-Canterlot Castle, Fizzle-
“So we can’t bring them directly home and are starting preparations for Tambelon.” We’re going to need all the help we can get with facing Grogar. “Goddesses help us all… we’re going to need the most competent team we can make!”
“We intend to at least.” Cadence stated with a nod, Twilight was also wanted the best and brightest on this. The Fœnum Fighters were definitely among those who were competent, but safely getting in and out of Tambelon were entirely different problems.
I didn’t think for a second it would be a smooth ten minute transition of picking up Pom’s group and getting out and neither did Tianhuo who was reinvigorated from having talked to Pom directly.
“If I prove myself enough, can I be in on this mission too?” Gallus, you were without a doubt the finest griffon I’ve ever met and trained.
Still couldn’t take Jade’s Zamponi though, Jade was definitely in on the Tambelon mission as long as her Zamponi was in working order for it.
“If you can get some guards to snuff with defending our backs. We will not be letting them into Tambelon unless it’s an emergency, but we might need backup just in case Grogar breaches into Equus. As you all already know, the realm of Tambelon is run by Grogar. What you don’t know is the composition of Grogar’s army.” The one race Grogar took with him when he was sealed away was likely still viable. We have forgotten much about them, but they are exceedingly dangerous as far as anything about them is remembered. “Grogar had pony slaves when he was sealed away. If there are any ponies alive to liberate after so long, then we’ll seek to do so if we can manage it on top of our original mission to bring ‘The Found’ home. Grogar’s main forces are likely to be Troggles, which we barely have information on because it’s been so long since anyone has ever actually dealt with them in a fight. The last one to do so was the unicorn warrior named ‘Gusty the Great’, who barely defeated Grogar and even without a majority of his power Grogar was still said to be a major threat before being sealed away. Even Discord couldn’t match him at the height of his power much less when most of his powers were sealed away, but since Discord would have the knowledge we need…”
“We need to ask Discord for help.” Twilight groaned.
“You don’t need to ask.” Discord stated as he appeared wearing a sombrero and a horribly colored suit that looked like a kaleidoscope threw up on it. “As a friend I’ll give you everything I know about Troggles up front, without any of my usual chicanery to prove my sincerity for the coming situation. Also those guys were very terribly annoying what with being immune to chaos and reality warping powers and all.”
-Pokémon World, Ransei Region, Morning, West of Aurora Kingdom Castle, Pom-
“You okay Pom?” Dolly asked me and I calmly put a hoof on her back.
“Yeah, I’m just wondering when we’ll be attacked, I already have an idea of where.” I pulled out a map and spread it out on the bottom of the cart Geoff was pulling without complaint, despite his perversions he was quite physically strong to pull all our weight.
We’d be walking back when the medicinal supplies were in the cart. The cart was light enough for him to pull us all.
“I wonder if I can get my Teddiursa or Stufful friends to join my unit… not that I have one currently. The Teddiursa was how I learned the move Play Rough at least. I learned Drain Punch and Bounce from my parents. Quick Attack was the only move I learned on my own.” Jiri was a fountain of information and was trying to share things about herself with us trying to build a rapport. “Do you really think we’ll be attacked?”
“Oh we definitely will be. I’m going to give everyone else an opportunity to figure out the where, which is something I already know, as it should be fairly obvious on our route.” I looked at the one place on the map where it would be advantageous for someone to hit us hard, someone wouldn’t want Aurora Kingdom to get the needed medicine supplies if I was right. How badly we were wanted dead, or at the very least incapacitated, would tell me everything I needed to know about how bad things were going to get in general. “The how and when are going to determine how paranoid I’ll be afterwards, if it doesn’t happen… then I can worry harder on us being attacked on the way back to Aurora’s Castle.”
Talking with Tianhuo last night had put me in a great mood, but I wasn’t going to drop my guard. With the things Pokémon are described as being capable of by Geoff and Jiri at breakfast, dropping my guard would be horribly stupid.
“You seem so sure of it.” Jiri looked a little put off, but she raised an ear. “I’ll be listening for trouble for what it’s worth.”
“Now figure out where an attack on our route is most likely to happen, but don’t tell each other and when you are ready to tell me… tap the map and wait.” I waited for a minute watching as each one of my friends and Jiri look the local map over. Geoff was, oddly enough, being fairly quiet. “At that point we’ll tell each other what we think as a part of a… thought exercise.”
Greenleaf was far too quiet with the variety of things going on to the north and south of Aurora, three problems and three kingdoms. The most simple of problems that can be solved might have bigger implications elsewhere. I wasn’t going to try and do everything for King Evan, but we were going to help as tasked by Arceus.
“Pom, can I just say that your wife is hot, as in quite literally sizzling with a wonderful and ferocious appearance, but a stoic gentleness that can melt just about any heart of those who would come to understand her?” Geoff was listening in, but he wasn’t going to participate in the thought exercise. “Also I already have an idea as to what you’re thinking of and will slow down as we make our approach.”
“No Geoff, I don’t want you hitting on my wife… or me for that matter.” I thought Geoff was quite annoying and I don’t think that would ever change, but he wasn’t a bad Wooloo.
Appreciating everything in an optimistic over the top manner was basically the natural state of Geoff’s people as quite a few of them complemented me on basically simply existing as we cross the plains towards the bridge. Also they were far too open with their thoughts about anything that so much as breathes in their general direction.
“I will still say you’re wool is very healthy looking today and that you’re an otherworldly beauty worthy of the word gorgeous.” If Geoff knew the location I was thinking of, then his intelligence level was probably higher than I was giving him credit for because of my slight issues with him.
I heard someone tap the map and I looked to see it was Shanty, she was looking proud of herself. Eventually following her was Ocellus, Dolly, Smolder and finally Jiri who looked thoughtful about it as she tapped the map.
“Okay one at a time. Shanty you go first.” Let’s see if she got it right.
“Anywhere near the bridge between Aurora and Greenleaf.” Shanty stated with a knowing certainty of the general location, but not the how we’ll be attacked or when. She was apparently keeping her options of what to prepare for flexible at least.
“Ocellus?” I think my changeling friend will have given it a bit more thought.
“Before we can even get on the bridge.” Ocellus didn’t look proud, but she did look properly paranoid after all the stuff we’ve been through.
“Dolly?” The Dalmatian looked at me and then said something daunting, but mirrored my paranoia slightly.
“Like Shanty, but I’m going to say pincer attack while we’re on it.” Dolly was cunning enough to realize why that would be a bad scenario for us if that happened. I relayed her thoughts to the others.
“After we get off the bridge.” Which told me Smolder was thinking more along the lines of Greenleaf being dangerous.
“At any time…” Jiri was looking pale as she was the one that surprisingly picked up on the worst case scenario of us being watched and an ambush coming when we couldn’t expect it. “Most likely on the way back after we have already picked up the medicine for Aurora. The bridge is a good choice of ambush location. Anyone would be able to get on top of us going both ways.”
“That’s what she said!” Geoff… I will throttle you the moment you unhitch from this cart.
No, wait… you’d enjoy that too much and would complement me about how strong I was physically for having such ‘lovely legs’.
“The chance of being attacked before and after having the medicine varies greatly, but yes, the bridge is a major chokepoint. The chance rises dramatically after we have the medicine as people will know we bought it and where it is going to. If someone doesn’t want Aurora to thrive or be a healthy kingdom...” I trailed off letting the thought hang in the air for a bit. “They’ll attacks us long before we can actually finish crossing the bridge. Ask yourself when, where and why would someone attack and think of the possible motivations thereof. How many Pokémon have traveled from the Greenleaf kingdom in recent history?”
“Not many…” Jiri put a paw to her mouth looking faintly worried as Geoff slowed down and we saw the bridge in the distance.
Once we crossed that bridge, or at the very least attempted to, we wouldn’t be able to turn back from whatever trouble comes our way until we have the medicine we needed.
-The Greenleaf-Aurora Bridge-
“It's too quiet here.” The lack of Pokémon or sounds from normal animals, which existed in limited numbers compared to Pokémon being prominent across this world, around the entrance to the bridge had us on edge. “We’re not going to be attacked on this side of the bridge for several reasons. The notable one is that we’d likely see an attack coming from a fair distance away, but the trees on the other side have plenty of cover to launch ranged attacks or an ambush from. If they really wanted to ruin any chance of medicine getting back to Aurora, they’d destroy a portion of the bridge behind us, in front of us to prevent us from even getting there or there’s just plain collapsing the whole thing while we’re crossing.”
Geoff looked a bit nervous about setting a hoof on the bridge, but he firmed his expression and kept moving forward while his eyes looked at the empty plains around us and then towards the small forest on the far side of the long bridge we had to cross.
Greenleaf had forests, hedge mazes and quite a few other things going for it defensively despite having four bridges leading into it. An invasion from Ignis would be concerning for grass type Pokémon.
The far northern bridge was connected to the kingdom of Violight. The bridge directly north of this one was connected to Ignis, which would allow the raiders to come down south and intercept us from the other side if they were well informed enough to know we’d be coming through here and Ignis was somehow complicit in letting the raiders run roughshod over Aurora. The bridge to the south of here went to the Fontaine Kingdom.
In an emergency, provided we get stuck on the west side of the bridge, we would head down towards Fontaine and will try to use the direct bridge to Aurora there. They couldn’t destroy all three bridges into Aurora as that would give Aurora time to prepare.
The cart pulled onto the bridge and we started slowly across, we readied ourselves for anything. The tapping of Geoff’s hooves against the stone of the bridge was loud in our ears.
“Detecting malicious emotions from the front, nobody coming from behind.” Well that was good to know Ocellus. “Shanty on the right. Jiri can you take left? Ocellus, Smolder and Dolly will cover our backs and make sure nobody sneaks up on us.”
“I’m… ready. Taking left.” Despite her nervousness, Jiri hopped off and started moving next to Geoff on the left as Shanty was taking the right and we were all focusing forward.
“We push through.” I stated quietly, I hopped off and moved to the front and started to move forward my eyes watching the bridge and the trees on the far side.
“Incoming!” Announced Ocellus.
Twelve Pokémon burst onto the bridge from the far side, that would be two units worth of blue and black small, basically puppy, sized bipedal jackals.
“Those are Riolu, they must be part of the raiders from the north!” Geoff stated as he unhooked from the cart.
“We are here to…! Wow… pretty…” It only took one look for a Riolu become slightly enamored with me and was blushing. “Forget what we came here for, we’re capturing her!”
“Yeah, she’s much better than stopping that medicine from getting through!” Another Riolu said while staring at me affectionately. “I mean look at the aura she’s putting out, it’s so beautiful!”
Really, I was that magnetic for these puppies?! They felt like puppies to me, which means this was about to become a slight tragedy since we would have to fight.
“I’m going to feel quite horrible about this afterwards…” I said sadly. They didn’t look very old, but I doubted they were any less dangerous for their sizes though. There was still twelve of them and they definitely had numbers on us.
We also had to fight because they just their thoughts known out loud to us, they actively wanted to stop the medicine shipment.
“I don’t see why we should kidnap her… even if she is pretty…” One of the female Riolu stated, there were only two in this group of twelve from what I could tell. “Guys? Guys?! Ugh, Cu Chulainn is going to be so mad at us!”
Cu Chulainn… sounded like an important name I had to commit to memory.
“Don’t care! Besides he won’t be mad once he sees what we got for him, we’re taking her!” The leader of the two units stated. The rest of them seemed to agree, even the other female Riolu.
A slight bit of sweat slowly started treading its way down the side of my face.
“Attack!” The head male Riolu suddenly glowed white and shot towards me at an insane speed, this must be what a Quick Attack looks like.
I went onto my hind legs and held up my front right leg to block. He struck my leg with his shoulder and I wobbled and stretched back my left hoof as he rebounded upwards.
“What the…” The poor little guy didn’t get a chance to say much more as my left straight landed in the right side of his face when my wobble counter fully went off.
He went rocketing away, flipping wildly out of control to the point the back of his head struck the right stone railing of the bridge with a painful sounding amount of force. Bouncing off the bridges railing, the Riolu continued to go flying into the forest on the far side of the bridge.
The fact that there was no blood from the impact of his skull against the railing of the bridge had me staring after him incredulously. Partially glad that he was tough and that I didn’t seriously injure him, but it was curious that his skull damaged the bridges railing.
“Ho… ly…” All the other Riolu stopped and stared after the Riolu I hit, that’s when Jiri struck the one that spoke.
As soon as Jiri closed in on him, a dust cloud erupted around the two and we could hear the sounds of a rampant tussling taking place. After the dust cloud settled, the Riolu was covered in bruises and out cold on the ground as Jiri took up an offensive stance.
“The Buneary knows Play…!” An electro ball courtesy of Geoff swiftly took down the speaker and the Riolu next to them got caught in the blast getting them covered in a few scorch marks.
“Can we please stop with all this fighting, when it’s poetry about you I’d rather be writing~?” Sang Geoff as a blast of sound in the shape of notes hit the second Riolu knocking them down. They struggled to stand up, only to flop onto their face afterwards.
“No, we will not stop! Also we’re down to eight, stop gawking and start…” The Riolu had their legs swept out from under them by Shanty with a sweep of the scythe portion of the cane, of which she brought the butt end around and smashed it downwards into the Riolu harshly bouncing their skull off the bridge.
“Was he going to say fight… AGH!” The riolu charging up his fist with an attack that had a metallic sheen suddenly went rolling across the bridge, bouncing several time to final end up in the grass at the other end.
“Like I’ll allow any of you to put a paw on Pom!” Dolly had slammed that female Riolu with a full momentum assisted amount of force across the skull with a leftward swing using the top of her skateboard. Another Riolu came in and swung a similarly metallic sheened fist at Dolly. Despite having blocked the blow with her board, Dolly went skidding backwards and toppled over completely onto her back. “Agh, these guys are a lot stronger than they look!”
Dolly couldn’t take the force of the attack and her momentum control barely stopped or slowed her down after that blow. We really shouldn’t let these guys land any more attacks.
“Well we have been hitting them in their heads Dolly!” I quickly sent out bark blast, blocking a wobbling ball of energy thrown by one of the Riolu. It caused an eruption of energies that damaged the bridge moderately.
“How did they take out an entire unit already, there’s only seven of them and only five of them are actually fighting?!” One of the Riolu complained, he narrowed his eyes at us and pointing his left paw forward. “Unit Command, Rushing Bullet Punch!”
The six remaining Riolu moved back and gathered together in a line and all their fists took on metallic sheens.
“Everyone get back, I’ll take this attack head on!” Geoff announced as he ran forward in front of me and stood his ground. “Unit Command attacks combine the strength of all the Pokémon in that unit that can use a given attack for a single target or an area of effect assault!”
The Riolu started rushing forward in unison.
“Cotton Guard…” Geoff’s wool grew and flexed into a protective barrier as the Riolu closed in on him. “Protect!”
The barrier popped up in time as all six Riolu’s struck one after the other, the barrier held up to the first two hits, the third cracked it and the fourth completely shattered it. The fifth blow hit Geoff in the gut and the sixth blow landed home in his chin in a painful looking uppercut that sent him flying up and over the cart to land on his back.
“A Wooloo… a freaking Wooloo tanked our whole units attack by himself?!” As much as the current lead Riolu was surprised, I was quite surprised that Geoff held up to most of that and looked alright. “And he’s still up, what are they feeding these normal types!”
“Well we did use a steel type moves and he was prepared for physical…” One Riolu was saying.
“Shut up!” The lead Riolu stated to that Riolu harshly. “Start using Rock Smash, they are mostly normal types!”
I think he was assuming Shanty, Dolly and me to be normal types. What would our types be actually? I think Shanty would at least count for water and I can technically use Matchstick for a single burst of flames as an attack instead of staying lit on fire. Would Dolly’s Aero even count as… oh… if it does then would that mean...
Geoff rolled back into a standing position and despite having taken some rather nasty hits he still formed up with Shanty, Jiri, Dolly and Me.
“Guys, make them group up.” I quietly stated and sent Dolly a silent message to back up and prepare to use her Aero spell at full power, she was to time it so she hit them all. If they react to it like I think they will, then we can finish this fight off with that. “When I give the signal we pull back.”
I sent Dolly a recalled memory of them being stated as being weak to 'flying type' attacks which included and was not entirely limited to ‘wind’, but wind based attacks were definitely a weakness. Dolly nodded and backed up to wait for the opening.
“Whatever you’re planning you won’t succeed, rock smash!” With a glowing fist, the Riolu struck and I blocked with both my front legs. The force from the blow threatened to topple me like it had Dolly as I skidded backwards.
Geoff dodged backwards as two Riolu launched rock smash attacks at him and he took some bits of stone from the bridge that were sent flying from the attacks.
Jiri launched a Quick Attack that staggered one Riolu before it could get off an attack and lost its glowing fist, then she hopped back and avoided the second one slamming down and sending chips of stone pelting at us.
Shanty lured the remaining Riolu forward while slashing at them with wide arcing cuts as she backed away.
“Retreat!” I called and we all turned and ran.
“Yeah, that’s how we Riolu do it, we’re a lot stronger than you think we…?!” The male Riolu paused when he saw Dolly holding up her right paw with a glowing green band of wind hovering around it. “Wait, what move is…”
“Aero!” The immediate results was the entire group of Riolu being devastated by an explosion of green swirling wind that lifted all of them and two other unconscious Riolu and sent them launching towards the far end of the bridge in a single powerful blast.
“Whoa… that was a pretty powerful flying type attack.” Jiri stated in awe as she looked towards Dolly. “Are you sure you guys are not Pokémon, because that was pretty impressive if you’re not.”
“Do we have anything to detain the Riolu with?” I stated as I motioned for Geoff to hitch up to the cart and start pulling it quickly. We gathered up the various unconscious Riolu as we made our way towards the end of the bridge.
After my first step onto the grass of Greenleaf, I quickly leapt back and barely avoided an arrow that looked to be made of a feather that struck where my heart was a second ago. It created a three foot wide hole in the ground upon impact.
I looked up at the glaring, green cloaked, large owl creature with a bow. It seemed surprised that I was staring it right in the eyes and its beak grew firm, it quickly leapt off and away into some fog where it disappeared.
If things were this hostile already, how badly would the negotiations for the medicine go?