Baa-Ram-Ewe!

by Darkonshadows

377. Coast Is Clear?

-Equus, Airship Mauled, Maries-

“I can’t believe Jaded would do that to Saddle Arabia!” Mara of us said with a snarl.

“Oh that wasn’t Jaded, that one is me.” Stated Kuril as she stopped to look at the newspaper. “Sorry for the confusion girls, but you can’t get angry at Jaded for that one.”

“Oh, good to know, I was about to metaphorically tear into Jaded about it and might have asked to use your stock of possibly illicit witch potions to do so.” Fizzy was as upset as we were until Kuril said that, but now she was narrowing her eyes. “Why did you do it? I can understand Jaded still has a chip in her shoulder about time travel shenanigans and a history with the country, but what did they do to bother you?”

“A rather annoying group of Saddle Arabian’s dine and dashed us, then had the gall to rate the restaurants food a two out of ten after ordering one of the most complicated gourmet things that I barely know how to make. So I decided to make sure Saddle Arabia knew about it and that it’s their problem if it happens again, so they might want to walk on eggshells because there might be two La Perms trying to destroy a name soon enough… also those particular Saddle Arabian’s homes were the ones that belonged to rich nobles who could fully afford my food and I generally don’t gouge my customers. As you can see, my little Jaded is not the only one they should avoid angering.” With that Kuril sauntered back towards the kitchen with a grin and a flicking tail as she tipped her purple hat to us, the three of us looked back at the newspaper and the picture of one of a number of sink holes made from Kuril’s signature two-part safe explosion potions having gone off. Before she entered the kitchen, Kuril stopped to address everyone. “Everyone listen up, I can find out where you live easily enough and I don’t need my kitten to petty kitty someone into the ground, I can do that well enough personally! Please remember that just because I am a friendly witch, it doesn’t mean you can walk all over me and disrespect me just because you think you can get away with it by being popular, rich or even famous. Also Jaded’s incident is on page four, if you still want to be angry with what she managed to pull despite everyone watching her most of the time. Even Princess Luna should be impressed that her own nation of 'vamp' ponies were a part of it.”

Flipping to the page all three sets of our eyes read the article, we’re kind of impressed that Kuril’s incident made the front page and Jaded’s was a footnote. Apparently our Jade had access to Thestral or Bat Pony resources within the region of Saddle Arabia.

“Jaded La Perm!” Fizzy yelled after reading the article.

Fizzlepop glared at Jaded as she came into the room with two plates and our little Silvers toddling after her, they were growing up so fast.

“What?” The newspaper was levitated and floating into Jade’s face. “Oh, that… wait I’m only on the fourth page?”

“Mother Kuril is the front page news… also since when do we have a subscription to The Desert Times? I thought you were more subtle than that!” Really, Fizzy was only getting angry at her for failing to be duplicitously evil discreetly?

“Can you please give me back my newspaper?” We all turned to the grey furred, blonde haired mare with cross eyes. It was Derpy Hooves and she seemed to be drinking some tea calmly.

“You’ve been getting Saddle Arabian news through the Muffin Cult?” It didn’t even take Mary five seconds to connect the dots and guess why the newspaper was even here in the first place. There was a lot Derpy Hooves would do for a warm tasty muffin.

“Well they did blacklist me from getting any information from their country.” Gee, we sarcastically wondered why that was Jaded. After the last ten or so times you did something with even the most miniscule of information from that country... “Also I like warm fluffy cheese muffins on particular days... and the newspaper has interesting articles.”

Jaded was eating a platter of cheese muffins for breakfast, our little wonder Silvers was enjoying a plate loaded full of heavily spiced fish sausage and fried eggs. Heavy calories weren’t something a Chimera had to watch out for, efficient digestive systems and all that.

“Jaded has good taste and is a friend of the foodie alliance.” Derpy nodded solemnly as she caught a cheese muffin tossed her way with a bright smile and took a bite. “Also I thought it was a newspaper all about Just Desserts missing an 'S' like the newspaper of Grubber International and Soaring Sweets conglomerate of the Storm Creature Empire.”

“… My empire has a newspaper about sweets?” No Fizzy, bad, that was distracting us from the issue and punishing Jade for being a jerk to an entire country, while somehow implicating Princess Luna in an international debacle.

Jaded’s trip to Canterlot was the only time she could have pulled that off and she did mention running across Luna there, so if she got one of Luna’s feathers, a hair from a brush and among a few other things, then managed to transform into Luna using a homemade mask…

“Jaded, no causing international incidents between countries because of your personal petty kitty grievance war with Luna!” Maria barked out making Jaded shy away and look guilty as our goat sister bar eyes drilled into from where we sat.

“Yeah, no international incidents!” Mara growled out baring her large fangs.

Mary was just amused and our sister would be, Jaded sometimes played favorites with us by sharing dead small mammals with her.

“It’s not international though… yet…” Oh here we go, what did our favorite cuddle cat do this time?

“Please, tell me this won’t be a headache for me later Jaded?” Fizzy stated as she slowly rubbed a hoof in small circles over the right side of her head.

“Look, they obviously know it’s a plot from me, so things should be fine unless someone gets stupid… well dumber than some of the things I did to achieve what I had." We needed to slowly get Jaded off of causing trouble for Saddle Arabia. "Like being within hoofs reach of an immortal angry lunar goddess that got into a huge fight with some really big Maulwurfs not too long ago.”

“Also if you want help with Luna you could just ask us.” Mary followed up by giving Jaded a sad big watery eyed look, why is our snake sister the cutest part of us? I think we’re starting to understand Jaded's whole obsession with Mary wearing a top hat thing too.

“I can’t, I got obligations as a beloved Queen or Empress of the Storm Creatures and could you please not involve the Royal Guard in whatever your about to plan!” Fizzy stated flatly as she glared at Jaded who grinned cheerfully with smiling eyes. "I need them semi-functional over the next few weeks."

“Could I sue Luna over something incredibly dumb and be entirely overly bureaucratic about it?” Jaded said eagerly with bright eyes and a wagging tail that would be more fit on a Diamond Dog like Brenda. “Can we make her go in a variety of circles is what I’m asking here.”

We had an instinctual fear of whatever Jaded had in mind and she hasn’t even told us about it yet, why did we make that offer... better yet why did Mary make that offer for us collectively?!

-Pokémon Realm, a little more than twenty four hours later, Morning at the Igloo near Hail Hollow, Pom-

“You know what, I’m actually fairly surprised.” Approaching me with a curious look, Quetal watched as I packed up a bag of supplies and hefted it onto my back.

“What, that I didn’t immediately blindly charge off to go save Shanty, Dodo, Ocellus and Smolder from whatever trouble they ‘might’ currently be in?” If I didn’t trust them to survive on their own without me I would have done that, but taking our time to build up supplies before leaving Hail Hollow behind was prudent. Even if I didn’t like the people here, I still had to do business to prepare for the trip and not just run off at the drop of a hat, I didn’t understand the situation going on in that region and I wasn’t about to go running in without a little thought put into things. “That I actually took another entire day to actually recover halfway from my injuries and am trusting that Shanty and the others to be mostly fine? I may be constantly getting badly mangled mentally and battered physically, but I’m not a blind, deaf and anosmic Quetal.”

“Anosmic?” Quetal tilted his head in confusion.

“Like blind is the inability to see and deaf is the inability to hear, anosmic is the inability to smell.” Pom took one long sniff of the air. “I’m fairly sure something reeks over in Valora’s direction and I have the capabilities of having canine attributes as far as my senses go. I gave us more time, because I thought it was necessary to get ourselves back together before we even tried setting out for Valora. I hope one extra day in Nixtorm was good enough. I direly needed that before I knowingly thrust myself into whatever the Tartarus is about to occur when we get there or after we get there, maybe it’s already happened and I’ll have to deal with the aftermath. At this point I can’t even be paranoid of something big happening Valora, since it’s been happening when we were still in Pugilis for that quick fighting tournament.”

“Well I think you’re looking ready at the very least, I honestly find it a little odd that you don’t seem the least bit reluctant about going straight into danger this time.” Yeah, there’s a reason for that Dormarch.

“That’s because, while I don’t hate Nixtorm, I really don’t like it here and it’s really, really cold.” At least my wool was growing back slowly, did not want to test the bit of golden wool on my right leg in that capacity, though I might have to if Fou chases me down again. “That and if I were reluctant, then I would never be able to find the others who are rumored to be there and I sure Quetal would like to see Shine again.”

"I have no idea what you're even talking about." Quetal answered immediately.

“Cold, I’ve got your back Pom!” Dolly leapt into sitting on my back and she rubbed her front paws together before setting them on both my cheeks, my entire body warmed up immediately and I didn’t feel as cold when she removed her paws. “How did that feel?”

“Actually pretty good.” As far as space heater dogs go, I’m totally biased in my assessment that Dolly was the best one. “Though I can’t ask you to stay on my back to keep me warm.”

“Why would you need to ask?” Dolly tilted her head curiously.

“Well if I don’t, then I would feel like I’m taking advantage of you.” I then asked quietly. “Are we all ready to leave?”

Everyone was ready including Curdle who could easily make a living here.

“We’ll miss you guys!” Glaceon stated pleasantly.

“Yeah, we’ll working on brightening things up around here if you ever visit again.” Zorua stated cheerfully.

“While I don’t think we can warm up our country, Ice Types and all that, we should at least stand to warm our hearts.” The fluffy ice Ninetails was among the Frosty Foxes that looked the saddest to see me leave.

“Don’t be a stranger Pom!” The ice Vulpix said cheerfully while wave a paw my way as we exited the igloo and started to head south east, we were planning to travel along the coast.

I could only hope we didn’t run into Team Pocket, I was vaguely angry at them for taking most of the stuff we picked up in the Mystery Dungeon, but that was just about all they took. They could have done worse and taken the Dormarch’s Digivice, Dolly’s collars, Skateboard or helmet, there’s the Arceus Device I used to call Tianhuo and any number of things like the Paralance.

They really wanted their wins didn’t they? Still they did carry us back to Hail Hollow and I was in no condition to complain at the time.

Dormarch’s new blue mystical scarf was the only thing from the dungeon that we still had, aside from Dormarch himself, and yes I believed the blue scarf had some magical effect like the Pecha Scarves me and Dolly still wore that prevented us from being poisoned. Probably needed to ask a Kecleon about it if I wanted to know more though, they were supposedly known to be experts on Mystery Dungeon items.

-Igloo after Pom and the others left-

“We’re starting a cult aren’t we?” Zorua asked as Pom was now out of sight.

“I call leader!” The Ice Ninetails grinned brightly.

“Darn it, I wanted leader!” The icy Vulpix whined.

"Woo, cult of the wooly one!" Glaceon stated a second later.

-Southeast of Hail Hollow, snowy plains an hour later, Pom-

The slope downwards was somewhat steep, but getting down to the coast wasn’t going to take long, I could already see it from here and we could slide the rest of the way down if we wanted to. I’d rather take things slowly for now and then speed up as we move along the coast.

“So once we’re down on the coast we travel along it to the east directly to Valora.” It’ll be easier than traveling through the mountains, didn’t want to end up passing through Dragnor the Kingdom of Dragon Types without a good reason to be there. “How are you doing Dormarch, do you need to take a break in the Digivice?”

“I’m fine, still getting used to my new pseudo-biological nature, it’s weird that I’m still fully a digital monster and it feels like I have more mass than I should.” Well nothing for it, Dormarch was walking and getting exercise, plus he seemed to be doing fine. “How long will it take to get to Valora on foot?”

“Considering the miles we’ll have to cover without transport, if we pick up the pace we can barely be there by tomorrow evening. At least we’ll have an idea of what’s going on once we get far enough east to see Ironclad City.” Well Quetal has seen Ironclad City before and chartered a ship from Valora to Greenleaf.

“What’s Ironclad like?” The sound of my hooves slapping against the snow echoed in my ears as we continued onwards, I was trying to detect if Fou was following us or coming to attack. Nothing so far, maybe he was going to leave me alone?

“It’s about what you would expect from a place named Ironclad, it’s a huge city of steel, stone and glass, huge marketplace, very busy, lots of Pokémon from everywhere looking to build a mostly peaceful life. Also it’s the most technologically advanced place you’ll see in all of Ransei.” So if Quetal was stating what I think he was, it would be something like what we would expect from Dolly’s world. I saw a lot of large cities of stone, glass and metal, which is what I guess would be like Manehatten in eastern Equestria. Civilizations might naturally trend towards such larges places. Given Huoshan was a city of mostly stone and wood, it sounds far less impressive if you haven’t seen how it was built. “The farmlands are on the outer territories of Valora, more of them are closer to Avia than Dragnor. As for Steel Types, they are all Pokémon that are usually heavily armored and can take a beating, so whatever is happening there I can assure you there are still Steel Types fighting whatever it is that is happening. I really didn’t stick around too long, I wanted to go somewhere… quieter.”

“Which is where we met you?” In Arbora Town in Greenleaf, Quetal must have been living from job to job doing whatever he could to acquire some Poké to just get by.

“Greenleaf was as lazy a place as one could find, most of the Pokémon there were very laid back and I didn’t make a nuisance of myself. So I’ve been there for a few years, you basically know my whole story now.” That and you were quite strong Quetal, glad to have you as a friend. “I’m glad I got some closure, but I really don’t want to come back to this place for any reason.”

“Quite understandable, I did not like interacting with a number of the locals, at least not all of them were bad and it was generally fun to play in the snow. Watching the northern lights was nice too.” After that things were a bit quiet.

The closer we got to the coast the less the snow, notably Dormarch got a bit too cold and decided to get in the Digivice to warm up and spruce up the insides of it and dust his home.

Dolly stayed on my back keeping me warm as we started to turn more eastwards, we would start walking along the coast when we had no other choice but to walk on the sand.

-A few more hours later, lunchtime-

“There you go.” Hopefully food will be more Plentiful the closer we got to Valora, Dormarch started to eat and Dolly sighed before starting in on her own looking twitchy.

Note to self, figure out how to make kibble by hoof.

“Mmmhh, this stuff is delicious.” Well Dormarch was appreciating the fish and vegetable soup. Once you get past what it takes to make it, it doesn’t smell too bad.

“Why thank you.” I said brightly and didn’t hear much from Dolly aside from her eating it, she appreciated my cooking too in a quieter manner.

As we quietly ate I wondered if we would run across anything on the way, so far it seemed as if the coast was completely clear of any problems. It was also clear of any other travelers, so less possible trouble for us.

“Are those Spheal?” Quetal drew our attention to six Spheals rolling in our direction, from the west. They certainly couldn’t have smelled the fish soup right? Wind was blowing the wrong way for that.

“Do they look like beady eyed blue beach balls with almost no sense or intelligence to them?” Curdle asked dryly, because that’s how most Pokémon describe them. “If so, then yes, those are Spheal.”

The Spheal came to a stop as we ate and looked at us expectantly.

“Here for some food?” I asked earnestly of the five who shook their selves no… wait five, weren’t there six a few seconds… oh my goodness!

I immediately leapt to my hooves and went to help the poor Spheal that was choking an equally poor shark like Pokémon that happened to be on land for some reason. How did it beach itself so badly?!

The five Spheal just stared blankly at the scene, not showing any signs of panic or fear as I tried to carefully pull the poor Spheal out of the shark monsters mouth.

-Five minutes later-

That shark was a little too far away from the water to be trying to eat the Spheal I just saved, I even helped the shark back to the ocean and told it to not try eating Spheal this far out on land in the future. It shrugged and swam away.

Afterwards we finished lunch and were soon on the way with six tagalongs rolling along behind us sometimes making cheerful or squeaky noises when they bumped into each other. They weren’t very bright as I remembered them being.

“Hey, Pom, I think these guys are familiar for some reason.” We all turned to Dolly when she barked up and she looked like she was trying to remember something. “Wasn‘t there a unit of these guys from that water place?”

“What like that Silly Spheal’s unit of Fontaine?” All of the Spheals seemed to get excited and began hopping in place when I said that. “So it is you guys. Wait a minute… why are you guys even out here? I’m talking like in the middle of nowhere out here far from Fontaine.”

The blanks looks I received said a lot about how smart they were, one opened its mouth.

“Spheal?” It said dumbly.

“You have no idea where you are do you?” I just made all the Spheal look embarrassed and depressed at the same time. Slapping my left hoof to my face, since I didn’t trust the golden colored wool on my right, I groaned audibly in exasperation. “Well come on, you can keep following us, can’t leave you guys wandering around aimlessly out here. You might as well make yourselves useful to me and I will help you find a way back to Motochika or Fontaine.”

The six Spheal’s saluted me with their tiny flippers and were probably going to follow us because we were recognizable as being allies of Fontaine. That or they at least remember us being in Fontaine, hard to tell when those beady eyes were showing no signs of functioning brains a good eighty percent of the time. They were still a Special Forces unit for Fontaine, so they could be of some use right?

Well at least things would be interesting with them aro... I turned around and immediately grew frustrated with one of the Spheal in particular.

“No- stop doing that!” I said as the one Spheal in particular seemed to have somehow shoved itself into the mouth of an Ice Type brachiosaurus Pokémon. The other five Spheal just stared on dumbly as the Pokémon tried to cough it up and this one wasn’t clearly actively trying to eat the Spheal.

I eventually got the Spheal out of the Pokémon’s throat.

“Excuse me for interrupting your travels, I thank you for pulling the Spheal out of my throat, I do not intend to die by choking on one of the dimmest creatures around.” With that the large dinosaur Pokémon slowly went on his way. “Honestly, why did it jump into my mouth when I was yawning and how did it manage to jump so high?!”

“That was an Aurorus, they are generally peaceful, hardly see many of them around. Also they tend towards eating kelp or vegetation, sometimes fish. As an Ice Type fresh vegetation to eat is kind of hard to find, probably have a slow metabolism to make up for the lack of food.” The most we were seeing Quetal was a lot Water Type Pokémon lying about on the nearby beach to our right, but that begs the question of how the Spheal ended up launching itself into the Pokémon’s throat in the first place… on dry land.

“What are the chances that that will…” I was about to say ‘happen again’, but then I noted we were one Spheal short again and became slightly agitated.

One Spheal had a problem with entering large open mouths a bit too much, probably an instinct to find a small cave to sit safely inside of. That was the only functional explanation we had for the oddity.

I saw said Spheal a second later, they had started wandering towards a sand castle with a slowly spinning shovel on top of it and the castle had a wide open mouth like entrance on it.

My eyes dimmed, the Spheal couldn’t be that dumb… could it?

“Let me guess, that’s a Pokémon made of sand disguising itself as a sand castle and our Spheal friend is about to enter its mouth?” I said dully.

“Yes.” Curdle answered instead of Quetal. “We have Sandygasts all over the coasts of various Fairy Dust Islands, you were lucky enough to be redirected to an island that didn’t have them. Unfortunately that is a bigger evolutionary form of them, Palossand.”

We just silently watched as the Spheal was swallowed alive.

I was about to make a move to go help the Spheal when the Palossand, a large living sand castle Pokémon, opened its mouth and a storm of ice and frost blew out of it as it froze solid.

The Spheal safely wiggled and eventually crawled out of it no worse for wear and cheerfully made its way back over to us, bouncing merrily as if the incident hadn’t happened.

“I suggest we pick up the pace before that Spheal ends up in the esophagus of every large Pokémon we see on the way.” One would think we would have less incidents that way, or at least that was my hope.

“The irony of that situation is that Palossand are naturally weak to Ice Types.” Quetal added conversationally, which was a good thing in case any of them decided to attack us. The Spheal might be able to handle it well enough even if they weren’t big on thinking about things too hard.

-Sandy coastline, an hour later-

I looked at the massive amounts of smoke that in the sky and in the very far off distance where I could barely see anything. The city was probably more than a speck on the horizon to my right, the southeast.

Where there’s smoke, something was burning and that was a lot of smoke.

“Even if we were to rush there now, I doubt we’d be there to help put out the fires and we’d be too tired to do anything.” I got a few nods as we continue forward at our current pace with a bit more urgency. “You said it’ll take us another day to get there?”

“Yes.” Well then Quetal, let’s hope there’s still someone left to save by the time we get there. Like Shanty, Ocellus and Dodo, Smolder would be perfectly fine if highly annoyed if she got lit on fire again.

“Spheal…” Whined one of the Spheal.

“We’ll eventually find a place to settle down for the night, barring that, we’ll make a beach bonfire.” I tried to keep the steps of my hooves calm and collected even knowing that danger awaits to the southeast and goodness knows what my wards are getting into. I at least trusted Shanty to still be guzzling rum by the time I get there, the only thing I could trust about an unknown situation really.

It was only early evening and we still had a long way to go, while trying not to look at the darkened sky to the southeast as we continued east along the coast in the waning sun.

I froze and looked behind us, my eyes shifted to the right and left slowly. Looking for inconsistencies in the air for some form of invisibility or illusions like a Zorua could make.

I thought… must be my imagination.

We kept moving forward, but I noted that Dolly and Dormarch were now quite alert as well.

Dolly, who had left her helmet hanging around her neck slowly eased it into place on her head and grabbed at her board with one paw while continuing to walk with her other three legs.

Dormarch was more subtle in his reaction, he was just said a string of numbers, something about a preset command code and his tails straightened out behind him as he moved closer to me. His actions were generally protective body language of a dog trying to put themselves between an unknown threat and the person they were protecting.

Dormarch was on my immediate right and Dolly was on my left.

Quetal and Curdle for their parts also seemed to be wary of something even if they hadn’t seen anything, in particular Curdle showed some active wariness as she brought her hands together to look more pleasant and possibly appetizing. I swear, Alcremie reactions to danger was all about them getting partially eaten.

Quetal narrowed his eyes and was watching the shadows of trees along the beach and or on the small plains that were next to tall foreboding mountains we had forgone traveling through.

The Silly Spheals, no matter how cute, didn’t seem to think anything was wrong… I don’t think they actually had a thought in their heads to be honest. The fact that the six of them could stick together for so long says something about their friendship… either that or they were all family. I wouldn’t know unless I asked Motochika about it later. They were supposedly a good unit of Pokémon, but I seriously had some doubts even if they were very good distractions and possibly at least half as capable in combat.

“Do you think it’s Fou?” Quetal asked as he seemed to become a bit stiff, but kept moving forward. “Pom, the noise…”

All I could hear was the blowing wind as a thick fog started to rise up and surround us, there was no noise to speak of and I understood what Quetal meant.

“I don’t think this is Fou, but I think he might still be stalking me.” The fog was thankfully stay thing as we continued along the beach between the trees and the halfway frozen plains towards our destination. My right hoof grabbed at the paralance, my eyes slid about the area. “Stick together, this building fog is unnatural.”

It only took me one sniff, but the fog didn’t smell like condense water vapor in the air or like it was occurring because of the nearby ocean having warm water and the temperatures around here still being relatively cold because we were Nixtorm.

We continued forward as the fog thickened, I kept my breathing even, ready to exhale explosively or inhale to the best of my ability… but the fog would dampen my Dancing Flame, in fact most gases would hinder my usage of the technique.

As the fog became it’s thickest in surrounding all of us, the Spheal started to whimper a bit and I moved closer to them protectively. As did Quetal and Curdle. We started to form a circle facing outwards, waiting for an imminent threat.

Was the coast naturally this silent, things had been fairly clear up to this point.

The flash of a pair of eyes was all the warning I got, I exhaled explosively and brought the lance around while opening it. Not to attack, but to block whatever attack was coming my way.

Before I knew it, I was sent flying out of the defensive circle to go skidding on my backside as something struck the canopy of the paranormal lance. I quickly moved it to the right and block another strike from the fast moving assailment and was knocked into the air by the powerful blow.

I flipped backwards and landed on my hind legs and was standing on sand, I couldn’t bunker down with my wool to wobble coutner without solid ground beneath my hooves. Well I could, but my assailant would knocked me about.

They were terribly fast and using a sword, I just kept inhaling and exhaling slowly as I tightened my grip on the lance with both hooves. This wasn’t Fou, it was something else.

Dolly caught sight of something red and wide shifting about and knocking them back when they tried to get to me, blocking everyone’s path between me and them, once again I felt targeted. Dormarch was waiting to get a clear lock on the thing that was attacking me and was clearly waiting.

I silently told Dormarch to take the opportunity if he felt he could achieve something with it.

Not to long after the blur attacked again and I exhaled, reacting to things in bursts of high intensity speeds was always a headache.

I angled the lance so the shaft, not the canopy, would catch the edge of the blade and I kicked off the sand into the air. The shaft, having collided with the flat of the blade I couldn’t see in motion, started flipping into position and shifted my hips forward into clockwise swing while flowing over the blade moving in the same direction.

I unleashed a heavy left hind legged kick forward and… struck true.

My rear hoof bucked into the right side of the aggressor’s faces and sent them rolling back and away from me, I head a splash as their rear paws touched the water.

The fog cleared up slightly and I saw a blue furred canine standing at the edge of the water, with long flowing braided red hair coming from its head in two streams, in its mouth was a mass of air vaguely shaped like a sword. It’s large red haired tail, like the two streams of hair, differed from the thick blue fur covering most of its body and the white fur around its legs.

It stiffened and it had a very surprised intelligent look on its hoof imprinted face as it’s glowing eyes dimmed and narrows slightly as I landed on my right leg and was immediately standing on it with my left shifting to help me regain balance. I was already ready to block or counter another attack.

It was about to move when Dormarch timed his attack, he slammed into the canines side as it went to jump and toppled them. He then moved to stand protectively in front of me while fanning out his tails aggressively.

“Stay away from my mother!” Barked Dormarch angrily.

The large canine eyed the paralance seemingly knowing what the weapon was and then me holding it defensively for a bit, then looked at Dormarch and I saw something else like vague recognition and an intense curiosity.

“Can we not have this fight… please?” I asked nicely as they started standing up, it was likely it wouldn’t work, but…

It then leapt away, as if following some unseen signal and the fog cleared up, I blinked.

“Did that actually…” I started to say.

“I wouldn’t question it, remember not to tempt anything happening, we need to get moving!” Dormarch was trying to track where that large canine went, but nothing came of it and we started moving. It had completely disappeared with the fog.

-A distance away on a mountain peak to the north-

A large blue canine and a large red canine stared at the group of specks as they quickly started moving towards Valora.

The blue one eyed Pom and the Red one looked curiously at the blue canine.

One of the canine was about to say something by opening their mouths when their blood froze cold at the sound of a terrifying entity they both remembered… for a variety of reasons.

-Fou-

“Fou.” It was apparent that Fou was not finished with Pom and someone else attacking his hunting target had earned his ire.

A sword of physical wind, that was not Flying Type powered, ripped through where Fou was… it didn’t even scratch or hurt him in the slightly.

Not that the two figures knew that they were about to be attacked by something that was part Ghost Type or that most basic of physical attacks ceased to be effective where Fou was concerned.

“Fou!” Fou grew angry, but for some reason he liked the red canine when he glanced at them, maybe they could be a good mate for him?

The blue canine had just utterly messed up the first rule of starting a fight with Fou, which is simply enough and fairly easy to understand “DON’T”. You know, since you probably didn't want a near unstoppable semi-immortal beast chasing you down constantly.

Within a flash, Fou slashed the blue canine across the chest and the red one tried to stop him by ramming into him at an incredible speed, only to go harmlessly through Fou's body thoroughly confusing what was quickly becoming a problem for the two canines.

-Currently hastily retreating to the east, Quetal-

“What was that?!” They were Pokémon obviously, but they also felt like outsiders, extremely powerful ones in both respects.

I could only hope we didn’t have another Gilgamesh situation, one was bad enough.

“All I know is that one of them was a large blue furred canine and it apparently knows what this lance is!” Well that was something at least, but right now we should keep making haste.

At least the Spheals weren’t slowing us down and recognized the urgency even if their reactions to the given situation was somewhat slow to start off with.

“Fou!” The sound of that beast's roar made us stop for a second in pure terror and before we knew it we were all running full tilt. Even the Spheal were starting to outrun us on their tiny flippes and they were horrible at moving on land without rolling around!

“I think those two canines were Legendary Pokémon, they were very familiar to me for some reason, I think one of them might have been a Fairy Type?” Not now Curdle we needed to get far away from here!

“Not the time Curdle!” Screamed Pom following my thoughts, who had Dolly and Dormarch clinging to her for their lives as we ran.

Author's Note:

Music- Pokémon Sword and Shield - Illusions Zacian and Zamazenta Battle Music.

The theme is music that sounds like a wolf howling the whole song, I'm wondering if this should be a battling theme for Pom when she lets her fighting spirit rise to the forefront.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Pity Pom cant get Fou to compare itself to her by seeing how more efficintly it can take down opponants by a half instead of Pom directly.

At least Witch Kurill went and put the holes in different places. They might even end up reaching the water table and being turned into highly decorated and regarded wells? If she had put all the holes in the same place, Saddle arabia wouldve been more like Mexico City, having to deal with an active volcano and no gorging dragons to lounge around drinking all the lava?