Baa-Ram-Ewe!

-Equus, Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Jaded La Perm-

“Okay, why come to me with this?” I asked of Starlight Glimmer as I glanced at Phyllis.

“Because apparently, according to some ancient history and the people that know you… well you were said to have given birth to a magical tree?” Starlight stated as the plant known as Phyllis seemed fairly healthy and… lively. As in it was moving about more than a bushy little plant should.

“Yes, but that is my first daughter, your situation is slightly different.” A living Philodendron wasn’t the weirdest thing I’ve seen, not by a long shot. “Given Phyllis is your familiar… well to put it bluntly, that’s slightly odd.”

I’ve seen Terra Tortoises with more odd plants on their backs, like Mr. Tortoise Snap who once invaded Sweet Apple Acres… the fact that he survived on the moon for a month before Luna brought him back to the planet was amazing, incidentally the moon has an mild atmosphere now. Terra Tortoises apparently produce a huge load of oxygen, which showed you how magical they are as mega fauna native to Equus.

As for how big Terra Tortoises could get, apparently it explains the existence of a place called Ankh-Morpork that Pinkie told me about. How they live on a giant turtle, with large elephants on its back, holding up a disc shaped world called Discworld. The people who lived on Discworld were fairly tame on what I considered weird from what Pinkie tells me.

“Do you have any ideas though?” Starlight asked. “I mean one day things were normal and then bam, my Phyllis is communicating to me a need for a little more water and it finally occurred to me that it was weird. Given I live in Ponyville with Pinkie Pie and most of Twilight’s other friends… I didn’t notice because I was getting so used to all the other weird stuff that happens there that I started to ignore or tune it out. It’s actually amazing how much a pony is willing to overlook in that town.”

“Maybe look into the possibility of Timberwolf related magical essence, I think Mr. Birch in Huoshan might be amicable enough to let you study him for a little bit. Provided you bring fertilizer, water and some tanning mirrors.” Yes, I may have bribed Pom’s cuddly canine menagerie once or twice. The Tenko is really hard to sell on a prank, but as long as it wasn’t anything illegal, the two tailed fox was fine with it when given well prepared fish and rice. With the world’s largest supply of fish jerky that wasn’t a problem… I just wish mom would stop producing the stuff to the point of absurdity. “Mostly To see if there are some similarities between him and Phyllis to see if she has a similar or common ancestry like that… also don’t leave Phyllis and Mr. Birch alone in a room together.”

“Why, what would I… oh… ew! Did you really have to put that thought in my head?!” Hey you were the one that understood what I meant Starlight. I saw your mind immediately went there as soon as I said it and how wide your eyes got by the point you said ‘would’.

“I didn’t put it there, you did. My comment was to not leave two possibly sentient plants in a room alone together you dirty minded unicorn you.” Then I grinned and altered the subject slightly. “So anything else or do you want to talk about, like the elephant in the room that is your passion for Sunburst and Trixie? I mean a naughty minded unicorn like you must have some ideas.”

“No… of course not.” Starlight Glimmers face lit up straight red.

“So would Sunburst be the ketchup and mustard condiments and Trixie would be the unique blue carrot as part of a carrot dog?” I watched as Starlight slam her hooves into her face in embarrassment.

“Please stop...” Starlight Glimmer whined.

“Says the mare that has the ‘buns’… of steel.” Well she came to me for advice, so she should have at least expected this much ribbing from an Abyssinian being catty.

“Ugh… can you be any more annoying?” Starlight finally calmed down after slammed her face into the table.

“Here’s your special order carrot dog, ma’am…” Savannah ‘The Wild’ winked at me as she said this with a bright smile as she put the order of hay fries and the carrot dog had a pink hued bun made of radish bread, a steaming blue carrot inside said bun and it was topped with ketchup and mustard.

I grinned at Starlight.

“Shut up.” Nobody would let Starlight live this one down given the order had been fairly specific.

-Moon Cell Realm, Midgar, Upper City, Mog Wash, Cait Sith-

I saw Pom drive off after the runaway PLANT on a motorcycle, she looked quite uncomfortable with driving it… poor lass probably didn’t have a license. Not that anyone around here would care about that, but still!

“Well that wasn’t the plan at all!” Muttering this as I looked to my personal Magitek Moogle Monster and he was currently holding a bindle over his right shoulder and staring blankly at me. He eventually shrugged blankly, about as much as could be expected from him as far as intelligence went.

“Don’t worry, I prepared an alternative PLANT to go after in case this happened and I just informed mom of this… I may have forgotten to mention having a backup plan in case something exactly like this happened.” Dormarch winced visibly, poor boy must be getting quite a mental earful from his mother. Psychic powers or incredible connections weren’t unknown to me. “Well while mom has them distracted, I’ll grab the PLANT. Can you feed Shanty these berries? They should help speed up her recovery, though I doubt it will fully fix her broken legs.”

He gave me a few curious looking berries and I nodded, he was off. Wondered how he accomplished having two fused cores like that? Normally trying something like that would kill most beings, eh must be something unique.

“Well come on then you lug, let’s go get these to Shanty before things go to heck in a handbasket.” Considering some of the things I was seeing going on in the upper city on several monitoring screens, maybe the lower city had it better at the moment with that rabid Bomb outbreak. I’ve seen plenty of things in my lifetimes, but an actual outright eldritch abomination outbreak from beyond some strange veil was quite terrifying. Those things were eating everything and they gave off a creepy feeling worse than being a near a Morbol. “Never mind we’re already there… at least this is drawing attention from my small ‘legitimate’ business.”

A grin crossed my face as I prayed Dormarch was quick with acquiring that PLANT.

-Heading towards the location of the recently acquired PLANT, Canard-

“Sami tell me you got an angle on it!” I turned the corner to the right and was on the right path directly towards the direction the PLANT was in and was even going in the same direction it was moving in.

“Give me three more seconds without any lateral movement. Also it’s not like I can reload this thing while we’re in motion, so I only have the one shot unless I want to scrape up my bazooka or we come to a complete stop!” Sami was on the back of the motorcycle and aiming at a helicopter inbound, likely here to attack Pom. “Brace yourself, firing into the a-hole!”

The bike shuddered and I swerved a bit wildly for a few seconds and the air was lit up with the sound of the helicopter firing a spray of machine cannon rounds in the distance, followed by a powerful explosion. It didn’t manage to shoot down the rocket Sami just fired at it

“Nice shot!” Metabee called out as he gunned down several Moon Cell Watcher’s with rapid fire from both his guns on his arm. “Let me finish it off… with some missiles!”

I glanced at Metabee and watched as numerous rockets exploded out of the split horn on his head and flew into the smoking helicopter that was even further damaged, but still flying. It was flying a lot slower than it was a second ago, its weapons were still fully functional too as it flew away instead of continuing on course and would likely circle back around later to attack us.

“That’s one tough helicopter.” Krosserdog said from our right, before shooting a Heli-trooper out of the air with his left rifle.

“Yeah, kind of want to see what it’d take to bring it out of the air now if my missiles aren’t enough for it!” Metabee sounded angry, but I was paying more attention to the road ahead of us.

“Guys, we’re driving towards an outbreak of Eaters… how are all of you this nonchalant about it?!” Peppercat screeched from her motorcycle on the right.

“Well we’re on fast moving modes of transport and they are not an immediate problem to us, hopefully we can reach Pom before it becomes a problem to her and us.” Rokusho stated calmly while keeping his eyes on the road and we were quickly catching up to the signal, there were also incoming Troopers on motorcycles from several of the roads we passed by. “Surely she’s with the slightly out of control PLANT.”

“Hopefully Elise is getting along with everyone back at Castle Alexander…” I grumbled as we were going full throttle and I had to quickly swerve out of the way of several trashed motorcycles on the road. Pom’s definitely quite busy ahead of us, the damage wasn’t consistent with what the Berserker Moogles can do.

“I’m sure Elise will be fine Canard, we’re the ones riding straight into a total mess and I can only hope that this isn’t turning into a one of ‘those’ kinds of missions in particular.” Sami stated pleasantly as she aimed her rifle and started picking off Troopers ahead of us. She sent their motorcycles careening into buildings, light post and each other, sometimes they acrobatically flipped befored landing on their noses or tails and violently exploded seconds afterwards.

The motorcycle riding Troopers started firing back with their machine guns, somehow they were able to shoot and drive at the same time. Not exactly the safest way to use a motorcycle and I watched as Rokusho and Metabee dealt with them by riding ahead, Rokusho using the big fist and pincer blade whereas Metabee just unloaded his guns on any enemy that he could visibly see..

“Got some coming up the rear!” Peppercat announced.

“I’ve got them!” I called out as I looked back and notice the enemy bikes were quickly catching up with us. I swerved to the left side of the road and then swerved hard right and thumbed a particular trigger on the steering.

A curving wall of light erupted behind us until I let off of the trigger and several motorcycles hit said wall behind us in an over the top explosive fashion. I only got like three of them, several more hopped up onto the walls of building and rode them over the wall of hard light, one was gunned off of their bike as Sami splattered them with a shot to the chest.

“Krosserdog and Peppercat bring up the rear, Krosserdog’s sniping could help us the best from there. Rokusho and Metabee in the middle for Metabee’s middle ranged options. We’re needed at the front with Pom!” We reoriented with the other two bikes slowing down as I pulled ahead, ahead of us I could see Pom and Dolly in the middle of defending themselves. “Keep them off of us while we get Pom back in contact with Ocellus to tell her about the situation!”

Dolly was rapidly swinging her skateboard around on the strap and smashing a Trooper off of their motorcycle to the right of them. Pom was busy blowing another away with a Thousand Spear fired from her front left hoof to deal with one coming up on their left.

Dolly looked back and looked ready to keep fighting until she noticed us, she waved to us with her free paw and turned to bark something to Pom with a wagging tail, she looked happy to see us. Pom certainly was when Sami gunned the several Troopers off their rides as we approached.

Pom nodded and looked back to see us before looking back forward at the runaway PLANT as it floated along the road at an incredible speed and it wasn’t stopping. She motioned for us to catch up, which we were already doing.

“Okay guys, protect our backs for a moment and don’t let any Troopers past you!” I got some affirmatives from Rokusho and Peppercat.

I had to wonder how fast that hovering PLANT was moving to be this hard to catch up with, but we were definitely catching up with Pom and she needed a new visor after she lost the previous one to whatever those things Pom had been fighting were.

“Pom, are you okay?” I called out once we got close enough to be in hearing range.

“No, I’m not okay, these last two days or however long it’s been since we entered Midgar has been quite horrible!” It was obvious to anyone that Pom needed help in some way, shape or form. By the sound of it she also needed a hug, a very long one where she could cry as much as she wanted… wonder how Mallory was doing.

Well she might start crying when she hears Eaters had emerged in this realm and were back at it again.

“Got a visor for you!” Carefully getting the motorcycle up next to hers and making sure we weren’t about to come under attack, I quickly reached into a pouch and passed the device to her, she took it in her right hoof and slapped it on the side of her head. “Ocellus wants you to contact her!”

“Thanks!” Stated Pom, it was hard to hear each other over the roar of the air whipping by us, but she was back in communication with us and we knew Dormarch was alright.

-Pom-

“Did you need something Ocellus? It’s kind of busy out here.” I said as I tried to keep the motorcycle on the road under fire from the motor Troopers coming up behind us, really did not get a chance to drive a motor vehicle back in Dolly’s world. Sure I flew the flying scooter thing during the robot attack on Camden, but not much more than being a passenger otherwise.

The Plant immediately veered to the left and then went shooting up a highway… I whimpered, sighed and then veered the same way followed by Canard, Rokusho and Peppercat.

“Pom, nice to hear your voice, but you’ve got trouble ahead, there are Eaters and you’re kind of heading straight towards them! Turn that PLANT around and bring it back to Castle Alexander or barring that, lead the Eaters towards the central towers defenses.” Well it was obvious Ocellus knew me well enough to know I can’t avoid the Eaters seeing me and coming after me, at least that’s what she believes and I was agreeing with that belief if we’re heading right for them. “The EPs around the cities are constantly shooting down our missile barrages and we’re concentrating on holding the edge of the city at the moment. So we really can’t move for the time being.”

“Can’t you like, I don’t know, remotely control it or something?” My question was met with silence.

“There’s a slight problem with that… it seems like the PLANT is in fact allied, but it isn’t registering our control over it for some reason. I think the order you gave it is messed something up.” Like that’s good news to hear while going up to one hundred miles an hour to just keep up with the darn thing Ocellus. “Can you tell me what you were doing and why you decided to grab a PLANT now, it seems like you were safe with laying low until you attacked one on purpose.”

Which reminds me, Dormarch was carrying out a backup plan without any backup and I was worried about him. He seemed to be fighting the EPs alright enough and the few Berserker Moogle that the PLANT ahead of me summoned were helping him. Please do keep going through with your plan Dormarch and get Cait Sith and Shanty to safety.

“Shanty is fine, Dormarch is apparently taking care of her injuries and a backup plan for securing our VIP NPC we met out in the field, he’s doing that while we’re busy drawing every EP in the area from this current ongoing incident. I would naturally choose to just let the PLANT I’m chasing go and be entirely done with it, because at the moment it is far more trouble than it’s actually worth keeping around given the danger it’s about to get me into, but in this case we really need a diversion for our enemy and I have an idea if the Eaters are around…” Incident was the nicer than the words I actually wanted to say for all of what was happening here. “I originally meant to get this PLANT to an NPC so he could ride it back to Castle Alexander. Now I’m just going to use it as live bait, unfortunately that involves all of us drawing them towards the central tower.”

“Nothing is ever simple with you is it?” Ocellus stated flatly and sighed audibly over the visor’s communications. “How important is the NPC you found at least?”

“He can specifically upgrade APs and create ones wholesale, it’s why you can use those Berserker Magitek Moogle Monsters. He’s the one that gave them to you.” Those things were fairly unique to say the least and I thought they were kind of roughly cute. “He just wanted a PLANT for his own use and safety in making his way to Castle Alexander to be secure with the other NPCs under our employ.”

There was a moment of silence from my end, I could hear Ocellus talking with several people.

“... Quetal has volunteered to take some skiffs out to do a pickup with the Pokémon Companions and Dodo. Inform us where Dormarch is and we’ll have them go over there and help him secure one.” It was nice that Ocellus, and hopefully everyone else listening in, was on the same page about how important Cait Sith was to us currently. Since we were all kind of tired of the random grab bag APs we’ve been getting with summoning new units even if they had been quite useful so far, but we needed the capability to make upgraded EPs to at least fight Brutes which were exceedingly common elite level EPs around here. “Keep up the distraction as well as you can, you’ve got a lot of angry coming down on you soon and watch out for those Eaters!”

“No comment about how I’m going to be acting as live bait for beings that generally eat things out of existence?” I asked as I crept the motorcycle closer to the PLANT at the speeds we were going.

“Please come back alive with everyone else Pom, I know you can do it.” Well that was a sweet vote of confidence Ocellus. “As for Dormarch, where do we send our help? Maybe we can speed up the process of acquiring that NPC.”

“A mall with a laundromat called Mog Wash, send the skiffs there.” With that said I whimpered and took back control from Dolly as we got to the highly mobile PLANT. “Exit the highway towards the central tower, avoid getting damaged!”

The PLANT seemed to acknowledge the orders, but kept going the way it was. Now all we could do was fight on motorcycles in what would have to be one of the craziest things I’ve ever done. I really doubt Merak’s defenses accounted for Eaters and they can take a lot of damage and distract the defense systems to let us get through to the tower. Provided we can even attract their attention.

“Uh Pom, the checkerboard slugs are back…” I looked up and saw a few of them gnawing on a building and saw a mass of mouths and tentacles in the distance. I THOUGHT WE DESTROYED THAT THING BY COLLAPSING AN ENTIRE CITY ON IT!

Said checkerboard mollusks noticed us and started coming at us, this also caused a massive swarm to fly up in the sky and start heading our way.

“Incoming Eaters, look out from above!” My words were met with everyone concentrating on any red glow coming from the darkness from outside the streetlights lighting up the highway as said Eaters seemed to be constantly growing in the rain… which wasn’t a good thing, but it was slowing them down somewhat.

“You think that’s bad Pom, we got incoming enemy manufactured and EPs coming up on us from behind!” Slowing down and in the lights of the highway behind our four motorcycles, I saw two large ball shaped things rolling up on us fast and the top halves unfolded into upper torso with exhaust pipes sticking up out of its back, mantis like arms ending in two claws and their head had a long pointy drill sticking out of where their face would be. The spheres underneath them opened up into spinning four blades that started spinning rapidly they started hovering after us.

A spotlight came from a slightly smoking helicopter as it flew overhead and we entered a tunnel before it could really do anything. We were in a tunnel with several Eaters chasing us and they would be attacking us and the EPs indiscriminately.

“Keep the PLANT alive, we need it to lead us towards the central tower!” I called out. “We’ll need to lure the Eaters in that direction as well.”

“Can I just say that it’s been nice knowing you guys.” Peppercat stated with a whimper. “If I’m going to die here, I at least want to tell Krosserdog I love him.”

“Wait, what?!” Metabee wasn’t the only one surprised by the reveal, even Rokusho was staring at her with shock. Krosserdog didn’t seem all that surprised.

“Like a brother you idiots, not like your thing with that Neutranurse you’re always going on about Metabee!” Did not want to know what that was about Peppercat. “Though we could really use a Neutranurse digibot right about now. Also you two are my brothers too you know!”

“I accept the responsibility of being an elder sibling.” Rokusho stated with a hint of humor as we gunned our motorcycles down the wildly curving tunnel.

“Not the time for pessimism Peppercat, focus on keeping us upright and out of danger.” The rock steady Krosserdog stated bluntly as he turned his right rifle back and fire off a shot that took down a motorcycle.

“Aren’t the defenses going to be shooting at us when we get closer to the tower?” Asked Sami while we still had time before we had to engage the incoming enemy.

“If they aren’t shooting primarily at the Eaters when we get there, then the enemy servant will be doomed to fall by being eaten for ignoring them.” Even if we do die so does the servant, since Eaters are really just that dangerous.

“Okay let’s do this thing!” Metabee stated as he fired his missiles and the machine guns built into his arms taking out quite a few of the motorcycle Troopers and the spherical bottomed enemy manufactured got closer. The Eaters were slow, but they were able to accelerate pretty quickly, it made me wonder if they consumed all the air they touched too.

We soon split off from the tunnel and were now riding along a tunnel with train tracks? Uh oh… please don’t tell me that EPs are going to try and run us over with a train here.

“Before we start, real quick, what’s a Neutranurse do?” Curiosity caught my mood for a second.

“It’s a Digibot medic that does two things, heal and create barriers to protect patients, they can use their energy to even heal biologicals if you can believe it. They were made in response to digidestined getting hurt a lot and since digidestined are generally children, it was a good idea to invest in healing focused digibots.” Peppercat stated with a flat look in her eyes. “Now if only we had one here with us to keep us all alive!”

-Four Bikes and a lot of trouble-

Canard revved the motorcycle and took the front ahead of everyone.

Sami, Krosserdog and Metabee opened fire on our tails as they tried to catch up to us, several Troopers were blown up under their fire.

“When we reach for heights, we do so with speed~!” Metabee sang.

“Nothing but these top of the line models coming from me~!” Sami followed and Pom could naturally feel the heart song reverberating through the tunnel.

“Doing my part, my part, kick off a start~!” Krosserdog joined in as he blasts away at the Troopers coming up the rear with several spiraling blade drones trying to shoot at them.

“Always got trouble coming after us for free~.” As Pom veered out of the way of the fire chewing at the rear armor on her stolen bike, from the machine guns coming from behind.

It didn’t help that the spherical bodied machines were catching up and threatening the four bike riders with their claw arms, drill faces, spinning blades in the middle of their torsos and all their sharp edges in general.

“We’re doing this on bikes going up to one oh three~!” One could feel Dolly’s grin and a rapidly waggling tail as several motorcycle Troopers exploded through the ceiling almost taking out her and Pom by landing on them or shooting in their direction after catching everyone entirely off guard.

“Our part, our part, is to kick off the start~!” The four drivers sang together, even if Pom didn’t like a heart song starting up when driving the dangerous vehicle she was on in the middle of what was quickly going to become a heated fight while chasing after the PLANT, one of which had an odd idea of how to get closer to the central tower since it had dragged them from a highway into tunnel that was connected to a subway.

“Oh are sure your ready girl, Dolly are you ready now~?” Pom was looking at Dolly worriedly as she got up while holding the skateboard ready to launch off and actually

“Whoa, yeah~!” Dolly launched and took the head off a Trooper by kicking off it with the back of her board and had no trouble keeping up with the four bikes as she started grinding along the nearby rails on her board sideways. “Kick start our part, lets blow them apart~!”

Rokusho bashed slowed down and held out his massive fist to clothesline a Motor Trooper, while he was doing that Metabee was spraying the tunnel behind us to deal some damage to the dangerous looking MOTH units.

“Whoa, yeah, gravy~!” Dolly shouted as she used her momentum control to do a spinning kickflip to take out the back tire on one of the motorcycles and landed on her board as the motorcycle flipped an exploded into two other as several more fell to fire from Sami’s rifle. “Whoa, yeah, kick start our part, hope we that aren’t stopped~!

“Whoa, yeah, maybe~!” Peppercat leaned her motorcycle and dragged her claw along it and electricity started building up behind the four bikes and the entire tunnel exploded with electricity arcing behind the four bikes.

This stunned several Motor Troopers and slowed down the spherical bodied MOTH units, until they sped up again moving faster than their motorcycle riding allies could currently go.

One of the MOTH units was specifically going for Dolly.

“Fighting on a skateboard in a narrow place~.” Dolly kicked off the ground and skid up the left wall before launching herself at the MOTH unit that was coming at her, she swung the stone bone and deflected off the spinning drill face and went skidding along the floor as the four spinning torso blades angled at widened eyes.

“We need to save the little lady with some grace~.” Rokusho sang as he spun the motorcycle three hundred and sixty degrees. He deflected the spinning torso blades downwards into the ground of the tunnel with his pincer blade, causing the MOTH Unit to flip and tumble away.

The second MOTH unit came up on Rokusho and Dolly while Metabee was in the middle of cycling ammunition. It was about to sweep forward with both claws and spinning blades.

“My heart, my heart, don’t stop my heart~!” Pom stated worriedly as she hit the afterburner on the bike and rode it up the wall like she saw the Troopers doing to get at them when they still had Metal Hound 002 and then she slammed the breaks while angling the Paralance downwards at an angle with her right hoof. A sharpened pointy end forming where the usual dull pointed top of the parasol lance was.

The paralance slammed into the chest of the second Moth Unit tearing a large rent into it as Pom slammed into, hitting the gas Pom pulled the paralance free and hit the afterburner to catch up with Rokusho, Metabee and Dolly.

Pom did so before could get could get hit by the retaliatory swipe from the MOTH Unit as the spherical bottomed machine fell behind into a tumble from the damaging blow as the other MOTH Unit caught up to them again.

While all this was going on Krosserdog and Sami were dealing with Drones flying up behind them, Motor Troopers still managing to catch up with powerful afterburners or simply Crawlers dropping from the ceiling of the tunnel and try to get a lucky shock blast off or self-destructing in an attempt to knock anyone off their respective motorcycles or the one skateboard.

“Say we’ve got trouble, trouble in the skies…~” Canard sang as the tunnel exited out onto a massive and long bridge crossing a large expanse heading towards the central tower region of the city, the PLANT was still leading them towards the Central Tower correctly, but it had a funny way of going about it.

The smoking helicopter was still keeping track of them and looked to be preparing to fire its machine cannon on the four bike riders, along with a compliment of wing mounted missiles.

Said tower started turning its defenses towards the four motorcycles and Dolly quickly hopped back onto Pom’s as hundreds of projectiles started tearing into the structural integrity of the bridge they were currently crossing. That alongside the crossfire from the helicopter and the encroaching MOTH Units and Motor Troopers, they had long since left the Eaters behind.

“This is just looking like another good time~.” Sami sang wistfully as she tossed a grenade over her shoulder and damaged one of the two MOTH Units with a blast from the Commandramon signature move of the ever modifiable DCD Bomb.

“Our part, our part, kick off our part~!” They all sang, as they tried to avoid the massive amounts of gunfire that the rapidly deteriorating girders absorbing all the damage for them was causing the bridge to start quickly buckling. The PLANT didn’t have to worry about falling, the motorcycle riders did.

“Ooh are you ready guys, oh we need to go now-now-now~!” Canard said as he looked up as he slowed down to being behind his allies and quickly swept to the left and right across the bridge several time while producing several curving walls of light that caused the enemy to fall behind or get destroyed by ramming into the overly solid masses of energy that would eventually disappear.

Not only was the helicopter a problem, but the central tower apparently had military grade artillery arcing up in the air and down towards the bridge they were all on.

All four bikes sped up, Pom’s was the fastest among them with the afterburners and a large hole was blasted upwards in her path.

“Whoa~?!” Pom stated as she ramped off an upward part of the recently blasted hole in the bridge and managed to clear the gap, her hind legs flailing in the air before her body slammed into the motorcycle and she grunted. She had to quickly veer out of the way of an artillery shell trying to land on her head a second later.

Even if the Paralance could take it, Pom figured their bodies likely wouldn’t survive the shockwaves of a direct hit.

“Yeah~!” Dolly was enjoying the general awesomeness of what was happening here as she clutched to Pom’s back as they landed and skidded sideway before Pom managed to right them. “Kick start our part, it’s just the start~!”

“Whoa, yeah, maybe~!” Metabee sang as he fired his head missiles to intercept the missiles coming from the helicopter flying sideways and trying to get its machine cannon fire on them.

“Oh yeah, kick start our part, hoping we don’t get stopped~.” Peppercat sang as she drove through plumes of fire and exploding bits of bridge, the bridge behind them started to collapse and fall downwards.

“Aero~!” How Dolly found the moment to add that to the song was anyone’s guess, but she created a horizontal vortex ahead of the bikes that launched them forward even faster than they were already going when they passed through it.

“Yeah, maybe-~!” Rokusho sang as his motorcycle roared and went into a wheelie, then spun the motorcycle so that the front tire smashed against one of the battered MOTH Units as he finished the full three sixty spin and settled back down into the back of the four bike formation.

As the bridge tilted downwards and was collapsing they managed to ramp off the end of the bridge before it collapsed underneath them and they were on the other side and much closer to the tower now.

The MOTH Units fell with the other Motor Troopers as the bridge fully collapsed.

Pom slowed down and was having a slight panic attack with how she was breathing consider how close those artillery shells had been. Also if they fell, it would have taken her forever to get back up here and this close to the tower. They were on a road ridge following the PLANT at a more sedate pace as it traveled upwards.

“When my unit disbanded, all I needed… needed was a laugh~.” Sami sang with tears in her eyes as she hugged Canard’s back, some of her post traumatic stress disorder actually getting to her from being on so many suicide missions and surviving up to this point. She was laughing that they had even made it across that expanse alive and were currently in cover. “Years gone by, I’d say I’ve kicked some ass…~”

Sami put her rifle on her back and cuddled against Canard’s back sniffling.

“Well I’m in rage, Sami we’re winning at this stage~!” Canard sang as he leaned into the cuddle and looked down at his partner, he was talking about them beating Moon Cell and nothing was going to stop them now after having come this far. “Adrenaline is now pushing through our brains, and I’d say your still kicking ass~!”

“Say ooh-ahhh… Canard, my heart, I hope this feeling never stops~.” Sami said tenderly, before Metabee brought her out of her thoughts.

“Well I think it’s time for us to rock-~!” Metabee shouted as he pointed his guns at the helicopter that swept in behind them and they could see the two MOTH Units moving up the completely vertical sections of the fallen bridge from the angle they were

Sami immediately had her rifle ready and pointed to the sky at the helicopter, as did Krosserdog and his arm rifles. The bikes sped up again as did the PLANT as several missiles came in at them from the helicopter.

Surprisingly several Berserker Moogles popped up in the air flapping their hilariously tiny wings to hover vaguely for a few seconds and then promptly got blown apart by the helicopter’s missiles. This however protected the four bike riders as they started up a spiraling road towards the portion of the city within the perimeter of the towers defenses.

The two hovering MOTH Units were giving chase as was the helicopter around the winding bend. Looking up and away from the pathway they were riding up Pom saw hundreds of guns pummeling the many Eaters flooding the sky heading towards the tower and the defenses were focused entirely on dealing them. This mean they had a possible opening to get up close to the central tower.

None of them expected to get this far and had at least expected some kind of trap or maneuver to slow them down.

“Whoa, yeah, we did our part, we got far off start~!” As she sang this, Peppercat sent a lightning ball flying back into one of the two approaching MOTH Units damaging and slowing it down and the one with a rent slashed at Canard’s back end.

Canard pulled his hockey stick out and slashed up the left clawed arm and then fended it off by holding it in place as Sami started tossing sticky explosive device onto its lower body while avoiding the spinning blade of the bulbous lower torso. One of the explosives managed to get inside the bottom of the bulb of the robot.

“Whoa, yeah, cr-cr-craving~!” Sami slapped a claw against Canard’s back and he sped them up into a wheelie while pushing the motorcycle forward and then trying to hit the MOTH Unit with a wall of light and it avoided it by riding up the nearby wall. Then Sami detonated, the explosive and the manufactured practically blew apart. “Whoo, yeah, blow up my heart, hope it never pops~!”

“Whoa~!” Rokusho stated as he and Pom doubled teamed the other MOTH Unit, with the paralance and his pincer blade respectively, they locked up both its arms and then it turned on its face drill and tried to stab at Pom with it.

“Yeah~!” Metabee, blasted its shoulder with rockets from his head horns and started fire at the blades on its lower body damaging them.

“Maybe~!” Pom stabbed the paralance down into the spin blade, something caught and then the bottom section broke, but it was still going as it pressed Pom’s side and motorcycle into the nearby wall with its right claw forcing her to make her wool frictionless.

It brought its head back and tried to stab it forward at Pom, only for Dolly to knock the drill up and away from Pom’s body.

Canard came in with his hockey stick to slash up at the back end of the drill close to the face and it became misaligned.

Yet the Moth Unit was still trying to stab it at Pom who lifted her left hind leg off the motorcycle and with a surprising show of strength dented the chest plate of the thing using her wool as exoskeletal muscle outside of the wooly wolf shift. She forcefully started to push the machine back while trying to leverage herself the wall while Dolly kept the motorcycle under control.

“Whoa, hey~!” This is when Krosserdog opened his forehead and fired a powerful shot blew away the drill and face showing the wires underneath. “To kick off our part, we got to start~!”

“Oh yeah, maybe~!” Canard used his hockey stick to hook its lower torso and tried to pull it away from Pom and at least managed to pull it into the line of fire of the helicopter machine cannon that now had opportunity to fire on them when they were all distracted trying to help Pom.

“Whoa, yeah, kick off the start, hope we’re never topped~!” Metabee unloaded into the MOTH Unit’s side and it still refused to let Pom off the wall and was trying to dig its claws into her.

A shaped charged suddenly planted itself inside the open part of the lower torso and Sami immediately detonated and Pom fired a bark blast into the resulting hole and the MOTH Unit went flying off the side of the spiral there were now on and managed to right herself on the motorcycle while putting Dolly on her back.

“Whoa, hey~!” Dolly stated as Pom pulled Dolly onto her back and retook control even under fire from the helicopter. Dolly looked excited as they approached a ramp at the top of the upwards spiral they had gone into. “Ok guys, let’s rock their house~!”

They reached the top of the spiral and Dolly was pointing at the tower over Pom’s left shoulder as they launched onto the proper streets around the tower and were on approach for it, only there was a problem in the way. At the end of the street in the distance was a Thousand Gunner started spinning up its rotary machine cannons, along with several Sweepers readying their machines guns.

Several of the shots hit the group of motorcycles as they closed in and swerved wildly through the volume of heavy projectile fire coming at them, the helicopter hitting them from behind with Machine cannon fire wasn’t helping either.

Metabee, Krosserdog, Sami and Dolly all looked between each other and the helicopter flying straight forward behind them as Canard, Pom, Rokusho and Peppercat tried to avoid being shredded by the incoming fire. Most of it was centered on Pom of course, she put the motorcycle into a wheelie to block most of the shots with the motorcycle she was using and started moving forward to absorb the hundreds of impacts tearing away at the motorcycle underneath her.

It would only be seconds before the motorcycle would be rendered useless and rendered a pile of useless holey metal cheese.

Metabee, Krosserdog, Sami and Dolly all nodded to each other and turned as one and looked at the helicopter.

Dolly started swing her skateboard around and looked at the light pole and mentally told Pom to hang right while everyone hang left. This drew the fire off of the other three motorcycles and more towards Pom who was enemy number one for Moon Cell.

Pom hoped that whatever Dolly was planning it better happen soon because there wasn’t much bike left as the front of it was mostly gone now and the rear engine was barely keeping them going at a pace with the others..

Metabee, Sami and Krosserdog all started unloading everything they had at the helicopter, but at a specific point of it… they blew off the controlling tail rotor with the most accurate fire they’ve ever put out in their lives. It was Krosserdog who managed to succeed to land the decisive shot with a precision double fired single shot from both rifle arms, that not only blew off the tail rotor, but sent the helicopter flipping forward at all of them.

What happened next was Pom getting a signal to jump as they reached the street corner where the Thousand Gunner sat still blasting away at her. Pom leapt forward opening the paralance to block the tirade of projectiles energy, bullets or otherwise and Dolly lashed out the board and hooked the street lamp to swing them both out of the way and launch them at a nearby alleyway around the corner to the right.

Pom quickly took cover without prompt as soon as her hooves hit the street, with Sweepers sending streams of shots following the heels of her rapidly moving hooves as she quickly ducked out of sight. The remaining chunks of scrap metal that used be the bike she used plowed a Sweeper into a building a second later.

Canard, Rokusho and Peppercat with still mostly intact, if heavily damaged, bikes skidded into sharp left with all their tires squealing as they shot away down the street a block and swerved back around to watch the fireworks of the helicopter ramming into the Thousand Gunner and exploding violently.

The PLANT just simply floated up and away from the explosion and then promptly stopped and started producing Berserker Moogles like crazy flooding the surroundings streets.

“Let’s do our part-~!” The six still on bikes all intoned slowly together as they looked towards the nearby tower.

-Shinra Tower, Top Floor Suite, Merak-

Were my eyes twitching, they had to be twitching and I lost track of all of them a minute later. They got to the inner city?! Not only that, but they were all alive as well including that ewe?!

There was a lot of anger in my grumbling. Instead of attempting to get through on something like tje Skein Flyers he had seen, which he was quite sure they couldn’t have gotten through even the Aerial Assault Program forces if they tried, much less the anti-air guns, they just did it with motorcycles.

They got through all the defenses on freaking motorcycles... and none of them died doing it despite the artillery and just about everything they just went through?! He even had the tunnel trapped to collapse reinforcements into the chase…

“How the ever living- (Insert euphemisms for the desire to hug someone close, while yelling about a yellow brown spotted dog called a Jeep Jeep Hooey Hound being where it is currently not, which is being in your room at this very moment)!”

-Small territory, streets near Shinra Tower, Pom-

“Hey, Ocellus… where are we? Yes, we’re actually near the central tower if your getting my signal… apparently the PLANT had a decent route plotted out and everything and the Eaters are soaking up most of the defenses into the inner city at the moment so we should be fine until they start eating the infrastructure to the place.” Also we were in a pretty good position, the Berserker Moogles were already causing trouble to the surrounding EPs, we told them not to destroy the building, but otherwise they are allowed to go wild on the enemy. It was impressive to watch really when you asked them to go wild, never saw big white fluffy toy like things unleash such clinical mechanical terror quite like that before. Cait Sith must really like those things if they are this powerful. “Yeah, I’m surprised we did too… but I think it was the heart song bump that got us through all that. Also the central tower is called Shinra Tower and Corporation… which has the subtitles ‘Not an Evil Corporation’ written underneath that... in big bold letters, it is also underlined three times and has three large exclamation points following it. Yeah… couldn’t be more obvious if they tried with the cities overly hazardous design and lack of anything approaching OSHA or anything approaching a single safety measures from what I've seen. Please hurry and get here soon, we're taking the fight to Merak in the hopes of dealing with him quickly before he pulls anything out of nowhere. Well if we can defeat him before the Eaters spread too far, maybe it'll solve the problem with the Mother Eater? If it doesn't we'll evacuate and collapse the whole realm to be sure.”

A bit of silence as I listened to Ocellus talking in the rain and looked up at the massive daunting tower before us. Lightning flashed, making it look all the more ominous as the nearby tower reached up into the dark clouds.

"Yeah, this is going to be a thing." Running a hoof over my forehead as the cold rain dripped down my body, I leaned against the alleyways wall. "Just break through when you can, we've got a servant to try and beat quickly, only we're the head start on that effort. Good to know Elise and Cait Sith are quickly adjusting, now if you'll excuse me... I have to break open a vending machine and chug a few bottles of Hi-Potion."