//------------------------------// // 380. Rise a Champion. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Ironclad City Outskirts, on a hill about to get swarmed badly, Pom- I pulled the Paralance out and thrust it forward while opening it explosively to send several enemies flying away with a blast of raw force. I did so before they could stab me, I was getting quite tired of it after being stabbed for a fourth time in so many minutes and had to narrowly avoid having an artery severed. I finally started using the paralance, my misgivings about the weapon should not hold me back from using it to defend myself and my friends from hundreds of enemies, all of which Shanty had recently said were in the massive city. How spread out had they been before they started coming after me like this in one large clump? Dolly sent the wiry assassins flying with blunt force and boosted momentum blows with every swing of her skateboard. Though she could do without the cute tricks between her attacks in a serious combat situation. Thus far we didn’t have to worry about the Seraphs, they were out of those minutes after Dodo arrived and started blasting the cubes out of them. I brought the open paralance around and used the sharp edge of the canopy to cut the arms off a Reaper and then brought the back end around to bash its head off. Its legs and torso fell to the ground and dissolved. “We should probably start a fighting retreat!” Quetal grunted as he was covered in cuts and was bleeding, he needed a moment to patch himself up. “At least they will be running out of Assassin Reapers soon, it is just being a hundred and fifty or more to see. There still be being hundreds of the Sabers, Lancers and Berserkers on the horizon, but those are being easier to fight.” Shanty didn’t even comment on the Seraphs that were coming with them. The energy arrows they fire were a threat, but the Seraphs themselves having fragile bodies made them easy to take out if you could hit them. “You should be being thankful that there isn’t being a PLANT nearby!” “PLANT?” My confusion was short lived as I brought the Paralance to be directly above me, as a falling Reaper tried to come down on top of me after leaping a good eighteen feet straight up. I quickly spun the lance above me and it stubbornly clung to it and tried to stab me from above while on top of it, I whipped it about and sent the Reaper plowing through a dozen climbing the icy hillside and said ice was quickly melting. These things weren’t very heavy. “It be a nasty floating jellyfish like thing that be rapidly regenerating these Enemy Programs as soon as we be taking them out.” Well that sounded like quite a hassle Shanty, I’m partially glad I wasn’t around for most of it thus far. “Which is being why we be trying to deal with the PLANTs first, they are a major problem if you be seeing one and are usually well protected.” The Assassin Reapers were just attacking like crazy, not caring about their own destruction. Most of their attacks were focused on me or on getting by the others to get at me. With my favorite blade happy goat and Dodo here, we were actually managing to barely hold position despite being vastly outnumbered. The quality in those numbers was in doubt though given that things weren’t as dire as I might be thinking. “Can we ice up the hill again?” My question was met with a wary whine, after I thrust the open paralance forward and smashed a Reaper with blunt force, I turned and saw that the Spheal were all resting a fair distance behind us. “They still need some time to recover, but I can keep going!” Another sparkling flash, which only had an effect on what Curdle wanted it to, went off. Curdle was pushing the swarming Reapers that managed to get beyond the ice straight back into the climbing swarm. Curdle didn’t have to worry about her injuries like Quetal or the rest of us did, it made me wish that I knew the Pokémon move ‘Recover’ personally. Some weren’t even going onto two feet to attack me and were moving on four spindly legs that was their limbs slightly transformed with or without the knives as part of the legs. I’d like to make a lot of bug comparisons in their movements, but I was pressed with just keeping them away from me. “Quetal fall back and see to your injuries, we’ll hold as well as we’re able!” I called, he did so while firing Beat Up attacks that was creating a number of shadows copies, including a shadow copy of Dodo that rammed into the Assassin Reapers with quite a bit of force. I quickly tossed Quetal my pack and then stepped forward leading with the open paralance to block a leaping Reaper and thrust it forward to send them flopping onto their back for Dormarch to rend with a pair leaping claw swipes. “Dolly how are you doing?” One of the advantages of my wool is that I could see to my injuries while I’m fighting. Not that the blood loss, the lightheadedness and the onset of dizziness was going to stop after I sealed a wound. Adrenaline was going to keep me going long after I shouldn’t be. I shifted my wool around my left leg and fired of a Thousand Spears shot into a leaping Reaper, it tore through its eye into its torso and then out of its upper back, Dolly finished it off with two quick swipes from the edges of her board and then blocked a knife stabbing down for her from one of the ones that entered a two legged movement and charged her. “I’m mostly fine, but this is getting kind of nuts Pom!” Dolly shoved it off and staggered it with a sharp blow. It was soon blown away from attacking further, along with the seven or so other Reapers about to attack us all at once, in a small shockwave that came from off to the side. “I thought you couldn’t do that anymore!” I glanced Dormarch before I bashed the back end of the paralance into the midsection of a bipedal walking Reaper and then spun the weapon about to take off its head with the edge of paralance’s canopy. The Reapers body, despite missing its eye and head, still tried to come at me and was taken down with a Retriever Bark from Dormarch. “Sorry for the misconception mom, it’s just hard for me to do a Wild Howling as I am and the charge time isn’t going to make it very helpful here. Program Wild Bark is far easier for my body to handle, but its range leaves something to be desired as you’ve noticed.” In fact the more Dormarch fought these things, the stronger he was getting, he was healing from any injuries dealt to him without needing to use Cure Liquor too often. Dormarch was even getting better at dealing with them quite rapidly, any awkwardness in his fighting was disappearing and he was beginning to match my good boys back home in their protective ferocity. “Please do not take any more stabbings or hits mom, I don’t want your health to be rapidly declining again and I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself into the ground!” “Oh believe me, I’m trying not to get hit or sacrifice here!” The Sword, Axe and Lance wielding menaces were close to joining the Reapers in the fight. There was only six of us holding the hill and we were slowly backing up towards the peak of it where the Spheal were all resting. Curdle, made glitter fill the air around her in a constant display of colorful eye searing blasts that was Dazzling Gleam. Shanty was shredding anything that so much as moved near her, her scythe dancing along with her hooves slashing movements. She quickly eviscerated the ones that were about to assault the three of us, which made me finally note Dolly and Dormarch’s proximity to me hadn’t changed one bit since the fight started and there were still Assassin Reapers getting through. I was doing the least amount of damage and yet attracting the most amount of trouble, constantly on the defense and almost fighting on my back. As I closed up the paralance, I batted away another crawling Reaper that came leaping for me. Dolly was trying to protect me and be proactive in her offensive, I saw her trying to start up a Counter Rave, but the enemies were not hitting her enough to make her overcharge for it. Dormarch, was… in a word… amazing, he was teleporting around, ripping into them with his claws and blasting them with Retriever Barks and Wild Barks. I think he was absorbing strength from them and the more he defeated, the better off he was. I was quite proud of him lasting as long as he had, I would look into his mental state after all of this. The one doing the most damage here was undoubtedly Dodo though. His exploding Volcanic Bread bombardments were taking out quite a number of them, which would be more helpful if he could fire them anywhere near us. He was taking entire chunks out of the swarm though. The next Seraph swarm finally came in ahead of the melee weapons and were about to attack and suddenly became blindsided by the Skarmory that I could finally see personally. Their tails were like can openers. Their heads resembled spears hippogriffs would use for simpler forms of fishing. Their wings of metallic feathers were like fans of razor edged blades. The three talon claws of the Skarmory would puncture straight through and rupture a Seraph instantly. There was just two units of them, but they were a welcome sight and they were absolutely decimating the Seraph. A seraph fired an energy arrow shot that hit a Skarmory in their right eye and… the shot bounced off of it harmlessly and all it did was enrage the flying metal bird, even their eyes were, unbelievably enough to me, armored. The only problem I could see is that they had problems with gaining height given how heavy they must be, but when it came to diving you probably wouldn’t want to be in the way of a Skarmory. I rapidly thrust the spear several times and knocked away three more crawling Reapers trying to lunge and stab at me with their front legs, I was recently lightly stabbed in the chest so no thanks to letting that happen again. One of the oncoming Reapers avoided my rapid stabs and went into being bipedal and swiped at me with its left knife, I narrowed my eyes and saw that it was going to fall short so… I blocked to my left and the knife in its right hand became caught on the paralance’s cone. I quickly took my right hoof off of my weapon and fired a point blank Thousand Spears to take out the creepy eye staring at me with malice. Following that I pushed back the right arm. The left immediately started to come around again, I ducked back from the swipe and swung the back end up of the lance into the Reapers chest staggering them as they tried to attack with both knifes at the same time. With the back end raise of the paralance raise, I then jammed it forward straight into what passed for the Reaper’s chest to knock it down and then proceeded to bring the lance down right on top of it with a devastating overhead swing to splatter it into quickly disappearing cubes. I huffed and puffed and saw even more coming for me and raised the lance defensively. I was quite upset that this was continuing to be my life. Was I going to end up fighting for every inch of time that I had left in me? We were certainly getting overwhelmed here as three more came at me from the left, right and above with its right spindly leg raised to skewer me. Dolly was busy and… something was happening with Dormarch, our reestablished bond started to shift oddly and I worried about him. -Dormarch- I had to protect mom, she was in danger! I watched as she bashed and stabbed the various digital constructs that were targeting her specifically with that strange lance. I could feel her love, concern and… she was proud of how well I was doing so far? Dolly was struggling to take down more to get to Pom and I knew she loved me, my emotions took shelter in her heart for a long time and I could feel the familial warmth from her. A fierce warmth equally blossomed in my chest knowing they took a few moments to check in on me even when things were so hectic. I had to keep fighting to the best of my abilities, which were improving rapidly… I could almost imagine a small bar filling up with each destruction of these mindless digital constructs that deign to call themselves assault programs. You want to come after Pom, then you’d have to go through me and Dolly… and I’m not letting you even hurt my big sister without a fight! We were being pushed back, those Skarmory were a bit busy, Dodo was doing a good job of not landing those explosions anywhere near us and we were still outnumbered far more than ten to one at any given time given there were hundreds of Enemy Programs climbing the icy covered hill and they all had the markings of Moon Cell. I was gathering a vast amount of data and I felt it hit a point where it was coalescing, it surpassed a threshold that it had before. I could feel it, the digital evolution I was meant to have from before, the one I couldn’t use due to it being sealed off by Kahn Industries. It could help me turn the tide and nothing was stopping me from doing it this time. Whatever I became, I would do so to protect my mom, Dolly and all those who I cared about, I wanted to be a miracle in the making! I wasn’t going to go crazy like Frizzle had, I was going to stay focused. Miracles can sometimes just happen, but why should you wait for a miracle to happen? It was best that you should sometimes be proactive and make your own miracles like mom can, because I was going to do it too here and now! “Dalmamon digivolve to…!” I screamed as I felt myself bursting with digital energy and I started absorbing all the spilled digital energy in the area, drawing in the massive amounts of the stuff just floating around and I could see thousands of zeroes, ones and even twos pass by my vision. Parts of myself expanded, I started growing. I was getting bigger, bigger than Dolly at least… was I becoming an adult sized dog? At least I wasn’t turning into a Machinedramon, but what was I becoming… I felt my new data evolution being settled. “Dobermon D-Type!” I roared and then used Wild Howling, no charge time, no stressing my body, it came out like a veritable sonic cannon that we had used to shake apart that meteor back in Cape Suzette. Said attack blasted down the hill and didn’t so much as touch my allies, my enemies however weren’t so lucky. The Enemy Programs charging my mother, evaporated. Any Classification Assassin, designation Reaper ceased to exist as my howl started up. The crawling ones coming up the hill, heavily damage and barely functional as they went sliding back down the slope. The ones further beyond? They started to get very confusing signals in their programming and seemed to be panicking due to the sudden scrambling of all their combat routines, I had just effectively hacked their coding by howling lines of data at them. I knew what a Dobermon was, such a digimon has existed before prior to this moment, but it did make me wonder what the D-type stood for. Was it Data, Dalmamon, Dormarch or just Dalmatian? I’m the one that named this form as soon as I became it, why didn’t I know? I wasn’t anywhere near as big as a full sized true Dobermon, but I was okay with that. The plus stats in my spirit core, turned from D+++’s into C++’s and my classification changed to ‘Saver Shielder Beast’, the classification system seemed to have quite a glitch or two in it. To be honest this classification sounded far nicer to me than assassin, didn’t change any of my skills from the spirit core though. Something about the Spirit Core was trying to get me to start living entirely off of my mother’s magic, but I ignored that urge and mentally erased what was causing it from my mind. I did not need mom’s magic to continue to exist whatever that strange insistence was, but it was nice to know that mom could fuel me with some of her magic if I needed it. The stats in my primary soul digital core had some interesting readouts as well. There was bits of Dorulumon and Gaomon data having involved themselves in my evolution somehow, everything felt alright though. Unfortunately I couldn’t immediately use Wild Howling again, because my evolution transformation to this form apparently created a quick load feature and would load up one program of my choice every time I did an evolution from my Dalmamon form. I could apparently hold and or save that one move for whenever I needed it and even use it when I returned to Dalmamon form, but I wouldn’t be able to change it out or save a new move until I used up the previous quick loaded one. At least I could dump the move for energy instead of using it, it’s like an emergency backup battery. It had thankfully defaulted to Wild Howling and I kind of needed that raw power at the time so that was rather fortunate. I became quite thoroughly aware of the Power Saver mode activating now that I had an evolution to wield, apparently this was a highly useful stock standard thing for all ‘Digidestined Digimon’ since forever. It’d go into effect when necessary and I’d return to my cute and cuddly rookie level self after all the fighting was said and done. Now what changed about my overall body? -Dolly- “Bow-whacka-whoa bro…” There was a small lull in the action and I leaned against my board for support as I stared at Dormarch wide eyed. Dormarch didn’t look all too different, but I could certainly feel the difference in our bond. He was a little bigger, he had a much sleeker athletic look and his big goofy claws were slightly closer to being a bit more normal sized… still goofy looking though. In fact he almost looked like a normal dog, if you could ignore the tails. He was wearing a silver collar that covered most of his neck and chest like armor and there was also silver legs guards wrapped around the front of his legs. I could barely see his blue scarf sticking out from under the metal collar armor, so it was definitely Dormarch. The three tails were a bit bigger with sharp spikes at the top and bottom edges of his fins now, his fur was basically the same and the spots still had a fish scale motif and he just looked like far more to cuddle, if there wasn’t currently a fierce look on his face. Overall he still looked like a Dalmatian with fish tails, only an adult, wearing armor and with the most notable change was the two streams of a something coming from his back at the base of his neck, kind of like the two streams Dazzle had coming from her butt above her tail. Wait, they were moving, looking closer were those… small black, white spotted flat octopus tentacle things?! Okay, what the dog was going on with that? He was still my little bro, but darn if that wasn’t really weird… like zombie chickens, ghost ancestors, evil coat lady and a number of other odd things that apparently occurred on my step mothers side of the family, like my side was any better with Dante and Dad having supernatural abilities. Actually does my dad hooking up with Delilah count as part of the oddities of the Dalmatian family? I watched as he noticed one and moved it to look at it in confusion, stretching out wide like an extra fin shaped wing and then slimmed it back down to a tentacle again and he suddenly turned to sling it forward to lob a blob of energy into a nearby Leapers leaping for Pom. He looked even more confused than Pom and I did at what just happened, as the creepy crawly killer knife thing was blasted by a small explosion of energy. Had to really step up my game to not fall behind to that, which means I needed to ultimately figure out how to do more for less. I mean, how hard could being a super smart pup, like most of my brothers back in Camden, truly… I’m doomed, I just tempted fate again. -Dormarch- Let’s see… P-Surge Projector… yup, that’s a new one. Talk about odd system mutations… I mean armored skin flap tentacles that can spread out to be fin wings that can charge up and fling energy. I’ll just live with it, I mean it’s kind of helpful and mom has been taking an interest in studying the evolutions of Pokémon, so maybe she’d want to study my new form with me. The tentacles have must come from the Gaomon combat data, because I at least know the data evolution of it has something similar to this. We still had a fight to finish and a veritable army to mop up and I just got a power up like in the Poodle Wolf game, better make this count while it lasts! “Honestly… aside from the armor you look cuddlier.” Pom stated with good cheer as she propped herself up on the paralance with her left leg, Quetal looked ready to get back into the fray and I was ready to do more too. The remaining Assassin Reapers that were further away with disrupted combat routines seemed to have managed to reboot themselves after the last few minute or so of peace and they were once again coming after mom, but they had me to deal with. -Pom- Dormarch walked to the right of me and I felt one of his tentacles wrap around my waist affectionately. I just smiled at him, as big as a full sized Dalmatian like Delilah, but he now had some notably power and confidence behind him. I gave him a hug with my right hoof and nuzzled the back of his head, then let him free to charge forward and tear through a number of Assassin Reapers in quick succession as they came at us with the aid of Curdle and Quetal. He was a lot stronger than before, I wonder how Digimon Evolution differed from Pokémon Evolution, aside from the backsliding like I’ve seen Frizzle do when she goes back to Guilmon. They grow up so fast, although now I was a little concerned with how powerful Dormarch was getting, as he whipped his tentacles through them as he passed by a number of encroaching enemies. It was either that or he slung blasts of energy from either one and his claws despite their smaller size seemed be as or even more effective than before. “I can do Wild Howling more often, but it’s going to require at least some time between each use, don’t want to overdo it.” Dormarch said cheerfully as I stood up and held the paralance at the ready when he came back to me and Quetal once again joined us on the frontline of battle with his wounds haphazardly bandaged. When we were about to start fighting the remaining fifty or so oncoming Reapers and then take on the incoming army of other enemies wielding a variety of melee weapons, that’s when another surprised showed up coming from the direct north of the horde. “Did you think you could continue to beleaguer my kingdom’s peace without facing my might on the field of battle?” An angry large armored figure wielding an oversized pike and large shield roared onto the battlefield as he went charging straight into the line of sword and shield wielding enemies recklessly all by himself. “I am Ieyasu Tokugawa, and you invaders from elsewhere are not welcome in the kingdom of Valora!” Ieyasu hit them all with the explosive force of a freight train, the large bipedal armored thing tore a solid swath through all that were in his path, at least forty enemies went flying and far more were decimated or in the process of dissolving into light cubes upon impact from the charge. Having slowed down Ieyasu started to lay into them with his oversized pike exploding with incredible force every once in a while. It took me a moment to notice he had a sack full of cannonballs strapped to his back and was actively loading his barrel ended spear with them between brutal violently powerful attacks, he was loading his weapon at an incredible speed with a practiced claws. Beyond Ieyasu’s sudden attack, far behind the horde I could see Frizzle turning into Growlmon, so our Pokémon Companion friends have finally arrived from the southeast and a large blast of lightning from Lit signaled that they were joining in the fight now. More units of Pokémon came from the north, among them I noticed a Hakamo-o bearing a flag spear, it was Jeanne D’ Arc. It looked like she had been rushing to catch up with Ieyasu who had furiously charged into battle by himself. Nice to see Jeanne made it back home okay, but I had more to worry about in this situation. The last of the seraphs was just finished off by the Skarmory, they turned and suddenly swooped down to start assisting Ieyasu in dismantling the veritable army. They scythed long lines of destruction through the enemy ranks as their wings slice through numerous bipedal weaponry wielding entities that had vaguely different designs based on the weapons they wielded. It finally hit me. Some Hope blossomed in my chest, tears sprung in my eyes and I let out an admittedly disturbing sounding giggle. Our friends were finally here and we were going to be saved! I had to quickly defend myself from an Assassin Reaper by raising the lance horizontally catch the two knives being brought down towards me. I was forced onto my back by it, should really pay more attention to my surroundings. With a quick kick I knocked it over and kicked up to smashed my lanced down on it, then I did so until it turned into light cubes with several clubbing blows while it was prone. Dormarch was busy taking down three others for me trying to take advantage of me while I was down. Dormarch lashed out his left tentacle and jammed it into the next Assassin Reaper that came at me, he got it right into the things chest and glared at it. It violently exploded into a mass of cubes that seemingly sucked into the tentacle. “Huh… neat…” Curiously stated Dormarch said as he waved his left tentacle right in front of his face. “Who is that guy, he’s awesome!” Dolly stated with an excited smiled after burrowing her board into a Reaper Assassin, then tore it out ripping the thing entirely in half and with a following two flipping vertical downwards swings it was down to a dissolving torso. “He said his name quite loudly Dolly, I thought he announced that he was the king of this kingdom quite clearly!” I think my blood was likely to be made entirely of healing berry juice after this, but I’d welcome it. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention at the time.” As she said this Dolly whipped her board over her head by the strap twice and then snapped it forward with two swing to tear another one of the crawling Reapers down as it tried to raise up for a quick lunge. I thought about how we could fix the damage that was dealt to the skateboard once we reached the Team Harmony wagon, I seriously doubted Shanty would leave that behind. “Not many of the Reapers left, but they still aren’t giving up on trying to get to you Pom.” A bandaged Quetal called out as he slashed down one of the reapers in a flurry of claw swipes that made cubes fly out of several monsters with each successful slash. “I don’t think the rest of that army will either.” Quetal followed that with a barrage of Beat Up shadow copies, which included Shine, Lit and the others so they were definitely within range to become part of the attack and it was making Quetal’s attack rapid fire quite a number of shadow copies like crazy. Quetal smiled when he saw a Shine shadow copy fly forward while twirling with its arms wide out to take out three enemies as it passed by. The last Shadow copy was that of Frizzle as Growlmon completely crushing the life out of five of the last seven or so Assassin Reapers, some would say that was overkill. I call it a relief, especially when the final two went up in a blasts of explosive bread from Dodo. The Frizzle shadow copy he fired made Quetal smile quite a bit. I flopped onto my butt and took a sigh of relief and watched as Ieyasu tore that army a new one, I don’t think I would be able to do that. Just walk into an army and expect to win the fight by myself like him. In fact, it was awe inspiring to watch as Ieyasu sent them flying and flopping all over the place with each destructive swing of his weapon, an explosion from the cannonball loosed from it or stomp if one were to get under foot. He blocked hundreds of attacks with his iron hide and shield that looked to be suspiciously made from his hide as some kind of repurposed molting. Dormarch looked to me and seemed to be expecting something, a Spheal hopped up to me and flopped into my lap while happily squealing. It seemed the Spheals were almost recovered enough to get back to fighting if they were jolly enough to seek comfort in me. “Give me a minute, then we’ll go help… but I’m definitely staying behind that guy and maybe Jeanne.” My eyes turned to Curdle who was using ‘Recover’ to heal her somewhat amorphous mass and form, then to Quetal who was sitting and watching the action too. Quetal glanced at me and I gave him an expectant look, and tilted my head while darting my gaze to the Steel Type tearing through the enemy’s ranks. “Be sounding good to me and quite fair, Dodo can be covering us from above.” Shanty said as she took a seat next to us. “Dormarch is looking cooler than ever and it’s nice to be seeing you buddy! How have you been?” “Yeah, it’s nice to be back Shanty and I’ve been better.” Dormarch stated while waving his right tentacle toward her in a friendly manner. “Getting better too! Are you even going to ask Shanty?” “Why should I?” Shanty stated cheerfully as she pulled out a bottle of rum and popped the cork, don’t even want to know where she pulled that from or how it got there. “Pom be doing lots of weird things, so I just be assuming something weird be happening.” As Shanty took a large gulp of her fruity smelling rum, that’s when Quetal did what I expected of him, he explained what Ieyasu was. “That Pokémon is an Aggron, six to eight feet of raw Steel and Rock Type power that are ridiculously tough physically… they are exceptionally weak to Fighting and Ground types moves, generally weak to Water Types so Shanty could easily take him theoretically. Fire doesn’t affect them as much as it would other steel types. In the absence weaknesses, Aggrons are some of the most dangerous Pokémon around here. It’s never a good idea to get into a fight of attrition with one unless you have one of their weaknesses available.” We watched as the top half of a Berserker landed in front of us and began dissolving, Quetal grinned somewhat. “I can see why he’s still highly respected and well renowned king. Also, given his constant use of Double-Edge, he might have the ability Rock Head which makes him entirely immune to recoil from Pokémon moves that would otherwise hurt him for even doing them. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knows Take Down too.” Dormarch idly stabbed his left tentacle into the Berserker and absorbed a few cubes from it and I should probably ask questions about that later. The Hakamo-o soon joined the fray and they started devastating their opponents close up and personal. “Well what more are we waiting for.. aside from you Pom?” Dolly stated as she looked to me. “Well fine, but we’re not going to just dive straight into that many enemies without being careful…” I groaned as I patted the Spheal gently on the head before placing it off to the side and got up. I stretched out and started walking on three hooves to the slush covered slope and opened the paralance to shade me from the sun. “Look, they are going to be gunning for me, so can you at least promise to stick close to me and will listen to me if I say we run?” “Yeah/of course/we can be doing that!” Both Dormarch and Dolly cheered, but Shanty had joined in too with a cheerful grin. It was kind of exhausting to deal with them all as the designated adult, but I loved them dearly despite the idiocy about to take place with me deciding to continue fighting. “Right, let’s put Dormarch through his paces. Shanty, Quetal, Curdle I hope you will help with protecting me as live bait for the horde. The Spheal can stay here if they want to keep safe.” Also another reason to go on the offensive, Ieyasu was getting a bit in over his head and I was quite concerned about how surrounded he was getting.