//------------------------------// // 349. Halfway to high water. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Origin Space, Arceus- A good number of Legendary Pokémon were keeping the situation in Valora contained. The indiscriminate attack on the entire continent was earning my ire, but it was at least helping Valora a bit. It’s a good thing Hoopa and Celebi were already working on evening the scales. I glanced at Fontaine first… their hard work rebuilding their kingdom was not going to go to waste. -Pokémon Realm, Ransei Region, Fontaine, King Motochika- Despite my frantic need to protect the kingdom from being bombarded with weapons exploding everything, I was once again going to fail my people. “Please… we need… huh?” Water rose up and started to protect what we had managed to rebuild and I turned to look at a large figure floating in the water with us… my artillery units finally had rest from defending against that bastard that had attack the entirety of Ransei. A lot of water Pokémon were quiet as the disastrous bombardment had ceased being able to hit our hard work in rebuilding our floating water kingdom. We were being devastated and no longer was that the case. The figure in the water with us was a recognizable figure among us, in fact it was the bigger one that was forging a solid bubble of water to protect my kingdom and its people. There was Lugia the guardian of the ocean and then there was the ocean’s master, the whale shark himself who came to our aid… Kyogre. A reverberating roar sounded out throughout the water and I could feel the thrum of the world calling back, I could almost feel and see the Legendary Pokémon that responded in turn as they started covering every kingdom that needed their protection. “Thank you…” I said with a weak smile, it made me wonder how bad King Evan’s kingdom was getting trashed by this. Not getting a response from the concentrating Kyogre, I turned to my people. “With us today is Kyogre, we will need to send greater aid to our neighboring allies in Aurora and Greanleaf in these trying times, until then we can build with what supplies we have with the coverage of lord Kyogre!” Guess I didn’t need to make too many more prayers. -Illusio, halfway point Big Bridge in the sky to the Castle of Illusion, Lit- The tiny yellow electric tick Pokémon was crawling across the bridge unfettered and ignored. For someone of his diminutive stature and size, not many would believe had the title of ‘hero’ or could even be a hero. Being a hero was not something Lit really cared about. He would always, unintentionally or not, act in the most heroic manner possible aside from two specific situations… seeing incredible edible energy sources and something to eat, it could be one or the other or even both that distracts him. Aside from those two situations, he was quite heroic! Thus far, he hadn’t been attacked because he was crawling along the underside of the bridge. Not many would realize he had gone missing in all the chaos of freezing winds, balls of hot magma that exploded on contact with said winds, thousands of random weapons raining all over like a hailstorm that would explode if they were launched hard enough into the bridge, blasts of lightning and even a sandstorm mixed in with all of the chaotic problems facing everyone Lit cared about. Visibility was poor around the area that Pom and the rest were, nobody could blame Lit for going missing in all of that. Lit was on a mission and the tiny hero was going after Inky Due and Gilgamesh, though it was going to take time for him to crawl all the way across the underside of the bridge because of his size. There was quite a look of determination in his tiny eyes as it wasn’t just his favorite people that were being threatened. Lit didn’t mind Dolly seeing him as a strange pet or buddy, he didn’t mind living up to that if that was what she wanted him to be. If only Dolly knew he has been absolutely infatuated with her on first sight, she might be flattered and would definitely have to let him down gently. Even then Lit wasn’t going to be upset, he was a fairly simple bug and just being near Dolly Dalmatian was enough for him to be happy… that and a large source of energy or a few stockpiled berry to eat. Again he was very simple minded in this regard when it naturally came to food. He was more likely to target Inky Due when he got to the other end of the bridge. Why? Well… in his tiny mind, Inky Due was a weakened target and the predatory side of Lit wanted to make Gilgamesh pay for all the trauma he caused Dolly to go through. Lit was a Bug Type and Psychic Types like Inky Due would have the worst problem seeing Dark Types coming, but Bug Types weren’t too bad at sneaking up on them either. There was a thought that Lit could blindside her all the same, he did figure out something about the move Lunge and watching Dolly’s instant change in momentum gave him some ideas. Although the energy cost of using the move multiple times in a row would be high, it would increase his combat and evasive abilities significantly. -Far above the bridge, Pocket of Space, Celebi- “Do we even know if this summon will work correctly?” I had some reasonable doubts, but Hoopa waved a hand at me. “Don’t worry so much, I’m sure the guy we’re calling will be a big help! They will at least have a dimensional stabilizing effect making it hard for Hyperspace Holes to be created… this gold colored bootleg Hoopa named Gilgamesh won’t like what’s going to hit him.” Since Hoopa knew we were fighting fire with hand grenades, shouldn’t he be a little more cautious with what we were about to pull. Hand grenades were pretty rare in this world, when they weren’t Pokémon to begin with, but they did exist and Team Rainbow Rocket really shouldn’t have tested Arceus’s incredible patience. It would be like that time Arceus stuffed the dark version of that guy named ‘N’ in a universe that his Team Plasma leader of a father, Ghetsis, wanted to occur. That version of N became completely and utterly miserable within a year and begged Arceus to put everything back to normal. What he doesn’t know was that things were already normal for that given world, so Arceus just smiled and didn’t do anything. Arceus has been absolutely ignoring that version of N for the last few years and now N was trying to fix everything in that universe personally, Arceus was letting him do so to become a hero and broaden their horizens by a metric ton to the point that the lesson was definitely learned. Be absolutely careful of what you wish for and don’t let people tell you how to think. Fun thing that there were two Ghetsis in that universe and one of them was absolutely remorseful seeing exactly what happened and what he was going to cause, he was currently helping the Dark N from the shadows. It was fun watching people get exactly what they wished for and it not being what they truly wanted to the point they’d have to work to fix things they were trying to break in the first place. Arceus was truly wise and it required very little effort from him, heroes always in the right place. Right, got to get back to here and now… but then again I did have all the time in the world to think. At least Dialga and Palkia let this joint venture to summon someone between us happen, well it was mostly because Arceus said it was okay, but we still had to run this by the Space and Time dragons. We even ran this by Giratina, master of the anti-matter realm the Distortion World just to make sure we weren’t going to destroy reality by accident as this was also a matter of some mild crossing of Dimensions as well. Goodness knows how many times that reality destroying thing has happened before, kind of why I exist as a time janitor. I did have a side hobby of creating world fixing paradoxes, said paradox energy had to go somewhere right? Even Giratina’s understudy gave us the go ahead when I talked to them and they said to not worry about any Ultra Beasts appearing. I’m taking that to mean that it was inevitable that an Ultra Beast of the otherworldly dimensional realms would show up, said realms where Arceus had several special projects running and might be where we get some of our dimensional energy from. If they were going to be involved in this somehow, then things were about to get weird. They were many that could be on par with Legendary Pokémon and… oh… ah… so that’s it… There was a common saying among us Legendary Pokémon, ‘Arceus planned ahead’. No matter how many times we say it, we are still surprised when it happens to us on many occasions out of the blue. It happens more often if we of the legendary type of Pokémon get quite rowdy, because we usually end up getting humbled by some not so legendary Pokémon for one reason or another. Still, the convoluted effort to wake up Rayquaza with a reincarnated hero over months of constantly running around aimlessly with a whole crazy backstory thing was rather inspired. “Hoopa, don’t be alarmed, but I think we’re actually dropping an Ultra Beast into this mess.” Hoopa looked very alarmed for a moment, then his wide grin threatened to cut his head in half by widening even further as he probably realized exactly what I had. “Arceus planned ahead?” Hoopa said with a grin. “Arceus planned ahead.” I repeated with a nod. “This is going to be better than we thought then.” Hoopa stated rubbing his levitating mitten hands together. “Let’s summon them some help!” -Close to a quarter of the way across the bridge, Pom- Dolly shot overhead in ten shining flashes of white energy, somehow the energy she gave off stopped the howling winds and managed to somehow deflect one of the magma blobs without dying from convection. I don’t know how Dolly was doing that with excess magic from constant impacts, but it was clearly helpful and somehow massively disrupted a lot of the onslaught we were slogging through… although I could currently feel her sweating profusely after the magma ball deflecting off her board. Dolly really did specialize in motion based capabilities, but even she had been scratched and scuffed up and as she landed from her recent dazzling display, I could see an amount of blood dripping from her left hind leg as she blocked a spear heading for my gut with her board and went sliding by me with a pained grunt. Apparently her counter ability didn’t stop her from getting hurt, it just stopped anything in front of her from harming her and allowed her to move as if she were using Dancing Flame for the ten high speed consecutive thrusts she did. It wouldn’t stop anything coming at her from any other angle though and with as many weapons being launched at us from all direction, I’m surprised she hasn’t been killed yet and I’m surprised I’m still standing on my rear hooves despite the abuse my body was going through. “Be more careful Dolly.” I said as I swung the spear in my hooves upwards and deflect a horizontally scimitar away from swinging at her neck sideways in an attempt to wrap around her board, as I did this a knife deflected off of her helmet and almost gave her deadly whiplash. She thankfully could control her own momentum to greatly minimize the damage to herself. I’ve been lightly stuck with three knives and a spear thus far, no outright heavy solid hits and Gilgamesh was targeting me the most heavily out of all of us. At least my wool can patch my wounds without me having to manually spread it over them now, I wouldn’t survive a second of this if I entered my Sheep’s Clothing wool shift state as the lack of protection would quickly get me torn apart. Kenshin stepped forward and unleashed another ‘Doryusen’ shockwave forward that stopped the incoming onslaught from that direction for a few seconds, Shanty was watching him with an intrigued fascination and I could tell she was trying to learn something from him. Shanty still couldn’t do a flying slash, but maybe a series of shockwave eruptions was more within her capabilities given how Kenshin did it. I’m fairly happy with her progress and that she could handle herself in all of this as her cane scythe as it sliced through the air taking out multiple weapons coming from the sides and back. The only attacks we couldn’t stop easily were the ones from the portals that opened up a millimeter above the surface of the bridge itself and fired upwards into us. I would actually relish the fact that I was being targeted heavily somewhat given my wool can soak damage like nothing else, if I didn’t know Gilgamesh wanted me to cruelly live through this and to actually rise to the occasion in the capacity of an actual hero then I’d swear he was trying to kill me outright. Gilgamesh was certainly forcing the hero thing and it might work on me knowing that a lot of lives were on the line unless he was quickly stopped, with the way things were going it was more casualty mitigation. Guy had a somewhat twisted view of reality, don’t know why he was like this, but I’ve pretty much figured out most things about him. Things that would only make sense if Gilgamesh was one of the reincarnated people Arceus has given another chance at life… and Gilgamesh remembered his prior life and was always this stupidly powerful. The only thing I didn’t want to know now was what an Unbound Hoopa was like, as the idea of it actually happening had a lot of people terrified. At this point I’m sure Gilgamesh wanted us to try and find a way to kill him. That or he was serious in a manner that said, this world was going to need as many people that can rise up to the occasion as soon as possible and this was his way of making that happen by trial of world ending fire. Given the amount of power he had was absolutely ludicrous, if there was a threat large enough to drive him to all of this... then I didn’t agree with his extreme methods, especially not when they are forcing me to actively be a hero and I already get enough of that from my conscience, my friends and my desperately suppressed Chrysomallus side. Anything can be easily said, some things can easily be done, but this… this right here… this was almost functionally impossible to survive! I ducked an axe and Dazzle caught it before wielding it to deflect multiple weapons as she wielded a barely formed whip of flame being weakened by in the chill winds, water and sand. It’s like we were being constantly hit with an entire beach at night, with a few intervals of being hit with magma blobs to cause volatile explosions that knocked us around or nearly struck by bolts of lightning passing through various portals. The bridge wasn’t taking that much damage, whoever built this bridge had made it sturdy enough to handle all kinds of storms. That or it was indestructible while it was channeling all that energy the Castle of Illusion was building up. My front legs were tired, I didn’t know how many weapons I deflected or how many muscle jarring impacts I stood up to, but my wool was working overtime to protect my body from this. “You’re almost there….” Gilgamesh’s taunting voice stated, he was intentionally poking at us as we were almost a quarter of the way across the bridge. “Huh? Ah… now that’s a problem. Ugh… those gods are cutting off my access to the weather elements by making them all inert in the areas I can access… how capable of them. At best I can launch icicles now or do some rolling snow boulders and they don’t even have to be visible to do it to cause me trouble. Ah well… let’s move on to the next thing, right Inky?” Suddenly the icy winds, blowing sand, sprays of water, blasts of lightning and magma balls all stopped by the time we made it to a quarter of the bridge. This does not stop the weapons from coming at us, while it just got a little easier it was still pure torture to keep deflecting so much high speed metal. The end of the spear snapped off with a large chunk of the shaft, I deflected another spear using a quarter staff technique taught to Huoshan guards for such an occasion and immediately swapped it out for another with a three pronged tip and continued moving forward while defending. We made it to a quarter of the way across the bridge when Gilgamesh unleashed his next method of assault. Inky Due’s chains firing out of the portals at high speeds, but none of them were aimed at me… for obvious reasons. “Oh come on…” I mumbled weakly as I plant the butt of the spear I held and braced myself against it, this spear was a very similar high grade one to the one I held a second ago that broke under the strain of the amount of weapons being fired at us and used my damaged right leg to a deflect attacks that got by Dolly trying to give me some form of relief in all of this. A sword slashed across the left side of my face and I almost fell backwards as I puffed out my wool and stayed standing, Quetal, took up position defending me despite how tired he was. His claws flashing out as much as the Swift stars he hadn’t stopped spitting for over a minute now. Out of all of us Dodo was the only one that was tirelessly avoiding or deflecting weapons, he was mostly mechanical so this probably wasn’t as big a problem for the metal ostrich who gained wings that could form cutting arcs like Shanty and was relatively tireless. Kenshin was still going strong, but I think that was more out of righteous anger than anything. A portal opened up on the bridge below my resting form and I quickly tossed my head back to avoid taking a knife in my lower jaw. I quickly stepped around the portal and continued forward, we couldn’t exactly take a long break and we couldn’t exactly pace ourselves either with the situation in Ransei possible being really bad. One of the chains grabbed a fired weapon and my eyes narrowed as it was redirected at me by the chain, I dodged to the side as the spear was slammed into the bridge on a flaming chain that was quickly destroyed by a flaming whip from Dazzle before it could lift the spear and try again. A chain launched mace slammed into my chest in my inattention after the dodge and I was knocked onto my back with. The impact hurt me through my wool, but it still managed to absorb most of it with my wool and kept a grip on the spear I was holding. I felt a pair of wings wrapped around me as Mundo huddled over me protectively with his steel wings and I could hear the weapons bouncing off his toughened body, he was still grunting and there was a few thousand reasons why the Hawlucha couldn’t fly in a storm of metal. “This is not what you want to do, yet you still came through with us, are you okay at the moment?” Is this really the time Mundo? “No.” I state bluntly as I hugged the newest spear against my chest, then used it to prop and lift myself up with the shaft. “Good, neither am I and I can share your pain in all of this given I too have several knives in my back, I think I’m going to let go of you now and move back and try to deal with my injuries. Try to stay strong in spirit my friend, for I always will do the same for all of you!” Mundo quickly released me from his protective cover and dodged a chain swinging an axe for his head. I quickly stabbed the middle prong of the spear through the chain and swung the psychic chain into myself on purpose and with a flash of gold from roughly impacting with my wool, all the weapon wielding chains disappeared. It wouldn’t be long before Inky would become a problem again and we had to keep pressing forward, I felt Dolly leaping to cling onto my back and took several impacts that staggered me as Dolly was protecting me with her board and body from behind. I gritted my teeth and kept swinging and stabbing the spear into the air, Kenshin was already starting to flag in the defense of us and himself, that’s when we got an interesting reprieve from Cleffa having climbed up to Dodo’s head. A beam of energy ripped from her small right nub and gave us a few seconds from the flying metal as the beam tore across the bridge, I inhaled and waited for what I knew Gilgamesh would do. I exhaled and charged forward to avoid the Solar Beam being aimed back at me from above by Gilgamesh and he turned his portal to follow me until the attack ran its course sweeping the beam after me as I ran forward and deflected multiple well timed and aimed weapons with barely a way through them without Dolly’s sudden tossing her board into my hoof as my right held the spear. The skateboard has been a lifesaver numerous times, after I was done blocking an absolute onslaught I passed it back to her as I took up the quality spear I’ve been wielding in both hooves. Again, I had to wonder how many high quality weapons Gilgamesh had to be firing them all at us this lazily. “Be careful more with powerful ranged attacks!” Quetal shouted to Cleffa in part of being worried for me and to scold her, he could do so because Swift couldn’t be redirected back at us, given the user controls the speed and direction of the energy they fired. The Pokémon move Swift was considered a never miss move because it was a homing attack capabilities, but the user could still also control the energy after fired and the resulting effect would be something akin to a Magic Missile on Equus if a lot weaker. Also from what I know of Magic Missile, it couldn’t turn on a dime and only had a limited lock-on effect, swift was better in being able to hit a target despite minimal damage each energy star fired does. “Sorry, I just wanted to help!” Wailed a sad Cleffa apologetically as she slid down Dodo’s neck to avoid getting skewered. -Shanty- After Pom and Dolly be avoiding the beam, I be sending glances at Kenshin, now I knew he won’t be doing a flying slash for that reason alone if he even could… but he still be having so many techniques that be catching my eyes. Maybe I could be pirating a few of them? This was being the reason Dodo hasn’t been firing pastries from his beak at Gilgamesh as we approached the center of the bridge, didn’t want to lose an eye to a cupcake as that would be being quite lame. A chain lashed out for me from a portal and I hooked my scythe upwards in a cutting arc that tore the chain up at the base close to the portal before it could be entrapping me. “Chains are back!” I warned while avoiding ones that be rising up out of the portals on the stone floor of the bridge. This is being more dangerous than Lu Bu and they can be catching weapons to wield against us to be making this even harder than it already is! “Take a quick drink!” Shine stated hurriedly as she popped up and passed me the healing canteen, I wonder why she would be being here for me when I felt the large gash in my side. I… is this what adrenaline be doing? I be getting in a quick sip and my side healed bit, at least enough to not be bleeding me out and I be giving the canteen back to Shine as she ducked back into the shadows before a chain could hit her and continued to be supportive where necessary. Dodo be warbling if I was okay and I be sending him a feeling that I was being good if a little hurt, he accepted it though wouldn’t stop mentally poking me about my injuries with worry. Is this being what it is like for Pom and Dolly? It is always feeling nice to be knowing that I am never being alone and that Dodo can handle the chains easily as well. Goodness knows what be happening to Ocellus and Smolder as the City of Cerebrum below was being bombarded in a similar manner, then there is being all of Illusio itself… how many people were dying while we be trying to cross a bridge? I be narrowing my eyes as I be thinking of that, I started plowing forward with wild abandon and rapid slashes of the cane scythe in my right hoof made of a robot leg and my left leg created cutting arcs as I took the lead in pushing forward. A razor edged shield be coming at me from the right in the form of a spinning disc and was deflected away by Favela coming up to my side with the two shields she be wielding in her vines. She be firing off a few Seed Bombs and deflecting another wave of weapons and a few chains were even blown back. “Girls don’t push too far ahead on your own!” Pom warned and we listened as we waited for the rest to catch up with us. “One of us needs to make it to the halfway point to bring Gilgamesh into the battle. I will take the lead on that, everyone please quickly follow behind me when I make a solid path.” Kenshin narrowed his eyes as he crouched and I saw as fields of Psychic energies deflecting all the weapons coming at him as he moved forward, Pom be coming up next to us with several injuries on both her and Dolly. “You’ll be safe within said path for a minute while the effect lasts, so please take that time to rest while you can!” Kenshin be crouching down, placing his left hand on the hilt of his blade with a grim look on his face as he brought the sheath across his back with his right, his body started to glow brightly. “Special Technique: Psychic Ryusosen!” In a flash Kenshin flew forward his blade be flashing hundreds of times a second and deflecting everything that be coming at him with incredible force as he cut through the air in a blur and left a literal tunnel of energy in his wake from all the high arcing swings in the middle of his mad dash forward. Pom immediately ran into the glowing tunnel of energy and be watching as the energy be reflecting the weapons automatically. I be following after her as Kenshin be getting us further along the bridge and be fighting further ahead at the other end of the tunnel of energy he generated. Shine popped up and quickly passed the remaining Sitrus Berry juice around, we didn’t be having much time and the chains apparently couldn’t be breaking through the psychic corridor and neither could Gilgamesh’s portals so we be safe for however long this lasts and we were being almost halfway across the bridge. -Kenshin- Though powerful he may be, I at least think that Gilgamesh had some sense of honor when I made it to the middle of the bridge. “Come face me Gilgamesh, you said you’d fight us personally if we made it this far!” I issued my challenged and waited. Weapons continued to rain down on my newest friends while I waited and I didn’t have to wait long. With a flicker of a quick portal the fiend himself appeared with that ever wide grin, he summoned a regular scimitar and it fell into his hand. “Now we’re getting to the fun stuff!” With his appearance Gilgamesh pulled a plain, if high quality, short sword out of a portal before holding it in my direction. “You’re bound to be a legendary figure, but you’re not worthy of me actually using my best weapon… so this cheap piece of rubbish will have to do. I’m curious, how does one kill with a reverse blade sword? It is of exquisite quality, it’ll make a fine addition to my collection.” “You’re about to find out.” I said calmly as I raised the sword to eye level pointed towards him and glared. “This blade was meant to represent the end of hostilities… I intend to end yours.” “A blade made for the conceptual times of peace, how interesting. I can see why it radiates kindness, you would make a great Saber. Too bad you’re not the one I want.” Testing Gilgamesh’s defense with several swings, my eyes narrowed as he managed to avoid me actually striking him with my weapon and even had the strength to deflect my attacks with some of his own. “You obviously don’t know how talented I am with a weapon. Let me show you!” -Pom- “How is everyone feeling?” Mundo asked, while looking a bit miserable as Shine wrapped his torso with bandages. “Have you seen what we’ve just been through?” Asked Quetal who was sporting the least amount of injury among us next to a shivering Favela who had two crumpled metal husks that used to be shields clutched tightly in her vines. “We’re barely able to recover as it is.” “Could this get any better?” Dazzle wanted to know sarcastically, as she pulled a throwing star out of her shoulder and her left claw, then Shine got to work. Lifting her head, Dazzle looked at Kenshin facing off with Gilgamesh alone. “Frizzle… you better be ready to escape when you have an opportunity.” “At this rate we might be dying before we can actually be stopping him.” Shanty’s eyes were affixed on the fight between Kenshin and Gilgamesh, she was studying Kenshin’s skills and was even watching Gilgamesh’s. They were, surprisingly enough to me, somewhat evenly match. “As soon as this protective field Mr. Kenshin made drops, we’ll be in trouble again won’t we?” Charjabug asked as he watched Kenshin and Gilgamesh clashing nearby, I idly considered how much trouble Inky Due was going to be. Surprisingly Gilgmesh wasn’t firing constant weapons at Kenshin, it was purely a sword fight and Kenshin was showing the full might of his skill and Gilgamesh was matching him blow for blow despite how fast he attacked. “Pom I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I don’t see Lit anywhere!” Dolly stated as Shine started tending to her. “Has anyone seen Lit!” I asked in turn after hearing Dolly barking about a sudden problem that was brought up. “Not since the sandstorm, rain, lightning and freezing winds started hitting us harshly…” Quetal looked quite concerned as he rubbed his left claw along his right arm gently, making sure to avoid stabbing himself on his own claw. “Surprised we made it this far and are still alive with our bodies mostly intact.” “That is the last of our medical supplies, we don’t have anything else aside from my Pain Split now…” Shine would make that sacrifice, it was best that we don’t get injured enough for her to have to do so. -Lit- “Squeak…” The little tick raised his front legs and prepared to fight Gilgamesh and Inky Due by himself as he crawled up over the railing near the castle’s entrance… only to see Inky Due and she was currently concentrating on the bridge. Looking in the direction of the bridge he could see Gilgamesh was far away, he simply turned back to Inky Due and followed his first instincts, which was that of an avid ambush and swarm predator. Lit used Lunge! This hero was going to be super effective. -Rebel encampment backlines, Lumber Spry- “We can’t move her, she’ll die, I’m a medical professional and even healing substances are not working very well on her wounds at this moment!” I was doing everything I could to stabilize Cotton’s condition, she had been shredded by those chains erupting out of Inky Due’s body. “I’m pretty sure a reviver seed would work, but they are quite rare in Ransei and these injuries are just that severe.” I had no idea what Cotton’s last words were meant to warn us about, but it had something to do with Inky Due, Probably how dangerous she was to approach close up alone and I’d agree with that sentiment. “What if I levitated the both of you into the wagon and you keep working on her?” Ocellus glanced over to the dragon named Smolder in the wagon. “Moving her in any manner would still be a battle idea, even levitation, she’s very much in a critical state.” Another crack was heard and we looked up at the dome of Psychic energy. The casualties were getting worse, the dome to the rebel camp was about to crack and the city was quickly losing power meaning we were about to fall out of the sky and take the Castle of Illusion with us. “Perhaps we can help?” I looked up and saw a Xatu standing on the railing of an airship, despite the numerous raining weapons, none of them came close to hitting the ship… until one did and a barrier erupted into existence without rocking the ship an inch. “I believe this ship was meant for Inky Due, it is going to be put to better use evacuating as many injured as we can take on… among other things we need it for. Also, if you can trust me, then I can save Cotton’s life… she saved mine not too long ago by knocking me unconscious with a bit of wood to the head, so I owe her.” Well that sounded like a strange way of saving someone.