-Equus, Ponyville, Sandbar-
Things were less exciting without Smolder around and Ocellus always knew a lot about everything. There were rather large holes in our lives without them.
Our friendship really was highly important to all of us or else we wouldn’t be missing their presences this badly.
I felt something wrap around me and gave me a hug, I at first thought it was Pinkie Pie because she really knew how to hug someone right. It wasn’t Pinkie and it was a grander hug than that, from a complete stranger no less.
“Meep.” The incredibly fluffy alpaca stated then patted me on the head and went to go back to whatever it was she was doing.
It was very strange and out of nowhere, but highly comforting.
“That was wonderful, thank you mysterious alpaca!” I stated as that had been the nicest, most needed, hug I’ve ever received. I continued my way down the street with a bit of pep in my steps until I arrived at the stump and there was my teacher waiting for me.
She was probably the most adorable little winged turtle I think I’ve ever seen. She flapped her wings to take into the air and moved some cloth on an easel to reveal some words written on the large piece of paper. The turtle grabbed a pointer and smacked it against each word slowly.
“Coo!” The turtle pointed at the words underlining them with the pointer and then pointed it at me.
“Uh… hiss coo, coo-coo hissy coo?” I asked trying to make the noises a turtle would make, more specifically a turtle dove, my teacher Snickers nodded happily.
Snickers was really good at teaching ‘traditional turtle’ and the rare ‘turtle dove’, because she was one, which can be used to halfway learn to speak ‘dove’ proper.
Dove was apparently a different language elective though. I was only paying for turtle and half turtle hybrids, of which there was plenty, and was told that Fluttershy could teach me the rest of ‘dove’ if I really wanted to expand my horizons to full blown tweeting.
I think these lessons were worth it and very interesting, because Snickers was also coaching me on how to treat Yona better on the side for free. After what happened at the dance, I kind of needed advice and Snickers was quite willing and eager to help with it.
I still don’t understand why Snickers is called the great shipping turtle by her friends though.
She obviously didn’t own a boat.
-Elhorn, Yellow Dog territory, The Far North, Pom-
Cold weather gear was necessary even if my wool could handle the cold mostly on its own, it was quite cold out here and it was worse with the avalanche.
My bark had caused a river of snow to flow down the mountain pass, thankfully I had already scrambled well out of the way and to the wagon to watch as it passed us by in a massive flood that would have buried us completely had Dodo not alerted us to it.
This left me wondering and worrying what else the trap had triggered after I set it off.
“That be a lot of snow…” Shanty said from Dodo’s seat, as she poked her head up over the rim to watch. She took a moment to adjust the tuque she was wearing over her headband to keep her ears tucked away under it.
“That’s an avalanche for you, it’s not at all fun to be in one and you could freeze to death being buried or crushed under all that the moving snow.” My old home of Meadow Hills did have a few mountains that could avalanche, usually that would be the nomadic alpacas doing as they liked hanging around in mountains after shaking all the snow out of them. I preferred the warmer climate of the Dragon Lands and living in Huoshan, I was getting quite homesick after being more than a few months away. “Once the snow stops flowing, we’ll know it is relatively safe to keep heading towards the mines. Provided that our setting off the trap that Dodo discovered doesn’t attract any dangerous attention.”
“You mean like whatever those be?” Shanty said, pointing her right hoof at the snow down the path we already treaded up as the flowing snow slowed to a crawl.
We saw multiple small pairs of poles popping out of the snow and then started to slowly head our way through it.
“Go Dodo, up into the pass!” I quickly hopped into the wagon, Dodo immediately started working on getting us moving. The snow was making it hard for the wagon to get traction, but Dodo was managing it well enough.
Once one the pole pairs got close enough, the erupted upwards revealing the ugly mechanical face of a large mechanical rabbit with two glowing red eyes with yellow slits staring at us. It ripped through the snow towards us like a snake going much faster than it did fully under it.
Once it got closer, it suddenly shot up into the air and a burst of flamed erupted out of its backside as it came blasting towards us, its body formed a more streamlined arrow shape as it did.
A bolt of energy hit it directly and it exploded violently, a lot more violently than the mechanical rabbit should have blown apart and I could feel the heat for a few seconds before the cold sapped it all away.
Colleen had her shrimp pistol out and was glaring out the back of the wagon, I noticed Ocellus and Nicole talking.
“Ocellus, does Nicole Beta know what we are dealing with here?” I queried as Colleen was taking up position in the back of the wagon as numerous poles erupted from the snow behind us and started to dig through it at decent speeds towards the wagon as Dodo started to pick up the pace.
“Yes, she’s says they’re Recon Rabbits!” Ocellus shouted worriedly. “Once they get close they can burst forward on rockets to ram their targets, these machines were created to be effective in snowy and sandy terrains. They were originally designed to be used as scouts, she says this is not actually normal behavior for them from what she knows as they were not meant to explode like that.”
I heard Colleen say something to Ocellus and she nodded.
“Colleen says these are some of the machine’s that Yellow Dog accidentally made act like wild animals.” That was very worrying Ocellus. “Unfortunately these particular wild machines don’t actually have dispositions like rabbits, unlike how other wild machines would act more like their appearance would suggest. These particular machines are actually exceedingly aggressive… and highly explosive!”
Deadly exploding rabbit machines, oh joy... why us?!
'
My mental whining as usual would go ignored as I clambered past Jean, Bruno, Ligstrun and Nicole Beta to the back of the wagon to take up position next to Colleen angling for the closest one.
“Colleen and I will cover the back, aid us if you feel like you can Smolder! You can help by watching the sides Ocellus, fire as needed!” I turned to the front. Ocellus was at the front of the wagon looking out the left and right sides acknowledging the urgency of our situation. “Shanty, make sure that Dodo turns left once we’re through the pass!”
“Dodo, be going faster please!” As she said this numerous poles that were the mechanical rabbit’s ears started tracking us through the snow and were getting closer by the second. There had to be at least twenty of them chasing us.
One rabbit popped out of the snow and was immediately met by a blast of energy to the face making it explode.
A second later another popped out and blasted towards us before Colleen was ready. I fired a bark blast and narrowly hit it, the resulting explosion rocked the wagon.
“Colleen, if I have to fire a bark blast, then they are far too close!” I growled out to her, she nodded and took steady aim for her next shot and fired just as mechanical rabbit poked it’s head up from the snow and it blew apart several other nearby rabbits encroaching on us. About ten more popped up nearby as we entered the pass. “Smolder, please tell me your concussion isn’t so bad that you can’t aim some fireballs?”
“It’s still pretty bad, but…” Inhaling she spat a small fireball and a large leaping robot rabbit blew apart in a spectacular fashion, showering the wagon with the shrapnel made out of its body. “I can manage, though I’m going to have a pretty big headache afterwards… I had heard from Fluttershy that rabbits can breed explosively, but this is ridiculous!”
Smolder was talking about the twenty new pairs of poles that popped up out of the snow and started surging towards us, they were glowing dimly. Colleen took aim and fired a shot into the snow and a chain of explosions went off.
“Maybe that’s the part of being like rabbits that they are taking a bit too literally.” I dryly stated as we had more converging on the wagon.
“You think?!” Smolder stated before exhaling a large burst of flames into the snow behind us, she melted enough to cause a recon rabbit to flop onto its face and then subsequently get rammed by another one. Causing another series of powerful explosions.
It was at this point that Dodo was starting to hit a really good stride, not that he was fast enough to avoid the Recon Rabbits entirely as they swarmed at us.
“How many of these things are there?!” Ocellus stated as she fired a bolt from her horn to the left of the wagon and something exploded. She repeated her words for our friends so they knew for sure what she said wasn’t that important, however Nicole Beta seemed to have an answer. Ocellus turned to me and looked rather haunted. “Nicole just said there’s about five hundred and thirty seven of them out here throughout the pass, something about having jury rigged some powerful detection abilities from those things she calls Swat-bots that she included into her form. Machines on this world are really complicated and interesting...”
My right eye twitched. I missed Equus and all the sunshine and rainbows that were the dangers of a world I understood, especially after helping deal with the shadow monsters. I’d even take being stuck in Fœnum with the ‘other’ Pom, similar yet so foreign to me even if I was a Pom too. I’d rather be dealing with thieves in the streets of Huoshan, without the aid of my beasties.
-Ocellus-
Pom freaking out was oddly like a warm balm to me, all was right with the world.
At least she was keeping an eye on the approaching rabbits as they spread out and tried to come at us from differing angles.
The wagon was a bit slow on the snow, but Dodo was making a really good effort to keep his feet on top of the snow and keeping some form of momentum going at the same time.
With his weight, every step put Dodo’s legs straight into snow that was several feet deep and he was amazing for powering through this as well as he could when he was built for grasslands and rockier terrain.
Being at the front of the wagon, I scanned the pass as we were going through looking for any signs of what Nicole was calling Recon Rabbits.
My multifaceted eyes narrowed, on the right! I lit up my horn and a fired a magic missile as a mound of snow began bulging upwards near the wagon.
The rabbit under the snow exploded and Dodo steered around it warbling worriedly and tried to look back. The explosion rocked the wagon and bits of the mechanical rabbit bounced off of it, but it did little damage as we passed by the gaping hole in the snow.
“Don’t be worrying Dodo, I be watching the wagon and telling you if something is being wrong!” Shanty was in tune with Dodo, as he kept his head forward at her words and his eyes seemed to focus. It made me wonder if changelings could have familiars and if it would be like having Smolder around infinitely. “You keep watching our front and stick to the left, okay?”
We were about halfway through the mountain pass and there were more mechanical menaces, who blended in with the snow, popping up to give chase.
I was watching the front, left and right sides as Colleen protected our backs with Smolder and Pom hitting whatever she couldn’t.
“That’s strange…” Nicole Beta stated.
“What is it machine?” Bruno still didn’t like Nicole one bit.
“We’re not nearing any heavier concentrations of Recon Rabbits.” Nicole’s ears spun a full three hundred and sixty degrees while making a weird noise. “They might have some form of hive mind… I think they might actually be protecting the nearby pockets of local wildlife and trees. There are no signs of Recon Rabbits beyond the pass. If we can make it through entirely, then they should stop giving chase to us.”
“Machine’s protecting nature, I’ll believe it when I have evidence to prove it.” Bruno crossed his arms and leaned back, the pig couldn’t truly do anything in this situation. He hid his grimace very well.
It’s been several days, yet most of us were still healing our wounds after our run in with Axel Gear. This kind of stressful situation was not helping Colleen in the slightest.
“Well we’re definitely not leaving Yellow Dog through here after this!” Five hundred of these self-destructing machines was a bit much for us to handle even if we were only facing small pockets of them. “We’re going to need another way out of the region.”
“I’d suggest the southwestern pass when heading back towards the Zephyrus region.” Jean mumbled from under a blanket with Ligstrun, those two looked miserable. “I can feel all my mucus freezing up, this is highly unpleasant weather for us and the dangers out here are just as bad… ah-choo!”
“That’ll definitely be our plan A, I seriously do not want to run into these things again.” As I said this, I jerked my head to the left and fired on a metal rabbit as it popped out of the snow and it blew apart.
“We’re almost through to the other side and are exiting their self-imposed operational range.” Nicole stated while looking about out the front of the wagon with me for any signs of more Recon Rabbits.
Colleen fired off another bolt from the back that was followed by another series of explosions. Slowly the poles started to veer away and go back the way we just came from.
We were out in the open on the other side of the pass and after a few minutes of no further attacks, Pom let out a sigh.
“Slow down Dodo!” Shanty yelled while waving a hoof to get his attention and he finally did so, but he didn’t stop going. “That way, to the left!”
Dodo turned and started towards the path on the other side of the pass that would lead us towards the mines that were said to be up a mountain to the northwest.
“Well this might be ‘a’ reason why there is rarely any information coming from Yellow Dog territories, the other would be whatever is going on out here. The entire southern pass is crawling with those things.” Colleen muttered as she laid down and rested her head. “Thankfully I didn’t have to do much more than some shooting, because I’m exhausted... I would have never made it as a true rocket knight.”
“Remind me again Colleen, you said Yellow Dog has submarines and what else?” We needed to be on the lookout for anything after those machines tried to ambush us in the pass.
“Well airships are large resource drains to keep fielded, I’m surprised that the pigs even managed to make a pedal powered airship efficient or exceptionally effective. We’re not likely to see one out here. Smaller manually controlled machines or mecha are far more likely, I really doubt anyone would actually be stupid enough to field a submarine up… here?” As Colleen spoke we were traveling up further and snow started falling lightly. “Doesn’t look like blizzard conditions, which is good for us. I suggest we keep going... and we’ll just ignore that sight we’re passing by.”
Colleen was talking about the remains of what had to be a submarine, which notably was landlocked in the middle of nowhere and a frozen over broken husk. The entire thing was nearly split in half in the middle with something having ripped a large hole in its side.
“There was obviously someone that was actually dumb enough to try and actually field a submarine up here.” Bruno stated with amusement. “Didn’t pan out and went badly from the looks of it.”
“Wulfgar is all about strength and viciousness, so that has to be his doing as he’s considered all brawn and barely even a percentile of brains in relation. At least he can get things done in a timely manner, wouldn’t want him for a leader if I was still willing to live around other canines.” Colleen muttered dryly while rubbing at herself with her paws and shivering. We passed by the water based vehicle slowly. Warily watching anything and everything else in our surroundings for a surprise attack. “Cooler is a dog of the people, despite not having many under him. He’s a far sight better at logistics and wielding resources than just throwing a ton of bodies at the problem, the whole survival of the fittest thing is definitely whittling Wulfgar’s power base down.”
“How do you think they’ll react to seeing you?” About ten seconds later we all noticed that Dodo had stopped and started looking about curiously. “What is it this time Shanty?”
“I think Dodo be feeling something off…” Shanty said back quietly her bar shaped pupils darted about. “Dodo back towards that submarine thing!”
Why did Shanty make that call?
-Pom-
“Quick Ocellus, the cliffs above us!” I shouted out, drawing Ocellus’s attention to a rocket flying down at us from a cliff higher up. She immediately blew it out of the air with a quick blast of magic without thinking twice.
“Darn it, we’ve been discovered and that blasted machine gave away our surprise attack!” Someone barked as Dodo got us turned around and head down the mountain back towards the submarine. “Wait, how were we going to get down there to steal their stuff after we obliterated them?”
“Um…” I heard someone yip back, trying to figure out what they were doing as Dodo began a retreating and pulled the entire wagon towards the large hole of the broken submarine.
“Nice aim Ozzy!” Smolder cheered.
“Not necessarily, I just locked my magic missile onto the heat that rocket was giving off.” Not that Ocellus had anything to prove, but she was important part of our survival as much as I was theirs. “With all the cold air around here, I couldn’t have missed it even if I wanted to Smol.”
“Still, you did a good job with knocking it out of the air!” Smolder continued praising Ocellus. “Like Rainbow would say, that was awesome!”
“Yeah, we really do not want to lose our supplies out here Ocellus, thank you for thinking fast.” I added my own praise as Ocellus deserved it. “We should also thank Dodo and Shanty for making good snap decisions.”
“Pirate, comes with the territory.” Shanty stated with a grin.
“Yes, like the fact that you drank five pints of rum before we left Cladinhold…” I stated with a slight amount of disappointment.
“Heh heh… you be knowing about that?” Shanty stated weakly while ducking into Dodo’s back.
“I didn’t say anything, because you apparently can hold your liquor without issue.” Otherwise she’d be a slurring mess by now, alcohol really didn’t have an effect on Shanty. “Next time, try to be like a real pirate and not get caught doing something I said that you absolutely shouldn’t!”
Dragons are mostly immune to alcohol, but that didn’t mean I liked the idea of Smolder or any of my girls drinking on my watch.
I looked up at the cliff and saw several wolves on it glaring down upon us, they disappeared from the edge as Dodo dragged the wagon right to the large hole ripped into the side of the submarine.
The submarine of course was empty and frozen over as he pulled the wagon inside, but we had a defensible position at least. I got out of the wagon and quickly unstrapped the wagon from him and looked out at the falling snow.
I peeked out from the hole as the sky grew darker and sighed. Well someone out here was definitely out to get us, didn’t know which faction it was though.
“I guess we’re staying here for the night instead of the mines. Smolder you break out the wood, Ocellus smokeless fire, you two will tend to that task together. Shanty stay with Dodo and watch the hole.” I turned back to Ocellus and pointed a hoof at her. “Ocellus tell Colleen to have her weapon at the ready and stick near Shanty and Dodo, Ligstrun and Jean are to be the furthest away from the hole and setting up the tents, Nicole is on food preparation. Bruno is to be back up to Colleen and Shanty. Also, remind them all of their injuries.”
“What are you going to be doing Pom?” Asked Ocellus as Smolder started getting the wood out.
“Having a nervous breakdown over here about the next imminent disaster of course, and possibly being under assault by unknown parties...” I think I giggled a bit insanely after that. I couldn’t tell, but that might be the reason I was getting so many odd stares from everyone. “In all seriousness though, I’m securing the wagon after we get out some of the supplies we need to set up camp. I’ll be helping everyone get the stuff unloaded.”
-Some hours later-
“Okay, I think I’m in a much better place mentally now.” Thank goodness for the healthy and tasty banana nut muffins Dodo produced. They didn’t taste like they were made with Elhorn resources… and I wasn’t questioning that in the slightest. That way lies complete madness… and I was a smarter lambkin than that! At least I was a more held together lambkin. “So we’re in a mountainous region full of exploding rabbits, wolves that can camouflage with magic as long as they stay in one spot and are immune to injury until said magic wears off completely. Also there are already bandits out here trying to kill us and take our supplies while maybe being a part of a faction or mercenaries that work for the highest bidder!”
“You’re not getting much sleep tonight are you?” Smolder stated dryly.
“No, I don’t think I can… too stressed.” I said with wide eyes and my whole body shivering, it wasn’t the cold of the mountains that was causing the chill in my spine. “Who knows what will happen to me if they try to take me alive? I’m a magnet for canids! Why did I agree to come up here again?!”
“Pom, existential dread and mental crisis later, you can stay awake with Dodo if you want and can sleep in the morning.” Yawned Ocellus whose face rested against Smolders neck and snuggled down into the dragon’s warm shoulder falling asleep on her.
Smolder looked a bit embarrassed.
-Several hours later, Shanty-
"Pom?" I got up and noticed the destruction outside the hole.
Dodo warbled sadly.
"POM?!"