Little Tales

Chapter 4
Little Tales: Ego Crusher

Chapter Description: Be mindful of your ego, it may just crush you

Be mindful of overconfidence

Overconfidence can, in essence, be a downfall. It isn't a bad thing to be confident, far from it, but when you begin to think of yourself as infallible that is when you can take the biggest fall.

As one such woman finds out.

Ego Crusher

She really didn't want to be here, it was so noisy and so full of people. The smell in the air of rampant testosterone and stale sweat was overpowering and she was feeling unwell.

But her friend had really wanted her to come with her and she was too afraid of confrontation to say no so here she was and she wished she could leave.

“We have our winner! Give it up for The Destroyer!” The announcer's voice can barely be heard in all the cheers and boos from the audience in this fight club, it was that loud.

Oh why couldn't she be more assertive and just have said no?

“Come on, let's get to our seats before the next match starts. I want to see The Destroyer wreck someone else” Her friend was a huge fan of this place and the fights, she had been introduced to it by some people at work and was now a regular.

“It's so loud” She's not sure if she can be heard though.

“Aww come on, Clarice, it's fun. You were only going to spend the night reading anyway” What was wrong with that? She loved her peace and quiet.

“I like reading, I don't like violence” Her friend, Victoria, could be pretty forceful when she insisted on getting her way and she didn't take no for an answer a lot of the time while Clarice preferred to keep to herself and didn't socialise much. She was introverted while Victoria wasn't and although they have been friends for coming on fifteen years she does feel like her friend is much too pushy and doesn't listen to her feelings on things that Victoria tries to push her into.

“You really should get out more, it isn't good to be so isolated all the time” Clarice sighs, knowing that her friend is, as usual, refusing to consider that not everyone is like her.

“I don't mind it, it helps me recharge” Victoria, of course, scoffs at this.

“Socialise more, it will do you good!” Typical of her to refuse to listen to anyone but herself, if she wasn't a friend then Clarice would have nothing to do with her.

The audience quiets down at last while they take their seats, Clarice was already feeling pretty tired and really wanted to get back to her peace and quiet back home.

“Do we have a new challenger?” The announcer calls out and to Clarice's utter horror she hears Victoria call out:

“YES! MY FRIEND HERE WILL BE THE NEW CHALLENGER!”

Oh fish sticks.

“What are you doing? I'm not a fighter! I can't even hurt a fly without feeling horrible!” Images of her pending death flash through her mind. 'Quiet Clarice, beaten into paste by The Destroyer. Quiet Clarice, we're still looking for all her limbs'

“If our new challenger will step onto the ring then we can begin!” This was it, the day she died. She just knew it. Victoria pulls her up from her seat and drags her to the ring, Clarice tries to break away from her but the audience start joining in and soon she's pushed into the ring just as the Destroyer is turning to look at her.

The Destroyer, as his name implies, is massive. At least a good seven foot or more and all muscle, his outfit barely able to support his large bulk. He could probably pound her into the floor with just a pinky.

“Hello, little girl, ready to die?” His voice is deep with a growl and his eyes are cold with a desire for violence, images of her coming death flash through her mind.

“No” She squeaks. “I just want to go home”

“Oh you will, in a doggy bag” Oh fish sticks. The spot lights all centre on the ring and the audience begins to cheer and boo.

“Welcome to another fight, our new challenger is Clarice Florish and she will be facing The Destroyer! Let's see how this fight goes, shall we? ROUND ONE! FIGHT!” Round one? She wasn't going to last to see even a quarter of that.

The Destroyer smiles, his teeth glinting in the artificial light of the spot lights and Clarice wonders if wetting herself in fear could be considered a forfeit. She can hear Victoria cheering her on which only makes her feel worse.

“I'll make it very quick” The Destroyer remarks as he pulls an arm back to punch her, she closes her eyes and waits for the end to come. Maybe she would end up in a big library in the afterlife so that she could spend eternity reading books and enjoying scones.

She doesn't notice her right arm shoot up and grab The Destroyer's fist before it can reach her, it's only when she opens her eyes does she realise that her hand is holding the larger man's hand as if it's nothing.

What happens next amazes everyone because The Destroyer begins to shrink, not only shrink but become younger at a rapid rate. The years fall away from him as he slips into his young adulthood, then his teenage years rapidly followed by his childhood years and seconds later there's a toddler of around two years old or a little younger looking up at her in utter amazement, his outfit has changed as way to reflect a pair of shorts with the top of his nappy peeping out over the lip of them.

She lets go of his hand as she tries to make sense of what's just happened.

“Hewwo wady” The former adult says with a slight youthful lisp. She can hear a hissing sound which can only mean that he's wetting himself and not at all bothered by it, he just looks over to the audience and waves at a woman who is just dumbfounded by what she's seen.

“Dat's my mama! MAMA! ME PEE PEE!” Clarice wonders if the woman he's waving to was a girlfriend or wife in his adulthood, now clearly his mother. The audience is completely silent since it isn't every day that you see someone be reduced to a very young child like this.

The toddler runs to the edge of the ring and slides under before managing to get down and running to his, now, mother who is shocked to say the least.

The silence finally ends when the announcer calls out, which shock in his voice:

“WE HAVE A WINNER! GIVE IT UP FOR CLARICE AND FOR OUR FIRST EVER BABALITY!” The audience isn't sure what to think of this at first, this was new. The Destroyer must have been a big hit and now he was just The Nappy Bum.

Victoria is the first to begin the cheers and soon others follow while Clarice is trying to make sense of what's happened. As she exits the ring she doesn't see a woman looking at her, smiling a little coldly.

“That was cool! That's never happened before, I didn't even know you could do that!” Victoria exclaims loudly as Clarice joins her and sits down.

“Nor did I. Can we leave, please? I think I've had enough excitement” Finally Victoria listens and agrees to take her home, however they are stopped by the ring manager before they can leave the building.

“That was quite the remarkable thing you did there, miss. Want to try again with other fighters?” No way and she says as such, but Victoria is already seeing visions of Clarice being the next big thing in the fighting world.

“Of course she will! We'll be here in a few days!”

“Victoria! I'm sorry, I can't, I'm not a fighter!” She tries to pull Victoria after her but she holds her ground.

“You cut The Destroyer down to size with no effort, however you did it you can do it again. I'll pay you upfront for what you've done tonight and for each night you take part” The manager hands her a sizeable amount of money, she couldn't accept it. Oh she needed the money but she didn't even know how she had done what she had done let alone make it happen again.

“She'll be here and I'll be right here with her” Clarice wanted to protest but instead sighs in defeat, she wasn't going to get a word in edgeways now that Victoria saw the money and pocketed it.

“Guess I don't have a choice” She had a horrible feeling that this was just a recipe for disaster.

~~

Four days later another fight is called and Victoria drags a reluctant Clarice to the fight club to face off against a fighter called The Tiger Killer, a woman who is much taller than Clarice and looks like she probably eats tigers for breakfast.

And it only takes a few seconds for Clarice to reduce her to a baby girl with a plush toy kitten on her shoulders where there had been a fake tiger skin shawl, her thick nappy peeping out from underneath a little tiger stripe skirt.

Another win, another payment.

This continues for the next two months and by then Clarice is starting to feel a disturbing amount of overconfidence in this ability she now had, it only came to life in the ring though. She has defeated every opponent she's been faced off against, reducing them all to little more than nappy dependent toddlers without even pulling a punch.

Victoria was, of course, goading her on and it was starting to inflate her ego. She was actually beginning to believe that she couldn't be defeated and a part of her was blaring alarm bells about this, she ignored it though.

Soon she is called back to the ring for a new fight but she isn't told who her opponent is other than there is no way she can defeat this opponent.

So with Victoria at her side she arrives at the fight club and enters the ring, her opponent isn't there yet and the audience is hungry to see another fighter be regressed to cuteness.

“Today's opponent for our challenger will be no other than HERSELF!” The air in front of Clarice ripples and an exact body duplicate appears, she looks exactly like Clarice right down to the birth mark on the right side of her nose.

“How?” This was very new, it shouldn't even be possible.

“Quite simple really” Her copy says, the voice is hers but it sounds colder. “All those fights, all those wins. You've given me quite a lot of nourishment and it's given me the ability to make you face off against the only person you are incapable of defeating, you.

I must admit that when I had you use the ability I loaned you that I didn't expect you to actually become so overconfident so quickly, one such as you should have heeded the warnings your psyche was sending to you. You should know better than to let your ego overrule your common sense” The copy moves into an attack stance and she copies it, clumsy though it is.

“Who are you? What are you?” The bell rings and they begin to pace around the ring, circling one another.

“You would call me an alien, an extraterrestrial. I came to this planet many of your centuries ago and was stranded with no way to return home, my people never came looking for me. I had to survive amid a species of barely developed primates and as I did I found that I could be nourished by their egos, their overconfidence. Your species seems to emit a form of energy that provides me with great nourishment and allows me to make use of my own abilities, like the one I have loaned to you.
For centuries I have fed off the overconfident, the arrogant as there is no shortage of such people and there is no better humiliation than to be reduced from a grown up to a helpless little child. I have survived and after tonight I will simply move to the next fight club and start the process all over again with another hapless tool. You humans are so weak willed when it comes to your egos. When your friend over there dragged you in here that night I saw a tool to use and a way to punish her for her attitude. You have gotten so overconfident that when you return to toddler-hood that the energy from your crushed ego will sustain me for a long time” Her copy moves fast and before she can react she feels a pair of cold hands grab her.

“Thank you, little one, you have been a great help” She doesn't know if anyone has heard her copy but that thought soon fades as her clothes begin to change and the years fall away, her underwear thickens and becomes a thick comfortable nappy, her clothing takes on a much younger appearance more befitting of a baby girl of about two years or younger.

Her copy seems to grow in front of her eyes as she shrinks, she can't even say anything before she's looking up at her copy who smiles down at her.

“Me ikkle” She whispers before she can feel herself wet her nappy.

“Yes, little one, you are. I must admit that you humans make the most adorable young. I'm sure all of your winnings will help in taking good care of you” Looking over to Victoria she feels her mind become hazy as everything she was melts away, leaving behind a very young mindset.

“MAMA! ME PEE PEE!” She manages to get down from the ring and runs to the stunned Victoria who just looks down at her former friend, now daughter.

She doesn't see a woman close by get up and leave as the copy fades away, the audience too stunned to even say anything.

“OUR REIGNING CHAMPION HAS BEEN DEFEATED! BY HERSELF NO LESS! BABALITY!”

Not that Clarice cares, she just wants to have her nappy changed and go home for beddy byes.

~~

Weeks later in another town, the woman sits down and watches as her next tool enters the ring. This was going to be a delectable meal for sure.

Be mindful of your overconfidence