//------------------------------// // 325. Redirected Route. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equus, Airship Mauled, Kuril- Sure we may have been a bit immoral every once in a while around here, but I think I ran a tight ship and things were mostly as normal as a cavalcade of insanity can be. On that note I was approaching our local favorite loud dragon and stench bound yak. “Flamberge, ‘the obnoxiously loud’, how did the patrols go?” I was ignoring Fortitude who was looking expectantly at me. “Don’t…” I was of course warning Fortitude to not shout his infamous phrase. The yak huffed loudly, but smiled brightly at my narrowed eyes. I was even readying my potion slinging staff while glaring at him, he knew better that the shield wouldn’t stop the splash. I’ve tried making his fantastic fragrance go away, but there wasn’t a potion strong enough, doesn’t mean I can’t transform him into something else to put away for a while. “RIGHT, MOVING ON WITH OUR LIVES, THERE ARE NO PUCKS, NO GIANT MONSTERS CLOSE TO THE TOWN AND EVERYTHING SEEMS FINE…!” Here Flamberge trailed off and I gave the dragon with the fire sword a look. “But?” I asked lightly. “Your familiar Sugar left a ‘Drop-Bear’ at the edge of town again!” Ugh, Flamberge knew I hated cleaning up after Sugar. My big bear sized magical horned death bunny dragged in another carcass, at least we’re not hurting for meat what with the things Sugar couldn’t finish eating. At least my Al-mi’raj had cleaned her face so I hadn’t known about it this time, she was at least learning proper manners… gods and goddesses willing. “I’ll take care of it… I wonder if any local griffons are hungry. I know how to braise drop bear meat for a good soup or stew at least.” My drop bear eating magical death rabbit was a fearsome figure in the Barely Bearable Woods. A tiny ewe rubbed up against my leg and I realized that it was staring at something. I rolled my eyes, put my staff in the crook of my elbow and then peeled a leaf off a piece of lettuce for the tiny ewe to happily take. It was unfortunate that my little Fizzy was a huge pervert, why else would her familiar be a ‘tiny ewe’? “Anything else of note?” I asked as I patted the ewe on the head and they wandered away happily chewing on the leaf of lettuce in their mouth. “The Diamond Dog construction crew found another roving ancient burial site slinking up on us, the only reason it wasn’t caught sooner was because it was trying to keep its monsters contained this time. It is one that is likely full of eldritch horrors again.” Well that was normal enough around here Flamberge, though why ancient burial sites keep migrating to our little corner of the world is becoming a little bit worrisome. We could easily deal with it though. Wish Jaded was around to look into whatever prophecy those eldritch beings were trying to start this time, it is bad enough that we keep getting these roving burial sites from a place called Hyrule and something about Demise. At least my little Jaded’s priestess powered campfire in the middle of our town was keeping them from creating legends that didn’t naturally exist here, we had enough issues with Pucks and don’t need grand adventures starting all willy-nilly around the back woods around here. We already had enough adventurers as it is thank you, none of that legendary stuff was happening here if I could help it! Arizona’s construction crew gets enough problems with rebuilding after Puck raids, at least things aren’t boring around here. Also the fact that the roaming ancient burial sites were getting smarter was a scary thought. Honestly now, don’t eldritch beings have better things to do with their time than shift haunted cursed land closer to a town to try and spark something like an epic quest from the heroes and adventurers we keep gathering here? I’m already running a restaurant and am mayor of the town, plus there’s my world economy fix plan in motion. Unlike my kitten Jaded, I don’t have a cursed dyscalculia problem and math was really quite easy for me. “I’ll actually deal with it… give me time to get my consecration potions together, I’m going to need Bastet and a lot of fish jerky to bribe her with… and maybe throw in a ‘certain failure’ Discord trap. Which will work because it was designed to fail and what with Discord being ‘Chaotic’ and all that...” So what if I had a slight problem with constantly making fish jerky, I could create fish jerky whenever I wanted and have a backlog of a least one hundred pounds of the stuff just sitting around! It does taste rather divine… at least to griffons and any other meat eating races nearby, even variable winged ponies love it. “Anyway, good thing we have the jerky already right?” Just another day in paradise as the mayor of my happy little town of functional boat houses. “Hey Fortitude!” Yona stated as she came up to us with a shield on her back. “Oh for the love of all…” I started to say before I was cut off. “I am Fortitude, the fantastically fragrant!” Yes, Fortitude, it was fantastic in the fact that you probably smelled worse than the drop bear I have to clean up. There’s a certain level of fantastic when it comes to tasting the air in your general vicinity. “Yona ready for Fortitude yak friend training?” “Yona is!” Yona stated silently while I was covering my face and groaning. “Kurilian La Perm, can we talk about something important?” Anubis seemed upset with me, probably found out about the jellyfish thing. Yep, another day in paradise… I have a drop bear to go clean up, then I’ll talk to a death god. The usual normal stuff. -Pokémon World, Ransei, Illusio, Northwestern Inner Illusio Region Plains, Head Hypno of the Sleeper Units- “Why did they stop?” Sixty Pokémon strong, ten units and we were waiting for the people we’re supposed to be slowing down. We were doing our jobs excellently so far, also we had orders to kill. Don’t know if Gilgamesh will give me a promotion for at least performing half of what we’re supposed to do here, but he did have us set up so that we’d prevent them from joining up with Kenshin’s rebels. Right or wrong, I’m one of the Pokémon that revels in violence, a Nightmare or Dream eater to destroy the minds of my victims was acceptable in this situation. I wouldn’t mind killing the targets he wants us to. Apparently they knew what we were and weren’t going to get any closer to us than they had to, too bad for us that Hypnosis was a short range psychic ability for forcing our opponents to go to sleep. There still had to be a way to deal with them. We also had long range bombardment, but we weren’t artillery specialist though we could make up for that with volume alone, we were mostly focused on anti-infantry units. If we could put any of them to sleep, then they’d be easy pickings. “Sir it seems they are digging in, also there’s a blank spot in their numbers and there’s a confirmed Dark Type shroud in the area, it seems like they are readying for an assault from us.” Well that wasn’t our purpose here, delay and neutralize specific targets, but the Drowzee was reporting the intel I wanted to hear. “Digging in how?” I asked for clarification. We were one of Gilgamesh’s primary choices for action, given the lackluster barrier units were area denial and tank force that had failed spectacularly to stay alert for Dark Types. They not only failed to hold them at the pass between Illusio and Chrysalia, they were also likely captured. “We believe they have some powerful Bug Type artillery Pokémon with them.” If only we weren’t so physically short sighted, aside from that our psychic energies were being mildly disrupted by the presence of Dark Types. “Our two Drowzee scouting units say they have Araquanids.” “What are the chances they can bombard us with Bug Type attacks?” Ugh, Bug Types, nothing more distracting than those disgusting belly crawling putrid creatures. “We can assume they have both long range water and bug type attacks, especially water given those Araquanids specialize are known for those types of attacks.” Which was a major problem the Private Drowzee was bringing up, given Araquanids were particularly tough and could hit hard. “As for direct fire attacks we’re expecting Signal Beams.” Rushing them without a plan would be a poor move overall, that is fine, we Psychic Types were patient and able to think far beyond the ken of any living being with our powerful minds. “Let’s keep the hills between us and them for the time being.” I’m pondering on what to do, they had Dark Types to worry about. “What are the Dark Types reported as being?” “Morpeko sir!” The Drowzee threw a salute. Okay Morpeko were definitely a no go zone for any psychic type, especially if those demented hamsters were enraged and cursing up a storm. However they were even more dangerous when calm, because they suddenly have the stealth aspect going for them. They could wipe out all the teams alone, but they wouldn’t be able to stop some of us from getting through if we bum rush them. I think long ranged combat should be the focus of this battle. “We’ll have to stick behind the hills, we’ll try to stay out of sight of direct fire. We also need to focus down and take out the Morpeko unit, wouldn’t put it past a bloody Dark Type to be good at pulling something sneaky off when we are looking.” This would be much easier for me if Gilgamesh could teleport in some artillery of our own, we didn’t have or even deserve the privilege. “Do we have anyone willing to volunteer in locking up that unit so we can’t get a majority of our forces in range?” “Not likely, who would be insane enough to volunteer to fight Dark Types in Illusio. What do you think about about the chances of a Rebel force hitting us from behind while we’re trying to stop these people from getting through?” Ugh, that was going to be another problem, Private Drowzee had a point. The rebels had been a bit too uppity lately, but they wouldn’t know about our important mission out here. Unless those guys we were blocking were a part of the rebels, then I wouldn’t be surprised as there were some signs of psychics being out there with those Dark Types. All of them conspiring against Gilgamesh’s rule. “Not likely, any other rebels are having more than enough problems already.” The overall Psychic Type population probably needed a few Ditto. “Prepare to move forward to begin attacking at mid-range, avoid engaging the Morpeko to the best of your abilities. If you have to fight them, then try to get them into melee range with Brick Break or Drain Punch if you have those moves. If not, then distract them for someone who does and take them out quickly! We’ll start by finding targets to go after, they don’t have the numbers to face us up close, so we’ll try to close in slowly with some patience. How many artillery Pokémon do they have, a full unit?” “Four Araquanids and a supporting Chrysalia spy specialist in a Ninjask and Shedinja duo, they are possibly acting as spotters for their artillery.” Considering I was seeing a Ninjask behind a Shedinja in the air, that was likely to become a problem in the next minute. This confirms that Chrysalia is aware of our efforts and are sending a retaliatory scouting party, one who likely met up with some of the rebels and told them what was happening here. “Someone shoot down those Ninjask immediately and force the Shedinja to retreat with them, we can’t let them signal to the Araquanids where to aim.” I thought I saw something glint up the slope our opponents were on, but didn’t detect much of anything aside from a light fuzzy interference. Must be a false positive of psychic static noise from the Dark Types unit being present. “Drowzee move out, be wary and try to start hitting them at the maximum effective range you can put out! Do not yet enter range of direct fire from those Araquanids, otherwise you do so at your doing so at your own risks.” I started forward with my troops. “Don’t forget we have two targets of importance and a job to kill or at the very least cripple them, while also being expecting to slow down all enemies in the area with what we have.” -Across the field, Commando Dragon Monster Sami Soldier- We Commandramon seldom used binoculars, not like we have snipers or artillery to inform of shots we see and our rifles were hilariously shoddy when we were born with them, thankfully we patched out all the issues with them to be more accurate even if the firepower wasn’t exactly up to hurting anything more than a Champion level Digimon. In this case I was doing some spotting while Ninjask ran distraction, I was aiming to take out at least one of the Hypno units with a few bazooka shots under the cover of the Araquanids artillery. They were quite aware of our positions and would likely to focus on anyone acting as a spotter. I had the digital energy for at least three HE rounds, took some personal code configuring, but I was certainly making up for the fact that I never wanted to become a Sealsdramon. Also knife fighting wasn’t my thing. Maybe I could slide evolution past it? Heard it was possible at least, Tankdramon was definitely more my jam at least, because tanks were awesome! The Hypno were much more dangerous than the Drowzee who were starting to approach us, so they were our first choice of targets if we could swing it. The five Drowzee unit were on the move, we were almost outnumbered three to one, but I believed we had the range and firepower advantage. It was quite rare for me being on the absolute better side of things for once. Okay checking camouflage gear, camouflage was still up, but I did notice someone might have caught the glare of my binoculars. Should be more careful about that. Sami Soldier is ready and in position and waiting on your signal to hit their back line from above with arcing bazooka missiles Canard. Still working on a lock-on program for them, finicky as all get out to get one of those to work, I’d rather stick with calculating angle of fire to drop rockets on them with precision. Canard raised his hockey stick, and then slung it downwards, Dolly’s electrum varnish formula giving it fairly nice sheen. Ocellus was the one that gave it magic to make it darn near unbreakable and I know, I tried to blow it up to prove that the electrum varnish was working. “Front two angle thirty five degrees fire half strength, back two angle forty nine degrees two third powers fire!” A volley of hot steaming water blasts flung forward and created steaming distraction, I believe that was what the Araquanids called Scald attacks. The steam from the water striking the ground was somewhat helpful as beams of Psychic energy lanced out for Ninjask and Shedinja, while others arced out over the Morpeko unit and started to slam into the area around the wagon. They didn’t have a decent range on us quite yet. As such it was going good so far, but no plan ever holds for long when engaging an enemy, learned that one too many times over. The steam was giving me a good chance to fire without being spotted. “Normal shot going out!” I called angled my Bazooka up high and fired the first shot to get a feel for where my next few would land. “Fire in some hole somewhere!” My shot went wide and didn’t hit anyone, but it did spook an entire unit of Drowzee. They should be spooked, especially when I loaded one of my limited HE rounds. I had an idea of how my aim was off and I have a decent chance of hitting their far left Hypno unit. “Barrage fire, use the steam to cover the Morpeko unit’s movements!” I wasn’t actually in charge of the artillery, but I could make calls if I see opportunities and was given permission by Ninjask to do so. “Sure they know they are out there, but not what they are currently doing or going to attempt. Spread the water out for them guys!” Thinking of Ninjask and Shedinja, they were busy getting a good scope of the land ahead of us, they were taking heavy fire. Still no amount of power was going to stop Shedinja from absorbing a large amount of energy aimed at the two of them, it was impressive how the frail thing could take such a punishment without damage. “Roger!” One of the Araquanids called out and they started to fire blasts of hot water and was making it rain on them. “HE-loader.” Okay I felt the drain immediately, I just needed to get close to devastate at last one unit. Maybe we could spook them into rushing us. Taking aim and carefully got the bazooka into position and then held it steady and squeezed the trigger. The rocket burst forth high into the air and then curved exactly on the course I wanted it to be on. -Head Hypno- “Incoming!” Everyone scattered hovering in different directions, hoping to avoid the strange incoming projectile that was most certainly not a bug or water type attack, in fact the attack seemed technology based. Probably comparable to the powder cannons of Dragnor, which meant we were about to be engulfed in a large explosion. The blast was large, but my warning came in time. We only lost three Hypno on the left most unit. The firepower in that blast alone was daunting, but I’m a betting Psychic that they don’t have too many of those shots, they could wipe out three or more units if we cluster together. “All units spread out, especially those on approach!” My order was immediately followed. -Canard- That spooked them, it was a decent shot and they reacted to it fairly well, but now they were spreading out making it harder to cluster them up for a big blast. This was still to our advantage though as I know we’ll soon see. “Okay, give the Morpeko some more assistance now, make it seem like your shots are dropping short!” The Morepeko were preparing in the grass, the steam was hiding a problem that the Drowzee weren’t keen on quite yet. “I need you to soak the ground, but don’t turn it to mud!” “Can do!” One of the Araquanids stated as they continued to spread the bursts of water they were spraying. Knowing the capabilities of those who are with you helps in a lot of areas, like knowing the terrain and what advantages you have. Including what we had hiding in the grass, we were going to start focusing on the Hypnos soon enough, we just had to get through the Drowzee first and we were about to take out a number of them. -Morpeko Leader- “Oh this will be good… it’s almost done being set up.” I grinned. -Head Hypno- Hrm… something was up with their aim, the artillery Pokémon would have had more hits than a few scalding bits of water. What were they up to? “Hypno units command, Future Forecast!” Every Hypno unit joined together to get a view of the future. It would take some time, but it might save us from an ambush. -Magnificent Mentalis- “Can you feel it, they are about to launch a massive Future Sight attack into the battle.” Which would end poorly for us if it landed and hit anyone, except for the Morpeko. “Do any of you have a capacity for trickery and do you think we can pool enough psychic energy to move everyone’s position, provided that we all know we can’t move the Dark Types?” The five Kadabra looked among themselves and then turned to me to nod, their psychic conversation taking no longer than a few real seconds to finish. I quickly made my way forward to Canard and warned him of what was about to happen and what exactly we needed to do. Quetal was a little upset, but was alright with the plan going forward. The Morpeko unit would be fine provided they don’t take to many physical attacks, even then Psychics weren’t good at physical aggression and there was only the possible issue of Dazzling Gleam being used. Hypnosis can have an effect on Dark Types to put them to sleep, which is one of the few Psychic moves that would work on a Dark Type. However Dark Types were highly resilient to it and the Morpeko are highly energetic so it’d be pretty hard to put them to sleep. -A Drowzee- We were having a hard time hitting the Ninjask. At least the artillery doesn’t seem to be too accurate thus far, but we were trying to avoid the Morpeko unit and stay out of direct fire from the artillery Pokémon. We were in as good a range as we would be getting without being directly in the line of fire from the Araquanids, yet something felt off. I looked down at the pooling water on the ground, was it from all the steam? “Everyone get back!” I had realized too late for my unit personally, the Morpeko electrified all the water around our ankles. -Canard- After the powerful electrical explosion blinded us for a few seconds I got my eyesight back a bit and the hills were crackling with the power the Morpeko let off. “That got two whole units HE-loader!” This was Sami’s second shot, she better make it count, we had incoming attack and I can feel the pressure in the air building up from the energy Mentalis told me about. Okay, we took out two of their Drowzee units immediately the other three managed to avoid the trap. Said units were bombarding our position to the best of their ability. The Araquanids really shifted gears and really started to hammer the three units and then spheres of darkness started blasting out of the grass near the Drowzee units forcing them into a slight panic as a few of them get knocked out. That’s when Sami decided to fire, she only had one more of these shots, but she wouldn’t be able to get her next one off in time. The rocket arced up into the air and came down on one of the Drowzee units and only caught two in the blast the other four were sent sprawling, but still looked viable in a fight. High explosive rocket left, we better make that count. The Araquadnids were letting them have it with Scald, the boiling hot water raining down on the Drowzee closing in. “Sami back on the wagon!” Sami immediately made her way over to us with a questioning look. So far Shedinja hadn’t taken any damage, but Ninjask had been scratched at least twice and for those of us who weren’t immune to Psychic attacks we were about to be hit hard. “Araquanids, back in the wagon. Shanty get Dodo started on moving us backwards now. Okay Quetal now is the time to tell the Morpeko we need to retreat!” The little claw guy was out and moving into the nearby tall grass silently to meet up with the Morpeko firing off Dark Pulses and were slowing down the Drowzee, but they weren’t necessarily taking them down. Blasts of psychic energies from the Drowzee were hammering us once the Araquanids let up on their barrage and pulled back. Shanty quickly got Dodo pushing the wagon back up the path we came from. “What’s going on?” There was concern on Dazzle’s face. “We’re going into retreat and you’re about to find out why, brace yourselves everyone!” Nobody questioned me, everyone immediately started grabbing parts of the wagon while I myself grabbed the front and saw a mass of energy building up above us. “Unit command, Tricky Transfer!” Magnificent Mentalis intoned as he and the five Kadabra with him flared with power. While our opponents didn’t have teleport specialist, I knew for certain that we did and hopefully our guys managed to do it in time. In a flare of power our group disappeared. -Quetal- A mass of energy appeared and started to fall. The pathway we came into the plains between the mountain terrain were blown apart where my friends just were. The blasts of psychic energy created a massive crater and sent out billowing winds with the destruction of the landscape. One that would have done more than just wipe out the wagon, when it rained there was going to be a new lake in the middle of Illusio. The wagon and everyone else that could be moved with psychic powers were safe and to the south of the force attacking from the east. I was already upon the Morpeko unit as one of them was sent flying by punch as energy sucked out of their body and into an injured Drowzee healing it. Another flashed pink with sparkles and knocked most of the Morpeko over. “Come on, retreat to the south!” My shout was followed by me firing off several Swift attacks, the star shaped bullets pummeled into the enemy giving the Morpeko to pick themselves up and start moving as another flash of pink blasted through the area. I waited until they were all ahead of me and then I started going myself. -Head Hypno- “The Dark Types and our targets are trying to make a getaway to a southern passage, full charge, stop them!” I was immediately surging forward. They needed to go east, but they didn’t necessarily need to go through us to get to their destination. “Fire at will!” Our psychic blasts started raining down on the wagon, we were ignoring the Dark Types unless we could get them into melee or Dazzling Gleam range. “Dodge left!” My unite reacted with me to dodge a Signal Beam as the Araquanids were holding us off until the Dark Types made it to them. A few Hypno’s went down now that they had a direct line of fire on us from the south. “Don’t let them escape!” I was hit in the chest by a lightning bolt from a tiny yellow bug, one that had just greatly earned my ire. -Ocellus- “Make sure not to hit our allies!” The Araquanid said to another as they fired out the back of the wagon and Dodo was slowly moving it forward while looking back worriedly and waiting for Quetal and the Morepeko to catch. “What was that?!” A large part of the landscape gone, just like that, in a massive explosion of what I’m assuming was mental energy. There wasn’t any emotion in the attack, just pure raw force. “Future Sight, it’s a powerful psychic attack that targets a given area and eventually hits it with a mass of psychic energy and multiple Pokémon used it in conjunction. That… was the end result.” Well Shine, it was a good thing Pom wasn’t awake, she’d be freaking out about how much of a close call that was. We should really thank Mr. Mentalis for the save profusely after this. “Still it took a lot of energy out of the Hypno.” “I thought we were on the firepower side of things here!” Sami was doing enough freaking out that it calmed me down somewhat… did it say something about me that someone freaking out emotional was calming on my nerves? I’ve been around Pom for far too long. “Actually we are, Future Sight is a really, really, really slow to activate and easy to see coming. You can even feel the energy in the air building up. Getting out of the area is simple enough if you’re aware it’s coming, don’t do that fast enough and you’ll likely be obliterated.” Mundo was quivering with fright, despite that he was still trying to stand tall and strong, to the sight of an attack that would have evaporated him and anyone else caught in the blast that wasn’t outright immune to it. “Sitting still or being stuck in place is a huge problem with dodging that attack though. Which is exactly why Psychic Types will try to do things to pin you in place for that particular attack.” “Agh!” I looked up and lit my horn to catch a falling Ninjask and pull him into the wagon. “They got my left wing… that’s going to take some time to heal.” Shedinja began acting as a mobile shield and was protecting the back of the wagon with his body to the best of his ability, he was quite effective at taking attacks meant for us as beams of energy continued to arc at us reminding me of the Dutiful Ducks battalion from Fontaine. Only these guys were more dangerous and actually geared for psychic attacks. The Psychic Pokémon coming after us were using mid-range attacks at best and weren’t having an easy time keeping up with us or the Dark Types almost catching up the wagon as we forged a path south towards a pass out of the plains. The Araquanids were pushing them back from our Dark Type allies as they fired beam after beam of strangely pretty swirling colors of energy that called to me. “Ocellus? Ocellus! Stop staring at the pretty lights and get your head back in gear.” The snapping of Smolder’s claw drew my attention back to reality and I blushed a bit. Frizzle blasted a fireball out the back into the chasing Drowzee, these Psychic Types in particular were not fast on foot and it would take a bit for them to catch up to us once we get going. “Right, Shanty, get Dodo ready to start moving. Quetal and the Morepeko have almost caught up to us.” Shanty nodded and Favela joined the Araquanids in firing off a few Seed Bombs to cover our allies as they reached us and jumped into the back. “They’re grouped up enough Sami!” Canard called as he pointed at the Pokémon now coming at us from the north instead of the east. “Right, give me a moment.” Sami hopped out of the back and angled her weapon high up and her eyes searched about for a good target. She then took aim and fired as Quetal and the Morpeko unit passed by her and leapt into the wagon. She turned around and charged after the wagon and was the last on. “Go!” An explosion went off in the, but it just delayed the Drowzee and Hypno without hitting any of them. “You be hearing her Dodo, start moving!” Dodo didn’t need to be told more times as he turned forward and started using his impressive pulling strength and we started to pull away. “Do we still have a path to Cerebrum City from here?” I turned to Mentalis as he sighed audibly. “Pom made it kind of urgent that we stop Gilgamesh immediately, enough so that she things killing him is the best course of action. Which is quite worrying for someone like her.” “Yes, but they are most likely being guarded heavily more so than the path we were going to take and I doubt those Drowzee and Hypno are going to give up on hunting us so soon. Not very fast on foot, but if they are relentless enough, sleeping will quickly become an issue.” Grumbled Mr. Mentalis. After what happened to Dolly, I would have to agree that sleeping was going to be problem if we couldn’t get any rest when we could be attacked in our dreams. Where’s Princess Luna when we needed her? “Most of their units were already getting up again, they might not be the only ones out here hunting us down too.” “Eh, I thought we could take them… somewhat.” Smolder, what was your definition of possible again? “So, there’s a small change of plans, but we’ll continue forward.” At least Canard seemed to be upbeat. “We’ll try to find a place to stop for lunch and we’ll need to find shelter for the night where we can hunker down and hide.”