//------------------------------// // Chapter Seventeen, Ending Year Two: Fighting more. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Cat’astrophe- Our battle started with a guitar riff, yeah this music was my jam! What did I know about High Heel? She worked in a shoe store. After taking one too many idiotic customers in a store where the customer was always considered right, she turned to a life of crime where the customer isn’t always right and annoyingly idiotic. She actually kind of had a good reason for turning evil, which is why she chose the moniker High Heel the queen of dangerous hoof wear. Whoops… almost got hit by two thrown shoes while thinking, I blasted them both out of the air with beams of energy from my palms that blew the burning roofs off nearby buildings. At least they were no longer on fire. She’s Mane-iac’s best friend or some would say significant other, some say she just likes being tied up by the Power Ponies as much as she does green hair. One thing any Power Ponies comic fan can agree on is this, she was highly effective even while on a shoestring budget. I crouched and swung for her face with the claws on my left hand. She dodged to the right under them and performed a back flip to follow up having dodge my attacked, she landed a kick to my chin with both of her rear hooves. I was knocked onto my back and she gave me a mocking smile. “Does the poor little kitty need a… agh!” I knocked the horned tiara off of her forehead with a shuriken that I threw with my tail, my character was quite talented. High Heel was just as talented as she was acrobatic and had interesting combat gimmicks, for a villain I shipped with Mane-iac. Phony Pharaoh definitely went well with Smudge too. I only had the one shuriken though, my character was just full of surprises. Most of said surprises were a once a battle kind of thing. “Whoa, that was awesome.” I turned to the colt and gave him a flat look, huh I was wondering where Humdrum was in the comics. He had green fur, green eyes and brown mane, the colt was kind of cute and I wanted to hug him. Unfortunately I was busy. “I mean you did knock down a row of trees with that shuriken, but that throw with your tail was still awesome!” My character causes destruction even when I didn’t mean to, I mean how was I to know a shuriken would cut through all those trees. To be fair it was a heavily blunted shuriken in the shape of a cat head, so how in the Tartarus did it cut through all those trees?! To be perfectly clear, everything I do may cause collateral damage, but none of it is ever lethal. “Say kid, want to be a hero? Go try and stop that machine while I deal with this, you can do it little guy!” He looked at me in surprise and I looked him in the eyes. “Anyone can be a hero kid, whether you have powers or not, all that matters is that you try and save the day! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to push you out of the way and destroy some playground equipment… by accident of course, it would never be on purpose. What kind of hero would I be if I did that?” I shoved the confused, but now enlightened, colt away and rolled towards the merry go round avoiding the shoe string whips with metal aglets on the end that came whipping at me from High Heel. The several whipping strikes dug small divots into the ground as they chased my rolling form. I saw the colt running off for the machine and quickly glanced off to the side to see Mane-iac was having trouble fending off Fizzle’s weird plant anatomy, but they were about evenly matched. We weren’t getting anywhere close to the machine and I could be the one to destroy it, either that or it would be the as of yet unnamed Humdrum. I dodged High Heel’s attempt to whip me and once the whips wrapped around the bars of the merry go round, I gave her an evil smile. “How about we go for a spin!” I kicked the merry go round with the full force and leapt away as it started spinning rapidly with High Heel attached to it by her shoe string whips. Their were unfortunate side effects to spinning the merry go round at high speeds, it was that it broke away from the ground and tore through the empty playground like a spinning top of doom. All while slamming High Heel into the jungle gym, the slide, the teeter-totters and everybody’s favorite thing here the bouncy animal springers, one of which was a smiling dog that launched High Heel over my head before it was subsequently destroyed. I turned away from the rather graphic destruction of the foal’s playground. I felt really bad about that, but at least High Heel was dealt… “How about I give you the boot!” I took a boot up my backside and was launched forward to slam face first into the ground. “Now here’s the shoe-mare-rang where the sun doesn’t shine like I promised!” I felt something ram its way into my costume, I bit back a scream. Okay even with super powers, like super strength, energy projection and etcetera, that had seriously hurt! I carefully picked myself up and turned to High Heel. “Ow... that really hurts.” I should have realized it wouldn’t have been easy. She was a tough earth pony and quite notably dangerous. We stared each other down and charged. “Tatsumakioctopusspinningroundhousesaypuntakoyaki!” I flew forward twirling rapidly and slamming my left pawed foot into her face eight times making her stumble back with each consecutive hit, before jumping and kicking her with my right leg putting her on her back. I went to attack her, but she was ready for me. “Shoes-to-go-in!” She brought both her hooves together and thrusts them forward, I heard a device clicking and that sent two flaming blue shoes right into my face. Once more I was on my back. She got up and ran forward and leapt while rearing back her right hoof for a deciding blow to my face with a stiletto blade. I lifted up my legs and planted them into the ponies suddenly surprised chest, rolled back and then launched her face first into a tree. High Heel fell to the ground off of the toppled tree unmoving, I had finally knocked her out. I quickly went to check on her health and started to pull out some bindings to tie her up with. I wondered how Fizzle was doing. -Humdrum- I didn’t think I could be a hero, but that hero believed in me. I just wished she hadn’t destroyed the playground, but she’s known as Collateral Cat’astrophe for a reason. I had to rescue the Power Ponies, because we very well couldn’t be left with heroes like Cat’astrophe running around to save the day! The whole city would be destroyed in less than week. “Don’t worry Power Ponies, I’ll get you out of there or my name isn’t…” What would be a cool super hero name? High Heel was a villain that didn’t need super power, so why would I need super power myself? I wasn’t going to go slinging around shoes or being evil though, I needed something more heroic to focus on. Oh, I can be the power of heart and friendship! Since I was an innocent bystander about to involve myself in the world of super heroes, I might as well call myself. “Humdrum!” “Get out of here kid and get some real help!” The weather controlling pony hero Zapp shouted to me, I ignored her and moved to the control panel. I knew I could help them! Now how do you work this thing? Hey, there was no shut off switch! That highly diabolical of Mane-iac and High heel. Then how do I… oh I have an idea! -Horniculture- With a slash of her mane the purple furred pony with the long green hair slashed through several of my vines breaking free of my hold. She whipped her head around and slammed me with a swirling mass of hair in the shape of a big hoof that sent me tumbling. I stopped my tumbling by firing my leg roots into the ground and stopping my momentum, I swung back for Mane-iac and released my roots and launched forward. She put her mane between me and her, only I fell short and sunk into the ground. -Mane-iac- “Huh? Where did she… oof!” I received a hoof to the chin as she popped out of the ground like a sprout, this had me seeing stars. Very pretty, if agonizing stars! -Horniculture- “Flowering flourish!” I stretched my two hooves behind me and then brought them forward in a rapid barrage of high speed hoof jabs that started to riddle her tough body with bad black and blue bruises. While I positively percussively pummeled the purple pony in her chest and face, I created a whip from my horn covered it in spikes and wrapped it around the entirety of her mane and tightened it. I flicked my tail around and wrapped the vines forming from it tightly around her tail and pinned her. “Let go of my hair, I don’t like having it bound!” Her mane struggled against my thorny vines grasping them. I slapped her across the face with my left hoof and caught her flailing leg trying to come at me from the right and struck her again. Despite her super mane being her main power, she was still tough. With enough struggling, she managed to get some of her mane free and it wrapped around my throat and tried to choke me out. “Why aren’t you choking, I have your by the neck!” For some reason this wasn’t working as she thought it would. Being a plant, I created my own oxygen nitrogen mix and her exhaling on me in angry really doesn’t help her case. With a sharp jerk of my head I slapped my rose colored petal soft mane across her face and grappled her to the point that I could grab and ram her face into the ground. I managed to wrap the lose bit of hair in another vine that sprouted from my neck. “Eat dirt Mane-iac, because it tastes pretty much like justice to me!” She struggled against me and managed to push off the ground launching us both into the air, I was a lot lighter than her. I was smashed underneath the weight of her body and she managed to get me in a position where she could kick me in the belly with her leg multiple times. “Let go, let go, let go!” Weathering the storm, despite Mane-iac managed to get both of her legs into it to bucking me repeatedly, I held onto her valiantly. I had to stop her somehow, I bit her on the ear and she yelped before looking at me and with tears in her eyes, before they turned angry on me. She continued to buck at me as I tried to choke her by increasing the number of vines I had wrapped around her. There was a loud ding from the machine, we froze. Mane-iac smiled and I looked up, the tube leading to the shower head filled up. I turned to see what Jade was doing, she busy tying up High Heel and… was that a shoe sticking out of her butt? No matter, I needed to stop the machine before… “No!” I watched as the shampoo started to spray the six ponies in the cage, Jade looked up at me and we both watched as the cage was flooded with suds. “Oh yes! I know it’s a bit too soon for the conditioner, but I need the help with this preposterous plant pony!” Mane-iac reached into her purple and gold suit with black hoof boots to pull out a remote device. The cage opened and the soap covered Power Ponies walked out. “Say hello to my new team of super villains! Attack Horniculture my beautifully haired pets!” “Oh, are we supposed to follow you’re orders Mane-iac?” The Masked Matter-horn walked forward while wiping shampoo off of her clothes and goggles. “I don’t think so Mane-iac, you’ve lost!” “What, but where did my plan go…!” Mane-iac didn’t get to say much more. I flattened out my green horn, shaped it like a circular hammer and slammed my face into the side of her head knocking her out. “Do you think that knocked her out?” I was approached by the brown haired one, I think her name was Saddle Rager. Her voice reminded me of Fluttershy, but her fur and hair color were completely different. “I think that did it, you can let go of her now.” At Saddle’s words, I carefully and slowly released Mane-iac from my hold. “I’ll go help the fire department put out those fires!” Zapp shot off into the sky to start up a rain storm. “How did it not work?” I asked curiously. “A civilian called Humdrum helped us out, he made the machine use the conditioner first.” Ah that explains it. “Now we just have to stop it from using the actual mind control shampoo... which I have to get to!” Masked Matterhorn ran off and left me with the other mares sitting here in an awkward position. “So… The Healthy Horniculture, nice to meet you.” I started to introduce myself, only for something to explode off to the side. Really Jade, couldn’t you have gone another minute without causing destruction? You’ve already destroyed the playground, the ground itself and a number of trees… which I can fix with my powers! “I’m a plant pony hero and my partner is… a bit of a mess, but Cat’astrophe means well. Excuse me while I fix all the tree’s she knocked over.” I concentrated and started to wrap my vines around numerous trees and started fixing a little of what Jade broke. “I can’t do anything about the building, the street light or the ruined playground, but saving the trees is something I can do!” I gave the Power Ponies looking at me a sheepish smile. “A building, your friend knocked over a…?” Before Saddle could get any farther, it started to rain heavily and I quickly ran off to grab Jade. “Cat’astrophe, let’s get out of here… I don’t think the Power Ponies are going to be too happy with your destructive heroic tendencies.” I stated loudly through clenched teeth, as I grabbed her with a vine and started to drag her away from the super powered ponies that may want to pummel her. “Is that a no getting an autograph from them?” Cat’astrophe was giving me big kitty eyes. “Fine, get me something to sign." I watched her wrench the shoe out of her backside and held it out to me. I roughly grabbed it from her. -Five minutes later, Jade- We popped out of the comic book and I was holding High Heel’s shoe autographed by Saddle Rager, Fili-second and Radiance. “We're not doing that again any time soon.” Fizzle stated blandly. To think we still had the rest of my birthday party and presents to go through, it's only been about an hour and I was having a blast!