//------------------------------// // 356. Aisle and You. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equus, Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Evening, Jaded La Perm- “Hey guys I’m home from my vacation to the land of the mental lambkins!” I stated as I walked through the door, I was promptly hit by Silvers the three of them affectionately nuzzled into me as I hugged and cuddled them like the loving Abyssinian Queen I was and then I shooed them off to their mothers Bloody Maries. “Good, you’re back, did you find anything?” Fizz was nice to see after getting pounced on by my daughters. “Yeah, a lot… is Tianhuo around? She kind of needs to know about this.” The expression on my face made Fizzy flinch. “That bad?” She asked without really wanting to know. “A little bit, provided Pom doesn’t grow wings and start glowing a full bodied golden color, then she’ll be able to live a long halfway functional life for the commonly anxiety riddled. She just has more good reasons for having that anxiety.” We all already knew it was miraculous that Pom was as high functioning as she was, not letting her anxiety problems or anything else mentally wrong with her get in the way of taking action. That was mostly because the Chrysomallus thing makes her high functioning with the express purpose of driving her towards danger and making sacrifices. I wouldn’t want to be Pom right now, especially if I was aware of what sounds like a horrible curse that even my sister Jackie wouldn’t be able to walk away from. “Auntie?” My nephew Gavin looked up at me questionably as he ran up to me, I squatted down and ran my right claw over his feathers affectionately. “Yes, yes, I got you something you little goober.” I reached into the sack I dropped when I came in and pulled out a designer bright blue scarf for when he goes flying so he doesn’t get cold, Gavin seemed to appreciate it as he looked at it around his neck. “There you go, good and warm for flying high in cold weather. Lambkin are known for good clothing, even bought a shirt for you Fizzle and got a few special order plush toys for Silvers.” I passed a specifically shaded purple shirt that read ‘Beware of Wife’ in big yellow letters with my personal grinning face on it. “How quaint, it’s quite apparent to me that you’ll never change… you’re so lucky that you’re still cute.” Fizz said while rolling her eyes sarcastically. “I’ll go grab Equus Tianhuo for you, so that you can talk about what you found out.” I went over to ‘Maries’ and pulled out a small top hat out of my sack. Sighing loudly Marie, or ’Mary’ just to differentiate from the overall Bloody Maries, lowered her head and allowed me to put it on her. The top hat looked really nice on her… yes… quite nice, indubitably so for the snake head of my favorite conjoined trio. “You still haven’t quite explained your unusually strange obsession with getting Marie to wear top hats.” Maria had actually stop gnawing through a large amount of cottage cheese and swallowed a chunk of tin can to address me. “I never will!” I declare proudly. “Aside from the fact that it’s somehow a turn on for you, still doesn’t explain it though.” Mara replied bluntly as she yawned and it made Silvers yawn too, always adorable. Mara narrowed her eyes at me and ran her tongue along her right saber fang. “… Have you done anything illegal recently to Saddle Arabia that we need to know about?” “What, no… no of course I haven’t! Why that thought hadn’t even crossed my mind… much… honest!” I gave the chimera a wide grin as all three of them were looking at me flatly with suspicion. “If I needed a lawyer, you’re always going to be the first ones in my heart… if it wasn’t a huge conflict of interest for an actual court case what with me being married to the three of you individually and together as an overall whole known as Bloody Maries of the Bloody Tracks clan.” Yes, let us go with suspiciously specific denial. Being the villainess ‘Mirage’ of the ‘One thousand and One Saddle Arabian Tales’ storybook almost made it seem like I had a humongous chip digging into my shoulder about the whole country escaping my timely and eventual ‘petty kitty’ wrath. It was just honestly a completely innocent eccentricity of mine that nobody would drop after I tried to destroy one particular country oh so many times halfheartedly… in a variety of ever increasingly stupid ways that almost, in a concerning enough manner, worked. If anything I was making that country a better place by failing so often and they should be paying me for pointing out all of their countries many, MANY, flaws that I can still readily exploit. Yes, Saddle Arabian will eventually fall to my… er… there might be mind readers around and who knows with unicorns given how often Fizzy predicts my general brand of stupidity… if I hadn’t succeeded by now, that one incident with my buddy Snickers becoming the most beloved sultan notwithstanding, then I probably wouldn’t. Not for the lack of my continued trying in the future anyway. My favorite chimera quietly helped me squish Silvers between us and I decided to order some food from mom while waiting for Fizz to get back with Tianhuo. Though their judging looks didn’t let up on me, it was as if they expected me to suddenly run out the door and enact that one pyramid scheme plan to make it impossible for anyone currently in Saddle Arabia to eat anything other than green beans for an entire week by causing an ‘incidental’ food embargo and destroying tourism for a while. No my nemesis wasn’t the country of Saddle Arabia, why do you ask as if you knew me? Aware that my wives had my number, I wilted under sudden the increased glares until they let up to watch me hand the Chimera, Abyssinian and Unicorn plush toys to Silvers, the three of them seemed to enjoy the soft toys that looked like their mommies and it took a quite a bit of cajoling to get the sanity challenging lambkin to make them for me. The chimera plush toy alone took some doing to get right. -Pokémon Realm, Ransei Region, the next morning, Kingdom of Aurora, King Evan- Aurora Castle, decimated, Helper’s Hamlet, mostly collapsed but recoverable, Team Harmony Guild Hall and Bunker… surprisingly almost entirely undamaged with no less than at least fifty odd weapons sticking out of it. The Bidoof were still busy trying to pry them out so they can repair the damage. Pom really did have the Bidoof overdesign the place for such an occasion, she had most likely expected the Guild Hall to be directly attacked while she was inside it given how smart and somewhat worried about safety she was. At least that paranoia panned out in our favor by focusing a lot on structural support of the building to take several direct hits from even Legendary Pokémon and apparently the Bidoof can actually ‘Build’ for such things. It just required a ten percent cost increase to their builds to make a building Legendary resilient, Legendary proofing required a twenty five percent price increase and the Bidoof already worked cheaply as it was. That said things had actually happened was terrifying, as was the number of injured or otherwise incapacitated that still needed Chan’s help and she was running herself ragged trying to keep up with the huge influx of patients in the emergency Bidoof built hospital. Apparently the hospital was pro bono and the some of the local Miltank were once again proving to be very nice and friendly faces as healers. Not to mention the sudden influx of a smattering of Dark and Psychic Types that were Illusio before that huge explosion that could be seen from basically anywhere in Ransei from miles around. Apparently Pom had rescued a large number of people and sent them our way. Didn’t know what was happening in Illusio now, because most of those who were sent were really bad when they arrived here via the Rescue Team rescue badge transportation. “Are the Bullet Buizels still on retainer from Fontaine and are they okay to travel?” I asked Maiden Jig as I helped carry some water for the injured. “Yes, they should be… they’ve been working almost tirelessly to help us that they all collapsed at the same time. I don’t think anyone in western Ransei has the capacity to launch an attack, much less anyone from eastern Ransei if everyone was attack.” The bags under Maiden Jigs eyes probably matched my own, we hadn’t slept all night and had been pushing ourselves to help others. The inflatable balloon Pokémon was so sweet to keep me company in these trying times, even sharing in being as exhausted by everything as I was. “Then we will Dispatch them to Illusio to find what became of Pom’s team and will accompany them for the foreseeable future if they are even still around after that huge pillar of energy we all saw coming from the northeast.” I was quite worried about our friend who start a Rescue Team business and I’m quite sure that business would be booming in the near future. “After whatever happened, they are not likely to move for a day or two and will be in recovery, I’m sure the Bullet Buizels unit can find them within a day.” It wasn’t bad enough that we didn’t have much of a military, we were a relatively poor kingdom and then we just lost a lot of fields to the bombardment while also being bombarded with even more injured from Illusio proving that Pom’s team had been active during whatever the crisis was there. Even in trying times, I resolved to be the best king of my people I could be. -???, Dolly- “Ngghhh… gah…” I felt pain, but when I went to put my paw on my chest, I found myself glued to Pom’s back by her wool and suddenly I wasn’t in pain like I felt I should be, in fact this was somewhat comfortable. Darn it Pom, you were the worlds nicest pillow! “Where…. where are we?” I sniffed the air and smelled the beach, sand, wind, fruits rotting in the sun and other weird smells of what were probably nearby Pokémon. My helmet was still on my head and given I was with Pom, things should be okay. Using my connection with Pom, I got her to let me… whoa… she was missing a lot of wool. I stood up and immediately became a bit dizzy from doing so and fell off of Pom to the side and into the nearby sand. Quickly prying the helmet off my head and setting it off to the side with my… oh… my board, wow… that Gilgamesh guy actually managed to damage it. It was for a good cause at least and I’m thankful it hadn’t been entirely destroyed… made me wonder what would have happened had I taken my rubber chicken with me. No, focus Dolly, we’re on some kind of island at a beach? How did we get here? Last I remember we were fighting on a bridge, how long have I been out and how long has Pom been carrying me around for? I looked about as I planted my board in the nearby sand, not much use for a skateboard in sand and placed my helmet on it and took stock of the campsite with the dead fire. Pom was lying on a large leaf under a very poorly made shelter, then again it looked like a simple shelter that was made without opposable digits like what my fam was starting to be capable of as animals that were slowly turning into animalistic over time. “Hm? Oh, you’re awake Dolly.” Oh hey, it was Kettle! I yipped that I noticed him. “Please don’t wander off, if you need some water I’ve got some right here. I think Gilgamesh intended to send us to Nixtorm, but we instead ended up somewhere else instead. We’re going to wait for Pom to wake up before we go anywhere on this island we ended up on, that or end up doing something outrageously stupid.” Sounds like a plan to me, I have no idea what to do or what I woke up to, much less what happened to me and why my chest feels so clean when that attack should have scarred me for life. Actually from what little I can remember of the trauma, shouldn’t it have killed me? Everything was going cold until Pom cradled me and I felt her warmth filling me up. Thinking of my partner for life, I moved over to Pom and looked her over. Still breathing, but completely out of it. Feeling something was up with her right leg, I undid the messed up bandages with the horrid smell of Pom’s injuries on them and blinked at what I saw underneath the bandages. “What the…” I carefully wiped a paw and bits of grey wool fell away revealing thick and fresh white wool underneath, in fact as soon as the grey wool was swiped away the white wool puffed up. The most wool Pom had on her body at the moment aside from her back and head. I slowly undid the bandages to the rest of her leg and wiped away the ugly grey wool into the sand to reveal Pom’s right leg had fresh exceedingly pure white wool on it and was no longer weirdly bleeding a lot for no apparent reason. In fact the white wool seemed to be a bit purer than the wool on the rest of her body for some reason, it was just a gut feeling on my part or maybe how in tune I was to Pom’s needs. I shook my head and decided not to think too hard on it and would ask Pom about it later. Yipping and pointing at Kettle with a digit on my paw, he placed down coconut bowl filled with water on a leaf. It didn’t look easy for him to do with those claws of his, in fact setting up this campsite must have taken him a lot of time and effort, not to mention lighting a fire to keep us warm last night would probably have been the easiest part for the dude if he had learned that campfire trick that Pom does with his claws. I lapped up the fresh water and enjoyed the slightly sugary taste on my tongue from the coconut. Even if it wasn’t too healthy for me, at least I knew Coconut wouldn’t kill me… I tried not to eat too many dropped snow cones in the park back in Camden Town. Sure the syrup flavoring was tasty and a once a month kind of thing, but I would have been a fat dog if I let myself go by eating too much of them and my second mother Delilah was very stern with all of us staying healthy. Being stern with avoiding obvious things that can lead to sicknesses when you have ninety nine puppies to take care of was just common sense for a pro nurse dog. “Just so you know, we won and Gilgamesh ultimately died… guy didn’t go down easy either. I don’t know what the ultimate cost for that victory was… in fact, we probably don’t want to know after what I saw.” As Kettle said this he ate a few berries off of his claws after stabbing them pointedly. “Our friends are likely alive though, goodness knows Lit wouldn’t simply die to something like a massive blast that ripped apart a chunk of the continent. I believe our friends are made of sterner stuff and have gotten clear of the blast that was clearly visible from all of Ransei. We’re somewhere south of Nixtorm and north or northwest of Illusio in the middle of the ocean, but I really don’t know how much that actually means to you.” The information that we were lost didn’t really mean that much to me, but it’s good to know that terrifying guy is down... really didn’t want to meet anyone who could carve a nasty groove in my ‘practically’ indestructible board like that again. The ‘practically’ part was important to me and finally came in when I actually got injured in spite of using it to shield my friends, next time I should figure out how to deal with attacks so powerful they’d go entirely through my board and into me. Not that I had a way to do so currently. Really didn’t want to die young without having some puppies of my own to dote on. Kind of wanted to be a mother eventually aside from the general super hero shenanigans I was expecting to get into, this was kind of going well beyond that super hero stuff. I think we just fought and beat a functional god, well I don’t really know how the fight went after I was knocked out of the battle, but we still won right according to Kettle? I was kind of expecting at least a scar from all of that, but nothing… my body felt one hundred percent perfectly fine and healthy aside from Kettle helping me wet my whistler and bet most people haven’t even heard a dog truly whistle before! Looking to Pom I went over to my board, laid down and propped the back of my head up against it while I let myself bask in the sunlight. Kettle rolled his eyes and shrugged, before placing a leaf over his head and leaning against the nearby tree to rest as we waited for Pom to wake up. After thinking about it for a long time, I got up and made my way over to Kettle and gave him a sharp lick to the face. He smiled a little bit as I was thanking him for whatever it was he did to keep the three of us safe and then I went back to resting against my board. Pom was injured and unconscious and Kettle was the only one with us that could have gotten us here, he obviously did something that went above and beyond for us and could use a little recognition. “You’re welcome.” Kettle stated a little amused and looking much happier as he leaned back against the tree with the large leaf protecting his head pulled down over his eyes and he started to rest. “Also thank you for recognizing my efforts to pull the both of you from the sea safely without hurting you. My claws were not exactly made with safety in mind and the swimming for this island took quite a toll on my body as it wasn’t built for swimming, much less actually doing so while carrying two other people. Not to mention the trouble with making this limited shelter we have here afterwards that wouldn’t survived a single storm and at least a fire to safely see last night through. It was nothing new to me, I’m from Nixtorm… it’s always as cold as hell there and hell couldn’t freeze over as bad as that place already does. You and Pom have been out since yesterday if you were wondering, things… didn’t go as well as you might want to believe.” Well I wasn’t going anywhere fast, also appreciated the fact that you were able to manage without us Ke… no… kweh… the sound kweh was familiar, probably something I heard in my sleep… Quetal, yeah that’s right, that’s his name! -Illusio, shy of the totally destructed disaster zone that was eastern Illusio, Kaoru- … The devastation, after an estimated thirty five percent civilian population drop over the last week alone, goodness knows how much of the full population we couldn’t save from the disaster that is the destruction of the floating city of Cerebrum. We Psychic Types already had poor birth rates, this is going to take a lot of time to recover from… even if we had all the help in the world. I stood on the edge of the cliff looking at the lack of vegetation in the destruction zone and sighed… at least Kenshin and Sanosuke were still alive. We’d need a leader in the future and we could leave that to Sanosuke. Kenshin… he didn’t really want the job and we all knew it, still he lead the rebellion to our eventual success and nobody would say no to him being the new king of Illusio after everything he went through for the people. I turned and started walking back towards the airship, trying not to cry about the sight of eastern Illusio ceasing to exist from the massive psychic energy blast. I had plenty of other reasons to be crying right now, good ones, bad ones, sad ones and a whole lot of other painful mixed feelings. The Psychic Types that lived in Illusio were hurting, now the Sigilyph had lost their purpose of defending Cerebrum City, we had no actual king at the moment and goodness knows what will become of us without a castle or kingdom gathering point that Cerebrum City was. Where would we all rally now? How would we even rebuild everything we’ve lost? -Grounded airship, eastern Central Illusio, Shanty- This airship is being nice and Vikavolt was being a big hero. Sure he not be killing Gilgamesh directly, but he still be the one to get the final blows on him after he be tearing us a new one. Those last few minutes where Gilgamesh was completely thrashing us were still fresh in my mind, he just wouldn’t go down… even after Kenshin be doing that insanely powerful technique that looked like one attack when it a lot more than that and even then I couldn’t tell what he be doing. Admittedly… Gilgamesh did be having impressive staying power and that last scream would be haunting some of my nightmares, I just be seeing and experiencing too much to really let that bother me for long. I made my way up to the one that is being called ‘Seer Xatu’ and I be having a quick question for him if he can really be seeing things beyond normal sight. Such things were legendary and real in Turtle Toga back on Equus, even if I have never been there before. It was probably the only reason why I would want to be returning to the planet I was born on, just to be seeing the pirate capital of the world. Well that was being aside from the fact that my friends wanted to return home and I had several opportunities for different styles of life or family, but I was going where my heart wanted me to be. “Where is Pom being?” Yep, we be needing to find Pom like yesterday, seriously doubted Gilgamesh managed to seriously harm her with that beam. Pom was being really hard to kill and we all be knowing she be surviving just as many bad situations. Seer Xatu was standing on the railing of the right side of the ship looking to the east silently with blank eyes. “Even if I told you, I would rather strongly suggest you head in the direction of Valora via the waters between here and there in as straight a line as possible. There’s a coming problem that blinds me to the future coming from there that will spill over into Illusio and destroy the rest of whatever remains of our kingdom. We no longer have the resources to fight against such an unknown factor in a prolonged battle...” Seer Xatu didn’t even look at me and didn’t even blinking once as he continued staring off into nothing blankly. “Until you are ready to go to Valora, I suggest all of you stay here to heal quickly, learn as much as you can and ready yourselves for whatever horrors lay ahead of you. Much was lost yesterday… but there is yet more to lose if we were to make haste or if we don’t act quickly in equal measure.” “So we’re just heading to Valora next, Steel Types right?” Canard stated as he walked up to Seer Xatu, obviously he be believing that what Seer Xatu said was inevitable. “Correct, the Pokémon there are highly physically resilient and sturdy, on top of having the most high end technology in the Ransei region. They are holding strong despite the barely visible current problems plaguing their lands, but if they can fall, then anyone else near them will too. They seem to need a lot of help, as we soon all will if nobody aids them with the ghostly fog of an unknown future covering their kingdom in my vision.” Seer Xatu just kept staring. “That future will inevitably spread to all the other kingdoms if left unchecked. I think this world is about to need all the help it can get. Illusio cannot currently mobilize or lend any aid to Valora for fairly obvious reasons, given what we just went through and the loss of the eastern portion of Illusio and our main city. A lot people just recently died and we are all in mourning.” “I’m sure we help them, we certainly haven’t died yet and my record is still going strong for being the least likely to die out of my Commandramon batch!” Sami is being far too cheerful about that. “I feel like we could have done more Canard… don’t know how though. Gilgamesh was probably one of the absolutely worst things I’ve ever seen in my life next to seeing a full tilt Raremon epidemic… and I’ve seen ‘A LOT’.” -Island Beach, a few hours after Dolly awakened, Pom- Am I dead yet? No… kind of wished I was. In pain? Yes… nothing new then. Dolly clearly feels excited that I was awake at least. “Here, drink this.” Quetal? I felt something press to my lips and I slowly drank the slightly sweet water, I hoped Dolly hasn’t eaten too much coconut. I opened my eyes and found myself on a giant leaf on a beach somewhere. “You’ve been out for a while almost an entire day.” Quetal stated with a worried look for me clear on his face. “So are you going to tell me how you’re dying now?” Dolly immediately became alerted and I decided to just bit the flower on this one. “It’s about the Chrysomallus thing Dolly, he probably figured out something was up when the girls and you became a lot more nervous around me… don’t think I didn’t notice how Shanty tried to keep me view a lot of the time. I’m not an invalid… physically... though I’m currently feeling pretty bad.” I quickly told Quetal what was up with me as I evened out the remaining wool on my body. It felt like a lot of my bones were cracked and my internals were all badly bruised, didn’t know for sure without a medical professional… I really missed Dormarch’s capabilities to scan me. “…” Quetal was looking at me with a bit of a guilty expression for forcing my personal issue into the open and was eerily silent as if he was trying to think of something to say, he looked down at the razor claw he wore on his neck and then back up to me. He slowly and carefully got his arms around me making very sure not to poke me with his claws and gave me a hug while trying to make sure the blunt sides of his claws were on my back and pointing mostly outwards away from me. He was being so careful and gentle. “Thank you for getting us here and for everything you’ve done so far in sticking with us.” I calmly hugged him back gently, Dolly already gave me an information dump of what Quetal possibly went through. He managed to not only keep our heads above the water, but he managed to swim us all the way here. We didn’t talk much afterwards as I wondered where we were going from here, there was an ocean between us and Illusio and Nixtorm was closer. After what Quetal told me about how his brother died… he would be quite reluctant to go to the mainland through Nixtorm. His brother’s corpse was probably preserved in all the ice or partially eaten there, given he wasn’t actively or properly buried. Quetal got us some food as we continued to rest on the beach, I wasn’t in a good mood or condition to be moving around a lot and the lights coming from the nearby jungle as the evening set had me worried about the likelihood of aggressive Pokémon being around. The beach was relatively safe as we could see things long before they could attack us, unless the beach itself came to life and attacked us and I wouldn’t put it past a sand Pokémon to be a thing at this rate. Quetal tried to light a fire and I quickly decided to be the one to do it as the evening started falling on us, I pulled the device Arceus gave me from the back of my neck. I then glanced at Dolly and her slightly ragged pink scarf. “Dolly… can Yggdrasil Sis scan me for injuries?” I asked with a few quick yips and a slight growl, apparently I didn't need to ask Dolly as the device immediately did it for me. “Scanning user Pom and Dolly. User Dolly perfectly healthy, top one percentile among canines in health and an estimated lifespan of two hundred years.” We both blinked at that and Dolly looked at me with a bit of shock, yeah I think our familiar bond and the magic of Equus might have that effect on some animals. “User Pom, multiple cracked ribs, several contusions, minor nonlethal internal bleeding, skeletal structure damage approximating thirty percent of her body with no complete breaks, massive loss of overall wool coverage, signs of extreme fatigue and advanced signs mental depression, anxiety and severe trauma.” “Nothing new, got it.” The incredulous stares I received from Quetal and Dolly made me shiver a bit. “I know what will cheer me up… I just hope Tianhuo is not mad I haven’t been able to call her for a while.” I looked at the Arceus given device and activated it, the call was immediately answered and I saw a clearly worried and loving face of Tianhuo. “Pom, are you alright!” The fact that Tianhuo lost composure was kind of… new to me. I always thought the fiery longma as inflappable, but the immense amounts of concern for my wellbeing eased my stress by a mile. The less suicidal thoughts I have the better, like being a Chrysomallus wasn’t enough trouble already. “No, Tianhuo, I’m not alright… I’ve got some things to tell you.” Like I told Quetal, I started to tell Tianhuo about my being a Chrysomallus and all that it entailed, she oddly seemed less than surprised by what I was telling. It was an hour or two later that I realized that I was still talking to Tianhuo and that she was listening to every word I said with a rapt attention bordering on obsessive. I understand the feeling, for when she talked I listened as such. Given it’s been more than a week since I’ve gotten the Arceus given device back, it must have added a lot more time for me to talk with Tianhuo. “You… you already knew about it…” I finally stated as it was getting quite late into the evening. “Jaded found the progenitor of the lambkin race and got it straight from her mouth, she gave me that information yesterday…” Tianhuo still gave me a truly loving look, it was kind of unfathomable that she’d still be interested in me given I have what amounts to a literal ‘Death Wish’ hanging over my head. “It has been said that so long as you don’t grow wings, you’ll be fine.” “Tianhuo… you and my god puppies make me want to be selfish and to live.” I said honestly. “Then please keep living for me.” Tianhuo responded immediately with a hidden burning passion under those stoic and sharp eyes and weak smile. “Heh, this has been much more than ten minutes.” “Yeah given how much time the device has been stolen for, it’d make sense it’d be giving us so much extra time to just… talk.” I smiled a little as Dolly leaned up against my side as did Quetal. “My life is a mess Tianhuo.” “And you think mine isn’t without you in it?” Looking up into Tianhuo’s eyes we stared at one another until our cheeks started running bright red. “Baa-baa be okay?” Woof asked, always the sweet one and the other three brothers whined behind him in a similar sentiment. “I’ll live, I’ll see that I do… even if my condition is getting worse.” My front right entire leg and a portion of my left lit up in a golden shower of light as I called up my heritage, before I dimmed it back down and didn’t use any of it. It was almost like I was tempting ‘that power’ to become worse. “I just got to avoid going over my limit… heh heh… hah… that’s actually kind of hard considering I need that power just to stay alive here. It’s not paranoia if you’re right, right?” “I’ll try to keep her going ma’am.” Quetal promised a second later. “The glow was quite beautiful at least, Pom I hope…” The call ended and Tianhuo’s face disappeared from the screen making me sit up and then looked to the stars in the sky above us and the small campfire we had going. “We’ll go inland in the morning to see what’s going on with this island and will see if there is any intelligent life around here. Maybe we’ll start working on building a raft provided if we don’t find any signs of helpful civilization here… and… you probably don’t want to hear this but… we might have to go to Nixtorm.” The flinch that I saw Quetal make was really quite disheartening, as much as his panic attack breathing and highly stressed shivering was and it… reminded me of myself. -Equus, Tianhuo- “I get to see you again before it is far too late…” I finished quietly with four whining puppies at my side worrying about my very still form. “It is late, how about we prepare for bed together little ones?” The puppies nuzzled me quietly instead of excitedly, they probably understood things as well as I did in an emotional sense. -???, ???- “Oh a true smile is all I will ask for… and nothing more…” I was smiling as I saw our visitors resting quietly on the beach. He’d even invite them into their happy community tomorrow that is ‘The Dream’. Sure he could send them away or just plain mess with their heads, but they’ve already been through so much and were friends of his friends the e-pony-mous Ponyta Prowlers. They obviously needed a new member and a new leader, Lumber Spry would be quite the peach for it even if she was a medic. He was quite willing to be lenient with the heroes that he saw fit to make arrive in his hidden kingdom. “It will give her pause and time to think, to rest, her metaphorical heart needs time to recover lest she break it irreparably and after such a harrowing story that will be retold throughout the ages… a hero like her would need some rest at a nice tropical island resort that cannot be plotted on any map hidden within a space too small for it to fit by our mystical fog. Even when she clearly doesn’t want to be a hero, she will be one regardless. She’ll probably even thank me for intercepting Gilgamesh’s attempt to send her to face the ‘Terror of Nixtorm’ before she is ready for such things, truly Gilgamesh was powerful and I could barely intercept his portal in time to redirect them. However, many will soon learn that you should never underestimate a Fairy Type when it comes to being quite an ‘Aipom wrench’ in the works as it were... besides, they did me a favor and I do owe them quite the boon… heehee-~.” Location: The hidden Kingdom of Titania, the magically connected Fairy Dust islands of the Fairy Types under the rule of the ever attentive King Oberon. The king’s sentries were already watching their ‘guests’ and their ‘guests’ wouldn’t be able to leave until Oberon was done with ‘helping’ them. Oberon didn't mean any hostility to them whatsoever, not that that helped with Fairy Types being monstrously mischievous.