-Equus, Airship Mauled, Sekhet’s Pyramid, Silver Stream-
“Oh great and mighty…” I started to say only to be cut off.
“Let me guess, you want a training regimen and some way to fight?” Yes, but how did she know that?! “Well by the look on your face, you’d be surprise I already wrote one up for you. You’re friend Gallus is on one my physical education programs and is working with Fizzlepop to fulfill it, he’ll be a far sight better than some of the royal guards running around Equestria. I’m the best PE coach of the local schools here and you are not the first among your friends to come visit me for help. You know about the whole Tambelon thing, so they came to me weeks ago. So what were you doing in that time?”
“Well I was busy earning my ‘stoning-birb’ license.” I admitted shyly. “So… I’m finally here about helping my friends.”
“Ah, a cockatrice wrangler, interesting thing to have as a professional license for. Less dangerous than basilisk wrangling at the very least.” There was no amusement in Sekhet’s voice, this was much nicer than her busting a gut like a few of my friends did. Still so embarrassed about that. “How do you feel about archery?”
“Nothing particularly, though there are plenty in the hippogriff navy who do it and I know Crystal Ponies have ice arrows, why?” I received a grin from large purple kitty as she brought her face up to mine, I was quite nervous about this.
“Well Yona is learning to be a shield maiden, emphasis on the shield part like…” Here Sekhet paused and looked about with a sly grin before whispering. “Fortitude.”
“I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” A distant voice shouted back.
“Yeah, that’s the stuff… I love the chicanery around here and so does my sister Bastet. Anyway Yona is quite strong for her age.” Sekhet said with a sigh. “There’s what Sandbar is working on his naturally given and magical strength, he could be a quarter of Arizona’s maximum physics breaking output if he’s kept up with his monk training. He’s going to surpass Farizona soon at the very least. So with you, I might as well give them someone with a bit of a ranged support capability if you intend to stick together. Besides we have a lot of unused arrows around since Jacky’s bow fires everything normally except actual arrows. That ‘literally the kitchen sink’ story was quite an amusing one from last week. So what do you say?”
“Can they be blunted arrows?” I really didn’t like the idea of hurting people.
“They can have aerodynamically challenging boxing gloves on them for all I care, how you want to use the archery skills I have to teach is up to you. I’m just pointing out it might be something you’d be interested in learning. I am also offering crossbow, bomb making and Kuril has been considering potion classes.” So Sekhet was going to help me? I gave a happy squeal and hugged her left leg. “Besides, you have some catching up to do with your friends training efforts and archery isn’t exactly too hard to pick up. Just a reminder, I can teach anyone how to fight how they want to fight. Before that, would you answer these riddles three… first, what is your name?”
“Silver Stream.” Didn’t she know that already?
“What is your favorite color?” Okay this didn’t seem too hard.
“Blue…” I blushed and thought about Gallus.
“What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” Oh… that was a little more difficult Sekhet.
“Depends, is it a Zebrican or Ornithianian swallow?” I ask back.
“Good, we can even begin training now… I hope you don’t mind pain, being emotionally traumatized and physical soreness.” With what Sekhet just said, I’m feeling like I’ve just made a huge mistake. “So what kind of training do you want?”
Wait a minute… I didn’t even answer the last question!
-Pokémon World, news of movements within the Ransei region-
King Evan is still in Greenleaf discussing what to do with Hideyoshi among other things.
Ignis has become a neutral territory and inactive until the Hideyoshi trial passes, currently actively asking for merchant food supplies in trade for equipment. Aurora is stepping up to supply the relief efforts.
Maiden Jig is helping the troops of Aurora recover and is preparing them for the next inevitable crisis. Cleric Geoff’s unit is watching the northern bridge with supplementary support from the Rockruff brothers.
Violight is gearing up for a fight from an alternate dimension if the Digimon world proves to be volatile enemies. The kingdom is also prepared to defend itself in the case eastern aggressors.
Professor Pong continues to research and befriend Calumon and his Digibot guardian Sideline.
The various factions within Viperia are too busy defending attacks from the south to send out scouts to the western Ransei to look for Dazzle. Viperia is also watching Cragspur, Avia and Spectra in case they are to be attacked from the north.
They do not know Dazzle has recently become a Salazzle due to an incident with a sewer within the neighboring Digital Realm.
Nixtorm continues to suffer constant attacks from Skull Chaosdramon X, but are managing to hold and keep the monstrous force of nature somewhat contained. Most of their attacks are at least proving to be effective at slowing down the soulless rampage machine, they are vulnerable to attacks from the east. Thankfully no one is biting at their backsides.
Illusio is being fairly quiet and several kingdoms are determined to find out why with spies.
The fighting is fierce between ghost kingdom Spectra and dragon kingdom Dragnor, Dragnor is also sending small raid groups into Avia.
The Rock kingdom of Cragspur continues to attack Terrera confusing every Pokémon who is aware of the situation.
Valora is currently ‘VERY BUSY’, too much so to worry about anything else going on. The distractions in Illusio, Nixtorm and the fighting of the eastern Ransei kingdoms is making what is happening in Valora go mostly unnoticed.
The digital realms are turtling up to the best of its capabilities and is trying to prevent a mostly genocidal super computer from getting access to the digital world and destroying it for its information. However some information of the digital realms is escaping into reality and Pokémon are becoming aware of the existence of Digimon as a possible threat.
-Ransei Region, Illusio, Dolly-
“Has anyone had any hallucinations since we left the north and south sign post?” There were a lot of negatives flying around at Pom’s question. Pom sighed audibly. “Okay, that’s good.”
“We used up a lot of energy for our Dark Pulsar attack, but we got the field we generate back up and you shouldn’t be having any problem with the ambient psychic energy in this region as long as we’re nearby.” That means were safe for the time being, these More Peckish guys were cool. “As for active psychic energy from a Pokémon, well we Dark Types and Shedinja are immune, but the rest of you would need to be more active.”
“Oh trust me, I’m quite good in dodging attacks.” With how fast you were Ninja Question, it was ‘probably’ a good thing you were around to draw fire away from us. Likely wouldn’t help with ‘Gills and Mesh’ though.
Dodo warbled something drawing our attention to him.
“I believe he be seeing Kadabraville… but I don’t be seeing it personally.” We were getting fairly close to the mountainous terrain so that was bound to happen Shanty.
Pom got up and pulled out the map and spread it on the floor. I got up and moved over to put my two paws on it to keep it from rolling back up without prompting.
“Shanty, tell Dodo to approach and stop a fair distance away like a mile or two.” Pom pointed out the spot on the map as to where we approximately were and marked it with some charcoal. We all looked down on it. “So I know the northern and southern paths create a large circle that covers all the outer edges of Illusio, but why aren’t there any marked paths leading to the inner mountainous regions of Illusio?”
“That’s because the mountains and hills of inner Illusio are all relatively forested and it’s hard to find any paths. Mostly because Psychic Types don’t need them, they can probably make pathways out of psychic energy that only others like them could follow.” Fleece didn’t seem to know much about the country, the fluffy dog somehow grated on me. “The outer Illusio circle pathway is considered mostly safe for travelers, provided someone helps them if they get stuck and before they run out of supplies like that Woozle guy and I did. We were stuck foraging together for a good while. Most people prefer to go through Terrera’s desert or underground road tunnels leading across their territory to get to the eastern or western side of the Ransei. Said tunnels are likely closed off what with all the fighting going on with Cragspur.”
Dodo eventually came to a stop not too long afterwards, he turned to warble something to Shanty.
“We’re being in visual range, or at least I think Dodo be trying to say that.” Looking where Shanty and Dodo were, I didn’t see anything.
“Hmm… how come I don’t see anything then?” Quetal mumbled with his arms crossed as he was staring at the very much empty space where there was supposedly supposed to be a town.
“Dolly, can you go check out the direction Dodo is looking in, I want to know if you’ll see something if you get far enough from the wagon.” Nodding to Pom, I put my helmet on for safety and hopped out of the wagon to start running in the direction Dodo was looking.
I love the exercise and the smells around here were certainly interesting to say the least, kind of smells like foxes.
So this village or place we’re looking for should be out this way at the base of a mountain, hill or plateau. So why could the guys that state they are immune to the stuff going on here not see it? If it even is out… here?! Whoa!
“Pom… are you seeing this?” I asked blankly as I got far enough from the wagon my mind might be under some odd effects, but from what I’m seeing a ghost town popped up out of nowhere.
Pom called for me to wait and the wagon started approaching my position, that’s when the dead ghost town disappeared and I told Pom to stop the wagon. Must be close enough to those foul mouthed hamsters that my mind was not being affected, because now I was seeing a fairly average town with some life in it instead of a dilapidated mess.
All this mental stuff was really weird, kind of reminds me of the time I was drugged by mom so they could put a cast on my leg when I broke it skateboarding. You really see a lot of things when you’re on pain killers.
Pom asked me to start backing away for some reason, I started to do so while keeping my eyes on the town, at least up until it disappeared from sight entirely. I blinked in confusion.
That’s when I took a few steps forward and then a few steps back and blinked as the town appeared and disappeared. It continued to do so as I stepped forward and hopped backwards several times.
I took a seat when Pom told me to wait for them, apparently the Bug Types could somewhat see through what was going on here.
Eventually the wagon arrived next to me and Key-lull looked around at the air for a bit before taking a few steps forward.
“Hmph… then that explains it.” Grunted out Key-fall as he motioned the wagon forward, I hopped aboard and he walked forward. “They don’t need to affect our minds if they can make the town appear to be invisible with enough concentrated energy to change what we’re seeing visually from a certain distance away with a thin bubble of power, they are still doing the mental manipulations much closer to the town if the visual barrier doesn’t stop anyone from getting through it. Dodo must have seen through the psychic energies physically distorting the air to make it appear that there is nothing there… even to a Dark Type.”
“Okay, anyone else disturbed that Psychic Types can still have tricks that would fool our senses even if they can’t have an effect on our minds?” The leader of the funky hamsters stated.
“Didn’t fool our eyes nearly as much, the way the light bends around the area was quite off, also the differences in silhouettes and shadows is also fairly noticeable once you know what you’re looking for.” One of the scuba bugs with the bubble heads said while looking out the front of the wagon. “We’re not immune like a Dark Type, but we easily noticed the distortions in the air. Probably would have had some problems with psychic effects that make the town seem abandoned and not worth visiting personally.”
“We’re going to need to keep all of our senses and heads in gear apparently, Illusio might drive us all insane before we’re all through with this kingdom.” The dry delivery of your thoughts could use a little work Pom, yes I know it wasn’t supposed to be a joke but we kind of need more good cheer around here. “Get going Dodo, we’ll want to carefully park ourselves outside of town, then we’ll try to ask around for information… if anyone is even willing to give it.”
-Twenty minutes of slow approach later-
“So boring.” I grunted.
“Dolly, we’re literally in the territory of a mad god like entity that can attack us from half a continent away from inside a floating castle. He knew we were coming and would eventually become a problem for him. I still aim to be at least something of a thorn in his side even if we all know we can’t deal with him personally.” Pom hopped out of the wagon and I soon followed. “We’re being careful here for a reason. Okay everyone, set up, we’re leaving at least two or three Morpekos here. I don’t want any more stuff to be stolen from us, like our limited food supplies.”
“I’m pretty sure everyone here is less than comfortable with the idea of that happening. While we digimon don’t necessarily need food very often, I don’t want to know what Frizzle is like without her bread fix.” Sami stated as she popped out of Lumber Beaks Digivice. “So who’s going? I think we need more people at the wagon in case something goes wrong and we need to, excuse this phrase please, bug out. I’ve survived more action by having a cranked and ready vehicle waiting behind me, but not because it was ready to move, but more to the fact that it was heavily armored and able to tank a few attacks from an Ultimate Digimon.”
“Those who have some form of resistance like Pom and Dolly will be going at least, Shanty is getting half immunity from Dodo. I kind of want to go too.” The duck Picard was right that I was going, I wanted to explore this place a little bit after seeing it. “Would three Morpeko be enough to protect the wagon?”
“Yes, we’d need at least three to keep a protective field up against ambient psychic energy for you guys, but it won’t be too much of an issue to split us into teams of three.” The gentle sounding hamster leader stated, then they split up their team. I guess they only had foul mouths when they were angry. “We’ll stick here and wait for you to return, we’re here to just find information about what is going on in Illusio and will react accordingly. We’re not here to actively attack the Castle of Illusions or Gilgamesh, though we can understand your frustrations with the guy from what we’ve heard. We know a lot about frustration.”
“Right, so we’ll be taking half the Morepeko into town with us. I’ll be going since I’m generally good investigative stuff, Dolly can help with that.” You bet your snuggly form I can Pom! “I would like at least one Digimon to go with us to test a theory I have about something. So Sami, Canard, you’re up. There’s one thing I need to know, how many people can three Morpeko functionally cover?”
“As many as you need us to cover, range might be shorter, but three is enough to cover anywhere in town… provided we’re not in high end combat where we’re constantly needing to use Dark Type attacks.” With that we split off a group for an expedition into town. Enough to defend ourselves and retreat if they prove hostile.
Pom was immediately made the leader of this group and it rankled her to be made the leader, I would know as I could hear her mentally complaining about life. Like she wasn’t already the leader of Team Harmony.
Key-Tall was an immediate choice being a Dark Type, even if he tried to stay away from Dark Type or Ice Type moves. The guy still generated both types of energy far more naturally even if it was going unused in his moves.
Lit was coming too, he was my buddy and Bug Types were generally capable in a fight against Psychics.
I was coming, Pom and I could feel when the other is having our heads messed with and fend off the effects.
Smolder had to stay behind, she was affected by the psychic energy quite badly. By comparison Ocellus was given the careful go ahead to come along, though there was some worry about psychic energies possibly affecting changelings in strange ways. We kind of needed Ocellus’s ability to read people’s emotions, at least Pom thought so and wanted an idea about how the general emotions of the nearby town felt.
Shanty would stay with the wagon with Smolder and she argued about going with Pom, probably an attempt to stay near her and prevent her from doing the whole crystal malice sacrifice thing. Pom basically told her to get some exercise with Smolder or do something else while waiting, Favela decided to stick with Shanty and Smolder.
Dazzle, Shine and Mundo were left behind. Pom didn’t give a particular reason, but Mundo did point out he’s a bit of a liability in a fight with Psychic or Fairy Types and this kingdom had quite a few of those. Mundo also mentioned he have never would have gotten by the gaggle of Mr. Mime, but he would have still tried if it would help us in our endeavors.
Canned-Bard, Sami and Cleffa were coming. Pom was a bit iffy on letting Cleffa come, but she had proved herself more than a week ago when were about to be smashed with a meteor.
Ninja Question was coming along while his family member was sticking behind with the other Bug Types.
Afterwards we left the Bug Types to set up a defensive camp around the wagon while we moved out to investigate this magician place.
Charjabug decided to stay behind and was last heard asking Fleece questions about the places she’s been, thankfully Fleece didn’t do anything suspect around Pom other than getting an immediate crush on sight.
I guess it was just Poms magnetic personality for dogs, foxes and things like that.
“It’s kind of quiet… it feels like a lot of people here are sleeping.” Ocellus stated drawing our attention as we closed in on the buildings.
“Sleeping?” Asked Pom curiously as we approached the outskirts, the town seemed fairly simple and made out of brick and wood.
“About more than half the town feels like that.” Which was strange given it was still daytime out, we left pretty early and got through the pass easily enough… it wasn’t even close to lunch yet.
Even I’d be awake by this point. I would like to sleep in more, but Pom being awake wakes me up more often than not. I didn’t actually mind that one bit, even if I do miss my lazy days.
“Uh, Pom, look!” I had moved forward a bit in thought and then froze when I noticed something up with the town. There were a bunch of small brown and yellow… foxes I wanted to say, they were laying on porches, in hammocks and or just sleeping out in the sun while floating above the ground. Some were rotating in the air just like a rotisserie chicken.
Pom wandered up to one and in a shine of colorful energy it disappeared, making her blink curiously.
“I believe these are Abra, they sleep a lot and teleport all over the place randomly. We’ve confirmed that we have found Kadabraville at the very least, Abra’s are the prior form of a Kadabra and Alakazam.” Ninja Question didn’t seem perturbed that the thing just up and disappeared all of the sudden. “It’s how they practice their psychic powers. A lot of an Abra’s life is spent mostly asleep, honing their psychic powers by teleporting at least once an hour within a specific distance. Unless they know moves other than teleport, they are generally harmless as far as offensive psychic powers go. They get more active and awake when they turn into Kadabra. If half the village is made up of Abra, then we really don’t want to cause too much of a stir… um are you okay Pom?”
“Just… peachy…” Pom stated with flat half lidded eyes and covered in these Abra’s snuggling up against her in their sleep. I had only looked away for a second and now they were all over her. “Now if only I weren’t the world’s comfiest pillow for these guys.”
“Yeah, sorry about them, welcome to Kadabraville!” A bright cheerful voice followed and we all turned to the larger two spoon wielding Pokémon wearing a top hat and a tuxedo, he had a large mustache and was a much bigger version of all the Abra covering Pom. “I am the Magnificent ‘Mentalis’, magician extraordinaire! I see the Abra of Kadabraville have taken a liking to you and I’m an Alakazam!”
With a flick of his wrist right wrist he was holding a bouquet of roses out to Pom with a friendly smile, Pom took them in her one free hoof as Abra continued to teleport onto her.
“Wait did he just seriously say abra cadabra alakazam, then pull flowers out of nowhere?” Dude magicians could be cool, but this guy was given me some weird… if fun… vibes.
“That I did little D… feels like you like to do lots of ollies. So your name wouldn’t happen to be Dolly now would it?” Dude how did this Mental Licks guy know?! He chuckled audibly as he put up his spoons into pockets on his tuxedo and took a bow as he stood before us. “Oh don’t look so surprised, also it’s rather cute that you sometimes have a problem with remembering names. Cold reading isn’t too hard, also having a future or past sight of you introducing yourself to others doesn’t require me to do anything invasive in the slightest. Why it would be just poor form for a Psychic to enter a mind without permission! Too sad that it’s happening all the more around here lately what with King Gilgamesh ruining the lives and making it worryingly hard to know who to trust, how about I invite you and your friends to a show… it’s hard to get visitors what with that guy making it hard to travel around this kingdom.”
“We kind of want to talk about that…” Pom spoke up, still covered in little sleeping bipedal fox like guys.
“I kind of want a critique on my act, perhaps we could be of help to one another? I’ll give you three questions to start off with, then you let me do my act.” Taking off his top hat with his right three finger hand ending in claws and with a flick of his left he was suddenly holding a small black rod with a white tip. “Afterwards you can ask me whatever you want after you tell me what you think of it, I want an honest critique.”
“How are you doing that without using your psychic powers?” Wet Towel said after a moment while tilting his head and tapping a foot, the Sneezer was getting rather impatient with this guy.
“Now you see, that’s what makes me the Magnificent Mentalis. I don’t need my moves or powers, I’m doing things with sleight of hand and a bit little misdirection magic.” Mental Bliss apparently was good at this stuff, but I could tell he was using a little bit of power here and there. “Get that from your bond do you? Curious, but I believe your bond is as equally amazing as I am Dolly… possibly even more so considering how close you feel to your partner. Now children, please get off the nice white Wooloo like lady.”
Various bright spots of light erupted around Pom and the foxes disappear and allowed Pom to move yet she looked around when she noticed she was no long holding a bouquet. She looked up as she saw petals sprinkling around this Mental guy as he tapped his hat and the flowers fell out of it and then exploded into a rose colored cloak in a dazzling display of petals. The cloak quickly floated up and around Mental’s neck as his eyes glowed.
Mental slapped the top hat on his head and grinned at us as he struck a pose, before tapping his cape with his magic wand and changed its color from rose to black like his tuxedo.
“That’s actually… quite amazing... none of the Abra even touched the flowers, how did you…” It looked like Ocellus appreciated the act already as she started stomping her hooves, a common form of applause on Equus from what I know. “A time delayed setup perhaps?”
“Believe what you will, but you do have quite a sharp mind. I’d like to believe in my magician tricks, like I’d rather have an audience that wasn’t just skeptical, cynical or downtrodden Psychic Types. So… thank you, thank you, you’re far too kind my little bug like lass of an outsider. I always appreciate a little applause, but I hope I’m not barking up the wrong tree in that you’re here to do grand things to help us all.” Mental glanced at me and winked, I just glared at him. “Magicians also don’t readily reveal their secrets you know. If you can figure it out entirely, then props to you, as my intellect quotient is quite up there.”
“This is going to be a thing isn’t it?” Pom stated flatly. “Something really horrible is going on around here and you’re willing to help us… if we help you a little with being a stage magician.”
“Why yes my dear, you’ve hit the proverbial nail with a golem’s body as to hammer the nail all the way in with one blow, straight to the point even!” The guy should probably change his name from Mental to Flamboyant as he reached behind his back to pull out… wait, where did he even get that wooden board nail and a hammer? We all watched as he carefully smacked the nailed down into the middle of the wooden board with his hammer. I was wondering something else, where did that wand go? “First do me a small favor, make sure that this is in fact a nail hammered into a wooden board!”
“Really, I’d rather talk about the state of Illusio.” Pom tried, but Mental ignored it with a slight frown and continued to hold the board out to us.
Pom sighed loudly and then took the wooden board making Mental smile again, she checked it over pulled at the nail slightly, tapped it with a hoof and then glanced at Mental.
“Yes, things are quite dire around here milady, but I’m trying to liven up Kadabraville at least with some of my amazing performances!” He then stood tall and pointed his wand that was now suddenly in his left hand again out of nowhere. “Now pass the board back to me nail first.”
Holding out his right hand Pom pass it back to him with the nail facing him, with the wooden board held in his right hand he placed the blunt point of his magic wand against the wood and slid it along across the center of the wooden board in one solid fluid motion, making sure we couldn’t see the nail pointed at him.
The wand hadn’t hit anything as it swept out to the side after clearly crossing the center of the board.
“Oh my… it appears that the nail… is missing as much as your point!” Flipping the same board over there was now a piece of paper taped to the wooden board which said ‘humor me here’. “For want of a nail as it were.”
“Okay… I think I get it.” A wilting and lamenting Pom said as she quietly took the piece of paper and revealed… that there was no hole in the wood where the nail was hammered down. “We’ll watch your show.”
“Ooh, he’s good!” One of the Morpeko stated. “He’s not even using psychic powers or messing with your perception with said powers in the slightest.”
“Why of course not, psychic powers would make all of this far too easy. It’s not as easy to trick someone when you’re doing something right in front of them, if I were to use my powers for this then that would defeat the purpose of tricking your senses by brute forcing things. That is to say, I prefer finesse as a magician.” Huffed Mental as he crossed his arms and looked upset that it was even implied that he was using his natural given powers. He then quickly flicked his wand, in his left hand again, in a blur against the wooden board and suddenly, like that, the nail was there like it had never disappeared.
It didn’t even sound like he just nailed the nail into the wooden board, how did he just do that?
“That was but a taste from the Magnificent Mentalis!” He put the wooden board on the ground and swept his hat from his head while grinning at us, he took a bow before slapping the hat back on his head. We politely gave him some applause, he was actually pretty good. “Now you have three questions for a small show.”
“You’ll take any quite question literally, so I have to ask carefully.” There was a flat look in Pom’s eyes as Mental’s grin broadened and he nodded. Pom knew something and I wondered what that something was. She was feeling a variety of suspicions and I was picking up on it. “You just dropped us a hint with the nail and the board, an early warning even. A cleverly disguised euphemism, hidden in the form of a magic trick for one of your shows.”
“Quite perceptive.” Said the grinning brown and yellow magician fox with a nod to Pom, I noted he lacked a tail unlike all the Abra things facing in this direction while snoring softly.
Still kind of creepy that they were all somehow facing us and yet were still asleep.
“First question, what is going on in this region?” Pom asked as Mentalis took to floating in the air with his legs crossed.
“The main thing is that the last king was murdered, by quite the nasty grinning customer lucky enough to be born with legendary power no less. I’m quite sure you already know of him or you wouldn’t be here. That’s the main crux of things and the waste of your first question unless…” Mental looked Pom in the eyes, I didn’t feel a touch in our bond, but after a moment he nodded to himself as if Pom’s blank stare meant something. “No, I guess it wasn’t quite a waste then.”
“Second question, what is the Psychic Type kingdom generally or normally like?” Why was Pom asking about that? Why not ask for an idea of how to defeat Bilge-a-mess?
“Hmph… that’s a good one. In general this kingdom has the highest population of Psychic Types around, wouldn’t be the Psychic Type kingdom otherwise without psychics and the amount of ambient psychic energy around here. We also have the decidedly lowest population of any kingdom overall, make of that what you will, but you’re already possibly guessing as to the crisis going on here and it might not be as simple as you might think. Our kingdom is actually ‘of two realms’, physical and mental. We’re much stronger in the latter while we’re sleeping. You need a lot of mental strength to survive around here.” Mental sighed audibly as he took to sitting on the ground and stroking at the left portion of his rather large mustache. “Generally Pyschic Types are slow breeders, we like our solitude in caves or around the various mountain tops in the central region to train our powers and to eke out a quiet living, ‘most of the time’. Maybe we visit some of our neighbors and play some mentally stimulating games. Quite frankly, Psychic Types are all into mentally stimulating activities of strategy or things that provoke interesting forms of thought like poetry. We enjoy our arts and crafts around here, helps train psychic powers to make a pot without touching the mud to shape it. The outer ring region is where the north and south paths lead around the entirety of Illusio, it is mostly for travelers to pass on through. The ‘rise of ambient uncontrolled psychic energy’ is becoming quite a problem for said travelers.”
Taking a moment breathe softly and think over something, Mental continued.
“Most of the interesting stuff that happens in this region happens around the psychic crystals and magnetic fields within the inner forests and mountains region that make up the entirety of this regions center in the kingdom. As you can guess, finding anything here without a little psychic help would be a bit hard. Dark Type help would be pretty good and will get you quite far… but you’d never get enough of them through the teleporters required that would take you to where you ‘possibly’ want to be. The teleporters run on psychic energy after all, making it all but almost impossible for Dark Types to infiltrate a ‘special city’ normally… oh, by the by, quite a few Psychic Types around here also like ballooning if you were curious.” Why would these guys be into ballooning Mental? I know I was certainly interested in skydiving, especially after gaining the ability to glide. “Of course if I were to tell you where the most general things that happen around here as far as civilization goes, then I would say find a way into Cerebrum City to learn more and from there find someone crazy enough to try and get you to the castle if that’s your end goal. ‘Skies the limit’ and all that, now on to your last question.”
“We’re here strictly for informational purposes at the moment.” That was not a lie, we were being paid to do just that, but Pom obviously wanted to do far more if the glint in her eyes was anything to go by.
Pom looked off into the forested mountains beyond the other end of the town and then slowly brought her gaze back to Mental.
“Do you need help setting up a stage?” Asked Pom brightly with an amount of humor and a small smile, everyone flopped over in disbelief or gained an incredulous look on their faces.
“Here I thought you would just ditch after the first two questions, quite bright to ask how things generally are and ‘not’ how they are now given I already told you things were dire.” When Mental stated this, it confused us a little. “It would be quite appreciated if you and some other fellows among you could help me…. you wouldn’t happen to need a guide in this region perchance?”
“I believe this will be an interesting relationship… so when are you going to introduce us to the rebels?” There wasn’t a flinch when Pom said that so blatantly and I glanced at Mental, there was a bit of tightening around Mental’s eyes and his grin was now showing teeth.
“I already answered three questions quite thoroughly madam, I believe I now have a performance to put on if you want me to answer that one in particular. Though I’m quite sure I have no idea what you are talking about at all.” Mental nodded to himself and crossed his arms. “I will at least tell you that should a group such as that exist, then they would be the reason this town in particular hasn’t be desecrated by that ‘grinning monster’ yet.”
“Wait… what?!” Canard stated while looking at Mental in a new light as did everyone with us who finally cottoned on to what Pom just said.
“I don’t know ‘exactly’ what’s going on, but I think have a decent idea or clue now.” That was Pom’s way of telling the rest of us she had learned something, she passed by me heading back towards the wagon. “Come on Dolly, everyone, we’ll prepare for lunch and a show.”
Don’t know what that was all about, but it sounded like Pom said we’d eventually be meeting with the rebels in Illusio to talk about something. Pom has something of a personal bias against Gilded Crest guy, she certainly didn’t want us to take a side in the Ignis thing until it boiled over into the other kingdoms, but this was understandably different circumstance given what was stolen from her.
I’d be more than a little mad too if someone stole the Digivice that once belonged to Dormarch.
-An hour later, during lunch, Kadabraville outskirts, Ocellus-
“So there’s a flipside mental world to Illusio?” The show had been quite extravagant for such a small stage. I was looking at the piece of wood that had the nail put into it halfway and was examining the hole that was going completely through the wooden board closely. I was still wondering how Mr. Mentalis did it.
“I suggest we be careful my friends, the opponent we seek to fight can wipe out this kingdom on quite a flimsy whim.” Mentalis kind of had the same feeling as Trixie, except he put on quite an entertaining show with less flair and more focused on mind bending tricks of the eyes. He was really good at misdirection. “It wouldn’t be hard for that guy to try and drag you into the mental world, he could crush your mind in the palm of one of his hands with sheer force of will. If not just crush your entire body outright in reality with a massive boulder.”
“So who leads the rebels?” Pom finally asked.
“A Fighting and Psychic Type called a Gallade from the Ralts line, he goes by ‘Psychic Edge’ Kenshin. He has been quite distraught since the death of the prior king who was one of his best friends.” The Magnificent Mentalis answered. “Now he seeks to bring down or at least kick the usurper as far away from the throne as possible. He hasn’t had luck because Gilgamesh is nigh impossible to get near.”
“What are the chances that my friend Abby is in Cerebrum City right now? She’s an Absol and we got separated when she began detecting a huge disaster in this region.” It seems Fleer was like any other canine, very much enamored with Pom’s presence. She had the wherewithal to stop staring and ask about her friend at the very least, so she was a pretty good friend.
“There are good odds of it, Kenshin has been making contact with any Dark Types entering the kingdom that would feasibly aid in taking down Gilgamesh.” There was some disquiet as Mentalis looked over all of us. “As for the disaster, we’re all aware its coming too as it has been foreseen by several Xatu seers among other things. We’ve been trying to find help in actively preventing it. So far we presume it’s the dropping of Cerebrum City or actively crashing the Castle of Illusion, either one makes for a fine hostage for Gilgamesh who has the power to devastate all of Illusio whenever he feels like it.”
“Still doesn’t answer all of what’s going on though, what specifically is Gilgamesh’s plan aside from acting as king for the kingdom currently?” Turning to Pom, I could see she was rubbing her chin and looking at the map with quite a bit of concern.
We’re on the western edge of the inner zone of Illusio, forests, mountains, rising ambient energy levels that can really mess with the mind unless assisted by Dark Types. We’ve really got our work cut out for us this time, not to mention there’s the whole mental world thing we were recently told about. It wasn’t the exact same thing as sleeping, but it was close enough that one could functionally enter it by sleeping.
“That’s something we’ve yet to discover, we would still like to know what he’s doing exactly. It’s going to cause devastation at the very least if it’s drawing in Absols who are quite sensitive to world changing disasters whether they are orchestrated or naturally occurring.” The Magnificent Mentalis took his hat off his head. “I just want to be a stage magician, but I can’t be one if my home is utterly destroyed. We’ll try to send a message in the morning via your Ninjask companion to Chrysalia with this information. I’ll try to gather a few Kadabra around Kadabraville and will make a unit to support you with whatever you help you might need.”
A lot to be worried about and a lot of chances for Pom to sacrifice herself, this was not going to be pretty if it turns into another Saint Canard, especially not when Pom has a reason to actively go after Gilgamesh even if she can’t beat him.
-???, later that night, Dolly-
Ah the moon, there’s always just something about it that tickles at the wild side of my heart. I sat on a rock at a riverside staring up at the stars and wondering if my brother is exploring them, he at least got to mars.
I tried to look around for Pom after a good howl, but she didn’t join me for some reason… okay something was very wrong with this picture. Also there wasn’t a river around here.
Wait… I went to sleep, I now know I did. So why would I be dreaming about this area in general when I could be dreaming about my family?
Unless…
I turned around.
“Oh good, you noticed. I thought this would be far too easy.” I turned around and spotted a grinning Guild-a-fest looking at me and softly clapping his hands together slowly. “You know… I don’t think I’ve quite made myself clear enough to that nuisance with the mystical wool. I really don’t want her around bothering my plans, even if she can’t ever truly defeat me, I know that she’ll still at least become bothersome like a certain ‘Metapod’ I know about in Chrysalia. So I might as well take something else of importance to her to drive home a point… that would be you.”
With flick of his left hand the rock I was sitting on disappeared and the world faded away to blackness and I hit a floor belly first in a vast black expanse that shouldn’t have one.
I narrowed my eyes at this guy and started growling, oh he’d definitely started messing with the wrong dog! I got onto my hind legs and readied my board and bone, as my helmet appeared on my head.
“It was mildly difficult to find your dreams, but not impossible. The Dark Types can only do so much, since they won’t be able to protect you from me.” The guys grin widened as I readied my skateboard and with a flick of his thumb on his right hand, he made a loud snapping sound. “Now… I wonder how well you can mentally defend that bond of yours by yourself, when you have little power to resist.”
All of my gear disappeared off of me in a second before I went to jump.
I flopped onto my face having been thrown off balance and glared up at him in defiance as I quickly got up onto my paws, he was making quite a poor decision here and I was going to make him feel it when I eventually figured out how to do so!
“So please, do struggle. It might even mildly amuse me.” Oh we’ll see about that Build-a-pest!