-Equus, Airship Mauled, evening, Silver Stream-
“Good, we can even begin training now… I hope you don’t mind pain, being emotionally traumatized and physical soreness.” Echoed a voice in my head from earlier this morning as I laid here on the ground in pain.
Yep I was definitely feeling all of that stuff.
“First time going through a Sekhet training exercise? You poor thing, at least she wasn’t doing the involuntary flying thing on you… yet.” Said an Ornithian with an arm and a leg in a cast, long black feathers hanging down her back to a little beyond her waist and a slightly dented beak. “Sekhet has told me you might need my assistance with learning how to fire kitchen sinks at people.”
“Jacky… did she do that to you too?” I asked dazedly as the three Ornithians wouldn’t stop dancing around one another.
“Huh, this? No. I’m actually having a pretty good week, no spine related injuries and only two broken bones that aren’t my shoulders, ribs or knees.” Jacky ‘The Blackcap’ Chickadee smiled as she bent down, she hefted me up with her good arm and proceeded to carry me to the infamous local restaurant. She did so without complaint or even a hint of agony, which was quite amazing given her state. “While I love my dear little sweetie Gavin, he should really watch it where he leaves those building block toys of his or else I’m going to end up in the cruise liner again. So… how is my little brother Gallus treating you? You’re not being too forward with him now are you? Speaking of, I really want to practice my shovel speech for when Gavin gets older.”
“What’s a shovel speech?” I ask tiredly.
“It’ll just be a story, one about buried treasure where no ‘body’ is ever going to be found.” Somehow there was something quite intimidating in the way Jacky said that as she sat me down at a table. “So how was that?”
“Should I be feeling really terrified of someone who has an arm and a leg in a cast?” I said with a hint of terror.
“Given my skills, pirate crew and the fact that I’m really quite hard to kill, you should be.” Jacky said with glint in her eye and a grin on her beak. “If you need to break up with him, inform three of the following people: Kuril, Blade, Jaded, Fizzle, Maries, Velvet and myself before doing so. You will also need to write a five page essay on why. Any form of taking advantage of my little griffon brother will result in an instant La Perm family tribunal and full ‘Turbo Tartarus Petty Kitty Unleaded’ based retribution. If you fail to make your case, the retribution will be carried out via Kurilian La Perm.”
“Don’t you mean Jaded La Perm?” I asked quietly.
“Where do you think Jaded gets her most annoying habits from and why mom doesn’t care that she’s a clearly brazen thief at times or that I’m a pirate? As a reminder, mommy Kuril can semi-permanently curse you into being an immortal jellyfish we can put in an aquarium.” Jacky chuckled at me as I gulped audibly.
-Pokémon World, Ransei Region, Chrysalia, several days ago, Dolly-
“So why haven’t you been working on new techniques Pom?” She looked at me and ran a hoof over my head affectionately before hugging me and nuzzling one of my ears. I returned the affectionate gestures and favor.
“Dolly, there will come a time when you will understand what we’ve been doing here is important, for these past several days I’ve had us reinforcing our foundations. In essence we’re making sure the building doesn’t collapse into a sinkhole like what will happen when your brother Diesel digs out all of the support structures of your home back in Camden Town. The basics are always important to remember, as flashy moves aren’t going to save your life as much knowing when to dodge or how defend yourself in a given situation when you don’t have a piece of equipment or any magic to spare on hoof.” Aside from the ‘on hoof’ thing, Pom always made a lot of sense with her lessons. It’s apparently how Shanty got so good at creating her own fighting style. Also Pom was the one to talk, she wasn’t going to run out of magic to wield as long as she had something to give. Not exactly a good thing for her health though. “You know… at some point you’re going to have to find other ways to grow without me holding your paw or ‘leash’. You have natural evasive skills, ability to think outside the box and most of all I know you’ll be capable of coming up with your own thing. Dolly, you’ll be able to keep the girls ‘mostly’ safe when something happens to me.”
“It won’t happen if we can help it Pom!” I retorted with a vigor and a burning heat in my chest.
“That’s likely what will cause it to happen in the first place Dolly…” Okay, yeah, that... Pom was actually right as I can actually see that happening, what with all the things that happened to us up to this point and before I met her. I felt her hug me tightly. “You were always capable of great things long before you met me and you need to start branching out on your own like Shanty has. You have notable limitations on your magic and your body can only get so much stronger as you grow into full adulthood. Whatever you may come to lack in a physical or magical capacity, you can make up for in refined skill, quick thinking and maybe even a bit of luck. You say Dalmatians can do anything. I haven’t seen the ‘anything’ part yet, but you can certainly do a lot already and I’m hoping to live long enough to see more.”
Oh trust me Pom, you’ll see more from me.
-Present, night, sleeping/mental realm-
Here I was without anything on me, not even my three favorite neck band collars, ‘his’ device or that rocking pink scarf. Just about the only pink or feminine thing I like really.
It’s moments like this that made me realize that while I’m generally dangerous, I’m still kind of weak without a full house in my paw ready to go. The less said about dogs actually playing poker, the better, some dogs could be sore losers.
“Gates of Babylon!” Shouted Shill-for-less as portals opened up around me in a circle.
This was a dream right, how bad could I get hurt really?
…
There’s Pom’s existence, this guy’s belief that something will come of attacking me in a dream and the existence of those horror movies where people are killed in their sleep by a fear eating clown and nightmare claw guy fighting over who can torture children better than the other, those were things to take into account in this situation. Chances were actually pretty good this psycho type guy was going to kill me in my sleep if I didn’t take this seriously at all.
I was halfway into blinking when I saw a green glow, looking up I saw another one of those triangles floating above me. I still didn’t know what was up with those, but it usually meant something good to aim for or at least get an idea from.
The triangle made my instincts feel like they were on fire, as if the blackness of the surrounding void wasn’t memorable enough for some reason.
The guy didn’t seem to notice the green triangle, then again Pom hadn’t noticed it either. Maybe this was just something only I could see?
Moving before weapons started to come flying at me from all sides, I leapt straight up, felt the world shift and then flipped upside down and I ended up falling onto an invisible floor. Funny, I was expecting a massive stained glass circle to fight on for some reason.
That Gargamels-a-mess guy was frowning at me upside down and more portals opened up aiming more high speed weapons at me after the ones now above me had missed passing above my head harmlessly.
The many weapons slowly slid out of the portals all around and then started blasting straight for me once they were far enough out of them.
I acted completely calm and cool in this situation, no panicking whatsoever.
“Oh my dog, oh my dog, oh my dog!” I shouted frantically as I hopped, skipped, rolled, ran and even bounced off of some of the weapon in midflight, some even circled around to come back at me again making everything much more hectic.
I’m not even going to question the homing weapons in a dream. That’s when I saw a handle of an axe glowing with a green triangle as it spun towards me horizontally. The distinct impression of momentum control popped into my head as I looked at the handle of the axe.
I inhaled sharply and all the weapons coming at me slowed down to half speed, once the axe was close enough I grabbed it by the handle and exhaled. Didn’t know how Dancing Flame actually worked or how to do it, Pom never taught me this, I’m just going with dream logic to copy its effects and might be leaning into my flow-motion ability mentally.
Doing the exact kind of thing that Pom generally does, I was soon whirling whirlwind of destruction with an axe knocking back and away every weapon that came at me with the axe or with the dusty winds it was kicking up as I boosted the spinning momentum to a ridiculous degree.
I eventually took to standing on one leg and angled the axe upward to let it go flying at Pills-for-rest.
He calmly waved his hand the axe disappeared into a portal and I had leap to the left as the axe buried itself into the less than existent ground next to me. My head was definitely starting to hurt when that was considered a normal thought to be having at this particular moment.
“Seriously dude, how many weapons do you have to throw at a given problem?!” I continued to run around and nearly took a sword to the face, I turned and ran face first into a wall that I’m fairly certain wasn’t there a second ago.
After yelping and falling on my butt holding onto my nose, I found out that yes, I could in fact feel…
“Agh!” Another yelp ripped from my throat as knife slice into my right hind leg at the thigh, that I didn’t wake up pretty much spelled out this was exactly like those movies. Didn’t think things like this could actually happen.
“Know your place mongrel, for you will die when I kill you!” That seemed a little redun…
A large number of spears cut my thoughts off as I dodge in place trying not to move as much as possible, I blinked when even ‘kills-the-best’ saw me barely squeezing myself between all the spears. I reached down with a barely free paw, trying to avoid cutting myself on the many spear blades around me, and grabbed up the first loose weapon I could get a hold of to defend myself and… it was not even one of those puncturing curved cane sword things.
“Did you just honestly shoot a crowbar at me in the middle of all of that?” I asked as I started using the crowbar to pry myself free of the spears. “I thought it was all ancient weird weapon stuff.”
“It’s actually for barring crows of course!” Insert him shooting actual arrows shaped like crows at me. “I know Freeman isn’t going to be complaining about it!”
“I don’t know why I’m even bothering trying to talk to you when you’re trying to kill me!” I screeched at him as I barely managed to move enough spears out of the way to throw myself to the… blackness that was solidified below me in a downwards direction to avoid eating crow. Okay, ow, my head, this was seriously aggravating. “Wait… were you just trying to kill me with a visual pun?!”
“Why yes, I’m trying to commit a ‘murder’ here after all.” Darn you Fillets-the-flesh, you just had to make me walk into that one! “Please commit to die.”
He followed that up by firing hundreds of small things at me.
I dodged out to the side of several exploding cracks struck the ground around where I was, explosively sending shards slamming into me and I was trying to cancel out all momentum as soon as it hit me. Still got hurt, but at least I wasn’t be perforated… I’ve been good about avoiding that so far.
I looked and saw what he was shooting at me.
“Oh come on, the weird kind of dice my brother Dylan uses for his Poodle Wolf games?!” This was just getting me angry, before I knew I was being pummeled with shattering bits of dice painfully as I tried to avoid the heavy barrage.
-Reality, Pom-
I blinked awake, something was wrong and someone was strangling my bond to Dolly, in fact I heard Dolly yelping a lot and was in pain! Were we under attack?
Oh no…
With a single sniff of the air I smelled a nasty copper scent, I could feel some blood around the inside of the dark tent under my hoof as I stood up. I quickly lit a lamp to see that Dolly had a nasty cut on her right hind leg and her body was quickly becoming covered in nasty bruises.
There was also a faint energy wrapping around her head. I quickly rolled her over and moved my right hoof to check her a bit closer and hold her still as she squirmed, it resembled a slashing wound… one caused by a knife.
The tent wasn’t perforated though, so I’m quite sure that the reason why we all weren’t being killed in our sleep was because the Morpeko actively prevented Gilgamesh from getting a visual lock on us. So he instead chose to target one of us while we slept.
I used my wool to stitch Dolly’s leg shut and after I finished tying it off, I detached it from myself. That’s the first time I’ve used my wool for someone else’s injuries, good to know that I can do that in a pinch.
I didn’t see a knife and that Dolly was quickly worsening, she was under attack. Didn’t really need to even guess who was doing the attacking.
“Dolly, wake up!” She wouldn’t or more to the point she simply couldn’t do just that.
I was immediately up and running for Kadabraville with Dolly glued to my back, it was to prevent her from hurting herself as she thrashed about. The Morpeko had said previously they can only stop passive psychic energy. To deal with active psychic energy, I was going to need a professional Psychic Type to help.
It was Gilgamesh doing this, thankfully I don’t think he could multitask very well or else he would have changed targets when I started calling for help.
“Help, help, someone help me, Magnificent Mentalis, anyone!” It didn’t take long before Mr. Mentalis appeared before me in a flash, this proved that the Abra or Kadabra had the ability to contact him even if they were currently sleeping.
“What is it, what’s the… oh…” I was lifted into the air and suddenly I found myself back at the camp site in my tent, I quickly pulled and held a struggling Dolly as several small cuts and abrasions opened up on her face and body. “He’s possibly trying to cut off your bond to Dolly, might even be trying to take it for himself or barring those first two options… he’s actually actively trying to outright kill her as she sleeps. That she’s still alive means she’s putting up something of a struggle. She will not wake up as long as he has her mind trapped in the mental realm.”
“What can we do to help her?” I asked as the rest of the camp was up and looking about for the danger.
“I could try… ‘we’ could try to help you get to her in the mental realm.” Mentalis changed his wording as multiple Abra arrived, along with several Kadabra which had large fluffy tails. Kadabra actually walked using their legs compared to Abra who sleep and teleported around. Kadabras didn’t need as much sleep, but they still slept quite a bit and their tails apparently made excellent pillows for back support. “At the very least we can open a pathway to her through your bond.”
“Then do whatever it takes to get me in there, I don’t want to lose her!” I quickly pulled Dolly to my chest and hugged her. “Don’t worry Dolly, I’m here. Just hold on a little longer.”
-Sleeping/Mental Realm, Dolly-
“Ugh…” Okay this guy was getting on my last nerves as I scrabbled to my paws after being blasted over and switched to focusing on dodge rolling off to the side.
Technically Hills-a-thresh was getting at me through my nerves, I mean those were a thing inside my head right? Who honestly tries to kill someone with mental inflatable penguin bombs that make rubber ducky squeaky noises whenever they bounce?!
Also I think I’ve lost complete track of all the things he was trying to feasibly hit me with, he had a lot of junk coming out of those portals. It’s like he’s trying to kill me in the stupidest way possible as a challenge to himself.
“Oh rubber doomies, you’re the ones, to make the blast times, bangs of fun~.” Okay, that’s it, I need to go on the offensive against Gives-a-test.
“I am not dying to inflatable penguins dude, I’d like to see you avoid this, Aero!” If he can hurt me in my dream… then what is there to stop me from simply hurting him back?
-Castle of Illusion, many miles away, throne room, Gilgamesh-
A blast of wind rammed me into the stone roof head first, the blow even almost woke me up.
My glowing eyes opened faintly as I now had a large knot on my head, I of course growled as I closed my eyes.
I had maintained connection. Had I let it go of my assault, I would have avoided something most ghost types would have simply phased through easily.
I would not let this mutt get the best of me, she only had so much ammo after all.
-Sleeping/Mental Realm, Dolly-
Okay, seriously thought that would get him to leave me alone… two Aeros or an Aerora. How to make them count.
“How many more times can you do that exactly?” Knew that would be a problem already Builds-a-chest. I mean I have no way to regain energy from impacts. “Gates of Babylon.”
“Can you not babble on dude, please?” I groaned out as I prepare myself to continue the fight, however I felt something off and looked to my right hind leg. The wound was sealed shut with a bit of… white string… Pom was here for me, she was right next to me in reality.
I just had to hold out for her to come aid me?
Okay, can do!
All I needed was a target to use my wind on, since I’m dreaming, I might as well dream big.
“Aerora!” My target was not to put it defensively around me, my target wasn’t Ills-the-pest who immediately teleported out of the way and would have avoided it. The guy was even ready for it this time, I’m glad that I just faked him out bought me a few more seconds least.
Gorilla-breast narrowed his eyes at me and I grinned slightly while waggling my brows. He sent a wall of knives flying at me.
I flattened myself against the ground avoiding knives that flew overhead, then pushed off the ground with a boosted momentum and flipped in the air as several knives rained down at me at an angle.
I had to roll to the left as soon as I hit the floor, the floor I was previously on before I switched to the… okay ow… getting a real headache now. What part of me was a rational thinker before all of this? Also the fact that he was firing weapons at me the entire time, means I should probably start taking advantage of that as a dome surrounded me.
Knives started to rain down around me from all directions and I was getting scratched and cut up by the many narrow misses, but apparently Pom had my injuries covered in reality. It was pretty bad up until I open my mouth and grabbed a knife by the handle with a green glowing triangle and used it to deflect a knife away from my right eye.
I twisted under the next few knives and then let the knife in my teeth fly with a momentum boost.
“Aero!” The knife was blasted towards Quill-of-death and it didn’t hit him directly, it grazed his left cheek flying by like a laser beam with how fast it was moving.
The number of portals double immediately and my eyes widened, apparently this guy doesn’t like me fighting back.
All kinds of stuff started to rain down around me, to the point he was going to bury me alive under his weapons. I quickly backflip, hopped to the left and right while continuing to back away until I hit a wall, but then I thought better of it.
What wall could there possibly be here other than what either of us might think there is, this is a black void!
I continued moving backwards as if there wasn’t a wall there, apparently there wasn’t a wall if I didn’t think there was. If there was it’d be right in front of…
Hundreds of weapons stopped coming at me hitting the invisible wall that suddenly appeared in front of me.
Okay that was useful to know, I mean I did mimic the Dancing Flame despite Pom not teaching me how to use it by pretending to do it. A few portals opened up in a circle with spears poking out of them near the guy pointed towards the center of the circle.
“Huh?” A portal appeared beneath me and then gravity asserted itself as I felt towards the middle of the sphere of inwards pointing spears vertically. I found myself suspended in the air in the middle of all of them. “I’m in trouble!”
The spears pulled back slightly and then thrust forward at me from all sides, I twisted and used my gliding ability to twist by a spear as he slashed me across the back as I managed to escape being skewered.
“Agh…” Okay none of this was going in my favor and I only had so much energy to keep dodging, wait why would I be out of energy if I’m asleep?
I felt myself become reinvigorated and realized that Minds-a-bless was messing with my head, because of course he was why wouldn’t he, but it was having an effect on me. He wanted me to think I’m weak or tiring, so therefore I reflected that in how I was acting.
Quick think of something random, a location anything to make it harder for Shrill-I-guess!
The black void disappeared and I was whisked away from the… huh… with a blink I was somewhere else.
I was standing in a crossing, a big screen at one portion of it, lots of empty space and I was surrounded by a city. I think I saw this place on television a few times. Never been here personally… so that would explain why there wasn’t anything but this same streets repeating into the distance in all directions.
Okay, I gave myself a little… nope he found me.
“Really? You actually think you can run from me when I’m already inside your head?” Yeah, would greatly appreciate it if you got out of it Will-punish. “Cute that you started to figure out how things work, but.”
With a flick of his left hand the world wobbled a bit… and the grin on his face turned to a frown.
“Hm… a slight issue then... though I do wonder, where could a dog like you have seen the Shibuya Crossing? You don’t have memories of this place.” Then the world flickered and there were now streets of varying differences.
“No, but you do apparently… when did you ever end up going there? Don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone like you visiting Berlin.” I commented dryly. “Would have heard of a portal happy ghost-a-fest.”
“That would be Tokyo Japan you vexing cur!” More portals, does this guy ever even think with them? He’s just throwing stuff at me for the last… actually… I don’t know how time worked when you’re asleep. “Also I’m from a world similar to yours… thankfully you didn’t exist in that world.”
“Thankfully mine didn’t have you in it.” I pointed my left index paw digit at him, but he wasn’t paying me much attention.
“Hmph, they are trying to save you, a waste of effort really.” The guy just went back to grinning broadly at me, seriously that grin is going to haunt my… oh… right… yeah… this is a nightmare. “How silly of me to be so easily distracted by the dregs of society.”
Swords, spears, canes, bolas and more were suddenly coming at me and I started running up a streetlight pole as it was shredded beneath me.
-Reality, Ocellus-
“What’s taking so long?” I could feel Gilgamesh’s presence even if he wasn’t here.
“We can’t rush this, Gilgamesh has got a stranglehold on her and we’re nowhere near as powerful as he is.” The Magnificent Mentalis stated as he was getting help from his various kin. “We just need a little more time and then we’ll get him to stop pinching their bond at least.”
“She not be having that much time.” We were going to get some sleep once this crisis was over Shanty, in fact I think I know a dreamcatcher spell for this occasion.
Only it wouldn’t work with an already invaded dream, the spell was made to preventing a suspecting nightmare incursion. Probably should have thought of it sooner if this was going to be a huge problem with trying to get any sleep at all.
Aside from her nose and mouth, Pom had Dolly encased in her wool in a protective hug and some of that wool was stained red.
-Sleeping/Mental Realm, Dolly-
Even putting a building between me and him wasn’t helping and I was getting quite stressed as I ran up the pillar and started running on the underside of the overpass.
I kicked off as an anvil slammed upwards into the stone I was running along. I was having a problem shaking this guy as I rolled and then started running along the street, a street that wasn’t filled with cars a second ago.
A car honked as it tried to run me down, I went into a slide and got between the wheels as it pass over my head and continued on down the road. I rolled to the right as several spears slammed down with force that sent me flying through a glass window cutting me up a bit.
“Oh what are you going to throw at me next a semi?!” I screamed back at the hovering monster as he slowly gave chase. I froze when I heard the horns of several semi-trucks and looked up wide eyed as multiple of them came falling at me from the sky.
Flow-motion don’t fail me now!
I leapt for the nearest pole and kicked at the ground several times to speed up my momentum and boosted it to the best of my ability, then I released myself to launch clear of the explosion that sent me tumbling until I came to a stop on my side in the center of the crossing.
Sitting up, slightly dazed, I sent a glance behind me at the fiery wreckage as Bills-a-yes hovered forward with an ever present grin.
A wave of clubs and sickles came flying at me, my eyes darted through the mass of oncoming weapons and then I spotted it. A bright green glow, didn’t even need to see the three corners, I leapt for the brown club and brought my front to paws up in front of me defensively.
The blow hurt my front legs a lot, but I absorbed the impact and managed to stay upright as I landed on my hind legs skidding across the ground. I grit my teeth and stayed standing to absorb it all and turn it into magical energy.
“Agh… uhn… I think.. I think, I’m done taking attacks from you!” Grunting as I readied myself to keep going. "It's time I start hitting you back and hard!"
“Oh, so you’re no longer running? Let me make that a certainty.” Several burning wreckages impacted the buildings around me and the edges of the crossing were all on fire. “There, now you don’t have the capacity to run even if you felt like it.”
“If I had my board, I’d be so kicking what passes for your butt with it right now.” I grumbled, I’ve barely managed to hits on this guy and I’m dirty, roughed up and hurting badly. Still I could feel Pom coming for me. “I’ll just have to settle for this idea instead, Aerora!”
With a flicker Relish-this teleported, but was a little concerned when he didn’t see wind erupting at where he was. In fact her frowned when he saw me grinning.
No the wind wasn’t being used offensively on him or swirling defensively around me, instead… I was using it on myself and the winds swirled inward on me and I started absorbing them. The power of the wind was seeping into my body until it became lighter, I held up my right paw pad to the sky and it started glowing with power and I could feel my eyes lighting up.
“Ever heard of a series of movies called Air Bud?” I stood on my hind legs, almost floating as air flowed around me. Honestly this guy’s name was already too complicated for me to remember correctly, like I actually wanted to in the first place. He doesn’t need more acknowledgment when he was going to be history. “Well your about to get some air dog, buddy.”
“Please do make good on that threat, it might actually be more entertaining than you have been thus far, especially if all you can manage is two hits to the one hundred and fifty seven I’ve landed on you.” Hey, most of those hits were probably from the exploding dice Guybrush-fetch! “I’m barely even trying to murder you and I’m succeeding quite splendidly at coming close to achieving that goal, the least you could do is try a little harder to make it more mildly interesting. I've never heard of a dog that thought they could ever 'successfully' beat a functional god, much less the king of heroes, king of kings and king of conquerors though those titles are mine because the others are currently dead or are not here. I'm the best like no one ever was, the very first even.”
“Some hero you're claiming to be, because I’ve never heard of you and you certainly don't act like it.” My statement was met with a curious glance, I took a forward stance ready to throw down with him with my front paws glowing with power.
“Wait until you become a story yourself, I believe you’ll be quite the cautionary tale to not mess with your betters.” He spread his arms wide and portals started to appear around us, his grin never left his face. “So many kings, so many forgotten things, but the world will tremble… because I will own everything of worth in it. You... you're not worth anything of note, not even me fighting at my best.”
"Tell that to my friends and family Girugamesshu, I bet my bond with Pom is worth more than anything you've ever had!" I growled back and readied myself to start getting back at Mesh-a-gil guy!
"Oh? Well let's see your so called bond come through for you then." Gelded-eclair made a gesture, hundreds of weapons started to appear around me in their portals.
It's about time I got this guy out of my head forcefully, I couldn't just wait for Pom any longer.