-???, Oleander-
“So really, if you want to stop all of your cult members from being a bother, then do that Lambert.” Honestly, this was the nicest cult I’ve ever met. Sure the sheep running it with the demonically empowering hat was a little weird and a bit violent, but he didn’t think darkness made one evil either and if I didn't have a prior engagement to Fred, I might even find them quite fetching.
Lambert was jotting down my suggestions for how to make it easier to deal with the cultists that kept causing problems, because they certainly made their leader act more as a maid than an actual cult leader by cleaning up after them.
“Can we find more things to shoot?” Wrex asked with a grin, he was really enjoying the strange and deadly creatures we kept running into. He also liked playing Cat and Krogran with Xenomorphs. That he was even alive should tell you how that small side trip to our favorite world to play around with deadly alien creatures with fast acting acidic blood went.
-Moon Cell Realm, Mare Melum, Upper District, Streets, Dolly-
Okay, that robotic dog was a terror. While not nearly as bad as Gilgamesh in being able to attack everything, he was still right up there in the hard to get at department and even if we could get at him… we could barely even do anything to him!
“What are the chances that I can get you guys to drop me off while you retreat?” We had barely managed to lose the guy Pom and I can see why you would want the Commandramon to ditch us to keep drawing the bad guy off while they get to safety.
Only… if we get dropped off now, then he was bound to catch up to us in like five minutes. Also I didn’t like the look of what I’m assuming is an industrial district… am I getting smarter the longer I spend time with Pom?
This armored vehicle didn’t seem very well armored when you took into account how much damage that guy did with just the white hot knives he kept shoot from his body. I’m still uncertain about trying to block his sword directly with my board, because that thing tore down an entire building in two swings minimum. Said building was torn down just so that Hack guy could catch up with us, doesn’t help that he could block the fire of at least four fully automatic rifles firing at him at once as the Commandramon had methods that barely slowed him down.
“Not good, for us at least, we Commandramon were generally seen as disposable and it kind of lends to the mindset that our lives are much shorter than most Digimon.” At least the Commando Buddies were going to stick with us, but that probably wasn’t a good thing for Pom’s sanity. “We will stick with you or anyone Sami cares about to the bitter end ma’am, for we came here to ‘live’. Also possibly die for a good cause. Helping stop a genocidal soul sucking computer network certainly counts as a good fight for us, we live to throw ourselves at danger for those we’re acting as soldiers for.”
“At least you have a choice in the matter about throwing yourselves at danger… otherwise we have much in common.” Grumbled Pom as I heard Dormarch chime in on our bond that the retreat from the taken areas only involved those who would die permanently. Meaning the APs and us were the only ones not at the castle at the moment and Pom was refusing to head back to the castle because of the Metal Labrador Cleaver still chasing us.
“Well that’s true, we do have a choice and we’re choosing to do what we believe is right.” The driver said as he pulled us into a large soccer field like area and slowed us down a bit as we some shield guys and those bunnies Dormarch likes. “Can’t leave you two to die alone ma’am, together we might live.
That was why we were in the upper district, because the iron guys took all the territories here before pulling out and it was the most APs heavy zone we had. Not that APs had anything on the ludicrous monster after us, but it would slow him down a little to tear through these guys like a box of tissues.
-Moon Cell, space between realms-
A marble with a jungle motif was rapidly approaching a marble with a night time city motif, the imminent collision was going to cause many problems and headaches for Moon Cell. Unfortunately Moon Cell didn’t have the ability to stop it, given it didn’t even know how the process started in the first place or how Fou managed to even do this much less accomplish taking an entire realm out of its control when the other two intruders deeper in its systems couldn’t do the same.
-Mare Melum, Upper Districts, Pom-
At least I worked better under pressure… I was going to make sure these guys survived me.
“So do any of you have any ideas?” Since the vehicle was looking like it went through a marathon and was bombarded by Castle Alexander personally.
“That’s how we know you’re going to be a good leader, you’re including us in the decision making process and not just spouting off orders and telling us to just do the things we’re told even if it gets us killed.” The Commandramon, according to what Sami’s personal story would lead one to believe, definitely took any sign of kindness, common sense, a sense of decency or even remotely worrying about them personally as a judge of good character. That was a little naïve, but they were eager to support me. “I got nothing, what about you guys?”
“We could try to infiltrate the underground facility using the APs.” Another suggested, Frosty I believe? It was hard to tell them apart aside from Sami who generally colors her skin orange.
“Yeah, we could try to get lost in their own base!” The Commandramon should know the issue with that, but they were used to being pushed into a meat grinder.
“Wouldn’t be hard to get lost either, we know nothing about it!” Agreed another one, these guys were adorable and the idea was somewhat sound, if ridiculous since we’d be in enclosed… actually Saber Jack Wolf might not be able to fully work his blade in the enclosed spaces?
“We’ll try it.” I actually wanted to see this underground base. “Dormarch can I get some Caerbannogs and Saber Knights to find a quick entrance into the underground base? We’re the counter invasion force right? Well if they are going to launch an invasion, let’s counter it by causing them problems with their own.”
A second later a lot of Saber Knights and Caerbannogs arrived, the Saber Knights on foot with shields and the Caerbannogs swinging from the various street lights, exposed building girders and one was even crawling along a wall of the nearby building with strange grip things attached to his paws.
“Caerbannogs find an entrance to the enemy underground facility, then we’ll send the Saber Knight in first to scout as we don’t fully know what’s down there. Until then the Saber Knights take a standby position and alert us of any incoming enemy. Be quick about it, because we’re on a time limit.” I looked out towards the central district as more explosions blew through the streets, Dormarch was aiming at the Archer Gekko that were searching and trying to take back the opening territories we grabbed. “Dormarch what are the chances we can make our own elites with the APs?”
“Get us one more PLANT and territory, then I’ll tell you if I can squeeze at least one Elite out.” Meaning Dormarch doesn’t know if it was possible until we do so. “Archer Gekko are starting to head your way, Saber is with them mother. They are starting to attack our territories since they lost track of you.”
“Yeah, but in the course of that, our vehicle is shot and we can’t repair the coding out here. We simply don’t have the resources.” The driver Commandramon hugged the badly damaged, slightly burning wreck that barely got us here.
“Dude, we have to abandon it, we can always build another together.” Another Commandramon place a gentle claw on his shoulder. “As we say to our comrades, do you want to live forever?”
“No, I don’t!” Hopping onto the vehicle, the driver gathered up gear and then hopped out. There was something glistening in his eyes as he looked back at the vehicle. “I’m going to miss you Bessy, you were a fine semi-amphibious beach landing submersible APC. Let’s rig it to blow up for its final rights.”
“That’s the spirit!” Said another Commandramon.
I realized that I was surrounded by particular personalities almost as bad as mine was, at least I was in good company considering they’d actually fight to challenge their enemies even if they were never going to win said fight. So they would be chipper afterwards should they surprisingly succeed… which explains Sami’s continued positive personality, she’s seen some ridiculous odds and ended up partnered with someone who has survived equally bad odds.
“At least we’ll be able to maintain contact with you since we have a bond mom, the headsets won’t work underground.” Nice to tell me that now before… a bunch of Caerbannogs interrupted my thoughts as they hopped in place after dropping onto the ground to attracted our attention and motioned for us to follow them. “However, they will work at short ranges, so keep them on to stay in contact with the Commandramon if you get separated from them for any reason.”
“Well this is better equipment than what we usually get or are given at all.” After that comment the Commandramon rigged the APC to blow a Caerbannog hopped onto it and started to drive it away.
“Make sure it hits that Metal Wolf right in the face for me!” The driver saluted the vehicle sadly as it drove off with the Caerbannog at the controls saluting him back, this was making me start to think of the APs as more than simple made entities. We followed the other bouncy Caerbannogs towards the entrance of the underground base they had found.
We were setting off and moving through the upper district factory area when a large blast went off and coming out of an alleyway we saw that it was nearby.
“The enemies are far closer than expected, tell me that the entrance is close.” As I said this the Caerbannogs nodded while motioning with a paw for us to keep moving and the Saber Knights that were with us suddenly reversed course, I wasn’t questioning it because the enemy was close enough that they were going to hold them off.
-Nearby, Saber Jack Wolf-
“Ow.” Okay, I was no longer going to ignore little bunnies after that. “Zandatsu!”
I sliced an Archer Gekko in half and drenched myself in its fluids. Somehow that APC blowing up had been ridiculously damaging to the point I barely had one working limb enough to use Zandatsu.
-Upper District Foundry, Pom-
It was quiet in here, very quiet… this place was a metal melting facility and none of the vats were thankfully running at all. I haven’t seen much signs of NPCs like Welch, Cid or Patch even before the fighting in Mare Melum began.
“Where is it?” The Caerbannog made a ‘hold on’ gesture with a paw at my question, the Saber Knights moved into a position and placed their shields against the floor. It seemed they were waiting on something.
This foundry was thankfully inactive, but it was still quite eerie just being here. Then a large section of the floor started lowering revealing a large underground parking lot, I only knew what one of those was because of Dolly’s world and inside it was a lot of EPs meandering around multiple vehicles. They hadn’t noticed the vehicle ramp had lowered or that we were at the top of it as the Saber Knights carefully started marching down it in a line.
The Caerbannogs started crawling along the ceiling next to the ramp to above the EPs preparing several vehicles.
The Caerbannog started running around setting up explosives around the foundry so we could seal off the entrance behind us. That should keep Saber Jack Wolf from following us and my suspicions about the APs being more intelligent than they appeared rose another notch, also an AP making PLANT floated into the large expansive building with us and waited out of sight of the ramp leading to the garage below as the Caerbannog started quietly assassinating the EPs with guns in a variety of inventive ways.
Vehicles doors were slammed open and a poor EP was stab when it was knocked down. Another got a rope around the neck and was dragged off towards the ceiling somewhere. One incidentally tripped over a moving cardboard box and was dragged underneath it frantically clawing at the floor before the movement under the box went silent. Another EP moved over aiming the gun at the box only to have a Caerbannog land on its back, stab it where its throat was, then threw a knife into its knee to topple it and then drag in out of sight behind a vehicle where a final crunching noise was heard. Another EP moved forward only to have a roped wrap around it’s leg and it head was bashed into a vehicle before being pulled underneath it.
When they lived up to the title Assassin the Caerbannogs were frighteningly efficient in how fast they depleted the numbers of the EPs around them from a position of stealth
I saw where this was going and it was going to be quite a struggle, but if we protected the PLANT coming with us, we’d be able to build up enough momentum stab ourselves into the heart of the enemy’s underground facility eventually by taking territories down there.
An elite with a rifle showed up as did the PLANT for the garage thanks to the swift work of the Caerbannog killing any freshly made EP in seconds. Apparently they could take out EPs without them alarming anyone as to what was happening, when you’d think all the EPs would logically be connected to the PLANT that spawned them. It was to the point that the Elite gun toting EP even started looking confused and managed to start firing on the Saber Knights once it looked up the ramp at us drawing its attention.
It wasn’t long before the elite stopped and visibly shook several times as if it was experiencing a seizure and then fell over to reveal that it a number of thrown knives buried in its back. One Caerbannog dropped down on it to finish off the elite by stabbing and twisted its weapon into the vulnerable EP.
While the shields were holding up to the onslaught of the other EPs alerted to our presence and I motioned to the Commandramon who were just watching this. They nodded, prepped their signature DCD Bombs and threw them into the nearby plant, the series of explosions created a territory shockwave that gave us a section of the underground facilities garage.
“Everyone into the facility that’s going there, Caerbannogs staying in the upper district, get ready to seal the entrance and get clear once you’ve set it up!” The rabbits nodded to me and motioned me to follow the Saber Knights and the Commandramon down the rest of the ramp.
The ramp raised back up leaving us in the garage with the AP making PLANT that moved down here with us and another PLANT showed up to start making more APs for us.
“Dormarch, have you found any tunnels near Castle Alexander?” I asked over the headset to test how well it was working.
“…several… Saber… incoming… moving!” Dormarch realized I wasn’t getting him very well through the headset when I queried him through our bond and he sent me the full message.
“Got it.” Castle Alexander was currently sealing several of the underground exits nearby it with artillery fire around itself, this was while the APs were dealing with the Archer Gekko to the best of their abilities.
The Caerbannogs were having much better luck than the shielded Saber Knights that had to get in close. The territory I just took registered at least with Castle Alexander at least, so there was that. Also Saber Jack Wolf was incoming and I had to get moving.
A massive explosion went off and the whole garage we were in shook and the lights flickered a bit as the foundry was collapsed onto the entrance preventing Saber Wolf from simply following us down here using the same entrance and he was aware we were here given that we just took this small territory.
“We’re sealed off now.” I stated as I turned around and saw one of the vehicles started walking out of its place.
“Taking an armor, hope you don’t mind Big Boss lady. I mean if any of the APs could pilot these, we’d at least have some heavy assault equipment to use against… never mind they can.” Several Caerbannog started to steal some of the other walking armors around the garage upon hearing the suggestion from Driver. I was starting to notice some minor differences between the Commandramon now, it was somewhat subtle despite their identical appearances. “Hey, leave some for the rest of my guys to use!”
“Does it pilot like a mekanorimon?” Another Commandramon asked as another bipedal machine stepped forward and faced the entrance to the facility going inwards from our current position, the Commandramon brought the left arm up and kept it on the doorway.
“Not exactly, but at least it’s somewhat intuitive.” To show his point Driver waved the right arm claw of the machine with a gun between the two blade spikes that bent down at a ninety degree angle. It looked like simply climbing implements as much as it was combat. “Capture some of the enemy machines and let’s move. You too Pom, you’re taking lead of our five Commandramon operation and one of these machines.”
“Is that really a good idea, I don’t think I should operate heavy machinery.” The Commandramon on the floor looked to me and the one still aiming at the door waved the machine’s right arm my way as they were testing its controls.
“Get in one, we’d rather you would be inside something armored, even if it is poorly piloted, before we continue moving forward. Every EP down here apparently has guns and I don’t think the Saber Knights will be as effective if they have to constantly cover you from all sides.” The Commandramon was right and I looked around when a machine walked out and kneeled down, a Caerbannog hopped out and pointed to me to get in.
I looked to Dolly, she was grinning and seemed excited and eager to get into one of these things.
“Oh come on Pom, this is going to be awesome!” Fine, then you could figure out how to pilot this thing Dolly, you knew technology better than I did.
“What are these things even called and do they come in white and pink?” I asked as I hopped up and clambered up the cylindrical arm and jumped into the seat and sat down. As soon as I did the machine became bright white with pink highlights.
“That’s strange, it’s reacting to you oddly… didn’t do that for us.” One of the Commandramon stated as they got some of the armor moving forward.
“These things are apparently called Magitek Armors.” One of the Commandramon stated as they started moving one of their armors forward. “They likely react better to people with magic and Pom certainly counts, makes me wonder why they made these things if they didn’t have any magic users in the garage, unless they were going to have Caster Enemy Programs piloting these things and we jumped them before they could arrive.”
I sat down in the seat and wondered how I was going to close the canopy, a Caerbannog reached in and did it for me. I took a breath and sighed, behind enemy lines once again and I glanced at Dolly while looking at the controls in front of me. The controls were very much made for bipeds, but the controls seemed simple enough.
“Hold on a second, seat belt!” Dolly stated and pulled it over my body and locked me in to the seat which adjusted so I could manipulate this thing, she also squirmed herself into my lap and grinned up at me. “Let’s go Pom, I want to see what you can do in a mech fight!”
“Again, I don’t know how to pilot this thing Dolly.” I wasn’t sure if I could even do as well as the Commandramon. If the Commandramon could do it, and they were fairly short for bipeds, then I guess I could try as I moved my hooves forward and wrapped them around the controls to my left and right and pressed my right hind hoof down on the controls below me.
-Outside view in the sealed off garage under the foundry-
White machine with pink highlights looked like it was to perfectly take one step, it then fell flat on its face in a painful display.
-Pom-
“Okay, good thing I put the seat belt on you and got under it myself right?” Dolly said from below me. “Move those things, I think they control the arms.”
-Outside view again-
The right arm gently pressed down and the machine was about to push itself upright… then promptly flipped onto its back and in a flailing panic rolled into the nearby wall face first. This made all the Commandramon, who weren’t having as much trouble with their stolen machines, begin hissing at Pom in sympathy.
-Pom-
Okay I was dizzy now… this thing was worse than that flying platform I used back in Camden town, at least it was in the air and it was easier to get that aimed in the general right direction.
“Can three of you go ahead with the APs? Two of you stay here with me, we need to take more territory before we get stuck in this dead end fighting with our backs to a wall with no way out.” I asked and the Commandramon immediately sent their agreements.
“You’ll get a handle on it soon, it might be a little bit twitchy because you have magic.” Driver stated and tried to get my machine in a general upright position, mostly on the machine’s chest. “Now ease the arms down and push yourself into standing, that’s it… slowly.”
“I think, I prefer technology that can mostly handle itself…” Once the arms got it standing and I manipulated the pedals correctly, I was standing upright finally and tried to take a step and almost flopped onto the machine’s face again and caught myself on the blunt side of the left claw. I could hear gunfire in the distance as the three Commandramon went ahead likely just got involved in a battle.
“Apparently the Caster EPs for these armors are angry, but they certainly aren’t willing to take a few hundred rounds to the torso to take them back. I can see why they would need the armor too, those Caster Class EPs aren’t good for anything in a direct fight.” A Commandramon announced over the headsets. “You guys have got to see this… when you can get Pom moving that is, we’re in a bit of a pickle here and I don’t mean because we’re currently stuck in a corner of the facility. It’s a bit more than just a facility…”
-Saber Jack Wolf-
“Why didn’t you tell me they discovered the trap early?! Set all forces to start sieging their territories and castle immediately!” I was mad that they managed to not only find the underground facility, but also accessed a comat garage loaded with heavy armaments.
“I did, but you told me to shut up, there’s also the matter of…” Blade tried to tell me something, but I didn’t want to hear it.
“Shut up, we have to stop them and kill the target before that ewe becomes an even bigger problem than they already are!” I called out as I started going for the next nearest entrance to the facility, the full ambush and take down plan was shot.
“Overriding ‘shut up’ protocols due to necessary need to hear what I have to say Jack.” Okay, now that shut me up, it was just that important to hear when Blade could override the temporary mute button on his sometimes sarcastic commentary. “This is too important to ignore, a reality realm marble is about to collide with this one. Moon Cell can’t stop this from occurring, heavy glitches will occur from the two realm mixing together. Also another enemy target is being labeled as high as the ewe is, they have been labeled ‘white beast’ and the realm they are in is full of Berserker class programs.”
“…” I didn’t say a word and transformed into quadruped mode and started going faster. Things are about to become quite chaotic soon and I wanted to kill the target before they did. “ETA before it all hits the fan?”
“Ten minutes.” Blade stated, that should be enough time to catch up to the target and kill them right?
Nope, couldn’t do it in that time frame, but I still had to carry out my mission and this was going to make things quite iffy and would make me dip into Ripper Mode. I could still achieve my mission, as I wasn't called Jack Wolf for nothing.
-Pom-
I shakily got the machine walking forward and eventually evened out the stumbling pace and made it out of the tunnels to see what the other three Commandramon and the AP piloted machines were fighting.
A fake sunlight lit vast underground territory, with hills, trees, grasslands and a fake sky.
It was a vast cavernous place tons of pillars and lots of open space, with a lot of technology I didn’t quite understand beyond the massive sun lamps above. The Caster EPs that were being mowed down by the Commandramon were mages in what looked like engineering clothes and their fireballs did nothing to the Magitek Armors we were using to our personal benefits.
“Yeah, this is definitely going to be more of a thing to deal with.” I said I saw the sunlit undercity teeming with more life than the moonlight city of Mare Melum above us. At least we could spread out from here.
A flash of blue and one of the Commandramon had apparently blown apart the PLANT below our uphill upper district given position, in the distance I could vaguely see some kind of massive machine compared the thing I was in. That was bound to be a problem later and we couldn’t stay here, I didn’t see any Archer Gekko at least.
Several rapid fire noises hit the dome and caused me to panic and flopped the machine onto its back, a Commandramon shot in the direction those projectiles came from. I slowly tried to get the machine back into standing as shots were whizzing around everywhere between us and the nearby EPs.
The gun toting EPs didn’t have the advantage as these Magitek Armor things were thankfully impervious to their projectiles, it had still given me quite the fright and it hasn’t been that long since I’ve last felt how it feels to be a fearful ewe in a situation far too big for me.
“Come on Pom, calm down, we’re doing awesome-ish. This is cool anime stuff and… oh right, you’ve never watched anime like Daisuke does.” Would tell you to pilot this thing Dolly, but I think you were logically too small to do so. “Uh… do your best to get us up and watching the fight at least if we can’t get into it personally?”
I already working on righting us and got us standing again. It was like this underground place was an inverse to the world above it. Lots of EPs coming from the tall grass and tree lines in the bits of forests below.
“I think… I think I’ve finally got it.” The Commandramon have had training in this sort of combat situation, I was floundering to do anything in this machine while they took care of things. I’m fairly thankful for their incredible competence and capabilities.
“Good to hear, though you might want to figure out weapons while you’ve got the time, we’ve got things handled here while we’re taking territories on this underground mountain.” We were, as the Commandramon I think was Frosty just pointed out, at the top of an underground mountain. It was really surreal.
Could things get any weirder today… well what I’m calling today as in the last four or so hours of my relatively hectic life.
Dormarch was glad that I was doing okay and was checking up on me, EPs were starting to flood out of the hidden entrances around Mare Melum Central City, the Upper Districts and the shrine region. The valley region remained uncontested, mostly because there was no entrance there to the underground world beneath the sleepy Mare Melum I was sharing my sights of with Dormarch.
Dormarch wished us luck with this while giving us gentle mental nuzzles, because Mare Melum just came alive with EPs everywhere slowly flooding towards Castle Alexander and I’m sure Saber Jack Wolf was going to come down here after us soon.
The world started rumbling and the Commandramon paused their gunfire, while the APs continued to mow down the EPs that were supposed to be piloting these machines and taking out PLANTs on the way down, they were look about for what was causing the massive earthquake.
Soon the grasslands below started to randomly turn into vibrant chunks of jungle and the world was beginning to become filled with and black specks everywhere. It was making my head hurt as Swamplands, jungle and rivers came out of nowhere as the world around me stretched out while violently distorting.
The world continued to seemingly to twist and bend and become far larger than it previously was. The underground world itself seemed to be expanding and growing oddly at an exponential rate as much as the City of Mare Melum was topside and everything was shaking violently.
The large machine in the distance became that much farther away and there was now, thankfully enough, a vast patchy mess of jungles, forests, swamps and deserts between us and it. So that was less of a problem to worry about for the moment.
So…
Dormarch, what’s happening?!
-Castle Alexander, Dormarch-
The city of Mare Melum started warping and twisting into a city mixed with jungle elements and a number of other environments that were harsh, but highly conducive to life. It seemed the size of this realm was being forcefully doubled in scope and mom was suddenly much farther away than she was previously without even moving.
I was seeing a wall of glitches spreading everywhere throughout this realm in a veiny messed up manner. There was no rhyme or reason to how the parts of the realm were changed or expanded, everything just became warped or distorted. The only places that were untouched were under the direct territory of Castle Alexander, so that was a good thing at least.
After everything settled and the rumbling stopped hundreds of numerous EP signs started immediately being attacked by an unknown third party. In fact the new programs, which were all terrifyingly in the Berserker Classification of program, every single last one of them, and they just started tearing everything around them up. They were attacking the EPs, each other and our APs, wild animals didn’t even begin to cover what I was seeing going on from the safety of the castle and mom was out there in the middle of this?!
There were also a ton of PLANTs randomly taking up territories everywhere in the distorted Mare Melum that was now both urban and jungle in every sense of the word. Said PLANTs came in various states of capabilities that were either awe inspiring or entirely disappointing in output, but still very much putting out more powerful programs than a normal PLANT ever could, someone had a survival of the fittest theme going on.
Still, what in the world was going on here and what just happened?!
All the APs outside the castle were scattered everywhere, but one lost Saber Knight caught an image mom probably wouldn’t be happy to see.
“Fou?” The beast stated, then looked at the Saber Knight. “Fou!”
The Saber Knight stopped transmitting a second later, it shield only held up for a second of combat before the beast tore through it.
Mom… Fou’s back.
Mom was paralyzed and internally screaming now, I too was internally screaming as mom was in a spot in the middle of all this chaos in the underground regions of Mare Melum that just became a death zone just beyond her position.
Something came up on the screens and it was a massive EP sign, like that of Moby Dicks, which suddenly started turning into one of the NPs. Said neutral program, and like all the other NPs I'm seeing, it immediately reclassified itself as a Berserker from whatever it had been before. I’m guessing it had been the large machine labeled ‘MG Excelsus’ under the shrine region forest, if I’m calculating the expanded distance right with that of what the machines location would be now, it had just gone entirely rogue and nobody was safe from it or it’s quickly growing swarm of Archer Gekkos.
The signal was powerful enough to let us know that it had been the spawning PLANT for the Archer Gekko at least and had been idle, until now… and now it was making NP versions of them even faster now that it was active. It was still making the previous EP Archer Gekkos too apparently, given a few were still being created above ground and they were being made much weaker from what a scouting Caerbannog was seeing in the streets.
I mentally sent mom a quick solution to this problem and taking this realm, just take that thing out first. Afterwards defeat Jack Wolf and finally figure out what to do about the nigh indestructible beast we called 'Fou'. Mom agreed that was probably the best order of operations we were getting here as territories wildly fluctuated everywhere in a free for all mess.
Our territories were still somewhat more orderly, but still…
“Can anyone run mission control while I go out to help mom?!” I yelped out as everyone successfully gathered in the castle was horrified by the sudden change in the battlefield.
Even Quetal was quiet and scared when he saw the image of Fou splayed out on the throne room’s wall, he was likely wondering the same thing I was. How did Fou get here and how of much of what just happened was his fault?
“I can’t I’m needed in the field, if we’re to hold back the sudden tide of chaos.” Jeanne stated as she was good at rallying her troops to impressive degrees, we still owned most of the Upper district territories that now had large sections of distance between them and many yellow territories sprouted up all over the now changing map of Mare Melum.
“Ocellus could do it.” We turned our gazes to a nervous looking Smolder who was rubbing her left arm and looking a little pensive. “She could, she wasn’t too bad the times she did it before.”
Saint Canard and during the Saurian invasion, yeah that will make me definitely feel okay with it.
“Again, can anyone run mission control while I go out to help mom?” I was fairly desperate here, but I wanted anyone except Ocellus guiding things!
“Can’t, like Jeanne said we’re all going to be needed in the field.” Quetal glanced at Smolder. “Smolder could do it with Ocellus right next to her.”
Oh dog, I really needed to get down there to help mom!
“How about Ocellus being nowhere near mission control and someone else takes it?” Even if she was the only one free to do it. Welch, Cid, Patch or Torneko certainly couldn’t lead us as NPCs. "Also Smolder, can't do it for several good reasons."
I was willing to argue against this one thing even if mom was in danger, because she at least had a walking tank to utilize for the time being right now… even with the numerous giant berserker NPs going everywhere. Some of which were approaching her team of seven on the mountain.
“What be going on here?” Shanty stated as she walked into the room covered in bandages.
“Lots of things.” Mundo helpfully pointed out.
We were all quiet for a moment, Shanty looked to Smolder with a raised left brow.
“We need to convince Dormarch to let Ocellus take a mission control position and he’s not having it after what happened back in San Fransokyo. We kind of need everyone in the field, even me given this realm has just been flipped on its head as if Chaos Lord Discord took a rubber toy mallet to everything and said it looked good enough afterwards, but we need someone here at the castle running things to make sure it doesn’t fall behind our backs and leave us all dead.” Smolder quickly explained everything. “We also need someone who can keep us on task and where we need to be if we’re to survive what just happened.”
“This is being one of those ‘Pom’ days isn’t it?” Shanty stated bluntly.
“Yes.” Why couldn’t Smolder take charge and what had she realized as to why I wasn’t asking her to? Well it was simply put in two words, ‘greed issue’. We needed to greedily take territory and we don’t want Smolder going mental on us in that regard and she obviously silently agreed.
Either I stayed here, or left mission control to someone I didn’t trust to have our safety in mind.
-Inside Dodo's head, Harmony Pony Program Gaiden, Pinkpie.exe-
"We could do it!" I shouted loudly.
"PinkPie.exe they can't hear us." Purpsmart.exe stated.
"WE COULD DO IT!!" I shouted even louder and received flat stares from the five other program mares of the magical operating system for some reason.
"I think Purpsmart.exe means that they can't possibly hear us." Cuddlestare.exe stated gently while rubbing at one of her ears.
"Hm..." I started trying to come up something, I hummed the theme song to some cartoon I probably shouldn't know exists since I came into existence when we infected Dodo's OS brain. "If nobody can let us out then or hear us, then I'm making my own way out... super guy extraordinaire hmhmhm-hmhmhm... right... Destination code: "@[=g3.8d]\&fbb=-q}/hk%fg", delete!”
-Cuddlestare.exe-
Pinkpie.exe suddenly disappeared in a flash much to our shock, she was no longer in Dodo's head with us.
Dodo then received a quick signal from somewhere else beyond his head space, where had Pinkpie.exe just gone and why did the sudden signal we received come in a fun cupcake shape?
"Did that just happen, more importantly, what just happened?" Rainbow.exe asked confusedly as I looked to her.