//------------------------------// // 68. Gravity Gorge Zone, Act 2. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Elhorn, a day later outside of Gravity Gorge, Colleen- It actually looked pretty intimidating. Never been to southern Yellow Dog very much, now I had more reasons to never come back. “Looks intimidating doesn’t it?” Hunt asked. “Yes, but Pom is going to need me there to reassure her that you’re there to help, we also need to make sure that we’re not endangering her family while we’re doing it. Definitely don’t want them getting lost in there.” I steeled my nerves and ran my right hand over my goggles, then checked my sword, pistol and the rifle hidden between my back and the rocket pack for backup. I placed my paws back on the controls of the melee mech Ligstrun got running. “Ready to go.” There were four other dogs with us, two Labradors, a Poodle and a Dachshund, two of them were carrying rocket tubes. Apparently these mercenaries never went anywhere without at least some ability to disable a mech on paw, sounds like a good policy with the things I’ve seen. “Oh right, one other thing before we go any further. There’s been word that Wulfgar sent forces into the Gravity Gorge again and that Commander Carbuncle is getting involved.” Hunt watched as his compatriots focused on the mission ahead. -Center of Gravity Gorge, Mr. Sage’s peak, Pom- What I saw the happenings on Mobius… it had almost left me catatonic. If anything, Nicole Beta was underselling the horror. The events that led to the people of Elhorn coming to this planet hadn’t happened yet given the sage couldn’t show me the huge battle that was inevitably going to happen. If it didn’t inevitably, then the people here on this planet wouldn’t exist as they do. Things were already getting extremely bad over there, it was probably only a matter of time before the Elhorn Exodus began. At least…. at least Mobius had its heroes. All of them were far braver than I could ever hope to be. The blue hedgehog with super speed was awe inspiring to see in action. I wished every last one them all the luck they could muster, they seriously needed it as much as I did with getting my girls home alive. So yeah… I was definitely not going anywhere near that planet with Smolder, Ocellus and Shanty from what I saw. Death trap doesn’t even describe Mobius succinctly enough. “Thank you, for everything Mr. Sage.” I hear the large white dog approach, he patted me on the head gently. “It’s time for me to go, I’ve been taking up far too much of your hospitality… but are you sure you’re going to be alright… all alone?” He nodded, pulled out the golden ring and flicked it, we saw Yellow Dog machines and soldiers actively scouring the Gravity Gorge for me. Tianhuo missed me, all my beasties were being good and my coworkers in the HCD are even better friends than I could have ever hoped for. “I’m going to be fighting on the way out aren’t I?” I looked to the sage. He nodded grimly and motioned at me to go. “Okay… it was nice meeting you Mr. Sage.” I stated as I brought my front hooves against my side and spread them back out with my wool wings flaring slightly. I took some steps towards the edge of the floating mountain top home in the middle of the Gravity Gorge. “I hope… I hope that you won’t be lonely forever.” He nodded and motioned for me to go a bit more hastily. I ran up to him and gave him a hug, he hugged me back gently. Letting go, I gave one last look at the stump. At the ripped apart metal splinters in the wood as my way towards the edge. -Gravity Gorge Zone, Act 2, meet up with Colleen’s team Pom!- I needed to attack the Wulfgar forces, had to lead them away from bothering or even finding where Mr. Sage lives after all. Diving forward over the edge, I felt a bit lighter after having met Mr. Sage. One day with the sage and I learned quite a few things. Zipping between the floating rocks, I kept diving down deeper into the floating rock field. I could vaguely see the floating island in the distance and began picking up speed as steepened my angle. If they wanted me, then I’ll give them something to chase! I was soon above the jungle and angled for the green machine that was looking around, the red eye lights of the mech weren’t aimed upwards or even in my direction. Coming at its back as fast as I was, they wouldn’t be able to react to me in time. I fired a bark breaker, it had a much better range than a bark blast, but the stress it put on my vocal chords tended to hurt. The metal around the midsection and spine of the machine warped, weakening as I came in for my attack. Before I hit the bipedal machine, I curled up into a ball, hardened my wool and began somersaulting through the air as I approached. I hit the machine and my steel strength wool slowly but surely began digging against the machine until something gave away, then I was out the other side and popping out of my spin to shoot off into the air by spreading my wings. Looking behind me, the top half of the machine toppled backwards as the legs toppled forward. I had just bisected that thing by turning my fluffmancer talent into a decently dangerous offensive ability inspired by watching a hedgehog burrow body first through machinery. Couldn’t do that again without the proper amount of momentum and windup though. Shots started to chase me through the air as I dove among the trees, I caught a branch with my left hoof and swung up into a tree. I crawled along the tree and down to jungle floor, looking about carefully as I slunk into a bush. My ears twitched and I quickly tumbled out of it into another bush through the shadows of the trees. A second later several wolves, that had disguised themselves as small boulders and had dropped their camouflage magic, jumped out and brought their blades down on the bush I was just in and looked a little confused to see nothing there. Luckily their camouflage magic wasn’t anywhere near as effective as a changelings magic when it came to speed. Four of them, I came out and swung both my front hooves into the back of one of the wolves heads, one left, one right and one in front of me. The one I just slammed went down and the other three pointed their guns towards me, I was already lunging forward into a roll by the time they managed to fire a barrage of projectiles in my general direction. I came out of my roll rear hooves first, launching them up into the belly of the wolf in front of me, he reflexively let go of his weapon to fall into my waiting mouth where I clenched down on it with my teeth and quickly stood up to spin to my left to slam the butt of it across the face of the wolf that was on my left. Letting the weapon fly from my mouth out into the jungle as I pivoted to face the wolf that had been on my right, I leapt up over the shots from their weapon and launched a flying buck to the skull that knocked him straight out. The last wolf standing was the one who no longer had his weapon and just knocked the air out of, I charged him and leapt up to snap out my left hoof in a painful looking hook to his temple. Something slammed down next to me as the last wolf went down and my eyes widened at the red light and the green machine swinging its left arms claws at me. I leapt backwards out of range of the swipe and turned to flee, one of the chasing shots from the wolves clinging to the machine graze the left side of my neck as I started galloping away. The pilot was already moving it to follow me. Long legs don’t fail me now! It was giving chase through the undergrowth and these things were certainly faster than me on hoof when on flat ground, but I could take advantage of the jungle style terrain as I ducked around trees and slid my way through bushes. Come on, I needed… a vine, that would do it! I bit down on it as I passed by and then sharply turned to the left into a skid to drag it in front of the machines legs. Once the vine connected I slid around the backside to the front and dodged the two sweeping swipes of the claws. I ducked and dodged around the other wolves firing on me as leapt to grapple onto the right leg and quickly tied off the vine. Once I kicked off and away, I rolled behind a tree and started heading towards the edge of the floating island, think I’ve garnered enough attention for my sanity. I heard the sound of a machine slamming what passes for its face into the ground and five wolves, went screaming into the air as it promptly exploded. So they hadn’t notice the vine then. Knot tying while under pressure, useful against bipedal machines. Nice story to tell Shanty later, provided that I survive the wrath of at least three more machines coming after me. That said, I could hear them giving chase through the small jungle and soon reached the edge of the island after leaping over rocks, sliding under trees roots and avoiding gravity tunnels sucking me in. Looking for a good branch hanging out into the void as I reached the outer edges of the island, I looked up and saw a familiar platform of stone I had run along a day or so prior still spinning horizontally from when the machine landed on its flat side. I’m going in the right direction then. Once I get out there I wouldn’t be able to navigate as well, but I would be heading straight towards the edges of the floating rock field. This place was really quite magical, it’s too bad it’s in the middle of Yellow Dog’s territory. Clambering up the nearest tree as the sounds of Wulfgar forces closing in, I carefully clambered my way towards the end of the branch where gravity started turning sideways and now I was climbing up the branch. A shot whizzed past my head, I glanced back with wide eyes and immediately leapt out of the islands gravity field and felt something rip into my right hip. Bleating out in pain, I spread out my legs and unfurled my wool wings. The branch was struck by a rocket and the explosion sent me hurtling into the field of floating rocks and a bit too close to energy rocks I immediately tried to steer clear of. Thankfully they had less gravitational force than all the other rocks floating out here. I glanced back and saw to see five machines spreading out and began leaping among the rocks. Those bipedal green machines were tough stuff and I couldn’t bark breaker all of them, I’d lose my voice trying to hit those material weakening frequencies too often. Checking out my right hind leg, I winced at the bleeding and quickly veered around boulder that wasn’t glowing. Landing, I quickly rubbed my wool onto both sides of the painful injury and had bandaged it. I quickly leapt for a boulder below me as a machine slammed into the opposite side of the boulder I was on. It tried to slap its right claws down on where I had been and followed that up by trying to slash me out of the air with the left. I closed up my wings narrowing my profile and managed to dodge through the second swing and several shots from the two of the wolves clinging to the left side of it. I kicked off the next boulder and saw that they were almost encircling me, had to move fast. I inhaled going for a dancing flame burst, my eyes darted about and I saw a boulder near and energy one. Exhaling, I kicked off and shot between two machines leaping at me as the third slammed into the boulder behind me. I spread my front legs slightly and managed to catch the edge of the boulder next to the glowing one, my wool started sparking painfully with lightning. This was far too close to an energy boulder for comfort as I ran to the far side of the floating boulder I was on and hopped before bark blasting the boulder into the energy boulder. It did exactly what I wanted it too as I flipped, using the momentum from my hop and blast to land on another boulder. Wasn’t going to look back to see if my pool shot had worked. Something certainly happened as an explosion of an energy wave nearly hit me, I made my way to the far side of this boulder and it blocked the wave for me. Only for another one to fire off angling back in my direction, I leapt up and clamped onto a different boulder and took cover from that wave by putting it between me and the energy coursing through the boulder. The boulder I was holding onto started to glow and light up. I gritted my teeth as lightning arced along my wool, I needed to get away from these energy boulders before they fry me even worse. The boulders I was using as cover wasn’t enough to take the full brunt of the energy shockwaves and was becoming an energy rock itself. I didn’t want to be near these things anymore, even if they were slowing down the guys chasing after me. Leaping hastily away and up out of the field of boulders quickly turning into energy rocks, I clamped onto and ran up a large ramp shaped bit of rock that that looped around on itself weirdly and launched myself out of it halfway up the loop. I didn’t know if they were still chasing me, but I wasn’t stopping now as I spread my makeshift wings and soared between the boulders. I was getting out of the dangerous dark zone and could see the sky peeking through the rocks. A projectile shot ricocheted off the tip of my left hoof and sent my spiraling out of control, thankfully it didn’t look to have damaged my hoof. Trying to right myself wasn’t easy as I was being pulled in several different directions at once, but I managed to get enough control to slam into a boulder. I went bouncing along it to eventually fly off it into another boulder that started rotating upon impact. Hitting the boulder belly first made me squeak as it jostled my injured right hind leg, like I needed the reminder that their weapons can actually penetrate my wool. I started looking around for the more sunlit portions of the field and prepared for another leap, first however… Flicking my left hoof off to the side and out into the open, I quickly pulled it back and turned to leap to the right and went flying away as several shots hit that side of the boulder that I had poked my hoof out from. Gripping a rock with my right hoof I swung around and released, to go flying upwards and away from them. There was enough light that I knew which way was up now. I landed against a boulder, glanced in my chasers direction and kicked off to another to kick off of that one and grab a rock on my left and to change directions to going left and downwards. A shot flew past the middle of my back making my wool ripple when it did. Do those weapons ever run out of projectiles?! At least it’s not the machines armed with larger versions of them. Sure Paprika was able to tank a few cannonballs, but I certainly couldn’t! I landed on a platform to run along it, as I reached the end of it a machine landed on the other end causing my end to move upwards. I jumped with the momentum, flipped and landed on a boulder and quickly scurried my way to the backside of it with shots chasing me once again. About to leap for another boulder, I stopped to think. I carefully took up a small rock in my hoof and tossed it at another boulder. The sound attracted attention and a machine slammed into that boulder, to look around. Seeing a passing boulder nudge this one, I switched positions to ride the other boulder as it floated away as another machine landed on the one I had been on. The pilot was sweeping the lights about the damaged boulder and then the nearby floating rocks, I ducked behind the moving mass of rock as the light passed by. There were now four pairs of red lights looking into the surroundings. I think they lost me there for a second, so long as I don’t make a noise I’ll gain a little distance. You know, now would be the time for me to sneeze loudly or to draw attention to myself through some innocuously dumb action. I sniffed, nope, nose is clear and… what were they… seriously more rockets! Several nearby boulders exploded, but I didn’t move. I kept my breathing even and silent. It was just random destruction, they were trying to flush me out of hiding and knew I was nearby. I check my leg and winced at the thought of having to clean blood out of my wool again. I peeked around the boulder and watched as they spread out and fired a few more rockets, one of which... Begin inhaling, speeding up mental faculties and… I can’t stay here! Got to move, but where to? No… don’t panic, jump and use the explosion to cover my flying away. Which direction to go in though? Lower or Higher? They are expecting me to go higher and know that I can if they were the same guys from last time so… I exhaled and kicked off with my rear hooves as hard as I could, with my front legs held tightly at my side as I shot downwards with the shrapnel from the boulder threatening to knock me completely off course. Wasn’t going to open up my wings until I was a good distance away as I went further below them, glad they were looking upwards for me. As I got further away a shot went past my left ear. Given that they spotted me, I immediately opened up my wool wings and rolled to the right and left to start zigzagging through a rain of rounds coming at me from above as the machines leapt forward above me. I was really getting the hang of gliding without wool webbing up my back legs, but that comes from the situation. I landed on top of a boulder and changed directions to go flying upwards. I put a few boulders between them and me, but that was only preventing them from shooting me, they would almost be on top of me in the next few seconds. Wasn’t this enough noise for Colleen and those others to find me yet? Those projectiles and the leaping machines they are coming from certainly aren’t silent! Plus I think their aim was getting better over… “Whoa!” A shot ripped by the wool on the left side of my neck, definitely better than when we started. At least I was rising at a decent speed, but I wasn’t going fast enough to evade them. I glanced back and saw that the machines were almost on me and they only fought in melee range, one lunged at me with its arms spread wide and I rolled to face my back towards the ground and unleashed a bark blast once it was in range and capable of hitting me. My bark blast reflected off the green armor and slammed into my body knocking me off course and changing my direction downwards, at least it knocked me out of the way of the arms trying to grab me. I quickly got control of myself and managed to softly land on a flat piece of rock, only for the five machines to surround me. Each could carry four wolves, but not easily as they needed to hold on to the machines to ride them, the fifth wolves were the pilots in the head of the machines. So that was twenty wolves, plus the five pilots of the machines. I stood my ground and they brought up their weapons to aim at me, only for a rocket to come flying in to blast one of them in the chest. I took advantage and charged up the leg of that one while another rocket tore into a completely different machine from behind distracting some of the wolves, but not all of them as one took aim for me. A whining noise was heard and Collen came flying in to ram him off the still capable machine and she bounced back to launch a flying kick into another on the still standing machines. She landed on a nearby boulder, pulled out a scimitar like blade and jetted forward rammed it home opening a large rent in one of the three remaining machines and sent it flying off the large bit of stone. While she was doing this, my rear hooves were busy kicking off the face of the pilot wolf of the first falling machine that took a rocket to the chest. I launched upwards and kicked off a boulder and clung to the next one to look around, I ducked and a projectile nearly clipped my rear end. I growled loudly at the wolf that just did that, intimidating him greatly. My fluffy rear end belongs to Tianhuo thank you very much! I’d like to have at least some part of me undamaged by all of this world journeying, I’ve got enough scars as it is! I looked about and saw that the wolves were being hit in the legs and arms by a volley of projectiles coming from Colleen’s allies. Another rocket flew forth and took out one of the machine’s arms as it tried to protect itself. Act 2 clear! *Insert Fanfare*. -Colleen- “Pom, there you are, are hurt!” I barked. After landing, I lifted her up and rocketed forward as another machine was disabled by a rocket. “It could be worse, they just got me in the meat of my right hind leg.” Which was a problem when you had a small body like Pom. She didn’t seem to have lost too much blood as to be debilitating. “I’m mostly good aside from the blood loss.” “Well that… ah!” I veered downward sharply as several large rockets flew by us and created massive explosions. I looked back and saw what could only be Carbuncle and an evil core machine. -Carbuncle- “Figured they’d get you to come running right into my paws!” My flying Orthros Omega roared beneath my feet as I stood on its back with my arms crossed, I stared after the rocket knight that had my prize. The grunts injured her, but as long as she was still alive she could still be my pet. She didn’t necessarily need to die for our plans and could be all mine afterwards to do with as I please. “I hope you’re ready rocket knight, because here comes Carbuncle!” I jetted forward.