//------------------------------// // 149. Matchstick. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -????, Oleander- “You… you really think I can be a hero?” The green haired kid looked hopeful. “Sure thing, but there’s a lot of ways one can be a hero.” I stated bluntly as I looked at Fred after he was busy chewing on the soul from the sludge monster that nobody was going to miss anytime soon. “Just… don’t expect Fred to be a very good hero, though he can do heroic things if it benefits him.” “Why wouldn’t I do heroic things when it benefits me? I ENJOY THE PAIN AND SUFFERING OF MY ENEMIES!” The kid seemed shaken up by the switch to the speaking all languages at once thing demons did to freak people out. “You know, you could help him with it, being a hero I mean.” Looking curiously at Dust Man when he made that suggestion, wait… why is Dust Man with us again? Oh right, I was helping him with getting away from his overly depressing life. “You said you had a dimension that you tend to train in right?” “Yes, but the last time we were there… my friend Butt here kind of did an awkward thing to one of the more lethal indigenous species to that realm. There are a few reasons why we shouldn’t use that world for your training Mister…?” I trailed off while looking to the kid. “Mioriya Izuku, call me Izuku.” He said clapping his hands together and bowed to us. “Please I’d do just about anything to become a hero!” -Xenomorph dimension- A xenomorph drone couldn’t recall why it woke up on the floor feeling weird many days ago. The xenomorph had no clue what was wrong with it, but it’s been in quite a bit of pain for a while and the other xenomorphs were curiously staring at it. “Scree?” The Xenomorph looked to its chest and felt an indescribable amount pain, a pair of horns ripped out of its chest. Said horns were soon followed by a squealing little foal, made entirely of diamond, completely erupting out of it while flailing its tiny hooves into the air and whinnying loudly. The black banana headed monster fell backwards and died in a pool of its own acid blood. The pandoran bicorn crawled out of it sniffing the air. Quickly shaking the mostly harmless molecular acid off its protective molecular diamond skin, the foal galloped into the nearby ducts. The sound of another xenomorph dying an agonizing death could be heard seconds later, before things became very quiet. “Scree-eee!?” One of the other xenomorphs stated while staring at the vent in clear shock, which when roughly translated into Equus meant ‘what the buck?’ in their screeching language. -Earth, Duckberg Park, Pom- “Through my fire and flames.” I charged forward and dodged under shadow Paprika’s lunge, I spun around shadow Arizona’s disturbing rope like tongue, I dove past a right hook delivered from a familiar hoof of my copy and narrowly avoided the leaping and biting shadow puppies that followed her, I rolled into a slide between the two legs of shadow Fred and charged down the most problematic of all these shadows. I kicked up into the air and flew over a diving Hollow Heart who followed me with his eyes as his scything wings missed me. “I carry on!” My hooves created a trail of heated air as I closed in on my first target I needed to bring down, the red eyes of Shadow Velvet flew wide open as she didn’t have time to drop her shards and create an ice spike. Firing her shards at this range meant she would miss. I slammed a left hook that created three flaming claws marks seared into her face and splatters drops of viscous fluid all over my left leg most of which burned up in the flames on my left hoof. My right hoof rammed forward into her chest making her gasp lifting her up onto her hind legs, my left hind leg came up and struck her stomach doubling the shadow over and then I slung right hoof uppercut into her chin. She went flying into a tree and bounced off of it, by then I was already underneath her and facing the other shadows and simply thrust my left hoof straight to feel a weight land on it. Looking up I saw the look on Shadow Velvet’s face as three flaming claws erupted out of her back. Reaching up with my right hoof to get a grip on her, slung her forward at the feet of the other shadows charging toward me. Shadow Velvet had a look of horror her face and her breathe was quickening and I could see the fear in her eyes as she laid on the ground bleeding a strange substance and specks of light started shining from her wounds. She was no longer capable of attacking me, but the others still were. Shadow Paprika came at me next, seemingly shrinking to a certain size as the rest of her mass focused into her right limb as she slung it forward and it stretched out for me. I was already charging forward, my left hoof raised and ducking under the mass. She pulled back the mass and then slung out her left limb, I spun to the left twice and out of the way of the mass. “Mach lefter!” I slammed my hoof into the shadows face so fast that her head caught fire and snapped to the left with a crack as if there were possible bones in her neck threatening to shatter from the blow. She barely stayed on her hooves and stumbled to my right slightly from the blow showing clear surprise in her blood red eyes. As her mass started to return I was already jabbing at away at her chest and belly with my front hooves, when her mass fully returned she finally blocked and started wobbling. My eyes darted to the right and then left. She slammed both her hooves forward at me and I blocked with my right leg and grunted at the pain shooting throughout it as the bones in my leg creaked. My entire body shuddered as I rammed my left hoof straight into the top of a charging Shadow Arizona’s skull. Shadow Arizona went flying and her flailing body snapped a tree in half, I deflect the left hoof strike Shadow Paprika sent at me with my right hoof and she visibly grimaced in pain at the heat of the flames my hooves were covered in. That moment was long enough for me to grab her leg twisted it outwards to… my eyes snapped to the right. I inhaled, then calmly exhaled. Lifting my flaming left hind leg, I pivoted Shadow Paprika’s left side while dragging her hoof behind her back with my right hoof, I snapped out my left hind leg to the left side of an incoming Shadow Tianhuo’s face. I flexed my spine and leaned backwards in front of the shadow alpaca, with a jerk of my right hoof I caused Shadow Paprika’s face to come close to mine and I gave her a teasing kiss on the nose. The Shadow Paprika went cross eyed and her left eye twitched as she froze up completely paralyzed. Pressing my burning left hoof against the stunned Shadow Paprika’s chest at her heart, I activated my magic claws to gain purchase on her body and lifted both my hind legs off the ground before the shadow puppies could bite at my heels. After slamming my rear hooves down on backs of the two shadow puppies, I lifted them both againg and bucked the still rolling in slow motion Tianhuo in the chin and I felt her jaw shattered under the blow in a shower of flames from my hind legs as she went tumbling away. Using the blow from bucking Tianhuo to flip backwards, I also used my current momentum to twist Shadow Paparika’s left front leg in such a way that I was able to get my left leg into better position on her right shoulder where I had the flaming claws clench painfully. My momentum plus my grip on Shadow Paprika had me lifting her up and slamming her down on top of Shadow Pom and the two other shadow puppies behind me with a painful crushing force as I fell backwards. Letting go of Shadow Paprika I rolled backwards up and over her form, then rolled two more times as I avoided three scything swings slashes of Hollow Heart’s wings he chased me down. At least up until I was on my hind legs. He quickly flew back when I missed throwing a two hoofed rightward swinging haymaker for his face. This is when the world returned to normal speed, as did the intensity of the pain I was in form the flames wreathing my legs. I was struck in the chest and coughed up flecks of red barely visible in the light of the flames on my worsening burns as I backed up from Shadow Arizona, she lashed out her tongue and it slammed into the left side of my face turning my head into her left upper hoof. My left eye was swollen from the blow from the tongue, but not completely shut. The next blow to my face left me bleeding from my nose on my side on the ground propped up on my front left knee as to not set fire to the grass. Even losing this seemingly meager amount of blood was becoming too much for me as Shadow Fred, raised his arms above his head behind me and was about to bring them down. In front of me was Shadow Arizona and the two puppies I had hit with Shadow Paprika’s body charging me. Shadow Tianhuo swooped forward building flames upon her hooves and dark flames that sucked the light out of the surroundings the closer she got. I rolled to the right flicked two jabs to knock away the shadows puppies, I ducked under the flames coming at me from above as I charge forward and hopped over the tongue lashing out for my hind legs from Shadow Arizona. Landing in a crouch before the shadow cow, I threw a hopping right uppercut to start slamming Arizona with repeated flimsy rolling uppercuts that staggered her with each blow, making her back up with each hit. One more leftward uppercut and I hopped to the left as a claw swiped for my back and my hind left leg was hit with burning dark flames making my already burning limb even worse. Sweat fell from my brow as I stomped my left hind leg sending up dust and dirt to put out the flames on both my hind legs, I crouched and pushed backwards head first into the belly of Shadow Fred. I flexibly shifted my hind legs, the pain in them made it hard to kick off of shadow demon’s stomach before Shadow Pom could nail me with a flying buck. All four of my hooves met Shadow Poms face and I kicked hard, flipping off of her and over Arizona. A flash of a swooping shadow made me immediately fluff out the portions of my wool to stop dead in the air and slicing scythe shaped wing slashed me across the forehead. I bucked Hollow across the face with my hind legs and promptly fell to the ground on my back with an even worse facial wound. Every motion was taking its toll on my body, every breath invited daggers to stab my insides and the ends of all my legs were pain and suffering. I still rolled and forced myself onto my hind legs as Shadow Fred brought his left fist down, he was surprised to see my left hoof slashing flaming claws across the shadows terrifying mask like face. I gritted my teeth and leapt away from all the shadows and landed on the pavement of the sidewalk near, I had to take down more of them. The Shadow Velvet was out of the fight, given the glance I just sent her made her recoil and cower. It was still curious that shadows could be afraid, what am I actually fighting here? These weren’t normal mindless shadow monsters that devoured everything around them. They could hesitate, they could bleed, they understood fighting… my heart went out to them, but I wanted to live. Shadow Pom was the closest to going down and the four Shadow Puppies looked to be vaguely wary of charging me again. Shadow Fred held no fear despite the damage I dealt to his face again, he was too powerful to face head on... hmm. Shadow Tianhuo looked like she had a broken jaw and was looking like she was stoically willing to stay in the fight. Shadow Arizona’s face had seen better days, but she had a hide similar to Arizona, but not quite the same. Hollow Heart had no injuries despite any blows I may have landed on him. Shadow Paprika, just stood off to the side looking between the other shadows and me with despair, she turned and looked to Velvet and started moving towards her. She knelt down and started to hug and comfort her, Shadow Velvet looked surprised and eventually she raised a hoof weakly and stroked the shadow alpaca’s face. Hollow Heart ignored what Shadow Paprika was doing, his focus and intent to kill was solely on me, making him ignore what I just saw. I was beginning to understand what made each and every single one of these shadows tick, to my horror these things I was fighting were thinking and feelings beings and not just the mindless world devouring shadow monsters. Running towards them I focused my good eye on Arizona as my left was almost fully swollen shut, they spread out and Arizona came at me too ready to attack. If I was right and both my intuition and profiling abilities weren’t lying then… I ducked under her rightward swing my right flaming hoof grabbed her right hind leg. My left flaming leg went down on it as I good grasp on her leg as I continued running forward on my hind legs and then I swung her around to throw her at Shadow Tianhuo knocking her from the air. I brought both my hooves together and feinted an overhead attack, Shadow Pom went to block high and her dogs bit into my hind legs and it was exceptionally painful on my burnt flesh. I ignored all that as I wrapped my hooves around the other Pom’s torso bringing our heads close to one another. “We’re not the same… you’re not me and you shouldn’t be trying to be, you can still be you. Baa-Ram-Ewe, I recognize you as a lambkin. I beg of you... please stay away from the rest of this fight.” I whispered to the battered Shadow Pom as I gently hugged her and lifted her into the air pulling her back and to the right, there were tears in my eyes. “You deserve to live as much as I do.” Her eyes widened and she gave me an undefined look as I twisted around to throw her. I was ignoring the puppies still digging their fangs into my hind legs and clinging to me as I harshly pivoted clockwise. Our eyes locked onto one another, Shadow Pom frowned and gave me a light nod before I sent her sailing in Shadow Paprika and Velvet’s direction. She tumbled and one of her legs bent in a way that meant it was obviously broken, she closed her eyes and her mouth tightened as she bled on the ground like Shadow Velvet. The puppies let go and frantically ran towards her leaving me bleeding from my hind legs, when Shadow Pom eventually opened her eyes there was a new light in them as she gave me a grim if brave look. Her eyes flicked to the left before returning back to mine. That was all the hint I would get to duck. Shadow Fred swept his massive claws where my head used to be and I’m fairly sure the blow would have taken my head off had it landed. I did a leaping cartwheeled to the left and away from the three downed shadows to draw the still standing shadows my way. One thing these unusual shadows respected was both strength and conviction. Only three left, but could I really take Shadow Fred? Something was up with him. Shadow Arizona I had figured out and could remove her with one sharp hit to her weak point, as for Shadow Tianhuo… I was going have to save her for last for personal reasons. My front hooves were agonized as I forced more wool to them to keep the fire going, but the flames were starting to peter out and flicker. Everything was getting colder despite how much my skin blistered from the heat. Shadow Fred went bright his left claw in an overhead strike for me, I rolled towards Shadow Arizona and she lunged with her left hoof going for a straight to the belly. My roll ended on my back and lashed out both my hind legs low and straight into her large udders, her eyes widened and her pupils shrunk as she flew back… even Shadow Arizona had bigger udders than the actual Arizona and that was a major problem for her. Shadow Arizona landed on her butt and skidded in the grass, she didn’t move as I ran forward and slammed a flying buck into her chest that sent her tumbling towards the other shadows sitting off to the side. Landed on my back for the umpteenth time in this fight, I rolled to the left to avoid being stomped on by Shadow Fred. This was followed by twisting my slightly body into rolling a different direction before Hollow Heart could split me open from my belly to neck and with a bit of finagling I rolled into standing on my hind legs again facing Shadow Tianhuo. I inhaled, brought my still burning front hooves together and then bowed my head to her, then I looked at her with a glare in my right eye. She stopped her forward movement and the darkness flames on her hooves stopped building, she landed and her flaming dark wings flickered out of existence. She stared at me sternly and stood waiting as I turned to face Shadow Fred. Shadow Tianhuo bowed her head, good, she understood my gesture. Shadow Fred, moving fast, came at me and I slashed my hooves at him arms as I moved into his attack and under his face. I thrust my right hoof straight up into his chin and he stumbled back, I kicked off the ground and slashed at the other two eyes as fast as I could. A blur of flaming claws ripped into the mask until a though occurred, why was Fred a mask? My left hoof gripped the top edge of the mask and I propped my hind legs against his chest while grabbing the other side of it with my right hoof. Shadow Fred grabbed at my spine and started crushing it in it's left claw. I heaved and the mask came off and dissipated, taking away almost all of Shadow Oleander’s strength wasn’t too hard for me to figure out as she wasn't made to fight in her base form. As the shadow behind the mask immediately shrunk down to a unicorn and her two red eyes were wide as I came down and brought both my hooves down on her horn. She let out a raspy sound as her mouth opened in a silent scream as face dug a furrow into the ground. I hit the ground rolling forward behind her, skidded to a stop, turned around to run forward and leap into the air before flipping and bringing my left rear hoof down on her spine, then I snapped my right leg down and Shadow Oleander spine cracked and she went limp. I kicked off her body sending it flopping away in a specific direction. Landing on both my hind legs, I brought up my front legs. They were suffering beyond first degree burns at this point, getting closer to second as the nerve endings in my legs screamed at me to put the fire out. I gestured with my right hoof towards myself, before lift my left leg off the ground and bouncing in place. Traditional Dancing Flame stance, Shadow Tianhuo matched me a second later. “Ferocious…” I charged forward. “Fiery…” Shadow Tianhuo matched my movements, she started up her own fiery flurry attack. Unfortunately for her, my attack would be a modified version. “Flurry… Fury! Arooo-~.” I howled as I closed my eyes and just pushed into my attack with all I had, I could feel our attacks effectively blocking one another. My front legs felt like they were going fall off as I kept pushing my flaming hooves one strike after another as hard as I could as fast as I could feasibly push them, I could feel the heat coming off both of us and we were both being scorched by swirling light and dark in equal parts. There was a small problem here for Shadow Tianhuo though, for every one of my strikes she blocked the erupting magical claws bypassed her onslaught and tore into her. I continued howling as I felt portions of wool around my body burned, the blunt trauma started pounding bruises into me as my wool stopped being armor after a certain point. Whatever I was currently feeling, I just knew she was getting at least three times as much back. “oooooooo-“ The sound of my howl could be heard echoing throughout the city. It felt like wolves were leaping off my hooves and clawing at Shadow Tianhuo, soon the onslaught against me slowly petered out and I kept pushing until… My howl didn’t died on my lips, it just disappeared into nothingness as if I had never howled at all. I opened my right eye and stopped in one last instant… somewhere in my flurry of attacks my right hoof had burnt out, literally my right leg was burnt so badly I could hardly move it. The last light of my still burning left leg, flickered as it was held before Tianhuo’s face… her green scales, her flaming mane and a bright if simply smile. I slowly shook my head of the image and the vision turned into a bloody looking Shadow Tianhuo who was smiling as she slowly went from barely stand up on her hind hooves to slowly laying herself down on her back. Vicious claw markings littered her body entire body, yet she smiled at me so serenely with a broken jaw. Taking a step to the left and the scything right wing of Hollow Heart barely nicked the right side of my face. Using the last bit of burning flames on my left hoof, I was about to give Hollow Heart whatever passes for a black eye with all my sorrow, frustration and ruined hopes for this day. My left hoof flickering like a matchstick against the last shadow left to fight, my hoof clawed straight into his right eye with the clear intent to scar it for making me fight these shadows of my friends and myself. Hollow Heart was sent bouncing across the ground past Shadow Tianhuo, he tried to right himself, he tried to stay upright and eventually flopped onto his side tearing through the grass of the park. Eventually Hollow Heart stood up, he opened his eyes, his right eye had healed fast. Only... the right side of his face had three white glowing scars that didn’t look like they would heal over. Hollow frowned, reaching up with his hoof, upon feeling the scares he glared at me. I had finally done some real damage to his pride. Too bad for me, I really don’t know how much more of a fight I could put up as he came flying at me angry. I was bleeding out, all four of my legs were all badly burned, my hooves were cracked, I had fracturing bones, I could only see out my right eye as my left refused to open and I could hardly do any fluffmancy now. Not like my wool could protect me before as Hollow Heart has shown he could cut through it. My breathing was haggard, my body was giving out on me and if I didn’t another dancing flame maneuver like that last one… yeah… I’m spent. “… ” Calmly I brought up both my front hooves, my right leg wavering in it's unsteady movement and narrowed my right eye. Both his wings scythed forward. He looked surprised when both my hooves caught them and they came to a dead stop he tried to press the scythes forward and they didn’t move an inch as he ended up standing before me on his hind legs. His front legs prepped to attack me, only I moved first. I pulled my forehead back and used what little magical strength I had left in me to harden my wool before slamming my forehead into his nose with a sickening crunch that sent him skidding backwards with surprising force. Add total magic exhaustion to the list. “I’m not… dying… to you.” I tried to keep my voice steady as my throat felt raw as I saw him stumble into falling on his backside with a broken nose that was quickly restructuring itself and healing already. I could faintly hear Dolly screaming for me to hold on, as a still strong Hollow Heart finally came at me fully with rage.