Umbramatic
The Ghost Lord
Jesus christ this was first written in 2009 ANYWAY this is an original fiction oneshot I have tried to salvage from when I was a wee 17 year old! It's still a little. Rough. And is written in a style I would absolutely not do the same way now but there's been quite a bit of polishing up done still, and it stars some old favorite OCs I want to do more with again. So here's this thing!
No Good Demon Goes Unpunished
The name’s Pandinus. I’m an Umbratic, which the mortals in my world call demons. As for what that actually means for ME, I can copy nearly any magic spell that hits me; I can change from a humanlike form to a killer demonic scorpion form; and I can’t truly die. But life isn't exactly super cushy.
------------------------------
To prove my point, one day, I was chilling in a cave we stopped off in in the mortal dimension, when Afriton barged in. Good old Afriton. Everybody has a best buddy, right? Well Afriton is mine. We Umbratics start out life as little larvae. Ever since that stage, me and Afriton have stuck together, because we knew we wanted to fight the evil instead of being the evil. In his beast form, Afriton looks like this snake-headed horse with eagle claws and bat wings and a rat tail that stands on two legs. He looks freaky, yes, but overall he’s a really nice guy.
Anyway, he barged in and said, “Dude! There are monsters attacking a mortal village! We’ve got to hurry!”
“...What kind of monsters?” I said.
“Big ones!” he said back.
“The bigger they are the harder they fall. Let's take em’ out.”
So I go and alert Seventra, this female Umbratic who is best friends with me and Afriton. She turns into this crazy serpent when she’s fighting, but she's shy and timid in her humanoid form.
"Monsters? here?" she shuddered. There's not normally that kind of thing around here... I'm nervous."
"It'll be fine dude," said Afriton. "Now let's go!"
Our merry band went down to this village, and there were all these people running and screaming because of the giant monsters running around smashing houses. These guys really were big monsters-about the size of an elephant. They looked like bulls crossed with some kinda giant carnivorous ape. And they smelled nasty, like someone rubbed onions all over them. They weren't natural monsters of world, and we had no clue where they came from, but man, did we have to deal with them.
So we each picked a monster or two and started fighting them without holding back.. I transformed and ran up to one as fast as I could on my scorpion feet. It roared at me and charged. I stood there waiting for it, and then dodged at the last second. It barreled past me and then I sucker punched it with one of my claws. It roared in pain, and turned around to face me. That’s when the orb on my tail started glowing.
You see, my tail has an orb instead of a stinger on it. This orb is the secret to my copying powers. It absorbs magic,whenever I’m hit by magic, the orb takes it in and from then on I’m able to use the magic spell whenever I want.
This monster, he just starts staring at it and drooling. Distracted by the shiny, apparently. That’s when I hit it with this huge jolt of electricity. It shuddered, then fell to the ground, stunned. For a second I was really pleased with myself.
Then all of a sudden, I got hit by something that felt like an avalanche slamming into me. It’s this other monster, and he was pressing down on me hard.
“Afriton! Seventra!” I yelled. “Can you get this guy off of me?”
“Right here dude!” he yelled back.
"Eep! On it!"
Afriton flew over and started blasting the monster with these fireballs from his hand-claws. The monster rolled off and started beating the flames out. Then Seventra blasted it with sound waves, forcing it to cover its ears. FinallyI clubbed its face with my tail, and it was out cold.
“Nice work!” I said to Afriton.
“Same to you bro!” he said back.
"We... actually did it?" said Seventra.
All of the sudden this other monster flew in out of nowhere. It kind of looked like the big monsters, but with a more humanlike body, and red skin and wings. It called itself something I can't bother remembering and starts blabbing on about how it's from another dimension and it has this gem and how it’s gonna take over this world and all that crap. Meanwhile, I’m sneak charging this beam attack while it was monologuing. Eventually I fired…
And this gem he’s holding, it glowed and reflected the beam attack back at me. Startled, I barely managed to dodge. The monster laughed and said, “Fool! This gem protects me from any of your pathetic attempts to harm me!”. You know. That kind of thing.
So we all tried to hit him with physical blows. Seventra was attacking with her tail, Afriton was slashing with his talons, and I tried to grab him with my pincers. But the monster had this huge whip, and he kept flinging it and flinging it at us, and whenever we get close he knocked us back with it.
Then I decided to do something risky. I got just within range of his whip, and when he flung it toward me, I tried to grab it.
Not my smartest move.
I really underestimated this guy’s strength. As soon as I grabbed his whip, he yanked back and I went flying like a fish on a reel. He intended to fling me behind him, onto the ground, but I let go, and started plummeting towards him. That’s when he hit me with a punch.
But I managed to grab on to his arm with one of my claws, and we started wrestling in midair.
I was trying to bite his face and slam him with my tail, and he kept clawing at my eyes furiously while trying to stay aloft and hold his gem at the same time.
He failed on the gem part.
The gem started falling towards the ground. We simultaneously shouted “No!” and dove down after it. We kept wrestling in midair as we went, only this time with a greater air of desperation.
Then the gem hit the earth.
It exploded with a pretty damn big blast of energy, and we both got caught in the middle. I felt my body hold up to the blast for a mere seconds before it shattered, like the gem itself, into thousands of tiny pieces.
But I wasn’t dead. Not quite, anyway.
----------------------------------
You know what it’s like for my physical body to be shattered? Well, I can’t see anything, and I can barely hear. I can only feel what’s going on around me, and right then I felt only the cold, hard ground. The cold, hard ground with all its little lumps and bumps pressed against me like I had been pushed in - probably by the impact.
Suddenly I felt this wonderful, cleansing, rejuvenating energy flowing into me. I felt my body start to regenerate, and I was soon able to stand on all eight legs again. I opened my eyes to see Seventra, in her dragon-esqe form, coiled up from the exertion of reviving me.
You see, When Umbratics “die”, we shatter into thousands of pieces, as I demonstrated earlier. But, we leave this little pebble-like object, this soulstone, behind. It’s indestructible, and it can be used to revive us if it’s given enough energy. Seventra had sacrificed some of her life energy to revive me.
“Thanks for the boost.” I said.
“No… problem.” she replied. Man, was she exhausted.
Afriton flew down, landing gracefully between us. “You alright, dude?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He smiled, then quickly turned around and frowned. “Wish we could say the same for the village…”
I turned to look. Half the place was reduced to burning rubble by the blast.
“Ah,shit.” I said.
And that’s pretty much a typical day for me.
-------------
No Good Demon Goes Unpunished
The name’s Pandinus. I’m an Umbratic, which the mortals in my world call demons. As for what that actually means for ME, I can copy nearly any magic spell that hits me; I can change from a humanlike form to a killer demonic scorpion form; and I can’t truly die. But life isn't exactly super cushy.
------------------------------
To prove my point, one day, I was chilling in a cave we stopped off in in the mortal dimension, when Afriton barged in. Good old Afriton. Everybody has a best buddy, right? Well Afriton is mine. We Umbratics start out life as little larvae. Ever since that stage, me and Afriton have stuck together, because we knew we wanted to fight the evil instead of being the evil. In his beast form, Afriton looks like this snake-headed horse with eagle claws and bat wings and a rat tail that stands on two legs. He looks freaky, yes, but overall he’s a really nice guy.
Anyway, he barged in and said, “Dude! There are monsters attacking a mortal village! We’ve got to hurry!”
“...What kind of monsters?” I said.
“Big ones!” he said back.
“The bigger they are the harder they fall. Let's take em’ out.”
So I go and alert Seventra, this female Umbratic who is best friends with me and Afriton. She turns into this crazy serpent when she’s fighting, but she's shy and timid in her humanoid form.
"Monsters? here?" she shuddered. There's not normally that kind of thing around here... I'm nervous."
"It'll be fine dude," said Afriton. "Now let's go!"
Our merry band went down to this village, and there were all these people running and screaming because of the giant monsters running around smashing houses. These guys really were big monsters-about the size of an elephant. They looked like bulls crossed with some kinda giant carnivorous ape. And they smelled nasty, like someone rubbed onions all over them. They weren't natural monsters of world, and we had no clue where they came from, but man, did we have to deal with them.
So we each picked a monster or two and started fighting them without holding back.. I transformed and ran up to one as fast as I could on my scorpion feet. It roared at me and charged. I stood there waiting for it, and then dodged at the last second. It barreled past me and then I sucker punched it with one of my claws. It roared in pain, and turned around to face me. That’s when the orb on my tail started glowing.
You see, my tail has an orb instead of a stinger on it. This orb is the secret to my copying powers. It absorbs magic,whenever I’m hit by magic, the orb takes it in and from then on I’m able to use the magic spell whenever I want.
This monster, he just starts staring at it and drooling. Distracted by the shiny, apparently. That’s when I hit it with this huge jolt of electricity. It shuddered, then fell to the ground, stunned. For a second I was really pleased with myself.
Then all of a sudden, I got hit by something that felt like an avalanche slamming into me. It’s this other monster, and he was pressing down on me hard.
“Afriton! Seventra!” I yelled. “Can you get this guy off of me?”
“Right here dude!” he yelled back.
"Eep! On it!"
Afriton flew over and started blasting the monster with these fireballs from his hand-claws. The monster rolled off and started beating the flames out. Then Seventra blasted it with sound waves, forcing it to cover its ears. FinallyI clubbed its face with my tail, and it was out cold.
“Nice work!” I said to Afriton.
“Same to you bro!” he said back.
"We... actually did it?" said Seventra.
All of the sudden this other monster flew in out of nowhere. It kind of looked like the big monsters, but with a more humanlike body, and red skin and wings. It called itself something I can't bother remembering and starts blabbing on about how it's from another dimension and it has this gem and how it’s gonna take over this world and all that crap. Meanwhile, I’m sneak charging this beam attack while it was monologuing. Eventually I fired…
And this gem he’s holding, it glowed and reflected the beam attack back at me. Startled, I barely managed to dodge. The monster laughed and said, “Fool! This gem protects me from any of your pathetic attempts to harm me!”. You know. That kind of thing.
So we all tried to hit him with physical blows. Seventra was attacking with her tail, Afriton was slashing with his talons, and I tried to grab him with my pincers. But the monster had this huge whip, and he kept flinging it and flinging it at us, and whenever we get close he knocked us back with it.
Then I decided to do something risky. I got just within range of his whip, and when he flung it toward me, I tried to grab it.
Not my smartest move.
I really underestimated this guy’s strength. As soon as I grabbed his whip, he yanked back and I went flying like a fish on a reel. He intended to fling me behind him, onto the ground, but I let go, and started plummeting towards him. That’s when he hit me with a punch.
But I managed to grab on to his arm with one of my claws, and we started wrestling in midair.
I was trying to bite his face and slam him with my tail, and he kept clawing at my eyes furiously while trying to stay aloft and hold his gem at the same time.
He failed on the gem part.
The gem started falling towards the ground. We simultaneously shouted “No!” and dove down after it. We kept wrestling in midair as we went, only this time with a greater air of desperation.
Then the gem hit the earth.
It exploded with a pretty damn big blast of energy, and we both got caught in the middle. I felt my body hold up to the blast for a mere seconds before it shattered, like the gem itself, into thousands of tiny pieces.
But I wasn’t dead. Not quite, anyway.
----------------------------------
You know what it’s like for my physical body to be shattered? Well, I can’t see anything, and I can barely hear. I can only feel what’s going on around me, and right then I felt only the cold, hard ground. The cold, hard ground with all its little lumps and bumps pressed against me like I had been pushed in - probably by the impact.
Suddenly I felt this wonderful, cleansing, rejuvenating energy flowing into me. I felt my body start to regenerate, and I was soon able to stand on all eight legs again. I opened my eyes to see Seventra, in her dragon-esqe form, coiled up from the exertion of reviving me.
You see, When Umbratics “die”, we shatter into thousands of pieces, as I demonstrated earlier. But, we leave this little pebble-like object, this soulstone, behind. It’s indestructible, and it can be used to revive us if it’s given enough energy. Seventra had sacrificed some of her life energy to revive me.
“Thanks for the boost.” I said.
“No… problem.” she replied. Man, was she exhausted.
Afriton flew down, landing gracefully between us. “You alright, dude?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He smiled, then quickly turned around and frowned. “Wish we could say the same for the village…”
I turned to look. Half the place was reduced to burning rubble by the blast.
“Ah,shit.” I said.
And that’s pretty much a typical day for me.
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