Baa-Ram-Ewe!

-Moon Cell Realm, Shinra Building, Top Floor, Merak-

“Now where are you little scurrying rats?” Says the lemming entirely ignoring his own particular rodent motif. “The fire demon is drawing a lot of my forces away, so they are going to go active… but when they do.”

I held up the controlling and got a visual from The Arsenal tank, it was going to take some time for it to arrive. Once it does, they were going to get gunned down fairly quickly.

After a moment a signal popped up as they had finally revealed their location, they were making movements on one of the PLANTs near the entrance to the city. I can’t let them get too many of those. In fact if they succeed in getting that one, then they’ll find it quite hard to get anymore.

Can’t really sit back and let them get too strong a foothold. I may be lazy, but I don’t want my cushy position threatened by these loser noobs.

Besides, if I take care of them now I won’t have to do so much work later! Time to divert what I can spare to stop them from going after the gate, because that is undoubtedly their target to get their fortress within the city and beyond all the cannons holding them at bay.

The flaming demon dude might even help me with taking them out, he even seems driven to head slowly in their direction and I could help him with that by drawing aggro and goose chasing him into them.

-Midgar, Leaving NPC Slum Sector, Pom-

“This is Pom calling Castle Alexander, do you hear me?” I asked into the visor as we ran towards the closest PLANT to take control of, since the underground facility was blown to prevent us from gaining any support within the city we were going to need to capture some territory no matter how small and start producing forces already inside the city.

Easier said than done with Elites now being a thing, also I just gave away our current position on purpose. This was as we started forward down the streets quickly taking out whatever EPs were currently in our way, so far there weren’t very many around one or two at the most that Krosserdog could easily snipe.

“Hearing you almost clearly Pom, though some static is to be expected, what is going on in there?” Nice to hear Ocellus’s voice, even if she was sounding a little frazzled.

“A lot of things, like how I recently ate someone to life and that’s a rare sentence that nobody would normally say within their lifetime and have it make sense in context.” I ducked behind a wall as bullets started striking out at my position.. “Lots of psychological trauma to catch up on, after I run out of more important things to distract myself with.”

Meanwhile Jeanne, using Iron Defense, quickly ran forward with her left arm held up deflecting hundreds of bullets off her steel tough scales while protecting her face. She readied her banner spear to stab into the Troopers with her right claw one handed, even saw some of the Guard Hounds with their odd tentacles on approach from further away

“Don’t you mean to say you ate someone to death?” Ocellus asked sounded more curious than scared.

Why is everyone letting me have a pass?! I pulled and ate someone’s still beating heart out of their chest! Not that Ocellus didn’t know that or the context… look I should really get into talking this through later with Elise and everyone present.

“No, I ate someone to life and it’s the only way I can really put it, things have been a little weird and we’re working on knocking down some PLANTs so we can get some territory or at least some AP support. Apparently the servant to watch out for prevented us from gaining any foothold by blowing the facility that was down the underground cavern network.” I watched as Dolly slid by with her board angled to send bullets deflecting upwards and away from her before she swiped the leg out from under a trooper while coming out of her flowing motion slide, then she swiftly bashed its face apart with the flat of her board. “We’re working on improving our situation, the tunnels may be a bit too dangerous for anything living thanks to a dangerously caustic to life soul related substance flooding the lower end of the tunnels… Shine could make it through, but we thought better of trying anything else in that direction like bringing in more APs through the tunnels. Since we doubt you can send any help our way even if you were able to get some breathing until we can meet up with the castle directly, but I would still appreciate knowing your current situation in all of this.”

“Pom, weird defines your life, also its things like that that make me want to become a therapist or get therapy myself, whichever occurs first at this rate... but lambkin tend to have that kind of effect on people right?” Well Ocellus has got me there, Lambkin tend to be the leading cause of therapists… not exactly a good thing really. “As for how Castle Alexander is doing, we’re moderately damaged and holding on and together fairly well. We’re able to repair the castle faster than they can damage it, but the constant stream of mechanical EPs is quite unpleasant when we can’t do anything to take any territory further beyond our current frontline. Our artillery can’t get in range of those cannons across the plains, so we can’t exactly make a forward push and any territory we take is going to be bombarded back into being under enemy control and we don’t want our APs taking territorial blasts. What’s the status of everyone else?”

“We’ve lost some Zealots, some lost and damaged vehicles, we’re all now actively using our supplies and we’re going to need Castle Alexander’s firepower to even make a dent in this city.” I swiftly darted forward to keep up with Jeanne’s forward progress, she currently didn’t need my help at all and I was kind of bringing up the rear to talk to Ocellus. “I’m about to get back into what we’re doing here, but know we’re running into some pretty big issues in here.”

The fighting dragon’s large scales on her arms gave her a very good defense for being shot at. Me, I wouldn’t survive being hit by so many projectiles that can puncture through my wool so easily, as my fluff still couldn’t quite stop bullets. So I was in my Sheep’s Clothing wool shift for the foreseeable future, since my wool was not going to stop any of those projectiles from getting through if I get directly struck. I also had my paralance in my front hooves ready to block a tirade at any moment from any direction.

“Like what?” Ocellus asked as I heard sounds of Castle Alexander being struck by artillery fire in the background.

“Remember Lu Bu, that guy from Ignis that Shanty fought and barely survived thanks to that fire monkey Hideyoshi?” I was going to have to start getting into combat soon, the PLANT we went after had finally sent out it’s Elite and it was quite a brute that Etemon described as having met after he got this far before retreating from Moon Cell’s realms. Etemon must have been really fast to escape all this stuff, since this is getting a bit ridiculous for us to deal with. “Yeah, he’s back from the dead… and he’s apparently possessed a demon or something close to it according to Shine.”

The brute of an Elite EP was shining the red light from its eye onto Jeanne who stared back challengingly with narrowed eyes as she stood tall and planted the banner to stare it down. Said eye was in the middle of the torso of its armored upside down egg shaped body. Connected to the top heavy body were two fairly bulky arms leading to the massive metal boulders at the ends of them, they were covered in very painful looking spikes. Its two comically small conical legs that ended in pointy tips was probably the smallest part of the hulking stone like monstrosity that looked something like a golem from Equestria… except less floating rock bits and more a solid overall mechanical look that most generic EPs had. This at least made it more fearsome looking than the Berserker Vikings with their burning axes.

“Don’t you mean it’s a demon possessing his soul or his image?” Oh Ocellus, you sweet cuddly changeling.

“No, I’m pretty sure Shine has the right of the situation by the description of the horned monstrosity causing fires in the lower city of Midgar. The monster probably approaching in our general direction is definitely him in charge of things if Shanty can feel him.” I looked in the distance down the street and saw a large section of city going up in an inferno. I held heavy metal trash can in front of me to take hundreds of shots being fired from the nearby EPS in one hoof and the paralance in the other to continue blocking shots from two separate directions, still public enemy number one for Moon Cell even now… however the more fire I draw the less going at my friends who quickly wiped them out. “If I had any self-preservation instincts, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Shanty at the moment.”

“What self-preservation instincts?” Ocellus responded dryly. “I’m pretty certain that you barely have any at this point Pom. Which is sad, but probably necessary for you to continue as a functional being.”

“I’m going to stop communications soon as I have fighting to do, two worlds to help save and an increasingly complex series of emotions to drown out with even worse problems… and no amount of therapy will ever make me be alright again with what I just recently did. Just the thought of a lot of quiet time with my ‘Sky Fire’ or my beloved ‘god puppies’ goes a long way to helping, but actually spending time with them… that’s what I’m fighting for right now.” I started to sneak forward with the trash can absorbing more gun fire from the surrounding smaller EPS and Dormarch took up a protective position at my side as Jeanne, Krosserdog and Shanty started wearing the hulking thing down and they eventually made it turn its back to me and Dormarch. Jeanne is definitely one of the strongest among us and I bet she couldn’t wait to evolve into a Kommo-o, she’ll be a really impressive one I can already tell. “Just be prepared to rush towards Midgar when we can present an opening for you. Just know that we’re doing okay… ish.”

“Alright, we’ll prepare for an opportunity to invade the city proper if you can manage and will leave you to it.” Ocellus stated pleasantly. “Thanks for the update Pom, stay safe in there!”

Following that I threw the trash can and it knocked down a number of troopers and a guard hound. I leapt at the back of what Dormarch had scanned with the Digivice to be identified as a Berserker Brute EP, I thought it would be called ‘Knuckles’ on the account of the huge spikes on its massive boulder sized fists.

I slammed the paralance into its spine, but that barely even made it move and didn’t stagger it at all. I leapt up and kicked off a spike onto the back of its left boulder fist and got onto its right shoulder. It spun around swung its left arm outwards at where I used to be, then it shook it’s shoulder to try and throw me off. The strength of this Brute had to be impressive, except for the design flaw in not being able to actually hit me with its spiked boulder fists in my current position, as it was not a very flexible EP like the Assassin Reapers, and its overall speed left something to be desired.

This didn’t stop the Brute from spinning in its attempts to throw me off. I had already glued onto it with my wool and was bashing it with the paralance in my right leg to do some damage.

Jeanne helped by stabbing at the thing to try and pin it in place, as Dormarch and Krosser blasted it, Dolly was busy with the surrounding smaller EPs still being spawned around us by the PLANT and was getting support from the Search Snake forms of Cruel and Crazy.

Shanty was switching from slashing into the Brute to attacking the surrounding EPs to make sure they couldn’t get shots on me while I held onto it, I felt like I was in a rodeo as I had to open the paralance using my wool to block a fair amount of projectiles coming at me from behind.

Elise finally decided to make a move personally, with a springing leap from her tail she twirled the spear and then jammed it into the Brute’s upper torso at a downwards angle. It was as deeply as Jeanne had her banner spear from its lower torso going in at an upwards angle… still wasn’t enough to finish the Brute off.

“Oh come on, why is this thing so hard to destroy!” Dormarch complained.

“I’ve got it!” Krosserdog, upon dodging a Guard Hound by leaping over a tentacle strike and stomping on its back, he lunged forward from kicking the hound over. The cross on his forehead opened up and his two rifles pointing forward. “Point Blank!”

The rifles on Krosserdog’s arms and forehead all went off at once, his two rifles shots dented the Brute by connecting at the same time. The dented portion of the Brute was weakened enough that when it took the shot from his forehead within the same split second, said shot tore a gaping hole through the Brute, the PLANT behind it, multiple EPs and possibly two or more buildings further on from there.

I dropped to the ground on my hind hooves as the monster dissolved out from under me staring at Krosserdog in surprise.

“Why haven’t you done that before?” I asked as Krosserdogs forehead cross closed up and he took up a stance to aim his rifles about as the territory exploded sending the various EPs surrounding us flying as a territory barrier popped into existence with a new AP making PLANT, I don’t know whether it was fortunate or not that it started immediately producing Rider Zealots. We didn’t exactly have vehicles for them, but their shields more than made up for the fact that the surrounds EPs were mostly all guns all the time.

“One, if I take a hit under my cross, my head part instantly blows apart. It kind of has a big structural weakness flaw, otherwise the closed cross is the most well armored part of my forehead.” Right, Digibots like Krosserdog were more focused on what parts they were equipped with and utilizing, than digital upgrading evolutions like Digimon were and he could functionally swap parts with other digibots if he wanted to change his loadout in some ways. He would have minimal efficiency in using Rokusho or Peppercat’s melee focused combat parts. Different story with Metabee’s parts, as he might be on par with Metabee’s in using them given his specialization as a ranged weapon digibot. After seeing Peppercat without most of her parts, it definitely took a while for recovery if a part got outright destroyed. “Two, the ammunition in my head cannon has a very slow cycle for reload compared to someone like Metabee and should only be used for emergency firepower ma’am. It’s very powerful, but it can only fire once before having to cycle.”

Digibots had better minimum combat potential compared to rookie Digimon, but lower maximum combat potential without a fusion evolution like what Metabee and Rokusho had.

“Okay, fairly understandable then.” I finally said to the robot saluting to me, I turned to the zealots spawning in and some of their shields were already taking shots for us as they made a veritable barrier out of themselves for our sakes.

“Zealots I want you to help us take another PLANT, Dormarch give us a direction to the nearest PLANT as we approach the front gate to Midgar as soon as you can!” Jeanne called out as she and the Zealots protected the freshly acquired PLANT spewing forth vehicle controlling Zealots that had no vehicles to use. “PLANT follow us, stay within the barrier fields of the Zealots!”

“Cheese house, down cola!” All the Zealots yelled as a number of them gathered around Jeanne and a small group protected the PLANT as it started hovering in the direction we were heading in.

We were on a side street near the main road to and from the gate and several Troopers popped from around the corner and fired on the Zealots.

They didn’t last very long when the shielded Zealots leapt impressive distances to tear them down in a flash of stabbing energy blades. The trooper’s guns proved very ineffective at dealing with the Zealot’s personal shields before they got taken down.

Zealots are definitely not helpless, but the Guard Hounds with the troopers definitely gave the Zealots problems as one Guard Hound proceed to wipe out five in short order with its head whip. Zealots could dish out damage and commandeer vehicles to great effect, but they couldn’t take melee attacks very well as they could dish them out. The Guard Hounds were tearing them apart far too quickly.

What was even worse for the Zealots is when the Heli-troopers showed up. The Zealots had a good horizontal lunge, but they were hard pressed to deal with doing vertical leaps at the flying helicopter gauntlet wearing EPs. Heli-troopers not only had guns built into the flight capable gauntlets, but the spinning blades themselves made for some very dangerous weapons all their own when they charged and easily tore through our Zealots.

“Dolly, use Aero those Heli-troopers!” They were getting too close to our PLANT, so I decided to go for Aero for the wide area impact rather than Gravity which at most would knock one or two out of the air.

“Aero!” Dolly answered immediately with swirling winds, said winds immediately downed the ten or so Heli-troopers that showed up and left them vulnerable to the lunging Zealots.

While she was doing that I darted forward to bash a few Guard Hounds, not very dangerous to me as the paralance easily blocked their whip strikes and aside from spitting fireballs sporadically the Guard Hounds weren’t all too dangerous, to those of us who weren’t Zealots at least.

Krosserdog was taking care of the regular troopers alongside Jeanne, who could simply wade through all those bullets from the heli-troopers without injury because of her Iron Defense move.

Elise was sticking close to me and being fairly helpful with thrown knives or sending regular Search Snakes to trip up the Guard Hounds.

At this point I think things were going too well for us, I was wondering when the real horseshoe would drop as we came up to a PLANT that seemed to be producing a lot of Guard Hounds and Heli-troopers.

The Heli-troopers were bothersome to bring down without Dolly constantly using Aero, but I wasn’t going to tell her to constantly do so as she needed to reserve her strength for when we really need that magic.

I brought the paralance up and blocked a series of bullets from above and then slammed the edge of the canopy down on the neck of a charging Guard Hound chopping its whipping tentacle and head off to leave a quickly evaporating body behind me.

I quickly put my paralance back up and moved to the side to block some bullets for Elise who was fairly effective against the flying bipedal nuisances as was Crazy with the machine gun arm from a Sweeper.

After a point the Heli-troopers started using the spinning blades they weren’t using to hover in the air to block small projectiles from Elise, Krosserdog or Dormarch. If they got low enough they’d be charged down by the Zealots slowly forging a path forward for us.

“We’re being hard countered here!” I called out as the regular gun wielding Troopers, that were like mass produced Saber Knights, were coming in smaller numbers and smashed down a Guard Hound as it leapt at me with a jaw wide open and building up to spit fire at me. “The Zealots are good for troopers or ground targets, but those Heli-troopers are becoming a real problem.”

“Well what do we do about that mom?” Dormarch stated before ducking under some rotating blades and then blasted a Wild Bark up into the torso to split the Heli-trooper in half.

“Can we produce anything other than Zealots?” I asked as a Heli-trooper struck the PLANT we recently acquired before he was tackled blade first by a Zealot.

“Maybe Saber Knights? They are definitely a standard of program so simple that any PLANT can produce them.” Dormarch suggested and I turned to Jeanne who was taking on Guard Hounds with relative easy, her armored scales were too tough for the Guard Hound to bite through, but the whips were still damaging them.

“Do it if you can. I’m strong, but even these numbers will wear me down eventually!” Jeanne stated as she bashed a speared through Guard Hound onto a Heli-trooper. “We need to keep pushing for the front gate of Midgar and drawing more attention to ourselves by gaining more AP support, we’re not doing this without them.”

“Mom, can you and Elise cover me while I set up the PLANT to start producing some Saber Knights alongside the Zealots?” Dormarch asked as more Heli-troopers came in.

“Yes, but don’t take too long, we’re doing this on the move!” I stated as Dormarch teleport to being on the PLANT protected by four Zealot energy shields and it stayed in motion as we continued forward. “Tell us when you detect another PLANT we can use.”

“At least we be hoping there is another one we can be using!” Shanty stated as she sliced through the Guard Hounds surging forward at us from down the street. “There be a chill in my spine and I can be feeling Lu Bu getting closer.”

I had no doubt that Shanty can feel him, but why can she feel him is the question I’d rather ask. She wasn’t the one that killed him and she wasn’t even on the winning end of that fight.

“That’s the odd thing about all this, the digivice hasn’t detected another PLANT being nearby for a while. The more a PLANT moves the less of a territory zone it can continue to produce.” Dormarch stated as he worked quickly while I took to blocking shots as Elise continued to throw knives into the Heli-troopers that showed up. Krosserdog was also focusing on the flying enemies whereas everyone else was focusing on the ground trouble.

“Do you be thinking they be keeping us from gaining more PLANTs to be stopping us from being supported by APs?” We were at least three blocks away from the gate Shanty and I didn’t see or hear a hum of the floating jellyfish machines other than our own. “Wished I could be doing a flying slash right about now!”

A heli-trooper swooped down and swung their spinning propeller blades at Shanty only to be deflected and slashed in half vertically by the cane scythe. Shanty had to quickly duck behind me as several Heli-troopers rained fire down on her from above.

“If this Merak guy is as genius as Elise says he is, then the fact that we even got one PLANT to work with should be as much as we can hope for without long ranged support to deal with PLANTs mobilizing.” On average I thought that PLANTs couldn’t move very much or often, once place in a territory they tended to stay in that territory and produce endless waves of combat capable entities. The Sahagin were more of a special case, since it was a PLANT that could move and produce entities at the same time, which was fairly rare. “If PLANTs are being moved out of our path, then we at least know that the PLANT isn’t producing any entities while in motion unless it’s a specialized for it.”

“That’s mostly correct mom and… got it!” The AP PLANT stopped moving for several seconds and multiple Saber Knights and a few more Zealots started appearing after hearing the sound of Dormarch’s chipper tone of success. The Saber Knights started absorbing bullets on their shields and were taking on the Guard Hounds and Troopers with relative ease. Dormarch hopped off the PLANT and looked about. “Not detecting any active PLANTs in the area other than ours, if they moved them out of the way then that’s more to our benefit.”

After the PLANT finished deploying a fresh force of Saber Knights and Rider Zealots, it closed up and started moving again.

The Heli-troopers were still causing problems as they swooped into the street we were on to start firing down us from above as they swept past us. However the Zealots had us covered as they were all walking shield generators up until their shields were broken projectiles weren’t entirely a problem when they closed up ranks. Getting into melee range with a zealot went better for the heli-troopers, up until the Saber Knight showed up and punished them for trying to charge the Zealots.

“Not a single other PLANT?” Asked Jeanne as she managed to pry a Heli-trooper out of the air with her long banner spear and slammed them into the ground, the EP splattered into cubes. “Let’s go the next street over and get a look at the main gate.”

I could only hope that Canard’s team was having better luck than we were, we moved the next street over and the large open street was fairly quiet. Aside from the rush of at least thirty Guard Hounds the Saber Knight still tore those down fairly quickly with simple slashes of their swords and the Zealots assisted, but we still lost a few Zealots to the Guard Hounds. We hadn’t lost a single Saber Knight since they showed up.

“They are not protecting the entrance so heavily?” Jeanne, don’t do what I think you’re about to do. “We should try to get it open, I’m sure we can do it without too much trouble!”

“Oh, you did not just say that…” Dormarch groaned, as did I, Shanty and Dolly as we were barely two blocks away from investigating the entrance.

“Is this the part where something really bad happens because someone tempted…” Krosserdog didn’t get a chance to finish his words when a number of Zealots were blown apart, but at least the Saber Knights held up and protected us from the massive blast as something roared into our path in the street as we tried to make our way for the gate.

The shot had come from the right arm of the tank with what looked like a tin can on top of it.

“Well hello there little… huh, what are you doing here!” Ah, it seems that was Merak’s voice, given the tank seemed to be focusing glowing light on Elise.

“Merak.” Elise said flatly as she tightened her grip on the spear with a swords blade at its tip. “I just want you to know that I’m coming for you and I swear that when I get my claws on you, you’ll regret everything you’ve ever done to me!”

“Heh, then you’ll have to survive The Arsenal and the incoming Ifrit before that, then you’ll have to climb up to me through hordes of program ready to battle to the death.” The tanks arms rose up and took aim at us. “A pathetic introvert noob of a loser like you won’t even survive five minutes fighting with The Arsenal while I’m controlling it!”

An explosion sounded out behind us and we could see flames rising up into the sky. Behind us, still a fair distance away in the plumes of flames rising into the sky, we could see a massive bipedal minotaur like lion thing that was on fire and had rippling muscles it was on the roof of a building and roaring fire out of its mouth. It was obviously immune to fire and would probably be more terrifyingly huge up close and personal.

“Yeah, that is definitely being Lu Bu, but not as a bird.” Shanty said while nodding in the direction of the large fire demon without wings.

“Put the PLANT in production mode Dormarch and move it somewhere hidden off the streets, we’ll hold our ground here.” Jeanne stated as she turned towards the tank and planted the Banner Spear. Dormarch immediately got to work on moving the PLANT. “We’re not afraid of you!”

“Oh you will be soon enough!” Merak stated as the tank, called The Arsenal apparently, took aim for us with all the guns on the left arm rotating and preparing to fire a volley at us.

“Dolly…” I said slowly.

“Yeah?” Dolly said as she was already on my back as we stood behind two Zealots.

“Do we actually have a chance in Tartarus of surviving being sandwiched between that thing and that thing?” What I wanted right now was a little positivity as I pointed to the tank and the large fire demon of revenge coming up on our backs.

“Your version of heck?” Dolly said with a cheerful bark. “Nope, especially if we were alone, but we can still try to do some damage here right?”

“Seriously, this is being why everyone should be stopping with the fate tempting around you!” Shanty stated bluntly as she readied her Cane Scythe and pointed it at The Arsenal.

“I don’t think my weapons can even damage something that well armored, aside from my head cannon.” Krosserdog said weakly. “My guns are more for accuracy than power.”

“Suck it up, we can do this!” Jeanne stated as she doubled up her Iron Defense and waved her banner about. “All APs prioritize defense of the PLANT and our lives.”

“Remember what I said about Merak needing a line of sight to use his portals, keep that in mind and how many he can make at once.” Elise called out to the two unusually large Search Snakes with gems in their heads and they nodded. “Crazy, Cruel… let’s go!”

“Canard don’t respond, but I hope you can hear this.” I said into the visor. “Keep the team quiet, things are about to get exceedingly noisy here. Any Allied Program support you can send our way would be greatly appreciated.”

-Canard-

“The other team is in trouble, can we spare the time to grab and send a PLANT their way?” I suggested as we were still working on how to deal with the cannons or the gate, while they had the enemy distracted. We had a few ideas already of what to do and Sami would be necessary for them.

“Shine and I can split off and do that.” Snake offered.

"Do so, because..." A portion of a building was knocked over in an explosion, a grim frown crossed my beak as Sami silently got our skiff closer to the wall, she looked equally upset about or friends being in danger. "It sounds like they need it."