-???, Oleander-

“What did you do to Blueno!” One of the apparently dangerous people in this world stated as I ignored them and held the green plant thing that would be a good friend for Mr. Birch… interesting thing these pop greens.

“I locked all the doors he could possibly ever make... also how is it my fault he didn't think things through when he knew I had the ability to lock things on a conceptual level?” When you had the power of the key blade, I find that conceptually locking or unlocking something was a ridiculously powerful ability to have.

I mean if it all that fruit does is give you the ability to create doors to anywhere, but I've already locked all the doors the user can possibly make... how was this Blueno supposed to get out without my key?

So much for devil fruit being powerful, they were weak to salt water, sea water, water in general with enough table salt poured in it, can't swim even in fresh water and to think these things occurred on a planet covered by eighty percent sea water.

They can't stop soul or willpower attacks and soul attacks are one of Fred's favorite way of dealing with things and everyone has willpower as long as they are alive and trying to live life to the fullest.

I think I prefer the ability to swim, even if the fruits giving power over an entire concept was useful for the incredibly inventive like power over darkness or time or something like that... I don't really know how turning into a jacket really helps in combat unless somebody was willing to wear you, I already had conceptual powers thanks to the soul bound key blade and that was enough for me.

I would however be grabbing the puppy puppy fruit if I could track it down and eventually enchant an item with its juices for Pom to have yet another canine in her collection I'm building up as a good, and maybe somewhat evil, friend. Now what would I turn into a semi-immortal puppy that Pom would enjoy?

Might even look into that dog bazooka while playing with the living grass wolf, which was the true form of plant I just acquired. Pom likes gardening with Mr. Birch right? A bush wolf to go with her tree wolf, aren't I nice?

I think I was being driven mentally insane from not being able to find Pom, but I think that was more a side effect of being Buttina's friend more than anything. Even Fred says I need a few weeks away from Buttina's madness for my mental health and that's Fred saying it.

"Hey, join my crew!" Somebody asked.

"No." I stated flatly.

-Moon Cell Realm, Midgar plains, Ocellus-

The APs we sent out retreated onto the head of Castle Alexander and safely under the shield, soon Alexander lifted our APs off the ground and stood up to start moving backwards.

“What are we doing?” Smolder asked a little worried as she showed up.

“Oh right, thanks for reminding me, all hands we’re retreating Castle Alexander for a short amount of time.” I stated calmly as several rapid fire impacts shook the entire castle, Canard said those cannons would be down in that time. “We’ll have to take care of making our own entrance and will be trying to take the plains as fast as we can once their artillery is down, we don’t know for how long if they can fix it before we get across the plains.”

“So we’re setting up for a mad bum rush into the enemy territory.” Quetal pondered nearby. “Everyone eat some Sitrus Berries, take a ten minute break.

“Oh dear…” Curdle mumbled, her body reforming from how many times she’s been splattered today.

“I hope Mr. Thunderbeak is alright in there.” Clef stated as she came hopping along from helping out in food production.

“He’ll hold out, their only current problem is a lack of AP support and dealing with whatever dangers is going on in there.” There were currently two tiny territories in there and they were barely holding on with the crushing weight of Midgar’s entire territory pressing down on them. “Apparently Pom’s team is getting battered quite badly, hopefully they’ll hold out long enough for us to come in and rescue them.”

-Central Street near the main gate, behind a buildings outdoor pillar, Elise-

“Hsss… could you be a bit gentler Cruel?” I asked as a bullet was pried out of me with a knife and fell to the cement and rolled onto the nearby asphalt with a clatter. Cruel just gave me a flat look and rolled her eyes. “Right, forgot what part of me I was talking about… I’m such a jerk…. is that all of them?”

Cruel smirked and held up a Sitrus Berry which I quickly took and bit into. These things were fast acted, didn’t envy the way the flaming demon was currently looking at Shanty.

Crazy was currently spraying down a few EPs that made it into the area, apparently Dormarch was exceptionally busy, but still trying to find the time to jump in to help with this fight. At least my other Search Snakes were trying to help with the EPs, but I could only make so many.

-Jeanne-

I knew I wasn’t a Steel type, but fire… why did it have to be fire?! I’m a fighting dragon type and should be relatively resilient to it, but still I was horrified that fire was here. Being pyrophobic didn’t help the damage my scales took, the projectiles, fine, the whips on those enemy canine, stings but my scales were up to the task… fire? I wanted to currently be a mile away from the fight when I saw it, it doesn’t help that I associate fire with defeat either.

We were barely damaging that thing called The Arsenal, we were about to deal with a smaller version when that demon showed up.

We barely got the most recent barrier down when that other smaller version of the arsenal showed up and managed to get a shot in on Pom. Speaking of which, Pom was floating there with one hoof on the paralance aimed at The Arsenal and the other busy quickly eating a berry Dolly passed her.

I had to eat a Sitrus Berry too, my scales were tough, but my insides were still getting roughed up from so many impacts. Tough hide I might have, but even I was getting battered down as I sat here with my back to the alleyways wall hyperventilating about the flames coming off of that flaming monster.

Being told I wasn’t a steel type as soon as I got home from my training in Pugilis most certainly did not help me with the childhood trauma I had with fire… so much destruction.

I was a whimpering mess and the others were depending on me to help and lead. Some leader I am, Pom was making a more concerted effort in that arena than I was and she didn’t even want to do it!

It was quiet and I was wondering what The Arsenal or this beast Shanty calls Lu Bu were about to do, at least the demon took out one of the problems that freshly showed up.

-Shanty-

I be behind The Arsenal clinging to the building with the water around me.

Krosser can’t be damaging Lu Bu or The Arsenal very much, but he still be trying something to do something. Pom was taking scope of the situation as was I, but Lu Bu be having his eyes on me and I am being very worried about that.

I am taking stock and I not being good as I’m needing more water soon as the mass of my bubble has been shrunk helping Pom out of a difficult situation.

I know there was being water in this city, but it couldn’t be any of that tainted stuff like what happened after the underground facility exploded. Would be needing the time to access it, but I don’t be thinking Lu Bu would be allowing me that time to get it.

“Pom, can you be telling Dormarch to find a large source of water… please!” I prepped my cane scythe, readying for the oncoming fight when that machine that Merak guy that Elise be hating spoke up.

“Well look who’s… GAH WHAT THE…!?” A massive explosion of fire erupted around The Arsenal damaging it somewhat, Merak didn’t sound very happy. “You know, you could have been on my side boiler man, but it looks like it’s everyone versus everyone and I’m going to come out on top of this free for all brawler. Also don’t think I’ve forgotten about you for a second floating sheep.”

I could be feeling the heat of those flame through the bubble of water around me. Really needed to talk to Pom about something… but I didn’t be getting the time, be needing that eight hours of sleep after dealing with the underground facility.

Lu Bu wanted a fight, he wanted us all to fight him and targeted Merak since he was going to just be attacking us while we dealt with him at the same time. He be sending a message that he was here and he was going to tear us apart.

-Pom-

Okay, glad I moved away from that and was now perched on a windowsill, The Arsenal had some minor damage due to the flames. I had to wonder how we were going to deal with the monster that can obviously absorb, control and generate massive amount of flames wherever he wanted, also there was magic involved in creating those flames so Dolly and I should be safe from magic… but not from the guys muscles.

“I think we should focus on dealing with The Arsenal before Lu Bu!” I shouted to anyone who would listen.

“I have no objections to that!” Elise called back as I floated away from two portals opening in three different directions while pointed at me.

I dropped my height and kept the paralance pointed at The Arsenal to avoid being shot from a variety of angles as stiff unmoving portals appeared trying to send high speed projectiles into me. What I was doing was moving to be closer to Shanty. I did not like how that flaming demon was gazing my charge and I would rather put The Arsenal between him and me.

Dormarch, Shanty needs a huge source of water, you can already guess why after what Lu Bu did, I’m guessing he can magically control fire and if I know anything about unicorns or a particular alicorn… that can get really bad quite fast.

...

If we can forcefully keep The Arsenal between us and Lu Bu we should be fine Dormarch, provided Lu Bu doesn’t target anyone aside from us directly with the magical flames exploding everywhere thing and besides you know he can’t really target me with it.

Though I doubt reflected the magic back on him will do anything to him, he’s almost bigger than The Arsenal now and I’m quite aware that it’s not my imagination that’s he’s still slowly growing… I think he can absorb fire or heat and get stronger from it, that’s not a good sign considering The Arsenal has ridiculously powerful flamethrowers.

We’re going need a lot of water soon or some way to negate heat, because we’re probably dealing with what amounts to a walking volcano.

-Counter Invasion Forces (We’re still just distracting them right?) vs. Ifrit Lu Bu (He pursues you) Vs. The Arsenal (Merak’s Manual Mechanized Mayhem)-

“Well if you won’t work with me.” Merak started off by firing a powerful plasma shot at Ifrit Lu Bu from the right cannon, then immediately turned the tank to shoot at Pom.

He didn’t watch as the plasma ball seemed to make Ifrit Lu Bu, a being with the power over mystical fire and raw muscle, get slightly stronger as its muscles grew and it’s skin turned as red as flames. Thankfully there was only so much fire power Ifrit could absorb and how big he could get, unfortunately for everyone involved that would be functionally at the size of the surrounding buildings as Ifrit started taking up more space in the streets.

Pom was still a priority kill order as the Moon Cell’s systems were having problems with glitches the longer she persisted in getting closer to the core. She evaded a salvo of shots from the head of The Arsenal as it started rolling backwards towards her frantic dodging form in the air. Its torso was soon face facing her and firing it’s left arm rotating machine cannons while surrounded her floating form with portals from all sides.

Above, below and from the sides Pom dodged wildly through the air and what she couldn’t dodge, either she or Dolly could block. At least when Merak made portals, he couldn’t change their direction or move them, his portals were a lot more static than Gilgamesh’s had been.

While Merak was going after Pom, Dormarch had the APs keeping the EPs at bay and they were barely doing that as he searched around for a water tower or some kind of liquid pumping facility.

Shanty bounded off the building as Lu Bu leapt his massive form at her in a powerful and large blur while trying to grab her.

Lu Bu, clinging to the building where Shanty had been, swiftly ripped out a chunk of the building and sent it hurtling at the bubble bound goat while engulfing it in entirely in raging red flames.

Shanty’s bubble almost burst from the impact and it shrunk and the water boiled off from the heat and the amount of water the goat had to control grew smaller as she actively protected herself from being boiled alive.

A second later Lu Bu’s massive form was already in the air and reaching out his muscular left arm to grab at the bubble barely encasing Shanty as it hit the street with a light bounce and started rolling towards one of the alleyways.

There were some concerns Shanty had about moving in the direction of the gate where the demolitions team currently was.

Elise thinking was about helping Pom with the tank or Shanty with the muscle bound monster that started bodily tearing through the alleyway like the walls making up said alleyway were made of wet tissue paper. The hulk was quite terrifying to watch in action, especially when Crazy was bouncing projectiles from her gun off his muscles to little or no effect. The Arsenal was equally terrifying as it gave chase to the highly evasive floating Pom towards the front gate of Midgar.

“Come on!” Krosserdog stated to Elise as he ran past her to regroup with Jeanne and check up on the Pokémon who was currently experiencing something of a mental crisis, he was also constantly firing on The Arsenal for all the minimal damage he could do.

Krosserdog and Elise with her two Search Snakes tried to get Jeanne in a better state of mind, they needed all the help they could currently get at the moment.

Meanwhile Shanty made it to the end of the alleyway to the next street over, but she really did not want to get into a fight with Lu Bu at the moment, especially not on her own.

Lu Bu was too terrifying a force to actually face head on and even hit and run tactics were suspect in their effectiveness after seeing bullets harmlessly bouncing off his skin. He was a big problem in the most literal sense.

“Shanty this way, follow me!” Dormarch shouted and way a paw and got her heading in his direction with Lu Bu erupting from the alleyway and tearing out the two corners of the buildings as his did so.

The building collapsing on Lu Bu didn’t really do much aside from annoy him a little as he flared with flames and blasted them at Shanty as she retreated more into the city and away from the front gate.

Dormarch had two reasons for leading Shanty in this direction, one was to get Lu Bu away from The Arsenal and to get Shanty to a water source she could effectively fight back with. Dormarch had found a water tower not too far away and figured it’d let Shanty get started on helping with Lu Bu, at least in some capacity.

While that was going on Pom was evading and constantly moving, trying to avoid a massive blast from the right cannon dropped on her from above with a portal while trying to deal with four seperate streams of bullets at once with Dolly’s help using her board to cover Pom’s back.

Float had worn off of Pom and she could barely keep up with all the projectiles spewing at her using Dancing Flame, Dolly was just holding on tightly to Pom’s back and using her board to aid in their defense when Pom couldn’t block the incoming spray of projectiles.

Fighting against The Arsenal in a more open space was a poor decision, given it fired a paralytic blasts of energy from its front grill after having turned its lower torso about to face her. They weren’t currently fighting it and were avoiding it entirely.

Pom rolled between the blasts, pulled the paralance into forming a canopy tent above herself to stop all the projectiles and The Arsenal tried to charge it down to crush Pom underneath the paralance.

At the last moment and because she couldn’t stay under the paralance forever without air, Pom jerked her body to the side and used the wool on her hind legs to spring out of the way before the tank ran her down.

There was a few blocks of open space with some junk, lots of badlands and very little cover between the front gate and walls loaded with cannons thankfully pointed outwards and The Arsenal had more advantages out in the open given it had more visual space to keep track of a blurring Pom and let Merak use his portals.

The Arsenal was already turning around and a few EPs were charging for Pom across the open ground.

The Zealots, Saber Knights and Caerbannogs were still keeping the EPs from actively attacking Pom, it’s just that they were close enough for her evading form to see now.

All Pom could do at this point was evade as she really couldn’t do more than dodge when you were being bombarded with projectiles on all sides by static portals from which the projectiles could come out of. If she didn’t have the paralance, then she would have been completely perforated.

Pom managed a bark blast to do some minor damage to one of the tanks wheels, but then it used the last of its barrier drones and Pom wasn’t going to be able to destroy those in any timely fashion and not under pressure.

Who knows how long it would take for Castle Alexander to show up in Midgar proper? Pom certainly didn’t and really couldn’t count on anyone other than those nearby for help currently.

Speaking of those nearby that needed help, Shanty popped off a building as the side of it became engulfed in flames and Ifrit leapt up to throw a punch as she landed on the building opposite of the one she had just been on.

Shant managed to surge her bubble up out of the way of the flaming fist as it plowed through metal, brick, mortar and any substance in the way. Dormarch was urgent trying to get Shanty to a nearby water tower and watching as she evaded a floating Lu Bu.

Seeing as Shanty needed help as she rode a water droplet amount of water up the side of the building with a heat wave following her, Dormarch quickly pointed in the direction of the water tower and quickly sent out a wild bark as Ifrit Lu Bu neared. It did little to really deter the fire demon, but it cause him to blink a bit as his eyes became irritated by the wind slightly.

However a blink was enough for him to lose track of Shanty and Dormarch quickly disappeared in a flash of a Search Hunter.

Shanty had already managed to bound her way across rooftops using water to boost her leaping ability, up until she got underneath a water tower and readied her scythe to slash at the supports. With a swift two dashes and three swings she managed to topple the water tower and start gathering the water inside it towards herself to make a large bubble, a bubble which she quickly used to bound in the direction of Pom near the entrance to Midgar.

If Lu Bu could grow stronger or even heal off being hit with the weapons of The Arsenal, then Pom had the right of it in Shanty’s mind. The Arsenal needed to be avoided entirely or dealt with somehow.

The large bubble transformed into a giant goat shape around Shanty as it started to hopped and stretch the goat shaped mass of water across the rooftops with her in the head controlling it. Even Shanty wasn’t certain she had enough water to deal with Lu Bu without a constant source of fluids as building erupted in flame or exploded behind her quickly retreating form.

Out in the open Pom was being protected by Saber Knights and Zealots using their shields to protect her from harm from all sides as they fought a losing battle. At least the Saber Knights shields could stand up to the machine gun fire from The Arsenal, but when it came to the plasma cannon Pom had to actively get away from the APs protecting her to survive the incoming shots.

Being surrounded on all sides and constantly under threat from The Arsenal was taking its toll on Pom’s body as she was getting bruised and batter as she tried to avoid getting shot to the best of her abilities.

A few Saber Knights APs ran a few Guard Hounds through and continued to move to protect Pom or fight off the nearby swarm of EPs that grew worse by the second.

“Pom, get down!” At the shout Pom threw herself to the ground as Sami sideswiped one of the three remaining barrier drones with the skiff and destroying it with the impact. The skiff quickly took off into the air and Canard dropped down to being near Pom with his hockey stick stabbed into a heli-trooper.

A zealot quickly hopped on board the skiff and managed to get a shield up around it before Merak could blast the skiff apart under the tirade of its machine cannon. It also evaded the following plasma shot.

In return the two remaining Skein Flyers, the ones kept in reserve and were now piloted by two zealots, flew forth and focused on shooting at the barrier drones trying to focus them down to at least expose The Arsenal to the possibility of damage again.

“What… then that means, darn it they got to the wall artillery and I can’t stop it!” Merak growled as he continued to gun for the the skiff which had Sami on it firing rocket launcher shots and her rifle from it into the barrier drones that were actively trying to dodge shots.

Even if they got the barrier drones down again, Pom wondered how they were going to deal with The Arsenal without any ability to do some real damage.

Fortunately that question was answered when Pom saw Shanty incoming with a mass of water, enough water that Shanty could do some serious damage if she could keep it all under control. It was like watching Velvet control a massive ice statue of herself again, dangerous, but Arizona still won that fight by raw muscle and grit.

-Midgar upper city, Copen-

He dashed between buildings avoiding the massive beast, his energy pistol constantly blasting energy as his jetpack launched him forward. He was followed by the faithful mechanical orbs hovering around him defensively as he fought through hordes of aquatic looking monsters that rained down from above.

He landed on a building and faced down the whale sized problem hovering above him, he didn’t know the meaning of fear as he started charging up his weapon.

-Midgar plains, ???-

The assault programs formed up and waited to go on a full on offensive when Castle Alexander made its move as the artillery refused to stop firing and was slowly working its way up to exploding violently.

Castle Alexander was still being hit by artillery fire and had stopped short of exiting the realm, it didn’t want to cause the reinforcements still setting up in Mare Melum to be swamped with the EPs and was thus holding position at the edge of the realm while under heavy fire. At least the shield around the castle was faltering and it was taking damage and shaking violently.

-Castle Alexander, Ocellus-

“Calling Cid in Engineering, what are the chances we can charge up a divine judgment attack?” I asked as Welch was building more magitek armor for our inevitable push into the plains when the artillery finally blows apart. We didn’t know how long we’d have until the artillery regenerates if it can or if our enemies had a counter for our forward charge without their artillery.

“If you mean to blow a hole in the wall with it, that’s not going to work.” Cid answered immediately.

“Good thing I’m not targeting the wall then, I want us to ride forward into the middle of the plain in hover mode and unleash the full force of Castle Alexander. I’m sure our artillery with enough time and effort can pummel a hole into the city.” I started while looking into what our Gazimon were doing and found they were actively currently increasing the production speed of the magitek armor. We were currently down to at least four units and they were avoiding artillery shells like they were born for it while fending off the EPs incoming with eight streams of constant projectiles. I noted that some of the APs getting better the longer they fought. “What I want to do is take the plains in one swift move… can we actually build up the energy for that or have enough range to wipe out all the PLANTs on the battlefield at once?”

“Hmm… yeah, but we’d be walking the rest of the distance to Midgar and will be in low energy combat mode. We might be able to finagle a cannon or two still working afterwards, but don’t count on it.” Answered Cid. “We’ll become temporarily inoperable after firing our most powerful weapon due to the massive energy consumption.”

“Our APs should be enough to make a push for breaking the city gate, Pom’s group needs our firepower badly… hmm… can we angle some of the divine judgment beams over those walls at some targets?”

“We’d only be able to hit large targets with any accuracy and only then two or three beams may make it by the wall.” Castle Alexander responded.

“Hopefully that’ll be enough for when we divine judgment bomb the plains, start charging up for the forward assault! Welch hold all the magitek piloting Zealots in the courtyard until after the divine judgment, then unleash them all at once to pick up the stragglers and try to attack the wall.” I ordered. So far Torneko wasn’t being very helpful aside from protecting those already onboard Castle Alexander, but we might need the security services soon, Patch Cabbage was working on growing more berrys… however we were getting mixed results when it came to reliably growing Sitrus Berries after a certain amount and started getting a lot of Oran Berries.

In any case whatever medical supplies NPC Patch Cabbage and Welch could soon provide would be a big help for our fighters still in the city… don’t worry Pom we’re coming!

“This is Welch with some news for you, I think I cracked the special functions on the magitek armor sending software patches to all available magitek armor! They’ll be able to fire missiles now, but they won’t be as special without the magic empowering them. No healing, no freezer beams, no heat beams and no shock beams… if we could get one to Pom or anyone magical to pilot one then they’d still be capable of all that, thanks to the fact that I have an idea as to what these machines can really do when pushed.”

A second later the four magitek armors started spraying missiles as much as bullets and tore apart an incoming tank EPs in a series of powerful explosions. The artillery from the enemy wouldn’t be able to hit something that small and fast, so it was on the EPs to defend themselves from those missiles.

“Woohoo, victory for Welch manufacturing!” Welch stated exuberantly.

It wasn’t all good news as one of the two PLANT territories within Midgar suddenly popped and the territory changed back into being Midgars.

-Inside Midgar’s walls, near the front gate, Pom-

I didn’t have time to prepare myself for the blast wave and thankfully Shanty hadn’t been in the territory before it erupted, but the PLANT producing Caerbannogs couldn’t take any more pressure and blew apart and knocked us all over in the blast wave giving our enemies time to clear up a large number of APs in the area.

We were left with whatever Caerbannogs that survived the territory explosion along with a small trickle of Saber Knights and Rider Zealots. I barely even managed to roll out of the way of the plasma shot and get the paralance into position to block the hundreds of rounds streaming for us from the front, while several Zealots threw themselves into protecting me from behind the sides and above with their shields and very bodies.

Losing that PLANT had a very terrible effect on our morale, soon Dormarch appeared at my side and transformed into his Dobermon D-type form.

“Sorry I’m late and we lost a PLANT.” We haven’t lost the fight entirely, but we were being slowly crushed here Dormarch. We were lucky the skiff, as badly damaged as it was, along with the two Skein Flyers were still airborne and lending support. The skiff had went to pick up Krosserdog at some point and his combined firepower with Crazy and Sami was good for the EPs and the remaining barrier drone that refused to be in the line of fire, but we still had the issue of actually having anything that can be damaging The Arsenal until Shanty arrives and she just did.

“Not really your fault Dormarch, how long until the cannons blow and Castle Alexander can go on the offensive?” I asked Canard as we continued to stay moving so we didn’t get run over by the super tank as it charged us, Merak was enjoying himself if all the laughter at our expenses was anything to go by.

“Five minutes, even if we gave them ten more I don’t think we exactly have that time!” Canard stated as another Zealot defending us was gunned down in a painful display and he clubbed a Guard Hound with his hockey stick and sent a digital exploding energy puck flying into a Heli-trooper.

“We might lose the other PLANT, no matter how well it is hidden, out of the sheer pressure of the territory coming down on it from all sides.” That was a very good worry to have Dormarch, but this mission was fairly bad one from the onset of things. I’m surprised we even made it this far without too many casualties.

That’s when Shanty leapt into action from the tops of the building and fire demon version of Lu Bu wasn’t too far behind judging by the portions of the city currently catching fire in his rage at not being able to keep up with her.

Shanty managed to slashed the last barrier drone and deal some damage to The Arsenal with her large water body, which followed up by physically tackling The Arsenal and denting its armor. Shanty dodged the retaliatory plasma blast from the right arm cannon as she hadn’t managed to knock the tank over despite the impressive amount of mass and weight she threw into it.

“Can we really deal with the all the EPs, The Arsenal and a flaming demon coming after our current heavy hitter on top of it all until help comes?” Sending out a Surge Projector blast with a tentacle that blew up a few heli-troopers, Dormarch continued to fight despite the fact that we were slowly losing ground and being pressured towards the wall by all the EPS.

“Yeah, we’re going to need more help than what we have here, we need some really heavy munitions like what Sami is using to really put a dent in that thing!” Peppercat shouted as she slashed apart a trooper up close with a blade of lightning and then started absorbing lightning blasts coming from the tank for us.

“I’ve been in worse scraps than this surrounded entirely by Gekkos.” Snake sent out a rope dart to wrap around a Guard Hounds neck as it leapt for Peppercat, its neck was promptly snapped by the suddenly jerking pull of the weapon that left the EP dissolving into a pile of bits. “I think we can still pull off this mission without a full team wipe.”

“Well we’ll have to figure out how survive somehow and we might have to force our way back into the city to find some cover from all of this!” I shouted as I continued position myself to protect the others with the help of the Saber Knights and Zealots to handle the combined onslaught of projectiles coming from The Arsenal, Trooper and Heli-troopers using portals to get the projectiles around Shanty’s current presence on the battlefield.

She was damaging the armor on The Arsenal well enough as she avoided the shocking blasts that it sent out before they could touch any of the water she controlled. If she lost concentration we were going to be down a lot of water we could use against Lu Bu afterwards.

“If we could get on the skiff in the middle of this mess that would be really helpful!” Canard called out while slashing the head off a Trooper EP with the small blade of his stick. “We came here to help you, but now we’re the ones that need help.”

“At least we succeeded in what we came to do.” That was a bit of a cold comfort for me as my legs continued to shake from the impacts until I had my wool holding the paralance steady.

That’s when multiple Berserker Brutes started showing up and I let a whimper pass my lips. We could barely deal with one Brute by attacking it together, how were we going to deal with several of them at once on top of everything else?!

Eight hours of sleep wasn't nearly enough for all of this...

Author's Note

Life can certainly keep me busy.