//------------------------------// // 76. The Battle of Devotindos. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Elhorn, Devotindos (almost a quarter mile away), Pom- Looking to Shanty, she looked a little worried as I did. Zebulos and Zephyrus had as many of their forces as they could gather for this one battle, it would be a fairly large undertaking. Squirrels, chipmunks, hedgehogs, raccoons, foxes, rats, mice and even a few birds, plus quite a few other species of animal were all aligned against the lizards. We were on the far left flank from our perspective, the people at the center of the battle were going to be drawing the most attention. This was the last job Shanty and I would be doing with The White Knight Couriers, it was a daunting task to break through the enemy line of defenses to reach the wall. Those long legged cannonball spitting land striders, the large mechs with pig motifs, the four wheeled spiky vehicles with whirling flails, lizards equipped with jump assisting packs that couldn’t quite be called rocket packs. There were thousands of Gedol soldiers between us and the city. The city had an ominous cloud hanging over it, a cloud of pollution and the grass we were standing on led right into wastelands that surrounded the city that the pigs had created by sapping the resources of their surroundings. All the buildings in the massive industrial city sported Gedol symbols and the air around the place felt like all the evil that was gnawing away at this world. I shivered and tried to steel my nerves, this was going to be a big fight. I looked off to the right and saw the Sparkster in the Sparkrobo standing at the back of the combined armies, he’d be on the move as soon as we gave him the opening he needed. He didn’t look happy to be leaving this battle to other people, but the lizards on the opposing side were watching him with trepidation. Looking at Ligstrun piloting one of the Zebulos Guardian mechs nearest to us, I don’t know if he insisted of taking a part in this battle or felt like he needed to. He and Nicole did a lot to help the war effort in these last few days. I flinched when I felt something touch my side, then relaxed when I noticed it was only Shanty. “I know this is going to be a big battle. Just wanted you to know that I’m scared too, but I not be a coward and I will never think of you as one either.” That was mildly comforting, considering how dangerous this was for you Shanty and I wished I could voice my opinions on this matter. “For good or bad, I will be right next to you every step of the way Pom.” A shout drew our attentions to Biggs and Wedge, their unit from Cladinhold would be covering the bomb wagon's approach. Dodo looked uneasy about this undertaking, but he was ready to follow us forward. The battle was about to begin and I tapped Shanty’s back, she glanced at me and I made several unusual gestures with my hooves ending with a twirl of my right hoof. “Yeah, I think we can be pulling that off.” Shanty nodded, nobody would understand us and we wouldn’t have a translator on the field. At least Shanty caught the gist of what I wanted to do as an opening move, if we can knock out enough lizards with it and break the infantry of their right flank, then we’d have an easier time. We’d still have to go through their striders and pig mechs, the arms on said mechs ended in spiked maces similar to the whirling ones on four wheeled machines. I wouldn’t be able to take a direct hit from the spikes on any of those maces. After some tense quiet and the sound of the thundering clouds over Devotindos, there was unheard signal that let everyone know that the battle had begun. The middle lines surged forwards, striders charged, rockets flew and explosions sounded off to our right. I started unsteadily walking forward and glanced at Colleen giving me a worried look as she prepared herself for her battlefield debut as the ‘Rookie Rocket Knight’ a title officially give to her by Sparkster himself after a rather frantic paced spar. Sparkster sat still on his machine with a grim look on his face as he waited in place, he would only act if someone broke through the battle line to protect the medics and when we opened a path for him. The only other option was if Axel Gear showed himself, but he wasn’t currently present from what I could see. The Gedol had limited aerial offensive units and none of them were resilient to the barrage of rockets crossing the field, Sparkster would have to worry about the flying enemies being kept in the city. I continued forward at a slow pace and Shanty was watching and waiting for me to make the move, she looked ready for what would be our first major contribution. I was planning to wipe out an entire regiment on the enemies right flank with Shanty’s help and that could rally the soldiers to make a hard push. Bruno and Jean were tense as they stood next to the wagon as the Cladinhold soldiers moved forward at a slow pace in front of us with Biggs and Wedge setting their pace. After a moment I nodded to Shanty and started galloping forwards and past the Cladinhold soldiers who were a little surprised, but stayed in formation. Their rocket tube carriers ignored us and kept firing on the larger targets as the two of us moved past towards a large line of soldiers by ourselves. Shanty quickly darted in front of me and we kept running forward until we reached the infantry regiment our guys were facing. Shanty stopped short of several swinging swords, reared up her hind legs and pushed off the ground with her front legs. I went up onto my hind hooves and reached out to catch her rear legs with my front, this action had confused the infantry enough to stop them. I inhaled sharply. “Cyclone!” Catching a shouting Shanty’s hind legs, I swept her round counterclockwise and we spun forwards. After a second, Shanty stretched out her front hooves and her arcing blade effect took place. I exhaled. We created a whirling circular blade of devastation that slammed into their infantry and started sending various kinds of Gedol soldiers flying in all directions as the two of us plowed into and then straight through them. Naga, lizards, goblin lizards and the few other odd members of our opposition like that flew away in a tornado of shredded armor and broken weapons. The world around us was an indistinct blur, but Shanty smiled as she looked back at me, and with an upward swing to stall our momentum the ends of Shanty’s hooves arced upward near the front of one of the four wheeled machines with spinning maces on the field that approached us. I quickly let go of Shanty so that she flipped and landed behind me as I faced the machine ready to figure out a way to handle it. I was catching my breath a bit after having pulled off that stressful maneuver. Only, the machine had oddly stopped in front of us with its maces still spinning, then it split in half vertically and the chains holding the maces fell apart, sending both its maces flying off into entire groups of Gedol soldiers off to both sides of it. Shanty hadn’t even touched the thing with her hooves, but apparently the arc I made by swinging her body around upwards was powerful enough to create an invisible crescent wave to slice the machine in half and hit anything that had been directly behind it too. The Gedol Soldier that had been driving the machine sat there with her armor falling off, it had thankfully protected her from being sliced in half. She blinked and then got up and started running while screaming. There were now a lot of Gedol soldiers lacking both weapons and armor that followed the screaming lizards lead. One Gedol soldier in particular, that still had armor and a weapon to speak of, ran forward to slash at me with his sword. I blocked it with my right leg, the dark magic on the weapon hit my wool and then shattered in an explosion of light that sent the Gedol soldier flying. I had almost forgotten that I had little to worry about from their infantry… provided that they weren’t wielding spears. Quite a few of the Gedol soldiers started running losing their nerves in the face of what we just did, their morale took a large hit. This was followed by Bruno toppling a strider by cutting its spindly legs out from under it in one swing, when it hit the ground it exploded sending its pilot tumbling. Jean stayed with Dodo and the wagon. Anyone got by us to approach him, or just Biggs and Wedge’s unit in general, were rebuffed badly by air pressure bullets launched from Jean’s rapier, rockets from various tubes or just pure martial prowess in wielding swords, spears and axes. The real turning point for our left flank and Gedol’s right flank was when Colleen finally went on the offensive by taking down ten soldiers in a single sliding burst of her rocket pack. While not as impressive as what Sparkster is said to be capable of, and Colleen still wasn’t an expert with a sword, the morale of the Gedol’s right flank almost broke then and there upon seeing that there was a second rocket knight on the field other than Sparkster. That a new rocket knight was actively participating in the battle spooked a number of Gedol soldiers into running even if they hadn’t actively taken part in it yet. The center line was heavily contested and the casualties were mounting, didn’t know about our side’s right flank because I had to focus on the left now. I lunged forward and threw my right hoof into an overhead swing and sent a soldier sprawling, Shanty moved forward to my left and deflected a blade with her right hoof and slashed the armor off the Gedol soldier with her left in an upwards arc. These Gedol soldiers quickly lost any sense of bravery the second their armor was broken, I’d imagine it’s because they knew that they just took a hit that could have been lethal. Despite the violence, Shanty and I weren’t killing anyone, but we were going to be pummeling them into submission for capture or just make them run. I bucked out at a Gedol soldier behind me and then saw something, I ran forward and shoulder checked a Naga away from a squirrel that had been knocked onto the ground. I held out a hoof and helped him onto his feet, he nodded to me, picked up his weapon and fell back to regroup with his unit. This is when our flank started getting attention from the pig mechs that started marching through heavy rocket fire. Our flank started being pushed back by just two of the two bipedal metal giants, Shanty tapped me in the side as I just got finished knocking another soldier’s face in. She pointed at the leftmost machine on approach and held out a hoof for me to grab. I sighed, grabbed and spun around twice lifting Shanty’s weight from the ground and then sent her flying, she slapped into the chest of the pig mech and clambered up to attack the pilot directly. Unlike Yellow Dog, neither of our forces had small projectile weapons to take out the pilots. Eginasem forces did have said projectile weapons, but they were all currently leading an attack on the eastern side of Devotindos City. The pilot was soon flung from the mech and it stopped in place as I ran forward, leapt up and caught the pilot to throw him into a group of shield carrying naga harassing Biggs and Wedge. They capitalized on my distraction and pushed them back. I looked up at the other pig mech turning towards the one that went still where Shanty was fiddling with the controls. After a moment the machined took a step forward, then two steps back, its right arm twirled around once. I looked around and nobody was currently attacking me, but the other pig mech would be on Shanty before she could figure out how to control the darn thing. My worries were unfounded as Ligstrun charged his Zebulos Guardian Mech forward and slammed it’s right fist shaped mass of metal into the pig mechs left side almost toppling it, this was sufficient enough to have gained its full attention and the two started to fight. A Gedol soldier fly by my head and I saw Bruno run up to me, he sheathed his sword and pointed at the mech that Shanty was figuring out how to control. I titled my head curiously and he pointed to me and then himself and then up there. I blinked and nodded, he wanted me to help him get up there. I motioned for him to grab me by the barrel, he did so and I kicked off the ground to cling to the lower part of the pig mechs torso and started to clamber up the machine towards Shanty. How did people get on these things without a ladder? Probably a security feature given that they could only be captured by someone who could fly or cling to the smooth surface of the armor. The machines legs were covered in metal thorns. “What? Oh, he would be knowing how to pilot it huh?” Shanty stopped playing with the controls and climbed out of the seat to let Bruno take control the of the pig mech. Bruno slowly turned the mech about and then he motioned to us and pointed at the wagon, he pointed at himself and the enemy machines in Dodo’s path. We nodded, I climbed down and Shanty followed me. At the bottom of the torso, Shanty and I dropped off and, once we were clear, Bruno charged forward to crush the front half of a four wheeled vehicle sending the poor Gedol soldier flying over the wall we were here to blow a hole in. That soldier would survive as they still had their armor on after being flung like that. Bruno let out an uproarious laughter as he started dealing with the enemy striders and small four wheeled vehicles with stomps of the machines feet or punches from the large maces on the end of the arms. Shanty and I made our way back to the slowly moving Dodo, while he was happy to see us he urgently warbled and pointed his beak towards Jean fending off several shield carrying naga by himself. His rapier was a slightly poor match up for their shields and spears. He was holding them off fairly well, but he could use our help. As Dodo turned his head and fired a blast of energy at more encroaching soldiers, he was soon covered by Biggs and Wedge as they shouted orders to their unit. Shanty and I changed directions to aid Jean, Colleen didn’t need help and was started to go after the Pig Mech pilots after seeing Bruno having taken control of the one we commandeered. I really didn’t like being in the middle of all this and I didn’t like that Shanty was here too. There was fire, explosions, machines parts, blood, a few body parts and armor just going absolutely everywhere in the carnage. A naga coiled up and launched upwards to try and bring a spear down on Jean, at least he would have had I not leapt up and performed an accurate upwards flying buck to the head that knocked the naga off course to land on one of his fellows. Landing on my back, I rolled backwards and onto my hooves while looking around in a paranoid fashion. Shanty darted in on the ground and in a flash of her hooves she broke three of their spears up into chunks and lashed an upwards arcing roundhouse buck to the chest of one of the naga. This knocked them back, destroyed their armor and causing their head smack against the crust ground in a painful manner. She quickly back off after nearly being speared by one of the two naga we hadn’t hit. Jean dealt with the last two naga swiftly. Now that he wasn’t fighting five opponents at once and on the defensive, he unleashed a concentrated barrage of jabs that tore through their shields and armor plating like it was nothing. I motioned to Jean and pointed back towards the wagon Dodo was pulling, several Goblin lizards were sneaking up on the wagon looking to sabotage our efforts at having gotten this far. I think Gedol was now aware of what Dodo was currently hauling towards the wall. The three of us hurried back towards the wagon as the tiny goblin lizards were upon Dodo, only to be blasted away in a flash of brown in the wake of a rocket pack. Colleen spun about and fired a shot from her energy pistol that sent the last goblin lizard flying and then she shot back towards the center line in a burst towards the pig mechs she hadn’t disabled yet that were starting to turn towards our flank. So far Colleen had left three pig mechs pilotless and they were being toppled by heavy rocket fire coming from the left most part of the center line. The center line was losing pressure thanks to all the diverted forces that had to deal with us on their right flank, they knew what we were doing and they definitely didn’t want to let Sparkster through and into the city. We were closer to the city and we couldn’t move too far away from Dodo now, so we took up guarding him. Shanty was in the seat in his back and she urged him to quicken his pace. Jean and I hopped onto the wagon weighed down by numerous explosives and knocked back any Gedol soldier that tried to board us. Biggs and Wedge's unit was noticeably smaller, quite a few of them were retreating due to serious injuries. “Do we be knowing how to set all these explosives off safely?” Shanty suddenly asked, that… was something we probably should have brought up in the planning stages of this assault. A soldier from Biggs and Wedges unit, a brown chipmunk that looked to be bleeding out tossed Jean his rocket tube as he ran back towards our side’s backline. “Never mind, that’s answer enough.” Jean was going to fire it and I caught his attention and motioned to the explosives behind us, he looked thoughtful for a second and then grinned in the realization of what was expected of us. Park the wagon, Jean would fire the shot and then Dodo would leg it with us on his back. Dodo could lift an impressive amount of weight for his comparative size to the other manually piloted land striders on the field. Jean thrusts his rapier upwards and a rocket blew apart before it reached us, it seems Gedol had guys on the cities outer walls that were now focusing their attention on us. Both Bruno and Ligstrun moved into position in front of the wagon and raise their mechs arms to take the rocket fire for us as they slowly marched forward. We didn’t have too many machines in our way now and only had to worry about the infantry which were now in scattered pockets thanks to Biggs and Wedge’s efforts. Though their unit was now down to nine men and a lady… the rest had successfully retreated from battle to get their various injuries looked at. Biggs roared and held his sword aloft and pointed towards the city. -Biggs- “We’re getting them to that wall Wedge, or we’ll die trying!” That there hadn’t been any evil cores in the field meant that they didn’t have any to field to begin with! “I’ve just realized that they don’t have any evil cores left!” I rallied my men and pressed forward, we still had five rocket tubes among us and very little ammunition left. So we were going to make our shots count. “Wedge, take care of the guys on the wall!” I didn’t like that those guys were attacking our mechs and wagon, we did not want to go to plan B. “Make every shot count, we’re not going to be able to restock in the middle of all of this!” My guys managed to take out several of the rocket tubes on the walls, but they couldn’t get them all. “We’re out of rockets Biggs!” Wedge reported, but they certainly weren’t and we were pinned, our mechs were getting hammered and the wagon with the special explosives couldn’t get any closer. “Enemy contacts from the north, it looks to be... Yellow Dog?!” I turned to my left and my little group looked in fear at the two approaching Yellow Dog mechs with a number of Yellow Dogs on them, those green spindly things relied on speed, energy reflecting armor and getting close and personal. “Wait, they might not be our enemies!” I had heard Husker Exile was part of the trade agreements that gave us the ability to fix the Sparkrobo, now said Cooler Faction specialist was entering the field of combat. The two mechs were suddenly the targets of interest by a number of Gedol soldiers up on the walls and with good reason. Yellow Dog used those thinly armored mechs for mountain climbing. The two mechs made it to the wall and their claws slammed into it and their mechs started to climb up the wall at a swift pace, shifting left and right to dodge rocket fire where needed and soon the Gedol soldiers on the wall were panicking. The two Yellow Dog melee mechs just started blitzing through their number as soon as they were on the wall. After reaching a spot around where the center line was they turned around and climbed down under fire and started opening a path for the wagon on their way out. “They’ve cleared the wall!” Wedge shouted while leaping up and down. His armor had taken a beating, but my best buddy was still in the fight. “The Cooler Faction thinks you may have overpaid us in aid rendered; so I hope you don’t mind a little support, The Retrievers and Cooler thanks you for your patronage!” Exile shouted as his two machine ran by us and off the field of combat, by the time he was done doing that I saw that the wagon was in position. Jean ‘The Frog Duelist of Hydrigal’ was already aiming the rocket tube I sent his way. The sudden massive explosion took out a huge section of the wall, it tumbled down and broke. Pom, Jean and Shanty soon passed by us on the friendly land strider known as Dodo. Their team’s commandeered mech and the allied mech turned towards the center line. “Left flank retreat to the backline, we’ve done our jobs today and the costs were hopefully worth all the effort!” The White Knight Couriers have delivered and now it was all up to Sparkster! The Sparkrobo was suddenly on the move and it leapt through the massive hole in the wall to start heading straight towards the very center of this monstrous city. The wine and cheese after this is all over with was going to be sweet. -Some time later, Pom- I watched as Sparkter's golden glowing figure flew overhead carrying a possum princess.