//------------------------------// // Shadows of the--Crab Battle! // Story: The Dreaded Love Bird // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Author Note: To reiterate I don't take my story seriously. Now nobody expects anything of me. Just the way I like it. The looming shadow stood over Kazooie and she looked up at it with a bored interest, she had already made sure to capture the ponies involved in the summoning and would have to hoof them over to the proper authorities. This is the first time she’s ever been in a crab battle before, not that it wasn’t as nearly as bad as the giant welding torch or the giant monster made of coal. There were also the monsters that Kazooie fought that weren’t of her own home world of the video game realms. Idly Kazooie thought that many a creature should really count themselves lucky that the Bydo couldn’t dimensionally jump out of their own series of games for varying reasons. It was impractical to fly an R-type ship without a Force given one always tends to immediately explode with non existence outside its game, which is why she had a different ship ready in case she ever needed to shoot the core. She probably wouldn’t need to use it as this fight should be simple enough on hoof with all the tricks she has under her belt. Now that she thought of it, if Discord ever got his powers back and pissed her off hard enough she could feed him to some Bydo… Standing in front of Kazooie was a giant onyx crab covered in small sparkling white spots with spindly legs, two large claws and big beady red eyes on stalks the size of her body and its tail slapped the ground. “You know, I bet hitting you with a special shampoo won’t make you go away will it?” The creature roared in Kazooie’s face snapping its left claw closed sending a temporary blast of powerful flames into the air as her mane was blown back by the roaring. “And you have the ability of a pistol crab scaled to size… just great. This is going to feel just like old times.” Elsewhere coming to a stop, Big Mac felt his sister wake up abruptly and decided to let her off of his back gently and started to untie her. After getting the gag out of her mouth Applejack was immediately panicked asking what happened. “Ugh… Mac where am I? What the hay happened and where’s my hat!” Though she only incurred minor injuries having black eye, Applejack received her beloved hat plopped tightly onto her head before she received a big old hug from her protective older brother. “Glad to see you too brother, what happened the last thing I remember is talking to Steven and then going to abandoned warehouse before something smacked me in the back of the head.” Big Mac explained how he met the strangest pony ever in as few words as possible; in fact he might have just as well pulled a shape shifting Mario to explain everything. “And you just left her behind?” In some small part Applejack could understand, it was dark out he must have been pretty tired and that winged equine obviously knew what she was doing. Applejack wished she was told about the private investigator that the Oranges had hired or that she walked into a warehouse full of dangerous lunatic ponies. “Aw shucks, I’m sure she’s okay and knows what she’s doing.” A series of small explosions can be heard in the distance and a screeching roar soon followed, this had averted both of their attentions towards the docks. A giant creature in the distance trying to futilely swat at a small pony firing what amounted to green dots from this distance that exploded against its carapace in a visible fashion and it was noticeable that one of its eyes had been blow off and looked to have been coming back almost immediately as it was lost. While they were distracted by the fight, a loud unidentifiable sound was heard behind them causing them to turn around as their manes billowed in the winds created by a circlular portal with wavy colors like Vinyl Scratch's mane moving inside. Out of the portal stepped a blue feathered bird with purple tips. “Excuse me, but is this where the Crab Battle is taking place?” Both the ponies pointed out the obvious fight in the background. “Oh, right… yes… I should’ve looked before asking. Nice to see you again Applejack and before you ask, I have met you before and as to how… let’s say it’s a matter of time.” “Who the…” Applejack started. “Khronozooie is the name; palette swapped my feathers purple and blue after my game.” The now named Khronozooie interrupted bowing to them and turned to the fight at hand. “My old flame is giving that monster a good fight, to bad she’s not going to defeat it before it kills a lot of ponies before the dawn of the night. It would eat her up inside to remember that you guys are not resettable NPC’s, sorry for the rhyming I really do fancy that Zecora gal’s manner of speech. I’m a professional time traveler by trade.” “Time travel… like that one time Twilight…” Applejack started to say, Big Mac just stared at the bird because her voice was exactly the same as Kazooie’s. “Oh my, that was a horrendously funny moment, creating a stable time loop like she did by accident. Unfortunately for you I ironically don’t have much time to explain my presence, just know that I’m here to help.” Reaching into a equally palette swapped mystical red backpack, the bird drew a sword and tossed it in the air ala meta-knight and it landed in front of Applejack point down. “Remember what I’m about to tell you exactly or else things will go pear shaped. Take the sword, raise it to the sky and shine the light from it onto the beast. Now this next bit is very important… YOU… yes you Applejack, have to kill it personally by putting the pointy end into it multiple times where the sword says to and don’t stop till it dies. If you don’t do this many ponies will assuredly die including the culprits and you definitely don’t want that, you’ll know what to do from there afterwards. Oh, and tell her she’s playing the C-left too harshly on her ocarina.” With that Khronozooie raised a small key shaped object to the sky and disappeared into another… was it a time portal? Seconds after her disappearance a blue box appeared and out popped a harried looking light brown stallion with a tie. He ran up to them to say something but as he opened his mouth another blue portal opened up and Khronozooie ran out of it and into the blue box with the word’s ‘police box’ posted above it. The portal quickly closed and the police box disappeared in a flash. “What the… AH, BISCUITS!” The stallion turned around and ran off leaving a perplexed Applejack and Big Mac behind. Applejack looked at the sword in the ground and gripped it in her hoof and hefted it out of the ground with relative ease. “Um… what.” All of that was very strange and Applejack didn’t even know anyone who played the ocarina, it had to be a unicorn she probably didn’t yet know or something. Ah heck, she wasn’t good at understanding that complicated timey wimey wibbly wobbly hoo-ha stuff anyway. Big Mac took her hoof and raised it into the air still holding the sword and light started splash outward from the sword at all angles despite there being no sunlight at this time of day. Her brother turned her around to face the creature the beams of light focused all to one point and that was towards the giant thrashing creature that was sending blasts of deadly fire out of its claws as they snapped shut with amazing strength. It was surprising the red pegasus wasn’t shot down or fried out of the sky from all the intense heat. Looking towards Big Mac, Applejack didn’t like the idea of going near that thing. Big Mac gently ran a hoof down her back several times calmingly, whoever that Khronozooie was she gave a clear ultimatum to act or let ponies die. If she were to be honest, Applejack didn’t want to go near the creature, fight it and ultimately slaughter it. With ponies lives on the line she had no choice and it was already doing a lot of collateral damage to the surrounding buildings. Wait what was that pegasus doing now? Kazooie had blown up both its eyes five times already and had promptly learned a disturbing fact about the creature she was fighting. The disturbing thing was not that she really wished it had that creepy boss intro music along with the name and goofy underscore title card to go with it. What was really disturbing is she should have had ultimately injured it permanently when one of the eyes were blown out and she put an explosive egg into its brain. She even partially atomized one of its claws with an unending barrage and cracked its shell in numerous places, but the soonest she did damage it was like it healed. She even took to firing alternate egg types at random from both her mouth and her butt in concert and because of her current form both were nailing the crab in a staccato of blasts with varying effects. It barely did much, but the ice eggs noticeable slowdown its healing processes and cauterizing the wounds with fire eggs didn’t do anything as it was able to heal its cauterized flesh, apparently the battery eggs just made its eye twitch in an amusing matter. So she landed on the ground to start up a special attack that would probably be boosted by the effect of already being a fast running creature. She turned away from the crab monster and started galloping; she pushed her four legs to the limit as she charged forward. Soon a single after image popped up behind her, then a second, then a third and finally a faint fourth. She was started to flash between her normal colors and bright full body yellow. “What in the…” Applejack started slowly. “Eyup, world.” Big Mac finished for her. Kazooie ran up the building directly in front of her, she quickly stopped and crouched against the side of the building and a distinct shrieking of pressure could be heard filling the air as she prepared to kick off of the building. She held up her right hoof against her body and it started to glow fiercely. “Falcon... shinespark…” The building that Kazooie had been standing on now had a crater and a giant falcon in the form of a beam was now shooting at the crab’s upper torso, the second she reached the crab she threw her right hoof forward screaming as she hit its head dead center. “PUNCH!” The flash was so bright even Celestia could see it from the distance she and Luna were at. “What in our names… was that?” Turning to her sister, Luna could see Celestia was just as surprised to see a giant flash of white coming from off in the distance. Celestia could only hope it was something that defeated Cancer; she picked up her pace considerably. Kazooie had promptly slammed into the ground creating a small crater after passing through what was once the creatures head. She had disassembled its entire upper torso at the molecular level and had destroyed both its heart and brain, not to mention its claws and most of what passed for its organs that existed seconds ago. That was one of the most powerful attacks known to fighting video game characters, only to be made more powerful if she could ever get the Psycho Crusher to work with it. Kazooie might have needed either evil energy or a full power bar for that to happen. “I dare you to Wolverine from that one you jerk!” It was said as Kazooie stumbled about in her crater a good twenty feet from where she punched the monster in half with a hoof leaving only it’s legs and lower half untouched on the ground. Slowly the tail end of the creature started to react and its lower torso started to rebuild its upper torso, causing Kazooie to balk. “Oh, come on!” Kazooie said popping up out of the crater throwing hooves out wide in the air, before falling back into the crater to let her body rest for a second. Applejack and Big Mac thought that the situation had solved itself, but to see the giant monster rebuilding itself after such a devastating impossibly powerful attack… that was rather disheartening. Especially given the pegasus went beyond the impossible to punch out a giant crab. “If it can come back from that then what can this sword possibly do to it?” The glum nature in which she said it was suddenly abruptly halted as Big Mac got his sister sitting upright on his back and started heading in the direction of the regenerating creature. “I reckon that sword was given to you for a reason and it all adds up.” They came to a stop a short way away from the creature, Big Mac was ready to be Applejacks legs should she need him. Applejack held up the sword and the light didn’t focus on any point of the creature. As it neared completion of its head and started to grow back its claw arms, the sword lit up and glowing runes could be seen appearing on the underside of the crab. A second rune could be barely made out on its back before it stood up putting a shadow over both of them, but Applejack had seen it and that was enough for her. “Why don’t I like the looks of that?” They were now heading straight for its underside at a full gallop, the light just pointing at the creature now. Applejack swallowed a lump in her throat and prepared to thrust her sword towards the center of the glowing rune filled circle. Applejack aimed at the center of the circle on its belly and swiftly stuck the sword into it. This caused the parts of the creature that managed to regenerate to shudder violently as it screeched a vile black energy poured out from where it was punctured and Applejack stabbed it again. It convulsed and its rate of healing slowed drastically and a second stream of black energy poured out and with a third stab the rune disappeared and the crab’s rate of healing more than halved and it tried to smash the two ponies attack it with the stump of its left arm. Big Mac backed off and started running from it as it stood up with its partially regenerated head, you could actively see it slowly regenerating its shell and flesh now instead of seeming instantaneous. The crab monster started to move forward on its unsteady legs as its brain completed regeneration. “Um…” Big Mac said as he made sure to stay out of the way of crabs slowly reforming claws. “There’s another circle thing on its back… but how the hay am I supposed to get up there with it thrashing around?” There was the fact that she already resigned herself to this, but Applejack didn’t pay it any mind as that creature needed to be put down and whatever the sword was doing to it was working wonders on making sure it couldn’t heal as the wounds on its belly stayed and were leaking small puffs of darkness. “I can help you with that!” Coming in low into view of Applejack and Big Mac, Kazooie gave them a cheery smiled as she flew overhead. “Give me and my friends a minute to knock it down! So Philomena tell me, how was your day yesterday?” The phoenix chirped cheerily at having had a lot of fun and that Screwball learned a few tricks, Owlowiscious was just precious with how he treated Screwball like a daughter he theoretically could have. They chatted as if there wasn’t a battle going on at all and they both swerved out of the way of a halfway regenerated right claw. “Well hopefully she remembered how to… oh never mind she figure out how to change back I guess.” Kazooie came to a hover as a loud ping noise was heard and the crabs front left leg was blown to smithereens by a small bat with the words ‘homerun’ written on it in solid black letters. Screwball smiled to herself, the homerun bat that Kazooie gave her as a present was awesome and especially so given what its special ability was. Following Screwball slowing its progress and turning the crab’s attention on her, a small pink cloud floated forward and launched a blast of sharp icicles at the still tender exposed nerves on its body slowing it down even further causing it to spit sickly looking green bubbles at it. They were acidic in nature as one dissolved a nearby lamp post; it was quickly taken care of by two streams of fire launched from Kazooie and Philomena’s mouths with a simple broad sweep of their mouths. Owlowiscious was nowhere near this battle as he didn’t have a death wish, since he wouldn’t survive being hit once and could do nothing to help except maybe peck at its already punctured eyes there were filled with ice, that little pink cloud really did not like the giant crab monster and was localizing a blizzard directly at it. Another ping sound and this time the crab’s middle right leg went and it started to lose balance, standing by Applejack watched in amazement at the four figures pounding the crab to the ground. Already she and Mac could tell where this was going; all they needed was for Applejack to get up there and to be brave. Applejack just stuffed the sword in her mouth, she really didn’t have time to think of the consequences with what she was about to do and all she knew was that it was the right thing as far as she could tell. “Philomena cover the cloud thing whatever it is, I’m going to body check this Heavy Lobster!” Kazooie performed a large shuttle loop and aimed directly down at the center of the crab monsters back; she scrunched up and shot downwards spiraling as she did before she realized she couldn’t exactly do a drill beak when she currently had a ponies muzzle even if it was indestructible. Mid flight Kazooie performed a somersault and angled her butt at the crabs back for a butt stomp. A sharp crack and the entire crab’s body became flush with the ground and its legs splayed out, Screwball had barely managed to avoid getting crushed as she rolled away with her bat in hoof. With a little help from Big Mac as a stepping stool Applejack immediately crawled up the crab’s leg and worked her way around the shell clumsily used the white glowing spots that stuck out as hoof holds and clambered up the things back. It was already growing back the lost legs and standing back up. It was a little late for it to recover as Applejack took the sword from her mouth and held it high above her head with both hooves and stabbed downward causing the creature convulse as a stream of black energy flowed from it once again. It tried to shake Applejack off, she managed to hold on as the sword stayed tightly in place in its back. She pulled it out and stabbed it two more times without much trouble; its wild shrieking became a soft gurgling as it slowly stopped moving. The glowing circle Applejack had stabbed disappeared leaving her wondering, now what? Soon the creature started to dissolve piece by piece top to bottom; it even dissolved out from Applejack almost causing her to fall into the things stomach acid if it were not for the suddenly pair of hooves going around her waist and carrying her to safety. “Rough start for a day huh? It must be Tuesday. How about we go get something to eat? I’ve already let the authorities know about the culprits and the orange plantation doesn’t have anything to worry about now.” The farm pony didn’t know what to say, of course she was hungry but she just killed a living creature, though the red pegasus holding her absolved her of feeling bad. “You didn’t kill it; you just sent it back to where it came from. So tell me… why did she give you that sword and did she say anything as a message for me?” “Oh um… the crazy bird with the blue and purple color scheme and a backpack like yours but red? She said something about an ocarina and playing the C-left too harshly. That was all other then how to use this sword, you wouldn’t happen to know what it is would you?” Applejack stated as they came for a landing outside a twenty four hour restaurant, Neigh York had plenty of them since it hardly ever sleeps. Applejack gave thought to how she hadn’t killed whatever that thing was? It sure felt like she did with a obviously magical sword. Big Mac, Philomena and Owlowiscious suddenly appeared out of nowhere in a flash and Screwball was smiling toothily as she held up a mysterious yellow gem which she quickly stuffed under her hat. “Huh, well I can tell we’re going to be very good friends from now on, without a giant shadow of a doubt.” Kazooie said ignoring Applejack’s questions as she dropped her five feet above the ground, subsequently making the pony drop the still pristine looking sword. Silently Applejack picked up the sword and followed Kazooie confused about what had happened in the last hour or so, it was few minutes beyond four in the morning and she was getting pretty hungry. “Get whatever you guys want I’m buying for a battle well fought. Boss battles are fun every once in the while to break up the modicum of daily life.” Ten minutes later they would be confronted by Celestia and Luna. It was enough time for Applejack to come to terms with what life had just thrown at her. She had a new insane friend who she was indebted to alongside Big Mac and earned a strange sword that specializes in killing giant creatures called a Colossus Slayer.