//------------------------------// // 147. The Fighter Shadows. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -The World- It had finally let Pom go from what little grasp it could even get on her, it would never again able to manipulate Pom like this through her connection to Dolly again. Her resistance had been fairly ferocious and the world was never good at directly manipulating things, much less actually thinking of manipulating things. It preferred a more subtle and more natural approach, it just made an exception. -Duckberg Park, Pom- I feel something releasing me and I had a glimpse into what drove me to be here or talk of surviving the chaos as I stumbled forward. Something actually put me in this position and I didn’t like it one bit. Glancing around, I started shivering as the shadow versions of my friends and me start spreading out, I took a stance on my hind legs and waited for which one would make the first move. I was facing Arizona, Velvet, Paprika, Oleander, me with my god-puppies and the worst of them all to me… Tianhuo. What was it that had driven me to be here all alone against ‘HIM’ of all people!? At least everyone else was safe, small comfort considering I certainly wasn’t! I looked at the black wool and grey skinned version of myself, the red eyes mockingly showing me a reflection of my fear as she smiled and struck at the bell on her neck creating a discordant sounding chime. Reaching up to my own bare neck, I frowned, shook my head and then brought my hooves up defensively. I took note of how the four shadow puppies moved around the shadow of me. Away from all of them, standing eerily still, was Hollow Heart. He spread his wings and pointed at me. The shadow Arizona charge for me, I blocked her hard right hoof with my legs and slammed back first into a tree a second later a good. She had knocked me an estimated thirty feet and the shockwave of the blow rattled my body underneath my protective wool. My eyes widened and I ducked a sharp piece of black ice as it punctured straight through the tree and stopped in a tree behind it, I followed that up by rolling away as four evil shadow puppies tried to bite at me and my shadow copy tried to descend on me on me with a downward double hoof strike. Finishing my roll I quickly leaned left as a hoof thrust forward towards me with black as night flames that swallowed the light out the general area blinding me not with light, but pitch black darkness. I felt a twitch in my ears and I raised a block with my right hoof and then pivoted slung my left hoof straight forward knocking the shadow Tianhuo back and making her stumble and become visible. I quickly leapt, flipping backwards over a diving hug attempt by shadow Paprika. Paprika had never been seriously terrifying to me. Landing I stumbled off to the side as a sharp black icicle nearly skewered me from behind, only to take a blow to the chin from Arizona that launched me to the sky and I was subsequently spiked into the ground by copy where I had to roll away before the puppies pinned me or a rain of icicles pierced me into the ground. I came up to my hooves and swept my right hind hoof out while spinning into a hind leg stand, to knock the charging shadow puppies back. Three of them went tumbling and one flew up into the air with its tail and then dove for me. I raised my right hoof and took its open mouth on my wool and then I swung it hard to the left while flexing my wool to send it flying off into shadow Paprika’s grasp, instead of continuing to come at me she started to crushing the shadow puppy in her grasp without remorse and then said puppy was pierced by mass of spikes that jutted out of the copy of the shadow alpaca. I did not want a hug from Paprika right now. A pillar of ice jutted out of the ground from my right and I stumbled forward and had to quickly slide under Arizona as she leapt at me and brought her two hooves down to create a crater, both shattering and evaporating the black ice. I turned my slide into a roll as black flames, with heat was almost unbearable, shot by me and blinded me for a bit. Shadow Arizona apparently could see perfectly fine as something lashed out and wrapped tightly around my neck, both my front hooves went up to my neck and pried at… the tentacle… or was it a tongue? Anyway it was pulling me towards Arizona. Two of the shadow puppies pinned down my rear hooves as Tianhuo surged upwards and forward dark fire billowing on her right hoof taking away my sight as it got closer and last I saw it was telegraphing an overhead swing. I snapped my rear hooves together. Feeling the puppies let go, I kicked off the ground and rolled backwards in the air. I feel something nick my right shoulder as my sight came back to me and I narrowly avoided the conflagration of Tianhuo slamming her hoof down. I inhaled deeply, time slowed down for me, I had to remember to use dancing flame sparingly. My right shoulder looked like it was close to becoming frostbitten and my right front leg felt numbingly cold like there was ice was in my veins. It even felt partially paralyzed… is that what the black ice does?! I don’t want to have any of this possibly poison ice stuck in me if that’s what it is. My eyes quickly surveyed my situation my mind came up with a plan, I slowly exhaled as I executed it. I quickly planted my rear hooves, skidded backwards on the ground for a second and then ran backwards around shadow Arizona with her tongue still around my neck. Having wrapped her own tongue around her neck, I gripped the tongue with my hooves and twisted. A spin unwrapped the tongue from my neck, I pulled Arizona closer to me with a yank and launched my left hind leg kick upwards to Arizona’s chin. Her tongue ripped off in a shower of fog and splatter of blood like specks as she stumbled back seemingly in immense pain, I swung the torn off tongue forward to my right and got it to wrapped around my shadow copies neck and I heaved her towards me as I stepped around Arizona into sight of Velvet. I pivoted out the way of a series of sharp blades of ice that punctured my copy to snap a kick to shadow Tianhuo’s face before she could blind me again. This sent Tianhuo into the path of Paprika, making the shadow grab her and hug her tightly after dropping the shadow puppy that didn’t get hurt by the erupting spikes. So they couldn’t damage each other much. Had to keep them all in… I ducked as a sharply edged wing pass over my head, I bucked high with all my strength without really looking. I just hit something with a healthy amount of force. Having heard the sound of a form hitting the ground, I glanced at Hollow Heart as he calmly stood up and started backing away into the surrounding shadows while staring at me with a fang filled grin as he disappeared. All the grass he had touched notably withered and became sickly in an instant. The shadow thestral was looking for moments of opportunity then. Couldn’t lose track of any of them as they all came at me again, at least they had waited until Hollow had backed away. Paprika lunged for me. I ducked, leaned right and flexibly thrusted my left hind leg straight up into the side of her belly send her bouncing away. I had to follow that up by hopping and kicking off a spike of ice from below, even a second of contact had chilled my hooves to the bone, and launched a painful flying buck into my copies face. When I hit the withered grass, I started to do a breakdancing windmill kicks to knock away the four shadow puppies in quick succession until I was upside down. I performed a hoof spring into a standing and tried to do a blind hoof grapple with the shadow Tianhuo when I felt her attack coming. Managing to grab her leg and aim it upwards, I felt a huge amount of heat pass by my face scorching my wool. Tianhuo proceeded to kick me in the belly, I grunted as my wool took the brunt of it and spun my back into her chest. I quickly lifted and swung Tianhuo around to take several icicles I heard coming for me, the shadow monster harmlessly took them in her back as I released her to send her flying straight at an encroaching Arizona. These shadows were far tougher than the ones I saw on Equus or Fœnum, even if they were just imitations they were fairly life like and lethal. I think I was doing fairly… A harsh blow by shadow Arizona landed across my face drawing blood and staggered me. An icicle scratched my left hind leg before I could move it away and now it was numb too. I was subsequently blinded by the shadow flames launched by Tianhuo on the ground and last I saw Paprika had been leaping for me before so… I rolled and dashed away until I slammed into a tree, I blindly climbed up it and felt an increase in the heat around me as shadow Tianhuo likely tracked me with her black flames. Kicking off the tree, I rolled against the ground and ran blindly ran away while sniffing the air with my nose to hopefully track if anything was in front of me, my right ear twitched and I dove to the ground and heard the sound of something scything through the air. My dive had gotten me far enough away to see a giant writhing mass of darkness, apparently things lit on fire by Tianhuo will have the same blinding darkness effect as her flames. I rolled onto my back to watch as Hollow Heart flapped back a bit and flew up and disappeared into the shadows of the burning tree. I saw my copy erupt from the writhing fog like darkness coming at me with a glare, I was quickly on my hooves to block its left hoof strike and tried to step away only to notice that both my hind legs were being pinned down by the four shadow puppies. My copy brought both her front hooves around and across the right side of my temple and I was knocked onto my back. Dazed and confused, I quickly scrambled backwards using my front hooves while frantically kicking outwards with my hind legs to keep the four red eyed shadow puppies off of me. Until I passed into the light of a rare park lamp, at least rare in this park at least. The four puppies ran into the light and then looked to be in horrible pain as they began melting, they quickly scrambled back and away from me. A shard of ice flew at me, it evaporated in the light of the lamp before it could hit my right eye. I just sat there wide eyed, a simple lamp’s light can stop them? Also why were my right shoulder and left hind leg burning with pain now?! Actually I’m feeling better and was not nearly as lethargic as I had been getting, so that ice actually is poisonous! Thankfully any amount of light was the antidote, but I hadn’t noticed the effects. Things seemed to worsen for me after I… that’s actually insidious! Dancing Flame was even more dangerous to perform if I was poisoned, as I just realized it would hasten the poisons effects on me drastically. I shuddered to think what would happen if I had let the poison continue to flow through my body for much longer, maybe numbness and paralysis weren’t the only thing the ice does. Another thing, why wasn’t my wool protecting me from shadow Velvet’s magical attacks? I rolled to the side as a pair of hooves stomped the ground, this is followed by wings slashing forward and down on my prone form. I rolled again into a standing position as the wings dug into the ground, only to take a heavy blow by a pair of hooves that almost caved in my chest that knocked me away from the lamp light. Hollow had surged forward using his wings to pull himself at me. Said light was swiftly snuffed out by Hollow Heart flapping into the air and stretching out one of his wings into a blade to slash it apart in a shower of sparks. He quickly flew out and away as the other shadows approached me, other lights in the general area quickly started being torn apart. Hollow definitely just cracked my frail little ribs with that one attack, that’s even with my wool factored in. I stood up shivering as the shadows started coming at me again. I faced them and will let Hollow Heart know I would always oppose him even if my chances of survival here weren’t very good. Shadow Arizona opened her mouth and lashed out a long regrown black tendril for me. “Baa-Ram-Ewe!” I unleashed three bark blasts back to back in a barrage, lighting up the darkened area and making the shadows scatter until the blasts dissipated. This also destroyed a section of shadow Arizona’s tongue, blew apart several ice shards and cancelled out Tianhuo’s flames. An idea just came to mind, but I would wait to utilize it until I was sure I was in the right state of mind before actually doing it. It would be a less painful and slightly modified version of the ever famous classic lambkin tactic when running wasn’t an option. As I told Shanty once, anything in a fight goes when it’s your life on the line. The first one to charge me after the fading light of my three bark blasts was my copy and her shadow puppies. I narrowed my eyes as I brought up my hooves defensively and waited, shadow pom came in low on all fours readying a left upper and the puppies spread out. I dodged forward and to the right out of the path of several shards of black ice, putting me directly into the path of the upper swing. I was still standing on the cement pathway so... The hoof struck me on my lowered right leg intercepting the blow, I wobbled backwards slightly while raising my left leg up. I slapped the ground with my left hoof, creating a shockwave that blasted the four puppies away and knocked back the fake version of me. I raised up launching a right upper into my clones face staggering them further, then hit her with a left and right hook to daze her. Using a left jab to the chest to grappled onto her with my wool, I pulled her close and brought my head back hardening the wool on it and then slammed my skull into hers. once, twice and then I leapt and slammed my full weight down on my copy forcing her to the ground and then I had to leap backwards as a wall of dark flames passed between us blinding me. While blinded, I leapt into a high sideways roll and heard the sound of something hitting the ground near where I just was. I jumped far enough to see again and like I expected, black ice. What I didn’t expect was to see Arizona’s hoof coming for me as I landed. Not able to get my hooves up in time, I was sent flying and tumbling along the ground. Coughing in pain from another harsh blow to my ribs, I saw an alpaca shaped mass coming right at me followed by a smiling shadow Velvet and Tianhuo who were spreading out. If I dodge Paprika’s grab, they both attack and the shadow me was circling around to get behind me slowly, looking like the injury I had dealt to her actually had an effect. This... is not going to well for me. If I get grabbed, then I get skewered. If I dodge I get burn and blinded or poisoned and hypothermia, retreating puts me in the path of being caged in. Instead of dodging, I charged right into Paprika’s lunge. I slung my right hoof up and clawed Paprika along the chest, neck and head. I forcefully slashed at her with my hooves, clawing her up while knocking her back with each frantic blow. Suddenly ramming her onto her back with my right shoulder, I lunged over her as far as I could as fire and ice came together behind me. The resulting explosion of both hot and cold energy coming together nearly staggered me as I slashed at Arizona, she took several steps back to avoid my wild attacks and then charge head first towards me. I dodged to the side and slashed up at the left side of her face with my left hoof and she decided to dodge my attack. Something was wrong here, tickling at the back of my head, something I've possibly forgotten. I’ve been under attack by just about everyone at the start of this fight. I was in the middle of engaging Arizona by deflecting most of her attacks and she was quite aggressive, shadow me was stalking my way with those puppies again, while Tianhuo was taking the air and Velvet was staying out of sight and trying to sneakily poison me. Wait… during all of this fighting… what exactly has the shadow Oleander been doing and where was she?! That was a terrifying thought that had crossed my mind as I grabbed Arizona and positioned her in the path of two icicles, then spun around and threw her up into the path of flames raining down from above at me. I quickly backed away from the resulting explosion, while glancing around me with what little I could see under the darkened sky and not a sign of the shadow Oleander was to be seen anywhere near me. Even Hollow Heart had taken some nearly fatal stabs at me while I was distracted, so what was the Oleander copy doing and why was there a huge chill go down my spine? The other shadows stopped approaching me and they were not looking at me, but something behind me. I slowly turned around to see shadow Oleander with a bright grin on her four red… wait… four, it only had two previously and… oh no! The unicorn shaped mass of shadow roared and started to transform, growing larger into a massive goat legged behemoth with two large clawed arms. So… all this time… they were just distracting me from what shadow Oleander was doing. All so she could have time to build up the energy to transform into the hulking form of what a fully released Fred might look like. It might be an imitation, but it was downright horrifying to witness the giant shadow copy of a demon looking down on me. I tried to leap backwards, only it stomped forward with a unnatural speed and grabbed me out of the air and clenched its right claw around my barrel. “Ahhgggh!” Wailing as its claws dug into my side, I slapped my hooves against the claw, wrist and arm, trying to claw free of it. That wasn’t enough and its grip tightened on me. Tears started streaming from my eyes as I struggled in its grasp, it continued to crush me and was making me bleed. I could suddenly feel myself being sent some energy from Dolly through our bond, I put it to immediate use as fast as I could. I needed to get out of this monsters grasp before it either crushed me or bled me dry. Unleashing a powered up bark blast right into one of the monsters eyes, it flailed and sent me flying from its grasp reflexively. Slapping against the grass, I rolled sideways and stopped on my side to look up at the powerful glow the energy of the bark blast gave off. The other shadows were in pain from all the light of the bark blast exploding near all of them, the shadow Fred beast even lost one of its eyes and was now enraged. Eventually the glow of the blast died down and I saw the other shadows reorient themselves towards me. Struggling to get up onto my four hooves, I was backing away in fear as the shadow Fred took a step in my direction. If I run now they would just endanger people... huh?! I rolled forward avoiding a slicing wing aimed for my neck, I looked back at a lost bit of wool and looked up to see Hollow Heart had returned from destroying the surrounding lights. He simply hovered there in the air and pointed a hoof at me with a grin, all the shadows came charging for me. I slowly got up onto my hind legs, I stumbled to the right slightly and was nicked in the side by a shard of ice. Smacking both my hooves together, a spark erupted from them as I crossed my legs. This, followed by quickly covering both my hooves in wool, caused them to be ignited in bright flames. From the heat and light of my now burning legs, my side started to burn up as the poison immediately petered out before it could even get started with weakening me. The ice had scratched my side next to my heart and I didn’t want that poison to stay there long enough to harm me grievously. Having just painfully lit myself on fire, the shadows and Hollow Heart just stared at me incredulously as I started towards them with my hooves wreathed in flames fighting back the darkness. I was finally in the right state of mind for burning myself alive! The shadow Fred lunged slamming its left claw into the ground and I jumped straight up to land on its arm and then I lunged and threw a flaming right hook to its face making the hulking beast stagger back in pain. “You are not her!” I landed and knocked Tianhuo’s black flame spewing hooves off course and slugged her beautiful face with a flaming left hook while adding claws to it. The wolf claws erupted in the same flames my hooves were covered with and the shadow Tianhuo was sent flopping away in agony. I grabbed my left hind leg with my front hooves and lashed out a kick that caught a scarred Paprika in the base of her throat, I brought my leg to my other and now all four of my hooves were ignited and on fire. Yes Dolly, this was exceedingly painful, but highly warranted given my situation! “You are not them!” I burst forward past my copy slapping a flaming claw swipe with my right hoof across her face and then I jumped for shadow Velvet and kicked off her dissolving ice spike she tried to hit me with and slammed all four of my hooves into her painfully. “I may go down with a whimper, but I will put up a real fight before that!” The fire was slowly spreading over most of my body, my world was pain and I was going to use what time I had to make these shadow monsters and Hollow Heart feel my agony with a literal burning passion!