Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Six, Mariachi Changelings: Clique bait.

-Jacky-

I wonder if Fizzle has forgotten that I was here in her excitement, she certainly seemed to be trying to eat the Captain’s face something fierce.

…

Wow, the pony was really going at Captain and was holding her tight.

Fizzle must really like the fact that she can do some magic again.

It’s either that or she’s in love with the Captain, it was kind of likely given how quickly she deepened the kiss.

…

I loved the Captain too, but not nearly that much.

…

Okay now you’re just getting a bit excessive with the Captain there Fizzle.

…

I preferred males personally, I just haven’t had any… heh. Yeah, falling out the tree is probably going to be the worst thing to happen to me today. Well, one could only hope that’s the worst of it anyway.

Oh look, Captain is finally reacting and she’s… oh she’s starting to returning favor by wrapping her arms around Fizzle! That’s really cute, until now it had all been all Fizzle’s enthusiasm.

…

No… wait… I think the Captain’s trying to get air and Fizzle is kissing the life out of her.

…

Why am I still sitting here watching what is happening, I should really do something.

…

I don’t know if I should stop this, Fizzlepop seems so happy. It is kind of killing the Captain though.

…

“Hey, stop that, she needs air Fizzle!” At the sound of my voice there was a sudden pause. Fizzle slowly pulled her head away from Captain’s face and gave me a wide eyed look.

Captain La Perm took in a gasp of air once her face was free.

It was then that Fizzle’s face turned as red as Kuril’s vegetable chili, she then looked down at Captain La Perm and began looking sheepish about her actions.

Captain was breathing quite deeply and was just staring straight into the sky for a minute. She eventually blinked and turned her eyes on me, I noted that she didn’t try to get Fizzle off of her.

“Thank you for noticing my lack of air Jacky!” Well you don’t have to sound so sarcastic Captain La Perm.

“You’re welcome Captain.” I’m more surprised that I returned the sarcastic sentiment sincerely.

“I would like to deliver a cheesy pickup line to you Fizzle, if you don’t mind.” At the Captain’s words Fizzle just gave her an odd look. Fizzle obviously wasn’t relinquishing her perch. “When I look at you, you take my breath away… quite literally in fact.”

“I… it… that was so corny Jade!” Fizzle was only slightly upset with the Captain, given she was still snuggled up against her. She started to cry, I can tell those were definitely tears of happiness as giggling followed. It took Fizzle a while to calm down and eventually plant a kiss on the Captain’s cheek. “Can you tell me how that worked exactly, you said it was simple right?”

“Well I do love corn chips… anyway it really is simple Fizzy. It requires effort on your part to focus on what you want to happen, it can’t be an effect that requires continuous magic though. So don’t expect to be capable of levitation.” The Captain was smart to have come up with this method of magic for Fizzle, so she likely knew what she was talking about. “It requires a sturdy object, you just touch said object to your horn and force magic into it while thinking of what you want to happen. I consider the elemental attacks from O and O to be the simplest form of magic, which is why I had you focus on that.”

“Aside from the fact that I can’t cast continuous magic, are there any other limitations to this…” Fizzle was getting rather affectionate with the Captain. I wasn’t going to complain unless she almost choked my Captain to death with her tongue again. “What is it exactly? I already know it’s based on the make believe spell sword class of magic, but what would you call it?”

“At best it would be called ‘Imbuing’. Know that it’s not the same as enchanting an object, I read my mother’s old notes on enchanting while coming up with this. Whatever object you imbue can only take so much magic from your horn. An object will either explode or something catastrophic will happen if you put too much magic into it.” Thank goodness the Captain was already warning her about the dangers of doing magic this way. “I figured it would work best with a pointy object to start with. A unicorn uses their horn to focus magic, the tip of which is the controlling factor whereas the base is the channeling factor. You still have the channeling, you’re missing the control.”

It certainly sounded quite dangerous already with having to put something sharp like the sword close to her head and around me of all people.

“So I can use objects like you do with magical alchemy to give me a limited form of control, but only quick spells and if the object can handle the stress of having my magic pushed into it.” After Fizzle said that she had a thoughtful look on her face, she still wasn’t getting off of Captain La Perm. “Will there be a lot of magic bleed off from my horn? Attempting to cast even one spell knocks me out.”

“Yes, the bleed off is inevitable, but you really don’t need to cast with your horn to do this. The quicker you imbue an object with your magic, the less energy you’ll lose.” Captain carefully pushed Fizzle away and went to pick up the sword she dropped when she was tackled. “I helped you the first time. Now we have to see if you can do it on your own, just know that I believe in you Fizzy. Just keep your eyes open and try not to hold it to your horn for too long.”

Fizzle looked at the sword handle being held out to her, she got a determined look on her face and took it in her right hoof. She looked the blade over and then glance up at the stump on her forehead. Some unicorns closed their eyes to concentrate on channeling magic, but Fizzle had to do this with her eyes completely on what she was using.

“Yeah, show us what you can do Fizzle!” Hey, I wanted to encourage her too Captain! She needs all the positive reinforcement she can get. “Just don’t hurt yourself doing it.”

-Fizzle-

Okay, I can do this. Jade helped me with imbuing it with fire the first time, but this time I had to do it on my own. Concentrate… warmth, the fire, Jade’s cuddly body… I can’t get distracted like that! I need to focus, I didn’t want to damage my horn any worse than it already is.

Fire, protective and warm against a cold night, comforting and close to my heart. These were the things I needed to concentrate on, like how nice the kiss with Jade felt. I wanted to protect what I held dear with the ability to do magic this way!

I held the sword against my horn and I felt the drain on my magic and watched the sword, it started getting brighter and brighter. I pulled it away and was now holding a sword glowing with fire.

Something felt off about it though.

I swung it upwards, the flames jumped from the sword and surrounded us with a hemisphere shaped wall of pink fire.

It was fire alright, but it wasn’t burning the grass and was making me feel oddly safe. I created a magical barrier of flames? How did that happen? I’m rather confused… no… I think I actually get it now that I think about it.

Flames of protection and love, made for my friends that I cared about and in turn I knew that they cared about me. Yep we were all certainly still just… who am I kidding? Not myself for one when it comes to Jade.

The barrier fell having only lasted about five seconds. It did so without anything happening to the area around us, it only looked really impressive. Jade was now giving me a curious look, my heart was beating a bit faster with the cute way her ears flopped.

I tapped the sword to my horn again while charging it, the first time I imbued the sword I was thinking of fire in a different way. I focused on how Jade’s fire crackled and popped, it was always combusting brightly and I had thought about how living around here had filled my life with color.

I wanted to spread the color I had found throughout my world of gray, I wanted to protect my friends and I wanted to be useful. I knew, absolutely, that this is what I wanted to do! I was going to try many things, I was going to do many things and I was going to be many things.

I’ll shine no matter what I’m doing here, the world will see that spark in me igniting the sky!

I pulled the sword away and now there was a thin film of flames on it.

I feel like kissing Jade again, because I can use magic in spite of my horn's condition!

Well in a very limited manner, but it was still something after the last few years I’ve been living like a pale shadow of the little filly I once was.

I swung the sword upwards. Fire erupted from the blade and exploded above our heads in a far more colorful and brilliant fashion.

I felt a surge of triumph throughout my body and once again I felt a familiar feeling in my flank, only it wasn’t a tingle this time. It felt like the entire world just became a little brighter for some reason and I could feel it pulsing.

“I hope you know that we’ll still work on fixing your horn Fizzy.” I already know that Jade, you already promised me that you would at least try. No one from the village I grew up in even tried for me.

“I know, but at least you gave me an outlet even if it turns out that my horn is truly impossible to fix.” I didn’t want to believe it was impossible, but it would be pretty hard to achieve. I wobbled a bit, using my magic like that took a bit out of me. “I need to rest a bit, let’s get back to your campfire.”

I stumbled a bit, yeah it was less tiring than trying to do a single spell with a broken horn. Imbuing… I can live for the rest of my life with at least this much.

“Take it easy Fi…” Why had Jade gone silent all of the sudden, I looked to her and Jacky.

Why were they both staring at my… oh… that would certainly be something to stare at.

Jade, I’m sorry, but you may die of asphyxiation. I’ll marry Maries in your stead as an apology... if she doesn’t kill me first that is.

-???-

“Hey, did you guys see that? Someone’s shooting off fireworks out here!” We had been wandering around for a while now, aimless and lost until we saw that pretty explosion. I was already sold on going that way. “There’s some kind of celebration going on there, maybe they’ll let us perform.”

“Yeah, seems like someone has something going on. Where there’s people and a party, there’s a place to play our music!” I had to agree with my buddy, maybe we can do a song or two before the pitchforks came out this time. We weren’t bad musicians, people just didn’t appreciate our species even if we were good folk. “Let’s go get our groove on then!”

-Jade-

Okay, Fizzle was being much gentler this time. The third time she's kissed me in the last few minutes really. After she finally released me, I was feeling quite shy... and lightheaded.

I seriously wondered where Fizzle learned to kiss like that.

There was a smile that only the sun could outshine on Fizzle’s face and it was really beautiful to see. We went back to the campfire to see what everyone else was getting up to.

Upon arriving back at the campsite mom was outside and I could tell she was about to ask what was going on. She took one look at Fizzle and smiled quite a bit, she could definitely guess what the fireworks were about.

Sekhet was looking upon Fizzle in interest and more than a mild sense of curiosity, next to her was Maries who looked to be recovering from an extensive exercise routine with Sekhet.

Even Maries sat up and noticed something different about Fizzle, because we had a party to plan.

-Approximately thirty minutes later-

I think Fizzle might have finally calmed down. Things would hopefully be quiet for lunch today, Fizzle was at least chatting with Marie in a less than hyper mood she had going for a while.

“So she has her cutie mark now, even with her magic broken like it is no less.” Sekhet nodded to me as she spoke. “I must admit that you are a miracle worker Priest Jade. It seems we are living in interesting times.”

Oh sun, I hoped Sekhet just didn’t say what I thought she just said. Those words always meant something unpredictable would happen!

“Sekhet, did you just seriously invoke the interesting times curse on me?” Cue evil grin and my lackluster response to it, she had said it on purpose.

It seems Jacky was about to comment on what I just said, but it was already too late. We heard music playing and coming up to the campfire was a carriage.

Pulling said carriage was a brightly colored changeling, how in the world did that exist before Thorax? He was a little more than twice the size of a normal changelings. On top of said carriage were four other colorful normal sized changelings idly strumming guitars and or playing trumpets. The only changeling that was out of place was the standard one that seemed to be sitting with them.

The colorful sombrero wearing changelings stopped playing and the leader of the group addressed us.

“Hello there, it seems you have attracted a group of amazing musicians with your colorful displays.” Oh for the love of, a band of colorful mariachi changelings. How the Tartarus did this happen? “I am Clypeus and we are The Shapeshifting Siesta! These here are my four amigos Labrum, Labium, Tarsus and...”

“Wait, why don’t you look like him?” I pointed to the less colorful changeling, what the bug ponies should naturally look like with tattered wings, bodies and jagged horns.

“We are changeling wanderers who instead of taking love, we share it… in the form of music!” He strummed his guitar once dramatically. “That changeling is our requisite groupie. The big guy there is our final member, Big McLarge Huge!”

We all burst out laughing at that, even the stoic Fresh Start couldn’t keep a straight face. The big changeling just smiled at us.

“Yeah, the best name in our group is always saved for last.” Clypeus certainly had a high charisma stat.

I looked at the not so colorful changeling.

“Hello, I’m Kevin. I’m just here for the food.” That... was incredible. There are absolutely no words for Kevin's completely straight delivery.

Author's Note:

Kevin is what I'd liked to call an unusually uninteresting sight in the MLP world, he walks around without a disguise and nobody seems to care and was seen at Cranky's wedding.

Yet in the Crystal Empire, everyone overreacts to Thorax in the extreme.

Kevin must be a really cool dude to not have spears shoved in his face constantly.

Fizzle's cutie mark will be never be described, use your own imaginations.

Magical Alchemy list.

1. Fish Bones (simple).

Cast: Water breathing (Temporary passive water terrain survival buff). Breathing water as if you had gills, permanence can be achieved with repeated casts.

Sustain: Swimming efficiency and deep water survivability increases.

Self-Sustaining: Luminescence. Once used as a sustain effect, bones glow softly on their own.

2. Fish Scales (simple).

Cast: Fish Scale Skin (Temporary defense buff). Possible permanence with multiple casts, more effective underwater. Can be used to water proof objects.

Sustain: Water Projection (Continuous offensive ability). Able to spit or project volatile volumes of water, drains fluids from body with excessive use. You can actively control the volumes of water you project and how focused that projection is.

Sustain 2: Blood Projection (Dangerous offensive ability). Capable of performing a powerful projection, but only from open wounds. As one would imagine blood projection is exceedingly painful, taxing on the body and ultimately dangerous to the user. The intimidation factor might be worth the agony in the right situations, but it will always be a detriment to one’s health.
Self-Sustaining: None.

3. Raven Feather.

Cast: Survive a fall, fall on something safely or possibly target launches and falls on something by user’s choice or at random (One time air terrain survival buff, possible offensive spell). Target tends to end up freezing twenty feet above something living.

Sustain: Projecting thoughts. Not able to receive thoughts, but you can project them to others.

Self-sustaining: none.

4. Sunlight.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Smoke signaling. Causes smoke to appear as if something was burning.

Self-sustaining: Warms the planet.

5. Knife.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: Rogue Enhancements (Continuous passive buff). Heightened dexterity, agility and environmental awareness. Strengthens all mobility based buffs.

Sustain side effect: Inability to sleep or relax.

Self-sustaining: Trains muscles and exercises body for similar maneuvers used while wielding the sustain effect.

6. Knife Sheath

Cast: Traps one target temporarily (One use support spell). Time limit for stopping a target is the same every time for sheaths of similar design. Sheaths for different or larger weapons ‘probably’ improves time limit.

Sustain: Increased protection against knives, arrows and other small bladed weapons (Continuous passive buff). Warning: Does not protect against anything larger, or anything else for that matter.

Self-sustaining: None.

7. Alicorn Feather (Celestia).

Cast: Wings of sunlight (Limited air terrain mobility buff). Target is given wings of pure sunlight. Darkness, shade or shadows can weaken the flying power the wings generate, at night they'd be far less effective. The power of the wings can be combined with a knife's or similar sustain effects for improved flying ability. The wings might be extinguished by water and could be useless while it’s raining. Does not protect the user from gravitational or high speed stress and lack of oxygen at high altitudes like a pegasus would be by their magic.

Sustain: Redirect sunlight (Defensive support buff). Is only useful during the day and allows for blinding opponents or aggressors with light.

Self-sustaining: Minor protection from darkness (Automatic defensive buff while feather is on person). Needs to be charged with sunlight and to have been used as a magical alchemy sustain at least once to work.

8. Phoenix Feather.

Cast: Cleansing Flames (Support healing spell). Finds and stops negative foreign bodily ailment or ailments that are magical or mundane, does not heal damage. Can possibly stop positive ailments.

Sustain: Protection from the cold (Continuous defensive buff). Immunity to cold, increased defensive ability against ice and relative elemental based magic.

Self-Sustaining: None.

9. Jade’s Cloak.

Cast: ???.

Sustain: ???. (Effect seems to do nothing, need more information.)

Self-Sustain: Makes sneaking easier (Moderate stealth buff).

10. Cupcake (Banned by Kuril).

Cast: You don’t want to know.

Sustain: Likely none.

Self-Sustain: Delicious.

11. Frog Mucus (Banned by Kuril).
Cast: Magical wide area sticky substance bomb (Hard to get out of clothing).
Sustain: ???.
Self-sustain: ???.

12. Griffon Feather.

Cast: Feather Falling (Limited air terrain support buff). Lowers gravity’s effect on an individual for a minute.

Sustain: Double Jump (Continuous Mobility buff). Can jump off the air one extra time after leaving a solid surface and only one time.

Self-sustain: None.

13. Fish Oil.

Cast: Ignition (Multipurpose offensive and support spell). Ignites itself and anything around it except the user.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

14. Candle Wax.

Cast: Stiffness. Slow down a target, can have a wide area of effect for reduced effectiveness.

Sustain: Heat resistance (Limited continuous defensive buff). Does not stop heat damage entirely and candle takes heat damage in place of the user.

Self-Sustain: None.

15. Pepper.

Cast: Sneezing cloud (Limited continuous Defensive spell). Wide range spell that doesn’t affect the user, causes continuous sneezing on contact and doesn’t necessarily need to be breathed in to take effect.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

16. Tricorne.

Cast: Charisma boost (Limited status buff). Gives one the ability to walk around with confidence.

Side-effect: May instill need for showboating in user.

Sustain: ???.

Self-Sustain: ???.

17. Wood.

Cast: Bark skin (Temporary defensive buff). Make skin and fur tough like tree bark, like most casts can become permanent with multiple consecutive uses. Increases durability of objects when targeted. Causes mildly uncomfortable chafing on a living target.

Sustain: Hair growth in sunlight (Limited utility effect). Only works in direct sunlight.

Self-sustain: Magically enhanced building material.

Combination 1: Candle Wax + Oil (any) + Pepper = Chaos Candle. Candle hollowed out and filled with the other two ingredients mixed together equals devastating results.

Cast: Sneezing flash bomb (Offensive one use spell). Blinding, sinus wrecking and volatile magical cast.

Sustain Cast: Weak jet propulsion device (Limited air terrain support buff), Flamethrower (Limited offensive spell). Doing this will slowly destroy the candle and chemicals used in it. Exhaust fumes has a lesser effect of casting with pepper.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 2: Feather + stick + arrowhead (material any) = Arrow. Arrow + poison = special status ailment added to casting effect based on poison used. Pukwudgie Poison (Paralysis for a few hours).

Cast: Arcing Arrow Beam (Offensive spell). Fires a beam that is effected by gravity as if it were an arrow, it can only damage one target and that’s the first thing it touches. If it grazes a wall and then hits you, it will do nothing to you.

Sustain Cast: Spray of multiple weaker beam shots.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Comments

[Darkonshadows]

8908052

I chose the lyrics version because it doesn't have a stop in the middle of a song where the singer complains about having had a lot of trouble singing the song.

He obviously practiced for it as he does it so well.

[bonberjean]

Fizzle's cutiemark will never be described because you probably got it wrong already...
(G3 Fizzlepop Berrytwist have a milkshake cutiemark, it can't deviate much from that between generations).

[Rosewell8]

8921324
It's an AU. It has different rules.

[Thy Lord]

It's probably a star or magic related (alchemy related?)

[Shadowshame]

This story so far is goldenyan

[nekoparalover]

i imagine her cutiemark being a teal double helix of energy splitting into two different colored lines of energy then those exploding as fireworks of their respective colors.

[Dashie04]

I wonder if Fizzle has forgotten that I was here in her excitement, she certainly seemed to be trying to eat the Captain’s face something fierce.

Seen this joke before in a different fic, still laughed.

[The Scarlett Mare]

“Hello, I’m Kevin. I’m just here for the food.” That... was incredible. There are absolutely no words for Kevin's completely straight delivery.

This story is incredible

[Jphyper]

Okay, gotta comment on what I've read so far. I'm still a long way behind, but I can't wait to say it.

Note to self, recruit Grubber.

Oh no. No. I hope you write him better than the movie writers did, because he is the Jar Jar Binks of MLP. I guess I'll find out.

Love-fueled fire? A mariachi band?

I'm surprised no one made this reference. "Ring of Fire" is a classic and the connection is too obvious.

[Ralanost]

I really hope this doesn't become a thing. I read stories because they tell me what is happening. Twice you have intentionally avoided describing something. And this time it's something very important. Not cool. Stop doing that.