Baa-Ram-Ewe!

-Moon Cell, Inner Realm, approximately five days in reality next door and two weeks in the digital realm time later, outskirts of Castle Alexander, Desert of Devastation, Pom-

Those hugs everyone gave me… yeah I needed more of those. I also needed more therapy than Mundo could give me, he was a sweet and kind individual. Unfortunately no amount of therapy could prepare me for this.

I could at least invoke the Rhongomyniad’s ability to fire beams of raw energy, was it holy or divine? I hadn’t the foggiest. It was a major help for me standing on the front lines mostly by myself and being rushed by a few thousand EPs of all shapes, sizes and appearance.

Sweeping the lances beam across the many EPs incoming, the turrets in Castle Alexander were the only reprieve I had at the moment that I wasn’t alone out here protecting the entrance. Even Copen, for as tough as he was, couldn’t keep up the pressure without being taken down by a nasty injury.

Nobody wanted to test Elise’s resurrection ability, since it apparently didn’t work perfectly like a Reviver Seed does and that was telling given the Reviver Seed pulled her soul back together into one being.

This realm was in a vast desert that wasn’t hot or cold, it was lukewarm at best and I stood on the sands as a lone line of defense. Moon Cell’s was in the middle of said desert and there was no way to get to it without being highly visible given it was floating above the sands. We at least knew for certain that it couldn’t move, but what it could do… well it has been a constant horror show of failures since it started actively dealing with us on its doorstep.

The fighting since we got here has been horrid. First it was just a few of us going down, then the more that fell the more we relied on the Mirage Collective or the Harmony Programs… they had to retreat several times.

It’s only those who were living in Castle Alexander at the moment the hadn’t retreated, we came to this desert and experienced nothing at first… not a single enemy, not a single action taken against us, nothing but sand and the eye of Moon Cell in the vast distance between us and it.

The scouts we first sent out were the Caerbannog on a hover skiff, the fact that they hadn’t been able to return at all said as much about what we were facing here. Moon Cell was at its best in a realm it directly controlled all its own.

We hadn’t gotten far, for there were no territories to take over here, no PLANTs to fight and endless swarms that Moon Cell could drop within a given range of its core.

We had made a good efforts to push forward… only we’re back at where we started in this realm, pushed all the way back to square one.

Moon Cell had servants but was likely utilizing them as a close up defense in case we actually made it through the walls of the crystalline mazes it could forge in an instant rising us from the ground. It had been trying to cut us off from retreat, more specifically trying to stop me from retreating and take me out.

I had spent hours trying to figure out the maddening rules of this place that Moon Cell controlled, at least one stood out to me… while Moon Cell could control the terrain and battlefield, it could not actually use it to end us directly. It could indirectly put a boulder on a mountainside and roll it at us, but it could not directly drop the boulder on our heads from out of nowhere. It all followed at least some form of logic.

If I was looking at a chess board right now, I’d swear we were on the side that only had a king that was struggling to make it through the defense Moon Cell could put in our path. We couldn’t as Moon Cell stopped our every advance. Even flying towards it proved difficult as used sand storms to obscure its location if we tried to fly in a straight line at it, somehow Castle Alexander got turned around and we had to settle down because flight mode couldn’t last forever.

We tried Thousand Gunners, we’d tried aerial offensive, we’d try ground forces pushes, and we had even tried to go under the sand and met horrors in the underground tunnels that tried to collapse them on top of us.

Giant worm monsters didn’t need snake like tongues with their own mouths!

Yet, Moon Cell hadn’t move an inch from its position… it didn’t need to. There were so many EPs around Moon Cell’s core that it would take more than what we could safely field for defensive purposes.

If one had to wonder why I was out here alone trying to defend myself from several hundred incoming Assassin Reapers, then I ought to tell you that I was one of the few people left who wasn’t injured or badly damaged in the terms of our digibot comrades.

I had set a line in the sand and the EPs wouldn’t cross it… at least until they were done with me. Even if Castle Alexander were to use its ultimate ability ‘Divine Judgment’, we wouldn’t be able to put a big enough hole in the number of enemies we had to bypass.

Having thought something was up when we came into this realm and it was in a valley, I at least knew Moon Cell was acting under limitations. Otherwise we’d all be dead already if it didn’t and its defenses were almost nigh impenetrable even if we could see the glaring red eye in the cube in the distance at all times.

Even if Fou was fighting with us and capable of keeping the neutral NPs he caused to be created under his direct, even he had tired of trying to break through the defenses. He could only do so much himself even if lethal injuries basically meant absolutely jack and all to him.

Artoria and Mash’s medieval contingent of APs were helping so much, but if a Thousand Gunner couldn’t puncture through everything Moon Cell was throwing at us then even they couldn’t.

Metal Hound 003 didn’t survive the first hour of its flight, it did a lot of battling though. At least Dolly survived the crash and she had been trying to stick by my side since then, but even she and Dormarch had been worn down. It’s just that the injuries mounted too quickly, our supplies to cover said injuries dropped to almost nothing and our ability to build an offensive and keep it going was grounded to a complete stop.

We had yet to be pushed out of the realm however, not for the lack of Moon Cell’s trying and it was doing a pretty bang up job of it.

We weren’t facing any servants, just EPs in practically endless numbers and no PLANTs to take down or territory to achieve. In all it seemed like a perfect defense, even Dormarch was flummoxed to keep up with all the numbers and assaults.

We tried a slow forward assault, Moon Cell countered it as well as any of our other plans. Our manufactured support structure for our AP forces was targeted relentlessly as soon as the rocket trucks, Magitek Armor or what have you were put into forward or defensive positions where they were exposed to attack.

It had all gotten so bad that I was left here standing in the sand in front of Castle Alexander, quite assured that Moon Cell wouldn’t focus on the castle until I was dealt with and I seriously doubt I could take more than a hundred or so Assassin Reapers down and that’s from using the Rhongomyniad’s ability to fire beams.

I was trying to not rely on that.

I was trying not to magically exhaust myself, which was a good thing if you consider that the golden wool on my left hind leg hadn’t moved at all. It was only a matter of time before I overdraw though.

Nothing we were doing here would work, we had met the enemy and when we were in view of their final fortress… we faltered harshly.

We tried to keep morale up, that failed. We tried small teams to get in, that failed, but some got farther than most before retreating. We tried full out high speed assault… that went poorly and Dolly was badly injured in the attempt.

Nothing was working and now we were on the defensive after our last failed assault and I was one of the few that could still be fielded. They felt horrible about asking me to come out here, but Castle Alexander needed repairs and time to field some more Thousand Gunners piloted by Rider Zealots.

There was so little that would distract an entire horde of EPs aside from me physically being on the battlefield.

Quetal at least got us a single image of a servant before he managed to successfully retreat back to our ramshackle defensive lines. Jeanne was there when he did so and helped him retreat, they saw the servant with their own eyes.

Long purple hair, didn’t look like they were too combat capable even if they knew how to wield the rapier they held, wearing some form of dress and coat and were a white furred squirrel… they looked more like someone who was good at a leadership role. They had a faint smile on their face as they watched Jeanne and Quetal get drive off from our failed push for Moon Cell’s core.

Also just looking at the picture Quetal got gave me an idea that they were magical servant of some kind, they had to be a servant. Yet we had never seen them on the battlefield, if they were a Caster I wouldn’t feel such a sense of foreboding just looking at them or the chains they were possibly being held by under Moon Cell’s control.

My nerves were getting the better of me, as the Assasin Reapers approached and then a blast of plasma tore through a mass of them and large four golden legged green tank hopped forth and landed near me kicking up a massive amount of sand.

Ah yes, that… well I had forgotten about one of the odder things the Rider Zealots had made, apparently scans showed it as being called a Dragoon Fenix. It was nice that it was here, probably could protect me from projectiles, but it wouldn’t last long under the conditions of our current situation.

“Cheese House!” The voice from the walking tank stated. “I have returned.”

He did in fact return… I don’t remember this zealots walking tank being rebuilt, nor did I hear from anyone about it after it had been destroyed back in Midgar while my friends were assaulting the wall. Yet it was back now? Curious, I thought it had been blown apart when the battle line took the wall and Castle Alexander flew up to the upper city layer of Midgar.

“What lamb crawls?” Several Zealots stated as they showed up with their gleaming blades ready to fight on foot if they had to without vehicles.

“Power overwhelming.” One of the zealots stated while taking up a position around me and stared at the enemies in the distance.

At least I wasn’t out here alone anymore, but we were still going to get trashed and torn apart if these were all that could be spared to the front lines. Even Dolly and Dormarch couldn’t be out here for various reasons.

“Are you sure you guys should be…” I felt a calm hand placed on my back, one of the Zealots simply nodded to me and then moved forward to ignite a pair of energy blades.

“Terror ca’noe!” The zealot intoned as the other zealots took up defensive positions around me.

Terror Cannot, what? Scare them? They were still alien to me and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were an alien race that somehow got recorded by Moon Cell to somehow end up on our side of the battlefield… because Moon Cell certainly wasn’t fielding them against us for some reason and it was using a variety of EPs we’ve never seen before.

“You’re all going to be torn to shreds, just letting you know that right now.” Our APs have become particularly protective of us lately, as if they understood why we needed their help and that we wouldn’t be able to come back quite like they did from the PLANTs that had them generated in a constant stream of dying in fights and possibly living to fight.

At least I wasn’t alone out here when the retaliation swarm of EPs were coming at us on the horizon, their numbers were pretty much slowly bypassing the artillery strikes from Castle Alexander.

“My life of ire…” A zealot said to me while glaring at the incoming EPs, he took a stance ready for a fight. “Honor guide thee!”

Still as confusing that they didn’t seem to be able to talk in anything other than almost nonsensical manner of what is becoming known to me as set phrases that almost sound like an alien language.

I was getting the distinct feeling they weren’t going to let me fight alone out here even if I did order them back.

That was a lot of Assassin Reapers, Moon Cell really liked fielding the bug like things that swapped between bipedal fighting and crawling combat forms. Their spindly legs were quite sharp, as I’ve been stabbed by them a few times, this was definitely an assassination force and I knew they were directed at me more than anyone… being considered a primary target for them was bad news all around and I was their favorite choice of target.

I glanced back at the dug in Castle Alexander, they could have the Torneko mines set up by now… but I wasn’t leaving anything to chance here.

At least Mirage Mew let us know there was a chance we might be getting reinforcements, said reinforcements were from outside Moon Cell’s realms. I wonder if it would be the digital world or even Ransei, we had no idea how the two worlds were doing in the fight.

There was also the fact that I hadn’t seen any distortions from the Eaters, maybe… maybe they wouldn’t attack because Moon Cell had this realm sealed up fairly well? Those things terrified me as much as Moon Cell did considering all the rebuffed attempts at reaching it to deal a final blow.

“If you say so.” I stated calmly while my body shivered and I readied the Rhongomyniad, even knowing the truth about it this lance was still quite strange as a shadow of what was a towers true power.

The thundering sound as the enemies closed had my heartbeat speeding up, until twenty more dragoons arrived and began spreading out to fire blasts of spherical hot energy with unnerving precision.

“Ocellus, has manufacturing been working on Dragoons by any chance?” I said as I reached up with a hoof and tapped my visor.

“No… the dragoons are just appearing with the Rider Zealots already in them, so no we’re not manufacturing them at the moment. We’re trying to make rocket trucks, Thousand Gunners and more Magitek Armors for defensive purposes. The only odd one out seems to be the teal or green one that keeps saying ‘I have returned’ a lot. We might be dealing with soul like Snake or Cait Sith, only this one still seems to be acting like a normal Allied Program without much intelligence to it.” Even Ocellus seemed confused by this turn of events “It would certainly make sense if the soul was named phoenix just misspelled as Fenix with an F where the P H and O should be. Since it seems like the dragoon can revive itself from our PLANT network with some time.”

“Approximately fifty seconds for ‘Fenix unit’ revival, creation of dragoon through PLANTs requires Fenix to actively be fielded.” Been a while since we’ve heard Castle Alexander’s voice, apparently the castle wasn’t very talkative and I was okay with that. Made it seem less like we were using a giant living organism made of metal and stone to fight a deadly war.

“Nice to know when we’re about to be hit by hundreds of thousands of EPs and answers my other question about where the other twenty came from.” Said Dragoons were already lobbing energy into the large crowd, for as much good as they could do they still weren’t nearly enough for the numbers we’re facing.

I inhaled and centered my nerves, exhaled and brought the Rhongomyniad up and at the ready to start using it. If I didn’t have gangly legs, I wouldn’t be able to use this lance half as well as I do. I was about to get a lot of stabbing pointy limbs in my face.

-Castle Alexander interior, Dormarch-

“Come on little bro, Pom needs us out there!” Dolly urged despite the fact that she was wrapped in bandages and not for Halloween costume either. She had survived crashing into the desert and being inside an exploding vehicle, one that was quickly encroached upon by a variety of EPs.

The fact that she still wanted to fight was absurd in her condition. I was here to put a paw down on her and keep her from rushing out until we had the resources to deal with the injury.

“She does, but I don’t know what we could do to stop them from coming and hitting Castle Alexander directly otherwise if Pom was to stay behind the safety of the battlements… we wouldn’t be safe for very long either way and. “Look Dolly, mom wants you to recover. We’re even surprised you’re bond to us didn’t waver even a little bit despite nearly being killed considering how we found you a broken bloody mess.”

“Is there anyone left we can put out there with her at least?!” Dolly really didn’t do well with feeling helpless and neither did I. She was still struggling to walk to get back out there in the fight with Pom. I felt for her on several levels, but I couldn’t in good conscience let her go out there. “She’s going to get creamed, like… uh… like corn!”

“Well… Dazzle and Frizzle are capable of being fielded but are here on the backline to protect the castle in case mom… er… anyway they are still here at mom’s request, even if Frizzle can digital evolution to Wargrowlmon.” Falls and dies, but I didn’t want to believe she would. Mom was made of some stern stuff and had to be to walk out there alone with that lance over the right side of her withers alone. “Wargrowlmon is our current last line of defense, we currently can’t waste any firepower.”

Ocellus said that mom’s anxiety and paranoia was at its peak, yet she still went out there alone to be live bait. If there were people to help, then mom was always going to act on that as Dolly had once shown that Pom’s body couldn’t move away from people in need of her even if she was unconscious and someone else entirely was controlling her body.

Even Artoria and Mash were laid up and in need of healing. Mirage Mew was still securing our backs with the Harmony Programs as Moon Cell was attempting to cut us off from being able to retreat or escape back to Ransei or the digital world. It had been one thing after another and my mother had tried and failed to make a push.

Only Jeanne and Quetal had managed to see anything remotely resembling an active servant, the fact that it wasn’t actively seen in combat and mom had suspicions it was a leader type of servant might have something to do with why we were all failing so hard to reach Moon Cell’s core.

Merak might have been a genius, but he was lazy, the servant we might be dealing with… they just might even be a combat AI for how well they’ve been holding us off and predicting our movements. We couldn’t even get to Moon Cell from below as the tunnels would allow anyone trying to go under the desert to be under serious attack constantly from all sides.

“Valora unit leader Jeanne heading out.” Jeanne stated with a tone of finality, she was going out there too? Most of the Valora units actually met their match the first few days of being on the battlefield that was Moon Cell’s inner realm. They were more tired than they had though. “Pom can’t be alone out there with just APs as support.”

“Is short shorts even in good enough health to be out there?” Dolly asked and I gave it some thought.

“Well she’s not as injured as everyone else and she’s a sturdy fighter, even if she’s extremely pyrophobic… she’s highly afraid of fire Dolly.” I saw the lost look in my elder sister’s eyes and dumbed it down for her.

“Well yeah I’m kind of afraid of fire too, imagine if the 101 street in Camden suddenly caught fire… that’d be pretty hard to put out and… now I’m scared for the rest of my family too if I didn’t know my dad could not only survive it and help put it out too. Which almost did happen given our next door neighbors back yard was on fire all over the place… yeah, fire is scary.” Just please get some rest Dolly, there’s not much we could really do at the moment. I could go out, but I ran out of energy necessary for an digital evolution thirty minutes ago and needed to build up for it again. “Say… can you get me up to the castle walls I might have an idea as to how to help even if I can’t go out as battered as I am.”

“Let me guess, you’re going to summon or use magic at long range and strain yourself.” I groaned out and Dolly grinned at me. “Fine, but only because we stocked up on Ethers before we left the Midgar realm. I worry about your health too you know!”

Dolly latched on to me while sticking her tongue out the right side of her mouth in a goofy smile and I fanned my three tails out to start carrying her towards the battlements.

-Castle Alexander, AP control, Cait Sith-

Well this is worse than the apocalyptic meteorite and alien blood being injected into the wrong person. At least I hadn’t seen the white haired seven foot long sword wielding nutcase… even then half of Midgar got blown up.

I’m surprised that something like that didn’t happen when I wasn’t a computer program called an NPC. We were still building up AP forces and or putting them out for a defense when Pom left to draw the enemy away from trying to hit us and more towards herself.

We were several levels of screwed if we didn’t hold off the incoming enemy assault force. The Berserker Magitek Moogles were powerful, but they really couldn’t handle being swarmer for all the physical power they could put out.

Death by a thousand cuts was still death and the enemy was cutting us up something fierce. I was working on AP upgrades as much as feasibly possible, then something odd happened and the system started spawning dragoons which the Rider Zealots only ever manufactured the one during the Midgar fight.

It’s only now we were capable of producing them? Well not without a Rider Zealot and both took up Allied Program production time, at least we were capable of putting out Shielder Knights faster and more capable thanks to Mash given some insight into shields she used in a prior life, with some tweaks they reclassified from Saber to Shielder. There’s the other additive that the ‘Dragoon Fenix’ unit had to be fielded for them to be produced, something about the code rallied more to be made by our PLANT systems.

I also had an inkling as to what caused the Sandstorm that just stopped us from flying through, the enemy might have an elite EP version of a ‘Zu’ a massive sandstorm causing bird that can make a wall of sand with a single flap of its wings.

Trying to get underneath Moon Cell’s core got us stopped by the tunnels trying to collapse on us, we’re lucky that we haven’t lost anyone or had a complete KIA.

The incoming EP forces slammed into the small contingent, hoped Pom did alright out there. Poor girl has been through a lot with everyone else to get this far.

I focused on my task at hand, maybe this new information could help me improve our other APs?

-Outskirts of Castle Alexander, Pom-

I tightened a pink strip of cloth around my forehead and prepared to dive in when Jeanne showed up with her banner, she always had a way of rallying people to stay strong just by waving it around. She wanted to always be the first on the field of battle and the last off of it, it did give me some solace that she was getting stronger.

She might even stop being a Hakamo-o soon and may become a Kommo-o.

“We’ve been driven back far enough, we’re not being pushed back any further!” Jeanne intoned while waving her banner as the enemy line approached and then held it forward to use it as a weapon as she came up to me. “You have shown much courage on the battlefield Pom, I will not lose a friend like you even in the face of my worst fears. I shall stand and fight by your side to the end!”

“Mirage Mew said we would be getting help, but not in what form.” Yeah and… I was about to continue those thoughts when I was surprised to hear Jeanne saying them out loud.

“Yeah and they can’t come soon enough.” Jeanne the ‘fighting dragon’ stated as she planted the banner. “You want us, then come and get us! I care not if I am not made of steel, but I will show you that my will is far stronger than my body and is made of more than iron! Do you hear me?!”

She was still upset that her parents told her she wasn’t a Steel Type, yet here she was facing thousands of enemies alongside our much smaller numbers with a fierce look on her face. She hasn’t missed a single battle since we came to this desert and she never stopped fighting.

“You may hold us off so easily, we may not have the momentum to deal with you quite yet, but mark my words Moon Cell, we come for you!” Jeanne cry rallied the Dragoons, Zealots and even me, I could feel a surge of strength that I’m fairly sure I’ve felt from her before. “For I am Jeanne D’Arc of Valora and I will not be stopped by your endless armies nor will I ever allow them to get past me to attack my home again!”

With that she took up the banner and with a single sweep of her banner spear, she sent tens of leaping Assassin Reapers flailing back into the horde as she knocked a massive number of them over and surged forward attacking with a vicious speed and strength.

I was right behind her stabbing into every EP I could and as fast as my legs would let me taking out their numbers. The zealots were diving in as well as the horde was constantly blasted despite surrounding us on three sides.

A dancing ‘leaping’ flame fought valiantly alongside the banner bearer of Valora.

“We’re getting surrounded out here!” I stated and then several powerful tornadoes popped up and tore away a good number of the enemy forces as they moved outward and away from us. It lightened the load, but couldn’t stop them from coming at us entirely.

Dodge, parry, thrust, dissolving, move on to the next and repeat until they are stopped or pushed away.

I could feel Dolly in the back of my mind chugging Ethers and casting ‘Aerora’ multiple times when she should be resting.

-Dolly-

Ugh… so much minty taste. The bandages on my body were a little too tight and I felt uncomfortable with my injuries.

“My head is beginning to hurt real badly even with the Ethers…” There were just so many of those things out there and surrounding Pom.

“I told you, you need to keep resting.” Dormarch stated in worry.

“Just let me… do… one last one, then… I’ll actually rest.” I downed three Ethers consecutively one after the other and hit some kind of strange form of enlightenment that my brother Deepak would… that or I was absolutely high on Ether potions. “Leaf in this wind this, I’ll make you soar by the force of my will, AERO-GA!”

-Pom-

The frontline was failing for the Counter Invasion force, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have our aces in the hole.

Like that… for example…

I knew that Dolly could cast some magic, but she had a lot of limitations, but this?!

This was something else and Dolly had definitely overdrawn herself heavily for this…

I looked up at the massive tornado as it drew in more than half the horde and drag them back away from us sand being dragged up into the air creating a massive sandstorm that blasted in the direction of our enemies.

I had almost stopped paying attention to the incoming bladed limb of an Assassin reaper nearly got me in the neck and I quickly stabbed it down and bashed it into a quickly dissolving mulch with the Rhongomyniad with an overhead swing.

Also Dolly overexerted herself and was down and out, Dormarch was taking care of it.

Not only was Dolly’s physical well-being poor, but now her mental well-being from using more magic than she could safely handle utilizing.

We would have to figure out how get to Moon Cell’s core or this would have been all for nothing.

Even with the tornado and sandstorm working in our favor a massive number of Assassin Reapers were still getting through and Dolly wasn’t awake to even use any more spells to support us.

I continued to bash, stab and splatter any EP moving in our direction. Jeanne protectively stayed in front of me along with the Rider Zealots fighting on foot, but she still had to let a few by and it was still almost too much for me.

A flame whip tore an Assassin Reaper away before it could dig its spindly limb too far into my torso and a blast from a fireball took out another one’s top half a second later.

Dazzle and Frizzle were now on the field of battle now too, but how long could we hold them all off?

The frontlines were failing quite badly and we only had so much strength.

A second later a massive bird screeched as it flew in front of the tornado and slowly started to destroy it with several powerful wing beats.

Yeah, that just wasn’t fair at all… but who said life was fair?

“I suspected as much, but now it’s confirmed! That would be a Zu, it’s what created those terrible sandstorms that turned us around earlier. If we can take it down we might have more of a chance of making an aerial push.” Said Cait Sith about what Dolly would term as a ‘kaiju sized’ massive bird that not only just revealed itself.

It had stopped Dolly’s most powerful wind magic spell cold, as if it was nothing to the massive bird.

“Yeah, I can’t fight that thing…” Even if I were to glide up to it that thing was ridiculous as it was fast in the air, something of that size should not be able to fly like it does.

“You might be thinking something of that size should not be flying like it does… well Zu are like that.” Said Cait as I looked up at the massive black bird that roared and I physically felt shift me backwards from this far away. “They can control wind and are resilient to physical attacks… they are otherwise weak to magic.”

“Anything specific?” I asked as I fended off three Assassin Reapers trying to stab me all at once by flaring the Rhongomyniad into an open parasol.

“Anything fire based, lots of it. Maybe ice… really I don’t know what kind of Zu species this one in particular is, but they really don’t like being burned in general except for the ones immune to flames, but those are generally red tinted so it’s not going to be immune to flames.” While that was nice to know Cait Sith as we have plenty of way to lit if on fire, we were already kind of busy here. Too bad Dolly was out or I’d have her summon Ifrit, I also noted that Jeanne twitched as she heard what this things weakness was. Good thing Dazzle and Frizzle were out here. “The reason fire is so bad for a Zu is because it lights up the winds keeping them aloft and completely disrupts its magic, so be wary of it landing on you if you managed to hit it with flames as it’s too heavy to stay in the air without its power over wind outright aiding it.”

“Not really a time to think about fighting that thing, I still have hundreds of Assassin Reapers out for my blood here!” It likely only showed up to stop the threat to Moon Cell that Dolly’s massive tornado present and then it was seen flying away when it had done its job.

Things were going poorly and I had no idea how we could be doing any better than we currently were… on the back hoof and fighting to keep a single foothold here.

“Hi-potions delivery incoming for you Pom, via the Cuddlestare Skvader Caerbannog support!” Nice to hear Ocellus. Well at least the Harmony Programs were still able to do something in the terms of back up, but we were dangerously low on all kinds of supplies that those potions might not even be enough. “Stay alive until then please.”

Easier said than done Ocellus, I ducked under the swing of a Brute that had been hidden among the many, MANY, Assassin Reapers. I jumped the lance up into it and had it spike outwards from inside the EP to blow it apart.

We could hardly keep up with all of Moon Cell’s defenses, we were in real trouble.

-Origin Space, Arceus-

“Hm…” I sighed audibly and groaned. “I’ll contact the Wooloo…”

“Huh?” Bahamut queried through a mouthful of food.

“They need help and the normal types are the closest to finishing off their Mystery Dungeon anchors from Moon Cell. I can send a special command to Cleric Geoff… It’ll help things for the counter invasion force.” As watching them right now was disheartening, after they had gotten so far.

“How are you going to get them to there? You can’t directly make it so they’ll appear there without threatening everything.” Mew stated with worry.

“Fear not, Wooloo are capable of the dumbest things if you don’t tell them they shouldn’t be able to do them.” I shook my head. “If only someone hadn’t told them Rollout was impossible for them because Wooloo don’t naturally have rock type energy… then they might have done it anyway out of sheer ignorance and created a new move using normal type energy.”

“Wait… you’re going to have them do something absolutely impossible out of sheer ignorance?” Mew stated blankly. “Well that’s…”

“Genius!” Tiamat interrupted a second later with all of her heads smiling.

“I was about to say absolutely dumb, because there is no way in the world that the Wooloo can possibly get there in time to save Castle Alexander!” Mew stated bluntly.

-Five minutes later-

“Okay, I stand completely corrected, but how in the hell did they gain access to the Reverse World like that?!” Again Mew, ignorance is a tough thing to deal with when it came to Wooloo shenanigans and they gathered supplies stupidly fast upon Geoff hearing that Pom needed help. “I know ‘rhythm, singing and dancing’ is a naturally occurring power of a being from Equus… but that… that made absolutely no sense!”

“I don’t know how they are doing what they are doing, but I am currently telling Giratina to let them through its realm.” This should be a good show, I only told Geoff that Pom was in grave danger and needed immediate help. He didn’t even stop for a second to think of how he was going to reach her current position and somehow broke into what was known as the 'Reverse World' by the sheer force of stupidity of not thinking things through completely. “Also who said the Reverse World ever made sense? It just needs to be maintained, Giratina is going to be quite surprised by their numerous guests passing through though. It’ll be much faster than trying what Violite is currently working on with trying to bridge a gap through heavily contested the digital realm or bypass it entirely.”

I’m not going to think too hard about how the Wooloo are doing what they are doing, nor am I going to think too hard about all the noise causing Pokémon they are taking with them to punch through worldly barriers they shouldn’t be capable of punching through. At least they weren’t punching through barriers across worlds and were staying in the same general dimension.

“Will they make it in time though?” Mew still questioned.

“Hello my name is Celebi, Dialga heard we needed more time on something…” Celebi grinned as they popped up, they’ve been getting better only two deaths over the last three days of normal reality time compared to the faster plodding time of the digital realm of Moon Cell. “Also since the Reverse World isn’t going to be a problem for Dialga to use their full power in, as much as it would be in doing it in reality, and Palkia is actually not fighting Dialga on something for once and is actively assisting them with what is about to happen. We hardly ever see those three working together, but when Giratina, Dialga and Palkia do get their heads out of their backsides...”

Tiamat, the multiple headed dragon, had all her heads burst out in roaring laughter.

Fun thing is, I don’t think Moon Cell actually has any protection from Geoff’s current entirely unplanned counter invasion route. Even I didn't know this was even possible until I gave a Geoff the impetus for it... but there it was in the timeline now.

This only works, given that Moon Cell has a physical presence on the floating off the far side of the moon in the Mystery Dungeon Realm as a massive crystalline structure. Well, nothing has ever been totally and truly one hundred percent foolproof. Not even Moon Cell's defenses and Geoff was about to ignorantly bypass most of them just to help Pom.

The Normal Types would be the first into the breach behind Pom inside the inner realm, with a number of Team Harmony friends in support.

Note to self: Reinforce all the dimensional walls after what Geoff just pulled off using the Kingdom of Aurora's resources within less than an hour of being informed that Pom is in dire trouble.

The power of friendship is still one of my favorite things to watch, but that Wooloo scares me on a number of levels with how fast he managed to rally everyone in Aurora to even do what he currently is.