Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows


62. The Resting Knight and The Far Frozen North.

-Elhorn, Noisy Toys, Peaceful Park, Sparkster-

My armor was lightly dented, scraped and battered, but it wasn’t damage too badly and I already got the dings out from my fight with Paeli. It seemed someone had stabbed him in the shoulder quite deeply, because he wasn’t fighting at full strength when I met him in combat and it was bothering him greatly while we fought.

Capturing Paeli and defeating his airship fleet in an air battle was probably the best news to happen in this war thus far.

While it was nice for everyone else, it was entirely rough on me as I still had a duty to rescue Princess Cherry of Zephyrus. My rocket pack needed maintenance pretty badly and thus I stopped by Noisy Toys in Eginasem to see an old friend, Princess Flora, to see that it gets repaired properly by the princess of knowledge herself and the rocket guru himself who helped me near the end of the Yellow Dog skirmishes.

The city of music was quite beautiful, even if the giant gleaming music making instruments were a slight eyesore to the nature all around the city. It was especially beautiful when it was not being overrun by entrenched Yellow Dog soldiers during the series of skirmishes I took part in.

The only place in the world where technology was being used to benefit everyone they feasibly could in a peaceful manner and Yellow Dog almost ruined it.

Axel Gear was still out there tearing apart Elhorn’s Forces, being as treacherous as he ever was and here I could do nothing but wait to be fielded once more.

To think I was just sitting here in the park with my armor off, barely able to relax as the fatigue of battle was quickly catching up to me. Tearing through machinery and armor alike was taking its toll on me.

“So there’s the noble rocket knight and savior of Elhorn.” A friendly voice said, I looked up and tried to stand to address Flora properly. She only put a hand on my shoulder and forced me back down onto the bench. “Be at peace Sparkster, you need to rest. You can’t fight this whole war yourself on just your own. It makes you look like you are seeking an early grave friend, also I’m not here as a princess.”

“It still feels like I’m not doing enough.” I was talking to a good friend, not a princess. She didn’t need me to properly address her, I… I still bowed my head to her at least.

“Still a truly noble knight as ever I see… I’ve heard news from the various fronts.” I lifted my left ear straight up towards a smiling Flora. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but over the last few days Axel Gear has been on a rampage in the west. There has also been great news to explain his fury. About three days ago, a courier unit was attacked by Axel Gear.”

“I take it they were they routed?” I asked, already thinking I know the answer. Axel Gear was a great thorn in everyone’s sides that was extremely hard to kill or stop once he had even a modicum of momentum.

“Surprisingly no, they all survived and the unit has a very unique composition of strange warriors for message carriers. It wasn’t for the lack of Axel Gear trying to slay them, he grievously wounded several of them in combat. Yet they held their own long enough to plan a way to escape him, heard he was even unconscious for a small time after what would have been a mortal blow for anyone else.” What Flora just said made me sit up and take notice. “Even I was surprised to hear a courier unit managed to survive Axel Gear. They are called the White Knight Couriers and they apparently discovered some vital information alongside that of another scout, we also have word that Hydrigal is pitching in as quietly as they can without drawing Gedol’s ire or attention.”

A unit of couriers managed to hold off Axel Gear, my very opposite in many ways… what kind of courier unit were they fielding in that area that could feasibly survive what was once my adoptive brother?!

“What vital information would that be Pri… Flora?” I received knowing smiled as I tried to adhere to the fact that Flora was trying to be here as a friend and not the royalty that she was. The brown eyed princess was still wearing a nice blue dress with a large yellow sash wrapping around her body.

“Why the locations of the last three of the seven sealed chaotic magic swords you are searching for.” After Flora said this, I sat there for a minute just staring off into space.

She sat next to me and awaited my reaction while placing a calming hand upon my left shoulder.

The first sword was found in a cave, it quickly replaced my Machine Buster I lost destroying the Yellow Dog mass extinction device a few years back. Said device would have caused untold destruction had it landed, possibly irreparably changing Elhorn for the worst forever. I remembered planting my sword right into the evil core, while staring down the image of an evil wolf like soul within, with as much force as I could put behind it before I fled its destruction and managed to get into the planet’s life giving air before I suffocated among the stars.

I have since lacked the ability to perform a spiral edge as I now wielded this very sword as my own. Seemingly to make up for the lack of ability, the magical sword has been all too easy to light ablaze with power in my hands.

It was a power I swore to put away once I was done with it, to the point that even Axel Gear would nary touch it for fear of his own destruction. The word ‘emeralds’ rings in my head whenever I used this blade and some warnings of ‘chaos’ following if I didn’t drop the magical sword when this was all over with. I was definitely going to heed the warnings and visions these magical swords tried to give me, it seemed they were related to the magical power on another world… I did not know of this place called ‘Mobius’ was, but I think my paths would cross with another warrior of blue eventually if these strange visions are to be believed.

It led to a question that still vexes me, how did Axel Gear even survive Pig Star!? I barely survived escaping Yellow Dog’s extinction device and I was far closer to the planet than he was, almost didn’t wake up in time as I fell through the sky towards the planet! Was he truly just that good at surviving the impossible?

The second sword was found in some ruins, Gedol was searching for it and I ran into some trouble with local ancient machinery having been activated by them. I was also chasing after Axel Gear after he kidnapped Cherry, as I had gone to the ruins with the princesses Cherry and Sherry as their escort to scout around for the location of the second sword.

Thankfully Sherry managed to make it home as a nearby Zephyrus unit escorted her back, since Gedol was heard to be encroaching in the area. It is unfortunate that Axel got away with Cherry before I could catch him.

I would soon go through a forest while I was tracking down a stolen Zebulos Guardian Mech, where I fought a tree spirit and one of Gedol’s generals with some unusual aid from the local Zephyrus scout units.

There was also that evil core train transporting raccoons towards slavery, but a strange group had managed to intercept it before it could get too far. I would not have known about it had I not seen Paeli dropping troops into that very area as reinforcements and got quite curious.

Perhaps… that strange group… maybe I should ask Flora once I get the information I direly needed.

The third sword was found hidden within an ancient shifting pyramid among the sands, where yet more ancient technology and magical monsters stirred within. I also fought the naga general of Gedol there, as he too was on the lookout for the swords.

His blows were mighty, but the magical sword I wielded held up to such ferocious strength and I was starting to believe that these blades were miraculously unbreakable… the wielder of such blades wasn’t nearly as impervious though.

The fourth sword was found in the sky impaled into to the top of Paeli’s flagship beneath one of the spinning blades that kept the airship aloft. It was quite an odd place to find the sword, it was later said to have been put there by an allied soldier.

To think Paeli had been searching for that one for so long, only to have it right under his nose. It was camouflaged against the ship quite well that even I almost didn’t see it during my assault when I deftly boarded his flagship to crash it.

My eyes sharpened as I finally came to my sense from all my musings.

“Where are they?” I finally asked while sitting up, ready to charge off into the fray once more.

“Axel Gear has one and the others… they are rumored to be deep in the very heart of the enemy itself, The Factory.” Flora answered somberly and I felt my heart stop. Axel Gear had one of the swords?! I guess it made sense, he was one of the people searching for them. A dangerous fight was destined to occur between us no matter what I did, now I knew that it was coming. “The only reason why we know Axel has one is because the White Knight Courier unit survived it being used against them.”

“Tell me… this unit… does it consist of a fluffy white sheep like being? Maybe a strange orange flying lizard that was decidedly not of Gedol. Perhaps an intelligent four legged hooved bug that is rumored to have learned to speak our language almost within a fortnight. Possibly a gluttonous, near bottomless, goat with bladed hooves and several hollow legs.” It seems I had surprised Flora this time with my knowledge. “Were they all accompanied by an unusually friendly and even, dare I say it, affectionate land strider?”

“Why yes, but how did you…” While loathe to cut Princess Flora off, this conversation was thankfully casual.

“I’ve met them once, may have saved their lives even… it seems they’ve done us a turn, possibly a worthwhile boon even!” I then frowned quite succinctly as I realized what I would soon have to do once more.

“What’s the matter?” Flora asked, considerably worried about me as she had seen the frown.

“It’s that have to go back ‘THERE’, of all places.” I said in a dull tone, I knew exactly what Flora meant when she said ‘The Factory’. It would be in the same location in Devotindos where I fought Axel Gear off with a stolen Pig Mech before taking to the stars with Princess Sherry’s magic, aiding in eventually destroying the Pig Star. I hadn’t delved too deeply into The Factory, who knew what was different about it now and how much more dangerous it was under Gedol’s control. “I was there five years ago, for a short time during the Pig Star incident. I wish I had destroyed that place in its entirety, because now I have need to delve deeper into that horrid place that almost killed me several times over! I’m ever thankful that Princess Sherry was even able to be safely extracted from that death trap in the very center of Devotindos City. And I’m supposed to find two of the swords in the most horror filled place on Elhorn and face Axel Gear too. Whatever higher powers that are out there, please give me strength…”

I clenched my hands into fists and they started shaking, I had to steel my nerves…

A pair of hands placed themselves over mine calming me down a little and I looked up to Flora who gave me a sad smile.

“You’re not going into that city alone this time Sparkster, Zebulos and Zephyrus forces are building up for an assault to bring down the cities walls despite Axel Gears best efforts and we here in Eginasem are doing so as well. We are going to try and do as much damage as the can to the smaller factories while you charge forward with the Sparkrobo, we are going to keep all the main forces occupied.” She giggled lightly and ran a paw through her brownish red hair. Despite the sour air of the war going on around us tainting our thoughts, she could still smile. “The White Knight Couriers are already doing their part, even being as injured as badly as they have been. They were last seen heading up into north Yellow Dog territory to hopefully find the supplies to hasten the repair of the Sparkrobo, hopefully to ready it in time for your personal use in the assault. I don’t think it needs to be said, but I think they also went that way to avoid Axel Gear. After this war is over with, you’ll hopefully find some time to settle down with someone for a while. Maybe in a nice peaceful farming community for a war scarred veteran like yourself?”

“A knight should dream of such peace Flora.” I stated bitterly with a small smile tugging at my lips. “This opossum can only dream of better tomorrows on this world for all other than himself.”

It seems that I’m heading to Yellow Dog next, afterwards the remaining three swords within the Gedol Empire’s walls since I know Axel will be waiting for me, then finally…

Gedol I’m coming for you!

-Yellow Dog Territory, mountain region, The Far Frozen North, Pom-

My teeth chattered as I pulled the warm and heavy clothing tighter around my form.

The cold was actually doing Smolder’s concussion a number of favors, she also doubled as a good space heater in the wagon.

This cold weather definitely did not favor Jean or Ligstrun in the slightest, the both of them were nodding off quite a lot and someone had to be with them at all times less they freeze to death or fall into a heavy sleep.

Jean was making his best effort to stay active, Ligstrun wasn’t trying nearly as hard and still managed to keep the wagon in good repair despite being half asleep most of the time. Repair work on simpler things was relatively easy for Ligstrun.

I had a few cheerful moments of watching Shanty experience snow with wonder for the second time of her life and I was around to witness it this time. She Caught snowflakes on her tongue, threw snowballs and did everything like that from building a snow pony to making an igloo for a single nights rest for all of us.

You wouldn’t see much snow on the tropical islands from which Shanty hailed from, not unless there were mountains that were big enough to support it. The only other time Shanty saw snow was in the panda village back in the last world.

We had stopped to let Shanty play while there was no danger around for miles… well at least none that we could see.

Colleen did mention to us that a frighteningly large number of Yellow Dog soldiers, specifically the wolf breed types, were exceptionally good at camouflage magic similar to Ocellus’s changeling magic when she transforms to take on some properties of a rock.

They thankfully couldn’t move or attack without revealing themselves and it took a few seconds for them to even get moving after revealing themselves, the magic locks them in place for the camouflage to work perfectly and they couldn’t move until the camouflage magic wore off entirely. It even had a secondary effect of protecting them from injury while the camouflage was falling or still up, they didn’t have much magic prowess beyond this.

We had to be on the lookout for rocks not covered in snow or in odd places, maybe even trees with thicker bark than normal. Even the odd mounds of snow around here were suspect, apparently their camouflage magic had been far less useful in Eginasem.

The magic was best used for spying on the unwary and launching surprise attacks from behind, Colleen apparently didn’t have the talent for it like she did for Ligstrun’s modified rocket pack and shrimp pistol. So far it seems we hadn’t been seen by anyone entering the territory from the south.

It had been surprising that Colleen could even match Axel Gear for the solid minute she did, she even surprised herself with how well she even wielded Bruno’s sword as a quasi-rocket knight. She did have rocket pack training… unfortunately one of her trainers was the very monster we faced off against.

Bruno stated Colleen was a complete amateur with a sword and that her usage of the rocket pack more than made up for what was considered a large failure at wielding a relatively heavy melee weapon. To him, it was complete luck that Colleen hadn’t been skewered to death when she clashed with Axel several times, given the dark knight was a master of the sword as much as his rocket pack.

Dodo wasn’t bothered by all the snow, but Nicole had warned him to stay active and to keep his systems hot. He couldn’t go to sleep or his body could freeze over. He would actually die if something inside him got broken from entering such a state.

I was a little surprised that Ligstrun and Nicole came with us, they didn’t have to and they would have been safe behind allied lines… as long as Axel didn’t target them specifically for any particular reason. He certainly had one, now that we were well outside of his operation range looking for materials from the mines up here.

We could all clearly understand why Axel Gear was a name that nobody wanted to hear as possibly being nearby.

Our supplies were a lot easier to stretch in this weather, also the hot chocolate cupcakes that Dodo somehow produced were an enormous help to our morale out here on the treacherous mountain paths.

We were still looking for someone to contact, we’re quite visible out here and if we came under attack… well we’d at least try to do our very best.

Jean, Colleen, Shanty, Smolder and Bruno were all still trying to heal from their wounds. Dodo made a surprisingly quick recovery and Nicole muttered something about biological healing processes strangely applied to machinery.

One would wonder where Dodo even got the supplies to make the banana nut muffins I was currently enjoying. It wasn’t coming from anything we had on hoof and they were safe to eat, so it was probably better to not overthink it and just acknowledge that Dodo was a highly eccentric and quirky living machine.

Though I personally blamed Shanty’s weird familiar bond on the baked goods coming from nowhere thing, or that Dodo can even make baked goods to begin with. It certainly made sense that Dodo would be capable of helping keeping Shanty fed, familiars always did have a way of being oddly connected to someone that could be their polar opposite. My beasties and I were a good example of it in action.

As far as Colleen knows, both 'Wulfgar' and 'Cooler' were still active in the region. She didn’t know who owned what territory or where they all were as we hadn’t found signs of them yet. She did know a few people that were acquaintances at best, that she stressed, ‘might’ help us get what we needed for the highly complex Sparkrobo.

I was consistently nervous about being in a place where there were so many canines that we haven’t even seen yet, who knows what they would want to do to or with me if they saw me.

Cooler is the friendlier faction that we were angling to meet out here and were given trade goods to exchange for all the stuff needed to aid in preparations for the assault on Devotindos. Our priority was securing the materials for the Sparkrobo, we also had several secondary objectives that would seriously help out our allies and Nicole was going to act as the intermediary to make sure the trade agreement was fair.

Dodo warbled.

This attracted my attention, I was in his seat and everyone was in the wagon behind me.

“What is Dodo?” I said as we continued to look for a path forward, we did have a map of where to ‘generally’ find the mines we needed up this way. That was just in case we didn’t run into anyone to open up a trade opportunity with, which I would think to be the luckier thing to happen out here than actually meeting someone. “What’s wrong?”

Dodo walked in place slightly and whined loudly, he didn’t want to move any further forward. It was like he felt something was up with the mountain pass before us, an exceptional place for an ambush if there ever was one.

“Okay, I think I have an idea what has you spooked, stay here. Guys, prepare for a fight, Dodo feels as if something is off with the mountain pass ahead.” It wasn’t snowing at least, I dropped into the snow and moved forwards slightly in front of Dodo. I trudged forward some more and scanned the pass ahead with my eyes narrowed. I think I almost saw something that looked almost vaguely out of place. I looked at the cliffs around the pass and all the snow packed onto them… the manner of which could only occur unnaturally. “Possibly an avalanche trap?”

“What be an avalanche?” Jumping and squeaking as Shanty came up to me, I clutched at my heart and took several deep soul cleansing breathes. I looked at her left shoulder still bandaged and leg held in a slight sling.

“It’s what happens when loose snow shifts and slides down a mountain… in this case I think we should move off to the side of the pass before we enter. Someone took the time and effort to make what might be an avalanche trap. It might be for us or... it could be for someone else. We have no idea what the two factions are doing out here, at least evil core machines seem to be in minimum use here in Yellow Dog territory.” We were going into a territory where a civil war was said to be happening. The thing about civil wars is that they weren’t very civil at all and an avalanche trap wouldn’t be entirely unexpected if one or both sides were willing to slaughter wantonly. “I’m going to set it off and see what happens, go back to the wagon Shanty. Dodo move the wagon off to the side of the pass to wherever you feel safest.”

I trusted Dodo enough to follow that order to the best of his ability. We needed to head this way to reach the mines and we weren’t exactly in great fighting conditions.

At best Dodo, maybe Smolder and I could swing it if there weren’t too many aggressors.

Ocellus has already pushed herself twice, it was quite expensive for her to use a power hungry spell. Even if she looked to be okay, I didn’t want her going ‘too’ far to help us. Magic and love was Ocellus’s lifeblood and she was basically casting at the possible expense of her own health to help us.

Inhale slightly and... let out a powerful bark!