-Equus, Ponyville, Sandbar-
“So what sport are you working out for?” While my dad, Beachcomber Currents, could be a little intrusive. He was more open to letting me figure things out for myself. Helps with my independence, but he was always someone I could go to for help or advice.
“He’s not working on a sport, he’s working on his stamina for when he marries Yona.” My mom, High Tide Currents, could be even worse and there was a smile on her face that somehow dug into me as if she knew why I was packing on muscles, physical and magical, for all my friends.
“Ah, yes, that really nice yak, you sure know how to pick them son.” Beachcomber said with grin.
Okay, so both my parents could be a little embarrassing, but they were okay with me dating Yona and they were happy as long as I was happy. Always supportive the both of them and I loved them both.
“Well my exercise routine is more than about ‘exercise’ and getting healthy enough for whatever you’re thinking of.” I tapped a hoof against the floor and the stones I set up started floating a bit, I was trying to learn how to control fine sand.
Sand was coarse, gets everywhere, but it could absorb impacts and since my family was full of ocean focused ponies. So I'm more than capable of leaning my special talent into it when it comes to training in my monk related studies according to Sekhet.
Thus far I’ve been getting better at controlling smaller and grainier minerals, using sedimentary rocks was a very good starting point. Talking to Turtles and Birds was becoming quite fluent for me and it helps that my parents were the specialist at the Ponyville aquarium. They thought I would go for someone like Silver Stream, but I told them she was dating Gallus.
“Bruvver!” My little sister Coral Currents, snuggled up to me and wanted attention, Sekhet did say it was okay to take as many breaks as I want as long as I fulfilled my own self-made goals.
I had good self-control for magical rock manipulation, I just need to work on what magic I had to get it up to the defensive abilities of the monks of legends that Sekhet knew about. She was as great a teacher as her sister, the goddess of life, Baast or Bastet was.
My family were so very accepting of things, as I was learning self-defense alongside Yona. Even when it comes to self-defense yaks were a bit much, but I didn’t have to worry about Yona physically as much as I did emotionally and everyone in my family was good at having a calming presence.
Picking up my little sister I started to give her a ride around the house and put off practice a bit. I needed to relax my mind and what I was learning could be a little dangerous and violent, but it could also be the greatest defense my friends would need.
It would also help with glass blowing statues of dolphins and other fish so there was even an artistic market for my talents when I get good enough at controlling sand.
Life's like a beach, you relax on it for a while and then use it to block the tidal waves of danger that comes for everyone you absolutely care about.
-Pokémon World, Ransei, Somewhere Midwestern Inner Illusio, Smolder-
“Okay, that should do it.” Changed out Dolly’s bandages and disinfected her wounds, Pom was okay and she was smiling about something in her sleep. Probably having sweet dreams, a rarity for her given how bad her nightmares are over the past week we spent training.
She has a right to have nightmares given she’s was usually right about all the danger we kept getting into. We were a little lost, but if we couldn’t find ourselves, then those Drowzee and Hypno guys couldn’t either. We knew we were likely still being chased, but the chances of them catching up to us without transport was unlikely as long as we could keep up a decent pace.
We almost lost the Morpeko unit to an attack called Dazzling Gleam, they were hurting quite a bit.
“I can still taste the ‘a rather rabid euphemism for a coat rack being used to smash a doughnut apart’ glitter!” One of the Morpeko complained volatilely before coughing up pink sparkles.
“That’s why you don’t open your mouth when someone uses Dazzling Gleam!” The Morpeko Leader responded and kept their unit member in line.
Yeah, didn’t want to be hit by that attack personally, the Morpeko’s leader said it was really bad for dragons as it was for them. It was a good thing we managed to successfully retreat after dealing some heavy blows to our pursuers, because otherwise we would have lost that fight had we stood our ground.
“I’ve been wondering, what was so tricky about teleporting us to the southeast?” I had no idea where we were, I knew where we were going, but what we were currently doing was looking for a place to lay low as our pursuers weren’t likely giving up.
We took down two units of Drowzee, injured another two and there was at least one unit still fully healthy.
The Hypno’s were barely damaged and mostly just a unit at best. I’m definitely worried that those Hypno guys took out a large chunk of the countryside trying to destroy us wholesale, the last time I heard about attacks that powerful was when Principal Twilight fought Tirek or the Elements of Harmony were being used.
At best we slowed them down, they were well equipped to deal with us.
“Teleport as a move is used to move to safety, we should have arguably gone back to Kadabraville.” One of the Kadabra answered, the big puffy tailed guys could become Alakazam which was weird. They started out with a small tail, grew an even bigger tail and then the tail disappears in their final evolution.
“We instead redirected ourselves into a more dubious, if beneficial position to our needs, which was to escape and not lose grounds to those cretins.” Mentalis said while pulling a confused looking Jiri out of his top hat. “Oh my apologies ma’am, sorry for the inconvenience.”
He simply stuffed her back in and she was no longer in the hat when I checked.
-Aurora, Jiri-
“Where was I just now?” I was so confused, I was much better and on defensive duty.
“Yeah, where did you just go?” Cubby and the guys in the unit were as confused as I was, they were also worrying over me and my still healing body. “Ice Type bear is worried about sudden disappearance and reappearance.”
I was taking cues from Captain Skeeball and her Skitty Squad, you have to put your heart into what you do and use that to power yourself right on through. What we were currently doing was light duty border guarding. Body still an ache and a half, but I’m fit for duty… well enough for it at least.
I was worried about Pom and the others, but I had a duty to Aurora and I was going to stick to it. I couldn’t run off just because I saw them for a few seconds. Also there’s the issue with Illusio being mental nightmare to wander around in without Dark Type to at least keep you on task.
“Hey guys!” Ruckus Rauco, the pidgey unit leader called out, he came down for a landing. “I hear that King Evan is thinking of sending us to lend assistance to Terrera, we were just doing a flyby and just thought you should know. Wings are still feeling quite horrible.”
That was about as much information as we had about Evan in a while, what was happening with him in Greenleaf and why would he suddenly take an interest in the dusty dunes of Terrera and its underground kingdom?
At least the western kingdoms of Ransei seemed to be peaceful enough and Ignis was getting merchants from Aurora to supply them with food. No banditry was occurring and none of the previous rebels seemed to be holding a grudge. There was still a lot to worry about though.
Like the endangered friends we had beyond our borders for one.
-Illusio, Smolder-
“That looked rather impressive, how did you do that?” I could tell he wasn’t using any of the psychic stuff, the power of the mind. Kind of like Ocellus having the power of her mind over her body or something to do with emotions.
“I have no clue, I’m just fiddling around with my magical expertise!” Mentalis stated proudly as we trundled along aimlessly, we just stared at him blankly. “That’s why I’m the Magnificent Mentalis, even I sometimes don’t know how I do my tricks!”
The aqua spiders were alert and watching our front and back sides for trouble as we continued down a dirt path. They took a few hits from the Drowzee, but were still quite ready to throw down. Just went a long way in showing us how tough these big bugs actually were.
“We didn’t do much did we?” Dazzle asked after a bit of silence.
“No, we didn’t, but it was for the best that we remain on the defensive, I don’t want to lose anyone to any idiocy as thinking we can face a full battalion of Pokémon so easily.” Like Quetal was suggesting, we were supposed to be a small moving band. We just happened to have Irregular Illusio Rebels joining up with with us. “Giving them a black eye and staying mobile was the best outcome. We didn’t lose anyone, but we took some injuries. Arguably we almost lost our most important unit here to the Drowzee, if we lose the Morepeko, the passive protection coverage on those of us not capable of handling the Psychic energies would have been driven to insanity or at least be constantly hallucinating right now. Still, the Morpeko were doing pretty well up until some counter moves were brought out against them. It’s a good thing they are good at running as much as they are at hitting hard.”
“Of course we’re good at running, we’re all working on learning the signature move of the Morpeko, Aura Wheel.” Well the Morpeko certainly had a motive for getting into dangerous situations even if they didn’t evolve into anything. “It requires we have a lot of stamina through doing a lot of cardio, so being a military unit from Violight gives us access to some really nice training facilities and we even get awesome missions with respectable friends like this one.”
We basically consisted of at least five working units. Mentalis with the Kadabra, Pom with us, Ninjask with the Chrysalia Scouting Irregulars, Quetal with the Pokémon Companions and the strangely polite Morpeko when they weren’t being total verbal monstrosities.
We were outnumbered by the Drowzee and Hypno, but not entirely outgunned at a long range at the very least. Seemed they lacked very long ranged attacks. Up close and personal though, the Morepeko almost got wiped out. That was kind of an eye opener, they are supposed to be the ones with the advantage against Psychic Types.
“Which is why we might have to use some of our limited medical supplies on them soon, definitely before we try to get into another fight.” Canard was making sure we were on task, cool dude. He’s been through a lot and from what Pom says, far more than even we have. At least he’s only had to deal with Digimon and not several worlds of weird like we’ve had to.
After a point Canard had Sami watching his back, wouldn’t know what I’d be doing without all my friends with me by myself. Probably would still be stuck fighting ninja monkeys with me possibly slowly being forced into becoming a replacement for that ‘Dragon’ guy in the first valley we ended up in. Also greed growth was a Tartarus of a drug, I did not enjoy being like that, but I’m quite thankful for Ocellus still being alive.
I pulled out my combat ribbon and started flicking it about, to distract myself from those thoughts about how Ocellus is the centerpiece of my hoard of friendship. I was trying not to feel distressing feelings, Ocellus would know if I was getting morose. She’s the reason I even know what the word ‘morose’ means.
We dragons weren’t big on education and education is what I’ve been getting from Twilight’s school even if it wasn’t a traditional school, also the crash courses on culture and how to take care of myself from Pom and the Friendship School are why I have the friends that I do.
Heh, Pom, was going to keep try and keep it together for us. Its very unfortunate that she’s almost doomed by that Chrysomallus stuff and we weren’t going to let her go silently without a continent destroying fight. It would probably get to that point this time.
Slowly the wagon trundled forward and I noticed that we were quickly becoming surrounded by an increasing number of trees. Enough so that it started to blot out the sun, so we were entering some of the thick woods of central Illusio. The glowing mushrooms lit up the surroundings fairly well at least, not like this place already had a fairly eerie feeling to it already.
“Okay, we should be able to find a place to hunker down for lunch or an early dinner in here, but let’s not tarry around the entrance of the woods too much.” Mentalis was looking back at the sunny grassy plains, hill and mountains as we entered the darkening thick forest squeezed between further mountains and more hilly terrain. “Gilgamesh’s forces are intent on being quite lethal and I’d rather we avoid detection in a place known for being thick with psychic energies. The trees absorb a lot of energy from psychic crystals around here, so some of them get enormous and they tend to put off powerful fields of illusions that really make anyone liable to get lost just getting near a Power Spot. I would suggest you not touch any pink or purple crystals you see, we do not need you to addle your own minds as the Morepeko’s passive protective field will not protect you from their effects.”
We were entering a place where sunlight was at a premium, kind of like the Ever Free Forest. It was kind of sending a chill down my spine and making me be a bit more alert of my surroundings.
“I just wanted to find my friend and get to know Pom better.” A shaken Fleer finally said as she looked back at the green grassy lit lands with fewer trees, then forward towards the mysterious glowing mushrooms and strangely dark place we were entering. Which was probably safer and easier to find places to hide than being out in the open.
“Yeah, well, your friend just might find us. Pom is a disaster magnet even when she’s asleep.” My dry comment got me a stare from Ocellus. “So what are we going to do for light?”
A pair of torch beams flew from Dodo’s eyes as he turned to look back at us, a smirk on his beak. Well that was actually kind of neat for being able to see the path ahead of us or where Dodo was looking at least.
“Dodo, that is being a decent trick and all, but we might needing light for doing things ourselves. Please be hurrying and finding a place to take a break.” Nodding to Shanty, the metal bird turned back forward and continued slowly on the dirt path into the woods. Our pace had slowed down when we put some distance between us and those Deep Sleepers as Mentalis had been calling them.
“Did someone say tricks? Maybe I can be of assistance then? I’m full of them!” We all froze and looked around, eventually my eyes settled on a pair of red eyes and a smiling beak, above her head was what looked like a witch’s hat, but it took a moment to discover that it was her feathers. “Hello there, I’m Cotton Murkrow, a spy from Avia working for King Masumune. Didn’t exactly give me instructions how I’m supposed to go about things, but given free rein on making personal judgements… I can do a lot.”
“That… wasn’t exactly very subtle.” Note the blandness in my tone.
“Then it’ll be a surprise for when I am being subtle or getting one by you!” The bird stated jovially while pressing a left wing to her chest and raising her head up high as her other wing fanned out in a flamboyant display. She then leaned forward on the branch she was standing on. “So what’s your thing here? You don’t look like some of Gilgamesh’s stooges, they’ve become quite up in arms lately with keeping Dark Types out of their business here in Illusio. Perhaps you’ve deeply earned their ire somehow?”
Her accent kind of reminded me of Applejack, but the look in her eyes had me wary of actually trusting her as she sat on a tree branch above us.
“We’re running from them and we’re trying to get to Cerebrum City.” Here the bird perked up when Ocellus mentioned our current destination. The current mission’s final destination was Illusio Castle, the Castle of Illusions, where we’d have to fight that Gilgamesh guy who was like a real psychopath given Dolly’s injuries.
“Well that’s going to be a bit of a bother, Psychic Types are watching the teleporters, not that I’d be able to use one of them anyway. Psychic crystals don’t work for or on Dark Types.” The black bird grumbled as she crossed her wings. “The goon patrols are also openly firing on any flying contraption or Pokémon that tries to get close to the city who are not a part of Gilgamesh’s forces, singed a few of my tail feathers off trying to sneak in. Apparently they are looking for the holes in the psychic energy fields to find Dark Types fairly successfully if not for false positives every once in a while. I was quite unlucky in that respect yes-sir-ee!”
“It’s really being that hard to get into the city?” Shanty asked with a tilted head from where she was resting on Dodo’s back and idly tapping the cane scythe against her right shoulder.
“It’s gotten quite sticky to get into there. Fastest way to get to the city is the teleporters, but that’s quite not in the cards if you don’t want to ditch your Dark Type escorts from Violight and you need them to avoid being mentally assaulted by illusions that bother every being not immune to passive psychic energy.” Cotton flicked her wings at us dismissively. “You’d need a much larger army first to even secure a teleporter to get regular psychics up there. Getting a number of flying contraptions by their aerial defenses is much more likely, but you’d probably have to fly it in at night and have someone who has been watching their patrols for a while to get in successfully. Without being attacked is a far sight harder to do and I’d be of great assistance in such an endeavor.”
“How?” Canard asked while narrowing his eyes on the self-admitted spy.
“First off, promise me a good meal and I’ll at least show you a good place to camp away from prying eyes of the third variety if you be catching my drift.” Cotton turned her head and widened her left eye at us. “Help me get closer to the information I’m after and you’ll have my ex-per-tease on getting into the city at least. Getting out might be a bit more of a suicidal premise than getting in in the first place.”
After a moment to contemplate what Cotton was offering, Canard finally nodded and decided on something.
“I think we can do the meal thing easily, but what do the rest of you think, this is a team decision.” At least Canard was living up to being a team play, this got us all thinking.
“Couldn’t hurt, we kind of need the help as the route we were going to use is no doubt being watched.” Well I was of the opinion we could give Cotton a decent shot.
I was also thought that we were well beyond the original scouting mission and were doing all of this to find out why Pom said we needed to kill someone. That and Pom needed to get that device back from Gilgamesh so she can talk with Tianhuo again, there was that motivation of course.
There was also the fact that, goodness knows, Pom couldn’t turn away from those in need and it sounds like there was something like a need to discover in this country and she would personally drive herself towards the trouble instead of away from it. We were also kind of stuck in enemy territory with an unenviable amount of dangerous Pokémon after us.
“I’m alright with it, though Avia and Chrysalia do have something of a slightly sour history, plus I’m grounded until my wing regenerates so it will be a bit before I can get around easily.” Ninjask entered his two bits. “We’re going to need someone who might be able to procure illegal transportation for us.”
“It might be in my interest to do just that, I should be fairly capable of procuring such assistance as I met and know a few guys over the last week or so.” Cotton said while glancing at Ninjask with a smile.
“We’ll continue on wherever Pom’s group wants to go.” Quetal being neutral, but still on our side. We looked to Mentalis. “Straight into danger is the likeliest course of action anyway, not necessarily the safest way to live. I still prefer and will advise caution on approach to things considering our opponent can have some really dangerous forces waiting for us, even if they gave Gilgamesh a headache to prevent him from attacking us mentally or physically for a while. His forces are still very much a major threat to us.”
Mentalis wasn’t obviously too much of a direct rebel, but he was willing to assist those who would stop Gilgamesh and the jerk gave us plenty of reasons to come after him and was likely banking on it. It’s like how Cozy Glow didn’t care how many ponies she killed, hurt or otherwise permanently crippled, Gilgamesh definitely had something like that magic stealing plot going on.
“I have my misgivings, but we’ll definitely be okay with sharing a meal for a quiet place to settle down for a bit and recuperate.” Mentalis was likely speaking to his Kadabra friends quietly, telepathy was a thing I knew some unicorns could do.
“Then it’s agreed, I get something to eat and you get away from those Deep Sleeper units trying to put you to sleep… in a permanent fashion!” Cotton smiled brightly while bringing her wings together in an affectionate gesture of cheer. “Right then, follow me!”
With a few flaps the crow Pokémon was in the air and motioning at us with her broomstick like tail, the witch motif was rather strong with this one.
“When did she…” Favela started to ask when a voice stirred all our attentions to him
“She was watching us when we started the fight with the Drowzee and Hypno.” Mundo commented while staring after Cotton as Dodo started following her with a wary curiosity as she flew and hovered in front of him.
The wagon started moving again and we continued into the forest, if I had to get out and walk somewhere, I’d inevitably quickly be lost. There was a strange mist around us, ten bits says it would be doing something to us if the Morpeko weren’t present.
I didn’t think I could go too far away from the Morpeko here, even if I would enjoy all the Ocellus hallucinations wearing cute dresses.
I continued to flick the ribbon in my claws back and forth, idly getting in some practice and trying not to freak out about how vulnerable I was to mental manipulation. Dragons were strong in body… no one said anything about us being strong in mind and psychic powers weren’t magic.
Dragon Lord Torch was wise, but more importantly too intimidating and large for anyone to actually deal with effectively. Psychic powers didn’t use magic to effect the mind, so really… I didn’t have a resistance to psychic effects. I’m just kind of surprised that Ocellus actually does have a resilience to it.
“Something on your mind Smolder?” Asked Ocellus as Dodo slowly followed Cotton off the beaten path.
“A few things, yes, when do you think Pom will wake up and how badly do you think she will panic about things?” While I knew Dolly was the real one hurt, something about the way Pom collapsed when she tried to stand up and move was quite worrying.
“Eh, it’ll be normal for me at least, I’m used to her being in a constant state of worrying about everything with a decent reason to be worried said things.” Yet you can see why things are a little different here Ocellus.
“We’re almost there guys, be prepare to cook some food, we’re about to meet some friends I made from Titania! Still don’t rightly know where their country is though, the guys are pretty good at keeping it and any information related hidden to the location of their kingdom aside form around here.” As Cotton talked we were led into a clearing with a large tree that looked like we could make an entire campsite under it, it was just that huge. “Here we are, they should be around here somewhere.”
“This gigantic tree is a Power Spot, it should hide the presence of the Morpeko and Quetal should we camp here. Be wary of the growing crystals nearby and whatever you do, do not touch them unless you know what you’re doing.” I did see a few crystals, which Mentalis was warning us about and made a note to watch Shanty or Favela carefully to make sure they didn’t do something stupid.
“They should be around here somewhere, they did have the airship we need to get to Cerebrum City.” Cotton looked about curiously as she flapped her wings to hover about the area near the roots of the humongous tree we were going to be camping at.
“Who are we looking for again?” I heard a cheerful female voice ask from next to me.
“Apparently some people Cotton knows.” I said idly to the side.
“Really, well I’m sure she knows us, maybe we can help look!” Said the exuberant voice that sounded a lot like Pinkie Pie’s that it was spooky.
“Why weren’t you going to… who are you?!” I actually flopped out of the wagon in shock and several people shouted in fright as we had six colorful fluffy curly haired unicorn ponies squeezed in among us in the wagon.
“Hi my name is Inky Dye, maybe we can help you look for Cottons other friends!” Said the pony with a haunting similarity to Pinkie Pie in voice and appearance, the pink and blue cotton candy styled hair was really selling it too.
“Ugh, you guys are the friends I was talking about!” Cotton sighed, landed and then slapped a wing over her face and beak. “How did you even get behind me or on to the wagon without us knowing, I’m supposed to be the smarmy one doing the whole stealth ex-per-tease around here!”
“Sorry about sneaking onto your wagon, but it looked so fun and roomy… but it stopped being roomy when we got onboard!” Said a bouncing Ponyta. “You have a lot of people with you already!
“We’re a unit of Ponyta from Titania under the orders of Lord Oberon!” Said a more serious Ponyta as she too got off the wagon with a fond looking smile. “What those orders are, you’ll have to find out for yourself. Unlike Cotton here, we don’t tell all our secrets at the drop of a feathered hat.”
“Hey, I don’t tell all of my secrets! For your information I like noodle dishes, my favorite color is purple and I’m a utility move twister as my moves aren’t normally damaging in combat by finding unique ways to utilize them to great effect. Masamune also wears a pink cape when he thinks nobody is around.” Really Cotton, we already knew you were a spy, were you just that open beaked about things? “Heh, heh, heh, seriously, you guys are way too good at this that even I didn’t catch you sneaking up on all of us!”
“We’re the Ponyta Prowlers unit, guerilla and commando warfare specialist, we like sneaking up on people and we’re quite good at smuggling and snuggling too!” Another said with a bright grin. “Our snuggles are free and we are fluffy as all get out!”
“Wait… Ponyta… aren’t you supposed to have manes and tails of fire?” Ocellus stated as she looked on as the rest of the six Ponyta piled out of the wagon, leaving a bunch of spooked people not knowing how they got there in the first place. Even Mentalis looked shocked that they managed to sneak in among us.
“We’re a different variant of the same species, we’re a psychic type variant that can eventually become fairy types as well when we evolve!” Said the ever excited Pinkie Pie clone, Inky Dye, stated. “That takes a while though, so what did you need of us?”
“Uh, we’re trying to get into Cerebrum City?” Even Ocellus was flummoxed and caught off guard by these unicorns suddenly being up close and personal. They started to rub up against us like overly affectionate cats. “Also do you know the meaning of personal space?”
“No, and even if we did, we still like snuggling, cuddling and being openly affectionate!” Said a softer voiced Ponyta, well they certainly weren’t shy in showing how curious they were about us.
“We can get you there, you just have to help us with the sky patrol and our airship. Said airship kind of got shot down by them and we’ve been patching it up since and Cotton ran afoul of their air patrols too.” The more serious member of the Ponyta unit stated while giving a flat look to the other more frolicking mindless fun having unicorns. “We’ll need a few things to get back in the air. That Gilgamesh guy has some really nasty Sigilyphs working for him. Hit our airship with the ‘Gravity’ move and crashed us out of the sky before we even got anywhere near to even remotely close to the city, they have the airspace around Cerebrum locked down pretty well.”
“Rrrr…” I looked to Dolly as she shifted about in her sleep slightly and started whimpering.
“Aw, you poor thing, Heal Pulse!” A Psychic Ponyta ignited with energy and blasted Dolly with it, all of her recent wounds started to heal at a ridiculously fast rate.
“Well that’s one less thing to worry about, what does your airship need to get in the air?” Canard asked and the Ponyta looked between themselves with a friend.
“Yeah… about that…” One of the Ponyta stated as they all turned to Inky Dye. “Glorious leader of pep and pop, would you field this one?”
“We need two very specific things to get our ship back into the air, one is ‘Inkay ink’ for lift since our fuel spilled off the side of our ship when we crashed, either that or the meanies that shot us down used Psychic to toss it overboard. Inkay do not easily part with the stuff and we are going to use Inkay ink specifically because it’s the closest source of fuel we can get that would fit our needs, there’s not much in the way of substitutes so we absolutely need at least a barrel of the stuff. There’s a nearby lake where we can find some to try and convince one way or another.” As she said this Inky Dye pulled out a scroll show the image of a squid Pokémon and then point a hoof at the other images of what were obviously leafy plant types with mantis style motif. “The other thing is we need is to convince a Leavanny among the locals in this forest to patch our old balloon up or make a new one wholesale. Problem is they are being driven to madness by the increasing psychic pressure throughout Illusio, so a fight is inevitable. They’ll be quite helpful in getting us a new balloon in gear, provided we can get through all the feral Pokémon around where they are to knock some sense into them.”
“Where is the ship?” Ocellus asked, Inky simply motioned to us and we moved behind the Power Spot tree and saw an airship that wouldn’t look out of place on Equus. It had several vibrant shades of yellow, pink, blue and mostly green it’s like they painted a field of flowers onto the ship itself. The airship even had a ramp large and sturdy that could get our large wagon onboard. “Okay, this is perfect, but how come it isn’t damaged or dilapidated if it fell from the sky?”
“We made most of the airship out of Fairy Wood, the wood burns quite quickly. So if the ship goes up in flames, the entire ship will turn to ash in a very short amount of time.” Tapping the wooden boat without a mast with her horn, Inky turned to us. “Otherwise the wood used in the construction of our ship is really quite sturdy to heavy impacts and it’ll stand up to energy attacks that don’t have a lot of heat. Most of Fairy Type technology doesn’t use metal, but cloth, wood and various sap like substances. Also after we evolve, metal becomes a bit of an issue for us so we try to keep that in mind with our technology. So don’t expect anything in our ship to be metallic and… eh… can your large metal friend not come near us please?”
The Ponyta were now looking warily at Dodo despite him attempting to be friendly.
“One last question, what’s to prevent the… what did you call them… from just knocking you out of the sky like before?” That was the sticking point, if they were knocked out of the sky by Illusio air patrol, then what’s to stop that air patrol from hitting before we could get too high in the air?
“Ah yes, the Sigilyph. We’ll cross that bridge once we have a functional airship again, until then we can’t even make an attempt to get to Cerebrum… I assure you that all the ground routes to the teleporters are positively covered in Psychic Type forces.” Inky Dye wilted and sat on her flank. “We’re fine for survival, but apparently Cotton is far pickier about her food than we are. Maybe… hey guys while their busy getting the stuff we need, do you think we can harvest some of those psychic crystals for some special ammunition? I have an idea that might get us by the air patrols.”
“Sounds like a plan for us, if it is what I think it is. We’ll work on that, but I’m assuming Cotton led you here on the assumption that someone among you can cook?” The Ponyta did look interested and I was about to proclaim that I could cook, when something shifted in the wagon and a dazed and dizzy looking Pom stumbled from it and into the conversation.
“Huh, wha… where? Did someone say they needed a meal… well I’m up, for cooking for… wow what happened to some of you?” None of me or the other girls resisted the urge, I pounced alongside Shanty and Ocellus to immediately latch onto Pom in a big. “Hey, hey, I’m okay girls. I’m not hurting, I was just... exhausted… Dolly is the one who… huh, Dolly’s injuries look better than I remember them being.”
“You’re welcome, a Heal Pulse will fix up most surface level and sometimes internal injuries! It doesn’t fix everything though.” The Ponyta healer stated from where she was checking over the Morpeko unit and applying healing where necessary. “I’m the team medic Lumber Spry, if anyone is injured come to me. I’ll fix you up quickly, no pay necessary.”
“So what’s going on and what happened while I was out?” Pom looked about at the misty forest, the large crystals poking out from under the nearby giant tree and the colorful curly haired ponies that were lending us assistance and then to Cotton.
“Howdy there, you reckoning what’s going on.” Cotton wandered over to Pom and looked her over. The two began to scrutinize each other carefully, but didn't seem to find anything wrong with the other after a minute. “We’re going to need to do some things quickly if those Drowzee and Hypno we ran afoul of are still looking for a scrap, but first, that meal I was promised!”
“Yeah we got attacked by a lot of guys and got routed, they apparently specialize in putting combatants to sleep and then killing them while they are out cold or detaining them for capture. We escaped from them and now we’re out here.” No sugar coats here from me. “Also we just got two things to do if we’re going to get that in the air and to Cerebrum City.”
Pom turned around and looked at the airship I pointed at, she sighed audibly and flopped onto her butt to start rubbing her forehead with both hooves in tiny circles.
“What are the chances the guys that attacked us, while I was sleeping, would send a raiding party to attack Kadabraville?” There was a long pause, a silence fell over everyone.
They started looking among themselves and a tension started growing around all of us.
“Darn it, we’ll try to meet up with you later in Cerebrum City!” Mentalis and the other Kadabra’s all disappeared immediately in the flickering effects of a teleport.
“Okay, what do we have to do and on a scale of one to tenm how much pain are we going to be in by the end of it?” Pom stated as she dragged out the cauldron with some help from Dazzle and Frizzle, she started up the preparations for making some soup. The Ponyta became somewhat skittish around the metal cooking pot. “What… what is… oh… is it metallophobia or a metal allergy?”
“Eventual metal allergy, right now we’re fine. Most people from Titania have incredibly bad metallophobia for a very good reason, it’s why Fairy Types won’t go anywhere near the kingdom of Valora which is practically covered in the stuff! Sure ghost and poison types are as dangerous to Fairy Types, which we Ponyta psychic variants aren’t yet, but metal really makes us skittish and fearful. We’ll eventually be Fairy Types, where it’ll become an actual major issue for us to be near.” Explained Inky while staring at the cauldron with trepidation. Their eyes all notably said the exact same thing, they obviously didn’t want anything to do with the metal cauldron. “We’re less wary of Poison Types, by that I mean us personally. It’s mostly because we give off a mist we call ‘Pastel Veil’, we give off a nice fragrance and we know how to toot our own horns on having farts that smell like flowers and anti-venom. Gives complete immunity to being poisoned to everyone around us in a general vicinity, the move Toxic doesn’t even function at all around us. We just have to avoid a specific variant of a Pokémon known as a Wheezing.”
Dazzle rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything about that. Frizzle patted her on the back affectionately. Probably because having these Ponyta around made Dazzle unique ability to poison anything that shouldn’t be capable of being poisoned somewhat useless, some abilities apparently trumped others.
Cleffa looked a little confused about something and looked like she wanted to make a comment, but didn’t say anything. Canard crouched down and patted her on the head and she just simply smiled and started talking to him.
“Also to answer your question, we acquire assistance from a Pokémon likely surrounded by feral savages driven mad by the psychic energies building up around Illusio and getting ink from another Pokémon that will be quite reluctant to spare it… given eh… how it’ll be acquired. Anyway, for how painful it will be…” Stated Inky with a thoughtful look on her face tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth. “Well I’m giving it a solid six. Good thing we have a healer in Lumber Spry here right?”
“So it’ll be a nine and a right pain in our backsides, got it.” Pom then proceeded on to making dinner for all of us, much to the disquiet of the Ponyta staring at her aghast for simply assuming the worst.
Shaking her head, Lumber Spry quietly went over to check on Ninjask and his damaged wing, she’d eventually get around to the Morpeko.
“So…” Ocellus came over to me once we were done listening to the conversation.
“I feel like I could be better with my ribbon dancing, I mean leaving it all on Shanty is putting a bit much on her to perform to levels that Pom usually does in keeping us safe. Still, she’s definitely gotten really good with water manipulation at least and she’ll hopefully be enough to stop Pom from doing something absolutely suicidal.” That’s all the explanation I needed. Pom was probably correct and would be more than pleasantly surprised if and when she wasn’t. “Want to help me figure some things out Ozzy?”
“Of course I will Smol!” Ocellus leaned in and nuzzled me affectionately and I nuzzled her back.
-Thirty or so minutes later, before Pom’s food finishes cooking, Cotton Murkrow-
I landed on a tree branch near the camping ground and leaned back while stretching out my wings, just to eventually bring them up behind my head to look over the scene below.
“Yep, this gaggle of strangers is going to be something fun, I can already tell with my ex-per-tease!” While I waited for my meal I probably should have mentioned that all five Hypno units were all up and on their trail, the big living metal outsider bird leaves some pretty distinct footprints.
I did some covering up of the footprints around the forest, but it won’t take long before the Hypno try to come in and find them anyway.
Not that anyone noticed that I even left or did anything at all.
Might be an exceedingly loose beak about many things, but I’m fairly good at being a spy master regardless. Like that Ghourgeist named Shine for instance, she’s a ninja and a utility move twister like me, I can easily tell that much. So what's her story, she feels like she has an assassins edge to her even if she doesn't act very lethal in intent. A curiosity to say the least.
"Eh, it’ll endear them to me when I help put a stop to those units still coming after them." Being an insomniac was rather helpful when dealing with monsters prone to silently killing you in your sleep.