Baa-Ram-Ewe!

-Moon Cell, Inner Realm, Desert of Devastation, Damaged Castle Alexander, Ocellus-

Castle Alexander was a complete mess. Damaged places were being repaired by Berserker Minotaur Mercenaries via Torneko and various other APs. Welch was trying to produce support vehicles as fast as possible in manufacturing and that was slow going, the few Skein Flyers we had were at least helping in the repairs.

If it wasn’t for our slight problem with having to shut down our APs ability to be fielded we wouldn’t be in this mess, but Cait Sith was also working on adding some things to our APs and we needed them upgraded like literal yesterday. Mind you Cait Sith has been working on them for days, he’s now getting to the process where he can actually implement the upgrades.

Thankfully Rider Zealots were still deployable as was that odd teal colored Dragoon Fenix.

Dolly was down again, passed out from abusing her magical talent and was suffering backlash, but the Ethers apparently cooled down the most of the damage that the backlash would have caused. At least Dormarch forced her unconscious form to ingest one.

Ethers were still abundant, only magic users really needed them and I was one among that number that could use them… tasted exactly like the most blandest love possible to me, but Ethers were quite effective for what they did and changelings could use them for a small boost where needed. I could do some magical mending as an auxiliary support under Dormarch’s instruction.

Speaking of Dormarch he went back to resting and waiting to get his digital evolutions back online, also he was currently our medical expert so putting him on the field of battle wasn’t ideal at the moment when most of our non-AP forces were down with a variety of injuries. We didn’t currently have the berries or the potions to fix all of them, which is why we have the Harmony Programs or HPs running us some much needed healing supplies at the moment.

The Mirage Collective was far too busy securing all the realms we have collectively taken to lend us support at this time, but Mirage Mew said we had to hold on until they can keep our already taken realm secured.

Fou actually met his match when he encountered those worms and got bitten… the underground operation attempt went quite horribly thanks to those worm things.

The Commandramon were still recovering from their injuries and were the lucky ones from the underground operation that hadn’t been poisoned. We didn’t have any of them capable of being fielded at the moment with any of the three types of magitek armor we could produce.

Our three digi-bot friends were all parts broken, their ‘tin pet’ bodies were in the slow recovery phase and until their parts came back they wouldn’t be getting up any time soon.

Not that we had Magitek Armors at the moment with production being a complete mess.

Thousand Gunners were fairly useful offensive wise, but they were really terribly armored considering most of their construction was focused on bracing them to fire their rotary machine cannons full bore. We were named our particular off-brand version of the Thousand Gunners the unique name of ‘Blumebears’ given Welch’s rather unorthodox design philosophy.

We had quickly lost all the Blumebears we built to those Elite Worm EPs in the sand when they dropped them into sand traps.

When the large number Skvader Caerbannog from Cuddlestare came flying in with Hi-Potions, without any supportive escort to protect them, they were a very much welcome sight as they slowed down the nearby assaulting EPs with their stares as some flew in and dropped off Hi-Potions for our four remaining remotely healthy fighters out in the field. The majority brought the rest of the Hi-potion supplies to us.

Our air attack went poorly, our attempts to go underground was a big loss and the rush assault afterwards barely gave us new intelligence to work with as far as the servant we were up against.

The underground attempt had been horrible considering the Grabbers or Grabby Wormoid things… Graboids? Anyway those things were insanely fast digging EP elite monsters and almost crushed us with their absolutely devastating terrain advantage. Tough outer hides and fast underground movement speed, they were weak to solid rock so Castle Alexander was safe from their direct attacks. They could, thankfully enough, only effectively use sand traps against large things that weren’t nearly as big as Castle Alexander.

Our rushed assault injured most of the Valora contingent. Along Canard and Sami, plus quite a few others in the Gazimon contingent. We only managed to reveal a servant from it… but not what that servant was capable of as we got pushed back to the start of where we entered the inner realm.

One thing was for certain, the servant was not Merak levels of lazy genius… this was just outright genius as far as stopping us at every turn and we had nothing to show for it aside from a damaged castle and more heavily injured than we could handle.

The Desert of Devastation was aptly named, considering how devastated our forces were at the moment.

That Pom even went out there alone was terrifying, but she was quickly joined by Jeanne who was one of the few still capable of fighting at her fullest and probably should have evolved into a Kommo-o at this point from the sheer pressure she was under to perform.

It really didn’t help Jeanne much that she flinched anytime Dazzle or Frizzle used a fire attack near her. She had less psychological problems than Pom certainly did, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a serious problem when she couldn’t even handle our side using fire.

Dazzle and Frizzle shouldn’t even be out there after the failed aerial assault plan was rebuffed and we at least now knew what stopped us was that giant Zu bird. They weren’t going to abandon Pom to fighting by herself out there and neither were we, even when we were backed into a corner and could hardly do much more than use the turrets to fend off the overwhelming quantity of enemies coming at us.

The turrets current fire rates were absolutely abysmal until the repairs on those were done, Cid was completely overworked on the mechanical side of things with Welch in getting Castle Alexander back into semi-working order.

We were at least keeping our small Zealot and Dragoon force from being completely surrounded, but they were being attack on three sides at once and were getting crushed.

I watched a screen as one of the dragoons was swarmed and summarily ripped to shreds by the Assassin Reapers. What the Reapers sometimes lacked in direct fighting power, they were making up in numbers. Those EPs were some of the most vicious things we’ve fought since the battle outside Valora.

The EP Saber Knights, Lancer Guardians, Brutes and quite a few other Moon Cell basic ground forces were slowly whittling our battle line apart which was now about a meager eleven dragoons with Dragoon Fenix, five Rider Zealots fighting valiantly on foot and our four heroes putting up quite a fight out there.

Pom didn’t impress as much as one would expect with a stupidly powerful weapon, but she definitely held her own in the back central position. Dazzle was sweeping whips of flames about or blasting a dragon shaped beams of force from her mouth. Frizzle was a frenzy of claws and fire blasting from her mouth, tearing apart her opponents with much needed wild abandon.

It was Jeanne who was waving the banner and not giving an inch of ground without making harsh reprisals for it against the enemy. Her powerful swings sent tens of EPs flying and she tore into them with a raw force of will. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was a at least morale boosting to watch, that was in short supply at the moment.

It was unfortunate that our friends would soon have something more to worry about as Pom took a moment to down a Hi-Potion for the numerous stab wounds dealt to her by the Assassin Reapers.

Moon Cell would probably do better than sending Assassin Class EPs at Pom, but it seemed rather ‘dead’ set on it to the point of absurdity.

“Pom, incoming seismic activity, watch the ground!” I warned as I watched the screen as another Dragoon was torn apart in a massive swarm of stabbing blades into a blue pile of leaking and dissolving mass of blue digital goo and parts. “Those nasty snake tongued worms are about to attack, I think we’re designating them Graboids or Grabbers! At least five, numbers uncertain… confirm on your own, don’t drop your guard.”

“Thanks for the warning Ocellus, those things terrify me on a number of levels.” Yeah, Pom, I was terrified of ever walking on the ground after seeing how fast those things were. “Any idea on how we can lure out what Cait Sith called a Zu? If we can deal with the bird thing we can at least try another air assault and won’t have to worry about those sand swimming horrors.”

“No, given it’s a special unit under Moon Cell’s control, it’ll likely hold the Zu back and keep it out of our range of attack indefinitely unless we can go up to meet it in combat.” I answered. Since the Zu was being used entirely defensively and not going on the offense. I had some idea that there were limitations on how often Moon Cell could actively field really powerful units like that. “It makes for a nasty home field advantage in this desert, it’s practically impossible at this rate to get to Moon Cell’s core unless things change.”

It didn’t help that the Graboids had an insanely nasty poison that would make you bleed from all your orifices if you actively get bit by their snake headed tongues. Said poison was meant to make a prey incapable of fighting off being swallowed entirely alive, it was unimaginably painful… well except for Pom who could feasibly imagine worse pain. Thankfully we didn’t lose anyone to the poison or those things swallowing someone whole, but it was close.

If they couldn’t swallow prey whole, then the tongues would presumably work on tearing them into more easily swallowed pieces. I’m surprised that this hasn’t happened yet, but the poison was bad enough on its own.

Still, the worst poison I could think of would probably be that of an Equestrian Basilisk’s magic poison, a poison that tries to magically kill you in every way feasibly possible.

Even being swallowed alive by a Graboid was suggested to be horrific even if you didn’t get poisoned going in. The fluids in their bodies keeping you alive like preservatives, up until you couldn’t take the agony anymore. Probably didn’t need Canard’s Digivice scan knowledge of that to be in the back of my head, he’s gotten a lot of mileage out of that function.

Thankfully the ones we retreated from primarily targeted Pom, if they didn’t do that then we might have actually lost some people to them when they surprise attacked us underground. Pom, despite being the blazingly fast when using Dancing Flame technique, was absolutely terrified of the Graboids.

They weren’t apparently capable of being summoned in large numbers by Moon Cell, but even the few we faced in the underground attempt had been far too many for how fast they moved. Pom had proved that the Pecha Berry Scarf and its mystical poison immunity ability was worth the Poké many times over by now.

It’s still a surprise to me that she apparently got those two scarves for so cheap from those Kecleon Brother Merchants at this point.

-Outskirts of Castle Alexander, Pom-

“Incoming worms!” I yelled out over the din of battle as I watched another dragoon go down under in a slew of flailing Assassin Reaper limbs as a Saber Knight EP charged up to me with a sword ready to swing.

“Like we don’t have enough problems here!” Jeanne called back as she swung the recently reinforced banner weapon in wide sweeping arcs.

Whether it was the blunt force of the shaft or the sharp cutting tip of the banner spear, Jeanne was the only reason we were holding on as well as we were… her mystical rallying ability kept us in the fight.

I brought the Rhongomyniad up to block the sword coming at me from the right and then, pivoting with the blow, I launched my hind left leg up into its head taking it out.

Since the Rhongomyniad was no longer blocking a sword, I prepped it to swing upwards as I stomped my hind leg down and swept the weapon forward and up to catch a charging Berserker Viking in the chest. The flaming axe Viking was promptly blown apart by the swing and their heat axe fell into the sand turning it into glass before disappearing.

I opened the Rhongomyniad up and blocked the incoming fire from the few Trooper EPs Moon Cell fielded as they showed up in the dunes and they were swiftly blown apart by the Dragoon’s energy blasts.

We didn’t have many Dragoon APs left, as they were being swarmed down fast and were stomping as many enemies as they could with their four legs as they constantly fired as fast as they could. They were supposed to be mobile artillery and weren’t exactly effective on the front line except when acting like a living shield wall to take enemy projectile attacks. The explosive energy they fired was welcome on the battlefield as they could take out swaths of enemies, but they were very poor in dealing with things at close range without shooting at them.

The turrets on Castle Alexander were working again or they had been working before, but couldn’t fire until now. Given we suddenly received an artillery strike that gave us a moment of breathing room as the ground shook and thundered with several powerful explosions, they just fired a cluster explosives that almost hit us as well.

“Cait Sith hurry up please… we’re slowly dying out here and I can feel the Grabbers incoming.” I was using the wool hair on my body like a seismograph to detect how many and where they were moving. I was doing this even as I took up position near Jeanne to start bashing and stabbing through the swarms of EPs alongside our rapidly dwindling Rider Zealots who were valiantly fighting a losing battle.

We were in a slow retreat towards the castle at the moment. We weren’t going to be pushed out of the Desert of Devastation, we were just going to be destroyed outright if this kept going on for much longer.

I was making sure Jeanne wasn’t too far out enough to get absolutely cut off from us. Frizzle and Dazzle were off to both our left and right sides and being careful about firing off any fire attack in Jeanne’s vicinity. Dazzle had to take a moment to drink a Hi-potion and Frizzle was likely wishing she saved her digital evolution for this moment, that or she was eating at an all you can consume designer bread buffet.

“Right, sending out Shielder Class Knights now! Your slapdash creation that was still making them Saber Class has been patched and these will be able to act much more smoothly! Increased leg strength for one and an ability to brace for impact, plus a smaller mace weapon for more efficiency in shield specifications.” Cait Sith chuckled audibly. A wave of shield wielding knights with maces were suddenly on the march towards us from Castle Alexander as we frantically held off the swarms. I felt the tremors in the ground as a worm started angling for me and I could see the sand quietly shifting. “Also I think those Grabbers are in for a very nasty surprise if they try to attack them.”

The Grabbers were very good at moving forward at insane speeds while in the ground, they however couldn’t move backwards very fast for the life of them. So when they erupted out of the ground, they are easy to take down and quite vulnerable. That is provided you’re not the one directly in front of their mouths and flailing snake headed tongues when they do come out and you can take them from the side where their tough hides were at their weakest.

After hearing and even seeing what their poison did to the poor Kommo-o and the other Hakamo-o in Jeanne’s forces. Yeah, did not want to take off my Pecha Scarf at any time in the near future, not even to wash it!

Since the worm’s beak was sharp and pointy and the tongues had equally dangerous fangs, I did not want to suddenly be ripped in half by not paying attention to warnings of them being around. They could bite through my wools defenses entirely if I wasn’t on the ball, of course that wasn’t as important as them biting me entirely in half or swallowing me whole.

I felt the motions and waited, yes two of them were coming for me, one was going to erupt in front of me and another was going to take me from the side a second later. If I dodge backwards, then the one in front of me will chase and the second one will still have time to veer and hit me from the side. We didn’t have enough people on the sands to deal with them and there were at least four others here moving underneath us into ambush positions.

Ocellus did say to confirm their numbers ourselves.

“Jeanne!” I called out as I backed away and stabbed a Saber knight EP through with a sharp pointy end of the Rhongomyniad.

“I’m aware, we’re all doing our best here and we will hold!” Jeanne’s rallying cry did seem to embolden everyone on our side as she waved her banner aloft, even if our position was rapidly deteriorating as even she was pushed back by the masses of assaulting EPs. With the incoming Shielder Knight APs and the Skvader Caerbannog Harmony Program keeping extra supplies up in the air around us that we could call in at a moment’s notice if we needed healing, we might be able to hold for another two minutes at best and that’s assuming the Skvaders can actually actively fight.

The Skvaders showing up was the main reason we weren’t being horribly overrun at the moment, their slowing gazes were helping us immensely in keeping up with the impossible tide coming down on us.

Those gazes wouldn’t work on the Grabbers underground until they popped up and when they did pop up, then they’d need to dedicate some of their slowing gazes to them by taking them off the incoming EP swarm that was increasingly adding on the pressure.

Nobody could count how many EPs we’ve taken out thus far.

The ground suddenly rumbled and I waited to make my maneuver as I fended of an Assassin Reaper with a bark blast, seemed so much easier to fire those these days.

I fired off a rapid barrage of short range explosive barks into the Assassin Reapers that were ignoring Jeanne, Dazzle and Frizzle just to get at me.

I brought up the Rhongomyniad and knocked the last one coming at me down with a quick flair of the currently parasol shaped weapons canopy. I lunged forward and brought the bladed edge of the canopy down on the things body bisecting and after seeing it wasn’t dissolving, I hit it with an overhead smash to the upper torso with a closed up Rhongomyniad and that finally took it out.

That was when I felt the movements of the worms in the sand coming at me full bore…

I leapt backwards and started inhaling the lukewarm air as shifting sand rose up heading towards me, then stopped.

It dove… where… right under!

Timing it just right, I exhaled leapt up and opened the Rhongomyniad as the things mouth came screeching up at me, the snake headed tongues were immediately flailing to get around the canopy as it easily lifted me in the air trying to crush the Rhongomyniad in its four or five part beak.

The second one roared and was already leaping at me as the one below thrashed, now trying to swallow the Rhongomyniad whole and I was holding on for dear life.

I’m so glad that Dancing Flame allowed me time to work up a plan, because time was catching up as the airborne sand monster was coming at me fast even as the Skvader’s snapped their eyes onto glaring at it. It was still moving far too fast to not be lethal if it manages to drive at least two parts of its point beak and mouth tusks into my body. This is not taking into account the snake headed tongues extending towards me.

Charging magic, I pumped out a beam of energy into the Grabber Elite EP mouth while flaring out the Rhongomyniad to push myself upwards and off of its opening jaw as its insides were roasted.

Trying to turn in the air to bring the Rhongomyniad around, I could see I wouldn’t be quick enough and the Skvader’s can only slow down something already moving at incredible speeds, The maw was wide open, five or more tongues spreading out to grab and swallow me whole If I resisted, then the spear like teeth of the beak parts would absolutely bite me apart.

I was sadly small enough to be swallowed whole despite being an adult lambkin ewe.

I’m quietly reminded that Tatzlwurms existed on Equus in this moment of time… however this incoming thing was most certainly not a Tatzlewurm. It was far stubbier for one and Tatzlwurms were much longer to wrap around larger prey, also this thing had a fleshy hide and was not positively covered in magic resilient scales. Tatzlwurms also weren’t poisonous, easier to escape from and pretty much the most easily avoidable mega-fauna threat on Equus, as they only ever showed up if you picked a specific particular species of flower they are usually found to be beneath.

Tatzlwurms grew fields of those flowers as bait sometimes. Thankfully I never saw such a flower myself, but I wouldn’t touch it with a mile long pole and that mouth was getting increasingly closer.

Sure Tatzlwurms made for a very fascinating biology study, but it was not what I should be focusing on right now.

I needed to think of something anything, as I was not going to be able to intercept with the Rhongomyniad in time. This was a well-coordinated attack when even the enhanced speed of movement and thought from Dancing Flame couldn’t get me out of this situation.

Something wrapped around my waist as time sped up and, with a slight burning sensation, I was yanked clear of the snapping maw and the many snake headed tongues trying to get me all at once. A few of the tongues were even bitten off in the attempt.

Shifting my wool to quickly put out the flames around my waist from Dazzle using her whip to pull me clear of the attack. The worm immediately dove back into the sand as soon as it touched it and there was one dissolving worm left above ground.

“That was far too close, thanks Dazzle!” My statement was met with a slight smile from Dazzle as she continued to focus on swinging her flaming whips in wide sweeping strikes trying to take out numbers of EPs all at once after several such swings.

“Are you okay?” Dazzle asked reminding me that I hadn’t used Buster Wolf in a while.

“No, but I’ll live with the horrifying memories of that moment for the rest of my life!” I said as I watched her back by taking down a charging Lancer Guardian EP by deflecting the charging spear upwards and stabbing them down. We were practically out of Rider Zealots in the following seconds and down to three Dragoons, one of which was the outlier teal or green colored Dragoon Fenix. “Which might be measured in minutes at this rate!”

The surge of EPs pressed us backwards and I could feel the Grabbers in the ground making some more movements, three were targeting me this time and one was going for Frizzle?

“Frizzle watch the ground, one of them is targeting you!” What I didn’t say was that I had three preparing to come at me all at once as I back away with Dazzle as Jeanne continued to barely hold the wall of encroaching EPs by herself with some limited support from our Skvader friends.

Weren’t their five? Where did that other Grabber that bit off some of its tongues to get at me go?!

“Exactly how many of them are targeting you at this moment Pom?!” A very perceptive Jeanne asked while trying to ignore the streams of fire based attacks that both Frizzle and Dazzle were putting out, her flinching almost getting her hit as she continued to twirl her banner defensively into devastating offensive strikes.

It was around this time that the Shielder Knight APs reached us and took up a defensive perimeter near us, while making sure to not be in our way.

“Uh three… heh… why me?” Trying to keep the wavering in my voice steady as I said it out loud and the whimpering was kept to a minimum, I kept my ears out for any underground movement. Sure they were slowly creeping into positions below us, but they couldn’t surprise us without me knowing they were coming.

Jeanne, Dazzle and Frizzle exchanged glances as another series of artillery strikes gave us a moment against the surface level enemies coming at us in a massive wave. They held off the stragglers from the barrage in unison and we had a few seconds to breathe. The artillery strikes were starting to get a little too close for comfort, it’s almost like Ocellus was aiming Castle Alexander’s firepower directly at us since things were just that dire.

I couldn’t help but think my friends were thinking the same thing as I dove into the EPs that hadn’t been struck down in the rather slow artillery strikes. Stab, bash, smash… find a rhythm Pom and keep breathing evenly.

Was Castle Alexander doing that badly after the rush assault that its artillery fire rate was this slow at the moment?

So much to worry about and so very little time actually deal with it all!

“Shield bearer APs… protect Pom and our Dragoons, they are high priority targets for the enemy.” Jeanne ordered as the next wave of EPs came in after the artillery strikes and the APs vaguely changed their defensive formation to be more protective of me and the three remaining slashed up Dragoons still firing as fast as they feasibly could.

I didn’t like being stuck in this sandy basin of a canyon, it was like we were trapped in a giant bowl with our backs to the wall and the suspiciously silent hyper murder worms weren’t helping with that feeling at all.

Moon Cell wasn’t overextending with the Zu, because it actually might fear that we can functionally deal with the giant flying bird thing that can control winds.

I was wondering why the Zu wasn’t constantly sending sandstorms our way like it had when it turned us around when we tried to simply flying in for the core. Maybe it had a large cost to it if it kept doing that, like not being able to see some of us that could feasibly sneak on by like Shine… of whom was injured in the underground assault attempt on Moon Cell’s core.

You’d think being in a dark cave system would make it easier for a ghost type to go undetected, the worms could actually force her out of her shadow swimming state and had almost eaten her alive when they did.

Even Snake said this was the toughest nut of a realm to crack he had ever seen and he was practically a nutcracker at breaking into well protected bases.

All the worms started moving at once and three of them came at me at different angles, as we were charged by the Enemy Program horde in front of us.

A worm burst up and a Shielder Knight was immediately in front of me and angling the shield at something approaching a thirty to forty five degree angle towards itself.

As soon as the Grabber impacted the shield, I saw the Shielder AP heave it upwards and much to my amazement successfully managed to topple the worm onto its back where its tongues started thrashing everywhere and it was stuck entirely immobile.

Cait Sith had come through for us completely, as a second later the other two worms trying to pincer or box me in met the same fate of being toppled onto their backs with an absurd amount of ease by a single Shielder Class Knight each. In fact the worms were having problems getting back into the ground as they wiggled helplessly upside down or were slowly trying to use their tongues to right themselves.

Not letting that happen!

I quickly launched myself into the air using springs of wool from my rear legs and came down on the Grabber in front of me to impale it violently with the Rhongomyniad. After pulling the odd weapon free, I bark blasted into the hole I made in its tough skin.

The bark blast tore the hole I fired it into wide open in a disgusting splatter of brownish and orange colors that made me feel sick to my stomach at how gross this was.

The worm I was on thrashed one last time and then went limp, it started dissolving soon after.

The other Shielder Knights worked in concert to bash the other two down slowly with their maces, the maces impacts weren’t as effective on the tough hides as swords, axes or spears would be… but they were good enough to deal with the other two that lunged out at me with some time.

That left two of those things…

“Frizzle!” An upset Dazzle roared drawing our attention to the fourth worm.

Frizzle had torn open the worm that went after her, more like ripped it completely apart with her bare claws. She looked to have mostly done so surprisingly without much injury… only she was obviously poisoned given all the blood cubes that were leaking out of her.

Of the various snake headed tongues the worm had, Frizzle had apparently mostly tore them all out without trouble. The exception being to the one currently disconnected head that had bitten deeply into her tail, having done so before she decapitated that particular tongue.

As far as a small victory against Elite EPs went, that was entirely pyrrhic in the extreme and we were at the point where we couldn’t handle such forms of victories given all the injured in Castle Alexander.

“Frizzle is down, she has been poisoned by a Grabber’s tongue. We’re sending her back to Castle Alexander, can you pick her up without endangering everyone inside?” I asked as I motioned to two APs to start carrying her back before the next onslaught of EPs slammed into us. “Dazzle why aren’t you going with…”

“I’m not leaving you and Jeanne out here when there are possibly more of those things around! Besides, I should be immune to poison… the worms have more to worry about from me now than I do them. My blood is as toxic as my use of the move Toxic.” Still Dazzle watched as Frizzle whimpered in agony as she was bleeding out her version of blood from several orifices while being carried off on a stretcher made of two shields by the Shielder Knight APs. “Frizzle will be taken care of… you need me out here more right now!”

“Copy that, Dormarch is on standby to receive her and help with the bleeding symptoms. He’s already worked out how to help her, we just have to get her inside.” Answered Ocellus. This is why Dormarch wasn’t out here, he was assisting the injured with his medical knowledge of our various biologies. He was better not being on the frontline and acting as a doctor at the moment. “Lit will be there to assist the pickup.”

Lit was kind of our absolute last line of defense at the castle gate… the little guy really didn’t like sand and it was understandable as he had problems moving around on it. That is to say Lit kept getting stuck in the sand, his tiny legs couldn’t find purchase without spitting excessive amounts of webbing. The terrain around here really wasn’t his wheelhouse at all, though he could Lunge about in a pinch.

Didn’t have the time to say anymore as our defensive line was hit by numerous EPs of varying shapes and sizes. The Shielder APs despite being small in number actually held up valiantly due to Cait Sith’s upgrades despite the fact that we were buckling under pressure. Berserker Moogles would be really helpful right about now, but most of our AP strength was in the midst of repair work.

There was still one worm left, where was it… was it going to go after Frizzle as she was being carried to safety? No, I’m primary enemy number one for Moon Cell, so… WHERE WAS IT?!

Dazzle was soon lighting up an entire swath of EPs with a Dragon Pulse, she was obviously upset about her partner and good friend being taken down.

Jeanne’s ferocity matched itself to Dazzle’s own, the banner twirling Hakamo-o tore them apart like a push mower for being anywhere near her as she twirled it about in a stylishly fierce display.

Even I was firing what little magic I could spare to use the Rhongomyniad’s beam attacks, drained me faster than even the Magitek Armors magic beam system. I was being highly careful about not letting my ‘condition’ get worse as I intended to survive Moon Cell and further beyond.

My position changed by me stepping forward into Frizzle’s position on the right flank as Dazzle held the left and Jeanne was the center.

I bashed, stabbed and beat back numerous EPs alongside our defensive focused APs, it was tiring to keep beating back the endless numbers coming at us and we couldn’t field enough APs to at least make it a little easier on our end of things.

Notably the majority of EPs I was facing were the Assassin Reapers and they always came at me fast, thankfully the Shielder Knights were making them suffer incredible losses for trying to focus me down.

These EPs were mostly generic and nothing I hadn’t fought before, it’s only the ones with more ranged attacks that were extremely threatening. Oddly, no Gekko EPs were seen firing machine cannons at us or trying to slap us around with combat tentacles.

The Troopers and Heli-Troopers being present were bad enough among the other generics, even the Guard Hounds weren’t exactly threatening… up until they started shooting magical fireballs at us. The Guard Hounds were causing Jeanne to panic and almost outright run as they splashed the surrounding sands into glass with magical fire.

Apparently the Shielder class was quite decent at dealing with most things according to Mash, well most things that didn’t attack at ranges they couldn’t get to. I really didn’t want to know what the Grail Wars were in detail, but hearing even the cliff note of them makes me want to destroy said grail outright. There was some possibility that said wishes had occurred at some point, but it just somehow made other grail wars eventually occur.

I had many reasons to not like the so called ‘Holy Grail’ mentioned in passing, you should only wish for what you can’t earn within your own efforts and only then it would have to be something absolutely grand as to not be wasted for the high cost it likely took to even get one in the first place.

There’s always a major cost involved. I’ve read tales of jerk genies who had a good reason to be jerks if they were the enslaved Djinn, monkey paws always going wrong because they hurt the monkey they took it from to acquire said wishes and wishes going wrong in general because of entirely unintended side effects of not being extremely specific with a wish.

Eventually our defensive line was starting to break from the lack of numbers and we lost two more dragoons from being swarmed over. Unfortunately one of those dragoons was the odd Dragoon Fenix, which means we wouldn’t be getting any more Dragoon support anytime soon.

“We need to retreat!” Jeanne finally called out as I finished blowing a Brute apart from the inside using the Rhongomyniad.

“Where would Castle Alexander go from here though?” My question was to point out the fact that we weren’t currently in a position to head back to Midgar or retreat from this realm currently. I find myself face with a veritable wall of charging Assassin Reaper EPs and a quickly diminishing number of Shielder Knight APs to get in their way. “Ocellus is there a reason we haven’t received reinforcements?”

Not too soon after I asked that, the missing worm finally got the drop on us as it erupted out of the ground behind me and Dazzle. She immediately turned and sprayed a blast of Toxic into its open maw as she heaved me away from it.

The worm slammed down on top of Dazzle, its remaining tongues all poising to bite her as her lower torso was caught under the bulk of the widening maw above her. It went to bite to bit her in half… but it just oddly froze.

Its tongues didn’t move closer, its maw didn’t encroach and Dazzle sat there wide eyed with fear.

A second later the worm’s head turned bright purple and then exploded violently in a nauseating manner, sending purple splotches of liquid that was resoundingly familiar flying everywhere.

Running over to Dazzle still trapped under the body, I waited until the body dissolved away enough to help drag Dazzle away from the torso and give her a Hi-potion while Jeanne fiercely protected the both of us.

We didn’t have many Shielder Knights, retreat was the only conclusion and we didn’t have many places to retreat to given we couldn’t get back to Midgar and Castle Alexander was still in need of repairs.

“Nhhnnn… must be highly allergic to Toxic, I’m actually going to thank Corrosion for once.” Muttered a dazed Dazzle after she chugged the potion I brought to her lips. “Do not want to be sat on by one of those things again...”

“Come on get up, we need to move Dazzle!” She slowly rolled over and was soon standing on her hind legs again.

“That took the fight out of me, didn’t have much to begin with…” The swarm of EPs almost had us completely surrounded.

“Hold on for a little longer Pom, don’t get surrounded we’re getting artillery up now…” Ocellus was panicking, Dazzle could hardly stand after such a painful impact and Jeanne was flagging… heh flagging.

Oh great, I was mentally snapping now…

“You know what, I’m just going to invoke it, I’m insane enough to do so at this point!” I said to the sky as I raised a accusing hoof left hoof at it. “How could this possibly get any worse?!”

I shouted as we were almost surrounded on all side and the EPs were surging in when a distortion appeared directly above us showing Eaters… my jaw dropped.

“Seriously? There really is nothing that can possibly save us now then, is that it!” I was proven wrong when the Eaters didn’t have time to exit the warp in reality when a different distortion seemed to intercept or overtook it and changed into something else entirely. It was a really strange place and it was full of… “… Heh… I might be going insane… because… I swear I’m seeing…”

“Wooloo, what’ll we do~!” A single Round fire out of the distortion taking down an Assassin Reaper that had a blade an inch form piercing my forehead, it was a familiar voice sounding off in song as a form of attack.

“Fight-~!” Was following chorus of increasingly powerful Rounds and all the EPs around us were blasted back and away from us in a giant wave of sand and sound destruction heading entirely in the enemies direction as Geoff, the big damn perverted hero he was, dropped out the dark special rift to land at Jeanne’s side.

He wasn’t alone there were Wooloos, their evolved forms Dubwools, the perverts of the plains… yes even the females and they might arguably be worse. There were also Whismurs, their evolved forms of Loudred and Explouds. They were joined by what I recognized as two types of Toxtricitys and their pre-evolutionary states as Toxels. Team Harmony people we left back in Aurora dropped out with wagon loads of supplies, which involved a lot of medical herbs from Greenleaf form what I could smell.

Geoff spotted me and ran towards me with happy glistening teary eyes and he leapt for me with his hooves wide open and smiling dopely… hoping for a hug for arriving from out nowhere just in time to stop an Eater swarm attack and knocked a now thoroughly confused mass of EPs back.

I promptly smashed him over the head with the Rhongomyniad to get his perverted head back in the game, cratering out a massive section of sand with his twitching body. It was like he got exploded by a little green goblin.

“That way… bigger things to worry about… THAT MEANS ALL OF YOU WHO CAN FIGHT, NOW!” As the leader that made Team Harmony, I could only hope for some respect in my wishes to fend and push back the monstrous horde of enemies. “Also medical supplies that way, as fast as possible!”

I pointed the now sudden excess in supplies toward Castle Alexander… they soon wouldn’t be an excess.

The bidoof that soon fell out of the closing warped space immediately saw the state of the castle.

“Build?” One of the Bidoof said pointing at the castle with a paw.

“Yes, very much build! Super build better if you think you even can, move it before the EPs regain their senses!” I screamed, which was so much unlike me, but I was a bit maxed out on my mental capacity for crazy stuff at the moment.

I blinked and the vibrating Bidoof and Bibarels all disappeared at the same time, well that was taken care of at the very least.

“You heard her, battlers rally up and move with me!” Jeanne stated loudly as she waved her banner in a manner that got all the Wooloo and Dubwool popping in a rhythm that everyone else slowly slid into.

I simply pointed Geoff towards the enemy and he grinned at me, before setting off while whistling happily ignoring the now massive and exceedingly painful lump on his skull.

“Woo-loo woo-loo-loo, wooloo wooloo woo-loo~!” Sang the Wooloo sending out continuous blasts of Rounds to knock back the barely recovered EPs from the surprise attack.

Now if only we had war drums and a god that would make it rain on command then we could... wait… where was my mind going with that? Anyway it already felt like a heart song was forming as we quickly got a marching force gathering.

Let’s try turning this thing around as much as we could while we still had a fresh fighting force from Aurora... somehow!