//------------------------------// // 394. Dammed if you do or don’t, Finale. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Origin Space, Tiamat- She has only tapped the cusp of her abilities, I’m a little upset, but somewhat proud. -Moon Cell- It started to secretly manufacture Assassin Reapers from the present forces it had at its out layer and set them to attack two targets of opportunity. Specifically the Chrysomallus, since her presence alone was already starting to warp the system inexorably. It also took the priority targeting of the ewe off of every Caster at its disposal, in fact it actively set Casters to avoid attacking her with magic at all costs after what happened to Circe. It had recorded Circe’s stats before she was lost, they had dropped to F quintuple minus. Which meant she had the strength of an average pig… one that dropped from the sky, accelerated to full velocity and died upon impact with the ground. It didn’t know what happened with Rider Totsugeki though, it tried to look into the history of the fight, but there was something like a large mass of raw chaos magic where the fight occurred between the goat and Rider took place and it appeared as soon as goat started dancing on her hind legs to an odd rhythm near the start of the clash. The end result showed that the goat actually defeated the servant permanently somehow, because the chaotic magic in the area disappeared as soon as the fight was over and the soul was no long capable of being summoned again. Also there was the disturbing fact that Rider Totsugeki even saved the goat from dying by throwing her to safety away from a fall that would have killed them, aberrations in the programming were not allowed and yet Rider Totsugeki had managed to betray Moon Cell. Moon Cell now had the confirmation data that the disappearing souls was occurring around the intruders, it would be more wary of who it sends after Pom’s group and was slowly cycling through a list of servants while entirely excluding Casters. Casters might still be useful though… against everyone else but the ewe, but it needed to prioritize her death before her presence ruined its invasion plans to wipe out all life in the Digital World and that of the planet of the Dimensional Pocket Monsters. It would send Caster servant after the werewolf beast in the hopes they could deal with it through territory creation. The two canines with the sword and shield motif required far more powerful servants, since one of them was basically Arthur Pendragon. -Moon Cell Realm, Dike Land, Cape, Mobile Castle Alexander, Throne Room, Dormarch- Down ninety percent power, only capable of walking, structural integrity of Castle Alexander was down sixty percent from the serpent and we have so many injured that Pom, Sami, Canard, Dodo and a single Commandramon were all we have left from that battle to go down and take care of the one thousand or so aquatic EPs trying to flood into the fortress. The Gazimon were busy with logistics taking care of the injured or dealing with holding the upper floors of the castle. There were very few EPs signal sneaking in, but after they were inside the castle they were hard to spot. Torneko’s forces were holding the castle from being overrun at least, he wasn’t a fighter though. Cid was in engineering and he was trying to keep this humongous puppy functional and I couldn’t really distract him. The whale was starting to sporadically generating Saber Knights, Lancer Guardians and a few Berserker Vikings. The APs, mostly Saber Knights, were quite valiant for holding out as well as they were but we only had the production power of five PLANTs that weren’t used in the creation of this castle. We couldn’t keep the whale pinned forever, it was trying to flop out from under the paws of Alexander and the castle has taken a lot of damage. It was taking even more when the entire castle shook as the large whale slapped its tail against the front paws of the fortress. “Welch, is the gun tower still operational?” I asked and the frowning white rabbit face popped up on a screen. “Yes, but if we run out of power, then I won’t be able to shoot anymore. Ammunition, frankly enough, is not the issue here!” She was physically in the damaged defense tower that we managed to activate, it thankfully wasn’t using too much power to fire, but it had taken damage from a few of those water lasers. “If you’re asking me if I can target the whale, it’s far too low… well except for the tail. The several tower turrets are more for anti-air or artillery functions, than for direct applications like what we used against the serpent.” I once again found myself working with a rabbit, I really missed Miss Bunny Shuttle, I’m sure my friend misses me too. Water can cut through steel if given enough pressure and this castle was going to need a large amount of repairs after such an onslaught with that ‘kaiju’ as Dolly termed it and we were still dealing with more enemies even after the servant had been dealt with. “Shoot that then and stop it from damaging the paws further!” I glanced at Dolly looking around at the entrances while relaxing, but her eyes narrowed and she threw the stone bone towards the ceiling. An Assassin Reaper fell from it and she was on it in an instant while catching the stone bone on the rebound as she descended on them. “Warning to all hands of Castle Alexander, Assassin Reapers have infiltrated the castle, they are going to come after you mom and they are going to be coming for me too. The injured in the courtyard are vulnerable, so be wary while patching everyone up out there.” My renaming the castle after ‘Alexander the Great’ seemed like a good idea at the time, but our situation wasn’t so great and we weren’t conquering as well as we could be. “Watch the ceilings and your backs, do not go anywhere alone!” I was named after a fish tailed hound seen in mythologies across several worlds, including moms… I sometimes wondered if my name has some connotations of fate or destiny to it, because the whole ‘crest of miracles’ thing was pointing at it quite hard. Dolly eventually tore the Assassin Reaper apart enough that it was rendered a pile of cubes that I drew towards myself, I needed a pick me up as the battle wasn’t over yet. “Dormarch where are we going from here?” Mom called and I had the systems light up a path forward for the team that might somehow deal with the thousands of enemies surrounding Castle Alexander. At least our PLANTs that produced APs were still fully functional and the Lancer Guardians had them locked down. “Hurry up and take out that whale sized PLANT, we don’t have much time.” The blue territorial barrier keeping the flooding sea at bay slowly flickered red. “I’m rerouting some of the APs to patrol the castle and deal with the EPs that are getting by the AP defensive line down there.” “Enemy efforts are currently making several systems inoperable.” Well aware of that Alexander. -Emergency Medical area, Alexander Castle Courtyard, Ocellus- “These injuries… I think Shanty is actually doing it, she might actually catch up with Pom in capability.” I continued to bandage Shanty, fearfully wondering about the situation. “What makes you say that?” Smolder asked as she helped me check over Shanty and make sure the bandages were tight and staunching the bleeding. I used my magic to clean and pull all the sediments from sea swords out of her wounds. “You know how Pom can surpass the limitations of her body at a great cost when she uses Shock Ram, Shanty did something similar like that not too long ago considering her current injuries.” Given I could see and even detect the numerous injuries that came with it, Shanty might have done a less painful version of limitation breaking and as such the kind of damage wasn’t as comparable as Pom always being near death afterwards. I’m fairly certain that Shanty could do it while performing a song or dancing. “Is Pepper Cat going to be okay?” “She’ll be fine, she’s tough.” Krosserdog stated normally, despite his left arm and lower half of his body missing armor and a weapon from it entirely revealing the legs and arms basic framework beneath. “She’s just been rendered entirely down to her tinpet frame and is missing all her combat parts. It would be worrying if her tinpet body was mostly destroyed and her medal slot was damaged.” Yeah, the serpent really didn’t like Pepper Cat, possibly because it didn’t like electrical or lightning energy. “Her combat capacity is just greatly diminished until her parts self-repair program returns her to full fighting capacity. As long as her medal is intact, she’ll be fine.” Rokusho stated as his entire body was covered in cracks, but he still had all his parts intact and they were slowly mending. Pepper Cat, she didn’t have any parts and her body that was underneath said parts was cracked. “How’s Shanty?” “Tore herself up, but unlike Pom who might have a habit of nearly killing herself, Shanty actually has some sense of self-preservation and is not cursed to sacrifice herself at the nearest problem.” Grousing from me aside, Shanty just needed rest and didn’t have any life threatening injuries despite looking to have been run through at least twice. Pom was still going to go fight for us again. Dodo, that bio mechanical wonder of a metal ostrich familiar, was currently providing aerial support for the APs below or that’s what I thought he was doing. He’s flown by quite a few times and was spitting explosive pastries from his beak below the castle at a slow rate, but the explosions they caused should be helping regardless. “I haven’t known Pom for long, but that sounds accurate for some reason after the whole Server City incident.” Rokusho stated before looking to Metabee whose head parts and right arm were missing, Metabee was out cold. Rokusho was possibly the leader of the four Digi-bots and it showed with how well he carried himself and that he was the only one still whole out of the four of them. “As for the announcement, I will watch the area and make sure no one assaults the injured.” Looking up at the nearby tower, the only one with a pair of cannons poking out of it, fired downwards aiming in the direction of the head. “Smolder can you help Rokusho protect the area? I have to get to the Jeanne next.” Getting a nod from Smolder, I got the bandages and fruit. Making my way over to Jeanne I saw that she was sitting upright the only one among the hakamo-o doing so as I approached. The banner was somewhat messy, but it was still surprisingly intact. -At the bottom of a Ladder around Castle Alexander’s hind legs, Pom- I stepped off the ladder onto a ledge and looked about. A large amount of EPs were around the front paws of the castle, we didn’t have any problems getting off the ladder and there weren’t any EPs up the hill. We did have problems with getting here though, Dormarch was rather quick on the warning of Assassin Reapers being around. Took down at least five of them in quick succession and they were exclusively targeting me again. So it meant that what I saw was in fact the eye of Moon Cell staring down on me, looked like a yellow gas ball inside a cube with a corner broken off. Didn’t take it long to have the whale start making Reapers to send after me and we had its attention, now we had to keep it and make it harder for it to invade the two worlds. We needed to make it want us gone by any means necessary and we had to survive said any means necessary, like what we were going through right now. I sighed as I was being driven to heroism, I sometimes wished that I drank like Shanty does. The Commandramon moved over to the edge of the cliff the right hind leg Castle Alexander had situated on and pulled out a pair of Binoculars. “The front legs are still holding the whales mouth shut, lots of Knifefins around it waiting to launch at anyone that gets too close. It’s like they are acting as living shrapnel mines. The APs are not doing too great down there.” The Commandramon swept his binoculars about. “Our territory barrier holding the sea back is failing. What’s your call Sami?” The whale tried to slap its tail upwards only to be blasted back down from the tower of the castle on the giant dog fortresses back… I was going to have a long talk with Dormarch about the whole fortress dog thing. “Let’s not forget the fact that some EPs are also getting in through the front legs as they damage them.” Sami continued as she prepped her bazooka. “It’s big, how are we going to damage it, I don’t honestly think you’re launcher has enough raw power to seriously damage that thing. We can’t even get close to it either without being swarmed.” Canard grumbled as he stared at the large pinned down whale. “The Paralance can damage it, it can damage just about anything really, but blocking the Knifefins would take up most of my attention.” Speaking of something that had my attention, I saw Dodo blast something and I grabbed the binoculars and focused on the spot to see Dodo was helping the APs out. They spawned into the area fought off a few EPs and then were swarmed and violently destroyed in a variety of ways quickly, like the one that just took a Knifefin to the heart. That poor Lancer Guardian. “It’s already pretty badly damaged, so…” Sami started to say only for Canard to cut her off. “For a given definition of it sure, but again, would your explosives crack that thing open or do enough damage?” There was a pause as Canard watched Sami consider our options before we did anything. “I know how we can get near the whale, but we’ll want to clear the Knifefins if we want to get on top of it.” Honestly I could have just jumped from the head of the Castle Alexander and landed on it or did some gliding around. Putting my hooves up to my mouth, I shouted at our favorite metal bird. “Dodo!” Going against several hundred aquatic monsters and the generic bipedal soldiers that were all EPs was not good odds to glide into. Doing so was a good way to get myself stabbed to death by hundreds of flying knife fish. So really we chose the safer option to get us down here, I don’t know if Dodo could fly with all of our weight. Sure he was bigger to accommodate flying with multiple passengers on top of him, or possibly hanging from his clawed feet, but I wouldn’t test that at the moment. So we probably made the right call to climb down one of the back legs leg, plus high ground is always helpful. Dodo swooped in and hovered in front of us for a few seconds before landing and he rubbed his beak up against me affectionately while warbling. “Good to see you too Dodo, we’re going to need your help with something.” A curious sounding mechanical whine came from him. “How much liquid caramel can you generate and can you make it to some rather particular exact specifications? Also can you do just about any dessert topping?” Dodo blinked, then gave me a flat look as if he was insulted that I would think that he couldn’t do just about anything with pastries at this point. If he could do this, then it would definitely add a new one to his bag of odd pastry related tricks as a familiar. The highly carbonized bread loaves were oddly effective blunt tools, the exploding pastry bombs were inventive and obviously powerful, but now I wanted Dodo to take things to an even more ridiculous conclusion of his pastry spitting skills as far as his offensive abilities are concerned. -Twenty minutes later- We were skirting the edge of the EPs horde and waiting for Dodo to do his part, to that end we found a nice boulders to sit behind while the fighting continued on. We would try to get behind the whale, but in the case that we do get noticed… well we were going to purposeful reveal ourselves once close enough that the Knifefins would launch themselves at us. Dodo had already started to spray the special chemistry concoction over all the EPs in the way, mostly the Knifefins guarding the whale, I wondered if my science was correct on this or not. The spray and raining of globules of small cinnamon rolls went entire ignored as it did nothing to the throngs of EPs in the way. “Dodo is one weird machine, you do realize that the concoction you told him to make is fairly diabolical right?” Well Sami, we had need of such a thing. Besides, we weren’t using this against anyone living so I was less worried with what was about to occur. “Well Dodo has shown the habit that he can make or replicate just about any pastry on demand, mind you the stuff he makes the pastries from has always been of a questionable source to me. Given that it hasn’t killed Shanty yet, I’m sure Dodo makes the food he generates safe for consumption. However I’m of the mind that he never has the resources to make the things he does, so therefore he’s likely doing so through some odd form of magical chemistry or outright regular alchemy.” That’s about as far as I got with trying to work out how Dodo’s ability to spit pastries worked. “If he can chemically do anything with pastries such as almost make diamonds to use as projectiles to making explosives out of sugar, it stands to reason that what we’re about to do makes sense in the context that he’s capable of using any form of bakery related chemistry.” “While this is a fascinating conversation, prepare to move out and get ready to wail on that…” Canard stopped and slapped his face with his right hand, slowly slid it down his beak and shook his head. “Ugh, the pun… anyway we need to bring that thing down before it takes us down. I’m ready to take the fight to it.” “I am too.” Sami readied her bazooka. “Modifying my personal DCD bomb for a shaped thermite blasts.” Rookie said as he seemed to be looking at something that only he could see. “… I’m not ready and have my reservations, but we’re doomed if we don’t do this.” Since I really doubted Moon Cell was going to leave us be after all of this. “We’re probably going to have problems even after we do, but I think we’ll manage if we can survive what was thrown at us here.” Canard stated as he got a tight two handed grip on his Valora made hockey stick. “The odds of survival statistically raise the more horrible situations you survive mostly intact.” Sami quoted with a slight twitch in her left eye and Rookie wasn’t commenting on what Sami said, but his solemn reaction to Sami’s words spoke volumes. “Sanity being entirely optional.” Soon afterwards Rookie just firmed his jaw and tightened his grip on his rifle and aimed it forward while looking down the sights at the EPS, keeping his claw off the trigger of his weapon, but ready to start shooting. “Right I’m leading the charge since this is my idea, just be ready to cover your eyes… this is going to be a bit bright.” Corn syrup turned into ethanol, some very special cinnamon dust covered caramel with the consistency of flash paper that will burn like thermite and has a special ingredient and the last bit of interest to give the concoction some explosive strength, nitrocellulose napalm icing injected buns. As many would say, too much sugar is truly bad for your health. I smacked my hooves together and started to prepare one of the most devastating use of Thousand Spears: Huo I think I will ever have to date. The whale hadn’t broken free from being stuck under Castle Alexander, but it was certainly training and there was no way I could miss something that big at this range. Sending mental warning to Dormarch and Dolly as I began my work, I started swirling the spark into a powerful fireball that will be ready for the upcoming devastation and Dodo kept spreading his Cluster Napalm Cinnamon bombs as I built up for my attack. I carefully stepped out of the hiding spot while still maintaining control of the concentrated swirling fireball, I was never meant to do this technique while moving. I took aim at the side of the whale’s large body and hoped everyone inside Castle Alexander was okay. “Fire in what I’m hoping is a big hole!” I fire of the flaming spear and the heat that launched forth blue across the field in the form of a large flaming spiraling spear. The first contact with the heat caused the first bit of the cinnamon sticking to the buns to fill the air with powder and then said powder was ignited by the caramel and the core napalm icing caused small explosion’s that caused multiple explosions to spread out amongst the enemy. The entire area around the whale quickly became uninhabited by the enemy and the territory barrier turned straight blue instead of flickering increasingly red. It was like the sun had flared where the staircase down to the plaza used to be and now everything except Fortress Alexander was on fire there. I had to close my eyes at the intensity, after the glare died down I blinked the spots out of my eyes and saw the damage I dealt. Darn it, the whale was still operational! It now it had a decent hole in its body and everything around it was a sea of flames making it hard for it to generate EPs at least, but it was still struggling. Our APs started to build up around the front paws, entirely unaffected by the glare and as meager in numbers as they were, they were going to be important soon and they were finishing off the EPs that survived the conflagration by the fact that they were attacking the legs. Dormarch, tell the APs to defend my team, we’re going to move in soon and start attacking the whale directly. Yes, I’m aware that even though it has no water or very much maneuverability at the moment that it is still very much highly dangerous. Just keep the mouth shut, the body pinned beneath Alexander and we’ll try to destroy it, as long as a servant doesn’t show up we can end this before anything can get any worse today. “Those… are some very devastating pastries.” The Commandramon with the call sign ‘Rookie’ stated as the flames reflected in his eyes. “Too bad they require something for detonation.” “Technically they don’t, they’ll act as land mines if you step on them or jostle them.” Dodo could in fact manufacture what I asked him to. If enough of the cinnamon on the buns was disturbed, then it’ll go off just like it currently has. “So we wait for the fire to die down and then move in.” Canard stated calmly as his muscles tensed and flexed. “Correct, the mixture ‘should’ make it last for twenty more seconds according to Dormarch.” I was going to get up close on all fours draw any new EPs generated from the whale, then we start attacking it with whatever we had at our disposal. Sami and the Commandramon had explosives, I could go for the Paralance and magical wolf claws, even Canard had his slapshot technique and the only problem was the level of effectiveness we could possibly have. “Flame dying down, go-go-go!” Called out Rookie and I started forward at a pace far faster than the bipedal friends could keep up with. A beam of red light was immediately on me, coming from the whale’s eye and it started generating EPs in my path as I was on approach, an Assassin reappear leapt at me as soon as it finished forming and its bladed spindly limbs preparing to come down on me. Only to get caught in a swooping Dodo’s claws and was promptly ripped in half. What followed was a whole volley of Knifefins aimed at me, I slowed down went onto my hind legs and brought the paralance around and up to deflect them off the canopy when I opened it up fully. I kept moving forward and could barely feel the number of impacts that slammed into the weapon as I kept it angled high. Several more EPs formed in my path a Kraken and a Berserker Shark, the shark lunged off the ground at me. With a quick breathe, I sped up hopped up and stomped its nose into the dirt, broke it’s back fine with a quick swipe as I passed by it and then leapt forward lance first to ram it into the body of the Kraken and topple it in a mass of flailing tentacles as I kicked off and continued my forward dash. About one hundred feet from it ten Saber Knights spawned in my path, I held the paralance forward, closed it up slightly and then inhaled sharply and exhaled to blast through them instantly like a bowling ball knocking over pins. I quickly had to deflect a spear coming at me to the side as a Lancer Guardian tried to leapt and stabbed at me. This was followed by several others charging for me, only to be gunned down a second later by two streams of bullets and a Slapshot of energy from Canard took out the one I had locked down. It wasn’t long before I was at the left side of the whale’s face, it summoned a Berserker Shark and it was quickly pinned to the ground by several swords as the APs had arrived. The shark would struggle as the several Saber Knights held it in place until it disappeared. A rocket from Sami flew by and into the scorched hole and made the whale shift about in pain, but the large dog faced walking castle continue to keep it under its paws. It was followed by another round of pained noises as Rookie lobbed an explosive device into the scorch hole and it caused more damage. Dodo flew in and another explosion went off in the whale’s head, why hasn’t this thing fallen yet? Just how tough was it exactly?! Was it just that ridiculously tough? If it wasn’t for the APs or Rookie and Sami having fast firing weapons, we’d have been skewered by the numerous Knifefins come at us as they were generated with a disturbing amount of momentum as if they were being fired from a gun like bullets. Canard Leapt forward and slapped the blade of his stick into the whale and scratched its hide, he leapt back as it tried rotate its body to slap its left fin down on him. He sent a Slapshot into one of its eyes, now that did some damage. “RRRRRrrrrrrrRRrRRrRrRrRrR… yip!” A large amount of its hide cracked moderately when my bark breaker struck, that still wasn’t enough as it brought its tail around to slap at us and was blasted back from above by the castle’s tower gun. I’m pretty certain that my bark breaker shouldn’t work on digital or living things, unless it was of a rigid material. We’ve hit this whale with explosions from the inside, we’ve hit from the outside, I’ve burned a hole into its side, we hit it with a territory shockwave, we put the entire weight of a castle on it plus the dog shaped fortress underneath it to slowly crush it. What exactly would it take to finally end this thing? “Keep at it!” I leapt onto it and started to rapidly claw at it wielding my magic claw attack to tear small bits off of it. More explosions from Sami and Rookie, more slapshots from Canard and even Dodo was tossing more Cinnabombs into it lighting up its insides every time they were ignited by an explosion. The whale continued to wiggle underneath the paws of Alexander, summon EPs which the APs were trying to handle. I had to block a few streams of Knifefins. Once we were done with this thing we could finally get some rest. Then the whale tore a chunk of its own skull to pull backwards and free of Castle Alexander and opened its mouth wide to start build up energy. “Dormarch….” The response I received as that Castle Alexander didn’t have the energy to react to the sudden change in the situation, its massive pillars it called legs slammed into the ground. However thanks to the lowered angle from the whale no longer being underneath it, the tower one started firing shots into the whale’s right side. Sami and Rookie were throwing explosives into its mouth and firing rockets, Canard started attacking with several successive Slapshot attacks and it focused its red beams on us even as it was hit by shell after shell. I even started firing Bark Busters into its mouth and tried to bark breaker its insides. It just wouldn’t stop charging its beam attack and it wouldn’t die, we were hitting it with quite literally whatever we had. I stopped spitting attacks and slammed the edge of the canopy of the wide open Paralance into the ground as hard I could and slammed down my rear leg to dig the back end of it into the ground as well. “Take cover behind me, Dodo stay away!” I called out to the others, Rookie was immediately behind it with me and he pushed down on it like I did. Sami and Canard made to move, but the whale was rearing up and already starting to breathe its beam into the ground in front of it and swept it at us I inhaled. Neither of them were going to make it. Sami looked to her right and frowned, then to Canard directly to her left and she shoulder checked him the ground. “Commandramon Digivolve to…” Sami screamed in slow motion as I continued to watch in Slow motion as she positioned herself in front of Canard intending to give him a chance to survive this by using her body as a shield and she even positioned her bazooka in the path of the beam as she planted it against the ground. That she was even evoking a digital evolution meant… “Sami!” Canard’s call came before the beam the impacted the Paralance and I was blinded by the roar of heat and the canopy starting to turn a bright red, but the heat didn’t travel down the shaft as I felt the Commandramon known as Rookie braced me. … I took forty seconds for the roaring in my ears to give way to a dull throb, both Dolly and Dormarch were shouting at me worriedly mentally, but I told them I was fine. Well mostly, my ears hurt and the heat singed me a bit, because the attack occurred in dry air and not in water. “Sami, CO?!” Rookie called out as he stood up, I was still blinking the spots out of my eyes as I saw Canard was laying on the ground completely fine… so that meant. “Eat this, Stampede XM!” Roared the slightly deepened female voice of what only had to be Sami Soldier hold a blue glowing barrier extending from the oddly designed shield in her right hand that didn’t look like it could protect much. Her evolution didn’t look how she described a Sealsdramon as being. In fact she looked like a bigger armored version of herself and her bazooka had changed into something else, said weapon’s barrel was beginning to spin rapidly. “She truly is a CO to worth following into the Dark Area without fear for.” Rookie said with bright eyes and a look of awe as a massive number of round objects sprayed out of her changed weapon. When the first explosion went off it blew the whale back, followed by multiple impressive consecutive blasts as every round explosive device ended up in the whales mouth forcing it to bodily slide backwards with every blast. “G-loader!” The weapon’s barrel started turning and chunking as the whale groaned, Sami looked at her weapon and then at her shield. “Wha… what am I? I’m…. I’m a not a Sealsdramon…. heh heh… bahahaha… I’m not a Sealsdramon… Canard I’m not a Sealsdramon! I’m not going to go psycho and slaughter all of my friends… WOO!” Sami was crying and the look of joy on her armored face was contagious, her helmet now looked grafter to her face or fit perfectly to it with a large horn on the tip of her nose. “Hi-Commandramon, alternative heavy infantry specialist alternative evolution, can specialize in virus busting or firewall cracking, among other things. New signature move logged Program 'Stampede XM', instantly fires thirty grenades with the impact of a mortar shell and the power of a rocket from a missile vehicle with a lethal explosive range of a few meters. The spread of the move is meant to deal with large groups of enemies or one particularly big enemy such as in this instance.” The digivice Canard held showed a spinning image of what Sami currently looked like. “Data from the Agumon line becomes more prevalent as seen by the horn which is comparable to the primary agumon evolution of Greymon, among many other minor alterations and an increased size and combat potential.” “Huh, neat, uh… wow you’re a lot smaller now Canard...” That or you got a lot bigger Sami, honestly now you’re like half of what Frizzle does in size. “I’m just glad you’re alright.” Canard stated after staring at her goofy grinning form. “Guys, the whale.” I reminded them as the whale was shaking off the damage that Sami dealt to it and it was still summoning EPs even now to come at us. Rookie was at least focusing fire on them and the APs had it mostly handled as they moved forward with their shields to block a shotgun spray of Knifefins. What would it finally take to finish the whale off? Castle Alexander slammed its right paw down and partially caved its skull in. Everything was quiet for a second. The whale wailed and then continued to summon more aquatic EPs forgoing the biped generics of Viking, Knight, Guardian or even the occasional Reaper. “Oh come on!” As I said this I mentally contact Dormarch and asked why the tower gun wasn’t firing. What I was quickly told was that Castle Alexander had a power issue and was at five percent, basically it couldn’t really do too many more big actions until we let the power restore… plus there’s all the damage to the castle and the canine body beneath it. I looked at the tower had retracted to being a normal tower. Dormarch still got the left paw raised and was going to bring it down on the whale that was on its last dregs. The left paw slammed downwards and then… The whale vanished and both the front paws of the castle slammed into the ground kicking up a massive dust wave. “What just happened Dormarch!” I said out loud as much as mentally. … “Moon Cell recalled it?!” Just when we were so close to finishing it off too. “Right, we’ll be there soon.” There was no need for cleanup, the EPs disappeared as soon as the whale had. The entirety of cape was now shining blue to show we have taken the territory in its entirety. We had taken Dike Land and Moon Cell was quite uncomfortably aware of us now. -Thirty minutes later, Castle Alexander Courtyard- “So this is what power saver mode feels like, nice and efficient…” Sami stated as she returned to being a Commandramon and had several badly injured Commandramon looking up to her with pride. “So glad that’s my evolution… so what’s my next one?” I heard a slight hint of fear in Sami’s voice and rolled my eyes, she refused to become a Sealsdramon so she simply didn’t. She had certainly been willing to do so to protect Canard at least. Dormarch padded up to me with a slightly tired Dolly and she grinned while waving at me exuberantly. “So now what?” I asked and everyone turned to me, oh right Jeanne was out and I was technically the second leader. … Why me? “Okay…” I said as the stress began to build up on my skull and I looked at the golden wool taking up half my right leg where before it was just a ring above my hoof... and that stress became several times worse. I needed the sacrificial energy to fight that serpent at the time. “Focus on medical first we have injuries in various degrees so worst concerns first, anyone who can’t help with that will proceed to eat something, followed by at least three hours rest for all personal who took part in combat, those who didn't like the Gazimon need to start on the repairs, also someone really needs to get an idea of our current situation and what resources we have available to us after all of that. If anyone has any suggestions, PLEASE bring them to me about what we should do next or what we can do to put us in a better situation than now. I really doubt Moon Cell is just going to wait for us to get back on our hooves, they are quite aware that we’re here and after what we just pulled off… they are going to want us all dead quite badly now.” -Moon Cell- Since the ewe fought like a Lancer, a Saber was deemed appropriate expenditure for taking out the nuisances that seized the entirety of an outer layer realm. Summoning Servant Saber… … Summoning successful. Saber ‘Jack’ being sent to guard the next area they are likely to move to. Minimal usage of elite programs authorized. Continuing invasion of Ransei Continent and Digital Realm. Ordering troops. Spreading influence. Heavy resistance expected, servants still cannot exit Moon Cell realm. Will soon be able to deploy servants to the Digital Realm as the foothold is almost large enough to send just one. It would be enough without an equally powerful figure to counter it. Cycling through servant list for Digital Realm invasion and takeover. -Origin Space, Arceus- Hmmm… they are in a bit of a bind. Their mode of transport was sturdy at the very least. “Mirage Mew will soon be arriving to assist them.” Celebi stated with firm look on their face. “I personally made sure of it, now where do you need me father?” “Rest a while, you are on reserve for the moment.” After I said this I watched as Celebi flutter over to the buffet bar I had made and stocked not too long ago, the Legendary Pokémon could get quite hungry. That should hopefully be enough reinforcements on top of whatever PLANTs they can scrounge to wield even more of those Allied Programs and greater variations therein. What is your next move Moon Cell? You’ve armies all over the place attacking everything at once, but where were you going to focus specifically… would you truly focus on Pom above all else or would you think only a specific servant or two could take her out and try to take the Digital Realm? Would you try to focus down weakening Ransei overall so that you can snatch the souls of the heroes that live there? It would be a disaster if Moon Cell got a hold of Cotton Murkrow, but King Evan is already securing her when nearby Moon Cell moves in Viperia. “Can we move Amaterasu onto the field?” Tiamat asked while watching over Shanty curiously, she seemed quite intent with focusing on the Capricornus. With good reason no less as I saw the soul she resonated with flowing around her in a friendly manner, Moon Cell would not be able to touch that one as long as Shanty lived. “No, I will not manipulate Amaterasu’s movements directly, she is quite powerful and I cannot risk her becoming a… distraction. I will do something to prod her into a helpful position if she’s even halfway willing to be there… while she’s not exactly an ally and might never be one, she might be a great boon to the Digital Realm quite soon.” The Yggdrasil System was putting efforts into trying to send aid to Pom’s group as they were in a beneficial position to her, being only one part of a larger whole series of interconnected Yggdrasil Systems across multiple worlds. “One wonders what will happen when Pom finally meets her.” That one part by itself wasn’t powerful as the collective, but the local Yggdrasil System was still making a good showing of resisting a powerful foes invasion, it was unfortunate that she could not personally breach Moon Cell’s systems currently as she was on the defensive. Moon Cell has several breaches of their own to worry about, with the two liberated hero souls that became legendary Pokémon who are currently surviving in the heart of the enemy territory with what little room they have of their own mixes of territory. One bit of Territory of knights, chivalry and medieval flair and the other territory resembling a slightly higher tech organization that fixed the destruction of time and space of another world that was rendered almost impossible to bring back. The neutral Fou was also being quite the major thorn by creating a wild uninhibited territory. A free zone where anything goes and he’s enjoying fighting his own territories programs as much as any invading force Moon Cell tries to send to take back the territory. Even the PLANTs were wild and respected power more than coding, Moon Cell would not ignore the virus like implications of that. Any servants used there would have to be the most powerful of Berserkers to even survive in the environment that the world beast was expanding by existing. Now would be a good time to make a chess analogy for the audience hmmm... Pawn to One D Four, your move.