With unbridled optimism and an aloof attitude The Imp boldly said looking out at the fields before him "This will be a peace of cake! How hard could it possibly be? I mean what could go wrong? I got this." Having angered the movie gods of retrospect, disaster struck. First were the tomatoes. From the earth the red bulbous vegetable demons clawed their way to the surface dripping in tomato juice and evil. In a foul demonic tongue they unleash foul utterances of terrible profanity. Any children who can speak demonic gibberish are requested to cover their ears. It was truly just that terrible. While it had no idea what they were saying, and thus could not be appropriately terrified, the vile visages of the tomatoes was so great that The Imp let out a shrill scream and jumped into the air. Forgetting about gravity The Imp hung in the air in terror. The tomatoes were quite numerous and The Imp wasn't sure how it was going to deal with that many enemies. It very much considered fleeing, as that seemed the smartest thing to do at the moment. However the struggle was far from over, well it had only just started so duh, but it wasn't even done starting. The Imp was baffled by the narrator's lack of sense but that's okay, this is a no judging zone. Now as the struggle wasn't even done starting another group of vegetable monsters made their appearance. Shooting from the ground appeared a handful of stalks of corn demons.
The Imp didn't even know corn demons existed and yet here they were, swearing like sailors in a language no one could understand. Right next to the tomato demons saying inappropriate things about The Imp's mother. The living voodoo doll couldn't help but find this strange. Fortunately The Imp had not even the faintest grasp as to what they were yelling at it so its young malleable brain didn't learn any bad words.
Regardless of the bright side this development was quite shocking to The Imp who screamed some more and jumped even higher into the air. Still refusing to acknowledge gravity it hung there pulling on Bill Nye's heart strings. However it would only get worse as a nasty group of broccoli demons came clawing out of the ground with hungry groans and eyes glowing with demonic magic. Issac Newton rolled in his grave as The Imp continued his screaming and upward accent. The broccoli demons were obviously a notch above their peers by their size and by the intensity of their demonic slurs. This only served to push The Imp ever higher. The various vegetable demons had been trying to ignore the weirdness of their prey to keep up their intimidating looks but by now they couldn't help but just look confused. They traded looks with their evil plant brethren exchanging shrugs and various gibberish. After all they had come expecting a fight not.... whatever this was.
The initial panic passing The Imp realized it was suspended in air and as such came plummeting down. Old Newton raised a glass in celebration with his ghost buddies. It flailed its arms in a panic as it neared the ground but it was saved a few from the ground as a strong wind blew. The air leaves composing its hat and tunic carried The Imp on the wind gliding it over the crowd of demons below who stared on in confusion. "Oh yeah my air leaves! I can glide!" The Imp laughed happily as it slowly descended to the ground on the other side of the pact of monsters. The Imp had so much fun gliding and it was all thanks to the vegetables. To reward them The Imp decided that it would play a game with them. It spun on its heel to face its enemy, fear replaced with aloof joy, it taunted them "You're the bad guys huh? You look a bit squishy to me. I'm gonna beat you up for Fairy Tail and save the good veggies!" In response a tomato charged with a vicious incoherent battle cry as The Imp blew a raspberry.
"Yikes!"
The Imp teleported at the last second as the tomato tried to tackle him. The demon fell face first in the dirt with an undignified grunt. The doll reappeared sitting on the fallen tomato with a giggle, "Let's play a game you bad bad veggies." An irritated cob of corn, never thought I'd narrate that, growled at The Imp launching a volley of corn kernels like a machine gun. Enjoying the game The Imp teleported away allowing the corn bullets to pulverize the tomato it had been sitting on. It reappeared floating above the enemies below, "One point for me!" One tomato smacked the corn over the back of the head growling some demonic cuss word. Wouldn't you if your buddy shot your other brother? Knowing bad guys didn't like it when good guys took the lead in games The Imp readied itself for an agitated counter attack, which it planned to turn on its enemies. Irritated the corn united in a volley of corn kernels upward at their air borne enemy. Just what the doctor ordered.
The Imp laughed and teleported again now some distance away on the ground. While normally easily distracted and stupid The Imp was easily engrossed in a game and took them very seriously. There was very little in this world as important as a good game, and of course winning. This philosophy allowed The Imp to tame even its most wildest impulses to keep its head in the game. Intending to jump to a huge lead in one move It thew its hands in the air as the mob of demons looked to his new location, this time it was the turn of the vegetables to forget gravity. "Corn meteor!" As the corn kernels launched by the corn demons lost their momentum and began falling back down The Imp's telekinesis activated involuntarily and willed the corn kernels to fall faster dramatically increasing their momentum. Not wanting to damage the plants The Imp willed the vines and vegetables under the demons to move out of harm's way with its nature command ability. As gravity and subconcious telekinesis went to work for The Imp, it decided to get out its little flute from a pouch on its belt and played a little song to accompany the impending doom.
With a great deal of panic from the demon's below the corn came crashing down beating down on its own masters and their allies. Corn crushed corn, corn crushed tomatoes, corn crushed broccoli, there was no mercy and through it all The Imp just dance around playing on its flute. It was the splitting image of chaos. When the meteor shower finally passed the vegetables were in some sorry shape. While they hadn't lost much in the form of numbers those that remained were rather battered. They roared in unified frustration while The Imp giggled as it greatly enjoyed the game "I know! My friends would love this game!" With that line straight from a horror movie The Imp did a little jig waving its arms in the air. The vegetables shared nervous glances as they felt their life turn into a slasher flick. Then a trio of wooden puppets, each much larger then The Imp, fell from nowhere landing around The Imp. That didn't help the horror movie vibe. The broccoli barked at the tomatoes in demon gibberish something that meant something along the lines of "Get them you idiots!" This would ensure to those who could speak demon gibberish that the broccoli seemed to be calling the shots. Why the broccoli was in charge was hard to say. The Imp laughed and pointed at them "Go squishy the baddies!" The Imp's friends happily obliged.
The puppets shakily charged the tomatoes which met their charge with one of their own. The wooden dolls appeared rather off kilter and had very mechanical movements but still moved with surprising speed. They rattled and jerked about with every step, their movement patterns were honestly a bit unsettling. It was bad enough they walked like wooden zombies but what was worse is that they did it at astonishing speed. So now they were fast wooden zombies. The lead tomato however was not intimidated and tried to tackle the first puppet, cheering for his team The Imp yelled "Get em Leo!" In response the puppet yanked back its fist and slung it forward with freakish speed. The tomato hardly had time to react as Leo's fist collided with it's squishy head and just like that it splattered. The other tomatoes jumped back with a cry. But the tomatoe wasn't alone in being destroyed, at the same time the arm of the puppet had been disintegrated from the force of its own attack. Regardless The Imp did a little victory dance but the powerful punch came with a price. Another tomato took this chance to inhale a huge breath and fire off a violent blast of foul tomato juice which ripped through Leo's chest. It was like a vegan water gun of death. The Imp gasped, the tomatoes cheered.
The puppet staggered backwards from the force of the blast but quickly jerked back forward and rejoined its friends in their charge. It didn't even seem to slow down. To the surprise of the vegetable demons the puppet's damaged bodies would began regenerating as soon as they took any damage. Even as the terrified tomatoes tried to fight them off with a barrage of tomato juice blasts, that hit the puppets with varying degrees of damage, the wooden warriors wouldn't stop charging and kept healing away the damage. Sure the regeneration wasn't exceptionally fast but it was fast enough to keep the puppets in the game. While The Imp cheered them on every step of the way. Then the charge became a melee as Leo and his friends descended on the tomatoes in a rain of attacks. With attacks so powerful it damaged their own bodies the dolls were a powerful force against the squishy tomato horde. Honestly it was rather violent and may not have been appropriate for children. "Send em' flying Hiro!" Encouraged by its master the puppet violently punted one tomato into another splattering them both. Immediatly after ward Hiro jerked out of the way of a tomato that tried to tackle him before giving it a good stomp to paint the floor. Both legs disintegrated, Hiro fell forward.
The Imp fell on its back laughing "Good one! Top that Leapy!" Leapy rushed past Hiro(who was struggling to stand up on his hands at the moment) towards a fleeing tomato demon. Having no trouble catching up to it's prey Leapy brought their hands over its head and brought them down in a haymaker to splatter another tomato. It was probably over kill to use both arms and it unnecessarily increased the recoil done to Leapy, but victory was victory. The Imp gave a victorious whoop as the number of tomatoes diminished. The Imp's triumph seemed to be in sight.
But it was all a trap. It had always been.
The Imp realized too late that a couple broccoli had snuck up behind him. Enraged the broccoli threw themselves in the air before coming down like a giant fly swatter of justice. The head of broccoli smashed the imp easily. Its wooden frame cracked and shattered with little protest. It seemed the vegetables had won, until the broccoli heard a giggling from above. They turned their gaze heavenward to seen The Imp flying above. "Sorry broccoli guys you'll have to be a little faster to pull one over on me!" Any time you think you kill an enemy and discover they aren't dead leads to exclusively bad consequences. Confused the broccoli looked at the crushed doll on the ground below it. It looked very much like the imp floating above them, except more smashed, until the pieces started glowing gold. It took the vegetable too long to realize what was about to happen and so they were helpless as the dummy doll exploded in their face. It was a pretty, shiny and powerful explosion of golden light. The Imp clapped for the light show. It had been the old switch-a-roo, while the fighting was focused on The Imp's friends, it substituted itself with its "dummy doll" and teleported up into the air out of sight. It all hinged on nobody looking up and luckily enough no one did.
The smoking broccoli collapsed defeated on the ground with groans of pain. The Imp couldn't be happier.
But then it realized the trap was two-fold. In hindsight The Imp probably should have counted his enemies. Maybe then he would have realized that the puppets were fighting substantially less then all of the tomatoes. Because there below The Imp was a furious gathering of angry tomatoes. Naturally their threat wasn't taken very seriously as The Imp was floating high in the air, and the tomatoes were down on the ground. But the tomatoes didn't seem to care and launched a joint tomato juice cannon up at The Imp. "You silly veggies never learn do you?" The Imp teleported to the ground a few meters away from the mob of tomatoes. Much like before The Imp threw its hands in the air, set its telekinesis to work and yelled "Tomato Meteor!" Then the tomato armies were assaulted by a terrible and violent rain of tomato juice. The demons were not impressed. The Imp let out a cry of panic as it realized the ineffectiveness of its attack.
The tomatoes charged and The Imp decided it really needed some protection. Alas its friends were rather tied up with other matters. The Imp would have to handle this itself. By "itself," it meant with the help of something else. It knelt to the ground while it reached into a little tiny pouch on its belt. From the pouch it pulled a shining golden seed. The Imp hastily dug a little hole in the ground and stuck the seed in. The Imp jumped back as the mass of tomatoes all jumped at it for a dog pile, and then a massive golden tree sprouted from the ground and knocked them into the air. The Imp giggled "This is my protection tree! With it here I am super safe!"
The tomatoes crashed to the ground in a cartoonish heap, but would not be so easily defeated. They scramble to their little feet and once again charged the imp. The Imp clapped its hands excitedly "Time to play time to play!" The Protection Tree had many powers but the one most important to The Imp at this time was that it was a large tree. When the tomatoes got close enough the Imp used its nature command to bring the mighty branches of the protection tree down smashing into the tomatoes. Most of the tomatoes evaded and most that were hit survived, but this was far from over. In fact it was the start of a deadly dance. With its teleporation, gliding and unpredictable nature The Imp continued to evade the tomato demons, forcing them to run circles around the tree. All the while the protection tree mercilessly hammered on them with its branches. One particularly smart tomato managed to cut off The Imp and was about to tackle him but The Imp was ready for that too. It had exactly just the thing for this, but it forgot whatever it was it had ready for this. With that The Imp got tackled.
The Imp cried in pain as it crashed into the ground. The little one was incredibly fragile and susceptible to damage. The reason it was so good at dodging and evading was because it had to be, it was too weak to take damage except on the rarest occasions.
The tomato got back up, walked over to The Imp and prepared to finish the job. The protection tree was too busy holding back the other tomatoes to help, the imp's friends were too far away and The Imp was too hurt to move. It seemed the end, "If only I had my fairy dust!" The Imp paused, "Wait! I do!" The Imp opened a pouch on its belt. The pouch was filled with a golden power witch The Imp manipulated with its telekinesis to launch into the face of the tomato. The hit wasn't too powerful but it made the tomato take a step back and it stung enough to stun it for a few seconds. Which was all the time the protection tree needed to free up a branch to smash it.
The Imp allowed its bandage leaves and the protection tree's healing power to minimize the damage it had taken from the tomato attack while the protection tree finished smashing the remaining tomatoes. Before too long the tomatoes were defeated and The Imp was healed enough to get back on its feet. With its power expended the protection tree reverted into a dull seed. The Imp scampered over to the seed, picked it up and put it back in its pouch. "Rest up buddy! We won!"
At the same time Leo, Hiro and Leapy finished up the other tomatoes. The puppets were rather heavily damaged, Hiro seemed to have lost his head, but the tomatoes were in much worse state. The farm field was dyed red with splattered tomato demons. Proud of his friends The Imp teleported over to congratulate them. It jumped up and gave Leo a big bear hug, "Thanks friends!" Suddenly Hiro and Leapy joined in the hug. The Imp didn't think anything of it and giggled happily. But the mood quickly changed as it felt its friends start shaking violently shaking before collapsing in a heap of scrap on the ground.
Then The Imp saw the line of angry corn standing there like a firing squad, each smoking like a recently fired gun. Hiro and Leapy weren't hugging him, they had made themselves a body shield to block a corn barrage. Tears streaked down The Imp's face as it sobbed violently over the loss of it's friends. The wooden remains with their power spent disappeared as suddenly as they came. Sure Leo and his crew were fine and would be back to normal when summoned next but The Imp still felt a strong feeling of lost.
All that was left were the corns and a couple broccoli demons remaining. Imp curled its little hands into fists and screamed between sobs, "You big bullies! That isn't how this game is supposed to go!"
The crops of the field fled for cover as The Imp's nature command willed them to get to safety. The Imp was angry and was going to make the vegetables pay for ruining its game and hurting its friends. The Imp wasn't sure what is was going to do, but then its telekinesis decided for it. Now on a large cleared chunk of land a large circle cracked into the ground around The Imp, it was maybe twenty meters in radius and just barely stopped before the vegetables. The Imp screamed and threw its hands in the air and a most terrifying event occurred. The residual power of the puppets and the dummy doll combined with The Imp's powerful emotions exponentially strengthened The Imp's telekinesis.
For those just joining us The Imp doesn't have real control of its telekinesis and it's more of a self acting free will that reacted to The Imp's emotions and acted on it's own accord.
It was this force that raised the massive chunk of earth into the air bringing The Imp with it. No mage of The Imp's caliber would be able to perform such a feat and The Imp itself couldn't do it if it tried. Greater forces were at work raising that rock into the sky.
The demon vegetables below were helpless as The Imp's emotions carried the huge rock over them. It floated maybe thirty meters into the air before the doll cried "Moon Fall!" With that the rock fell and The Imp fainted.
Several hours later.
The Imp woke up to see Ichirou standing over him. "My my little one. You made quite the mess. But you did it! The vegetables are back to normal!" The Imp shot to its feet and looked around. There was no sign of the demon vegetables, the huge rock or the whole it should have left. The vegetable fields were back to normal, even the plants The Imp had willed to safety had moved back to their original positions. "Huh? What? What happened?" Ichirou laughed "I got here shortly after you dropped that big rock. You got quite some power in you huh kiddo? So I fixed up the ground and then the vegetables went back to normal. I already talked to the villagers and got your reward for you. But I decided to let you rest where you were, that must have really tired you out." The Imp nodded, it had been really tiring. It however didn't have the sense to question how Ichirou mended all the damage to the ground but that wasn't terrible important right now. "Thank you Ichi-Ossan! Can we go home?" The old man laughed "Sure thing kiddo."
What mattered was the curse was lifted and everyone was okay.
Mission Complete!
Many questions remained unanswered about what happened and what forces caused The Imp's Moon Fall attack and the events immediately following but The Imp payed them little mind. It was really proud of itself. Surely everything would turn out fine, right?
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