//------------------------------// // 202. Museum Monster. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equus, Ponyville Café, Gallus- “So what do you think about me becoming a part of the guard?” I had to ask because I was seriously considering it, Fizzle gave me a routine to follow and she was quite a taskmaster. Not that I didn’t already know where I could find another fitness routines one could follow, Airship Mauled was becoming well known for building sports teams. That was because Sekhet Sphinx the goddess of physical education knew how to train people, mostly for war, but that training does help with other things too I guess. “Yona think it be fine, if Gallus doesn’t turn out like pony guard in general.” Understandable Yona, but that’s why I went to Fizzlepop Berrytwist La Perm. “Yona think that Gallus can get very strong! Like how Yona think Silver Stream can be a very good teacher of friendship, as well as about animals.” Fizzle actually knows how to stay disciplined, especially with the most annoying cat this side of Equus. Training wasn’t all brawn, Tianhuo certainly seemed interested in helping me with that, brains were also part of the deal and nothing challenges me more than having to come up with ways to stop Jaded ‘Freaking’ La Perm. That I actively got to work with Jaded as a training aid once a week quickly made her become my sleep paralysis demon. Zampony’s were not supposed to move that fast nor were they supposed to be capable of spraying ice, snow, fire, stinky gas, banana peels or whatever other insanity that Jaded will make it do next. I’m already expecting the ability to drive up walls, and possibly a turret stolen from a party tank. “Yeah and I can still remember when Edith used to freak me out, Silver Stream will have a very good assistant for troublemakers at least if she becomes a teacher.” Even I wouldn’t want to mess with a cockatrice that big. “The truth is Jaded La Perm is really making me lose my resolve.” “Yona think that Jaded is being a major test of determination, guards that quit or are not determined to try are not going to protect people very well from serious threats.” That, Yona, is exactly why Jaded was my sleep paralysis demon. Jaded was very much a serious threat that wasn’t even trying to be scary… and she does it so well. The only thing I could find more threatening in the same vein would be Pinkie Pie. “Hi Gallus, I just got back from saving an entire universe with Oleander and it was awesome!” Okay, if asked, Pinkie Pie suddenly showing up behind me from out of nowhere did not suddenly make me shoot into the nearest cloud while making a high pitched girly squawk. “Was it something I said?” “Eh, could be Pinkie, you have a habit of sneaking up on people.” The small yellow diamond dog like being next to the pink pony would eventually tell us her name was Isabelle and she was ‘crossing’ from out of universe. Didn’t know what was up with the blue eyed pink marshmallow with red feet was all about, but at least I knew Buttina Stalliona from her last visit. Butt pure was unadulterated awesome, also very shiny and the small griffon side of me thought she looked rich. -Earth, Saint Canard, Museum, Dolly- Dormarch was now with Pom and he should be able to get her out of whatever situation she was in, that was some pressure off my back. Meanwhile I was gliding my way into knocking a sheep wolf off the staircase. Ramming into them with the side of my skateboard, they fell away sideways into the strange void of the staircase maze. After landing I looked to my left at the staircase we had been on previously. We have nearly been under constant attack since we entered this space, whether it was helicopter hellcats or the sheep wolfs they carried in to bombard us with. My fur was a little roughed up, but we hadn’t taken any serious injuries or hits… yet. We’ve been upside down, sideways and vaguely right side up in this strange place, the only reason I knew the directions is because Pom was a constant and I couldn’t get disoriented knowing which direction she was always in. Shanty was doing pretty good at not getting disoriented by all this either, but she didn’t have an anchor like I did. She was in the middle of launching a power buck to a sheep wolf’s chin cutting into its face as she knocked it completely off the stairway down onto another one below as it fell in a different direction. “Aw isn’t it sweet that she is falling for me? Sorry, but I’ll have to let you down hard!” As for Quackerjack, he might be the only with any sense of direction in here and his need to crack jokes would be appreciated more if they were better. That is to say they were all kind of groaners. He whipped the last sheep wolf off the edge using his jump rope. “Was that all of them? Okay let’s move, I think we’re almost to the top and I don’t know how many more jokes about stairs and going on trips down them I have left in me!” “Do you really even be needing to say more of those?” Shanty stated as we continued up the staircase and of the three doorways we came to we went through the one on the left. “I be getting pretty tired, Splatter Phoenix is being more dangerous than I am first thinking.” “Say what you will about me, but I will continue to have a vibrant sense of humor until my final hour.” Quackerjack continued forward, then he said something I don’t think I was supposed to hear. “Which is coming very soon...” Continuing up to a doorway, we came into a white rectangular room with four grooved pillars, we took a moment to rest and then proceeded to hurry through the room. That’s when I notice something off about the shadows of one of the pillars. “Hey guys, stop!” A shadow leapt from the pillar to our right and seeing as I didn’t have much time. I burst forward following the flowing motion into a roll and raised my board above my head. Willing my magic to be defend instead of an attack. “Aero!” Bright swirling silver winds appeared around all three of us as the blade of and axe struck the dome that formed when all the winds swirling around us combined together. The winds then exploded outwards knocking the threat back. It was a Minotaur, with clock like eyes, fancy coat and top hat? That’s what just went skidding back and away from us, it’s kind of weird that Poodle Wolf is how I even know what this thing is. Though what’s up with the clock theme? It was holding an axe that looked to be a half a clock and the other half seemed to have melted into being the handle. It stood up from its crouch and glared at us with the clock hands over its glowing eyes slowly turning. Well this is going in my top ten list of weird stuff. Ah dog, we had to fight this musclebound bull biped didn’t we? The creature bellowed loudly at us and raised its axe ready for a fight, we looked between ourselves and nodded. This was going to be a tough one. It lunged forward and swept its axe in from our right, Shanty popped up onto the pillar on the right, I popped onto the left for a second and jumped into the air to start gliding in place and Quackerjack did a handspring backwards out of range. “Goat Fly!” Shanty launched a kick for the monster only to be blocked by the shaft of his axe, he stepped back and swung the back end of it into Shanty’s body sending her flying off to the side towards the room’s right wall from where we entered. “Oof!” Shanty flipped and landed in a crouch against the wall, I decided to make a move and dove towards the horned menace with a swing of my skateboard. He turned his head and tried to catch my skateboard on his horn, which was bad news for him as I was charging my board with momentum as I swung it down. My board cracked his right horn when I brought it down on him and he stepped back from me and then back handed me harshly into the pillar behind him on the left. After bouncing off the pillar, which really hurt, I caught myself in the air and flipped and glided behind the pillar avoiding the clock axe slamming into where I had been and the pillar shook but didn’t look damaged as the monster pulled the axe back for another swing. It seems Quackerjack was going for his jack-in-the-box again, only for the pony toy in the box and the pie it held to be slice in two vertically, it then brought its axe around as if attacking the air and shoved it at Shanty as she came flying in with a kick. Instead of being shoved away Shanty landed on the head of the axe and then lunged for the bullheaded monsters face. “DONG!” That loud eardrum hurting sound came from the minotaur and then it… disappeared? Shanty dropped to the floor looking about in confusion having missed hitting the minotaur’s face with a slash. I looked up and saw the minotaur leaping from the pillar it had started the fight off from in the exact same manner. I swooped down and slammed into Shanty before the axe connected and we were sent tumbling by the shockwave back towards the entrance of this room and stopped short of the wall a little before the entryway. “Are you two alright?” Quackerjack asked as he kept his eye on the minotaur. “Ding…” That was the faint noise it made as it went to swing for Quackerjack in a downwards sideways slice to from his left to right. Quackerjack ducked under the axe to the left in time while pulling a weapon from his costume. Quackerjack quickly retaliated with a blast of flames from a flamethrower mallet that caused the monstrous bull some discomfort, but it followed up the swing by continuing on into an overhead swing that Quackerjack did a hopping twirl out of the way of to the right. In the middle of doing his hop, Quackerjack managed to throw a whoopee cushion into its face that made a loud farting noise as it exploded in a cloud of brown gas that made the minotaur stumble back and away from him. “I think Caper Canine be having a bruised spine and I be nearly getting cut in half, that is not being alright no matter how you be slicing it!” Shanty stated as she rolled me onto my paws and I stood up and tried to shake off the near miss and checked to make sure I still had my tail. “I’m okay!” I barked out, sure they couldn’t understand me, but I think my gesture got it across well enough. “Can we cut to the chase and say that this big bully here is going to be a problem when it can teleport?” It did what now Quackerjack, and is that how it got above Shanty? Well it certainly didn’t look like it could jump that high and at that kind of speed. The red minotaur stomped forward and jabbed his axe at Quackerjack wielding it with his left hand, both Shanty and I set forward to watch as Quackerjack cartwheel under the axe as the blade were turned in his direction and swung outwards. When Shanty leapt up onto the right pillar near the entrance and launched for it, the minotaur caught her leading left hind leg and stopped her Goat Fly cold. I came in and rammed at its right leg with my helmet, after landing I leapt to the right and attacked his other leg making him stumble and drop Shanty. She quickly scampered away and I backed off a bit to ready my board. Quackerjack assisted with a piece of rock candy to the inner joint making the minotaur roar as the jagged piece of sugar crystal dug into its left leg. I leapt up and pushed my momentum hard forward glide intending to stab the monster with the nose of my board. “Dong!” The minotaur had change position before I knew it and it no longer had the pointy bit of rock candy stuck in its bleeding leg, it was a few feet back and in mid swing from my left to right, I barely managed to put my board in the path of the axe. The blow sent me spiraling to the floor and onto my back as I lost control of my momentum, I groaned and slowly sat up in a dizzy stupor. The minotaur swung his axe around and I looked up at it as it brought the axe into an overhead swing down towards me, I immediately brought my board over my torso and tried to lay as flat as I could on my back with it over me. The axe slammed into to my board and it held, my torso was thankfully safe between the wheels. I also got a close look at the blade of the axe, because the edge of it was an inch from my nose. Also the shockwave spreading out from my board let me know that yes, it being mostly indestructible had just saved my life again. I reminded myself that magic could still damage my board and if the axe had been magical… “Oh dog…” I muttered as kept its axe pressed down on my board and lifted its right leg and it went for my face. Its leg was quickly knocked off to the side as Shanty leapt onto my board and kicked it off to the side with her right hind leg, before going into a biped stance above me. The minotaur’s slightly injured cloven right hoof slammed into the floor next to my head, making me whimper. Shanty performed a twirling leap up to slash it across the face with a spiraling left hoof uppercut and back right hoof slashed the minotaur across the chest before she landed. She swung up her left hind leg across its belly at an angle making it grunt in rage, before the left side of its face was struck with a wad of caustic liquid from Quackerjack. Quackerjack’s acid shot actually made it stagger back in pain clutching at its face with its right hand. When it removed its hand, the left clock eye had a blistering flesh all around it that looked painful partially melted flesh and large chunks of the base of its left horn had been damaged to match the cracks I put in its right horn. It was glaring at us with rage and brightly glowing eyes. Its roar shook the room as Shanty hopped off the board and let me get back up. I was certainly going to have an accident at this rate, as this thing was terrifying. This guy was made of sterner stuff than the sheep wolves or those flying hellcats. “Ding…” There’s that sound again, as the minotaur start twirling the axe around defensively in front of itself in a wide manner for no apparent reason. Afterwards it planted and dragged the tip of axe blade along the ground towards us and sent several beams of energy flying at us as it swung it upwards. I jumped straight up and over the several beams and started gliding backwards, Shanty rolled to the left behind a pillar and Quackerjack took a bad gash to his left leg that made him trip and fall flat on his face as he failed to dodge the attack. He was to the left of the first pillar on the right from our entrance. “This guy isn’t any fun, also that teleporting thing he’s doing is such bull-oney!” Quackerjack whined while trying to stand up, the minotaur stalked towards him while lowering its head. Quackerjack became quiet when it charged him head first, he grinned slightly despite the threat of being gored on this thing’s horns. “How about a can of these nuts?” Quackerjack pulled the snake can and opened it towards the back right pillar, the mechanical snakes lashed out around the large white pillar and dragged him out of the way from where he was sitting, leaving the minotaur to slam both its horns into the right pillar from the entrance we came through. The painfully loud snapping noises we heard was the minotaur snapping its right horn in a jagged pointy half half and its left horn snapped off entirely in a blunt manner. That didn’t seem to do much more than make it angrier, as it turned towards me… Wait, why me?! It twirled towards me with its axe held out and low near the ground and I jumped up and shot towards the left pillar as it become a swirling mass of death, kind of like those weird bladed tops of that show my brother Daisuke watches. It raised its axe from the floor and sent several flying blades of energy at me that forced me to run up the pillar towards the ceiling, as blasts of energy erupted behind me. Having avoided the last one I looked down as I slowed my climbing and watched as the minotaur’s axe was almost held straight up as it twisted around the pillar and tried to kick Shanty with its left leg. Tried as Shanty quickly rolled from behind the pillar and made her way towards the center of the room. The pillar shook, as did the entire room, with the force of its kick. I lost traction and fell from the pillar and quickly altered my momentum to glide towards Quackerjack to see if he needed any help. “Come and get me!” Shanty taunted and the minotaur immediately took that taunt seriously. The reason why Shanty and I were doing this is because Quackerjack was currently tying magician’s handkerchiefs around his bleeding left leg at the right side of the back right pillar. How much stuff did Quackerjack have in his clothing? It was like an amazing clown car unto itself. “Thanks for giving me the chance to patch myself up.” Quackerjack said to me as I took to standing guard in front of him with my board. “Kind of hard to hurt isn’t it? Also I’m not sure, but I think its horns might be growing back.” Looking as the minotaur leapt at Shanty with an overhead swing, which she thankfully dodged with a roll through the minotaur’s legs’, yeah the horns were starting to regrow slightly. The other injuries were still present at least. Shanty ran up the back left pillar of the room and the Minotaur looked at me standing guard in front of Quackerjack, I think it might even hate me. “Let’s see how you be handling this, Bouncy Blades!” Shanty leapt from the pillar at the minotaur and curled up into a ball leaving her hooves and horns exposed as she rapidly spun through the air creating six cutting arcs that almost covered her body in their light. The minotaur held the flat of its axe up, only for Shanty to rebound of it and then off the floor into its injured left leg violently cutting into it before bouncing off and into the back of the left pillar into the right and into the minotaur’s back up off the back right pillar into its face as it turned to look. That’s when Shanty started getting faster rebounding off the walls, floor and pillars into the minotaur cutting it up with each impact, yet that didn’t seem to be really beating it down all too well. It was ruining the suit and I believed Shanty was going death by a thousand cuts in a literal meaning here. “Dong!” The minotaur was now in the exact position it had been in a minute ago, twirling its axe defensively. “No… way…” I blinked and watched as every subsequent attack by the rapidly spinning ball of pain Shanty became was deflected multiple times perfectly doing the same thing it did previously. Okay now I’m really suspicious as to what the whole ‘ding’ and ‘dong’ things are about! “Agh!” Shanty uncurled as the minotaur finished it’s defensive twirling of its axe and managed to hit her hard enough with the blade at the end of its defensive twirling that all six of Shanty’s rotating cutting arcs had been deflected. Shanty hit the ground roughly and bounced once before ending up on her back. It planted its axe against the ground and started to drag it in her direction… Pom can I get a bump here, like right now?! I need a decent bark blast like yesterday, highly urgent and I mean emergency! I felt Pom start sending me quite a bit of energy as I ran forward while inhaling, I didn’t hesitate to bark as hard as I could when I think I got close enough. The bark blast knocked the minotaur off his feet and sent several beams of energy up into the air in a wide spray as he went sliding towards the left side of the room, he skidded to a stop before the wall. Barely grunting in anything resembling pain. Despite the shredded clothing and the number of wounds Shanty managed to land before it did a perfect defense, it still looked incredibly healthy and was already slowly standing up. It was glaring at me now and… oh… oh no… I think I get what it’s doing now and I think the only reason why it would focus on me, it is because I would eventually figure it out. Having just done so, I can’t exactly explain what I know to Shanty and Quackerjack, but if it could see the future and even manipulate time like I thought it could… Shanty was by my side a second later and we were both facing the minotaur as the hands in its eyes stopped spinning clockwise, they moved in reverse slightly. The clock theming was starting to make a lot of sense now, also I think it was about to really start doing it’s darned best to kill us all quickly before Shanty and Quackerjack could figure it out as well. The minotaur’s eyes narrowed at me… “Ah dang, it really knows that I know now.” I whimpered as I also noted that while its wounds weren’t closing up or healing stupidly fast, they did scab over quickly meaning it was going to try to tank us down. What could it do when its clock eyes were moving in reverse and could I figure it out before it took us all down? The minotaur grinned as its muscles shrunk slightly and its body suddenly became slightly more streamlined. “Haste...” A deep voice rumbled, the minotaur's body immediately began glowing a blood red color and its clock eyes began spinning counterclockwise. Did it just talk… holy crap! -Pom- “Sorry, Dolly needed some energy for a bark blast.” I said after Spot asked what I just did, she has been leading Dormarch through disarming the blood circle underneath me. “Huh? I know she’s your familiar and all, but that’s not exactly how familiars are supposed to work.” That’s news to me Spot. I currently have two familiars present, both likely with entirely unique familiar systems. “We don’t know how familiars are supposed to work, especially when we’re working with two similar magic systems welded together...” I said wide-eyed. "Dolly's group is in serious trouble!"