Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows


43. History in the making.

-????, Oleander and Fred-

“Why are these things called Grimm again? They don’t look like black dogs that warn of ill tidings to me. You know, I think Pom has one of those already...” Seriously they were weak to having their false hearts unlocked by the key blade, give them even an ounce of empathy and they just explode… violently. I felt a little sad of the fact that the key blade made this too easy, but it did have the power of unlocking and locking anything, even if that thing was just an abstract concept. A fairly useful, if dangerous in the wrong hooves, power if you ask me. “These things aren’t really close to being as dangerous as shadow monsters, especially since they get taken out by the local crystalized magic so easily."

“Don’t know what to tell you Ollie. They are simply manifestations of pure negativity, THEY SURE ARE FUN TO FIGHT THOUGH!” Fred yelled loudly as we dove into a hoard of black and white bony monsters.

“Hopefully something around here will put up more of a fight than Shredder and Krang did.” We still have yet to find Pom or the others, maybe we weren’t searching for the right kind of dimensions? I brought ‘End of Pain’ around and start firing tons of unlock shots at the oncoming monsters lazily. “I mean who would honestly use ridiculously incompetent help like those purple robot things? I was standing in front of thirty of them with all of them shooting at me with those energy weapons and all they did was hit each other. I wasn’t any more than twenty feet from any of them and some were even firing at me nearly point blank and still missing!”

“Change of subject, don’t forget to feed Pom’s present, HE MIGHT ACTUALLY LIKE A TASTE OF THESE THINGS!” Fred reminded me that we picked up a friendly white Wolf Noise about three dimension back.

I actually quite missed toying with the Composer, Producer and Conductor, they were all quite fun if somewhat demented in their own unique ways. Being an outside context problem meant they couldn’t do a single thing to stop me.

“Remind me to make full repairs to the gummy ship when we’re done here Fred.” I stated blithely as half the monsters got ripped to shreds before me, my ability to do magic was boosted by the key blade I was levitating.

On Fred’s suggestion I idly summoned Song Ender, the Wolf Noise we’re going to give to Pom, out from where I kept him.

Song Ender immediately started tearing through evils of this world like they were made of partially melted butter. It had taken a while to find a positive energy based Noise, but it had been a worthwhile effort from what I could see.

It was becoming hard to find a good challenge these days, but I was having fun and actually finding Pom’s group was one the hardest challenges of them all.

-Elhorn, a day and some hours later, road heading south by southwest, Shanty-

Pom be appreciating the grassy plains, I do to as we can be seeing trouble long before it reaches us.

We could have been scouts, but the knights were a bit wary of Dodo. Dodo wouldn’t hurt anyone, not without a reason and he be saving Pom’s life from being part of what is a now a large field of charcoal.

We were all a bit cramped in the seat in Dodo’s back, but I think we were making good time. Smolder was on the right, Ocellus was on the left and Pom was sitting directly behind me with me in her lap.

The steady rhythm of his footsteps was taking us along to the town we were supposed to deliver a few messages to while the knights of the kingdoms dealt with other problems.

We would not be being good scouts as we didn’t know what signs to look for or the surroundings, so we took to being couriers which is being much safer for us.

I didn’t be believing for a second that we wouldn’t run into trouble out here or at least at the town we were headed to.

“So what do you think they’ll do with the train monster?” As Smolder just pointed out, we did be leaving it lying where it was technically destroyed. It still be javoimg eighty percent of its body intact.

“The kingdom that gets the honor of what to do with it will likely melt it down and use it for other things.” One could only hope they would do so Ocellus, I not be wanting to see that thing again after it attempted to rip Pom in half. “The only thing wrong with the knights of the kingdoms, as I see it, is that they are spread too thin to effectively fight off Gedol Empire and they don’t have nearly powerful enough weapons to fight off ‘evil core’ machines. It doesn’t help that there are wild machines that can be taken control of like Dodo that are just wandering around, at least it helps that those are more neutral and tend to wander in territories away from civilization.”

“Hopefully we don’t run into any wild machines, as if it wasn’t scary enough that the machines of this world can be functionally intelligent like Dodo. I would rather not a machine that acts like a wild animal.” Pom be mostly okay, but she still be fretting over us and we be accepting her every step of the way. She is being the one that we should be fretting about. “You said the pigs were of the broken Devotindos Empire and the wolves of the Yellow Dog army were from the far north and southern territories respectively?”

“Yeah, they are not likely to cause problems for us unless we have to meet with them personally in their current territories for any reason. The pigs definitely won’t support the Gedol Empire after they kicked the pigs out of Devotindos City and the wolves are having territory problems with Gedol as well, the people of this world seem unable to work together in friendship.” Yet they all still be war bound Ocellus, they be fighting and driving many innocent people from their homes or worse. “That or we could meet small groups or outliers if we’re going to be traveling around.”

At least the pigs be having the excuse of all their forces falling under magical hypnosis generated by an intelligent evil core machine that hid its true nature by acting as their emperor. At least the knights had explained to us that the pigs of Devotindos weren’t entirely to blame for their mostly warlike nature.

The wolves sounded about as aggressive as the mercenaries we fought back in Gongmen City, only they were equipped with machines of their own making before they were defeated. The wolves were partly responsible for the reproducing wild machines given they invented the Stampy-Do's, the local magic of the planet was also involved in turning them into wild machines reproducing like biological beings and eating mostly plants.

When they needed to reproduce or grow they tend to eat scrap metal with two machines carrying half of a construction program for a small mechanical Stampy-Do, most people on this world be lucky they can only grow to specific sizes.

At least we know why Dodo could eat when we offered food, despite being a machine he was functionally alive in all the ways that counts. I be knowing he enjoyed the taste of sour or juicy fruits through our familiar bond.

The lizards were all being led by a magical evil sorcerer Emperor Gedol, it was a good thing that he wasn’t working with the other two empires as he was said to be extremely powerful.

“Town ahoy!” I shouted and pointed out in the distance, the town be looking fairly busy up ahead and I be steering Dodo in that given direction as Dodo slowly walked through a field of flowers looking about curiously.

“Remember, we need to make a careful approach to not spook the locals… or to not be seen if the town has been invaded by Gedol forces. It seems pretty clear from what I can see.” After Pom turned to me, she motioned to Dodo and then a sign we were going to pass ahead. “If we see any pigs or wolves, much less anyone from those two territories, then we should try to make sure to avoid gaining their ire or attention.”

“Dodo can you be stopping at the sign?” Listening to my words, Dodo slightly changed directions and slow went up the sign and stopped for Ocellus to hopefully translate it.

“Clad… in… hold… this is the right place.” Ocellus confirmed the town and I motioned for Dodo to continue forward to the town that was not too far away. “If anyone asks, should I tell them Dodo was a wild machine or should I tell them we stole him off the Gedol Empire?”

“Depends, what kind of reputation would it get us?” That be a good question Smolder.

Saying we caught the machine in the wild would be being easier to believe, but saying we be capturing it from the Gedol Empire would be making us some friends and painting large targets on our back depending on the situation of the town and the possibility of sympathizers. It also be bad if we garner attention and be having a lot expected of us, more so than we were actually capable of dealing with.

I not be dumb, we weren’t going to be on the front lines, well at least we never would be if Pom be having any say in it.

“Let’s go with this, we came across him randomly and he started bonding with Shanty. We trust him because he saved my life on one occasion with very little prompting from Shanty.” Pom likely considered the issue in its entirety to answer the question so quickly. What she just said was the truth, but just omitting finer details of it. “Change of subject. Any one of us can handle the kind of Gedol soldiers we’ve been up against. They weren’t very big threats unless they have machines to pilot, but what I’m worried about is when we run into a larger machine and or soldiers that can actually fight. Knowing my luck, and mostly because we all know I tempted fate a short while ago, we’re inevitably going to have to fight at least another evil core machine, or several, soon enough. I really doubt we can deal with giant deadly machines, even if Dodo can do some damage with his energy blasts.”

“Yeah, Dodo not being very smart on his own, but I think I be helping him with that.” I patted the back of his neck and he be giving off a mechanical warble of happiness. “We can’t deny that he be very good in a fight though.”

“Isn’t your wool heat resistant Pom?” Suddenly asked Ocellus with a curious look on her face. “I’m asking because you said Dodo saved your live when the train monster decided to burn away a large section of that forest.”

“Resistant yes. Is my wool is also slow to burn? That is also true.” Pom looked at Ocellus. “As for the rest of my body, not so much. If I had taken an attack that turned as large an area as that to immediate charcoal, well my wool could have survived it… ‘COULD’. I on the other hoof wouldn’t. I don’t exactly have the requisite skill as a fluffmancer to survive lava like Paprika does and would have been relying on my wools natural resistance.”

“Paprika can do what?!” Ocellus seemed so surprised.

“She once hugged a cherufe while it was still covered in lava and survived without permanent injury.” Knowing that Pom be telling us stuff about Paprika, there were some things that were hard to believe.

“Aren’t cherufes generally large and look a lot like lobsters?” Asked Smolder curiously.

“Yes and they can cause earthquakes with their movements and tend to nest inside volcanoes that don’t have dragons in their territory.” Pom mumbled as we entered town at a steady pace. “Okay enough chatting where do we need to deliver our message and parcel to?”

“At the local guild or tavern Cladinhold, apparently we’re supposed to ask around for two guys named Wedge and Biggs.” Ocellus would be the one to do that, she’s the only one that can speak and or feasibly read the language.

We’ve been picking up a few things from her, she is being a very good language teacher as much as she was at learning it.

“Dodo please be stopping.” Dodo came to a stop slowly and we looked around at the people.

Nobody was screaming or pointing weapons at us, but we were getting a few odd looks here or there. The town had various rodents, canines, a frog or two and even a few pigs, there were also dinosaurs like you would see in Equestria… only they were less magical. The small triceratops be the popular pet just from a few glances I took around us as we entered the town.

Cladinhold was a crossroads town between the kingdoms that has been wrecked or ravaged more than once, yet it be telling that it’s recovered each time from such incidents.

-Smolder-

“You know usually, you’d be the one that people would stare at Ocellus, but having scales and being only slightly taller than Spike is probably making them somewhat wary of me.” I certainly did not want to be associated with Gedol, but there wasn’t much I could do about my appearance.

“If you’re feeling uncomfortable I could always change into a dragon and…” Ocellus was making that offer out of the sake of our closeness, but I had to cut her off there.

“You don’t have to worry about it Ocellus, also keep your ability to shapeshift hidden until we seriously need it.” It was useful to have that ability as a trump card for a seriously dire situation, but I didn’t need to tell Ocellus that. “Well, pick out someone that looks friendly and ask for directions or at least give them the names.”

“Right… um…” Ocellus hopped off of Dodo and looked to a nearby opossum and started speaking the local language that was basically all squeaks to me.

The opossum responded favorably with quite a few words exchanged between them and he eventually pointed down the street.

“He said the guild is on the street to our left, Wedge and Biggs should be there.” Ocellus told us and motioned for Dodo to follow. Dodo was busy looking around at all the people who were staring at him curiously.

“Dodo, be following Ocellus carefully please.” At Shanty’s words Dodo snapped his attention back to us and then Ocellus, he warbled curiously as we turned left at the upcoming junction and went straight until we found the local guild.

“Smolder, Shanty, stay with Dodo and keep him out of trouble while Ocellus and I look for the people we’re supposed to deliver the package to.” We both acknowledged Pom idly while looking around.

Stone and wood town, plenty of people and despite the air of wary and some looks sent my or Dodo’s way, we were only being treated with suspicion at best. So far nothing had happened of note and people kept their distance from Dodo.

“Hey Shanty, how about a game of I Spy?” Of the things I knew about Shanty, one was that she didn’t have many friends her age to play with growing up.

When it came to street rats and urchins, they generally looked after themselves and were smart. With us Shanty didn’t have to worry so much about needing too much help.

“Can Dodo be playing?” When Shanty brought him up, Dodo tilted his head to look at us curiously.

“Sure.” We couldn’t get into too much trouble sitting here, but I didn’t want to be bored waiting for Pom and Ocellus. Somebody had to watch Dodo to make sure he wouldn’t draw any trouble. “You’ll have to figure out his answers though.”

About ten minutes later Pom and Ocellus came out with two guys, one was large and dressed in red armor and the other was wearing blue armor. In particular they were a rat and mouse respectively, with the rat being the taller of the two and the one wearing red armor.

The mouse was grumbling about something as they came over to us following Pom and Ocellus. They were both armed with swords and shields, seemed friendly enough to me.

“We need the package we came to deliver and the message.” Pom waved up to us on Dodo’s back.

“I got it!” Shanty stated and ducked down and reached under the seat to pull out our parcel and a message that came with it. She quickly passed it off to the two who were obviously Biggs and Wedge.

After looking over the message and talking with one another, they both turned to Ocellus and started hashing things out. I wonder what the holdup was or what our next job would be.

Ocellus didn’t seem worried about the two, but she sure was talking a lot with them. A moment later she looked slightly disturbed about something.

“Uh… due to needs to move small messages or supplies around quickly, we’re apparently going to be forming a courier squad with several other individuals.” Why did Ocellus just pause for a second there? “Since we successfully did some courier work in the mountains they're giving us a wagon, a moderate amount of supplies and will be telling us where they will need us soon, but first we have to meet the guys who will be going along with us as we do our courier work. They don’t intend insult, but it’s for our protection and making good use of their resources compared to Gedol throwing their resources around seemingly at random. We’ll be here for a day at least.”

“So who will we be taking with us and where will we find the wagon?” As Pom asked this she looked around. Ocellus turned to the two and started talking to them again, after a moment she nodded.

“The wagon will take a bit of work. They are getting a fixer upper for us to use, as for the support for our courier efforts… two of them are currently in the guild training yard and a third is off in town seeing to the wagon. They don’t have much manpower, but Biggs just told me they are lending us three people they don’t entirely trust too much.” After stating that worrying fact, Ocellus talked to them a bit more and I could feel the curiosity radiating off of the cuddle bug. “Er… we’ll have to err on the side of caution here. One of the members is an ex veteran of Yellow Dog, one is a frog who fancies himself an aristocrat and another is… a pig knight from Devotindos who avoided the whole magical mind control thing five years ago and even fought against them for Zebulos.”

“Does this send up red flag for anyone else or is it just me?” Pom stated dryly as if we didn’t already know the answer already. “This is beginning to sound like an intentional screw up squad.”

Yeah, I can see that, it’d be like giving the Cutie Mark Crusaders weapons with incredible destructive power and telling them all to run around doing whatever they feel like behind enemy lines. Only we were the one that would be acting as babysitters for suspected spies and this was likely going to be mostly official Zebulos Kingdom business.

“An intentional screw up squad, what be that?” Shanty asked curiously.

“It’s a squad that is not expected to succeed at anything and is made on the premise of being entirely suspicious or eye catching to the enemy. We’re going to be a major distraction that Gedol just can’t simply ignore and will have exceedingly large targets painted on us. If our squad consistently succeeds at some hidden objectives, then things will get all the more dangerous for us. You hear a lot of vague things about them whenever ponies in Equestria go to war. In fact ponies are really known as the masters of creating ridiculously successful intentional screw up squads.” Surprisingly it was Pom that answered and not Ocellus who would have likely read something about that in history books. “I’m going to guess that most of our missions as part of the war effort will be mostly pretending to do incredibly important things as an ‘ISUS’ group or delivering coded message we won’t be able to decipher, maybe we’ll even intentionally lose said messages. We were going to be drawing attention wherever we go anyway, now it’s a sure thing.”

“I can concur with what Pom said, chances are that we’re going to be in a lot of odd situations and this might be the direct end result of Pom jinxing us.” Ocellus looked exasperated about this, she sighed and rubbed her right hoof over her forehead. “It’ll be for a good cause at least, we’ll be made to look more important than we actually are. In fact it’s these kind of odd squad combinations that caused any incursions into Equestria to fail quite horribly due to how many chaotic problems that groups like these can cause, but I think Smolder should remember the most notable name of Flash Magnus of the Legionnaires. I think you remember a certain popular story amongst pegasus ponies that Magnus told to us in class with Rainbow Dash exaggerating his bravery every few seconds.”

“Wait… seriously? Flash Magnus’s squad was a…” That actually made a lot of sense to me come to think of it. “Huh, now I know why Flash Magnus visited the Dragon Lands and was seen recounting history with Torch after he retired from being the Dragon Lord. Didn’t he and Torch meet a thousand years prior?”

“Exactly.” Ocellus nodded, then spoke something to Biggs and Wedge, they nodded and went into the guild. “I told them to get the two so we can go see this wagon we’re supposed to be running around as couriers. We’re spending a day here and we’re going to be given a budget to buy anything that we might need.”

“I am so sorry about all this girls.” Pom whined loudly while putting her hooves on her head. I can understand why she was upset, being in an ‘ISUS’ sounded quite stupidly dangerous. “I really shouldn’t have opened my mouth!”

“It be okay, at least we be able to ask for a lot if we be surviving the war.” At least Shanty had the right attitude to be positive and was quickly backed up by Dodo warbling cheerfully. We’d be owed big time when we succeeded at staying alive.

Hearing Biggs voice we turned to the two who would be a part of our supposed courier squad. Ocellus started talking with Wedge about something and he passed her a scroll, she looked it over and nodded.

“We’re going to be called The White Knight Couriers.” Ocellus stated and then started talking to the two who came to join us. “These are Colleen and Jean, the third guy is currently checking out the wagon and seeing to the repairs.”

Jean seemed to be saying something proudly while sweeping a rapier around artfully, he was a rotund looking frog with armor that made him look like a tin can.

Colleen was a dog with long brown hair, wearing armor and had no visible weapon. Pom was having an adverse effect on her already, given Colleen was already staring at her.