Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Grand Epilogue, A New Era: Training of the guard.

Author's Note:

(Music- Start the Commotion- The Wiseguys.)

I've had that song stuck on loop in my head for a while.

Ending in "Everybody happy, I'll soon change that!" then starting up the song again kind of makes for a perfect loop.

Anyway the first of the last pages begins here, with a simple exercise in frustration.

(New Magical Alchemy Item! Yes... it's a pogo stick.)

Also these last few chapters are going to be under unlimited length, meaning I could go anywhere between 2598 words to 5000 plus.

-Canterlot, Royal Guard Barracks, Fizzle-

I still wanted to have a foal of my own, but getting the cross species spell and the same gender breeding spell to work at the same time was still going to be functionally impossible. It was the basics of getting two highly disparate spells to work at the same time in the same direction, when both spells don’t have a road map, a compass that will only constantly spin and you’re in a thick continent wide fog with multiple giant flying purple pony eaters hunting you.

The same gender breeding spell wasn’t hard to get when studying the likes of Terramar and Silver Stream changing forms to give us idea of how to make it work. The problem is that same gender breeding spell only effects two beings of the same species.

At least I know there are two happier male hippogriffs in the world to prove the spell was a success, the child would have higher chances of being male and a very minimal chance of ever being female though. I honestly wanted to know how that turns out and Terramar will keep us up to date on the two to make sure things went alright

There was only so much Baast could do to help us in that area, though she did suggest turning one of us temporarily male and then using a cross species spell. Yeah, I wasn’t actually comfortable with that, but we could just do things artificially from what the temporary male produces… provided that the transformation isn’t sterile while the transformation lasts.

I’m sure mom could make a potion to that effect...

I really shouldn’t be focusing on this when I have guards to train, Twilight was wondering if I could get them to be an effective fighting force to solve problems that didn’t require her or her friends to get involved at all.

I’ve trained Storm Creatures, so this shouldn’t be all too hard. It is the Royal Guard though and they have a track record for failure. This is why I was going to use a fresh batch of old boot camp trainees before Luna and Celestia stepped down and I would introduce them to their new form of boot camp.

I was going to run these guys through a bunch of realistic scenarios, which can only improve their work effort given what my incentive for said effort is going to be. It was going to be brutal and harsh, but only those willing to stick with it will be kept around. They are supposed to be the defenders of their country and they are going to act like by the time I’m through with them.

I walked out into the courtyard and the looked the sorry bunch I we were about mess up today. They had no idea what they were in for.

“Okay recruits fall in and look alive, by that I mean don’t look like a bunch of idiots bleeding out on the ground and whining like crybabies that things aren’t going your way when things get disastrous!” I shouted to the twenty or so bright eyed trainees that came running to stand in two lines of ten.

I was authorized to make them suffer, so I would be weeding out any pony who’s not going to give it their all. This meant if a rich snob thought they could get by because of family’s money, then they were sorely mistaken.

Five ponies from each species, including some night guard thestral ponies who were supposedly better than the day guard Celestia had. The night guard and Moon Priestesses were still somewhat beholden to Luna, but they were okay with Twilight Sparkle’s rule so far… aside from the chaos of Twilight Sparkle’s life in general. Surprisingly Twilight’s life was continuing to be crazy and there was no end to the shenanigans that the ‘Princess of Friendship’ would be involved in.

“I’m here to induct you into what you can be expecting to do as a royal guard. I, among many others including every single last one of my friends, finds the royal guard to be a bit… shall we say… lacking is the nice way to put it. You are the last trainees from the old program, a program that has almost all its soldiers fall apart once their leader is captured despite there being a chain of command to prevent such a thing from happening. The Plunder Vines situation comes to mind, which was said to actually be within the royal guard’s ability to handle yet they still failed to assist Ponyville in its time of need with anything approaching even somewhat helpful.” I was marching in front of them all looking each of them over, they were at least standing attention pretty well. I’ll give the royal guard one thing, they know how to teach the guards how to stand around for long hours on end. “There’s also my invasion of Canterlot where every unit of the royal guard and the Wonder Bolts present for the festival failed spectacularly at guarding anyone, evacuating citizens from the combat zone or even a whole slew of other highly concerning problems, the most of which was falling apart like cheaply made wet tissue paper to a minimal force. I didn’t take Canterlot using the Storm King’s full army, so as you can imagine the best defense this nation has is Twilight’s ability to make friends. Which will be a really sad if that ultimately fails and gets Equestria’s current reigning ruler killed, the first effective line of defense a nation should have… should not be the last and only line of defense it has! The royal guard is getting budget cuts until they can prove they can handle disasters, which a small ragtag group can handle better that fifty or so armored ponies can’t.”

“To that end we’re going to put you lot through your paces today.” Spitfire was assisting me with today’s exercises, there was a reason I personally requested her presence today. She moved forward and started hoofing out twenty pouches. One for each pony. “Do not open these pouches, this is a part of the training exercise. If these pouches are opened, we’ll know. If anything goes missing from them, we’ll know. If one of these pouches mysteriously disappears during the training exercise, well you won’t be capable of guarding anything as a member of the EUP now will you!”

“Here’s the thing you need to know about these pouches, each pouch contains twenty bits and there are exactly twenty of them. Your job today is to protect them.” I watched all twenty ponies looked between themselves in concern before I continued with a smile on my face. “You will be in the streets of Canterlot today, the actual royal guard will not be assisting you more than giving you directions the culprit of this exercise is heading. Your job is to capture or stop the culprit, the culprit’s job is to steal all your money. Those twenty bits will belong to you after the exercise is over, provided you can hold on to them and keep them out of the culprit’s paws. I highly doubt that you will…”

“So who’s the culprit, is it one of us ma’am?” An earth pony mare asked, I think her name was Quirky Bayonet.

“Very good question Bayonet, but no. None of you will be the culprit.” They sighed at that and I had an evil smirk on my face, they didn’t know what was about to happen. “The culprit will be stealing and running from you with some stipulations and guidelines they have to follow. Let me introduce you to the bane of the royal guard…. Jaded La Perm!”

“What, you didn’t say anything about her being here!” Spitfire’s panicked words suddenly got them all worried, that worry soon ended when Jade came slowly bouncing into view from around the corner of the barracks on a pink pogo stick.

“Don’t worry Spitfire, you’re going to simply be an observer.” Turning to look at my wife bouncing up and down with a literal simple childlike glee, I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from tugging upwards at the sight. “You will still have to follow Jade though. This is about increasing the standards of the royal guard to actually mean something more than pointless cannon fodder.”

“Let me guess, she put you up to this somehow?” Good guess Spitfire, but no, this was going to be a legitimate exercise from the beginning. “Even when I don’t want to chase after her, you’re going to force my hoof on this!”

“No, this is purely business and yes it is forcing your hoof Spitfire.” It looked like your average run of the mill pogo and Jade was slowly hopping forward until she came to a stop near us and started to bouncing place with a bright grin on her face. She eventually stopped bouncing and waited for me to explain the rules of our little ‘exercise’.

Knowing Jade, like I do as her wife, that pogo stick wouldn’t do normal things while in her hands. I didn’t know what it would do, but I knew it would aid in her legally escaping Canterlot with the money she’s earned. She’s being paid as a security consultant in her professional area of expertise and it is my job to get said security up to snuff and beyond because the current snuff was horrible.

“Says the mare that’s eyeing her herd mate like a piece of meat.” Mumbled a rather irate Spitfire. So what, I can eye Jade as much as I want to!

“At least she knows she wants to chase all of this.” Jade shook her hips in my direction and gave me a sultry look while leaning against the pink pogo, she winked at me. I smiled at her and nodded, then motioned that we could flirt later.

“The rules of this are fairly simple for Jade, she can’t leave her pogo behind and it has to be intact by the time she escapes Canterlot. She also has to be riding it or using it as a weapon while she’s escaping from you.” I saw one of the unicorns laugh at the idea that Jade could escape on the pogo, they weren’t around for her doing it on foot, on a unicycle or on skates. After what I watched Jade do last week, I’ll give them a pass to make complete fools of themselves. “Your job is to make sure she doesn’t escape the city or steal what amounts to an early bonus from all of you, if you fail then you might want to consider another line of work. If you want to stay on after this, then you might eventually have the makings of something worthy of being called a guard that can actually protect others.”

“Seriously, she’s going to be on a pogo the entire time? What threat could she possibly hope to pose us while bouncing around randomly on that toy?” A unicorn mare scoffed, I believe she was called Cover Ducking, she apparently didn’t see Jade as a challenge. That’s the first mistake most would be making in this scenario, underestimating the prime example of ‘Petticus Kittius’. “This’ll be too easy, this is not something that I would consider to be a worthy training exercise in the slightest!”

Seeing Jade give the yellow furred unicorn a look that screamed ‘Petty Kitty Moment’, I sighed. I nodded to Jade when she met my eyes and she nodded back with a wink, Cover had actually asked for it by scoffing at my wife like this.

“I don’t know, Spitfire seems awfully worried, maybe we should actually take this seriously.” At least that pegasus stallion had a good head on his shoulder, I believe his name was High Dive.

“I am in agreement with that sentiment, something sounds vaguely familiar about this.” A fanged, bat winged, stallion named Spot Check was giving Jade wary looks.

Mr. Check was clearly the only other one aside from High Dive that was wary of Jade. Spot Check and High Dive were getting a few bonus points for keeping his guard up around an unknown, who has yet to show what they are capable of.

I think Spot might be related to Bracing Knight back in Airship Mauled or he’s at least heard the rumors of Jaded running multiple laps around the guards of the EUP mostly just for the fun of it.

“It’s a pogo stick, it’s far too unwieldly for her to be…” Cover started to say with her nose in the air.

“Start Jade!” I interrupted Cover from out of nowhere without warning, this gave Jade the opening she needed. “First lesson, life’s never fair!”

- (Music start, Start the Commotion, The Wiseguys.), Jaded versus fifteen of twenty poor saps-

Jade suddenly blurred forward and the end of the pogo slammed into Cover’s horn. Cover’s eyes whited out as Jade tilted forward to shoot upwards, knocking her to ground out cold. Jade pulled out and slung a vial downwards, the shattering of glass was met with a large smoke cloud erupting from the site of the impact.

Before Jade fell entirely into the smokescreen while waggling her eyebrows, a second Jade appeared and then there were swift motions in the cloud with the sound of two springs going off ten times each.

The glint of two flashes of pink crisscrossing through the smoke could be seen from above, before coming together into a single entity.

The guards had been caught flat hoofed and it didn’t take Spot Check more than a second to realize that Jade had not only stolen his pouch, but everyone else’s in a matter of seconds. They had been holding them in their hooves or magic while standing on the ground and listening to Fizzy.

Once the cloud of smoke dissipated the guards all turned to the sound of a spring compressing to see Jade grinning as she hopped three feet forward towards the nearby gate with a small sack, likely loaded with the pouches, over her shoulder.

Jade launched six feet upwards and the bottom of pogo hit the top of the gate and she launched herself out into the streets of Canterlot over several civilian ponies’ heads. Said ponies watched in awe as Jade slowly started to bounce down the street in an overly taunting manner half a foot at a time.

The chase had already started and they were already down one unicorn and all the pouches they were meant to protect.

The four remaining unicorns gathered their wits and opened the gate to start giving chase. The pegasi and thestrals took to the air, Spitfire followed them to watch the train wreck in motion and spoke a silent prayer for these poor, sad, deluded ponies that thought they could actually catch the crafty Abyssinian in motion.

The earth ponies turned towards each other and started to talk to one another which intrigued Fizzy, they then turned to ask her a question or two. The five earth ponies were the only ones who didn’t give chase.

Jade bounced high over several stunning shots from the four unicorns as they scrambled out into the street and they accidentally hit one or two bystanders. A pegasus tried to swoop down to catch Jade in the middle of her next jump, only to get a face full of the tip of the pogo with a quick tilt forward from Jade and was summarily launched across the city.

Leaning back quickly, Jade landed easily enough continued bouncing merrily to and fro while avoiding the shots from the unicorns desperately trying to tag her. The wily cat then turned into an alleyway which the pegasi and the thestrals spread out to cover on both ends.

“Unicorns have poor aim and are hitting civilians, the flyers just made a rookie mistake and don’t know their opponent very well.” What Spitfire was commenting on was that no one was covering the alleyway from above.

Spiftfire was evaluating their ability to handle an unknown. Fizzle had plenty of fair points, what were they teaching the guard these day? Spitfire thought the Wonder Bolts at least knew how to deal with a hydra… somewhat.

Spitfire hovered there and watched as Jade pogoed off the two nearby walls of the alley and got onto the rooftops. Yep, they weren’t catching her and she was just actively toying with them by going slowly, if it’s anything like the Zamponi incident last week then this was going to end pitifully.

At least Spot Check had noticed her getting away across the rooftops, the unicorns tried to give chase on the ground and the flyers were closing in on her. Two of the pegasi and two of the thestrals swooped outwards and then inwards.

Jade flipped the entire pogo stick upside down after her next bounce off of an angled roof and when the four flyers got close, the spring miraculously fired off and Jade rocketed downwards towards the ground at an insane speed.

The four ponies she left behind collided in a comical manner when they all tried to follow her rapid descent with wide eyed looks.

Jade managed to reverse the pogo stick so that it was pointed downwards and bounced sharply to her left out into the street. She angled forward and to the right towards the square avoiding several more magical spells chasing after her that harmlessly splashed against the streets where she was a second ago.

Bouncing left and right in a zig zag pattern to avoid several shots, Jade ducked under a magical shot before pulling back on the pogo to go into a short spinning hop. She started to bounce along the edge of the square’s fountain while sashaying her rear end at the chasing guards and avoiding every bolt of magic sent at her.

Jade suddenly clung to her pogo stick horizontally and launched a powerful spinning kick to the skull of a pegasus pony that tried to close in, they went bouncing off the street in a boneless heap. That pony would be fine, but that had to hurt.

The actual royal guards that were on duty just watched in flat silence, a few of them lowered their heads in to respect Jade as the devious opponent that she was.

Jade spun a full rotation every other bounce as she made a full revolution around the edge of the fountain, while performing stylish pole dancing poses on the pogo stick to avoid being hit by the blasts of stunning magic and then bounced off heading in the direction of the main gate or the train station.

A unicorn chose the wrong moment to try and make a dive for Jade and ended up in the fountain with a large splash, she cracked her helmet on the stone of the fountain and was left in a daze with a spray of water going into her face.

Quite a few fillies and colts were applauding as Jade waved to them merrily as she hopped away bouncing off walls, the edges of fruit stands without damaging them and off an awning which an unwary incoming thestral guard became entangled in from trying to grab Jade. It wasn’t like the other flyers were having any luck as Jade avoided them expertly with swift sideways flips or bouncing off various odd things in the environment.

One of the unicorns got the idea to lead their shot, she took aim and fire her horn in the direction Jade was going to bounce, Jade bounce up and towards the shot and the unicorn grinned. Said grin was soon wiped off the mares face entirely and it turned into a flat look of disbelief and shock.

Jade suddenly, defying all laws of physics and momentum entirely, immediately changed direction in the air and out of the way of the magic bolt that instead struck a blonde and grey pegasus mid-flight, this sent the poor civilian crash into a stand full of watermelons that sent them rolling everywhere into the streets.

“Yes, my stand has been blessed this day!” The watermelon seller stated proudly, opposite of him a cabbage stand owner looked sad, at least until Jade slammed down into the center of her stand creating an explosion of cabbages that struck another two pegasi from the air before she launched away.

“My cabbages!” The mare at the cabbage stand said reverently while holding her hooves in prayer towards Jade with a bright smile on her face.

The unicorn guard that had accidentally hit the blond pegasus mare was shocked when Jade suddenly bounced backwards towards her and slammed down in front of her to send her flying roughly into a wall from the shockwave and she landed face first on a hay bale.

The mare lifted her head weakly and froze as Jade glared at her for a second. When the unicorn mare didn’t move out of fright, Jade nodded to her and continued back down the street.

The blond pegasus that had crashed into the stand looked upset, at least up until Jade stopped to hop at a stand for a few seconds much to the chasing guards confusion that she stopped to buy a bag of premium muffins and then bounced over to toss it at the poor mare covered in watermelon chunks.

The local ponies all made a cooing noise at the kindness, then several even went to help the suddenly happy mare up and to clean her off.

The blonde pegasus mare shouted in happiness as Jade hopped down the street waving back at her with the remaining two unicorns, two thestrals and a pegasus still chasing her.

Jade hopped backwards, forwards and started to change direction and confused the poor guards with where she was heading or where she would land as she bounced literal circles around them.

In general Jade was still heading in the direction of the wall while avoiding the shots from two unicorns, all while trying to get them to shoot their fellow guard members.

After avoiding another grab attempt by the thestrals and the lone pegasus that somehow still had the gumption in him to keep up with Jade, the cat on the pogo stick suddenly sharply leaned forward so that she was at a thirty degree angle and shot forward twenty feet and then again outpacing all of them immediately.

It was to their shock that Jade was holding back on them, even Spot Check was flabbergasted at how fast Jade was moving for the wall, the strength of each bounce increasing the speed at which she was moving.

Spot Check, High Dive and their flyers tried to catch up, only to have Jade stop underneath them, then she leapt over them. Something changed in the air, the training exercise guards felt it.

One short hop, a slightly bigger bounce that was triple the height of the previous one and then the pogo came down and both the cat and the pogo seemed to scrunch up and with a blink the cat went somersaulting rapidly for the wall.

As she passed over the wall, Jade sent a tongue back at the guards just staring after her in awe. At least up until the pogo was pulled out from under her by the swift movements of a mare’s left hoof.

“Why Fizzy, WHY!?” Jade screamed as she finished passing over the wall minus her pogo stick, the various guards around could hear the sounds of yowling pain, suffering and the clattering of a trash can lids on the other side of the wall.

The guards that weren’t part of the exercise started snickering slightly and began passing bits amongst themselves.

-End combat of exercise, technical victory Jade!-

Something almost invisible against the blue sky gave out a sharp laugh.

-Top of the wall near the gate into Canterlot, Fizzle-

“Now as you can see, that was pretty funny and why your team is getting top marks Quirky Bayonet.” I stated happily to the five earth ponies next to me, three of which were stallions that managed to keep up with my pace. They were the ones to swallow their pride and ask me if we could set an ambush or do something to earn credit, following me to get ahead of Jade on hoof was how they earned a good score. “She still technically escaped though, because I wasn’t supposed to be a part of this exercise. Eh, someone has to be around to keep her at the top of her game, so it might as well be me. Let’s go gather up the others and then we’ll discuss what everyone did wrong… that includes you Jade!”

“Bite me betrayer!” Shouted a groaning Jade from the base of the outer wall.

“I’ll take that as an invitation for what to do later tonight, unless you want to do the biting!” I stated with a bit of demented laughter escaping my lips, I heard small mewl of protest from her and smiled. Yep, Jade was not going to be allowed to go complete Abyssinian Queen on our herd. Not while I’m around at any rate. “Also stop being a big kitten, you’re perfectly fine even if that does leave some bruises!”

“Is it true what they say… that she managed to escape Canterlot while riding a Zamponi?” Quirky asked me curiously, I threw a calm and friendly hoof around her.

“That was the exercise for the older guards and it happened last week, also yes… she actually succeeded in escaping the city doing that.” What a sad state of affairs that was for the pride of the guards, it was a blow that they weren’t going to ever recover from. Twilight was certainly highly disappointed in the guards that took part in that particular exercise. How do you lose or miss someone like Jade riding around on a slow moving ice resurfacing device?! “To think she was actually going easy on them too when she stole it...”

“Ma’am… permission to be utterly horrified?” Bayonet asked while looked completely wide eyed at the prospect.

“Permission granted, now if you’ll excuse me…” I looked over the edge of the wall and then grabbed Jade in my magic and yanked her up to me. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

“So… shower room shenanigans?” Jade asked hopefully.

“Jade… what do you take me for?!” Stating this harshly while looking into her innocent looking green eyes, I sighed and nuzzled her carefully. She was covered in garbage after all. “Of course there’s going to be shower room shenanigans, like I’d do something like that to you without making up for it in the best way possible!”

I slowly walked back towards the barracks with a grinning Jade levitating in my magic and wagging her tail excitedly, I was followed by five earth pony hopefuls as we started picking up the several downed guards that needed some minor medical attention.

“So Gallus, what do you think? After you’re done with the friendship school, you could maybe add some talent to the guards.” The various guards jumped as I addressed the griffon that I had shadowing the whole mess in slow motion to tell me the truth if Sptifire tried to fudge details.

“That could have gone better, if it wasn’t already a perfect disaster piece for a good movie… you ponies should really do recordings of things like this.” The blue colored griffon landed and started walking next to me. “Also what was that thing she said about a Zamponi?”

“It’s why the EUP needs to change to inclusive other species, especially changelings. I need a few changelings and if you could ask Ocellus if King Thorax might know a changeling or two that wouldn’t mind helping guard.” My glance at him was a bit pleading, because what I had to work with wasn’t exactly all that great to begin with. “That kind of favor would go a long way to helping me out here.”

“Yeah, I can do that for you, so do you want my notes on everything from start to finish?” Gallus held up a note pad and I took and started flipping through it, Jade quietly read over my shoulder where she was floating and still holding her stack of stolen pouches. Spitfire came over to use and hovered nearby as we made our way back towards the barracks.

“He’s actually surprisingly very detail oriented.” Was Jade’s commentary on Gallus’s note taking as I read them over, almost everything was a little bit sarcastic or using varying amounts of sass. They were all valid points though, including Jade’s showboating and ridiculous antics despite the fact that she could have taken the guards after her a bit more seriously. Jade looked over some of the notes about herself and then turned to Gallus. “If I can showboat, then that means that these guards weren’t worth my full effort. I’ll raise you the fact that, as a security consultant, I just easily earned a little under four hundred bits in one session with minimal effort. I did stop to use some of my own bits to buy a bag of muffins for a friend to cheer her up.”

Gallus raised a talon to say something in response, then stroked his chin looking thoughtful and then he shrugged both his talons in acceptance while nodding that Jade had a point.

-Later at the Royal Guard Barracks, after a rather steamy shower, Fizzy-

“Okay, who wants to go first in telling me what all of you did wrong during this exercise?” The various ponies gulped and looked at me, Cover was looking particularly sheepish with a sore horn and head wrapped in bandages.

“I underestimated what is possibly one of the most evil beings in existence that most of the royal guard has a misfortune to know personally?” Cover the unicorn answered weakly.

“A completely fair assessment.” Jade said with a nod, crossed arms and closed eyes. Like her, I couldn’t wait to get home to take care of our daughter’s Silvers. Silver for the pony head, Silvia for the feline head and Silvon for the dragon tail.

Maries and everyone else must be tired from the rambunctious, if lovable, three headed terror running around. It’ll be even worse when they eventually learn how to use those massive wings of theirs to fly.

This first training exercise was going to be considered a success.

I was settling into my new job for Twilight as a hard flank nicely enough and Jade was allowed the freedom to come and go as she pleases, since she still wants to travel with Jacky on occasion and even wants to be lazy around Airship Mauled every now and then.

I could now threaten training exercises like this with Jade to keep these ponies motivated enough to avoid any issues there may be in the future.

My beloved felonious feline would tie them together in camaraderie quite nicely.

Comments

[Shadowshame]

This chapter didn't show up in my tracking section for some reason

[Booster Spice]

Better be careful with that belief, otherwise the King Of Cabbages might get so much power going to his head that he threatens population controi for Ransoms.

Derpy moving into Melon Juiicing? thats going to lead to some very intresting shaped muffins.

Why do I keep thinking Ocellus likes being a rock, because Pinkie told her to try being a little bolder?

Gallus doesnt have to hunt the snark at all, he got it personally.

Children of the Guard will be singing the song for ages? Zamponi, Zamponi, Zamponi, Jade stole one and ran.

As for Jades midair change in direction, maybe one of the Earth ponies might remember legends of Mojlnir, or Dwarf Gonnes recoil, but noone should know of the mad Earth Pony from the Emerald Isle. OHare Long, who said he was going to demonstrate flight by sitting on a deckchair on a trashcan lid and setting off firecrackers underneath it?

For some reason, I beleive its a Changeling Myth?

And Ive forgotton something I thought about or noticed earlier on in the chapter.

As for Earth Ponies and Pogo sticks, or staff weapons in general, theres a trick possible if youre very good, called Death From Above. You plummet from an arbitary height, reach terminal velocity, then just before reaching the ground you throw the pole arm down, slowing you by recoil, then grasp the pole arm to slow down even further by sliding down it, then absorb the remaining velocity by impacting the ground or target. Which is pretty much the ultimate example of the full hit Pogo. Someone might even go as far as calling it Drop 101.