-Equus, Airship Mauled, Jackie ‘The Blackcap’-
“Today must be a good day, I don’t have any broken bones and my bruises are only pulsing every other minute rather than every five seconds.” I immediately jerked to the side and a tree slammed into the ground where I had been standing. “Right, shouldn’t get too complacent... trees are out for my blood today and they aren’t even walking vampire trees like in my last adventure. Everyone agreed that killing them all with fire was very much warranted…”
“Ugh…” I looked to see Gallus laying on the ground nearby as I made my way up to the restaurant.
“Oh, hey little brother, how are things?” I asked pleasantly and then ducked as two arrows collided where my chest and spine used to be a second ago. I didn’t even mind when one of the arrows deflected itself straight into my right thigh.
It was only worth a slight hiss of pain through my beak, I shifted my right leg a bit and… yep that’s is most certainly pain.
It wasn’t an assassination attempt… that’s just how unlucky I am to have arrows come at from nowhere with implications that it might be an accident by some unknown unicorn somewhere. Happens often enough, given I was assaulted by one of the Sparkle Family’s Hearths Warming trees that got launched into orbit.
I’ve been injured by Starswirl the bearded before on accident too, the old guy studied my curse after that and deemed it impossible to remove or even do anything about.
I am so thankful that my sweet little Gavin doesn’t have my problems and that Gene is such a comforting husband, even if he’s constantly in danger just by being near me all the time. Guy loves the danger really and that’s one of my selling points as a pirate, I’m constantly in danger while awake and no place is safe for me.
Twilight and Starlight tried stuffing me inside a magical bunker, one that’s ‘supposedly’ impervious to all outside problems, the bunker collapsed inwards on top of me within five minutes. Apparently it wasn’t impervious to internal issues and they obviously couldn’t take out the magical oxygen matrix or else I wouldn’t have been able to survive in there in the first place.
Better unicorns than Twilight have tried to make me perfectly safe while trying to account for every variable including the entropy I cause just by existing. Yep, my curse might be my issue, but at least I have family to make my day brighter. Even my sweet boy Gavin learned when to dodge around me and luckily hasn’t been hurt by my luck yet.
“I’m okay.” Gallus finally answered after his groaning stopped. “Fizzlepop is just mangling me constantly, but she says I’m at least five times better than any royal guard that currently exists.”
“That’s quite a compliment, but…” I started to say.
“Except her.” Gallus added on quickly.
“Right then, answered the question immediately. So is Fizzle going to get the storm creatures in on your training?” I was hit in the back of the head by a pinecone, I ignored it as my feathers took most of the pain out of the impact. Pinecones are really huge around here, like most of the animals.
“That’s next week, she wants me to be good as the Storm Guard is…” Gallus said with a thousand yard stare in his eyes. “Still the Queen of the Storm Creatures by the way, kind of terrifying that she still has such pull with them and a bit weird that she prefers having a day job being one of Twilight’s guards.”
“Good, maybe we can get Silver Stream in on it by having her practice her aim on you. She’ll be using blunt paint arrows.” Also, no matter where I stood, I was guaranteed to be hit by them at some point. I could even be thirty miles away from the practice zone and still be hit somehow.
“Is it bad that I’m nervous to be a part of any training exercise involving Silver Stream?” Gallus stated.
“No, we’re quite sure that she’ll like you no matter what you do as long as you don’t go evil, crazy or flip out or something. I’m sure you two will be married eventually when you’re ready. Mom definitely wants more grand kittens to dote on than just Silvers and Gavin. I know Jaded is being talked around into having a foal with Fizzy… her half unicorn biology should help with that.” Their relationship was honestly cute, even Jaded was trying to make sure Gallus and Silver Stream were working out. Mind you Silver Stream got the shovel talk quite a few times by now, even by other residents in Airship Mauled including Fresh, Mango and Dr. Permanganate. “She knows you were homeless, she knows you didn’t exactly have much of a family before Kuril adopted you, like Kuril did to me when she found out I’m also a homeless waif. Silver Stream likes you enough that she’s not scared of all the people who could come down on her if she ever did you wrong without an apology.”
“It’s actually nice to have a family that cares I guess.” Gallus stated bluntly and then looked at my thigh. “You have an arrow in your thigh… looks to be a barb type of arrow too. That’s going to be a pain to get out.”
“Oh I’m aware that it’ll need to be surgically removed, it only rates a single hiss on the pain scale for me.” I knew the shovel talk from Kuril involving a mouse transformation potion was probably one of the more terrifying threats, well aside from Jaded’s threat to put Silver Stream at the top of her ‘Petty Kitty Revenge’ list…. which means she would be outright putting a single person above the entirety of Saddle Arabia in her list of priorities as far as revenge goes and it truly says a lot about how much Jaded loves her friends and family.
I would be more worried for Saddle Arabia and my friends who live there like Amira, but Jaded’s current track record shows that Saddle Arabia will be fine…. if highly and constantly inconvenienced by a single Abyssinian Cat halfway around the world from them. Otherwise Saddle Arabia is actually quite nice to visitors as long as you didn’t live there.
If anything, Jaded is ironically improving Saddle Arabia by making it a tourist hotspot just to see what she’ll be blamed for happening to the country next, whether it’ll be true or not is the question and only Maries or Fizzy would know.
Currently Jaded might be behind the whole green bean thing in Saddle Arabia, but nobody knows how she could have possibly pulled it off if she even did. If you were to ask the Lord of Chaos Discord about it… all he had to say was that he is somewhat impressed and could have done better with a ball of twine, a pack of bubblegum and a freshly very inebriated Applejack… but he was all out of gum, so he obviously couldn’t have done it.
-Pokémon Realm, Nixtorm, Igloo in a southwestern forest path, Dolly-
I had finished my nap and was sitting on the far side of the igloo away from everyone who was snuggled against Pom’s body for warmth. Here I was with Dormarch’s mobile home in my paws, just talking to my family while everyone was still sleeping after lunch.
I did take a look outside and while I didn’t feel the cold, I could see that the blizzard was basically making it impossible to see beyond my nose and the entrance was kind of worryingly sealing itself up.
“I’ve never seen snow like this before bro, it’s so thick you could take a flamethrower to it and it would even put a dent in the surrounding area.” I’ve kept my family up to date with all the dangerous stuff Pom keeps getting dragged into with me. Also I’ve been making sure the fire was going and that the hole in the roof of the igloo was not getting sealed off by pushing it outwards. “I’m also afraid that I’m not going to be able help Pom when she needs me the most and well… she healed me after a nasty injury that took me out of that fight.”
“Well at least Chrysomallus as a name for a particular species makes sense. ’Chryso’ is a word for ‘gold’ and ‘Mallus’ that has many meanings and one of which in particular is ‘wool’.” Dante stated earning Dylan’s attention before he turned back to me. “I think it’s kind of neat that we met a gold wool flying sheep of legend.”
“Yeah, except the whole growing wings things is apparently somehow an imminent death sentence for her, nobody has really explained the why of it yet. Pom at least knows why and isn’t telling anyone, not even me…” I really didn’t want Pom to die. I wilted a bit and looked away from my brothers. “And I made it is worse…”
“Look Dolly, don’t worry about it, I’m sure Pom will be fine as long as… would it count as an affliction if it is naturally part of her? Anyway, as long as you make sure it doesn’t get that much worse, things will be fine right? If you really can revive Dormarch, then maybe he could help you with keeping Pom from losing to it and it’ll be one of those cool fantasy miracles. It’s not like its cancer right… right?! Look… just know that she loves you and she’s family, she’s likely already forgiven you for almost dying on her and forcing her to lose ground to her ‘problem’. She did it willingly and was probably happy that you were alright afterwards given you were still with her when you woke up.” Dylan was still doing his space case thing, but I caught him in the middle of taking a break. “Look, we miss you Dolly, especially dad. Yes, Dawkins still refuses to call him father, but at least their relationship is still currently quite amiable. You’re Dolly D. Dalmatian, the original Caper Canine herself, I’m sure you’ll be by Pom’s side every step of the way doing your best to make sure she has some happiness in her life. She needs to smile more and you’re good at smiling even when it hurts. You certainly did that enough with me, even when things get bad I’m sure you’ll be fine as you’re finally becoming a responsible dog.”
“Yeah having to be responsible for things sucks, but in this case I’m not backing away from it! Also going to have to confirm the whole ‘mystical canine’ thing in my side of the family again bro. I can walk out into what I’m assuming to be sub-zero temperatures and have it only feel a bit like wind on my face from boarding… on a normal day.” Deciding to be cheeky, I asked something with a smile. “So have the firefighters dad works with found out he’s immune to fire yet?”
“No, but we think they are getting suspicious at how often dad walks away from fires without so much as a single burn on him despite his fur getting covered in scorch marks.” Dante answered. “They think it’s because his gear is pretty good, despite having burned his gear off most of his body more than once or twice over the course of being a fire dog.”
“Well it’s not like dad was going to be a super hero with just immunity to fire, unless he gets a whole rogues gallery of intelligent fire based monsters or something like that. Would be pretty awesome though.” Speaking of which… I had an inkling I should ask about it. “Say, has Ditto been impersonating me as Caper Canine?”
“…” Neither of my brothers said anything and looked to each other, even made several gestures. Eventually they Rock, Paper, Pawed each other and Dylan seemed to lose out.
“Yes, but she doesn’t have any of your more magical abilities, she does have a well put together helmet and skateboard though and has been learning a lot of acrobatics lately from stunt dogs at the local studo. In fact, she can do an almost good enough impression of you to fool Dorothy, Dizzy and Deedee, only almost since even Ditto Dalmation knows that she can’t replace the original entirely. She’s treating the Caper Canine thing like a mantle, it’s giving her some of her own personality… so she can at least stop copying others personalities and be herself a bit for once. Even if it’s in heroics, which is quickly becoming an option for jobs we can do because of you and Spot.” Dylan answered dryly. Yeah, Ditto was able to mimic the naturally occurring skills of any Dalmatian in the family as well as mimic appearances and voices to a limited to degree. “She’s even a dabbling quite a bit into magic and she’s really good at glamour spells, which as you might remember from being bored to death by sessions of Poodlewoof, are spells that make you look like whatever you want to look and sound like. We have at least a few illusionists in the ‘fam’ thanks to Spot.”
“You have to admit Ditto does a pretty good impersonation of you too when needed Dylan.” Dante stated as he hugged Dylan for me after seeing a gesture from me to do so, nice to see my gloomy brother looking much healthier. “I think she’d be better as an actor or stunt dog than a super hero, but at least she hasn’t seriously gotten hurt yet.”
“Like the Triple Divas weren’t enough actors for the family.” I grumbled lightly with a smile. “Well we’re almost out of time, I think everyone is waking up now and we’re about to go hunting for a scary metal skeleton of a monster with an obvious aura of death. Don’t know how to feel about that after we all basically just got our butts handed to us by a functional god. I mean we won, or at least I would like to think we did, but I’m betting that Illusion place is all kinds of messed up from it.”
“Well good luck Dolly and remember, you can always call us if you’re feeling down. Provided that you have that device and are still alive.” Dylan was happy to talk to me and I was happy hear he was happy when I wasn’t there to help things along, my step brother was still so worried about me even when I was no longer in the house anymore to bug him or anyone else. “Just keep proving to the ‘fam’ that Dalmatians can go above and beyond, because we believe in you.”
“Hey, I’m not the only one trying to follow a dream, you’re doing it too bro and we’re not getting any younger… I believe in you too. Best space case bro ever!” I was curious about my friends too. “Say Dante, has Summer, Hansel or Spike visited the house?”
“We’ve had Roxy, Snowball, Summer, Fergus and the Canal Gang, even Spike, but no Hansel… still just does his own thing and rarely drops by to play Poodlewoof. Doesn’t even ask about why you haven’t been around at the skate park when even Prince Corgi and his family did. We told the royal corgis about where you were and the kind of stuff you’ve been doing. The royal corgis said to tell you that you were awesome by the way and that they miss having you over at their personal halfpipe. Even Clarissa asked about you… once… only once and it’s a surprise that she even would bother.” Yeah, that sounds about right Dante. I hoped Dylan would pick Summer over his attraction for that rotten Poodle Portia that tried to make him eat a cat hairball that he was deathly allergic to. Still liked Hansel a lot, but I’ll be darned if he wasn’t a little dim. “Goodbye Dolly, I foresee you ending this call soon.”
“See you guys and wish me some luck, because we’re definitely going to need it!” I cut the call and placed the device back on my collars and tossed my scarf over it before making my way over to Pom. We’re going to be walking throughout the evening and nigh.
The blizzard has passed and we were soon back at it for walking throughout the evening.
-An hour later, moving through the forest, Pom-
I heard something other than the crunching of snow that we were walking through.
“Wait…” I called out to Quetal and he froze and started to look around. My ears, always up and tied at the back of my head by my wool twitched and I looked about with eyes flickering at the darkness around us. The para-lance, whatever it really is, could make light from its tip aiding in this evening trek through a frost shrouded forest. “Something’s stalking us.”
My nose flared in preparation as I slowly inhaled through it, we stood in the twilight of the evening and waited. The area was unnervingly quiet, we previously heard sounds of Pokémon until a few minutes ago and then nothing but the sound of us breathing… and something else.
Quetal and even Curdle were ready for anything, as was I as I pulled the parasol from my shoulder and return it to lance mode with my front hooves.
My eyes surveyed the trees to the left and right, holding the lance loosely out to the side with my right hoof as I slowly scrunched up to get into a standing position if needed.
We were in the middle of a clearing of trees and… there!
Brought the lance across my chest defensively as the shaft entered the mouth of the beast that shoved me to the ground and tried to bite through the weapon. Unlike other weapons this one was undoubtedly never going to break if my suspicions of what it really was panned out.
As it used its teeth to pin me down it raised its right claw and prepared to claw at me.
I tried to push it off me, but its strength was several times that of what I was capable of dealing with. At least I halted its attempt to claw me and I tried to get a good look at it as I finally exhaled.
Even with the limited burst of breaking my limitations from Dancing Flame, I couldn’t move this beast. It portrayed a canine in appearance, but my instincts were screaming that it was something beyond one and I didn’t even know how I could tell.
It looked like a Zoroark, except not a Dark Type like the mercenary back in Illusio. Instead of black fur this, thing, had greyish white fur, long white hair tipped with reds and pink colors. It also had strange red muscle like welts all over its body. Otherwise it was the same kind of three clawed creature that a Zoroark was, thus I’m sure this was an alternative Zoroark and not a Dark Type.
There was something terrifying about its presence, given it was the exact same creature from my nightmares.
First order of business, quickly analyzing my opponent while I could.
I was never going to be able to take them in a physical fight. They had more brute strength than I could contend with and I couldn’t even move them when I attempted to buck them in the chest. They had raw muscle or hysterical strength.
They were smart enough to keep the spear out of the equation by holding it in their teeth so that I couldn’t actually bring it around to wield against them and was using it to lock me in place, thus this beast was intelligent.
The beasts speed was enough to surprise everyone here, it was blindingly fast and I was the absolute intended target of its attack.
The scariest thing about this encounter with a living nightmare was that I believed that it didn’t seem to care about attacking anyone other than me.
Unfortunately for this thing, which was definitely not a normal Pokemon just by the look in its eyes, I wasn’t alone.
“Beat Up!” Quetal’s voice offered it a minimal distraction from trying to claw at me, I didn’t have enough wool to repel the claws or the blunt force this beast could let loose on me.
The first thing to hit the alternative Zoroark, was a Shadow copy of me delivering a devastating right hook across the jaw, it really seemed to grab the beasts attention and hurt. This was followed swiftly by shadow Dolly slamming it in the chin from below.
The real Dolly tried slamming it in the chest with a momentum fueled paw slap to push it further away, only to be surprised when she passed straight through its body when she tried. Definitely a Ghost Type phasing effect.
Shadow Curdle Blasted it with a flash of darkness pushing it even further away, having much more of an effect. In fact Quetal’s new move seemed to be highly effective here as a Shadow Quetal slashed the beast in the belly while ramming into it and dissipating.
The Dark Type attack seemed particular good at forcing it back, enough so for me to get on my hind legs and ready the para-lance defensively.
“If you want something to eat, then try me!” Curdle stated as she leapt into the beasts face and let off a Dazzling Gleam into its eyes that made me glad it wasn’t directed at me, the slit pupils shrunk to dots as the beast howled and stumbled backwards with its paws quickly being put over its eyes.
“It’s the thing I saw in my nightmare…” I stated sullenly and quietly, making Dolly glance at me while trying to keep an eye on the beast that was already recovering. Dolly suddenly became far more attentive to the beast.
“It’s an Alternative Zoroark, Normal and Ghost Type, but somethings up with it.” Looking to Quetal I just had to ask a pertinent question about this situation.
“How can it be ‘normal’ and a ‘ghost’ at the same time?!” There was nothing normal about this beast if my hunch was right as it finally recovered and glared at my friends arrayed at my side.
“That’s not the problem, why didn’t he try to ambush us with an illusion?” Quetal asked as he flexed his claws. “That would have been much quieter.”
“I’d have to say he’s an outsider and a fairly unusual one.” I said as the beast looked between us and then focused on me, why though? What was it about me that he could be targeting? “Something like Cu Chulainn or similar enough.”
With a rush he lunged forward and Dolly managed to slow him down with an Aero, I deflected his incoming right claw with leftward flick of the lance. After jamming it forward into his left knee to force them down, I slapped him upside the head to little injury and then opened the spear into a parasol point blank into his face and knocked him back with the sudden blast of the parasol lance opening.
Despite the knockback, he quickly lunged forward with his left claw and sliced my right shoulder open open as he tackled into me with his right shoulder. This beast wasn’t using Pokémon moves, but they certainly intended to take me down and the blow hurt and thankfully hadn’t stunned me.
I quickly twirled and repositioned the spear to plant it tip first into the ground behind me and to the left to stop myself from being toppled. Again the beast ignore my friends and was blasted by a wall of mystical flames firing form Curdle and two Quetal’s followed up by leaping by and slashing into the beast.
Its slash injuries healed before my very eyes in seconds after they were dealt, but when it tried to attack Quetal, I decided to prevent the beast from taking out Quetal or at least his Substitute.
With a quick heave forward, I sent a pile of snow flying up and splashing into the beasts face. Having blinded it, I followed through on my golf swing and met their chin with a solid cracking noise that staggered the beast.
The beast tried to jump away and possibly reassess this fight and that’s when Dolly decided that her most recent spell would really make this creature much slower.
“Gravity!” Dolly had timed it quite precisely, the purple orb struck while the beast was high enough in the air to go for a tree branch to try and find a different angle of attack.
The beast rocketed into the snow and become buried under it.
“Let’s move while he’s down, Quetal!” I stated and started to motion for the others to run, as Quetal lead us away and towards where we were heading.
I think we made a good twenty feet before the snow erupted from behind me and a claw caught the left side of my face toppling me even with a glancing blow. I hastily lashed out with a magic claw from my left hoof scoring a bloody mark across the beasts muzzle while I rolled onto my back, notably the claw mark I just gave them didn’t heal.
Why would magic be effective against my opponent?
Quickly bringing the para-lance up and opening it in the roaring monsters face when it tried to bring both its claws slamming down on me, the para-lance didn’t buckled under the attack, but the force of it did force me down into the snow in a position where I couldn’t move.
If I had a solid hoofing, I could do a wobble counter, but all the snow made it impossible to lock myself in position with what little wool I had. Also any blow could send me, my weapon was knocked to the side and…
I felt pain erupt in my chest as I was launched into a tree back first and there was quite a bit of pain in my spine, I was both dazed and confused. The beast had gotten under my guard that fast?
How was it still that fast? Was it just getting stronger?!
“Hey, stop paying attention to her, I’m the most delicious thing here!” Roared Curdle who had an odd way of seeing this situation, but at least I knew she meant well.
Keeping my eyelids closed as a bright light filled the area, the sounds of flames hitting the beast and scorching them could be heard. Followed by multiple impacts that sounded like another Beat up and then Dolly unleashed an Aero to make the flames around the beast’s long hair and thick fur violently explode.
“Pom… are you okay?” Dolly was looking at me worriedly as I sat up from the tree and grunted.
“No, but I don’t think he’ll let us leave without a fight...” Veins of wool slowly etched themselves along my left cheek and sewed my light facial wounds shut and my deeper claw wounds in my shoulder was swiftly closed too once I had a moment to concentrate on mitigating the damage, the cold was starting to get to me and I really did not want to bleed too much. “?!”
Wrapping my left hoof around Dolly I rolled to the side as a claw shredded the tree behind me and toppled it into another tree and tossed Dolly out of the way of danger.
I slammed the edge of the open parasol around its left leg and, once hooked, yanked the beast entirely off balance. Reorienting the lance and closing it up, I kicked forward with my hind legs blunt tip first into its right kidney as it turned into my blow.
This badly winded the creature and made it go onto all fours, I hopped while raising the lance above my head and then brought it down on theirs before they could recover from my last attack. The lance came down on their skull with a, very much sickening for me, crack that made me wince and leap backwards.
The thick hair, that apparently wouldn’t burn away in explosions or fire attack, had prevented the worst of the damage and made the beast bleed all over the end of the lance and splatter me a bit as it toppled over on to its side.
Its skull was already healing from the blunt force impact, its blunt force trauma wasn’t going to slow it down one bit.
“Fou-…” Growled out the monster as it looked up at me and I froze, my heart seized up and I felt fear overtake me. I honestly felt like I was currently Velvet when a flashlight is shined in her eyes.
Sure sounded like there was no ‘E’ in the sound he just made, but the beast is definitely related to the one that haunted my recent nightmares.
The sudden lunge forward at me was met by me sharply exhaling a Bark Blast right into his chest. Followed by a series of Beat Up shadow copies impacting and dealing damage to the monster from various angles. Followed even further by being hit by a strange assortment of decorations a second later that spewed from Curdles body.
“How about a little taste of what you get for ignoring my flavor profile!” The Dazzling Gleam Curdle launched this time caused all the decorations to glow brightly and the beast was actually blasted away from me and Dolly. In fact I don’t understand what happened but the power of Curdle’s attack just seemed to double in power out of nowhere. “How do you like that one-two Decorate combo!”
Oh right, Curdle could use the move Decorate. When it was explained to me, the move apparently hit the opponent with replicated bits of the user and marks them with said decorations. Using that to make any attacks that Curdle land resonate and increase the power of all her attacks on said target. The result was actually really quite amazing to see in action as the beast was blasted into a tree themselves.
At least it had been until Curdle was horrifically splattered all over the place by an angry ‘peach tart’ covered beast that immediately surged for me afterwards covered in Curdle’s remains. Obviously not liking it at all.
This wasn’t the hunger of a mere beast, this was definitively a targeted assault and I was the target.
I narrowed my eyes and readied the lance in my right hoof, my left hoof was prepared to let loose a magical claw this monster and I had a few bark blasts in me as I stepped away from the tree. I could feel Dolly taking up a position next to me protectively.
“Okay, ow… give me some time to recover and I’ll put myself back in the game coach…” Even the beast blinked and looked at the pile of completely smashed lemon cream at where Curdle’s voice came from, did she even have a voice box to be talking with right now?
The beast quickly shook off the distraction and then charged to the side to stab and rip apart Quetal intercepting it, only to have just gotten his substitute.
The beast was promptly bombarded by several shadow copies of us, minus the one of Quetal himself. Quetal can only make a total of three substitutes at full strength. I can’t really let this continue on like this, does this beast have a weakness?
I noted something about this beast, it was relying entirely on raw power to overwhelm us and had absolutely no skill in its actions aside from its intelligence. It was stronger than us combined, but it didn’t really have much aside from strength and healing, that and being a ghost type to avoid physical attacks… my magic claw effects were somewhat permanent.
“Dolly, drag the para-lance over to Curdle please and wait.” I pointed at Curdle as she was reforming, started moving towards the beast. “Quetal protect Dolly and Curdle, get ready to help her.”
I inhaled through my nose as I trotted forward, the beasts attention was entirely on me as I trudged through the snow at it with no regrets and I didn’t envy its strength. It suddenly flinched making me curious as to why it did so.
Still the beast hurled itself at me through the dark night air and its right claw flashed forward, I exhaled and narrowly evaded and then leapt up to blast its right shoulder point blank with a charge bark blast.
Having deftly dislocated it easily, the beast suddenly looked frightful for some reason as if not expecting the change in my attitude.
“Fou-.” The beast growled threateningly, I just stared at it dispassionately as it sped up and attacked.
Instead of moving away, I moved directly into the attack and caught a left claw when it collided with my back.
I hissed as the nails dug in to me and winced audibly, then signaled Dolly as I grappled the beast into a hug that pinned its right arm and my wool kept its left claw buried in my back.
My hind legs stomped down on its right and left leg and I simply locked us both in place. My front legs and hooves glowed a golden color as I had a hunch.
It seemed to be disturbed by my actions, but my hunch paid out. My glow was canceling its phasing ability and it could get out of this hug.
“Dolly… now…” I whispered as I sent the message.
Dolly, with the help of Quetal getting the Para-lance off the ground, was currently spinning the glowing weapon around to build up momentum energy. She released it tip first at our opponent’s head, with as much momentum as she could feasibly add to it before releasing it and I leaned my head up under the beast’s neck to prevent it from biting me and kept it pinned in place.
One would think my current position looked somewhat intimate, the best way to prevent an opponent from using physical strength was to disable their ability to move at all.
His dislocated arm had healed in short order, but I wasn’t giving this beast any leverage to act or dodge what was about to happen.
The unusual weapon, slammed into its skull knocking us both over, I then pulled my head away from being under its chin and then loosed a powerful skull rattling bark blast and brought my front hooves above my head and then slammed them down on the beast’s skull with magical claws carving marks painfully into his head.
After a moment of breathing roughly and resting my head on its chest, I slowly got up and looked at Quetal, Dolly and Curdle.
“He’s still alive… let’s… let’s leave some food and then get a move on…” After leaving food for the beast, I stumbled a bit as I walked away from the unconscious and still breathing body. The damage we had just collectively done would only put it down for a few hours at the most, I didn’t know what it was truly… but it was quite tough and wasn’t naturally a Pokémon.
I held no ill will for him, but he clearly had animosity towards me for some reason.
-Several hours later, the beast that eats Envy and Regret and compares itself against possible threats, Fou-
He had been surprised when the target had stopped having regrets and just came at him in an odd manner, not even envy was in the targets heart to be fed off of to grow stronger.
Before the hungry beast knew it… his slightly slashed up face was up and he was sniffing the air around him and was quite thoroughly confused about his loss.
He looked at the wrapped food near it and after having sniffed it a few times, he just decided to start eating it.
His target may have avoided him today, but he would win next time and sure they had left a peace offering, but Fou was not one to give up so easily.
He had a worthy ‘foe’ now, the mindless monster was powerful sure… but Pom, she was able to beat him while she was weaker than him and he envied that. He personally regretted that he lost to her. If she could feed off his regrets and darker emotions of envy then she would have made for a good imitation of him.
She didn’t think their fight was a competition and she didn’t have any personal negative feelings toward him, she just wanted to protect her friends and he couldn’t compare because he… simply didn’t have any.
Sure he might have hung around Tammamo or Amaterasu, but they were more like powerful beings and he liked them somewhat. He was the beast of comparison, he could be physically stronger than any being he compared himself to and match strength for strength… but a being physically weaker than him actually won a fight against him.
He would not let this stand!
This was worth looking into, not to mention the apparent compassion and apology of the food the one he sought to hunt left behind. For she never meant him harm and still did so.
He just had to pick up her scent again and will inevitably beat her, then feast upon her sorrow to face him in battle again!
-Origin Space, Arceus-
“Did not see that coming, an abhorrent lethal admirer?” I said blankly. “You were right about him, as a beast he is entirely unaffected by Pom’s natural magnetism. This is despite resemblance of a dog or canine, he doesn't quite have the spirit of one.”
“Cath Palug or Primate Murder has always been strange like that, what with taking on many forms.” Tiamat stated clearly with more knowledge on this subject than her brother. “He has the power to compare himself against others, if you attack him with aggression he’ll fight back with even more. You get competitive, he'd match you for competitive streak and gets further into what you’re competing over as long as he's trying to compare himself to you. However, if you are a person of love, kindness or compassion, he’ll actually weaken by a drastic amount.”
“Pom didn’t have any animosity towards him, she just didn’t want him to harm her friends… and he actively used her as a comparison. He mostly targeted her since he was mostly going to do that in the first place anyway and avoided attacking her friends until they hit a certain threshold.” Bahamut calmly chuckled dryly before clapping a bit in sudden understanding. “He compared Pom's protective nature to his non-existent one and basically blue screened himself when he realized he had nothing to protect and couldn’t make a proper comparison to gain any strength from her.”
“They’ll come to blows again… but can ‘Fou’ actually make Pom hate him?” I calmly watched on as the intrepid team got further away from the monster who was more powerful than them. “He needs negative emotions to power his true strength and he’ll be fighting constantly against a positive influence. He might actually need one like Pom, he's been acting to much like the beast currently destroying Nixtorm and needs a better comparison.”
Pom was quite far from her original objective of simply helping Aurora, but it wasn’t that big an issue. She just might save Nixtorm from falling completely.
That is if the locals frozen hearts didn’t do her in first.