//------------------------------// // 369. Pushing Forward. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equus, Doing a moderately honest job in Canterlot, outside the Royal Guard Barracks, Jaded- “Now you may all be wondering what Jaded La Perm is doing here, no she is not part of this exercise so stop looking so dejected or afraid of what she might or might not have planned as a training aid. She however is incentive to take this seriously and is currently doing her job as a security consultant… don’t snicker the living nightmare of Saddle Arabia is in fact doing her job by just sitting there and eating a Raspberry Tiger Tail doughnut.” Kind of like Duly Noted, his brother Duty Noted was pretty cool too. Those two brothers knew how to run a Canterlot squad of guards, unlike most guards they tried to sell the whole similar appearance that most guards try to portray. They continued to have white dyed fur having been around since Celestia’s reign leading into Twilight’s and would likely continue to be loyal to the sun goddess. “In any case she will be an observer to today’s exercise and will point out the holes in our figuring out the problem, as I’m sure you are all aware, this is a test where one among you is...” “I know what you’re going to say, it’s the guy in the back on the left.” I commented dryly. “Which guy?” The guards looked confused. “Your truly are a security expert… guess it takes someone that is quite crafty to break the refurbished wards on Canterlot Castle not once, but three times in a week.” Duly Noted stared me in the eyes and I smile. “In any case while we distracted you with the information that Jaded has broken into Canterlot Castle no less than five times this week alone, someone among you isn’t who they seem. This is a cross training exercise with a changeling.” All the guards looked at the Changeling Guard among them that wasn’t even hiding his appearance. “I mean another changeling aside from Shim Shady who has earned his right as a Royal Guard and a duel citizen of the ‘Glad’ Lands and Equestria.” A lot of the guards suddenly got the message. “Do you know which one among you is currently a changeling Sergeant Shady?” “No sir, but I should be able to at least identify them, what are they using to hide themselves?” Sergeant Shady looked about, Changelings were not able to match anyone on an even field, but they were good jacks of all trades and multi-lingual so Shady tended to get jobs with foreign dignitaries that weren’t changelings themselves. “Also don’t you mean infiltrated the castle only three times?” “I know what I said about Jaded, she got by the wards without breaking them more than once, it’s a little bit insulting that she even hired a five year old colt to poke logical holes in our defenses. Anyway, you’ll find out soon enough how the intruder is hiding their presence.” Duly Noted continued and I grinned knowing exactly the trick being played here, it required every to be on alert, when even the changeling can’t eyeball the problem among them. The problem is the word ‘Changeling’ is not just a race, but also another word for ‘shape shifter’ and a shape shifter that wasn’t a changeling wouldn’t be spotted that easily by an empathic bug pony. However, I will note how long it takes someone to notice I still had my eyes on the guy and add that to Duly Noted's evaluation. “You are so lucky, that I have a meeting with the Thestrals today or else I would get back at you for insulting my intelligence!” Princess Luna stated angrily while blushing as she walked by, she was still a good leader for the thestrals. Twilight wasn’t exactly ready to be responsible for too much more than just Equestria. Celestia would take back the job if asked and Twilight just has to know she can ask, even if it would be taking Celestia away from a very much needed vacation after a thousand years of guiding crazy ponies around. “Yes, you were moving a bit slow that day and you better speed up today so you can come back and get me.” I commented idly with a cheeky grin, the moon goddess was so going to rip me a new one if I was still here by the time she got back to passing by the Canterlot Barracks again. “So anyway, let’s get this exercise started!” I took out a notepad and waited for someone to ask the obvious as they looked amongst themselves. “What are the rules we’re working under here and how much help can we ask for from other divisions in finishing this assignment?” After a few minutes of dither among the other Sergeant Shady finally asked a good question. “Also, I suggest that we lock down the barracks immediately with a barrier that prevents anyone from leaving, but doesn’t prevent people from entering if we have in fact been infiltrated. Nobody can leave until we discover the intruder if that is what the exercise is telling us to do, if not then what does the exercise entail.” “Give that guy a raise immediately!” I stated with a bright smile and my ears perking up, even pointed my fountain pen at him in emphasis. “I’ll note that down Jaded. Sergeant Shady has earned himself a raise, don’t ask why her word has any weight on that.” Duly Noted stated as he turned back to the crowd to tell them the rules of what the exercise was. “You’re likely better off not knowing.” The guards looked among themselves and then at me, eyes were still staring at a specific odd one out in the midst of them. I’m kind of surprised nobody has noticed the doppelganger among them, then again the Royal Guard armor does have the ability to make stallions and mares alike look similar, so that was one of the things that needed to be dealt with during this exercise as everyone in armor looked almost alike with the glamour magic active. Sergeant Shady and Duly Noted were the only ones currently not using that feature of the armor at the moment. -Pokémon Realm, Nixtorm, Icy Ruins Mystery Dungeon, current location: somewhere on floor Floor B4, Pom- “Should we…. should we stop this?” I asked as we came upon a room, another one with slippery floors that didn’t affect me nearly as much as it did Dolly. In it were four blowing wind traps that were going off in a constant loop of going counterclockwise around the room, the traps were still sending the Pokémon sliding across the floor as we watched. “Even if you do save them, they are just going to attack us. That’s what all the other monsters here are doing.” Dolly was right and logically I knew that she was right, but I still think leaving a Pokémon in an infinite loop of setting off traps that shoved them into the other traps like this was kind of cruel. It was an ice Type variant of a Mr. Mime, I waited until the right moment and stuck out my left leg and clotheslined them to the floor taking out the ice clown and forcing them to disappear. “I’m still concerned about all that stuff turning into Pokémon.” Wouldn’t anyone be as concerned as I was that the things in my bag could have once been a Pokémon? “I’m getting kind of hungry here Pom…” Dolly was a bit twitchy and weaning her off kibble didn’t seem to be effecting her as we made our way into the room, looked around and then decided to go out the left exit. “Hold on a second.” While we were on the move I decided to eat one of the apples, which seemed more perishable in comparison to the stuff Oberon made for us personally. Sending out a single strand of wool and stiffening it, I slammed the apple down on it with my other hoof, then I twist the hoof with the wool strand and pull the cored out of the apple. I was going to choose to believe that the floor trap just swapped all the stuff with Pokémon and that this apple was perfectly safe to consume. With an upward flick of my hoof the apple split into two halves and I held out both to Dolly, she took one in her teeth and start chomping down on it. “This is oddly satisfying…” Dolly mumbled as we both ate parts of the apple and I quickly lead us down the passageway until we stopped in a room that had the staircase. After Swallowing, Dolly finally decided to ask about it. “Why aren’t you using the spear?” “Saving it for when I actually need it and I have some… concerns… about using it.” We actually walked down the staircase and I was silent as we appeared on the next floor in a large expansive empty warehouse sized room full of stuff and surrounded by numerous Feral Pokémon. One Pokémon even phased into existence right before our eyes and was immediately looking in our direction, there were no pillars or place to hide in this room. “Dolly…” “Got you’re back.” Dolly stated as she took up her damaged board and stood on her hind legs while facing behind us as the Pokémon started swarming towards us. Ice Variant Zorua, Vulpix, Ninetails, Sandshrew, Sandslash, Frozen Mr. Mime with what looked like a further evolutionary state of them with sharpened canes of ice, a few of those small tent Pokémon and a few Zoroark that weren’t Fou… at this rate it would be easier to name the Pokémon that weren’t currently in the room wildly surging for us and I couldn’t see the exit through all of them. We needed to thin their numbers drastically and I could only hope that dealing enough damage to force them into disappearing wasn’t me killing them by going all out here. I couldn’t afford not to use the para-lance. Were we truly only five floors into the dungeon maze? This place was a mad house of monsters! Multiple mouths opened up and started firing blasts of snow, wind and icicles at us. I opened the Para-lance and blocked the incoming attacks that I could get to and Dolly blocked the ones I couldn’t stop from coming at us from every direction. Every direction including the air from those round floating orbs with mouths and spikes and the weirdly feminine dress like looking monster, despite blocking as many attack as we could it wouldn’t stop the temperature in the room from drastically dropping. “Ack…” I felt an icicle bite into my left side as I moved the para-lance to blocked an entire volley slightly to the right. “Aerora!” Screamed Dolly, the twisting winds started swirling around us in a barrier and stopped the weaker wind and blasts of snow coming at us, but the icicles still pierced though the winds at a reduced strength and speed I could feasible react to. One of the floating orb Pokémon opened its mouth and… -Dolly- “Pom what do we… ?!” Why did my connection suddenly feel weak all of the... HOLY… I turned to look at Pom and despite having obviously blocked whatever the attack was she had been flash frozen in place. “Gravity!” I tried to angle the spell strike I a ring around us and hit as many of the flying guys that just turned Pom into a frozen statue. I felt a breeze surged past me from one of the floating monsters mouth and notice the ground had frozen over around me… huh, were they trying to do the same to me, you couldn’t freeze this hot dog! Numerous floating and flying guys slammed into the ground violently. Afterward I quickly threw my my board onto my back by the strap as the winds roared around us protecting us from most of the projectiles and the Pokémon just running into the winds and getting blown over, into other Pokemon or just disappeared in the winds ripping into them. I quickly began rubbing my paws together violently, this never scientifically made even before I uncorked my magic and Dawkins never gave it an explanation when he and Dylan became frozen solid when we turned the air conditioner into a snow maker. I kept rubbing my paws together and then slapped them both forwards into Pom’s side and started to rub them, up and down along her body and immediately she was blinking and looking dazed as the ice immediately melted off of her and thawed her out. “Pom if you can hear me, then eat one of those healing berry things, it might warm you up!” Our connection returned to strength and I got Pom to pop one of those giant blueberry things in her mouth and started chewing. The color quickly returned to her shivering pale face as she quickly deflected another round of icicles with a wide sweep around me with that spear thing. “I need a top up quick!” I turned my back to Pom and ducked an icicle by going flat on my belly and felt the impact of it skidding off my board, I took some energy from that and then I felt the pressure of Pom’s hoof slapping on my back. I transmitted my idea to Pom and prepared to warm her up with some warm air. -Pom- My eyes widened at what Dolly’s plan to warm me up was and instantly regretted giving her the magical energy necessary for what she was about to do, with all that cold air in a mostly sealed room like this one… the room wouldn’t give out. “Dolly, wait, no!” It was bit too late for me to stop her. “Aerora!” Dolly had to make the air spinning up as hot she possibly could and this inevitable resulted in chaos. Let me explain, when two highly different powerful temperatures meet in manner exactly like what Dolly was doing, the end result is what is known as a ‘thermal shock’ happening. If it was a choice between me and friends or family, I would always make the same choice. I exhaled explosively, put the spear along my spine to protect it from the incoming danger while putting head as far under its canopy as I could. While do that I threw my body over my bag and Dolly’s body to pin us both to the floor with my wool and covered every exposed to part of me with my wool, while hardening it as hard I as could to bunker down. Please be enough… Dolly was confused, but I was far less so as the entire room suddenly exploded violently. I couldn’t be mad at Dolly, she was clever and intelligent, but she wasn’t the brains in her family and didn’t remember what happened when we attack Clockwerks lair that something similar happened there and Smolder’s flames launched us into the sky. A regular Aerora would have been less disastrous and I didn’t even know what the end results would be as the room become one thundering earthquake of destruction. I didn’t know if I was screaming or not, but I was in pain and at least Dolly couldn’t even feel a bit of what I was going through. Hot, cold and tons of static energy caused by physics being broken down by magic to create a powerful reaction that slammed down on me with the force of a freight train, also strange noises of shattering glass as the world around us tried to tear us apart. So… much… pain… -Dolly- Wha… What just… What just happened Pom? Pom?! I pushed upwards against Pom and she limply rolled over. I looked around wide eyed at blackened room full of scorches mark, Pom wasn’t looking to healthy either but her body had weathered whatever I had just done pretty well. There was only one part of the room that was untouched, that’s where the stairs were. I quickly heaved Pom onto my board by rolling her over onto it and after getting the supplies on it, I started to push her body towards the staircase, her legs dragging limply on the floor. We had to get to the next floor down, had to find something to help her… “What did I just do, what have I done... and why can’t I control Pom’s body?” Did that, whatever it was, paralyze her… that’s bad, that is really bad! Pom’s body was entirely unresponsive, but I could at least tell Pom was alive. She still protected me from all of it... that’s like Pom alright… I looked around the room and saw more monsters start to phase into existing appearing out of nowhere, almost there… just a little further… I pushed us down into the staircase and we both landed with a solid thump in a room with only on exit, we were in the far corner of the room away from the exit. “Okay… first things first, what to do? Do I call the ‘fam’ and tell them how badly I screwed up?” I asked myself only to hear a response I didn’t want to. “Spatial anomaly is currently preventing cross dimensional communication.” Yiggy Sis stated, well that’s one less thing I can do. I quickly checked the pack and looked around, I picked out three of those berries and carefully worked Pom into position so that her mouth was open towards the ceiling. I squeezed as much of those berries into her mouth as I could and, doing the throat rubbing thing, managed to get her drink the juice that would help her body heal slightly. These berries weren’t very powerful, but they healed things right, this had to work! It just had to… -Two floors up, Fou- He couldn’t track Pom nor could he track Skull X, he was quite angry, but he knew both his quarries were in here, he still had a hunt to finish and he didn’t care who he ran into first. At least he had a lot of strange opponents to fight, but they always kept disappearing whenever he tried to go for a fatal blow. He silently wondered if that giant crab will be stronger if he sees it again, he doesn’t care that he was trapped in a strange place. Anything that got in his way here barely lasted five seconds and it was aggravating him quite a bit. -Team Pocket, Meowth- “I wonder what’s happening in there.” Eh probably nothing we should care about, Team Pocket had curry and rice going thanks to the help of Wobbuffet. “Hey James, can you play something on that harmonica we got a while back? Also, Wobbuffet, do you by any chance know any other dances aside from ‘love-love dancing’ you always like doing?” We weren’t sitting in front of the entrance in case Pom never came out and something else entirely did. Wobbuffet apparently knew ballet too, how cultured that he knew how to do a good rendition of Swanna Lake. -Dolly- I stood vigil in front of Pom, I tried to take control of her body again and I got her legs to move a bit… so that meant the berries might have helped the right thing and if I could move her legs, then I could get us moving forward. Come on, Pom, if can get your body moving, then I won’t have to worry about leaving you here by yourself so I can find something like an orange berry or… Sitrus, that’s right it’s called a Sitrus Berry. We could really use one of those right about now! Not that they seem to be entirely effective on Pom, they are supposedly powerful and for some reason don’t work as well on her. Still, I needed a way to heal Pom and fast. The longer we stayed here in this dead end the likelier we are to be attacked. Come on Dolly, you’ve save Pom multiple times already, what’s one more time? I just had to keep pushing forward and… yes, I got Pom’s legs working at least. I reoriented Pom on my board and got on top of her to start awkwardly pushing us forward, if we were attacked, I would have to just deal with it with my bare paws and helmet. Okay going down the corridors easily enough, sure the turns are a little tricky, but making good progress and I might soon find a… shrew! Having quickly leapt off of Pom, I slammed the snow shrew things face into the floor with my left paw as soon as it appeared and then, when it was getting up, I jammed my right paw into its belly and let loose as much momentum as I could put into the motion to send the shrew flying until it slapped against the floor and disappeared. Okay, small things like that, not a problem, if it was something bigger I might have to break out the magic and I’ve got… about an aero left in me. I’ll just go with my flow-motion magic, which takes basically nothing at all. Wait… I needed to move Pom and I can create flowing motions, oh duh! I quickly got behind Pom before any more monster showed up and got Pom’s legs moving the board and then added flow-motion to it. Suddenly we were moving plenty fast and could even ride up the walls… okay bad idea doing tricks with an out cold Pom, but that was still impressive looking. Only I’m the only one that knows that I did such a thing… I hope Pom wakes up soon. Can’t do this thing without her. I took a left turn at a four way intersection, went straight through a T junction and then hit a right turn that led to a room. Once I got to the room, I could see a lot of empty space and a few sleeping Pokémon. The second I push Pom into the room beyond the threshold they’d all wake up and would start attacking. I’m glad I’m in a position to see them before I did something dumb like rushing in blindly. Also I can see the staircase right there waiting for us to get down another floor. Not to mention the possibility of traps, I’m surprised I didn’t hit one getting out of that last room with Pom. … I checked Pom’s bag and eventually pulled out the bright blue orb thing, I’m not sure I know much about bowling but… couldn’t hurt to try it right now. We didn’t even know what this orb thing did and I had an idea of how to use it to avoid traps at the very least. Putting the orb next to the entrance of the room, looked behind Pom down and moved to look down the corridor to make sure nothing was coming up behind us on the winding pathways I went through to get here. I positioned myself on my back, brought up my rear legs and promptly kicked the orb into rolling through the room. Getting up onto my paws, I excitedly watched to see what it would do now. It eventually hit something that made a clicking noise and then the entire room lit up in an even more powerful explosion than what Pom had been hit with previously when she stepped on a trap like it. I clenched my eyes shut as the blinding light had hurt them and the sound of multiple explosions gave me a migraine, then I felt something knocked my legs out from under me and I flopped onto my chin. Once I found out what had knocked me over, I smiled. the orb had triggered every trap in the room after hitting that one and the series of explosions devastated and widened the room. Also there was a lots of toxic looking goo everywhere on the floor, along with patches of strange green sticky looking stuff going everywhere in the toxic mire. Not a single Pokémon was left to attack us, okay I was quite very lucky to not have run into those traps getting pom out of that last room and only met a snow shrew on the way here. I now knew for a fact that those traps could be just anywhere and they could go off more than once. So even if I had managed to avoid the Pokémon there were powerful explosion traps all around the staircase. I rubbed the orb that came back to me affectionately, don’t know why dogs loved spheres so much, maybe it was back when we used to have wolves in our blood and we hunted small animals. I kind of needed a good luck charm right now. I quickly put the orb away and got Pom’s body to get us moving and I used her long legs to bounce us over the traps and into the staircase. Okay… now I was at an intersection leading to more intersections, also could the design of this place be a little more interesting please? All that archeo-whats-its stuff going on here and covered in a layer of ice and snow. “Nnn….” Don’t worry Pom, I’ve got you and it’s nice to hear you might wake up soon. I can see why these Dungeon places are scary. Now which way do I go? “Um… any mini mighty moe, I’m a dog that doesn’t know where to go, so I’m just going to go with… the… flow!” I pointed in a direction and started pushing us in it. I carefully navigated the next two rooms and found out that some of the sleeping Pokémon won’t wake up if you steer clear of them. Really couldn’t get greedy about the stuff just lying around unless I see a yellow berry that heals injuries and or more of those blue berries. There didn’t seem to be many monsters on this floor, but the monsters that were here, from what I can see, were generally larger than the earlier floors. Okay third rooms the… An earthquake shook the entire place. What was that? -Fou- “Fou!” I roared as I smelled the prey around here, I couldn’t smell them previously, but now I did. I immediately set out in the direction they were in. -Dolly- I think my blood might have frozen, because I could have sworn that I heard ‘HIM’ coming. Not good, Pom is not in a condition to fight at the moment. Okay, what do I do? Can’t out run him, he caught up to us. Can’t fight him, he’d tear me apart. I just have to quickly find the next staircase down and maybe lose him on a different floor or failing that send Pom down a floor while drawing his ire to me! Pom might be able to survive for a bit without me next to her, but I’d have to push her down the stair at the last minute and find a way to redirect that monster. Maybe I could confuse it? No, that guy is pretty smart and would tear me apart for trying. Instead of dithering about I pushed the skateboard forward using Pom’s limbs and managed to get us moving down a corridor and just as I turned the corner I saw him. Stop to sniff the air around the room we were him. Must go faster, must go faster! Where’s the exit, got to find the exit, got to keep go down got to avoid him! I came into the right room and at the same time on the opposite side of it he entered, the exit was a little to the right and there was no way I was going to be able to outpace that monster with Pom out cold like she is. “Fou!” He stated menacingly and I can see why Pom would have nightmares about this guy before we even met him. His red pupils turned into slits and his claws flexed as he grinned with murderous intent, while we sat at one of the other four entrances into the room. He was definitely preparing to charge us down, what to do… well maybe using the orb again might work? I threw the orb as I hard as I could, boosting its momentum as I sent it hurtling towards Fou and he ignored it and charged right into it. He was only partially into the room when it start filling with a thick greyish smog that built up and followed his charge. The glass orb seemingly shattered harmlessly on his body with a requisite glass breaking noise I would certainly recognize after one too many of my infamous escapades back in Camden Town, he raised his right claw and he kept charging straight for us ignoring all the other Pokémon in the room. He was followed by an endless plume of smoke from where the orb shattered and started engulf everything like a tidal wave. In fact I just made him look more terrifying and awesome, well if I was going to die, at least I was going to die to something that was stupidly powerful and that had an epic backdrop to it and everything. Just as Fou reached us, I prepared to fight to the last to keep Pom safe. I got ready to leap up at this guy, even started growling more fearlessly than I felt and prepared to give him my all. It was in the middle of him swinging his right claw down for us and as I was leaping up when smog wave hit us. I felt like I hit a solid mass of stone and flopped to the floor, didn’t know the guys muscles were that thick! Dazedly I looked back seeing as he ignored me and went straight for Pom. What I saw made me freeze up. Inches from clawing at an unconscious Pom laying on my board was that monster Fou, only he was now a solid stone statue. Looking around the room I saw the other Pokémon that had tried to follow and attack Fou were also stone statues now. What the DOG was in that orb and why didn’t it have an effect on me or Pom?! Really could have really used that against Skully Hex or whatever we’re calling it… well nothing for it. I carefully went over to my board and maneuvered Pom around the statue while eyeing it warily and made my way towards the staircase. Just as I was about to move down the staircase I heard a crack turned back to see the stone statue of the petrified shift left or right a little bit, a small crack trailed up the statues back starting at its left heel. He was still alive?! Right going down to the next floor! Find something to help Pom further while staying on the move, we needed to put some distance between us before he broke free!