-The Volcano, Front Gate-
A flood of shadows started spill out of the rip in the air near the base of the volcano. They spread out like a tidal wave and started to flow towards the nearest source of life, the city on the mountainside.
Teatime Clockwork was being stalled by Velvet spiking large pillars of ice at his walking airship, attempting to slow it down or pierce it. The two large tentacles swiped away the ice and the large airship slowly started pushing the reindeer back as she frantically dodged the cannon fire coming from it.
The civilians were in a state of panic, especially those that couldn’t fly and were being attacked by the wired wyverns.
Tianhuo delivered orders to several groups of longma that split off from her and Tianhuo came down for a landing outside the city and where the gate used to be.
She inhaled and took to standing up her right hind leg, her left hind leg propping up against it and her forelegs came together. Closing her eyes she calmly stood there and centered herself until the shadows climbed up over the edge.
The first shadow to see her was a snake with viscous looking fangs and a flared it’s hood.
The snake lunged forward with its mouth wide open and Tianhuo’s eyes snapped open and turned from orange to blood red, with a flash of her left hoof swing inwards the snakes head separated from its neck as it passed her oddly twisting body.
Tianhuo reoriented herself so she was standing upright and thrust her left hind leg at the ground. Only was it then that she ignited, her body becoming a burning conflagration as a wall of fire spread out behind her to cover the gap where the gate used to be.
Taking to standing on her left hind leg and holding her other limbs at the ready to block or attack, Tianhuo narrowed her eyes at the incoming shadows. Her hooves, tail, mane and the wings spreading out from her back all flared in a challenging gesture. Her entire being was fire and she hopped once or twice as she waited for the first attack.
Several more shadows jumped at Tianhuo, she didn’t move, the lesser shadows evaporated within a few feet of her smoldering form.
Tianhuo gestured at the few larger shadows that could withstand her light to come for her, they came at her fast.
She twisted under the mantis shadows left arm and cut it off with an upward swipe of her right hoof, she caught the bladed limb and with a quick spin she beheaded the beast using it.
Quickly throwing the dissipating limb into a shadow jaguar’s face, said limb pierced the shadows right eye and tore out a chunk of its head.
Tianhuo hopped over an owl bears swipe coming at her from the left and swung her solidified right wing of fire through its torso, bisecting the creature completely.
Landing and leaping up into a twirl Tianhuo kicked the leaping fanged frog like monster over the side of the cliff before it could hop over her firewall, she landed in a crouched and thrust her two hooves outwards. Her flaming hooves sent out blistering blasts of fire that ripped through the shadow horde monsters closing in on her in two wide cones of destruction that gave her some breathing room.
The shadows so far were only coming at Tianhuo from a semicircle in front of her and would soon start attacking her from all sides. The lesser shadows were started to edge around her and were trying to climb the walls.
Several monkey like shadows came at Tianhuo, she thrust her left hoof forward, swung her right around and then launched a kick into the head of the third. Each blow was met with a shadow dissolving, but Tianhuo didn’t stop moving.
Tianhuo brought both her hooves together and clubbed a lion shadow in the jaw, it went up in an explosive blast bursting from her hooves upon impact. She ducked under the lunge of a tiger shadow and kicked out to destroy its rear two legs where the fire burned at it until it evaporated.
Ten larger shadows arrived rushed in at Tianhuo and were filling the empty gaps in their offensive, each one she took down with rapid steady blows. Only for five more take the place for each one that she felled in rapid succession.
Tianhuo quickly inhaled to let loose a powerful stream of flames, giving herself some more time by creating another large wall of fire in front of herself. She stood tall and unafraid as she looked over the cliff’s edge at the writhing sea of darkness slowly climbing the mountain with only specks of glowing eyes to be seen in the mass of monstrosities.
She turned to look over her shoulder to glance at an embattled Huoshan, buildings were falling, people were screaming, mechanical monsters were running amok in the streets and her home was in grave danger.
However, the Huoshan Guards were doing their jobs, they interposed themselves in the way of danger and took injuries for the citizens and guests that were under attack. They fought and bled for their home with every ounce of fire they could muster and they kept getting up when they were knocked down.
The sky was alight with multiple longma flying about at high speeds using their flames as thrusters, this created the effect of fireflies dancing on this dark night. Balls of fire flew through the sky, some distracting wired wyverns and others hit the shadow horde.
Turning back towards the shadow horde Tianhuo took a stance. It was not one of grim doubt, but of certainty that she was right where she was needed by her people. She trusted those she trained and her new friends to see this day through.
The wall of flames Tianhuo made suddenly flickered out as a mass of shadows surged towards her from over the cliffs edge in front of her, they also came along the flat carved rock paths from her right and her left.
Lashing out with blazing wings, flaming hooves and even her tail, Tianhuo held her ground against an uncountable number of opponents. Lesser shadows didn’t register as dangerous to her as they surrounded her and tried to weaken the light her form gave off.
Leaping up and kicked forward at a horrid visage that vaguely resembled a large partially melted wolf, its neck made a strange snapping sound as it fell away from her dissolving.
Landing Tianhuo swung her tail about along the ground in a sharp circle, creating a small wave of flames to erupt around her that decimated the lesser shadows trying to slowly encroach upon the firewall at her back.
As she spun, she dodged around a sharp pointy tail to thrust her right hoof through the eye of a shadow that looked like a scorpion that soon exploded violently sent bits of fire everywhere. Said bits of fell into the mass of shadows surrounding her.
A shadowy spider slammed into Tianhuo’s back driving her to the ground, it managed to slash across her right foreleg with one of its bladed limbs before she ignited her mane to burn it off of her. The next things she did was quickly roll away as a number of large shadows tried to swarm her.
Concentrating a stream of fire into a blade on her left hoof, Tianhuo swept it outwards at the shadows that tried to pin her down taking out a large swath of them as they continued to charge towards her.
Tianhuo was no longer holding the tide back very well, the lesser shadows were nothing and now the larger shadows were starting to arrive in numbers she would be hard pressed to handle.
A claw struck Tianhuo’s left shoulder ripping up her lovely light green scales and making her bleed more, another nick happened at the right said of her neck. Tianhuo’s pose and grace as she fought was starting to falter as she was being pressed from all sides.
A slash across the back drove Tianhuo mad with rage. Roaring like a dragon, Tianhuo spread her wings and a wave of fire exploded outwards from her decimating the shadows in a large sphere around her.
A lightly winded Tianhuo took a quick glance over her shoulder and saw her wall of fire was quickly failing, as it was barely large enough to cover the gap of the broken gates. Also Clockwork’s machines had made it to the staircase leading up to the middle tier down the central street, he was still apparently pushing forward and hadn’t noticed the bigger issue yet.
What gave Tianhuo hope was seeing a huge wall of fire surged up to surround the entire Volcano and it stopped at the middle tier of the city, yet the walls themselves within the city had yet to be lit aflame.
The evacuation of the lower tier must still be ongoing, she could see that even the civilian longma were starting to aid in the efforts to airlift other beings out of the way of harm with Huoshan Guards covering them. All longma had some level of combat training, but not all of them were cut out for the Huoshan Guard.
When the civilians were actually needed to do the fighting for the city, only then was it getting seriously bad. They might lose the lower tier, but all the shadows would get were buildings at this rate.
Turning back at all the shadows claws, mouths and eyes clawing for her life hungrily. Tianhuo flapped her wings and scorched the ground around her. She couldn’t keep focusing on her own firewall forever, there were just too many shadows to deal with and she was pushing things holding the gates entirely by herself.
The tide slammed forward and forced her to back up while lashing out with rapid strikes of intense heat and ferocity, with the barest of glances she could see that the shadows were already piling up against the walls and were starting to climb them. Flinging her right hoof in their direction a fireball struck the building mass before it could surpass the top of the wall.
A pair of claws raked across the chest, a blunt force to the right side of the head and a stabbing spear to the belly. Tianhuo staggered with each hit and took it all to stay standing.
In retaliation she and bucked the badger shadow into oblivion, she fricasseed the large dodo shaped shadow with a flaming twisting uppercut and she destroyed the manticore shadow with a powerful fire erupting from the same wound it gave her.
Leaping back into her firewall Tianhuo forced the wall forward in large wave that scorched through hundreds of shadows before they started surging back towards her
“Help her get her out of there before I start!” Not looking at who shouted that, Tianhuo continued to burn, blast and bash any shadow that came at her. “This hot zone is about to cool down, incoming avalanche!”
A Huoshan Guard strafed the shadows while creating a temporary firewall and he gesture towards Tianhuo to follow him.
When she jumped into the air, a large stream of shadow monsters started climbing on top of one another forming a large spindly tower over the quickly disappearing firewall that angled at her. All of them were scrabbling with their claws and snapping with their jaws at Tianhuo’s rear legs in an attempt to drag her into the mass below here.
A fireball from the Huoshan Guard blasted the tower of shadows down before they could reach could reach Tianhuo. What followed was a sudden constant mass of white falling from the sky and flooding the front gate and ridge area, the shadows were pushed back towards the base of the mountain by several large unceasing waves of snow for the next thirty seconds that flowed down the mountainside.
Tianhuo and the guard just stared at the raw power of such an attack as to create an avalanche on an active volcano of all things.
“A little help here, I’m tapped out!” They turned to the reindeer that had lost the first round of the Fiery Fights, then again she had lost to Paprika so it wasn’t as if the reindeer was weak. She was laying on her side and breathing heavily at the top of the wall. “Everything is… so hot…”
“Yo-Shi, report quickly, then pick that reindeer up as she’s going to have a nasty fever after exerting herself that badly!” Tianhuo shouted as she turned to the guard.
“We’re going to try and get the shadows to attack the machinist’s machine for us, all available fighters will hold the walking airship at the top of the stairs. We’re taking on a lot of heavy injuries, thanks to those machines being darn near fire proof. Most of Sky Flame Squad is down and Mujin’s squad is completely out, all of Fuego Squad were pulled into maintaining the firewalls and are unable to fight while they do so alongside the other squads that cover them. All other squads are still capable as they can get given the situation.” The named Yo-Shi dove down and wrapped his hooves around the barrel of the reindeer and lifted off with her, as he did so, he informed Tianhuo of what they were supposed to do. “Our orders from on high are to fall back to the hospital and get your wounds tended to quickly, the lambkin’s unit there isn’t holding that position all too well what with three of those metal wyverns and the increasing number of golems attacking that given area. Fuego Squad will throw up the rest of firewalls when the shadows get closer. Lower tier is almost done evacuating entirely.”
Shooting off towards the hospital, Tianhuo wasn’t worried about her injuries as much as she was worried about Pom being involved in the fighting.
Yo-Shi followed after her and was surprised to see how fast Tianhuo was moving despite several nasty looking injuries.
-The Volcano, Middle Tier, Outside Huoshan Hospital, Pom-
Not only were we dealing with Teatime, but now there was news of the shadow horde flooding up this way. I really didn’t want to look, but I had climbed up a water spout and saw them for myself.
I really wished I hadn’t looked at the abyss. My heart was still gripped with terror even as I defended the hospital from things that weren’t nearly as scary as a sea of living shadows.
“Sic them lads!” Well that is to say my beasties protected the hospital and I was carefully directing them. I pointed where I wanted them to go and rang my cowbell, the four puppies rocketed forward and ripped apart several golems.
All the puppies quickly came running back to me and I cuddled them against myself protectively as a small cannonball shot overhead. That golem was soon ripped apart by Mr. Grim for threatening us.
Apparently Big Mama told the puppies to stay near me for the entire duration of this fracas, she was currently busy dealing with one of those mechanical wyverns all by herself. It wouldn’t help much as several more are flying up from the lower tier.
In the middle of all of this, a thought crossed my mind.
Why was Teatime even assaulting The Volcano from the ground? I guessed that he couldn’t make an indestructible balloon.