-???, Oleander-
“You’re a good kid Lincoln, though I wouldn’t go actively looking for magic, you certainly have enough of that with a family of ten unique sisters already.” I stated as sipped away at my tea. “... I’m not saying you can’t do actual magic as a stage magician. I’ll even throw you a small hint on that at least, learn to speak backwards... you’ll be amazed with the results.”
“Thanks for the worship Lucy!” Fred stated amiably to a dark haired biped. “You’re creepy little sister Lucy Loud is going to be an interesting acolyte to keep up with.”
“Terribly sorry about my fiancé ‘trying’ to 'completely' corrupt one of your sisters.” I followed up a second later.
“Is Lucy going to lose her soul?” Lincoln asked worriedly.
“She better not.” I stated sternly while looking flatly at Fred, he just innocently floated next to me. After a moment he simply blushed under my intense scrutiny.
“Yay, weirdest my dreams come true, I got to make a designer jacket for a unicorn!” Leni, one of Lincoln’s sisters stated with glee as she somehow managed to talk a short ride out of Buttina. “I also guess riding one is great too!”
“I’m actually a Pandoran Bicorn, but that doesn’t really matter too much.” Buttina apparently liked one of the older sisters Leni, it wasn’t just because Leni had a good taste in fashion either. The new black jacket looked quite fitting on the diamond bodied horse too.
“Well this is one no one is ever going to believe, they barely even believe the whole dragon thing.” The white haired Lincoln said while hearing that everything his sister was into had some truth to it. Even if it was slightly off by at least fifteen degrees, metaphorically speaking of course.
-Pokémon World, Ransei Region, early evening, Three Borders Valley, south of eastern Chrysalia, Quetal-
“Okay, I think we need to discuss the Cufant in the wagon.” I stated while continuing my vigilance in watching our surroundings from behind. I didn’t think Pugilis would attack us, I was more worried about a Ground Type from Terrera possibly ambushing us from below.
Didn’t seem like we were facing any trouble from the south and the north seemed clear.
“Really, why do we need to talk about me?” We all blinked and turned to the fact that there was an actual Cufant hanging onto the back of the wagon. “I thought I was being rather unobtrusive.”
Wait, how long had he been there and I didn’t even notice him?!
The small copper bodied Steel Type elephant with splotches of green, from where it rained on him, looked at us curiously.
“I wasn’t exactly talking about you, I was using a turn of phrase, but now that you’ve brought yourself up… what are you doing on the back of the wagon?” I crossed my arms and glared at the Cufant.
“I’m catching a ride to Chrysalia obviously, I saw your wagon turning north at the crossroads. You haven’t turned right into the Terrera’s desert yet, so you’re still going my way and it didn’t seem like you would be too troubled by my presence.” The Cufant was certainly quite an orator, he was also entirely unfazed by a wagon full of Pokémon that could beat the snot out of him… especially Dazzle if she slapped him with a Fire Lash. “I’m going to buy me some honey from the Bug Types when I get there, heard they had some really sweet cuisine too!”
“Yep honey is what Chrysalia is known for when it comes to visitors… not that we get many what with our territorial and insular mindsets sometimes. We do get a lot of visitors from Violight and vice versa considering our two kingdoms history of companionship.” One could easily guess why Charjabug was wanting to talk avid traveler. “Are you all the way from Valora?”
“Oh yes, some strange things have been popping up all over the place and causing havoc there. I decided to travel to safer climates what with war also popping up all over the eastern side of the continent out of nowhere.” Well at least thanks to Cufant, we now knew more of what was going on in Jeanne’s neck of the woods. “Somehow Valora hasn’t been dragged into a war with any other kingdom, but like Nixtorm we’re having internal issues and I’m surprised that every other eastern nation is too busy squabbling to bother the Steel or Ice Type kingdoms. Kind of surprised about Cragspur attacking Terrera though, Terrera has all the advantages against Cragspur and yet the rock types seem a bit insistent on attacking the underground kingdoms.”
“Nice to know the movements of things in the world and we’ll thank you for the information Cufant, but I wanted to address the change in attitude around Pom and her group before I was interrupted.” We were barely within the entrance of Three Border Valley, the valley that connected Chrysalia, Terrera and Pugilis. “Pom’s girls seem… a little preoccupied with her. Any ideas on what’s causing it?”
“Whatever they talked about earlier this morning probably.” Dazzle commented as she looked towards the front of the large wagon where Dolly, Dodo, Shanty, Smolder and Ocellus were all acting a little odd around Pom. “They are kind of watching her kind of closely.”
Dodo, not having to slow down for anyone walking alongside the wagon, was pulling us all along at quite a good bit of speed. We’d probably make it into eastern Chrysalia where we’d likely settle down and camp with the border guards, before setting out for Illusio the next day to investigate with the Beedrill unit.
“Well… while it is concerning, it seems they are doing it out of worry for Pom. She might have a terminal illness or something.” No, it couldn’t be that Shine, a terminal illness would have them all be paler or more sorrowful. They were acting more, ‘careful’, that’s the word I would use.
Given what the Cufant meant by strange creatures attacking Valora, then could they be something like what Frizzle and Sami are? Both curious and worryingly strange creatures, but not currently an immediate problem to focus on.
“I don’t think it’s a terminal illness, but Lit seems just as concerned all the same.” My comment was meant by everyone looking at the fuzzy little Bug Type staring worriedly at Dolly.
“At least Pom seems to have regained some of her spark, but there is still a hollowness to her that I aim to help, maybe a nice snack?” Mundo held up a churro and it was quickly snatched from his right claw, by Frizzle’s upper half popping out of the device at Dazzle’s hip and then she ducked straight back into it. “My does that one certainly appreciate her baked goods!”
“Frizzle needs a lot of energy… and she’s sadly addicted to bread and apparently donuts now too thanks to you Mundo.” Responded Dazzle quietly, before she looked through the wagon.
It was a little tight, but we managed to fit everyone inside. With plenty of supplies for how fast Dodo could pull us all.
“Do you think Shanty would tell me what’s wrong?” It was just a curiosity on Favela’s part, she was like a sister to Shanty and she wanted to know what’s wrong. To be fair to Favela, we all did.
“In time, we’re all probably going to hear what’s…” My eyes widened at something as I looked out the front of the wagon. “Grab hold of something!”
It was unfortunate for me that my species didn’t have opposable claws and I wasn’t about to dig my claws into the wagons wood or its cloth covering. We weren’t going to be around Bidoof for quite a while.
Dodo let out a startled sound as he lunged to the right, lifting and moving the entirety of the wagon with an incredible show of strength. This almost made me fall out of the back of the wagon as a massive boulder bounced off the ground leaving a crater to the left.
Thankfully Canard grabbed me and got a got good grip on the back edge of the wagon and the Cufant helped me back in with it’s trunk as the massive boulder, that could have crushed us all, created several more craters as it bounced and rolled along the valley trail behind us.
“I believe that that has garnered your attention, I am Gilgamesh. I know… amazing right? No need for applause, adulation or even worship, if you want an autograph… eh… maybe if you live through this.” Said a smiling ghostly horned imp with floating detached arms. He looked like the Legendary Pokémon Hoopa, only he came in a golden color. There was also something quite demented about him. “Before you waste my time along with your energy, I’m not actually here, I’m just projecting my image to where you are. So listen up, I want to play a little game with all of you… it’s called ‘Natural Disaster’. The aim of the game is to simply this, survive until I get what I came for and leave, that’s all.”
I did not like this guys demented tone and if he truly had the power of a Legendary Pokémon… well we were about to find out if he could make good on his threat of causing a natural disaster. Wasn’t Hoopa know specifically for spatial manipulation? How dangerous could that actually be?
Hundreds of portals opened up around the wagon, all of them filled with weapons. Axes, spears, swords, arrows and far more, there were thousands of weapons now currently aimed at us.
“Guys, he actually has the real Hoopa’s capabilities.” Not something anyone among us wanted to hear, but I thought it needed to be said.
Who knows why this portal generating mad monstrosity was about to mulch us.
-Pom-
Yep, don’t know what we did to deserve this, but it was certainly going to be a thing.
“Gates of Babylon…” With flick of his right hand the Gold Hoopa Gilgamesh sent all the weapons flying at us from all sides.
“Unit command, Beehive Barrier!” The Beedrill leader stated and his entire unit quickly flew out.
Suddenly the dome of hexagons surrounding us was ready, just in time too as the barrier started taking hundreds of weapons. Thousands of impacts were striking the barrier that the six giant bees were putting up to protect us, it was kind of like watching Geoff’s unit put up a defense.
I got out of the wagon personally to aid in the defense when it became necessary.
It was barely thirty seconds under the constant sound of weapons impacting the barrier that it started cracking and breaking.
“Prepare unit command, Pin Projectile Parrying, on my mark!” The Beedrill leader shouted as his team started to struggle under the strain of the barrier about to break apart. “Pick your area of cover, protecting lives is priority! Current mode of transport is secondary, divert anything that’ll hit us or our allies directly first!”
“Roger!” The five other Beedrill stated as their pointed lance arms started to build up a glow.
“Barrier is about to be breeched, drop in three… two… mark! Unit command, Pin Projectile Parrying!” The barrier protecting us blew apart, but that didn’t mean were defenseless against all the weapon raining down at us from all sides.
All six Beedrill started to rapidly stab out projectile in the form of energy spikes in the shape of their lance arms, efficiently deflecting hundreds per every projectile they fire. I even fired a few Thousand Spears and saw some similarities, except they had more direct control of their attacks and how they changed direction shortly after firing.
Whatever they couldn’t stop we would have to deflect away from destroying the wagon, Ocellus had already unhitched Dodo and he was creating cutting arcs like Shanty with rapid swipes of his wings and beak. I guess Shanty learned to share her abilities with Dodo as she was on top of the wagon deflecting axes, spears… a halberd, a flail?
I quickly lashed out a hoof to knock a weapon upwards and caught a very decently made spear before it could hit Ocellus and twirled it in my hooves to deflect two knives with two swings and continued to deflect a following barrage of spinning axes, canes, swords and more with the tip of my spear rapidly stabbing out to block the bladed weapons raining on us.
How many weapons was this guy going to throw at us?! I used the tip of the spear to deflect a morning star away from hitting the slightly fearful Cleffa and Canard took to wielding a large headed axe as an actively shield. It was too large for Canard to wield, he was just holding the giant axe by its head since it was big enough to block with.
Even Dazzle was deflecting weapons with two whips of flame working up a swirling ribbon pattern, probably learned from watching Smolder practice ribbon dancing, she was making completely sure to avoid aiming her Fire Lash whips anywhere near the Beedrill.
After a solid minute, it stopped raining weapons at lethal velocity on us. The Beedrill looked somewhat exhausted.
“Hmmm… bored of raining on your parade now… how about we heat things up?” Feeling heat to my right, I turned as a circle formed in the air and stream of molten lava shot right at me.
“Pom!” I was pushed away Dazzle took a volcanic blast of molten rock to the face, for very little in the way of looking pained or hurt for having taken thousands of degrees of hot magma to the face.
Oh right Dazzle was a Fire Type, heat wasn’t an issue. Apparently it did hurt somewhat given the rock part of the ‘molten rock’, but the heat didn’t cause her any discomfort or melted her alive. She had thankfully thought to toss her belt to Frizzle or else her Digivice would be under a lot of duress.
Another stream and Smolder redirected the stream of molten rock at the ground physically with her body, mostly by flying right into it and pushing the stream away from us.
Several more portals with molten magma opened around us in all directions.
“Aerora!” Dolly screamed and swirling silver winds protected us from balls of magma and streams of lava impacting us from all sides from all side.
The winds directed the heat away from us, instantly cooling off the lava and the air became freezing cold for a few seconds as the shifting air pressures just made Dolly’s protective magic all the more powerful.
Now the wagon was surrounded by a masses and splotches of quickly cooling lava that was becoming jagged rock all over the ground around us.
“Ooh… was that too hot to handle, how about I cool you off a little?” Okay this Gilgamesh guy was getting on my nerves, how far away could he be that he could be attacking us this easily? “Some water from the bottom of the ocean should do, it’ll definitely put all that heat under pressure.”
A powerful jet of water blasted Dazzle and she was taken down immediately, even with the wind barrier absorbing the impact of the sudden blasts of water alternating all around us pummeling us with Hydro Pump level streams worth of water.
Frizzle hopped out and quickly retrieved Dazzle, the water struck her a few times, but she seemed to be far less affected by it. Most likely because there wasn’t any Pokémon dimensional energy actually involved in these attacks, the energy was definitely around the portals forming all over the place.
The wind barrier around the wagon and each of us individually held up fairly well to the immense amount of water we were being pounded with. The blunt force blows didn’t bother me so much as the brine trying to painfully seep into my pores and any injuries or scars that haven’t sealed up.
“We need to do something, we’re getting absolutely hammered here!” A female Beedrill stated as four of their team were down.
“I kind of wish I could be getting hammered, you try having so many horrible memories you can’t be getting rid of!” Shanty said as she suddenly started redirecting all the blasts of water to circle around her and away from our friends, she had help from the wind barriers in keeping control of all the water and directing it away from pounding us into the ground.
Shanty leapt off the wagon and kept drawing the massive amounts of water to herself and sent it flying to the north, to harmlessly splash and spray against the ground along the path.
“Hehaha… ooh… you didn’t like becoming soaked? I’m so-sorry-.” A massive portal opened above all our heads and we stared in horror as multiple cracks of thunder and lightning sounded out. With a single gesture from Gilgamesh a massive amount of clouds loaded with lightning appeared in the portals above us and said lightning was about to slam down on all of us, especially when we were all currently wet. “Those wind barriers of yours are mildly bothersome and since you’re all wet… let me show you something absolutely shocking!”
We were about to be bombarded by lightning from above any second now and it seemed like it was coming from… Violight? How far did this guy’s reach go? Aurora?!
Something connected in my head in an instant, something that could move a thousand ton Pokémon like that sleeping Snorlax, the information we got from Shanty dredging the river and the Cubone that had been there. This guy, he has had it out for me since he destroyed the bridge in Aurora...
“You’re the one that destroyed the bridge between Greenleaf and Aurora!” I accused.
“Correct, give the lady a prize, I do recall having some fun on that day.” Gilgamesh stated with a gleeful widening of his grin as the lightning fell. “Goodbye now.”
The attack was stopped when Lit squeaked loudly and the lightning redirected towards him. Lit was using his own body as a lightning rod to take the hundreds of lightning strikes, alongside that he had covered the wagon in Electroweb and connected multiple strings of silk to the ground. Whatever Lit couldn’t eat, he safely grounded by directing the excess energy into the webbing. Lit may not be the brightest being around mentally, but he was fairly intelligent about how his own element worked.
“Oh my, how clever for something so very small… not a gnat at all, but quite the nuisance.” Says the grinning nuisance known as Gilgamesh, as the lightning barrage stopped. “How about quick quiz, what’s cold and miserable? Hmm-hmm… are you going freeze up when it comes to answering the question now?”
With a flick of the left hand, the grinning demon suddenly caused us to be buffeted by freezing cold winds of a howling blizzard and that was last Beedrill swiftly going down. The leader couldn’t take the strain of being hit with so much cold and having his wings frozen solid, he flopped onto the ground and struggled to stay awake by propping himself up on his lances.
Dolly’s wind barriers were doing nothing to stop the onslaught of freezing winds, her protective winds even seemed to be encouraging the ice creeping up all over the bodies of those who were wet and exposed to the elements.
To my horror Lit and Shanty were also just basically flash frozen alive, Dodo warbled in a panic over Shanty’s frozen form even as his body started to frost over too. Favela was shivering and looking to be freezing up nearly as much and her shivering was rapidly slowing down, all the sudden rapid changes in temperatures couldn’t be healthy for the plant goat.
I too felt my body slowly freezing solid from all the water that had soaked into my wool, I flexed my wool and sprayed the water from around my body to create a small circular wall of ice around me to get some reprieve from the blizzard as I crouched behind it. Tightening my wool, my warmth quickly returned to me as I propped myself up on the commandeered spear.
Once got into a standing position, I saw exactly what this grinning menace was going to do to us next and a chill ran down my spine.
The only other ones who seemed unaffected by the cold were Dolly, Canard, Quetal and Cleffa. Dolly and Cleffa were the odd ones give they were small and Dolly had a thin fur covering. Canard came from a planet covered in ice so he was naturally resilient to this and Quetal was an Ice Type Pokémon so the sudden temperature drop didn’t do a thing to him as much as the temperature raising when we were being assaulted with lava.
“What is a cold reapers most favored weapon?” Asked this Gilgamesh guy in an insulting tone, with a continued and ever present demented lilt in his voice.
Multiple large portals with what looked like thousands of spikes in icy caverns were now aimed our way.
“How about a little loud noise to help you figure it out?” The image of the widely grinning Gilgamesh loudly clapped his hands together and the hundreds of icicles on the other side of the portals started falling towards us.
“Guys get the injured in the wagon, I can stop this attack!” I shouted as I hopped my way up to the top of the wagon where the electric web had already been sapped completely of its energy by the unrelenting cold.
I inhaled through my mouth and nose sharply and then let out Howl Blast, my howling wail shattered all the icicles that were about to perforate us violent. Dolly quickly leapt in front of me with her board held aloft. The crystals of ice left behind in the destruction of my voice that would have hit me were blocked and constantly battering Dolly’s board as much as the rest of the wagon.
Still a few ice chips stuck into me as I kept the howl going, my throat was quickly getting raw from the magical force I was unleashing. I could at least feel Dolly regaining her magical strength under the storm of quickly slushing ice.
As the assault ended, I gasp in air and clutched at my throat with tears in my eyes, that was just on the brink of making me voiceless again.
“Wow, what a set of lungs on you… I hope you don’t mind ‘tomb’ much if you simply just perish and save yourself the trouble of existing further.” The grinning monster spread his hands out and looking around the wagon two portals were swirling upwards creating quickly hardening walls of solidifying lava surrounded the wagon. We were becoming trapped in a large cylinder now. “I swear you’re defense could have been just a bit… meteor.”
I saw a sparkle in the sky, as the grinning image of Gilgamesh waved at me lazy.
“How about I needle you for something before that bit of bother for you ultimately comes to fruition?” A spike of rock slammed into the wagon from below, lifting it up a bit. My satchel was launched out of it by the blow, a second spike of rock hit the bag and caused something else to fly from it.
My eyes widened, with a quick inhale I lunged forward, my hoof was just about to grab it… when a glow wrapped around it and pulled the device away. The device that allowed me to contact Tianhuo… was now out of my reach as I flopped onto my chin painfully and looked up at the grinning monster.
“Word to the wise, this is mine now and you’re not getting it back.” Stated the grinning image as a circle appeared and then with a single horizontal spin of the portal, the device disappeared into it and the image was suddenly holding it. “This ultimately useless piece of junk? Yeah, I own it now as I deem it fit for my collection, barely if at that. Not that you’ll need it within the next minute anyway.”
I just stared at the image holding the device with wide eyes.
“Where are you?” I asked calmly as something roiled within me.
“Castle Illusio, which is where I am right now, you’re looking at the King of Conquerors a King above Kings that deserves everything. You were coming after me anyway, I thought I might give you some more incentive. Riches, power and anything I declare worthwhile will be mine.” He wasn’t lying, why would he. He’s so powerful that if he was attacking from all the way in Illusio, then it was completely intimidating that he could throw this much at us while treating it as if he was doing it halfheartedly. Like all his attacks weren’t even taking much effort on his part… and we haven’t even entered that kingdom’s borders! At least we knew what the problem in Illusio was, because it was definitely this Gilgamesh guy. “You’re little paltry and pitiful fun parade of a group is so quite inadequately prepared to handle the likes of me, why the threat you present to me is so minimal that I could care less that you’re going to be coming after me later on. Still it would be nice if you would just die for me… please. I so would hate to have to dirty my hands on you later.”
“Why?!” I shouted as I watched Dolly rub her paws together rapidly and then slap both sides of a frozen Lit and the little fuzzy bug immediately thawed out as the ice around him shattered strangely. Gilgamesh raised a single brow at me. “Why all of this?!”
Lit gave off a weak sounding squeak and Dolly quickly hefted him up into hug before quickly getting him into the wagon. Even Smolder and Ocellus were partially frozen and I felt Dolly moving to help them as well.
“Like that will matter to you soon… because I’m not going to spear you a moment.” A giant spike of ice burst from a portal.
“Bulldoze!” That’s when a copper elephant interrupted the ice attack with a wave of dirt and rock by stomping his front two feet into the ground creating a massive shockwave and defensive wall the absorbed the sudden attack entirely. “Why are you attacking these people, what did they ever do to you?!”
“Oh nothing… yet… but why not attack them? They are fated to become my enemies after all, dealing with them swiftly seems quite prudent and they will feel less pain if they die here now, rather than continue to even remotely struggle against me later.” This Gilgamesh’s grinning image was continuing to disturb me as his image tossed the dimensional communication device he stole around, taunting me that he had taken it so easily and that there was nothing we could do to stop him. “If I can take care of them here and now, or at least warn them off from dying a thankless death for trying to bother ‘my’ kingdom. That’s one less problem for me to ultimately deal with. Also… piano.”
“Pia… PIANO?!” I managed to roll to the side to avoid the piano that crashed into the ground with a thunderous noise that sent bits of broken wire, wood and ceramics flying everywhere.
“Maybe I should have used the anvil first, it would have traveled faster…” Gilgamesh actually looked like he was considering it for a moment, this guy was unbelievable! “We’re heading for a meteoric climax and here I am getting quite lazy in my attempts to end you. You are quite a boring if unusually tenacious adversary when it comes to clinging to life… you’d even be more of a challenge than Cu Chulainn up close and personal, but why even give you the opportunity? You don’t deserved to see me in person in the first place!”
There was a loud whistling noise coming from above me as the wind barriers all winked out of existence at the same time.
“Ally Switch!” At the sound of Shine’s voice I was suddenly in the wagon and Shine was actively phasing her way out of the anvil that had hit the ground with a loud clang. It had landed right where I had been standing a half second ago. “Be more careful Pom, ugh all this cold… is making feel so slow.”
I looked up to the sky and saw the massive amount of burning stone hurtling at us at high speeds.
“Be a little lamb and fleece, save yourself, leave your friends to their fates. You can easily escape with the time you have left.” Listening to Gilgamesh trying to call me a coward, I just started shaking my head in distaste and I quietly sat down staring at him. “Not running? Then I hope you won’t mind you’re inevitable and unenvious demise, for it’ll be quite a crushing defeat.”
“Can you please stop it with all the puns already?” My bland tone made him flinch, I had to find the frequency of the mass coming at me or else the wagon was doomed. I would lose my voice again… but it was a worthy cause. “I know you’re some ego tripping, godly powered, monster that wants me dead, but the puns are entirely grating and beyond the pale.”
The massive meteoric hurtling death orb was growing closer by the second. Dodo warbled worriedly as he stared up at the massive rock coming down on us.
I prepared my throat to start growling up a Bark Breaker frequency, then had to dodge a bolt of lightning that forced me to exhale.
“Nope, you’re not breaking my last attack just like that. Like I’ll just sit here and let you do something to stop it, it would ruin the dramatic moment where I get my total victory and won’t have to pay you any attention later.” Closing his eyes and crossing his arms, Gilgamesh started laughing. “Since you’ll be dead tired after all of this…”
I had to dodge several icicles and twirled the spear in a stylish flourish to deflect all of the others, I was too distracted by Gilgamesh to really do anything about the meteor that was about to strike us.
A lightning bolt suddenly struck me from the side.
“Aghhh-gg—g-g-…” I fell down and looked up at the smiling image with gritted teeth, he quickly started spraying me with water and cold icy winds to start freezing me in place. Until I couldn’t move.
“Hmm… if I hollow out the meteor, it’ll make a nice novelty sized snow globe…” Gilgamesh wasn’t even paying attention to us anymore. “Keep the spear if you live through this, doubt you will though.”
“Solar Beam… rraaggggghhhhhh!” Cleffa? Wow, that was a pretty powerful attack for such a small Pokémon.
It was only slowing the meteor down, it wasn’t going to stop it or even destroy it before it hit us.
“That’s not…. going to be… enough…” I tried to yell to everyone around me.
Quetal soon joined by spitting a stream of stars, for all the good it would do to slow down the meteor coming down on us.
Ocellus surprisingly managed to get up, having been thawed out by Dolly rubbing her paws together and smacking her with them creating a sound that sounded vaguely like a defibrillator. Our Changeling friend started firing a beam of magic into the meteor, putting out as much energy as she could to the point her form began to turn black around the edges.
Lit despite how weak he was started firing off a powerful bolt of lightning, the raw amount of energy he was pouring out of his body couldn’t be healthy.
“Please, hold it off long enough and I shall take care of that meteor personally!” Lucha Mundo despite the battering was one of the healthiest looking among us, he took off into the air towards the meteor still falling at us with two quick flaps of his arms.
The Cufant started throwing large boulders into the sky and was actually managing to hit the meteor as it was getting closer and closer to us, this slowed it down immensely. Frizzle even joined in by blasting a series of fireballs at the meteor as Lucha Mundo flew up towards it.
Still too far away for me to use anything other than bark breaker for good effect, unless I thought a Thousand Spears attack would do something.
Gilgamesh made it clear he wasn’t going to let me use bark breaker, it was if he could see the future… but not quite everything.
“Time to show my stuff for this great team of traveling companions, signature move… FLYING PRESS!” We all watched as Lucha Mundo swooped for the meteor that was getting closer by the second and if he was about to do what I thought he was.
With a glowing form, Lucha Mundo slapped bodily against the meteor in a sideways belly flop with impressive force. Surprisingly his momentum plus all the attacks on our end managed to shift the meteor away from falling straight on top of us and the wagon.
It still slammed into the ground next to us tearing straight through the cylinder of solidified magma that was keeping us stuck. The rest of the cylinder shattered after the northern part of it broke away, pelting us with numerous bits of stone when the meteor crashed into it with explosive force, the resulting shockwave knocked us over, going through all of us who were not in the wagon. Some were even thrown out of the wagon by the blast wave as it was rocked backwards and upwards. The meteor was even almost blocking the path forward due to its size.
“Hmph… so you actually survived that…” Commented Gilgamesh idly waving at us lazily as the dust cleared from the desturction. “Maybe next time then, I’m sure I can think of a better game we could all play then.”
With that the image of the monster attacking us disappeared from our sight.
“That… was… just plain… nuts…” A panting wide eyed Dolly said as she hobbled her way up to my side to hug it with a good paw.
“Dodo…” My quiet voice drew our metal ostrich back to my side, he had used his body to absorb most of the shockwave from the meteor crashing into the ground. Still hadn’t been nearly enough. “Are you ready to continue? We…. need to be in Chrysalia… before night falls. We need medical help…”
“We’ll…. show him… next time… won’t we?” Trying to keep a chipper tone, Dolly was leaning in to me to stay upright.
“Dolly… look around you… he was just toying with us.” From what I knew, that monster damn near wiped us out without actually ever being present and wasn’t actively trying all too hard to kill us. “If he really wanted to, he could have easily finished us all off.”
“I’m okay… Cupcakes, Laughter, Loyalty and Honesty… no that…. doesn’t sound quite right…” Lucha Mundo flopped over onto his face near us looking scorched and painfully battered.
I sighed and hauled Lucha Mundo back towards the wagon, he really slammed himself into the meteor quite hard to save us.
After getting the bipedal bird situated, I sat in front of the meteor to stare at it.
“Pom…” Yes Ocellus? She limped up to me with parts of her form having turned black, Smolder hugged her and the black started slowly receding. “The device…”
She was at a loss for words and so was I as my throat was still recovering from holding a magically enhanced howl for so long.
Gilgamesh intended to demoralize us completely, he succeeded, but that wasn't going to stop me from going after him even if I had to do so alone.
-Ocellus-
I saw something red spark in Pom’s right eye as it twitched slightly, she sat there staring at the meteor that was stuck sitting in the divot it was now stuck in. We could squeeze around it.
He eyes still had that light amount of hollowness a second ago, now… now they were vibrantly and dangerously filled with life and her emotions were burning as brightly as the life in her eyes.
“BAA…” The valley shook.
“RAM…” The region quaked.
“EWE!” The world could hear Pom’s anger loud and clear as she just declared war on that Gilgamesh guy.
I shivered as I stared at the meteor, the massive hunk of rock that it was, had been split into two halves and then those halves safely shattered to pieces under the force of Pom just shouting at it in fury. None of the pieces even came close to hitting anyone.
Pom was quite quiet after that just sitting there and staring at the cleared pathway, she just threw out her voice didn’t she?
It wasn’t hard to tell she was quite livid about having the device, that let her communicate with her wife, stolen from her.
All that fury quickly disappeared a second later, confusing me to no end. There was frustration, worry, the massive amount of anxiety that has more explanations than ever and… a deep rooted love for us? That Gilgamesh had endangered us and that was what Pom was most angry about.
“Ocellus… start seeing to everyone’s injuries with Smolder… we need to be meet the Chrysalia border guard before night falls.” Pom quietly stated in a quiet, highly raspy tone, then went to help Dolly with reviving Shanty.
My eyes stared at her in surprise, she stopped just short of ruining her vocal chords. Where there was once dullness was now a burning resolve as what we just went through lit a quiet, if incredibly powerful, fire inside of Pom.
Did she know exactly how much she could sacrifice her voice to do what she just did in clearing the way so we didn’t have to squeeze by the meteor?
I blinked and saw Cleffa, the small Pokémon, picking up a piece of rock with a smiling face before getting back in the wagon, I wonder why she was so happy about a rock that came from the meteor? She was almost the healthiest among us at this point.
-A few hours later, nighttime, Eastern Chrysalia Outpost, Pom-
“That’s what happened.” Smolder stated and the strange spider like bug nodded to us.
“Then we are clearly at war with Illusio, but not openly quite yet.” That was understandable General Ariados, you needed some time to inform your people. Gilgamesh took out the Beedrill reconnaissance team, injured most of my friends and then took something important to me as if it was all a walk in the park for him. “We still need a recon unit to scout around a bit to confirm the trouble, this is why we’re asking for outsiders or at least another kingdoms help. At least we know what the threat is now… a Golden Hoopa named Gilgamesh.”
I was resting my throat, I had almost pushed it too far, but that’s probably what Gilgamesh had wanted. He wasn’t getting the satisfaction if it was. He seemed like the kind of guy that wanted someone to suffer because he easily made them angry. Well I stopped short of damaging my voice permanently, my throat needed all the time in the world to heal and the cold tea offered by the bug types was quite soothing, honey based and it was helping my nerves quite a bit.
Gilgamesh had injured absolutely everyone, the Beedrill unit were going to be swapped out with an Ariados unit. An Ariados was a colorful red or purple four legged spider like Pokémon with horns on their foreheads and pincers for mouths. Apparently they evolved from the small green or blue six legged Spinarak Pokémon, the evolution turning two of their back legs into something like moveable antenna. While they had a strong resemblance to spiders in appearance and movements, I silently noted that they weren’t actually arachnids.
Glancing at Ocellus, she came to the same conclusion noting down something about Bug Types in a journal. Apparently the Bug Types liked and were quite welcoming of Ocellus, maybe because they could feel her bug like nature.
We were soon provided the best medical supplies the Chrysalia eastern border defense units could quickly muster up and provide. The knowledge and danger of a Legendary Pokémon level threat had put them all on high alert, with good reason too. We were all eventually bandaged up in some String Shot silk even Lit needed some around his four tiny limbs and body.
Quite a few of the Bug Types here suggested we wait for the specialist Morpeko unit from Violight to show up before even thinking of going into Illusio. We needed Dark Type backup before even trying as they could naturally generate what Ocellus likened to an anti-scrying field where Psychic Types would have problems finding us, they would also counter illusions or mental attacks. The exception being that they couldn't counter someone of Gilgamesh's caliber entirely.
“Thanks for the wild ride and sorry about ditching you here, but I have to get going. If we ever meet again and provided you survive that complete psycho, I’m Heffalump, but you can call me Lumpy!” The Steel Type called a Cufant stated cheerfully while waving his trunk at us, apparently his name was Lumpy. He started to walk off towards the western path leading into Chrysalia proper. “Oh and if you see anyone calling themselves Woozle… please send them my way would you? That guys my best friend, I’ll be in Chrysalia for quite a while until I hear things blow over in Valora.”
With that, Lumpy flicked a bindle over his shoulder with his trunk and started to walk off.