Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows


55. Ancient metallic knightly frogs.

-Equus, Canterlot Park, Royal Guard-

“See there recruit, if you don’t do well, then that will be your fate.” I pointed out to the rookie the scariest thing to the royal guard with my right hoof.

“She doesn’t look so tough.” The poor rookie didn’t notice the twitch in the Abyssinian’s ear, she heard it and took it as a challenge.

If I tried to warn him, she would come after me too, so of course I stupidly opened my mouth to try to dance around the issue.

“Look… I wouldn’t underestimate that Abyssinian if I were you, she’s the boogey cat known as the royal guard’s bane for a reason.” I shivered as I saw the Abyssinian playing with a rubber toy mouse suddenly looked me in the eyes sharply, I shivered as she stared straight into my soul. “She’s pure evil I tell you.”

The once bright beige fur looked darker in my visage, the green hair flowed from behind her spreading out like an eagle taking flight for its prey and there was a creeping, growing, evil smile playing across her face.

It was too later for us, Misses ‘Freaking’ was already silently planning our downfall, because Fizzlepop warned us away from ever saying a single thing about the cultists or ‘The Lost’ to her.

Fizzlepop ‘Storm Queen Tempest’ Berrytwist was the only one Misses ‘Freaking’ wouldn’t touch in the guard, the only one that can stop whatever sordid plan she’s got cooking in her head.

Some would even say it was far too late for all of us… guards at least, I don’t think she bothers normal civilians.

-Jaded ‘Freaking’ La Perm-

Maple syrup… a shark tank… four hundred paper clips… a single stick of gum… an exercise ball… a playground slide for foals… a farmer’s almanac of at least one thousand pages in length… an elephant, some circus people owe me a few favors… three empty barrels… a seesaw… a Saddle Arabian flag, because I’m enough petty to try that… Saddle Arabia has it coming anyways… aid of The Squirrels to set up a jazz music festival on a last moments notice… mess with all the local libraries to distract the current ruler Twilight Sparkle with something utterly inane and time consuming… like a secret way to get Changelings and Lambkin to like one another hidden among the libraries…


Also might need a few rotten eggs… a few cartons of rocky road to bribe my adopted sister Velvet Arid with… but where would I find such a specific type of cheesecake on such… oh duh, order from Sugar Cube Corner!

Though how would I do the thing with the tiny ewe from the Crystal Empire without greatly upsetting Fluttershy though…

Okay Fizzle, I’m bound to find out what you are trying so hard to hide from me and I have ways of making the guards talk.

Yes… for it is time to break out my personal favorite ice rink machine ‘The Zampony’ once again!

-Elhorn, Hydrigal Castle, Pom-

The metal statue charged shield first, magic was the only reason I could see for this. Given that Ocellus is not unconscious or in great pain, it wasn’t an evil core machine or just a machine in general. It was making hollow noises so of course it was a statue magically brought to life by something.

The notable oddity, as I dodged out of the way it coming to a stop and swinging its sword downwards, was that it was the only statue moving and the other three were currently lifeless.

The sword sent out a pressure wave force, knocking Jean and Bruno back, it twisted the blade and swung outwards for me.

I immediately fluffed out my wool and stood my ground.

My body was slightly rocked by the blow and I was nearly launched off my hooves by loss of concentration, instead there was a loud cracking sound as the blade had a crack running a quarter of the way into the blade where it made contact with me. I was close enough to see that it was as hollow as the statue sounded when it was moving around, it didn’t have enough mass to move me.

I could hear Ocellus ask something of the others, my mind was currently on the fact that my wool didn’t do the glow thing or repel the sword in the opposite direction.

Did that mean magic had to be directed at me for that defense to work? It reflected Ninja General Paeli’s death blasts, but only after it burned through some of my wool… while it was actively armored up.

I was never going to think I was impervious or invincible as long as I had wool, my moderately frail body underneath wouldn’t let me forget what I am for a second. Paprika wasn’t invincible either, but her body was as tough as her wool and I didn’t have that same luxury of hugging things into submission.

Jean said something solemnly and then he proclaimed something bravely while pointing his rapier at the statue. Said statue was pivoting towards me and was in the middle of thrusting its shield into my face.

The blunt impact of the shield actually staggered me out of bunkering down in place and the connection my wool had to the floor. It hit far harder than Thundering Rhino had and the force was not down from on top of me this time, but sideways.

“Agh!” For unlike the sword, which was both hollow and possibly easier to break but no less deadly because of it, the shield however was one solid mass of metal.

It spread it’s sword out wide and then brought it inwards on me and I wasn’t in a position to lock myself down again. A loud clash and I saw Bruno was in the way of the fifteen foot menace that had barreled its way through the entrance into the foyer, his sword was holding back and even pushing away the struggling statue’s weapon.

Bruno was very odd for a pig, what looked like fat on him must actually be pure muscle to the lower end of the Arizona physics breaking scale.

Colleen fired a burst of energy from her weapon, the statue blocked the energy with the shield and it just splashed harmlessly across the ensorcelled metal.

Jean took the opening and the slight shifting of the shield to launch a single powerful stab that put a large hole clean through the statue’s body and armor where the heart should be upon impact with the tip of his rapier.

This unfortunately didn’t stop it, much to Jean’s confusion as I quickly grabbed Bruno with my hooves and dove between the statue’s legs when it tried to slam its shield into his back to squash him between its sword and shield.

It swung outwardly while turning to try and strike us down, the sword soared over our heads and it brought it around high to bring it down vertically. I quickly stood up on my hind legs in front of Bruno and brought my front two hooves up crossed over one another and flexed my wool hard.

The blade struck me and snapped in half with a painful sounding shattering noise, I was then blown back into the castle’s entryway with a thrust of its shield while staggered.

It hadn’t slowed down its assault despite losing half its weapon and it continued on attacking the others, it seemed to be focusing its red eyes on Jean a lot now and Bruno was trying to get its attention.

I rolled onto my belly and struggled to stand up, I then felt a hoof wrapped around my right leg and helped steady me. I gave Ocellus a grateful smile.

“Jean stabbed it in the heart, but I think I figured out its weakness. Whatever is behind the statues changing can only control one at a time and the magic is concentrated throughout the body… but mostly in the head.” Ocellus, having said this to me, we heard Colleen call out something both Jean and Bruno nodded one with understanding and the other begrudgingly grumbling as he deflected the broken blade away from himself. “I’ve already explained to Colleen what we need to do, we need to decapitate the statues to make them impossible to control by whoever is doing this. It’s a singular intelligence, but I don’t know what that has to do with the odd fog. That feels quite different than this.”

Jean wasn’t good defensively as his armor has been ramshackle since Cladinhold, Bruno was making up for that by being strong on both defense and offense. Bruno’s weapon wasn’t cracking under the pressure of the blows and he danced away from the shield bashes launched at him while Jean launched precision strikes at the statue’s neck under the helmet that opened up holes in it.

“Maybe this is something separate from the fog…” I was about to go into what I meant, but a clattering noise drew out attention to the metal statue. It was frozen in place with the tip of its jagged broken hollow blade an inch away from Colleen’s throat. The dog in question was wide eyed and shaking with her energy weapon held in a death grip with both hands.

There was a molten bit of neck that had been the last bit that had apparently been holding the knight statue’s head on and she risked her life to get under the shield and close enough to it to blow it off.

Not a second later did the red eyes in the statue’s head die out and the statue slowly turned back from metal to stone expanding and growing, yet keeping its damaged state.

It wasn’t a second later that a blast of water struck me and Ocellus from the side knocking Ocellus to the floor, I managed to skid sideways while staying on my hooves.

The mace wielding statue with the weird mouth stepped off the pedestal and hefted the mace into an overhead swing for Ocellus. I dove forward, grappled onto Ocellus and rolled as hard as I could, the smashing sound of a spiked mace slamming into the completely undamaged floor behind me could be heard.

The statue froze and I looked back to see the light in its eyes gone, why did it just…

“Look out!” Ocellus shoved me off of her and then pushed me while diving away as an axe slammed down between us.

The angry looking statue had leapt from its pedestal and tried to cleave us with the axe, yet the floor remained undamaged despite the hefty impact that sent us both flying. Ocellus caught herself with her wings and fluttered up closer to the ceiling.

The architects of this place will be proud to hear that their castle is impervious to damage at least, not that the banners, vases, wilting plants and other things were taking the pressure wave nearly as well as I did when I bounced off the wall softly. I’m quite happy to be as fluffy as a snuggle toy.

Bruno was on the axe wielding frog knight and the glowing red eyes in its head disappeared. When he struck his sword against its torso, it just bounced of its body instead of doing any damage against the hollow metal statue.

“What the?” Wait a minute… why did his sword bounce? I glanced at the mace wielding statue, no movements. I took a few steps forward and beyond the pillars towards the center of the room.

I quickly rolled to the side as a large metal staff stabbed forward at me, the blindfolded statue twisted about and stepping forward to slam its staff down on where Bruno was.

He hopped backwards out of the way while brandishing his sword at the ready, he was gripping it tightly while warily regarding the other two statues. Jean and Ocellus did so as well, Colleen was still sitting in the foyer shivering and collecting herself.

The mace statue with the weird mouth lit up and spat a blast of water at Jean, he stepped out of the way of the blast and tried to damage the blind statue with a thrust of his rapier… only it too bounced off of it.

“Ocellus, tell them only the statue that is being actively possessed can be damaged!” That earned me the attention of the mace statue, the eyes blinked out and I quickly leapt upwards and puffed up my fluff at the top of my head and curled my body upward to float over a fast horizontal axe swing that came from the axe statue.

It actually heard me and could understand what I was saying, did it try to stop me because I figured that out? Ocellus was in the middle of telling them what I figured out as I dropped to the floor quickly ran to climb up on the blind staff wielding statue avoiding the axe statue’s following overhead swing.

Whatever this thing was, it had rules to it and we’ve already discovered the weakness of its living statue trick. It could also only control one at a time and that was a problem, that it could feasibly understand my words was equally frightening.

I was clambering up the left bicep of the blind statue when the axe struck it right behind my left leg and the axe bounced off of it too. That proved it, the statue not under control was magically protected until the wielder took control, but the protection does not project outwards so that wouldn’t activate my wool’s odd reflection effect either.

The axe wielding statue hopped backwards as Bruno lunged forward and tried to strike for its neck, within a second I saw a subtle change in the blindfolded one.

Bruno barely had time to defend himself before he was struck by the staff and sent flying into the back left most pillar in the entry hallway of the castle.

Bruno grunted and tried to get up, when Jean came forward and rapidly jabbed at the blindfolded statue’s neck. The statue deflected Jeans numerous jabs with sweeping rotations of the staff and tried to hit him in the legs as it spun and twisted the staff in its defense against both him and me.

I wasn’t idle as I had moved onto its back and slowly climbed up to the back of its neck, it tried to slap me off its back with a stylish flourish of the staff once or twice.

Ducking and up crawling around its attempts, I clutched its right shoulder and got my face right next to its hollow neck. I inhaled and almost bark blasted its head clean off at point blank range with as much force as I could put into it.

The wrenching noise hurt my ears as its head ripped halfway off its body and was about to do another one to get the other half of its neck, when Jean beat me to it.

Before the entity could change control again, Jean tore the remainder of the feminine statue’s neck off with single a precision strike of one of his powerful piercing precision pokes. If I were capable of dueling, I definitely wouldn’t want to face Jean in a competition.

I quickly jumped off as the statue’s head tumbled away, it froze and the metal started to expand and warp back into stone.

That left the axe statue and the water spitting mace one with the robe, said robe was made of fluid metal and more protective, but if I had to guess…

“Help get Colleen and Bruno back in the fight, quickly please!” I was specifically not focusing on Ocellus moving behind one of the eight pillar throughout the entryway as the axe statue popped to life and hopped for Jean.

Darting forward I tackled Jean back and was lifted upwards by the force of the axe slamming into the ground behind me, we both went tumbling.

I slammed bodily into a pillar chest first and Jean managed to barely stay standing if his flailing was anything to go by.

Once he got his footing, he quickly took up a stance in front of me with his rapier as the axe wielding statue charged towards us. I shakily tried to stand up with what were likely cracked ribs, given the pain I was feeling.

To think that my stitches were almost done healing too… why do I keep getting into these situations? Oh right, I’m too nice for my own good and I wanted to save Jean’s people from whatever all of this was if there was the possibility to do so.

I’m going to be so sore after this one and we’re still just entering the castle

The statue swung the axe horizontally for Jean and with barest of movements he deflected and knocked the axe upwards. It was a simple quick hard slap to the underside of it with the tip of his rapier. He looked a bit trouble as the axe soared over his head and afterwards he had a determined look in his eyes.

Jean stabbed it forward several times creating several small holes in the hollow metal frog statue with a literal axe to grind. The statue was starting another swing and was going for an upwards slash, I got to my hooves and moved to help him.

I threw my body at the axe before it could pick up speed and blocked it from gaining any dangerous momentum by grappling onto the shaft and quickly gluing myself to the floor to hold it in place. The statue started to struggle to get its weapon out of my grip.

Jean had been trying to stab at its neck apart, but it had been moving its body and head to avoided losing it.

It eventually gave up on dealing with me and let its weapon to go throw a punch at Jean in an attempt to take at least the top portion of his head off. I wouldn’t be able to move in time and didn’t want to relinquish my hold on the axe.

It was already far too late for me to do anything, it was also far too late for the statue to really pay attention to its surroundings. Mostly because Bruno came out of nowhere, yelling as he leaped high with his sword held high above his head and he brought it down with a ridiculously powerful downwards slash that cleaved through the statue vertically.

Bruno’s sword even had the gall to look entirely pristine after such a devastating blow when it should have been at least a little damaged cleaving a frog statue in half… even if it was hollow!

The statue’s body fell into two neat halves with a clean cut going entirely through it and they started turning to stone.

Bruno was huffing and puffing as he glared at the last statue eyes lighting up blood red immediately, he had really exerted himself to do that. This was also a guy who’s faced evil core machines with little more than a sword and or a baked good on him from what Ocellus tells us about him.

I quickly dropped the axe and tried to move and was blasted off my hooves by large blast of water from its mouth and was blinded for a few seconds. Coughing and sputtering, my wool was soaked through and I rolled behind the nearest pillar. I think this was the third on the right.

The pillar I sat behind was struck with another blob of water. I peeked around the pillar shivering from being both cold and damp, I noticed the fog was becoming stronger the more water it sprayed around the entrance where the fog seemed to be held at bay by something.

I turned my sight back to the fight and the mace practically cracking Jean’s armor open, like a walnut, but he looked mostly alright after slamming into the wall while grasping at his chest. The statue spat a blast of water at Bruno and he grunted as he evaded and tried to close the distance only to be knocked back slightly by the mace creating a shockwave when it struck the floor in front of him.

Bruno still managed to leap and slash at the water spitting statue, but it’s almost liquid metal robe proved to be decently protective against his blade. A bolt of energy struck the statue’s face rocking it backwards slightly and Bruno took the opportunity to slash at its legs and damaged it lightly before he was kicked away.

It turned and fired a blast of water at Colleen from its mouth, she ducked behind the pillar across from me.

Colleen gave me a weak smile and a slightly apologetic look for not getting back into the fight sooner. It was here that I realized something interesting about Colleen and would absolutely ask her about it later.

Now wasn’t exactly the time for a discussion, especially when Jean was barely standing and could hardly get close to the statue with it blasting water at us. He dove behind a pillar and a wave of water splashed all around it. Not that Bruno was fairing any better trying to rush it.

Colleen popped out for a second and fired another bolt of energy into the statue’s face, her weapon not doing as much damage as it possibly could and that was another thing I had to talk with her about. She was still lugging around that rocket pack Ligstrun gave her, but hasn’t used once this entire battle.

Colleen winced as she was knocked over by the blast of water directed at her pillar.

“I want to show what I’ve got too!” Ocellus flew out from the pillar behind me near the ceiling, lit her horn and fired a powerful bolt of lightning as the statue fired a burst of water.

The water burst stopped abruptly in the air upon meeting the lightning and the energy from Ocellus’s horns traveled all the way back to the statue’s mouth and its face violently exploded. The statue stumbled backwards and now the water was dribbling weakly out of the statue’s face.

The statue’s eyes were still glowing red despite its damaged face, it took a step forward only to be grabbed by several tentacles of fog erupting from the entrance behind it.

It struggled against the tentacles of fog rapidly and quickly getting a grip on the statue and sliding up underneath its robes to seemingly strangle the possessed statue to the best of their ability.

This kind of added to the theory that the fog was a genius loci kind of thing and now I almost wanted to say... that it wanted to help us as much as it needed our help for something.

It had seemed oddly limited to being stuck outside the castle until now, maybe the statue got too close to the entrance to the castle?

With a powerful yank, the fog roughly pulled statue downwards and its head shattered into metal splinters upon impact with the floor.

The others were as quiet as I was at the sight, I stood up and made my way towards the fog with my wool dripping wet and looked into it.

“If you can understand me… how can we help you?” The reaction I received was swift.

It created a vaguely lambkin shaped head, then shook it left and right.

It produced a colorful imaged of numerous amphibians happily running through the streets of Hydrigal’s castle town. It then showed something dragging them deep into the castle. It showed itself trying to enter, but something was forcing it out.

What it showed next was helpful for us, as it showed what had to be the throne room and a hidden switch behind the smaller throne.