//------------------------------// // 151. Helpful Heroes. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Earth, Duckberg Park, Pom- I was in really dire situation, then Dolly came in glowing like a rocket. Literally a second later we were joined by a white armored duck on a unicycle and a chicken in blue and white protective gear. Said armored duck hit Dolly with a pie using a mechanical limb that popped out of his armor, at least he had been originally aiming to help with Hollow Heart. This didn’t make me feel much better, but at least I was not going out alone. Dolly leapt up at me glowing brightly, her paws pressed against my body gently, causing me to fall backwards quickly. The warm sparkles enveloping me stopped me before I hit the ground roughly, in fact I softly touched the ground on my back. Looking up, I saw Dolly block Hollow’s left wing scything at her and where my back was. He then swung his right wing around her board to slash Dolly across the left side of her face, she yelped and reflexively kicked out at the nose of her board forcing it upwards to slam into Hollow’s chin. This sent Hollow flying up into the sky flailing out of control from a powerful blow. Dolly wasn’t nearly physically strong enough to have achieved such a blow like that normally, she must have figured out some of what she can do with magic. Falling to the ground landing on her hind legs, Dolly backed up towards me with a determined look watching the sky. Her tongue was hanging out of her mouth as she panted a little and turned to look down at me. “Hey, does it look like it’s going to scar?” Dolly asked as her cheek bled moderately. “Yes.” Truthfully I felt bad about this happening to Dolly. “Oh, so it’s going to look awesome, it’ll make me seem more feisty and fearless!” Dolly turned back and saw Hollow Heart almost on us, I would have commented that she already was tough and adorable. This is when the guy that called himself Gizmo Duck moved into his path and fired two rockets from his armor that wiggled and wobbled every which way in the air, yet they still seemed to be trying to veer towards Hollow. This confused the head shadow monster, he took an explosion to his left flank that spun him around and then the next his the right side of his face knocked him down quite a few feet in the air. “Gizmo Gal, help them while I keep this vicious, vile and violent fiend busy!” He rolled forward quickly on his wheel and helicopter blades popped from the helmet to start spinning, he quickly took to the air. “Wait… you’re not going to be able to…” I tried, but Gizmo Duck was already getting into a fight. Dolly looked to me with worry that I started coughing and then defensively to the chicken in blue and white armor that quickly came over to us. “Leap Lamb right? Well you’ve seen better days.” The chicken crouched down next to me and poked at her visor. She looked me over and then said something that didn’t surprise me. “How are you still alive?” “By doing what I had to, like lighting myself on fire.” I stated flatly in a halfway sincere tone. As horrible as it sounds, lambkin were talented at surviving the whole lighting yourself on fire to survive thing. It is rare that a lambkin will die in or by fire, one of the reasons Tianhuo or Longma in general don’t scare me as much as a poisonous snake. “It was one of the most effective ways to handle them. Don’t worry, I think they are done with trying to harm anyone.” I pointed over to the six shadows in the shadows of a tree in various states of poor health watching Gizmo and Hollow fight, Gizmo was more of a distraction than a real threat to Hollow. Dolly, I and even this chicken weren’t much of a threat either if I’m correct about how powerful Hollow Heart was. “Just from looking at you, I’m surprised you haven’t passed out yet.” The chicken stopped then smiled at me. “Let me guess, you’re very stubborn and hard to kill like Darkwing Duck? Hold on, while I try to help you.” She pulled out a first aid-kit from her back and opened it up. I sighed as my vision blurred slightly, oh how I would wish I could be unconscious right now. Unfortunately the world needed me awake and able to talk about the large problem currently being distracted by Gizmo Duck. “We can’t beat him.” I stated glumly. “What do you mean, Pom of course we…” Dolly didn’t understand. We could beat and maybe even kill the summoned shadows of my friends and me, but not him. Speaking of which, I glanced over at the six shadows and saw Shadow Paprika tending to them under the shade of a tree in the distance and seemed particularly worried about Shadow Tianhuo. I had stopped short of actually tearing Shadow Tianhuo down completely. I hissed at the feeling something cool spreading over my left leg, I looked back to the chicken gently covering my burned limb with aloe. I’m so lucky to be a fluffmancer and that lambkin wool burns slowly unless used in the way I did, on the positive side of things a fluffmancer will never go bald so my wool will grow back. I’m just going to be in constant pain until my body heals. “No, you don’t understand, that ‘THING’ can regenerate from any normal physical injury and is the reason for the swirling clouds. If we don’t send him packing back to the dimension my friends and I stuffed him into when we defeated him the first time, he’ll just kill off every single problem that could vaguely put a stop to him. His end game is creating a portal and unleashing world devouring shadow monsters on everything, he’s doesn’t appear to be strong enough to do that yet thankfully." At least I recognized that while light didn’t weaken Hollow, it did weaken the shadows he summoned to fight me. Physical attacks did little aside from cause pain and magic is definitely required to do any real damage, but I doubt it could we could actually kill him as he is now. At best we’re all on borrowed time at the moment. “I remember having fought him when he was still flesh and blood, but he isn’t anymore. He’s coming after me, because I know the most about how we can even feasibly deal with him. Also, if you can do some form of offensive magic, then that may be able to slow him down somewhat.” “We’re technology experts, we’re not specialized in dealing with mystical, arcane or occult problems. That’s more Mr. McDuck or Lena’s thing, at least Gizmo Duck has him…” The chicken started to say when Gizmo Duck went sliding past us while creating a ditch in his wake. His armor had several large rents in it and it looked badly battered. “Excuse me… cover your eyes!” The chicken reached at a cylinder on her belt with her left hand, pulled something on it with her right and tossed it at the incoming Hollow. Even closing my right eye the noise and powerful flash beyond my right eyelid was fairly disorienting. I heard the following sound of pained otherworldly shriek as something broke through at least two trees and then heard the crash of something big falling over, the vision from my right came back quickly. Weakly sitting up slightly, I saw the sight of Hollow heart tearing apart a tree he slammed into and had subsequently fallen on him. “Ow, my ears, also a tree falling on him only made him angrier.” Dolly said with wide eyes and her left paw raised to her bleeding cheek, she continued to hold her board defensively. Even being a little bit shaken, Dolly stubbornly stood her ground between him and me. It was amazing that we were able to even use that skateboard as an effective weapon so often, it’s comparable to dealing with a 'highly annoying Jaded day’ while she was wielding a yo-yo. “I’m okay to keep going.” Gizmo Duck pushed himself back up onto his wheel and was moving forward once more towards Hollow. “How long do you think you can keep him off of us Fe… Gizmo?” She looked worried for her friend’s current state. “How long do you need Gan- Gal?” Instead of waiting for an answer he adjusted his dented helmet and sped off towards Hollow as the monster fully ripped himself away from destroying the fallen tree by turning it into toothpicks with his bare hooves. The chicken lifted my front right leg and the blinding hot pain... A second or two later when I came to, I noted that Gizmo Gal had finished wrapping a bandage tightly around my leg. “Take care of Caper Canine’s face please… she’s smaller and her bleeding out is more of a problem. I can handle a few more seconds of bleeding.” My request was met with the chicken quickly changing her focus onto Dolly. “Pom, I think you’re injuries are the more serious… hey!” Dolly was interrupted when Gizmo Gal pulled out a small spray bottle and carefully sprayed a substance into the deep cut on Dolly’s cheek and pulled out a different bottle and carefully ran a brush over it to leave a gel that congealed on contact. “There, now I can get back to you.” She turned back to me and started rubbing Aloe over one my hind legs. “Fair warning, I’m not a doctor, but I know how everything in this medical kit works at least.” “Whoa that Gizmo dude is really giving as good as he’s getting…” Dolly was right, Gizmo Duck was putting up quite a fight like I did. Not that Gizmo could actually do anything permanent to Hollow Heart, but the noisemakers, fireworks and other distracting things like a wooden baseball bat carved in the likeness of what was probably Gizmo Gal out of costume. Those various things kept popping out of the armor wielded by seemingly whimsical mechanical limbs was really keeping him in the fight with how confusing and unpredictable they were. After bandaging my left hind leg, Gizmo Gal pulled out her phoned and hit a button, then lifted her right shoulder up to keep it pressed to her head as she worked on my other hind leg. “Hey Violet, when is your sister going to get here? Gizmo Duck is getting torn apart by what amounts to a Shadow Demon according to Leap Lamb. We’re not going to be able to hold this guy off for much longer!” Gal spread the aloe lotion evenly on my right hind leg as she listened to some words. “I’m taking care of Leap Lamb at the moment and she is seriously wrecked. Caper Canine is here too as support and is keeping an eye on the fight, she’s our last resort defensive measure. Leap Lamb said we don’t have the right kind of firepower for this guy and that we’re only delaying the inevitable, we need Lena’s magical prowess. Well... he’s basically regenerating instantly from all physical damage dealt to him, he’s sliding in and out of shadows so fast that Gizmo can barely keep up with him. To make matters worse I only have two more flash bangs left and those won’t actually stop him for long as light doesn’t seem to have any effect of him aside from being blinding. We need some magical punch here like yesterday, before Gizmo goes down! You’re coming? What can you do? Huh… interesting, we’ll try to hold on.” Gizmo Gal then started applying something to a large patch and then place it over my left eye before wrapping bandages around my head. -Lena- “I’m beginning to really hate super heroes!” The leopard yelled as she fired a pistol my way, it bounced off the magic shield I created. I sent a magic blast at her and she ducked into the alleyway, I felt my phone buzz. I pulled it out, checked it and then shouldered it. “Vi? What’s up, I’m kind of busy dealing with mercenaries right now. Huh? Sure, I’ll try to get there as soon as possible.” I zipped out of the way of several bullets. “Be careful and see you there little sis, the streets are really a messed up jumble of threats right now. No, I don’t even know what happened to Launchpad, I’ll be on the move soon.” “Like we’re going to let you…” A purple gas erupted amidst their group and the leopard took a kick to the gut and then got belly bounced away by Darkwing Duck into a buildings wall. “I am the terror that flaps in the night, I am the sponge of justice that will wipe away all evils in this world, I am Darkwing Duck!” Darkwing's well-timed appearance among the mercenaries caused them to be confused, this was followed by Goldie and Scrooge appearing and taking down two of their number from behind. Darkwing was wearing the grey fedora, a purple coat and a fairly large cape that’s probably explosion proof or else he does have a super power for surviving powerful explosions with little injury to show for it. Is determination and perseverance to be a hero a super power? He probably has it. “Get moving lass!” Scrooged shouted at me as he used his cane to hook the gun out of the lithe leopards grasp and tried to hit her with a golf swing, moneybags missed and got a kick to the face for his troubles. A second later the Leopard was slapping Goldie down and while other mercenaries were having problems with Darkwing Duck. I flew higher in the air and shot towards the park. Violet was going to get to the park and assist with a magic spell to send the supposed shadow demon packing. Seriously needed a hero name for myself, I mean Gandra and Fenton had their whole ‘Gizmo’ themed gimmick going for them and then there was Darkwing and Quiverwing with their whole ‘classic hero’ motif. I generated my own super hero costume with magic and yet I didn’t have a name for myself to sound cool. Even Leap Lamb and Caper Canine had earned their hero names, when was I going to get a cool moniker? -Pom- I leaned back avoided a scything wing, took a step or two back to avoid the other and then thrust my left hind leg up to block his right hoof, I was using my left leg to aid in my balance. I rotated my left hind leg outwards and quickly slapped it to the ground to hop up and slam Hollow across the left side of his face with my right hind leg, that was followed by Dolly popping her sparkling skateboard up into his belly to launch him upwards into a pair of electric bolas that wrapped around his hooves and wings while electrocuting him violently. After a few seconds of being violently jerking about while arcs of energy tore at him, Hollow was up on his hooves having snapped free from the bolas and just as angry as when he started the fight. I noted that Hollow’s martial skills were a little lacking compared to the first time when he knocked down every one of my friends single hoofed, that didn’t mean he wasn’t threatening. It seemed the tradeoff was apparently him being fairly indestructible and impossible to keep incapacitated for more than five seconds. Any serious injury dealt to Hollow quickly healed, aside from the white scars from the flaming wolf claw I dealt to his face being the only thing that hadn’t. He was refusing to stay down, unlike him his summoned Shadows were staying well away from us when they could be actively joining the fight at any time to help the tireless Hollow win against us. I wonder, was I the reason they weren’t attacking? Were they mindless before we fought? Did I injure them too badly? Can’t be that, Shadow Paprika was still relatively healthy and so was Shadow Arizona. So many questions, too many for my tired and troubled mind. “I set those bolas for full power, technology is definitely not going to work if that couldn’t knock him out.” Gizmo Gal certainly hadn’t held back. Gizmo Duck was in the middle of making repairs his currently sparking, battered and ramshackle armor while we held off Hollow. “Ugh… what is it going to take to keep him down?!” “A lot more than whatever we currently have.” I quietly answered as Dolly held her board horizontally in front of her and moved forward slightly in front of me. She was not happy. Gizmo Gal had capture, incapacitating and support based gear, which thankfully included medical kits in case of accidents. Gizmo Duck for his part had the more direct weaponry and assortment of random stuff to deal with heavier or trickier opponents in just about any situation, he also had repair and medical kit somewhere in his armor. Gizmo Duck’s rockets in particular were unusual in the fact that they’d never fly straight for more than a single second before veering wildly out of control, the things he did was completely unpredictable and he was well armored. Gizmo Gal had more controlled gear, but was far more predictable as to what she can do aside from having the ability to do some interesting things with electricity and had less armor comparably. They balanced each other out I think. Hollow definitely had the other shadows beat me down with the thought that he needed to weaken me enough to take care of himself, which was fairly flattering in a twisted kind of way that he took me as a seriously dangerous opponent to his eventual plans when before I hardly did much to help put a stop to him previously. An extending fist knocked an incoming Hollow further away from us and through a park bench, said fist retracted back to Gizmo Duck who continued to work on fixing his armor as much as he could while had the chance. “Give me another minute or so to get some of my armors more important functions operational again.” Gizmo Duck stated as he pulled out an object and put oiled some of the joints on the arms of his armor. “We might not be able to do much more than delay him, but we can hold him here.” “Well that won’t be too hard, one of his goals is to kill me after all.” At this rate I was likely to die before noon. Even being a little bit patched up, I’m in a poor state. “That alone will keep him here for as long as I live.” “We’re not letting that happen Pom!” Dolly shouted as she kept an eye out. “I’m sorry for even letting him get by me even once to get a chance at you.” “It’s okay Caper Canine.” I patted Dolly gently on the head with my wrapped up left hoof. “I’m not out of the fight yet.” “Can’t the dog do magic?” Gizmo Gal asked as she looked to Dolly who was preparing for an incoming Hollow. “She recently gained her ability to even use it, so we’re not exactly aware of what she’s fully capable of or it will be even helpful from what she’s already doing. Before you ask my magic is completely drained, tapped out even, and using any more would be bad as to be life threatening.” I kept my eyes on Hollow as he came diving in. “If you have a light, that might help stop him from moving through shadows. Otherwise get ready, we’re helpless when it comes to actually defeating him, but we’re not entirely hopeless yet.” “Why do you say that?” Gizmo Gal asked as I was busy sending ideas between me and dolly, we agreed on a moment’s notice and reacted. “Since I still have some… KICK… left in me.” I lunged forward over Dolly thrusting my right rear hoof forward and up his chin causing him to flip upside down. Following my pun and attack, Dolly swung around from my left and swung the board upwards into his spine twice in two rapid spins whipping it about, then slowed down to dragging it along the ground and launching it upwards into one of his wings as she sent him flopping away. “Well you two are quite bombastic, eyes shut!” Gizmo Gal stated as she threw her second flash bang, I did as she asked and once the flash had passed, we could see a disoriented Hollow. We were also as disoriented. “That’ll only hold him for ten seconds, we need to hold on until Violet and Lena arrive.” “That’s going to be a big ask.” When even landing good hits was hurting me. -Equus, Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Jaded La Perm- “Okay, what are we doing?” My sister Jacky asked as three bowls of cereal sat before us. “As Drip said, we’re simply pouring milk.” I answered and pointed to Drip, the plumbing bat pony currently clearing his throat. “Look it’s a test to see if Blackcap is really as unlucky as she seems, also I want to see if Lingo can really set Cereal on fire just by pouring milk on it.” Drip put down a frosty glass bottle of milk on the table. “Jade is here to prove that she is our mayor’s daughter and provide a sense of normalcy.” “How would I be doing that?” I asked lazily, though I did narrow my eyes at Drip. “Also in what world would I ever be considered even remotely normal?” “Look this will be good and I don’t mean any disrespect Jade. First, Jacky pours a single drop into the bowl and puts the milk down quickly. We don’t want her dropping the milk or spilling it.” Drip seemed intent on seeing this happen. Glancing around the room while pointing at the bottle of milk, he announced loudly. “Just so everyone knows, this is normal pasteurized milk! Now go ahead Jacky.” Jacky looked to me and I motioned for her to go ahead, my parrot sister with the long black feathers dangling down her back slowly and carefully picked up the bottle of milk and ever so slowly tilted it until one drop of milk dropped into the first cereal bowl. She managed to put the milk down before she was blasted off her feet by the contents of the bowl exploding violently and directly in her given direction. “Ow.” Jacky groaned from the floor. “Okay next, Lingo will pour some milk into the bowl, just so everyone knows we’re using the same cereal in each bowl from the same box. Its general oatmeal O’s cereal.” Drip continued his spiel about what we were doing. “Just don’t fill the bowl Lingo.” The other bat pony poured some milk and not twenty seconds later the bowl caught fire, much to everyone’s surprise and after a minute or so it went out. “My amigo Lingo here is somewhat cursed when it comes to cooking, but not nearly as literally as Jacky is.” Drip answered to the audience’s curiosity. “Ooh, it turned into cheese!” I scooped up a chunk of cheese from the bowl with a spoon and ate it. “Huh… all the cereal transformed into gorgonzola, isn’t that like... completely impossible?” “Now pour some into the third bowl Jade.” After Drip asked me to, I did so and the bowl just gave off a faint golden glow. “Well that proves your Kuril’s daughter to everyone, you just made a perfect bowl of cereal.”