//------------------------------// // 376. Snow Slowing Down. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -???, Oleander- “Claude C. Kenny.” Introduced the guy, before he stopped and stared at a water wheel for some reason. “…” “What, what is it?” I asked curiously, apparently an intelligent species known as Hoovers were not an unknown quantity in this universe, fortunately I’ve been mistaken for one and have apparently got stuck on a backwater low technology planet beyond the usual shenanigans Wrex and Buttina pull. So no different from Equus really, except they probably don’t have the crazy schizo-tech here like Equus does at times. Fred was on this planet somewhere, I could already feel it. “Air Slash!” Slinging a fist forward and towards the ground, Claude launched a burst of air that rocketed away along the ground and slammed into a tree in a destructive explosion of wood. “I just learned how to do that.” “You learned that… from looking at a water wheel?” When I received a nod, the follow up question was certainly required here. “How?” “I don’t know honestly, just something about looking at a water wheel.” Staring flatly at Claude, he started to get a little uncomfortable and I continued to narrow my gaze at him. “That makes no sense whatsoever and you know it!” I yelled angrily. “Well I think it’s amazing.” Rena stated from next to us. “Um… excuse me I have to go home can you two look around the village for a bit.” She ran off mumbling something about a sword of light. Unfortunately a phase pulse gun was not a sword… I would know I still owned five lightsabers and my key-blade was more a sword of light than that gun was. I’ll just stick to following Claude around until I run across Fred, he can’t possibly do too much harm when I’m not around right? Who am I kidding, it’s Fred! I better find him soon before he dooms this entire planet with a giant rock or something trying to find me. I just have to wonder, what kind of series of volatile insanity was I getting into this time? -Pokémon Realm, igloo outside the southern side of Hail Hollow, evening, Dolly- “So guess what happened recently?” I asked cheerfully as Pom was still cuddling Dormarch with a small smile behind me. I’d hate to ruin such a perfect position, but Pom has been at this for more than a few hours and Dormarch has been milking it for all it was worth. As in, since we got back here Pom hasn’t let him go and he stayed in that hug and held onto that feeling like it was floating toy for a pool. Felt like I needed to keep my head above water too at times. “You seem particularly cheerful, what happened Dolly?” Must be dad coming off of work, he was the one to pick up. “Judging by the background you’re still in the snow lands place Dante mentioned.” “Just look, never lost a pup yet and still won’t have!” I turned the screen to show him Dormarch’s predicament. Not that Dormarch was struggling to escape Pom’s grasp, his three fish tails were shifting lazily. “Heh heh, that’s my daughter, finding out how to revive a lost family member somehow.” So dad wasn’t even going to question Dormarch being back, but he did look happy for us. “So is Pom okay? She’s looking a little roughed up.” “Yeah, she’s not going to be doing much more moving today aside from cooking dinner. Tomorrow some friends of ours are going to try and earn some supplies to help us out until we figure out where we’re heading to next. Since we don’t have much of anything at the moment, we’re kind of stuck in snow town north of everything going on.” I was glad for the magnetism Pom had right now, the Frosty Foxes certainly were helping with food for this evening. They were quite nice like that and some the few people in Blizz-storm that were. “Kibble withdrawal?” Dad asked carefully. “Bad… real bad, like I’d want to use words you’d think I wouldn’t know kind of bad, but I’ll live.” Ignore my twitchiness at being reminded that there was no kibble within who knows how many miles of me. I was doing so well with not thinking about it so far. “I’m sure you’ll be fine too.” My father chuckled and then I saw something in their background that made me pause. “Okay, who’s that?” I asked as I pointed and my father turned to look and the glowing spooky bulky blob of a Dalmatian that floated next to that zombie chicken Spot. Hey family was family, Great Aunt Spot was definitely family and remembering her name was important as she was part of it. “Ancestor from Delilah’s side of the family, his name is Rolly, things have been a bit awkward between him and Spot since he showed up.” That’s not exactly hard to see dad. Another spook showed up and she looked really small, but wasn’t exactly young either and I wasn’t about to say the ‘R’ word where it could be heard but… yeah it definitely defines her size. “That one’s Cadpig, apparently she’s the acting spiritual guide of Delilah’s massive family.” “Hello there!” Cadpig stated and waved at me before turning to Spot. “Lucky would have come too Spot, but he decided to reincarnate and he’s got a pending date with rebirth. Who knows what he’ll become, maybe he’ll be a Dalmatian again, his luck is a bit grating like that.” “Nice ears.” I stated as I looked at the tiny ghost dog that came from my step mother’s side. “Thanks, you too dimensionally separated family member, I hope to meet you again in the far future… well if I can figure out how to cross the boundaries of reality as an incorporeal entity to find your soul after you expire.” Cadpig bowed to me and then looked to Rolly and Spot, her demeanor doing a one eight into a tail grind. “Now you two work it out or else, I know Rolly is a ghostly lummox and you’re a living impaired chicken, but can you seriously just cut it with the tension already?!” Both Spot and Rolly gulped and sighed in a similar manner, those two were obviously close friends in life. “Same as she ever was…” Spot mumbled through her beak while crossing her wings. “Yep, that’s my sister for you, sweet one second and then vinegar the next when angry about something.” Rolly stated while nodding. “I’ll leave you to it dad, looks like you’re going to busy trying to make sure those three don’t cause problems.” I stated and Cadpig looked a bit offended. “What, us, cause problems… maybe for an evil De Ville.” Cadpig huffed paws on her hips as she floated above the couch, well she had spunk at the very least for something that small and cute. “Did it all the time when I was alive with Rolly, Lucky and Spot. Still doing it even now, there’s an unsurprisingly large amount of evil spirits from that particular family running around. You’d think their family would at least physically die out with all the chronic backstabbing and a desire to ruin people’s lives. At least the good ones are easier to count on two paws, the most recent one is that Hunter kid. Didn’t feel like haunting him.” “Okay dad, I’ll call you and the ‘fam’ later if I’m still alive to do so.” I flicked the device to standby and then made my way over to Pom, cuddle pile here I come. -The next day, Dormarch- I was looking outside the igloo as the sun rose and filled Hail Hollow with reflecting sunlight, still quite cold and I wonder when the people of Nixtorm will figure out that the monster is leaving… well I’m officially leaving after we were done here. We’re not going to say a word about my body having free run of Nixtorm for the last few weeks of constant pain and suffering for this kingdom. Not that this kingdom wasn’t enough of a pain to mom already. “Dormarch… do you want to build a snow lamb~?” Mom asked as she nuzzled the back of my neck, before slowly pushing me out into the cold snow. I was going to have to get used to being pseudo-biological and digital. “It’ll naturally be quite a sight, since it’ll already be all naturally white~.” “Can we not do the song thing mom?” I asked while wilting under her constant affectionate attention. She wasn’t letting me out of her sight and I appreciated that, because I wasn’t about to let her out of mine. If the Chrysomallus thing was worsened because of me, well, I don’t know what to do about it as I can’t. I glanced at the ring of golden wool above mom’s right hoof the rest of her wool beyond was mostly white if it hadn’t been soaking in her blood from the stab wound. She still hasn’t fully recovered from her blood loss or injuries and still managed to run ludicrously fast. How much more was she going to sacrifice for me, Dolly and her friends to get them back home? “Sure, as everything will be alright~!” Dolly sang from the other side of me continuing the song as she drew my attention away from staring at mom. “Please don’t make this a thing…” I said sourly, but my tails betrayed my feelings by wagging. “So let’s go build a snow lamb, shouldn’t take an hour I’d say~.” Okay mom was really doing this on purpose, or else she wouldn’t be smiling and she rarely smiles. “Afterwards for the rest of the day we could play~.” Dolly really wasn’t trying to stop it either. “Well then, why don’t you show me how It’s done~” Wait did I just sing that, oh digital entity of a higher power it’s viral! “I can already tell that this is going to be lots of fun~!” As long as you didn’t exacerbate your injuries mom… I worry about your health and you’re in your twenties for crying out loud! “I kind of want to build a snow lamb~…” I stated and continued to sing along, while moving out into the snow towards a nice clearing. “To start you off all you need is a large snowball~.” Mom started rolling up a large ball of snow and then smashed it into a mound to shape the snow into an elongated oval on the ground and started on another large ball of snow. Her hooves were good for rolling and shaping snow, she was talented at it. “Another smaller for the head and five more beyond it all~.” I started to build two snow balls and Dolly started to help by making two other large snowballs. While this was going on, Mom placed the slightly large snowball on the oval and started shaping it with her hooves to make a head. “I’ll get the back legs, you work on the fronts~.” Dolly stated with a grin as she slapped the snowballs against the back end creating two hips and started shaping the legs up from that. “Maybe we can go sledding today and do some awesome stunts~?” “After yesterday, I’m going to gently say no~.” Mom sang softly. “Not after running down a mountain being chased by more than just snow~.” “Okay seriously, stop with the singing… please?” They stopped immediately, but we didn’t stop making the snow lamb. I could even hear Pom and Dolly humming the rest of the tune as we did. After we were done making it, it didn’t look too bad, it was a simple lamb at rest on their belly with smiling closed eyes and quite a broad grin as if they were a sleeping angel. “It’s cute.” I said after looking at it for a moment and taking it in, we had worked on this together and I was keeping this memory of it for posterity. “So what else do you want to do?” Mom asked as she crouched next to me, this zest for life really doesn’t come to her eyes often, so I might as well ask her for something fun to do before something comes along and ruin things. “Um… can we have a snowball fight?” I asked in an uncertain manner, I hadn’t been around snow much and this might be my only chance. “I’ll join.” Quetal said walking up to us from the direction of Hail Hollow, he looked fairly melancholy as his wilted posture would suggest. “So did you find out what you wanted to?” Mom asked with concern, aside from a need for supplies Quetal had been looking for information on something important to him. “Yes, I’m actually kind of sad that I did… my brother’s killer is already dead and it wasn’t by my claws, he didn’t die by pleasant means either. Feel kind of sorry for him really, being eaten alive slowly is not a way to go. I didn’t get any closure on that front, but give me half a day to find my brother’s frozen body if it’s still where it lays on the mountainside. I want to bury it deep enough that another Ice Type won’t disturb it and eat it.” We all gave Quetal a concerned look, even Dolly lost her peppy attitude. ”I’m just going to move on with my life after that.” “That… sounds like a healthy way of handling it.” Following Moms continued concern for Quetal’s wellbeing, Quetal scooped up a mass of snow with his left claw and shaped it with his right before hurling it into mother’s chest where it splattered harmlessly. It even got a giggle out of her. “Well if that was an invitation to not talk about it, I’ll take it!” “Thank you.” Sighed out Quetal in a somber tone, before his eyes sharpened as did Moms a second later. “After this I’ll set out for where my brother probably still is, his body would still be perfectly preserved in how cold it gets around here.” Pom scooped up a bit of snow with her hoof, I dug up some snow of my own with my claws, Dolly had a snowball in paw already hefting it and looking about and Quetal started making another one while smiling at us. Before we knew it we were hurtling masses of snow at each other, laughing, playing around with small snow forts and simply living without any stress for a short while. That Mom could even get away from being positively paranoid for even a little while felt nice, I think she was doing it for my sake to get my mind off the fact that my body was running around destructively. I logically knew it wasn’t my fault, since how was I supposed to know something called Moon Cell would take it and try to puppeteer a weapon out of it? One that was used against my mother if I remember right and that made Moon Cell my enemy, one that mom might have to deal with soon. -A little while later, sitting next to the sleepy looking smiling snow lamb and two snow dogs, Pom- Dormarch has had a lot of stuff happen to him, but it was nice to see that he can be relatively happy. Goodness knows what’s coming for us next… like I ever could find solace in the future, who knows what will eventually kill me. It’s probably going to be largely self-inflicted in the direst of situations... looking at the small bit of golden wool wrapping around my leg like Dormarch had when he didn’t think I’d notice. I think he blames himself for it, but I’d have gladly given up more of myself for him. I bit into the Sitrus Berry I held in my left hoof and enjoyed the taste a bit as it got to work healing me moderately, I looked up the slope as Dolly and Dormarch came sliding down. It was so nice to see them getting along… and Dolly does a backflip without restraints or safety gear. At least she wears her helmet in a fight. That thing saved her from Fou’s claws and from possibly worse, the three scars on her face were healing… Dolly whine about her awesome scars not sticking around as she wanted to remember the escapade we recently lived through. So when was I going to burst the bubble and finally ask if Dormarch knows who was behind puppeteering his body when he wasn’t in it and sent them after me? He knows something, he has to at this point, but I hadn’t the heart to try and push him today or confront him. I just wanted to relax today and not be stressed out about my next big adventure, which will be finding Shanty and the others, then deal with whatever painful thing comes my way as usual. All I had to do today was sit here and keep an eye on Dormarch and Dolly to make sure Dolly wasn’t doing anything too dangerous. The two were currently making snow angels next to each other and laughing. “Well I best get started on lunch.” Seeing as I could see the Frosty Foxes bringing food, it was about time to do some cooking. I wonder if Curdle was okay from being stuffed into a jar like she had been and should be left wandering around Nixtorm alone like she was? … I’m sure Curdle was fine. -A short time after lunch- “Remind me to never get on another makeshift sled with Dolly unless my life is on the line.” Dormarch stated as he came up to me. “Was it all the backflips and wild spinning before landing upright?” My answer was a shiver and a shaky nod. “She has a slightly more extreme definition of fun, keep that in mind as she’s an athletic dog with magic that bolsters her maneuverability and she uses it every chance she gets to do something ‘cool’ or ‘awesome’.” “I wouldn’t call kickball a sport and I haven’t a clue why other dogs would watch people playing it.” Dormarch was not so sporty and preferred a lot more mentally stimulating stuff, I was quite good for that. “Eh, I think it’s the spectacle of it that is the draw for the Camden Town dogs and most dogs in that given region of the world.” We were outside the igloo looking up at the arcing walls of the hollow. The reflection of the sun’s rays bouncing everywhere creating a mystical on a now quiet kingdom probably dreading when Skull X was going to come back. That thing never would if I had anything to say about it, unless Dormarch direly needed to transform into its original form, that of Chaosdramon X, for some reason. “Can I get some help here?” Turning we saw Quetal dragging a frozen body that didn’t look like it had been nibbled on, one that needed to be buried. “Of course we’ll help.” It would take an hour or two, but we’d help bury a long frozen body, then we returned to the igloo outside of Hail Hollow. -Some time later- The funeral burial was a somber affair, but now we were back to relaxing and having more fun. After Quetal had a long and hard sorrowful cry of finally putting his brother to rest, we had an ice sculpture contest to get our minds off the morbid deed of helping Quetal with some closure. Quetal won the contest by a mile, being quite artistic and the Frosty Foxes supplying the ice were equally impressed with his talent. It wasn’t long before Dormarch approached me with limp tails, making me wonder what was wrong. “Mom… I want to learn how to fight. I’m tired of entirely relying on my signature move so much, it’s kind of energy intensive.” Well that was a loaded thing to ask of me Dormarch, especially so soon after getting you back. My only response to this had to be measured. Sighing I stood up and moved away from the ice sculptures, Velvet would have had some fun here… if she didn’t immediately dislike the local Pokémon for their attitudes and cold shoulders. She would have liked it. Maybe they had a hockey league? Not like they had much after Skull X started terrorizing them. “Okay, we can spend an hour or two with training, Dolly can help.” After I said that, Dolly raised her head from where she was laying in the snow trying to mimic the sleepy snow dogs. “Yeah, I do kind of need more practice… and I want to work out some things with the ‘Float’ spell.” Dolly stated as she stood up on her hind legs and sauntered over to us, she preferred fighting on all fours and only fought on her hind legs if she was wielding her board or the stone bone. This was good practice for moving like a biped as she had the capability for it. -An hour or two- “Good job Dormarch!” I praised despite the fact that he was sprawled out on his back and covered in bruises. I still didn’t understand what Dormarch meant by him being Pseudo-biological now, but I guess bruising is one thing that made him seem more alive, that and how soft his fur was. He might actually bleed actual blood instead of cubes too. It was curious to think about, but I really didn’t want Dormarch to get hurt too much. Dolly played as rough as she thought her siblings could handle and Dormarch was quite fairly resilient. “Yeah, you might even eventually get past my green triangle thing.” Dolly commented cheekily. “Might call it an action demand, since it kind of demands me to take action. “I don’t know what the green triangles Dolly is talking about are, but they hurt…” Moaned Dormarch as Dolly danced about on her hind legs while thrusting her front paws forward, the surprising things I can learn to teach to a dog. “Dolly has had more practice and has some rather unusual abilities, even I don’t know what the triangle thing is about entirely other than it presents an opportunity for her to do something incredible instinctively.” The effects were usually ridiculous and I’ll admit I’ve never seen anything quite like it before and I was watching from Dolly’s vision of it popping up randomly as she fights with or without a weapon. Without seems to make it more common overall. She could ignore it or take advantage, there wasn’t a requirement to go for the triangle and it popped up in particular instances of danger, even allowed her to use Dormarch’s signature move, ‘Search Hunter’, against him and was that quite an eye opening sight to behold. It usually makes her avoid an injury or do something incredible. “It’s actually never steered her wrong come to think of it, it can be evasion, it can be a well-timed attack and it can even be a strange semi-magical defensive field that’ll block an attack she normally wouldn’t be able to for a split second.” “That and having known how to dance before meeting Pom and being taught how to move on my hind legs helps with me knowing how to ‘move it, move it’.” Dolly shook her flank and grinned. Again, not that Dolly uses her hind leg movements for more than wielding a weapon. She basically has Fleet Cunning Doe mastered to an intermediate level before I got to her, she seemed particularly talented with that combat style. “Also learned parkour from a squirrel, can’t forget one of my nuttiest buddies from the canal crew.” Yeah, the squirrel thing might as well be her own style, but it wasn’t combat oriented and nobody said it couldn’t be. It at least gave her a strong base for learning Fleet Cunning Doe, leaping, rolling and attacking while dodging. Really haven’t had to fight an opponent that I was basically on par with. “Honestly, balance should come more naturally to you Dormarch since you have the three tails.” Yeah fluffy fish tails I liked to hug. I knew Dormarch was a bit clumsy and better at range with his one long range attack then close up with notable multiple attack programs he has for close combat. Normally Dormarch’s numerous close range attacks would have geared him for being a close up fighter, at best his varied close up attacks moves were more suited for breaking away to use his go to Retriever Bark or his secondary go to Wild Bark to stun his opponent that continued to try and close in. A more maneuverable opponent like Dolly was hard for Dormarch to keep up with and Wild Bark was a bit too short in range, after Dolly figured out the range she played keep away the entire time with hit and run tactics. Dormarch has actually been doing great for this lesson, he learned things quicker than Dolly at least and I chalk that up to Dolly’s attention span and personality. “Well excuse me for having big goofy claws, they are standard for most Digimon apparently.” Grumbled Dormarch with his front legs crossed as he sat up. “Also I have a new program from some old data lying around in me, Wild Howling, probably came from the Etemon data that was used to bridge the gap between my digital soul core and the spirit core. It’s more powerful version of Wild Bark… should be able to hit multiple things further away with it. Unfortunately it’s indiscriminate with targeting unlike my Wild Bark program. Okay, let me see if this will still work... running program Cure Liquor.” Dormarch’s bruises quickly faded away and he grinned while wagging his tails, yet it felt like it used quite a bit of energy and I sent some good feelings towards him about knowing he was alright and being in good humor. Digimon got stronger with good emotional energy right? I could feel him absorbing the good feelings like a changeling might, I wouldn’t know, I’m not connected to Ocellus to know what that really feels like. I think Digimon created an emotional support feedback loop that, when partnered up with the people they tend to end up with, they grew enormously strong from it faster than a Digimon would otherwise as they share their partners pains, victories and experiences. Explains why Dazzle was getting more open with her friends and it was thanks to Frizzle being there for her and being a generally calming influence. Explains so much about Dormarch seeing me as his mother, I did kind of want children… kind of hard to do with Tianhuo and it would probably be a blessing of the goddess Jiutian if it ever came to pass. “Hey guys, do you want to watch the northern lights with me later tonight? It’s probably the only joy aside from spending time with you that I’ll get out of this whole adventure.” Quetal had been doing his own practice off to the side, he’s been quite quiet and was trying to deal with having finally buried the only remaining family member he could ever remember having. He was going through a lot and we were here for him. “It’s also one of the few things I liked about Nixtorm that’s left for me here and I want to share it with you at least once. I personally just want to see them one last time and then put this place far behind me for warmer climates, like Aurora.” “Sure thing Quetal, how does it feel to be a Weavile now?” Finally I asked this politely while staring at his fan of head feathers, makes him look rather distinguished like his ears and the forehead gem grew much larger, there’s also one less tail feather and the other two became a bit larger. It was a rather curious evolution to me, what did it really change aside from the extra claw and the headdress look Quetal now sported? Well if I’m looking for positive side effects of his evolution, his claws actually looked a bit more flexible and he could maybe hold onto things safely now. So from an evolutionary standpoint, Quetal gained the ability to hold objects as his claws had changed slightly to be more like digits instead of just being two mostly rigid weapons at the ends of his arms. “Not very different, slightly taller, more balanced and the extra claw is a little nice… plus I am stronger.” There was a pause and Quetal looked upset as he flicked his new claw into being a bit opposable, as far as evolutions went Ice Type Sneasels had a hard time getting to theirs what with having to find a very specific item to evolve so they could actually pick up things. “Didn’t help me beat Fou though.” “You held him off long enough for us to at least get pretty far down before he caught up to us.” I still didn’t know where Fou was and he could be watching us at this minute. He would come after me again eventually… right? “Also I don’t think beating Fou is a bar I’d want to set for myself if I was in your position. You did the best you could and you did a lot more than I could have asked of you, besides you’re still getting used to your new form.” I picked up an apple and threw it at Quetal. Instead of slicing it up with his claws by accident, he actually caught it using his new digit on his right claw. He actually smiled a bit at the novelty of being able to hold something safely without ripping into it with his claws, it’ll be much easier for him to interact with others now and of course that hadn’t stopped him from trying to do it safely before. He still had to be careful, his claws were quite sharp if not sharper from the evolution. Back to my though on Fou, I had used a self-inflicted wobble counter and he still came back not too long after that blow to the head… and being put through a stone wall. That still strong enough to finish off the Skull X body off as Dormarch was regaining control of it was a terrifying moment, but Dormarch managed to pull himself together in the end with the massive amount of digital energy floating in the air and using the remainder for that star attack. Fou was still quite terrifying to me on a number of levels, I hit him with an entire avalanche once he caught up to us after Dormarch hit him with an absurdly powerful attack I can barely remember looking like the stars themselves were flying from his claws. At some point he got free of that avalanche and managed to chase me out of the Mystery Dungeon at a speed faster than I was moving… without the requisite exhaustion that would result from doing so. A part of me is glad that Fou got out and another part of me is internally screaming about how fast he had to be to do that and he wasn’t under Haste effects like I was. He got strangely stronger and weaker in a variety of ways at odd times. It was bizarre that he could run so much and show so little exhaustion when I was powering my way down to the fullest of my abilities, pushing my bodily limits without essentially breaking them through sheer force of will. In fact… that might be it, it might be what Fou’s secret is. I’ll just have to confirm it if I see and fight him again. “Yeah, I did last longer than everyone else in fighting him.” Quetal at least looked a little proud about that small accomplishment given everyone else involved in the fight had been badly mauled and he hadn’t come out of things much better. “He was so strong and only seemed to weaken the more of us he took us out.” Okay, my suspicion about Fou is getting stronger now, but some clarification would really help know the truth once and for all. “To be fair we could only knock him out or slow him down, he seems like an unstoppable force of nature.” Which would be him being a true beast as I ascribed to him. He wasn’t canine as his appearance might suggest, that much was very clear to me given his actions around me. I looked around and shivered a bit about not knowing if he was nearby or not. “Let’s change the subject and not talk about half Ghost half Normal Type monstrosities with an insane amount of stamina and recovery abilities bordering on the lines of being purely impossible.” For where would Fou be getting the energy to heal from his wounds from? If he had magic, he wasn’t using it in a manner that I would counter it naturally. The word ‘nature’ seemed to be an important aspect to it. “Okay, how about this… until we set out for the evening to see the northern lights, we can do some ice fishing or at least we can learn while trying to catch some fish… Dolly kind of needs meat after the last few things she ate.” Yeah, Dormarch had the right of it. “Her nutrition has been a bit lopsided and some fish, salt and a few carrots should fix things.” “I know a spot for that!” The Glaceon said gleefully as they bounded up to us. “Yeah, it’ll even be close to where I think you would want to view the northern lights of Nixtorm from anyway.” The majestically fluffy Ice Type Ninetails added. “Yeah, fish and Pom can cook them too!” The Zorua added cheerfully. Looks like dinner for the carnivores would be fish soup, I’m quite good at making that by now. I’ll stick to my vegetarian diet, even if I could eat meat and had done so once, I didn’t like the idea of it becoming a natural thing for me. Now eggs, I wasn’t about to give up on eating those, provided they didn’t have intelligent creatures like Pokémon in them and weren’t fertilized. “I do now how to make a good fish soup, at least my boys back home loves the stuff.” I stated as the Frosty Foxes, apparently they are going to be a rescue team by the time I leave, took point and started leading us north of the Hollow Hail city. -Lake and riverside, nighttime, Dormarch- I looked up at the stars and waving ribbons of beautiful lights of Nixtorm, it’s a memory I would never forget for as long as I’m able. Leaning against move, she smiled and wrapped a hoof around me in a hug, on her other side was Dolly also staring up at the sky with wonder. Quetal was sitting right next to us too looking at the stars more than the lights. “Goodbye and sorry I didn’t do it sooner.” Quetal said silently and a shooting star shot across the sky, he calmly wrapped his claws around his knees and then his attention diverted back to the ribbons of lights dancing in the sky. It was a wonderful night. “So, where to next?” Curdle asked cheerfully as she had sparkles in her eyes from staring at the shifting sky lights. “Heard Valora was getting into all kinds of problems and that there was a cool blade hoofed goat running around saving a lot of people in the crisis going on there, also there’s talk of this giant white feathered Psyduck having a handle on organizing things with his strangely dressed Charmander friend, I’ve never heard of such weird beings like that before. Also lots of legendary Pokémon seemed to be quarantining the entire coastal kingdom region to keep anything from leaving, apparently the problem is so bad as to warrant that kind of attention.” It ‘WAS’ a wonderful night, until Curdle showed up, opened her mouth and had mom all twitchy and raring to run off to the Steel Type Kingdom of Valora. I even sent the smiling pile of cream a scathing glare. Mom needed more than a day to fully recover from what she just went through, she also needs to grow back most of her wool too as she was mostly defenseless! We still needed at least half a day to get all the supplies we needed and then we’d definitely be setting out to the east as soon as we got them. Her charges were in danger and I know mom all too well, she’d go above and beyond for those she cares for and much to her constant detriment when she needed rest. “That’s… nice...” Said an incredibly twitchy Pom. “You’ll start seeing those absurd things quite soon if you plan to go with us. You could stay here and start a business… the Pokémon around here are warming up slightly because of you.” “Hey, don’t count yourself short, the Frosty Foxes seemed to shake off the bitters as soon as you showed up!” Curdle twirled in place and struck a pose. “I’m with you all the way, creamy hero Curdle will continue to be at your service Team Leader of Rescue Team Harmony, even if the Pokémon around here do appreciate a good tasty Alcremie like me!” Pom ignored her and pulled out the device to call Tianhuo, she was looking a lot more cheerful and hopeful… but there was a notable edge to her current smile and I sent Dolly a look and she made off pawed gesture back and nodded knowingly. -Origin Space, Arceus- A Smoochum appeared before me, before turning back into Mew. “Are you sure spreading those rumors was a good idea?” Mew asked worriedly to those in the room. Well the threat of Skull X was taken care of, it seemed I have successfully found a way to restore Pom’s missing partner and son to her. So that was a positive side effect of dragging her to this world and giving her the benefits she wanted, she was my wild card in the war and she was becoming more and more necessary by the day. She’ll play herself without me having to play the cards in my hoof. “Betting five to one, things will turn out better if Pom shows up in Valora sooner.” Celebi stated clinically trying not to show how upset doing this made them. “Better for who?” Yes, Mew had the right of it. “Also, side note, Curdle is delicious! I knew we were on the right track with the weird edible species line.” “Correct question Mew.” I solemnly stated while lowering my head, I was going to owe Pom more once I told her of the duplicity to get her moving towards Valora. I would definitely tell her if she survives everything to come, but she was a good distraction that would force Moon Cell to stop focusing on escaping the net successfully too soon before we were ready and far more on trying to kill Pom now that they were down a super weapon. They still have yet to field servants, but it was only a matter of time before that happened… I already seeded my own. “Who’s in the direct path of Pom should she go straight for Valora?” I queried rhetorically as the floating screen showed two Pokémon, a Zacian and a Zamazenta that weren’t my children… but they were heroes that would fight for this world. The two known as Arthur of the Excalibur and Mash of the unbroken Shield. Curious that they should be in Pom’s path. It might come to blows if Arthur becomes upset at seeing the Rhongomyniad, I’ve researched the histories behind these otherworldly figures and there’s a bit of love and hate from the various Arthurs about that spear and what it could do. Should have done more research about Gilgamesh, but we currently have a better one wandering around now.