Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

47. Octo-push.

-Cladinhold outskirts, Pom-

Seeing one of the evil cores get blown out made my heart soar with some relief, not that it wasn’t already beating a mile a minute with all the dodging I was doing. Smolder and I were being worn down and without Dodo’s help we would have gone down by now.

The machine shrimp and prawn shots were going absolutely everywhere, up until half of them suddenly stopped along with four of the tentacles on the octopus machine with the destruction of the core. The other core then took control of them. We should consider ourselves lucky that the generated machines all had poor aim unless we were standing absolutely still and weren’t as sturdily built as the machine that made them.

Jean arrived on the scene with a tube strapped to his back and his rapier held aloft in his right hand, he thrust it rapidly and took out several of the closest smaller machines. He was taking several shots and his armor was holding well enough, but he was a relatively easy target for them to hit.

We backed away from the octopus machine as it slapped its tentacles down at us sending dirt, rocks and grass flying into the air. We could tell the machine was fighting us by itself without outside input, because Shanty was still fighting that lizard on top of it and had it completely distracted.

I winced when I saw Shanty take a hit to the gut from the lizard’s fist, at least he wasn’t in his magical muscle form when he hit her and she recovered well enough to fight back.

I ducked and a wad of energy passed over my head, I could smell the air burning from its passing. Right, back to the fighting, Shanty has that well in hoof.

I galloped forward, swerved around another shot, skidded sideways on the grass and launched my left hind leg into the eye of a shrimp disabling it. I wrapped my front hooves around it, then pulled it off the ground and spun around to throw it at the other eye, only for it to be blocked by one of the tentacles.

The two most outer tentacles were mildly damaged, one of the inner ones on the still present eye’s side had lost its mobility after I bent it out of shape by hunkering down in my wool. I was thankful to have done that while on solid stone instead of grass or dirt, the tentacle would have sent me flying otherwise.

“Pom I don’t want to be an alarmist, but…” Smolder flew upwards over a series of shots and managed to snag a prawn and slung it at one of the tentacles with amazing strength and leverage using her ribbon. She then spat several fireballs to pop the several metal shrimp that just came out the tentacles.

“Is it something really horrible Smolder, because we’re kind of in the middle of something like that’s pretty alarming already.” I was in the midst of disabling several shrimp with precision kicks, jabs and sweeping strikes to their eyes, a prawn was about to fire on me and it was quickly speared through by Jean.

With a flick, Jean launched the still moving machine off the end of his rapier at the base of the tentacles and it did a bit of damage when it blew up.

“Yeah, I’d say it’s a big concern, the evil core frog guy just destroyed is growing back.” Did smolder just seriously say that it was growing back?

“WHAT?!” My voice went quite shrill as I bucked a shrimp against the large dark purple frame, also I may have incidentally launched a bark blast using my burst of fear to destroy several other small machines. I looked to see what Smolder was talking about. Looking at the eye that had been completely destroyed in the blast from that rocket, I could see the edges of the destroyed eye rebuilding itself as the red started slowly growing from the edges inward. “Oh you have got to be kidding me…”

“Do you think it might be the other eye repairing it?” You know Smolder, no matter how much shrimp we threw at the problem, I don’t think we had enough raw sushi to bring this machine down. Colleen had better be bringing something more impressive than a handheld firework cannon, hopefully something big and powerful.

“Could be, but octopus are supposed to only regrow their tentacles, not their eyes!” I rolled forward through a volley of blasts and leapt behind Jean who deflected a number of incoming shots with incredible concentration and rapid rapier slashes while humming a slightly jaunty tune.

“Pom, I think trying to apply logic to a machine that runs on pure evil magic is literally asking for trouble!” Smolder inhaled as Jean blocked a single tentacle with his rapier, she started to really concentrate her breath down to fine point into a makeshift blowtorch in an attempt to sever that portion of the tentacle as Jean had it occupied and was holding it in place.

I moved forward to keep the shrimp and prawn from targeting Smolder, while rapidly bashing as many as I could and getting targeted myself I felt an energy bolt nearly hit me in the right side where my stitches were. The bolt instead, thankfully enough, flew under my belly.

I was getting real tired and a bit lightheaded from my popped stitches and light bleeding. In a matter of seconds three sections of the tentacle fell off and was both inert and limp. The tentacles stump in question had a melted portion covering any opening and prevented that limb from spewing more shrimp and prawns out.

“I don’t think it can regrow its tentacles at least.” The machine didn’t feel pain, but I noted the octopus’s fake eye covering the other core glaring at us. The tentacle that was shortened was the third from our left and sixth one from its left to right on its right side, a side which it was not controlling as well.

“Not that I can get through those easily, I’ll need a minute before I can do that again.” Smolder was backing off and breathing heavily, she was darting around in the air as she did so while avoiding numerous shots peppering the surroundings as three more shrimp came out along with four more prawns. She grappled a shrimp in her ribbon and slung it at the regenerating eye, only it was caught by a tentacle and thrown at Jean who jumped out of the way as it exploded next to him. “We knew this thing was going to be tough, we just didn’t know how tough and I think it’s getting smarter the longer we fight it!”

“We’re barely putting up much of fight as is, unless we can stop it from making anymore machines, we’re going to keep getting swarmed and we can’t keep this up forever.” I was already flagging, not that my health has been at its best when we entered this fight. I ducked under a series of shots and zigzagged forward through a series of small bolts before launching a vicious left uppercut that tore through the head of the prawn that had been firing on me. “Jean is relatively fresh, but his girth is working against him and while he’s sturdy. He’s not going to be able to keep taking hits like that forever and we can’t communicate to him very well with Ocellus out of action.”

Smolder looked angry at the reminder that Ocellus had knocked herself unconscious due to the stress of being near an evil core, in this case it was two evil cores that seemed to work in conjunction with each other. The destroyed eye was about ten percent into rebuilding itself, it was already forming a red ring in what was once a completely destroyed socket.

Here I had hoped Smolder was just imagining things… what is my life when I’m ineffectually fighting a four story mass of metal in the shape of what was an exceptionally goofy looking mechanical octopus? Well goofy with the eye coverings at least.

We weren’t doing a very successful job of taking it out and were damaging it too slowly. We couldn’t cut and run, we didn’t want the town to get damaged even more before someone else could destroy it and we’d be leaving a lot of people homeless. The damage to the town so far wasn’t that horrible as to be irreparable.

I finished punching my hoof into the eye of a metal shrimp when I saw an incoming wall of cylinders and leapt straight up. My rear legs were grazed by the tentacles sweeping forward at me and I ended up being knocked onto my face.

Picking myself up I saw a tentacle coming down on me, I was swiftly grabbed and pulled out the way of harm as the Tentacle slammed down and creating a shockwave of debris as the ground ripple from the impact.

I looked up at Jean and he smiled down at me bravely as he covered me with his body, he was still standing strong and didn’t seem to see the odds were drastically against us winning this fight without outside intervention or at least more back up.

He held up his rapier in and pointed at the octopus with a smile, he seemed willing to continue in spite of the terrifying power this thing was bringing up against us. I nodded and slowly stood up ready to continue as Smolder came to hover near us.

She had just finished wiping out the remaining shrimp and prawn with Dodo’s help, but the octopus machine seemed to have stopped generating them.

Looking up to see how Shanty was fairing, I saw that the lizard had left Shanty covered in bruises, cuts and even a few burns. The lizard had a split lip, several cuts and a knife buried in his shoulder, he didn’t seem like the type to retreat and he was slowly, but surely enough, wearing down Shanty through sheer attrition. It at least seemed that lizard in particular was far sturdier than any of the ones we have previously met that went down in a few blows.

The octopus machine whined loudly with its mouth and then started to spray a thick black gunk all over the ground as it quickly turned itself in small sharp circle using its tentacles.

“Huh, why is it spraying octopus ink everywhere?” Right there with you Smolder, why was it… that’s not ink… its oil!

The octopus’s four outermost tentacles could cover its backside, so attacking it from behind wouldn’t work and that’s not even taking the machines it spawns into account. The only reason we knew it was facing us was the large round mouth that had yet to be put to use in this fight until now.

“Smolder, how good is a dragon’s sense of smell in general?” I asked out of the blue.

“We live in a land where having a strong sense of smell isn’t really necessary part of day to day life, the most common smell in the dragon lands is sulfur.” Smolder sent me a look. “Even you should know that given where you live, so why did you a…”

“That’s not ink, run!” I yelled as I turned tail, grabbing Jean’s hand with my hoof and urged him to flee with me. He looked confused, but started to follow after me as I ran.

The large mechanical mollusk monster wasn’t very mobile, but it had spun a quick circle as it sprayed a massive amount of the puddle of oily goop everywhere around itself with its mouth acting like a large hose.

If it was about to do what I think it was, then we had to get out of the blast zone. Hopefully Shanty would be okay by being on top of its head.

The dark purple machine slammed all its tentacles down into the goop covering its own limbs in the viscous onyx substance, this also sent an entire wave of the substance after us as we ran and we were soon covered in it. Even Smolder got smeared in the substance with how big the wave was. Dodo, and by extension Ocellus, were safely out of the splash zone and closer to town, the mechanical ostrich warbled with worry as he saw us running.

What the octopus robot did next was pretty diabolical as it launched a single prawn from one of its seven still viable tentacles and the shrimp uncurled. I looked back and was still running as we were still in the splash zone of where all the oil was spread out we wouldn’t make it out of the area before the shrimp snapped its claw.

Feeling something grip the oil stained wool at the back of my neck, I looked up to Jean in confusion and he said something that sounded particularly optimistic. With an impressive show of strength, also there’s the fact that I’m really quite lightweight, he spun and threw me beyond the edges of the pooling gunk in a running hammer throw.

I landed on my rear and sat up a good twenty five feet away from the oil and watched as a wall of flames erupted behind Jean and went out in all directions from the menacing octopus. He was still running if a bit too slowly as the flames were all about to catch up to him. He didn’t look back and he wasn’t going to make it, he was too… Smolder!

Smolder dove down and rammed into Jean and then snapped her ribbon to sending him flying further and he landed in a heap and managed to pick himself up and run past me. Smolder quickly wrapped up her ribbon around a rock and threw it to me a few seconds before the oil around her caught fire and engulfed her. I caught it and leapt away as the flames threatened to set me on fire.

Jean flopped onto his face and rolled onto his back and cried out in shock, but then blinked in confusion as Smolder just stood there with her arms crossed covered in fire. He tilted his head and was looking at her in awe.

The train I fought might have been able to grievously hurt Smolder with a fuel air explosion, this kind of attack however? It did nothing and Smolder even looks like she was enjoying it.

“Feels nice and is cleansing on the scales!” She shouted over the sound of the conflagration turning another area into a wasteland. I think these landscape devastating attacks might become a running theme with these large machines.

The heat, fire and oil didn’t bother Smolder and she even went through the motions of looking like she was bathing in the powerful flames she was covered in.

“Smolder, check on Shanty!” My shouting alerted Smolder to the fact that Shanty was not heat proof and she was in the middle of the inferno that metal octopus created.

Smolder immediately took off into the air covered in flames and flew towards the top of the roaring octopus as it started to fire flaming shrimp and prawn machines at us.

Jean looked rather uneasy about this, as did I when the frying shrimp uncurled and started crawling towards us. If we got too close to them, then they could ignite the oil we were still covered in. I looked at the ribbon I had caught in my hoof and quickly got rock on one end of it while trying not to get the ribbon too badly covered in oil.

If Smolder could do it how hard could it be? I would later remind myself that Smolder was our resident combat ribbon expert and I should defer to her when it comes to wielding one.

I swung the ribbon above my head and then tried to use it the rock on the end to smack away the charging flaming shrimp and prawn that were firing on us and trying to ram into us bodily. I missed with every swing I tried, I wasn’t exactly gauging the length of my improvised flail very well.

Thankfully Jean’s rapier wasn’t covered in oil and he was using it to keep the charging shrimp and prawn at bay and I eventually manage to swing the rock into the charging machines once or twice as I got a better hoof on it.

Dodo quickly joined us by kicking and blasting energy from his beak to keep the crawling things off of us with wild abandon. It seemed like he understood what would happen if one the fried shrimp or prawns manages to touch either of us physically while on fire and was suddenly quite frantic to aid us as the octopus kept sending more our way in volleys.

-Smolder-

Oh crud, oh crud, oh crud, I was immune to this kind of attack, but Shanty is in the middle of the sea of flames!

I was hopefully flying out of sight of the octopus’s vision, it seemed to be focused on firing… are those things on fire now! I turned back to see Dodo wrecking them with a ruthless efficiency I could get behind, Pom was wielding my combat ribbon poorly and Jean was thrusting his rapier with a panic stricken face into the incoming flaming machines charging them from all sides from wherever they landed.

I was about to go back to help them, but the sudden appearance of the ones Ocellus named Biggs and Wedge were now there lending their aid to my friends with sword, spear and shields. This made me immediately go back to focusing on checking out Shanty’s predicament.

Shanty was on her back and trying to prevent herself from being stabbed in the heart with her hooves, she was sweating fiercely and I could see her fur was starting to burn from the heated metal of the octopus’s body.

That Gedol Empire guy was on top of her and the odd knife he wielded was slowly inching its way to towards her chest, he was slowly overpowering her. He was grinning sadistically and his laugh would haunt my nightmares for days to come.

“Hweeheehee!” That was the high pitched sound he made as he pushed hard and the tip sank into Shanty’s fur slightly, I dove down and he looked up at my flaming form coming straight at him. “Uh?”

I rammed him leading with my right shoulder making him lose grip of the knife, I also scorched his skin and his armor completely shattered upon impact with my flaming form. I tried to follow up with a left claw slash, but he muttered something angrily while shaking a gloved fist at me and immediately erupted in a puff of smoke as my claws raked at the air where he used to be.

That Gedol Empire lizard didn’t reappear anywhere nearby and he must have finally decided to leave and finally call it a day. That one guy, because of his ability to use magic, was far more dangerous than any of the smaller machines we’ve faced up to this point.

“I be thankful Smolder!” Stated a battered and sweaty fur stained Shanty as she got up and stumbled around a bit, the heat must have been making her slightly delirious or dizzy.

“Shanty!” I shouted while pointing behind her.

Shanty looked up at the flaming tentacle coming from behind her, she rolled to the side and ran forward as it slammed down where she used to be. She head to make another large leap as a second flaming tentacle tried to slam down on her and another swiped at me. I took to the air and watched as Shanty ran about dodging the tentacles as the octopus tried to knock her off into the sea of flames.

I would have picked her up and tried to fly her out of here, but I was still quite literally on fire and Shanty was heavy for her size. Far heavier than Pom could ever possibly be.

“Be getting me help quickly!” Shanty shouted as leapt over a tentacle that scraped over the rounded surface leaving patches of flames for her to avoid.

I flew back towards Pom and the others, what do we do? What could we do?! Come on think… maybe Dodo could run through the flames?

“Pom, Shanty needs help getting out of there, at least the lizard controlling the machine has retreated!” I saw the look on Pom’s face when I said that. She looked at the flames between us and Shanty, looked around and then turned to Dodo.

“Dodo, give me Ocellus!” The way Pom said it made the machine blink. It reached into its back and used its beak and head head to quickly flick Ocellus into her waiting hooves, she draped my best friend over her back and pointed at the octopus. “We’ll be fine, now go climb up there and save Shanty like the familiar you are!”

Dodo didn’t need to be told twice as the second he saw Shanty in danger he ran through the flames in a blur that left a fairly distinct path through the sea of flames with how fast his mechanical legs were moving.

While I started to aid with the shrimp and prawns, I could see Dodo run up the large machine’s curved surface by digging his slightly heated up metal claws into it and managed to leap up and kick a tentacle away from Shanty.

We hadn’t exactly seen how fast Dodo could go, but he managed to get to the top of the octopus machine in less than twenty seconds.

-Shanty-

I be feeling Dodo coming for me, the feeling let me know that I’d never be alone as long as Dodo was around. He leapt and kicked away a tentacle coming from. He quickly turned towards me, ran forward, stopped, dipped his head under me and flipped me into his back before leaping over a tentacle and roughly kicked another away while warbling protectively.

He be stretching his legs out and started to and took a flying leap towards the side that the town was one, he leapt incredible far. His legs show impressive amount of strength as we hit the flames, I felt the air around me heat up extremely and then the heat lessened as Dodo started to run with his legs as fully extended as he could get them. I looked up into his green eyes as he warbled mechanically at me and I started to laugh a bit.

“I be okay Dodo, keep going!” My fur was burnt slightly, drenched in sweat and I was fairly injured.

I not be a doctor, but I be knowing I was feeling bad. Dodo quickly came to a stop and his legs were a bit red with the heat as I lifted myself up to look over the edge of the seat in his back.

“Are you being okay Dodo?” My familiar warbled happily and I felt that he was happier that I was alright and didn’t care about himself. “Dodo!”

What did systems orange mean? He then gave me a positive feeling about it, but I was wary that he be lying to me, he still be nuzzling his face against me and then quickly be stomping down on a burning shrimp that shot at me.

“Well Shanty’s okay, but how are we going to deal with that? We can’t get close to it now!” Smolder shouted over the noise of the flames, she be looking pretty hot right now and I don’t mean that I be attracted to her.

The octopus machine started to drag itself forward. It was slow moving, I be knowing what it was intending to do.

Author's Note:

The octopus three battle will end next page with something that's common among all the true Rocket Knight games.

Comments

[Sigmacipher]

If you mean the ultimate sacrifice of a character we were beginning to like...no I do believe that's just you being predictable and to scared to alter script.

[Shadowshame]

I have to say the oil attack could be a serious double edged sword for the octobot I mean if the oil coming out of it’s mouth is ignited as it is coming out the flames would travel up into the machine and start burning and melting it from the inside out