find evidence of wrongdoing if they are acting suspicious don’t we?” The crystal guards immediately set out upon hearing my reasoning.

Whatever you needed to steal a single bit for Jade, I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough one way or another. You were never quiet about things for long.

Also it’s nice to hear that you’re back in action again, even if you are annoying.

-Sweetcakes-

I stood at the end of the alleyway smiling as the two guards rushed towards me, I just calmly licked the back of my right paw and watched as they passed under a ladder. Seconds before they reached me two flower pots collided with their skulls.

I smiled coyly and sauntered on by their dazed forms to meet up with my friends.

-Flotsam-

I reached into my pouch and tossed a small plantain, peel and all, into my mouth. I chewed it down to being easier to swallow.

The two burly earth ponies tried to tackle me and I simply held them off the ground as soon as they made contact with my hooves, then I swung them around and released them to send them flying over the rooves of nearby buildings.

I’m getting better at using my ability, soon I might not even need the horrible tasting fruit peels to activate it. Well I can only hope my whitecap ability gets stronger.

-Five minutes later, Jade-

“Apparently they aren’t just targeting you!” Exclaimed Flotsam as she and Sweetcakes joined us.

We were all trying to head to the airship port.

Jacky recently made a flying lifeboat for the Ardent Survivor that we used to get up here, its name was The Durable Dinghy. Yes, I was involved in making sure the dinghy’s wood was relatively indestructible with magical alchemy. There were fairly obvious reasons to name it that if Jacky ever needed to use it personally.

We had already regrouped together and were proceeding to sneak around several patrols that now on alert for us, by avoiding alleyways entirely and taking the open streets.

Unfortunately we couldn’t avoid the various guards running around forever and eventually got caught moving about in the open streets. It was almost like we set off a bunch of explosives near a myrmekes nest.

“There they are, get them!” Shouted a night guard that swooped down towards us.

Only he and the other stallion with him seemed to bounce in the air and they then veered a sharp ninety degree angle into the nearest brick wall. It certainly wasn’t of their own volition.

Sweetcakes plus Tengu Fan equals dangerous, all it took was a single sweep of her tail holding the open fan. Tengu were said to control the air, glad to see it was true.

We continued down the street and two Crystal Guards came out of the two alleyways in front of us to intercept, they were really quite shiny.

“We order you to…” The Crystal Empire Guard didn’t get to say much as Flotsam planted her right hoof on the street and then swung the back half of her body around to uppercut the mare’s chin with her tail fin.

The mare flopped onto her back unconscious from the centrifugal force leading into a head jarring slap.

The other guard was grappled by Paprika’s fur. He was summarily dragged over to and cuddled by Paprika quite hard, when she released the poor guy his armor was falling apart and he was sleeping peacefully.

“Nice sleeper hold.” Hearing a horn charging behind us, I spun around to launch my yoyo directly at a royal guard coming up behind us. Once it was wrapped around her horn, I yanked her towards me and clotheslined her with my right arm. I glance to my left. “Sorry for copying one of Arizona’s favorite moves.”

I looked at the mare on the ground glaring up at me dazedly.

“Meep.” It seemed Paprika didn’t care about it as she waved me off with her right hoof for a second, she was in the midst of playing patty cake with an earth pony royal guard who seemed to be quite frustrated by her playfully knocking his hooves away.

With the strength he was attacking her with, you’d think he’d realize that he wasn’t going to be able to do anything to Paprika.

The earth pony guard was fairly surprised when Paprika suddenly delivered two quick jabs to his face and then a nasty rising right hook. The guard spun about on his legs dizzily and then toppled over groaning on top the mare I knocked down, knocking her back over and out as she was trying to sit up.

Sweetcakes swung her fan to stop a pegasus’s forward momentum, completely freezing the stallion in the air. Flotsam came in and flung the crystal guard she knocked out into the pegasus knocking them from the air.

“They’re over this way!” The pegasus managed shout before he slammed into the ground roughly.

“Right, let’s keep moving before more catch up to us, much less Shiny!” I started pelting down the street and they followed my lead.

Well my bachelorette night has certainly gotten quite exciting. We were a few streets away from The Durable Dinghy.

A earth pony lunged from a nearby alleyway for me only to get grappled and tossed away over a roof by Flotsam in one smooth forward motion that caused her to roll on her slithering tail.

“Hold it… oh… it’s you… never mind. Let’s keep flying guys, Shining Armor put out a false alarm.” We watched as Spitfire and her group fly in and then stop, they soon proceeded to fly away from us. “Have a good night, as far away from me as you can get.”

“Oh come on, don’t you want to play?!” I whined at Spitfire’s backside.

“No!” Spitfire yelled back at me as she took her two Wonder Bolt companions with her. “I’m not dealing with you and nobody can ask me to!”

“I’m your favorite nuisance though Spite Fire!” There was a part of me that wanted to follow and annoy her to no end. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?!”

“Leave me out of this chase Jaded!” Well that’s just sad, Spitfire doesn’t want to play with me. I heard Spitfire yell in the distance. “She’s over that way if you want her!”

“Well I’m sad now.” I wasn’t going to cry because she won’t give me the time of day to hound me in an epic chase scene… my sniffling was because there was something in my eye. “Right then, let’s move on!”

“Meep?” Paprika asked tenderly.

“I’ll be fine… really…” We all started making our way to the edge of canterlot, now all we had to do was head down the street to the port and… I saw something that had my attention. “Everyone, STOP!”

I thrust out my arms wide and my companions for the night came to a dead stop looking around in a panic.

“Finally we caught up to…” It seemed Shining caught up to us.

“Hold it, time out, time out, stop the background music if you got it!” I called while making a T shape with my hands held up in a warding gesture.

“There is no…” The unicorn leader of the Crystal Empire tried to continue.

“I said time out Shining, we have a problem, a big one!” I pointed in the direction of what seemed to be my major malfunction at the moment.

“It’s a wooden cabbage cart.” Yes, and that’s why it was so important Shiny!

“Don’t you think that it’s incredible suspicious that there’s a cabbage cart here of all places? I mean we were about to run by it and it was going to likely be destroyed or something.” It wasn’t a moment later when an old stallion wandered over to stand near us and the group of guards with Shining Armor. “It’s a cabbage cart full of cabbages.”

“So?” Quirking his eye at me, Shining Armor obviously didn’t see the oddness in this that I did.

“A wooden cart, full of fresh cabbages, at night… AT NIGHT!” Having reiterated that last bit to make a large point at the oddness of a cabbage cart just being there, in our way, of all places. “How do you not see the oddness of this, are you as blind as you were when Chrysalis was playing magical mind hockey with your head? I mean it’s unattended, sitting in the middle of the street… and it’s nighttime!”

“Yeah, that is kind of oddly out of place.” Shining murmured to himself and his crystal guards nodded along with the sentiment.

“Yes… so you should run right by it.” The old stallion stated loudly. “You know, before those guards try to catch you.”

Shining and I looked to the old stallion smiling at us, after a moment he frowned.

“You do realize that if you don’t do it, then it could lead to something really bad happening. It’s gaining potential energy even as we speak and it would be better if you, the Abyssinian’s group, continue on with haste.” We just stood there staring at the stallion. “Okay, fine, I’ll tell you why I placed the cabbage cart exactly where it is. It’s because getting your vegetables or fruits destroyed in a chase makes for incredibly good karma, you were supposed to destroy it by being chased near it. By not running by it, you’re actually ruining the natural order of things!”

“Even with that odd explanation, I’m not going near or by the cabbage cart.” My statement was met with wide eyes.

“Do you realize what you’re doing?! If you don’t do it, the effect might become highly unstable… it could be happening even now!” The old stallion grabbed me with his hooves and shook my violently. “Please do it soon or else it might be too late! Maybe it already is… I’m… I’m going to go!”

The old cabbage cart stallion turned and ran off.

“Nope, definitely not going near that cabbage cart now, I’m getting this really horrible sense of foreboding about it.” Backing away towards the crystal guards with my ears wilting, my friends look equally worried about the cabbage cart.

Shining Armor, decided to scoff and moved forward towards the cabbage cart.

“It’s just a completely normal wooden cabbage cart, nothing is going to happen… here see!” The second Shining’s hoof touched it is when 'it' happened.

-

I think it might have been a minute or two before I blinked and looked about, did that cabbage cart just seriously go up in a massive explosion?!

I yowled in pain as I slowly sat up covered in soot and bits of shredded cabbage, Sweetcakes limped over to me and started to rub me over with her glowing tails looking shell shocked.

Flotsam looked like her life flashed before her eyes and Paprika had half her fur burned away protecting us from the sudden explosion.

“Don’t… you… believe it...” I said in a haunted, droning, tone.

Sweetcakes nodded and finished dusting me off with her tails before she moved over to Flotsam and Paprika to check on them.

-Five minutes later, The Durable Dinghy-

“Do you… do you think anybody would believe us if we told them?” Even I couldn’t believe it. I steered us away from Canterlot using the propeller rudder. “Wait, do you still have the bit Sweetcakes!”

Sweetcakes showed us the golden bit and I sighed in relief.

Comments

[TDR]

Revenge of the cabbages

[Booster Spice]

Oh no, the StoLat launch cabbages have escaped. And Shining, no matter how many O&O games hes run still still hasnt caught on to Narrative Causality and the effect of the consequent buildup of Narrativium?

I wonder what teh rules governing the Bit are, whoever has it in unbroken possesion for 24 hours maybe?. Or has to lose it in a certain way?

[Shadowshame]

I believe that was a set up by the quarrelsome quartet to try and get a hit on Jade that was too convenient