Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows


124. The Beat-All Battle Bugs!

-Earth, ???-

“Yes she is coming, we shall soon have revenge for our master!” Five shadows started to laugh maniacally.

“Yes, the white knight will rue the day she crossed us!” Another shadow stated.

-Three hours and a day later, state of Illinois, streets of Chicago City, Pom-

Chicago was not a place I wanted to be stuck at with three hungry mouths to feed, at least the pizza here was nice.

“I’m just saying that not every cat you meet has to be evil Bolt, besides Mittens is someone who has been abused and probably wouldn’t want to work with someone evil. So it’s highly unlikely she’d be working for the green eyed man Bolt.” We were walking down the road to the west. “You can’t think bad of people for not knowing what you are talking about and people have lives outside of yours and possible world ending threats. If the world hasn’t ended yet, then things will be fine.”

We had to hop off the car carrier, it was going towards Canada. We needed a more southwards moving transportation.

“No, I don’t think the waffle world map will really help us aside from finding good rest stops on our journey, though we should hold onto it just in case. Dormarch is good at navigation, he was practically made for it Mittens.” Dolly was trying to help Mittens befriend Bolt, there were a few hiccups here or there. “Also Mittens hasn’t run off despite you untying her Bolt. She just wants to help you.”

With Dolly saying it, Bolt eased up a little.

“Fine, I guess I should have realized we wouldn’t have been able to travel all the way to where Penny is in one day.” Sat down next to Bolt and started to cuddle him, he accepted it easily enough. There better not be heartbreak at the end of all this. “I’m sorry for being so rough with you Mittens.”

Now if only Mittens could convince Bolt he wasn’t currently a super dog, but it sounded like she accepted the apology.

A fireworks sized rocket fell from the sky and pierced a nearby car, it blew apart and I covered my three animal companions with my body. We didn’t get hit by much shrapnel and none of it pierced my wool.

People were running and screaming wildly now, but no one was getting hurt at least.

“Where did that come from?!” Dolly looked around and was now holding her Skateboard at the ready to take an attack.

“Up there!” Bolt pointed with his nose and we all looked as five beings flew down from the nearby rooftop. They were insects about the size of one of my hoof and not very threatening looking.

“Darn it we missed!” One of the insects yelled, they all looked to be giant beetles. Well giant for them, the black rhinoceros beetle was obviously the leader of this strange group given that he was the one talking, the other four were more average beetles of Red, Yellow, Blue and Green. “We will make you pay for destroying our leader!”

“Uh who are you guys and why did you almost attack us?” For some reason I wasn’t feeling fear like I normally would in this situation, though I had an idea as to what was going on already from this.

“We are the Beat-All Force!” The five bugs stated as they posed together making a five point star shape with the rhinoceros beetles horn as the top. “We are strong, we are legion and we are here to get revenge for you destroying Master Beelzebug!”

“Oh… this is about what happened with Mr. Beezy. Okay…” I stated dully, I mean sure they just hit car with a rocket and blew it up, but I couldn’t take them seriously as a threat given the exploding car wasn’t close enough to hurting anyone.

“Uh why do their voices sound like they are speaking in tongues and who’s Mr. Beezy?” Well dolly, this was going to be a thing to witness.

It’ll certainly be something at least… hopefully. I’m more terrified of the threat of them attracting mercenaries to our given position than the actual threat that these beetles posed to us personally.

“A demon fly the size of my head that charged up too much energy, got distracted and exploded violently. Didn’t even kill anyone in the incident he caused. Demon bugs just aren’t that threatening to me unless they are bigger than I am, then I may get mildly concerned at best.” It was like with Mr. Beezy, I couldn’t see them as being dangerous to me or my traveling companions. “Oh and the voice thing is just them speaking all languages at once to sound creepy and we understand only one or two of them at best, that they are doing it in unison while posing is just them overcompensating for their lack of actual fearsome visages or capability to really hurt us on purpose.”

“I am Beat-all Black and I think you will come to truly fear our mighty strength!” So Mr. Black says while waving his horn in the air. “Hey, pay attention to us, do you realize how long it took to track you down!”

In reality, Bolt was more threatening than him and he was ready to fight them at a moment’s notice.

“I am Beat-all Red, by the power of my crimson stained spear you shall bleed!” The moderate sized red beetle took out something that looked like a sharpened toothpick, it might even be a toothpick… covered in ketchup from the smell of it.

“I am Beat-all Blue, by the power of my spit covered whip you will taste its many lashes!” The blue beetle pulled a slimy little whip from its mouth, it looked like it was actually a small party blower.

“I am Beat-all Yellow, my drill will shred you as I forcefully send you down to the underworld!” At this point I was yawning despite the large beetle holding what was basically a motorized dreidel.

“I am Beat-all Green, my bone breaking pale green hammer will smash your teeth in and make you eat your words of doubting our greatness!” It was a plastic toothpick with what looks like a calcified olive on the end of it… oh so very threatening.

“If I’m getting this right, you’re what… a bunch of tiny sentai demons out to get Pom for a past sleight or something?” Dolly finally asked. “I thought something like you guys would be at least somewhat cool, guess I was horribly wrong.”

The Beat-All’s looked visibly upset and depressed.

“That’s ‘super’ sentai demons that is out to get all of you!” Despite his anger, Mr. Black was so underwhelming that even Mittens and Bolt were starting to relax. “We never lose because we know how to…”

“Beat-All!” They all struck the star pose again, seemingly having gotten over their depression quickly. “We, the Super Beat-All Force, are here to end your lives as you know it!”

“Whoever this Mr. Beezy guys was, I feel sorry that you ever had the misfortune to actually meet him for whatever reason you did Pom.” Stated Dolly dully before turning to the Beat-Alls. “You guys might ruin our sense of boredom at least, but the novelty is going to wear off really fast. What will happen when your franchise eventually falls apart, if that is what all of this is?”

“Shut up, our franchise is great and well renowned!” Okay Ms. Blue, whatever you say. “Even if ninety nine point nine nine percent of demons are stronger than all of us combined and consider us laughing stocks of the under realms. We’re also well renowned for our excellent teamwork!”

Well renowned? By who, yourselves? Fatally narcissistic marked off on the mental checklist I had going that this was going to blow up in their faces.

Any battle between us can’t possibly last more the twenty minutes… at best one minute of that will actually be action and the rest of it will be just them blowing hot air everywhere.

If it only took twenty minutes to deal with these guys, then that should be enough time to bug out and find the nearest mode of transportation out of Illinois before any mercenaries show up.

“Mr. Beezy wasn’t really much of a fight, everything else around him that he was manipulating was far more dangerous than he was.” Honestly, this was getting kind of sad and they haven’t done much more than blow up a car without actually hurting anyone.

“You take that back, he would have so easily ripped out all your organs if… wait are organs the internal bits or the external ones?” Mr. Yellow sounded uncertain, he probably never made through what passes for school in their realm.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t have beaten him if you didn’t sneak up on him to attack in such a cowardly back stabbing manner that we demons are supposed to do, it’s just not fair when you do it to us!” Mr. Green stated while waving around their weapon wildly and aggressively. “At least that’s how we assumed you destroyed the greatness that is Demon Master Beelzebug!”

“Eh… I don’t know how to feel about this anymore.” Even Bolt was beginning to become emotionally dull to these guys like Dolly, Mittens and I had. “It’s actually kind of getting sad.”

“We’re not the sad ones, you’re the sad ones even if we are powered by what amounts to constant eternal teenage angst!” Oh wow, let me play the world’s smallest violin for you Mr. Red. “I can already tell your mocking us in your minds. Well then, let us prove ourselves to you!”

“Beat-All Force attack!” Black announced, they all started to fly forward together.

“Wait, hold up, I have a question.” I state blandly and they stopped flying forward. “Do you honestly think you are going to win? Even I know that sentai teams only win if they’re the good guys and you’re not exactly being the heroic ones here. You did wantonly blow something up after all.”

“Shut up, we’re heroes in our own world views! So since we’re a sentai team we’ll always win, so there!” Heroes of their own story, more like a tragic comedy villains that someone wasn’t handing out brains to when these guys were born. Clearing his throat, Beat-All black pointed a leg at us. “Now, Beat-All Force, attack!”

Dolly simply lift her front paws and pinned down two of the beetles who swung their weapons wildly to little effect, while Bolt and Mittens pinned down one each safely as well. I simply held up my left hoof.

“Is my super strength coming back?” It was a second later that Bolt at least acknowledged the situation. “No… even you have one pinned down Mittens.”

Mittens seemed to be upset with him for a second, but relented on her anger a few seconds later.

As for me, I was holding back Black with my hoof and he kept flying into it fruitlessly.

“Why, won’t, you, fall over?! My horn of vicious violence should not be stop so easily!” Wow, Black was seriously not understand the size discrepancy between us.

He might have even moved my right hoof a millimeter by increasing his wing speed for a few seconds, this was probably about as big as his victories get.

I quickly wrapped my hoof around his horn, flipped the demon bug upside down and then walked over into the nearby park and jammed his horn into the dirt leaving him stuck flailing his legs into the air. I motioned for Bolt, Mittens and Dolly to do the same.

They jammed the four other beetle demons into the dirt face first, except Beetle green who was jammed butt first into the dirt because he was a stink bug beetle. Dolly didn’t have any trouble moving her two Beat-All’s since she could walk on her hind legs.

“Ah! They totally defeated us Black, we need to call in Beat-All White and the bug bite machines for backup!” Green screamed while trying to pull his butt out of the ground.

“Uh huh…” I stated blandly. “That’ll certainly deal with us. Yep. You’re really the greatest villainous team known to demon kind, sure you are.”

A rocket came down from the sky and we were once more missed entirely, but it did blast the chunk of dirt we stuffed all five of the Beat-All’s into. We all looked up to see a white beetle standing on top of a rather moderately sized stick bug shaped machine and was playing a weedy, stick like, flute that had a small carved rats tooth attached to the end of it.

“I am Beat-All white and I’m here to reap your souls with my magnificent vibrant ivory scythe!” I would take his threat more seriously if he wasn’t a bug demon. He continued to play his flute, at least the tune was good.

“Beat-All’s summon your bug bit machines, we’ll have them on the ropes in no time!” Black yelled as he and the Beat-All’s created their star formation again with Beat-All White glowing and making his own star off to the side. “Beat-All Black, Summoning Onyx Spider!”

“Aren’t spiders arachnids?” I stated dully as I watched as a small mechanical spider that was slightly bigger than Beat-All Black dropped from the sky and he entered it.

“Hey, don’t interrupt them Pom, let them live the dream for a little while longer. They are doing the whole thing where the sixth ranger comes in to save the day and defeat the villains… except we’re the heroes and we don’t have back up.” This left several questions needing to be asked Dolly, but I wasn’t in the mood to actually argue about the fact that their sixth ranger just scorched them and they were all burnt by the rocket that supposedly saved them. Also one of them was actually on fire and went flying around screaming after the last star formation pose, it was Beat-All Green specifically. Being a stink bug made him extremely flammable. “Not that it really is going to help them much from what I’m seeing, but it should be somewhat entertaining at least to see them try. Maybe they’ll blow themselves, maybe it’ll even be a good sized explosion that we’ll have to run from too! Either that or we could slowly walk away while a fireball goes off into the sky behind us, that would be a little awesome if these guys weren’t so lame.”

“Hey, stop heckling us! Beat-All Yellow, Summoning Topaz Caterpillar!” The so called Caterpillar just burst out of the ground about the size of a small snake. It rolled forward on treads and it made me wonder how it burrowed when it didn’t have a drill, otherwise it did vaguely looked like a caterpillar in how bulgy it was.

“Beat-All Red, Summoning Ruby Antlion!” Well at least his vehicle looked somewhat threatening.

“Beat-All Green, Summoning Emerald Mantis!” I thought this one looked somewhat cool, but then I remembered that these guys weren’t even sticking to their whole ‘beetle’ theme.

“Beat-All Blue, Summoning Beautiful Azure Damselfly.” This was the worst one of the bunch, it was green and not blue. Still it was the only one that could outright fly, so I’ll give Beat-All Blue at least that begrudgingly.

“Beat-All Bug Bite Bomber Brigade, Battle!” At Beat-All Black’s call, all six of the machine came at us.

I calmly stopped both Beat-All White and Black’s machines with my front two hooves the same way I had stopped Beat-All Black when they didn’t have the machines previously.

I calmly watched as the machine struggled to shove my weight off of them.

They would have made nice toys at the least, so the Beat-All’s actually might have some marketability. I’m going to stress the ‘might’ part as hard as I can.

I’m also noticing that the machines weren’t armed with any weapons, so where in the world did those two rockets they fired in our general vicinity come from?

I looked over to Dolly to see she had Caterpillar and Damselfly pinned down. Bolt had taken care of Ruby Antlion and as for Mittens, she was just watched at the Emerald Mantis machine as it ran around on fire flailing its arms. At most all their little machines required us to do was press down a little bit harder than we previously had to stop them.

Nobody had bothered to put out Beat-All Green and they had summarily set their machine on fire by entering it.

“Darn it, waving our weapons wildly at them and ramming into them isn’t working!” Beat-All Black called and Beat-All Green’s machine just kept running around in a panic. “Beat-All Green, we’re pinned down and you’re the only one free by virtue of being on fire, save us so we can form our ultimate battle machine by combining together!”

“Can we just let them do it, I want to see what it looks like.” You only wanted to see what would happen if they do out of morbid curiosity Dolly.

Green flailed in our general direction and we eventually let go of the machines and took a few steps back when the flailing mantis blades nearly gave us a few paper cuts.

“Initiating Beat-All Big Biter combination sequence!” Beat-All black announced out loud as soon as they retreated and were all free.

“Beat-All Yellow forming legs and treads!” The topaz caterpillar split in half and rose up in the middle creating what looked like a pair of pants and the ends turned outwards into two feet with tank treads on the bottom.

“Beat-All Black forming main torso and power source abdomen!” The spider leapt up and its four most hind legs went into the caterpillar pants. It held out its next two lower legs and its abdomen shifted upwards to finish creating the armored spine and torso of the machine they were building.

“Beat-all Red forming right pincer!” The antlion leapt up and the spider’s second right leg caught it and attach it to the spiders frame as the antlion extended its pincer in the form of a combat weapon.

“AHHHHH BEAT-ALL GREEN, AHHGHAGHHH AREN’T WE DEMONS SUPPOSED TO BE IMMUNE TO FIRE?! FORMING AGGGHHH LEFT CLAWS, IT BURNS SO MUCH!” The mantis’s body leapt up and attach to the second leg on the spider’s left forming the other arm of the combined machines.

Green’s constant screaming was disconcerting as was the fact that they weren’t putting out the fire even as they attached the mantis machine to the overall frame as a pair of slashing left armed claws.

“And the beautiful Beat-All Blue will form the head!” The damselfly machine lowered its tail and the spider raised its head and opened its maws, the machine slide the tail into place as the machine morphed into a head for the combined machines. The remaining front most two legs of the spider connected to Beat-All Blue’s machine to finalize the overall machine.

“Beat-All Beetle Battler!” The machine struck a pose as they shouted this.

“Okay I’ll give them this, it looks cool, but did they really have to make it do the dorky dab thing?” Dolly just propped up her skateboard and leaned against it. “They do realize that the fire is spreading right?”

Mittens rolled her eyes meowed something that sounded condescending.

“Yeah, normally something like this would be scary and require heat vision, but in this situation…” Bolt trailed off motioning to the machine with a paw. “Can you handle it Pom? I’d feel too bad about actually attacking them.”

“If I must.” I stated flatly.

“Targeting system locked on. Now all together, we’ll attack the White Knight of Couriers, raahhhhh!” Beat-All Black was still acting as the leader it seems. The machine charged forward, it was only about up to my neck in size, I placed my right hoof on its head and it flailed its arms at me for a solid minute. The fire was slowly spreading across the combined machines torso and legs. “Why isn’t this working?! We did a whole combination transformation sequence and everything right this time and it didn’t end in a volatile lethal explosion! Maybe we don’t have enough power, Beat-All White will you lend us your very much ninja Bug Biter to our cause!”

“Of course I will brother, I never wanted to leave the team in the first place, but my demonic pupa were just being born that day!” Beat-All white pointed his scythe forward and crawled into the stick bug. “I will form the wings and bring the Beetle Battler to its final form!”

The stick bug attach it’s limbs to all the other limbs and two of its legs split in half into a pair of giant rainbow energy spewing butterfly wings. This made it overall an inch or two taller somehow and it could now hover in the air on aforementioned wings.

“Big Bad Beat-All Bug Biter Beefy Beetle Bomber Brigade Bot Battler!” They shouted as one as a light shined from the proudly standing machine with over half the machine being on fire.

“What, all that and no ‘Borg’ qualifier in there?” Dolly asked lazily.

“We couldn’t get the licensing!” Beat-All Blue answered in a chirpy tone. “Heh, we had a hell of time getting what we do have!”

“Begin preparations for our ultimate attack, the Beat-All Beetle Blaster!” Beat-All Black announced. “It may use up half our battery power, but it will be worth it to destroy them all in one fell swoop!”

The machine’s chest expanded and it started glowing.

“Uh guys…” Beat-All red stated slowly.

“What is it Red?” Mr. Black sounded wary.

“We’re all on fire now.” Pointed out Red as if it were shocking.

Beat-All Green responded to this news by continuing to scream in agony from the left arm.

“Yeah, I know we’re awesome Red, you don’t have to tell us twice!” Beat-All Yellow stated with a proud tone.

“No, I mean our machines have all caught fire and… wait does anyone smell gas?” It didn’t take a genius to see why Red was so very much panicked. “Oh no my Antlion’s flamethrower gas canister has sprung a leak due to all the flailing!”

Wait, the Antlion machine had a flamethrower and he didn’t check it or use it prior to this?

“Wait, why are there exposed wires in here?” Beat-All White asked.

“Sorry, but I had to chew on something or I would go stir crazy.” Beat-all Blue stated with a cheerful tone.

“Yeah, it’s like how I drained three fourths of Beat-All Black’s machine’s battery playing video games before we did this.” Yellow stated with an idiotic tone.

The machine dropped to the ground and all the lights in it went out.

“You did what?!” Black shouted. “Yellow, we needed that to power to keep the combined machines working!”

It was at this point things had likely dissolved into infighting inside the machine and I turned to Dolly, Bolt and Mittens.

“Let’s just walk away from this.” My companions nodded to me and slowly we turned as one and started to just walk away.

The combined machines that barely reached my chin was fully on fire by now.

“Wait, where are you going?!” Beat-All Black shouted after us. “We haven’t even given you our fifty seven page victory speech about the merits of being infinite beholden slave to Demon Master Beelzebug!”

“You know, I distinctly remember gas being explosive when put to a flame.” Beat-All White stated calmly. “So why haven’t we blown…”

An explosion happened behind us and we were all slowly walking away from it without looking back.

“Ah yeah, at least we’re doing something cool with this!” Dolly stated as we slowly marched away and towards the nearest truck stop we can find.